#or even the recent Manchester airport thing

[halalchampagnesocialist]

It’s absolutely insane how many people have the belief that “random violence is bad but state violence is totally a-ok!!” and I wish I could say it was just the right but liberals are guilty of this too

[lvnleah]

— America, baby!

this is a little short five part series about Beth and Rory’s time in America and the struggles that come with it as they’re away from Viv :)

thank you to @scribblesofagoonerr for the help on this mini series! also a appearances from Buddy and Monkey throughout :)

series masterlist can be found here

this is written from Rory’s pov and set a year after they adopt her!

You were tired, all you wanted to do was snuggle up in your bed with Twix and fall asleep but instead, you were dozing off in the back of the car. Your Mummy, Beth, had explained to you that Arsenal, her team, were going to America for a little bit and you and her were going to join them.

You got excited, you had heard about stories of America from your aunties who had been there, but your excitement soon died down when you learned that your Mamma wouldn’t be coming with you. Viv had recently moved to a different team named Man City, you had watched your Mamma and Mummy play them before.

The changes were difficult. You were so used to Viv being with you and Beth all the time but now she was only with you on the weekends. Beth had told you that Manchester was far far away, just like how your grandparents weren’t close.

You didn’t want to go to America. Viv wasn’t coming with you, and that just made everything feel wrong. She was going to be on the other side of the world in Australia. You didn't even know where that was, but you knew it was far. When you had asked Viv if she could come too, she had given you a tight hug and promised she'd call every day. But that didn’t make you feel any better.

Beth pulled into the training ground and got your suitcases out of the boot before lifting you out of your car seat and onto the ground. You were in your comfy clothes and Beth had bought you your very own small pink ballerina suitcase.

She wasn’t sure how a long flight with you was going to be or how you would cope with the time difference but she tried to prepare you and herself the best she could. You’d travelled over the summer with Beth and Viv but they were short flights which you coped well with. You had been to Greece, Ibiza and the Netherlands a few times which you enjoyed a lot.

“Here you go, Roo,” Beth said, handing you your suitcase.

You clung to Beth’s hand as she walked you over to where the rest of the team was waiting by the bus. Your eyes were heavy, and everything felt like it was moving too fast around you.

Beth noticed the way you were dragging your feet and the frown that was tugging at your lips. She bent down to your level and gently squeezed your hand. “Roo, I know you’re feeling a bit unsure about this trip. It’s a lot to take in, and I wish Mamma could be here with us. But I promise, we’re going to have a great time together.”

You didn’t respond, just staring at the ground. Your tiny hands clutched the handle of your pink suitcase like it was the only thing keeping you grounded. “Carry me?”

Beth laughed, nodding her head. She picked you up and hoisted you onto her hip where you cuddled into her neck and hugged Twix tightly.

“Hey, sleepyhead!” Vic smiled. Vic was one of your favourites, she was like a big sister to you. “Are you excited about the plane?”

You shrugged, snuggling your head back into Beth’s neck. Beth placed a kiss on your forehead, “She’s a little tired and grumpy.”

“Ohhh,” Vic whispered, nodding her head.

Beth took a quick photo with her teammates before coming back over to you as you decided to stay out of the photo. You sat with Win, the Arsenal dog, and petted her on the head softly.

Beth picked you up and carried you onto the coach where you both settled down with Steph and Lia. She pulled out your iPad and set it up for the journey to the airport. You played a few games on your iPad and before you knew it you were at the airport.

The airport was huge, and you were so small. The noises and the people all rushing around made you feel lost, even though Beth was right there. You didn’t understand why you had to go with them. You didn’t understand why Viv couldn’t come. And you definitely didn’t understand why the plane ride had to be so long.

You had to wait around for a little bit which you didn’t enjoy but everyone helped keep you entertained. By the time you were settled in your seat on the plane, you were feeling even grumpier. You didn't like the way your ears popped, and the seats weren't as comfy as your bed back home. Beth tried to distract you with a movie, holding you close on her lap while you watched it. Eventually, the movie helped you forget how upset you were

As the movie started, you could feel your eyelids growing heavier. The familiar songs and characters began to soothe you, and soon enough, you were drifting off to sleep.

When you woke up, the movie had ended, and you were feeling even grumpier. Your neck was stiff, and you couldn’t get comfortable in the aeroplane seat. You rubbed your eyes and looked around, hoping that somehow the trip would be over.

Beth noticed you were awake and immediately came over. “How are you doing, sweetheart? Do you need anything?”

You groaned, “I want to go home.”

Beth’s heart ached seeing you so unhappy. She gently brushed your hair back from your face. “I know, Rory. We’re almost there three more hours, and then we can do something fun. How about we do some colouring with Steph?”

Steph, who had been seated in the first-class seat beside you, smiled. “Hi, Roo! Look at all these crayons and colouring books.”

You took the crayons hesitantly, your grumpiness melting a little as you started to draw. Steph chatted with you, telling stories and asking you about your favourite things. Her warm, friendly manner helped you feel a bit better, even if you were still tired.

The hours on the plane seemed to drag, and after colouring for a while, you finally fell asleep again. Beth kept a watchful eye on you, making sure you were comfortable.

When the plane finally landed, you were still half-asleep. Beth carried you off the plane, your head resting against her shoulder. She murmured to you, “We’re almost there, Rory. Just a little bit longer.”

Your eyes felt heavy, and you just wanted to be home. Beth ended up carrying you off the plane because you were too sleepy to walk. You buried your face into her shoulder, not caring about the world around you. You were too tired to care about anything.

The hotel was nice, but you didn’t care about that either. It wasn’t home. Beth had to wake you up to eat a little something before bed, but your eyes kept closing on their own. The time difference was confusing, and your body just wanted to sleep. You fell asleep at 9 PM, but your brain was still stuck on UK time.

Your internal clock was still set to UK time. When you woke up at 3 AM, the room was dark, and you could hear Beth's soft breathing as she tried to sleep. You reached out for her, feeling a little lost and unsure.

“Mummy?” you whispered, rubbing your eyes.

Beth stirred and sat up, her face showing her exhaustion as she flicked the lamp on. “Yeah, Roo?”

You sniffled, feeling frustrated as tears started to slip down your cheek. “Can’t sleep. I miss Mamma.”

Beth sighed and gently rubbed your back. “I know, bubba. I miss her too. But we’ll call her tomorrow, and she’ll tell us all about her day. For now, let’s try to get some more sleep, okay? Do you want a cuddle?”

Beth pulled you close, wrapping her arms around you as you nestled against her chest. As you lay there in the quiet of the room, you could feel the weight of the day's journey and all the changes it brought with it. The unfamiliarity of everything around you felt overwhelming.

"Do you think Mamma is missing us too?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

"Of course she is," Beth whispered back, brushing a strand of hair from your forehead. "She's probably thinking about us right now, wondering if we're okay and how our day went."

You nodded, snuggling closer to Beth. You felt too awake and too tired at the same time. Beth looked just as tired as you felt, trying her best to help you fall back asleep. Beth knew that the next day of training was going to be hard for both of you.

[tayfabe75]

Did Taylor and Matty meet on Myspace? (And other early coincidences!)

Early on in their careers, Taylor and Matty both utilized Myspace as a way to promote their music. Taylor, specifically, would message with other teenagers on Myspace:

"I'd post my songs on my MySpace and, yes, MySpace, and would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music, but just didn't have anyone singing from their perspective."

Matty, too, described himself as "King of Myspace" when he was fifteen. But he brought it up more recently on the Ion Pack Podcast, even mentioning his age as seventeen at the time. And here's a retro clip of Taylor talking about how she wasn't some corporate entity on Myspace, if you messaged her account, you were talking to her! She also filled out her profile in her own words.

She has some things in her profile that might've caught Matty's eye, a fellow teenage country fan and fan of American music specifically, that might've emboldened him to message her:

"I love people who like my music. I love people who are nice to me. I like people who are excitable. I think it's endearing when people cry when they're happy. I'm pretty excitable too. Guys don't ask me out because they know I'll write songs about them. But I'm also the girl who still believes prince charming exists somewhere out there -- fully equipped with great hair and an immature sense of humor. I'm fascinated by black and white pictures. I like people who can be sarcastic and laugh about tense situations. I'm a fan of fans."

Say whatever you will about Matty, but that man is a genuine fan of Taylor's music. When he became a fan is open for discussion, but let's just pretend, for fun, that he found her via Myspace early on in her career.

Now, here is the old Myspace page for The 1975 back when they were known as 'Drive Like I Do' in 2008. Note the James Taylor in the list of Influences! (as well as the Jamie Squire in the top 8! How sweet, I'm sobbing!)

Taylor was a bit of a firecracker on Myspace (and not just there, there's a whole conspiracy theory she used to troll 4Chan!). A few of her comments were screenshotted and you can find them around the internet. Here are some. The one from October 31st, 2005 about a queer fellow ("I'm sorry that I'm kinda queer, it's not as weird as it appears") with a Sex van ("take your shoes off in the back of my van") really caught my eye, anyway…

"Listen my queer fellow. I thinketh we shall hangeth out sometime soon, eh? yes, I do believe I am growing fond of this idea. drive over in your sex van and come pick me up, farewell knave."

Notice the spelling here, too. Thinketh? Hangeth? Knave? Feels a little bit Shakespearean, at least for say, a fifteen-going-on-sixteen-year-old girl (as we would later discover, Love Story and Robbers were both inspired by Romeo and Juliet, both written around the same time so far as I know, but it's hard to find exact dates!)

Matty, by the way, used to refer to himself as the "Prince of the Tyne". He's also got some old Drive Like I Do lyrics from 'We Are the Streetfighters' that are suspicious to me: "Well in four thousand miles we'll meet you" (The nearest airport to Macclesfield is in Manchester, and the distance between Manchester and Nashville? Roughly 4000 miles)

Two months later on December 21st, 2005, just after turning 16, Taylor says she's in England.

Did they meet? Who knows! But there's enough weirdness there to make me wonder. Speaking of weirdness… we're going to go on a side tangent about Fearless, but that's part of the puzzle, so bear with me…

I don't know about anyone else, but when I saw Matty's Fearless Love Gaze™, I was rocked to my core! Men do not look at women like that, but especially not brand-new flings. They're too concerned with trying to look cool and unaffected. For most men (stereotypically), romance and love are "dumb" and "stupid" and perceived as a "woman thing" that men can't be bothered with. But not Matty. Matty was utterly transfixed by her. Something about that touch of mischief in the lip bite when she says the bit about "absentmindedly making me want you", the way he just barely mouths along to the words at the end of the clip, well… sirens started going off for me. So, I followed my intuition and started researching all of this.

Now, Taylor wrote the song 'Fearless' sometime in 2006. The hidden message liner note for Fearless? "I loved you before I met you". Taylor describes 'Fearless' as a song she wrote about a perfect first date she hadn't had yet, about something she didn't have but dreamt of. She debuted it for the first time on April 6th, 2007 in Reading, PA (if you don't already know it, that's two days before Matty's 18th birthday). At this show, she debuted 'Sparks Fly' (yes, in 2007! Original lyrics were brown eyes rather than green eyes, by the way) and 'Tied Together With A Smile'. She also played a cover of John Waite's song 'Missing You' which seems to be about a long-distance relationship: "And it's my heart that's breakin' down this long distance line tonight"

Speaking of Matty's birthday, the release of Fearless TV happened to coincide with Matty's birthday! She dropped a sneak peek of Fearless on his birthday in 2021, and the album would release one day later on the ninth (perhaps because albums release on Fridays and that's as close as she could get?)

Taylor describes the Fearless album as her diary from when she was seventeen (misplaced my source on that quote, d'oh!) That said, 'Love Story' interests me as well. There are some interesting facts about Love Story:

Hidden message: Someday, I'll find this. Taylor wrote this song in a very short amount of time after her parents had told her that she couldn't be with the person she wanted to be with. And in her own words:

"'Love Story' is actually about a guy that I almost dated. But when I introduced him to my family and my friends, they all said they didn't like him. All of them! For the first time, I could relate to that Romeo-and-Juliet situation where the only people who wanted them to be together were them. That's the most romantic song I've written, and it's not even about a person I really dated."

Taylor's UK television debut (like first time ever performing on TV in the UK) was on Loose Women (Matty's mother's show). Now, Denise was not there during this period as a host, but she had been before that and would be afterward, so maybe there's some significance? Maybe not. But if Taylor and Matty knew each other, he would definitely get to be in the audience to see her if he wanted to. The song she chose to perform was 'Love Story'.

Now, 'Robbers' is also based on Romeo and Juliet (and also written circa 2007), and Matty describes that here in a fan video from 2015. We'd see Romeo and Juliet imagery pop up again in 2014, both in Taylor's video for Blank Space (where she's on a balcony looking down at her lover) and in November where she stood up on a balcony at Matty's show as he serenaded her with Fallingforyou (visual comparisons here)

Blank Space, too, might reference Fallingforyou. There's a scene where she rides bikes with her lover inside her enormous house, perhaps reminiscent of Matty's lyric: "All we need's my bike and your enormous house":

Matty even dresses a bit like the lover from 'Love Story' music video at the 2017 BRITs:

When you fall down the Myspace rabbit hole, you start noticing other strange similarities in their lyrics - like Matty referring to a "girl on the screen" in 'If You're Too Shy', which perhaps parallels Taylor's "guy on the screen" in 'Karma'. In 'The 1' (another song that lyrically parallels 'Robbers'), Taylor imagines "the 1 that got away" meeting a woman on the internet and taking her home, which might be another reference to Matty, perhaps lyrically paralleling The 1975's 'Playing On My Mind'. This theory, of course, makes the entire album 'A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships' suspect, especially given that 'Be My Mistake' is a song Matty wrote "about Nashville", the striking similarities between 'Sincerity is Scary' and 'Me!', a song called 'Mine' that references the year 2009, and the inclusion of a Drive Like I Do track Matty wrote when he was just fifteen years old, '102' (the same age he was when he was "King of Myspace"). Considering 'Love Story' was written for someone who Taylor's parents disapproved of, it makes this lyric all the more striking:

"I hope this song will remind you I'm not half as bad as what you've been told."

Lastly, if Matty is the confirmed 'Cardigan' muse and if 'Willow' is the continuation of 'Cardigan' (based on where the music video begins), the scene where she gazes into the water at her lover could perhaps represent a visual metaphor for looking through a screen, no?

Back to the NYU commencement speech! I recommend listening to the FULL clip. She talks about: feeling lonely, chatting with other teenage country fans on Myspace, and then segues into her motivation behind protecting her private life:

"Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely."

All of this seems correlated to me (also why it's hard for me to reconcile this whole football charade! But for me, it's easier to believe Taylor here about privacy being important to her, and not assume that some boyfriend kept her locked away in a dungeon against her will or something)

Now, to tie this all into a very nice bow, here's a quote where Taylor talks about how she uses easter eggs:

"Easter eggs can be left on clothing or jewelry. This is one of my favorite ways to do this, because you wear something that foreshadows something else, and people don't usually find out this one immediately, but they know you're probably sending a message. They'll figure it out in time."

What shirt was she wearing during her pap walk with Matty? Think of the "He lets her Bejeweled" meme… She had on an NYU sweatshirt.

Now, could be just a giant coincidence, trust me, I know, I get it. However… maybe she's really hinting about an old Myspace pal that she has protected fiercely. I mean, she did seem to use that speech to easter egg/foreshadow YOYOK & Labyrinth lyrics…

Speaking of 'Bejeweled'… On July 15th, 2023 Taylor flubbed the lyrics: "Sapphire tears on Myspace", and then she giggled. Freudian slip, perhaps? But this is the woman who assures us that "nothing is accidental"... and in a song that mentions a "Top 5", no less! (reminiscent of a Top 8, perhaps?)

Maybe James and Betty were involved in a "teenage love triangle" for a reason, and maybe TTPD references "teenage petulance" for that same reason… or maybe it's nothing but a bunch of eerie coincidences! Who knows! In the meantime, I'll keep on clownin'! 🤡

[aus-wnt]

Alanna Kennedy: ‘It was the hardest day of my footballing career’

As a female soccer player on a national team, there is no bigger stage than on a pitch at the FIFA Women’s World Cup. But after being sidelined by a concussion, Matildas star defender Alanna Kennedy could only watch last month’s semi-final from her hotel room. As she reflects on the team’s history-making run and looks ahead to charting the way forward for women’s sport in Australia, Kennedy tells Stellar, “For a lot of people, the Matildas are just arriving on the scene. It feels like the start of our journey”

The Matildas had two goals they wanted to achieve at last month’s FIFA Women’s World Cup. The first was to win the whole thing. The second was to inspire a generation.

The first one didn’t quite come off, even if they did manage an epic run to become the first Australian soccer team in history to make a World Cup semi-final. Once there, they couldn’t get past the might of England. As for the second? Regardless of claiming any silverware, they certainly managed that.

Matildas jerseys have outsold Socceroos jerseys, thousands of fans swarmed the team’s hotels and airports to show support and a record 11.15 million Australians tuned into the broadcast of that semi-final, making it the most-watched television program since the TV ratings system started in 2001.

In a cruel twist of fate, star defender Alanna Kennedy was one of them. Just hours before the game, Kennedy – who made her Matildas debut at 17 and has played more than 100 games for Australia – was ruled out of playing in the biggest game of her career because of a concussion she’d sustained in a head clash with French striker Eugénie Le Sommer days earlier. Her symptoms were so heightened that she couldn’t even make it to the game to watch from the sidelines.

“I’ve never watched the Matildas play on TV,” Kennedy tells Stellar, the emotion evident in her voice. “We saw from a distance the impact we were having and the amount of people who were getting behind us. As a player you want to be involved in those big games. If I’m being honest with you, it was the hardest day of my footballing career. I watched from the hotel room. I didn’t even make it to the stadium.”

Her disappointment aside, the 28-year-old – who also plays for Manchester City in England and had already overcome a horror year of injuries to make it into the World Cup squad – says she came away with a unique understanding of how thoroughly the team had managed to transform its standing with the Australian public.

“It was an interesting one, to watch the pre-game and see all the people flooding into fan zones to support us. To watch it through the lens of an Australian supporter was really cool. Outside of my hotel window I could see the fan zone. And watching the fans watch the game was surreal.”

A month on from the team’s fourth place finish at the tournament, Kennedy believes it’s still too soon to fully comprehend all the team has achieved. “I look back on it with a lot of happy memories but then you revisit the moments where we lost certain games or we came so close but just fell short. Right when the nation was getting behind us and we were creating history and ready to create more, we lost the last two games,” she says. “But I also feel relieved. It’s a long time to be in such a high-pressure environment, and there are just so many emotions that you go through from here on a day-to-day basis.”

As an experienced player, Kennedy is already well-known in soccer circles, but there has been a dramatic shift in those who now recognise her in the street. Walking through an airport recently, she was spotted by a woman with three children in tow who approached to ask for a photo. “I thought, OK, she’s going to ask for the kids to get in – but it was for her,” Kennedy says, laughing at the memory.

“It has been a real change in people wanting photos more regularly. It’s little boys as well, and I love that. The demographic is so broad. That’s what football is about. It’s the world game. It’s a very inclusive space.

A lot of players are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community and I think this tournament has also brought attention to that. There are so many things that are bigger than football.

So to be a part of that moment is something that I’ll be grateful for. I’ll never forget the experience that we had at this World Cup.”

However, alongside the added attention came some uncomfortable intrusions into the players’ personal lives. A fan’s “WoSo Chart” that detailed the hundreds of queer relationships in the pro soccer world went viral during the tournament. Some criticised it as an unnecessary invasion of privacy.

As for Kennedy, she just wants the attention to stay on her playing ability.

“It’s slightly different for someone who wants to share those things and that’s how they create their profile,” she points out. “But I think at the core for us is that we’re footballers first. That’s my passion. I like to express myself through fashion and my tattoos and jewellery, but for me, I have my circle of close friends and family and that’s so important to me. It’s hard when people delve into things that you’re not particularly willing to share. It’s important to protect our space so that we can focus on what’s really important, which is our football.”

Kennedy is doing just that, having spent a mere week in Australia post-tournament before flying to the UK to start training with Manchester City, where she plays alongside fellow Matildas star Mary Fowler. And she has nearly recovered from her concussion.

“My game heavily revolved around using my head. It’s probably one of my biggest strengths, my aerial ability. I’ve never experienced a concussion before [the World Cup] and for a couple of days I was unsure exactly what I was feeling. I was nauseous. I wasn’t myself,” she tells Stellar. “I’m pretty close to [feeling] normal now, if not back to normal, which I’m really grateful for because it’s not a nice feeling. No-one likes to feel distant from their normal selves.”

Kennedy is also eager to reunite with her teammates – or, as she calls them, “my best mates” – in October in Perth, where they hope to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics. But they’re also looking beyond next year.

“For a lot of people, the Matildas are just arriving on the scene and it feels like the start of our journey; we’ve gained a lot of traction and fans and support, and hopefully that can continue moving forward for the Matildas and women’s sport. [But] our goal hasn’t changed from wanting to win a World Cup, wanting to win an Olympics,” she says, adding that the players have been working towards those goals for their entire careers. “We have so many goals and ambitions that we’re yet to fulfil and I think we have the potential to. Now we just have more people supporting us and on the journey with us.

“You can’t look past how much of an impact the team has had across the nation,” she adds. “I was disappointed with how my World Cup ended, but then I look back, and at one point I was working really hard to even be in the squad. It’s all about perspective. I’m just super proud.”

[goldenbrownskin]

Taxi

a/n: this is my first piece of writing on this acc & my first smut piece in a longggg time. Feedback would be appreciated, I know I’m a lil rusty but I hope you enjoy  ♡

❀ Harry x Reader | Smut 18+ ONLY 

❀ Warning: strong language, drinking, unprotected sex, FWB, exhibitionism (I guess?)

❀ Word Count: 1.9k

It had been one too many nights that they spent without each other, so this trip had been more than necessary.

You were up to your neck in paperwork, but you didn’t care. As far as you were concerned each sheet of porcelain A4 paper was just a figment of your imagination. Well, at least till you got back home the following Tuesday. 

You were jetting off to a much-deserved Spanish getaway with a few of your friends. The next couple of days were set to be filled with sun, sand, sea and sangria’s.... and hopefully mind-blowing sex. Unbeknownst to the rest of your friends you had sparked up a friend with benefits relationship with one of your closest friends Harry. Many drunken nights out turned into you jumping his bones after just barely making it through the door of his apartment. And so, it had been for the past couple months until recently when he had been given a job offer at a company in Manchester and moved 3 hours away from you in London. Playing with yourselves over facetime with each other kind of helped to fill the void, but nothing could compare to the real thing. Your suitcase couldn’t have been packed any faster.  

