#so i tried to tune his old guitar instead and got four strings in before i realized two tuning pegs are missing???

[folkinsomnia]

Just broke a string trying to tune my late papaw's old-ass banjo and the snapped string cut my hand a little. Appalachian card snatched violently away.

[sugadaily]

SUGA has this way of talking passionately with a deadpan look on his face. Full of passion about his life and music. How is your shoulder? SUGA: Good. I think it’ll get even better once I take off this brace. Apparently, it takes several months for a full recovery, but I'm trying to get better as fast as possible. How does it feel like to have resolved a problem that has distressed you for long? SUGA: First of all, I'm glad. The pain is one thing, but when my shoulders got worse, I couldn't even raise my arms. But when I heard that this might recur when getting the surgery at a young age, I waited for the right time and had decided to get it done early next year regardless of the COVID-19 situation. I had planned to get the surgery after the year-end stages, but I got it done this year (2020) because my doctors advised me to start preparing early for next year’s promotions and activities. How does it feel like watching the other members doing promotions? SUGA: I can't say it feels great. I could see the emptiness because we've been together as a group of seven for so long. Not necessarily because I'm not there but because something that should be there is missing? Is that what made you join the promotion as much as possible? You shot lots of video footage in advance and you even appeared in the Mnet “2020 MAMA” through VR. SUGA: Fake SUGA (Laughs). There’s this 3D studio where we shot it. I shot, scanned, and acted there, but couldn't see the actual result at the studio. I thought a sense of displacement was unavoidable, and that was exactly the case. (Laughs) I acted normal because it would have been aired anyway even if I hadn’t had the surgery, but it seems a lot because it’s aired after the surgery. You must feel restricted not being able to go on stage. SUGA: The thing is, it's only been a month after I got surgery, but my absence on stage is so apparent. But my doctors keep telling me that I shouldn't be impatient and in fact, many athletes get a resurgery when they return to the field without proper rehabilitation. So I'm working on trying to care less. For the first two weeks after surgery, I felt so frustrated that I tried out new things. I even watched movies I didn't watch.

What movies did you watch? SUGA: I watched ‘Samjin Company English Class’ as it happened to be on IPTV, and now I have ‘Tenet’ on my list. ‘Parasite’ was the last movie I saw at a cinema. As the social distancing measures became stricter, I haven’t been going outside, except going to the hospital. I even eat at home. I'm also watching a lot of TV nowadays. Watching music shows like ‘Sing Again’, ‘Folk Us’, and ‘Show Me The Money 9’ made me think of what I should do in the upcoming days. Could you elaborate on that? SUGA: A lot of candidates on ‘Sing Again’ are very talented but hadn't had the opportunity, and on ‘Folk Us’, I noticed that many took their own guitars on stage. I started playing the guitar lately and I'm having this urge to broaden my scope of music. And since my interest in the music industry in the U.S. grew, I'm getting prepared, studying English and all. What fueled your interest? SUGA: In some ways it’s the most commercially developed market. You could lose the industry attention in a flash if it's not feasible. So in this system, you would try everything and that would be an efficient way. I want to do music for a long time, and to this end, I always want to learn more about the global music industry because I want to do music that’s loved not only in Korea, but also in the U.S., Japan and Europe. Speaking of which, it seems BE was influenced from music of the past rather than today's trends. SUGA: I especially like impromptu music. I love the songs that were made in one take instead of being recorded several times. In this era of crossover genres, the desire to do better in music is growing inside me. As the genres become more blended, the melody you use must be more important. Does starting to play the guitar affect your composing in any way? SUGA: I always liked using guitar sounds. And I have always liked the Eagles. If you play the guitar, it’s way easier to write songs because you can carry it along wherever you go, pluck on the strings to create melody lines. Keyboards are difficult to carry around. (Laughs) I usually work on my laptop but I had this thought that I definitely needed an instrument. It accelerates my work and improves my understanding of chords. It makes me think you could intuitively make melodies. SUGA: It’s easier to write a song because you can intuitively make a progression and try many different things. During my work on ‘Eight’, IU had recorded and sent me a song from her phone. At the time I couldn’t play the guitar, so we tried to make sure we’re working on the same page when keeping track of each other's progress. That made me feel the need to learn an instrument.

This is actually before you started playing the guitar, but I found ‘Telepathy’ in BE very interesting. The varying melodic progressions between hooks for each member made me wonder if you wrote the melody intuitively for each part. SUGA: I tried a melody for the first time this year (2020), and as I started knowing the fun of music, it opened a lot of new doors for me. So it was kind of easy working on it. I just played a beat and wrote from the beginning until the end. Done. I wrote it in just 30 minutes. The song almost wrote itself. The trends of pop and hip-hop these days cross boundaries between vocals and rap. I like this trend. When I listen to your singing, it feels like you’re hitting the beats rather than singing along the notes. So I thought perhaps you're singing as if you're rapping. SUGA: When you're rapping, you just think of the rhythm, so it’s like simply putting on a melody to a rhythm. To define which comes first, I think melody adds to it while writing the rap. In ‘Life Goes On’, the lyrics ‘Thankfully between you and me, nothing’s changed’ are somewhere in between. It's not rap but it’d be mundane to say it's a mere melody. SUGA: There are obviously songs where the rap needs to be highlighted. For example, in ‘Dis-ease’ or ‘Ugh!’, you have to be good at rap. But in songs that should be easy to listen to, impressive raps are not always the way to go. Sometimes, you want smooth transitions without obstacles. In that sense, the rap flow of ‘Blue & Grey’ was impressive. Rather than a dramatic effect that emphasizes each part, you extended the rap just as much as the slowing beat. SUGA: To be honest, this beat is difficult to rap to. The beginning of the song only has a guitar line, which made it even more difficult. I participated when we wrote lyrics for ‘Blue & Grey’ and I've always wanted to work on a song like this. It was because verse 1 talks about the theme of the song.

It seems you achieved almost everything that you wanted in BE. SUGA: I think it took less than a week to make my part in the album. After having written one or two melodies for ‘Life Goes On’, I wrote a version complete with rap, and liked it that I even worked on a separate arrangement and lyrics. Rather than pondering over the ways that might work, I choose to simply play the music and write. Many creators are unsure even after they’ve produced good work. How do you get the conviction to release your work? SUGA: Many musicians are unsure whether they should release their music or not. It was the same for me, but the thing is, you’ll never release anything if you nitpick everything. For example, if we release 10 songs, we have a chance to unveil them in concerts or fan events. And sometimes, as we listen to the song, we think, ‘Why does this part that had bothered me no longer bother me?’ Some things might feel awkward at some point, but in time, it no longer feels awkward. Even I forget about it. So it's more efficient to fine tune, looking at the big picture, rather than thinking too much about the details. On top of that, during promotions, I don’t have the time to pick tracks that others have sent for 10 hours. It would be a success for all of us if each of us play and write a melody in their own time and collaborate with others on the details. So the way of songwriting has evolved in many aspects. What motivated such evolution? SUGA: I think it evolved naturally. I've changed in personality this year (2020), as well as in terms of my interpretation and attitude toward life to the extent that I almost thought I've been rehearsing. How would it feel like if there were no stage to go to or anyone looking out for me? This thought made me realize the value of these things. In ‘Dis-ease’, you sing ‘I don’t know if it’s the world that's sick’. Was it this lifestyle that changed your thoughts about your work? SUGA: Yes. When I was young, I had embraced the belief that ‘It must be my fault’, but as I got older, I realized that this is not always true. Most of what I had thought was my fault was in fact, not my fault. On the other hand, there are things that I did well and times I had been lucky. ‘I NEED U’ came out during a time when you were still thinking, “It must be me”. After the members put on a stage with ‘I NEED U’ in KBS' ‘Song Festival’, you wrote on Weverse, “It’s the same as five years ago.” How would you compare with back then? (This interview was held on December 19, 2020.) SUGA: We've matured quite a bit. And our stage performances have become more natural. I still like ‘I NEED U’. Just listening to the beat makes me sentimental, and above all, the song came out nicely. So as I was watching this and that when I stumbled across old videos. Watching them made me think that we haven’t changed much.

In what aspect haven't you changed much? SUGA: Before the social distancing measures got stricter, I talked with the photographer for BE, whom I had met four years ago. The photographer was surprised that we hadn’t changed much after all the success, even though he had assumed we’d be very different. I'm amazed personally. I’ve had the chance to meet the members before your debut, but from your way of talking with members or others, it seems you haven't changed. SUGA: I think it's because we don’t give it a big deal about success. For example, it's incredible to be ranked first on the Billboards, but there’s also this sense of, “Okay, and?” Even the Grammys? (Laughs) SUGA: When we got nominated for the Grammy Awards, we thought, ‘Is this real?’ (Laughs) Of course we were delighted, but it didn’t make us think, ‘We're singers nominated for the Grammy.’ If you're nominated, you're nominated, and if you get the award, you get the award. You don't get shaken by that. I know it's a great award and would be so grateful if we receive it, but we know that nothing is possible without the tremendous support of our fans. What’s more important is that the fans are more flattered than us when we receive a great award. So everyone's rejoicing, but it’s like, ‘Let's do what we have to do.’ We've been training ourselves to keep finding our places, so no one remains overexcited. In ‘Fly To My Room’, there are lyrics that say, ‘This room is too small to contain my dream’, and ‘Sometimes this room becomes an emotional trash can, but it embraces me.’ I had this feeling that the room had been such a place and that you were accepting that you have changed. Then the essence must have remained the same. SUGA: It wasn’t easy to accept that we eventually change. But I think it's a good thing that we changed. What we did back then was possible only at that time, and we could change because of the things we had accomplished. Then, what new things are you dreaming about? SUGA: I'm eager to continue doing music. Since all performances were canceled due to COVID-19, I had a chance to talk to so many musicians in Korea. I talked with legendary singers as well as people who are my contemporaries. Talking with them once again made me realize that I love music so much. Because music is my profession, I can’t imagine myself not doing it. I'm grateful that there are still unvisited areas in the world of music.

What kind of music do you think you’ll be engaged in in the future? SUGA: I was greatly motivated when I saw the concert of Na Hoon-a last Chuseok . I wondered how many musicians would actually be able perform and write music for so long like he has. At that moment, it occurred to be that ‘I want to be like him’. He has passion and desire, and most of all, he is a superstar. A few years ago, I took my parents to a Na Hoon-a concert, and when they watched the performance last Chuseok, they said it was way less impressive to see him perform through the TV. (Laughs) That must explain your interest in a broader spectrum of music from instruments to composing and musical genres. Because you want to be doing this for a long time. SUGA: My goal is to continue doing music in any shape or form. In that sense, I have this great respect toward Cho Yong-pil. He takes the best sound there is and reinterprets it into his own. I think that’s something I want to emulate and keep changing and evolving so that I can continue doing music for decades to come. The lyrics ‘Thankfully between you and me nothing’s changed’ must sound more meaningful for the fans because they will be listening to your music for a long time. SUGA: A month and a half in the current times must seem like a lifetime for the fans when we're far apart. I feel the same. But I think that's proof that we worked hard for the past seven years and that the fans have been passionately reaching out to us. I'm striving to get to them as fast as I can, and I'm eager to go on stage. I'm going through this because I want to be better on stage in a better condition, so don't be sad, and please hang in there a little longer.

[sourbat]

A Missed Call

Because you can never have enough magtok, here’s an old one shot I wrote some time back for the holidays, but never got to releasing.

Summary: After a rough morning and bad rehearsal, Toki retreats and listens to an old, missed call saved on his dethphone.

Pair: Toki and Magnus

Rating: T

Read on Ao3 or click read more below!

Following a long night of painting a recently completed figurine, Toki woke up late on the morning of a planned recording session, one he had practiced for beforehand. Toki checked the time, panicked and hurriedly put on some clothes, skipped the shower, and rushed to the upper levels and kitchen to grab some fruit as a quick and easy breakfast. On his way to rehearsal, he got woozy and had to double back retrieve his insulin. When Toki finally arrived, everyone was already in a foul mood. Knubbler mentioned losing two saved recordings, and apparently Murderface raised a fit about it. No one entertained his tardiness, and Toki could tell that patience was wearing thin, but still insisted he get some recordings in to show his dedication to the band.

Since he left his guitar behind in his room, Skwisgaar tentatively offered one of his own, lips pursed and brows sinking while Toki readjusted the harness, tightened a string. It seemed every small action he performed while scrambling to the tinier recording room earned the ire of his lead guitarist, and when they settled, Toki sensed the increasing weight of the atmosphere, the building gravity and high expectations that few could reach.

He couldn’t concentrate. Not with Skwisgaar frowning at him, eyes stained with contempt,  arms crossed tightly to his chest and fingers rapidly tapping the correct rhythm across his rigid form.

Knubbler gave Toki permission to go, but his eyes couldn’t break from the imaginary strings rapidly coursing through Skwisgaar’s busy hands. He knew Skwisgaar was comparing their speed and overall performance. Toki saw the frown extend downwards, finding his attempt inadequate. Toki flubbed the first recording, and just four measures into his part. He messed up on the second and third try. He made it as far as the first rest, then messed up again.

Sixteen measures and another set of wrong notes later, Skwisgaar finally had had enough, and the passive remarks began. Toki couldn’t play over Skwisgaar loudly pointing out every wrong note he tried teaching. With the room filled with a never-ending tirade of “noes,” Knubbler had no choice but to stop recording. The moment he announced the news, Skwisgaar grabbed the guitar by the neck and loudly insisted through Toki’s headset that he would play the parts instead.

The news proved fatal to his esteem. Aghast, Toki pleaded with Skwisgaar to let him try one more time. He grabbed the older man by his top, but then sank and fell on his knees. Skwisgaar wouldn’t have it, nor would Knubbler who, after bringing a hand to cover the red light flaring in his optical devices, suggested an emergency fifteen-minute break.

Tensions were high as Skwisgaar exited the small room, hand clasping the guitar and swinging with a vigor that warned Pickles and Nathan to back off and keep their mouths shut. Murderface left the couch to grab some snacks, and when he returned, saw Toki inching his way to the nearest door.

“You alright, Toki?” he asked through loud chews and smacks.

Toki didn’t answer. His head sank, leaving just a nub of a neck and messy chestnut veil before he reached for the door.

Knubbler turned in his seat. “Tough luck, babe. Come back in fifteen, alright?”

“Or don’ts, nots like we’lls notice,” Skwisgaar said under his breath, earning a sharp jolt from Toki’s shoulder before he stomped out of the room.

Nathan sighed. “Skwisgaar.”  

“Dood, no need ta’ be a–”

The door shut, and at the sound of the lock clicking, Toki pressed his back into the adjoining wall. Cool stone tempered his rigid, hot spine. It pushed the heat forward,  through his chest, then spilled down his cheeks in a furious heat. Toki slid to the floor, legs retracting and arms coiled round to bring them up to his chest. He sighed and tried shutting his eyes, only to have to watch himself repeat the same mistake again, observe his clumsy fingers resting on top the wrong string, wrong fret, sloppily strumming and ending up with a nasty fuzz that only further infuriated Skwisgaar. A heaviness collected across his beet-reddened face before going limp. He buried his face between his shaking legs. He spent the next few moments in silence, head spinning and throat shut, refusing the smallest intake of air until Skwisgaar’s harsh words turned into blurry static.

The pain that swelled in his chest raged forth, climbing up his strained neck, reaching behind his eyes and sending a throb that warned Toki of an impending sob. He sucked a sharp breath, filling his chest and stomach until his belly hurt, then shuttered an uneven exhale. The anxiety whirled in his abdomen, a miniature storm that threatened to burst into a panicked state if he didn’t act quick.

Toki blinked, feeling the wet sting forming in his eyes. He released his shaking, numbing legs, letting one drop while keeping the other close for support. Head still lost in the dark fog, Toki reached for his pocket, and pulled out his phone. He wiped his face, dragged an arm across his nose and sniffed hard, sucking up the collecting moisture into his ailing throat, and went through his dethphone’s multiple applications.  

His thumb lingered over a message dating back nearly eight months. Toki sniveled over it, tongue lapping around his lips as he glanced at the time, the length of the message. Wide eyes darted to the ends of the hallway.  When he determined there were no oncoming gears, he pressed play on the screen.

The phone’s display went dark for a second, then vibrated with a rapture of noises. Toki’s bottom lips curled inward, teeth pressing on top the skin as he watched the screen come alive with shadows, the blur of a swaying phone failing to focus on a single image, and the colorful, out-of-focus city lights in the backdrop.

Then, humming. Toki instantly calmed when he heard the slow, off-tune notes, followed by the screen moving, raised up to reveal Magnus' curious face lazily staring into the screen.  “…why aren’t you answering your phone?”

The voice fuzzed as Magnus brought the screen closer, angle crooked as he leaned to one side, body lax and swaying with each step.

“Just as well. Shit.” Toki broke into a chuckle as Magnus stumbled forward. The camera toggled, pointed upwards at the sky. The first time it had happened, Toki yelped, panicked over Magnus potentially falling and breaking his neck. Now, he counted the seconds of Magnus’ extended groan, then smiled at the incoming giggle that sluggishly transitioned into a prolonged, nonsensical song.  “Dadadaaaa…”

Feeling a bit more at ease, Toki’ s second leg began to sink, and both hands fixed to the screen as he toggled the phone to its side. When he checked again, Magnus was back to a (crooked) stand, happy and quite pleased with himself not falling flat on his face. A car zoomed by in the background. The lights at the intersection turned green, and Magnus brought his tongue out to wet his drying lips.

“Leave it to the one time I figure how to use this dumb app, just my luck.” Magnus rolled his head back, messy hair whisking, flowing out of tandem with his uneven gait. He shut his eyes. “I know I said…I’m sorry I’m drunk, buddy. God, I miss you right now.”

Toki wiped his eyes, giving a short nod. “S’okay,” he whispered, letting a thumb come close to petting the drunk Magnus who’d broken his promise not to drink too much, at least now without Toki to look after him.  

Magnus stared back. Not at the light, nor the screen, but at Toki. “Hope you’re, uhh, having fun right now. Whatever you’re doing.”

Toki shook his head.

Magnus’ expression softened. “You know, I miss you,” he slurred to the phone’s receiver.  “A lot. Like, holy shit, dude. You gotta come back soon. Hit me up, even if it’s just to yell at me for breaking my promise.”

Toki sniffled as Magnus pulled away from the camera. His hand turned inward, almost as though he were trying to cradle the screen, reach and cup the face of the Toki who had failed to pick up the call several months ago. Even then, it had been hard to stay angry at him. Disappointed, sure, but Toki couldn’t stay mad at the man who went out of his way to learn how to use his Facebones-time app, call and speak from the heart.

Thinking of it, Toki glued himself to the screen, silently awaiting the next portion.

“I really miss you,” Magnus continued. He leaned against the wall of some unknown building, his sinking head still favoring a particular side. “I know you’re on tour and all, and I gotta be fucking patient but…this is going to sound so cheesy, but I miss seeing your smile.”

Just hearing the words lifted the ends of Toki’s mouth. On screen, Magnus’ expression softened, eyes blurred with sudden realization.

“I miss you telling me to stop scowling all the time, and I miss you telling me it’s ok…”

“If ams not readies to smiles yet,” Toki whispered to the screen.

“–if I don’t feel ready to smile yet.” Magnus made a face that, to this day, made Toki feel just a little anxious. What was going on in his head, he wondered. Did Magnus know what he was about to say?

He watched Magnus palm his hand over his bad eye. “Fuuuuck, what am I saying?”

“Everytinks you wants, Magnus,” Toki answered the recording. His heart picked up, anticipating the final portion of Magnus’ drunken rambling, the denouement of his accidental message, and that final push Toki needed to help him get through this miserable day.

The screen emitted hardly any sounds, producing only the subtle changes brought on by the late autumn winds, the occasional roll of a speeding car, and Magnus’ own relaxed breathing.

“You’ve probably already deleted this,” Magnus murmured to himself. Or to Toki? Hard to say. The smile he cracked was aimed at no one in particular, but each time he lifted his head, and Toki saw his long waves brush across face and reveal the longing in his eyes, he thought Magnus must have known, deep down, what he was going to say. “I’m drunk and I’m swearing and I miss you, and I love you, and the more I think about you being away for two more weeks–”

Just like that. The three words Toki had tried prying from Magnus for weeks, months, had slipped through the cracks and were uttered during a random night spent drinking alone.

“–It kills me. Shit, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Toki stroked the screen. “Ams fine, Magnus.”

“Well, that’s all. I just wanted to tell you I love you. And miss you. And as soon as you get back I want you to tell me how you got on stage and rocked the hell out of everyone’s soul. The same way you do mine whenever you… hehehehehe…ah,  shit .”

Caught between their shared laughter was Magnus stumbling forward, and like every past play through, Toki quieted down, paused the video once he remembered what Magnus had said, and rewound it just to hear it again. He obsessed over the second “I love you,” all casual and free. The “I love you” that was comfortably tucked between other facets, and said with no restraints, no second-guessing. It was a feeling he admitted to without any forethought, and spoken from the heart.

“Call me back, ok?”

Magnus’ hand covered the screen. It took him a while to accurately bring an end to the call, but while he muttered to himself, questioned and asked no one in particular how to shut off the app, Toki meandered in place, wiggling as he relived the words, Magnus voice setting free that momentous confession thought the form of a simple, missed call. It would be another two months before he whispered the words, so soft and faint, and yet somehow carrying the weight of the universe on top of it. That sober confession would be as impactful, and while Toki spent nights replaying how shy Magnus had been when he first shyly announced his love to him, nothing quite compared to the drunk Magnus who casually remarked his affections.

“Will calls you soons,” Toki said to the phone, then closed the app. He would, and he’d do everything within his power to reverse the tragic alignments set before him, and turn this shitty day into something decent and worth discussing. Skwisgaar could yell at him, but Toki would still try his best. He’d play his heart out like Magnus expected him to, and would have something to show for it once it was over.

Toki checked the time, and saw he had about five minutes left until his break ended, and another two hours before Magnus had to wake up to get ready for work.  His nerves still shook from the memory of his recent failure. Toki sighed. Eyes closed, he saw Magnus standing alone, city lights a messy blur, veiled under a heavy and tiresome drunken haze. If that man could figure out how to use his phone and video call him, cheer him on and tell him how much he cared about him, then Toki could finish a session and get his part in the demo.

He reentered the room a seconds later, warmed face hit with the thick atmosphere.

Pickles and Nathan stopped their discussion to check on him as he slowly approached. Nathan regarded Toki with a gentle nod. “You ok, Toki?”

“Ams fine, thanks for askins.” Toki waved shyly at the two. Thankfully, Skwisgaar was nowhere to be found. While it didn’t guarantee a permanent reprieve from the stress to come, it did allot Toki some additional time to prepare for the rest of his session. Remembering Magnus’ encouraging words, his drunken, cherry-red smile and airy laugh that always reached so high before cracking, Toki exhaled. He pushed out as much of his anxieties as he could, the panic that settled across his queasy belly, and he walked over to Skwisgaar’s guitar.

Pickles raised a brow, popped the gum he’d been chewing as Toki adjusted the strap, and then proceeded to the recording room.

“Hey, Toki.” Nathan interjected, still reclined comfortably in his seat, and not appearing slightly offended when Toki met his obtrusive glare with oblivious perplexity. “Where are you going?”

“To practice,” Toki answered. Charged by his response, Toki confidently turned for the smaller room. “Goinks to show Skwisgaar ams not a screws-up,” he said, voice carrying a surge of an impending storm, raw energy that filled his expanding chest with the assurance he needed to get him through the session.

As he opened the door, Magnus' voice entered his mind:

Rock the hell out of everyone’s soul.

[tommodirection]

Miss You More

Louis Tomlinson x Singer! Reader

Masterlist

Word Coung: 2.5k

Warnings: swearing, death, cancer, mentions of death

Disclaimer: Miss You More is an actual song that I wrote, and it isn’t published or anything, but it’s one I wrote about the loss of my grandfather, and so I may link it here if I feel like it so you know what the song is and what it’s about, there are just a few words you’d have to change, but anyways!

A/N: Heylo! I’m going to be honest with you, this is not my favorite thing I’ve ever written, and it’s a little corny, and poorly worded, but eh. It’s one am, I’m going to sleep after this! Anyways, I hope y’all enjoy! Thank you, and have a nice day!

——————

Ever since you were a child, you knew you wanted to sing.

It all started with your mum. When you were little, she’d always sing to you, every night before you went to bed.

Soon enough, you began singing back to her, and she loved every second of it.

You sang together every chance you got, singing in the car, in the house, at parties, even when you walked the dog together through your neighborhood.

She had encouraged you to make a YouTube channel for your music, knowing you’d make it big. At first, you were hesitant, not confident enough to post your voice on the internet, but you finally agreed weeks later.

You mostly did covers at first. Of course, your 14-year-old self didn’t know what she was doing. All she knew was that she was doing something she loved.

About a year after making the channel, you began making custom content. You learned to play the guitar and you’d use it almost every second. You took it everywhere. Well, everywhere you knew you’d be able to show off.

The songs were mostly about crushes and school and friends, the main things circling around your life at the time.

But it all changed when you were sixteen.

It was no secret your mother had cancer. She had since you were little, yet she had kept fighting it, succeeding for a few years.

The doctors had said she was getting better, on her way to becoming cured, well, as cured as she could be.

But out of nowhere, it plunged. She was coughing up blood, and could barely stand, needing assistance to go the bathroom. It just kept getting worse.

One of the worst parts of losing your mum was the fact that it was the holiday season, ruining the time of year for your family for years to come.

You remembered her final day alive. She was laying in the hospital bed, lips chapped and all colored drained from her face. Her lips were bloodied as well, reminisce of the blood she had hacked up minutes ago.

Your father and siblings were there beside her. Your father held your little brother, he was four at the time, and your younger sister was standing next to you, she was twelve. Alex didn’t fully understand what was happening, he just knew his mum wasn’t well, and he mostly hid his face in your father’s shoulder.

Morgan, however, understood exactly what was happening, and she was crying beside you. She was trying her best to hold back, maintaining a straight stance and trying to hide her shaking hands. You watched as tears flooded down her face, making small wet patches on the sheets.

You looked at your mum, studying her. She had done so much for all of you, but there was nothing you could do for her as she layed in the bed, motionless, save for her eyes, darting between all of you.

You knew how much singing meant to your mother, and so you did the only thing you knew you could do. You sang.

Her favorite holiday song was Silver Bells, so you started the song, your family soon joining in. Your mother smiled gratefully at all of you.

She joined in towards the chorus, her voice still weak, but just as beautiful as when you first heard it.

Those were your last moments with your mother.

She passed away hours later, the anticipated news crushing your family.

You had all slept together that night, knowing you couldn’t be apart. Alex didn’t know what had happened, and you knew your father couldn’t handle it, so you had stepped in, trying to explain to the boy that his mum was gone, and she wasn’t coming back.

—

After she passed, you had stopped uploading to your channel, getting emotional every time you even tried singing.

But months later, you had decided not to give up. Instead, you chose to move forward. You started writing again.

The song you were writing was about your mother, it seemed fitting. You knew no amount of words could ever sum up your relationship with her, nor your grief, but you tried your best in the song.

You had spent a few months writing the song, not it a rush. You were pouring your heart into this song, and if it was rushed, you knew it’d have no meaning, just some words with a few riffs thrown in.

A few days after your seventeenth birthday, you uploaded the video onto your account, the first video uploaded since your mother had died.

After uploading it, you decided to turn your computer off for the night. You knew how obsessive you got with checking your feedback, you normally refreshed the page until your fingers were sore.

Instead, you walked into the kitchen, guitar forgotten. You hadn’t shared the song with your family yet, and you knew you needed to do acapella, it was much more fitting.

You were scared of how they were going to react, especially your dad and Morgan.

Immediately after finishing the song, Morgan tackled you in a hug, burying her head in your shoulder, “Thank you,” she mumbled and you pelt tears pricking your eyes.

Your dad stood, his hand over his mouth. Alex was sitting at the table, eating his cereal. You waited in silence for a few moments, waiting for your dad to say something, but nothing.

Alex interrupted the silence, “That’s the first time I’ve heard you sing in a while, sissy,” he said, a wide grin. You don’t know where your family would be without Alex. He knew exactly how to light up a whole room, he knew how to make people feel better.

“I know, bud,” you smiled and he gave you a toothy grin, turning back to his cereal.

You dad finally let out a small, choked sob, “I miss her so much,” he said, opening his arms. You quickly collapsed in them. He was the one you wanted approval from the most.

“I do too, Dad,” you whispered.

—

Years later, you found yourself at Triple Strings Record Label.

A man sat in front of you, shuffling through some papers at his desk. He sighed loudly, and shoved the papers aside, giving you his full attention, “So, miss L/N, we’ve heard some of your work, and were quiet big fans,” he said, folding his hands in front of him.

“Thank you,” you smiled nervously, and he glanced at the clock.

“Well, my name is Bryan, Bryan Detreon. I’m an agent here for all the upcoming stars in the music industry, although I can’t take credit for finding you, that goes to the creator of the label himself,” he chuckled and you froze.

“Wait, the owner as in, like, Louis Tomlinson?” You asked, suddenly sitting up in your chair.

Of course you knew who Louis Tomlinson was. You were a year younger than him, grew up with him on the screen and on the radio.

He let out a small laugh, “Yeah, as in Louis Tomlinson, he found you personally and requested you be brought in. He’s offering you a contract, I’ve emailed it to you, but I’d like to go over it now, just to point out some things! Now, he said to take as much time as you needed to decide. You can have a lawyer look over this if you’d like, and just back to us when you have an answer! Although, he’d probably prefer to have it before the beginning of his tour! Oh yeah! He wants you as his one opening act!” He finished, pushing a copy of the document towards you.

You took a second to process what he had said, and when you finally had. You nearly fell out of your chair. “He wants me to open for him?!”

“Yup,” he continued as if it were nothing. “Now, in the first section…” you tuned him out, you’d read it at home.

Louis fucking Tomlinson wanted you to open for him. How were you supposed to say no? Your dream come true, after years of posting on YouTube and going to school to study music, hoping someone would find you, and it had all led to this.

Twenty-six years of your life, all leading up to this moment.

“Any questions?” Bryan asked, locking eyes with your

You quickly shook your head, gathering your stuff and standing up. “Nope, thank you so much for this opportunity, I will definitely look it over and email you as soon as I know! Thank you!” You rambled, and ran out the door, trying to rush home.

“I got fucking signed!” You screamed into the empty household. You had your own place, but you felt the need to run to your family’s home to share the news.

Your dad walked in from the kitchen, Alex trailing behind him. Alex was fourteen now, which now meant he was starting to call horn father out on his bullshit, not that there was much.

“Welcome home to you too,” your Dad teased, and Alex looked up, his face instantly lighting up. He ran and wrapped his arms around you, he was beginning to tower over you.

“I missed you,” he grumbled, trying to hide his face.

You laughed and patted his back, “I missed you too bud.”

“What’s this about being signed?” Morgan strolled into the room, she was still living at home, finishing her last semester of university. She had grown into a beautiful woman, looking almost identical to your mother.

“Right! So, I got a call and email about an interview, and it said to meet at the Sony label here, and to go to the Triple String label office! I get there, and the guy tells me that they’re huge fans and want me to sign a contract with them! Turns out, LOUIS FUCKING TOMLINSON WANTS ME TO OPEN FOR HIM!” You screamed, not caring about the neighbors.

Morgan swooped you into a hug, you hated being the shortest. “Aw, my big sis is going to be a pop star!”

—

Months later, you stood backstage, picking at your sleeve. You glanced behind the curtain and saw hundreds of people standing and an endless chatter.

