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alwaysdowntohidewithyou · 5 years ago

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Florence Welch Interview

Transcript of Florence Welch’s interview with John Seabrook for the New Yorker Festival.

October 11th, 2019.

New York, NY.

Edited for clarity.

John Seabrook: I’m going to properly introduce you because I think a woman this accomplished needs a proper introduction. For those of you who read the New Yorker this week, let me assure you that I wrote this myself, no machine helping me. In ten years as a band, Florence and the Machine have released four chart topping, award winning studio albums. Lungs, 2009, Ceremonials, 2011, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, 2015, and High as Hope last year. These many-layered works weave together a range of different styles, from the bands punky first single “Kiss With a Fist,” to the rich choral and percussive tapestries of songs like “Shake It Out,” to Neo-Soul such as “Where Is the Love” (sic), and to the startlingly honest lyrics of “Hunger.” Heartbreak and loneliness rarely feel as delightful and inviting as in a Florence Welch song. The music performs the very rare trick of remaining true to its indie roots while at the same time, sounding expansive and monumental. While British listeners sometimes look to Kate Bush as a musical antecedent, here in New York, we are maybe more inclined to think of Patti Smith, in her path-finding career as a poet who found a way to address the big issues of literature, death, love loneliness, and beauty in the idiom popular song. And we are especially inclined to think of you as following Patti tonight because you are literally sitting in the seat that Patti was warming only an hour ago.

The band has also released two live albums that established themselves as major festival headliners, with a sound big enough to fill the green fields of Glastonbury and deserts of Coachella—where the artist broke her foot performing in 2015. With lyrics intimate enough to touch each individual heart in the crowd of 100,000, Florence lent her extraordinary vocal talents to Calvin Harris’ “Sweet Nothing,” and her eye for clothes and visual imagery to the band’s 29 music videos. She has also recorded several outstanding covers including “Stand By Me,” “Tiny Dancer,” and Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.” And finally, and most relevant to the discussion tonight, Florence is the author of this book, “Useless Magic,” which is a 2018 collection of her lyrics, poems, journal entries, and sketches, which will serve as our primary text for this evening. Here ends the introduction.

Florence Welch: (Laughs) Thank you so much for having me. Oh, British people find it really hard to hear the things that they’ve done.

J: I know, you’re so modest. It’s hard to hear all that.

F: Everyone’s cheering and I’m like, “Oh no.” This is my nightmare.

J: Let’s take a deep breath and not talk about your accomplishments any more.

F: Okay, good. That’s done, that’s done. (Laughs)

J: Let’s talk about—you’re on a bit of a hiatus at the present from touring. Can we start there? Talk about how that happened, where that came from.

F: Yeah, of course. Well, I definitely wanted to do the New Yorker, because I love the New Yorker so much. So, this was the last thing that I said yes to. I’m very glad I did, you guys are very loud! Yeah, the last—well, I’ve been touring, oh my gosh, I’ve been touring since I was twenty-one? And it is kind of a cycle of two years of—actually we did not stop touring between Lungs and Ceremonials, because we booked a U2 tour somewhere in the middle when we were supposed to be making the next record, and they were like, “You’ve got to do this. This is pretty big.” Like, oh. Okay. And you know, that was a big thing that helped get us going in America. But I was trying to make Ceremonials as well, so yeah, Lungs and Ceremonials was just sort of one—ugh, I don’t know how long that was. Like five years of touring?

And then I had a break. And it was also kind of a breakdown (laughs). Which is what happens when you don’t stop touring for five years. But actually, I don’t know. I don’t think that was because of the touring, I think it was then when the touring stopped, all the structures that I’d been using...with touring you’re kind of very taken care of, so you can be quite a high functioning fuck-up, which is what I was. Very high functioning, but so self-destructive and with such a lack of any will to take care of myself. People take care of you on tour. Like, if you show up and do the show, people get you dressed, and you ripped all your clothes, and they’ll carry you to a plane. The thing is that I never messed up any shows, which was weird. Like I would mess up hotel rooms, and my whole life, and my relationships, and blah blah blah. But never the shows, so, I don’t know what that was about (laughs).

Then I went back on tour for How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, after my break slash breakdown, and that was the first tour that I’d done sober and...yeah, it was amazing. The whole process of that record and kind of how heartbroken I was not just over a relationship, but also the breakdown of my relationship with partying and how those things that I thought defined me didn’t work anymore.

And this person really didn’t want to go out with me. Which now, in hindsight, I really don’t blame them for because I don’t know if you want to date someone who shows up at your house with a bottle of vodka shouting, “Why will you not go out with me?” And they’re like, “Because of this. All of this.” And I’m like, “I don’t understand!” Now I kind of really respect them for that. Like, “Oh wow, ‘cause like you had a sense of self, and you had self-respect, I get it!” But yeah, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, was a huge healing process, and when I came to the end of it, I did this thing where I dove straight into making High as Hope. I think I’m a person who works in extremes, so again, I didn’t stop working for...I just didn’t stop. I don’t know how to relax. I think that’s probably clear, so I started making High as Hope immediately and that meant that the next tour came around really fast. Although I would say that these shows that I’ve just done have been my favorite I’ve ever done, I loved them.

J: Where were they?

F: Well, all over the world. They were in loads of different places. But it was again, like a year and a half of travel and I’m not a natural traveler. Like I’m not—

J: You don’t like flying I think? F: Oh my god, I’m so scared of flying. It’s the worst! I had hypnotism on it and it wore off (laughs). Nobody told me that hypnotism wears off! Or I just think my anxiety is so powerful that it destroyed the hypnotism. It like, defeated it. I remember reading that the lead singer of The Liars is also really afraid of flying. I think it could be a lead singer thing as well, ‘cause you think that you are the center of the universe and if something really dramatic and catastrophic is going to happen, it should happen to you. So I think there’s a level of ego involved with the fear of flying that I’m hoping in time, I will dismantle.

I find travel in itself, and being away—especially without kind of the crutch of, you know, partying—I get lonely and it’s hard. Although I love the shows and performing, it’s such a big part of me, I...after this tour, I was just worn out by the travel. I was like, I just need to not get on planes for awhile, and I really need to just stay in one place, and try and be like, a human, because although performing runs in my veins, touring is so monotonous, and it starts to feel like you’re losing your mind—and I don’t have much left to lose. So I need it.

J: And there really isn’t any better way to do it probably, right?

F: I keep wondering. I was like, to my manager, “I’m thirty-three, I can’t sleep on a bus anymore!” She’s like, “This is how it is.” You know, I keep trying to think of ways to make it more holistic, but we’ve tried everything and there’s just no getting around the travel because people want to see you, and I’m so lucky to have the fan base in so many places that I do, and I appreciate people and I want to see them. But it means you’re going to have to sleep on a moving vehicle. Which is fucking weird (laughs). When you’re not passed out drunk it’s weird.

J: It’s not like, you curl up in your bunk and the bus takes off and you wake up in the next place the next morning?

F: I don’t know, my brain is so juttery anyway, like sleeping on something that is juttery is a nightmare for me. When I’m trying to sleep on a bus, I’m already someone who tends to get really stuck in their head, and my head is a place that rattles around, so to be in the actual physical representation of that every night, is like a nightmare. I’ve always had a hard time sleeping since I was a kid, and I’m a really light sleeper, always kind of dreaming. I don’t know if I ever get that deep, so yeah. Some things are easier when you can just pass out drunk.

J: Right. We’ll get to that part. Let’s jump back to the beginning of your career. We’re talking about a decade here, so it’s really not a great deal of time but you hit the ground running. I thought we would sort of go through your life by talking about a few songs and your professional life. We’re gonna start with “Dog Days Are Over,” which isn’t the first single I think from the album. I think—

F: “Kiss With a Fist,” yeah.

J: In a way, this is the second single, but perhaps ultimately the bigger hit from the album. I’m not sure, but I feel like this is a song where you first discovered your sound? Or at least for me, I feel like this is where I first heard your sound. Maybe for a lot of us. So I wondered if you could talk about how this song happened, and the lyrics are up here. We can talk about a few of those too. But talk a little, generally, about where this song came from, and how it fit into what work you’d been doing at the time.

F: Ehm, what was I doing? I think I was still at art college, and I—or maybe I’d dropped out?

J: You were at Camberwell College of the Arts, for one year.

F: I wasn’t a very committed art student. I made a lot of installations. I already loved patterns and fabrics and fake flowers and I’d make these big installations, and then kind of sleep in them, and pretend it was an art piece—I was just really hungover. Like, “It’s art! It’s definitely art. Don’t touch it!” I was making flyers for the first Florence and the Machine shows using the photocopier. So I’m sorry for the use of supplies and then not handing anything in.

I’d met Isa of “Isa Machine” fame. She is amazing and we kind of grew up together. She used to babysit my cousin, and then we kind of lost touch. So in South London, for awhile there was a big art collective that squatted the buildings that I lived really near, so when I was a teenager I used to break into all the squat parties, and they would bring all these christmas trees, and everyone would be wearing like, bin bags and crazy outfits, and I was like, “Oh I found them! I found my people!” I was at one of those parties and Isa was there. She was the DJ. She called herself “Laydee Isa,” but it had like seven E’s and seven Z’s. She was like “Oh, I used to babysit your cousin!” And I was like, “Heeey!” I was kind of out of it, I think. She said she had a studio, and that I should come down and make a song.

At the time, there were so many boys in bands. It was around that time of The Libertines, and The White Stripes, and The Strokes—it was a very band oriented time. So I had been writing some songs but because everything was on guitar, and I didn’t know how to play guitar, I just assumed that I would be a singer in someone else’s band, or I’d be a front-woman. I think there was a kind of internalized self-doubt as well. I know I’m not a trained musician. I didn’t have the attention span to sit and learn the piano, or the focus. I was good at singing. I think my attention span doesn’t work...I was like, “I’m already good at this thing.” I could never focus enough to properly learn, which I really regret, actually. I really regret that. So I didn’t have the sort of—I didn’t have the idea that I could make my own band basically. I thought I would be a front-person for someone else’s, but then I started writing songs, and there were so many guitarists about, and that’s how I wrote “Kiss With a Fist.”

They were kind of little gothic fairytales. There’s so much guilt and drama involved—I don’t know what I was. It was kind of like, I think I was already trying to process...I just think from an early age, I felt so much shame, and I don’t really know why. I don’t know where that came from. I think those songs were a way of trying to process what I felt was wrong about me, and through these metaphors—like, this idea that you’d done something terrible, but a bird has seen you do it. So you get the bird, and kill the bird and you eat it so that it can’t tell anybody what you did. I don’t know what the fuck I was doing. But then, you go to sleep, and you’re like, “It’s fine, I got the guy, I’m good.” But when you wake up, you try to speak, and all that comes out of your mouth is the bird singing what you did, and that’s the only thing you can say—which is so dark for a nineteen year old. I think I was just snogging people I wasn’t supposed to or something. But even before, I always felt sort of sensitive as a kid, and I don’t know. I felt like other people had a ticket to kind of get through life that I didn’t know. And how did you get that thing? And everyone seems to have a map, and I don’t. I think these songs were a way of trying to express through these little metaphors how it felt. I was already really obsessed with death in the way that you are as a teenager, and kind of imagining my own funeral all the time. I put these songs with guitars, ‘cause that’s what was around, so that would be like “Birdsong,” in which I wrote with Dev Hynes of Blood Orange. ‘Cause there were so many musicians about—like Kid Harpoon was around, Dev was playing with the Test Icicles at the time, and you could kind of play with anyone. Me and Dev were just sitting in the top room of a pub, and we kind of came up with that song just before we did a show together. That’s kind of how I would make the songs with whoever was around. Isa was sort of the first person who gave me the instrument, who was like, “Why don’t you just try and do something on this?” We called it the “shit keyboard,” it cost like 100 pounds, it was a Yamaha. It burned in a fire!

J: Before or after you used it?

F: After! It burned in a fire. She was the first person who—I think as well because she was another young woman, I think, as a female songwriter...I don’t know if this comes from, like—I had to kind of unlearn deference. I had to really stop deferring. That’s something that’s quite hard, especially when most of the people I was writing with were male. I was instinctively deferring because I was a young woman. I think with Isa, we were kind of the same age, and we kind of bossed each other around! There wasn’t any sort of power imbalance or anything. So she handed me this keyboard and she’s like, “Just do what you want.” The first song that I actually wrote, which you can tell because it’s just an ascending scale, was “Between Two Lungs,” and that was kind of the first thing that sort of felt like it really came truly from me. I was so excited by that, then that the next song we wrote was “Dog Days.” That was like, the first two. They’re not the most complicated chords, but because I never fucking played anything, I thought they were amazing! I was just like, “I’m making this sound? Can you hear this?” Like yeah, it’s fucking piano. It makes that sound for everybody. But because I was the one getting to put them in order and stuff, I just thought like, “This sounds incredible.” She only had like a little...it was in Crystal Palace, which is in South London, we didn’t really have any equipment. We stole drums from someone. The sound of the drums—which I now realize is the same beat as “People Have the Power” (Claps hands to “Dog Days'' percussive rhythm). Which is what we were doing in Patti’s show. We used pens and stuff, and it was kind of, the feeling of that song just came from a lot of enthusiasm, but not really any skill or equipment. So, that’s how it came about.

J: Can I ask you a little bit about the words in the song? “Happiness hit her like a train on a track,” and then later, “happiness hits her like a bullet in the back.” Is it happiness that’s chasing her here? Because it sounds like a celebratory song. Like, the dog days are over and now we’re gonna have some fun! But then it seems like happiness is the thing that’s after her.

F: Well it kind of always was in my mind because I would have such extreme feelings of joy but then I would end up staying out for like three days, so the happiness would always come back down to just terror and panic. I also think that my joy and excitement switch is very close to my panic switch, and I sometimes I don’t know which one is going to go. I think somehow I also equated—I was very mistrustful of happiness, and I think already by the time I was writing the song, I was a very messy person. Not like, untidy, but kind of messy emotionally. I think I’d already done quite a lot of damage to myself and others by that time. We start young in England. By the time I wrote this song, I think I was already, like...yeah, happiness hit her, like a bullet in the back, struck from a great height, by someone who should’ve known better than that. It was sort of like, I didn’t deserve this. You should know better, and I also knew I wanted to be a singer and a performer, and there is this sense that you’ve been struck from a great height, but you are the fucking wrong person (laughs).

J: Huh… okay (laughs). Let’s go from there into writing songs versus writing poetry, because the book is mainly songs, but actually there are poems in the back, and the preface has this interesting line, which I will read. “The act of singing gives the most mundane words and phrases reverence and glory, you can make a shrine out of anything.” I was just wondering, are there certain poems that don’t become songs, and why? Is there something that makes it a song, and something that makes it a poem?

F: I think the first things that I ever started writing when I was a kid was poetry. I mean it wasn’t good, but when I was seven or eight, I was writing poetry. Then I think when I started to think about actually writing my own poetry—like High as Hope is actually an album formed out of poems to begin with. It was a friend of mine called Robert Montgomery who was...he’s a poet, but also a visual artist, and he takes his poems and he turns them into big art pieces with neon lights, and he had said to me, “I think you’re a poet, and I think you should try and write some poetry.” So with that encouragement, I was like, “Okay, okay. I’ll try.” The first thing that I wrote, that wasn’t consciously in mind as a song, but it was a poem, was just a list of things that I thought I couldn’t put into a song.

J: That’s in here! That’s very interesting.

F: Yeah, it’s about getting kicked out of Topshop for drinking Rosé in the changing rooms. I was like, “I don’t know. It doesn’t sing well. So I guess it’s going here.”

J: But you also said in this poem that is not a song, “I’m not sure I can put these things into a song, these muddy trinkets, not beautiful enough. Too bloody and ragged. I always felt the songs should transcend the swamp.” F: Yeah, I think there was a way that I could use metaphor and my imagination to kind of beautify the things that had happened to me, or that I’d done, and in a way kind of own them. Like, when I talk about giving things reverence, I never wanted to actually have the songs written down because I thought that if you saw how sometimes ordinary some of the words are—like the word “kitchen sink” is in “Dog Days,” but when you’re singing something you’re turning it into a hymn almost. You’re giving it a spiritual quality, so I was worried that if the songs were written down, they would maybe lose that. So when I was writing, and I know it’s a song, I feel as if there’s a character or something that’s coming through me that’s bigger than me, and has very big ideas. It’s quite clear on things, kind of understands the bigger questions and I just have to let it happen. So when I was writing poetry, it was a different voice, and it felt like it was almost an even more personal voice because these things were just going to stay on the page. They weren’t going to be viewed with the grandeur of song. They were just going to live there, and who is that person? The drunk Topshop person?

J: You even talked about that—“This new voice, this me voice, is it conversational? Confessional?” Actually there is a poem (New York Poem (for Polly)) I put up here. This is one of the poems from the book. It’s a beautiful poem and it also has your parents and New York in it. So I thought it would give us a jumping off point for your parents. Your mother and father both appear in several of your songs, and have been part of your life. Your mother is a renaissance scholar...

F: Yeah, she is. She’s very smart.

J: And what’s her focus? What’s her specialty?

F: Her focus is the renaissance, above all else. I think even in our childhood her focus was definitely the renaissance (laughs). She’s written four or five books on renaissance studies. It’s funny, she’s always having...she’s always horrified by my exquisitiveness (sic), and how much I love clothes, and bags. But I’m like, “You write books on renaissance shopping, and when we go to museums, I have to stop you from touching things. You love stuff too! Just stuff in the past.” So she’s very interested in what people wore, and textiles, and how people shopped, so she’s read a lot of books about that. And I love shopping too, mom!

J: Didn’t she say to you, when you said you could remember every single outfit you wore, “What a horrible waste of a brain?”

F: (Laughs). I was like, “Oh, you know how I remember things mom? I remember things by what outfit I wore.” She went, “Oh what a waste of your brain.” I was dyslexic as a kid, and she’s worked so hard to get into the upper echelons of academia, and she just keeps getting more and more titles that I can’t even remember now.

J: She’s a provost.

F: Oh, she’s a provost! She’s a provost, yeah, but it just keeps going up. So I don’t know—

J: Dean?

F: No, she’s been that, yup. But I think it’s higher now.

J: So what’s next, chancellor?

F: I think that’s next! But she’s such an impressive person; she would tell me that when I was a baby she was trying to finish papers, or finish books, and she would rest me on a photocopier—it seems like me and my mum both love photocopiers. She just kept working, but I think...none of her children went into academia, and she’s a huge advocate for higher education. That was something that...I was really dyslexic when I was in school, and I couldn’t spell and I struggled at school. I mean, I still don’t think I can do my times tables. Numbers is like a foreign language to me. She’s very staunch; she’s so within herself. She’s incredibly strong, she’s been through so much. I always felt like I was unacademic, emotional, and creative, and sometimes she would look at me as if she had given birth to an octopus. Like, “What is this thing?” I always really looked up to her though, for her drive and her work ethic, and how much she...we’re both very hard workers, I think. I definitely got that from her. And obviously her love of the renaissance has affected me (laughs).

