#and the picture after that was another person signing the CDs and it was fucking louis

[twiensat]

.

[julemmaes]

ahem... cassian taking nesta to that bookstore (fluff, don’t try making shit sad aight?)

Our First Non-Date

SURPRISE I GUESS!!

Nessian Archeron x Cassian

You can find the first part here.

A/N: this month has been really nice on me. I finally feel better, not crying every day for literally nothing and I wanna dedicate this to my fren Sim (@perseusannabeth) cause homegirl just finished the offcampus series and she's grieving. I know she is. So yep. Take some Nessian fluff

And Nina, I had to add some angsty parts, but they're not Irene Angst Level, okay?

Word count: 6,833

When Cassian had called her back the night after their outing with Amren and Varian, she'd stared at the phone for a full minute until it had stopped ringing and she could go back to reading the article on poisonous plants that Elain had sent her.

It hadn't even been five minutes before the words had been obscured from the call screen again and the name "Cassian Navarro" appeared.

When she had ignored the call for the second time as well, he had decided to change tactics.

Hi Nes, I was thinking about when you'd be free to go to the library. I need a couple of manuals because I'm building a little gazebo in Rhys and Feyre's garden and your sister is putting a lot of pressure on me, so I was wondering if you had the day off tomorrow.

Nesta was stunned at the amount of useless information he had given her, but managed to reply with a simple, Working tomorrow, day off on Wednesday. Sending you the address later.

She certainly hadn't anticipated how hard it would be to get up that day, her will to live must have been hiding somewhere under her bed and Nesta didn't know if it was directly related to their going out or just her stupid brain not being able to connect to real life.

The only other worst thing she'd been able to think of at that moment was having to explain to Cassian what was going on, so, pulled out of bed by the future embarrassment they'd feel in such a situation, she'd managed to dress, wash and style her hair so that she had a braid crowning her head.

She hadn't put too much effort into deciding what to wear, after all, it wasn't a date and Cassian had seen her many times before in far more outrageous and scruffy clothes than the comfortable black jeans and grey jumper she was wearing right now.

The silence had made her uncomfortable at first, only because Cassian seemed to be really stressed - about what, she certainly wouldn't ask - but after about ten minutes, he'd turned on the radio and popped a CD into the player and the melody of a Verve song had filled the cabin.

She'd started humming under her breath and he'd looked at her with a faint smile on his lips and his eyes sparkling. She hadn't mulled over that look too much, but she'd started eyeing him more closely and noticed the way he narrowed his eyes at every street sign and how he ran a hand over his face every time a strand of hair landed in front of his eyes.

When Cassian had to blow the hair out of his face for the millionth time, Nesta pulled a rubber band off her wrist and handed it to him abruptly.

Cassian looked surprised, but took it almost immediately, brushing her fingers. Nesta immediately withdrew her hand, feeling how warm and calloused his were.

"Thanks, my hair is killing me today," he finally spoke.

Nesta continued to look ahead, noticing that they were about to enter the highway. "Well, it wasn't very wise of you not to tie it up before you got in the car. I never drive with my hair down."

He nodded slowly, still with the band clutched between his fingers. And then, suddenly he let go of the steering wheel, "Hold that for me for a second." and Nesta's eyes went wide, launching herself at him to grab it and keep the car in their lane.

"Are you nuts?" she almost shrieked, keeping her gaze fixed on the road and feeling every nerve ending vibrate with anger.

"Relax." he said in a calm tone, shifting her hands and gently pushing her back into her seat one more time. "It wasn't even five seconds."

Nesta huffed out a laugh that lacked amusement, "You do something like that again without warning me first and I'm getting out of the car."

Cassian looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "A bit dramatic, but alright."

She sighed, shaking her head slightly and resting it on her hand propped against the window.

That awkward silence fell again and Nesta couldn't figure out what the problem was. She hadn't felt any kind of unease three days before, but after all, they'd been with friends and busy walking, not stuck in a car for two hours with no chance of walking away or splitting up.

And in that moment, the reality of their situation overwhelmed her.

She forced herself to steady her breathing, opening the window slightly so that more air could get in. She forced herself to think about all the things she would see today at the library and how beautiful and spectacular it had looked from mere pictures. She wasn't going to let her twisted mind stop her from having fun with someone who was desperately trying to be her friend.

She took a deep breath and a surprising calm enveloped her. She looked to her left to see if Cassian had noticed that temporal change in her behaviour, but it seemed to her that he was just as fidgety.

She was about to ask him if he was okay, because the knee that kept bouncing and the fingers opening and closing on the steering wheel were obvious nervous tics, when he did the eye thing again, this time leaning forward over the dashboard as well, and the sharp turn he took to the right caused her to shift in her seat so much that she bumped her shoulder against his.

Cassian grimaced, "I'm sorry," he murmured.

"What's wrong?" she asked, readjusting in her seat.

"Sorry?"

"What's the matter? With your eyes, I mean."

"Oh." he seemed surprised by the question, almost as if he hadn't realised she'd been observing him for the last twenty minutes. He cast her a curious glance immediately returning to the road. "I wear glasses when I drive, but I couldn't find them this morning and these contacts are the wrong shade and I can't see very well."

Nesta nodded thoughtfully, "Where do you normally keep them?"

"In the glove box. But I already checked," he replied, rolling his shoulders. Another nervous tic.

Nesta had to suppress a smile. There was no way he could be so worked up just because they were talking. She looked down at the phone in her hand to check the time, and a flash of light momentarily dazzled her. She blinked a couple of times and then scoffed, "Found them."

She reached a hand towards the hatch compartment and pulled out a pair of very plain black glasses, handing them to him. Cassian seemed to finally relax since she'd gotten into the car.

"Thank fuck." then he pulled into a lay-by and without turning off the car, slipped two fingers in his eye, removing one contact and then the other, leaving Nesta stunned. He put the glasses on his nose and flashed her a smile that went from ear to ear. And Nesta was stunned for other reasons.

She couldn't deny that Cassian was an attractive man. She wasn't stupid or blind, but the man next to her should have come with a warning sign or a bell.

Attention, hot stuff coming your way.

Nesta forgot the comment she had wanted to make about how antigenic and risky it had been to remove his contacts without first cleaning his hands and in such a dirty environment.

His hair tied back in a messy bun, with the hint of a beard he was letting grow, and now his glasses on, Cassian looked like a model on the cover of a newspaper about sexy carpenters. The short-sleeved black shirt he wore that pulled on his huge biceps every time he moved in the slightest was just one more point to add to the list of things that made him appealing.

"So," he began, getting back on the road, "what's your favourite colour?"

Nesta snorted, "Are you serious?"

Cassian seemed to blanch, "What?"

"Have you ever been out with a girl?" she asked him sarcastically, knowing full well what the answer would be.

He clenched his jaw so hard that a muscle popped out on his face, "Only on dates."

"And this isn't a date." pointed out Nesta, holding back a laugh at how tortured he sounded.

"It's not."

Nesta touched the tip of her nose, thoughtful, "Shouldn't this be easier for you then?"

Cassian released a breath through his nose, "I'm under a lot of pressure right now."

"Yeah?" she asked, looking away and smiling.

"Yeah, and stop looking like you're enjoying it." he retorted.

She feigned innocence, "Enjoying what?"

"My pain." he sheeted.

Nesta laughed, unable to contain herself any longer and when he glared at her, she covered her mouth with one hand, laughing harder. Only when he snapped his fingers against the steering wheel did she stop, laying a hand on his arm, just for a few seconds, "I'm so sorry." she wheezed, "I just don't understand. When you're hanging out with my sisters or Amren, or Mor, I don't know, you don't seem to be in this much discomfort."

Cassian sighed again and Nesta chuckled one last time, stopping when he smiled slightly. "I'm just trying not to make you uncomfortable. You accepted I take you on this non-date, and I'm doing my best not to flirt badly with you every chance I get." he confessed, nodding slowly, as if to convince himself that he was doing the right thing and not wasting their time.

Nesta was genuinely surprised at his answer and decided to offer him an olive branch.

"My favourite colour is blue."

"Nice." he smiled, showing a hint of a dimple, "Mine is red."

"It's too bright of a colour," she said lightheartedly.

Cassian chuckled, "I'm pretty sure it reflects my peppy personality."

Nesta nodded, "I read an article once about how a person's favourite colour says a lot about the person themselves," she said annoyed, "It sounded like one of those quizzes you find in gossip magazines, like it was written by a third grader. I hate those things, like horoscopes."

He grunted, "God, Mor's obsessed with horoscopes..."

The conversation continued without any more awkward silences for the remainder of the ride, and when Cassian turned onto a bumpy road, Nesta knew they were close. Of course, even if she hadn't looked at the directions from her house to the place, the myriad cars parked along the road would have been an indication.

They parked in the first vacant spot they could find and as soon as Nesta was out of the car, an icy gust of wind hit her face, making her shiver with cold. She looked over the bonnet at Cassian and found him staring at her with a half smile on his face. He'd left his glasses in the car and had let his hair down again, her hair band on his wrist, and he looked even prettier than before.

"Do you want my jacket?" he asked her, with a conflicted look on his face, as if he didn't want to. Nesta narrowed her brows and he hurried to add, "There's no hidden agenda to my offer, just a friend lending a jacket to another friend."

Nesta watched him for a moment, trying to really understand his intentions, but then remembered reading in one of the reviews that the library was heated inside and shook her head.

Cassian gave a small nod of assent and then pointed down the street, "Shall we?"

From where they had parked to the library it would have been about a ten minute walk and Nesta couldn't help but notice the way Cassian kept his distance between them as if he was afraid she would get scared and run away.

He was back to fidgeting nervously with his fingers and when he realised she was looking at him, he put them in his pockets, smiling tensely at her. He took a deep breath and then said, "So, what do you know about this library?"

Nesta looked ahead, hoping to catch a glimpse of the building, but the foliage of the trees was still too thick and they were still too far away for it to see anything. She brought her hands to her stomach, crossing her fingers, "I actually did a bit of research before I came. Did you know that the Peace Treaty between Prythian and Hybern of 1864 was signed here?" she asked in an excited voice.

Cassian smiled at her so naturally that she felt herself blush. He had an expression she couldn't decipher, but Nesta had never been good at cracking people in general, so she didn't venture to continue until he said, "Tell me more."

And Nesta launched into a detailed description of the events that had taken place inside the building, which only a hundred years before had become a bookstore. Only one wing of the building had been furnished in such a way as to become a real shop, the rest had been set up to be visited as a museum, one of the oldest libraries. She talked about the architecture and how it was obvious that the palace had been built long before it became an important meeting place for scholars and researchers.

"And in 1932 a fire destroyed the science wing, burning more than a hundred textbooks." Nesta sighed, thinking how devastating that loss had been. She lit up with happiness when she remembered what happened next. "But luckily, one of the most important literary clubs in the city got together and they managed to recover a small portion of the books. It took them years to rewrite every manual, but they got help from one of the local researchers, a certain Mr. Hawthorn, I can't remember the name or details of the research, only that he's mentioned often in the article I read."

When she paused to catch her breath, Nesta realised with immense horror what had just happened. Cassian had not spoken a word after asking her if she knew anything about the place and she had monopolised the conversation without even acknowledging him once. She felt herself flare up and knew in that moment that any hope they had of becoming real friends was gone.

Sometimes she would get lost in thought and ramble on about the things she was passionate about. Quite often people had stopped her, letting her know they weren't interested in the subject, but Cassian had never interrupted her and she was afraid to look at him, convinced she would only find boredom and disgust on his face.

That was why, when he spoke, she was struck dumb.

"I'm impressed." he breathed, chuckling immediately afterwards.

Nesta pushed herself to look at him and he stood admiring her with his mouth slightly open, as if he couldn't find the words. She felt her heart clench in her chest so tightly that she didn't know if she could survive the pain. Who knows how many times he'd tried to stop her and she'd gone on and on about windows and arches and treaties of peace.

But when she got a better look at him, stopping in front of him, Cassian looked... happy.

He let out a laugh, running a hand through his hair, and Nesta was distracted for a moment by the sway of his arms before she was brought violently back down to earth when he said, "You surprise me more and more every time, Nesta."

And the way he said her name - Ne-sta - made her toes curl.

"Why?" she managed to throw out in a weak voice.

Cassian laughed again, raising his eyebrows so high they ended under the hair on his forehead, locking his eyes to hers. "I have a degree in history and my final thesis happened to be on this very library." Nesta felt the ground open up beneath her feet and hoped it swallowed her alive. "I came out of university with top marks and various accolades for finishing my studies on time and you, dreadful creature that you are, have just taught me at least three new things about this place."

His gaze was so intense that Nesta had to lower her head to hide the satisfied and surprised smirk that popped up on her lips.

"You're amazing." huffed Cassian, "Perfect in every way."

She shrugged.

"Although," he clicked his tongue against his palate, "You made a mistake."

Nesta looked up at him, frowning, "Oh, yeah?"

Cassian nodded, smirking fiercely, "Why don't you turn around and admire the palace, and once we're inside, I'll explain what it is?"

She must have been so lost in her chatter that she hadn't noticed that they had arrived in the large entrance forecourt, because when she turned, her back to Cassian, the building stood among the forest trees, as imposing and splendid as ever. The photos had not done it justice in the slightest and Nesta was left speechless.

Living in a country with a history going back millennia, it wasn't hard to stumble upon historic streets with old buildings and monuments, but this was completely different.

She was still admiring the way the stone around the windows had been carved to look like trees trying to get into the building when she felt something settle on the small of her back. A hand.

Nesta stiffened slightly, before closing her eyes and relaxing.

Cassian must have noticed her discomfort because a moment later his hand was no longer touching her.

They entered the museum part of the building in silence and Nesta paid the entrance fees, reminding him of the tea he'd offered her last Sunday and Cassian hadn't been able to argue with that.

They had just passed the doors to the first room, the smallest in the entire palace, when he leaned towards her, to the point of touching her ear with his lips.

The fact that he was whispering as if they had been in a sacred place did things to her little icy heart, "Mr. Hawthorn was not a man."

Shocked by that information, Nesta's head snapped in his direction and she realised too late that she had miscalculated the space.

Her lips brushed against his cheek, the corner of his lips, before Cassian reacted so quickly he startled her, but avoiding them both an involuntary first kiss. His sudden movement caused him to lose his balance and he reached out his hands towards her, straightening as he held on to her shoulders.

Both of them were holding their breath.

Cassian cleared his throat, shifting his gaze to the wall of books, but returning to look at her soon after, "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, you just surprised me," she said when she had recovered. "I must have read the article wrong."

He was still watching her and shook his head, "Oh no, I don't think it's that. They only found out a few months ago that it was Georgina and not George Hawthorn. They found letters in the house of what was thought to be Hawthorn's wife. Some people think they were just friends, but anyone who has read the letters they exchanged knows full well that they were lovers. Anyone who says otherwise is either homophobic or stupid."

Nesta realised that she could have listened to this for hours on end. And so it was.

The visit continued relatively quietly, Cassian explaining every detail to her, expanding on things she already knew and when he forgot something, she would step in and have her say, commenting on every little aspect.

She'd noticed how Cassian hadn't tried to touch her anymore and how whenever someone was about to bump into her, he'd vocally warn her instead of wrapping an arm around her shoulders to move her out of their way like he had on Sunday.

The visit to the museum lasted less than expected unfortunately, because Nesta hadn't had this much fun in too long. It was becoming easier to smile at him or tease him when he said dumb things and even he seemed to finally be more at ease when he had to make jokes that smacked of him.

When they finally got to the shop, Nesta couldn't stand on her feet anymore, she just wanted to buy all the books she saw and go home and arrange them on her shelves.

"Which section do you want to see first?" she asked him, even though she had started hopping impatiently about the place.

Cassian gave her a smug look, "Why don't you go wherever you want and I'll look for the manuals for the gazebo in the meantime? That way you don't waste time keeping up with me. I'll be right there."

Nesta let out an excited squeal and ran off, hearing only the echo of laughter that shook Cassian from head to toe.

***

As Cassian flipped through the various books to find a picture of a gazebo that looked similar to the one Feyre had requested, he kept casting glances at Nesta.

Her eyes sparkled as she grabbed book after book without even reading the synopses. She was in the romance novels section, from what he could see from where he stood, but soon ended up in the classics, where she grabbed just as many books. She moved to the mystery books section, this time stopping to read the plots and putting most of them back on the shelves.

Then, surprising Cassian, she walked over to where the historical novels were and turned to face him. He bent his head to the side, raising an eyebrow to ask her what she was doing there. Nesta seemed at a loss, trying to move all the books from one arm to the other to point him to join her, but Cassian was already halfway there and when she looked back up at him and found him standing in front of her, she gave him a bright smile.

"Hello." she exclaimed.

Cassian's breath caught for a second before he too sighed a greeting.

"I was thinking," Nesta began, running her eyes over the titles in front of them, "that you could recommend something about..." she wiggled her fingers as much as she could, trying to point to the shelf, and Cassian leaned forward, cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner.

"Here," he removed the first stack of books from her arms and she sagged a little, giving him a thankful look. "I can go get a bag so you can put them all in there and you don't have to carry them like this," he said taking all the books and having her help him arrange them so they wouldn't fall out.

He smiled at her over all the books, looking down at her and she smiled back just as happily.

Hell, if she looked at him like that every time he took her to a bookstore he should do it more often.

He had just turned to go towards the entrance, where he had seen special bags for carrying books, but Nesta stopped him by putting a hand on his arm.

"Wait!" she exclaimed almost impishly.

Cassian turned his head, genuinely worried that something had happened to her in the mere seconds he had been shot. He must have moved too fast, because one of the smaller classics flew off the top of the stack and landed right in her face.

Nesta groaned at the impact and brought her hands to her face, rubbing her forehead where it hurt.

"Oh my God, are you okay?!" he asked with wide eyes. And then Nesta laughed, her eyes sparkling with amusement as she stared at him and he visibly relaxed. "Christ, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to throw a book at you."

She waved a hand in mid-air, to let him know it was nothing, and bent down to pick up what he realised was A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Of course Nesta was reading feminist classics.

She turned back to the books as if nothing had happened and Cassian had the urge to look for a list of all the bookstores in the world to take her to if it meant having her in such a good mood by his side, it didn't matter if she would never agree to go on a real date with him, he realised. As long as he could see her smile like that, he didn't need anything else.

"So, I was saying, before you battered me with a book-" she cast an amused glance over one shoulder at him.

He frowned, muttering, "I said sorry."

Nesta ignored him, "What do you recommend?"

Cassian blinked.

"You said you read historical novels right?" she asked, looking for confirmation, "You could recommend your favourites. But not the English or Russian classics. Or French ones. Chances are I've already read those."

Cassian was stunned. Nesta wanted advice on books. From him.

They were silent for too long as she turned around impatiently, "You lied?"

He looked surprised, "When?"

"When you said you were reading. Were you just doing it to impress me or were you serious?" she asked and maybe Cassian imagined it, but she looked disappointed.

He was quick to reply, "The Black Coat, by Neamat Imam. It's pretty recent, but set in the 1970s in Bangladesh. It's about a man who needs help and seeks it from a journalist he asks for work and one of the main themes is the famine that hit the country after it became independent. It's not my absolute favourite, but it certainly gives you something to think about."

Nesta nodded, searching through the titles and finding it almost immediately, "Anything else?"

Cassian felt his neck heat up and coughed a little before resuming speaking. "The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. Set in the tenth century, it's about a Viking who is called Red because of his hair and focuses on the European political outlook in the late Viking Age. Again, it's not as good as the historical classics, but it's nice and shows a way of life that we're definitely not used to. It's different."

After looking for a few minutes, Nesta gave up reading and turned to him, crossing her arms. She tilted her head to the side, watching him closely, "What's your favourite book?"

Cassian shrugged, settling the books against his chest, "I think at the moment it's The King Must Die by Mary Renault. But I change my mind every month when I find something more interesting or captivating."

She nodded thoughtfully, "I'll take that one then."

And Cassian wished he could change the title immediately because... what if she didn't like it? Or if she thought it was a stupid book? What would she think of him then?

But Nesta had already found a copy a few shelves down and there was no turning back.

He could counterattack, though, "What about yours? You're not going to give me any advice on feminist classics or blatantly trashy romance novels?"

Nesta opened her mouth wide, looking outraged as she placed the latest addition on the pile, settling the book under her chin, "How can you say they're trashy if you don't even know what they're about?"

Cassian chuckled, "On the cover of You Came," he said as he gave her a sly look, "there's something called a 'spicymeter'. How am I supposed to take you seriously?"

Nesta blushed, "I read erotic novels, so what? I have to keep myself busy in my spare time somehow."

And then he challenged her, "Get me the hottest book you've ever read," he said in a joking tone, "I'll go get the bag in the meantime."

She had already left for the section when he had an idea that would surely doom him depending on how Nesta would react.

He walked up to the cashier's desk, making sure she didn't notice, and begging the clerk behind the counter to be quick, paid for all her books, gently placing them back in the bags.

When he reached her again, she seemed not to have noticed anything.

"'So, what did you get me? Ride Me? Fucked You Good? Last Night I Gave You A Thousand Orgasms?" he teased her with an annoyed grin on his lips.

Nesta gave him a fiery glance before noticing the bags, quite different from those you put the things you wanna buy in, and closed her mouth tightly. She frowned and looked at them for so long before speaking that Cassian began to feel self-conscious.

"You paid for my books?" she whispered, looking at him.

He nodded.

"It's not a date, Cassian," she reminded him for the umpteenth time.

"I know, but-"

"So why would you pay for things that are mine?"

He couldn't read her. She wasn't hinting at anything.

She didn't look angry but she didn't look impressed or grateful either.

Cassian placed the bags on the ground between them and Nesta followed his every movement with her eyes.

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing, "My adoptive family is filthy rich. I have a trust fund that I never get to spend on things I really want to do, the only way I get to use it is by giving gifts to my friends, so just accept these as my first gift - friend to friend - and call it a day."

Nesta continued to be impassive as she kept her eyes fixed on the books.

Perhaps he had gone too far. After all, she had taken more than a hundred and fifty euros worth of stuff, but he really didn't mind.

He was about to apologise, tell her she could give the money back if it made her feel better. Cassian would find a way to spend it back on her at other times anyway.

Then she raised her head, handing him two books with hilarious covers to say the least, "These two have storylines full of plot twists. You won't be able to put them down, but don't expect big epic battles or Viking warriors. It's just two college kids trying to survive in the modern world while finding solace in each other."

He didn't even have time to thank her that she was already across the room and waiting in line so she could pay them.

He scoffed, shaking his head.

"I guess you'll be paying for these two," he said as he caught up with her.

Nesta didn't even look at him, pulling out her wallet, "A gift from a friend to a friend."

As they walked back to the car, Cassian offered to carry the bags, but she didn't want to hear one more word so they had managed to compromise and had split the load equally.

They'd been on the road for about thirty minutes now and Nesta had gone through every book he'd bought her, talking about all the previous works by the authors she was holding in her hand at the moment.

Cassian could have died like that. Happy, relaxed, listening to the plots of those dirty books with no moral lessons to teach the reader, just pure entertainment.

He wondered at that moment if he would make it through the first few chapters of the books she had offered him and let out a heavy breath through his nose as he turned right towards the coast.

Nesta looked at him wide-eyed, stopping her rant about the headmaster's son getting the occasional model student to fall in love with him. She brought a hand to her mouth, "Oh dear, sorry, I'm boring you. I'm sorry."

He gave her a confused look ready to tell her she didn't have to apologise, but she continued.

"Sometimes I do and I don't even realize it. And I realize they're not challenging plots where you have to apply some hidden lobe of the brain to understand them, but they distract me from everyday problems, you know? It's fun to be able to unplug a few hours after I get home from work and-"

"Jesus, Nesta, stop!" he laughed, placing a hand on her thigh. She sighed. "You don't have to apologise. Not when you're so excited about something." he looked at her slyly, offering her a reassuring smile, "In fact, I'm glad you're talking so much today. Normally I have to pull the words out of your mouth."

She blushed slightly and then grew sullen soon after, sitting up straighter, "This isn't the way to Velaris, where are we going?"

Cassian didn't answer.

"You're taking me into the woods aren't you?"

"We literally just came out of a forest."

She ignored him.

"I knew it. You're a serial killer."

"Nes-"

"You're a little dense though. Why would you spend so much on someone if you're going to murder them?"

