allcnfetti

[allcnfetti]

at the end of the day, the golden ranch is so tied up in everything i made with him. it started with one of his characters, but that was enough to get me hooked on yellowstone (despite him never having seen the damn show). this was a huge thing for me, watching weekly with kelsey and cass, falling in love with building golden from scratch. tyler and angela, libby laura and leon, maggie and judas, every new addition something so much sweeter and stronger than i thought i could pull off.

and then he gave me frank. frank and tyler tied the whole story together, a lonely cowboy who'd bet his whole future on his best friends being around for the rest of his life, marrying his high school sweetheart right out of graduation, having a kid good and young.

angela leaving wasn't the biggest part to that story, not right away. not until tyler and frank were fully explored. that was were i learned that tyler would and could love every person his heart could find worth loving. angela, frank, ellie, i wouldn't have ever been surprised if he fell in love with suvi too.

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Pennyshore & Lexi : Magic Touch

Pennyshore swore she could feel magic radiate through her at the little nudge. Like flowers bloomed across her skin, and she turned partially to jelly, forever shaking from the little affectionate touch that Lexi had graced with, a sort of vibration of love radiating through her. "I promise you. Pizza. That's a big deal in New York, right?" Pennyshore asked before climbing into the passenger side of the car. She tucked a knee beneath her as she buckled in. "It'll be special, Lexi. We'll be doing it together. That's so much magic just to start." she grinned, but there was something different, some switch that flipped in her stomach when Lexi said it would be their first vacation together. Like they had hundreds more to look forward to. Like they really would grow old and gray together with a basket full of memories of trips and adventures and car karaoke.

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Keats & Leleo : Love on Reserve

 — Today at 1:17 AM

it's terrifying. my heart aches so much in the night, which is so strange, because if my day is set up as anything, it's writing on my other blog in the morning, waiting for you. getting the bug out of my chest, and then you are up. and just, carrying you with me, no matter what i am doing or where i am going or whoever i am spending time with. you are there. in my heart, in my head. and then in the evening, i am yours. i want just you, to write with you and talk with you and just, you. but also, seven pm hits. and it's like a countdown. midnight for you, to midnight for me, and i can't tell when you will disappear. and i am so worried i might not get to tell you goodnight. and i am scared you'll just disappear and i won't hear from you, even though you have told me a hundred times that that will never happen. and i just. love on reserve. it just sits in my chest, collecting love, and spilling into everything i do, everything i say, everything i want. it's just. i don't know. corny. i am sure. a bit too much, yes, but i am tired and emotional and just. i don't know.

i love you. no buts. no conditions. it just, it happens and i bask in it.

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Lori & Lucca : Kissing at the Concert

Lori nearly beamed at the words, but he was kissing her, so she swallowed the joy. The downside to swallowing joy was that it refused to disappear. It burned bright in her chest, reverberated through her body as he touched her, as he kissed her. She had been told that so many times before. She was something else. She was an odd fairytale creature of sorts, a woman in pieces who had somehow stitched herself together of all the parts of herself that didn't seem to mesh right until she made them all fit. His fingers in her hair did something to her, twisted her all up inside and a soft little moan slipped from her lips. How wonderful was this? Making out at a concert, even a small one. She made out with the handsome man she had come here with, like a teenager at their first show. Lori allowed herself to melt against him, to take up residence in his arms and sink into the kiss. Her hands gripped at his shirt, as if she could get any closer to him with that simple, needy gesture.

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Louis & Maxi : The Combination of Yearning & Guilt

