#oh yeah and I put the hanged man Noel in there because he DESERVES IT

[absoluteocellibehavior]

YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS, HOMIES! HAUL FROM THE LOVELY @potato-lord-but-not !!

(Forgot to take a photo pre-lamination. Oops-)

LOOK AT MY SHAYLASSSSS! I am ill about these two.

Potato Lord Poster version… 5?? 6?? I can’t remember. Somehow we got it to fit. A miracle that I’m chalking up to the priests in this pack.

And, finally, blessed with a one-armed baby priest to protect me on the road <3

[nat-roman0ff]

v. the last 45 seconds of your life

a series of blurbs // a certain time and place

(read the full series in my masterlist!)

v. the last 45 seconds of your life

the one where everything comes to a screeching halt.

wc: 3,273

warnings: unironic love of oasis, some bad words, & that feeling when your heart breaks

---

“Oh my god please don’t tell me he’s singing Champagne Supernova, again?” She groans as those familiar first notes blare through the speakers. 

 Shawn shrugs and turns his attention back to Brian who is taking his spot on the dingy little stage in the dingy little karaoke bar Shawn had brought the lot of them to.

 “This is really what you wanted to do before you go back on tour?” She asks, folding her arms across her chest, “Karaoke?” 

 He snakes his arm behind her shoulders and pulls her closer, “yes, karaoke. But I also wanted to spend some time with my two best friends before leaving again.” 

 She steps on his foot, marring the white of his Adidas, “but Brian is going with you, dickweed. I’m the only one who gets to stay behind.” She crunches her heel into his foot a little more.

Shawn winces and puts his head on her shoulder, “only by your own choice,” he singsongs, “I’ve given you more than enough chances to come with us.” 

 “I have a job,” she starts. 

 “That you hate,” he finishes. 

 “I have responsibilities.” 

 “Masturbation and remembering to water your plants aren’t responsibilities.” 

 “I have an apartment.” 

 “...that sucks.” 

 “Hey!” She jabs his ribs with her elbow, this only causes Shawn to squeeze her tighter and more into him. He feels this weird sense of instant calm when their bodies are pressed together. It can be in any stage (although he was partial to when they were horizontal), no matter what, when, or under whatever circumstances, they just fit together.

 “I have a life here,” she begins, her voice more somber, softer. She’s trying to put him at ease, “I can’t just pick up and leave that to be able to hang out with you all the time.” 

 Shawn lets go. He has to constantly remind himself that he’s the one that’s in love with her. She’s right, she does have her own life at home in Toronto. He wishes so terribly that he can whisk her away for all his own but he also realizes how incredibly selfish that is. Someone like her needs to be shared with the world, the world needs someone like her. She doesn’t get to be his world.

 “However that doesn’t mean you can’t, like, fly me out to all these really cool places,” she eases the sudden tension and turns to him. 

 Shawn’s face is drawn and she knows that look. It’s the one that makes her believe he feels the same way she does, the one that gives her the tiniest glimmer of hope at the end of this tunnel, that all this wading around in bullshit isn’t just for sport. 

 “Yeah,” is all he can manage, “I’m gonna get a drink I’ll be right back.” 

 Except he doesn’t go to the bar to order a drink. Shawn diverts past Old Man Mellino in the corner bar stool and heads straight for the bathroom. By the time he reaches the stall he’s already crying. He’s thankful he’s alone, because Shawn has always been a loud and ugly cryer. It just sort of all bubbles up in his chest and he ends up choking on air. His chest and heart feel like they’re caving in, and he can feel every single hairline fracture in his heart just before it shatters once and for all. 

 How could he expect her to give it all up for him when he doesn’t even have the balls to tell her how he feels? How could he expect her to put her life on hold just to be with him. It’s simple - he can’t. 

 It takes Shawn a good ten minutes before his hands stop shaking. He wipes away the smear of tears on his face with the backs of his hands. He feels like a child, sitting in a bathroom stall and crying. This was like third grade all over again. But he couldn’t help it anymore. It was almost becoming intolerable to be around her without her knowing the truth, but in the same breath he couldn’t bare to not be around her. He’d usually been confident with girls and his feelings, if they didn’t feel the same way or just wanted an easy fuck he’d get over it with a pint of ice cream and move on. 

