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tswhiisftteedr · 8 months

Note

ANYTHING Lute x Reader, i just need to see more of this perfect gal whose had like 3 minutes total of screentime

Girls ☆ One Shot

☆ Lute x Human Soul!Fem!Reader:

After having met you on your first day in heaven, your life and lute’s would change for the better as you had found your other half despite your original predicaments.

Words: 4228

Warnings: Mature Content, Explicit/Graphic Language, Honestly Nothing Kinky, It’s just plain girl on girl smut. Homophobia. Lute might be ooc. NOT PROOFREAD.

Notes: Okay right off the bat, some bullshit logic about angels being able to tell if someone is queer, also lute is gay but has some major internalized homophobia so for a good chunk of this she’s rude to the reader just because they’re gay.

☆ more under the cut. ☆

Frankly, the scenario felt weird, especially given the fact that both of you were, well, 'you.'

From a logical standpoint, it didn't add up, not in the slightest. However, in the grand scheme of things, ‘does love really need to make sense?’

The response to that question was unquestionably, no, when observing your relationship with Lute.

It all began when your seemingly stable life abruptly crumbled. While crossing the street, mind you, at a red light, fate took a dark turn as a truck with faulty brakes struck you, ending your life on the spot.

There was no reincarnation into another world after this encounter with truck-kun; you were flat out dead.

In the blink of an eye, you found yourself standing before the gates of Heaven, where Saint Peter meticulously inspected his book, akin to the VIP list of an exclusive nightclub – or so it seemed.

However, instead of the typical club scene with artificial lights, drugs, unpleasant odours, drunk individuals, and a sense of desperation, you were enveloped in a heavenly realm. Fluffy clouds, savoury food, sweet fragrances, joyful company, and an overwhelming sense of acceptance surrounded you.

This was truly paradise, and you were relieved that your life wasn't too problematic. After being shown your potential residence—a beautiful house with a spacious garden—and touring 'Heaven city' with a friendly Angel couple, you enjoyed exploring your surroundings.

However, the perfection took a turn when you accidentally encountered the first unfriendly 'individual' in Heaven.

"Watch it," the woman with white hair warned you, and after scanning you from head to toe (much like her golden-winged companion), she remarked, "I guess they really let anybody in these days, even people like you."

With those words, she walked away accompanied by the non-human-looking 'man,' which seemed to be the norm in this place. However, you couldn't shake off the unease caused by her reference to 'people like you.'

Soon, you discovered the meaning behind her comment. Apparently, angels here could distinguish between cis-straight and queer individuals.

The reason of ‘why?’ remained unknown to you, but what became clear was that, in her opinion, you didn't deserve Heaven—not based on your actions but solely due to your sexuality, ‘and that pissed you off.’

You had planned to confront her the next time your paths crossed, and that moment arrived three months later, long after you had moved on from the incident;

Now, you were patiently waiting in line to sample drinks at the recently opened smoothie bar. The atmosphere was serene and heavenly, as expected.

Just as it was about to be your turn to order, you were rudely jolted by the announcement, "Move it, bitches, Adam’s in the houuuse."

You found yourself pushed aside, forced to witness the obnoxious Angel now placing his order.

Midway through his order “Pineapple smoothie with extra pineapple, tapioca, grass jelly, make it an extra-large with extra sugar, then she’ll have-“ it suddenly dawned on you that he was the guy with the white-haired companion from last time. Before you could fully process it, you turned around to find the white-haired woman right beside you.

Upon noticing you, she shot a disgusted glare and 'tsk' your way. Frustrated, you thought, 'That rude bitch- Not only did she cut in line, but she also gave you a look like you were a turd on the incredibly clean streets of heaven!'

This time, you were determined to speak your mind to her;

"Whats your problem?" you question her with frustration evident in your tone.

"Excuse me?" she retorts, disdain dripping from her voice.

"I'm asking, what's your issue with me? Our first encounter, you flat out implied I didn't belong in heaven. Seriously, for what, for being gay? Firstly, that's bullshit because my worth as a person shouldn't be based on my sexuality. Secondly, it's just plain homophobic. Isn't heaven supposed to be all about accepting thy neighbour? So instead of treating me like I'm beneath you, how about an apology for our last interaction, Miss off-brand Kanade?" You lay it all out, determined not to let her disrespect slide this time. She was to blame before, but allowing it again would be on you, ‘and that wasn't going to happen.’

"Oooooh, cat fight!" remarked the golden-winged Angel, treating your dispute as some form of entertainment. Also 'cat fight', was he fucking serious?! That term left you thinking, 'misogynistic asshole!' in response to his words.

"Do you even know who you're speaking to?" the woman questioned, exuding a sense of superiority.

"Yeah, tear that bitch a new on, Lute!" the golden-winged Angel chimed in.

"I don't 'lute,' and if you were truly that significant, I would’ve. But it sure as hell doesn't seem to be the case!" you retorted with a touch of spite, placing extra emphasis on her name.

The shop as a hole gasped at the mention of the ‘H word’.

"I’ll have you on that I hold the title of Lieutenant of— in the Heavenly Army. And as one of God's warriors, I deserve respect from someone of your, let's say, slightly above dreadful mortal soul status," she declares, almost slipping up and inadvertently revealing the existence of exterminators.

"Sure thing, 'heaven warrior.' Firstly, when did we ever need an angel like you? It's been peaceful here. Secondly, I couldn't help but notice that slip-up. I don't know your real occupation, probably still military judging by your mannerisms, but certainly not some simple member of this 'heaven’s army,'" you respond, now sure that she's concealing her true job from most of Heaven's population.

"You insolent, miserable, lower life form! Consider yourself fortunate that your meager good deeds in your pathetic human life landed you here. Otherwise, I would have had the pleasure to—" she began, but was abruptly interrupted by her 'companion' or perhaps 'boss.' "Chill out, danger tits," he calmly stated in a tone vastly different from his earlier goofiness. The shift in his demeanor was genuinely unsettling.

And her attitude swiftly transformed; she composed herself and turned to face him. "I apologize, Adam, sir. I allowed my emotions to take over and stepped out of line," she said, directing her apology not to you but to her boss.

With that, the two individuals departed, leaving you to independently apologize to your fellow angels for the disturbance.

Was that the final occasion you heard or saw them? No, because not even a month later, here you were;

Another fun aspect of heaven was its schools, designed for souls who aspired to study on Earth but lacked the opportunity or had their lives cut too short to complete their educations.

Another facet of this scenario allowed the souls of teachers or individuals aspiring to aid in unfulfilled dreams to volunteer for assisting with the children's education.

That's why you found yourself present today, supporting Miss Asiimwe with her fourth-grade anglophone class during a spelling bee. Just as the classroom door swung open, an unmistakably loud and obnoxious voice rang out, "What up turds, big bro Adam's in the house!"

Your day took a turn from a wholesome one contributing to kids' education to a shitty one, because if that ‘pompous jerk Adam was here, she sure would also be—‘ "Oh, it's you again," Lute remarks to you, her voice less harsh than the last encounter but still carrying a hint of bitterness.

Truly, ‘It was a waste for her to be so beautiful with that kind of attitude’. Despite her rude remarks about your sexual orientation, you may or may not find her attractive—perhaps not the wisest choice, and you were aware of such. But hey, after all, dominatrix existed, and they get paid handsomely to insult people. So, ‘is it really that unconventional to be into her?’

Yes, it very much so was. However, before having the chance to delve into those thoughts, Lute abruptly snapped her fingers right in front of your face to divert your attention.

"What are you doing here?! And a quit staring at me like that!" she demanded, replacing her fingers with her face, now uncomfortably close, and you could feel her breath on your face.

"Um, well— I'm assisting this classroom's teacher, something I've been doing since week one in heaven, so you're not kicking me out," you replied with a defensive tone, slightly taken aback by her question but drawing from your previous interactions.

"I never claimed I would, chill out, mortal soul. You shouldn't project the stress of your inadequacy as an inferior being into this classroom's atmosphere. Stress spreads easily, and you wouldn't want it affecting the children," she declares with authority, though her tone and gaze had some gentleness in it.

Truth be told, she might have found herself drawn to you. It was a difficult pill to swallow, given her blatant homophobia and the fact she found the thought of ‘her’ being attracted to a woman absolutely absurd.

Upon initially glimpsing your figure and sensing a certain fire within her, her instinctive response was to be rude to you.

"You mentioned you've been assisting here since your first week. How frequently do you come by?" she inquires, attempting to initiate casual conversations with you. By now, she had acknowledged that you weren't to blame for her attraction. While you might be the source, her draw toward women wasn't dependent on whether she found you hot or not.

"Well, I try to stop by at least twice a week. I believe having familiar faces during learning helps children feel safer and more supported," you admitted, surprised that she's engaging in small talk.

"I completely agree. Having a trusted adult present during learning builds a strong foundation for children's education, especially for the younger ones," she adds, gazing ahead at the classroom where the children have transitioned from spelling to playing with Adam.

"Leave it to the man-child to get along with kids," you joke to yourself, watching how effortlessly Adam bonds with the children. They're engrossed in a game involving knights and kings, with Adam, of course, playing the role of the king.

To your surprise, Lute chuckles at your remark before quickly composing herself. "Well, he is the father of humanity," she states, a faint smile appearing at the corner of her lips.

"I guess I can't argue with facts," you reply, your own face lighting up with a smile at the sight of the joyful children.

After that day, your meetings with Lute became a regular occurrence. Whether it was the joyful atmosphere of children immersed in learning or something else, she grew quite friendly with you over the course of two months. Your interactions even extended beyond the school, evolving into outings to cafes and amusement parks.

Today was one of Lute's off-duty days. You weren't exactly sure why heaven required an army, but you refrained from probing too much, especially during your hangouts, which were focused on enjoying each other's company rather than discussing work.

Currently, you were at CheeLand, the largest amusement park in all of heaven, offering rides for both the faint-hearted and adrenaline junkies alike.

You leaned towards the gentler side when it came to this type of amusement, while Lute embraced the thrill. That's why you found yourself anxiously gripping your seat’s restrains as the cart ascended the rails, anticipating the impending drop.

Your white-haired friend had successfully egged you on, convincing you to join her on the ride. Despite calming yourself in line, once the ride began, all your anxiety rushed back;

Lute, growing excited as the carts continued to climb up, remarked, "This is going to be so fucking fun! Can't believe you were such a baby about it in line." Her teasing tone shifted as she noticed your terrified expression.

Softening, she grabbed your hand and reassured you, "Listen, you'll be alright. The rides are completely safe and secure. Plus, I'm here with you." Her last sentence was emphasized by a comforting squeeze of your hand, prompting you to turn and look at her. "And worst case scenario, you're already dead, so there's nothing to be truly afraid of," she joked, easing the tension slightly.

But then came her next words, reigniting panic. "Okay, get ready, we're almost there." Glancing forward, you realized, "Oh, shit." She was right, and in an instant, the drop arrived. Both of you screamed at the top of your lungs throughout the entire ride…

You emerged from the ride, your head still a bit foggy and your voice hoarse from screaming, with Lute holding your hand.

As you both walk towards a nearby bench for a moment of composure, she remarks, "See, wasn't so bad."

"The fuck it wasn't!" you retort. Just as she's about to tease you for your reaction, you abruptly pull her into a tight hug in a serge of emotions. "But thanks for being with me. I doubt I could have even mustered the courage to join the ride lineup if you weren't here. I'm really grateful you're with me," you whisper softly.

She was startled by the contact, causing her to freeze momentarily. Although her initial instinct was to pull away due to nervousness, she recognized this as a vulnerable moment for you. Awkwardly, she hugged you back and gradually melted into the embrace.

After 5 minutes, the reality of the position hit her, and nerves kicked in. "You're welcome, now get off me, you weirdo," she insists, pulling away from the hug. However, all you can do is smile at her. Despite her attempt to maintain a front, she can't help but crack a smile too. 'She actually enjoyed how close you just were,' but that was something she kept to herself.

At some point in time, you had even overheard her referring to you as her friend to her boss, Adam, who questioned her sudden shift from his side to yours. Her face turned beet red as she defended you—a sight you wouldn't have expected from her at all.

However, that flushed look she harbored became increasingly frequent over time. You had become accustomed to her mannerisms and the way she expressed emotions, often lashing out due to difficulty in self-expression.

You had grown familiar with what brought a smile to her face, what upset her, and especially what left her flustered. By then, you had realized she liked you based on her behaviours, yet it seemed she hadn't recognized the romantic nature of her feelings.

Aware of her confusion, especially considering her upbringing and training, you knew the absence of romance in her education left her clueless about such emotions. Despite this, you chose to let her navigate these feelings on her own. It wasn't your place to impose that you were better aware of her own emotions than she was.

Yet, you played a role in guiding her toward this realization by incorporating more physical gestures, of course, always within her comfort boundaries: holding her hand more often, offering more frequent hugs, ensuring there was some form of touch between you two.

A common occurrence was when you walked together, either with your arm around her or your pinkies linked.

Her flushed face became so habitual that seeing her without it seemed unusual; the red tint became her typical expression when spending time with you.

Take, for instance, that day when you visited the newly opened restaurant on 'Holy Avenue.';

Opting for a Caesar salad, Lute aimed to play it safe in case the other offered dish didn't appeal to her taste. However, as she munched on her food, her gaze kept wandering to your dish, which seemed quite appetizing.

She attempted to deny her desire for a bite, but after spending so much time together, you had become adept at reading her emotions.

Acknowledging her unspoken request, you picked up a small portion with your fork, gesturing for her to join in. Initially embarrassed, she hesitated to refuse, but a single pleading look and she relented.

Her face flushed from the intimate gesture, the question of ‘why was she getting so worked up over your friendly act’ lingered in her mind as she finally took the bite-size food portion. The fact that she found you visually pleasing wasn't the answer she sought. Her feelings were deeper than mere physical attraction.

This realization was further confirmed as she spent the entire night unable to sleep, her mind consumed by thoughts of your hangout and the fact that you had fed her.

Tossing and turning, she found herself questioning the nature of your relationship: were you friends? Yes, that was obvious. Were you a couple? No, definitely not. Did she want you to be more than friends, an item perhaps? "Uuh, fuck," she groaned into her pillow as the realization hit her that she had developed feelings for you.

By now, it seemed like everyone and their mothers were aware of Lute's feelings, evident in her actions toward you. Not only had she begun reciprocating your physical advances, but she also initiated some herself.

Whether it was greeting you with a warm hug after a week apart, including you in her imposed outings with Adam, or playfully wrapping an arm around your waist during these occasions, her actions spoke volumes.

She'd whisper sweet jabs about her boss into your ear, leading to fits of laughter. Adam, in response, would roll his eyes at your intimate gestures, teasing Lute for being too obvious about her affection.

Despite her embarrassment and denials of any romantic feelings, you knew better than to take those at face value.

Yet besides the deep connection you shared, she struggled to express her feelings toward you. Accepting that she liked you had already been a significant challenge. Therefore, the idea of asking you out was currently off the table.

She needed to communicate her sentiments without uttering a word, and that's where today came into play—Valentine's Day.

Lute had dedicated the entire previous day and night to baking the perfect sweet, chocolaty treat for you. Not being accustomed to baking, she faced numerous trials and errors before getting it just right. Now, the moment had arrived for her to present these treats to you.

Having texted you to meet her at 'Wings Caffe' around 10, she patiently occupied a table since 9:30 a.m. following your confirmation text.

Initially, her plan was to simply hand you the chocolate, letting you make assumptions and agreeing when you eventually concluded that she liked you. However, things didn't go as planned, and nerves took over;

"Aww, that's so sweet, Lute. Thank you, really. I didn't get anything today, since y’a know, single as a Pringle," you remarked, pointing to yourself. "These chocolates mean a lot. By the way, they look fantastic. Where did you get them? I'd love to buy more for a snack," you inquired, holding the heart-shaped box.

"Made them," she mumbled, visibly embarrassed by your compliments.

"Really? Wow, I didn't know you baked. Maybe I'll come over to your place more often and have you whip something up for me," you begin. The implication of spending more time together tugs at Lute's chest, but your last sentence hits her hard. "I'm so grateful to have a friend who's skilled at baking and willing to make me things," you say as you start munching on the treats.

'Friends'—that's right, nothing more. It appears she couldn't rely on the heart-shaped box or the chocolate with words of affirmation in pink sprinkles to convey her feelings. If she desired more than friendship, she would have to be honest about her feelings this time.

However, true to her defensive nature, instead of clarifying the true reason behind giving chocolate on the day of love, she merely went along with your characterization of it as a friendly gesture.

"Yeah, I guess you're lucky to have a friend like me, someone so good at everything," she boasted, her voice proud, yet her expression betraying a hint of sadness.