He decided to ignore her, chuckling, "I'm taking you to the beach."

"Why?" she asked, somewhat unconvinced.

Cassian shrugged, "I wanted to see the sunset."

"You didn't ask."

He sighed, gripping the steering wheel, "Okay," he whispered, then louder, "You want to go to the beach and watch the sunset?"

She nodded in assent and then continued to read the plots aloud.

And Cassian could have sworn he was in heaven.

***

Nesta gathered more sand, making a small ball out of it and placing it on the top of one of the towers she had made so far.

"Where did you learn to make such good sandcastles?" asked Cassian suddenly from behind her, startling her.

She jumped in the air, turning to face him and noticing the satisfied smile on his face for having taken her by surprise.

Nesta didn't answer him immediately, but allowed herself to admire him a bit.

Since they had arrived at the beach, they had taken off their shoes and were now both barefoot and then Cassian had bent down and started to roll his trousers around his ankles, offering to do it to her jeans as well, but Nesta had refused. She had sat down, looking at the sea for a while, while he walked along the shore and collected stones and shells.

When he had come back to her and shown them to her, asking her to make a sandcastle, she had laughed at first, but faced with his serious expression, she had been unable to do anything but get up and roll up her sleeves, moving to where the sand was a little more workable.

She looked away from that heavenly vision and made another ball, placing it next to the one she had just made. "When I was little my mum never let me do these, she said I'd get too much sun and forced me and Elain to stay under the umbrella all day," she replied truthfully, remembering the cruel bite of jealousy watching the children on the shore.

"And Feyre?"

Cassian had joined her, kneeling beside her and had begun to place the shells so that they served as windows to the towers.

Nesta sighed, "Feyre was still too little when Mini Me wanted to build sandcastles, but as soon as I became 'too old to play like a kid'," she gave him a knowing look, mimicking her mother's voice, "and Feyre started to figure out she was an actual being, Mama let her do whatever she wanted. Even stand in the sun for hours on end." she shrugged. "Whether it was out of indifference or love, I never understood."

Cassian had been silent the whole time and now he watched her, hands on his thighs as he waited for her to give him more. For her to tell him another little piece of her soul.

So she offered him a forced smile, "So to answer your question, it's all pent-up creativity."

"Well, you're very good at it," he granted her. "I can imagine what you could have done if your mother hadn't been so strict."

Well, yeah.

"What about you?" she asked him.

"What about me?"

"Did you go to the beach a lot?"

Cassian smiled weakly, getting up and heading towards the water to collect more shells. He nodded a couple of times and then said, "My mum and I loved coming to the beach and she loved making castles. And she always put so many 'windows' on the towers-"

Nesta turned to look at their work, realising how many shells he had placed on the piles of sand. She smiled softly, covering her eyes from the sun and watching him walk towards her.

"We always came when she was free from work."

A charged silence settled between them until Cassian chuckled, drawing her attention, "What?"

"You said this wasn't a date. And that we're just friends. Right?"

Shifting her gaze to him, she noticed how he kept his hands hidden behind his back and the mischievous glint in his eyes didn't reassure her at all. Slowly she stood up, nodding.

"So, I must treat you as I would treat my friends. Correct?"

"Cassian, I swear to god that-"

She didn't have time to finish her sentence that something wet and sticky landed in her face with a resounding splash, making her jump back.

She took a deep breath and immediately regretted it when a strong smell of stale water and seaweed flooded her nostrils.

When she opened her eyes again, wiping the seaweed from her face, Cassian was doubled over in laughter.

She didn't even give him time to get up when she started to run towards him - to do what, she had no idea - but he started to run away too and soon they were chasing each other all around the beach, not noticing the sweet looks they were getting from the people around them.

At that moment, Nesta was running so fast that she could feel the wind in her hair and the smell and sound of the sea, together with the laughter of the man who was chasing her, mixed with her own and the continuous tapping of her feet on the sand, made her feel alive.

She felt Cassian come closer every few metres until two strong arms wrapped around her waist and she was pulled up and spun around in the air.

A surprised yelp escaped her as Cassian laughed in her ear, "Gotcha!"

It wasn't until he stopped spinning with her in his arms that they realised the position they were in and immediately broke away, laughing embarrassed.

Nesta turned to face him, her face red from running and her breathing laboured. He was in no better condition. His hair was pointing in all directions and his sculpted chest was rising and falling with haste under the black fabric of his shirt.

He looked away first, scratching the back of his neck and fixing his eyes on the sunset, and offered her his arm as they returned to where they had left theirs things unattended.

Nesta shook her head, laughing one last time and started to run, " Last to reach the castle is stupid!"

Cassian burst out laughing, but he caught up to her in the blink of an eye and they both knew that she had doomed herself to lose. That's why, when he fell tripping over his feet, Nesta knew he had done it on purpose.

She helped him up and they sat back as in silence they watched the sun go down, disappearing past the horizon and the blending lights of the sky created a breathtaking spectacle.

Nesta couldn't have noticed, too busy admiring the clouds, but Cassian had been watching her the whole time, trying to understand how something as sombre and secretive as her could look so bright just by being.

The journey back was silent, but this time the silence was not awkward. They both welcomed it with open arms, a new awareness that there was no need for it to be filled with chatter and that gave Nesta the opportunity to close her eyes for a moment and doze off.

When the car stopped outside her flat, Nesta was surprised to find that she didn't want to get out.

She turned to Cassian after she had gathered her things and nodded, "I had fun today."

He gave her a genuine smile, looking surprised, "Me too."

And then she permanently shocked him, adding, "I'm not working on Saturday, we could do it again. Changing location."

He blinked once. Twice. Then he nodded, "Sure."

He didn't seem to want to say anything more, so Nesta waved goodbye to him and then got out, not waiting for an answer from him.

Cassian stood motionless in the car park of her flat for another half hour, trying to figure out what had just happened, and when the reality of things finally dawned on him, he smiled, "Fuck yeah."

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[jaceyneedsabetterusername]

Sex Tape

Pairings: Johnny Depp x Reader

Request: “ If you take requests, would you consider doing johnny reaction to like theirs sex tape getting leaked? Reader may also be a celebrity or not. Whatever you prefer “ - @fanficshitandother 

Warnings: Mentions of sex but no actual smut

Word Count: 1800

A/N: Sorry this one is so short. I was having a harder time writing it than I thought I would. I hope you enjoy!

__________________________________

Shit. 

You knew this was a bad idea when he suggested it but no. He just had to have this video “for when he was away filming.” It always ended like this, though, right? It always started out as fun and games until bam! Celebrity sex tape leaked! 

The gossip talk show video that your best friend had sent you was still playing on your phone and you watched in silent horror as the red haired woman talked about your sex life to her male counterpart as if she had any actual right to have an opinion. In the top corner was a picture of you and Johnny at the red carpet for the premier of the Crimes of Grindelwald, his arm around your waist and both of you smiling for the paparazzi pictures. “Okay, guys. You are going to want to hear this,” She started, clasping her absurdly long acrylic-clad fingers together and holding onto her knees, “So there has been yet another sex tape leaked and I want you to guess who’s it is.” She looked over to her co-host. He had a push broom mustache that was bleached blonde to match his hair. 

The man hummed before waving his hand, which also donned long yellow acrylics, “I swear, Laurel, if this is another Kardashian or Paris Hilton tape, I’m gonna scream. That’s such old news.” 

“Actually, it’s someone that I certainly didn’t expect. Johnny Depp and his wife, Y/N L/N.” She dropped the news and the co-star’s mouth dropped. 

“Are you serious? Like Jack Sparrow, Sweeney Todd, Willy Wonka, Johnny Depp?” He asked in total shock, “I didn’t expect that either! But you know what? I feel like he’d be really good in bed.” 

He and Laurel both laughed, “You’re so bad!” She squealed, hitting him with the paper notes in her hand, “But, between you and me,” She leaned in, as if she was telling an actual secret that wasn’t being broadcast on the internet, “I did see it.” 

“And?” 

“It was pretty hot, I can’t lie. That Y/N is a very lucky girl indeed.” The pair giggled like a pair of school girls. 

You were absolutely mortified. How did this happen? How many people had seen it? Who had seen it? Oh God… all you could imagine was your family stumbling across the video or, debatably worse, Johnny’s kids. This had to be one of the worst moments of your life. 

You turned off the video and quickly dialed your husband. “Hello, love.” He greeted cheerily on the other end. The faint sound of cars passing in the background told you he was probably driving home from the meeting he had been at. 

“Did you see it? Did you hear it?” You asked frantically. 

“What?” He asked, confused.

“The video! The video got leaked!” You ran your fingers through your hair messily, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. 

“What video?” He questioned, not sounding like he fully understood what had happened, but then you could almost feel the weight of realization falling on him, “Wait, our video?” 

“Yes! Our video!” You were yelling at this point, not at him but at the situation and thankfully he understood that. 

“Okay, okay. We’ll- Hang on my manager is calling. Probably to tell me about it. I’ll be home in five minutes. I love you.” He signed off your call quickly before hanging up without giving you the chance to respond. 

While you waited for him to get there, you spiraled down the rabbit hole that was the tabloids and social media. Your phone buzzed off the charts as everyone from your sister to Helena Bonham Carter called you to ask if you were okay. Of course, you weren’t. But it was one phone call from a former college roommate, Sheila, had really gotten your blood boiling. 

“It’s okay! If anything, this is just going to make you more famous! Look at all the other celebs who’ve had their sex tapes leaked. They’re like, super famous.” Sheila sounded more excited than she should have, which certainly made you question her motives behind calling you in the first place. Since marrying Johnny, you’d had the unfortunate displeasure of having to cut a few people off from your past who had randomly called you up after years of little to no contact, asking more favors in the movie industry, money, or even just for the clout of saying they knew you. There really was such a downside to this whole marrying famous person thing that nobody ever really talked about - not that you would take it back, though, of course. You loved Johnny more than anything. 

Still, when the words left her mouth, you felt a flash of anger swell up, “Contrary to what a lot of people might believe, being famous actually kind of sucks,” You spat angrily, “And call me crazy, but I don’t exactly feel thrilled at knowing the whole world as access to a video of my naked ass!” 

“At least it’s a good naked ass, though! Your boobs are looking pretty good too. Did you get them done?” She asked bluntly, still not a care to be heard in her voice. You swore you could almost detect a fake valley girl accent too. 

Your mouth dropped open in disbelief at the words coming from her voice, “I can’t believe you.” Without giving her a chance to respond, you clicked the off button before flipping her off through the screen, though you knew she couldn’t see it. The audacity of some people. 

The front door swung open, drawing your attention as Johnny hurried into the house, setting his bag down by the front door. “How bad is it?” You asked, knowing his manager must have told him the full extent. 

“Do you want the truth?” Johnny saw as panic and humiliation swept across your face, knowing that perhaps that wasn’t the best way to break it to you that it was pretty bad. He stepped forward and wrapped you in his arms, “I told Harrison to take ‘em down. Whenever he found one, he said he’d get it deleted. 

You sighed defeatedly, “That doesn’t stop the fact that a bunch of people already saw it.” Your arms wrapped around Johnny’s torso and you allowed your head to fall against his chest, trying to calm yourself with his scent- exotic spicy cologne and old books. 

His large hand came to stroke through your hair, “That is true,” He conceded with a heavy breath, “But, it also means that fewer and fewer people will continue to see it.” There was a pause in which neither of you said anything, only took a few minutes to hold onto each other while you thought about the future now, “Y’know, I can’t help but feel like this is partly my fault. I shouldn’t have asked to make the video. I’m sorry, Y/N.” 

You shook your head in disagreement, “I agreed to do it too. It’s on both of us. In retrospect, we should have put it on an actual VHS tape or something that would be more difficult to get into the tabloid’s hands.” 

You were tired of this - of this constant running from the vultures that prayed off your every misstep just to turn them against you and create headlining stories. You felt like you couldn’t even breathe without a scandal unless the media allowed it. You were just grateful that you happened to marry one of the most private actors in Hollywood, knowing that whatever pressure you felt, more public figures like Angelina Jolie had it much worse. Still, something inside you stirred, a decision that you’d stop living in fear. 

Johnny pulled back and gave you that infamous cocked eyebrow look of wonder, one that you’d mostly seen him use as Jack Sparrow. Little did everyone know, it was a gesture he’d picked up on doing in real life as well. “Do we even have a VHS player anymore?” 

You chuckled and buried your head back into his white shirt, “I don’t even know. I feel like there must be one laying around somewhere. And if not, I’ll go down to a pawn shop and pick one up just for you to use while filming.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean,” You leaned back, pulling on his shirt to bring him down closer to your level, “That if we’re going to be making you another one of these videos, it’s gonna be on something that stays only between us.” 

Your husband nearly choked on air, “Another one? After what just happened?” 

“Only if you want to and only if it stays on something physical like a CD or VHS that we can mutually agree to burn and destroy if anything happens.” You giggled and Johnny joined in with a low chuckle as well, “But… the video was leaked. We knew that was a risk when we made it. But, y’know what? I’m tired of living in fear of the paparazzi and public. They’ve already seen us fuck. There’s not much else we’ve got to lose.” 

His dark eyes flashed with mischief before he took off in a light jog down the hall without a word. You followed him, “Where are you going?” You giggled, turning the corner to find him digging through your little Harry Potter closet under the stairs. 

When he stood up, he shook his long hair out of his eyes messily and held up an old tape recorder that had to be at least twenty years old. Johnny swayed towards you, jokingly flirtatious as he spoke, “Well, Mrs. Depp, it would seem that you’re in luck because your husband likes to hoard old shit.” 

The grey and black machine seemed to stare at you and some hesitation set in again but then you remembered what you’d said: I’m tired of living in fear… there’s not much else we’ve got to lose. 

Johnny flicked open the side compartment and his eyes opened in surprise to find a tape still in there. He lifted it from the slide and looked it over, shocked to see that it appeared to be an unused blank tape, “Well, well, looks like we’re in luck.” 

Biting your lip, you looked up at him with those eyes before grabbing his hand and running upstairs to your bedroom, dragging him along. “The world thinks they’ve seen us fuck. They only got a preview.” 

“Only a preview? I thought we went pretty hard last time?” He countered with a low challenging laugh.

You turned around at the top of the stairs, one hand on the banister as you turned to face him. His body collided with yours, his hand reaching around the small of your back to steady the two of you and you arched your body into his, being sure to brush your body against his groin, “Oh, Johnny… we’re both throwing our backs out tonight.” 

[letsgetusaghostfriend]

A Green Day concert, a bloody nose and a coming out – Sunset Curve & Green Day I

Summary: Luke and Bobby got them tickets for the Green Day show in LA on November 2nd 1994, also known as the night Billie Joe punched a homophobe and Alex came out to the guys.

Friendship fic, super Alex & Bobby centred, Luke and Reggie are not straight but don’t know that yet. Also, I know most people think Alex came out way earlier, but he has to not be out for this story to work.

((warnings: homophobia, homophobic language (not fully written out except in the band name of the opening act), slight violence, mentioned: alcohol, underage drinking (I am german, so for me it’s not underage drinking but yeah), in general: swearing))

word count: 4.9k, read here on AO3 x

~

Luke and Bobby got four tickets for the Green Day show in LA on November 2nd in 1994, it was one of Green Day’s bigger shows at that time. The boys previously have been to other concerts of the band, but the last one was in a small club in ’92, of course, all four of them being way too young for that place. Luke and Reggie were the first ones out of their group to get fake ID’s, mainly to go to gigs and play gigs. In the beginning, Alex thought he would never do the same, too scared of possible consequences, but then Luke used his stupid puppy eyes. (They still work even after Alex crush died, dead and buried). And if he was being honest, it was really helpful for playing clubs if the owners can at least pretend that they believe the four boys are old enough to be there.

Alex was aware that Green Day’s opening act, Pansy Division, was an all-gay band. And he was excited and scared at the same time. He found out because this one kid in his English class, Josh, went to the San Diego show earlier that week and told one of his friends that he shouldn’t go to the LA show as Green Day was just a bunch of “f*g lovers” and not worth their time. So Alex was scared: what if his friends would say the same thing?

They arrive late and the line is massive, Alex anxiety pitches in and reminds him that if it takes too long for them to get inside, he might miss Pansy Divisions performance. Logically he knows that they wouldn’t start letting people in so late that the opening band already starts when most people are not inside yet, but his anxiety is not that into logical thinking. He can’t help being fidgety, at one point Luke noticed and asks him if the crowd is making him uncomfortable. “Yeah, a little bit” Alex responds, not wanting further questions about why he was so anxious. The boys keep close to the bar, staying in the back first, not too excited to get into the crowd just yet. Alex knows the others would be inside the first mosh pit if it wasn’t for his anxiety, but not once did they show any signs of annoyance about his hesitancy. They just patiently wait for Alex to get used to the crowd and atmosphere, never angry when he has a bad day and he never signals that it is okay for them to go into the more crowded areas. Sometimes, especially when Luke doesn’t know where to put his energy he and Reggie go, but they always make sure that at least one person stays with Alex. He probably should tell them how thankful he is for this more often (the others would disagree here since they feel like Alex thanks them too much).

When Pansy Division started playing Alex didn’t expect them to actually sing about hooking up with guys at rock concerts, loving men, having real, deep and meaningful relationships and just, in general, doing normal daily life stuff, living with a boyfriend and how it feels after a breakup. He feels so excited, almost jumping up and down to the beat, not able to put his excited energy out on the drums like he would if it was their own concert. Alex completely forgets to check the guys for any reactions, too involved in the music. He doesn’t see that the other three boys enjoy Pansy Divisions music just as much as he does. He doesn’t see Bobby eyeing him from the side, a knowing glint in his eye.

Alex doesn’t know that Bobby saw the way Alex would look at Luke when they were 14, at Brian from History when they were 15, and how he sometimes looks at pictures from Billie Joe Armstrong in magazines. Bobby also didn’t miss Alex’ obsession with the song Coming Clean. The other boys sometimes forget about how Bobby’s parents are genuine open-minded people, who introduce him to a lot more diverse people than his friends’ parents do. So yes, maybe Alex was discreet enough for Mr Luke Oblivious Patterson and Captain Reg Oblivious Peters, and his parents who anyway only see what they want to see, but not for Bobby. Bobby, who might from an outsider’s perspective looks like he is standing a bit outside this friendship group due to him being less loud and sociable than his friends, but Bobby who loves his friends with all his heart, Bobby who truly sees his friends and knows that this is where he belongs. Seeing the absolute bliss, happiness and excitement streaming from Alex like waves is contagious.

After Pansy Division finished their set and there was a short break before Green Day would start theirs, Bobby slips from their group, mumbling that he would get another beer. Instead, he goes to buy Pansy Divisions EP, because the band was genuinely good but mostly because he knows Alex wouldn’t buy it, but he will definitely want it. On his way to the little corner where they sell the Green Day merch as well as Pansy Division stuff, Bobby realises that it was actually packed, but he soon saw that it was just a long long line for the Green Day merch. Actually, there are so many people he can’t even see the Green Day merch salesperson. He manages to get to the guy who took care of the Pansy Division stuff, he greets him with a head nod and a short “hey”, while scrambling his money out of his pant pockets to count it. He’ll have to nick a bit off of Luke’s beer later, not having enough money left to buy another one. When he reaches out to hand out the money for the CD somebody joins the guy who cared for the merch. Bobby recognises that it’s the singer of Pansy Division and he smiles at him. “Great performance, really enjoyed you guys’ music!”. The singer grins at that and holds out his left hand, which Bobby finds a bit strange, but takes it nonetheless.

“Jon, nice to meet you.”

“Bobby, pleasure is all mine.”

“Ah, you’re a musician yourself!” Jon says while checking out Bobby as if he could tell whether the kid in front of him was any good based on his appearance. It took the guitarist a second to realise that Jon must’ve felt his calloused fingers from playing the guitar during the handshake. “Yeah, I’m actually here with my bandmates.” A voice in his head, that sounds suspiciously like Reggie tunes in with “We’re Sunset Curve, tell your friends.” But Bobby pretty much felt like a child trying to play in the adults’ league, so he doesn’t say anything else. Jon grabs the CD he was about to buy and opens it while asking “So Bobby, is the CD for you or someone else?” Taken aback by that question Bobby tells him without thinking “We kind of always share records. Em, so maybe Sunset Curve?” Jon who was about to sign the inside of the CD case, pauses and looks up again “You’re in Sunset Curve?”

“Yeah, rhythm guitar.” He answers without much of a thought, it takes him two seconds then he adds: “You’ve heard of us?” Jon chuckles at Bobby’s shocked tone.

“Saw you play a few months ago. Didn’t remember your name till Mike mentioned one of your songs, always called you “the band with the cute drummer” actually.” Jon casually explained to a still shell-shocked Bobby. The comment about Alex makes him choke on his own spit though. Jon smirks, but before he can say more Bobby’s mouth starts talking before his brain gave its okay: “You saw us well enough to say that Alex is cute, but you didn’t recognise me?” After the words left his mouth, he feels his face heat up.

‘Way to embarrass yourself by having too much of an ego, Robert, great job’, he thought to himself. But Jon again laughs it off, as if he made a funny joke, smirks and asks if Alex was here tonight.

“He is,” Bobby says, voice cold, “he is also sixteen.”

Now it was Jon’s time to look embarrassed. “Oh shit, never mind then.” He pauses. “Sixteen is a bit young to play that club you played, isn’t it?” He pauses again. “You guys take this whole music thing seriously, I like that!”

More at ease again after Jon’s reaction to Alex’ age, Bobby’s brain finally catches up with everything Jon said before he called Alex cute.

“Wait, Mike as in Mike Dirnt? As in Mike Dirnt mentioned one of our songs?” he asks astounded. Jon laughs at the utter bewilderment that the younger one’s face was showing. But before he could say something about it a loud voice behind Bobby sneers: “Oh look at that, Bobby the f*g lover.” He turns around and sees Andrew from his math class. “Always knew at least one of you would be a shirt lifter!”

Bobby tries to take a deep breath before he answers but Jon beats him to it. “I would really think people were clever enough to listen to lyrics, but you still find the poser ones at these concerts, especially since Dookie got Green Day so popular outside of the scene!” Bobby needed a few seconds to realise that Jon wasn’t even talking to Andrew but instead just talked about him to Bobby and the guy selling the merch.

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that you fucking fairy!” Andrew sneers, stepping closer to Jon. As soon as Andrews anger is directed towards Jon and not Bobby anymore, the guitarists fight instinct kicks in.

“Fairy? Really?” he asks Andrew with a snigger in his voice, “Didn’t know we live in the 50s, Andrew. Learned all these terms from your daddy?” Bobby tries to make his voice sound as degrading as possible. For a second it seems like Andrew might shut up and leave but then Jon starts laughing loudly about Bobby’s comments and before anyone can react Andrew takes a swing and hits Jon right on the mouth. Without thinking, Bobby copies his action and the next thing he knows is that his hand hurts and Andrew has a red square on the side of his face. He glares at the guitarist and strikes again. This time the fist hits Bobby’s nose and he sees black stars in front of his eyes for a few seconds. After that, all hell is breaking loose and Bobby is being pushed around for what feels like a few minutes before he gets pulled aside and finds himself behind the selling booth with Jon by his side who has a busted lip that is still bleeding. Jon has a hand on the teen's shoulder and looks worried at him. “Fuck your nose does not look too good!” he says. Hearing the words Bobby brings his hand up to his nose and winces when he feels a sharp pain as soon as his fingers touch his nose. “Fuuuuuuuuck, Alex is going to kill me!” he groans at the thought of how the blond will react to seeing Bobby like this.

“Hey man, good punch you got on the dickhead there!” an excited voice states beside Bobby, which makes him turn his head probably a bit too quick, considering he just got punched in the face a few minutes before. But the guitarists' instincts were right: standing beside him was no other than Green Days’ singer, Billie Joe Armstrong. The blond (with fading blue in his hair) is smiling at Bobby and continues with “but I think mine was even better” while pointing at something behind Bobby, who turns around just in time to see security carrying a half-conscious Andrew out of the venue.

“You know that guy?”

“He goes to my school!” Bobby answers, still in awe looking after Andrew.