It was your first show of the tour, you had rehearsed hundreds of times, but that did nothing to settle your nerves.

Louis only had one opening act. You. You were all the crowd got before him, so you had to impress them.

You felt someone grab your waist from behind, as you nearly jumped out of your skin. You heard a small giggle in response, recognizing the voice.

You turned to playfully glare at Louis, your boyfriend of four months. You had bonded during rehearsals, and bonded over your similar life experiences, and soon enough, you had begun dating.

Only a handful of people knew, his family, and the crew on tour with you. You weren’t prepared to tell your family yet.

“What are you lookin at?” He asked, wrapping an arm around you. You rested your head on his chest.

“Just looking at the crowd, it’s huge,” you mumbled and he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

“It’ll be alright, they’ll love you,” he assured, and you smiled at him, grateful for his company.

“Thank you Lou,” you went to give him a proper kiss, but you were interrupted by the stage manager, telling you it was time for you to get in your position.

You quickly waved Louis goodbye, and ran to your platform under the stage, the one that you’d be rising up on in seconds.

They gave you a countdown, and a crew member handed you a mic.

On one, they hauled you up, your hand already in their places.

You were met with a roar of cheers and applause as you surfaced, singing one of your most popular songs, ‘Don’t Start With Me Now,’ written about an old, toxic, best friend.

It was thrilling, hearing the people singing your lyrics back to you, you were shocked they knew them. Being on stage gave you adrenaline you’d never experienced before, and soon, all your nerves flooded away.

As you finished your song, you heard the crowd erupted into cheers, whistles being scattered throughout the crowd. Monologue time.

“Hey guys!” You greeted. “My name is Y/N L/N, and I have been chosen by the honorable host, Louis Tomlinson, to open the show up for you guys! I won’t be up here for long, just enough time to play a few more songs, but don’t worry, I’ll be back soon enough!” You hinted, the crowd screaming in response.

You played through all of the songs you’d written, well, except for one. You hadn’t played Miss You More yet, there was a surprise to come later on.

You gave a farewell to the audience, and stepped off stage, the hair and make-up people touching you up before you could even regain your footing.

Louis didn’t particularly like breaks, so the second you were off the platform, he was getting on.

You stood by, waiting for your cue.

The stage manager nodded, and you stepped onto the platform, your dress changed into a skirt and a nice blouse, courtesy of the costume department.

“Now, I have a special guest here to be with me on stage tonight. We both lost our mothers, when they were both remarkably young, and both to cancer. We’ve both written songs about it, and we thought we’d make a mash-up for you guys tonight!” He exclaimed, and the crowd's cheers nearly popped your ear.

Your platform began moving up, revealing you to the crowd. The cheers echoed through the stadium, and you smiled, waving at them, taking your place beside Louis.

You were counted in, and your mashup of Two of Us and Miss You More began. It was one of your favorite things you’d ever taken part in creating, having input from both you and Louis, not just some producers telling you what to do. This was all you.

The last chords of the song bellowed throughout the stadium. The audience’s cries and shouts of praise filled the room once again.

You looked over at Louis, who was busy admiring the crowd, his blue eyes lit up, a genuine smile on his face. It was at this moment that you realized something; you were in love with this man.

His eyes finally caught yours, and he gestured to the crowd, who was still burning as bright as before.

You smiled and whispered, “I love you.”

You knew Louis had gotten great and lip readings he had basically mastered it.

He quickly out his mic back on the stand and pulled you into a hug, leaning down to say something into your ear, just loud enough so you could hear, “I love you too.”

—

The next day, Louis was pulled into an interview before you headed to the next location. The questions were pretty simple ones, mostly openers for him to promote the movie, but there was one question at the end that made you both smile.

“What song did you fall in love to?”

You knew the answer.

A/N: Let me know if you wanna be added to my permanent taglist! Just send an ask or a message!

Permanent Taglist: @everything-is-alrightt

[thewidowsghost]

Chapter 10 - (Y/n), Julie and the Phantoms

3rd Person POV

A little while later, the four are practicing, Luke and Reggie on bass, Julie on the piano, and (Y/n) on the drums until Alex gets back.

"One more time," Luke says, wanting to get the melody down.

"Oh, hey, Alex," Reggie says as the drummer walks through the door.

"Where have you been?" asks Luke. "We need to start practicing."

"Yeah?" Alex asks, catching the set of drumsticks (Y/n) throws his way as she walks to grab her light blue and white bass. "For what?"

At that moment, Flynn opens the door, and she and Natasha walk in as (Y/n) hooks her bass up to one of the amps.

"Dance news!" Flynn says excitedly. "I don't have a date."

"Me neither," Natasha says. "The person I wanted to ask is a little occupied. But I don't care cause I'm so psyched to see you guys perform."

"Oh man! We're playing a dance?" Alex asks.

"Of course, dude," Luke answers. "That's how we get a following nowadays.

"Yeah, get with the program, Alex," Julie chuckles.

"What?" Flynn exclaims. "The guys are here? Hey guys!" Flynn waves in the complete wrong direction.

"They're over here," (Y/n) says.

"Oh," Flynn waves again, turning the other way, and the three ghosts wave back.

"Okay, well, now that Alex has graced us with his presence," Luke says, "can we start working?"

"Yes!" Julie says.

"We're gonna rehearse," (Y/n) says, turning to Natasha and Flynn. "Wanna stick around?"

"We're supposed to blow up 500 balloons for the school dance, but this sounds way better," Natasha says and (Y/n) laughs.

"Hey, Julie," Carlos barges in the studio. "Remember those orbs in Dad's pictures?" He walks straight through Alex. "I . . . I think they're ghosts. But don't worry. This room is . . . is . . . This room is clean. I'm not getting the ghost tinglies."

"Wrong again, little dude," Reggie says, smiling at the young boy's antics.

"Have no fear. If they come back, I will protect you," Carlos promises, "because I am the man of the house."

"Aren't you forgetting your dad?" (Y/n) asks, amusement evident in her (E/c) eyes.

"There can be two," Carlos crosses his arms. "Dad needs all the help he can get, right? According to teh internet, salt burns their souls out."

Carlos pulls out a plastic container full of salt. "A little sprinkle will keep them from ever coming in here."

Carlos sprinkles the salt in front of Reggie and Luke, but some of it actually hits Alex. "No!" Alex cries, grabbing his stomach. "Oh God, I'm . . . I'm fine. I'm fine. Totally fine."

Julie clears her throat, looking at Flynn.

"Carlos, you know who's hungry?" Flynn asks. "Me. Um, salt me a path to the kitchen."

"Shall we try this again?" Julie asks as Natasha sits down in a chair beside the piano, and Alex sits down behind his drumset.

"But remind us later," Luke says. "There's some Sunset Curve songs to show you."

"Ooh! Show me now," Julie says.

'Yeah, okay," Luke walks over and pulls out his journal. "Home is where my horse is? Reggie, stop putting your country songs in my journal."

"That was a gift," (Y/n) says with a grin, sitting down beside Julie on the stool behind the keyboard, her bass slung over her back.

"Thanks," Luke hits her gently with his journal. "I dog-eared the ones I thought you would slay," he tells Julie.

Julie begins flipping through the journal until she gets to a non-dog-eared page. "Who's Emily?" she asks.

Luke reaches for the journal, "That one's not dog-eared."

"If you could only know, I never let you go," Julie reads off the page. Julie chuckles, "Wow, Luke, I didn't know you were such a romantic."

"He's not," Alex says, stepping around his drumset to stand beside Luke. "That one's actually about -"

Luke cuts him off, placing a hand on Alex's shoulder, "- no one. Uh, that's just something that I tried, and . . ." Luke reaches for the journal again. "But if you go to the next dog-eared page, I got a tune that's just . . . It's got a killer beat."

Luke begins to pluck some of the strings on his base.

"So you wanna sample?" (Y/n) says.

"What do you mean, sample?" Luke asks questioningly.

"Sample someone else's music," Julie clarifies.

"Me and my mom used to sing that song at the top of our lungs all the time," (Y/n) adds and Julie nods in agreement.

"It's a classic Trevor Wilson song," Julie tells the ghosts.

"Nope," Luke says, grabbing the journal off the keyboard. "It's a classic our song."

"Pure Sunset Curve," Reggie says. "Never even heard of Trevor Wilson."

"Maybe you're mixing it up, you know, with another song," Alex wonders.

"We don't mix up songs," (Y/n) tells Alex.

"Trust us," Julie adds.

"Me, (Y/n), and his daughter used to be best friends," Julie tells her and Natasha shoots (Y/n) and Julie an incredulous look.

"We used to hang out at their place all the time," (Y/n) admits, a hint of disgust in her voice. "We know that song."

"Okay," Alex says, sparing a glance at his fellow ghosts.

"Here," Julie pulls out her laptop, "I'll prove it."

"His first album had a bunch of hits, but non e of his latest stuff is as good," (Y/n) says as Julie turns around the laptop.

"That's Bobby," Luke says after a closer look at the screen.

"Seriously, I just told you his name is Trevor," Julie says in exasperation.

"Okay, great. Then . . . Then he changed it, all right?" Alex argues, studying the screen again. "That's definitely Bobby. He was our rhythm guitarist."

"Trevor Wilson was in your band?" Julie scoffs.

"I can't get over how old he looks," Reggie says and (Y/n) laughs.

"He looks like a substitute teacher," Alex says disdainfully.

"Julie," Luke looks at the girl. "What were his other hits?"

"Get Lost," (Y/n) says.

"Yeah, I wrote that one too," Luke says, pulling his guitar off his back.

"Long Weekend?" Julie offers.

"Yeah, Luke wrote that one too," Reggie says.

"Crooked Teeth?" Natasha offers.

"And that," Alex confirms. "It was about Reggie."

"What?" Reggie exclaims. "I thought it was about you! I don't like that song anymore," he grumbles, turning away.

"Wait," Julie pauses for a moment. "This is . . . freaking me out. Trevor's songs are kind of big to me. He's the one that introduced us to rock."

"Yeah," Alex laughs bitterly. "Luke introduced you to rock."

"So this whole time, we thought you were connected to Julie's mom, but instead you're connected to Carrie's dad?" (Y/n) asks and Alex sighs.

Reggie looks up from his seat.

"Out of all people, it had to be the one girl who had it out for me," Julie complains.

"All right, well, add it to our list of questions," Alex says.

"There's quite a few," Natasha says and everyone looks at her.

"Wait, she can see us?" Reggie asks and Natasha nods.

(Y/n) flashes a questioning look at Natasha and the redhead mouths, Tell you later.

"Back when Carrie, (Y/n), and I were still friends, the four of us used to talk about music all the time," Julie begins.

"He never mentioned you guys," (Y/n) finishes, a note of apology in her tone.

"And that's unbelievable!" Luke shouts and Natasha shifts unknowingly closer to (Y/n) in her chair. "Okay, he can take all the credit and he doesn't even mention us?"

"And he's rich," Julie adds. "He has his own helicopter."

"He has . . . He has a . . . a helicopter?" Alex asks.

"With his face on it," Natasha says disdainfully.

"And he parks it in front of that hotel?" Reggie asks.

"No, he parks it in front of his mansion," (Y/n) tells them.

"Mansion?" Reggie asks in disbelief.

"Dude," Alex turns to Luke. "We live in a garage."

"It's not about the money!" Luke says angrily. "It's about the music!"

"It's a little bit about the money though!" Reggie retorts.

"A little bit about the money," Alex agrees with his dark haired band-mate.

"He could have shared it with our families," Reggie points out.

"He's not really the giving type," (Y/n) mutters bitterly.

"Maybe then, my parents wouldn't have their house turned into a bike shack," Reggie continues.

"What his did is steal our legacy," Luke tells his ghostly friends. "Where does he live?" Luke asks angrily.

"Above the beach in Malibu," Julie admits after a moment's pause.

Luke reaches down and grabs his jacket, "Let's go teach him a lesson."

"Wait. What? Guys!" (Y/n) exclaims.

"We have to rehearse for the dance! This is our first gig!" Julie tells them, but the ghosts teleport away and Julie sighs.

"Okay then," Natasha says and (Y/n) nods in agreement, turning to Julie.

"I have a feeling that this isn't going to end well," (Y/n) tells her. "You and Flynn go track them down. I've got something I need to work on."

Julie shoots a glance at her friend before nodding. Julie runs out the door, leaving (Y/n) and Natasha in the empty studio.

Word Count: 1523 words

So yes, Nat can see our Phantoms . . . Imma explain it in the next chapter.

         Kaitlynn 😍❤️

[driverwaltz]

Precipitate

Manager!Kylo Ren x Singer!Reader

Summary: Taking up late night gigs downtown at the Starlight Lounge was always just a way to earn some extra cash. Most days you’d bartend or bus tables, but on some special days your boss, Michael, would let you act as the live music feature of the night. It was one of those nights when you met him. The dark brooding man in the corner of the dimly lit bar caught your eye and promised opportunity, but nothing could have hinted towards what he had planned for the future.

Rating: Mature. This part is tame though.

Warnings: Unfair power dynamics, age gap, eventual smut, dub-con, drug use, slow burn

Words Count: 1.7K (Ik I went overboard)

Notes: This is my first ever fanfic so pls be nice 🥺. I took the inspiration for this from a couple of songs by the band Interpol and might make a playlist to go along with each chapter. If you guys have any suggestions or constructive criticism on my writing it’d be much appreciated (and needed lol). Also, this moves REALLY slowly in the beginning, but I promise I’ll start to pick up the pace.

Part 1: Meeting place

It broke again.

The only thing that alerted me this time was Michael's voice, booming from the back end of the bar from the kitchen to where I stood near the glassware.

"The third fuckin' time this month that I gotta replace the damn martini glasses 'cause of that hunk-of-shit washer!"

It's an easy fix, he could just replace that "hunk-of-shit" once, and that way he could spare us $65 every time a set of glasses break. It would also save the poor man on the end of the line every time he calls the distributor, demanding a new dozen and a discount. I could remind him this was an option again, but I know better. No matter what I say, I know his pride will go against any sense of better judgment. So, I stay quiet. Let him go on his little tirade while I do what he pays me to do: Act sweet to an array of old drunkards who plop themselves down on the same barstools every Saturday night. After they all get comfy, I make a point to ask about their wives and how their bitch of a boss made them work overtime. At the same time, I whip up concoctions of tequila, salt, and lime for them to hurriedly gulp down and offer me gratitude. However, it's only ever through words, never an extra 15% on the tab.

Kindness in strangers. That's what I was taught. Mama kept a stack of old scripts in a wicker basket near her nightstand, and I remember rummaging through them on static summer days when it was too hot to go outside. Mama never believed in failures. She'd always tell me, "you're constantly learning and improving. Never failing, just falling — stagnant." I like to believe that's true, but I was also raised to be honest. And, In all honesty, I can't deny that Mama was a failure. She moved out to California from Georgia without telling a soul the night she turned 17. She had nothing but her new hand-me-down car, some spare cash she got from waitressing, and a small suitcase full of clothes and essentials. Her dream was to become a performer, an actress, a starlet of her generation. She tried. I know she did, but things don't work out for a reason. So, I too, was born and raised in Georgia. However, unlike how Grandman brought up Mama, I was raised off stories of Mama's journey to Tinsel Town and the people she met rather than Grimms' Fairytales. I learned how to fall asleep to softly hummed show tunes rather than lullabies. Mama never wanted to buy new children's books; instead, she would recite one of her scripts to me. When I got a bit older, I fell in love with The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, and that's when Mama told me: "Always depend on the kindness of strangers."

I blame Mama. I believe personality is a sort of genetic trait, and I definitely got all of that from Mama. I can never say no to Michael. Not because he scares me or that I'm in full agreeance with him all the time, but whenever the word threatens to leave me lips, it chokes me. Then, I swallow it back down and resume whatever I was doing. No is never an option. It was never an option in the schoolyard or in the house, and especially not during my music classes. Mama wanted me to continue whatever legacy she had crafted for herself, and much to her disappointment, I was not much of a talker, but I was a hummer. So, Mama forced me to turn my quiet hums into fully supported singing. That was the start of it all. I took up guitar after that, and stole my dad's old records and tried to replicate what I would hear. I guess that's how I started writing music, as for what I did with that music...

"(y/n), Lucy said she comin' to take o'er you're shift in a few. If you want, you can clock out for tonight," Michael grumbled from the back in a shout.

"It's only midnight. I've only been working for about four hours, and I need the money this month, so I'm okay working for a little bit more. I can help you out in the back if you'd like," I responded. I really did need the money though, Martin's been on my ass about my lease.

Michael peered at me through the kitchen doorframe for a second, "You got your guitar in your car?"

"Yeah."

"You up to play a few songs tonight? We've got a bit more business tonight."

I felt the muscles in my face pull up and tighten against my will. I hate to admit that sometimes Michael can make me smile, and he was right. I turned to the entrance and slowly, one-by-one, people started coming in and settling down.

"Yes, sir! I'll bring it out." I exclaimed while grabbing my keys from behind the counter and making my way out to my car parked at the back.

After retrieving my case from the trunk, I quickly checked my reflection on the left-hand mirror and smoothed out my hair and touched up my lipstick. I saw a man pass by through the corner and make his way into the bar. I better make tips tonight doing this.

I waltzed back into the bar and headed for the small stage in the front. It's not really a stage more than it's a glorified black stool, but I like to think it's charming and adds character. You know, mask up the patheticness of it all. I plugged in my Fender to the worn-out amps and strummed to make sure it was in tune. There were a lot of people tonight. Well, a lot more than usual, at least. Quickly, I scanned the room for comforting faces to focus on and calm my nerves. Most of our customers were gruff men, so this trick usually didn't work, but tonight was different. In the corner by a little bust made by a local artist sat a man with thick black hair. He was by no means soft. Much like the patrons, he harbored a hard look on his face, but he struck me differently. It was intense and cold. Georgia's a hot place, so I didn't mind his gaze. It was cooling and made me freeze over.

I don't know why, but I want to impress him. Plus, looking down, I saw he was wearing a polished pair of dress shoes, so I assume he's got some money on him, maybe he'll spare me a tip. I'll just play a cover. Can't go wrong with a cover.

My fingers dragged across the guitar strings and drew out the alternating chords of D7 and Am in a back and forth pattern.

"It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day... Mama said she got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge... She said Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge..."

Bobbie Gentry was one of dad's favorites. I know the country wasn't a popular choice for many people, but this is the South, and Ode to Billie Joe is always a classic, and I think the dreariness of the song perfectly compliments the tone of the bar.

I played a set and earned a couple of measly tips from it. Nothing I could complain about, I guess. It was nearly 1 am, and I was getting tired. Overtime is only worth so much, so I decided it was best to go back home. I packed up my guitar and walked to the bar counter to ask Lucy to clock for me, but before I could even rest my case against the counter, I felt a man slide into the seat next to me.

"You've gotta nice voice," he drawled out while staring at the wall in front of him.

"Thank you. I perform here almost every week."

"Is that right?"

"Yeah..." I couldn't really think of how I could continue this conversation. And, trust me, I really want to. The man was wearing a black button-up shirt, grey trousers, and that impressive pair of dress shoes. His hair was long and gelled back, and his profile was exquisite. He looked strong, and his voice was deep and rich like marmalade.

"You could work on that guitar a little bit," he deadpanned as he took a swig of whiskey. I looked at him even more intensely then and scoffed.

"Really? Can you do better?"

"I never said that. I just think, with a voice like that, the guitar should match up," he said with a playful glint in his voice as he finally turned his head towards me.

Now, I really don't know how to continue this conversation.

"Alright, you caught me. I'm not that great at the guitar, but hey, I'm a bar singer, not Paul McCartney, or something," I laughed out. He smiled, and then I felt all the blood in my body rush to my cheeks, it's a miracle I didn't fall flat on my face.

"I guess I was just expecting more," he said.

"Well, I didn't promise you anything, did I?"

He looked like he was in his late 20s, probably.

"No. No, you didn't. But, maybe you could start... for next time."

"That depends. Are you gonna give me a tip."

"Yes. When I think you deserve it," he said as his face fell flat and his voice authoritative in an odd way.

"Well, I'll probably be here next Saturday so you can decide then."

"Will do," he smirked.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Kylo," he replied in a gentle voice as he once again held his glass of whiskey up. He then raised his eyebrow, and I knew he wanted an answer.

"(y/n)."

He gulped down his whiskey, turned to me, and smiled. I wanted to say something more, I had to say something, but he stopped me before I could by getting up and walking towards the door.

"I gotta be somewhere tomorrow, doll. I'm expecting a show on Saturday," he exclaimed as he stepped out the bar.

"Don't worry... I can put on a show."

He grinned one final time before escaping out of the bar, leaving me alone with his empty cup of whiskey and a smile that doesn't leave my face the entire night.

[hearts-hunger]

I’m Happy at Home || part one

Series Summary: Your husband is one-fourth of the internationally famous band Queen, and it’s just part of your everyday to travel all over and watch their stadium shows from backstage, usually with your little boy in tow. But whatever this world can give to you, your little family is all you’ve ever needed, and you and John are always happy at home.

Part Summary: You’re hanging out backstage with the boys before they go on at their show in Montreal, and your son has all four members of Queen, especially his dad, wrapped around his finger.

Pairings: John Deacon x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: None!

A/N: What did I tell ya? Here’s the first part of that dad!deaky fic I was telling you about! I think it’s pretty cute, and it’s got lots of fluff and the boys being uncles, and later on there’s lots of cute married fluff with you and Deaky. But fair warning, I wrote all 10k+ words of this as one big thing, not as separate chapters, so now that I’m trying to break it up, some of the chapter breaks are a little sudden and weird, my bad. Also, it’s unbeta-ed, rip. I hope you like it!

“Listen close. Can you hear how it changes when I put my finger on the fret?”

Teddy watched his father’s hands in rapt attention as John played an open G followed by a C note three frets down. 

“It goes a bit higher, yeah?” John said. “Here, you try. You strum and I’ll play different notes.”

A grin lit the five-year-old’s face as his small fingers plucked the bass strings, listening in wonder as John’s right hand moved deftly over the fretboard to produce a string of notes in the choppy beat of his son’s strumming. 

“I’m playing, daddy!” Teddy said, beaming.

John smiled. “And you're quite good, aren't you? Pretty soon your uncles will be asking you to play instead of me.”

“Oh, we’d already considered it,” Roger teased, habitually twirling his drumsticks. “Little tyke’s already as good as you when you started, Deaks.”

Teddy grinned. “You’re silly, Uncle Rog.”

Roger stuck his tongue out at the boy, making Teddy giggle.

“You ought to learn guitar too, Teddy,” Brian said from the couch, tuning the Red Special.

“Don't twist it too tight, Uncle Bri,” Teddy warned. “It might break the string.”

Brian smiled, glancing up at John, knowing Teddy was most likely repeating a warning his father had given him about tuning his bass. John just smiled and shrugged.

“That so?” Brian asked Teddy.

The boy nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh, daddy said so.”

Brian chuckled. “Your daddy's right. It's not good to make the strings too tight, but I promise I'll take good care not to.”

Teddy glowed with pride that his advice had been useful, completely oblivious to the fact that nobody knew the Red Special better than Brian did. He opened his mouth to say something else, perhaps to offer more advice on the guitar, but his attention was drawn to Freddie’s entrance into the dressing room. 

“Uncle Freddie,” Teddy said with amazement, his hand falling from the bass strings. “Are you Superman?”

Freddie looked confused for a moment before he looked down at his shirt, remembering the Superman logo emblazoned across the chest. He laughed and hunkered down to be at Teddy’s height.

“Unfortunately not,” he said. “But I am friends with him. He let me borrow this shirt for the show tonight.”

Teddy’s eyes widened. “You’re really friends with Superman?”

Freddie grinned, completely comfortable with showing his smile around his family. “Sure I am, darling. And he told me to tell you that you’d make an awfully good superhero too.”

Teddy fairly beamed at him. “I can play bass too, Uncle Freddie, and be a superhero.”

“You can?” Freddie asked, the excitement in his tone showing his love for the boy. “Go on and show me, then.”

Teddy looked up at his father. “Could we show Uncle Freddie?”

“Sure,” John said with a smile. “Go ahead and play on the bottom and I’ll play on the top.”

Teddy drew his hand over the strings, looking to Freddie for his approval. Freddie smiled at him and kissed his cheek, absolutely taken with the little boy.

“You’ve got a talent on your hands, haven’t you, Deaky?” Freddie said as he stood. He gave Teddy a wink. “Not even Superman can play bass as well as that.”

Teddy giggled. “Keep making the notes, daddy.”

John chuckled. “Alright, keep strumming and I'll keep making the notes for you.”

You watched as your son continued to play with the bass slung low across his father's chest, John creating a melody from it almost automatically even as his attention was drawn to you. You'd been watching the adorable scene from John's chair that you'd claimed when you first came backstage, unable to keep from smiling as you saw your two favorite boys playing together. John smiled as he met your eyes, his own bright with happiness.

“How do we sound, Mrs. Deacon?” he asked.

You stood and came over to them, giving John a chaste kiss. “Best I’ve ever heard.”

Teddy looked up at you and grinned. “Do you hear me playing, mummy?”

You ruffled his curly brown hair, so like his father’s. “I do!” you said. “You and daddy sound lovely together.”

A knock sounded on the dressing room door; a moment later, Gerry, the boys’ tour manager, stuck his head in.

“Ready, lads?” he asked. “You’re on in ten.”

Teddy looked up at John. “You’re going to play?”

“It’s almost time,” John agreed. “You and mum are going to watch from backstage.”

“We could watch the whole show?” Teddy asked, alight with excitement. “With the lights and the explosions and everything?”

John laughed. “Explosions? Last time we tried to have explosions, Uncle Rog nearly got blasted right off stage.”

“We’re not repeating that experience, thank you very much,” Roger said, standing and tapping Teddy’s head lightly with one of his drumsticks. Teddy laughed and grabbed for it and Roger gave it to him, still twirling the remaining one.

“How do you do that, Uncle Rog?” Teddy wondered.

Roger grinned. “I’ll teach you sometime,” he said, adjusting the bandanna around his neck. “And your mum will get onto me for it.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time you influenced my impressionable son, would it, Rog?” you teased.

Roger laughed. “Hey, he’s turned out alright. Besides, could you really have expected anything else?”

Teddy tugged on the hem of Roger’s shirt with his free hand, the other holding the drumstick in the middle, turning his wrist back and forth. “Like that?”

Roger chuckled. “Close. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“And then we’ll have drumsticks flying all over the place, won’t we?” Brian said. A look of worry crossed his face as Teddy drew his hand close to his chest at Brian’s approach, looking at the guitar he held with a near fearful reverence.

“What is it?” Brian asked.

“Mummy said I’ve got to be very careful with Red Special,” Teddy said in a hushed voice. “I don’t want to hit it.”

Brian gave a soft laugh. “Oh,” he said. “Thanks for being careful. You can play it sometime if you want.”

Teddy gasped. “Really?”

“Sure,” Brian said. “Next time you come with daddy to the studio, I’ll show you how to play some, hm?”

Teddy grinned, but his reply broke off into delighted laughter as Freddie scooped him up from behind and kissed his cheek.

“Come on, you,” he said, making his way towards the door. “Let’s go see how many people are in the audience.”

“Do you think there’s hundreds?” Teddy asked, his little arms circling Freddie’s neck.

“Thousands, even,” Roger said, following them. 

Teddy’s head popped over Freddie’s shoulder. “You coming, Uncle Bri?”

Brian chuckled. “Right behind you, little bear.”

Roger threw a smirk towards you and John. “You two behave; I know Deaky’s fast, but he’s not that fast.”

“Roger Taylor,” you said, playfully aghast. Having been with John for ten years now, eight of them happily married, you were more than used to the affectionate teasing that came with being friends with the boys as close to you and John as brothers. When Teddy was born, you’d never actually had a discussion about what your son would call the boys; they’d been his uncles from the time he could talk, and they loved him as if he was their own flesh and blood. You were so thankful for the way your little boy had grown up and would continue to grow up always knowing he was loved. Roger, Freddie, and Brian were family, and you wouldn’t have had it any other way.

But with family came endless ribbing, of course, especially from Roger. You stuck your tongue out at him and he did the same as he followed Freddie and Brian out towards the backstage proper, leaving you and John alone in the dressing room.

“I dunno,” John said. He stepped closer to you, a grin playing on his face. “Maybe we ought to try and prove Roger wrong, what do you think?”

You bit your lip, unable to help entertaining the thought for a second. He did look awfully handsome in that light blue.

“Tempting,” you said. You tugged on the lapel of his black leather jacket.

“Tell me about it,” he teased. He put his hand on the bass to keep it from bumping you as he leaned down to kiss you, a little less chastely than he would have if you hadn’t been alone. You couldn’t help a sigh as he nipped at your bottom lip, his pre-show energy evident in his body language.

“Mmh, John,” you said against his mouth. “We can’t.”

He breathed a laugh. “No?”

You tangled your fingers in his curls despite yourself. “No, you’re on in five minutes.”

He took you by the chin and gave you one last kiss, quick and cheeky. He grinned as he pulled back.

“How would you feel about revisiting this after the show?” he asked. “It’s been a while since we’ve made a mess of a dressing room.”

You wiped a smudge of your lip gloss from his mouth, smiling as he kissed your fingers. 

“Too long, really,” you said. The two of you used to be positively wild at shows, fast and hungry before with nervousness and excitement, or lazy and languid in coming down from the adrenaline high afterwards. More than once had the boys caught you going at it, but the novelty of the backstage dressing room was too good to pass up. You’d only started to give it up when Teddy was born, because you’d started going to less shows and at the ones you did go to you usually had Teddy in tow.

“Who’ll we put on babysitting duty tonight?” John asked.

“Who cares?” you joked. “The boys should be able to handle him for a few minutes between the three of them, don’t you think?”

John smirked. “Who said anything about a few minutes? We’ve got to make up for lost time, Mrs. Deacon.”

“I’m with you all the way, honey, I really am,” you said, trying to keep yourself in check. “But you’re about to be making up for lost concert time if you don’t get out there.”

He groaned. “Ugh, fine, if you insist. You go ahead of me, though.”

You gave him a suspicious frown. “Why?”

“No reason,” he said easily. “I just rather enjoy the view.”

“You’re incorrigible, you know?”

He grinned and gave you a kiss. “Ah, but you like me like that, don’t you?”

You pushed him away even as you smiled. “Don’t push your luck, Deacon.”

He followed you out of the dressing room, no doubt enjoying the view like he said he would. As you came to the curtained area just off stage, though, his attention was quickly drawn to his son barreling full-speed at him.

“There’s hundreds and hundreds of people, daddy!” Teddy said excitedly, skidding to a halt just in front of his father.

“Yes, they’re rather loud, aren’t they?” John asked, raising his voice to be heard over the roar of the crowd. 

“You’re going to be even louder, aren’t you?” Teddy asked gleefully. 

John smiled. “We’ll certainly try.”

“Alright, boys,” Gerry told them. “At the thunder, you’re good to go.”

You remembered that John had warned you they were using thunder sounds to usher in the first song, a bit worried that it might scare Teddy. 

Gerry motioned to the other side of the stage. “Roger, Brian, places please.”

They gave their bandmates one final grin as they headed around to the other side of the stage they would enter from. Freddie and John looked to each other, the energy palpable between them colored by the little bit of nervousness that they would never completely shake even if they performed to crowds like this a thousand more times. They were ready.

“Say bye to daddy,” you said, gently guiding Teddy closer to you. “It’s time for them to play!”