Noticing the inconsistency, you set the box down on the table to free your hands and gently took hers. Meeting her gaze directly, you squeezed her hands for reassurance. "I wanted to let you work things out at your own pace, but we're not making any progress," you began, and she looked at you wide-eyed.

"I like you, Lute, and I know you like me too," you stated frankly. Before she could employ her defense mechanism, you added, "I'm not saying we have to start dating right away. I understand if you're not ready for that. But please keep in mind, as long as you don't outright reject me, I'll keep trying to pursue a relationship with you."

Upon hearing those words, Lute sensed the release of all the built-up stress and fear of rejection.

A newfound confidence surged within her, making her bold enough to grab your face and plant a bold kiss in plain sight for everyone at the café to witness. "Fuck yes, I'll be your girlfriend," she declared as she pulled away.

With a simple "Now, let's get out of here," the two of you stood up from your seats, leaving the café behind as her apartment became your new destination.

Upon reaching her place, things escalated rapidly—like, really rapidly. Mere seconds after stepping through the door, she was all over you.

Passionate kisses, hands exploring every inch of your body, fingers grabbing at whatever they could find. Nails scratching and digging, teeth occasionally biting at your skin when her mouth left yours.

Given the speed with which she undressed you, it seemed like she had envisioned this scenario for quite some time.

Before you knew it, you were lying on her bed, completely devoid of clothing, and that's when she began to work her magic;

Squirming within her grasp, she held your thighs down while eating you out. Breathless, you questioned, "I thought you were a homophobe before we met. How are you so good at this??" The overwhelming sensation of her tongue left you in awe.

You can practically feel her grin against your lips as she responds, "Yep, I was. But after developing a crush on you, I did my homework. Figured it be useful at one point or another. Though, ‘didn't think I'd be that good on my first actual trial.”

"Please don’t stop" you croak out between pants.

“Don’t worry, I won’t." she promised, increasing her rhythm and pressure.

As she continued to please you, you couldn't help but wonder what changed in her. This was way different from her usual flustered self. ‘Was it the time spent together? Or maybe the touch? The combination of both?’

Regardless, you decided to focus solely on the present moment, losing yourself in the sensations coursing through your body. Lute showed no signs of slowing down, proving her dedication to satisfying you.

Eventually, you reached climax, shouting her name as you finally released, your wings fluttered and your essence coated her tongue. Her response? She swallowed it down greedily, moaning around your pussy. When you finally fell back onto the bed, panting heavily, she climbed up beside you, her breasts pressing against your chest.

"That was... intense," you managed to utter between breaths.

"Glad you enjoyed it," she whispered, nibbling on your earlobe.

As you settled down together, Lute traced gentle circles on your stomach before trailing her fingers along your inner thighs. Her thumb brushed against your sensitive folds again, teasingly circling your tight entrance. "Do you want more?" she asked softly, her voice husky with desire.

You nodded weakly, unable to speak coherently yet.

Without further delay, Lute positioned herself between your spread legs again, positioning her own pussy just inches away from where she had been earlier. Lowering herself slowly, she began to rub your clits together, creating a new wave of pleasure that reverberated throughout both of them.

With each thrust of her hips, she increased the pace until you were moving in sync, your moans growing louder as you neared another orgasmic peak.

Your bodies intertwined, united in shared ecstasy, leaving neither wanting nor regretting your decision to explore the concept of a sexual relationship together.

Lute's hands grabbed onto your hips, holding you steady as she picked up speed, driving them both closer to climax. Your nails dug into her shoulders, leaving shallow crescent marks in the soft flesh; evidence of your shared intensity.

You could feel the familiar buildup starting again, your entire body tensing up in anticipation. With one final powerful thrust, Lute groaned loudly, her orgasm crashing over both of you like waves crashing onto shore. In response, you let out a high-pitched cry, joining her in blissful release.

Breathing heavily, you stayed in the same position for several moments longer than necessary, savouring the afterglow of your passionate union.

Eventually, you separated, both panting heavily. Lute rolled off of you, lying next to you on the bed, her chest heaving rapidly.

"That was... incredible," she panted out, reaching over to grab a nearby water bottle and handing it to you.

"Yeah, it was... Although I have to admit, having sex on the first day of making it official is pretty needy," you playfully tease her.

"Oh, shut up," she retorts before planting a kiss on your lips once you've swallowed your sip of water.

This relationship was going to be wilder than what you had anticipated…

Thanks anon for requesting!

©tswhiisfttedr. dn translate, or plagiarize.

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dirtyzucchini · 3 days

Text

Let me tell you something about Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father and, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, remained, attached as liaison with the Canadian consulate.

There was never much of a chance that Benton Fraser would grow up to be what most people would casually call "a regular guy". From what little insight we get, no part of his childhood would have been standard. Looking at the anecdote Bob Fraser tells in Burning Down The House, we can assume that Benton grew up in a cabin his father built by hand, in a location remote enough and far enough North that living in an igloo during the construction of said cabin was a sensible thing for his parents to do. We see one picture of the family in Good For The Soul, and it is a puzzler:

Now, I wasn't around in the mid to late 1960's when that photo would have been taken, and I've never been to Canada's far North, but everything I could find anywhere tells me that that is not how (white!) people dressed then even up there, and no, I am not talking about trendy fashion. Everyday clothing looked pretty much like what we still wear today, but the people in that picture don't. They look like this guy - a European "explorer" whose picture was taken in 1889:

Side note: I am purposely only talking about white/western/mainstream society in this post because the Frasers are white.

I wonder what drove them to live like this, and so far away from other people? It can't have been money, Bob would have made enough to support them. I guess Fraser's parents weren't regular guys, either.

Anyway, we know that Bob wasn't around much while Fraser's mother was alive, and even less so after her death. He handed the boy off to his own parents instead, and Benton was raised by literal, real life Edwardians, people who were born before the invention of band-aids and bubblegum. Public radio broadcasts were cutting-edge technology when they were young. I'm glad they stepped up, and I'm sure they did their best, but they weren't exactly well-equipped to prepare a child for life in modern society. They were librarians who for some reason moved around a lot. When he was eight, they took Benton to a place called Alert - the northernmost continously inhabited place in the world. Unfortunately it's inhabited by soldiers and researchers who go there on six-months-tours, but it counts because the tours overlap. Fraser would have been the only child there, and, the times being what they were, his grandmother the only woman. What librarians would have done in Alert we can only speculate about, but between this and the fact that they helped build an English-speaking library in China before the revolution, we can safely assume that we are dealing with another generation of non-regular Frasers here. This idea is supported by the fact that they fed Fraser arctic tern for Christmas. Each bird weighs under 130 grams, and they would be hard to come by in northern Canada in December because they migrate to literally the other end of the world after breeding in the Arctic in the summer. I'm not entirely certain what this says about Fraser's grandparents, but it sure says something, doesn't it?

This bird may scream, but it does not scream Christmas to me.

Listen, I LOVE that Fraser's grandmother taught him how to box from a book.

Perhaps this one from 1922? In this book, the writer "not only describes the various moves of the game and traces the history of their development but deals comprehensively with all the factors of body and mind that make for success in the ring." Sounds like a good choice!

I do NOT love that she taught him that being in the hospital for three weeks after being shot in the back is "babying yourself". She also raised Bob Fraser to be the kind of man who tells his journal "The last time I saw Ben, he was barely tall enough to reach my belt. When I said good-bye he shook my hand. Never a tear or a complaint. Seven years old and he's already a stronger man than I'll ever be. Someday I'll tell him.", and friends, I DO NOT love that at all. That is NOT a healthy way to deal with emotions, and I think we can agree that growing up guided by these mindsets did Fraser no favors at all. Look at how he lives! His apartment is absolutely bare-bones, no personality, and after that he literally lives in his office - this is a man who gets REALLY uncomfortable when he's comfortable, is what I'm saying. Everything he does is quick and efficient to make sure he can devote a maximum amount of time to his work. I'd bet "Idle hands are the devil's workshop" was a very common saying in the Fraser household.

Look, our upbringing informs who we become, how we approach life, how we connect to those around us. Fraser's view of the world is completely different from how other people see it. Long before he's displaced geographically, he's displaced in time.

He grew up without TV, and while living with librarians gave him access to a large number of books, the libraries they worked at served remote communities and would not have been all too well funded. It stands to reason they would have had to make their books last as long as possible, and that new purchases would have been, shall we say, conservative? Copies of beloved classics, books with general appeal, books with educational/instructional value would have made up the bulk of purchases. Even if the librarians wanted to, there would have been little money to buy more controversial books - and it doesn't seem likely that Fraser's grandparents would have wanted to. Fraser probably grew up on adventure tales, detective stories and, as a teen and young adult, the classics from Austen to Shakespeare.

When he gets to Depot in Regina to become a Mountie he has nothing in common with the other recruits, and that continues throughout all his career. There's a reason he's still a Constable after all his years of service: he's severely lacking in social skills, and his upbringing is a big part of that problem*. He was raised by Edwardians on Victorian (and Romantic) mores and values, and bridging that gap to make connections with people from what's essentially a different world is very, very hard.

TL,DR: Fraser is both an alien and a time traveler, and we should remember that when we talk about him.

*Other parts of the problem are his queerness and neurodiversity, but those are topics for another essay. Please know that by problem I do NOT mean there's something wrong with him, I mean that there's something wrong with how society treats people like him.

Big thank you to @sammaggs and @sammeltassensammelsurium for excellent feedback!

#due south

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noellawrites · 13 days

Text

The Concert - Yandere!Marcus White x Younger!reader

summary: Marcus seizes an opportunity to join you at a concert, but gets jealous when he realizes you have a crush on the lead singer. Marcus does what he has to to make sure you go home with the right guy tonight.

warnings: alcohol use, non/dub-con touching, kissing and fingering, age gap (15-ish years), possessiveness

requested by: @wicked1will0sparkles

Ever since your first day at Cloud 9 when you had met Cheyenne, the two of you barely went anywhere without the other.

You two were close in age, always had weekly sleepovers and you had been right by her side when she took the pregnancy test that ended up positive.

So you were completely devastated when she bailed on your sacred, long-anticipated plans for Bo of all people.

“Cheyenne, come on! We bought these tickets like three months ago and my parents won’t let me go alone!” you whine, crossing your arms over your chest in frustration as you lean against the lockers.

“I’m sorry (y/n), but Bo needs me right now! Who else is gonna hype him up before he gets on stage at Kenny Roper’s bar mitzvah?” she explains with a frown as her hand rests on her bulging stomach.

“Ugh okay, I guess I’ll just sneak out and hope my parents don’t notice,” you shrug.

After Cheyenne walked away, you shove a hand into your locker and feel around for your blue vest, tugging it out angrily.

“Woah, hey, what’s wrong?” you hear a voice ask from behind you. You look to your side, then slightly up, where Marcus White stood next to you with his arms crossed across his broad chest, a concerned expression on his face.

“Oh, I was just supposed to see my favorite band tonight, Shattered Hearts. Chey and I were going together but she had to cancel,” you explain sourly.

“Oh man, I love Shattered Hearts!” Marcus exclaims with a dopey grin.

Truthfully, he'd never listened to the band before. But he wasn't going to miss out on his chance to spend an entire night alone with you.

After you both finished your shifts for the day, you parted ways. You had planned to meet at the small downtown venue once you got changed and ready for the night.

Later on, you gleefully rummaged through your closet, trying to pick out the perfect outfit. Shattered Hearts' lead singer, Tommy Valentine, would be front and center like always so of course you planned on wearing a Tommy-inspired outfit. Ripped white tights, short shorts and a low-cut top (covered by a long coat) and your favorite jewelry pieces to complete the look.

You went for a heavier makeup look than usual, as Shattered Hearts was in the pop-glam-rock vein. It couldn't hurt, making yourself look a bit older and hopefully catching Tommy's eye if you could get close enough to the stage.

"I'm going to the concert with my co-worker tonight so don't worry, I'll be safe!" you yell to your parents as you make your way out of the house and into the evening air.

Once you arrive at the venue, you see Marcus standing outside, leaning against the wall. He immediately brightens up and you don't miss the way his eyes rake over your body from top to bottom.

"Hey, (y/n)! You look... wow!" he laughs, a blush heating up his cheeks. He can't help but look your body up and down once more, taking in the way your white tights stretch over your thighs and your top hugs your body in just the right ways.

"Thanks, Marcus! Here's your ticket," you say, handing him the ticket that was supposed to be Cheyenne's.

"I'm really excited to hear Breathless," you sigh, walking up to the end of the line as Marcus follows.

"Uh, yeah, me too. I'm like— I'm just excited to hear their newest album," he laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Oh, I didn't tell you? This is the anniversary tour for the Rock Solid album, I don't think they'll be performing much of their new stuff," you frown.

Marcus is saved by the security personnel, approaching you both and patting you down as you entered the doorway and handed your tickets to the employee.

"Damn, this place is dark," Marcus laughs, looking around as you step in together.

"C'mon, I wanna get close to the front!" you exclaim, grabbing Marcus' hand and pulling him with you towards the stage.

He barely has time to process your hand on his as he follows you across the dirty, dim room.

"This is perfect, he'll definitely see me here," you say with a smile, looking up at the rusty light above you that illuminated your area. You leaned against the wooden pole next to you which supported the shabby balcony above.

Marcus raises an eyebrow. He? Who was he? Marcus was hoping to at least kiss you tonight, but were you already obsessed with some other guy?

"I'll go get us some drinks," he says, gesturing towards the bar.

"Oh, thanks! I'll keep our spot," you smile, looking down and adjusting your outfit to show off even more skin than it already was. Did you know what you were doing to Marcus? How his skin buzzed whenever you touched, how he imagined leaning down and kissing your lips? How desperately he wanted his hands all over you?

He fumed as he headed over to the bar, ordering some cheap beers and shots of vodka. Who was this asshole you were so obsessed with?

When Marcus returns, you knock back your shots together. Some men in black tee shirts bring equipment onto the stage as the sound of applause echoes through the room.

"So, uh, this guy you want to see you... did you invite someone else tonight?" he asks, trying not to sound like a jerk.

"No, I just think this is the best spot for Tommy Valentine to see me. He's single, just broke up with Maxine McDonald. Did you know the band's guitarist met his girlfriend because she was a fan at one of his shows?" you say excitedly, watching the stage.

Of course. The jerk you were obsessed with was the band's lead singer. Marcus couldn't help but roll his eyes, thankful that you were turned away from him.

"C'mon, drink up. I'll go grab us some more," Marcus says, playfully tilting your beer up in the direction of your mouth. He would need to be a lot drunker if he was gonna watch you lust over some punk poser all night.

By the time Shattered Hearts came onstage, you and Marcus had already finished several drinks. Marcus felt fine, but you already felt woozy, tipsy, almost falling over a few times. Marcus caught you of course, and you leaned on his body as to not embarrass yourself further.

Marcus went to grab another beer for himself, and when he returned, you were clinging onto the wooden pole.

"This one's my favorite," you mumble as Marcus cracks open his fourth beer.

"Yeah? Is it?" he asks, an amused expression on his face.

You nod dumbly and Marcus wraps his warm arm around your waist, the drinks emboldening him.

He looks down at you, your beautiful face illuminated by the dim lighting. He just couldn't help himself anymore. Marcus leans down, pressing his lips to yours and deepening the kiss into a make-out session as your brain catches up and you start to realize what's happening.

His tongue pushes into your mouth, silencing your protests as he traces his warm hands over your shirt. You almost think you're having a bad dream until you hear someone nearby say, "eww!"

It's only as his hands move into your shorts that you're able to push him off of you. He recoils, staring at you with a pissed-off expression.

"Wh-what was that, Marcus?" you exclaim, putting your hands out in front of you to keep him at a distance.

"I thought we—"

"I told you, I'm interested in Tommy!"

"He's way too old for you," Marcus hisses.

"So are you!" you huff, crossing your arms.

"I'll go get us more drinks," he sighs, realizing you've both sobered up a bit.

When he returns, you're miraculously still there, eyes fixed on Tommy.

Marcus keeps his hands to himself for the rest of the concert, suffering more and more as each song thrums and passes. The band wasn't even that good and Tommy Valentine was just some forty-something, washed-up guitarist with eyeliner.

After the concert, Marcus heads to the exit but is surprised that your small hand manages to pull him back.

"We're staying. Tommy usually comes out afterwards if he sees someone he likes. And I definitely seduced him with my eyes. Will you get us a round of shots for when he comes out?" you ask, waving Marcus away as you watch the curtains for any sign of movement.

Twenty minutes pass, the venue almost cleared out and heavy with the stink of sweat. Your shots sit untouched as you slump down in your seat.

"You wanna go outside?" Marcus asks tenatively.

You shake your head like a petulant toddler.

"You... wanna finish these off?" he asks, gesturing to the shots.

