#i love talking about alex's fanny pack

[pliablehead]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[legolasghosty]

Willex soulmates ink style? (I am intrigued about what ink style means)

Hello Anon! Ah yesss, this brain child that just refuses to draw itself to a natural conclusion...

So obviously it's a soulmates au, mainly Willex focused, though a few other sets are mentioned or present. In this universe, soulmates share marks made on their skin. Mostly this means that when one person gets ink on their skin, their soulmate gets it as well, though it also applies to scrapes, bruises, and other skin injuries. The skin sharing generally starts early on in the kids' lives.

For Alex and Willie, it starts when they're 5 and 6 respectively. Certain things, like names or addresses, won't transfer cause Soulmate Rules, but the two become best friends as they grow up together. They call each other Hotdog and Pancake since they can't share real names, and talk about everything. Alex is there for Pancake when he admits that he might be a boy. Pancake is there for Alex when his parents get too controlling. They share about their friends and schooling and hobbies and just about everything else. But still they reach Pancake's 18th birthday and they've never actually met.

Julie and the Phantoms are playing a gig that night for the birthday party of some rich, private school kid. And well, I think you can guess the rest (It's Willie's party and they run into each other during the gig, if that wasn't clear).

As far as writing goes, the thing was supposed to be short, but is currently sitting at over 5k words and they still haven't actually talked yet. So. We'll see. But here's a snippet!

Julie made them actually warm up their voices properly, thank goodness, and then they all settled in to wait. The party started at 7, and they were supposed to start their set at 8. Luke was bouncing off the walls, his adrenaline already going full blast. Julie perched on the bed to scroll through TikTok, Reggie watching over her shoulder.  Alex was about to pull out his own phone when he noticed something appearing on his wrist. Black or blue? He chuckled and grabbed a pen out of his fanny pack. For what? Dad wants me to wear a suit for my party. Black or blue? Alex thought for a second. Blue. I feel like you would just look wrong with no color at all. >:) Bold of you to assume I’m sticking with a normal-colored dress shirt. Dare I ask? It’s white, just with little blue flowers all over. It’s pretty! Like you ;) The skin below that just turned pink with marker, a signal that Alex had long ago realized meant they were blushing.

Look I'm sorry, they're just too cute, I can't! Thanks for the ask, I love this fic so much and I really want to finish it!!!

[caswellseyes]

Oooo, if you're still doing them, 10 for the band? Pick your people!

ty for this one!! you said pick your people and i proceeded to not in fact pick people, so here’s 10 for everyone <3 though i guess technically it's between alex & julie lol. but hey, they're all here!

10. “Text me when you’re safe at home.”

Usually, Alex stays over at the Molinas after movie night. 

They gather every Friday around dinner time, as many of their friends – most times, all of them – as are able to make it. They eat dinner with Julie’s family, who are always happy to host them, and then spread out on the Molinas’ couches. They take turns picking movies and buying snacks, but their roster ends up looking pretty similar each time: a popular movie most of them somehow haven’t seen, a terrible movie for them to talk through, and either an animated movie or a musical one. On the best days, those latter two are combined.

Tonight, Alex and Reggie have one of the couches to themselves. Willie sits with them most times, but they were unable to make it. Reggie is taking full advantage of the extra space by sprawling out on top of the entire couch, feet propped up in Alex’s lap. Flynn, Julie, and Luke share one of the larger couches. They have the worst view of the TV but the best access to the snacks, which they think is a pretty good deal. 

Alex is only half paying attention to tonight’s first movie. It’s Indiana Jones, something he likes but isn’t crazy about, and unlike most others here, he’s actually seen the full movie several times. He’s content to zone out, eating some popcorn and watching his friends. Not in a creepy way, of course. In a loving way. He loves his friends. 

He sinks back into the cushions a little deeper. The Molinas’ couches are much more comfortable than the one they have at the Mercers’. He could easily fall asleep on them. Half the time, he ends up doing just that. Today, however, he can’t.

For the first time in months, he’s unable to stay the night. He has a family reunion tomorrow, and his parents insist that he has to be home on time, so he’s heading out after the  first movie ends. It’s a shame, really. Alex thinks he could easily wake up early tomorrow and make it over to his parents’ place in time, but they clearly disagree, and he doesn’t want to start an argument. He’ll just enjoy the time he has with his friends while he has it.

Unfortunately, that time is flying by. Logically, Alex knows that this movie is almost two hours long. It feels like only two minutes have passed by the time the credits roll. He gently moves Reggie’s feet from his laps, sighing.

“Time to go?” Luke asks. He sounds disappointed. Alex shares the sentiment. 

“Yeah,” he says, stretching out his back. “You guys have fun, though. I’ll see myself out.”

Julie scoffs. She’s already untangling herself from the blanket she and Flynn had snuggled under. 

“No you won’t,” she says, joining him near the door. “We’ll walk you out. We need a break anyway.”

And so they do, all of them getting up and shuffling towards the door. They watch as Alex tugs on his shoes and grabs his jacket. Alex’s heart aches with the love he feels for them. It would’ve been so easy for them to stay put, to just call out their goodbyes and start the next movie. He wouldn’t even have been offended or anything, he would’ve understood. But they didn’t do that. Instead, they wait.

“Have fun tomorrow,” Reggie says once Alex zips up his jacket. “I hope the cake is good.”

“But maybe don’t eat the hot dogs,” Luke suggests. He has a blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape.

Alex snorts. “I doubt my grandparents will be serving those, but I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Do you have everything?” Flynn asks. “Phone, keys, wallet?”

Alex pats his pockets and fanny pack, confirming that he does, indeed, have everything he needs. 

“Have fun with the other movies,” he says. 

Reggie is the first to throw himself at him to hug him goodbye. His friends line up after that, everyone wishing him fun for the next day, and good luck for dealing with his less-than-pleasant relatives. 

“Text us when you’re home safe,” Julie mumbles into Alex’s shoulder. He holds her a little tighter.

“I will,” he promises. Then, with a final look at his friends, he opens the front door and steps outside. 

Twenty minutes later, he toes off his shoes and immediately heads up the stairs and to his bedroom. It’s quite late already, so his parents have gone to bed already, and now that he’s out of the cold, Alex feels the exhaustion of the week seeping into his bones. He rushes through his nighttime routine and curls up under the blankets. Once he’s comfortable, he reaches for his phone.

Alex: home safe. love you all.

[theamd426]

@phantomwriter95-I’d love to see a snippet from JATP foster care fic 1! I’m a sucker for those kind of fics ☺️😅

Okay, so here's a chaotic Saturday morning with the Molinas.

“Carlos, Stevie, let’s go!” Rose yelled as she finished putting two microwaved breakfast sandwiches on paper plates for the boys. 

Stevie immediately came running down the stairs in his baseball uniform and sat down at the kitchen table. 

“Where’s Carlos?” she asked, setting the plate in front of Stevie.  

“I think he’s still in the bathroom,” Stevie said with a mouth full of food. “Julie went in there after me and started to get in the shower.”

Rose gave a giant sigh, and she started to rub her temples. She didn’t have time for this today. Carlos and Stevie had their final baseball tournament this morning, Ray was taking photos at the Foster Care Fun Fest at the park, Alex had group therapy and a drum lesson, and she was training a new barista at Eats & Beats. It was going to be a long day. 

“Come on, Carlos! ¡Ándele!” Rose yelled as Carlos finally started to come down the stairs, followed by Julie with her hair in a ponytail and Alex putting his inhaler in his fanny pack.

“It was Julie's fault,” Carlos said grumpily. “I swear she was in the bathroom for 30 minutes. 

“I was in the bathroom for 15 minutes,” Julie said, rolling her eyes. “Did papí leave yet? I was wondering if I could go with him to the park?”

“Yeah, he left half an hour ago,” Rose said, slightly confused. 

“Why do you want to go to a foster care fun fest?” Alex asked, grabbing an apple from the table. 

“I need community service hours for Confirmation, and Nick said I could help him serve lunch,” Julie said with a smile.

"I thought you finished your hours after you helped with the church bake sale last month?" Rose asked, almost positive that her daughter had met all of her Confirmation requirements. 

"That was my church service; I just need four more community hours," Julie said with a smile. 

"Oh please, you just want to hang out with Nick all day," Carlos teased. 

"Shut up!" Julie snapped back. "Besides, he's just got back together with Carrie, so there's no way we'll actually ever be a thing."

“And Luke moves out in a week... so I mean technically...” Alex added. 

“Can we please stop talking about my love life? Thank you very much!” Julie huffed. 

"When do you think you'll be done? I need to be at Eats & Beats by noon," Rose asked as she started to grab two cuties so both Stevie and Carlos would have some fruit in their system before their game.

"We should be done around two, but I’m tutoring at Eats & Beats around three, and Nick said he’d drop me off on his way home," Julie said. 

“Wait, is someone actually going to pay your ridiculous $ 65-an-hour rate?” Alex laughed.

“Yeah,” Julie said.

“Did they rob a bank or somthing?” Alex asked sarcastically. His face then paled as he turned to Julie. “Dante’s not asking for your help right? Because I've told him a thousand times that I have a boyfriend and to stay away from you.”

“It’s not Dante,” Julie said, calming Alex down. “Trust me, Dante’s mom would never pay $65 for a tutor that’s still in high school. It’s a sophomore who transferred in last month, but if he can pay that much for a tutor then he’s probably rich.”

“Remember, rich doesn’t always mean asshole,” Alex said, gently. “I mean, Nick’s rich and he’s not an asshole.”

“Yeah, but he’s dating Carrie and she is,” Julie retorted.

Rose glanced at her watch, and her eyes widened in horror. 

"We need to leave now," she said, ushering everyone out the door.

“I’m coming with,” Alex said with a smile. 

“Why are you coming?” Rose asked.

“Chad is insisting that Willie get a new foster family, so we’re gonna make out on the steps to deter any homophobes,” Alex said. 

“Wow, you guys are so brave,” Stevie said sarcastically.

“Shut up,” Alex said, rolling his eyes as he shoved his younger foster brother’s shoulder. 

“You are voluntarily going to make out with your boyfriend in public?” Rose asked, kind of shocked. 

“Anything to piss off the conservatives,” he said with a nervous smile. 

“Okay...” Rose said skeptically, knowing that there was definitely more to unpack there, but she didn’t have enough time. “What about Luke?

“Luke’s still in bed. But he did tell me he was going to start packing up his side of the room, but I don’t know if he’ll actually follow through with that plan,” Alex said.

 “Perfect! Then I guess Luke will be on babysitting duty until Dad gets home,” Rose said, taking a deep breath.

“Ooooh, Luke’s gonna love that,” Carlos teased as he ate the last bite of his breakfast sandwich.