J: And your father comes from, well a journalism family, right? His father was the editor of The Spectator?

F: He was the editor of The Telegraph. I think maybe and The Spectator. I think maybe both, yeah.

J: Okay. And he was a frustrated writer? Or a wishy was-writer, became an advertising guy?

F: Yeah, I think my father is incredibly charming and charismatic and he should have been a performer, really. He is a sort of poet as well, and he was always so imaginative, and would tell me stories when I was a kid that he would then...he was like, “I’m writing a book now!” He moved to Russia when I was fourteen to write a Russian crime novel that my mother tries to pin all my therapy on. Like, I think there’s other stuff. Like not just Dad moving to Russia to write a spy novel, I think there’s other things at play.

J: Did that in fact have a big effect on you?

F: I don’t think it was just that (laughs). I think she’s deflecting slightly. He’s a really creative person and actually he was much more encouraging of me going into the arts. My mother was so desperate for me to go to university. She just didn’t see music. She saw music as a dangerous career, it wasn’t a “forever” career, she was worried I was going to get hurt. She was like, “Get a degree, get some stability, and then do your music thing.” She would, every time I got paid, be like, “It’s not forever money. Put that away.”

But my father, he was always—I mean they’re divorced, so they were like two sides of, you know—they had very different opinions about lots of things. So they didn’t work together. He’s a true bohemian at heart, and he tour-managed us for our whole tour that we did with MGMT around Europe, and England. He did it in his camper-van! MGMT offered us this tour, and it was the first tour we’d ever got. It was a huge break for us actually. We didn’t have any money, and we couldn’t afford a tour bus, so my dad took his sundance camper-van, and we drove all the way around Europe! I mean, MGMT are out there, but I think they thought we were really crazy. So we would just show up there, pots and pans clanking, like, “We’re here!” The first show we did—I mean, I did the show as an early, pre-Lungs era shows where I’d be wearing one of Rob’s t-shirts, drunk and screaming and that was the show. It was excellent (laughs). Then I fell off some speaker stacks. We all had to share a dressing room, as well. That was really cute. Then MGMT came off stage after that show, and they all came off stage, and they’re all like, “Oh my god. The ghost Andy Worhol was in the fucking audience.” Then my dad walked in.

J: Oh, that was your dad? F: It was my dad! Because he had this grey hair, and he kind of dressed as an Andy Worhol, and was right up front. I was like, “Yeah, this is my father, who is managing us.” Then I moved from the tour bus, and then I brought my girlfriend on tour with me. I was like, “Yeah, just come with us!” We got banned from MGMT’s tour bus for being a bad influence (laughs). Which, if you know MGMT, that’s a big achievement.

J: Yeah, that’s a big achievement. Congratulations! Well that gets me into the next subject, which is drinking. Which we both have in common.

F: (Laughs) J: So after the success of Lungs, you were thrown into the world of success and fashion. In particular, you became a darling of fashion. You did the costume ball—anyway, when you read your interviews from that time, you bragfully...in interviews you’re falling apart! You’re drinking at your hotel—you set your hotel room at the Bowery hotel on fire? But the bar bill was more than the hotel damage cost!

F: Yeah, it is (laughs).

J: Anyway, I guess it’s not surprising that with this life came drinking, but it got to a point where it was not manageable.

F: Yeah, I remember waking up and I mean, when you wake up and there’s a huge flame mark on the side of your room, but you’ve been asleep in that room, and you’ve got to figure out where it came from, you’re like, “Was there a fire? And I slept through it? Dope.” Like that is really...I called my publicist at the time, and was like, “Something’s happened!” He was like, “Oh my god, yes, ‘cause there’s a huge bill on my credit card.” I was like, “I think it was the fire.” That was the bar tab. The fire was cheaper than the bar tab.

It was hard. I’ve grown up in South London, and that whole scene is like punk on a pirate ship, it’s sort of pirate folk, and everyone fends for themselves, and the whole gig is like an extended drinking game where you just have to play in the middle. And the game carries on. It was just like an interlude. That is the scene that I grew up in, and I was kind of insecure, I think, about singing pop music.

J: In your family? F: Just in general, and I kind of thought as a way to subvert that, I would just party the hardest. I think as it was a very kind of male dominated scene—like the indie scene that I came up in—it was also a way to kind of outdo everyone. I was very proud of the fact that I could drink as much—and more—than all of the guys. I was the only woman on the first NME tour, and we were opening and they were fucking terrified of me. I think I came into the second show with a black eye, dressed as a bat, jumping off things. I think that’s kind of what I understood, that that was rock and roll, and if you couldn’t go the hardest, you were letting rock and roll down. You were letting these legendary people down.

I was someone who struggled with hangovers, just because I could go...I had insane endurance, but also people would come up to me who I thought were the craziest drinkers and drug-takers I’d ever met, and be like, “Woah. You go harder than anyone I’ve ever met!” I was like, “Oh my god.” But I’ve always had a lot of energy, but I think really why I would stay out for so long is my...you know that sense of shame I spoke about in the beginning? That was there before any of the drinking and the drugs. I already had that. Then to escape that, you know, it would give me an escape from that, but the things I did, or the things I would say, or the way I would treat people just confirmed the way that I felt as a kid. It was just like, you are bad. There is something wrong with you, and then I would carry on trying to escape it in that way, but it would just keep getting worse.

My psyche is pretty fragile; I’m not actually someone who should have a lot of stimulants. They gave me a vitamin shot today, and I’m like, “I’m fucked. I’m high on vitamins! I’m going to have to go to hospital for vitamin overdose!” That’s from a b12 shot. So I don’t know what I thought I was doing when I was partying. Some people are tough, I’m kind of a fragile person. I have a fragile sense of self. The hangovers that I had didn’t seem normal, they were like, “I’m dying. I can’t think, I can’t breathe, like I feel like my skin is—” Maybe it’s ‘cause I drank more than everyone else? I don’t know, but it’s a particular quality that was telling me this does not work for me, but I kept doing it, again and again, and it was always the same feeling. You’ve been doing that in whatever way since you were fourteen, and by the time you get to 27, it’s just—ugh. I didn’t want to feel that way anymore, and it was so repetitive. At some point, the fun bit had gone. As much as I tried to get it back, I just couldn’t. When the fun goes, I’m sorry to tell you if any of you are umming and ahhing, it does not come back. The first year that I stopped, I felt like I’d really lost a really big part of who I was, and how I understood myself. I also felt like I was letting down rock and roll history ‘cause I couldn’t cope. I had to kind of rebuild from scratch a little bit. The thing is that now, I don’t know, it’s almost like the idea of rock and roll that we had...we’ve seen it so many times, it doesn’t end well. I don’t want to be part of that story. J: The 27 year old story.

F: Yeah, I was 27 when I stopped and my mum, literally the speech she gave at my party, where I’d arrived already out of my mind drunk; like I was on the table and she was trying to make a speech. She was like, “Please, just keep her alive. Please.” I laughed about it at the time, but if I think about it now it makes me feel so sad for my mum and how scared she must have been. I feel like at that point there’s...this poem is kind of about that, because I felt like there was a split, there is the person who carried on partying, and didn’t come back. So there’s this ghost version of me. Then there was the person who got to carry on living, and doing the things that I’ve done. It really feels much more rock and roll than anything I ever did when I was drinking. I was doing shows, and connecting with people, and that to me—especially with everything going on in the world—to be conscious and to be present and to really feel what’s going on, even though it’s painful, it feels much more like a truly reborn spirit of rock and roll. It feels like that’s what it should be about right now.

J: The last album was sober, and this song is a remarkable song. It’s maybe not specifically about drinking, but it’s confessional nature I think is what’s a part of whatever transformation you went through. So could you have written [Hunger] as a drinking person? Or do you feel something changed in your songwriting?

F: Oh my god, no. I could have never, ever. I don’t think I could have written this song. I couldn’t have even written this for How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. In the recording of How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, I was sober but a lot of the songs weren’t sober because I’d written them when I was drinking, so it was like trying to pull things that were just a big mess. Like, “Okay.” I was in a terrible state. In your first year of your sobriety you’re just insane. So I definitely couldn’t have written it then, but sort of four years down the line, what started to happen was I decided to see underneath—’cause when you’re out there drinking there’s so much surface chaos. You literally can’t see beyond what you did last night as you’re trying to clean that up, and make sure nobody finds out what happened, and who saw? And was there a camera phone? You’re just living in this constant...you can’t ever get any further than the drama that just happened yesterday. So after some time, and some time getting to re-know myself, I started looking at the stuff that was underneath that, that was at the core of it. That’s when I felt able to write this song. I think also I just wasn’t so ashamed of myself at the time. When you’re drinking like I was, you carry around so much shame, and so much of that has lifted that I felt able to say and be honest about things that I just never, ever would have.

When I was really in disordered eating, I would make pacts to myself every night that I will never tell anyone. That was the thing. You can carry on what you’re doing, but you can never tell. Living with that kind of—

J: You kept that promise, because I think when your sister saw this song, she read the first lines, and said she never knew.

F: No, she didn’t. Like, my mum didn’t know. My sister was like, “You better tell mom. You’re putting this out as a big pop song.” I was terrified. I was so scared. I luckily had really good people around. I had my manager, Hannah Giannoulis; she heard this song, and she… I was doing it as a thought experiment. I was never going to release it. I was like, “This is an experiment. This is not for public consumption.” And she heard it, and was like, “This is a really important song.” I was really scared. I was so scared of anger. I’m really bad with anger anyway, but I think it’s because I have so many years of internalized anger against myself for what I was doing, or the way I was behaving that to say it, I expected anger. I expected people to be furious with me for putting something like this out there in a song. I tried to put it off, I pushed back the whole touring schedule. Actually when it was released, people were so kind. I don’t think I gave people enough credit. It was so liberating and it changed me as a performer actually, because once you’ve said your most shameful thing, it’s almost like you’ve got nothing left to lose. So the performances just became so much more open and free, and also when the people who listen to your music accept you at your worst, it is the most beautiful thing. I felt so connected with people on this tour. I’m so grateful to everyone.

#florence welch #florence + the machine #fatm #edited for clarity aka removing florence's adorable rambling that she always does while she collects her thoughts #i love this interview so so much but the quality is pretty poor and therefore pretty inaccessible to non-fluent engl speakers and hoh people #so i put my typing skills to work #if there are any other interviews you'd like transcribed let me know!#this is how i'm putting off writing oof oof oof #also really cant tell if she's saying mom or mum? it sounds like when shes referring to her she says mum #but then if shes speaking to her its mom

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harryandmolly · 5 years ago

Text

Complicit // 10

summary: Shawn is under more pressure than he’s ever known. He craves release and comfort, the simplicity of sex. He gets more than he bargained for.

warnings: language, NSFW, turning up the heat on this slow burn

WC: 6.2k

------------

Shawn’s right up against the mic, eyes closed, curls rustling against his forehead in the breeze. His eyes are closed, he’s strumming gently through the bridge of “Fallin’ All In You,” and he’s so lost in it at first he doesn’t notice the way the crowd suddenly starts shifting from cooing along with him to screaming. He opens his eyes, looks back and forth across them, then turns his head.

She’s in a long floaty Florence Welch-style dress and platforms, her butter-blonde hair sweeping behind her like she’s in a shampoo commercial. She lifts the mic in her hand and starts singing along with him. Behind her are Shawn’s teammates, carrying a big heavy cake designed like the Canadian flag and covered in fondant.

Shawn gives up on singing. He laughs, claps with the guitar pick still between his fingers and steps away from the mic. Bex keeps singing until the song is over and he plays out the last few notes.

She swings her arms around his neck. She leans in. As he smiles, their lips touch.

Penny slams the laptop shut and backs away quickly, nearly tripping over Pammy. Her heart sprints, rattles hard in her chest like it wants out of her body. She doesn’t blame it.

Pamela stands alert, seemingly aware that Penny is distressed. Penny gulps down big breaths of air and continues striding backwards away from the laptop in her breakfast nook until she’s up against the fridge. She blinks. The cold stainless steel door is stabilizing and soothing. She lifts a hand to her forehead and shakes her head.

She didn’t even see the kiss, not really. She didn’t let it get that far. Something in her snapped, snapped hard. She folds her hands over her nose and mouth and focuses on breathing.

She can’t think about this. She can’t let herself. She has to do something else, anything else.

She looks down at Pammy, whose tail thumps against the rug.

“Go for a run?” Penny croaks, her voice high and unrecognizable, hopeful like she’s worried her dog will refuse her. Pammy’s little feet bounce against the rug as she reacts to her favorite word. Her tail thumps harder.

In a daze, Penny throws on leggings and a sports bra, a cap and sneakers. She leashes Pamela, locks the house and fucking runs.

Penny leans back with a deep sigh and opens her mouth again. A plump, cool grape slips inside, contrasting with the warm, rough texture of the fingers that are holding it. She gives them an appreciative suck and feels the chest she’s resting against rumble with a low hum.

“Hope I helped,” his quiet voice says.

Of course he knew there was something the matter. He sees through everyone.

She chews and swallows before answering. “You did. You know you always do.”

She feels him smile and brush his nose against her hairline. He offers her another grape. She accepts it gratefully.

“Can I have you out to visit soon? I know how much you love London.”

His warm English brogue is only casually hopeful, not like the way Shawn invited her to Toronto -- he sounded like if she refused him he’d spend the rest of the day sulking under the covers. She blinks hard at the memory.

She regards him, sweeps some hair out of his eyes. “I’d like that.”

He seems satisfied. For the first time with this particular client, satisfying him seems to do very little for her. She had hoped for the opposite. His trip out to visit her was one she had been excited for -- three full days wrapped up in him in the hotel he likes in Malibu, the first she’s seen of him in a few months. It was tainted by turning down the other offer, the one she knows she should’ve refused even if she weren’t busy. This extended date just saved her from having to make the decision.

She knows he can probably feel that she’s not all there. She’s so grateful that he hasn’t complained. He goes to plop another grape in her mouth and she stops him, aiming around his mouth to kiss a feverish line out toward his ear. After all this time, she’s still never kissed him on the lips. She jokes with him that he’s seen Pretty Woman too many times. But a client’s wish is a client’s wish, so she obeys. And so does he.

He moans her name. She pushes him back into the pillows. She loves his voice, but she doesn’t want to hear it right now. So she shuts him up.

London. London. London.

When Shawn called to invite her to Toronto, he was too jarred by her refusal to mention that he was heading to London next. Now he finds himself sitting here at the baby grand in the living room of the house they like to let in Bloomsbury when he’s in town wondering who the hell her client in from London is.

London. London. London.

Summer rain plinks softly in rivulets down the window before him, slightly obscuring the quiet street. He peers through, past a copse of silver birches, and finds himself glaring for a few seconds at the guy in tight jeans and a smart jumper wisely carrying an umbrella down the sidewalk. He looks like he could be one of Penny’s clients.

And what if he is? Shawn sighs heavily, finding himself winding through the same territory he tread when he first saw her with Christian Becker at the Summer Lovin’ party. It’s exhausting when he thinks about it, the loops he’s run through in his mind for her. Frustrating, too, when he realizes how often he’s revisited the same thoughts and conclusions along the way. Insanity is doing something over and over and expecting a different outcome. So maybe he’s going a little insane.

It’s hard to reconcile with the rest of his life right now. He’s coming toward the end of a wildly successful festival tour. Unlike his last international run like this, he’s not working so hard to win over the crowd -- they’re largely there for him. And tomorrow, when he co-headlines BBC’s Biggest Weekend at Wembley Arena, that stadium will be packed with people screaming his words back to him. When he thinks about it, his fucking head swims.

Shawn fiddles with a loose thread on the leg of his Calvins and rubs at where the tag of his t-shirt scratches his neck. He’s feeling twitchy and scattered. When he gets like this, there’s one surefire way to even him out.

He starts poking at the ivories, his fingers falling into the familiar rhythm of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” one of his festival cover mainstays. It’s not enough to distract his mind. He needs a new challenge.

He lifts his phone and props it up, scrolling through sheet music ideas on the tiny screen. He finds the one he didn’t know he was looking for and grunts, shifting in his seat, setting himself up to try it out.

The first few times he plays it through are clumsy. The next few times are a little better, firmer, more confident. By his tenth full run, he decides to sing along and see how it sounds.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few

But then again, too few to mention

I did what I had to do

And saw it through without exemption”

Shawn’s fingers work quickly to keep up. His bare feet skim and press at the pedals below him. His shoulders feel tensed and ready to snap.

“Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew

When I bit off more than I could chew

But through it all, when there was doubt

I ate it up and spit it out

I faced it all and I stood tall

And did it my way”

His voice is growing hoarse and he’s trying to pretend it’s not because of the tears in his eyes. He pushes through it, singing louder like Frank does, belting through a vocal run toward the end even though it hurts.

“For what is a man, what has he got

If not himself, then he has naught

To say the things he truly feels

And not the words of one who kneels

The record shows I took the blows

And did it my way”

There’s no point in trying to pretend he’s not crying anymore. He doesn’t bother with swiping at the tears, and his hands are busy anyway.

“Yes, it was my way.”

Shawn sags. His fingers fumble off the keys and catch him before his forehead hits the top of the piano. Through his wrenching sobs, Shawn decides it sounded good. It’s good enough to play live. But he’s already lying to everyone, he doesn’t want to pile on.

Because all of this he’s accomplished lately, all the crowds and the shows and tabloids and the followers and the paparazzi photos…

… it’s not his way at all.

Penny props her head up on the edge of the sofa as she sits below it on the rug with Pammy beside her. She goes to reach for a pillow to support her neck until Peter shifts and pushes his leg up for her to rest against. She grins and pats at him.

Penny picked him up from the CalTech campus in the Aston Martin. Peter’s squeals were so loud she pretended to start to drive off when he reached for the passenger door.

He ducked his big, beautiful head in and gave her a toothy smile.

“Can I drive?”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

They turned their music on loud and talked even louder over it. They stopped and bought a lemon meringue pie from House of Pies, got stoned and ate Penny’s homemade spaghetti alle vongole on the deck.

The only thing Peter and Penny don’t talk through is Moonstruck. It’s their mom’s favorite movie and one of the precious few things they took from their parents that’s associated with exclusively positive memories. They watch it whenever they’re together.

Tonight, all the blinds are open in Penny’s window-filled living room. The moon is near full. Every few minutes, Peter looks up from the TV and chants “la luna! La bella luna!” Penny refills their wine classes with imported chianti to keep this up.

With her head against her brother’s thigh and a belly full of pasta and clams, Penny hangs on to every perfect second. Peter is in town for a CalTech event and she has to return him back to campus in Pasadena tomorrow morning. Their time is shorter than usual and Penny can feel it around them. There’s a sort of desperate energy, a need to be very close to make up for their truncated visit. They haven’t left each other’s sides all afternoon.

