#and I think it would be so cool to have like pages of notebook and sketches in between the fic writing)

[ilovedthestars]

So i was bitten by the zine bug this semester and i keep thinking that a collaborative zine would be really fun to organize, especially one i could open up to my little corner of the internet. Not the shiny polished fandom zines that are really cool but also more of an anthology than a zine. I'm talking DIY photocopier and scissors zines--or as close as you can get over the internet, as the case may be.

The most fun and low stakes idea i have at the moment is a doodle zine. Like, what kinds of scribbles or shapes or little creatures do you draw in the margins of your notebooks? Fill a zine-sized page with them and send me a photo! Zero expectation of artistic skill or effort, just fill a page with marks and have fun.

And then i could stitch them together into both a digital zine file and a printable version you could use to make a paper copy. I think that would be a cool way to get as close to the physical collage vibes of a traditional zine as you can in a project that would obviously have to be conducted over the internet, where we can't just hand each other pieces of paper.

Anyway, i finally have both the motivation and the energy to potentially dive in to making this happen, but only if other people are actually interested. And this would look very different if 8 people want to participate vs. if 40 do. So:

Please feel free to reblog/spread this if you know others who might be interested! Right now this is just an idea i'm playing around with, but it might become a Real Thing very quickly if other people are also excited about it.

[hannahssimblr]

“I have to say, this is an impressive body of work.”

I shift in my seat, “By impressive do you mean that it’s good, or that there’s a lot of it?”

This gets a laugh. “Both,” says the man, Paul, flicking through a sketchbook with tattooed hands, fingers stained from nicotine. I notice things like this now. Hands. I notice their lines and their bones, all their interesting details, and perhaps Paul himself could gauge this now as he pours over my figure studies where there are pages upon pages of hands, old and young, my friends, my sisters at the piano, an old woman clutching at a handrail on the train, and my own, a hundred times in different ways, blisters, plasters, hangnails and bruises from the rugby pitch.

The woman, Ida, shuffles through a stack of watercolour paintings I did last summer, mostly seascapes, the beach and the rushes, the whitewashed houses and rusted iron of the Wexford coast. Just looking at them I can recall the grit of sand under my bare feet as I warmed them on the deck of our holiday home behind my portable easel. In three months I’ll return again for one last summer, and after that I expect I’ll miss it there. 

“And you said you didn’t do a portfolio preparation year?” She says, peering over the rim of her glasses. 

“No, I’m still at school.”

“Highly unusual for a sixth year,” her eyebrows climb up her forehead, “You've clearly dedicated a lot of time to this.”

I shrug, “Yeah, I like making art, I don’t know.”

It’s difficult to tell what this woman is thinking. Everything about her is harsh, dramatic, from the sharp fringe that sits straight and neat above her brows to the slash of her mouth, thin lips, pointy chin, hard eyes, but I have to assume for the sake of my own self esteem that she doesn’t positively loathe my portfolio. She spends some time looking through my work, slowly, methodically, sometimes leaning closer to frown at something, maybe some proportion that’s off, bad composition, a clumsy attempt at ambient occlusion that doesn’t hit the mark… 

“It’s beautiful,” she says simply, and I exhale. 

“Oh look, a familiar face,” Paul holds a portrait to Ida, “That’s the girl that we were interviewing a few people before this, what was her name again?”

“Michelle,” I say, “My girlfriend.”

Paul nods, “Michelle, right! Good likeness,” and places the notebook back onto the table. Leaning back in his chair, he cracks his knuckles, “Look, Jude, there’s no two ways about it here, your work is outstanding. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a portfolio that hits every mark, every requirement and goes beyond, I mean,” he lets out a puff of air and gestures to the table, “this is nuts. And for a sixth year? Come on. This stuff would blow some of our third and fourth year college students out of the water.”

I feel like I could melt off the chair with relief, but try to suppress my utter delight so that they don’t think I’m too hungry for validation.

“Cool.”

“It’s the sensitivity,” Ida adds, “Your observation skills, your sense of weight, movement, knowledge of anatomy. It’s rare to see this kind of work from a secondary school student. Your efforts are just… so impressive.”

“And look, we know it depends on your Leaving Cert points, and yeah, that’ll be a contributing factor when it comes to acceptance, but, like,” Paul looks over the table again, tossing his hands up conclusively, “as far as I’m concerned, we’ll see you in September.”

Ida’s mouth curls into a smile, “We hope. If you choose us.”

If I choose them? Am I dreaming? How have I become the kind of person who is coveted by an art school? Surely not. Surely soon I’ll wake up and discover that this whole interview has been a product of my dreams. Too much time spent stressing out over art, the requirements, the brief... Almost certainly I’ve fallen asleep somewhere and none of this is real. 

“That’s really kind of you to say. I’m glad you liked my stuff.”

“Blown away,” says Paul, and he leaps to his feet to shake my hand like I’ve just won a prize, “all we need is a pass in the Leaving Cert, you can surely manage it.”

“Yeah, I’ll make sure I do.”

They’re smiling at me as I gather up my work, and still smiling as I give them one last sheepish wave from the door, and I realise I am still smiling too as I face the hallway of waiting students, staring at me with portfolios rested against their knees. I probably shouldn’t look too overjoyed, it might knock their confidence, so I try to look very bored instead as I pass by, though I may explode from the inside out.

Beginning // Prev // Next

[yellow-faerie]

Wow, I have a fic description and a fic title before I've even established a proper fic plot

(this is probably because I'm very excited about this fic and it's potential...)

Edit:

Here are my tags because I started explaining the plot and want it actually in the post rather than just the tags lol:

[roosterforme]

Yours Truly, Bradley Bradshaw Part 2 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: The collection of letters that Bradley received from the fourth grade class provides him with entertainment while deployed. He takes the time to answer their questions and send a package back to the United States via air mail. But he has your email address. He also has a bit of a crush and some questions himself.

Warnings: Fluff, language

Length: 4100 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female teacher!Reader

Check out my masterlist for more! Yours Truly, Bradley Bradshaw masterlist

A few days later, when Bradley was done with his training protocols for the day, he returned to his bunk with a different mission in mind. While he unzipped his flight suit, he eyed the box which was taking up most of his nightstand, and a smile found its way to his lips. He managed to find a notebook that nobody wanted along with a thick, padded envelope, and he was going to take the time to respond to the fourth graders who wrote to him. 

He'd spent hours poring over the letters, laughing at some of the questions from the kids and frequently picking up that one photo. He couldn't stop going back for more. For another look at you. Just one more look. Okay, this really was the last one. He had to toss it across the small room toward his duffel so he could focus on something other than your smile and the fact that he might have a tiny crush on a fourth grade teacher who knew absolutely nothing about him. Yet.

The note from Jayden was on the top, and Bradley opened it up and started to jot down a response.

Jayden,

It was so nice to hear from you and the rest of your class. To answer your pertinent questions, I am currently stationed on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The most disgusting food in the mess hall is easily the cabbage rolls (which taste nothing like cabbage... or rolls). The best food in the mess hall is surprisingly the meatloaf. And yes, I would love to see a photo of your Cocker Spaniel. Please send one next time. I hope you're studying and doing your best in school.

Lt Bradley Bradshaw

The next note he decided to tackle was the one from Violet who had the tiniest handwriting he'd ever seen. The page had at least fifteen questions written out, but he decided to answer just a few for her. He had to squint as he skimmed through them again.

Violet,

You seem very inquisitive. That's a great quality to have, especially if you want to be a pilot someday. No, I did not attend the Naval Academy. I went to the University of Virginia. Yes, the Navy is way better than the Air Force. Yes, I can hold my breath underwater for three minutes. Yes, they actually made me do it. No, I don't think I could make it as a Navy SEAL. Yes, I have been staying hydrated and getting enough sun, thanks so much for asking. Keep studying hard, because you have a lot of school ahead of you before officer training.

Lt Bradley Bradshaw

Okay, so this was actually a lot of fun. Up next was a response to the note from Oliver, which made Bradley laugh every time he looked at it. 

Oliver,

Thank you so much for drawing the different Naval aircrafts for me. I hate to break it to you, but I actually do not fly the F-35 Lightning II. Yes, I know they look 'sickeningly cool'. Yes, I know it would be like 'slam dunking off the back of a dragon'. I guess I never knew I was jealous of those pilots until right now.... But I fly the equally cool if not quite as sickening looking F/A-18 Super Hornet. And yes, I would be more than happy to draw my own version of one for you. See below.

Lt. Bradley Bradshaw

The ten minutes he spent replicating his own aircraft to the best of his ability for Oliver churned out a pretty damn good result. He fished his phone out of the nightstand and took a picture to email to Nat when he had time, because she would find this whole thing amusing. Then he reached for the letters from Harrison, Nia and Jackie. He wrote his responses, and after a bit, he had a decent sized stack of letters all ready to go back to the fourth graders.

After a few more days, he worked his way through the entire class, and each kid would soon have a handwritten response on the way. He just needed to figure out what he wanted to say to you. The pretty teacher from the class photo that he now kept tucked in with his personal items. He worked on that one last, writing your full name at the top of the page and wishing you didn't go by the very non-specific Ms. which gave him zero clue as to whether or not you were married.

The package you sent was the nicest piece of deployment mail I have ever received. Thank you. I'm lucky it ended up in my hands. I'm impressed by how much all of your students have learned about aviation this year. I just hope I did them justice in regards to the questions they had for me.

I also hope you don't mind that I replied to each kid individually. They had some very amusing stories and questions, and I wanted to acknowledge all of them. But there was one question in particular that I was asked so many times, I thought I'd answer it here instead. My call sign is kind of a silly one, so it's okay if you all laugh. I go by Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, and my helmet is mostly red, yellow and black.

Your kids seem like a fun bunch, but I bet they keep you on your toes. Feel free to let them know they can write back to me again, but please include my name on the package this time. I don't know that I'd be lucky enough to have it fall into my hands again by chance. I'll just be here somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a few more months, ready to answer any questions you throw at me. Hope to hear back from you soon.

Yours Truly,

Lt Bradley Bradshaw

The following day, he packed everything up and dropped it off with the rest of the ship's outgoing mail. There was a rumor that a helicopter would be coming to pick it up in the next day or two, and he wanted to make sure it got back to California and those fourth graders as soon as possible. On his way back to his bunk, Bradley stopped by the lounge to see if there was an iPad free, hoping to send a quick email or two. He was in luck. He also happened to have your email address memorized.

--------------------------

You yawned at your desk and checked the time on your computer. Within the next ten minutes, your classroom would go from silent solitude to mass chaos, so you took a minute to clear out your email inbox. You had a few messages from some parents and a reminder about Spirit Week from the superintendent. And a random piece of junk mail that must have slipped through the spam filters. You didn't know anyone with a US Navy email address, and you didn't know anyone named Bradley Bradshaw.

As you closed your laptop, you gasped and tried to pry it back open again as quickly as you could. The Navy! The package you sent a few weeks ago! Maybe it was someone writing back to your class! Of course it could just be someone saying they were sorry that they didn't have time to engage with your students, but you figured even that was better than nothing. 

"Come on," you whispered, entering your credentials again before your inbox reappeared on your screen. The email was just a few lines long, but it was addressed to you by name. You were smiling immediately as you read it.

I just wanted to let you know that I got the mail you sent to a deployed Naval Aviator. There's a package on its way to your school for your class. It should arrive in about a week or two. Your fourth graders provided me with several hours of entertainment, and I hope they find my answers to their many (and amusing) questions useful. Thanks for the laughs, and thanks for the photos, too. Can't tell you how much I've been enjoying them. Hope to hear from all of you again.

Yours Truly,

Lt Bradley Bradshaw

You squealed and pumped your fists in the air. Someone actually got the box! And he actually responded! The other, older teachers thought you were just wasting your time when you deviated from the lesson plans a bit. Literally all of them said there was no way anyone would write back, even though you took the time to go through the proper channels at Top Gun on North Island. But now you could rub it in their faces, all thanks to Bradley Bradshaw who sounded like he'd had as much fun with this whole thing as your class had.

Then your day really started as Violet and Oliver burst into your classroom, calling out your name with excitement in their voices. The rest of your kids followed behind them, already asking about the plans for the day and what kind of adventure you'd be taking them on in each subject. 

When you clapped your hands twice and said, "Good morning," they all clapped and replied with their own greeting, and then they sat quietly with their gazes fixed on you. "Guess who I just got an email from!"

"The president!" 

"My grandma!"

"My Cocker Spaniel!"

"Oliver's grandma!"

You just shook your head and tried not to laugh as you said, "None of the above. But do you remember when we wrote and packed up those letters for a real aviator in the military to read?" Most of the kids nodded, so you added, "Well, he emailed us! And he sent us some mail that should arrive in about a week!"

And telling them that was a mistake. Because you didn't know a moment of peace after that. Every morning, you had kids rushing into the room to see if the promised piece of mail arrived yet. Every day you had to disappoint them, but you were finding yourself a little disappointed, too. You wanted to know what this Bradley Bradshaw guy sent back. 

You'd responded to his initial email letting him know you and the kids in your class were delighted to hear from him and that you would let him know when the mail he sent arrived at your school. He didn't respond, but you figured he was busy. Too busy to constantly muck about with your class while he was thousands of miles away on a deployment. 

And that was what left you standing at your desk with your mouth hanging open in awe when the padded envelope did finally arrive one morning. Because when you carefully cut it open, you found not just one letter to the class but individual handwritten notes, one for each child.

"Wow," you whispered, pulling the note with your name written on the top out of the stack. This man seemed humble and sweet, and his letter made you laugh in more than one spot as you read through it. Then you read it again. He sounded apologetic about responding to each individual kid, but you felt like your insides were melting. Who would do that? Who would take the time to give individual attention to a bunch of nine and ten year olds besides you? And you were technically getting paid to do it. 

Bradley Bradshaw seemed willing to continue to engage with your kids, and you weren't going to stop him. Because starting that morning, he became something of a legend to your class. A celebrity. A real lieutenant in the Navy replied to all of their silly questions, and their love of aviation just grew from there. You figured you were going to have to keep your lesson plans going a bit longer while their faces lit up as you walked around the room and handed them each their notes. You had taken the time to skim them beforehand, often laughing at his sense of humor which seemed to jump off the pages.

"Can we write back to him?" Jayden asked as everyone read their notes from Lieutenant Bradshaw. "I have more questions."

You smiled and nodded. "Yes, you may write back to him." Then you postponed your geology lesson until the next day and let them spend the next forty minutes writing some followup letters. You took some pictures of them diligently toiling away at their desks, excitement on their faces. Then you bit your lip and sat down at your own desk.

As you started to construct an email letting him know the envelope had arrived, your thoughts drifted to what he might be like. Humble and sweet, for sure. But he also made it a point to tell you that the box from your class was the best piece of mail he'd ever received while deployed. Maybe he was a little bit lonely. Maybe he was single. Maybe he was stationed on the west coast. Your thoughts started to get ahead of you, and it was hard to reel them in when you imagined him excited to see another email from you. Smiling when he was handed another box from your class during mail call.

Dear Lt Bradley Bradshaw,

We got the envelope from you today, and my kids are absolutely thrilled! I'm not sure if you know how hard it can be to wrangle eighteen fourth graders all at one time, but they are currently sitting quietly and working on new letters for you to read. Once again, please don't feel obligated to continue correspondence if you're too busy. I'm sure you have other people you could be writing to who want your attention as well. I just wanted you to know they are overjoyed that a Naval officer took the time to answer their questions about aviation.

I have attached some photos as proof that they are sitting still. Thanks again for making their day.

You signed your name at the bottom the way you always would from your work email account, and then you attached the photos. After a brief debate about adding the selfie you took with Violet where most of your face was visible, you decided to just go for it. Adding it to the mix wouldn't hurt anything. It wasn't like this semi mystery man would be up all night thinking about you. 

But you found that you were still thinking about him when you went home to your silent house and made dinner that evening. Maybe he was a little bit lonely, but maybe you were, too.

-------------------------

It was amazing how infrequently Bradley found himself thinking about Vanessa. He was busier now with his duties picking up a bit more as his deployment wore on, but even when he was tired and in his bunk at night, his thoughts seldom settled on her like he was afraid they might. He didn't miss her or her half-hearted emails, and he wasn't craving the connection of reunion sex with her. 

Instead, he was thinking about what a group of fourth graders were learning about this week and what their cute teacher was up to. It had been a few days since you emailed him, letting him know that his package was delivered to your school. You made it sound like the kids were excited that he sent it in the first place, and when he really thought about it, he supposed some officers would have just eaten the snacks and tossed the notes in the trash.

He didn't reply to the email yet, still thrown off a bit by the pictures you attached. Your classroom was vibrant, and the kids were absorbed as they worked on more notes for him to read whenever they happened to be delivered to the carrier. But the photo with you in it held his attention longer than it should have. The fact that you were working at a school that was just a handful of miles from his damn house made him feel warm.

But what would he do about it? What could he do about it? Nothing. He didn't want you to think he was creepy. He still knew essentially nothing else about you. The only thing he could do was keep it friendly if not professional. Unless of course you did something to push the boundaries of conversation into a more personal realm. God, if you did....he didn't think he would be able to handle it. 

The next day, when he was heading out on deck to talk to the mechanics who were doing regular maintenance on the aircrafts, he took his phone. "Hey, you mind if I take a few photos of some of the engine parts? I want to send them to a class of fourth graders who will think it's cool."

"Go ahead, Lieutenant," the head mechanic replied. Then he smiled and asked, "You dating a teacher?"

Well. Wouldn't that be something? Bradley would never run out of curious pen pals. He would always have some fourth graders to take interesting photos for and to send notes to. He'd always have a classroom to visit as soon as he got home from a deployment.

He couldn't help but picture you as the teacher.

"Nothing like that," he replied, his voice a little gravelly. "Just writing to some kids who are learning about aviation."

After dinner, when he had a chance to use an iPad in the lounge, he did his best to put together a response to your email that would at least hint at the curiosity he felt. 

If all it takes is mail from three thousand miles away to get your class to sit quietly, then I should probably be writing to you every day. But I'm sure you're a great teacher. That's a given considering how much your students learned and shared with me. And I can assure you that I'm more than happy to take the time to write to your class. And you. Please don't think I feel obligated, because I do not. I want to.

I have attached a few pictures of some F/A-18 engine components as well as some of my cockpit controls. Each photo is labeled, but please let me know if you have any questions.

It was nice hearing from you.

Yours Truly,

Lt Bradley Bradshaw 

As soon as he hit send, he wanted to kick himself. Should he have included a photo of his face like you had twice now? Or did he already sound too desperate to hear from you and your class again?

"Shit," he muttered, looking around the lounge as if there was going to be someone here proficient in the art of getting to know a fourth grade teacher without sounding stupid. But it was too late now. All he could do was wait for the next mail call or hope you decided to write back to his ramblings by the next time he checked his email. 

-----------------------------

You were going to have to scrape your jaw off the floor. You had no idea what this man's face even looked like, but his hands were... something else. And his thighs... well, they were pretty great, too. It must have been too long since you got laid, because you were sitting at your desk in your classroom staring at the set of photos in your inbox, currently unable to look away from his right hand. It was wrapped around the throttle of his aircraft. It was elegant with attractive veins and rough calluses. You were sure that you were supposed to be focusing on the cockpit controls, but all you could see was that hand and his thick, muscular thighs below.

The next photo was no better for you. He was holding up his helmet with his call sign Rooster emblazoned across the front, and you were able to see his left ring finger. There was no wedding band. There was no evidence of an outline where a wedding band would belong. There was just his big, strong hand.

You whimpered softly while your students worked on their math tests. You couldn't help it as you took one last look before logging out of your email account. And now you needed to know if his face matched the very attractive image you had in your mind. 

When Jayden called your name, you rocketed to your feet like you'd been caught red handed. "Yes?" you squeaked, your voice sounding higher pitched than usual.

"I'm done with my test. May I have the hall pass and use the restroom?"

You handed it to him as the rest of your class finished working through the math problems. A few minutes later, when you collected the papers from them, Violet asked, "When is Lieutenant Bradshaw going to write back to us?"

It had only been a few days since you mailed him the second box of notes and some more snacks, but it made you happy that they were all so invested in learning more from him. 

"It will probably be a few weeks before we get anything in the mail. However... he did email me some pictures of engine and cockpit parts from the aircraft carrier for me to share with you guys." When you looked around the room, the kids were on the edges of their seats, excited expressions on their faces. With a laugh you added, "I was going to wait until tomorrow and use the projector to show them all to you, but if you're very well behaved for the rest of the afternoon, maybe I could pull them up on my computer for you to see them today."

Not two hours later, you were just as excited as the kids were to look at the photos... again. As they crowded around your desk, you opened up the first one of the cockpit to a barrage of questions. 

"Is that really his jet?"

"Is that the throttle?"

"What do all the buttons do?"

"Was this right before he flew it?"

Once again you were distracted, but you managed to click over to the next photo, and the kids gasped in delight. 

"His helmet is so cool!"

"It says Rooster!"

"That's his call sign!"

"Red is my favorite color!"

You just smiled softly and laughed. "Should we go ahead and start working on another list of questions for him?" you asked as you slowly scrolled through the rest of the pictures. "He said we can write back to him as much as we want to." When everyone cheered, you handed Oliver a marker and pointed to the board at the front of the classroom. "Let's start making a list."

You listened to all of your students call out questions for Bradley while Oliver wrote them down. Then Violet asked, "Can he send us a picture of his whole jet? From the outside of it?"

You cleared your throat and added, "Maybe he could get someone else to take the picture so he could stand in front of it. For size comparison."

Violet nodded, but you knew you were a fraud. Sure, it would be great for the kids to understand just how massive the F/A-18s were compared to an actual person, but you were the one who wanted to see all of Bradley. You were itching for it now. 

Later that night, you drank most of a bottle of wine and did something you promised yourself you'd never do. You logged into your work email account after nine o'clock. You skipped over the handful of unread emails from parents and clicked on the icon to compose a new message. With your liquid courage goading you on, you typed up a response to Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw and hit send before you could think twice.

Thank you for the photos. They were very enlightening. We especially liked the ones where you were showing off your cockpit. Or I did, anyway. The kids liked all of them and started on another list of questions for you. Good luck getting rid of us now. 

We were wondering if you could have someone take a picture of you standing in front of your jet. For size comparison purposes. And also because my students would like to know what you look like. Hearing from you makes our day even better.

You couldn't believe how forward you were being with this man who you'd never even met in person, but you fell asleep thinking about his hands and what they might be capable of.

-------------------------

This Bradley makes me swoon. I've never wanted to be a fourth grade teacher so badly in my life. There is something that's starting to blossom between them even though they haven't even met in person. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 3

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[helluvapoison]

Please consider: reader that assesses the characters like a YouTube theorist. Takes one look and breaks down their entire mental state and motivations in a 20 minute period. It's not even judgmental, they just are very observant and have no filter. I think it'd be funniest with Alastor, Adam, and Lucifer, but any character with issues works (which is all of them lol).

˚✧₊⁎ Adam ⁎⁺˳✧༚

“I live in your mind rent free, huh?” He smirks, “Look I love talking about me but let’s make it interesting next tim—“

“This is interesting!” You argue with a smile, “You’re a deeply insecure, vindictive man who, despite your morals, miraculously achieved one of the highest honors of the universe as an angel!”

Adam nods like he’s listening with a straight, almost bored, expression. Slowly a hand creeps up, opening and closing like a mouth.

“Humans today would call you an incel.” You finish with glee.

“The fuck is that?”

“An in—“

“Insanely smart guy? Is that it? It is, isn’t it. Yeah, I fuckin’ rock.”

Sighing, you smile and nod in agreement, “You’re pretty cool, Adam.”

He puffs up with extreme delight to hear that coming from you. Whatever else you said went in one ear and out the other; he heard what matters to him. You think he’s cool.

˚✧₊⁎ Lucifer ⁎⁺˳✧༚

“What’s all this?” He asks, hovering over your shoulder as you scribble in your notebook.

“My recent discoveries.”

“Of what?”

“You, of course—“

Lucifer preens. His crimson eyes scan the page to give himself a summary of your findings. Depression leaps out first, making his lips pull into a frown and a pout simultaneously. Something, something, dissociative, don’t know what that means. Distracted, oh that can’t be good…

“Lotta d-words in here,” He chuckles nervously.

You turn slightly and see how far his face has fallen, looking damn near pitiful.

“Well I wasn’t done!” You say reassuringly quick, writing as you speak, “There’s also dependable, doting, devoted, dazzling~”

Lucifer’s mood switches immediately, lighting up over the praise. When he walks away you scribble down that a lot of reassurance is required for him.