Alex rolled his eyes and took a bite out of his apple. Normally he would be all for teasing Luke about his disdain for babysitting, but his best friend was moving back in with his parents next week, and he would rather not have Luke be in a sour mood, even if he couldn’t hear him. 

“Okay, guys, we have a really busy today, and I need to get to Eats & Beats by noon to train a new barista. So, let’s get in the car and head out,” Rose said, ushering Carlos, Stevie, Julie, and Alex out of the house and into her minivan. 

Luckily the boy’s baseball tournament was right next to the park the Fun Fest was being held, so dropping Alex and Julie off wouldn’t be too much of a hassle. Usually, she and Ray would carpool when they were practically going to the same destination, but there was a good chance the boys wouldn’t advance in the tournament, and Ray was supposed to be taking pictures until three.

“Behave, please,” Rose said as she parked the car in the parking lot. Julie immediately got out of the car, not wanting to hear a word of her mom’s nagging. “I‘ll text you when the game’s over, and then we’ll head to your drum lesson.”

“Okay,” Alex said as he got out of the car and put his fanny pack over his head. 

“Make sure that you can hear your phone and be smart,” she continued. “I don’t want another phone call claiming that you and Willie broke into some abandoned museum again.”

“That was one time!” Alex said with a small laugh. “Don’t worry; we’re staying at the park. Willie’s current foster parents aren’t the best, so he’s really hoping he can get matched with a new placement.”

“We can take him in if he wants,” Rose said in a softer tone. “With Luke moving out next Saturday, we’ll have an extra bed available.”

“Yeah… I’d rather not date my foster brother. I feel like that would be a conflict of interest,” Alex said. 

“It would be really weird,” Stevie said with a big smile.

“You see, he gets it,” Alex said, nodding his head.  

“Guys, go ahead and head to the field. I’ll meet up with you in a couple of minutes,” Rose said, ushering Stevie and Carlos away so she and Alex could have a more serious conversation. 

“Okay, what’s really going on with Willie?” Rose asked, crossing her arms once she knew that Carolos and Stevie were out of earshot. “You hate PDA.”

“I do not,” Alex argued. 

“Really? Because just last week, you refused to let Willie kiss you on the cheek after dinner,” Rose said, rolling her eyes. 

“We were in a dodgy neighborhood,” Alex said. 

“We were at a lesbian-owned Mexican restaurant, and there was a gay bar across the street,” Rose said, seeing right through Alex’s lie. “Truth, now.”

“His foster parents caught us making out last week, and they were really pissed,” Alex said, taking a deep breath. “They gave their two weeks' notice, and Willie has to be out next week.”

“They didn’t hurt you guys, right?” Rose asked, concerned.

“No,” Alex said, shaking his head. “I mean… they called us fags, but it’s not like I haven’t been called that before.”

“Oh, mijo,” Rose said, pulling Alex in for a hug. “Why didn’t you tell us that happened.”

“I don’t know,” Alex said, fiddling with the zipper on his fanny pack. “I just didn’t want to bug you guys with my gay shit.”

“Alex, we want you to bug us with your gay shit,” Rose said sweetly. “We want you to come to us with any issues you have, whether they’re gay or not.” 

“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” Alex said with a smile. “I should probably go ahead and find Willie, though. From what I’ve heard, these events pretty much suck unless you’re Stevie’s age.”

“Okay, well, let him know my offer still stands if he wants to come and stay with us for a few weeks,” Rose said with a small smile. “We can at least foster him through the holidays. You would have to share a room with Stevie, though.”

“No. I’m vetoing this whole idea,” Alex said, shaking his head. “You guys are incapable of displacing foster kids. I mean, Stevie was supposed to be here for a week, and it’s been almost two years now. He’s calling you guys mom and dad.”

“Just go make out with your boyfriend,” Rose said, rolling her eyes.

Alex gave a small smile as he turned around and started to walk towards the park. He knew he would still bring up Rose’s offer to foster him, but he also knew that Willie wouldn’t accept it. Foster siblings weren’t allowed to date, and even though Willie needed a family, he would rather have the Molinas as in-laws instead.

Ask me about my current WIPs

[michelangelinden]

linda linda linda lets talk more abt alex's fanny pack contents: the bandaids and disinfectant are in their own little baggie. he has a bundle of old tickets from venues, faires, all that sorta stuff for sentimental reasons. a tiny hazelnut that reggie gave him and that he guards with his life. obviously spare guitar picks. ear plugs because drumming and also in case anybody gets sensory overload. at least one of those tiny free perfume samples. safety pins for wardrobe malfunctions. 👀👀👀👀👀

You know exactly how to catch me 👀👀

Definitely a lot of stupid stupid stuff he picked up somewhere but it all kind of has a meaning to him so he keeps it.

The hazelnut 🥺🥺 (this immediately gives me the idea of tiny Reggie and Alex going on a hike into the woods when they're playing outside)

The perfume sample is definitely something flowery, change my mind. And it also sparked a really annoying conversation with his mother who took it as a sign that Alex has a girlfriend. Willie loves it tho, which makes Alex feel better.

He also has a small baggie of fidget toys for whoever needs one, including chewing gum in at least three different flavours.

And about $6.34 in coins

Here, have more kisses 😘😘😘

(I would also like to add this post I wrote months back, just to show how much potential this damn bag has)

[ashleycatchemm]

1-03: Ghosts

Part 3 out of ??

Pairings: Reggie x Reader, Luke x Julie, Alex x Willie

Summary: (Y/n) (L/n) has been able to see and feel ghosts ever since she was little, which made it hard to tell the ghosts from the humans. Everyone has always thought she was a bit crazy, even her best friends, Julie and Flynn. But when three ghosts with a love for music appear in Julie's garage, suddenly (Y/n) doesn't seem so crazy anymore.

Song: Ghosts (Micheal Jackson)

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♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩👻 ♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩

That night I was at the club till 2 am the next morning. The first few hours being the busiest, full of none stop playing and flirting from Caleb which I ignored. Then after the first few hours, came the partying and drinking, of course I never got drunk there. I knew the dangers of getting drunk at a club and I didn't want to take those chances.

Parking my truck in my empty driveway, I hopped out, grabbing my stuff and quickly went inside. Tossing my bag to the side, I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket, looking at it for the first time tonight, only to see a text from Julie.

Jules🎹: Hey, (Y/n), can you please help?

Jules🎹: Three ghosts just appeared at my house and I have no idea what to do!!

I rolled my eyes and scoffed at her text 'Is she seriously making fun of me right now?' I glared at my phone, still slightly intoxicated as anger courses through me.

Jules🎹: Hey, (Y/n), can you please help?

Jules🎹: Three ghosts just appeared at my house and I have no idea what to do!!

Me: Am I just somekind of fucking jo ke toyou?

I knew that Julie would never say something like that to be mean. But I couldn't help it. I was angry at her, for even saying something like that. Flynn and Julie both promised me they wouldn't bring that shit up and now here she is talking about it. I don't care when Carrie does it, but when it's my close friends, I feel like I've been betrayed.

'She knows all my trauma from this and yet she says that.'

I grabbed my head before letting a huff out in anger and saying "Whatever. I'll deal with this tomorrow." Dropping my phone on the ground, I made my way up the steps and got ready for bed.

♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩👻 ♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩

The next day I was at Julie's house early, since I live right next door to her. I heard singing coming from somewhere and followed it, only to come face to face with her moms studio. The doors were closed but I could still hear her beautiful voice flowing through the doors.

This put a smile on my face as I leaned back against the wall with my arms crossed "Well what do ya know?" I mumbled after a minute or two the song ended. I stood there for a few seconds waiting for her to walk out when suddenly three ghosts appeared in front of me.

The three of them looked to be about my age. The boy who's back was towards me had brunette hair, a tank top, a blue sweatshirt with no sleeves, showing off his muscles, and a pair of black pants with a chain hanging off it. The boy in the middle who was facing me (but somehow didn't notice me), had blond hair, a pink shirt with a logo for a cleaning service on it, a chain necklace around his neck, a fanny pack clipped together across his chest being worn as a satchel, and black nylon pants, the drawstrings tied together on his waist in a nice bow. The boy behind the two of them had dark brown hair, a white shirt sat underneath a black leather jacket, a long beaded necklace sat hanging from around his neck, a black and red flannel tide around his waist, along with a belt to hold up black jeans that were ripped at the knees.

"Oh, dude, why'd you stop me? Julie needs a hug."

The blond haired boy spoke as the brunette looked through one of the windows on the doors. The dark brown haired boy seemed to be the only one that noticed me as he sent me a bright smile and waved at me. I sent him a small smile back and waved, the boy widened his eyes, mouth agape as he pointed at me in shock.

His friends either didn't notice him or decided to ignore him "Bro, a ghost hug isn't the feel-good moment that you think it is. All right?" Fixing up his sweatshirt the brunette continued "Trust me. What Julie needs right now is just a bit of privacy." The boy with the dark brown hair soon stopped looking at me like I had two heads, but nonetheless still stared at me with a smile on his face.

I huffed a bit, feeling a blush coating my cheeks 'They are pretty cute for ghosts..' grabbing the only backpack strap sitting on one of my shoulders to support it, they continued talking.

"You know what? I think you poofed us out because you can't handle when other people cry. I should know. I cried in a room for 25 years" his voice started shaking, which caused me to look back over at them as the blond continued, throwing his hand down.

"And I didn't get a single hug from either of you."

The boy in the black leather jacket went to hug the boy in the pink shirt "All right. Bring it in." The blond stuck his hand up before the boy in the leather jacket could touch him. "Don't touch me!" He stated causing the boy with dark brown hair to back off.

"This is why no one hugs you."

He stated, causing my hand to fly up to my mouth to hold back my giggle in amusement. My eyes met with the boy clad in a black leather jacket, causing him to smile and send me a wink in response to my suppressed giggling. "Ok" The boy in the blue sweatshirt said his eyes darting between the two boys in front of him "So I-I-I think the first thing we should do, once we get the courage to go in there, is ask Julie..." he paused for a brief moment before continuing.

"Why she lied about playing the piano."

"Yeah, and you know, maybe tell her how amazing she is."

"Yeah of course bro."

"Ok."

The blond and brunette talked before the boy who has been the only one to notice me so far, spoke "She's legit. I got ghost bumps" pointing to his arm, I smiled and let out yet another giggle while shaking my head. "Of course she's amazing. I wish I could sing like her." The three ghosts attentions were now on me.

I stood leaned back against the wall with my arms crossed across my chest, a small smile tugging at my lips as I looked at the boys. Two out of three of the boys both looked behind them, as if to see if I was talking to someone else, while the same boy as before smiled and waved. I let out a small giggle and waved back at him, as the two other boys looked back at me confused.