Peter plucks at a clump of Penny’s shower wet hair and traces it against his calf. He’s trying not to count the seconds until he has to leave her again. He knows some of it is the wine talking, but he loves her so goddamn much. She’s given him everything he’s ever wanted, made sure he had everything he needed, but he’s pretty sure if she didn’t, he’d still be ok because he has her.

But he wants more for her. He always has. She would very happily give up her entire life for him if she thought he needed her to, so Peter keeps himself busy by trying to make sure she has one worth having.

He bites his full lower lip and pauses. Before Penny can bark at him to turn it back on because it’s the part outside the Met where Nicholas Cage sees Cher all dressed up before the opera, Peter’s look silences her.

“Can I see the necklace?”

Penny blinks rapidly, startled. “Oh. Uhm, it’s in the safe.”

Peter stares at her, undeterred. Penny sighs heavily and pretends to struggle to stand. Peter leaps off the couch and yanks at her hands.

“Oh my god, if you’re gonna get weird about it, you’re not allowed to see it.”

Peter makes a face and crosses his arms. “Fine. I’m cool. I’m Lizzo at the VMAs.”

Penny purses her lips and leads him to the safe. She inputs the combination and listens as the stiff bolts pop open. The red box is front and center. She hands it to Peter like it’s an old Domino’s pizza rather than her most prized possession.

Peter turns and carries it out of the room on scurrying tiptoes before she can stop him.

Penny huffs and slams the safe, scampering after him. “Pete, what are you--”

“I want to see it in the moonlight!” Peter laughs, running into Penny’s bedroom with an evil glint in his eye. Penny marches after him.

“You want to try it on?” Penny snorts, watching Peter stand in front of the mirror to study the contents of the box.

He whirls around on a heel. “No. I want you to try it on.”

Penny’s shoulders drop. She sighs. She motions for the box. Instead, Peter shuffles her in front of the full-length mirror, the one where Penny saw herself try it on for the first time. She lifts her hair over her shoulder and Peter secures the fiddly clasp against the nape of her neck.

He steps back and beams.

“Well, don’t you look like a million fuckin’ bucks.”

Penny smirks. “Not a million. Several thousand, though.”

Peter props his chin up on Penny’s head and shrugs his arms around her, careful not to obscure the necklace. “Nah. Way more than a million. You’re priceless. I think he and I both know that.”

Peter knocks a raspberry kiss up against the side of her head. She squirms away. Peter wanders back to the living room. Penny follows after a few more seconds of admiring her reflection. She’s still wearing the necklace.

Silver accepts few excuses for tardiness and even fewer for poor attention span and the generally green tint to Penny’s hungover skin. On that short list of forgivable events is a visit from Peter. Silver would forgive murder for Peter.

Penny slumps into the crisp white wicker rocking chair on Silver’s back deck, her DVF kaftan fluttering out around her ankles. Silver pours her tea silently, attempting to reserve judgment.

“How is Peter?”

Penny smiles. “He’s good. He likes the boy he’s dating. Which I know sounds like a given but it’s not for Peter. I think he might be a keeper, at least for a while. And school is good, he’s… you know him, he’s a rockstar.”

Silver enjoys the lightness that surrounds Penny when she talks about her brother. He’s never a sore subject. They’re thick as thieves, the product of a less than ideal childhood bonding two souls irrevocably.

“Will he be coming to stay for a longer visit?”

Penny covers a grin with her delicate teacup. “You miss him.”

“I do,” Silver admits readily with a small smile, about as warm as she really gets, “He’s the only person I’ve ever met who’s totally comfortable with calling me “bitch.””

Penny’s laugh is striking. Silver adores it. She doesn’t hear it often enough. The last time she heard Penny laugh like this was at that 4th of July party on her date with Shawn.

“I wanted to follow up with you regarding the meeting last week. We’ve hit a small roadblock regarding the creation of the 501(c)(3) in a way that keeps it very much out of the way of the less legitimate arm of the business.”

Silver’s voice is carefully apologetic. Penny cocks her head and feels her messy hair spill out over her shoulder.

“Oh. Well, that’s ok. I don’t mind the delay.”

Silver’s knifelike brows lift. She places her teacup down on its saucer without a sound. “You don’t?”

Penny lifts a bare shoulder. “I want to make sure we’re careful with it, of course. And… I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be without income any time soon.”

Silver catches an edge in Penny’s words she’s not sure if Penny realizes is there. She wets her crimson painted lips.

“I see. I suppose when you brought me the proposal, I wasn’t sure. It seemed perhaps that you were leaning toward the way of giving up clients.”

Penny straightens up and reaches for a biscuit. Its snap does nothing to release the tension between them. She dunks it in her tea the way Silver hates.

“Well, I’m not. No reason to. I’m the perfect age, in excellent physical shape and have had more client requests than any of the women on the roster. It would be insane not to capitalize on that.”

Silver’s eyes fall to Penny’s twitching hands in her lap. She looks… disappointed. Not in the way her mother gets, like Penny’s errors in judgment are just the latest in a long line of her annoyances. This disappointment is more profound, more hurt, more like real hope lost. Penny’s breathing gets a little short in her chest.

“I understand,” Silver continues smoothly, “Even so, we’ll push ahead with the foundation. I will continue to keep you updated about its progress and consult you on any crucial matters.”

Silver’s usual formality has kicked up a notch. Penny tries not to notice the chill in the searing Southern California summer heat.

Two weeks later

Labor Day Weekend comes and goes. Penny spends it topless on a yacht off Catalina Island with Julia. She has no phone signal, it was jammed on the yacht per Julia’s orders. When she returns, she has a voicemail on her work cell. She waits until Gus, sunburnt and covered in bugbites from his weekend camping trip, drops her off at her door.

He doesn’t question why she’s standing outside with Pammy, whom he also dropped off after babysitting her for the weekend, instead of going in out of the damp heat.

But she can’t wait another second to hear his voice talking to her rather than in the highly personal songs he sings that the whole world can access so impersonally.

“Hey, it’s me… Shawn. Uh, I know it’s been weird. I’m just… saying that out loud because neither of us have yet. I’d like to see you, if you want. If you’re busy, that’s ok. I’m back from London on Tuesday. I don’t have a lot of time before I have to leave again. Um… yeah, so if you want to call or text me, that’s cool. I’ll see you soon. Hopefully. Ok bye.”

She stands on the porch for so long Pamela curls up at her feet and naps. Penny plays the voicemail over and over, thinking each repetition will get her closer to deciding what the fuck to do.

Penny’s never been good at giving up, she realizes as she hugs the winding curves of the road through Beachwood Canyon that will take her back to Shawn’s house. When she broke her leg falling off the uneven bars during gymnastics in 4th grade, she conned her doctors into letting her out of her cast early so she didn’t miss the big fall meet. When her snotty 10th grade chemistry teacher tried to give her an F on a test without possibility of extra credit, she hounded her until she got the chance to make up the grade.

So, really, Penny figures, it’s not that surprising that she won’t give up on Shawn. That despite all the confusing gestures and glances and words and unspoken feelings, she still wants to stick around and help. The idea of walking away now just to save her pride or her dignity or wallow in this stupid little crush she’s formed doesn’t make sense. She wants to see it through. She wants to see him happy. She knows she can still help. She just has to focus. On him.

Shawn’s smile is hesitant at best, a grimace at worst. Penny’s not surprised. She wonders what logic he used to convince himself to call her again after the odd heaviness of their last couple encounters. He doesn’t have the built-in excuse she does -- this is her job.

He guides her to the living room instead of straight on to the bedroom. Penny looks around. It’s big and sparsely decorated, like he’s still moving in and finding pieces that work in the space. She smiles down at the coffee table his mum spent a full day helping him pick. He told her that story a couple weeks ago before she rode him backwards cowgirl-style for the first time.

She looks him over. He doesn’t look too worse for wear, maybe a little anxious, but she thinks that’s more about her than anything else. She likes that he’s barefoot. She can’t trust a man who wears shoes in his own house. Self-consciously, she steps out of her own, a pair of Chloe block heels. She shrinks several inches and rocks back and forth from heel to painted shell pink toes.

“How was Toronto? And London?”

Penny’s tipping her hand. He didn’t tell her he was going to London after Toronto. She’s been paying attention. Goosebumps flare across the back of his neck. He wills them away.

“Uh, good. Really good. I love playing in Toronto, obviously. And London was insane. That crowd was massive.”

Penny smiles knowingly. “You’re quite the draw, Mendes.”

He shrugs a shoulder but smirks a little. “It’s just this summer, man. Everything’s suddenly gotten really crazy. It’s… different.”

Penny decides it’s no time to bring up Bex and the success of his team’s PR strategy. He knows. He doesn’t need her poking it in his face.

She decides to sit and make herself comfortable, thinking maybe he’ll follow. She folds her legs and straightens the hem of her gauzy yellow chiffon wrap dress. She catches the way his eyes trail her smooth bronzed skin.

Good, she thinks, Focus on my body.

“How was your--”

Shawn stops and blinks hard, his face going blank. Penny knows he was about to ask after her London client and thought better of it.

“My brother came to visit,” she blurts, and she can’t see but she thinks she’s making the same face he was a moment ago.

Penny’s not sure how she went from totally stable and focusing on sweet talking him into bed to bringing up her brother, potentially the most personal subject in her world. Her lack of self-control around him can be… maddening.

“Peter, right?” Shawn presses.

Penny nods. Shawn sits beside her on the couch, turned toward her. She wonders if she can get away with dropping this subject now. By the look of interest on his face, she thinks no, probably not.

“You’re really close with him.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement from a man who knows it when he sees it.

“We’re close. Maybe not as close as I’d like.”

Shut… up…

It’s like her mouth is a fucking faucet around him sometimes. She blames the bold warmth of his eyes that follows her so closely.

“Yeah?” he nudges.

Penny thumbs at her Cartier ring, watching it glint. “I shouldn’t complain. I know he’s so busy. And he’s got a life, you know? He’s in college. Sometimes I just wish I always felt like his sister and didn’t sometimes feel like his mom.”

Shawn peers at her curiously. She curls her legs up beneath her, propping her elbow up on the back of the couch as she faces him completely.

“I know you said you’re not close with your parents.”

She smiles sadly. “There’s no traumatic tale there. My parents never should’ve gotten married, but they were supposed to, so they did. They never should’ve had kids, but they were supposed to, so they did. It took them too long to realize they’d be happier apart. They each remarried quickly. Pete and I stuck together, but I always felt responsible for him, you know? Maybe sometimes not in a sisterly way. I shouldn’t have had to be his mom. Neither of us deserved that.”

Her brows come together as she speaks. He wraps a hand around her ankle and thumbs across the protruding bone. The sub in him comes screaming out for her like he should’ve predicted it would as soon as she opened her pretty mouth.

He knows this wasn’t the plan. The plan was to see her, smile pretty, fuck hard, and get things back to how they were. The plan was to stay level, not to fucking overdose.

But he takes the hit anyway.

“It makes sense, though,” he babbles, “That’s so you. You’re a born caretaker. You take care of Peter, you take care of Silver, you take care of Pammy. You take care of your clients. I know you take care of me. It’s who you are. It’s how you got here.”

Penny watches him. If he were anyone else, she’d be waiting for his fingers to slide further up her leg, getting them closer to where they’re going. Instead, Shawn’s eyes lock on hers like he’s amazed she’s actually looking at him and his hand stays right where it is, rubbing firmer circles.

She reaches down and plucks it off with an extra hard throb of her heart. She stands and pulls him off the couch. He stumbles along behind her as she meanders toward his bedroom, shedding her dress and simple white bra and panties while she goes. He struggles to undress and nearly face plants tripping out of his jeans.

And then she’s naked in his bed again and Shawn wants to cry or document the occasion with pictures or… something. He stands above her, panting softly, waiting for her.

Suddenly she smiles and it’s not her naughty, seductive smile that Shawn loves so much, it’s another one of her smiles -- it’s the one that always makes him smile. It’s wide and toothy and gorgeous and it makes a pleasantly nervous giggle rise up from his chest.

“What?” he murmurs.

Penny lifts her arms over her head and squishes his pillows between her fingers, pulling her legs together to rub them like a cricket. Her eyes drift shut and she makes a low, sleepy moaning sound that has Shawn’s cock twitching against his thigh.

“Your bed is so goddamn comfortable, I forgot.”

Shawn preens like the compliment is for him. He climbs down and settles beside her, folding a bulky arm beneath his head.

“I know. I mean, thank you. I fucking love this bed.”

He glances over at her. Penny’s eyes are shut. He turns onto his side and skims a finger up her stomach to dance between her pretty breasts, watching her shiver.

“Wanna nap?” he offers in a husky voice.

Her eyes open lazily. Her lips curl. “Fuck yeah I wanna nap.”

Shawn groans softly and repositions himself on his side. Penny curls up around him like a big, beautiful spoon and soothes them both to sleep rubbing patterns with her thumb into his stomach.

The rhythm wakes him up. He swears he could hear it -- there must be someone playing it on the baby grand in his living room, that’s how distinct it is. It woke him up out of a weird dream where he was running back and forth between two train stations looking for his train but they were both empty.

He’s quiet for long enough to determine that there’s no one there. Or, no one that’s not in bed with him.

She’s still here. They shifted in their sleep so their chests are pressed together and he’s as tangled up in her physically as he has been mentally for weeks. He allows himself one little press of his lips to her forehead when he’s decided she’s still very asleep. He slips out of her weak, dreamy grasp and finds where he shed his boxers in their trail of clothes to the bedroom.

And then he follows the rhythm.

It’s not leading him to the guitar, it’s taking him to where the piano rests in a splatter of sherbet-y light coming through the west-facing windows. It’s sunset. The whole world is rosy. He opens all the blinds that corner in his gorgeous Steinway so he can bathe in it. He’s not really thinking, he thinks he’s only barely awake from his coma of an afternoon nap with her, so his actions are just instinct right now.

He sits at the bench and swallows, dropping his fingers to where his body seems to want them. He starts stroking, nice and softly, the way you would when you’re writing a song for a lover who’s asleep in the next room.

Shawn hums along, chasing down the rhythm that woke him up. It leads him, his voice follows, his fingers tripping along behind trying to keep up. When he grabs on, he straightens up, the intricately defined muscles in his back glowing magenta in the light as they flex and relax.

He’s found it. He’s not letting go.

It doesn’t have words yet, but that’s ok. He stands for only a few moments to hunt down his phone trapped between seat cushions on the couch so he can record this in case, god forbid, he loses track of it. But it doesn’t seem likely. It has hold of him now. Just like she does.

He repeats the same section a few times. He thinks it’s the first verse. He leans into it, squinting, pushing for a little more. The song feels like it’s teasing him, like he’s not in control, like he has to let it come to him. He strains against his instincts to tear into it, get himself bloody with it, get to its heart and its lungs and its guts. He leans back again and lets his shoulders drop, lets his head fall back. He surrenders. It brings him peace.

Penny stirs in an empty bed to the soft plinking of piano keys. She rolls over off her side and comes face to face with a pillow that smells just like him. She shuts her eyes and breathes, inhaling greedily, exhaling slowly. She makes a gentle murmuring noise and wiggles her toes, shifts her legs, rolls her hips, stretches her arms, and sighs.

Getting out of his bed isn’t as hard as she thought it would be, not as hard as it usually is to crank herself upright and face a world not coated in heavy, blue sleep. She likes the way the floorboards creak slightly as she wanders naked out of his bedroom toward the music.

She turns a corner and meets a wall of color and light. Sitting in the center of it is the piano and the man hunched over it like he’s in pain. They’re drenched in purpling pink light. His curls shiver and fall when he presses the keys harder. She thinks even with the floorboard music she’s making with her gentle steps, he can’t hear her.

Penny approaches him slowly. By the time she’s standing beside him, she’s convinced he was completely aware of her the whole time -- maybe even so aware that he felt her wake up and get out of bed. He doesn’t look up at her until she lifts a curl out of his eyes and smoothes it back up into the sweet, wild nest on top of his head.

He plays what sounds like the end of a song. Penny likes the way it feels like it trails off a bit unfinished, like the story’s not over yet, even though the song is. He slowly closes the lid over the keys and releases a long, slow exhale like maybe he had held it in for a while.

Penny goes when Shawn beckons. He closes his palms around her hips and gently guides her between his legs. He settles her against the lid and anchors his forehead to her breastbone.

Penny is flooded with the familiar urge to give him whatever he could need from her, but is paralyzed by the certainty that this… is it. She holds him, one hand massaging his scalp, the other drifting up and down from the nape of his neck to the hills and valleys of his back. His breathing evens and hers follows.

It’s a while before he looks up at her. By the time he does, the sky is red, like maybe the sun burst and neither of them noticed. Her eyes look black in this light. With his eyes trained on them, he lowers his mouth to her breast, brushing his dry lips against her nipple. The gentle intake of breath and tightening of the little brown bud is automatic and electrifying. Instead of settling there, he moves across her chest to its twin. He leaves a wet kiss in his wake that makes her fingers clench a little in his hair.

Shawn’s hands run down over her bare ass and secure against the backs of her thighs. Using his biceps, he lifts her over the lid and on top of the piano, reveling in her little gasp of surprise.

Penny looks down at him, her hands gripping the lid, the heat from her palms forming little clouds on the glossy black surface. Her knees are parted. Her feet dangle on either side of him.

Shawn doesn’t have to ask, and she doesn’t feel like making him. With a breathless mewl, Penny lies back, the cool lacquer of the piano stinging her sleepwarm skin. With her heels propped against the keys, she closes her eyes.

“Kiss me.”

Shawn starts at the inside of her left knee. His nose skims slowly down her inner thigh, smooth and warm until he reaches where she’s started to get wet for him. His breath has her legs shaking, tightening from her hamstrings. He massages them soothingly until her body melts against the instrument that’s not half as beautiful as she is.

He lifts his eyes. She’s on an elbow looking down at him. She sucks her lower lip between her teeth. He lowers his head and obeys, willingly, recklessly.

Niall’s barking laugh is neither subtle nor absolutely necessary for the non-joke that Shawn just told, but Shawn loves hearing it anyway. Shawn gets more self-conscious about Niall’s boisterousness when they’re out and about, or at least until Niall feeds him enough beer that he stops caring. But tonight, they’re in, relaxing at Niall’s place with some Australian golf tournament on TV and a case of IPA in the fridge.

Shawn’s knee bounces like he’s ready to bound out of there, but he doesn’t know what for. He was the one who requested the quiet night in. Nearly every night he’s spent in LA lately has been out with Bex seeing and being seen. The other nights have been reserved for Penny.

Shawn has gone to somewhat embarrassing lengths avoiding his other LA-based friends to spend precious little time with Penny. He knows very well he’s about to be called out on it. He’s been hitting the pints a little harder than usual to prepare.

“Alright, mate, out with it, then. What’s the deal?”

