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tisthenightofthewitch · 2 years

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TIME MACHINES, 'STAR WARS,' "SPIRITUAL ANNIHILATION": INSIDE GHOST'S EMPIRE-TOPPLING NEW CHAPTER Ringleader Tobias Forge unpacks ambitious 'Impera' LP

"We already made a record about physical annihilation. This one is more about spiritual annihilation." That's Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge talking about the band's new album, Impera. As Forge points out, the Swedish occult-rock sorcerers covered death and decay on their 2018 album, Prequelle, which featured songs about the bubonic plague that served as an ominous portent of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It's late January, and Ghost are just two dates into their co-headlining U.S. tour with Danish rockers Volbeat when we catch up with Forge in Nampa, Idaho. The costumed Swedes already made a big splash on opening night in Reno, Nevada, by debuting the song "Kaisarion" from Impera. The album also includes their Halloween Kills cut "Hunter's Moon," the infectious Hollywood rock–inspired "Griftwood" and lead single "Call Me Little Sunshine," a sinister yet oddly comforting track that recalls the lyrical tone of their Grammy-winning 2015 song "Cirice." Thematically, Forge explores the dismal correlations between the 1920s and the 2020s, the ongoing effects of the Industrial Revolution and a world teetering on the brink of disaster.

Ghost being Ghost, the night included a few optical surprises, as well. Mirroring the record's visual themes, Forge's faceless bandmates the Nameless Ghouls appeared in gear that combines a nearly century-old military look with an unlikely Star Wars–inspired style (more on that later), while Prequelle vocalist Cardinal Copia — having earned his promotion to Papa Emeritus IV — also showcases new stage attire and slightly different makeup.

In our in-depth conversation with Forge, he discusses Impera's astute sociological themes, the looming specter of history and Ghost's support of transgender youth.

THE TITLE OF YOUR NEW ALBUM IS A REFERENCE TO IMPERIALISM. WHY IS THAT THE UMBRELLA THAT THE ALBUM SITS UNDER? TOBIAS FORGE Whereas Prequelle was more about individual faith seeking annihilation, this is more about empire and its mechanisms of self-destructing — and how that is not a new thing in any way. People here in the West have always looked back on anything before, say, 1984, as barbarism and a thing of the past, whereas everything that happens now is a new world where everything is status quo. And that is obviously not true. Empires rise and fall.

WHAT GOT YOU THINKING ALONG THOSE LINES? You know, I'm very Western. I love pop culture. I love modern life. I love electricity and all of that. [When the pandemic started] it was a nightmare to understand just how extremely dependent I am on pop culture, basically, for everything to work. Two years of not going to shows and not playing shows and not functioning … It's scary to understand how much the things that we love and do and hold so dear are still frail. I really, really hope that what this record is about is not as clairvoyant as Prequelle turned out to be.

YOU MEAN THE PLAGUE THEMES OF SONGS LIKE "RATS"? Yes. But I do have faith in mankind. I think it is somewhat rooted to persevere. But the last couple of years, there have been strong signs of someone or some kind of mechanism pushing buttons that are insanely destructive. It's kind of throwing back time about a hundred years in so many ways. I mean, I understand why you would want to do that in a way. I would love to build a time machine and go back to 1985, but I don't want to go back to 1926 or 1939.

YOU'VE MENTIONED THAT THE THEMES OF IMPERA ARE ISOLATION, DEMI-GOD WORSHIP AND COLONIZATION OF BOTH SPACE AND THE MIND. IS THE ISOLATION PART PANDEMIC-RELATED? I've said in the past that our albums are thematical more like Iron Maiden albums rather than King Diamond albums. That means the songs are loosely based on a theme or a frame of mind, and all the songs are reflections from within that empire, if you will. That also ties in with the visual aspect of the album, which is Victorian, Gothic, kind of late 1800s — when the industrialization of the world basically made people redundant, and how that affected them. Today, a large [part] of the turmoil we're experiencing in the West, specifically, comes from the fact that so many of us have been made superfluous. People don't have a purpose anymore — their sense of meaning is gone. And when you take that away from people, they sit around and think about shit that is not necessarily very good to think about.

THERE ARE TOO MANY DARK RABBIT HOLES TO GO DOWN. Yes. And as much as I am an advocate for free thinking and liberalism … I also know that too much thinking will fucking kill you. It's not necessarily a good thing to be a philosopher all day long. Sometimes you just need to do physical chores and let steam out. Finding that balance will make you a better person and allow you to be friends with more people. It's like dogs: A nice dog is a dog that has been running a lot and spending time with other dogs playing and humping teddy bears — and then relaxing by the fire. And people are generally the same. So that's how isolation plays into Impera.

YOU'VE RELEASED "CALL ME LITTLE SUNSHINE" AS A SINGLE. TO ME, THE SINISTER BUT COMFORTING VIBES RECALL "CIRICE" FROM MELIORA. IS THERE ANY CONNECTION? Yeah, I think like "Cirice," it falls into the role of something that tries to be equally enthralling and comforting but also menacing and dangerous. I've always liked that dichotomy. To me, that's always a pleasing concept. The song and video for "Call Me Little Sunshine" are meant to illustrate the isolative human being in her own little bubble, comforted by — in this case — opium. But she's on this train and, in the end, she meets her people. There's going to be a continuation of that in other videos. It's a little bit of a story.

I FEEL LIKE THERE'S ALSO A THEMATIC CONNECTION BETWEEN YOUR NEW SONG "TWENTIES" AND "MUMMY DUST" ALSO FROM MELIORA. THEY'RE BOTH TALKING ABOUT GREED AND MONEY. That's absurd! [Laughs] Yes, they are similar in the sense that they are both the violent song on each record, with an uptick of aggression that the other songs don't have. "Mummy Dust" is speaking the words of the demagogue and the machinery of men promising you wealth. "Twenties" is similar in that there's this demagogue promising you dystopia or utopia, depending on how you're wired. They are speaking in the same voice, if you like.

DO YOU SEE ANY PARALLELS BETWEEN THE 1920S AND THE 2020S? Absolutely. There are several things that seem cyclical, almost to the year, in terms of a hundred years ago because of the Spanish flu and — we're obviously not there yet, but there are world war vibes. Luckily, we seem to know a little bit better now. There seems to be a concept that because of trade and our fondness of our lifestyles, war is extremely impractical. But right now is very similar to the early 1900s, where one wrong decision could start off a really not good situation.

"GRIFTWOOD" IS MY FAVORITE TRACK ON THE ALBUM — AND IT SEEMS LIKE THE SONG IN WHICH YOU'RE HAVING THE MOST FUN. WHAT INSPIRED IT? It's a fun song because it was written deliberately as, like, a concentrate of Hollywood rock. I'm not a huge fan of the sleaze metal that came after Guns N' Roses, but I love Mötley Crüe and Guns N' Roses and WASP, if you want to include them as sort of a shock-rock band from Hollywood. But I do love Van Halen, also, so you can see the palm trees in that song. You can feel the night breeze and summer wind in your convertible car. But it also has this other section that's like nothing a Hollywood band would ever do that made it feel very interesting. I feel like I haven't heard anything like it before, even though it has elements that already existed.

"HUNTER'S MOON" HAS BEEN OUT FOR A WHILE BECAUSE IT ALSO APPEARS IN THE MOVIE HALLOWEEN KILLS. YOU'VE TALKED ABOUT HOW THE ORIGINAL HALLOWEEN IS ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE HORROR MOVIES, SO HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE A PART OF THE FRANCHISE? Oh, it's really cool. That song was so inspired because I knew where it was going. It's so much easier writing if you know where the song is going to be. I've talked about this with songwriters who write songs for other people. If you know who's going to be singing it, it's so much easier to write than just sending song after song out into the darkness … Because then you can tap into elements and ingredients that might not be your go-to if you were just writing a song for your own catalog. I had a little bit of that feeling with "Hunter's Moon" when I was asked to contribute a song to Halloween Kills. I already had a few songs I was working on, but I immediately knew which one would work, and knowing its destination really opened up the writing process. I'm really pleased with the way the song turned out, and the film came out quite good.

YOU GOT TO VISIT THE SET, AS WELL. WHAT WAS THAT LIKE? I'm very enamored by the film world, so it was so cool to be in that world for a while. When we were touring last time, I flew down to Wilmington [North Carolina] on a day off to visit the set. I walked into this giant film studio, where they had built the houses on the street that you see in the movie. I got to see the Myers house and the hospital and a lot of the soundstages where they shoot. Unfortunately, I didn't have an opportunity to take a photo with Michael.

YOU KICKED OFF YOUR TOUR IN RENO A COUPLE NIGHTS AGO BY PLAYING A NEW SONG "KAISARION," WHICH HADN'T BEEN RELEASED YET. WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO DO THAT? Because it's the opening of the record, and it's such a call to arms. It feels like an obvious starting track. It has a real euphoric feeling. But as happy and uplifting as the track is, musically, the lyrics are extremely sad. It's one of the most bitter tracks ever. [Laughs] It's a big elegy for mankind. As the song says, I'm not good with deadlines or memories or regrets. But those are the basic elements that trigger a lot of people to either work on themselves — or work on other things.

YOU ARE ALSO PLAYING YOUR "ENTER SANDMAN" COVER LIVE FOR THE FIRST TIME. THE STUDIO VERSION IS PART OF METALLICA'S BLACKLIST COVERS COMPILATION. DID THEY ASK YOU TO COVER THAT PARTICULAR SONG? In 2018, when they were going to be given the Polar Music Prize, we were invited to play for them at the ceremony. I immediately said yes because they've been so instrumental for me, mentally and career-wise. Then they asked if we'd open the whole ceremony by playing "Enter Sandman" because that's their biggest song. And then I was like, "Uh … do we have to play that? There's so many other songs that would feel more comfortable." That's like playing "Smoke on the Water" or "Highway to Hell." I felt we would just look like a bad cover band. But they said that's what they wanted, so they asked us to consider it.

Then I went into the studio and recorded a demo because I had an idea of how to develop the melody into more of a harmonic passage. When I listened back, I felt like we could pull it off. So we did it for the ceremony [with Candlemass as the backing band] and everyone was happy … and I didn't think much else of it. Fast forward to when they asked us to be a part of the Blacklist record. We'd already done a version of it, so I felt like if we could do one that could rock even more, it would be OK.

THERE'S A CHARITY COMPONENT TO BLACKLIST AS WELL, RIGHT? Yes, they also asked us to pick a charity to support. I had heard about this organization called Camp Aranu'tiq that was organizing summer camps for transgender kids. I felt that was a cool little connection because the track is being sung to a child, and also has that threatening but comforting hand being sort of held over the kid. So, it felt like, "Fuck yeah — that's something we can completely support." And the way royalties flow, the more we play it live, the more money is generated for them, so we knew we had to play it on this tour. Every time we play it, more revenue ends up in their hands to allow these kids to go to these camps. Many of these kids don't dare to be themselves where they live, so these camps are good for that.

WHAT A FANTASTIC CAUSE. It's ironic because we're dressing up to become what we want to become. We have to transform. So that's an additional little connection there. And I love the song, and we're doing it for the kids.

YOU MENTIONED DRESSING UP, WHAT INSPIRED THE NAMELESS GHOULS' NEW STAGE ATTIRE? I wanted a sort of militant look, but any time you have people in uniform and in plural, you end up with a slight military vibe. But I wanted to progress that from cult members to more like an army. So you have a little bit of Thirties European there, and also old air-pilot helmets. As a Star Wars fan, I've always been into the Tusken Raiders [who appear in the films as a culture of nomadic indigenous warriors on their desert planet] and their sort of lifeless look, so that was also part of it.

GHOST HAS COME A LONG WAY SINCE RELEASING A DEMO IN 2009. HOW DOES IT FEEL GOING INTO 2022? Had I known almost 15 years ago that this band would've become something, I would've chosen a name for the band that was more like Cirice — which means "church" — to sum up what we're doing. We're emulating a religious experience by simply doing the same things as a church: gathering people, overpowering them with sensation and trying to make them feel something. The only difference is that we try to make people feel fucking good about themselves instead of making them feel like shit.

Revolver

#Tobias Interview #Tobias Forge #Papa IV #Papa Emeritus IV #The Band Ghost #Ghost Band #Ghost

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arizariia · 3 years

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Clerith And Vincrecia

My third eye has opened and now I'm enlightened.

I just realized just how similar Vincrecia and Clerith are in FFVII. I even want to be so bold as to claim that this parallel is going to be story important in Remake.

The first similarity about these ships is the similarities between Cloud and Vincent. Cloud is an "ex-member of SOLDIER". He was impaled by Sephiroth. He survived but was unfortunately found by Hojo. He was then subjected to Hojo's experiments. Vincent is an ex-Turk. He was shot by Hojo during an argument. He died, experimented on by Hojo, and was then resurrected by Lucrecia.

In terms of personality, Cloud and Vincent do share similar traits as well. Cloud made a persona where he's overconfident, arrogant, and headstrong. He also became emotionally withdrawn from others. His most memorable line is, "Not interested" and the man originally didn't care about saving the planet. The truth is he's socially awkward. He is bad at expressing himself and displays poor communicative skills. The people that Cloud is closest to recognize this. They know he's a soft, caring person.

Vincent is a cold man whose life has been severely devastated by Hojo. At one point in time, even Cloud thought that Vincent didn't care about the planet. He's a natural loner and doesn't speak much about his past at all. Even though he has a cold exterior he is a kind-hearted person.

The following part is how alike Aerith and Lucrecia are. In terms of physical appearance, the two women are remarkably similar. Both have pale skin, brunette hair, and have similar mannerisms. What's extremely interesting are their hairstyles. Aerith and Sephiroth were initially siblings. They were given similar bangs as a result of this. Even after the story was altered and the two were no longer siblings, their hair didn't change. Lucrecia initially didn't have the "Sephiroth bangs" but when it came time for her to appear in Dirge of Cerberus, she gained them. Hence, Lucrecia looks like Aerith because they both were designed to somewhat resemble Sephiroth.

Personality-wise, Aerith is a lively person. She is compassionate, stubborn, and can even be smug at some points. She has even flirted with Cloud on many occasions. The most significant thing about her is her desire to want to her own decisions and defy fate. She wants to stop Shinra and Sephiroth from causing further harm to the planet.

Lucrecia, on the other hand, is also a kind person who was known to tease. She was also seemly fond of nature and even enjoyed a picnic with Vincent. Her primary goal as a scientist was to further her research on the study of Chaos and Omega. This was to find a way to prevent Omega from ending the world.

So how similar is the ship dynamic? Let's start with Clerith. Clerith doesn't begin until Cloud falls into Aerith's church in the Sector 5 slums. After Reno enters the building, Aerith asks Cloud to be her bodyguard. Their relationship hinges on this. Cloud is her bodyguard throughout the entire story of FFVII after this. He makes sure she gets home safely in chapter 5. He crossdresses so Aerith doesn't have to enter Don Corneo's mansion by herself in chapter 9. Cloud even sneaks into Shinra HQ to rescue her with the help of Tifa and Barret. This just from the beginning of the story. At this point, Cloud has, surprisingly, only known Aerith for around two days.

With Vincrecia, Vincent was assigned to be Lucrecia's bodyguard from the very beginning. He was tasked with making sure she was protected and being mindful of her wellbeing. When Hojo was neglecting Lucrecia, Vincent was the one to call him out on his behavior. When Vincent died, Lucrecia was the one who wanted to resurrect him. Even though Lucrecia placed an enormous burden on him, she was more concerned with him being alive again.

Now, it's time to discuss imagery. Since we have only seen Lucrecia in Dirge of Cerberus, there isn't much to work with. However, what is present is fascinating. The first piece of significant visual similarities is when Lucrecia wakes up Vincent after she discovered him sleeping outside. This can be compared to when Aerith wakes up Cloud after he falls into her church. Something to mention is that both men are sleeping around flowers.

The following thing is something that I mentioned previously. Lucrecia and Aerith have similar body language. They both tend to lean forwards with their hands behind their backs.

After that, we have when Cloud looks at Aerith when she's at the Forgotten City and when Vincent looks at Lucrecia in her crystal.

Here we have Aerith reaching out to Cloud just like when Lucrecia reaches out to Vincent.

So how does this relate to what I mentioned before? That I believe these elements are vital to FFVII Remake? Well, the story of Lucrecia and Vincent is a tragedy. Even though they loved each other, Lucrecia's guilt and Vincent's reluctance to admit his feelings are what drove the two apart. Their story was a love that could never be. But hold on a moment. That's how Cloud and Aerith's story is in the original game. Even though Cloud genuinely loved Aerith and her death shattered him, he never confessed his feelings for her. In Remake Aerith explicitly states in Cloud's resolution scene that he can't fall in love with her. She knows she will die if fate isn't defeated.

Aerith hints from the very beginning that she either has already lived through the initial events of FFVII, or she simply has knowledge of what is supposed to happen. When she first meets Cloud, she gives him a flower. She says, "Lovers used to give these when they were reunited."

When they reunite in the church, she says, "Bodyguard work's not too different from merc stuff right?", even though Cloud never told her his profession.

You can argue that the reason why chapter 5 includes additional substance compared to the original game is that Aerith wants to spend more time with Cloud. Cloud didn't gather flowers and perform odd jobs around Sector 5 until Aerith made the suggestion. I'd argue that Aerith put a bunch of junk on the second floor of her house to make it harder for Cloud to sneak out. Aerith also hints she knows that Don Coreno wasn't joking about dropping the Sector 7 plate.

