#and when i sing the ''dirty version'' (only like half a lyric)

[tamayokny]

my dad has been exposed to that chick angel's "one margarita (margarita song)"

[psychedelic-ink]

𝑯𝑬𝑨𝑫 𝑭𝑰𝑳𝑳𝑬𝑫 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯 𝑷𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑺𝑰𝑻𝑬𝑺

pairing: musician!joel miller x f!reader

genre: smut, romance, minors dni

word count: 5.2k

summary: entranced by the guitarist on stage, you're surprised when he comes over to introduce himself.

warnings: no outbreak despite what the title might suggest, a guy being a creep towards reader at the bar, mentions of violence and blood (joel punching said creepy guy), alcohol consumption, praise kink, piv, mild ass play, dirty talk, creampie (reader mentions she's on the pill), a little bit of public touching shenanigans

a/n: this fic literally wouldn't be what it is without @pedrito-friskito 's input and beta reading, love you babes, dedicating this filth to you ❤️‍🔥

Ethereal. That’s the only way you can describe him. 

A curtain of light falls behind him, a soft red, softening the sharp edges of his face. He’s sitting on a stool, guitar propped up on one leg as fingers move diligently over the strings, a microphone standing an inch away from his lips. The rest of the bar is also bathed in tones of orange and red—that, mixed with the alcohol, gives your head a pleasant buzz. The beer bottle is cold beneath your palm. With a smile, you turn on your stool enough to completely face the stage. 

He starts to sing; eyes closed and head swaying in a way as if the lyrics are physically moving through him. He sounds like marinated honey. Soft, and sensual, the southern drawl making goosebumps rise over your skin. The words circle around you in an almost hypnotic matter, pulling you close. He steals your breath away. His soft locks are messy, his beard patchy, and dark like his hair. You have an immense urge to thread your fingers through the locks, pulling him close to possibly lock your lips with his. 

A shudder rolls up your spine, your legs pressing together at the thought of what he might feel inside. Swallowing, you attempt to focus on the lyrics. He’s singing an acoustic version of Take On Me, a song you haven’t really heard in a while but appreciate all the same. Some regulars mutter the words along with him, you notice a couple of flickering lighters swaying in the air. The ambiance is enticing and soon enough you find yourself moving along with the melody, your smile lazy and drunken, for as long as he’s on stage. 

You notice the telltale signs that the song is about to end. The music slows, and he finally opens his eyes. Your breath hitches instinctively as he looks over the crowd. His gaze finds yours within the misty dark red hue of the bar. Your heart thunders in your chest, and you slightly lift your bottle as a greeting, half sure that he doesn’t even see the gesture. His fingers thrum along the strings, his smile crooked and endearing. 

The crowd cheers when the song ends, he’s still looking at you. Placing his guitar on the stage, you watch him greet a couple of people on his way to you. Turning away from him, you gulp down your beer, nearly choking as the bitter fluid foams in your mouth. You cough as you pull the bottle away from your lips with a pop. You refuse to look in his direction, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. You’re delusional. There’s no way he actually saw you greeting him in the dark. And there’s no way he decided to come and say hi. 

No way on earth. 

Then why do you feel his warm presence right next to you? His body towering over yours as he places a hand on top of the bar, your shoulder touching his broad chest. 

You press your teeth together, cheeks burning from the inside out. Music starts to blare from the speakers, he leans in close, lips nearly brushing the shell of your ear. You feel his breath on your skin, forcing a shudder up your spine. 

“Hi there, I’m Joel,” he says, voice dripping and smooth. You swallow. “Saw you sitting here alone, all pretty. You with someone darlin’?” 

“Nope, it’s just me,” you answer with a small nod, finally looking up at him. When he takes a seat, you smile. “I loved the song choice by the way. You have an amazing voice,” 

The way his eyes sparkle makes you short of breath. He orders himself a scotch neat, then turns back to you with a wide smile. “You think so?” 

“Oh definitely,” you note the way your knees touch underneath. He places a hand on the thigh that’s closest to you. His other hand remains on the bar, waiting for his drink, finger tapping slowly against the surface. “I could listen to you forever, probably. Do you play here often?” 

“As often as I can. You new around here?” 

“Somewhat, I’ve been around for…I’ll say a month?” you let out an airy chuckle. “It’s hard to go out with no friends so this is my first time actually going to someplace decent,” 

He scoffs, finger moving around the rim of the glass the bartender just placed in front of him, “Tommy would be happy to hear you calling the place decent,” 

“Tommy?” 

“My brother,” he grunts as if you were supposed to know. “He runs the place, always naggin’ me to come and play,” 

You nod, tilting the bottle up to suckle on the last drops, but sadly nothing comes. With a drunken frown, you stick your bottom lip out. Your limbs are numb in a way you really need to force yourself to feel the nerves. You wiggle your fingers and let your hand fall to the table, you jolt at the sudden loud smack. A booming laughter follows. 

Joel’s looking at you, his gaze soft, fingers pinching the point of his chin before motioning to the bartender to bring you another one. 

“Not much of a drinker?” he asks, the length of his forefinger brushing the seam of his lips. He nips the skin with his teeth— something warm and pleasant spreads between your legs, you look down at the empty bottle. 

“I drink, it’s just been a while. I’m more of a cocktail person, to be honest.” he cocks an eyebrow and you point to your lips, which he follows with his eyes eagerly. “I have a bit of a sweet tooth,”

“Ah,” he exclaims, leaning closer. “If you’d told me I would’ve asked you for something sweet, babydoll,” 

“Beers’ fine for the moment,” you grin, and before you know it you have another freshly opened bottle in front of you. Joel’s eyes flit between the bottle and you, finally lifting his own glass towards you. 

“Next time then,” he grins, clacking his glass against your bottle. “If you dare to go out again that is,” 

Your eyes follow the way his throat moves at every swallow, you see the veins, the tiny scars, and the imperfections. Sweat clings to his skin, the heat of the stage no doubt the cause of it. 

“I think you might be worth the chance,” you tease, taking a sip from your drink. The cold beer soothes you as it goes down your throat, you don’t even think your tongue processes the taste, you just need to feel something cool. “It’s a bit hot in here, isn’t it?” 

You rest your back against the stool and fan your face with your hand to make a point. You feel his eyes tracing your skin, gaze dipping into the collar of your shirt, observing how you glisten under the red hue. Heat settles at the base of your spine. He leans closer, legs parting, he cages you between his thighs. You’re drawn to him like a moth to a flame. Mimicking the way he leans, you lean also, your own bare legs touching jean-clad ones. 

“Not used to the Austin heat yet?” 

“I guess not,” 

“Maybe I can help with that,” 

Joel holds up the glass and touches it right under your jawline, your skin tingling at the cold. Beads of cold condensation smooths over your skin, trickling down until it meets the swell of your breast. You let out a sharp exhale without meaning to. He smiles. 

“Feels good?” 

“Yeah, very.” 

While the glass chills your skin, his other hand moves to your thigh. He squeezes tenderly, observing you, waiting for any signs telling him to stop. But the signs he fears to witness never appear. He slides his hand, hiking the skirt up your leg. You shudder as thick fingers curl into your inner thigh. His hot breath fans your face as he speaks, the scent of scotch strong in his every word. 

“You feel a bit hot here too,” he murmurs, moving the glass down. You shiver when he holds it against the inner of your thigh. His fingers feel cold brushing against your skin. 

He’s close—so close that you feel his lips on your chin without him physically touching you. You want to kiss him. Feel his strong body pressed against yours, a tangle of limbs, a mess of sweat and sex clinging to you both. Joel moves the glass further up, a wet path moving between your legs. He rests it right under your pubic bone. Knuckles brushing the seam of your underwear. His lips touch your ear, a bit of tongue touching skin. 

“You’re burning, sweetheart.” 

Your eyes meet, a twinkle of mischief glimmering in his. He starts to lean in, his knuckles gently caressing your clothed sex. You follow the way he licks his lips, your noses brush against one another, the music fades into the background— 

“Joel, can I steal you for a sec?” 

The growl he lets out resonates in your core. Your legs tremble around the glass, the contents of it now warm. He takes a sharp inhale, dragging his nose up your cheek. With half-lidded eyes, you manage to sneak a glance at the man standing behind him. His eyes remind you of Joel’s. 

“What is it Tommy?” he grunts into your skin. “M’busy.” 

Tommy, the brother, your drunken mind reminds you. You make an effort to smile at the younger sibling. His eyes drop to your lips, a soft one tracing his, he gives you a small nod. 

“It’ll only take five minutes promise,” 

Joel sighs and lets his head drop, where his breath touches your skin burns. Straightening away, he holds your chin between the pads of his thumb and forefinger, forcing your gaze onto him instead of anywhere else. “Don’t go anywhere,” 

I won’t, you’re about to say when he presses his lips into yours. He sucks the words right out of your lungs, tongue eagerly licking the seam and teeth pulling at your bottom lip. Parting away, he seems just as kiss-drunk as you are. It takes you everything not to seek him out for another one. 

“Don’t go anywhere,” he repeats, voice a beat lower and breathless. 

You watch Joel following Tommy to the back. You wonder what’s there. You’re quickly distracted as someone takes a seat right next to you. Agitated, you take a look at the line of empty seats. He could’ve sat anywhere else. You take a slow breath. It’s alright, it’s not like no one is allowed to sit there. It is an empty seat after all. You take two gulps of your beer. 

“You alone here, angel?” 

You fight the urge to roll your eyes, instead take another sip, “I’m not.” you answer, hoping it’s sufficient enough to the end of the conversation. 

Heart starting to beat a tad too fast, your eyes search for the bartender. He’s at the other end of the bar, entertaining a young couple who just arrived. You clear your throat, making it clear that you’re uncomfortable. 

“You look alone to me,” he states, leaning closer. Your entire body freezes over, not an ounce of heat from Joel remaining. You cheat a glance at the man, he has dirty blond hair, brown eyes, and a mussed beard. With a sigh, your eyes move back to where Joel and Tommy trailed off to. 

“All you newer broads are so rude nowadays,” he says eerily calmly. You hear the blood rush pounding in your ears when he touches your shoulder. “Just look at me, I ain’t gonna bite you,” 

“I would fucking hope so,” you slur from behind the rim of the bottle. You’re about to get up and relocate to one of the booths but you feel a tight grip around your wrist. You whip your head back, glaring daggers at the man. “Let me go,” 

“Dance with me,” he chirps suddenly, getting up and pulling you along with him. You trip over your feet as he spins your around. 

Placing a hand on the man’s chest, you attempt to push him away. He only laughs, clearly not a care in the world. You look around frantically. Other patrons had got up as well, dancing along with the music. His hand trails down to your wrist and squeezes, heat builds under your nails. At the edge of vomiting, you attempt to put as much as distance as you can. 

“Let me fucking go!” you sneer, pushing him by the shoulder. He only comes closer, breath stinking of alcohol. “What the hell is wrong with you?” 

“One dance ain’t gonna kill you,” he coos, he pins your hips together and bile rises to your throat. “Maybe you’ll end up even liking it,” 

You’re disgusted. And even if it’s not your fault, you feel humiliated. Tears rapidly build in your eyes, the pleasant buzz in your head now replaced with thoughts fueled by fear. You attempt to yank your head back but that seems to only egg him on. 

“Let go!” you scream this time, much louder than the first. But the music is louder. You’re pretty sure no one can hear you. 

The red lights are menacing now. His eyes are hallowed out, lips curling like the Cheshire cat as he spins the both of you around. You repeat over and over again; Let me go, let me go, let me go. 

Your prayers are answered in the form of a harsh tug from the opposite direction. The blond lets go of you, and you’re free. You find yourself slamming face first into another person’s chest. Someone you don’t recognize at first.  Another body whirrs past you, heading for the blond man. You feel hands cradling your waist and when you look up you see Tommy. 

The sound that follows your realization is similar to dry twigs crunched under heavy boots. You hear a voice—A voice that was not long ago soothing you and whispering you not to go anywhere. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doin’?!” Joel shouts, a grunt follows and you turn around. Tommy’s arms are still wrapped tightly around you, holding you back. Funnily enough, you weren’t even aware you were trying to reach out to Joel. “Fuckin’ dipshit,” 

His fist crashes into the blond’s jaw, the sound of it so loud that it overpowers the music. Anxious gazes follow as the dance floor gradually thins out. Your eyes go wide. The blond falls back to the floor, Joel follows, punch after punch being delivered. 

You see a flash of blood. It’s redder thanks to the light. You should be horrified. At least that’s what your logic is telling you. Joel’s jaw is set, molars clenched tightly together as his nostrils flare. Sweat beads at his forehead. He has a wild look in his eyes. A look that makes you let out a stuttering breath. 

“Joel,” Tommy calls out. “Joel, enough,” 

Joel stops with his fist stilling in the air. He breathes heavily, eyebrows pinched together. Your eyes drop down to the man, he’s bleeding. Probably has a broken nose, but honestly, you don’t have it in your to care. 

“What the fuck?!” the blond spits out, lifting himself with his elbows. 

“Get the hell out of here, man,” Tommy answers, eyes moving to his brother. “Before I fuckin’ call the cops for assault,” 

Tommy finally unwraps his arms from around your waist. Joel stands tall next to you, the way he holds himself intimidating. Your limbs feel like it belongs to a ragdoll. You look at him dumbly, not really sure if you should allow yourself to fall into his arms like  a damsel in distress or just wait to thank him like a normal person. 

“Assault?” the man balks at the three of you. “We only fucking danced,” 

He shrinks when Joel takes a step forward. “She was screamin’ let me go. That’s not just dancin’” 

You notice a couple of the bystanders nodding in agreement and relief sprinkles over you. The blond scrambles to his feet. He has the audacity to glare at you. “Fucking bitch,” 

He turns around to leave and Tommy barely manages to catch Joel by pressing a hand to his stomach, stopping him. When Joel frowns, Tommy gestures toward you with his head. The older brother’s gaze softens. He cradles your face, pulling you close until your bodies are flushed against one another. 

“Are you alright?” you nod, lips pressed together. His thumb smoothes over the skin under your right eye. “Let’s go somewhere more private, yeah?” 

He leads you to where he and Tommy previously wandered off to. Joel briefly mutters something to Tommy and he heads out, you give him a puzzled look but he only shrugs, “Don’t worry about it,” 

So you don’t. 

His hand rests above the small of your back. A little gesture to let you know that he’s here. You walk through a small hall and enter the room at the end, it’s small and dimly lit, you assume it’s Joel’s little heaven in the bar. Spare guitar strings and pins lay scattered over a small table. You see speakers and microphones. Above the table there’s a small bulletin board and you see a lot of pictures of Joel, Tommy, and a young girl you don’t recognize. Joel follows your gaze, landing on a polaroid that was taken outside of the bar. 

“That’s Sarah,” he explains fondly. “My daughter,” 

He might as well smacked you in the back of the head, you look at him with shock, eyebrows reaching all the way to your hairline and lips parting. “You have a daughter?” 

Joel shakes his head, and lets out a small chuckle, “It’s not what you think. I’m not married or anythin’. It’s just me and Sarah,” he quickly adds. “And Tommy,” 

“Ah okay,” you nod, feeling sheepish. “Sorry if it seemed like I was prying,” 

“It’s all good. Don’t worry your pretty head over it,” his smile is genuine, and the heat to your skin returns full force. “Are you alright? He didn’t…” he swallows thickly. “He didn’t touch you did he?” 

“No—I mean other than holding my wrist and forcing me to dance, nothing,” 

You’d say that to relieve him, but instead, you see anger shadowing his eyes. He looks away, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth, “I shouldn’t have left you. M’sorry,” 

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” you hastily touch his cheek, turning his gaze back to you. “Besides, I’m okay. You saved me back there, thank you,” 

He leans back against the table, rubbing at the wrist of the hand that delivered the blows. The skin between his knuckles is split, blood smeared across his hand like a Jackson Pollock painting.

“You’re weird,” he muses, lips forming a crooked smile. You stick your bottom lip out and he laughs. “I mean that in a good way. I like weird,” 

“How am I weird?” 

“Well, you’re not runnin’ in the other direction for starters,” he grins. You find yourself stepping closer into his space, he spreads his legs so you can slot yourself between them. “I would’ve killed him you know,” 

“You would have?” 

He shrugs and you grab both his wrists with both your hands. “Maybe. I wasn’t really thinkin’ at the moment,” 

“You just met me,” you say more to yourself than to him. A soft smile tugs at your lips. “I feel that I shouldn’t be condoning this behavior,” 

“Then what are you doing here with me?” he mutters, gaze following the way you dip and press your lips into his knuckles. He’s warm. “This is a bad way to teach a lesson.” 

At that moment you want to say a lot of things. You want to thank him again. Have a brief discussion about feminism. Give him a recap of what happened scene by scene. Tell him how scared you were. How disgusted you felt. How trapped. He seems to notice how overwhelmed you are. Not knowing what to say or think. He cups your jaw, the pads of his fingers brushing your neck, he brings you closer. 

His lips are on yours. No rush to them this time. Joel takes his time with one hand cradling the side of your neck while the other pinches your hip. His tongue swipes over your bottom lip, then he pushes between them, tasting you properly for the first time that night. 

You sigh into the kiss. Loving the way his tongue feels against yours. He moves in tender licks, the curve of his nose nestled into the side of your face. He tastes like scotch and smoke, not an unpleasant taste. The hand that rests on your hip now squeezes your ass, he pins you to him with need, his cock hard beneath his jeans. 

Joel bunches up your skirt, the tips of his fingers following the elastic of the leg opening, he slips them underneath and strokes the heated skin, tracing blunt nails over the flesh. You shiver against him, your lips part as your hands form fists against his chest. Joel leans into your neck, licking the salt of your skin, he grins. 

“I want to fuck you so bad, pretty girl,” he bites the words into your skin, arousal pools between your legs at the blossoming pain.  “Can I?” 

“Y-Yeah,” you swallow thickly, a rushed exhale stutters out of your lungs. You’re burning from the inside out. Wanting to feel more of him, your sprawl your hands over his chest, thumbs unknowingly brushing over his nipples. Your eyes widen at the sound he makes. A tiny gasp, such a soft, needy sound. 

“You like that?” 

“Who wouldn’t?” he grumbles, teeth nipping the corner of your chin. 

Your fingers trail up the buttons of his plaid shirt. Slowly, you open them one by one, revealing more and more of his tanned skin. You push the fabric down his shoulders as you lean down, his hands squeeze your hips when you lick a nipple into your mouth. You close your lips around the sensitive flesh, swirling the tip of your tongue around one while you graze your fingers around the other. 

