#how must he feel to be sitting under photos of the two beatles no longer with us

[exhausted-think-bucket]

Paul at the Brooklyn Museum in NY

[kalypsichor]

five’s a crowd [ beatles x reader ] part five

chapter summary: It’s time for some apologies (aPAULogies!). You and Paul have a chat about student debt, Parliament, and showers. John tries to convince everyone that he won’t break the telly (again), Ringo tries to convince everyone that he’s NOT an old man, and you just wish George would drop that goddamn towel. 

warnings: george is almost naked but not naked enough (sigh)

masterlist and parts one | two | three | four

these chapters are just getting longer, huh. also, queen makes a more... definitive appearance.

Paul’s chosen the corner booth. It’s the spot that you all usually cram into, obnoxious and loud and always on the verge of being kicked out. Sitting there all by himself with nothing but a cup of coffee, he looks very small and lonely and you feel a pang of guilt.

He glances up when you sit down next to him. “Back for round two?” Paul says, and despite this he still scoots over to give you more room.

“No.” Sighing, you resist your fight-or-flight instinct. You’ve always hated confrontation. “I just wanted to apologize. I probably overreacted today and I shouldn’t have, um… ”

“Ripped me a new one?”

You laugh. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I’ve just been so stressed about midterms and all that--which isn’t an excuse for being an asshole, I know. It’s been such a long day, with Ringo having to go to the hospital and John almost killing us in your car and George, uh… actually, George hasn’t done anything. But… forgive me?” You try your best puppy eyes, although that’s more of Paul’s forte.

He pretends to think about it, but he’s already got that smile on his face. It’s soft and accentuates the roundness of his cheeks and you can see what John fell in love with.

“Of course I do. I could never stay angry at you for too long.” You let out a sigh that you didn’t know you were holding. “And I’m sorry, as well. I hope some of your papers were salvageable? I’ll pay for your textbooks, really--”

“With the thousands of pounds of student debt you’ve got? No way.” You nudge Paul teasingly. “No, it wasn’t that bad. Besides, if I don’t have most of that stuff memorized by now I’ll be fucked for midterms.”

“It’s the damn Tories, I tell you!” A businessman at the table over shoots him a dirty look and you have to muffle your snort behind your hands. “Anyway, we’re not here to talk politics. How’s George?” At the last bit, Paul leans in, raising his eyebrows conspiratorially.

Just great, still want to snog him senseless. Nothing new. “Why don’t you ask George yourself, you live with him. He’s still pretty pissed about having to take cold showers in the morning.”

“Please, no more. I’ve gotten yelled at about it enough already.” He throws his hands up in mock surrender and you’re reminded uncannily of John. They really are two sides of the same coin… “Morning’s the only time I can shower, anyway. It’s not fun waking up early, you know, but I do have to get the studio time. I’ve got, like, a million art pieces to turn in next week. It’s killing me.”

Though he says this with a rueful grin, you can see there’s bags under his eyes. With all the drama going on, you hadn’t stopped to think about what Paul must be going through. You internally scold yourself not to be so wrapped in your own concerns next time.

“I didn’t realize.”

“Yeah, well. The woes of an art major. But when I asked about George, I wasn’t talking about our little row.”

You ignore that. “Showering every day is bad for your skin, y’know.”

“First off, that’s my phrase. Secondly, you’re changing the subject.”

“You’re the one changing the subject!” Don’t blush don’t blush don’t blush. “Look, can’t you try and compromise with him? Like, taking turns or something. You can have the first shower every other day and ditto for George!” You smack the table excitedly. “Damn, I’m a genius.”

Paul laughs and downs the rest of his coffee. “Alright, alright. I’ll talk to him about it.” Standing, he stretches and tosses the cup into the trash. “You think the flat is safe enough to go back?”

You mirror his actions, donning your fleece jacket. “Probably. I’ll protect you, though, don’t worry.”

“My hero!” He swoons and loops his arm through yours as you step out of the cafe. The rest of the walk back, he doesn’t mention George again and you think he’s forgotten all about it. That is, until you reach the apartment. Paul unlocks the door and gestures for you to go first. When you brush by him, he leans down to your ear and says it so casually you don’t even register the meaning at first.

“I’ll get the truth out of you one of these days, y’know.”

Paul winks and though he doesn’t say exactly what the ‘truth’ is, you think you have a pretty good idea what he’s talking about.

***

The next day, you’re sat at the kitchen table over a bowl of cereal and some salvaged papers, not unlike yesterday morning. John is once again swiping through his phone. Ringo’s there, too, having scrutinized the entire kitchen floor this time before sitting down.

“TikTok is a load of shit,” John announces, throwing his cell down.

“Yet that doesn’t stop you from being on it for hours on end.”

“It’s addicting! All that… hitting the woah and- and grenade stuff.”

“You mean renegade.”

You both shoot a surprised look at Ringo, who pouts. “What? I can be hip too.”

“Okay, the fact that you said ‘hip’ kinda contradicts that.”

Ringo sticks his tongue out at you and you snicker. John clears his throat, steering the conversation back to him. Attention whore.

“Aaaanyway. As I was saying. Our phones are all the government’s rubbish way of brainwashing us. And that’s why I propose… drum roll, please.”

Ringo obliges. You note that he keeps a rather good tempo.

“Game Night Part Two!”

He’s met with silence.

“Uh, let me think about it-- no.”

“What? Why not!”

You tap your finger to your chin. “Did you already forget getting piss-drunk and missing your American Lit quiz the next day? Or spilling Fanta all over my /nice/ white tee? Or doing that?” John’s gaze follows your gesture to the tv in the living room with a great crack down the middle.

“And you’re a sore loser,” Ringo adds. John frowns and throws a cornflake at him.

“George was definitely cheating-”

“Abupbupbup! I’m not done.” You point at his sour expression. “Don’t you remember the noise complaint we got from our neighbor?”

John actually pauses at this. “You mean Paul’s classmate? The one that does graphic design? Not that you’d know it from the way he dresses like a fashion major.”

“His name is Freddie.” Ringo supplies helpfully. Ringo was always good at names.

“Yeah, he actually knocked on our door and everything. That was embarrassing, John.”

A scoff makes its way through John’s pursed lips. “He’s got no right telling us to keep the noise down when his bloody flat houses an entire fucking band. I can hear them going at it until two am sometimes and I don’t call the police on them.”

“They’re quite good.” As if to accentuate his point, Ringo taps a familiar rhythm with his spoon. Must be from one of their latest songs.

John inhales and you can tell that this’ll turn into a scuffle if you don’t steer the conversation away soon.

“Anyway! We don’t want another repeat of last month’s shenanigans. I’d like to be able to keep watching Netflix on a functioning telly, thank you very much. You’re outnumbered, Johnny.”

“Well, actually.”

You both swivel to look at Ringo: you in horror and John with glee. The oldest boy is usually the tie breaker, the swing-state if you want to be American about it. If he throws his weight behind John, it’ll be over.

“I think it would be a good idea. For morale, you know. We’ve been at each other’s throats all of yesterday, and havin’ another Game Night might get everyone on good terms again.” Damn you, Ringo, you think, damn you and your altruism. John, in every sense of the saying, looks exactly like the cat that’s got the canary. He swings to you with the stupidly smug look on his face.

“The match goes to Lennon! Take that,” he gloats, and you fight the urge to strangle him across the table.

“When you fail Professor Ono’s midterms because you’re too hungover to tell Walt Whitman from Langston Hughes, don’t go crawling to me,” you hiss.

John makes to retort but he’s cut short by the sound of footsteps running down the hall. Your brain barely has time to conjure up the weird feeling of deja vu before George skids into the kitchen.

He’s wearing nothing but a towel. Again. But this time, he’s smiling, and the brilliance of it cuts through your sleep-addled brain and curls up somewhere below your rib cage.

“I just took a shower!”

“Good for you, mate,” John snarks, staring ruefully at the phone in the center of the table--did he change his phone case or something? It looks different, somehow. You can see his fingers twitching toward it.

George ignores him. “I just took a warm shower. A real shower with warm water.”

Yes, you can see that from the bit of steam still rising from his shoulders and his hair, which is now curling slightly in the colder temperature. There’s a droplet of water making its way from George’s very naked chest down to his very fit stomach--how he has abs, you have no idea, since the boy inhales food like Kirby--and you look away sharply before your gaze can wander any further.

“A warm water shower,” he repeats.

Ringo nods. “Ah, yes. The poison. The poison for Kuzco. The poison chosen specifically to kill Kuzco.” He pauses, looking you in the eye rather seriously, and you say the next bit together.

“Kuzco’s poison.”

The two of you double over, giggling like schoolgirls. George, however, looks confused.

“What are they on about?”

“Some American film.” John finally gives in and snatches up the phone laying on the table. Something flashes across his face. You know that look, and nothing good ever follows it. “Smile, Georgie.”

There’s the click of a photo being taken.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“Nothing.” John pushes his chair from the table and stands up rather abruptly. The look on his face is growing into something… wicked. “Nothing at all. I will be in Paul and I’s room. Doing nothing.” He surveys you all once more with that good-for-nothing grin, cradles the phone to his chest, and then sprints down the hall past an even more confused George. The door closes and locks with a decisive click.

The three of you look at each other questioningly. Ringo grunts something unintelligible and shovels more cornflakes into his mouth. George shrugs and turns to head back to the bathroom.

He’s already halfway down the hall before he freezes.

“Wait a minute. Was that my phone?”

[ohblackdiamond]

little t&a (gene/paul, nc-17) (part 23 of 29)

part 1   part 2   part 3   part 4   part 5   part 6   part 7   part 8   part 9   part 10   part 11   part 12   part 13   part 14   part 15   part 16   part 17   part 18   part 19   part 20   part 21  part 22   part 23   part 24    part 25   part 26   part 27   part 28   part 29

Four weeks before KISS gets back on tour, Gene discovers that Paul’s been cursed by a groupie. For the sake of KISS’ finances, Paul’s comfort levels, and Gene’s libido, this crisis must be resolved. Sexswap fic. In this chapter:  Paul and Gene watch T.V. and continue to delay the inevitable.

          They went home after that, stopping only to pick up some more takeout for dinner. Paul was bemoaning it a bit, and offering to make them both sandwiches instead, even when he was pulling up to the restaurant.

         “I’ve gained three pounds just this past week.”

         “You’ve been weighing yourself?”

         Paul looked at him weirdly.

         “Well, yeah. Every day.��

         “Even since this happened?” Gene was a little bewildered to think that even getting cursed hadn’t been enough to distract Paul out of that particular concern.

         “Yeah. I think I’m still gaining it all in the abdomen.” Paul took a disgusted glance down at himself, assuming he could even see his stomach past his chest. Gene was beginning to wonder. “We can’t keep eating like we’re on the road.”

         “Can’t we?”

         “Fuck, no.” Paul grimaced, shaking his head as he parked the car and turned off the engine. “I spent the entire break trying to get my weight down.”

         “You look fine. Why are you so worried?”

         “The costume girls’ll have a fit.”

         It was the first time either of them had mentioned anything related to the tour all day. It cut through the Central Park fantasy like an Exacto knife. Gene wasn’t going to have some cute girl—this cute girl—hanging on his arm for much longer. Maybe no more than a few hours.