Teddy obeyed and wrapped his arms around your leg, the noise of the crowd a little frightening for him, despite how excited he was. You had no doubt that he’d been clinging to Freddie the entire time you and John had been backstage; hopefully he’d warm up a little as the concert started.

You took John’s face in your hands and kissed him. “Good luck, sweetheart. Show those kids what real bass playing is.”

John grinned. “That’s the plan. I love you.”

You smiled. “I love you too.”

“See you in a bit, buddy,” John said, ruffling his son’s curls as he walked over to join the Freddie at the edge of the stage. You watched your husband walk out on stage to meet his brothers, all smiles and energy as they were greeted with a wave of noise that could only be described as ecstatic. You picked Teddy up and held him on your hip; suddenly the sound of crashing thunder echoed through the arena, making Teddy jump. You gave a sympathetic laugh and held him closer.

“It’s ok, baby, it’s just the sound,” you said. “Look, daddy’s going up on the steps close to Uncle Roger.” You pointed to John’s unmistakable figure standing squarely on the steps of the drum risers, wanting to anchor Teddy with something he would find exciting rather than scary. A rainbow of lights swept up the stage, catching in the theatrical smoke; after another of the artificial peals of thunder and the accompanying rise in volume from the audience, you heard the familiar wail of the Red Special as Brian began to play.

Read part 2!

forever taglist: @tv-saved-the-teenage-girl @hazah @dashlilymark

[joj-parisol]

The Monroes (John Lennon x Reader)

Summary: The Monroes are the only female band on the set list. Y/N likes Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and definitely does not like The Quarrymen. Especially not John Lennon. (shit summary I know)

Warnings: Panic attacks and vomiting (sorry) shitty writing bc I didn’t check this oof

A/N: hi sorry if it’s terrible but I’ve been coming back to this fic for about a week save me. Anyway. The panic attack is written through personal experience and I’m very sorry if it offends anyone so please don’t read of you might get triggered. I hope everyone who reads this enjoys! Imma go ahead and tag one of the best writers on this cursed site, the lovely @casafrass also that anon lol. -🥦

Get ready for some Teddy Boy John, bitches.

—————

The music courses through her veins every night. It became ritual that she would blast her solos. She had put her blood, sweat and tears into the songs they performed and Eliza put her heart and soul into singing them.

The rhythm of their own songs guided Y/N’s hips, accidentally thrusting her guitar towards the audience, earning a roar of delight. The audience was packed in every direction she looked. People were curved into archways and crowded every doorway or other persons lap. Some stood, resembling sardines in the way they were packed in with each other. They were unable to dance but they tapped their feet or swayed to the beat. It was the same every night.

Nobody could resist The Monroes. They, like their namesake, were each irresistibly beautiful. This made them exceptionally popular with their male audience. Their music was like a spell, enchanting anyone who heard it to hum, dance or sing. People were captivated by the girls, with their camp and flamboyant stage presence paired with their raunchy costumes. They were the only all-Female band and it made them popular among the younger generation of early feminists and the men who liked their ‘appeal’.

They had a friendly competition put in place with Rory Storm and his Hurricanes. They rivalled in their shock-value and Y/N once made a deal with Ringo to see who could get the most dates. Y/N has since refused to answer who won. Rory and Eliza took the competition a little too seriously. Everyday, a costume would be more dramatic or ‘dazzling’ or a new song would feature a longer high note. They had to one-up each other.

This rivalry grew tension and one night after a few complimentary drinks, Rory and Eliza stumbled out of the bar, eagerto rip the costumes off of the other. They both denied the accusations but The Monroes were staying in an old strip club and thin walls reveal all.

Though they tried, none of the Hurricanes could woo any other Monroes. Y/N loved Ringo and it was returned, in nothing more than a platonic way. The other two Monroes weren’t inclined to any Hurricane, platonically or romantically. Lucy, the drummer, only cared for the music, strippers and free booze and the bassist, Shirley, had her eyes on one of the Quarrymen.

Out of everyone in the world, she liked one of the awful, cocky assholes who played before The Monroes did. Every time they clunked off of stage, clad in leather, Y/N always felt the urge to throw something. But it was specifically John Lennon. He would stomp over in his flame patterned cowboy boots with a smug grin painted on his face.

“Try and beat that, sugar.” He would smirk at Y/N. Always her, never one of the others. He would often try to brush the hair from her face but with a sharp turn, Y/N would strut past him. He would whistle as she walked, grovelling on about how perfect her ass was. He would then slither his way over to her later that night when she’d be drinking her wages.

Y/N would chew up his lewd comments and spit them straight back in his face. Her quick wit and sharp tongue only enticed him further, much to her dismay.

Like every other day, The Quarrymen finished droning out a song about ‘Spiting all the danger’ or something, Y/N wasn’t really listening, and John sauntered off stage. His band mates poured backstage after him.

Y/N knew Paul, he was quite charming and had his eyes set on every girl that looked into his. Then there was Stu, a rather handsome man who seemed quite shy as she hadn’t ever seen him talk to anyone outside of The Quarrymen. George was the loveliest out of all five of them, he smiled at each of the girls and complimented Y/N on her solos. He shyly offered to but them drinks but he would then get bombarded with beers for being so cute. He was young and polite, with one hell of a talent for guitar. Y/N didn’t really know Pete. She just knew that once he had made fun of Lucy’s drumming talent and had received a black eye because of it.

They were headed for the bar after coming off os the stage, but when John trailed towards The Monroes, they all followed like obedient dogs. Eliza was mid way through her nightly pep-talk.

“And no matter what, I know we’ll all smash it-“

“I hear the shows aren’t the only thing you’re smashing, eh Liza? How is Rory by the way?” John interrupted, earning sniggers from his leather-clad cronies. Eliza flushed and spluttered, looking for the words that weren’t forming on her tongue. Her embarrassmentade the boys laugh harder.

“Just because Eliza is getting to shag Rory and you aren’t doesn’t mean you have to get jealous, Lennon.” Y/N spat, stepping infront of Eliza protectively and squaring up to the much taller man. The boys were stunned into abrupt silence. Y/n caught the small snort that left George. John raised his eyebrows at her.

“You’ve got me real scared, sugar, but if you keep lookin at me like that you’ll get me all worked up.”

Y/N scowled up at him and scoffed. “In your dreams, Lennon.” His dumb cowboy boots definitely added to his height. Her furrowed brows and folded arms made his grin stretch further across his face.

“Trust me, you’re in my dreams all right.” His hazel eyes gleamed with excitement. Y/N opened her mouth to snap back at him but Eliza caught her arm.

“C’mon, there’s no point talking to swine when we could be on stage instead.” Eliza glared at John and pulled Y/N away from him. She held her head up as Eliza led her away from the insufferable man.

Y/N found her guitar and checked to see if it was in tune. He didn’t have the right to say that to her. He deserved a smack in the face for even having the nerve to say that to her. He might be all high and mighty with his friends but he was actually just a big asshole who-

“Hey, Y/N, you might wanna stop before you break a string.” A familiar voice snapped her out of her thoughts. George stood in front of her smiling.

“Oh. Yeah, thanks.” The side glances she was receiving made Y/N realised she had been taking her anger out on her poor guitar.

George hesitated for a second, awkwardly crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry about John, love, he’s always that much of an asshole.” He apologised for John and despite his attempts it made Y/N’s blood boil even more. But George’s hopeful smile melted her heart. She cracked a smile and nudged his shoulder.

“Who you calling love?” Y/N teased, raising her eyebrows accusingly. A light blush rose in George’s cheeks as he fumbled to apologise. A laugh fell from her mouth.

“I’m only playing, love.” Y/N winked at the blushing boy. “Unfortunately I had to be on stage four minutes ago, so I better go.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, the crowds pretty rough today so good luck, Y/N!” George called as she walked up the stairs to the stage.

“Thanks, love.” She shouted back to him, smiling as she heard his cowboy boots click as he ran off.

Y/N joined the rest of the band on stage.

“I’m glad you could join us, your highness.” Lucy called from behind the drums, getting flipped off in return. Y/N plugged in her amp and nodded at Eliza to begin singing.

Just like yesterday and everyday before that, their music worked like a charm over their audience. This usually seemed like a blessing but today it was more of a curse. George was right. The pubs were always crowded and rowdy but this was on a whole other level. This was more than claustrophobic. The amount of people was alarming.

People who didn’t have room to dance, danced. Person after person swept through the door. A sweltering heat encased everyone it could. It was strangling everyone it could.

The lights, the body count, the lack of space and windows. Not even Y/N’s short skirt and low-cut top could save her.

Much to The Monroes’ pleasure, they had a shorter setlist that night. But as the songs got faster and faster, everything rocketed down hill. The loud, rough song with a great deal of shouting and a great rhythm took control of the blundering audience. It was as if the melody had possessed them.

Bodies moved against each other and limbs were thrown around raucously. The chaos was amplified as a fight broke out. In the smoggy room, Y/N couldn’t see the cause of the commotion but the rickety stage shook at the amount of sudden movement. The excited shouts and shrieks drowned out their music.

Y/N couldn’t even hear Eliza, though she was a few steps away. The sudden smashing of glass seemed like an alarm that sent her heart racing. The shock triggered something in her before she could control it. The sudden noise made her jump, causing her guitar to fall from her hand. She tried desperately to control her breathing and play again but her sweat-slicked hands shook enough for the neck to slip from her grip. The cigarette smoke hanging in the air seemed to choke her. Her rapid breathing made her lungs burn as she inhaled more and more in an attempt to calm down.

She was unsure if she was pulled or if she had fallen of the stage but the sea of moving bodies soon swallowed her. Her arms felt useless as she clamoured away from the crowd that she was drowning in. Her guitar was pulled away from her but her fighting was useless as she screams were swallowed by the deafening noise. Waves of nausea hit her as pungent breath and beer stink were thrust upon her. Her mind felt detached from her body as she weaves her way through the people. Elbows jolted into her ribs and people stood on her feet. Falling out of the backstage door, her trembling knees gave out and she threw up.

The cold air pierced her face, like tiny razor sharp needles pressing through her skin. Sweat poured down her face like a river. The numbing cold pavement pressed into her hands and knees, the pins and needles battling for dominance over the cold. Her body lurched until all she could do was spit and cough, dry heaving occasionally as vomit burned her throat and her nose streamed. Shuddering, she crawled on her shaky limbs to as far away from her vomit as she could get.

Holding her knees, she wiped the few tears that had fallen from her cheeks. The taste stayed on her tongue and made her wince whenever she swallowed on her dry sobs. She was too tired to actually cry, but her body seemed to be happy hiccuping and choking. Her breath would catch in her throat, the taste bubbling up her throat again and she then had to resist the burning urge to break down and cry. She may have broken down and vomited in public but that didn’t mean she couldn’t keep at least a shred of dignity. She most definitely would not cry, no matter what her mind begged her to do. The only sound was the little spluttering chokes and sobs she released.

Until there was a sudden scuffle against the pavement and a harsh whisper of “Oh Fuck.”. Y/N’s head snapped up from her knees.

There was John Lennon, looking like a very disturbed deer caught in the headlights. One of his hands was on the door, which he had fallen into thus revealing his presence, and the other cradled a half drunken beer. There was a cigarette butted out against the floor opposite Y/N.

A wide-eyed grimace painted his face as he stood in silence. His eyes were connected with hers. She had makeup, sweat and snot smeared on her face. She looked so small and cold, sweaty and shivering despite her burning skin. The sheer look of absolute repulse on his face was what made her brain snap.

The loud, strained sobs interrupted with her shallow gasps for breath made John wince. He was frozen by the door, as if he was rooted to the very spot. He dropped the door handle. The soft thunk was barely audible over her sobs.

She willed more than anything for him to leave. He had no doubt seen her throw up all over the road and had heard her sporadic attempt at breathing. He would never let her live this down so she mentally begged him to just open the door without another glance and go tell Paul and Pete everything that had just happened. She didn’t need any mocking sympathy from him. Why couldn’t he just laugh and leave? Why of all people did he have to be outside having a smoke?

Her mental begging didn’t work. John hovered by the door for a few moments. He didn’t know what to do. He’d seen girls cry before, but never such a strong one like Y/N. She was usually so sharp and cold and independent. It pained something deep inside of him to see her so vulnerable.

Her sobs hit him especially. On once in his life, John Lennon didn’t know what to do or say. He decided that the only thing he knew would be better than anything. He shuffled over, hesitating before sitting in front of her. The sheer pain on her face he caught as her head lifted ever so slightly made his heat clench. He wasn’t used to this and was quite confused as to why he cared so much. Normally, he would have just opened the door and left, but seeing her so broken wasn’t something he could ignore.

“Fuck off John.” She choked out, straining her voice. John couldn’t help but smile. Of course you would still defend yourself, even in this state.

“I’m afraid I won’t.” He doesn’t want to leave. Even if you leave, he’d refuse to let you be alone until he knew you were ok.

Words form on his tongue but none of them seem right. A few minutes of silence had passed and John knew he had to speak. His eyes burning holes into the side of her head probably wasn’t helping. He quickly spat out the first sentence he thought of.

“What happened to you?” As soon as the words left his mouth he regretted them. She looked at him, dark eyes narrowed.

“Why do you care?” She spat at him, curling into herself even more.

“I care because whilst you may hate me, nobody deserves to be alone when they’re distressed. Especially not you.” He paused for a moment. He was shocked by the sentiment that had fallen from his lips. Her eyes widened in shock for a moment but she rolled them obviously.

“You are not getting in my pants, Lennon. No matter how many cheesy sympathy lines you drop.” Y/N sniffed and snatched the beer from in front of him. She swished out her mouth and spat it out through her teeth. She shoved the beer back in his hand and raised her eyebrows, gesturing to the door. “Just go on and get some other bird to shag. I bet you’ll have no problem finding one.”

Despite her stubbornness, John refused to give in. There was something seriously the matter. Despite his other attitudes, he couldn’t let this slide. So he awkwardly just stared her dead in the eye and shook his head as she continued to gesture to the door.

“You’re right. I would have no problem getting a shag tonight. But leaving you here isn’t right, no matter how long it takes. I’m going to sit here until you tell me what’s wrong and how to help. Even if I die trying.”

She snorted at his attempt to lighten the mood and let a small smile creep onto her face. He grinned at her smile. It made Y/N realise that maybe he wasn’t as much of a pig as she’d thought.

“Can’t have you dying, Lennon. Your replacement would no doubt be much worse.” Her voice was hoarse and weak but her light joke was like music to his ears. “And I really can’t tell you what happened to me.” John frowned. “I can’t tell you because I don’t even know what happened. I just get these things sometimes. It feels like I’ve lost control of everything and sometimes it feels like I’m about to die. Like just before.” Her voice broke and her face dropped, her own words upsetting her. Tears pooled in her eyes. The sudden change of mood forced John to make an irrational decision. He shot forward before she could encase herself in her own arms again. His arms held her tight. He knew that despite how awkward everything would be later, this was the right thing to do.

He rocked her against him. Tears streamed down her cheeks uncontrollably and John brushed them away softly. He rubbed circles into her back, hoping it would soothe her sobs. He relaxed and knew he was helping when he felt her sink and cuddle closer into his chest. Her arms went under his jacket and she breathed in the oddly comforting scent of John.

“It’s alright, love, just relax.” John muttered, holding her closer. She sniveled and rested her head just above his heart. The soft thumps timed with the rise and fall of his chest lulled her tears into drying. He continued to rub circles into her back and he began to hum one of his songs. She recognised the tune. It was ‘In Spite of All the Danger’. Y/N closed her eyes. She decided she’d listen this time.

[irwintry]

The Tilt-Shift Effect

Warnings: swearing, alcohol, brief mention of drugs

Author’s Note: i think i spent too much time on this honestly i dont even know how i feel abt it

playlist

Word Count: 6.2k

–– a phenomenon in which your lived experience seems oddly inconsequential once you put it down on paper, which turns an epic tragicomedy into a sequence of figures on a model train set, assembled in their tiny classrooms and workplaces, wandering along their own cautious and well-trodden paths.

Ashton had wealth, but he ate his cereal out of two-dollar plastic bowls from Target. He owned fourteen, specifically, so he could let them pile up in the sink for two weeks before he was forced to accept the grimy challenge of washing dishes. He had the cabinet space to hold up to twenty-one, though he figured that was a bit excessive. His laziness could only be condoned for so long. If he chose to purchase more, he’d be better off hiring a maid.

Sometimes, Ashton took up weird hobbies during his downtime. His works of crochet were hung on the walls of hallways, and his ceramic mugs got their daily use through early morning coffee fixes. Once upon a time, he tried beading, and his old girlfriend received most of the precious pieces. He had to do something other than songwriting or else it would fry his brains out.

He purchased a new pair of winter gloves the other day. He lived in Los Angeles–– he didn’t need a pair of winter gloves, let alone a new one. Ashton wasn’t spending money on pointless things because he was bored of his life. No, he loved his time on tour with friends. He loved sharing moments and memories that would last forever. And then, he would be home again, cooped up in the confines of his expansive home with fourteen plastic bowls and crocheted hallways. Ashton needed his life to be fast-paced, otherwise, he’d start beading again.

A few weeks ago, he considered writing a novel. He purchased a Nalgene, hiked up whatever mountain was closest (while simultaneously sweating enough to fill his new water bottle three times), and jotted down whatever emotions slammed into his head. He was hit with nothing. The destructive instinct of tossing his journal into the deep brush overcame him, and Ashton decided that if he were to write a novel, he’d need to go somewhere a bit more inspirational than the dry mountains overlooking smog city.

He suffered from tinnitus quite often, especially on airplanes or any high altitude above sea level (to be exact). Maybe it was partially due to his career as a drummer, or maybe it wasn’t. Whatever it was, and whatever the reason, he despised the perpetual ache. It ruined any social event or interaction for the two days following, but in this case, it ruined his right to think. After packing for twenty minutes, Ashton sped to the airport, his ear already clogged from the mountain climb earlier that morning. The information desk was his first destination, and then it was wherever from there.

“’m sorry, Ash, but you’re where?”

Ashton took a glance around at the baggage claim area. So, he could take the silver line, get a taxi or a limo, or schedule an app ride to wherever he was going. It was good to know he had options. But what the hell was the silver line?

He chuckled. “I think I took a flight to Boston.”

The other end of the phone call was silent.

Truth be told, Ashton hadn’t meant to fly to Boston. He hadn’t been tremendously picky when it came to choosing the final destination, so he picked a random time off of the top of his head, and whatever flight was scheduled to board then, he’d buy a ticket. Boston it was.

“Why the fuck are you in Boston?” Luke wondered, his sentence ending with a lilt and a laugh.

Calum entered the conversation. “Are you having an emotional breakdown?”

“Did you try beading again?” Michael quipped.

Ashton had to chuckle once more. He wasn’t sure he would ever tire of his friends. “Needed t’get out of LA, mates. To clear my head.”

“So, you chose Boston?” Luke spoke up through laughter again.

“’s not a bad city,” Ashton replied. The loud buzzer by his baggage claim began to sound, and a second or so later, the first suitcase tumbled down. “There’s Cambridge, too. That place can be pretty.”

“I think Ash will make the perfect Bostonian,” said Michael. “He gives off perfect Masshole vibes.”

Ashton snorted. “Thank you, Mike.”

“Anytime.”

Ashton noticed his bag was the fourth to slide down on the conveyer belt. “So, uh, does anyone know what on earth the silver line is?”

-

There are ninety-five to a hundred billion nerve cells in the human body, and right now, Ashton could feel every single one. The safari app on his phone had close to ten tabs open purely to help him understand the train system, but then he ended up freaking out and taking a Lyft instead. He had started to realize his mistake in coming here the moment he finalized everything with his Airbnb in Back Bay (wherever the hell that was). He could vaguely remember a few designated spots him and his mates hit for yoga or brunch when they had been in the city, but they were never here long enough.

The penthouse he was renting lacked activities, but the bathroom was nice. The lighting made his pores stand out a bit more than usual, so that was another downside. Also, he was two inches taller than the showerhead. Otherwise, he loved the place. The roof would be a nice touch if the temperature outside hadn’t frozen his nips off through three layers of clothing. With a sigh, Ashton tossed his belongings to the floor and collapsed onto the couch.

So, he didn’t know why he was here or what he was going to do while he was here. He hardly made it out of the airport alive, and he assumed that, once people knew he was here, walking the streets would be a damn nightmare. Maybe he could give himself cabin fever and write down whatever psychotic thoughts came into his head. That would be an interesting novel.

Ashton didn’t know what he was thinking, but he did know that he needed a fucking beer. And, like all great cities, there were plenty of bars.

However, despite the lovely array of bars, he needed a place that was lowkey. He needed the place three blocks west in its eighteen-table glory. He needed the distance murmur of conversations from old friends and regulars, and he needed that sharp sting of tequila sloshing down his throat. What he didn’t really need, was the live performance taking place in the closet-sized underground bar, but he felt bad that the ten people in there hardly gave a shit.

Ashton listened from a small round table by the wall. He didn’t know why–– maybe it was the alcohol, but the light strum of guitar and angelic singing voice traveled through every ninety-five to a hundred billion nerves in his body. His heart connected to the lyrics, the strings plucking as if it were on the guitar. Maybe this was why he was here.

You had noticed him from the corner of your eye, though your hands only froze for a split moment before you flickered your gaze back to the few men on barstools. This was the exact reason you had to perform with a lyric sheet before you–– unexpected guests like Ashton Irwin would wander in and listen to you sing.

Truth be told, this was your first time performing in front of a big name, and you were somewhat upset you had worked through your headache to be here. It should have been a sign when your guitar took twenty minutes to tune and when two cars almost ran you over on a crosswalk. It should have been a sign when your vanilla latte from Pavement burned your tongue and made you cry.

But here you were, singing lyrics you no longer felt with a shaky voice in front of a man whose eyes were glossed over from the alcohol. At least, that was what you assumed. His thumbs darted to the inside corners of his eyes and rubbed along the water line. You absolutely could not believe it. You had made him cry.

“Uh, thank you,” you said into the mic. Only Ashton was watching you, so truly, you were thanking him. “I’ll be back soon with some happy songs, I promise.”

He cracked a smile.

You had your back turned for under a minute as you put your guitar away, and when you stood to go talk to him, he had already gone.

-

“I’ve tried approximately seventeen coffee shops in the past week, and only four of them sold bagels, and two of those four had comfortable seating,” Ashton explained. With his phone nestled between his shoulder and his ear, he darted around the kitchen, a spatula for his eggs in one hand and a bottle of orange juice (for some reason) in the other.

“And, how many of those places had good coffee?” asked Calum.

Ashton sighed. “Seven.”

“How ya gonna narrow it down, then?”

Once he set down the bottle of juice, Ashton placed his phone on the counter and pressed the speaker button. A buzz of white noise filled the large kitchen. “Well, two of the seven had bagels, and one of those had good coffee, good seating, and bagels. But the problem is, those bagels weren’t that great. So, like...”

“Life really sucks for you,” his friend replied with a quick chuckle.

“And I still haven’t figured out how the fuck to ride the train, so I’ve spent like two hundred dollars on Lyft rides because I can’t walk, and– “

“Are you doin’ okay, mate?” Calum questioned, worry lacing his tone while Ashton struggled with scraping the eggs off of the pan and onto his plate.

He thought for a moment as he turned off the burner. “I’m– ‘m not doing bad. Jus’...” Ashton sighed. “A part o’ me doesn’t wanna leave, but I don’t have any reason to be here.”

There was silence on Calum’s end for a moment as well. Meanwhile, Ashton was pouring his juice. Truth be told, it was close to one in the afternoon, and he was just now having breakfast.

“And like,” he mumbled before letting out a quick huff due to the small juice spillage on the counter, “I feel kinda stupid. Like, I literally hopped on the first flight that caught my eye. I coulda gone to Milwaukee, or I coulda gone to Paris!”

“Boston’s pretty cool,” replied Calum.

Ashton shrugged to himself. “There was this really good singer at this bar the other day. Thought she was cute n’ all.”

“Did you get her number?”

“No,” he said. “I– I left pretty quickly. Dunno. I panicked. I haven’t been back since.”

“Why?”

“Dunno.”

“You should go back.”

Ashton’s brows knotted together. “Y’think?”

Calum let out a laugh. “You’re acting like a fourteen-year-old.”

Ashton sighed.

“Yeah, go back,” his friend continued. “Why not? If she’s not there, try one more time. And if she’s not there again, go to fuckin’ Belize. Ash, ya flew to Boston on a whim. You’re feelin’ burnt out–– you want to write a fuckin’ novel for Christ’s sake, mate! Maybe it’s all a path that leads to her. I mean, ya never know if you don’t try.”

Ashton nodded as he poked and prodded at his peppered eggs with a fork. They had cooled significantly now, and his hunger was only growing stronger. “I’m supposed t’be the wise one. ‘m older.”

In response, Calum snorted and uttered out a meek “yeah, right.”

“I’ll– I’ll go back tonight.”

And, Ashton did. His stomach twisted tightly as his long legs took him in quick strides across bridges and down busy streets. He kept his head down the entire time, his thin sweatshirt hood loose against his untamed hair (he hadn’t thought to put in the energy). The cold bit, and he figured he would have to invest in a nice winter coat from some store down Newbury. He heard it had a lot of nice stores.

The bar was quiet again, the same few guys still situated on their stools as if they hadn’t left in six days. He paid for a beer – didn’t matter what kind – and stalked towards the same table he had sat at before. Everything was the same, but you weren’t there, and he assumed you wouldn’t be. For a second, he hoped he had gotten the time all wrong, or maybe he had imagined the whole thing. Moments later, his beer had gone down a few centimeters, and you were rushing down the stairs with your guitar case on your back and a music stand in your hand.

“Sorry, sorry Stewart!” you yelped after banging the shoulder of one of the men at the bar.

“Jesus, Y/N, you don’t have t’rush,” he joked, but you continued on hurrying to get your things set up. “We’ll be here all night.”

You huffed. “Well, how ya gonna have an enjoyable night without me?”

Someone else chuckled. “I’ll drink to that.”

So could Ashton. His heart rate had tripled since you raced in wearing your cute bee socks. He hoped the flush of your skin meant more than the freezing temperatures outside, but he wasn’t entirely confident you had noticed him sitting there until you were situated on your stool.

“You missed out on the happy songs,” you said as you – to his surprise – gazed over at him. “That’s okay. I’ve got a few more in store.”

Ashton didn’t cry often when it came to happy songs–– he truly thought his reactions to music were pretty conventional. Somehow, you were able to evoke more emotion than he even knew he had. His beer had more tears in it than alcohol by the end of your set. He wondered why no one had discovered you yet, but then again, you fit perfectly in the position you were in: playing for only him to listen.

He wanted to do what Calum suggested. He wanted to talk to you and personally get your name without having to know it because he overheard it from Stewart. For some reason, every ounce of confidence that Ashton had spent years developing in the music industry stood no chance in comparison to you. He darted as soon as you smiled his way.

-

Ashton had burned through four bottles of Naked juice by the next evening. It was his compensation for hardly having a thing to drink at the bar simply because his brain chose to be infatuated with you for that short amount of time. Also, he bent the shower head by accident, and he almost locked himself on the roof last night when exploring.

In the morning, he had briefly forgotten where he was. There were ten texts from friends awaiting him as he fumbled with the coffee machine in the kitchen, and most of them had something to do with him flying across the country to a city that hardly mattered a thing to him. Ashton chose not to answer any of them. He didn’t owe anyone an explanation for his decisions; however, he felt as though he owed you his ears. You deserved to have someone who cared about your music.

You, on the other hand, had been hoping and praying that the previous night would run smoothly. Ashton had no reason to show again, and you assumed he had only been in town briefly. And then, he hid in the corner once more, eyes trained hard on you as the tears threatened to spill. You had to blink a few times to make sure your mind wasn’t playing tricks on you. This man played arenas holding thousands all across the world. You played for your roommates and middle-aged drunkards in a bar with a maximum capacity of thirty. He should not have been there.

Though the nerves were still there as you played through John Denver covers and original songs that would only see the inside of the bar, it was nice to have someone new listen in. It was numbing to only play for Richard, Frank, Steve, and Stewart. Now there was Ashton, the famous drummer who somehow found his way to Boston and somehow wandered into the same bar you played at a few times a week. Had someone filmed you and posted it online? Was he here pretending to be a talent scout?

You needed to know. But Ashton was good. In that same minute you were putting away your guitar, he slipped out again.

So, you figured he wouldn’t show anymore. Nobody of great importance stayed in Boston long enough. And then, he did show. For the third time in a row, Ashton was giving you his full attention, and you weren’t sure how you felt about it. He showed a fourth time, and then a fifth. A whole two weeks had passed, and he was still showing up.

By this point, you convinced yourself that it was a-look-alike.

Ashton, meanwhile, was convinced that you were the reason he was here in the first place. He didn’t know if it was the cute giggle that escaped your lips when you slipped up on the chords, or the crinkles by your eyes once you let yourself get lost completely in a song. Or, maybe it was the precious pout you wore when there were mic difficulties.

It was possible he had become a bit too hooked.

“What even is there to do in Boston?” asked Luke while Ashton was busy avoiding ducks and squirrels by the edge of the pond. A part of him considered dropping his phone into the shallow waters, but his friends needed to know that he was doing okay.

“Uhh,” Ashton glanced around, the dead leaves and bundled-up strangers catching his eye. Truly, he should have picked Italy or something. “Ride a train. Eat food. Yell at cars.”

Someone cackled on the other end of the call. “You make me sad.” It was Michael.

“I’m fine,” the dirty-blond answered, “truly. It’s about Christmas time, so the lights are really nice. Depends on where ya go but things are like, kinda calm here. And, there’s this bar– “

“Jesus, Ash, have you even talked to her?” asked Calum.

“Well, no, but– “

“Her?” It was Michael again.

Ashton frowned. “Well there’s– uh, there’s this– “ He kicked at a few stones and watched them tumble into the water. “Girl.”

A chorus of ooo’s and laughter filled the receiver before Luke spoke up and said, “All right, Ash, buddy. What’s she like? Satisfyin’?”

“I-I haven’t even talked to her yet.”

And then, there was a moment of silence.

“She plays at this bar,” Ashton continued, “a few times a week. And, fuck, she’s like if Sara Bareilles and Phoebe Bridgers had a baby or somethin’. ‘m probably the only person in that joint who gives a flyin’ fuck about her. She’s so beautiful.”

“Well shit, Ash,” Michael interjected, “what’re you waitin’ for?”

“That’s what I told him!” Calum shouted.

Ashton didn’t know. He didn’t know after the phone call ended, and he still didn’t know on his walk back home. He thought about you too much to not give this a chance.

At home, he thought about you while making dinner or shaving his beard. He thought about you when coming up with strategic ways to get around the city without being seen. He thought about you once he finally figured out how the train system worked. No matter what, he thought about you, the cute girl who sang her heart out for people who only talked over her.

He wondered if you thought about him, too. There was no possible way you hadn’t noticed his presence–– you locked eyes too many times and it made his heart flop every damn time.

Ashton would spend the walk over to the bar thinking about what sweater you would wear that night. Would it be blue or red? Would it fit perfectly or leave enough room for another human to cuddle underneath? You took your shoes off when performing, so he began to think about what socks you would wear, too. The blue ones with cats? The frilly white ones? The rainbow ones with dinosaurs? His smile grew wide as he climbed down the stairs to the small bar.

Tonight was the night he would talk to you he decided. He couldn’t fall into the habit of coming and going, especially when he truly wanted to talk to you. Somehow, those billions of nerves held him back.

Ashton sat at a table closer to the tiny stage. You were in the middle of a song when your eyes glanced down to his figure, and he swore you could see his cheeks burning hotter than the neon sign beside his head.