Aaaaand there it is.

Shawn runs his tongue along the corner of his mouth, sweeping up an extra drop of beer in case it makes him drunk enough to have this conversation.

“Nothing. No deal. Everything’s cool.”

Niall scoffs. “Mendes, Jesus, no one’s seen you in two months.”

Shawn pouts. “I went to the 4th of July party!”

“With her!” Niall cracks back, “You left covered in hickeys! C’mon, mate, you can tell me. I’m the one who introduced you to all this.”

Shawn shrugs a shoulder and focuses on peeling the sweating label from his bottle.

Niall wets his lips and presses harder. “I get it. It was like this with me and Karina at the beginning. Saw her all the time, it just felt so fucking good. I don’t really know what changed; I think eventually I just lost the spark of it, y’know? Like… I remembered it’s not… real.”

Shawn chuckles but doesn’t look up. Niall bristles a little at the sound of it.

“Nothing in my life is real, man.”

Shawn’s words are chilling. Niall’s heard them before, muttered on long bus rides across Europe by the boys who used to be his best friends. Hell, he’s said them too while staring at his own smiling face in a magazine.

“Mate, that’s--”

Shawn laughs again and it’s dead and humorless and Niall wants to shake him.

“I don’t want to talk about this, dude!” Shawn’s voice is edging right toward true irritation. Niall barely recognizes it on Shawn.

“Ok,” Niall agrees, backing down slightly, easing back into the couch and reaching for his bottle, “Just… if you have a problem, you can talk to me. You can always talk to me.”

Shawn’s fingers stop picking. His dark eyes lift, along with the corner of his mouth. It’s not a smile.

“My problem is that I’m head over ass, fucking crazy, can’t breathe unless she’s in the room, madly, hopelessly in love with her. What can you do about that?”

Niall’s jaw drops. Shawn watches him scramble for words, then looks back at his label.

“Yeah, me neither.”

-----------

Taglist: @smallerinfinities @the-claire-bitch-project @achinglyshawn @infiniteshawn @mendesoft @singanddreamanyway @alone-in-madness @abigfatmess @shawnitsmutual @awkwardfangirl2014 @september-lace @sinplisticshawn @rollingxstone @yslsaint @randi-eve @fallmoreinlove @heyits-claire @itrocksmysocks @parkerspicedlatte @simpledomain @abeautiful-and-cloudy-day @thecurlsofgod @magcon7280 @bensbuttercup @shawnsmusical @paigeasourous @tell-me-when-ur-ready @softmendesss @searchingunderthestars @buggy-blogs @tnhmblive @greedydevil @tamegray @meltingicequeen @havethetimeeofyourlifee @normalcyisoverrated-beyou @t-i-n-y-d-i-n-o @hannahlouiseee @sarahlauramendes @shawnsmoose @mendezlatte @1dbetch @graysonmendes @shawnsababe @ineffsi @ultradreamologistblog @bluerose711 @sauveteen @valedictorian65

#Shawn Mendes Imagine #shawn mendes #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes fan fic #shawn mendes fic #shawn mendes fan fiction #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes fiction #shawn mendes smut #shawn mendes series #shawn mendes one shot #shawn mendes drabble #shawn peter raul mendes #sub!shawn #shawn mendes angst

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floorbed · 4 years ago

Text

pen playlist tiem. brain full of thoughts i think this is my longest playlist ever . lyrics and annotation and sections under the cut for funsies heh

home

me and my husband - mitski

and i am the idiot with a painted face / in the corner taking up space / but when he walks in i am loved / i am loved / me and my husband we’re doing better / it’s always been just him and me together / so i bet all i have on that furrowed brow / and at least in this lifetime we’re sticking together

turf war - momma

the kings and queens are on the court / they’re sitting pretty on the floor

this charming man - the smiths

a jumped up pantry boy / who never knew his place / he said return the ring / he knows so much about these things / he knows so much about these things

utopia - cowgirl clue

living in a great utopia is quite nice is quite nice / living in a great utopia you pay the price you pay the price / living in a great utopia roll the dice kiss goodbye / living the dream living the dream living the dream

bubblegum bitch - marina and the diamonds

got a figure like a pin up got a figure like a doll / don’t care if you think i’m dumb i don’t care at all / candy bear sweetie pie wanna be adored / i’m the girl you’d die for / i’ll chew you up and spit you out / cus that’s what young love is all about

…

oh dear diary, i met a boy

(do the) act like you never met me - tv girl

the hidden kisses / the clumsy conspiratory glance / but i don’t really mind it no / i always liked the way you danced

it will come back - hozier

don’t give it a hand / offer it a soul / honey make this easy / leave it to the land / this is what it knows / honey that’s how it sleeps / don’t let it in with no intention to keep it / jesus christ don’t be kind to it / honey don’t feed it it will come back

real men - mitski

little boys cry and look around for comfort and / always get what they want

song against sex - neutral milk hotel

and he said oh boy you are so pretty / enough to wrap tight in rice paper string / and when i finally kissed him / the whole world began to ring / lost like a bell that’s tipping over / with two cracks along both sides / and i knew the world was over / so i took a look outside

(running away before the trial and seeing the world for the first time vibes!)

exile, early party

april and the phantom - animal collective

i’m sorry april / but you’ll be fine till then / i’m the phantom / i’m the phantom / i’m the phantom

(Pens First Summoning Dot Mp3)

insects are all around us - money mark

(from pens very first introduction in session 1 when he was walking in the woods and was described like looking like a lil insect)

bug - alex g

and when you go there / you stay there / bug in the crosshair / you stay there

king of carrot flowers pt 2 & 3 - neutral milk hotel

i love you jesus christ / jesus christ i love you yes i do

you’ll miss me when i’m not around - grimes

if you don’t bleed then you don’t die / cross my heart and hope to fly / if you like it then you’ll make it out alive / if they could see me now / smiling six feet underground / i’ll tie my feet to rocks and drown / you’ll miss me when i’m not around

rich bitch juice (HANA remix) - alice longyu gao

don’t you dare talk to me / bitch

fool - moonbounce

you could’ve let me think im right / i could’ve tried to keep my cool / i could’ve followed my own rules / i could’ve used you like a tool / i could’ve played a fucking fool

isle

hooped earrings - the front bottoms

and you have gotta do this now or you can never come home again / yeah you have gotta do this now or you can never come home again / and there are not so many options / there’s not so many ways that this could possibly end / so you have gotta do this now or you can never come home again

wicked boy - alex g

real men walk / on the outside / on the outside / on the outside / and they take it for the team

black hair - alex g

it’s not what you are / it’s just what you did / don’t hang up the phone / i love you to death / eternal return / eternal return / eternal return / eternal return

rabbit heart - florence & the machine

this is a gift it comes with a price / who is the lamb and who is the knife / when minas is king and he holds me so tight / and turns me to gold in the sunlight

oh ana - mother mother

i’ll fake god / i’ll fake god / i’ll fake god / i’ll fake god today / hop up on a cloud and watch the world decay

i am my own hell - teen suicide

i’m learning all kinds of tricks / how to drain the blood from my face

brick - alex g

i know that you’re lying / you think i don’t but i always fucking do

come back - alex g

made my promise and i’m keeping it for kicks / yeah i really didn’t think that it would stain like this / yeah i really didn’t think that it would stain like this

river of the night

trick - alex g

(this is what his Contract Signing Dream sounded like that’s all)

call this # now - the garden

call this number now / if you wanna check it out / well just do yourself a favor and just call this number now / call this number now

long way down - teen suicide

you’re a spoiled kid who’s never gonna get / anything that you deserve / i know this life’s gonna be just fine / but with any luck you know the next one’s gonna hurt

business man - mother mother

talkin bout the business man / devil with a sunday plan / buddy with a stupid laugh / just talkin bout the business man / pretty little baby / pretty little monster / went to the good school / left with honors

king rat - modest mouse

deep water / deep water / senseless denial / i went down like a rag doll rat of a child

oh lucky lucky lucky lucky me again / i said it looks like i’ve got to use my feet again / well i just spent my last one hundred dollars / god i’ll pay my bill again

after dying and being saved

new gods - grimes

hands reaching out to new gods / you can’t give me what i want / but what do i know? / i wanna i wanna i wanna let go / i wear black eyeliner / black attire yeah / so take me higher and higher and higher

…

only brand new gods can save me

home again - carole king

sometimes i wonder if i’m ever gonna make it home again / it’s so far and out of sight / i really need someone to talk to and nobody else / knows how to comfort me tonight / snow is cold rain is wet / chills my soul through the marrow / i won’t be happy till i see you alone again / till i’m home again and feeling right

miracle - paramore

and have i told you / i’m not going / cuz i’ve been waiting for a miracle / and i’m not leaving / i won’t let you / let you give up on a miracle / when it might save you

(Pen And Ori. Pen Telling Ori He’s Not Going To Stay At The Castle [Bc He Couldnt Imagine Not Seeing Her Everyday.] Pens Naive Optimism + His Want T.o Make Her Feel Better Abt The Future and The World And Everything)

dinner and diatribes - hozier

i knew it from the first look of / the look of mischief in your eyes / friends are a fate that befell me / head is the talking type / i’d suffer hell if you’d tell me / what you’d do to me tonight

(Pen And Juni Anthem)

funny - the scary jokes

and i laughed and i laughed and i gasped and i cried / and i tried not to think of my love as a punchline / but i knew the truth would catch up with me sometime / and oh what a funny joke am i

(pen crying on the bed in castle ravenloft dot mp3)

pretty funny - dogfight (lindsay mendez)

isn’t it funny? isn’t it funny? aren’t you funny? / pathetically naive and desperate to believe you could always find some good / well you misunderstood or you’ve been dreaming / cus people are just cruel

(pen crying on the bed in castle ravenloft dot mp3 Part 2)

until it goes - john congleton

oh my vengeance i swear will be biblical

…

my bride my bride how do i silence / this restlessness inside me / inside i see it kneeling through keyholes / my bride i need no absolution / on this day of my execution / just stay with me stay with me stay with me stay with me until the horror goes

(abandonment issues pen be like *stay with me stay with me stay with me stay with me noises*. also one day i want pen to hurt everyone who has severely fucked with him and thats all [m****** and d******])

beautiful - carole king

you’ve got to get up every morning / with a smile on your face / and show the world all the love in your heart / then people gonna treat you better / youre gonna find yes you will / that you’re beautiful as you feel

don’t ask me to explain - of montreal

i’d like to marry all of my close friends / live in a big house together by an angry sea / am i the devil’s marbles don’t move on without me / who will be watching my body when i sleep / who will i believe in

(Pen Be Like I Love Ori And Juni And Alba And That Is My Disease. )

100 years - florence welch

i believe in you /and in our hearts we know the truth / and i believe in love / even the darker it gets the more i do / you try and fill us with your hate and we will shine a light / and the days will become endless / and never turn to night

...

a hundred arms / a hundred years / you can always find me here / and lord don’t let me break this / let me hold it lightly / give me arms to pray with / instead of ones that hold too tightly

#mel talks #penance the jester #dnd tag

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thetenthdoctorscompanion · 5 years ago

Photo

Flesh and Blood - A 6 Underground Story

You don’t have to be a ghost here amongst the living. You are flesh and blood. You deserve to be loved, and you deserve what you are given. -Florence Welch

Warnings: The film is rated R and so is this story. Blood, guts, cursing and adult content to come.

[ MEET ACE ]

Prologue

“Oh my God, that’s—that’s a fucking eye. That is a fucking eyeball, I—I just had a fucking eyeball on my foot! Dude, that shit was on my—…!”

“Six, for the love of God, just fucking drive!”

“No! No, do not drive! I told you to pull the fuck over, okay? Pull the fuck over!”

It was difficult to concentrate. There was so much screaming, and blood, and shooting, and blood. Six took a hard right down another alley and slammed everyone in the car against the door.

The aforementioned eyeball swung dangerously in One’s hand. He had to choke down the bile in his throat. He just had to focus. He would not think about the several, certainly dead pedestrians they had hit with their car. He would not think about the blood that was saturating the carpet from Two’s still-gushing bullet wound. He would not think about the police and mafia and hitmen who were chasing them down with very big, very real guns. He just had to focus on pinching the insanely long optic nerve he was holding between his fingers.

Oh God. He was pinching a fucking optic nerve between his fingers. Maybe he shouldn’t focus on that either. This is all so much easier in theory.

The Alfa Romeo careened into another alleyway and came to a jerky stop. The eyeball swayed again, like a gruesome, bodily pendulum. One focused all of his energy on not vomiting. Adding another bodily fluid into the mix was not going to help matters.

“Whose eye is that?” Six asked, as One repositioned the smart phone in his hand.

“It’s—It’s the lawyer’s.”

“D-Did you just scoop it out, or…?”

“God, no!” One yelped, trying to steady the eye over the phone’s camera. “I didn’t scoop it out! Two did!”

He jerked his head toward the blonde woman in the backseat, who was busy beating her head against the wall of the car. She was still bleeding heavily. The brunette next to her ducked low to assess the damage, trying to take advantage of the momentary stillness.

Somewhere above them, a bird pooped. It splattered on the windshield. One’s suspicions had been correct. The new bodily fluid did nothing to help matters with his stomach.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself, repositioning the eyeball in his fingers. “All of Rovach’s transmissions. This is gonna lead us straight to the four generals.”

“I’m getting a little lightheaded,” Six admitted.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one holding it.”

The eyeball continued to rotate, circling the target center of the camera. Why were biometric locks so fucking complicated? Why couldn’t he just get a really HD picture of the guy and print it? He could use a 3D printer for that, right? Someone had to be 3D printing organs already. Where were all the hackers of the world when you needed them to bypass a biometric lock? They were really just slacking, when you thought about it. Complete oversight in piracy—no pun intended—but criminals really should…

“You got the generals?” Six prompted. “Can I go?”

One was about to tell him exactly where he could go—straight to Hell without passing GO or collecting $200—when there was a screech behind them. Everyone glanced out the rear window at the same time.

“Cop,” Five said breathlessly, as if the other three couldn’t see the white and blue car. She ducked down in the seat, wiping Two’s blood off of her face. “Cop!”

“Don’t you move,” One ordered, before Six could ask again. “Don’t you move!”

“There’s a cop looking right at us!” Five hissed from the back.

“Yes, thank you! I’d gathered!”

“Yo, just—just be cool,” Six said, his voice trembling in the most uncool way imaginable. “M-Maybe they won’t recognize us.”

“Recognize us?” Five repeated incredulously. “You’re driving a lime green sports car with no side mirror, covered in scratches and blood from pedestrians! How the fuck are they not gonna recognize us?”

At that exact moment, a flash of green caught One’s eye. It was gone by the time he looked up. They were parked in an empty alleyway with a handful of Vespas. No movement, no green. He might’ve thought he imagined it if he hadn’t heard the colossal crash on the next road over.

The cop peeled away, leaving them behind.

“What the fuck was that?” One demanded.

“W-Who cares?” Six laughed, sagging in his seat. “Ho—Holy shit! Holy shit! He’s gone!”

“Why?”

Two was twisted around in her seat, bullet wound forgotten as she stared out the rear window. Her voice was full of suspicion. But One had gone straight past suspicion and into rage.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he spat, glowering at the uncooperative eyeball. His hands were starting to shake from the effort of making them not shake. “Five! Five, I need you to reach into my pocket and get my walkie talkie.”

“Excuse me?” Five stuck her head up between the front seats. Her face was still covered in blood. “You realize I’m conducting surgery right now, yeah? Two is gonna fucking die! You get your stupid walkie talkie!”

“I would except I won’t because I can’t because I’m holding onto a human fucking eyeball! I need my hands to crack the phone, Six needs his hands to drive, and Two needs her hands to shoot! So reach into my jacket pocket and get my fucking radio!”

Five muttered some spectacularly colorful curse words in Spanish, but reached around to grab the walkie talkie. Her glove-covered hands smeared blood all over the fabric, and the radio nearly slipped out of her grip to nail him in the crotch, but she recovered at the last second.

“Good, good. Now hold down the button, and hold it up to…”

“I know how to use a fucking walkie talkie!”

“Okay! Wow! Okay, just let me talk!”

One turned his head toward the radio, keeping one eye on the eye. It was difficult to aim and talk at the same time. Much like a urinal.

“Yeah, hi! This is One for Ace. Ace, you copy?”

“Ace?” Six asked in surprise. “Why are you…?”

“Silence, Bieber. Ace! Do you copy?”

There were several tense seconds of silence, but no response. One nodded to Five, who pushed the button again.

“I repeat, this is One for Ace. Do you copy?”

There was no response. Several more police cars sped by, and they heard another crash a few streets away. People were screaming. Five pressed the button again.

“Ha, ha. Okay, now, when I say ‘One for Ace,’ that means my name is One, and I’m looking to talk to Ace. That’s how radio language works. And everyone here should know that, because we went over that at the mission meeting. But maybe—maybe some of us weren’t paying attention at the mission meeting because they weren’t supposed to be coming on the motherfucking mission! Now I asked if you fucking copied!”

A sound like a minor explosion echoed from behind them, and in the silence that followed, he got a one-word reply.

“Busy!”

“Oh ho, ho, you motherfucker,” One growled. “You stupid motherfucker.”

“Can you fucking focus?” Two spat from the backseat. “Open the phone and let’s go!”

“Oh, can you fucking focus?” One mimicked in a high pitch voice. “Open the phone, wah! I’m trying!”

One of the women kicked the back of his seat.

“That’s not helping!”

He huffed out a deep breath and turned his attention back to the phone. The eyeball slowed, slowed, and finally, the iris came to a rest in the middle of the target. The phone trilled, and unlocked.

“Go! Guys—g-go, go, go, go, go!”

The engine roared, and the car shot out of its hiding place like a canon. They skidded onto the street, making another huddle of tourists scatter to avoid losing life and limb. Six clipped another Vespa, which lost control and veered into the opposite line. There was a remarkable crunch as metal and rubber and bone all went flying.

“Okay, where am I going?” Six asked, ignoring the fleshy debris.

“The meet point,” One said without hesitation.

“What?” Five was leaning forward again, outraged. “What about Ace?”

“Ace is just gonna have to take care of herself. She is not supposed to be here! Do even understand what kind of liability that is?”

“This is a mission,” Two said, shaking her head. “No surprises.”

“Yes! Thank you, Two! Finally, someone talking some sense!”

“What is she even doing here?” Six asked.

“Good fucking question.” One stowed the eyeball back in its organ case, wiping his hands on his jacket before he grabbed the radio back. “Hey there, Ace. Six would like to know what the fuck you’re doing here. I would like to know that as well, if you’re not too busy to answer.”

“Driving!”

“Oh yeah, I caught that. Very nice. Kinda looked like an—oh, I don’t know—bright green Alfa Romeo? Which is weird, cause that’s what we’re driving!”

He waited several seconds before barking her codename again. Six screeched around a corner, shooting him a side glance.