         Gene rubbed his elbow uncomfortably. Paul, gazing at his own reflection in the car mirror and pushing his hair in front of his shoulders, didn’t seem to notice, so Gene pushed the rest of his thoughts aside. They got out of the car together; Gene paid for the food, and they returned to Paul’s place soon after. Half the takeout was gone before they’d even gotten home with it. They finished off the rest at the kitchen island, then laid around on the couch awhile, T.V. running in the background while Gene read and Paul doodled.

         It was kind of funny, really. Occasionally it felt like nothing had really shifted. Still watching T.V. together like they used to in the hotels, back when getting laid after the show was a distant hope and not an inevitability. Eating out of Styrofoam boxes. Joking around and shooting the shit.

         The rest of the time, Gene was painfully aware of how much had shifted. There was the sex, sure, even if they hadn’t gone all the way, but that wasn’t the whole of it. He’d still have his gloomy spells, sure, but overall, Paul seemed so happy. So open. So—maybe Gene was giving himself too much credit, but Paul seemed—taken with him. He’d never been aware of anything like that out of Paul before. If those big, dark eyes had ever looked Gene’s way with half the warmth and attention he was getting now, then—well, then, Gene hadn’t noticed.

         He’d thought Paul didn’t like him a bit when they’d first met, in fact. He’d been high on his own bravado, and Paul had just hung in the periphery of his circles. Somebody had introduced them, and Gene had popped off immediately, something like oh, you write songs?, and Paul—well, he’d been Stan, and Stanley if you wanted to piss him off, back then; he hadn’t gone by Paul until a year or two later—had snapped right back with an affirmative.

         He remembered asking him to play one for him, and Paul had. The song was a lousy, incoherent mash-up of the Stones, Bowie, and the Beatles at their most soused, and his playing was worse. But somehow after, they’d just… Gene didn’t know. He couldn’t remember a definitive point where they’d clicked. Paul had still been in the process of nearly flunking out of high school, while Gene was a sophomore, or maybe a junior in college. But he remembered starting to call him up after classes, inviting him to parties and jams. He remembered thinking Paul was standoffish and nervous, not cut out at all for the rockstar career he was so desperate for. But he didn’t remember ever getting the feeling Paul dug him. More that he was just lonely.

         He didn’t want to delve into it too deeply. Rethink nearly ten years of interactions. It wouldn’t do any good, and it wouldn’t change any of the way things were right now. He watched Paul kick up his ankles against the arm of the couch, and finally spoke.

         “What did you take us out for, anyway?”

         Paul glanced up from his drawing. It was something weird and abstract, not the eerily-accurate dick sketches Gene was accustomed to out of him. Hatchmarks, parallel lines, and weird, elongated shapes were well on their way to completely covering the sketchpad.

         “To pay you back. I told you.” The pencil resumed its scratch across the page.

         “No, why did you really do it?”

         “Because we’d never get to again.”

         That was all he said for awhile. The words hung like streamers. Gene sort of wanted to argue him down, even though he wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t know exactly what Paul meant.

         “You can take me out anytime.”

         “Not like that.”  Paul shifted abruptly. “I’m gonna go shower.”

         Gene raised his head, half at the words, half at the slight thump of Paul’s sketchpad next to him on the couch.

         “Want some company? I hear there’s a water shortage.”

         Paul shook his head. Gene felt guilty at his own weird relief. For whatever reason, Paul wasn’t ready yet. They could keep on pretending for awhile longer.

         “Maybe later tonight.”

         Gene nodded. Paul’s expression seemed a little bit strained, but he turned and headed for the bedroom, not closing the door behind him. A minute or two later, Gene could hear the sound of the water running.

         Then he got up, looking through the living room’s bookshelf as if he hadn’t done it prior. Paul didn’t really read for pleasure. He had stuff like  The Power of Positive Thinking,  Games People Play, I’m OK – You’re OK, and a ragged copy of  How to Win Friends and Influence People, the last of which was highlighted like a book of scripture. Gene had been flipping through it while Paul drew.

         Then he had magazines with his face or KISS’ picture on the front cover. No intellectual reading material at all, though that wasn’t what he was looking for. At the bottom of one shelf were Paul’s junior and senior annuals and a small line of photo albums. Gene pulled one of the older-looking albums out at random.

         It was green and typical, with thick black pages. Probably one Paul’s parents had started of him. The initial contents weren’t surprising. A faded birth announcement. A taped-in lock of baby hair dated August 2, 1952—Paul’s parents hadn’t bothered with upsherin, so maybe it was no wonder he’d never had his bar mitzvah. Sepia infant photos—Gene swallowed a bit when he realized that even in the pictures where Paul was barely able to sit up on his own, the photographer had him posed with his head turned to the right, to hide the microtia. Some pictures from birthdays. A picture of him along with the rest of his second grade class. They were lined up by height, and Paul was standing towards the back, easily recognizable just from the eyes and expression. By that point, he’d apparently figured out the pose on his own; he was almost aggressively facing right, while everyone else was looking the camera head-on.

         All that misery and insecurity over two square inches of missing cartilage.

         Gene shook his head. He flipped past most of the rest of the pictures of Paul as a kid, past even the awkward handful from when he was a teenager, before finally coming up on photos slightly closer to current. He’d apparently kept a few Polaroids from Wicked Lester and the earliest days of KISS, before they’d even had the makeup. Then, as he turned the pages, he found a scattering of random, more recent shots. Paul goofing off in hotel rooms. Paul lounging in swim trunks by the pool. Paul in a tux sucking cake frosting off his fingers at Ace’s wedding.

         He was trying to hammer in his head that this was how Paul really was and really looked. He was trying to figure out if he’d still be attracted to him once he was back to normal. If he’d feel something while he looked at the pictures. Start getting hot under the collar, maybe, the way he did with Playboy centerfolds. But—well, Paul only tried provocative poses when he had on the greasepaint, and most everything in the album was barefaced and fairly candid. Gene wasn’t sure he was feeling anything beyond some fondness while looking over pictures of Paul in front of the Eiffel Tower or eating poi in Hawaii.

         That bothered him. Not that he was planning on jacking off to a stupid picture of Paul sitting shirtless on the hood of his car, but—he’d—he’d wanted something definite out of this. Arousal or repulsion. He needed to know. Whether Paul had wanted him for four days or four years, Gene owed him that much.

         The dull white noise of the shower cut off. Gene put the photo album and the book back on the shelf and waited for Paul’s returning footsteps. Maybe later tonight, he’d said. Maybe later than that.

--

         Paul spent longer than he meant to in there. Cleaned himself up, washed his hair and shaved. He’d gotten into the habit of shaving almost everything but his chest and sometimes his underarms because of the tours. Now that he was basically down to only having to worry about his underarms and legs, the effort took two minutes or less, leaving him just standing useless for awhile under the spray.

         He knew what his next move ought to be, just as well as Gene did. Invite him in, get rid of the whole virginity problem, and get back to normal. There was no reason to keep delaying it. He’d had his time with Gene. More of it than he probably deserved, the way that they’d already wormed themselves out of the curse’s terms of consummation, like wily lawyers with contracts.

         He wasn’t scared. Well. He wasn’t just scared. He knew it was probably going to hurt. He hadn’t tried to penetrate himself since that second night with Gene, and even Gene’s fingering had pretty much been rubbing. If he couldn’t tolerate a finger inside him, a dick would be even worse. Paul was tempted to blame it on Carol, but if one less-sexy Playboy article was anything to go by, it was really just his nerves. He’d have no bulwark against them, either, no drugs or alcohol, when he slept with Gene. When he really slept with Gene.

         That wasn’t his real problem, anyway. His real problem was the same as ever. Knowing it would all be over as soon as he let it happen.

         He skimmed a hand over one newly-smooth thigh, fingers sliding across his wet skin. Up to his stomach, then his breasts, idly pushing them together. Considering. Wondering how it must’ve felt for Pinocchio once he got everything he ever wanted, once he was flesh instead of wood. Funny how that was Gene’s takeaway from that movie. Work hard, get your wish. Input-output. But he wasn’t going to get his wish here. Paul couldn’t be a real girl for him. No part of him ought to have ever wanted to try.

         He’d just have to steel himself up for the end, that was all. Delaying it too long was only going to make it worse. It was—it was abysmal, not having taken care of it already, when he’d been so desperate to do it only the day before. But he couldn’t bring himself to commit just yet. Whether out of cowardice or longing, he didn’t know. He wanted to keep messing around with Gene as long as he could. Have Gene keep looking at him, keep touching him. Keep being with him. 

         He swallowed thickly, stepped out of the shower, and dried his hair off a bit with a towel, pulling on a bathrobe before heading back out to the living room. Gene was still on that same couch,  Hawaii Five-O playing in the background. Jack Lord was really starting to look craggy now.

         “You wanna go to bed?”

         “This early?” Gene looked a little amused, but Paul thought there might be something else there. Something on the border of disappointment.

         “There’s nothing on T.V.”

         “Did I play my cards right?”

         “You didn’t play them wrong. We can fool around some more. I’ll keep my top off.”

         It was a lousy offer for a guy who had girls chomping at the bit to sleep with him, and Paul knew it. But the grin he got in response was enough to make some of his guilt, some of his self-disgust, ease off, if only briefly.

         “C’mon, I’ve got an idea.”

--

         Gene followed him to the bedroom affably, taking off his borrowed t-shirt and tossing it on the floor. He didn’t start on his pants, but Paul did for him, unzipping and tugging them down. Gene’s mouth crooked up, uncertain but pleased.

         “You’ve got an awfully wide berth for fooling around, Paul.”

         “I’ve got an awful lot of practice.” Paul untied his bathrobe but didn’t take it off yet. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing beneath it. His hair was still pretty wet, skin pink from the shower. The musky scent of him was almost gone, rinsed away by the shower and soaps, only readily apparent again when Gene’s hand moved between his thighs. It was kind of a thrill to find that earlier hadn’t been a fluke. Paul just kept getting wet for him easier than even a groupie.

         Kissing down his neck as he kept stroking, getting a couple soft grunts in response, Gene wondered what Paul was up to. He was positioned a little awkwardly, legs spread wide, with Gene kneeling in the space between them. Paul kept shifting on the bed, posture a little stiff. Not like yesterday; he just seemed like he was deliberating, anticipating. Gene didn’t think Paul was comfortable enough to pull out any toys or handcuffs. Even light bondage seemed like a little much. Possibly—

         “Did you want to 69?”

         “Nah, I hate that shit. Give me your hand.”

         “Paul, if you’re going to tie me up, I want a striptease first.”

         Paul shrugged off the bathrobe and tossed it at him with a grin.

         “I’m not gonna tie you up, Jesus. Just give me your hand.”

         Impishly, Gene offered the right one, already soaked in Paul’s fluids. He was surprised when Paul took it, grabbing his wrist and pressing Gene’s palm into his cleavage, guiding it up and down. Gene felt a shiver run up his back, dick stiffening to full attention when Paul let go of his hand. The thin streaks of clear fluid left behind were their own promise, one that only got more definite as Paul lowered himself onto the bed, gesturing for Gene to come forward. He did, straddling him carefully, cock resting between his slightly-slick breasts. Paul squeezed them together experimentally, the brief pressure enough to make Gene twitch. Fuck. He hadn’t even fantasized about this one. Fucking Paul against the wall, eating him out--sure, sure. Paul letting him go for a titfuck had been way too far out of the realm of possibility for him to picture.