When the cast defies fate and defeats the whisper harbinger, this leads to a new timeline being created. I believe that this means that Aerith dying can either be avoided or that event may not happen at all. After all, after Aerith died Cloud never truly moved on. Even in spinoff titles, Cloud is Aerith-focused.

In Kingdom Hearts, Cloud becomes more like Vincent. He grieves for Aerith just like how Vincent grieved for Lucrecia.

In Final Fantasy Tactics, Cloud is searching for Aerith. When he sees a flower girl that looks like Aerith, it furthers his resolve. In World of Final Fantasy, Terra calls out Cloud for hunting down Sephiroth instead of helping Lightning. This conversation speaks volumes.

Even at the end of the original game, Cloud says "I think I'm beginning to understand. An answer from the planet... the Promised Land. I think I can meet her... there." The 2015 trailer for Remake talks about the reunion and we see Aerith's flower. When do we hear about any reunion in Remake? When Cloud and Aerith meet for the first time in Sector 8 and she gives him the flower.

Cloud is going to defy fate and save Aerith's life. At least that's what I think. I think that the song Hollow supports this claim. I believe that Hollow is a Clerith song. It was said by Uematasu that the song describes Cloud's inner feelings. Not only does it play in the Sector 5 slums, Aerith's home, but the lyrics describe her as well.

Smile bright Once more This time I will never let you go

Need I say more? This is my conclusion. If the whole point of Remake is to defy fate then preventing this tragic loss is possible as well. The story is about not repeating the same mistakes as the previous generation to make way for a brighter future.

And before anyone says that Aerith only likes Cloud because he’s like Zack, here’s what she says after she’s done talking about Zack.

And Cloud’s response to Aerith telling him not to fall in love with her.

I’m placing my bets now. Let’s see how right or wrong I am in a few years. If I’m wrong I will eat a bowl of peas.

#final fantasy vii #ffvii #clerith #vincrecia #aerith gainsborough #cloud strife #lucrecia crescent #vincent valentine

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chloelucia13 · 4 years

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Chapter 1: A Sweet Rain

Pairing: Spencer Reid x female!reader

Prompt: Your best friend is getting married, but it seems that you’re the one who got lucky.

Warnings: mostly fluff, language, a little angst, it’s pretty chill

Word Count: 3.8k

A/N: So this is going to be the first part of a multi-part series! Enjoy this fluff, because this'll probably be all you’re gonna get out of this series! Anyways, buckle up and I hope you all enjoy! As always, my tag lists and requests are open!

Songs mentioned: “First Day of my Life” by Bright Eyes, “Samson” by Regina Spektor

Tags: @sojournmichael

“Hey Pen, what’s up?” you hummed into your phone, fishing for your keys in your purse.

“Okay, I have big news,” she squealed, and you nearly had to pull the phone from your ear due to the pitch. “Like, really big news. News so big you couldn’t even imagine-”

“Out with it, Penny!” You chuckled before finally finding your keys, unlocking your car door.

“Okay, okay... JJ and Will are getting married!”

“Oh my god!” Your pitch now replicated hers, and your hands started to shake as you sat down in the driver’s seat of your car. “I have to call and congratulate them!”

“NO!”

You jumped at her sudden shout, furrowing your brow in confusion. “Why not?”

“So the thing is... We’re kinda throwing a surprise wedding for them at Rossi’s.”

“What?”

“Okay, so...”

She rattled off the details of exactly what was happening, about how Will was in a near-death situation and how he proposed to her in his hospital room, and how Rossi overheard their plans to just go to the courthouse and decided that he wanted them to have a proper ceremony.

“So, are you coming?” she basically begged after taking a deep breath, winded after her rushed summation of the events that had taken place.

“Of course I’m coming! I’ll help you guys get ready and everything! Just tell me when and where!”

“Okay, so it’s gonna be at Rossi’s mansion tomorrow-”

“Wait, tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” she dragged out. “Sorry it’s short notice. It’s kinda short notice for everyone.”

You let out a silent sigh, licking your lips. “You’re all lucky that it’s my day off.”

***

You were clad in a pair of jeans and a tee shirt when you pulled up to the towering mansion that you were only slightly envious of. With your dress and makeup bag in the back of your car, you locked your doors before following the stone trail that led to the front door of Rossi’s house.

You barely knocked once when the door swung open, revealing an excited and frazzled Penelope. “Thank god, you’re here,” she sighed, grabbing your arm and yanking you into the door.

“What’s wrong, Pen?” you questioned, trying to keep up with her fast pace that was honestly alarming considering the 5-inch stilettos she was donning.

“Everything! The only other girl here is Emily and she does not have a clue on how to color coordinate! And the caterers said the food might not be ready in time and JJ’s mom might be late and-”

“Penelope, take a deep breath! Everything’s gonna be just fine. Let’s see what you have so far.”

She nodded, taking a few deep breaths before guiding you over to the pair of French doors that led out to the backyard.

So far, all of the chairs had been set out for the ceremony and the wedding arch and already been placed, but sat bare. Table for the reception were out, but they were lacking decorations as well. The only thing that seemed fully completed was the dance floor, which had a mat of hardwood laid out on the grass with a sound system at the head of it.

“Okay, you’ve all got a good head start. It’s only noon, and they’re not supposed to be here until 6. We still have time,” you consoled, giving her a comforting smile.

“Ah, is this the girl we’ve been waiting for?” a voice questioned behind you, and you and Penelope turned around to see three men walking in your direction.

“It is!” Penelope replied, beaming and placing a hand on your shoulder. “Boys, this is Dr. Y/N Y/L/N, the head psychologist at St. Elizabeth Hospital in DC.” Penelope then shifted over to the boys’ side, standing next to the man you knew as David Rossi. “You already know this guy.”

“Of course, how could I ever forget,” you hummed, reaching out to shake his hand.

She then stepped next to a taller man with dark skin and strong eyebrows. “This here is Derek Morgan.”

You shook his hand. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard quite a lot about you.”

She finally stood by the last, and the tallest, man in the group. “And this is Dr. Spencer Reid.”

You smiled at him, and he did the same in return. “I remember her saying you don’t do handshakes. It’s nice to meet you.”

“So now we’ve got two doctors to deal with?” Rossi playfully sighed, patting your shoulder.

“Seems like it,” you hummed, grinning at Spencer before turning to Rossi. “Though I doubt I’m half as intelligent as Dr. Reid right here. I’ve heard rumors of an IQ of 187?”

Spencer shrugged, a blush flooding his face. “I-I uh, I mean... Yes.”

“And that IQ immediately decreases threefold whenever he sees a pretty girl,” a voice behind you teased, and you turned to see Emily walking over to the group, a bright smile on her face.

“Is that so.” You beamed back at her, slinging an arm around her shoulder and pulling her into a hug.

“Alright chatter-bugs, we’ve got a wedding to set up!” Penelope announced. “Hotch is gonna be here late, so we’re down a person for a while.” She grabbed your arm and began tugging you off. “I need you to help with flower stuff.”

You rolled your eyes and waved goodbye to the group before letting her tug you inside. Once you two were in one of the many living rooms, she turned to you with a big grin on her face. “What?”

“So?”

You furrowed your brows in confusion, shaking your head slightly. “So what?”

She huffed, rolling her eyes as if it was obvious. “So, what do you think of the doctor?!”

“Oh my god,” you grumbled, running a hand through your hair. “Penelope, I am not gonna date your coworker, no matter how cute he is.”

“So you think he’s cute!”

“Penelope!” You let out a breath. “Pen, you know I’m not good with relationships, especially with my job, I barely have time to do anything.”

“Neither does he! It’ll be perfect!” She pushed out her lower lip, clasping her hands together in a praying gesture. “Please, at least think about it!”

Another sigh left your lips. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

She squealed. “Yay!”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m for sure gonna date him!”

She smiled knowingly, nodding once. “Whatever you say.”

***

You were lucky that the florist you contacted had the flowers you needed in supply, and even luckier that they were able to have them all ready within the hour.

You were busy attempting to arrange the flowers and fake vines on the arch when you felt a presence to your right, watching from your peripheral as they gathered a handful of baby’s breath and began sticking them in the spots you needed filled.

“Thanks,” you hummed. “I was about to grab a step ladder for that, but you seem to have that under control.”

“It’s a gift and a curse,” Spencer joked, giving you a shy smile before turning back to his task.

You chuckled before grabbing a roll of sheer ribbon and holding it out to him. “Mind using your gift to tie that ribbon at the top of the arch? I can’t reach.”

He nodded, gingerly taking the ribbon from your hands and extending a length out to tie it to the top of the arch. You then took the roll from his hands and created a draping effect before snipping the length off from the roll and tying it to the side of the arch.

As you moved to the right side of the arch to mirror the draping that you had just done, Spencer’s eyes followed your movements, his breath caught in his lungs and his lower lip caught between his teeth.

“Spencer?”

“Hm?” he voiced, snapping out of his trance.

You smirked, handing him the roll. He grinned shyly back at you before mirroring the work he did on the other side. “I asked you where you’re from,” you explained as you took the roll back from him.

“Oh, uh, I’m from Las Vegas,” he rushed out, already feeling a burning in his cheeks.

“Really? What a coincidence. I’m from Reno, but I worked in Vegas while I was getting my masters.”

“Where’d you work?”

“The mental hospital there.” You shook your head, letting out a sigh. “God I worked there for like a year but I can’t remember the name for the life of me. Harrington, something like that-”

“Bennington?”

“Yes, that’s the one!” You turned to give him a smile, only to see a haunted look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, pursing his lips and casting his gaze to the ground. “I-it’s nothing.”

“Spencer.” You took a step forward before tentatively reaching your arm out, weighing the possibilities for a moment before placing your hand on his shoulder. “I know I’m not a profiler, but I can still read people. And I also know that we aren’t close, but you should know that you can trust me.”

He nodded, puffing a breath out through his nose. “I... Someone close to me is... Is one of the residents there.”

Your mind pondered for a moment, dots connecting right in front of your eyes. “Diana Reid.”

He tensed at the name, unconsciously giving himself away.

“She was one of my favorites.” You watched as his eyes lifted from the ground and flickered over your face, trying to decide if you were being honest. “God, she was so intelligent and kind and hilarious as all hell.”

He let out a small chuckle, relaxing slightly. “Yeah?”

“Oh absolutely. She’d crack me up all the time, my sides would hurt from laughing by the time my shift ended. And when she wasn't making me laugh, she’d tell me about her favorite author, read me some of her favorite passages.” A smile imprinted on your face. “Or she would read me letters that she got. Everyday she had a new letter, and her face would light right up when I handed it to her.”

Tears began to well in his eyes, and you moved your hand down to his bicep, locking gazes with him.

“She talked about you everyday. About her genius FBI agent of a son. She was so proud. And I could tell that you cared about her so much. Enough to get her the help she needed. Enough to risk your relationship with her to keep her safe.”

Spencer blinked back his tears and reached up to grab your hand, and for a moment you worried that you had crossed a line.

But that worry immediately faded away when he held your hand, squeezing it gently before giving you a kind smile. “Thank you,” he whispered.

You just nodded, letting the moment linger for as long as possible.

“Hey guys, how’s the arch coming alo-” Penelope began as she walked over to you two, her face buried in her tablet. She froze the moment she looked up, seeing the strange and vulnerable scene in front of her.

“Yeah, yeah, It’s good. I’m uh, I’m gonna go get some water,” Spencer rushed out, giving you both tight lipped smiled before hurrying off.

Penelope gave you a look as she stepped over to you. “What was that?”

“I know his mom,” you stated incredulously, the shock still lingering in your system.

“Wait, what?”

“She, she was one of the residents at the mental hospital I used to work at.”

“So you guys are like on a third date basis with info about each other?”

“Penelope!” You sighed, rubbing your eyes. “I think that was the deepest conversation I’ve ever had with a stranger.”

“And I bet he can go a lot deeper-”

Your face grew a bright red and you smacked her shoulder. “Stop it!”

***

Your feet were aching by the time you had finished decorating the backyard, immediately falling into a chair with a heavy sigh the moment you placed the last centerpiece on the tables.

“Y/N I think you may be an actual saint,” Penelope breathed out. “Thank you so much for helping. I don’t think I could’ve gotten this done by myself.”

“I’m always down to help,” you replied, giving her a tired smile. “I should probably start getting ready though. The party’s gonna start soon.”

“I’ll come with you. My stuff is all in my car. We can use one of Rossi’s many bathrooms.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

The two of you gathered your makeup and clothes for tonight before heading into the first bathroom to the right on the second floor of the mansion. That room immediately filled with giggles as you two got ready, helping each other with hair and makeup.

It was almost time for the party to start when you two were ready, zipping your dresses up and slipping on your heels when there was a knock at the door.

“Are you two gonna give us a reveal anytime soon or do we have to beg for it?” Derek’s voice sounded from the other side of the door, his grin evident in his words.

“We?” Penelope questioned, smirking herself.

“Well you know there’s gotta be an audience whenever there’s two beautiful women. Now are we gonna get a show?”

You rolled your eyes, letting out a chuckle as Penelope stepped over to the door. “You ready?” she questioned.

You shrugged. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” you sighed in response before gesturing for her to open the door.

She pulled the door open a moment later, stepping out first and you stepping out behind her.

Emily let out a low whistle, motioning for you two to turn. You scoffed but obliged, waddling around in a circle before giving everyone a sheepish smile. Emily and Derek bombarded the two of you with compliments, boosting your confidence through the roof and making your cheeks burn bright.

Eventually, Emily and Derek and Penelope split off into their own group, chatting amongst themselves. That was when you noticed a timid body tucked away to the side, someone who had been there the whole time but had stayed silent.

“Hey,” you greeted, smiling up at him.

“Hi,” Spencer hummed in return, a shy smile on his own face.

From behind you, you could hear the group change their conversation from whatever mundane topic they were on previously to the topic of you and Spencer. The words seemed to blend together but you could pick up a few things.

“What did I say, that IQ is gone,” Emily joked.

“Pretty boy’s got a pretty girl now,” Derek added, all of them giggling.

“You um... You look beautiful,” Spencer told you, blatantly ignoring the group’s playful comments.

“Thanks. You clean up well yourself,” you said, reaching up and straightening his bow tie for him. “I dig the bow tie.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely. It’s very Eleven-esque.”

He smirked at that. “You watch Doctor Who?”

You shrugged. “Yeah, whenever I get the time. I’m not as big of a fanatic as Miss Penelope Garcia, but I certainly enjoy it.”

“Maybe we can watch the new season together sometime?”

You nodded, beaming. “It’s a date.”

You were so wrapped up in your conversation with Spencer that you failed to notice the peanut gallery wander off, evidently bored by the change of conversation.

However, you didn’t fail to notice the blush deepening on Spencer’s cheeks from your words, his tongue darting out to wet his lips, a nervous habit that (you hated to admit) had an effect on you.

“We- uh, we should probably head outside. I bet the party is starting soon,” he stuttered out, rocking back and forth on his heels.

You nodded with a frown, glancing over at the bathroom. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I’m gonna clean up the bathroom and throw my stuff in my car, then I’ll meet you out there.”

A strange emotion, almost reminiscent of disappointment, crossed over his face for a moment before he nodded. “Alright. See you out there.” He gave you a small smile before stepping past you, leaving a lingering touch on your bare shoulder before retreating downstairs.

***

Luckily, the wedding ceremony had gone off without a hitch, every moment was perfect and extremely emotional.

Tears stains still lingered on your cheeks when dinner was over, and JJ handed you a tissue when she stepped over to you. “I’ve got a whole supply of them, my mom gave ‘em to me when I was breaking down up there,” she whispered to you, pulling you into a tight hug.

“Thanks, JJ,” you breathed, hugging her back just as tight. “I’m so happy for you two.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty happy too.” The two of you giggled, and she pulled away from the hug to give you a smile before looking around. “And I’ve noticed that a special someone is pretty happy to see you, too.”

You followed her line of sight, playfully rolling your eyes when you saw Spencer playing with Henry. “God, who put you up to this?”

She scoffed, turning back to you. “Hey, I may not be a profiler, but I know a connection when I see one.” She reached out, taking your hand in his. “You should really give him a chance. You two would be amazing together, and you both deserve some happiness in your lives.”

A sigh left your lips, but you nodded. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

JJ squeezed your hand before rising to her feet and looking around for Will. “Well, we should probably do the first dance before Penelope loses her mind.”

You grinned at her. “Have fun, girly. Love you.”

“Love you too. And thank you for all this. It means so much to me.”

“Of course. Anything for you. Now go dance!” You shooed her off with a laugh, watching as everyone turned their attention to the bride and groom making their way over to the dance floor.

The music started playing, and everything moved in slow motion as JJ and Will danced together, both of them beaming with pure love in their eyes. People eventually moved to join them, everyone swaying together on the dance floor.

You had sat at the table for a while, watching everyone make idle chat and have fun on the dance floor. This feeling of warmth and comfort was one that was foreign to you, and you wanted to bask in it for as long as possible.

“All alone?”

You looked up to see Spencer standing in front of you, a shy smile on his lips.

You nodded, returning his smile. “I guess so. Dancing really isn’t my thing.”

He pulled a chair up next to you, sitting down and watching the crowd with you. “Yeah, me either.”

