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mittensmorgul · 4 years ago

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As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt. I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

#spn 15.20 #spn cosmology #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #and this is why no amount of narrative defense of the finale is capable of making me feel any better about it #i admit i thought too big... but it was all right there in the narrative to see #oh well at least all i have to do to hold on to my grandest notion of the universe is throw out the finale :'D

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formeandmyfics · 3 years ago

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Jugenea Fic

IN STITCHES

just a short, random, fun one

1956

New Frontier Hotel

Vegas

It was nearing 4 a.m. when Judy turned out the lamp on the nightstand and snuggled into the feather-down comforter of her hotel bedroom. The darkness, along with the fresh, cool sheets, made her immediately drift off into sleep. As she did so, her mind replayed tonight's events.

She was nearing the end of her contracted show at the hotel. Every show had been a success, and with such a great audience, she was having a blast. Unfortunately, that morning, she had come down with laryngitis. She could speak alright; singing, even a slow melody, her voice had come out raspy and trying any loud or high notes sounded like a good impersonation of Mickey Mouse. She panicked. She could not cancel that show, not just because of financial aspects with the hotel, but because she didn't want to have newspapers write more false claims as to why she cancelled, which some columnists had gotten almost venomous since she left MGM. Most importantly, she also didn't want to disappoint her fans.

With Gene's quick thinking, he contacted their buddy Jerry Lewis, whom was in town, and begged him to help Judy out. Fortunately, he came through, but told both of them, "I'm scared shitless. I don't know what to do out there." Judy was nervous, too! She didn't know how the show would pan out or how the audience would react.

Gene had said to her, "They just want to see you. That’s all. You can sit at the edge of the stage and talk to them about the weather and they'd be happy. That's how magnetic you are, so go and use it. Go out there with Jer' and just have fun."

Jerry did his comedy bits, bantered with Judy, leaving her in hysterical laughter, and they interacted with the audience. Jerry also sang some of her songs, in her normal arrangements, including 'Rock-A-Bye' with Judy as his personal cheerleader by his side. The crowd didn't mind at all that she couldn't perform. It was a very intimate evening, and all-in-all, a smash. She was so very grateful.

After the show, she had a late dinner with Gene and a few friends, including Frank and Lauren, who surprised her by showing up to the show. By 2 in the morning, more people started coming around their booth in the bar and the noise was too much for Judy's exhaustion. Gene wanted to stay there with Frank a bit more so he told her to get some sleep. Giving him a kiss goodnight, she went up to the room. After reading a book, she finally got sleepy and head to bed. And boy, it felt marvelous.

In the downstairs lobby, Lauren shook her head, annoyed, as she walked hastily up to the front desk in the hotel's lobby.

"May I use the house phone, please?"

The receptionist nodded, "Here you are ma'am," then placed the phone on the corner for her.

"Thank you." She immediately dialed the Kelly's hotel suite. When there was no answer, she dialed again, but no answer.

"Dammit, Judes," she murmured as she clicked the phone down. She hoped Judy hadn't taken a sleeping pill.

The Kelly's suite was quiet, and dimly lit, as Lauren entered with Gene's key. The double doors to the bedroom were shut, no light coming from beneath them, so Lauren knew Judy was dead asleep. Still, out of curtesy, she knocked before entering. Walking over to the empty side of the bed, she turned on the lamp there.

“Judy,” with no response, Lauren kneeled on the bed and leaned over to softly shake her friends arm, “Judy. Wake up, hun.”

She stirred before turning, a puzzled look on her face, clearly still more asleep than wake, “Betty?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“What are you doing in my room,” she asked sitting up.

“Something’s happened. Are you awake?”

“What time is it?”

“4. You gotta get up. Gene’s got himself in a dilly,” Lauren said getting off the bed to grab Judy’s silk robe which hung over the vanity chair.

“What do you mean,” she asked alarmed.

“Some drunk asshole kept running his mouth and Gene kept antagonizing him. It ended in a brawl and Gene cut his arm pretty bad.”

Judy bolted out of bed putting her robe on, “Oh my God. Is he alright?”

“He’s okay, but the cut’s pretty deep. He won’t stop bleeding. The bartender gave him a rag to hold on his arm. I told him he needs stitches but he won’t stop arguing with me,” Lauren said as she followed Judy into the living room.

“Where is he now?”

“Downstairs with Frank talking to the house detective.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Judy said upset, “What should I do? I can't go down there like this. Lord knows what would come out in the papers if someone saw us.”

Just then there was a knock on the door and Lauren went over and opened it. Gene came in first, and irritatingly nudged Frank’s hand off his back, as he did so.

“Gene, what the hell have you done now?”

“I’m fine,” he said upset himself before he plopped onto the sofa.

“You’re not fine. You need stitches.”

“I don’t need fucking stitches, Betty. I told you that.”

“Please don’t talk to her like that, let me see,” Judy said sitting next to him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lauren replied unphased, “He’s cranky and has a gash the size of the Grand Canyon. I think it’s all the blood loss that’s messed with the tone in his voice.”

Judy tried not to smile at Lauren’s sarcasm, but Gene shot her a dirty look as if they were siblings. When Judy got the rag off of his arm carefully, she looked at her husband horrified.

“For Christ sakes, Gene.”

“Baby, I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay. You’re still bleeding. Look at the damn rag. It’s soaked,” she cried out.

“He needs a hospital.”

“He’s not going to a hospital because that’s dramatic and a waste of time,” Frank cut in, “Just call the house doctor.”

“I’m not taking him to the hospital or calling the house doctor,” Judy said getting up and walked across the room towards the phone, “If this gets out, people will think he came down with a Judy Garland ailment.”

“Judy,” Gene yelled shocked, then shot her a look over his shoulder, “That’s not funny.”

With the phone to her ear, she waved him off, clearly had been poking fun at her own expense.

“Who are you calling,” Frank asked.

“Tom Jacobs. He came to see the show tonight and is staying at the hotel,” she said of their doctor friend, a prominent Beverly Hills physician, “Maybe he can come look at Gene.”

“You’re going to wake him up at four in the morning,” Gene asked.

“Yes, so my husband doesn’t bleed to death...Hi, Tom? Hi, it’s Judy. I’m so sorry to wake you up, but I don’t know what to do. I’m alright, but Gene’s got himself in a pickle. He cut his arm pretty bad and we think he need stitches...”

“I DON’T NEED STITCHES,” Gene yelled interrupting her.

Judy continued, looking at her husband upset and yelled back at Gene covering the receiver with her hand, “He DEFINITELY needs stiches! Ok. Yes. Room 209. Thank you, darling. Buh bye.”

She walked on back over to Gene and sat down next to him again, “Why did you antagonize him, especially when you know he’s a drunk. You know I hate that stuff,” she said in a stern, wifely manner.

“If you heard the things he was saying, you would have thrown your martini in his face,” Gene retorted leaning his head back against the couch tired.

“Judging by what he was saying, she would have thrown it on his crotch,” Frank agreed.

“How hammered are you,” Judy asked.

“Scale?”

She sighed impatiently, “1-10.”

“4.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“No,” Lauren interrupted, “He didn’t drink that much.”

“I can attest,” Sinatra added.

When Gene rolled his head to look at her with a ‘see’ expression, she smiled, softening.

“What did the house detective say,” Lauren asked her buddy next to her.

“Threw the guy out and I sweet-talked him and he let us go,” Frank quipped quite proud.

“Are you in pain,” Judy asked sweeping some of his hair back with her fingers.

“No. Can't really feel my arm right now.”

“Can you feel this,” she asked and leaned in to kiss his cheek.

“That I can definitely feel.”

When the doctor came, Lauren and Frank said their goodbyes to give them privacy. Tom looked Gene over and took his vitals.

“Well, here’s the deal, bud,” Tom said, “Your vitals are great. Your blood pressure is just a little high but that’s to be expected after what happened. And your wife is right. You definitely need stitches.”

“Fuck,” Gene said to himself.

Judy looked at Tom and whispered, “He hates needles.”

“Tell ya what, pal, I’m gonna give you some happy juice so while I suture you up, you won’t feel a thing.”

Judy lit herself a cigarette as the doc worked on Gene’s stitches, who looked like he was asleep. She paced slowly back and forth. The movement caught Gene’s eye and his head slowly rolled to look at her. He tried focusing his eyes a moment, and when he did, he made a silly grin.

“Hey, you.”

Judy stopped in her tracks and looked over at him, exhaling.

“How are you feeling?”

“Come here,” he said and reached his free arm out towards her, lazily.

“Gene, don’t move, please,” the doc said looking through his magnifying glasses.

Judy immediately went over and took that hand so he wouldn’t continue to move.

“You’re beautiful.”

Judy let out a surprised chuckle, “Even at the crack of dawn, huh?”

“Is that what it is?”

“Pretty much.”

“You look familiar.”

Judy’s eyes widened and she looked up at Tom who just smiled not lifting his eyes, “Don’t worry about him. It’s the same effect as if he’s coming off anesthesia. He’ll be fine.”

“Well, you look familiar, too,” Judy played along.

“I’m Gene Kelly,” he stated proudly, but still with a slurred speech.

“Nice to get reacquainted, I’m Judy Kelly.”

His smile faded and he furrowed his eyebrows, “We have the same last name? Oh, no, you're not my sister are you?”

Judy let out a laugh but quickly cleared her throat, “No, darling, I’m your wife.”

“What’s your maiden name?”

“What an odd question. You want my maiden name or my given name?”

“Pick.”

“Well, you probably remember me more as Judy Garland.”

“Wait,” Gene went to sit up but Judy pushed him back, “I married Judy Garland?”

“Yeeeees,” she teased.

“Holy shit,” he mumbled to himself which made her laugh again.

“Oh my goodness,” she giggled.

“How long we been hitched?”

“5 years.”

“How can I not remember this? Where have I been this whole time?”

“You’ve been with me...dancing me off my feet and giving me two little Kelly’s.”

“We got kids?”

“Yes, sir,” she said reaching for her cigarette again, “A four-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy.”

“Can I see them?”

“I’m sorry, darling,” she giggled feeling a tad uncomfortable with her husband’s temporary amnesia, “Your parents came and took them home with them a few days ago. We’ll be with them again next week when we leave here. Tom,” Judy said a bit worried, “How long is this going to last?”

“Oh, it’ll wear off in about an hour, if not sooner. It’s a completely normal reaction, Judy, don’t worry yourself.”

“I’m worried he’ll want to re-do our honeymoon and have two more kids in that next hour since he can’t remember,” she teased.

They both suddenly heard Gene softly snoring and Judy felt relieved.

“I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that. He’s going to have a very restful night’s sleep.”

“He’s such an idiot sometimes,” she said looking at her cute, sleeping husband, “But he’s my idiot.”

#judy garland #gene kelly #jugenea #fan fic

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taetaespeaches · 5 years ago

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“We’ve already taken it slow for six years.”

taehyung x reader (or oc) genre: fluff word count: 2.1K

a/n: ok so here is the drabble that fills two requests and shows you how Tae and Peaches started their soon to be relationship after literal YEARS of friendship. This drabble shows the first of those few make outs that are referred to in “I’m pretty sure we just smashed your cowboy hat.” In true Tae and Peaches fashion, the kiss is pretty damn random. Anyways, thank you for reading and I hope you all enjoy :))

THE video was so stupid, but you and Taehyung were exploding in laughter, hands pushing at each other as you both tried to catch your breath. “Wait, wait,” you yelled through your amusement, “let me see that again.” Tae leaned over your frame to replay the TikTok from the compilation, both of you falling into more fits of laughter.

At the sound of someone jingling their keys, Tae looked up from the phone to see Hoseok at the front door putting his shoes on.

“Are you leaving?” Taehyung asked the older man, eyes going wide in curiosity.

“Yeah, I gotta get over to the airport,” Hoseok told your best friend, making you pop your head up and look over at him.

“Oh, you’re going to see your girl,” Tae realized, his lips curving upward a bit. He loved his friends so much, it was always something you really adored about him.

“She’s back?” You asked Hoseok in excitement. “Oh my god, yay!” You cheered, Hoseok giggling as he smiled happily at you.

“Definitely yay,” he told you, you shooting the man a thumbs up. Damn, go get her, you thought.

Tae glanced to you before asking his older member, “so you won’t be back tonight?”

Hoseok smirked, replying with, “Definitely not.” Opening the front door, he told you both, “You two have fun, I’ll see you later.”

“Be careful, hyung,” Tae shouted after Hoseok as the door shut. Turning to look at you, Tae found that you were already staring at him. “We got the place to ourselves,” he raised his eyebrows teasingly, you giggling as you rolled your eyes.

“What ever will we do?” You asked, stretching your legs across Tae’s lap, smirking at him. The man flashed you a stunning smile, an attractive low chuckle slipping from his lips as he tugged your legs against his hips, running his hand along your thigh as he hummed in thought.

You watched him in amusement as he pondered how to spend the evening, his head cocked to the side and his lips slightly pouted. His eyes widened just slightly as his lips curved up into a small smile as he sat forward, grabbing the box of cocoa puffs you were munching on earlier from the coffee table.

Digging his hand into the box, he shoved his mouth full of the sweets before mumbling to you, “open your mouth,” barely discernable. If you didn’t know the dude so well, you’d probably give him a quizzical ‘huh?’ but instead you pulled your legs toward yourself as he folded his, sitting criss-crossed. Opening your mouth, you watched as he lined up his shot.

Throwing the tiny sphere-shaped cereal at you, it bounced off your top lip, landing on your chest in the folds of the t-shirt adorning your body.

“Fuck, ok,” you grabbed the treat, popping it in your mouth before opening up again. Taehyung giggled as he tossed another, this time hitting your top front teeth and bouncing out. You picked it up from where it fell on your neck and shook your head. “Hang on, give me a second,” you giggle. “Here,” you told him, preparing to shoot the cereal at him.

You used the same cocoa puff to shoot at Tae’s mouth, the man having to take a quick jab to the left to catch it, but he did indeed get it. “Ayyyy,” you giggled. “Ok, come on, get it together,” you jokingly scolded yourself as Tae prepared to shoot another one at you.

This time, the treat easily fell into your mouth, both of you celebrating with lame yells of celebration, you tossing your fist up and Tae lightly tapping your thigh in excitement. “Ok, we got this now,” you told him, opening your mouth again. Tae pretended to juke a defender, shooting it like a basketball, it successfully landing in your mouth again. Your eyes widened in excitement, both of you getting more into the game. “Dude,” you yelled out enthusiastically, Tae dropping his forehead to rest against your kneecap as he fell into a fit of laughter.

As you giggled, mostly in response to his laughter, you found yourself admiring how easy and comfortable everything was with him.

You and Tae had been friends for years, since before his group even debuted. You’d been through stages of being inseparable to merely checking in once every few weeks, falling distant as other relationships or jobs took priority in your lives, but always finding your ways back to each other. It was both the easiest and most complicated relationship you’d ever had, and you were sure that if soulmates are real, he was yours and you were his.

Tae slowly lifted his head, looking at you through crinkled eyes with your favorite boxy smile plastered to his face as his deep chuckles slowly faded. “Ok, ok,” he told himself, taking a deep breath. “Ready?”

Nodding, you held back your laughter as you opened your mouth. As Taehyung prepared to shoot, he suddenly moved his arms forward, sending loose a whole handful of cocoa puffs as they catapulted to your face.

Hitting you on the nose, chin, and bouncing off your mouth, you squealed, shouting out your best friend’s name. With cocoa puffs landing on your chest, neck, and in your hair, you whined, chomping on the few that did happen to fall into your mouth.

Picking the cereal off of your chest and from your hair, you started sending them like darts at the giggling man, Taehyung bringing his arms up in defense as they bounced off his forearms.

Running out of cocoa puffs you huffed with a chuckle, Taehyung lowering his arms as he giggled cutely, his eyes scanning over your face and body. As his laughter faded out, his hands found your kneecaps, gently pulling your legs apart, slowly crawling over top your frame. Your eyes took in his figure as it neared your own and you found yourself reaching up to hold onto his hips. His hand came toward the left side of your face, and you leaned toward it expectantly, however he bypassed your cheek with a knowing grin, pulling a piece of cereal out of your hair and holding it up for you to see.

Your eyes followed the treat until it touched your lips, you shooting a playful glare at Tae as you just slightly opened your mouth to allow him to feed it to you. Your lips wrapped around the sweet, accidentally but maybe not so accidentally catching the tip of his finger as well.

His eyes scanned your features as he hovered above you, your hips pressed together as you swallowed the cereal. He brought his hand to push a piece of hair out of your face, his thumb gently running along from your temple to your cheek bone where it stayed, soothing back a forth a few times, this time allowing you the opportunity to lean into the touch.

“Peaches,” he whispered, your eyes connecting with his own just before his fell to your lips, the slight movement causing your abdomen to clench in excitement and anticipation. “Can I kiss you?”

The words had your heart racing, and if he didn’t have you pinned under the intensity of his gaze, you would have connected your mouth to his instantly. With no answer from you, he spoke in his low voice, “I know I shouldn’t but—”

“Tae,” you interrupted him with a whisper. “Kiss me.”

He didn’t crash his mouth to yours, no impulsivity present when he allowed his eyes to look over your face once more before his lids fluttered shut, slowly lowering his lips to yours. The softness was deliberate, careful in taking his time.

His lips were like velvet, which didn’t surprise you from all the times he had placed kisses to your face and hands throughout your friendship, but on your lips they felt both exactly and nothing like you had imagined they would. And you would be lying if you said you hadn’t imagined kissing him before.

The tension perhaps had always been present within your relationship, but increasingly so the older you both got. It was a few months ago that you realized you were his. This man could break your heart if he wanted to.

After placing a few sweet kisses to you, switching between the top and bottom lips, his hand gripped your waist. He squeezed your flesh while simultaneously pushing your body further against the sofa when you tried to lift your hips in response to his touch.

It was you who opened their mouth first, lacing your fingers through the dark hair at the back of his head. Taehyung responded by kissing you deeper, letting out a small groan into your mouth as you both pushed your hips toward one another.

When his tongue dragged along your lower lip, you pushed your own forward, your heart racing at the feeling as you let a moan slip out. Taehyung’s mouth formed into a smile at the sound as his hand on your waist slipped underneath your t-shirt to grasp your warm skin in his palm. Your hand slid from his hair to his neck, your thumb swiping along his jaw as he kissed you even deeper.

Your hand reached his collar bone, feeling every inch of his skin that was accessible to you as he was pushing his hips against yours, one hand feeling your abdomen while the other was holding your thigh. Fully into the heat of the moment, Tae’s hand was sliding up your ribcage, fingers toying with the hem of your bra when the front door suddenly opened, Tae throwing himself off you as you straightened your clothing, grabbing your phone to look nonchalant.

Looking over the back of the sofa you found Yoongi kicking off his shoes at the entrance as he tiredly rubbed his hands over his face. When he looked up, your eyes met, and he gave a small smile and a little wave.

“Hey,” you greeted kindly.

“What are you two up to?” He asked you both, walking further into the dorm. If he had any idea of what had just happened, he didn’t let on.

“Playing,” Tae said lowly, your lips curving up at the answer. Yeah. Playing. “Peaches,” he called out to you, waiting until your eyes found him before throwing a cocoa puff at you, it hitting your closed mouth due to your slow reflexes.

“Wait, I wasn’t ready,” you whined with a giggle.

Yoongi just smiled as he silently judged you, though he found you two to be quite cute. “I’m just getting a change of clothes and then I’m heading out for the night,” the older man said as he made his way out of the room toward his bedroom.

Tae shyly looked over at you, the confident man who was just on top you in a heated make out session hidden behind the bashful nervous gaze he gave you. “Well,” he said nervously.

“Dearest,” you started, sitting up before placing a hand to his thigh. “I don’t know what just happened exactly but—”

“I don’t regret it,” Tae interjected, you smiling in response.

“I don’t either,” you assured him. “I just think we need to take.. whatever this is—”

“Slow,” he finished for you, you nodding as his hand found yours, intertwining his fingers with yours. “You’re my best friend, Peaches.”

“Always,” you smiled. Reaching for a discarded cocoa puff sitting on the couch cushion next to Tae’s leg, you gently threw it at him, the treat bouncing off his nose. “I should go before Yoongi does,” you told him as you stood.

“No,” he whined, refusing to let go of your hand as you tried to tug it free.

“Dearest,” you shot him a look. “If slow is our goal, I need to leave,” you warned him. Tae grinned widely before giving you a nod, giggling as he let go of your hand.

“Just, not too slow, ok?” Your eyes stayed glued to each other as you both heard Yoongi’s bedroom door close, his feet shuffling toward you. “We’ve already taken it slow for six years.”

As Yoongi entered the room, you leaned forward, pressing a kiss to your best friend’s forehead. “Goodnight, Tae.”

Walking toward the front door, Yoongi looked at you in surprise. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah, I need to get up early tomorrow,” you told him.

“Cool,” he said simply as you both put your shoes on. “I’ll walk you out.”