“Hey stranger,” you said after the song had ended, and you sent a wink his way. “This next one is dedicated to you.”

His mouth fell open, but he quickly covered up the expression with a long sip of his beer. It was like you knew how to win him over. A few chuckles sounded the bar from behind him, but he couldn’t take it upon himself to care as your nimble fingers strummed a melody that felt like pure honey in his ears. Your voice was what made it sweet.

It was possible the small bit of alcohol that made the fuzz in head travel down his spine. The bubbling in his chest was an artist, for the smile it etched on his face was unlike no other he had felt. Ashton couldn’t imagine the sensation of actually speaking to you face-to-face.

“Thank you to my– my number one fan,” you mumbled shyly with the prettiest smile that could send anyone into a euphoric state. Your eyes were gentle as they peered down at him, and he swore his heart had taken a flight to Milan by now.

You turned around to pack your things, and Ashton had to restrain himself from fleeing like he typically did every time. Usually, he was better at this. He could talk to anyone back home without a single ounce of anxiety, but now, his feet did most of the talking. So, he imagined that he was stuck butt-first in cement and stayed still.

He didn’t know that you would nearly drop everything when you turned to see him there. Ashton fought free of his invisible restraints so he could rush over and help gather your lyric sheets, but he didn’t know he would be so shaky doing so. He hadn’t been this nervous since the first ever performance with his band.

“S-shit, thanks– thank you,” you sputtered, clearly flustered from the accidental mishap. You began to lightly laugh at yourself as you crouched down, and he admired that. “’m a bit clumsy.”

“Is that your name?” he asked and cracked a smile. “A bit clumsy?”

Maybe you had blushed, maybe you hadn’t. Or, maybe it was the few lights shining directly on the two of you from above the small stage. “Uh, n-no. ‘s Y/N.”

He smiled and nodded, reaching out his free hand to shake your own free hand. He knew your hands would be soft despite the guitar callouses, but he hadn’t realized how badly he wouldn’t want to let go. “Ashton.”

“Yeah,” you replied hazily, then your eyes widened before you rose to your feet. He followed suit as you stuttered out, “I-I mean yeah, I– shoot. I mean I know who you are, it’s just– “

“Y’okay?” He grinned. So, he wasn’t the only one who was nervous. That was good.

You nodded. “I’m– I’m great. Just confused.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well...” You shrugged and placed the sheets of music back onto the music stand. “You-you're not exactly a Boston native. And, you keep comin’ to this bar.”

“Cos’ you’re talented.”

“And– wait, what?”

Ashton’s smile grew. You truly did have more confidence on stage than you did in person; it just meant you were destined to perform. “I keep comin’ back to hear you. I like your stuff. I like your voice.”

You gazed up at him, cheeks hot, and you were desperate to get out of the harsh lighting you had been sitting in for close to a half hour. Behind him, the folks at the bar were chatting and gazing back occasionally at the two of you. “You’re... wow.”

“You’re really good.”

“Th-thank you,” you replied, “so much.” The smile had yet to escape you, and it was possible that it had grown larger. “Um, so why-why are you in Boston? Of all places?”

It hadn’t occurred to him that you would ask that question. Surprisingly, in the past two weeks, no one had. He went a few days without getting recognized altogether, but he knew he’d have to answer questions at some point. But, for now, he shrugged. He didn’t know the answer. “Spontaneous adventure.”

You chuckled. “To Boston...”

He laughed a little, too. “Yeah, to Boston.”

-

The simple question of “can I walk you home?” could only go so far. Ashton hadn’t insinuated anything, and you didn’t think he had either. But if both of you were honest, you didn’t want to say goodbye just yet. So, you told him to “hold tight” as you raced up to your apartment to drop your things off. He was in the same spot where you had left him, hands deep in the pocket of his pretty-penny coat that had a hood the size of Canada.

“Y’sure you don’t have plans?” he asked you, letting out a puff of air through the frigid night. Ashton didn’t mind the cold as long as he spent it with someone to preoccupy his thoughts. You were well-qualified for that–– he couldn’t think of anything else but you and the way the lights in the trees reflected in your eyes.

“It’s eight-thirty on a Thursday night,” you said. “Normally, I’d be in bed by now.”

Ashton let out a chuckle, and he couldn’t believe that he could have had this last week. You admitted that you had been hoping he’d stick around after all this time, and ever since that moment, he tried not to mental curse himself.

“Walk fast,” you muttered to him. “My favorite coffee shop closes in an hour and a half.”

You were taking him through parks and vacant neighborhood streets, and he was grateful. These were shortcuts he hadn’t thought to take himself. Besides, he’d rather enjoy them with you anyway. You hopped off of curbs, kicked stones in your path, and jogged across large fields whenever the two of you came upon one. He had never met anyone who found such joy in the little things, and he loved that about you. The night was cold, but you were happy.

Were you happy because you were with him?

Ashton tried to enjoy it as much as you (well, he did enjoy himself, but he preferred watching you enjoy yourself–– it meant more to him anyway). Watching the way your eyes lit up as a few snow flurries fell from the sky was enough to keep his mood steady for the next few months.

“If we get coffee fast,” you said, “we could go to the MFA. I mean, like, you would have to pay unfortunately because I get in for free, but– “

“The MFA?” Ashton asked you as the two of you turned a corner. Before he realized, you were walking up a few steps and opening the door to the coffee shop you told him about.

“Museum of Fine Arts!” you exclaimed before greeting the baristas in the small establishment. “Can I get a small caramel latte with almond milk and a molasses cookie, please? Both to-go”

He grinned, still watching you intently as if you were made of pure gold. Everything you said was drenched in it. Ashton didn’t know how to not fall for you. He pulled out his wallet before you could and handed the person at the register his credit card as he said, “small cider for me, please. Also to-go.”

“Excuse you,” you gasped, and then you pouted, and Ashton thought he was going to lose his shit. Either that or his cheeks would fall off from smiling so much.

“You worked hard tonight,” he said. “You deserve it.”

You rolled your eyes. “Dummy.”

Ashton liked the fact that the two of you spoke to each other as if you had been friends all along. It felt natural, and that only made him more nervous. If it felt natural after only knowing you for a few hours, he couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel later on.

“Want some?” you asked, holding up the molasses cookie as you both began in the direction you came from. “It’ll change your life.”

“Uh, sure,” he replied, pulling off a bit of the cookie before placing it on his tongue. Ashton had never been a huge fan of molasses, but he didn’t mind it all that much. Nevertheless, he nearly moaned at the taste just to please you. “That’s crack,” he joked before taking a sip of his cooling cider. “MFA time?”

“You wanna go?” you asked with a small gasp. “You still wanna spend time with me? I’m shocked.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think tha’s a crime. You’re talented and fun to be around.”

“Half of the world is jealous of me,” you said.

“Yeah, well,” he sighed, “luckily, half of the world doesn’t know about you yet. Once they do...” Ashton didn’t want to think about you becoming overwhelmed with personalities and fans. He liked you here. He liked you now. And then, he realized he said yet. But you didn’t notice.

“I can only imagine,” you huffed through a mouthful of cookie. “Dunno how you’re able to get around here without strangers proddin’ into your life.”

“Ah, I’ve recently developed ninja skills,” he said. “And, I’m also Spider-Man, so I can jump from building to building. Oh, and I’m a mermaid, too so I can swim across the Charles if I need.”

You winced, and you even made an euughhh sound before saying, “I wouldn’t even stick a toe in the Charles if you dared me for a million dollars.”

Ashton felt his laughter deep in his chest, and he hadn’t expected it to echo as the two of you prepared to cross the giant field once again. And when you danced your way across the turf, he gladly held your belongings so he could slowly catch up to you. He was amazed that you felt no sense of embarrassment, but that made him even happier. It just meant that you were comfortable around him.

He didn’t mind paying for his ticket whatsoever–– he would spend all of the money in his bank account if it meant never leaving your side. You showed him all of your favorite pieces, like Dance at Bougival by the artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (who, according to you, was definitely one of the best Impressionist painters), and you took him down to the Ansel Adams exhibit. That was his favorite part in particular; it was the kind of photography he wished he could create.

Most of all, Ashton didn’t mind standing back and admiring you from afar as your eyes scanned the wide canvases before you. He wanted you as close as possible, but he could appreciate your beauty in full this way.

“Do you smell potatoes?” you wondered aloud at one point, and truly, he did smell potatoes. The smell hit both of you before the sounds of whatever event was being held did. Soon after, you could hardly hear your thoughts over the band and loud chatter. “C’mon,” you said, taking his hand and pulling him down a large hall, “I wanna see if we can crash.”

Your hand was in his. Your hand was in his, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Your smile grew as you followed the blaring music into a great big hall. There were servers and chefs darting behind dividers, and from the middle of the room, you could see down into where the event took place. People were dressed to the nines as the band in the distance played a song he recognized from Notting Hill.

“Art installation,” you gasped, tugging on his hand. Meanwhile, he was trying to figure out a way to intertwine your fingers with his. “Do you think I could get them to let me in by wooing them with my magical voice?” you joked, giggling as your entire face lit up with laughter.

Ashton nodded. “You could woo them with your smile, darlin’,” he replied. The next moment, he managed to wedge his fingers in between yours, and you didn’t even think twice about it. Your eyes sparkled while you tried to sneak up further to catch a better glimpse at what was happening.

“Well, you could woo them with your smile... darlin’,” you said, shooting him a wink.

Ashton finally decided that Boston hadn’t been a bad idea after all.

-

“I’m not tired,” you replied despite yawning midsentence. “Promise. It’s only– “ You checked your phone. “It’s only two in the mornin’.”

“Bedtime for me, sweetheart,” Ashton chuckled. “But believe me, I don’t want this night to end either.”

You sighed, wrapped your arm around his as you rested your head on his bicep. Ashton felt the need to thank you for this. He felt warm around you, and not just because you were leaning into him. He had developed feelings for the idea of you during the past two weeks of witnessing your lovely performances, but tonight, he had developed feelings for the actual you. It was quite possible that you had as well.

“Where ya stayin’?” you mumbled against him.

“I have an Airbnb on the next street over from here,” he responded as he glanced down at your tired self all cuddled against him. It made his heart got berserk. “But ‘m gonna walk you back to your place.”

“You don’t have t’do that,” you said.

Ashton shrugged lightly. “I want to.”

You sighed again, letting your head fall back against him as he pulled you closer (if that were even possible). The two of you walked in comfortable, sleepy silence down a few more blocks and over avenues. At one point, he swore you had fallen asleep, yet your feet were still walking as normal with him blindly guiding you along. He didn’t recognize where he was whatsoever, though, within a few minutes, the two of you reached your destination.

“Hm, we’re here,” you mumbled, blinking rapidly before rubbing your eyes.

“So we are,” he said, mostly to himself as his brain sped through countless options as to what he should do next. Would he ask for your number? Would he tell you he’d see you again soon? Ashton didn’t know what to do, but the moment you stepped closer to him, he knew he needed to pull you in for a hug. He needed your warmth, and you gladly accepted his. And when you began to pull away, you stood high on your toes and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“See you tonight?” you asked, a lazy smile forming on your features as you slowly backed up towards the front door to the building.

He grinned, grazing his cheek with his fingers as he muttered out a satisfied, “see you tonight.”

-

Ashton started his novel the next afternoon, the words finally hitting his brain in just the right places as they found their home on an empty word document. He wrote and wrote, his fingers hardly feeling the repercussions of the endless typing, and before he knew it, it was time to see you again. A part of him wanted you here with him as he wrote–– maybe you were the inspiration he needed all along.

And when he walked into that bar he now knew all too well, you were already there to greet him with a smile so big, any satellite in space could see it. Ashton knew he would be head-over-heels from the get-go; however, he hadn’t expected to fantasize about stupid things like taking road trips or late-night kisses. They weren’t stupid per se, though they weren’t his typical fantasies. Sure, he had a hard time showering without thinking of you, but that made him feel guilty. He could bite his fist and pull his hair all he wanted, and he’d still wonder about how you liked your eggs or what your favorite color was.

He took you out to eat afterward, both to congratulate you on another fabulous performance and to make it known that this did, in fact, count as a date. He had even let the word slip out once or twice, hopeful enough that you would catch on and not feel uncomfortable. You made it clear that you were enjoying yourself nevertheless. You wouldn’t be playing sugar packet Jenga with him otherwise (at least, that was what he assumed).

An hour or so later, he was walking you home again. Instead of you reaching up to kiss his cheek, he bent down to kiss your lips, and the world felt okay once again.

[ohblackdiamond]

the end of the world tour (kiss/endgame crossover, r) (part 3/4)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

In this chapter: Training continues, sans Rocky montage. Peter gets some answers courtesy Gene and, maybe, Ace. Prepare the preparations.

Or, four washed-up former rockstar superheroes don the spandex of old in a last-ditch effort to save an already half-gone world. They just need a little support from a billionaire who’s not too keen on KISS interrupting his private life. Somewhat Endgame compliant.

Two days later, the visitors started to arrive.

Peter couldn’t exactly call them fans. He didn’t think they were fans, exactly—he didn’t think more than half of the younger ones even exactly knew who KISS was. But they started to creep up to the yard, phones in hand, eager for even the barest hint of superheroism.

The other guys were eating it up. Even Ace, who wasn’t quite as introverted as Paul but still relished his time alone, started showing the visitors around the backyard like it was some kind of grand tour (unsurprisingly, the only sacrosanct portion was his spaceship, roped off as if it were the Venus de Milo—“’m sorry, you can’t touch it, but if you wanna stand over there and take a picture, you can”). He only looked mildly taken aback when a couple of the visitors got brave enough to go from sneaking around the yard to actually knocking at the front door.

“Don’t let them in,” Pete snapped, watching Ace get up on automatic to answer. Ace only offered him a lazy shrug.

“Why not?”

“You know why not. We’ll never get rid of them.”

“They ain’t gonna stay, Peter,” Ace started, interrupted by Paul hurriedly half-tripping down the stairs, having to grab onto the railing. The six-inch, star-encrusted heels of his Alive outfit seemed to be giving him trouble.

“Don’t answer it yet!” he called out, looking from Ace to Peter. “Don’t answer until you’re in costume!”

“Paul, you vain bastard—”

“I’m not being vain! You’ll ruin the mystique!”

“What’s the point? They all know we’re old!”

“That’s not what I mean! Ace, how the hell is anyone gonna have any faith in us saving the world if you answer the door like that ?”

Ace shot a brief, amused look Peter’s way just before a puff of blue smoke obscured him from sight. A second later, Ace emerged, in the facepaint and a purple, velvet onesie.

Paul looked as if he were about to have an aneurysm. 

“ No ! That’s not even one of our outfits! How did you—”

“Don’t have to be. You can do any outfit you wanna.” Ace paused. “C’mon, Paulie, you didn’t just think we were stuck with the tour shit, did you? What kinda superhero only gets six costumes?”

The rapping from the other side of the door continued.

“Oh, come on, are you telling me if I want my black leather overalls back, all I have to do is—”

“I dunno if I’d recommend ’em, Paulie, but—” Ace stopped again, yanking open the door. “Hey, how you doing?”

The kid at the door—he couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, by Peter’s reckoning—seemed to mostly be his dwarfed by his own mass of curly red hair, his face plastered with freckles. He just stared at the three of them, mouth a small round o of surprise.

“I didn’t think you’d open it!”

Paul was mumbling under his breath, gesticulating to Peter with about as much subtlety as a conductor during Handel’s “Messiah.” Transform , he was mouthing. Peter ignored him.

“Well, we don’t always, but…” Ace trailed, grinning. “How’d you hear about us, huh?”

The redheaded kid shrugged.

“Somebody at school said you were supposed to be fixing everything.”

“Yeah?” Ace’s expression didn’t shift a single centimeter.

“Uh-huh. They said you were gonna be the Avengers’ secret weapon and they’d pulled you out of the freezer like Captain America.”

Peter glanced over at Paul, who was still standing halfway down the staircase. From Paul’s expression, it was patently clear that the sheer amount of interviews, meet and greets, and impromptu hobknobbing he’d endured over the last forty years was all that was keeping him straight-faced.

“We didn’t get pulled out of the freezer,” Paul managed after a moment.

“I guess he didn’t,” said the kid, pointing to Peter. Before Peter could respond, but not before Paul and Ace started to snort, he continued. “Are you, though? Are you guys really gonna do it?”

“We—”

“I got a sister,” and the kid wasn’t looking at either of them now. Peter waited, expectant, a rock forming somewhere in his gut. He knew the story before the kid could tell it. He was sure of it. Just as sure of it, just as uselessly sure of it as he ever had been during their cancer ward visits. The kids all hoping just because KISS had come by, that maybe everything was going to be all right, even as they lay there hooked up to IVs and a half-dozen machines. Even as they lay there dying. The kid swallowed. “She… wouldn’t be coming back even if you did save everybody.”

“I’m sorry.” It was Paul. He’d said it before Peter could. He wasn’t looking the kid in the eye, either, Peter noticed. Just staring at the door directly behind him. Peter’s gut was lurching. He’d been wrong. She hadn’t disappeared from existence. She’d died before. 

The kid didn’t say anything for a few seconds that seemed to stretch and pull like taffy. Ace’s lips were pursed so tight the black of his lipstick seemed barely-there. The cloistered existences they’d led the last five years, trying so hard to avoid pain when it enveloped everything around them. Everything past them. Consumed in their own grief, unable or unwilling or both to really acknowledge the real human toll of it for fear it would break them. Everyone on Earth had lost someone. Some had lost everyone. And some just watched as the ones left behind followed after.

Peter was almost starting to get it. Some of it. For Gene and Paul and Ace, FER probably hadn’t only been an exercise in talisman abuse and easy lays. Stupid as it was, hedonistic and disastrous as it was, trying to make a life in a dying world… it must have warmed them. It must have made them feel good for more than just the afterglow.

“I’m gonna see her again someday.” The kid finally glanced up from the floor. “Not for a long time. But I will.” An exhale. “You’re gonna try, right? You’re gonna try to fix everything.”

“We’re gonna try,” Peter said, throat feeling warm and thick and too-heavy. 

“Okay.” And he was starting to smile, dimples pushing into the freckles on his face. “That’s good.” He hesitated. “Oh, uh…”

“Yeah?”

And he pushed his phone forward.

“Could I get a selfie? The kids at school won’t believe me unless I get a selfie.”

It might have been the most questionable selfie Peter had been a part of in his life.

“I told you to get in costume,” Paul mumbled as he held up the phone for the picture, putting his free arm behind Peter’s shoulder on idle default, “but no —”

Begrudgingly, with that utterly inevitable puff of green smoke signaling everything, Peter got into costume. Well. He got into the cat-embroidered jacket and cutout leotard he’d worn when it was too cold to go sleeveless. The kid’s eyes went buggy. Paul looked deeply offended. Ace just snickered.

“None of us match at all,” Paul said flatly.

“I don’t care. Take the picture.”

“Fine.” Paul was still fiddling with the angle, unsurprisingly, tilting his head as he stared at the camera. Peter waited for about fifteen seconds—fifteen seconds too long for Ace, who snatched the phone from Paul and snapped the picture before he could grab it back. Paul looked as if he were about to snag it back, or at least argue, but instead he just let Ace hand the phone back to the kid—after leaning over to inspect the selfie first.

“It pass inspection, Paul?” Ace lilted.

“It’s good enough,” Paul muttered, before turning his attention back to the visitor. “Anything else you’d like? Autographs? Posters?”

The kid nodded shyly, and Paul immediately scrambled for merchandise. For once, Peter was profoundly grateful Gene was gone on an errand run. The man might have tried to sell the poor kid some of those KISS-branded air guitar strings he still had in the basement.

--

Things quieted down faster than Peter had expected them to. A few weeks of buzzing activity, a few weeks of impromptu, free meet-and-greets, and then the visitors retreated again. Fickle. No attention span. No second tidal wave of KISSteria overwhelming their half-gone world. Peter found he didn’t really mind. Workouts and training were a lot easier to focus on without being stared at or recorded. 

He’d spent an hour or so downstairs, fiddling absentmindedly at the piano, digging through old memorabilia and guitars, before coming back up to the main floor to start on dinner. His assigned day again. Gene was the only one hanging around the kitchen by the time Peter got there.

“Where’re Ace and Paul?”

“Trying to fix the spaceship.” 

“They getting anywhere with it?”

“I doubt it. Ace didn’t get out the blowtorch.”

Peter snorted in reply.

“Three more months, he said. S’like how he used to say his next album was coming out in the spring. Only it was ten springs in a row, the lazy bastard.”

Gene shrugged.

“I can’t remember the last time he asked one of us to help with it.”

“I wouldn’t want us helping with it. C’mon, Gene, none of us have any business fooling with that shit when we barely know how to top off the oil tank in the car.”

“What’s gotten you so pissed-off this late in the afternoon?”

“You know what.”

“Peter, I really don’t—”

“Things are getting screwed-up again,” Peter said dryly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The connection bullshit’s back just like it used to be. Don’t you feel it?”

It was a moot question. Of course Gene could feel it. That weird bleeding in of everyone’s emotional states into a messy, almost indistinguishable puddle. Getting so in-tune it got creepy, borderline empathic. It was the one thing about their crimefighting days that Peter hadn’t missed much at all.

“I’m feeling it.”

“Somebody’s keyed-up as hell. And it’s not me, so it’s got to be either you or Paul or Ace…”

“It’s probably Paul.”

“Paul’s always anxious! What’s he got to be so nerved-out about?” Peter groused, yanking the trash bag out of the garbage can, tying it off, and setting it down on the floor. “Shit, I thought he might be feeling better these days.”

Gene shrugged.

“He’s sensitive.”

“Ace is, too, the big difference is he has a sense of humor about it,” Peter grumbled, heading outside with the trash bag in tow, still calling out to Gene as he toted it out. “I don’t like feeling antsy just because someone else is antsy. I’ll tell them both that as soon as they get in.”

“Don’t do that. There’s probably a reason.”

“Reason, my ass. My blood pressure’s high enough without Paulie dialing it up with all his fucking feelings.” Peter returned, only to find Gene had, surprisingly, replaced the trash bag while he was out. “What’d you want for dinner?”

“Do we still have any of that steak left?”

“Yeah. Probably enough for a stir-fry.” Peter opened up one of the cabinets by the stove, taking out a cutting board and a frying pan. Wok , he could almost hear Paul correcting. If it got the job done, the proper terminology didn’t matter. Mentally, he started to tally the vegetables they had on hand to toss in. Onions, peppers… maybe some mushrooms. He wasn’t after authenticity so much as getting rid of as much produce as possible. Boil up some rice, and it wouldn’t be a bad meal.

“Brownies would be good, too.”

“I didn’t buy any mix.”

“I did.” Gene dug it out of the pantry, along with a bottle of oil. Peter rolled his eyes.

“You know none of the workouts we do in costume do a damn thing for any of us out of costume, right?”

“I know. I just don’t care.” Gene was already taking the egg carton out of the refrigerator, absolutely shameless. Peter shook his head slowly, watching Gene set the ingredients out on the counter. “Figure we’ve earned it.”

“You’re gonna get diabetes, man.”

“I’ll live to be a hundred. I’ve got great… genes.” Gene said it with his usual dry, obnoxious self-assurance, familiar enough that Peter had long stopped minding it. He expected Gene to get out a bowl next, but instead, he went and plugged in the record player on the other side of the kitchen. Peter could hear him cross over into the living room, and knew he was probably pilfering through their records. “This’ll help your blood pressure. What album do you want?”

“Anything that isn’t us.”

Gene nodded, walking back into the kitchen with a ratty copy of the Beatles’ Yesterday and Today . Peter winced.

“Okay, anything that isn’t us or the fucking Beatles.”

“Best two names in rock and roll.”

Peter rolled his eyes. Gene set the album down on the kitchen table, still looking at Peter, which was a bit of a surprise. Peter had expected him to dig out another album and put it on the player, regardless of his opinion on the matter. But no, he was waiting on Peter to pick.

“One of the Krupa records is fine.”

“All right.”

Gene crossed back over to the living room, got another album out, and put it on the turntable. Peter recognized it after the first few bars as Burnin’ Beat. He sighed and retrieved the leftover steak and vegetables from the fridge, started to chop the steak into strips while Gene began mixing up the brownie batter. Peter’s arthritis wasn’t treating him half so badly this evening. 

It was always a different kind of silence with Gene than it was with Ace or Paul. Strangely easier to handle. Gene wasn’t off in an avoidant, self-inflicted orbit like Ace, or stuck chronically ruminating like Paul. Gene was always thinking ahead. Always moving forward. Sometimes it aggravated the shit out of Peter, and sometimes it was just what he needed to be around.

“The talismans expose the true selves of the holders,” Gene said finally, as he poured a frankly disastrous amount of mini M&Ms and broken-up Hershey bars into the batter. “Did you ever give that any thought?”

“No. Not until the last couple months.” Peter shrugged. “I didn’t think about it back then. We’d been doing the makeup before we got the talismans.”

Nothing Gene didn’t already know. They’d mapped out rough designs themselves in a desperate bid for a gimmick. Something to get them noticed. The regular genderbending schtick they’d tried before, with the four of them in heavy blush and eyeliner and lipstick, hadn’t suited anyone but Ace. They hadn’t looked like they were tearing down the establishment, blurring the lines between male and female, any of that—they’d just looked sad. Putting on the white greasepaint had been the turning point they needed. The talismans just sealed the deal.

“I’ve thought about it a long time.” Gene’s voice, always quiet and deceptively even, got a little lower, as if there was any likelihood Ace and Paul could hear him from out in the backyard. “It’s a great origin story. Struggling band gets magic powers, becomes successful superhero musicians. But…”

“But what?”

“When your true self wears more makeup and higher heels than Frank-n-Furter, that’s concerning.”

“Like Stark’s Iron Man crap is any better.” Peter crooked a smile. “He doesn’t even have a codpiece.”

Gene snorted. He only looked marginally more at ease.

“That’s not exactly it.” He paused. “We were still wearing the outfits and makeup five years ago. Paul and Eric and Tommy and I.”

“Yeah, I know.” God, did he know. Peter didn’t even remember—or didn’t want to remember—when he’d signed over his makeup rights. He hadn’t been thinking about crimefighting then. None of them had. He just remembered disgust roiling in his stomach as he’d watched the band go on without him for the second and then the third time in a fucking row.

“It was getting to me. Getting to all of us—Paul won’t admit it, but…” Gene trailed uncharacteristically. “It was starting to feel like a parody.”

“ Starting to?” Peter snorted. Gene, surprisingly, didn’t look too ruffled.

“Yeah. At first, I thought I was fine with that. We’d been running off nostalgia since the nineties. If people were still paying to see us, who the fuck cared if I wasn’t stomping around anymore? If Paul wasn’t jumping all over the stage? Who—”

“Gene, the only reason either of you stopped that was because wasn’t turned into couldn’t .” Peter tossed the steak into the frying pan, started to chop the mushrooms, just dropping them into the pan, not bothering with the cutting board. “Didn’t matter how many tickets you sold. You couldn’t buy your way back to ’76.” 

“That isn’t what I meant.” Gene’s eyes, always so appallingly focused, weren’t on Peter for once. “Fuck, if dignity was in KISS’ vocabulary, we would have folded our first concert in drag. I didn’t care about getting old and looking like crap onstage. I didn’t want to buy my way back to ’76.”

“Then what did you want?”

“Shit, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“I wanted to hang it up.” Gene was pouring the batter into the pan now, smoothing it over more than he needed to with the back of a spoon, his mouth pursed tightly. He hadn’t even taken a taste of it yet. Peter knew exactly how poor a sign that was.

“You’ve wanted to hang it up before. You even said you would. Remember the Farewell Tour?”

“ Really hang it up. No more KISS, no more concerts—I was tired of it. Maybe Mick Jagger can keep on croaking ‘Satisfaction,’ but—”

“But Paul can’t get through ‘Detroit Rock City.’”

“Don’t tell him that. It’d kill him.” 

“He already knows it.” Peter paused. Started chopping up the peppers and onions and dropping them into the wok, which was hissing with every new addition. A thought had come to him, one he’d mulled over for ages, but hadn’t dared mention until now. “Gene?”

“Yeah?” Gene had finally put the brownie pan into the oven.

“Was that the real reason for all the Hall of Fame crap? Was that why we didn’t play?”

“Peter,” Gene started. 

“It was, wasn’t it? Why the hell didn’t you say so? I thought it was just the usual bullshit. Don’t let me and Ace play with you and Paul or everyone’ll be begging for another Reunion Tour. If I’d known—”

“That—”

“You should’ve said ! Did we really hate each other that bad? Was Paul that fucking scared of what we’d say? Were you?”

“Peter, at this point—”

“If you’d said, I might’ve understood. But Christ, Gene, just refusing without a reason was fucking awful. I didn’t wanna see any of the rest of you outside of a funeral home ever again.”

“I’m pretty sure we were all thinking that.” Gene sounded as if he were trying to force out a snort. “Even Paul and I didn’t coordinate suits.”

“The hell did you two have to be sore about? Did you insult one of his paintings?”

Gene just shrugged.

“We’re basically brothers, we have our disagreements.”

“Cut the crap, Gene, Paul ain’t ever been your brother. He’s your princess.”

“Fine, whatever.” The Krupa record slowed to a stop. Peter peered over as Gene turned it over and set the needle back down. “What happened at the Hall of Fame was a mistake.”

“You’re damn right it was.”

“But I didn’t get to dwell on it. We were in the middle of touring when…” Gene swallowed thickly. Peter knew he wasn’t about to detail him and Paul’s falling out. When without a specification always meant five years ago. Another four-letter-word for half of humanity disappearing in front of them. “But I figured it out before then. I’m serious, I really did. I was out there doing the fucking ‘God of Thunder’ routine and all of a sudden…” Gene shook his head, looking almost bewildered. “I realized I could not give less of a shit.”

“You? Are you serious?” Peter did snort. “C’mon, you’ve gone onstage sick as a dog before, don’t tell me you—”

“I’m serious. It was terrifying. You don’t—” Another shake of his head. “The audience wasn’t feeding me anymore. I wasn’t feeding them. I realized that the show didn’t really become a show until we stopped believing in it. I’d stopped believing in it.”

“So what changed your mind?” Peter turned down the heat on the stovetop, absently pushing a spatula through the stir-fry. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Gene had gotten out the soy sauce for him. “What made you believe in it enough to get the talismans back out?” 

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Gene hesitated. Rare to see him hesitate. He looked as if he were about to deliver another practiced interview sermon, and Peter prepared himself for it, but it didn’t happen. 

“I wanted to see for myself. Prove there might still be some magic there.” His lip was twitching. Peter shifted closer as Gene continued. “After everything, I needed it. But I didn’t want to get them out alone, I don’t know why. I suppose I was just afraid of nothing happening.”

“You really thought nothing would happen?”

Gene raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing had happened since ’80.”

“Nothing at all?”

“They’d just glow a little sometimes. I didn’t expect that much, but I was hoping for it. So I asked Paul to come up to the attic with me. I said I was wanting to look through some old pictures, maybe get something together for a KISS coffee table book—”

“And he believed you?”

“Of course not, but he came up there. Once I pulled out the box, he didn’t hesitate. He told me to go ahead and open it up.” Gene’s mouth twitched. “They were glowing, all right. They hadn’t been that bright in years. I’m not sure which one of us reached in and grabbed his talisman first.”

“Then you decided after that to join FER?”

Gene didn’t look too abashed.

“Yeah, I found an article on it a few days later. I showed it to Paul, then we told Ace, put in our applications and started in, then you found out, and the rest is—”

“If you say KISStory, you’re not getting dinner.’