 She was different (but aren’t they always?).

 Shawn’s feelings for her were catastrophic. It scared him every day of his goddamn life. He never thought in his mere twenty years of existence that he could ever be so hopelessly hopeless for someone. His emotions manifested physically for her. He felt pain when she was away and a lightness that nothing else could ever measure up to when she was around. 

 The days were getting harder, the tides seem to crash harder and time felt like it was running out. He was exhausted, and not from the months of travelling or touring. It was her, it was this big gaping hole in his chest that was her. It was this secret that he’d been carrying with him for almost two years now that ate him up at an excruciatingly quickening pace.

 Her rejection was his greatest fear; the response of “I love you too, but I just don’t love you in that way”. He knows it would gnaw at him for a lifetime, because he’d spent a lifetime trying to find her. Shawn didn’t believe that your missing pieces would be filled by another human being, he believed that certain people were brought into your life to help you mend those broken pieces. She did that for him, in all the ways he couldn’t even place but knew existed. He couldn’t explain it; he felt whole with her, and not because she completed him but because she helped fix what had been broken.

 It’s been some time now and Shawn supposes he should get off his ass and go back out there. He leaves the stall and looks at his sorry face in the dirty bathroom mirror. He looks worse for wear, with his eyes all puffy and red, cheeks blotchy and the collar of his shirt damp from cleaning up his face. The bathroom door opens and Old Man Mellino stumbles to the sink beside Shawn. He smells like well liquor and adult diapers.

 “Those are woman tears,” he slurs, his breath toxic with booze.

 Shawn furrows his brows, “excuse me?” 

 The old man slings an arm around Shawn’s shoulders, “the tears you cry over a woman. Recognize them anywhere. What’s this dame done to yah?”

 Shawn recockens if this guy gets any closer he’ll barf from the stench, “nothing, that’s the problem,” he says, wanting to get out of this conversation as quickly as possible. 

 “Does she know how you feel?” Mellino mutters.

 Silence.

 He chuckles, “I’ll take that as a no then. Look at you! Young, bright, handsome, the whole world ahead of yah! What’d yah got to lose?” 

 Shawn shrugs, “her.” 

 “Now you look at me, boy,” he grabs Shawn’s shoulders and turns his body to face him, “I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes in my years and if there’s one thing I’ll always do over and over again, it’s telling the woman that you love just that. Nothing more, and nothing less. You don’t have to be showy or make some grand romantic gesture. Just be honest, be you.” 

 Shawn sighs, but not too deeply as the reek of the old man is really starting to burn his nostrils, “I suppose you’re right.” 

 “Well I am. Now go get her!” He says, slapping Shawn’s ass and then stepping into one of the stalls. 

 Shawn leaves with a new found confidence. He guesses he has about forty-five more seconds before it wears off so he plows through the crowd and back to her. She spots him immediately and waves her hand over towards him. 

 “HeyI’veGottaTalkToYou,” he says quickly in one breath. 

 She laughs, “yeah? What’s the rush? And where are our drinks?” 

 “No time, ran to the bathroom -” 

 “Was it the Taco Bell we had for lunch? I know sometimes it upsets your tummy.” 

 Twenty more seconds.

 “No I just really need to tell you something,” Shawn blurts. 

 His heart is racing, and he’s almost sure he’s going to pass out. The ringing in his ears is so loud it almost drowns out Brian’s sloppy rendition of Wonderwall. 

 Ten more seconds.

 “Damn, okay. Sounds serious. Did you have an epiphany while on the shitter?” 

 Five more seconds.

 “No, I just. I really have to tell you something important.” 

 Shawn’s vision blurs and all he can see is her. 

 “Well, get on with it then if it’s so important.” 

 Three.

 Two.

 He takes a deep breath.

 One.

 “I’m in love you.” 

 ---

 She’s pretty sure if she has to listen to Brian sing another Oasis song she’s going to scream. Liam and Noel Gallagher do not deserve such disrespect. 

 “Get off the stage, loser!” Someone yells, and she has to stifle her laughter by biting her bottom lip. 