His moans are divine. The sound rumbles deep in his chest, only coming into being at the back of his throat. You whimper as he rolls his hips, rough fabric overwhelming against the thin laced panties you have on. 

Joel tugs you away by squeezing the back of your neck, you look up at him in a daze, your lips swollen. The abused flesh is puckered, glistening with spit. You move like a snake as you chase his lips, your thumb deftly rounding the wet nipple. He groans into your mouth and sucks on your tongue, you breathe heavily as he swallows your moans.

Suddenly you find yourself pushed up against the table, the corner of it digging painfully into your stomach as Joel forces you down, leaving your ass in the air. He roughly tugs down your panties, the cold air sending a chill up your spine. He kneads the tender flesh, parting it and taking a peek at your glistening sex. 

“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” he growls. “And all of it for me,” 

“For you.” 

The frills of your skirt tickle the front of your thighs, your breasts pressed against the table. He breathes heavily, the sound of a belt unbuckling and unzipping filling the silence between. The heavy weight of his cock presses between your legs, he lays his weight on top, chest flushed against your back. He knocks the air out of your lungs as he moves. You shudder at the way he grinds himself into you, the fat head of his cock catching your clit and making you roll back into him. 

Your back arches beautifully, his hands trailing the notches in your spine like the frets on his guitar. His fingers dig into your shoulders, forcing you back as he fucks your thighs. His cock drips with slick, balls tight as he moans and groans openly into the air. 

You wonder if anyone can hear. If someone passed the door, would they be able to hear how wet you are? Your moans? Joel’s heavy breathing? 

Despite the alcohol lingering in his system Joel is quite observant; noticing the exact moment you start to stifle your moans with a harsh bite to the inside of your cheek. Your folds mold into the shape of his cock, spread wide. His one hand grips your jaw, forcing it open, when you do he sneaks two fingers inside, pressing them to your tongue to keep your lips wide open. Your sounds now unfiltered. 

“Don’t be shy darlin’,” he says between harsh pants. “I basically own the goddamn place—Be as loud as you need to be,” 

His words press into you like hot iron. Your entire body tenses, your insides clenching helplessly as you moan wetly around his fingers. There’s something mind-numbing about having permission to be loud, for him to have the power to let you do as you need. You shudder, all the times you’ve been shunned by a partner for being loud parts through your mind, and you moan again— And again and again. His cock slides between your thighs until it slips inside, you jolt at the stretch, your nails helplessly scraping the wood of the table. 

“Joel—” you hiss, eyes rolling back. Spit trickles down the corner of your lips, your legs spreading wider to accommodate his length. His lips touch your shoulder. 

“I know sweetheart, I know,” he rasps and continues to fill you inch by inch. “Just a bit more. You’re doin’ so good, taking me all in. Fuckin’ gorgeous,” 

The praise goes to your head, making you keen and whimper. His fingers skim down your back, thumb smoothing over where he stretches you. “Gonna fuck you so good,” he breathes out, balls deep. “Gonna fuck you stupid, pretty girl,” 

“Oooh fuck,” you groan, rolling your tongue over his fingers. You taste a hint of iron. “Please—Just—God, Joel,” 

He thrusts into you with deep, hard strokes. Every time his hips are flush against yours, sparks fly over your skin. A fog of lust settles over you. You can only feel him, smell him. He’s around you, inside you. You never knew being suffocated could feel so good. 

He’s still talking. Whispering praise and filth into the back of your ear— you feel so good, so tight, you’re filthy, a blessing—He goes on and on, solidifying to you that maybe you’re actually asleep at the bar and dreaming about the attractive guitarist on stage. 

But then the slam of his hips becomes rapid, hips pushing into you deeper, movements desperate. Pulling his fingers out of your mouth, he grabs your hip, shoving your entire body into him so you meet the tortuous drag of his cock. The pad of his thumb traces the rim of your other puckered hole. You jump, a moan ripping from the back of your throat. 

“You like that?” he asks, sounding entranced. “Bet you’d feel so good here too, honey,” 

He slips the tip and you gasp, arching into him. Your heart is hammering against your ribcage, slick dripping, coating the inside of your thighs. Your insides flutter, clit throbbing as your orgasm nears. Joel doesn’t push beyond the tip of his finger, he pulls, stretching the tight hole. When you tighten around him, he does it again. 

“Pretty,” he breathes out, his southern drawl thick on his tongue. “Are you gonna come on my cock, sweet thing?” 

You nod furiously, clenching and squeezing around him. A choked out sound rattles his chest, ramming into you with enough force that it burns. He pushes you toward the edge, dangling you as you weakly attempt to postpone the moment of shattering. But it’s almost impossible with the way he’s stroking you, cock deeper with every solid thrust. 

The hot pressure you force yourself to feel bursts beneath your eyelids. It’s blinding. Your body seizing, jolting as if it’s hit with electricity as you gush around him, the wet sounds echo in the small room. He jackhammers himself into you, balls slapping against your skin. Everything is so loud. His breathing, your moans. The pleasure runs through you like live wire, forcing your body up as he curls fingers around your sweat-slicken throat. 

“Fuck you’re so tight,” he slurs, teeth digging into your neck. “God—I’m so so close— You’re so fuckin’wet, that’s it pretty girl, moan louder for me—Scream my name,” 

And you do. Over and over again. You’re incapable of saying anything else. He drags his nose up your neck, breath heavy and wet on your cheek. He sounds raw, guttural. The inside of your thighs burn and you clench around him, wanting to squeeze him dry. A groan rises from deep within you, he pushes himself deeper, holds your body close, and stills as he flexes himself inside. 

Your legs start to shake, he’s so thick, the sheer length of him leaves you dripping. 

“Come inside,” you moan, your hand desperately clawing at his wrist. “I’m on the pill—need,” you swallow, voice betraying the way you feel. “‘Need to feel you inside, Joel,” 

Every fiber of his being goes rigid, his cock throbs. Joel lets out a stuttered breath as he grinds his hips, the slow stroke making you flutter. “You on the pill?” he asks again. When you nod, he sucks in a sharp breath.  “You sure you want that, sweetheart?” 

“Please,” you whine. “I do, I really do,” 

He wraps his strong arms around you, pounding into your thight, sopping cunt. It does’t take him long before he’s spilling into you, hot ropes of come filling you to the brim, leaking from the place where you join. Your eyes roll back, the feeling of warmth spreading from your sex to your stomach, you’re so full. Unknowingly you squeeze around him, a mixture of him and your gushing form your stretched cunt. 

“So good,” he keeps wihspering, keeping you still against him, pushing his cock deeper. “So fuckin’good,” 

His rough palms move up the front of your body, softly cupping your breasts as he pulls out. The sudden emptiness makes you hiss, your back arches as cum trickles down, you feel his fingers scooping it and shoving it back inside. Your forehead drops against the table, a loud moan leaving you, you tilt your hips towards him. 

“God, look at you,” you can hear the grin in his voice. “How are you feelin’?” 

“So good,” you groan, starting to slide towards the floor, but he holds you, lifts you up as he pulls your panties back up. A weak chuckle drops from your lips. “I don’t think I can move for a while,�� 

“I can take you home,” he answers, voice clear. “And we can stay here a bit if you want, I don’t have any more shows tonight and the food here ain’t bad,”

“Food,” you hum, he sits you down on the sofa you hadn’t realized before. “That sounds good, and water please,” 

“You got it.” he winks at you before leaving. “Don’t go anywhere.” 

[michellemisfit]

Weekly Tag Wednesday Thursday

Thanks for the game @jrooc and thanks for the tag @blue-disco-lights @deedala @energievie @lingy910y @creepkinginc @crestfallercanyon

Name: Mys

What is the most listened to artist in your music app of choice this month?

The Libertines - They’ve just released a new album

What song do you know all the lyrics to?

Erm… most? Well, at least most songs I regularly listen to. Back in the day when we’d still buy CDs I would get a new album and sit in my bedroom listening to it beginning to end, while reading along to the lyrics in the booklet. And oooooh, I would get so furious when bands had a booklet that did not include song lyrics. Wtf is wrong with you?? SO ANGRY! haha

What song do you pretend to know all the lyrics to and sing along to even though you don't?

It’s the End of the World As We Know It by R.E.M. I get to ‘eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn’ and then I’m lost until we hit the chorus lol But it’s such a fun song to pretend to sing along to, and really just making vaguely appropriate noises at the right time, until the chorus kicks in again… and of course we’re all ready to shout LEONARD BERNSTEIN! Hahaha

If you were to be crowned Queen/King/Royalty of listening to a band or artist, who would that be?

That would have to be Dirty Pretty Things. I fell in love with The Libertines just as they were falling apart and a few weeks away from calling it quits for good, so when Carl Barât announced the first tour of his new band Dirty Pretty Things I wasn’t gonna miss out again. So I flew to Ireland and then to England and attended the first 5 gigs of their first tour. And that pretty much set the tone for the next couple of years of my life. I ended up flying to the UK so much and meeting so many people that in the end it only made sense to move to London. Dirty Pretty Things had a tour booked starting two days after my moving day and we were gonna go to a few of the gigs. Then the day before I got on a plane they announced it would be their farewell tour, so we bought tickets for every single gig, which meant that I moved to the UK and then spent all of October, November, and half of December on tour… I didn’t start job hunting and thinking about real life until January lol

So yeah. Them. They’re my boys. As coined by the NME in their ‘sad to see them go’ article… “They were well fit and nice!”

What band/artist surprises you the most on your frequently listened to artists?

I’m ongoingly surprised by how much I managed to trick myself into liking Taylor Swift

Favourite line from a song (or one you have been thinking about lately?

Fame and Fortune by The Libertines

The deal was done, the trade was rough, Doubloons down for a double bluff, Dip your quill in your bleeding heart, Sign there and there and there

Guilty pleasure band or song?

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures.

Liking what I like don’t make me a bitch.

Okay let's talk fandom music:

Fave band or song you've discovered from a Fan Fic?

The Libertines lol My friend really wanted me to get into this band she liked, and I just wasn’t massively into music at the time, so she sent me a Libertines fanfic, and that, as they say, was that. Oh, she knew me very well… hahah

Fave Fanfic Playlist?

Right now I’m REALLY into The Menagerie playlist!

Fave Gallavich song?

Do you listen to music recommended by the writer or an included playlist? 

Almost always, yeah. Though sometimes that can go terribly wrong. When someone’s like OMG THIS SONG!!! and you’re just like ‘eh, I don’t see it’ lol

What song do you think is Gallavich coded?

Well, thanks to @deedala this will never not be Season 5 Gallavich

What’s a bop you want to share with your mutuals today? 

Love the original, but I also love Darren Criss

And this, because I’m dying for the next season of The Bear!!!!

Oooookay… I’m late and I’ve been way too busy, so if you’ve already played and I didn’t see please tag me in yours so I can check it out!! If not, and you’d like to do it, I’m tagging @heymacy @heymrspatel @darlingian @too-schoolforcool @palepinkgoat @vintagelacerosette @crossmydna @captainjowl @mikhailoisbaby @rereadanon @the-rat-wins @tsuga-of-mars @loftec @sickness-health-all-that-shit @deathclassic @rutherinahobbit @faejilly (you can skip the Gallavich questions!!! Hahahahah)

[itreachedthatpoint]

My Review of the Leaked Songs on First Listen

Nobody asked for it, and it's been done by others at this point I'm sure, but I ended up live reacting to @mediawhorefics while doing my first listen and I thought I'd share, for those of you who wanna listen to the song later (or only CAN listen to the songs later.) Not that this is gonna be helpful to anyone not in my head because I apparently feel music in scenarios.

I've also linked to a few of my Spotify playlist so you can compare the other songs that are there and get a feel for the mood of the song. Here we go:

Medicine: I know I've been asking for a studio version for a (long) while now but I now realise the error of my ways: what I actually want is a clean live version. Sorry Harry, my bad, as you say in a lot of your song through all your albums: you don't know what you have until you don't. Don't get me wrong: The song is still amazing, the fact that he replaced the audience screaming the missing lyrics with a tease to the missing lyrics is perfect, but also please release a clean live version coz that ENERGY. And I'm someone who mostly prefer studio version over live ones. Medicine is different.

Complicated Freak: makes my rock lover heart very, very happy. It feels like dirty jeans and cigarettes. Old rutty couches and a bunch of friends laughing with a beer in hand. Will go in my tiny Rock playlist even though it's softer a bit than the rest I believe the spirit is the same as those already there.

Baby Honey: So many thoughts about this song. It is. Wow. (also the fact that they both have song that say they miss the other/can't get over them I just... insert the "now kiss" meme) It's the kinda song you play loud in the car with one arm burning outside the window half cooking on the metal door, with the smell of warm car fake leather and yelling the chorus at a red light. Kinda has Carolina vibes in its summer intensity. Going into my In the Summertime playlist for sure.

Boyfriends: the reason why HS3 is available as a record is so you can understand the start of this song. "you love a fool who knows how to get under your skin", man... The song feels like watching your life in 3rd person? I really, really love it. It feels very short even thought it stands at 3:12 minutes. It's like a lullaby, but because of the lyrics it's either a lullaby to ignore the problem of your relationship, or a hug to comfort you when you're near breaking point but just not quite there yet.

Cinema: This is DEFINITELY going to end up as an OST at some point for sure. It's the perfect kind of track for that and the lyrics would match a good few movies, too. I love the yelling in the back "Bring me back to the cinEMAA!" Great song to play pool to.

Daydream: It's a fun son, I really liked to PaPaPaPaPa'd to it, but I think it's just going to be a song I like when it comes in the rotation and not one I would put in my most listened playlists.

Daylight: I really like it, but I can't place it. Probably would go in my Sunday Morning playlist, but it doesn't fit the mood exactly. It's definitely a song to step-dance to throughout the flat while singing the lyrics even if you don't know them. It kinda feels like Fine Line, except not at all. Confusing Song. I like it.

Grapejuice: Good song to vacuum to. Or mindlessly listen to while focusing on writing or drawing. Keeps you in. Will go in my Writing Playlist.

Late Night: Is less for me, personally, but it's a definite style of his that I get why people like it. There's definitely other songs that fits this one in his discography. Good radio song choice.

Keep Driving: Cute song, very carefree, I love it. It sounds like a cooking a brunch together. Another song that is definitely going to be a "oh I like this song!" when it comes into the rotation, while not having it's own spot in to overplayed mood playlists.

Little Freak: If this isn't a Lighter Song I don't know what is. It's so soft and spacey? and also very Smoll. Which is very fitting. Will either go in my Late Night Drive or my Low playlists...

Love of my Life: I looooooove this song. It's a great End-of-the-Night slow dance, even though they don't do those anymore, it's like looking at a dance floor once the lights came back on. It's very bittersweet and I just love it.

Matilda: UGH. fuck. It feels like a song you listen to on a stuffy couch with a blanket over you. Not something I would be listening on repeat unless I'm in this kind of "stuck" mood depersonalized or depression, when you stare into nothing and you just need that one song to function But also the LYRICS fuck. yes yes yes. And it WORKS. Great song. This is the found family song and it does strike that chord, which makes it go into rotation.

Music for Sushi Restaurant: PaaaPa PaaaaPa PaaaaPa Paaaa I like it. It's a very fun song, just like it's title. Not summery enough to go in my In the Summertime playlist, but it might go well in my Sunday Mornings, even though it's slightly more active than most of the songs there. Great song to cook pancakes to.

Satelite: This one is definitely going to go on my Late Night Drive playlist, where all the music that goes around you when you're in that weird state of "being tired but awake and focusing on the road but are you?" go. I really love the lyrics as well, they fit with the mood of the music and it's very vivid of a description. Really ties up with the other songs on the same theme.

[castillon02]

Witcher Shanties

The crudely sweet one about the succubus who turns into an incubus when they come, and vice-versa, and instead of reacting poorly, the Witcher enjoys them no matter their form 

The incubus shanty has several possible extension stanzas that mostly involve them half-heartedly making trouble in order to attract the Witcher’s attention and the Witcher being like “oh no, I guess I’ll have to physically satisfy you again in order to save this poor village,” and the lyrics vary from dirty to romantic depending on the singer   

The repetitive one about drowners, inescapable drowners, whose hands curl around your ankles and never let you go, and it’s superficially about drowners drowning you but mostly about the stultifying kind of danger they represent not only to life but also to sanity with how repetitive the contracts are, HOW DO DROWNER CONTRACTS NEVER END AND WHY WON’T THAT BREED DIE OUT LIKE WITCHERS ARE 

(answer: drowners breed in frozen mountain streams and then their young wash down with the snowmelt, so unless there’s someone who’s able to get to all the cursedly remote, high-altitude waters and dump a bunch of drowner-specific poison in there, the Continent will continue to be drowner bait) (There is also a shanty about a Witcher who tries to do this but any reference to Trygga’s Quest is shorthand for an unending fool’s errand.) (According to legend, Trygga is still out there.)  

The darkly humorous one about the various farming and townspeople implements that a villager might try to kill a Witcher with; the trick here is to sing the stanzas in an order that leaves you surprised and satisfied about what actually kills the Witcher, so if you start with a pitchfork then the Witcher has to get accidentally killed by some neurotic scribe’s bizarrely sharp quill, and if you start with the quill then you have to have a bunch of other pathetically minor ‘weapons’ before you come in with a surprise pitchfork or blacksmith’s hammer. There’s a refrain about always being on your guard.

“99 swipes of the sword on the whetstone, 99 swipes of the sword!” this one is about literally making sure your sword is sharp but also masturbation 

The one about the Witcher who goes to a brothel and keeps getting passed along to various different rooms because the prostitutes keep making up obviously fake maladies and terrible excuses, until finally the Witcher ends up with someone willing to bed them only for them to later realize that they’re both customers who thought the other was the whore. There’s always a different reason for the other customer to have been passed off to the Witcher; in some versions the other customer IS another Witcher.   

The one about the Path that compares it to the sea; it makes some Witchers misty-eyed 

The one about the Path that’s a parody of the sea one and compares it to a shitty boat that you have to keep bailing out but you need SOMETHING to keep you afloat and sure as shit no one’s gonna give you any alternatives (Lambert wrote this one) 

The one where a Witcher tries to get drunk on various types of liquors but it’s only good old White Gull that will work; this one is a bit educational as it goes into which liquors work well in which potions when the Witcher realizes he needs to use the alcohols for something other than their initial intended purpose of getting shitfaced   

The one that’s a game where there’s a different stanza for killing every kind of monster and if you try to sing about a monster that’s already been done then you’re out and you can only sing the chorus about how if you don’t know how to kill it then chopping off its head is usually a good bet. This usually ends in a singing trivia duel between two Witchers with increasingly esoteric creatures getting featured, and the winner gets to mime chopping off the loser’s head in the final chorus 

The one that’s just the life story of a typical Witcher: a Child Surprise, a Got Through the Trials Surprise, a Still-Alive-After-Fighting-This-Monster Surprise, and the only thing that isn’t a surprise is when he dies on the Path.  