“Both of you be safe,” Tae called out, you smiling at him as Yoongi nodded dismissively. “Text me when you’re home, Peaches.”

“Of course,” you grinned before exiting through the door Yoongi held open for you, leaving Tae to sit on the sofa alone as he basked in the afterglow of you and him together.

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celestialflamesme · 4 years ago

Text

| ROMEO, ROMEO, WHY ARE YOU ROMEO? | A Rowen One-shot | Fairy Tail |

Ships: Wendy Marvel x Romeo Conbolt

Tag list: @primaverafrog @luna-chan00 @biorckstudios18 @animaration-fts @cxndy-stxrs Excuse my horrible writing, I'm super drowsy coz of meds😅

Fairy Hills was the prettiest apartment ever (but maybe she was biased because she lived there) Wendy was currently out on her balcony, legs propped on the arms of her chaise and admiring the lovely hedge walls she'd help trim (Erza-nee got a little too excited with the hedge-scissors)

"I still can't believe you did that," Chelia guffawed.

Wendy replayed last week's events in her mind, wincing yet again.

...........

Working at Fairy Tail was like a dream come true. Wendy had come upon it by chance when her old Academy shut down without any warning. She blamed herself for what'd happened and was this close to giving up on theatre and dancing when Erza-nee decided to intervene.

"Work on that spin ONE MORE TIME! MORE PASSION!" Erza yelled, wielding the script as if it were a sword. (She might be scary at times, but Onee-san meant well.)

Chelia harrumphed through the call. "This is taking foreverrrrr."

"Chelia, you've been playing Among us for 2 hours." Wendy sighed, "You're one to talk about taking long."

"But I WANT TO TAKE YOU TO THIS CUTE CAFÈ!! WITH CATS!!"

"Half an hour moreee." The bluenette groaned. "Plus I still can't get this spin right!"

"Ah, that's why you've been working so hard," Wendy did not like how smug her friend sounded. "Isn't this the part where you meet the Soldier?"

Of course! Chelia, as her 'Official best-friend and Matchmaker!' would never rest until she found "love".

Unfortunately for her, Wendy, as a rule, was usually unbothered by romance of any sort.

It wasn't like she hated the idea; she found it quite adoreable that her friends growing up found 'their lobsters'. Some had their heart broken but they still tried with all they had, a fact that made it really hard to hate romance. (She was saying 'romance' way too much, wasn't she?)

The point was, she just didn't think she? was? a? well-suited? romantic? partner? In pre-school, the idea of a prince riding on a white horse and carrying her away made her:

A: Nauseous, because well, motion-sickness.

B: Wary, because "Porly-san said that if a stranger was to ever talk to her, she had to use the pepper spray in the left corner pocket of her backpack and if that didn't work, Erza-nee's pocket-knife would do just fine!" (Her teacher almost fainted that day.)

Well that and she'd never had a relationship to begin with, ever.

Crushes, sure. She'd had a few over the years. But considering her lack of courage? Or maybe it was the combined elder brother influence of Natsu-nii, Gajeel-nii and Erza-nee that scared away most boys. (Her last crush was scarred for his life....)

And it wasn't like she had time for it too, considering her full-time job at Fairy Tail.

She was daydreaming again. Moving on....

She deadpanned, "Yes. That's the only reason I need to get this right. Not because the entirety of Magnolia will watch it."

"Glad to know!" Chelia clapped her hands gleefully. "Now, as Ooba san says, 'SPIN MY LOVELIES!!" And she cut the call.

The bluenette was a little worried about her new partner. Practice for the new play had begun 3 weeks ago and there was no sight of him (or her, Erza refused to divulge any details...) Apparently they were from another Academy and were joining practice tomorrow. And despite herself, Wendy really really wanted to prove herself to them.

Being the youngest didn't mean she was any less talented than the others, and she'd be damned if she gave anyone any reason to prove otherwise.

"NOW FROM THE TOP!!"

Wendy spun back and forth on her feet and as the beat began playing, she twirled and reached her hand out in a grabbing motion-

Anndddd she just punched a guy in his face.

"SHIT!!"

"FUCK, I'M SORRY!!"

.............

Her new partner, Romeo (Romeo from theatre, lol) insisted he was fine and that it was his fault for interrupting her routine. He also complimented her punch (Who does that?!!)

Or maybe he really wanted her to stop crying. (He had a nose-bleed!! She caused it!!! Was that not reason enough to cry?!)

She sniffled. "BUT SERIOUSLY, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?! CAN I GET YOU ANOTHER BAG OF ICE?! I'M SO SO SORR-"

Romeo broke into a fit of laughter, making her blush (His laughter sounded like chiming bells. Was she even supposed to get attracted to partner's voices that way?)

Once his laughter subsided, a boyish smirk stretched lazily across his face at her pout.(Dear Mavis, he looked so pretty....)

"Romeo, at your service, ma'am!" He kissed the back of her hand. (Did she accidentally punch herself too? Was this all a hallucination?)

She spluttered, "U-uh Hi Wendy! SHIT," she dragged a hand across her face, making him chortle again, "I'm Wendy!"

................

The bluenette grumbled, "It's been 2 days, get over it."

"Nahhhh. I think I'll just let you drown in embarrassment for a few weeks," Her best friend swung her legs from where she was seated on the window ledge. "Ohhhh Ohhhh cute boy alert!"

"Uh-huh, sure," Wendy was too busy petting her kitten to pay her friend any attention.

"Anywho, how's the practice coming along? Is it awkward now between you two?" Chelia teased. Wendy gave a deadpan look and stroking Carla's fur, she mumbled, "We went out for lunch yesterday."

"WENDY MARVELL!!"

"CHELIA BLENDY!!! MY EARS!!!"

"Sorry," Chelia blushed. "Why the heck didn't you tell me this GODDANGIT?!!"

"Well uh." It was now Wendy's turn to blush. "I-"

"Cute guy keeps cycling past us. I think he's looking at you." Chelia commented with a raised eyebrow.

"Wait what?" Wendy tilted her head toward the wall separating Fairy Hills and the garden. Which is when her eyes met his own.

And Romeo, fair Romeo, crashed into the hedges.

..........

Both girls flinched. Wendy jumped off her seat and rushed downstairs, ignoring Chelia's surprised yelling.

"What are you doing here?!" She squeaked.

"We have got to stop meeting like this," Romeo groaned from where he was sprawled on the ground, "It's really not good for my lifespan and my ego."

Despite herself, she let out a giggle. "Get up, you...." Helping him up and dusting the weeds off his shoulders, she sighed. "You live nearby?"

"Well...."

"Do I even wanna know what you were doing cycling around here?" She rested her hand on her hip and raised a brow at his now perplexed expression. "Go on, I have all day."

"I was visiting a friend and uh, saw you at your balcony and wanted to say hi?" He scratched his neck, now colored pink. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

She huffed, "What am I going to do with you?" He looked at her with his little puppy dog-eyes (Drat. Foiled again!) and she gave in and smiled. "Let's get you cleaned up."

........

Seven minutes later, Romeo was sitting on her bed petting Carla, who'd taken a liking to him and ganging up on Wendy with Chelia.

"And the next second, she marches up to him and goes 'Excuse me, sir. But my friend wants a picture of your face. S-wait, WITH your face. FUCK, I MEAN WITH YOU!!' " Both were smacking the bed and laughing like there was no tomorrow.

Wendy groaned, her face buried in her hands, "Getting you two together was a bad idea."

"Aww, look at the widdle bluebug." Romeo teased.

"Cute, ain't she?" Chelia cheered. "So, when's the wedding?"

Pause.

"C-CHELIA!!"

"U-UM W-WEDDING?"

Chelia had a smug look on her face that Wendy did not like. "Well duh. You're his Juliet and he's your Peter Pan. Perfect, ain't it?!" She clapped her hands in delight.

Wendy felt like she was in a sauna with the way her face was heating up. One look at Romeo and she knew he felt the same.

"WHO RUINED MY PRECIOUS STRAWBERRIES?!!" A voice bellowed.

Chelia rushed to the window and turned to look at both with a pale face. "Uh oh, Titania's angry."

Romeo was visibly confused and scared for his life. Wendy felt faint.

"Haha, gotta go now guys! Bye Wen!" Chelia escaped through the door before Wendy could register her words.

"WHAT KIND OF FRIEND ARE YOU?!"

"The kind that doesn't want to die!" Her voice echoed from where she was downstairs. Damn it.

She locked gazes with Romeo. "I'll go assess the damage. You stay right there."

Romeo nodded.

She tiptoes into the garden, only to find Erza wielding a katana and looking deadly as ever.

"E-Erza-nee?"

The red-head turned to look at her with a menacing aura. Wendy gulped.

"What-what happened?" She dared ask.

"My precious strawberries are ruined." (Sure enough, the bush was uprooted. Oh dear.) Erza pointed at Romeo's bike with her katana. "The culprit will return for their bike and when they do, I WILL END THEM!!"

Well, there went any chance of negotiations. O-okay Erza-nee. I'll be upstairs if you need me."

Romeo had an eager look on his face when she returned. "So? What's the status?"

"Romeo," she stated calmly, "I mean this in the nicest way possible. You're dead."

He blanked. "Shit."

..........

"Operation: Run Romeo Run begins now, what's your status Little Boy Blue?" Wendy whispered through her earpiece. (Warren had given her a set for emergency situations.)

"In position, Tinker bell," Romeo's voice echoed through the other end. "You may begin!"

"ERZA-NEE, I MADE YOU SOME CAKE!!"

Sure enough, Erza rushed into the kitchen like her life depended on it, "Which kind?!!"

"Operation Stage 2 is a go, Boy Blue!" She whispered.

"This is DELICIOUS, Wendy!!" Erza nodded proudly. "I'll take it with me!'"

"NO!!!"

Erza narrowed her eyes suspiciously, "Why?"

"Be-because," Wendy stuttered, "I want to practice that spin once again!"

"Wendy," Erza grabbed her by her shoulders, "Dance hours are over. As a young girl, you must try socialising with your peers instead of practicing day and night. You'll tire yourself."

"I've reached the garden," Romeo said. "Is stage 3 a go?"

She hummed. Of course, both didn't anticipate-

"INTRUDER!! KILL MODE!!!" A siren rang in the distance and Wendy gulped.

She faintly registered a yelp from her earpiece.

Erza let out a war-cry and stalked outside.(Poor, poor Romeo) "THE INTRUDER IS HERE!! GET HIM!!"

Wendy shuddered, "RUN ROMEO RUN!!"

"I'M TRYING!!!" He squeaked, "SHE LOOKS LIKE SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME!!"

"COME HERE AND FIGHT ME LIKE A TRUE WARRIOR, YOU FIEND!!!" Erza bellowed.

She leaned towards the window and watched as Erza chased Romeo (He was riding a bicycle and yet Erza was gaining in on him.)

"If I ever get out of this alive," Romeo groaned, "Would you go out with me?"

Wendy was grinning when she said, "Someone's gotta keep an eye on you, anyway."

...........

#fairy tail #romeo x wendy #wendy marvell #rowen #erza #romeo conbolt #dancer au #also based off of Romeo and Juliet a little bit #modern au?

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uzumaki-rebellion · 5 years ago

Text

“Wet Sugar” [Part 21 of 30]

Summary: Erik has doubts about what he has done...

Mature Audience. NSFW.

youtube

"Gotta be careful, I know, I know You and me can't be nothing no more I've been lookin' for something from you I've been gettin' nothing at all You're such a fuckin' woman (woman) But deserves the fuckin' world, yeah…"

Lucky Daye—"Love You Too Much"

The saltwater in the pool soaked Erik's sunburned skin as he floated on his back. He would've preferred to swim at the cove, but going there was all her. Too much her.

That woman he tried to ignore became a specter before his eyes. He would catch glimpses of her around the compound, but she was like a rumor whispered in hushed tones. They were able to work around each other, but sometimes he caught her lingering above the gun range when he was there firing the new weapons with the other mercs. He acted like he didn't see her in the distance when she did that, or when he caught her slipping out of the kitchen when they all came to eat. He felt her eyes on him even when he couldn't directly see her.

He did the same, often hanging back after meals, sipping on dinner espresso and waiting to hear the side kitchen door open with her bounding in to help Leona clear away dishes and leftovers. Or he would stay out by the pool for a long time and catch the sound of leaves rustling as she snuck down to the cove using the secret path no one else knew about. She would sometimes cuss at Jerome while heading there and he would stifle a laugh while thinking about the first time he heard her talking to the iguana. The sound of her voice still thrilled him. It was the girlish softness of it mixed with the smart-ass personality behind it that still made him excited about her.

He dreamed about her. And Sydette.

Those night visions were often a replay of the earlier days of them alone at the compound. He'd wake up suddenly in the middle of the night clutching at his side hoping she was there. When he heard movement from Linda in the room next to his, he would pretend it was Sweet Pea sneaking out of her bed to crawl between him and Yani.

He knew from jump Yani despised Linda.

But that was to be expected because Linda tended to rub people the wrong way and of course...he had fucked the woman. Linda could be condescending to people that she felt were inferior to her. She treated a lot of the other mercs that way and they couldn't say shit because her skills were so tight and she proved it to be true time and time again. She never tried it with him. His game was tighter than hers and she respected that.

He never saw Yani act funky in front of Linda personally, but Linda often commented on how Leona was very nice to her, but Yani was just direct and spoke very little.

"She's efficient and like a damn ninja around here…but I can't get more than two words out of her when I ask her for stuff. It's like I'm bothering her own personal things. She acts like Klaue's house is her house. I had my feet on the coffee table and she walked past me with the laundry sucking her teeth."

Erik knew the reason why Yani was acting that way. It wasn't because of no feet on the furniture.

Klaue moved Linda into his house and her bedroom was next to Erik's. She was sleeping in Sweet Pea's old room. She was sleeping too close to him.

Yani wasn't the only one feeling irritated by new interactions.

He was feeling a way about her and Zachary.

Erik still lurked on her social media to see how she was doing. At first, it was to keep tabs on Sweet Pea from afar, and he could also see what Yani had to say about her classes. She was acing school like he knew she would, but it was the posts about her social life that had him uptight.

As expected, Zachary pounced on her, and Yani seemed open to the rekindling of some type of relationship because Erik saw pictures of them together at clubs and group gatherings. Yani had big smiles on her face when she posed with Zachary, and apparently, they took a trip to Jamaica together for a concert Kendall performed at. He saw pictures of them posing in front of a waterfall together in swimsuits holding hands while facing one another. Yani's eyes were closed and the grin on her face told him that they had either kissed before the picture was snapped, or they were about to kiss.

He couldn't even be all that mad on a certain level if he were honest with himself. He would've done the same thing. If he'd lost a bad bitch being stupid, he wouldn't waste time snatching her back up.

She looked happy in that picture. Zachary looked…enamored with her. Erik wondered if she was sleeping with him. Getting new dick to forget the old dick. Erik scoffed a bit while staring at them. Ain't no way Zachary could handle what Yani had. Fire pussy needed bomb ass dick. That was the only thing that kept Erik from going off seeing her with someone else that soon.

What nigga could compare to him with her?

He used to make that bitch's pussy jump when he called her on the phone. He could snap his fingers and have her pulling open her slit for him whenever he wanted it, had her cumming and crying and begging him not to stop until she couldn't hold onto him anymore. Made Yani sit anywhere he wanted—indoors or outdoors-with her legs wide open while he watched her slam a thick blue dildo in her pussy just to amuse him before he picked her up and stretched her walls out all night. He made her cum in her sleep with just the thought of him fucking her. She would lay in bed next to him having multiple orgasms that woke her ass up and made her beg him to fuck her wide awake. What could that civilian do for her?

She looked good though. Damn good. She had lost some weight from running around again, but shit was looking hella tight.

Shit.

Thinking about her in that picture made Erik want to fuck.

He climbed out of the pool and took himself a long shower. Afterward, he drove himself to a barbershop in Havensight and had his locs cut off and his beard trimmed and groomed. He needed the change. His mother had done it often when she needed a fresh start. At least two times in his life with her he had witnessed his mother shaving off her hair. Shedding old energy to welcome the new.

He felt a few eyes on him in the shop. Maybe they recognized him from being with Yani.

Before meeting up with Linda and Klaue in the main house he shot off a few emails to his grandfather and his Uncle. He also loaded more money onto Yani's credit card. She didn't use it all that much anymore, probably because she didn't want him tracking her purchases, but more than likely not wanting to stay connected to him. No matter what happened between them, he wanted her to have some sort of back-up support if she ever needed it. If not for herself, then for Sydette at least.

Strolling into the main house, both Klaue and Linda gave him a double-take when they saw his hair.

On the viewscreen in the living room, Erik posted up a picture of the C.I.A. agent that he was tracking for Klaue. The man had a mousy face and the strait-laced look of one who believed in toppling other governments in service of making America great again. A weak-looking yes man by the name of Everett K. Ross.

"U.S. Air Force. Decent pilot. Currently the Deputy Task Force Commander of the Joint Counterterrorism Center. He reports to the Secretary of State. That good ole boy, Thaddeus Ross."

"He's taking nibbles from me. I've been dropping hints at wanting to sell vibranium," Klaue said, "the U.S. wants their hands on all they can find. But he's a bit skittish right now."

"No one likes to look like they're in bed with mercs and terrorists," Linda said.

"The U.S. fucks with them all. They must be under scrutiny," Erik said.

"Any sales aren't going to be done in the U.S. The Great Satan needs to come where I say," Klaue barked.

"Nowhere in Europe," Erik said.

"Definitely not Africa," Linda added.

"What a wimpy looking oaf," Klaue surmised.

"That's what makes him effective. A milquetoast-looking face can get away with anything anywhere," Erik concluded.

"Well, the moment you find me a chunk of the good stuff I'll set up the sale," Klaue said.

The three of them sat around drinking until dinner. There was to be no meal at the house that night. Klaue took everyone out to a restaurant on the Northside of the island. The food was exceptional and Erik didn't get into any arguments with Neal or Huntsman. Surprising. There were great bars to crawl around and when Shipley let them toke on some blended weed, Erik felt pretty mellow. He actually wanted to hang out a bit.

Klaue caught a cab back to the compound but the rest of their crew stuck together. Linda was really floating, acting like the Snow White to their ragtag team of six non-Dwarfs. Shipley was trying to run game down on her, but Linda wasn't interested. She put up a front of being all business. But not with him.

He kept it friendly between them. Even when she sunbathed topless on the porch of Klaue's house, he treated her like his colleague.

It wasn't easy at times.

When his sexual urges came on strong, he was tempted to seek her out in her bed, but he didn't want the headache of Neal or Shipley. They were both jockeying for some play and there was nothing worse than working with hard-up men and the tension that jealousy brought.

Linda would give him looks sometimes and he hoped that no one else caught on.

Some really hard-sounding island music caught their attention and they stumbled upon a boisterous club that excited Linda. Shipley got into the spirit and they were all sucked into the space ordering drinks and watching the spectacle of winding hot bodies and good sounds. Linda grabbed Shipley's hand and dragged him out among the crowd. The place was a lot bigger inside than it looked outside and there was an actual stage on one side with a D.J. spinning tunes with a massive sound system. No wonder they could hear it blocks away.

Erik found a honey with loose hips and he followed her out onto the floor. Neal sprang for drinks and by the time it turned midnight, Erik had a good sweat and copped a few feels on some Grade A ass that seemed to come from an endless supply throughout the space. He found another shorty that made his temperature rise, and he was getting her number when she and a few other women swarmed the stage. The music was thumping and there were a few eager men on stage where a solitary chair sat in front of them.

Erik bought himself some Henny and walked closer to the stage with Neal and Shipley in tow.

"What's happening?"

Huntsman eased up beside them, his voice loud over the music.

"I don't know," Erik said.

"I think they are about to…ah yeah…we about to see some rump-shaking," Neal said.

A man with a chiseled chest poking out of his half-unbuttoned shirt sat on the chair as an MC talked to the crowd.

"What's the point of this?" Huntsman said.

"Watch and see," Neal said.

Erik sipped on his drink.

The music got a little buck and several women, even the one Erik was trying to mess with climbed on stage and took turns dancing with frenzied athleticism on the lap of the man who sat in the chair.

"Man…I couldn't do it!" Neal squealed.

Linda found her way over to them. Her face was flushed from dancing and drinking.

"Poor guy!" she said.

"Be right back, gonna refresh my drink."

Erik left them and headed to the bar. He could see the different women trying to out-dance one another, and by the time his new drink finally got to him, a new dude was in the chair getting his junk pummeled.

"Shit," Erik whispered.

These women were not playing. He grinned when he saw Linda reach up to the MC and he helped her on stage to take her turn at grinding on a stranger. She stood out with her light gray booty shorts and half top. Kicking off her sandals, she made the man sit on the floor of the stage as she did the splits and pounded her groin on him. Her wild cascade of curls covered part of her face. The audience went into a frenzy and Erik could hear Shipley and Neal cheering her on.

"Did y'all dare her to get up there?" Erik asked when he returned to his entourage.