Louis listened intently, trying to imagine Maxi as this young, green soldier. He had never fought in any war, not one that wasn't just personal. He didn't understand how anyone could see enlistment as a good deal, but he was a pacifist at his core, he could never see himself doing something so dangerous. Louis' eyes softened, his face softened as he watched maxi. This was vulnerable. Too vulnerable for the buzz of the bar around them. He wished they were somewhere quiet, somewhere just the two of them. His eyes found Louis and he gave a small nod, his expression still quite serious, but he wanted to hear it, he wanted to know what the 'but' was. Maxi shared the hardest part, the missing something that was inherently evil, inherently bad, and Louis smiled, a soft and quiet longing smile, tinged in a sadness he didn't think he could share. Not without scaring the other man off. "There's nothing wrong with missing anything, missing comes from a place in your chest, in your heart, it's not something you can control, so there is nothing wrong with you for feeling those feelings, Maxi." Louis said, brushing his thumb over Maxi's cheek once more. He pulled his hand back at the question though, he knew he had to answer. refusal would ruin the whole thing. "All the time. I made a lot of mistakes, but my worst ones were made when I was twenty seven, twenty eight." Twenty seven years, five months and six days, that was the first time they met. Standing outside of the church. His heart was aching from a fight he had had with his wife, and he needed something, something to hold onto. He stumbled to the church, his parents were always finding hope and meaning in the church, in God, perhaps he would too. And then he saw him, smoking a cigarette around the corner, a thick brown knit, jeans that he would tease him about later, too tight for a priest. God, if he could go back and make those mistakes, fuck up the lives of so many people, he would, if it meant he got the good back, if only for a little while. God fucking help him, he so often regret everything that followed after, but he never regret him. What they had. What they built together. It lasted eight months, two weeks and one day, and he fucking ached for it. "Sometimes I think the combined yearning and guilt might kill me. I get it, Maxi, I really do." 

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Graceland & Anakin : The Griefcase

He really didn't though, he didn't understand what she meant. She was sure he would ask, he was kind hearted and caring in ways that always threw her off, never expecting that kind of compassion from someone as bubbly and easy going and closed off. However, if he got it, if he got it and was ready for it, she was certain he would want that too.

  Grief was a beast. A suitcase that you carried with you for the rest of your life. Some days it weighed nothing at all, something you hardly noticed, light as a balloon you might carry behind you, only really remembering it when you stopped too suddenly and it bumped into you. Sometimes you woke up and the thing was so big you couldn't move, trapping you in your bed for the rest of the day. Someone had filled it with the heaviest things on earth and you couldn't pick it up at all. Graceland had a suspicion that Anakin's grief had been too heavy for too long. She wanted to shake his shoulders, to pinch his arm and bop him in the nose, shout at him that all heavy things were easier to carry when someone was helping you. She didn't though, gulping back her words, tucking her feelings away as she refocused her attention at the mangled mess of a sweater she was trying to make. 

"You should. You deserve good things, Anakin." she paused and looked down at the needles and the work hanging off them. "I don't know if this qualifies as good, but of course it's for you, you silly goose." Graceland hummed happily. "No, no, that's not how gifts work. A gift is a gift, not a transaction." 

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Tyler & Frank : The Fog of Yearning

Tyler howled, god, he had missed this. There was a gap. The years between when they slept together, almost like a haze he couldn't quite see through. Walking in a mist and he could only remember Frank, he could never catch him, grab his hand and pull him back to where Tyler could see him. He should have called out, that might have helped, but Frank didn't make any noise either. The fog was lifting now though, he could see the brilliant smile and the clever mind at work once more. He could feel his laughter and was warmed by the joy as it took up residence on Frank's face once more. 

"I'm trying to change it. We won't get into it, I don't typically talk to anyone about business anyway, unless it's Libby, Maggie or Bo. Easier for everyone to feign innocence if anything ever does go south." Tyler said, waving a hand. He chuckled again, Frank had a point, who the fuck was going to come after him? His smile faltered for a moment. A gator holding two fucking pistols. fuck, of all the details he had committed to memory from that first night, how could that be the one that he forgot? 

"Fuck, man, I forgot about the gator. Jesus H Christ, that was fuckin' forever ago, wasn't it? God, I'm so old now." Tyler ran his hands over his face, as if that might slow the process down. 

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Willa & Johnny : Quick Fix for Loneliness

Even in his most innocent kisses, she could taste his need for more of her. It was almost enough for her to call the whole thing off and fuck him right here, right now, all night if he could last it. She couldn't help the morbid curiosity that she had for whatever he had planned for tonight, so she kept her knees together, hands to herself, looking out the open window, a good way to hide the smile she wouldn't admit to hiding. It was so easy to pretend like she never missed him, she never craved him the same way she was sure he craved her. He left for any length of time, or more appropriately, she disappeared back to the city and she could throw herself into bed with whoever she wanted and not spare him a second thought. That first thought never really left though, it was just pushed away by the carousel of men she kept around.