“Really? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe I saw you dancing with Emily. And Penelope. And JJ. And JJ’s mom.” He scoffed, and you let out a laugh, playfully shoving his shoulder. “Maybe you’re just a ladies man.”

“Oh, definitely.”

“I mean that sounds like some player behavior if you ask me.”

You both shared a laugh, wide smiles stretching across both of your lips. That laughter soon faded into a comfortable silence, the two of you returning your gazes back to the dance floor.

“I mean, there’s one girl I haven’t danced with,” Spencer spoke up, bringing your attention back to him.

You quirked an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah? And who would that be?”

Your eyes followed his form as he stood from his seat and walked around you, stopping when he stood right in front of you. “I believe that would be you.” He extended his hand out to you.

A small chuckle left your lips, gently placing your hand in his and pushing yourself to your feet. “You’re getting confident, doctor.”

At your words, his demeanor began to slip, a light blush blooming across his cheeks, glowing under the string lights. “Oh-I-”

“Spencer.” You squeezed his hand. “It’s okay. I’m glad you feel comfortable enough around me to be forward.”

He let out the breath he was holding, squeezing your hand in return before leading you over to the dance floor. You couldn’t help but notice the subtle glance Spencer shared with the DJ once you two stood on the hardwood mat.

The song changed, now playing a slow song you were all-too familiar with. “I didn’t peg you as a guy who listened to Bright Eyes.”

He shrugged. “I’m not. But I had Penelope look into your purchases to see what CDs you’ve bought.”

You feigned offense, gasping and shoving his shoulder. “You two were conspiring!”

He let out a laugh, beaming at you as he placed one hand on your waist. “Well we better get to dancing before this song is over. It’s only 3 minutes and 9 seconds long.”

You rolled your eyes but obliged, placing your free hand on his shoulder and stepped close to him, squeezing his hand once before you two began to sway, eyes locked in each other’s gaze.

“I’m, uh...” You sighed, pursing your lips. “I’m really sorry about bringing all that stuff up with your mom,” you whispered.

“It’s okay,” he whispered in response.

You furrowed your brow in frustration. “But I made you upset, I didn’t mean to do that. I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. You didn’t upset me.” He let out a breath. “Honestly, it’s really nice being able to talk to someone who knew who she is. Who she really is. Not her illness, her.”

You nodded, searching his eyes. “I’m glad that you trust that I know who she really is.”

“I don’t need to trust you. You told me exactly who she is. She’s a kind, intelligent woman.”

A smile settled on your face. “With a kind and intelligent son.”

He returned your smile, his hand winding around your waist and pulling you against his chest as the song changed.

You chuckled, searching his eyes. “God, did you guys just decide to play all the music I like.”

He paused to listen to the song. “No, I don’t recognize this song. Maybe Penelope chose it.”

“Of course she did.”

You listened to the lyrics, humming along to the melody as your eyes traced over his features.

Your hair was long when we first met. Of course.

Slowly, as the two of you swayed, you laid your head on his chest, letting your eyes flutter shut.

Peace.

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calaisreno · 3 years

Text

Yes or No

Another Trifle by Calais Reno

Read on AO3 here.

“Do you love her?”

It had taken them less than thirty minutes to go from the Rizla game to just asking each other random questions. The only celebrities that Sherlock knew were nineteenth-century chemists and twentieth-century criminals, which had more or less spoiled the game, and Sherlock had declared it pointless.

Then he suggested Yes or No, which at least required some deductive reasoning, and John agreed. But Sherlock was very good at this game, having deduced nearly everything about John in the first days of their acquaintance. Without asking any question, he deduced that John would choose violin, a human liver, Mrs Hudson’s nephew, and Sherlock’s old mouse-coloured dressing gown.

John gives up. “Fine. What don’t you know about me?”

Do you love her is a real question, he gathers— from the look on Sherlock’s face, which is serious and a bit sad.

The answer, which should be yes, of course I love her, instead comes out, “I’m marrying her.”

“People marry for reasons other than—“ Sherlock stops, appearing to realise he is going in a direction that can only lead to bad feelings. “Sorry, not a fair question. Better: When did you know that you loved her?”

He remembers grief. The intense pain of the days after he saw Sherlock die on the sidewalk in front of Barts. There are few details he can recall after that moment. It was as if the pain had receded just enough to let him breathe, and a kind of grey fog had descended. Pain, then sorrow.

Somewhere during the sorrow part, Mary had appeared. She may have been there sooner, but he hadn’t noticed. At some point he became aware of her bringing him coffee, talking to him, urging him to come out for lunch. Always there, cheerfully bullying him back into life. Eventually he noticed that he wasn’t quite as sad, and that she was rather pretty.

But the pain was still there, a tender spot in his memory, and most days he still felt defeated. Mary helped, though, and he thought that if she stayed, everything would be easier. He didn’t need to explain; she understood. He could keep the memories at bay when she was around.

By then he was having sex with her. He didn’t remember exactly how that had begun. Maybe it was a pity fuck one night when he’d had too much to drink. He woke up in her bed hungover, waiting for the darkness to descend like a weight on his chest, and she was there, making him a cup of tea, urging him to have some toast, sweetly solicitous and not accepting any excuses.

Does he love her?

Sherlock is still looking at him, the question in his eyes.

“She was there when I needed someone,” he says. “I just knew.”

He’d known that morning that he needed to move on, to leave what had happened in the past and live his life. And there she was.

“Your turn,” Sherlock says.

John thinks of all the things he’s ever wanted to know about Sherlock, but has never asked because it has never seemed a good time. Sherlock has a way of warding off questions with just a look. An armour that does not allow anyone in, not even John. He’s wondered about a lot of things, but asking has never been an option. Sherlock never has to ask; he simply deduces. John is terrible at deductions, as Sherlock often reminds him.

“Have you ever been in love?”

Sherlock doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. Twice.”

“That was a yes-no question, so I get follow-up. So, the first. Who was he?”

Sherlock smiles. “You’re assuming it was a man.”

“Wasn’t it? I thought… you’re… erm…”

“Gay? Yes, I am.”

“You loved a man,” John says. Obviously.

“Well, a boy. I was twelve. I suppose it wasn’t love so much as infatuation and hormones. His name was Victor. I never told him until I met him again at uni.” He gives John one of those looks that makes him feel like he is being x-rayed. “Have you ever kissed a man?”

“I’m not gay,” he says at once. “I mean, why would I kiss a man if I knew I wasn’t gay?”

“Follow-up question, then. When did you know you were not gay?”

John’s mouth may have been open for a bit. It’s an odd question. Everybody knows they’re straight until something happens and they know they’re not. Isn’t that the way it works? “I just knew. When did you know you were gay?”

“When I was twelve. I was at a stupid birthday party my mother made me attend, and we were playing Forfeit. I was asked a question I didn’t like to answer and took the forfeit. Up until then the penalties were stupid things like singing a song or doing a dance, but this time it was kissing a girl. The girl was willing, and I was curious, so I agreed. That was when I realised girls weren’t my cup of tea, so to speak. I wanted to kiss Victor.”

John says nothing, though it’s his turn. He remembers a similar party, a boy who wanted to kiss him, and feeling terrified that his parents would find out if he did. Harry had just come out, and he was trying very hard to make up for all of her shortcomings.

Sherlock asks, “How do you know you’re not gay if you’ve never kissed a man?”

“I’ve kissed lots of women,” he replies. “I don’t need to kiss a man to know I’m not gay.”

Sherlock shrugs. “I assumed that I was like everyone else, that some day I would meet the right girl, get married, and have children. That was how it was supposed to work, and I thought there was something wrong with me because I didn’t like girls that way. All my fantasies were about boys, but I thought I would eventually be attracted to girls as I got older. That kiss told me I would never love a woman.”

“You think I should kiss a man just to see if I’m a bit gay?” He laughs.

“It’s your forfeit, for not having an answer.”

“I’m not going to kiss some random bloke just because you—“

“Not a random bloke. Me. Kiss me.”

This is dangerous ground. Somewhere in his libido lies something that he’s thought about. Maybe he’s even fantasised about kissing a man. Having sex with a man. Just a lark, maybe. Don’t lots of men go through that? It doesn’t mean anything.

But, Sherlock. He lived with him for a year and a half, and they’d been friends. And he grieved when Sherlock died. Not grieved like a friend. He’d lost friends before, and this was nothing like those losses. Pain, darkness, unending regret. Even after Mary, some of that darkness remained. Moments when he remembered something Sherlock had said or done, a stab of pain. If it hadn’t been for Mary—

And it came to him. Mary was balm for his wounds. She brought him back from the edge. He is grateful to her. But gratitude isn’t love. Being in such pain for so long, and then a bit of light— that isn’t love, it’s relief. He’s seen patients in physical pain almost become high when given a dose of something that takes their agony away, not even enough to make them high. Relief feels like intoxication when pain has gone on so long.

If it hadn’t been for Mary, he would have understood what he’d only begun to see. She helped him, saved him even. But she was a distraction from the pain, not a cure.

He glances at Sherlock, who is pulling back, looking like he wishes he hadn’t just asked for a kiss. Maybe he’ll make a joke about their game, move them towards goodnight, goodbye, see you at the wedding.

“Yes,” he says. It’s an answer to everything— regret, grief, sorrow, love. It’s an apology for not seeing sooner, for the night at the Landmark, for his anger and cruel rejection of the man he has loved for years. “Kiss me.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Sherlock is right. The kiss tells john things he’s tried hard to forget. It tells him that has loved men before, but called it friendship, that he has wanted to touch men and kiss them, and called it lust, or fantasy, or a phase that all men go through. Women attract him too, and he grabbed onto heterosexuality like a life-raft because he was afraid of the alternative. His sister and his father, yelling. Harry thrown out of the house. His father, looking at him, saying not you too. Never you, my boy.

The kiss tells him that has already met the love of his life.

“I need to call Mary,” he says when they break away.

Sherlock looks sad. He nods. “Of course.”

“One more question,” John says. “Who was the second person you loved?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” he says. “I’m about to call my fiancee and break our engagement just days before the wedding because I’m in love with my best friend. So please, answer the question.”

Sherlock’s face does something John has never seen. It crumples and tears fill his eyes, and then he’s laughing and crying and not able to speak.

John kisses him again.

Read on AO3 here.

#trifles #flashfiction

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

Text

chapter four: the prince

Greg's small box of French fries filled up the whole car with that fresh hot smell, such that Alex had a difficult time resisting in taking a couple of himself.

“You should'a gotten the big one, Greggy,” Chuck teased him.

“Yeah, I definitely should've,” Greg said as Alex took another two for himself. “Alex has pretty much eaten half of it already.” He turned his attention towards Sam. “Give her some.”

“Oh, where are my manners?” Alex brought his attention to Sam as he held two French fries in hand, both those thick crinkly cut ones straight out of the fryer. She took one for herself while he took the other one. Hot and fresh and with a small bit of allspice mixed in as well. Alex tilted his head back so he could better swallow his down.

They made their way along the 210 Freeway when Tiffany peered out the window with a look of confusion on her face.

“What's the matter, Tiff?” Chuck asked her.

“Wait. Which way is it?”

“What, Elsinore?”

“Yeah. I forget.” She laughed at that. “I forget which way we go!”

“Hey, little Sammich, you're from around here,” Chuck called back with a glimpse into his rear view mirror, “where do we go?”

“Follow the signs at the interchange up here, Chuck. It's alright, though—I always got turned around down there in Orange County a lot. Especially now that I haven't lived around here in the past three years. My dad did, too.”

“Doesn't help there's an Orange County back in New York, too,” Alex pointed out in a low voice.

“I do, too,” said Chuck, “—and I was born in L.A.!”

“Just when you think we all know our geography real well.” Sam chuckled.

“Right? I also had a good li'l drink just now with my girl over here, too. Think that might have something to do with it.”

“Sometimes I feel like I'm in something that doesn't know its geography very well,” Alex couldn't resist chuckling at that himself, and Greg almost choked on one of his French fries laughing along with him. Within time, Chuck changed over freeways and they made their way back to that house down in Lake Elsinore. Night had fallen over the entire side of the hills, far and away from the ambient glow from the city of Los Angeles itself.

The house was dark as the five of them rolled up to the same place by the curb as before, right on the other side of the lake and within the line of sight to the back door. Even in the dim light, Sam could tell that the glass pane of the kitchen window had been returned to its spot. Chuck kept on going into the cul de sac and turned around, and drove back there. Even from across the street, it was hard to see if any signs of life emerged from the house itself.

“Doesn't even look like anyone's home,” Tiffany said aloud.

“At almost ten o'clock at night?” Sam pointed out. “With this family? Someone's definitely home right about now.”

“Want me to walk you back there?” Alex offered her.

“Alex, if you're gonna walk back her there, I'm comin' with,” Chuck advised him as he unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out of there so Sam and Alex could climb out together: before she did, she picked up her bag of Death Angel night shirts from the floor. The cool breeze from the lake itself fluttered through their hair; Sam shuddered and Alex and Chuck huddled on either side of her. They used the ambient light of the street lamps across the way from them as their guide along the sidewalk there; meanwhile, the latter grazed his hand against her shoulder but he never put his arm around her given Tiffany was right behind them. Sam kept her eye on the windows on the second and third floors, all of them dark and shadowy with the nightfall around them. The ambient light from the street made her wonder about the house back up in Reno.

If Bill overreacted to Chuck and Greg taking Sam out of the house for a while, she shuddered at the thought of him overreacting to her desire to call her parents about their divorce.

Chuck opened the gate for them, but he stood there in anticipation. Alex led her to the back door and then he held back so she could tend to the door herself.

Sam jiggled the handle with her free hand and it wouldn't budge.

“He locked you out?” Alex asked her, stunned.

“I guess so,” Sam replied. “Well, and the door was locked when I got out anyway.”

“Go around,” Chuck advised her, and she and Alex made their way back to him right as he quietly shut the gate behind him. Sam led the way back to the front door of the house, which was even darker than the back. She could still envision Marla's rental car parked there at the curb.

“Can you see?” Chuck asked her as he and Alex lingered behind her.

“I don't know,” she confessed. “There's the walkway—and here's—the front step here.” She groped around the door panels until she caressed the cold metal of the doorknob. She jiggled that as well with her free hand.

“Well, the house is locked,” she said, “and now I have nowhere to go. I have to call my mom, too.”

“We're staying all the way up in Corona,” Chuck told her.

“Holy wow. So—go back the way we came.”

“Yeah,” he replied with a bit of reluctance.

Sam snickered at that. She was in fact telling the truth: despite her hailing from the area, she often found herself turned around by the sheer vastness of the whole area that it made her wonder if that was in fact how she thrived in the New York City metropolitan area for such a short amount of time.

Careful not to fall off the step, she began back down the walkway with Chuck and Alex, and towards the street. The three of them doubled back to the car parked away from the side of the lake: in the dim light, Sam saw that Alex had his attention fixated on the lake waters next to them. Even with no moon out that night, they still shimmered and glowed with a bit of extra light.

“Those black waters,” he muttered.

“I remember when I was little I used to think there was a sea monster of sorts who lived in this lake,” she said.

“A sea monster, like in Loch Ness?” he chuckled.

“Exactly, yeah!”

“The Elsinore monster,” Chuck added with a bit of a giggle.

They crossed the street from the sidewalk, such that Sam recalled the night before the Day of the Dead, where they congregated together in the park in Cliff's honor. Even though there was not a lick of rain to be found anywhere, she felt that to be the case around there. In the dim light, she spotted Greg leaned against the outside of the car, and he opened the door for them. Pale yellow light washed out of there and onto the black pavement.

“Nothing?” Tiffany called out to them from the inside.

“Both front and back doors are locked,” said Chuck as he pulled the seat back for the three of them. “And by the looks of it, there is no one home there, either.”

Alex climbed into the back first and then Sam followed suit into the middle seat, and Greg rounded it out before he tugged the driver's seat back towards him. Chuck climbed in right there and fired up the car once again. The noise of the engine sliced through the quiet night that she swore it would wake the dead at any given moment.

As they rolled forward, she nestled down next to Alex in the back seat. The first time she actually could for real at that point. She never touched him but she felt his jeans brush against her own. He still smelled of that soft cologne, that same soft aroma that she had picked up when they were laying on the grass together.

The safety of the back seat. The safety of that hotel room up in Corona. The safety of Alex, her new best kept secret.

What used to be a thirty minute drive now took them nearly an hour in order to reach the outskirts of Corona given Chuck kept on shifting his weight in the seat.

“Is everything alright?” Greg asked him.

“Yeah—just did a lot of driving lately is all. We're also going on tour soon, too.”

“Oh, yeah!” Alex decreed with a snap of his fingers. “Monsters of Rock. We're taking Megadeth's place there.”

“And then we're playing two shows around Christmas,” Chuck recalled, “and then we're going over to Reseda shortly after New Year's.”

“And then we go back in the studio to make a third album,” Alex added.

“Wowie,” Sam declared. “Wait, you guys are gonna be at Monsters of Rock?”

“Yup, on the twenty seventh and twenty eighth!” Chuck said. “Gonna be in Germany this time around. We know how much you loved that last one in England, too. Right, Alex?”

“Ohh, god, how could I forget,” Alex himself laughed.

“We'll have to bust you out the back door if we have to,” Greg assured her.

“Yeah, for real!” Chuck laughed again.

“I'd love to go to Germany,” Sam proclaimed.