         “It’s enough, right?” Paul’s voice was soft, vaguely pleased. Gene grunted an assent. They were definitely enough. Another squeeze, though Gene hadn’t tried to thrust yet, Paul watching for his reaction. “Figured we could put them to some use.”

         “What’re you getting out of this?”

         “The same thing you got out of me getting off on your leg. A good view.” Paul reached a hand up, stroking along Gene’s arm. “Now c’mon, I don’t wanna have to put K-Y on my tits.”

[lunawho47]

Buzzfeed Unsolved: The Mysterious Doctor and the Omen of the Blue Box (Part 1)

Fandoms: Buzzfeed Unsolved and Doctor Who

Genre: Total Crackfic, Humor

Rating: 16+ (for language)

Summary: A script for Buzzfeed Unsolved, in which our two favorite jackasses, the Ghoul Boys, discuss the various internet theories surrounding the identity of various mysterious figures known only as “the Doctor” and the blue box that tends to appear around them.  Well, Ryan wants to discuss the theories; Shane thinks it’s all urban legends and bullshit.

A/N: So, I’ve read a lot of these mock scripts going around for Unsolved discussing CW’s Supernatural as though it was real, and I thought they were hilarious.  So, my brain started wondering what theories the reddit and conspiracy boards would think up about mentions of the Doctor, the Doctor’s companions, UNIT, and Torchwood.  And to be honest, my brain came up with A LOT of theories that would make sense, and this format seemed a fun way to discuss all of them.  It was originally going to be a one shot, but as I started writing, Shane kept interrupting in my head about how stupid all of it sounds, and that kept making the script longer and longer.  So, it’s now going to be a few parts long cos the history of DW (even when seriously truncated) takes a long time to go through when you try to use the serials to make arguments about the Doctor’s potential identity(s).  

So, here’s part 1.  Please let me know if you like it and would like to see more.  And if Shane and Ryan sound anything like themselves because if they don’t then the whole thing is nowhere near as funny as it should be.

Ryan: Today on Buzzfeed Unsolved we're looking into the puzzling mystery of an entity known only as "The Doctor" and the corresponding omen of a blue box.  It's a mystery that, in its more comprehensive moments, is whimsically strange and, most of the time, is just plain batshit bizarre.

Shane: Okay, so I can hear the air quotes around the name, and you called it an entity.  Are we talking like, cryptid creature that is based in reality or am I going to be sitting through theories about zombie plagues and Ant-man Ax murderers again?  Just what am I in for here?

Ryan: No zombie plagues, and the Doctor has never murdered anyone with an ax.  At least, not in any of the records available. It's just...well, it's hard to explain here, so let's just get right into it.  Just bear in mind this is Gene Wilder Willy Wonka levels of weird when it's at its most sensical.  And it's rare that this story makes any sense at all.

Shane: Alright, I'll confess I'm...intrigued.  I'm ready to listen.

Ryan: Alright, here we go.  *opens folder*

Ryan (in his Unsolved VO):  The first documented evidence of a being calling itself "The Doctor" is in the files of now deceased British UNIT officer Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.

Shane:  Wait.  UNIT?  What's that? Sounds like something out of a video game.

Ryan: (wheeze) It does a bit, yeah. But there is paperwork evidence that verifies this group -- lame as the acronym is -- actually existed.  They were set up in the mid-1960s by the United Nations to look into unexplained phenomena and for a long time they were a covert operation.  The British Prime Minister knew they existed, and they answered to Geneva, but they weren't known to the wider public until after they shut down three years ago.

Shane:  I'm sure that meeting went GREAT.  'Hey, everybody, thanks for coming down this Monday morning. Erm...thanks for protecting us from alien invasions for the last 50 years and for keeping such a great secret about it.  Here's your reward: you're all fired, and we're going to tell the entire world what your names were and let you deal with the press about it for the rest of your life.  Have a great rest of your Monday!'  (Wheeze) What a bunch of shitty bosses.

Ryan: I mean, based on what little there is to read about how UNIT operated, the Brigadier we'll be talking about really had to go to bat for the organization in front of the Prime Minister a lot over the years in order to keep the operation going.  After the Brigadier died, they were able to keep going for awhile, but as you'll see from some of these stories we'll be looking at today, the organization was considered obsolete long before it was disbanded.

Shane: Okay, so the Doctor first appears in conjunction with this UNIT?

Ryan: Right, so in the 1960s, there was some weird circumstance that led to the London Underground shutting down and the Brigadier, who was only a Colonel in the regular British army at the time, ran into what he described as a "(quote) man with a foppish haircut, ratty waistcoat, and tartan patterned clown pants; a young teenage girl; and a full Scotsman (end quote)."  

Shane: So which is the Doctor?  

Ryan: In this case, it's the first description.  The man with the clown pants on.  (wheeze)

Shane: (wheeze) Do you think he had clown shoes on, too?

Ryan: See, I know exactly what you're picturing right now.  You're thinking of a guy with a depressing Beatles haircut and complete clown regalia, including the extra large shoes.

Shane: I am.  100%  And you know, given some of the things we saw when traveling around London, including on (*with a terribly fake posh Oxbridge accent*) the Tube, a man dressed as a clown running around the platforms underground wouldn't even register as weird on a normal day.

Ryan: (Conceding) That is true.  And on a normal day, I'd agree with you.  But, bear in mind, this was the 1960s -- not the modern day -- and the Tube at the time was closed to the public because of this unknown threat the army was trying to deal with.  And what's even more notable -- the reason why the future Brigadier apparently wrote about it in his official report to the Prime Minister -- is that the man who called himself the Doctor, together with the two other civilians, saved the day.  The details are sparse, but the Brigadier makes it clear that the Doctor is the one who figured out what was really going on and managed to deal with whatever the situation was with minimal casualties.

And that's just the first time the Doctor and the future Brigadier crossed paths.  There are later documents that report the Brigadier -- now promoted from Colonel and officially a Brigadier -- came across the same man and Scotsman, but a different young girl in London just weeks after the military organization known as UNIT was founded.  And AGAIN, whatever the situation actually was, the Doctor and his friends were the ones that helped UNIT save the day.

Shane: Am I the only one who finds it suspicious that the details are always missing?  Like, shady organization set up by the government to look into extraterrestrial happenings?  Sure. (*puts hands in the air in surrender to argument*) I'll buy that.  Governments do shady shit all the time.  But, I mean, things like shutting down the London Underground and alien happenings in the city of London itself.  People are going to notice, right?  And how shitty are the Brigadier's write ups that no one remembers or knows any of the happenings in Britain's capital?  "Dear Prime Minister, stuff happened.  Doctor did some other stuff.  Stuff stopped.  The end.  TTYL."  Sounds like someone was crap at his job and when things just luckily worked out, everyone just swept it under the rug.

Ryan: You see, I would agree with you there.  BUT...there are pictures.  We can't show them to the audience because of copyright, but if you know where to look online, people love to discuss the Doctor and all the people who have gone missing while looking for the Doctor, so.  Investigate at your own peril. But, Shane, here you go.

*the audience can't see the photos hidden by Ryan's open folder, but we see Shane's expression.*

Shane: (*laughs*)  That Doctor looks like a moron.  I mean, I still think the Brigadier must have been crap at his job, but he was bang on his descriptor of the Doctor looking like a clown.  And I take it the guy in the kilt is the Scotsman?

Ryan: Yeah, I looked up what full Scotsman means when I read the description and apparently it means a guy who wears a kilt with no underwear on underneath it.  Before that, I just assumed that it meant this other guy was wandering around the Underground, playing bagpipes and singing songs from Highlander or something.

Shane: You thought this guy was wandering around singing Who Wants to Live Forever over a decade before the film came out.  (wheeze)

Ryan:  Well, when we get into the theories that idea won't seem entirely out of place, I don't think.

Shane: Well, I'm going to go ahead and call a preemptive bullshit on that theory.

Ryan: Noted.

Ryan: (back in Theory VO) The next record of the Doctor's appearance comes about in the 1970s when a man is admitted to a local hospital after collapsing outside of a blue box in the woods.

Shane: There was a blue box in the woods?  Like, human sized or was he scrunched up in it like Shroedinger's cat?

Ryan: We'll get back to the box in a minute, but it's larger than a human, yeah.  In fact, it was something called a Police Public Call Box, which were common to see on city or town street corners in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. The idea was that if police or citizens saw a crime being committed, they could either phone the police from the box or shove the criminal in the police box and go fetch a policeman.  But what's weird about the box in this case is: 1) it's in the middle of the woods, and not even on like, a hiking path or anything.  But, the legit WOODS.  And 2) it's the 1970s and police call boxes are no longer really a thing at this point.  But, once the man calling himself the Doctor gets to the hospital it gets even stranger.

Shane:  I mean, everything about this story so far feels like the Brigadier spinning a yarn, but keep going.

Ryan: So, the Brigadier gets a phone call from the hospital that a man called the Doctor has been admitted to the hospital.

Shane: Wait, how did the hospital know to call the Brigadier about that?  Was there a national bulletin?  Is the Doctor a wanted man or something?

Ryan: I don't know, man.  Maybe the police just call UNIT whenever something with the label "fucking weird" comes across their desk.  I don't know.  This is just what the report says.

Ryan: (theory voice) Due to a situation UNIT was overseeing in the area at the time, the Doctor's appearance was notably auspicious for the Brigadier, so the UNIT officer went to see if his friend could help with the investigation.  However, when he got the hospital, he discovered that he the man calling himself 'The Doctor' was not anyone he recognized.

Shane: Wait...what?

Ryan: (laughing).  I told you the situation at the hospital is weird.  So, the Brigadier is told that this man who has helped him out before has been admitted to a hospital that is nearby a situation that UNIT is investigating -- a clear sign, in the Brigadier's mind, that this Doctor who is injured is the same one he's met twice before -- and then discovers that it's a completely different man.

Shane: Well, I mean...that's not *too* weird.  I mean, the man is in a hospital, and you usually see doctors in a hospital.  And I'm sure a lot of doctors are known more by their title than their surname.  There are millions of doctors on the planet, so I don't know if two different people wanting to be called Doctor is all that unusual.

Ryan: (with a haughty smile) That makes perfect sense, but listen to this.

Ryan: (Theory voice)  The Brigadier assumed at first that the patient calling himself the Doctor was a coincidence and started to leave the room.  However, he found himself called back when he heard the unknown man call the Brigadier by name. The conversation made it clear that, not only did the patient know the Brigadier's full name, but also knew the circumstances under which the Doctor and the Brigadier had met both times before. Information which, at the time, was highly classified and known only to those in the Prime Minister's office and those who had been in the UNIT planning room at the time of the situational crises.

Shane: Okay, I'm going to call it.  I'm going with spy.  I think the Doctor is a code name and this guy inherited  the call sign and the information from the Doctor's previous operations.  

Ryan: So, you think this is like, a 007 scenario?  

Shane: I mean, I'm sure you'll peddle some alien abduction theory or some other supernatural bullshit, but...yeah.  I'm going spy call sign.  Makes sense to me so far.

Ryan: Well, you might not be a *total* dipshit, but...we'll see.  There's still quite a bit more to cover. This isn't even the tip of the weird iceberg.

Shane: (sarcastically) Oh joy...

[hollandroos]

How Could I Not? | Seven

Playlist | Wattpad | Series masterlist

Summary: You and Tom are only supposed to be friends... friends who sometimes take things a step further and friends who can’t seem to spend longer then a few days apart. But that can all change with a positive pregnancy test and Suddenly you have to work together more then ever to prepare for the new life you created. But is it really that easy?