You nod, sitting upright and taking all three shots consecutively. It had sunk in now that Tommy didn't see anything special in you, hadn't been wowed by your sexy outfit or your eyes or how you knew every word to every song.

Almost immediately, you slump sideways against Marcus and he rests his arm against you comfortingly.

"Let's get some fresh air," he sighs, leading you outside where you lean against the brick wall, fighting the urge to pass out.

"You look amazing tonight. It's Tommy's loss," Marcus says, hand stroking your arm.

You look up at him, tears in your eyes, mouth framed in a pout to either keep the tears from falling or the vomit from escaping.

Marcus sighs, leaning down and bridging the gap between you. You return the kiss in your own sloppy, half-conscious way. One of his hands plunges into your shorts as the other makes it's way up underneath your shirt.

You're mumbling, moaning, making some sort of noise with your mouth but his mouth covering yours muffles it.

Marcus can't wait any longer, mouth drifting down your neck and chest, sucking and leaving marks of his affections.

"N-n—stop—" you mumble, hands awkwardly trying to pull him closer or push him away, you weren't fully sure.

"Fuck," Marcus mumbles against your chest, causing a gasp to rise up your throat. His fingers trace your hole, spreading around your wetness as you let out a whimper.

"God, I wanna fuck you so badly," he groans, grabbing your waist and sucking on a new spot of skin.

"M-marcus— I-I should go huh—home—" you mumble.

He pulls away and examines his work with a big, dopey smile. You were so messed up, clothing rumpled, hair undone, love bites all over your neck and chest.

He turns you and leads you to a reflective window, and you gasp at the look of yourself. So many hickeys that your coat couldn't even cover. You looked... like a slut.

"I—I can't go home like this! My parents will kill me!" you whimper.

"You can come to my place, my mom'll love you," Marcus offers.

"Uh— no, that's—“

"I'm not letting you walk somewhere alone. Come with me and we can take the bus to work tomorrow," Marcus suggests, raising his eyebrow.

"Ugh, fine," you sigh, leaning against Marcus as he walks the two of you to his mom's house.

You try your best to ignore Marcus' childish, messy room and dirty sheets as you undress and climb in next to him, still feeling drunk and used up.

You hold back a shriek as he pulls you into his chest, body flush against him. "This is nice, huh? My perfect toy," he laughs, kissing your bare shoulder. You shudder at his touches and objectification of you.

"Marcus, stop," you sigh, and his grasp loosens, but not forever. You know he'd be pulling you close in the middle of the night and you had half a mind to sleep on the dirty floor.

The next morning, you borrow one of Mrs. White's long-sleeved shirts for work but it still doesn't cover everything. You walk into Cloud 9 beside Marcus, embarrassed and red-faced.

Marcus throws an arm around you, and when you get to the break-room, he pulls you into his lap as all of your co-workers stare.

"Pretty epic, huh? Got 'em all to myself," Marcus grins, placing a big hand on your thigh and rubbing it creepily.

"Uh, (y/n), your neck—" Cheyenne stutters, eyes wide at the confusing scene before her.

"Yeah, it was all me. We had a pretty crazy night last night. You were all over me, begging for it, huh?" Marcus brags, leaning back and bumping fists with Isaac as he passes by the two of you.

You keep your eyes fixed on the ground, tears threatening to fall down your cheeks. You were quite a catch in the store, everyone knew it, and now Marcus was asserting his dominance at having made you his.

#marcus white x reader #marcus superstore #superstore x reader #superstore imagine #yandere marcus white #yandere superstore #yandere superstore imagine #superstore marcus #superstore

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starfirewildheart · 9 months

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Scars and Souvenirs

Chapter 11

Summary: Sy and his lady both retire from the army but not before tragedy befalls Sy. He slowly tries to adjust to life again on their ranch.

Pairing: Sy / OFC

Word count: 2,869

Rating: mentions of war; being a POW, death and animal abuse. Nothing graphic I promise but if the fic continues (if y'all like it) I'll add warnings for each chapter. All mistakes are mine, sorry.

Scars and Souvenirs

Chapter 11

(It's still the start to mid December and not Christmas yet. I apologize but rl took over and I didn't have time to write Sy and Debbie's holidays! Thanks for being patient and I hope you're still reading!)

Debbie was flitting around the kitchen baking cookies and preparing to make candies. Today was the day! Mike was coming to stay with them today. The judge decided that while the investigation of Mike's father was underway that Mike should be housed somewhere else and since Deb and Sy were going to put him to work on the ranch they would also take temporary guardianship of him. Just as she was taking a tray of cookies out of the oven and placing the pan on a cooling rack she heard them come. She nervously wiped her hands on a dish towel.

“Smells amazing in here sugar.” Sy gave her a kiss and wrapped an arm around her waist. He reached over and snatched a still hot cookie off the pan and took a bite.”Mmmmm, perfect!” He licked his lips.

Deb swatted his arm, “they aren't finished!” She smiled over at Mike and handed him one of the cookies. “There is a damaged cookie pile for sampling,” She winked.

“ Thanks,” Mile grinned then took a bite. The sugary cookie just melted in his mouth. It was the best cookie he'd ever had. “ It's good, thanks.” Mike was still unsure of exactly what was happening to him. No one had ever helped him before and he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Did Sy give ya the tour of the stable and horses?”

“Yea,” he nodded. “It's sad that the animals were so abused.”

“People suck,” She nodded then paused, “most people I mean. Some people are nice.” She fidgeted for a moment and Sy laughed then leaned in and kissed her head.

“She says what she thinks,” he winked at Mike who grinned.

“So,” Deb bit her lip. “Would you like to put your stuff in your room?”

“I'm doing time. Am I not sleeping in the stable with the horses?” Mike sighed. “This is punishment, right?”

Deb approached him and put her arm around his shoulders leading him towards his room, Sy grabbed Mike's bag as he followed. “Yes and no. This is your punishment for things that you did; however, this isn't jail.”

Mike looked around the bedroom they led him to. It was much bigger than the one at home and sparkling clean. It was plain, light grey walls, white borders, two bi windows with deep blue curtains and a matching comforter on the twin bed.

Sy and Deb leaned back against the dresser. “ There are rules here that will be followed or the court will take you straight to juvi,” Sy explained as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“We get up early. We work hard all day no matter what the weather. It's hard, it's smelly but it's rewarding. We want to make the rules clear, no surprises and be open and up front about our expectations,” Sy explained.

Mike braced himself for what was coming. This was going to suck and he knew it. Things never worked out well for him. At least he would know what was expected of him and not be set up for failure just guessing at what they would want. “Ok.”

“Rule number one,” Deb said, “Know that you are safe here and you can talk to us about anything. “

“Rule number two,” Sy continued, “If you need anything, tell us. We are not here to hurt you.”

Mike shifted uncomfortably and chewed on his lip. What was this? What were they trying to do? He crossed his arms and just listened.

“Rule three,” Deb added “We expect you to do what we ask. It's hard work but you will always be safe. We will teach you everything we want you to do.”

“Rule four,” Sy said, “You will not leave the farm without us and we need to know where you are at all times.”

“Rule five,” Deb continued, “You keep all your meetings with the case worker and we join you at those meetings because right now we are actively your guardians.” She pushed away from the dresser and moved toward the door. “These aren't rules but,” She looked at Sy nervously. “I know the room is plain because I'd like you to make it your own. Decorate it, put up posters, we can even go shopping and get you lamps and bedding you like. We are going to be working on cookies and candy most of the night and we would love it if you would join us.” She put her hand on his shoulder for a moment before going back to the kitchen.

“Take the time you need to settle, put your stuff away and acclimate to your surroundings. When you're settled you know where we'll be,” Sy nodded and left the room.