“That’s fine. I’ll just eat the brownies.”

Ace and Paul returned a few minutes later, after the stir-fry was done but before the brownies were ready. They both looked weirdly drained, almost down, Paul stiffly pulling out his chair and sitting at the table without a word.

“How’s the spaceship?” Gene asked.

“Outlook not so good, Curly,” Ace mumbled, walking over on automatic to the sink, retrieving the bowl Gene had used to mix the brownie batter in. He started scraping a spoon up the sides, seemingly unaware that Gene had, for once, actually half-filled the bowl with water and dish soap, even if he hadn’t washed it. Paul threw him an acrid look. “But we’ll see, y’know?”

Peter didn’t bother to plate the stir fry, just put the wok itself on top of an oven mitt on the table. He did the same with the rice bowl a moment later. No need to clean more dishes than he had to.

“We’ll see,” Gene agreed, glancing Peter’s way. “Look, if you want us all to help, just let us know.”

“Nah, Geno, it’s—” Ace had put that first absentminded spoonful of water, batter, and suds in his mouth, and immediately spat it out. “ Shit! ”

Gene barely suppressed a laugh.

“Sorry—”

“Jesus,” Ace mumbled. “You usually just leave it in the sink and don’t fill it up…” he trailed, dropping the spoon back into the bowl and heading over to sit at the kitchen table across from Paul.

“If you didn’t get anywhere with the ship, what were you doing in there?”

Paul looked like he was about to say something, but then he just reached over and spooned out some of the stir-fry from the wok, staring at the vegetables like they had personally offended him. Peter had to swallow back a spiteful comment—God, Paul probably thought he’d overcooked the onions or some stupid shit like that—but then Ace piped up again.

“Well, we talked about flying. ’S kind of the one thing we still haven’t tried yet.”

Gene nodded, checked the brownies, and then got his plate, scooping up rice and the stir-fry in generous portions. Peter followed suit, a little warily, taking his usual spot next to Ace.

“Flying would give us one over half the Avengers.” Peter glanced over at Gene, trying to gauge his reaction first. For all his fear of heights, Gene barely flinched. Consummate professional. Or maybe he was just thinking about the brownies.

“Yeah. We’ve been putting it off too long.” Gene stuck a forkful of rice in his mouth. “Let’s review the tapes after dinner and start practicing tomorrow.”

“Review the tapes? C’mon, Gene, we’ve been doing that for ages! You just don’t wanna—"

“I do want to. First thing tomorrow.” Gene took a swig of water. Peter’s gaze went from Gene to Paul and then over to Ace, and he shook his head.

“You mean it?”

“I mean it. I’ve even got the equipment ready.”

---

“Gene, when you said equipment, I thought you meant a bungee cord.”

Gene just grinned widely. Gene’s idea of equipment had been a whole lot more useless.

Gene’s idea of equipment had been lugging the trampoline out of the garage.

And as good as it was to get an excuse to peel off their six-inch heels, and as entertaining as it was to jump on the trampoline, Peter had to admit it wasn’t getting either of them airborne. But it was giving them an excellent vantage point to watch the other two.

“We could be trying it up there.” Peter gestured, maybe unnecessarily, to Paul and Ace, who were perched, and arguing, on top of the third story roof. “You hear them, right?”

“How could I not fucking hear them,” Gene mumbled.

“Pauuuulieee. C’mon. You trust me?”

“We’re almost fifty feet off the ground!”

“It’s like with a baby! You put ’em in the pool and they’ll have to swim!”

“Ace, how the fuck did you ever have a kid—”

“Same way you did. Well, sorta.” Ace started laughing, shaking his head. “Relax, man. Just relax. You’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine. Look, if we’re about to crash I’ll teleport us both back down, okay?” Peter couldn’t see it from where he was, but deep down he was sure Ace was winking.

“I don’t see how he talked Paul into this,” Gene said.

“They’ve been hanging out more lately.” Peter wasn’t sure why. They hadn’t made another room switch or anything. Then again, Paul and Ace hadn’t ever had any major row between them, either. He managed a backflip, to his own surprise. “And they knew you were going to wuss out.”

“You’re not up there, either.”

“I will be once they get it,” Peter retorted. Right now, the scene on the roof was too entertaining to miss. Paul was wobbling slightly on the roof, grabbing onto Ace’s arm in an attempt to steady himself. Unfortunately, and predictably, Ace was wobbling, too.

“Ace, c’mon, this was a bad idea, let’s—c’mon, man, just teleport us back do—”

“Uh-uh, Paulie. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“You do know I’ve had my hip replaced twice, don’t you?”

“I thought it was three times.” Ace was laughing. Worse, he was swaying. Paul hanging onto him was only making them both more off-balance, teetering towards the edge of the rooftop. But Ace was talking just as easily as if they were safely on the ground. “Two makes more sense. I always wondered how the hell you could break a titanium one—"

“I didn— fuck !” Paul screamed, clutching Ace with both arms as they fell off the roof together. Peter and Gene scrambled off the trampoline, running out to catch them—stupidly, neither of them had thought they’d need to—only to watch them swoop down, and then hover, six or seven feet from the ground.

By that time, Peter was pretty sure that Paul’s face at least had probably gone almost as pale as the greasepaint. He watched as Paul slowly loosened his grip on Ace and then let go entirely, eyes wide, smile spreading even wider as he realized he was still in the air. They both were.

“Ace, we—I—”

“See? I told you!” Ace was letting himself sink down further, barely hovering more than a few inches from the ground before landing in front of Peter and Gene. “I told you, just like a baby.”

“Gene! Gene, look, I’m doing it!”

Gene still had his arms out, hovering half-remembered, as if part of him still thought Paul was about to fall. He didn’t get a single word out before Paul dove down straight toward him, gathering Gene up in his arms and lifting him into the air with him, gradually higher and higher, laughing softly, excitedly. Peter half-expected Gene to start screaming, or at least be clutching Paul for dear life, but he wasn’t. The higher up Paul took him, the more relaxed Gene seemed to get. The looser their grip on each other became. Gene’s arms went from around Paul’s waist to up around his shoulders—then, finally, just as it was getting harder for Peter to get a detailed look, Gene caught Paul’s hands in his own. 

Both of them flying now.

Peter watched them, shaking his head a little, for a few seconds more. They’d land eventually. It took him a bit—it took Ace tugging at his sleeve—before he looked down again. There was a weird winsomeness to Ace’s expression, almost a longing, that made something in Peter itch and ache all at once. But then it faded nearly as soon as it appeared, and Ace’s old, sleepy-eyed grin was back on his face.

“Your turn, Cat. Get your heels on.” He winked. “Don’t worry, I got a whole other rooftop for us to jump off of.”

--

Ace had teleported him as soon as he'd yanked on his boots. Peter knew where they were almost before he’d opened his eyes. Almost like a bottom of the barrel sense. Or maybe it was just the connection bullshit, letting him dig into Ace’s mind without even wanting to. But Peter didn’t think that was all of it. He could recognize this place anywhere. Anytime. The oldest of their stomping grounds as a band. Jimi Hendrix’s old studio in Greenwich Village. The Electric Lady .

They’d never done a photoshoot on the roof or anything. There wasn’t even much physical evidence left that they’d been there at all, besides the records themselves. Just a couple photos from their own albums, mostly, that had gotten scattered like confetti across the internet. Photos from those early, early recording sessions, when they were four nobodies that occasionally drove cabs and taught school and fought petty crime. When they weren’t much better than four kids.

The memories themselves were so intoxicating they were painful. It wasn’t just where they’d first recorded. It was where Peter had first met up with Gene and Paul, before he’d even auditioned for KISS. That made the Electric Lady almost sacrosanct even when he felt most embittered about the band, about the guys. And he wasn’t alone in his sentimentality. Gene and Paul had continued to record there occasionally in the early eighties, too, unable to avoid their own nostalgia.

Peter sat down on the roof, letting his legs dangle off the edge. Ace did, too, swinging them back and forth over the side like a little kid. They sat there in silence at first, watching the people, the traffic. The old, harried energy of Greenwich Village was gone. The weirdness, the newness. The hope.

“It’s not like it was,” Peter said finally.

“You think it was gonna be?”

“No, but I wanted it to be.”

Ace crooked a small smile.

“Y’know, back… aw, hell, it was probably five, six years after the Reunion tour… I was talking to Bobby.”

“You made up with him after that shitty book he wrote?”

“Kind of. It went sour again, dunno.” Ace paused. “Anyway, I was talking to him, and he said to me, he said, ‘Paul, you won’t believe it, I climbed a telephone pole the other day.’”

“The fuck did he do that for?”

“That’s exactly what I asked him. Word for fucking word.” A short, eerie laugh. “He said, ‘to prove I still could.’ He had to’ve been at least fifty then… fifty and climbing telephone poles. I thought it was stupid. But here I am, sixty-eight and—”

“Sixty-eight and flying is pretty good, Ace, I gotta say.”

Ace laughed a little longer.

“Yeah, well. S’like with anything else, all I need is a little motivation.” He was starting to lean his shoulder against Peter’s, just a bit, casual and easy. Pointing at the people going by, the cars going by. “It could be the same. You just gotta squint pretty hard. Get rid of the gentrification and shit… stick the kids in bell bottoms…”

“Can’t do it.”

“Sure, you can.”

“It’s gone, Ace. Can’t bring it back.”

“You can try.”

“Nah. Don’t it make you wanna go home, now,” Peter half-sang under his breath, “don’t it make you wanna go home—”

“All God’s children get weary when they roam,” Ace kept on with the old Joe South chorus, tuneless as always, “God, how I wanna go home… didja have that record, Pete? I had the 45 way back …”

“Lydia’d only give me a three-buck allowance, Ace, what do you think?” Peter laughed quietly. 

“Three bucks? You told me it was a dollar-fifty, man!” Ace shook his head. “Shit, and poor Paulie always bringing you by sandwiches back then ’cause he thought you really were a starving fucking musician—”

“Hey, I didn’t ask for those—"

“I know. He was real sweet. Still is, you just gotta give him a minute to relax.”

“Or five years.” It came out more aggressively than Peter meant it to, and he glanced away, staring at the streets beneath them. Half-full like all the rest of the world. Even the cars looked dismal. None of that toked-up brightness he remembered, none of that hope. The part-time cabbies replaced by Uber drivers, the flowerchildren turned geriatric and bitter with the passage of time. He shook his head.

“Don’t take that long. Just takes being gentle. Gene’s always been real gentle with Paul.” Ace said it without any real rancor. Just matter-of-fact. 

“Gentle, my ass. You mean he lets Paul do whatever the fuck he wants. Fucking bends over for him anytime, every time—”

Ace snickered.

“Didn’t used to—”

“Jesus, Ace, don’t remind me.” Peter winced as if the memory of it was really so awful. Or awful at all. He’d never actually witnessed that much out of Paul and Gene back in the seventies. They’d been about as exclusive as rabbits in heat, anyway. What they’d had, what they still had, Peter didn’t envy. “Doesn’t it piss you off?”

“Nah.” Ace shrugged. “Wouldn’t know what to do if somebody treated me like that. I used to think Gene was trying to make up for something, y’know?” 

“He is.”

Ace shrugged again. Peter let the silence hang in the air for a moment or two before changing the subject.

“Hey, Ace?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s say this all works out and we bring everybody back. What’re we really gonna do after? Where are we gonna go?”

“Jen—”

“No, really.” Peter paused. His throat felt sticky. “Where are we going to live?”

“Pete, we both got a couple million in the bank, we ain’t gonna be homeless—”

“I know we ain’t gonna be homeless, but we ain’t all gonna be living under the same roof anymore, either.”

Ace’s brow started to furrow up.

“I dunno.”

“What if Paul and Gene want to move back to Beverly Hills with their families? We couldn’t afford it out there.” The disparity between their incomes hadn’t been a big deal in five years, with all their relatively communal living. Especially at first, Gene had taken it upon himself to cover most of the expenditures. Then, once Paul had his bearings back enough to at least glance at legal documents long enough to scribble his signature on them, the two of them had mostly split everything in half. Everything but groceries and gas, really. To Peter, it hadn’t felt like they were living off of someone else’s charity, not at all. But in the real world, in a world back to the way it was… “What we’ve got here is gonna go away.”

“Nah, it won’t.” Ace sounded more self-assured than Peter could readily believe. “You think all it’ll take is us not living together to split us up? Shit, Peter, before the last couple years, we only lived together on the road, and—”

“That’s different, though!”

“’S not.” Stretching out, Ace looked over at Peter, brown eyes focused laser-sharp on his face. “We don’t all got a bond because we’re all in the same house. We don’t got a bond because of the talismans, either. We got a bond because—”

“I know.”

Ace’s lips pursed.

“I—”

Peter reached a hand out, catching Ace’s before he could finish. Ace’s expression tensed, then started to soften, slowly, almost imperceptibly. He nodded, and before long, they both stood up, there on the roof of the Electric Lady , there in six-inch heels and leather, hands still clasped.

“You ready, Cat?” Ace started to smile. “I got you no matter what.”

“’M not afraid of heights,” Peter muttered. “You wanna do a countdown?”

“Nah, you make the time—”

“One, two—three—”

Peter felt the brief, awful lurch of falling for hardly a second at best. Then he was hovering, buoyed up by—he didn’t even know. All he knew was the sharpness of the breeze searing through his skin, blowing back his hair. All he felt was that wonderful weightlessness, that ease, trickling down his spine, heady as a glass of champagne. Unreal. 

Ace’s hand tightened around his.

“You gonna fly, Peter, or are we just gonna hang around here?”

Peter only yanked him up with him. Ace’s cackles seemed to soar to the heavens, up and up as they flew higher. Story after story. The people below, and then the buildings, got dimmer and dimmer, blurring out beneath them into pavement gray, each skyscraper like a glittering stalagmite pushing up to the surface as the afternoon sun shot through.

[missblissy]

Title: Homeless at Home Fandom: Red Dead Redemption Genre: fanfiction, chapters, angst, reader insert, fluff, slow burn, friends-to-lovers, pre-game Characters: Young!Arthur Morgan, Dutch Van Der Linde, Hosea Mathews, Arthur Morgan/ Reader, Female reader, Arthur x Reader, Arthur Morgan x Reader, Arthur/ You, Young!reader Chapter: One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six || Seven || Eight || Nine || Ten || Eleven

Follow me on AO3!! Read it there too!

((Next chapter is up! More will be coming soon!! Let me know what you guys think will happen next!! Things are about to get hella crazy!!))

The summer was perfect. It was warm, it was breezy, it rained little to none. Since Hosea’s return, the gang and life seemed to revert back to normal. Dutch and Hosea were back to running out of the camp every morning, with Arthur joining on occasion, and coming back with whatever money they could make by the evening.

Bessie, Susan, and Annabelle worked tirelessly to keep the camp organized, stocked, and cooked every meal. Everyone had chores. Everyone had to do their part for the gang, even Uncle who cared for the horses, and you finally started to contribute on a regular basis too.

At the beginning of summer, when Hosea came back, you begged him to take you hunting every morning. He seemed happy enough to take you out and he enjoyed the company. You started hunting close to camp, you stayed in the area and took from the closest resources. You had only known how to use a handgun at first, and you never got anything larger than a small and underfed turkey that was about the size of a chicken. Squirrels and rabbits were the only other things on your list animals you’ve killed.

You could remember that first summer you spent with Arthur and Hosea in the open desert. You remembered how awful it felt to take the life of another living thing. Now with another summer coming at hand, you were barely fazed by the bang of your pistol or the little cries of death that escaped an animal when you killed it.

Somewhere in the middle of summer, after several weeks of hunting with Hosea, you started hunting alone and straying further and further into unknown country sides and forests. Hosea had given you a long yet still small cattlemen repeater. It was perfect for your short size. You had upgraded from killing small animals to medium ones than to large ones very quickly. You spent a lot of time in the forest, not just hunting, but also collecting herbs and wild fruits and vegetables that grew in the area. And so the gang had started to depend on your for food.

There was one day, just a few weeks ago, where you slept in and forgot to go hunting. Dinner that night was sad and pathetic and everyone ate canned food around a fire. Miserable and tried, with a side of attitude at the lack of a good meal, not many people stayed up that night and complained quite a bit. You knew then that you were no longer a child.

Your 14th birthday was only a handful of months away and as you grew older you started to notice not only your role in camp changing but your also your body and feelings.

You were becoming more moody and quick to anger. You were stronger than ever before. You took down a doe for the first time this summer. Lifting up that doe was like lifting up a bag of paper, you tossed it onto Callus’s rear end and tied it down with ease. You had grown taller too, it was easier to climb onto Callus and Arthur didn’t seem like a giant anymore.

Speaking of Arthur, he took great pleasure in pushing your buttons and teasing you relentlessly, though he always made up for it when he went overboard.

Today, however, you wanted to yell at him for stealing your boots. You knew it was him, you left them in a pile under your bed, and this wasn’t the first time Arthur has hidden your things.

You stomped through the camp, barefoot and sour-faced. You found Dutch and Hosea sitting at a table looking over a large map and many papers. You hurried over there and stole their attention, “Where is Arthur!?” You asked with harshly knitted brows.

They shared a look then laughed, “Stole your boots again, huh?” Dutch asked with a sympathetic look. He glanced down at your feet then held back a petty laugh.

“Why does he do this?” You wined while throwing your arms dramatically, “Why do you let him!?” You then pointed a finger at the two older men.

“You’ve got to learn to fight your own battles, girl,” Hosea gave you a pat on the head, “I think I saw him running around with that old dusty guitar down the beach,” Guitar?

When did anyone ever have one of those and where did they hide it?

You left the old men to their battle plans and headed for the stone and pebbled covered beach. Your heart sank in your chest and you grew cold. How on earth could you make it across the beach without your boots? You took one step and felt the pain of a pebble dig into your foot. There was no other option though. You had to do this.

Each step opened a new gate of hell on to you. You thought over time you’d just get used to the pain but it never got better. You gazed down the beach and looked around for Arthur. As far as you could see he wasn’t anywhere around. But then you heard something. Soft and out of tune strings of music drifted to your ears. It didn’t take long to find him then. Arthur was hidden further down the beach where it turned into massive rocks stuck and cluttered together. He was well hidden behind boulders bigger than a house, on a little hidden sandy beach.

You wanted to tackle him and demand your shoes but your curiosity was greater than your rage. He didn’t seem to notice you were there either. You took great pleasure in sneaking around the boulder he leaned on and jump out from behind it, letting out a loud and terrible scream.

Arthur jerk away and the guitar in his hands lunched from his lap and several feet away, he screamed just as loud until he realized it was just you.

“God! Dammit!” He glared at you while you started laughing in fits of giggles that bubbled from your chest.

“That’s what you get for stealing my boots!” You retorted quickly, “I got you good,” The soft sandy beach melted away the pain from the stones and you didn’t seem so mad about your boots anymore. Though you still wanted to find them, “Where’d you throw them this time?” You asked as you picked up the guitar.

“Uncle’s got ‘em,” He replied casually as you handed him the instrument.

You sat down on a rock in the middle of the little beach and let out a groan, “Uh! Why?! Why did you do this to me!?” You knew you’d have to trade something with the old man to get them back, and he’d probably ask for whiskey.

Arthur got comfortable against the rock and just shrugged as he tried to play the guitar again. He wasn’t that good, “Don’t put frog eggs in my boots,” Huh… you did do that, didn’t you?

The memory came through suddenly and you remembered how you filled Arthur’s boots with swamp water and frog eggs for stealing the last of your candy stash. You shook the memory away and declared that you were even.

“What’s with that?” You pointed to the guitar Arthur was having trouble with.

He shrugged again, “It’s Susan, can you believe?” He dodged your question like a pro.

So you asked more clearly, “Why are you playing it?”

Arthur didn’t say anything for a few minutes and he sat there almost frozen. You watched him look at the ground, his eyes dashing around before he glanced at you then shrugged yet again. What was with all the god damn shrugged?

“Girls like guys who can play guitars,” He finally said.

Excuse you? You looked at him, squinting your eyes then tipped your head slightly, “What? No they don’t.”

He shook his head and gave you this bug eyed look, “Yeah they do,” He sounded so serious, like he was a professional on this topic, “They love this shit.”

“Pft!” You let out a winded laugh, “And you think this is gonna make them like you?” You rolled your eyes then crossed your arms, “You really don’t know a thing, do you?

Can you even play it?”

You put Arthur on the spot again and he didn’t say anything for a while. He mumbled something under his breath that you didn’t hear, “Huh?” You called out like an old deaf woman, “I can’t hear you!”

“No!” Arthur barked back, “Well!” He paused and looked around while fumbling on his words, “Not really! I can a little bit… I just…I don’t know any songs…” Something about all that made you laugh harder than you ever have before. Your brought your legs up and crossed them under you while your hands held tight onto your feet, “The virgin boy is trying to seduce women with an instrument he doesn’t know how to use!” You laughed and laughed, rocking back and forth on top of your rock. Just because you were 13 didn’t mean you knew how the bees and birds worked. That was another change you noticed in yourself, you were becoming more vulgar.

Arthur’s face burned bright red and he grabbed a stray little rock in his hand and got ready to whip it at you but he knew better than that. He just scared you instead and threw it inches past your head and into the lake at your back, “Shut up!” He was really mad… or embarrassed… or both.

If you were older you might feel some kind of pity or maybe sympathy for him. But you stopped laughing at him and decided to be nice, “I know a song you can play,” Arthur looked at you with a raised brow, “My mother use to sing this to my father all the time, maybe you can find a girl that likes listening to it?” You said and he gave you another odd look, “Can you play this tune?” You started to hum and sing out a few notes while setting a tempo by lightly tapping your hand onto your knee.

He watched you then fumbled around to try and play by ear. It was a simple tune so it was easy but he still wasn’t the best and it took him several times to get it right. You felt a warm and lifting feeling grow in your chest at the sound of just hearing that tune again, and you hadn’t even got to the song. In your head you could hear the sound of your mother’s voice singing along to the music as your father would play on the few instruments you had in your home. It was something your parents loved doing together, they loved singing for some reason. Your home was always full of songs and music and dancing.

You were glad that you could look back on this memory and feel pride and love and nostalgia instead of pain and depression. When Arthur had played the tune enough times you took in a deep long breath then tried your best to sound good.

“Oh, darling, if I take your hand Will we travel far out West, far across the land! Cuz anywhere is home with you, I'll keep on going til the air is new,”

A smile had climbed onto your face as you remembered the words to the song. It was uplifting and quick, joyful and fast paced. You wanted to dance, but you stayed put on your rock and choose to sway back and forth little by little.

“It's the land and trees I desire! Smoke leaks from your mouth, cuz your heart is on fire! But your travelling song is not like mine, Our paths are different but we'll meet up in time,”

As you sang to the song it was easy for Arthur to keep up, this guitar thing wasn’t as hard as he first thought it was. And the song you choose was sweet and heart felt, it was perfect. There had been the girl in the post office that had his attention. Her name was Heather and she was sweet enough to give you a sugar rush. You had an awful first meeting with her, but the more and more Arthur kept hanging around this poor girl the nicer you grew and put up with her.

“Cuz I'm a weary traveller, you're an aimless wanderer, I'm cautious and I'm wary, you're reckless and you're fairly, Impulsive and unruly, we're bound to meet up surely in due time. Our stories are forever entwined. My babe's got green-brown eyes. But who can keep track, cuz they're changing all the time My eyes are as blue as the sea We'll keep on running 'til we're as far as can be,"

You had this memory in your mind as you felt the words leave your lungs, you could see your mother and father sitting together on the front porch of your home as you sat between them. The three of you sang this song and you could see the love between your parents as if the song was theirs and held a different meaning you just couldn’t quiet understand. Arthur started to mumble along to the words as you sang the chores again.

“As you head down south I'll go east, We'll follow our hearts cuz we're both at peace! But I know it's not our fate, To suffer through a good old fashioned heartbreak! Cuz I'm a weary traveller! You're an aimless wanderer! I'm cautious and I'm wary! You're reckless and you're fairly! Impulsive and unruly! We're bound to meet up surely in due time! Our stories are forever entwined!”

Smiles spread across yours and Arthur’s faces as the song came to an end and he stopped playing the songs melody. A moment passed there where you both stayed there and shared small chuckles. The warmth of the summer blew past you in the wind and you felt freedom trail off you and into the breeze. Arthur set the guitar aside and leaned as far back as he could against the rock, “You said your ma use to sing that song?” He asked. You slid off the rock and paced your way over to the abandoned guitar. You sat in a little grassy patch about a foot away from Arthur and nodded your head. You ran a finger over each string, “Yeah, she loved singing,”

“So did mine,” Arthur was staring up at the white cotton clouds as the drifted on by, “I don’t remember what she use to sing, or what her voice sounded like,” He paused then narrowed his gaze slightly, “But I know she had a beautiful voice, she had the most beautiful voice in the world. I don’t have to remember what she sounded like to know that. I could remember thinking it all the time as a kid how her voice was my favorite thing to hear.”

At that moment you could see a new and fresh pain scatter across Arthur’s face. The pain he felt was raw and hurt in a way it never hurt before. Something in him broke, and he could feel the child inside him cry out. He sat there, upset and stuck in his own head with a sour look on his face until your voice broke him from his own chains.

You weren’t sure what to say or do, “We should head back to camp,” You wanted to get him out of here though and get his mind on something else, “Dutch will probably have something for you to do by now,”

He didn’t say anything. Arthur silently stood up and waited for you to join him at the edge of the little hidden beach. You followed him then stopped in your tracks. The pebble battlefield stared back at you and fear wriggled into your spine, “Arthur-” You reached out and grabbed him by his wrist before he could walk away. He stopped and stared down at out without a word, “Carry me,” You didn’t look at him, you kept your eyes on the beach.

When your grip on his wrist grew tight enough for him to get annoyed, he yanked himself free from your hand, “Fine,” He sounded much more depressed than he looked.

Arthur got down onto one knee and nodded his head, “Get on.”

A silly smile slapped your face and you threw the guitar around your shoulder as the strap held it in place behind you. You threw yourself onto Arthur’s back and wrapped your arms around his neck as he locked your legs in his arms. He got up with ease as if your added weight meant nothing. Either you were lighter than you thought or he was getting stronger than he looked. Regardless, you felt a giggled swell in your belly and you laughed out as Arthur gave you a piggyback ride to camp. Perhaps your laughter was contagious, or maybe hearing your laugh made him feel better, but Arthur’s own low chuckle mingled with your chirping giggles.

“You should give me piggyback rides more often!” You held tight onto him and enjoyed watching the pebbles passing under you.

“No way!” He shook his head once then did his best to look back at you, “I’m only doing this cause you gave me that song to use. I’m gonna need you to write that down by th-” Arthur’s words got cut off as you started to strangle him with your arms, tightening around his neck.

You had a snotty little look of pure evil as you loosened your grip after he stopped walking, “At least say please,” You said as he caught his breath and dry heaved a few times. And how nice of him, he didn’t even drop you, there was still a lot of beach to cover.

Instead, he hiked you up higher on his back and carried on. He even muttered out a, “Please… can you write that down?” Then cleared his throat to cover the fact that his voice sounded like shattered glass.

“Sure, after you get my boots for me,” Confronting Uncle was the last thing you wanted to do. He would annoy the ever life out of you.

“Nah,” Arthur drawled, “You can take care of that yourself,”

“What?!” You were ready to ring his neck again, “At least…. Help me!” Arthur shook his head slightly as he cleared the last stretch of the pebble beach. You expected him to drop you like a sack of potatoes but he carried on and towards camp.

“Nope,” Arthur’s voice had some hidden tone to it. You could hear the snicker building up in his chest.

Suddenly you didn’t want to be piggybacking on Arthur anymore. You started to squirm and wrestle free but Arthur flexed his arms and trapped your legs. He started to run and you were forced to hold on. He rushed into camp, nearly knocking down Susan who barked out a rude comment about being careful.

“Arthur!” You yelled in his ear, “Let me down!” He ignored your command. As he raced past the heart of camp Annabelle and Dutch stared with crooked and confused smiles. It’s safe to say, you were a little scared. What the hell was he doing? With a sudden stop, Arthur halted, slamming his heels into the ground. He spun so fast as he let go of your legs that you were freed from his grip, only to collide with an unnatural amount of hay.

That bastard!! You fell into the hay abyss to never be seen again. Your world was sharp and painful straw used to feed and warm the horses. You clawed yourself free and swatted away the loose ends of hay. When you jumped out of the pile you were ready to claw Arthur to death. It would take hours to get all the hay out of your hair!! But when your bare feet landed onto the hard dirt, he wasn’t there. He was gone yet again.

You wanted to run around and find him and get payback, but Hosea had spotted you and had made his way over with Bessie close behind. You were surprised to see your boots in her hands.

As she handed you your torn raggedy boots, she softly said, “The trouble I had to go through to get these,” You had an idea. Uncle must have talked her ear off by the looks of it. You thanked her and quickly put your boots on.

Hosea spoke up and flashed a crooked smile down to you, “We have to run into town,” He started, “Why don’t you come with us?”

Something smelled fishy, and it wasn’t the lakeshore only feet away. You lifted a brow, “Why?”

His features quickly went from friendly to serious, “Dutch has a task for you, it’s not grocery shopping,” There it was. Hosea went on saying, “Bessie and I are going to be scouting the bank, just watching it. Dutch wants to hit the bank and head west into Oregon with the money.” Oh, oh wow. Okay. You listened intently as Hosea spoke again,

“While we’re scouting the bank,” Hosea paused and handed you several sealed envelopes, “Dutch wants you to plant these in the post office, but you have to sneak in and do so without being seen. These are fraud letters to the bank tellers, if you’re seen with the letters it will blow our cover. It all has to be anonymous.”

The sudden weight of what was happening pulled your heart into a wild flurry of directions as it tried to break from your rib cage. This was the first time you had been tasked with something related to anything illegal, or gang-related. No matter how small this was, it was still a pretty big deal for you.

“Okay,” You said quieter than a mouse. You held about five envelopes in your hands. They felt heavier than the biggest boulder on the beach. Mixed feelings swirled inside you as you started to follow Hosea and Bessie to one of the camp wagons. Nothing else was said as they sat upfront while you took to the back of the wagon were your legs could dangle off and you could watch the roads travel under you.

A bank robbery? Nothing this intense has ever taken place in the short year you’ve been with this gang. You knew about every heist that went down, and 90% of them were stagecoach robberies, the other 10% was conning people out of their money like… like showmen or something. But… a bank robbery? Really? You’ve heard all about the stories of other banks that Dutch, Susan, and Hosea have robbed together in the past, but you never thought it’d happen now.

Something about this felt wrong. You were going to aid in the theft of innocent people’s money. You didn’t dare voice these feelings, nor did you try to ignore them either. As the ride to town started to blend together, you kept getting lost in your thoughts.

Had Arthur ever robbed a bank? No, there was no way. You heard the story about his first robbery, and how that ended in the back of a train’s bank car in the middle of New York. He’s robbed a few stage coaches…. Three or four sounded right. There was no way in hell that Annabelle or Bessie would be involved, right? Annabelle didn’t even know how to shoot a gun. She was a proper lady, madly in love with a man who seemed more of a revolutionary mastermind than a wanted criminal. Bessie was tough, she grew up on a horse ranch, she may have had money but she was no lady. She may dress like a lady when she needs too, but she was more wild and untamed than she looked.

Susan was surely in on this. She was the strongest and most impressing of all the woman in camp. She had been a mistress, she used to run a saloon in her younger days, caring for the… ladies of the night, and teaching them how to seduce men. She grew up rough and lived rough. She feared nothing.

