#he had a fanny pack that kind of matched it

[therealcheekface]

the thing is that he licherally pointed out 2 of the songs that i reeeaaallly wanted him to like. he loved the one with his name in the title that i named the playlist after. and the one that talks about places in england and sweden. cause i’m obsessed w it and i was like he knows more abt these places than i do so he’ll get more out of it

[eupheme]

— cabin down below

dieter bravo x actress!f!reader

rated e - 1.8k

tags: cabining, co-stars-with-benefits, mentions of alcohol, references to sex and horror films, implied paparazzi trying to catch them together, oral sex

ahh nervous to post this (first time writing for him!) but excited about this gorgeous moodboard I recieved for Summer Lovin’ 24! 🏕️💖 thanks so much for hosting @pedgito, @amanitacowboy, and @chaotic-mystery!

Dieter really can talk you into anything.

The official table read is on Monday, scenes due to start shooting soon after. You really shouldn’t be thirty miles out of town right now - leaving the comforts of your apartment and the air conditioning of the limo, to hike another mile into the forest.

But you’ll trade the luxury for a chance to spend time with him. An old spot, he said. His dad’s cousin’s place, bought it off him when they needed the money. Been in the family for years.

“You gotta immerse yourself,” Dieter had told you, his arms spreading wide, “What better place to practice lines than here?”

It’s your first time in a movie with him. You’re not sure if he’s really a method actor. Equally not sure that it’s needed for a movie called Campground Carnage II - or if the city just seemed a little too loud, a little too busy.

Deep down, you hope it might just be an excuse to get you alone.

You'd be pretty alright with that.

It’s been hard to sneak around Los Angeles. There’s cameras everywhere. An obsession with one Dieter Bravo - the current hottest, most eccentric star.

You’d met before his last big break. Reading lines for Covert Affairs, but they had passed over the mutual chemistry for an actress with a little more weight to her name.

He had gotten the part, and you had gotten his number. Two desperate hookups when you both ended up in Vegas at the same time.

Only to come back together a year later.

“Long Island,” He had smiled, when he saw you, “Good to see you again.”

You had been surprised he remembered you, much less the drink he had bought. Enough alcohol in both your systems that you would’ve forgiven him if he had.

Not that you would have, though. Not with that mouth of his.

Something that you’re thinking about now, as the trees clear. The cabin tucked between them - a peeking sliver of a river cutting through the terrain behind it.

A cozy little thing, not much bigger than the apartment you’re missing. Built with thick wooden logs, two tidy windows out front, the checkered curtain pulled shut.

The key ring twirls on his finger, as Dieter moves ahead to unlock the door.

You can’t help appreciating the view, as he does. This ‘camping’ look suits him. It’s almost enough to make you a little jealous of his ability to look good in anything and everything he throws on.

A tight black tee, the hat that’s pulled down over his messy curls. Featuring an embroidered trout, with “fish want me, women fear me” scripted above and below that he found at a garage sale. Patterned crocs with matching shorts that only reach mid-thigh.

And you're at least 45-percent sure the fanny pack around his waist is filled with condoms and KitKats.

It’s been hard to keep your mind off him, on the drive over. Battering his wandering hands away, with the driver only a few feet from you. Still shy, both enthralled and not used to his open affection.

Trying to concentrate on the script. Preparing to run lines, just in case his suggestion for this weekend wasn’t some kind of euphemism.

But you kept going back to a particular scene. The two counselors - that’s you and him - sneaking off to one of the cabins in the campground.

A steamy encounter involving both the top and bottom of a bunk bed, and a lot of Bravo on his knees. Anything to showcase his physique, you’re already picturing how they’ll stage it with the female gaze in mind.

Bare back, you’re guessing. A hint of ass, but still tasteful.

The scene a fake-out - featuring a jump scare, with the shadow of a person passing by the windows behind you. Tapping into that classic trope - first to fuck, first to die.

Which might be true - if it was his first movie.

He doesn’t actually make it to the end, though. Dieter’s demise coming from a staged accident in the fishing lake, just as the movie lulls into a sense of safely. One final blow before the big reveal.

You know people will be pissed about that. As a fan of the series, even you are a little.

But the thought of having a scene with him - there is a flicker of excitement, that dulled heat in your belly - even though you know that logically, it will all be purely professional.

It’s still fun to imagine.

The door cracks open, but there’s something else with the sound. You frown, your head whipping towards the woods behind you. Searching for the source of the noise, one that sounded a little too familiar.

“Did I just hear a camera click?”

“Nah,” Dieter shrugs, “There’s no way they know about this place.”

"Yeah,” You hum, giving another glance. There’s nothing but the rustle of trees, the rush of the water. A self-conscious laugh, as you head inside, “Maybe I’m immersing myself too much.”

“No hauntings or serial killers here, sweetheart.” He smiles, “But if you’re scared I have a few ideas to get your mind off things…”

The door clicks shut behind him.

Your eyebrow arches, “Oh yeah? Like what?”

Dieter pretends to think, as he advances on you. Hands reaching out to trace up your sides, pulling you flush against him.

“Can think of a scene I’d like to start with,” He husks, eyes darkening, “There’s no bunk bed here, but I think we can make do.

Hunger flares in you, now that you're alone. Your eyes dip to the curl of his mouth, no more than a breath before you’re pressing your lips to his. A rough moan as his hands slide up your back, his tongue already brushing across your lower lip.

Tasting sweet when they part for him, your own moan swallowed as you lose your grip on your bag, letting it tumble to the floor.

It’s always so easy to get lost in him. If you’re not careful, you might just get swept away.

“You don’t want to see what the directors have in mind?” You tease, when you pull back for a breath, “Hold off on that scene until later?”

“No can do.” Dieter groans, as he pulls you back to him, “Not with you looking like this.”

You can’t help the smile, as you start the stumbling journey through the main room, wandering hands and the press of mouths.

His hand grasping your ass as your fingers slip under his shirt - the other reaching for the door he has you backed up against. A creaking swing, as it opens.

Dieter’s hands are at your hips, as soon as the back of your knees hit the bed.

“Let me taste you, baby.” It’s mumbled against your lips. His fingers dipping beneath your waistband. A nail tracing the edge of your underwear, raising goosebumps, “Been thinking about it all day.”

You remember this from before. How focused he gets. Willing to beg, shameless, if there’s something he wants.

And you’re always willing to give.

The bed is soft - covered in worn buffalo-checkered sheets - as you let yourself be lowered onto it. His hands catch your ankles, tugging you down until your legs drape off the edge.

Spread wide, so he can fit between them as he kneels. Batting your hand away as you go to push down your shorts.

“I wanna do it.” He hums. His own shorts already pulled tight, a hand coming to palm himself in anticipation.

Your hips lift for him. Nails bite into skin, grasping fabric and pulling down both layers. Easing them around the bulk of your gym shoes so his palms can press into your thighs, spreading them even wider.

A rough noise, when he sees you.

“You been thinking about this too, babe?” He coos, a thumb pressing against your slit. Rolling against the wet gleam of your center, as it betrays your desire.

You huff, the muscles in your legs flexing. Breath held as your eyes flit up to his, waiting. Watching, as he sucks your slick from his skin with a groan.

“Bet you were. Saw you eye-fucking me in the limo, all while telling me to keep my hands to myself.”

"I-I," You try to answer. To protest - to say you weren't - but his palms are smoothing up your skins. Distracting, as he slowly moves.

Those eyes focused on yours as his head tips. An open-mouthed kiss to your knee, then thigh. Moving up, as your heart races.

Inner thigh, now.

"Dee," There's a buck of your hips, with your whine, “Don’t tease.”

It’s futile, you’re certain. Unable to take what you dish out. But perhaps he’s been pushed too far as well.

“Tell me you need it.” His pupils are blown-wide, drunken already.

It’s easy to answer.

“Please. I need you.”

The next kiss is right against your slit. Messy, as his mouth covers you. Your fingers twisting in the blanket, as your knees press against his shoulders.

He’s too good. Teasing with the wet brush of his tongue. The slow creep of his fingers, the tip of one pressing against your entrance - only to withdraw just as you clench down.

Again, and then again. Slowly sinking into you, one knuckle at a time. Working you open, until you’re stretched wide around three of them - too full to form words.

“Don’t need direction for this,” His eyes flip to yours, a dimpled smile as his fingers sink deep and then curl, “Do I, baby?”

He does it again, as your answer pitches high. Your hips bucking into his touch as his tongue licks at you again. Timing it so that the point of his tongue teases your clit, each time his fingers rub against the spongey spot inside you.

He’s going to make you come. You’re too wound up, too needy for him.

“Fuck, Dieter.” You keen - your leg hooking over his shoulder, “Oh fuck, keep doing that-“

“That’s it baby,” He grins, “Improvise for me.”

It makes you laugh, which has him groaning as you tighten around his fingers. His left hand dropping to push down the waistband of his shorts. Fingers pulling from you only long enough to smear your arousal on his cock, to pump his fist until he’s covered.

It’s then that you think you hear it again. Just as his tongue slips inside you. Another mechanical sound from outside, just barely audible through the wooden walls.

“Dee,” You moan, fingers twisting in his hair. Either to pull him closer or push him away, you’re not sure, “I d-definitely heard-”

“Can’t see in here.” It’s mumbled out, gasped between your thighs.

He’s seen to that, at least. The blinds thick, the bedroom tucked away.

A grin, as his tongue flattens - licking from hole to clit, “Wasn’t planning on leaving, anyways.”

You trust him, knowing he wouldn't leave you vulnerable. The sound in your throat is muffled as your teeth clench, “But they-, what if they hear us?”

It’s only now that his head lifts, those dark eyes blown wide. Paired with a lazy smile, his lips shining as they stretch wide.

A soft croon.

“Then I guess you’d better be quiet.”

Your laugh turns into a soft groan, at the flick of his tongue. Self-conscious perhaps, but not wholly and entirely deterred by the thought of an audience.

Not when you’re with him.

“Keep that up,” You manage - as something molten floods through your belly, “And you might have to help a girl out.”

His weight presses into you as he moves up - heated, bare skin as he settles between your thighs. Dieter’s nose skimming your throat, as his hand slips between your thighs.

Just before his mouth presses to yours, swallowing you moan.

“That, baby… I can do.”

just wanted to try something fun 🏕️ thank you so much for reading! and thanks again for this awesome event!

[onceuponaoneshotfanfic]

Shut Up and Drive (Chapter 5)

Roy Kent x F1 Driver!Reader

3.6k words

Warnings: Language, phone sex, masturbation (M and F), lots of pining, Jamie & Keeley being little shits, smutty smut, picture of MC

@agentstarkid !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Series Masterlist

“You get into a fight?”

Roy rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

Jamie took a sip of his pint. “Cut yourself shaving?”

“Shut up.”

The striker’s grin grew. “Drop your curling iron?”

“Shut up.”

Despite the fact that all he really wanted to do was go home and have an extra-long shower after watching a few choice F1 interviews, Roy allowed himself to be dragged out after the match for dinner at Ola’s. If he’d known he was going to spend the whole time being harassed by Jamie fucking Tartt, he would have told everyone to fuck off when they invited him.

He wanted to scream when Keeley plopped down on his other side.

“Did you see our special guest at the match today?” she practically sang, waggling her eyebrows. “Couldn’t keep her eyes off the dugout.”

“Was kind of busy coaching a fucking football game,” Roy grumbled, slouching, wishing he was like Jamie, who carried around concealer in his stupid little fanny packs. Then he could’ve covered up the gorgeous little mark you’d left on his jaw.

Keeley leaned close. “Well, she looked much less put together than usual,” she continued, as if Roy wasn’t shooting daggers at her. “She had her cute little Ferrari hat, but you could tell her hair was a mess. And her skin was pretty red and blotchy. And she kept squirm-”

“What the fuck are you implying?” he growled, as if he wasn’t the reason for that messy hair and red skin and- fuck- squirming.

“So, where’d you do it?” Jamie leaned forward. “Showers? Weight room? Boot room? Supply closet? Fuck, it was the changing room after all left, wasn’t it?”

Roy stood, chugging the last of his beer. “Right. Fuck both of you, I’m heading home, where no one makes stupid fucking accusations to make their own stupid lives more interesting.” He gave a little salute. “Cheers, pricks.”

He ignored their protests and pleas to stay as he stalked out of the restaurant, nodding to his players as they called out their goodbyes. As he got in his car, he glanced at his phone, gulping when he saw he had a message waiting for him.

You ruined my panties, Kent. Thanks xx

~

For a couple of days, Roy found himself glued to his phone. It wasn’t like the two of you were texting nonstop like fucking teenagers or some shit. Just sporadic messages, murmurings of what you were each up to, some selfies you sent him for the sole purpose of teasing him, and one swear-infested rant about how Jamie almost hit him with the ball during training.

It was only a few messages exchanged, but Roy was determined not to miss a single one.

On Wednesday night, you sent Roy a picture of you in a stunning red dress, complaining about some event you had to go to. It took a lot of restraint on both sides to keep from admitting how badly you both wished he was your date.

Roy stared at his phone, keenly aware of the quickly growing tightness in his pants. Fuck, how was he supposed to respond?

His clouded brain settled for a simple you look beautiful have fun before setting his phone on the coffee table, deciding he needed a drink before he let his horniness take over.

He settled himself on the couch with his beer and a book, but he kept wondering how your night was going. It was probably full of cameras and reporters and people exclaiming about how gorgeous you were, and there were probably multiple guys vying for your attention, guys not as stupid and annoying as his idiot Greyhounds. It was his nightmare scenario, an evening at a public event with plenty of annoying people, and yet part of him wished he was there with you.

Old man that he was, Roy fell asleep, woken up late into the night by his own snores. Wiping the drool from his face and doing his best to avoid dwelling on the steamy dream he’d been having, he turned out the lights and dragged himself to his room, phone in hand.

After stripping down to his boxers, he crawled into bed and let his fingers tap away on his screen until he had pulled up your Instagram. He found a particular video he’d watched several times, one featuring a beach and you wearing a lovely little bikini. His free hand was just dipping under his boxers when the pinging of his mobile startled him, causing him to drop his phone onto his face.

“Fuck,” he hissed, readjusting himself. Fucking Jamie must be drunk texting him again-

Nope. Definitely not Jamie.

Roy gawked at the screen for a moment, taking in the view. Fuck. Now he really wished he’d been with you this evening. Without quite knowing what he was doing, he hit the call button by your name and held the phone to his face, trying to keep his breathing steady as it rang once, twice-

“What took you so long?” Your purring voice had an edge of teasing that sent his heart into overdrive.

“You have a nice time at your thing?” He sat up, trying to keep his voice even; a particular challenge considering the image you’d now planted in his mind.

He could hear your bored little hum. “Not bad. You know how these things are.”

“Yeah,” was all he could manage.

Smiling at the nervous tone in Roy Kent’s voice, you slid off the chair you were perched on and crossed over to your bed, leaving your now forgotten glass of wine on your nightstand before laying down on your belly. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

Roy stared at the tent that was forming in his bed. “’course not,” he assured you. “I was up.” Shit.

You stifled a giggle at what you hoped was a double entendre. “What were you up to, then?”

Definitely not having a wank to you. “Nothing much,” he managed. “Just laying down.”

“In bed?”

Roy felt relieved to know your minds were both heading in the same direction. “In bed,” he confirmed, feeling his mouth tug upwards. “Your chair comfy?”

You chuckled. “Moved over to the bed myself, actually.” You paused, gazing at the ceiling. “How’s your jaw?”

He let his free hand trace over the beautiful little mark, which he’d admired in the mirror earlier in the evening. “It looks like I lost a fight with a fucking vacuum cleaner, thank you very much,” he joked.

“Anyone notice?”

“Only Keeley. And Jamie. And the whole team.” He rolled his eyes at the memory of all those eyes on his face, all those raised eyebrows and suspicious grins. “Lots of fun questions after the match.”

You rolled over onto your back. “Sorry about that,” you murmured, your tone anything but sorry.

His smile turned soft. “Kind of worth it,” he admitted. He cleared his throat. “Heard you looked a right mess, though,” he teased. “And something about you spending half the match watching the dugout.”

“Yeah, A.F.C. Richmond has this very fit manager.” You absently twirled a strand of hair around your finger. “Gets me all excited.”

Roy licked his lips. “You excited right now?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

Your free hand skimmed the exposed skin of your tummy; you wished it was Roy’s hand. “Maybe. What about you, Roy Kent? Does something have you excited?”

There was a half moment of hesitation at his end. “D’you want the honest fucking truth?”

“Sure.” His pause had you curious about he wanted to tell you.

“I…” He cleared his throat. “I was actually already… getting excited when you texted me.” He couldn’t believe he was admitting this. “Looking at, er, pictures of you.”

Well fuck. You were already feeling frisky- hence the text you’d sent him to start all of this- but fuck, you felt your panties dampen with your arousal. There was no doubt Roy could hear your breath hitch at his confession.

“Which pictures?” you asked breathily, squirming at the image you conjured of Roy, in bed, touching himself and looking at you.

An embarrassed grin crossed his face when he realized his admission had turned you on. “Some fucking Instagram post of you on the beach. You’re in a swimsuit… this fucking bikini and… yeah.” He ran his free hand over his face.

Roy Kent didn’t have phone sex. Sure, he’d received more than a few dirty pictures over the years. And he and Keeley had liked to text each other what they wanted to do once they got home. But lying in bed, all alone, spurred on by his own imagination and the sound of your voice?

He’d try anything once. For you, at least.

Your breathy giggle had him feeling slightly less embarrassed. “Yeah, I know that post,” you murmured. “You often go stalking through my Instagram?”

“Sometimes,” Roy admitted softly, biting his lip. “Like you said, good way to relax before a match.”

“It’s not before a match, Roy,” you pointed out, your face on fire at the thought of Roy getting off to photos and videos of you.

Roy’s low chuckle had your entire body pulsating. “You got me there,” he hummed. “Maybe I was… just thinking of you.”

The smile you wore felt far too giddy; you needed to get this conversation back on track. “And tell me,” you asked in your most sultry voice, “what did those bikini photos make you think of?”

He got the hint. “Made me think of when you visited us in Leeds,” he murmured, his free hand dipping below the sheets again. “You, on your knees. Just the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen in my fucking life.”

Your own hand traced a trail down to your already wet panties. “That was fun,” you sighed. “You were pretty fucking delicious.”

“Was I?” Roy palmed himself through his boxers; fuck he was hard.

“Uh huh,” was all you managed as you let a single finger trace your pussy lips through the damp material. “Just wish I could taste you now.” You held in a moan as you began to stroke yourself. “What do you wish I was doing right now?”

Roy’s chuckle was dark, sexy as all hell. “Well, I would love it if you could help me with this fucking boner you gave me.” He wrapped his hand around his clothed cock.

You grinned, mouth practically watering at the thought of Roy Kent’s hard dick. “What makes you think I’m not going to help you?” you purred. “Of course, you’re going to help me with my own little situation.”

His cock twitched in his hands. “And what situation would that be?”

Even though he couldn’t see it, you gave a little pout. “Well, I’m laying all alone in bed, and my panties are getting all wet. Any suggestions?”

“Fuck,” he huffed, stroking himself. “You should- shit- I dunno, touch yourself?”

Roy’s face was bright red. Not for the first time with you, he felt so fucking old. He didn’t know how to do this, or what he was supposed to say. His embarrassment was almost enough to kill his boner and make him hang up.

The soft groan that came through his phone brought him back. “Under or over my panties?” you whispered. You weren’t stupid; Roy Kent was not the kind of guy who had these kinds of late-night conversations. But the adorable earnestness and desire in his voice had you wanting to guide him through it. Mostly, though, your horniness had you refusing to hang up on that stunning man.

He had to admit he was grateful for the help. “Under,” he husked. “Go under.”

Eager to please, you did as you were told, dipping your hand under the soft material. You let out a sigh as your fingers grazed your wetness. “What about you? Are you touching yourself for me?”

Those last two words had him shuddering. “Over my boxers,” he admitted. “Should I, er, change that?”

“Yes, please.” You had to stop yourself from completely begging as you slid one finger through your slick. “Fuck, I wish it were me.”

“Me too,” Roy groaned as he slid his hand into his boxers and wrapped his hand around his hardness. “Fucking wish you were here, that gorgeous mouth of yours.”

You closed your eyes and brought your finger to your pulsing clit and began rubbing slow circles. “Fuck, Roy,” you breathed. “How hard are you right now?”

Roy sighed as he began stroking himself. “Really fucking hard. Just for you.” He licked his lips, thinking of you, laying in bed, touching yourself, writhing around, thinking of him. The image was better than any bikini photo. “Wish you were here to do something about it.”

“Oh, I’d do a lot about it if I was there.” You increased the pressure on your clit, hissing at the pleasure. “I’d be on my knees for you, Roy Kent. And I’d swallow everything you had to give me.”

“Actually,” Roy chuckled, his mind conjuring up some dirty pictures. “Would love to see those tits of yours all covered. Bet you’d look fucking great.”

Your soft moan told him you liked the sound of that. “Next time,” you breathed, moving away from your clit and to your needy cunt. “You can cover me all you want next time.”

His cock twitched at those two magical words: next time. “Where’re your fingers?” he asked, letting his thumb sweep over the precum that was leaking out of him. “Fuck, please tell me they’re inside that pretty pussy.”

Fuck. It was as if he knew. Of course Roy Kent knew. You answered him with a lewd moan as you slid a finger inside yourself. “Yeah,” you cooed. “It’s really fucking wet for you, Roy.”

“Fucking love when you say my name,” he rasped, increasing his pace. “Fuck, can you say it again?”

You were more than happy to oblige. “Roy,” you whined, adding a second finger to your wetness. “Fuck, Roy.” You let out a whimper as you pumped in and out. “I wish you were fucking me, Roy. Fucking me the way you did in the boot room that day, all fucking desperate and dirty.”

Roy’s eyebrows flew up. “You like it dirty then?” he teased, relishing the memory of you in the boot room, head thrown back as you tried to keep quiet, looking like a fucking goddess. “That’s really fucking good to know.”

“Why?” you shot back, grinning as you pictured his sexy smirk. “You going to give it to me dirty?”

“Oh, you have no idea.” Roy was starting to like this phone sex thing. He could get used to it. “Babe, I want you on this bed on all fours. Then I’ll show you desperate and dirty.”

You weren’t sure what had your pussy clenching around your fingers- the confidence in Roy’s voice, the image of you on your hands and knees for him, or the sweet pet name he growled out, not to mention the idea of being fucked in Roy Kent’s bed. Either way, you let out a little whimper as you began to squirm on your mattress.

That whimper had Roy moaning. “Fuck you sound beautiful,” he cooed. “You always sound so beautiful. Bet you’d sound beautiful in my shower.”

“You want me in your shower?” You couldn’t help smiling at the image- you, pressed up against a steamy glass door, Roy having to hold you up because you can’t feel your legs anymore, that perfect cock stretching and filling you.

The idea was almost enough to make you ignore the fact that Roy Kent had now mentioned having you over twice over the course of this phone call.

“I want you every-fucking-where.”

Your hips rocked against your hand as you listened to Roy’s ragged breathing, his soft moans. Your skin grew warm as you wondered if he could hear the wet sounds filling your quiet bedroom, sounds he usually helped you make in hotel rooms and, apparently, locked boot rooms. You wondered how it would sound if he was making those noises with you here, now, in your bedroom.