~

╰(*´︶`*)╯♡ i’m so sorry i couldn’t do alastor, mf is an enigma lol

[dezzie-wurks]

Realizing They Have a Crush + Confessing

Characters ;; Hobie, Miles, Gwen, Pavitr !

Extras ;; No warnings, sfw, headcanon style !!

♡

Hobie Brown

He realized very quickly. He liked being around you too much. He loved giving you stuff. He loved seeing your smile and hearing your laugh when he stuck up an attitude with people.

He wasn't for labels, but damn he just might for you. He liked the sound of you being his in reality. You'd definitely get a pass if you worry about that type of stuff, too. I mean, he said he doesn't believe in consistency.

And so, he admitted his fondness for you very quickly.

He didn't see a point in beating around the bush, if you liked him great! If you didnt, well he'd like to stay friends.

Yet when you said yes, he couldn't help and smile widely, throwing his arm around your shoulder as a prop.

"Mine, eh?" He'd ask with tease filling his tone

He was all for spending time with you. I mean, you made him feel so good. He also loved having an arm around your waist, holding your hand, anyway to know you're by him still. Only you get to see his soft guy interior when he calms down at the end of the day.

At the end of the day, his heart swells a little when you two exchange 'I love you's.

Miles Morales

At first he just thought he had a fondness for you.

But when he flipped through his notebook and saw your face plastering almost every page, he got hit with realization. Sure, he drew all his friends, but you were different.

Every time he saw you, he felt butterflies fluttering in his stomach. He couldn't push the feeling down.

He asked Hobie for help. All he got told was "Be honest," and that didn't help.

His confession was an accident entirely when he had been alone with you, and he was trying to describe his crush in a way for it to not sound like you.

"They're really cool! Yeah.. really.. cool." He sounded lost in thought, heat rising to his face. Didn't help that you had peeked in his notebook and saw the drawings of you.

But when you acknowledged that it was you more than likely, he fumbled, trying to say no. But when you kissed his cheek, he felt on cloud nine.

Was geeked to be called yours. Especially since his parents loved you(you didn't call them by their first names)

Gwen Stacy

She immediately knew she loved you, but she was scared.

She was too scared of losing you, just like... nevermind.

It didn't matter, though, you would find out easily by how she acted. Her excited toe to heel jumps when you came around or just her bright smile when you talked to her. She found opening up to you easy.

She found the emotions all too troubling. So telling you was a huge problem for her. Especially since she found you clouding her mind so often, she zoned out during class and other activities.

She told you by starting a conversation. Hanging out, a sleepover maybe, and slipping it in during a heavy talking moment. She thought you didn't hear.

But you did, and you being excited warmed her to no ends. "Wait, really? You're serious!" She'd happily chirp out.

She got more allowing with touch. Actually, she was more touchy. Hugging on you or using your lap as a pillow.

You're her safe haven, and yes, she's so scared of losing you, but she's learning to worry less and love more.

Pavitr Prabhakar

Absolutely love sick puppy. He had a crush for a long time before he realized that his feeling with you was special.

But everyone knew, including you. There was no real need to confess. I mean, his pupils ere practically hearts around you.

Truly, you were his sun, and he revolved around you. As far as he was concerned, it should be the same way for everyone else !

Besides his following you around like a lost dog, he wasn't overbearing. He gave you space when asked, though he might be awkward the next day he completely respects it.

He finally decided to tell you in a cheesy way. Showing you his favorite spot in his universe, and he mentioned it quietly.

He would be.. okay, if you said no. But he didn't have time to think of that because before he knew it, you were already agreeing to being official.

Absolutely ecstatic. Totally ruined the romantic moment with his squeals, but your laughs were music to his ears for all he cared. "Jeez, that was nerve-wracking." He'd say after the moment calmed down.

Extremely flaunty that you're his. Made matching bracelets that consist of his spider suit colors for you and your favorite colors for his. Or your spidersuit colors, if you're one too!

♡♡♡♡

Hope you guys enjoyed this. I really hope this uploads without fail this time!! Requests are open☆☆

[dmwrites]

“Pearllllll, I’m bored.”

Gem all but draped herself over a nearby chair in Pearl’s living room, dislodging Olive the cat as she did so.

Pearl looked up at her from her notebook. “So I see. Tragic.” She looked back down at the pahe in front of her, underlined something.

“Pearrrrllll! I’m so bored!”

“You could go play a few rounds of decked out.” Pearl suggested, flipping a page.

“I already used all my shards for the week. And two of yours.” Gem complained, face-down in the seat, legs flailing out over the arm of the chair.

“You what?” Pearl looked up at her friend again, eyes wide.

“Nothing!” Gem coughed. “I just wanna annoy someone, cause some havoc.”

“Well you’re already succeeding at that.” Pearl muttered, putting her notebook to the side and looking at the mess of limbs that was Gem.

“Ugh. Impulse isn’t even around for me to bother, he’s too busy ‘hunting ghosts’ with Skizz and Scar and Grian. Why didn’t they invite me? I wish I could, like, haunt them or something. Possess one of their bodies and scare them.”

“Possession is easy.” Pearl said offhandedly.

“What?”

“What?”

“Pearlescentmoon! Do you know how to possess people?” Gem gasped, scrambling to a normal sitting position.

“Maybe…” Pearl giggled. “Who do you wanna possess?”

“Oh my god, Scar would be so funny to possess!” Gem said.

“I think we could manage that…” Pearl grinned, holding up a vial with a few bits of dark brown hair inside.

“How did you- actually, I don’t wanna know, I don’t want to have to go to court as a witness one day.” Gem said. “So, okay, how do we do this, then?”

Pearl pulled out a small, stained book from her bookshelf. “Leave it to me. Come back tonight.”

——

Gem and Pearl were sitting on Pearl’s floor in the dark, surrounded by candles. Gem was spooked already.

Pearl checked the time. “Alright, they should be there by now. You ready, Gem?”

“You still haven’t told me what we’re gonna do to put me inside of Scar.” Gem said.

“Simple. Drink this.” Pearl held out a bottle with a dull-looking potion sloshing around inside.

“What is this?” Gem took it and swirled it, frowning.

“Well, if you asked Scar when he downed the bottle I gave him earlier, it’s an energy drink. But it’s actually an awkward potion with a lock of your hair in it.”

“What? Ew!” Gem exclaimed.

“And you have the other, the one with Scar’s hair in it. If you want to possess Scar, that’s how you do it.” Pearl pointed at the bottle. “I’ll guard your body, as I’m sure Scar will be quite frightened to be so short.”

“Wait, he’s taking over my body? I don’t want him in me!”

Pearl snorted. “Ignoring that, what do you think happens to the other soul? It just hangs out? No, silly, it’s got to have a place to go. Scar’ll be fine, trust me. So, are we doing this or not?”

Gem took a deep breath. “This is insane. I should have just gone and killed Etho again. Whatever. Cheers, you weirdo.” She raised the bottle towards Pearl, and drank the entire potion down. For a moment, she and Pearl stared at each other. Then, darkness.

——

“Scar? You okay buddy?” Gem felt a cool hand on her face, gently slapping her awake.

Gem opened her eyes to find a dark haired man standing entirely too close to her face. His own face split into a grin.

“Scar’s alive, guys!”

“I knew he’d faint out of fear.” Grian’s voice came from a corner, not entirely hiding mild distain.

“Come on, man, let’s get you up.” Another voice, Impulse’s voice, came warmly from her other side, and Gem felt herself being picked up. She was set into a chair, and looked up at Impulse, Grian, and Skizzleman.

“Hi guys!” Gem said in her cheeriest voice.

Skizz screamed. Grian screamed louder and higher, clutching to Impulse’s arm. Impulse jumped backwards, falling on Grian, and they both hit the floor. Gem found the wheels of her chair and began moving around.

“Gem?” Impulse finally managed to stutter out, with Skizz and Grian hiding behind him. “Where’s Scar? And how are you… him?”

“Scar’s safe, don’t worry. Let’s go hunt some ghosts, boys!” Gem chirped, leading the way into the haunted house.

——

“Wha- Grian? Impulse? Rizzleman? Did I die? Hello?” Scar sat up, looking around the candle-strewn room in confusion. There was a movement in front of him, and a shadowy figure moved into the candlelight.

“Hello Scar. This is your own personal hell, where you have to pay for the sins of your shulker monsters.” Pearl said in a creepy voice.

“Nooooo!” Scar screamed. “I always knew it would end like this!”

[elsa-fogen]

what do you think about the fact that al likes doodling?

i have a head canon that he has some sort of scrapbook or sketchbook full of little doodles of things going on at the hotel and just in his life, I feel like he would draw really stick-figureish (is that a word?) but I read a fic that depicted it as the same art style as an Invader-Zim obsessed scene girl and I could not stop cackling.

I also feel like he would either guard it with his life from everyone (exception to Rosie, of course) or just not bother to tell anyone and one day they just find him doodling schoolgirl style, kicking his legs in the air, LMAO NEW THOUGHT WHAT IF CHARLIE OR LUCIFER FOUND IT

OH! OH! Now that you mentioned it - i LOVE that about him! I just absolutely ADORE little thing he made for the add in the first episode. And i love this fact because 1) he's the first character i like that likes to draw canonically (okay maybe also toothless from httyd?) 2) Me and Alastor share so many similarities, and even drawing???? This just makes me love him even more (i'm sure we would hate each other irl tho AHAHHAHAHA or maybe not, idk)

SO, SINCE ME AND AL ARE SO SIMILAR, I'M GONNA PROJECT ON HIM MY DRAWING HABITS >:3c Forgive me this one, i usualy don't do that, i usualy project characters on myself haha

He DOES have sketchbooks just to draw, and they are ORGANISED. He's numbers every sketchbook and counts every drawing in them since the first one. He also has two numbers for each page - through one sketchbook and through them all. He has over 300 of sketchbooks by now (I have less, only 56). They are stashed somewhere in a very safe place.

Every sketchbook has a date of first and last drawing. Also amount of drawings. It looks like: NOTEBOOK 253 (number of sketchbook, also he doesn't call them sketchbooks) 03.06.1978-05.07.1978 (dates while it was active) 119 (amount of drawings) 29961-30080 (which numbers of drawings are in this sketchbook) He would cound something else, but he's just too busy to spend time on it. He can remember something thinking about what he was drawing in that period and vice versa

He used to draw at overlords meetings, pissing off Carmila and everyone else, because it looked like he hadn't listened to them, so Carmila banned drawing at overlords meetings (Alastor is still angry about it)

But he doesn't progress too much - most of his progress was made through first 10-20 sketchbooks, now he only has slight style changes sometimes when he feels like it

Tho he's really proud of his current skill and used to think that he's literally the best (used to get angry when reminded that it's not true) (now he kinda knows, but still likes his own drawings, doesn't accept criticism and doesn't try to purposely improve)

He likes showing his drawings to people, he knows and if he does, you have to say that it's literally So Cool, show enthusiasm turning pages and say that everything is just amazing. If you don't, he'll be OFFENDED. He also can leave a sketchbook opened on a page with a drawing he likes the most, and it's like a sign "NOTICE THAT I'M DRAWING AND SAY THAT YOU LIKE IT"

If he considers you a friend (well not like Rosie, but at least like Charlie), he'll be showing you his drawings regularly (and you have to be enthusiastic about it!!!!!!) He has showed it to Charlie, but somehow her enthusiasm is... too much. She's too patronising about it. He also shows his things to Husk, he knows that Husk is annoyed and doesn't give a shit, and he just enjoys his annoyance. He also shows his drawings to Niffty and she gives him Just Right amount and vibe of enthusiasm. (He sometimes draws something for her fanfiction if he likes something enough and enjoys Niffty's reaction (she explodes from happiness)). BUT!!!!! He never shows anything to Mimzy. Because she's like, person from the real life, and he feels like she would laugh at it. To Rosie he shows only things he considers his best and her opinion is the most important to him. He can even forgive her criticism (wouldn't take it tho) (she never critisizes him and absolutely ADORES his drawings). Angel kinda likes his drawings, but isn't enthusiastic about them enough

He doesn't take requests (Angel tried "draw me like one of your french girls" shit, Alastor never did (also his ass did not get the reference and he was like "i dont??? have??? any french girls????")) (Vox also tried to make Alastor draw something for him, Alastor was just "that's interesting, i'll think about it" and never thought of it again)

SOME OF HIS DRWINGS TURNED OUT TO BE PROPHECIES but he notices that only when something happens and then he goes back to his old sketchbooks and accidentally finds it. They are just coincidenses tho, but it's fun and Alastor makes a big deal from it and screams to Rosie like "I PREDICTED THAT SHIT 27 YEARS AGO" when finds out. (it's how i predicted many plot points from SU and literally TOH hunter's possession before the show even was a thing JHJDFJHFGJFDHKH i wonder if i predicted something from Hazbin, i need to look through my sketchbooks now)

If you dare to mess with his drawings and vandalise them... oh... you better pray to whatever god you belive in to make your sufferings be enough to redeem your sins and go to heven.

[hecateslore]

💗🎀

If you don't celebrate easter you can just ignore this, cause I know not everyone's religious (I grew up in a predominately catholic home 😃) and I'm not religious anymore soooooo ye.

"Oh my good Look at this!" You screech from excitement, The very dusty bunny costume in hand. Your mom sat next to you, baby photos in hand.

"We should put it on NovaLynn," She suggests, Your babygirl sat in her grandmothers lap playing with the small toys that used to be yours. "Simon!" You yell from downstairs, He comes prancing down the steps shortly, "Look," you smile holding up the easter bunny costume. "What's that?" He says walking over to you three. "It's my bunny costume," You hold it out to him, "It's kind of small no?" You roll your eyes at his corny joke.

"Take a look at this," Your mom hands him the photo of you as baby, wearing the exact same bunny costume, "Doesn't she look just like NovaLynn?" Your Mom, "Dead on." He looks at the photo intently.

"So what's this for?" Simon hands her the photo, taking the costume instead. "For Easter!" Your mother says, You grab Nova from her.

"You don't celebrate Easter?" Your moms brow raises exactly like yours does. "Mom," You warn her, "Uh, no." Simon chuckles awkwardly, "My family, didn't like the holidays." He nods.

"Oh I'm so sorry," She apologizes, "It's fine." he waves her off, taking Nova from your lap, "That's why we have these guys, right?" He places a kiss on her chubby cheek.

-

You stood with your camera in hand, trying to get your toddler to smile at the camera, "Look at me, Nova," you coo, holding the camera up to your face. Simon stood right next to you, doing funny faces, everything in his power to make her smile for the photo.

When you finally got a decent photo, you sat on the floor looking through all of the ones you were gonna print out on your computer. The two bins filled with your baby things tucked away in the corner of your living area.

Simon got up from where you both were sitting, "Can I have a look?" He says, pointing at the two boxes. "Mhm." you hum.

-

"I would've had a total crush on you in school." He looks over you high-school photo album. "No you wouldn't," You snort, looking through your baby photos again. "Yeah I would." He flips through the pages.

"What's this?" He holds up your old Lisa Frank notebook, that had "Sketchbook" written over pink zebra print tape. "My old drawings," you gush, Simon opens the book immediately hit with the smell of Crayola's. "That's lovely." He chuckles at the drawings of mermaids.

"How cute," You hold up your Communion dress and veil, "Tiny wedding dress?" He smiles, confused but in awe of you. "No it's my communion dress." You gush.

"Oh god, I remember being so scared this day." You chuckle, searching for the photos.

Simon watching you, "This is cool." He announces, "To have stuff like this." You stop searching, and turn to look at him, "Are you okay?" Concern on your face, "Just sometimes wished I had something like this." He brushes it off, "But I'm alright," he rubs your back in assurance. "You can start now," You say, "You can give Nova something to look back at when she grows up."

"yeah," He says quietly, "we can print out photos and make photo albums." You rattle on, "Mhm." His eyes on the veil adorned with white beaded flowers. You follow his eyes and then look to the communion dress again, "I'm so glad she doesn't have to do that." You admit, "Why?" Simon places the veil on your head, and you let him "I remember feeling so much pressure at such a young age, and feeling like you couldn't do anything because someone was always watching." You admit while he adjusts it, "I always felt like being a normal teenage girl was wrong, and oh my god when I found I was pregnant with Nova and Not married, I could've sworn I felt the ground opening." You chuckle.

"You and Johnny," Simon chuckled, "I think it's catholic guilt." You snort. "I didn't go to church." Simon says, "I always wanted to though, just to see, And the first time I did was with Johnny." He says.

"Did you like it?" You ask, "It was okay, but I don't think I would do it every Sunday. " He chuckles, "Oh my." You chuckle and roll your eyes. "It's not for everyone. I just did it out of habit, and also so I didn't go to hell, but here we are." You shrug and Simon lets out a small laugh, it quiets down over time, "I prayed when Nova was born." Simon admits,

"I was scared, and I didn't know what to do but I remembered the prayer you said in the shower when you pregnant; Sometimes, when I'm away I say it."

He grabs the small patent leather shoes paying attention to the embroidered design, "Sometimes I think, maybe I've lived this long because of The baby and You, and God knows the lengths I would go if something ever happened to You or her.." He pauses, "So he backs off, and lets me have what I love." Simon looks over at the toddler quietly snoring in the playpen.

"I don't think God is cruel enough to make you suffer anymore loss," You say, rubbing the nape of his neck. "He mad a man choose a Him over his child, I think he's capable." He snorts. "Oh so you listen to my mom when she goes on her rants. " You chuckle. "They're a little over the top but, I still listen." He shrugs.

You shake your head, "She's something." You sigh, "You're a wonderful Dad, Simon." You look in his brown eyes, "She loves you, and So do I." Simon places a kiss on the crown of your head, and gets back to fishing through the box full of baby photos.

what if I told you this was the week before Johnny died... 😆

[sageluvrr]

୨ৎ PRETTY GIRL IN MY SCREEN – KANG HAERIN

you fall for the user kittykang. [ wc.582 ]

✿⠀warnings — nonidol!au. cliffhanger ✿⠀notes — fem!reader. not much dialogue. could be seen as platonic. might get a part 2

maybe you should have put your phone back on silent after the lunchbreak, but it slipped your mind. you just hoped the notifications would stop and class would end quickly— it's the last period your almost free.

the bell signals the end of the day so why was your teacher going on and on everyone understood five-page essay due on monday.

when she finally frees the class, you quickly grab your bag and notebook and make a run for it. pulling out your phone you check your notifications.

gmail ' you haven't finished your 2-step verification ' ... mom ' i might be a little late. sorry 😝 ' phoning superyupper! you have one (1) new friend request.

ignoring all of the notifications except for phoning. you find the closest bench and take a seat tapping on the notification.

kittykang would like to be friends with you! accept — deny.

maybe you pressed accept to quickly you don't know who this 'kittykang' is but it's worth a shot.

kittykang has sent you a message!

[kittykang] hi. [superyupper] hello! 😊 [superyupper] kittykang is a rlly cool name! do you like cats? [kittykang] tomato frog. 🐸 [superyupper] i like butterflies 🦋🦋 [superyupper] their so so pretty!! [superyupper] i bet your pretty kittykang [kittykang] oh [superyupper] i have to go but ttyl !

your mom was a little late, but it was durable. on the ride home she asked the basics, but your thoughts were filled with this kittykang person. their texting was a little (very) dry, but they used one emoji so maybe they were shy.

kang haerin was red (like a tomato frog) after your message as she spaced out— i really hope superyupper isn't a creepy man.

your mom was a little concerned as you rushed down your dinner but didn't question you (teenage hormones?).

you almost falling down the stairs gave your mom some comfort (you were being normal). the race to your room to message kittykang did expose your lack of athleticism but it was worth it.

[superyupper] hihi! i'm back [superyupper] i was busy doing homework then eating dinner... [kittykang] hi, i was also eating dinner. [superyupper] so... [kittykang] yes? [superyupper] how old r u?? [kittykang] how old are you? [superyupper] 16... hbu [kittykang] what is that. [superyupper] huh??? [kittykang] hbu. what is that? [superyupper] how about you... [superyupper] r u an old grandpa [kittykang] no. i'm also sixteen. [superyupper] oh! its jus... [kittykang] what is it "jus..." [superyupper] u text like my grandma [kittykang] wow. i've gotten that before. [superyupper] thts..... [superyupper] anyway! [kittykang] i've gtg so ttyl. [kittykang] hopefully google was right about these. slangs are more normal for teenagers. [superyupper] thts right and so was google!! ttyl 💕

after a month of chatting, you learned a lot about kittykang. her name was kang haerin, her friends think she looks like a cat, and she is very very introverted (she was breaking out of her shell though!).

a late night 7 eleven run turned into an investigation. while looking through the ice cream selection your head turned hearing someone look through the beverage refrigerator. weirdly enough she looked kinda like a cat, but it couldn't be haerin. it wasn't.

your head snapped up again hearing someone call out the name haerin. your hallucinating, right?

'haerin! hurry up were gonna be late!' haerin just rolled her eyes and finished looking through the fridge, at her own pace.

she looks like a cat and her name is haerin. wtf.

been trying to work it out, you should know

[lovebugism]

eddie munson with glasses.

✶ ┄ THE GLASSES DEBACLE !

summary: eddie thinks his glasses are the least metal thing ever. you prove him wrong. pairing: eddie munson / f!reader warnings: a little bit of smut but nothing crazy 18+ mdni! a/n: i don't know if this is a blurb request or not but it's been haunting me. because yeah. i literally haven't been right since joesph quinn wore those stupid glasses and i'm scared that I'll never recover </3

( MASTERLIST )

seeing eddie with his glasses on is a little like spotting a mythical creature in the forest

he never ever wears them

and when he does, it’s because he’s got the trailer to himself with no one around to catch him with them on but wayne

because to eddie, his glasses are the least metal thing in the universe

they’re clear, circular frames with super thick lenses that make his eyes look bigger than normal

he hates them

and he’d rather walk through the world half-blind and suffer the headaches than wear them in public

because he doesn’t want to hear shit from the rest of hellfire and there’s no way jason carver would ever shut up abt it if he saw them

but you seeing him in them might be the worst

he takes pride in being the freak-show-outcast-metalhead-bad-boy boyfriend

and he’s scared of losing cool points with you

which is dumb because you two are so head over heels for each other that him wearing his stupid glasses doesn't matter

but he still feels the need to impress you

he does a pretty good job at keeping them hidden at first

then you find them in the drawer of his nightstand while looking for condoms

both of you made a pretty hasty attempt to get naked

eddie’s only got his underwear on with the hem of them tucked under his balls

and you’ve still got his shirt on with your panties slid to the side

you’re straddling his lap and leaning over to grab a rubber

then you spot them

“i didn’t know you wore glasses!!”

“that’s because i didn’t want you to”

“but why :(”

you slip them on over your own face and they your eyes bug out a little

you have to blink a couple times to get used to everything being so much closer

meanwhile eddie’s just kinda beaming to himself

because you’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen

like the cutest little bug <3

then you try to slip them over his face and he’s dodging you

because “they’re not sexy on him"

and you’re just like “i’ll be the judge of that >:(”

to make a long fucking story short

you end up fucking him in his glasses to prove that they are, in fact, sexy as fuck

they slid down his face the entire time so you had to keep pushing them back up the bridge of his nose

after, like, the fourth time, he got fed up with them and tried to take them off

but you grabbed his wrist to stop him

right before coming so hard over his lap that you’re twitching against his thighs

and he wasn’t too far behind you

needless to say, he starts wearing them a whole lot more

only around you ofc

i’m just picturing a very sickly, sweet domestic affair

you’re lying on his bed, naked with the sheets wrapped around you, propped up against his headboard with a book in your lap

and he’s lying just below you with his back against the bed

with his hair is tied back because.. yeah

and he’s got his glasses on while he scribbles in an old composition journal

trying to come up with a new dnd campaign

he’s only wearing a pair of boxers so his slutty little waist is on display

and he’s doing that cute little thign with tongue because he’s so concentrated

when his eyes get tired after staring at them for so long, he’ll rub at them with a scrunched face from underneath his glasses

and every once and a while, you’ll hear him huff and then a riiip when he tears the page out of his notebook when he gets frustrated

you won’t say anything

you’ll just reach a hand down to scratch gently at his scalp to soothe him

or you'll rest your palm against his chest and the small bits of hair scattered there to feel his heart beating

now i’m just sad

[mandomaterial]

Could you maybe write something about miguel and a deaf girlfriend or wife?

Ofc bby, personally its one of my favorite things to read because the fics are truly something else! I hope i did your request justice. :3 to be honest i don’t quite love how it turned out but i hope that’s just the little perfectionist in me. I really do hope you like it!