What the fuck was happening? People weren't this kind, never to him. This had to be some sort of set up, right? Who were these people?

~~~~♡~~~~

Debbie laughed as she swatted Sy's arm. “You are gonna make yourself sick like that.”

Sy, very unapologetically, licked the spoon full of frosting again. He'd confiscated the remainder of the large mixing bowl as soon as she had separated most of it into smaller bowls for coloring. He wasted no time samplithisng a spoon of the sugary mix and his eyes rolled back as he moaned with pleasure. “Why haven't you made before?”

She stirred gel colors into the smaller bowls. “Well between the desert, then rehab and going straight into building this ranch we never really had time to play house,” She shrugged. “Thought it was now or never.”

He frowned at her, pausing with the spoon midway between the bowl and his mouth dripping more into his beard. “Now or never?”

Mike walked into the kitchen having decided to try to make the best of this situation. He could hate them until he found out what kind of people they were, right? “So What ca….” He paused mid sentence and blinked at Sy. The man had white, frothy stuff all in his beard around his mouth. “Rabid bear,” he thought and apparently said out loud.

Debbie laughed but the more she looked at the frosting on Sy's face the more she lost it. She had tears in her eyes and giggle snorted pointing at her perplexed boyfriend. “Porn star,” was all she managed before erupting into another fit.

Sy arched his brow thinking she had totally lost it as he looked between her and the frosting. What she was laughing at finally hit him. The white frosting looked like cum all over his beard. “Oh funny,” he smirked at her. Moving quick as a flash he had her arms pinned to her sides with one of his around her waist. Taking the spoon out of the bowl he smeared it on her face as she struggled to get free.

“Austin Lee Syverson don't you .. You brat!” She huffed through her giggles.

“What? I just wanted us to match.” He acted innocent but his burgeoning erection against her ass said anything but.

She turned her head toward him, kissing his cheek, smearing more icing on him before squirming free and getting some paper towels to wipe her face. “As you can see Sy has issues behaving,” She winked at Mike, who was trying really hard not to laugh and failing.

She took the spoon outta Sy's hand again and smeared some on Mike's cheek. “Now you match, “ She beamed. “Would you like to work on baking cookies, decorating cookies or making candy?”

Mike blinked and stepped back when he got icing-ed but laughed when Sy laughed and shook his head. “I…I'm not sure I would be good at any of it. I don't want to mess anything up.”

“Like you could make more of a mess than my grown-ass toddler? It's not about being perfect or even good at it, it's about having fun! We aren't on a baking competition to be judged. If it tastes bad we'll just make you eat it all,” She smirked and hugged an arm around Mike’s shoulders. I have some more drop cookies ready to bake. You and Sy working together can get through those and some crackle cookies while I work on these and we can move on to candy together.” She set up what they needed and gave them directions on what to do.

Sy and Mike worked well together talking and laughing easily. Sy fell into that leadership role like he'd never left it. He was firm, informative and fair to his men in Special Forces and was made to lead and help. It made Deb all tingly watching him in control.

They moved through the cookies quickly, both Mike and Sy eating several and soon getting a sugar rush. They were both laughing and zooming around talking about how good the sugar cookies Deb decorated looked.

They, mostly Debbie with assists from Sy and Mike, made two types of fudge, chocolate covered pretzels, divinity, buckeyes, and truffles. They even made cookie and yogurt treats for Aika. Conversation was easy and they moved fluidly like they knew what the other needed and it was shocking because they were strangers to each other but it felt like they'd known each other for a lifetime.

The trio worked through lunch though the boys were stuffing themselves with cookies and candy.

“I don't know about you fellas but I'm tired after all of that,” Deb sighed as she closed the dishwasher and started it. Cleaning up was the worst part but they got it done. “I am desperately in need of a shower but afterward how about we order some pizza and watch movies tonight?”

“Sounds perfect to me,” Sy nodded.

“Sure,” Mike nodded. “I need a shower too.”

“When we were in Iraq we had to shower outside with cold water, which you would think is good in the desert right? But not at night when it's freezing cold. So… when we designed this house we agreed we would get a tankless hot water heater which means you can shower in your bathroom while I shower in the master.”

He was impressed having never heard of it but hot water was awesome. Sometimes his old man didn't even pay the utilities so he could buy more whiskey. Something she said just dawned on him. “Wait, I have my own bathroom?”

“You didn't explore your room?” She asked.

Sy led Mike back to his room and opened the door near the foot of the bed. “I thought it was a closet,” Mike said as he stepped inside. It wasn't huge but it was still bigger than the one at home.

“Closet is to the left kid,” Sy pointed. “You towels and washcloths are here as well as extra toilet paper,” he pointed to the things in the linen closet. “Over here,” he opened the medicine cabinet over the sink, “There is a new toothbrush if you need it as well as toothpaste. Mouthwash is here and I wasn't sure about shaving supplies but we can pick up what you need when we head into town if you want. I put the shower gel and shampoo I use in this shower for you but we can get the type you like in town too.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“We left you to explore your room but you didn't seem to get very far?” Sy explained.

“No,” Mike shook his head. “Why are you being so nice to me? In juvi or foster places I'm just given the basic lice scrub down a bed and enough food to survive. Here I'm being treated like a..” he was searching for the word.

“Kid? A human and not a prisoner?”

“Yea,” Mike said softly.

“When Debbie met you she saw something in you. We asked about your case and your priors and she said we needed to help you.”

“You agree or do you just always do what she tells you too?”

Sy crossed his arms over his chest. “I'll be honest, the jury is still out for me. It’s a fifty-fifty chance for me. I think there's a chance you're a punk who has his old man's disdain for the law and feels untouchable because of it or you're just a kid who was dealt a shit life with a shit father trying to survive the best way you can. I'm willing to get to know you to find out which one you are. I'll give you my trust and respect until you give me a reason not to. You keep acting like you are now, you keep getting treated Ike this. You fuck up you get to meet Captain Syverson and we start doing this military style. You prove to me that you don't want to be here or you hurt her in any way. I'll personally deliver you back to a jail cell and let the system take over.”

Mike took a moment to process what Sy said. Part of it pissed him off. How could anyone think he was like his father? He despised that man and was ashamed that people even knew they were related but Sy really didn't know him and had no way of knowing that. It was fair for Sy to want him to prove who he was, he couldn't fault him for that. “Fair enough,” he looked Sy in the eye and nodded.

Sy grinned and patted him on the shoulder then headed to his and Debbie's bathroom.

Deb was just finishing up with her shower when she heard the bathroom door open and close. “Everything ok?”

“Yea, just showed him where stuff was and talked a bit. He had questions about why we were being good to him.”

She smiled when she felt his arms wrap around her waist as she finished rinsing her hair. “Hi,” She grinned, pressing a kiss to his lips.

“Hi,” he rumbled as he nipped at her neck.

She turned them so that he was under the spray and started washing him by scrubbing the stiff sugar out of his beard, chuckling as he moaned when she scrubbed with her nails. “Is my bear gonna start purring?”

“I don't purr, I rumble,” he insisted though his voice sounded serene.

“Mmmmhumm,” She nodded and continued to wash his body dropping to her knees to scrub his thick thighs. When she looked up at him his blue eyes were full of pure lust. His big hand cupped the back of her head as she leaned forward and pressed soft kisses along his hard shaft. Using her hand to stroke him she carefully worked his balls in her mouth knowing how much it drove him wild.

“Fuck,” he rasped as he fisted her hair. “Keep that up and this will be over quick sugar.

She worked him with her hand as she slipped away from his balls letting them leave her mouth with a soft pop then lucked a stripe all the way up his cock. She pulled the foreskin back and licked and sucked the head then sucked him as deep into her throat as she could bobbing her head as she licked and sucked until his thighs were trembling, his moans were a litany of curses and his balls were tightening. With a wicked gleam in her eyes she soaped up her hand and reached up to cup his balls but instead rubbed across his puckered hole and slipped her finger in deep. He squeaked and clinched around her finger but before he could say anything she was pressing on his prostate causing an electrical storm of pleasure to roll through his entire body.

“Fuck Debbie, fuck, fuck, fuck!” He whined as his entire body trembled. He was caught between her hot mouth on his cock and that wicked finger touching his prostate and it was a vortex of pleasure. His entire body tinged and rolled as the orgasm ripped through him and he blew his load in her mouth pumping wave after wave of cum as she worked him through it only stopping when his moans turned to soft whines from over stimulation.

Debbie smiled as she held him to her chest rocking him as they sat on the bench seat gently rubbing his face as he came down from his Endorphin high after washing her hand. “Hi there,” She smiled as he looked up at her with glazed eyes.

“Hi,” he leaned in to kiss her and his hand slipped between her legs.

She gently moved his hand and kissed his pouty lips. “I want you so bad darlin but we have a kid waiting on us. Tonight? Please?”

He pressed another kiss to her lips and nodded. “I don't like this part. I want to be able to fuck you when and where ever I want to,” he growled.

She shivered as she leaned against him. At least he still wanted her. Maybe things weren't as bad as she'd thought.

Tag List

@shellyshellshell

@enchantedbytomandhenry

@mrsevans90

@summersong69

@mollymal

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#henry cavill #henry cavill fanfiction #syverson fluff #syverson x you #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill smut #captain syverson fanfiction #henry cavill characters #syverson

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weirdly-specific-but-ok · 5 months

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twilight for the uninitiated

HEYLO BABYGIRLS, BITCHBOYS, AND BOYCOTTERS OF THE BINARY! It's your favourite (and I should hope only) Good Omens Mascot and Maggot Prince here. Yesterday (earlier today? idk I sleep in naps) way over on the maggots server some of y'all were insulting Twilight. Which I am 100% supportive of, but for Bildaddy's sake, you need to insult it CORRECTLY.

But should you have to hate-watch or hate-read it? Nah, you've got me. In middle school I got late to school because I was reading the books in the bathroom instead of getting ready. I'VE GOT YOU! Gonna mix up the book and movie for optimum enjoyment.

Dramatis Personae: Edward Cullen, aka Sparkles the Vampire. Bella Swan, aka Bella Sue. Jacob Black, aka Wolfy Eggfucker. Charlie Swan, aka Gunboy ACAB. And Dr Carlisle Cullen, aka Zaddy. @orpiknight taught me that word.

ALRIGHT! So Bella Sue's mum and dad are divorced and she lives with her mum. But her mum's like lmao fuck you when she gets a touring boyfriend and tosses Bella Sue to Forks, where it rains a lot, and where her dad Gunboy lives.

So Bella Sue grabs a cactus because that represents Arizona and hauls ass, and Gunboy makes awkward comments about her hair. Bonding! But then he gets her a pickup truck, which is wild-o.

First day of school and Bella Sue is very popular because Small Town and the boys are very tingly in the ballsacks if you catch my drift. Anna Kendrick asks her why she's white (YOU CAN'T JUST ASK PEOPLE WHY THEY'RE WHITE, KAREN!) and then promptly forgets she was in the movie.

INTRODUCING THE VAMPIRES! This is a vampire story, by the way. There's Himbo, Blonde Murderer, and they're dating/married. There's Bi Awakening and some constipated looking dude from the Confederate army, and they're dating/married (don't worry about it). There's Sparkles, of course, and they all walk into the cafeteria being Hot apparently. Sparkles stares at Bella Sue. This is to be a common theme.

Sparkles thinks Bella Sue stinks. No, like, literally, she stinks coz he wants to eat her and food smells etc. Bella Sue also has magic powers and Sparkles can't read her mind. He's like >:(=. Those are his fangs, btw. But then he goes away with his family to hunt animals and drink blood and comes back like :)=.

Bella Sue almost gets hit by a car but then Sparkles jumps in and pushes it away. He then gaslight gatekeeps girlbosses her, and googles adrenaline rush to explain it to her. AND GUESS WHO HEALS HER? IT'S SPARKLES'S DAD, AND MY ZADDY. He walks into the ER all blonde and gentle and competent. Oh and he's a vampire too and so is his wife but like his magic power is compassion and also he's learned to regulate himself around blood. And he's pretty. Zaddy.

He's so fucking pretty but then we have to go back to the Plot and some humans are being killed or whatever and Gunboy is takin' charge yo. Sparkles keep chasing after Bella Sue to tell her to stay away from him and finding her randomly to remind her to ABSOLUTELY STAY AWAY and then he stalks her in the night and has dinner with her after saving her from a gang to tell her to ABSOLUTELY STAY AWAY. Also, he's like 110 years old. Whatever.

Oh and Sparkles breaks into her room to watch her sleep at night. It's super duper romantic. (No, trust me, once you see Wolfy in the later books, this will be super duper romantic). Then he takes her to abandoned clearings in woods to threaten to kill her and he tells her to SAY WHAT HE IS and she's like MOSQUITE LEECH VAMPIRE.

AND THEN HE SPARKLES! A LOT! And they go to the Cullens house and play baseball and Zaddy is looking absolutely lovely and welcomes them and even stands off some random vampires that show up. But one of them likey-likey's Bella Sue's blood.

Bella Sue is like lmao fuck you you're not a good dad to Gunboy to keep him safe or whatever and runs away with the Cullens to keep herself safe or whatever. Idk man Zaddy is just very pretty throughout.

And then there's a ballet place and Bella Sue goes there to get murdered coz she doesn't want to be a burden to the Cullens (homegirl never been so real). The Cullens get there and kill the vampire but then she's vampiring so Sparkles sucks the venom out and Zaddy heals her. Looking pretty. Blonde hair, golden eyes, etc.

And then Gunboy and Bella Sue's mum show up and she goes home and she's like SPARKLES TURN ME INTO A VAMPIRE TOO and he's like yo wtf no you'll be a monster (I think he's just pissed he sucked that venom out for nothing) and she's like SPARKLES PLEASE UWU and he's like UGH WE'LL SEE and they dance at prom but anyway there it ends. It should have ended with a shot of Zaddy but anyway.

*influence voice* Like and subscribe Like and reblog for a part II coz there are three more books/four more movies. Gotta get that education. Now I have the urge to make a youtube video. Garn. ANYWAY LOVE YOU ALL BYE MAGGOTS.

#weirdly specific but ok #twilight #twilight saga #the twilight saga #the cullens #charlie swan #carlisle cullen #daddy cullen #asmi #good omens mascot #maggots #twilight summary #twilight books #would this have been shorter if i hadn't been thirsty for carlisle #maybe but romeo and juliet would have been shorter without juliet ok #hamlet would be shorter without hamlet #you see my point?

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lovedrunkheadcanons · 4 months

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Chapter Contents

Read on AO3

Hannah would never forget the moment she first laid eyes on a ginkgo tree.

It was shortly after she’d stepped off the plane from England. Amidst waiting with her entourage, she spotted the fan-leaved deciduous hiding within a rush of Japanese maple. Its green coloring stuck out like a sore thumb beside their purple foliage, then Hannah saw the unique leaf shape. At the time it was early April. When autumn arrived, the ginkgo’s matcha green would turn a vivid yellow not even the Temple of the Golden Pavilion could outshine.

Charles Darwin once dubbed the ginko a “living fossil,” and indeed his description was appropriate. Ginkgos were one of the oldest surviving trees in existence, believed to date back some 200 million years, if not, longer. So much time and history passed down from seed to seed. Staring up at one was like staring at a cornerstone of creation; what came before us, what will be here after.

Hannah could list an encyclopedia of facts about ginkgos. For one, they were gymnosperms, which was a fancy-shmancy way of saying they were nonflowering and only reproduced via seeds exposed to pollen, rather than inside fruits. This placed them in the same division (clade) as cycads and conifers. However, because of their uniqueness and specificity, ginkgos belonged to their own nomenclature. You could also guess the age by its stem coloration; The greyer the branches, the older the tree.

A native species brought over from China, the ginkgo would become a popular symbol within Japanese culture, both in art and in politics. The first European to study the deciduous tree was a German naturalist and explorer by the name of Engelbert Kaempfer. Upon visiting a temple in Nagasaki around 1691, he enquired the name of the tree, having never seen one before. But the native dialect of his tour guide got lost in translation, and so, he wrote down “ginkgo,” much to the confusion of every modern day Chinese and Japanese, for the word did not exist. The true name of the ginkgo is the “maidenhair tree” (銀杏) pronounced “ee-tchō.” Kaempfer’s mistake has never since been corrected.

Though for those not born in East Asia, ginkgos were a gateway to someplace more, a sign you had ventured outside the world as you knew it. For Hannah, this meant her impending marriage to Satoru, the clan leader of the noble Gojo family, one of the Three Sorcerer Families of Japan. It meant a different country. It meant change.

Maidenhair, she thought. Fitting that she’d spotted one so quickly, as she was set to be a maiden no more.

In time, Hannah would grow fond of the fan-leaved tree. It would shed its foreignness into something reminiscent of home; The Gojo estate was flush with ginkgo, drenching the house in nature’s botanical gold come October.

Which so happened to be now.

Hannah inhaled a deep breath as she readjusted her blanket, fighting off the early autumn chill. She should really stop doing this. It wasn’t smart to keep shoji panels open when the weather was cold; lets out all the heat. But she couldn’t help herself.

When the morning sun hit the forest at just the right angle, the mountainscape was too beautiful to ignore. It had to be witnessed by one’s own eyes.

Ginkgos. Maples. Japanese larches and pines.

She could stare at them for forever if she wanted, forgetting her worries and her cares. There was no place on earth more magical than Mt. Takao.

She heard a soft grunt immminating behind her and the rustling of bedsheets. Hannah turned around.

She saw the Berllini statue in the shape of her husband, sound asleep on her futon, a living artwork of sculpted abs and muscle. They had slept in her room again last night and had optioned the floor. He was butt naked underneath the covers, torso barely covered from alternating positions in his sleep. His exposed skin looked soft to the touch. She could hear his gentle snoring, snowy white hair strewn every which way atop the pillow. He’d be needing it cut soon.

Hannah smiled, thinking back to last night. If she closed her thighs together, real tight, she could still feel him there, pulsing and incessant. The love they made must’ve tuckered the poor man out. Not even the cold had awoken him.

Perhaps she should put some clothes on and head down to breakfast. Today was sure to be a busy one.

Satoru grunted once more and rolled over to his other side. His back was to her now, except the blanket hovering around his torso fell away, giving her a full profile of his arse.

Mind you, it was a pretty great looking arse. God must’ve taken His sweet time sculpting glutes like that, goodness.

Hannah suppressed a giggle from her naughty thoughts and rose from her perch along the opened shoji. Keeping quiet so as not to disturb him, she tiptoed toward the slumbering Adonis and draped one end of the blanket over to conceal his nakedness. There, bare arse no more.

As if sensing she was near, Satoru began to stir. “Mmm, Hannah,” he slurred loosely.

“Shh,” she hushed, crouching down to plant a comforting kiss on his temple. “Go back to sleep, my darling.”

She had cast her spell, and the sorcerer drifted peacefully back to sleep.

And Hannah went back to staring at the golden ginkgos outside.

She wouldn’t trade this life for anything.

This country. This beauty. Her darling.

Chapter Contents