Fuck that sounded good.

“’m getting close,” Roy growled, his voice strained. “Wanna hear you come, gorgeous.”

Your pussy clenched at that word. Gorgeous. Hearing Roy call you that sent a shiver through your whole body; it seemed to be his favorite word to call you.

“Fucking want you,” you managed to whine as you pumped in and out of your soaked cunt, wishing that your fingers were Roy’s cock. “Fucking need you inside me, Roy.” Your release grew closer and closer as your back arched. “That fucking cock stretching me out.”

“Bet those fingers of yours aren’t as good as my cock,” Roy groaned, his grip tightening as he felt his own orgasm approach. “Love burying it inside you, fucking you the way you deserve. Like a fucking queen. My fucking Empress.”

Electricity flowed through your veins as you let out a silent moan.

Somehow, he knew.

“Let me hear you, gorgeous,” he begged, eyes screwed shut. “Let me hear those pretty fucking sounds.”

“Fuck, Roy,” you moaned, louder now as pleasure overwhelmed you. “Fucking coming for you. Coming for your cock,” you babbled, thrusting your fingers as deep as you could. “Wish you were here. Wish you were inside me.”

Listening to you come for him had Roy following you over the edge. “Fuck,” he hissed, feeling his cock jerk. “Love your pussy,” he stammered. “Fucking want to fill it up. Fill you til it’s leaking out of you, dirty fucking girl.”

Your moans turned high-pitched as you climaxed, your cunt so tight you wondered how the fuck you managed to fit Roy Kent’s thick cock inside. You nearly dropped your phone, but instead tightened your grip on it, not wanting Roy to miss a single moment of you coming just for him.

He moaned your name as he spilled over, not caring about how he’d have to change his sheets. Pump after pump, his release dripped onto his hand, a hand he desperately wished was your hand. Or mouth. Or cunt.

You collapsed on your bed with a groan, coming down from your high, listening as Roy’s breaths became just as soft and ragged as your own. With a sigh, you pulled your fingers out of your soaked pussy; you rubbed them together, wondering when you last got this wet on your own.

Then again, were you really on your own tonight?

“You… you come for me?” Roy’s voice was so soft, so gentle.

“Yeah,” you assured him, your eyes fluttering shut. “Just for you, Kent.”

His chuckle had your heart fluttering even more than your pussy just had. “Good, good, I’m glad.” He paused, unable to help the smile that grew on his face. “That was…”

You giggled and stretched your free hand over your head. “Yeah, it was.”

Roy was quiet for a moment, choosing to ignore the mess beneath his sheets. “I liked it,” he admitted. “A lot.”

“Good.” You gave a little wiggle, reveling in your post-orgasm bliss. “Could do it again sometime. If you want to, that is.”

“Oi, careful,” he warned playfully. “You might get me addicted to this shit. Almost as addicted as I am to you.”

Fuck. Did he really just say that?

You let out a nervous little giggle, pretending you weren’t obsessed with the words that slipped out before he could think about them. “Maybe I want you addicted.” You paused for a moment, wishing you were in his arms, and scolding yourself for it. “Hey, I should, er, probably clean myself up.”

“Yeah, yeah, me too.” Roy cleared his throat. “Can I call you back after?”

“I’d like that.”

Once you’d cleaned yourself up and thrown on a clean pair of panties and your Greyhounds sweatshirt- a choice you tried not to think too hard about- you turned off the lights and settled into bed properly. Just as you were wondering if Roy would actually call you back, your phone vibrated; you grinned when you saw Roy Kent appear on your screen.

“Hey.”

“Hi there,” he hummed, resting a hand behind his head as he stared up into the darkness. “How… how’re you feeling?”

His nervous tone had you snuggling lower into your bed. “Pretty darn good,” you assured him. “You?”

“Yeah, fucking good.” He smiled in spite of the shyness he suddenly felt. “You’re really somethin’, you know that?”

You turned onto your side, stretching your free hand over to the side of your bed that suddenly felt far too empty. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His smile grew. “You’re just… kind of amazing.” He felt himself start to gush; fuck, he couldn’t help it. “I don’t fucking know. Don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you.”

Your body buzzed with delight, more from his affectionate rambling than your post-orgasm bliss. “Anyone like me?” you teased, urging him on.

“Oh, fuck off,” he laughed, shaking his head at your coyness. “You’re incredible. Fucking gorgeous. Badass as all hell. So fucking confident. Damn funny. And, well, you’re not bad in bed.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “Fucking dream come true.”

Oh hell. Roy’s words punched your heart with each syllable, making you forget about all your resolutions about not falling for the gruff, sexy manager. “You’re pretty wonderful yourself,” you heard yourself admit. “And I’m not just talking about the fact that you made me orgasm over the phone.”

You weren’t sure how much longer you stayed on the phone with Roy Kent, murmuring sweet nothings back and forth before moving on to general chitchat, the conversation flowing as naturally as it did when you were in his arms after sex. The last thing you remembered before you slipped into sleep was the sound of Roy Kent sleepily mumbling, “I really fucking miss you.”

Taglist:@hotdoglamp@daydreamgoddess14@klaine-92@gibby31@anonurs@taytaylala12@unholyhuntress@thatonedogwithablog@seacactusplant@e-mmygrey@jane-dough @zara-aliza08 @sky-full-0f-fl0wers

[pliablehead]

I guess if I want to write a travelogue/write up post about my 4-stop journey following the first chunk of Everything Everything's 2023 US tour then I have to just... do it!! If this is of interest to anyone other than me then GREAT and if not then it's still special to me to try to write down and remember everything I can uwu

FIRST STOP WASHINGTO-- wait, no, actually, first stop, on my way out of town, the local donut shop in my neighborhood, a place that I absolutely adore and patronize all the time with staff who mostly know me by now/some of whom are my instagram friends/etc. i'd checked with the Pittsburgh venue ahead of time to see if it was okay to send in outside food as a gift to the band even though they have a cafe/bar in their own right, and whoever I corresponded with said it would be totally fine, so I talked to the donut shop manager and set up a delivery of a dozen for the lads for Saturday before their show here. advance paid for that, as well as getting my own breakfast and coffee hehe, and then hit the road. OKAY FOR REAL FIRST STOP WASHINGTON DC!!! This was the second-longest leg of my Car Driving and it was definitely a wee bit exhausting but I had a podcast or two and a ton of E E on shuffle to bolster me through and I made it to my mom's friends' house, where I was staying, with relative ease. The venue was within a not-too-unreasonable walking distance too so after a change of clothes (I had very distinct and deliberate Show Outfits for each night that were fully separate from my travelin' clothes) and a bunch of fussing with the bracelets™ I headed over!! stopped for empanadas and a smoothie on the way and then queued up!!

aaaaahh this was such a nice fun queue. I was maybe about a dozen-ish people back from the front, down about half a block, and once I finished scarfing down my food this was my first real experience with doling out the bracelets. so fun! I'm glad it was basically an instant hit! AND I even got a few trades in this queue--one person gave me a Man Alive / Tin / E E bracelet with teeny tiny beads, super fun, and one person with a SHITTON of kandi stuff gave me one that had the name of a flower genus on it?? i think they said it was?? I love the colors on this one! And one person traded me a Blow Pop. lmao. I should eat that before it sits in my fanny pack for too long. I also really enjoyed chatting with the two guys right in front of me (Nick and Alex?), who were from south-central PA and had a couple other fandom touchstones in common with me (mcelroys/dnd/BDG! I love this Venn diagram!!) as well as a big love for E E. We didn't really see much of each other beyond the point of getting inside but I liked y'all a lot!! Hope you had as great a time as I did!!

Black Cat is where I saw E E the first time I EVER SAW THEM, which was almost exactly six years ago from this gig, which is insaaaane. The space is kind of narrow so there's not a huge amount of stage barrier space right at the front, so Becky and I ended up pretty much at the front but almost aa-all the way stage left/Jeremy-side. coulda been worse hehehe. We kind of loitered and chatted with nearby folks, I think maybe becky checked out merch ahead of the show ? but I kind of just held down the fort, enjoying setup stuff, pete running around etc hehe. getting BLASTED by the AC, which was nice.

the ummmm the opener! our first experience with Pierre! I gotta say his general style is not for me, despite the fact that I do think he's very talented and good at the thing he's doing. this first night especially he was SO sweaty and I felt bad for him lmao, you could like see it dripping off him. i am so curious as to why/how he got paired with the boys for this tour, like, what aligned in such a way that this match was made, because my general vibe on the crowd/his audience/etc was that we the fans of the nerdy white english mathy rocker guys were not exactly his demo LOL. BUT i will say in DC I do think he had one little pocket of strong-contingency fans because I kept hearing big whoops and cheers coming from one specific audience spot and I loved that for him lmao. for some reason i cannot explain I actually almost found his backing/support musician guy (the guy who was basically his version of peter) more compelling. I wanna know THAT dude's story lol.

so when he finished up we had a little interlude aaaannndd the setlist appeared... hehe. I could def have peered up to look at it from where I was, but I was telling myself I wanted to be surprised, and was deliberately looking away........ until suddenly everyone around me was gasping and going HOLY SHIT and I was like, ugghhh okay, I will check JUST enough to figure out what that's all about, and what that was all about was immediately apparent because smack in the middle of the set were a Man Alive track (which we never get in the states bar MY KZ) and something that just said "New Song." AND LIKE, OKAY, THAT'S A JUSTIFIED HOLY SHIT. new song????? so now we had THAT to contend with coming up, and aaaaaaah. ahh. yeah holy shit indeed.

it's also while we're standing there that AG pops into view, (or maybe I first spotted him during Pierre's set? Chronology is irrelevant), back off behind Becky from me in the other direction, and we waved over at him to say hi and he says to us, "All four of them are bleached blond." And my gut instinct was to be like, I DON'T BELIEVE YOU, but also the truth in my heart was that there was absolutely no justification for not believing them, because of course they would, and sure enough these bozos roll out onto the stage and they are all four draco malfoy-ass bleach blond. God it looks a mess on Jeremy LOL and while the color/dye job wasn't bad on Alex, it was clear his finer hair wasn't holding up as well against the chemicals because it was just a fluffy riot mess. BUT GOD IT WAS REALLY SO INCREDIBLY STRIKING OF A VISUAL for them to be all be wearing all pure white/beige clothes and then to have this bleach-white hair and all of it catching and glowing under the stage lights... god... clearly the effect they were going for and it WORKED, IT REALLY DID. I think it looks so damn goofy (mostly on jez) out of context but it's ABSOLUTELY nailing the Everything Everything Gig Costumes energy/uniform thing that I felt like they'd drifted away from a little the past couple tour cycles, I'm so incredibly here for it

The set!!!! The gig!!!!!!! it wasn't a wildly different set from what we'd seen in CA last year, obviously RDF-heavy supplemented with a heaping helping of singles from the other albums too, but I remember thinking Leviathan and Pizza Boy were especially excellent aaaah. And Schoolin'! And the NEW SONG! The two pieces of it I IMMEDIATELY absorbed and retained were 'the image of a little yellow face to tell you that I'm sorry' and 'I love you like an atom bomb,' and I was spouting those two pieces back to anyone who wanted to talk to me about it for the rest of the night. I'm so lyrics-pilled/vocalist-biased. Which was.... Unfortunate, for this DC gig, because I do think the audio mix was pretty rough - at least from where we were standing so close to the front, I wonder if it was at least a tiny bit better further back into the crowd in the area the sound system was probably primarily calibrated for - and we were REALLY losing Jon in the mix, especially underneath how enthusiastically the crowd was singing along a lot of the time. We were on Jeremy's side of the stage and we were really just getting a LOT of Jeremy. (Which, the bass did sound absolutely fantastic, so hard to complain about that, at least, but still.) I was very thankful to be going to a few more gigs beyond this one so that this wasn't my only experience with it, especially New Song!!! Plus there were a bunch of other little tech difficulties too? Near the beginning of the new song, Jon's guitar strap came detached and wouldn't reconnect, and after struggling a bit with that he decided to just drift back and pass it off the stage to their tech guy--but he was still kind of singing/holding the mic, so as he moved on stage, the mic cable yanked the microphone stand straight over, too. Then the rest of the night that stand was pretty precarious and nearly fell two other times, only caught at the last minute by a true homie who was standing directly in front of it in the audience lmao. I think Becky yelled HIRE HIM! at one point. Annnnd also for like a whole verse of NOTLK jez's bass boards just kind of Gave Up. He tried switching to his other instrument but that wasn't working either, and then finally it all sort of came back online, so he played a little stretch with the wrong bass and then was able to switch back to the right bass when there was a lull in his part. SHAMBLES. lmfao. god it was a great gig though. SO FUCKING GOOD TO BE BACK I LOVE BAND UWAAAAAHH I WAS SO SWEATY AND HAPPY

afterrrr da gig, we needed very badly to drink water and so we managed to do that I believe, and we kind of loitered in the Merch Line Situation trying to figure out what was going on. I had kind of resolved not to buy merch until at least NY, part because I really didn't want to be lugging anything around with me for too much of my trip (esp on this night where I walked) and part because I'd read a post that Irving Plaza was among the venues who'd committed to not taking a cut of band merch sales and letting them keep it all, and I was like, well obvi that's where I want to spend my money. Plus it was cash only in DC and since I'd kind of told myself NY I didn't even have cash out, so it was nothing. BUT!!! homie Adrian whomst I had met at the DC Foals show last December had been there, a few people ahead of me in the queue and also rocking out yaayyy, and he was trying to get merch but the ATM inside the venue literally did not have any more cash left inside it to dispense because everyone was taking out so much of it to buy merch AAAH. so he reached out to me like 'you're going to more shows than just this one right?' and asked if I'd pick him up the stuff he wanted later and then mail it to him so he didn't have to contend with international shipping and I was like aaaah absolutely! yay gig comradeship!

so I think becky finally committed to getting in the merch line and I was mostly just waiting With Becky and there weren't a ton of people left because the venue was trying to clear out, but the handful of us who were still there, a wild Alex Robertshaw appeared up near the stage/bar. we vibed out whether he was receptive to Fan Bothering at this time but it seemed legit, so a bunch of us went over and socialized with him and took some pics, got some signatures, etc, woooo. We tried to vibe out from him also if the other guys were gonna be coming out, and when and where, but y'all know Alex is the awkwardest member of this band by a country mile and we didn't really have too coherent of a discourse at this point in time lmao. Not sure who talked to him about what at this point as I was just trying to hold down the fort and be Normal. I was able to give Alex the bracelet I'd made for him at this point (he was so cute studying on it and reading it ahaha - "rave-- kevin-- kevins rave KEVIN'S RAVE" and he smiled and I felt cool), and also meanwhile Pete was still running around stage doing roadietech type stuff and I sort of politely flagged him down like "do what you need to do if you need to do it but also: Hi lol" and I got to give him his bracelet as well! yay ♥. He complimented my shirt--I'd been getting a lot of compliments on it honestly, it's their Yellow Bird Project shirt that Jon designed some time ago, only I replaced the plain white sleeves of the original unisex tee with some sort of vermilion "girly fit" sleeves that are more comfy to me and kind of give the shirt a different look haha--and I sort of joked on that, said as much, oh, I swapped the sleeves out, "It's to cover up how sweaty I get." and Pete gave me a deadpan look and went "You don't even want to go there with me" and I was like "YEP I FEEL MUCH THE SAME" and I think we both enjoyed a moment of feeling very Seen about the sweatiness hehehehehe. I love Pete he is my heckin Friend With no additional merch purchases (merchases) (hm, no) the venue was finally for realsies ejecting us so we drifted back out into the streets and just like... okay... now what........ this was the point at which I think our Band Groupie-ing Crew became me, Becky, Danielle in the fox ears/tail, and a lanky youth named S.P. whom I'd talked to in line earlier while doling out bracelets (he had the good E E baseball cap; he asked for an Arc bracelet and I commended him for being an Arc fan, since I feel like they are a dwindling/rarer breed, and then I offered up my hot take that Violent Sun is just the second coming and second pass at Duet, which he thought was spicy, and then he asked for my most controversial E E take and I told him that I don't really like Tin very much and he told me he doesn't really like Shark Week very much and we agreed to disagree and have a good night LOL) (anyway I digress !). It was a warm enough night and none of us really had places to be so we didn't mind just loitering and trying to suss out some more Guys other than just Alex and Pete, but slowly but surely we became basically the only fans left sticking it out. so we stuck together! We split up to try to find if there was a rear stage door at the back and SP and I went one way (the long way RIP) and Becky and Danielle went the other way and it turns out the way that SP and I went was an alleyway just FULL of rats. Too many rats in DC!! People like to talk about rats in NYC but I saw WAY more in Washington just vibing out on the sidewalks and eating trash. I'm not anti-rat, they live there and deserve to live, but oh man it was just. I did not especially want a rat encounter LOL. The rat alley DID actually lead us to where the bus was though!!, but there was also a venue security guy there who was immediately like "Nope, back up, leave, bye" and we were like. understood have a nice day, and doubled around a different way to meet back up with the other two. wwwwelp.

We loitered a bunch more and eventually saw Alex and his homies like, AT LEAST two more times, but we ultimately never saw anyone else. They p much confirmed for us that because this was the first night of the tour, they had a really intense load-out, and everyone was jetlagged to all fuck, that they probably wouldn't ever make it out, even though at least once Alex had said something ambiguous/optimistic enough to imply that they might yet, but really it just got SO late that we couldn't justify still being there for nothing instead of being like. asleep. lol. SP and Danielle got rideshares, Becky and I walked back as far as her hotel together, and then I hiked the rest of my way back too and went the fuck to SLEEP!!! FIRST GIG IN THE BOOKS!! WHAT A LOVELY NIGHT GOD IT WAS JUST SO BEAUTIFUL TO BE SEEING THEM AGAIN ngl I think the blond is really attractive on Mike with his darker brows/beard and I'm always a sl*t for jonathan so like. beautiful. finally some delicious fucking food

it was super nice of my mom's friend to let me stay with him!!! I was so delighted to see his cats again, I remembered them from the last time I was there like six or so years ago, they're sooooo floofy and beautiful aahh. he also provided me with a white noise fan without me even asking which was SO choice. zzzzz. My plan was to get up in the morning, get coffee someplace nearby at wherever he recommended, and then hit the road forrrr... Philadelphia!!! Night two!!!! I got some breakfast tacos at a hella legit place, messed up my coffee/milk/sugar ratio ever so slightly but not in an undrinkable way, and then frickin. autobot rolled out. This drive was not bad at ALL, I timed it pretty much exactly like I planned it to, which was to: get to my friend's place where I was crashing in philly with, ideally, enough time to take a small nap before I had to do anything else, because, god, despite being pretty exhausted and sleeping okay on the nice guest bed in DC, I had BARELY slept the night before I left just from Travel Antsiness and from both staying up way later and waking up way earlier than I meant to unintentionally, and a second little recharge zzz before I went and did it all over again really hit the spot.

It was soooo nice to see Mads again and to see Mr. Angus and also meet BENNY!! More host cats!! They are suuuch silly good little lads, Mads and I had a ton of Kitty Chat and just vibing out and talking about concerts and fandom and stuff, I was so thankful she let me stay with her and getting to hang out was icing on the cake of this trip! She pointed me toward the trolley I'd need to take to get to the venue, and after my baby snzzz and drinking a ton of water and suiting up in my Arc-inspired look (literally just a sweatshirt dress I bought specifically because it was color-blocked very very much like the jackets/outfits they toured Arc in, I saw it and bought it immediately lmfao) I journeyed into the city, hoping to just find a place to eat in the vicinity of the gig! I was way closer up in the queue this time, the people in front of me were really just like.... the usual suspects, Annika+squad and David+squad (incl. Becky, who'd apparently already been there when I got there but wasn't there when I arrived), and also a super-nice woman immediately in front of me named Robin who I MEGA hit it off with!!! Hanging out with her was such an awesome part of my experience at this gig!!! she's COMPLETELY Offline which is so powerful for her but I hope there's some capacity in which we can continue to be friends because she ruled.

There was a Dominican(? I think) place like one block down from the venue where a couple in front of me had gotten some stuff and so I ran down there to snag food too and holy shit this man gave me so much goddamn food. Just a HUGE pile of rice and beans and some pork ribs, and I got a pineapple fanta, and I just popped a squat on the sidewalk and ate as much of it as I could which was probably not even half of what he gave me but it wasn't even that expensive so god bless. Once I wasn't dealing with my food sitch any more I was freed up to pass out a bunch of bracelets again, and I even got a couple more trades, one that was just a bunch of black beads and a bunch of Xs and one that says 'BUSSY' which I am elated about, thank you so fucking much lmao. Also someone offered to trade me an ibuprofen LOL and I was like no that's fine the bracelet can be free... for now, but I will keep that in mind if I change my mind later LOL aaahhh i was just so excited to give the bracelets out it was such a good vector for socializing and making Friends and Gig Buddies. I did learn p quickly at Philly that I should have made way more Man Alive, GTH, and Raw Data feel bracelets because those were basically the first to go every night and then I got stuck with just sad unloved Re-Animators and AFDs :( I was trying to like! do equal amounts of everything to give everything the love because I love them all! but people got favorites out there damn lmao. I was happy to be able to give Robin the MY KZ one because she said that's the first song she ever heard by them and it's special to her because of that (and then also it's been in the touring set and she got to hear them perform it too yay!!! I don't remember if she said she'd seen them before but it had just been a very very long time, or what, idk, aaaah).

We were R I G H T on the stage at this venue, slightly more to Alex's side this time, and the lip/rise of the stage was not very high at ALL and it felt almost like... intimidating, or like it shouldn't have been ALLOWED, for us to be that close to the stage. :flushed emoji: jeez lmao. I didn't fuck w merch here either but some people around me did I think and I held their spots, and a nice kid from right behind me in the queue brought me a Liquid Death which was so incredibly sweet. Pierre's set passed much as it had in DC, lmao; his other musician guy had a sweet fit on, though, this like two-piece set that was a really really dark/muted camo, a blazer over a black top and then matching like athleisure-fit pants and black boots, it was a fuckin look. They had a song at the very end of Pierre's Philly set that I don't think they'd done in DC (and that I didn't get in PGH either, it turned out), and ironically that was actually probably far and away the song of his I enjoyed the most, so I got kind of into it there at the end! but MAN was I ready to see the boys instead. hnnnn.