In a way, you looked up to Susan. Though she was quiet nasty to the other woman, she was fairly nice to you when she wanted to be. She treated you the same she treated Arthur, like children.

Before you knew it, you had gotten to town. Bessie and Hosea left the wagon abandon behind some blacksmith’s barn and nearly abandon you too.

“You know where the post office is, right?” Is all Hosea asked you, and once you nodded he was gone and so was Bessie.

Left alone, you took the muddy back roads through town. You did your best to avoid the doctor’s office as you raced between buildings. The post office was another road over, tucked behind the gunsmith and nestled next to a small shabby saloon. You hid behind the gunsmith, looking at the back door to the post office. If you were lucky, Heather was working there today. Maybe you could… trick her or something?

You were not very good at this. After a few minutes of thinking, you came up with a plan. You made your way to the back door, nervous and unsure of yourself. Without a single thought, you knocked your fist onto the door three times then bolted away to hide behind some barrels between the post office and the saloon.

A few seconds passed then someone opened the door. It was Heather! Okay… You got this. You did your best to pick up the biggest rock and you threw it at the trashcan further down the back road. Heather let out a little yelp, then called out, “Hello!?” She took the bait and like the airhead she was, she left the post office door open. She slowly headed the other direction, leaving you time to sneak up to the back door and head inside. You closed the door behind you quietly and locked it to buy you some time.

It was dark inside, and you could feel a cold draft sweep past your feet. The back of the post office smelled similar to a bookstore. You weren’t sure what to do from here. You had to plant these letters. But where? You started to panic, rushing to look around. There were walls filled with little letter cubbies. Some had names under them, some had numbers. There were carts filled with bags, and the bags were filled with letters. You fumbled in the dark, trying to read the little metal plates. Nothing seemed to be helping you though.

Heather would be back any second now. God this was so hard! And scary! What if you got caught? What would you even say?

You shook your head and ran over to another wall filled with letter cubbies. You ran fingers over each plate as your eyes dashed around looking for anything labeled “bank” or maybe “letters heading out.”

Suddenly you found two larger cubbies on the lowest part of the wall. One was labeled “Arrivals,” while the one next to it said “Departures,” This had to be it! When you took a better look, you noticed that was only one letter sitting in the arrivals cubby. It was face down, and it had a wax seal keeping the letter closed.

Innocently, you set your fraud letters down in the departures cubby and forgot about them within a second. You squinted in the low light and reached a hand forward towards the mystery letter. As your fingers grazed the waxy seal, you felt a wave of curiosity swallow you. Something about this letter called out to you.

The wax seal was a deep green and almost looked black in the darkness of the post office. You hesitantly touch the white paper of the envelope. Chills ran down your arm and into your spine the second you made contact with it. Your fingers curled around the corners and you lifted it up. You brought it closer to your face and glared down, trying to make out what the wax seal said. You noticed a large ‘M.D.’ within a crest, with roses clustered around it, and a doe of some kind trapped within the roses. A static sound filled your ears as you realized you had seen this crest somewhere before. The memory tugged out of the murky waters of your mind. A thud boomed from your heart, growing louder and louder in your ears.

Slowly, almost as if you didn’t want to, you turned the letter over in your hand. There was no way to describe the feeling that rushed through you when you read the name and address on that back of that letter. A breath shaky and frail left your lungs, you almost forgot to take another breath in. You felt your fingers grip the corners of the envelope so tightly that you started to tear and wrinkle the yellowing paper.

To: Miss (Y/n) (L/n) Sugartown, Paradise Valley. Nevada.

From: Harrison McDuffy Green Point, Long Island New York.

It was so hard to breath be for some reason. Time stopped. This couldn’t be real. It was a letter… addressed to you… from no one else but your Grandfather. How long had this letter been sitting here? Waiting for you to find it? How…? It must have been the doctor in town! He had to have told your Grandfather you were alive and all the way out here. So many fears and questions ran through your head. The loudest question of all bled into your thoughts… What did he want?

You wanted so badly to open the letter, but a sudden and loud bang came from the backdoor. Heather was still locked outside! You nearly screamed but slapped a hand over your mouth instead. You shoved your letter into a pocket and looked around. You had to get out of here, and quickly.

You ran for the front door, no one was inside, and it was the only way out. You skid through the post office and busted out the front door into the busy and open street.

Several people looked your way, and you froze only for half a second before bolting down the street. You dashed between people and nearly got ran over by a horse, but you made it back to the wagon. Hosea and Bessie were nowhere to be seen. You crawled up into the back of the wagon and made yourself small. Suddenly you felt like crying and laughing at the same time. Everything felt so surreal. Your Grandfather…. Your Grandfather!!  He knew you were alive! He was trying to contact you!

The letter burned your side, crumbled up and hidden away in your pocket. It scared you, honestly. There was no way you could have any idea what that letter said, or what your Grandfather wanted. Was he sending an army to save you? Was he aware that you were in the care of THE Dutch Van Der Linde? Did he think Dutch killed your parents and kidnapped you?

Blinking hard, you gave a quick shake of your head and told yourself you’d open the letter once you got home. Until then, you guessed what it could hold inside it. You guessed what threats or pleads could be hidden behind that wax seal. The letter was already heavy, so you guessed how many papers it took to write angry letters.

It didn’t matter. Nothing matter. Well… What mattered most was the Dutch knew your family had reached out and contacted you. A sharp and intruding fear crippled you instantly. How could you tell Dutch this? How on earth could you expose yourself like that? In what way was it even possible for you to approach Dutch and even bring up the idea that your family was most likely threatening him to bring you home safely? No matter what this letter said, you’d be ten times more of a burden than you already were.

No matter what the letter said, it was almost certain that it’d cause more trouble than you were worth.

[sonicrainicorn]

Anything For You

For previous one-shot click here (go down the rabbit hole while you’re at it)

Words: 2550 Desc.: Logan is really bad at feelings. He can talk the ear off of anybody, but once emotions are thrown into the mix he forgets complete sentences. Maybe that’s why he connects to the twins first. TW: None

It’s nothing but fluff in here

///

Four years old.

That’s how old Virgil and Roman were when they came into the lives of Logan and Patton. They were tiny and scared and too young to know what was happening but old enough to realize it was important. They didn’t talk for a good portion of their first day home. It wasn’t until a few days after that they became more comfortable and, surprisingly, they opened up to Logan first.

Virgil saw him reading an old, worn out copy of The Phantom Tollbooth and became interested. Logan didn’t know what sparked the curiosity. The cover was rather simple and the words couldn’t have been recognizable. All it held was sentiment at this point.

Nevertheless, Virgil was intrigued and that meant Roman was too. In the early days, the two were so close that Thomas referred to them as the twins from The Shining (Logan thought it was amusing but Patton disagreed). They tended to do everything together -- plus they weren’t into that whole speaking thing for a while which lead them to stare. And that meant they stared at Logan while he was reading.

He lowered his book enough to see two mirror images standing there. It was a little unnerving. “Is there something you two need?”

Virgil pointed at the book while Roman asked, “What’re you reading?”

Logan wondered for a moment if twin telepathy was a real thing. “Uh, The Phantom Tollbooth.”

Virgil and Roman glanced at each other, prompting Roman to ask another question. “Haven’t you read that a long time?”

Maybe they were the twins from The Shining after all. “If you’re wondering if I’ve read this a lot recently, then yes I have.” He had been reading it since the day Roman and Virgil came home. It wasn’t a long book or anything -- in fact, he had re-read it about four times in the past few days. It was a book he always read to calm himself down or make himself feel better. His mother used to read it as a bedtime story.

“Why?”

Logan hesitated. “It’s a good book.” It was. Even after every turn and plot development had been revealed, it was still a great book.

“Can you read it?” Virgil spoke this time. His voice contrasted Roman’s in that it wasn’t confident or loud.

“You want me to read it to you?” Logan didn’t hide the surprise in his voice.

The twins nodded in unison.

“Um…” It wasn’t as if Logan could say no. Well, he could, but it wouldn’t have been nice. He had never shared this book with anyone other than Thomas. Reading it aloud would be the equivalent to telling a deep, dark secret. This was the book that grounded him and helped him through the most difficult times in his life -- Patton barely understood what he kept it around for. He could suggest another book -- one that made him feel less vulnerable -- or he could grant their first request.

“Would you like to join me on the couch, then?”

Logan flipped to the beginning as the twins climbed onto the couch; they sat next to each other, of course. Logan hesitated once more before beginning the story.

The next day, they wanted Logan to read to them again. And again and again, until Logan was reading to them every day.

All the reading lead to the twins talking more. They would ask Logan questions or make comments on the character’s actions. Once, Logan had a mini-debate with Virgil over something in Inkheart. They started acting like normal kids rather than twins one might see at the end of a hallway.

But Logan refused to think it was because of him.

“Come on, Logan,” Patton almost begged. “I tried talking to them for days and all I got were quiet mumbles from Roman. All you did was read to them and they suddenly know complete sentences.” He grabbed Thomas’s arm when he walked into the room. “Please convince him -- he’s killing me.”

The little family was at Thomas’s house for the day. All three grownups had the day off and decided to spend it together. Besides, Thomas wanted to see how his nephews were doing. The first time he met them they were too shy (or afraid) to really come out of their room.

“Well there is an improvement,” Thomas mentioned as he sat down to join the couple. “They’re both messing around with the piano in the back instead of staring blankly at a wall.” He smiled. “They also told me they want to see all the Disney movies I have.”

Logan quirked a brow. “They specifically asked for Disney?”

“Technically, they pointed at the bookcase and said they wanted to watch those, but that’s where all the Disney ones are kept.”

“See, Logan?” Patton interjected. “They even talk to Thomas now -- and they’re showing interest in stuff. You helped make them feel comfortable.”

“Nonsense.” Logan took a sip of coffee. “It was only natural that they open up to us after a few days together.”

Patton groaned and put his head on the table. “He’s been like this all day.”

“Is there a reason?” Thomas asked. He looked a bit amused at this being an issue at all.

“He hates being sentimental.”

“Wow,” Logan deadpanned.

Patton raised his head. “Logan, I love you very much, but you really do hate showing that you can be soft.”

Thomas snorted and Logan crossed his arms. “I just don’t see how my reading has anything to do with it,” Logan quipped. “It has nothing to do with me being soft.”

“You read them The Phantom Tollbooth!” Patton waved his arms for emphasis. “You never even let me read that.”

Logan’s face began to heat up. “Th-they asked --”

“I’ve asked.”

“Well, that just kind of…” Logan took another sip of his coffee as he trailed off. It may or may not have been longer on purpose.

Patton pouted.