"Nope. She said they needed an expert up there," Shipley said.

The woman could move, and she played to the audience while she awaited her chance to dance on the next guy in the chair.

"This gyal is on fiyah!" the MC shouted.

Linda wiggled her hips fast, throwing her cheeks in a wild circle. She dropped down and grabbed her ankles letting the audience watch her cheeks move.

"She too much, man…too much!" Shipley shouted.

"Goodness gracious," Neal said.

Erik looked around the stage to see who he was talking about, but then he saw Twyla moving near the front.

"Twyla!" Erik shouted.

"You know her?" Neal asked.

Twyla looked his way. She saw who was calling her and she smiled.

"Big nigga. Where yuh hair go?"

Twyla's hand rubbed his head.

"God damn…she thicker than a pot of grits," Neal barked looking toward the stage again.

"That girl is small—" Shipley answered.

"Not that one…her. Oh my damn. That's…shit. That's Klaue's girl," Neal said.

Erik saw Yani staring at the stage. He recognized a couple of her friends with her that saw him fuck her in a club.

"Don't be scared to say hello," Twyla said.

Her eyes regarded Erik's face.

"Yuh can't hide back here."

"I'm not hiding—"

"Lookin' like yuh back at Juvay," Twyla teased.

One of Yani's friends jumped on stage and stood next to Linda.

"How is she?"

His eyes were sheepish looking at Twyla.

"She's as good as can be expected from a bad break up. Doing well in school—"

"Sydette?"

"A busy body. And you?"

Erik shrugged.

"Still hurts, yeah?" she said.

He didn't answer.

"I see it on your face. Hers too."

Twyla glanced back at her cousin.

"She say yuh leaving the island."

"Yeah."

His eyes were focused on Yani.

"Big man…if there are things yuh still need to say to her, best tell her before yuh bounce. End it the right way with she, yeah?"

He decided to suck it up. Test the waters.

He sipped on his drink again as he walked over to her.

"Yani."

She turned to look at him and he realized it was a mistake. He should've kept his ass in the back and ignored her.

"Killmonger."

Damn.

He got goosebumps hearing his name on her lips despite the coldness. Her eyes took in his new appearance and he couldn't tell if she liked it or not. Indifference settled around her toward him.

The crowd surged and she turned back to watch her friend on stage. He stood behind her and could only concur with Neal's words. Lil Mama was thick as fuck, and the tight black pants she wore did not hide a damn thing. His body yearned for hers. He stepped closer, close enough to feel her body heat. He wanted to kiss the back of her neck and trace his tongue around her tattoos again. Erik had to fight his own hands to keep them from circling her waist and pulling her back toward him. As far as she was concerned, he wasn't even there.

"She doin' too much."

He heard one of Yani's friends talk about Linda.

"She gwine break his dick if she keep that up!" Another one cackled.

Yani giggled and covered her mouth.

Erik's eyes swept back up to the stage. Linda was living it up in the spotlight, and she was getting plenty of rousing support from a lot of men and women.

The current man in the seat had a serious expression on his face, like all that ass pounding his dick from different women wasn't affecting him in any way. Stoneface.

"Go up there, Yani."

She shook her head as her friends cat-called her name.

The D.J. changed the song to a track that had been remixed to death over the years. But it revived the crowd and the women on stage. Linda received some more cheers when she had another turn at bat, and for the first time, Stoneface reacted a little bit. The audience laughed and the MC teased the man about losing his cool.

Yani and her friends walked away and Erik felt himself actually deflate a bit. Yani straight ignored his ass. He watched the lights of the club hit the bronze of her top with them titties sitting, her platinum fade lined up tight, and that ass just being totally disrespectful in public.

He felt absolutely proud to see her not giving a fuck about him.

Gulping down the last of his Henny, he saw the MC bend down to the crowd trying to catch Yani's attention. She stopped with the rest of her homegirls to listen to him. Her hands flew up waving him off, but her friends nudged her arm. She put a hand on her waist and said something to the MC, and Twyla sauntered over pushing her up toward the steps leading upstage.

Fuck.

She went up the steps and once the full lights hit her, Erik had to stop and take inventory of what he had once. That used to be his woman, but there was something different about her that was turning him on in a way that made him feel out of control.

Linda saw Yani approach the chair and the look on her face told Erik that she was in a bit of shock recognizing the woman who cleaned her room and cooked her food.

The MC let Linda and a couple of other women do their booty shakes again, but then Yani stepped over the man, spread her legs wide and did the slowest drop down onto his lap that put the audience in a tizzy. Unlike the other women who moved with hyped up energy, Yani slowed it all the way down until her cheeks were popping in a way that had the man's legs jerking.

Erik felt his jaw get tight when Yani turned her head to look back at everyone as she let each ass cheek bounce in syncopated rhythm. She rolled her hips and the MC, along with several other people on stage started laughing hard and slapping arms. The MC started jumping up and down and pointing.

"Lawd -a-mercy! She done made this nigga buss in his pants!"

Yani lifted up and stepped away from the man with his eyes glazed over and his left hand grabbing at his protruding erection. Eyes watched Yani sashay away, and even Linda gave a painful-looking laugh as her eyes watched Yani leave.

"She dangerous. That gyal dangerous!" The MC shouted.

Yani's friends laughed with her as the entered back into the fray of bodies swaying to the music. A few men tried to get Yani's attention, but she was focused on her friends.

A song they used to listen to at the house came on and Erik took long strides to get to her.

"Come dance with me," he said touching her hand.

She pulled back from him as if he stung her.

"I don't want to dance with you."

Her friends surrounded him and their eyes were ready to cut him in two.

"It's just a dance, cuz," Twyla said nudging her cousin's arm as she walked past heading to the floor herself along with other people. The lap dance show was over.

Yani shoved past him and her friends followed.

Bet.

He headed back to the bar and ordered a couple of shots. Shipley joined him and they drank and talked, watching people dance on the floor. Erik tracked Yani's movement as she danced with different men.

"Can't believe that's the same chick at the compound," Shipley said.

"Yep," Erik answered.

They watched Neal approach Yani and she wasted no time sending him on his way. The way her friends swooped in to protect her, Neal had no chance of harassing her further.

"Whew, I gotta slow down," Linda said.

She plopped down on a stool next Erik and asked for water from the bartender. Twyla walked past him and gave him a look. Erik shrugged his shoulders at her and Twyla rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Had no idea Yani was a regular Cinderella," Linda said.

"She fine," Shipley said.

Erik found that surprising since he never showed interest in women built like Yani before.

"Thought you didn't like thick bitches," Erik said.

Linda eyed Shipley with amusement.

"She could be the exception," Shipley said gulping down a shot of tequila with lime.

"He'll fight you for that," Neal said.

Erik watched Neal grab a beer from the bar.

"What?" Shipley said.

Erik felt his face harden.

"That's Killmonger's pussy."

"Shut the fuck up," Erik snarled.

"You're fucking the help?" Linda asked.

She tossed her head back and laughed at him.

Erik stepped off the stool he sat on and left the bar in a huff.

"Killmonger…hey….hold on…."

Linda followed him and tugged on his arm.

"Hey…we're just drinking and pulling your chain. Calm down."

She steered him to the dancefloor.

"Relax. Loosen up."

Linda swayed in front of him and tried moving his arms. His eyes darted about looking for Yani again, but he had lost track of her.

"How can you not dance to this?"

Linda moved around him, bumped her hip into his and he eventually gave in and danced a little.

"Oh, come on now. You're better than this. We fucked it up in Jo'burg. You remember that club with the roof that was caving in!"

Erik smiled. He remembered. The music was hot, fast, and so were the club patrons. That was a good night. Right before the raid…

"…fucking her?"

Erik missed what Linda said. The confusion in his eyes made her repeat the question.

"Is it true? You and Yani?"

"Nah. Neal had been bothering her and I put a stop to it."

"He is aggressive. Nasty piece of work."

His eyes flicked around. Searching still.

"You want to fuck her?"

His eyes glared at her like she was insane.

"It's just a question. She watches you all the time—"

"I barely have time to—"

"I'm just telling you…I think she has a thing for you. I hear her cleaning your room and she stays in there for a long time. You are a neat freak, so there's no reason for her to be in there so long."

Yani in his room lingering?

"I catch her watching you at the gun range…"

Erik dismissed Linda's words when he felt his cell vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out.

A text from Twyla.

Yani is alone in her apartment this weekend. Chez has Sydette. Roommate gone too. Chance to talk?

Erik stopped dancing.

Unger ran up and grabbed Linda's hand to dance.

"I'ma head back to the compound," he said.

Linda nodded her head.

"I'll catch a cab."

"I'll let the others know."

He watched her and Unger head further into the crowd on the floor.

###

Looking around his room, Erik tried to see what Yani would see.

A clean room. Sterile almost without her there anymore. Two boxes of condoms on the dresser. One empty and the other half used. She would probably think he had been with Linda. He hadn't. But he was seeing women outside the compound again. He couldn't help it. It kept his mind off of her.

But seeing her that night brought up all the things festering in his mind about her. Was she okay? Was Sydette fine? Did Yani hate him? How would she react if she saw him in public?

If Linda was able to glean Yani's feelings for him around the compound, maybe she still had a soft spot for him. Maybe he could…

No.

It was stupid to think of going to her. Even with Twyla's encouragement. He hopped into his bed fully nude. No one was at the compound. The secret tracker he placed in Klaue's arm told him the man was on the other side of the island. Inside a hotel. Probably with a woman.

Staring up at the ceiling, his mind settled on Yani again. Seeing her wind her body on that man onstage made him groan as he felt on his dick.

He reached for his cell again and read Twyla's text two more times.

It wasn't worth it.

What could he say to her? I'm checking to see if you've been able to salvage your life after I blew it up?

But damn…

She was so beautiful on stage. Her whole demeanor was just…sexy…bold. She used to make him cum in his pants all the time. Maybe she did that because she knew he was there watching.

He slammed his fists on his bed.

He wasn't going to get any sleep. He would think about her all night.

He reached into his nightstand and pulled out some weed. He smoked a bit and felt his muscles ease up from the tension he carried in them after seeing her.

Killmonger.

His name on her lips sounded so dead to him. There was no malice in her eyes, but they seemed clouded like she was really and truly over him.

That's what he wanted, right? He told her to focus on school and to forget him. But faced with it, faced with true indifference…he didn't want her to forget him.

Taking a long drag he thought of Linda and what she told him. She noticed Yani keeping her eyes on him. She had to still feel something. Lingering in his bedroom had to mean something. Too many good memories in the place. All the things they did to one another. All the time they slept together in a pile with Sydette between them.

Twyla was right. He had to have a final conversation with her that didn't come from a place of anger, but one of love. They still had to part, but he wanted it to be on better terms. He did have things he wanted to say to her. Secret things. Maybe even promise her something that he didn't think he had a right to.

Stubbing out the joint in an ashtray, Erik jumped out of bed and put on some loose sweatpants and shirt.

He borrowed one of Klaue's smaller cars, a blue Beemer with a moon roof.

He let air flow through from the roof of the car as he drove to Yani's place. Every few minutes he thought about turning around, but once he pulled into the parking lot of her small complex, he was fully committed to talking with her.

After a bit of deep breathing in the car, Erik walked up the stairs and tried to find the right words to say. Once he was in front of her door on the far end of the floor, he felt a bit calmer, less afraid. He debated about texting or calling her. It was too late. He was already there and high as fuck…

He pressed his ear to her door.

Noise.

Talking.

No…not talking.

Moaning.

Shit.

"Yes, Baby!"

The seductive mewling in her voice raised his blood pressure.

She was fucking someone.

Zachary.

Erik removed his ear from the door. His hands pressed against the door frame and he closed his eyes. His body burned with rage. That little punk bitch.

He heard a loud male groan erupt from behind the door.

Erik clenched his fists.

The weed had him spinning scenarios. Bust the fucking door down and drag her off that nigga's dick. Or wait for Zachary to leave and pound on the door and…and do what?

Yell at her for getting dick when he had empty boxes of condoms in his room that she saw? Two days prior he was guts deep in some bitch with big ass titties making her holler out his name. Nutted all in that woman's face and didn't even think about Yani while he did it.

But that's your woman in there. Giving your pussy away.

Erik walked away from the apartment.

Back in the car, he pulled out his cell.

Call her. Break up their little party.

Fuming in the car, he sat there for a long time until he could think straight. The weed still had his mind spinning, but he was able to drive back to the compound and crawl into his bed. The sun was rising when he finally fell asleep.

###

"Hey, lazybones."

Erik blinked his eyes.

Linda looked down at him.

"You were out for a long time. Thought I'd check on you," she said.

Erik sat up.

He was still wearing his sweats.

"What time is it?"

"Two."

"Shit," he said.

"Stay in bed. You looked worn out last night."

Erik leaned against the headboard.

"You want anything to eat?"

"Nah. I'm just gonna chill. I feel tired still."

She touched his forehead.

"Are you feeling sick?"

He shook his head and pulled off his sweatshirt and pants. Crawling under the covers he tucked himself into a ball.

"I'll be up in an hour or so."

"Okay. Call me if you need anything. I have to get some things in town. Klaue is still out."

"Cool."

He pretended to go to sleep and Linda left his side.

When she opened his bedroom door, Yani was using a soft bristle broom to sweep the floor in the hall.

"Don't bother him. He's sleeping in," Linda said.

Erik saw Yani's eyes sweep over Linda's short house dress, and then her eyes caught his on the bed before Linda shut the door.

"Bring him some of that soup around three," Linda said.

"Him sick?"

The lilt in Yani's voice had concern.

"No," Linda said.

"Does he need medicine?"

"No. Just bring him the soup to the kitchen like I asked and he'll be fine."

Erik stayed curled under the covers until he saw from his bedroom viewscreen that Yani had left the house. He jumped in the shower and cleaned up, shaved, and threw on some light cologne. He pulled on some beige loungers and hopped back on the bed.

Exactly in one hour, he saw Yani heading down to Klaue's main house with a covered tray. She entered the space and headed to the kitchen.

He hopped on the intercom.

"Can you bring that here, please? In my room?"

He watched Yani's face look perturbed as she stood in the kitchen. She knew he was watching her.

"Yuh not sick. Get it yourself."

She left the kitchen.

"Bring it here please."

He watched her calculate her next move. Unlike the time when they were together at the compound alone, Klaue had everything watched. If she refused to do her job, Klaue would see it. The bedrooms were pretty secure because Klaue did allow that privacy. He wanted her in his room.

"I have some laundry to be picked up too," he said.

He saw her lip pout and he smiled. Her cell phone rang.

"Yeah?" she answered.

Erik waited. A smile came across her face and she started to giggle into the phone. Flirty-like.

"Mi can't tonight…can't. I'm working…"

She hung up and put her cell in her back pocket. Her smile left her face when she picked up the food tray and carried it to his room. She kicked the door with her foot softly.

He opened it.

"Thanks," he said taking it from her hand.

She turned away.

"Wait, the laundry, my sheets—"

"You do your own cleaning, remember?"

Her eyes were petulant looking up at him.

"Yeah, but um…I'm not feeling great—"

"Linda said you were fine…can I go?"

Mean.

She wasn't with the shits.

Her mind was on giggling over Zachary.

He walked slowly over to his bed and climbed in balancing the tray. She moved over to help him.

"Thanks," he said.

Her eyes took in the room and when they glanced at his dresser, he made sure the condoms were gone. She went to the hamper in his bathroom.

"There's nothing in here," she said, annoyed.

"I need these sheets changed," he said.

"I'll come back then, or you can have Linda change them for you—"

"Yani, wait a minute."

He lifted up too fast and the tray tilted. He spilled some soup on the covers.

"You did that on purpose," she said.

"No, I didn't."

"What do you want, man?"

He hated the sound of her voice at that moment. She didn't want to be around him.

"I miss you," he said.

"I don't think so."

"I do—"

"You got Linda and whoever else…"

Her eyes drifted toward the dresser.

"And you have Zachary."

Her eyes regarded him with suspicion.

"I heard you on your phone."

"You don't know who I was talking to."

"You're not with him?"

She left the room.

Erik jumped off the bed and ran after her.

"Hold up—"

"I don't have time for your shit—"

He grabbed her hand. She snatched it back.

"Clean up your own fucking mess!"

She stormed out of the house and he let her go.

"Whoa. That was…awkward."

Linda walked into the room, coming in through the back door.

Shit.

"So…um…the help…" she said.

Erik stomped back to his room and slammed the door shut.

###

Chp 22 Here

Tag List:

@fd-writes @soufcakmistress @cherrystainedlipsbaby @tclaybon @thadelightfulone

@allhailqueennel @bartierbakarimobisson @cpwtwot @shookmcgookqueen @yoyolovesbucky

@raysunshine78 @the-illllest @terrablaze514 @l-auteuse @amirra88 @jimizwidow @janelledarling

@chaneajoyyy @sweetestdream92 @purple-apricots @blackpinup22 @hennessystevens-udaku

@scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @bugngiz @stariamrry @honeytoffee @meilintheempressofdreams

@tyees @eye-raq @writerbee-ffs

#wet sugar #killmonger #killmonger fanfiction #erik stevens #n'jadaka #klaue #black panther fanfiction #marvel cinematic universe #killmonger smut #uzumaki rebellion

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ladyartemisia28 · 4 years ago

Text

Say Amen(Chapter 5)

Chapter 5/?

Pairings: Prinxiety, side Logicality, Platonic Moxiety, Platonic/Family Logince, Platonic Royality.

Warnings: Cursing, mention of emotional abuse, unsympathetic Janus,

Words:4753

Summary: Sanders Sides Human College AU ~

Patton was sitting on his bed reading his history textbook when he heard a loud thud outside the door.

He opened the door to see Virgil bags on all of his body. It appeared that he had been knocking on the door with a boot clad foot.

Patton held the door open for his friend.

“Whoa, how'd you get all these bags onto the bus?!”

Patton took the bag of bagels from Virgil's mouth so he would have the ability to respond.

“I didn't take the bus” Virgil shuffled in and carefully placed all the bags onto the floor.

“Then... how?”

“Roman took me to the store.” the right side of his mouth lifting in a grimace. Virgil knew his best friend well enough that he to know that he would make a big deal about it.

“AWWWW! That's so cute!” Patton grinned widely as he helped Virgil put away their food. “And domestic! That's so great!!!”

“no it's not really not” he said with the sour look still on his face

“What's wrong Shadowling?” he asked his smile dropped from his face.

“I don't know if I'm going to be able to be able to survive being partners with him.”

“Did he say something? Did he do something?! I will physically fight him!” Patton offered as grabbed single bagel from the bag. He then placed the bag of bagels in a basket on top of the fridge

“Patton No! He didn't do anything like that!” Virgil said frantically as he motioned with his hands to stop. The last thing that he needed was Roman to lose teeth or have his pretty nose broken. “Please don't fight him!”

Patton place the lone bagel on his bed next to his book before returning to help Virgil with the remaining bags.

“Well that's good.” he said as he took the tub of margarine and put it into the fridge.

“He didn't even bring up what happened last night.” he said with a small touch of sadness in his voice.

“But you wanted him to?”

“No?” he said more of a question then a statement

“You shouldn't lie”

“Maybe,” he bit at his thumbnail as he spoke. “Like I want to know what he wants?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he did me a favor, well favors at this point. The... ... thing at the party, the cleaning of my old hoodie, and then the grocery store trip. He's racking up a ton of things in his I.O.U. List.”

“Well he might be doing things for you because of his feelings for you.”

Virgil went to argue and was interrupted before he could start.

“You said yourself, he asked you to go to the party as date. You say no, but you end up together anyway!”

Virgil rolled his eyes with a small grin. He could practically see the anime stars in Patton's eyes.

“Like the universe was pulling you two together! He probably likes you even more.”

As Virgil finished his placement of grocery items in the small kitchen nook he turned to look at his bubbly roommate.

“No that can't be it. It has to be some sort of game.” Virgil replied to his friend's joyful rant.

“I think he just likes you.”

“Ha! I TRIED to flirt with him and... well he didn't take me up on it. He must of found someone else that he was interested in. You saw him at that party, with all those guys. ....” Virgil muttered his words lowering in volume and tone as he continued.

”Oh speaking of flirts, guess who I saw at the library today?” Virgil said in a louder happy to move onto a more positive topic.

“Don't try to change the subject!” he said as he climb upon his bed.

After a moment Patton's curiosity won out.

“Who did you see?”

“Remy”

“OH! ” Patton said with an excited clap of hands. “I LOVE that little Lambkins! How is he doing?”

“He continues to be the sassiest of asses, but he seems to be doing good. He was happy to hear that I'm not longer attached to YOU KNOW WHO....

“Yeah well.”

Virgil placed his bag on his bed and then he climbed on top of it.

“He kept sending pics of Roman that he found on Instagram. Like 'I don't need you to show me what he looks like! I'm right next to him in the meat section!'”

“Is that a euphemism?” Patton asked with a puppy-like head tilt.

“NO!” Virgil exclaimed in horror as he settled himself into a sitting position.