“Oh, you need to tell me about how he looks tomorrow, man I don’t miss high school but I’d love to go to school just to see that!” Billie Joe tells him and Jon, still sounding way too excited. When Bobby turns around again to look at the two musicians in front of him, he catches Jon telling Billie Joe that Bobby is part of the band they talked about the other day. Somehow getting even more excited by the news he fully turns back to Bobby. “Love that! We need more good people in this scene so we can make sure the music stays clean of dudes like that! Well, it was lovely punching homophobes with you Bobby, but I actually have a concert to play!”

And with that Billie Joe is gone through the door leading to the backstage area and Bobby looks at Jon hoping that he can find answers with him (like is he hallucinating?) but he just chuckles at the teenagers in awe face and takes the CD Bobby wanted to buy all along, as well as the money he had already paid and hands both back at the teen with the words “I think you paid enough for this already, thanks for sticking up for me!” And adding, when Bobby tries to give the money back again, “You better go so your bandmates don’t worry and you don’t miss the Green Day show!” Bobby thanks him and with a smile he makes his way back to the other boys while putting the money and the CD into his pockets.

When Alex finally sees Bobby come back to them, he feels relief washing over him. Alex always hates it when they split especially if one of them is on their own and Bobby has been gone for way too long. The first thing Alex notices is that Bobby doesn’t carry any beer or anything else that he could’ve brought from a bar, the second thing is that Bobby’s nose is bleeding. The easing relief is instantly replaced by worry as Alex's brain catches up with his eyes. As soon as the guitarist reaches them Alex starts searching his fanny pack for tissues and anything else that can help with a bloody nose, all while berating Bobby about getting into a fight. Reggie and Luke excitedly ask Bobby about it, but when their bleeding bandmate tries to tell them about what happened Alex just shushes him and gestures for him to look up so that he can take a better look at his nose. While Alex is still cleaning up Bobby’s face the crowd starts cheering and Alex turns around quickly to confirm his suspicion that the main act finally made it on stage. He keeps on cleaning his friends face from now slightly dried blood when he hears Billie Joe's voice over the speakers.

“Sorry guys, I know we’re late, but I had to punch a homophobe…” The rest of the sentence does not reach Alex’ brain as he looks at one of his best friends, whose nose was bleeding after obviously being punched and all he can hear is white noise, while the realisation, that Bobby being the homophobe who was just punched by Green Days’ singer, sets in. He feels a sharp sting in his chest all while feeling overwhelmed by fear, cold naked fear. And his thoughts race through his brain, too fast to actually make any sense, all he knows is that his worst nightmare seems to be coming true: the people he trusts the most will eventually leave him. They will hate him. They will think he is disgusting, and they will leave him. Unconsciously he takes a step back from Bobby, taking both his hands off his friends face but before he can totally spiral into his thoughts, he is caught by Bobby who holds the drummer by his wrists and looks at him like Alex offended him deeply.

“Seriously?” Bobby’s voice comes out sharper than he probably intended, softening his tone as he sees Alex flinch at him, “You actually think I am homophobic? Fuck Alex do you really think that poorly of me?” The guitarists' words and face are both filled with what Alex can only describe as hurt. Bobby attempts to say more but he is cut off by Billie Joe's voice coming over the speakers saying his name.

“A special thanks to Bobby from Sunset Curve! Make sure you check them out they’re a local band that’ll make it big one day, I’ll promise you! I swear, give them less than a year and they’ll be playing here on this very stage! Thanks, Bobby, for helping me punch a dickhead!” And with that they start into their first song, leaving the boys standing completely mind blown in the back, each one trying to comprehend what just happened. After a few seconds, Reggie, Luke and Alex all turn to Bobby with questioning faces, but Bobby concentrates on Alex’ face. “Do you believe me now?” When Alex nods the, still bleeding, guitarist feels relief wash over him. “Good! Because I already have your Christmas present and I literally know no one else who has the same taste that you have!” He actually manages to make Alex smile with his stupid comment, feeling like they might be okay again, he holds onto Alex’ sleeve, needing something to ground him, knowing that Alex is uncomfortable with public affection. He turns to Luke and Reggie who as soon as they have his attention try to bombard him with questions, but he stops them and promises to tell them later.

___

After the concert:

When they leave the venue, a wave of, for L.A. unusually cold air, hits Bobby’s face and clears his head a little, making it easier to think about everything that had happened. As he was the first one out of the four to step out in the cold air, he takes a deep breath before turning around to see the other three boys walk up to him. He notices that Alex pulls his jean jacket tighter around his body, clearly not enjoying the cold air as Bobby does. He smiles at Bobby and then follows Reg and Luke who started walking towards the side street where they parked the van before the concert. The two boys talk animatedly about the Green Days show, analysing every detail. Seeing one of their favourite bands live did distract the two enough for them to not ask any further questions, right now. Alex smile tells Bobby that the same did not count for the blonde boy. Bobby jogs up to Alex to walk beside him, but when he tries to initiate a conversation with his bandmate, the blonde just shakes his head and mumbles, that he has things to think, but as if to calm Bobby down, Alex takes his hand and squeezes it before they reach their van. The van they brought because they actually started to be able to book enough gigs to pay for it (and to actually need it), they all paid for it, even though they don’t talk about the fact that Bobby paid the biggest part, with him having the only parents who actually support the band.

Bobby is driving, with Alex in the passenger seat lost in his thoughts and Luke and Reggie in the back, trying to get Bobby to finally tell them about what happened at the venue. The guitarist promises to tell them as soon as they arrive at the garage, but despite the impatience from Luke and Reggie to find out about everything they still have a quick stop at a small diner on their way home to get their after-concert food.

Alex, Reggie and Luke all go straight for the couch while bobby prefers sitting on the floor, facing them. For a few seconds they all munch happily but soon Luke starts bugging Bobby about what happened at the club, so he puts his sandwich aside and takes a short breath. He doesn’t know where to start, he kind of wants Alex to know that he got the CD for him, but he doesn’t want to put any pressure on Alex, nor does he want the other two to find out about Alex liking boys before Alex wants them to.

“So,” Bobby starts, “we all really liked Pansy Division, right?” he asks with a nervous laugh tinting his words. He looks at the three boys on the couch for confirmation and gets it from two of the boys while Alex looks like he gets scared by the simple indication that he might have really liked the queer band they all saw tonight. Bobby acts like he didn’t see it while deciding, that he won’t tell the blond that Jon was hitting on him. That might be a bit much information for one night. “Well, I thought,” he continues while pulling out the CD he brought earlier “I’ll get us their CD.” He waves the CD then places it on the table in front of the couch so the guys can look at it.

“And that’s where I met one of the band members, Jon, he is the singer.” He looks up at his friends who all stare at him with a mixture of shock and curiosity on their faces, even Alex nervousness seems replaced. ‘I didn’t even get to the really shocking parts yet’, Bobby thought to himself.

“Okay, so we got talking, he found out I play in a band and when he asks for a name to use to sign the CD I just said Sunset Curve, because we always share records, like I mean I don’t even know who owns what anymore!” Luke looks dead serious while nodding his head, Alex starts smiling slightly and Reggie looks like he is trying really hard to separate their shared music collection in his head.

“Anyway, it turns out he saw one of our shows earlier this year and apparently, he was talking about one of our songs with Mike, but before you get too excited, I couldn’t ask him about it because that dick Andrew from my math class interrupted us. He called me a – eh, never mind” he stops himself, giving Alex a short glance – “he started calling me and Jon names and I kind of started making fun of him for using really outdated terms and when Jon laughed about that, Andrew hit him and then I hit Andrew and he hit me back and suddenly everything got crazy. Next thing I know is that I am behind the merch booth with Jon and Billie Joe Armstrong, and Andrew is being carried outside by security.” He tries to rush the words out fast enough so that Luke doesn’t stop him because of the band being recognised and Alex doesn’t stop him because he hit someone.

“And then Billie Joe finds out I am in Sunset Curve and he says something about it being good that more good people will keep the scene going or something and then he pretty much left to play the show and Jon gave me the CD and I went back to you guys so you wouldn’t worry too much.” When he finally finishes his story, he is staring at three really shocked looking faces.

“Mike Dirnt and Billie Joe both know of Sunset Curve?”

“Who knew Bobby is such a badass!”

“You hit Andrew?”

All three started talking at the same time, but then Alex stands up and he looks real mad and everyone else shuts up. Bobby looks at him. “Alex, I didn’t plan to, it just happened. I got so mad when he started calling Jon these awful names and when he hit him, I just snapped.”

“What about our no fighting rule, huh?”

“So, when someone is being super homophobic, I am just supposed to do nothing?”

At that moment Bobby realises that Alex didn’t process until now that Andrew was using homophobic slurs against Bobby and Jon. He sees Alex anger vanish from him in mere seconds, replaced by fear and sadness settling in his eyes. Lips pressed into a thin line Alex sits down on the couch again. It breaks Bobby’s heart to see his friend like this. They all stay silent for a while.

“What did he say?” Alex asks with a voice so quiet Bobby almost misses it.

“Alex,” he sighs, “I am pretty sure you don’t want to know!”

With that Alex's eyes, which were glued to his hands before, snap up and meet Bobby’s. “You know, don’t you?” Alex asks Bobby, seemingly completely forgetting that the other boys are in the room.

Bobby does not know what to answer, not wanting to make Alex come out because he feels like he has to, or because Bobby figured it out already. “I only know what you want me to know, everything else is just a hunch.” He finally settles on.

Alex laughs. “So, you definitely know, and I actually thought I was being subtle.”

“I still love you, you know that, right?” Bobby just needs Alex to know that. Even if this is a weird one, Bobby wants this to be the reaction Alex gets for his first coming out.

It takes Alex a few seconds but finally, he looks up again, searching Bobby’s face for any trace of him lying. As Alex realises that the boy in front of him means what he said he feels like the biggest wave of relief washes over him. This, black-haired, awkward and quiet boy in front of him, who buys CD’s from queer bands, punches one of his classmates because he was being a homophobic bigot to a complete stranger and whose first reaction to Alex half-assed coming out is to tell him that he still loves him. This boy, who is so uncomfortable with most people touching him, who still wants to hold all of their hands all the time, calling them grounding. This boy, who would probably punch more people to protect them because he gets crazy protective about the people he cares about. And suddenly it’s difficult not to start crying and Alex feels like his voice will break if he tries to talk so he just nods.

And in that second, knowing he has Bobby on his side for this, he decides that he wants them all to know. So, he gets up from the couch and “gets on the runway” as Luke likes to call Alex’ nervous walking occasionally. After walking up and down three times, he suddenly stops, turns to Luke and Reg who look super confused by what is happening and he blurts out “Iamgay” so fast that there was no way that any of the guys could’ve understood a single word. So, he takes a deep breath and repeats: “I am gay” while standing there, eyes closed, and breath held.

“Oh, that…” Luke starts, but he gets interrupted by Reggie who says: “That makes so much sense, that is why you were staring at Brian so much last year! That really confused me, man!”

“I was... I was not staring at Brian Denver!” Alex sputters embarrassment creeping in his cheeks.

“You totally were, you even knew who Reg was talking about right away!” Luke laughs and gets up to pull Alex in a big hug, squeezing him tight. Reggie gets a hold of them and pulls them down on the couch where he squeezes between them, and wooshes through Alex’ hair affectionately. Alex, now half sitting on the couch and half lying on Reggie looks up to Bobby, who stands awkwardly in front of the couch. As the other two notice Bobby as well they all kind of freeze in their cuddle pile. Even as Bobby was more comfortable touching his bandmates than he was with touching his parents, or literally anyone else, he still never expressed any interest in being part of a cuddle pile before. Seeing how all of his friends stopped as he approached, the guitarist started taking a step back, but Alex stopped him by holding out his hand for Bobby to take. It takes him a few seconds but finally, he lets himself being pulled on top of Alex into the cuddle pile and even though it feels strange at first he likes the feeling of Alex’ soft t-shirt under his cheek, Reggie’s arm around his waist and the smell of Luke’s cologne.

Later that night Bobby snatches a picture of his best friends still cuddling on the couch hours later, now all fast asleep. He hasn’t shown that picture to anyone except for his daughter when she finds out about the band 25 years later and he decides to tell her about the loves of his life, even if most people wouldn’t recognise them as it since it was purely platonic love. And even though he got married, he never loved anyone as much, with the exception of his daughter, as he loved the three boys who left him when he was just 17 years old.

The next day Bobby snatches a picture of Andrews black eye. He shows that picture to Billie Joe, backstage at an event he attempts without his best friends after the man recognises him as the kid with whom he punched a homophobe. After that Bobby leaves the event early, not being able to hold up the image of Trevor, too consumed by grieve and guilt. Guilt over not being able to protect them. Guilt over not dying with them. Guilt over using their songs.

[tew1122]

Cigars and Singlets

Huge thanks to @vcmdr who provided the pictures for this story. I wrote it with his help and domination.It was very fun (and arousing process). Can’t wait to see him evolve further into a cigar pig. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josh was screwed. His grades slipped for one class and he lost his academic scholarship.

His only hope was a sports scholarship, but he wasn’t very athletic. He knew some of the coaches would take a few newbies to add to team numbers or to serve as assistant coaches.

Josh ran from office to office and asked various coaches if they would be willing to help him. They all declined. The football coach even laughed at him.

His one last chance was the wrestling coach, who is apparently very peculiar about his assistant coaches and hasn’t chosen one yet.

Josh caught the grizzled man as Coach was getting into his car to leave for the day. Coach was in his 50s, with the bulk of his years in the gym. Coach was known for his different sense of style. He rejected the chinos and polos of his colleagues. Instead, he wore large boots and a closed leather jacket when he wasn’t in a singlet of his own for practices. He had a beard a little more grown out then Josh’s, and short salt and pepper hair. Josh’s gay roommate had described coach more than once as “Daddy “ and, now that he had a good look, Josh agreed he was a handsome man. 

Josh explained his plight to coach and begged him to take him on. Offering to workout constantly to become a proper wrestler. To study the holds day and night. To follow a strict diet regimen. Whatever it took.

Coach looked at Josh and seemed to contemplate his request. After a few minutes, when Josh thought he was gonna answer, Coach instead took out a cigar and lighter from his leather jacket and lit it up. Josh watched the red ember glow and dim repeatedly as Coach took slow, careful draws. He found himself unable to look  away from the bright puffing as twilight set in through Coach’s office window. Josh thought he should say something, but knew better than to speak out of turn. Coach was his last chance, and besides, as the ember of Coach’s cigar bobbed up and down, Josh found himself less and less nervous. If Coach was relaxed enough to smoke, why shouldn’t he relax too?

Suddenly, Coach broke the silence: “Strip”.

Josh took a second to snap out of staring at the cigar and looked at Coach, confused.

“I want to see your muscles boy, take off your shirt.”4

Josh had a fleeting thought that this, too, was odd, but it made sense. Coach had to see his body. He needed to know what he was signing on for. Josh needed the position more than Coach needed Josh, after all.

“Oh...okay.”

“That’s okay, Sir” Coach reprimanded.

“Right, sorry Sir “

Josh took off his shirt and blushed. His frame was not impressive at all, especially against this much older man. He was thin and wiry. He knew this was a long shot--there was a reason he saved the wrestling coach for last. Still, there were weight classes in wrestling, right? Maybe he could sneak by in the ultra-light-feather class, or whatever it was called.

“Not a lot to work with.” Coach said as he stood up from his desk and circled Josh like a vulture, eyeing him up and down as he puffed on the cigar. The smoke had started to fill the room at this point.

The cigar smoke invaded Josh’s nostrils. The bitter scent made him hazy, and his eyes started watering a bit. Coach was mumbling something as he circled him, but Josh couldn’t make out the words. All Josh could think about was that this large, confident man was in control of his future. Coach’s eyes were boring into him. He felt like his soul was being exposed.

Coach finally stopped in front of Josh.

“You’d need a lot of work. You’re more boy than man. Are you willing to be useful to me to prove your sincerity?”

Maybe it was the desperation turning into a flicker of hope, or maybe it was his exhaustion combined with the cigar smoke, but he wanted to please Coach. Not just for his credit and degree, but because Coach was this paragon of masculinity. He was so self-assured. So powerful. Touch, and strong. Josh hoped he could learn from him and stop being boyish.

“Yes Sir, I will be useful”

“Good boy” coach blew more smoke into Josh’s face. He didn’t find the smell as strong or unpleasant as last time--his future was in Coach’s hands, now. He felt calm for the first time all day. Relaxed. Coach had saved him from his worries. 

“Prove your dedication by licking my boots, boy.”

Josh froze. Lick his boots? That’s not normal wrestling stuff. Was this a joke? A test? Initiation?

Coach took another drag and blew more smoke straight into Josh’s face, scattering his thoughts. “Lick Coach’s boots, boy”

With his resistance scattered by the smoke and his free will hazy by the smell. Josh’s thought process was simple.

He must please coach.

Coach ordered him to lick his boots.

Josh will lick Coach’s boots.

Josh got down on his knees, still shirtless, and began using his tongue to clean Coach’s large leather boots. The mud on his tongue felt weird but it felt good to obey Coach. He knows he wants to please coach, so this must feel good.

After finishing his first cigar of the evening, Coach had Josh get up. His boots were clean for the last 15 minutes but he wasn’t going to let that fact interrupt his cigar.

“Good boy. You proved you’re obedient, now you need to prove you’re useful. I am going to do some work in my garage tonight, and you’re going to help. Think of it as your first workout. You’re going to drive so I can enjoy another cigar in the car.”

“Yes Sir!” Josh was elated. He has proven his first task successfully, and now Coach wants to invite him over. Professors and staff only invited students they’re close with to their homes, so this is great.  Maybe he can get a look inside Coach’s house and see how a real man lives, so he could imitate it at home.

The car was an old but cared for vehicle. Josh was ordered to put his shirt back on for the drive. Coach said he didn’t feel like driving and made Josh drive, joking that he’s gonna be his personal chauffeur.

Meanwhile Coach took his own shirt and jacket off and lit another cigar, as he press play on the CD player, which started emitting some strange electronic music. The beat made it easy to drift off and focus on the road. After a few minutes, something else entered Josh’s senses. It was a mixture of cigar smoke trapped in the car and coach’s musk.

“Sir can I open a window? It’s getting kinda stuffy in here.”

“You may not boy. Is my cigar smoke bothering you?”

“Just a little Sir.”

“Pull over”

Josh’s heart sank as he moved to the side of the empty road. He hoped that his comment didn’t cost him this opportunity. He was worried about his scholarship, his future, and most importantly disappointing this stud of a man.

“Alright boy, so you want to join the wrestling team.”

“Yes Sir, I want to join your team.”

“And the wrestling team needs strong, testosterone filled men, not boys “

“Yes Sir. Wrestlers must be strong men.”

“So I’m going to have to make you a man, correct boy?”

“Yes Sir, please Sir. I don’t think I can do it without your guidance.”

Josh was surprised at the strength of his conviction. But he knew he was right. Without an alpha man like coach to take him under his wing he’d always be weak. He HAD to please Coach, so that he could remake him in his image.

“And who smokes cigars, boys or men?”

Josh knew that no one would call coach a boy, and he was smoking now. He was a boy, and he wasn’t smoking. 

“Men smoke cigars, Sir “

“So you’re going to need to get used to cigars and musk in order to be a man. Is that right?”

“Yes sir, I will need to get used to cigars and musk”

“Good boy. Now take a big inhale and repeat after me: I like cigar smoke and musk.”

Coach said, blowing his smoke into Josh’s face once again.

Josh inhaled the bitter cloud and tried not to cough. He felt himself changing , starting to enjoy the smell and haziness. He started to pick up on the subtle notes of cedar and cinnamon. It was hot and bitter, yet smooth. Coach’s own smell intermingled to give it a sort of tangy flavor in his mouth. ”I like cigar smoke and musk,Sir”

Coach blew another cloud onto Josh.

“You like Coach's cigar smoke and musk.”

After Coach said this he turned up the volume on the radio.

The music combined with the haze was making it hard to concentrate. Josh tried to consider if he did enjoy coaches musk- does he need this po- is coach coming onto-. Fuck, the heavy beats pounding at his brain wouldn’t let him finish a thought. Fuck it, he decided. Just fuck thinking for tonight and obey Coach.

“I like your cigar smoke and musk, Sir.”

“Good boy. You also like pleasing me and being called a good boy.”

“ I like pleasing you and being a good boy Sir.”

Josh repeated those three facts and inhaled smoke clouds until they were seared into his brain. A mental rebranding by three important metaphorical cigar nubs. After half an hour of this brainwashing, Coach took another large drag of his cigar, but instead of exhaling it he grabbed Josh and kissed him on the lips, pushing the smoke inside of him.

Josh was very confused for a second, but he was getting a strong taste of coaches musk and cigar smoke, which is good; and he was obeying the coach, which is good. So clearly kissing Coach is good. It definitely made Josh feel good. 

It felt even better when the coach edged his cock and ordered Josh to lick his pits. Josh was enjoying the sweaty smell of coaches musk wrapped up into the cigar smoke, but now he is getting a full blast of manhood. He enjoys Coach’s musk, which is good; and he is pleasing Coach, which is good. So licking Coach’s body must be good.

After a thorough pit cleaning and smoke session, Coach ordered Josh to continue driving.

Josh felt good obeying the coach. His brain was so full of smoke he didn’t really hear Coach’s quiet whispers too well. Something about “obedient jock” and “smoke pig.” He didn’t know what that meant, but it was okay. Coach knew, and that was all that mattered.

After a little while longer they arrived at Coach’s house in the suburbs. A bit on the smaller end but it looked like a perfectly vanilla white suburban home.

Josh parked the car outside and Coach opened the garage, guiding Josh inside. Coach lit another cigar in the messy garage. It was filled with assorted boxes, garbage and junk.

Coach explained “junk from the last owner of the house, a hoarder. I’m planning on turning the garage into a cigar lounge and home gym.”

Coach blew a cloud of smoke into Josh’s face. This one was much stronger and bitter. Josh’s sinuses burned as he inhaled the smoke like he was taught. He knew even though it hurt to inhale, it was necessary to be a man. “Start throwing out everything here. It’s 10pm, you have till sunrise.”

Josh got to work, lifting and moving the trash out. Lifting and moving the trash out. And repeating. Over and over. His muscles started to strain and his shirt got coated with sweat. It hurt, but he started to develop his own musk, which felt good. Not as good as Coach’s musk but it was a start.

Whenever Josh would slow down, or ask for water or to use the bathroom Coach would stand up, take a large puff of the cigar, and kiss Josh, showing the smoke down his lungs. The smoke would make him forget his exhaustion.

At 4 am, Josh was coated in sweat, sleep deprived, and dehydrated, but the garage was finally empty. Josh felt very light headed from the ordeal, as well as all the smoke from the coach's cigar, by now heavy and starting to settle in the garage.

All Josh could think about is that he obeyed Coach, and how good that made him feel. He felt rock hard, pleasing Coach, smelling his musk and cigar smoke.

Coach finished his cigar at around the same time. This time he pulled up two of them.

“You’ve done a good job boy. You’re part of the team. Here’s the cigar to seal the deal “

“Thank You Sir! “ Josh said, as he clamped the cigar in his jaw. It tasted strong but Josh was so happy he can be like Coach. He knelt on the floor in front of him as his cigar was lit. He puffed it to life, as for the first time he tasted the bitter spice and intricate flavor of the tobacco. 

The cigar smoke filled Josh’s exhausted brain. It felt so good as it finished the corruption coach started. He wasn’t used to smoking cigars so it was a bit awkward and his smoke clouds weren’t very impressive, but Coach helped him by blowing smoke in his direction. Coach was always helping him. He owed everything to Coach.

Coach told Josh to focus on how good serving him feels, and how manly he feels smoking the cigar. The control he felt with a cigar clenched in his jar. How strong the smoke was, and how strong he felt. The force of blowing out a smoke cloud. The power of the cigar. Josh was getting harder and harder as his mind got emptier.

“Repeat after me, boy:

“You enjoy smoke and musk”

“I enjoy smoke and musk, Sir”

“You’re a cigarpig and love it”

“I’m a cigarpig and fucking love it”

“You’re my jock”

“I’m your jock, Sir”

“You will do whatever I say”

“I will do whatever you say, Sir”

“Good boy “

“As you smoke that cigar, your old personality will burn up with it. Ashes of tobacco leaf are ashes of character. You’ll be empty for me to fill up with wrestling and cigars. “

Josh smiled, knowing that Coach will recreate him. Turn him from his weak self into a real cigar smoking wrestling man. He puffed on the cigar eagerly. As the minutes passed and ashes fell to the concrete floor, Josh felt his personality slip away, like Coach said. His memories stayed, but he didn’t care about classical literature or good grades anymore. He no longer found video games interesting.   His interest in women faded away too. 