Stepping out of the airport, the warm Spanish evening air greeted you and you couldn’t be happier. Your friend Maya had texted you that they were all already at the villa pre-drinking and getting ready for tonight's festivities. You wondered if Harry’s flight landed already but then remembered how difficult it would be to conceal your complex relationship when sharing a 4-bedroom villa with your friends. You pulled up in front of the red-bricked jaunty abode for the weekend. It was modestly walled, charming and roomy and overlooked the crisp blue waters.

Inside the house there were much more than just your group of friends present and you wondered who all these extra tipsy people were and what on earth would the owners of the property think of this arrangement, but you quickly pushed the thought out of your mind. This weekend was the time for you to let go of all your inhibitions and with that you wasted no time in greeting everyone and making yourself a drink. 

A couple drinks in and you were already tipsy. You could see Harry from across the room chatting with a guy that you couldn’t remember the name of. Adorned with black slacks and a white graphic tee you couldn’t help but stare. His forehead was coated with a thin layer of sweat that made his front curls stick to it slightly. The moistness in your panties grew as you watched his lips move as he spoke, the side of his lips curving into a smirk as someone said something funny. The whole group erupted in laughter but all you could think about was the hardening of your nipples and what Harry thought of the strappy black figure-hugging dress you just changed into for the night. 

You somewhat got your answer when he suddenly looked directly over to you and slowly tucked his lip between his teeth to bite it. This was the first time he acknowledged you all night. You weren’t purposely ignoring each other but when you arrived, he was nowhere to be seen. Then afterward you went off into your room for the next hour to shower and get ready for the night. When you made your appearance again, he had been busy chatting the night away, but now his eyes were locked on you like an animal after their prey. 

You flirtatiously chuckled, then looked down taking a sudden interest in your color-block stiletto heels, his gaze becoming too much for you.  People slowly started to trickle out, presumably off to a club for the night and it was just your group of friends and a couple extra people left back. Harry decided to propose a toast.

“To sun, sand, sea, and sangria’s!” he cheered as you all clinked your glasses together.

“Where are we off to first?” one of your friends asked turning to Maya who you guessed was your drunken trip coordinator for the weekend. 

“There’s this night beach party going on that everyone’s raving about!” Maya said excitedly.

“Okay great how about us 4 catch a taxi together and you and Harry can catch another one?” one of your friends suggested while looking at you and Harry. A smile crept up on your lips.

“...perfect” Harry replied.

  Not even a minute had passed since your friends took off in their taxi before Harry hungrily attached his lips to yours. You had 2 minutes until your taxi arrived and you thought about just cancelling it and fucking him all night if only your friends wouldn’t be worried as to your whereabouts. 

Grabbing a hold of your face tightly your tongues wrestled as you continued to kiss. Harry began to slightly hike you up while desperately grabbing at the hem of your dress. By the time the car pulled up you were leaned against the railing of the steps with one leg hoisted at Harry’s side, your tongue down his throat and your makeup smudged all over his face. 

You drunkenly giggled as you danced down the front steps and into the cab, Harry quick on your tail. Once the door was shut inside the car was dark and the divider made it hard for you to hear the driver and for him to hear you. 

“Keep your eyes on the road,” was all Harry said to the driver before pushing you down to lay across the backseat as he desperately clambered on top of you. You held in a scream as you slightly hit your head on the handle of the door but that didn’t deter you from reaching to undo the buttons on his slacks. Slight chaos ensued as he fought to get your panties down, eventually just ripping the flimsy material. Pushing your dress up to your belly button he began his assault of kisses on your lower abdomen and legs, your wetness growing as he grew closer and closer to your core.

“Please I need to feel you,” you begged wanting nothing more than to feel him deep inside of you, but he had other plans. 

It took everything within you not to cry out as he finally attached his mouth to your heat. Slightly puckering his lips, he sucked at the sensitive bud between your folds. You two were too drunk and too desperate for each other to even pay attention to whether or not anyone was looking at you. His warm tongue flicked at your clit, and you reached down, attaching your hand to his hair, and tugging at his soft brown locks. A deep groan erupted from his core sending shock waves down your spine as you fought for dear life to remain as quiet and nonchalant as possible.

Taking a quick break, he stroked his digits all throughout your folds and you bit down on your lip. A finger entered you as you grabbed a hold of your breasts, massaging them erotically as you felt yourself starting to come undone. Harry once again started licking and sucking at your clit as his middle finger quickened its pace inside of you. You began to writhe around under him, the sensation becoming a lot as your release crept up on you. He entered another finger, and a moan escaped your lips when he started ramming his digits inside of you. As your orgasm approached, you could hear the thumping bass of the music outside, alerting you both to the fact that you were approaching your stop. You both quickly stopped. 

Stumbling out of the car, Harry turned back and slid the driver a hefty tip before he drove off. You both ducked into an alley nearby before anyone saw you arrive, and Harry continued his assault of kisses. But this time you were in control. The alley was dark, and nobody was around so you quickly fell to your knees. Finally undoing his slacks, you plunged your hand into his pants gently stroking his stiff member with your manicured hands. Slowly lowering his underwear, his member sprang out and you continued to stroke it with a hastened pace. 

Harry let out a groan when you sucked one of his balls into your mouth as your hand continued you pump him. His hand dived into your hair when you finally attached your lips to his tip, sucking the pre-cum that trickled out. Slowly, you began to take more and more of him into your mouth, bobbing your head as you massaged his balls.

Taking a breath, you began to pump him again, a line of spit and precum connecting your mouth to his tip.

“Baby, I need to feel you, I need to be deep inside you,” he puled, taking deep breaths.

He stood you up and tuned the two of you around so that your back was now against the wall. You jumped up on him, wrapping your legs around his waist as he began to tease your clit with the tip of his member. He slowly entered with a low groan, and you wrapped your arm around his neck throwing your head back with a moan. 

“You feel so fucking good, damn I missed this,” he mumbled as he guided your hips, fucking you deep. The sloshing sound of your wetness, your moans, and the faint sound of music from the beach was all you both could hear. You rolled your hips against his, taking in the feeling of him filling you up entirely. 

“Fuck me baby, you feel so good,” you mewled, leaning forward to kiss him deeply.

Harry pressed his head against yours as he looked at you deep in the eyes. He took slow long draws in and out of your slopping wet cunt, hitting that spot that had you ready to erupt for him. 

“Oh my god,” you cried as you felt both your legs begin to tremble around him.

“Mmm, are you gonna come for me love? come for me baby,” he coaxed. You laid the side of your head against the side of his head as he repeatedly stroked deeply into you, feeling himself about to tip over the edge also. He slipped a hand down to quickly rub your clit as you went over.

You cried out and erupted into a fit of shakes, your orgasm violently washing over your entire body. You felt Harry twitch inside of you as he painted your walls with thick layers of cum. A hiccupped groan leaving his lips as he came. You both were dangerously out of breath. You slowly slid down him, one heel slipping off your foot as you landed with the other one. You laughed as you tried to catch your breath, realizing just how much you had sobered up since you left the house in a horny haste. 

Looking at your phone you realized that it was 12:20 am, meaning the group last saw you about 30 minutes ago so you figured you should head over to the beach before they got worried. You both began to redress as best as you could in the dark, reaching down you realized something was missing.

“Harry, where are my panties?”

“Shit! I think I left them in the taxi.”

[bongaboi]

In Lionel Messi’s Move, a Dim Portrait of Modern Soccer

In Lionel Messi’s Move, a Dim Portrait of Modern Soccer

He could not stay where he wanted; few teams could afford him. Even one of the best players of all time was not able to resist the economic forces that carry the game along.

By Rory Smith

Aug. 10, 2021

In those frantic, final hours in April, before a cabal of owners of Europe’s grandest clubs unveiled their plan for a breakaway superleague to an unsuspecting and unwelcoming world, a schism emerged in their ranks.

One faction, driven by Andrea Agnelli, chairman of Juventus, and Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, wanted to go public as quickly as possible. Agnelli, in particular, was feeling the personal pressure of acting, in effect, as a double agent. Everything, they said, was ready; or at least as ready as it needed to be.

Another group, centered on the American ownership groups that control England’s traditional giants, counseled caution. The plans still had to be finessed. There was still debate, for example, on how many spots might be handed over to teams that had qualified for the competition. They felt it better to wait until summer.

If the first group had not won the day — if the whole project had not exploded into existence and collapsed in ignominy in 48 tumultuous hours — this would have been the week, after the Olympics but before the new season began, when they presented their self-serving, elitist vision of soccer’s future.

That the Super League fell apart, of course, was a blessed relief. That this week has, instead, been given over to a dystopian illustration of where, exactly, soccer stands suggests that no great solace should be found in its failure.

On Thursday, Manchester City broke the British transfer record — paying Aston Villa $138 million for Jack Grealish — for what may not be the last time this summer. The club remains hopeful of adding Harry Kane, talisman of Tottenham and captain of England, for a fee that could rise as high as $200 million.

And then, of course, dwarfing everything else, it emerged that Lionel Messi would be leaving — would have to leave — F.C. Barcelona. Under La Liga’s rules, the club’s finances are such that it could not physically, fiscally, register the greatest player of all time for the coming season. It had no choice but to let him go. He had no choice but to leave.

Everything that has played out since has felt so shocking as to be surreal, but so predictable as to be inevitable.

There was the tear-stained news conference, in which Messi revealed he had volunteered to accept a 50 percent pay cut to stay at the club he has called home since he was 13, where he scored 672 goals in 778 games, where he broke every record there was to break, won everything there was to win and forged a legend that may never be matched.

As soon as that was over, there came the first wisps of smoke from Paris, suggesting the identity of Messi’s new home. Paris St.-Germain was, apparently, crunching the numbers. Messi had been in touch with Neymar, his old compadre, to talk things through. He had called Mauricio Pochettino, the manager, to get an idea of how it might work. P.S.G. was in touch with Jorge, his agent and father.

Then, on Tuesday, it happened. Everything was agreed upon: a salary worth $41 million a year, basic, over two years, with an option for a third. As his image was stripped from Camp Nou, a hole appearing between the vast posters of Gerard Piqué and Antoine Griezmann, Messi and his wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, boarded a plane in Barcelona, all packed and ready to go.

Jorge Messi assured reporters at the airport that the deal was done. P.S.G. teased it with a tweet. Messi landed at Le Bourget airport, near Paris, wearing that shy smile and a T-shirt reading: “Ici, C’est Paris.”

This was not a journey many had ever envisaged him making. But he had no other choice; or, rather, the player for whom anything has always been possible, for once, had only a narrow suite of options.

There is a portrait of modern soccer in that restricted choice, and it is a stark one. Lionel Messi, the best of all time, does not have true agency over where he plays his final few years. Even he was not able to resist the economic forces that carry the game along.

He could not stay where he wanted to stay, at Barcelona, because the club has walked, headlong, into financial ruin. A mixture of the incompetence of its executives and the hubris of the institution is largely responsible for that, but not wholly.

The club has spent vastly and poorly in recent years, of course. It has squandered the legacy that Messi had done so much to construct. But it has done so in a context in which it was asked and expected to compete with clubs backed not just by oligarchs and billionaires but by whole nation states, their ambitions unchecked and their spending unrestricted.

The coronavirus pandemic accelerated the onset of calamity, and so Barcelona was no longer in a position where it could keep even a player who wanted to stay. When it came time for him to leave, he found a landscape in which only a handful of clubs — nine at most — could offer the prospect of allowing him to compete for another Champions League trophy. They had long since left everybody else behind, relegated them to second-class status.

And of those, only three could even come close to taking on a salary as deservedly gargantuan as his. He should not be begrudged a desire to be paid his worth. He is the finest exponent of his art in history. It would be churlish to demand that he should do it on the cheap, as though it is his duty to entertain us. It could only have been Chelsea or Manchester City or Paris.

To some — and not just those who hold P.S.G. close to their hearts — that will be an appetizing prospect: a chance to see Messi not just reunited with Neymar, but aligned for the first time with Kylian Mbappé, who many assume will eventually take his crown as the best, and with his old enemy Sergio Ramos, too.

That it will be captivating is not in doubt. And doubtless profitable: The jerseys will fly off the shelves; the sponsorships will roll in; the TV ratings will rise, too, perhaps lifting all of French soccer with it. It may well be successful, on the field; it will doubtless be good to watch. But that is no measure. So, too, is the sinking of a ship.

That the architects of the Super League arrived, in April, at the wrong answer is not in doubt. The vision of soccer’s future that they put forward was one that benefited them and left everyone else, in effect, to burn.

But the question that prompted it was the right one. The vast majority of those dozen teams knew that the game in its current form was not sustainable. The costs were too high, the risks too great. The arms race that they were locked into led only to destruction. They recognized the need for change, even if their desperation and self-interest meant they could not identify what form that change should take.

They worried that they could not compete with the power and the wealth of the two or three clubs that are not subject to the same rules as everybody else. They felt that the playing field was no longer level. They believed that, sooner or later, first the players and then the trophies would coalesce around P.S.G., Chelsea and Manchester City.

It was sooner, as it turns out. P.S.G. has signed Messi. City may commit more than $300 million on just two players in a matter of weeks, as the rest of the game comes to terms with the impact of the pandemic. Chelsea has spent $140 million on a striker, too. This is the week when all their fears, all their dire predictions, have come to pass.

There should be no sympathy, of course. Those same clubs did not care at all about competitive balance while the imbalances suited them. Nothing has damaged the chances of meaningful change more than their abortive attempt to corral as much of the game’s wealth as possible to their own ends.

But they are not the only ones to lose in this situation. In April, in those whirlwind 48 hours, it felt like soccer avoided a grim vision of its future. As Messi touched down on the ground near Paris on Tuesday, as the surreal and the inevitable collided, it was hard to ignore the feeling that it had merely traded it for another.

Rory Smith is the chief soccer correspondent, based in Manchester, England. He covers all aspects of European soccer and has reported from three World Cups, the Olympics, and numerous European tournaments. @RorySmith

[zombiesbecrazy]

Hello! Can i get number 2 with Bruce & Alfred?

The postcard had be short, to the point while being very non-descript, and infuriating.

A –

Meet me in Sheffield.

B.

Alfred stared at the postmark, looking like it had been sent from Austria two weeks ago and flipped the card over. It was a picturesque but not a very detailed image of a mountainscape overlooking a lake in autumn. Something that looked like it was very easily purchased in a pharmacy or a tourist shop or even at an airport last minute when someone forgot to send someone a postcard.

This wasn’t the first postcard that Alfred had received since Master Bruce had disappeared into the night eight months ago. Random notes from random places that said even less arrived every few weeks and while they were probably sent as some sort of attempt to make him feel better, all they did was concern him further.

Alfred dropped the most recent one in the box with the others, their messages staring up at him, that hat frustrated him equally if not more than this one.

Thailand – Going strong.

Pakistan – Not dead.

Sweden – I love cheese.

The most recent one had been from Japan – Happy Birthday A! – which would have been thoughtful if Alfred’s birthday hadn’t been another four months away and it just showed that either Master Bruce had no concept as to what month it currently was, or that he had never known when Alfred’s birthday was in the start.

And now after all this time he wants Alfred to come and meet him in Sheffield of all places? Alfred had never even been to Sheffield other than to travel through it and to the best of his knowledge neither had Bruce. It wasn’t as if the city had any sort of emotional attachment to either of them.

It flashed through his head for a second to ignore the message, to go back to his plans for the night of meeting some friends for dinner. A petty moment where he thought about leaving Bruce alone and waiting in Sheffield just as he had been abandoned here in an old manor by himself without a word.

It took about thirty seconds before he started looking into flights.

Alfred got a plane to Manchester and from there took the train across to Sheffield. Sitting in the first class car he watched the hillside go by wondering if Bruce would even be there or if there would be some sort of missed connection. The card hadn’t had a date or a time on it and Alfred didn’t know if he was early or late or if this was something that Bruce had thought of on a whim and then had changed his mind.

Thomas Wayne was sitting on an otherwise empty bench in the train station and Alfred almost tripped over his own feet at the sight before realizing that it wasn’t Thomas at all. Instead it was Bruce waiting patiently for him. Obviously inches taller than he had been when he had left even though he was sitting, and far wider and stronger than he or Thomas had ever been. His hair was longer than it had been in years and there was a light in his eyes that Alfred didn’t quite recognize, but it was Bruce, at least one late growth spurt larger.

Bruce stood at the sight of Alfred and that is when Alfred recognized the boy that he knew. The one that stumbled awkwardly to his feet and looked perfectly abashed when Alfred had caught his hands in the cookie jar five minutes before dinner was set to start. It was the same look he wore now, months after disappearing from Alfred’s life.

Alfred stopped in front of this large, tall, wide boy-man and set his suitcase on the ground, and watched as Bruce shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, possibly uncertain as to how this meeting was going to go.

There was only one thing Alfred could say.

“Hello, my boy.” 

The boy in question visibly melted at the words and before Alfred knew that it was happening, strong arms were pulling him into a tight embrace that Alfred couldn’t help but return with vigor. Bruce was taller and bigger and his body was much more firm than the last time that they had hugged, but it was familiar and something that Alfred had stayed up many nights thinking about whether if he would ever have another chance of doing again.

“Hi Al.” The voice was mumbled and deep, new but familiar, and Alfred gave him a tighter squeeze. The younger man’s arms stayed firm, and a head dropped to Alfred’s shoulder, showing no indication that the hug was going to end any time soon.

[encounterthepast]

If you enjoy this please follow @RussInCheshire on twitter for his regular threads on UK politics.

As it’s the weekend, let’s start #TheWeekInTory with a frivolous and jolly story about our own govt deliberately starving hundreds of thousands of children...

1. In May, Boris Johnson promised “nobody will go hungry as a result of Coronavirus”

2. He then denied school meals to the 600,000 poorest children

3. So Marcus Rashford ran a campaign to get the govt to feed children, which - just think about that: he had to *campaign* for it

4. Then Boris Johnson congratulated Rashford on his campaign to overturn the cruel policies of, erm, Boris Johnson

5. And then 3 days later, Boris Johnson refused to feed those kids during school holidays

6. So this week Labour organised a parliamentary vote about it

7. And 322 Tories voted against feeding hungry children

8. Vicky Ford, the Children’s Minister (who you’ll be surprised to hear neither looks nor sounds like a ludicrous Dickensian villain) went ahead and voted against feeding children

9. Tory MP Jo Gideon voted against feeding children. Jo Gideon, in case you didn't think things could get any more unbelievable, is also the chair of "Feeding Britain", a charity that campaigns to end food poverty and hunger in the UK.

10. Tory MP Paul Scully waved away the grumbling parents of kids with grumbling tummies, and said “children have been going hungry under Labour for years”, seemingly forgetting Tories have been in power for a decade

11. Tory MP Ben Bradley, who once had to apologise for suggesting sterilising the poor, said feeding children will simply “increase their dependency”. On food. Yeah, wean the little bastards off it. It’ll do them good in the end, which will be around 3 agonising weeks.

12. At this point, pause to consider that MPs get their food and drink subsidised. A £31 meal in a parliamentary restaurant costs MPs £3.45. In 2018 this subsidy cost the taxpayer £4.4m. I can’t find any record of Tories like Ben Bradley voting against this.

13. Pressing on: Ben Bradley also said “Some parents prioritise other things ahead of their kids. Small minority, yes... but some do”. Yes, and a small minority of Tory MPs have been arrested for rape. Should we send them all to prison?

14. Also, Mark Francois voted (by proxy) to keep kids hungry. Not related to the previous item. Why would you think that?

15. Tory MP Nicky Morgan said the govt voted to starve 600,000 children cos a Labour MP called a Tory MP scum. And that’s not a scummy thing to do at all.

16. Tory MP David Simmonds said Marcus Rashford’s experience of poverty in secondary school “took place entirely under a Labour government”. Rashford was 11 when Tories came into power, making David Simmonds are rare example of an ad hominem attack on yourself

17. Simmonds then said Labour’s parliamentary vote was “all about currying favour with wealth and power and celebrity status”. He might be right – the govt managed to unify Gary Linaker and Nigel Farage in condemnation of their denial of food to kids

18. Brandan Clark-Smith (who voted to starve kids) demanded “more action to tackle the real causes of child poverty”

19. So at once, the govt cut minimum wage for furloughed people. They now get 2/3 of the money the govt says is the absolute minimum it is possible to survive on

20. And then it was revealed that low-paid workers who have to isolate due to Covid can claim £500. Yay!

21. But if they’re told to isolate by the govt’s contact tracing app, they can’t claim anything. Un-yay.

22. Long story short: the govt cannot spend £120m feeding children. But it can spend £522 on the Eat Out Scheme, which its own report said contributed “negligible amounts” to the hospitality economy, and Boris Johnson admitted drove up infection rates – especially in the North

23. Those infection rates caused the govt to move Manchester into Tier 3

24. So the Mayor of Manchester asked for a £90m support package (1/6th of the money the govt spent causing the problem in the first place)

25. The govt said no, £60m

26. The Mayor said, how about £65m?

27. The govt said no, £60m

28. The Mayor said ok, fine, we’ll take the £60m

29. And then govt offered Manchester £22m, and then went to the press and said the Mayor was "being unreasonable"

30. The negotiations were led by Robert Jenrick, who recently set up a fund for the poorest 101 towns, then awarded his town £25m even though it is the 270th poorest, and therefore not even eligible

31. £25m is £237 per person

32. Manchester gets £7.85 per person

33. Robert Jenrick gave Manchester (2.8 million people) £22m

34. Robert Jenrick gave Richard Desmond (1 person) £45m

35. The talks broke down when the govt wouldn’t spend an extra £5m

36. The govt plans to spend £7m vitally rebranding "Highways England" to "National Highways"

37. Manchester Young Conservatives tweeted “Boris has lied about helping us in the North. It’s time for him to go". Don't look - they deleted it. Suspect somebody had a word.

38. Meanwhile the govt said Manchester will get the £60m after all, and chaos continue to reign supreme

39. But that £60m is brief reprieve for the Tories of Manchester, as a govt report said Tory seats in the North of England (the so-called "Red Wall" seats) can expect to lose at least 4000 jobs *each* as a result of Brexit, even if we do get a deal. More if we don't.

40. The govt rushed to begin its first airport Coronavirus testing, a mere 211 days after mandatory airport testing was begun in South Korea

41. South Korea has had 8 deaths per million

42. The UK has had 665 deaths per million

43. More airport news, as the govt finally accepted Brexit will cause “up to 8-hour delays at passport checks” and asked the EU to allow UK citizens to queue at EU-only lanes. Like we did when we were in the EU. But we aren’t now. So tough.

44. A senior diplomat said, “Having grown up in Brussels, Boris Johnson values the ability to travel freely to the continent”. You’d think Boris Johnson would foresee this problem when he led the campaign to stop that freedom.