"You can see us?"

The brunette asked as I nodded my head "Yeup" dragging out the 'e' a little longer than needed. "How long have you been there?" I was about to answer but the dark brown haired boy answered for me "She's been here the whole time." All while walking over and swinging an arm around my shoulders. "Reggie if you knew why didn't you tell us?" The brunette asked as the two boys in front of me stared at the boy with his arm around me.

The boy (Who I now know is Reggie) shrugged in response "You guys never asked, so I didn't think it was important." The blond rubbed his forehead in annoyance before speaking "If you see someone who can see us and is just standing there, don't you think the best bet would be to tell us?" Reggie looked in front of him as the realization of the situation finally hit him "Ohhh, Wait." He leaned forward a little, putting his hand next to his lips as if acting as a sound barrier.

He whispered "Is this because you were talking about yourself crying?" He sucked in a breath of air, leaning back while bringing his hand back down and shoving it in his jacket pocket. "That's embarrassing." Reggie stated, I chuckled and decided to move the conversation along before a argument broke out.

Moving out from underneath Reggie's arm I was quick to say "Okay. Before this conversation turns sour, I'm just going to answer all of your questions now." Pointing at the brunette I stated "No I'm not a ghost." Moving onto the blond "Yes I can touch you guys. It's weird, I know." I now faced Reggie as I stuck out my hand "The names (Y/n), and I'm guessing you're Reggie?" Reggie let out a shocked gasp as he grabbed my hand and shook it.

"Woah! No way! You're psychic too?!"

I let out a small chuckle at his response as the blond shook his head "No, genius. She put the pieces together when Luke said your name." The blond in the pink shirt threw his thumb over his shoulder to point to (who I now know is) Luke. Reggie nodded his head while saying a small "ohh." I looked between the three of them.

"Okay, so if you're Reggie."

I pointed to the boy in the leather jacket who sent me a wink and a smile "That's me!" I then pointed to the brunette "And you're Luke" He sent me a small smile with a shrug, as my attention was quick to land on the blond "Then who are you?" The boy stuck his hand out, sending me a smile while saying "Alex Mercer, you must be a friend of Julie's." I let out a small breath of air before responding.

"Uh. Yeah."

My sentence drifted off as I noticed Flynn walk through the gate, tears streaming down her face. Quickly taking my hand away from Alex I was quick to ask "Flynn? Flynn are you-" she walked past me, not even looking at me before opening the door and slamming it in my face. "-alright..?" I finished saying after the door shut. Letting out a sigh in frustration I heard Alex asked "Oh my gosh. Was she crying too?" I rolled my eyes and Luke turned around to look at Alex.

"Yes!"

We spoke at the same time looking at each other for a quick second in confusion, Luke turned back around to face the other two. He continued speaking "And the only thing scarier than one girl crying is two girls crying." Alex nodded while they both looked at Reggie "He's right." Reggie looked over at me "Why not just send (Y/n) in there?" The two other ghosts looked at me.

I was quick to shake my head "Oh, no way. I don't do feelings they are nasty and gross. I tend to keep my distance when this stuff happens." Luke rolled his eyes letting out a small groan in annoyance "Well we definitely can't go in there." I scoffed while crossing my arms a crossed my chest.

"Why? Because you can't handle other people crying?"

Alex and Reggie both snickered behind him for a few seconds before Luke turned around, sending them a glare. Luke looked back at me and was about to respond only for Reggie to shrug and say "We could always listen. But we wouldn't do that." Reggie laughed a little, only for the three of them to look between each other and race towards the door.

I laughed a bit to myself as they looked through the windows, only to duck down a couple of seconds later. "Okay, you guys have fun spying on my friends." Reggie looked over at me, a smile on his face "Aw, Come on. You know you wanna" I shook my head while saying "No, I'm not gonna ease drop on my-" Reggie sent me a look as if to say 'Really?' I let out an amused huff, before dropping my bag and walking over to him.

"Scoot over before I change my mind"

He happily moved closer to Luke so I had some room to sit. I heard Flynn talking on and on as Julie tried to explain. Only for Flynn to go on a whole rant about me and her not seeing Julie as often. When she was finally finished Julie explained to her that she played the piano and sang again and Flynn was ecstatic. The four of us heard them coming closer to the door, Reggie put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him so I don't get hit by one of their bags as the boys tried to act natural.

Flynn and Julie both walked out, Flynn was the first to acknowledge me as she spoke "Hey, (Y/n), I'm so sorry I ignored you, I just-" I cut her off with a shake of my head, sticking out my hand for her to stop. "It's okay, really. I'm not good when it comes to emotions anyway. I would've been no help at all." She sent me a smile and stuck her arms out for a hug. I stood up and went to hug her, Reggie taking his arm away as I stood up.

Giving her a quick hug Julie stated "Oh, (Y/n)! You're here!" She sent me a forced smile as I broke the hug with Flynn only to get pulled into another by Julie. "Please tell me, you see them too." She whispered as I let out a small chuckle and pulled away from her. Looking over at the guys I nodded my head, and she let out a relieved sigh.

"Listen about the text last night..."

I started saying as I went to grab my backpack Julie cut me off "Don't worry about it. I didn't mean to make you angry, it's just.... you know my situation right now." I nodded my head and let out an embarrassed chuckle as I grabbed my bag that was next to Alex, and swung it over my shoulder.

"Yeah, umm, no, I mean, last night I didn't mean to get angry. It was just the alcohol-"

Before I could finish my sentence Flynn hit the back of my head "Ow! What the-" Flynn cut me off as I sent her a glare "You've been drinking again?!" I took a deep breath in and out to compose myself  "Can we not talk about this right now?" I asked her, as I looked over at Julie, refusing to look at any of the guys. Looking back at Flynn she was angrily about to state something when Julie came over, seeming to have gotten the message.

"Flynn, come on. Let's just get in the truck."

"Yeah, and have a drunk drive me to school. Perfect."

I clenched and unclenched my fists as I glared back at her. Letting out an angry huff, I stated "Whatever. I'll be waiting in the truck." Marching off toward the gate I heard Reggie state "Don't worry! We weren't listening." This caused a small smile to make its way to my lips as I left through the gate.

Prev // Next

[kybee1497]

Julie likes to borrow people’s clothes as a comfort thing. A visual, sensory, physical reminder that she’s loved and she has a little piece of that person with her sometimes. It helps her feel more grounded and present and it helps when she has bad days.

Before her mom died, it was less about comfort and a little more about being one of her love languages.

She was only friends with Flynn for four months before she ‘stole’ Flynn’s monster slippers for a few days. Now it’s a standard part of their Christmas presents to each other. They get a new pair of slippers and wear them once or twice before swapping for the new year.

Before things went down with Carrie, the three of them had clothes stashed at each other’s houses and weren’t shy about wearing whatever they grabbed first. Julie came to school once when she was 12 wearing Flynn’s cheetah print hat, Carries pink sweatshirt, and her own jeans she’d doodled on.

She borrowed her dads shirts for playing pirate queen when she was little.

But after her mom died it became a little more about keeping the people she loved closer to her. A reminder that they were there and loved her and everything was okay. And she wears her moms clothes sometimes to help her feel a bit closer. Her mom was gone but sometimes, when julie pulled a sweater out from the back of the closet, it still smelled like her moms perfume, and when she wrapped herself up in the warm, soft material it almost felt like being wrapped in her moms arms when she was small. For just a minute, it’s like having her back again. Then the feeling fades and Julies left with a time worn sweater with its fading scent, and it’s still enough, for now. It’s not the same, not at all, but it makes it a little bit easier to get through the day when all she wants to do is crawl back into bed with her head under the pillow and forget the world for the day.

She wears one of Carlos’s hats the entire week he’s gone at baseball camp the first summer after her mom died, reminding herself that it’s fine, and Carlos is fine, and he’ll be home in a week, and everything will be fine.

We already see in canon that she wears a lot of her moms clothes for performances because it helps her to feel closer to her mom. You can’t tell me julie wouldn’t have her own. Eventually she stops wearing her moms clothes for everyday activities, but even years down the road, Julie still incorporates something of her moms into each performance outfit. A dahlia pin, a necklace, a belt, etc.

Slowly as Julie heals and grows, borrowing clothes slowly regains some of the playfullness and affection it had before. It’s still got some of the needing an anchor bit that it had before but it’s not the only thing keeping her afloat anymore.

The first summer after Julie and the Phantoms was formed. Julies summer wardrobe consisted half of her own clothes and half Luke’s cut off shirts because “It’s really fucking hot outside Luke and these are more comfortable than anything else I own.” Luke just about dies a second time the first time he pops into Julie’s room while she’s laying across the foot of her bed, scribbling in her song book, and he sees that she’s wearing a pair of cut offs and his Rush shirt. You would think after the first few times he would be used to it but the boys brain glitches every time. Flynn thinks it’s hilarious.

She falls asleep in the studio one night and walks up warm and content with Reggie’s leather jacket draped over her. The boys are out for the morning and she’s running late so she slips her hands in the sleeves and wears it to school for the day. Luke trips over the air when she walks in that afternoon wearing it because Julie and leather jacket and pretty and adorable. He doesn’t even clock that it’s Reggie’s until Julie is handing it back at the end of the night with a soft smile and a thank you.

Julie wouldn’t dare to borrow Alex’s fanny pack, it’s sacred. No ones really sure exactly what he keeps in there but he always has exactly what they need. Reggie’s convinced it’s magic and Julie almost agrees, but Alex’s pink sweatshirt on the other hand, that’s fair game. It’s softer and cozier than it looks and it becomes julies new favorite thing. Alex is fine with it. Sometimes he grumbles about being cold but he just curls into Willie instead and always cuts her off when she offers it back.

Flynn won’t say it out loud but sometimes she buys clothes that are more Julies style than her own because Julie hates buying new clothes but she loves borrowing (and keeping) them and Julie needs some new, cute clothes in her wardrobe because while her boys may be cute, none of them have good fashion sense. Except for maybe Alex, but his style is more 90’s gay icon which is incredible but not really Julies thing. So flynn gets a new sweater or a dress and wears it a few times, maybe leaves it out when julie comes over or throws an extra jacket in her backpack on days that she knows julie was up late writing with Luke and would likely forget her lunch, a text book and at least a jacket on her mad dash out the door. It’s what Flynn called working the system. Julie got to show her affection and cute clothes, and Flynn got to play stylist. It was the best of both worlds.