“Sorry, you know I don't know slang lingo stuff.”

He went to grab his headphones from his bag and paused as a he recalled a memory.

“Hey Pat.”

“Hmmm?”

“Your crush from History Class that you always say is so smart and handsome. The one that you told me and I quote has the most amazing eyes that have ever existed,” he rolled his eyes as he finger quoted.

Virgil may have been outwardly mocking Patton's description of this guy's eyes. But he could almost be accused of the same sort of sappiness.

He remembered one moment at the library when he caught himself looking at Roman when he was distractedly staring off into space.

Virgil was going to ask him to come back to earth but he was caught off guard by the way that the light had made his eyes look. Roman's eyes looked like a tiger's eye gemstone. A shifting series of browns.

' I never thought I'd be this big of a lameass. If anyone heard what I thought they would laugh at me.'

He shook his head at the memory and continued his conversation with his roommate

“This guy his name is Logan right?”

Patton's naturally rosy freckled face flushed with even more color and he just nodded in response.

“Does his last name happen to be Sanderson?” Virgil asked as he pleaded internally that his assumption was wrong.

“Yeah! It is! Patton answered. “Just the sisters from Hocus Pocus.”

Patton continued his words uninterrupted as Virgil fell backwards onto his bed.

“When I mentioned that to him he said the cutest thing! ” Patton said excitedly before he quoted Logan taking his glasses and adjusting them like an anime character as he did so. “'Ah yes, the Halloween cult classic yes, my younger brother is a fan of that, uh film.'"

“Cute, sure.” he muttered in mildly sarcastic tone. To Virgil's ear he would call the voice that Patton used to imitate him robot in tone. “I didn't...”

“What?”

“Take that for your type. He sounds a bit of a more serious no nonsense type. Like he wouldn't be that fun?”

Virgil threw an arm across his face to obscure his eyes.

“Yeah, he may be a bit serious. But just get him to talk about his interests and his whole being lights up like a christmas lights!” Patton said with an earnest feeling behind it. “And he was just so cool in class the other day! You should have seen him passionately defend Pluto's status as a planet! ”

“So do you think I'll be meeting Mr. Christmas Lights?” Virgil chuckled as he thought to himself.

'Out of everyone that could have been Patton's crush it's stupidly ironic that he happens to be the brother of my cru- NOPE! No don't you dare think that word anywhere near him. NO ROMANTIC ROMAN ALLOWED THOUGHTS!'

“Oh you just missed meeting him at the party! He helped me look for you.”

A cold feeling of realization hit Virgil hard as he sat up quickly to look over at Patton.

“What?!” he nearly shouted as the panic flooded his body.

Patton didn't reply as his eyes widened in surprise. From his face Virgil guessed that he had not realized that the information that he had shared would cause this particular type of reaction.

Patton was usually more emotionally astute but his heart was so full of infatuation for Logan that he was distracted enough to make a mistake.

Otherwise he probably would have prefaced his words with a little more warning.

“Are you telling me that guy in the tie, that you showed up with saw me make out with his BROTHER?!”

“Yeah...” Patton said with a sheepish tiny smile. “I guess in all the excitement I forgot to mention that to you”

Virgil groaned.

“I wish I had never heard of the fake-out make out.”

He grabbed his headphones from his bag, slide them onto his ears, and pulled up a play list. Virgil looked over the list and he spotted MCR and was reminded of the moment in the car.

He smiled in spite of himself.

'I can totally see why he is so comfortable on stage. He was.... radiant?...mesmerizing?... magnetic?

...Gods I don't even have the right words in my thoughts! It's like my world was just me and Roman and the song. I haven't met anyone that captivating since... ... ... Jae'

He needed to distract himself quickly and searched it for his sketchpad.

“Hey Pat didn't you pack my sketchpad in my bag this morning?”

“I sure did, why?”

'Crap'

“So do you happen to have Logan's number?”

Roman sat in one of the audience chairs while starting at monologue. His mind was not on the script at all though as he turned each page.

His thought were focused on the memory of Virgil's singing. His low rich baritone echoed faintly in his head. Roman would pay good money to have a recording of him.

He replayed his interactions with him afterwards when Virgil teased him about wanting to go back to his room.

'Oh NO! THAT WAS HIM FLIRTING!!! I should have flirted back! I love flirting! But the first day he got so angry when I flirted with him and now he's angry that I didn't!? What the Hell! Maybe since we kissed he wants more?! I gotta try really hard now!'

Roman decided focus all his of his attention on wooing Virgil.

He flipped over the paper and listed all of the things that he knew Virgil liked.

Honey Cluster Granola

Disney

Grape Gatorade

Puns

Count Chocola Cereal

The Black Cauldron

Nightmare Before Christmas

Evanescence

My Chemical Romance

While adding more to the list he was approached by the costume designer.

“Hey want to see a couple of my new sketches?” the small blue and pink haired enby asked as they offered Roman the notebook.

“Always, Talyn always.”

It was several pages of people in a different costumes. Talyn's style naturally leaned tended towards Punk, Goth, and other Alternative type styles.

Roman looked through the black and maroon velvet cloaks, Victorian satiny waistcoats, leather pants, and other accessories.

'Am I just that Twitterpated with Virgil to see him everywhere?! I mean let's not kid around he would look sexy in this clothing. '

“Great work TallyKat.” Roman croaked out.

Talyn squinted suspiciously until they saw Joan approach.

“What we looking at?” Joan asked as they sat next to Roman and leaned over to look at the drawings. Roman handed off the sketchbook to them.

“So how did that party go last night?” Joan asked as they thumbed through the pages.

“Remember Virgil?” Roman directed the question toward Joan nodded before they turned to Talyn to clarify.

“He's Prince's partner in Med. Lit.”

“Virgil...Virgil Alexander? ” Talyn asked as they retrieved their sketch pad, their face brightening up with recognition,“You know Anx?”

“Another person called him that in the library today, he wouldn't tell me what it was from.” Roman

“OH it's an old joke from high school.” Talyn continued. “Well sometimes one of us wanted to do stupid things. Like drive donuts in an empty parking lot or eat a mouthful of warhead candies,Virgil would be the one to tell us why it was dangerous. We said he was all of our collective anxiety in human form.”

Roman filled that information away for later.

“So as you were saying...” Joan asked gesturing to Roman.

“We kissed last night...” he whispered excitedly.

“Well that escalated quickly” Joan deadpanned.

“I mean... it was MEANT to throw off his ex...Kinda like in that movie 'To All the Boys I Loved Before'.”

He waited for them to nod before continuing his frantic rant. When they did not he just went ahead and proceeded.

“SPOILER ALERT! For the movie if you've never seen it. I mean you totally should it is such a good flick. I mean everyone who has ever seen a Romcom knows how it would end up anyways. Well in that movie it wasn't her Ex. It was someone that she was trying to trick. Ah! That gives me an idea! Maybe if I offer to make a contract to make his Ex Jealous! Then he could fall in love with me like Lara Jean fell for Peter!

“Don't do that.” Joan commanded in a flat tone with a shake of their head.

“Are you sure? Fake Date is such a classic!” Roman visibly pouted at the rejection of his idea.

“No” both of them said at the same time.

Roman took the list in hand and moved it about while he spoke.

“Ok well I .. I've made this list of things that I know he likes and I can just put them all into a basket! And bring it to him...”

Joan yanked the piece of paper from Roman's waving hands

“How are you going to put 'Probably the entirety of Hot Topic' into a basket exactly?” Joan sardonically asked.

“I don't know, I'll figure something out...like maybe a gift card...a dozen gift cards...what is the highest amount of money you can put on those anyway...?” he took the paper back from Joan and began to write 'Check out gift cards'

“As much as I'm sure he would love to buy out the entire stock of Hot Topic. Princey I've known Anx for years, these big old honking PDAS are going to freak him the fuck out!” Talyn said with an exhausted type of aggravation.

“You guys don't get romance!”

His two non-binary pals shared a look.

Roman ignored them and attempted to continue his frantic writing, but he was stopped in his tracks at the sound of his phone.

-It seems that Virgil had a sketchbook fall out of his bag in your car-Logan

“See this is a sign! Virgil's sketchbook was left behind in my car! This is the second time that he has left something behind for me to gallantly return to him like Prince Charming!” he motioned at his phone with his hand.

Joan took a hold of Roman by the shoulders and looked him in his eyes.

“This is NOT a SIGN. Just give the boy back his stuff without any of your Romany weirdness.”

“But...but if I don't shower him with gifts to let him know that I like him..how...how” Roman excitement deflated like a balloon. He finished the thought in his head

'How am I going to get him to to like me back'

Another chime from his phone pulled at his attention.

-He says he needs it for one of his classes. He wants to know if it is acceptable for him to send his roommate to your location or to meet somewhere in the middle?-Logan

“Well it looks like Logan says he is going to send his roommate out to grab it for him” Roman said as he visibly wilts as he replies that they can meet in the quad.

“I'm sure he knows that you like him. You've always been...wait a sec, you said LOGAN texted you?”

“Yeah why?”

“Shit, are you telling us that you never gave this guy...the guy you're so clearly into...your PHONE NUMBER?!?” Joan asked disbelief increasing with every word.

After a noticeable moment of silence, Roman found his voice.

“oh, i guess I didn't.”

“You are a hopeless idiot here, dude” Talyn added with a head shake.

Roman got done with his drama club and hurried to his car. To his horror he saw the sketchbook had fallen open and varies pages were strewn about.

“NO, No, no, no!”

He was torn between the impulse to grab them quickly without looking to be quick and also to preserve privacy.

But the other part of him that knew that these pages deserved respect and care won the internal argument.

Plus admittedly he really wanted to snoop through the artwork.

So he looked over the art as took page by page and gathered them tenderly.

A few charcoal sketches of local abandoned buildings with gorgeous use of shadows.

Roman's jealousy perked at an unnerving page filled with disembodied hands reaching for the viewer.

He rolled his eyes as he found a page with a picture of Mothman, Slenderman, and an assortment of other cryptids.

'Of course he's into this weird stuff...

His eyes lit up as he saw accurate recreations of the Avatar: The Last Airbender and Steven Universe Cartoon characters, with a sticky note near them saying 'For Emile'.

“Who's Emile?” Roman muttered with a pout.

After he placed the last of the loose pages to a sort of order in the book he closed it. He looked over the cover that had a few more drawings on it as well as stickers for bands.

Roman hugged to his chest and then he ran as quick as his legs could carry him to the quid. He arrived only a slight bit out of breath.

'Man i need to get back to my morning running sessions. If I don't get my endurance up my dancing will suffer.'

He looked around at the area to search out for his target.

A boy sat at a bench, he wore a patterned pastel blue overalls over a pastel purple shirt. As Roman neared him he saw the the shapes were ice cream, hearts, and rainbows.

“Hey?” he approached the boy he hoped was the roommate. “Pat... ton?”

His face was semi-familiar. His big blue eyes were a softer grayish hue than Virgil's deep piercing blue. His smiling face was covered in freckles. Roman wondered how he would describe the color of his puffy hair, it was either a pale brown or a dark blond.

"Yep! So you are my Virgil's new 'friend' huh?!" his cheerful voice asked with the word friend is a tease like giggly way.

“Uh, I hope so?” Roman replied nervously.

“Patton Hartley!” he offered his hand.

“Roman Sanderson, pleased to meet you.” he said as he shuffled the notebook to one arm to shake his hand.

“I really like the pastel getup.” he said with the most genuine tone. He wanted to make sure that he made a good impression on a person who was so important to Virgil.

Even the world's most Emotastic basket wouldn't mean a thing if this boy went to his roommate and said Roman was no good. Patton was the biggest deciding factor, besides Virgil himself, in his ultimate fate.

'Please like me please.'

“Thanks so much! I love your hair! I don't think I could pull it off. I tried a teal a few years ago” Patton said as he looked up to his hair. His gentle smile told Roman that he was not insecure, he just was speaking with he thought was the truth.

“Thank as well. I personally think everyone can 'pull off' fashion colors. It's just finding the color that suits you and wearing it with confidence. And not using a box dye. I think pastel pink would look fantastic on you.” Roman offered as advice before he remembered the object in his hands.

He held the sketchbook out with both hands. “OH here you go, this is what you came all the way out here for!”

“Looks like everything is order.” Patton said as he quickly thumbed through the pages before he put it into a florescent green plastic backpack.

It looked like a giant frog.

'How did I not notice that!'

“So was Virgil busy?” Roman asked casual,before he quickly amended “Not that I'm not happy to meet you of course!”

“AH, I packed his bag this morning so I feel like I'm a bit responsible for this happening.”

“How could you know this would happen?” Roman shrugged.

“Well I didn't. But in a roundabout way it could have been prevented if I hadn't have packed it today. Besides I really really wanted to meet you.

“You did?”

“Wanna take a seat?” Patton offered politely as he placed the froggie at his feet to clear the seat next to him.

“Yeah thanks.” Roman said as he sat down.

“Hey can I ask you a question? I hope you don't feel like this is an insult towards Virgil. But what is his deal?” he asked in part aggravation and part confusion.

“Ah, you talking about how he's not the friendliest kitten in the clowder? ” Patton offered as a comparison. “At least when you began court him?

'He said court! I really like this guy.'

“Yeah, That! We were getting along fine, maybe a BIT of playful banter, but at worse it that was just light teasing. But it changed like a switch was flipped or something when I asked if he wanted to go to that party with me.” Roman asked face pinched as he remembered Virgil's change in demeanour. “All of a sudden it was as if I had asked if he wanted to be set on fire!”

“Well, he really thinks you're flirting with him as some sort of game” Patton said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Why would he think that! ”

“I'm not really sure what would make him think of that in class, I wasn't there. But you seemed to be flirting with quite a few guys at the party.” Patton stated with a sigh “Aaaannnd he did see that...”

A blush grew over Roman's tan skin as he remembered his brief playful trifling.

'Virgil was watching that? Yikes, no wonder he thinks so lowly of me. I would never have done all of that if he had accepted my date offer. I am a One Man Man.'

“And... the other thing is, it may have reminded him of his Ex...um you see Jae, he was always flirting with everyone around him. Mostly to charm people to get them on his side, but it hurt Virgil you see. He would ask him to stop, but Jae either ignore him to tell him he was being too emotionally fragile.”

Patton took breath and then continued.

“But then when it seemed like Virgil was close to ending it he would stop his flirtations with others and focus all of his attention on Virgil. They almost broke up dozens of times over the course of their time together. The whole back and forth really made it hard on Virgil.”

“SO this Ex of his toyed with his affections! How dare he tell Virgil he cared too much! I can't believe it!”

“That is some manipulative bull! I swear people who string others along instead of just letting them go are the worst. I've had a few exs like that.”

Patton nodded..

“That Ex! Sounds like a real piece of work, ” Roman chuckled a tiny bit as he failed to notice the uncomfortable look beginning to show on Patton's face, “If Virgil's was so frightened that the sight of him made him flee. Like he MUST be some stupid dirty, rotten, filthy silly billy, no good for nothing...”

“Uh,” Patton attempted to break into the rant.

“Rat scoundrel b-”

“He's my brother!” Patton hastily shouted.

'Oh Shit'

Roman cringed as Patton admitted the full truth of the situation.

“Wait what? I'm so sorry!”

“It's ok. You didn't mean to be mean.” Patton said

“Wait so how does that work? You're friends with your brothers ex? ”

“Nothing will stop me from being friends with Virgil. Nothing.” Patton stated as serious as Roman had seen him so far.

“Wow, um must make Thanksgiving Dinner's more awkward than normal, huh?” Roman chuckled nervously.

“Jae doesn't believe in Thanksgiving. He says that 'Thanksgiving is colonizer propaganda that is just a waste of food.' He doesn't really do holidays... besides birthdays. Well actually he does HIS birthday, and sometimes mine. If only a little bit. His plans for Virgil's birthday always ended up getting cancelled.”

“'So sorry my Nightbird, I swear I thought the museum would be open today'” he did a mock of what Roman presumed was his brother. While doing so his voice gained a sort of smoother quality of speaking. A bit more emphasis of the S sounds.

'Sounds like a snake'

“Sounds like a...like he's very unique person” Roman offered as a neutral statement. “And a very complicated relationship.”

“It sure is....SO are you really truly interested in my pal?” Patton asked.

“Yes. I absolutely am.” Roman said with an excitement that he apparently had made a good impression.

“Just call me Cupid!” Patton said as he did a big hand gesture pointing toward his chest with his thumb “I'll put in a good word for you.”

“I can tell you're really a sweet guy, but still why do this for someone you just met?” Roman questioned face full of confusion.

“I think you'd be a good HONEST boyfriend for my gloomy goober.” Patton smiled at him, “I'm a great judge of character, I've had to learn believe you me. Plus don't let him know it was me that told you this, but the way he looks when he talks about you... well it's just like nothing I've ever seen. I really think he's got a thing for you!”

“Really?” Roman felt uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

“Yeppers, I know my best friend” Patton giggled like they had made a secret pact.

“Thanks”

“Although if my instincts are wrong, I will physically fight you.” Patton suddenly said in a serious tone.

“Really?”

“Yep! If I could fight my own brother, I can fight you” Patton said switching back to cheerful. “Understand?”

The way that he said it so matter of fact and cheerfully made Roman uneasy, almost like those haunted dolls in scary movies. The opposition between his soft disposition and the protective strength in his voice was just scary enough that Roman just nodded

“GOOD!” he clapped his hands and then leap up off of the seat. “I know your Instagram and I'll DM you there to trade info.”

“How do you...?” Roman got momentarily frightened at the thought that Patton had cyber stalked him for his social media info.

“You shouted it out at the party?” Patton smiled as he slung the straps of over his shoulders.

“Oh right...ha” Roman gave a nervous chuckle.

“Well, I've got to go now! Tell your brother that Patton says hi, k? ” he said with a wink he walked away until the bouncing frog disappeared from Roman's line of sight.

Upon Roman's arrived at home he restlessly waited for his brother's arrival.

When he heard a turn of keys at the front door he was there as fast as a bolt of lightning.

“You know Virgil's roommate!” Roman shouted as he ambushed Logan as he walked through the door.

“Oh Shit!” Logan cursed as he fell over.

Chapter 4

~ TAGLIST!!! @tatehoseok @love-is-the-fear-of-loss @misslilidelaney @ishoulddyemyhairthatcolour @dwbh888 @violetshovel @sadgayisme

#say amen fanfic #prinxiety fanfic #prinxiety

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gracexbeck · 5 years ago

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Facade | Quentin Beck x Reader

Word Count: 2.2k Warnings: Far From Home spoilers and slightly obsessive/possessive/manipulative Quentin; implications of sex

When Quentin came up with his plan to become "the next Tony Stark", he knew he was missing something. And when he saw you, a chaperone for Peter Parker's class during their European field trip, he knew exactly what, well, who it was. He needed a damsel in distress. A companion. Someone to be on his arm on the red carpet. He needed someone to be the Pepper Potts to Tony Stark, the Bucky Barnes to Steve Rogers, the Wanda Maximoff to Vision.

His plan was quite simple actually. When he first saw you leading the students around, rolling your eyes at that weird teacher that kept talking about his ex-wife, he was captivated. He immediately used his drones and his cronies to find out everything about you. From your friends and family, to your job, to your mother's maiden name, to all your favorite things, your darkest secrets and all that good stuff. Then all he had to do was stage a "little accident" where you were and rescue you and put his acting skills to use.

The Water Elemental was great for this. You got yourself separated from the rest of your group to look for that kid Peter Parker. He was always running off whenever things were going bad and you and your favorite student, MJ had this theory that he was the friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.

"Peter?!" You shouted as you ran down the cobblestone streets, feeling like a fish swimming upstream as you battled the swarm of people trying to escape.

"What the hell," you grumbled to yourself, questioning why you volunteered to chaperone a bunch of hormonal teenagers. All of a sudden, a huge wave enveloped you, pulling you into the river.

"This is not how I die!" you huffed as you tried to swim your way out of the watery mess. But the current was too strong. You felt yourself slowly getting pulled closer to the Elemental.

"Oh shi-"

You were cut off by someone grabbing you and the next thing you knew, you were flying in the air.

"I got you miss," a strangers deep voice whispered in your ear. You looked up at your savior and saw a magical Asgardian astronaut? You didn't actually know what was happening and you definitely didn't recognize him as one of the Avengers. He placed you on the roof of a building.

"I'll be back in a second," he remarks. You couldn't tell because of his fishbowl helmet thingy, but you were pretty damn sure he said that with a smirk. Entranced by this mysterious new hero, you stared in awe as he defeated the water monster with ease. He quickly returned to you and took off his helmet, revealing his face.

Damn. You thought to yourself. Why are all these superheroes super hot?

"Are you okay?" He asked you, his voice laced with concern.

"I'm completely soaked but I'm fine," you responded. You could feel his deep blue eyes penetrating you.

"It can't be," he murmured, staring at you in awe. "Y/N?"

"How-How do you know my name?" You questioned him, slowly backing away.