Btw i didn’t proof read any of this- feel free to tell me if they’re any typos! Masterlist

Miguel with a deaf reader

It all started when Miguel bumped into you at the library, you were struggling to reach a book from the top shelf and Miguel being the kind man he was, walked over, reached over your head and brought it down for you. All this had given you a terrible scare, you hadn’t seen him coming and well, you couldn’t hear him. So Miguel got quite concerned when he saw your panic stricken face “Are you all right?” He asked, his eyebrows clenching together. Fortunately you learned how to read lips, so you could quite easily decipher what he said and maybe you stared a little too long at his plush, full lips, you snapped out of it and nodded a little, cheeks all heated up and red.

To be honest Miguel thought you were pretty cute from the start, that’s why he actually came over, he thought that getting a book down for you would be a good conversation started and he didn’t mean to scare you. You hadn’t said anything to him yet, so he tried again “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to spook you.” With a soft smile on his lips, still holding onto your book. You didn’t react at first and you didn’t seem to be making eye contact, instead your gaze was set a bit lower, maybe that should have been his first clue that something was out of the normal here, but no. After a moment you stufend a little and started rummaging through your bag, looking for something, it didn’t take you long and Miguel was surprised to see that you pulled out a pen and a little notebook. You didn’t waste a second and started scribbling something and then turning the pages for them to face him.

«Hi, I’m deaf so i can’t really talk to you, I’m sorry » Miguel eyes quickly scanned the words and as soon as he was done, his big brown eyes snapped up to you, seeing the sorry look on your face. It was like you were sad that you couldn’t talk to him. You were sure that he’d just walk away after this, maybe if you could talk properly you could’ve had a chance with him. But against all odds, Miguel continued “Don’t apologize, that’s oka-“ he didn’t finish his sentence, caught in thought with his eyebrows scrunched. Could you understand what he was saying? And as if you’d read his mind, you started scribbling again. Miguel patiently waited until you turned it over again.

«I learned how to lip read pretty well, just don’t talk too quickly and everything’s okay» you smiled, happy that he was willing to continue. In all honesty you were so exited that this stranger wanted to talk! And he was so handsome too! You bit your lip a little and waited for him to finish reading. Miguels eyebrows raised a little, surprised that it would be this easy to communicate with you, maybe he still had a chance to score your number.

“Oh is that so? That’s pretty cool, do you also speak sign?” He questioned, making sure to not mumble, so that you’d understand easily. It looked like your eyes lit up, with little sparkles shining in them as you wrote on your little notebook. Miguel thought that you were really adorable and he couldn’t help but smile as you started writing excitedly. You handed the note book to him and his eyes shifted to the wording, gladly reading it.

«Yes, I speak sign! You you know any signs? It’s okay if you don’t. :) »

Miguel brought his hand up to his chin, thinking about his time at university, didn’t he take a sign course once? He was deep in thought until his eyes fell on you, you were standing there patiently waiting for him, big sparkly eyes and a big smile on your lips, you looked like a baby deer, just like a fawn. It was too adorable for him and he had to look away a little so that you wouldn’t notice the little bit of blush staining his cheeks. Your head flopped to the side and you didn’t understand, Miguel noticed and played it off as him fixing his already perfectly styled hair, by running his fingers through it. He forced himself to face you again and said

“Um, I took a course at Uni, but i don’t remember much.” He scanned his brain for any signs he still knew and a few popped up “umm, i think this was ‘thank you’?” He signed it, slowly, but correct “And this one’s ‘Hello’ “he signed again, this one was mostly correct as well! You’re ere so exited! You started applauding him just a tiny bit, your palms touching and just your fingers clapping, a gigantic smile on your face that reached past your eyes. Miguel almost couldn’t believe his eyes, how were you so fucking cute? His heart was pounding in his chest, unable to calm down and he was sure his pupils were heart shaped already. He just had to keep talking to you. So he did.

“Um, so what’s your name? My- My name’s Miguel. Miguel O’hara.” You nodded to show that you understood and started writing your name on the paper. You showed it to him and he paused for a second, he looked down to you again and realized that your name really suited you. You cracked a toothy smile that you covered a bit with your hand and just then Miguel realized that he’d said that aloud. His face flopped down embarrassed and he chuckled a bit but started looking at you again soon after “I said that aloud, didn’t I?” he smiled jokingly, you nodded vigorously and giggled a little. It was quiet but Miguel had heard and he could stop his smile from growing. He thought that it was no or never so he put on his brave face, shuffled around a little but made sure to keep his mouth where you could see it and asked confidently:

“I think you’re pretty cute. Could I maybe take you out sometime? Maybe dinner or something?” Oh, he hoped that you would say yes and that he could take you out, he already started thinking about places to go, his mind starting to spiral a little, thinking of you. Your face seemed confused, had you understood that wrong? Did he really want to take you out on a date? This hunk of a man, that could easily pick you up with a single hand? As if. It all feels like a cruel joke, maybe you do need to practice lip reading more. You didn’t quite know what else he could have said, so with a shaky hand you started writing down what you thought he said, preparing yourself for rejection or a misunderstanding.

It’s not like you haven’t been on dates before, actually you’ve been on quite a few, but it never lasted, all the guys thought it would be too hard to communicate and gave up before even trying. It broke your heart every time and you started hating your disability more and more every time it happened. So you decided to get off the dating apps and give meeting someone a rest. Once you finished moving your pen, you hesitantly flipped the notebook to show Miguel.

«You want to take me out? Like on a date?» Vulnerability was spread over your eyes as you feared his answer, expecting him to correct you or something similar, but to your surprise he just nodded, albeit a little concerned about the worried look on your face. He opened his mouth to say something “Do you not want to go out with me? That’s totally fine too, you probably have a boyfriend…” his mood sunk and he felt kinda silly for assuming.

But he couldn’t be more wrong, your mood had seemingly done a 180 and was completely flipped, you wanted to tell Miguel that you’d love to go out with him and that you didn’t have a boyfriend, but he wasn’t looking at you. So you did something a bit out of your comfort zone, you took hold of one of his hands to get his attention, before he even fully started looking towards you again, you began nodding like crazy, hoping to get the message across and bring it across you did, with a smile on his face he confirmed your answer and you just continued nodding with a huge grin.

The two of you exchanged phone numbers and that’s the story of how you met your now husband.

He was still ever so charming as the two of you sat on the couch in your living room, just enjoying each other’s company. You were leaning against his chest, curled up like a cat, just daydreaming about your lovely, handsome husband, until said person tapped your shoulder to shift your attention to him.

« What are you dreaming about, mi sol?» he signed, his finger moving quickly with precision, it had taken him a couple years to fully grasp the language but now he spoke it just as well as you! It was actually pretty cute how he started learning, each time the two of you met up for a date, he always showed off the new signs he learned in simple conversations and every time, you applauded him and gave him a little kiss as a reward. To him that was like the deal of a century, a kiss from his beautiful girlfriend for just a few new signs?m oh yea. He’d take that any day. It even gave him more motivation to study!

You just smiled and snuggled closer, before moving your fingers to say: « Oh nothing, just how we met and how cute you were » you snickered a little, knowing that being called cute would rile him up a bit. And right you were.

« Hey, hey, it wasn’t me that was cute, you were and you still are!» suddenly he grabbed you and almost crushed you in a bear hug, you loved his hugs, they were so warm and cosy, no need for any type of communication, his body telling you everything that you needed to know. This was truly a moment of bliss, Miguel wrapped his fingers around your own and brought them up to his plush lips, kissing your slender ring finger, so happy that the two of you were married. He’d stay with his Mrs. O’hara forever and ever!

Bonus headcanons

- he’s so protective of you, especially if you’re out in the city, he can only imagine how much more dangerous it could be walking around without being able to hear. What if you were crossing the street and didn’t notice a speeding car because you couldn’t hear the honking, what if you got splashed with water from the puddles when another car drives past, or that those stupid cyclists will nock you over, safe to say he worries a lot, so he absolutely always walks on the side wich faces the road, he never lets you get too close to the adage and he’ll always, always hold your hand.

- if someone ever gives you trouble or starts yelling at you because you don’t understand, (mostly Karens) hell put on his scary face and ask if they have a problem with his wife, while staring them down, not once has this ever backfired and he’s proud that he can scare anyone off that’s making you uncomfortable.

- If the two of you are out and about in the city he’ll always interpret anything that happening, oh there’s a crowd over there? They’re watching a performer. Oh, you wanna watch them too? Hell sign whatever they’re doing at the speed of light. Oh, someone’s yelling and there’s drama? If you’re interested he’ll tell you what they’re yelling about. Oh, there’s a cute puppy you wanna pet? Of course he’ll ask for you. And you’re ever so thankful, each and every night, you shower him in kisses and hugs as a thank you. And Miguel? He’s loving every second.

- sure there were a bunch of bumps and hitches in your relationship, lots of miscommunications and sure, it was difficult but he never gave up, he believed that you were the one for him and he’d do anything for you and of course you’d do anything for him as well, the two of you were basically made for each other and he didn’t mind your disability one bit, in fact, it just made you even more special.

[lottiecrabie]

galatea, take one – matty healy

matty produces your sophomore album. it's summer. you fall in love like you were always gonna do.

(based on the lorde and jack antonoff melodrama love affair)

warnings: 18+, unprotected sex, cheating, author doesn't know anything about music or writing music

17833 words

June 16

There’s a banging in the back of your head, cool and consistent. You’re monstrously hungover, vestiges of a blurry night in West End, but something in you knows this isn’t a vodka-lime headache. Perhaps fear, or nerves, or prophetic destiny banging at your temple, begging you to turn away. 

You pass a hand through your hair, trying to make yourself look presentable. Sweat sticks to your nape. It’s an uncharacteristically hot day of June and you feel aflamed even in your sheer tank top and cutoffs. That, too, will later feel like some higher sign you brushed away. 

Raking your throat, shaking your head, you finally ring the doorbell. 

Matty Healy opens the front door wide. His hair sprouts from his head like his ideas— without order, overeager and overflowing. His face practically breaks with a grin. You think, pretty. That is the third sign you ignore. 

“Hi,” Matty says, stepping away to free the door. “Come in.” 

Three warning bells, knocking at the back of your head. You raise your sunglasses to the top of your hair, narrowing your eyes at the sudden overwhelming sun, smiling back at him. You step through. 

That is how it all starts. 

June 18

Matty scratches the acoustic guitar mindlessly, head thrown back on the couch pillows. He frowns at the ceiling, humming along as though that would be enough to make a melody bloom out of scattered nothings. 

You play with the strands of the carpet, sitting on the ground, watching him. Something in you almost believes that it could happen— that he’d snap back to you with a grin and those wide, puppy eyes and declare the newest summer hit. You’re afraid of looking away, of missing that fatal microsecond. You want to see when the world breaks apart for Matty Healy. 

A discarded cherry coke rests beside you. It’s lukewarm now, innocent collateral damage to the hot summer air. Matty doesn’t have AC in his apartment. The air sticks to you, weighting against your skin. You leave his house and feel like he’s still lingering on you. 

“How about this?” Matty says, plucking a few chords. You hum non-committedly. “You don’t like?” 

“I don’t know,” you admit plainly. There’s already some unsaid understanding between you; truthful and tackless. You like that you don’t have to filter your thoughts. “I don’t know if it sings to me,” you finish. 

Matty smiles rakishly, digging his cheek. “If it sings to me,” he repeats. “I like that.” You smile, proud. 

June 21

Making an album is like breaking your ribcage open and bleeding on the pages. You’ve always been guarded with your lyrics, afraid of showing scattered words before they’re fully assembled. You have this beaten up sketchbook you use as a notebook, scribbling down all your incoherent wordvomit then slamming the pages close before you try taking them back. Matty finds it funny. That you write where you should draw. He calls it a meta blurring of art. You call him pretentious. 

You hold the sketchbook close to your chest, peering down at it just to recite some verses out loud. Matty nods, repeating them over with delicate care. He changes words, tweaks turns of phrases. He smiles, declares his understanding of them. He’s so precise, so careful and pointed with his words. He uncovers you under the theatrics of rhymes. 

You bleed and bleed. Shit. 

June 22

“What d’you reckon the album is about?” Matty asks, nursing a beer between his hands. It’s late in the evening, later than you should stay. You’re both on the balcony, sitting on white plastic chairs. Your red-toed feet rest on the railing, long naked legs licking up to your trusty jean shorts. 

You exhale your cigarette smoke. You cock your head, pondering over his question, still staring persistently at the sky; not quite asleep, but some darkened blanket thrown over the city. “Heartbreak,” you decide. 

Matty does a little huffing sound, mulling over that sure answer. “Anyone in particular?” He asks, throwing you a side glance, taking a sip of his beer. 

You tap the ashes over the balcony, stretching in your chair. “My ex-boyfriend,” you answer simply. 

“How long has it been?” 

You breathe in. It’s a little uncomfortable to delve into still, some unhealed bruise you feel on your ribs. It might be why the album is coming out clunky and untethered right now: something in you refuses to dive into the emotions again, afraid that maybe you’d stick in the syrup. Choke on it. 

“Five months.” 

“Shit.” Matty shakes his head. “Sorry.” 

“Nah, it was for the better.” You take a drag of your cigarette, shaking your head. “Fucking dickhead.” 

It had been five years of your life, which is the most inconceivable part of this whole affair. The thing that you can’t fully wrap your head around, can’t accept. Five years. It feels bigger than life, grander than the twenty-three years you’ve accumulated. Maybe that’s why you clung on longer than you should, claws digging in his stomach, feet dragging on the carpet: if you left now, what would those five years have been for? 

“Yeah?” Matty asks, reaching his hand out. You give the cig over to him, trying not to shiver as your fingers graze his. He sticks it in his mouth without hesitation. It feels strangely intimate, seeing his lips where yours have been. You have to look away. “What was he like?” 

Gray smoke pours out of his lips. He hands it back to you. “Just,” you gesture vaguely, groaning in distaste. “An artist.”

Matty snorts. “And we’re not?” 

“An insufferable one,” you precise, throwing him a pointed look. 

He smiles boyishly at that. “And we’re not?” 

You roll your eyes. “A different kind of insufferable. A worse one.” You tsk, “He was good, but he just— he didn’t think anyone understood him, you know? And, really, he didn’t want us to. He was smarter, and more brilliant, with grander ideas. We just couldn’t get him at all.” You laugh bitterly, shaking your head. “Now I wonder if he even had anything to say.” 

How it used to infuriate you, the way he would dangle his supposedly genius thoughts just out of reach. You’re too small, love. Too young. Too dumb. You just wouldn’t get it. He’d speak of them in hushed tones— because he just couldn’t stop referencing them, self-obsessed— but never unmasked what those phantoms haunting him, taking hold of the brush were. 

There’s no words for it, he would say. And as someone who made a career out of language, you call bullshit. 

“A lot of his paintings are of me,” you continue, because now that the faucet has been opened you can’t seem to stop thinking about it. “He wouldn’t call me pretty, he would call me raw. I thought he meant it as real, as tangible. I liked that, liked having an artsy boyfriend, kept saying that he found me more than beautiful. How naive I was, boasting to everyone that my boyfriend didn’t think I was hot.”

Your tongue feels ashy in your mouth, and it’s not because of the cigarette. There’s smoke in the air. There’s been smoke for five years. You’ve never been good at pinpointing warning signs until it slaps you in the face, until the fire has already climbed up your legs. Matty stares at your side profile, quiet. 

“I think he meant it as unfinished, actually,” you continue, eyes facing the sky pointedly, searching for hidden stars. You’re afraid your lips will tremble if you look at Matty, afraid your eyes will water. You couldn’t take the embarrassment. “When he painted me, he thought he was completing me.” You snort, sour and mean. You’ve bittered over the months, lost some sugary quality. You linger unpleasantly on tongues now, wrinkling noses. “Fuck being a muse.” 

You take a drag, shoving the cigarette between your lips and hoping it chokes the words threatening to spill out. Fuck being a muse. Fuck five years of your life wasted sitting perfectly still, flashing a smile just to have the teeth rearranged on the canvas. Fuck the man who only knew how to paint you blue. You exhale the smoke, breathing out the building frustration. Fuck watercolors. You want to be made of blood. 

You can feel Matty watch your side profile. It unnerves you. How deeply he looks, how much he seems to see. Even when you don’t let him. Even when you don’t want him to. (Is that how he walks through galleries? Lingering around paintings, analyzing lines and colors and shadows, staring them down until they reveal their secrets.) Your leg shakes. You avoid his eyes purposefully. They dig in your cheek, leaving you bloody and open, leaving you to scab.  

“I think you’re pretty,” Matty says simply with an air of finality. You can’t help but blush, even if you know he doesn’t mean it as a line. He views beauty as this neutral, overflowing thing. Everywhere around, bigger than humans, bigger than sex and romance. 

A fellow artist that appreciates but doesn’t touch. You promised yourself to steer clear from those. Your cheek burns.

“Thanks,” you nod, putting out the cig on the railing. You drop it in your empty beer bottle at the legs of the chair. You can’t lock eyes with him still. 

Matty doesn’t say you’re welcome. It’s not a compliment, it’s a statement. 

“Let’s write about it, yeah?” He says, standing up, opening the glass door. 

You should really get home. It’s late, and you’re a little tipsy, and you’ve made promises. Still, you follow him through, and you don’t know if it’s guilt or excitement pumping in your veins. 

June 24

“Mint and chocolate does not taste like toothpaste!” Matty’s eyebrows furrow in offense, lips gaped wide. 

You giggle at his theatrics, trying to handle the strawberry cone melting on your fingers. You bend down, licking at the pink drops, the stickiness still gluing to your hand. Matty was smarter, taking his green monstrosity in a bowl. “It’s like I’m brushing my teeth.” 

You’re walking down a touristy street of London, wearing cliche sunglasses to shield your eyes. Every step, your shoulders knock together. It leaves your skin burning— you feel a sunburn coming on. 

“You have the taste of a six year old,” Matty declares with a huff. He dips his spoon in his ice cream, scooping it in his mouth, visibly twirling his tongue around it. It’s because of the sun too that your cheeks redden. 

You’re glad for the specs. He doesn’t see the way your eyes follow his lips, enchanted. 

You shake your head. Your shoulders brush together. “You have no taste at all,” you tease, eyes dancing. Matty chuckles. 

June 27

You flip through Matty’s extensive collection of vinyls stored in wooden boxes. It’s almost preposterously him. Kneeling on the scratchy carpet, you awkwardly drape your skirt to not reveal a flash of your underwear. A glass of red rests on his coffee table without a coaster.

It smells smokey in the apartment; Matty is making pork chop, but you’re not entirely sure he’s doing it right. The kitchen and the living room are one open space, stretching the dwindling sunlight from the windows. His back faces you, some washed-out shirt draping nicely over him. 

You hum, running your fingers over the titles. Your hand freezes on the next album. You gasp, grinning from ear to ear. “What?” Matty calls from the kitchen.

“You’ve got The Runaways,” you declare, raising it up like some second coming of Christ. “In mint condition, too. Man, I played that album to the ground.” 

“Why am I not surprised?” 

You stand up excitedly, running to the turntable. You lay the vinyl on the platter, side B up. The needle scratches, Lovers blooming out of the connected speakers. A gleeful sound leaves your lips. 

You nod your head to the rhythm, moving your hips, twirling to your discarded glass of wine. 

I want something bad and nice - hot love

The red sloshes dangerously. You jump, hair flying around, shimmying your shoulders. Matty turns from his skillet to watch you, amused. You dance to him, rounding the island with a laugh. 

“I want a kiss wet and real - strong love,” you sing in his face. Matty shakes his head, chuckling, but it quickly becomes this sort of headbanging dance move. His feet tap to the beat. 

You take his hand, twisting him to face you, pushing and pulling him away like a ragdoll. His body follows gleefully, discombobulated. He’s boneless, running through the short space between the counter and the island, the strip of land you’ve made yours. The pork sizzles in the pan. 

“Make me scream hey what’s your name,” he sings back to you— yells, more. You throw your head back, shoulders shaking with a laugh. 

We lovers never say goodbye

We lovers never die

We stop and go quietly

Cold lovers fade away

June 28

Delilah comes back from her modeling shoot June 28. 

You come in with two iced coffees filling your hands and you’re faced first with a gorgeous, tall, leggy blonde flipping a magazine on the couch. You stop in your tracks, heart falling to your feet. Right, you think, lips thinning. You take a deep breath, soldier readying for war. 

“Hi,” you say, overly cheery. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Delilah, right?” 

The girl looks up at you, grinning wide like an old friend finding a familiar face through a crowd. Your heart rips, guilt spreading through the muscle. It’s worse that she��s nice. “Oh, hello!” Delilah says, standing up to greet you. She has a posh accent. 

“Sorry, I should have knocked. I must have given you a fright.” 

She laughs, waving your worries away easily. It’s a crystalline sound. Musical. You wonder if that’s just how Matty is like— so in love with melody he dates the closest thing to it. “Not at all. It’s nice to finally meet you. Matty talks about this album all the time.” 

Your face crisps. “Yes. Well, yes— it’s a mess.” 

Delilah’s eyebrows rise to her forehead. “That’s not what he says.” Now you wanna know what he does say when you’re not there to catch the words. What your ears have lost to Delilah Prescott. 

But you’re afraid of what your face would reveal if you do ask and she does say. You’re frenzied and electrified just at the mere possibilities. You imagine it in his accent, It’s good. No, no. He would say something more like, It’s fucking good. Mental. It’s a postmodern juxtaposition of art and heartbreak— whatever that means. It’s gonna be the fucking album of the year. It’s gonna be great.

The thoughts finally catch up to your overeager brain. You flush in embarrassment. You’re really crafting compliments from his mouth like song lyrics; tweaking words and chords until it sounds right to your ear. As though you have any rights to puppeteer his own locution and feelings. As though his girlfriend isn’t right there, in front of you, pretty and sweet and smiling so fucking wide. Your eyes pull down, avoidant. 

Your heart jumps, staring at the two coffees in your hands. “Oh, gosh, I didn’t think to buy you one.” You look around as though you would find a third iced coffee hidden under your clothes. Coming back empty, you hand one towards her. “Here, take mine. There’s milk and vanilla syrup in it.” Too sweet, Matty always says, wrinkling his nose when you order. 

Delilah takes it, smiling at you. There’s a chic gap between her front teeth. “Thanks. That’s very sweet.” Too sweet rings in your head again. “Matty will be here any second. He’s finishing up in the shower.” She falls back down on the couch, stretching her infinite legs on the coffee table. “Don’t worry,” she winks at you, smirking like you’re friends, like you’re conspirators. “I’ll make myself scarce when you’re writing. It’s not my first rodeo.” 

You nod at her, wordless. What a cruel faith for a writer. 

Something rattles in your brain at the thought, hand tingling to pull out your sketchbook and write it down. You don’t want to do it in front of Delilah. You don’t know why.

She sits on her boyfriend’s couch, in her boyfriend’s shirt, at her boyfriend’s apartment, but she’s drinking your coffee. Your lips curl. There’s an injustice there, and you can’t pinpoint where.

June 30

“Come do shots,” Bree screams at you, tugging on your glittery black dress. Her lipstick stains her teeth and there’s something awfully poetic about it: too gone to care about the mess; artfully unmade; tactfully improper. You scratch the thought on your brain, hope you remember the dents enough to note them down tomorrow. 

You laugh, brushing her hands away. “I have to make a phone call.” 

“It’s my birthday,” she pouts again, this time holding onto your ring finger. “You can’t say no on my birthday.” 

“It’s 1:24AM, bitch. It’s not your birthday anymore.” 

She gasps, letting go of you in faux-offense. “I was born at ten. My twenty-four hours aren't even up yet.” 

You roll your eyes. “I’ll do a shot after,” you promise to placate her. She smiles, leaning into you to smack your cheek. “Yeah, yeah. I’m the best.” 

“You’re okay.” You snort a laugh, shaking your head. Bree smiles, pleased. “God, it’s nice to fucking see you. You’re holed up in fucking London. I almost forgot your face.” 

“It’s only been two weeks,” you say, oddly defensive all of a sudden. The past two weeks have been spent in an idealistic dreamscape, strumming guitars and sketching ideas down and drinking sparkling wine on the balcony. A carved moment out of reality. You’re allowed, you think, to want to protect it. 

“What? And you can't Facetime?” You roll your eyes. She pouts. “I just miss you,” Bree says, poking your stomach. “Don’t forget me for Matty Healy.” 

“I’m not—” You blush. “It’s not like that.” 

“Not like what?” 

You swallow thickly, cornered. Thankfully, someone puts on a Britney Spears song. Bree, scattered and easily distracted,  screams a squeal and twirls away in her boa and slinky dress. You breathe a sigh of relief, entering the bathroom and slamming it shut behind you. 

Locking the door, you reach for your phone. His contact is the first on your most recent list. You cringe a little at that, dialing it. The ring amplifies against your ear. You sit down on the toilet seat cover. 