Words: 3361

Warnings: Lots of talk of adoption. Please don't read if that is a sensitive topic for you and hold back any nasty comments until you read future chapters, thank you!!

Please remember to reblog/comment/send an ask if you enjoyed this!!

Read the previous chapter here!

It wasn’t really anyone's fault that you forgot there was food in the oven – what, with the gentle tune of the Beatles playing overtop of a chorus of everlasting laughter between the two of you, not to mention the snoring dog in the corner of the room. Something was bound to happen – it was you and Tom, for crying out loud.

“Dance with me,”

Tom says it as a statement, not a question. He wants – no, he needs you to dance with him. He needs to feel his arms wrapped securely around your waist, to feel your feet move in time with his. It was so cliche, really, but Tom lived for cliche.

He was the type of go out of his way to surprise his love with roses on his way home from work, one for every time he’d wanted to send a quick ‘I love you’ text that day but hadn’t been able to. The type to spend hours perfecting the best meal he could muster up and additionally, plate it with a glass of the best wine he could afford. The type to kiss in the rain, if he had the chance.

You open your mouth in protest, the smell of the cheesy pasta dish wafting around the kitchen. “The dinner–”

“Dance with me.” Tom all but smiles, words slipping from his mouth with such ease and suddenly you’re putty in the palm of his hand. And you don’t hesitate to mould into his body, allowing yourself to fall into him.

“Why did you want to dance with me?” You chuckle, leaning your head against him. You give in, allowing Tom to take you wherever he wants to go. That seemed to be nowhere and you find yourself swaying gently in the comfort of the area between the kitchen and the living room.

Tom shrugs his shoulders. “Jus’ felt like it.”

You hum, breathing in the scent of his cologne. You’d learnt that it was some kind of axe spray that he had cans of hidden around the apartment – such as in the kitchen cupboards and tucked away in his car. The song finishes and a new one begins, one Tom wasn’t aware of but the last thing he wants to do is complain about the pre-nineties tune when he has you right there, humming gently along with the lyrics.

Your eyes are closed and you look at peace as he rocks you two back and forth, feet both stuck to the floor as you sway. 

His heart beats prominently in his chest and it’s nearly impossible not to count every beat. Every beat tells you that he’s there with you, reminding you of the fact that you’re beyond lucky to have him. And funny enough, Tom was thinking the same about you. 

Your peace is short-lived, however, as mere minutes later there’s a horrid – god awful smell and you can’t even hide your disgust with your face in his chest.

“What’s that smell?” Tom mumbles, screwing his nose up.

And you want to ask the same question – before you gasp, eyes widening and you push yourself away from Tom making him stumble back slightly. For a few moments, the brunette stands in confusion before he himself is hit with the realisation.

“The food, Tom, we burnt it!” You exclaim, rushing to the oven. You hardly have time to slip the oven mitt over your hands but that doesn’t matter – because the second you open the oven door black smoke drifts out, flooding the kitchen. “Fuck, I told you we were going to burn it.” You curse under your breath, resisting the urge to cough as you turn the oven off.

“Sorry, love,” Tom says half-heartedly, resisting the urge to laugh at the sight of you looking so frantic. If it weren’t for the clouds of smoke painting your kitchen darker hues of grey then he would’ve laughed. Surely. “Got too distracted, maybe next time I’ll listen.”

He was distracted by your humming, and thoughts he couldn't simply shove away such as the thought that you fit against him so easily. Like two pieces of a wazzgij puzzle. 

“Maybe,” You taunt, bringing the meal out of the oven. It didn't take a second opinion to tell that it belonged in the bin, right ontop of the expired cat food. “Should we just order pizza?” You speak between coughs.

You continue to wave the towel around the living room, praying the smoke detectors won’t go off again. Toms antics had already set the alarms off once, nearly three months ago now and he seemed to be the only one in the entire evacuated building that found it amusing. He had stifled his chuckles in the rain, cheeks tinted red and hair flat against his forehead.

But now, the room stunk. The smell makes you screw your face up in disgust. That was definitely going to be the last time you were going to attempt to make a fancy meal.

“Pizza sounds good.” Tom agrees, feeling his stomach begin to rumble. And to think, the smell of the charcoal lasagna stole his appetite for a solid minute. “I’ll see to it, can I use your laptop?”

“Yeah, it’s sitting on the couch, I think.” You speak, raising your voice so he can hear from the living room. “Get me the cheesy one with the stuffed crust! That’s my favourite.”

“I already knew that,” Tom calls back, typing in the six letter password. “Dominos or pizza hut?” He asks, looking up briefly.

You’re humming a song in the kitchen, competing with the buzzing fridge but Tom can make out the lyrics to Hey Jude by the Beatles. The smell of the burnt lasagne barely bothers you anymore as you sway your hips to the song playing through the speakers and your lips. He smiles to himself, watching you prance carelessly around the kitchen with a flannel shirt pulled over you, tucked into a pair of denim shorts. Laptop and rumbling stomach forgotten, his eyes sparkle with joy at the sight.

He makes a small note to let you play your music more often, even if it wasn’t his favourite – because the light that adorns your eyes is simply captivating. He’s stuck in the best kind of trance.

Hey Jude, don't be afraid You were made to go out and get her

“Dominos. Pizza hut is nowhere near as good.” You tell him, testing the water with your fingertips. You wince when it’s too hot, pulling your hand to your chest and decide that the awaiting dishes can simmer a little longer. Tom grimaces and looks back at the screen. There’s a picture of you and Laura taken last summer, wearing matching dresses and oversized sunglasses hugging your noses. He can’t remember if he took that photo – it may have been Harrison.

That was the same holiday that the set of you took a road trip and found yourselves renting a caravan and setting it up next to the beach. Mornings were spent sleeping in – or for you and Tom, hiding beneath the sheets with childish grins on your faces while your friends slept and nights were spent sitting by the ocean, threatening to push one another in and sharing chicken and vegetable kebabs.

The minute you let her under your skin Then you begin to make it better

You were getting under his skin, making your way into his heart and you were yet to realise it. That had happened long before your holiday trip. But he liked it. He liked the way your mere presence could make him feel like he was on top of the world and somehow – somehow, the glint in your eyes reminded him of the stars that he could and would stare at endlessly every night before bed.

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain Don't carry the world upon your shoulders

“So cheese with a stuffed crust and Hawaiian for me?” He finds himself asking, cursor hovering over the ‘add to cart’ button. He was thankful for twenty-four seven delivery – a new addition that he often found himself succumbing too at one am. Maybe it was becoming a bad habit but he couldn’t say no. His self-control was discarded in the am.

“Garlic bread too.” You remind him, dipping your hand into the soapy water. Suds end where your wrist begins.

Tom directs the mouse over to the tabs, squinting his eyes at the bright light and nothing can stop him from pressing the extra tab, his pure curiosity overriding the fact that the two of you had an unspoken rule about invading the other's privacy. But he couldn’t stop himself when the eight letter word caught his eyes.

It started with an A and ended in N. The second letter was D, third O.

Tom bites his lip, switching tabs and silently deciding that the pizza can wait another moment.

‘Looking at adoption. Things you must know.’ ‘Adoption agencies UK.’

You know when people say that they felt their breathing stop? well, Tom did then – for sure. There’s also the feeling of his heart dropping out of his chest, plummeting into his chest.

One second it’s there, beating, pumping blood throughout his body and the next he’s stuck staring. Unmoving. There are not enough words in the human language to describe the confusion Tom experiences as he tries to read the page with hazy eyes.

There’s a feeling of disbelief because Tom swore you wanted this as badly as he did – maybe not at first, but maybe the excitement hit after the first ultrasound. Or maybe it was when he dreamt about taking his little girl to the beach for the first time or coming home to a chorus of soft, baby giggles.

Toms had photos of outfit ideas for his little one already. He had a Pinterest board of parenting tips and had even started listing a couple of names. He liked Emilia for a girl and Sutton for a boy. Marlowe was on the list too, and Starlette. Harrison had suggested Luna and his mother had suggested Max. Maybe he’d fallen too deep into his own world and forgotten that you had your own.

The song finishes, the soothing voice of the Beatles fading out slowly. Just slow enough for your humming to fade out with it, and you look over to see your best friend unmoving in his spot and while you can only see him from the side on, you notice his hand, stiff over the cursor. Suddenly the burnt lasagna and boiling sink seems unimportant.

“Tom?” You prompt, stepping around the kitchen table. Bubbles drip off of your hand and land on the floorboards, a safety risk you’d remember to look at later.

He blinks once before scrolling, seeing a series of previously opened articles and his heart succumbs to nothing but broken, confused pieces.

“What’s this?”

He picks up the laptop and shows you what’s on the screen and you tense. Be it from frustration because he invaded your privacy or the fact that you’d been caught – the bench suddenly seems so cold beneath tense fingers.

“Why are you looking through my stuff–” You snap, biting into your gum to keep you from going off at him.

He grits his teeth, placing the computer down on the table and stands up. He’s tense, clearly, and knuckles are clenched at his side with so much might. Tom rarely got angry, in fact, he hardly ever found himself fuming but here he was. And here you were a mere few meters away.

“Were you going to tell me?”

“Tom,” You sigh, letting out a breathe as tears glisten in his eyes. Tom looked a good concoction of angry and deflated. Shocked too. “Of course I was going to tell you but I just needed… I needed more time to wrap my mind about this entire thing.”

“Were you going to tell me?” He asks again, only this time the words are more muffled and less coherent then before.

A sigh leaves your lips. One that said more then words could. On one hand, you want to run into his arms and mutter apologies – admittedly Tom looked really cosy right now. You’d much rather be bundled up in his arms, a warm blanket thrown over your shoulders then argue with him. But you also know that you need to stand up for yourself and what you were doing.

“You were so excited. I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”

“You can’t just… you can’t just consider other options and not tell me, not when you were so ready to go through with this.” He struggles to form words, finding that everything he wanted to say he probably shouldn’t.

The pets seemed to be completely unaware of what was happening. Both lay still, the cat purring softly against Tessa as if using her as a pillow. Much like Tom did when he was sleeping, Tess snores lightly. You and Tom both secretly wish that you could be as chilled as your pets, but don’t voice your thoughts.

It’s crazy that – how everything can fall apart so suddenly. One second you’re laughing over burnt lasagna, praying that the smoke detector won’t blare at any moment and arguing over what takeouts you’ll get instead because neither are you are decent cooks and the next you’re admitting that you probably tested your trust. And that now there may not be much to rebuild.

Swallowing back your nerves, you clench your fists at your side. “Don’t tell me not to consider other options. You don’t get to tell me not to do that.”

“But that baby is mine too,” Tom was seething with anger and you were about to collapse from feeling all too many things at once. You’d gone from a giggling mess to outright fearful of losing everything you’d built. “We’re in this together, remember that? We both agreed on that.” Tom lets out a shaky breath.

“We are in this together but we need to look at the fact that we do have other options too–”

Tom interrupts you abruptly. “You moved in here so that we could look after our baby together! I asked you to move in here to make things easier, that’s what we agreed on, was it not?”

“You asked me to move in because you wanted me closer in case anything happened to me or the baby while he or she is still inside me.” You correct, practically seething with frustration as he speaks. Every word made you feel smaller then the last. “This doesn’t mean that I don’t love the baby, Tom, of course not. How could I not love him? I’ve been tracking the growth, watching for signs that something could be wrong. Shit, I’ve been doing what I can, when I can.”