 Shawn’s acting weird tonight, she thinks. Well, weirder than usual. He’s distant but clingy; won’t talk to her but won’t bloody let go of her either. He’s never usually this way before he leaves for tour. It’s the last leg at barely two months. It’s not the longest they’ve ever been apart, not by a long shot. She watches him walk away and disappear into the sea of people crowding the bar area. She turns back to Brian on the stage, who is full on air guitaring along to Champagne Supernova, and even throwing on his best Northern accent to sing along with. 

 She has this gnawing feeling in her stomach. This sort of nauseous anxiety that builds and builds the longer that time passes. She can feel it in her heart too, in the way that it rapidly beats and causes her to miss a breath or two. It’s not a panic attack, at least not the ones she’s used to. Her hands get clammy and she scans the room over and over for Shawn but doesn’t see him. 

 Brian finally finishes his song with a round of boos and hops off the stage and towards her. 

 “What’s got you so sweaty?” He asks, dabbing at the clammy skin at her hairline and wiping her sweat on his jeans.

 She shakes out her arms and hands, “I don’t know - I just have this weird feeling?” 

 Brian raises an eyebrow, “o...kay. Do you mind elaborating? I’m not Shawn, I can’t read your mind.” 

 She glares, “forget it.” 

 He grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her a little, “tell meeeee!” 

 “It’s stupid.” 

 “You’re stupid.” 

 She eyes him. 

 “Sorry, force of habit,” Brian replies, “But seriously, what’s got you so shaken up?” He puts a reassuring hand on her arm. 

 She thinks about all the ways she can list out what’s got her going;

  It started this morning when she woke up in Shawn’s arms and accidentally on purpose snuck a glance at his phone. There was a text from some LA model with the message ‘excited to see you this week!’. She’d wiggled out and stalked off to the bathroom, making sure to slam the door on her way out.

 Then Shawn suggested they go out for breakfast instead of staying in like usual on Sunday mornings. They had a tradition of making waffles in her Death Star (despite never actually seeing any of the Star Wars movies) waffle maker and eating almost an entire pound of bacon between the two of them. It was always one of her favorite days of the week. When they’d gotten to the Diner, she counted exactly fifty words spoken to her the entire time, despite the fact he played footsies with her throughout their meal. He just stared blankly at his phone. She wondered if he was talking to some LA model. 

 By the time afternoon hit she had been sufficiently annoyed with Shawn. She kept tripping over his feet when they walked around the city and bumping into him, once even spilling her coffee on her new shoes. They weren’t in sync like they usually were. Something was catastrophically off. 

 At dinner with friends he was just as weird and distant, and she spent most of the time chatting and laughing with Brian while Shawn still stayed glued to goddamn phone. She was past the point where it annoyed her and was well on her way to just being plain old pissed off. It wasn’t that she was jealous about another girl (she was) or cared if they were screwing around (they weren’t), she just hated feeling like there was something he wasn’t telling her. Which is fucking rich consindering the secret she’s been holding from him. 

 It didn’t take her long to realize after they met that Shawn was going to be that person for her. She tried to tell herself that she would feel this for someone else one day, that maybe if she packed it down for long enough it would go away. And sometimes it did, she didn’t spend every waking moment of her life weeping about being in love with Shawn. She had mostly good days, days where she thought about him fondly and missed his warmth. Most of her time was spent avoiding diving in any deeper, sitting at just the edge and sometimes dangling her feet to test the waters. They were always too cold to dive in. 

 “It’s nothing, really Bri. Just getting emotional about him leaving again, that’s all,” she sighs, “about both of you leaving, actually. What’s a girl to do with herself?” 

 “Do you really want me to answer that question?” Brian raises an eyebrow. 

 She shakes her head, “absolutely not.” 

 He swings an arm around her, “whatever you’re feeling, just let it go.” 

 She supposes she takes too much time to think about it and it makes her heart race. She knows full and well that she’d never be able to live the same lifestyle Shawn will. She’s the here and now and it’s convenient. She’ll never be the one who goes to premieres and parties and events with him. He’ll save that for some LA model. She’s accepted that a long time ago - that she’ll never fit in with his lifestyle. She’ll only ever be the here and now. 