45. The independent reviewer of Terrorism Legislation said the UK “will be increasingly unable to cope” after Brexit, as we lose access to EU data-sharing agreements

46. And a No-Deal end to UK/EU scientific collaboration will leave London with a £3bn annual deficit

47. In the space of 38 days, the govt announced the £100bn "Operation Moonshot" to solve Covid; then cancelled it; and then re-launched it again after it was found they’d accidentally continued to pay over 200 private consultants up to £7000 a day to work on it.

48. So this week, Boris Johnson said Moonshot would continue, but it’s goals “would take time”, which is the literal opposite of what he said it would do when it first announced it, and makes the entire thing absolutely pointless

49. And now it’s been admitted that Operation Moonshot would be quietly folded into the existing £12bn Test and Trace programme, and the £100bn has vanished. Apart from the bits the Serco consultants took for doing… nothing.

50. But Boris Johnson said the Test and Trace programme was “helping a bit”, and “a bit” is the least you’d expect if you’d spent £12bn

51. And then the £12bn Test and Trace programme fell to its lowest success rate so far, identifying only 60% of at-risk people

52. Local councils, with no additional funding, are tracing 98% of cases

53. A quick sweep though other epic successes you may have missed (or deliberately blocked out): Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch declared that it should be illegal to teach about inequality

54. The Cabinet Secretary said the report into “vicious and orchestrated” bullying by Home Secretary and Dementor Priti Patel “may never see the light of day”, cos if you have a report that vindicates you, you definitely sit on it as long as possible

55. And the appeals court unanimously overturned Priti Patel’s policy of removing people from the UK without giving them access to legal process or justice because – and I’m paraphrasing the judges here – what the fuck, Patel? What the actual fuck?

56. Undeterred, she announced plans to make rough-sleeping “grounds for removal of permission to be in the UK” and "denial of legal aid". So if you’re too poor to have a home, you must pay for a lawyer or she’ll shove you in the sea

57. After an unnamed Tory MP said it “looks bad to be handing top jobs to your friend and old boss”, Charles Moore, Boris Johnson’s friend and old boss, withdrew as next BBC chair.

58. The new favourite is Richard Sharp, the - yep - friend and old boss of Rishi Sunak

59. You’ll be amazed to hear this: Richard Sharp is a major donor to the Tory party. These little coincidences keep on happening

60. The govt decided to prevent EU citizens from having physical proof of their right to live in their own home

61. Grant Shapps threatened to “seize control of Transport for London” to save it from financial ruin at the hands of Sadiq Khan, who – the bastard - achieved a mere 71% reduction in the debts caused by his noble predecessor, Boris Johnson

62. Matt Hancock, facts at his fingertips, told MPs from Yorkshire their constituents could go on holiday abroad

63. But not in the UK

64. And then that they CAN go on holiday in the UK

65. But can't leave Yorkshire

66. He then said “I'll get back to you” about the details

67. A cross-party report found “the UK’s foreign policy is adrift”, that it lacks “clarity, confidence and vision” and that Britain is “absent from the world stage”. All of which is very soothing, as we move into the govt's proclaimed goal of a post-Brexit Global Britain.

68. And we can all relax: the govt is finally supporting culture in the UK, specifically the Nevill Holt Opera, which performs private operas, and is owned by Boris Johnson’s friend (and - jaw on floor! - Tory donor) David Ross, who is worth £700m so really needs the money.

69. The Nevill Holt Opera only functions in the summer, so thank god it has been prioritised with £85,000 to “maintain operations” in October.

And now, in honour of the opera, the fat lady can sing, cos I’m off to drink myself into oblivion. Join me.

We live in interesting times.

[abundanceofsoph]

SkyFire 3: Chapter 4

A week of the Late Late Show: May 2017      

Word count: 4.1k

SkyFire 3 MASTERLIST

Sorry it's been 3 weeks since the last chapter but I'm back at work and with Christmas approaching I can't promise I'll upload frequently although I do have a lot planned out for the rest of this story. I'm going to aim for monthly chapter updates.

The songs written by Aurora and mentioned in this chapter are Perfect Color - SafetySuit, I'll Be There - Jess Glynne, and Feel Good - Gryffin ft. Daya.

Hope you enjoy and always please don't forget to comment and share :)

Aurora and Harry were smiling as they climbed out of their hire car and were instantly greeted by James Corden and ushered into his home. They had driven straight from the airport, not even taking the time to drop off their luggage at the Malibu Mansion where Tony had lived before relocating to New York after building the tower and meeting Steve. James led them inside where his wife Jules immediately pulled them into hugs and the children ran around their feet excitedly. It had been a few months since they had seen them, and Aurora was shocked by how much they had grown in such a short time. Max had recently turned 6, while little Carey was nearing her 3rd birthday and the pair were such perfect combinations of their parents that they melted Aurora’s heart. As soon as Jules released Rori from their hug, Max grabbed her hand, tugging her into the playroom to show her his new toys. She happily sank to the floor, crossing her legs underneath her and smiling enthusiastically as Max handed her one toy after another, chattering away excitedly about where he got them, and which ones were his favourites. Harry joined them a few moments later, Carey resting on his hip as she also babbled away happily. The young couple gave their full attention to the children for the net hour until Jules declared it time for bed. Both children were reluctant to leave the room but after both Aurora and Harry pinky promised that they would be in town all week and would definitely visit again soon, they finally allowed their mother to lead them upstairs to their rooms.

They joined James in the kitchen where he poured a glass of wine for both himself and Harry and some of Jules’ homemade iced tea for their wives. It was a nice late spring evening and they ended up sitting out on the back patio with their drinks as the sun was slowly sinking into the horizon. James asked about the album launch and the show they had played the previous night in London and Harry launched into an animated recount of the show. Jules joined them shortly after they sat down, sighing as she sank into her seat and announced that the kids were successfully asleep.

As the boys started discussing James’ plans for the following few days on the show, Rori turned to Jules, asking about what she had been up to in the last few weeks since she and James had attended the wedding. Aurora had always loved kids and was especially soft when it came to Max and Little Carey, so she happily hung on every word as Jules recounted stories of silly things the kids had said or done. Aurora laughed as Jules spoke about Carey’s new favourite saying, ‘I do it’; apparently, she had entered into her independent phase and was wanting to do everything for herself, much to the exasperation of her parents. It was stories like these, and the afternoons spent playing with the kids that made Aurora dream of the time when she and Harry would be ready to start having children of their own. She was in no hurry, knowing that now, at the beginning of Harry’s new solo career, was the absolute worst time to try for a baby. Despite not wanting children for at least a few more years, she was so incredibly excited for their future family, a sentiment she knew her husband shared with her. They stayed until well after the sun had set before saying goodnight and driving down the coast towards the Stark family mansion on the Malibu cliffs. Rori smiled as they stepped into the large foyer and was greeted by a flood of memories of summers spent there with her parents and late nights sitting down on the beach.

xXx

The following morning Aurora woke early to make breakfast for Harry, knowing that he would be feeling a little nervous about the day ahead. He smiled softly at the blueberry pancakes placed in front of him as he took his seat at the kitchen table.

“Thanks babe,” he said, kissing Rori’s cheek as she sat down next to him with her own plate of pancakes. They ate together, talking about their days ahead, and all the segments James had planned for the week ahead. Once breakfast was finished, Aurora walked Harry to the front door and kissed him goodbye and good luck before he climbed into the hire car to drive into the city to the CBS studios. The moment Harry disappeared at the end of the drive, Aurora headed back into the house, busying herself with cleaning up the breakfast dishes and then watched impatiently as the clock slowly ticked away the minutes, eagerly waiting for JARVIS to announce the arrival of her guest. As soon as James had invited Harry on the show, Rori had decided that she would make the most of the opportunity, given how infrequently they were able to spend time on the west coast. She let out an excited squeal as JARVIS announced the car's arrival and she was out the front door by the time it parked out the front of the cliff top mansion. The moment Louis stepped out of the car, Aurora had her arms around him, only letting go long enough for him to retrieve the gorgeous 16 month old from the back seat.

“Oh my goodness, look at you!” Aurora cooed excitedly as soon as she saw Freddie in his father's arms. “You just keep getting cuter and cuter.” Louis chuckled at her reaction, immediately offering his son for her to hold and she happily took him into her arms, bouncing him on her hip as she led the way back into the house. “You’ve gotten so big!” she told the baby. “Gonna grow up big and strong and handsome just like your dad.” She wasn’t lying when she told Freddie that he had grown given that she hadn’t seen him since a few weeks before his first birthday, when his mother had graciously flown over to the UK with him when Louis' mother had passed away. Aurora had made sure to sneak many cuddles with him during his visit and had immediately become obsessed with the little baby who looked so much like his father.

“I’m so glad the timing worked out for this,” Rori said as she lay on the floor a little while later, playing with Freddie. “Wish we could get out here more often to see him, you know?”

“I actually mentioned that to Bri when I picked him up this morning and she said you should visit when you’re back in town on tour. Don’t always need to have me around to go see him.”

“Are you sure?” Rori asked. “It wouldn’t be weird?”

“Course not love,” Louis scoffed. “You’re his family, I mean Harry’s his bloody godfather. Besides I know Bri liked you the couple of times we all hung out together so I’m sure she’d love to get together for a coffee or something.”

“We’ll in that case I might have to find more excuses to fly out here.”

Louis put Freddie down for a nap on the large sofa, with plenty of pillows surrounding him to make sure he didn’t roll off, and then he and Aurora make coffee in the kitchen and chatted about the upcoming tour and what Louis had been up to. After Freddie woke up and it started getting closer to dinner time, Rori text Harry to see how late he would be home.

◊Aurora: How’s it going babe? Lou and I were just starting to think about dinner, and I wanted to check in on your plans.

◊Harry: Wanna get Lou to drive you in and we can all get something to eat around here?

Aurora looked up from her phone to repeat the question to Louis. He quickly agreed and they headed out to the car, loading Freddie in his car seat before making their way into the city.

They pulled into the CBS lot about an hour later and after texting Harry to let him know that they had arrived, he quickly met them outside. Harry was just as excited to see his godson as Aurora had been and happily climbed in the back of Louis car to sit next to the little bub as he babbled away.

The three friends chatted excitedly throughout dinner, always happy to be back together again even if only for a short time. Freddie spent most of the meal in either Rori’s lap or Harry’s since neither wanted to miss out on a single moment with the adorable little boy.

“How long you in town for Lou?” Harry asked towards the end of the meal.

“Just till tomorrow evening,” Louis replied. “Rori and I are gonna take Fred to Griffith Park and take him on the miniature train and then I’m flying out after dinner to head back to Donny.”

“We’ll have to try and catch up over summer before the tour kicks off,” Harry replied. “Feel like we’re not gonna see you otherwise.”

“Absolutely,” Louis agreed. “When you flying back?”

“I’m heading to Manchester after the Troubadour show Saturday night and Rors is spending next week in New York before meeting me up there. Back in London in few weeks for a gig on the 10th.”

“Everything ok with Robin?” Louis asked, noticing the way Harry didn’t seem excited to be heading home for a few weeks like he usually would be.

“Mum said he’s not doing well,” Harry admitted, his voice soft and edged with the threat of tears. “Wanna try and spend as much time as I can with him.”

“You let me know if you need anything, yeah?” Louis said. “You guys were incredible for me last year, so anything you need and I’m there.”

“Thanks Lou,” Rori said.

“Anyway,” Louis said, obviously trying to change the topic in the face of Harry’s dark mood change. “What’s got you heading to New York? Just seeing the family?”

“I’m actually gonna be in Vogue,” Rori replied. “They interviewed me last week and the photoshoot is next week.”

“That’s awesome!” Louis replied. “What’s the story about?”

“Marriage in the public eye. Touring with a disability,” Rori answered. “Just kind of a bit of a bio piece on my life, I guess. I’m honestly not entirely sure. We talked about all sorts of things, so it’ll be exciting to see what they put together for it.”

Unfortunately, Harry’s mood didn’t recover as they finished the meal, and they didn’t stay much later, all heading to their cars and saying goodnight. Harry remained quiet as he drove along the Malibu coast and Aurora decided to leave him to his thoughts, her fingers laced with his as their hands rested on her thigh and she squeezed his hand occasionally as a silent reminder that she was there if he needed her.

“Been a long day,” he mumbled when they arrived back at the house. “Think I might just head straight to bed.”

“Ok,” Rori agreed. “I’ll be up soon.”

xXx

Harry seemed back to his energetic self the following morning as they shared breakfast once again before he left for the studio and Aurora got ready for her day out with the Tomlinson boys. Louis picked her up midway through the morning and the pair laughed and sang along to the radio as they drove to Griffith Park. Rori smoothed out her yellow sundress as she climbed out of the car after Louis parked, slipping a pair of sunglasses on and throwing her handbag over her shoulder. She scooped Freddie out of his car seat while Louis unfolded the stroller, cuddling the toddler close and tickling him while he giggled adorably. They headed into the park and the moment Freddie spotted the trains he began wriggling in Aurora’s arms, desperate to be put down so that he could run over to them. Louis laughed as he pulled his son into his arms after watching Rori struggle to maintain her one handed hold on him for a few moments.

“Easy mate,” he told the little boy. “We’ll get there in a minute.”

Rori took over pushing the stroller, watching fondly as the father and son interacted. She didn’t often get to see Louis as a dad, but the past few days had shown her just how perfectly he fit into the roll. She wasn’t at all surprised, given how protective and caring he was towards his sisters, but it was nice to be able to witness his parental side.

They rode the trains for a while, before settling down at a picnic bench for lunch and Freddie quickly fell asleep for a nap in the stroller, exhausted from all the excitement.

“He really loves trains,” Rori chuckled.

“Obsessed with the bloody things,” Lou replied. “Started bringing him here every time I’m in town and he just goes mental for ‘em.”

“Do you wish you spent more time out here with him?” she asked softly.

“Yeah,” Louis sighed. “But if I moved out here permanently, I’d miss my family and I’m all over the place for different gigs. I see him as much as I can now and when he’s a bit older maybe he can come stay with me for summer’s or something.”

“You’re amazing with him.”

“He makes it easy,” Louis scoffed. “You’re pretty great with him too. You and Harry feeling ready yet.”

“No,” Rori replied quickly. “We talk about it every now and then, but with the solo career just starting it’s not a good time. Maybe in a few years everything will be a  bit more settled.”

“Glad you’re both on the same page,” Louis nodded. “You’ll both be great parents.”

xXx

Following their day in Griffith Park, Louis drove Aurora home, arriving shortly before Harry returned and the couple sat down to dinner together out on the back patio looking out over the ocean.

The next morning after breakfast, Aurora joined Harry on his drive into the city, spending the day in the studio with him before they went back over to James and Jules’ house for dinner again. The kids were excited to see them again and they spent some time running around the back garden with them before sitting down to dinner.

“I’ve got to say Rori,” James said as Jules cleaned away the dishes from dinner, “it was great having you hang out at the studio today.”

“I had a lot of fun,” Rori agreed.

“Should have spent the last two days with us too,” James joked.

“Sorry but little Freddie made me a better offer.”

“I guess I can’t really argue with that,” James laughed.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow though,” Aurora added. “I absolutely love Carpool Karaoke. Pretty sure it’s my favourite segment.”

“You know Harry actually mentioned that yesterday and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it all day. We got a lot more filmed today then we thought we would so we’ve got a bit of extra time up our sleeves tomorrow and I was wondering if, after we film Harry’s Carpool, maybe you’d want to do one too and I can save it for an episode in a few weeks’ time. I always like to have a spare segment tucked away in case of emergency.”

“Really?” Rori asked, her face lighting up excitedly and causing Harry to chuckle. “Yeah, I’d love that.”

xXx

The following morning, after Harry climbed out of the black SUV, a large grin splitting across his face, Aurora bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet as James changed his shirt and prepared to film the second carpool segment. She was wearing a simple purple dress, her long dark hair curled softly and fanning out over her shoulders.

Aurora found herself a little nervous as she climbed into the car, smiling and chuckling as James thanked her for helping him get to work and asking if she minded if he played some music while they drove. She smiled excitedly as he queued up the first track for them, having no idea what 5 songs he had picked out and she was eager to see what he had pulled together, confident that Harry had also played a hand in picking the line-up.

The first song to play through the cars speakers was one that she had written many years ago and she let out a startled chuckle as the opening notes played out.

“I’m going to want the story behind this when it’s over,” James commented right before the lyrics began.

Yellow nice to meet you Do you know that you just blue my mind? It was the perfect conversation, I think that I red about one time And I told a white lie when I told you

I've never been green with envy, you You're the perfect colour

“Ok, so tell me,” James said as soon as the track came to an end. “I’ve been told the story behind this song is a good one, so spill.”

“Well years ago, when I used to join the lads on tour,” Rori began, smiling at the memories of touring with One Direction and how much fun they all had together during her summer breaks from Columbia. “On the days off in between shows, we’d often go grab dinner at a local pub and have a few drinks and we’d play this game where one person would come up with a challenge and on the back of a napkin we’d each write a verse or a chorus using the theme picked out and then we’d pick a winner. It could be anything like having to use a certain word or phrase, or not being able to use the letter A. One night the challenge was to use a different colour in every line, and I won the round with that chorus. Then while we continued on the tour, I couldn’t get it out of my head and eventually turned it into a complete song.”

“Did any other songs make it out of that game and out into the world?” James asked.

“Maybe a few,” Rori replied with a cheeky smirk, “But I’m not telling you which ones.”

“Spoil sport,” James huffed before moving on to the next song.

As Jess Glynne’s voice filled the car, Rori swallowed thickly around the lump in her throat and joined James in singing along. I’ll Be There had been released only a little over a month ago and had been a staple on every radio station since. When she’d first heard the final recording of the track, Aurora hadn’t been able to hold back her tears as she listened to her own words sung back to her so beautifully, but now after countless listens, she was able to listen without the overwhelming emotions and simply enjoy the track.

When all the tears are rolling down your face And it feels like yours was the only heart to break When you come back home and all the lights are out, ooh And you're getting used to no one else being around

Oh, oh, I'll be there When you need a little love, I got a little love to share Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come through You'll never be alone, I'll be there for you I'll be there, I'll be there for you I'll be there, I'll be there for you Oh, I swear, I got enough love for two, ooh, ooh, ooh You'll never be alone, I'll be there for you

They sang the first verse and chorus before allowing the song to fade out and James looked across to where Rori was sitting next to him.

“You know this is one of my favourite songs at the moment,” he said, “and I think I was signing along to it for about a week before I found out it was one of yours.”

“Really?” Rori laughed.

“Really,” James echoed. “It’s too bloody hard to keep track to be honest. At this point I should just assume every hit is one of yours unless told otherwise.” Rori blushed deeply and giggled awkwardly in response to his glowing compliments. “I’m always so interested in the stories behind songs and I know your fans are always eager to hear, so what inspired this one?”

“Ummm…” Rori mumbled. “I actually wrote this one back around New Years for Louis,” she admitted, instantly knowing that Twitter would explode at this revelation. “For as long as I’ve known him, music has always been this beautiful way for us to have the conversations that are sometimes too hard to have and like the chorus says I just wanted him to know that through all of it, I’d be there.”

“And it really is a beautiful message,” James agreed, recognizing that Rori didn’t want to sit in these emotions any longer and he quickly segued into the next track and away from the painful memories of losing Jay. “You have such a way of putting so much emotion into your lyrics and I honestly think this next one is one of my favourites and I selfishly picked it because I’ve always wanted to hear you sing the final chorus.”

Rori’s smile returned as the acoustic version of Feel Good by Gryffin and Daya started up and she happily sang along, breathing deeply and reaching for the very high notes towards the end of the track. Causing James to fall silent as he watched her belt out the notes until the track finally ended.

Take my hand in the middle of a crisis Pull me close, show me, baby, where the light is I was scared of a heart I couldn't silence But you make me, you make me feel good I like it

“So, like I was saying, there’s always such emotion in the songs you write,” James reiterated. “Do you find it difficult to trust other artists with songs about things that are so personal?”

“Sometimes,” Rori answered. “Every song comes from something in my life whether it’s something amazing or terrible and you leave a little part of you in your work, so it can be scary to give that away to someone else and trust them to take care of it, but I also love seeing what other people do with my lyrics. Sometimes they take it in a completely different direction and apply their own story and feelings to the song which changes it slightly and I always find that fascinating. Sometimes the song’s just too personal and I have to hold onto it for myself or Harry.”

James nodded as she spoke before queuing up the next song and happily joining Aurora in belting out the familiar lyrics to Fleetwood Mac’s Seven Wonders.

If I live to see the seven wonders I'll make a path to the rainbow's end I'll never live to match the beauty again The rainbow's edge

After a quick chat about how she was looking forward to the upcoming tour with Harry, they played the final song and Rori couldn’t keep the cheek splitting grin of her face as she sang along to Infinity. Harry’s voice filled the car and she joined him in the chorus as they both belted out the high notes.

How many nights does it take to count the stars? That's the time it would take to fix my heart Oh, baby, I was there for you All I ever wanted was the truth, yeah, yeah How many nights have you wished someone would stay? Lay awake only hoping they're okay I never counted all of mine If I tried, I know it would feel like infinity Infinity, infinity, yeah Infinity

By the time they pulled back into the studio lot, both Rori and James were a mess of laughter and giddy grins, climbing out of the car to be instantly greeted by Harry.

“How did go?” he asked as he wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist and walked them back inside.

“She was better than yours,” James joked.

“Don’t doubt it,” Harry agreed before placing a kiss on Rori’s temple. “Bloody talented this one. Can’t believe she’s settling for being in my backing band. Could be on a world tour of her own if she wanted to.”

“But she doesn’t want to,” Aurora added. “She would like lunch though.”

“Then lunch she shall have,” Harry laughed.

xXx

That night the final episode of Harry’s week on the Late Late show aired and the following evening he and the band played a gig at the Troubadour. Saturday afternoon the young couple said their goodbyes inside LAX before boarding their separate flights, one bound for Manchester while the other headed for New York.

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

[messifangirl]

A more extensive Kunessi rec list

(Reposting this bc tumblr ate it and I have no idea why!!!!! So annoying... Now with more added fics) 

Recently got an ask for some recs, and I’m feeling Kunessi right now so….

A more extensive Kunessi rec list, hopefully now with some decent formatting. Stories organized alphabetically by author. Also hopefully with mostly correct tumblrs

I would dye for you by blindbatalex @blindbatalex​ 

A (highly imaginary) account of how Messi's bleached hair came about and Kun and Neymar's feelings on the subject.

(Kun/Leo, words: 872, rating: general, status: complete)

I'm Only Good At Bad Poetry by DrifterWriter

“Yes, we bet on you getting together," Masche repeats, rolling his eyes, using the tone one would use with a small child. "It's bound to happen eventually-- can you guys just hurry the fuck up and get it on?"

"Am I that obvious?" Kun asks weakly, because is he that obvious?

(Kun/Leo, words: 3274, rating: teen and up, status: complete)

Take your pain away. by florgi @xavimascheranos​

Kun is a worrier and Leo's back hurts. Leo just wants to cuddle and Kun is ther to provide the cuddles.