For a few moments, your words simmer in silence – at least what silence was possible overtop of the radio which played another one of your songs, only quieter this time and you weren’t in the mood to hum.

Tom was too busy trying to come up with the best thing to say but all he could come up with was eight words.

“I won’t let you give up our baby up,” Tom says, quietly but harshly. Bitterness laces every word, dripping from his lips like venom and you’re more then aware of it – as well as the fact that Tom had never spoken to you in that tone before and you were more then sure that you didn’t like it.

Our baby.

“We need to talk about this properly.” You try, far from fed up over arguing like children.

Tom agrees, but he can’t see much beyond the feeling of betrayal. If he could even call it that.

“I thought you wanted this, you know? You led me to believe that you wanted this and you were going behind my back–”

“You think I want to give the baby up? You think it doesn’t break my heart to consider other options?” You speak up, the urge to breakdown growing stronger. But you wouldn’t in front of him. “Jesus, Tom, we told your parents about the baby and they embraced us with open arms and promised to do what they could. We told mine and they walked out. I’ve texted my mum every day but I’ve heard nothing. I want my family back.”

“I think that you’re being selfish.”

You scoff. 

“Did you really just go there?” He doesn’t respond, swimming in his own guilt. “I’m not selfish for considering other options when I’ve given up so much already and if you can’t support me then so be it… but don’t tell me that I don’t have other choices here.”

Tom doesn’t know what else to say. He feels frozen in his spot, trying to take in and accept every word that falls from your lips but he can’t find it in him to respond. The sickly smell of burnt lasagna was long forgotten by either of you, as was his hunger that had since subside and was replaced by an overwhelming amount of frustration.

You, on the other hand, want to yell at him for not answering you. You want to demand an answer because the silence was deafening and you just needed an apology or at least the knowledge that you can talk about this with him instead of yelling and having to defend your side.

Gritting your teeth, you pick up the nearest coat which happened to be strewn over the chair and wrap it around you, then going back to the kitchen counter where you hastily grab your phone and car keys. The gentle jingling of the keys snaps Tom out of whatever haze he was in.

“I’m leaving, Tom, call me when you actually want to talk like adults – like two adults who are supposed to be bringing a baby into the world.” You spit, missing the remorse that crosses his face at lightning speed.

“Don’t go, we need to talk about this.” He extends an arm and tries to grab yours and for a second, he succeeds, right before you tug yourself from his grasp and glare.

“Why? So we can continue to argue?” You stop, waiting for Tom to answer but he doesn’t. He knows you’re right. “I don’t want to have this conversation like this and I won’t be made to feel like the bad guy when you refuse to even hear me out without losing your temper.”

A large part of you wants him to tell you not to leave, to say that you can sort this out in the morning when you’re both not angry about the invasion of privacy and about him getting mad at you for considering other options and additionally, for calling you selfish. And then maybe you’d apologise for not telling him.

Admittedly, you could admit your mistakes.

And if Tom told you again not to leave, then maybe you wouldn’t have stormed out of the apartment but instead to your bedroom where you’d stay until dusk. Then, you’d creep into his room and you’d discuss this when you were both calm and steam – highlighting your anger, wasn’t making its way out of your ears.

Tom is left in the apartment. He couldn’t necessarily say that he was by himself because he had Oscar and he had Tessa. And it’s Oscar that crawls onto his lap when he throws himself down onto the couch, head in his hands as he runs over every word thrown across the living room to the kitchen.

The cat brushes himself up against Tom, begging the man for a head rub and Tom does so without complaint – hand falling to the cats head. Usually, he would’ve grumbled about the cat... shoved him off and groaned but this time Tom gives in. 

Maybe it’s the guilt that suddenly turns him into a temporary cat person.

“She’ll come back, Osc,” Tom says, more or less trying to reassure himself then the cat. “She’s just going to Laura's for a bit.”

He chews on his bottom lip, fingers running through ginger fur.

You were going to come back. And until then, Tom would grovel.

Hey Jude, don't make it bad Take a sad song and make it better

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[petersmoan]

Fluorescents

Pairing: Quentin Beck/Peter Parker TW: Depression, mentions of self-harm, eating disorder Read on AO3: here

---

His back was wet from sweat, his pyjamas stuck to his hot skin. When he woke up, for a brief moment he thought he peed himself right in their king sized bed. But it was just sweat, on his back, face, in his hair and between his legs. One of the worst nightmares from the past few months came back to haunt him, to wake him up with a heartburn and make it difficult to breathe. He struggled to take a deep breath for a few seconds and it made him panic. It made his partner wake up as well and get to him as soon as possible.

“What- What’s wrong?! Peter?!” Quentin grabbed him so he could stop shaking like crazy; in fact, Peter almost fell off the mattress. “Calm down. Breathe, please.”

Peter held onto his partner like he was about to lose him forever. Like he was about to lose Tony. He didn’t want to lose Quentin too, ever. He breathed in his scent as much as he could at that moment and when he felt he was really there, he was alive and with him and wasn’t going anywhere, Peter exhaled.

“Easy there, Peter. It’s alright. Just a bad dream.”

Every time after Peter calmed down, there was a waterfall of tears coming right up. Sometimes it was out of pure sadness and depression, sometimes it was because Peter was frustrated. Tired, frustrated and fed up with constant nightmares haunting him from time to time, exhausting his body and mind. How was he supposed to get healthy if he kept having these dreams and draining attacks?

Then he was reminded exactly how. It was so simple, yet so difficult to understand how did it all work. Quentin hugged him from behind, when Peter was sitting at the edge of their bed, sobbing. He was the one who helped Peter start feeling things again, giving a damn about anything and just trying.

Quentin got up and went to the kitchen. Peter learned not to panic every time he left for a moment. He was given a glass of water, took a big sip and breathed out again.

“Drink it now, Pete. You’re dehydrated.”

Peter nodded and politely drank it all. He didn’t feel like his body lacked any water, but he listened to Quentin because he was worried. He was always worried. He has been worried since they first met and Peter spilled his guts. A depressed and devastated man in grief did not care about keeping secrets. Quentin found out about his identity and challenges he had had to face already.

Lying on the bed, Peter was remembering their first session ever. He remembered aunt May talking to Dr. Beck on the phone in the living room, standing in front of the window, while Peter was sitting on the couch, his knees under his chin, hugging his legs and looking awkwardly at her. At that moment he hated Dr. Beck, he hated the fact he needed to talk to him and tell him his aunt can’t stand him anymore.

He went to Beck’s office dressed in his pyjamas, since he barely got out of bed that morning. Beck greeted him, refusing to smirk at his patient’s pink Hello Kitty pants. Peter was obviously not in the mood.

“Please sit down. You’ve got water and napkins here just in case, feel free to use.”

They were sitting across each other; Peter seemingly exhausted, didn’t even have the energy to look uncomfortable. He would fall asleep right here and right now if he could. Quentin on the other hand, was focused. He was looking at Peter, slightly frowning, analyzing his body language. It was after 10-ish minutes when he started.

“So, Mr. Parker. Or shall I call you by your name?”

“Peter” the boy nodded slowly, staring at his thighs, “Peter’s fine.”

“Okay, Peter” Quentin’s voice was smooth and calm. Peter noticed it was relaxing just listening to the man. “I want you to tell me how do you feel right now. No i’m fines or i’m terribles. Elaborate. Use different words than when you talk to your aunt.”

Peter’s eyes welled up with tears. He knew he was going to sound like a childish emo, but in this case his words had so much more meaning.

“You will never understand any of it, Mr. Beck.”

“Just try me. I like challenges.” Quentin smiled in encouragement, which Peter saw because he lifted his gaze for a moment.

“For the record, I’m not schizophrenic. I don’t have hallucinations. I… I actually wish I did. I wish it weren’t true, what happened.”

Quentin just nodded. Didn’t say a word. “I’m not here to judge you, Peter. You probably heard that a lot. And I am going to believe you. You seem like a reasonable kid.”

Peter took a deep breath and exposed his watch wrapped along his wrist to Quentin. He hadn’t taken it off since the last time he went to class and got a panic attack.

He simply let the spider web from the watch grab a glass of water settled on a desk near the doctor. Beck’s face was in fact priceless – he frowned, his eyes bigger than ever, trying so hard not to look… shocked.

“I am, what they call me, Spider-man, sir” he let go of the glass and hid his wrist under the sleeve. “I installed a tiny web machine, to keep it simple, in this watch, and I forgot to take it off a couple of weeks ago. Thought it might be useful now.”

He waited for a moment; Quentin didn’t say a word. His gaze remained surprised and unprepared.

“I have been dead for five years. I came back, and right after that I am responsible for Tony Stark’s death. I feel guilty.”

These were only two things that made Peter a wreck over the few months. Quentin knew that, and was willing to ask for more. He knew he was stepping on a thin ice there.

“Was your contribution to Mr. Stark’s death firsthand?”

Peter frowned, still not looking at Quentin. “Like… did I just go and kill him? With my own hands?”

“Yes.”

The boy shook his head. “I, uh… I did not… He… He saved the universe. It… It consumed him. The power he used.”

“Were you able to help him in any way, to stop this? To save the universe and his life?”

“N-no, I… He saved our lives, all of us, and then he already… he was… he was dying. Right in front of me” Peter’s eyes finally fell on Quentin. Tears streamed down his cheeks as they did. “Right in front me, sir. I couldn’t do anything.”

This memory hit him like a thunder in the middle of a cozy night. He thought about their first meeting because he wanted to feel better, but it did the exact opposite at first.

Peter was a very broken and lost person, and Quentin knew that. Later on at the meeting Peter’s eyes were dripping with tears basically all the time he was speaking.

“Aunt May sent me here to get better. I don’t think I ever will, so please, sir, give me one good reason to believe I’m getting better when it happens.”

He wiped his face with another napkin and took a sip of water. Quentin didn’t say a word, just listened – he saw the boy wanted to spill more of his guts at that moment. “I keep starving myself for some kind of punishment. I cannot sleep because I’m feeling hungry and guilty”, another sip, another napkin, this time to blow his nose. “My weight keeps fluctuating and I can’t remember the last time I slept through a night without the need to just shed my blood. Just like Tony did.” A longer pause after, he finished, “I’m so sick of feeling alone. No one seems to understand that pain.”

It always triggered him, recalling those words he spit in the office. Then he remembered Quentin’s last words when he was leaving the office after two hours of spilling his guts and listening to the man.

“Peter?” Quentin stopped the boy right before he left, “You’re no longer alone in your tragedy. I believe you. Tony was arrogant, but he would be proud.”

It was the first hint he ever got that Quentin knew Tony personally. It wasn’t a good hint, Peter would admit later, because everyone knew Tony was arrogant. He remembered the framed picture of him and Tony, both in expensive suits, shaking hands as the symbol of agreeing to sell Quentin’s work to Tony. They were both smiling; Peter could tell Tony’s smile was genuine. Quentin’s on the other hand, was… sad.

It was his first time at Quentin’s apartment. They were still having sessions, of course, but one day he just invited Peter for dinner, since they had a lot in common besides the therapy. Peter dressed casually, this time not in pyjamas though. When he arrived, instead of shaking hands as a greeting, they hugged. The hug was longer than the usual ones. It wasn’t the first time Peter hugged him; oh god how safe did he feel in Quentin’s strong arms.