#jujutsu kaisen #呪術廻戦 #gojo satoru #jjk oneshot #satoru gojo #jjk #oneshot #jjk fanfic #gojo fluff #gojo x oc #satoru x oc #jjk gojo #gojo takes a wife #銀杏 #jjk fluff #fluff #nature

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kissingkiszka · 4 months

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The Sweet Symphony - Chapter Eight: Dreams & Nightmares

Jake Kiszka x Reader series

Words: 3.2k+

Summary: Tour is just around the corner, and reader is letting her anxiety get the best of her

CW: MDNI, 18+, anxiety/anxiety attack, mentions of cheating, nightmares, angst, I guess abandonment and trust issues? I think that’s all but this is a pretty sad chapter I’m sorry in advance😃👍🏻

Masterlist

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"Good luck out there." you give Jake a confident wink. It's the fifth show on tour, and they're about to go on stage. He ignores you, turning back to his brothers. You reach for his shoulder, wanting him to look you in your eyes.

To your dismay, he pulls back, freeing his shoulder of your touch. He has his guitar clutched in his hand, tightening his grip with the fist he makes underneath your touch.

He turns to you, his voice laced with disgust. "It was a mistake bringing you here."

"What? Why?" confusion comes over your face. "Where is this coming from?"

"You're no longer a good fit for us, and frankly y/n, I'm starting to get quite bored of you." He waves his free hand in your face motioning you to get out of his sight.

"What do you mean? I thought we were supposed to make it?!" frustration fills your voice, and a lump forms in your throat.

"Go away! I'm supposed to be on stage any minute now!" he continues to shout at you in a way you've never seen before. His eyes are full of darkness and regret.

You begin to walk away before being stopped by him one last time. Tears rolling down your cheeks by the second.

"Oh, and I've been fucking so many other girls, all pleasing me much better than you ever have."

"How could you say that to me, Jake?" you swing around to defend yourself, but he's gone. He disappeared just like that.

You gasped for air, launching forward in your bed. You were in a full body cold sweat, still trying to catch your breath. You clutched your white duvet, trying to pull yourself back to reality, but nothing seemed to work. It felt like your whole world was crashing down on you. You couldn't lose Jake, even though he's still not yours to lose.You stumble out of bed and onto your feet, Reaching for your phone on your bedside table. Your legs are struggling to carry you to the bathroom. Is coming on tour with them a mistake? Is Jake even serious about you? Is he gonna find other girls on tour? Thoughts racing around your mind and you weren't able to slow them down. This man was beginning to consume your life. Unlocking your phone, you tell Siri to call Jake. You put the phone on speaker as you try to splash cool water on your face to help ground you. The tears are just not stopping their escape from your eyes.

"Hello?" you hear a half tired and half concerned Jake greet you over the phone. "Y/N? Is everything okay? It's 4 a.m."

You attempt to catch your breath so you can respond to him but fail. You wipe your tears, even though more just continue to fall.

"Are you alright? You're breathing really heavily." He questioned, his voice changing from a tired tone to a frantic one.

No Response.

"I'm on my way."

You don't even have a chance to say anything to him before your hand flies to the phone. Hanging up on him. Shit. You couldn't even get a single word out.

Jakes POV

I hopped in my car, not wanting to waste any time changing so I opted for a white wife beater and my handy gray sweatpants. I am worried out of my mind for Y/N. She sounded so distressed over the phone, I just hope I can help her through whatever happened. What really got to me the most was the fact that she had hung up on me. I'm not one to pray, but I found myself praying that she was okay. I raced to her house, getting there in almost no time partly because I did run multiple red lights and stop signs. I crossed my fingers that there were no police watching, and luckily I didn't come across any. I sprung out of my car, turning off the engine and slamming the door shut. I ran up to her front door and opened it with ease.

Huh, I thought I locked it.

I can hear her sniffles coming from her bedroom upstairs. I don't know what is going on, but no matter what it is, I have to be there for her.

"Y/N?" I calmly called out, letting her know of my arrival. "Sweetheart, what's going on?"

I watch as she timidly steps out into the hallway. She makes a point to keep her distance from me. Her cheeks are swollen and tear stained, her eyes are bloodshot and her body is slightly shaking.

"It's just me, baby, what happened?" I ask her in my best attempt at a sweet voice, continuing to approach her.

Her breathing is still unsteady. I need to do something about it. Get her to calm down. I approach her slowly and steadily, my arm gently resting on her lower back.

"Why don't we go sit down?" I gesture to her bed, guiding her to sit down. It'll be easier for her to tell me what happened if I sit down with her. I'm trying my absolute hardest to get her to open up, while also remaining calm. I hope it's working.

Her eyes jolt up to mine. She musters up the courage to croak out a few words.

"I had a dream..." she stammered. "You were in it and you, you...we were on tour and…" she hesitated. My grip on her back grew more firm to comfort her, but I see her scoot backwards in retaliation.

"Woah, what happened in this dream?" I pull my hand back. "You can tell me, I'm not gonna hurt you." I smoothly attempt to put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her once more with some added caution this time.

She sniffles, looking down at her feet. She takes a deep breath, and then stares directly into my eyes. "You told me it was a mistake bringing me on tour. You were hooking up with other girls. Jake, it all felt so real. Too real.” Her face scrunched as her tears grew into sobs.

I feel my heart break in half as those words leave her lips. I would never do anything to hurt her. I can't help but think that she is so beautiful when she cries. No matter what this woman does, she still outshines anyone else I had ever laid eyes on before.

She sobbed into my chest. I could feel her shaky breaths against my tear stained tank top.

"Y/N," I say softly, feeling my heart break even further. "I would never do that to you. That was only a nightmare. I would never, ever, hurt you."

I watch as she pulls away from my chest and gives me an unconvincing nod. She adjusts her position so she's propped up against her headboard and I follow suit.

"Here, grab my hand if you need proof. This is real, your nightmare wasn't." I offer my hand for her to take.

I feel my cold, large, and calloused hand intertwine with her warm, small, and soft hand. I give her hand a squeeze to help ground her. "I'm not going anywhere, darling." I whisper.

We lay there together for a few moments before her tears start to dry. She lets her hand slip out of mine and rolls over to face the wall.

"What's on your mind?" I softly ask her. I don't want to pry, but I know her thoughts are racing around a mile a minute in that brain of hers.

"Jake.." she starts. "I don't know if coming on tour with you is a good idea."

I feel a lump form in my throat. I need her there.

"Baby," I inhale a deep breath to prepare myself for the worst. "Why not?"

She sighs. "I just, my boss said it's perfectly fine if I go..." her voice becomes shaky. "But I'm not sure that I'm ready for this commitment."

If my heart wasn't broken yet, it sure as hell had broken now.

"I feel like you're making a mistake bringing me. You're going to regret it, I just have a feeling."

"A mistake?!" My eyes go wide. “I was 100 percent sure when I asked you to go, and I'm 100 percent sure that I still want you to go. There is nothing I would regret." I take a deep breath. "Sweetheart, it's going to be a blast. We're planning on taking a break in the middle of tour and going on a cabin trip. We will travel all around the country. I want you there. Hell, I need you there."

I knew I needed her there.

"I would love to have you there, not only so you can make my hair look all pretty, but so you can keep me company. It gets lonely on those tour buses, but really, all I need is you. Imagine us traveling the country together."

All I wanted was her by my side when I had to hit the road.

She remained silent for the next few moments. I just continued to lay there, ready for her whenever she wanted to speak. The air around us grew tense, and I have a gut feeling that my persuasion did not necessarily work. A pit of anxiety formed in my stomach as I waited for her to finally say something.

Her head sunk further into the pillow and I knew what I would hear next was going to ruin me.

"I need to think about it." She finally spoke up. "I, I just don't know yet."

I was absolutely destroyed, but I couldn't show it. I had to be strong for her and couldn't show her just how much I was let down.

"Take your time." I say with a disappointed nod. I felt guilty in a way. She thinks I would invite her, just to hook up with other girls and ultimately ignore her? I must be doing something wrong. I decided right then and there that I was going to get my act together and really show up for her.

"Do you want me to lay here with you for a bit?" My mind raced with thoughts. Did she want me to leave right away? Did she want space? Did she want me to spend the night? If she wants me to spend the night, could I fix all of this in the morning?

"Up to you." She shrugged unenthusiastically.

I laid with her for a few more moments. It was her house, it's not up to me to determine if I should stay or not. Her eyelids flutter closed and then soft snores came from her soon after. I was going to give her space. It was probably what she needed most. She needed to think on it and me being here wouldn't help her decision. Yeah, I could probably influence her to come with us, but I didn't want to mess up my chances. I quietly slipped out of her bed and made my way towards her bedroom door for the second time that night. Just hours earlier I was here, tucking her in. It felt like a dream, I knew it was too good to be true.

"Sleep tight my love." I whispered even though I knew she wouldn't be able to hear me. "I hope you decide to come, I don't know how I'll manage the tour without you."

I had only been with her for a little over 2 months now, but she had quickly grown to become the only thing I knew. I walked down her staircase, my hands filled with despair as they gripped the wooden banister. I left her home, making sure to lock the door on my way out.

Once I pull into my driveway, I waste no time opening the center console of my car and pulling out a blunt I had put there earlier-for safe keeping. The feeling of regret sunk into my bones as I lit the blunt in between my two fingers. Smoking was a habit I was trying to break, but this situation just called for a little something to help ease my stress. My fingers shake as I bring the blunt up to my lips once more. I squeeze my eyes shut as a few tear drops begin to roll out of my eyes. I couldn’t lose her. Not now. I hadn’t hardly known her for long, but she has begun to be the only thing I do know. I wouldn’t know how to live without her. I don’t think I could bear the tour, being a stranger to all these new cities without a familiar face by my name. Not just a familiar face, but a loved one as well. I attempt to dry my tears with my tank top. I had to remain calm.

I only managed to take a few hits of the blunt before I realized that the night had quickly slipped away and the sun was already beginning to rise. I put my blunt out way too soon, the high had just started to hit and I wanted to get just a little bit of sleep in before rehearsal later in the day.

I laid in my cold bed, thinking back on the whirlwind that was the past few hours. I mostly regretted leaving her there. I should have slept next to her, talked to her in the morning. Maybe I could have changed her mind, or encouraged her to go on tour. The 'what ifs' controlled my mind until the exhaustion took over my body and I eventually was able to drift off. I had seriously debated going back to her house, jumping back in bed with her, and never letting her go again. But this isn't some type of fairytale, this is reality. She asked for time to think, so that's what I'm gonna give her.

Y/N'S POV

You awoke the next morning feeling well rested. The entirety of last night felt like one big dream-or perhaps a nightmare. Glancing around your bedroom, you felt all too alone. Jake was nowhere to be seen. You figured he probably left after you fell asleep. Why didn't he stay though? It felt very unlike him to just leave. A part of you felt disappointed, you wished he would have stayed, and fought for you. But you had no right to feel disappointed either, you were the one who sent him free. It was his choice to leave or stay, and he chose leave.You spent the entire day worrying if you were making the wrong decision. You would have done everything to go on tour with him, and you just don't understand why you feel like this all of a sudden. Neither choice felt right. It was for the better that he didn't spend the night, right? You just needed to think, and weigh out all the pros and cons.

You decided to make some breakfast and listen to some music. Music was the one thing that always helped to clear your mind. As you reach for your record collection, your eyes dart to a certain record in particular. The Essential Elvis Presley.

It was something you were trying to avoid, but somehow you felt compelled to listen to it in that moment.

As you cracked an egg into a pan, the vinyl began to play one of your favorites. Love Me Tender. You listened to the melody and couldn't help but dance around the kitchen as your sunny side up eggs continued to cook. The most prominent thought in your mind was when Jake bought you the very record that you were dancing to. But more importantly, what he said to you as he was purchasing the record. His words echoed in your mind.

"Now everytime you play it, you'll think of me."

And you were doing just that.

As the song went on, you found yourself picking apart every single lyric. You were finding a way to relate each and every lyric to your situation.

"Take me to your heart for it's there that I belong and we'll never part."

You didn't want to part with Jake. You belonged with him.

"All my dreams fulfilled, for my darling I love you and I always will"

This tour was his dream. He wanted you by his side to further fulfill it. Realizing this somehow made your heart full and break at the same time. He just wanted love, he wanted you to love him. And it was somehow the easiest but the hardest thing for you to do.

As you were finishing up eating your eggs another one of your favorites began to play. Suspicious minds.

"We're caught in a trap, I can't walk out because I love you too much, baby, why can't you see what you're doin' to me when you don't believe a word I say?"

You once again found yourself listening closely to the lyrics and yearning for Jake. Daydreaming about him like a little school girl. But then, you realized, could you even trust him? You could find yourself relating every line of the song to your current situation once again. You couldn't walk out, you liked him far too much to leave him now. You were too deep in to leave.

You took a deep breath. Okay. You just needed to listen to Jake. Believe in him and his words. Just like the song said.

You snapped out of the song, your eyes jolting over to the clock.

Shit.

8:03

You were supposed to be at work 3 minutes ago.

Day by day went by, and the month before tour quickly became a week before you knew it. Your choice was still becoming clear. You hadn’t had contact with him since that night.

You were driving home from work, and you finally decided. This was just a risk you had to take. Once you pulled into your driveway, you reached for your phone that was sitting in the cup holder.

Your finger hovered over Jakes contact. You hesitated a bit, but you knew deep down this was the right choice. You took a deep breath as the phone rung a few times.

You were met with a voice after the phone rung a few times. You were soon met with Jakes voice.

“Hello?” He answered, his voice groggily.

“Hi, Jake.” You said shyly. “I'm sorry I kinda ghosted you. I really needed that time to think. So, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And, um, I would love to go on tour with you. If you’ll still have me, of course.”

“Of course we’ll have you. I’ll have you any day.” You heard him smile to himself over the line. “And, no need to apologize for taking time for yourself.” He truly sounded sincere, and you couldn’t even begin to believe you even had the tiniest amount of doubt about him.

You giggled quietly, you were so lucky to have found him. Not someone like him. Him.

“Are you still good to be our hair stylist?”

“Mhm!” You exclaimed, more than ready to go on tour at this point.

“Good, good. We leave in a week, I don’t know if we would have survived without you to style our hair. Oh god, Josh already started planning on cutting his own hair. Can you imagine?” He laughed, thinking about his twin brother. The excitement built up in your stomach just thinking about being on the road with them.

“So y/n, you’re sure? You’re coming on the road with us?”

You nod to yourself, partly in disbelief at what your life is now and partly out of excitement. “I’m choosing the road.”

Tag List:

@gretnavannfleet @theweightofjake

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whitexwolfxx310 · 2 years

Text

Meeting the Big Bad (White) Wolf

Pairing: Bucky x female reader // Bucky x y/n

Summary: After finishing college you are accepted into an internship program at the Avengers Compound to help your new patient into the civilian world. But much to your surprise, your first and currently only, patient is none other than James Buchanan Barnes.

Warnings: Death, possible triggering, military life, and some light cursing.

Words: 2.9k

Masterlist

Being an Army brat is what inspired you to go to school and help adjust Veteran's back into civilian life. Moving from place to place, never being able to truly establish yourself or relationships with anyone due to the impending doom of you, or them, leaving. Another thought that was always front and center in anyone’s mind linked to the military, was death. At first it’s heartbreaking. You see families and other soldiers crumble due to a fallen comrade. But then one day, it’s like a switch flips, and it becomes a part of life that you learn to accept, no matter how hard of a loss. Being a soldier, everyone around you develops a hard, and sometimes impenetrable, exterior (and interior).

My father, Colonel Castle, retired from the military after 20+ years of active duty with the 107th Infantry. He and my mom moved to a beautiful, secluded home with a lot of wide open space in upstate New York so that we were still close to the place that we considered ‘home’. My dad said he knew that it was meant for him when he realized how quiet it was. I guess spending half of your life fighting in war, silence is welcome over explosions and screams of dying people.

My mom was the forever adored and perfect Army wife. She was always by my fathers side for award ceremonies, promotions, led the FRG (Family Readiness Group) in the battalion. My parents of course supported my older brother Luke when he decided to follow in the Colonels footsteps (and my grandfathers) when he enlisted into the 107th right out of high school. He spent a total of 7 years in the military. We didn’t see him much due to where he was assigned, training for airborne school, and 3 tours overseas.

It happened to be the day I finished my last final in my final semester before getting my masters. I practically skipped my way back to the dorms where my room was already packed and I was so much looking forward to going to my parents home upstate to await my results and see where I got placed for an internship. It was a beautiful day in the beginning of June. The sun was shining so bright and the air was warm, but not humid. After settling into the guest bedroom, I took out a novel that I have been dying to read instead of textbooks. I sat in a wooden rocking chair on the wrap around porch with my book, waiting for my parents to get home. (Mom was always great in the sense of preparing for someone’s arrival. Getting food, snacks, and ingredients to make your favorite dinners. But of course, she was the most perfect model wife and mother). My father no doubt went with her to the store because now he was finally able to have the time to enjoy the little things, even as small as going to the local grocery store.

I’m not sure how long I was reading for, but I got about 8 chapters into my book when I heard a car in the distance. I immediately jumped up in anticipation to greet my parents. I could see the dust being kicked up from the tires of the vehicle down the long driveway. But much to my surprise, it wasn’t my parents. Instead, it was a large, black Chevy Tahoe and my heart sank. I’ve seen this SUV many times, and it never came with good news. Once the car was parked in front of the house, a man dressed in his olive green uniform got out of the SUV.

Oh no... I thought to myself. I swallowed the hard lump in my throat, clenched my teeth and slowly walked down the steps to meet him.

“Ma’am. I’m Sergeant Finn, here on behalf of the 107th Infantry Division”

I nodded my head in understanding. But that was all that I could muster.

“Are you kin to Staff Sergeant Lucas William Castle?”

Here we go. “Yes.” The volume was barely audible. “I-I’m....his sister, y/n.”