“Dude, if she’s driving, she can’t exactly answer you.”

“Okay, when I want your opinion, Six, I will go ahead and shoot myself in the face—no, that—okay, that one was overkill. I’m sorry. Just—Just please keep driving.”

Six opened his mouth to argue, but was cut off by another bullet hitting the car. Sparks sprayed in all directions, and everyone screamed. The car swerved, nearly taking out a souvenir stand.

“Who is shooting at us?” Six screeched. “I thought they were gone! Who the fuck is shooting at us?”

“I don’t know! Two—Two, shoot back!”

“I’m trying, you fucking idiot!”

Two beat Five’s insistent hands away from her stomach, leaning out the window to shoot at the cars that were closing in. A whirring sound caught One’s attention, and he looked out over the water to find the source. Far above them, the police helicopter was still hovering.

“Police my fucking ass,” One grumbled to himself. “Everywhere you go! Everywhere there’s dirty fucking cops!”

“You gotta lose that police chopper.”

Four’s extremely unhelpful voice came through the radio in One’s hands.

“Yes, thank you! We’re trying! It’s a little hard to lose the chopper when you’re being shot at! So take your valuable advice and shove it up your ass! Ace, where are you?”

“Yeah, I think she’s got her hands full,” Four informed him. “She’s headed your way down the water, got five or six cars behind her. Unless that one’s you. In which case she’s headed your way with four guys on her arse.”

“Well let’s hope it’s Ace with guys up her ass, cause I—I really couldn’t deal with that right now.”

“I dunno. You’ve got Two, Five and Six. You could each take one.”

“Fuck both of you.”

“Oh, now she speaks!” One shouted. “Okay! Chopper, cars! Any ideas?”

“Ha! Now you need me?”

“Well unfortunately you’re already here! So! Ideas!”

“One, but I need—oh fuck!”

The sound of gunshots cut her off, then disappeared when she cut the transmission.

“Oh my God,” Six whined. “Fuck, is she—is Ace fucking dead?”

“She’s not dead,” One assured him. “She’s too annoying to be dead.”

His eyes were already scanning the road ahead for explosions, looking for any clue as to where Ace was driving. It was too crowded to see any bright green, and the screaming and scrambling pedestrians could be running away from either one of them. The whole street was fucking chaos.

“Ace?” he called into the walkie. “Come on, you little shit. Where are you?”

“Here!”

“Here?” he repeated, still scouring the road. “Where the fuck is—HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!”

The produce truck that had been in front of them swerved out of the way, leaving ten feet of rapidly decreasing space. On the other side was another bright green Alfa Romero, Ace behind the wheel. Five and Six both screamed. Two might’ve if she wasn’t still in fucking arcade mode with her gun. One was fairly certain he’d shit his pants. This was not the heroic way he’d imagined himself dying for real.

This whole mission fucking sucked.

TAG LIST: Currently just @samwilsonns and @anotherunreadblog until I figure out what I’m doing with this lol.

#6 underground #six underground #ocappreciation #6 underground oc #6 underground fanfiction #flesh and blood #stories #6u stories #i blame joey entirely

61 notes · View notes

sunshinesoull · 4 years ago

Text

from @tr33-g1rl

weird asks that say a lot

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

coffee mugs

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

chocolate bars

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

bubblegum

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

sweet

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

soda bottles

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

boho

7. earbuds or headphones?

earbuds

8. movies or tv shows?

tv show

9. favorite smell in the summer?

the earth after rain

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

dodgeball

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

cinnamon and sugar oatmeal

12. name of your favorite playlist?

goodgood

13. lanyard or key ring?

lanyard

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

gummy bears

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

These Truths: A History of the United States

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

criss cross applesauce

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

doc martens

18. ideal weather?

cool with sunshine out

19. sleeping position?

on my right side

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

laptop, i can type as fast as i think

21. obsession from childhood?

spirit-- the movie and horse

22. role model?

mom

23. strange habits?

eating my food by the least to most favorite on the plate

24. favorite crystal?

quartz

25. first song you remember hearing?

dog days are over- florence welch

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

swimming

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

reading

28. five songs to describe you?

habits-tovelo

tongue tied-grouplove

falling- florence

hostage-billie eilish

loving is easy-rex orange county

29. best way to bond with you?

sit in silence with me

30. places that you find sacred?

waterfalls

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

platform shoes and short skirt

32. top five favorite vines?

could have dropped my croissant

its wednesday my dudes

give me my fucking money

he on x games mode

ill fucking rip your head off bitch

33. most used phrase in your phone?

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

hurt in a car? call william matar...444-4444

35. average time you fall asleep?

11pm

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

idk

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

duffel bag

38. lemonade or tea?

tea

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

cake

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

farted in the middle of class

41. last person you texted?

my best friend

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

pants pocket

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

hoodie

44. favorite scent for soap?

lavender

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

sci-fi

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

nothing

47. favorite type of cheese?

brie

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

mango

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

to each their own

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

“i piss on you!!!”

51. current stresses?

work

52. favorite font?

times new roman

53. what is the current state of your hands?

clean

54. what did you learn from your first job?

the world revolves around money

55. favorite fairy tale?

alice in wonderland

56. favorite tradition?

christmas morning

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

rape

suicidal thoughts

eating disorder

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

listening, maturity, discretion, honesty

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

you wish

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

something hippydippy, lots of nature and treess

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

we accept the love we think we deserve

62. seven characters you relate to?

repunzel- tangled

charlie-perks of being a wallflower

summer - 500 days of summer

kat- 10 things i hate about you,

... honestly hard to think of 7

63. five songs that would play in your club?

tongue tied,

promiscuous

heads will roll

day n night crookers remix

snap yo fingers

64. favorite website from your childhood?

webkinz

65. any permanent scars?

on my knee, fell on concrete

66. favorite flower(s)?

dahlia

67. good luck charms?

bees and butterflies

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

hennessy

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

koalas have chlamydia

70. left or right handed?

right

71. least favorite pattern?

stripes

72. worst subject?

math

73. favorite weird flavor combo?

cheese balls and pb

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

no clue

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

YOU EXPECT ME TO CHOOSE?!

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

aloe vera

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

sushi grocery store

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

student id

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

earth

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

lightning bugs

82. pc or console?

idk idc

83. writing or drawing?

writing

84. podcasts or talk radio?

podcast

84. barbie or polly pocket?

barbie

85. fairy tales or mythology?

mythology

86. cookies or cupcakes?

87. your greatest fear?

sex trafficking

88. your greatest wish?

happiness for myself and my loved ones

89. who would you put before everyone else?

my parents

90. luckiest mistake?

finding love on tinder

91. boxes or bags?

bags

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

sunlight

93. nicknames?

liv, livi, livbug, peppermint, legs

94. favorite season?

fall

95. favorite app on your phone?

vsco

96. desktop background?

pastel forrest

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

98. favorite historical era?

1920′s

2 notes · View notes

adventuresloane · 6 years ago

Text

i left a light beside the bed for you

Read on AO3

Dani/Aubrey

Rated T

Raffle Prize for @desiree-harding-fic

@tazprideweek

"This feels...normal," says Dani, chewing on a three-inch nail.

Aubrey pauses. Her thumb stops gently rubbing over and over Dani's knuckle, and only then does she notice that she's been repeating that same gesture the whole time, absent-minded. She remembers that she has to pee. Truthfully, she's sort of had to pee for the past hour, but kept refusing to make the fifteen-foot trek from the bed to the bathroom. It would mean overcoming her inertia enough to leave the comfort of the soft duvet, and it would mean her bare feet on the cold tile, and it would mean no longer holding Dani's hand.

"Good normal or bad normal?" she asks. She can hold it.

"What do you consider 'bad normal'?"

"Well, you know. Like boring. I feel like normal things are usually boring." She shuts her mouth, then, and swallows. Is this boring? Was she bored?

"Well, I wouldn't call you normal," Dani answers, and her grin makes the freckles on her cheek shift.

Aubrey glances at the box of nails. "I wouldn't call you normal either."

"I guess not. I was just talking about...this." She goes quiet after that. Both of them are submerged in the hum of the mini fridge and the air conditioning. Aubrey looks away and holds onto the air inside her mouth, just behind her closed lips. Dani, she has learned, is the type to get her words all in order before she says them. She has also learned--is still learning--not to interrupt the process by blurting whatever comes to mind, which, as it happens, is her usual response to silence.

If she stares at the ceiling long enough, it starts to look fuzzy. Like there's a grainy film of static over the surface of the plaster. It makes her think of mist outside a window, of the big old tube TV that had sat in the living room of her house for her first few years of life and that had tingled warmly when she pressed her hand to the screen. Everything feels a bit fuzzy now, maybe because it's 3AM. Everything feels warm and a bit familiar.

Finally, Dani says, quietly, "This is what I imagined it would be like if...if things had gone differently."

Aubrey shifts to nuzzle underneath her chin and nods slowly against her, lips brushing her neck. "I know what you mean." As she says it, she knows that it both is and isn't true.

Aubrey had always been good at getting used to things. She had to be, in order to drift in the way she did, navigating unfamiliar towns and faces. The novelties of the new places she visited, the disorienting change of scenery that made her pay attention to everywhere she went, things like storefronts with shells in the windows and residents who all still referred to fridges as "iceboxes"--all these things turned into background noise before long, things she stopped seeing. Sometimes, she thought she was too good at adapting. Boredom always lumbered up behind her, would glom onto her if she stopped moving for too long. Her general rule of thumb was that if she managed to memorize the major street names in the latest podunk little place where she had settled, it was time for her to move on. She'd go and do her best to shake off any moss she had gathered.

So, typically, she wouldn't have chosen to stay in Kepler for as long as she was. But getting accustomed to monster hunting, moon-activated portals, and her own actual magic was its own kind of challenge. This, she guessed, was the new normal, this hotel and these people. But she was used to that too. Her life had been full of new normals the past several years. It had become normal for her, at the end of a long day, to crave the protein kick of a cheesesteak sandwich from a roadside stand, when before she had hardly ever touched meat and a fig and pear salad had been her favorite meal. Hell, it had become normal to be homeless.

Being unable to sleep through the night had been normal for awhile. It was fine, whenever she lay down to close her eyes and instead felt her heart running too fast and hot for her to relax. In that case, she just threw off the sheets and went for a walk anywhere.

While most of the lodge's halls were familiar to her by now, they were harder to navigate in the darkness. She got turned around and backtracked a couple of times. That was alright. Nobody was up to see her fumbling around at this hour of the night, or, rather, the morning.

Or that was what she would have assumed, until she wandered into the kitchen.

The first thing Aubrey noticed about her was what she always noticed, which was the fact that she was gorgeous. The second thing was that she looked as if she'd just been caught in the act. Frozen in shock, she stared wide-eyed, with her arms wrapped around a stack of take-out boxes freshly plundered from the open fridge. She hunched over it awkwardly, like an Igor in an eighth-grade production of Frankenstein, her chin pressed on top of the pile to steady it. All in all, there was a certain frantically-stockpiling-squirrel-in-autumn quality about her, which, Aubrey knew well, could only derive from the early-morning munchies.

This was to say that, for once, she looked like even more of a hot mess than Aubrey. Given that up until now, she, with her lithe body and smell of fresh earth, had resembled more of a fey creature than a person, this came as a strange relief. So she was human after all! Or, well, not human, but capable of imperfection. On the other hand, it just so happened that Aubrey was currently wearing a Snoopy-themed nightgown that she hadn't bothered to wash in a month and almost surely had a comical case of bedhead, so it wasn't like she was winning the Dignity Olympics.

Fuck. She'd been staring.

When Aubrey finally kicked her brain into gear enough to speak, her voice sounded an octave or two higher than normal. "Hi! Hey, uh, Dani, sorry to walk in on you like that! I hope I didn't freak you out, I was just--"

"Are you supposed to be down here?"

"Oh." Dani had said it quickly enough to make her jolt back. The sound was loud and bounced off all the chrome in the large space, hitting her like an accusation. Within moments, the tips of her ears felt so hot it was a wonder that they did not ignite. "Sorry, I, um, I can go--"

"No! No, I..." She exhaled heavily and placed her bundles on the chrome countertop. "Sorry, that was rude. You don't have to leave."

"Oh," she said again. "I mean, it's fine, though. I can if you want."

"I don't. Really. That, uh, wasn't what I meant to say." Dani glanced away and did not elaborate.

"Oh," she said, and now this was getting ridiculous, and she thought about how much she really ought to think of something better to say, quick, before this got to be any more awkward than it was, which was hard, because the only thought running through her mind right now was Don't blow it.

"I love your--"

"I love your hair," Aubrey said almost simultaneously, then quickly added on, "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"The same thing." Dani breathed out through her nose, something that was not quite a laugh but approached it. When she grinned, her canines showed, noticeably longer than her other teeth, disguise or not. That was kind of hot, though she couldn't say why. "And...thanks, but there's nothing special about mine, I don't think. I just like the way you dyed yours."

"Yours is really pretty, though! It's cool that you're able to keep it that long and still have it look nice. And you've always got that, like, strategically disheveled thing going on. Like, you don't even need to look in the mirror every morning and it still just looks good."

Dani blinked at the end of her rambling. "Well...I don't have a reflection, Aubrey."

Well, dunk. "Right! Right, 'cause, vampire, so you're--right, sure."

"I mean, it's not just me. It's something about the human disguises. Don't ask me how it all works--the disguises are made of illusion magic, and I guess they interact with light in weird ways. It happens in pictures and video too. Sometimes we just show up blurry, but my form's never shown up at all."

"So, wait, but how do you know what you look like, then?"

"I kind of don't?" She shrugged. "I know some things, obviously. But not so much what my face looks like. At least, no more than you know what your voice sounds like if you never hear a recording of it."

"Wow. That...that's kind of a shame."

"I mean, it's whatever. It's not what I really look like anyway."

"Yeah, sure." Her fingers tapped rapidly against the pad of her thumb as she considered. "But like...would you like to know? What you look like, that is. I mean, I could try to tell you, if no one else has."

Her eyebrows shot up, in what, thankfully, looked like curiosity rather than judgment. Aubrey accepted that as an okay to stay for a bit, seating herself on the metal of the kitchen counter, cold even through her clothes. Dani hopped up to join her.

The inherent problem with this idea, she realized too late, was that she would have to look Dani in the eye for an extended period of time, and, as it happened, the last time she had done that, she had nearly started an all-out bonfire in the middle of the lodge. All she could do was try to think cool thoughts, which, of course, made it more difficult to give a decent answer. She kept tapping her fingers together, this time to snuff out the tiny flames she felt budding at the ends of her fingertips. "Well..." Don't just say 'cute.' "You kinda look like Florence Welch."

Dani's mouth quirked upward, and a half-second later, giggles came up out of her. She turned so that her expression was half-hidden by the curtain of her hair, but not before Aubrey saw the way the smile changed her whole face, softly crinkling and brightening her eyes, lifting her slightly sunken cheeks. She looked lighter, somehow, than she did before, and it had nothing to do with the kitchen fluorescents. With some of the tension gone from her chest, Aubrey went on, "But, like, Lungs Florence, you know?"

"I can live with that," she chuckled. "I like most Florence + the Machine."

"Me too! I'm doing a bad job of this, though. Fuck. Um, you've got a sharp jaw and a square chin. Your nose is kind of narrow. Green eyes, but you probably already knew that. A really nice, light green, though. Kind of--hang on, don't blink for a second. Kind of like...duckweed? No, shit, I was trying to come up with a good plant simile but I fucked up."

"Oh my god, please keep going. You're doing great."

"Like matcha, then? Yeah, I'd say matcha. Okay, sorry, we can stop having a weird staring contest now."

She laughed softly again, then quieted, eyes cast downward. Then, without warning, she reached into her back pocket. She flipped through the pages quickly, but Aubrey still saw, flitting before her, the gray graphite faces of other residents of the lodge. Just about everyone, except for one.

As she sketched, Aubrey leaned over the page and watched her create a new person out of nothing, weaving an image out of crosshatchings as thin and delicate as spider silk. Although knowing next to nothing about drawing, Aubrey gave her some pointers. "Your lips are a little bit thinner than that." "Your cheekbones are a little bit higher." "Don't forget to draw in the freckles below your eye. They're kind of faint, but they're there."

Aubrey went to look in a little closer and felt her forehead knock against something hard. By the time she realized that her head had collided with Dani's, both of them had jumped back a little, instinctively. She hadn't realized how much they had been leaning in with their heads turned toward the sketchpad.

Dani blinked once, twice, as though dazed. "I'm sorry, I should...it's late. I should go."

"Um," she called to Dani's back, "are you usually up at this hour?"

Dani stopped walking, then turned with a small, sheepish smile. "Well, I don't strictly have to sleep."

"Rad! Me neither! I'll probably see you around then."

"Yeah, you probably will."

Aubrey kept sitting there for some time after she left. She wasn't tired, and her heart was still pounding too much for her to sleep.

A few nights later, as she wandered the lodge in the wee hours, she rounded a corner to find the door to a single suite open, drenching the otherwise dark hallway in the golden lamplight from within. Considering that no one left their doors open even during the daytime, this was decidedly weird.

When she walked by and looked inside, Dani was there to meet her gaze. As if she had been waiting.

"Hi," she said quietly.

Aubrey, whose exhausted brain was even more deficient in the attention department than usual, replied after a delay of six full seconds, "Hi."

More moments of silence passed as she tried to figure out whether she should just keep going without being a bother, or whether her addled mind could manage a conversation right now. She couldn't figure out which Dani would have preferred. Maybe it was a fault of the disguises or maybe it was just how she operated, but either way, she was hard to read.

"So...do you have your bunny?"

"His name is Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD, and no."

"Can you get him?"

"Huh?"

"So he can hang out with us. I probably should've asked if you wanted to hang out first. Sorry, I don't normally do this."

"Uh...no, that's fine. That's great. I'll...I'll go ask if he wants to come."

She brought him, and then, in the following weeks, made sure to bring him every time. More often than not, they passed the first hours after midnight together. For the most part, Aubrey did not remember the conversations in particular, at least not the specifics of them. They were long and meandered and doubled back on themselves. Instead, she remembered what she learned from them, from Dani. That the light orange-ish mushroom that grew on large trees in the forest were mildly poisonous to some and tasted like chicken to others, and that you'd never know unless you tried. That Barclay and Mama used to have regular competitions to determine who could handle the spiciest food. That she was, in fact, not to hard to read at all--that she picked at the stitches in her quilt when she was nervous, that she sometimes rocked back and forth a little on the bed when talking about something that excited her (though never enough to disturb the rabbit resting in her lap).

Aubrey remembered what she learned in the pauses, too. There were large in-between spaces of nothing, when neither of them spoke. She learned, to her surprise, that she didn't mind it. The sound of Dani's deep sighs and the bags of slightly stale Goldfish crackers she kept under her bed had become part of a routine. Predictable. She hated predictable, usually. But the rest of her life--her new life of monster-hunting and magic-using--had stopped being predictable awhile ago. So this was alright. Nice, even, to have one space where she knew what was what.