"Don't!" He begged. "It's just.." His voice faltered and he took a shaky breath. "You were my wife."

"I was what?!"

"Sorry, that was, I mean..." He let out an exasperated sigh. "Let me explain from the beginning. Please."

"Fine, but make it quick," you agreed. "I gotta get back to my group."

"My name is Quentin Beck. I'm from another Earth. Earth-833. The whole time-traveling and the Blip, all of that, it tore hole in the multiverse. And that's how these Elementals and I got here." He cautiously took a step towards you, not wanting to scare you off.

"You were my wife Y/N. In that Earth. But..." He trailed off once again.

"I died and you couldn't save me?"

He nodded solemnly. "Along with our kids. And the Fire Elemental, that was the one that destroyed my Earth." He closed the gap between the two of you, taking your hands.

"I swear, on my life, that I will protect you and this Earth."

"Quentin," you said, trying to console him. "I'm sorry about what happened, but I barely know you. I'm sorry," you said, pulling away.

"Please!" He exclaimed, desperate for your attention. "You may not know me, but I know you."

He launched into a full on speech, complete with personal details from your life, things only your closest friends and family knew about you. There was something about him, something that pulled you into a trance. He was mesmerizing. His charisma, his longing stares, his raw emotion drew you into his charm and you found yourself agreeing to a date later on that evening. He dropped you off at your hotel, pressed a soft kiss to your cheek and flew away saying, "I'll see you at seven!"

Your students gaped in awe and pestered you with questions. Even Flash was amazed and nearly fainted at the close proximity Mysterio was to him.

Eventually, seven o'clock came and Quentin met you outside your hotel wearing a button up with its sleeves rolled up, revealing his (very muscular) forearms.

He sure does clean up nice. You thought to yourself as he offered you his arm. You were wearing your favorite f/c dress that fell just above your knees.

"You look beautiful, Y/N," he breathed in your ear as he pulled you closer. "You always do."

All you could do was smile and blush at his simple yet sweet compliment. The two of you walked around the city of Venice, chatting the whole time. It seemed as though you'd known this man your entire life and you felt you could tell him anything. As you and Quentin sat on a bench continued to talk, a string quartet began to play some music. Quentin stood up and offered you his hand.

"May I have this dance?" He asked you with a shy smile.

"You may," you responded with a grin.

He pulled you a close and intimate slow dance and while it felt cliche at first, it felt as if you were the only two people on Earth. He eventually had to leave, saying that he had to meet with Fury and when you arrived back at your hotel, all you could do was smile as you replayed the night's events in your mind as you drifted off into a comforting sleep.

A couple days later in Prague, you lead your students into the opera house and sat in the back, missing Quentin. You hadn't seen him since your date but he texted you all time. Right before the opera began, you noticed MJ following Peter out of the opera house. Not wanting to lose your students, you followed them. You managed to catch up to MJ.

"What do you think you're doing?" You huffed, coming up behind her.

"Ms. L/N?!" She yelped. "I um, I was just...I needed a breath of fresh air?"

"I saw you follow Peter," you remarked.

"What? I totally was not, I definitely most certainly not following Peter because he's definitely up to something," she stammered in reply.

"I'll take care of him later MJ, but you need to go back to your classmates," you commented. "I know you have a crush on him but that doesn't mean-"

You were cut off by people's screams. You looked up and saw this fiery thing emerge and begin to destroy stuff.

"Okay, you definitely gotta go now," you quipped as you pushed in the direction of the opera house. "I'll find Peter." Again.

MJ rushed into an alley as you began to search for the child. "Why does he always gotta do this," you grumbled to yourself as you pushed past the frantic crowd. Suddenly what you assumed was the Fire Elemental was in front of you.

"Oh for heavens sake not again," you complained, bracing yourself for the worst. But, it never came. The next thing you knew, you were in Quentin's arms once again and he and some sticky guy in all black that claimed to be "Night Monkey" (and was suspiciously similar to Spider-Man) ended up beating the fiery creature.

Once the chaos dwindled, you found yourself in Quentin's hotel room, laying in his bed, wrapped in his arms.

"I don't know what I would've done if I lost you again Y/N," he confessed.

"But you didn't lose me," you responded with a small smile. "Thank you."

He captured you into a kiss, a kiss that quickly turned passionate as you ran your hands through his hair and clothes began to fly off. He encapsulated you into a deeper kiss, with you longing for his touch and you let your bodies melt into the night.

—————————-

You woke up in an empty bed, sunlight streaming in through the windows. You got out of the bed and wandered into the closet. You threw on one of his t-shirts and then you heard his voice.

"Oh, we're in the endgame now buddy!" You heard him exclaim. Curious, you moved closer to the sound of his voice.

"I've got our little Y/N wrapped around my finger. I can't believe she actually fell for that story. My fans are going to absolutely love this. Next thing you know, we're going to be the next Pepper Potts and Tony Stark. She's the perfect damsel in distress. I'll see you in a little bit so we can finish our London plans. Okay?"

Fell for his story? Damsel in distress? London? Your mind began to race. What was going on? You grabbed your phone and looked at it. You had several text messages from MJ and Peter, all claiming that Quentin wasn't who he said he was. That he faked all the attacks just so he could become a hero in the public's eye. It couldn't be true, could it? After all he did for you? Your heart pounded and a knot formed in your stomach. You didn't know what to think.

The door flew open and in walked Quentin.

"Hey baby, didn't expect you to be up so early," he exclaimed with a smile as he leaned in to kiss you. "Last night was amazing Y/N. I really think we should-"

You cut him off by pushing him away. "Stay away from me!" You croaked, your voice shaking slightly.

"What's wrong, baby?" He questioned, frowning at you.

"What's wrong? What's wrong is that you lied to me!" You hissed at him. "You used me! You pretended to be a hero!" You backed away from him even more. "But you're not."

His eyes darkened and his persona changed entirely. This was not the Quentin you had quickly fallen for. This was someone completely different. Someone dangerous.

"Stop it right there," he threatened, his voice low and deadly.

"I can't believe I fell for you," you seethed. "I honestly thought you were someone I could love. But it was just a facade. It was fake. And everyone's going to know it."

You made a run for the door but Quentin was quicker. He grabbed you by the waist and threw you onto the bed. He pulled out handcuffs from god knows where and cuffed you to the bed frame.

"Let me go!" You snapped at him. "Or else you'll really regret it."

"Enough!" He bellowed at you. "Now listen to me, sweetheart." His voice sent chills down your spine.

"I'm not the only one with skeletons in my closet," he sneered at you, as he stood up. "I know you're secretly a SHIELD agent and that your mission for Fury is to look over Spider-Man, who just happens to be your student, Peter Parker."

You gasped. He knew. He knew everything about you. You felt your heart drop as you knew what was coming next.

"Shut up, Beck," you growled.

"And I know you were a double agent for SHIELD and Hydra until Captain America took them down for a second time."

"I said, shut up!"

Yeah, it was true. You were a double agent. But only because your boyfriend back then, Grant Ward, convinced you to join. But when you saw Hydra for what it was, you turned on them, confessed to Fury your involvement and you were able to help take them down.

"So unless you want your little secret to get out into the world and if you want to protect your precious Parker, I suggest you listen to me," he commanded. Feeling as if you didn't have a choice, you pressed your lips together and glared at Quentin.

"Everything I felt for you was real Y/N," he declared. "You're the one for me. You're my soulmate. And you're going to be with me forever darling. Whether you like it or not. You're going to be my partner and we're going to be the next big power couple."

"Please, don't do this," you begged him, tears prickling at your eyes.

"That's too bad honey," he said with a sinister grin. "Because from now on, you're mine, Y/N. You're. Mine."

#Quentin Beck #quentin beck x reader #quentin beck x you #quentin beck x y/n #quentin beck imagine #quentin beck one shot #mysterio #mysterio x reader #mysterio x you #mysterio x y/n #mysterio imagine #mysterio one shot #spidermanffh #spiderman ffh spoilers

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zankivich · 5 years ago

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Neighbors: Shawn x Plus Size Reader Chapter 15

a/n: yo idk why but this shit just flowed so naturally for me. I wrote this, chapter 14, and chapter 16 all in one go and it just poured out of. It just felt right. It felt like what the characters needed to have happen. And it fucking sucks because I lowkey can’t even look at a word document the same right now post all the bullshit, and I’m a little nervous that I won’t be able to write anymore. But this shit is such an escape for me. And it’s such an honor to tell this story. I really hope you like it. thanks for sticking with me. k bye.

P.S I listened to I Love You by Billie Eilish when I wrote the last section of it and it just completely transformed the meaning of the song and of this story for me. Feel free to give it a listen with this if you’d like.

*no one’s pov*

y/n got straight off an eight hour flight and somehow managed to end up at Stu’s apartment. When her best friend opened the door, the tears resurged and she fell with zero grace into his arms. Luckily he was right there to catch her and hold her as she fell. Meanwhile, despite being surrounded by dozens of crew members and friends and loved ones shawn fell deep into isolation. When Cez and Andrew saw their star heading for the tour bus instead of the car with his girlfriend, eyes red and cheeks tear stained, they knew better than to try to over crowd him. He didn’t leave them with much of a choice either as he shook his head miserably and headed straight for his bunk without a word to anyone. When they got to the hotel in Glasgow he made the extremely odd request, at least for Shawn, to be dropped off in the back entrance away from the public eye. He went straight to his room, spoke to no one, did nothing. He was absolutely useless.

It is as awful as anyone can imagine. For his entire day off, he doesn’t leave the hotel room. He ignores everyone’s calls, texts, and emails. He doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep. He just sort of lies there in a useless heap. He wants to go home. He feels like he’s being physically pulled home. But he can’t. He’s stuck.

Y/n can’t even go to work the next day. She can’t leave Stu’s apartment, can’t even face the hallway that she lives in because it will be full of him. Everything seems to be full of him. Each of them are left feeling hollowed out, like someone had taken ice cream scoops to their chests until there was nothing left but sorrow and hurt and jagged edges. It’s the worst thing either of them has ever gone through, and yet the other isn’t there to go through it with them. Somehow that only makes it worse.

A video from the q and a at the first show post break up goes up online. Someone asks about y/n and he nearly loses it. There’s a pain in his eyes that everyone can see, mostly because he was completely incapable of hiding it. The fan simply asked if he’d written any songs about her. It takes him over a minute of breathing before he can even answer the question. And even if no one knew it, not having her there to match his breathing to means it only takes him longer. He has to sit on his hands because they’re shaking so bad.

“She’s the only thing I write about now.”

It doesn’t sound happy coming from his mouth. It doesn’t look happy in the video. And fans begin to argue online about his energy levels in the meet and greet. Andrew is concerned. Cez is concerned. Zeubin and Brian and Alessia and Conner are concerned. He pulls Why and Never Be Alone from the setlist in the hopes that he can get through a single show without crying. It only takes one night for him to find out that it’s worse than he could have ever imagined. Because the songs don’t sound the same to him anymore. And he can’t get the visual of her telling him that she hates him out of his mind. He stares out into the crowd and the energy just isn’t there. He doesn’t want to be there anymore. He just wants to go home.

Andrew doesn’t feel the need to intervene until the panic attacks get bad again. They’re fifteen minutes out from a show. The band is already on stage. And he can’t breathe. He’s sitting in the dressing room hand on his chest when they go to get him, and he honestly can’t move. It reminds Andrew of what he used to look like before they knew they were panic attacks, before the medication. So he clears out the room and sits next to him on the floor because it’s the only thing he can think of.

“It’s okay bud. Just breathe. Tell me what I can do.”

He shakes his head and stutters turning to Andrew with terrified eyes. He points to his chest and tries to breathe, but he can’t. It takes them forty-five minutes to get him off the floor that night. They have to pull three songs from the set.

Y/n’s response is a little bit different than Shawn’s. After her third day of missing work, she makes a brave attempt to pull it together. Brian and Stu go over to her apartment and remove any trace of Shawn that they can find. His sweatshirts, his headbands, one of the acoustic guitars he kept in her bedroom so that he could play for her whenever the notion struck him. There’s a picture of them on her dresser from Christmas smiling at each other. There’s another on her fridge from the grammys where they’re stoned out their minds and he’s sitting on her lap giving a peace sign to the camera. There are things they can’t even place like her favorite mug that he bought her from his favorite coffee shop. In his apartment, it's an even bigger mess because he’s let her make herself right at home. They can’t tell who’s candles are who’s, and which blanket came from which person. She’s got so many baking tools at his apartment that they’re bound to make a mistake. (They do. The first time she goes home she comes across a wine bottle opener that he went out at one in the morning to get for her when they broke the other one. She cries for an hour and goes to bed at six oclock in the evening).

Regardless, she goes back to work. She gets her team into shape. She keeps working. No one dare make mention to anything in her personal life less they want to deal with her directly. She puts everything Shawn related in a box and shoves it deep, deep away not to be dealt with. It’s the only way she can stay afloat. It’s the only way she can get out of bed in the morning. It’s not about getting over Shawn in the slightest. It’s about pretending he never even existed. It’s a completely unsustainable, terrible coping mechanism, but it’s the one that feels less painful at the time.

Shawn gets an increase on his meds. It gets Andrew off his back, makes everyone think that things might turn around for the better. He could’ve told them that was bullshit, when he’s so doped up on the meds that he can’t feel anything, not even the pain anymore, it seems to speak for itself. Every day feels like a fucking life time for him. Maybe it was dramatic, maybe he’d lost touch with reality but...he just couldn’t help how he was feeling. He was destroyed. Everything he’d ever thought was true was gone. Her leaving had only confirmed for him that he loved her more than anything, that she was everything. And without it, without the knowledge that he might ever get to hold her again, speak to her again, kiss her, even hear her laugh. It was hard to feel like there was something worth getting out of bed for.

***

He’s lying in bed after having canceled his gym session for the third time that week and his best friend had found a way to get a keycard for his room, because he most certainly wasn’t getting up to answer it.

“Hey,” He spoke softly easing into the room. “Cez asked me to come check on you. You missed lunch. Want us to get you something?”

He hated being a burden on others. Even when his world was falling apart.

“Nah, man. I’m good. Don’t worry about me.”

Brian snorted. “That’s a good one. Everyone’s fucking worried about you. I--I’ve never seen you like this in the whole time we’ve known each other.”

He’s juggling some balls absentmindedly in his hands so as to not have to look at his friend in the face.

“Yea well...That makes two of us.”

“It can’t be healthy to keep this shit inside, Shawn. When are you gonna open up to us about y/n. It’s obvious that--”

“Don’t.” He mumbled tiredly. “Please don’t, man. I can’t.”

Brian takes a seat on the edge of the bed and just peers back at him for a moment.

“I’m your best friend, aren’t I? If there’s anyone you can talk to it’s me. I won’t go running to tell the adults man, you know that.”

His lip is starting to tremble so he juggles a little faster.

“I am just barely keeping it together right now. If anyone wants this tour to continue...this is all I got, Bri. I can’t do any better. I’m trying harder than I ever have. I want to go home so fucking badly. I miss--”

He started to choke again and the panic creeps up on him just like it always does as the balls fall to his lap. It’s never been this bad before.

“Just let it out, man. You gotta let it out.”

He reaches for the necklace around his throat. The swallow. He spends hours at night wondering if she’s taken it off, and if she has then what does that mean for them? What does that mean?

“Do you know what it’s like to love someone so much that you destroy each other? Like that shit you read about in books where the love is so vast that they end up hating each other in the end?”

“Nah man I don’t know what that’s like, but I bet it hurts.”

“Bri,” He gasps cause his chest is so fucking tight and it hurts to breathe. “It hurts so fucking bad. I miss her man. I just miss her so much. I ruined it.”

“What did you do? What happened?”

“I--I think we...I think it’s over. I think I lost her.”

It is the hardest thing in the world to explain. He had replayed it over and over in his mind. He hadn’t even been able to stomach saying the words, and yet she had pulled them out of him. She was braver than he ever could be because even now he couldn’t say it. He hadn’t wanted to leave her. He just couldn’t give her what he knew she deserved. And he couldn’t be the partner that he knew she deserved. It was hurting her. It was hurting her more than she was going to admit to him. He just didn’t want to hurt her for a year, when the result was always going to be that he couldn’t choose her even if his heart had the second he met her. Worse than that, he couldn’t imagine having her be in pain back home only to never reach out, only to let it all sit inside of her instead. The tour had to go on. So, what good did it do to talk about moving in together, about vacations, about a life together if it wasn’t going to happen. Wasn’t that just cruel?

“Shit, Shawn...that’s so heavy.” Brian sighed. “I--I don’t know about any of that man. I’ve never loved someone the way you two love. But, I can’t pretend that what you had wasn’t something special. You two not being together is just...it doesn’t even feel right. What happened to the two of you against the world?”

“I was perfectly willing to miss her every day just as long as she was gonna be okay back home. And y/n she just...she puts up such a good front that sometimes I don’t think she needs me at all. Sometimes I felt like I was just tripping after her wanting her like some love sick puppy. And then...then she let me in and I saw that it isn’t just me. She--She really loves me the way that I love her. I don’t want her to feel what I was feeling every day.”

Brian can’t help but wonder how his best friend had arrived at the solution of breaking up with her as a means to mitigate her pain.That made such incredibly little sense to him. But, this wasn’t meant to be a conversation of rational discussion. It was just meant for Shawn to finally open up to someone about how he was feeling.

“So you broke up with her.” He hedged carefully. “But it doesn’t even seem like that’s what you want. You seem broken man.”

“I just can’t see anyway through, Bri. I can’t see a way where she’s gonna sit at home waiting for me for a year and feel this way. How is it worth it? How am I worth that? I was twenty-one when we started planning the tour, and I thought I didn’t need anyone, thought I’d be single forever. I didn’t think I would find the person I...How could I do that to her?”

Brian snags one of the balls from Shawn and throws it quietly back and forth for a moment. He might have given them a lot of shit all the time, as a true best friend should, but Brian knew maybe better than anyone how good they were for each other. He was Shawn’s best friend. Had been there for the one nights stands, the girls who had just been there for the fame, the ones he’d actually fallen for that hadn’t worked out. Shawn and y/n were special. They were healthy and good and they made each other happy. So perhaps he had a little better insight then most.

“I get what you’re saying dude...I’m just wondering if maybe you should have let her be a part of that decision too.” He said honestly. “Instead you just made it for her.”

***

The shows don’t stop and Shawn doesn’t necessarily get any happier. He does get a little better in the meet and greets. He leans a little harder on the fans without ever telling them why. But it doesn’t matter cause they’d do anything for him regardless. The light in his eyes doesn’t return. He builds a facade for when there are cameras around, but even that is futile. Josiah has hundreds of pictures of him in a general shitty mood, so he just stops sharing them. Andrew starts getting calls from the label. But fuck the label, because that’s his family who’s hurting and something has to give. He’s running out of ideas.

When his dad shows up, Shawn feels like he’s sixteen again. He feels like a whiny ass teenager whose parent has come to scold him. And he’s so not himself at this point in his life that he can’t see through that, can’t even enjoy his dad’s company. So, when Andrew calls a team meeting on his off day, and he’s sat in a room with all of the people he employees to help him manage his life and his career, and then his dad on top of all that, he just feels frustrated. He feels like he’s never gonna get it right. He also is too tired to pretend that anything they’re gonna say is going to change anything.

Andrew stands up in the middle of the room and looks at him with serious, pained eyes. It only serves as a reminder of all the people that he’s hurting. As if he didn’t feel bad enough

“So here is where we’re at. We have not had a completely smooth run of this show since the damn thing started. You are absolutely miserable. And the meds are only making you walk around like a zombie. We have all been here with you since you were a kid, since you were fifteen years old and we have never seen you like this. Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t pull this tour.”

That brought the first sign of life to Shawn’s eyes in weeks.

“What? We can’t cancel the tour.”

“I can. And I will. There is zero point in having a tour if your heart isn’t in it Shawn. It’s not just bad for business, it’s bad for you as a person...you look like you’re dying, man.”

There’s pity in the eyes of every single person looking back at him. It’s concern and worry and somehow they’ve got his fucking dad in the room, which means he hasn’t been keeping it together in the slightest.

He rubs roughly at his face trying to disturb whatever everyone else had been seeing lately. He didn’t know what the hell to do anymore.

“Look it doesn’t matter if I’ve been a little sad lately. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are coming out to see these shows. We can’t just cancel. I’m not gonna be that guy. I appreciate the concern everyone, but I’m not canceling the damn tour.” He huffed. “And forcing my dad to fly out isn’t the way to force me to do it either. I’m not a child and the last time I checked it’s my name on the stage.”

He kind of sounds like a dick, but he just wants this to be over. He wants to go out and do his job and let that be it.

“We thought you might say that,” Manny sighed. “So I brought your mother.”

“What?!”

And just like that he’s a scorned child on the couch as his mom walks in. He’d been ignoring her calls recently so that he wouldn’t have to see the pity in her eyes too. He just didn’t think that he could take that.

“Let’s give them a moment, you guys.” Andrew says.