“You guys are adorable,” Thomas mused. He looked at them in a similar manner to how someone might look at kittens. “But I really think we should have a movie marathon instead of sitting around talking.”

~~~

It took several weeks for Virgil and Roman to accept that they were apart of a new family. After four years of only knowing life with a single mother, it must have been rather hard for them to transition. For the first couple days, it didn’t seem as if they understood that Logan and Patton were their new parents -- regardless of them being told before.

The first time one of them called Patton “Dad”, he almost cried. While Logan agreed that it was good that the twins were seeing themselves as part of the family, he thought crying in front of them might have been a little silly (though when he was called “Daddy” for the first time he choked on his own spit)

Their house was no longer filled with awkward mumbles or overly encouraging words, but with laughter and conversations. They were all trying their best with what they had been given and it was working out in their favor.

About a month later, Patton had an idea.

“Logan,” he poked his head around the corner into the living room. “I think I found something the kids might like.”

Logan looked up from his laptop with a raised brow and an unamused expression. “As much as that might be interesting, I’m in the middle of something. Can’t you show them yourself? They’re right here.” He went back to typing.

“Yeah, well, I think you’re gonna want to see this.”

The tone in Patton’s voice made Logan suspicious. He paused his progress to see what Patton might be planning, and his eyes widened when it was brought out.

“Is that a guitar?” Roman squealed. His pronunciation was a little funny but the word got out okay.

Logan snapped his laptop shut. He kept that thing hidden for a reason. “How did you even find that?” He held his voice level to avoid upsetting the twins.

“It’s not like it was hidden very well.” Patton winked.

“I assumed you wouldn’t go looking for it.”

“Well, you know what they say about assuming.” Patton grinned and held up the instrument as if to display it. “What do you think?”

Logan stared at it for a moment. He hadn’t touched that thing in years. Dust clung onto it like memories that would never really go away. “No.”

“What?” There were three different interpretations of the word.

“I said no.” Logan stood up with his laptop tucked under his arm. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to finish.” He didn’t wait to hear any objections. He walked away and into his office where he remained for the rest of the day.

By nightfall, Logan decided to come out. He felt a little upset with himself at how he handled the situation. In hindsight, it was kind of overdramatic. There was no reason for him to deny it the way that he did. It would have been much better to explain his reasoning rather than retreating to avoid confrontation. With a sigh, he opened the door to leave.

In front of him was the guitar. A sticky note attached to it reading “sorry for bothering you :(“ in Patton's curvy writing.

Logan frowned at it. He crumpled up the note and tossed it in the trash. He didn't want to think about that -- he wanted to sleep -- but the guitar was still there. It would always be there. Logan couldn't get rid of that. No matter how much he wanted to...

He contemplated for a second or two before grabbing it.

There was a night light on in the living room. Patton put it there so it would never be completely dark. In a situation like this, Logan was glad for it. When he sat down on the couch there was enough light to see the strings on the guitar.

Logan strummed it once and cringed at how out of tune it sounded. No matter how many years that passed, he would always remember how to tune a guitar, he was sure of it. It may have taken a little bit, but he did get it tuned. When he strummed it, it sounded a lot better. Not perfect but better.

He didn't play anything. Not yet, anyway. He ran his hand along the front body of the guitar, leaving a streak of where dust used to be. He couldn't place the exact moment he began to despise this instrument, but he could remember when he first began learning it. Many, many years ago…

Logan’s hands instinctively moved to the correct position on the guitar. His fingers were frozen on the chord to the start of the song. If he strummed right now then that would be it. He would acknowledge that this was his -- had always been his. He'd be forced to come to terms with the past he wished he could let die. In the end, he decided, it was best to let the past aid in paving the future.

It was a little rocky at first. After years of never touching an instrument, he might have been a bit rusty. But he figured it out. The months of learning and memorizing the song all that time ago came back to him. He didn't even have to think about where to move his fingers next -- it was all muscle memory.

He started singing under his breath to make the song feel more complete, despite the fact that his fingers were forming the melody already.

It wasn't until he heard someone join him at the third verse that he froze up.

“Patton?” Logan turned to the doorway. There stood a sheepish Patton and two mesmerized twins. He felt his face heat up. “I wasn’t that loud, was I?”

“No,” Patton answered. “But we heard you.” He flipped the light switch for the living room. “I kinda wanted to see how far you would go.”

The twins walked over to Logan while Patton stayed at the doorway. Roman studied the guitar with interest, but Virgil looked straight at Logan.

“Can you play again?” He asked. Roman snapped out of his daze to nod in agreement.

“Uh…” It wasn’t as if he could say no. Well, he could have, but still. He hadn’t played in this long for a reason. Was he willing to forget all that to give his family what they wanted? “M-maybe another song.”

Patton gasped and ran into the living room. He leaped onto the chair beside the couch and leaned over the armrest so that he would be face-to-face with Logan. “Can you do Hey There Delilah?”

Logan sighed. “Patton --”

“Please?” Patton brought out his best-begging face. “Please, please, please? It’s such a cute song and I love it when you do it.”

Logan turned away in an attempt to hide his burning face. He had played for Patton a few times before deciding to give it up (for what he thought would be for good). He hated singing -- still hates it -- but “Hey There Delilah” was one of the rare songs he ever let Patton hear him sing.

It was stupidly simple to play, yet a lot harder to sing. Logan always tried to sing as quietly as he could because he despised how he sounded. The swells in the vocals made it a little hard for that, forcing him to have to sing louder than normal. He hated it, though Patton loved it. Patton loved everything about Logan, it seemed.

“Fine,” Logan mumbled. “Just don’t look at me like… that.” He motioned his hand in Patton’s direction but refused to make eye contact.

“Like what? Like you’re my everything?”

“Yes.”

Patton leaned forward more. He placed his hand under Logan’s chin to lift and move it towards his direction. Their noses were touching. “But I don’t know how else to look at you.”

Logan forgot how to breathe for a moment. He didn’t pay much attention to how the heat spread to his ears. All he could focus on, at that moment, was Patton. They were so close. No matter how many years they had been together, being this close to Patton always caused butterflies to flutter in Logan’s stomach.

“Ew,” a little voice murmured.

The two turned away from each other to see Virgil sticking his tongue out in disgust and Roman covering his eyes.

Patton chucked and returned to his original position. “Sorry, kiddos.” He winked at Logan. “You wanna show us what you can do?”

So Logan did.

From that point on, anything the twins requested is what Logan did. It wasn’t that he couldn’t say no (he was very capable of that) he figured it would be best to open up. They were doing that for him so he guessed he should do the same.

[emilyl-b]

12 Reasons You Shouldn't Invest in best keyboard for beginners

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens music that she wrote greater than ten years in the past, the lady who arrived to become known only because the piano Instructor provided what, in hindsight, looks like an eerie glimpse of her very own upcoming.

Im moving away these days to a place so far-off, the place no person understands my title, she wrote while in the lyrics of the music named Shifting.

When she wrote that music, she was young and vivacious, a piano teacher and freelance audio writer who beloved Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Seems, lengthy walks and every thing about New York.

On a kind of beloved walks, by Central Park in the bright Sunlight of the June day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and attempted to rape her, leaving her clinging to daily life. Following the assault, the terms to her tune came real. She moved away, out of Ny city, outside of her old lifetime, and all but her closest close friends did not know her identify. To the rest of the environment, she was — just like the additional renowned jogger attacked in Central Park 7 several years before — an anonymous image of an urban nightmare. She was the piano Instructor.

Now, about the tenth anniversary of your attack, she is celebrating what seems to be her complete recovery from brain trauma. She's forty two, married, with a little boy or girl. She is Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano Trainer, and she wants to explain to her story, her way.

Her medical professional informed her it would acquire 10 years to Recuperate, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I really feel my lifetime has actually been redefined by Central Park, she said numerous days back, her voice comfortable and hopeful. Before park; right after park. Will there at any time be a time After i dont Assume, Oh, This is actually the tenth anniversary, the 11th anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch household in a wooded subdivision within a Big apple suburb. She sat within a dining place strewn with toys, surrounded by images of her cherubic, dim-haired 2-yr-previous daughter. A Steinway grand loaded fifty percent the home, and at just one point she sat down and performed. Her taking part in was forceful, but she seemed embarrassed to play quite a lot of bars, and shrugged, instead of answering, when requested the identify of your piece. She questioned that her daughter and her town not be named.

She calls that working day, June four, 1996, the working day After i was harm.

Hers was the 1st in a very string of assaults by a similar guy on four Girls above 8 days. The last victim, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was overwhelmed to Loss of life as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing store, and ultimately, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to existence in prison.

Still the attack around the piano Instructor could be the one particular people today look to keep in mind by far the most. Section of the fascination should do with echoes of the 1989 attack around the Central Park jogger. But In addition it frightened folks in a method the attack within the jogger didn't mainly because its situation ended up so mundane.

It did not happen inside of a distant Component of the park late in the evening, but in close proximity to a well-liked playground at 3 while in the afternoon. It might have occurred to any individual. The tension was heightened by the secret of the piano teachers id.

For three times, as police and doctors tried using to see who she was, she lay within a coma in her hospital bed, anonymous. Her parents have been on holiday vacation and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Eventually, among her students recognized a law enforcement sketch and was ready to discover her from the healthcare facility by her fingers, for the reason that her confront was swollen over and above recognition. The police didn't release her name.

The very last thing she remembers about June 4, 1996, is providing a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Avenue, then putting her extensive hair inside of a ponytail and heading out for just a walk. She will not don't forget the assault, Despite the fact that she has heard the accounts of the law enforcement and prosecutors.

To me its just like a fact I learned and memorized, she said. As if I were a scholar in school studying record.

She would not think of The person who did it. I might need been angry for a second, although not a lot longer than that, she said. How could I be angry at John Royster? He was declared not insane, but I suppose by our standards he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her medical doctor at The big apple Healthcare facility-Cornell Healthcare Center, as it was recognized in 1996, told reporters that she had a ten per cent chance of survival. Doctors experienced to remove her forehead bone, which was later changed, for making space for her swelling Mind. When her mom built a community appeal to pray for my daughter, thousands did.

Soon after eight times, she arrived out of a coma, 1st in a vegetative condition, then in a childlike condition. As she recovered, she slept tiny and talked continually, at times in gibberish. I had been having mad at persons if they didnt respond to these text, she stated.

Like an Alzheimers affected individual, she had minor limited-expression memory and would neglect site visitors as soon as they remaining the room.

Above a number of months, she had to relearn ways to stroll, costume, read through and publish. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, visited every day to Engage in guitar for her. He inspired her to play the piano, towards the recommendation of her Actual physical therapists, who believed she might be annoyed by her inability to Perform how she after had. Mr. Scherr played Beatles duets together with her, actively playing the left-hand section when she played the ideal.

Which was my most effective therapy, she said.

In August, she moved back dwelling to New Jersey, together with her father, an engineer, and mother, a schoolteacher. She frequented old haunts and known as mates, hoping to revive her shattered memory. I was very obsessed with remembering, she claimed. Any memory decline was to me an indication of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists imagined her development was wonderful, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she were.

What bothered her most was that she experienced misplaced the opportunity to cry, as if a faucet inside her brain were turned off. One particular night time, nine months just after she was hurt, she stayed up late to watch the John Grisham Motion picture A The perfect time to Get rid of. Just soon after her father had long gone to bed, she viewed a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on demo for killing two Males who experienced raped his younger daughter.

The faucet opened, as well as the tears trickled down her cheeks. I considered my mothers and fathers, my father, and what they went by, she said. Little by minimal, my sensation returned, my depth of brain returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went again to highschool and received a masters diploma in new music schooling.

Not every little thing went well. She and Mr. Scherr split up five years once the attack, though they continue to be mates. She dated other men, but she constantly instructed them with regard to the assault without delay — she couldn't enable it, she explained — they usually hardly ever referred to as for any second date.

We have now to locate you anyone, her Buddy David Phelps, a guitar player, said four a long time ago, just before introducing her to Liam McCann, a computer technician and newbie drummer. For at the time, she didn't say nearly anything concerning the attack till she got to be aware of Mr. McCann, then when she did, he admired her energy.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had frequently frequented her at her bedside though she was in the medical center, married them in his Times Square Workplace. She wore a blue costume and pearls. Though she was pregnant, in a very burst of creativeness, she and her buddies recorded Though Were being Youthful, an album of childrens tracks that she had prepared prior to the assault, such as the music Shifting. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, manufactured the CD. On it, her spouse plays drums and she plays electrical piano.

Is her lifetime as it was? Not precisely, however she is reluctant to attribute the dissimilarities to her accidents. Her final two piano students left her, without having contacting to elucidate why, she claimed. She has resumed playing classical new music, but straightforward pieces, because her daughter would not give her time for you to practice. As for jazz, I dont even consider, she explained.

She would want to travel extra, experience stranded while in the suburbs, but she is definitely rattled. She tries to be articles with keeping residence and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a medical professor of neurological surgical procedure at what on earth is now referred to as Big apple-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Heart, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann following the attack, stated last week that her amount of Restoration was exceptional. Shes mainly ordinary, he stated.

Other professionals, who are not personally aware of Ms. Kevorkian McCanns circumstance, tend to be more cautious.

Regaining the ability to Participate in the piano may perhaps entail an Nearly mechanical system, a semiautomatic recall of exactly what the fingers must do, claimed Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of clinical rehabilitation medicine at Ny University Faculty of Drugs. After brain-injured, you happen to be generally brain-wounded, For the remainder of your lifetime, Dr. Ben-Yishay said. There isn't any remedy, there is only intensive payment.

The greater telling Component of a Restoration, in his perspective, is psychological, and on that score he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns relationship and boy or girl as a significant victory.

For her element, the piano Trainer is familiar with she has changed, but she has made her peace with it. I used to be form of a hyper —— I dont know if I used to be a Type A, but I used to be formidable, she claims. Why was I so formidable? I used to be a piano teacher. I dont really know what the ambition was about. I actually did come back to the individual Im speculated to be.

[firingmaincannon]

all that I want is to wake up fine

(okay here’s an actual fic post with a description now that the episode is out for everyone)

Title: all that I want is to wake up fine

Rating: T

Characters: Grif

Relationships: none

Tags/warnings: depression, red team angst, trauma, suicidal ideation (kind of), drug use (also kind of)

Summary: Grif keeps himself occupied during his retirement. (spoilers for rvb15x6, “Reacts”)

(View on AO3 here!)

FYI @flame-cat made an amazing podfic of this as well! You can check it out here, please do, it’s so good, I can’t believe it

Day Zero.

Grif watches the transports take off, keeps staring until they’re blips in the distance. Sits down near the water, stares at the sun until it disappears behind the mountains across the lake. Has bright spots on his vision afterward. Doesn’t really care.

Not gonna be much to look at here anymore, anyway. No reason to keep his guard up.

He closes his eyes and lays his hands flat on the rock, feels its heat burn him. He doesn’t move, though. It’s not a big deal.

Day One.

He can’t sleep, which is bullshit. There’s nothing to do here but sleep now. He loves sleeping. Why the fuck can’t he sleep? He buries his face in the pillow and reflects. Come to think of it, it’s been years since he’s tried to sleep somewhere this quiet. There’s nobody shouting, no gunfire, no windows rattling from mortar shell testing. They fucking took his ability to sleep in regular human conditions, on top of everything else, the bastards.

He gives up on sleep, checks the fridge. Only thing left is Simmons’ meth-meth couscous. Son of a bitch didn’t even throw it away. What, was he planning to finish it?

He tosses the couscous out the nearest hole in the base wall and doesn’t think any more about Simmons. Eats ketchup out of the squeeze bottle, because there’s no one to stop him now. He’s all-powerful.

He eats too much ketchup and pukes. Decides not to eat ketchup by itself anymore, but not because other people would care.

Throwing up tires him out and he goes back to bed. He turns a fan on as loud as it goes and crawls under the sheets. Hopefully the droning will be enough for him to pass out.

Day Two.

He wakes up--late? Looks like the sun’s been up a while, but he doesn’t care to check his alarm clock. Thinks twice. Unplugs it. Goes back to sleep. When he wakes up again, it’s dark. Goes back to sleep. Still dark next time he wakes up. Goes back to sleep. Wakes up. The faintest pink light is starting to come through the window. Gets up and pulls the blinds shut. Goes back to sleep.

Day Four.

Turns out sleeping for more than a day makes you really fucking hungry. He’s almost excited about it. Been a long time since he’s slept this long. There’s not much to choose from, mostly ration bars and MREs. Same old pre-Chorus shit. Donut just had to fuck up all the fresh food that Kimball sent them, didn’t he? Motherfucker.

He finally finds instant pancake mix, and on a whim decides to mix in some coffee grounds. Maybe he’ll wake up a little. The coffee makes the pancakes a hideous color and the smell like death, but he eats them anyway, with his hands because like hell is he doing any dishes today. They’re bad. He considers if adding ketchup would make them worse or better. Decides against ketchup when his stomach reminds him with a sickly gurgle what happened a few days ago. So he just deals.

Sometimes they had eggs back at Blood Gulch. On lucky days he’d get to fry them up, supposedly for the entire base. But Lopez can’t eat and Donut is always watching his waist and Sarge says he only eats meat and Yoo-Hoos and Simmons hates runny eggs and fuck you, Simmons, he’s making his imaginary eggs so runny right now, you couldn’t eat them even if you were here.

He misses….

He misses eggs, is what he misses.

Day Eight.

Donut was right. The park’s gone, but the water’s still there. He doesn’t have a bathing suit, but there’s no one around to say shit, so he goes in naked. Sits at the bottom of the pool and closes his eyes. He’s a good swimmer. Had to be, growing up on the oceanside with a little sister who liked to get caught in undertows. He can hold his breath a long time.

He holds his breath. Keeps holding it. Keeps holding it. Keeps holding...

Day Thirteen.

He’s never had a problem rewatching Battlestar before, but all he can think about now is how much Simmons hated Starbuck. What kind of shithead hates Starbuck? The kind that’s scared of women, that’s who. Every time she’s on screen he can hear Simmons’ bitching. And she’s on screen a lot. Once he hears the whining so clearly that he snarks back out loud without thinking.

After that he snaps the DVD in half. He’ll watch Donut’s romances or Lopez’s novelas instead.

Day Eighteen.

He wakes up on the floor covered in developing bruises, yelling his fucking head off. Another dream about the old base, before Blood Gulch. His old squadron. It’s like he can still smell the blood. These have been happening a lot lately, more than they used to. For a second he wishes he wasn’t alone here, that he could tell someone about it. Simmons, maybe. But no, never mind. He woke up screaming a few times when he first got to Blood Gulch and all he got for it was shot by Sarge. Nobody ever asked why.

He picks himself up off the ground and goes to sit in the kitchen like he’s always done. No one teases him for midnight snacking. No one comes out to comfort him, either, but that’s not new.

Day Twenty-eight.

He plugs in all the stupid Christmas lights they used to communicate with Caboose when he plane-shifted (and seriously, fuck Blue Team and everything they do). Watches them flicker. Tries very hard not to read what they might be spelling out. Fails. Gives in and starts keeping track. He gets to AGNDIIVW before he decides it’s complete gibberish. There definitely aren’t any ghosts trying to communicate with him. He thinks if there was one, it’d probably be Church asking for more fucking favors. He rips the plug out of the wall and the lights go dark.

Day Forty-one, maybe.

Today he realizes that Blue Team had their own stash of Oreos hidden in Caboose’s room. And Grif’s supposed to be the selfish one? Fuck you, Tucker, he’ll show you selfish. He takes the pillows from every single bed in both bases and throws them on the floor, drops onto them as hard as he can. They’re all his now. He is the pillow dictator.

Actually the pillows smell kind of terrible by themselves and worse together. It’s awful but he can tell which one belonged to which idiot just by smelling. Donut’s is floral and overpowering. Throws that one out of the pile. The one that must be Tucker’s is fucking unspeakable. He wraps his hand in several layers of paper towel to pick it up and toss it too. Motor oil, aftershave, whatever weird organic shampoo Carolina uses, fucking bubblegum scent from Caboose (complete with the actual bubblegum stuck on the corners, the guy is a goddamn animal)…. They all fail inspection and get chucked. Eventually he’s left with just two. His own, and….

The smell isn’t unpleasant but he still wants to puke. He throws Simmons’ pillow across the room. Fuck it, he’ll stick with his own.

Day Fifty(? Fifty-one? Fifty-two?)

He settles down on top of the base (the wreckage of the base, Donut can fuck himself, he’s so glad Donut’s gone) with his guitar and an amp. Plays a little. He can’t quite get the tuning right. Might be the humidity out here.

Finally gets all the strings in tune. It sounds weird anyway. Maybe he’d just gotten used to Carolina’s caterwauling. “You can’t sing for shit,” he says out loud, because he never could say it out loud to her before. Doesn’t feel scared saying it, or thinking it, for once. He feels a little mean, though. She wasn’t that bad. Not compared to everyone else in the group. He wonders if she ever sings now, on her Freelancer adventure bullshit with Wash, or if it was something she only did when she was around the Reds and Blues. He hopes she does sing, a lot. Wash deserves it.

Day ???

It’s beautiful today, and that pisses him off. Makes it hard for him to stay inside and do nothing, which is all he wants to do most days. But on a whim he hops in the Puma—because he can call it that now, god dammit, and not get shot in the face for it—and takes off.

In his head, he goes a long way, takes a trip past the dinosaur-robot warzone, up the mountains to the east of their bases, into the plains. It’s a nice mental trip he has laid out. But the Puma shits itself an hour away from the base and he can’t get it started again for the life of him. Et tu, Puma? he thinks, and kicks the treads. So. Great. He’s stranded out here now, and it’s not like there’s anyone to come pick his ass up. Not that they probably would anyway, unless they needed the vehicle. But whatever. This is where he dies, apparently.

…Or not, because when he wanders into the shade of a nearby thicket to die in comfort, he stumbles upon more meth-meth mushrooms. With these he can probably run all the way back to the base. Or his heart might stop. Either way, at least he won’t starve to death.

They taste like shit but he feels fucking incredible. His heart might be exploding right now but who cares he is running so fast he is the fastest person on the planet and that would be true even if he wasn’t the only person on the planet can he run on water right now? he can probably run on water right now oh hey look it’s the base woops he passed it but might as well keep running anyway and maybe he’ll set a new record for how far one person can run he’s probably already set a record because he’s so, so fast and Sarge will be so mad that Grif’s the best at something and oh huh maybe he’s not going so fast anymore maybe it’s starting to wear off and oh, god dammit, he’s coming down, he hurts everywhere and now he’s an hour away from the base in the other direction. Fuck.

It takes him hours to recover, and the better half of a day to walk all the way back. He feels fuzzy for a couple days afterward but he’s pretty sure he’s not dying. Probably. But it doesn’t worry him too much.

Day ???

He’d figured they’d call, eventually. They must have found the source of the stupid message by now, right? It’s been weeks. Months maybe. He’s pretty sure all the analogue calendars burned with the bases and his HUD’s been fucked since before they left. But it can’t take them that long. The fucking reporter seemed pretty singleminded about her investigation, and she’s smarter than the rest of them put together, so she at least must have found Church by now. And he’d thought that once the others found Church they’d come back, or send a message, or something. Apologizing for everything—no, no way. Yelling at him more for not wanting to deal with Blue Team problems, more likely. Something.

Just…

He’d figured they’d call.

Day ???

He wakes up from another nightmare. It’s been so long that he doesn’t remember the faces of his old squadron, but it doesn’t matter, because tonight they’ve been replaced by newer people. Faces he doesn’t want to see here on this planet right now, yelling at him or smirking or thinking things they know nothing about. But not faces he wants to see dead either. Not that.

Day ???

He breaks his E string while playing and suddenly wants to smash the guitar so bad he can hear the wood of the neck creaking under his fingers. He doesn’t do it. Smashes Tucker’s bass instead. Smashes it to tiny pieces against the wall of their practice space. He wishes he felt like Pete Townshend while doing it, but he just feels tired. He sits down amongst the shattered chunks of wood and plastic and breathes hard for a long time.

Day ???

They’re not going to call.

Day ???

He sits by the lake, the same spot where he watched their ships leave orbit, and thinks of Kai. Wonders what she’s doing right now. If she’s in as much of a mess as he is. If she thinks about him, most days, the way he thinks about her. If he’s even a blip on her radar. If not, he doesn’t blame her. She’s always had her own life, which is exactly how he wanted it. It scares the shit out of him, every time she disappears, but he fought like hell to give her a chance to do whatever dumb shit she wants to do. And honestly, if that means she forgets about him sometimes, whatever. She knows he loves her, and she loves him back, in her own freakish way. That’s how their family has always worked.

“You gave up a lot for her,” Simmons told him once, when they were back in Blood Gulch and shitfaced and Kai had just showed up and he’d had to explain their whole deal. Grif had shrugged, because it’s just how life worked for them. It wasn’t a big deal, was it? He was never going to be a great success anyway, it wasn’t like working a shitty job or dropping out of school really hurt him any. He wasn’t giving up much.

Now he’s years older and a millennium more tired and he’s so, so angry. Not at Kai, because she doesn’t know what he did for her, and never will, because if she did she’d feel bad and he doesn’t want that. No, he’s angry at Simmons, and Sarge, and every single person he ever even thought of as something resembling a friend. They all chose the military, they all chose this, and he didn’t get a choice. None of this was ever his choice. That’s nothing new. That’s been his life since the day he got drafted. And okay, maybe he could deal with that, because that’s how his life has always been.

But he never wanted any of this, those fuckers never noticed. They never asked. They never cared.

None of them cared at all, god dammit, they just called him lazy or stupid or fat and maybe all those things are true but why would he be anything else if he hasn’t had something worth choosing or living for since he stopped being Dexter and started being Private Grif of the fucking Red Army? Why would he bother being a complex person when nobody around gave a shit about him either way? Why trust people with his private shit when nobody wants to hear it? Why care about them, after all this time he spent fighting with them and watching their backs and taking bullets for them, when the first time he tells them he can’t do this anymore, they leave him behind? Why invest a fucking second of his time in them when they’ve never asked anything about him, never wondered why he might not want to fight anymore, never questioned why he sleeps all the time and eats all the time and does his best not to care about anything?

Because that’s the problem. He’s tried so hard not to care, and he’s spent years failing, and they don’t know because what he feels doesn’t mean anything to them.

“Grif cares about his friends,” the reporter said. Yeah, no shit. They just don’t care about him.

[dearophelia]

for saviours (victoria, 10,700 words)

Victoria Ryder: selections from her pre-game life. (or, @moustache-conversationalist​ asked me to talk more about Victoria, and then this happened). Also on AO3.

Warning for a physically abusive relationship in #5 (aftermath of), and it’s referenced occasionally throughout the rest. No spoilers as long as you’ve made it to the Nexus.

[Here’s the corresponding playlist]

01:  Lift Her, Pull Her

now she was smart, she grew up with this complex that the people that surrounded her seemed to expect the world

thirteen.

Glaring at the group of boys in the backyard, Victoria slams her window shut. The fresh air would be nice, but she needs to focus, and twelve boys fresh off their tenth win in a row are not going to help with focusing. The window only muffles the noise, and she screams underneath her breath. She can’t tell them to shut up - she got in trouble the last time she told him to shut up.

(“Scott’s allowed to celebrate, Victoria,” Mom said gently, but firmly, as Dad sat silent at the table, reading his email. “Just shut your window, or listen with headphones.”

Three days later, she found a set of sound-cancelling headphones on her desk. A note on top of them - you can, and you will. There was manufacturer, no label, no serial number. She tried searching, and came up with nothing. But they blocked out all noise, even thirteen year-old boys.

At breakfast the next day, Dad winked conspiratorially at her before he left for his trip.)

Her ears need a break from headphones, so she sighs, resigning herself to having to listen to muffled Rowdy Boy noises all afternoon. She rests her head in her hands, staring at the textbook in front of her.

The test is next week. If she doesn’t pass, she doesn’t get into the Academy. If she doesn’t get into the Academy, she’s stuck going to normal high school, like Scott. If she’s stuck going to normal high school, then she’s stuck going to normal university, stuck going to medical school at 21 instead of 18, stuck waiting an extra four years for her life to start the way she wants.

But the human respiratory system stands in front of her. She knows the rest - all the math, the biology, the chemistry, the physics, even the history and literature she knows they’re going to ask just to make sure she’s “well-rounded” - but the respiratory system has been tripping her up for days. It’ll be four questions on the test, if that, but she refuses to fall into that trap. She can get four questions wrong on the physiology section and still pass, but that’s four questions she has to get right somewhere else.

Her classmates may play those kinds of mathematical games, but she doesn’t.

“You can do this,” she tells herself, straightening her shoulders. “You can, and you will.”

eighteen.

Her email beeps, pulling her attention away from krogan organ redundancies. She shakes her shoulders out - she wasn’t paying much attention to the words and diagrams in front of her anyway. She is very tired.

So tired she thinks she’s hallucinating when she sees who the email’s from. Dad. She got a birthday card from him - three weeks late - but otherwise hasn’t heard from him since she was home at Christmas.

Subject: Good luck

Victoria frowns, and wonders if Mom said something to him. She hadn’t quite melted down on their last vidcall, but she came close. She’s done with written exams, but she still has interviews and practicals to finish before any of the eight medical schools she applied to will consider her acceptance. Eight interviews, eight practicals, starting in two days, over in a week.

There’s a light, a distinct end point when she can get more than two hours of sleep at a time, reboot her circadian rhythm, and take a breath without also thinking about asari reproduction, krogan headplate mechanics, dextro drug protocol, or salarian digestive systems. The light is nine days out, but it’s there, and is the only thing keeping her from sitting in the middle of her room, amidst notes and textbooks and flashcards and mismatched socks, and completely and utterly giving up.

She opens the email.

You can, and you will.

- Dad

She scrolls down. A forwarded shipping notification for new guitar strings and a pack of new picks. “How did you know?” she asks, as if her computer has any answers. Her guitar’s sitting next to her bed, untouched for two weeks since she tuned a string too hard and it broke. She rubs her left forearm, where the string had snapped against her skin; medigel had sealed the cut, and a dermal regenerator sped up the process - it’s barely even a scar now.

She checks the package tracking details; it was delivered to her Academy mailbox yesterday. She stands up, pulls on pants, throws a sweatshirt over her tank top, and shoves her feet into sneakers. It’s a good excuse for a break, maybe she’ll get some food and coffee while she’s out.

The cool night air is refreshing against her skin; she’s been inside for three days straight studying, has hardly left her room except for the bathroom and to shower. Thunder rolls quietly in the distance, and she feels rain on the air.

The walk across campus to the student center and the mailboxes is a short one, but she consciously slows her pace, taking her time. A voice inside of her yells at her to hurry up, that she needs to study and practice, but another voice yells right back: ten minutes isn’t going to make a difference, and fresh air is good for her.

She puts in an order at the café next to the center - carbonara with triple spinach and tomato, add mushrooms, no prosciutto, and a large iced black coffee - and goes to check her mail while they’re making her food. Her mailbox is empty except for the small package, and she waves at the mail clerk - a woman from her dextro pharmacology course who looks about as stressed as Victoria feels.

The rain starts as she pays for her food and drink and heads back to her room. It’s only a slight drizzle, not even enough to worry about, and she doesn’t speed up her pace until her dorm is in sight and the rain picks up.

She pauses at the door, not sure she’s ready to face her room and krogan organ redundancies again. She takes a deep breath. “I can. And I will.”

twenty-three.

It’s silly, but she keeps every acceptance email she’s ever received. From the email welcoming her to the Paris Academy of Science at age thirteen, to the eight acceptances to medical schools (though she only starred the one from Aeghor), to her internship at Shenzhou, and her residency at Tereshkova, she’s kept all of them.

And now, she’s staring at the one she’s been chasing since she was sixteen.

Dr. Victoria Ryder,

It’s my pleasure to welcome you to my xeno-obstetric fellowship. The applicant pool was remarkable, and your clear, deep passion for your work, your thesis on genophage fertility treatments, and your colleagues’ wide respect for you as a person and as a doctor made you stand out from the rest.

Congratulations. I look forward to working with you in the next years. We begin on the first of August, at Galatana Orbital Hospital.

Enjoy your summer, and I will see you then.

Sincerely,

Dr. Lauren Walsh

Victoria’s read the email no fewer than ten times since it arrived an hour ago. She almost can’t believe it. Four thousand doctors applied for this fellowship. Three were accepted. And she’s one of them. She isn’t sure whether to cry or jump up and down for joy. She settles for reading it again. It’s my pleasure to welcome you.

“Doctor Ryder to OB, code two. Doctor Ryder to OB, code two.”

Good - her patient finally went into active labor. She finishes her coffee and stands up, sending a message to the charge nurse that she heard the page and is on her way. Cracking her neck, she heads for the elevator.

While she’s waiting, Victoria reads the email once more. Ten years. She’s wanted something like this for ten years - the chance to work with a galactically-renowned doctor at the leading edges of medicine. And she’s wanted this specific chance for seven years, since Doctor Walsh spoke at a symposium her sophomore year at the Academy.

And it’s here. It’s real. It’s happening.

The elevator doors open, and she waits for the team to exit and roll out their patient before she steps in. She presses the button for Labor & Delivery.

She taps forward on the email, and types in her father’s email address. They haven’t spoken in two years, not for any reason other than crazy schedules and focused priorities. But this - even if he’s bogged down in a cave somewhere, totally surrounded with only one clip left, he’ll want to know about this.

I can. And I did. - V

The doors open, she hits send and closes her email, and steps out onto her floor, tugging her white lab coat on as she heads for her patient.

02: Icarus

look out to the future, but it tells you nothing, so take another breath

“Time of death, 14:47,” Victoria calls quietly. The room is quiet for a moment, and the low, monotone beep of a flatline heart monitor sounds like a hull breach siren. She takes a breath, and then another before stripping off her gloves. “I’ll go tell her family,” she says.

Reyat stops her at the door. “I’ll tell them,” he says gently.

Victoria looks up at her intern and shakes her head, even though she wants nothing more than to pass this responsibility off - even to a salarian intern her patient’s family has never met before. Especially to a salarian intern her patient’s family has never seen before. “She was my patient,” she says, feeling so completely still that she’s off-balance. “Thanks, but I’ll do it.” She steps around him and out into the hall as the others start to unplug machines and clean up the woman - the body.

She’s lost patients before, had to deliver this news before. But she was there from the beginning with this one - Rebecca Peters, aged 52, with her husband Steven, trying for ten desperate years to conceive before they finally made it to her office. She’d helped them through fertility treatments, through failed IVF, through experimental gene therapy. Three years of intense, constant work, and eight months ago she had the privilege of telling Rebecca she was pregnant.

Now she has to tell her husband that his wife and his unborn son are dead.

“I quit,” she says, hours later, standing in the doorway to her mentor’s office. She’s taken a shower, but she still feels gross. Exhausted. Gritty.

“Doctor Ryder,” Walsh says, looking up from her computer.

“Doctor Walsh.”

“We are not having this conversation with you in the door. Come in, please.”

Victoria shakes her head. “No, I quit.” She takes a deep breath. “I…I cannot do that again.” Obstetrics and fertility are all she knows, all she’s ever trained for, but now - now all she knows is that she can’t go through today ever again. Can’t spend three years with someone, learning everything from her favorite color (blue) to her top choices in baby names (Michael, Adrian, Oscar) to the topic of her master’s thesis (commerce standards as they relate to and enforce batarian exclusion from a galactic society) only to have them die on her operating table.

Walsh leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. Her angular eyebrows furrow together in disapproval. “You’ve been on this track since you were fourteen. What are you gonna do instead?”

“Trauma,” she says. Get in, get out, turf the patient before you learn too much. Before you care too much.

An eyebrow quirks up, briefly. “You’ll have to redo your entire surgical rotation, unless you’re thinking of quitting on surgery, too.”

“I know. And no, I’m not quitting surgery.”

“Well,” Walsh says, “at least that’s something.”

The bitter disappointment of her mentor’s tone cuts deep, and Victoria winces. “I…”

Walsh interrupts her with a sharp shake of her head. “No. You had a bad day, Ryder. You lost a patient. It sucks, but you’re a doctor - it happens. Our specialty is longer term, and you need to learn the difference between being friends, and being friendly.”

“And I’m sure as shit not going to make that mistake again,” Victoria spits out. She feels tears starting to build again, and balls her hands into fists, pressing her fingernails into her palms.

“Walk out that door if you want,” Walsh says, “I’ll even write you a recommendation for Doctor K’Taara’s program. But you are not welcome back into mine. Understand? Walk out that door, we’re done.”

She’s wanted to be a doctor since she was six. A surgeon since she was seven, an obstetrician since she was eleven. She sailed through her pre-med high school, graduated fourth in her class at medical school, made it through her internship and residency years without a single locker room meltdown, got accepted as one of Walsh’s three fellows, and was the only one invited back for a second rotation.

And now she’s twenty-six, standing in Walsh’s door, half in, half out, ready to be all out. She looks up at the ceiling, as if it holds any answers at all.

“Yeah,” she says, exhaling slowly. She looks at Walsh. “I’m done.”

With a curt nod, Walsh dismisses her. “Clean out your locker by the end of the day. You’ll have your recommendation by Friday.”

A tight, painful knot forms in her throat, and Victoria tries to swallow it down. She’s either just made the biggest mistake, or the best decision, of her life. She won’t know until a month from now, when the trauma program starts up. Maybe she’ll go home, visit Mom, hide in the basement for a while.

Victoria nods and steps backward, out of the door and into the hall.

“Doctor Ryder,” Walsh calls just as Victoria’s about to turn the corner.

Slowly, Victoria walks back to her former mentor’s office.

Walsh is the one standing in the doorway now, hand extended for a parting handshake.

“You are an incredible doctor,” she says, clasping Victoria’s hand in a firm grip. “Own it. Be the best damn trauma surgeon in the galaxy. Be terrifying.”

03: Hejira

in the church they light the candles, and the wax rolls down like tears, there’s hope and the hopelessness, I’ve witnessed thirty years

She squints up at the bright sun in the cloudless blue sky. A light breeze blows through her hair, carrying with it the scent of honeysuckle and freshly-mown grass. Birds chirp and sing cheery greetings from the trees, bees buzz about the yellow and pink flowers, and crickets chirp in the grass, as if they aren’t aware that they’re supposed to be quiet. As if they didn’t get the order for respectful silence.

She closes her eyes. Amidst the rustle of leaves and singing of birds and buzzing of bees, she hears the low murmur of mourners conveying condolences. She should be over there with them, standing between Scott and Dad, shaking hands and accepting hugs from people whose names she doesn’t remember, who she hasn’t seen since childhood - if ever. But there’s a perk to being family of the dead, and it’s the phrase it’s too much, I can’t and being able to walk away.

Too many people, too many versions of I’m sorry, she was a wonderful woman, too many hugs and handshakes and reminders that her mother is actually dead.

Dead. Gone. In the ground, now. There’s even a bouquet of daisies thrown on top of the coffin amidst the traditional roses. Mom loved daisies, and everyone else seemed to forget that.

Victoria wraps her arms around herself, cold despite the black dress and early summer sun.

She’s on day six of three weeks of bereavement leave. Her boss - the very definition of good intentions, bad execution - insisted she take the full three weeks. She’s ready to go back now. Hell, she was ready to go back four days ago, except she didn’t want to miss the funeral. Someone had to stay to put daisies in Mom’s grave.

A hand settles on her shoulder. “You okay?”

Given that Mom died and you are obviously not okay, are you okay? is what he really means.

With a deep breath, she nods. “Yeah.”

As okay as I possibly can be, which isn’t that okay at all.

She turns and looks up at Scott, squeezing his hand when he lets it drop from her shoulder. “Do you think anyone would mind if I left? I’m getting a little,” she gives him a slight grimace, and jitters her free hand. Words don’t exist to describe what she’s feeling, only the overwhelming sense that if she stays in this cemetery any longer, she’s going to break down in a way she doesn’t want her own family - much less the strangers still gathered beside the grave - to see.

“Go,” he says, pulling her in for a hug. “I’ll see you at home.”

“Thanks,” she says, and returns the hug. He walks back to the grave, and she takes a deep breath and walks toward the road.

She kicks at a pebble and waves off the driver. It’s only a mile, she’ll walk home.

Home. A place she hasn’t been back to in a way that requires more than five pairs of underwear since she was eighteen. She didn’t even live in this house - they moved in when she was sixteen. Her room has always felt less like a room, and more of an afterthought: a rather uncomfortable pull-out couch in the basement, next to a ping pong table and some home brewing equipment of Scott’s that always smells like it never quite got clean. Mom at least made sure there were flowers on the table whenever she was home, and filled the shelves nearest the couch with books and mementos and little things she had in her old room. But there wasn’t even a dresser or a closet, or really any place to unpack her belongings, until she found a set of drawers behind an old LOKI mech missing an arm and dragged it out to sit beside the pool table. Not like she actually ever unpacked, not even this time.