Finally, the cigar cap dropped to the floor as the sun rose. Josh was empty, a look of bliss in his face.

Coach smiled at his new toy.

“Time to lay some ground rules boy “

“You will always wear a singlet, either alone or under your clothes. Or you will be naked”

“Always... wear... singlet...or naked” Josh droned. He slowly stood up and stripped, then went back to kneeling before Coach.

“You will smoke a cigar every day”

“Smoke... every ... day”

“You will work out every day to improve your body”

“Work... out... every... day”

“You are only attracted to men, and find me very hot”

“Attracted... men... coach is hot”

“You will live with me so I can mold your progress”

“Live... with... coach”

“Good boy. Now as you breathe this smoke into you will embrace your new personality”. Coach took a long inhale of his cigar, and grabbed Josh’s head. He kissed him hard and pushed the smoke into Josh. Josh slowly awoke from trance as the smoke hit, and he was overcome by lust and obedience for Coach. He started making out with him, hungry for the taste of the smoke and the taste of Coach himself. Coach picked him up and carried him to the bedroom. Josh’s first morning in his new life was spent with a cigar clenched in his jaw and Coach’s cock in his ass.

6 months later:

Josh was overseeing a new wrestler working in Coach’s garage gym. The puny boy, Jake, was panting and sweating like a pig. Josh expertly blew smoke in his face and commanded “again, 10 more reps”. As soon as the pig began again, Josh thought about his own start. After converting him, Coach helped him move in. His old clothes got torn up, he needed singlets and sports wear now. Coach made sure he had a cigar in his jaw every waking minute, and it wasn’t long before Josh couldn’t stand not having one. The workouts were the toughest part. Three hours every day, he felt like he’d never been as sore in his life every night, and then again the next night. 

It has all been worth it though. Coach has shaped him into a man. His muscles in the singlet proved it. The cigar in his mouth proved it. The smirk as he imagined fucking the new wrestler on the bench press proved it.

After getting used to pleasing  Coach for 3 months, Josh got a taste of dominance when Coach put a wrestler under with cigar smoke during some “additional training” at Coaches house. It was so hot seeing the strong wrestler realize he belongs to Coach and crave cigars. After that weekend the wrestling team had two cigar pigs. Josh helped Coach covert the other team members, one by one, into cigarpig jocks. Now the entire team wore singlets 24/7, smoked cigars, and served coach. Coaches favorites lived with him and Josh as house boys. 

As his final test, Coach is having Josh convert this newbie all by himself. It’s going great. Josh found this lanky guy asking if he can work in the Athletics office to get a gym credit. After a few blows of smoke Josh got him to admit he was envious of jocks. After a cigar Josh convinced Jake he needed to come to coach’s house for the interview.  After a few puffs and a lot of suggestions, Josh got him to wear a sweaty cumstained singlet for this workout. That was 5 hours ago. This punk won’t be able to move tomorrow. His muscles are swelling and red but Josh keeps breathing smoke and he keeps going. Josh enjoys this transformation. He specifically picked a scrawny weakling like he was before Coach changed his life. Josh can’t wait to see the weakness leave him and be replaced with obedience and cigar smoke. As the newbie finished the workout, he collapsed into a pile of meat and sweat. Josh blew the last of the cigar smoke in his face and said “relax boy. Relax your body and mind. Do not move, do not think”

“Not thinking... sir”

Josh pulled two cigars, lit both, and placed one in Jake’s mouth. Jake was still catching his breath so his eager pants turned into big puffs as he inhaled the smoke. The smoke invaded his empty mind, corrupted him as Josh was once corrupted many weeks before. Josh got hard as he saw the smile of corrupted bliss on Jake’s face. Josh wanted to stick his dick into Josh’s ass, but he had to finish the conversion first, just as coach said.

“As you smoke that cigar, your old personality will burn up with it. Ashes of tobacco leaf are ashes of character. You’ll be empty for me to fill up with wrestling and cigars. “ he scratched Jake’s head as he said that, and he smiled as his worries, cares, dreams, and personality went up into cigar smoke.

Josh was excited about his first boy. He’s going to make a good cigar pig for Coach. He’s going to push Jake to his absolute limit until his muscles are like a bull and his brain fried by cigars.

Josh got down on his knees and started whispering into Josh’s ear and edged him through the singlet with his hands. How good it feels to obey Coach and Josh. How relaxed and horny cigar smoke makes him feel. How good wrestlers work out every day, how good boys wear singlets all the time. How he wants to worship Josh’s cock. This continues on and until the last ashes simmered out. 

Josh looked at Jake’s face and kissed him, long and hard and sweet, as he marveled in his first pig. He slipped another cigar in their mouths and went around to the other side of the bench. He lifted Josh’s legs up and started to finger him through the ass slit in the singlet (coach’s idea for easy access.) as Josh moans through his second cigar, Jake loosened him up. Josh then thrust his hard cock into Jake, claiming Jake as his. He fucked him nice and hard in rhythm with his cigar puffs. Jake moaned, but that only made his cigar fall deeper into his mouth. Despite the exhaustion he flexed his ass like a good pig, he knew no matter how tired he was, Master Josh’s pleasure comes first.

Josh continues this steady rhythm for about half a cigar, letting his new pig associated the pleasures of cigar smoke with getting fucked by him. Finally, he thrust hard into Jake’s ass and came. Large ropes of warm sticky cigar pig cum erupted into Jake, as his fate as Josh’s cigar buff wrestling bitch was sealed. Josh felt a euphoria after covering his first pig. He’s never cum so much, and when he finally pulled out, Jake’s hole was dripping. Jake came too, right into the singlet. His cum stain right on top of Josh’s dried cum, since it used to be his singlets and coach fucked him in it often. Josh admired his handiwork , A exhausted cum pig on cloud nine smoking a cigar. A new team mate, and Josh’s first boy .   

Josh started to head back into the house. Coach has to confirm his handiwork and make sure Jake’s ass was fully broken in. And if Josh did a good job, Coach will reward him with a one on one “training session”.

[synchlora]

bro talk to me about kobra kid. anything. give me

KOBRA. MY BOY.

here's some general headcanons ive got for him

overall pretty quiet but damn he is a very physical, very angry person if he's upset (and he is always at least mildly pissed off, may be projecting oh no)

autistic and wears sunglasses a lot bc bright sun is godawful (not great to live in a bright ass desert but oh well)

so much bottling up of emotions oh my gOD kobra please talk to people

TALK TO POISON YOU DUMBASS

twins w party poison (though poison does not know this, their memory prior to 13 is entirely gone bc of BLi. which is another reason why they need to talk lmao)

he loves to feel emotions dialed up to 10 bc his emotions were so heavily dampened down when he was on BLi's medication

ANGRY

trans but everyone is so u already knew that

not a great biker but it's very fun so he does it a lot

gets in a lot of crashes bc of the above point oh no

loves making random little gadgets

his crowning achievement is the vend-a-hack which very nearly got broken the first day he tried to use it (also happened to be the day he met ghoul, yes those two events are related, yes it is the way you'd think but not in the way you'd probably guess)

loves his sibling a lot :(

loves his crewmates a lot :(

loves the girl SO MUCH :(

likes to think he's punk rock/hardcore. he is not, this bitch is SCENE as fuck (kk: im punk, im punk!! pp: you fucking WISH you were punk!)

not the best at hugs but he's trying

LOVES to tackle people

kobra Kid 🤝 fun ghoul -> tackling people out of affection

he and ghoul will literally play wrestle all the fuckin time

likes to whistle a lot

will literally whistle or hum in response to most questions (aaaahhhhh projecting)

switches between talking and signing a lot

very sweet w his family <3

here's some backstory

saw party poison get taken away in front of him when he was 13. he didn't shed a single tear and even though his whole body was screaming, he couldn't let out a sound

despite how muddled his head was and how many times he got in trouble, he kept trying to find people to get information on where his sibling could be

eventually got to a point where he just wanted to escape. so he ran out of battery city in a t shirt and shorts (the desert's hot right??) and a few important things that he could carry in his pockets

among this was a polaroid picture of him and party from when party had found an illegal camera. it has two words written on the back in poison's sloppy attempt at cursive: "my brother!" this means a lot bc it was the first time poison called him brother (they took the photo like right after he came out)

he also has a small cd player with one single cd: ¡viva la cobra! also a gift from his sibling

so he attempts to escape through a gate w/o alerting the drac guards but he does anyway

ends up running from them and gets shot in the lower leg and grazed on the arm in a strange, snake-like pattern because of how he was limping

makes it out into the desert in the middle of the night, in a t shirt and shorts, bleeding from one leg and one arm so hurt he can hardly move it without screaming

so, not knowing any better, he wanders directly along route guano hoping to find some semblance of civilization. the desert's supposed to be teeming with killjoys according to BLi isn't it??

eventually collapses along the road, shivering, in withdrawal, and also having lost a fuck ton of blood

after who knows how long, he hears motors and hopes for the best

it's the worst

a drac patrol comes careening across the sand, kicking up dust and headed straight for him

but he realizes they aren't coming for him; they're running from someone else (as evident by the lasers arcing over their heads and occasionally hitting them)

and a band of killjoys also come down the road and take down the dracs right in front of kobra

once the dust has both literally and metaphorically settled, the group notices kobra sitting dazed in the sand, propped up against a rock trying to brace against the cold

a very nice killjoy in a red jacket who can't be more than a year or two kobra's senior goes over to him and gives him their jacket as the rest of their crew calls someone called "cherri" on their radio

kobra later gets to properly meet this killjoy and learns their name is jet star

after what feels like hours, the killjoy group finally decided they've got to get moving and they'll have to leave kobra to wait for cherri. kobra's not sure why they're in such a hurry, but they're not going to be able to wait with him for cherri cola to show up

so they let him know what cherri looks like, tell him to hide out nearby where they told cherri he was at, and wish him luck as they all speed off on their motorcycles

kobra's not sure how much time passes before he hears yet another engine roaring up route guano

he sees a dull green truck come rumbling over the hill, but doesn't see the person until the truck is on the road right next to his hiding place

when the guy that seemed to pretty well match the other 'joys description steps out of the truck, kobra fumbles up to his feet, entirely forgetting his injuries for a moment

man, this bitch falls flat on his fucking face and is just out cold

cherri is, as you would imagine, extremely concerned and very quickly gets this kid back to the dj shack where he can fix up his wounds and hopefully keep the poor kid from dying then and there

but he lives so fuck yeah! and cherri takes him in, so he lives at the djs shack for a while before meeting the rest of the four

that's as far as i'll go for his backstory lmao agndvsjsvsh i just have many thoughts abt poor kobra just trying his best to escape and failing in every aspect short of dying

[animeraider]

My Kevin Gilbert Story, and my latest single.

As some of you know I’ve had a few brushes with the “big break” that many in my line of work crave. I was signed to a major label in the early 1990s, and the record I turned in was shelved. The label wanted me to be the “next Michael Penn” and by that point not even Mr. Penn was interested in that, let alone me. I had three songs picked up for a movie, which was never released. I got out of my record contract and signed with another label, releasing an album that included 5 songs from the one that was shelved. The label put no money behind it. I had a big hit in 2009 and signed a European distribution deal, which fell apart when the married couple who ran the business fell into a messy divorce. I sold thousands and thousands of records in Eastern Europe – which were being sold by pirates. It took several years to get that fixed.

I had an audition that everyone felt I was a lock for to play keyboards for a Japanese band that had a huge following. My flight to the audition was supposed to be September 12, 2001. I actually watched the plane I was supposed to board land as it was the last flight grounded. I’ve done some engineering and performing I don’t get to tell anyone about – the NDA’s are pretty strong. One of my songs became the theme to a German Television show.

But let me tell you the story of a relationship I almost had with a multi-Grammy-winning star who soared high and made it further than I have, whose song I have made a cover of and released as a single today.

So where to begin. First of all, yes, I knew Kevin Gilbert. No, we weren’t friends, but we were colleagues and classmates. We performed together a few times – all of if school related. That’s it. Oh, and he invited me to a jam session he was going to have once and I turned him down. I’ll get to that.

Believe it or not, I have to tell this story starting in the middle. There was once a band called Toy Matinee. I loved that band. Clever songs, well written melodies, a sense of darkness and a sense of fun. It was a band that me and my roommate Max could agree on and we cranked that album loud and often. We went and saw them live at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, and were about 10 feet from the stage. This is NOT the live album released in 1999, but I can tell you they rocked the place that night. Played almost every song from the album, and did an encore of Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” that smoked.

A great night.

Now I jump into the past, to tell the tale of the UCLA Synthesizer Ensemble. It was the brainchild of Professor Roger Bourland, who at the time was only in his 2nd year as a professor at the school and would later become dean of the department. He searched out the most rock and roll musicians in what was mostly a stuffy classical music department. Me. Dave Koz. Joel Harnel. And this kid named Kevin. The five of us took another student’s source material and arranged up a musical. Straight musical theater and full of schlock, and all performed on synthesizers. We eventually put on four shows, with the five of us in the orchestra pit. I wrote the show-stopper ballad and a Latin inspired piece. I hate to say it, but I no longer remember what everyone else did, although I remember Dave mostly for his EWI playing and Joel for multiple reasons – including the fact that he wrote and arranged all of the drum parts.

I knew Joel fairly well – we had played together a few times and he was even more rock and roll than me, with more experience. Dave Koz was, even then, Dave Koz. The only saxophonist I had met up to that point in my life who was better than me. We had played in jazz bands together but he was already a rising star. When he beat me for the gig with Richard Marx’s touring band his career just took off – but all this was before then. I was one of Roger Bourland’s students – in fact, I had been in the “test” classroom when he had auditioned for his job.

I barely knew this Kevin kid. I was constantly getting his name wrong – for whatever reason my brain had him wired as Kevin Anderson.

My only real interaction with him outside of this 12-week experiment was down in the practice rooms. Many of these rooms had pianos in them and on any given day you could hear Mozart, Brahms, Chopin and all of the other usual suspects. I would go and write my own material and be pounding out rock and roll. Kevin did that too. Once while in the middle of the writing process for the musical he came into my practice room while I was working on a song in the style of Elton John. He invited me to a jam session the next Tuesday he was going to, and I declined. Tuesday was when MY band practiced, and as their lead guitarist I needed the practice.

That was the end of it. After the musical was over we all drifted our separate ways and for the most part didn’t run into each other again. I ran into Dave once at a music festival in San Francisco and he introduced me to Clarence Clemmons, which was pretty damned cool.

By now you’ve figured out that Kevin was Kevin Gilbert. Congratulations. I hadn’t. For many years to follow I would remember him as Kevin Anderson.

Now I’ve told you all of this so that you understand that this is long BEFORE Max and I went to see Toy Matinee in concert. I became a fan of the band without knowing that Kevin was its leader. I was ten feet away from him, performing for an hour. I had performed with him myself.

I didn’t recognize him. Nothing clicked in my brain that this was the same guy. I didn’t put two and two together. I rolled for my intelligence check and got a one.

Kevin Gilbert would go on to a solo career, win seven Grammys for his work with Madonna, be part of the driving musical force behind Sheryl Crow’s first album, become one of the founders of the Tuesday Night Music Club, and become one of my songwriting heroes. The man could paint a picture with very few words and his musical ability was enviable.

And then he died; a victim of his own vices. I’m not going to go into that here – I know nothing at all and can shed no light on the subject.

Several years later I relocated to San Francisco with my family. I discovered the band Giraffe once I was on their home turf, and of course discovered the fact that Kevin Gilbert had been their leader when he was a teenager. BEFORE I knew him. Giraffe was a pretty damned good band that had come so startlingly close to making it big – their albums are worth hunting down and they did a fantastic live rendition of Genesis’ “Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” (the full album mind you) that is lots of fun.

I was looking for a recording studio for my second album when I ran across a man named Steve Smith who owned a recording studio down the peninsula from where I was living. In his bio, he briefly mentioned that he was the drummer for Giraffe. Awesome. On his web site of the time if you dug in a little bit there was a bio of Kevin Gilbert, and he talked about the brief time he spent at UCLA.

Parts of the story looked and felt awfully familiar to me. Smith talked about the musical without mentioning the name, and again, it felt familiar. Me being slightly brave, I wrote an e-mail to him to ask what was the title of that musical and that I might have been involved in it. He confirmed it for me.

Holy crap.

All of the pieces started falling into place then. The rehearsals, our discussions about piano playing, that I went to one of his shows and failed to recognize him? The fact that I think he invited me to come join the FUCKING TUESDAY NIGHT MUSIC CLUB and I didn’t even fucking notice!?!!?!!?!!?

I’m an idiot.

Actually, in looking back at the timeline I don’t think he invited me to join TNMC. That came a couple of years later – I think. I’m never going to know for certain. If he had told any of the other members I don’t know about it. I’ve exchanged about a dozen words with one of the other members over social media but we certainly don’t know one another.

I wonder if he saw me in the audience that night and laughed. I will never know. I can tell you there is an album version of that night you can listen to and/or buy. A then-unknown Sheryl Crow played keyboards in the band, dressed up like a dominatrix biker chick. When I found out about that later I was amazed – I didn’t recognize her either.

I’m an idiot.

Nick D’Virgilio of Spock’s Beard played drums. I don’t remember the name of the bass player but what I remember is this man with the thickest eyebrows I have ever seen in my life. Marc Bonilla played lead guitar. Oh, the people I could have met.

I never did work in Steve Smith’s studio. I no longer remember why.

When I was working on my third album in my newly built home studio I recorded a number of covers and one of those was Kevin Gilbert’s “Tea For One”. It’s a fantastic song of unrequited love and missed chances told from start to finish in only a few dozen words. I have no idea if he would have liked what I did to his song – he had a wicked sense of humor that I can recall now but I never got to know him on a personal level as a songwriter, which was my mistake. I could have but I was so focused on myself in those days that even if the overtures were made I probably didn’t even notice.

I recorded the song in what I called "Garage Pop" during those days. A bit uneven, imperfect vocals - what you might get from a band practicing in their garage instead of a polished studio version. If you want that, I recommend hunting down his version.

But I recorded “Tea for One” just the same – it’s a great song and I’d like to think I gave it some justice – even if it doesn’t come close his version. It was on the original version of my third album "The Long Goodbye", which I released myself, but was cut when the album was moved to digital streaming services (In all fairness, I cut 21 songs from the original release – which was a 2 CD set).

My music career has been dark for several years, but it got jump started in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic and I’ve been revisiting a lot of my unreleased work since, and of all the covers I did this is still my favorite. I am releasing it now, in tribute to a musician I admire and could have called friend if I had just paid a bit of attention.

The guy holding the roses was me, as it turns out. I had no idea.

+++++++++++++++++

For those of you with very long memories you should listen to the full single on Spotify, because I’ve thrown in a little bonus for people who remember the 1980’s band ASK. Just a little piece of a little ditty written by me, Kevin Donville and Ed Lee.

[alteridolriley]

Finding My Place [Part 1]

Heya there everyone! Today is a super special day! Today is @availe‘s birthday! Maxi is one of my very best friends, one of the most important people to me in the world so I told her to pick two pairings and I would write a fic about them. I wasn’t sure what the topic would be so I just kinda let the words flow!

This is a bullet fic because writing a whole fic is hard right now with my current state in life so I apologize.

This fic includes (in its entirety not just this part): human AU, Anxceitmus (QPR Remus/Virgil and QPR Deceit/Virgil, Demus is romantic in the ship), Logince, swearing, violence mention, angst, depression, suicidal mentions, fainting, general not taking care of yourself moods, drugs, alcohol, and.... all sides are shown in a positive light, if that matters. It’s an AU anyway.

Devyn = Deceit (That’s also important LOL)

With all that said, please enjoy!

---

Devyn knows a lot of things. He considers himself an expert in some fields but still a jack of all trades in certain situations. However, there is one thing he feels he lacks. No matter how much he thinks about it, researches it, and records the process and its results, the outcome is always the same.

"Remus, you can't just hang up those creepy curtains on the front window!" Virgil calls up the stairs. The man in question cackles and Virgil growls back. "Don't expect your villain laugh to get you out of everything. I already got an earful from the lady next door about it disturbing her kids."

"Ahhh they'll get used to it." Remus says as he walks down the stairs to meet Virgil at the bottom. He stays on the second to the last step, making himself nearly a head taller than Virgil. Without warning, Remus wraps his arms around Virgil's neck and squeezes as a big smile appears on his face. "Oh golly gee, I just love you Virgil."

The black haired boy couldn't prevent the smirk that appears on his face as he leans back and kisses Remus on the cheek. "Mhmhm… love to be a pain in my neck is more accurate."

Both of them laugh before turning to see Devyn standing in the doorway to the kitchen across from the stairs, staring at them intently. 

"Do we have something on our face?" Virgil questions before Remus jumps down and runs to Devyn, almost slapping him with his arms instead of wrapping him in a hug.

"No…" Devyn assures. He leans his head against Remus. The smallest boy fits perfectly under Devyn's arm and Virgil walks over slowly, Devyn reaching and grabbing Virgil's right hand. He brings it to his lips, kissing it gently. 

"I want a kiss!" Remus pouts.Devyn obliges, kissing him on his forehead. Remus feels his cheeks burning red as he hides his face in his partner's chest.

"Is something the matter?" Virgil questions.

"No." Devyn says quickly as a blink of panic passes Virgil's eyes. "I just still have yet to fully understand what I've done in this world to deserve this with both of you." His voice trails off at the end as his gaze fell along the house surrounding them. 

Boxes scattered everywhere, some half empty as they unpacked to live in this new beautiful home. One picture was on the mantle above the fireplace: a shot of all three of them in suits: Devyn in yellow, Virgil in a deep purple, and Remus in a forest green, framed in a brown oak frame. Their wedding day only a month prior. 

"Dee…" Remus says softly as he hugs Devyn tightly. 

Devyn feels himself remembering. He tells the two he wants to take a break while they unpack upstairs. The two agree after giving him more hugs. Devyn sits on the couch in the living room.

xxx

Devyn had just been released from prison two years prior. 

He had been wrongfully charged with murder and had his life turned upside down for over ten years.

Upon release, he met Remus at a local gay bar. He hadn't intended on falling in love with the strange man but it just sort of happened. 

Devyn quickly learned Remus was already in a relationship.

Devastated by this, Devyn cut off all contact with Remus and stopped going to that specific bar all together. 

Drinking his sorrows away at a bar closer to his home, Devyn accepts that his life as a 32 year old gay man meant that he was probably doomed to be alone forever. 

Music started playing and he realizes it was live, playing in the next room over.

He peeked in to see a huge crowd surrounding a stage. Neon purple lights lit up the band. A lead singer with a guitar, a bass player, a drummer, and a… violinist? Wait, what?

The music was beautiful and the singing amazing, but Devyn couldn't tear his eyes away from the violinist. 

Such perfect strokes and form, the melody tore right at Devyn's heart. 

The song finished with a dramatic solo from the violinist and Devyn applauded along with the crowd. 

He listened to the voices around him closely, trying to figure out who they were.

"My gosh they're all so amazing! Virgil knocked it out tonight! How does he play the violin so well??"

"Gotta give props to Roman too! He goes through those low notes to high so easily. Is he even human with that range?"

"Nah nah did you listen to that drum solo? My boy Logan is the most talented by far. The technical details in his playing is just… so damn good."

"But Patton's bass solo was good too! He's come a long way in the short time he's been playing."

"Flight of the Hearts is just an amazing band. They're gonna take the world by storm, I just know it!"

Devyn stared at the band and they signed and took photos with fans at the foot of the stage. He wanted to hear more. 

He noticed a merch table just next to them and wondered over. Two self published CDs were on the table “Dreamer” and “Cyclone” and one of just Virgil's violin creations called "Calming Yourself". 

Devyn never purchased anything faster in his life. 

A bell went off above his head once he purchased it all. 

"Major sale! All CDs plus a shirt!" A voice shouted.

Devyn felt himself wish he wasn't where he was.

Until---

The whole band came over behind the table.

"Hey thanks for your support!"

Devyn recognizes him as the lead singer (Roman?) He was built like a jock, a football player to be specific, but had very soft eyes and a gentle smile.