A year later, when Carrie wants to talk and apologizes, when they slowly work their way back into a friendship. Julie fishes one of the triple threat shirts she had stashed in the back of her closet that she liked to forget she kept and pulls it on under a hoodie before school that day. Thankfully they’d messed up when they were ordering the shirts and ordered adult sizing instead of youth. So it fit perfectly at 17 where they’d been night shirts at 8. Interestingly enough, Carries also wearing a sweatshirt that day and Julie catches a glimpse the familiar lettering of -antoms on the back of the shirt underneath when they’re changing for PE. The day they both wore something that reminded them of the other without talking about it or showing it off, was the day the tentative part of tentative friendship was finally removed. There’s still some days where old hurts ache a bit more than usual because even small wounds leave scars, and some of the wounds were far from small. Sometimes Carrie starts to mention rose and Julie flinches. Just a bit, it wouldn’t even be super noticeable if they hadn’t known each other that well, if carrie hadn’t spent a year watching Julie flinch every time she opened her mouth. Carrie hates a lot of things about herself, but that one, that one was by far the worst. Not everything can be forgiven, but they can move forward and sometimes that’s enough.

Idk this got super long and idk if it makes sense anymore and I’m too lazy to edit it but JULIE MOLINA IS A CLOTHES THIEF and I love that for her. Also I might fuck around and flesh this out into a fic later when I’m not so slammed with wips.

[invisibleraven]

56 + 93 for Willex for the AU mashup?

"Y'all need a stylist," Flynn declared at their latest band strategy meeting. "You have events coming up, and with your album doing so well, there's bound to be more."

"What's wrong with what we're wearing?" Luke asked, affronted. Flynn just motioned to the entire side of his torso visible through his cut off, the multiple rips in Reggie's jeans, and Alex's, well Alex's everything.

"Hey!" the drummer exclaimed. "What about Julie?"

"Julie's perfect," chorused Luke and Reggie, causing her to blush, but then shrug. Even Alex would silently admit, Julie had the most style out of the four of them, and it was only because of her and Flynn that they hadn't played their Orpheum gig in their usual get up.

"Well why can't you do it Flynnie?" Reggie asked, breaking out the puppy eyes.

"I am slightly busy," she said, counting off on her fingers, "managing this band, my wife's band, and oh yeah, growing a whole entire human being!" Flynn gestured to her stomach, which was only slightly distended, but pregnancy had been rough on her, and it didn't help that Carrie was right in the middle of recording, so she wasn't around as much as she liked.

"What, you want us dressed like that guy?" Alex gestured to the skateboarder resting a few tables over. He was in a tye dye crop top, obnoxiously patterned board shorts, and socks covered in cherries.

"You couldn't pull it off," the guy said, smirking at Alex. "Plus you literally have your socks pulled up over your pants, I don't think you have any place to talk."

"I-I didn't..." Alex stammered.

The guy rolled his eyes. "Uh huh, sure you didn't." He then leaned in and pressed a kiss to Flynn's cheek. "Nice to see you again gorgeous."

Flynn beamed, and then turned to the band. "Guys, I'd like you to meet Willie Shotton, your new stylist."

Alex groaned and face palmed. "Fuck my entire life."

~

Willie, for his... own interesting fashion choices, actually did do right by the band. He found pieces that were sleek and professional, but still suited their individual tastes. He had a knack for finding treasure in consignment shops and thrift stores, vintage suits that Reggie loved, some subtle leather pieces that he tailored without sleeves for Luke, he even found Julie a dress that almost made her swoon.

Alex was nervous, he had barely spoken to Willie since he put his foot in his mouth, and he wondered if he'd end up in some neon lime green monstrosity as a payback.

"You should let your hair grow out, just a little," Willie commented as he browsed through racks of clothing, Alex by his side. "I think you'd look nice with longer hair. I mean, you pull off the 90's look fine, but maybe you need an update? Bring it into this century?"

"Next you'll be telling me to give up the fanny pack," Alex muttered.

"Nah, fanny packs are in right now. I am curious as to what's in there though."

"My inhaler and Epi Pen. Plus Ativan, a mini first aid kit, snacks for Reggie, guitar picks for Luke, and hair ties for Julie," Alex replied.

"Jeez, you're a mom friend, no wonder you have no style," Willie said with a smirk. Alex mad an affronted noise, but Willie just shoved a suit at him. "Here, try this on."

"It's yellow."

Willie nodded. "Good, you know your colours. Look, I know pink is like your signature, but it's okay to explore outside of one chunk of the colour wheel. Plus it'll highlight how hard you've been hitting the gym, the fangirls will love it." Willie shoved him towards the dressing room after that.

"You know I'm gay right?" Alex called as he struggled out of his clothes and into the suit.

"So am I, but your demographic is still mainly female, so we gotta give them some unattainable eye candy."

"I mean the other three are all together, so they're not any more attainable than I am," Alex commented.

Willie's eyebrows rose at that. "Huh, never would have pegged that. Guess I can see why you'd keep it quiet."

"They're gonna tell people after the wedding." Alex then exited the dressing room, giving a little twirl, and smiling nervously at Willie. "So, how do I look?"

Given Willie's almost slack jawed expression, Alex figured he looked good, and preened a little.

By the time the events started rolling in, Alex made a few jokes about wearing his fanny pack, but his boyfriend just rolled his eyes at him, and claimed he had a much better accessory right there before twining their fingers together. Alex had to agree, what went better with his outfit than the guy who picked it out for him?

[bluefirewrites]

hey if it's okay can you write random willex headcanons?

Willie thinks Alex is way out of his league and super self conscious when it comes to talking to him

I’ve made this point before, but I would like to make it again and add some more details. 

To Willie, Alex is this accomplished person- with passions and goals that he’’ll still be able to fulfill even though he’s a ghost. 

Willie loves to skate but it’s not like he could turn that into a career or compete if that was what really wanted to do (not like he would do it if he had the chance- doesn’t want to complete his unfinished business). He thinks he’ll get left behind while Alex goes off to bigger and better things. 

Alex has this amazing support system, unlike what he has at the HGC and Caleb- why would he ever want to spend time with Willie when he already has this close-knit group to hang with?

And come on- Alex is tall, blonde, and handsome. A deadly combination. 

He probably inwardly cursed at himself for laughing and saying ‘pancake ya’ to this cute ghost (”Really? Pancake ya? God, that was lame...”)

Alex is the affectionate one out of the two

He would slowly ease into the whole PDA thing because he still harbors some anxieties as a result of his parents’ treatment of his sexuality. 

But once he becomes comfortable enough, he initiates a lot of physical contact when he and Willie are together. 

As I mentioned before, Alex’s hugs are amazing. He hugs everyone but especially Willie. And Willie doesn’t get a lot of hugs anyway, and Alex seeks to remedy that. 

Alex would definitely be the one to nuzzle his nose against Willie’s before sharing sweet kisses on the couch during band rehearsal. Or lean his head on his shoulder. 

But for some reason, Willie always initiates hand holding. Just like how he did when they went to the museum for the first time. To Willie, hand holding is more intimate than hugs. 

Quick ones: 

Alex likes to stick fun stickers onto Willie’s helmet. His favorite one is a small ‘Baby on Board’ sticker. Willie agrees. He is baby. 

Willie for sure sneakily promotes Julie and Phantoms. Dropping a business card or two, pulling up their videos on managers’ laptops. He was the one who gave the boys the idea to book the Orpheum gig that way. 

Willie tells Alex about TikTok and shows him all the dances. Alex kills it and Willie honestly could watch his bf dance all day. 

Alex learns skateboard maintenance for Willie. He carries wrenches and replacement bearings in his fanny pack in case Willie needs it. 

They both trip homophobes who harass couples on the street. 

I know we see a lot of clothes sharing, but imagine Willie wearing Alex’s cap. That paired with his long hair- he would reach max skater status. 

Willie does things to make Alex laugh whenever he gets hit with random waves of anxiety and nerves on stage. He would make funny faces behind audience members or steal hats or signs and wave them around, cheering loudly at him. 

They love going to the ballet together (like the Get Down, iykyk). They both make an event out of it even though they know no one would see them. Willie would dress up in his blazer and Alex would wear that dress shirt (Caleb may be evil, but the style tho). 

[blush-and-books]

The End of Julie and the Phantoms - A [very long] Theory

The core of this theory was inspired by many posts that I have seen saying that Julie’s “everything was a dream” shirt may have insinuated that nothing happening on the show is actually reality. I brought my series finale pitch to my dear friend @willexx who then helped me develop this headcanon into something I cried about during lunch. 

It starts out pretty heavy, but there are some little light things here and there because it’s what the himbos would have wanted.

We start here:

In the last episode, the boys are ready too cross over. It’s an emotional moment for everyone, they’re crying, Julie is sobbing, and we as an audience have definitely seen better days. With one last “we love you, Julie,” a flash of light overtakes the garage space, blinding our screens. 

The scene flashes to Julie lying in bed, waking up from her ringing alarm. 

She is visibly confused, clearly wondering how she got to bed when the last thing that she remembers is the boys’ painful departure. When she reaches for her phone to turn off her alarm -- it’s a school day -- she quickly notices the date:

It’s the same day in 2020 that she met the boys, that she was going to clean out her mom’s garage, and that she had to perform to keep her spot in the music program. 

So, none of it was real?

Not exactly. 

The experience was a sort of dream-like saga that was designed for her to be able to grieve on her own, and rediscover her voice in her own way. But just as the panic sets in that it was a complete figment of her imagination, the feeling of cold metal on her left hand becomes too hard to ignore: One of Luke’s rings. 

Reggie’s leather jacket is hanging in her closet.

Alex’s fanny pack is slung across the back of a chair. 

But when she runs downstairs, clad in her dinosaur slippers, rushing to the garage to see if the guys were there -- they aren’t. They have crossed over. 

As she moves through the day, she’s a new Julie, but everything else is the same. Instead of a baseball cap and low ponytail, Julie throws on her black jeans and Reggie’s leather and lets her hair run wild. She’s displaying a confidence that Flynn hasn’t seen in a long time, that seemed to have hit Julie overnight. 

Julie sings Wake Up in music, and keeps her spot in the program. She doesn’t oogle Nick in the halls and she tells Carrie off when there’s an attempt at an insult made. 

Real or not, the boys helped her. They did their job. 

When she gets home, and Ray irks her about cleaning the garage or selling the house, she is quick to insist that she doesn’t want to move and that if he needs her for the rest of the night, she’ll be in her mother’s studio.

There aren’t any instruments except for the piano, and the space has the original layer of dust that it had before her and the guys started using the space again. Julie feels empty. But she reminds herself that the ring on her finger is real, extremely real, so she retraces her steps that she had taken in the first episode and tracks down the Sunset Curve demo CD, puts it in the stereo, and plays it. 