Sergeant Finn takes a deep breath and looks straight into your eyes. “I regret to inform you that Sergeant First Class Castle has been killed in action.”

Another olive green uniformed man steps out from behind the Black Tahoe with a triangle box. He briskly starts walking toward you while Sgt, Finn continues speaking of condolences and the details of how, when, where, etc. But it all sounds drowned out, like you’re underwater. You’re not sure how long the one-sided conversation went on with the two men until you realized the heavy weight in your hands from your older brothers flag and the dust being kicked up from the dirt road as they left.

It’s just me now. Just me.

Your life has been at a standstill since you and your family learned the news about Luke. You’ve slept most of the days away, barely coming out of the guest room to socialize, even with your own parents. There’s a piece of you that feels guilty, since you are their only remaining child and yet you can’t bring yourself to talk to your parents, to your friends, even acknowledge that Lucas’ death is real.

Forcing yourself out of bed to take a shower is the big accomplishment of the week. It’s really the only thing you look forward to anymore, since everything else has gotten put on hold (from your own doing). You stare at yourself in the mirror as it starts to fog from the hot water running. The person looking back is someone that you don’t recognize. Poking at the dark bags under your eyes, seeing how dry your skin is and how dull your hair looks. A deep sigh escapes from your chest as you undress to stand naked and vulnerable in the almost unbearable hot water. You stand there in hopes that the water will wash away not just the grime, but the depression and the grief as well.

Feeling slightly better after you shaved, exfoliated and scrubbed, you head back into the guest room to get into a clean pair of comfy clothes. When you walk in you notice something on the bed; A manilla envelope addressed to you. It instantly peaked your curiosity so you sit on the bed and start inspecting it. In the upper right hand corner in big, bold letters read the return address: Stark Industries.

Up until this point you had forgotten the internship you had applied for in your last year of school. It can’t be.... you think to yourself. There is no way I actually got the position, the one where only a single student was chosen to work at the Avengers Compound.

The letter inside the envelope reads:

Dear (y/n),

We are writing this letter to say Congratulations, you have been accepted into the paid internship program working with Earth’s mightiest heroes. You have the opportunity to help make the world a better place by dedicating your time to encourage their well-being, mental health, and expand their abilities. If you choose to accept and seize this moment, we are very much looking forward to working with you. The details below contain your start date, dress code, directions and information on where to go within the compound to get your ID and clearance. We look forward to hearing from you! If you have any questions, please call me directly at (000-000-0000).

Thank you,

Pepper Potts

Shocked is an understatement. You quickly throw on a band t-shirt and sweatpants before running out into the living room waving the letter and jumping up and down to your parents. You’re unable to even get a word out. Both your mom and dad get up off of the couch and take the letter. Together they read it aloud and you eagerly wait for them to realize just what this exactly means. They look up smiling widely and meet your beaming face. Simultaneously you all start cheering and jumping up and down. This is the first shred of good news your family has received in almost a year.

“My dream job!” You say, the most enthusiastically you have been in what seems like forever.

“Oh honey, we are so proud of you!” Mom says as she hugs you tightly. Your father comes up behind your mother and wraps his arms around you both. A sigh of relief comes unanimously.

You have to follow the directions from your acceptance letter to a T because you cannot use Maps in your phone to get there. But of course, can’t make the whereabouts known. It isn’t hard to tell when you have arrived. The runways for jets, collection of high end cars, or just the huge building with the giant ‘A’ on it might be an indication that you’re in the right place.

After parking your car, you flip down the visor to take one last look at yourself before heading in. It’s the first time you’ve worn make up in months, worn clothes other than sweats, and styled your hair. You run your fingers through your long, wavy brown hair to help blend the curls; Then you apply one more layer of gloss to your lips and take a deep breath. You got this, you encourage yourself.

Walking up to the building is even more intimidating than driving to the parking garage. The entrance way is made up of huge impact proof doors. As you approach, they automatically open and there to greet you is none other than the beautiful red headed Mrs. Potts.

“Hi! You must be (y/n)! I’m so excited to finally meet you! You had quite the impressive application, even Tony said so!”

Tony? As in Stark? You swallow your nervousness down at the thought.

“Hi! Wow, Mrs. Potts! Thank you-”

“Please, call me Pepper.” She smiles sweetly. You let out a slightly nervous laugh

“Pepper. Thank you again so much for the opportunity. I’ve been dreaming about this for as long as I can remember!”

Pepper hands you a black leather binder. “Well then,” She says excitedly “Let’s get you right into it!”

You follow the pair of heel clicking long legs and take in the astonishing view. There are computers everywhere, cameras in every corner, different suits from different Avengers through time on display in the walls. Just when you think you have seen it all, the next thing takes your breath away.

Mrs. Potts takes you to security for your picture, ID badge, fingerprints, a company card and clearance. It takes all of two minutes for everything to come back. Pepper smiles “Well it looks like you’re not a convicted felon.” She laughs “Either way, I’m sure one or two are hanging around here somewhere!” She smirks and then let’s out a small laugh. “Let me show you to your office, it’s on the 5th floor.”

She takes you up to the fifth floor and your office if the second door on the right hand side. You walk in, noticing just how much sunlight and the amount of space that you have. It’s taking everything you have for your jaw to not drop on the floor.

“Your desktop is all set up. Here is your first case file-” Pepper tsks through the stack of papers she is lugging around. “Ah! Here you go. Dr. Banner made some notations that he thought might be helpful from his own experiences. This is going to be you’re only case right now since it’s um..” She hesitates, but recollects herself and smiles through it. “Well it will keep you busy!” Pepper smiles as she hands over the file. “Well I’ll leave you to get settled in then!” She starts to walk out of your office but abruptly stops and turns around “Oh, and he likes to be early, just thought you should know!” She says extremely bubbly, just like everything else. You laugh to yourself as you sit down behind your desk for the first time, placing the file down in front of you.

My office....MY office. Wow.

You take in a deep breath and borderline almost pinch yourself to make sure this is real. You giddily scoot your chair forward, put your purse in one of your desk drawers and open the case file.

You freeze. All of the air just got completely sucked out of the room. The first thing you see is an old black and white picture of a handsome man smiling as he swears into the Army. But the name, the name is what nearly makes your heart stop. James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes.

Your eyes race through the file, reading as much as you can as quickly as you can. The clock on the wall is practically screaming the time as his session with you seems to be racing towards you.

‘He likes to be early...’ Fuck.

As quickly as you can, you get up and run to the door, making sure it’s open for him to feel welcome. Especially for his first session with you. Hurrying back to your desk, you once again go nose deep into Barnes’ file. You scan over his time served in the military, being experimented on, becoming a deadly assassin for Hydra, coming back after 5 years after Thanos, working diligently in Wakanda to undo mind control, and now trying to blend into society and living with the things he’s done and has to live with. You truly feel sorry for all that he has been through. While they cannot be compared on the same level, you both have experienced far more death in your lives than anyone should have to.

Looking up at the clock one last time to see how much time you have left before your first interaction with James, you are startled to already find him sitting on the couch across the room facing you. He was so stealth like that you didn’t even notice he came in.

“Oh! Sergeant Barnes! I’m so sorry I didn’t even hear you come in.”

He stands up, so you mimic his movement to go forward thinking he was going to introduce himself. You feel like a complete idiot when he hands you a piece of paper instead of shaking hands. He avoids making eye contact at all.

“When we’re done here I need you to sign this saying I was here or whatever.”

Very quick to the point I see.

You take the sheet of paper that was handed to you and set it down on your desk as you retreat back to your chair. Although he’s barely said anything, you’re intimidated by him. Which of course you cannot let on. But at the same time, this does not seem like the man who used to be on the news non-stop. While his face was as solid as stone, you noticed the shorter hair, the fact that he was still muscular but more lean and how he in completely covered from the neck down in all black, including a black leather jacket and gloves to match.

“Yes of course. My name is y/n, and it’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Barnes.” You say in a calm tone to make it a point to not sound aggressive.

“Yeah...” He replies, looking out the window into the trees. “And it’s Bucky.” He spat back.

“Sorry, I apologize. Bucky it is then.”

The silent treatment is making this more awkward. You clear your throat.

“So Bucky, how are you adjusting to civilian life?”

Bucky snorts and rolls his eyes at your question.

“How well do you think?”

Well this is going to be interesting...

“That boring after so many years of constantly going from fight after fight, huh?”

He actually glances over. Not making eye contact, but actually looked in your general direction.

“I guess you could say that.” He says, agreeing. You keep trying to probe but not push too hard.

“Add on top of that having to conform to an entirely new society.”

This time he lets it go completely unanswered.

“Well, I know that you could possibly have everything that you need here at the Compound, but I just want you to know that I am here. My door is always open if you want to talk or if you need anything. I also live relatively close by so...” You grab a post it note and write down your number. “You can call or text me anytime, I’ll be readily available.”

“Thanks.” Short, sweet and to the point.

You get up from your desk, walking over to Bucky and handing him the post it with your number. You don’t get too close, enough to extend your arm and hand him the paper.

“I need your signature.” He says coldly.

“Right!” You scramble to your desk, finding a pen and writing the date of your session along with your signature. “Here you go...” You say, handing him the paper. He stands up and reaches for the paper and he makes eye contact with you for the first time.

“Thanks” He says again.

“It was nice meeting you, James” You say encouragingly. “I’ll see you the same time tomorrow.”

“Thanks.” He said and walked out.

We’ve got a lot of work to do... We definitely have a long road ahead of us.

Next part

#fanfic #buckybarnes whitewolf wintersoldier #bucky barnes fanfiction #tfatws #the falcon and the winter soldier #bucky imagine #bucky smut #bucky x reader #bucky x you #james bucky buchanan barnes #James Buchanan Bucky Barnes #Winter Soldier #bucky angst #bucky #beefy bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x female reader #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes fic

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ladykailitha · 1 year

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Star Child Part 7

Yes, you’ve read that right, I am back with the rockstar AU. I finally got part 8 done (this one ends in a bit of a cliffhanger) I’m still not sure where this story is going other than knowing the ending. That I’ve had since the beginning. So I don’t know how regularly this will update. Plus I have three other WIP that need to be worked on as well. But I hope this chapter was well worth the wait.

We meet Steve’s bodyguards and Eddie has an encounter of the dangerous kind.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

***

Steve arrived in LA three days later, a day before he needed to be in the studio. Which meant that he would have a day to relax in his pool before being locked into the studio basement for the next two months.

Okay, so that was an exaggeration but that’s what it felt like the last four albums. When he got to his house, he found the most unlikely of pairs waiting for him. They were both in black suits and button downs. His was a light green and hers was pink.

He was tall. Taller than Steve by a lot. His dark skin contrasted with the freckled red-head next to him. Her long hair was braided to the middle of her back and she was short, barely coming up to Steve’s chin.

Janice got out of the car. “Steve, these are your new bodyguards. Lucas Sinclair and Max Mayfield.”

Steve looked at them blankly. “Yeah, okay.”

Lucas caught his look and laughed. “I’m just here to pull her,” he jutted his thumb at Max, “off bad guys to limit the liability.”

Max just grinned.

Steve huffed out a laugh. “So how is this going to work?”

“They will go out with you whenever you leave the house,” Janice explained. “So be sure and call ten minutes before you leave, so that they can arrive. If you have a schedule for the studio, please have your manager forward it to us. Schedules are great for us, but bad for you, because people can pick up on it and stalk you.”

Steve bit his lip and nodded. “I just want to let you guys know that I’ve had trouble with my security spying on me for the label, so if anything gets back to them that I don’t want them to know, your ass is grass faster than you can blink.”

The other three shared glances, but all nodded. “You have our discretion,” Janice said.

Steve nodded. “I go into the studio at 10am, but I run every morning at 6am.”

Lucas and Max shared a glance.

Lucas sighed. “I guess I’ll be digging out my running shoes.”

Steve chuckled. “You think you can keep up?”

Lucas laughed. “Just try it, pretty boy.”

Steve let himself into his house and sighed. It wasn’t one of those white, sterile monstrosities that other celebrities tended to go in for. It was warm and welcoming and everything his parents’ house never was.

He immediately went for the pool, opening the sliding door to his backyard. There on one of lounge chairs was his favorite person in the world.

“Robin!”

She looked up from her magazine and grinned. “Steve!” She jumped up and gave him a hug and big kiss on the cheek.

“You ready for this?” she asked gently. “Just two more months and you’ll be free to be you.”

Steve sighed. “Yeah I know.”

“The label called me yesterday,” she said leading him over to the chairs and sat him down.

“What did they want?” Steve asked, wearily.

“They’re pissed,” Robin said. “They were expecting you to take longer for the five albums and are threatening legal action.”

Steve’s eyebrows went up. “Holy shit!”

“Don’t worry, I’ve contacted a good contract lawyer,” Robin said, putting her hand on his knee. “We meet with her tomorrow.”

Steve sighed. “I didn’t do anything wrong. They wanted five albums, I gave them four platinum selling albums and about to give them another. They can fuck off.”

“I think they were expecting you to take longer than six to eight months touring,” Robin said.

“I don’t like performing, everyone knows that,” Steve groused.

“I think people might disagree with you after seeing the Love Loud concert,” she said, sing-song.

He laughed. “Okay...let me amend that. I don’t like performing pop.”

Robin laughed with him. “I don’t know why they tried to box into that. Think of how much money they would have made if they had given you creative freedom?”

Steve shook his head. “I know, right?” He got up. “I’m just gonna change into my swim trunks and be right back out.”

She nodded. “And don’t worry about the contract. I made sure it was air tight in our favor.”

Steve grinned.

Eddie was lying in bed at their hotel in Austin, Texas, thinking about Steve. He was always thinking about Steve, so that wasn’t new. But was new was that he was thinking about writing a song about Steve.

An actual fucking love song.

Corroded Coffin had dipped their toes into the love ballad pool a couple of times in the past when Eddie got infatuated with a boy. But this felt different. This felt monumental. And he didn’t know what to do about that.

So he did what he always did when he needed to relax, he called an Uber and got decked out in finest threads. Then he asked the driver for the best gay club in town. Usually Eddie asked the boys to go with him, but he wanted to lose himself in the music for a bit.

He wasn’t stupid. He let them know where he was going and set up an Uber for them to be taken to the club later.

When Eddie got to the club, he knew it was his kind of place. There were two crossed guitars behind the name saying “Upside Down”. The bouncer at the door was a tall, thin man that didn’t look like much, but Eddie didn’t doubt that the man could toss the most determined drunk.

The man barely glanced at him before making a check mark on his hand and waved him through.

The inside was wicked cool. It had Tesla coils and plasma balls that were red, giving off the effect of red lightning hanging from the ceiling.

The dance floor seemed to pulsate with sickly red cracks.

Eddie pulled out his phone and took a couple pictures sending it to Gareth with a message to get their asses down here.

Usually he would loosen up with a beer, but he wanted to get to that dance floor. He pulled his hair back and slipped into crowd that was practically hopping with the music. He let music take control and began to sway. He let his mixed up emotions about a certain teen idol go and just listened to the beat.

The music washed over him like waves. He wasn’t sure how long he was out there, but he began to feel fatigue in his bones and thirst in his throat, so slipped back out into the club proper.

But before he could make his way to the bar, two large men directed him to the VIP suite.

Sitting on the dark red sofa was a gorgeous man in a white suit. He was slim with sharp cheek bones, his blond hair was shaved on the sides, the top swooping over his left eye artfully.

Eddie was impressed. Not his taste, even if he hadn’t been in the middle of the biggest crush of his life. But very easy on the eyes.

“Hello,” he greeted, unsure why he was here in the first place.

“Hello, yourself,” the man greeted. His voice was smooth. “I was surprised when Gorgon said that the Eddie Munson was in my club. I just had to see for myself.”

Eddie jutted his head to the door. “Gorgon the door gargoyle?”

The man smiled. “Very good. He’s named thus because he is my stony-eyed guardian.”

Eddie half shrugged. “Yeah, I can see it.” He looked around. “It’s a nice place you’ve got here.”

“Thank you,” the man said, smile never faltering. “Please sit.”

He patted the sofa next to him, but Eddie opted to sit across from him in a black velvet arm chair.

“You have me at disadvantage,” Eddie said, tapping his fingers on the arms. “You know who I am but I don’t know who are.”

The man grinned. “And if I wanted it that way?”

Eddie moved to stand up and the man held up his hand. “Please stay. I’m Henry Creel.”

Eddie settled back in his chair, wiggling, a smug look on his face. “Nice to meet you, Henry.”

The smile never faltered, but Eddie could tell that it took on a hard edge. He wasn’t behaving the way Henry wanted him to. And that made him the bitch.

“How are you like our fair city?” Henry cooed.

Eddie half shrugged. “So far so good, I’m in town for another day, but I’m not a tourist, I ain’t got time for site seeing.”

“And do you have to rush off?” Henry asked leaning forward, elbow on his crossed legs. “I mean you could send your band in the tour bus and then you could take a flight out the following day. You could be a tourist for one day.”

It was something that Eddie had thought about doing that day with Steve. Go to the children’s hospital, take a flight to Chicago. But he couldn’t do it. His band was his family, other than his uncle, Wayne.

“That’s sweet of you to offer,” he said with a grin. “But I take this gig very seriously. Maybe in a month or so when the tour’s up, but until then...”

Henry’s smile slid off his face for the first time. “I don’t believe it was a suggestion.”

Eddie ran his tongue over his teeth. He knew that the two bodyguards were behind him, blocking his exit.

“I’m not some pet you keep in a cage.” He put his foot on his other knee, making a four with his legs. “I also don’t play well with others.”

Henry licked his lips. “I have my ways. You’ll come to me. They always do.”

Eddie steepled his fingers together and pressed the forefingers to his lips. “You went about this all the wrong way. You immediately asserted your dominance. I hate authority. Oh so much. If you had been soft or even a bit on the simpering side, I would have been putty in your paws. But no...”