“Hey. Everything okay?” Matty whispers, voice low and rough, scratching against his throat, clearly pulled from the depths of sleep. 

You scrunch your face. “Shit. Time difference.” 

He laughs. The sound pianoes down your spine. “Yeah, it's 6AM here. You’re enjoying New York, I gather?” 

“Yes. It’s lovely,” you answer in habit, although you haven’t so much seen New York as Bree’s flat since you arrived. You twist your fingers around the hem of your dress, biting your lip. “I’m sorry for waking you.” 

“It’s okay. I wasn’t sleeping.”

“You’re lying.” 

“Shamelessly, too.” You snort, shaking your head. “I don’t mind. Delilah tried to bite my head off, but I think that’s more to do with my ringtone of choice than you.” 

You bite your lip. You shouldn’t. He’s just— He’s just mentionned his fucking girlfriend, for Christ’s sake. “What’s your ringtone?”

You can practically hear the shit-eating smirk. “Lovers.”

Your heart slams in your chest. At the wrinkled hem of your dress, your fingers freeze. There’s moments in life where you can tell the world spins semi-seconds slower. In the depth of your chest, you can feel time resonate off-beat. 

“Not a big The Runaways fan?” You manage out, strangled. 

“Not at 3AM, apparently.” Springs resound on his side of the line. You imagine him falling on his couch, making himself comfortable to talk to you. You’re flushed— it has to be the alcohol. “So, what’s up?” 

You rake your throat, manually blinking. “Right, yeah. I— I had this idea.” You shake your head, trying to gather your dispersed thoughts to some form of coherence. “About this song. A Galatea concept— y’know, from the myth of Pygmalion? The sculptor who fell in love with his statue and asked Aphrodite to bring it to life?”

“I know.” Your chest flutters. “Go on.” 

July 2

Matty smokes a cigarette on the balcony, glass sliding door open wide. He turns to the side to blow out the smoke, but it still smells inside. You sit on the piano bench, hitting at the keys, frowning at your sketchbook laying precariously open on your lap. 

“I think,” you say, changing notes with a huff. “I want the first verse to be messier. Like you’re not quite sure if you’re listening to the point of view of Pygmalion or Galatea as they talk about some grand masterpiece and some grander love. I want to blur them.”

Your fingers hit the same five keys, the beginning of a melody that has been haunting your mind. You can’t quite pin it down like a butterfly yet; its wings flutter away from you, cruelly evasive. 

“And when you finally get that it’s Galatea talking, you understand that by making her, Pygmalion is creating her love for him.” You twist to Matty, arching an eyebrow. “Does that make sense?” 

“He kisses it and thinks his kisses are returned,” Matty recites, making the words sound divine. He has a knack for it, for breathing musicality into common life. “How can she truthfully want him if she wasn’t made to desire anything else?” 

“Forever object,” you nod. “Metamorphosis, Ovid. You’ve done your research.” He cracks a crooked smile, throws his cigarette beyond the balcony. 

He steps through the apartment, sliding the door close behind him. “When a girl calls at 3AM to talk about Galatea, you look into it. Don’t wanna embarrass yourself.”

You like, secretly, that he says Galatea and not Pygmalion. It’s her tale for a sinful, myth-bending moment in time. More than statue, bigger than marble, she gets a story between these four walls.

“D’you have lyrics?” Matty asks, sitting on the piano bench beside you. 

His shoulder brushes yours, heat spreading down your arms. You keep it tense, frozen in place, afraid that a micromove would make him scoop away. You don’t want space to breathe. You don’t want him to leave you alone. 

“Vaguely,” you say, peering down at your sketchbook. Matty plays your melody, repeating the rhythmic beginning of a song you’ve been toying with. 

His hand reaches across the keys with ease. Long fingered, spindly and agile. You blush, looking away. 

You rake your throat. “Marble skin with paper thoughts.” Matty nods encouragingly. Your heart drips on your ribs. 

July 3

Matty lays in the golden sun, eyes blissfully closed, a hand tucked behind the wild flowers of his hair. It’s terribly hot outside, especially in the unshadowed part of the park. His shirt is off, green grass surely tickling his skin. 

You devour the sight of him greedily. The slender frame; the planes of his stomach breathing slowly; the tattoos inking his skin; the strong shoulders. You lick your lips, biting the end of your pencil. You’re burning under your flesh, fingers tingling to reach out and sink your claws into him. To bruise him up, just to make sure he’s real. 

Matty asked you to draw him in that sketchbook of yours — make a real use of it, love — but you’ve barely done anything other than self-indulgently stare. You wonder if he knows even with his eyes closed. If he feels the languid gaze on his chest. If he likes it. 

You shake your head, peering back down to your sketchbook, drawing out some more messy lines to form the mess of his mane. Biting your lip, you quickly scribble around him spinning ideas like constellations of words to his center of gravity. He lets me through like soft butter. Leaves me sticky with syrup. He bleeds on my palms. I think I’m stained with him. They overlap with his arm. You sigh, shading his chest again. 

July 6

“Carve me down to bones. I don’t need muscles to love. What is a heart if it belongs to you?” You repeat again, singing softly, frowning at the pages. “What is my heart if it belongs to you.” You mule on the change of word, but something still rings off. “Make me a heart to belong to you.”

“I like that,” Matty declares, tuning his guitar. Plucking the strings, he sings back as though to try the taste of the words on his tongue, “Make me a heart to belong to you.”

He sits on the floor while you splay lazily on his couch. Your eyes flutter, sleep calling to you. It’s technically morning now, the late hours of the night stretching dementally far. The sky lays dark above the house. Inside, the only source of light is a red lamp drenching the apartment in mood lightning. It does nothing for the exhaustion digging its claws into your already fuzzy brain. 

“It doesn’t sound right,” you shake your head. “Something’s off.” 

“It doesn’t sing to you,” Matty completes, nodding wisely. 

Your eyes flip to him, heart soaring up your throat. It’s nothing— really, there’s no need to blush, some unkillable glee spreading through your veins. You bite your smile down. So what he remembers some small phrase you’ve told him before. It’s Matty. Pretty words hook to his brain and refuse to be shaken off. It’s probably beyond him. 

You yawn, sitting up. “I should really go. Think I’ll drop on the way home if I don’t leave.” 

“You can stay here if you want,” Matty says, staring down at his strumming fingers, throwing away the sentence carelessly like it doesn’t ivy up your spine. 

“What?” 

Matty looks up to you. “We’ve got the guest bedroom all installed. Why don’t you just crash here?” He grins casually. It all comes so easy to him. “It’ll avoid being found passed out in the street.” 

You chew on your lip, hesitating. You want to. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? You want it too much. It should be easier to say yes. Less like being tempted to some dangerous sin, less like guilt spreading through your belly, less like saying yes to more. 

But you’re selfish. “Yeah, sure. Thanks.” A grin cracks your face. You can’t stop the guilt as the damning words graze your teeth. “That’s really nice.” 

A smile blooms on his mouth. It does nothing to squash down the growing feeling of doing something wrong. “It’s nothing.” He discards his guitar, standing up. “D’you want a shirt to sleep in, too?” 

Your heart drums on your ribs. You sit up, swallowing thickly, mustering a mirroring smile. “That’d be neat.” 

“Of course.” Matty leads you to the bedroom. In another world, you would allow yourself to dream. 

July 8

70s rock music booms from the speakers. Pretty, drunk people twirl in the living room, screaming out the lyrics off-key. In the kitchen, you feel a sort of daze; otherworldly and calm, tucked away from reality with Matty. 

He makes you an espresso martini, your favorite drink, after boasting about his masterful ability to. You stick to his side as he describes each of his steps, as though he’s not just assembling a bunch of liquid in a shaker. You giggle at his antics still, the sound burying in his shoulder. There’s the vague thrum of a dance resonating in his bones. 

For a lack of martini glasses, Matty pours his concoction in the plastic cups the host gave you with a sharpie to annotate. It makes you feel like a teenager again, makes you imagine a life in which you meet Matty several years younger, when you’re still blossoming out of your chunky glasses and braces, getting plastered on straight peach schnapps. 

(What if it was him you had met at a café in downtown New York, fresh off a summer tan and your eighteenth birthday. What if he had chatted you up about his favorite songs and you had listened, mesmerized by the depth of his thought, yearning for a similar complexity in yourself. Would the five years have ended up the same?)

“Here,” Matty says with a slack, drunk smile as he offers you up his own blue, plastic cup. MATTY is written on it in scratchy handwriting, the T and Y with an odd space between it. 

You take the cup and tip it between your cherry glossed lips, tacking the rim of the glass as you taste the rich, boozy espresso. It’s a mature café day in New York, but it’s coffee all the same. 

“How is it?” Matty asks and it seems his grin keeps stretching on excitedly. You fear his face might never snap back in its original form, that he’ll be stuck with a vodka grin forever, eyes shining bright just from looking at you. 

You blink at him shyly. You realize, now, how close he is. You hum at him. “Good.” 

“Just good?” 

You roll your eyes. “It’s great. You narcissist.” 

The playful dig doesn’t seem to register to Matty. He smirks, shrugging. “Told you.” 

You lean against the counter, but Matty doesn’t move up. He breathes in your space. Your skin feels alight, warm and tingling. What would it be if he touched it? Would it groove grossly from the fire? 

Without a word, you raise the glass to his lips, tipping it into his mouth. He swallows the espresso martini dutifully. His eyes meet yours over the rim, dark and intense, rich coffee irises digging into yours.

You release. He licks his mouth and you follow the movement, shameless. “It’s fucking tremendous,” Matty declares. You laugh, throwing your head back. 

Matty seems to get closer to you, or perhaps the room spins around you, deluding your sense of space and time. He’s there, with red, plump lips that will taste of coffee and smoke, and he’s close enough to kiss. You stand straighter. Your eyes flick to his mouth as though it was calling your name. 

When you look back, his own gaze is deeply plunged on your smeared lips. You wonder if he imagines the taste of them himself. If he licks his own like he could get the lingering aftertaste. Your heart races. You could do it. You could— He’s practically inviting you to. 

The plastic glass hangs between the two of you. You don’t kiss. 

July 9

One blue and one red Gatorade stand on the coffee table, intermittently sipped between the pained moans and groans. Matty and you lay on the couch, the world rocking nauseatingly under its feet. The hot hair sticks to your sweaty skin, but you’re too lazy to do anything about it. 

“Rough night?” Delilah asks, coming into the flat with perched sunglasses, a knowing smile and three coffees. She looks like sunshine itself, radiant and happy and definitely not morbidly hungover. 

Matty groans vaguely at her as an answer. She laughs, walking up to him, kissing his forehead as she makes a coffee appear magically in front of his eyes. A grin shines on his face as he spots it, gripping it between greedy hands and dipping his head back to thank her. 

You should have never drank as much as you did last night. Delilah brandishes your coffee next, smiling at you. You think you might throw up. 

July 11

Matty tunes his guitar, relying on your monotone piano notes. You stare at your sketchbook, frowning a little, pressing a key at his demand. You’ve put Galatea on the back burner, incapable of getting past the first few verses without cringing. Something about the song is inherently wrong, and you don’t know how to fix it without unrooting it. 

Instead, you throw yourself into new music, fresher and more palatable, easier to chew and digest. A perfectly catchy breakup song lays nearly finished in a file on Matty’s computer. Some angry lyrics you feel from faraway; you remember writing the words carpet-burnt feet from letting you drag me, but you don’t much remember the sentiment behind. 

Again, you’ve cowarded in front of Galatea, a celestial beast you don’t dare to take on after your last failings. You flip through the pages of your book instead, trying to find a lyric that sparks, something to cling onto and knit and knit from. You chew on your lip. 

“Hey,” Matty speaks, and you jump, suddenly remembering his presence. You twist around to look at him. “Are you ever gonna let me take a look at that sketchbook?”

He’s asking if you’re willing to rip your ribs open and show them off to him. If you’d accept to string your guts out like a comically long clown scarf. If you’d consider cracking your skull and letting him take a peak of your naked brain. 

You hum. “I don’t know. Maybe one day.” 

Matty grins. “I’d like to see.” There’s no rush to it. No demand. Just a fact, a wish. A thought he’s telling you. 

You blush, but you can’t tell why anymore. 

July 12

You tiptoe out of the room, navigating the cracking floorboards expertly. Your feet avoid the planks like sidewalk cracks; a childhood terror of killing your family transformed into waking up the slumbering couple. 

You dip into the kitchen. Light blooms out of the open fridge, Matty’s frame bent into the door. He looks up when he hears you, smiling. “Midnight snack?” 

He’s shirtless, fridge light illuminating him like some divine Apollo. Shadows contour his muscles, draping over his chest tattoos. Your mouth feels dry. You nod, a bit too slow. 

“Think we only have Delilah’s fancy cheese,” he sighs, digging into his fridge to find some hastily wrapped brie. 

“That’s fine.” 

Instinctively, you tiptoe to him, shoulders brushing his as he lays the cheese on the marble counter. Matty opens it up carefully, rummaging in a drawer for a knife. 

Standing side by side in a quiet kitchen, you alternately cut yourselves pieces of cheese, biting into them until there’s nothing left but crumbs, comfortably silent. 

July 15

You wipe the sweat off your forehead, opening your fridge to find some leftover beer at the back of it. It’s some pretentious microbrewed thing your friend Julian left behind when he came to visit. You’re sure Matty will like it. 

“Sorry,” you tell him as you join him on the electric blue 70s couch— you don’t even want to think of the life it’s seen. “Slim pickings. I’m not here much.” 

Matty takes the beer graciously, smiling at you. He tucks it in his mouth, opening it with his teeth, spitting the bottle cap out. Your head grows fuzzy. He reaches for your beer too, repeating the same practiced ritual. You can’t stop following his lips, red, pulled from the bottle, condensation sticking to them. You swallow, throat dry— God, you need that fucking beer. 

Matty hands it back to you with a proud grin. You nod at him, too off-quilter to manage words. “We really are always at the flat.” 

“Well, this AirBnB isn’t nearly as chic.” 

He snorts. “Oh, it’s for the decorations, is it? Not the fact that I have at least a damn guitar?” 

You shrug teasingly, settling further into the cushions of the couch. “Eh.” Your skin sticks to the velvet. It seems you can’t stop gluing to things, leaving parts of yourself everywhere you go. “It’s really the minimalist hipster shit that does it for me.” 

“I’m glad.” Matty scratches at the beer label. “You know, if you wanted, you could stay over. You already use the guest bedroom every other day. There’s no need to waste your money on all this.” All this, he says, like it’s some chateau and not a profoundly tacky, barely functional flat.

Your heart beats in your chest. It’s too good— too unreal. Living there, in his books and his vinyls and his band tees. Walking the floorboards, draping the covers, perusing the fridge. Brushing your teeth beside him, using his soap—smelling like him. Crawling in his bed, tucking yourself into his side, sneaking a hand under—

You stop your spinning mind. 

“What about Delilah?” 

Matty shrugs. “She wouldn’t mind. She’s barely home anyway.” He smiles playfully, “‘Think she’d like some female company.” 

No. That’s the correct answer. The smart one. No. No, we can’t. No, it’ll end badly. No, don’t do this to me. You know I want to. You know I want—  

“Sure.” You wash down the nausea with a mouthful of beer, some vertiginous shock from your own answer. Shit shit shit shit shit. 

His eyebrows rise, face lighting up. “Yeah?” 

You laugh, though it’s entirely constructed. You wonder if he can tell. He always seems to see everything about you.

But he looks up at you so hopefully, so giddily, so genuinely. You’re weak to your core. 

“Yes,” you smile. “Let’s do it.” 

July 16

Your whole life in three very large suitcases, and now it’s being moved to Matty Healy’s residence. You packed more hastily than when you left from New York, throwing clothes in without bothering to fold them; you’ll be unpacking in less than twenty minutes anyway, the wardrobe of the guest bedroom entirely emptied just for you. 

Matty picks you up. He stares at you struggling to direct three suitcases to his waiting car, staying perfectly seated with an amused smirk. 

You huff, hair falling in your face. “A little help?” You ask pointedly. 

Matty snorts, opening his car door. “Thought you were all about that feminism,” he says, grabbing two of your suitcases and throwing them with ease in the backseat. Your eyes follow his arms as he does so, genuinely impressed by their feat. 

You blink away before he sees, burned. 

When Matty turns back to you, his eyes have grown dark. You swallow, suddenly feeling caught, glued to the spiderweb. He walks towards you and thrill pumps in your veins with each nearing step. Your heart beats loudly in your chest. You fear he might hear it— especially if he keeps slithering closer.

He has to stop. When will he stop? 

Matty towers over you, barely inches away. Your breath hitches, entirely caught in your throat. Fuck breathing. Fuck everything but him, but the heat radiating off him. You don’t need the sun when he’s standing this close. 

Matty’s hand grazes yours. It swallows the handle of your suitcase, tugging it out of your fingers and throwing it in the backseat. Your eyes widen, cheeks heating at being so stupid. What did you think was gonna happen? 

Matty grins at you, ruffling your hair. “I’m glad you’re coming,” he says. 

You nod, swallowing hard. “Yeah. Yeah, me too. Thanks again.” 

He waves you away, opening your door. “‘S no problem. It helps me if anything.”

You sit down. His car smells like weed and a cheap car scent dangling from the rearview mirror, and him, faintly. You hate that you recognize the smell. 

Matty enters the opposite side, flicking the pine car scent, then turning the keys. He drives down the road maniacally fast. You’re not even five minutes in and already you’re thinking God, this is an awful idea. 

Wind brushes your hair. The car smells like him. He’s singing beside you, twisting the speaker higher. It’s an awful idea, and yet you’re still buzzing, hiding a gleeful smile behind the palm of your hand. 

July 17

“What are you doing?” Matty asks, leaning above your shoulder to watch your hands. 

“I’m stress-baking.” 

He laughs, sidling to rest his hip on the counter, staring at your hands as you whip your batter with perhaps too much anger. “What are you stressed about?” 

You huff, doubling in harshness of whip. “This stupid song that I can’t fucking get right that is now haunting my dreams. You know, I had a nightmare last night that I was performing it for the Grammys. There was every single one of my heroes in the room — and my childhood bullies, for some reason — and I had this whole choreography and I took the mic and I opened my mouth and— nothing. Not a single lyric out of my mouth. That’s right. I am waking up in cold sweat terrified of this fucking awful, stupid fucking song.”

“Woah,” Matty says, resting a hand on your arm. You finally stop, throwing the whip in with a sigh. He forces you to look at him, smiling reassuringly. “Hey. It’s okay. You know it can take months to finish a song. Years, even. You have your whole fucking life to write about muses.” 

Your heart skips a beat. It’s the first time either of you really acknowledges the main theme of the song. You’re almost relieved that he’s ripped the illusions, taken off your careful mask. Made it explicitly clear he saw you. 

“Maybe you‘re just not wise enough to say what you want to say yet. Maybe you need more experiences— more time to reflect. It’s been six months, darling. Give yourself time to process that shit.” 

You take a deep breath, staring at your runny batter pitifully. “You’re right.” 

Matty grins. “‘Course I am.” He dips his finger in the batter, licking it clean. 

You gasp, slapping his shoulder as he laughs mischievously; a boy licking the cream off his lips. You try not to focus too hard on the shape of them around a finger, sucking, when you mutter, “Pig. Leave my batter alone. It’ll already be a pisspoor cake.” 

“I’m sure it’ll be great.” 

This time, when he dips his finger, he flicks the batter on your nose. You wrinkle, shaking your face away as he chuckles happily. “Gross,” you lament, wiping your nose clean, but joy blooms under your chest anyway. 

You wish you could bottle his laugh up, make the sweetest song out of it. 

July 19

“Don’t buy that off-brand shit,” Matty says, taking the juice out of your hand and back on the shelf. He walks a few steps away, reaching up for the brand name and putting it in your already full cart. 

Your mouth hangs playfully open at this interaction, thoroughly amused. “You’re a snob,” you say, more like a happy realization than an accusation. 

Matty scoffs. “Nah. It’s just better.” 

“It tastes the same.” He shakes his head again, walking off a new alley as you quicken your walk to catch up with him. “You really are a rich kid.” Matty throws you an unimpressed look. “Really,” you insist again. “When I was young, we were lucky if we even had juice in the house.” 

Matty takes a box of spaghetti, which you swap behind him for penne. “Uh-huh. And you had to walk two miles to school every day.” 

“Back and forth! Without shoes!”

“I bet.” You see that he tries to bite back a smile, a failed affair when he hears your giddy giggle. His chin jerks in a faraway direction. “Go get the mint chocolate chip ice cream.”

You stare at him. “Now, you know I won’t do that.” 

He sighs. “Get an ice cream.” 

Grinning happily, you twist on your heels and head off to the frozen section. You grab a tub of neapolitan ice cream, but then your eyes linger on green horror. Sighing, you take a pint of it too. 

July 20

You stare at Matty expectantly. The guitar still rings in the room from your last note. Space holds its breath, waiting beside you. “What do you think?” 

Matty has a slight dent between his eyebrows. He takes more time to reflect, more time than he’s ever taken. Worry digs in your guts. He hates it. He hates it. Fuck, what is he gonna say to Delilah? “It’s good. It’s just—” Matty cocks his head, frowning further. “It’s a love song.” 

Your cheeks heat at his comment. You look down in your sketchbook, reading over your lyrics. “I mean— I don’t know, I guess.” 

Matty grows even more confused. “But that’s not what you wanted to say. It’s like— There’s not even a criticism of anything anymore. Galatea and Pygmalion just love each other.” 

Your heart pinches in your heart. You feel yourself grow defensive. “Is that so wrong? The myth is originally a love story. Maybe that’s all there is to say.” 

“That's not all there is to say. You’ve given me more in versions you’ve thrown away without a second glance than this. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s brilliant lyricism, but it’s empty.” The words lash at your cheeks. You feel them redden. 

Truthful and tactless, that’s what you had decided. Maybe you’d like a bit of velvet after all.  

“It’s an almost completed song, though. More than I’ve managed to say when I complicate it with all that muses shit.” 

Matty stares at you. “You struggle because you care. Because you’re mindful of your words. Because it’s raw, and it reminds you of you. ‘My man of flesh, my heart of stone.’ That doesn’t fucking say shit to you.”

You turn your face away, digging your glare into his empty wall. You don’t want to look at him. You don’t want to think of him. Your heart runs up your throat, ready to throw it up on the strings of your guitar. Your lips tremble.

Matty sighs. “I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t know what things say and don’t say to me.” 

“I know.” He walks to your corner of the couch, vaguely hitting your shoe. “Hey, I’m sorry.” 

Weakly, you meet eyes with him. He smiles down at you, sure and reassuring. You melt on your bones. “It’s fine.” You’re a weak little girl; you’ve always been. 

“But I think this song could be more. The way you talked about it— it means something to you. Don’t take the easy way out. You can write dozen fucking songs about love. Only one about Galatea.” Here he goes again, calling it Galatea, centering her. It leaves you raw this time. 

“You’re right,” you whisper. You sigh, shaking your head, righting yourself. “Yes, of course you’re right. It’s— It was silly.” 

Matty grins, satisfied. He falls on the couch beside you, stealing your guitar. “Well, let’s write a proper love song in its place, then.” 

July 21 

The café is atrociously hipster and pretentious. You’d have gouged your eyes out at the price of a single latte if Matty didn’t insist on paying for it. You pretended to struggle, rummaging your bag for your wallet, but you let the battle last long enough for him to swipe his card. 

Taking your mismatched mug, you make your way to the sugar packets, grabbing three of them. When you sit down at the table, Matty stares at you, typical playful disgust on his face. 

You grin at him mischievously, shaking then pouring the three of them in your coffee. Matty shakes his head, tsking, “Too sweet.”

July 23

Bree wipes the lipstick off her teeth, looking in the mirror. She turns her head right, left, scrutinizing her makeup. Her hair flies wildly around her shoulders. She’s got a Moscow mule sitting on the counter. 

The door knocks loudly. “Hurry up! People need to go to the bathroom!”

“Two seconds,” Bree screams back. She meets your stare in the mirror and rolls her eyes. A small smile teases your lips. 

You nurse your espresso martini quietly. You don’t linger on the taste of coffee. 

“How’s the album going?” Bree asks, scrunching her hands through her curls to achieve her perfect, flawlessly messy hair. 

“Good, good,” you nod. She seems to wait for more, but you don’t offer it. It’s halfway written, still awfully raw. Recorded, then scratched, then regurgitated. It feels like an open wound to you. 

There’s as much love songs as breakup songs, now. You don’t dwell on that fact. I wanna watch how the world breaks open for you, starts one of them. Brown eyes follow me, sings another. If my ribs rip, will you like what you see, hauntingly repeats a third one. You hope Matty dwells on them even less than you do.