“And the boys are gonna be with you, too, right?” Tiffany asked.

“Yeah, Anthrax is joining us over there,” Chuck explained. “We have the two German dates only—I forget Dave's reason but they can't come along right now—but Anthrax themselves are going on throughout the tour, all the way to France. Oh!” He smacked the rim of the steering wheel.

“What's up?” Tiffany asked him.

“Sam, you remember that song that Anthrax did? The last time you saw them in New York with me and Eric? That one that he and I both thought was gonna be a hit, 'Antisocial'?”

“Yeah—kind of?” she replied. So much had happened since those two nights in January that she had difficulty thinking about that one song in particular.

“Joey said it was a cover by a little French band called Trust. Apparently, they're going to be headlining the French date of the tour with them!”

“Wow, really?”

“Yeah, Charlie was telling me about that last night. He goes 'that is so trippy that we're touring with Trust and we happened to cover a song from them on our new record.' Small world.”

“We're gonna be playing with them,” Alex started, “Anthrax.”

“Yeah, we're gonna be headlining with them plus Iron Maiden, Kiss, David Lee Roth—from Van Halen—Great White, and a little band called Treat.”

“Treat and Trust,” Sam chuckled.

“Sounds like a spin on 'trick or treat',” Tiffany joked, and Chuck laughed out loud at that.

Soon, the long low ranch style houses of Corona emerged within their view and Chuck took the second stop off to that little hotel off the side of the road. He and Tiffany ducked into the front lobby while Sam, Alex, and Greg reclined in that smooth leather back seat. She glanced over at Greg.

“Thank you for the fries, by the way,” she told him, to which he shook his head.

“It's what I get for smoking a little doobie before the show,” he replied, and he chuckled at that. She then turned her attention to Alex nestled back into the corner of the seat as if he was cold.

“I didn't get high, just for reference,” he assured her.

“Explains why you smell good,” she said, and Greg chuckled some more.

“They just smelled good!” Alex insisted. He gave his black curls a little toss back with a flick of his head. She eyed the center of his neck and that prominent Adam's apple and the underside of his jawline. His deep eyes thoughtfully gazed back at her from the shadows: that little plume of gray over his brow seemed to be far brighter right there, even in the darkness.

“You're like a dark prince,” she remarked.

“Me?” he laughed at that.

“Yeah—from the dark hair and the little streak of gray—you're the prince who came to save me from the tower.”

“Greg and Chuck were the ones who got you out of there, though,” he pointed out. “I was just sitting there in the back seat when the whole thing went down.”

“But you're still like a prince, though,” she insisted, “a dark heavy metal prince from an ancient time—probably more so than Joey.”

“Joey and Chuck are the wise Indian chiefs,” he said. “If I'm the prince, what's he?” He nodded over to Greg in the opposite seat, and Sam took a glimpse back at him.

“He's the court jester,” she told him.

“Hey, why does he get to be prince and I'm just jester?” Greg demanded, hurt.

“Okay, you're the knight,” she corrected herself.

“The knight! Not the Black Knight, though.”

“No way, unless you wanna start biting people while you're laying on the ground.”

“Nah,” Greg shook his head.

A tap on the window grabbed each of their attention and Tiffany cupped her hands around her face as she peered in at them. Alex reached past the seat and he lifted the door handle so as to let her into the car.

“C'mon, you three little birds,” she encouraged them. For a second, Sam flashed back on the Stormtroopers of Death tour, wherein she saw Charlie and Marla as the parents who drove the car for her on the way up to Poughkeepsie: Chuck and Tiffany had taken on that role at that point. Alex climbed out first, and then Sam followed and lastly by Greg.

“Okay, so we're going to have to sneak in a bit,” she was telling them as they made their way around the white stucco side of the hotel to all the rooms there. Sam almost had to bow her head a bit just so they could make their way past the windows into the front lobby. Chuck already stood there by the door with the key card nestled in between his fingers.

He unlocked the door for them and Sam bowed her way in first, and Tiffany, Greg, and Alex followed right behind her.

“Why'd we have to sneak in?” Sam asked Tiffany.

“Because we paid for a room for four people, not five,” Chuck explained. “If nothing, we'll make it look as though you're just visiting us.”

“She technically is, Chuck,” Alex pointed out.

“Technically but they don't know that, though, Alex,” Chuck insisted.

“Okay, so who's sleeping where?” Greg asked them.

“You three can take that bed right next to us,” Tiffany pointed out. “They're both big enough so we can sleep in them comfortably.”

Sam showed Alex a little smile and he raised his eyebrows at her a bit, but his facial expression never changed a bit. As far as she knew, he still felt unsure of her. If only she could find out what he genuinely felt about her as she took her seat on the edge of the bed closest to the door and the window.

“I have to call my mom,” she told him.

“Please do. I'm sure she'll be happy to hear your voice—I know my mom always is with me.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Greg added.

For a few seconds, she forgot the number back to the house up in Reno but then she recalled it once she dialed the first three digits. She held the phone up to her ear and waited for a few seconds.

“Hello?” Esmé answered.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Oh, hi, Sam! I was just going to ask Marla if you got your new phone number yet. How's everything going?”

“Um—” She froze when she remembered that she had asked the three men right in front of her to keep it all under wraps, and thus she had no idea as to how to break it to her mother right there. “Good. Everything is good.”

She shuddered at the realization that she had just lied to her own mother.

“That's good. Well, you know how I was thinking of moving down to Los Angeles when all of this is said and done?”

“Yes?” It took Sam a few seconds to recall the conversation that she had had with Esmé while she was still back in New York.

“Well, it might be sooner than you may think, my dear. Ruben and I are about to go through all the proceedings in the coming weeks. We'll be able to finalize it sometime near the end of the year.”

“How long does it take?” That gave Sam an idea.

“Well, for your father and me both, it took about a week in order to properly file and we're about to go through all the proceedings. Should take some time, but it should be final come December.”

“So—three months?”

“Give or take. We've had to sign some papers both, you know come to a mutual agreement and whatnot.” Esmé fell silent for a moment.

“Everything okay?” Sam asked her. Tiffany took her seat on the edge of the bed across from her and raised her eyebrows at her.

“Yeah,” Esmé replied in a wistful tone, “I thought for sure that your father and I would be together forever. We were supposed to grow old together. But it's over now. I wanted to be closer to you and he wasn't willing to leave for New York with you and me. Yes, your own father wasn't willing to leave the West Coast for his girls.”

Sam's face fell. She thought about what Esmé had said to her about Ruben possibly not even being her true father.

“How's Joey, by the way?”

“They're on tour right now, so he's stylin' right now,” Sam answered in a single breath.

“Aw, that's good! You know, as long as your father and I have lived in the southland, we never got to see a concert together?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I would've loved to have seen The Beatles when they were together. But of course, that was the middle of the Sixties—when I was pregnant with you and when he and I were thinking of settling down in Elsinore to raise you.”

Sam peered up at Alex, who congregated on the far side of the room next to Greg with a bottle of water and his shirt slung over his shoulder. Her mother didn't even know that she was in the same room as them, especially Alex himself. But she gazed on at the smooth skin upon his deep bare chest. Even though he was to turn twenty in the next month, he still had a little bit of a full waist, made ever so slighly fuller by the tightness of his jeans.

“So I'm thinking that I can find my way back down to the City of Angels by Christmas time or by New Year's,” Esmé continued on.

“What's Dad gonna do?” Sam asked her.

“No idea, to be perfectly honest,” Esmé replied. “He tells me he'll still be here in Reno, or he might go to the Bay Area.”

She raised her eyebrows at that.

“He might go over to the Bay Area?” she echoed that, and Alex, Greg, and Chuck turned their attention to her.

“Might, though,” Esmé pointed out. “It's a possibility, but he might just stay here in Reno for all I know. I have no idea yet.”

“But, you're going to be down here, though,” she recalled.

“Right. I've been looking at apartments and houses near the beaches, like Santa Monica or Manhattan—I might go out to the islands, like Catalina. I'm going to have the money soon enough so I can afford to live out there.”

“Oh, just think of Catalina,” Sam said.

“I know, right! I can actually say that I live out on an island. But that's what's happening right now. I'm glad you're nearby us again so I'm able to see you more.” She had a comfort in her mother's words right there: even though she was far away from her true home of New York City, she could seek refuge in her parents and their proximity. Indeed, Greg and Chuck took their seats on the edge of either bed from her in anticipation.

“Anyways, I have to go, sweetie—it's getting late,” Esmé told her.

“Yeah, I agree,” Sam said.

“I have a busy day tomorrow, too. But—you sleep well tonight. I'm glad you're near us again. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Mom. Good night.”

They hung up at the same time and Sam sighed through her nose, and then she returned to Chuck on the edge of the bed opposite to her.

“Don't wanna pry but—care to share?”

“Well, I wanted this to be a secret kept between me and Alex,” she started, “but my parents are getting divorced. My mom's coming down to the L.A. area, or she might go out to Santa Catalina Island, while my dad might go over to the Bay Area.”

“Wow!” Tiffany declared with her mouth agape.

“Yeah. Which means that they're gonna be selling that house in Reno—the house I used to know so well. At the same time, I can say that it's going to be a honor to have my old bed in a brand new place on Catalina Island.”

“You should buy that house, though,” Chuck suggested.

“I don't have the money, though,” Sam pointed out. “Besides, I can only focus on getting out of that house in Elsinore—or at least finding a way out of that nonsense that he had gotten me into there.”

“Wow,” Greg remarked with his arms folded across his chest.

“So you guys wanna turn in for the night?” Tiffany offered them.

“Might as well, babe,” Chuck replied with a yawn.

Sam had to change her clothes in the bathroom, but she changed into one of the Death Angel shirts she had bought for herself, one that was a little too big for her, and then she padded out of there without any pants on.

“Cute,” Tiffany noted with a chuckle as she made her way over to the bed closest to the window. Greg dropped his jeans and he climbed into the bed right next to her. Alex pushed the slightly ajar door open and he showed them the little white bucket of ice in one hand while he locked the door behind him with the other.

“Sam's gonna be snuggled in between two boys,” Tiffany joked.

“Lucky girl,” Chuck added which brought another laugh out of her.

“Yeah, Alex,” Greg said, “you and her oughta do something together when the three of us fall asleep.”

“We'd have to wake you guys, though,” Sam pointed out.

“Besides, you're legally married now,” he declared. “I can't do that.”

“He won't suspect it's you, though,” Sam insisted. “He's never even seen you before. Besides, I'm sure that if you and I have an affair with each other, it's got to null the whole thing.”

Greg giggled at that but Alex rolled his eyes instead. He set the bucket of ice down on the nightstand and he headed into the bathroom with his pajama bottoms. Sam then turned to Chuck and the expression of mischief on his face.

“So after The New Order, what's next?” she asked him.

“Not sure,” Chuck confessed as he flicked on the television.

“Whoa,” Greg blurted out at the news report and he pointed towards it.

“What's up?” Chuck asked him, and then he gaped at the screen on the other side of the room. “Hey, Alex!”

Alex bowed out of the bathroom with no shirt on and his gray flannel pajama bottoms on part of the way.

“Huh?”

“Jean Michel Basquiat died,” Chuck told him.

“What!” Alex was stunned and he looked on at the screen himself with his mouth agape. Sam recalled seeing his name in passing while in Bill's art history class and yet he never went into him in depth. All she knew was he was a graffiti painter somewhere in Manhattan: she wished to know more about him. She wished to be away from Bill's holier than thou approach to everything.

“His art's gonna go through the roof now,” Tiffany said.

“Hell yeah. Probably going to get more rare, too.” Alex returned to the bed right next to Sam, to which she shook her head at the sight before her. To not have known more about him before he passed.

“Heroin at twenty seven,” Chuck said, “that's just not right.”

She glanced over at Alex and the look of concern on his face. She had to show him her artistry at some point herself, especially once they switched off the light for the night.

She lay down in the middle of the king sized bed, right in between those two boys: Greg lay flat on his back and with his hands upon his chest while Alex lay on his left side and faced the side of her head. At one point, she rolled her head over the top of the pillow for a better look at his slumbering face.

She thought back to when Joey watched her sleep.

He wished she could see what he saw in her, and she also wished Alex could see what she saw in him, especially with the sight of him sleeping right there before her. His eyelids were smooth and gentle such that they accentuated his eyelashes; his skin seemed smoother in appearance, and the plume of gray had been buried in the pillow. He actually resembled to a little boy laying there especially with his fingers out from under the edge of the blankets.

He never seemed so soft than he did right there next to her, such that she wanted to hold him. Hold him like a little doll.

A loud knock on the door stirred him a bit, but he never awoke. Silence settled over them again and Sam didn't move a muscle.

Another knock.

“WE CLOSED!” Chuck shouted from total dead sleep, and Alex snorted at that; a smirk crossed his face but he never woke up.

But Sam kept her eyes fixed on his slumbering face, all the way until she fell asleep herself. If only he could see the softness that she saw in him right there.

Come the next morning, the fog rolled into the southland for the morning, such that it made even the most bone dry of plants feel more at ease with everything in the state of California. Chuck and Greg headed out of the room to fetch breakfast, while Tiffany continued to sleep in the neighboring bed.

Alex leaned back against the headboard with his hands rested upon his lap as he watched the news report for that morning. He didn't even look tired upon his waking up.

“So you go back to the house in a bit,” he said in a low voice, low from the sleep and low enough so as to not wake Tiffany.

“Yeah, I think we're gonna try again,” Sam told him as she continued to lay there flat on her back next to him. “I mean—it makes sense, though.”

“Still gonna be hell of a time getting you back there, though,” he pointed out.

“Well, we're going to have to go back to the house, though,” Sam said as her face fell. “You guys are going to be going on tour soon and I've got nothing better to do, too.”

Alex squinted his eyes and he was silent for a good long minute.

“Let's see... what's today, the twelfth?”

“The thirteenth,” she replied.

“Oh, damn.” He raised his eyebrows at that. “Well, we leave for Europe on the twenty first—it's a Sunday. If he seals you up into the house, we are literally going to have to bust you out of there. I don't know how we're going to do that, but we'll find a way.”

The door swung open and Chuck and Greg stepped inside with cups of coffee and boxes of breakfast. Alex then returned to Sam.

“We will find a way,” he whispered to her.

Once they had drank down their coffee and ate their breakfast, they all piled back into the car and returned to the house in Lake Elsinore. That time around, Tiffany walked back to the front door with her. The sky hung low with the marine layer overhead, perfect for the return to the three story house. No signs of life on the outside, but Sam was sure that Bill and the girls were awake at that point.

“I hope we can have you come along with us to Germany,” Tiffany confessed to her as they reached the front door together.

“I hope so, too!” Although a voice in the back of Sam's mind told her that it was going to happen one way or the other. “So you guys driving back up to the Bay Area?”

“Yup, we should be back there in a few hours. If you need anything at all, call me and Chuck.”

She threw her arms around Sam and held her close to her chest for a good long minute.

“You be careful here, okay?” she told Sam.

“Yeah, I'll try to,” she vowed. “You guys take care, too.”

Tiffany patted her shoulder and then Sam turned to the door. The knob turned that time and she ducked into the house.

“Anyone home?” she called out as she shut the door behind her. She had her purse over her shoulder and the little bag of Death Angel shirts in the other. No sooner had she closed the door when he seemed to have come out of nowhere and he stopped her right in his tracks.

“Where have you been!” Bill demanded with his hands pressed to his hips.

“I was with friends, I told you,” she replied, nonplussed. “I literally told you right before I left. I'm also going to need you to stop freaking out whenever I even so much as want to do something with the people I like.”

She rolled her eyes and she tried to step past him towards the stairwell.

“Hey—” He shoved her towards the wall and then he pinned her there. “—don't get smart with me, young lady. I am your husband. You are to listen to me and only me.”

“I want a divorce,” she blurted out right into his face.

“What?” He laughed at that.

“I want a divorce, Bill. I don't deserve any of this. I want a divorce.”

“A divorce? Fat chance. Go upstairs, young lady.”

“I want a divorce!” she commanded.

“You say that one more time, the next time the girls and I go somewhere for a whole day, I'm locking you in the house. I literally cannot afford a divorce.” He showed her a smug smile but in his eyes, she saw anger embedded within.

She then thought about what Alex had told her, in that they were leaving for Germany on a Sunday. Indeed, she knew that she could time it right. And thus, she let her nostrils flare and she made her way back upstairs. She had to time it just right, lest the whole thing go straight down the tubes. All the times they were out of the house, she took the cordless phone for herself and she made call to Marla to check in and also to say what was going on, and then another one to Chuck.

Marla hadn't landed a job at the school as of yet but they did tell Bill that his paychecks were done from there on out. He had no money coming in for the time being now; Marla herself meanwhile had an interview with the shop Belinda worked at.

“Genie and I are going to Albany!” she declared.

“Might be,” Sam corrected her.

“Bel told me it's a real possibility right now.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“What're you going to do about my couch, though?”

“I'll take it with me,” Marla promised her. “Bel needs a couch anyway.”

On her phone call to Chuck, she told him what had happened and she added that because it was a Sunday, she would have to time it to the absolute day in which she could say it to him. And that was the day. That was the Friday before they left for Germany.

“I'm gonna need you guys to come and get me out of here on the morning you leave,” she told him.