Henry scoffed. “I don’t beg.”

“And I don’t heel.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

He planted both feet on the ground and gripped the arms of the chair. “I also told my band I was coming here and to join me.” He looked at his watch. “About twenty minutes ago. So they’ll probably be here any minute now, if they aren’t already. And since you didn’t know they were coming, you didn’t think to tell Gorgon to keep them out.”

Eddie held up one hand and three fingers. He counted down on his fingers. Three, two, one...

“Eddie!” Gareth called out.

Henry’s head snapped up to see the rest of the Corroded Coffin boys standing behind the two guards.

Eddie cocked his head playfully. “Why don’t you tell Castor and Pollux to let my friends in and we can lots of fun the five of us. Or I could just go. This wasn’t as much my scene as I thought.”

Henry waved and the guards parted like the Red Sea.

Eddie stood up as Jeff, Gareth, and Brian came rushing into the room. He let them know he was okay.

“Until next time, Henry,” he called over his shoulder.

***

Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16

Tag List:

@bejeweledbaby @eboyawstenn @moonshadows-13 @ohlook-afrog @goodolefashionedloverboi @linkydinky06 @livelaughlexa @spectrum-spectre @cutepumpkin4 @whatthemeepever @gleek4twd @anything-thats-rock-and-roll @novelnovella @celtrose-ish @artiststarme @plasticcrotches @failedstarsandgoldenclouds @anaibis @nelotegreitic @steddieassheg0es @abstractnaturaldisaster @scheodingers-muppet @tiny-enthusiast @yes-im-your-mom @thegingerrapunzel @milf-harrington @avacrebs @gregre369 @raisedbylibrarians @reverseteehee @lillys-weird-world @deadlydodos @runyousillydetective @justrandomfandomstm @piebook67 @clumsywriter @donttouchmycarrots @fiore-della-valle @idkareallyreallygoodname @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @ravenpainter @ellietheasexylibrarian

#My writing #stranger things #steddie #rockstar au #song fic #ladykailtiha writes

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spicywhenspeaking · 10 months

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If I'm There: Chapter Fourteen

its the halloween episode !

image source (x)

read from part one here!

summary: Noah and Natalie meet in high school and developed a relationship through their love of music and art. Falling in love, innocent and young, they think nothing can keep them apart. However, sometimes in the pursuit of your dreams the things we love the most get left behind.

taglist : @lma1986 @cookiesupplier @notingridslurkaccount @blackveilomens @thisbicc @thebadchic

It’s two weeks until Noah’s birthday party and only a few days after that, he will leave to go on tour. He was able to get his leave of absence approved by the school. The counselor gave him a huge stack of papers and workbooks that he’s expected to complete to get the credit for the rest of the semester.

When I walk into Noah's room after his meeting I see the huge pile. “Wow,” I comment. “That's a lot!”

He nods in recognition and waves it off. “I can help you with some stuff before y’all leave again and when you get back I can be your tutor.”

Noah laughs “Only if you promise to dress up like a sexy librarian.” Giggling I playfully smack his shoulder. “You pig.”

He stands and wraps his arms around me, picking me up and swinging me on the bed. “Oh hush…you like it,” he winks and settles his body on top of mine. “Don’t worry about the school stuff. It’s the last thing on my mind… right now there's only one thing I can't stop thinking about.”

He says as he places kisses all over my face and down my neck, lightly sucking on the pulse point that's now pumping faster. Noah's hands begin to roam and squeeze my breasts gently as a soft moan escapes my mouth. Before anything gets any further we hear someone barging into the house.

Nick quickly rounds the corner of the hallway and shrieks when he sees us tangled together on the bed and covers his eyes dramatically. “WOAH! sorry! But dude! We have band practice!” Nick says and Noah collapses onto me. “Bro…horrible timing.” I scootch out from under him and adjust my clothes. “I guess I should probably head into work now.” Noah rounds the bed to where I am and wraps his arms around me. “I’ll be counting down the hours until you get back.” I laugh at his ridiculous words. “It won’t be that long, you can come and pick me up at 9,” I respond leaning up to kiss him softly ignoring Nick’s fake gags of disgust and Noah flips him off for both of us.

Thankfully we weren’t interrupted by Nick later that night.

The rest of the time before the party goes by pretty fast. I try not to push it, but Noah doesn’t do any of the schoolwork in those two weeks. Before I know it, it’s Halloween and Noah is dropping me off at work before heading back to his house to get ready for the party with Nick.

Outside of the coffee shop, we spend a few minutes saying goodbye before I have to head in. “Happy birthday Noah,” I tell him in between kisses. “The happiest one now that I have you.” He responds sweetly against my lips. “I’ll see you tonight,” I say to him and then he says in his best Frankenstein voice “Until then my bride.” Laughing, I walk towards the coffee shop and wave before heading in.

Work is slow, so Maggie and I can get ready during our shifts. She’s driving me back to the party when we’re off and will crash on the couch at Noah’s if she parties as hard as she's hoping to. I’m trying not to let other people's drinking upset me, not everyone has a problem like my mom, and we are only young once.

It's 9 pm when we get the go-ahead from our manager to close up early for the night. We finish up our makeup and Maggie helps me get my hair to stand the right way. I didn’t want to get the wig so I’m doing my own take on Frankenstein’s Bride by wearing my hair in a 60’s style updo with sprayed white pieces, disheveled just enough to look like I was brought back to life with a lightening blast. Before heading to the party we swing by my house to pick up Noah’s gift. It’s a signet ring with a N on it that I saw at a vintage shop in town. I hope he likes it. After getting ready and then running by my house it's already 9:45 by the time we drive up to Noah's house. There’s already a lot of cars but we manage to find a spot that's not too far away.

The front door is unlocked and we walk right in. It's a sea of people I don’t recognize, but a lot of people are wearing masks. “Nice costume.” a random guy comments and leers at me. The music is loud and unfamiliar. Maggie tells me to go find Noah and that she’s going to the kitchen to start taking shots. I laugh and shoo her away. I check around the living room and walk through the house. I don't see Noah or any people I’ve met at the shows I’ve been to. I do notice, however, a lot of people are drinking or already drunk. Deep breaths Natalie, you’re fine. Making my way through the rest of the house I decide to check the garage.

I find Noah with Nick and more people I don’t recognize smoking weed and drinking out of red Solo cups. I notice Alex, the girl from the other band is here too, with a lit joint hanging out of her mouth.

“Looks like the girlfriend finally showed up,” Alex says with a weird edge that I can’t quite place. I notice Nick’s brows furrow slightly at her but he seems to shrug it off and nods to greet me with a smile. “How was work Nat?” he asks and at the same time, Noah yells “myyy briiiide!! She has returned!”

“It was good” I laugh in answer to Nick as Noah strides the short distance between us and pulls me close to press a firm kiss against my lips and then sweeps me up into his arms causing a surprising squeal to escape me. “I must away with my bride.” Noah jokes as he takes me through the party into his room so we can have a few minutes alone to talk. Laughing at his antics, I wrap my arms around his neck and press a kiss to his cheek leaving a red lipstick mark. I move to wipe it but he moves his head away too fast. “No way Natty, keep it there.” I continue giggling as we pass more unfamiliar voices until we reach his room. Fumbling with the door while trying to balance me in his arms he manages to finally get it open and throws me onto the bed, kicking it shut again behind him.

Sitting up and straightening out my dress I reach into the small shoulder bag I was carrying to pull out the box and card. “Happy birthday Noah.” I smile and hand them both to him as he settles down on the bed next to me. “Natty! You didn't have to get me anything.” I can tell Noah is a little stoned by the goofy way he’s talking but it’s kind of cute. “You’re already my best present.” He nuzzles his head into my neck and leaves a wet kiss. I move my hand to cup his face “And you’ll get plenty of me later, now open your gift.” His eyes sparkle with delight. “Yes ma’am” he jokes and he opens the card to read it.

Happy birthday Noah, I hope this is one of the best ones.

*Inside is several pictures printed out of Noah and Natalie. Smiling, Kissing. One of Natalie on Noah's back, both laughing.

“Baaaabe this is so fucking cute,” Noah says and leans over to kiss me. Smiling into it I tell him “There’s more, open the box.” I say to him.

Noah opens the box and sees the silver ring. “Oh wow Nat, this is awesome!” He pulls it out and puts the ring on his ring pointer finger. “N for Natalie right?” I shake my head “No, N for Noah.” He cups his hands around my face and leans to press a kiss to my lips. “N for Natalie.” Melting into the kiss I don’t have the energy to disagree.

When we emerge from his room an hour or so later, slightly disheveled, I tell him I’m going to look for Maggie to check on her. When I find her she’s stumbling down the hallway and I manage to catch her before she collapses on the ground. “Naaatyyyyy there you are!! Did you find Noah and give him your present? Oh! Looks like you gave him more than that. You have sex eyes.” Hiking her arm over my shoulder to hold her up I lead her into the nearest bathroom. “Let's just get you cleaned up.” Upon seeing the toilet, Maggie is quick to rush over and empty out the contents of her stomach. Coming up behind her, I gently pat her back in soothing circles. I’m used to this part, the sickness that follows the highs of a drunken night. Your worries for that moment are gone and you can just be loose and fun..at least that’s how some people make it look.

We stay in the bathroom for a while and I get Maggie cleaned up and help her into Noah's Mom’s room. It’s dark and quiet, the perfect place for her to crash for the night. Leading her onto the bed I lay her down and pull the trash can to the side in case she gets sick again.

I try and push my way through the wall of people that as grown. I didn’t even know Noah had this many friends. I bump into people as I navigate my way toward the kitchen, having to make my way through the dance floor that is really just the living room. Some guy bumps into me and sloshes his warm beer onto my outfit and I’m overwhelmed by the smell. “Oh- burp- sorry,” he says and I wave him off just trying to get out of the mess of strange people and smells. My eyes are scanning the crowds to try and find Noah’s familiar face. After what feels like an eternity I manage to push my way to the kitchen where I hear his laugh and sigh with relief.

Noah, Nick, Alex, and other people I met in the garage are all gathered in the kitchen drinking. I wasn’t gone with Maggie for that long, I thought, but I guess it was long enough for them to have drank a significant enough amount to get tipsy. “Baaabe you found us!” Noah slurs and he slings his arm around my shoulder. I laugh softly and lean into his warmth. “Yeah, Maggie is crashing in your Mom’s room. She had a little too much to drink.” I take his cup and take a small sip. “Jesus, you want some mixer with your tequila?” I joke as I hand him the drink back and untangle myself to grab a water bottle before retuning to his side.

“Let’s do shots!” Alex shouts from the kitchen counter that she’s perched on. One of the other guys lines up a bunch of shot glasses and pours a bottle of something in them and starts handing them out. I politely decline and I hear Alex scoff. “You can’t even let loose for Noah’s birthday? Come on Natalie..live a little.” She says and Nick starts to say something but I cut in “I’ll have plenty of time to let loose with Noah later.” I look up at Noah and wink while remaining tucked into his side while Alex rolls her eyes.

Raising their shots in the air they all call out “Happy birthday Noah!” and Alex ends with “Congrats to the birthday boy for joining us degens in the dropout club.” They down their shots and it takes me a second to register what she just said.

“What are you talking about? Noah’s not dropping out. Right?” My eyes move to Noah’s and he is stuck staring guiltily at the floor. “What is she talking about Noah?” I ask.

“You told me you told her already man,” Nick says. “Um, why don’t we talk about this later Nat,” Noah says in a hushed whisper. I feel like the friend at the party that wasn’t invited to the sleepover after. Like the only one that doesn’t understand the inside joke.

“Noah, what is she talking about? I thought you were finishing remotely? That’s what you told me.” I tell him and he shifts uncomfortably.

“Yeah..rockstars don't have a lot of time for homework on the road…” Alex says again and I don’t know what comes over me but I’m sick of hearing this girl I don’t even know talk to me like she has any say in anything. My hand flies up, motioning Alex to stop talking. “Just shut up.” I seethe at her and I angle my head to face Noah again.

“So when were you planning on telling me? Just talked it all over with Alex and made the decision together?” I snap at him and walk out of the kitchen in search of fresh air.

Noah is stumbling after me trying to catch up. The front door slams behind him as he grabs my arm and whips me back around to him. “Natty, you’re being fucking dramatic. What the fuck was that? I get you're upset but it’s my birthday, that was fucking embarrassing.”

I rip my arm back tears falling down my face at his outburst. “Embarrassing? You know what’s embarrassing? Having some bitch I don’t even know have more insight about my boyfriend’s life than me! How long were you going to keep up the lie that you’re still in school?” I ask.

He looks way more fucked up in the moonlight, It makes my skin itch with discomfort. “I don’t know what hurts me more, the fact that you’ve been lying to me for weeks about something so stupid or that the only person who said anything was some girl who for some reason hates me,” I say and tears are spilling down my face. Noah stumbles closer, moving to wipe them but I take another step back. Everything else disappears, all I can focus on is Noah and all I can feel is a deep and heavy dread. The seedling of jealousy sprouted into an untamable beast.

“Natalie, please just let me explain,” Noah says. “I just- looking at all that work? Just for this degree that doesn’t fucking matter, It would have been a waste of time.”

“But why didn’t you tell me? All this time you knew you were just dropping out and you didn’t tell me? Was I just supposed to find out at graduation?” My voice is breaking and exasperated. “I just- I don’t know why you would keep that from me.”

“I just-” he starts. “I didn’t think you’d understand.” Noah breathes out. “You’re all about school and grades and shit and that just doesn’t matter to me. Alex dropped out and her band is thriving, because she can focus all of her time on it.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure Alex is thinking about what’s in your best interest.” I wipe the tears off my face with the back of my hand. “I can’t believe you didn’t think I’d understand Noah. I asked you to consider your possibilities.” More tears are falling and I see that his eyes are glistening slightly. “I said I supported you and you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie..technically.” He says and I can tell he barely believes it himself.

“So what else are you not technically telling me the truth about?” The question leaves my mouth before I have time to stop it.

“That's not fair Natalie, I didn’t intentionally keep it from you to hurt you.” Noah retorts. “Do you really think I would keep things from you?”

“You did! You just did Noah! You thought I would judge you, not like your new friends who all don’t care about anything right? Natalie only cares about school and grades. Boring ol’d Natalie couldn’t possibly understand anything about your lifestyle right?” It’s a mixture of feeling like an outsider, at the party and tonight in my own relationship.

“Natty, please don’t cry.” Noah comes closer and I don’t step back when he wipes the tears from my face that have continued to fall. Even harder now that he’s comforting me. How fucked up is that the person that’s causing my tears is the only person I want to help me feel better. “I don’t want to make you cry again.”

My eyes are fixed on the ground. “I can’t help but think where I fit into all of this. your life is so different from mine, is there even room for me in it anymore.”

“Natalie, I love you. What do you even mean?” Noah says pulling my chin up to meet his eyes and I can still smell the alcohol on his breath. My own eyes are red-rimmed and clouded with tears that have refused to stop falling.

“I think I’m going to head home and we can talk in the morning when you’re sober, I’m just going to call Kyle to come and get me since Maggie is not good to drive.”

He takes a step back and something flashes across his face I don't recognize. “Not too long ago, I was the one you were calling to rescue you from him and now look at us. This isn’t what I wanted Nat. I - I didn’t want this to happen.”

“I know Noah, let’s not fight about this. It’s your birthday, you should go have fun. I’m just going to head out. The drinking and everything, It’s just too much for me. I thought I could handle it, but its just - its to much.”

I call Kyle and have a hard time holding back the emotion in my voice, he’s at a party a few minutes away and he’ll be there soon. Noah sits with me on the curb while I wait for him to pull up.

Ten minutes later Kyles whipping out of the car and over to my side. I get up to go not seeing the rage in Kyle’s eyes, not noticing he was heading straight for Noah who stood up with me.

“I knew you’d pull some stupid shit like this and now she’s calling me fucking crying because of your bullshit,” Kyle says as he’s surprises me by pushing Noah back further onto the front lawn.

“Kyle! Let’s just go, please. Come on! stop.” I’m pulling Kyle back and I guess the commotion alerted the people inside and the others are gathered out the front door. Nick runs to help create more of a separation between the two. “Nick, can you grab Maggie and bring her down? I’m going to head home.” He nods and moves to go get her. With Kyle distracted Noah uses the chance to take a swing. “Fuck you man! You don’t know anything. I love her.”

I move out of the way in time to miss any of the punches Kyle takes and watch in horror. He wipes blood from his mouth and says “Yeah, you love fucking up her life,” then he pounces. Swinging his full strength at Noah. “Shit!” I say and try to pull them apart taking an accidental elbow in the commotion of it all. Someone else pulls Noah away and Kyle and I stumble back as Nick returns with Maggie hanging off of his shoulders. “What the fuck!” Nick yells and I’m too preoccupied with my now bleeding nose. “Ow.” I mumble and Kyle turns to see my blood-drenched dress. “Oh shit, Nat. Are you okay?” he asks and I glare my eyes at him. “No, I’m not fucking okay. Get Maggie. Let’s go.” Looking up I see Noah standing next to Alex of all people, he sees my nose and deflates. “Natty-” he starts. “Just let her go,” Alex says and I can see him struggle with what to do. “I’ll call you tomorrow okay?” he says in a small voice.

“Okay,” I respond as the three of us get into the car and drive away from the scene I unintentionally created. On the drive home, I just lay my head against the cold glass as fresh hot tears stream down my face.

Once I’m home I climb up the stairs while Kyle sets Maggie up in the guest room. I shower and wash the makeup and blood from my face. Looking into the mirror I can tell I’ll probably have a black eye from the hit I took to the nose. Despite the adrenaline from the fight I’m out as soon as my head touches my pillow.

I wake up late and around 10 am I have a text from Noah asking me if I can meet him outside to talk.

Noah’s face is red and blotchy when I get to him and he takes a breath when he sees the purple bruising around my eyes. “Fuck Nat, was that me?” He asks in a weak voice.

I touch the tender skin and shrug. “A lot was going on, It could have been Kyle but it was an accident.”

“I’m sorry about last night Noah, I shouldn’t have embarrassed you like that,” I say to him and the wind picks up blowing my hair around. He’s wearing a beanie and his hair stays calm against the nape of his neck. “Why are you apologizing? I should be apologizing to you.” He says and his voice breaks. “God, I was such a drunk ass.”

“I should have waited to talk to you about it in private. Yelling at you in front of everyone was so lame.” My voice is calm and even now that we are away from the chaos of the party.

“I should have never lied to you Natalie, that was fucked up. I should have told you from the start that I planned to drop out. I can’t believe I yelled at you. Fought your brother. Again. And you ended up hurt and crying.” He’s rambling now, which is usually my thing. “I always seem to be the one hurting you lately.”

“That’s not true Noah. It was a stupid fight. It’s okay.” I try to reassure him.

He looks up at me and his eyes are glossy with tears. “Noah, what’s wrong?” I ask suddenly worried.