“Matty’s cool?”

“Yes.”

“I should meet him sometime.” You hum non-committedly. “What is he like?” 

“I don’t know,” you laugh lightly, looking at her confused. She’s never asked for descriptions of your friends. “He’s— He’s very passionate. And open. He listens a lot, which is surprising because of how much he talks, too. But, still, he listens, and he looks at you, and he makes you feel like you’re the first person who’s ever uttered words.”

Bree stays quiet. You think, Listen to me helplessly chatter, make me the first speaker to ever speak. Another lyric you scratch into your brain and hope it sticks until you have it written down, yet pray it leaves it right after, too. 

“Cool.”

You swallow thickly. Your cheeks heat. “Yeah.”

Bree grabs her drink, reaching out aimlessly towards your hand. “Let’s go dance!”

July 25

Jazz music plays in the house. The lights are pulled low. There’s a delicious smell coming from the kitchen. Your stomach drops to your feet; you kick it when you walk further in, leaving your suitcase by the door. 

Matty cooks. Sizzling sounds ring under the moody music. Delilah drips on his side, her chin resting on his shoulder. They laugh, whisper secrets you can’t make out. 

She has smudged red lipstick. She smiles. 

“Hey,” you say. “Smells good in here.”

“Oh,” Delilah calls happily when she spots you, tearing away from Matty. “We’re making dinner. Join us!”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” you laugh, but it’s strained out of your throat. Your cheeks are sore from smiling this much. 

“Please,” Delilah insists. She walks towards you and grabs you by the hand, tugging you to the working counter. Trapping you. Your cheeks stab at you now. 

Matty nods as a greeting. You nod back. 

“Matty, tell her we’ve got enough food for three.”

He smiles at you conspiratorially, as though you were grand accomplices, making a silent joke about Delilah. “We’ve got enough food for three.”

“The rumors are true,” you try to jest, but it sounds off. 

“Come on,” Matty pokes at your side with his finger. “Eat with us. Tell us about your trip. We’ve missed you.” 

He says we, but you morph the letters around until it sounds like I to your ears. 

“Okay,” you say finally. “Because it smells so good.” 

Delilah claps near you, but it’s a faraway sound when Matty looks at you like that, digging into your soul and coming out satisfied. 

July 26

You sit on his balcony, smoking. The sun is silky, sweet and smooth as it wakes up. The birds sing, the cars drive by, the people talk; you think of recording it, hiding it in a song called Morning. 

“‘Morning,” Matty says, yawning. You snort to yourself. 

“Hello,” you say. 

When you turn to look at you, you fall on Matty’s shirtless frame, gray sweatpants hung low on his hips. You swallow, putting the cig to your lips to stop yourself from parting them pathetically. It doesn’t stop you from gawking, unfortunately. 

Matty spots it and smirks. He digs into the fridge, finds his precious brand name juice and drinks it from the carton. 

“Delilah left this morning?” 

“If you can call it that,” Matty groans. “Fucking three AM.” 

“No tearful goodbyes that early, I imagine.” 

Matty laughs. “It’s hard to cry when you’re half asleep.” 

You finish your cigarette, squashing it on the floor of the balcony. Ashes linger beside your thigh. “I hope she has a good shoot. She told me the concept; it seems pretty cool.”

“It does,” Matty nods, though he doesn’t seem that interested. He gets out his bread, rummaging in the cupboards for his jam. 

“Do you ever think—” You bite your tongue. 

Matty halts his movements, sticking out of the cupboard door to look at you. He smirks, mischievous. “What?”

“Just—” You shake your head, laughing, preparing the groundwork for how silly it will be. Matty walks closer to you, fatally curious. “I wonder how Delilah feels about being a muse. Because that’s what models are, right? A canvas. Something to add onto.” You cock your head. “D’you think she’ll like Galatea?” 

Matty shrugs. “I don’t think she’s thought much about it.”

“Maybe not all muses suffer. It’s a compliment, right? For some people?”

“I think so,” Matty nods. “But it’s different for you, isn’t it? Her photograph isn’t in love with her. He’s not her lover— he hasn’t promised to accept her as she comes. It’s fine if he wants to finetune her. If he wants to make her up. They don’t owe each other anything.”

You mull over that answer. “So it’s love, you think, that rots musedom?” 

Matty rustles a hand through his hair. It makes his arm flexed, his bicep tattoo flashing at you. “I don’t know. I think it’s complex. I think it’s why you’re writing about it.” 

You hum in vague agreement. Matty turns back to his bread and jam, but stops, staring at you. “She’ll love Galatea. Everyone will. You’re gonna write the fucking song of the year.” 

You grin. Something familiar rings in your ear. “Make me a toast, too?”

“Sure.”

July 28

You sit on the couch beside Matty. He’s making you watch some convoluted New Wave movie. You frown at the TV, not understanding the French they fall into randomly, not understanding the plot at all. 

Matty is enthralled beside you. You watch him instead. He’s better art; more entertaining, more profound, more beautiful. You smile when he does. You smile because he does. 

He flicks his eyes towards you. You look back at the TV, straightening your shoulders, wrinkling your eyes to look deeply concentrated. Matty chuckles beside you. It hides in your hair, tickling up your neck to bury in your ear. Your grin widens. 

You lean into him, joking, “This is my favorite part.” You gesture vaguely at the screen. 

Suddenly distracted by the movement near him, Matty grabs your hand from thin air. You still. 

He climbs up to your knuckles. Presses against the bones. Plays with your rings. Twists them on your fingers. Your breathing is caught in your chest. You don’t dare move. Your skin is electrified. 

He rests your hand on his thigh. His thumb rubs at your palm. His finger circles the metal, bumping on the stones. You repeat the sentences over and over, trying to wrap your mind around it. He rests your hand on his thigh. His thumb rubs at your palm. His finger circles the metal.

Tentatively, you let your head drop on his shoulder. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even tense. You smile, settling into his body, leaving your hand slack for him to play with it. 

July 29

The toothpaste is Matty’s. There’s a part of you that is aware, somehow, that when you’re fresh off a teeth brushing, you taste like him.

You lean your hip against the bathroom sink. Matty stares into the mirror, setting a needlessly furious tempo, wrecking his gum. You laugh as white foam drips from the corner of his mouth. He makes a little embarrassed chuckle, catching it with a finger and rinsing it off. 

You bend over the sink and spit out the toothpaste. When you straighten up, Matty spits right after you. You wash it down the faucet. 

“We should bring in violins for the Circe Circus bridge,” Matty says as you sip on water, swooshing it around and spitting again. “Make more of an impact.”

“Wouldn’t it be a little convoluted? We already have a lot of noise.”

Matty shakes his head. “No, no. It’s supposed to be unnecessarily grand, isn’t it? It’s a bit of a ridiculous caricature of love.” It’s how he interprets it, at least. You’re not quite sure what you were trying to say, just knew the words sounded right and pretty on the page. “We can try it out tomorrow.”

“Sure,” you shrug. You arch an eyebrow. “After the Basquiat exhibit at the Barbican?” 

“It’s a plan,” Matty promises. You ignore the fact that he says plan and not another four lettered word that slithers around your brain. His eyes meet yours. He smiles. “Okay,” he finally breathes. “Sleep well.”

You lick your teeth. “See you tomorrow.”

July 30

Drunk off red wine and Matty’s laugh, you stumble through the hallway. His hand warms yours. You’re a collection of calluses rubbing on skin; it should hurt, but it’s silky sweet. 

Your steps are loose. You trail your free fingers on the wall, guiding you, grounding you. You stop in front of the doors.

The way forks into the master and guest bedrooms. You twist to face Matty, so does he. You grin. Your hand warms, lit up from the mere presence of his between your greedy fingers. They feel alive at your wrist. Aware of him. You wait.

“Goodnight,” he finally breathes. His eyes stare into yours.

“Yeah, goodnight.” 

He doesn’t move, neither do you. Your heart speeds terribly fast. Your lips stretch up. 

Matty looks down at them. Openly. Shamelessly. He doesn’t flicker an evermoving glance, he lingers. You feel your body light up, feel warmth descend to the tip of your toes. A surge of nerves and thrill shoots down your spine, finding home in your knitted guts.

Time hangs in the air. You hitch your breath. His hand burns in yours. 

He tugs you closer to him. A small, ghost move, and you gasp. You feel him breathe against your skin; he’s real. Matty’s eyes fly to yours. They lock meaningfully as his head cocks in defiance. It’s a challenge. It’s an invitation. 

You’re a paper girl. You fold. 

You rise onto your tiptoes, cup his cheek, and kiss him. A soft, delicate thing. A press of lips. A cursive love. Thrill loosens your head from your neck, unscrewing it. He tastes like cigarettes and red wine, and there’s no trace of bitter coffee. You’re glad. 

You pull away almost immediately. Your heart races, trying to catch up with this new world you bathe in. You breathe in his mouth, eyes closed, mind spinning deliriously. You kissed Matty Healy. You kissed Matty Healy. 

Matty makes a low sound from the back of his throat, then hooks his arm around your waist and draws you in, catching your lips with a new feverish kiss. 

He’s not soft or sweet, instead lets himself be puppeteered by the passion, by the raw fucking need. There’s a thing between you pulsing alive for weeks, and you feel it burst at the seams, imploding through your flimsy flesh. It’s fucking inevitable— It’s prophetic. 

His tongue swipes at your lips, coaxing inside your mouth. You moan, gripping his cheek until you could shatter it. Constellations of stars dance behind your eyelids; he’s the center of all of them, a flash of teeth and brown eyes as the shining sun. 

You drip in his arms, and he catches you. Takes all the wax and kisses it harder, tilting his head to better meet you. It’s a head twisting tempo. He’s everywhere around you, under you, seeping in. He exists too vividly. You feel faint at the thought, at the rush of feelings. 

His own hand digs in the curve of your back. He’s tangible, he’s alive and breathing, he’s against you. He’s real. He’s sinfully fucking real. (You wonder, secretly, if he’s finally made real because you kiss him.)

Matty is the one to break away this time. His forehead falls on yours. He pants harshly, eyes closed, as though he needs a silent moment of contemplation. He looks religious for a split moment— bartering with God. 

You don’t take the solemn pause. Don’t want to listen to any chastising, guilting above. You watch him, biting your lip at his flushed skin, at his swollen lips, at his spider lashes on his cheekbones. You kissed him. You can’t believe it. 

His eyes open all at once. You look into them and try to find the leftover scar of some permanent change. “Goodnight,” Matty repeats, this time choked. You laugh. Smacks a kiss on his lips just because you can. 

Matty parts from you difficultly. He straightens, rakes his throat. He lets you out of the trap of his arms with much inner debating, waiting until he’s feet away before dropping your hand. You clench it to feel the phantom shape of his.

“Dream of me,” you say boldly.

“It’s all I do,” Matty whispers back, and then he’s into his room. 

You let your own bedroom door close behind you. You make a stupid, pathetic little happy dance, falling on your bed afterwards. A content sigh slips past your lips.

Rolling to take your sketchbook from your bedside table, you click a pen open. You hit your lips — still burning with the feel of his, with the heat of his tongue — in concentration. 

You try to think of pretty, poetic words, but all you come up with is he loves me, he loves me, he loves me.

July 31

You walk out of your room weightlessly. Everything seems sweeter; the sun doesn’t burn, the birds don’t scream, the flowers don’t wilter. The world exists in technicolors. Shades of black and white become deep maroon, pretty pink. You step from the hallway into the kitchen with light feet, humming to yourself. 

Matty sits at the counter bar with a bowl of cereal and the papers. His eyes flick to yours as he hears you. He smiles. “There’s coffee in the pot.”

“You’re the best,” you declare, practically running to the pot and serving yourself a steaming cup of coffee. You search his cupboard for the sugar, pouring yourself a healthy dose. Finally, you take a sip and make a happy, satisfied moan. 

You approach Matty. You peer over his shoulder to read the latest music article. Your side leans into him; he doesn’t move. It’s all so natural, so domestic. Your heart sings. 

Taking a new sip from your mug, you then lean your head on Matty’s shoulder. His own rests against yours. Your lips hang from your cheek like a clothesline, your teeth scattered white shirts pinned in place. You want to kiss him again, want him to wipe it off of you with his tongue.

“I wanna write a happy song today,” you declare. 

Matty grins against your scalp. He whispers, because it’s as loud as he needs to be for you to hear, “Okay.”

August 1

Matty rolls the blunt, licking the waxy paper and wrapping it shut. You follow his tongue as it sticks out, practically blushing. He takes a blue lighter to flame the tip of it. It burns red. He inhales one hit, then blows it. Smiling at you, he hands the blunt like a precious gift. You graze his fingers purposefully when you grab it. 

It’s stronger than you usually smoke back in New York, but you’ve gotten used to the grassy taste. You don’t cough anymore, don’t even feel it scratch down your throat. The smoke pours out of your lips.

It takes one more hit for your fingers to start tingling. Your body relaxes; your mind enters some sort of daze. You sigh contently, giggling just from the inherent joy swirling in your head. Matty laughs at you, poking your cheek. “You’re already flying, lightweight.” 

“I don’t know why you expect differently.” 

Matty hums. “One day I’ll get you to three.” Your heart rushes. It spreads through your body, like the muscle was suddenly finely tuned with every limb, singing a call-and-response song.

You lay on your back, draping yourself lazily on the scratchy carpet. Your head rests on Matty’s thigh. You look up at him, trying to make sense of him from his dark, sprouting halo, falling downwards as he watches you. You grin, loose and languid, dripping down your cheeks. “Promise?” You say, teasing. 

Your head rolls on his thigh. Matty takes another hit, shaking a laugh off his teeth. “I promise, love.” You don’t even have to morph the letters of that.

August 2

You walk through the up-and-coming art exhibit Matty dragged you to. Your feet linger on small, dreamlike images dotting the white walls. They nag at you with their innate sense of time. A flash of life, captured on a canvas, made permanent against their will. 

What do they mean? It’s always the burning question now. What are you saying? Please, what are you saying? You wonder when you’ll stop feeling like a little girl. When you’ll stop staring at paintings and wish you understood them better, clearer. When you’ll get art intrinsically, when you’ll be deeper than the blank, smooth surface of watercolor papers. 

You lost Matty in the white rooms, breathing through the space at a different pace. He analyzes paintings meticulously. His feet stop with purpose, taking roots in the wooden planks, deliberately stilling. He stares at them and you wish you could know what he’s thinking about for such long moments. Wish you could know how they move him, how they strum his heartstrings. Maybe you could learn the chords on the guitar. 

You stop in front of a papier-mache sculpture. It’s bent in different shapes, an awkward and senseless movement, painted over in white. You can tell the texture through the coat, can see its unruly, unsmoothened topography. Your head cocks.  

It’s not really anything. Or, at least, if it is, you will never figure out what the artist meant it to be. But to you, it’s got a body through its shape. A leg that extends, one that curves in itself. A stomach emptied. An arm that rolls around, protective. One that sticks out. A neck, dainty and vulnerable, bared freely. Headless.

You wonder if anyone posed for this. You wonder how they felt, sucking in their stomach, pinpricks of pain stabbing at their limbs. If they tried on odd positions. If they were naked. If they kissed the artist afterwards; if they thought, it’s enough. If they saw the wet paper build up on the grotesque armature and made themselves repeat, I am made of bones. I am made of bones. 

Your lips tremble. You clench your fists. Your nails dig into your palms, crescent moons of promises. You’d tear through the skin if it meant leaving bloody, leaving human. 

That is where Matty finds you, still staring at the sculpture, robbed of words. He lingers beside you, impossibly close. It’s all he does these days, air with plausible deniability. Real and unreal, present and far, far away. He knocks his shoulder against yours. 

You don’t look at him. “What do you see?” You breathe. 

Matty takes a moment of silence. He thinks, surely. Analyzes lines, composition, materials. Takes it apart in his head to find the solution. You want to see the process, want to catch the bricks he rips as he throws them over his shoulder. 

Matty hums. “It kinda looks—” His head cocks, as though to make sure. “Human.” 

Your heart drops to your stomach. You swallow thickly. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so, too.” And you wonder how long he’d stare at it if you didn’t hook your arm around his, tugging him away. If he’d look at it enough to scream, where are my bones, where are my bones.

August 3

You tiptoe to his door. It’s always firmly closed when Delilah is over, but slightly ajar when you’re two in the flat. It’s felt like a nagging invitation for weeks. You knock on it, a soft, nonexistent noise, like leaving yourself the chance to backtrack. To not mean it. 

“Yes?” Matty calls from inside, squished and drowsy. 

You peek your head through the door. His room has gotten messier over the Delilah-less days. Clothes hang on the ground, half-finished mugs make castles on his desk, CDs tower precariously. He lays in his bed, on the right side, his face crushed in his pillow. A cover drapes over him, but naked shoulders peek through. The light is too low to make sense of them, but you can faintly tell there’s familiar inked lines drawn onto the skin. 

“Sorry,” you whisper. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” 

“I wasn’t sleeping.” He mutters. Relief spreads through you. You don’t know if he’s lying or not, but both possibilities please you. You didn’t actually wake him; he cares enough to tell you otherwise. 

“Okay, good.” You bite your lip. “I— Do you mind if I stay here tonight? I can’t get any sleep in my room.” Your heart drums on your ribs. It’s all so fucking existent, suddenly. Meaningful. 

Matty peeks one eye open. He gives you a glance, then raises his arm, opening the covers for you. You don’t even hesitate, running to the entryway like a promised oasis. You slip inside— like a fantasy, like a dream— and settle into the cocoon. It’s warm, and the sheets smell of him. You roll, getting closer. 

You don’t dare touch him, but you get as near as you can. It’s useless anyway; Matty throws an arm over you and tugs you into his side. You might choke from the heat, and the weight, and the vertiginous knowledge that Matty is ivying around you, but you finally sleep nonetheless.

August 4

You hang up on Bree after drawn out goodbyes. She’s tried to get you to play her some of the album, but you remain purposefully elusive. You wiggle out of her grasp, promising to send her some demos soon. Her pursed lips were dissatisfied, but you can trust your distracted friend to forget it before the night nears its head. 

You walk to the living room. Matty’s shirt falls on your shoulder, something you already plan to shove in your suitcase when it is time to part ways. The thought leaves you frayed, uncomfortable, and you don’t like to think about it more than this. 

Matty is scratching his guitar on the couch when you come in. He sings low, mournful words you can’t make out. You drop beside him, bouncing on the pillows. He smiles at you, stops playing. 

“How was Bree?” 

“Still alive.” 

“Good for her.” 

Your chin jerks to his fingers. “What were you playing?” 

Matty hums noncommittally. “Just this song I’m writing.” 

You sit primly on the couch. You nod at him. “Let’s hear it.” Again, he hesitates. Your mouth hangs open. “Come on! I’ve had to lay my soul bare for you plenty of times this summer. Your turn.” 

Matty sighs, readying his fingers for a chord. “It’s unfinished,” he warns. You roll your eyes at his delays, gesturing for him to go on.

He strums once, twice. It’s truly unfinished— he mutters randomly strung syllables instead of saying lyrics for half of it, just the idea of what the shape of those words could be. But there are words. Yearnful, confused, loving. He uses that dry, direct sense of style, that gloveless prose. Still, you’re once again left wondering what he’s trying to say. What thoughts haunt his mind. 

How you want to know him, brick by brick. 

“It’s beautiful,” you whisper once he rings his last note. He grins to himself, satisfied. “Sing it to me sometime when it’s done.” 

Matty flashes his teeth to you. “It’s a date.”

August 5

You flip through your sketchbook absentmindedly. It feels like you’ve already seen everything, like every word has already been used and discarded. How many times do you repeat yourself, going on and on about the mouths of lovers. You make a small noise of frustration. 

Matty eyes your book. You can tell he’s curious, can see him peer over your shoulder and scan the messy words and messier drawings before you slam it close. You look at him, at his silent plea. You sigh. 

You hand the book out to him. “There,” you say. “I can’t keep reading it. I know it too well.” 

Matty’s eyes widen. “Really?” 

“Find me some pretty words.” 

He grabs it from you without another hesitation. His eyes are hungry, skimming through the pages, flipping the spirals. You watch him as he uncovers you, one paper thin layer at a time. Your heart splashes against your ribs. Blood drips on the bones. You feel awfully like a heart attack. 

“There,” Matty says. He hands you back the book, grinning conspiratorially. “This sings to me.” But you can’t shake off the idea that it’s you that sings to him.

August 6

“Yes, Spain was lovely,” Delilah says, sipping on some Spanish white wine. She’s tanned and freckled, sunshine itself peering through the dark of the evening. She changed the room when she left, and she changes it back now, bursting through the flat again. Beside her, an arm thrown over the back of her chair, Matty drinks his usual glass of malbec. “Barcelona most of all. God, I just love the culture there. It’s so vibrant.” 

A lazy, callused finger twirls in Delilah’s hair. She leans into it subconsciously. Your teeth grind on each other. You clench your fist around your fork, biting on the chicken. “Did the shoot go well?” You manage out, but it’s bitten and bitter. 

Delilah laughs, that bright, musical sound that rings offkey to your ears. She takes a bite of her salad and her lipstick doesn’t smudge. “Fantastic. It was such an amazing concept!” She goes on some more about the visionary genius of the photograph, but it is null to you. 

Your eyes zero in on that fatal arm around Delilah, sure and protective, ownership. Your brain beats in your skull, the tune of a song humming along your cranium. You glance at Matty next. He doesn’t look back. 

You grip the white wine and take a long, heavy mouthful. It’s fruity and light. For the first time in your life, you think, too sweet. 

August 8

The house is quiet. No music hummed from the speakers. No guitars strummed. No dishes washed. No steps walked. No cigarettes smoked. The world is drenched in silence. 

It’s an uncanny feeling, sitting in Matty’s flat alone. As if it’s not supposed to exist without him. As if it should blink out of existence, evaporate out of thin air. As if you should sit in a blank room, staring at white walls, realizing you had made it all up in your head. 

Matty and Delilah are off visiting his parents up North. You play with your fingers, the silence resonating in your chest. It feels suffocating to be alone. 

You grab your phone, typing, how’s manchester? He doesn’t answer it until the next day. 

August 11

Matty’s eyes are bright red. You laugh at them, holding his cheeks between your soiled hands. You know the shape of his jaw, know where it digs and cuts into your palms, and there’s cheesy sonnets running in your mind about it. 

“I’m hungry,” you tell him, leaning into him like it’s a secret, a confession. “Make me that chocolate mugcake again?” Your flutter your eyelashes at him, attempting some innocent, pleading pout. 

Matty hums. He takes your hand by the wrist, puppeteering it to his lips. He kisses the tips of your fingers, then your palm. “What do I get?” He asks, finally looking at you. You feel dizzy. 

Your lips open, but you can’t think of a single word anymore. It doesn’t feel as cruel; it’s merciful, blissful. To finally not think like your life is being threatened, like you have five seconds to come up with a saving solution. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.  

Matty arches an eyebrow at you. He crowds your face, less than inches away, so close you feel like you breathe with him. “Nothing?”

“Mmmh,” you whisper back. Your eyes descend to his lips. “What do you want?” 

With a smirk, Matty catches your lips. He swipes his tongue in, licking into your mouth. You moan against him. Your hand moves to his hair and you grip it, holding him there, kissing him harder, faster, deeper. 

Buzzing spreads through you. You’re not hungry anymore. 

August 12

The raucous sound of low, heavy laughs resonates through the open floor. It shakes up the foundations of the flat from their grandeur, their depth. You take a glance at the three overexcited men, drinking beers and taking the piss out of each other, and they feel like boys for a split second in time. You wonder, privately, how you would have fit into their puzzle if you had met them earlier. 

Matty washes the dishes in the kitchen sink. You dry the plates, throwing secretive glances to the rest of the boys. You don’t know how it would have been years ago, but it’s near perfection now. You stare at the scene outside of your body and you can’t see the seams, can’t find where the stitches of you would be. How you want to stick around, become permanent. 

“They loved you,” Matty says conspiratorially, leaning into you. He hands you a wet plate, a bit of soap still lathered on it. 

You smile at him, gleeful and unashamed of it. Your chest brightens, shining through the skin. “I love them,” you answer.

Ross comes in with the leftover glasses, dropping them in the soapy sink. He ruffles Matty’s hair, gives you a grin. “We need to do this again soon. I haven’t seen you in forever, mate.” He moves to the fridge. 

“Bit busy,” Matty says, bashful. 

He sticks out of the fridge, two beer bottles in hand. “Making the album of the year and all, I heard,” Ross says. Again, he gives you a smile, like you’re old friends, like you’re conspirators. Your lips stretch up. “Still, don’t hide away together. I missed you.”

“‘Course. We’re almost there, anyway.” Your grin freezes on your cheeks. You hate the idea of the after, of the end. You put away the plates in the cabinet.