"Dearheart, there's no reason to yell at him. He looks utterly confused. I told you that bell wasn't the best idea…"

The drummer… Logan right? He was smaller than Roman by over a foot at least. Glasses sat on the bridge of his nose (was he wearing those on stage?) and he pushed them up. He had an air of a person who would win on Jeopardy by a mile. Logan had his arm around Roman's waist, pulling him gently back. 

"Thanks for purchasing all of our work! We really appreciate it!"

Another glasses wearer? Oh it's Patton, the bassist. Right, right. He seemed the most genuine and down to earth, at least in this instance. He gestured to take the CDs back.

"Come on everyone let's sign them!" Patton called out to his bandmates.

Roman and Logan returned, holding hands and Roman kissing their entangled fingers.

Devyn wanted what they had, desperately. He felt an emptiness in his heart.

Without realizing it, Devyn had Virgil standing in front of him closer than he would've liked. 

"Can I help you?" Devyn demanded. 

Virgil squinted his eyes and frowned. "What's your name?"

Accusatory voice, mean look… the glare peeking through his long bangs and was that heavy eyeshadow?

"We just wanna sign your stuff! Right… Virgil?"

Patton clearly fell the same unease emanating off of Virgil as Devyn did. The more he stared back at Virgil, the more angry Devyn became. 

"My name is Devyn. What about it?" Harsh tone, spat in anger.

"I knew it. I recognized that scar on your face. How fucking dare you?!" Virgil leaped over the table. "How dare you break my Remus's heart, you bastard?!"

The crowd began chanting. "Fight, fight, fight!" and before he realized it, Devyn was about to punch Virgil before both of them were pulled back. Patton had pulled back Virgil and Devyn realized Roman had grabbed him under his arms with his own.

Security had quickly corralled everyone out of the tiny room, leaving only Devyn with the band. 

Logan stood between the two warring ones. 

"What are you talking about?" Devyn demanded, shaking off Roman, nodding to agree he wouldn't fight. 

"Remus has been so upset since you cut him off. He loved you, you dickhead!" Virgil was basically foaming at the mouth. His eyes were red and filled with tears. "Why? What possessed you to do that to him?" 

Devyn's memory flashed to the last image of Remus he remembered. Smiling brightly at him as he left the bar that night over a month before. Devyn had blocked and deleted his number. Basically ghosted him. 

But…

Remus had been in a relationship, right? Devyn didn't want to force his way in and hurt someone else. 

Devyn looked up to see Patton comforting Virgil in his arms, shhhing him like a small child.

A hand landed on his shoulder. He glanced over.

Roman. 

He had a sad look in his eyes. 

"Allow me to explain, Devyn. I'll start from the beginning. I am Roman, lead singer of "Flight of the Hearts". This is my partner, Logan, our drummer. The one holding our dearest violinist, Virgil, is the wonderful Patton. He is also Virgil's older brother. Virgil's partner is Remus… the man who works at The Half Side of the Full on Center Street. He's also my twin."

Devyn blinked and realized in that moment that Roman was the spitting image of Remus, only taller and a bit more buff. He was also missing Remus's adorable mustache but that was beside the point. 

"I left Remus because he told me about you." Devyn started, glancing at Virgil. "Never mention you by name of course. Just that he had the most amazing boyfriend in the world and I decided I didn't want to break my own heart. So I left him and his perfect life alone. Because who needs a fucked up person like me in his life?!"

Devyn realized he was shouting but he didn't care. He also ignored the tears rolling down his face. His scar around his left eye burning from the salt in his tears. Devyn knew in that moment he'd always be a fuck up somehow. 

"Remus was so important to me. I love him more than anything. Because… he allowed me to forget and move on. I was no longer trapped in my lying, deceitful past. I was able to actually be me."

Devyn turned and shoved past Roman only to stop short of the exit, blocked by a familiar face. 

"Remus…" it barely left Devyn's mouth. 

"I never got to tell you." Remus said. "I was going to tell you I loved you the next day. And I wanted you to meet my boyfriend because we're both poly and you had mentioned in passing you were too. I didn't press it because well… I wasn't sure how much you enjoyed how I am."

Devyn had never seen Remus so calm. It was weird and he didn't like it. He liked his Remus bouncing off the walls, talking about his latest findings on the side of the road; alive or dead. He liked Remus when he tried to make fake blood to put on the windows for Halloween and it ended up being actual animal blood because that's how obsessed Remus was with what he did.

This calm demeanor didn't suit the wacky man at all.

"Like them…? Remus… I adore you. You were so true to yourself in ways I couldn't predict. I love that even though you were pushed away by society for who you are… you didn't let that change you. You refused to live a lie. Something I had done all my life."

Remus crossed the gap between them and in one full motion, pulled Devyn down like a princess, holding him gently in his arms.

"Let me do what I've been holding back for so long." Remus begged.

Devyn nodded and they kissed. It was soft at first, tickling Devyn's upper lip with Remus's rough mustache, before Devyn felt it deepen even further. He didn't want it to stop…

"Geez, brother! Get a room!" Roman blurted which caused the two to pull away.

Devyn licked his lips and Remus did as well, promising more later.

Remus allowed Devyn to stand as they walked back over to the rest of the group. Virgil reintroduced himself and apologized as did Devyn. Remus explained that Virgil is his QPP as Virgil is asexual and quoiromantic. Both were fine having other partners. Devyn joked about the fact that maybe he would fall for Virgil too if Virgil played him the violin more. The group laughed even though Devyn was dead serious.

As it turned out, the band, including Remus, lived together in a rented house just down the street. It wasn't glamorous or anything but enough to keep all of them out of the rain and comfortable.

As they walked in, Virgil asked Devyn about his living conditions and he dodged the question by bringing up food. 

Remus grabbed Devyn's hand and squeezed, asking again.

Devyn admitted to living in a Motel 6. It was all he could afford after being released from jail. His factory job was paying him well now but he had to consider uber fees to get to and from work. The off three days working four was nice too but he had to be careful. He had no savings to fall back on. 

Remus jumped up. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"My past is not something I am proud of." Devyn admitted. "But… it is something I should explain before we get too far into things."

To Be Continued….

[eldweena]

So...road trip this weekend. This is pretty absurd, but we don’t really have used bookstores here... We have a Books-A-Million at the mall, which dabbles in used books but just barely, and a nerdy store called The Inner Geek that has some books but mostly vintage toys and tabletop gaming gear. And I heard someone opened a book café, but it’s on the far end of town and the online photos made it look more café and less book. (Maybe it’s BYOB, bring-your-own-book?) ANYWAY. Point being. When we want to brose a *good* used bookstore - which I often do, because I love out-of-print classic fantasy novels - we have to leave the state. So Saturday we drove two hours to Lexington because they have a couple Half Price Books stores. And after a full year of not leaving town due to COVID, we had like 7 bags full of books, CDs, video games, and DVDs to sell. Everything went great at the first store. We got there shortly after they opened at 10:00 am and there were signs posted everywhere saying one person per aisle. They had a sign on the door, and also called over the intercom, that your mask must cover your NOSE as well as your mouth. They’re taking the pandemic seriously and holding customers accountable! I was very pleased. We got $50 for half our sell-backs and found a lot of great buys, too. Then we had lunch at Schlotzky’s. I didn’t mean to take her picture, but in the background you can see a masked woman. She brought a book into the restaurant to read and it made my heart feel happy! After lunch we found an Asian market and my wife stocked up on sweets and drinks. Then we headed to the second HPB, and that’s where we somehow picked up a stalker. This store was a different experience entirely. This time we only got $30 for our remaining sell-backs (we split the selling into two trips so we wouldn’t have to be running back and forth between the store and the car in one go), and while the signage was the same, nobody was adhering. We were looking at science fiction paperbacks and a tall man talking loudly on his phone kept stepping closer to me until he literally brushed my arm. He wasn’t even looking at books - he was on the phone. I pointedly stomped around the other side of our cart to get away from him and while he didn’t stutter in his phone conversation, he did go away. I was about ready to make a scene with a loud, “EXCUSE ME - SIX FEET!” My god!!! People piss me off. Then we went to look at some gaming books because my wife found some old White Wolf manuals and we kind of collect them. (I did LARP Vampire: the Masquerade and MAGE briefly, but mostly I keep them for writing inspiration because the worldbuilding is just fascinating...) This time a young male kept inching his way closer while we were examining the two books they had. (The MAGE manual was brand new, velvet-lined, purple, and pristine. Also $60, so I passed. The Camarilla book was an older edition of the one I have, and the pages were pretty filthy, so I also passed.) I thought initially the guy wanted to look at the gaming books because - I say this only because he had glasses and unkempt hair - he looked like a nerd. Turns out, that was not the case. I caught the same guy staring at us as we moved to another section of the store, where he suddenly also happened to be. My wife went into the young adult alcove and was quickly swarmed by three girls. I couldn’t even get into the crowded aisle (again, the limit was supposed to be one person!) so I went to another shelf to look at true crime. I checked the YA books a couple more times, waiting for it to clear out some. And the guy was hanging around a corner. Not even alone, he was with a girl and I think another guy. By then I was feeling annoyed. I had a fucking mask on, so I knew he wasn’t really looking at my face??? We then looked at middle grade because I’m always on the lookout for Donna Jo Napoli, and that’s where they stick her, and i SAW The SAME GUY! He was never actually looking at books. He was always just standing there, looking out of place and hella awkward, never alone but with the same two people, but he was always looking at us. I wasn’t sure if my wife had noticed so I said, “Let’s get the fuck outta here. I’m tired of that guy staring at us.” She hadn’t noticed, but loudly proclaimed, “Where is he? I’ll stare right back?” I just said again, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” We took our cart of books (yep, found some more) up to the registers. AND THAT MOTHERFUCKER FOLLOWED US. He like...jumped in line behind us, took a sliding leap. He was holding some things so I was like...well, I guess he could be checking out at the same time as us, coincidentally...??? But this time he was without his companions. So we started checking out and I whisper-hissed to my wife, “That’s--” and she said, “I know.” Then, loudly, she said how rude it was for people to stare. Our cashier said something (I’m hard of hearing so I don’t know what he said; my wife said he told her something like, “I understand, I’m sorry that happened to you”), then the other cashier, who I thought was checking that stalker-boy out, held up a flower book and asked, “Is this yours?” We were like...uh....no...and went about our business. After we checked out I grabbed our bags and was trying to like, run for the door. He’d only had like two things in his hands when I saw him scurry into line, and I was scared he’d try and follow us. I’m one of those people who fumbles and drops things and typos and gets all sorts of clumsy when I try to hurry, so it took twice as long as it should have. Finally we got out the door and I kept whisper-hissing to my wife, let’s hurry to the car. And she was like, no, if he follows us I’m going to tell him to fuck off! We got to the car and loaded up our books as fast as possible, and I just wanted the hell out of that parking lot, but my wife was like, no, there’s a trash can beside the store entrance and I’m dumping our garbage. I didn’t want to hesitate or linger, but despite her insistence that she could do it alone, I went with her. That guy gave me a really bad feeling. He could have been a harmless staring-type of creeper, but regardless, I wasn’t about to let her find out on her own. We went back to the store, and as she dumped our trash my wife said that guy was still in the store, fucking staring at us through the window. When they made eye contact, he ducked away from the corner and went down an aisle. I felt shaky for almost an hour after that, until we were headed out of Lexington and absorbed in an audiobook. I don’t feel like it was all harmless coincidence. How many times can you run into the same person in a store, even a small one? Why was he even there, if he wasn’t interested in books? I’m not sure if he even bought anything, or did he hand that flower book to “his” cashier and try to get her to give it to us as a creepy gift from him? Like, I don’t even know what was up with that flower book. We weren’t even at that end of the counter. We also considered that he might have gotten it into his head that we were shoplifting. I don’t know what would have given him that impression, other than perhaps the fact that I kept taking my cell phone out of my hoodie pocket and tucking it back, as I was comparing prices online versus the store, as I always do... I did see him lean over the counter and talk to the cashiers as we were leaving, and I thought at the time, is he complaining about us? Did he think we were stealing??? Which we weren’t, nor were we behaving suspiciously in any way. And, if he had thought that, why hadn’t he reported us the first or second times we bumped into each other, instead of waiting until seeing us check out and then jumping into line behind us? I mean, WTF. My best guess was that he perceived two girls looking at gaming books and got nerdily excited. But he didn’t try and start a conversation, he just. kept. staring. Men, don’t do this, ever. Women have enough shit to worry about without you stalking them, even by accident, in a fucking store.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #373

“warm me up in a nova’s glow  /  and drop me down to the dream below”

Have you ever kissed someone that you thought you’d never kiss? Welp, never thought I'd kiss a girl for most of my life. When was the last time you ate take-out and what was it that you ate? Mom bought us breakfast at Bojangle's the morning after my sleep study. I got a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit. Do you enjoy when guys hit on/flirt with you or does it normally make you uncomfortable or annoyed? When was the last time more than one guy was flirting with you at a time? It makes me uncomfortable, especially if it's very obvious and pushy. Like some respectful flirting is fine and can be flattering if I'm single, but you better respect my boundaries and not act like a dog. I don't think two guys have both been openly interested in me since Juan and Jason in high school. Can you name five things you enjoy looking at pictures of? Animals, flowers, waterfalls, expressions of love between people, and boudoir. Would you rather have an eternal winter or an eternal summer? Both sound pretty sucky, but an eternal summer sounds worse. Do you know much about the Greek gods? Not anymore. I did in high school, as mythology was an elective I took. Are there a lot of stray cats and dogs near where you live? Not in this neighborhood. How would you cope with living in isolation away from society? How long do you think you could cope before you went mad? Oh god, I couldn't cope. I'd lose my shit so fast. Have you ever found any hidden treasure? No. Would you ever want to hibernate through the winter? No, I enjoy winter. Which holiday do you prefer, Halloween or Christmas? I like the Halloween vibe more, but I enjoy Christmas more as a holiday. Do you prefer hot or cold drinks overall? Cold. What’s the smallest thing you’ve ended a relationship over? I don't believe I've broken up with anyone over something small. Have you or a member of your family been diagnosed with COVID yet? My older sister got it. It was hell. What’s the dominant color in the room you’re in at the moment? An off-white. Do you know who your mom’s favorite singer is? James Hetfield of Metallica. Easy. What room in your house is the messiest? The spare room. Have you ever used a “puppy face” to get your way? Ha, yeeeaaah... If you could change any law that exists in your current country, what would it be and why? Here comes free healthcare. For obvious reasons. What were the last toppings you had on a pizza? Pepperoni. Would you rather spend an hour walking a dog or riding a horse? Riding a horse. Do you freak out when you need to visit the doctor or the dentist? Nah. Do you prefer The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit movies, if you like any of them? I haven't watched either. Which Harry Potter film was your favourite? What about your least favourite? I haven't watched those, either. What do you think about nose piercings? I like them. Nostril studs especially are really cute imo. How many floors does your house have? One. What’s your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid? I don't really like Kool-Aid anymore. Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Yeah, a cyst. Do you enjoy sappy love songs? Unabashedly. Do you wear a one-piece or a two-piece when you go swimming? One-piece. What would be your biggest pet peeve in a relationship? Not communicating your feelings straight-up. Be straightforward and honest with what you're going through with your partner, for the love of God. Have you ever had a teacher hit on you? Have you ever hit on a teacher? No to both. Do you tend to eat more on Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas? Christmas, because of chocolate stocking stuffers and boxes from Dad, haha. Do you know what an "AMV" is? Yeah, I used to make them. Do you think you have a sad life? In some ways, yeah. What’s one award show you have to watch every year? None. Who do you like more: the Batman or the Joker? The Joker, particularly Heath Ledger's. Do you like Rammstein? Love 'em. What is your favorite small dog breed? Aesthetically, I think pugs, but I've said before and I'll say it a thousand more times: I don't support breeding them. What was the first comic book you ever had an obsession over? I've never been obsessed with a comic book. Do you like kids pop-up books? Those were my absolute favorite kind AS a kid. What is your mother's mother's maiden name? Ummm I'm pretty sure Collins. Have you ever pet a monkey? No. What’s your favorite Owl City song… besides "Fireflies?" I actually really like "Hot Air Balloon." What’s your fave Miley Cyrus song? I don't know many, but I do know "The Climb" is absolutely gorgeous. Fave Rascal Flatts song? Probably "My Wish." But I also really like "Why" and "What Hurts the Most." Fave Justin Bieber song? None. Miley Cyrus, Demi Lavato, or Selena Gomez? Jesus, you really like bands that I don't, haha. I don't know any Demi or Selena songs, so idk. Fave Eminem song? Oh man, I do like a lot of Eminem. I know it's so cliche, but I genuinely adore "Love The Way You Lie." It gives me goosebumps. Do you think you could survive a month of solitary confinement? NO. Absolutely not. I would lose my motherfucking mind. What is something that you find utterly boring? Sports, save for dance, are incredibly blah to me. What noise/sound can put you to sleep? Gentle, steady rain tapping on the window. When you are upset, do you tend to shut others out? YYYYYYYYYYYEP. When was the last time you felt abandoned by someone? bleh Does the sight of blood gross you out? No. Do you like red roses, or do you prefer another color? I love red ones, but I really, really like the ones with a pink-peach gradient. Have you ever gone through a red light? I think I MIGHT have accidentally because I was zoned out, but I don't THINK so. Do you fail to stop for stop signs, sometimes? I can't recall if I ever have. What is one of your major turn-offs? Misogyny. The moment you act like you exceed my worth just because you have a dick, byyyyyeeee~ During which year of your life were you the most unhappy? 2016 was hell on Earth for me. Have you ever seen a blue jay in person? I have. Do you like leaves better in the summer/spring, or in the fall? I'd like to meet someone that actually chooses anything besides fall, lol. Do you like the appearance of green eyes? YES! Do you typically like green-colored candies? Yessss. It's not rare for them to be my favorite flavor of whatever the thing is. Who is the most energetic and happy person you know of? My nephew, omg. Have you ever encountered a black widow? I actually have seen at least one to my memory. They're native here. Has an animal ever peed on you? Yes. Do you prefer green or purple/red grapes? I enjoy both, but I prefer green IF they're actually firm. What color is your birthstone? Purple. Why did you leave your house last? To go to the TMS office. I have to go there every day (but the weekends) for two months for treatment now. Is anything on your body sore? Well, inevitably my upper right arm, where my tattoo is. It looks so fucking beautiful redone though, it's all worth it. :') Have you ever eaten a cookie cake before? If so, was it good? Hell yeah man, cookie cakes are great. Do you lose interest in someone easily? I'm quite the opposite. Who was the last person you flirted with? Sara. Do you still talk to the person you fell the hardest for? No. Who’s the last person that slept over your house? My sister and her husband. Have you ever regretted kissing someone? Yes. Are you currently sad about anything? I mean, I always am about something. How would you feel if your last ex fell in love with someone else? I would be super happy for her. Who was the last person who left your life and hurt you? Colleen. Do you know anyone who died of breast cancer? I might know of somebody, but all I know personally are survivors. Do you miss any of your old friends? Well of course. Have you ever been used before? I don't know. Ever taken a picture kissing someone? Yes. What’s the last thing you and your sibling laughed about? I Don't know. I haven't seen either in some time. What’s the last thing you took a picture of? A meme to send Sara, haha. Do you listen to classical music? No. Do you tell your parents who you like? Why or why not? I mean, I don't just randomly bring it up because just being like "hey I like this person _____ now" seems weird. Now if I was asked or mentioning it is somehow relevant, then I will. Who’s the most annoying person in your neighborhood? The damn dog next door who never shuts up. Name one of your psycho exes? None. I was the "psycho ex," and it's embarrassing as shit. Do you make your own clothes and/or add designs to them on your own? No. Do you ever feel guilty eating meat? It's not something I always actively think about, but subconsciously, I absolutely always do. Especially knowing my family doesn't buy from "ethical" markets, but instead big ones. "Ethical" in quotations because there is no moral way to slaughter an animal for food, but at least there are smaller farmers who can give their livestock a better, cleaner, happier life. What are you listening to at the moment? I'm semi-watching Gab play Bioshock. I'd never seen the game before, so just kinda vicariously checking it out. Seems all right. Does anything hurt right now? My tattoo is definitely in the sore phase. It'll start scabbing soon. I literally can't stop looking at it, I love it so much. How many years have you lived at the house you’re living in right now? Around 1 1/2. Have you ever lived in a different country that the one you’re living in? No. Which of your parents will you see next? I live with my mom and rarely see my dad, so. Do you like Chinese food? Only pork fried rice and egg rolls, really. What sort of music were you brought up on? When all of us kids were very little, Mom would usually play her rock channels on the radio, sometimes a (clean) CD. She also would ensure to play kids' cassettes sometimes, too, like Raffy or whoever it was. Once Ashley reached a certain age, she would always ask for a pop channel to be put on, so most of my childhood was that and some country music, too.

[larryfanficwriter98]

Chapter Five

Louis answered the facetime call grinning at the man across the screen still in a bed.

"Happy birthday and Merry Christmas Eve. Have you opened your presents yet?"

"No thought I would wait for you to wake up,  but I do have the gifts here along with the one with two bows which I'm assuming is my Christmas Eve present."

"Yes, it is. The very thin one is last altogether and the big cube is first."

"Everything else doesn't matter?"

"Not really however if you'd rather do the Christmas eve present first and let it start up while you open the rest then make sure to open the cube second. I bought myself one and it took a few minutes to start up so."

"It's too big to be a phone."

"Very observant."

"You do know I have a laptop right?"

"A broken laptop."

"Harold."

"Just come on and open it. I got it for a lot of reasons."

"Well, I already know what it is now." Louis told him

"Just shut up and open your Christmas Eve gift. Its Christmas I'm allowed to buy you expensive things." Harry said

"You bought me a Samovar."

"Please." Louis sighed heavily as he grabbed the gift, he looked at Harry who was grinning

"Where are you anyway? It's not the bus is it?"

"No, I'm in my LA home. The others are sleeping at a hotel though I offered them rooms here." Harry said

"You're alone on Christmas?" Louis asked stopping his unwrapping momentarily to look at Harry. Harry opened his mouth to speak, but he frowned and looked off camera before looking back at Louis after a second.

"No, my family is here. I'm trying to be quiet so they think I'm asleep otherwise they'll come in here. Well, go on then open it." Louis ripped the wrapping paper and shot Harry a glare when the box revealed the newest MacBook.

"Harold-"

"No, before you complain listen. This will give us better angles for video calls."

"Our phones worked just fine."

"Just shut up and take it." Louis shook his head as he stared at Harry. Harry with his long curly hair pulled into a bun, his pearl necklace laying against his bare chest, his little stubble on his jaw. His soft smile and soft eyes.

"So the cube next?" Louis asked looking away from Harry

"Yes. The cube." It was heavy in it's own way despite its medium size. He tore the gift open and froze when he saw the team logo.

"Wait..seriously?" Harry chuckled grinning as Louis grabbed the shadow box holding a signed ball from the entire Doncaster Rovers team, "Harry."

"I only paid for the shadow box, I know a lot of the players so when I told them my boyfriend is a huge fan the offered to sign a ball for me to give to you."

"Harry this is incredible. I can't open the rest Haz I won't be as excited now."

"Louis trust me it gets better." Louis put the shadow box to the side and grabbed another box placing it on his lap. Opening the box he pulled out four jerseys, two for home games, and two for away games. One set was for Doncaster and the other for Manchester. The third gift was two sets of five lanyards for the Manchester and Doncaster stadiums giving them access and free drinks and food in a VIP box.

"Harry.. but wait why five?"

"I'll be home near the middle of the season." Louis looked at Harry grinned, he bought the phone screen to his lips and kissed him making Harry laughed.

"One more. Is the MacBook set up?" Louis glanced at the MacBook then started to finish setting it up. "Open the last one and play it."

"Harry, I swear if you make me cry." Louis said as he grabbed the thin square package. He already knew it was a cd which meant a personalized playlist, a cheesy montage of their time together, or something along those lines, and honestly, Louis wasn't ready for either of those options.

"I am going to let you listen to it alone and I will take a shower and eat breakfast then we can talk in about two hours?"

"Alright." Harry leaned in to the screen and kissed the lens making Louis laugh. The facetime ended so Louis focused on the gift revealing the cd and placing it in the CD tray. He clicked on the pop up then pressed play turning the volume up.