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Elena & Arizona : Blow Me Apart

"You were busy, and I stopped drinking it once I tasted it. It never hit fully or anything." Everything was still pretty fuzzy, and she had no idea how well she could control her urge to kiss Arizona, to pull the pin and toss the little green grenade right into their friendship. Why did it matter? If she was going to hurt for the rest of their friendship, why not just get it over with now, right? Why not just cut the rope, let Arizona free, find a way to move on from her feelings and hope that she didn't die from the fallout? Arizona was so close, her hands cupping elena's face, and fuck, she was so fucking fucking fuck fuck fuck fucking screwed. As much as she wanted to kiss her, blow it all up, herself included, she would rather jump on the grenade herself than see Arizona hurt for a single second. She would just die slowly at her side instead. "Okay. Alright." Elena said, her words so much softer and sadder than she had anticipated. 

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Judas & Charlotte : This God Damn House

So quickly he was pulled back into her, back into this, into the nightmare that he could never escape, the dream he was eternally chasing, doomed to never touch what he wanted the most. What she promised but he couldn't accept. Peace. His arms instinctively wrapped around her waist, hoisting her up as he kissed her back. He was delirious, a fucking mess, but for the short span of the kiss, there was a calm, not quite peace, but a quiet that surrounded them and quelled the anger and fear in his chest just long enough to slip fully into her taste, into her touch and the hurricane of emotions she brought with her.

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Suvi & Landon : Embroidered Heart

She knew he was right. She knew she couldn’t have done things any better, but she thought she would have been better after everything she had already gone through with Max. The sleepless nights, the explosive fights and the foolish oversights she had endured. She thought she had learned. Grown. Changed.

She tried to hold back tears again, but then he was saying the sweetest things, things she might normally believe but it was treacherous when she was spiraling so far into the darkness. She focused her eyes on him, drank him in and made his words stick in her mind, embroidered them onto her heart so that she didn’t doubt, so that every time her heart beat, she was reminded of the unending love he felt for her. Suvi started to cry once more, but this time there was a smile on her lips.

“ I did something good in my life. I don’t know what it was, ” She so often felt like by leaving her family, she had chosen a selfish life, “ but I know that I had to have done something so good to have met you, Landon Wynter. ” She pressed a soft, hesitant kiss to his lips. She still felt raw, vulnerable, exposed, exhausted and sore, but Landon was able to gently reach into her chest and restore her heart, reminding her how much he didn’t care about the mistakes she made, because it wouldn’t change his love for her.

She didn’t know how to respond this time. His words were potent, it made sense since words were the tool he was most proficient with. Even knowing that, there was something haunting and magical in his confession, something that pierced through her heart and lodged itself into her soul. She wanted to look away, before he could see just how deliriously in love with him she was, but she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from Landon. If the plan was to embroider his love on her heart, she is certain that he might have already chiseled the reminder instead, ensuring that she never doubted him again, no matter what her heart might weather.

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Lucien & Nash : Heart’s Cathedral

Lucien had done this before. So many times it actually ached in his chest when he tried to count the encounters. He wasn’t like this when he was younger. The first time he fell in love was the last time he thought he could ever love. It had been so intense, so sincere, so earth shattering that when his heart was smashed against the cold church floor, his family pushing him out, his congregation pushing him out, he found himself completely changed. Everything about him didn’t matter anymore because everything about him was tied to that one thing.

The cathedral that made up his heart was changed. The stained glass rosetta shattered, the confessionals torn apart, keeping him from ever uttering his secrets again, the altar left abandoned, no more sanctuary, no more sermons. He was locked out, living in the chapter house in the back garden, he was different now. He was changed. and yet, without knowing his past, without knowing how broken Lucien was, Nash had wandered into this desecrated place, and he approached the bye-alter and lit a candle, breathing life into him once more.