“Feel free to explore, I’ll look at the food.” So he did explore. He went to his bedroom and seeing a king sized bed placed near the windows made him imagine how comfortable it must be to sleep there with Quentin.

He quickly got rid of this feeling and started analyzing pictures on the wall above his desk. Next to the huge The Beatles poster there was a high quality photo with Quentin holding a hand with a man. This man was Tony Stark. Peter’s eyes turned big, he leaned closer to check if his vision was correct. Indeed, he wasn’t mistaken.

Quentin knew Tony. They were probably close, coworkers, colleagues even. He knew Tony and was probably as hurt because of his death as Peter, and yet he listened to him without a word, without a bit of grief or any personal feelings. Peter started admiring him even more. He needed to talk to him as soon as possible.

The smell of food hit Peter’s nose when he entered the living room with kitchenette. There he was standing, with his back turned to Peter. The boy approached him and grabbed his forearm, making Quentin look at him immediately. Peter’s eyes were big and shiny; he almost started crying.

“Y-you knew him… You knew him all along… and didn’t even…” when the words escaped his mouth, it was much harder for Peter to stay calm. He wasn’t mad, obviously. He was shocked and all the grief has hit him again.

“Oh, you saw the… the pictures” Quentin turned off the cooker and faced him. “Are you mad?”

“No, of course I’m not, Mr. Beck, I… I’m surprised. And impressed as well, since he was your acquaintance, you must have mourned… I mean...”

“We weren’t exactly, you know, friends. I, uh… I’ll tell you everything in a minute, okay?”

Quentin turned into an awkward mess instantly. Peter offered his help with the food, so he could hear him out as soon as possible. It was truly stressing him out; they sat across each other at the table, both wanting this awkward situation to end.

“I’m sorry Peter, I... I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I decided against telling you about this, because I didn’t want you to be afraid of telling me anything. I needed to keep it professional.”

“I’m not mad, Mr. Beck-”

“Quentin.”

Peter sighed a little, “Quentin. I’m not mad, really. I get it. I’m just... I don’t know, amazed. I didn’t see that coming.”

Although he did start eating, it was a very slow process. Quentin noticed the urge to ask him everything about their history, and the most important thing – did he know from the start about the kid? The new Avenger?

“When you first came to me, Peter, I didn’t know. You were just another kid named Peter in my timetable. But when you used your watch...” he paused, took a sip of tea and continued, “I understood. You were the Spider kid he would always talk about. The next Tony Stark. Once in a bar he told me about that web watch you invented, so I did quick math. I already knew why you came here, why you looked and acted like you did. But I couldn’t spill anything, it would make everything just more difficult.”

Peter was speechless. When he didn’t know what to do, he’d usually check his phone or drink his water, but this time he drank the whole tea down and started crying. He covered his mouth with one hand, the other resting on the table. Quentin gently grabbed it and squeezed.

“Hey. If you want to go home or anything, that’s okay-”

“No, no no no no, I don’t want to go home. I want to be with you” Peter shook his head and poorly wiped his tears. “I’m fine. Just a little crisis, but I’m fine.”

He gave Quentin a reassuring smile and continued eating. “You said you weren’t... friends. Were you enemies, then..?”

Quentin sighed, “No, it’s not like that. I worked for him for years. We developed some kind of relation, but I know he wouldn’t, like, die for me. And it kind of hurt, because there were times when I would die for him.”

Peter realized his therapist just confessed about his feelings for Tony Stark. The shock he felt has grown even bigger, his eyes wide open again.

“Oh... I... Did he... Did he know?” Quentin snorted, “No, he did not. He was all about Pepper. And I was fine with that. I didn’t expect anything from him, ever.”

The sadness in his voice could be heard from a mile. Peter felt it in his bones. He felt extremely sorry for Quentin. Though now he would be as devastated as Peter was; actually he was lucky it wasn’t his lover who died, just an acquaintance.

“So... how did you end up on that photo, shaking hands with him?”

“He convinced me to sell my project to him, so I could focus just on my PhD in neuropsychology. I really wanted to improve myself, so he won. I’m not saying he made me, but you could tell he would do anything for my project. Though he then named it B.A.R.F.”

Peter knew about that project, he was told about it by Tony many times. It was bizarre, to finally find out about his therapist’s relations with his biggest inspiration and father-like authority.

They finished dinner and washed the dishes together, still chatting about this whole Stark situation. Peter found out he was on Tony’s mouth most of the time, if they weren’t talking about work or every day stuff. It warmed his heart, but the pain stung a little as well.

Remembering this visit stung a little too, because Peter was sensitive and always felt like crying when thinking about how far he has come with his therapy and with getting his life back. He was standing in their bathroom now, looking at his pale face in the mirror, Quentin approaching him from behind after a while.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Good” Peter answered hesitantly, “I’m revisiting some memories to calm myself down.”

“Oh. Any special examples?”

Peter turned around to face him and gently grabbed Quentin’s shoulders, looking him in the eyes, “Remember when you invited me over for a dinner? And I saw the pictures.”

“Yeah. I do” the man grinned at the memory, placing his hands on Peter’s hips and pulled him closer.

“I... I actually cried the whole evening after I came home”, and there Quentin’s smile was gone, “Though it wasn’t sadness. It was some kind of... Relief. Like I actually felt I’m going to be okay. Like I’m really not alone anymore, because you are with me. I think that was the first time the thought of being in love with you came to my mind.”

Quentin felt like he had on their first date. This time he didn’t act shyly or reassure his every movement – they both have already learned their boundaries and ways to show affection. He leaned closer and kissed Peter, hugging him, his muscles relaxed and his mind clear. Beard brushing against Peter’s soft skin, it reminded him of their first time in bed, when he could feel this beard everywhere on his body, face, neck, chest, between his legs. He remembered how much noise they made, and how the bed creaked underneath them.

“Have you done this before?”

Nervously Peter ran his hand through his hair, leaning against the kitchen counter during one of their first sleepovers at Quentin. Aunt May didn’t have any problem with their growing relationship, she was happy Peter finally started to feel alive. To act alive.

“Uh, no. I mean, I used some toys on myself back in the day, but… I lost interest after the blip.”

“It all depends on you, Pete. If you want to do it with me tonight, great. If not, well, also great. I’m going to be there for you while you prepare yourself.”

“Thank you, Quentin” Peter felt his body tense, then relax again. He was really nervous, and very thirsty for Quentin at the same time. “I… I don’t know…”

Quentin chuckled softly and decided to help him, “Do you need my opinion?”

Peter usually needed his opinion on everything. “Yeah, please.”

“So in my honest opinion, you should relax and think clearly of it. Nervousness is always there, it doesn’t matter if you want to have sex or not. It doesn’t show how much you’re ready” he took a sip of water from the bottle near him, “You should shake this feeling of concern and then decide, do you feel like doing it today or wait and prepare yourself better.”

God damn, he was so smart. It immediately turned Peter on even more.

“I… I wanna do it. I want to do it with you, now.” His words were sure, his tone solid and decisive.

The contrast between the normal Quentin and the Quentin in bedroom was incredible. He took a few steps towards Peter until he was just a few inches in front of him, staring down at the boy, completely in control. He caressed his cheek and asked quietly, “Can I take you to my bed then?”

Peter closed his eyes and nodded. Quentin’s voice sent shivers down his spine. He wanted him for so long. He wanted him in every way possible, and now he could make this dream come true.

“Yes, please” he whispered, his hungry eyes never leaving Quentin’s.

When his back touched the sheets on the bed, the man took his shirt off and laid all his weight on Peter’s body; a couple of kisses later they were both naked, Quentin asking Peter for permission to touch him here and there, always reassuring Peter’s going to like what they’re about to do and he’s in good hands, he’s safe.

Indeed, Peter felt comfortable and safe while being held by Quentin, he focused all his senses on the pleasure he was given and on his partner, the sounds he made, his touch and words during sex. When he asked Quentin to do it harder, to move faster, he asked “Are you sure?” and it made the boy smile to himself. “I’m very sure, Quentin, please, just do it” he responded.

Sloppy kisses and caressing each other’s bodies were things Peter remembered the most, right after the feeling of being filled by his partner. He was so gentle, and when Peter wanted him to be rough, he was rough.

After they both reached their orgasms, rode it all out, Quentin left Peter’s body and went to the bathroom. Peter was on his back, breathing heavily with eyes closed and palms still tightened on the sheets. Then he felt a wet piece of cloth on his belly and between his legs; Quentin cleaned him up and everywhere their cum was around Peter as well.

“Let’s go under the sheets, shall we?” the man asked, suggesting Peter should probably get up to do that.

“Y-yeah, yeah.” Peter fell into his arms, tired and satisfied, a dull ache bothering his butt.

“Are you alright, Pete? How are you feeling?” Quentin mumbled in his hair.

“I’m great. Really, I... I feel good. I’m glad we did it.”

He was glad to this day they’d done it, standing with Quentin in the bathroom months later, in the middle of the night. He almost forgot about that nightmare he’d had, he was focused on his partner he loved deeply.

He stopped kissing him, “Thank you, Quentin. For everything you’ve done for me. I... I’m so grateful...”

Again, he felt his eyes welling up with tears, because he was so emotional, especially when talking about these emotions.

“Hey, you shouldn’t thank me for anything. At first it was my job to help you, then it became... My own free will. Because I love you.”

Quentin hugged him, let him cry into his chest. This time his tears were the happy ones. He was finally happy with his life. The nightmares and bad days from time to time were just something he fought with, and never lost, thanks to Quentin, who was always there to talk him out of any dark thoughts and offer him all the help in the world he could.

“Do you want to come back to bed with me?” he asked the boy when he calmed down.

“Only with you” Peter responded, looking at him with a sudden grin. “For the rest of my life.”

Quentin’s embrace was so comfortable that he would always wish it lasted forever. Warm and safe, every time he felt he could fall asleep in a moment.

That reminded him of the first time he had a sleepover at Quentin’s place. They hadn’t been engaged in any serious romantic relationship yet, it was just that one time when they spent too much time talking while drinking wine and eating snacks. Way past Peter’s usual curfew; he texted aunt May that he was sorry, and he’d get home as soon as possible, Quentin wanted to offer him a ride, but the weather was terrible. It was a storm outside, devastating the weakest trees in the neighborhood, that’s why May called him and ordered him to stay at Quentin’s. She trusted the doctor so much, after many dinners they had together to talk about Peter and other, more every-day stuff, that she was totally okay with it. And she was right. The man agreed for him to stay and said he’d take the couch. Peter didn’t want to be any trouble and blurted a suggestion they’d both sleep in bed, since “I-it’s big enough for the two of us… I mean… I didn’t mean it in any way, you know…”. It was so awkward and cute Quentin just started laughing.

“Calm down, Peter. I don’t mind sharing a bed with you, it’s just sleeping. If you don’t have any problem with that, neither do I.”

Peter exhaled deeply and nodded, “Okay, that’s what I meant. Thanks, Mr-"

“Quentin.”

“Quentin. Thanks.”

“I just hope you don’t mind me reading with the lamp turned on for a couple of hours.”

“Sure, why would I? I-I’m your guest after all” Peter giggled, grinning after that, exposing his teeth; this made Quentin’s guts twist more than ever.

God, he’s so beautiful.