LADS SO CLOSE TO ME. JUST RIGHT THERE AND SINGING AND ROCKING. the set was aaaalmost exactly the same as DC, but in Philly they shifted Bad Friday up out of the encore and back into the set proper, and then replaced it in the encore with Violent Sun, which I admit I'd been bummed to not see in DC because I think the Violent Sun/No Reptiles encore double whammy is so incredibly crucial to the vibe. Warmed me to have it back in. Obviously Pittsburgh had so many other contributing factors that put it over the edge, but if it weren't for all of those, I think Philly would've been my favorite/best experience of these four gigs. Jon was spicy (he sang so many of the Original Rejected naughty lyrics, this is where we got 'he's a vegetable now' for the first and only time and also the only gig of the four where he leaned into the 'Arch Jeremy' gag in Arch Enemy, hehehehe, plus also motherfuckin' distant past which is not uncommon), and we got way more of the New Song-- through the whisper network of Becky, AG, David, etc., etc., we'd pieced together enough info to know by now that apparently the title of the song was in the lyrics of the chorus, and so I think it was in Philly that we all pretty much determined/decided that this was Cold Reactor. I love you like an atom bomb and I've become a cold reactor. I wasn't diving as DEEP into SONG DECIPHERING as some other folks were, but I did like kind of working on it at my own pace and absorbing it into my heart and my understanding of the band and what they're about to start doing, and so this was really great, for me, here, beautiful, beautiful. I took almost NO pics and vids at this one because my phone was kind of dying but also mostly just because I was honestly having such an enormously great time and I didn't feel the need to try to do anything other than be present in my body at the gig and experience it live. you KNOW?? LIKE!! MUSIC. man. EDIT TO ADD: I forgot to mention a small tech flub that was actually so charming, where near the very end of Arch Enemy jon seemed to be having trouble with his guitar board in the front, and he spent so long in the outro squinting down at it and trying to resolve the issue that he didn't fully come in on the It's time to show your face! bit at the proper time, and he ended up just saying "It's time to show your face." right into the mic very unaffected and straight-up in his regular speaking voice at the very, very end when the song was basically over. lol. he is cute. everyone is cute.

(I WILL ALSO SAY I got the giggles SO BAD at david and amanda's gudetama they slipped onto the stage, oh my god--I was going to take a joke video just dramatically zooming in on it, as one does, except right when I went to do that it got caught up in jon's mic cable and just TUMBLED AND JOSTLED ALL OVER THE PLACE and that fucking GOT me and I was DYING and it was right at like. the serious, heartstring-tugging, fuck-yeah parts of No Reptiles where I'm supposed to be at CHURCH and instead I'm losing my shit into hysterics over this poor gudetama just rolling everywhere alksdhjglaksd, I had to bury my face in Becky's shoulder for a measure or more and try to recover, oh my godddd. EGGS!) -- (OH ALSO I LMAO I HAVE SEVERAL AUDIENCE MEMBER ~BITS THAT I AM DOING just like, clapping here or there, participating actively in certain parts of things, and one that I kept doing for some asshole clown reason was singing along with/lampshading Alex's quick backing vox on the second verse of Spring Sun Winter Dread-- Philly was probably the place where I was the most prominent/obvious/easy to see doing it, and it made both him and Jeremy REALLY snicker, ahahaha I'm sorryyyyyyy for being obnoxioussssss)

The merch/loitering sitch was sli-iiightly more locked down, in here; there was only so long Marty and I could pretend to be thinking about merch/hanging out with people who were actually in line but not actually being in line before they really truly wanted us to leave, and they were pretty pissed that I even left the venue with an empty/ice-only water cup, never mind any dreams of re-entry. The militant energy of the security at this venue compared to how relatively chill and normal DC had been (for two venues I would say of comparable size/seriousness) was def my least favorite part of the Philly experience. I was outside, finishing my water and chitchatting with some artsy youths who were also unimpressed with security, and Becky's messaging me like "they're in here!" and I'm like "well I'm not and I can't come back so you gotta tell them to come out here!" lmao. But they did!!! All the guys came out before too long and I very delightfully got to talk to everyone. I gave Mike and Jeremy the bracelets I'd made for them - THEY both apologized to ME outright for not coming out to chat the night before?? like hello you’re the band we’re the fans you don’t owe us anything - they kind of came toward my side of the door first, and talked and chatted some, vs Jon sort of peeling the other way to the other half of the loiterers - I honestly have lost track of the sequence of events here and what happened when, but it was largely unimportant hehe. (Gosh, but then I keep randomly remembering other unrelated details. Like, for example, Black Cat gave me their big ol' signature black cat hand stamp, and I'd been thinking, oh this will be fun to watch my four hand stamps stack from these four gigs, the way I got two together from The Altogether/Matt Duncan double feature back in July, and then Underground Arts put theirs on the INSIDE OF MY WRIST and not the back of my hand, and both Irving and T-Bird just did wristbands. BUMMER.) But mostly just Seeing Band, Talking To Band. This was when I overheard Alex definitely confirm to someone that the new song is called Cold Reactor, and he sort of half-seriously half-not said they just didn't call it that on the setlist in case there was another "New Song" they might want to decide to start playing there instead at the last minute, even though the longer this goes on the more confident we are that they're not going to do that and that Cold Reactor is gonna be a new single that probably drops once this tour is over <___< eyes emoji. Also, between Wednesday and Thursday we also knew that the bleach-blond hair is for Lore Reasons, which we assume are to do with Cold Reactor and the album it will be on, because of course it is. stupid. jonathan higgs I want to crawl inside your deranged pisces mind and meld with it vulcan style.

anyway, as far as my short term memory can be relied upon/will tell me is the truth, I think Jon was actually the last person I ended up in contact with on this night; I was drifting over toward him but someone else was still engaged in an active conversation with him, so I was like, well obviously I will wait my turn and let other people have jonathan time even though I'm the biggest jonathan girlie, I can just hang and go in when he frees up, and so I was turned slightly away from him listening in on other convos and talking to Becky and maybe Annika or a couple other people, and then suddenly there's a delicate hand on the back of my shoulder and Jon's right in my fucking ear ominously going "hello." askdjhgka. He was soooo cute and nice, I gave him the bracelet I made him as well (which was "I wanna be there" from Violent Sun and shades of re-animator orange) and he was immediately like Oh, of course you, are the bracelet distributor, and I was like hehehe yes, and he asked if I also had to do with the gudetama and I was like absolutely not I have no idea what is going on there lmfao. and I think amanda and david did take credit for it at that time of course so yes hehe. Ended up in a fun casual chitchat with Jon and Becky for most of the rest of the time here, with her trying to squeeze him for info about the new song and album and lore hehehe and him being his typical cryptic trolly cagey Jon, and it was all in incredibly good fun; he noticed her bracelet too, and she pointed it out like Yes I got the one that says This Is The Prophecy from big climb because it hearkens back to that bit they were doing on twitter from way before that song even came out so I gave her that one on purpose duh lol, and Jon says "Oooh yep I forgot about that. .. Album..." and mimed swiping his hair back like whoopsie lmao and it was such a silly little half-self-neg on Re-Animator lol, and so I said "WELP too bad! because the one I made from you is one of those too haha!" and he took another look at it as if to remind himself about it and then went "Well yeah that one's good" with a wryer wickeder laugh and I was like lmao tell us how you really feel. But like he's right violent sun is perfect and I actually labored so long over what I was going to have jon's say because he was the only person I didn't have a really solid concrete idea of what to make for and ALSO he was the only one I REALLY wanted to get PERFECT because it's important to me and yeah. so it was. reassuring for him to like the violent sun one. idk anyway.

The woman we'd seen running around doing a lot for them, including merch, who recognized us from DC the night before and was fun and glib about it, and who turns out to be: Tour Manager Sam, finally had enough of our fucking about and started very efficiently organizing us all into "everyone who wants a pic with themself + all four guys come get in Now and I'm gonna play photographer and then we all gotta go the fuck home" and I respected it SO much lmao, so we had sort of a rotating queue of group picture taking and then the guys all went back inside the venue (I kind of fingerguns'd Jon like "New York :D?" and he looked at me just SO Put Out and just deadpanned "Of course you're going to be there." of course!! lmfao) and we started talking amongst ourselves just out of reluctance to let the night end/social energy we still wanted to wallow in and that was cute and nice. I said goodbye to some folks who weren't going any further on the tour. I had such a wonderful night. Then, lo and behold, we turn around and Jeremy's up on the stoop of the venue, and he's like, I think I've locked myself out. I am locked out and I also don't have my phone on me. lmfao jez. he goes "I am going to blame jonathan" and we allowed him that. I was like, do you want me to TWEET AT SOMEONE LOL and he was like good god no they'll come back for me eventually, and then yes they did, and THEN we all left hahahaha. becky insisted on sticking with me part of the way to the trolley but I was like, it is coming in 14 minutes and it says it's gonna take me 12 minutes to get there I gotta GO!, and I freaking missed it anyway!!! and then I had to wait like OVER HALF AN HOUR MORE for the next one and i didn't even get ON the trolley till like 12:50 and it was soooo late before I was back at mads's place aiyaa. But, all in all, TRULY SUCH A GOOD NIGHT I JUST LOVE BEING IN AN ACTIVE BUZZY FANDOM SPACE AND MEETING FANS AND PARASOCIALING AND DANCING AND SINGING AND DOING ARTS N CRAFTS. you KNOW?? you know. you're on tumblr you get it.

The Philly to Jersey (pre-NYC) leg of my road tripping was set to be Thee shortest drive I had to make the whole time, so I let myself have time in the morning to keep snoozing and fucking about, even though I once again woke up way earlier than I'd hoped to and didn't ever make it back to sleep after that. But the tradeoff was still super nice and relaxing vibing with Madeline--I offered to buy her breakfast in exchange for the couch-crashin' and we got hella bagel sandwiches and cold brew from a place real close by her apartment, and scarfed 'em down while watching the most recent ep of Make Some Noise and just shooting the shit (again, largely about either fandom or kitty cats. We are simple folk). My sandwich contained salmon, a fried egg, and the most incredible sloppy caramelized onions, what a banger. The last truly good food I truly enjoyed before my mega super Travel Tummy set in and wrecked my whole shop metabolically speaking, rip. I took a little rinsy-rinse shower at her place too, and then finally made myself get up and Go to do the runaround silly business of driving to and parking in NJ, taking the ferry in to Manhattan, and then taking the subway to Allegra's place for NIGHT THREE IN NEW YORK CITY WOOOOO. I LOVE going to E E with Allegra!!!!! Once again I used her place primarily as a spot to change out of my car clothes and into my gig clothes (it's RDF night; I wore an oversized pale beige button-up shirt, actually left over from my Foals Antidotes costume from last halloween hahaha, gussied up with E E pins and jewelry) and to fuck about with bracelets. I made Allegra a special In Birdsong bracelet, the only one I did from that song :) because allegra is my special E E friend!! and she needs one of her special song!!! Fandom... is good. Allegra also had a kickass outfit. We stopped in at a tex-mex place she really wanted to try that was nearby the venue, and i got pretty nervous that it was gonna be a little late before doors for us to be hitting a sit-down dinner spot, but we rushed it along pretty well on the food and got our slice of dessert cake to go in a box and everything was A-OK. And I had time to hit a bodega for merch cash from the ATM and a pineapple soda for fortitude! let's GOOO irving plaza.

God, Irving was kind of a shitshow when it came to queuing and security though. There were a fair few people in line ahead of us, maybe just as many or slightly more than what I'd had in DC (definitely further back than Philly, although in line near us were the same also-eating-Dominican-food couple from the Philly gig, and I recognized them and was glad to see them again-- I FULLY DO NOT REMEMBER/DID NOT CATCH Y'ALL'S NAMES, AND I FEEL TERRIBLE BECAUSE WE HUNG OUT AND WORKED TOGETHER SO MUCH, i am so sorryyyyy), but then because it's not a sweet local friendly indie venue but is in fact Livenation As Hell, there's some person affiliated with the venue wandering up front offering some sort of VIP/fast pass line experience where you can just cough up some extra cash and get in your own special line and get to go in first regardless of how long other people have been queuing--you know the deal. Wack as hell. I think David and Amanda opted for this in some capacity, so I was happy for them about it, but a lot of the other people who ended up doing it had kind of rancid vibes of just like "concert-going" and not the very lovely communal sardine megafan energy everyone else had had thusfar. Also it put us where we were at in the queue standing in a place that just had a really terrible smell of sewage, which persisted almost the entire time we were there only to suddenly be replaced by a very powerful smell of bleach, as if whatever it was was suddenly being cleaned/sanitized. ICKY!! Annika was enough further ahead of us in line that I thought it might have only been over where we were but she said no she was definitely getting it too. new york city babey

Bracelet distribution got a little silly here, too, since the queue was wrapping SO far back and was being policed a little more stringently, but I had kind of figured I may need some kind of additional plan, especially since I'd decided not to wear my fanny pack (bum bag--fanny pack, says Jonathan Higgs in a derisive American accent, even as he's telling me he likes mine a lot, skdjshgalkj smh) since my shorts under my shirt had really capacious pockets and that just made for one less thing to worry about--I snagged a sheet of paper at Allegra's place, along with a gallon-size ziploc bag, and I put all the bracelets in there with a note that said to just take one if you wanted one and pass it back through the queue while we waited. It was kind of a crapshoot how effective I thought this was going to be, especially since I had to kind of wait to deploy it once there was a substantial queue BUT by the time there was a big queue it meant that I couldn't see exactly HOW big from where I was near-ish enough to the front, so I didn't know how far the bag was going to make it, if someone was going to end up stuck with my whole big bag at the back of the line (esp since I had a fair number of extra Philly bracelets left over that I lumped in with the NYC ones just because I still Had them).... whew...! BUT by the time Marty was there, he was further enough back from me that I asked him to kind of check up on it when it made it to him and keep passing it; and, by the time we were going inside, I could see zero sign of the bag itself but I DID catch a lot of people milling around me wearing bracelets, and one or two of them did stop me to thank me (since I'd indicated on my note in the bag that I was the person with green hair hahaha), and then I never saw 'em again, so I guess it was a relative success!! Yayyyyy!! WAY less conducive to making New Line Friends than the DC/Philly setup had been, but incredibly effective at making sure that all my bracelets found new homes rather than me having to take a huge handful home with me again and them just sitting in my house forever LOL. success! :)

tl;dr about the bracelets. not important compared to concert and band. WE GO INSIDE!! They have such dumb security/bag check. a gender-split process where the men get patted down by a dude guard and the women get patted down by a lady guard? In TYOOL 2023? you hate to see it. She felt the Sharpie in my back pocket and made me take it out and surrender it???? MY METALLIC BRONZE SHARPIE ? ? no sharpies in the venue I guess. Talked to at least one other person who got sharpie-confiscated too, but also at least two people who fully didn't and still had markers just fine. Absolute shenanigans. Allegra and I didn't quite get barrier due in part to fastpass line nonsense but we did end up right exactly behind Annika &co. with perfect sightlines, once again stage-left/Jeremy-ward-of-center. we don't hate it! my Philly pals to my left with David, Becky et al in front of them. Me fully surrounded by redheads. LOL.

this was the laaaatest show of my whole run, a whole lot of standing around just waiting for Band, and also definitely the energy of "trying to politely vibe to pierre kwenders's set because he can clearly see me and look straight at me even though I would much rather just skip to the bit I actually came for and don't necessarily need to see his set" just slowly increasing every night RIP lol. BUT WE MADE IT! ohhhh new york. EXACT same set as Philly but I couldn't even be mad about it because I was still so grateful to get a Man Alive song that wasn't just MY KZ (not that I don't love my kz obviously, but it HAS been in the set literally all eight times that I have seen E E live as of this Irving Plaza gig, and something else from that album is fun fresh delicious) (OH, SWEET THREEP OF FRIDAY EVENING, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW) and to be getting COLD REACTOR again, especially becaussseee by this point I knew just enough of the lyrics that I felt confident singing/mouthing along conspicuously with the parts that I Did know, aka I See You Sir I'm Doing The Thing Just Watch Me, god I wish I knew how to be not so fucking extra but then again no I don't. we did get saddled with some Rather Annoying audience members in our near vicinity--a couple I'd spotted in the fastpass line earlier wedged themselves hard between me and my tall redhead/mask-wearing homie from Philly, all like "ummm we're short :)" because they. were, but that didn't give them a right to be pushy and rude, and their vibes were kind of shit because the sense I got was they were mostly there because the girl really loved the band and the dude didn't know much about them at all, and also they were already drunk so early on in the set, and they were talking loudly with some other fans they'd just met and getting Lore™ explained to them and it was just a lot of. loud talking and shoving. in my vicinity. when I would have preferred for there to. not be. BUT Also materializing behind me was someone who said "I saw your bracelets on twitter do you still have any!!" and I had to be like UHHHH FUCK, NO, I turned them loose into the queue, did they not make it as far as you..?? and she sadly said no, and I was like, well the only one I have left is this one I just left on for tradesies/advertising purposes, and it says "akon in the butterfly house" so that's kind of a deep cut, if you're familiar-- and she went WAIT REALLY and seemed SUPER jazzed to get a Dave Sardine-ass bracelet and I was like OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT, GOOD, ACTUALLY, because I'd made four of these and I knew they were going to be the deepest cut/hardest sell and I was really really hoping that whoever ended up with them would actually get and appreciate them. so thank you, andrea, for being that person, and for appearing exactly when the bracelet needed it most. so glad to have hung with you this night. sorry that you too found yourself among the ranks of the sharpie-confiscatees.

ANYWAY, OTHER THAN THAT, THIS AUDIENCE WAS FIRE AND THIS GIG SLAPPED. We were finally in a space and an environment that REALLY lent itself to the crowd actually full on bouncing/dancing instead of just kind of wobbling and vibing and everyone in my immediate zone was really going hard. I LOVE this fucking BAND. I love every song by this band. I love when Jon just points the mic at the crowd and the entire crowd sings the whole song word for word and note for note. I love that Jon was still desperately trying to cram the name of the host city into the start of My Kz, despite the fact that "Washington" subs for "Lucifer" perfectly (he has done this both times I've seen them in DC lol) but "Philadelphia" is WAY too stupid long and "New York City," while a syllable shorter, scans metrically in an extremely busted way and you could have just said EN WHY CEE or. y'know. lucifer. but okay man you do you. Jon was just as rowdy as the rest of us lmfao. he was like, climbing up and down off Mike's riser, he was finding people who were taking photos/videos and staring directly into their cameras (me fucking included--I'm sorry, Jon, you can't make eye contact with me while singing the "When I saw you, I fell in love" part of Leviathan, I am pretty sure that is illegal and a crime against my humanity), and basically all the tracks from Get To Heaven (plus like, Cough Cough and NOTLK) blew the fucking roof off the place. I think he donked some My Kz lyrics hehehe he just skipped to the alt lyrics of the chorus too early without completing the standard chorus first at the end, and a little flubbo in NOTLK and a tiny stutter in No Reptiles too, everyone was just TOO ROWDY and he's THROWN LOOPY and man did we not care. I said multiple times to people on this tour that pretty much the closest things I've ever experienced to true Religion are a) being in an E E audience for No Reptiles and b) being in a Hedwig audience for Midnight Radio. they're the same spiritually in my heart and also like do people who love Jesus feel this way and is this why. insane. the cult leader imagery was Not Wrong!!!!!

I wanna MERCH! I got in the line not too long after the show wrapped, but true to reports I'd heard about the pre-show merch line, it was moving verrryy slowly, with just one guy manning it who was not exactly quick and a card reader that seemed pretty chuggy too (but hey, at least NY was taking card). I'd known I wanted the poster--it's got my favorite neon orange on it, it really really slaps, and I wanted something to get signed--but I let myself talk myself into a t-shirt too, mostly because I was REALLY excited to buy E E merch apparel that wasn't black or white. Yellow!! a really freaking good yellow!! I wish the yellow ones had actually had the tour dates on them like the black and white ones did but the yellow branding has been pretty exclusive to this leg of tour (i.e. vs the red branding of the west coast one last year) and it looks soooo good with my hair that I don't especially mind. I also knew that Adrian wanted a copy of Caps Lock On, but that he also wanted a shirt, but I hadn't heard back from him about which shirt or what size so I just got the book and my stuff and then bounced. Communique from outside was that Alex had surfaced but no one else, but that Alex had promised appearances by the rest of them, but that also Alex was already gone and unlikely to return by the time I made it outside. I posted up with all my friends from inside, god this was SUCH a good sardine squad this night, and it took some waiting but eventually the promises came true! All the other boys surfaced and we had some REALLY great fan chats and mingling this tiimmmmee. oh my gosh. A guy came with a Modern Bison CD that Jon and Jeremy were really truly overjoyed to see and to sign and take pictures with; I talked to Jeremy about the bracelets some more because he'd been wearing the one I gave him the WHOLE GIG IN NEW YORK SO LIKE THAT'S GONNA BE IN ANY PHOTOS THAT WERE TAKEN PROFESSIONALLY SPEAKING, oh my gosshhh, he was so nice about it and enjoyed that his Arch Jeremy matched my Arch Emily, the vibes were impeccable; and then I got everyone to sign my poster, but of course Alex was gone already, so Jon offers to forge Alex's signature and goes "look it's like this" and draws some loopy scribble on there and I'm like, lmao, sure.

thing was... I had absolutely heard Jeremy signing something for someone else the night before talking about how he was getting really good at forging Alex's signature for him, since I guess it's normal for him to be the one that disappears the sneakiest (god he really is just the Justin Craig of this band, it's 1:1, huh), and so when I told Jeremy this, he was like "I'll do it" and I was like "no Jon did already do it" and he was going to just leave it then, like, oh, well, okay, but then he saw the mess Jon had made and he was like "--that's quite dreadful actually-- the trick is to not overthink it--" and so now my poster has two forged Alex Robertshaw signatures and zero authentic ones. l m f a o. (To be fair, I do have other things they've all four signed, and Jeremy's fake Alex is at least passable, and Jon's fake Alex is Absolute Dogshit Nothing. I am obsessed.) I even got Peter to sign! He was talking with another fan about a gift she'd given them in the past that had sadly been part of what they lost in their studio fire, it was really heartbreaking to hear. He also thanked me again for his bracelet and told me he planned to give it to his daughter and that she would love it. We took a pic together! Pete the GOAT.

While I was making the rounds with the other boys and other fans, Allegra mostly in tow, swapping sharpies among those of us who still had them, Becky was back with Jon, taking a couple videos for people who weren't there in NY to talk about stuff that they were curious about--I think in the context of Maria, Becky said something like, she thinks the hair is crazy, and Jon said into the camera something like, "If you think it's crazy Now, give it like two or three more weeks, and you're really gonna think it's crazy." SIR WHAT. If the blond is a precursor to something else happening I'm gonna be so the opposite of normal about it, and if the bleach is a stepping stone toward the boys dyeing their hair Other colors I am going to be PROFOUNDLY NOT NORMAL ABOUT IT, AND IF ANY MEMBER OF THE MANCUNIAN ROCK BAND EVERYTHING EVERYTHING HAS THEIR HAIR DYED GREEN ANY TIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE I AM GOING TO BE ABSOLUTELY COMPLETELY INSUFFERABLE. tyler the creator unfollow me right now etc. etc. etc. The more I've thought about it I don't THINK this is what's up--my sense is that any Cold Reactor music video is probably already filmed and ready to drop alongside the single pretty quick after the tour ends, rather than being something they're going to film/put together entirely post-tour, so they probably needed the bleachblond for some energy similar to how I felt about them when they first walked on stage in DC, but Oh man...... OH MAN............ I digress. anyway.

following up from that, Allegra (I think? Or maybe still Becky and allegra was just Present) addressed the notion of the hair being related to the Lore, and like, did that mean lore for the single/the upcoming album ? ? which was what we were assuming, and Jon said some demented and ominous and extremely exciting phrase like, "The lore for this one is.... b o t t o m l e s s" in his always-startling real deep Jon voice, and that was the fucking sound bite of the evening, folks. FOLKS. ALLEGRA AND I WENT ALL THE WAY BACK TO HER APARTMENT JUST CONTINUALLY SAYING "THE LORE IS BOTTOMLESS!" my body is so god damn ready.