Lucien felt himself fall back onto the bed, breaking his chaotic thoughts, as if someone had finally turned the lights on, pulling him from how overwhelmed he was by Nash. He pulled back from the kiss, but didn’t pull away from Nash, instead he moved back just enough to look into his eyes, hand still cupping Nash's cheek. He searched and searched as he looked him over, unsure of how to explain what was happening in his head, in his chest. “ I can't. ” he said finally, breathless, lips swollen as he looked at the other man. “Not because I don't want to, but because if I do, I know myself. I won't come back. I won't let you back in.” Lucien admitted. “ And I don’t want that. As much as I want you right now, I want you more than I want to sleep with you. I’m sorry. ” he looked away finally, too nervous, having exposed himself.

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Lucien & Nash : A Cowboy Hat and a Golden Gilded Mirror

Lucien did something out of his comfort zone he wasn’t used to but he could see the distress, hear it in Nash's words. As they stepped into the elevator, Lucien cautiously slipped his hand into Nash's before confidently looking at the man. “Nash, I can see the difference between a cowboy hat and a golden gilded mirror.” he said softly, firm in his words, but gentle in his tone. “You don’t have to explain why you are staying here, or tell me that your family is loaded. I haven't decided that I want nothing to do with you. Besides, your family doesn’t define you. If mine did, well, I wouldn't be here right now. I can promise you that.” Another slip up, but at this point, there were so many, he didn’t know how to stop it. He will have to try again tomorrow. "It's a lot, but that’s not a bad thing, and I understand that it’s not you.” Lucien said, waving his hands about. It was jarring, less because of Nash and more because when he really thought about it, how different was walking through the Vatican ? It was just as steeped in gold, the only difference was that one involved God, and one involved a CEO. Three different letters, same bullshit. His relationship with his faith shouldn’t have been tied to anything but love, acceptance and belief, but that never was the case, was it ?

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Lucien & Nash : Kisses like Poetry

How did he not see it coming ? Completing his own quote before he kissed Lucien. He felt like it was inevitable. It was infuriating, and then he tasted Nash's lips against his own and all his rage, his fear, his doubt, melted in such a way that he didn’t have any poem to pull from to describe it. Lucien had at least a thousand thoughts in the second it took before he was kissing Nash back, his hand immediately seeking purchase against the other man’s neck. His touch soft, holding back the need he didn’t realize had been building in his chest until the moment their lip touched. Lucien broke the kiss, but regretted it instantly. He pulled Nash back in, kissing him again. 

He knew exactly what to follow their kiss with, pulling back just enough to rest his forehead against Nash's as he caught his breath before he whispered the line, just loud enough for Nash, but no patron in the bar. “ I don't know you, but I want you, all the more for that. ” It wasn’t the line he knew he should share, but in that moment, he was certain that Nash wouldn’t know the song, or the true lyrics he wanted to share. ‘Falling slowly, eyes that know me and I can’t go back…’, those lines were too real for him to admit. Too real for what he thought his heart was capable of handling.

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Suvi & Frank : Trains, Tornados & the End of the World

Suvi tried to hold back the tears, but the more Frank went on and on about the train, the more she kept thinking that she wasn’t quite sure if Frank knew what he was talking about. Sure, he used to save five people. And yes, the lever broke, but she didn’t think he was being forced to lose five people over and over in the first place. When the lever broke, the two tracks merged into one. There were six people, and there was only one set of tracks. The five were always the people closest to him, but the one, the one he chose to sacrifice for the five? That was Frank. This wasn’t just a trolley problem metaphor. This was so much bigger than that, so much more paradoxical that she could even imagine. He would trade himself for five people. Over and over and over again. And then the lever broke, and he wasn’t allowed to trade anymore. He would take the hit, then the five would take the hit, and then Frank again and then those closest to him again. Over and over and over again, no stopping, no relief, no peace. Suvi had been trying to pull him from the train, but she never realized that to save him she had to find a way to fucking stop the train. 

Then he said it. Twelve little words that nearly bisected Suvi. She had never been hurt by Frank before. Offended, sure, they used to get drunk and mock each other, that was the friendship. She had been disappointed, any time he didn’t show up at the bar. She had been annoyed by him, he had too many different ways to count exactly all the ways he liked to annoy her, but she had never been hurt by anything he had ever said. Even when he was all but pushing her out of the house, yelling ‘don’t’, ‘go home Suvi, I will call you tomorrow’. Perhaps it was because she knew those were defense mechanisms. 