"I know you don't want us to say the L-word until we meet for the first time. So I wrote something that I hope will express my feelings for you as strongly and clearly as I can and um... this might give away who I am, but I'm not scared about that. I've been trying to find a way to tell you for a few weeks now since you fell asleep on our facetime call in Australia. So I um... I hope you like it I guess and if you do find out who I am and if you need a few days to think about what being in a relationship with me would involve then let me know. If you come to a decision of ending things just know that I trust you and I'm sorry and I completely understand why you would decide that. If you still want to be with me then great and we can talk more on the depth of everything like if you want to be public about our relationship or not. Whatever you want. Alright.. before I say the word you don't want me to I'm going to stop this and let you listen. Bye." Louis laughed at his awkward boyfriend shaking his head as a soft piano came over the speakers.

"If I could fly I'd be coming right back home to you I think I might Give up everything just ask me to Pay attention, I hope that you listen Cause I've let my guard down Right now in completely defenseless

For your eyes only I'll show you my heart For when you're lonely And forget who you are I'm missing half of me When we're apart Now you know me For your eyes only."

Louis closed his eyes to keep his traitorous tears back. Harry's voice was raw, but sounded beautiful and Louis had a hard time focusing on what he was singing. He did recognize the voice, he knew he has heard it on the radio quite a few times, but he was terrible at remembering names. He knew that once he actually knew who Harry was he'd feel pretty damn stupid, but right now he couldn't think of anything. Louis replayed the song five times before it the lyrics finally sunk in and Louis understood this was Harry telling Louis that he Loved him with a capital 'L'.

Like he was completely in and completely gone for Louis. Louis would be lying if he said the thought didn't terrify him, but he felt the same way about Harry. He had fallen when Harry had answered a facetime with the widest grin, completely shirtless, and a towel wrapped around his waist. HIS WAIST. Not his hips like a normal person, his waist which meant his towel had stopped pretty high on his thighs. But Louis hadn't even noticed that until after he had completely fallen for his dimples and open mouth smile and his wet hair and his perfect complexion. Louis was pretty sure he had stopped breathing for a minute only to stop breathing again when Harry had straightened up and Louis had noticed his towel situation.

Nothing had been revealed, but still, it was the principal of things. Harry had perfect thighs and it was rude. How dare he just answer a facetime looking like a god while Louis had been wearing a stained holey band shirt and stained sweats with pizza sauce on the corner of his mouth. He had been tempted to break up with him because of it. Of course, he had talked himself out of it, but the thought had lingered in his head for a few seconds.

****

Two hours later Louis escaped to his room and accepted the facetime request. Harry was outside this time, but he was looking off-camera at someone.

"Mom. I love you, but please leave now."

"What if you need me?"

"Mom go away," Harry said

"But what if he's mean to you."

Mom. I'm 21 and I've been talking to him for months."

"Remember the last Doncaster boy you liked? He took your number and never texted you."

"I was 14 mom, I wouldn't have texted me either. Now go away."

"Fine. I'll be inside if you need me." Harry turned to the phone with a soft blush on his cheeks

"You had another Doncaster boy? Should I be worried?" Louis asked

"No, it was 2009 and at a battle of the bands. He was a singer in this band."

"Wait...shut up...2009 battle of the bands?" Louis asked sitting up straighter

"Yeah, why?"

"No fucking way. What was the guy's band name?" Louis asked not able to believe it

"Band name? I don't know it was...seven years ago. Rogue something I think or maybe something Rogue."

"Shut up."

"What?" Harry asked amused

"That was my band. The Rogue. We met before Harry."

"No."

"Yes. Me mom has the picture we took together in one of the photo albums back home in Donny."

"You're shitting me. We snogged that day."

"We snogged in the toilet stall after you peed on me. The first time." Louis told his embarrassed boyfriend making him even more embarrassed as he buried his face in his arms.

"Oh my god. Please stop talking now." Louis laughed even harder as he thought back to 2009, "wait didn't we meet again? At the script concert?"

"We did. We met up in the toilets. I think you were leaving when I was coming in."

"Fucking hell." Harry said shaking his head

"Then again that summer when I was on holiday and again in 2010 at the X Factor auditions."

"No."

"Yes. We have met four fucking times already." Louis said as he remembered Harry again

"Well after eight years I finally get your number." Harry said making Louis blush

"Well, I can explain. The first time I never actually saved it. I typed it, but I forgot to save it so when I tried to text you I couldn't. Then after the concert, I was actually struggling with coming out and being comfortable with it all. The holiday I still hadn't come out so I sort of ignored you then we didn't exchange numbers at the auditions. I left early anyway so I never actually auditioned."

"What? Why not? Louis, you should have auditioned. I remember you having an amazing voice."

"And lose to you? No thanks. Talk about a busted ego." Harry shook his head smiling as he laid his chin on his hand

"I actually didn't win. When you get to the Live Shows they give you this new contract to sign in case they want to sign anyone who doesn't win. A lot of the other contestants warned me about bad labels and what they can do and that they could closest someone. I was already being labeled and branded as a lady's man at 16 on that show. I refused to sign the contract and they organized my elimination three weeks later. Simon tried to talk me out of it a lot, but I refused and told my mom I didn’t want to be forced into a five to ten-year closet. Six months later Sony got a hold of me and told me that I would be able to coke out whenever I wanted, but until then they did want to promote me as straight which I was fine with. Luckily it had to wait until I was 18 so when I turned 18 they had me date Taylor Swift. I'm not out publicly yet, but I just never really had a reason to come out."

The first thing that popped into Louis' head was "Harry Styles"  but that was insane because Harry was...like...18 and had a mop of curls. He did not have tattoos or long hair nor was he 21 turning 22. Louis was positive he had just turned 18 last year.

"That's good that you were warned and was able to escape before you were legally straight."