We bid farewells to all our friends for whom NYC was their final stop on this tour!! SAD!!!!!! Going to miss all the homies T___T it's not fair that we're not just all going to every single stop on this tour I don't think? it should actually be illegal for us not to be present when the band is performing?? the hugest RIP. Hugs exchanged all around. Me trying to say bye to Jon but he's engaged with someone else so I think I just awkwardly said "See you tomorrow" twice and then we left. becky maaaybe trying to last minute scramble to also come to pgh now despite not really having accounted for it in her plans originally ? ? I was not certain what she intended here but I supported her. yes. me, annika and AG for sure being there at least. we ride. Back to allegra's where I did, unfortunately, sleep ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLY/BASICALLY NOT AT ALL due to being so hot and stuffy in my little nest on the floor that it was making me nauseated, I think I got maybe 2.5 hours tops, but I didn't really have a choice because if I wanted to be back home in time to do ANYTHING other than just rock straight over to the queue for Thunderbird then I knew I was going to have to leave so GOD DAMN early in the morning to haul ass back to where my car was and then drive the seven hours to pgh. But I did exactly that!!!! bitch!!!!! Other than some issues like, managing to make a timely pit stop for gas/potty/coffee, I endured the miserable long roadtrip despite myself, raging my way through the poconos, downing the largest cold brew Wawa would sell me, having a truly tragic car vs quesadilla incident, etc. My BFF Francis even got on the phone with me for the last hour or so and we chatted and I got to give them the whole update on the tour thus far, so fun! They MIGHT try to go to the Chicago stop next week!!! if they feel like they can swing it, and I was like ok no pressure but also it's been an extraordinary experience for me thusfar and I highly recommend. So if you see Francis at E E Chicago please holler at them kindly from me!!! :) But at the very least they said they did want a T-shirt and venmo'd me money to buy them one, since I was already still gonna have to get one for Adrian. woooooo

I got home with, yeah, basically exactly enough time to shower, get my outfit together, and regroup before heading to the venue !!! I JUST BARELY missed the bus that would've gotten me there the most promptly, largely due to not being able to find another fucking Sharpie since irving plaza took my first one lmfao, and it ended up being quicker to walk there than to wait the 36 minutes it would've been for another bus or whatever. I still had MEGA travel tummy so I just snagged an apple and scarfed it down on the walk over. Annika was already there queuing! so we hung out in line together and waited and drank the waters we had definitely brought in from outside the bar and just vibed lol. and she was like, I heard them checking two new songs that haven't been in the setlist yet, and I was like ha ha lol like what, and she said, kevin's car and leave the engine room.

and listen, I was optimistic. that my social media obnoxiousness and well-known, easily observable public desires might yet sway them, because come on it's my hometown and it's the last show i'm gonna see on this tour and I sent them donuts, and those were MEANT as a KINDNESS and an ENTHUSIASM FOR DONUTS and not as a bribe, but if anyone wanted to interpret them as a bribe anyway whomst was I to say no, but like. just because I want the band i like to do a thing absolutely does not mean that they have to fucking do it. I want to be crystal clear that i have never at any point EXPECTED them to do this. i just. hoped. yearned in my heart of hearts. and also had very sound rationale for how possible/likely it was. Here's How Engie Room Can Still Win. yfm. but the soundcheck all but confirmed it in my soul for me. and I was like... glad, that she'd been there and caught it and could tell me about it, because it gave me time to like, come to terms with the reality of it, emotionally. AAH. AAAAAHHH, OKAY. BITCH, PLIABLE HEAD, IT'S ALL HAPPENING.

we lingered and watched the queue form behind us-- I spotted a kid I'd seen at the Philly show, god bless. Everywhere we turn, repeat customers. I was telling my work friend today, I feel like the US fanbase for E E is significantly smaller than the UK audience, but we make up for it in that we go fucking hard. Every US fan is a superfan. there are no half-assed american sardines. and that has been so BEAUTIFUL and means the WORLD to me to be sharing it with the other ones of you. Bracelet sharing rocked at this gig!! I had exactly as many as I'd set aside for Pittsburgh and no more, since all my spares had evaporated up at Irving, A new person ALSO HAD BRACELETS!!! LIKE, for realsies Made For Trading At This Show Specifically bracelets, it was suuuuch a delight, so in addition to my eclectic collection from the previous gigs I now also have one that says RAW DATA FEEL with some truly choice glow in the dark bric-a-brac on there as well, and my heart was so warm aaaaaah. fwiendship :) Also spotted in the pre-doors queue were the Pizza Boy costumed guy and a woman I met at Foals in 2019?? who I guess automatically recognizes me because of the green hair, but just. omg. the community!!!! I'm dying!!!!!!

There was a slight will-call kerfuffle that nevertheless did not stop me from being dead center dead at the front right in front of where jonathan's mic was destined to be, and I was like. god. here we go. the home stretch. This was ABSOLUTELY the WORST place to be to be pretending to be interested in pierre's set, because he kept looking straight at me and dog I gotta admit four shows in I was feeling pretty tired. like, the energy of E E Itself was going to fully reinvigorate me, but nearly everything else on the planet was like totally disinteresting and I wasn't really up for it, especially when it's my semi-sex-repulsed ace-spectrum ass being just really put off by the suggestive gyrations of a performer that is not to my tastes. UM SORRY BYE HAHA. they didn't even play the one song I kind of liked. I managed to miss like two and a half songs of his set being still locked in the merch line at least lmao. literally WHILE I WAS STANDING IN THE MERCH LINE they sold out of the yellow shirt and I couldn't get me and francis matchies so I had to get them the black instead :( but thankfully they still had the one Adrian wanted because idk what I would have done if I had to scramble for a plan B with him on short notice haha. and I had EXACTLY enough cash for the two shirts left from the day before and I was paying Tour Manager Sam with it like oh my gosh I'm so sorry this is like my sweaty pocket cash from last night this is kinda gross and she was just like, No actually that's honestly exactly how I've been rolling as well and it is kind of gross so like agreed hahaha. She's the best. Idk how long she'll be tenured to them but I'd love to see her continue to exist in like their coterie moving forward. impeccable vibes.

also used merch waiting as a way to distribute more bracelets and get a drink of water! WOOHOO NOW I AM READY TO RECEIVE MY COMMUNION THANK YOU. they put the setlists down and there was a very small fraction of me that wanted to avert my eyes but like I. I had to know. and annika said yes there are new songs in the list. and I peered into the list and my song was there.

hey guys. hey guys? look, this was for me. I have to be honest with you. i manifested this. by being annoying on twitter. by being god's specialest costume-making donut-gifting bracelet-slinging weirdo. I'm owning it and it's mine. I was exactly EXACTLY right with "well, if they put Engine Room in they'll probably take Leviathan out, because they'd kind of fill the same role of slow moody song in the set, and then they'll probably swap in a different non-Man Alive song to compensate for Engine Room being there instead," and this is exactly what happened, and so then not only did I get Engine Room but I also got REGRET, WHICH IS ALSO AN EMILY THREEPWILLOW PLIABLE HEAD SONG, BECAUSE HERE THESE NERDLORD KINGSHIT BANDBOYS ARE IN MY GODDAMN BACK YARD, they're in my house and god it took me the whole fucking set up to then to just prepare, like I had to try not to think about it so I could enjoy what was right in front of me. God it was so fucking, fucking good. our position along the stage had Alex's stuff REALLY forward in the mix which was kind of new for me, but jon was just right there and every time I lifted my hands to dance and to yearn it was like, the only thing stopping me from touching you is my own sense of propriety and not any kind of physical barrier or distance, and the person immediately behind me was seeing the band for the first time and felt similarly about NOTLK as I did to Engine Room and those two songs were literally back to back in the set so we kind of screamed and cried and died together, I gave her a huge hug, and LOL SORRY NOT SORRY THAT I GOT MY KZ AND LEVIATHAN TAKEN OUT OF THE SETLIST FOR Y'ALL, PITTSBURGH, I DO FEEL KIND OF BAD BUT THIS WAS UMMM IMPORTANT TO ME, THANK YOU, goodbye. goodbye I left the planet. I thought I was going to cry and I nearly did but I didn't, but I did actually maybe start hyperventilating. like I'm glad I knew it was coming ahead of time because if it had been a full surprise I think whatever was happening to my lungs would have been exponentially worse and I may have even fainted.

(which, btw: jonathan. jon. when he came out on stage, he almost immediately got his mic cable caught on the edge of where his setlist was taped down, and in jerking it around, he whipped the setlist up off the floor and way upstage toward where Pete was; when he finally put it to rights and taped it back down, he just left it where it was at, far enough away from me that I definitely could not read it anymore; and like DID YOU DO THAT ON PURPOSE? TO MOVE IT OUT OF MY LINE OF SIGHT, TO MAYBE KEEP ME FROM READING IT? SURELY YOU HAVE TO KNOW THAT I'D ALREADY SEEN IT LIKE 15 MINUTES AGO. NICE TRY BUT IT'S TOO LATE I SAW EVERYTHING. i love him. i'm in physical pain.)

knowing this was my final one, I went so, so, incredibly hard, I let myself dance and mosh and scream and take way more pics and videos than I had before, I leaned on the lip of the stage, I had an absolute fucking blast. When the set was over a few other people who were more strategically positioned (i.e. people who had not had their most easily accessible setlists unceremoniously yoinked several feet away) snatched up the closest ones way quick; there was a general tension in the crowd at being able to see jon's, but it being further away out of reach, and one ballsy-ass kid (the "Kevin" person who'd accompanied the pizza boy person) actually clambored up onto the stage and ninja'd over and took it for himself, which inspired two copycats to do the same for some discarded guitar picks (and all of which definitely provoked a very loud, unimpressed, authoritative barking of "HEY!!!" from some security somewhere, like, they definitely shouldn't have done that!! yikes!!!!). I, instead, very patiently waited for an opportune moment to get the attention of their short king guitar tech as he was running around doing teardown, and someone else flagged him first and got pete's setlist, and in my final moments I got him to get me mike's. Gang, I'm gonna be real with you, I was not leaving my Pittsburgh hometown show in which they played Leave The fucking Engine Room without a setlist. there would've been blood or at the very least tears. so like. thank god lmao. Satisfied, we got some water and then headed out!!!

It was a long, chilly wait for the boys outside--god, the chilliness was REFRESHING, though, it's October for crying out loud, and DC and Philly and NY had all been muggy sweaty hot with no need for even long pants, much less a jacket, but I was glad I'd had the forethought to wear my flannel around my waist to cover up the YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT printed around the ass of my shorts on my walk over to deter questions, lmfao. We easily identified the spot on the side of the venue where we assumed the guys were coming out, it was all just a matter of time. (AG and I getting some confusing-to-parse messages from Becky? Idk my phone was SUPER dying so I was trying to leave it on airplane as much as possible, I didn't even make it to the end of the night, RIP needing to use my map all day in the car and even with it plugged in spending more than I was juicing of the battery. Listen i needed PICS and VIDEOS!!) I saw Jon first, and he almost looked past me before spotting me there because I was pretty close to the corner of the block, and I just stared at him, and said, May I hug you. and he said, of course! and I hugged him so long and so hard just like, thank you, I was extremely emotional then and I'm also getting extremely emotional now just typing about it, and he was like omg haha what for? Coming to your town? and I was like coming to my town and playing my SONG!!! And then he said something with the tone of a snarky teasy joke but that was like flusteringly truthful underneath about them legitimately rearranging the set quite a lot for me, and I have not stopped screaming internally since then, and Jeremy joked that I'd just seen the exact same set three times and they felt they ought to give me at least something new ha ha ha but like it wasn't entirely a joke, and I just don't even know how to process this. i am perishèd in the soil. anyhow.

I wanted both my setlist and my Supernormal EP vinyl signed by all the boys, and I managed this with relatively little doing ("A deep cut!" jeremy remarks of the supernormal, haha), but I didn't want to be crowding them and getting in the way of other people getting lad time, so I kind of took a backseat and just talked when the time was right, but Jon did kind of keep wanting to talk to me. We talked about the new song, and we talked about the donuts I sent over--oh my GOD, because I was like, they're from that place over there, you can see the big neon donut sign from here! haha, and he was like dyou know what, I knew that's where they were from, because I went over there earlier in the day and got one for myself, I got a huckleberry one and I came back with it and everyone was like, what's that, they were very jealous, and then not too long after that this box of loads of them just shows up-- And like I am a donut fairy psychic wizard. Also everyone who is ever in Pittsburgh should go to Oliver's donuts and eat their fabulously good products. I will shill for them literally any day of the week. This is the second band I have given Oliver's to this year. I cannot be stopped. ANYWAY. i honestly almost could have written that prediction on an envelope and sealed it, that they'd end up wandering in there on their own only for me to send them some too. i was so tickled that jon got the huckleberry one because it's their signature flavor and it's SO PINK and allegra and I had just decided the night before that jon higgs is hot pink coded. like, in the universe where they are dyeing their hair multicolors for the lore. anyhow. it's good shit.

i had SO much fun after this show, even though it was so chilly and dark and we were scrungling around on a literal street corner outside a wine and spirits store, I was like holding people's things so they could get pics and signatures, I was showing off my supernormal booty shorts, I was talking to Jon about lore----- ohhh, my god, I had exactly two bracelets left when the night was over, literally the end of my stash, and it was one Final Form FIRST BODY LAST BODY that I said, y'know, I'm going to save this for my bestie francis when I send them the shirt, because that's the lyric I wanna get a tattoo of, and it'll match with my PLIABLE HEAD bracelet, and it'll be another sort of besties matching thing; and my one lone AKON IN THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE bracelet that remained, where I'd kind of said, well, if this one doesn't find the right home tonight, then at the end of the night I'm going to give it to Jon too. So I dug in my bag and passed it off, and he was like "what does this one say.... kon... Akon... Akon in the house--what is--OH AND THERE'S A LITTLE BUTTERFLY ON THERE, God--" and he was GRINNING and he was SO TICKLED BY IT and Jez chimed in with just like "The attention to detail--" and Jon was like "this is my favorite one actually," he LOVED IT AND I WAS SO CHARMED AND EMOTIONAL ABOUT IT, and then he offered me up something like "you kno-ow, this, the song, of this, there's actually a reference to it in something, something you've never heard-- and--that you never will," doing his cryptic Jon troll grin, "the one thing that didn't make it," with the implied end of that sentence being "onto the album," and 'album' in this case being implied to be Raw Data Feel, which they have very publicly said that for once was an album where they just put everything on and didn't cull any songs or reserve any bonus tracks to release later or whatever. So I said, "Oh, from the one that we've been told had no cuts...?" also not explicitly saying RDF, and his answer to that was vague/nondescript enough but was probably an affirmative, but then he did follow that up with "that's lore that's SO far down the line, WAY WAY out there," and god, just, how deep does this man's brain and nonsense even fucking go. how far into the future is there LORE. BOTTOMLESS!!! I am obsessed with him. i cannot stress enough how blorbo he is to me.

The shorts came back up in conversation too ("Sorry, let me just look quite closely at your ass for a moment--" "It's okay, the shorts are designed that way--") and him saying, yeah, we do talk about some of the costumes still, and then segueing into asking if I had plans for this year and what I was doing, and I said, maybe, I'm not sure if I want to tell you, and he said, Is it to do with us, and I said, Neither confirm nor deny, and he said, Well if it's not, then, I want to know, with kind of a 'duh' tone ahahaha because like true there would be no reason to be coy if it was nothing to do with E E at all, and I explained that like I kind of have to have two costumes ("of course you do."), WELL because y'know the E E ones don't really play to or land with the general populace (a very cheeky "No!") so I have, just, one that's for going to parties, and one that's for fucking around on the internet. He seemed to find that acceptable hahaha.

Anyway what I REALLY wanted with wearing the Supernormal shorts was a group pic of all five of us normal frontways, and then a group pic of all five of us facing backward/ass to the camera a la the picture of them outside the White House, where you could see the goof of my shorts but also all of their butts, but this was an ABSOLUTE DISASTER TO DO when it was so dark that phone cameras were taking everything long-exposure, and also they'd all had just enough beer to not really be following on what the bit was. Absolute shit results on the backwards pic because I couldn't, y'know, see to coordinate it, because I had my back turned. (Me yelling, "Not just MY butt, EVERYONE'S butts, come on!!" into the streets of Lawrenceville.) Utter failure. Didn't care. I love these fucking guys. The vibe was finally kind of winding down, closing-time energy, the guys still had to get on the bus to Boston right away even with tomorrow being their day off, it was a Boston day off and not a Pittsburgh day off where I could offer them free ice cream sadly, so they all sort of bowed sweetly out. Jon gave me his like, I Am Part Of The Band clearance ID badge from the venue, kind of out of nowhere, he was like "sorry this is all I have to give you, it's the least I could do," and I was like WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU'VE ALREADY GIVEN ME SO M-- YOU COULD DO WAY LESS ??? but I guess now I have that, too. I tried to give him the King Of Oil sign from my fatberg costume, which I'd initially brought because I thought it would be a fun photo taking prop but the photo situation was the aforementioned disaster so that never really came to any fruition at all, so I was just going to gift it to them, and he said "My suitcase is already so full of so much random shit-- that you've given us--" and then right as he was leaving he just said "Thank you for being such a weirdo" with a voice full of all the kindness and affection in the world and I just yelled "ANY TIME!!" and then oh so tragically the night had to be over.

it's been nice, though, because I'm so used to driving the long drive home at the end of an adventure and having that signify the end, of getting to the end of the car ride and having nothing beyond that but the rest of my regular life; and this time, I drove all the way home, but when I got there, the adventure was still happening, right in my neighborhood, right down the street, and all I had to do was walk back home alone in the dark and climb into my own bed at the end of a long and beautiful night. i can already tell that this is going to be one of my most special memories basically forever, and now every time I drive or ride the bus to and from work each day I will be passing by the place where Everything Everything performed Leave The Engine Room for me, and that's so profoundly special that I don't even have words to describe it. I love this band, I love the people in it and I love the people its gravity pulls in to orbit around it, I'm just so goddamn happy. I don't even know what to say or how to end this.

[xplrvibes]

So all the costumes are out now, can we have your costume ratings for Sam and Colby this year now?

You certainly can!

With a caveat.

Actually, two caveats.

So, 1: I could only find 4 of Sam's costumes. I don't know if I'm missing one or if he just never posted one or what, but I only see 4.

2: I'm going to address the elephant in the room right now, which is Malia. Here's my thing: I didn't think any of her costumes were groundbreaking. But I have seen some unbelievably weird and wildly inappropriate shit being said quite openly about her, her body, and her costumes - shit that crosses a lot of fucking lines in my opinion - and it's making me not want any part of critiquing her because I don't even want to crack that door open and allow that shit to barge right on in to my blog.

So, the only mentions I will be making of Malia and her costumes will be how they correlate to Colby's, and that's it.

Anyway, with that said, here's my rankings:

Sam:

1. Leather jacket cool guy (?): alright, so I don't know if he was going for a greaser type thing, or the Fonz, or what, and that's kind of my beef with this costume. It's seriously just a leather jacket and sunglasses. Nothing has been done with his hair or anything to indicate what he was truly going for here, so it's a little on the vague side for me.

The concept was there, I just would've liked to see more in the execution. I think doing the old greased back hair, the duck tail or whatever they called it, and then carrying a comb or something would've gone a long way.

Rating: 5/10

2. Letterman jacket guy: This was just lazy. Colby Brock wearing a koala onesie for 6 years levels of lazy. No.

Rating: 2/10

3. Lifeguard: the fanny pack was...a choice, but at least he went out and got a whole outfit. A random outfit, but the concept was there and executed without looking like some kind of last minute hobbled together "oh shit, I need something!" nonsense.

Rating: 6/10

4. Willy Wonka: In a sea of mediocrity, this was a pretty decent, fully fledged costume. I have to give him credit for the gloves and the cane, which he appeared to keep with him all night. I can't really find any fault with this one, random though it may be.

Rating: 8/10

Sam's worst: Letterman jacket

Sam's best: Willy Wonka

.

Colby:

1. Tin Man: This one was actually really involved. I love that he went as far as having his whole face painted and his hair spray painted silver to match. That's commitment that I quite frankly never expected from him.

I also really loved the 1,000 yard stare he was giving in that one tiktok. Idk, that just made me laugh.

I also like the concept of him being the Tin Man, of all the characters in Oz - the guy with the most empathy and compassion who still thinks he doesn't have a heart and yearns for it until it's lifted to him at the end, at which point he realizes he's been a softie the whole time. Seems apt.

He loses points for the lazy ass shoes, though.

Rating: 8/10

2. The priest: I just liked the eyeliner, idk.

To me, it was very much giving 2005 Gerard Way vibes, but I know some people were discomforted by it, which is fine. I personally just saw it as some early 2000s or even 90s emo goth couture...very MCR, or even very 90s fashion show-esque. Idk. I didn't love it, but the concept was weirdly nostalgic to me.

Rating: 6.5/10

3. The Tomb Raider one: Look, I don't know video games, so this one went over my head a bit (ok, a lot).

But I'd say this one was the most creative on Malia's part, and I know this was a costume Colby has mentioned doing for a long time now, so it's cool that he finally got to knock that off his bucket list.

If I knew what the fuck any if this represented, I could probably judge it better. But since I don't know the lore, I can only say I appreciate the eyeliner and the attention to detail with the makeup made to look like dirt and bruises. I thought Malia had genuinely burned her leg somehow. I had a split second of concern 🤣. That's good makeup.

Rating: 7/10

4. The Wolf: Nope! Liked it better when I thought it was this:

I liked Malia's corset, and I actually kind of liked the pictures she posted of them. I see the vision, I just...hate the reality. He looks like a grandma. He looks like a homeless cat. He looks like anything but a Wolf. I'm so confused.

And why did he have whiskers?

Rating: 3/10

5. The nerds (?): At some point, the genesis of this whole costume needs to be explained. I still don't necessarily see teacher/student (and again - *raises hand* former Catholic school student here, which is what I know people are getting at with that statement) but I also don't see anything of interest in this costume at all. He bought the cardigan off Amazon. It's not even from an existing costume. I know, cause I reverse imaged it to try and get to the bottom of this. This shit is home grown.

I don't like it. It's boring, it's a nothing burger, and yet it's cause so much controversy, which I suppose is the Colby Brock way.

Rating: 1/10

6. Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Bunny: I get the genesis of this one, I do. I think it's either 1. really weirdly sweet or, 2. just weird for this to be what they're wearing, given Malia's lineage. I don't know for sure if that was an homage, but I can't imagine it wasn't.

That being said - Colby ambling around his party in a half open bathrobe and sailor hat, clearly drunk off his ass and wanting to go home more than I've ever seen anyone want to go home from their own party before, is kind of funny to me.

This was either a nice but weird homage or the height of laziness (since she had already previously dressed up as a bunny, and finding a Hef costume is as easy as going to Spirit Halloween). Either could be true. Both could be true. Who's to say.

Rating: 4/10

Colby's worst: the wolf

Colby's best: Tin Man

[itsbrucey]

i've had some ideas for drawing cesare from bigtop burger as of late, since i've gotten into it again! i love drawing outfits i think the characters would wear when they're off the clock. I don't mean to ramble, but i thought you'd be interested since a big thing off yours is btb and i love that show and costume designing? if you'd call it that. Yesterday i drew an outfit for tim and was about right on the money with what he wore in the after scene of the full season 2 video. Very proud. Anyway. What do you think cesare's style would be? i imagine layering because if he was stabbed, then my headcanon is that he has a perpetually bleeding wound in that area.