Nothing happens. Or, at least -- nothing that she could see.

The camera pans up as Julie is hard at work to organize the garage, and we see the boys in the chairs on the ceiling, watching over her fondly. 

~This is where @willexx started to throw in some epic ideas~

The boys are real, and they have crossed over, which renders Julie unable to see them. However, in her reset reality without them, no one remembers Julie and the Phantoms or the fact that the boys existed in the first place. The boys, while she can’t see them, visit her and try to make contact with her as much as they can, even though their times with her are limited since they are supposed to be on the other side.

She’ll feel a ghost of a touch on her hand or her hair, and know that Luke is there. When she’s in the car and the radio is on a country station, she knows that it’s Reggie. In a journal for school, a small “okay” will be written in the corner of a page, and it is Alex. These little notes keep her going, and she’ll just sigh and say “my boys,” and leave everyone around her confused. 

Sometimes, when she wakes up in the morning, the demo tape can be heard playing in the garage. Somehow she’ll get filled with hope that if she runs into the garage, the boys will be there rocking out without her like she used to scold them for left and right -- but no one is there. Ray comments that the stereo is broken and Julie has no choice but to nod along. 

One day she finds Luke’s songbook that had been buried in the plastic garbage bags of the boys’ belongings. She still brings Unsaid Emily to his parents, and she cries herself to sleep that night. 

When Julie blows up as a solo artist, she actually records Unsaid Emily, and she records Bright, and all of the other songs that her and Luke wrote together. Luke Patterson is in the writing credits for many of the songs, where Trevor never bothered to list him, and a part of Luke is at piece. 

On the two year anniversary of Rose’s passing, Julie finds Luke’s “angst flannel.” Ray asks where she got it; she tells him a thrift store. But it feels warm, like all of the guys are there, hugging her. 

Another morning, she could swear that Luke and Reggie are strumming out Flying Solo on level one volume, and once again finds herself darting to the garage with no good excuse except to keep her hopes up. They, unsurprisingly, aren’t there -- but a note is, that says “you’re a star, Jules. We love you.”

The handwriting is messy. She knows it’s from Luke, who probably fought the boys to even write the note because he just wanted to talk to her even though they need to move on and his handwriting is awful. The note gets tucked into the pocket of the flannel, and when she needs to be reminded that she’ll be okay, she pulls it out of the pocket and holds it tight. 

Before every show, she reads the note, and mumbles a little prayer to them wherever they are -- even if no one else believes they are real. 

When Luke’s flannel starts to lose it’s original sweet scent of Emily and Mitch’s house, Julie spends an hour crying on the floor of her bathroom. A faded orange beanie appears in her room the next day. 

Little notes from Luke appear here and there, but never from any of the guys. In the shadows where she can’t see them, Alex tells Luke that in order for both themselves and Julie to move on, Luke needs to stop leaving her notes -- so most of the ones that Julie finds are even more messy than usual, like Luke was trying to write them without the guys noticing. 

During one of their forbidden conversations, Julie says to Luke: “hey, I never told you this before... But I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t know what I would do without knowing that you guys were still around. I think I would have lost my mind, and would have been convinced that I went crazy.”

Luke could have ran to Alex, repeated Julie’s tearful words, and given the drummer a fat “I told you so.” But he doesn’t. Julie’s validation is the only validation that he needs. 

Whenever her and Carlos and Ray make an extra seat at their dinner table for Rose, Julie imagines, deep in her mind, that it is for Reggie too. Reggie deserved a seat at their table; deserved to be a part of their family. A family that would have loved him.  And when a fork falls off of the table, Julie knows he’s there. One day, Julie asks Ray how he would have felt about having another son. He responds confused, and Julie gets tears in her eyes, and neither of them bring it up again.

When Julie and Flynn go to Pride together, Julie wears Alex’s fanny pack even though she hadn’t gotten any signs from him since they had all moved on. He still doesn’t reach out afterwards, too overwhelmed by her gesture to think of a way to properly extend his gratitude and love for the girl who is keeping his spirit alive -- but Luke lets her know that he was grateful. 

Luke still visits Julie like he visits Emily and Mitch. And on Luke’s birthday every year, Julie goes to a little bakery after school and buys herself a cupcake; sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to light a candle and sing happy birthday. When she lights the candle, the candle gets blown out. Every year after that first year, she gets candles that you have to turn on and off so that Luke can’t ruin the moment. 

(He ends up throwing the fake candle on the ground out of retaliation.)

Julie is so emotionally stable for the most part that the complete change is a shock to Ray. He tries to ask her what happened, but she always acts like nothing happened and then hides in her room for hours. Sometimes, she makes random little comments out of the blew and Ray has many conversations with Victoria on whether or not he should have Julie seeing Dr. Turner again. 

At her first solo concert, Julie walks into the dressing room to find “Stand Tall” written three times, in three different handwriting styles, in red, pink, and blue. The message in blue is the messiest by far, and is followed up with a heart. 

The name of Julie’s first album is Phantoms. 

[creativeashproductions]

A Distant Dream III // Luke Patterson

Summary: In 1994 seventeen year old Luke Patterson had once again to ask out the girl that held his heart. With the belief he would see the younger Mercer girl the next morning he decides to then confess his feelings. Only the soft music bewitched the reader into an antique wardrobe with lots of history.

Warnings: Swearing, grief, magic wardrobe, talk of death, angst, and fluff

Words: 3.2k

A/N: I’m loving this series omg.

TO BE TAGGED SEND AN INBOX/ASK PLEASE!

Masterlist

“It should be somewhere in here,” Julie spoke with the flashlight scanning the basement the Molina’s didn’t use. She was hunting for the spare cord her mother had always carried with the amp for the few times she played with her old band for fun.

Most of the stuff had found its way in the basement, collecting dust and leaving sadness in its wake. Reggie’s had snapped early this morning to his great disappointment and with no spare in sight.

As Julie’s hand brushed her old childhood dollhouse, a soft golden light gleamed from further back. Her brown eyes finding the corner when the golden glow was framing a square in the distance. Rocking back on the heels of her feet, Julie stared at the sight.

Faint music came from the surrounding area of the golden glow. The Puerto Rican is enthralled by the bewitching music coming from the back of the basement. Her sneakered feet walking closer to the wardrobe as the creak of a door came from it.

Julie halted as the sheet slipped off, revealing the old wood to her brown eyes and the golden glow brightening the room further. The telltale sound of noise behind her concealed by the music that grew louder and louder. The door unlatched itself with a form slamming the basement floor with a slam.

Julie stumbled back. A deep groan pulled from the stranger’s lips before Julie’s scream ripped through the once empty room. The cry of a male behind her joining the screams as Julie turned on her heel halting at the pure unadulterated fear on Alex’s face.

“What the hell?” Alex hissed, staring at the prone form of a girl with long hair intricately pinned in places. The formal hairstyle at war with the outfit Alex could just barely make out as a plaid skirt reaching mid-thigh over sheer black tights. The colour of the skirt concealed by the dim lighting.

“Peter.” The name slipped from your lips filled with anguish as you frantically crawled to the wardrobe to search it.

The scream of grief falling from your lips as your hand made contact with the wooden back of the wardrobe. Your arms wrapped around your middle as you collapsed into yourself as it cemented in your brain. Your life in Narnia ended in seconds.

“Excuse me? How the heck did you do that?” Julie’s terrified voice questioned as she fought her impulse to run. Just as she had from the boys when they first appeared in the studio.

The truth of the matter settling you swiftly turned to the voice surprised you had left yourself vulnerable to attack. Your wild eyes scanning the room for a sword, or even your bow that was always strapped to you. You found only a basement with old furniture instead and two teens staring shocked at you.

“Where-“

“Y/N?” The blonde boy gasped stumbling forward taken aback by the sudden appearance of his little sister. Your eyes meeting his blue confused before memories of him snapped in your brain previously hidden behind a wall.

“Alex?” You questioned, throwing yourself into his arms to wrap your arms around him as you dissolved into sobs. Alex melting into your body sobbing just as hard.

“I’m two seconds away from storming Dr. Turner’s office, I swear. First, three ghosts appear in my studio and now a girl out of a wardrobe also from the ’90s.” Julie muttered scrubbing her hand over her face. Your eyes wandering to her form in confusion at what she had said.

“’ also from the ’90s’?” You asked, stepping one step away from Alex who refused to let you go as if you would disappear once more, “What year is it?”

“How about we talk about this in the studio. Reggie and Luke are in the studio, I came to get Julie. You’ve been down here for a while.” Alex suggested with a look that Julie caught quickly. Alex didn’t want to prolong the reunion with the rest of the guys.

Alex walked up from the basement with Julie straight to the door with dozens of questions in his brain. This was a change he welcomed with open arms and a happy heart. The house was empty as Ray had taken Carlos to an all-day out of town baseball tournament.

Luke and Reggie’s voices drifted out from the studio blocked by the white barn doors only partially open. The two arguing about the band playing one of Reggie’s country songs on stage. Their attention not on the three people walking into the room as Luke stretched out on his back on his sofa. Reggie curled in one of the armchairs beside the couch.

“It’s not our sound!” Luke spoke, staring his bassist down with a heated glare that wasn’t as harsh as if it was someone else.

“Pop wasn’t either but look where we are now?” Reggie retorted with his arms crossed and a pout painted on his flushed face. Alex could sigh at the same debate that happened at least twice a week.

“Sunset Curve is pop now?” Your soft voice still tortured with loss bringing both the boys to the front of the studio. Standing uncomfortable in the clothing that revealed more skin in the fifteen years you had been in Narnia.

The gasps would have amused Alex had this sudden development not happened, especially when his long lost sister fell out of a wardrobe. Luke and Reggie stumbled to their feet in pure astonishment seeing the person they had dreamed of seeing one more time.

“Holy shit.” Luke choked blinking frantically as you sent an awkward smile to the face of the person that had haunted you for fifteen years.

“Y/N?” Reggie cried, raising both hands to cover his mouth as if it would hold in the heartbreaking sobs.

Julie took the initiative to step to the side to allow the reunion to happen without a distraction, but really it was impossible. A bomb could drop, and none of the ’90s teens would notice with their attention solely on each other.

“Are you a ghost?” Reggie questioned you with furrowed brows. Alex’s hand intertwined with yours.

At the familiar texture and comfort of your older brother’s comforting hand, your eyes clenched tight—tears building at the very different hands you had held for over a decade.

“Ghost?” You questioned, clearing your tight throat in bewilderment. Your e/c eyes changing between the three different eyes. The three boys shared a glance with each other, “Does anyone have a sweater I could borrow?”

Alex was surprised at the request, “You want a sweater? You adore midriff shirts.”