The rooms empties out. His dad sits in the chair across from his and his mum plops herself right on the couch next to him.

“Well now come here why don’t you?” She snorted opening her arms.

So, he lies on the couch with his head in his mum’s lap. And she smoothes at his hair and doesn’t say anything for like fifteen minutes. The silence is deafening. His dad is looking at him like he’s ten years old again. It might as well be reverse psychology because his lips are moving against his will before he can stop them.

“I don’t know what they told you but it’s not a huge deal. I’ve just been in a bit of a funk lately.” He sighed.

She hummed. “A funk? Okay. What do you think this funk is stemming from?”

His hand was on her knee and his grip tightened considerably at her question.

“I--I lost y/n.” He whispered throat getting thicker around the words. “I didn’t even lose her I just, I just let her go. And I don’t think I’m ever gonna get her back.”

“Oh, sweetheart.”

It was a well known fact in the family that Shawn felt everything deeply. It was part of what had gotten him into music so quickly. When he felt an emotion, or wanted to do something he was in it with his whole heart. It could be really good when it came to the positive, but it didn’t mean that the negative didn’t hit just as hard. So, Karen was far from surprised when Andrew called to explain that her son’s latest break up was taking its toll on him. In fact she was surprised he’d lasted as long as he did.

He’s sniffling now as a tear rolls down the bridge of his nose and onto her jeans. But he just has to know.

“‘Liyah told me once that you said she might be the one for me. Did you mean it?”

“I did.” She said honestly. “She’s a little older than you. She keeps you in check. And you look at her like...like you’d give it all up for her in a heartbeat.”

It’s apparently the wrong phrasing to use because Shawn flips on to his back and covers his face with his arm as the tears come a little stronger now.

“Except for I didn’t. Because I’m a piece of shit and I don’t deserve her.” He groaned.

“Now what does that mean? Talk to me.” She murmured.

She pulls at his arm and wipes his tears away.

“I didn’t give it all up for her. I went on tour knowing we’d be apart for a year. Knowing that no rational person could do a year of long distance like that. I made her believe that we could do it too, and then I fucking broke her heart mum. I don’t deserve her.”

“Sounds like you fucked up.” She nodded. “Sounds like you hurt someone you care a lot about. But sabotaging yourself isn’t going to make y/n forgive you and it’s not going to save either of you any hurt. Only you can do that.”

“What am I supposed to do? I’m still on tour for the rest of the year.”

“Well...it sounds like Andrew offered you an out. You have to decide for yourself what it is you’re willing to live without. You’ve got to take a long hard look at yourself and decide what your future is going to look like. I can’t do that for you sweetheart, none of us can.”

***

His fingers are moving languidly on the keys. He’s drunker than he’s been since New Year’s and that surely is the only reason he could possibly have called her that night. Surely he had more sense than that on a good day.

He never gets her voicemail, but the phone stops ringing and silence ensues. So, he talks because he doesn’t need anyone to listen. Doesn’t want anyone to listen if it isn’t her.

“I wrote you a song.” He sighed playing the melody on the keys. “I’ve written so many about you now that I keep thinking I can’t write another. But, here I am. It’s uh...well it’s really fucking sad. Can’t believe I used to openly ask for someone to break my heart just so I could write music. I’d much rather hold you instead. Do you remember the last time I held you?”

His eyes start to blur and he pulls his finger off the keys to wipe angrily at them.

“Fuckin aye, y/n.” He gulped. “How is it this hard? Why does it feel like my heart is being ripped apart right now?”

There’s a sound on the end of the phone that pulls him back in. It’s not the kind of sound of a voicemail either. It sounds like a sniffle. He presses to light his screen back up and sees that the call is still going. She’s on the other end. She’s there.

“B--baby? Is that you?” He sniffled. “y/n, I love you so much, is that you?”

He can practically see her lying in her bed in the dark. Her water diffuser on. Was she still wearing the matching harvard sweatshirt he bought her? Did she still have her necklace on? Did she still have her necklace on?

Y/n had heard every word. She was sitting in her bed in the dark when her phone began to ring. If you had asked her if Shawn ever called would she pick up, she surely would have told you no, would have sworn it up and down. But the second his name came up she had answered with zero hesitation. And of course she had started to cry immediately, but nothing could have prepared her for this relentless comfort that she felt. To know that he was there. To know that he still cared about her at all. Something she had known so fundamentally in all of her heart had been stolen from her that night in Amsterdam, and here he was in a drunken haze somehow managing to give it back to her. And god she did love him for it. How could she still love him?

“Don’t leave,” He whispered reaching for the bottle of vodka on top of the piano and nearly spilling it. “You don’t have to say anything but just...don’t go.”

She listens to him drink some more and there’s concern deep in her gut. Shawn never drank that much. And he was such a feeler that whenever he drank it only expanded his emotions drastically, whatever they were. The last thing she wanted to hear was for him to fall even deeper into sadness. Which made zero sense. He had destroyed her after all. How could she be so stupid?

“I should’ve canceled the tour.”

It’s the closest she comes to speak because surely he’s not getting enough oxygen to his brain.

“I shouldn’t have let you leave. I should have gone home with you….. I wanted to buy you house. I wanted to design you a kitchen. We--We could open a bakery together with live music and maybe beer too….. I don’t want any of this anymore. None of it’s worth anything without you.”

Somehow it hurts even worse for him to share these new thoughts with her. Though they shared most things with each other everything out of Shawn’s mouth was from the deepest pits of his heart. Y/n didn’t know that he’d searched for a realtor, or that he spent his nights not able to sleep looking at different versions of marble that might be best for tempering chocolate. It felt like he was mapping out a life that they could have had, an alternate reality that was no longer pliable. No longer possible. It felt like he was just fucking with her at this point.

“Then why did you throw me away?” She whispered.

“Sweetheart I--”

The line goes dead.

***

“So, here’s the thing . . . you’re not doing well.”

Y/n’s eyes had been peering out the glass windows of her boss’ office, but she immediately peered back at her.

She tilted her head in surprise. “What do you mean? My numbers are the best in the division?”

“Yes. You’re doing your job well, y/n. There’s no doubt about that.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Remember that little conversation we had a few months ago? About the importance of you holistically as a person? I’m not nearly as impressed with you doing well at your job when you walk into work every morning looking like every breath you take is painful.”

At this point y/n was barely holding on by a thread. She wanted so badly to call Shawn that every hour was physically painful. She wanted to know what he was going to say when she hung up. She wanted to know if he remembered anything at all. And worse than anything else whatever melody he’d played on that piano had haunted her dreams for days.

“Ma’am I...I truly am giving it my all. I lost someone that...that I kind of thought might have been it for me. And I didn’t lose him because he fell out of love with me, or because of something that I did at all. I lost him because I loved him so much that being without him hurt and he couldn’t stand to hurt me anymore. So, I don’t know what else you want me to do, but I’m not alright. And I’m not gonna be alright for a long while I think. All I can give you is my best. This is it.”

And Gina stares at her for a long while. She can see the sadness in her eyes. The way that her shoulders slump in defeat. The tiredness in her bones. It’s all there. And it's so deeply ingrained in her that even she can’t see a way out of it all.

“So, what can I do to best support you? How can I help ease some of this burden?”

“I don’t know...I really don’t.” She sighed.

“Okay. That’s fair. Here’s what I want you to do for me. I want you to go home. And I want you to come back to my office tomorrow with an answer. Can you do that?”

“Gina I...I don’t wanna go home. I wanna be here.”

She smiled sadly at her. “That’s exactly why I think you need to leave. Please, go. And call me if you need anything.”

***

It is crazy how even in two different time zones, in two different places on the planet, with zero communication how two lives can parallel so easily. In Toronto, y/n sits in a room with her boss while Shawn sits somewhere in Europe with Andrew. The conversations that they have are eerily similar as well.

“So I think I know what I might need but uh...I just don’t see anyway for it to happen.” Y/n started.

Gina nods. “Why don’t you tell me what it is, and I’ll see if we can make a way.”

“Okay...well, I guess I’ve been working non-stop since I was nineteen years old. I interned with this company when I was twenty and I’ve been here ever since. I’ve never taken a significant vacation, and the most days I’ve ever taken off in my career were to visit my ex. So...maybe I just need some time off. Like significant time off. Maybe I need to see something that isn’t Toronto for a change?”

Shawn, meanwhile, is picking at his jeans anxiously while Andrew stares at him. He’s stopped taking his medication at this point in a desperate attempt to try and handle his shit himself. It’s harder than he could have imagined.

“I don’t know man. The timing is so shitty. I get that. I do, but...I just want something different now. I’ve been touring since I was fifteen. And I thought I’d want to do it for the rest of forever. I did.”

“But?” Andrew asked.

He claps his hands together in front of him. They’re shaking. And he’s got no one there to help him still them.

“But...I think--I think that if she called me today and asked me to never tour again, I’d say yes in a heartbeat.” He admits quietly.

It feels like the most awful thing he could ever say out loud. It feels like such a contradiction to everything that he’s been for the past damn near decade of his life. He loved music. He loved to perform. But shit, he loved her more.

“Okay. So what does that mean for us right now, bud?”

“I think maybe, maybe we should pull it.” He whispered.

Gina twirls a pen in her fingers and swings her chair back and forth as she stares at her employee with more potential than maybe the rest of her company combined. What she would offer was practically unheard of, even in the liberalism that was Canada. But, it might just salvage her life and frankly her career.

“How does... a six month sabbatical sound? You can keep your salary. I will place Mr. Bateman’s choice back into the position in the meantime, and I will guarantee you the ability to return to your position when you come back. In terms of growth in the company it will be as if you were gone, but the fact that you’re already at senior executive level means you wouldn’t see any movement in at least three to five years anyway. How does that sound?”

“Holy shit. Holy shit. Gina are you forreal?”

She shrugged. “Someone did something similar for me once upon a time. Girl you are twenty-six, you are too young to be so stressed. You’ve got your forties for that. I’ll have the paperwork drafted. Pass everything off to your assistant and we’ll get you out of here. Go see the world, go explore what kind of woman you wanna be. It’s done.”

Andrew looks at Shawn with nothing but sympathy in his eyes. And he truly wishes he could find a way to make it all better for him.

“Let me look into it. See how much of a hit it’s gonna be for us. Can you give me a couple more shows, while I figure it out?”

He nods softly, but his heart and his head and his everything are already back in Toronto.

***

He’s sitting in the bathroom of some arena. His back is against the porcelain walls and the coolness of the floor is seeping into his jeans. He feels it in his bones and in his gut, like the coldness is turning into a knot of ice where his intestines should be. His fingers feel numb but every couple of seconds there’s a tingling sensation like they’re trying to remind him what feeling is like. He brings his palm to cover his heart because it all feels too tight. His shirt is suddenly too restrictive. And so is his jacket. And so is his skin. He can’t breathe. And not because it’s too hard to, but because he just doesn’t want to anymore. It’s like his entire body—including his mind and his soul—are failing him in this moment, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

It is the most terrifying and lonely experience in the world to have your body turn against you in that way. He’s in pain, but it doesn’t even have the decency to be sharp. This pain is dull and it throbs and it radiates from every pore. And there’s no one there with him to fix it. He’s alone in a physical sense but also in a deeper way too. He scratches his fingers across his face and up into his hair trying to feel something, trying to shock himself out of it. It’s no use. He’s alone and he’s afraid and he’s got nothing left to give.

Outside of that room the screams of the crowd are rumbling through the entire building, and the expectation only chokes him further. What they need of him. What they expect him to do. Who they expect him to be. Who he could never really be if he tried.

He presses his head against the wall a little too aggressively but the pain grips him more firmly into reality. His skull connects with concrete and for a second he doesn’t think about not being able to breathe, about not being able to ever remember a time when things were okay because everything around him is fucking dark and where the hell is he supposed to find a light in this tunnel? It’s fleeting though. And soon it’s just him again. Just him stuck in his body with none of the functions actually working. and he’s so scared that his hands are shaking and he can’t even feel that.

He reaches for his phone and there’s no one else he can call. It’s not even a conscious decision, he just presses the button and keeps trying to breathe. He can’t even imagine what he’ll do if she doesn’t pick up. Luckily she doesn’t make him way for long before her face appears on his screen. If he wasn’t already struggling to breathe she would have taken his breath away.

The phone is on ground, which means all she can see is the ceiling, and she peers at her own screen in confusion.

“Are you like butt dialing me right now?” She asked.

He reaches for the phone and his hands are shaking but she’s there. They’re looking at each other for the first time in over a month and he kind of wants to cry in relief, but her voice is there and he doesn’t want to lose a second of this.

“What’s wrong?”

Because she knew. Of course she knew. He makes the sign they came up with. It’s just a wave of his hand in front of his throat, but she seems to get it immediately. The best part of all of it was the look in her eyes. She never stared at him with pity the way his entire team had since she left. There was a calmness to her, a certain level of strictness and formality that he desperately needed.

“Okay.” She says simply. “Okay just...take a deep breath. Whatever is going on right now can wait. Take your time with this.”

His fingers reach for the necklace, their necklace, and her eyes widen when she realizes he never took it off. But then her eyes grow sad again and suddenly it hurts worse to breathe than ever.

“Close your eyes.”

“N--No. No. Can’t.” He huffed.

She rolled her eyes at him. Of course.

“I’m not going anywhere, jackass. Close your eyes, you’re focusing on too much right now.”

“Will you...still...be there?”

It’s a loaded fucking question to ask when he can’t breathe and they’re several thousand miles apart and he’s the one who broke her heart. He’s such a dick for asking her. She owes him nothing, and yet here she is still giving him everything.

“...Yes.”

His eyes eventually flutter close and suddenly it’s all darkness. Darkness and her. It’s the only thing he has to focus on.

“Keep breathing.” She coaches softly. “Like you’re just at home in your apartment meditating. There are no stakes here. If you don’t get it a hundred percent right, that’s okay. We’re just breathing. We’re just feeling. Let yourself feel. Your feet. Ankles. Your thighs. Feel your chest, Shawn. Feel your heart. It’s all gonna be okay.”

With the numbness oftentimes comes with floating. It’s not just that he can’t feel his body, but that it’s as if he’s outside of it entirely. When she speaks, she pulls him back in. There’s no crowd outside, no one to disappoint. They’re just breathing together. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. Even when nothing is.

She knows that he’s breathing normally before he even does. She tells him to open his eyes and when he does he’s still in the bathroom of the arena, but the cloud of fear is gone. And somehow she’s still there staring right back at him. He must be the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.

“You’re okay.” She hummed. “See?”

“I--I’m so sorry I called you. That’s not fair. I just...I didn’t know who else to call. It was bad.”

“Looked like it. You’re supposed to be on stage soon.”

“How did you--”

“You sent me your schedule for the whole tour, remember?” She murmured. “Your hands are still shaking by the way.”

He peers down at them in frustration. He used to be able to still them on her hips. She used to let him hide his trembling fingers beneath her shirt where all that mattered was touching her skin and loving her. It didn’t matter if his hands shook. She’d always let them shake and that’s exactly when they would stop.

“It’s my first show off my meds.” He admitted.

He hadn’t felt the need to share that with anyone else, which was maybe why he’d hid his panic attack in the bathroom, but he can’t help but share with her. He can’t help but want her to know everything about him.

“Wow. How come?”

“I was...over using them. Felt numb. Andrew was starting to worry so I just… I figured I should try without them.”

“And how are you feeling without them?” She asked softly.

“About the way I felt before I started taking more of them.”

She sighs a big enough breath for the two of them he thinks.

“Yea. I know.”

“I miss you,” He whispered so softly they both nearly miss it. “So much.”

“Shawn...I should go. You should go.”

But he literally can’t. Now that she’s in front of him his mind is running haywire with all the things he wanted to tell her, all the memories he’d been thinking about since she left, since he lost her.

“Do you remember that time when we were having all those thunderstorms for a while. And you didn’t want to tell me that they scared you? So I just had to figured it out for myself? And we just...just laid in bed for hours. We talked. I played with your hair. Do you--do you remember that?”

“Please? Why do you have to keep doing this to me?” She mumbled, eyes wet. “What did I do, aye? Just tell me what I did wrong.”

“You’re perfect. You’re it for me. I just...blew it.”

“Well isn’t that just so sweet for you to understand now after you broke my fucking heart.”

He frowns down at his jeans.

“It was never about loving you. I think--I think you’re the love my life actually. I just want to give you everything and I can’t right now. But, it’s what you deserve. And I don’t know how, how to reconcile that. I can’t stand the thought of hurting you. I can’t stomach the idea of you not having the relationship you deserve.”

“So it was better to give me up entirely?” She whispered. “That is so fucked, Shawn. Have a good show.”

“Wait! Wait. Just...I need to know. Do you...could you ever still love me?”

He watched the tears finally pool and run down her cheeks and his first thought was to go to her. To get on whatever plane could go the fastest and take him the fuck back home. Back to her.

“I think you’re the greatest love I’ve ever known. I think I’m gonna love you for the rest of my life.”

And then she’s gone. And he feels like he’s just given her up all over again.

***

Oddly enough it’s the best show he’s done in a while. His hands shake and he gets really overwhelmed by the crowd, and yet there’s a calmness somehow. He’s got no idea what it is. Meanwhile back in Toronto, y/n starts to pour herself a glass of wine before saying fuck it and reaching for the bottle instead. It only takes a quick search to find someone livestreaming the show, and she’s certainly feeling like a glutton for punishment tonight. The fans on twitter will notice that he adds Never Be Alone back to the setlist that night, and that his hands are shaking, but somehow he’s more present. You could say a part of him maybe knew she was watching that night. Or maybe it was fate. Maybe it was a coincidence. Who knew?

“I wrote this song when I was sixteen. And sometimes I think I’ve only gotten dumber over the years because sixteen year old me seemed to be so much better with words. When you love someone...and you can’t make it work...and it’s your fault, it can seem like there’s no way to fix it. Like there’s nothing to do to make it all better. Even if that’s all I want. This song is...it’s for you, sweetheart. I love you.”

The crowd goes crazy, but y/n couldn’t move if you asked her. She was kind of frozen.

I promise that one day I’ll be around. I’ll keep you safe, I’ll keep you sound.

Right now it’s really crazy and I don’t know how to stop or slow it down.

Take a piece of my heart, and make it all your own

So when we are apart, you’ll never be alone

He gets choked up playing it, and lets the crowd take over for the last chorus, but she’s in her living room surrounded by packing boxes and duct tape just completely breaking down. It wasn’t just that the song fit perfectly but that there was a history there for them.

Shawn slips out of bed and reaches for his underwear to pull over his hips. When he grabs the sweatpants too, Y/n knows that their done in bed and can’t help the whine that comes out of her throat.

“C’mon. We’ve been making love all morning. I wanna play for you now.” He says, eye soft and curls fluffy.

He’s got love bites and hickeys all over his neck and chest and y/n doesn’t quite understand why they’re getting out of bed again, but he smiles and holds her in his arms when she pulls on panties and her bra. His hands, large and warm curve over her hips and down the back of her thighs as if she is truly something to behold. He’s staring at her not just like he loves her but like he’s only got eyes for her and nothing else in the world. When she makes any movement at all, his eyes are right there taking in every piece of flesh, every piece of hair, every smile. She’s never felt so adored. And he’s never felt so willing to give all of himself to someone before.

“Baby you’re so...I’m running out of words now.” He whines skimming his fingers over her belly. “Just so goddamn beautiful. How did I get this lucky?”

Her cheeks start to heat up and she looks down at the floor and he can’t stand to have her eyes not on his for even a second, so he tugs at her chin. He kisses her because even though they’ve been in bed touching since they woke up, it’s a hunger that’s never quite satisfied.

“Guess we just found each other.” She whispers. “Like I’m yours and your mine and it just was meant to be like that.”

“Mine.” He murmured tugging her playfully against him.

“Mine.” She says just as aggressively.

He takes her to the piano and runs his fingers over the keys. He doesn’t even have anything in mind, but something about that morning, about that moment just has the music running through his veins. He’s gotta get it out. So he looks at her and just lets his fingers follow in the hopes that they’ll get it right. And somehow, they do.

Never Be Alone feels right, even if he almost never wants to play his own stuff in fear of being cheesy, so he runs with it. She’s got her chin on his shoulder and she smells like fucking lavender and sweat and his apartment and he’s never felt so possessive, so just in desperate need to have all of someone before.

When you miss me close your eyes, I may be far but never gone

When you fall asleep tonight, just remember that we lay under the same stars.

Take a piece of my heart, and make it all your own

So when we are apart, you’ll never be alone.

“That’s so pretty.” She smiled kissing his bicep. “You were sixteen when you wrote that?”

He nods softly, fingers still playing and eyes completely and fully drawn to her.

“Jeez, Mendes. So sappy. Can it still be for me even if you wrote it for someone else?”

“You can have all of it. It’s yours already.”

“So I'll never be alone aye? Never?”

He shakes his head and reaches to kiss her again.

“Not if I can help it, honey. Never.”