"Yeah, it is. A little upset I will never know if I would have won or not, but I guess having my first album get platinum within a week was proof enough that I would have at least made top 5."

~~~~~

Harry had gotten Niall an expensive whiskey that Niall was excited about and a limited edition Baccarat Louxor Bar Set. Liam got a $100 tattoo voucher for the local parlor he liked and some Manchester footie merch signed as well like Louis'. Zayn got some expensive hair care products as well as a $100 (my keyboard doesn't have the pound symbol so sorry about the American dollar) tattoo voucher. For someone who only knew a few things about his roommates he did amazing and they were all excited about everything.

Louis had gotten more gifts from all of the places Harry has been. Some more sweaters, a Japanese dragon jacket that felt expensive and warm. A rice cooker with a side note to follow the instructions causing Louis and the lads to laugh. Harry also bought Louis a Royal Copenhagen complete set which almost made Louis cry. Having a complete Royal Copenhagen set was every tea lover's dream, if they're lucky they are able to collect a few tea cups, but it was rare to get a complete set.

In the last box, Louis opened it revealed a large lilac sweater that was something Louis wouldn't usually wear until he pulled it out. The smell was of a tropical scent mixed with an expensive earthy cologne. That meant the sweater was Harry's along with the other sweaters that were folded neatly into the box. A white Aran turtle neck sweater, a black hoodie with a rose embroidery, and under that was a note over another hoodie reading, "unreleased merch". When Louis pulled out the black hoodie it had "Treat People With Kindness" written in rainbow embroidery across the chest. The last one was a light pink sweater with Harry on the chest and then the same quote on the arm.

"Wait.. your boyfriend sent you Harry Styles merch? You've got to be kidding me." Liam said grabbing the black hoodie from Louis

"What?" Louis asked

"Treat people with kindness. This is Harry Styles' merch, it's like his slogan, his brand." Liam said

"Really?" Louis asked, "isn't he like..17?"

"What? No, he's 21 Louis. He was 17 in 2011." Zayn said as he looked at the hoodie, "I haven't seen this one yet."

"21..and when is his birthday?" Louis asked

"The first of February." Niall told him Louis nodded and grabbed his phone going to the safari app and googling Harry Styles.

Sure enough there he was with long hair and tattoos and extremely long legs. There were also modeling pictures and paparazzi pictures of him at airports and fan pictures. Louis went on Instagram and went to Harry Styles' profile and saw many pictures of the countries landscapes and landmarks he had visited the past few months. One of the posts was a picture of Louis' teddys on Louis' shelf in his bedroom wall that he got just for them. The caption read, "Dating 101 - buy them cheesy €5 souvenirs" Louis made his profile private then commented, "and the sweaters that still smell like you."

[haloud]

many times, many ways

a malex christmas gift for christi @michaels-blackhat, who inspired me into holiday fluff and who spent this month writing wonderful gifts--I hope you enjoy this one in return! Happy holidays, everyone!

-- ao3 --

An unmarked package. An envelope, more accurately, hand-folded out of plain brown paper and left right in front of Alex’s front door. Buffy is sniffing at it before Alex can stop her; he snags her by the collar, heart in his throat, but she’s close enough to nudge it with her nose. Alex holds his breath, but she just lets out a soft boof, then loses interest and heads back inside. Alex, however, can’t be quite so cavalier. It may not have exploded when Buffy moved it, but there are ways other than explosives that a strange package can fuck you up. He fetches a pair of gloves and a particle mask before he even touches it. A small gesture toward security, maybe, but it makes him feel safe enough to work a pocketknife under the tape and slowly pull the paper apart.

Alex blinks twice at what’s inside. Pulls his mask off so it falls around his neck and blinks again. Reaches out to touch it.

It’s…a Christmas ornament. But not any, it’s—it’s light in his palm, a tiny thing, a miniature of a poster he had as a kid, the one Maria smuggled into his car after school and he hung up in the toolshed where no one would see it. Alex holds it up. Dangling from a scrap of black ribbon, the little orange rectangle catches the light, gleaming off the black enamel picking out the singer’s little face and the Danger! At the Picture Show lettering. It’s cold when he clenches it in his fist, heart pumping a hundred miles an hour.

For a second, he’s seventeen again, and he has to laugh at the memory of that kid he used to be, earbuds stuffed in his ears, knees jammed up against the desk waiting for the first period bell to ring. He grins despite himself, turning over the paper again, searching for any kind of note or indication who it’s from. Rosa, maybe? Secret presents are definitely her thing, and she was the one who gave him his first DatPS CD when he was fourteen. Maria is the other person who comes to mind, but Alex hopes she would just give it to him in person—he doesn’t like to think of her being too anxious to give him something like this face to face, what with all the mending fences going on.

He smooths his thumb over the ornament’s glossy surface one more time, then puts it on a shelf for safekeeping for lack of anywhere more festive to put it. He doesn’t really decorate for Christmas; the holidays were only ever more of the same when he was a kid, with a thin, grotesque veneer of family over the top of it.

Things get even more festive the next day, though, when he gets home from work and finds another package, in the same brown paper, sitting on the porch steps. It’s bigger this time, three dimensional, and after a moment of deliberation, Alex picks up the phone. Guerin might laugh at him, but that’s a price he has to be willing to pay.

He doesn’t laugh, though. He rolls up in his truck, that, despite the circumstances and the vaguely tipsy feeling of fear lurking in his blood, Alex has to laugh at—there’s a sprig of mistletoe wrapped in bright red ribbon hanging from the rearview mirror.

Michael bounds over to him and says, slightly breathless, “What did you need me to check out?”

Alex waves his hand in the direction of the stairs. “It’s probably nothing. I got something similar yesterday, and it was fine, I just—”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, I get it. Here, let me.” Michael squeezes Alex’s shoulder, a quick, warm, reassuring touch, then takes a step back. Focusing, he narrows his eyes at the little package, then wings it in an arc off into the empty desert.

A second passes. Nothing blows up. Michael pulls the package back in.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he says, “Sorry if whatever’s in there broke. But whoever sent it to you should have known better. Fucking idiot.”

Alex lets out a long breath, forcing his shoulders to drop and his brow to smooth. “No, it’s okay. ‘Tis the season, right? It could be from anyone.”

“Still.” Michael’s mouth curls downward, like he tastes something foul, like he tends to look whenever he tries to make nice with Kyle. It’s exasperating. It’s also a little sweet, in a twisted way.

The box has the same wrapping, same tape job as yesterday’s envelope. It comes apart easily, and inside is—Alex pulls it out, holds it up.

It’s. It’s an alien, full-on little green man alien, holding up its noodly little hands in two peace signs. Wearing a Santa hat. Covered in gaudy glitter. And still intact—only one piece has snapped off, a little piece of red molding clay that someone clearly fashioned so an ornament hook could go through it.

After a shocked second, Alex lets out a very uncharacteristic giggle; then, face burning, he drops the little alien back into the box and glances up at Michael, who’s watching him with his head tilted and a shy smile of his own on his pink mouth.

Their eyes meet for a long, breath-catching moment, a spark jumping through the cold, dry air from one body to the next. Then they both look away, clearing throats, shoving hands in pockets, and looking up at the sky instead of back at each other, each of them so large in the other’s sight to block out the sun.

“Secret Santa?” Michael says, voice cheerfully flippant. He’s still grinning somehow. Alex wants to wipe that look off his face. With his own face.

“Something like that.”

“Next time try to get someone who knows you better than to get that touristy shit.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Michael leaves after that, making it both easier and harder to breathe. Touristy shit aside, Alex puts the Santa alien on the shelf beside the first ornament, and later that night, after tossing and turning for a little while, he grabs his crutches, goes to the shelf, gropes in Jim’s old toolbox for a tube of superglue, and hunches over the coffee table to fix the clay part, making it an ornament once again.

One is an event. Two is a coincidence. Three ornaments in three days, and it’s a pattern.

No brown paper package shows up the third day; rather, he finds the ornament when he checks his mailbox in town. It’s a little laptop this time, nothing special, but it still brings a smile to his face when he holds it in his palm.

Who could the mystery sender be? It turns into something of an obsession over the next few days, which see him receiving a log cabin, a beagle, and a beautiful handmade silver and turquoise songbird. It’s clearly someone who knows him now, and someone who knows him well enough to know his home, his pet, what he does for a living…it’s a narrow field, to be sure—basically just Maria, Liz, Kyle, or Rosa. He rubs his thumb over the beagle’s little painted nose while Buffy shoots it a suspicious look from the couch as he considers his options.

Whoever it is, Guerin must know, because since the second day, the ornaments have arrived in his mailbox or on his porch unwrapped or in clear plastic wrap if it’s raining out.

Of course, all the evidence could point toward it being Guerin himself. But…somehow, Alex can’t bring himself to believe it, if only because the thought of Michael thinking of him like this, over time, with dedication, makes Alex’s chest ache with longing to see him, to hear him, to feel him. Better it be some scheme of Rosa’s. It’s just…better that way.

The gifts keep coming. Day seven, it’s the Air Force crest; on the eighth and ninth days, he finds a sunbathing alien and a bowl of ramen on his front step. They both go on the increasingly-crowded shelf, though he shoots the ramen a nasty look when he puts it in place. Another point in the Maria column, considering last time he went to one of her movie nights, he was asked to put pizza rolls in the oven and managed to burn them despite absolutely following the instructions on the package.

The tenth day’s ornament arrives in a blue Tupperware container, just translucent enough to see the ornament inside, but not so much he can tell what it is.

He opens it and finds a ball ornament wrapped in strips of paper cut from dictionaries in ten languages he can identify, including all six he speaks. It’s sturdy papier-mâché, but Alex still holds it like it might shatter if he breathes on it too hard. Every line defines things like family, like love, like forever. He returns it to its box and puts it on the shelf with the others, but his fingers linger over the lid, because there are lines he hasn’t traced with his fingertips yet, and he can hardly tear himself away.

He goes into town later that day on a grocery run with words still swimming in his mind and his mouth fixed shut because he’s not sure what might come out. But no level of distraction or concentration could keep him from being blindsided when he runs into Guerin outside the Crashdown, their bodies catching shoulder to shoulder, Guerin’s hand on his arm to steady him—their collision almost knocked a big box out of Guerin’s hands, but he steadies it with a little help from his powers until Alex has his balance back and he can take it in both hands again.

“Alex,” he breathes, then clears his throat. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I could say the same to you,” Alex manages.

Guerin shakes the box lightly. “Liz wants to surprise Arturo with the decorations this year, so I figured I’d offer my services. I’m the only one who can get tinsel into all the hard-to-reach places, after all.”

“Oh, that’s—that’s really nice.”

“Nah, I’m getting paid. Mostly in milkshakes and fries, but who’s complaining?”

They stare across the box. It’s been like this, lately, a small talk stiffness to their interactions, and Alex doesn’t know how to make it stop. But at the same time, he isn’t sure he wants to. It’s almost…nice. A couple weeks ago Alex drove by the junkyard just because he could, and Michael smelled like snow and pine and commented on the weather, and that brief exchange left the both of them grinning like idiots by the time Alex drove away. They aren’t lovers again, not yet. But they’re something. They’re getting there.

“Want some help? I’m free tonight,” Alex says, and Michael smiles at him, and that’s that. Alex comes back late, once the Crashdown is closed and Arturo is in bed. Liz and Rosa come downstairs to work on the decorations too, and more hands makes for light work, though Michael does most of the work without using his hands at all. They’re finished in no time. Alex plugs the lights in, flips the switch, and Rosa laughs, real and unrestrained and tugging Liz into the middle of the floor, dotted with multicolored puddles of light, twirling her in a circle. Sometime during the decorating, Rosa managed to stick Michael with a present ribbon, and it bobbles on top of his curls as he slinks over to Michael’s side to knock their shoulders together. Alex lets him, in the spirit of the season, and because every time Michael touches him his body goes weightless.

Now is as good a time to ask as any.

“So, Guerin,” he says, “I’m still getting ornaments every day. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that you haven’t told me, would you?”

Michael shrugs and grins that cowboy grin. “Looks to me like you’ve got yourself a secret admirer.”

“Secret, huh?”

“Looks that way.”

And before Alex can say another word, Michael is walking away to join Liz and Rosa dancing, whistling Let It Snow. He gets away from Alex that time, but before their little impromptu party is over, Alex manages to steal the bow from his hair, just glancing his fingers off those curls, so lightly Guerin doesn’t even seem to notice.

Whether he’s the ornament giver or not, Alex puts the bow on the shelf with the others. Just in case.

The next day, there’s no ornament when he leaves in the morning, and nothing in his mailbox when he checks it that evening, either. He’s—frustrated, okay, rather than sad, because what was the point? Stopping ten days in, what was even the point? It leaves him feeling untethered, without that tiny little thing to look forward to each and every day. Somehow, without even really noticing, he’d kind of gotten into the Christmas spirit. He even, feeling ridiculous the entire time, went to the pet store and bought a couple gifts for his dog, because he’s in a gift-giving mood even if he’s not sure he’s exchanging gifts with anyone else this year.

He shoulders his way out of the office, avoiding eye contact with the clerk, who’s surely noticed him coming in every single day, when he used to only check his mail once a week at best. Whatever. Now he has no reason to come back so often, and they’ve got plenty of time to forget him, like the way things should be.

He’s so caught up in his thoughts that he almost smacks Maria right in the face with the door as he leaves. She yelps, and he catches it at just the last second, tripping over apologies while she flaps her hand at him dismissively.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, Alex, really,” she laughs. Alex steadies her with his hands on her shoulders, and she tugs him to the side, out of the way of the sidewalk traffic. “I was hoping to run into you anyway. I have something for you.”

Oh shit. Anxiety spikes, and Alex blabbers, “Oh, shit, Maria, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know we were doing gifts this year—”

Great. Their friendship is finally finding even footing again, and Alex immediately puts himself in the red again by hitting her with a door and tells her straight up that he didn’t get her anything for Christmas. Batting a fuckin’ thousand, isn’t he. No wonder his secret admirer or whatever got bored of him.

“Alex, seriously, chill.” She tweaks his chin. “No presents is one hundred percent fine. You think I’m all about worshipping at the capitalist altar that is Christmas? Hell no. Buuut someone asked me for a favor, and it just so happened that I had something for you anyway, so here you go.”

She grabs his hand and presses into it a beautifully beaded eight-pointed star, red and white and gold. Alex gasps, and says, “This is—”

“One of Mom’s, yeah.” That wry, sad smile Maria gets when she talks about her mother curls up on her face. “She makes a lot of them on her good days, and her nurse says it’s good that she’s working with her hands. And Mom specifically said this one was for you.”

“God.” Alex swallows and grips the star as tightly as he can without crushing it. “Let me know next time you’re going to visit her, okay? So I can thank her in person?”

“Sure thing.”

Maria blinks rapidly for a moment, and Alex, understanding, doesn’t mention it. She composes herself quickly, and then Alex just has to ask:

“So it hasn’t been you the whole time, has it?”

“What, leaving you the ornaments? I am not that sappy.”

“Come on, there’s nothing wrong with being a little sentimental,” he teases.

“Uh huh. Sure. I forgot I was talking to the master of fuzzy feelings himself.”

“Do as I say, not as I do.”

Maria laughs at that and, hooking her arm through his, starts off down the street. “Now, we may not be exchanging presents this year, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make you help me with the rest of my shopping.”

--

The next day’s ornament is a classic Han Solo one, and if Alex lets out an undignified gasp when he sees it, Buffy is the only creature around to witness it. If he spends the rest of the day finding and watching the Star Wars Christmas Special, well, the same goes for that too, and his dignity is firmly intact.

The day after that, Liz texts him to come to the Crashdown, and since it’s a weekend he makes it there to meet her on her lunch break. The decorations look just as good in the daylight, if an inch or two less magical, and Alex has to duck his head to hide his grin when he remembers Michael very seriously placing a Santa hat on each individual alien in the place.

Liz beckons him over to a booth, two shakes and a plate of fries already in front of her. “Figured since I called you out, I could at least treat you,” she says. “On top of what I called you here for, which is….” She does a little drumroll on the table, then plonks an ornament box down on the table.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alex bursts out.

“I know, right? I couldn’t believe it when I found it.”

Laughing and shaking his head, Alex picks it up. It’s a cat wearing an antenna headband so, so similar to the one perched on Liz’s head—the wrong shade of green, but still.

“I don’t suppose this is your way of telling me you’ve been leaving me ornaments all month, is it.”

“Pfft, no way.” Liz steals a fry from his tray and crunches it smugly. “Secret admirer, Manes. It’s supposed to be secret.”

Day fourteen is something delicate, so much so he’s a little scared to touch it. It’s thin glass, deep blue, and when it catches a light source it sends shimmering blue all around the room. It’s the day Alex stops trying to guess who his mystery gift-giver is, because now he’s been given light to hold in his hands, and it makes him feel—makes him—

Someone thought he was worthy of this. Someone wanted him to have it. Whether or not they ever tell him who they are, that means something.

His fifteenth ornament is the third one to come wrapped in a package, but this time it’s in an actual USPS shipping box, and it comes with a letter inside, in handwriting he recognizes.

Captain, it says, we got pressed into service again, and I was the unlucky bastard who drew the short straw, so I’m sending this to you, along with a warning that you fucking owe me…

The ornament is basic, a decently pretty white and silver snowflake. He puts the letter on the shelf with it. If the season is forcing everyone else into a sentimental mood, he might as well succumb to it too.

He wakes up on the sixteenth day with a bit of a sentiment hangover and lets himself lie in bed for a little while longer than usual, fondling Buffy’s soft ears and cradling this lovely, bittersweet feeling inside himself. If Christmas is the deadline for this whole ornament thing, he’s over halfway to the end. He takes the morning slowly, lingering over his coffee and over the view of the desert through his kitchen window, the high def white-gray limning of the world you get with a serious cold.

That day’s ornament doesn’t match Alex’s mood at all, but he still chuckles and shakes his head when he sees it. It’s another patch job like the Santa alien, but this time some sort of Valentines leftover—a traditional Roswell Gray holding a big red heart that says you’re out of this world!, with a handmade place for ornament hooks to go. It looks absurdly out of place next to everything else he’s accumulated, but he gives it its place of honor anyway.

He doesn’t expect his seventeenth ornament to arrive on the doorstep or in the mail, and sure enough, the pattern holds and it’s hand delivered at like ten o’clock that night. He almost doesn’t answer the door, but to be honest he’d left his leg on after work expecting just this.

“Ho ho ho,” an exhausted-looking Kyle says, shoving a box into Alex’s hands.

“Dude, did you drive all the way out here after your shift? It could have waited.”

“Nah, this is my one good deed for the year.”

“You’re literally a surgeon. Your job is good deeds.”

“Fine—my one act of charity.”

Alex bristles at that. “I don’t need—”

“Not for you.” Kyle punches him lightly on the shoulder.

Cryptic bastard.

“Go ahead and open it,” Kyle says, “My blood is eighty percent coffee right now, and I want to get home before I crash”

“You know you can stay if you need to.”

“Yeah, yeah. Open it.”

Alex’s eyebrows go straight up when he does and pulls out a shimmery white ball with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer logo on it. “You didn’t pick this out yourself. You asked me why I gave my dog a porn name the first time you met her.”

“Hey! I listened when you explained—” When Alex fixes him with a glare, Kyle gives in with a laugh. “Okay, okay, Rosa helped. Oh ye of little faith.”

Kyle leaves after that, with a quick hug and a Merry Christmas, and Alex goes to his shelf to put the ornament away. He hasn’t been keeping them in chronological order, more a sort of a…thematic grouping. The Buffy ball goes with Maria’s star, Liz’s alien cat, and the snowflake from his unit.

He looks up and turns away, casting his eyes all around the room to hide from no one the fact that he’s getting a little bit choked up.

Maybe he’ll buy some lights tomorrow. Or tinsel or something. No reason he can’t go in on the decorating, right? Why is he still holding himself back?

--

He doesn’t make it to the store the next day, or the two after that, three days that see him receiving a coffee mug, a UFO that’s supposed to light up when it’s plugged in, and a little truck hauling a Christmas tree.

He wonders if maybe that last one is a promise.

The pattern of hand deliveries every other day has been broken. But, in the spirit of the season—Alex doesn’t dwell on the fact that he never got one hand-delivered by Michael and instead chooses to think about the other thing that could mean.

On day twenty-one, he gets a glass teardrop that shimmers purple and golden, and on day twenty-two he gets a golden disc engraved with a tiny, perfect star chart.

The day before Christmas Eve, he opens the door to find an acoustic guitar.

As if he didn’t already know.

--

Christmas Eve dawns gray and dismal with the smell of snow in the air. Buffy trots around the yard in circles, lifting her nose every couple minutes to sniff the cold, and Alex cradles his coffee in both hands to keep them warm while he watches her, content. Part of him regrets that he never went and got more decorations, but it’s okay. This whole month—it’s been such an unexpected thing to be able to accept a simple joy into his life, to let himself expect a little, uncalled-for gift every day, that all he can feel at this point is just…peace. He couldn’t have asked for anything else. He didn’t.

Buffy barks, and Alex looks up just in time to see a familiar truck coming down the road, the bed covered with a tarp. Alex puts his mug down on the railing and regrets it instantly for want of something to do with his hands as Michael parks, opens the door, and jumps out of the car.

“Hey,” Alex says.

“Hey. Merry Christmas,” Michael says in return.

They just stare at each other for a moment, something that happens a lot when it’s just the two of them. Like they have to steel themselves to speak. Like they have to make sure that no, it’s not, it’s not the time to take that step forward and drown themselves in each other. It’s okay, yeah, it’s okay to just be here. Like this.

“Want some help with that?” Alex tilts his chin in the direction of the tarp.

“Y-yeah. Sure.” He stumbles over the word and ducks his head, rounding the truck to reveal what’s underneath.

It’s exactly what Alex expected, and everything he never did. His heart in his throat, he touches one of the branches on the tree, needles pricking his skin, sap sticky on his fingertips when he pulls them away.

“You get the other end,” Michael says, and they carry it inside together, a crate full of other decorations floating along behind them, Buffy pulling up the rear, eyeing it suspiciously. She settles in the corner to watch as Michael sets the tree up, hammers it into the stand, and positions it in the corner where it’ll be out of Alex’s way.

Alex hovers in the kitchen, making them both more coffee, hands shaking a little bit on the grounds, on the filter, on the carafe. The tree still takes up too much room. Michael takes up too much room. He always has. In this tiny house. In Alex’s heart and in his head and between his ribs. Michael pulls things out of the crate one by one and hangs them in the air around himself—bundles of lights, a skirt for the tree, multicolored balls and delicate paper snowflakes to fill all the spots left between the ornaments in Alex’s new collection.

Their fingers brush when Alex hands him a mug, and Alex lets the moment hang there. Skin on skin in the most casual, innocent way, but with Michael’s golden eyes so close it still manages to heat his blood, dry his mouth, cover him in yearning.

“Thanks,” Michael says hoarsely. He drags his index finger along Alex’s as he pulls his hand away, sending a shiver through the both of them.

Decorating for Christmas shouldn’t feel forbidden, but it does. It does, as they circle around each other, spiraling lights around the tree, eyes catching on every pass, Alex’s face so warm every time he sees Michael’s answering blush, on his cheeks, on his lips. Once the lights are on, they start in on the ornaments. Alex picks them off the shelf in chronological order, passing half of them to Michael, keeping half of them—like Mimi’s star, Han Solo, and the guitar—for himself.

“How did you manage it?” He asks eventually, fixing the teardrop to a high branch so Buffy doesn’t get any ideas.

“A friend who knows how to navigate Etsy, a sister with Amazon Prime, and a little bit of old-fashioned gumption.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Sure am.” Michael grins with satisfaction at the Valentines alien. Then he sobers a bit and says, “Hey, look, I’m sorry about the packaging the first couple days. I wanted to surprise you—I wasn’t thinking, and I should have.”

“It’s okay. You changed it up, and…yeah. It’s fine.”

“Thanks.”

A couple minutes pass in silence as Alex searches for what else to say. To ask. Why did he do it? When did he get the idea?

He asks, “What about the others? The ones you had Maria, Liz, Kyle, and the guys pick out? Red herrings, or did you just run out of ideas?”

“Oh, I had lots of ideas.” Michael presses his shoulder to Alex’s, coming in close to hang the star chart right beside the silver bird. Nudging him shyly, Michael says, “But my favorite one was the one where you got reminded how many people care about you.”

Alex almost drops the UFO at that, at Michael’s absurd honesty. He has nothing else to say, and they finish decorating the tree in peaceful silence. When they finish, Alex turns the lights off, and Michael plugs the tree in, and the gray day is dark enough that everything lights up bright like it would in the evening, all the colors of the rainbow.

“Fuck,” Alex breathes. It’s like a punch to the gut, happiness and disbelief and the unavoidable need to hoard this feeling, this moment, that comes on the heels of those feelings.

“So you like it?”

“Fuck,” Alex repeats, “Michael. I love it. It’s…I just…”

“Good.”

Michael, hesitating all the way, reaches out and takes Alex’s hand, sliding their fingers home together.

“I have one more ornament for you.” And he reaches into his pocket.

Alex makes a strangled noise when he sees it. Instinct tells him to rip his hand out of Michael’s and flee to the other side of the room to regroup, but he stays rooted in place, struggling, grasping for anything to say.

The console shard—because that’s what it has to be, just with gauzy ribbon looped and knotted carefully around one end so it dangles neatly from Michael’s fingers—shimmers in the soft rainbow light. Michael’s eyes shimmer along with it, equally as alien.

“I can’t,” Alex blurts. “I can’t take it. Michael. No. It’s—”

“No, no, listen, please.” Michael tugs on his hand like he wants to pull him closer, but Alex can’t—he just can’t—

He can’t be what ties Michael to Earth. He can’t be the sole tether that keeps him here, to the world that hurt him again and again, even if it’s the thing he wants most in the world, to protect, to hoard him like he hoards every sliver of a happy memory, where no one can take it away from him. That’s why he—months ago, when he most thought Michael was slipping through his hands, he gave him the console piece he found so he could go if he needed to. And now Michael tries to hand another piece back to him again?

“I can’t,” Alex says again, stuck on repeat.

“Hey, hey,” Michael fumbles for Alex’s other hand, and Alex lets him catch it, because with Michael holding him in place he doesn’t feel as cold. “It’s not what you think. I’m not asking you to keep me here, or anywhere, just.”

He swallows. He’s beautiful, in this light most of all. The most beautiful thing Alex has ever seen. Shining in every way, from the golden brushstrokes of his hair to the heart of him, who knew that Alex must never have had much of a holiday and decided to give him one.

Alex wants to kiss him. Wants to swallow whatever words Michael is going to say next and end the conversation there.

“Look.” Michael squeezes his hands. “When my mom—when she died. And after. Everything I worked for, everything I built the console for and devoted my life to, I thought it was over. Useless. But…you told me you were my family. And I know it took me too long to believe it, but I do now.

“I built the console because I was searching for my family. And now that it’s right in front of me, I want you to have a piece of it. Want us to have a piece of it.”

Alex searches Michael’s face, every earnest, open inch, until he can’t stand it anymore, until he drops Michael’s hands in favor of cradling his face, pulling him in, and taking his mouth in a slow, deep, careful kiss, tasting coffee on his tongue, drowning in the coming home of him, of his mouth on Alex’s, the rightness of having him in his arms. Michael responds with enthusiasm, stroking his back with his broad hands, making eager little noises into the kiss, going along with it until Alex pulls away to look at him again.

“You’re unbelievable,” Alex breathes.

“Thought it was the season for believing,” Michael replies, a little smile returning to his face.

“That’s what they tell me,” Alex says, and kisses him again.

--

Michael stays the night, wrapped up in Alex’s blankets, wrapped up in every inch of space Alex has ever thought was empty or cold. He doesn’t even need to set the heater that night, kept plenty warm by Michael’s body all along his back, holding him so close.

They wake up slow in the morning, but Alex earliest, because…

Well, even after everything Michael has done this month and everything he said the previous day, Alex is nervous about Michael’s Christmas present. He needs those extra minutes, watching him sleep peacefully, to steel himself.

But when he watches Michael wake up, sees how the first thing he does is look for Alex so he can smile at him, he isn’t so worried anymore.

They bring the blankets out into the sitting room, bundling up under the tree. Buffy leaves her bed to lie beside them instead, on top of the blankets, effectively pinning them in place, so Michael has to use his powers to get the wood and kindling set and strike a match and get a fire going in the fireplace.

The light flickers like something living off the console shard hanging from one of the uppermost branches. Heart in his throat, Alex pulls the envelope—the same one that held the ornament he got on December 1st—out of his pocket.

“I have something for you, too.”

Michael takes the envelope, eyes locked on Alex’s like he’s waiting for permission to open it. When Alex nods, he slips the tape open carefully, almost reverently. Like Alex, he’s never really gotten a gift before. Not one he thought meant anything. Not one he thought could stay.

He shakes the envelope, and a key falls into his hand.

“It’s to the front door,” Alex says to fill the silence.

Michael’s fist clamps around it with a familiar desperation, like someone might come out of nowhere to snatch it away. He blinks glossy eyes, wet lashes up at Alex, his mouth open, closed, throat bobbing as he swallows. Alex reaches out to stroke his closed fist.

“You’re my family. You’re my home. I don’t ever want to shut you out; I want you to be here. With me. Together. And I think you want that too.”

“Alex,” Michael chokes, and then he’s in Alex’s arms, wrapped around him in a hug.

He stays like that for most of the day, handsy and gentle, reaching out to touch him whenever they’re separated even for a moment. The next day passes much the same—then the next they both have to go back to work, live lives outside of their little holiday bubble.

Alex gets home first. He takes the dog out, gets dinner out of the freezer. Then about an hour later, he hears a car outside, footsteps on the stairs, then, after a minute’s pause, a key slots into the lock.

And Alex knows.

[writeyourownlifestory]

L I GH T S  U P

Chapters: 1/20 Fandom: IT Rating: M Warnings: No warnings at this time  Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Beverly Marsh/Ben Hanscom Additional Tags: PunkRocker!Eddie, Writer!Richie, Beveddie!Friendship, No Clown Written by: myself & @ahardlife Tag list: @richietoaster, @beproudtozier, @that-weird-girls-blog, @s-onora, @s-s-georgie, @bellarosewrites, @iamcupcakefrosting, @reddieonwheels, @bi-gemini1983

Puff piece writer Richie Tozier is given the chance of a lifetime to interview his celebrity crush: Dr. K, the lead singer of punk rock band, Trashmouth. Dr. K is about to release his first solo album and Richie wants to get all the dirty details. But all is not what it appears to be and the two realize they know each other from a different time, in a different place, when they were both very different people.

One: Cruel To Be Kind: Nick Lowe

Oh I can't take another heartache Though you say you're my friend, I'm at my wit's end You say your love is bonafide, but that don't coincide With the things that you do And when I ask you to be nice, you say

You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure Cruel to be kind, it's a very good sign Cruel to be kind, means that I love you, baby (You've gotta be cruel) You gotta be cruel to be kind

Richie Tozier didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life.

That wasn’t a very unique statement but Richie wasn’t a very unique person. An average guy who was as blind as a bat, born in bumblefuck nowhere and eventually making it out of there and into the big wild city, making a living working at a big-name magazine.

Okay, the last part was pretty impressive, but he didn’t actually work very hard for that job.

He used to dream of writing comedy. Of telling jokes or writing for amazing shows like Saturday Night Life or something on Comedy Central. He wanted to be a comedian. To make people laugh. Sure, he is seen as the funny guy around the watering tank, but thats just because the rest of the people he worked with were a bunch of yuppies with impressive college degrees and no real personalities. They’re no better than the robots who work for Buzzfeed.

They had paperback covers and an app for people who didn’t want to go to the store to buy an actual copy. They had their own YouTube channel that hit millions of hits thanks to interviews and other shit that Richie took part in.

When Bill decided he wanted to make this into a real thing, he wanted it to make some sense. It wasn’t some balls to the ball insanity mag that people read for juicy gossip. It was real. The people who subscribed were real and the people featured in it were real.

Richie’s writing, not so much.

He mostly did puff pieces. Little things that didn’t take a lot of effort but were mostly filler in between the larger stories. It was something Bill had done for them after the magazine got big. You see, he and Bill had been buddies in college. Both young and naive about the world. Neither really knew what they wanted, but they had dreams and that was all that mattered back then.

It was Bill that had the real talent with writing and despite publishers being interested, he never took into account just how much time, effort, and money went into getting a book published. Richie, always believing in his best friend, decided to give him all the cash he had saved up for spring break so he would make the first move on getting his novel out.

He didn’t mind much as he found that he could eat, sleep, and drink on the couch the same way he could out on the beach.  

That novel ended up being a best seller and skyrocketed Bill’s career. Bill always remembered that, so when his second and third books became such a thrill, he decided to take the chance and create a magazine and brought Richie along for the ride.

It was easy work and he made good money for doing very little, but he found that was the main cause of his quarter-life crisis. He wanted so much more than he had been given that Richie was actually feeling guilty for wanting more.

He had done stand up in the city and even took an improv class, but nothing seemed to stick to him. Now he was over thirty and found himself in a rut. He lived alone in a small apartment filled with things he didn’t need but purchased because he thought they would bring out a sense of excitement.

He was single, though that was a whole nother issue as it took Richie an embarrassingly long time to come to terms with his own sexuality. Growing up in a small town where people were cruel and the world didn’t understand left marks on an impressionable kid. It wasn’t until he was halfway through college that he did anything with a guy and well-passed gradation that he realized that it was more than okay to be gay, it was normal.

So yeah, he was open and fine with it, but still lonely as hell. He had been with people in the past, but he found that he mostly just shut himself off from the world. He wasn’t happy about anything anymore and it seemed the only thing that got him by was that ending it all would have proved his teenage bullies right; that he was better off dead.

And if there was anything Richie wanted to live for, it was spite.

And also music.

Despite not being musically inclined at all, Richie loved music with all his heart. He spent a good portion of his time listening to records as a kid. He used to go around carrying a walkman and CD player and Zune throughout his life. He paid for the mom's gigs on his phone because he needed to have all his favorite songs ready to blast at the tap of a finger.