August 14

The wind blows your hair back. You lean your elbow onto the open window, resting your head as you watch the road blur past you. Matty drives with sunglasses on, and it makes you want to stare at his side profile and etch it into your brain. 

You’ve bickered over the radio station, eventually settling over some blues, bobbing your head quietly to the blasted music. It’s the middle of the day, and yet it seems like the hours announce themselves to stretch on forever. You can taste eternity on your tongue. 

You’re driving to the festival you’re performing at and there should be a typical wreck of nerves in your stomach, tying and knotting and squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until you want to cough your guts out. It’s usually what the idea of public singing does to you, sending you into a mess of anxiety until you’re on that stage, watching your people, and finally feeling right. 

Yet, in this car with Matty, serenaded by vaguely familiar tunes, you find yourself at peace. 

August 15

Matty engulfs you in a hug. He squeezes, as if trying to make sure you feel every particle of him, make sure you know he’s solid. The mic sits between your bodies, awkward and painful amidst the embrace. “Knock them dead,” Matty whispers in your neck. 

You laugh, brushing off your nerves. “Thanks,” you say. “I’ll try.”

“You will.” He releases you. Stares into one eye, then the other. Tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “I’ll watch as long as I can before I have to get ready for my set.”

“Thanks.” You smile, looking down to hide your blush. “Good luck to you, too. Or break a leg. I don’t know what you believe.” 

“Eh, I don’t need either.” He grins, so fucking smug and cheeky, and you roll your eyes at him. A chuckle slips out of his lips. He mediates, “Thank you. I’ll cash in on that good luck when I need it.” He hugs you one last time, kisses your cheek, and then sends you off on stage. 

You’re off kilter when you approach the crowd, but the sight of it, of them, sunburnt and screaming and loving, makes all your worries melt away like butter. You grin, screaming into the mic, “Hello, everyone!”

August 16 

The world is distorted; colors brighter, sounds clearer, time slower. You lay on the grass and feel each strand tickling at your skin. You giggle, turning to stare at Matty. Your hands hang between the two of you, met in the middle. 

The shrooms glued a slack, happy smile on his face. He looks around the festival tent, the shadows of a tree outside drawing inky chimeras over the plastic tarp. You wonder what he sees. You wonder if it’s prettier than your own vision, the way you bend and rearrange lines until the traces of a human shape drapes over you. 

His head falls to the side, watching you in return. You squeeze his hand; he squeezes back. “I’m happy,” you tell him. “I’m really, really happy.”

“Me, too.” 

A strand of hair falls on his forehead like a lightning bolt. You tighten your grip again. “I want to kiss you,” you whisper. 

Matty inhales slowly. His eyes dig into yours, though he doesn’t move, stilled in time like a statue. You take a mental photograph. Click, you think, and now he’s forever. 

“Then do it,” he answers back, just as secretive, practically tempting you. 

You roll to your side, scooping yourself up until your face nears his. You brush your lips against him, just a graze, and still bliss coils around your brittle bones. It’s not really a kiss, but it’s enough nonetheless. 

But Matty kisses you, crashing his lips against yours and snapping this moment into the hot, burning tangible. His hand blisters your cheek as he takes it, angling you, meeting you better. Euphoria drums in your heart. Boom. Boom. Boom. 

You grip his free hand, placing it over your beating muscle, making him feel the racing tempo he brings out of you. This is you, you want to tell him. This is all for you.

Matty misunderstands your message, instead grazing his hand down your chest, gripping your breast. You moan into his open mouth, shocked by the sudden pleasure. His thumb rubs your nipple expertly. He smirks against you. 

“Matty,” you say, and it’s a plea and a warning. He pushes you to your back. “Fuck,” and it is just a wordless beg.

His hands are everywhere, greedy and eager to discover. He brushes every inch of your skin, climbing under your shirt, raising it over your head. His mouth finds your neck and leaves wet kisses in the crook of it, mapping his way down. You whine in his hair. Your breathing speeds up, quicker and quicker as he palms your tits, as he grabs your waist, as he teases the waistline of your shorts. 

You mutter his name into the air. Everything blurs around you, a happy daze existing only in this tent, only between his arms. You bury your hands in his curls. “Please, Matty,” you whisper. 

“What do you want?” He asks against your collarbone, pressing his lips on it after. You feel him hard between your thighs. The knowledge makes your mind droopy. 

You giggle like it was all silly, all unbelievable. It’s never about what you want; too much, too soon, too real. “What about you?”

Matty hums. He pushes your bra cups, revealing your breast. He parts away from you to take a good look at them. You flush, feeling shy suddenly. 

Matty kneels up. He pants, staring at the mess of you, half-naked and flustered and hot, practically vibrating out of your skin under him. He thumbs your nipple, smirking. “I want this.” 

“Yeah?” You arch an eyebrow. Matty nods, eager. You trail your fingers down his mane to the neckline of his shirt, greedily tugging on it. He obliges and lets it fall off his shoulders. 

Your stare laps at his naked chest with none of the usual shame. Take in every muscle, every tattoo, until Matty Healy himself is blushing under your carnivorous stare. You reach out to touch the ink at his hip, grabbing it between guitar-callused fingers, making sure you’re not imagining the whole thing. 

It has to be the trip. You have to be hallucinating, making sweet visions out of the grass and white. 

“Can you fuck me?” You say, bold and uncaring. If it’s a dream, you can be whoever you want. Can say whatever fancies your mind; even the scary, even the galactic. (Though you don’t, because admitting it just to yourself is already too momentous.)

Matty swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, I can definitely do that.” You laugh, at him or at you or at the sheer fucking joy. It’s contagious; soon he’s giggling too, bending back down into you to suck at your breasts, working on your jeans. The laugh reverberates on your skin. You moan, melted wax in the grass. 

He takes the shorts down your legs, then your underwear. His hungry gaze devours you, taking in every inch of you like he’s realizing you’re real. “Better than I imagined.” You like the sound of that; it hums in your heart. 

“You, next,” you say, pleading. Matty undoes his belt dutifully. It takes some time; his fingers are trembling. 

But then he’s naked in front of you. A wiry frame, inked and scarred, with a hard, leaking cock. He’s better than a Greek god. 

Your hand reaches out for his. He takes it, crosses your fingers together, rests it beside your head as he drapes over you. Dark, coffee eyes meet yours and you get the strange sensation of having your soul bared for him, too. His lips graze yours but he doesn’t kiss you, as though he wants to hear you when he finally pushes in.

You roll your eyes into your skull. Your hand tightens in his, moaning his name. There’s a fucked-out groan coming from him, too. He lays into your neck as he thrusts in and out, slowly, like he was still adjusting to the idea of it. 

“You’re perfect,” Matty whispers. Every particle of you sings his name. You clench around him. “Shit, love, do that again.”

A proud grin breaks on your face. You throb around him. He’s buried so deep you feel him in every nerve ending, yet you still need him. Your free hand digs into his back. You want him under your skin. 

“Faster,” you say. Matty nods in agreement. He bucks his hips into yours. You strangle his hand with a deadly grip, holding back screams of his name. You moan it instead, in the crook of his neck, sticking your tongue out to lick them off after.

It’s better than it’s ever been with anyone. Your body buzzes, ecstasy swooping in your belly. You’re not sure if it’s the drugs or him, and neither answer seems satisfying. 

You can’t tell where you start and he begins, but it’s not a new feeling. He can be rooms apart and you still sense the edges of him, subconsciously, deludingly. He’s there, now, fucking inside of you, bringing you to insanity. 

“Oh, God,” you say. “Fuck.” You don’t think you’ll last long if he keeps going. Matty seems to realize, feeling the way you flutter around his cock, begging and pleading for a release. 

Matty shakes your hand off, using his now free one to rub dizzyingly fast at your clit. Your face scrunches, you moan his name, your hand flexes with the phantom shape of his hand. You snap your eyes open, meeting his, when you break and fall apart. 

It’s been a long time coming, building and building since that fateful day of June 16, but it still takes you by surprise. Your mind wipes clean, relief overtaking every attuned nerve, and all you can think is finally.

Matty follows behind you soon after, shutting his face as his lips part in abandon. A grunt slips past him, his eyebrows wrinkle, his shoulders tremble under your hand, and suddenly he’s spilling into you. 

He falls on you, sighing contently. A vague hand passes through your hair soothingly. You stare at the ceiling in shock. He came inside of you.

It’s fine, you tell yourself. I’m on the pill, you reassure yourself. And he’s clean. Just me— Just me and Delilah. 

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Matty laughs, realizing. He slides out of you, his cum leaking out. Though he does sound apologetic, he still stares at it in mesmerism. Ownership.

“‘S fine,” you mumble lazily. 

Matty grabs his discarded shirt, wiping your inner thighs, cleaning you up. It’s strangely domestic, in some way. You close your eyes and imagine a world where he does this often, humming. 

Matty falls back beside you, tugging your head into his shoulder, holding you close. You grin satisfiedly, loose and relaxed, a syrup girl dripping on him, sticking to him. 

Finally, you sing. Everything feels absolute. 

Your eyes flutter shut, exhaustion seeping through your body. Your face nestles into him deeper. Squished against his shoulder, you ask him, “Do you like me?”

He laughs as if it was silly to ask. “Of course I like you.” 

And do you love me, you want to ask, but you bite your tongue and swallow it down. For now it’s enough. 

August 17

Delilah runs into Matty’s arms. He catches her slackly, a loose arm around her waist as she peppers kisses over his face. Her smile shines bright. The world spins nauseatingly around you. 

Your heart fends in the middle. You stare at the two of them like a car crash, sick to your stomach yet unable to look away. You still remember the feel of his arm around you, the way he held like he was afraid you might blow away with the wind, melt into the grass. The way he gripped.

Matty meets your eyes above Delilah’s shoulder. He seems overrun, robbed of words. You have a few you believe he should be saying, should be thinking, but he doesn’t. There’s an apology in his gentle look. You want to throw up on their shoes. 

You’re a paper girl — fragile, volatile, unsettled, dancing with the wind of feelings — and he’s a rock — sure, confident, stubborn, and staying with his fucking girlfriend. 

August 19

You sit side by side with Matty on the piano bench. You peer in your sketchbook, angled away to hide from him. In his phone’s notes app, he writes the most recent verse’s ever moving state. “D’you have anything else?” He asks, as you’ve discarded the past few editions. 

You hum, skimming through the pages. Your eyes settle on a drawing of constellations, a ghost of a boy smiling in the grass. Your heart punches. You look over the words. “How about—” You shake your head, trying to discard the doom feeling in your chest. “How about she bleeds on my palms, I think I’m stained with her?” 

“Oh, I like that,” Matty nods, quickly scribbling it on his phone. “After all the marble talk, it shows we really are talking about a real person, and that they are left bloody and scarred from being carved away to fit his fantasies.”

You swallow thickly. Your heart speeds. “Yeah— Yes. Sure.”

August 20

Matty blows out his cigarette. He looks almost theatrical in the night; standing on his balcony, leaning on the fence, pouring smoke from his lips, drenching himself in telltale gray. You sit on a plastic chair and get the nagging feeling that you should be having some sort of realization, a lesson of some kind. 

Your hand reaches out for him. Instinctively, he gives you the cigarette. The paper burns in your hand. It’s not what you wanted. 

You place it between your lips. It feels so fucking obvious when smoke lingers around you.

August 23

You pass Matty’s room on mousy feet, making your best efforts not to wake anyone up. The master bedroom door is firmly shut. A couple snores a few feet away, surely entangled in each other’s limbs, a position as known as breathing. The hallway falls into you, knocking against your frail body. You’re squeezed until your chest might burst. 

There’s a yearning in your bones you can’t unroot. It makes you wonder where the flowers of love come from; if the blooming is just weeds. 

August 24

You lay on your stomach, kicking your legs in the air. A raw feeling lingers on your skin, like it was skimmed off on cement, burning and reddening. You hold your breath. 

“I like it,” Bree exclaims, slow and lagging from Facetime. She’s a blurry image, earphones in, seemingly at some trendy New York café you would hate. “I love the chorus. It’s so— so raw, and painful, and real. It’s like— It’s like I’m sixteen again, being manic pixie dream girled by indie, older boys.” 

You smile at that, happy that it reverberates, that it hits home. “Any criticism? We’re still fine tuning it.”

Bree hums. “Maybe make the speaker clearer? It’s a bit convoluted if it’s Pygmalion or Galatea’s point of view.” 

You’re raw. An open wound, poked and prodded and salted, and you can’t seem to finally scab. You grin slackly at Bree. “I see what you mean. Thanks.”

“It’s really a great song, though. That’s just nitpicking.” 

You nod, but it’s faint and unconvinced. You’re not sure being a good song justifies all of it. Breathtaking oil paints never seemed to make you any less blistered. 

August 26

Matty’s hair flops over his forehead. His lips are red and plump, stained from the wine. He’s grinning loosely, a bit tipsy on espresso martinis and merlot. He looks like a poem. 

Your heart softens and melts like toffee, sticking to the bones as it dribbles down your ribs. It calls for him, sings, even. 

Try as you might, you can’t stop wanting him. It breathes with you. 

August 28

“I think we’ve finished,” you declare. You stare at the lyrics of Galatea, messily put down over brand new paper with a fountain pen. You go over each word in disbelief. “I think— Fuck, this is actually it.”

“Yeah?” Matty calls, looking at you all giddy, biting his lip. 

Your smile breaks your face. An addictive rush of glee spins your mind. You can’t contain the joy. “Yes.”

“Yeah?” He repeats, hyping you up. You stand from the bench. His arms open in instinct; you run into them, colliding against his bones. You’re surprised you don’t find the rubble at your feet. 

“Fucking yes,” you whisper in his neck, and you might cry from the bone-deep relief. From finishing a song that has been haunting you with a vengeance. From being in his arms. From smelling his detergent.

“You did it,” he says back, low and emotional. You squeeze him harder. 

“We did it.” Matty tries to humble-wave your words away, but you pull back enough to stare at him. “I’m serious. I couldn’t have done it without you.” And it’s true; too true. This song would have never been what it is now, never had its shape, if you had never met Matty Healy. 

He smiles at you, touched. “The song of the fucking year.” You laugh, throwing your head back. You think of kissing him and you hope he thinks of it too, though he doesn’t do it. 

August 30

You step through the glass doors. Sunglasses rest on the top of your hair. You’re sunburnt on the tip of your nose, a touch of deep color. At least the inside is cool. Faraway, the laughs of Matty’s friends track you. 

You find the fridge, sticking your head inside and sighing in relief. You grab a beer on the way. You rest it on your nose. The condensation drips on your skin, tickling; you scrunch it. 

Matty’s nursing a soft drink as he stands in front of the fan, eyes closed, shirt unbuttoned. You smile at the vision of him, sticky and sweaty, sinfully familiar. 

“Scoot over,” you demand, nudging him. Matty obliges, scooping himself to offer you half of the fan. You moan as the air hits you. Truly content, you open your bottle of beer.

“I like the sound of that,” Matty says. You arch an eyebrow, offering it to him. He snorts. “No, no. Not in that sense. Designated driver, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t have to be if you weren’t such a passenger princess.” 

“Hey,” you frown, faux-offended. “I just haven’t gotten my driver’s license yet.”

“And how old are you?”

“Very, very young still.” You up your nose. 

Matty makes a grimace. “Don’t say that.” The image of that day in the grass, moaning in his mouth, filled up so perfectly, flashes in his eyes. You smirk, sipping on your beer. 

“What did you mean, then?” You ask. You jerk your chin in the direction of the can when he cocks his head in question. 

Matty shrugs. “Just that it sounds satisfying. There’s something almost— I don’t know, rhythmic, about opening a can of beer. Tssh.” You snort at his impression. 

“We could put it in a song maybe,” you offer. “To start it. Maybe Sunburnt? It’s kinda summer-y.”

“I like that.” Matty sighs, “Though I don’t like that we’re talking work on our day off.”

“It’s never really work, isn’t it?” You scrunch your nose. “Not when it’s us, our insides.” 

“Careful,” Matty drawls, teasing. “You’re sounding like an insufferable artist.”

He leans into you. His eyes are light, dancing, and you want to catch the breathtaking sunrise. Want to catch it on camera, show it off to whoever. He’s too pretty. 

You lean into him. Your gaze zeroes in on his lips. The can of beer rests by your side, tucked away. Your breath catches in your throat. You’ve missed him. Missed his mouth.

Matty stares at your lips, offered and tempting, then pulls away. He makes an awkward laugh, shaking his drink. “Need a refill.” He’s off in a second. 

You stand in front of the fan, air blowing and blowing and blowing, and you can feel the traces of him artificially leaving with the wind. 

August 31

August 31, you drop a nuclear bomb. “When are you gonna break up with her?” 

You don’t know what takes over you. He’s vaguely organizing his bookshelf, picking up books and getting lost in the pages and putting them back just a little bit more to the right, and you’re sitting on your piano bench, haphazardly hitting the keys, when it bubbles out of you. The need to know, the need to be safe. 

Time decelerates to a near stop. Silence hangs in the room, heavy, filling up every crevice. The floorboards droop with its weight. Your heart races. 

Yesterday plays in your mind religiously. The near kiss, dodged and avoided, laughed off. How it left you raw, bleeding, how you spun and spun in that overthinking head of yours until you thought your skull might break from the pressure. 

You stare at Matty’s back, glaring into the muscles, tearing through the shirt. You wish him to turn around. You will him to smile. Fear grips your guts. Please. You beg him to answer right. 

Matty sighs. Twists to you slowly, carefully. Your breath hitches, readying. “I don’t know.” 

Shrapnel bursts into your skin. A bomb that reverberates, that obliterates. Your fingers shake; you clench them, willing yourself to be strong, to camouflage the bleeding out. 

Your lips tremble but you straighten them. “You don’t know when or—” Your blood beats in your skull. You keep giving him bullets and finding yourself surprised when it ricochets into you. You swallow thickly. “You don’t know if you will.” 

Matty sighs. There’s an apologetic look in his face and it makes you want to vomit. If only he had the mercy to be cruel, to rip your spine and throw it away. Give you a reason to hate him. “I can’t give you an answer. I just—” He makes a little frustrated noise, annoyed with himself for not having the words. “I need time to think.” 

You give him an incredulous look. “Time to think?” Anger digs into you, and it feels better. Something to latch onto, something buoyant over the currents of pain you’re battling against. Something to clench that jaw, narrow those eyes. “So you haven’t yet? At all?”

Matty makes a noise to speak, to sweeten, sounding like the saccharine letters of your name, but you cut him off. “No,” you say, and it is dry and sure, lashing. “No, I’ve been waiting for you all summer. We’ve—” You let out a laugh of disbelief, crazed and pathetic. “We’ve kissed, we’ve had sex, we’ve been on basically fucking dates, and you haven’t thought about if you wanna be with me?” You hate how your voice sounds wet when you push out, “I’ve thought about you every fucking day this summer.” 

Matty makes an offended face, crying, “Of course I’ve thought about if I wanna be with you.”

You don’t give him time to take it back, twist its meaning, already pleading, “Then what’s the issue?” 

“Because I don’t know!” Again with those three little words, never the right ones, never the ones you breathe from his mouth. He softens, and suddenly the sugary gaze looks like pity to you. “I like you. I really like you, and I care for you, and I don’t want to hurt you.” 

The words ring in the room. Though you want to bury them in your chest, let them bloom and grow until they’ve taken on a whole new face, you don’t. 

You hear the fatal word coming after, see it in his overwhelmed look. “But I care for her too.” You take it like a bullet. “We’ve been together for three years. And I’ve only known you for what? Two months? What if it shits between us? What if it’s not as great as we made it out to be?” 

He makes the worries solid, gives them a physical form, and you want to beg him to let the marble go, knock the paints from his hands. Don’t make it real. Don’t make it possible. 

Dejected, lips trembling, he begs, “Can’t I be a little confused?” 

You breathe out. “Of course you can be confused.” You frown, desperate when you add, “But you cheated on her. Physically, emotionally.” You let the words hit home. A guilty look draws on his face and it’s worse, somehow. “And you’re just gonna go back to her?”  

He sighs, rubbing his forehead. “I know I haven’t gone about this the right way.” 

You blink at him. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

Gone about this the right way, like he didn’t take hearts and forget them on his piano keys, rotting on the ivory.

“Look, it was fucked. I didn’t think—“ Matty shakes his head. For a poet, he always has the wrong words. “I just wanted you, and I did it, and I know I shouldn’t have—” 

“You’re fucking selfish.” 

He’s selfish, you think, and you scroll back through your memories trying to find the telltale moments you missed, you ignored. If the signs waved over your head and you squinted away, slack, happy smile rising over your cheeks. 

He winces. “I’m sorry.” 

“You’re sorry?” You arch an eyebrow. “You’re apologizing now?” 

Matty huffs. “What do you want from me?” 

You make a disbelieved laugh. How does he not get it? How does he not see? You want to shake his shoulders, but you’re afraid of the marble dust that would linger on your hands. 

“I just want you to choose me,” you cry, like it was so fucking evident. You want him. You want him to want you. 

Matty opens his mouth, then closes it. He’s overrun. 

All those tiny moments; those throwaway smiles, those purposeful glances, those lingering touches, those words, understanding and uncovering and loving— how much of them are real? The curse of being a creator: you make stories in your head. 

He wants to say I don’t know. That’s all he has in his head. 

You nod faintly. Breathe in. Let go. The moment hangs in the air. “You’re not going to, are you?” 

Matty shrugs. That hopeful, sick muscle in your heart beats seconds slower; off-key with the world, with reality. “I don’t know.” 

Your eyes close. Everything snaps back all at once; gravity is heavy, oxygen is ashy, colors are dull. You purse your lips. Try not to cry. 

“God,” you laugh, “what the fuck have I done?” 

The curse of a creator: creating. 

He’s crumbled at your feet. He’s made of blood, and flesh, and he’s bruised and blue. You wonder how much of it is from chisel-martelling him. 

Watercolors, marble, words; it’s all the same. 

Matty frowns. He’s gentle, soothing. “Don’t say that.” 

You throw a hand up. “I’m gonna sleep at a hotel tonight.” Your stare is ice, leaving not a possibility to argue. “Stay with your girlfriend if you want.” 

Matty makes a frustrated sound. “I’m not saying I don’t want you. I’m saying I don’t know yet. I— I just need to figure it out.” 

“It’s not enough.” His face winces: bullets. Something in you is a little gleeful, hopes the metal bites into his skin. Maybe if he bleeds you, mourns you, it’ll all be a little easier to digest.

“Have a goodnight, Matty.” There's a world in which you say those words and then breathe out a soft I love you. He says it back, worshiping and happy. His arms are heavy around your waist. You roll over in bed and go to sweet sleep, satisfied. It’s not this one. You can’t keep trying to make it be.

When you leave his flat, all you can think is, God, I really should have seen this coming. 

September 1 

You adjust the earphones on your head, getting used to the soothing quiet. The microphone lingers near your mouth, inviting you. 

“Ready?” Matty asks from the booth. 

Your eyes snap to his. He’s tired, clearly. Dark circles digging under his eyes, lips bitten raw, stubble unshaved. There’s an air of unmadeness about him, and a yet-to-die need to write about it. Words start coagulating in your mind already, but you don’t let it stick. It’s just an instinct; it’ll be gone soon. 

You give a thumbs up. In the microphone, you whisper, refusing to break eye contact. “Galatea, take one.”

[jasontoddsmommyissues]

Let’s Give ‘Em Something to Talk About

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Femme!Henderson!Reader

Summary: Y/N Henderson’s relationship with Eddie puts her at odds with Jason Carver and co.

Warnings: Reader uses she/her pronouns, bullying/harassment, slut shaming, allusions to sexual content (nothing sexual actually happens), Jason being a prick, swearing, Reader is Dustin’s sister but no physical descriptions are used and you can read it as an adopted sibling if you want, I think that’s it but let me know if I missed something

A/N: Alright, this is the first Fic I’ve ever posted on here. I’m honestly a little nervous, but hopefully you enjoy. I’ll probably end up posting this on my Ao3 too so I’ll link that at some point.

My Master List | Ao3

—

“I’m gonna miss you”, Eddie whines as he leans against the locker next to yours.

“It’s one class”, you reply as you swap out your English textbook for history, “that’s, what, an hour?”

“Actually I have Davis’s class next so it feels more like three hours”, Eddie says.

You snort. Mr. Davis has probably been around since the dinosaur era, and if there were to be a competition for most boring teacher at Hawkins High, he would win it hands down.

“It’s not funny”, Eddie teasingly pouts, “I might actually die of boredom.”

“As much as I would hate for that to happen, I’ve got my own class to get to, so unfortunately you’re on your own for now,” you reply.