Hi! Idk how you got into my cave but welcome, welcome. Yes I love Bigtop Burger That's Me.

The idea that Cesare wears a lot of layers bc his stab wound bleeds perpetually.....that's fucking cool. That's sick. Sorry OP I might steal that bc that's rad as fuck.

His style of clothing in my head is kind of what we see him in!! I imagine a lot of dark colors, especially blacks and greys, and I think he covers as much as his body as he can for similar reasons as Steve ( I.e, less skin for people to see and realize " oh shit that's not makeup"). If it's anything, I think he'd also own at least one leather jacket. To match his sunglasses ofc.

ITS SO HARD TO PIN HIM DOWN bc realistically?? He wouldn't wear flashy stuff bc then it draws attention to him but he's also a very OUT THERE person so I think he'd have easily ditchable accessories that make him feel more "human". Jackets and rings........ Probably had a fanny pack at one point but the Zomburger crew bullied him.

Idk, I'd like to hear your thoughts too!!!!

[robcharlieglenn]

livestream

pairings: kurt kunkle x female reader

word count: 4437

tags: explicit sexual content, explicit language, slight dub-con, public sex, voyeurism, (slight) bondage, degradation, oral sex (m receiving & f receiving), sixty-nineing, loss of virginity, dom!reader, sub!kurt

You hated using rideshare.

It was overpriced, the drivers were creeps, and the horror stories of drunk girls getting taken advantage of that ended up getting kidnapped made a chill run down your spine, but you were left with no choice at this point.

You had just gotten in an argument with your friend who in a fit of rage kicked you out of her car, and were currently stranded about 20 miles from your apartment in Los Angeles in a seemingly empty desert town you couldn't care to learn the name of.

The only choice you had left was to order a Spree.

You waited a good 20 minutes at a run-down gas station before you looked up from your phone to the sound of tires rolling along the gravel lot.

You let out a small sigh of relief that you were finally able to get out of this god-forsaken town. You were also grateful that the sun had gone down before your friend kicked you out due to how ridiculously hot it was today.

You stood up from your crouched position next to one of the gas pumps as you watched the car slowly approach you. You glanced back down at your phone to tap the driver's information.

Kurt Kunkle.

He looked sweet enough. Quite young, too. Probably around your age.

As the car pulled up to you, you compared the license plate of the silver Prius to the one listed on your phone. It was a match.

You let out another sigh and approached the car, leaning down to be face level with the passenger window of the silver Toyota Prius.

“Who are you here to pick up?”

The driver whips his head to look over at you with a dopey smile before saying your name.

He was dressed in a white long-sleeve graphic t-shirt and sweatpants adorning a goofy bucket hat and a fanny pack slung across his chest.

You give him a nod and as you lean up to make your way to the backseat of the car, you couldn’t help but smile yourself.

He was quite cute. Cuter than the picture on his profile. Hopefully, he was easy to talk to.

You slumped into the back seat immediately enjoying the relief of the AC in his car, closing your eyes to enjoy the feeling as he began to drive off.

“S-So why were you at that gas station? Are you like, homeless or something?”

You opened your eyes at your driver's words and let out a small laugh. “No, um, I got into an argument with my friend and she kicked out of her car into this garbage dump of a town.”

He nodded “I get that. My friend Bobby, @BobbyBaseCamp, is sometimes a total dick to me. Friends suck sometimes.”

You raised your brow at the matter of his dialogue. You’ve never heard someone refer to someone else as their social media tag. He almost spoke like a promotional advertisement.

“Oh, yeah. I know Bobby. He hangs with my friends when we go to those stupid influencer parties. He is a total dick.” His eyes widen and he glanced up to the rearview mirror to look at you

“Y-You’re an influencer?”

You nod.

“Nothing crazy. I only have like a few hundred thousand subscribers,” you say nonchalantly ”Are you?”

He comes to a stop at a red light and turns around to face you “Yeah! You should check me out! @kurtsworld96 on every platform.”

His over-enthusiasm made you laugh.

“Okay. I’ll give you a follow, Kurt.”

As he turns back around, you could practically feel the giddiness radiating off of him. He must not have a huge following if he’s acting like that, you thought to yourself.

You couldn’t help but almost feel bad for him. You knew that LA was where everyone's dreams were bigger than their opportunities, so it almost made you pity people who were insanely desperate for fame.

You glance in the rearview mirror and just so happen to make eye contact with him, causing a blush to rise to your cheeks. You drop your head and internally cringe at yourself.

This dude was kind of a loser. Why were you getting yourself worked up over him?

You bit the inside of your cheek and lifted your head to gaze out of the window to be met with a camera mere few inches from your face pointed directly at you.

You let out a small gasp and whip your head around the car. There were at least 7 cameras in this car alone, not including his phone camera clipped on his vent that appeared to be livestreaming your ride.

You couldn't believe that you didn’t notice them before. This almost seemed like one of those dreaded FakeTaxi videos.

Fear began to overcome you. “K-Kurt, what the hell?” He glances back up in the rearview.

“Oh? The cameras? Just for my safety. No need to worry.” You look around, your heart was almost beating out of your chest in fear.

“Yeah, but what about the live stream?”

“Just content for my channel. Hope you don't mind,” he says cooly with a small chuckle.

You try to slow your breaths to calm yourself and drop your head in your hands as the car approaches another red light. “Everything okay back there?” he says, not even looking up at you as he replied to messages while the car was stopped.

“Y-Yeah. Just a bit paranoid. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about people getting killed by crazy rideshare drivers.”

He doesn't respond but just lets out another chuckle that sends chills down your spine.

You glance out of the windshield of his car and watch as he merges right on a fork in the interstate. “W-Why are you getting off I-10?”

“Taking you home,” he mumbles.

“This isn’t the way to my house.” You say quietly.

For the first time this entire car ride Kurt turned silent and it made your blood run cold.

You repeated yourself, raising your voice a bit to get a response out of him.

“This isn’t the way to my fucking house, Kurt!”

“Oh, not your home.”

Your breath catches in your throat.

“My home.”

He turns to fully look at you.

“My home,” he repeats.

You can’t move. You can't even breathe as he turns back around to continue driving. Your body is utterly frozen.

“W-What are you gonna do to me?” you whimper, glancing around to all of the cameras pointed at you.

“I don't know yet. I’ll probably have my audience decide. Hey guys!” He gives his phone a smile and waves to his audience. You lean over to glance at the viewer count and your jaw almost drops.

He had nearly 40 thousand viewers. You were surprised at how wrong you were about him being a struggling influencer.

You glance at the chat, which was adorned with a copious amount of slurs and insults thrown both you and Kurts way, almost encouraging him to do whatever the hell he was about to do to you.

You lean back in your seat and take a deep breath. You’ll figure out a way to escape once he stops at a traffic light. For now, you tried your best to keep a cool composure, glancing at every detail of the car to figure out the best way to get the door unlocked without him noticing.

You subconsciously reached forward to grab one of the water bottles tucked in the passenger seat pocket in front of you. You take a sip of the water, and you saw a devious smirk flash across Kurt's face as your throat began to close instantly, feeling as if it was on fire.

You begin to cough violently, your vision fading to black as you render yourself unconscious.

Your eyes open to the view of a cracked and water-damaged ceiling. You instantly feel a sharp pain emanate from your throat and you cough a little at the residual effects of the poison.

You propped yourself up on your elbows and squinted as your eyes adjusted to your surroundings. You were laid down in what looked like a bed...no… a bare mattress with a blanket. The only light emanating from the room was the moon and a ring light propped up a few feet away from you. You then realized you were alone.

You try to stand up, but the chilling sound of rattling chains coming from your ankles proves that to be impossible. He had your ankles cuffed together.

Fear shot through your body like a missile, and as you heard the door to the room open, the only other thing you could think to do was scream.

Kurt approached you slowly, laughing a bit. “You know that’s useless, right?” You turned silent, the only noise left in the room was your shaky breathing and dings from Kurts livestream.

You glanced back at the ring light and see his phone propped up in the middle, pointed at you. “W-What are you gonna do to me?” you whisper, looking back at Kurt.

He crouches down, getting almost uncomfortably close to you. “Well, while you were out my Kurties took a poll. Ever play “Fuck, Marry, Kill”?”

You don’t respond. He continues “Well, unfortunately, the audience voted and the verdict was kill. But they seemed to want you awake. So I waited.”

As he spoke, thoughts raced through your mind. Fuck, Marry, Kill? What is he, 12?

You looked him up and down and a thought popped in your head “Y-You know, even though they voted kill… I think we might enjoy the first option a little bit more.”

He stopped in his tracks, his threatening persona softening for a second. “W-What?”

You leaned forward a little bit, placing your hand on his shoulder, and made sure to graze your lips on the shell of his ear.

“Have you ever touched a woman before?” you whispered.

Now he was the one almost paralyzed.

He shook his head ‘no’, and you let out an almost seductive laugh.

“Well, that’s too bad. I would totally let you touch my body, but I guess I have to be murdered.” you feigned a pout and leaned back from him, laying back down, resting your arms above your head so he could get a peek of your cleavage through your dress.

If there was one thing a man couldn't resist, it’s sex, especially one as awkward as Kurt who you were almost sure was a virgin. He gulped and looked your body up and down.

“N-No… I guess… I guess we could do the first option. Like a sex tape.” Your eyes grew wide and realized no matter what, he was going to film everything.

You looked over to his phone and let out a bit of an annoyed sigh. ‘Better than getting killed’ you thought to yourself.

You turn your head back to Kurt who couldn't seem to take his eyes off of your body. “Yeah… Like a sex tape,” you said reluctantly.

After a moment of hesitation, you finally leaned up to connect your lips to his, yours slowly massaging his while his mouth stayed motionless, most likely out of shock and inexperience.

You ran your fingers through his curled brown hair, tugging slightly, causing him to open his mouth to moan, giving you a chance to slip your tongue past his lips.

He slowly starts kissing back, placing his hands on your hips as he grows more comfortable with the feeling. He leans down, causing you to lay flat on your back as he climbs on top of you, deepening the kiss, your tongues now dancing around each other as his hands explore your body.

He squeezed your breasts, still covered by your dress, the sensation causing your back to arch a bit, moaning into his kiss.

You couldn't lie. He was pretty good at this.

He pulled away, a small string of saliva trailed between the two of you. You were both out of breath and flustered, a cloud of dark lust glazed over his eyes as he admired your body.

You attempted to wrap your legs around his waist, but the restraints of the tight handcuffs made you hiss in pain. He looked down and saw your predicament and let out a sigh. He pushed himself off of you, sitting back on his calves.

“D-Do you promise you aren't gonna leave me?” he said with almost a whimper.

The way he was so submissive right now both made you aroused and almost feel bad for him.

He might be a bit insane, but he was probably just lonely at the end of the day. Not even his own friend would respect him and his attempts to be like him, never mind help him out.

You nod and give him a sad smile.

“Promise,” you whisper.

He reaches into his pocket and fished out the key, proceeding to unlock the cuffs.

You lean up to get to his level and yank the collar of his white shirt to pull him into another heated kiss.

You flip the two of you around so that you’re straddling his hips, and as you continue to kiss, you can start to feel his rock-hard erection brushing against your core.

You roll your hips down to create a bit of friction between the two of you, and you soon pull away to pepper kisses down his jawline and neck, nipping in certain places that made him yelp and whimper under you.

You sit up to look at him, his brown eyes were blown out with arousal and you could tell he was anticipating your next move.

You slipped your dress off slowly, making sure to give a good show for the camera, leaving you in just a pair of panties on top of him. As his jaw dropped gazing at your body, you were sure if you moved your hips even a tad he would come right then and there.

“You can touch me,” you said softly. He stayed still, eyes darting around your figure, unsure of what to do. You reached down and grabbed his wrists leading his hands up your thighs, up your stomach, finally landing on your breasts. You released his wrists and let him slowly warm up to the new action.

He slowly squeezes them, brushing his thumbs in sync over both of your nipples. This caused a whimper to escape your lips, you slowly drag your hips forward against his crotch, the fabric of his pants becoming hot and damp due to your leaking core.

“You’re doing so good, baby.” he lets out a bit of a moan and you can already tell he has a bit of a thing for praise.

He begins to pinch your nipples simultaneously rubbing the buds faster. “You wanna suck them, baby?” his gaze snaps up from your tits to your face, and feverishly nods.

He sits up and instead of immediately going for your tits, he kissed your lips, slowly kissing down your jaw and neck, building up anticipation until he finally latched on to your left nipple.

The sensation made you gasp, draping your hands around his neck and he nipped and licked on your breasts. The sensations made a b-line to your core, causing small moans and whispers of his name to escape your lips.

Caught up in the pleasure, you were quickly distracted by a donation. The voiceover crudely reading “This shit is boring as fuck”.

Kurt pulled off of you to glance back at his phone with a frown and you couldn’t help but look yourself. He was now at 50k viewers. This snapped you back to reality for a second, realizing how many people are currently viewing your naked body.

You blushed a bit, but an idea popped into your head to spice things up.

You grabbed the side of his face gently to bring his attention back to you. “Don’t focus on them, focus on me, okay?” You gave him a small smile which he returned, bringing his hands back up your body to massage your tits and you leaned in for another kiss.

You reached down to tug on the hem of his shirt before lifting it over his head.

You glanced down at his build and were pretty impressed. For someone who probably didn't go to the gym that often, he was pretty muscular. His chest and stomach were littered with freckles and a nice patch of chest hair adorned his pale skin.

You pushed him back down flat on the bed and reached behind you, locating the handcuffs that previously restrained your ankles.

“The people want a show? We’re gonna give them a show,” you said, lifting his hands over his head, cuffing his wrists together, the clicks of the fastening metal echoing through his room. He gasped a bit at the new limitations, eyes darting from his restraints back to you.

“F-Fuck. You’re so hot.” he moaned, bucking his hips up to create desperately needed friction. You strike him across the cheek at his action, causing him to yelp, tears immediately pricking the corners of his eyes. You place your hand under his chin, gripping the sides of his face.

“You don’t get pleasure until I say so, whore. Got it?” you spit, earning a whimper and a feverish nod from him.

You lift yourself off of him and stand up, looking at the vulnerable man beneath you almost squirming with anticipation.

You place your bare foot on the tent in his pants, slowly applying pressure which makes a guttural groan escape his lips.

“You like that, slut?” you mutter, pressing down harder. He cries out at the almost painful pleasure coursing through his veins and nearly comes undone right then and there.

“F-Fuck! Fuck me, please!” he cries out, back now arching towards you. You release the pressure off his erection and let out a cold laugh, almost taunting him.

“You don't call the fucking shots anymore, Kunkle,” You lean down and spat in his face, pressing your bare foot on his cheek to degrade him a bit more.

You would be lying if you said you weren’t horny beyond belief right now. Your arousal was dangerously close to dripping down your thighs being completely in control over this man. You take a second to admire his desperation and neediness as you lifted your foot off his face.

You hook your thumbs around your panties, turning to the camera before slipping them off quite seductively.

The view count jumped to almost 75K at this point, donations racking in like crazy.

In the back of your mind, you knew you had tarnished your reputation past saving, but you preferred a lifetime of people calling you a slut than being dead.

You did a little spin for the audience to show them your body and focused your attention back on Kurt who had his eyes glued to you the entire time.

You kneeled to him, your face only centimeters from his. You leaned in as if you were going to kiss him but spoke against his lips “You’re gonna eat me out while I suck you off, okay slut?” you finished with a small bite to his lower lip.

He tried to lean in to kiss you but you quickly pulled away, earning him another slap on the cheek. He bucked his hips up again with a whine.

“Didn’t take you for a pain slut, Kunkle. It’s kinda hot.” You said with a laugh as you swung your leg over his head facing down his body.

He pulled against his restraints once more, yearning to squeeze your ass, but the cutting grip the cuffs had on his wrists made that nearly impossible.

He lets out a breathy “Fuck” as he admires your core. You bring your hips down to his face, trying your best not to smother him as you untied the string on his sweatpants, his erection very noticeable and almost twitching in anticipation.

He lifted his hips so you could easily slide off both his pants and boxers in one go, his well-endowed cock springing free from its restraints. As he was stripped, Kurt made the first move as he started kitten licking your folds, taking his time to eventually lick a circle around your entrance, causing a shiver to run through your body.

You let out a shaky breath as you leaned down to clean the red and leaking tip of his cock with your tongue. This caused Kurt's body to almost spasm in pleasure, a high breathy moan emanating from him, the vibrations of his voice on your pussy caused you to let out a moan as well.

With one hand supporting you, you wrapped your free hand around his cock, slowly pumping the base as you took the head into your mouth. The sensation was almost too much for Kurt to handle as he lapped up and down your slit, eventually hitting your clit causing your back to arch, smothering him a bit more.

He took that as a good sign and focused all of his attention over that small bundle of nerves, sucking and licking you until your legs began to shake. All the while you began to bob your head up and down his dick, making sure to turn your head to lock eyes with the camera every once in a while.

You occasionally moaned around his cock, the vibrations on his shaft making him instinctively buck his hips up and lean his head back to moan your name.

You could tell he was getting close as his tongue slowed its pace on your core, so you released his cock from your mouth with a pop and sat up to fully ride his face, not wanting him to cum just yet.

He whined from loss of pleasure but soon realized he would probably be reprimanded if he didn’t start moving his mouth again.

His lips moved wildly up and down your pussy, tongue darting from your clit to your entrance, occasionally tongue fucking you.

He nuzzled his face into your cunt, nose occasionally brushing against your clit which drove you crazy.

High moans of Kurt's name, gasps, and profanities left your lips and you rubbed your hips back and forth on his face, your legs turning to jelly as you reached your high.

“F-Fuck, Kurt, I-I’m gonna cum.” you nearly yelled as you let yourself go, nearly on the brink of squirting as his tongue guided you through your high.

He continued to suck on your now swollen clit as you came down, your body spasming at the overstimulation.

His cock was twitching and redder than ever as you swung your leg back from around his head.

You looked down at an almost blissed-out Kurt, your arousal coating his mouth and nose. You leaned back down to him to place a heated kiss on his lips, tasting your juices.

You pull away, “Did you like that, baby?” you ask with a smirk. He nodded “Yes, ma'am. Thank you for making me feel good.” Your smirk slightly turned into a genuine smile at his gratitude.

“You ready to become a man, honey?” you mumble, adjusting your position to now straddle his hips, your core pressed up against his needy cock. He nods but looks up at his restraints.

“Can I touch you while we do it?” he pouts, tugging his wrists apart slightly.

You sigh and give in, leaning over to retrieve the key and unlock his wrists. One released, his hands immediately fly to your tits, massaging them.

You let out another moan, lining yourself up with him before slowly sinking on his cock.

You let out a gasp at how much he stretched you out, and you locked your gaze with his blown-out eyes that almost rolled back in pleasure as you fully sunk down on him.

“Y-You’re so fucking tight. Holy fuck.” he groaned, his hands traveling to your thighs as you gave yourself a moment to adjust.

He bites his lip as you slowly begin to roll your hips, his cock sliding in and out of your slick hole. Both of your moans filled the room while you began to bounce on him, your hands pressed firmly on his chest to steady yourself.

You threw your head back when you felt the head brush against your g-spot, and he took that as a sign to keep his dick angled exactly how it was to make you feel as good as possible.

He moved his hands from your thighs to your hips, kneading at them as you fucked him hard, your hips almost fully unsheathing him, slamming back down to fill you to the brim.

The already loose knot in Kurt's stomach was almost fully unraveled as he began to thrust his hips up into you, creating a near-perfect rhythm, skin hitting skin hard.

“I-I'm gonna…” he couldn't even finish his sentence due to the overwhelming pleasure flowing through his body.

Your chest heaved as you gave him a nod, allowing him to cum.

His hips stuttered and a long string of profanities left his mouth before he was finally shooting his seed inside of you.

You leaned forward and connected your lips, swallowing your name from his mouth as he rode out his orgasm, his hips slowing to a stop as you collapsed on his chest, your hearts almost beating as one as you calmed yourselves down.

You both smelled like pure sex, sweat covering every inch of both of your bodies.

You looked up at him, placing another kiss on his lips before returning your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow.

“You okay?” He whispered, his hands rubbing up and down your back.

A tinge of heartache filled your body as you returned to reality.

You genuinely cared about the boy under you but you knew the evil he was capable of, and you weren’t completely sure how much damage he had done before you stepped foot in his life. You let out a sigh, knowing this fucked up bliss couldn't last forever, but for the moment, all you wanted to do was lay and be close to him.

“Yeah...’m okay. Let’s just stay here a little while longer, okay?” you mumble, eyes fluttering shut as your breathing finally slowed to its normal pace.

He silently nodded, his fingers tracing up and down your body as you lay together.

Kurt was no longer alone, and you were almost okay with that.

[every-dayiwakeup]

Hard of Hearing HC

Author's Note: This is based in part off of my experiences as someone with hearing loss, and I haven't seen many hoh! Billy Hargrove hcs so here goes 😜

****

Billy didn't know he was hard of hearing until he reached middle school. Neil thought he had been "disobedient" on purpose, but Billy couldn't always hear what his father was yelling at him.

Billy taught himself to read lips because Neil refused to believe he wasn't making excuses for his poor grades or giving Neil his undivided attention. Needless to say, hearing aids weren't an option, so Billy learned to deal with it.

He didn't mind not hearing his father's threats and orders, but he got embarrassed when he couldn't hear his teacher or his friends.

After his mother left, there wasn't much Billy wanted to hear. He missed her voice when she sang to him.

Since his hearing loss is mostly in his right ear, his left ear compensates. He just has to remember to tilt his head ever so slightly to the left so there's less of a chance for him to be caught by surprise.

Neil makes sure to yell extra loudly to bother him and smacked the right side of his face, asking him if he could hear the sound of palm against cheek.

He's very sensitive to noises, but he likes to turn up his car radio to the max so he can feel the vibrations, annoy Max, and it drowns out the world around him.

He sometimes can't hear himself, so he has to raise his voice, which can get on people's nerves. He gets frustrated because there are times when he hears himself just fine, but others can't hear him.

Max puts two and two together and gets sign language books from the library. They go over it in the Camaro. Billy learns curse words first.

When Billy starts seeing Steve, he's overwhelmed by how accommodating and loving he is. Steve doesn't baby him, and Billy appreciates that.

Steve is patient, and he learns ASL just to communicate with Billy. The three have a field day gossiping about people, and the best part is, that no one (but Nancy) understands what they're doing.

Billy wants to hear Steve's voice clearly, and when he finally gets hearing aids, that's when Steve asks for his hand in marriage.

Billy makes a face when he really hears himself at first. He's not entirely fond of it, but it takes some time to get used to. Steve tells Billy that his voice is Steve's favorite sound, and that shuts Billy up (temporarily)

Billy talks more when he adjusts to the hearing aids.

Going from limited hearing to now hearing everything can be overwhelming. Sometimes his ears get sore, and so does his head. Steve massages his ears and temples.

Billy has to keep his hair up so his curls don't get tangled in them. If he gets pouty, Steve does his hair, and Max takes advantage of the situation by adding some sparkly clips.