“Toss A Coin,” which gets hummed enough by Witchers that it’s an honorary entrant to the Witcher Shanty collection; no one ever tells Jaskier this. 

[anais-mitchell]

a comprehensive list of every never before seen hadestown lyric revealed in “working on a song”

Note: This list will not include any lyrics from the OBCR, Broadway previews documented in audios, the London run, the Edmonton run, or the NYTW run. Only lyrics that Anaïs has never revealed before. Also, I strongly recommend everyone actually read the book and support Anaïs! It has amazing insights into the show we love. 

(Also, any ellipses mean the song just goes into the lyrics we already know)

Wedding Song

In early Vermont productions, Wedding Song did not exist; there was another duet called Everything Written.

Fates: Seven Sisters / Little Dipper / Great Bear, Hunter / Drinking Gourd / Libra, Leo / Pisces, Pluto / Venus, Virgo / Capricorn

Eurydice: Don’t it make, don’t it make you feel so small? / Orpheus, when you look up at it all? / When I look into the skies / I lose my head for scale and size / And still you’re larger in my eyes / Than any star / You pull on me like gravity / I want to be where you are

They say that everything is written / Everything written in those stars / The very lives we’re living / The very love in our hearts

Orpheus: Who could write, who could write this kind if love? / From such a height, all these light-years up above? / And all these light-years down below / I don’t need any star to show me / What my heart already knows / Eurydice / You pull on me like gravity / I want to be where you are

Eurydice: Come here

Orpheus: I’m here

Eurydice: It’s so cold

Orpheus: So clear

Eurydice: It’s so dark

Orpheus: So fair

Eurydice: Come near

Orpheus: I’m here

Eurydice: You’re there

A workshop version of Wedding Song included this exchange:

Eurydice: You have a way with words don’t you? It’s too bad none of them are true

Orpheus: It’s not a lie- It’s poetry

Eurydice: How many mouths does a poem feed?

Epic I

From 2007 Vermont:

Orpheus: King of diamonds, king of spades! / First there was Hades, king of the dirt / Miners of mines, diggers of graves / They bowed down to Hades who gave them work /  And they bowed down to Hades who made them sweat / Who paid them their wages and set them about / Digging and dredging and dragging the depths / Of the Earth to turn its insides out / Singing la la la la la la la...

Then came Persephone, Hades’s wife / Our Lady of Shadows and Meadows entwined / Made to spend half of the days of her life / Right alongside of him down in the mine / But the other half she could walk in the sun / And the sun in turn burned half as bright / Which is where the seasons come from / And with them the cycle / Of the seed and the sickle / And the lives of the people / And the birds in their flight / Singing la la la la la la la...

So it was and it might have stayed / And the sun came up and the sun went down / A circle of fourths, a perfect cadence / The serpent’s tail in the serpent’s mouth / But the strong will take what they want to take / And the weak can only tell the tale / And the king began to lay his heavy hand upon the scale / What did he want? He wanted Our Lady / To have and to hold, not half, but wholly / To love him and never to leave him again / And as for the seasons, to hell with them! / And the earth warmed over in the dead of winter / The stillborn spring lay cold beneath /  Summer gave a stormy sermon / Autumn walked in the wake with a wreath / And the people moved like weather patterns / Looking for shelter, looking for warmth / Helter-skelter the four winds scattered / The scavengers over the ravaged earth / Singing la la la la la la la...

From a workshop, presumably pre-London:

Hermes: Orpheus was a poor boy / But he had a gift to give / There was one song he’d been working on / He could never seem to finish / A song about this broken world / That he rewrote again and again / As though if he could find the words / He could fix the world with them

Livin’ It Up On Top

From pre-NYTW workshops:

Persephone: A hundred sunny summer days / Till my lover comes to find me / A hundred blooming olive trees / And a hundred grapevines climbing / Singing songs when the sun goes down / Light the fire in the darkness / Brother, pass that bottle around / And we’ll raise a glass to the harvest, it’s / Just enough fruit for the pressing / Just enough wine to fill our cups / But what we have is a blessing / It isn’t much but it’s enough

Eurydice: A hundred starry summer nights / Since my lover came and found me / Picking fruit and hopping freights / With his music all around me / Stay up late making love / All the stars are naked / Talking sweet and sleeping rough / Our bed is where we make it, there’s / Just enough fruit for the pressing...

Way Down Hadestown

From when Anaïs was 21, long before the show was even a concept:

Follow that dollar for a long way down / Far away from the poorhouse door / You either get to hell or a border town / Ain’t no difference anymore...

Suckin’ on the gristle and chewin’ on the bone / Thinkin’ ‘bout missiles and the old Dow Jones / All alone on your chromium throne /And lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely...

From 2006:

Persephone: Though I’m happy at his side / He’s not an easy man to love / I used to keep him satisfied / But lately he can’t get enough / Never enough of the mine and the mill / Never enough of his working girls / Never enough of the wall he’s building / All around the underworld / Way down Hadestown...

Orpheus: Mr. Hades is slick as an eel / Fountain pen, crocodile shoes / Quick as a snake, and he’s hot on your heels / He’ll make you an offer that you can’t refuse! / Way down Hadestown...

Hermes: Speak of the devil and the devil comes / Here comes Mister Hades now / To gather up his chosen ones / And bring ‘em down to Hadestown / Way down Hadestown...

From 2007:

Hermes: Make room, make room for Hermes, sir! / Make a little room for Hermes, ma’am / They call me a messenger / But that ain’t half of who I am 

I’m a man of influence / I’m connected up and down / And  I got all the documents / You need to get to Hadestown / Way down Hadestown...

Tired of walking in your worn-out shoes? / Tired of running on nothing at all? / Tired of standing your bets to lose? / Tired of losing? Give me a call, we’ll go... / Way down Hadestown...

Orpheus: Mister Hades got an iron fist / Step outta line and he’ll have your head / In the blink of an eye, with a flick of the wrist

Hermes: Hang around here and starve instead!

Orpheus: It’s a cattle pen!

Hermes: It’s a feeding trough!

Orpheus: He’ll fatten you up just to cut you down! / I’d rather starve

Hermes: I’d rather stuff my pockets down in Hadestown! / Way down Hadestown...

Hey, Little Songbird

Anaïs says she tried out this line in 2017 to include a more explicit “job offer” in the wake of the MeToo movement:

Hades: Hey, little songbird, gimme a song / I’m a busy man, and I can’t stay long / I’ve got clients to call, I’ve got orders to fill / I’ve got millions of souls on my payroll, but hell / I could fit you as well if you wanted

When the Chips are Down

From Vermont, 2006:

Fates: Cross my palm! Grease my chin / Can’t you see the kind of shape you’re in? / What you gonna do... ?

Wait For Me

From Vermont, 2007:

(These exchanges intercut the chorus)

Hades: Hermes! / Hermes: Hades! / Hades: Back in town! / Please, sit down / Please, relax / You’ve been around the world and back / Haven’t you, Hermes? / Hermes: I have / Hades: How’s the weather? / Hermes: Worse than ever / How’s your wife? / Hades: My wife is fine / Hermes: You’ve been spending a lot of time together / Haven’t you, Hades?

Hades: What have you brought? / Hermes: The latest crop / Hades: The freshest cut? / Hermes: A cut above / Hades: How many of them, a lot? / Hermes: A lot / Hades: A few too many perhaps / What’s this? / Why have you brought me Orpheus? / I know I never ordered that / It seems you’ve gone behind my back / Haven’t you, Hermes?

Hades: What was that? / Hermes: What was what? / Hades: I heard a voice / Hermes: I heard it not / Hades: Someone singing / Hermes: I heard nothing / Hades: Some kind of song / Hermes: You could be wrong / It could have been the wind / Hades: The wind? / Hermes: It could have been the rain / Hades: The rain? / Hermes: It could have been the train... (the train / the train / the train / the train...)

From “an early cutting room floor version”:

Fates: One (one, one) / You forget the sun

Eurydice: I forget the sun

Fates: You forget where you come from / You forget the sun

Eurydice: I forget the sun

Fates: Two (two, two)

Why We Build the Wall

Pre-NYTW:

Hermes: A lot can happen behind closed doors / With the big boss and his fountain pen / A lot of dirty deals go down / When there ain’t nobody watching...

Our Lady of the Underground

The 2006 version of the song was called “A Crack in the Wall” and these were the lyrics:

Persephone: Come and see the stars! / They’re fixin to fall / Slidin’ and a-slipping’ / In their gravity shoes / Old Man Mars / Taking Venus to the ball / Big dipper dippin’ / To the blue-sky blues

Have you forgot? / Which was is up? / I think you’ll find / I have just the thing for you / Put a quarter in the slot / You can fill your loving cup / With a little bit of moonshine / From the pay-per-view

How selfless! / The silent moon / Holding a mirror / For an ungrateful sun / Hey, Orpheus! / Are you leaving so soon? / Every night around here / Is a fateful one 

Maybe you got blindsided / Lost your papers! / Lost your mind! / Maybe you once lost an angel / Just to watch her fall / Look a little closer and / The water turns to wine / Look a little closer: there’s a crack in the wall!

So I raise my cup / To the stars in the sky / If you want a show / Go on, get in line / Step right up brothers / Don’t be shy / What the boss don’t know / The boss won’t mind

Way Down Hadestown (Reprise)

A 2013 version of this song was called “No One Now,” delivered to Orpheus, and these are the lyrics:

Fates: Used to be a blushing bride / That was on the other side / Better to forget her face / Now she’s like the rest of us / One more number in a crowd / Maybe she was someone once / She ain’t no one now

Used to be a loving wife / That was in another life / Carve it on a marble stone / Now she’s like the rest of us / One more body in the ground / Maybe she was someone once / She ain’t no one now

Brother don’t you think we all / Used to have a name to call? / A tale to tell as well as her? / Now she’s like the rest of us...

Maybe when she first arrived / So alive, so naive / All the bright lights in her eyes / All her insides fluttering (alt. Heart aflutter on her sleeve) / Maybe she was someone then / Back when Hades drew her in / Like a moth into his flame / Borne aloft on burning wings / Well she ain’t the first and she ain’t the last / Hades’ fire is hot and fast / Just ask all the other girls / Sweeping up the ashes in the underworld / See even when the flame is new / She doesn’t hold a candle to / The woman Hades truly loves / So maybe she was someone once / But now she’s like the rest of us / All used up, all burned out / Maybe she was someone once / She ain’t no one now

From the Dartmouth workshop:

Hermes (to Orpheus): If you wanna get around down here in the tank / Down here in the clink / Down here in the hole / You got to think the way they think / Which is to say, your mind is blank / Which is to say, don’t think at all / Come / I’ll show you how it’s done 

Welcome to the skeleton crew! / Welcome to the chain gang, kid / Lemme introduce you to / The members of the working dead / Old Jack Hammer! / Mister Miner / Wandering forever in the catacombs / Working on a hole to China / Diggin’ up them dino bones / Way down...

Sweatshop Sally! Missus Miller! / Workin’ in the cellar where the sun don’t shine / Sad eyed little Cinderella / Sweeping up the ashes of the summertime / Used to be one a the boss’s pets / Now she’s just another stiff / One night in the boss’s bed / And a lifetime on the graveyard shift / Way down...

Flowers

Did not exist in Vermont, but there was a brief reprise of “Everything Written”: 

Eurydice: If it’s me- if it’s me you’re looking for / Orpheus, I can’t be with you anymore

Fates: She signed in blood / She signed for good

Eurydice: I signed before I understood / And I’d unsign it if I could / But it’s too late / They say that everything is written / Everything is written in those stars / Even these lives we’re living / Even this love

Fates: Seven sisters...

Papers

Pre-NYTW:

Hades: Let me see your papers, son / Let me see your documents / Or could it be that you have none? / You’re on the wrong side of the fence...

If It’s True

Pre-concept album:

Orpheus: If it’s true what they say / If there’s nothing to be done / If there’s no part left to play / If there’s no song to be sung / If it’s true what they say / If there’s no stone left to turn / If there’s no prayer left to pray / If there’s no bridge left to burn / If it’s true what they say / I’ll be on my way / If it’s true what they say / Then I have lived a lie / They can take the sky away / Take the stars out of my eyes / And my face will be a mask / And my heart will be a stone / And I’ll throw away the past / And I’ll go away alone...

How Long?

Pre-concept album:

Persephone (to Hermes): Brother Hermes, god of speed / Put your feathers on his feet / Hasten his delivery / Keep him hale and whole / Brother, I’m a jaded woman / But there’s something in his singing / And it feels like spring a-comin’ / To the winter of my soul 

Brother Hermes, god of speed / Put your feathers on his feet / Hasten his delivery / Keep him safe and sound / He reminds me of the lover / That I was when I was younger / Back before my heart went under / Undercover / Underground

Chant (Reprise)

Dartmouth Workshop, 2014:

Hades: And in this symphony of mine / Are power chords and power lines / Which I arrange and orchestrate / And every day I dedicate / The magnum opus of my life / To my unkind, ungrateful wife / Persephone, and she shall see / Her name in lights on my marquee / And every night, another show / My symphony will never close! / And she shall have a front row seat / Which she shall never, ever leave! / Young man, you can strum your lyre...

Epic III

Vermont:

Orpheus: The strong will take what they want to take / And the weak can only tell the tale / And the heart of the king loves everything / Like the hammer loves the nail

The heart of the king is iron and steel / The heart of the king is the color of rust / The heart of the king is soldered and sealed / The heart of the king is a tinderbox / That he has to keep under lock and key / That it not catch fire inside his chest / Cos a lover’s desire is a mutiny / A lover’s desire is a wilderness 

But even that hardest of hearts unhardened...

(I just have to say I fucking love this imagery of a fire oh my god)

Lover’s Desire

Anaïs once set the original Lover’s Desire melody to lyrics around the area of Wedding Song:

Orpheus: Lover, can you hear me? / I’m asking for your hand / Your hand for better or for worse / Forever / Whether you’re sick or well / For rich or poorer, to have and to hold for as / Long as we both shall live

Eurydice: Lover, can you hear me? / I’m asking for a hand / A hand that’s steady and strong / To lean on / To catch me if I fall / That’s the hand that I’ll have and I’ll hold for as / Long as we both shall live

Word to the Wise

Early workshops:

Fates: Hey / Hey / Hey / It’s judgement day! / Are you gonna let ‘em just walk away? / What you gonna do... ?

Wait For Me (Reprise)

Vermont:

Hades: Hermes!

Hermes: Hades!

Hades: Time to go / Time to bring this to a close / Time to lay this thing to rest 

Hermes: Orpheus?

Hades: Orpheus / It’s all agreed / We’ve struck a deal / He’s free

Hermes: He’s free?

Hades: He’s free to walk

Hermes: And she?

Hades: To follow at his heel / And she, to follow at his back

Eurydice: Wait for me, I’m coming...

Hades: And she shall follow at his back / And she shall follow in his wake

Hermes: And what’s the catch?

Hades: The catch is this: / He shall not turn to see her face / And if he turns, the game is up / The deal is off, his race is run / And that’s the end of Orpheus / You’ll see it done?

Eurydice: Wait for me, I’m coming...

Written at an unspecified time but never used:

Hermes: A poor boy and a hungry young girl / Walking single file / While the music played / Brother, they looked for all the world / Like they was walking down the aisle / On their wedding day

We Raise Our Cups

The show once ended with an alternate song called “Cloud Machine” in Vermont, the lyrics of which Anaïs says she is embarrassed by:

Orpheus: What have I done? Mother, what have I done? / Squandered the gift that you gave me / Gambled with Hades and Hades won / And there’s no song now that can save me 

Mother, I failed! Oh Mother, I tried / And I fell like a fool would fall / And I left my love / On the other side / On the other side of the wall

(Alt. There’s a crack in the wall / It’s a little bit wider / It’s a little bit wider, that’s all)

Persephone: Come, my son, don’t take it so hard / Everything is forgiven / You have done naught / But to play out the part / That the Fates in their wisdom have written

Orpheus: Raise up the curtain! The crowd goes wild! / The Fates are drunken clowns / All of us dreamers are walking the wire / While they juggle our dream around 

Apollo, come down in your cloud machine / Apollo, come swallowing fire / With your thunder and lightning and kerosene / For the Fates and their funeral pyre

Persephone: Come, my son, we try and we fail / Every tail has an end

But the pale dawn breaks / And the snake eats it’s tail / And the tale begins again...

[miserablesme]

The Les Miserables Changelog Part 1: Barbican Previews

Hello everyone! I'm starting out a blog which will look at my favorite musical, Les Miserables, and will discuss the various changes it has gone through over time (musically and lyrically). As it turns out, a LOT of edits have been made over the years so this will doubtless be a series with several parts.

This first part may well be the most difficult and will almost certainly be the most incomplete, as previews can be a time of extensive editing and experimentation. At least for the first few weeks or so, it's perfectly possible any one day of previews will be slightly different than any other day. However, I only have access to two audios from the Barbican Theatre previews of Les Miserables, meaning it's likely that lyrical variants exist which I have no way of hearing.

I am aware of the existence of a third audio which is fairly early in the run of previews, as the tape's master has told me that Gavroche's death scene is in its original form (I'll clarify that later). However, that tape has never been traded, and has sadly only been listened to by its master. I am also aware of a video proshot of the Barbican era that exists in the Royal Shakespeare Company library, but currently have no access to it. I plan to inquire about whether I can look at it sometime (though I'm not sure a blog like this is "official" enough to warrant it for research purposes). As such, this comparison only entails the two widely circulated audios from the Barbican run.

Now that we've gotten that cleared up, let's get started!

First, let's look at the opening "Work Song". In the earlier recording I have (let's call it R1), the beginning music (the same tune used, for instance, at the opening of "At the End of the Day" and "One Day More" and for Marius and Cosette's meeting in "The Robbery") stops. Then, a few moments later, the more familiar opening that leads directly into the prologue begins. By the time of the later recording I have (let's call it R2), the scores have been combined so that the first tune directly transitions into the second one.