(Set after the friendly against Honduras of May, 27th 2016, where Leo received a hard blow on his back and had to be subbed out.)

(Kun/Leo, words: 1040, rating: general, status: complete)

Warm Me With Your Smile by hellabaloo @historiograph​

Leo visits Kun in Manchester for Christmas, and realizes he might have been missing something that was right in front of his face.

(Kun/Leo, words: 6868, rating: mature, status: complete)

Beauty by LeoDios @leo-dios​

Kun finds out that Leo has a crush on him. This makes him confront his own feelings about his best friend.

(Kun/Leo, words: 2982, rating: explicit, status: complete)

Love of our Lives by LeoDios @leo-dios​

Kun never had to ask, he could always figure out in a few touches what Leo wanted or needed. Leo had the same instinct when it came to Kun. It had been that way since they were seventeen.

(Kun/Leo, words: 56340, rating: mature, status: complete)

Not a Coward by LynyrdSkynyrd

Kun likes to think himself as a funny, easygoing guy. But above all, he likes to believe that he is very brave. The way he plays and the way he lives is a proof of that. But one day Pablo opens his eyes and show him that he is not as brave as he would like to believe.

Or where Kun is so afraid of ruining his friendship with Leo that he never tells him his true feelings, only watching Leo being so close and touchy with Pocho from afar. But he needs to do something before he dies of jealousy.

(Kun/Leo, words: 4443, rating: teen and up, status: complete)

blue is the warmest color by mm_nani  

‘It was just weird seeing you here.’ He finally says.‘Good or bad?’ Leo whispers against his neck, kissing him softly, chastely.

or

Argentina NT trained at City and I had a lot of feelings about it which i projected onto Kun.

(Kun/Leo, words: 2084, rating: teen and up, status: complete)

4 Times Zlatan Is a Terrifying Father-in-Law + 1 Time Kun Realized That He Actually Isn't by mm_nani

Kun wasn't expecting the extra family member when he started dating Leo

(Kun/Leo, words: 3256, rating: teen and up, status: complete)

Back to the Beginning by Nina22783

Following a huge fall-out. Leo works hard to retrace his steps back to Kun.

(Kun/Leo, words: 7247, rating: mature, status: complete)

I Love You But Sometimes You Drive Me Crazy by orphan_account (AR)

Kun watched Leo trapeze around the training ground like Kun wasn't glaring at the back of his head with enough intensity to set him on fire. He wondered if Leo was just ignoring it, or if he hadn't even noticed, but knowing the other it was probably the latter.

(Kun/Leo, words: 10751, rating: explicit, status: complete)

Where I Belong by pique @piquemos​

Kun misses Leo and cries himself to sleep over it. The last thing he can remember before closing his eyes is wishing that Leo played for Man City. When he wakes up, his wish has come true. It isn't all he'd imagined it to be, though.

(Kun/Leo, words: 11687, rating: teen and up, status: complete)

Prayers by ren_makoto

How do you worship a god? Kun Aguero shows his reverence to one D10S de Futbol. But gods can be spoiled, complicated creatures...

"He's seen fans almost kill themselves jumping down from the stands to hug Leo, kiss him, bow down at his feet. Nearly drowning themselves to swim to his yacht. He's seen fans cry in joy when Leo gives them his shirt or a hug. This is his equivalent, Kun imagines. This is as close as he comes to praying anymore."

(Kun/Leo, words: 3418, rating: explicit, status: complete)

A Messi Love by stillgold @ciiromessi​

Kun knew he never should have had that last drink. Now he's gone and spilled his deep dark secret to Masche. And why is Kun's feelings for Leo the only secret Masche can't keep?

(Kun/Leo, words: 69188, rating: explicit, status: complete)

The Permanence of a Yes by stillgold @ciiromessi​

Kun has never been able to say no to Leo, even when Leo always says no. But it turns out yeses and nos are not permanent--and everyone can start over.

(Kun/Leo, words: 2522, rating: mature, status: complete)

Todo Por Vos by stillgold @ciiromessi​

There’s nothing to say, but the words come unbidden. “Hoy por vos”, he whispers. Today for you. For you. He could have said todo por vos, all for you, and it would have been true.

Maybe Leo understands, or maybe Leo already knew—maybe Leo, with his dark eyes and his quiet mouth—maybe he can see better than others can. It seems like it on the pitch, but maybe that skill translates here too—maybe it sees Kun’s yearning, his hunger, his ache, his everything—all for Messi, todo por el.

(Kun/Leo, words: 1286, rating: general, status: complete)

Of Rainy Cities and Unexpected Feelings by Ximena13 @ximenalightwood​

It was all Geri's fault.

That was Leo's first thought when he found himself alone at Manchester City's parking lot, blinking dumbly at the place where the bus used to be. Where the bus that was supposed to take him and the team to the airport, and then back to Spain, used to be.

Or,

The one in which Leo gets left behind by the team bus, has to figure out a way to go back to Spain without the media noticing, and has to deal with the fact that he may be in love with his best friend.

(Kun/Leo, words: 40588, rating: general, status: wip)

till your lungs give out by yvenger (jjjat3am) @eyvenger​

It's not that Leo hasn't noticed the way his voice affects Kun every time he praises him for a job well done. He just hasn't acted on it till now.

(Kun/Leo, words: 1659, rating: mature, status: complete)

two bodies pressed together by yvenger (jjjat3am)  @eyvenger​

"If I weren't a footballer, I would be a footballer's wife." - Kun Aguero

or

The one where Kun has to retire from football early and becomes Leo's househusband instead.

(Kun/Leo, words: 6015, rating: teen and up, status: complete)

What the Mister wants by yulin @purpleyulin​ 

Where a request becomes a challenge, and the challenge something unexpected.

(Kun/Leo, words: 300, rating: general, status: complete)

[therootsprojectuk]

Webinar Transcript with HS2 activist Goldilocks - 12.01.21

Webinar CONVERSATION WITH HS2 ACTIVIST GOLDILOCKS 12.01.2021

A transcription of a discussion between Goldilocks and webinar participants. A lockdown fundraising project coordinated between ‘The Roots Project’ and Kirkstall Valley Farm. The fundraising is supporting destitute refugee housing and community intergration projects

 https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-roots-project-1

For more information on The Roots Project links are available via their linktree:

https://linktr.ee/therootsprojectuk?

Seren Oakley(Host): I think everyone who’s come to listen to Goldilocks speak, um I don’t know who’s come from where but Kirkstall Valley farm and The Roots project are kind of the collaborators bringing this together so um there is a link for a Crowdfunder to raise money for migrants and refugees in the chat, if you can at the moment and if you wan to or if you want to share that with anyone interested. Um yeah, so I guess the first question for Goldilocks. Goldilocks is an activist who’s been working with the HS2 camps. Maybe if you go into a bit of what HS2 are doing and who they are.

 Goldilocks: I guess I can talk about like, sort of introduce myself, and a little bit about HS2. Um, I don’t know. I’ve kind of like written something down so, so I want to talk about first how HS2 describes itself, because I feel like if anyone’s heard of HS2 before it’s probably been n BBC news right? Or like something like that. Where it’s been like their angle on it. So HS2 describes itself as like this green solution to like all the economic imbalances we have between the north ad south of the country. A state funded infostructure, and it’s actually the biggest structural project that’s happening in Europe. So, HS2 stands for High Speed 2, so it’s the second High Speed 2, so it’s the second High Speed train line in this country. It’s supposed to connect London to Birmingham, I its first phase of works, which is a phase of works that is happening at the moment, and then it’s going to go like up North, connect up to Leeds and Manchester and to some airports and then Crewe and possibly Glasgow. It’s currently looking like, this might be cancelled, hopefully, fingers crossed.

 So, construction and deconstruction works have already begun for phase one. HS2’s been old as this eco-friendly, like progressive means of transport, that’s gonna fix all of our problems, that’s going to make less cars run, and people are going to fly places less despite the fact that it’s connecting up airports on its way.

Um claims to be creating jobs, one of their biggest selling points, but like we’ve got to think about lik the cost like no matter how sustainable and how progressive it is, like it is just pushing this idea of like endless economic growth, and like always making sure people are like occupied and working hard, I don’t know, it kind of really comes back to like, just a lot of bad ideas around capitalism and what people should be doing with their time. The first kind of, I guess when the first train lines were built in this country, they cut loads of trees down to build the sleeves and we’re kind of seeing that destruction kind of mirrored in HS2 now, that they’re felling loads of woodlands to make way for this line. I can talk a little bit later about the economic and ecological and human costs of things when it comes up.

S: How did you get involved in it?

 G: So I used to live in Leeds, I did some uni there, and then one of my friends was on the camps in like January (2020) and December last year (2019) and I was seeing all this destruction sort of happen like they did like a lot of livestreams o Facebook and a lot of like outreach stuff online, they dropped me a message to e like there’s stuff we’re planning, it’d be cool if you could come and support so I went down, I was just planning to go down and visit for like a few days to help out Harble Rd camp, which is one of he cams just outside London, actually in Boris Johnston city Cambridge, and that was January last year, um it says my speakers not working. But, can people hear me okay? Cool. I might just not be able to hear you back. Yeh I just kind of fell in lov with especially like the community there and the really beautiful area that it was at the time before HS2 kind of moved in, um the Harble road camp now, you used to be able to walk  from like the road camp all the way to one of the other camps at like Denham and ow like everything is boxed off everything has like fencing around, and like cleared or like felled or just not accessible to the public anymore, and there’s like two lake and you used to be able to walk around like the whole of both of them and now you just can’t and for people in that area, that is like just outside of London where people would go to just hangout and have some time in nature, and that’s just kind of been taken away from people. I kind of moved onto the campaign full time, I was very lucky to have to be working in a bar, for it to be closed, for me t be like “Right if I’m going to be in lockdown somewhere I may as well go and do it” like with people I love, like go and do this thing and kind of have ability, and decide whether I was going to stay there forever or not and yeah I kind of decided to stay, um , yeah, that’s kind of how I got involved. Just through kind of word of mouth. It’s really difficult to kind of know about these thigs unless you know people in these circles, and I think we need better outreach as a campaign, yeah.

S: Are most people in the same boat, that they’ve just heard through word of mouth or?

G: A lot of people, yeah, or they’re from other campaigns or they live in the squatter’s scene, everything is really transient which hasn’t really changed during lockdown. I don’t know, make of it what you will, but that’s just a way of life for some people. A lot of people heard about what’s going on through XR, and through HS2 rebellion, and other little groups. Kind of like locals get involved, obviously cause it’s right o their doorstep like what the fuck is happening out there, like um particularly around the celvin-steeple claden camps area there’s like a really strong like community of resistance against HS2, direct action side of it which I’m involved with has only been going for like the last three years, we often don’t really give enough credit to that this is a twelve year long campaign and people have been having their lives ruined for like 10 years, they did a lot of the ground work before we were even there, like especially Calbert. HS2 had pans to go through peoples back gardens and take hoses away from people. Locals kind of rose up and said ‘Nah you’re not doing that!’ but I just wanted to highlight that yeah, they also exist.

S: Yeah, like how have – What’s the min focus been for activists fighting that? How have they been going about it, is it just mainly like taking over the land or have there been many like legal disputes from you.

G: Um I guess, I guess so far, it’s mainly been about the ecology being destroyed and about biodiversity loss so, let me just get the exact numbers up so that I don’t say the wrong thing. But, HS2 is going to destroy 108 ancient woodlands, 33 sites of scientific interest, nearly 700 wildlife sites, 5 internationally designated wildlife sites. Loads of big conservation projects are happening um so a lot of the focus has been about the ecological damage that’s being caused and so a lot of like the narrative so far has been : there’s people and they’re going to go into the woods ad their going to live there and wait for eviction, and save the trees and if that’s what people are passionate about then that’s really important, we do that but this is about a wider network of problems.

Sorry U can just hear my voice echoing downstairs, it’s really funny, there ae people in the house listening to this. But yeah, so far it’s very much been like the tee defenders sort of side of things um but I guess some people are more concerned about like that this isn’t a good use of ta payers money, like particularly when the NHS is suffering and this project is costing what it would cost to build like 300 hospitals that’s also a concern that people have also like about like communities didn’t really get a say in this, this wasn’t democratically decided like it’s a huge chunk of money and a huge chunk of peoples taxes and they just haven’t got a say like it’s very authoritarian of hs2 to kind of come in and be like ‘ No we’re going to build this train line and work for us, and we’re going to take what we want’. There’s been like a lot of take recently about how this isn’t just about railway and I think there’s some like really cool things that we can explore there and like loads of other like movements that’re going on and a lot of the people building these things ae the same people are the people being exploited and I don’t know, solidarity is really important with these campaigns, and it’s something I’d really like to think a lot more about, like tying all these things together. So maybe I guess we can talk about mainly in terms of the pandemic like Hs2 have continued to like work through that and it’s been really quite damaging to like communities that are like especially vulnerable like people in the construction industry have had the highest rates of COVID-19, because they have been forced to go to work without proper PPE and being allowed to socially distance. I don’t like how HS2 continues to mistreat its workers as just disposable and their like ‘Oh we need to continue to do this amazing project that’s going to fix all of our problems even though we’re the ones perpetuating the problems in the first place’. Yeah.

S: Have you seen, because I’ve seen some videos from the cams where I think it’s bailiffs, who are not being COVID-19 – not paying attention to any of the rules surrounding COVID-19, especially towards the start of the pandemic. How has that kind of affected you guys? Has it had an effect on anyone getting COVID-19?

G: Um.. I mean, I don’t want to sound like a COVID-19 denier or anything but we haven’t had, until it got to winter there wasn’t really, like COVID-19 wasn’t really a thing on the camps. So, it was kind of like yeah evictions were still happening and stuff and people were being left with nowhere to go but it’s not like, like the people there all kind of were there out of choice or they new that they had other places to go. It hasn’t, COVID-19 hasn’t really affected how much work HS2 has done and like we re really lucky to have not caught COVID-19 from like bailiffs and stuff who’ve been travelling all over the country evicting people even though that’ something we were talking about at the time. I imagine there being a pandemic has put people off coming here it’s also like I don’t know I wouldn’t be here if that hadn’t happened in the first place. In a weird sort of way.

Yeah, like it’s not just squats, protesters have made tree houses that are being evicted during the pandemic as well, it’s like people are being kicked out of their homes and their farms and like getting their businesses taken away from them like their source of income taken away, and they’re not getting compensation to go ad live somewhere else.  So, say you don’t get as much money to go and buy a new building, you many only be able to rent a place, and it’s really difficult to rent houses at the moment because there’s a pandemic and estate agents are being a bit like “Hmm that’s not really quite on” or like being able to move in with family who are also vulnerable, it’s kind of like this knock-on effect that HS2 is having, they have these things called compulsory purchase orders. Which means they can just buy land off people, and those people don’t get a say in it and they also don’t get a say in how much money they get or when they get give, like you’re not aloud to do all these things, like you’re not allowed to go to the press, you’re not aloud to talk to protesters, you’re not aloud to have protesters on your land, you’re not allowed to talk to certain people or like drive through your own driveway at certain times because HS2 are there and it’s just really, really bad that people are being blackmailed into what HS2 want them to do, and yeah non of that has stopped during the pandemic there’s been absolutely no sympathy for anyone really. It almost feels like they maybe accelerated works because there’s less resistance happening.

S: How has, which laws exactly have been put into play r have they been specifically tailored for hS2 from what they’re doing?

G: So there’s a piece of legislation called schedule 17, which is basically the thing that allows hs2 to go ahead, so included in that is all of the compulsory purchases and temporary purchases, which is when they take a piece of land and they don’t pay you for it and you get it back in X amount of years, for example, one farmer has had , he’s like in his 70s, he’s had his land taken off of him, he’s going to get it back in 17 years’ time, like he probably won’t be around in that time to see the outcome of this. Like, the state that they give it back to you in is like very much up to them. They could cut everything down, or turn it to mud. It’s very much up to them, sorry this is a tangent.

So, yeah, there’s this piece of legislation called Schedule 17 which is HS2 can break loads of environmental laws as well because it’s deemed like necessary for the project and the greater good for this, also in terms of what they’re trying to push on protesters it’d be injunctions which is a piece of law which a private company can buy, and that then means these certain rules which people are meant to follow, and if they don’t then we’re going to put you in prison, ad we’re going to fine you loads an loads of money. I might talk a bit about that later if you wanted me to talk about trespass, and stuff as well.

Things that people have been charged for, for protesting has been like section 241 which is like a trade union act, like oh you’ve stopped works how dare you, things like aggravated trespass, like criminal damage and things like whatever.

Yeah, in terms of policing and actually enforcing the laws, police basically listen to what HS2 have told them to do because HS2 have given them loads of money and they’re all basically working together because it’s all the same state.

S: yeah so, have there been any authorities that have backed what you’re doing and supported you through legal trials or anything, cause I know there’s been like no media coverage of what’s going on , but anyone who’s been like pushing for it within a higher structure?

G: I know that Chris Packham’s tried to take HS2 to court to no avail, because like the court is on the side with HS2. I know that when we’ve been in court for like injunction cases before, HS2 have like hand picked the judges that have overseen that case because the 3 or 4 judges that were proposed before were like too sympathetic to protesters. We had some like a good barrister who gave us some good advice; who does stuff like this for squatters and protest occupation, things like environmental protesters. Um I don’t – There’s not really a lot going on, on the legal side I know there’s a petition happening at the moment, with 1000s and 1000s of signatures, and hopefully that’ll mean parliament will debate maybe postponing or cancelling HS2. But, yeah I don’t know too much about that, that’s not really something my activism involves I guess.

S: within your activism, what have you skill wise gained and what’s been affirmed since joining the camps.

G: I guess being on camps, all the practical skills that come with that like building things, is something I never thought I’d do. Spending not a lot of time outdoors in the past few years you lose that confidence to go out and do stuff, like learning to climb has been really, really freeing as well. I don’t know if you can do that now, it’s pretty fun. Also just learning how-to live-in communities and build communal spaces from like the ground up and make decisions together like learning how to communicate with other people as well in ways that you don’t generally do outside of this. Like this feels like we actually take peoples feelings into consideration a lot of the time and the space around us, and what impact we have on the environment. A lot of skill share and stuff do happen on the campaign. Crackley camp which I near Cannellworth, t the northern end of the line, like over summer. There were lots of people going there for the first time doing like workshops and skill shares, an learning your rights or doing non violent communications or like how to tie certain knows or things or how to cook for big groups and I guess all of these things are skills you don’t really get taught until you kind of put your mind to it in this sort of setting.

A lot of things we were like working on, obviously that’s a huge learning curve. Like I’ve seen people not know what to do to running with ecology work and stuff like that, or doing all the research themselves like talking to other people and learning what they can to do that or like, reading up on all the legal side to it, how to defend yourself in court and like there’s such a broad list of things to do, it’s kind of hard to pin point one thing.

S: I did have a question, I think it was on laws of trespass, and how that kind of affects the protester.

G: Okay trespass is usually like a civil matter, and the government is trying to make it like a criminal act, so let’s keep it civil guys… So, trespass is when you go onto someone else’s land without their permission. So if you’re out hiking and you go into someone’s field or if you’re like living in an empty building or something like that, it’s all encompassed I what trespass means. Like if you go onto someone’s land the owner can ask you to leave. And if you don’t do that whatever. They just ask you to leave it’s a civil matter, as long as you’re not like disrupting what they’re doing then like it’s still civil, if you start disrupting it that’s when it becomes aggravated trespass and that’s when it becomes a criminal matter. So for example like the postman isn’t trespassing because when they come into your garden they’re there to do a job and you kind of it’s somewhat informed , it’s somewhat allowed to happen, so hs2 use the civil injunction to stop their work from being disrupted which is basically like I guess there’s this list of rules which means you’re not supposed to trespass or you’re not aloud to standing front of the gates, and you’re not allowed to trespass on the land and that basically means if you get caught doing those things they can take you to court over it or you can be arrested . There’s been like a case last year were someone allegedly broke an injunction like 17 times and hs2 wanted to get him in prison for two years and like he basically got away with, I think he got a suspended sentence , so between that and going to prison that’s kind of the less harsh end of it. I don’t know, and also because it’s painted as like you know it’s just trespass, it’s just being peaceful trying to defend things, and protect trees and nature. But it very much feels like the kind of issue of trespass comes up in discussions like this a lot and it raises questions like who does this land belong to?

Who gets to decide the right make decisions about it especially untouched bits of woodland, like who gets the right to be there? Who should it be preserved for? Thinking about maybe protecting it for ourselves, or for future generations is really important for some people. In terms of like how it affects protesters like yeah you’re living on sites where you could be evicted because it could be considered trespass, or like the bailiffs will come in like “oh you’re trespassing” line, no “you’re trespassing” like “no , you’ve just walked into our home”

S: yeah, what is like, going back to you said like some people just think it’s about protecting trees and stuff, what would environmental repercussions of everything be in the long term, for these people who do want to look after the land for future generations?

G: S I guess what I’m going to talk about what HS2 are doing in terms of mitigating the damage they’re doing, and then we’ll kind of go from there I guess. So they’re doing really bad mitigation. They’re building habitats in places that these habitats have never existed before. Which for example, near Jones Hill hey want to build a pond, but there’s no pond near jones hill, like what animals are going to go live there or migrate to that pond. They’ve often tried to plant trees but often, said that they can’t afford to water them. But, then also happen to be able to afford security to stop activists from watering them. Those trees, they often plant the same kind of tree which just means that if one of those trees gets sick then they’ll all die. Or like um planting trees that were suited to the environment. They basically just bulldoze anything in their way. Calvert Jubilee was a really beautiful space. I spent a few weeks like helping set up the camp there, and spent a few weeks living there, it’s just so beautiful. There’re these lakes and like loads of ancient oaks around it and loads of birds, and it would be where birds stop off on their migrations over seas and it was just a really nice area, especially during lockdown. That reserve was like a lifeline for people, that was the only way of going outdoors, or being in nature and being able to socially distance from people. I was there the night before we took the camp and there was a lady there who travelled quite far to go and see it before, she knew it was going to be destroyed. She was telling us that she used to go looking for these rare Orchids there, and there were ancient grasslands. You could tell they were ancient because of how the ants had built their nests there.