***

Shawn runs off the stage that night with a different level of energy. He completely ignores the towel that they throw at him and runs straight for his phone instead. There’s a clarity in his mind after the show, after his fingers had played every note and he’d gone through every vocal. He knows what he wants and he knows what he’s willing to give up for it.

“Shawn… You can’t keep calling me. You don’t get to do that anymore.”

Her voice is wet, and he knows that she’s been crying in the same way that he used to be able to go and knock on her door when she was stressed out without even a text. He’s got to fix it. He’s tired of putting them both through hell when none of it does any good. He just wants her entirely.

Maybe won’t you take it back? Say you were trying to make me laugh.

“I need to know...If I canceled this tour, if I flew home to you right now could you ever forgive me for the pain that I caused? Could we ever be together again?”

“I...What are you even saying right now? This was your fucking choice.”

“Don’t argue with me. Don’t run away. Don’t deflect. Just this once. Just tell me how you feel. If you say yes I’m on the next plane. It’s as simple as that.”

“I would never ask you to come home and cancel your entire tour that you worked so fucking hard for. That’s ridiculous!”

“I’m not asking if I should cancel anything. I’m asking if there’s still something for me to come home to. Right now. Not a year from now”

And nothing has to change today. You didn’t mean to say I love you

He waits on the other end of the line, still dripping sweat and peering over as members from his team are eyeing him in confusion. He should be doing cool downs, should be doing check ins with the crew about the sound from the show, but who the fuck cared? How the hell was he meant to go through every day of his life knowing that the woman he left back home was it for him, that he may have just found his soulmate and he was letting her go for a tour that he wouldn’t even be able to really, truly enjoy without her.

She takes a deep breath and his heart hammers in his chest and he just wants to tell her that he loves her, that he’d do anything to take it all back. When she speaks it’s like a wave, a wave that creeps up slowly along his ankles harmlessly at first.

“No, Shawn. There’s not.”

And then the wave swallows him whole.

I love you. And I don’t want to.

Feel free to buy me ko-fi so I can keep writing. The support means the world to me. Thank you. Taglist: @kitykatnumber @lou-and-me @ourlittleshawnie @mutuallynotmutual @wanderingmendes @peacedolantwins2 @chels-nyc @@illloveyouforever1 @justbeingoceana @grittyisathot @hayyitsfayy @claredolphinbear24 @september-lace @grittyaho @literallyshawn @mchutchmendes @liliane106 @iloveshawnieboi @samwillllson @trappedinfairytales

#shawn mendes #Shawn mendes fic #Shawn mendes fanfic #Shawn mendes fanfiction #Shawn mendes series #Shawn mendes angst #Shawn mendes au #Shawn mendes one shot #Shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes smut #Shawn mendes x you #Shawn mendes x y/n #Shawn mendes x reader #Shawn mendes x fat reader #Shawn mendes x thick reader #neighbors fic

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annakie · 5 years ago

Photo

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Six

Wherein we get out into space and explore a bit, and complete our crew.

And post a lot of gifs, because screenshots were lost.

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

So I use the NVidia Control Panel app to take screenshots and videos. Since it’s already running and it takes good shots it seems dumb to not use it.

I ended up being super busy this week and didn’t play much, just got through like, talking to Kaidan after the big speech on the bridge more or less for the entire week, and through Therum. I updated my drivers a day or two ago. And then I didn’t notice that for whatever reason, yesterday when I went to play for a few hours, NVidia decided to record videos just fine, but not take screenshots. I probably actually mashed the button several hundred times.... but all I got were videos.

Most of it wasn’t a great loss, it was a lot of talking to the crew, and a few planetary missions which... so I’m going to have to go back and redo some of it later for screenshots.

But I thought... hey, for posting on tumblr, I’ll just make it a shorter update and make a few gifs and most this a mostly-gif post! That’ll be fun!

...and then I spent several hours making almost 80 gifs, including a lot of what I also had screenshots for but thought making gifs would be more fun.

I mean I was watching the last few eps of the newest season of Great British Bake Off on Netflix, and a few other shows this morning so it wasn’t just gif time... but yeah I made a lot. So I might split this into two posts now because... that’s a lot of gifs. This post will still have a lot of screenshots, too. So here we go!

There are so many things to love about this moment. It’s such a great like, re-launch of the game... Bioware telling us “Okay, now you know the plot, you know all the major players, you know a lot about our world (galaxy) and how it works and who lives here, now, it’s time for you to go out on your own.”

First, it starts with being able to vent a little to Joker, which is a nice touch. Shepard might feel guilty about taking the ship over from Anderson, but Joker also assures us here, a great preview of the way he’s tasked with helping Shepard keep it together in ME3.

I love seeing Shepard’s words affect the crew. The swelling music, the same as the “you’re a Spectre now!!” music just underscores the journey, and what’s to come.

I used to always miss this scene by not picking the right speech option, and would be mad Kaidan was left out of this montage. My fault!

This moment is so beautiful and epic.

...and here we go.

ALOT, btw, makes the galaxy map so pretty. Sharper and clearer and more colorful.

We all usually just head to Liara’s Dig Site first, right? Unless you’re doing one of those “Pick up Liara last just to see what happens” playthroughs? I did that once. It felt weird. And sad, when you tell her “oops I killed your mom and I’m not sorry.” Seems like she shouldn’t have gotten over that so quickly, but well, that’s game design. The entire plot just doesn’t feel the same and more flimsy without Liara around from the start.

I usually do Therum --> Feros --> Noveria --> Virmire.

Well okay, first a stop at Edolus, since, you know, it’s on the way.

What a LOVELY day, nothing could possibly go wrong on this barren world. I feel like they gave us a pretty easy-to-get-around-on world to start out with.

I honestly love driving around in the mako 90% of the time? Once you’re used to the controls, it’s not that hard to get most places you want to go. Though I admit the Nomad in Andromeda is a big upgrade. I kinda miss it in ME2 and ME3, though I only do what driving is necessary in Overlord and skip Firewalker like, half the time.

First, let’s check out the map...

I’m pretty sure I didn’t realize you could mark your destination on the map and it’d put a handy arrow on your radar until I started playing on PC. Before then I was checking the map every 5 seconds making SURE I was going the right way. *facepalm*

Generally my scanning strategy on the planet is... just go to the things on the map, but do go to ALL the things on the map. If I see something along the way, stop and get it. I don’t go way out of my way to look for unmarked stuff. Usually the UNC missions can be completed doing that + complete planet / asteroid scanning.

Oh hey here’s a guy, let’s just grab what we can off him...

UGH. MINIGAMES.

Like I get that the minigame is a stand in for “looking for clues, are you successful in finding anything useful?” or whatever but it’s still just the worst. A minigame is fun occasionally, making it as a gate to something like looting a body is stupid. I guess I have to forgo actually putting points into things that keep Kaidan alive at the early levels so he can help me... loot bodies. Cool. Great.

Since I’m cheating in credits, all weapons and armor get medigelled almost immediately so that I don’t have to do the minigame later on when they get harder, like, ever.

The ME2 minigames at least make a little more sense than this moving puzzler thing. That’s at least an attempt to look like some kind of code hacking or rewiring/reprogramming. This thing is just... silly.

ME2 has a disable minigames mod... so there will be no talk of minigames from here on out. They don’t exist after the easy minigames early on in ME1.

So I ... somehow managed to not get video or screenshots of you know the ICONIC THRESHER MAW attack on Edolus? So please enjoy this gif I made of it back in 2013 instead.

It’s such a great fakeout and moment. Like “Oh man how easy my goal is like right in front of me! That’s great, so easy!” then OH HELL NO, FUCK YOU, GIANT WORM!!

These gifs are from another planet later on, but they’ll do.

My normal MO with Maws is to get out of the way, far enough that they can’t appear too close to or especially under me, but close enough that they do still show up, then stay stationary and jump over the goo while shooting at it.

YOU’RE FACING THE OTHER WAY HOW DID YOU SPIT AT ME?!

This is fine. EVERYTHING IS FINE. We’re just A LITTLE ON FIRE. Our shields are at full...

Oh hell, Kaidan slap some medigel on it, please.

Even though we don’t know who Cerberus is yet, FUCK YOU CERBERUS. I always bring the VS to any Cerberus mission because THEY WERE RIGHT NOT TO JOIN YOU IN CERBERUS. Let’s keep a FUCK YOU CERBERUS count going to remember all the horrible shit we SAW Cerberus do in ME1 to remind ourselves why Ashley or Kaidan is the only SANE ONE for going “No, sorry, I’m not joining you in Cerberus.”

Deep breath

OK, let’s go get Liara.

Wrex comes with us to Therum.

Dear Lord, Therum is gorgeous.

This is real nice just a pleasant day on this thresher maw-less planet and great scenery, we’ll find that asari scientist in no ti--- WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?

Have I mentioned how everything is fine lately?

Well it’s time for how I deal with most of the geth while in the Mako...

Armatures are worth five points each!

Rocket troopers are only two points, but I got a lot of them!

Stopping and fighting in the Mako takes way too long. Push on through all the way til we’re stopped.

Hm, this is the one I should push, right?

*crickets*

Fine.

Just... real pretty.

I love this part of Therum right here. A really great, scary fight that feels so dangerous, but winnable. Great level design, too.

Then this happens.

Does everyone’s hair do that in this cutscene, or just mine, or this hairstyle?

Also, ME3 has a mod now that lets chracters use their correct weapons in cutscenes, my eternal devotion to the modder who could do that in ME1. None of these characters use assault rifles in-game!!

I’m fairly certain I have played and replayed this fight more than any other in ME1. AKA RUN FOR COVER OH SHIT AVOID THE BOMBS AND LASERS FLYING AT YOU AT ONCE PLEASE DON’T DIE COMPANIONS PLEASE KILL SOMETHING I CAN’T DO THIS ON MY OWN AHHHHH!!!

This time around, I died my first time, actually did really well the second time, and decided to go back and record the fight for gifs and... won, barely. The gifs would not be good. Wrex and Kaidan didn’t last long.

Anyway, It’s a great cutscene, but hoo boy I wish it were skippable.

Okay but what were these ruins *for*. Also, real lucky that they had the boss fight way up here instead of down where Liara was.

Speaking of Liara...

Hello Doctor T’soni!

I have a lot of questions like... how long have you been in that bubble? How are you sustaining it that long? How long has it been since you’ve eaten? If I didn’t come get you until after Virmire, would you have been holding that bubble up for the weeks in between then and now?

Ah well, you’re here now, and I suppose I’m going to owe you my life later so... welcome to the team.

You gotta admit that’s one badass entrance, though uh, if the forcefield is still up, where did he come from? Doesn’t matter. Wrex, let’s kill us one of your brethren (sorry.)

I’ll just *assume* that Liara is too tired from holding up her stasis bubble she was in to actually be USEFUL.

I love the chaos of running the fuck out of there.

Texture popping is still an issue even with a decent computer and texture packs, but at least it’s quick now.

Also I really feel the loss of this conference room in the future games. The awkward oval table never quite feels the same. But also, uh, this is a lot of room taken up in this small ship for eight chairs and a holoprojector. You gotta think there’s more uses for this space than just that.

But yeah, I love these check-ins, it’s a chance for everyone to get together and really hash out what’s going on, as well as reinforcing the plot to the players in a more natural way. Having Liara this early will let us understand the Protheans better at an earlier stage, even if it turns out she’s wrong about some stuff (though at the time this was written, she was right for all everyone knew.)

Wrex and Garrus don’t talk much here, probably because you can make it through the game without one of them. I did a “didn’t recruit Garrus” playthrough in ME2 once. They change like one or two lines then Garrus goes back to talking about Old Times. So like you CAN, but you really shouldn’t not recruit Garrus, because Bioware didn’t do a great job changing anything aside from your initial greeting during the Omega Archangel mission.

Not recruiting Wrex, though. Wow that’ll have consequences later on.

OK! So the gang’s all here, and this post is already very long. Next time: Let’s go talk to everyone for awhile, and do a few more sidequests because we can’t go back to the Citadel til our persuasion is high enough to grind Mikhailovich’s arguments into the dust!

#mass effect #liara t'soni #urdnot wrex #kaidan alenko #ashley williams #garrus vakarian #annakie's mass effect stuff

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nigelgodrichproducer · 5 years ago

Text

Nigel Interview w/ The Grammys

SOURCE: https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/producer-nigel-godrich-quite-absurd-six-year-road-ultra%C3%ADstas-new-lp-sister

Nigel Godrich likes to make music that sounds like you can see it. “Everything is very visual to me," he says in a recent interview with the Recording Academy.

..."I don't set out to [leave a fingerprint], but I also have my own agenda on what I want from something," he says. "I regard all projects as collaborations really. I'm not trying to get what somebody else wants at all."

As Godrich notes, with both fascination and mild shame, the record took over six years to gestate—nearly the equivalent of the Beatles' entire studio career. And that's partly due to the project's piecemeal construction. After touring behind their self-titled 2012 debut, the producer regrouped with singer Laura Bettinson and drummer Joey Waronker for sporadic jam sessions he patiently whittled down into finished tunes. Each musician was busy in their respective careers: Bettinson as a solo artist, Waronker as a session player, Godrich's stage and studio work with Radiohead's Thom Yorke. But every so often, the producer would dig into the recordings and sculpt them like Play-Doh—building tracks from surgically extracted drum beats or looped basslines.

Bettinson and Waronker carried on with their lives with no expectation of when an album might emerge. But Godrich’s jigsaw slowly fell into place around 2018. "All the things that have happened in the process of making this record," he says, "it's quite absurd really."

The producer spoke with the Recording Academy about more on the six-year journey to Sister, the exhilaration of transforming jams into actual songs, his evolution as an instrumentalist and Radiohead's upcoming 20th-anniversary package of Kid A.

You sculpted much of this material through improvisations, a technique you've used in the past, like with Atoms For Peace's 2013 LP. Can you walk me through that process? Did everyone bring in grooves that you jammed on, or did you walk into the room with a completely blank canvas?

You're right in that it's a technique that's quite recurring in a lot of stuff I've done, with Thom [Yorke] too and even Radiohead or whatever. That was the foundation of The King Of Limbs, all that kinda weird [stuff]. It's like a home studio mentality, where you create loads of stuff, go back to it later and find a piece that works. It's something I'm used to doing and it's the easiest way of making tracks, really, because you can create a lot of stuff and you don't have to think too hard in order to make a big noise.

Ultraista only toured once, around 2012. Did some of the ideas originate around then?

We found, doing more and more shows, there were little gaps between songs and extended bits of songs that we kept playing. The way we had our equipment set up, we could just make music in the air. We just went into my little basement studio in L.A. and just played for nothing, with no ideas. No sort of basis for anything. It's easy for me to build a loop and a keyboard sound and Laura to build a vocal loop and Joey to play along—to create these little soundscape things that are used as building blocks. But they did sort of sit around for quite a while.

They also didn't function exactly how they were designed. There are a few things like that. I might hear one element and think it's good, but it didn't work that way, so [we'd] replay it or create it in a sequence and start again. But as a kind of seeding workshop, it's a great way of working. It's sort of leisurely, the way we've made this record. We had the luxury of taking some distance and looking at some things we made and going away and writing lyrics over things. It happened a lot of different ways, but the core of the intention was to do exactly what you said.

The challenge, though, is to take those little sequences and turn them into songs.

It's very easy to make cyclical things, but then you have to somehow hang music on them, which means going away and thinking about changes and chords. That exercise is done in a different kind of setting, and that's the bit that takes ages: forming them into coherent songs that are gonna hold your attention—which we never tried to do before. That was the big difference between the two records. The first one was supposed to be cyclical; It was intentionally dumbed-down in that way. Just to do something else, we thought it would be nice to make more conventional song structures.

Unlike most of the projects you've worked on, you weren't working with a deadline or any real sense of expectation. At what point do you put that internal deadline on yourself? Did you at some point say, "OK, we have 75 percent of an album at this point, so let's finish off this thing"?

It's a very, very good question. You're hitting on a very good point, which is that you can only sit around in the bath, picking out the fluff from your navel, for so long. And then you're like, "Uh, if we're gonna do this, I guess we've gotta get on and do it." That moment was relatively recent, probably a year and a half ago. It's like, "OK, let's finish this. It's really unfair for everybody to keep saying, 'Oh yeah, this track we did is really good. Let's nail it down and get it all done. Let's get this music out.'" We're very lucky to be able to sit around not finishing things. That's a privilege to sit around on music that's not finished. That did happen. It was like, "OK, if I've this time. I'm going to focus on all these strings and little bits and bobs I've got. I'm in the same country as Laura." We got the songs down, and then we got Joey back and did some more work with him. That's it. That's how we did it. It was a lot of navel-staring for like six years. [Laughs.] Not due to a lack of activity. Jesus Christ, it was such a busy time for all of us and we were doing lots of other things. It was a pleasure to go back and finish this stuff. And now that we've got it, it's really fun to talk to you about it and go promote it and play some songs and play some shows. It's a happy place.

You were in a unique position as a producer. You're the gatekeeper to this music in a way. How did the other two handle that? Were they checking in every so often, like, "Hey Nigel, what's the status of these songs? Any progress?"

No, not at all. We'd see each other socially anyway, so we're all in each other's lives. In all honesty, it was more like me trying to sell a second-hand car: "Guys, you know what, this song is actually good. I swear!" It's that up until a point, and then it's like, "Let's do this." We're quite content people. [Some artists are] signed to a major label where you have high-powered people pushing you to finish your album to a deadline, but nowadays there are musicians who can make music at home or in their own studios and make a living if they can manage that. There is no imperative; it's your own pace. It's a strange phenomenon that's not really existed before. In the '60s, people didn't sit around with songs they've written for five years, did they? They had entire careers. In fact, the Beatles had their entire career in the space it's taken us to produce another record. That's not a very good commendation, is it?

It's easy to forget how much artistic ground the Beatles covered in such a short span.

That's a marker I use: I measure things against the Beatles' entire career. It's only six or seven years, really, of the recordings.

Since the last album, you've performed live with Atoms For Peace and alongside Thom Yorke in Tomorrow's Modern Boxes. I assume that's changed you as a musician—you have to be a bit more practiced up on your instruments and that could also give you a different view of yourself as a musician.

I was a player when I was a teenager and then I didn't really pick up a guitar for a long time. But I remember thinking and feeling, after all that time in the studio working with other musicians, that I was a better musician when I picked up the guitar again. I was a better player. It was quite odd. I don't know why. I'd just watched and been around so many great people, great players. On the first Ultraista tour, it was a new thing to be on stage and play this stuff. Since then, you're right, playing with Atoms and even stuff with Thom now—I'm a different person than I was 10 years ago, but I'm more certainly more confident as a performer in front of people. I think I probably was a better player when I was 17, to be honest because I was playing all the time. But mentally, I'm certainly more confident now. We change over time. I think we're able to learn skills later in life too—I think I can do things I couldn't do 10 years ago. You think about things differently. So much about performance is about feeling and feel. I don't know—I feel like I focus on that more now.

I'd like to dig into the creative process behind Sister. "Tin King" is built around a hypnotic bass that runs through most of it. Did you just pluck out that riff from your pile of jams and start building from there?

The very basics of that were from the original jam for the first album but very, very skeletal. The only thing that actually survived is the bassline. And the idea was to write a song that's one-note. It's an exercise, a word game; three people contributing different lyrics and then choosing the note and taking it from there. I picked it up and said, "OK, something has to happen. There has to be a B section." So you write a refrain and it somehow solidifies some meaning in what's going on. The abstract imagery—it's all just words. It's something about an internal dialogue: "Am I in the right hands? Am I in the right hands?" It's funny how one injects one's own premise into a pile of things and it sorts them all into rows. The other thing was to make some sort of arrangement so the second half of the song could just blossom. So, I wrote the chords and extrapolated them from the middle onwards and then it reaches a sort of climax through Laura's performance at the end. Suddenly you have this arc and it makes sense. It's a track.

I love that concept of building a vocal around one note. Laura's performance, like the bass, has a kind of trance-like effect.

It's actually a really, really well-used and overused technique in songwriting. It's better to change the chords than the melody sometimes. It's funny how that works and it's funny how compelling it is. You wouldn't think that one note would hold your focus, but it depends on what's going on around it.

There are some lovely strings at different points in the album and the most definitive example is the surging, repetitive part on "Anybody."

That is from one of the jams in my basement. Joey and Laura making the vocal loop "I could be your anybody; I could be your nobody," that's the jam that went with the drums. The bassline is part of that jam too. That thing kind of existed and was arranged and knocked around and it had this amazing instrumental section from the middle part where it goes off into a sort of dreamscape. That's essentially the shape of the jam. When you do something and you're like, "Something really cool happened there," you fight to preserve the moment by building the song around it. Then Laura came up with the lyrics and the strings were the very last thing to go on because it felt very skeletal.

How did you end up recording those?