Billy can't cover his big ears with his hair anymore, and he thinks they look stupid. Plus they turn red when he blushes, and that kind of fucks with his image. He can't bring himself to bitch much, though. The hearts in Steve's eyes seem to double in size every time the brunette looks at him, and how can Billy argue with that?

Billy names his hearing aids "Mad Max" because they're red like Max's hair.

Steve keeps batteries for Mad Max in his fanny pack, along with wax traps and domes.

Steve spoils Billy with hearing aids that match his outfits, and as per Billy's request, new earrings.

When Steve talks too much, Billy simply plucks his aids out of his ears or just takes out the right one.

NsFw (it's pretty tame imo)

Billy can now hear every one of Steve's lovely moans and grunts

++++++

Tags:

@suspiciouslackofclowns @geormenia @emeraldwitches @jaethecreator @shawgrove @wixterirox @polaris-ursae @phishyie @shipworm @spaceboxkitty @talesfrom-theupsidedown @flayedintheusa @harringroveho @harringroveheart @harringrovetrashh @justan-0-t-h-3-r

[sunsetsandcurves]

willex + flowers :))

Alex keeps a lot of things on his fanny pack.

There are band aids and an inhaler and candy that's been expired for more than twenty years. There's a cool rock he found when he was twelve he doesn't want to get rid of and a packet of chewing gum he can't eat anymore and confetti he picked up from a pride parade.

Lately though, his danny pack's full of old, fragile flowers that Willie somehow gets him.

"There's this cool flower shop near the beach," he had explained, twirling a rose in his hands. "And they do cool bouquets but a bunch of loose flowers end up on the floor- all cut and dirty and I kind of feel bad for them."

Alex had smiled fondly, laughing a little and taking the flower from Willie's hands.

"You feel bad for the flowers?"

"It's like they're being- thrown away, just because they're not pretty enough or big enough to sell- that's not fair. I've been picking them up for years, and now I finally have someone to give them to."

Alex had felt like his heart was slowly melting, warm, sweet feelings running through his veins.

"Oh. Thanks, Willie, I love it."

Willie had kissed his cheeks and left, and Alex had stared at the rose until Julie came to get him for band practice.

Since then, Willie shows up with small flowers every few days- tulips and daisies and more roses, orchids and these weird flowers Willie had called alstroemerias.

Alex loves them, and maybe his fanny pack is not the best place to keep them- but in there they're his, only his, little things he can see and touch and smell, that remind him that Willie thinks about him and actually bothers to pick stuff up for him and bring it to him and- well, he does it for Alex.

It's something he never thought he'd get to experience, and when his fanny pack becomes a mess of fallen petals and brown-ish stems, he realizes maybe he should get flowers for Willie too.

He asks Julie about some flower shops he could visit, ones that are not that fancy and where there's people just fixing the arrangements so he can pick up the flowers from the floor before they're swept away.

Julie tells him about the flower shop near the beach, and Alex knows that's the flower shop Willie likes to visit but he's willing to go and see what he can get.

When he poofs to the place, though, Willie's there, picking a bunch of flowers from the floor. Alex laughs, and Willie looks up at him.

"Alex, what are you doing here?" They ask, his hands playing with the bunch of flowers they've picked up.

Alex shrugs. "I was- um- you know. Trying to return the favor."

Willie's wearing a white and yellow tie-dye crop top, which kind of reminds Alex of a daisy, so he picks one up and walks over to him, placing it in Willie's hair, letting his fingers play with some of it.

Willie's smile is flustered and gentle and so- alex doesn't know how to describe it. Soft.

Loving.

"Do you like it?" Alex asks in a whisper, and Willie nods.

"Yeah. I love it." They grab one from his little bunch of them- a pink lily that's been thrown away because the color's probably too bland- and does the same, tucking it over Alex's ear.

"Now we match."

They both laugh, and they spend the rest of the afternoon picking up the flowers the flower artist throws until Alex's fanny pack is overflowing with them.

*

Ahsjshd ✨soft flower boys✨

*

Taglist: @chickwiththepurpleguitar @julieandthequeers @burntchromas @readyrogueone

[bisexualbumblebee-writes]

Three of a Kind- Alex Mercer x OC x Willie

Alex Mercer x Danielle Poet x Willie

Description: Alex, Willie and Danielle learn that there can be more than two people in a relationship. 

Word Count: 2k

For the last two decades or so it had always been Willie and Danielle. From what they understood, they died around the same time, which brought them together in the first place. They did just about everything together after that. When Willie went skateboarding Danielle would be on her skates right beside him. If Danielle wanted to go to the beach, Willie tagged along (though he openly disliked sand). Heck, they even found the Hollywood Ghost Club together. They were pretty much all that the other had since becoming ghosts, and they were fine with that. 

Then, along came Alex in one of the most chaotic (and funny) ways possible. Neither Willie nor Danielle were needed at the club quite yet, so they’d decided to hang around Hollywood Boulevard for a while. Willie, as usual, was on his skateboard while Danielle had her skates on, as usual. They’d been casually talking until they reached the start of the street, then Willie stopped and looked at her with a mischievous grin.

“Race ya to the end of the street,” he challenged. The girl copied his smile. 

“You’re on. Try and keep up, loser.” And with that, she was off down the sidewalk. She slinked through the various people walking down the sidewalk, smiling when she heard her boyfriend laughing behind her. 

Just as she suspected, she reached the street sign on the other end first. A triumphant smile appeared on her face and she turned around, expecting to see Willie right behind her, but saw nothing. Her smile immediately fell as she looked around, attempting to locate her boyfriend. After a minute or so of waiting she huffed in annoyance and pushed off the sign, retracing her steps and weaving her way back through the crowd. It didn’t take her long to spot him. He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his helmet off, which only made her more annoyed. 

“Willie I swear to god if you were just pranking me again I swear to-” She stopped when she finally got through the crowd, stopping in front of her boyfriend. There was someone else with him, a blonde boy. Upon hearing her voice, both he and Willie faced her, giving her a chance to look at him. He was tall, at least three inches taller than Willie and seven inches taller than her, and he wore a baby pink shirt, black pants and a matching fanny pack. 

“Oh, hello,” she greeted with a polite smile. The blonde boy looked surprised by her talking to him. 

“You’re a ghost too?” He asked, earning a nod from her. 

“Yep. I’m Daniella,” she answered as she held out her hand. 

“Alex,” he said, taking her hand with a small smile. 

“So, what brings you to the boulevard?” She asked, moving to stand beside Willie. In return he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. 

“I… Well I uh, I was just trying to clear my head then Willie ran into me,” he explained awkwardly. “He said he thought I was a… what was it?”

“A lifer,” the couple answered in unison. Then Daniella faced Willie. 

“Wait, you ran into him?” She questioned firmly. All she got in response was him blushing and looking away awkwardly. 

“Willie,” she said in a scolding tone. “I told you to stop doing that because this exact thing will happen.” 

“Hey, this is the first time it’s ever happened,” the boy defended himself. The girl merely rolled her eyes then faced Alex. 

“I’m sorry my boyfriend’s an idiot,” she said with an awkward smile. The blonde couldn’t help but chuckle as he shook his head. 

“It’s alright,” he answered with a shrug. “But uh, do you mind if I ask you guys a few questions?” 

“That’s kind of your thing, isn’t it?” Willie retorted before Danielle could answer. She shot him a warning look, which made him laugh before facing Alex. 

“Alright, but you gotta keep up,” he answered definitively before setting his board on the ground. He stepped onto it and grabbed his girlfriend’s hand, beginning to skate away. 

“Hey, wait up,” the blonde called, running after them. 

They eventually ended up at an empty concrete lot. The three of them sat on one of the many ramps, Danielle on the left, Alex in the middle and Willie on the right. Willie and Danielle listened quietly as Alex explained what happened from the moment he and his bandmates died to them meeting Julie and how she can see them. 

“Wait, a lifer can see you?” Willie asked, shocked. 

“Wicked,” Danielle added with a grin. 

“Yeah, it gets crazier,” Alex said. “This morning, we're playing music with her, and we became visible to her entire school.” 

“Whoa,” Willie muttered. “I’ve never heard of that happening before.” The girl nodded in agreement, then pursed her lips in thought. 

“You know, maybe this Julie's connected to your unfinished business,” she commented offhandedly. The boys faced her, and Alex nodded. 

“I would completely agree if I had any clue what you're talking about,” he responded, smiling all the while. 

“Oh, right,” the shorter boy stated. “Um... unfinished business.”

“It's why people become ghosts when they die. There's still something they need to accomplish, and once they complete it…” Danielle clicked her tongue and pointed a finger upwards. “They can cross over.”

“Okay, so how do we figure out what our unfinished business is?” The blonde asked curiously, receiving shrugs from both of them. 

“I don't know,” Willie responded for both of them. “You know, some ghosts never do. I still haven't. But, you know, I'm not too worried about it because being a ghost lets me do my favorite thing…” he paused then picked up his board, skating around in front of them much to his girlfriend’s amusement. 

“Skate anywhere I want without getting busted. I mean, bro, when I'm not skating here or the beach, I'm skating in Justin Bieber's empty pool,” he concluded. 

“Wow!” Alex cheered enthusiastically. “Who is that?” Danielle shook her head with a small laugh, resting her hand on his shoulder. 

“You seriously have so much to catch up on, bro,” she muttered, patting his shoulder before standing as well. Once she balanced herself on her skates, Willie grabbed her hand once again and faced Alex. 

“Alright. We’ll catch you later hotdog,” he said, allowing Danielle enough time to wave at the boy before they skated off. 

“I really don't like that nickname. It's how I died!” Alex yelled after them, making them laugh in unison. 

“He was nice,” the girl commented as they continued to skate down the sidewalk. 

“He was,” Willie agreed with a smile in her direction. 

After their first meeting, the couple saw Alex all the time. At first it was because Caleb wanted them to keep an eye on the band, but then the whole fiasco with him forcing the guys to join his band happened. Once they had all managed to get rid of Caleb’s contract on them, the trio saw each other more and more. They just couldn’t help it. There was a certain chemistry that surrounded them whenever they were around each other. They just found themselves in the comfort of each other and were content with it. 

Eventually the time came when Danielle finally realized that she liked Alex in the same way that she liked Willie when they first began dating. That sort of ‘new love’ type of feeling for people in a blossoming relationship. The girl was nervous at the prospect of the feeling because she still loved Willie. 

Though he hadn’t explicitly said it, Danielle had a feeling that Willie felt the same way about it. She noticed him glancing between her and Alex unsurely several times whenever they hung out without fail. It was weird because as soon as they were alone he acted how he usually did with her. And she didn’t know how Alex acted when they weren’t around, but she assumed that he was feeling the same way. A sort of tension was beginning to rise within all three of them, and none of them knew what would happen when it broke until Alex invited them to hang out at the concrete lot they first hung out at because he wanted to ask them something. 

As usual, Willie and Danielle showed up together. Alex was already there waiting for them, and he looked nervous. It looked like he’d been deep in thought until they suddenly poofed in front of him. The couple couldn’t help but laugh when he jumped in surprise. 

“Still not used to other people doing that,” he muttered with a laugh. Danielle shook her head amusedly as she took a seat on Alex’s left while Willie took the space on his right, giving her a sense of nostalgia from when they met. 

“So, what did you want to talk about?” She asked, leaning forward a bit so that she could see both boys. Alex didn’t answer at first, but what he said shocked them. 

“Have you guys ever heard of polyamory?” Danielle shared a confused look with Willie. 

“Uh, no?” The latter answered. 

“Daisy told me about it,” the blonde explained. “It means to have open intimate or romantic relationships with more than one person at a time. So like, what you guys have right now is called a monogamous relationship because it’s just you two. But if you were to add a third person then it would be polyamorous.” 

The couple nodded, surprised by the new piece of information. Once they understood it, they noticed that Alex was once again looking considerably nervous. Immediately Danielle understood what he was getting at, and she leaned down a bit to catch his eye. 

“Alex, do you want to be in a polyamorous relationship with us?” She asked slowly, tone soft and inviting so he wouldn’t be as shy. A deep blush coated the boy’s otherwise pale cheeks and he shrugged coyly. 

“I-I mean, if you guys aren’t interested in it…” he trailed off. Silence settled over the trio and Danielle’s eyes met Willie’s, almost like they were having a telepathic conversation. They seemed to come to an unspoken agreement, and they broke eye contact to look at Alex. 

“I’m in,” Willie said simply, which made the blonde perk up. 

“I would love to,” Danielle added, taking Alex’s hand in hers and offering it a gentle squeeze. The boy offered her a sweet smile in response that almost made her blush before he pulled his hand away. 

“God I’m really glad I decided to do this before band practice because I would not have been able to focus,” he breathed out, wiping his clammy hands on his pants. Willie and Danielle shared a laugh at that, which made him grin. 

“Speaking of which, would you guys want to come watch us practice?” 

“I’m in,” the girl answered immediately. Willie agreed afterwards and, after making sure they were all ready, the three of them poofed away, landing just outside Julie’s studio. 

“Should we walk in acting all lovey dovey?” Danielle suggested. The boys shot her an amused but confused look. 

“Why?” Alex asked. 

“Because I’m touch starved and I’ve found that I like your arm being wrapped around my shoulders,” she retorted without hesitation. Alex laughed at her quick response, then gingerly wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“You could’ve just said so.” After they were comfortable, he reached out and grabbed Willie's hand with his free one. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” Willie shot back easily as they began walking inside. 

Everyone was already inside the studio. While the band stood with their instruments (or sat at the keyboard for Julie), Daisy and Hattie sat on one of the couches waiting to watch. All eyes turned to the trio as they quite literally stepped through the door and walked over to the couch. Smiles immediately graced all their faces as Willie and Danielle untangled themselves from Alex and plopped down in the last two free seats. 

“I see my advice ended up working,” Daisy commented as Alex made his way over to his drum set. Once he sat down everyone noticed his now rosy cheeks despite the fact that he tried to hide it by pretending to tighten something on his cymbals. 

“Definitely,” Danielle answered for him, leaning her head against Willie’s shoulders with a content smile.

[chickwiththepurpleguitar]

For the prompts and because now I need it: Willex + Kangaroo 💕

- sunsetsandcurves

Okay! So, I know your official prompt was Willex, but I decided to do Reggie Outsider POV cause I don’t write him enough, and then it... got away from me... And I accidentally wrote Julie/Luke/Reggie again (and apparently I’m only capable of writing in Reggie’s POV if he’s pining...) but I also wrote he/they Willie on purpose this time! Anyway, hopefully you like this, but if it’s not satisfactory just drop another ask in my box and I’ll write a part two that actually has more Alex and Willie in it.

Also I kind of inadvertently referenced your last Willex flower ficlet in this lol. Anyway, enjoy :)

--

“Hey, Hotdog. Kangaroo.”

Reggie’s head snaps up from where he’s been peering suspiciously at a wagon of precariously-stacked apples, trying to see if he can knock them over with his mind (so far, he’s been unsuccessful). Across the aisle, Willie has just plucked a bundle of radishes (bushel of radishes? Reggie’s not well-versed in the collective nouns of vegetables) off a table and hands them to Alex, trailing obediently along behind them. Alex rolls his eyes, stuffs the radishes in his fanny pack, and leaves a couple dollars on the table. 

They’re all at a Farmers’ Market by Julie’s school. She had to go to do research for an Economics project, and she graciously let her ghosts boys (and Willie) tag along. They’re having one of their “visibility to lifers is hard” days, so (as Willie has continuously reminded them) they could probably steal whatever produce they want and get away with it. But Julie gave them each a stern talk and twenty dollars at the entrance, so Alex has put it upon himself to pay for everything Willie tries to convince him to smuggle away in his fanny pack.

Alex and Willie move on to a station selling flowers, and Reggie abandons his apple staring contest to bound along behind them. He hopes Willie will say again what Reggie thinks he just said, because Reggie might have just imagined it but he doesn’t know how to ask.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long. Willie plucks a pretty purple flower out of a pile and tucks it behind Alex’s ear (Alex wrinkles his nose out of instinct, but it’s not like he still has hayfever as a ghost). Then, Willie grabs a handful of seed packets, stuffs them in Alex’s hands, and says, “Kangaroo.”

Reggie’s mouth drops open. So they did say it! He scans his surroundings, craning his neck to see all the way to the entrance of the Farmers’ Market, but there’s no sign of an Australian marsupial anywhere. Not that Reggie had really been expecting to see one in the middle of Los Angeles, California, but why else would Willie be talking about them unless he’d seen one?

Reggie spins in a full circle until he catches sight of Luke and Julie over by the baked goods. He spares one last glance back at Alex and Willie (who seem to be bickering over the ethics of stealing flower petals out of the trash now) and then poofs across the market, appearing next to Luke and Julie by a stand selling bread and cookies.

“Hey, Reg,” Luke says without looking up. He’s got a chocolate chip cookie in one hand and a frosted sugar cookie in the other, and he’s looking back and forth between them like they’re the players of an extremely entertaining tennis match.

Reggie shoots Julie a questioning look. She rolls her eyes fondly and explains, “I told him he can only have one cookie. He’s been trying to decide for the last twenty minutes.”

“I’m narrowing it down,” Luke insists.

Julie laughs, and the sound sends a burst of fluttery happiness through Reggie’s chest. He grins, and almost forgets what he came over here to say in the first place, until Julie says, “Anyway. What have you been getting yourself up to, Reggie?”

He rocks back and forth on his heels. “Not too much. Bought some kiwis. Had an altercation with an apple cart. Mostly just third-wheeled Alex and Willie.”

He tries not to sound too bitter about it, but he’s not sure it works. He loves his friends, so much, and of course he wants them to be happy, but he can’t deny he feels a little left out sometimes, when they all pair off for date night, or hold hands on the sidewalk, and Reggie’s just… there.

(Part of him wants to find someone for himself, so that they can be three couples instead of two. Another, much more repressed, part of him wants there to still only be two couples, just… one of them has three people in it. He doesn’t know if that’s something he’s allowed to want, though, or even something that’s okay to think about, so he tries not to, and he doesn’t say a word about it to anyone, especially not Luke or Julie.)

“Aw, Reg,” Julie says, drawing him back to the present. She puts a hand on his arm, and Reggie beams, hoping he’s not blushing too visibly. “Well, I don’t know if third-wheeling us is any better, but you’re welcome to hang out!”

Reggie deflates. Right. Still third-wheeling. Because they’re still LukeAndJulie. And Reggie’s just there.

He pastes on a grin and deftly changes the subject. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you guys—you haven’t seen a kangaroo around here anywhere, have you?”

Luke finally looks up from his cookies to give Reggie one of his patented Hey, Reg, you’re a dumbass looks (they used to be insulting, but considering Reggie’s been on the receiving end of them since literally 1978, he’s used to them by now).

Julie, ever the angel, just settles for a politely confused frown and repeats, “Kangaroo?”

“Yeah,” Reggie says. “Willie kept saying stuff to Alex about a kangaroo, but I didn’t know if they meant, like, a real kangaroo or a stuffed one or something, but I didn’t see either, so I figured I’d ask you guys.”

Luke frowns thoughtfully. “Are you sure it’s not a gay thing? Maybe it’s a gay thing.”

Julie whacks him with her purse. “It is not a—who are you?” While Luke rubs his arm with a pout, she asks Reggie, “What was the context for this?”

“There wasn’t any!” Reggie insists. “He just kept handing Alex stuff to put in his fanny pack and saying, ‘Kangaroo.’”

Julie pulls her phone out of her back pocket, muttering, “Hold up. Maybe…” She types for a second, Luke attempting to slip both cookies in her purse while she’s distracted (she swats his hand away without looking up), and then exclaims, “Here we go!” and holds her phone out for Reggie to see. “In some countries, that belt bag Alex wears is referred to as a kangaroo! Cause it’s a pouch, I guess.”

“Definitely a better name than fanny pack,” Luke muses, guiding Julie by the wrist to turn the phone around for him. They bend their heads together, giggling over whatever article Julie found, and Reggie’s enthusiasm fades into a hardened pit in his stomach.

He mutters an awkward goodbye and poofs back across the market, not bothering to wait for Luke and Julie to notice.

An hour later, Reggie returns to the bakery stand and buys the last chocolate chip cookie (since Luke eventually chose the frosted one). When he catches up with his friends at the exit, he sidles up between Alex and Willie, holds the cookie out, and says, “Hey, Alex! Can you please put this in your…” He pauses dramatically and winks at Willie. “Kangaroo?”

“Oh, my god,” Alex sighs, dropping his head into his hands.

“Eyyy!” Willie cheers, giving Reggie an enthusiastic fist bump. “I knew it’d catch on!”

Reggie grins. He’s okay being the third wheel on good days like this. He just loves his friends so much.

--

Taglist: @whenweremarried @sunsethimb0s @pink-flame @penguin0613 @fighttoshine @sunsetcurvecuddles @nickalicious @reggiescrookedteeth @brightattheorpheum @queenmolina @spidergirl0325 @jandthephantoms @lexilucacia @sapphossidechick @acnhaddict @cest-la-vie-de-la-lee @sunset-bobby @lenacarstairspotterstewart @conversationaltreestump @burntchromas @sunsetsandcurves 

[phantom-curve]

Second birthday is such a cool thing to call that! 8 or 35 if you are feeling so inclined.

Thank you! When I was a kid my mom always tried to call it my rebirth-day and I was like no❤️ I went with some Willex whump (with a fluffy end) for this one! Set in the gimme a chance AU, featuring pro-skateboarder Willie and anxious Alex. This is also a bit of a companion piece to the #8 prompt I wrote earlier!

#35: kissing their bruises and scars (Trigger Warning: mentions of injury, mild description of panic attack, and mentions of a car accident. Rated T for language) 

Alex generally tried not to think about worst case scenarios when Willie was competing. If he let himself, it was way too easy to imagine all types of situations that ended with Willie broken and bleeding at the base of a halfpipe while Alex stood helplessly on the sidelines. It didn’t help anything for him to obsess over what could happen, especially because at this point, Alex knew skateboarding was as much a part of Willie as drumming was a part of him.

It was just that ever since Willie had gotten his first sponsorship and moved to the pro circuit six months ago, he had started taking bigger risks. More complex tricks and a lot less hesitation to go big when he was representing the brands that were paying his bills. And that meant longer hours practicing and a higher chance of injury on a daily basis. Alex wanted to be a supportive boyfriend, the kind that would show up at the skate park to cheer and not have a panic attack every time that Willie wiped out, but he wasn’t. He was just an anxious guy in love with a dude who seemed determined to break every single bone in his body.

Things only got worse when Willie started traveling for competitions. He was gone almost every weekend, and Luke had finally convinced the manager at the bar he worked at to let Sunset Curve preform regular Saturday shows, and so, more often than not, Willie would be somewhere else in California flinging his body down an insanely tall ramp with nothing but a helmet and some pads to protect him while Alex was trapped in LA losing himself in the familiar pattern of sticks against drums in an attempt to control his raging anxiety. It had about a 68% success rate. That success rate increased dramatically when Willie called Alex the second he knew his set was ending. It plummeted on the nights Alex didn’t hear from him until much later, or worse, heard from a different skater entirely.

Tonight was unfortunately one of those nights.