Meanwhile, in R1 there is a sequence of lines that goes as follows:

I've done no wrong

Sweet Jesus, hear my prayer

Look down, look down

Sweet Jesus doesn't care

I killed a man

He tried to steal my wife

Look down, look down

She wasn't worth your life

I know she'll wait

I know that she'll be true

Look down, look down

She's long forgotten you

Most fans of the musical recognize the middle sequence of lines ("I killed a man" through "She wasn't worth your life") as no longer being lines in the show (for good reason, as we'll get into in a later edition of this blog). However, R2 keeps the lines. Instead, it deletes the third sequence ("I know she'll wait" through "She's long forgotten you"). I have no idea if this lasted only a few performances or made it all the way to the end of the Barbican run, or somewhere in between.

During "On Parole", specifically after Valjean is underpaid for his labor and sings about his frustration, R1 uses a variation of the "Work Song" theme which, to my recollection, is heard nowhere else in the musical. It can be heard here. By R2, it was switched to an in-tune version of the number with a unique opening. The musical retains that version to this day, but in case you can't recall it you can hear it here.

Minus an unintentional line flub in "At the End of the Day" in R2, the two Barbican recordings seem to use the same libretto and score from this point until "The Runaway Cart". At this point, R1 has a rather extensive scene leading up to Valjean saving Fauchelevent, which goes approximately as follows (the dialog is difficult to make out):

(VALJEAN)

Is there anyone here who will rescue the man?

Who will help me to shoulder the weight of the cart?

I will pay any man thirty louis d’or more

I will do it myself if there’s no one who will

We can’t let him die like that down in the street

Can you all watch him die and do nothing at all?

(FAUCHELEVENT)

Don’t approach me, Monsieur Mayor

The cart’s not gonna be holding

Not my poor mother would care if I should die

(TOWNSPEOPLE)

Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor

There's nothing at all you can do

The old man's a goner for sure

Leave him alone

Most of that dialog is deleted in R2, so that it goes directly from "Who will help me to shoulder the weight of the cart" to "Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor". I really like the idea of the original version; it seems reasonable that Valjean, having become a more trusted man, would expect the townspeople to help him. It's more meaningful that Valjean is good enough to do what's right when there's more time to establish that no one else is. Having said that, the original version did take quite a while and didn't really contain any relevant information that wasn't in the final version. I think the cut version as heard in R2 is a good compromise and retains the general mood and pacing to make Valjean's ultimate action satisfying (something that can't be said of later cuts, as will be discussed in a future edition of this blog).

Additionally, at the end of the number Javert refers to "the mark upon his skin" in R1 and "the brand upon his skin in R2 (as well as literally every subsequent performance since then to my knowledge). I have no idea if the "mark" line was a minor flub or was actually the original lyric.

"Who Am I?" is an interesting one. The musical content is identical in R1 and R2, but in R1 after his high note, Valjean shouts "You know where to find me!" with emotion so dramatic it sits right on the border between awesome and campy. By contrast, Valjean is totally silent after his high note in R2. Neither version would see its final day just yet, although the latter certainly has become more traditional over time. More on that in future editions.

From this point until "Master of the House" everything is the same between the two recordings. Roger Allam even comes in slightly late in both "Confrontation" scenes (making his line "-jean, at last...")! However, in the opening to "Master of the House" the following lines occur in R1:

(THENARDIER)

My band of soaks, my den of dissolutes

My dirty jokes, my always pissed as newts

My sons of whores

Spend their lives in my inn

Homing pigeons flying in

They fly through my doors

And their money's good as yours

(CUSTOMERS)

Ain't got a clue what he put into his stew

Must've scraped it off the street

Hell, what a wine

Châteauneuf de Turpentine

Must've pressed it with his feet

Landlord over here

Where's the bloody man

One more for the road

One more slug of gin

Just one more or my old man is gonna do me in

All of those lines would be scrapped in R2. Personally I prefer this shortened variant than the one that would occur much later. Sure, some fun moments get lost, but nothing that actually adds any substance or characterization to the musical (unlike the later cut, which I'll discuss in a later edition of this blog). Some have speculated that this is simply lost dialog due to a tape flip of degrading, given that future performances would retain those lines. However, there is firsthand confirmation that the cuts were in fact part of the performance. To quote Trevor Nunn on page 87 of 1990's The Complete Book of Les Miserables (a page which elaborates that "the cost of overtime incurred after three hours could be crippling at a time when Les Miserables was still trying to find an audience"):

"Cameron wanted major cuts, which would have reduced its length to two and a half hours. I resisted, refusing to discuss things on those terms... Some of the other proposed cuts - like the removal of the "Master of the House" scene-setting preamble - were tried out in previews and then restored as the scenes would not work without them."

From a historical perspective that quote is invaluable. As will be brought up in a later blog post (notice a pattern today?) the musical would in fact be cut much later to avoid overtime charges. When people like myself have expressed the opinion that these cuts come at the expense of artistic integrity, I've seen others defend them by claiming that the overtime costs never were relevant to Cameron and the gang until Broadway sales began to go down, and that if they were taken into account the musical may well be in its shortened form from the beginning. However, this quote proves that argument to be false. Right from day one, the crew was aware that retaining a >3 hour runtime would come with severe financial costs, but this was deemed a worthy sacrifice in order to tell the story they wanted told. Indeed, it sounds like Cameron Mackintosh was waiting quite some time to enact his infamous cuts! (Cameron Mackintosh valuing profit above art?! Crazy, right??)

But I digress. Going back to the musical, the "Waltz of Treachery" number is mostly the same. However, after Valjean's "It won't take you too long to forget" line, R1 has over a minute of wordless vamping which leads right into the rather awkwardly-placed "Stars" song. By contrast, in R2 this vamping (which is still a minute long, mind you) leads into a humming duet between Little Cosette and Valjean, similar to the duet right before the number. A nice little bookend that makes the scene feel all the more resolved. (Much later this duet reprise would ironically be scrapped again, though!) The remaining segment of R1's vamping now plays after this sequence in R2.

Minus some unintentional missed lines at the beginning of "Stars" in R1, the recordings seem to follow the same libretto right up until "One Day More". Here, R1 uses the following lines:

(EPONINE)

One more day with him not caring

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

Was there ever love so true?

(EPONINE)

What a life I might have known

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

I was born to be with you

However, by R2 this scene is in its current form:

(EPONINE)

One more day with him not caring

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

I was born to be with you

(EPONINE)

What a life I might have known

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

And I swear I will be true

And that closes act one! Going on to the second act, the opening barricade scene has a few changes. First off, following the opening notes, R1 features a rather odd tune bearing resemblance to "Do You Hear the People Sing" (which can be heard here) before transitioning to a more true-to-form instrumental reprise of "Do You Hear the People Sing?" By contrast, R2 goes straight from the opening notes to the true-to-form reprise.

Next, Enjolras proclaims "Have faith in yourself and do not be afraid" in R1, while in R2 he instead states "Every man to his duty and don't be afraid". It's unknown if this was an intentional libretto change or if it simply reflects a flub during R1. A later sequence uses the "Have faith in yourself" line, meaning he may have just sung the wrong line for that particular scene.

Finally, R1 includes the following sequence (at least I think this is how it goes, since the lyrics are a little hard to hear):

(PROUVAIRE)

And the people will fight

(GRANTAIRE)

And join with you

Who gives a speech in the square

Fortunately, R2 uses a much less clunky (though still somewhat so) sequence:

(PROUVAIRE)

And the people will fight

(GRANTAIRE)

And so they might

Some will bark, some will bite

This isn't quite its current form ("dogs" and "fleas" will soon respectively replace the two usages of "some"), but it's pretty darn close.

I've heard that the very first Barbican preview(s?) didn't have a finalized opening to "On My Own". Sadly there is no known audio record of this, so I cannot comment on what exactly it began as. As such, the next major change takes place during Gavroche's death scene. This honestly is probably the biggest of all the changes between the two recordings. R1 uses the following death scene (in the tune of "Look Down" right up until the "So never kick a dog" verse, which is in the tune of "Little People"):

How do you do, my name’s Gavroche

These are my people, here’s my patch

Not much to look at, nothing posh

Nothing that you’d call up to scratch

Some fool, I bet, whose brains are made of fat

Picks up a gun and shoots me down

Nobody told him who he’s shooting at

He doesn’t know who runs this town

Life’s like that

There’s some folk

Missed the joke

That’s three, that’s three

That one has done for me

Too fast, too fast

They’ve got Gavroche at last

So never kick a dog

Because he’s just a pup

You better run for cover when the pup grows...

By contrast, R2 uses a much shorter variant which is set entirely to the tune of "Little People":

And little people know

When little people fight

We may look easy picking but we've got some bite

So never kick a dog

Because he's just a pup

You'd better run for cover when the pup grows up

And we'll fight like twenty armies and we won't give...

This is much closer to its current form, although the last two lines are inverted (we'll get to that in a later edition).

We now fast-forward to "Dog Eats Dog", which while recognizable is very different from the number we know today. The chorus of R1 claims that "It's a dirty great sewer that's crawling with rats", which R2 changes it to "stinking great sewer" instead. I'd definitely say the revised lyric better captures Thenardier's and the sewer's grossness.

Additionally, regarding Marius' ring, Thenardier originally exclaims that he "didn't mean to waste it, that would really be a crime". By R2, the line changes to "wouldn't want to waste it", which I'd say makes a lot more sense.

"Javert's Suicide" has changed a lot. R1 features the following remarks following "Vengeance was his and he gave me back my life":

Damned if I live in this caper of grace

Damned if I live in the debt of Valjean

I'll spit his pity right back in his face

Is this the law or has sanity gone?

(I'm a little unsure as to how accurate the final line is.)

By R2, the lines have been replaced with the current ones:

Damned if I live in the debt of a thief

Damned if I yield at the end of the chase

I am the law and the law is not mocked

I'll spit his pity right back in his face

In R1, the "Where's the new world, now the fighting's done" line is absent, and there is nothing but instrumentals in the segment where it is usually sung. By contrast, it is sung as usual in R2. My guess is that an actress simply forgot her line in R1 and it was always supposed to be there, though I can't say for sure.

The final change occurs at the wedding scene. The singing which opens the number is repeated in R1. By contrast, R2 has it sung once and then done with, as it currently is (and as it should be in my opinion, since the music isn't particularly pretty and contributes nothing to the plot).

Later in the same scene, R1 includes approximately this exchange (again, it's quite hard to make out the exact lyrics):

(THENARDIER)

I was there

Never fear

Even got me this fine souvenir

He was there

Her old dad

*indecipherable* and fleecing this lad

Robbed the dead

That's his way

(MME. THENARDIER)

That's worth five hundred any old day

(MARIUS)

I know this...

By R2, everything between "He was there" and "Any old day" were removed, which makes sense given that they essentially just rehash what was already said.

Finally, there's a subtle difference in the epilogue, specifically during the "Do You Hear the People Sing?" reprise. In R1, the ensemble sings "They will live again in glory in the garden of the Lord". R2 replaces the word "glory" with "freedom", and that word remains the one used to this day. I suppose "freedom" is more appropriate for the context of peace and prosperity. To many, I'd guess that "glory" conjures imagery of knights, battles, and the like; just the kind of violence that the characters wish to move away from! I have no idea if this was why the writers changed the lyric, but it's my hypothesis.

Towards the end of the show, the chorus in R1 sings "Even the darkest moon will end and the sun will rise". By R2, this is changed to "the darkest night". Makes more sense to me, since moons aren't known for being particularly dark!

And that just about sums this part up! If I missed anything feel free to let me know, as my goal is to create a changelog as thorough and complete as possible. I plan on making more parts in the near future covering all the changes that have been made in the show up until this day (discounting concerts). Any feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

As a side note, both for this project and my own enjoyment, I want as complete a collection of Les Miserables audios as possible. I already have most of what's commonly circulated, but if you have any audios or videos you know are rare, I'd love it if you DMed me!

Until the turntable puts me at the forefront again, good-bye...

[sparrowmoth]

ive been watching these posts all day trying to think of a word. and i DID finally. carvie + lullaby

@inertiazz This was such a blessed prompt, the headcanon went feral and became something more of a drabble, so... I offer you some soft!Carvie? ♥

Before the banishment, when Evie and Carlos were quite little and their mothers used to ignore them send them off to play while they sat down for drinks and gossip, the two of them would often end up alone in Evie’s bedroom. She had a queen-sized bed big enough for them both to drown in and high enough that they needed a stool just to get up on it, so they would clamber up and lay there with a bunch of Evie’s books to pass the time.

Sometimes so much time passed that they would start to get tired, and either they would realize their mothers intended to talk well into the night, or they would look out the window and see all the lights of Hell Hall had come on, but Cruella’s voice had faded out.

“We can have a sleepover!” Evie would whisper excitedly, and Carlos would agree to it because it was worth the trouble he’d get into the next day to sleep on a real bed with the only person who ever made him feel warm in those days. He’d hide beneath Evie’s bed until Grimhilde came to check on her before she went to sleep, and then he’d crawl out and back beneath the covers next to Evie.

She’d sigh and complain sometimes how his clothes were dirty and he “obviously” hadn’t had a shower, but that never stopped her from cuddling against him. Sometimes, she’d even sing to him when he couldn’t sleep or he’d woken them both up from a nightmare. It was always the same song, the lyrics whispered like a secret between them: “Apenas las estrellas comienzan a salir, Pin Pon se va a la cama y se acuesta a dormir. Pin Pon dame la mano con un fuerte apretón, pues quiero ser tu amigo…” [1]

Evie stopped singing it as they got older, and Carlos didn’t think he minded since he didn’t want her treating him like a baby who couldn’t fall asleep without a lullaby. They couldn’t be that soft in the world they lived in, so…

It wasn’t until several months after they had been in Auradon that Carlos found himself thinking about the song one night as he was holding an inconsolable Evie, stroking her hair gently after she’d woken from a nightmare. He only half-remembered the tune and his Spanish wasn’t as good as hers, but he started to sing his broken version of the lullaby to her, earning strange looks from Mal and Jay. He ignored them and continued to sing until Evie started to giggle, tears still streaming down her face when she raised her head to look at him.

“Arepas los estela?” [2] (Her voice was rough, but warm with humour.) “U-un fuego apretó… pues que?” [3] She broke down laughing, shaking her head as she wrapped her arms tight around Carlos, who blushed awkwardly at the same time as he tried in vain to glare down Mal and Jay’s smirks.

Finally, with the lamp switched off again and the four of them piled into bed, Evie curled her arm around Carlos’ waist, snuggled closer, and whispered so only he could hear, “Te amo, Pin Pon.” [4]

“Te amo, princesa…” [5]

[Spanish translations, notes, and my excuses a disclaimer under the cut.]

TRANSLATED TEXT (with the disclaimer that although I’m Mestizx/Latinx, it’s been a long, long time since I spoke Spanish fluently, so I apologize to any of my people who actually do speak Spanish if these translations are hot garbage lol).

[1] “As soon as the stars start to come out, Pin Pon goes to bed and goes to sleep. Pin Pon give me your hand with a strong grip, because I want to be your friend...” (Note: This is a Spanish lullaby, but the exact translation varies; the song is about a cute little cardboard doll named Pin Pon going about his day.)

[2] “Arepas los estela?” / “Arepas the wake?” (Note: This is intended to be a silly garble of words. Btw! Arepas are a traditional food that are pretty much a staple for Colombians. Don’t ever use tortilla as a synonym or I will die a little inside.)

[3] ““U-un fuego apretó… pues que?” / “A fire squeezed... so what?” (Note: Even more nonsense because Carlos is bad at Spanish and Evie is amused.)

[4] “Te amo, Pin Pon.” / “I love you, Pin Pon.” (Note: Evie’s jokingly using “Pin Pon” as a nickname for Carlos because the song starts out with the little doll washing his face with soap and water, which is something she always tried to make him do on the Isle since he always showed up with dirt on his cheeks from all his chores and tinkering and how long he’d have to go between baths.)

[5] “Te amo, princesa…” / “I love you, Princess.” (Note: They’re soft. The end.)

[asexualzoro]

Cradles + Freak by Sub Urban, Blue Monday by Orgy, Blood//Water + Dirty by Grandson, The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, Yuve Yuve Yu by the HU (there's a version w/ english lyrics), Smooth + Into The Night by Santana, Dance Macabre + Square Hammer + Rats by Ghost BC, Novocaine by the Unlikely Candidates, Vertigo by U2, Still Feel by Half-Alive, Deeper Deeper by One OK Rock, Carnival Of Rust + My Dark Disquiet by Poets Of The Fall, Closer by Lemaitre, (sorry about sending 2 asks chock full of songs).

i listened to these while scrolling thru tumblr / playing subway surfers (yeah.) so i was less focused and thus have less detailed thoughts. still here they are

Cradles by Sub Urban

neat!! a little creepy and discordant in a fun way. ill probably be back for this on a slow music week

Freak by Sub Urban

also creepy and discordant in a fun way

Blue Monday by Orgy

cool!!!!! i liked the vibes on this one

Blood//Water by grandson

SAME HERE this one was very cool

Dirty by grandson

i liked this one too! i think it sounded a little similar to the song before (i mean, same artist at all, that happens w some artists) so it bored me a little, but it sounds nice

The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

im not particularly big on this sort of sound or fleetwood mac. music thats this instrumentally uncomplicated just feels sort of empty. it sounds nice tho i only listened to a verse and a chorus

Yuve Yuve Yu by the HU (there's a version w/ english lyrics),

also sounds neat! i like the violin. i dont listen to enough songs with violin

Smooth by Santana

my dad’s band used to sing this song so listening to it made me feel nostalgic but also the original sounds. wrong.

Into The Night by Santana

oh i liked this!!!! i liked the guy’s voice. i added it to my playlist

Dance Macabre by Ghost

fun but not varied enough instrumentally. i liked the chorus

Square Hammer by Ghost

also nice! but i think this band’s just not quite instrumentally varied / lyrically quick enough to be engaging for me

Rats by Ghost

same as before. they all are nice but feel little empty.

Novocaine by the Unlikely Candidates

i liked this!! especially the chorus. i was bopping along most of the song. ill probs come back to it on another week when i have less songs to add bc i like it but i added plenty of songs i liked more

also i exclusively picked up the jumpy sneakers powerup in subway surfers while this is playing which is my least favorite powerup. not strictly relevant but i wanted you to know i think this song is cursed. or perhaps this game just agrees with me its a song worth bouncing along to?