While they already had a guy that wrote specifically about music for the magazine, he had always been able to sweet talk Bill into allowing him to have a few moments to shine and write something about some artist. Those were the pieces that really mattered to him. The ones that gave Richie the chance to dive deep into the thing he loved.

Sure, he had written a whole expose on Street Fighter and perhaps he did make a big deal out of the Star Wars franchise, but it was the moments when Richie could reel back and listen before writing that got him going.

They rarely did full-length articles on performers as the magazine was something of a clusterfuck of topics. Bill Denbrough never wanted to settle on just one thing. Paper Boat was more than just one specific topic. It was everything and they would be damned if they ever settled on its something.

But of course, now and then something would come along and the whole team would be scrambling to put together a magazine dedicated to that one specific person. It wasn’t always a celebrity. Bill meant what he said when he wanted to keep the magazine aimed at the everyday people.

Their biggest seller to date had been when they put out issues all about Ben Hanscom the architect. Richie had no idea why anybody would want to read about the guy other than to enjoy the pictures that were taken of him, but low and behold, the world wanted to know.

As it turned out, Ben was a decent human being who just wanted to make the world a better place and he also happened to be extremely hot while doing it. Who knew that was possible!

The physical copies sold out everywhere and the website crashed thanks to all the promotions they did on it. Like, what the actual fuck?

Bill was that good at what he did and it also helped that he was writing his books on the side. He had people from all over coming through wanting to see what they could do and it only proved to be more impressive as time went on.

Now the magazine needed something new, something fresh and it seemed Bill had it all planned out.

“Here at Paper Boat, we don’t choose a good looking celebrity because we want to make money. You know, I’m not going to call up Jennifer Aniston and ask her to do me a favor -- I could, but I won’t -- because that isn’t what we do here.” Bill explained as they went over the board meeting for the next issue. “The people featured on our cover are interesting. People who want to bring the world together and make a change. Or maybe they’re just batshit insane and look good while doing it. Who knows.”

A small array of laughter came over the place. Richie leaned back in his chair, half paying attention. He knew how these things went. Bill made a big, exciting speech before revealing who or what they’d be focusing on. The assignments would be passed around and Richie would be given something soft and fun.

He got the dumb shit that got the people who didn’t want to read involved. Sometimes he’d do interviews while vlogging. They’d try food they never tried before or do something stupid. One of the most interesting had been when he got assigned to interview Kristen Wiig while bobbing for apples. Certainly interesting and the flow to the website was wonderful.

Richie was the writer they went to when they wanted it to seem kitsch and gimmicky. Enough for it to garner actual attention, but nothing worth anybody's time.

He tossed his stress ball up in the air, catching it as it followed the natural path and came back down. He got bored easily as meetings like this and he waited for Bill to just get on with it and assign everybody their respected jobs.

Bill hit a button on his computer, revealing a picture that Richie was all too familiar with. It was of a punk rock band that he had followed since he graduated from college. Trashmouth was one of the greatest bands that had ever come into Richie’s life. They were like if Queen and the Ramones were put together, had a baby, and then that baby had a baby with Green Day: that weirdly insane combination would be Trashmouth.

There were five members, but the main focus was and always had been the lead singer and guitarist Dr. K. Nobody knew why he went by that nor did he ever give an answer. Richie had googled him a couple of times, wanting to find out more, but the guy was a fucking mystery. It was like he just appeared on the scene, completely out of his mind with cut off sleeves and steller vocals.

It was safe to say Richie had a big gay crush on Dr. K.

And that was fine because Dr. K was just as gay.

He had never been seen with anybody, always choosing to keep his personal life private, but his songs were obvious enough even if most of them seemed pretty genderless. He had done one interview where the person asking the questions kept using the term ‘she’ or ‘her’ until finally, the guy replied that he writes songs about guys.

That took the world by fucking storm and Richie Tozier had never been the same.

“Some of you may be familiar with Trashmouth. Multiple Grammy noms and wins. Always in the top 40 listings despite repeatedly being told that punk rock was dead.”

“Please tell me we’re going to be featuring the band,” Mike, the music specialist for the magazine, piped up eagerly.

“I can’t because we won’t,” Bill replied. “Our focus is on him.” Bill hit another button and a solo picture of Dr. K popped up.

Richie’s mouth was watering and he sat up straight. He had the same picture in a small poster in his apartment. It was set up alongside some other pictures in what he called his “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Wall” because he was just that big of a fan. He looked at it often, always finding himself thankful for all the music that had been created and got him through some pretty dark days as a kid.

Did it also help that Dr. K was incredibly attractive and gave Richie a little bit of encouragement just by looking so good? Yes, yes it did.

“It seems Dr. K will be going off on his own. My sources tell me he’ll be putting out a solo album by the end of the year and I want to know everything about it. Mikey, that’s your job. Speak to whoever you have to to find out what is going to be on that album. Audra, speak to the rest of the band, find out how they feel about the ending of an era. Georgie, get your camera ready because we’re doing a photo shoot with him in three days.”

“Who is doing the main exposé?” Greta asked, popping her gum as she spoke.

Bill smirked, turning back to his computer. “I’ll pick someone later. For now, you’re all dismissed.”

The group got up from their chairs and left Bill’s office. All except for Richie, who was too fucking flabbergasted to do a damn thing. As Bill began to head out, he finally scrambled to his feet to follow him. His long legs led him there quickly, though he mostly sidestepped around his coworkers to finally reach their boss.

“Bill! Big Bill! Wait up.” He called, following him to the elevator.

“What's up, Rich? I’m about to head out for lunch.” Bill said, turning to face him. “You hungry? We could check out that new sandwich place that opened across the way.

“Oh, no. I’m time. Stuffed.” Richie patted his stomach lamely, offering a large smile to his friend and boss. “Hey! So, just checking in to see about that latest pitch.”

“Oh right,” Bill paused, hitting the elevator button. “You were a fan of that band, right? Oof. Sorry about the breakup buddy. Haven’t you seen them like six times?”

“It’s sixteen, but that’s not important right now.” Richie corrected. “Bill. Buddy. You have to listen to me.”

“You got it, Rich.”

“I know you only trust me with the puff pieces because I’m not as talented as Mike or even Greta, but I need you to trust me on this.”

“You can do the exposé, Rich.”

“I have gotten better over time and I swear, if you just give me the chance, I promise. I won’t do a single embarrassing voice or anything to get Paper Boat blacklisted.”

“I’m sure you’ll embarrass yourself in one way or another, but that’s your issue. You have two days.”

“Until what?”

“Until your interview with Dr. K,” Bill said, stepping into the elevator as the doors opened. “If you’d stopped rambling you would have heard me tell you that you’re going to be the one doing the expose. You’ll be meeting him in two days, so you better come up with some good questions.”

“Holy shit,” Richie muttered.

“Holy shit, indeed Tozier,” Bill smirked. “I know you’ve been in some sort of funk lately, so I hope that this will shake you up a bit. Better keep your fanboy boner under control.” Bill warned, smiling as the elevator doors closed between them.

Whether Richie realized it or not, Bill believed in him and his writing ability. He may not have the raw talent like himself, but he knew what Richie was capable of. He has a way with people that allowed them to loosen up and relax and nothing was better for a good interview than someone comfortable with the person asking the questions.

Bill couldn’t think of a single person who would be better for this specific project and having Richie be an uber-fan of the artist was just a bonus. If Richie made an ass of himself, that would be his problem, not the magazines.

Richie stood there, not knowing what to do next. He looked to his watch, realizing he had less than 72 hours to come up with a buttload of questions for his idol. He ran back to his cubby to brainstorm.

[skyler-bane]

I. Leaving

Up went the sun. All the trees, sidewalks, and cars’ roofs seemed even brighter, still glistening with yesterday’s rain. Another warm morning in New York has just welcomed the residents. But would it be absolutely normal for everyone? Would an undisturbed daily routine be meant for everyone today?

 The walls turned painfully white as the first sunrays peered through the window – now one could also notice how empty they looked; no pictures or photographs, but minimalistic interiors had been pretty common for such a long time it wouldn’t make anyone question the owner’s taste. A large sofa had been waiting for so long to welcome any guests if they ever visited this place, there was a desk, along with some blue rug that looked exceptionally soft. A few shelves with books and CDs on them. Nothing more. No item found on the desk looked strange either and yet, it still didn’t seem to belong to a regular citizen, somehow. If one wanted to know why this room looked rather out of ordinary, the answer could be a couple of weird devices nobody but their owner knew what they were for.

And there he was; having fallen asleep so gracefully, with his cheek pressed against the keyboard, Skyler Bane had proudly managed to get his 4-or-so hours of sleep. Feeling how bad his back hurt, he let out a sigh and tried to make his position a bit more comfortable, slowly getting used to the brightness too. “Well, haven’t you mastered this trick…”, he muttered, blinking fast – still too much sun. But coffee wasn’t going to make itself and magically appear on the desk with a lovely “Drink Me” label… At least Skyler’s last commission wasn’t going to bother him anymore and could be classified as finished, a few days before the deadline. This should bring that… low quality sleep to an end, and hopefully the whites of Skyler’s eyes, along with his transparent and disturbingly grayish tone of skin would stop screaming ‘workaholic’. He finally managed to raise himself from the chair and head straight to the kitchen, where he looked outside the window. New York, how could these all people be so awake, smiling, and full of energy?

Skyler had moved to New York so many years ago, he couldn’t even imagine living in any other city now and every single time he actually tried to envision this move, that imaginary city looked… just like NYC. And 'moved'…? No, not really. He’d been brought to this city by his parents, straight from London where he’d spent his first 6 years of life. Not long enough for any strong bonds or friendships to be missed once they crossed the Manhattan Bridge, yet long enough to say his situation was rather difficult and… unappealing. No child would like to find themselves so far from their parents after all, not even with the loveliest grandparents as their new companions and guardians. New York was where Skyler had come to terms with what his parents had done to him, where his grandparents had managed to show him that the world wasn’t as rotten as it seemed to the little boy. But the reason he’d decided to stay in the city wasn’t as romantic as one would think. He’d simply gotten used to NYC, not bothered by his hopeless attempts at looking for some other place to live in. The message about his parents’ fatal accident and how he could move to their newly bought apartment in London - it all sounded like a joke, but sure Skyler could find some finesse in it. And he was going to move there without batting an eye as if they’d owed him much more than that. Which they certainly had. This one thought kept him going, this one thought reassured him that London was a good idea.

 A loud beep coming from his coffee machine announced that his drink was ready. It should wake him up, along with a hot shower, breakfast, and...- Another loud noise came from his front door this time. Someone was at the door and Skyler already hated them for coming this early, even though he was the one who had turned his phone off and made it impossible for others to contact him. He opened the door energetically as if he wanted to convince himself that he didn't need coffee to function properly. All his hatred was gone when he saw who his unexpected guest was.

"Hey, I brought your games! Sorry I didn't come yesterday, they called my mom and told her I failed that stupid test, so she got mad. I told her it wasn't because of the games or anything like that, but she never listens..." 

Ah, this boy. The list of people Skyler would miss wasn't long, his number one was Max, his neighbor. He was sixteen and lived with his mother and grandmother. Both of them weren't sure if Skyler could be considered a good company for Max, but his grandmother remembered Christine, Skyler's grandmother, and how wonderful a person she was, so eventually, they decided that as long as Max didn't start skipping school or using swear words, the two could hang out together. 

"It's okay, come in. D'you want somethin' to drink?"

"Yeah, some juice maybe? Thanks!"

Max came in and put the games on the table. A little bit too late for Bane to hide his bags and a few large boxes? Definitely. The man mouthed 'fuck' and hid his face behind the palms of his hands, so he could add a soundless, yet angry 'you stupid fuck' too. There was no way he could just disappear without saying a word now and he knew that well, he just had no clue how he was going to do that. Hey, I’m leaving and won’t be coming back. How was your day? 

Skyler handed the boy a glass of orange juice and grabbed his coffee too, leaning against the window sill in the kitchen. He took a sip of coffee and furrowed his brows.

"Why did you use 'fail' and 'test' in one sentence, though?"

"The questions were dumb! I couldn't understand them, nobody could," replied Max, sounding very disappointed. "I wasn't even the only one who didn't pass! The whole class, except for Josh of course, but it didn't convince my mom. She always says: 'if Josh gets good grades, then so could you'." 

Bane chuckled, ignoring Max's little protest that there was nothing funny about that. "Fuck Josh, he won't get any smarter if he's the only kid who understands dumb questions, yeah?" Max liked this part much more. He grinned at the man, as he drank his orange juice, and promised himself that he would use it next time his mom gets mad at his grades. "Don't worry about it, your grades aren't some kind of a mirror where you can see how smart you are. They're nothin' more than some simplified system and once you've finished school..." Skyler shrugged his shoulders and added; "At a job interview they never ask if you were an A student."

"Exactly! That’s what I tell myself but-"

"But you have to study, comprenez vous? Or your mom's gonna kill me, not you," he said, raising a brow even though he wasn't expecting an answer. And now the hardest part... Skyler inhaled deeply, told himself that he had to tell Max about his decision, then looked at the boy. "I’m leavin’. I'm goin' to London soon, I have to be sure you'll be ok, y'know?", then pointed at the boxes and the bags. “I know you’re probably disappointed and that’s not what you expected from me, but I just have to go. Start anew.”

Max opened his eyes wider, desperately looking for any signs that would let him believe his friend was joking. No, there weren't any, even the tone of his voice sounded completely different, unlike Skyler. He was going to leave him here. No more games, no more movies... No more silly adventures to keep secret from mom and grandma. Max hadn't felt that lonely in a long time; how else could one feel if their best friend told them something like this? "You're not coming back," he said flatly, avoiding Skyler's gaze for a moment. 

"Not really. I’ve got my stupid reasons... But I will visit you from time to time." 

"Is Aria one of the reasons?"

Some of the coffee he drank went down the wrong way and Skyler started coughing, which probably was the worst possible way of saying 'no'. "I know I said 'stupid reasons' but that's not what I meant," he said in a hoarse voice and cleared his throat once again.

"Ok, ok...- Is she going too, then?" 

"I don't care 'bout her and you shouldn't tell her anything in case she comes here. She stays in New York and I'm more than ok with that. Don't-"

"-talk to her, I know..." Max paused, giving himself a moment to ponder on his friend's words. He couldn’t just turn on his heel and leave, forget about their friendship. Skyler had helped him so many times and the last thing Max wanted was sound ungrateful. "If you have to... Come on, I'd be a shitty friend if I stopped talking to you or left without saying goodbye, right?"

"All I can say is that it'd be my style," he replied with a light chuckle. "Actually, that was my plan until you came here."

Max knew he wasn't joking but still managed to laugh at his confession. The fact that he eventually told him mattered most. 

"And now I better take a shower and get ready to... take care of... this and that." Max didn't have to know all the details about his terribly badly chosen role model - 'computer programmer'. Yeah, sure. 

"Sure," he replied with a small smile. Now he was sure that Skyler wasn't going to leave unexpectedly. 

"Max? Y'know what, I think you should take the games. I'll be far too busy to play them," he said, raising a brow. Skyler watched as the boy quickly went back to the table where he'd left the games and smiled to himself. He knew that it was probably the best apology he could come up with.

"Too bad I'll only get better at them." Max placed one hand on the doorknob and turned to Skyler, adding half-jokingly, "And you said you didn't like losing, Bane?", before he closed the door behind him.

Skyler finished his coffee in silence and headed to the bathroom. He really needed some time to think and as the kind of person whose brain worked much better in the shower, he really needed one right now. There were some things he needed to get done before he left New York, things that didn't necessarily sound pleasant, and he didn't have much time either.

[chocojjk]

Heaven Knows

summary: im not even gonna try, yall know im bad at summaries 

words: 2.7k

a/n: this forreal took me 6 hours i think im burning out ,, also guess what?? its not edited 

you were chilling in your best friends dorm room without him being there, which is honestly just a normal thing

jisung was out with his friends which means he wouldn't be back for a while

apparently they needed to talk to him about something important

“an intervention, they said,” jisung says chuckling

“What would you need an intervention for??”

“I honestly have no clue”

which left you here, all alone, completely bored out of your mind

laying there in his bed scanning his room for something to do when something shiny on top of his desk caught your eye

with the amount of times you've been here before, you have never seen this object

and so your curiosity got the best of you

you walked over and saw that it was a CD, written on it were the words “for you” and a badly drawn heart, the messy handwriting clearly belonging to your best friend

you chuckle at this

you never knew jisung could be this cheesy

turning on his computer, his screensaver, which was a picture of the two of you, lit up the room

you see, you and jisung have been childhood best friends

your parents were best friends which just means that you guys saw each other all the time

but dont get me wrong, they never forced your guys’ friendhsip

the two of you just got along

growing up, you would always be by his side and him yours

you didnt trust anyone as much as you trusted jisung

inputting in the CD, his honey-like voice started filling the air

“hey, its jisung, haha, of course you know that since ive already given this to you”

you let out small chuckle, clearly enjoying how worked up your best friend sounded

you cant help but feel guilty for invading his personal space

but c’mon, it was you and jisung

personal space is a myth when it comes to the both of you

and so you continued to listen

“umm, ive been meaning to tell you this for a while but could never find the words to do so , so uh,, i-i made you a CD with all the songs that makes me think of you”

‘how cute’ you thought to yourself, ignoring the rising jealousy that you were feeling in the pit of your stomach

wait what??

pshh, youre not jealous

why would you be jealous??? he’s just your best friend

‘im just disappointed that he didnt trust me with this,’ you told yourself

yup, thats all, just clear and utter disappointment

jealousy? we dont know her

plus, you had a very loving boyfriend

“ok so this first song is just how i feel whenever we’re together, this is better together by jack johnson”

and as the song filled your ears, you can't help but imagine that this CD was for you

keyword: imagine

jisung has made it very clear that he only saw you as his best friend, heck, maybe even as his sister

you think back to the day where you joked around of a possibility of the two of you

“ji, what if one day you become my boyfriend”

“hahaha y/n, that’s a weird joke”

“why is that so weird??”

“uhm because were just best friends” he replies, stating the obvious

and ever since then you have pushed the thought of you guys as a couple in the back of your head

never allowing your feelings to surface for the boy

your thoughts were interrupted when you heard your best friends sweet voice again

“ok remember when your first boyfriend broke your heart? well this song pretty much sums up how i felt the whole time, and every other time you get in a relationship.”

“I could treat you so much better than them, you know?”

“why can't you see that??? haha,, anyways this is Better by Gabe Bondoc”

damn, whoever this girl was got jisung whipped as fuck

you started wondering who she was and how come jisung never told you about her before

was she part of your friend group? did you know her?

whoever she was, you hoped that she’d wake up soon and realize what a catch your best friend is and that she would have to be the dumbest person alive to not love him back

“okay uhm, were halfway in this playlist now. sometimes i feel like you feel this way too, but i don't know, maybe i'm just being delusional. this is Friends by Ed Sheeran”

okay so clue number 1, this girl is definitely good friends with jisung

what the fuck han jisung

who is she

“if they find out would it all go wrong and heaven knows no one wants it to,”

you dont know why or what happened, but when you heard that line of the song, you cant help but release all the bottled up feelings that youve been hiding

yes, you were in love with your best friend

yes, you got into relationships as a way to get over him

no, it never works

because every time you were left with a broken heart, he was there to piece it all back together

he was there wiping your tears, holding you, singing you cheesy love songs

he was there with his bad jokes that always brings a smile on your face, making you happy, making you whole again

jisung was always there, and you cant escape him

and now as you listen to a playlist not made for you, your heart begins to break

surely if this was for you, he would have given it to you a long time ago

just the mere thought of jisung caring for another girl besides you hurt your heart

you decided that it was time to stop

you scolded yourself for even listening to it in the first place

and so you took the CD out, and put it back where it belong

a couple minutes later, jisung enters his room, seeing your figure seated in front of his computer, your head rested on your hands as your shoulders shook slightly, a sign that you were crying

“hey, are you okay?” he says grabbing your hands, making you look straight into his eyes

“shh it’s okay, im here,” he continues, pulling you into a warm hug

and you can't help but be mad

why the fuck was he being so sweet to you when he’s in love with someone else

han jisung, this is not fair, not fair at all

and then you realized that you were doing the same exact thing

you pushed him away from you, which caused him to stumble back, hitting the desk behind him

“I-i have to go”

“y/n??”

running out of the room, jisung tried to chase after you however,,

“Woah woah woah why are you in such a hurry?”

chan and minho

“I-uh y/n just ran out and i-”

“y/n again?, jisung didnt we just talk about how you should see her less,” minho exclaims

“Yeah, this really isnt healthy for you jisung, you really should stop pining over this girl,” chan continued

“guys, shes my best friend!”

“Ok and she obviously doesnt wanna talk to you if she ran away, dont force yourself in places where you dont belong or youll just get hurt in the end,” the older guys continued

“I-”

“were just looking out for you jisung,” chan finishes

and so with his head drooped down, he made his way back into his room

and then he noticed it,,

the CD

‘fuck fuck fuck’

A million thoughts were racing through jisungs head

he was sure that you've heard it, why else would you react that way when you saw him

god, he should've never made that CD in the first place

was he that much of a coward that he couldnt just tell you he was in love with you in person

and now you know and obviously dont feel the same

‘Great going jisung, you just ruined your relationship with your best friend’

---

its been 3 days and there hasnt been any contact within the both of you

you ended up breaking up with your 4 month long boyfriend

“Its because of jisung huh?”

“i…,”

you racked your brain for a different excuse but then decided to come clean, this boy has always been so sweet to you, the least you could do is be honest with him

“how’d you know?”

“I see the way you look at him y/n, its like youre looking at millions of stars, i always hope you’d learn to look at me that way”

“are you mad?”

he gives you a sad smile, “no.. not at you, i always knew this would happen”

“im really sorry hyunjin”

“Its okay, i wish you and jisung all the happiness in the world”

“thank you,” you reply even though you knew that it wasnt going to happen since he liked someone else 

meanwhile, jisung has locked himself up in his room

he was ashamed of himself for making that playlist

his friends have been asking him to hang out yet all he can do is mope around listening to the stupid songs that he has added and cringing at how dumb his voice recordings sounded

he missed you so much but he was so scared to reach out to you

3 days might not seem like a long time, but with you and jisung, 3 days felt like a whole year

Im not saying that you guys are always glued together, no, thats not the case

But you guys would always text each other

Sending each other memes throughout the day

But now the both of you was just left with silence

It really allowed you both to think

he figured you hated him and never wanted to see him again

So he never expected you to knock on his door

“chan, go away, just leave me here to cry”

“errmm, its not chan”

,,,

,,,

jisungs eyes nearly popped out of his sockets as soon as he heard your voice

and in one quick second he was scrambling to open his door

“you were crying???”

“no”

“whats wrong?”

“nothing, im glad youre here”

“umm, why wouldn't i be?”

“I-i just thought that after the other day, you wouldnt-”

“about that” you say, quickly cutting him off

*gulps*

“can we talk?”

“arent we doing that right now?” jisung jokes but as soon as he saw the nervous expression on your face, he shut his mouth and let you in , closing the door behind him

‘oh god, shes gonna tell me that she never wants to see me ever again’

“im sorry-”

“I didnt mean it-”

“what?”

“what?”

the both of you having confused expressions written on your faces

“You first,” you say

Jisung nervously scratches the back of his head, refusing to meet your gaze

“the - the cd, i,, i didnt mean it” he says but the way he slightly bit his lip afterwards was a clear indication that he was lying

did he forget that he was your best friend? there was really no point in lying to you

however, you just chose to ride along with his little lie

“oh, well then i guess that makes what im about to say easier”

accepting the fact that you were about to break his heart, he nods at you, urging you to go on

“Jisung, im in love with you”

“its okay that you don't like me back, we can still be best friends -- wait...what?” jisung replies quickly, ending his prepared speech

You looked at him, stunned at his sudden confession

“You're in love with me?”

“You like me ??”

damn both of you guys are so dumb i sWEAr

“Well,,,, yeah,,,, didnt you listen to the CD? I literally say your name in it”

(⊙ˍ⊙)

(⊙＿⊙)

(@[]@!!)

“WHEN???”

“After the last song,” he says, like it was the most obvious thing on earth

“I-” you make yourself over to his desk, looking for the CD

as soon as you found it, you plopped it into his computer

“really y/n???? Youre gonna listen to it right in front of me as if i havent been embarrassed enough” he says with a pout

“jisung shuT UP”

you fast forward to the part where you left off of  

“this next song is called Wait for You,, im sure you know this song as we always sing to it toegether, but yeahh ill always be here waiting for the day to come when you finally notice me”

The song begins to play yet you fast forward even more in rapid search of your name

“and, well this brings us to the last song,, god, i really hope you dont hate me right now, if you haven’t guessed by now, im in love with you. I dont know when it started or how it happened, maybe ive been in love with you ever since we were three, i don't know okay. But yeah,,, i fell in love with my best friend, god this is so cliche, but y/n l/n i love you”

you were shocked,,,

but at the same time, you felt like you can finally breathe

he loves you back

Han Jisung fucking loves you back

god reader, if you just stayed and listened until the very end, maybe this au wont be so long my brain cells are disappearing writing this

jisung wasn't making an effort to say something, not even to joke around

he was just sitting on his bed behind you, waiting for you to do something,, anything

we all know by now that he aint going to be the one to make the first move

the last song playing was the only thing that could be heard in the room

until,, you finally turned to face him, wearing the biggest smile on your face

you tackled him unto the bed

“oof”

“you're so annoying,,” you say, hitting him

at this point he has his arms around you as you were sprawled out across his body

“I love you too,” you confess, looking straight in his eyes

jisung doesn't know where he got his newly found courage

But he wasnt complaining as he reached out to your face, finally connecting his lips upon yours

“Ive been wanting to do that for so long”

“Why didnt you?”

“Well, you had a- dklfjasfkasjf,,,,, wait,,,,,, you have a boyfriend???”

And now were back to frantic jisung

“dont worry ji, i broke up with him,” you say a small smile on your lips

“wait, you broke up with him???

are you dumb????

He has like the prettiest face???

And like the nicest lips??

And hes so tall and he can dance so well!!”

“Jisung, if i didnt know any better, i would think you have a crush on him”

“shut up, im just saying,, that man is pReTTY”

“yeah youre right, he has everything i want in a man, maybe i should call him again, tell him i was just kidding about the break up” jisung pouts at this

“uhm, im sorry but you have a boyfriend now so you cant do that”

“oh really?”

“yep”

“who is he ??”

“y/nnn,,” jisung whines

“what?”

“will you be my girlfriend???”

“as long as you make me more CD’s” you say teasingly

“oh shut up”

1 year later

you and jisung are still going as strong as ever, and it was great

it was like you guys were always meant to be together, your relationship being the perfect balance of best friends and lovers 

as you were cleaning out your bedroom, you spotted the CD, still looking as shiny as ever, in between a couple of your books, and you cant help but smile at the memory

you were so lost in your thoughts that you didnt notice your boyfriend enter your room

“babe whats that?”

“oh nothing, just a certain CD that this overly romantic boy made me,”

“oh god, youre never gonna let that go huh”

“I just didnt know you could be THIS cheesy, like you really were symping over me” you say

the CD became an inside joke between the two of you,,,

you would always tease jisung about how cliche it was

“I still cant believe you didnt listen until the end, like what kind of dumbass just starts a playlist and doesnt even listen to the whole thing”

“hey!, youre the one in love with me, so guess whos the bigger dumbass”

a/n: oops another one but the last song is called Best Friend by Jason Chen hehe

[glycerineclown]

dear river phoenix,

it’s that time of year again, bud. leaves are turning, it’s getting dark too early, hope they’ve got vegan sweets up in heaven, blah blah blah. usually it’s around your birthday when i reach out, but you’ve been on the brain, and i’ve been writing this letter to you in my head for weeks.

halloween was always kind of a disappointment when i was growing up. i never had a particularly good costume, and i always had to throw a big coat on over it because it pours rain here. i don’t even really like candy.

later, it was disappointing in a different way. an injustice, that you were too good to go. by the time i went to college, i’d space out carving pumpkins because you’d cropped up in my brain like a memory of an old friend.

i was always happy to see you.

i watched stand by me for the first time during the summer between eighth and ninth grade—prime time for falling in love at first sight, tbh—and god, did i fall hard. benny “the jet” rodriguez, who? chris chambers is where it’s at. i must have rented stand by me on a netflix by-mail dvd, because i watched the special features immediately afterward. wil and corey and jerry were all grown up, talking about the film, and i kept thinking… where’s the guy who plays chris?

and. well. then i learned. you’re dead.

my devastation was so real. it was a fucking mourning period, over several months, in true, embarrassing, 14-year-old girl fashion.

it was that summer that i discovered that i loved to write. my mother would come into my room at 5pm and i’d still be in pajama bottoms and a bra typing away. my angsty marysue stand by me fanfic was 30k of absolute drivel. it’s still on fanfiction.net.

through myspace groups, i made friends on the internet for the first time.

i watched every movie of yours i could get my hands on, and with netflix by-mail dvds, it wasn’t that hard (although i never got around to silent tongue, or the early tv roles—sorry). at the time, my mom wouldn’t “allow me” to watch my own private idaho, which made me very angry because it was set here in seattle and i’d had a crush on keanu since fifth grade.

you talked about the world in a way that i had never really heard before. i wanted to be someone with the kind of personal integrity that you had. in freshman english we read herman hesse’s siddhartha, and i was overjoyed to be assigned a book with your namesake.

it was around that time that the kids i wanted to be like at school, the not-quite-scene-kids, not-yet-stoners, were listening to ac/dc a lot, and the only way for me to get my hands on music like that was at my big sister’s house. she’d spent her 20s in the 1990s and her husband was in rock bands so it was the best cd collection i could possibly borrow from.

and sitting in a box was the debut album of none other than john frusciante. i picked it up, and then put it down very carefully, because. you know. he was there when you died. you did drugs together. my goddamn username is from that album, the same username i’ve had since 2007. you’re singing nonsense on his second record, backwards—while tripping balls, no doubt. 

john’s music was a whole other cultural rabbit hole i went down. but one hot minute, black sheep of the discography for sure, was actually my first red hot chili peppers cd. i bought it for transcending, that song they wrote about you. after that i marinated myself in their music, and the music of everyone they were fans of. i learned to play guitar. music was my identity for years.

it got kind of boring to be a big fan of a dead guy. 

sometimes if i thought about it too hard—flea was in the ambulance with you—it would put a bad taste in my mouth.

i made more friends on the internet. I wrote about other things.

all this stuff—movies, all the music i loved—was so centered around los angeles. i was always incredibly risk-averse, but i was fascinated with the whole dirty culture of it. i read a lot about drug addiction back then. later, when my sister decided she had to quit drinking, i was the one educating our parents.

i was in community college, april of 2011, the first time i ever spent any time in los angeles. we drove down sunset boulevard and i recognized everything i looked out the window at. every club or hotel or coffee shop had a story from a book i’d read, or was mentioned in liner notes from an album i loved. we didn’t have time to go to amoeba but i took my picture at the elliott smith figure 8 memorial, even though it was covered in graffiti. another dead artist whose work i’ve always loved, and whose work will live on in gus van sant films.

by that time, i had seen my own private idaho many, many times, and my family’s trip to la just happened to coincide with james franco and gus van sant’s “my own private river” installation at a hoity-toity gallery right off rodeo drive.

my mother went window shopping and i spent a couple hours sitting by myself on a squashy couch. they sure dressed the place down, put up a big curtain—like the stark white gallery itself was wearing a costume. i wasn’t sure, going in, how seeing the film would make me feel. but i sat there watching you in footage i had never seen before and, god. it was like you were still alive. having fun. goofing off. getting your heart broken. getting groceries. 

i left the gallery feeling so uplifted, so happy to have seen your face. it was truly surreal for me. the sky was clear and the sun was out. i was in los angeles and you were kissing keanu in italy. it was a good time.

it took a while to find the highway afterward. we got back on sunset and stopped at a red light. i was distracted, looking up directions or something. i glanced up and to the right, out the passenger window—and there was the viper room. 

it all came rushing back in the worst full circle. i hadn’t been looking for it, had kind of forgotten this might happen. charcoal grey in the sunshine, neon sign dark. black gum on the sidewalk, in the place where you died. burned in my brain like that awful 911 call i had to turn off after about two seconds.

that’s right. you’re dead. i’m so sorry.

this halloween, it’ll be 26 years. rain’s putting out her first solo album, full of songs about you. it’ll be so wonderful to hear her voice again—i listened to her band a lot, years and years ago, and aleka’s attic of course—and so nice to spend time with your memory again.

you’ve always been my favorite, the sweetest one with the biggest heart.

i’m 28 years old now, older than you ever got to be, and i still wish you were here. i see you through a different lens now, and i usually have different things to worry about. but once in a while i turn on one of your movies and your cadence, your gentle way of speaking is immediately familiar. sometimes i just close my eyes and listen, and it feels right, like the best decision i could have made that day is spending time with you. i should really make a habit of it.

this halloween, though, i’ll be hanging out with your sister. but you’ll be there too. maybe it’ll be like you never left. 

always and forever,

maggie