"I kind of don't want to leave," she mused into one of these silences.

"The room, you mean? You probably should. My bed's not big enough."

"No." Yes. "I mean leave Kepler. Normally I would've moved on by now."

Dani nodded. "I guess you did travel a lot before. You've got a lot going on around here, though."

"Yeah, I guess that's it. So much is new I haven't gotten used to it yet. I'd hate to live somewhere I'd gotten used to," she said with a chuckle.

"You always wanna keep moving?"

"I think so."

It might have been several minutes before Dani spoke up, though she didn't keep track. All Aubrey knew was that she heard her say suddenly, "Aubrey, don't take this the wrong way, just...how could you ever want that?"

The "how could you" pricked her. Aubrey slowly turned to look at her, eyebrows raised.

"It's an honest question," Dani went on. "I just...I can't relate. Maybe because I left home so early and...well. Suddenly."

Aubrey glanced away. She asked, "How early?" before she could wonder whether she wanted to hear the answer.

"Oh, I don't know. I was a teenager."

"And remind me again, how old are you?"

She had to think about it. "Twenty-two."

"How long have you been twenty-two?"

"Awhile?" She gave a small shrug. "But years are different on Sylvain than on Earth. Keeping track is hard for me. That's what I'm saying. I miss being used to where I live, and understanding it, and understanding my place in it. I'm barely acclimated to Kepler. I can't imagine having to pick up and do it all again, all the time."

The forest green hotel carpeting was rough under her toes. "Yeah, I hear you," she replied after a bit too long. She wanted to say it was easy for her to do it, over and over. She would have said that, normally, to anyone else. But now, in the early morning hush, she thought it might not have been what was easy so much as simply what she did, what she felt she had to do. "I guess...I mean, I had a home I left early too. And I don't think I'll feel that way about any place ever again. I never even wanted to try. Why stay anywhere when no place is ever going to feel the same? I don't know, I'm not making sense, probably. It's too late. Or too early."

"No, I think you are."

"Yeah." She took in a breath and tried a smile. "I could be wrong, though. I've, uh, found out I was wrong about a lot of things since getting here."

Dani glanced at her and, gradually, returned the grin. Aubrey had also learned not to look for too long, or she might get self-conscious and hide her face behind her hair again. Not as often, though, lately, and not now. She had been unfolding over these nights, slowly. "Like what?" she asked.

"Monsters being real was a big one."

She laughed this time, albeit from behind her palm. "Guess so." With one hand stroking Dr. Bonkers, she let the other rest on Aubrey's thigh, fingers lightly tapping. Aubrey tried not to squirm. Her body seemed hypersensitive under the touch, almost pricked by it. Or maybe that was the heat traveling just beneath her skin, out to her extremities, like it did just before flames burst from her fingertips. After holding it back for awhile, her hands stung like they had when she had touched a hot lightbulb as a child. Dani was still touching her, and she wanted to shift away but also desperately didn't want this contact severed. She tried to quench the heat radiating from her and hoped Dani would not notice. (Surely, she had to notice, and that thought only made her burn more.)

Later, she tried to hide the round scorch marks left in the quilt by her fingertips. She realized then that she was in what one might call deep shit.

So she had been less than proactive in the romance department for the last few years. She had had work to focus on. A blossoming career in entertainment, in fact. And anyway, she had never stayed anywhere long enough to make a real connection. Aside from some flirtatious moments in bars, a few teasing strokes, there had been nothing since high school. She was touch-starved, probably. Liable to crush on any living soul who so much as brushed arms with her. Did it really even count as a crush if all you wanted to do was sit together while touching? Maybe she just liked hanging out on her friend's bed in the middle of the night while the two of them took turns resting their heads in each other's laps and spilling their darkest secrets, and that was all fine and very platonic.

These were only some of her considerations as she sat, one evening, with Dani's fingers loosely interlocked with her own.

If she weren't careful, she knew she would just up and ask. She tried to distract herself instead. "Oh! I thought you might like this." She pulled out her phone and opened up her photos, which was about the only thing the device was good for in this quiet zone. "Saw a snail today."

Dani, who was already leaning against her shoulder, came even closer, tickling her clavicle with her hair as she looked at the picture. She grinned and nodded. "Effervescent."

"Can you ID it?"

"Virginia bladetooth, I think. I see them all the time in the garden."

"You're like a walking field guide, you know that?"

She giggled quietly, idly flicking the buttons on Aubrey's vest. "I think I've just spent way too many hours reading them." The metal jingled as she jostled it.

"You're amazing. Hey, by the way, what are we?"

After saying it, Aubrey immediately wished she had taken more distracting snail photos.

Dani, for a moment, looked as if she had not quite heard or understood. She gave her a curious look before the meaning of the question occurred to her, and her soft smile collapsed under its own weight. Her mouth was open. She seemed to take in a lot of air without breathing out.

She was just about ready to laugh it off, to make a gal pals joke, when Dani started, "We're friends, Aubrey." Aubrey didn't think she imagined the way "friends" had been enunciated. "Why? Were you...did you think we were more than that?"

Her whole mouth tasted of sour spit. "Well," she said, with an impressive lack of shaking, "we could be, if you wanted?"

"No."

The answer was instantaneous. She didn't say it in a mean way. Just an honest one.

"Ah." It sounded, even to herself, like the wind had been knocked out of her. "Right. I, uh, think I made this really goddamn awkward just now! Bad joke. I should probably go back to my room anyway, so--"

"No, hang on!" There was a tug on her sleeve as she went to stand up.

She sighed. "Listen, it was dumb. You really don't have to try and--"

"It's not dumb. I just...it's got nothing to do with who you are or anything..."

"It's not me, it's you, right?" she muttered. Suddenly, she felt exhausted.

"No! No, that's not what I...it's only even kind of about me." Her eyes snapped frantically this way and that, as if searching for a way to explain herself, or for an exit. They looked in every direction but Aubrey's. Her fist clenched and unclenched rapidly, over and over.

"Hey," Aubrey said in the softest voice she could. She sat back on the bed and considered, for a moment, wrapping an arm around Dani's hunched-up shoulders, then decided against it. "Hey, it's okay. Really, it is. I...I didn't want to make you worry."

"I'm sorry." Dani's breath shivered. "I'm sorry, I don't know how to explain...okay, look. I want to date you. I do."

Within half a second, Aubrey went through whatever the opposite of the seven stages of grief is. "Oh. Good to know."

"But I don't think I can."

"Can I just ask why, though?" She waited for an answer that she did not receive. "Listen, you're, like, really sending me a lot of mixed signals here, and I wasn't gonna push it but I feel like at this point you owe me some kind of--"

Dani slapped her hand down onto the bedspread and, far too loudly for 2AM, shouted, "I can't bring you home to my mom!"

The silence that followed was not one of the comfortable ones. It hit her like cold.

"Sorry." Dani's voice was a whisper, now, one that came out cracked. "I'm genuinely sorry. For all of this. I just don't know how else to explain it. This could never be a normal relationship, you know? I can't introduce you to my family, I can't take you on the dates I would've taken you on back at home..." She trailed off, swallowed loudly. "Maybe it's stupid. It's definitely stupid. I...when I was younger, I always imagined having a stupid romance like you see in teen movies or whatever, something really sappy and typical, and then I left home and resigned myself to the fact that I'd never have a chance of a normal relationship like that. Or a relationship at all, really. I don't know."

Aubrey let the quiet stretch on for a good while longer. Then, almost to herself, she murmured, "I couldn't bring you home to my mom either." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dani's head snap towards her. She kept staring at the floor anyway. "It's hard. She won't ever know the person or the people I decide I want to spend my life with, and that's hard as shit."

"Yes," Dani answered, barely audible.

"It'll always make relationships feel a little weird, I think." Finally, she glanced in Dani's direction. "I feel like that's not really a reason not to have them, though. I don't even know what would qualify a relationship as not-weird, honestly. Or what counts as 'normal' in your book."

"Maybe," Dani sighed. "But it's also like...you really don't know how much you still don't know about me. About Sylphs in general. You might find it too weird."

"Are you serious? Try me."

With a huff, she reached under her bed to pull out a small, jangling cardboard box. Making eye contact all the while, she pulled out an iron nail, held it up for Aubrey to see, and then bit down on it, running it back and forth so that it grated against her teeth.

"What, is that a stim? You don't honestly think I'd judge you for--"

"No," Dani interrupted with a tired tone. "That's not it. You'll see some Sylphs doing this when there are no humans around to comment on it. You know how my kind are rumored to drink blood? That myth started because we get insane cravings for iron, and so a lot of us will just spend all day sucking on literal metal."

"So? Still not that weird."

"But that's just an example. There's a million little things like that you don't know about. I just think you're going to find something about me too bizarre one day."

"Oh yeah? Well I can hang," Aubrey said, and with that, pulled an inch-long nail out of the box and gulped it down.

A pause.

"You don't swallow them whole, do you?"

"Aubrey, what the fuck.”

"Huh. Why did I do that?"

"Oh my god." Dani laughed, and kept laughing, high-pitched and uncontrollable. It was the incredulous sort of laugh that comes from being so delirious with panic that the feeling loops back around to being hilarious. Not that Aubrey could relate or anything. "Oh my god, Aubrey, you're insane! How did you manage to make this night even more ridiculous than it already was?"

"Am I weird enough yet?" She had started to giggle too. It wasn't like there was much else to do at this point.

"I'm gonna die." Dani wiped tears from the corners of her eyes, trying to catch her breath as she continued to laugh. "Or you might. I'm really scared for you actually."

"Yeah, this is bad probably, huh?"

"No, seriously, we have to go to the actual emergency room now because you just ate an entire nail."

"Wait, no, I hate hospitals!"

"Me fucking too, but you just swallowed a sharp chunk of literal metal! It could, I don't know, puncture you or something!"

Aubrey groaned. "Fine, but only if we don't tell Mama."

Dani stopped giggling for a moment, thinking. "We still need her car, though. I know where the keys are."

"You have a license?"

"I don't show up in photographs, remember? Of course I don't have a license."

"Right. Cool. Well, I don't either, so..."

"Don't worry. I drive the landscaping cart around the lodge's grounds all the time."

"Well, that's probably basically a car. You know what street signs and shit mean?"

"Probably."

Three blown stop signs, two unheeded red lights, and several screeching turns around bends on the highway later, they both came stumbling up to the sinister red glow of the EMERGENCY sign and the automatic sliding doors below it. "Stop laughing," Dani kept saying as they walked in. She tried several times to bite her lip in order to stop her own hysterics, but it only resulted in her snorting loudly instead. "Stop it! You're injured! We shouldn't be having a good time!"

Given that most cases of ingested foreign objects occur in individuals under the age of five--a fact of which the doctor felt the need to inform her--Aubrey figured she could at least take some pride in being a novelty. All the same, it was difficult to get her story straight. She ended up with several brochures for therapy to treat pica. It was at least preferable to admitting, "I ate a nail in a misguided attempt to prove a point to my anxious vampire not-quite-girlfriend."

Dani stood up the moment Aubrey walked back into the waiting room, as though she had been watching the door. She had sobered up some, it seemed. Nervously, she pulled on each of her fingers as though to crack the knuckles, though there was no sound. "How'd it go? What'd she say?"

"So apparently, most people just pass this stuff on their own. They took some X-rays, but apparently I'm not at a huge risk for being perforated or whatever, so they're not gonna put me through surgery. She just said to monitor it."

"Well, I guess that's good." Her tone was doubtful as she wrapped her arms around herself. "Still, I wish they could do more for you than just tell you to wait. Where'd you get the Jello cups?"

"The nurses will just give them to you if you ask! I guess they felt bad for me. Want one?"

With a faint smile, she took it and sat back down. "So," said Dani, peeling back the lid.

"So," said Aubrey. She tapped the side of her plastic cup with her forefinger. Of course they had to talk about it. It might as well be at this hour, she supposed, like all their other important talks. "Maybe you had a point, huh? You'd never have a normal relationship with me as your girlfriend." She forced a small chuckle at the end.

Dani didn't laugh in return this time. She poked at the red gelatin. Aubrey noticed that she liked to watch the chunks of it jiggle on her plastic spoon before eating it. That was important. "Maybe not," she said thoughtfully. "Though I was thinking that sneaking out and stealing Mama's car is pretty teen rom-com."

Aubrey recognized that as a hint of hope. "So is sharing Jello, I think." She looked out the window at the streaks of yellow on the horizon, signaling the coming sunrise. Mama would be up with the sun, surely, and possibly wonder where her car went not long after. "We're going to get in so much fucking trouble. Also very teen rom-com."

That time, Dani giggled. Then she stopped, not lifting her eyes from the tile. "I really do care about you."

Aubrey blinked. "I...I care about you too."

"Could we...would you be okay with taking it slow? I'm not sure I want to call it a relationship just yet. But I like what we've been doing. I really like it."

Slowly, she felt a grin spread across her face. "Just tell me something: can I do more than what we've been doing? Am I allowed to kiss you?" She brushed aside Dani's hair before it could fall in front of her cheek.

With a small smile, she asked, "Are you going to make fun of me if I tell you I've never kissed a girl before?"

"No. But I think it's worth a try."

"This can't be exactly how you thought it'd be, though."

"What do you mean?" Dani asks.

"I mean, for one thing, you probably imagined you'd be dating a Sylph. And that you wouldn't be living in a hotel. This probably isn't anything like you imagined a normal relationship being, is it?"

"Well, that's true." Another pause passes by. Matter-of-factly, she goes on, "Nothing in my fucking life worked out the way I wanted it, actually."

"I know," Aubrey says quietly.

She feels a graceful hand card through her thick curls. "I feel like that might be okay, though."

Aubrey had no idea if this relationship qualified as normal or not. Normal, she guessed, was not the word for it. It just felt a bit like home.

((Please consider reblogging if you enjoyed!))

#or: was that a twilight reference? the fanfic #aubrey #dani #danbrey #vampfire #taz #taz amnesty #taz fanfic #fan fiction #the adventure zone #the zone cast #aubrey little #taz aubrey #taz dani #f/f

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boneandfur · 6 years ago

Text

The Mask of Fate

Summary: when Bryce and Ari visit the Museum of Fine Arts, they make a startling discovery. Is the past truly the past? Or will Fate lend a hand? // Notes: Inspired by an edit made for me by @choicesarehard (at beginning of chapter). Much thanks and love goes to my writing pals, without whom none of this would be possible! You know who you are. // Words: 1470 // Song: Jenny of Oldstones by Florence Welch // Pairings: Bryce x MC, Ethan x ? //Rating: though this first chapter is only rated T, the rest of the work will have a hard and fast EXPLICIT 18+ rating. //AUTHOR's NOTE: if you enjoyed this, don't forget to like, comment & reblog!

PROLOGUE

Present Day

"Nox habet quod dies perdidit.” (Night holds what day has lost) -- Seneca.

"Tell me why you dragged me to a dusty museum on this nice, sunny day again?" Bryce laughs as Ari pays for their tickets, fixing her with a charming smile. "We could be out there playing Ultimate Frisbee."

"There's something I want you to see. Come on, slow poke." Ari digs her finger into Bryce's ribs, tickling him. "Eek!" The nearest museum docent, a girl with bright pink hair and a grandma cardigan, turns to stare as Bryce pulls Ari into his arms and rubs his nose against hers.

"There's more where that came from later, you beautiful, infuriating thing." His voice is a thing of beauty: honey and the echo of the tides, blowing over the bare flesh and warming her, like a tropical breeze blowing through the palms beside a white sand shore. "Doctor Riversong. Now, what's this special surprise?"

Ari tosses one dark ponytail over her shoulder, and winks, beckoning Bryce towards a door near a statue of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. "I know a guy."

•••

The back room of the museum is entirely too dusty for his tastes, and climate controlled. They couldn't have splurged for an upgrade? Bryce is wishing at this point that he'd thought to bring a wool sweater, he certainly owns enough of them living in the Northeast.

"Cold, Dr Lahela?" There's something about this 'guy' that sets all the hairs on the back of Bryce's neck distinctly on end, for all of his friendly manner.

"How do you know each other again?" Bryce barely moves his lips against Ari's ear, and yet Raines responds, his voice a liquid dark thing, smooth as a hand grasping silk sheets in pleasure -- or exquisite pain.

"Let's just say we have a mutual interest." Raines lays his hand over a panel on the door, and it slides open.

The smell of the little room is fresh and bright, like citrus and sunshine, for all its cramped space. Ari tugs at his hand, and Bryce allows himself to be led to a long aisle, made up of glass cases. Inside are the bric-a-brac of a world gone by, ranging from iron sickle knives to a doll with stone eyes, a child's plaything. Each has a small label, dated anywhere from 2000 BCE to 1600 CE.

Bryce moves along the glass cases, peering at the minutiae of lives lived thousands of years in the past. Ari has moved beyond him, talking with Raines. All of a sudden, he stops. There, in the case, is a bull's horn, gilded and flaking, bored with holes in a line. He knows what it is even before Raines speaks. "A bullroarer."

"Yes, you certainly know your history, Dr Lahela!" Raines sounds faintly amused, and Bryce feels soured, though nothing in Raines's manner is condescending.

He feels that he must have it, he must touch it. It's mine, Bryce thinks, although he knows it cannot be. He can almost feel the weight of the thing in his hands, and he knows the low roar it would make as it swoops through the air.

"From the height of the Minoan Empire, about 1600 BCE. That particular item was found in the ruins of the Palace at Knossos."

"You mean, like the Minotaur and Icarus?" Bryce takes a step back from the glass, although it pains him to do so. "That's just a myth. I'm a doctor. We believe in science, and what we can prove."

"You can't prove anything here, Doctor Lahela. These human memories, how precious, how fleeting they are." Somehow, it sounds like an incantation.

Raines removes a teak chest from one of the cases, weathered by time. The bronze lock crumbles in his hand. When he opens the case, the scent of labdanum is in the room, sweet and dark as vanilla and rich earth, like a woman who has just sat down after a bath, combing oil through her thick dark locks.

He then draws out a wax tablet, mummified and preserved by the centuries. "This was found in the ruins of old Ostia, buried under the foundations of a house near the shore. Some fishermen dragged it up in their nets in the late nineteenth century. It is a miracle it still exists."

"What does it say?" Ari strokes one fingertip over the lettering, entranced.

Raines raises a brow, reading aloud. "'Is that a stirgil in your toga, or are you just happy to see me?' Some things never change. Moving on..."

As Ari and Raines move on to the next case, Bryce hangs back. There is something about the teak case that fascinates him, like a medical curiosity. He crouches down level with the box. On the inside, there is lettering in Latin, almost too faint to make out. Medicae... Numidia. Something glints in the box, and Bryce removes it carefully.