“That was before.” You simply stated, “So what has happened?”

That was the words that shattered the frozen form of Luke Patterson, who stumbled his way to hug you. His arms wrapping around, brought both relief but also guilt. This was the guy that had been the third party of your marriage without even knowing. The thoughts caused your muscles to tense, leading Luke to a different conclusion.

Luke believed you rejected his hug because you blamed him.

“You’re not a ghost?” Reggie questioned following as you sat on the sofa in such an uncharacteristic position.

Your posture entirely pin straight with an air of regality that went above the posture you had as a young Mercer. Alex’s eyebrows raised almost into his hairline at how you held yourself compared to the slight slouch you developed away from your parents. His blue eyes caught the calm mask that concealed your panic under a practised mask.

“You disappeared in 1994 after you spent supper with my family.” Luke softly started recalling the night his life first changed for the worse, “You left just before dark after time got away from us. You sent a smile before the plants hid your form and I never saw you again.”

A sad smile broke the mask you wore, “I’m sorry the fifteen years have made it difficult for memories.”

“Fifteen years?” Julie interrupted, bringing your attention to the girl in the corner with a soft voice. Her eyes couldn’t help scan you and Alex finding the similarities and differences, but she loved how relaxed Alex looked in your presence.

“Time is…different where I was.” The sentence was slow to leave your lips as your eye wandered the different version of the studio.

“Was it a black room?” Reggie inquired shifting for Julie to have space to sit down without her limbs moving through Reggie’s leg. Alex was quick to settle on your left side with Luke in the closest armchair to you.

“No?” You trailed off thinking of the years you had spent ruling a kingdom with your in-laws, “I-I think when I left Luke’s house, there was this music. Like a lullaby that drew me into this antique store and a voice out of a dream. I was entranced, and then I was in a different world.”

“You have an accent.” Luke implored finally seeing the mature difference in your demeanour, posture and personality, “Like it’s English but still sounds like you. Were you in England?”

The soft giggle came from your lips, “No. I swear on Aslan I wasn’t in England.”

Everyone was deaf to Julie’s confusion and her soft repeat of the name you whispered into the air. The word drawing a sense of having had heard it before it comes her way.

“Who’s Aslan?” Alex asked unclipping his infamous fanny pack to remove the pink sweater. He couldn’t help but see the way you tugged the plaid skirt down and your black crop top down.

Your hand grasped the soft material of the pink sweater, the first pink garment Alex had owned. His pride and joy of a sweater was slipped over your outfit landed past the hem of your skirt.

“He’s…” Your words broke off, trying to find a way how to tell them that Aslan ruled the entirety of Narnia. He created it, but he was a lion that could talk.

“I’d like to know how you’ve been in that wardrobe for so long!” Julie gushed unable to hold back her curiosity, “My parents got that as a wedding gift when they were moving into the house. It was shifted downstairs because my mom couldn’t let it go for the sentimental value.”

“I’m sorry but wardrobe? She came- you came out of a wardrobe?” Alex wondered, shaking his head before he said his infamous word, “Okay.”

“I was trying to find a spare cord for Reggie, but out of absolutely nowhere, this music came from the back area. This pretty golden hue lit up the room, and then she just fell out of the wardrobe.”

“I’m so confused,” Reggie whispered to himself, staring off into the distance at two things he had learnt.

You had gone missing before they died yet for you, only fifteen years had gone by.

You had been in a wardrobe. A wardrobe!

“So are you dead or not?” Julie asked next leaning forward to face you in anticipation for the new piece of information. Her inquisitive brown eyes glittering in the light of the studio as you tried to find the correct words.

“I’m alive.” You decided to go the simple route, “I’m guessing that you three are dead?”

Alex, Reggie and Luke all nodded with each other, “Street dogs. How aren’t you fazed?”

“Uh, I walked into a wardrobe. Joined a war, won the war, got crowned for the kingdom by Aslan, and grew up.” You tapped a finger for each piece of your fifteen years, much easier to just use your perspective, “Fifteen years ruling with Peter and his siblings.”

“Peter?” Alex inquired with one dark blonde eyebrow raised high with caution written clearly on his youthful face.

“My husband.” The words choked everyone in the damn room, and Luke felt like he could puke. The girl he was still very much in love with was now taken by someone else just weeks after he grieved the almost-relationship he could have had with you.

Adjusting to the new world, the third time in your, life wasn’t as difficult as you would have expected. Well, adapting to the technological advances and the new band Sunset Curve had evolved into. The relationship with Luke was at simplicity quite awkward, something Luke never anticipated when he envisioned finding you.

It was painful for everyone in the room with you two. You were trying to deal with the guilt of abandoning your kingdom, of your Narnian friends, of not being with the Pevensies. You had a strong suspicion they had returned back to England, and the time was the hardest to deal with.

Instead of 1994, the current year was 2020 for you—twenty-six years in this world but fifteen in Narnia. You didn’t look a day over your age in 1994. Looking in mirrors was startling every time to see your teen youth instead of the thirty-one-year-old.

Happily, the bond with Alex hadn’t diminished if anything it had gotten stronger. He was assimilating to the new fashion you liked. You had a more mature style and preferred modest outfits; the Narnian fashion was still very much part of you.

Reggie adored hearing the adventures you had done in Narnia, he grew a crush on the version of Lucy you told. He was definitely awed at how you had had a stable of horses that could talk, some weren’t vocal.

All three boys were jealous of the fact that despite being born in the late ’70s, you were alive in 2020. You could touch and interact with everyone while they only had each other, and now you. Flynn had been sceptical but grew to be friends with you.

For you, you would be found staring out the window in the attic of the Molina house where you had settled in. A rather long-winded explanation of being from overseas and your housing having fallen through. Ray and welcomed you into the home with open arms.

“Hey! We’re gonna go explore. Do you wanna come with us?” Alex asked from his spot near the door he had poked his head through. His smile turning upside down at the lost look in your eyes and fingers that played with the only evidence of your Narnian life.

The ring you had worn since Peter had proposed ten years ago with a specially designed ring by the best of the business. Cair Paravel’s military General, formerly of Aslan’s Army, Oreius’ sister Odette had personally pushed the contract to the front.

The ring was absolutely breathtaking of a moonstone set in a rose gold floral metal setting with tiny diamonds in a flora design. It was definitely made with the rarest rose gold, and the moonstone was personally found on a quest Peter had gone on. You were thrilled it had survived the return to the human world.

“Y/N?” Alex spoke once more, gaining your attention from the overcast sky with a bittersweet smile.

“Hey, Alex.” You replied, walking closer for the hug he had quickly made into a requirement every time he saw you.

“Reggie, Luke and I are going to explore if you want to join us.”

The offer was tempting even if you had to submit to being in an awkward environment with Luke Patterson. Seeing him each time brought that love that had overshadowed Peter’s love and that in itself brought tremendous guilt.

“I think I’ll hang here. Thank you for inviting me, Alex.” You softly replied as you retreated to the bed in the large renovated attic. Ray and Rose had renovated it into living space when Julie was still in elementary school.

Ray had spent a few months staying in the attic room after Rose passed away because he couldn’t even touch the doorknob. His sister in law Victoria had to help move things to the attic as Ray mourned his wife.

“I’ll be right back,” Alex told you before he poofed, something you still couldn’t wrap your mind around.

Instead of Alex returning it was Luke with that sheepish smile he adorned in the last week you had returned. Your e/c eyes widened in surprise when they met the hazel of his own.

“Luke.” You breathed astounded as he hesitantly walked closer, “Aren’t you going with Reggie and Alex?”

Luke’s hand gestured to the bed, “May I sit?”

“Yeah!” You nodded shifted to create distance between you and the guitarist that had once held your heart in his hands.

Things were different. The ring on your left hand said so. The wedding ceremony in Narnia said so. Yet your heart didn’t understand further than the yearning and love it throbbed with.

“Alex kinda hit some sense into me. This has been…a rather confusing time since that night in 1995.” Luke didn’t talk about his experience dying with anyone because he was still working through it. To avoid the pain and trauma, he focused on the band instead.

“I can attest to that. A week ago, I was with my family hunting for the White Stag content with my life. Next thing I knew I’m racing after Lucy into a wardrobe in which blasted me with memories.” You sighed thinking back to the banter with Edmund and Susan before Lucy uttered ‘Spare Oom’ of a distant time, “I feel terrible that I had no conscious recollection of my life before Narnia. I’d see a tall blonde in the crowd and have this sudden emotion of loss. I forgot about my own brother.”

“I can’t blame you for anything. You had a responsibility to an entire kingdom.”

“Part of me must have remembered because when I was gifted my horse, it asked me to name her. I chose Mercer without thinking about why. It’s always interested me in the reason behind the choice.” You played with the bedspread to avoid his face and the guilt of abandoning him unintentionally or not.

“How was the music in Narnia?” Luke inquired, bringing a neutral topic to once best friends in the process of recovering the friendship, “Any rock?”

The laugh lightened the heaviness in Luke’s chest and brought a smile to both the teens’ faces. Music was always one of the topics you could talk for hours with the band given the classical background you had.

“None that we had the honour of hearing.” The grin brought a smile to Luke’s face as well, and then some of the pieces of your friendship found their place in the frame.

“So, tell me more about this place.”

And so, you did as the sun set and then rose hours later while you were content to retell the tale of your time. The war with the White Witch and watching Edmund take his last breath and his first one after a drop from Lucy’s Cordial.

As you retold your tale of adventures to Luke, a quartet of siblings scoured a wardrobe decades before the conversation commenced.

A little girl sobbing for her lost sister and greatest friend while her oldest brother closed himself off. A seventeen-year-old closed himself off, finding it difficult adjusting to being a teen once more. As if he hadn’t lived fifteen years with his wife beside him. As if he never had a wife.

Above is the Narnia engagement ring reader wears from Peter

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[pink-flame]

...I just realized I did the request wrong so uh yeah haha 🤦🏼‍♀️

a n y w a y s

willex, pining, wfw

Does this count as Willex? I think so. Enjoy! 💜

“But how do I know he likes me?”

Alex’s eyes darted back and forth between his friend’s faces, their incredulous expressions doing nothing to soothe the nervous energy keeping his foot tapping and his hands wrapping and unwrapping around each other over and over.

“Alex...he likes you,” Luke said slowly like he was talking to an idiot.

Alex was offended.

He also felt like a complete idiot at the moment but that wasn’t the point.

“But how do I know?” Alex repeated, practically begging one of his friends to give him a concrete answer that might actually satisfy his aching brain.