Another thing HS2 do is they put down this netting over badger sets. So, badgers can’t go back to their sets after they’ve left and they have to leave. They can only do that at certain times of the year. So, it’s like a game with the activists to try and stop them from putting that netting down or disrupt that work before its time for them to fell that woodland. Other things they’ve done before is like putting concrete and stuff down badger sets which has bee really awful to see, or with the bat roosts they put all his wire netting around some of the trees so the bats couldn’t get back in or out. At Jones Hill we now that we had bats still in the wood, and HS2 knew which trees they were in and HS2 shone flood lights on them to stop the bats being able to like nest and stuff, it’s under hand sneaky tactics, to try and stop it happening and to say “oh there’s no bats here” although they’re putting up bat boxes in peoples house and stuff to try and mitigate for that, but it’s not the same as their natural habitat. I was actually talking to - I got arrested – and the lady who arrested me was telling me, she lost her house to HS2, we were just stood there outside the police station just chatting for hours. She was telling me HS2 used to come to her house and pretend to do bat surveys there cause the people who’d been hired to do them didn’t actually know how to do them. They’d just give her £1000s of pounds just for coming and pretending to do these surveys and her house before it was taken off of her, and it’s just so fucked that they can get away with that especially doing that to the police and the police were like hang on. That’s just a brief overview of what HS2  is doing to the kind of ecological destruction.

Yeah, on a more personal level there were these things called blissgliffs which are like large door mice, and they live in all of the beech trees around Tring, because someone let them out and they’re just an invasive species, but they’re so cute. They’re just like these big door mice and I had them living in my tree house, and there were two big nests, and they would keep me up all night and steal my food and break into everything but at the end of the day they were so adorable and I feel really bad that they were made homeless during eviction cause like it’s sad to see the animals dying, not great.

S: No. Do you think there were any actual ecologists working or are working with HS2?

G: HS2 have an ecology coursed school thing. I’m not really sure. I’ve not really looked that much into it really. I’d quite like to a bit more. Often ecologists will show up who aren’t trained properly or they’ll show up and be disguised as security because they know protesters will berate them about how much actual ecology knowledge they actually know. Some of them showed up at Jones Hill and we told them, we know where the badger sets are, we’ve done the surveys, you don’t need to come int the woods. Their way of looking at like badger sets was just like sticking a stick down it and being like ah this one doesn’t have badgers in it. If you were a good ecologist, you’d know it didn’t have badgers in it based on the signs around it show that it hasn’t been touched for a while, because there’s leaves in it. Stuff like that they don’t know their stuff and actually mitigating their damage is not up to the standards you need to if you were going to d a project like this for like. I mean it’s happening anyway so you might as well try I guess they just haven’t really done that.

Other things like about HS2 that they probably should have realised. They made like an Instagram post about how they so many good things for adders. But just the fact that they’re building a train line through the middle of England is just going to divide the adder territories in half. There’s been this happening in the past with building roads, building things like that it means that adders are really suffering and often end up interbreeding with their families which, dividing the country in half with a train line is just going to make that 10 times worse. Any good ecologist would give this the red flag and they’ve done this time and time again, and HS2 just haven’t listened. The woodland and other various organisations have been like HS2 = Bad, and HS2 just haven’t taken that on board.

S; Yeah, that’s awful…

G: train lines are actually really bad for animals as well there’s I think it’s a Spanish study that shows that train lines kill about 36 animals per Km, so if that’s applied to HS2 it’s about 30,000 animals killed on the line per year.

S: They have no plans for like over passes for animals then?

G: I don’t know, probably not I imagine. I don’t know yes or no to that one sorry.

S: What can like, I guess it’d be nice to open up the conversation to everyone else if people want to get involved at the moment?

G: Yeah, Absolutely. I did get sent a few questions on Instagram but I don’t know if the people who asked them are in this call. I’m happy to answer them anyway.

S: Yeah, maybe if you go through those questions that would be nice.

G: I didn’t hear there sorry.

S: I said yeah, it’d be quite nice to maybe go through the Instagram ones.

G: So, the first one was ‘How do we get more activists on camps during felling season? And that’s from someone I know who is on one of the cams at the moment.

So, felling season is generally like October, to march / early spring, I think. So, the question there is basically, how do we get people to stay on camps over winter, it’s cold it’s really grim, it’s a rally busy time for people like Christmas and new year, especially during the pandemic people don’t necessarily want to move outdoors into a community that they don’t know. I understand why that makes people a bit anxious, and why it’s pretty inaccessible as well. Like, getting people into the camps is something we can try and do, someone said to me the other day this campaign very much speaks the language of camps and if something needs defending go build a camp there, or go build a treehouse, go build a community, or whatever, kind of wait for eviction and then you wait for felling to happen.

The James Hill eviction was at the start of October. They haven’t touched like a single tree hardly. They’ve cleared some of the undergrowth. I think they might have even today only just come in with ecologists or Aubryists. Just because you’re protecting one bit doesn’t mean they’re not going to fell absolutely everything around it. They could fell jones Hill straight away; they can use that contract and go and fell like some of the Oaktree’s near by and fell like Grimm’s Ditch which was like another woodland near by with loads of badger sets in it. I don’t know, how do you get people on camps? The camps themselves I guess, building we’re doing spaces with a better infrastructure. Having spaces for people to work. I know there’s a few students on the campaign who are struggling cause they’re like “OH I can’t charge my laptop, I can’t go to my lectures” It can be quite stressful for people.

Especially people who can’t drive themselves p ad down the country. If you don’t live near by, I think personally we just need to start thinking a bit bigger than the cams, and working outside that. Hs2 have bought loads of buildings that are sitting empty. Hello!? As well as that, thinking a bit more, less defensively camps are very much about defending the space, where we could be like, we know where all the compounds are and where all the machinery is. Like c’mon. We know who the people are that are working for them. I don’t know. I’m not on a camp during winter, so I probably should think about what’s made me do that.

Someone asked me: What have the police interventions been like on the HS2 sites?

I grabbed a quote from a report by global diligence LEB, which was commissioned by a group called ‘Not One More’. The report looks at how the UK complies with international civil and political rights things, and the report claims that “The British police have systematically violated protesters rights under international law, targeted individuals based on gender and disability a pattern of behaviour by the police is suppressing environmental protest across the UK through unnecessary, and disproportionate violence, intimidation, and harassment. This appears to be indicative of state policy to deter people from exercising their rights to assembly and expression” That’s the quote from the report.

Basically, it’s just saying that like the police haven’t treated any protesters well but specially to like environmental protesters. They’ve really had the shit kicked out of them. This has always been a thing. It’s quite - kind of when the police show up to things, I get quite anxious cause I know even if I’m not doing anything wrong right now, there’s still a chance that they might nick some people. Particularly Thames valley, can be quite violent, like they’re paid for by HS2. They are the HS2 police. I don’t want to be around them ever. Often, they will over step their jurisdiction, during the eviction at Denham, even though like we were on the metropolitan police side of the ricer, it was the Thames valley police who showed up, and even though it was like, when they were cutting people off the traverse across the river. That was a thing that happened. Even though it was on the met side, it was a Thames Valley operation, so they’re in direct communication with HS2 and very much work for HS2, and happy to collaborate with them. I think the police are just there to protect the state, the capital and big companies, because that’s what they do. We can’t really expect them to be nice to us.

I’ve been pretty lucky with my own interactions with the police because I’m young and white and able bodied and it’s kind of like, I don’t even want to say shocking because it’s kind of like you expect it now with how they treat black and brown people on this campaign has been pretty horrendous. I’ve seen people like being specifically pointed out or targeted or arrested when it could have been any one of us who’s stood there. One of my friends I think he’s put in a complaint, there was a guardian article about it as well. Having his head knelt on by the police, when I spoke to him about it at first, he just kind of brushed it off, and kind of treated it as if as like that’s like the normality, that’s how your supposed to be treated by the police and that’s really wrong.

Especially when the vast majority of the police view it as they’re just there to do good, good lawful things and to protect people when that’s really not the case. It’s never an experience I’ve had, that’s been the case. People are often arrested for really silly things and then give ridiculously harsh bail conditions so there’s a set of bail conditions that people keep getting and it basically means you’re not allowe d near HS2 sites unless you live there and it means you can’t protest freely and you can’t – like you can get arrested for like being in a footpath near where there might be possibly some HS2 works going on, which to activists is fucking annoying.

Then the actual court process means having these fell conditions for like a year because it takes so long to get around to protesting all these ridiculous arrests in the first place and then people end up getting let off, like we all have a one in a hundred rate for people actually being convicted of anything like what’s the word, prosecuted for like anything they’ve been arrested for. The entire criminal justice system depends on how the police interact with us, its kind of comes out with how we deal with HS2 like it’s just bad. Just the police make me angry, I think. I think, there were some more questions but I can’t find them, but if anyone has any wants to send me some questions, that would be really cool.

S: Yeah, just in case quite a few people have some questions, people type into the chat and then we can go in order of who has a question maybe?

I had a question about basically youth and elder’s collaborative activism on HS2. What’s the kind of relationship been like between older activists and younger activists, and who’s taken on what roles, assuming not all the older activists are like up in the trees and stuff, but assuming they’ve got quite a lot of knowledge around it?

G: That’s such an interesting question. I’ve never really given that much thought, I guess, it’s kind of hard to divide in my head who do I see as the younger activists, and who do I see as older activists, and what they do because everyone is very mixed. Age doesn’t necessarily denote that you’ve got experience right? Like people came to this campaign and it might be their first direct action campaign and they might be in their 50s. But, there might be people in their 50s who’ve been doing this their entire lives I guess maybe the interactions between experienced people and non-experienced people, there’s often – it can sometimes feel like especially with men and people who are perceived as more masculine, people can maybe think that they’re someone to look up to or a leader in someway which is really weird because we’re supposed to like; we often like ourselves organising as like anarchists, where everyone has a voice and everyone’s kind of equal and that , but it’s obviously doesn’t play out like that. People have these little biases in our heads, people we think we already have ideas about. Often it can be like older people will. I don’t know, I think maybe the younger people stick together and the older people sort of stick together, and maybe like this assumption that older people don’t want to go and do like mad stuff like climb trees. But, often they’re the ones with the experience as well, I don’t know it can be quite nice to have these figures to look up to but you’re still on the same land with them anyway cause you’re – everyone has their own things that they’re good at, things that they need support with.

         Yeah it was very strange over the summer there was a lot of young people who came to join the campaign, who were really psyched to do actions and it was kind of like, hold up like hand people the wheel let them like let them do the cool thing that they want to, it shouldn’t be for anyone to act like anyone’s parent and be like no that’s a bad idea, like if people have the energy then go for it.

S- I think that someone’s posted a question.

G How do you cope with (broken signal) ? I think it an be rally easy to fall in love with a place, that’s a lie, personally for me I really struggle to fall in love with places that I know are going to be like felled, and cut down, and demolished, but then it also never happens any way because I really love the spaces that we make and the people that I’m with. So Calvern for example, we didn’t know if we were going to be evicted on the first night or whether the place was going to be there for weeks and weeks, like the time I was there I was like this is such a beautiful area and I haven’t been to that site since because I’m like – I don’t know , I did once but it was at night so I didn’t really see much, I haven’t seen the full  scale of the devastation and I don’t know if I want to , because I don’t know if its just going to make me sad and it’s going to make me lose hope , I think it is important for us to face up to the things we’re trying to fight against, cause the perspectives useful and you can do whatever you want really. I think like, at Denham , like when there were still trees there and kind of like, seeing the trees come down was really sad but I was kind of like the fact these trees have lasted a little bit longer ( broken signal ) because we’ve been here, and this whole movement is going to be a series of loses and I think it’s really important to not get lost in that and remember what we’re good at, and the things that are positive, like were building and keeping around and stuff , yeah.

I guess sometimes getting a bit of time away, and like I went to Leeds recently and I was like oh my god, it’s so grey and horrible here. But, that was quite nice cause I could come back and be like, ah I like green things. That was kind of cool.

S- I think there’s another question.

G – What are your arguments against building HS2 in the first place: i.e increasing economy, creating jobs , connecting the north and south , do you think these things will actually happen? I did talk a bit about this at the start. How HS2 describes itself, and I could go through and pick at every argument they make, but there’s websites for that already, and the stophs2.org website has lots of debunking on there, it’s really cool. I guess no I don’t think these things will happen, especially as there’s a pandemic and no one’s taking the train anyway and everyone’s remembering zoom exists, like I can’t imagine all of these people here being in the same room at the same time, but we have the internet, so it doesn’t need to be like that right? I think the kind of North South divide isn’t going to be fixed by an expensive train line that only goes to Birmingham, I don’t see that happening I don’t see it happening under the governments and HS2, I don’t see it happening under any government that exists as we know it.

Increasing economy, what does that mean? More money for rich people, and we will still have to pay taxes and they won’t. I can’t see HS2 being a solution to that. I don’t know the actual facts and figures for the money side of things but I do know that it is not economically viable. For example ‘X’ is how much a ticket is going to cost, and all of the primings that they have done for it, all of the money it will generate for the government despite the fact HS2 LTD is a private company. Despite it being state managed and state funded it will end up being a private company, getting sold off to someone.

 All of the pricing that HS2 have done, are based on the idea that every train that leaves a station runs on time and is full of people, which is unlikely to happen again after the pandemic and we are going to have to continue distancing from each other for years. The line is going to be finished in between 10 to 17 years time. I think in 17 years time tramlines like this will not be necessary. The technology that was designed for it, even 10 years ago, is not relevant anymore, and it is not going to fix the economy.

 I don’t think that creating jobs for the sake of creating jobs is going to boost the economy, it’s just going to waste peoples time.

 Q: Do we need more elders? I’d like to ask if you agree that we have been crippled by Coronavirus because we have not been able to do actual outreach in village halls, meet and greets ect. In past campaigns like anti-Fracking, Sheffield trees etc, they would hold tea and coffee meetings on the high street. Have you got any ideas on how we can combat this?

  Goldilocks - Do we need more elders? Absolutely. The more people the better, whether that’s young people or older people, its still people. I do think that outreach on the hughstreet is something that is very familiar to people and its good to do that because its something that people don’t feel as alienated from. Whereas, there’s people on the high street that would never dream in their lives of coming and moving to a camp and eating Vegan food. But they might want to take a flyer and come to a meeting where they can talk to their parish council for example. All of those things are important, and if its what gets people to start thinking about these big ideas around self organisation and how they can make changes then that’s important.

 I think a lot of that work was done before the direct action campaigns and the anti-HS2 campaigns started, and maybe it has dropped down a little bit, but without that work being done in the first place I’m not sure if people would have picked up the work around buildings camp and stuff so much. I’d love to see what the anti-Fracking campaign worked, I think that would be an interesting conversation to have.

 Also, I think when we think about the campaign its always about stopping HS2, or being as much of a nuisance as possible. Where I see it, its about stopping HS2 very firmly. But communities don’t necessarily need that, if someone is grieving because they have just lost their only access to nature then they need someone to support them through that, and that is what community is as well. That’s what outreach is for, about building networks and communities. Even if people don’t come and move to camps or start stopping HS2, it means that two people in a village meet up and have a cup of tea and decide to get an allotment or something. Anything else which is not directly organising against HS2 is still important and I guess if we can facilitate that in some way then that’s really cool.

 Q: What can someone who can’t go to the camps do to support the work against HS2?

 Goldilocks - Things like this, coming to these talks is really important because we can share what we know about the campaign, the camp side of things. So thank you for attending in the first place. Inviting your friends to these things as well, is really important. Spreading the word as far as possible. Supporting other campaigns. I don’t know where you’re from but there’s things like this happening all around the country and around the world and building bigger awareness and bigger networks of things that are happening can be important. In Leeds at the moment there’s an Armley trees campaign, so network rail want to fell some trees in Armley, and there’s somebody trying to organise people to come for years and hasn’t really gotten anywhere, so if you really do want to do something then maybe get in touch with them. Theres also things like the Stonehenge action group, camps that have been set up and there’s protests happening against Leeds Bradford Airport. Theres a group called GALBER?? who are a group against Leeds Bradford Airport, who are working with XR Leeds to do some really cool stuff. Theres coal mines that are being built. Well, I say being built, they’re being dug and they need support.

 Other things as well, we have a fundraiser, there’s currently a centralised group fundraiser. ((add in link)). Money donations and things like that. Doing artwork and stuff like that, doing reading or bits of research or writing. Theres an amazing website called TINAR.COM, who are trying to gather bits of work or bits of writing, rants, comics and things from basically anyone who wants to speak or share something. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about HS2, it doesn’t necessarily have to be directly related to this but you could write some things for that. Maybe having a read of that and thinking about if you’d want to write anything. Petitions and stuff sometimes help. Writing to MP’s, but I think this is something that Swampy said, talking to the BBC after an eviction he said ‘we’ve got to do this sort of stuff because would you be here if it wasn’t for people like me doing stuff like this - If i had written to my MP you wouldn’t have come along with your cameras today, I don’t think so’.

 Q: Why is the government pushing ahead with HS2 when we have successfully conducted business across the country without travelling, why can’t they stop this going ahead?

 Goldilocks - I think I’ve mostly covered this but I think by this point it is just a vanity project. Its peak, look at this amazing thing that we are going to build even though we don’t have to. It’s the same reason rich people have lawns, because they can have unproductive land, or they can have something pointless just because they can. Also, have you ever tried to tell a tory not to do something? They just want to do it more, they’re just children.

 Q: What can we do to stop HS2 from our sofas?

 Goldilocks - I’m happy to put some links to some cool stuff in the chat at the end of this that might be useful for people to get involved (LINK BELOW). Also organising actions in your own town or city, even if you can’t come to the camps, that’s really important.

 Q: Are you in camps right now and how are you coping with Covid?

 Goldilocks - I am not in a camp right now, I am in a squat instead, which is quite nice because its a little bit warmer and a little bit drier. We have had some concerns with Covid. Obviously now its Winter everyone is a lot closer together and being indoors together more, and its a bit riskier, especially with the other strain and another wave happening and stuff, and businesses being open and then closed again. But in the summer it wasn’t that much of a worry. Maybe we should have taken it a bit more seriously but it didn’t feel like there was anyone with Covid which is really strange to say. I wouldn’t recommend coming down if you have had contact with loads of people or if you are vulnerable yourself, it just wouldn’t be particularly safe.

 If people do want to come down then just keep your distance, bring a mask, just be really sensible about it. Think about who you’ve got to go back to and who you hang out with before you come down. You’ve got to remember these camps are peoples homes, people are in a bubble, a household, and you have to be careful with that.

 I know Ross from Jones Hill was live-streaming this morning and he was talking about the impact on actual HS2 workers, and what risks the things that HS2 are doing pose on them. So, people coming into the site but they weren’t wearing masks and they weren’t keeping their distance from people in their own workplace and people are being so flippant about it, and just treating people like they are disposable, its not on. There was a weird period of time after the eviction of Harvil Road when their way of dealing with us was just saying ‘two metres, two metres,’ and threatening to take their masks off. It was like, who are you? It was just really bad. Really bad practice.

 Q: Do you have any kind of NVDA code when it comes to dealing with the police?

 Goldilocks - So for those of you that don’t know, NVDA stands for Non-Violent Direct Action. I’m probably not the best person to speak about this. I guess it really depends on the parameters. So say there was an action happening and we’d discuss the parameters and what people are comfortable with. So IF there were people who wanted to organise an action, it would probably be best to discuss whether its going to be a non-violent actin or not. Or maybe what their plan is for dealing with the Police. I know in some groups like Youth Strike and XR that I’ve worked with its been like, okay there is someone with an assigned role to be a police liaison, or assigned the role of being a go to wellbeing support person. But it doesn’t feel like that on the campaign, people fulfil the role that they are comfortable with. If you are doing work with your camp or your affinity group then things happen quite organically.

 I have got a lovely bond with my affinity group, and we are starting to understand each others boundaries, and what people are comfortable with. Like non-violence or how we’re going to deal with the Police, or what support we do and don’t want. But if you’re new to the campaign, don’t have the expectations that everyone is going to act the same as they have in other activist spaces. It can be very strange for me when people assume that other people are cool with being around the Police, or that they want to do only non-violent stuff. It feels very strange and there’s a lot to unpack there I think.

 In terms of dealing with the Police, they’ll turn up and they’ll probably just be really horrible to you and then it’ll be really difficult not to be really horrible back to them, and some people have more restraint than others. Some think that others should have more self restraint than they do. But a lot of silly arrests happen because people shout at the Police, but the arrests wouldn’t happen if the Police weren’t there in the first place. Thats what it comes down to. In terms of dealing with the Police, Police station support wise, there’s generally always going to be someone to pick you up from the station, and we try to make sure people are really looked after when that happens. That can be really stressful times for people, especially if its violent or someones first arrest. After the eviction, it was nice, everyone came out of court and everyone was there to greet them.

 If you want to run NVDA training at a camp I’m sure nobody would be opposed to that, its a tactics amongst other tactics and shouldn’t be seen as more or less valuable. It depends on situation as well. If you were wanting to do an action that involved lots of families or lots of locals then probably going in with balaclavas and bolt cutters wouldn’t be the way to go.

If anyone has anymore questions that would be good, if not i have a few more notes of things I wanted to talk about, I don’t know if I’ve said them all or not.

 So, HS2 is planned to come up to Leeds. There will be a second phase of building starting sometime soon. I know they have started some pre-emptive works around Hebden Bridge, a lot of the land they take is not directly on the line. But yeah, HS2 is coming up to Leeds. IF people want to build a camp, now is the time for the reasons i’ve mentioned of Hambi and Germany worked so well is because they have ages to build the camps and establish these communities. They really rally up support from other activists for their camps.

 So yeah if you want to look at setting up a camp that could be good. Especially in South Leeds. I’ve looked at the map and it looks like its all going to be decimated, its very bad to see. It ties in quite nicely with a lot of other movements and I don’t know I feel that Leeds has a very strong activist network, especially in the time that I was there. It would be really cool to have a camp up that way.

 Q: What was your favourite camp?

 Jones Hill, its got to be. I moved to Jones Hill in June or July, and I was like right, I’ll be here for two weeks until eviction and then i’ll move onto something else, and in October, the eviction happened so it’s just lovely to have this amazing community there over summer and be in these beautiful woodlands. There was one camp down the road and you could just pop there for the day and do some painting, then come back up to see my friends and hang out. We ended up with 11 or 12 treehouses. You would go up to everyones treehouses and you could tell who’s it was just by how it was decorated. People put so much time and energy into building that camp. Even when we felt that eviction was imminent, we still did the washing up and stuff. Still trying to just keep being people. It was just a really nice summer. In the winter its obviously a lot colder and there’s no leaves on the trees. I visited the other day and they’ve built a little barn out of an old theatre set and its got a really good woodturner in there. The people there are really solemn and hardworking,  and they’ve been nailing it with all the ecology stuff. There was one or two people working on the ecology things, and they basically bought the woodland a few more months because they were doing so much for the bats.

 Q: Do you have a link to maps that show the route of HS2?

 Goldilocks - Not ones that I can give you.

 (Link to map posted in webinar chat - **COPY IN LINK**)

 I’d love to hear a little bit more about Kirkstall Valley Farm and why they’ve decided to do this series of webinars, it seems like a nice idea.