It is a scalpel made of polished bronze, etched on one side with a drawing of a boy leaping over a bull, like the fresco he saw back in the hallway. When the world was new, when myths were made, oracles were spoken, and gods walked among men.

The smell of labdanum is back, and black storax, thick and sweet as the guava paste his mother would make for mochi. In the polished bronze, Bryce can almost see a woman, staring back at him down the centuries, dark eyed and skinned.

She was a medicae... of Numidia. At the house with the sign of Epione. In Ostia, where the blood oranges grow.

Bryce can almost see her turn her head to meet his eyes, as if to say:

Remember.

•••

In Ostia, there is a blood orange tree, under the sign of Epione, the goddess of healing. She is called Felicitas by the Romans, and her high priestess never turns a soul from her temple door. Harper grew up on the streets of Subura, back in Rome, where she learned the art of the medicae. She came to the port city of Ostia nearly two decades past, back when she was yet a girl, back when the blood orange tree was only a sapling, a reminder of the home she would never return to.

At night, when the locusts sing in the trees and the priestesses of that stone house wash the doorstep with salt water, Harper's lover comes to her in dreams. She will wake in the dawn-light, when the sun has not yet risen over the bay, and listen for the song of the nightingale; just as it sang beside their bedroom window, back in Subura, when they were young together.

(Back before the Legion, back before Ostia, before her hair began to turn gray, before her bones started to ache when the seas turn green with the coming storm.)

Beside her, the bed is cold, the place where he would lie is empty. Harper will roll over in her bed and reach beneath it for a chest made of teak and ebony, filled with the scrolls he has sent her. Each is like a precious jewel, a memory, hoarded and kept sacred. She will take out one at time, into the courtyard to break her fast.

(With sweet wine from Hispania, and blood oranges.)

Harper breaks the wax seal of the letter with a flick of her fingertip, and she smells the scent of him, her man; as though he sits beside her at the table, drinking watered wine and eating sticky figs, his deep blue eyes never leaving her face.

You get this crinkle between your eyes when you think too hard, my love, he will whisper, and press his thumb there, caressing the strain away.

(But like the space beside her in bed, Harper is alone at the table. She does not like to think about how many years it has been, or how many lines she can see beside her eyes in the beaten bronze mirror.)

She unrolls the carrying case carefully, wind and salt have done their wear and tear on the waxen leather packet. Out of the case falls a spring of fauna, and Harper carefully crumbles it in her palm, holding it to her nose to breathe in the strange scent. It is not a plant she knows, or has ever known before. If she did not know him better, she would think that he had a lover out there, in the far flung reaches of the Empire, and she would not blame him: it has been years since last they held one another.

(Yet a promise is a promise, and she has kept it, in her fashion.)

Under the same stars, in some far-flung corner of the Empire, Harper can picture him: sitting at his writing desk beneath his hospital tent, her man:

Ethus...

#open heart #dr ethan ramsey #bryce lahela #bryce x mc #playchoices #open heart fanfic #ancient rome au #historical au #choices the stories you play #choices the syp #adrian raines #slightly crosses over with several books #open heart mc #harper emery x ethan ramsey #ethan is bi in this era too

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rentalgoose · 6 years ago

Note

I can’t fit the whole name in 1 ask, so this is part 1. Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvorangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolfhunderttausendjahresvorandieerscheinen

You left out a couple of letters (in all three asks)! It’s: Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvorangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolfhunderttausendjahresvorandieerscheinenvonderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgenachtmittungsteinundsiebeniridiumelektrischmotorsgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchennachbarschaftdersternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneuerassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortpflanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvorandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum

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D - “Deceptacon” by Le Tigre

O - “Of Once And Future Kings” by Pavlov’s Dog

L - “Laugh Till I Cry” by The Front Bottoms

P - “Paracetamol” by Declan KcKenna

H - “Heart-Shaped Box” by Nirvana

B - “Black Mambo” by Glass Animals

L - “Lucky Girl” by Fazerdaze

A - “Are You Satisfied?” by MARINA

I - “Inbetween Days” by The Cure

N - “Not Too Bad” from Fun Home

E - “Electric Love” by BØRNS

C - “Cinnamon” by Palehound

H - “How Soon Is Now?” by The Smiths

A - “And So It Goes” by Billy Joel

R - “Run Boy Run” by Woodkid

L - “LA Devotee” by Panic! At The Disco

E - “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks

S - “Sex On Fire” by Kings of Leon

D - “Disorder” by Joy Division

A - “A Decade Under The Influence” by Taking Back sunday

V - “Vacation” by Florist

I - “In The Woods Somewhere” by Hozier

D - “Dust In The Wind” by Kansas

E - “Easy Target” by blink-182

A - “Allentown” by Billy Joel

R - “Rill Rill” by Sleigh Bells

L - “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division

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R - “Run” by Hozier

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R - “Rhode Island” by The Front Bottoms

I - “I Bet On Losing Dogs” by Mitski

C - “Cool And Refreshing” by Florist

K - “Karma Police” by Radiohead

G - “Gooey” by Glass Animals

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V - “Video Games” by Lana del Rey

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N - “Nina Cried Power” by Hozier

J - “Joanie” by The Front Bottoms

O - “Off To The Races” by Lana del Rey

H - “HELP” by The Front Bottoms

N - “New Slang” by The Shins

K - “Kin” by Kevin Abstract

E - “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles

N - “Nobody Knows You (When You’re Down And Out)” by Leslie Odom, Jr.

N - “No. 1 Party Anthem” by Arctic Monkeys

E - “Eddie” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

T - “The Bitch Of Living” from Spring Awakening

H - “Humongous” by Declan McKenna

L - “Love Me” by The 1975

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O - “Oh No!” by MARINA

Y - “Your Best American Girl” by Mitski

D - “Drunk Kid Catholic” by Bright Eyes

M - “my boy” by Billie Eilish

A - “All Is Full of Love” by Death Cab for Cutie

R - “Radio Ga Ga” by Queen

T - “The World According To Chris” from Carrie: The Musical

I - “I Melt With You” by Modern English

N - “Nova Baby” by The Black Keys

N - “Normal Song” by Perfume Genius

E - “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police

R - “Right Hand Man” from Hamilton

O - “Ophelia” by The Lumineers

O - “Otherside” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

L - “Loveletting” by Sons of an Illustrious Father

I - “I Hope You’re Miserable” by Moose Blood

V - “Vampire Money” by My Chemical Romance

E - “Every Other Freckle” by alt-J

R - “Rose Tint My World” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

P - “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode

A - “Andy, You’re A Star” by The Killers

U - “Up On Melancholy Hill” by Gorillaz

L - “Lipstick Covered Magnet” by The Front Bottoms

Q - “Queen” by Perfume Genius

U - “Uma Thurman” by Fall Out Boy

I - “I Got” by Young The Giant

N - “Non-Stop” from Hamilton

C - “Creep” by Radiohead

Y - “You’re My Home” by Billy Joel

R - “Rabbit Hole” by blink-182

A - “Anna Sun” by WAK THE MOON

N - “New York State Of Mind” by Billy Hoel

D - “Different Names For The Same Thing” by Death Cab for Cutie

O - “Our Love Is God” from Heathers

L - “last words” by isaac gracie

P - “Piano Man” by Billy Joel

H - “Harry Dean” by SWMRS

S - “Sweater Weather” by The Neighbourhood

H - “Hot Knifer” by Peach Pit

E - “Everlong - Acoustic” by Goo Fighters

R - “Rox In The Box” by The Decemberists

M - “Make Me Your Queen” by Decaln McKenna

A - “Africa” by Toto

N - “Name” by The Goo Goo Dolls

T - “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths

H - “Hero” by Family of the Year

O - “Online Songs” by blink-182

M - “Milk” by The 1975

A - “April, Come She Will” by Simon & Garfunkel

S - “Shampain” by MARINA

U - “Under The Bridge” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

N - “Nervous” by Gavin James

C - “Cecily Smith” from Fly By Night

A - “After The Storm” by Mumford & Sons

S - “Starring Role” by MARINA

V - “Valentine” by 5 Seconds of Summer

I - “Islands” by Young The Giant

C - “COPYCAT” by Billie Eilish

T - “Thank You For The Venom” by My Chemical Romance

O - “Old Friends” by Pinegrove

R - “Resonance” by Home

W - “Wolfman” by The Front Bottoms

I - “Iscariot” by WALK THE MOON

L - “Let The River Run” by Carly Simon

L - “Lose It” by SWMRS

I - “I Know A Place” by MUNA

A - “Alexander Hamilton” from Hamilton

M - “Medicine” by Daughter

X - “XO” by Fall Out Boy

E - “Echo” by Kevin Abstract

R - “running on empty” by isaac gracie

X - “Xanadu” by Rush

E - “Emperor’s New Clothes” by Panic! At The Disco

S - “Step Out” by José González

Y - “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon

A - “Aaron Burr, Sir” from Hamilton

N - “Need” by Pinegrove

C - “Cemetery Drive” by My Chemical Romance

Y - “You May Be Right” by Billy Joel

Z - “Zombie” by The Cranberries

E - “Ease” by Troye Sivan

U - “Underdog” by Imagine Dragons

S - “Sunspot” by Tula Vera

W - “Why Didn’t You Stop Me?” by Mitski

O - “Older Chests” by Damien Rice

L - “Laura Palmer” by Bastille

F - “Flashlight” by The Front Bottoms

E - “Every Night” by Imagine Dragons

S - “Sedona” by Houndmouth

C - “Cola” by Lana del Rey

H - “Hurricane Drunk” by Florence + The Machine

L - “Layla” by Eric Clapton

E - “Ease On Down the Road” from The Wiz

G - “Gold Dust Woman” by Fleetwood Mac

E - “East Coast Anthem” by Good Charlotte

L - “Lone Star” by The Front Bottoms

S - “South” by Hippo Campus

T - “Teen Idle” by MARINA

E - “Edelweiss” from The Sound Of Music

I - “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor

N - “NFWMB” by Hozier

H - “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani

A - “American Pie” by Don McLean

U - “Unobstructed Views” by Death Cab for Cutie

S - “Signs” by Tula Vera

E - “El Condor Pasa (If I Could)” by Simon & Garfunkel

N - “Northen Downpour” by Panic! At The Disco

B - “Brand New City” by Mitski

E - “Empire (Let Them Sing)” by Bring Me The Horizon

R - “Right Red Hand” by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

G - “Gum” by Moose Blood

E - “Enjoy The Silence” by Depeche Mode

R - “Red Solo Cup” by Tody Keith

D - “Downeaster Alexa” by Billy Joel

O - “One More Name In Nighlife” by Dane Terry

R - “Rock Show” by blink-182

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F - “Fuckmylife666″ by Against Me!

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E - “Enter Sandman” by Metallica

L - “Leningrad” by Billy Joel

C - “Criminal” by Fiona Apple

H - “Helena” by My Chemical Romance

E - ”Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes

V - “Volcano” by Damien Rice

O - “O Children” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

R - “Runner” by Kevin Abstract

A - “All The Small Things” by blink-12

L - “Like Real People Do” by Hozier

T - “Teenage Kicks” by The Undertones

E - “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam

R - “Romeo” by Chairlift

N - “Novocaine” by Fall Out Boy

W - “When Did Your Heart Go Missing?” by Rooney

A - “Adam’s Song” by blink-182

R - “Round And Round” by Imagine Dragons

E - “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M.

N - “Nicotine” by Panic! At The Disco

G - “Goodnight Saigon” by Billy Joel

E - “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” by Wang Chung

W - “White Cedar” by The Mountain Goats

I - “Icarus” by Bastille

S - “Sara Smile” by Hall & Oates

S - “Seventeen” by Peach Pit

E - “Everybody Talks” by Neon Trees

N - “Nothing Left To Say / Rocks” by Imagine Dragons

H - “Holy Ghost” by BØRNS

A - “A Burning Hill” by Mitski

F - “Frozen Pines” by Lord Huron

T - “The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive” by Death Cab for Cutie

S - “Sun” by Sleeping At Last

C - “Cleopatra” by The Lumineers

H - “Heat Of The summer” by Young The Giant

A - “A Match Into Water” by Pierce The Veil

F - “Family Friend” by The Vaccines

E - “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” by Tears for Fears

R - “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons

S - “Somebody Else” by The 1975

W - “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd

E - “Everyday Is Like Sunday” by Morrissey

S - “silhouettes of you” by isaac gracie

S - “Stable Song” by Death Cab for Cutie

E - “Everything I Didn’t Say” by 5 Seconds of Summer

N - “No Room In Frame” by Death Cab for Cutie

S - “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” by Billy Joel

C - “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd

H - “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley

A - “American Boyfriend” by Kevin Abstract

F - “Feel Good Inc.” by Gorillaz

E - “Everyone Is Gay” by Great Big World

W - “White Teeth Teens” by Lorde

A - “Arms Tonite” by Mother Mother

R - “Red Barchetta” by Rush

E - “Everything Now” by Arcade Fire

N - “No Sunlight” by Death Cab for Cutie

W - “we fell in love in october” by girl in red

O - “O Valencia!” by The Decemberists

H - “Hey Jude” by The Beatles

L - “Love On Top” by Beyonce

G - “Geyser” by Mitski

E - “Evil Woman” by Electric Light Orchestra

P - “Pressure” by Billy Joel

F - “Fixin’” by WALK THE MOON

L - “Locked Out” by Daddy Issues

E - “Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)” by Death Cab for Cutie

G - “Ghost Of You” by 5 Seconds of Summer

E - “Echoes” by Pink Floyd

U - “Underneath The Sycamore” by Death Cab for Cutie

N - “Nine In The Afternoon” by Panic! At The Disco

D - “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + The Machine

S - “Streetlife Serenader” by Billy Joel

O - “O My Heart” by Mother Mother

R - “Radio” by Lana del Rey

G - “Georgia” by Vance Joy

F - “Fool” by BØRNS

A - “Alone Together” by Fall Out Boy

L - “Lookalike” by Conan Gray

T - “The Love Club” by Lorde

I - “In Cold Blood” by alt-J

G - “Ghosting” by Mother Mother

K - “Kissing in Cars” by Pierce The Veil

E - “Easy To Love” by Billie Holiday

I - “Idle Town” by Conan Gray

T - ”The Night We Met” by Lord Huron

B - “Baby Came Home” by The Neighbourhood

E - “Edgar Allan Poe” by Lou Reed

S - “Santeria” by Sublime

C - “Changing My Major” from Fun Home

H - “Human” by The Killers

U - “Underwater Bride” by Passenger

T - “terrified” by isaac gracie

Z - “Zanzibar” by Billy Joel

E - “Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant

N - “Nara” by alt- J

V - “Very Few Dancers” by Sons of an Illustrious

O - “One Hundred Sleepless Nights” by Pierc The Veil

R - “Ride” by Lana del Rey

A - “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked” by Cage The Elephant

N - “North American Ride” by Mallory Merk

G “ Gods & Monsters” by Lana del Rey

R - “Ready To Go (Out Of My Mind)” by Panic! At The Disco

E - “Electric Blue” by Icehouse

I - “I Can’t Believe You’re In Love With Me” by Billie Holiday

F - “Farmer Refuted” from Hamilton

E - “Eleven” by Taking Back Sunday

N - “Norgaard” by The Vaccines

D - “Dancing In The Moonlight” by King Harvest

U - “Unbelievers” by Vampire Weekend

R - “Run Joey Run” by David Geddes

C - “Cupid” by Ryan Beatty

H - “Helpless” from Hamilton

I - “In The Heights” from In The Heights

H - “Hood” by Perfume Genius

R - “Rare” by Waterparks

R - “Riptide” by Vance Joy

A - “America” by Imagine Dragons

U - “Underground” by Adam Lambert

B - “Babylon” by 5 Seconds of Summer

G - “God In Jeans” by Ryan Beatty

I - “Inútil” from In The Heights

E - “Embraceable You” by Billie Holiday

R - “Ride Like The Wind” by Christopher Cross

I - “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers

G - “Greek God” by Conan Gray

F - “Freeze Your Brain” from Heathers

E - “Enth E Nd” by Linkin Park

I - “Imagine” by John Lennon

N - “Narcolepsy” by Third Eye Blind

D - “December, 1963 (Oh What A Night!)” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

E - “Eva’s Final Broadcast” from Evita

W - “Washing Machine Heart” by Mitski

E - “Everybody Finds Out” by Fleetwood Mac

L - “Linger” by The Cranberries

C - “Caifornia” by Rufus Wainwright

H - “hollow crown” by isaac gracie

E - “Everybody Happy” by Queen

V - “Vienna” by Billy Joel

O - “Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued” by Fall Out Boy

R - “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” by Steely Dan

A - “A Lack Of Color” by Death Cab for Cutie

L - “Lolita” by Lana del Rey

T - “Take Me To Church” by Hozier

E - “Everybody’s Girl” by Rick Springfield

R - “Rock’n Me” by Steve Miller Band

N - “Nearly Witches (Ever Since We Met…)” by Panic! At The Disco

Z - “Everything Happens To Me” by Billie Holiday

W - “What The Water Gave Me” by Florence + The Machine

O - “Over At The Frankenstein Place” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

L - “Landfill” by Daughter

F - “First Date” by blink-182

H - “Hayloft” by Mother Mother

U - “Underneath” by Adam Lambert

N - “Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks” by Panic! At The Disco

D - “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen

E - “Ever Since New York” by Harry Styles

R - “Rich Girl” by Hall & Oates

T - “Tusk” by Fleetwood Mac

T - “Toothpaste Kisses” by The Maccabees

A - “A Movie Script Ending” by Death Cab for Cutie

U - “Until The Night Turns” by Lord Huron

S - “Smoke Two Joints” by Sublime

E - “Every Breath You Take” by The Police

N - “Number Of The Beast” by Iron Maiden

D - “Daniel In The Den” by Bastille

J - “Jolene” by Dolly Parton

A - “A Diamond And A Tether” by Death Cab for Cutie (LOOOOVE this song)

H - “Hazey” by Glass animals

R - “Remembering Sunday” by All Time Low

E - “Everytime I Close My Eyes” by The Backstreet Boys

S - “Swimming Pool” by The Front Bottoms

V - “Virgin Veins” by Coma Cinema

O - “One Of These Nights” by The Eagles

R - “Run To The Hills” by Iron Maiden

A - “Angela” by The Lumineers

N - “Not Today” by Twenty One Pilots

D - “Dear Theoosia” from Hamilton

I - “In Bloom” by Neck Deep

E - “Everytime I Look For You” by blink-182

E - “Evil” by Interpol

R - “Runnin’” by Adam Lambert

S - “Swear To God, The Devil Made Me Do It” by The Front Bottoms

C - “Coconut Skins” by Damien Rice

H - “Hiding With Boys” by Creeper

E - “Evil Eyes” by Styx

I - “Information Travels Faster” by Death Cab for Cutie

N - “Nirvana” by Adam Lambert

E - “Excuses” by Alanis Morissette

N - “Nice Guys Finish Last” by Green Day

V - “Visiting” by Pinegrove

O - “Old Scars/Future Hearts” by All Time Low

N - “Night People” by You Me At Six

D - “Dancing Queen” by ABBA

E - “Exit Music (For A Film)” by Radiohead

R - “Roll Away Your Stone” by Mumford & Sons

E - “Exquisite Dead Guy” by They Might Be Giants

R - “Redundant” by Green Day

S - “Silver Soul” by Beach House

T - “Tiny Vessels” by Death Cab for Cutie

E - “Extraordinary Girl” by Green Day

E - “Eye Of The Tiger” by Survivor

R - “Reject” by Green Day

D - “Dammit” by blink-182

E - “Earth” by Sleeping At Last

M - “Make You Feel My Love” by Adele

E - “Elvira” by The Oak Ridge Boys

N - “Nettles” by Arctic Monkeys

S - “St. Walker” by Young The Giant

C - “Cruel World” by Lana del Rey

H - “Holding On To You” by Twenty One Pilots

D - “Delta Dawn” by Tanya Tucker

E - “Electric Chapel” by Lady Gaga

R - “Restless Heart Syndrome” by Green Day

R - “Reckless” by You Me At Six

A - “Anna Molly” by Incubus

U - “Uptight” by Green Day

M - “Miami 2017 (I’ve Seen The Light Go Out On Broadway” by Billy Joel

S - “Swimming Field” by Memory Tapes

C - “Cherry Wine” by Hozier

H - “Hell Above” by Pierce The Veil

I - “I Believe” from Book Of Mormon

F - “Feel It Still” by Portugal. The Man

F - “Flaws” by Bastille

G - “Gold” by Sir Sly

E - “Evil in the Night” by Adam Lambert

N - “No Buses” by Arctic Monkeys

A - “Ana Ng” by They Might Be Giants

C - “Can I Stay” by Ray LaMontagne

H - “How To Be A Heartbreaker” by MARINA

T - “Thank U” by Alanis Morissette

M - “My Body” by Young The Giant

I - “I Miss You” by blink-182

T - “Toxic” by Britney Spears

T - “Two Coffins” by Against Me!