Reggie and Luke exchanged a look that clearly said “classic Alex” and it was classic Alex. Only usually he needed reassurance that the stickiness on the movie theater armrest wasn’t anything that would eat through his flesh or that he didn’t need to check his fanny pack for his epipen for the fifth time. This was the first time he had ever needed them to talk him through being head over heels for an amazing guy who he had apparently had unfulfilled chemistry with in two past lives, both of which had said guy existing as a ghost and one where he was a ghost too.

To be fair, he was pretty sure it was the last time that particular situation would pop unless his life got even weirder than apparently it already was.

Luckily his friends took pity on him.

“He’s over here like all the time,” Reggie reminded him. “And when he’s not he’s taking you skating. And you don’t even skate.”

Alex nodded, those were both facts that even his anxious mind couldn’t deny. Still. He needed more. He turned to Luke who sputtered.

“Seriously?”

Alex just stared at him expectantly prompting Luke to sigh, obviously resigned to humoring him.

“And he’s always finding excuses to...I don’t know get all…”

“Touchy feely?” Reggie suggested.

Luke nodded and snapped his fingers.

“Right, he’s always finding excuses to get all touchy feely with you,”

“Like this,” Reggie said as he threw an arm around Luke’s shoulders to demonstrate helpfully. “Or this!”

He lowered his head to Luke’s shoulder and looked up at him through fluttering eyelashes.

“He gets the idea,” Luke reached down to place his hand over Reggie’s face and used it to shove him away.

“Ouch,” Reggie grunted.

“What else?” Alex said impatiently, waving a hand as though he could capture the words he wanted to hear out of his friends like his dad used to reel in fish.

“He calls you pancake,” Reggie offered. “That’s like a super cute puppy name.”

“You mean pet name,” Luke corrected.

“No, they call it puppy cause you’re all like cute and eager,” Reggie argued.

“You’re thinking of puppy love,” Luke shot back.

“Huh...maybe, I am,” Reggie said consideringly. “You know what saying I never got? Monkey on my back. Where did the monkey come from? Is it just hanging out back there or what? What does it want?”

“Hey, hey!” Alex waved his arms until his friends had returned their attention back to him. “I’m in the middle of a crisis, remember?”

Luke leaned forward and slapped his hand down on Alex’s knee.

“You’re not in a crisis, dude,” He said with a smile. “You’re in the middle of falling in love.”

“Oh no,” Alex moaned. “You’re right. That’s so much worse.”

Luke released Alex’s  knee and flopped back against the couch in frustration.

“I give up.”

“I’ve got this,” Reggie said. “The ultimate reason we know Willie likes you, Alex. Because Julie says you’re literally meant to be together. You’ve always been into each other even when you were both dead.”

Alex couldn’t argue with that.

Ok, so he could argue with it and he had when Julie had first told them all about their improbable history together. The 90s and hotdogs and skateboarding ghosts.

But he knew now she was telling the truth. She was his friend and she wouldn’t lie to him. Reggie and Luke wouldn’t either. So maybe he needed to trust what they saw when they looked at him and Willie. Maybe he could…

“Um...when were we both dead?”

Alex froze as Willie’s confused voice came from behind him in the doorway. He didn’t turn around for a moment instead staring in horror at the nervous expressions on his friends faces.

Luke was right. He hadn’t been having a crisis before.

But now...now he was pretty sure this qualified.

[legolasghosty]

Oooh for the WIP game tell us about Willex Soulmates Ink Style!

@beencryingfor25years

Hello! @beencryingfor25years, thank youuuu for sending this! I'm so in love with this AU and it's a crime that I haven't finished it yetttt! Someone else also asked about this one so I already explained the general concept here! But double ask means I get to go into more details!

Alex is kinda freaked out when he starts getting paint smears all over as a kid, cause he definitely didn't do that. His mom is like, "Nah that's your soulmate, this great girl God has designed just for you." Which is highly problematic but gets the idea across to little kid Alex. He immediately latches onto the idea of having this built in best friend and learns to read and write a lot faster than most kids so he can talk to them.

His parents are... not impressed with how his soulmate 'obsession' lasts past first grade. But Alex and his soulmate are besties by that point and are not even remotely interested in stopping their daily pen pal-ing just because of the parentals. Though their conversations move to more concealable parts of their bodies once Alex hits middle school. He hated being yelled at and Pancake (his soulmate) didn't want to get him in trouble.

Julie and the Phantoms gets a gig playing some rich kid's birthday party up in the Hollywood Hills on the same day as Pancake's birthday. Caleb Covington's house is crazy fancy and Luke is freaking out about how this is gonna get them signed. Apparently Covington's son is a huge fan of their music. Alex is kinda wondering if his soulmate will be when he hears it too.

And then they meet at the party and it's very cute and I'm dead!

Here's a lil snippet!

Alex woke up slowly on February 19th, squeezing his eyes shut to keep out the day for a bit longer. It was a Saturday, he could afford to stay in bed a bit longer. But then he glanced over at his phone and noticed the date. Smiling softly, he reached for the black pen he kept on his bedside table, one of many spread around his room and in his backpack and fanny pack. Happy birthday, Pancake! He scrawled on the skin just above his hip. Congrats on surviving to 18 ;-D Love you, - Hotdog He grinned at the message, especially when a few red marker strokes made a little heart beside it. Alex used his pink marker to return the heart, then forced himself out of bed. He wished he could spend his day with his soulmate, celebrating their birthday properly, together, but he’d still never met them in person. The bond resisted any details on location or contact information, and none of the workarounds Pancake had tried had made it through. He hoped they would meet soon. He always fell asleep wondering what their voice sounded like, if he talked how he wrote, whether it would feel as natural as he dreamt to wrap him up in his arms. But his gig tonight with his band would have to suffice.

I might see if I can't work on this one a bit on the plane... it's too cute to leave unfinished! Thanks for the ask!!!

[chickwiththepurpleguitar]

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

- sunsetsandcurves

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

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

--

“Hey, Hotdog. Kangaroo.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--

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

[adhd-disaster-willie]

you’re the one that brings the sun; chapter 5/6

chapter 1, 2, 3, 4

warnings: swearing

word count: 2,757

notes: okay so this update took a while because I’ve been busy with school and writers block has been kicking my ass, but I think it’s worth it :)))

---

It was established in August that at least once a month, Alex will receive a phone call informing him to be at Julie’s house in ten minutes for a mandatory slumber party. It’s endearing sure, but he would like some sort of warning other than Luke calling him and saying that if he doesn’t show up as soon as possible, he’ll paint his drumsticks neon green. So that’s how Alex ends up sitting cross legged on Julie’s bed, putting Reggie’s hair into a bunch of tiny braids and watching The Princess Diaries for what’s probably the hundredth time. 

“Lilly is definitely a lesbian,” Flynn says through a mouthful of popcorn. 

Alex hums in agreement and Julie nods. “If only this movie weren’t made in 2001,” Julie says mournfully.

“Y’know I always thought that Joe was gay,” Alex admits. “Up until he dances with the queen.”

Reggie attempts to look up at Alex, earning an offended squeak from the latter. “Really?”

“Yes, now will you please stay still, I only have one more left.”

“Ok but there is no way Mia’s mom is straight!” Flynn says.

Julie seems to mull it over for a bit. “She does live in an old fire station. And artists are never straight.”

“Yea, like Willie!” Luke pipes up, sitting up from his position hanging halfway off the bed. “Willie’s not straight.”

“We should start a betting pool on how long it takes for Luke to bring up Willie,” Alex mumbles, his cheeks flushing pink. He ties off Reggie’s final braid and pats his head approvingly. “You look like a real princess.”

“Do I?” Reggie grins up at him with a bit of a twinkle in his eye and Alex chuckles. 

“No subject changing,” Luke protests. “How’s Willie doing?”

“Still a pining idiot,” Flynn answers with a cheeky smile. 

“I’m trying to watch the movie.” Alex shoves at Luke’s face and slides down off the bed to sit on the floor beside Reggie. 

“You’ve seen this movie a million times,” Luke points out. He leans down so his head is hanging off the edge of the bed and smirks mischievously at Alex, who is pointedly refusing to look at him. “Aleeeex,” Luke whines. “Don’t be a buzzkill.”

“Alice, please,” Flynn says. Alex shoots her a look seeping with betrayal and Flynn raises their hands defensively. “I haven’t seen Carrie in a few days!” They protest. “I need drama.”

“Drama?” Alex asks. “Or blackmail material?”

Flynn shrugs, which only serves to cement what Alex was thinking. “Yea, nope. It’s not like anything has even happened since-” He cuts himself off, realizing his mistake and preparing for the onslaught of questions. 

“Since!?” Luke cries. “Since what?!” He grabs Alex’s face roughly and looks at him with wide eyes. “Since what, Alex?”

“Nothing!” Alex squeaks, wrenching himself from Luke’s grasp. “Nothing! It was- let go of my fanny pack! Julie stop filming!!!” Alex swats at Luke’s hands and attempts to leap forward to grab Julie’s phone, but ultimately fails. 

“I’ll let go if you tell me,” Luke teases in a sing song voice, his grin only growing the more Alex fights. 

“Fine! If you just- sorry Reg the puppy-dog eyes only work on Luke and Bobby.” Reggie sighs in disappointment and Alex finally manages to get Luke off of him, huffing angrily and brushing nonexistent dust from his hoodie. “You’re a barbarian,” he mutters.

“Well?” 

Alex responds to Julie’s prompting with a long-suffering sigh. “You have to promise not to make fun of me,” he says. They don’t promise. The movie is long forgotten as Alex’s friends gather around him, looking all too fascinated by his latest embarrassment. “He well… don’t laugh, ok. He wore a crop top last week and I tripped on my own feet and scraped up my knees.”

Flynn raises an eyebrow. “Nuh uh, there’s more, spill.”

Alex groans, burying his face in his hands. “They got all worried and started putting bandaids on my knees and I almost fainted. Then- please don’t make me say this,” Alex pleads, looking to Julie as if she’s his last hope. She shakes her head. “When they finished lecturing me I just looked at him and said ‘nice shirt’ and ran off. Nice shirt??? What is wrong with me?”

“Wait a minute,” Julie says, gesturing for Alex to pause. “You just… ran off? Where?”

Alex doesn’t say anything. 

“I’ll paint your drumsticks if you don’t tell us,” Luke threatens. The difficulty is that Alex doesn’t doubt him one bit, and knows that Julie has a healthy supply of paint in a drawer just a few feet away from Luke. 

Alex mumbles something under his breath and Reggie pokes him. 

“Sorry what was that? Speak up.”

“Orange, I’ll paint them the ugliest shade of orange ever.”

“I went and hid in my closet!” Alex blurts. “For like an hour. I am never going to live that down.”

“That’s… incredibly ironic,” Julie laughs. 