“Alright well, please tell the rest of Hellfire I’m going to miss them”, he tells you, “and feel free to wear that black skirt of yours to the funeral. The tight one. It’s what I would’ve wanted.”

You roll your eyes affectionately before pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

“You’re so dramatic”, you say, “I’ll see you later.”

“If I survive that long”, he calls. You shake your head before turning the corner and heading into your history classroom.

“Okay, class”, your teacher, Mr. Price announces once the bell rings, “I’ve written some questions on the board. You’ll find the answers in Chapter 5 of your textbook. Write them down and turn them in by the end of class. You may work with a partner if you’d like.”

You pull your textbook out of your bag and flip to a clean sheet in your notebook. You don’t have any friends in this class, so you figure you may as well just do it yourself and get it over with. That is, until a voice startles you as you’re about to start reading the first page of the chapter.

“Hey, Y/N. Do you wanna work together?”

You blink up at the source of the voice and are pretty sure you must be hallucinating. That’s the only explanation you can think of as to why Jason Carver would be asking you to be his partner.

The two of you have been in the same grade since Kindergarten and you can't think of a single time in all those years that he’s directly acknowledged your existence. The closest thing you have to a connection with him is that your little brother is friends with one of his new Basketball recruits, but you kind of doubt he even knows or cares about that. There’s a few members of his little posse he could be asking to work with him, so you have no clue why he’d be asking you of all people. But, you don’t have anyone else, so you shrug.

“Sure, I guess”, you say.

“Great”, he smiles, moving to sit down next to you.

“I’ll get started on number 1”, you suggest, “maybe you can do number 2 and we’ll compare?”

“Sure”, he says sweetly. You’re honestly getting a little freaked out by how friendly he’s being.

You both do your agreed upon work, and then switch off to show each other your answers.

“So?” you ask when he’s finished reading yours, “does that seem right?”

“Yeah”, he replies, “you’re good at this. You ever thought about being a tutor?”

“Oh, no, not really”, you say.

“See, I just ask because our youth group has this program where some of us older members help the younger kids out after school and stuff.”

“Oh, that’s cool”, you tell him, not really engaged the conversation. It all sounds well and good, but you really aren’t interested in being a tutor at the moment.

“You know, the church has a lot of great programs”, Jason continues, and you’re not sure what any of this has to do with the Byzantine empire, which is what you’re supposed to be discussing.

“Okay”, you say.

“They do a lot of outreach, a lot of stuff to help people who have lost their way.”

“Lost their way?” you inquire, a small part of you beginning to understand what’s actually going on.

“Yeah. You know. Made bad choices, got mixed up with the wrong people.”

“Um, I think we should just get back to the assignment”, you suggest, uncomfortable with the discussion and not wanting it to go any further.

“Look”, Jason sighs, “what I’m trying to say is, I don’t know you very well, but you seem like a nice girl. I’d hate to see you go down a bad path.”

Okay. You get it now, and it’s starting to piss you off.

“Thank you, but I’m doing just fine”, you insist.

“You’ve been hanging around with Eddie Munson”, Jason says, as if it’s some scandalous secret and not just you spending time with your boyfriend, “you really shouldn’t do that, you know…”

You stare at him, a little dumbfounded he would just up and say such a thing to you.

“You can’t be serious…”, you say.

Jason leans in to you, a deadly serious expression on his face.

“I’ve heard about guys like him before”, he tells you, “I know the stuff they’re into.”

Yeah, so do you. It’s tabletop role playing games, which is about the least nefarious activity you could possibly think of. Jason clearly doesn’t see it that way, though, because he’s still going on.

“And I know they like to lure innocent people like you into their little organizations. I’m telling you, Munson is bad news. You should stay away before you get hurt.”

You seriously have to hold yourself back from laughing right in Jason’s face. You’re not sure what reality he’s living in, but it clearly isn’t the same one you are. Last weekend, you and Eddie had watched Terms of Endearment and he’d started to cry (well started tearing up at least, even sniffled a little, though he vehemently denied it). There’s not a single situation in which you can ever imagine him causing you intentional harm.

“Okay, you know what”, you say, “I think I’m gonna finish the rest of the assignment alone, thanks.”

Jason grabs your arm gently but firmly. “I’m serious, Y/N. He’s dangerous. Stay away from him before you end up hurt or killed.”

You’re really not sure what the most offensive part of all this is. It’s either that Jason thinks that somehow Eddie Munson, your lovable dork of a boyfriend,is secretly an evil Satanist cult leader, or that you’re apparently too stupid or naive to make that kind of judgment for yourself. Maybe it’s that he volunteered to work with you on an assignment and acted all friendly with you just so he could get this opportunity to preach to you about your supposedly “dangerous” lifestyle. He’s never given you the time of day before, after all.

“I don’t know what it is you think you see in him, but I promise you it’s not going to end well.”

You snort. Is he, what, jealous or something? He’s got a girlfriend, after all, and plenty of other girls who’d be willing to take her place if she were to leave him. It’s kind of sad that he’s apparently so insecure that the mere thought of Eddie Munson getting female attention is enough to have him losing his shit like this.

“Whatever”, you spit, “just leave me alone.”

He glares at you, but ultimately turns his attention to his textbook and doesn’t speak to you for the rest of the class.

-

You happily shove the encounter out of your mind once the bell rings. You’re perfectly content with the social circle you keep, and you’re not going to let some jock with an inflated sense of self importance change that.

Jason apparently doesn’t do the same because he spends lunch glaring at you from his table. Granted, him shooting disgusted looks in the general direction of the Hellfire Club is a regular occurance, but today he’s making it obvious his ire is directed specifically at you.

“What the fuck is his problem?” Eddie asks.

“I dunno”, you shrug, “he’s just an asshole.”

Eddie peers at him for a moment and you can see a familiar glint of mischief twinkle in his eye. Before you can comment, he’s dramatically pushing himself to his feet and sauntering over to Jason and company.

“What do you want?” Jason demands.

“Couldn’t help but notice you staring”, Eddie says, “just wanted to let you know that I’m flattered, but unfortunately you aren’t really my type. Sorry.”

“Fuck off”, Jason barks, “disgusting freak.”

“Don’t take it too hard”, Eddie says, giving him a joking pat on the shoulder before making his way back over to you. You stifle a laugh at the indignant look plastered on Jason’s face. Eddie shoots you a proud grin and you shake your head affectionately. Jason clearly doesn’t know shit about “guys like Eddie.”

-

The next few days pass by uneventfully. Jason doesn’t try talking to you again, which you’re thankful for. Wednesday starts out normally, you go to history, and Jason roundly ignores your presence. Then you have to go to your next class, which is gym.

Definitely not a favorite of yours, and you don’t even have Eddie in your class to ease the pain. You make it through your warm ups, and then the coach has you split up to practice your volleyball serves. Everything’s going well until Andy, one of Jason’s buddies, approaches you out of nowhere.

“Hey, Henderson”, he says, a smirk on his face, “you think you could score me some weed?”

You look at him, confused. You don’t get involved in Eddie’s side hustle, so you’re not sure why he’d ask you.

“What?”

“Oh, I just figured you probably get a good discount”, he goes on, “I mean, that’s why you let Munson fuck you, right?”

You freeze in shock, your cheeks starting to grow hot. You can’t say you’re used to people making comments about your sex life, especially not to your face.

“I mean, I gotta say”, Andy continues, a cruel glint in his eye, “I didn’t take you for a slut. But come on. Spreading your legs for that freak? Jesus, that’s sad. You know, I’d be happy to show you a good time, since you’re so desperate for it.”

You can only stand there, mouth agape. Sure, you’ve gotten a gross comment or two from a male classmate before, but nothing like this. You certainly have never been called a slut before. You try to formulate a response, but you can’t come up with one. It doesn’t matter anyway, because the coach’s whistle rings out, signaling for you all to hit the changing rooms. You dash out of the gym, more than pleased to be away from Andy.

You hop in the shower in the locker room, take a few moments to shake off the discomfort of the interaction. You’re not entirely successful in that endeavor, because it keeps playing in your mind even after you’re dressed and making your way back into the hallways.

You have no idea where the hell Andy came up with all of that. At this point, it’s common knowledge that you and Eddie are dating, but you don’t know where this idea that you’re sleeping with him for drugs came from. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Hey, Beautiful”, you’re distracted from your thoughts by Eddie, who comes happily bounding over to you. His face falls when he sees the look on your face though.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I’m fine”, you say. Something about the idea of telling Eddie about what happened leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It’s embarrassing, and you definitely don’t want him to feel like it’s somehow his fault that Jason and Andy are giving you a hard time.

Besides, it doesn’t matter. Once again, nothing they say about you or Eddie is true. You can’t let some stupid jocks get to you.

-

Honestly, you probably could’ve been okay, if that was the end of it. Unfortunately, things only get worse the next day.

As you make your way to your seat in history, you catch sight of Amber and Samantha, two cheerleaders who like to hang around Jason and the others, whispering as you walk by.

You ignore them, figuring you’re being paranoid and they probably aren’t even talking about you, but when you sit down, Amber turns and looks you right in the eye.

She raises her voice then, clearly intending for you to hear what she’s saying.

“I hope she’s gotten tested”, she tells Samantha, “I can’t imagine what nasty shit the Freak is passing on to her.”

You take a deep breath, turning away from her.

It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself, it’s not true.

“I hope the drugs are worth it,” Samantha says.

You clench your jaw as you slip into your seat. It shouldn’t bother you so much. It's not true, and even if it were, who cares what Amber and Samantha have to say about it?

You’re dating Eddie because you like him. You like the way he’s always joking around and making you laugh, you like that he makes a point of looking out for Dustin and his friends, you like the way he looks at you with those big puppy dog eyes and flashes that mischievous grin. Cheap access to his drugs has never even crossed your mind.

You shouldn’t concern yourself with what they say, you know that, but hearing your name in connection with “slut” grinds at you.

-

During gym class, you do your best to avoid Andy, because everytime he notices you looking at him, he’s making some suggestive gesture at you. You don’t bother telling anyone about it, since Andy’s on the basketball team and the coach would probably take his side.

In the hallway, you accidentally bump into Patrick from the basketball team. You mutter an apology, which he accepts, but his girlfriend gives you the dirtiest look you’ve ever seen.

“Don’t talk to her”, you hear her tell him as you walk away, “she’s a slut.”

-

All of the gossip has put you in a foul mood by the time you get to your second to last period of the day, which happens to be study hall.

Like always, it’s in the cafeteria, with you and a bunch of other students of varying grade levels all sitting around doing your homework. Technically, you’re not supposed to talk, but the teacher in charge is way too underpaid to worry about enforcing that, so you can usually get away with conversation as long as things don’t get too rowdy.

You’re not taking advantage of that today, rather trying your best to distract yourself by actually doing your homework. You’re halfway through summarizing Act 3 of Hamlet when you hear someone say your name.

“Hey, Y/N…”

You’re confused when you look up to find Lucas standing there. Technically, you’ve known him for years, but it’s not like you’ve ever associated with him outside the time he spends with Dustin.

“What?” you ask, a little meaner than you mean to.

“I just thought you should know that…well, I think Jason has been going around saying things about you.”

Of course. You should’ve known Jason was behind this. Jason fucking Carver. Captain of the Basketball Team. Active member of the local church. Son of one of the most respected families in Hawkins. He’s clearly used to people listening to whatever he has to say. Apparently, his ego couldn’t handle you dismissing his comments about your relationship with Eddie.

Jesus, you’d always known he was a bit of an asshole, but this is a level of pettiness you’d never expected, even from him.

“Don’t tell him I told you”, Lucas adds, “but I just thought you should know.”

“Thank you”, you say. You’re definitely glad to have that piece of information.

-

The next day, you storm into Mr. Price’s classroom with righteous fury coursing through your veins. You bypass your desk and instead march straight up to Jason.

He pauses his conversation with Andy and Samantha when he sees you approach.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” You demand.

“Excuse me?” Jason asks.

“I know you’ve been starting rumors about me”, you tell him, “what exactly is your problem, Jason?”

“Me? I don’t have a problem”, Jason insists, “I just think it’s fair the men of Hawkins High get a warning about your ‘extracurricular’ activities.”

You can feel heat flood your cheeks.

“You’re a dick, Jason!” you hiss.

“You know, Y/N”, Jason retorts, “I actually feel bad for you. I mean, no decent man is ever going to want you when they find out you’ve been giving it up to some trailer trash freak.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about”, you snap.

“Believe me, I know exactly what happens to girls who hang around with filthy, Satan-worshiping scumbags”, he says, “and you know what? I’m not going to feel sorry for you when they’re finding your body dumped in the woods.”

“Get over yourself!”

“Whatever”, Jason shakes his head, “I’m not gonna take the attitude from some little slut.”

You’re not fully in control of yourself during what happens next. One second you’re standing there listening to Jason degrade you, the next your fist is connecting with his face.

He stands there, stunned for a moment, before opening his mouth to say something. He doesn’t get the chance though, because Mr. Price gets to it first.

“Ms. Henderson”, he gasps, “Mr. Carver, what on earth is going on here?”

“She punched me in the face”, Jason spits accusingly.

“I-I…I’m sorry I…”

“Enough”, Mr. Price sighs, “I want both of you going to the principal’s office right now!”

-

You’re in deep shit. That much is immediately clear. You punched Jason Carver in the face. It’s not like you even claim it was self defense, since he didn’t do anything physical to you.

“So”, Principal Higgins sighs, “tell me what happened again?”

“She punched me in the face”, Jason hisses.

“Is that true?”

“Yes”, you sigh, “but he called me a slut.”

Principal Higgins rubs his temple, processing the information. Meanwhile, Jason’s gaze is fixed firmly on you, his eyes full of hatred.

“Mr. Carver”, Higgins says finally, “that is not appropriate language to use in regards to another student. You may go back to class, but I better not hear about something like this again.”

Jason stands and marches out of the office, as if he has a right to be pissed about Higgins’ scolding. You suppress the urge to roll your eyes. Of course he gets a slap on the wrist. Nobody wants to punish the star basketball player. You’re certain that if it were anyone else, Eddie or Dustin or one of the other Hellfire Club members, they definitely wouldn’t be getting off so easily.

“Now, as for you Ms. Henderson”, Higgins says, “we do not allow for any sort of violence in this school. However, in all your years at this school, you have never had to receive any form of discipline. So I’m willing to be flexible here. Normally, something like this could be grounds for suspension, but since this is your first time, I say it’s two weeks detention after school starting next Monday. Does that sound fair to you?”

Not really, no, but you can’t say that.

“Yes”, you reply instead.

“Alright. Good. Now go back to class. And Ms. Henderson, I sincerely hope I won’t have to see you in my office again.”

-

You’re in a bad mood when Mr. Price’s class finally ends. You’ve gone your entire high school career without getting a detention and now you’ve ruined that over some pompous dick bag. Speaking of, Jason has been staring daggers at you since you returned to class, and is continuing to do so even now as you’re leaving.

There’s a tense, awkward moment where you both stand there in the hallway, glaring at each other, but it’s broken when the force of a body colliding with your back almost takes you off your feet. Jason is forgotten when a pair of arms wrap around your waist from behind.

“Eddie”, you huff playfully.

“How’d you know it was me?” he asks as you turn around to face him.

“Cause you can’t keep your hands to yourself, Munson”, you reply.

“Don’t blame me”, he replies, “you know I’m powerless to resist your charms.”

Before you can reply he’s pulling you close and beginning to press kisses to your cheek. You know the two of you are making a scene, and on any other day you might be a little self conscious about it, but today you’re just glad to have him around.

His kisses stop suddenly and you realize he’s stopped because he’s finally noticed Jason’s hateful glaring. Unfazed as always, he just flashes a cocky smile and gives Jason a mocking impression of a friendly wave. Jason makes a face like he’s wishing for both you and Eddie’s violent deaths.

“Geez”, Eddie comments, “he looks pissed.”

“Um, yeah, probably because I punched him in the face”, you mutter.

Eddie’s eyes widen in obvious surprise.

“He had it coming”, you add, “he was being a Dick.”

You know you don’t have to defend yourself to Eddie. He knows better than anyone how nasty Jason can be.

“My, my, Fair Lady Henderson”, he smiles, “I dare say that was very Metal of you.”

“Yeah, well, Higgins didn’t think so”, you reply, “I got two weeks detention for it.”

“Ol’ Higgins never did have a sense of humor”, Eddie says, “but from where I’m standing, you’re basically a hero.”

“Really?”

“Hell yeah”, Eddie tells you, “Jason and his goons have been making our lives miserable for years.”

You can’t help but smile at that. You’re definitely not happy with the day’s events, but knowing Eddie’s on your side makes it a little more bearable.

-

On Monday you begrudgingly make your way to Mrs. Cline’s room for your first day of detention.

“Ms. Henderson?” she asks when you walk in.

“Yeah”, you say, a little embarrassed.

“Wonderful”, she says, checking your name off of a list in front of her, “please take a seat.”

There’s only two other people in there with you, so you just pick a seat as far from them as possible and sit down.

“Alright”, Mrs. Cline says, “looks like everyone’s here except…”

“I’m here.”

You look up in surprise to see Eddie come walking into the room.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Munson”, Mrs. Cline says dryly, “what a surprise. Please take a seat.”

You know that Eddie isn’t a stranger to detention, but it’s weird that he didn’t mention anything to you when you’d told him about it. He walks over to the desk next to yours, looking way too pleased for someone who’s about to serve a stint in detention.

“What are you doing here?” you ask.

“Oh, you know, got caught vandalizing the boy’s locker room during free period”, he tells you.

“What? When?”

“Friday”, he says with a satisfied smirk.

You frown. This must’ve happened after the whole Jason thing on Friday which means…

Which means Eddie did it knowing that you were also going to be in detention.

“Eddie”, you say, “did you get detention just because I did?”

“I couldn’t let you have all the fun, could I?” he grins.

You can’t help but smile along with him.

“Mr. Munson, Ms. Henderson”, Mrs. Cline calls from her desk, “no talking during detention.”

Eddie mimes zipping his lips and waits until Mrs. Cline looks away before giving you a playful wink. You stifle a giggle.

You don’t know Jason all that well, but you’re pretty sure he would never dream of landing himself in detention just to keep his girlfriend company. You’ve never seen him make a scene in the middle of the hallways to get her to smile. That’s the thing about this that really gets under your skin. Jason and the others don’t know shit. They think that just because Eddie doesn’t fall into their narrow definition of “acceptable”, he must be scary and dangerous. They think that just because you’re not afraid of him, you must be dirty and corrupted. They’re too close-minded to look closer and see that Eddie is the sweetest boyfriend you could ever imagine, that you spend time with him because he makes you happy. They’d rather write him off as a freak and you off as a slut than accept that maybe their perception is wrong.

You’re far from being a violent person, but you can’t say you regret what you did. Jason deserved to be put in his place, and it’s not like you did any serious damage to him anyway. You’re glad you stood up for yourself, for Eddie. You’ve probably tacked “psycho bitch” onto your already unflattering “whore” reputation, but at this point, you’re not sure you care. If being a freak means you get to spend your days with the love of your life, you will gladly accept that label.

-

After the designated two hours are up, Mrs. Cline dismisses you all.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad”, you say as you and Eddie start making your way through the hall.

“Nah”, he replies, “I mean it’s boring but it’s not bad.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not planning on having to do this again”, you continue, “but it’s bearable.”

Eddie nods.

“I’m sorry, by the way”, he adds.

“For what?”

“Jason and the others. They’ve been giving you a hard time, right?”

“Yeah”, you shrug, “it is what it is. Not your fault.”

“I mean it kind of is”, Eddie replies, “they’re only doing it because you’re dating me.”

“Eddie”, you say, “Jason’s an asshole, okay? That’s not on you. If he can’t handle our relationship, then fuck him.”

That gets a grin out of Eddie.

“You know, you’re getting to be quite a rabble rouser, Henderson”, he jokes.

“I’m learning from the best”, you tease back.

Eddie’s smile widens. He follows you out to your car and then presses a soft kiss to your lips.

“See you tomorrow, Sweetheart”, he says and then heads off to his van. You watch him go, butterflies still lingering in your tummy from the contact.

If you’d actually had any doubts about Eddie, they would’ve disappeared in that moment. That feeling, it’s a one of a kind thing. No one’s ever managed to give it to you before, and you’re not sure anyone else ever will. You love Eddie. He loves you. He’s sweet, and silly and he treats you right. If your peers want to believe a bunch of bullshit about you two, then let them. You know what you have, and you’re not going to let them ruin it for you.

Grinning to yourself, you hop in your car, put the Black Sabbath tape you borrowed from Eddie into the player and head home.

[roosterforme]

Always Ever Only You Part 16 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: You're convinced you and Bradley could go on the same date a million times over, and you would find something new to love about it each time. You don't want the weekend to come to an end, but at least you get to enjoy time with a favorite visitor on Sunday evening. 

Warnings: Angst, swearing, fluff, smut, pregnancy discussion

Length: 5000 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

This was written to accompany my series Is It Working For You? along with a bunch of my one-shots and other series, but it can be read on its own! Check my masterlist for the reading order. Always Ever Only You masterlist. Gorgeous banner by @mak-32

Bradley was dressed and lounging back on the pillows with his arms tucked behind his head. You were getting ready to go out, and he was thoroughly enjoying watching you put on your red lingerie. His favorite set.

"We could just stay in," he murmured as you clasped your bra and rolled your eyes. Your face was made up and you were standing at the foot of the bed wearing barely anything at all. "We should just stay in."

You scoffed and said, "You should let Tramp out so we can leave in twenty minutes. I want to eat hot sauce with my sexy husband."

"Fine," Bradley sighed with a smile, pausing in the doorway to watch you slip your red dress over your head. The same one you wore on your first date together. The one Bradley loved you in every time you wore it. And then he walked through the kitchen to let Tramp outside. Your new French press was on the counter along with the half unpacked Amazon box that neither of you had time to get to all week. But he reached inside and pulled out one of his new notebooks and took a pen out of the drawer.

Bradley had been working late all week for various reasons. He'd missed a lot while he was deployed. Plus the Slayer and Dean court-martial was moving ahead. And also, Maverick had offered him the chance to meet some pilots fresh out of flight school with the promise that Bradley could help with some training exercises in the coming months. He was tired. Next month was his thirty-seventh birthday. He was feeling his age.

He clicked the pen in his hand and opened the notebook to the first page.

My wife does this thing, and it drives me absolutely wild. When I tell her I'm tired or point out a gray hair in my mustache or mention that I've been feeling my age, she just laughs at me. Sure, I can still run ten miles and lift weights for hours on end, but she can wear me out in an instant. Emotionally, mentally, or physically. She can say one sentence to me like, "I want to go eat hot sauce with my sexy husband," and I am emotionally tanked for the rest of the day. Because I fucking believe her. She actually does want to eat her favorite food with me. And she actually does think I'm sexy. And she's too smart, so trying to keep up with her mentally drains me every single time. And physically... Well. That's where she manages to

"You ready to go, Roo?" you asked, walking into the kitchen looking exactly like you had more than a year and a half ago when you and he were just starting to fall in love. Well, he was already half in love with you by the time that first date rolled around. And by the end of the night, he was a goner.

"What's wrong?" you asked, reaching out for his hand with a little crease between your eyebrows.

"Nothing," he rasped as his eyes dipped down to your cleavage. "Just thinking about how I don't even have to try to play it cool tonight, unlike on our first date." He leaned down and kissed your lips softly and then added, "You look fucking incredible."

"I don't care what you say, we're not staying in for the night," you whispered, running your fingers along his tattoo and pulling him in for a kiss that was clearly at odds with your words.

"Whatever you say, Sweetheart," Bradley replied. He let Tramp back inside and then walked out to the Bronco with your hand in his. And then he got to do one of his favorite things. He opened the door for you, helped you climb in, and buckled your seatbelt. But as he started to pull his right hand away from your body, you caught it and held him close.

"Hey," you whispered. "I don't have to try to play it cool tonight either."

"No?" he asked, his eyes fluttering closed as your lips met his.

"No. I love you so much," you replied. "And I would go on the same date with you a million times, because each time would be a little different, and I know I would remember them all."

Bradley could feel goosebumps on your arm, and your eyes looked a little vulnerable. Last time you and he had visited the hot sauce restaurant and the pier from your first date, it had been on your birthday. And you cried that night. A lot. Because you wanted to be pregnant, but you weren't. He briefly wondered how many other times you'd cried for that reason that he didn't even know about.

He wanted a baby. He still did. But it wasn't his top priority. He understood now how much you'd let it hurt you month after month. And it wasn't the same for him. He knew that now. And he didn't want you to feel like you were failing yourself, your relationship or him ever again. Because you weren't. You were more than enough.