“We're gonna be pushin' it,” he confessed, “'cause of the flights from L.A. instead of the Bay Area and everything. But we can totally do it, though. We'll have to leave the Bay Area early so we can get there before he has to leave.”

The front door opened right then.

“I gotta go,” she told him in a near whisper. “He's home.”

“Be careful,” Chuck advised her, also in a near whisper.

She hung up and then she stepped out of her room. She descended the stairs to the second landing and there he was, by the door. He glared up at her.

“Bill, I want a divorce,” she said in a strong voice, and he sneered at her with that.

“We will do no such thing,” he stated in a curt tone, “not in a house of God.”

“We will—and there will be hell to pay if it doesn't happen.”

“Locking you in the house then,” he said in a singsong voice.

And indeed he did. Over the Saturday morning, he had put glue on the doorknob and he spent all day reversing the locks on the front and back doors, to which Sam just had to laugh at. He was going to all this trouble just to keep her in the house. Come Sunday morning, he had locked the doors and he took the girls through the garage door, to which he barred shut with a series of boxes. All the while, he hid the keys.

Sam peered out the top window and watched them leave for church and Sunday school, perhaps the last time the girls could ever attend a private school from that point onward. But this was her life regardless of that. Within a few minutes time, she recognized that hatchback clear across the way. The morning sun kissed his crown of jet black hair and that little plume atop his head: she could see him even from far away.

“There you are!” he called up to her.

“The doors are locked,” she told him.

“The doors are locked?” he echoed her.

“Yeah. I don't know if I can open the windows.”

He nibbled on his bottom lip and he opened the gate, and he made his way over to the kitchen window. She could hear him struggling down there.

“Alex!” she called from the top window. He peered up to her from the grass down below, slightly out of breath.

“You seriously can't get out?” he called up to her.

“Both doors are locked shut,” she told, “and the windows are, too. Bill hid the keys so he literally barred me in here.”

“Hey, remember what I said we're going to have to literally bust you out of there?”

“Yeah?”

Alex nibbled on his bottom lip and then he turned his attention to that car across the lake.

“Hey, Chuck!”

Sam watched him walk on back towards the other side of the lake. All the while, she wondered if either Marla or Aurora were willing to do such a thing for her. She watched them converse about something together, and then Chuck nodded his head at him. Eric joined in right behind them with something elongated in hand.

The three of them made their way back towards the house as if they were about to take a man out together.

“Time for plan B,” Chuck was saying as they came back within earshot.

“Wait, you guys have a plan B?” Sam called down.

“Come downstairs to the back door here,” Eric said. Without sparing further expense, Sam scooped up her things and she bowed downstairs to the second floor and then the ground floor. She sprinted down the hall towards the door right as she spotted Chuck's head outside of the kitchen window. He nodded at her and then gestured to the window sill itself.

“Huh?” She moved in closer to the window to figure out as to what he was saying to her right then.

“Stand back,” Chuck hollered through the window.

Sam nodded and then leaned her back against the wall with her things and then—

THUD.

“Well, Jesus Christ, Chuck, you don't have to be a baseball player,” Eric scoffed. “Here, I'll get it.”

Sam awaited another few seconds and then, that long object speared right there the window. She stepped out of the way as it landed onto the linoleum before her. They had taken a aluminum baseball bat and Eric had hurled it through the window pane. Splinters of the glass shattered apart and spread out right there across the sink basin and the linoleum.

Sam then bowed towards the window with a look of amazement on her face.

“We're supposed to protect our female fans, remember?” Eric recalled for her and he reached out through the gap in the wall for her. “Here, gimme your things first.”

She handed him her overnight bag as well as her purse and her journal, and he handed all three to Chuck for safe keeping. And then the same as before, but this time around there was no threat of Bill right behind her and thus she could take her time climbing out through the broken window. She set one foot on the edge of the sink basin and she hoisted herself up with the help of the faucet.

“You got it?” Eric asked her; she took his hand and then, careful not to cut herself on a shard of glass, she rested her knee upon the sill. Alex hurried over to help her way through the hole there. His hand rested upon her stomach once she was part of the way out of there.

“Okay—you got it?” Eric gently coaxed her once more.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

But then she lost her balance and she fell past Eric and onto Alex. He fell onto his back and she landed on his chest. For a few fleeting seconds, she thought about that daydream she had had before. She lifted herself off of his little body and she noticed that the top button on his shirt had come undone, and he showed a little bit more of his chest for her. His black curls spread out from his head and his lips were parted in stunned fashion for her.

“My prince,” she said to him in a light whisper, and he raised his eyebrows at her. She then climbed off of him and he sat upright on the grass. Eric helped him up from there and then the four of them headed on back to Greg, whom of which awaited them right next to the car there by the curb. Eric hurried along side right next to her.

“We may have broken the law but what he was doing was way worse, I would think,” he told her in a low voice.

“Far worse,” she replied. “Locked me up in the house without any hope of escape. He didn't even tell me when he was coming back, either!”

“Yeah, he can deal with a broken window for a bit,” Eric concluded. Chuck carried her purse and her overnight bag in both hands as if they belonged to her, but she didn't see her journal anywhere on his person. She hoped that he didn't drop it somewhere back there, lest she knew that someone could find it for themselves. She need not feel paranoid about it all. Even though she was legally married to Bill, as far as she knew, therein lay nothing about her staying behind for him there at the house, especially after what he did to her back there, either. Eric did in fact have a valid point.

They reached the car within time and he stuck her things into the back part there. She turned her attention to Eric and Alex, the latter of whom held her journal in his hands.

“Chuck dropped this,” he told her, and he handed it to her, and then she remembered that he hadn't really seen her art at that point, either.

“Thank you,” she said to her prince, unbeknownst by the fact that he was talking to the artist who made those drawings for Charlie that whole time. He showed her a sweet little smile.

“I didn't look inside—just to give you your privacy,” he assured her as she climbed into the back seat, right next to Greg and in turn right next to Alex himself. Eric took to the passenger seat, and then Chuck rounded out the inside behind the wheel.

“Tiff and Louie are already at the airport,” he told Sam.

“Goodie! By the way, where'd you find a baseball bat of metal?”

“Some dude named Frankie Bello,” Eric replied as he took off his leather gloves, “he painted over that thing, too, so there's no finding us, either.”

Chuck then fired up the car and they headed into the cul de sac once again, and they doubled back up the street. “Next stop—Deutschland!”

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singingaboutwishingx · 3 years

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hello! ik u love musicals and the ww so i had a thought—donnajosh the last 5 years au?

oh. my god. pain. why would you put me in pain like this.

i imagine that instead of being a novelist, josh is a political pundit—he has his degrees from harvard and yale, and he’s trying to climb up the ladder. at the beginning, he’s running a political news/commentary blog while he’s in a low-level position for a mid-range news outlet. donna never met freeride, but the drama minor really stuck with her, and it turned out that she was like, really good at being a musical theatre actress. after she graduated, she decided to pursue it full-time.

another difference in this au is that i would kind of reverse the roles. i think that donna would be analogous to jamie, while josh would fill cathy’s place.

i just ended up mapping the whole thing out chronologically by song, so that starts under the cut.

goodbye until tomorrow- donna and josh meet and sleep together. there’s a sense in both directions that they’ve met their soulmate, and it’s glorious.

shiksa goddess- donna is obv not jewish, but she knows that josh is not the guy her parents would want her to date. while they are republicans, and josh’s staunchly democratic views would make them uncomfortable, it’s more of the fact that he’s super outspoken, both politically and in general.

i can do better than that- basically the same as in the musical. josh and donna drive back to josh’s hometown so she can meet his parents. josh tells her about his friend, sam, whose girlfriend got pregnant in high school, and they got married and never left town. he also tells her about his college girlfriend, amy, who blew him off after nearly a year. he doesn’t need much from donna. all he wants is her.

moving too fast- donna gets a callback for the anything goes revival, and they take a chance and cast a complete unknown as hope harcourt. she becomes an instant star, a media darling, and a huge fan favorite. (it helps that they cast big names as reno and billy, which attracts some attention to the production and allows the unknown actors for oakleigh and hope to be pulled into the spotlight.) donna’s in love, and she’s on top of the world.

climbing uphill- josh is writing furiously. he keeps submitting op-eds everywhere and applying for higher positions at other companies, but there’s always someone or some writing that’s just a little bit better. he’s kind of afraid because the underachieving husband isn’t really where he thrives—he’s always had big dreams. he’s happy that donna’s found success, but he’s kind of bitter that it’s taking her away from him so much.

the schmuel song- josh is feeling down about his career. he basically just wants to give up, stop running his blog, and not even try to go any higher at his job. donna assures him that he’s immensely talented, and that she believes in him more than anyone could ever believe in someone.

when you come home to me- josh spends most of his nights alone, trying to write something that might maybe possibly be published, while donna, he knows, is out living her dream. she’s out there doing amazing things without him, but she’ll always come home at the end of the night. he knows that she’ll always come back home to him.

the next ten minutes- yay marriage! happy fun wedding time!

a summer in ohio- josh is hired to assist at a major news outlet in ohio. it feels less fun as the summer wears on, but it looks good on his resume. he misses being separated from donna so much.

a miracle would happen- donna loves josh desperately, and she honestly would never cheat on him. however, since her run in anything goes, she’s been going to all of these events and seeing all these other people who are more successful than josh. and like, the fact that his career hasn’t really taken off isn’t a problem, but she has a feeling that something doesn’t sit right with him. she wishes he’d just be happy for her with no strings.

i’m a part of that- josh sits at opening night of broadway’s new smash hit, which is essentially a star vehicle for donna (i mean, she had to audition, but the part was always hers). he sees her fall for her love interest and it’s so convincing that josh has to tell himself that she’s thinking of him when she looks at her co-star like that (and really, donna’s just! that! good!). broadway is this whole world that he can appreciate but never fully be a part of, and josh wishes that he could be thriving like donna.

if i didn’t believe in you- as josh’s resentment for donna’s constant absence grows into resentment for her success, donna’s disappointment in josh grows, too. she is by no means disappointed in his lack of tangible accomplishment—she knows her own success is such a fluke, but she’s grateful for every minute—but the way he always seems to have reservations at her triumphs. she tells josh that she loves him deeply, profoundly, but needs more support than this.

nobody needs to know- cut? sorry. i simply don’t think that donna would do this. she might have some feelings that lie elsewhere, but no way would she actually cheat on josh.

see i’m smiling- donna takes a couple days off of the show to come see josh in ohio. he actually gets to fill in for a newscaster on saturday night, and he’s really excited for donna to come to the taping. it’s also his birthday, and he thought they were planning to spend it together, but at the last minute, donna is called back to new york to meet with a movie producer about an upcoming project. josh begs her to please come see his taping and just let them work around her schedule, but donna keeps denying him. this could be a huge opportunity for her. she can always watch the recording later and they can celebrate a week late. he makes a comment about her always being gone, and it spirals into a knock-down-drag-out fight. donna leaves for new york.

i could never rescue you- months later, after their marriage has continued to slip away despite their best efforts, donna sits him down. she says she wants a divorce. she can’t be with him anymore because they’ve tried and they’ve tried, but nothing can make him happy for her and nothing can make her not feel like her success is the cause of his lack thereof. donna’s already packed a bag. she walks out the door.

still hurting- and at last, we arrive at the beginning. donna still leaves him a letter even though they sat down in person, and josh reads it and hurts. it’s not fair. how can she just walk away from him and leave him with this heavy grief for their love?

the trouble i’m having with making this au work (not that it’s a bad idea or anything—i think it’s fantastic and heartbreaking) is that cathy and jamie (i mean, mostly jamie) are worse people than josh and donna, and i just like... i don’t really see any universe where either of them cheat on the other or where one is too self-absorbed to realize how seriously cruel they are. josh had a few moments in the show that make me go “well...” about that statement, but on the whole, they’re both really kind, considerate people.

while cathy and jamie were basically incompatible from the start, josh and donna’s marriage fails because they both don’t realize what the other’s problems are. in josh’s case, his abandonment issues take center stage, while donna feels almost wrong for succeeding.

other choices for a ww tl5y au that interest me very much include cj and toby, toby and andy, and zoey and charlie.

thank you sm for sending me this idea!!!

#bianca answers the tea #the west wing #tww #josh lyman x donna moss #josh x donna #the last five years #tl5y

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voices-ringing-out · 4 years

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CHARACTER BIOGRAPHY: Maximilian ‘Max’ Navarro

Trigger Warnings for religious trauma and religious abuse, as well as a fairly disturbing death, please proceed with caution.

"The closer I got to the Church, the more hypocrisy and corruption I saw. The so called ‘keys to heaven’ were being held by perverts and con men, the very evil I wanted to fight. What kind of god would allow that scandal? So I quit the Church, quit believing in their lies... figured that there is no God so I could live by my own rules; pick on somebody else. All I ever knew was religious rituals, labelism, and prayers. So me and my best friend, we started this show. I didnt think it mattered it was fake. People loved it. People loved me.”

~*~

Max was born to two staunch Catholics, so religion was interwoven with his upbringing from the very start. For most of his childhood, he took it all very seriously, but certain parts of it - the long Masses, then later Catholic school - clashed with his naturally active and energetic nature. He was constantly finding himself punished by either his parents or members of the Church - or his teachers later on - because of his struggles with staying focused and staying still, and his inability to memorise the things he was supposed to memorise.

Despite his high levels of energy, Max had a hard time with socialising, which meant that while it was easy for him to make friends, it was difficult to keep them - either because their interests weren’t the same as his, or because he was simply ‘too much’ for them to handle. So when one friend that he made when he first entered Catholic school - Andrew - stuck with him, regardless of his shortcomings, Max decided early on that he would do anything he could to stay friends with Drew.

School is not an enjoyable time for the two. Drew does well - if not for what the nuns see as Max’s ‘bad influence’, he would be a model student - but since he refuses to leave Max’s side, whilst Max struggles to know when the right time for cracking jokes are and has trouble memorising the prayers and Bible verses that they are required to know, he is dragged down with him. When Max is punished for being unable to recite a prayer, Drew tries to mouth it to him and is punished for helping him. At the age of 13, Max and Drew are kept after class yet again; lectured about not taking the rules and rituals seriously. Drew tries to take the heat to protect Max, and the teacher - fed up - grabs him by the hair and begins to slam him into the desktop again and again.

When his cries for her to stop go unheard, wracked with panic and guilt that his friend was going to die, Max lunged forward and knocked the nun over. Unfortunately, he did so at the same time a pencil rolled off the desk, and she fell onto it; it went through her eye, blinding her and she later died. Because it was marked an accident, Max and Drew were not punished for it - but Max was haunted by that teacher for the rest of his life, through high school and college. He entered seminary, hoping to make amends for the things he had done, but upon realising how corrupt the religion he had followed his entire life was, he rejected it.

He and Drew remained friends, and when Max left the seminary, he had the idea of The Cleansing Hour - an online webseries that aired live once a week, where he performed exorcisms, fake though they were. It indulged his love for theatre, as well as his deeper and quieter need for attention, and gave him some sensation of defeating evil like he had always wanted to... even if it wasn’t real. The older he had gotten, the more Max had fallen back on a facade; playing up a charming, debonair, and outgoing character to hide his own insecurities, and this also made the show a perfect way to keep that facade up, as well as gave him a way to distract himself from the evil he had already witnessed.

Unfortunately, whilst playing with the concept of demons, he ended up attracting one of the real ones.

the basics

full name: maximilian david navarro.

aka: max, maxi.

age: since he’s a new muse, he only has his main verse, in which he is 33.

gender & pronouns: cis man, he/him.

orientation: pansexual and desperately trying to keep hidden the fact he has had a massive crush on drew since they were kids.

species: human

occupation: 'priest and exorcist’ (a false identity), actor, online influencer.

residence: at the moment, los angeles.

physical appearance

hair: usually messy or in a bun; a dark brown, though on occasions before he started The Cleansing Hour, he would dye it in fun colours. it’s very wavy by nature, so sometimes he straightens it.

eyes: whiskey brown.

complexion: tan.

build: tall, thin, and fairly fit. he frequented the gym before he started his show, and still goes every now and again to stay fit but nowhere near as often as he used to be.

scars: his knees, back, and hands are covered in varying scars from the various beatings and punishments he endured as a child at the catholic school, as well as some from self harm on his arms that he makes a point to keep hidden. he also has a scar on his chin from an automobile accident in college.

tattoos: for now, just one, a matching tattoo that he and drew got - the two of them, in college, got matching anchor tattoos on their forearms. back then, their life plan had been that they would save up money, get a houseboat, and spend their life taking it easy at sea. as they got older, plans changed, but max still treasures the tattoo.

piercings: both of his ears are pierced and he often wears golden hoops, though he takes them out when filming episodes for the show to keep up the ‘man of god’ image.

etc: his grin is often described as ‘crooked’ or ‘lopsided’!

face claim(s): ryan guzman; he seems to have short hair most of the time which doesn’t fit my interpretation, so i’m currently searching for some other faceclaims!

personality

zodiac: leo.

alignment: chaotic neutral.

hogwarts: slytherin.

positive traits: ambitious, clever, determined, affectionate.

negative traits: hedonistic, self-centred, temperamental, stubborn.

medical record

mental: PTSD, social anxiety (which he masks with a facade), borderline personality disorder.

physical: N/A

phobias: necrophobia (fear of death), sphenisciphobia (fear of nuns; though it’s more a trigger of his past trauma than a phobia), taphophobia (fear of being buried alive), aerophobia (fear of flying/planes).

eyesight: 20/20 vision.

drug use: due to his hedonistic nature, he has tried most drugs and will often go back to them, though he has been fortunate enough not to get addicted to any of them.

alcohol use: alcohol, however, he has an addiction to. he drinks regularly, oftentimes at irregular hours on his days off.

background

birth place: reno, nevada; his parents eventually moved to sacramento, california before he entered school.

ethnicity: hispanic and jewish primarily, with some english and norwegian.

parents: manuel and hannah navarro.

siblings: one younger sister who still lives with his parents; grace, 15 years old.

pets: his parents kept dogs growing up; he was only ever particularly attached to their yellow lab, Domingo. in present day, he doesn’t have space for a dog in his apartment, but has taken in two stray cats that he rescued - two small kittens who were dumped in the street by an asshole who didn’t want them. one’s a male dark striped tabby he named Sixx (after the Motley Crue singer) and the other is a female tortoiseshell he named Nikita (after the Elton John song).

education: he graduated high school, and got most of the way toward an associates’ in arts degree in college before attempting seminary - which he also eventually left without completing his education there.

notable skills: he enjoys music; he is a good singer (except when he’s too drunk), and dabbles in playing the guitar and the drums. he has a way with words if given the chance to think on them a bit, and has perfected his acting throughout the years. similar to his passion for music, he is also a good dancer. those are the skills he’s most proud of anyway.

languages: english, and he is passable in spanish. he also knows some latin.