Vertigo by U2

neat! also a little unvaired for me but i liked it

Still Feel by Half-Alive

i know this song! it’s in my playlist already i like it. half alive makes nice music

Deeper Deeper by One OK Rock

I USED TO LOVE THIS SONG IN MIDDLE SCHOOL AND I LOST IT AND COULDNT REMEMBE THE TITLE DO YOU KNOW HOW EXCITED I AM YOU BROUGHT IT BACK TO ME??

its not quite my taste anymore but god im so excited to see it again

Carnival Of Rust by Poets Of The Fall

i was like eh on this on the first verse but when eh chorus hit and it got like much louder and more exciting i loved that

My Dark Disquiet by Poets Of The Fall

same with this tho i liked this one a lot more than the last one

Closer by Lemaitre

i liked this one too!! probably one of my favorites on this list

don’t apologize for sending me two asks!! i appreciate it, and there wasn’t a single song i didnt enjoy!!

[illneverrecover]

growl | kth (m)

➛pairing: Kim Taehyung x reader  (per usual) ➛summary: Clearing his throat, he tries again, gaze intense. His eyes are about to fall out of his skull with the power of his attempt at a telepathic message to his friend. “Come on, Jimin. Ask me. You know what? I’ll help you. I pick dare.” A sly glint of amusement pulls at the edge of Jimin’s mouth, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. You look back and forth between the two of them, not sure what was happening but sure as hell knowing it was going to be nothing be trouble. “I dare you to sing a song that shows off your best growling for our girl here,”  ➛genre: non idol!AU, friends to lovers, slice of life, smut ➛word count: 4605 ➛rating: explicit/mature (y’all been knew) ➛warnings:  alcohol use, cursing, cliche use of ‘truth or dare’, Seokjin singing dope songs at karaoke, Jimin being chaotic, slight dirty talk, semi public sex, oral (male receiving), swallowing, Taehyung being a secret softie. ➛notes: Firstly, I would like to start off by saying that this fic idea came from @destiel1597 and the pure lethal sex that is 5th Muster Taehyung™, so this is truly their fault. The both of them. Secondly, y’all should’ve known that the minute I saw  5th Muster Taehyung™, I’d have to let the thirst out somehow. I don’t have self control. Lastly, shoutout to my bby @taetaesbaebaepsae for assisting me & @purpletigertaetae for spamming me with rude Tae inspo to fuel the thotting. You the best.  I promise my next fic will be about another member. If Tae would just RELAX I wouldn’t have to be like this!! ➛song: Toxic - Alex & Sierra (which is the version Tae sings in this. Listen to it and picture him singing it and tell me you wouldn’t do the same). Ma City - BTS 5th Muster version (which you should go watch immediately if you haven’t - this growling Tae was the muse for this entire sinful piece.) 

                             ᴄʀᴏss-ᴘᴏsᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ AO3;; ʟɪɴᴋ ɪɴ ᴅᴇsᴄʀɪᴘᴛɪᴏɴ 

“How many times are you going to dare me to sing this song?”

Seokjin’s face had a thin sheen of sweat, the bright disco lights of the cozy karaoke booth bouncing off his skin, showing the exasperation evident on his face.

“Until it stops being funny. So…” you look around at the others, pausing to sip at your drink. “Never. Get to it, lover boy.” 

He sighs heavily but did as he was told, picking up the microphone and waiting for the flatscreen to start scrolling with the lyrics. The first few bars of the song blared through the speakers, and the guys gave supporting hoots to encourage him. 

Despite his earlier protest, he quickly gets into it, eyebrows furrowed as he dramatically swings the mic, belting out the first few notes. “I gotta take a little time, a little time to think things over...I better read between the lines, in case I need it when I'm older…” 

Next to you, Taehyung laughs deeply, throwing his head back as the elder continues, eyes glistening with unshed tears. No one else in the room was faring much better, every single person in some stage of cracking up at his theatrics. Forcing Seokjin to sing Foreigner songs is always hilarious, and one of your favorite parts of your friends bi-monthly karaoke meetups.

No one really knows when or how the tradition started (though rumor has it, it was at your drunken demand to ‘show off the golden pipes’), but these nights in the same small private room of your local karaoke bar had quickly become the favorite in your friend group. Twice a month, regardless of what was going on, everyone agreed to meet up for dinner, drinks, and the most ridiculous yet always entertaining game of truth or dare - karaoke style.

It was typical of your friends to never do anything the normal way, and this was no different. Instead of selecting songs of personal preference to sing for the room, they were always chosen as either a dare, or a failure to participate in a truth. It was asker's choice, and the victim wasn’t allowed to veto, less they wanted to foot the entire bill for the evening. And between seven men in their mid twenties and the pickled livers of you and your friend, Nari - that was a hefty price to pay. 

Seokjin reaches the chorus, the build up so intense that it’s no surprise when he drops to his knees, his tenor still in pitch and  beautiful despite the theatrics. “I want to know what love is! I want you to show me! I want to feel what love is, I know you can show me!” 

He’s clutching at his chest while staring into Yoongi’s eyes, the younger man expressionless as if this performance was something he saw on the regular. Which, to be fair - it was.

Slinging back the dregs, you lean to grab the bottle of vodka on the table before a large hand beats you to it, Taehyung smiling down at you as he scoots closer. “The usual, milady?” 

You slap his arm, eyes rolling. “Gross, no one says ‘milady’, Tae.” 

He giggles, filling it halfway with the liquor before topping it off with some seltzer - just the way you like it. You were only two drinks in, but the honeyed sound of his laugh always flustered you, a light burn flushing your cheeks. His long, dark hair was wavy and messy in that perfect way that made you want to sink your fingers into it, and between that and the peek of golden chest through the undone buttons of his dark dress shirt, you found yourself feeling thirsty. Well, thirstier than you normally were for Kim Taehyung.

It had become a running gag with the other guys - your little school girl crush on Taehyung, something that they used to tease you at any given opportunity. It seemed to personally offend them that you wouldn’t say anything to the brunette, and no matter how many times you explained you didn’t want to fuck with the group dynamics, they couldn’t seem to stop sticking their noses directly into your business. You’d be annoyed by their immature comments if it wasn’t for the fact that the handsome man seemed completely oblivious to them - and your feelings. 

Thank fuck for that. 

Handing you the freshened beverage, Taehyung moves to pour more into his glass before settling, large thigh pressing into your own. He has always been an affectionate guy, so when he threw an arm over your shoulder just as Seokjin hit the last notes of the song, you didn’t blink an eye. 

However, Jimin did.

He had been watching all night, seeing the way his best friend was buttering you up, going out of his way to try and make you laugh, to make you smile. The way you would scoff and roll your eyes to hide your heated cheeks or the way your thighs were pressing together any time he touched you. Taehyung’s feelings for you were practically neon red signs to Jimin, and yet you seemed obnoxiously unaware - something that was starting to make Jimin crazy. 

Getting involved probably wasn’t wise - neither party had asked for his help. But since when did he ever claim to be wise? Jimin prided himself on being a meddler - he couldn’t just not meddle. Especially when such an opportunity presents itself.

Bowing to the loud cheers, Seokjin moves to sit back down on another sofa, chugging the remnants of his glass. “Alright Joon, it’s your turn - Truth or Dare? And try not to be lame this time, please.”

Namjoon scoffs, faux offense on his face as he glares at his elder. “Hey! Picking truth isn’t lame! I’m telling you my deepest darkest secrets here!” 

“Pretty sure admitting that you want to touch Nari’s tits isn’t a secret, but nice try,” Yoongi deadpans, causing the room to break out in laughter.  You tried to focus on the game, on what ridiculous question Seokjin had prepared for Namjoon, but instead all you could feel was the warmth of Tae’s arm draped around you, all you could think about was how he smelled like a mixture teakwood and lavender, and how much you wanted him to ruin you.

“Y/n!”

Snapping your eyes towards the shout, you come face to face with a deviously smirking Jimin, leaning forward on his knees. He was twirling the straw in his glass like a super villain, and everything about the look he was giving you had your nerves on edge.

“Yes, Jimin? Is there something you need?”

“It’s your turn - truth or dare,” he coos, eyes dancing with mischief. God, he’s such a fucking Slytherin. You were in for it now - you could feel it in your bones.

“Last time I picked ‘dare’ you made me sing half of Evanescence’s discography-”

“Hey, to be fair, you knew it all  by heart and fucking nailed it,” Jungkook interjected, giving you a proud grin.

“Well - yeah, okay I did, thank you very much - but as I was saying, I’ve learned my lesson. I pick truth,” you reply smugly, glaring at the dark haired man. Jimin may look sweet, but luckily you know better than to ignore his cunning.

Which is why you shouldn’t have been surprised when he started cackling.

Eyes creasing into half moons, he threw his head back, running a hand through his hair as he faces you once more, eyebrows waggling. “What’s one thing about Taehyung that you find attractive?”

You choke, grappling for your drink to soothe the burning in your throat, though you were sure it was only making it worse. Face on fire, you looked at him with wide eyes as you cough in a feeble attempt to remember how to speak. 

A warm palm starts patting your back, the man in question leaning down to look into your eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, Tae, I’m fine,” you glare at Jimin, his victorious smirk enraging you further. The last thing you want to do is answer this truthfully; anything obvious is going to weird Taehyung out, but you know if you try and give a lame answer, Jimin will have no issues calling your ass out for it.

“Well, I like his singing voice…” you murmur, eyes focused on the ice melting in your glass, which you immediately bring to your lips once more.

Jimin rolls his eyes, scoffing. “His singing voice? What does that even mean?” he kicks at your leg, pushing you further. “Like… the tone? Or just how it sounds?” he sputters incredulously, choking back a laugh.

“Fuck you! Yes, how it sounds. And also when he does that deep growling thing?” you shiver, shaking your head. “I don’t know, it just gets me. It’s really hot.” 

Whoops, seems the vodka had done some of the talking for you, but it was too late to take it back. You feel your skin heat, but you hold your head high, raising a brow at Jimin in defiance.

The room falls silent for a beat, all eyes on you until Jungkook wolf whistles, everyone breaking out in hoots and yells. You turn to the man next to you, expecting him to blush coyly or even brush you off with a gentle smile - he was nothing if not kind - but instead you find a shit eating grin peering down at you. Cocking your head, you look at him questioningly, but he just winks before slugging back the rest of his drink, his gaze drifting to Jimin’s over your head.

It was all he needed to hear.

Your words were the perfect fuel to the fire of alcohol in his veins to make Taehyung feel bold, yet he was still sober enough to know that this could finally be his chance to show you how he feels.

“Jimin, ask me a question.” Taehyung declares, leaning back into the sofa, dark eyes dancing with mischief. 

“Technically, it’s Y/N’s turn to ask-” Namjoon mumbles, but is quickly shut down by the shouts of displeasure from the group, Hoseok and Jungkook both nudging him while the latter murmurs something about being a ‘cock block’. 

Clearing his throat, he tries again, gaze intense. His eyes are about to fall out of his skull with the power of his attempt at a telepathic message to his friend. “Come on, Jimin. Ask me. You know what? I’ll help you. I pick dare.”

A sly glint of amusement pulls at the edge of Jimin’s mouth, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. You look back and forth between the two of them, not sure what was happening but sure as hell knowing it was going to be nothing be trouble. 

“I dare you to sing a song that shows off your best growling for our girl here,” 

The room erupts in cheers and howls once more, your eyes widening as you reach for your glass. Shit, you’re going to need more vodka to survive this, and you know it. 

Taehyung moves languidly to the front of the room, the side of your body he had been pressed to all evening now left cold. He scrolls through the screen with a sharp focus, honeyed gaze looking over at you every once in awhile to make sure you were still paying attention. And the smile he would give when you were- it practically had your heart in your throat. You looked over at Nari, trying to get her to join you on your couch of pain, but she just blew you a kiss before settling back into her spot next to Yoongi, throwing you a shrug.

That bitch.

All too soon he gives a cheer of victory, looking out over the group as he selects the song, moving to the microphone stand. He poses in front of the room, everyone in attendance on the edges of their seats with anticipation for the music to start.

And then the first notes ring out, and a switch flips.

Gone was the sweet and goofy man you’ve all come to know, and in his place is a demon in black, looking like pure sin. His eyes darken as they land on you,  his lips curving in a confident smirk as he grabs the mic to pull closer to his mouth. Sensual plucks of guitar fills the room in a familiar tune, though a version you hadn’t heard before - the upbeat pop turned into a song of seduction.

“Baby can’t you see, I’m calling. A girl like you should wear a warning. It’s dangerous, I’m fallin’...”

Taehyung is all lust powered flirtation, hips seductively sliding back and forth as he continues to croon the lyrics, casting his molten chocolate eyes to your own. He was dancing closer, his steps slow and purposeful, and you felt the rest of the room fade away as you focused on him - and only him.

The chorus hits, and he smoothly switches from his velvet baritone to growling along with the lyrics, body rolling before sliding on his knees directly in front of you, so close you could see the sweat trail down his neck to bury into the open V of his shirt.

“Taste of your lips I’m on a ride. You’re toxic, I’m slipping under. With a taste of a poison paradise I’m addicted to you - don’t you know that you’re toxic?” he purrs, leaning into you,  a singular finger coming to trace up the exposed skin of your calf.

Everything was suddenly too hot, the room too stifled - you couldn’t get any air to cooperate and flow into your lungs, all your blood pooling in your cheeks. Your heart is racing, sweat dotting your hairline as you stare at the dark haired male in front of you, unable to pull away.

“I think Y/N is about to orgasm in the middle of this bar.”

“Min Yoongi, I swear to FUCK, I will murder you,” you force between clenched teeth, turning to glare at the blonde in question. You can see the retort build on his lips before a palm cups your cheek, pulling your attention back forward.

Taehyung was a breath away from you now, pupils blown wide and voice dangerously low as he continued singing, each word dripping with desire. His hand curves around your jaw, a finger slipping down the long column of your neck until it graced the thin skin of your collarbone.

“Too high, can't come down. It's in the air, it's all around...Can you feel me now?”

Fuck, he was going to ruin you.

Mouth falling open, you squeeze your thighs together uncontrollably, your hands death gripping at the sofa beside you in an effort to keep yourself from moaning. It was embarrassing; how easily his performance was turning you on, how a few throaty murmurs of a song from this man had you falling apart. 

Taehyung was nothing but sinful temptation, and he knew it. 

A small part of you heard the cat calls and lewd shouts from your friends, but you couldn’t concentrate on them. Not when the tall sex god was leaning nearer, using your knees as leverage to pull himself up so he could push your thighs completely together, walking himself forward until he could perch into your lap. Oh my fucking God, he’s sitting in your lap.

The music swells into the ending crescendo, and he continues to rasp the lyrics in low, dulcet tones, eyes never leaving your own. “Intoxicate me now, with your lovin' now. I think I'm ready now, I think I'm ready now,”

You gasped, the intention of the words and the vehement look in his eyes making it seem like it was more than just a song - it was a statement, a confession. Breath seized in your rib cage, your bottom lip trapped between your teeth to stop you from asking more.

Shit, you were ready to risk it all for Kim Taehyung.

Before you could say anything further, he growls out the final lines of the song, the sultriness of his voice causing electricity to race down your spine as he holds out the final note. The music finishes, and his chest is heaving with the effort of his seduction, eyes sparkling with pride.

The entire booth erupts into boisterous claps and cheers, several of the guys standing in ovation causing Taehyung to chuckle nervously, the switch seemingly flipped once more.

He slides off your lap, panting as he moves to pour himself some water, leaving you to gape at him fully. His dark curled locks are dampened with sweat, and despite the easy grin on his face you could clearly still see the fire burning deep in his gaze.

“What the hell, Tae! Where did that come from?” you shout, though a smile was already on your face. “You gotta warn a bitch first, damn. I think I’m sweating,” 

Hoseok moves to stand beside him, slapping a hand onto the younger’s shoulder. “Yeah man, I mean she’s probably dripping everywhere by now.” 

You shriek in indignation, punctuating the sentiment with a lime wedge beamed directly at Hoseok’s over-sized skull.

“Hey, don’t attack me! What, do you need us to get you a pad?”

“Sincerely fuck you, Hobi.”

While the others continue to congratulate Taehyung for his one man show, you suck down the rest of your drink, moving to stand. Your knees wobble, and you’re unsure what affected you more - all the booze you drank, or him. Damn, you need a moment.  Slinking toward the exit, you search for the bathroom,  relief washing over you as you spot it down the hallway. 

You’re about to grab for the handle when lithe fingers wrap around your wrist, pulling you to turn around before your back is pressed to the cool wall of the club. You hiss at the contact, eyes blazing as they take in the culprit - Taehyung. 

“Tae?”

He smooths his hands up your arms until each palm is flat against the wall on either side of your head, effectively trapping you in place. His pupils are brimming with depth-less lust though the smile on his face is sweet, the clash making your head swim. 

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you back there,” he murmurs, eyes searching your own. “But it was the perfect chance, and I had to act on it. I couldn’t just sit back and wait any longer, Y/N.” 

“Wait any longer for what? I’m not sure if I’m following-”

“Wait any longer to tell you how I feel about you. Wait any longer to do this.”

You weren’t expecting for his mouth to press against yours, but your lips moved automatically, parting and sighing to accommodate him. His body soon followed, relaxing against your form as his hands moved to cup your jaw. You groaned at the feeling of him, your fingers wrapping around the base of his neck to tangle into his hair. 

Feeling him like this only makes you want more, tongue moving to lick at the seams of his pout before he was sliding his own in kind. He groaned when they met in the middle, the sound causing arousal to pool rapidly low in your gut. Dragging his teeth against your lower lip, he gave you a nibble before pulling away, forehead pressed to yours.

“Does this mean you like me too?” he questions breathlessly, small smile on his face. 

“I’ve always liked you, Tae,” you whisper, turning his head so you could suck at the tender spot under his jaw, his answering whine encouraging your ministrations. “I liked you when we were friends, and I think I like you a bit more after that display.” 

He chuckles lowly, digits sinking into your hair only to pull you back to meet his gaze. “When we were friends? What, are we not friends anymore?”

“Well, not just friends, I hope….” you purr, leaning forward to press your mouth against his swollen bottom lip. “Friends don’t know the way you taste, do they?” 

A groan of your name is his only response before he’s back on you, licking into your mouth with such fervor your knees start to shake. His tongue is relentless, seeking to savor you fully before moving to taste the skin of your neck, your collarbone, the top of your breast. Falling into the lure of Taehyung was all too easy - almost enough to have you forgetting that you were in some stale bar’s dim hallway. 

Grabbing his shoulders, you spin until you have effectively switched places, Taehyung’s tall form now pressed against the wall as you nibble at the exposed skin of his chest. “I think you deserve a performance of your own, don’t you think?” you sigh, eyes inspecting his own, awaiting his approval. 