Those twelve little words though, were enough to vivisect suvi as she lived and breathed, sitting across from Frank.  Sometimes I can feel like the love is tearing me in two. Sometimes I can feel like the love is tearing me in two. Sometimes I can feel like the love is tearing me in two. Those twelve little words, all innocent on their own. All safe all on their own. Switch them into any other order and they couldn’t hurt her. How strange that the very feeling he described was exactly what she experienced in hearing the word. Not quite sonicky, she wasn’t even sure there was a word in the English language for it. The words echoed and she was left with one question. She hated herself, but she wanted to know. She was about to ask him if he wanted to stop it all. If he really wanted her to go. If she was causing him more pain than pleasure. If she brought more tears that smiles. She would never recover if he said yes, but she didn’t know what else to do, she didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want him torn in two. She didn’t want her love to be the thing that left him rent asunder. Perhaps she was everything her mother had ever said she was. Mistake. Fallacy. Problem. Useless. Destructive. Monster. Waste of space. 

Suvi's spiral of thoughts ended abruptly when he mentioned Arizona. Suvi's brain always glitched when Arizona came up, like a bell rang out in Grand Central Station and everything and everyone froze in place until she could determine if the girl was safe, if she was hurt, if Frank was hurt. Suvi couldn’t relax until she knew why Arizona had been brought up, if she was okay. Somehow, this kid who disliked her with every fiber in her body, Arizona resented her to her very core for being loved by Frank and she was the second most important person in Suvi's life. She always kept Arizona in mind when she would browsehouses online. Ethan too, looked for four bedrooms, maybe even five bedrooms, she wanted to make sure she got the perfect place for Arizona. Even if the girl hated her. Suvi focused her attention on his words and the tone of his voice, her heart on edge as she listened to Frank's story. 

The sound that came from him was her undoing. So clear, excruciating and gut wrenching. Suvi could so easily be torn apart, like a twister sweeping in to fuck all her shit up. But Frank? Frank lived with that very twister inside of him. Trapped. Tearing through his mind, through his heart, through his life, pulling up anything not tied down, anything that he loved and cared for. There was nothing he could do to stop it. An act of god. When a mudslide or tornado or flood or hurricane took something out, that's what they called it. The tornado that lived in frank was an act of god, and Suvi wanted nothing more than five minutes in the ring with that god, whoever the hell he fucking was. 

Frank curled up, just like he had described Arizona, and Suvi fell apart. She wanted to slam her fists against the floor, she wanted to scream and run away and crawl into his arms. She wanted to cut herself open, right down the middle and fall to pieces exactly where she was. She had never felt pain so visceral, so honest and brutal and exhausting. Suvi pushed herself up, bracing her stomach as she stood up. She wasn’t nearly as strong as Frank, and so she pushed him slightly, trying to get back into his lap. To hold onto him, wrap herself around him. Hold him to her chest so he knew that she was still here. That she was still his. That she was trying her best to understand the agony he was in. However she didn’t think he was going to budge. She would have just wrapped herself around him as he sat there, but her ridiculous stomach got in the way. 

Suvi wavered for a moment, trying to weigh her options. She crossed to the far side of the room and crouched down, grabbing the frame of the bed, a little bit at first to make sure that Frank didn’t topple over before yanking it back enough for her to fit between him and the bed properly, stupid stomach and all. She pulled with her back too, not her legs, which if either of them were in their right mind, he would have given her shit for, even if she wasn’t pregnant. Suvi had completely displaced their bed, and she didn’t give a shit. She climbed back over the bed, albeit a little unsteady as she made her way back to him, slipping off the tall mattress to sit right behind him. She snaked her arms through his own, wrapping around his chest, hands clasped together to apply pressure to help calm him. She wrapped her legs around him, best she could with her baby bump keeping her a little further from him than she wanted. She cried silently as she leaned her head against his back, holding him as tightly as she could. 

She had heard that if someone was panicking, you should hug them, because the human body, when pressed against another, will try to match the heart rate of the other body, calming down the panicked person. Fragments of facts she had collected raced through her her mind, coupled with a deep connection are found to synchronize their heartbeats naturally, twenty seconds of hugging improves relationships and releases happy brain chemicals, the parasympathetic nervous system reacts to— over and over and over again, racing through the science of it all as she held him.