“Nat. I love you so much.” He says and a single tear runs down his cheek.

“I love you too,” I tell him.

“I love you, but I can’t do this.” his words break at the end and I don’t know what he’s saying.

“Can’t do what?” I ask as the world stands still.

“I can’t do this anymore. We can’t be together. I’m not good for you.” Now more tears are falling down his face and I don’t even notice my own have started falling as well.

“You’re breaking up with me?” My voice squeezes out.

“I’m sorry Nat - you’ll be better off without me.” He wipes his tears and tries to put on a brave face. “It’s for the best.”

And my heart shatters.

“I’m sorry Noah, I’m so sorry. Please don’t do this. I love you.” I move to bury my head against his chest and his breath hitches.

“We can’t Natalie. I- We just can’t. I can’t be what you need right now.” He says.

I take a deep shuttering breath and step away seeing the stains my tears left on his shirt.

“There’s nothing else I can say.” I stare at the ground. “You’ve already made up your mind.”

“I’m sorry, It’s for the best.” He gives me one last lingering kiss on the forehead and quickly moves to get back into his car. No longing stares and waves goodbye, he just takes off and leaves me a blubbering mess on my front yard.

crying and screaming and throwing up ....NOOOO WHYYYY

next ->

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quillyfied · 5 months

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Alright, reacting messy and all over the place to this trailer, LET’S GO:

Okay, strong opening: hooded figures (one of whom is checking his watch, which is hilarious, but the skin of the hand also looks red, so probably demons?), red background (good argument for Pride), Blitzo getting IMP out of dodge and then IMMEDIATELY crashing the van, good for you bud I’m so proud (but not as proud as I am of Moxxie chewing Blitzo out without a single “sir” thrown in there). Couldn’t begin to guess when this takes place, but since the van is crunched up later during a bit that is, I am 99% sure, Ghostfuckers, then this is probably Apology Tour. Hooded figures might not have anything to do at all with the gang running for it.

FIZZ THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A SEX TOY THAT IS TOO BIG. I’m not sure if you’ve found it but it’s close :P Lots of fun little clips, though Moxxie dodging a blue fire explosion in Lust doesn’t look good.

DHORKS AND CHERUB WORKING TOGETHER I KNEW IT I HECKING KNEW IT I’M SO MAD I NEVER MADE A POST ABOUT IT BECAUSE I’VE BEEN SO CERTAIN OF IT FOR MONTHS NOW. AAAARGH. AND I CAN’T PROVE IT!! But look at Collin, he looks so unsure compared to the other two. Poor guy. Okay, Blitzo is leaving a card of some sort in front of Agent One, and he’s using the crystal, so this is very much giving me Mastermind vibes (or even Sinsmas, if it's after the conflict and this is just Blitzo messing with them now). Humans being able to open a portal to Hell…that ain’t good!

Something coming at the gang from…looks like their office? And it’s round and spiky…could be whatever it is that’s making them go on the run, whenever that is (Apology Tour is my current guess).

CLETUS IS IRON MAN NOW.

(Listen I’ve been having visions about Blitzo being on trial for stirring up so much crap in the human world that it’s started to have repercussions in Hell so the fact that there seems to be a meeting or trial of some sort later having to do with Stolas is making me think maybe I’m a prophet. I’ll maybe explain more later in a different post but dropping it here bc it’s part of my thought process right now.)

Blitzo why did you give your fake ID such a rack and then neglect it as part of your human disguise XD I’m disappointed in you, babe. I’m also wondering what in the unholy hell a demon wants with a haunted house on Earth (and if that’s Leviathan like many people have been speculating, what is A DEADLY SIN doing in a HAUNTED HOUSE on EARTH???). (Also that is the single most awkward angle of Blitzo of all time, why on earth is he wearing white leggings because if he was naked we would be seeing some pixelation here…unless imps can retract their junk, which I’m open to.)

Ooh, quick shot of Loona operating a machine gun in Lust! Nice! (Hey quick Q where’s Blitzo in all of this??)

Helloooooo, Vassago! Excited to meet you! Really looks like there’s some sort of trial or meeting in Pride and Stolas might be either the topic of discussion or literally on trial, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to have Andrealphus trying to get Stolas demoted or something similar without Stolas even being there. So Vassago actually wanting him present looks good on him for now. But this is a trailer, things can be misleading, but anyone who looks that fed up when dealing with Andrealphus can’t be all that bad :P Thinking this is also during Mastermind, or possibly Sinsmas.

Okay, first really significant shot I’m noticing of short-sleeve Blitzo makes me think it might be Full Moon, because he’s sort of off to the side while the focus is on Stolas talking about how this transactional thing between them isn’t right anymore. Though. Hmm. Stolas is in full regalia for this. And there’s a shot later of short-sleeve Blitzo trying to go for Stolas’ hand and winding up outside (portal? Didn’t seem like it) and Stolas is in his robe when that happens. Musical number with metaphorical sequences? I am jumping in here to correct myself bc I forgot that Stolas’ fancy cloak and romper are both red. Heck. Why does this show only have two colors XD

Sun/moon seems to be during Apology Tour, if that’s when Stolas and Verosika are on a stage together.

And short-sleeve Blitzo with a Dankee Candle, good on you man XD (that’s been one of the more compelling arguments for short-sleeve Blitzo being during Sinsmas, not Full Moon, because gift-giving, but the bits of deep conversation that keep happening with Blitzo in short sleeves sound very much like a conversation that needs to happen during Full Moon and I can’t imagine they’ll wait an entire season for it).

Now the heart-rending bit that’s definitely during a musical number with kiddo Stolitz and then grownup Stolitz, currently voiced over that heart-stabbing “you think you can toy with our feelings because we’re smaller and less important” monologe from Blitzo, it’s FINE I’M FINE (Though…looking really closely…I am not sure if that’s when that monologue occurs? The mouth movements ever so slightly don’t match up. But animation technically has some leeway when it comes to that kind of thing.)

OKAY CALLING IT NOW, TEEN BLITZO AND TILLA SCENE IS DURING GHOSTFUCKERS. I don’t even think it’s a flashback, I just think Blitzo’s brain is being fucked with and he’s seeing his mom and visually reverting back to a teenager. The carpet behind Blitzo and the lighting are mostly what I’m basing this on. Also how fucked up would it be if Blitzo sees a ghost of his mom only for it to reflect his internal monologue about how terrible he is back at him, amirite :P

Okay sassy short-robe Stolas is Apology Tour, calling it now; he and Blitzo have “we’re about to hatefuck” energy off the charts and Stolas in particular is being so bitchy and petty-looking. And angry. And kinda sad. Am I ready for their breakup era to be full of bickering? Yes. Yes I am. I’m also skeptical that the smile that’s on Blitzo’s face during Stolas’ sarcastic little bow is going to be the expression on his face when the episode comes out, but I’m ready to be surprised.

HELLOOOOOO NURSE! YES TODAY SATAN! (Deeply curious about who’s the disgrace, have a current bet going on whether it’s Ozzie or possibly even Stolas, but I could be pleasantly surprised and it’s Mammon :P) Pretty sure the trial/meeting is happening during Sinsmas, actually, it would be too funny to call an episode that when introducing a new Sin. Also short moment to appreciate that Mammon brings fidgets to meetings, of course he does. My guy. My dude. Also his reaction is what makes me think Satan is talking to Ozzie, because Mammon would have no reason to look that gleeful at anyone but Ozzie.

WHERE DID BLITZO GET THAT SWORD THO. (AND ALSO HOW BADLY IS IT ACTUALLY GONNA FUCK UP ANDREALPHUS’ WHOLE DAY BECAUSE THAT’S DEFINITELY ANDREALPHUS ABOUT TO COME DOWN ON THEM LIKE A SACK OF FROZEN HAMMERS) Blitzo trying to protect Stolas, kill me ;A; Stolas looks like he’s in regalia, though sans cloak or hat…why is he at Andrealphus’ place, and why is it looking like he can’t fight back? Stripped of his powers, maybe? Anyway this is Sinsmas, no doubt about it, it’s got season finale energy.

If the haunted house guy is actually Leviathan, I have SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Why is IMP in Lust getting attacked by CHERUB/DHORKS? I have more questions.

“Everyone’s shitty, we live in Hell!” Valid, but also, cop-out.

I’m very curious about what is making Blitzo make that face, because it’s not the cake; it looks like Verosika is cutting it but then she’s also sitting next to him on the railing where he’s sitting, so…? Anyway, it’s Apology Tour, and can I just say how EXCITED I am to get to know more about what happened with Blitzo and Verosika and maybe see some closure for them both on that front? Because YIKES their dynamic means there is a good, juicy story behind it. But also, Blitzo why are you wearing a bloodstained sheet?? (Presumably to sneak around but why did he choose THAT OBJECT, is really my question.)

Millie fighting possibly possessed Blitzo and what appears to be a flashback to Millie and Blitzo’s first fight (could be a time skip but it makes more sense for it to be a flashback given Millie’s hair and Blitzo’s fashion) (side note but dammit why are they both so hot) let me know something new about myself, and it’s how very, very much I want to see Millie and Blitzo kicking the crap out of each other XD Blitzo and Moxxie got to spill their guts in a drug-induced hallucination; I want Blitzo and Millie to fight each other bloody. They’re bonding and sharing deep intimate feelings, guys :P

And the Millie voiceover where she’s telling Blitzo how much he takes from others? Probably during whatever weird hallucination (PLEASE be a hallucination) involves Millie with tied wrists, a branch in her hair, and a ton of glass sticking out of her eye. Ghostfuckers, perhaps? Would make the most sense but how much stuff could that episode POSSIBLY have, oh my word.

(Short-sleeved Blitzo dropping a ton of paperwork on Moxxie also makes me think that’s his date outfit for Full Moon; can’t do this mountain of paperwork, sorry Mox, he has a daaaaate)

Panning to Verosika at the part when she gets to “and leave them worse than when you found them” holy HELL

“Do you feel any remorse for the things you do” yeah somehow I think that’s aimed at Blitzo, y’all. Just from what we’ve seen of Stolas in that particular robe and his general expressions and actions that whole time, and the fact that he seems to be talking to Blitzo (if not an imagining of Blitzo) the whole time. But it panning to Andrealphus about to go super Saiyan does make me laugh super hard actually (bc NO THAT BITCH DOES NOT).

ENTIRE MOMENT OF BREATHLESS SILENCE FOR OCTAVIA CALLING STOLAS OUT. It’s been so complexly beautiful to watch this show not shy away from how much self-hatred and low self-worth hurts loved ones too, and especially to watch that play out with how Octavia and Stolas’ relationship is changing and hurting from Stolas himself changing and hurting, but to have it called out so bluntly really makes me wonder what in the high holy heck is about to happen and when this conversation takes place. I have a horror that it’s during Mastermind or whenever the trial/meeting is, because perhaps Andrealphus and Stella manage to turn Via on Stolas and tell her that whatever is about to happen to Stolas is deserved or for the best, but. Uh. Hmm. Hmmmm. (Because all of Stolas’ power and possessions passing to Via doesn’t mean that Via is old enough or prepared for them and giving them to her would put all that power somewhere that is potentially much easier to manipulate/control, but I have a lot of thoughts about how Stella feels about Via and how that colors how Andrealphus treads around the subject of Via when talking to Stella about her and it’s not for this trailer reaction.)

(Apology Tour involving not just apologizing to Verosika, but to Stolas, too? I can only hope, though it’ll be far from simple; I don’t think Stolitz is going to sort out their issues and get together fully this season, but I’m hoping for some steps.)

(Also PLEASE can we get some Stella development that maybe sheds some dimension on her spoiled brat personality)

VIA SONG VIA SONG VIA SONG VIA SONG (maybe about her own magic and her life and how it all kinda fell apart so fast even as she’s growing up so fast poor girl)

Pretty sure the mirrors shattering thing is happening during the Stolas Apology Tour song, but we’ll see. Gosh there’s gonna be a lot of songs this half of the season.

Millie getting a short is such a good thing for her as a character, but I also love that she’s getting an episode with Blitzo, because out of everyone at IMP, I’ve been waiting for her to be the one that Blitzo has a major breakdown in front of; seems like Ghostfuckers is going to give me my wish! I don’t think she’s gonna coddle him or be overly sweet about it, but I do think she has a way of getting through to him and handling him in a way he wouldn’t let Moxxie do and couldn’t handle Loona doing either. Tough love but sweet? Idk man. Unless this is the moment he starts getting possessed. Who knows.

I am SO CURIOUS about who is going through the movie of Blitzo’s past traumas where he ruins the lives of everyone he loves; I’ve heard speculation that it’s haunted house dude, which would match up with Blitzo having a nervous breakdown in Ghostfuckers, but I dunno.

Oh that soft Blitzo look from under the bloodstained sheet. Oh that happy smiling Stolas that I’m now more convinced is taking place in the same general episode, if not sequentially after each other like that. Blitzo goes from looking so miserable to maybe looking more hopeful. Or perhaps yearning. I’m not sure how to interpret the expression, it’s just really heart-wrenching okay. And Stolas is wearing the same outfit as he is when he’s onstage with Verosika so what even IS this episode.

The very businesslike way Stolas says “Thank you, Blitzo” before he softens up makes me think THAT is what’s gonna finish up the Full Moon argument, but it does make me wonder what on earth Blitzo says that gets Stolas acting the way he does in potentially the very next episode.

Overall it’s a well-produced trailer that I’m sure we’re all going to be dissecting frame by frame for a long time! Whee!

#helluva boss #helluva boss spoilers

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ssturniolo92 · 11 months

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matt sturniolo-right where you left me

pairing-matt sturniolo x reader

genre-angst

warnings-crying? heartbreak?

a/n-no happy ending sowwy😭

fight part 1 fight part 2

i felt my phone buzz, pulling it out i saw it was from matt. i felt my heartbeat speed up in anticipation.

hey, i’m in town. can we meet up?

i responded quickly, not caring what he thought of my quickness.

sure, our spot?

our spot was the only fancy place in town. i hadn’t been there since we were actually together, but what the hell right?

sounds good. tomorrow night, 8pm?

see you there.

i could hardly wait to see him. ever since christmas i couldn’t wait. i thought about him ever he day. we would text or facetime on occasion. but since his career has skyrocketed in the last year he’s been busy, so the calls and texts have been less frequent.

the next day i picked out my best dress, the one he liked the most on me. i pinned up my hair in a bun, but i had to use around 10 pins.

i was ready by seven, and just sat around waiting until 7:45, which is when i left my parents house.

as i drove all i could think about was what he wanted to meet up for. maybe he wanted to get back together? maybe he missed me? the endless questions filled my mind. i could barely handle the excitement.

i walked in the restaurant at exactly 8, and saw him already sitting at a table near the window in the corner. our table.

i walked over with a smile and he smiled back. i missed this feeling. last time we saw each other was confusing, maybe he wanted to make things official?

“and you’re, sitting in front of me. at the restaurant.”

“so how have you been?” he asked, clearing his throat.

“i’ve been good, really good.” i said, unable to contain my smile.

“schools good?” he asked.

“when i was still the one you want.”

“yeah, i love it.” i told him. “how’s youtube?”

“cross-legged in the dim-light everything was just right.”

“good. we’re busy. thinking of going on tour soon.” he said, and i noticed he was avoiding eye contact.

“so, did you wanna talk about something?” i asked hopefully, attempting to make eye contact.

“i could feel the mascara run.”

“yeah actually.” he said and i could tell he was about to continue. my mouth was dry from the nervousness, i brought my glass of water up to my mouth as he spoke.

“i met someone.”

“you told me that you met someone.”

i felt my stomach drop, as everything just stopped. i didn’t even realized i had dropped the glass until i rested my hand on the table and felt the sharp edges.

“glass shattered on the white cloth.”

i felt like i was going to throw up. this was worse than leaving him all those months ago. how could i move on from this?

“everybody moved on.”

i couldn’t bear to look at him. he met someone? i never expected him to say those words. never in my entire life. i felt stuck. like i couldn’t move. couldn’t breathe. this moment would be trapped inside of my brain forever. i felt like i would stay here forever.

“help. i’m still at the restaurant.”

[time skip]

“still sitting in a corner i haunt.”

i still found myself dreaming of that night. even weeks later. i just couldn’t handle the thought of him leaving my life completely, i guess i should’ve known this was coming when i walked out on him.

“cross-legged in the dim light.”

i still remembered every time we met there, our first date, when he asked me to be his girlfriend, when he first said i love you. everything happened there. that place was where we started and ended.

“they say what a sad sight.”

i still went there, when i really missed him. i would pray that i wouldn’t see him and this girl that he had met there, but i guess he knew that that was our place, a place frozen in time.

“i, i stayed there.”

the employees knew and felt sympathy towards me, i could tell. but i didn’t deserve it. i should’ve known this would happen. ever since that night.

“dust collected on my pinned up hair.”

i saw pictures of them online, the whole internet was happy for them. i was too. i just couldn’t get out of that loop. that feeling that i should wait for him. that feeling of nostalgia and longing.

“i’m sure that you got a wife out there, kids and christmas.”

by the time the holidays came around i was sure they were serious, and i was happy for him. as happy as i could be. she looked nice. she was pretty. she had a nice smile. she wasn’t frozen in time like me.

“but i’m unaware, cause i’m right where-”

while i didnt know every single detail of their relationship, i knew they were happy. so instead of moving, i moped on. unaware of the world around me.

“i cause no harm.”

i had gotten multiple texts from chris and nick asking if i was okay. i hadn’t posted on any social media in months, as far as everyone was concerned i was frozen in time, simply stuck in the past.

“mind my business.”

and even if i did go out, i preferred to stay quiet. during lectures and classes i refrained from raising my hand or talking. and i was sure everyone knew why by now, dating someone who’s sorta famous has its cons; especially when you break up.

“if our live died young, i can’t bear witness.”

i feel like maybe things could’ve been different in another world. so instead of facing it, i turn my head away from the truth. choosing to stay. where you were staying, you didn’t know.

“and it’s been so long.”

you would walk the streets, feeling the sympathetic stares from the other people. you tried to come home to boston as often as you could, and you heard what they said about you.

“did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?” “time went on for everybody else she won’t know it.” “she’s still 19, inside her fantasy.”

“did you hear about the girl who lives in delusion?” “breakups happen everyday you don’t have to lose it.”

“but if you ever think you got it wrong, i’m right where you left me.”

you knew that if he ever decided to come back to you, he knew where to find you.

“you left me no, oh you left me no, you left me no choice but to stay here forever.”

you didn’t have it in you to move on. you knew that. everyone knew. so you would just stay here forever.

#milarq46 #matt #sturniolo #chris #chris sturniolo #fluff #matt sturniolo fluff #nick #nick sturniolo #spotify

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pliablehead · 1 year

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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.

#everything everything #e e #RDF US tour 2023 #this has been a post #jonathan fucking higgs.#god.#they all just like. referred to me plainly by my name a lot more than i was expecting in a way that was overwhelming #like to one another/other people and not just to me directly #i exist???? sounds fake #i will be thinking about this week for a hundred thousand years #my pliable head IS a walking hope thank you so much for NOTICING!!!!!!#pics to follow maybe on here but maybe just on twitter #where I am yes you guessed it @pliablehead if people want to lurk and see #ok fucking goodnight

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