“I think I’m one lucky bastard who would be a fool to say no to someone as amazing as you,”

The blatant affection in his voice makes you freeze, your throat tightening with every hopeful squeeze of your heart. You were trying to convince him to let you suck him off in the karaoke bar bathroom, and he had to go and say sweet shit like that? 

Shaking your head, you giggle at the sentiment. “You’re too good to me, Tae,” you hum, hands gripping his biceps to drag him towards you, legs propelling you back until you feel the door give way, the light to the restroom automatically clicking on. 

A victorious grin quirks at your lips when you see the private bathroom empty, and a quick flick of your wrist has the door locked just as Taehyung envelopes you into his chest. 

His kisses only intensify, lips undressing you until you were soft and wet and pliant, grasping for anything you could to ground you to him. You make quick work of several more of his buttons until you could nip and bite at his chest unrestricted, your hand fumbling with his belt. 

A low, throaty moan echoed as you grasp his length, freeing him from his trousers enough that you were able to feel him completely in your palm. His cock was just as beautiful as he was, long and thick and dripping with precum, and the thought of having it in your mouth had a rush of arousal flood between your thighs. 

You wince when your knees hit the cool tile, though the promise of tasting him numbed any senses but the ones attuned to him. You thumb at his leaking head softly, his groans edging you near until you could smell his excitement, breath ghosting hot on his cock. Mouth falling open, you slide forward until his hardness was resting on the bed of your tongue, your lips closing to give the tip gentle sucks.

“Fuck, love.  You don’t have to do this, you know, we can-”

Swirling your tongue, you push further, hollowing your cheeks to take him deep into your mouth until he was kissing the back of your throat, your nose nestled into the coarse hairs against his pelvis. His size already had your jaw aching, but the way he groaned your name made it worth the discomfort, and you glide back until only the head remained.

Letting him fall out with a lewd pop, you lick a wide strip up the side of his cock, peering up at him through your lashes. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

“God, please don’t.” 

The words were barely out of his mouth before you moved yours back over his length, taking him as deep as you can each time, relishing the way he stretched your throat. You couldn’t stop imagining how he’d feel inside you, how intense and satisfying the initial burn would be when he was fully sheathed in your aching cunt - how much sweeter your orgasm would feel because it was caused by his cock, caused by him.

His dulcet whines and soft moans were the only sounds besides the wet slide of your mouth, and hearing him sound so desperate for you had you mewling against him, your fingers itching to press against your throbbing clit. 

“You’re taking me so good, love. Feel so fucking amazing  wrapped around my cock,” he hissed, a hand lowering to tangle into the tresses at your crown, guiding you gently. “Such a good girl for me. I’m going to make you come so fucking hard when we get home,”  

His hips started thrusting to meet your movements, the slides becoming sloppy as he got close to his peak. “With my fingers, my  mouth, my cock. I’m going to have you coming so much you’re going to have to beg me to stop.” 

The naughtiness of his words had you moaning around him, the vibrations causing him to let out a cry of your name. You’re sure your panties are ruined at this point, the tops of your thighs sticky with arousal, and as much as you want to touch yourself, you wanted to fall apart under Taehyung even more. 

Pulling off to let air return to your lungs, you glide over him with your fist, urging him to let go. “Come for me, Tae. Let me taste you,” you rasp, before sinking your mouth down him once more. 

“God, you’re so fucking perfect. You gonna swallow me, love?” he breathes, both hands coming to wrap deep in your hair as he continues his pumping, lust filled gaze boring into your own. You nod as you blink up at him, your lips swollen with abuse.

“Fuck, that’s it.. So good, love, I-I’m coming-” 

You still as he tugs at your locks, holding you in place as he thrusts his length deep in your mouth, the warmth of his release coating your raw throat. Swallowing, you allow him several stutters of his hips before he pulls away, hands smoothing to cup your face. 

“Holy hell, Y/N, that was…. Are you okay?” Worry etches his brow as he reaches out for you, taking in your messy appearance - saliva mixed with come dripping from the corners of your lips, black mascara trails smudging the edges of your cheeks. You’re gasping for air, but you couldn’t help the satisfied smile as you took his hands, allowing him to raise you to your feet. 

“Seeing you fall apart was one of the hottest things I’ve ever witnessed, Tae. I’m more than okay, trust me.” 

He blushes at your words, and the irony that the complement made him more shy than when he was ramming his dick down your throat not lost on you.  

He tucks himself back into his pants before adjusting your clothes as well,  delicate thumbs rising to wipe away the remnants of your shared tryst off your face before giving you a chaste kiss. 

“So, does that mean… you’ll go out with me?” he questions hopefully, giddy anticipation in his eyes. You weren’t sure if you would ever get used to the rapid switch of power Taehyung wields between sweet and sin, not that you were complaining. 

“Yes, Tae. I’ll go out with you,” you grin, the brightness of his smile infectious. “Plus, I seem to recall someone promising to make me come so much that I’ll be begging them to stop…” you trail off, mischief evident in your teasing glance.

Throwing back his head with a honeyed laugh, he pushes open the door, arm gesturing out to the empty hall before him. “Ah, yes - I believe you are correct. After you, milady,”

Groaning, you slap his chest as you walk past. “Say that again and I’ll go home with Seokjin.”

[pumpkinmaster999]

Heroes Walk in Dirt

By Jess Awh

At last call at the bar I am eight shots in, swing dancing with a broom while Sasha wipes the wood down. His face says he’s wondering how a mess like me can be trusted to clean shit up.

I tell him when I’m home I like to vacuum drunk. Drunk vacuuming is kinda like being on a swing: you blithely toss your body around the room in a tango with the vacuum, singing to yourself, forgetting certain corners. I sing the live recorded version of a John Prine song, “That’s the Way that the World Goes Round.” Sasha asks why live. The song’s got this line: “it’s a half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown,” I say, but on the live tape John Prine tells the crowd how a woman came up to him in San Fransisco once and asked him to play his song about the happy enchilada. She thought it went, “it’s a happy enchilada and you think you’re gonna drown.”

In my bedroom I take eight shots of Jim Beam and grab the expensive vacuum I bought at Costco with the different detachable heads which I call “my vacuum ingredients,” and I swing and sing to myself about the happy enchilada.

Sasha shrugs and scrubs the gun line. He says that that John Prine song has a verse where John Prine pretty much says it’s ok to beat your wife. It isn’t okay to beat your wife, I don’t sing that verse. I know it isn’t okay to beat your wife. My wood floors shine. I hate when dirt from the floor sticks to my feet as though it were all the world’s injustice.

I smoke in the tub and I swim in the Hudson, so in a way no bath I take is ever clean as a true baptism. I dislike the laundromat, so I wash clothes at home and hang them on the fire escape. In a nutshell, all I can do is try, I say, in a nutshell. Trying is what we do when succeeding eludes our sight. Sasha once came over after work and laid on my bed eating pistachios, setting the empty shells down on his chest. He’s been upset because his ex is about to marry a man she loves less just to get him a green card and have some kids. I’d never ask anyone or anything to change. I would’ve vacuumed his shirt, though.

I walk to the train to work like always and Lee is waiting outside the liquor store. For whatever reason, the liquor store people hired him seemingly just to stand outside and ask people how they’re doing as they go by. He’s hardly ever inside, and when he is he doesn’t seem to be doing anything. He doesn’t have any flyers to hand out. “What’s new, Lee?” “Oh, you know, new gangsters, new crackheads.” “Oh yeah? You look spiffy. I like the blazer.” “Ah, thanks, it’s gettin’ cold.” “Yep, yep.” “My birthday’s coming up.” I like that one because he always tells me what’s new with the block when I’m really asking what’s new with him. “Shit, when is it?” “The 26th.” “No way, I’m having a party that night. I’ll bring you a piece of cake or something.” We laugh. Lee is always in a clean black button down and black pants that are never wrinkly. He’s like a blackboard that got wiped down with a wet towel. I’m gonna bring him cake because he doesn’t expect me to. We live in this charmed narrative where we move one plant into the sun, or put a sardine out for one stray cat, or organize one shelf, and then the sky opens up so sunbeams land on our shoulders like we somehow answered a prayer God didn’t even say out loud. I read this story in American Girl Magazine when I was nine where they’re walking on the beach and they find hundreds of washed up starfish dying in the sun. The one girl says “we can’t save them all, it’s pointless” and the other starts throwing them in the water one by one. She goes “but we can at least save a few, and that still matters.”

I get to the bar and this guy I know is there drinking, Grant Barber. I tell Sasha I’m going to go hide in the basement and he knows what I mean. A couple summers ago when I was bartending in Chinatown I became friends with Grant Barber because he was living in the radio station. He’d listen to my show on the mail room speakers on Sundays and say things like “I’m glad you played Patsy Cline” or “I can tell you like the music, that’s why you’re such a good host.” Grant Barber has blue eyes like Santa’s eyes, and that’s why I started buying him lunch and letting him shower at my apartment. I’m a good person but I get starfished sometimes. So I served court papers to the squatter who’d forced him out of his place in BedStuy, I went with him to the notary and everything, but when the legal shit started to drag along and he was sending me messages like “I’m gonna kill myself today” and “why won’t you answer me, I’m going to die” I stopped replying. I couldn’t fix it any more for him, and what was I gonna do, sit there listening to a dude I barely knew threaten suicide because I ignored his Facebook DMs? He said he never asked me to “fix it,” just to be there, and then he said he was in love with me. I said this is too many starfish. Actually, I said nothing.

Grant Barber talked to Blaze Foley in Austin back in 1985. I believe that story because he never lied to me about anything else besides the killing himself. “Fuck, I love Blaze Foley, seriously?” Yeah, at this concert at The Outhouse where he was double billed with Townes Van Zandt. Townes played for an hour straight, and I was there with my girlfriend, they were waiting for Blaze to come onstage but no one could find him I guess. He came on and played one song, then left again. That night is the only time I talked to him ever even though I saw him twice or three times. I’ll never forget what he said…I went to the men’s room and he was there barreling through a fifth of whiskey…slouched over a urinal. It was just us two and for some reason I started rambling about how much I looked up to him, how his music moved me, and then he stared at me and said one sentence. He said, and he was slurring—it took him a whole long minute to say this—he said “my problem is that I can’t stop being funny.”

I was funny once, at a nude figure drawing session held by a local art club. They had offered me thirty bucks to play the guitar and sing my songs while the models posed and the artists sketched them. The room echoed like the inside of a drum and the floors were shiny. I sang things I had written and they mingled with the dust lit up by the window and hovering in the air. Afterwards a girl came up to me and said “I loved your lyrics, they were so funny!” And maybe they were funny, but I recoiled because I felt stung, because I had been admitting that I was weak, which is braver than most things I do. Blaze Foley got shot in the chest by his friend Concho January’s son. That’s how he died. He confronted Carey, the son, about stealing Concho January’s veteran pension and welfare checks, and a few days later Carey shot him. Blaze’s friends covered his coffin in duct tape because he never got starfished, he knew his strength even though he looked to be made of flesh. Sasha was uninvited to his ex’s wedding because Gavin (the new fiancé) hates him, and when he found out he said fine, I’m happy for you guys, then cried on my shoulder in the bar basement later.

I love Blaze Foley but I doubt I would’ve ever dated him because I bet his hair was dirty all the time. He has this song called “Sittin’ by the Side of the Road” that’s about being homeless and being fine with it, because what do you even need besides a guitar and a meal to eat? I need a sanctuary that I can control and retreat to. The best gift I’ve ever given a friend is an invitation to stay with me, to hide in my house with the vacuumed floors, out of New York, and feel clean. This is why I wouldn’t date Sasha: his apartment is an unheeded hodgepodge of once-important or still-important things not set in order, not categorized, not scrubbed with Clorox wipes. I wonder what service he’s out there doing that makes him forget about cleaning. He texts me that Grant Barber left the bar and I come upstairs, eyeing the balled-up napkins and brown leaves sprinkled on the ground as I walk to the front door. I will clean this up before anyone else has a chance to disregard it.

[emerald-studies]

The complex Nina Simone

“Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina on February 21st, 1933, Nina’s prodigious talent as a musician was evident early on when she started playing piano by ear at the age of three. Her mother, a Methodist minister, and her father, a handyman and preacher himself, couldn’t ignore young Eunice’s God-given gift of music. Raised in the church on the straight and narrow, her parents taught her right from wrong, to carry herself with dignity, and to work hard. She played piano – but didn’t sing – in her mother’s church, displaying remarkable talent early in her life. Able to play virtually anything by ear, she was soon studying classical music with an Englishwoman named Muriel Mazzanovich, who had moved to the small southern town. It was from these humble roots that Eunice developed a lifelong love of Johann Sebastian Bach, Chopin, Brahms, Beethoven and Schubert.After graduating valedictorian of her high school class, the community raised money for a scholarship for Eunice to study at Julliard in New York City before applying to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her family had already moved to the City Of Brotherly Love, but Eunice’s hopes for a career as a pioneering African American classical pianist were dashed when the school denied her admission. To the end, she herself would claim that racism was the reason she did not attend. While her original dream was unfulfilled, Eunice ended up with an incredible worldwide career as Nina Simone – almost by default.

 One fateful day in 1954, looking to supplement her income, Eunice auditioned to sing at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Word spread about this new singer and pianist who was dipping into the songbooks of Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and the like, transforming popular tunes of the day into a unique synthesis of jazz, blues, and classical music. Her rich, deep velvet vocal tones, combined with her mastery of the keyboard, soon attracted club goers up and down the East Coast. In order to hide the fact that she was singing in bars, Eunice’s mother would refer to the practice as “working in the fires of hell”, overnight Eunice Waymon became Nina Simone by taking the nickname “Nina” meaning “little one” in Spanish and “Simone” after the actress Simone Signoret.At the age of twenty-four, Nina came to the attention of the record industry. After submitting a demo of songs she had recorded during a performance in New Hope, Pennsylvania, she was signed by Syd Nathan, owner of the Ohio-based King Records (home to James Brown), to his Jazz imprint, Bethlehem Records. The boisterous Nathan had insisted on choosing songs for her debut set, but eventually relented and allowed Nina to delve in the repertoire she had been performing at clubs up and down the eastern seaboard. One of Nina’s stated musical influences was Billie Holiday and her inspired reading of “Porgy” (from “Porgy & Bess”) heralded the arrival of a new talent on the national scene. At the same mammoth 13 hour session in 1957, recorded in New York City, Nina also cut “My Baby Just Cares For Me,” previously recorded by Nate King Cole, Count Basie, and Woody Herman. The song was used by Chanel in a perfume commercial in Europe in the 1980’s and it became a massive hit for Nina, a British chart topper at #5, and thus a staple of her repertoire for the rest of her career.

Nina Simone’s stay with Bethlehem Records was short lived and in 1959, after moving to New York City, she was signed by Joyce Selznik, the eastern talent scout for Colpix Records, a division of Columbia Pictures. Months after the release of her debut LP for the label (1959‘s The Amazing Nina Simone), Nina was performing at her first major New York City venue, the mid-Manhattan-located Town Hall. Sensing that her live performances would capture the essential spontaneity of her artistry, Colpix opted to record her September 12, 1959 show. “You Can Have Him,” a glorious torch song previously cut by Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald, was one of the highlights of the evening. The song opened with a dazzling keyboard arpeggio that would become her signature for decades. So momentous was the Town Hall performance that it inspired some of the same musicians, featuring the vocals of Nina’s only daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, to do a tribute to a sold out audience over forty five years later.As Nina’s reputation as an engaging live performer grew, it wasn’t long before she was asked to perform at the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival. Accompanied on the June 30th, 1960 show by Al Schackman, a guitarist who would go on to become Nina’s longest-running musical colleague, bassist Chris White, and drummer Bobby Hamilton, the dynamic show was recorded by the Colpix. The subsequent release in 1961 of the old blues tune “Trouble In Mind” as a single gave Nina her third charted record.Her stay with Colpix resulted in some wonderful albums – nine in all – included Nina’s version of Bessie Smith’s blues classic “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out.” Issued as a single in 1960, it became Nina’s second charted Pop and R&B hit and one of two Colpix tracks to achieve such a feat during her five year stint with the label. Other stand out tracks from that era were the soulful song “Cotton Eyed Joe,” the torch tune “The Other Women,” and the Norwegian folk rendition of “Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair” – all beautiful examples of Nina Simone at her storytelling best, painting a vivid picture with her skill as a lyrical interpreter. During this time with the label, Nina recorded one civil rights song, Oscar Brown Jr.’s “Brown Baby,” which was included on her fifth album for the label, At The Village Gate.“Critics started to talk about what sort of music I was playing,” writes Nina in her 1991 autobiography I Put A Spell On You, “and tried to find a neat slot to file it away in. It was difficult for them because I was playing popular songs in a classical style with a classical piano technique influenced by cocktail jazz. On top of that I included spirituals and children’s song in my performances, and those sorts of songs were automatically identified with the folk movement. So, saying what sort of music I played gave the critics problems because there was something from everything in there, but it also meant I was appreciated across the board – by jazz, folk, pop and blues fans as well as admirers of classical music.” Clearly Nina Simone was not an artist who could be easily classified.

Nina’s Colpix recordings cemented her appeal to a nightclub based U.S. audience. Once she moved to Phillips, a division of Dutch-owned Mercury Records, she was ready to expand her following globally. Her first LP for the label, 1964’s In Concert, signaled Nina’s undaunted stand for freedom and justice for all, stamping her irrevocably as a pioneer and inspirational leader in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Her own original “Mississippi Goddam” was banned throughout the South but such a response made no difference in Nina’s unyielding commitment to liberty; subsequent groundbreaking recordings for Philips like “Four Women” (recorded September 1965) and “Strange Fruit” continued to keep Nina in the forefront of the few performers willing to use music as a vehicle for social commentary and change. Such risks were seldom taken by artists during that time of such dramatic civil upheaval.For years, Nina felt there was much about the way that she made her living that was less than appealing. One gets a sense of that in the following passage from I Put A Spell on You where she explains her initial reluctance to perform material that was tied to the Civil Rights Movement.“Nightclubs were dirty, making records was dirty, popular music was dirty and to mix all that with politics seemed senseless and demeaning. And until songs like ‘Mississippi Goddam’ just burst out of me, I had musical problems as well. How can you take the memory of a man like [Civil Rights activist] Medgar Evers and reduce all that he was to three and a half minutes and a simple tune? That was the musical side of it I shied away from; I didn’t like ‘protest music’ because a lot of it was so simple and unimaginative it stripped the dignity away from the people it was trying to celebrate. But the Alabama church bombing and the murder of Medgar Evers stopped that argument and with ‘Mississippi Goddam,’ I realized there was no turning back.”