U - “Unison” by Pinegrove

N - “No Shows” by Gerard Way

G - “Ghost” by Sir Sly

S - “Super Trouper” by ABBA

T - “Thinkin’ Bout You” by Frank Ocean

E - “Electricity” by Arctic Monkeys

I - “I Got You Babe” by Bahamas

N - ‘empty” by Ray LaMontagne“National Anthem” by Lana del Rey

U - “Up The Wolves” by The Mountain Goats

N - “Nothing To Lose” by Billy Talent

D - “Down By The Water” by The Decemberists

S - “still feel.” by half•alive

I - “I’m Low On Gas And You Need A Jacket by Pierce The Veil

E - “Evil Twin” by Arctic Monkeys

B - “Brazil” by Declan McKenna

E - “Ephemeral Artery” by Neon Indian

N - “No Plan” by Hozier

I - “Immortals” by Fall Out Boy

R - “Room To Breathe” by You Me At Six

I - “It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons

D - “darkness of the day” by isaac gracie

I - “I Will Possess Your Heart” by Death Cab for Cutie

U - “Until I Am Whole” by The Mountain Goats

M - “Man” by BØRNS

E - “Empty” by Ray LaMontagne

L - “lovely (with Khalid)” by Billie Eilish

E - “Evergreen” by Cavetown

K - “Kelly Kapowski” by Moose Blood

T - “The Man” by The Killers

R - “Rock Is Dead” by Marilyn Manson

I - “I Do” by Kevin Abstract

S - “Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac

C - “Coney Island” by Death Cab for Cutie

H - “Heaven’s Gate” by Fall Oout Boy

M - “Mind Over Matter” by Young The Giant

O - “Over The Sun” by Tinpan Alley

T - “The Answer” by George Salazar

O - “Orange Crush” by R.E.M.

R - “R U Mine?” by Arctic Monkeys

S - “Seventeen Again” by Eurythmics

G - “Guns and Ships” from Hamilton

E - “Everything Is Temporary (Sticks And Stones)” by Cavetown

B - “Bethlehem” by Declan McKenna

R - “Red Right Hand” by Arctic Monkeys

A - “American” by Lana del Rey

U - “Untitled V.2″ by Cavetown

C - “Californication” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

H - “Hang ‘Em High” by My Chemical Romance

L - “Lisa” by George Salazar

I - “Ingenue” by Death Cab for Cutie

C - “Clint Eastwood” by Gorillaz

H - “Homewrecker” by MARINA

T “that was then” by isaac gracie

A - “Always” by Panic! At The Disco

L - “Liability” by Lorde

S - “SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK” by Joji

S - “Satellite” by Guster

E - “Exhausted” by Chloe Moriondo

I - “Into The Cave We Wander” by Gerard Way

N - “Nobody” by Hozier

U - “UGH!” by The 1975

R - “Rust” by Clay Cages

S - “Smother” by Daughter

P - “Palisade” by Pinegrove

R - “Recycling” by Pinegrove

U - “Ultaviolence” by Lana del Rey

N - “No One’s Gonna Love You” by Band Of Horses

G - “Grace Kelly” by MIKA

V - “Ventura Highway” by America

O - “Out Of Control” by Hoobastank

N - “Not In That Way” by Sam Smith

K - “Kiss From A Rose” by Seal

R - “Rings” by Pinegrove

A - “American Idiot” by Green Day

F - “Funny You Should Ask” by The Front Bottoms

T - “This Is Why We Fight” by The Decemberists

G - “Geyser” by Mitski

E -

S - “Snow (Hey Oh)” by Red Hot Chili Peppers

T - “the death of you & i” by isaac gracie

A - “Awkward Conversations” by The Front Bottoms

R - “Rut” by The Killers

T - “Tennessee” by P.S. Eliot

S - “Spaceman” by The Killers

E -

I - “I Was A Kaleidoscope” by Death Cab for Cutie

N - “Narrow Your Eyes” by They Might Be Giants

L - “last words” by isaac gracie

A - “A Horse With No Name” by America

N - “New Friends” by Pinegrove

G - “Good Help (Is So Hard To Find)” by Death Cab for Cutie

E -

F - “Flintridge” by Kevin Abstract

A - “Au Revoir (Adios)” by The Front Bottoms

H - “Heart To Hart” from 9 To 5

R - “Run And Tell That!” from Hairspray

T - “The Mighty Fall” by Fall Out Boy

H - “Hear Me” by Imagine Dragons

I - “I Was Once A Loyal Lover” by Death Cab for Cutie

N - “Nashville” by The Indigo Girls

Z -

W - “Where Is My Mind?” by The Pixies

I - “Istanbul” by They Might Be Giants

S - “Satisfied” from Hamilton

C - “Cherry” by Moose Blood

H - “Hold On Till May” by Pierce The Veil

E -

N - “Namesake” by Pinegrove

S - “Starry Starry Night” by Don McLean

T - “telescope” by isaac gracie

E -

R - “Raining” by The Front Bottoms

N - “Nine To Five” from 9 to 5

A - “Aftershave Ocean” by The Vaccine

R - “Rhode Island” by Kevin Devine

T - “This Is What Makes Us Girls” by Lana del Rey

I - “I’m So Sorry” by Imagine Dragons

G - “Georgia” by Kevin Abstract

R - “Roses And Cigarettes” by Ray LaMontagne

A - “Aqualung” by Jethro Tull

U - “Under Presure” by Queen

M - “Modern Love” by David Bowie

A - “All Revved Up With Nowhere To Go” by Meat Loaf

U - “Undone - The Sweater Song” by Weezer

F - “Friendship” by Kevin Abstract

D - “Diet Mountain Dew” by Lana del Rey

E -

R - “Road Trip” by Chloe Moriondo

S - “Sink My Ship” by Melacholily

U - “Unhappy Birthday” by The Smiths

C - “Cough Syrup” by Young The Giant

H - “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” by The Smiths

E -

N - “Night Light” by The Mountain Goats

N - (Nice Dream) by Radiohead

A - “Another Night On Mars” by The Maine

C - “Carried Away” by Passion Pit

H - “Home Is A Fine” by Death Cab for Cutie

B - “Bruise” by Ryan Beatty

A - “Asleep” by The Smiths

R - “Radio Free Europe” by R.E.M.

S - “Stay Young, Go Dancing” by Death Cab for Cutie

C - “Corduroy Dreams” by Rex Orange County

H - “Ho Hey” by The Lumineers

A - “Alive” by Pearl Jam

F - “Fourth Of July” by Fall Out Boy

T - “The Other Woman” by Lana del Rey

D - “Dead!” by My Chemical Romance

E -

R - “Rain” by MIKA

S - “Stay Together For The Kids” by blink-182

T - “Tattoo” by Kevin Abstract

E -

R - “Rainbow” by Kesha

N - “Naked Sunday” by Stone Temple Pilots

W - “Waking The Witch” by Kate Bush

E -

L - “Lost In The Light” by Bahamas

C - “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas and the Papas

H - “Heartlines” by Florence + The Machine

E -

G - “Gone” by Tula Vera

E -

H - “Homemade Dynamite” by Lorde

A - “Addict With A Pen” by Twenty One Pilots

B - “Blackbird” by The Beatles

T - “Tom Sawyer” by Rush

B - “Brothers On A Hotel Bed” by Death Cab for Cutie

E -

W - “Whole Lotta Love” by Hozier

O - “One Song Glory” from Rent

H - “Heavy In Your Arms” by Florence + The Machine

N - “Need 2″ by Pinegrove

B - “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel

A - “Air Catcher” by Twenty One Pilots

R - “Rat A Tat” by Fall Out Boy

P - “Poacher’s Pride” by Nicole Dollanganger

L - “Lovesong” by The Cure

A - “A Loaded Smile” by Adam Lambert

N - “Narrow Escape” by Ray LaMontagne

E -

T - “Technicolor Girls” by Death Cab for Cutie

E -

N - “Natives” by blink-182

K - “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club

R - “Re: Stacks” by Bon Iver

E -

I - “Impossible Year” by Panic! At The Disco

S - “Shake It Out” by Florence + the Machine

E -

D - “Dirty Summer” by Mother Falcon

R - “Read My Mind” by The Killers

E -

H - “House Of Wolves” by My Chemical Romance

E -

N - “Night Knuckles” by Cavetown

S - “St. Peter’s Cathedral” by Death Cab for Cutie

I - “I’m Going Home” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

C - “Chiquitita” by ABBA

H - “Hardest Of Hearts” by Florence + The Machine

U - “Unknown Brothe” by The Black Keys

N - “Nostalgia In My BedRoom” by Cavetown

D - “Disasterology” by Pierce The Veil

W - “What Sarah Said” by Death Cab for Cutie

O - “Outlaws Of Love” by Adam Lambert

H - “Hey There Delilah” by The Plain White T’s

I - “I Can Make You A Man” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

N - “Noise In My Head” by Cavetown

D - “Death Valley” by Fall Out Boy

E -

R - “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie

N - “Nature Boy” by Nat King Cole

E -

U - “Until The Night” by Billy Joel

E -

R - “Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secure” by Arctic Monkeys

A - “A Car, A Torch, A Death” by Twenty One Pilots

S - “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond

S - “Strawberry Blond” by Miski

E -

V - “Vital Signs” by Rush

O - “Ode To Sleep” by Twenty One Pilots

N - “Naughty Girl” by Beyonce

V - “Victorious” by Panic! At The Disco

E -

R - “Reckless Serenade” by Arctic Monkeys

S - “Summer Shandy” by The Front Bottoms

T - “The Drug In Me Is You” by Falling In Reverse

A - “Aftermath” by Adam Lambert

N - “Neal Cassady Drops Dead” by Morrissey

D - “Doors Unlocked And Open” by Death Cab for Cutie

I - “I Don’t Care” by Fall Out Boy

G - “Give ‘Em Hell, Kid” by My Chemical Romance

M - “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers

E -

N - “Neon Gravestones” by Twenty One Pilots

S - “Smile Like You Mean It” by The Killers

C - “Come Together” by The Beatles

H - “Hold No Guns” by Death Cab for Cute

L - “Learning” by Perfume Genius

I - “I Don’t Love You” by My Chemical Romance

C - “Cloudbusting” by Kae Bush

H - “Hot Patootie - Bless My Soul” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

K - “Kids In America” by Kim Wilde

E -

I - “If U Seek Amy” by Britney Spears

T - “Tangled In The Great Escape” by Pierce The Veil

K - “King And Lionheart” by Of Monsters And Men

O - “One For The Road” by Arctic Monkeys

N - “Never Enough” by The Cure

N - “Never Going Back Again” by Fleetwood Mac

T - “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance

E -

F - “Folkin’ Around” by Panic! At The Disco

O - “One Point Perspective” by Arctic Monkeys

R - “Red Tide” by Rush

T - “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac

P - “Poor Boxer Shorts” by Mom Jeans.

F - “Famous Last Words” by My Chemical Romance

L - “Lone Digger” by Caravan Palace

A - “Awake My Soul” by Mumford & Sons

N - “Never Let Me Go” by Florence + The Machine

Z -

E -

N - “Never Had No One Ever” by The Smiths

U - “Untouched” by The Veronicas

N - “Never Too Late” by three Days Grace

D - “Dance, Dance” by Fall Out Boy

S - “Seven Devils” by Florence + The Machine

I - “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Meat Load

C - “Crush Culture” by Conan Gray

H - “Hurricane” by Panic! At The Disco

E -

R - “Red, Red Wine” by UB40

F - “Friction” by Imagine Dragons

R - “Red Sector A” by Rush

E -

U - “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield

E -

N - “Nobody” by Mitski

A - “All The Time” by Green Day

N - “Nobody Puts Baby In a Corner” by Fall Out Boy

L - "Loveryboy” by You Me At Six

E -

B - “Burn” from Hamilton

E -

N - “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)” by My Chemical Romance

S - “Superposition” by Young The Giant

L - “Lies” by MARINA

A - “Are We The Waiting / St. Jimmy” by Green Day

N - “No One Does It Better” by You Me At Six

G - “Golden Days” by Panic! At The Disco

L - “Little Wanderer” by Death Cab for Cutie

I - “I Won’t Give Up” by Jason Mraz

C - “Candy Store” from Heathers

H - “Hum Hallelujah” by Fall Out Boy

F - “FROOT” by MARINA

R - “Reflektor” by Arcade Fire

E -

U - “Up All Night” by blink-182

D - “Dammit Janet” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

E -

U - “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel

N - “New American Classic” by Taking Back Sunday

D - “Death Of An Interior Decorator” by Death Cab for Cutie

R - Rehab” by Amy Winehouse

U - “Us And Them” by Pink Floyd

H - “Heaven Can Wait” by Meat Loaf

E -

M - “Motorcycle” by The Front Bottoms

I - “I Have Friends In Holy Spaces” by Panic! At The Disco

T - “Twin Skeletons (Hotel In NYC)” by Fall Out Boy

N - “New York Mining Disaster 1941 (Have You Seen My Wife, Mr. Jones)” by The Bee Gees

I - “I See Love” by Passenger

C - “Cough It Out” by The Front Bottoms

H - “House Of Memories” by Panic! At The Disco

T - “Talking Bird (Demo)” by Death Cab for Cutie

E -

I - “Interlude” by Melancholily

N - “Nico And The Niners” by Twnety One Pilots

F - “Fade Away” by Susan Sundfør

U - “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon

R - “Religion” by Lana del Rey

C - “Cath…” by Death Cab for Cutie

H - “Hotel California” by The Eagles

T - “The Phoenix” by Fall Out Boy

V - “Vegas Lights” by Panic! At The Disco

O - “Only Ones Who Know” by Arctic Monkeys

R - “Rent” from Rent

A - “American Eulogy: Mass Hysteria / Modern World” by Green Day

N - “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra

G - “Ginger” by The Front Bottoms

R - “Reptilia” by The Strokes

E -

I - “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” by Panic! At The Disco

F - “Frankie Sinatra” by The Avalanches

E -

N - “Night And Day” by Frank Sinatra

V - “Valentine’s Day” by Linkin Park

O - “Old Yellow Bricks” by Arctic Monkeys

R - “reverie” by isaac gracie

A - “American Sports” by Arctic Monkeys

N - “New Perspective” by Panic! At The Disco

D - “DESTROYA” by My Chemical Romance

E -

R - “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac

E -

R - “Ribs” by Fleetwood Mac

I - “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” by Hall & Oates

N - “Night at Lake Unknown” by Conor Oberst

T - “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An arms Race” by Fall Out Boy

E -

L - “Long Division” by Death Cab for Cutie

L - “Little Bribes” by Death Cab for Cutie

I - “Islands In The Stream” by Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers

G - “Grapevine Fires” by Death Cab for Cutie

E -

N - “Nirvana” by sam Smith

T - “The Sound Of Settling” by Death Cab for Cutie

G - “Golden” by Fall Out Boy

E -

S - “Someone To Watch Over Me” by Frank Sinatra

C - “Caraphernelia” by Pierce The Veil

H - “Heartache Tonight” by The Eagles

O - “Overtrown” by Pinegrove

P - “Plastic Flowers” by The Front Bottoms

F - “For Crying Out Loud” by Meat Loaf

S - “Sarah Smiles” by Panic! At The Discoo

V - “Venus” by Sleeping At Last

O - “Over My Head” by Fleetwood Mac

N - “No Cars Go” by Arcade Fire

H - “High Dive” by Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

I - “I Wanna Get Better” by Bleachers

N - “No Peace”by by Sam Smith

Z - “Zeroes” by David Bowie

W - “We Looked Like Giants” by Death Cab for Cutie

I - “Isle Of Flightless Birds” by Twenty One Pilots

S - “Spooky” by Classic IV

C - “Cemetery Drive” by My Chemical Romance

H - “Hey Julie” by Fountains Of Wayne

E -

N - “No you Girls” by Franz Ferdinand

S - “Stop The World I Wanna Get Off With You” by Arctic Monkeys

T - “The Ghost Of You” by My Chemical Romance

E -

R - “Ring Of Fire” by Johnny Cash

N - “Northern Lights” by Death Cab for Cutie

A - “Anyways” by Arctic Monkeys

R - “Riot” by Three Days Grace

T - “The Secret Society” by Creeper

I - “Imitation Of Life” by R.E.M.

G - “Girls / Girls / Boys” by Panic! At The Disco

R - “Rise” by Skillet

A - “A Happy Tune” by Melancholily

U - “Using” by Sorority Noise

M - “Maps” by The Front Bottoms

There are literally not enough songs in the known universe that begin with ‘E’ or ‘Z’ to complete the name. I hate this man and his ridiculously long name, I hate this ask game, I hate you I hate myself. This took my three fucking days, I hate it.

#long post #astronomer-gay #ask #fun fact melancholily is actually a friend of mine

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