#character introductions > maximilian navarro #i'm so glad i finally got him introduced #now i gotta add him to the muse page lol #he's a canon character from a movie called The Cleansing Hour that i highly recommend if you like demon movies

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gravity-lifts · 3 years

Note

Prime numbers for the ask game? ALSO!! WONDER PETS!!!!

!!!!! WONDER PETS!!! also there are A LOT of prime numbers, so I’m gonna add a read more to this, sorry about such a long answer Cress! I counted and there are 43, here they all are

2. (Do I have any nicknames?) yep!! I have a few on here (I’d list but it’d make this already going to be super long post even longer) and my family calls me Fi

3. (Zodiac sign?) Pieces!

5. (Book/series I reread?) What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera!

7. (Writer I trust enough to read whatever they write?) Leigh Bardugo, all of her stuff is so so good

11. (Favourite song?) Depends on the day, but today it’s Take Me or Leave Me from Rent

13. (Favourite word?) Vindictive (I think I just like v sounds tbh, but like, try saying that, its so fun!!) (alternatively noggy, but that’s not really a word yet)

17. (Pirates or ninjas?) Pirates, but I don’t have any reasoning, sorry!!

19. (Song that I always start my shuffle with/wake-up song/always-on-a-loop song?) this also changes a lot, it’s been You Happened from The Prom for a minute now though

23. (A bad quality of mine?) I’m pretty self deprecating, which is definitely something I need to work on

29. (My best friend?) One of my irls x

31. (Hair colour?) Brown!!

37. (Favourite TV shows as a child?) Another one was the wiggles!!

41. (Do I have any strange phobias?) I don’t think so? idk

43. (Favourite hobbies?) One I don’t think I mentioned was Knitting

47. (Favourite animal?) My cat Squeak (or like, hamsters to get less specific)

53. (What makes me smile?) Talking to you all <3

59. (Afraid of heights?) Nope!!

61. (What was the last concert I went to see?) Shawn Mendes

67. (Scared of the dark?) 100%. Terrified of the dark. worst thing, I hate it.

71. (Something I wish I could do?) Go back in time, or teleport, I think

73. (Have I ever skipped school?) No, I am a, as some may say, goody two shoes because I don’t like getting bad grades or having adults mad at me (don’t like as in it causes me much anxiety)

79. (Sunsets or sunrise?) Sunrise!!! (I don’t like waking up for it tho)

83. (Have I ever had braces?) I have braces right now, actually!! they should be coming off soon

89. (Kindle or real book?) Real books because I can fidget with the pages

97. (Can I bake?) Yep!! I can bake many many things

101. (Who do I get on with better, girls or boys?) I really don’t know, but irl most of my friends are afab, sooooooo

103. (Sexual orientation?) NBLW/Lesbian!!

107. (Guilty pleasure?) I am guilty about all of my pleasures. Home reno tv maybe?

109. (A photo of myself.) I’m not super keen on putting a picture of my face on this bit of the internet, sorry!

113. (Favourite accents?) I have no idea

127. (Am I a bad loser?) Fiercely competitive? yes. Sore loser? definitely not

131. (Am I a good liar?) honestly, it’s a possibility. I don’t lie much at all though

137. (Have I ever hopelessly failed a test?) Nope!! I haven’t ever failed a test (I think my worst grade on a test was a 75 on a quiz in fourth grade and I had a panic attack soooooooo)

139. (If I found a wallet full of cash on the ground, what would I do?) I would try to find the owner

149. (Do I have any tattoos?) not yet!

151. (Do I believe in Karma?) No

157. (What makes me nostalgic?) books that I liked reading as a kid!

163. (What do I love most about myself?) That I try my best to be kind

167. (Have I ever been on radio?) Yep!!

173. (Have I learnt from my mistakes?) I hope that I have!

179. (If I were immortal, what would I do?) Honestly? probably panic

181. (If I could get away with a crime, what would I choose to do?) My aspirations do not involve crime, probably breaking and entering (like, old abandoned places. I just think it’d be neat /gen)

191. (What makes me the happiest?) Spending time with my best friend (they don’t sap my social battery, it’s great)

193. (What motivates me?) The thought of getting to be somewhere other than where I am now

197. (Something I hated as a child that I like now?) ...mushrooms? idk

199. (Live in the city or suburbs?) In the city!! I like the light <3

211. (How do I handle anger?) I put it into my box of bad emotions and I close the box again (I used to cry though)

#asks!!#Cress (so incredibly nice!)#Cress (Cressica)#Cress (the human embodiment of purple)#cress (JRB!SKYKAR)#Cress (noggy)#panic attacks tw #anxiety tw #school tw #grades tw #food mention tw #ask to tag

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bouncymouse · 4 years

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Fanfic Ask Meme Answers

For @colormyworldpink :D

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

I have a (currently unpublished) CloTi short about changing feelings in a relationship that is definitely based on personal experience… I haven’t published it yet though because I wrote it when I was particularly bummed out and it cuts a little close to the bone. Apart from that, the plots themselves aren’t based on real-life (I haven’t been embroiled in any revenge plots or bar-top sexy-times) but some of what the characters feel is definitely drawn from personal experience. Tifa’s “slightly put-upon, always there for everybody else, life passing her by” nature is definitely something I resonate with, which means I sometimes struggle writing her if the scene is particularly emotional.

D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with Reprisal?

Yes and no? There aren’t songs that inspired the plot necessarily. Head Automatica (Beating Hearts Baby) directly inspired Reno’s line “you don’t know what you do to me.” Apart from that, the Turks are pure My Chemical Romance (currently Welcome to the Black Parade, Mama, You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us In Prison, Teenagers, Thank You for the Venom). Great music to write fighting, chaos and explosions to. Tifa and Reno are Dead Horses (Birds Can Write the Chorus) and Florence and the Machine (Shake it Out). The line “looking for heaven, for the devil in me,” will definitely influence a fic title at some point I think. Sometimes it’s the lyrics that inspire me, sometimes it’s just the music. When I’m actually writing I listen to a lot of mostly none-lyrical music, most notably Slow Meadow (Palemote), Sophie Hutchings (By Night) and Message to Bears (You Are a Memory)

Once the fic is over I’d like to compile a playlist of Reader Recommended music though, as a couple of people have already made suggestions to me.

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an "architect" or a "gardener"? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

As my beta will tell you, I cannot plan for shit. Sometimes I outline chapters, sometimes I sit down and write them from scratch. Reprisal is a rewrite of an old fic (that I’ve now purged from my FFN account) so the basis was already there… The ending has changed about ten times in my head, and the plot bunnies are running rampant. Luckily, my beta helps me hash out the problems with the pairing (of which, there are many) and helps me tie up all the loose ends I keep leaving. I should probably settle on my ending seeing as it’s coming fairly soon...

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

My beta Arisa_K (on FFN and Ao3) is definitely an influence. My writing is a hell of a lot prettier because of her. There aren’t many of us writing ReTi, and we got talking because of the sheer lack of writers for the pairing when we both returned to it. Apart from that, I drop in and out of fic quite sporadically, so there aren’t any authors (yet) that I specifically follow. My favourite writer outside of fanfiction is Terry Pratchett, although that doesn’t really translate into my writing… I read a lot growing up, and try to read as much as I can when I’m not working or writing. I mainly enjoy Science Fiction Romance now (because I am a horny nerd LOL).

S: Any fandom tropes you can't resist?

“Enemies to lovers” gets me every, single time.

T: Any fandom tropes you can't stand?

I’m not a huge fan of AU’s… I don’t mind a little deviation from the canon, but you have to be a really good writer or have a really good plot to drag me into a story that takes place outside of the fandom world. Fics set in Coffee Shops/High Schools/Real World don’t really appeal to me.

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

Oh god, Reno all day long (I think you know this). I just… can’t leave him alone…

Thanks for asking :D

#fanfiction #fanfiction writer #fanfiction ask meme #reti #reno x tifa #reno/tifa #is this still classed as procrastination?

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talesothespirits · 4 years

Text

Ups and Downs of Love

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII Pairing: Cloud x Reno Summary: Part of the 10 Song Challenge Series

D is for Dangerous – Allison Iraheta Reno knew how risky it was being in love with "the enemy". But was it really an enemy at all? Shin-Ra had technically tried to destroy the world, and now what had once been the enemy was a reluctant ally. He watched the blonde quietly from the chopper, unable to understand what had really brought AVALANCHE and his company together for a battle. It didn't seem very plausible that having asked Cloud had worked. Or had it? Reno had called Cloud days ago and talked to the blonde. Was he the only one the former Shin-Ra spoke to anymore?

Toxic – Britney Spears Cloud had been surprised when he'd answered his phone. It had been by chance that he had even seen the redhead calling. Why had he picked up? Because he wanted to talk to someone was highly unlikely. Perhaps he had been curious? But that didn't make sense, either. He knew why he'd answered, but he wasn't willing to admit it. He had needed to hear that voice again. He hadn't heard it since deserting the company, save the few occasions Reno had "lost him" during raids on the compound. How the cocky bastard was still second-in-command, he wasn't sure, but he was glad the red haired man had some connections to his former alliance; it made it much easier to hide his emotions.

Sweet Emotion – Aerosmith Nothing came to mind for this song.

Sleep – My Chemical Romance Reno sat up as he gasped for air, one hand instinctively going to his neck, where he'd been choked just a week prior during his last day as a captive in the Wutai army. Somehow, Tseng had managed to offer something to the king that had made them let him go, but he was still having nightmares. It was thoroughly irritating. He glanced at the window, wondering if Cloud was watching the sky; like he used to at night during his stay at Shin-Ra. "I'm not wishin or nuttin like that, but I wonder if you still care, blondie…" he murmured.

"Then ask me," a soft voice said. At first, Reno thought he'd imagined the voice, but he turned his head to the door of his room and was surprised to see Cloud hidden in the shadow of the door.

BulletProof – La Roux Reno knew he had made mistakes. He couldn't count how many times he'd said something or done something ridiculous just to get Cloud's attention. But he had never thought of fallingfor the blonde. It sucked. He wanted so bad to be with the former SOLDIER now…but it was no use. His walls were still heavily guarded from the last time he'd been shot in the heart. And he meant that literally. He still had the scar from where Tseng had pulled him from the gutters to prove it. It really ticked him off as he sat watching Cloud from afar; surveying. He was actually supposed to be making sure Rufus' hotel accommodations were correct, but Rufus had already seen to that. Reno just had to get back before Tseng did. And even if he didn't Rufus could use the time alone with the Wutainian man; to loosen the stick that was shoved up his ass so hard. He smirked as Cloud walked along the edge of the church, wondering where the blonde was going now.

She Loves Me Not – Papa Roach Again, nothing for this song.

Down the Rabbit Hole – Adam Lambert Was it possible to fall so deeply in love with a man because of how he danced? Once upon a time, Cloud would have said no reverently. Now? Uh, not so much. He sat, intoxicated, as he watched the redhead sway so expertly on the dance floor. It was slightly scary, but so amazing, that Reno could dance so well. Were there lessons involved? Had to be. That…or he really had been a stripper once upon a time. Cloud chuckled at that thought. 'Once upon a time, a fiery redhead named Reno danced for men and women while taking his clothes off to the sound of Adam Lambert's "Strut". But that thought couldn't be far off the mark, Cloud pondered. His current train of thought was broken as Reno plopped in his lap and began a special, free lap dance.

Another Day – from "Rent" Reno stared at the blonde in shock. He'd been denied. But..why? What had he done? He couldn't think of anything. So he stood from where the blonde had shoved hi and moved to sit on the coffee table in front of the rogue. "Hey, babe. Come on. Live for today."

Cloud glared. "That line may have worked back then, Reno, but it won't anymore." He half growled.

Reno blinked. "Blondie, may I ask what the fuck you are talking about?" he asked. "You know that's how we live."

Cloud scoffed. "More like how you live. I don't wanna do it anymore." He said, crossing his arms. "I saw you with him."

Reno stared. "Who, Rufus?" he inquired. Seeing the flash of anger in baby blues, he sighed. "Yo, Cloud, babe. Rufus is just a really good friend. He was the only one who believed in me when Shin-Ra took me in." When he got no response, he sighed and stood. "Fine. I'm done trying to prove myself." And he slammed the door.

Rolling in the Deep – Adele Cloud sat in the dark of his room, staring at an old photo. It made his heart race to watch the moon shimmer on the photo of the male, but he knew it wouldn't match the memory of the moonlight on the fiery tresses. He gave a sigh. He had to do something; sitting around and moping would not have helped. But what could he do? He'd heard several stories about what Reno had been up to since he had denied the redhead his feelings. Maybe he should go the low road and go back? Or…maybe he should just wait? He groaned and grabbed handfuls of hair as he rocked a bit. "I wish I knew what to do…" he murmured.

"Just admit your feelings, Cloud. Look back at everything. Focus this time. Think."

Cloud blinked. Aerith had always known what to say. He gave a sad smile. "It's kind of sad that you're still helping me after I let you die." He mumbled, but laid back on his bed and closed his eyes. With a few deep breaths, he began to travel down memory lane and focus on each one; his actions, reactions, thoughts and lack thereof. And as he watched, he became aware of what had always been there.

Better Than I Know Myself – Adam Lambert Cloud sat up and had to wipe away tears. He growled, angry at himself, and reached over to grab his phone. He needed to make sure Reno knew that he was serious. And if that meant Cloud would have to drag him out of a bar and screw him in an alley, he would. He called feverishly, leaving some 80 voicemails; that was until he had filled the voicemail inbox. Then he began texting; trying to get the redhead to answer. "Damnit, Reno, answer." He said, the only thought being that he had lost the one thing that had kept him grounded for so damn long. He had plopped on the bed, tears brimming usually clear eyes, when the door burst open and a panting redheaded Turk stood before him. Cloud jumped at the sight and stared next. "Reno…"

"You okay, blondie?" the male asked, rushing over to check him out and make sure no marks were present. "Good, no harm." He sighed, relieved, and then threw himself into Cloud's arms. "I'm sorry, Cloud."

"Just…just don't go, Reno." Cloud managed, holding the other tight. "Promise."

"Gladly," the Turk replied, grinning as he pulled the male close.

#final fantasy vii fanfic #ffvii fanfic #cloud x reno #reno x cloud #final fantasy 7 fanfic #ff7 fanfic #cloud x reno fanfic #reno x cloud fanfic #s; 10 Song Challenges #ups and downs of love

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subdee · 4 years

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AU-gust Day 13: Rock Band AU

That Aerith post reminded me... this is just a headcanon for yesterday’s prompt, so I can stick to the schedule. I like this one though, I think it’d be fun to write XD.

POP IDOL AU - backstory:

*Aerith is under the control her exploitative management company, Shinra Ent (think SM entertainment, the Kpop music label/talent agency/lifestyle brand)

*the Turks are long-suffering managers who make sure the idols get to gigs on time and don't get photographed doing anything that would tarnish their image

*Aerith is a former child star with a pure, good image and she's REALLY tired of it

*Ilfana may have also been a famous pop idol, and that’s why Shinra pays so much attention to Aerith and why she’s been in the business since she was young - she never really had a choice

*Aerith sleeps with Zack (also a pop idol) as a form of rebellion but the record company hushes it up.

*Or maybe they don’t hush it up, and his fans protect him / vilify Aerith because of Sexist Double Standards... maybe she loses a bunch of fans too. So now she’s even more controlled than before by her record label

**For purposes of this story, Tifa and Barret are old enough to legally smoke and drink in Japan (age 20). Aerith might or might not be.

*Tifa is the smoking, drinking rocker but the twist is she's actually pretty tame underneath the image... while Aerith is the actual hard partier

POP IDOL AU - plot:

*Aerith is being escorted from point A to point B by reno and rude. her record label has learned that she needs two minders at all times or she'll escape

*While reno is buying cigarettes at a convenience store, aerith takes advantage of rude's crush on her to convince him to go inside to buy pads for her.