When their set ended, Reggie called out the same line he had coined after their first performance, a couple audience members chiming in with him because they actually had a bit of a fan following now, and Alex wasted no time in grabbing his phone from the fanny pack he kept behind his kit during shows. Instead of it lighting up with a picture of his boyfriend’s face, he was met with a series of missed calls and text messages from the guys Willie was rooming with for the weekend. He tried not to panic, tried to breathe in deeply to a count of five, holding it for just as long before exhaling again. It kept the anxiety at bay for as long as it took for him to unlock the phone and read the last missed message.

Don’t worry, bro. They’re gonna airlift him back to LA so you can just meet him at the hospital whenever.

Panic hit full force. What the actual fuck had happened to his boyfriend?! Alex’s fingers were shaking too much for him to open the other messages, his vision going blurry and a distant ringing sounding out in his ears. It took him longer than it should to realize Luke was crouched down in front of him, Reggie hovering just beyond the drum kit.

“You have to breathe, Lex. C’mon, follow me.”

Luke inhaled deeply before letting his breath out in a loud woosh. Alex tried to copy him, but his chest felt too tight, his throat closing in the more he tried to open it. Luke kept talking, his voice low and calm.

“Try again, we can do it together. We just have to breathe, nothing else.”

Alex inhaled with Luke that time, not quite as deeply and not quite as steady, but more air than he had managed to get before. It took several long moments before he was able to match Luke completely, the fog starting to clear from his brain, surroundings snapping back into focus.

“Great, good, just keep breathing, okay? I’m gonna go grab the office keys and we’ll take a minute in there to talk, okay?”

Alex nodded, not exactly wanting Luke to leave but knowing whatever his best friend was saying logically made sense. Reggie slipped into the space Luke had been occupying, breathing in the exact same pattern, and Alex refocused on him. When Reggie stood, Alex copied him, reaching out to grip the back of Reggie’s red flannel as he led them both off of the stage and down the hallway to the office in the back of the bar. Alex dropped onto the couch, burying his face in his hands.

“Lex? Can you tell us what’s going on?”

Reggie’s voice was soft and quiet, like a gentle melody. Alex let it wash over him, knew his boys would be able to help if he could just figure out how to get his mouth to form the words it desperately didn’t want to say out loud. He fought to speak for a few moments before finally just thrusting his phone forward. A hush fell over the room as Luke and Reggie scrolled through the texts and Alex was suddenly grateful that he wouldn’t have to read through them himself. After what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes, Luke cleared his throat and spoke.

“Okay, so good news or bad news first?”

“How can there possibly be good news?”

Alex’s throat felt raw and scratchy, the words coming out broken and strangled. Luke and Reggie exchanged a quick glance before Reggie sat next to Alex on the couch. Not touching, but close enough for Alex to feel comforted all the same.

“Willie isn’t dead or dying, so yes, there is good news. Which one do you want first?”

A significant amount of the panic left Alex’s system at the reassurance that his boyfriend was alive and going to stay that way for the time being. It hit him all at once, sending him into Reggie’s side as he let out a cry of relief. Reggie’s hand stroked up and down Alex’s arm, a low hum sounding in the back of his throat. Luke spoke again.

“Okay, so good news is that Willie is probably already back in LA, he’s at the best hospital he can be at, and he’s going to be fine.”

Alex clung to the words like a life raft. Willie was going to be fine. He turned it into a mantra, repeating it over and over again until he felt like he was back in control, no longer on the precipice of drowning. He disentangled himself from Reggie’s arms, took a deep breath, and met Luke’s gaze.

“I’m ready. Gimme the bad news.”

Luke let out a long breath before sitting down on Alex’s other side.

“The guys were in a car accident. They didn’t even make it to the competition. Willie was in the passenger seat and he took the worst hit in the collision. The other guys got taken to a local hospital, but they had to send Willie to Cedars-Sinai because of some special orthopedic department there. Max said they mentioned he would be admitted to the post-trauma floor.”

A car accident. He didn’t even make it to the competition. Alex had considered himself prepared for the worst when it came to Willie and his chosen profession. He had told himself that loving Willie meant accepting the risk that came with skateboarding, especially at the level that Willie did it. He had not once considered the fact that Willie could be hurt in some type of freak accident that had nothing to do with skating. The life raft slipped from his mental fingers, hurtling him back into the sea of despair once again.

“We got this, okay?” Luke was still speaking. “Reg is gonna call an Uber and take you to the hospital, and I’m gonna get Dante and Felix to help pack up stuff here and then come meet you. It’s gonna be okay.”

Luke’s words painted a path for Alex to follow, a way to move forward without having to fight so hard to do so. He nodded, allowed himself to be bundled out of the employee entrance and into the car Reggie had called. Clung to Reggie’s flannel again as they traversed the white hallways of the hospital, eventually making their way to a nurse’s station situated on the post-trauma surgical floor. Alex didn’t even let himself think about what that string of words implied. Not until Reggie nudged him forward to speak with the blonde-haired woman with kind brown eyes sitting behind the welcome desk. He forced himself to clear the lump in his throat and scrape some words together.

“Hi, I’m uh, my name is Alex. Alex Mercer? I’m looking for my boyfriend Willie? William, actually, his name is William Stewart. He was...he was in a car crash.”

The words came out in starts and stops, cracking at the edges as Alex forced them through numb lips. The nurse nodded, her fingers tapping across the keyboard in a sharp staccato.

“He’s out of surgery, but might still be a bit groggy. The limit is one visitor at a time, so your friend will have to wait out here.”

Alex turned to Reggie with a blank stare.

“You got this, Lex. Remember, he’s gonna be fine. I’ll be right here, and Luke is on his way too. Whatever you need, okay? We got you.”

Alex nodded even though the movement itself felt like a lie. The nurse smiled softly at him and for one split moment Alex wished he could call his mom, hear her comforting voice the way he used to when he was a scared little kid. But he had Luke and Reggie now. And Willie, who was alive somewhere in this hospital.

“He’s in room 604, just down the hall.”

Alex forced his feet to move. Forced himself to count the numbers on the wall until he found 604. Forced himself to open the door and enter the room.

Willie looked so small on the bed, his dark hair a mess across the stark white pillowcase, his leg encased in plaster and suspended from some contraption that hung down from the ceiling. He turned his head at the noise of the door opening, eyes half open and soft with sleep or maybe painkillers. The smile on his face was a mere shadow of its normal sunshine.

“Hey, Hotdog.”

Alex wanted to cry. He wanted to scream and curl into a ball and absolutely lose it. But instead, he walked to the side of Willie’s bed and sat down in the chair next to it that seemed to have been waiting just for him.

“Have you been crying? Please tell me you weren’t crying.”

Okay, Willie was definitely on drugs. Because of course, Alex had been crying.

“Yes, I’ve been crying! Are you kidding me?”

Willie winced slightly and Alex was instantly swamped with guilt.

“No, okay, let me try that again.”

He took a deep breath and reached up to brush a few stray hairs away from Willie’s face. There were a number of cuts and bruises marring his skin, a few of them hidden under bandages.

“Hey pretty boy, I’m so glad you’re not dead. I’ve never been more scared than when I saw that text from Max. I thought you cracked your head open on a halfpipe or something, what the hell happened?”

Willie tried to shrug and grimaced, like it hurt. Alex’s hands fluttered uselessly above his boyfriend’s body, unsure where would be safe to touch. He settled for grabbing the hand that Willie offered which was thankfully unmarked, nothing but some leftover scars from catching himself at the skatepark.

“I think our car flipped? There was a lot of crashing and my leg really fuckin hurt. It’s still hurts.”

Willie frowned, clearly addled from the leftover anesthesia and whatever they were giving him for the pain. Alex pulled his hand up to press a series of kisses across Willie’s knuckles, making sure to cover each scar at least once.

“You can’t die on me, Wills. I fucking love you, okay? I know you do insane stunts and regularly let yourself get beat to crap at the skate park, but you can’t fucking die on me in some stupid car accident. I’d lose my goddamn mind without you.”

“You love me?”

Willie’s voice was soft and awed and Alex suddenly realized he hadn’t ever actually said those words out loud before even though they’d been living in his brain for months now. When he looked into Willie’s eyes he saw a hint of wetness there, and his heart melted.

“Yes, I love you, you fucking dork. I’ve been in love with you for months.”

Willie grinned, dopey eyed and pink cheeked.

“Well, I’ve been in love with you for like, ever. So, I win. Gimme a kiss for my prize.”

Alex laughed and rolled his eyes, but obliged, nonetheless. Willie might not remember this interaction, but Alex would never forget it. A look of absolute peace settled onto his boyfriend’s face.

“I knew you’d come. I knew as soon as that car hit us that when I woke up, you’d be here. You’re the best boyfriend ever, that’s why I love you. And you’re so hot. Like, really hot.”

Alex’s cheeks burned, his heart kicking into overdrive.

“C’mere,” Willie nodded his head to the side and tried to shuffle over, like he was inviting Alex to climb in next to him. He made a disgruntled sound when the contraption his leg was in refused to budge, frowning up at the suspension system.

“That’s so lame, what the fuck? I wanna cuddle.”

And Alex, unable to resist even when he knew it would probably be better for Willie if he did, climbed up to wedge his body into the small space between Willie and the guardrails on his bed. He tucked one arm behind Willie’s head, pulling his face into the space between his neck and shoulder. Willie let out a contented sigh, his breath sending shivers down Alex’s spine.

“You smell like you,” Willie whispered, the sound happy and relaxed. “I love you, Lex.”

“I love you, too.” Alex sighed, kissing his way across every single cut and bruise he could reach without moving.

Willie settled into place, his body going lax and soft snores sounding out against Alex’s chest within moments. Alex let his own head fall to rest against the top of Willie’s, finally allowing himself to believe everything would be okay. When the same nurse came to tell him that his other friend had arrived and maybe it would be best to come back in the morning, he accepted it without complaint. She gave him a final moment to say goodnight, Alex taking the time to make sure Willie was tucked in tight before kissing his temple softly.

Willie was going to be okay, and Alex was going to spend the rest of his life making sure he was always the one there to kiss his scrapes and bruises.

Send me prompts for my second birthday!

[rent-a-friend-au]

Rent-A-Friend Bonus: Ajax's Street Fashion

Nika the author here, sharing the reference for Childe's street fashion during his "first date" with Zhongli~

As a Snezhnayan superstar/idol, Childe has worked hard to cultivate his sense of color coordination and mastery over fashion trends. He has been known to set trends himself, back in his home country. When he came to Liyue, he actually had no idea how to dress in a casual style suitable for the weather, so he spent many nights up in his original hotel room studying with P.A.I.M.O.N.

Despite his devil-may-care attitude, Childe can be quite meticulous!

LEARN ABOUT THE RENT-A-FRIEND AU →

Excerpt from the story

[Childe] is wearing a light gray tee-shirt printed with the words “You can do it, Guoba,” in blocky black text and a monochrome caricature of Liyue’s most beloved animated character, all on top of a thin, dark navy hoodie – no doubt aware of the way navy makes ginger hair “pop.” He has matched this with a pair of similarly dark-colored cargo pants and ill-fated white sneakers Zhongli is sure will be dirtied in the puddles as they walk. However, what catches his eye is the candy apple red fanny pack cinched around an admittedly graceful waistline, and the way ‘Childe’ holds himself with a kind of effortless, breezy confidence.

Photo reference

See alt text for more details!

LEARN ABOUT THE RENT-A-FRIEND AU →

[uselessnerdnherblahg]

I Saw the Sign

Willie gets passionate about things and Alex gets passionate about Willie. It all works out, but thank god for ghostly poofing abilities.

A poorly written first kiss fic nobody asked for.

Not my gif.

Look, Alex didn’t plan for this to happen, okay?

They were sitting on the top of the “W” on the Hollywood sign. Willie was telling him about some dude named Tony Hawk, who apparently became this famous skateboarder right after Alex died. Alex was taking note of the inflection and the tempo of his voice when he was talking about something that particularly excited him. Alex wanted to go back to the studio and recreate it all. He wanted to play the track over and over again so he could listen to Willie for the rest of his afterlife.

Willie then let out that adorable giggle, making Alex’s gaze drop to his mouth. Alex’s eyes quickly popped back up to Willie’s hoping he wasn’t caught. It was so obvious, but Willie didn’t say anything. Rather, he did the thing with his face that made Alex believe his heart stopped all over again. That thing where it was like Alex’s brain just stopped working. The thing that made him feel like he couldn’t hide any part of himself from Willie. Where it seemed as though he was just an open book for Willie to read, but instead of listening to his anxiety and shrinking away from any possible scrutiny, he felt safe to be himself in Willie’s eyes.

Yeah, that thing.

Then Willie did that other thing where he bit his bottom lip and quirked up his eyebrows, making Alex feel hot. Man, how many times did Willie do that? Knowing very well what kind of effect he had on Alex. Geez, Alex just wanted to-

The next thing Alex knew, he grabbed at the key hanging off of Willie’s neck and pulled him into a kiss.

It was a quick and chaste kiss, but Alex’s brain still short circuited at the softness of Willie’s lips. Alex’s eyes fluttered open- when did he close them- and took in the look on Willie’s face. The shock in Willie’s features matched his own as his actions caught up to him.

“I’m so sorry.” Alex let go of the key fisted in his hand so quick like it had burned him. “I- I wasn’t thinking.”

“Alex.”

“I don’t know what came over me.” Alex ran his hands through his hair at an erratic pace as the anxiety started to build in his chest. Oh god, should he leave? Poof out? Leave the country? What has he done? If he wasn’t so high up he’d be practicing his “model strut” by now.

“Alex.”

“You were just so cute and I- I- I-”

He felt a hand grab the strap of his fanny pack, jerking him forward, then Willie was kissing him. Alex instantly relaxed into it and breathed in, responding to how Willie deepened the kiss. He shifted to get closer, to finally weave his hands through that soft hair and trace those sharp cheekbones. Like he’d been dreaming of since Willie crashed into him on the Walk of Fame. He just wanted to get closer, have no space left between them and-

He was falling.

No, Alex was literally falling. Like, off of the Hollywood sign.

He was only airborne for a few seconds before poofing back up to Willie and holding onto him for dear life. Willie was cackling at the turn of events and Alex’s face went pink from embarrassment.

“Guess you’ve really fallen for me, huh?”

“Shut up.”

AO3 link- https://archiveofourown.org/works/29307912

[cursedcataclysm]

I should be doing my APUSH work right now but if I have to read one more sentence about Columbus I will tear out my own eyeballs so-

Summer Camp AU

feat. Dream Team, BBH, Sleepy Bois, Tommy and Tubbo, Fundy and Eret

DREAM 

One of the boy’s cabins counselors, helps out at the waterfront sometimes

Has this white snapback hat with a black smiley face embroidered on the front, refuses to take it off, somehow never gets dirty

Also this lime green sweatshirt, he wears it around his waist if it gets too hot though

Often paired with George as co-counselors, they’re absolutely chaotic together but surprisingly good at leading the campers, they’ve got the whole play-fighting dynamic going on and nobody is really sure if they’re dating or not, they wear each other’s clothes so often they just share a dresser at this point

Whenever there’s a spider or a bug in the cabin Dream is the designated one to kill it (or take it outside)

Actually really close friends with Techno but they have a whole fake rivalry going on at camp for the ✨ drama  ✨ (not really, they just got in an argument once and it spread across the entire camp, now it’s basically just part of camp lore that they’re ‘enemies’)

They play it up a ton at camp events and team games, but they almost always sneak out to the docks at midnight after and talk for hours

Dream and Sapnap together almost always means trouble

They’ve been friends for as long as anyone can remember

The shenanigans they get up to usually ends with them both on kitchen duty

Loves climbing trees?? Can be found just chilling in trees sometimes

Known for being a really cool camp counselor though, intimidatingly tall and won’t hesitate to step in when breaking up a fight or disagreement, has a way with kids

GEORGE

Also a boy’s counselor

George has these awful white sunglasses he won from an arcade on a staff trip, nobody has ever seen him without them, he wears them on his face when he’s in a bad mood (only Dream can talk to him without being ignored when this happens)

George is known for being a stickler for the rules, but surprisingly he’s often the counselor who starts the annual prank war, he somehow managed to dye Dream’s hair bright green in his sleep once 

A bit awkward with the campers, but he loosens up around Dream and Sapnap

Constantly steals Dream’s green sweatshirt

Makes Dream and Sapnap friendship bracelets once, is a flustered mess when he gives the bracelets to them, muttering excuses about them looking terrible because he’s colorblind, Dream and Sapnap wear them on their wrists at all times (even though the colors clash just a little bit) 

SAPNAP

Also a boy’s counselor, hosts the game nights in the main lodge every week

Has a white bandana tied around his forehead, Dream yanks it down over his eyes sometimes and they end up chasing each other around the camp for hours (and then they end up on kitchen duty, obviously)

KING of the ropes course

Spends most of his time there, actually

Ends up in the infirmary more times than he probably should after trying to do obstacles blindfolded or without a harness

Can and will carry a grudge for months on end

References a meme or vine every other sentence

Unironically wears crocs

Starts water balloon fights with Dream every opportunity he gets

Yells ‘parkour’ every time he does something cool on the ropes course, even if it’s not actually parkour

Loves giving out hugs, very physically affectionate, will sling his arm around your shoulders or punch you gently on the arm

Wrestles with Dream

Which leads to kitchen duty

BBH

In charge of sports/archery/rifle range

One of the nicest counselors, always chides the other staff (and campers, sometimes,) for cursing, helps out in the infirmary whenever he can

Campers trust him with their secrets, he knows a little bit about almost everyone but he’d never let any of it slip, he’s well aware of how important it is to the campers to have someone they can absolutely trust

Helps sort out disagreements between campers, he’s probably the best one with kids

Scarily good with a gun, holds most of the top camp records

Constantly reminding people to wear sunscreen, carries around three different types in his bag

Also a bunch of individually wrapped muffins, he gives them to campers if they want a snack

Definitely the worst at telling ghost stories

Has a lot of survival skills, will teach campers how to tie ten different types of knots in his free time

Only one who consistently wears his staff t-shirt

WILBUR

Everyone’s favorite counselor, at least according to him

Often paired with Techno

Grey beanie for the aesthetic, but also because his hair is absolutely a mess and if he shoves a hat on it it immediately looks better

Carries his guitar with him most of the time

Went through the ropes course one time with his guitar on him because of a dare

Really good at telling scary stories, but usually plays campfire songs on his guitar instead (sometimes with a kazoo if he’s in the right mood)

Absolutely torches his marshmallows and insists it’s the only right way to eat them, once ate a flaming marshmallow whole (for fun, apparently)

Coffee addict

Pretty much spends the entirety of breakfast at the coffee table

When Wilbur was a CIT he gets this black bandana from Philza, he never wears it but keeps it tied around his bed frame every summer, until one staff campfire when Tommy is a CIT. They’re all sitting around a fire and singing and joking around and Tommy surprises Wilbur when he knows all of the lyrics to one of Wilbur’s songs, and Wilbur impulsively gives Tommy the bandana (Tommy makes a joke about how it’s ‘rather plain, innit?’, Wilbur rolls his eyes and punches him on the arm, they both know how much it means to Tommy though)

Kind of sarcastic, mean in a nice way 

TECHNO

Technically a counselor but nobody knows where he is most of the time

Has pastel pink hair and will 100% help kids dye their hair too, but not before a long lecture about bleach damage and regret

Also a pink face mask (for fashion), only takes it off to eat or swim

The best at making friendship bracelets, it gives him something to do with his hands

Teaches the campers how to make friendship bracelets in the art cabin

Gives his closest friends a pink and black friendship bracelet (it’s not confirmed to be him, they just show up on your bed overnight, but everybody knows it’s Techno)

One legendary summer, Dream and Techno were paired as camp counselors for a cabin, the campers from that year all have matching pink and green bracelets, there’s still whispers about what went down then

A god at toasting his marshmallows to perfection, golden and crispy on all sides with just the right amount of melting

Gets the best care packages from home (so many cookies!!)

TOMMY

CIT with Tubbo

Only his second year at camp, but he hit it off really well with all the other staff and Philza so they offered him a position as CIT

(which he accepted, obviously)

Likes to claim it’s for all the free stuff and staff perks but secretly really wants to learn how to be a good counselor

Curses like a sailor though

BBH has to threaten to take away his access to the staff coffee table to get him to stop cursing as much around the campers

Chaotic gremlin, probably shouldn’t be put in charge of children

He’s actually very responsible when he needs to be though, likes to joke around a lot but looks out for the campers as much as possible

Self-proclaimed king of the gaga pit

Seriously, can hit the ball so hard he’s bruised some people a couple of times

Always covered in scratches and bruises and bandaids

A little too eager to throw a punch

Has a black bandana (from Wilbur) and wears it around his neck at all times, keeps it as clean as possible (even when he’s covered in dirt from various scuffles the bandana somehow stays clean)

Goes absolutely ham on a kazoo during sing alongs

Him and Tubbo sneak out one night and take a paddleboard out to the middle of the lake to look at the stars, the only reason they get caught is because Tommy falls off as they paddle back to shore, Philza yells at them for ten minutes straight but it’s worth it

Basically never wears his staff shirt

TUBBO

Also a CIT

Has been going to the camp for years

Brings his ukulele with him, sometimes he plays with Wilbur at campfires, loves sitting on the dock and playing random little tunes for the campers

Hangs out at the waterfront a lot

Volunteers for kitchen duty, surprisingly

He actually really likes cooking and hanging out with Fundy, whenever he and Bad are in the kitchen together they make muffins

Makes flower crowns!! Absolutely vibes while sitting in the fields, loves the bees, teaches campers how to weave flowers together

Lets Tommy drag him off into all of his shenanigans

Is definitely the type to laugh off insults

Very, very hard to anger but when he gets mad, he gets mad

He and Tommy have only had one disagreement ever at camp, it started with a screaming match for an hour at the waterfront, they ended up not talking for days. Wilbur’s never seen Tommy that quiet, and Eret watches Tubbo with concern when he just sits on the dock for hours, not moving. One night Tommy shows up at Wilbur’s cabin, covered in scrapes and blood in the pouring rain, he just starts crying and Wilbur carries him to the infirmary before finding Tubbo, the two finally talk for a couple of hours after BBH bandages up Tommy’s wounds, the next day they’re back to talking and laughing and causing chaos together like nothing ever happened

Tubbo still feels guilty about that

Loves hanging out with the campers, everyone is excited for when he’s an actual counselor

Wears his staff shirt most of the time, but it’s under his green flannel so you can’t really tell anyway

PHILZA

Camp director obviously

Basically a tired dad, wears a green and white bucket hat, has a fanny pack and will use it

Curses a lot but hides it from the campers

Constantly reminding everyone to wear their staff shirts even if nobody listens to him

Loves telling the campers embarrassing stories about Wilbur and Techno as often as he can

When giving Tommy a tour of the camp to prepare for being a CIT Tommy somehow manages to climb onto the roof of the dining hall, Philza has to hide his laughter while yelling at him to come down

Tommy just stands and yells “POGCHAMP” as loudly as he can, Wilbur records it on his phone and makes sure to send it to all the staff in the group chat

Refers to Wilbur and Techno as his ‘sons’

And eventually Tommy too

Also references vines and memes

ERET

Waterfront manager/lifeguard

Really chill vibes

Also makes pride friendship bracelets for the campers!! It’s kind of a tradition, if you come out to him you get a bracelet

You also can get a bracelet if you ask for one

Has a whistle, loves to sneak up on the other counselors and blow it as loud as he can

Brings a lawn flamingo to camp every year and stakes it outside of his cabin

Really close with Tubbo

Helps Bad in the infirmary sometimes

Also hangs out with Sapnap at the ropes course, loves climbing the rock wall and sitting on the top

One of the best counselors to go to for advice, along with BBH

BUDDY SYSTEM OR ELSE

You better have your buddy when he blows his whistle twice

Tubbo helps him organize the swim tests and give everyone the appropriate tag to hang on the buddy board

FUNDY

Fundy absolutely cannot be trusted as a counselor, so Philza sticks him in the kitchen as head of the kitchen crew

Fundy doesn’t actually mind, he doesn’t have to do much and he gets access to all of the snacks

Extremely chaotic when handing out snacks to the campers- sometimes he throws them, sometimes he just dumps them out into a pile on the ground, sometimes he hands them out individually, there’s no way to predict it

Needs at least 8 hours of sleep or several cups of coffee before he’s ready to interact with campers

Very sarcastic

Plays piano in the main hall sometimes

Bullies Tommy with Wilbur

A picture of him in a fox costume surfaced in the staff group chat and now everybody calls him a ‘furry’ 

He hates it

So much

Capture the flag games that go for days on end, Dream and George captaining a team against Wilbur and Techno, spies and sabotage and elaborate heists, Eret betraying his team during one of the games, water balloon skirmishes, color war but Intense Mode

Prank wars between the counselors and campers

Building epic pillow forts in the cabins and the counselors sneaking in snacks even though there’s not supposed to be food in the cabins

Just, so many possibilities

[fiddlepickdouglas]

Viva Las Vegas, Pt. 17 - With Him

Summary: Sunset Curve Alive AU, Willex, how will it go in the end?, 4.8k

@trevor-wilson-covington is the bestie who makes these lovely edits, we stan supportive friends

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16

One finger tapped on the strap of his fanny pack as Alex listened for the right bus stop to be called. If all those months since he’d seen Willie had been long, this past week had been longer. Especially since the news about Caleb had hit hard and every minute in the studio now felt like the band was precariously teetering on the edge of a cliff. He was going to try not to let any of that get in his way today, though. He’d made it to Saturday and Willie was only a few streets away, and he didn’t care what happened for the rest of the day - it was going to be good.