“I’m gonna give you some sleeping clothes. They’re way too big for you, but they should be comfy enough.”

And off he went to his bedroom, looking for the clothes. Peter, on the other hand, got up and decided to clean up the table after their little drinking and eating party – two glasses, an empty bottle of wine, three empty bowls of snacks Peter had brought and all the crumbs they’d left in the process.

“Oh wow, thank you, Peter, you didn’t have to!” Quentin came back, his eyebrows risen and a little smile on his face. “Here you got everything I thought you’d need. Tell me if there’s anything more, okay?”

“Yeah, sure!” Peter nodded vigorously, feeling bits of happiness and peace crawling into his mindset, “Thank you.”

“I’ll go grab a smoke outside, if that’s okay. You can use the bathroom, or do anything you actually want to do at this point” Quentin laughed at the end of his speech since he realized that Peter is a big boy and doesn’t need instructions how to function. “Sorry. Sometimes I’m a bit too... protective? I don’t know.”

“You’re a guy who works with mentally ill people for a living, of course you’re protective. And sometimes you talk to me like I’m five” the boy turned his face to look at him and smile, marking the fact he wasn’t upset about that. He totally understood, he always did.

“Yeah. It’s hard to stop bringing work to personal life.”

He went to the balcony and closed its door to prevent the rain, the cold and the strong wind getting in. There was a lot of space and a big roof above so he didn’t get wet, though it was indeed difficult to light the cigarette. In this moment Peter finished the cleaning and decided to take a shower and change into his brand new sleeping clothes. He looked at the stuff Quentin had given him; it was so sweet to notice not only the neatly folded T-shirt, pants and a pair of boxers, but also a towel and a new toothbrush. Peter liked the way he cared about him.

After using the bathroom and changing, he walked right to Quentin’s bed. It was already made for them, just waiting for Peter to climb onto it and drown in its big, cozy sheets.

Meanwhile on the balcony, Quentin watched the storm bother his neighborhood while thinking about his relationship with Peter and all the feelings he had towards the boy. His cigarette burnt long ago, he needed a few more minutes to just stand here and think. He wasn’t doing anything wrong – Peter was in his early twenties and they had regular sessions once in three weeks, because Peter’s mental health was getting better and better. They still managed to be professional and as formal as needed during their official meetings. Their relations outside his office didn’t disturb anything and anyone.

He came back inside, closed the door and got rid of the cigarette. Realizing Peter was already in bed, probably sleeping, he went to the bathroom. It took him around thirty minutes to be ready for bed, so he was actually surprised to see Peter still on his phone, the sheets covering his whole body except his head and hands.

“Aren’t you tired? You drank more wine than I did” Quentin chuckled.

When Peter looked at him, he tried his best not to freeze and stare at Quentin’s bare chest for longer than two seconds. Of course Quentin was going to sleep, so he just dressed in his normal sleeping clothes including sweatpants only, but Peter had to lose it and stare.

And of course Quentin noticed it.

“Is it, uh, is it okay for you..?” he gestured on his body; Peter blinked and quickly moved his eyes to Quentin’s face.

“O-of course-yes!” he exclaimed a little too loud and Quentin found it unbearably adorable. “It’s your house, you dress as you please!”

“These pants are what I usually wear when I’m home alone, so yeah, sometimes I sleep in them as well” the man explained while settling himself next to Peter. “Don’t stare at your phone too much.”

Peter snorted and looked at Quentin like he did at May sometimes when she tried to lecture him on something he was way too old to be lectured on. He relaxed, reminding himself that Quentin wasn’t anything to be afraid of – he could be as awkward and as silly as he wanted to be around this man, and it wouldn’t change Quentin’s mind about him.

As he had stated before, it was time for him to read. Peter continued checking his phone, all the socials he was using, mostly incognito, so no one would stalk him later in case anyone found out about his secret identity. At some point, he stopped looking at his phone and just pretended to do so, while actually checking Quentin out. The sheets covered his lower parts only, leaving his belly and chest exposed to his view. He was a well built, strong man, subtle body hair on his skin. Luckily, Quentin didn’t noticed him staring this time, because he was too involved in the book, a thriller settled in the sixties of twentieth century.

“Didn’t know you were a smoker” suddenly came out of Peter’s mouth, making Quentin look at him. Peter blushed. “S-sorry, I didn’t wanna interrupt you-“

“Relax” the man gave him a reassuring smile, “I wouldn’t say I’m a regular smoker. Sometimes when I need to think about things, I go and grab one. No biggie though.”

When he needed to think about things? What did it mean? Peter didn’t want to ask further, especially since he had some ideas.

“I see” he nodded. An instant yawn attacked him, “I think I’m gonna go to sleep, at last.”

“Good idea, it’s way past your bedtime” Quentin approved, making them both chuckle, again that day.

Peter turned off the lamp on his side and buried himself in the sheets. No matter how much he begged his body not to spread across the whole mattress in his sleep, it did so anyway. He remembered waking up almost on Quentin’s chest, his arm on his belly and his leg on his legs, and his immediate panic that went along with it.

“Holy shit, I’m sorry, I-! I’m so sorry!”

The innocently sleeping man was then woken up by Peter’s loud apologies. He opened his eyes and looked at the boy, seeing zero problems in the way they slept together that night.

“Boy, calm down. You were asleep. Unconscious. Give yourself a break.”

Thinking of the way Peter panicked made him smirk months later when he recalled that morning. Quentin was totally chill with what happened, and he just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Actually neither could Quentin, but he was good at forcing himself not to smile every time he thought about it.

At this point, Peter would laugh at almost every situation in which he panicked, got anxious or stressed out because of his reckless actions towards Quentin. It always meant so much to the man, he always considered them adorable. Peter was so bad at hiding his nervousness and it was obvious he’d get very nervous around Quentin sometimes.

Lying in their bed, months later as stated before, it all seemed like a beautiful dream. But it wasn’t that at all, it was Peter’s life which turned for the better thanks to the man he was hugging right now. He finally made peace with what had happened before and the nightmares that haunted him were just the remains he would get rid of in his own time. That’s what he needed – time and space to heal. And Quentin was the one who had given him both of these things.

Peter couldn’t be more grateful.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

How AI-generated music is changing the way hits are made

The idea that artificial intelligence can compose music is scary for a lot of people, including me. But music-making AI software has advanced so far in the past few years that it’s no longer a frightening novelty; it’s a viable tool that can and is being used by producers to help in the creative process. This raises the question: could artificial intelligence one day replace musicians? For the second episode of The Future of Music, I went to LA to visit the offices of AI platform Amper Music and the home of Taryn Southern, a pop artist who is working with Amper and other AI platforms to co-produce her debut album I AM AI.

Using AI as a tool to make music or aid musicians has been in practice for quite some time. In the ‘90s, David Bowie helped develop an app called the Verbasizer, which took literary source material and randomly reordered the words to create new combinations that could be used as lyrics. In 2016, researchers at Sony used software called Flow Machines to create a melody in the style of The Beatles. This material was then turned over to human composer Benoît Carré and developed into a fully produced pop song called “Daddy’s Car.” (Flow Machines was also used to help create an entire album’s worth of music under the name SKYGGE, which is Danish for “shadow.”) On a consumer level, the technology is already integrated with popular music-making programs like Logic, a piece of software that is used by musicians around the world, and it can auto-populate unique drum patterns with the help of AI.

AI is already integrated with consumer music-making programs like Logic

Now, there’s an entire industry built around AI services for creating music, including the aforementioned Flow Machines, IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta’s NSynth Super, Jukedeck, Melodrive, Spotify’s Creator Technology Research Lab, and Amper Music.

Most of these systems work by using deep learning networks, a type of AI that’s reliant on analyzing large amounts of data. Basically, you feed the software tons of source material, from dance hits to disco classics, which it then analyzes to find patterns. It picks up on things like chords, tempo, length, and how notes relate to one another, learning from all the input so it can write its own melodies. There are differences between platforms: some deliver MIDI while others deliver audio. Some learn purely by examining data, while others rely on hard-coded rules based on musical theory to guide their output.

However, they all have one thing in common: on a micro scale, the music is convincing, but the longer you listen, the less sense it makes. None of them are good enough to craft a Grammy Award-winning song on their own... yet.

Michael Hobe, co-founder of Amper Music.

Photo by Christian Mazza / The Verge

Of all the music-making AI platforms I’ve tried out, Amper is hands down the easiest to use. IBM and Google’s projects require some coding knowledge and unpacking of developer language on GitHub. They also give you MIDI output, not audio, so you also have to have a bit more knowledge about music production to shape the output into an actual song.

Amper, on the other hand, has an interface that is ridiculously simple. All you have to do is go to the website and pick a genre of music and a mood. That’s it. You don’t have to know code or composition or even music theory in order to make a song with it. It builds tracks from prerecorded samples and spits out actual audio, not MIDI. From there, you can change the tempo, the key; mute individual instruments, or switch out entire instrument kits to shift the mood of the song its made. This audio can then be exported as a whole or as individual layers of instruments (known as “stems”). Stems can then be further manipulated in DAWs like Ableton or Logic.

I had Amper generate the clip of music below while cruising around LA in the back seat of my friend’s car. Using my phone, I picked rock as the genre, and then, appropriately, “driving” as the mood. It spent about a minute churning away before delivering 30 seconds of audio. The result isn’t radio-ready, but it has chords, a little structure, and it sounds... pleasant. It could easily sit in the back of a YouTube video or an advertisement and no one would guess it was coded, not written.

As someone who makes music, the idea that code can do what I do is freaky. It’s unnerving to think that an algorithm can make a not-terrible song in minutes and that AI is getting in on creative turf we categorize as distinctly human. If AI is currently good enough to make jingly elevator music like the clip above, how long until it can create a number one hit? And if it gets to that point, what does it mean for human musicians?

Taryn Southern showing off IBM Watson Beat.

Photo by Christian Mazza / The Verge

These aren’t questions that Taryn Southern is concerned with. Southern is an online personality who you might know from her YouTube channel or when she was a contestant on American Idol. These days, Southern is interested in emerging tech, which has led to her current project: recording a pop album. Those two things don’t sound like they could be related, but her album has a twist: instead of writing all the songs herself, Southern used artificial intelligence to help generate percussion, melodies, and chords. This makes it one of the first albums of its kind, a collaboration of sorts between AI and human.

Amper was the first AI platform Southern used when beginning her album, and now she also works with IBM Watson Beat and Google Magenta. She views AI as a powerful tool and partner, not a replacement for musicians.

“Using AI, I’m writing my lyrics and my vocal melodies to the actual music and using that as a source of inspiration,” Southern tells me. “I find that really fun, and because I’m able to iterate with the music and give it feedback and parameters and edit as many times as I need, it still feels like it’s mine in a sense.”

AI isn’t good enough to craft a hit radio song on its own... yet

To get an idea of how a human can work with AI, look at Southern’s 2017 single, “Break Free.” The SoundCloud audio below is an early export of material from Amper. Compare that to the YouTube video that has the final, released version of the song. Bits of the AI-composed original peek through here and there, but it’s more like seasoning, not the main dish. To transform it into a pop song, Southern made a lot of creative decisions, including switching instruments, changing the key, and, of course, writing and performing the vocals.