 Seren - I’ve joined the steering group, so they’re a CSA so they’re a community start up Agricultural project to benefit the community directly. So, they’re all crowdfunded or self funded. They’re going to hire and grower this year and then distribute veg boxes to the local area, but they’re in conjunction with Kirkstall Valley Development Trust, which is another community project which is working towards creating more biodiversity, wildlife and community organisation in Kirkstall. So, three days a week the give out food packages, they run stuff like kids clubs, looking after kids when families can’t do.

 What I’m working with them on is doing more stuff to link them to the Roots Project, as well as stuff for people who have to shield or distance to have some integration into ecology and environmental teachings. So we’re using that as a fundraising platform for refugees and migrants living at Abigail House at the moment.

Goldilocks - That sounds really cool. Some of my friends are trying to get a bit of land at the minute to start something, and seeing all of these other projects happen, we could do something like that one day, and just start really cool things. The furthest we got with growing things on this campaign was we got two different evictions of this tomato plant being moved from squat to squat, from bit of land to bit of land. Then it ended up on a broken canal boat, and then we moved before we were able to get the plants but it would be good to have some stability to grow stuff at some point. It would be really fun.

 Seren - I think its really important. Especially with stuff like HS2 happening, stuff that’s good for the land as well, not just relying on mass agriculture.

 Goldilocks - Being in a community is such an empowering thing and its one more step away from being self-sufficient. Even if you go skipping you’re still living in the ashes of capitalism I guess in some way, or even if you’re not buying stuff all the time its still one further step removed and an extra skill you can bring to this fight in being able to grow stuff.

 This has been really lovely, its been good to catch up and stuff as well.

[imagine-that-100]

Drunk | Part 7 |

Description of Part 1: Matty Healy x Reader (Female) | When you come back home to Manchester from University, you get invited to a house party filled with your old friends from high school. You hadn’t seen most of them for 4 years and the house brings back some old memories of the parties you once attended. Getting drunk with old friends ends up being better than you imagined.

Warnings: Cheating

Word Count: 11.4k

A/N: I am so sorry. Please don’t hate me.

Thanks for reading and love you all! Let me know if you want to be tagged x

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| MASTERLIST IN BIO | 

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New Year’s Eve 2011 was one of the happiest days of yours and Matty’s relationship so far. You’d been going out with him now officially for 3 and a half months and you’d honestly had the happiest few months of your life.

New Year’s had to be the weirdest one you’d ever experienced. You were both on your way back from the mini Christmas break that Matty (and Denise) had gotten you for Christmas driving back up from Heathrow Airport.

You don’t know what you did to deserve it, but he’d booked the both of you a couple’s holiday to Paris. And when he told you on Christmas Day, you couldn’t contain your excitement.

You couldn’t stop jumping around your room as he sat on your bed and told you all the details.

“We’re going on the 27th and we come back on the 31st. So, we can still get back for George’s party” Matty told you with a massive grin.

“And we’re doing everything and anything you want” Matty said watching your eyes get wider.

You stopped in front of him and shook your head, not believing him fully. 

“Are you joking right now?” You asked the messy haired brunette.

He shook his head at you and chuckled, “I’ve even booked us in for a couples spa thing at the hotel”

You giggled at that and bit your lip looking at the adorable cross-legged guy sat on your bed. God, he spoiled you rotten, you don’t know what you’ve done to deserve him.

“I can’t believe you” You grin getting up onto your bed to join him.

You manoeuvred yourself onto the bed, so you were straddling him and Matty’s arms went around your waist and he held lower back. Your hands clasped around the back of your neck and smiled at him.

“Why can’t you believe me?” Matty smiled at you, thinking to himself how beautiful he was today.

He hadn’t been this happy on Christmas Day since he was a kid. Growing up was shit but you’d somehow brought a bit of light back to a holiday that previously Matty didn’t like that much anymore.

The only thing Matty still enjoyed about the holiday was Louis’ reaction to everything. He thought that without Louis, he would have stopped celebrating it a long time ago.

But because of you, Matty was having one of the best Christmas’ of his life. You’d both spent the mornings with your own families and Matty had seen his Dad again. And you’d finally got the chance to meet him later on in the afternoon along with a few other people in Matty’s family.

They were lovely people and you enjoyed the time that you got to spend with them. But the real highlight of your day was when you got to give Louis his present.

You’d heard him talking about a new game recently that was for one of his consoles that you had no idea how to work. You found it for him and got it him as a surprise. Along with a load of different chocolate and sweets that you made him promise he would only share it with you.

Louis had given you the biggest hug and made everyone who watched the interaction coo over the two of you. You honestly loved him like a little brother. That’d be why you’d always treat him as one. 

After that though, Matty managed to escape his family and have you all to himself to exchange gifts with you at your house. And he was loving your reaction so far.

“I don’t know, I just don’t believe that you booked the spa for us... I think you fancied getting pampered like the woman you are and are using it as an excuse” You grinned at him.

Matty laughed looked at you with so much admiration and he loved how happy you’d been all day. Not even just in this moment. You were lightning up the whole day for him with your bright smile.

Matty’s arms tightened around you as he said, “You actually do know me too well. I hate it”

At that you giggled before leaning in and pecking his lips thanking him for his joint present with his family. You were completely outdone this Christmas and you felt quite bad when you thought about his presents but there was no turning back now, he was asking for them.

“So, come on then. Ignore my shit present. What did you get me?” Matty asked you cheekily.

You shook your head at his bluntness and started, “I got you a few things actually, but they aren’t as good as Paris”

Matty gave you a look that said, ’Shut the fuck up’ and you tried and failed not to giggle. He looked so cute sat there in the Christmas jumper his Mum forced upon him.

“Okay so you have three different things, but you have to pick what order you want them in” You explained with your own cheeky smile.

Matty frowned a little then, sending you a curious look when you said that. You’d obviously put a lot of thought into this and he was very much looking forward to it.

You continued on to explain, “You have one that’s to do with the band, one to do with me, and one for you but I wanna join in when you got around to it”

Matty sent you a suggestive look when you said the last one and you couldn’t help the giggle that left your lips. You shook your head signifying that the last definitely wasn’t what he thought it was.

Matty took a second, then started of by asking a question.

“Okay, is the one to do with you what I think it is?” Matty asked you with a flirty knowing look.

It couldn’t not be something presumptuous knowing you.

You grinned and giggled, “Maybe”

At that Matty got a bit excited and his grip on you tightened which caused your giggle to continue as he muttered under his breath, “I fucking knew it”

When he started concentrating again, Matty continued, “Right, well that’s gotta be last then because we won’t get around to anything else if we start with that”

You giggled again and nodded. He was definitely right, so you asked him what he wanted first.

“Let’s go with the band thing first. Then it can be just about us afterwards” Matty smiled sweetly but his grip on your hips tightened.

“Don’t get me too excited just yet, like you said babe… You want your other presents first” You grin before kissing Matty’s lips for a good few seconds. 

Matty of course tries to carry the gesture onto something further but you don’t let him have his way this time. You pull away and then stood back up to get his presents from their hiding spot.

Matty couldn’t help but watch as you did so. You looked so adorable and pretty today. 

You were wearing a lovely red long-sleeved dress that flowed down to your mid-thigh with black tights on underneath. Matty thought you looked so Christmassy and so beautiful at the same time. 

You wore your Y/H/C hair down and Matty just wanted to cuddle you for the whole night. Ever since he saw how happy you were when you came around to his house earlier in the day, that was all he’d wanted to do.

He hugged you tightly throughout the day because he just couldn’t stop himself. All he wanted to do the whole day was keep you close. You just looked so innocent and precious and Matty just wanted you all to himself.

You came back over and sat on the side of your bed and offered him the first gift. The first was in a gift bag because it was cute and small. 

You’d gotten him an engraved glass plaque of the bands logo. It was the box with one of the first The 1975 logo’s that they’d created. It had the 3 dots underneath and it was a simple and elegant design that you were glad the band had chosen. At least until Matty changed his mind again.

You also got their signatures engraved into the inside of the box. You’d managed to get a good enough photo of their old Drive Like I Do CD which the person you bought it off online happily included their signatures onto the plaque.

You watched as Matty opened it and you could tell he loved it. You thought that you would explain a bit of your thinking behind the present. “I thought you would be self-absorbed enough to put it up in your room”

Matty let out a loud laugh at your comment and he nodded. “Yeah I really am… Thank you I love it!” He said before pulling you into a hug.

You hugged him back tightly and you just needed a little bit of confirmation from him. That one was the one you’d been most excited to give him, so you just had to ask “Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I love it so much. Thank you!” Matty excitedly said down your ear, before he started pecking your cheek with kisses.

You pulled away with a little giggle and you sat looking at him admiring the gift. His curls were down over his face and he was running his fingers over the engraving.

You smiled, “It’s okay, I just saw that someone made them and I knew I needed to get something band related for you”

“Well it’s amazing. Thank you” Matty said before pecking your lips.

You smiled, enjoying the sweet gesture before moving onto the next gift that was sort of for the both of you. You pulled out a hamper that you’d made for him. 

Inside it was a bunch of Quentin Tarantino movies that you knew Matty liked purely because of the director alone. The hamper was also full of different treats. It had all of his favourite snacks in there and a load of popcorn that you honestly couldn’t wait to crack open in the new year.

You also got him two cinema night’s for two at the local one in Wilmslow called The Rex. All this along with some money that you knew he’d been trying to save for to save up for the guitar he wanted.

Matty got excited looking at every little thing you’d included. He got really excited when he saw all of his favourite sweets in there. You couldn’t stop giggling when he got really excited over a bag of Skittles.

When he’d calmed himself down after seeing all the different things in your hamper, he moved his gifts onto your desk, so they were out of the way. When he sat back down on your bed, he pulled you onto his lap, so you were straddling him again.

It was an innocent act though he just wanted you close and your arms were wrapped around his neck and his were around your back. He hugged you so tightly your heart swelled.

You genuinely loved him so much and you just wanted to tell him, but you held yourself back. You in no way wanted to scare him off because you did really like him and wanted the good times with him to continue.

“Thank you so much. For everything” You softly tell him, moving back slightly so you could look into his bright brown eyes.

“No thank you. I’ve literally had the best Christmas in a long time and that’s down to you, so thank you” Matty said and you can’t help but kiss him quickly.

Matty kissed you back with a lot of emotion. You felt how genuine it was and you honestly got lost in the moment. Your fingers found their way into Matty’s curls and his arms tightened around your body, so you were pressed against him.

Things progressed and Matty’s tongue ran over your bottom lip and you smiled into the kiss, not letting him have his way straight away. You wanted to keep him waiting a second longer.

But Matty grew slightly impatient with that so he brought his right hand up and held your throat with it. You groaned immediately when he applied the bit of pressure, he knew you loved. His tongue found his way into your mouth where he then proceeded to get you into the mood that the night was quickly turning to.

But you still couldn’t wait for him to see what else you had in store for him. You pulled away when he dropped his hand from your throat, and you smiled at him.

“Do you want your last present?” You asked him seductively.

Matty gazed at you with lust filled eyes before nodding his head like an excited little boy. You giggled down at him and kissed him slowly a few more times before you pulled away and lent back on his lap so he could see you a bit more.

“Unwrap your last gift then” You smirked down at Matty before biting your lip.

You watched as he hesitated looking for where to start. You helped him out a little bit and unclasped his arms from around your back and moved them, so they were resting on your thighs.

You pushed his hands down so they were below where your dress ended and then lifted them back up, so his fingertips started to go underneath your red dress.

Matty then got to grips with himself and started pushing your dress higher up your body. He did it slowly though, as if taking in everything that he definitely didn’t expect to be under the dress.

Matty thought you were wearing tights originally but no. You were wearing stockings that were being held up by the straps that were connected to your new lingerie.

Matty’s face was a picture. As soon as his eyes looked at the straps you saw the excitement in his eyes.

The palms of his hands brushed up your thighs and you were getting excited just by his touch alone. You knew when he saw what was hidden underneath you were going to have one of the best nights of your life.

When your dress bunched you and Matty’s eyes landed on your lingerie you saw the excitement in his eyes turned to lust. And at that point as Matty kept slowly lifting your dress higher and higher.

Matty was just expecting some new lingerie but no you’d gone the extra mile. Matty felt himself get uncomfortably excited when he saw the leather body harness that you were wearing underneath your innocent outfit.

When he lifted your dress high enough, you took over and lifted it over your head. Once it was removed, you smiled down at Matty who now didn’t know where to look.

He looked like a kid in a sweet shop. He didn’t know where to start. 

You smirked at him when he groaned a, “Fuck me” whilst trying to process everything he was seeing.

“Okay” You smirked as you pushed him backwards onto the bed.

~*~*~

Paris with Matty was amazing. You’d never had a holiday like it.

To be honest though, you’d never been on a couple’s holiday, so that was an experience in itself. Matty had definitely enjoyed the spa day more than you but you’d had an amazing time.

You did enjoy yourself in the spa, but you were holding back laughter the entire time because of how much you knew Matty was loving it.

Whilst you were in Paris, you did so much. The day you got there you both settled into the hotel with ease and Matty tried to get you into bed sooner rather than later. However, you dragged him out to explore.

You were in a different country for the first time in years. You wanted to explore and have your own adventure with him.

The trip was amazing. You did everything that you wanted to do and even did the corny couple’s stuff that you always wished you’d secretly do.

You kissed on top of the Eiffel Tower which was one of the most magical moments of your relationship so far. You got your picture taken together below it and whilst you were there, Matty made you take a picture of him trying to ‘hold’ the tower.

It was so funny because he wouldn’t let you off until it was perfect. You joked that you were never going to go to Pisa with him and he told you to fuck off whilst laughing away.

All of the failed attempts were hilarious but the one where he got it right was the best. He looked so happy it just made your heart swell.

On one of the days you went sightseeing with him and you both had a really fun time. Matty loved watching how excited you were getting at every little thing.

At one point you got emotional because you saw a building that you saw in a film once and Matty started bullying you for it. He couldn’t keep a straight face as you teared up getting yourself that excited, because you’d seen a building in real life that you’d seen on TV.

Other than the slight bullying, you both had an amazing time. Matty was in complete awe of you the whole time. You were so happy about everything and when you looked towards him your smile only ever got bigger.

Matty had noticed that no one had ever looked at him the way you did. All he saw in your eyes was pure happiness and he was fairly certain he could look into your beautiful Y/E/C eyes and never get bored. He’d probably even say that they were even prettier than the sights around him.

When the time came, you both didn’t really want to come home. The 3 and a bit days just wasn’t long enough and you definitely wanted to go back again with him at some point.

But you’d both had the best time and despite getting back to the UK at 1pm in the afternoon you had your favourite day with him.

You were flying back into Heathrow because that was the only flight that would get you back home earlier enough to be at Georges Party. You don’t know why there was a set time that you had to be back but the boy wanted both of you there.

It was New Year’s Eve. To you, the only time you needed to be back for was midnight.

But you and Matty had planned ahead for this. You’d hired a car so you could both have a road trip back home, and, in the end, you were really glad it happened.

Matty started the driving back home and you happily controlled the music from the passenger’s seat. The 5 hours it took you to drive back home was really the best 5 hours of your holiday.

It was just the both of you being yourselves. About halfway home, you were chatting shit about literally nothing after you swapped over at a service station.

You were on the motorway driving back and you just finished chatting about the holiday and you were currently singing along to one of your favourite songs.

You were nodding your head singing along to Bulletproof by La Roux when you could feel Matty’s eyes on you. You glanced over at him keeping most of your attention on the road, but you caught a few glimpses of him and you saw that he was smiling at you.

“What?” You asked with an embarrassed smile.

Out of the corner of your eye you could see him shake his messy head at you, but the smile was still on his face.

“Nothing” He told you.

You glanced at him sceptically but for some reason you couldn’t stop smiling. You glanced at him again saying, “It’s gotta be something?”

“I just love you” Matty admits, which makes your eyes go wide. 

You never thought for one minute that Matty would be the one to say it first. You’d wanted to say it so many times on the holiday, but you just thought it would scare him off, so you kept it to yourself.

You looked towards him with a pleasantly surprised face. You weren’t shocked per say because of how different things were with the both of you compared to the way things started.

For example, Matty was different. He was a better version of himself. 

He seemed happier and more relaxed and that was always amazing to witness because no matter how carefree he seemed to be you knew him very well and he seemed genuinely happy around you.

He also wasn’t drinking as often and wasn’t doing as many drugs as you knew he typically did. He was a lot healthier in his mind and in himself.

Things had also been different between the both of you. Both emotionally and physically. The sex was no longer all or nothing, it had become more intimate and you never thought it would, but it made everything better.

Yes, sometimes you were both down for a good fuck but Matty had been taking things slowly and pacing it out. It was so intimate, and you genuinely loved it when he was sensitive. He honestly sometimes seemed like he was just admiring every single part of your body.

“Do you actually?” You asked Matty genuinely. 

Not in a way that seemed like you didn’t believe him. It was more for your own reassurance, but the look on your face just confirmed to Matty what he had just said.

He truly did love you and watching your contently singing your heart out after a wonderful time away together seemed like it was just as good of a time as any to tell you. 


“Yeah, I really do” Matty grinned as he could see how happy you looked.

“Awh! I love you too” You coo doing your best to keep your eyes on both him and the road. He looked so unbelievably happy in this moment, It warmed your heart.

“Really?” Matty asked looking excited.

“Of course I do. I’ve been trying not to say it for weeks because I didn’t wanna scare you off” You grinned and couldn’t help but Matty chuckle.

“I can’t believe you told me whilst we were driving though. I wanna kiss you so much right now” You admit pulling a sad face because all you genuinely wanted to do right now was kiss him until you both lost your breath.

Matty chuckled at that and softly apologised but he couldn’t help himself. Watching your sing in your own little world just solidified that he needed to just tell you the truth.

Matty lent to the side and grabbed the side of your face and brought your cheek to his lips. He held you there for 10 seconds or so as you giggled at his behaviour.

“You are without a doubt the best thing that’s happened to me Y/N Y/L/N. I love you” Matty told you and you wanted to cry hearing that.

You struggled with your reply because you wanted to get so many words out but also express your emotions through your actions. 

“I love you too Matthew Healy” You bare your heart to him, trying not to tear up.

“Oh no, have you seen another building from a TV show, or have I made you cry?” Matty asked, taking a hold of your hand that you weren’t currently using to drive.

You chuckled and blinked a few times trying to clear the tears from your vision. You shook your head and joked, “I hate you”

Matty scoffed, “I thought you loved me?” And you giggled at his joke.

“I really really do” You reassured him, giving his hand a tight squeeze. You glanced over at him and you shared the most adorable moment of pure adoration.

On that drive home you were the happiest you’d been. You didn’t things could get better than Christmas Day or Paris, but he’d literally just made you the happiest woman alive.

And later on at Georges Party, you kissed your boyfriend at the stroke of midnight. Instead of celebrating moving into 2012 the first thing you both admitted when you parted was, “I love you” 

~*~*~*~*~*~

The same time, exactly a year later, you were at another party but this one was much more important. New Year’s Eve 2012 was probably one of the most important days in Matty’s and the bands lives. They were finally releasing their first studio album out to the world.

When midnight struck Matty’s lips were on yours again the same time as last year and a second later you heard The City started blaring out of the loud speakers.

You were at their album release party and you were so so proud of all 4 of your boys. Over the past year you’d seen how much they had grown as artists and you were beyond proud of them.

They had worked so hard to get their first 2 EP’s out and you honestly loved it when they were released. You watched all of Matty’s hard work pay off and all the low times you’d experienced the past year were worth it because it got him to the high moment that was the release dates of the 2 EP’s.

The Facedown EP got released in August and you loved it with the whole of your heart. On that one you loved Antichrist so much. It was one of you favourites of theirs but Matty never sang it for you. You loved your boyfriend but sometimes he was a stubborn prick.

In the November they released the EP that you believed was Matty’s favourite and to be fair to him the Sex EP was amazing. He had worked so hard on it that sometimes he literally called you up when they were down in London recording because he just needed an outlet.

Sometimes he just needed to vent, and you were always there for him much like he was there for you.

You’d heard a lot about the recording that the boys had done in London over the year but after almost every session Matty always phoned you up and told you what went down. You both did really miss each other when he went away.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t experience everything with him. You had your commitments to your job at your old school and you honestly loved what you did.

But it did mean that you had to miss some of the slightly more important things to do with Matty’s unfolding career. Matty, however, was always too excited about everything which meant that you never really missed anything.

And you honestly loved it when he called you up to tell you about what happened. You remembered when they released the EP for Sex too which was an amazing night.

Matty had been so nervous he stayed on the phone to you for hours, but you were on your laptop looking through what people were saying about their music. And the majority of the responses were amazing.  

Everyone really seemed to be loving it, just like you were, and you couldn’t stop telling Matty how proud of him you were.

So, when the album came out you couldn’t contain your excitement. You were so proud of them and you had it playing everywhere. There wasn’t a song on it that you didn’t enjoy.

The album release was probably one of the most exciting parties you’d been to with the band. It had so many important people there for them and you teared up when the boys gave their speech thanking everyone for everything.

The party was a huge success and so was the album. Everyone seemed to love it and it was a great way to start off 2013.

The boys started touring in March and you missed your man like crazy. They were going away for god knows how long and you were so gutted you couldn’t go with them because of work.

Matty of course understood because he fully supported you with your work over the past 19 months that you’d been officially seeing each other. He got you through the really difficult times you’d had when you felt like you were shit at your job because a few students seemed to be getting worse not better.

Their health and wellbeing was one of the most important things to you, so some days you would come home feeling completely defeated when you felt like you didn’t help anyone.

You loved the kids that you helped so it really hurt your heart when you felt like you weren’t giving them what they needed.

If Matty was in Manchester, he would be the first over to comfort you despite your friends from high school and now Ava all living close by. He held you when you got emotional about it and tried his best to cheer you up when you were feeling down.

He always had a welcome distraction planned for you and if he was in London, he did the same. He would distract you by Skyping you and he would show you everything he’d been up to whilst he’d been away.

You made the relationship work despite the distance between you. And you grew more in love with him every day.

In a way, you thought that the distance also helped your relationship to because whenever Matty came home you felt like you got to fall in love with him all over again. You were always hit with the wave of positive and loving emotions when you were finally in his embrace again and you loved it.

You guessed distance really did make the heart grow fonder.

The 1975’s tour started off with a shorter run of gigs. It was their first tour after all, and Jamie and Dirty Hit had been so accommodating for them you were jealous you couldn’t experience it with them.

Of course, you went to their Manchester gig when they started the tour off and wished them all good luck and reluctantly said your goodbyes to them after the show finished. You and Matty said a long goodbye to each other before he got on the tour bus.

You really did miss him when he went away but you wouldn’t sacrifice his dream for anything.

He was finally getting what he wanted, and both of your dreams were taking off. You were happy in a secure job and Matty was going on the tour of his life. He was becoming the Rockstar he always said he would be.

And you were so proud of him.

They seemed to be having such a good time. You followed all their social medias and you obviously got sent videos of them and you were so happy seeing your boys on stage. They were definitely meant to be up there.