Nina was deeply affected by these two events. In 1962, she had befriended noted playwright Lorraine Hansberry and spoke often with her about the Civil Rights Movement. While she was moved by her conversations with Hansberry, it took the killing of Medgar Evers and the four girls in Birmingham to act as catalysts for a transformation of Nina’s career.There were many sides to Nina Simone. Among her most amazing recordings were the original and so-soulful version “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and “I Put A Spell On You” (which had reached to #23 in the U.S. charts), eerily moody, unrestrained, drama to the max; “Ne Me Quitte Pas” tender, poignant, filled with melancholy; and with gospel-like fervor, the hypnotic voodoo of “See-Line Woman.” In her own unrivaled way, Nina also loved to venture into the more earthy side of life. After she signed with RCA Records in 1967 (a deal her then husband/manager Andy Stroud had negotiated), her very first recordings for the label included the saucy “Do I Move You?” and the undeniably sexual “I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl” which were from the concept album entitled Nina Sings The Blues. Backed by a stellar cast of New York CIty session musicians, the album was far and away Nina’s most down-home recording session. By this time, Nina had become central to a circle of African American playwrights, poets, and writers all centered in Harlem along with the previously mentioned Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. The outcome from one of the relationships became a highlight of the LP with the song “Backlash Blues,” a song that’s lyrics originated from the last poem Langston Hughes submitted for publication prior to his death in May, 1967 and gave to Nina.Nina’s seven years with RCA produced some remarkable recordings, ranging from two songs featured in the Broadway musical “Hair” (combined into a medley, “Ain’t Got No – I Got Life,” a #2 British hit in 1968) to a Simone-ified version of George Harrison’s “Here Comes The Sun,” which remained in Nina’s repertoire all the way through to her final performance in 2002. Along the way at RCA, songs penned by Bob Dylan (“Just Like A Woman”), the brothers Gibb (“To Love Somebody”), and Tina Turner (“Funkier Than A Mosquito’s Tweeter”) took pride of place alongside Nina’s own anthem of empowerment, the classic “To Be Young, Gifted, & Black,” a song written in memory of Nina’s good friend Lorraine Hansberry. The title of the song coming from a play Hansberry had been working on just prior to her death.After Nina left RCA, she spent a good deal of the 1970’s and early 1980’s living in Liberia, Barbados, England, Belgium, France, Switzerland and The Netherlands. In 1978, for the first time since she left RCA, Nina was convinced by U.S. jazz veteran Creed Taylor to make an album for his CTI label. This would be her first new studio album in six years and she recorded it in Belgium with strings and background vocals cut in New York City. With the kind of “clean” sound that was a hallmark of CTI recordings, the Nina Simone album that emerged was simply brilliant. Nina herself would later claimed that she ”hated” the record but many fans strongly disagreed. With an eighteen piece string section conducted by David Mathews (known for his arrangements on James Brown’s records), the results were spectacular. The title track, Randy Newman’s evocative “Baltimore,” was an inspired Nina Simone choice. It had a beautifully constructed reggae-like beat and used some of the finest musicians producer Creed Taylor could find including Nina’s guitarist and music director, Al Schackman.

Aside from 1982’s Fodder On My Wings that Nina recorded for Carrere Records, two albums she made of the independent VPI label in Hollywood (Nina’s Back and Live And Kickin’) in 1985, and a 1987 Live At Vine Street set recorded for Verve, Nina Simone did not make another full length album until Elektra A&R executive Michael Alago persuaded her to record again. After much wining and dining, Nina finally signed on the dotted line. Elektra tapped producer Andre Fischer, noted conductor Jeremy Lubbock, and a trio of respected musicians to provide the suitable environment for this highly personal reading of “A Single Woman,” which became the centerpiece and title track for Nina Simone’s final full length album.With two marriages behind her in 1993 she settled in Carry-le-Rout, near Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. She would continue to tour through the 1990’s and became very much ‘the single woman’ she sang about on her last label recording. She rarely traveled without an entourage, but if you were fortunate enough to get to know the woman behind the music you could glimpse the solitary soul that understood the pain of being misunderstood. It was one of Nina’s many abilities to comprehend the bittersweet qualities of life and then parlay them into a song that made her such an enduring and fascinating person.

In her autobiography, Nina Simone writes that her function as an artist is “…to make people feel on a deep level. It’s difficult to describe because it’s not something you can analyze; to get near what it’s about you have to play it. And when you’ve caught it, when you’ve got the audience hooked, you always know because it’s like electricity hanging in the air.” It was that very electricity that made her such an important artist to so many and it will be that electricity that continues to turn on new people all over the world for years to come.Nina Simone died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rout, Bouches-du-Rhone on April 21, 2003. Her funeral service was attended by Miriam Makeba, Patti Labelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actor Ossie Davis and hundreds of others. Elton John sent a floral tribute with the message, “You were the greatest and I love you”.” (source)

Watch “What Happened Miss Simone?”

[oneweekoneband]

Vacation

There’s a lot of clichés about artists burning out just as they come through with their brightest work, and in some people’s version of this story, that might be the frame for Vacation, BTMI!’s final album before breaking up. Personally, I’ve never bought into those monomyth-esque narratives about bands’ inherent career arcs, and so I’m not inclined to view the album this way. I will say that while I absolutely love it, I don���t think it’s necessarily the band’s best album. It’s also just not accurate to think that this was a point of “burning out” for BTMI!, since Jeff started writing for his solo career almost immediately following the band’s dissolution.

Still, Vacation does hew eerily close to a lot of these rock ‘n’ roll archetypes. It was a momentous album, it was probably the most publicized release the band had seen, it represented a new musical direction that seemed to present itself as the summary of Jeff’s experimentation with genre and songform over the rest of the band’s career, and the band very much did break up after its release (although, as with ASOB, it took a few years for that to become official).

About that publicization: while I’m somewhat sad that I missed out on most of BTMI!’s career (being, you know, too young to go to shows or even think much about punk for the first 5-ish years), I’m still glad I found them when I did, because the build-up to the release of Vacation was a really interesting time to be a fan. In 2010, almost a year before the release, the band began a roll-out of singles to get people excited about the new material, and it worked like a charm on me: the boisterous first single “Everybody That You Love” seemed like a sign of great things to come if its electrifying lead guitars and dizzying vocal hook were any indication. “Hurricane Waves” and “Can’t Complain” showed even more diversity to look forward to when the band released them in 2011 ahead of the album. In addition to that, Jeff launched a whole new label to sell Vacation (and much of the other stuff released through Quote Unquote) through, Really Records. Clearly, he was trying to communicate something about the step forward he wanted Vacation to represent.

And fans like me, despite knowing that “Side Projects Are Never Successful” and that Jeff was never in it for the fame, had reason to believe not only that this might have been the band’s big shot, but that they might actually make it big – or at least to become big enough to continue to exist as a full-time touring band that played music for a living. The Vacation singles were getting media coverage like no other previous BTMI! release had, and they marked a direction for the band’s music that, while retaining the punk integrity and musical ambition of the earlier albums, also proved more melodic, cleanly-produced, and accessible to a broader audience. While previous albums got recognition in the punk scene, Vacation looked like it had “crossover potential.” And when it finally arrived, there were even more positive signs: within half a year of the release, “Can’t Complain” made an appearance in “The Office.”

Of course, for all this to work, the album had to be good, and thankfully it was better than that – despite what might have sounded like my talking it down, it definitely represents a new high for the band. It’s Jeff’s own favourite BTMI! album, and I can see why: its complexity is something to be proud of. He had always been influenced by artists falling outside of the punk spectrum, but here those influences are more pronounced than ever, and the band finally breaks free of its ska-punk chains with a sound wholly its own. Brian Wilson-esque harmony arrangements and multi-part songs abound, and in a similar fashion to To Leave Or Die In Long Island, a couple motifs from individual songs (“Campaign For A Better Next Weekend” and “Sick, Later”) turn up in multiple places on the album for thematic cohesion. If SMiLE was Wilson’s “teenage symphony to God,” Vacation might be Jeff’s “adult symphony to punk rock.”

Many of my favourite songs off Vacation stand completely alone in the BTMI! catalogue, with little stylistic precedent. “Why Oh, Why Oh, Why (Oh Oh Oh Oh)” is a brash, thunderous fusion of Elvis Costello’s melodic sense and Bruce Springsteen’s maximalism, with a wealth of memorable melodies and lyrics that are all Jeff’s own. “Can’t Complain” is that rare song that manage to “rock quietly” – it’s both hushed and urgent in its muted acoustic chords and slide guitar lines, panicking at the pace of everyday life while simultaneously realizing how much there is to be thankful. And of course there’s the glorious, dynamic opener that slowly builds from a nostalgic piano riff accompanied by subtle, emotionally-charged chord changes into an explosive hardcore-punk charge, with vocals ranging from Jeff’s cleanest, quietest-ever singing to his more characteristic shouting to a group chant at the end.

But even when Vacation retreads familiar territory, it still feels like it’s moving forward. “The Shit That You Hate” stands in a long line of 3/4 5-6-minute slow-burn songs appearing on BTMI! albums, but it feels like a perfection of that particular type of song rather than a simple revisiting. Jeff’s weak, warbly falsetto note when he sings “Hold onto your hope” always gets me a little choked up. “Hurricane Waves” might recycle a melody from To Leave Or Die In Long Island during its bridge, but the rest of the song is all new, providing that melody with a fascinating recontextualization to great effect. The aforementioned “Sick, Later” has a zig-zagging riff in an unusual time signature combination that still manages to be incredibly hooky, as well as some of my favourite lyrics on the album:

The first time that I took you to the hospital,

I was tired and you wanted to die,

I drove off, and I couldn't understand at all

Fuck, I didn't even walk you inside,

I thought we all wanna die, we all wanna die,

And I thought that was fine, I thought that was fine.

One of the album’s most instantaneous joys comes from “Vocal Coach,” the shortest true song on the album. Jeff’s vocals were probably the most consistently difficult factor in terms of getting listeners outside of punk to take BTMI! seriously; they’re somewhere in between the traditionally-expected “bad” vocals of classic punk and the cleaner, more melodic style of singing dominant in pop-punk. Either way, they definitely don’t play to mainstream ears (perhaps this is why “Campaign For A Better Next Weekend” starts the way it does, and for that reason, Vacation might be the best place for a listener that’s not well-versed in punk to jump into the band’s discography). On “Vocal Coach,” Jeff takes on this problem with a healthy dose of irony, penning an ode to the imperfections he loves in music, the “dirty covers, dusty grooves and deep scratches.” But with a melody reminiscent of Pinkerton-era Weezer, he also expresses his own frustration with his inability to transcend the ugliness of his own singing: “I get embarrassed when my voice pops out and it’s not like in my head, / If I got a new vocal coach and I could hit the notes, you’d fall in love again.”

I understand that frustration – I’ve sung in more than one band, but before I even started playing in a band, I never thought I could be a singer because I thought I wasn’t good enough. But over time, I slowly realized that the reason I thought that was because I was comparing myself to singers who were already considered to be superhumanly-gifted, and that not every singer needs to be that way; there are thresholds of “good-enough,” and realizing where you fall in that can be a very freeing experience. I learned to sing by imitation Johnny Rotten and Billy Corgan, singers with definitively “bad” voices that nevertheless managed to communicate pretty much exactly what they wanted to in their songs. And Jeff Rosenstock was another big inspiration to me in that respect: he was a “bad” singer who nevertheless sang his songs defiantly, against popular tastes, because who else was going to do it for him? (Not to mention that as a “rock ‘n’ role model,” Jeff seems like a much better guy than Johnny or Billy.) But like Jeff, I know that there are times when singers wish we could do more with our voices than what seems to be within our natural ability, and we start wondering if it’s just a matter of putting in the right amount of work to “perfect” that voice. “Vocal Coach” brilliantly captures the nuances of this feeling in under two and a half minutes in an unforgettably catchy tune.

It couldn’t last, though. Even Jeff seemed to know it, as he sang on “Vocal Coach”: “ I'm aware that I'm kind of getting scared the love that I thought had no bounds is coming to an end.” Vacation proved that BTMI! could be made more accessible and reach a wider audience, but there were limits to that growth. Just what reasons lay behind those limits will always be a bit obscure, but after a while, it became clear that despite being their most successful album to date, Vacation wasn’t going to be a true “commercial breakthrough.” To be fair, I don’t even know if that’s what Jeff wanted. I haven’t been fully clear on why the band broke up, and strangely, Jeff even seemed a little vague on it in this interview, citing one member’s moving to Australia as part of it. It didn’t have much to do with a lack of commercial success (Jeff claims the band wasn’t even on as much of an upswing in popularity as fans had come to believe at the time), and I doubt he would have soldiered on with his solo career the way he did if it had. In fact, I suspect his solo career is probably more well-known by now than BTMI! was even at their peak.

In the end, I’m just happy the band go to do what they wanted to for as long as they did, and that BTMI! brought so much to my life and the lives of other fans like me. I’m also incredibly grateful I got to see them at least once, on their last tour before they broke up in what turned out to be my first real punk show. It was, in some ways, kind of a fluke: I was 16 and the band had planned some tour dates in Canada, including Ottawa, which was truly shocking, considering that almost no one big (outside of the Wu-Tang Clan – look that one up, it’s a strange story) comes to Ottawa. But it was even flukier than that, because it turned out that my parents had planned a road trip to Toronto for our family over the date BTMI! was playing! Of course, I checked the tour dates and sure enough, they were coming to Toronto too, so I got the tickets for that show instead and saw them for the first and last time at the loft above Sneaky Dee’s with my sister. It was an amazing experience, and I can’t think of a better way to have been introduced to live punk. I was caught off-guard by the mosh pit, but it was a friendly one, and I ended up spending most of the show in it. The band played almost every song I could have hoped for (“25”! “I Don’t Love You Anymore”! Every great song on Vacation!) and I ended the night a sweaty, dehydrated mess. As Jeff came down from the stage into the crowd after the show, I gave him a big hug and told him how awesome I thought it was. And while I hadn’t brought a blank t-shirt for the band to spray-paint their name on (a tradition from the early days they were still doing at that time), I bought one of their special “bilingual shirts” that I assume were made specially for the Canadian leg of the tour. I still have it:

[loftec]

Hi i don't know if anyone haven't ask you about it or i'm the only one who wants to read it but CAN YOU PLEASE SHARE YOUR NOTES (ch.44) i don't know if you were serious about that but i really would love to read them cause i'm obsessed with everything what is ntw related 🖤 hope ur well

Hi friend! It’s possibly just you (or one other person, in case of separate anons) but that is enough! I was absolutely serious. 

Note on the notes! This is not all of it, because my notes for this chapter were often repetitive and very messy, and some older notes were from four years ago when I didn’t bother writing things out properly, so they barely make sense even to me. But! I’ve done my best to sort everything in some kind of linear order, and removed most of the repetition. And, well, you asked for it... sorry! 🖤

Ian shows up in the morning, Mickey digs out the magazine Iggy stole from Amelia’s dentist’s office the other day and confronts Ian about the big-ass article in Rolling Stone about IAN’S BAND, says he’s listened to some of their songs, takes out a paper where he’s written down some lyrics that sound strangely familiar.

You’re famous!

I’m in a band, people know about us right now, tomorrow they might not. I’m not famous.

You’re kinda famous.

Ian talks about Mickey recognizing him because of Frank. Hints that there might be several songs inspired by Mickey. It’s awkward as fuck, didn’t want you to know.

Were you ever gonna tell me?

Oh yeah, I had a plan. 3 dates, dinner and a movie, day out with Yev, dinner at my place turned vigorous love-making. Second prong; cohabitation, engagement, marriage, then on our wedding night I tell you about crushing on Justin Timberlake when I was 12,

then I tell you I’m semi-famous, if it still applies.

Mickey thinks his face might be on fire.

What the?

I’m fucking with you, Mick. Figured you already knew.

This again?

You angry?

No, I’m not fucking angry. Just-

Freaked out.

Kinda, yeah.

You shouldn’t be. Please.

It’s weird that I didn’t know, I feel like a schmuck. (And I’m pretty sure by your count we’ve already been on those first two dates.)

I’m sorry. I thought you knew and by some fucking miracle didn’t treat me different. I’d been gearing up to maybe have to have this conversation on our date, ‘cause it’s shit sometimes, you know? I don’t do interviews and I never talk about myself when I gotta do them, but there’s still a limelight and a lot of bullshit that complicates

I’ve been crushing on you since we met basically, and I thought I’d just… let it run its course, keep my mouth shut about it and deal until it went away and we could remain friends without me fucking it up.

Didn’t work, by the way.

Good.

Mickey is talking about it with Etch, who suggests that Ian’s been writing at the diner for a reason.

Etch looks up some lyrics and Mickey caps locks them to Ian

You might have inspired a few lately…

Fuck off. How many?

Since we met? Pretty much all of them.

Maybe one or two made it on to the album, but I wrote those before we really got to know each other so they’re just like… about moments, and how I would feel around you.

Didn’t think of it as creepy but it kinda sounds that way now.

No it’s fine

I won’t do it again.

Said it’s fine. Kinda like it.

Yeah?

You gonna tell me which ones are about me, or is that a secret too?

What are you doing tonight?

Thought you said you were going on tour?

We are, it starts tonight. It’s a small fan club gig here in Chicago.

You have a fan club?

Kinda. I’ll put you on the guest list if you want to come.

(Mickey calls Svetlana to make sure Yevgeny can stay with her over the weekend.)

It’s fine if you don’t want to, we’ll do something else when I get back.

Calm your tits Gallagher, course I wanna go. Needed to make sure I’ve got Yev covered.

Oh okay, good. You’re on the list. Doors at 7, gig starts at 8, no support.

You’ve got no chill.

(Ian doesn’t answer for a while)

I like it.

Good, that was torture. Never doing that again.

(Etch teases him about having his nose in his phone, and makes him aware of new guests arriving)

Gotta get back to work

Yeah, me too. See you tonight?

No chill at all.

Ian invites him to the concert and gives Mickey his phone number. Mickey makes sure Yevgeny stays with his mom on saturday, and after work he goes home and gets ready. Showers and cleans himself thoroughly, puts on cologne and a band t-shirt he hasn’t worn in ages, it’s gotten kinda tight on him since he got it. (He puts on a dress shirt first, tucks it into his pants and glares at his reflection).