Southern originally turned to AI because even though she was a songwriter, she knew “very, very little about music theory.” It was a roadblock that frustrated her to no end. “I’d find a beautiful chord on the piano,” Southern says, “and I’d write an entire song around that, but then I couldn’t get to the next few chords because I just didn’t know how to play what I was hearing in my head. Now I’m able to iterate with the music and give it feedback and parameters and edit as many times as I need. It still feels like it’s mine in a sense.”

This feeling of empowerment is exactly what Amper Music is trying to deliver. “I don’t look at it like artificial intelligence,” Amper co-founder Michael Hobe says. “It’s more of intelligence augmentation. We can facilitate your creative process to cut a lot of the bullshit elements of it. For me, it’s allowing more people to be creative and then allowing the people who already have some of these creative aspects to really further themselves.”

When Hobe says “bullshit elements,” he’s talking about a guitarist not knowing how to orchestrate an instrument they’ve never worked with before, the time spent crafting the velocity of individual drum hits, or simply being faced with writer’s block. Amper isn’t meant to create the next AI superstar; it’s meant to enable musicians. Of course, using AI also has the added benefit of allowing Southern and others with no formal music background to participate in making music. It democratizes the creative playing field so anyone can play what they hear in their head, just like Southern.

it’s not about creating the next AI superstar; it’s about enabling musicians

I ask Southern what she would say to people who think using AI is cheating. “Great,” she says. “Yes, we are totally cheating. If music is concretely defined as this one process that everyone must adhere to in order to get to some sort of end goal, then, yes, I’m cheating. I am leading the way for all the cheaters.” She laughs, and then pointedly says, “The music creation process can’t be so narrowly defined.”

It’s something to think about. Every time a new technology is introduced and that tectonically shifts the way we create music, there are naysayers. Things like AutoTune, the use of samples and loops, and Digital Audio Workstations were all “disruptors” that we adapted to and are now commonplace tools and methods. AI will probably be next.

The technology’s impact on the music industry as a whole remains to be seen. Will it destroy jobs? How will it affect musical copyright? Will it ever be able to work without a human? But people like Hobe and Southern believe it will ultimately reap positive benefits. Sure, an algorithm making music sounds scary because it mirrors human capabilities that we already find mysterious, but it’s also a compelling tool that can enhance said human capabilities. AI as a collaborator increases access to music-making, it can streamline workflows, and it provides the spark of inspiration needed to craft your next hit single.

“You’re collaborating and working with the AI to achieve your goal,” Hobe says. “It’s not that the AI is just doing its own little thing. It’s all about the process between it and you to achieve that final artistic vision.”

This content was originally published here.

[livevsongame-tv-blog]

Live Update: Tiger’s last major win 10 years ago a testament to willpower

New Post has been published on https://livevsongame-tv.com/golf/live-update-tigers-last-major-win-10-years-ago-a-testament-to-willpower/21717/html

Live Update: Tiger’s last major win 10 years ago a testament to willpower

Hank Haney first noticed something wrong when Tiger Woods got up from the dinner table to get something to drink and stopped suddenly, bent over with his eyes closed and then held the position until he could keep walking.

”I remember thinking, `That’s not a good sign,”’ said Haney, his swing coach of four years.

The timing wasn’t great, either.

Article continues below …

It was a month after Woods had surgery for the third time on his left knee. It was three weeks before the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

Haney had come to Florida to start preparations for the Open, only to find out that Woods heard a crack below his left knee while hitting a 5-iron from a downhill lie a few days earlier. His doctor came to the house on May 31 to go over results from an MRI – shredded ligaments in his left knee, a double stress fracture in his lower leg.

The first round of the U.S. Open was 13 days away.

”My immediate thought was I had the rest of the year off,” Haney said.

Woods had other ideas.

”He said, `I’m playing in the U.S. Open and I’m going to win it,”’ Haney said. ”Either me or him asked the doctor what would happen if he played, and it was just a question of how much pain he could endure. That preceded him saying, `Let’s go practice.’ And he left him sitting there on the couch.”

And thus began the most improbable of the 14 majors Woods has won.

It was 10 years ago that Woods, having not walked 18 holes since the Masters, endured 91 holes of the U.S. Open that included three double bogeys on the opening hole at Torrey Pines, a 12-foot birdie to force a playoff and more pain than he cares to remember.

That major – his last one at the moment – remains the greatest testament of his will to win.

”I don’t know how I did it,” Woods said.

—

Woods had not played since the Masters, and Mike Davis of the USGA was getting nervous. He had decided to put the top three players in the world – Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott – in the same group for the opening two rounds. Davis heard from Mark Steinberg, Woods’ agent, before the pairings were released. He told Davis that Woods was planning to play and would be in San Diego. That was as far as he could go.

”He essentially told me what was going on with Tiger’s leg,” Davis said. ”He said, `Hardly anyone knows about this, please don’t say anything to the USGA.’ I didn’t tell anyone, but I remember looking at Mark and saying, `So he’s going to play on a broken leg?”’

—

Woods arrived a week early and played Torrey Pines in a cart, with no media or fans around. Then, he drove north to Newport Beach for a few rounds at Big Canyon, his home course in southern California. He was wearing a knee brace. It wasn’t going very well.

He shot 53 for nine holes and lost eight balls.

”I was still trying to figure out how in the hell I was going to try and play with a knee brace,” Woods said. ”Because my knee was moving all over the place.”

Driving down to Torrey Pines, Woods said he threw the brace out the window.

—

Steve Williams had not seen Woods since he caddied for him in the final of the Masters. Woods was runner-up by three shots and had arthroscopic knee surgery two days later. Williams at least had an idea what was going on from Haney.

”Hank had been with him at Big Canyon on Friday and Saturday,” Williams said. ”He said he had no business playing this tournament.”

Williams knew better. He had worked for Woods nine years, including the stretch where Woods held all four majors at the same time. In all those years, he had never heard Woods talk about a major the way he did the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

”From the moment the USGA announced they were holding it at Torrey Pines, Tiger had a goal to win that tournament and nothing was going to stop him,” he said.

It was their lightest week of work – nine holes on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. That was it.

”He was in agony, there’s no two ways about it,” Williams said. ”His form in the practice rounds would not indicate he’d be holding the trophy. Generally you come to these tournaments and get an idea how the week would go. That was the complete opposite.”

—

Jordan Cox had just finished his sophomore year at Stanford when he qualified for his first U.S. Open. Conrad Ray, the Cardinal coach, played at Stanford with Woods and tried to arrange a practice round.

”I wasn’t sure it was going to happen,” Cox said. ”Tiger had been taking time off. I went to make a time for a practice round, I was already on there with Tiger.”

Bubba Watson joined them for nine holes Monday and Tuesday.

”There must have been 10,000 people. The hole was perfectly framed,” Cox said. ”Bubba hits this high cut 330 yards. Tiger pipes it down the middle. They announced my name, and you could tell everyone was thinking, `Who the hell is this?’ I started making practice swings and the club felt air. I’ve never felt that level of pressure. I stood over the ball just praying I’d make contact.”

He didn’t notice Woods being in pain and didn’t know the extent of the injury until much later.

”He had a level of control over the golf ball that I had only dreamed he had,” Cox said.

Cox missed the cut with rounds of 80-77. He keeps a photo in his living room of him and Woods at Torrey Pines. ”Every time I see it, I remember the experience. Incredible,” Cox said.

—

Mickelson was the only healthy member of the Big Three that day. Scott had broken his hand when a car door slammed on it. It wasn’t enough to keep him from playing.

”Once they announced that group, it was maybe the most anticipated first two rounds of a major ever, except for Tiger going for four in a row, at least in my time,” Scott said. ”It was 25 deep on both sides of the fairway Thursday morning.”

Woods opened with a double bogey, made another double on the back nine and shot 72, four shots behind. In the second round, he shot 30 on the front nine (he started on No. 10) for a 68 that left him one shot behind Stuart Appleby going into the weekend. It was clear he was hurting, but no one knew the degree.

”Not many,” Woods said, eventually mentioning his coach and trainers, doctors and wife. ”Definitely single digits.”

Why not share what he was going through?

”No need,” he said.

He never mentioned Williams on that list, but the caddie knew. Williams said the most valuable help came from Keith Kleven, Wood’s trainer in Las Vegas, who worked on him every night in the Torrey Pines Lodge. ”Each and every day he finished, Keith went to work on Tiger’s leg,” Williams said. ”His form got a little better each day.”

—

The U.S. Open went to prime time on Saturday, and so did Woods. The third round ended at 10 p.m. on the East Coast, and Woods dazzled with a 60-foot eagle putt, a chip that flew into the cup for birdie on No. 17 and an eagle on the par-5 18th for a one-shot lead.

But he began revealing some of the hurt, especially when his left knee buckled on certain tee shots.

”I was able to convince myself that the shots were going to hurt, yeah, because my leg was busted,” Woods said. ”But I could make a golf swing at impact. Post impact is when I was going to feel it. And I just convinced myself to go ahead and suck it up and hit the shot. It’s going to hurt afterward, but I can still hit a good shot.”

Woods played with Robert Karlsson that day. His caddie was Gareth Lord, who now works for Henrik Stenson.

”One thing really sticks in my mind,” Lord said. ”On top of all the madness he’d done the first 17 holes, the only shot he had on 18 was a big, high carve. That didn’t seem to hurt. He stood on the tee. He’s shifting, and I heard his leg crack into place. And he smashes it into the middle of the fairway. And then on the green, the noise … I’ll never forget it. It was like The Beatles.”

—

Not only had Woods never lost a 54-hole lead in a major, he had never trailed going to the 18th hole. But he was one shot down to Rocco Mediate, a 45-year-old with back trouble. Needing a birdie on the last hole to force a playoff, Woods was in the rough, 101 yards from the hole. He went with a 60-degree wedge and it came out perfectly, 12 feet to the right of the cup. The putt wobbled and bounced and tumbled and swirled in the high side of the cup, and Woods furiously pumped both arms as he looked to the sky.

Haney usually walks with him, if nothing else to figure out what they needed to work on in the weeks to come. He knew Woods was going to shut it down, so he spent most of the final round in a corporate tent.

”My mom used to tell me if you find a penny, pick it up and all day long you’ll have good luck,” Haney said. ”Right before he hit that putt, I looked under the table and there was a penny. I picked it up and stuck it in my pocket.”

—

Woods needed one more rally, one more birdie on the 18th, in the Monday playoff against Mediate, and then he won on the 19th hole – No. 7 – when Mediate pulled his approach near the grandstand and made bogey.

Woods knew it was his last event of the year, maybe longer.

So did those around him.

”I was sitting on the plane ready to take off to go home when he called me,” Haney said. ”He said, `Great job this week, thanks for all your help.’ And then he said, `We’re done for the year. I’m getting my knee operated on next week. I’ll be in touch.”’

—

That was his 14th major, four short of catching Jack Nicklaus. Few could have predicted that 10 years later, he would not have added to the total.

Woods had reconstructive surgery on his left knee a week later. The following year, he lost a 54-hole lead in a major for the first time when Y.E. Yang beat him at the PGA Championship. The greater collapse was off the course toward the end of 2009 when Woods was caught in multiple extramarital affairs that led to divorce. And right when his life and game were starting to stabilize, his back broke down and required four surgeries.

To win another major might be his greatest accomplishment considering all he’s been through.

For now, winning a U.S. Open on one leg remains an unimaginable feat.

”One, I don’t know how he managed to get around. And two, he won the tournament,” Scott said. ”He had that ability to will putts into the hole, and will trophies into his hand.”

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