“I’m telling that story at your wedding.”

“Reginald, don’t even think about it!” Alex kicks Reggie lightly and raises his hand to flip off the other three, who are all dying of laughter. “I hate all of you. I need new friends.”

“Good luck with that.” Flynn pats Alex’s head; he can practically hear their stupid smirk. 

“Fuck off.”

“No.”

---

Alex wakes up with his foot in Luke’s face, one arm thrown over Julie, his face in Reggie’s neck, and a very giggly Flynn perched on the end of the bed taking pictures. He sits up and murmurs sleepily, squinting in the oddly hazy room.

It’s gray and gloomy outside, quite fitting for mid-November, but far from Alex’s ideal weather. He’s always been partial to spring, when it’s not too hot and not too cold and not always cloudy and sad. 

Flynn hops off the bed and onto Julie’s chair, where she spins a couple times before turning her phone to show Alex. “This is gonna be my new lockscreen,” they giggle. Alex stares at the photo, baffled as to how his arm was bent like that. 

Breakfast is heaps of pancakes and fresh coffee (bless you, Ray) that for a moment, Alex considers just dumping over his head. Julie is curled around Luke for warmth throughout the whole morning and Flynn makes a point to gag at least once every 5 minutes. Alex knows she’s happy for them though, they finally got their act together a little over a week ago and at least this is better than the pining. Alex doesn’t say that though, because it will only get him a lecture on how he is not one to talk about pining. 

Alex almost thanks a god he doesn’t believe in anymore when the rain outside doesn’t seem to make any moves into thunderstorm territory. Willie hates thunderstorms. He stays cocooned in a blanket until noon, but eventually Tía Victoria shoos them all out, claiming that Julie will never finish her homework with them all glued to her. 

Alex is sopping wet when he finally arrives at his dorm, sadly no car can go right up to the entrance of the dorms. The first thing Alex notices when he walks in is the candles, and the second thing is the haphazardly thrown together fort in the middle of the room, which he narrowly avoids tripping over. “Willie?” He asks, lifting what he assumes to be the entrance and raising an eyebrow at Willie, who is grinning at him and shining a flashlight in his face.

“Ok, get that out of my eyes.” Alex clamps a hand over the light and Willie sticks his tongue out. “Did the power go out?” Alex asks, worry etching over his face. He can’t have all their food being ruined, with Alex living off his coffee shop job and Willie off of the occasional commission and odd check from his eccentric uncle. 

Willie shakes their head. “Nope.”

“So why the… candles?”

“It’s fun!” Willie pulls Alex into the fort, stumbling back and just barely evading them toppling over each other into a quite compromising position. Willie presses his back against the couch and pats the space next to him. “It’s like you’re a little kid again.”

“Luke used to love making forts,” Alex admits. “We would move all the furniture in his living room and make the absolute worst blanket forts you can imagine. Like seriously, it’s no wonder none of us went into architecture.”

“Really? I can totally see you as an architect”

“That’s…”

“I’m joking, hotdog,” Willie giggles, bumping their shoulder together. He has a tendency to raise his eyebrows when he’s amused; Alex finds it all too endearing. Accompanied with the way their eyes crinkle when the laugh and the soft candlelight leaking through the thin blankets and draping over his features, Alex thinks he’s having trouble breathing. 

“I was drawing you, y’know,” Willie says softly after a few minutes of silence.

“Hmm?”

“The day we went stargazing, I was drawing you. You’re- you’re a good muse.”

“Oh.” Alex’s stomach flutters. “I uh… thank you.” He gives Willie a hesitant smile before turning to focus on the flickering light. His breath feels weighted, like every exhale means something, but he can’t quite pinpoint what. There’s a light breeze whistling through the crack in the door and Alex closes his eyes for a moment, pretending that it’s wrapping around him and holding him close. Alex didn’t get much affection as a child; his parents had always been very stiff. Sure, they loved him, but they weren’t that good at showing it aside from a rough shoulder squeeze and tight smiles so full of expectations. When he came out, even the snippets of affection faded; no more of his mother fixing his hair or giving him a quick kiss on the forehead when he was sick. Two months after his coming out, they just… kicked him out. He came home to find his belongings shoved carelessly into a trash bag or two and that was that. Luke more than made up for the lack of physical affection, but Alex knows that there will always be something missing. 

Wide awake, Alex lets his head fall onto Willie’s shoulder. This time with care and attention, hesitancy. He hears Willie suck in a sharp breath but then the tension melts from their shoulders and fizzles into nothingness. For a moment, there is nothing but them and the pattering of rain against the windows. 

“Lets go for a drive.”

Alex looks up expecting Willie’s usual carefree and impish grin, but he’s taken aback by his wistful expression and something bursts in Alex’s chest. Something that may be instinct and may be just an overwhelming surge of emotion.

“Okay.” His voice is barely a whisper, a single wisp of smoke snaking from a blown out candle.

The air is damp and the rain is coming down hard; Alex reaches a cautious hand out beyond the awning and winces at the downpour. But Willie is wiggling his stupid eyebrows in the way that makes Alex’s face heat and he can’t say no as Willie drags him through the wet grass, shrieking with laughter and going slower than necessary to relish in the water pouring down from the sky in torrents. They’re soaked to the bone and breathless, overflowing with mirth, by the time they reach Alex’s car and clamber into the seats. Right after a brief argument about who’s driving of course. (“You will not be touching my steering wheel with your grimy paint hands, William.” “Says you.”) So Alex is driving. 

Willie has their hands pressed to the window, breath fogging up the glass and sending them into a fit of giggles every time. Alex switches on the radio and there’s a song playing that he recognizes but couldn’t sing along to; something soft and low, like lilting waves. Willie knows it though. And they’re singing. Oh. They’re singing. Alex almost has to pull the car to a stop and put his head in his hands because Willie never told him he could sing.

Willie’s voice is low and slightly raspy, but not in a bad way. Alex knows he’s heard this song before, but he’s 100% certain that this is his first time really hearing it. And it’s beautiful. Or maybe it’s just Willie. It’s probably just Willie. 

Alex brings the car to a slow stop in the parking lot of an odd gas station that always seems to be closed. He doesn’t turn it off though, because he would rather die than have Willie stop singing. He leans his head back and breathes, certain he’s inhaling Willie’s voice. Willie’s voice which is like sparks on his skin, like smoke that crowds his lungs and opens his soul for the very first time. He feels a sense of mourning when the song stops and something else comes on, something peppier and sickeningly sweet. He switches the radio off. 

“I didn’t know you could sing.” Alex isn’t even looking at them; he’s fiddling nervously with the strap of his fanny pack.

Willie smirks proudly. “You learn something new every day.”

“Yea.”

Willie traces a heart in the fog on the window and lets it sit there. Then he unbuckles his seat belt and pokes Alex’s shoulder. “Hey ‘Lex, come on.”

“No.” Alex shakes his head vigorously. “No. We’re already soaking wet and-”

“Hot dog.”

And damn it, the nickname may be so incredibly stupid but Alex has such a weird soft spot for it. He groans dramatically, making a point to wring out his hair, which is already mostly dry at this point. “You’re the worst. What if it starts thundering?” 

Willie shrugs. “I have my noise cancelling headphones. And you can-” they cut themself off. 

“I can what?”

“Nothing,” Willie squeaks. “Please. Please.”

So Alex climbs reluctantly from the car and stands in the parking lot looking far from amused. “You owe me.”

Willie laughs loudly, grabbing both of Alex’s hands and spinning him in an aimless circle, pulling them both into a dance  to music that’s only in his head. They twirl Alex around several times, and Alex is certain that he’s going to actually fall over and faint. Willie raises his face to the sky and squints, letting the rain soak him without care. Alex is in awe and how open and free Willie is, like nothing can ever go wrong and if it does they’ll always be flying. He doesn’t realized they’ve stopped dancing until Willie turns to him with a curious expression. Their eyes rake over his face and Alex realizes he’s staring. But for once, he doesn’t look away. And for the first time, he sees the corner of Willie’s mouth quirk up and their eyes flick to his lips and even linger there for a brief second. 

The rain doesn’t seem to have plans to stop anytime soon, and they’re both shivering and wet and Willie’s hair is dangling in front of his face. Alex reaches out and tucks it behind his ear, both of them holding a breath, waiting. It’s right there, right in front of him, and Alex is inches from just grasping it and clutching it to his chest. Willie takes a step forward so their faces are just inches from each other and Alex can feel their breath against his cheeks. He exhales shakily and raises one hand to cup Willie’s cheek, his touch feather light and afraid. Willie leans into the contact and grins upwards, their nose wrinkling fondly. He gives a silent nod and for the first time in years, Alex takes the plunge. 

Their first kiss is soft and slow and Willie tastes like rain and green tea. Alex smiles against their lips, a breathy laugh escaping his own. He’d think this is a dream, but no section of his imagination could conjure something even a fragment as magical as this. They’re in the middle of a parking lot, cold and wet, and yet Alex feels the warmest he ever has. Alex is hesitant to pull away, but he does, just barely. Their foreheads stay resting against each other, like breaking apart would break them. Then it comes crashing into him. Alex just kissed Willie. He just kissed Willie. And Willie kissed him back! Holy shit!

“Wowza.” Wowza? What the fuck Alex? 

Willie breaks into joyous laughter, throwing his head back and clutching Alex’s shoulders. And Alex laughs with him; he buries his face in the crook of Willie’s neck, his heart full to bursting. Wowza indeed.

---

notes: ...I did say I was thinking about a Willex rain kiss. I actually wrote like half of chapter 6 a while ago so I might be able to post it tomorrow. 

chapter 6

taglist:  @thatsanewflavor @spookiest-sapphic @dovesgrangers @julie-n-phantoms @frostknyte @thegaylink @nervousmiracletrash @crummycassidy @fairygclds @reallyintrospectivepeople @madsmax-37 @swamp-acad @kat-maybe-not @sunsetcurve123 @lookingthroughmirrors @queer-fandom-enby @over-under-through1 @willex-n-waffles @caliibee @stars-soph @herequeerandcantdrinkbeer @nickalicious @andwhenwepart @maizsnex @fanofthepod @heademptynothoughts @thunderstorm-symphony @julieandthephantomsandme @i-spit-on-fire

[phantom-curve]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tonight was unfortunately one of those nights.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How can there possibly be good news?”

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m ready. Gimme the bad news.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alex turned to Reggie with a blank stare.

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey, Hotdog.”

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

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

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

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

Willie winced slightly and Alex was instantly swamped with guilt.

“No, okay, let me try that again.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You love me?”

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

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

Willie grinned, dopey eyed and pink cheeked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Send me prompts for my second birthday!