*he takes the car keys in with him - he’s not an idiot - but she calls a taxi/uber and escapes

*she ends up in a punk bar because she just wants to party somewhere grimey

*and also because it’s an all-ages show and she doesn’t have ID on her since her managers hold those “for her” so she can’t go anywhere

*no one recognizes her at the punk bar because the punks don't listen to pop music

*tifa's band is on stage...here’s the lineup: Barret’s on the mic and writes lyrics and promotes the band, Tifa plays keys or maybe keytar, Yuffie is on drums, Cloud is rhythm/lead guitar (sometimes Tifa has the lead part sometimes he does), and Reeve is usually a trumpet player/saxophonist but he’s on bass in this band because they needed a bass player.

*But Barret is trying to learn some basic bass with a prosthetic hand.

*Cloud wears wigs, dresses and skirts onstage because it’s a punk band and f you he’ll dress how he wants

*Barret used to play classical/jazz piano, but after he lost an arm he’s on the mic only. He was in a punk group with Jessie, Biggs and Wedge (bass, guitar and drums) but they split amicably because he wanted to get more serious with the music and they just wanted to continue to have fun playing basic punk songs

*Aerith loves the music, obviously!

*afterwards they hit it off at the bar. tifa still doesn't know who aerith is. aerith has a really good time, and in the end gives tifa her phone number, at which point maybe tifa recognizes her? maybe not.

*at her next show aerith does the side-shave, gets a tattoo (real? fake? maybe it was always real but she never showed it before) and dresses like tifa and does a cover of a punk song that she bribed the engineers into adding on the setlist

*shinra management are furious but the song is well-received, they pivot, now this is part of your image, capitalism engulfs the protests against itself. no protests are possible within the system

*is aerith brave enough to rebel for real or will she settle for a symbolic rebellion?

POP IDOL AU - resolution

*can aerith join the band? Reeve has a full time corporate job, so they're kinda looking for a new bassist so they can accept more gigs and travel. Aerith already knows how to play acoustic guitar because she is actually musical, even though only her fans really give her credit for her talent. she might be able to learn bass too.

*maybe the old management, under pres shinra, was really stuck on the old idol image for aerith - pure maiden, wearing white, being nice to old men, having no input on the songwriting, etc.

*but the new management, under rufus, is willing to be more experimental and they work out a deal where aerith can fill in bass for tifa's band on a trial schedule. perhaps reeve works for shinra ent in marketing or something and he arranges it

*It’s basically a compromise so she won't quit... and a way to kind of transition her image into a more 'artist' kind of image so she can stay relevant after aging out of being a pop idol

*But barret is against this because of all the corporate BS that will come along with the label attention. so now he has to decide whether to compromise his vision for the band, including his lyrics that are anti-corporate, or accept a deal with the devil to get more fans and popularity

*HOW WILL THE STORY END???? I honestly have no idea and I’m gonna leave it that way, because if I write it all out then I will have absolutely no motivation to ever write the story, XD

#ffvii #ff7 #fic ideas #my fic

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elopez7228 · 4 years

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Scenic Route 34/47

Read on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/18268208/chapters/43229774

Start over : https://elopez7228.tumblr.com/post/620919089893933056/scenic-route-0147

***

Rey sat in the grass, contemplating the decision she had to make. The car was ready. BB8 was chasing crickets around. Right now, almost no one knew her location on the remote campground. But she couldn’t stay there forever. She was furious at Ben...but somehow she couldn’t forget about the night they had spent together. Just thinking about it sent shivers down her spine.

No, she had to act rationally.

It was a mistake to let Leia and Ben take advantage of her. She had been too rash, too trusting for her own good. She didn’t doubt Syed’s intentions; she had also seen Skylar’s brutality with her own eyes. And something told her they wouldn’t be fooled by bear spray twice. She wished she had been even firmer with Ben that it was his responsibility to reign in the lunatics on his team...

But the doubts crept in. What if he couldn’t do it? Or, what if he didn’t actually want to? Worse yet, what if he never really loved her at all? It was hard to wrap her head around his actions. His kisses were ardent, by all accounts he was even more earnest than he had been that night in Jackson Hole.

Sleeping with him hadn’t felt like a trophy fuck or a one night stand, she had felt like an empress. He’d been so focused on her pleasure, on unraveling her with a gentleness that almost seemed out of character. Still as driven as ever, but sweeter, somehow. No one had made love to her like that in ages.

Was that all in order to get his hands on the microchip? Beneath all her righteous anger she’d hoped that it had been a misunderstanding. Maybe then it would’ve been less painful.

Maybe it was time to embrace the obvious: Cupid had it out for her. Just like with Finn, when things were finally looking up, everything came crashing down.

What now?

She thumbed through her contacts mindlessly. She ought to check in on Poe, but she hardly felt like it. Calling Jessica seemed even worse.

It rang just then, startling her.

Ben Solo.

Was he about to tell her that Syed had been put in the naughty corner? Probably not.

“Yes, Ben?” She sighed.

“Please don’t hang up.”

She wasn’t going to, but it was nice of him to insist. She relented.

“What is it this time?”

“Syed and Skylar are looking for the Falcon. You can’t hope to get away in that car.”

“I see you haven’t been successful in convincing them to leave me alone. Also, this is escalating rather quickly, isn’t it?”

“Look, I’m sorry I put you in this situation, I—“

“Yeah, I suppose you should be,” Rey tried to cut him off, but Ben was determined.

“Whatever I did before, I regret it, and I’m trying to protect you now. So let me finish. You need to change cars.”

She snorted derisively. “Do you think I have that kind of money? Besides, your mother trusted me with the Falcon, am I really just suppose to let it rot somewhere?”

“No, no, don’t worry. I’m sending Kelsi Ren your way. Switch with her, and try to gain a few hours on Syed and Skylar.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You won’t make it past ten miles. Syed’s out for blood.”

“Is that a threat?”

Ben hesitated to respond. Rey could hear his uneven breathing on the other side.

“Rey, I know I fucked up,” he said hoarsely. “You don’t have to forgive me, but you have to trust me.”

“Trust is a big ask. As for forgiveness, we’ll see. I guess I don’t have a choice about the car...”

“I’m not trying to force you, but it’s your best option. I mean it.”

Rey rolled her eyes. Really, what alternative did she have? She sighed again.

“When will Kelsi be here?”

“Ten minutes, she’s on the way. When she gets there, switch the registration papers too. Don’t talk to her, don’t answer any questions.”

“It’s not like I’ll invite her to tea,” she grumbled as she hung up.

Ben wasn’t kidding: a large Lincoln Nautilus pulled up next to the Millenium Falcon in a matter of minutes. To Rey’s chagrin, it wasn’t quite large enough to fit her mattress, so they were back to sleeping in the car. At least this one had air conditioning. That would be a welcome change.

She supposed she should call Leia about the Falcon soon. She had promised to deliver both the car and the dog, but perhaps Leia would be receptive to the “looming killers” argument. Desperate times called for desperate measures...

Kelsi emerged from the car. Rey had seen her on stage before, but she was different out of costume, in broad daylight. She looked good in her ripped jeans and hiking boots, though she appeared younger now. Short platinum blonde hair framed her face, which was well-hidden beneath a combination of dark sunglasses and a tattered shawl that wrapped around her shoulders.

“Are you Rey?” She asked casually as she approached.

“Yeah. Here’s my car,” she replied, gesturing to the aging Oldmobile Cruiser.

The blonde grimaced, muttering something about a shitty last minute plan under her breath.

“Here’s the keys and the papers. The tank is loaded. Where’re you headed?”

Ben’s voice echoed in Rey’s head: don’t answer any questions. She realized it was time to play the clueless tourist again, since everyone seemed to think she excelled at the role.

"I don’t know,” she said, giving Kelsi her blankest smile. “I’ll just hit the road I guess. Go wherever life takes me.”

“Whatever,” Kelsi grumbled, mostly to herself. In an almost mechanical gesture, she handed Rey the keys and the registration document.

Now it was time to move the contents of the Falcon. Rey cleared out the glovebox, suddenly noticing that the toy car was gone. She panicked when she realized that Luke’s address was still there. Had Ben found it the other night? If that was the case, he now knew her location and her destination. And that meant he knew his uncle’s address. But he never once said anything. Another day, another game of hide and seek.

“Ugh, this piece of crap reeks of dog!” Kelsi complained. Behind her, Rey snorted. Good luck with that, princess.

Finally, Rey moved BB8’s toys and food bowl to the back seat of the Lincoln before getting behind the wheel. The engine revved up smoothly, and she instantly knew this was a major upgrade compared to the Falcon. It also came with a leather interior, GPS, and Bluetooth. Score! The rest of this trip was going to be so much fun.

She put her sunglasses on and adjusted her seat. Time to hit the road again!

For a little while she basked in the feeling of relief, forgetting that she was currently a crazy old woman’s pawn with no other plans in life, on the run from a pair of assassins and leagues away from her dying ex-husband.

She drove carefully out of Bozeman on Highway 89. She connected her phone to the Bluetooth system, finally deciding to give Poe a call. The conversation was brief as Finn was stable and nothing had changed. Rey neglected to mention her own circumstances because she didn’t want her friends in England to worry more than they already did.

Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t as scared as before. Was this her new normal—travelling alone, confronting bears, flirting with rockstars, and outrunning gangs? Despite the risks, she had never felt more alive.

She slowed the car as she approached what looked like a police barricade. Rey was about to pull the window down when the officer standing there motioned for her to keep going.

But by now her good humor had suddenly disappeared. Ben had said that she wouldn’t make it ten miles in the Falcon. Was this barricade the proof? Did FORCE really have the means to intercept her like that? The idea was so terrifying that she pushed it away.

She was headed even further west, in the direction of Idaho. It was 8 AM now. If she drove for another twelve hours, she could spend the night in Reno, Nevada. From there, San Francisco would only be four hours away. Rey would find Luke Skywalker, give him his dog and the microchip, and live the rest of her average life in peace.

Eventually, she would have to call Leia Skywalker, but right now she needed some dial-in advice from her Fairy Godmother.

“Rey, good morning! How was the concert?”

Concert? Maz’s question was brimming with so much enthusiasm that it took Rey’s brain scrambled to catch up. Ah yes, that concert. Before...before everything. The old woman listened patiently as Rey explained the events of that night, and the unexpected consequences.

“Rey. Rey! Listen to me, I don’t quite get the story behind this micro-SD thing, but it sounds important. So as far as I understand, group A hid this thing on you without your knowledge, and group B, the gang, is looking for it. And you’re angry at group A but you forgive them, while also being in love with the leader of group B, who you’re in a spat with right now. Is that it?”

“I am not in love with—“ her voice broke off mid-sentence.

Who was she kidding? She couldn’t even lie to herself anymore.

Maz was silent, allowing Rey to internalize her revelation.

“What about him?” She asked Rey gently, “Is he not in love either?”

“I don’t know, Maz. He’s been chasing me for a week with his smoldering looks and his but-I’m-a-sentimental-beast love songs. And last night he was—“

Rey sighed.

“Last night he was so genuine. Or so I thought. I believed his affections, and I believed his words too. But this morning he was sending me mixed signals. On one hand he was rummaging through my stuff while I slept, but on the other he just gave me a new car.”

“Rey, I’ve met Syed. She didn’t seem like a very nice woman. I’m willing to believe that she will hurt you, especially now that she has a bone to pick. So why is Kylo Ren risking himself to protect you, after he put you in danger?”

“Ben Solo. It’s Ben Solo who’s trying to protect me, not Kylo Ren.”

“What’s the difference?”

As Rey mulled the question over in her head, it dawned on her that she had always seen a clear distinction between Kylo Ren and Ben Solo. Why?

“Kylo Ren is just a persona. He’s a spy who operates the gears and collects the debts for FORCE. Ben Solo has a more complicated backstory involving his parents, and he doesn’t stand a chance against real villains like Syed Ren. He was the one who kissed me last night.”

“And the man who was looking for the microchip as you slept, who was he?”

“Definitely not the same guy who offered me a car so that I could escape.”

“It looks to me like this boy has a lot of soul-searching to do. I don’t know if you can help with his problems. Take the car for now and get as far away from them as you can! Go find yourself some shelter and let the boy figure out his own life. He’ll come back to you if he really means to.”

Rey contemplated this in silence. It was simple enough to worry about herself for now and let Ben come back when he was ready. It seemed reasonable, doable.

When their conversation came to an end, Rey stopped at Three Forks to get breakfast and buy a few more supplies for the journey. Ideally, she would make as few stops as possible to really stay ahead. Feeling a renewed sense of determination, she was ready to face the world again.

This part of the Rockies was different than the area east of the Teton, which she had passed on arrival. In Wyoming she had driven past dry mountain prairies that were almost desert-like. The other side of the mountain chain was much hillier, reminiscent of the Alpine countryside. She spotted grassy knolls, valleys, and snowy mountain peaks set against the flowery plains.

She followed the valley south, feeling lighter and lighter with each passing kilometer. There was no one behind her. No menacing SUV, no Syed in sight. Could it be that all her worries were immaterial?

Well, there was one person she still had to worry about contacting: Leia Skywalker.

#reylo #fanfiction #Modern AU #Scenic Route

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daggerzine · 4 years

Text

Sohrab Habibion from SAVAK (and Obits, Edsel, etc.) fills in the gaps.

I first noticed the name Sohrab Habibion in the Sub Pop band Obits nearly a decade ago. He’d then gotten in touch with me a few years back when he sent me the last Savak record, Beg Your Pardon (the band’s 3rd). I did some backtracking and realized he was in the old DC post hardcore band Edsel, whose music I enjoyed. We got to talking and I realized this guy’s had a pretty interesting career and I needed to find out more. He was more than agreeable to an interview on the DAGGER site. Oh and dig this....he recently he began posting some videos that he took of shows in the DC area in the mid-80’s, which is discussed below. Let’s all thank our lucky stars that someone was there with a video camera at shows back then.

Back to SAVAK, they have recently released their fourth full-length, Rotting Teeth in the Horses Mouth (on the Ernest Jenning Record Co label, like the last few) and it’s a terrific record. The kind of post-punk that’s not afraid to pOp! and vice versa. So needless to say Sohrab had plenty to talk about. Let’s take a trip both down memory lane and back to the future as well.

Sohrab.... always pushin’ the hair products.

Did you grow up in the DC area? If not how did you end up there?

I moved to the suburbs of DC in 1979. My mom and I drove through Hurricane David from my grandfather’s house in Leonia, New Jersey to Annandale, Virginia with all of our possessions in the back of a Chevy Chevette. We had just left Iran because of the Revolution and, after a short stay in Bergen County to gather ourselves and do some research, my parents decided that we would resettle in the DC area.

Do you remember what the first record you ever bought was? First concert?

First record: It was a cassette of Love for Sale by Boney M. Actually maybe that was a gift from a friend. Either way I think of it as my first-owned album. I quickly had the lyrics to “Ma Baker” memorized and never gave a second thought to just how weird the cassette cover art was. If you’re not familiar, perhaps imagine an S&M dungeon version of Ohio Players? As a 7-year-old I think it just didn’t register. More interesting is that the producer, Frank Farian, was also the guy behind Milli Vanilli. If you’re up for it, I recommend doing some Googling about Mr. Farian, who was born Franz Reuther just after the start of World War II in a German valley settlement once known as the “Town of Leather.” It’s good stuff, I promise.

First concert: A friend’s older sister drove us to the old 9:30 Club to see one of the club’s 3 Bands for 3 Bucks nights. I remember feeling pretty excited about being in a part of town I didn’t know and seeing all kinds of people I didn’t ordinarily see. This was probably 1983 or 1984 so it was heavy on the New Wave look. In the basement of 9:30, once you’d squeezed down the narrow flight of stairs, there were bathrooms as well as a small counter that sold records and tapes. I bought The Halloween Cassette—a WGNS comp with Gray Matter, United Mutation, Velvet Monkeys, Malefice, Bloody Mannequin Orchestra and others—and the Minor Threat record that compiles the first two 7”s. On our drive home the DJ on WHFS played the song “Minor Threat,” which we literally had in our hands, and the whole thing felt tremendously serendipitous.

During his tryout with the Washington Bullets (Elvin Hayes beat him out).

At what age did you pick up the guitar?

One night my mom came home from a school fundraising auction with an acoustic guitar that she’d won in the raffle. I actually think it might be the only time anyone in my family has ever won a raffle. I was 13 or 14 and discovering that I was not as good of a baseball player as I’d hoped or wanted to be and the guitar felt more connected to my interests, so I started to teach myself chords and rudimentary scales. It wasn’t long before I was able to get an electric guitar and make a complete mess of sound in neighborhood basements with friends.

How old were you when the punk rock bug bit you?

Thirteen, I think. I’m pretty sure it was 7th grade. I didn’t know a lot about rock music. Having spent a chunk of my early life in Iran, I missed the boat on a lot of big, American rock’n’roll moments. I was 9 when I was first exposed to KISS by neighbors who were also in the Boy Scouts and so I kind of lumped all that costuming together and the whole thing seemed silly. Special badges and membership cards and various allegiances you were supposed to declare. I felt disengaged from a lot of things in the suburban culture around me, so punk made sense upon its arrival. It took some time to sort things out, like what made the Dead Kennedys good and The Exploited bad, but once that initial door opened, I never turned back. If anything it just opened additional doors to other subcultures and underground movements and marginalized artists and thinkers. Punk helped me recognize that my sympathies will always be with the disenfranchised, the unheralded, the amateur, the wandering tinkerer.