 Letting go is such a hard concept. It sounds so fucking easy but is so fucking not. It’s not like dropping a coin into a fountain, it’ll come in waves and some days will be better and easier than others. Letting go is something you have to do slowly, but once you make the decision to do it you can’t go back, you just can’t. 

 She’s so tired of the emotional push and pull; the fullness of feeling so fucking amazing when she’s with him, almost immediately followed by the emptiness of longing and wanting something she’ll never have. Her emotions are a constant change of the tides rolling in and out and her sea is tired. It’s self induced, too. She has no one to blame but herself for feeling this way and she’s pretty sure she’s finally accepted that at this point. She doesn’t hold any ill-tidings for Shawn for not feeling the same way she does. He’s never once used her, or put his needs in front of her own. She supposes that’s why this whole letting go thing is so fucking hard. That plus literally everything else about Shawn’s personality that screams at her to stay, to keep maybe-ing, makes it so fucking hard to let go.

 “Thanks Brian,” she hugs him tight, “I’ll work on it.” 

 He gives her a squeeze, “wow, for once I actually said the right thing.” 

 She slaps his chest, “just something I think I needed to hear someone say out loud.” 

 “I’m going to pretend I know what that means and go pick out another song.” 

 “Please don’t make it an Oasis one!” She yells after him.

 “No promises!” 

 She laughs to herself and sighs, picking at her thumbnail. She knows going into this head strong that it’s going to be a hard one. She knows that it’s going to take days, weeks and maybe even months of pain before she reaches the other side of that tunnel of letting go. Him being away will help, it means he won’t randomly show up on her doorstep late at night with a box of cupcakes and a sappy look on his face, it means she won’t get text messages all day long at work of him complaining about how bored he was. She was thankful for the upcoming distance in her quest of ridding herself of the feelings. 

 She didn’t want to find it in someone else. No, that wouldn’t be fair. Because what she felt was real, that much she knew, and she didn’t want to dishonor that by trying to project those feelings onto another person. She looks around the bar and spots all the couples and for the first time in a long time her heart doesn’t sink, instead, it’s relieved. She doesn’t feel the tugging weight of longing to have that with Shawn, at least in this one fleeting moment.

 The music starts and Brian is singing Wonderwall. She groans, and continues to wait for Shawn to come back. She spots him and waves a hand for him to come over. He looks...stressed. And her heart sinks when she sees the red rimming his eyes and just knows he’s been crying. That’s the thing about her, she just always knows. She also knows he doesn’t like when she calls him out on such things, so she lets it be.

 “HeyI’veGottaTalkToYou,” Shawn states in a single breath. 

 She chuckles, “yeah?” She can see his breath coming out in small pants, “What’s the rush? And where are our drinks?” 

 He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear something out of it, “no time, ran to the bathroom -” 

 “Was it the Taco Bell we had for lunch? I know sometimes it upsets your tummy,” she interrupts, placing a hand on his abdomen, she can feel the muscles clench beneath her palm.

 He clenches his fists and she starts to worry, “no I just really need to tell you something.”

 Shawn is pale and for someone who is already only two shades darker than an eggshell, that’s saying something. His pupils are blown out wide and he’s visibly shaking, but trying to hide it by clenching and unclenching his fists. She’s never seen him this way before and she’s terrified of what he’s about to say. 

 “Damn, okay. Sounds serious,” she says as calmly as she can, trying to dampen her own rising nerves, “did you have an epiphany while on the shitter?” 

 “No, I just. I really have to tell you something important.” 

 She can feel her heart in her throat. It’s amazing, she thinks, for as out of tune as they’ve been all day, now is the moment that they realign. She places her hand over his heart and feels it beat along with hers - perfect synchrony once again. But she drops her palm and remembers let go, let go, let go.

 “Well, get on with it then if it’s so important.” 

 Something flashes in his eyes and his pupils contract just to blow out again and she swears she’s watching his entire existence flash before his eyes as he takes a final breath and finally fucking works up the strength to say;

 “I’m in love you.” 

---

and she’s done! i hope everyone enjoyed this lil ride on my first shawn series. i doooooo have a sequel planned if it’s wanted, let me know! :)