Fifteen more days of this. Fifteen more days of Dad locking himself away in his lab. Fifteen more days of sleeping on a crappy couch and glaring at a shower with questionable water pressure and pretending she and Scott have a clue how to talk to each other. Fifteen more days of overwhelming and ceaseless reminders that your mother is dead.

She’s going to scream. Or lose her mind. Or punch someone. Possibly all three, and not necessarily in that order.

A block from the house, her work email chirps. She glances at it - her out of office message gives her an excuse to not respond, but she likes to keep up on her inbox. She lifts an eyebrow: it’s from Reyat, her intern at Galatana Orbital, and who she hasn’t seen or heard from since she left the station three years ago. From his email address, it looks like he’s at Jaëto Immunology now. Good for him.

Subject: Thought you might be interested

Well, now she is. She walks the rest of the way to the house and sits down on the front porch steps to read his email.

Ryder;

I’m sorry to hear about your mother. I lost my father several years ago, and unfortunately I can offer no words of wisdom or quick fixes: grief is something you just have to get through. You have the strength to weather it, I know you do.

I know you’re currently running Gagarin’s second trauma team - and I’ve heard great things about you - but in case a change of scenery will help you through the grief (I know it did for me), I thought to pass on an interesting opportunity.

Dr. Mordin Solus has been running a clinic in the Gozu District of Omega for the past two years. Communication in and out of Omega is fuzzy, but he seems to be in need of a new trauma specialist. I worked with him for six months after leaving Galatana, and he’s brilliant. He’s also a little crazy, but I’d focus less on that and more on the brilliant.

A human coworker of mine told me that food is something you bring to human funerals; there should be something called a “fruit basket” arriving shortly.

I wish you well,

Reyat

As if on cue, a delivery drone zips up the driveway to the porch. Victoria signs the touchpad and lifts the large - very large - fruit basket from its compartment. “Thanks,” she says; she always feels rude not thanking them, even though they’re robots. It beeps at her and flies away.

She carries the basket inside and sets it on the table amidst casseroles, cheese platters, cookies, cakes, and what she’s fairly certain is a fully-organic-never-even-heard-of-a-vat pot roast. She picks an apple out of the basket, washes it, and bites down. It’s the first time she’s smiled in six days. The apple is crisp, juicy, and just on the right side of tart. She wipes a dribble of juice off her chin and walks downstairs to the basement to change out of the black dress, black tights, and black shoes.

But she catches herself in the hall mirror. She looks almost as dead as her mother. Pale skin - she’d left her blush in her apartment on Gagarin, and hasn’t yet had the emotional energy to buy some, not even to place an extranet order - dark brown hair pulled up in a French braid, hollows under her eyes deep and dark enough to look like craters, black clothes…she looks like a ghost. And there are fifteen more days to go.

She sits down on the couch and unties her shoes with one hand, then bites down on the apple and holds it with her teeth while she shimmies out of her tights - her nail catches on them and drags a rip all the way down her thigh - and tugs her dress off over her head.

And then she starts to laugh. Because she’s standing in her parents’ basement, after her mother’s funeral, wearing only her bra and panties, eating an apple sent to her by a former intern, and she’s pretty sure it’s the first thing she’s eaten in a couple of days. She feels her body start to cry, feels the tightness in her throat and the sting at her eyes, feels her shoulders pull forward and an arm wrap around her waist - but she’s fresh out of tears. There are none left.

So she stands there, mostly naked, and finishes her apple in silence.

Maybe it’s the sudden rush of sugar, maybe it’s the total abyss of grief swallowing her up, maybe it’s the prospect of sleeping next to a ping pong table for the next fifteen nights. But she tosses her apple core into the matter recycler and books a ticket to Omega on her way to the shower.

Her transport from Indianapolis leaves in two hours, and it’ll take her five days. From Indianapolis to Armstrong Orbital Transit, and from Armstrong Orbital to the relay transit station off Io, from Io through the Charon Relay to Tereshkova, from Tereshkova to Shenzhou, and from Shenzhou finally to Omega.

She orders blush, pays the extra fifty credits to have it delivered in half an hour, and gets in the scalding hot shower to wash her mother’s funeral off of her.

“I love you,” she says to her mother’s empty office, dressed for travel and with her backpack slung over her shoulders and her duffle bag propped up next to her. She took four apples from the basket, and three of the chocolate chip cookies brought by a neighbor she never met. With a nod, she walks out onto the porch, and to the waiting skycab.

She’s on Shenzhou before she finally checks her messages, and finds twenty-three from Scott. She blinks at them, blinks at his words and desperation and where are you. But they all stay in focus, nothing goes blurry with tears.

(You are not fine, she tells herself. You’re numb.

I know. I’m gonna try being numb for a while.)

The gate agent calls for her transport to start boarding, and she stands to get in line. With a deep breath, she replies to Scott - I’m alive, headed to Omega - and removes her personal and work email inboxes from her omnitool. Scott’s twenty-three messages disappear, along with the rest of her life.

She smiles at the gate agent, displays her ticket - the agent raises her browplates at the lack of return date, but doesn’t say anything - and finds her seat.

04: Paris

if we go down, then we go down together, they’ll say you could do anything, they’ll say that I was clever

Victoria sighs as the elevator creaks its way up to her floor. She rolls her neck, trying to stretch out the knots that have formed in the last ten hours, with little success. Removing the bullet and setting the quarian’s arm had been fairly easy - repairing her environmental suit, on the other hand, was not. Good thing Mordin’s inventive, or all of Victoria’s efforts with the woman’s arm would’ve been for naught.

The elevator shakes and, for a moment, it feels like the cables are going to give out. But they hold, and the door slowly stutters open at her floor.

She checks the hall on either side of the elevator - empty - and yawns as she walks down the hall to her apartment. The palmprint scanner is old, twitchy, and needs three tries before it registers her as human, and another try before it figures out that it’s her. The retinal scanner, however, is brand new and works on the first try. She spent the last four nights in a tangle of wires, trying to override the palm scanner’s control of the door and reroute master control the retinal scanner, but she’s maxed out her knowledge of electricity. She’ll have to ask Mordin.

The door locks itself behind her, and she yawns again, dropping her bag beside a small pile of shoes just inside the entryway. “Ugh,” she groans. She needs a shower, food, and bed (preferably not in that order - she’d like to just fall face first into bed, but she really should shower and eat something first).

Two steps further, and she stops and stares her couch.

A very large, very blue, lizard is sitting in the exact middle of her couch, tail curled around itself.

She blinks at it. “What?”

It blinks at her.

She tilts her head.

It tilts its head.

She squeezes her eyes shut, waits a moment, and then opens them again.

Nope. The lizard is still there.

“Okay, not hallucinating.” She’s way too tired to process giant lizard in my apartment. “How did you…what…I don’t even know what to do about this. How did you even get in?” She scrubs a hand over her face.

The lizard blinks again.

“Thank you, that’s very helpful.” Victoria activates her omnitool and takes a picture of the lizard, running it through a reverse image search. If it isn’t going to eat her, poison her, or otherwise kill her in her sleep, she’s deeming the lizard a Morning Problem.

Her omnitool beeps: it’s a blue iguana, male. Herbivore. Not venomous. Good.

Victoria yawns. “You can stay the night. Don’t eat all my lettuce.”

***

When she wakes in the morning, she wakes with thoughts of breakfast, of focusing on her back and shoulders with her yoga, of maybe giving the smoothie place around the corner from the clinic a try.

But when she walks out of her bedroom, the lizard is still curled up on her couch.

“Oh, fuck,” she says, “I forgot about you.”

He shifts, settling his weight differently. Like he’s claimed the couch for himself. Like he’s moving in.

“Seriously?”

He blinks.

Victoria turns on her coffee maker. “Okay. You can stay until I figure out what exactly the hell it is I’m supposed to do when a giant lizard shows up uninvited.” His torso is bigger than her bicep; short of enlisting her biotics - and she’s never been too good at finesse - she doubts she can make him leave.

She sits down at the small kitchen table and sips at her coffee, staring at the lizard. “I dub thee Albert,” she says.

Albert flicks his tail and closes his eyes.

05: You Want It Darker

I struggled with some demons, they were middle class and tame; I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim

“What happened there?”

Aria’s voice catches Victoria off-guard almost as much as the question itself. Aria makes a point not to get involved with the patch-them-back-together side of her empire - Victoria can count on one hand the number of times she’s seen Aria actually on this level, in a room with someone bleeding - and she sure as hell doesn’t ask personal questions. But the black eye’s only a few hours fresh, and she hadn’t had time to even attempt concealer before she got the 911 to Afterlife. As bad as it looked when she caught herself in the mirror on the way out, Victoria bets it looks far worse now - even more so under the sickly green-white lights of the bathroom in Afterlife’s lowest level.

She considers lying - she can get a new apartment, dye her hair, change her access codes, bribe a batarian to loiter around the corner just as well as anyone - but it’s been two weeks. Two weeks since she had enough and told him to get the fuck out, two weeks since he’s been trying to prove the theory that adding bruises will make her change her mind. Two weeks of Mordin patching her up (of lying to him, of saying she’s found a boxing gym, of him clearly not believing her), two weeks of nearly every part of her body hurting.

Two weeks, after four months.

She’s been working for Aria long enough to know that Aria only asks questions like this once.

“Doral,” Victoria says, peeling off her latex gloves. She turns them inside out into a ball, elbows the biohazard recycler’s activation panel, and tosses them down a chute to be burned, compacted, and blown out into space. Upon examination of her shirt, she grasps the hem with both hands and pulls it over her head and tosses it down the chute after her gloves. Her pants probably deserve the same treatment, but she’s not about to take her shoes off to change out of them - this bathroom floor is the most questionable thing she’s ever seen in her life - and, besides, they’re black; not that bloodstained clothing would raise too many eyes on Omega.

“He do that, too?” Aria asks, looking pointedly at Victoria’s torso mottled with bruises.

“Yep,” she says, pulling a wrapped, sterile bar of soap out of her bag. She doesn’t look at herself in the cracked mirror as she turns on the faucet. The plumbing hisses and clanks, and then water burbles out. She sighs. The other bathroom on this level - the one that’s actually clean and has proper lighting and a decent sink - had an altercation of the evisceration-and-death variety earlier this evening, and a cleanup crew hasn’t made it there yet.

The lights flicker. Victoria sees something unpleasant scurry through the shadows into one of the stalls. She closes her eyes for a moment. She hates this bathroom.

“You should ditch him.”

“I tried.” She tests the water - it’s as hot as it’s going to get - and rips off the paper around the soap. She wore gloves and had Bray work her over with a scrubber omnitool, but she’s been elbow-deep in a krogan for the last eight hours trying to keep his secondary heart from exploding. A hot decontamination shower would be a better choice, though she doubts there’s one of those in all of Omega. “It’s having some trouble sticking.”

The hot water and soap sting the broken skin of her knuckles and she hisses. She’s been trying to return the favor as much as she can, but she can’t overrule physics: Doral is a foot and a half taller than her, has at least a hundred pounds on her, and was a hand-to-hand drill sergeant in the Hierarchy before joining up with the Blue Suns. She’s good in a fight, but not take-a-guy-three-times-her-size good. And he tends to crowd in and grab her wrists - she can’t even pull the mnemonic for a barrier trapped like that, much less a warp field. 

Aria’s silent for a while, watching Victoria clean up as best she can in a crappy bathroom after an eight-hour surgery in the basement of a club. “Want protection?” she says when Victoria finally turns off the water, and it’s with a tone that makes Victoria think it isn’t exactly a question.

The answer’s most definitely yes, but - “How much is that gonna cost me?”

“Nothing,” Aria tosses her a towel and her bag. “The last three doctors I’ve had on my payroll would’ve given Volak up for dead the minute they saw him.” She pauses, lets that sink in. “It’s in my best interests to keep you alive.”

Victoria dries her hands and forearms, and then pulls on the clean sweatshirt from her bag; her ribs ache with the motion. She shakes out her ponytail and pulls it right back up again, and then looks at Aria in the dim, flickering light. “You know,” she says evenly, “I’m not gonna complain if one of your guys gets a little rough and he ends up in a dumpster.”

Although its attempts certainly keep her busy, employed, and paid well enough to have a decent apartment, she doesn’t advocate murder. But she’s sporting bruised ribs - probably at least one broken - and her eye’s starting to throb, and this isn’t the worst he’s done. She won’t ask directly, but she’ll happily look the other way.

First do no harm has a pretty blurry line these days. A year ago, she’d be horrified by herself.

A year ago, her mother was alive. A year ago, she was working the day shift on Gagarin. A year ago, she would’ve called Volak the minute he hit her table. A year ago, she didn’t know how to shoot with one hand and field dress a bullet wound with the other.

A year ago, broken ribs weren’t quite so common.

The bulb overhead flickers again - once, twice, three times, and blows out.

Aria smiles, and in the shadows it even looks genuine. “I’ll pass that along.”

06: Comes And Goes (In Waves)

this one’s for the torn down, the experts at the fall; come on friends, get up now, you’re not alone at all

Victoria stirs her straw around her empty drink, clinking the ice against the glass. She pokes at the lime wedge, stabbing it into the ice cubes. Afterlife’s music pulses around her, its patrons weave and dance and stumble past her, and she’s bored. For the tenth time in the last twenty minutes, she checks the clock on her omnitool - no matter how she spins it, she’s been sitting here, waiting, for forty-five minutes.

She’s going to have words with Bray after this one.

The drell beside her vacates his seat, and it isn’t thirty seconds before a turian male takes his place.

Victoria stiffens. Jailen and Qorra followed her here - they follow her everywhere, she’s sure they rented a unit in her building - and no one’s stupid enough to try anything in Afterlife anyway, not even Doral. She’s safe, she knows this, but her head and heart aren’t agreeing much on logic these days.

Three deep breaths, she forces her shoulders to relax, and she gestures for the bartender to refill her club soda. She looks at the turian - the only way to really convince herself that he isn’t Doral is to look and prove it.

Crappy armor, and he sits awkwardly in it, like it’s new. Like he’s used to wearing something else, something better. He sits strangely too, like he’s trying to act natural - he’s failing pretty miserably at it. He turns to catch the attention of the bartender, and the lights illuminate his profile - strong, confident, with blue markings under his eyes.

Definitely not Doral.

He orders three shots of quadruple-filtered turian brandy, and throws them back in rapid succession.

Victoria bites on her straw and raises her eyebrows. “Bad day?”

He sighs, and knocks on the counter, ordering another three. “You could say that.” His flanged voice is strained, tight. He drinks one shot, but lets the other two sit, and doesn’t look at her.

She cracks her neck and checks the time again. Forty-nine minutes. This is ridiculous. She messages Bray - what the hell?

they’re blocked in an alley, had to send guys to help clear em out

She scoffs. If her patient has any blood left in him by the time he finally gets here, she’ll be amazed. She should’ve risked it and gone to meet the car.

The turian snorts. “Sounds like you’re not having a great day either.”

“I’m not four shots in,” she points out, though she’s rapidly considering the merits of catching up. “I think you’re still winning.”

He laughs, and it’s a strained, chaotic, unstable thing. “Fair enough.”

“I’m Victoria,” she says. She isn’t one to strike up conversations in bars, much less introduce herself to strangers, but it’s late, and she’s tired, and there’s a shotgun-ravaged batarian on his way that’ll keep her up for at least another four hours.

And he isn’t Doral. And for the first time in almost five months, she doesn’t feel quite so twitchy around a turian, even if this one does sound like he’s two seconds from leaping off a cliff.

“Garrus,” he says, finally looking at her.

She clinks her glass against one of his still-full shot glasses. “Nice to meet you.” She pushes her hair out of her face. Afterlife is hot, and she wishes she’d thought to take a hairband out of her medical bag before she parked it at the bar.

His mandibles tighten, and his sharp intake of breath is audible even through the music. “Looks like you had a really bad day a couple weeks ago.”

She winces. What she thought was a black eye was really an orbital fracture. Mordin knit the bone back together, but there’s nothing she can do for the bruising except wait. “Yeah,” she acknowledges. “But it’s over now.”

He stares at her, and his brow plates flatten.

And that’s when it hits her - he’s a cop. Not the corrupt ones that pretend to patrol Omega in exchange for credits in their pockets from one gang or another (or many), but the good kind. The kind she could’ve used when Doral started showing his love with his fists. The kind she maybe would’ve used, if he’d been around.

Garrus recovers quickly, affects a disinterested slouch again, and she respects his choice and doesn’t say anything.

“Good,” he says.

“You gonna get through your bad day?”

He sighs, and swallows one of his remaining shots. “Somehow,” he says.

“Ryder!” Bray calls.

She turns and looks over her shoulder.

“They’re five minutes out, get your ass downstairs.”

She throws him a sloppy salute and drains the rest of her drink.

“You work for Aria?” Garrus manages to sound disappointed and impressed at the same time.

“Mmm,” she says, bobbling her head in both a nod and a shake, “tangentially.” She slides off her stool.

He takes it at face value and finishes off the last shot without a word.

Victoria steps in beside him and rests her hand on his arm. “Whoever your bad day is? I bet they’d be happier if you didn’t destroy your liver.”

He blinks at her, and suddenly his discomfort and good cop vibe and six shots of brandy all slide away, replaced by a deep, relentless sadness in his eyes. It isn’t just a bad day - it’s a bad week, a bad month. He’s here to cope.

That, she can relate to.

She pats his arm and gives him a smile. “I gotta go save some lives. Have a good night, Garrus.”

07: Castle Down

and would you tear my castle down, stone by stone, and the wind run through my window, ‘til there is nothing left but a battered rose

Penny takes her hand and gently laces their fingers together. “This is nice,” she says, looking down at Victoria.

Victoria smiles up at her. “Yeah, it is.”

“That’s nice too,” she squeezes Victoria’s hand, “but I mean being able to walk without looking over your shoulder, or hurrying back to your apartment.”

Shrugging, Victoria checks around her. Nope - still no bodyguards. Aria called them back after Doral’s body was found mostly decomposed in a depressurized airlock last month. What was it Baylor called her the other day?

Switzerland.

She laughs, shaking her head.

“What?” Penny grins widely, looking at her. “What?”

Victoria pulls her laughter under her control again and takes a breath. “Apparently, I’m Switzerland.”

Penny raises an eyebrow. “You’re an Earth country that makes accurate watches?”

She looks at Penny, but Penny’s biting her lip, trying to hold back a grin. Victoria sticks her tongue out at her girlfriend and lightly swings their hands as they walk along the promenade back to their apartment (her apartment, Victoria hopes Penny will say yes to moving in with her, and then it will become their apartment). “I’m…the metaphor doesn’t work, actually.”

She’s not neutral. Far from it. Aria’s seen to that in the last few months, which has annoyed Victoria less than she thought it would. Maybe it has nothing to do with neutrality, and everything to do with Omega having enough common sense not to mess with its doctors.

“Because of the guy in the airlock.”

Victoria stops and turns. She’s wearing black skinny pants and a navy blue top, black eyeliner and dark lipstick, with knives sheathed into black boots she can run in. Penny, on the other hand, is in a fluttery pink dress and silver sandal heels, an outfit way better suited to the resorts of Virmire than even the better sections of Omega. Long copper hair curled into waves frames her gentle face, with soft, dewy makeup that hardly looks like makeup at all.

Penny’s a senior auditor with Irune Intergalactic Bank, on Omega for a long-term audit of the bank’s station accounts. Penny is an accountant who likes flowers and dancing and pancakes, whose entire repertoire of self defense moves is wrapped up in running very fast in the other direction and screaming, who is far too sweet and sunny for this dump of a station. Penny shouldn’t know about things like the guy in the airlock - she doesn’t know how Penny even does know about the guy in the airlock.

But if Victoria wants Penny - and she does - she needs to tell Penny about her life. More than just the clinic and the abusive ex.

She lifts up on her toes and kisses Penny. Her lips are soft and smooth, and taste of the citrus in her lip gloss. “Because of the guy in the airlock,” she says. “And a few other things I shouldn’t tell you out here.”

Penny pulls away, with an inquisitive eyebrow raised high.

“Do you want to come up?” Victoria asks.

“For those few other things you shouldn’t tell me out here?” Penny smirks.

Victoria returns the smirk. “Yes. But that’ll only take five minutes. The rest of the night’s up to you.”

“Hmmm,” Penny says. “I like the sound of that.” She takes Victoria’s hand again and leads her up the steps and into the elevator.

Victoria’s spent the last year hauling herself out of the dirt Doral ground her into, and Penny is nice. Penny is soft and sweet and caring - Penny is everything Doral wasn’t. Penny gives wonderful hugs. Penny is a delightfully normal person in a life that is rapidly becoming anything but.

The minute she steps out into the hall, Victoria knows something is wrong. She doesn’t see anything out of place, doesn’t hear anything out of place, but the hair on the back of her neck stands straight up. The shift out of Date Mode and into Defense Mode is instant and instinctive.

(Some day, she should examine that - how easily she unsheathed the knife from her right boot, how naturally she stepped in front of Penny, how quickly she pulled a barrier around both of them with only a twitch of her fingers.)

“Tori?” Penny asks, a scared waver in her voice.

“Stay close behind me,” she says. She thinks for a moment and pauses right outside her door. “Do you have any pepper spray in your purse?”

“Yeah,” Penny nods, withdrawing the can.

She runs an infrared scan with her omnitool - two shapes, in the living room. One human, one salarian. She frantically looks for Albert, and sighs in relief when she finds him sleeping in the bathtub. And then she rolls her eyes: he’s the same way with bugs, totally useless. “Don’t use that until I tell you, okay?”

“Just what were you going to tell me in those five minutes?”

She intends it to be teasing, but Victoria hears the undercurrent of concern - of fear - in her girlfriend’s voice. Before she triggers the retinal scan and they walk into whatever nonsense is waiting for them, she turns around to Penny.

“Short version? I work for Aria,” she says.

“Why do I get the feeling the long version involves you and several street fights?”

Victoria wonders whether Penny has any idea how close she is to the truth. “You don’t have to stick around for this,” she says.

“My alternative is to walk home alone, knowing my girlfriend is walking into an ambush. Besides,” she smiles, and it’s clear that she’s still scared, but there’s a tiny sparkle in her eyes, “I’m not missing you go ninja on some people.”

Victoria lifts up on her toes and gives Penny a quick kiss. She turns, pulls a tight annihilation field around both of them, and activates the retinal scanner. The door swings open. She adjusts her grip on the knife and steps inside, Penny right behind her.

Her annihilation field growls, and lifts the table lamp into the air. She targets the lamp, ready to throw it if necessary.

“Put it down, Ryder.” A voice calls from the dark.

Victoria frowns - she knows that accent. Scottish, with the hard, rough edge that comes from living on Omega too damn long. Yeah, she knows him. She’s patched him up in the clinic four times in the past six months. She lowers the knife, a little. “Monteague? What the fuck?”

He flips a light on and grins at her. He’s found a decent dentist since she last saw him - he’s no longer missing the teeth he lost in the fight that brought him to her two weeks ago. “Put the knife down, we’re not here to hurt you.”

“Who’s your friend?” She feels Penny wound up and on guard behind her, and takes her hand. A brief, hopefully reassuring, squeeze - it’s okay, I know this guy and he’s probably not going to kill either of us - and she lets go.

“Sensat. Needed him to get through your security.”

“It’s there for a reason, you asshole. What do you want?” Victoria sheathes the knife and dissolves her annihilation field. The lamp drops back onto the table, precariously close to the edge, but Penny catches it and gently sets it upright.

“One of our guys got hurt bad. Archangel said to grab you and get going.” Monteague stands, wincing a little as his hip straightens.

Victoria raises an eyebrow - she fixed that, and wonders if he decided to kick his way out of a fight anyway, just like she told him not to. Shaking her head, she lets the barrier fall. “Archangel know how to use a phone?” She crosses her arms. “Even Aria calls first.”

He shrugs. “It’s an emergency. You coming or does Sensat have to carry you over his shoulder?”

Though the salarian is scrawny - even for a salarian - she doesn’t doubt he could make good on the threat. But either way, the choices Monteague’s offered will end in her going with him. No matter what, she isn’t getting hugs - or anything else, for that matter - from Penny tonight.

Even if she could, she wouldn’t turn them away. Whatever and whoever it is, they need her help badly enough that they broke into her apartment to find her.

She turns to Penny. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I have to do this. But you’re welcome to stay. Sensat will fix whatever security he broke getting in here; you’ll be safe here.” She looks over her shoulder and glares at the salarian.

He dips his chin, nodding once.

“That’s okay,” Penny says, smiling as though it’s totally normal that her girlfriend got a house call from some local goons who need her medical expertise. “Albert and I can watch television.” She glances over Victoria’s shoulder at the two men waiting impatiently. “Are you going to be okay with them?” she asks quietly.

Victoria nods. Archangel’s done good work - his body count has hit her morgue, but they’re all people who have deserved it for years - and Monteague’s an ass, but he’s a good guy. “I’ll be fine.” She squeezes Penny’s hand. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“I’ll be here,” Penny promises.

08: Gesture

look at me like it’s a lesson, I know to take it all in

Her omnitool chirps mid-surgery with an email notification. She ignores it - the salarian open in front of her needs her attention more than whatever scam has found its way through her spam filter. She widens the forceps, and hisses at what she sees inside his chest. 

She’s no epidemiologist, but those growths are not normal. There have been rumors - low, but steadily growing stronger - of a bug running through the district. Something gnaws at her, something she overheard outside Afterlife. Vorcha aren’t exactly reliable sources of information, but she’d rather overreact.

“Everyone who’s not human, leave the room. Now.”

“Doctor Ryder?” Nivera asks.

“Out.” She looks up over her mask at the turian. And at the drell, Raetaq. And at the salarian, Zaan. And at the krogan, Bruna. “All of you. Now. Decon protocol level 5.”

She waits until the others have left the room before she looks across the body at Daniel. “This guy’s a goner,” she says. He came in as a stabbing victim, but it’s not the knife that’s going to kill him. Or rather, the knife sped up the process - if he even survives surgery, which is unlikely, his body won’t be strong enough to heal the wound and fight the infection in his lungs.

“Doctor?”

Victoria shakes her head. There are no good options here: patch the knife wound and save his life now only for him to probably die in days, or sacrifice his life now to gain valuable research into what looks like far more than just a nasty bug. It’s a shitty choice either way. “Prepare a sterile biohazard container. We’re taking samples, maybe Mordin can do something with this.”

***

It’s another six hours and three patients before she finally gets to check her email. She slumps into a chair in an empty room - almost empty, except for a dead drell on the table, covered by a sheet - finishes half of her protein shake in one go, and pulls up her email.

She doesn’t get much email these days. She started a new account when she got to Omega, and it’s somehow remained blissfully off mailing lists and scams. There are only five messages in her inbox - one from Mordin with preliminary results from the samples she took earlier (doesn’t look good), two from Bray confirming when and where they need her tonight, a sale flyer from Harrot, and…

One from Lauren Walsh. Subject: Job Offer.

Victoria frowns. Walsh has connections - the fact that she found Victoria’s new email address isn’t surprising, what is surprising is that she used it. She hasn’t heard a word from Walsh since she left her program six years ago, and truthfully never expected to, and certainly not via something with job offer in the subject.

Hesitantly, she opens it.

Dr. Ryder;

I’m putting a team together at Huerta Memorial. It’s an obstetric trauma team, focused solely on human biotic pregnancies. The first generation of human biotics is beginning to reach its childbearing boom, and we have - as I’m sure you can imagine - encountered complications. The Alliance has thrown full funding behind my proposal to create a research and treatment team to help prevent and treat these complications.

I know you are currently on Omega, doing what I’m sure is excellent, necessary work with Dr. Solus, but your talents would also be beneficial, and welcome, on my team. This is an open offer.

My condolences on the loss of your mother.

Regards,

Lauren Walsh 

She reads it again. And again. And a fourth time.

The Citadel’s nice. But so is Omega.

No, she thinks, it’s not. Omega is a shithole.

Omega is dirty and mean and broken, and she came here to run away - it was pure luck she stumbled into something resembling a life. It’s been three years, and maybe the grief has lifted, maybe it hasn’t, but she wants to live in a building with a working elevator. She wants a proper day-night cycle. She doesn’t want…whatever the hell it was that just scuttled across the operating room floor.

She wants a proper vegetable, one she didn’t have to coax into existence with a bank of secondhand grow lights she got from the weed and mushroom dealers across the hall. Maybe she wants an apple.

Another email pops up, from Mordin again. Schedule changes for next week.

No. She definitely wants an apple.

Victoria finishes her protein shake and sends the changes to update her calendar. She likes her work here, she does, even with whatever impending disaster is about to fall on their collective heads. But Walsh’s team - she could actually help. Make a real difference, not just triage gang fights and sickness. Go back to her roots; god knows, she’s actually missed it.

She should think about it. Talk to Mordin, see if he’s thinking the same thing she is about the illness, see if he wants her to stay. Vidcall Penny on Illium, see how she’s doing, find out what she thinks about her options. Get more details from Walsh, see exactly what they’d be doing, exactly where she fits into the team, maybe ask why Walsh wants her when she made it clear Victoria wasn’t welcome back.

She should take her time and think about it. The last time she didn’t take her time and think about it, she ended up here.  

She replies to the email.

I’ll be there in a couple of weeks.

10: Riders On The Storm

into this house we’re born, into this world we’re thrown

Victoria inhales sharply and stares at the dead plant behind Scott’s right shoulder. She deserves this, she absolutely deserves this - number two lesson she learned from Omega, own your bullshit (number one: always be armed) - but she’d rather be shoulder-deep in a pregnant vorcha than in Scott’s apartment with his dead plants and his bought-it-off-a-quarian-street-vendor crappy hotel room art on the walls and his broken coffee maker that beeps every forty-eight seconds, listening to him unleash three years of pent-up anger all directed straight at her throat.

But she deserves this. They’ve never been close, and she’s been leaving him behind her whole life, but this wasn’t just going to high school in Paris and leaving him to navigate blockheads, goons, and girls who broke his heart all by himself. This was abandonment.

She knows this. She’s known this for three years. She was just too numb to feel guilty about it.

He’s been throwing Omega in her face for ten minutes - god only knows how he found out about Doral, and somehow that’s her fault too - and she’s gearing up to shout right back at him (how dare you - he broke my fucking face) when Scott finally snaps.

“I needed my sister!” Scott yells.

Her words die on her lips.

She stands there, still tense, still primed to drag this thing from a one-sided screaming match into a spiteful contest over who had it worse when Mom died, in utter, stunned silence. Scott’s never needed anything from her in his life. Hell, if it weren’t for Mom getting sick, they’d probably still be doing hardly more than exchanging e-cards at Christmas and their birthday.

“You never said anything,” she says quietly. Not that she would’ve known what to do with it. But she could’ve tried. She could’ve thought about trying.

“How could I?” he spits out, green eyes glittering with grief now, not just anger. “You left for Omega straight from her fucking funeral. I thought you were just going home.” His voice breaks on home, and he turns away, running his fingers through his short hair. He walks a few steps over to the window, his hitched breath the only sound in the whole apartment.

The coffee maker beeps.

Victoria watches as his shoulders shake. She knows how to comfort an upset friend. She doesn’t know how to comfort her upset little brother. It occurs to her that she’s not been a very good sister, not for a long time, and Omega’s just the most recent item on a very, very lengthy list.

She bites her lip. Though she tries to hold them back, tears sting at her eyes. Omega was good for her, in the end, and she found solace there - a strange gritty calm amidst a maelstrom of chaos. But it wasn’t all good, far from it. There’s a lot in the beginning she wants to forget. She clenches her teeth hard enough that her jaw aches, and the tears fall anyway. She probably needed her brother, she just didn’t know it. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and wraps her arms around herself. “I’m so sorry, Scott.”

His apartment blurs as she lets herself cry. Hot tears stream down her cheeks and she hears her brother choke back a sob. She tries to hug herself tighter, but it doesn’t help.

It isn’t immediate - the coffee maker beeps six times before either of them make a move - but Scott turns back to her, and Victoria takes a step toward him, and slowly, slowly, they meet in the middle of the living room.

“Do that again, and I will kill you,” he says, burying his face in her hair. “I’m an N5 now, I know how to make it look like an accident.”

She laughs through her tears and holds him closer, not caring at all that she’s smudging mascara onto his shirt. “Yeah, well, I spent three years on Omega, I wouldn’t count me out.” She sniffles.

Scott smiles and kisses the top of her head.

She hasn’t been hugged in a while, and lets her arms settle around his waist. By the way that he’s holding onto her, she bets Scott hasn’t had a hug recently either; she hugs him a little tighter. 

They stand there, in the middle of his apartment with the dead plants and the bad art and the broken coffee maker, long after the lights outside have dimmed into their night cycle. Victoria rubs at her cheeks - gritty with tears, streaked with eyeliner - and her stomach growls.

He laughs and takes a step back. “Would you like me to make you food?”

Her mouth waters. Scott’s been a wizard in the kitchen since they were kids, and -

“Before you answer that, yes, I have the stuff for macaroni and cheese.”

The grin that breaks across her face almost hurts with how good it feels. “That would be amazing.”

10: Echo

we are golden stars above silver seas, we hear echoes from another galaxy

Scott sits in the crypod next to her, knees bent to his chest, eyes wide as he watches the organized chaos of the brightly-lit cryo facility.

“Scared?” she teases. She pulls the hairband off her wrist and tugs her hair up until a ponytail. 600 years should be enough time for the gene mod to take permanent hold, and she hopefully won’t have to do any maintenance on it in Andromeda. Bright orange hair permanently, here she comes.

He looks at her. “Did you read how this process works?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re not terrified?”

She shrugs. She’s never frozen herself before, but she’s put plenty of eggs and embryos into cryo, and even pulled them out. “Not really.”

Her omnitool beeps. She looks down, and smiles. A selfie of Penny, with Albert sitting on the couch behind her, his chin resting on her shoulder. We both love you. Good luck!

Tears spring to her eyes, and she tries to blink them back. She’ll miss them both, more than anything else. But Albert’s in good hands on Illium with Penny and her wife, and Penny’s in good hands with Albert and Malia.

I love you both, she writes back. Take care of yourselves.

Make good choices! :)

At that, she laughs, and wipes the tears from her cheeks. I’ll try. This is one last plea not to name your kid after me.

A picture of Malia’s rounded blue stomach. Victoria T’vellan. It has a good ring to it.

“Ryders,” Harry says as he taps a sequence onto the crypod across from them. “You’re up next. Time to put the toys away.”

Alright, it does. They’re telling me I have to hang up now, so: I love all three of you (and the fourth who isn’t there yet). Have wonderful lives. She checks the camera, makes sure she’s brushed all the tears away, and then sends Penny a picture of herself in the crypod, thumbs up. She powers down her omnitool.

“You’re sad about the lizard,” Scott teases.

She is. She’s sad about a lot of people, but she’s saddest about Albert; she tried, and even for a Pathfinder’s kid they weren’t going to allow her to freeze him alongside her. She swallows and looks over at Scott. “Like you didn’t bawl when you gave Rusty to David.”

He opens his mouth to argue, and then closes it. “Fair point. Here’s hoping Andromeda has suitable pets.”

Harry steps up in between them, and they fall silent. There’s a tight schedule. “You guys know the protocol?”

They nod and lie down. Harry presses a button first on hers, then on Scott’s. Thirty more seconds, and they’re past the point of no return.

Victoria turns and looks at Scott as the clear glass closes around her. “See you on the other side,” she smiles.

“See you on the other side,” he says.

She settles flat on her back, staring up at the bright white lights in the ceiling. Harry’s face comes into view, and she nods - she’s ready. He gives her a thumbs up, and she closes her eyes as a deep, frigid cold starts in her veins, spreading outward.

She has one last moment to think about Albert, about Penny, about Scott, about Mom in the ground outside Indianapolis and the daisies she planted beside the headstone, and then nothing.

Nothing for six hundred years, nothing until another galaxy, nothing until she wakes up with different stars outside. 

She blinks, and a smile slowly grows across her face despite the increasing chaos of the Hyperion’s medbay. “We made it.”

[wellimhavinga3outof10day]

Like Old Times

Description: Jughead and Archie spend some time talking after Jughead agrees to stay at Archie's house for the night. (1x07 coda)

A/N: Lyrics from “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers

Read on AO3

Jughead sat on Archie’s bed playing around with his guitar. He knew a couple of chords, maybe enough to get through a scale, but he wasn’t focused enough to play anything remotely close to music. Instead, he listened to the air mattress filling up and was silently thankful that Archie had offered him a place in his room instead of the couch.

           Once the mattress was full, Archie sat down beside him on the bed. Gently, he pulled the guitar from Jughead and rested it on his leg. He played a few chords – a slight warm-up – and then offered Jughead a thin smile. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

           Jughead snorted. “But you don’t believe that’s because my dad will get better.”

           Archie looked away and played a few more notes. Jughead thought he caught a tune he recognized but it slipped away as soon as Archie’s fingertips drummed against the guitar’s surface. Archie licked his lips and said, “You know I’d never say anything bad about your dad.”

           “I know he’s not a saint.”

           “But you love him and that’s good enough for me.”

           Jughead met Archie’s eyes and nodded weakly. He wanted nothing more than to gather his best friend in his arms and hold him tight but there was a guitar between them. Archie played the same notes again, his fingers whispering over the strings, and Jughead closed his eyes to see if he could remember the song. Archie went a little further, his fingers unsure, like he’d never played the song before. He hit a wrong note – Jughead was sure of it even though he wasn’t sure of the song yet – and Archie backtracked to find the right chord progression.

           Archie got through the intro and then started to sing softly.

“Sometimes in our lives,

We all have pain, we all have sorrow,

But if we are wise,

We know there’s always tomorrow.”

           “Wow,” Jughead said, smiling. “I don’t think I’ve heard that since... I don’t know. I was really young.”

           “Nine,” Archie said.

           Jughead gave him a look. “How do you know that?”

           “Because I remember you telling your mom that you were too old for her to sing you to sleep,” Archie kept playing but didn’t keep singing. “And she was devastated because, even at four, Jellybean was putting herself to bed.”

           Jughead laughed. “Well, I couldn’t exactly let my little sister look more grown up than me.” He let his eyes wander to Archie’s fingers again, unsure on the chords, tripping over different sounds. “How do you even know the song she sung though?”

           “Are you kidding? I used to sleep over at your house all the time.” Archie smiled. “You claimed you couldn’t sleep otherwise in the second grade.”

           Jughead bit his tongue and looked away. He remembered well enough. At seven years old, he had been afraid of the dark and more afraid of telling his dad he wanted his nightlight back. So he’d cajoled his parents into letting Archie sleep in his bed on school nights as long as they actually went to sleep on time. Which, of course, they didn’t, but they got very good at whispering and communicating in complete silence. What he didn’t remember was his mom singing both of them to sleep but he guessed she must have.

“Just call on me, brother, when you need a hand,

We all need somebody to lean on.

I just might have a problem that you’ll understand.

We all need somebody to lean on.”

           “Are you sure it’s all right that I’m staying here?” Jughead said. “Just for the night, I mean. I know you and your dad, you want me to... stay for good.”

           “You can.”

           Jughead shook his head. “I don’t want him to think I’m giving up on him again. I don’t want... he got better when I came back. Just a little bit, but at least it was a start. And maybe... maybe if I stick around he’ll keep getting better, you know?”

           Archie clapped Jughead on the back. “Yeah. I know.”

           “Tell me.” Jughead met his friend’s eyes. “I won’t be mad.”

           “Tell you what?”

           “That you don’t think he’ll do it.”

           Archie slipped the guitar off his thighs and settled it on the floor. He shifted closer to Jughead, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and pulled him closer. Jughead let his head fall onto Archie’s shoulder. Archie took a breath, then said, “I think your dad loves you a lot. And he’s going to do everything he can to be better for you.”

           “But?” Jughead fought to keep the crack out of his voice.

           “Everything he can might not be up to your standards.”

           Jughead felt a tear roll down his cheek and batted it away. He tried to shift away from Archie but his friend only held him tighter until Jughead turned his face into his shoulder and let himself cry. It was no big moment, no huge sobs, just tears silently streaming down his face and staining Archie’s shirt. Archie’s fingers carded through the hair at the nape of his neck and, even without the guitar, Archie started to sing the last of the lyrics.

“Call me if you need a friend,

Call me, call me, uh-uh,

Call me when you need a friend,

Call me if you ever need a friend.”

           “Arch?” Jughead mumbled after a moment.

           “Yeah?”

           “Do I have to sleep on the air mattress?”

           Archie’s chest rose in a puff of a laugh and he said, “Nah, you can have the bed.”

           “I meant...” Jughead trailed off, unsure where to go with his request. They weren’t nine year-olds anymore, easily small enough to fit into a twin-sized bed. And they weren’t innocents anymore either. Not that Jughead wanted anything past Archie’s heat at his side, maybe a solid place to rest his head. “Never mind.”

           “We can share the bed,” Archie said and Jughead wasn’t sure if he’d read his mind or was simply offering of his own volition. He told himself it didn’t matter. He didn’t care if Archie did it because he wanted to or because he pitied him. Any other time, any other day, he would have chewed Archie out for showing any signs of pity. But at the moment, he’d take it.

           “Thanks.”

           Archie shifted away and got up off the bed. He stripped off his shirt and Jughead took that as a sign that they were getting changed now. He shifted, wiped the drying tears from his cheeks, and began to undress. Carefully, he managed to keep out of Archie’s view and not look at his friend either. When he’d gotten his pants on and his old S shirt, he turned to find Archie shirtless and dressed only in a pair of plaid shorts. Jughead smirked.

           “What?” Archie said. “I get hot.”

           “You are hot.”

           Archie laughed and threw his shirt at him. “Thought you didn’t like people that way.”

           “I can appreciate an aesthetic.”

           Shaking his head, Archie pulled back the covers on the bed and shifted under the sheets. He moved right up against the wall and placed his hands on his chest. Jughead hesitated a moment and then slid into the small empty space beside him. His butt was halfway off the mattress, the sheets pulled tight across them both. Jughead could feel Archie’s shoulder pressed into his, could tell how fast his friend was breathing. Jughead shifted a little, unused to Archie taking up so much space.

           “When was the last time we did this?” Jughead grumbled.

           “Fourth grade?”

           “Before your growth spurt.”

           Archie laughed, the sound nervous and shaky.

           “I’m not gonna try anything, you know.”

           “Shut up.”

           Jughead rolled onto his side and bunched his half of the pillow up underneath his head. He started to close his eyes. Archie shifted behind him, giving him a little more room, and Jughead shifted further onto the mattress. Then, to his surprise, Archie’s arm came down around his torso. For a moment, Jughead froze. He didn’t breathe. “You okay?” Archie asked, his voice calm and soft. Jughead nodded. He forced his muscles to relax and let Archie pull him flush against his chest. They fit on the bed much better this way.

           Archie pressed a kiss to Jughead’s clothed shoulder. “No matter what,” he said, “you’re welcome here and you’re safe here.”

           Jughead felt himself relax further, couldn’t help the smile curling over his lips. The urge to make a smartass comment rose in him but he batted it down. Instead, he closed his eyes and listened to Archie’s breathing gradually slow. He matched him breath for breath until sleep overtook him.