Finally he heard the next stop announced for where he needed to get off and he pulled the cord that told the driver to make a stop. Stepping onto the sidewalk, his heart bounced around in its chamber like the Tazmanian devil from Looney Tunes. He was glad that Willie lived in the basement of the apartment building he occupied because it would’ve been the worst if Alex forgot which room he was in and spent hours frantically knocking doors.

It was hard to tell if he was moving quickly or if his mind was just racing, but in either case, he eventually found himself at the door. For a second, he simply took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair, trying to get a visual of Willie immediately pouncing on him the moment the door opened out of his head. It wouldn’t exactly be unwelcome, but Alex was realizing how desperate he was to be with him and was amazed at how it affected his imagination.

Lifting a hand, he made sure he knocked loudly. Soon after, the door opened, and Alex was greeted with shining brown eyes, silky, gorgeous brown hair styled into two braids, and a smile he could make home in. Willie.

“Hey, come on in!” Willie was saying, standing to the side and gesturing for him to enter. Crossing the threshold, Alex gazed at the humble space, taking in the details with heightened interest. “This is mi casa!” He began showing Alex around. “We’ve got the main living space, very cozy. The kitchen to your left, but no dining room so it’s all criss-cross applesauce on the floor - makes it extra chill. Bathroom through the back. The sink and shower handles will sometimes shock you, so don’t mind all the electrical tape.”

It was surprisingly accommodating for a dingy basement, and Willie had already made little additions that spoke volumes about him without words. A king size mattress sat in the corner of the ‘main living space’ on the floor with a small bookshelf beside it. The bookshelf only had a handful of cassette tapes and a Walkman lying on top, with a few sketchbooks on the middle shelf. Next to that, the dresser had a small collection of vintage soda bottles and a camera sitting on its surface. Glow-in-the-dark star stickers covered the ceiling above the bed. Even a couple cat toys could be spotted on the floor. Immediately, Alex approached the area where Willie’s desk sat surrounded by sketches hung on the wall.

“So these are your drawings?” he asked, although the answer was obvious. They were so good. Willie followed him over, the squinty smile still in his eyes.

“Yeah. Some are new. Most of them are attempts to recover what Caleb tore up.”

Alex looked at Willie apologetically, even though the loss of Willie’s previous work wasn’t his fault. Without warning, a pressure on his leg and the sound of loud purring announced Sheldon’s presence. The cat looked up at him and blinked slowly, already begging for attention. Heart melting, Alex bent down to pet him.

“Hey, Sheldon,” he said. “I forgot how cute you were!” He smiled as Sheldon rubbed his head against his hand with more affection that he’d likely seen from any other creature on the planet. Well...maybe there was one other that matched it. Alex had heard about how pets could take on the temperament of their owners, and suspected this was a clear example. “He’s gotten so big since I last saw him.”

“Yeah, he’s supposed to be almost two years old, if Escobar guessed his age right.”

Standing again as Sheldon pattered off, Alex returned his attention to the wall of art, looking at the pieces more closely.

“So which one is your dad?” he mused.

Willie untacked one of them and held it out for Alex to examine. “This one.”

Holding the edges carefully, Alex gazed in amazement at the detail Willie had caught. The edges were certainly less defined, but the scene inside the truck was so easy to visualize that Alex could almost feel the leather of the seats and the windchill from the window. He wasn’t sure what began burning in his chest as he peered down at the image, but it was profound and complex.

“I’ve thought about seeing if I could find him, but I think with my memory it’s kind of impossible,” Willie told him.

“He looks so happy here. I don’t get why you would end up as a foster kid.”

“Yeah, I wondered that too. Maybe he didn’t have a choice?”

Alex looked at Willie’s face, and he could tell half of him was lost in a world of what-ifs and other questions. He was always trying to seem so easy-going, and to an extent he truly was, but he couldn’t hide the constant sense of upheaval that rested on his shoulders. At least, Alex was picking up on it more, now that he knew the things he did. He may have been biased, but he couldn’t imagine anyone not fighting their hardest to keep Willie.

Suddenly his gaze was drawn to the unfinished work on the desk, and recognized it as a portrait of himself.

“Wow.” The word fell out of his mouth.

“Oh,” Willie started with a hint of shyness. “Obviously that one isn’t done, so…” He reached to put it away.

“You got that far off of memory, though,” Alex said. “I’m impressed. And you make me look good.” He offered an encouraging smile. “Maybe some time today I could be a model for you?”

Willie cocked his eyebrow, surprise and playfulness making an adorable combination on his face. It made Alex’s smile grow wider.

“Well, we’ve got a whole day ahead,” Willie said. “Your wish is my command.”

“Okay,” Alex said, leaning onto his back foot casually, one side of his lip curling with intrigue. “Well, I wanna see where you go around here. You seem to have a knack for finding the best spots. We can play it by ear.”

“What’s that one song with the one phrase?” Willie asked. “‘Any way the wind blows?’” He sang shyly, clearly playing down what Alex could tell was a nice voice.

“Bohemian Rhapsody,” Alex smiled. Willie’s job at the record store was at least giving him a good taste in music. “Don’t worry, you’ll know everything about the classics once you hang out with me enough.”

An emotion flashed in Willie’s eyes and after a moment Alex realized what those words were actually saying. He held his gaze, hoping he could communicate his intentions clearly, unlike the last time they’d seen each other. Willie swallowed, and his expression remained excited as he loaded his backpack and led them out the door, board in  hand. Alex followed him, deciding not to question which direction they were going.

First, they made a stop to buy a bunch of apples. In classic Willie fashion, he went to a bodega, and this time he communicated with the cashier in rough Spanish. Alex knew he was showing off, and smirked at the notion that Willie enjoyed impressing him.

“So what do we need these for?” Alex wondered as they left the bodega. “Besides a ton of apples for lunch.”

Willie’s secretive smile made Alex raise an eyebrow.

“It’s a surprise.”

A little while later, they stood before the most unlikely place in all of Los Angeles: a horse barn. Staring at the building as if it loomed fifty feet above him, hands in his pockets, Alex gulped and a lump of dread landed in the pit of his stomach.

“Oh no,” he muttered apprehensively.

“Oh yeah,” Willie said, turning to him with a thrilled grin on his face.

Alex wasn’t exactly afraid of horses...he just had no idea what to do around them and therefore was not sure what to expect from them. Also, he would’ve worn different pants if he’d known this was on the agenda.

“I promise, they’ve got some really chill horses,” Willie tried to ease his nerves. “I’ve gone on this trail enough times. Don’t worry, you’ll know everything about riding once you hang out with me enough.” He winked as he threw back Alex’s line with a sly smile.

Unable to argue, Alex shook his head and used the hand in his pocket to gesture forward, signaling to Willie he was up to the challenge. He watched him practically skip inside and he had to jog to keep up after him. They signed in and then were led to two stalls.

Willie immediately gravitated toward a tall golden-colored mustang stallion with a dark mane, apparently both already familiar and happy to see each other. Alex watched him gently greet and essentially coo at it while comfortably stroking its nose and then feeding it an apple. He longed to have that sort of talent with other creatures, and simultaneously realized that he yearned to receive that same tenderness.

Once the horses were tacked up and one of the instructors had given Alex some brief pointers on how to ride, he found himself following Willie on a trail while mounted on a painted mare. The only philosophy he could adopt out here was to be gentle and not get lost.

“Not so bad, your majesty,” Willie called over to him.

An extremely nervous laugh elicited from Alex’s throat involuntarily, only making Willie laugh in return. Alex rode a little closer so they were nearly side by side on the trail.

“I’ve been here once,” he said. “I think I was about twelve? My mom thought that it would make me change my mind about taking ballet classes. We rode for maybe fifteen minutes before I got so nervous we had to turn back around and go home. Never made it through the full trail.”

“Man, that sucks,” Willie commented. “I didn’t know you did ballet.”

“Yeah, that and a few other types of dance. I was forced to quit a little couple years ago. That’s about when we got serious as a band, so I just found something else to bother my parents with.”

He could see the gears click into place as Willie came to a few conclusions about his parents and gave an emphatic nod.

“Well, I’ve always wanted to learn how to dance. That was the one thing Caleb had promised to teach me. He’s the worst, but he definitely knows how to dance.”

Suddenly, Alex remembered watching Caleb’s movements when he’d served him and the boys at the diner. Of course he could dance; everything had been fluid and smooth. All he could say to that thought was “huh,” at first. Then after a few moments: “I’ll have to teach you one of these days then.”

Willie’s eyes crinkled at the corners, happy at the prospect.

“Yeah, okay! Add that to our to-do list.”

Alex chuckled. They had a to-do list now. He bit his lip as he continued following Willie along the trail. It was a gorgeous day and in this area the sky was so clear compared to further inside the city. Greatly contrasting his experience from years ago, Alex felt himself become much more at ease and felt confident enough to take greater control of his horse. Willie pulled out his camera and snapped a few scenic photos every once in a while.

Eventually, they stopped at an outlook and Alex had to take in an awed breath. The view was clear for miles all around them. Green hills spanned the landscape in every direction with patches of city speckled in between. Even the ocean line was visible from there. How did Willie know how to find these?

“Hey, Alex!” Willie called, lifting his camera. “Say cheese!”

Turning to face him, Alex flashed a genuine smile as Willie captured him atop his horse against the scenery. He was usually pretty camera shy, but this time he really didn’t mind. Keeping memories like this actually felt important to him, unlike the many times he’d been forced to pose with his family at functions he’d also been made to attend. Those occasions had always felt so insincere - less about enjoying the memory and more about trying to prove their status as the polished, functional family everyone aspired to.

He saw Willie dismount for a moment and stretch his legs. Gripping the reins and looking around in uncertainty, Alex realized he’d gotten on before ensuring he could properly get off. Thankfully, Willie noticed and came up to him, hands raised.

“Okay, so just...carefully lift your foot out of the stirrup and swing your leg over toward me,” he instructed. Sucking in a breath hesitantly, Alex did as he said. “Alright, then...here.” Willie offered a hand for Alex to grab so he could slide off with ease. Landing on the ground, he leaned into Willie to gain his balance, and felt a congratulatory pat on his back. It took more restraint than Alex anticipated to not simply wrap his arms around him and sit like that for an indefinite amount of time. They had all day ahead of them; he didn’t need the sudden fear of losing him to derail things out of nowhere.

“Sorry if I look like a wimp about all this,” he said, letting go of his hand.

“Nah, don’t sweat it,” Willie assured him, shaking his head. “This is...this is new.”

His eyes seemed to take Alex in from head to toe and Alex could’ve sworn the charge in the air between them would buzz if they got closer, spark if they made contact. It was almost like that moment in front of Willie’s door the week before. For a few seconds they remained locked in that trance before Willie took hold of the horse’s reins and handed them to Alex.

“Technically this trail could take hours, but I’m guessing this isn’t all you’re interested in today,” he said. “What do you say we stretch our legs a bit and then ride back?”

Looking from the reins in his hand back to Willie, Alex nodded.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

Opening his backpack, Willie handed him an apple and then bit down into one of his own. Taking a bite, it was one of the most refreshing apples Alex ever eaten. They walked the horses a little ways and tried to get good pictures of the different views around them. Alex asked to try his hand with the camera and get a few good shots of Willie. He didn’t consider himself a photographer, but he doubted when the photos got developed that they would turn out badly. The way Willie smiled made him seem like he was made of sunlight from the inside out.

As they rode back to the barn, Alex kept replaying those moments where he’d refrained from making a move over in his head. This had been strike two. If he continued on like this, he was going to hate himself for the rest of eternity, he was pretty sure. Was it some weird kind of side effect of the whole ‘Willie come back to life’ thing? Watching him affectionately say goodbye to his horse once they were ready to leave, Alex looked at his own horse and raised a tentative hand up to her nose.

The mare gazed back, patience gleaming in her eyes. He finally set his hand down on her nose and gently rubbed it up and down, smiling a little to himself. This wasn’t so bad. He could do this - it was just a matter of getting through all the barriers he made for himself in his head. Moving his hands from the horse’s nose, he stroked along her neck, and caught Willie smiling at him from the corner of his eye.

“You wanna try feeding her an apple?” he asked.

Thinking for a few seconds, Alex nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Pulling one out of his backpack, Willie placed it in Alex’s palm.

“Alright, so hold it out in front of you like this…” He positioned Alex to offer the apple. “And keep your palm flat.”

Alex uncurled his fingers and after sniffing at it a little the mare ate it out of his hand. He could ignore the sensation of her mouth touching him because Willie still had his arm around his shoulder to hold him steady. They looked at each other, and Alex wished he could get a proper shot at Willie’s face at that angle with the camera.

“Looks like you’re gonna get the hang of this,” Willie commended.

Alex looked back up at the horse, a little bit of pride swelling in his chest. “Yeah, I think I will.”

Later, they went to the beach at Alex’s suggestion. He was perched on the surface of a picnic table, posed as if he were looking off into the distance. Willie sketched with great concentration, having taken his hair out of his braids so he could run his hand through it. The late afternoon sun brought out all the best color contrasts in their surroundings - one of the things Alex loved about coming to the beach at this time of day.

“So I have a question,” Alex started, trying not to move too much. His tendency to talk with his hands kept getting him in trouble.

“Shoot,” Willie prompted him, not looking up.

“Did Caleb let you go to school or anything? Or did he provide any sort of education at all?”

Squinting, Willie looked thoughtful for a moment.

“So, after the accident, he told me that I’d had to be taken out of school,” he began, continuing to sketch. “Which makes sense, I guess, if I forgot everything. I remember some basic things, like math wasn’t hard to pick up again. Once I was recovered enough to go places, he just let me go to the public library and find whatever I wanted to read. But he always insisted on not having reminders of who I was before and said it was supposed to be helping me ‘become my own person’. He got rid of things like my school yearbooks and old journals and things. I didn’t think anything of it at first because he’d just called it useless clutter and I believed him. As soon as he decided I was fit enough to work in the diner and help out at the hotel, he told me to forget about school. Anything else I picked up was from watching TV, or listening to the radio, or something. Sometimes I’ll just remember I know something after hearing about it and it’s like it was just always there.”

Listening intently, Alex marveled at the whole thing. The fact that Caleb was not only negligent, but actively discouraging Willie from knowing anything, made him wish he could take down the man’s whole career. However, he figured Willie probably had a lot of his intelligence still untapped. If he’d been able to get away from Caleb and somehow create a life for himself in the span of a few months, Alex wondered what else he was capable of.

“What’s something you remember?” he wondered.

“I guess I used to be really obsessed with space. Just planets and stars and all that. I can spout off facts about Jupiter’s moons and stuff like that. Did you know that the moon Europa has a saltwater ocean under a layer of ice?”

Alex shook his head. “No, I didn’t. That sounds really cool though.” He thought of the stickers on Willie’s ceiling and smirked a little before reassuming his pose.

“I sort of wish I could remember being in school,” Willie was saying. “Everyone else seems to just share all of those memories and understand each other that way.”

Alex saw his brow furrow, and could tell he felt left out. He pondered on his own experience growing up in public school. There was almost no other way he would’ve met Luke, Bobby and Reggie if they hadn’t all attended the same schools. While he could easily critique and complain about it to no end, he knew it was a privilege.

“School is definitely hard,” he told Willie. “But I did get my friends out of it, and I guess that makes up for it. If it’s any consolation, you could just complain about Caleb like he was your horrible English teacher who thought he knew more about the subject of your essay, but you cited all of your sources and they proved him completely wrong.”

Willie laughed. “Why? Did that happen to you?”

Alex bobbed his head from side to side and feigned looking thoughtful . “Maybe.”

“I kind of like reducing him to a loser English teacher. He just sounds petty and sad.”

“That’s high school,” Alex confirmed.

Leaning back from his work for a minute to take it all in, Willie brushed a hand through his hair.

“Here, you wanna take a look at it?” he said. Alex hopped off the table and went to stand over Willie’s shoulder at the drawing and was immediately rendered speechless. The detail was impeccable, but Alex was more impressed by the feeling he got looking at it. Willie had managed to make him appear...handsome, and pensive, and fascinating, like anyone else could look at him and create a million unique ideas of who he was. However, it wasn’t anyone else looking at him, it was Willie, and what he’d captured felt like the truth. Alex couldn’t really explain what that meant, only that it was an honest representation.

“Okay, I know I said the one back at your place made me look good, but this is...this is unreal.”

He could see Willie trying to be modest, but the corners of his lips couldn’t stay down. Funny enough, he appeared even more unable to find words, and simply beamed as he looked back and forth between his sketch and Alex’s face.

A sudden impulse came over Alex, and he kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head, dropping it on top of Willie’s skateboard and backpack. Willie sat looking flustered for a moment.

“Wanna swim?” Alex nodded toward the waves, bidding Willie to follow. He didn’t wait for him to catch up as he immediately began running into the waves up to his knees. Alex knew his pants would be even more ruined the second he hit the salty water, but he didn’t care. Now the sun was beginning to set and the chill of the waves was refreshing, and he couldn’t express what he felt just then in any other way.

Willie tackled him from behind, climbing onto his back and nearly knocking him over into the shallow tide. Clambering back to his feet, Alex splashed water at him. They began a playful water fight back and forth, until they were both drenched. Eventually, Alex tried to catch hold of both Willie’s hands in an attempt to prevent being splashed anymore. He had the advantage of longer arms, but before he could get a tight hold of the second arm Willie’s leg swept under his and they both fell just as a large wave washed over them.

As the water pulled back, they sat in the sand in a tangle, laughing. All Alex could think of was how pretty Willie was in this light, hair swept back off his face with tendrils resting over his shoulders, sun gleaming in his eyes and constantly shining from the inside out. The laughter died between them and he caught a look in Willie’s eye that made him wonder if he appeared to him to be just as perfect in that moment.

This time his mind and body worked in sync as he lifted a hand and gently pulled Willie into a short, tender kiss. All the self-flagellation from earlier was washed away in one pure moment, and exhilaration moved into its place. It felt soft and sweet, just the way he expected it should. Just as quickly as he’d let go, Willie went in for another one, a little longer and a little deeper. One hand remained caressing his cheek while the other wrapped around his upper back. Alex couldn’t help smiling into another kiss; he was too happy to care about anything else. Hardly a week ago, this had been impossible.

As they let go, their hands came together and they looked into each other's eyes, both releasing a relieved chuckle. Willie looked at the rest of the beach behind them and Alex’s eyes followed, but at this hour there were too few people around and no one paying attention to them. Turning back to Alex, Willie sighed and shook his head with a smile.

“Wow,” was all he said, biting his lip.

“Yeah, I’d definitely do that again,” Alex smirked, until the joy in his chest converted it into a full grin.

A wave washed over them again and they both stood, shaking out their hair and trying to wipe off whatever sand they could. Heading back up the beach, Willie grabbed Alex’s hand so they could make their way up together. The sun was nearly set but Alex was sure it had just gone into his chest, bursting with excitement. Once they reached the picnic table, they gathered their things and Willie offered to carry Alex’s shirt inside his backpack on the way home. Thank goodness there were a few patches of grass so Alex could try to get a little more sand off his feet before putting his shoes back on.

“So how long have you been sitting on that?” Willie teased as he slung his backpack over his shoulder and they left the beach.

“Shut up,” Alex laughed, knowing he was being called out.

“No, really!” Willie bumped his side jokingly. “I want to know!”

Tilting his head back to try to remember, it didn’t take Alex long to give him the answer.

“Since day one,” he told him.

Surprise swept over Willie’s face as he looked at Alex.

“Seriously?” he asked.

Alex nodded.

“Me too.”

It was Alex’s turn to look surprised. Without saying another word, he took Willie’s hand in his and then kissed it before continuing back toward his place. The whole way they talked about all the different things they needed to do together in the future. Riding on more horse trails, dancing lessons, skating lessons, art modeling sessions, going to band practices and gigs, visiting the record store while Willie wasn’t working, etc. They both agreed that the entire day technically counted as a date, and all further plans would as well. Alex was reminded once again that he didn’t have a notebook to write things down in, and vowed to have one for the next time he saw Willie. Once they reached Willie’s door, they had already put their shirts back on and it was completely dark outside.

“Are you free any time next week?” Willie asked, still holding onto Alex’s hand.

“I wish I could say yes, but probably not. And as much as I’d love to give you my number, it’s really not the best idea.”

“Well, I could give you mine,” Willie said.

Alex shot him a confused look. Holding up a finger, Willie dug into his backpack until he found his sketchbook and tore off the corner of a page, quickly scribbling one down and handing it to Alex.

“It’s actually the one for work,” he said. “But if it’s what we can do for now, I’ll do it. Kyle won’t care.”

Looking at it for a minute and then stashing it in his now-dry pocket, Alex took hold of Willie’s chin and went to kiss him again. It was really hard to stop, but they soon broke apart.

“I gotta go,” Alex murmured.

Willie only nodded, squeezing his hand before letting go and slipping his own into his pocket.

“I’ll call you.”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Once again heading up the short set of stairs to the sidewalk, Alex rubbed his lips together, relishing in the taste of what he and Willie had just done. He couldn’t imagine anything sweeter.