They were finishing the gigs off in London at the end of April and you’d booked the Friday off work so you could go down and surprise Matty.

You hadn’t seen him in person for 2 months and because of both of your work you hadn’t chatted as much as you wish you did like before they were being asked to do longer sets and in bigger venues.

The last time Matty had called you he told you that because of the public’s demand for their show’s they were doing another UK tour almost straight after. This time the venues would again be bigger, and more fans could get in to enjoy their incredible music.

You were over the moon for them because this is what they had all wanted for so long. It had quite literally been Matty’s lifelong goal to get to a place where they were selling out venues and here, they were.

They were easily selling out the O2 Apollo in Manchester and you had no doubt they would one day sell out Manchester Arena and quite possibly even the O2 in London.

The only person you told that you were coming down to surprise them was Adam because you knew he was the only reliable one of the group and he would actually keep it a secret.

So, you texted Adam once you parked up somewhere near Brixton academy. You’d got there an hour and a half before the boys were due on stage and you couldn’t wait to be at the front cheering them on, just like you were in Manchester the previous month.

Adam came at met you at the back entrance and he let you in after giving him a massive hug. You loved Adam so much and thanked him for keeping it a secret from Matty and the rest of the boys.

Adam told you that it was fine, and that he was just glad for you to be back around again. He explained that he was hoping you’d get Matty back to normal and bring him down a peg or two.

Apparently, Matty had been thinking he was the shit. Like his ego had grown more than the boys had ever thought possible so when you told Adam you were coming, he jokingly pleaded with you to come earlier and whip him back into shape.

You, of course, would definitely remind Matty that he was just a normal guy and that he was no one special. He was still the same kid from Wilmslow who was in a band they’d started when they were 13.

Just because they were selling out venues didn’t mean the person on the inside was any different.

Adam led you to a room that he thought both Ross and George were in first to surprise them but unfortunately only Ross was in there. George must have gone out exploring because you only had Ross to surprise in that specific room.

He was thrilled to see you though. He jumped right up and gave you a massive hug with the biggest smile on his face. 



“I can’t believe you’re here” Ross said giving you the best hug you’d had in ages.

You hugged him back tightly, “I couldn’t miss this one! Ava was gunna come but she got called into work last minute… So she’s really sorry but told me to give you a big kiss from her anyway”

You then proceeded to plant a kiss on his cheek which made Ross chuckle when he released you. Adam was called away by a tech guy who needed to ask him something about the set-up of his guitar, so you reluctantly said goodbye to him for the time being.

You asked Ross where everyone was, and he told you that George said he would be back in a minute, but he had no clue about Matty. He presumed he would be in one of the other dressing rooms getting himself emo’d up, which wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest.

You’d walked into his room at home multiple of times to see him putting on his black nail polish or some eyeliner. He did it more than you did which made you laugh on multiple occasions.

After 5 minutes though, George still hadn’t returned so Ross suggested that you both go and try to find Matty which you agreed to. You honestly couldn’t wait to see him and give him the biggest hug and kiss.

You’d had a shitty time apart recently, just because you were missing him so much. So you were really eager to surprise him.

You thought that it would be just what the both of you needed. You loved him so much, you couldn’t wait to cheer him on and be in his arms later tonight.

After trying the first two dressing rooms and not finding anyone, Ross told you that he knew he would be in the next one, so you allowed yourself get really excited.

“I can tell you’ve missed me as much as you’ve missed him” Ross joked as you walked through the corridor.

You were quite clearly ecstatic to be seeing Matty again. Ross had never seen you this bubbly or excited. 

“Shut up you. You know I’ve missed you loads! I just love him and feel like I haven’t seen him in a year” You told him, and Ross of course understood.

Ross pointed to the room that he knew Matty would be in. He really wouldn’t be surprised if Matty was in there applying make-up or if he was passed out asleep on the sofa.  

Either way Ross could see how excited you were and instructed you to go in first. You sent Ross a quick smile and pushed the door open with a spring to your step.

You were so eager to see Matty it was unreal. To you it really felt like you hadn’t seen him in forever.

You’d been so stressed with work and you’d really missed him.

But apparently that was a one-sided ordeal because when you walked into the room you stopped dead and your blood ran cold. You felt Ross walk into you behind you, but you’d already gone numb and felt sick.

Ross looked down at you wondering why you’d stopped so suddenly but then he raised his eyes.

Matty’s tongue was in a brunette’s mouth and they were both shirtless. The pair on the sofa were on each other like animals and you’d started to tear up looking at the sight in front of you.

You felt your heart shatter into a million pieces as soon as your eyes landed on the scene that was playing out in front of you. Your vision was getting blurrier by the second, but you couldn’t take your eyes away.

You willed yourself to wake up from the godawful nightmare that you were experiencing. There was no other explanation for it.

You literally spoke to Matty 2 days ago on Skype and he wouldn’t stop telling you how much he loved and missed you. You just didn’t understand.

The only thing that knocked you out of your shocked state was when Ross shouted from behind you, “What the fuck?!”

This seemed to shock everyone in the room because Matty broke away from the girl and looked around the room to find where Ross’ voice had come from. But his face changed to one of complete shock when he saw you stood there, looking like you’d just seen a ghost.

Matty could see the tears in your eyes from where he was, and his face immediately dropped. He went from looking excited to deflated in a matter of seconds. Probably the same way you were excited to see him but now your world was completely shattered.

The tears had already started to fall and it didn’t help that everyone was just stood there frozen in place. But that didn’t last long.

Matty made a move to come towards you and you unfroze immediately, backing yourself up into Ross. The apology didn’t form in your mouth, but you pushed yourself back against him to slip back out of the door.

“Y/N/N” You heard Ross say softly but you needed to leave. 

You couldn’t stay. Not after seeing that.

You hastily walked down the corridor and you could vaguely hear Ross following behind you. You turned the next corner and pushed through the door.

You didn’t even go the way you knew you could get out you kept walking around the labyrinth that was backstage of the venue with tears streaming down your face.

You didn’t know where the next door would take you but it led you down another corridor, but you heard your name being called from in front of you.

“Oh my god Y/N. What are you doing here?” George grinned, jogging his way towards you, opening his arms towards you for a hug.

You ran into his arms and a sob immediately ripped through you. You felt like you were about to collapse. Your heart hurt so much, and your chest felt empty but so heavy at the same time.

You just didn’t understand why it was happening. You loved Matty so so much and the more you thought about what you just witnessed, the more hysterical you got. When you didn’t reply to George though, he realised you were sobbing and starting to hyperventilate.

“Shit Y/N/N, what’s wrong?” George asked worriedly. 

He’d never seen you like this before and the fact that you were here out of the blue scared him even more.

You looked up at him and tried to make words form but you were really struggling, and George could see that. But then you heard shouting and the doors that you just walked through slam open.

George looked up and saw Ross and Matty shouting abuse at each other but then he looked back down to you realising you were about to say something to him.

“He’s cheated on me George” You managed to get out before another sob caused you to choke up and you hugged yourself back into his chest.

You didn’t see it, but George’s face turned to one of pure anger. As soon as his eyes connected with Matty’s, he got the angriest he’s ever been at his best friend.

“Get him the fuck away from her right now” George told Ross with venom laced in his voice. Ross knew it wasn’t directed at him, but the anger laced in his voice scared him.

Ross didn’t even want to think what fear that would have instilled into Matty. George hugged you closer to him not fully understanding what happened, but he believed you without a second thought. And his own heart broke for you.

“Y/N” Matty shouted but George just felt you sob again and hug him tighter. 

It was like you were holding onto him for dear life. He literally thought you were about to break in his arms, and he guessed you already sort of were which hurt him more.

“You better fuck off before I hit you” George shouted at Matty seeing red.

And something about it actually caused Matty to pause enough for Ross to physically move him. Matty didn’t know if it was because if it was the drugs or that George was genuinely fucking scary at that moment.

“I need to speak to her” Matty shouted back stopping in front of Ross.

“You can do that when she wants to. Move now” Ross said pushing against him again.

George had started moving you down to the opposite direction. You don’t remember getting there but the next time you move your head away from George’s chest you are in a room with just him.

You don’t remember sitting down but you find that your sat next to him crying into his chest. You pick your head up off his chest and looking at Georges face just makes you want to cry again.

You were embarrassed and just wanted to hide away and never see anyone again. You were literally crying into Matty’s best friends’ chest, why was this your life.

“Hey, come on” George cooed, moving his arms from around you to your face so he could wipe the tears away for you.

He’d never seen someone so distraught in his entire life and when your lip started wobbling, he knew you were about to break again.

“I love him so much George. Why would he do this to me?” You barely managed to get out. Your heart hurt so much it was hard for you to breathe and get everything out.

“I don’t know” George said honestly. 

He’d not even noticed Matty becoming distant from his relationship with you. Yes, they were down in London a lot, but George knew the effort you made to keep in contact.

“I just don’t get it” You cry, wiping your tears away and calming down for a second.

But that quickly changed when your voice cracked, “He was all over her George”

Listening to that, George’s heart hurt for you. He couldn’t even imagine what you were going through.

Your chest was tight, and it hurt so much. All you wanted to do was sob until you had no tears left. You felt completely broken.

“I just walked in and they were both half naked and he was all over her and I can’t get it out of my head” You rambled through your tears.

George shushed you gently pulling you back into him so he could be your shoulder to cry on again.

After about 20 minutes, George had magically calmed you down so you weren’t crying as much anymore. Your chest still felt horrendously tight and your breath was shaky, but you weren’t crying as much.

Your brain was working a bit more and you were able to process what was actually happening. George was keeping you calm by his presence alone, but you had t get something off your chest.

“I don’t know why you’re here with me George. I know were friends but he’s your family” You said standing up wiping the few tears that fell.

George stood up to and put his hands on your shoulders saying “Woah Y/N…”

“Don’t you ever think that I would stick up for him when he’s done this. I’ve been looking about for you a lot longer than that fucker out there” George said, and he saw your eyes well up again.

“Y/N/N come here” He said hugging you into him again.

You felt him run a hand up and down your back giving you the comfort you so desperately needed right now. 

“Thank you” You whispered into his body and held you closer.

After a minute of staying like that in George’s arms you pulled away and said, “I need to speak to him, don’t I?”

“Not tonight you don’t. Not if you don’t want to anyway” George told you. 

You could tell he was getting himself angry at the thought of Matty again.

“I think I need to Georgie” You told him but then there was a knock at your door.

It was Ross saying that the gig was starting in 10. He came in and gave you the biggest hug apologising for everything, but nothing was his fault. It was Matty’s and Matty’s alone.

George got one of the crew that he’d recently become friends with to drive your car and drop you off at his and Matty’s shared flat. You were in no fit state to currently drive so George was glad you didn’t go against him on that.

You obviously didn’t want to stay and watch the gig and you wouldn’t let George cancel it despite his protests.

You said you would wait there to speak to Matty and to be honest you could definitely use the alone time to get your emotions out and gather your thoughts. George saw you out and gave you the keys to their flat and him and Ross gave you the biggest hugs before you left.

George reluctantly walked back into the building, feeling like pure shit. He walked back with Ross to a room that Matty was situated in.

When Matty saw George, he stood up and made his way towards him. George could smell the weed from the door so when he got closer it was almost unbearable.

And that was saying something. George smoked it a fair amount but everything about his best mate in front of him was wrong. He was completely pissed and high as fuck.

“Where is she? I need to see her” Matty asked, trying to get past George.

“Sit the fuck back down. You’re not seeing her right now” George said not moving an inch.

“George come on, I need to sort it out” Matty tried again this time trying to push past him.

This just caused George to see red once more. “She doesn’t want to see you right now. She’ll see you back at ours after the show to talk”

Matty looked relieved at this information and placed a hand on George’s shoulder. “Thank you so much mate”

George shrugged his hand away and said “Don’t fucking touch me. The only reason you aren’t on the ground right now is because we’ve got a gig to do”

George then proceeded to walk past Matty, barging into his shoulder as he did so.

~*~*~*~

After hours of collecting your thoughts at Matty and George’s flat, you felt prepared for what you had to say to Matty when they arrived back.

But of course, things never turn out as planned when your emotions start running high. As soon as Matty came back into the same room as you the tears started burning your eyes again.

And about 10 minutes of Matty apologising you’d had enough.

“Stop apologising now. If you were actually sorry you wouldn’t have done what you did in the first place” You said trying to hold back the tears.

After that you sighed and sat back down on their sofa. Matty didn’t seem to know what to reply to that, but you then started up again as the tears started falling down your face.

“I love you and you know how hard it was to let myself do that… And you let me believe you loved me. For over a year. Which is worse” You told him quietly.

Matty looked at you out of the corner of his eye and quietly returned, “But I do love you”

Lies, you thought. You shook your head letting the tears fall. 

“No, you fucking don’t. You wouldn’t have done this to me if you loved me”

“Y/N” He started, and he tried to come near you but you flinched away.

You shook your head, “No”

“Don’t” You told him.

“I don’t want you to come anywhere near me” You said sternly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you” Matty told you staying in his spot in front of you.

“No, you didn’t mean to hurt me, did you?” You scoffed wanting to throw something you were getting that angry.

“You didn’t mean to hurt me because you were just gunna come back home and fuck me like you’d fucked no one else in-between” You said stating the truth because that is what would have happened.

It hurt to think about but if you hadn’t interrupted there’s no way it wouldn’t have happened. And you would have been the doting clueless girlfriend waiting at home for her man to come back.

“It wouldn’t have hurt me because you weren’t going to tell me” You stated.

“Y/N, I’m sorry. Please please forgive me” Matty tried again but you shook your head.

“No” You told him. “You don’t get to cheat on me and expect to be forgiven for it”

“You’re just sorry that you were caught” You told him and Matty couldn’t even look you in the eye. 

That action itself, spoke volumes.

You put your head in your hands so you could hide yourself. You also tried to contain the sob that was dying to come out. You took a deep breath and sighed.

You went silent for a minute and then you let out a juddery breath. Leaning back against the settee, you closed your eyes and whispered to yourself, “I just can’t believe it’s happened again” 

Matty looked at you and asked, “What do you mean ‘again’?”

“You’ve done the same thing that Miles did” You said remembering back to your first real relationship before University.

Miles was your first proper boyfriend, but he was a year old than you so when he went to Uni the year before you did, things became difficult.

“He left to go to Uni and cheated on me because he couldn’t wait until he came back home” You clarified to Matty for the first time.

When you’d previously spoken about your past relationship, you just told him that you’d been cheated on and didn’t really want to talk about it. Because what else was there to say? 

You’d let someone in and they had disappointed you. Just like Matty had done now.

Hearing those words fall from your lips causes Matty to have a lightbulb moment.

It finally clicked what you said just over two years ago now back at your university. The memory came back to Matty of you saying why you only wanted a relationship when you got back home from Uni and not one whilst you were still in Leeds.

He’d always meant to ask you about it but always forgot when the memory came back. You’d said that ‘People don’t tend to wait for what they want’ and Matty’s gut dropped at the realisation. He really was a fucking dickhead.

At that point Matty looked at you and dropped onto his knees right in front of you and begged, “Y/N, please forgive me”

The messy haired boy continued, “I was drunk and high. I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m not like him, you know I’m not”

“Well you fucking are! You think that getting completely wasted gives you the fucking excuse to cheat on me and make me feel like a worthless piece of shit. No, it fucking doesn’t Matty. You’re a fucking prick” You started again picking yourself up of the sofa.

“Y/N please. I love you so much, don’t do this” Matty said, throwing those words around again and you rolled your eyes as he stood himself up.

“No, you don’t love me Matty. You just don’t... George loves Jess. You do not love me” You reiterate trying to spell it out for him.

“What do they have to do with anything?” He asked and you looked at him like he was thick.

“Can’t you understand it? George would never do this to Jess because he loves her so fucking much. So just stop lying… Stop saying you love me because you don’t” You told him, and you could hear the seriousness in your voice.

“They aren’t us” Matty tried but you just him off.

You shouted at him then, “No, they are fucking better! Because George wouldn’t do this or make anyone feel like this”

“I didn’t mean to. I really fucking do love you.” 

Those words again. 

Lies.

“No, you don’t!” You yelled and the tears started falling again. “If you loved me like I actually love you, there’s no way you would even look at someone else, let alone touch them”

When you said that Matty walked toward you, grabbing your hand in hopes to pull you back. “Y/N she meant nothing. She’s not you. I love you” 

Lies.

You turned around and slaped him across the face, hard. You hand fucking hurt and it was throbbing after your skin connected with his.

You hand was currently causing you more pain than your chest and that was saying a lot. At least it distracted you from the pain of a broken heart.

George must have heard it because he came into the room and slowly closed the door behind him. He just wanted to make sure you were okay and definitely wanted to make sure Matty didn’t retaliate.

Matty twisted his head back around to look at you and you could see the water pooling in his eyes. It obviously hurt him because you’d never seen Matty tear up over anything. Not even at his gigs because he was so horrendously out of touch with his emotions.

But at least his eyes let you know that he was in some sort of pain. And at least you knew that was true.

“You’re a cunt Matty. We are fucking done! Stop throwing those useless words around because you do not love me!” You shouted at him whilst more tears spilled down your face.

You moved away from him and grabbed your coat from the side and picked up your bag. You couldn’t even look at him whilst you calmly said, “You ruined this. This is your fucking fault and I hate you for it”

You walked towards George who had already opened the door for you to leave. You turned back to Matty and saw his watery eyes and your red handprint on his face.

“Don’t you ever speak to me again” You told the boy you loved before you hastily left, George hot on your tail.

He’d obviously heard everything, and you didn’t even care. All you wanted to do was go home and cry.

It was 12:30am and you were adamant you were driving yourself back home. You didn’t care about the time. You’d already anticipated that you would be staying up late anyway.

You just assumed it would be catching up with your boyfriend and having a bit of fun with him. Not driving back home in the middle of the night.

You managed to persuade George to let you drive back because it would clear your head and that the traffic would have been quieter because no one would be on the road. He really didn’t want to let you, but he could see you pleading with your eyes.

You don’t know how but you managed to collect yourself enough to drive back home. You couldn’t even say proper goodbyes to the other boys because all you were itching to do was get yourself home because you were seeking the comfort it brought you.

For the long drive back, you managed to block everything from your mind and just focus on the driving that you had to do. You didn’t need to accidentally kill yourself on the motorway to prove a point.

You were going to prove your point by rising above him and getting on with your life. But you needed to get over it first and that was definitely easier said than done.

When you got home you cried yourself to sleep and you’d never been happier for an empty house. You ugly cried into your bedding and eventually calmed down enough to fall asleep.

When you woke up the next day you texted Denise asking if you could come around the following day. Of course, she said yes because you were like family and had been round a few times to babysit Louis for her whilst Matty had been away.

When you got there, she knew something was wrong straight away. You put it down to the face that you’d made no effort at all and your face was probably puffy.

She brought you in and sat you down as she could see the tears forming in your eyes.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” She asked you and you released a shaky breath.

“I just wanted to come around and tell you myself…” You started, swallowing down the lump in your throat.

Denise sat quietly waiting for you to continue but from watching you she already knew what you were about to say. Her heart broke seeing you like this.

“Me and Matty aren’t together anymore” You told her, and your heart sank seeing the sad smile appear on her face.

“Aw honey” She cooed sadly, before giving you a hug because she saw the tears begin to fall down your face.

You hugged tightly as you didn’t know when your last hug would be with her. And you did love her, she was your second Mum. She’d always been so lovely and warm with you that you it broke you a bit more that you wouldn’t see her as much.

You took a deep breath before pulling away from her to wipe your cheeks and you gave her a sad smile. Denise sat herself down on the bar stool next to you again and she watch you collect yourself until she knew you were ready to talk again.

“Can I ask what happened? I haven’t heard of Matty in days, so I don’t know anything” She asked you cautiously.

You pressed your lips together to think of how to tell her in the nicest way possible. You weren’t going to cover up what he’d done. You couldn’t. No matter how much you loved Denise, you wouldn’t lie to her about what he’d done to you.

You nodded slightly and started, “I went down to London to surprise him but when I got there me and Ross walked in on him cheating on me”

A tear rolled down your cheek when you said that, and you couldn’t stop looking at her reaction. Her eyes went wide and she looked away from you for a second as if she needed a second to process what you told her.

She sighed and looked back to you, “Please tell me you’re joking”

You tried to smile at her, but your eyes blurred up with tears again and you shook your head.

“I wish I was” You admit, blinking away the fuzziness and you felt the tears run down your face, along with the lump in your throat returning.

She shook her head, “Y/N, I’m so sorry”

“I promise you I didn’t raise him to behave in that way. I’m so sorry” She apologises, taking your face in her hands and wiping your tears away for you.

You smiled at her kindness. 

“It’s definitely not your fault. You’re one of the nicest people I know Denise. He’s lucky to have you” You said honestly.

“He’s going to wish he didn’t have me when I finish speaking to him on the phone later” Denise told you honestly with anger in her voice. 

You couldn’t help but let out a little laugh at it though and she chuckled to releasing your tear strained face to hold one of your hands.

“I’m being serious though. The next time I see him I might slap him” She said squeezing your hand tightly.

You returned the gesture and tell her honestly, “I won’t lie to you, I’ve already done that”

“Good. He fucking deserves it” She nods, and you were thankful she didn’t hate you.

You wiped the tears from your face with the sleeve of your hoodie and Denise kept talking to you which you were thankful for. She treated you like her own daughter which you were so grateful for.

You could tell she genuinely cared about your happiness. You vented all your feeling to her, and she listened and understood every single word you said.

“I really do love him, I just want you to know that. And I love you and Louis too. I just don’t think I could lose all three of you at once which is why I wanted to come and see you” You told as you started to tear up again.

“And we love you too, honey. And nothing’s changed on that front. You are and always will be welcomed here with open arms” She tells you and you feel the lump rising in your throat again.  

You just couldn’t believe how kind she was being with you. But at the same time, you could. She was one of the most amazing people you’d ever met.

“And me and Louis don’t want to lose you at all. I have no doubt he would love for you to look after him when I go out if you still want to do that. Of course, I understand if you don’t, but you know how much he loves it when you come around” She said.

This made you break down again and the tears started falling again. You’d forgot that a breakup wasn’t only between two people. It was like losing a whole other part of your life. A whole other family.

You considered Matty, Denise and Louis family. And it broke you that you wouldn’t be seeing them as much. It was a prime example of how one person’s actions could affect multiple other people down the line.

“I’d love that, thank you” You shakily said and Denise gave you a warm smile.

“God,” You sighed, wiping your tears, “I didn’t even think about having to tell Louis. I think that’s going to be the worse bit” 

“Darling you don’t have to do that. I’ll tell him for you” Denise squeezed your hand as you started tearing up again.