"I remember every minute I've ever spent with you, Sweetheart. And I dream about it when I'm deployed. And I want to have decades of stuff to remember."

"Just keep feeding me hot sauce."

"I fucking plan on it."

-------------------------

The ride up to Del Mar was beautiful. The sky faded from orange to purple as Bradley drove and sang along to his Motown playlist with his hand on your thigh. You thought about how you had a panic attack on your birthday after the negative pregnancy tests, but the memory of it didn't hurt as much now.

"What are you thinking about, Baby Girl?"

You glanced at your husband out of the corner of your eye as he parallel parked the Bronco in front of the restaurant. "Honestly?"

He met your eyes briefly as he straightened out the tires. "Yeah, honestly."

"I still want to have a baby, Roo," you said easily, this time without your heart aching. "I still think about it. But it doesn't make me upset like it used to."

He killed the engine, and coaxed you over to his lap. "Come here." When you were settled on him with your hands on his shoulders, he kissed you. "I still think about it, too. I still want it. But not at the expense of this," he added, gesturing between his body and yours before he let his big hand settle on your hip. "I don't want anything at the expense of this."

You took a deep breath and nodded. "Neither do I. And I know we agreed we can talk about this at length in a few more months, but I don't want to stop trying. And if there's still something wrong after a year, maybe we can talk to some doctors?"

"There's nothing wrong with us, okay? There's never going to be anything wrong. But if we still don't get pregnant, there are other options," he told you gently. "Like... fertility treatment or adoption agencies. But whatever we do, it's 50/50. We do it together. And I promise I'll take care of you better than I did before."

You were silent for a beat, because these were things you'd already thought about. "Yeah?"

He nodded. "I'm just saying, if we want a baby, there are other ways to make it happen. But I'm never going to stop wanting to fuck you, so don't think for a second that we're taking that off the table."

You shook with silent laughter before your giggles bubbled over. "Okay, we won't take that off the table, Roo."

He kissed your cheek and said, "Keep your pussy on the table." But he was laughing too, and you felt really good inside. His hands were heavy on your hips, and his lips were nipping at your neck. "Just let me feed you hot sauce and love you, and then we'll figure the rest out later if we even need to. I wanna give it a little more time, okay? Some more time with you off birth control. Some more time with us just being us. Like this."

"Yes," you agreed. "This is perfect. This feels good."

Now he was rubbing his mustache along your cleavage, and you knew you needed to get him inside the restaurant while you still could. "I'm hungry," you whispered.

"Me too," he agreed with a smirk.

"For dinner," you clarified with a laugh.

When you finally got him inside the restaurant, you could hear his stomach growling, so you didn't feel too bad. "Order two meals you want to try, Baby Girl," he said casually once you were seated.

You loved it when he let you do that, which was most of the time. And he always let you finish whichever one you liked better. And he never complained. You could feel his eyes on your body when you walked around to look at all the hot sauces on the shelves. Every time you glanced at him across the restaurant, he gave you a little nod or a wink. And there was no doubt in your mind that you were just as attracted to him now as you were the first time you were here.

When you brought some that you wanted to try back to your table, a brand new bottle of your favorite green sauce was sitting next to your favorite beer. "How am I supposed to deal with you, Bradley?"

"It's your favorite. And it's a tradition."

You laughed. "You bought me a whole case of 12 bottles online."

"You go through a bottler per week."

"That's actually fair."

Then your meals were delivered to the table, and you doused both of them in a rainbow of sauces and started eating. The two of you ended up sharing both meals, because you couldn't decide which one you liked better. And that one beer made you feel calm, and now Bradley's cheeks were rosy. After your conversation in the Bronco and the past week with him, you felt like all of the weight and pressure you put on yourself was easing up.

After dinner, you were laughing as he led you down the sidewalk with his arm wrapped around your waist. And you couldn't keep your hands off him either. "Why are we passing the Bronco? We should go home."

"Not yet," he whispered in your ear.

You gasped. "Are we going back to the silent disco?"

"Well," he rasped, looking at you with a wince. "Not exactly. I've been trying to get you back there for one, but they always seem to be when I'm deployed. But I had another idea. Let's walk down the pier."

You snorted. "You just want a handjob."

"Please," he replied, leading you across the street and down the pier. "Give me a little credit. I don't just want a handjob."

"Well that's good, because there are a lot of people out tonight," you whispered as he spun you around so your back was pressed against the railing and you were looking up at his face. "You're really handsome."

His cheeks were still rosy, but you thought perhaps your words had deepened the color. You ran your fingers along his scarred neck and across his cheek and into his hair. His eyes closed as he enjoyed your touch, and you studied him closely. He looked a little older than when you met him, with a few gray hairs here and there and maybe another wrinkle or two on his face. He'd been through a lot since then. He had the scars on his arm to prove it. But you didn't want to add emotional scars; he had plenty of those already. You just let him melt into your right hand as your left rested on his chest, and you looked at your diamond ring.

It was yours now, but sometimes you still thought of it as Carole Bradshaw's ring. Not in a bad way. Just as a form of recognition. It felt like an honor that you were wearing something so special. Maybe that was thanks in part to the words Bradley had read to you from his notebook. His recent thoughts and musings. But it was clear that some things were more important than others.

"I love you," he murmured, eyes still closed. "Are you ready for your newest playlist?"

"What is it?" you asked, his question pulling you back to the pier and the grin on his face.

"Just a little something I've been thinking about and finally put together." He pulled his earbuds out of his pocket and held one up for you to take. Then he tucked the other one in his own ear and kissed your nose. "It's all the songs I can remember from the silent disco. Plus what we listened to in the car that night. Oh, and a surprise track. Because I know you'll think it's funny."

Your heart swelled as you slid the earbud into place, and a few seconds later, the Cher song that played at the silent disco was on. And your heart was beating a little faster. And you couldn't stop smiling. "You really remembered all the songs we heard that night?"

Bradley shrugged. "I may have missed some. We'll add them if you remember more, okay?"

"I love this," you gasped, throwing your arms around his neck. "I love you."

He kissed your jaw and whispered, "I told you... I remember every minute I've spent with you. Or at least the way you've made me feel at any given time. Maybe the memories of some of the songs are a little hazy for me, but I remember how fucking good you made me feel that night. And how I was proud to be there with you. I still feel that way."

"Fuck, Bradley. You can't make me cry while Britney Spears is playing."

He laughed. "Okay. Let's dance then."

-----------------------

It was dark out. The other people who had been enjoying the view of the ocean from the pier had dissipated. An orange glow from the scattered lampposts softly lit your face like a dream. Bradley had taken to singing all the songs to you, just to hear you laugh and sing along yourself. The random mix of pop songs and '80s ballads and romantic Motown tunes kept a smile on your face. You laughed when Hey Soul Sister played, and you threatened to text Nat. And the whole time, Bradley held you close with his hands at your hips and waist.

"Oh," he said when the music went silent. "That's the end of the playlist."

"It's over?" you asked, leaning back against the railing and looking up at him longingly. You removed your earbud and handed it back to him.

"Baby Girl, it was almost three hours long," he informed you with a laugh.

You tipped your head back and groaned. "It was perfect." Then you gasped softly as his lips found the pretty expanse of your neck and chest which were on display for him. He was sucking gently on your collarbone as you said, "I knew I was in trouble after the first time you brought me here. You were so sincere that night."

Bradley hummed against your warm skin. "I was already thinking about spending the rest of my life with you."

"No! Stop it. We had just met." Your voice sounded breathy as he drew little shapes along your dress with his thumbs, your head still tipped back.

"Didn't matter. Already knew."

Your hands slid up from his shoulders into his hair, and he nibbled along the tops of your breasts as you made the sweetest little sounds. Your nipples were tight peaks against the fabric of your dress, and when Bradley ran his lips lower to feel you, he groaned. The texture of your lace bra filled his imagination with possibilities.

You tilted your head up, and when he met your eyes, you had the audacity to look surprised. "You're hard, Roo."

He raised one eyebrow at you, just short of rolling his eyes. "Listen... when two people love each other very, very much..."

Your laughter filled him. "Oh, is that how this works? You know, that sentence can be interpreted a lot of ways."

He had to close his eyes as you gently squeezed his length through his jeans. "It's how it works with you." He huffed out a breath when you licked his ear and added, "You make me greedy. I want everything."

You hummed softly as you unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. Bradley glanced around to make sure you and he were truly alone as you whispered, "Then let's have everything. Even if it takes some time."

"I love that," he groaned as your cool hand dipped inside his boxer briefs and closed around him. One stroke and he was putty in your hands.

"And we'll start with the handjob that I was seriously contemplating giving you on our first date."

"Oh fuck, Sweetheart. You're too much." Bradley bucked against your belly as you ran your thumb along his balls. He'd let you go a little further with this, but then he was taking you home for the night. Just a little more. Each stroke was incredible as he kissed your lips.

But when you started asking him questions, he should have known he was in trouble. Because you always got unbridled information out of him when you put him in situations like this. "What do you want for your birthday, Roo?"

He was watching your hand pass over his tip as he grunted, "Another sexy calendar."

"That can be arranged," you said sweetly. "And how do you feel about me starting to save up some money for a first anniversary trip?"

"Do it," he growled as you rubbed at his precum with your thumb. But then he wrenched his hips away, and your eyes were transfixed on his cock as it leapt for you.

"You don't want to finish here?" you asked, your eyes moving up his body to his face as you licked him from your thumb.

After he zipped himself carefully back in his jeans, he said, "I don't want to ruin your dress, and I don't want to get arrested. Let's go home." He didn't even wait for you to respond. He just turned and picked you up for a piggy back ride back to the Bronco.

The drive home was similar to that very first date. After you kissed him while he fumbled with your seat belt trying buckle you in, he turned on another playlist before he started the engine. But this time he was driving to the house that you shared, not the apartment you used to live in with Maria. And he didn't have to leave you for the night to prove to himself that he could, and that maybe he was good enough. He was your husband now, and you had deemed him good enough for you.

Bradley's hand was gripping your thigh as he saw the craftsman down the block. As soon as he was pulling into the driveway, you were crawling toward him, and he barely had the Bronco in park before you were straddling his thighs.

"I want you in every way." That sentence was the best example of how you wore him out emotionally. It was fucking beautiful, and he could spend all night just thinking about it. But you were kissing him now, and he was already aroused again as he finally turned the key in the ignition.

"You own me." You really seemed to love that response as your lips stayed gentle on his and your hand drifted down his body to his zipper again. It was so dark outside, even in the neighborhood, but Bradley could see the question in your eyes as you pulled back a little bit. Maybe you wanted to make sure he wanted this, too. Maybe you wanted him inside you instead of anything else. He just wanted to be with you. "Anything you want, Sweetheart."

"Okay."

He shimmied his jeans and underwear down his hips, lifting you up as well with a soft laugh. Then you took his hands in yours and guided them slowly up under your dress. He was treated to the sight of you unzipping your dress and unclasping your bra and pulling them down so he could see your pretty tits and peaked nipples. But then his hands froze under your dress.

"You changed your underwear. Earlier tonight. After I left the bedroom."

Your laughter had your tits bouncing just enough to distract Bradley and lure his lips to them.

"Oh!" you gasped as he sucked on you. "I did. I know you like the red ones, but I wanted these instead. Do you know which ones they are?"

That was a ridiculous question, and you knew it. He ran his thumb up your slit and could feel the satin fabric and the fancy embroidered letters as you bucked. He sucked harder until you called out his name and braced your hands on his shoulders. You were wearing the underwear you had specially made for the honeymoon.

"Of course I know, Mrs. Bradshaw."

"You passed the test!"

Bradley tugged your panties to the side and thrust up into you in one fluid motion until he bottomed out. "That's a test I will always pass."

Your hands were scrambling around his neck as you leaned in closer and kissed him. He led your hips in a slow roll with his hands on your ass and whispered, "Just. Like. That."

You kept the pace going, already panting softly as he brought one hand back up to your tits. His other fingers trailed around your hip, and he tucked them inside the front of your panties. As soon as he brushed your clit with his knuckle, you whined for him. "Daddy."

It had been a while since he heard you call him that. And fuck if he didn't love it. But you looked almost surprised that you'd said it out loud, eyes wide as you rode him.

"I fucking love it when you call me that," he crooned as he pinched your nipple. Your pussy was already fluttering around him as you kept that perfect tempo. Bradley pressed his mouth to yours as you babbled incoherently, and it was just a lost cause as you raked your fingers through his hair. He came inside you as he kept pressing his knuckle to your clit.

"Come on, Sweetheart," he coaxed as your movements sped up and then slowed as your cries echoed inside the Bronco. Then your lips were all over his before you abruptly broke away.

Your voice was a sweet little gasp as you said, "Don't make a mess on the upholstery."

With a laugh rumbling deep in his chest, Bradley opened the door and lifted you down from the driver's seat. "Just one of the many reasons we're married."

--------------------------

You and Bradley were lounging in bed on Sunday morning, and he was doing a really poor job of making you want to leave to meet Cam and Maria for brunch.

"Aren't you supposed to be golfing today?" you asked with a laugh as he pinned your wrists over your head on the pillow.

"Yep," he replied softly. "Supposed to meet Jake, Javy and Bob in less than an hour."

You sighed as his lips met the underside of your breast. "Shouldn't you be getting dressed then?"

"I'd rather go for round three and then drink champagne in the bathtub with you."

Now that did sound nice. The weekend had been so much fun. Going up to the hot sauce restaurant had been perfect. You were exhausted all over from having sex and taking Tramp on long beach walks and staying up too late watching movies last night. And Bradley finished reading his notebook to you and promised he'd start from the beginning all over again. Frankly, you could use a nap already, so you weren't really sure how Bradley was doing so well at the moment.

"I'm supposed to go to brunch," you whispered, and Bradley rolled off of you with a groan.

"I'll get side eye for a month from Maria and Cam if you don't go," he said. "So I guess I'll just go play golf."

"We can do round three later," you promised, kissing his ear as you climbed out of bed and started to get ready. "You want me to bring you back some avocado toast?" you asked with a smile.

He made a disgusted face. "You know I hate that stuff. I'll just day drink and eat protein bars like a normal person until you feed me dinner."

"If I decide to feed you dinner later."

Bradley's face looked panicked. "You have to. Please? Sweetheart," he called, springing out of bed and following you to the bathroom. "Please?"

"You're ridiculous, Bradley. Go get a pack of chicken out of the freezer, and I'll make you some Marry Me Rooster tonight."

"Thank you." He kissed you so long and so passionately, you actually felt a little dizzy when he walked out of the room. "He's ridiculous," you muttered as you pressed your fingertips to your lips.

When you finally made it to brunch fifteen minutes late, Cam was glaring at you. "Maria wouldn't let me order anything until you got here. And I'll just bet you're late because Lieutenant Commander Mustache was doing something nasty to you."

You burst into laughter as you slid into the booth next to him. "I mean... I was just helping him with his golf clubs."

"The two of you are fucking filthy," he replied, flagging down the waitress while you and Maria laughed.

Brunch with the two of them was always fun, and you were on your second mimosa when Bradley texted you.

Bradley Rooster Bradshaw <3 <3 <3: Jake wants to know if we can watch Jeremiah tonight if he can manage to get Cat to agree to go to a movie. I told him I had to check with the boss. He laughed and said he should have just texted you instead of asking me... oh wait, I think he's texting you now. Why did I even bother? And then you got a text from Jake asking very nicely if he and Cat could drop Jeremiah off later on their way to a movie. You told them both yes, and when you got home from brunch, you started to clean up the living room. You found your underwear from last night on the coffee table, and your bra was draped over the arm of the couch.

"Don't look at me like that," you told Tramp. "We were just having a good time, okay?" Then you smiled, because you knew that your pup was going to love licking crumbs off of the one year old visitor and following him around the room. "Your friend is coming over. I expect you to be well behaved."

-----------------------------

"He's just so fucking cute."

"Roo! Stop swearing in front of the child!"

Bradley looked up at you from all fours on the living room floor. "Isn't he too young for it to matter?" he asked in all seriousness.

You were gaping at him like he was an idiot, and he started laughing. "The last thing I need is Cat mad at me because his first word is the f-word."

Bradley rolled his eyes. "If he doesn't learn it from me, then I'm sure he'll learn it from Jake."

"Yeah, well that's Jake's problem," you muttered, ducking back into the kitchen to check on dinner.

Bradley scooped Jeremiah up and said, "You're so freaking cute. Is that better?" The little bubble of laughter he got in response was most likely a yes, so he just went with it. "Let's see here. It's almost dinner time. And then I'll bet my hot wife will read us that book about trucks that you liked so much."

"I'll read it now," you said as you walked back into the room. "Dinner is not quite ready yet."

"Hell yes, she's going to read it to us now," Bradley said as he and Jeremiah crawled across the floor to the diaper bag where the book was stashed. He unzipped it and watched the kid reach in and pull everything out including the book. "Nice work. But my knees can't take much more."

With a groan, Bradley scooped him and the book up and carried them to the couch where you were sitting with Tramp. And you looked calm and relaxed as you held the child on your lap and opened the book. Your voice was so sweet, and you were so beautiful, Bradley noticed that Jeremiah seemed more interested in you than the story at times. And it made him smile, because that was pretty much the same way he always looked at you, too.

But he was done stressing about all of it. Bradley was in love with you, and the weekend was everything he wanted. Having a kid like Jeremiah all to yourselves would be a cherry on top of an already perfect life. And if you and he were both still keen on the idea next year, there were options to be discussed at length.

Bradley let himself hope, just the tiniest bit, that maybe you and he would get lucky before then. But he wouldn't drown in that hope like he had before. And he wouldn't let that hope overshadow how great things were right now. But he wouldn't abandon it either. He laughed as he thought about how insightful his notebook entry was going to be later tonight after Jeremiah got picked up.

"Should I read it again?" you asked, looking up at Bradley.

He kissed your cheek. "At least one more time, Sweetheart. We can't get enough of your voice."

You smiled as he and Jeremiah settled in to hear the favorite story again.

------------------------------

The perfect date to do over and over. Little Jeremiah is too sweet, I'm just hoping Cat and Jake are enjoying themselves, too. Just hang in there guys... Thanks to @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 17

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[momotonescreaming]

Just a little thing based off of this text post of mine.

Eddie had made a lot of bad decisions in his life. Stacked them up like blocks, one on top of the other. Poorly thought out choices, impulsive things, all building on top of one another. There was good, of course — moving in with Wayne, learning guitar, picking up that DnD book at the thrift store — but this, this, was not one of them.

He was really starting to regret everything that led him to this point. Hunched over books and flash cards at the Wheeler’s dining room table, Nancy trying to grill fact after fact into his brain. He regretted failing high school the first time around, and the second. He regretted taking notes that weren’t ‘good enough’ according to Nancy. He regretted mentioning his determination to pass the third time round. He regretted letting Steve get under his skin, looking at him with large, thinking eyes. Regretted listening when he said that he could ask Nancy to help him — she helped Steve after all. Regretted getting into his car and driving over to the Wheeler house on a Saturday afternoon.

Absently wonders if the fact that Steve and Nancy were fucking when she tutored him had anything to do with Steve’s positive view of her studying method. Because, Eddie thinks, doodling a skull into his notebook, she sucks. Glaring at him with all the fury of one of Wayne’s old army sergeants, lips pursed, nails tapping on the wooden table top. Like that is supposed to help. Is supposed to make him feel better about his failures.

He watches the motion of her fingers, nails painted a careful pale pink. Watches as she organises the piles of flashcards she made him write out — writing them himself, and not her doing it would help the material stick better in his brain, apparently. It was almost as if she had forgotten he was repeating senior year for the third time. In the same classes, with the same material, writing it down for the third year in a row. Writing it down wasn’t going to make it stick.

The doodles on the cards don’t help her glaring. The suns, and dragons, and swords, he’d scribbled over all the pages. It helped him think, having something to do with his hands while she lectured him. She didn’t see it that way. He was distracted. As if it was his fault the material was so fucking boring. Or the fact she tutored him with all the enthusiasm of a child being dragged out of their room by force. She didn’t have to say yes.

She sighs, a sharp, put-upon thing. Terse and to the point.

Eddie looked up at her, raising an eyebrow, bitten pen clutched tightly in his hand. She was pointedly looking at him, flash cards in her hands, not saying anything. Fuck, Eddie wasn’t a mind reader. What is he doing wrong now? Apart from everything, apparently.

His notes are bad, his handwriting is too messy, his flashcards are covered in doodles. He keeps staring off into space, humming and tapping and bouncing his feet. They’ve been at this for hours, and Eddie is about to lose his mind.

“What?” He says, gesturing with his hands, before throwing them down on the table. His rings hit the wood with a clunk. It’s satisfying, but he can swear he can see Nancy’s eye twitch at the sound.

“Nothing,” She says, shaking her head so her curls bounce. Tilting her gaze away from him, before looking back down at one of her textbooks. He can still see the purse of her lips, the tensing of her shoulders. “Finish your notes.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Eddie says, feeling a sharper edge cut it’s way through his words. Tries to hold back the urge to dig his nails into the table and scratch. “What am I fucking up now?”

She huffs, looks up, puts the pile of his flashcards down, before looking over at him. “I just think this would go a lot better if you actually tried.”

Eddie inhales as soon as the words leave her mouth. Sharp and cutting. Air cool, but his blood is boiling. His whole body tenses, he stops his tapping and itching and fidgeting. Locks his eyes with hers and grinds his teeth.

“Excuse me?” Eddie says, grating and angry. Glaring over at Nancy with her perfectly permed hair and ironed blouse. With her perfect little family and her dad who earns six figures. With her good fucking grades and the entitlement to match. Who does she fucking think she is? “You think I’m not fucking trying?”

“Well,” She starts, a slight sing-song lilt to her voice, as she tilts her head again, looking down at Eddie’s scrawled notes and doodled flashcards. If she finishes that sentence with some bullshit like ‘if the shoe fits’ or ‘look at the evidence’ Eddie’s flipping the table.

“No.” He says, cutting her off before she can even think of finishing the sentence. Nancy glares at him, snapping her mouth shut. Not even bothering to hide her annoyance at being interrupted. Eddie doesn’t fucking care anymore. “You think I’d be here if I wasn’t trying? You think I wouldn’t have gone back to fucking high school two times, if I wasn’t trying?”

He’s gripping the edge of the table now, knuckles white with the force of it. He can feel his rings digging into his skin, pressed against the wooden table. Eddie’s sure he looks wild, frizzy hair in a halo around his head, eyes sharp and glaring, jaw clenched. Sure he looks like the kind of guy Mrs. Wheeler doesn’t want in her home. Doesn’t want associating with her perfect daughter. Fuck off. He should have said no. Tried to study by himself. Asked Jeff. Anything would be better than this.

Eddie’s fucking trying. He’s been holding his tongue whenever Nancy makes a passive aggressive, snippy comment. Asks her questions when she refuses to elaborate. Tries to hold back his fidgeting and tapping. Hasn’t even been snarking back whenever Nancy huffs and gets all annoyed when he doesn’t automatically know what she wants from him.

“You’re barely making a dent, Eddie,” She eventually says, holding her back straight. Looking down at him. “You’re not listening.”

“No, you’re not listening, Wheeler.” Eddie retorts, notebook abandoned in front of him. “I’m not good at school, I know this, but I’m trying so fucking hard to be better. To graduate. You just can’t get it through your head that I’m not you.”

“Of course you’re not-“ Nancy starts before Eddie cuts her off again. He’s on a roll now, the words tumbling out of his mouth.

“Your little flashcards, and your quizzes aren’t working; and Jesus Christ, you can’t get it through your permed head that maybe you should try something else?” Eddie spits.

“I’m just following the correct steps. They way we’re supposed to do it.” Nancy retorts, voice held carefully in her mouth.

“It’s not your way or the highway, Wheeler. In fact, your way fucking sucks.” He replies. “You’re a shit fucking teacher.”

He ignores her huff.

“Don’t quit your day job, I’m out of here.” Eddie says as he sweeps his notebooks and papers off of the table and into his backpack, not caring about the uncapped pens and the loose papers getting crumpled. Eddie’s not putting himself through this anymore. The second he has all of his things, he pushes away from the table, chair squeaking horribly against the floor. Nancy winces at the sound, lips held in a tight line, glaring at him.

Eddie pulls a smug face at her, before storming out of her house.

The second he’s outside he lets his face drop. Feels the sinking in his chest. Why don’t people understand that he wants to graduate? That he keeps coming back because he’s trying so fucking hard. He wants to make it. He wants to be a better man than his father.

Shoving his keys in the ignition, Eddie drowns his thoughts out with the blaring of his music that thunders out through the van’s stereo the second he starts it. He blinks back the tears that threaten to fall, clenches his shaking hands on the steering wheel, and peels off towards Forest Hills.