Actually, it's a good story: My friend Xavier Veilhan, a French artist who was representing France in the Venice Biennale, built an installation that was a recording studio. And I helped by basically giving him all the equipment. I sort of set up my studio as part of his exhibit. So there was this studio in Venice for like six months and they had artists coming through like every few days—from very esoteric electronic people to more well-known people. As a part of the deal, I had a few days to record some things. We decided to record our strings at the Venice Biennale in front of people walking in and out.

People would come in halfway through, watch, look confused and walk out. We somehow managed to do it without interfering with the recordings. [Laughs.] It's an overlooked story. It's pretty cool. It was just an opportunity to record the strings on our own. With the string line on [“Anybody"], I wanted something driving to push it along, some kind of Steve Reich-ian, Phillip Glass-type repetition. It's played. It sounds impossible to play, but it's played. It's just mathematical. But it's not a synthetic thing. It's ten people playing that part.

Yeah, it sounds like it could be a looped sample or something because it's so precise.

It's a weird story. It just goes to show—you reminded me, like, "Oh yeah, another thing: We recorded that at the Venice Biennale."

Blurring the line between organic and synthetic is a signature of your work. One of my favorite moments on the album is Joey's drum part on "Bumblebees," where the groove sort of flips over on itself. It's disorienting but also super funky.

The reason [for that] is because he's actually playing to something else. The track is constructed around him and, basically, it's backwards. Sometimes it's a really good place to start—move the downbeat of the drums by a beat or a 16th early. What happens is that, rhythmically, things shake up and interesting things happen. You're quite right—it is backwards. But it's supposed to unseat you. There's nothing more boring than something very straight rhythmically. It's supposed to keep your brain moving and it sort of does. He plays beautifully and that's what's really lovely. In that instance, he might be reacting to something else going on that you can't hear. It's a good trick really.

That makes a lot of sense, actually.

It'll ruin it for you now! You've gotta forget I've told you. [Laughs.] [With Waronker], it's raw material to work with. One is spoiled really. That's one of those instances where it's like, "Move this here, move that there." Musically the basis of ["Anybody"] was from a jam, but it was lifted out.

This is a big time for the Radiohead family: Thom Yorke released his third solo album last year; you have the Ultraista album coming out, and guitarist Ed O'Brien is releasing his first LP really soon. Radiohead fans have been waiting a long time for this Ed album—he's such a sonic innovator, but when you're in a band with a writer as strong as Thom, there isn't really a window for your writing. Have you encouraged him much over the years or had many conversations with him about his songs?

Yeah, for sure. He'd done demos and we'd listen to them and talked about them and stuff. You're absolutely right: It's quite an intense, crowded field with Radiohead, with so many heavyweight things going on. You have to understand that these people have been together since they were in school. Everybody needs to flex their muscles and have an outlet and that's part of your self-definition. I think he's followed it, which is great. Good for everyone. He [has a tour scheduled], which is great for him to stand up and be a frontman. I think he's really looking forward to doing that.

Thom Yorke has talked a lot about prepping a 20th-anniversary package of Radiohead's Kid A, and the guys have been digging through the archives for that project. Have you been involved at this point?

I can't speak for them, but we're all sort of working on possibilities. There's all this archive stuff and the Public Library just opened and that's a big platform for all those kind of things. Beyond that, there's always plans afoot, but I'm afraid that'll be all I can say about it really.

Let's end on a random note. You have a cameo as a Stormtrooper in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. How did that opportunity arise?

I know [director J.J. Abrams] through a very good friend of mine, Edgar Wright. I've spent a lot of time with J.J. and he's a music fan and also a very kind, generous person who allowed me to live out a childhood dream.

#nigel godrich #ultraista

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ghostofviperwrites · 5 years ago

Text

Something Different

Requested by: @willalwaysprotectyou

Featuring: Sanada/FC

Category: Suggestive

Word Count: 1370

Warnings: Language, talk of sex, and sexual content

12. “You know what? You’re right. I do need to get laid.”

On the wooden table in front of him Sanada’s phone buzzed pulling his attention from the newest press rules packet he had been defacing as the suit at the front of the room droned on and on about the western expansion and why it was important to put their best foot forward and blah, blah, blah.

Picking up his phone Sanada opened the message notification, being greeted with a picture of a pair of tits almost spilling out of a hot pink bra. Well, that was certainly more interesting than what he was currently engaged in. Looking at Evil who was seated to his right Sanada nudged him with his elbow and showed him the pic.

Evil nodded approvingly grabbing Sanada’s phone from his hand and typing a simple message.

“More.”

“Asshole.” Sanada said grabbing his phone back. “I didn’t want to text her back.”

“I want to see her tits.” Evil said with a shrug.

“Fine. I’ll give her your number and then she can bother you.” Sanada said earning a dirty look from Evil.

“Don’t you dare.” Evil growled.

A shadow loomed over them drawing their attention to the man glaring up at them.

“Are we keeping you two from something?” He asked. “If you can’t keep yourselves from interrupting our presentation, perhaps you should leave.”

That was all the invitation they needed, both of them standing and making a beeline for the door leaving the press officer gaping at their newly vacated seats. He had thought he was chastising them, never imagining they would actually walk out of the meeting without as much as a backwards glance.

“I didn’t think they would actually leave,” He said quietly as he resumed his spot next to his superior officer on stage.

“Of course they would. You gave them an open invitation, and now they can’t get in trouble because you told them to go.” His boss hissed.

–

As they walked towards the parking lot Sanada’s phone buzzed once again. This time Evil took the phone before Sanada even opened the message pushing Sanada away and holding the phone out of his reach as he checked out the picture message.

Instead of the tit pic he was expecting he found a full length pic of her spread out on a bed revealing her whole body encased in the pink lingerie set.

“That wasn’t what I wanted to see.” Evil typed back with an aggravated huff.

“What the hell is she playing at?” Evil asked Sanada as they arrived at their cars. Evil ignored Sanada’s hand reaching out expectantly for his phone when another message pinged. A message coyly asking what it was he wanted to see from her.

“That is why I don’t text back.” Sanada said giving up his attempts to recover his phone and leaning against his car as he watched Evil’s agitation grow. “Now you’ve engaged her and she thinks she’s special. If you would’ve left it on read she would be texting pictures of her snatch by now.”

Evil grumbled irritably tossing the phone back to Sanada.

“You can deal with her. Fucking twit is too stupid to know I want tit pics I’m done with her.” He said.

“This is how you deal with her.” Sanada said pulling up the contact and pressing the block button. “Easy.”

Rolling his eyes Evil leaned back on the bumper of his truck looking over the parking lot.

“Let’s get out of here before they decide to drag us back in there.” Sanada said pushing off his car and moving to the driver’s door. “Want to come have a few beers?”

Evil nodded in agreement, climbing into his own vehicle to follow Sanada to his house.

Once they were at Sanada’s they went straight to the game room, Sanada pulling beers out of the fully stocked bar and tossing one to Evil before the headed to the pool table.

“She a good fuck?” Evil asked referring to the newly blocked lingerie girl as he racked up the balls.

“She was in my phone.” Sanada said by way of response.

“You’re gonna block a good fuck because she sucks at texting?” Evil asked selecting a pool cue and motioning for Sanada to break.

“I’ve got a lot of good fucks in my phone.” Sanada said with a snap of his stick sending balls crashing over the table.

“Stripes.” He called moving around to line up his next shot.

After sinking a few balls it was Evil’s turn, Sanada leaning against the wall and drinking his beer as his tag partner lined up shots with precision burying them with ease. Making himself comfortable by hopping up on the stool Sanada watched as Evil methodically cleared the table. This always happened. He didn’t know why he bothered playing pool with Evil. Sanada knew why Evil always let him break, just so Sanada would get a few shots in before Evil ran the table.

Sanada flipped off Evil as he grinned smugly while the eight ball sunk into the side pocket.

“Want me to rack them up again?” Evil asked making no effort to reach for the rack. He knew Sanada’s answer.

“No thanks. I’ve had my ass kicked enough today.” Sanada said wryly. “Air hockey.” He nodded towards the table in the corner while Evil grumbled. As good as he was at pool, Evil was equally bad at air hockey.

“Alright I’ll take my ass kicking.” Evil said flipping the switch to activate the table. “Provided you order some sushi and pizza. I’m starving.”

“Sushi and pizza?” Sanada complained wrinkling his nose. “That’s disgusting. One or the other fine, But together?”

“Just fucking order the food pretty boy.” Evil ordered.

Once their order was placed the pair commenced their game, the puck flying fast and hard over the surface. They only called it a game when the food arrived, straggling upstairs to gather their food, and take up residence in the living room Evil finding a baseball game on the TV.

“If you combine those I swear I will punch you in the fucking face,” Sanada warned as he watched Evil piling slices of pizza and sushi onto his plate.

“Live a little.” Evil scoffed. “It’s good.” Challengingly staring at Sanada, Evil put a couple of rolls on his slice and wrapped them in the crust taking a big gooey bite with relish.

“I think I just threw up in my mouth.” Sanada said looking peckish while he grabbed his beer and took several deep swallows.

“You’re so uptight today man. Relax.” Evil said through his mouthful. “I think you need to get laid.”

“Lack of sex is not my problem.” Sanada said wryly.

“Lack of good sex then.” Evil said sagely, his head nodding as he grew enamored with his theory.

“I have plenty of good sex.” Sanada argued hotly.

“I’m talking dirty, nasty, make you sick when you think about it afterwards sex man.” Evil said. “With those dirty girls that make you scared you’re going to catch something.”

“I don’t like skanks.” Sanada said with a roll of his eyes. “You know that.”

“I do know that.” Evil agreed. “But you gotta have that freaky shit sometimes. It’s invigorating. Almost spiritual. I bet the last time you let a dirty girl near you was when we went out last year, wasn’t it?”

Sanada conceded with a nod, admitting the last time he had slummed it had been when out celebrating with Evil. Despite his protestations, there was a part of him that had missed that so dirty you wanted to shower when you were done feeling.

They settled into silence, the baseball game catching Evil’s attention, but Sanada couldn’t stop replaying Evil’s words in his head. He had been bored lately. Maybe he needed something different to get himself back on track.

“You know what? You’re right. I do need to get laid.” He surprised himself by speaking up and could see he had surprised Evil too. “I need some hot dirty sex.”

Evil grinned and rose to his feet.

“I know the perfect place. Let’s go.”

#sanada fanfic #sanada imagine #njpw fanfic #wrestling fanfic #mywriting #ghostofviperwrites

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years ago

Video

youtube

IDINA MENZEL & AURORA - INTO THE UNKNOWN

[5.83]

[Knock, knock, knock-knock, knock] Do you want to build a sequel?

Jessica Doyle: Given Disney's current reputation for nostalgic repetition, I was pleasantly surprised to find Frozen II full of ideas -- in fact so full of ideas that almost none of them actually get developed with any coherence. (Whose voice was it again? And why is Olaf suddenly obsessed with aging? And how was a troop of Arendellian soldiers going missing without a trace for three decades not an issue? Et cetera.) "Into the Unknown" is as good a preview of the incoherence as any, as the song makes no sense narratively, psychologically (having spent all but the last six months of her life being taught decorum and self-distrust to the point of pathology, Elsa is ready to flee Arendelle because she... hears a voice?), or musically: the build-up to the chorus is repeatedly off-puttingly paced, most clearly in the "How... do I... follow... YOUUUUU" climactic line. But then again, I can say all this with authority because my older daughter, who was well finished with the first movie, is insisting on playing the soundtrack on the way to school. Maybe stuffing your sequels full of ideas and not worrying too much about the implications is more profitable than Bob Iger is willing to admit. [4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: It's impossible to discuss "Into the Unknown" without discussing the massive success of "Let It Go." "Let it Go" was the rare type of cultural touchstone whose power was almost universal: it sold 11 million copies the year after the movie came out, won an Academy Award and Grammy, reached top five on the Billboard Hot 100, was translated into 44 different languages, and arguably paved the way for Disney to release a second movie and Broadway musical. Winter 2013-2014 when the movie came out, I remember singing this song in French during French class; in 2020, I'm putting on a musical production of Frozen with my students in China and every one of them -- inexplicably, even the ones who really don't speak English -- knows the words to the chorus. This is all to say: expectations for the second Frozen soundtrack were sky-high, and thus, "Into the Unknown" has been sold as the new "Let It Go" almost since before the movie was even released. (I'd argue that "Show Yourself" is a better thematic follow-up, but never mind me.) So does "Into the Unknown" live up to the hype? Not exactly; but to no fault of its own. The song works perfectly well as a way to advance the character development of Elsa and is gorgeously sung. Idina Menzel sells trepidation, fear, and excitement convincingly, and harmonizes with Aurora beautifully. It pays tribute to its listeners too; if "Let it Go" is a child's anthem about becoming the person you have always been despite what others think, "Into the Unknown" is the adult version of that, a song about escaping the comfortable life you've built in hopes of finding something new about the world and yourself. The song is doomed to live in the shadow of its predecessor, but is still excellent in its own right. [8]

Jonathan Bradley: "Let It Go" was, for all its power, an introspective ballad that turned on the first Frozen's theme of the liberating wonder of self-discovery. Its successor, "Into the Unknown," is tasked with maneuvering great wedges of plot into position, meaning it has to be the film's showstopper as well as taking on narrative weight that "Love is an Open Door" and "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" bore first time around. (The piano flurries that form the intro deliberately invoke the latter.) Aurora's four-note motif, the sinuous call that leads Idina Menzel's Elsa out of a resolved story and the security of her home of Arendelle, is appropriately otherworldly, but the song needs far too much to be overwhelming to allow that delicate melody the space it needs to be as entrancing as it is supposed to be. But "Into the Unknown" does eventually manage to be more than stage-setting; "Are you someone out there who's a little bit like me/Who knows deep down I'm not where I'm meant to be" is a couplet that speaks to that deep-seated sense of strangeness Elsa sees within herself and which has made her movies more than a toddler-sized-blue-dress dissemination mechanism. Something else helps: Menzel's horizon-shattering wail when she hits "unknown." The voice that defied gravity on "Defying Gravity" has the heft to move these big wedges of plot to where they need to go. [7]

Katie Gill: Whereas "Let it Go" was "Defying Gravity" reskinned, "Into the Unknown" is every musical theater "I want" song reskinned. Elsa wants to see how far she'll go, she's gotta find her corner of the sky, and for once it might be grand to have someone understand. As such, it's something we've heard before. A decent re-interpretation of something we've heard before with downright beautiful harmonies near the end, but something we've heard before nonetheless. "Into the Unknown" also fails in the job it's supposed to do: be inoffensive and singable enough that five year olds or my drunk ass can sing it through all the way without disaster happening. That last "into the unKNOOO-OOOOO-OOO-OOOOOWN" is very nice and very powerful and is comprised of notes that six-year-old girls and my exceedingly alto range cannot hit. But, like "Let it Go" before it, this is a song that Disney has carefully crafted and reverse-engineered and is putting so much pressure to be an actual hit. Of course it's going to be decent. Not as amazing as "Let it Go," which is easily a [9] on a good day and a [10] when I'm drunk, but a solid song nonetheless and one that I won't mind hearing when Idina inevitably performs it at the Oscars or when my five-year-old second cousin starts happily talking to me about Frozen at the next family reunion. [7]

Jackie Powell: Although Elsa doesn't build an ice castle at the conclusion of this power ballad, "Into The Unknown" doesn't need to be accompanied by gigantic visuals for it to be a much more complex and fascinating song than its predecessor. This track soars and it uses a potent string section, predictable but equally fun percussive cymbal crashes and Aurora's eerie dies irae gregorian chant as a counter melody. There's a certainty in "Let It Go" and that must be one of the reasons why it caught on as much as it did. But the difference in "Into the Unknown" is its obvious ambiguity in subject matter and tone. It's not sure of itself, but I don't think that detracts from its quality. That's why I don't think it's really all that comparable to "Let It Go." Its goals and motives are different. It's more mature in lyrical plot and composition. "Into the Unknown" takes leaps and breaths just as Elsa does when she's contemplating her next move. That's the beauty of the track, which composers Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez have addressed. Each line in each chorus is symbolic. In every "Into the Unknown" within the refrain, Idina Menzel takes a leap sonically. First, she travels an octave higher, which is a relatively safe interval, but then that is followed by the much more difficult intervals as the chorus ends. Menzel's voice goes up a ninth followed by an eleventh. Vocally she's out of her comfort zone, which pushes Elsa to do the same. The melody is clearly a bit choppier. It also bounces especially on the couplet of alliterations: " I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls." Its dynamics are much more defined and that's credit to Menzel, who wanted to sell the track as more than a "Let It Go" B-side. The extended queer metaphor that Elsa represents is able to flourish under "Unknown." Although it really shows itself much more later in the soundtrack. [7]

Edward Okulicz: Yeah, look, Frozen II: Heterosexuality Reclaims the Throne of Arendelle gave me plenty of feels too, but I always preferred "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" to "Let It Go," so this wasn't one of the Primary Feels Sources. The use of Aurora's four note call as a leitmotif is pretty clever melodically, but forcing this song and its narrative pivot kicking and screaming into being an "I Want" song (subclassification: "I Must," which if it doesn't already exist, it, well... should) is unbecoming. The asides ("which I don't") feel unnatural away from the cinema, and while Menzel surely blasts with those notes I don't feel moved when I replay. [6]

Brad Shoup: It's quenching when, in the second half of the second verse, Menzel dips into some jump-blues phrasing. There was no way this thing was going to stay an Arctic tone poem, so I'm grateful for moments like that. Toss out the movie and have Menzel reel in the asides, and you'd have a fantastically mysterious piece of piano-pop. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: I've never seen either of the Frozen films, but I recall how annoying I found "Let It Go," from the first film. This is better (though still, of course, a big Broadway-style ballad); I appreciate how this song will likely speak to theatre kids who feel like the weirdos in their schools -- songwriters Kristin Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, obviously, have a knack for this kind of thing. Having Broadway queen Idina Menzel sing it helps, as does the clever move of having Norwegian singer Aurora sing the part of the siren. Judged for what it is, rather than as a basic pop record, this is solid. [6]

Ashley Bardhan: As a recuperating former theater kid, I hoped this strange collaboration would be everything I wanted but couldn't admit. Unfortunately, it turned out to be nothing I wanted, which I feel comfortable admitting. I'm not sure what Aurora is meant to do on this track other than supply wordless, ghostly ooo-ing, which opens you to a sense of mysterious possibility that goes absolutely nowhere. Idina Menzel is a powerhouse and typically good at convincing us that we are in her character's world, but even she sounds bored at the incongruously triumphant swelling of orchestra during the chorus. She calls out from the overblown composition, "Into the unknown! Isn't it cool that I'm hitting this E-flat in chest voice?!" Yes, it is very cool, but less so that the last 40 seconds of this song is essentially musical theatre sacrilege. A money-maker high-note chorus into a painfully loud bridge that conveys absolutely no mood other than "me and Aurora are both singing right now," only to end with a very embarrassing, ham-fisted belted note? And they had the audacity to let Idina put a slide in there? No, no. No, no, no. No. [3]

Alfred Soto: No, no, I mean -- let me go. [3]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Even more than the first installment, Frozen II was lacking in songs that were memorable in and of themselves. "Lost in the Woods," for example, is really only notable for the animation that accompanied it: a montage riffing on '80s music videos that proved unexpectedly entertaining. "Into the Unknown" is the film's best song, but the music doesn't quite match what the lyrics are trying to convey: Why is the first chorus so bombastic when Elsa's not yet convinced to follow this siren's song? At least "Let It Go" knew how to accomplish a sensible narrative arc with its use of dynamic range. "Unknown" doesn't come together as neatly as "Let It Go" either, which found a lot of meaning in the evolving delivery of "the cold never bothered me anyway." The complaints could go on but at the end of the day, I can't really hate something that finds Aurora using kulning -- Scandinavian herding calls -- as a narrative tool. [5]

Tobi Tella: I was 13 when the first Frozen came out, and despite the fact that I probably should've been too old for Disney princess movies by the unspoken middle school social construct standards, I dragged my dad to see it in theaters. That probably should've been his first inkling that I was gay, and as clear as Disney's attempts to play on my emotions were as a shy insecure gay kid, the introverted, uncomfortable princess Elsa was the most accurate representation I had really found of myself in a kids movie. "Let It Go" was not only a cultural moment but a formative one and even though looking back as an adult I know that Frozen has flaws, I can't help but be empowered by it now. This song was set up to fail by its positioning it as "Let It Go II," and the seams of this one are far more clear; the chorus is literally just one phrase repeated and the lyrics are prime "leave nothing to the imagination or subtext and explain all your feelings." But I still feel an intense connection to this; maybe it's Menzel's strong and evocative vocal performance, maybe it's nostalgia, and maybe it's the feeling that even as a 19 year old my experience with my identity is not even close to over, the fact that there will always be unknowns which are horrifying yet intriguing (hello adult gay dating!). I'm not sure if this is a great song, or even a good one, but for a sequel with impossibly huge expectations it managed to evoke the same intense reaction that "Let It Go" did, so I guess Disney and their manipulations win this round. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Idina Menzel #Aurora #Frozen II #Disney #pop #music #music review #movie

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