How and when did Edsel get together?

I met Nick Pelliocciotto and Geoff Sanoff (who wouldn’t be in Edsel for a few years) at a Government Issue show at the Hung Jury Pub. Nick and I briefly played in a band with Jim Spellman (Velocity Girl, High Back Chairs, Foxhall Stacks), but that fizzled out. So Nick and I were looking for a bass player when we saw Steve Ward play a cover of “White Rabbit” at a high school talent show. Nick and I agreed that Steve looked cool (he really did) and, when we ran into him in the parking lot, he passed our test by answering that his favorite DC band was Happy Go Licky. We started practicing in the basement of the house Nick, Jim Spellman and I lived in off Reno Road in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of DC. We didn’t know what we were doing. Nick played me a bunch of records I had never heard before and we would talk about various details in the music. He made me aware of the way certain things interacted, like the bass guitar and the kick drum. I’d never considered that. I was also unfamiliar with singing in a band, so was starting from scratch. A lot of it began as rhythmic sing-song-speak-howling that could be heard somewhat above the volume of the band. I’ll never forget recording our first demo at Inner Ear with Michael Hampton. When it came time for me to do the vocals we were all surprised by what they sounded like and Michael nicely said, “Why don’t we call it a day and you go home and work on some melodies that we can record tomorrow.” Ha! When Nick and I got back to the house we listened to a bunch of albums to get ideas for vocal melodies. The one that resonated with me was Midnight Oil’s 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and it helped me understand how you could take a simple line and move it around with chord changes. I didn’t figure out what phrasing was for some time to come, but that was the start. Thank you Michael, Nick and Peter Garrett.

How/when did you end up in NYC?

Well, it’s a circuitous story, but . . . Edsel toured a lot between 1993 and 1995. So much so that I moved back into my parents’ basement to avoid paying rent for a place I wasn’t going to be spending any time in. My folks are lovely and it was a fine arrangement, but I missed having an apartment of my own. On tour in Chicago I was presented with the opportunity of a cheap living situation in a city that I liked, so I moved there. I had this fantasy that the band could keep it together while being in 3 different cities—Geoff had moved to NYC and the two Steve’s were in DC. Not a chance. I had a good year in Chicago, working at the Empty Bottle and playing with different local musicians, but Edsel basically succumbed to inertia and I decided to move back to DC to make a solo record. My parents had a cabin in the Shenandoah Valley and I went there for a period of time with my 4-track and the hopes of discovering whatever my version of Leonard Cohen and Brian Eno might be. That didn’t happen, but I learned a lot about recording myself and making mistakes and stumbling on things I liked that I hadn’t intended. Around this point I got a call from Michael Hampton, who’d moved to New York City a few years earlier. He said his neighbor in the West Village had moved out and he wondered if I might want to take the apartment. I was feeling pretty untethered and the idea of giving Manhattan a shot was exciting, so in November 1997 I packed up my books and CDs and headed up here. I’ve since crossed the bridge over to Brooklyn, but have no plans of leaving. I love this city and all of its flaws.

How about Obits? I know Alexis was in Edsel….had you known Rick already?

Alexis played in Edsel for a few reunion shows we did in 2013, but he wasn’t in the original lineup of the group. I first met Alexis in 1985 when Lünch Meat, his band, played with Kids For Cash, my band, at my local community center. He and I also share a birthday and a similar sense of humor, so when he joined Obits after the departure of Scott Gursky, our original drummer, it was an effortless transition. I’d also played with Alexis in Girls Against Boys on a 2002 European tour that Eli couldn’t do. I was Fake Eli and got to play bass on some of my favorite GvsB tunes, which was a blast. Alexis has a humorous diary from that tour: http://www.gvsb.com/euro_diary/index.html

Here’s an excerpt just so you know it’s worth the clicks:

“scott has determined that we should get rid of all the equipment and excess drummers and bass players and just travel with a painted sheet (we in the biz call this a scrim). that way he could have a band painted on it and just cut out the head of the singer and stick his own head through. this would reduce overhead and be a whole lot less of a hassle than having squabbling bass players and drummers with no IQ whatsoever.”

Rick and I met at an art show of his in the summer of ‘99. In fact, in looking to clarify the year I came across this email I sent to a friend:

“Last night my friend Hiroshi took me to an opening of his friend Rick Froberg’s work in some unknown Lower East Side apartment/gallery. I was shocked at how incredible his stuff was. His etchings like Goya’s, his prints like a German expressionist and his paintings like a weird amalgam of Raymond Pettibon and Norman Rockwell. But everything was very original despite its familiarity. He gave me one of his prints and I actually ended up buying one of his paintings. I’m really excited about it.”

Funny thing is that on that European GvsB tour I was wearing a Hot Snakes shirt. Little could I have guessed that I’d be in a band with Alexis and Rick 10 years later. Or maybe I could’ve? Our behavior and patterns are probably more predictable than I’d like to admit.

Anyway, long and short of it is after meeting Rick we started hanging out and as Hot Snakes was winding down in the early aughts he proposed we get together and strum our guitars. We had a good time and kept at it until things started to take shape. Fast forward a bit and our friend Speck browbeat Rick into playing with her band, Orphan, at Cake Shop. That was early 2008 and the internet did us a favor by sharing a bootleg recording of our gig, which led us to signing with Sub Pop. Seems just as weird now as it did then, but so it goes! The band was a hoot to be in and we had a grand time, particularly touring. The trips we made to Europe, Australia, Japan and Brazil were fantastic. I never thought I’d be able to do that playing scrappy rock’n’roll music. All the people that we met, the local specialties that we ate and drank . . . and drank . . . and then ate some more. Unforgettable. Until I forget them. Then I’ll refer to the documentation.

Obits.....always ready to rumble (notice the switchblade comb in Froberg’s pocket).

Tell me about the end of Obits and the beginning of Savak? Who came up with the name?

The end of Obits was a little unexpected. At least the timing of it. All bands end, so it wasn’t surprising in that regard, but we had a French tour planned and had been offered some East Coast dates with Mudhoney, so it was a bummer not to be able to do those. But it had been a cold and miserable winter and Rick had some family stuff to marshal, so it felt best to call it, which is what we did on April 1st, 2015. The April Fool’s part wasn’t intentional, but I liked that it happened that way, what with being in a band often feeling like a cosmic joke anyway. But we’re all still good friends and very much in touch with each other. Funny thing is we’d actually written a fourth record with two drummers, as Matt Schulz had started playing with us as well (we did one show with both Alexis and Matt, which was fun), so on my hard drive somewhere are the demos and jams for that, including covers of “The In-Crowd” (https://youtu.be/KYbwk26mYJA) and Beasts of Bourbon’s “I Don't Care About Nothing Anymore.” (https://youtu.be/IpWi4OxhJXY)

Towards the end of Obits I’d started getting together with other friends to make noise. I was playing with Greg Simpson and Matt Schulz, doing instrumental versions of Hooterville Trolley and Shadows tunes, and separately with Michael Jaworski and Benjamin Van Dyke, just bashing out riffs. I asked all involved if they would want to combine the two and everyone was into it. The nice thing was Michael and I got to write with two different drummers, which opened up new ideas, and for a band that was just getting the swing of our internal vocabulary, it helped jumpstart the mojo.

I can’t remember at what point we were talking about band names, but when Viet Cong couldn’t take the heat for their name and decided to change it I made a joke about calling our group SAVAK. Then the more I thought about it the more I liked it and the group was on board, so we ran with it. The Iranian side of my family was a bit perplexed and bemused, but they all understood that this was a rock’n’roll outfit and not some creepy tribute to the former secret police in Iran. I’ve come to appreciate how that type of band name is a good litmus test. With a moniker like SAVAK you can see who actually knows anything about global political history, but more importantly you immediately know that anyone who takes issue with it isn’t likely to be interested in or even be familiar with punk rock or underground culture. So that person’s opinion on the subject doesn’t hold weight for me and I’ll attempt to redirect to a different subject that could be entertaining to chat about, like food or wine or bicycle maintenance or John le Carré books or, I dunno, HTML/CSS?

Savak has been recording pretty consistently…how did the new record come together so quickly? Who came up with the title?

Michael Jaworski, the other guitarist, singer and co-songwriter, came up with the title of Rotting Teeth in the Horse’s Mouth. Apparently it appeared to him in a dream and, well, I just liked the way it sounded. Both in that it reminded me of the DK’s classic Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables and as a play on the idiom “hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth,” since the current mouth we hear more often than is good for anyone’s mental health has enough proverbial rotting teeth to fill the mouth of a giant armadillo.

We worked on the album over a period of months. Sometimes we would get together with Matt Schulz, our drummer, and hammer stuff out. Other times either Michael or I would start something at home and build it from there. The main thing was to keep it feeling like a band had cut it together live, regardless of how accurate that may be on any given song. We started with 16 tunes, ditched 2 of them that weren’t as developed, and recorded the remaining 14. Then we picked the 10 that sounded the most cohesive for the album and the others will come out as singles later in the year. We spent many intensely focused hours editing, overdubbing and trying to really hone in on what each tune needed. I like discreet events in music and subtle details that may not make themselves evident for a few listens. A keyboard that only appears in the second verse or a backing vocal that’s buried deep in the right channel of the outro or a flanged cymbal crash at the top of the chorus. Stuff that doesn’t have to happen in the live version but makes the recording a little richer without being overbearing.

SAVAK, just before diving in.

In Savak, re; the songwriting process, is it both you and Michael together or do you write independently?

There’s always a collaborative element. We each add or edit the other’s songs to some degree. That’s one of the things I really like about our partnership. We actively try to keep our egos out of the way. And while we may not share the exact same taste about every little thing, we trust each other’s sensibility. I think that willingness to let go of our own ideas makes them more interesting and strengthens the working relationship.

Tell us about working with Arto Lindsay?

Rick Froberg was employed as an illustrator at a web-based, digital media shop in SoHo called Funny Garbage and he helped get me a gig making music for cartoons and video games they were producing for companies like Cartoon Network. I had access to a recording studio on a floor above our office which was run by an incredibly talented musician/producer named Andres Levin. One day ‘Dre asked if I could work on a session with a friend of his for a gallery installation. It seemed interesting, so I agreed. The guy showed up with two pillow cases that he wanted to put on his arms and flap wildly in front of a mic. His idea was to pitch the pillow case recording down a few octaves and add a lot of reverb so it would sound like a giant bird was flying. I don’t remember if he was pleased with the results, but we had a blast trying, and it turned out that fella was Arto Lindsay. He got in touch with me soon after about recording his next album. I was direct about the fact that while I was brisk with the ProTools and could run sessions efficiently, I was not a real engineer who knew about microphone placement and how to apply compression, etc. He said that was fine and arranged to rent a recording rig for his apartment and we got straight to work with Melvin Gibbs, who is Arto’s writing partner, co-producer, and bass player. We made Invoke in 2002 and two years later we made Salt, once again doing the whole thing in his Chelsea living room. Arto’s a wonderful guy, as is Melvin, and we had a terrific time together. I also learned a lot. He has such a deep knowledge of avante garde music and art and a whole world of Brazilian culture that he can tap into. And Melvin is an incredible musician, so getting to see how he approached assembling Arto’s ideas was fascinating. He was also forgiving with the fact that a punker like me was trying to edit Brazilian rhythms when I was having an impossible time even identifying the first beat of the groove. There was a lot of, “Please just tell me where the ONE is.” Arto knows a wide array of people and the process of making a record with him was very much about getting it done, but not at the expense of the vibe, so if someone dropped by you’d just have to roll with it. Sometimes that person would bring their instrument and overdub on a song or two, so I had to figure out how to be flexible about the recording process to make sure it was gonna be smooth for all involved, regardless of if it was a violin player or a guy doing a percussion track using a cardboard box. I ended up calling Geoff Sanoff for advice quite a bit—to the point where Arto would joke, “Is it time to call Geoff?” Ha! But he knew the deal going in, so all was fine. The experience of making those records was great and I got to meet some interesting folks. Also my appreciation of Brazilian music completely exploded. An unexpected and super cool project with Arto, Debbie Harry and Mikhail Baryshnikov also came from that. Another side note: when we were recording Invoke there was a song which Arto wanted to get Animal Collective involved in. This was 2001 and they were still more of a record store employee kind of band, but Arto had a couple of their CDs (Spirit They’re Gone Spirit They’ve Vanished and Danse Manatee, I think) and was really into them. We arranged to go into Stratosphere Sound, the studio that was owned by Adam Schlesinger, Andy Chase, and James Iha, where Geoff Sanoff worked, and do the session there. They had an interesting way of working—they would manipulate all of the instruments, including live drums, and have everything run through their PA and then have Geoff mic the PA speakers. So the final thing was this gauzy, mushy, blur that was like a sonic paste. They totally knew what they were doing and I was particularly impressed with Noah/Panda Bear as a musician.

Speaking of legends, how did you begin collaborating with Michael Hampton?

First we should be clear that we’re not discussing “Magic” Mike Hampton AKA Michael “Kidd Funkadelic” Hampton. According to Discogs, the Michael Hampton I know is “Michael Hampton (3)” of Brief Weeds fame. He’s a few years older than me so I missed his days in SOA and The Faith, but I was a fan and saw him in Embrace and One Last Wish. I attended American University in DC and ran into him on campus, told him I also played guitar and suggested that we “jam sometime.” Knowing him now this detail cracks me up because I’m positive I freaked him out and that he was horrified by the idea of “jamming” with an arbitrary, long-haired frosh. Some time after Edsel started we asked Michael to help produce our demo, as we were clueless about the studio. And when he was in Manifesto our bands played together and we got to be better friends. After he moved to New York, it was he and his wife, Monica, who encouraged me to move here. They also introduced me to my wife. And for the last 15 or so years we’ve worked together on soundtracks for indie films, documentaries and commercials. I can’t recall how that collaboration first started, but I love working with Michael. He’s got a quick wit, so there’s lots of yucks involved, but he also has a remarkable knack for music composition and knows how to layer ideas for perfect cinematic effect. As a guitar player he remains one of my favorites. Michael’s distilled Bob Andrews from Gen X and Captain Sensible and George Harrison and all these choice rock’n’roll and punk players into something distinctly his own.

Somewhere in Madrid, Spain (Spain Radio Nacional)

Tell us your top 10 desert island discs?

That’s tough. I’d like to ensure a bunch of different moods are covered, so let’s see . . . how about:

Hamza El Din - Music Of Nubia

Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou - Éthiopiques 21: Piano Solo

Mark Hollis - s/t

Skip James - Today!

Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

Mission Of Burma - Vs.

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers

Television - Marquee Moon

The Velvet Underground - s/t

Wire - 154

Who are some of your favorite current bands?

Bed Wettin' Bad Boys, Cable Ties, Contractions, FACS, Gotobeds, Grey Hairs, Hammered Hulls, Hot Snakes, Light Beams, METZ, Mint Mile, Modern Nature, Patois Counselors, Pays P., Rattle, Skull Practitioners, Slum of Legs, Sunwatchers, Tanning Bats, TK Echo, The Unit Ama.

I know I’m forgetting stuff. There’s a ton of excellent music being made right now.

What’s next for Savak? Once the lockdown is over will you guys tour?

It’s hard to be certain about anything these days, but I do know we’re eager to play once the Javel water has cleared. My hope is that we reschedule our UK tour as well as the shows we had on deck with Archers of Loaf. We were also trying to coordinate a Japanese tour, which we’d love to do, so I’ll add that to the list.

In the meantime we have a couple of non-album singles coming out later in the year.

I love making music, so whatever form it needs to take to make it work given our circumstances I’m fine with. Wanna jam on our phones? Hit me up!

SAVAK’s new one- Rotting Teeth in The Horses Mouth

BONUS QUESTION: Tell us about all of those shows you recorded in the 80’s and have been putting up on the Dischord page? Great stuff!

Thanks! My mom bought me a Sony Betacam in 1985. I honestly had no inclination towards videotaping anything prior to this, but I think she may have thought it was a positive thing for a teenager to get involved in instead of playing Atari or hanging out at the Orange Julius at the mall or whatever. So I had this camera and I started taping what I was doing, which was basically going to shows. I didn’t think much about it and I never watched the tapes afterwards, so just slowly built up a collection of recordings that sat in a box at my parents’ house for years. It wasn’t until James Schneider started working on what eventually became the Punk the Capital movie that the tapes were unearthed. Then Scott Crawford wanted to use them for Salad Days and had the genius idea of getting Dave Grohl’s production company to digitize them, as they wanted footage for that Sonic Highways show. So at Scott’s suggestion I sheepishly asked if it was something they could do and they immediately said yes. I was pretty stunned by their generosity. The tapes themselves are now part of the Punk Archive in the DC Public Library, which is both cool and hilarious. The idea of random stuff I videotaped when I was 15 being part of an institutional archive is pretty absurd. Now that I’ve got this extra pandemic time to spend in front of my computer, I’ve been editing down each set, adjusting the light balance so the footage is less murky and also remastering the audio so they sound better. The timing of the Dischord Records Fan Page on Facebook is fortuitous, as it provides a reasonably eager audience for what might have otherwise just been a few additional gigs of server space being cooled in a Google data center in Moncks Corner, South Carolina.

“Who you callin’ a low life?”

www.savakband.com

www.savak.bandcamp.com

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