But you shook your head. “Thank you but the least I can do is tell him why I won’t be around a lot anymore. I won’t tell him everything though I promise”

“You’re too kind Y/N. You know that you are always welcome here, don’t you? Probably more welcome than my actual son” She told you which made the both of you giggle.

Denise made you a cup of tea and invited you to stay for tea which you reluctantly agreed to. But after you told Louis, that was the only thing that seemed to make him smile.

When you told Louis that you broke up with Matty, he slowly broke down. He started crying and you had to comfort him, and it broke your heart even more. Louis himself looked broken-hearted which made you want to cry but you stopped yourself.

You promised him you would still be around, and you arranged a day out with him in a fortnight that Denise approved of entirely. Both you and Denise did everything to cheer to cheer Louis back up and by the time he went to bed he seemed relatively like his normal self again.

After that you’d asked Denise if you could go and grab a few things out of Matty’s room. She of course said yes, and you went around the room that you’d grown to love the past year and a half and collected your belongings.

You had clothes in his wardrobe. Your make up on his desk. Discarded hoodies that Denise had definitely folded away when you were both out. You took just about everything that you knew was yours.

You only left the things that you weren’t too sure about. You mostly just shared everything so the picking and choose what might have been yours or not was really started to hurt your heart.

You had another mini breakdown in his room and silently cried into his pillow for a good few minutes. That was until you got a grip of yourself and went downstairs to say goodbye to Denise.

When you got back home you had another good cry and relished in your empty house. You wanted something to alleviate the pain, so you cracked open a bottle of vodka and started drinking the night away.

But when drunk and emotional no one made the best decisions and tonight you definitely didn’t. You called Matty up and waited as the dialling tone rang out.

“Of course, you didn’t answer your phone” You sighed into your phone when it told you to leave a message.

“You really are that much of a pussy” You say seriously but then drunkenly giggle.

You’re still laughing as you say “Aw god, I fucking hate you”

You go quiet for a second and let out a breath. “I really fucking hate you” You say calmly and then go quiet for a moment.

“You know… I had to sit down today and explain to Louis why I won’t see him anymore”

“He started crying and it broke me even more so well done… You didn’t just break my heart; you broke your little brothers too” You said started to tear up remembering Louis’ reaction. 

That probably hurt you more than the actual break up.

“You’re a fucking vile human being Matty. I just want you to know that... You need to sort yourself out because no one’s going to go anywhere near someone who can’t keep their dick in their pants because they’ve done some drugs.” You said sternly, but then your drunken self-changed your tone.

“And one day, I hope you do. I hope you find someone that makes you as happy as you made me” You admit before having a mini pause.

Because you did love him. You wanted him to be happy one day, even if it wasn’t with you.

“But for now, I fucking hate you” You continue calmly. “You made me tell your family how you broke my heart and I had to sit there and comfort your brother and lie about why…” 

Your voice broke at the end, causing you to swallow the lump you felt in your throat away.

“I had to sit there and pretend that I didn’t love you anymore which I wish was true” You spill your feelings into the phone, and you started to cry again.

“I fucking wish I hated you… But I don’t. I love you and that’s why I’m broke” You managed to get out and you sniffled again for a second before you got control of yourself.

“But you can get fucked” You said as if you’d said it to him in person.

“You’re not gunna ruin my life like you’re ruining your own” You said in the most serious voice after it. There was no hint of joking to it at all.

“So, fuck you. Fuck getting someone to love. Fuck the relationship that I thought I needed with you” You can feel yourself getting angry about it.

“You’re a twat and I hope you know it... No matter how big and famous you get, you’ll always be that arsehole druggie who can’t keep it in his pants” You said, and you could feel the anger rising in your chest.

You go silent for a good moment until you take a deep breath and release it. “Right well… I’ve had my rant. I think we can agree you’re a prick and I hope you have a shit time for a long time”

You said that but then the tears started to come back. You did still love him, no matter how much you said you hated him, and you did want him to be happy.

It hurt that you were calling him all these names. At one point you wouldn’t let anyone say anything bad about him at all. But after what he’s done, things obviously changed.

The tears fell and you sniffed up to stop your nose from running again. 

“Bye” You whispered, and you knew that this was the point that you’d but it to rest.

You were in no way over it. But you weren’t going to let yourself fall back down.

This was your lowest point and now, the only way to happiness, was to pick yourself back up.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

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[footballffbarbiex]

ok but cockwarming and Jesse like he's just come home from Dubai and he's super super tired and just needs to be close to you and you've never done it before and he's never been this cuddly and cute with you before and it kinda makes you wanna tell him you love him...

Thank you so much for sending me this when you did. I know it’s taken a lot longer for me to write it than I’d hoped as I wanted a quick turn around but my smut writing muse hasn’t been cooperating. I hope you like this bb :)

If you’re reading this on the app, the spacing layout may look awful. I’m so sorry. 

____________

Closer. 

Since dating Jesse, you becameused to spending periods of time away from him and recently had it been nodifferent. Jesse had been looking forward to travelling to Dubai and though youknew you’d miss him, you were happy he’d get to be away from England for a bitand a change of atmosphere would do him well.

He’d tried to call you as oftenas possible, send you video updates and of course, you were able to checksocial media and see the videos and photos he’d post too if you needed an extraJesse fix. Though you missed him, you were pleased he was enjoying his timeaway and using it wisely. The three-hour time differences meant when Jesse wasslipping between the covers of his bed, you were still enjoying your eveningand not ready to sleep yet. It wasn’t ideal but you put everything on hold tospeak to him, to see his face and hear what he’d been up to before talkingabout your own day.

You knew he fully intended to spendthe first night back with you and though he’d playfully hinted about making upfor lost time, you also knew how tired he’d said he was when they’d toucheddown on Dubai ground and so chances are, the only making up for lost time thatthe two of you would be doing would be cuddling as he fell asleep. He’d keptyou up to date with their comings and goings and the text that came to yourphone half an hour ago said that he was leaving Manchester airport.

The drive to yours is closerthan to his and you know that he’ll not bother going home to drop off his things,shower or change. He’ll just come straight to yours. Within what feels likeminutes, he’s knocking at your front door and making your heart skip a beat. “Missed me?” He asks, a smirk already on his face as he looks at you. The wayhis eyes rake over you leaves butterflies stirring within your belly and youcan’t help but feel like a teenager with a crush again.“Have you missed me?” You pull him forward, your fingers hooking on the belt hoop ofhis jeans and grin when he slams into you clumsily. “Very much.” He drops the bag beside him as he kicks the door closed, his handsare on your waist and he just holds you there a moment as he looks at you. “Ididn’t wanna say too much while I was away but I really, really fuckin’ missedya.” He rubs his nose against your forehead and smiles to himself as his lipsconnect with your skin.

You’ve missed him more thanyou’ve wanted to say too but hadn’t wanted to make him feel bad for going awaywith his club. You missed simple things like the way he dances as he getsdressed and ready to leave the house. Him singing stupid songs and making yousing along in the car with your version of carpool karaoke. You missed his spurof the minute jokes, his quick humour and being able to just say something tohim. You’d lost count the amount of times you’d turned to say something to himonly to realise you were alone. Or how many times you’d sat on the sofa andreached across to touch him or hold his hand, only for your hand to meet thinair. “You go away all the time.” You point out, pushing your hands under his shirtand stroking up his back. “This was no different. We should be used to thisnow.”“Only a couple of hundred miles tops. Not to another country. I couldn’t justjump in the car and see you, could I?” He replies, pressing his lips againstyour skin as he tries to stifle a yawn, but you feel it. “Bed.” “You’re not my mum. You don’t tell me when it’s bedtime.” He tries to crack ajoke, but another yawn appears. “but you might be right.” He sighs afterletting the yawn take over. He softens in your arms for a moment before kickingoff his shoes and pulling you along to your bedroom.

Just like at his house, whilethe two of you weren’t living together, it didn’t stop your personal spaces tobe littered with things from the other person. There’s a section in yourwardrobe with Jesse’s clothes, shoes, his underwear, toiletries and hisaftershaves. Everywhere you go in the house there’s some reminder of him andwhile it’s nice to see when he’s away, it doesn’t stop you from wishing he wasthere. He undresses, stripping completely naked and throws everything in thedirection of the wash basket before slipping between the sheets and encouragingyou over.

You undress, leaving yourselfonly in your shirt and panties as you climb in and take your usual position ofsmall spoon when he opens his arms. The duvet is wrapped around the two of you,Jesse’s lips are at your spine and he holds you close to him. You adored himlike this. In the half asleep/half awake stage where he just wants to be held,wants to be close to you and wants to be babied in a way. You enjoy lookingafter him and while usually you’d be stroking your hand up and down his back andrunning your other hand through his hair and cuddling him, you like thesemoments just as much too where he just holds you.

A cuddly Jesse is certainlysomething you take advantage of as it’s not often you’re able to spend thenight with him. Maybe 6 times a month and so these are the memories you storeaway. You weren’t really tired when he arrived home, but laying here in a warm bed,Jesse wrapped around you and the sound of his even breathing, it’s difficultnot to begin to feel slightly sleepy…but that’s when you feel it. He knows it’shappened because he buries his face into your back and even through your shirt,you can feel his grin.

“I thought you were sleepy?”“Tell that to him.” He mumbles against you. “I thought you were sleepy.” You repeat and laugh when he makes it twitchagainst you. You turn slowly in his arms until you’re facing him, and he doesn’teven try to hide his smile. “I’m not sleeping with you.” You try to say sternlybut you know if push comes to shove, you’ll happily climb on top and give himwhat he wants. “I’m trying not to. I want to, but I’m tired. I’d probably fall asleep after a fewthrusts. How gentleman-y of me, huh?” “It would be incredibly rude,” you agree, nuzzling against his neck, trying notto smirk when you feel him twitch again. “I can’t help it. It’s not going away. I’m trying to think unsexy thoughts. Isaid I’ve missed you.” The two of you lapse into silence for a few momentsbefore you feel Jesse’s hands push your shirt up and them roam over the curveof your hips and over your ass. ”Take these off.” He whispers.

You frown, wondering what he’s up to if he doesn’t want to have sex but you doas he asks and removes the underwear as carefully as you can. He trails hishands down over your thighs to the back of your knee and pulls your leg overhis waist. This isn’t the first time you’ve had sex in this position. Not onlyis it intimate but it’s a deep angle too. You feel the tip of his erectionagainst your entrance and you can’t help but sigh as he sinks into you. “This isn’t sex.” He states as he gently pushes his hips forward, until he’scompletely inside of you and makes your mouth open in a small o shape. “I justwant to be as close to you as possible.” He explains sleepily. You adjust yourleg, making sure the back of your knee is perfectly against his hip. He scootsyour body closer to him, holds you against his chest and draws patterns on yourback as your breathing begins to match his.

It’s not something you’ve everdone before, but feeling him throb inside of you, the closeness of his body andthe softness of his touches actually feels good. It’s intimate without beingfull sex but naughtier than a simple cuddle. You manage to steal a glance up athim. His lashes are fluttering against his cheek, his lips curve occasionallyas he drifts off to sleep and he looks incredibly peaceful. It’s there on thetip of your tongue as your eyelids get heavy, each time you find it moredifficult to pull them open again. But it’s there. The urge to say, I love you.

______________

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England Team: @kiki0kitty0queen  |  @lfcbvb​

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[justapayneaway]

Hi! First of all, I’m a big fan of your account! Thank you for all that you’re doing! I have a question: Do you have a post/ multiple posts proving that the PR relationship with MH is indeed a stunt? (If you don’t have the time/energy to find anything could you tell me who else I could ask?) I am already aware of the bs but I’m trying to show it to others as well!

Hi :) thank you so much for the support!

Listen I don’t think I ever did like a post with all that’s adding up or I don’t think I've ever saw one... So I'm gonna give you a tiny crash course on this mess so maybe you can show others. This will be discussed in 10 long points under the cut:

1. The teenager met all the 1D boys in 2015. At that time meet & greets were a bit selective and mainly for people with money or for people going through charities. So knowing the teenager’s family you can see exactly why she had access *cof daddy has money cof*.

2. Fast forward to 2018: Liam became recently single after the whole sham thing ended publicly. Two weeks later he went to Italy and was invited by D&G to do a performance there for their fashion show. There he met a lot of people and the teenager was included in that gang. After a few weeks of this encounter we got a lot of articles saying they’re together and going on dates. As you can see from that time we had many articles from the usual suspects: (x, x - just a few examples).

3. But a few days later, we got a different story! Liam was seen with another model Cairo and he followed her on IG & started liking her posts. Again we got a wave of articles and even some pics of Liam trying to kiss her in front of our salad! Then out of nowhere in a John Mayer live (mind you like a few weeks later), Liam confirms he is single!

4. Again passing through the Naomi thing and him being single, we got to this last month and a half. So for his birthday, Liam went to Ibiza and oddly we didn’t get any new content besides the things he posted himself. On the day of his birthday, he tweets this: 

Fans started to side-eye everything and then on the next day we got the 1st pap walk between Liam and the teenager on a Friday. The pap walk was awkward as fuck, she looked bored and Liam gave his fake smile to her. It was very weird, but of course we had an explanation a few days later. 

5. Liam went through the same strategy and started following the teenager on IG and liking her posts. Then on the next Monday (2nd September) we got buzz and promo tour for Stack It Up started! Coincidence?! I think the fuck not. Over the next few days Liam was papped in London alone doing promo and then he went to Manchester. There he was seen at a restaurant, but we got no reports with who (I think his own team was there at the restaurant too). Again, next day we got articles on the tabloids saying that Liam’s parents met the teenager on a private dinner and that Karen liked the kid, but was worried blah blah blah. 

6. We got basically a weird radio silence on that week (probably because UK promo was done), but it all came crashing down when they were seen arriving at the airport in Madrid ahead of Liam’s concert. Again nobody cared about her or knew who she was... so his team had to film her at the concert trying to dance to Familiar and even include her on the background of the Lilo pic. 

7. After that it was like all hell broke loose! We got the 2nd pap walk where they were all “giggly” and “so in love” (thanks JoJo pics for always warning us of new pics!). She went to NY with him for Stack It Up promo and they’re papped again having a dinner date with Steve Finan too! She was there for basically two days: to get papped and to take that pic Liam’s team decided was the best pic to appear 1st when you’re saying thank you to your team and fans for the release of your new single. All the UK interviews basically mention her or he mentions her and they all say how happy they’re on the pics... Mind you these were the 1st pap walk pics that were cringie as fuck!

8. Then the IG comments appeared and it was the cringiest Wattpad Y/N flick ever! After they reunited “home” we got a sneaky pic of Liam eating alone at a restaurant. What happens the next day? We get the “making out” pics and after date it has been some solid every two/three days where we get some content. She goes wherever Liam goes! First, Liam posts something on his IG story of him going out or something music related. Then we get either something on her IG or on Liam’s. To end it perfectly we get pap pics. We usually get first a Just Jared article with the pics and then it spreads over night to all the tabloids. Ah btw Liam is always a pulling a “do you know my girlfriend” on IG stories by tagging her with the biggest letter ever!

9. Fun fact: HMV concert in Birmingham. So to be expected she goes again because the these two are just so ride or die since they first looked into each others eyes. His parents and his sister Ruth also attend. Most hilarious moment that I caught by accident: some dude was doing a facebook live and saw her leaving the backstage before Liam started to perform. She saw nobody was following her so she went back inside. A minute later she comes out with Liam’s team and Liam’s parents/Ruth. His parents pulled a “I don’t know her” and went to see Liam’s performance leaving her alone. Ruth stood next to her but didn’t talked or looked at her. Sad I know lmao.

10. Which brings me to the Table Manners podcast that came out this week. In that podcast Liam expressed how happy he was and that they were so serious. He talked how they met and used Greg Yuna as an excuse. How she was so cool and didn’t mind to be papped (of course) but that he worried about her image (then tell your team not to make you do so many pap walks). Later in the interview he said that “hey this has been going on for a while”, Jessie’s mom asks him how long have they been dating and he says and I quote “one month and a half”. If it’s already this serious, I don’t even want to imagine how will it be in the next few months! Then he mentioned that she is living in London and that he is going to Texas for thanksgiving with her family... Like already?! You just started going out!?

So in conclusion it’s basically this the timeline of Sham 2.0! 

(This got super long and I know I didn’t link some stuff, but it’s late and some of the things you can easily find on the latest articles. Sorry!) 

[mamapeach7]

Daeul

Preview / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15 / Chapter 16 / bonus

Chapter 17

-

She herself didn’t know what to identify as when it came to Hyuk.

Their vacation in Tahiti had ended a month prior with the New Year following, having spent time with each other, friends of course Minji. Daeul was to turn three years-old in two and a half weeks which meant that his grandparents were thinking of him once more.

Standing at the doorfront with his son in his arms and Hanji by his side, he smiled at the woman next to him before turning his gaze to his parents once more.

“This is Oh Hanji…”.

She clenched tightly onto the sleeve of his arm as she smiled tightly at the elder couple in front of her.

They smiled vaguely to her -- a kind of warm yet soft smile that let you know that because they had already accepted her. Whether it was because they were aging by the day or because they knew that their son and grandchild needed someone else in their lives, regardless of whether she was grateful.

Hyuk seemed to have noticed as well since he quickly glanced down to her and smiled before placing a hand on top of hers.

They were certainly more domestic than their son -- insisting on making dinner themselves and ensuring that everyone had food on their plate at all times. Daeul sat between them -- Hanji to his right as always and his dad on his left.

“So Hanji…”, Hyuk’s older mother began, making the said female tense up a little.

“May I ask what you’ve studied?”

Hanji cleared her throat and wiped her hands with the napkin on her right before speaking softly.

“Well, I-I actually took history -- c-classical civilizations and monarchies.”

“Oh, that’s great! History was my favourite in junior high.”, Hyuk’s father piped in with a wide smile on his face, making Hanji feel a little more relaxed.

“Really! I uh, I actually taught ancient history for a year after I graduated.”

“A-Any plans for later on?”

She averted her eyes from the pair and focused on the silverware in front of her, thinking about her recent application to the museum in Manchester which Minji had told her about. She certainly did send them her best essays written in university and her teaching experience.

The one thing she hadn’t told Hyuk was that she had been accepted to begin work in England effective in three weeks.

“W-Well I...I’ve actually been granted a curating position in...in England.”

Hearing the scraping of Hyuk’s butter knife on his plate mid-way slicing up a piece of broccoli for Daeul, she immediately knew he came to a halt.

Hanji turned her head slightly to find his eyes on her before he quickly ripped them away and continued to feed his son.

“England! S-So then just mainly English history or..?”

“Well perhaps for the most part b-but of course I-I’ll get the chance to feature other areas…”

“You know, I had a friend in my second year…”

The voices around her had drifted off as she averted her attention to Hyuk who continued to eat in silence, occasionally turning to Daeul and feeding him some of his own food.

He finally managed to meet her gaze, fixating his eyes on her as they held a kind of sorrow that would linger in her mind for days to come.

~

“...That was mom -- she said she can’t wait to see you again for Daeul’s birthday.”

Hyuk sat in his bed, which he now shared with Hanji since they had decided that she was no longer considered as an employee under his roof, placing his phone down on the nightstand.

“Aw, that makes me feel so giddy.”, Hanji gleed as she gently sat next to him.

And as it became a habit, they shared a long stare of admiration in silence -- sharing the peace and quiet of the now sleeping house.

“A-Are you going to Manchester?”

Sighing heavily and avoiding his gaze, she instead grabbed hold of his fingers and resided in front of her on the soft gray sheets.

“It’s um...It’s actually been something that I’ve been planning e-even before we met.”, she whispered.

Now sitting up straight to properly face her, Hyuk crossed his legs as he leaned in closer. “H-How long will you be gone?”

“A while.”, was all she could say with a jutted lip which turned into a sorrowful smile.

He was silent momentarily, still playing with her fingers noticing her mauve-painted nails. She could sense that there was a slight worry in him -- perhaps even fear. There was something in him which whispered that like Daeul’s birthmom, Oh Hanji could leave him too.

That she could leave and promise to come back but would actually never.

“I-I’m leaving the week after Daeul’s birthday.”, she whispered before bringing both her hands to cup his cheeks and raising his head to face hers.

“Say something, Hyuk.”

It took him seconds to finally face her, bringing his head up mere centimeters in front of her. She didn’t miss the quick glances back and forth her eyes and lips, letting her know what he may have wanted.

“Y-You’ll come back, won’t you?”, he asked with his brows curled.

Do you even have to ask?

“Well, I have one very good reason to.”, Hanji spoke softly before pulling him close into a firm kiss, running her hands down his neck and over his plum blossom tattoo which was dedicated to his mother.

Hyuk rested his hands on her waist before slowly laying her down and hovering overtop of her, deepening their kiss as the dim yellow light in their room surrounded them warmly.

~

She knew she would miss a whole year and perhaps even more of Daeul’s life, so she hugged him tightly like she always did whenever she held him in her arms.

His small body would be bigger a year from now so she savoured every last second as she inhaled the familiar scent of baby powder and vanilla.

“Don’t grow up -- stay small forever.”, she joked as she swayed with him side by side as they continued to hug.

The boy could only manage to embrace her without a single thought or idea of what was going on and gave her a short peck when they pulled apart.

Thankfully the airport wasn’t too crowded -- Minji had come along to of course bid her sister farewell and to help unload the baggage. She was saved as second on the ‘to-hug’ list which Hanji kept quick as to keep herself from bursting into tears.

“To all those math kids who made fun of us social science students.”, Minji encouraged, making her younger sister laugh in glee.

And then there was Kwon Hyuk, whom she had hugged plenty the night prior and refrained from doing so again so as to not make her departure even more miserable.

“I hate goodbyes.”, he said as he held her hand, swinging it with his.

“It’s not -- it’s not goodbye.”, she reassured.

“Oh! H-Here’s my address in Manchester.”, Hanji pulled out a small piece of paper from the pocket of her jacket. “So if we can’t call every day for some reason, you can at least write to me or you know...send me something.”

She joked lightly with a smile, making him chuckle.

He stared longingly at her one last time before gently grabbing her by the back of her head and pulling her into a kiss, making her eyes water as she had promised herself she wouldn’t hug him right before she leaves.

“If you ever feel lonely -- look for the moon.”, he whispered into her ear.

“And especially when it’s full, you’ll know I’m with you.”

Her flight had landed her around seven o’clock in the evening. She stepped out into the crisp February air, her luggage resting on each of her sides as she waved a hand in the air for a cab to drive her to her accommodation.

As one pulled over and she began to place her bags in the truck, she caught a glimpse of the night sky -- the stars dancing in pitch black with a large moon hovering them all.

Just then she heard the ringtone of her phone go off and when she checked that it was from Hyuk, she furrowed her eyes as to how he was able to text her so quickly considering it was long-distance.

However, when she read that the only thing he had sent her was a simple icon of a crescent moon, all the fears and worries she had been holding slowly faded.

END