He’s on the guest list when he gets there, the girl in the box office can’t find him at first but then Anne shows up and points him out, he’s on the VIP list and gets a pass that he’s told he needs to carry so it’s visible. He makes a point of shoving it in the admission guy’s face, but then shoves the ostentatious thing down the pocket of his jeans. Anne shows him in and tells him about the gig, about how the fan club got started. Anne says he can go backstage but he says he’ll pass, thank you. He gets a beer and finds a good spot, there’s a balcony halfway through the venue where he’s got a perfect view of the stage without having to stand in the front.

They text a little, Mickey says he’s there and Ian says he’ll make a sign when they play a song inspired by him.

run-through of the concert, Ian touches the side of his nose when the song is about Mickey. He’s sexy as fuck, and has some ridiculous stripper moves.

He takes off his hoodie at some point, and sweating through his tank he and Anne put on gloves and start hitting the barrels with crowbars.

Anne is the maestro, maybe Ian crowd surfs at some point? Warren Ellis that violin, man. He has little routines with Anne, and some with Jon too. One song, Anne gets one of his guitars and he does noisy stuff with his violin and plays on the oil barrels with Stran, completely in sync.  

They got some good stage banter going, and at some point Ian does a Tom Waits impression, and Anne groans and says he’ll sing the whole thing if they’re not careful. There’s a reason why he’s

For the encore, Ian touches the side of his nose and they start playing a song, Anne saying that this is a first. It looks like Ian is about to sing, but then it looks like he changes his mind and they start playing a song that Mickey sure as fuck hope isn’t about him. The insufferable man on a date right next to Mickey tells the woman he’s with that they were about to play the mysterious title track from their last album that never ended up on the record

“it’s derivative, but cute”

how can it be a title track if it’s not on the album

the guy talks about how he’s got a friend working as an engineer in the studio and he’s sent him an early demo version. It’s not their best song by far, but it’s cool that pretty much no one else has heard it.

Mickey asks the girl if she’s ok with this joker, and she says she’s fine. He offers to get her a cab or something, if she wants to get out of there.

She says she’s not interested

Lady, if I wanted to get with either of you, it wouldn’t be you. Just sayin, I ain’t picky, but that guy would’ve gotten the boot ten minutes into the date if he were here with me, no offense.

WHAT IF.

The concert is over, and crowd starts to let up. Then a fight breaks out at the front and Mickey makes his way towards it. It’s over before he gets there, and sees a guy in his 40s with a bleeding nose, and Lip shaking out his fist, a security guard between them.

Mickey talks to the guard and defuses the situation, putting the bleeding man in the position of a sad overzealous fan. It somehow warms Lip to him, absurdly, and he finds himself apologized to, Lip shaking his hand and wincing when Mickey grips his bruised knuckles a little too hard. Lip vaguely explains that that was an old ex of Ian’s, a real piece of work, and then offers Mickey to come backstage with them to see Ian. Mickey declines.

It’s Lip, Carl and Debbie (Liam is too young, and Fiona too pregnant).

“I was drunk, and wrong, and when I’m wrong I say I’m wrong. (IT’S FROM DIRTY DANCING YOU LITERALLY FORGET EVERY TIME AND HAVE TO GOOGLE IT WHENEVER READING THIS NOTE should I really be quoting Baby’s dad in this fic? Probably. If anyone can, it’s Lip.) And Ian tells me you’ve been there for him a lot lately

I wouldn’t say that

But he did, he doesn’t tell me a lot these days, but he told me that.

Mickey gets another beer at the bar as people mill towards the merch and exit, he sits on a stool with an eye on the backstage passage. He watches the band come out to talk to some of the lingering fans and sign shit. Ian comes out and is immediately surrounded by fans, he locks eyes with Mickey across the room and Mickey raises his beer in a silent cheers. Ian comes up to him after a few minutes, he looks damp and exhilarated and unexpectedly nervous,

How was it?

Not bad, Gallagher.

he asks Mickey over. He has to pack up his shit and do the rounds, but he’ll be done in half an hour, tops. Mickey says he’ll meet him outside.

Ian leaves and Mickey finishes his beer, watching Ian talk to some fans, signing shit and taking pictures. He goes for a piss and then goes out for a smoke.

Ian comes out after twenty minutes, carrying two guitar cases and a large wheelie-bag. Mickey takes one of the guitars off his hands and they walk together.

(maybe Ian has a banjo and he gives it to Mickey to carry and Mickey is all really? I wanna kick your ass so bad right now, country boy, but then carries it anyway.) (banjos are cool)

Walk from the club. Mickey mentions talking to Lip. They talk about Ian’s Tom Waits impression. You’re not musically illiterate at all! Talk about Mickey’s Radiohead tee that he stole from a hookup when he was sixteen, he’s grown into it now. Talk about Ian’s onstage dancing, used to be a stripper, well, not saying you can’t still do private performances (?? you know what I mean! this is not what they’re saying but you’ll remember it) (Note from 2020: I DID NOT REMEMBER IT.)

Talk about wanting to learn playing the trumpet. Don’t have trumpet playing lips.

”Sure you and your lips can do whatever you set your heart to, I believe in you.”

Looks at Mickey and smiles.

”What?”

”You’ve been flirting with me since we first met, haven’t you?”

”Maybe.”

”Huh”

“What?”

“Oh nothing.” “Just re-evaluating everything you’ve ever said to me.”

”Re-evaluate this;” gives Ian the finger.

”That an invitation?”

”Fuck you is what it is,”

“sounds like an invitation.”

Ian tells him a little about his different instruments, Mickey picks up the beat up guitar Gus first gave to Ian and strums it, Ian asks him to play him something but Mickey snorts and says he’s counting on getting laid tonight and him playing would be detrimental to that plan. Ian doesn’t think so, but accepts it when Mickey gives him the guitar.

”I’ve walked some thousand miles,” he starts softly, eyes on his left hand, moving over the strings, ”I have slept many hundred nights, and people’ve said hello and bye through the years since you were mine. But don’t think I’ll stop my mourning, don’t I know it’s overdue. Just because I’ve gotten older, none the wiser I cry for you.”

”Honey, cutie, sweetie-pie,” ”My darling boy, sweet old times, as long as I keep you in mind I will remember what love is like. So, don’t think I’ll stop my mourning, don’t I know it’s overdue.”

”Just because I’ve gotten older, none the wiser.”

”I cry for you.”

I’M THINKING OF WRITING MY OWN SONG BECAUSE I WAS THIS MOMENT TO BE MORE BEFORE SUNSET THAN ANYTHING, ALL SMILES AND DRAMA FREE. SO MAYBE A TEXT THAT IS A LITTLE MORE STRAIGHTFORWARD.

Ian plays the song and when he’s done, Mickey kisses him and they have really enthusiastic sex on the couch. Mickey is about to leave after when Ian invites him to stay,

How about some long-ass foreplay on the couch and then they move into the bedroom.

They start on the couch, they take it to the bedroom, they collapse on the bed after and Mickey is feeling too good to argue when Ian mumbles at him to “stay”.

(Sings the song, says it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a song, it’s one quick thought put under a spotlight. Feeling like he should have known Mickey his whole life already. It’s too much, isn’t it? In the kitchen.

”do you normally take guys home and serenade them?”

”nah, don’t think it’d be very effective with most.”

”But you figured I’d swoon?”

”Figured you’d want the truth.”

”which is?”)

??? Need to find a good mix of excitement and new and easy, balanced with ho shit wtf are we doing this isn’t going to end well i think i fucking love him shut the fuck up. needs to be sexy and a little rough, as well as painfully sincere against better knowledge. kissing will do that. they’re doing stuff the way they usually do stuff, but for some reason it feels completely different.

Important that Mickey kisses him.

They stand up and stand chest to chest, Ian says they don’t have to do anything, Mickey says shut up and get naked

he helps ian take his shirt off and kisses him the second his face comes back into view

They fucks on the couch.

OR ALT FADE CUT END and don’t go explicit. Just saying, it’s an option. A valid option.

They can go at it in one of the sequels? Like the roadtrip can be more explicit? If I want? But also not?

I mean, there is such a thing as a nice middle ground right.

I just don’t think I’m interested in going all out porn after 40+ chapters of whatever.

THEY KISS AND THEN THERE’S A MOTHERFUCKING FADE TO BLACK MY FRIEND, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT I HAVE DECIDED. Soz

WHAT IF!!

Iggy comes in, is all: guess what I found at the dentist this morning?

M: again? Did Amelia break another tooth?

I: It’ll grow back, take a look at this

E: Did you steal that from the dentist’s office?

M: Rolling Stone, wtf?

E: your dentist’s got rolling stone?

Mickey reads the headlines out loud as a customer comes in and asks Etch about something they’ve lost the other day, and Etch starts rifling through boxes behind the counter as Mickey moves over to sit down in Ian’s booth, rifling through the magazine.

M: what am I looking for?

I: I marked the page

E: what’s this note?

Mickey starts reading the article, realizing that the blurred picture is of Ian, and the interview is with Ian, and holy shit. Ian is legit famous.

Etch starts reading the list of coffees, eventually turning the page over and pointing out that there’s a phone number.

Iggy comes to the diner in the morning, Etch is rifling through stuff behind the counter and Mickey is doing the rounds with the few guests still there after the morning rush.

Iggy shows him the magazine he found at the dentist’s and Etch is in the background like wtf is this, reading from Ian’s note with the coffee orders, Mickey only half listens, trying to take in the fact that Ian is fucking famous.

Etch says there’s a phone number too and Mickey brushes him off.

Then he’s like, hold the fuck up! And gets the note from the trash and tries the number, and Ian fucking answers. And they have the you’re famous conversation on the phone and voila, Mickey has his number and vice versa.

So Mickey calls Ian in the morning, then there’s text talk during the day.

From Ian

So, you’ve had my number for x days and you only now decided to use it?

That’s cold.

From Mickey

You wrote it on a piece of paper you then balled up and threw on the floor, asshole, it’s a miracle it didn’t end up in the trash. didn’t know I had it until this morning.

You suck at this. (This is a nice revelation that he likes, but Maybe that doesn’t come across in text.

Not a complaint btw, just gleeful observation.

From Ian

Are we still on?

From Mickey

Of course.

Dumbass.

Ian

I probably deserved that.

At some point Mickey starts capslocking and sending lyrics to Ian, who has to explain through text why he’s written songs about Mickey, saying that he’ll point them out tonight.

HERE’S A QUESTION

SHOULD I SKIP THE WHOLE “WRITING SONGS ABOUT MICKEY” BUSINESS??

Isn’t it enough that Ian is famous and kept this fact from Mickey? Isn’t the writing songs business a little creepy? and if he did write songs about Mickey, would he really publish them without Mickey’s consent? No. Maybe I’m deliriously tired and about to fall ill right now, but I actually think I should skip that part. It’s a little sad because it’s been part of this idea for three years, but if I’m uncertain about it now imagine how I’m going to feel about it later?

When I started writing this story, it was supposed to be a quick and silly thing, and now it’s something else. It’s not important or anything, but also it is. To me. And making a decision on the rating was a big deal for me, and I think this is another one of those things. I’ve been holding on to this idea for so long but when I really think about it, is it even romantic? It’s romantic in that kind of teenage dream way, maybe? It’s more romantic to me if they fall in love for reasons other than Ian writing songs. But he’s written NTW, and he still thinks about performing it live, but we skip the whole thing about songs being about Mickey.

So they talk on the phone in the morning, and then there’s a text coming in after a little while asking if Mickey wants to come to the show.

HEYHO IT’S A REVOLUTION AND I FEEL FREE

Mickey and Ian text after the show (after Mickey declines going backstage) Ian asks him to meet him round back in twenty minutes. When Mickey goes out there, he sees Ian talking to a couple of fans by the bus and Mickey hangs back to smoke while he waits. The fans leave and Ian looks around, checks his watch, he has a bunch of guitars with him.

I AM LEANING HEAVILY TOWARDS MICKEY KISSING IAN HERE. He’s like “Stop, hold this” giving Ian back the guitar, so he can grab on to him and kiss him, smiling against Ian lips as the guitar tips over and clatters against the asphalt.

They’re outside Ian’s house, Ian says he has to get up at an unholy hour tomorrow. Invites him in anyway.

They’re in the elevator, then they’re in Ian’s apartment. Ian plays him the song, Before sunset ending.

almost none of that rhymed, just letting you know. kinda embarrassing.

(almost none of that rhymed, just letting you know. kinda embarrassing.

yeah, it’s not a very good song. is why we cut it from the record

oh yeah? thought it was ‘cause of the like, intensely personal subject

that too)

They smile at each other like fools and Mickey feels like he is exactly where he’s supposed to be, and there’s no rush. Fade to black.

Etch finds the paper, says there’s a phone number on it. Mickey dials the number and goes out back as it rings out. When Ian answers, he reads a question from the interview and they talk.

He goes back into the diner and basically blows the whole thing off, it doesn’t make any difference to him and he has to go back to work. Yevgeny does his homework and Iggy leaves, and Ian invites Mickey to the gig via text. Etch invites Yevgeny to stay over at theirs for a movie night.

Does Mickey tell Yev about the gig?

Start with Mickey out back, smoking. The phone rings and he waits for Etch to take it, but it keeps ringing. He bangs the door and yells PHONE and then it stops ringing. He kills the cigarette and goes back inside. Etch is behind the counter talking on the phone and going through the lost and found, looking for whatever the caller has lost. Mickey clears a table. It’s afternoon. Etch hangs up but keeps going through stuff in the box, talking to Mickey, when Iggy comes in.

It’s maybe more like afternoon (?) when Iggy comes in and shows Mickey the magazine. He calls Ian and they have a quick conversation (he probably goes outside to have it, to escape his audience) and they establish that Ian is sorta famous. Then they text back and forth a little, until Ian invites him to the show.

Mickey calls Svet to arrange it so Yev can stay with her, and then accepts. He goes home after work to eat, have a shower and change out of his clothes. He wears the only band tee he owns, mostly because it’s funny and because it’s kinda tight and he doesn’t think he looks too bad in it (and a dress shirt is way too much for a concert not-date, not that he tried on a couple first. Then he does a little bit of cyberstalking only to find very little personal information and a lot of crazy fans. Maybe he watches a couple of music videos, but they’re all really weird cartoons so they give him nothing. They’re cool though, and guess the music’s alright, even though he doesn’t have a connection yet to it so it’s hard to tell if he likes it.

Yevgeny calls, because Mickey switched the days and he wants to know why. Mickey asks if he knows about the Broken Bells, and Yev’s like duh who doesn’t? And freaks out when Mickey tells him about Ian. He doesn’t tell him about the whole date situation though, just that he’s going to the concert. Maybe Yev asks for some merch.

Mickey takes an Uber to the venue, even though it’s not too far from the diner (but on the other side, so at least a 30 minute walk) and it seems like they’ve already started letting people in. He hangs back until the admissions office is clear and then tells the lady that he’s on some kinda guest list. She can’t find him, and he’s about to give up and go home when he sees a familiar figure in the background. He calls her Stay-puft first, but then also remembers that her name is Anne and calls her that too. She remembers him, and finds him on a different (VIP) list, the venue staff woman is embarrassed, but Anne is borderline flirting she’s so nice about the mistake. Mickey gets a pass that he’s supposed to keep around his neck, but he shows it to the guards and then tucks it down his back pocket. Anne shows him inside the venue and asks if he wants to come backstage and say hello, but he kindly declines.

He has a quick peruse of the merch table (he checks the CDs, and then sees a smaller table next to the merch with a guy handing out pins, Mickey talks to him and finds out that it’s “fan club” pins to commemorate the gig and Mickey asks if his VIP pass gets him one, it does, and then the guy asks if Mickey wants to sign up for the newsletter) and then gets a beer, before finding a good spot on the mezzanine floor. He’s got a balcony railing for support and beer holder, and he’s got an excellent view of the stage. The floor is filling up with people packing themselves against the front. He texts Ian saying he’s here and they text a little back and forth. He gets someone to watch his spot and goes to the restroom. There, he finds a kid getting cornered by a middle-aged man. The kid looks vaguely familiar and not older than sixteen. Mickey steps in and casually accuses the guy of creeping on a kid and the guy immediately backs off, the kid says thanks and that he’s eighteen (because it’s an 18+ gig) and Mickey says sure.

Getting back to his spot, There is a douchebag on a date behind him that he wants to move away from, but he doesn’t want to surrender his good spot. He decides to tune him out, he’ll hopefully shut up once the set starts. It’s just a couple of minutes after eight when the lights dim and a song comes on louder than before, and the band start coming out on the stage. Ian is wearing jeans and a hoodie, like he normally does, but he’s clean shaven and his normally smiling face is set in blank determination. Anne is the front person, and she commands the audience with the slightest gesture. It’s obvious that the venue is filled with old fans, they all know exactly what to do exactly when she asks them to do it. Ian’s got like four guitars and a whole lot of other shit around him, and he’s super focused on doing his stuff, but now and then he does little routines with Anne and Jon, and gets a big cheer for his occasional solos.

A few songs in, Ian gets up to stand on one of the oil barrels, and Anne starts banging on it with a crowbar. That’s when Mickey starts to really get into it. It’s cool, and it’s a lot harder than Ian made it out to be, but kind of theatrical at the same time. Ian is brilliant, even though he dances like an uncoordinated stripper.

There is banter between the songs, mainly between Anne and Stran (girl sure bangs those drums!) Anne starts banging one of the oil barrels again and Ian and Jon do a little step dance next to each other across the scene.

At some point Ian takes off his hoodie. He’s wearing a white tank and he’s already sweating through it. He gives his guitar to Anne and puts on gloves. Him and Stran do a little bant-y thing and then they start a new song by both banging the barrels in unison while Anne and Jon start playing (maybe Jon plays something else, like an electric piano or a marimba?). At the crescendo of the song, Ian takes out a baseball bat and goes to town on the barrel, sweat shining on his muscly arms and his wet hair flopping down his forehead.

They go off the stage, but come back when the crowd chants a song, stomping their feet and clapping their hands. Anne says they’ve got one more song for them, and they start playing. She moves away from the microphone and it looks for a second like Ian is going to step up and sing. Douchebag behind Mickey tells his date about an unreleased b-side to the last album. But then Ian steps back and says something to Stran, who nods and moves into a slightly different beat. Without blinking Anne, steps back up to the mic and sings the last song.

Some of the crowd lingers by the stage after the lights have gone back on, but most move towards the bar or the merch table. Mickey hangs back to watch the crew take down the stage, and the two oil barrels being handed over to someone in the audience, along with set lists and left-over picks. Walking down from the mezzanine floor to go look for the restrooms, a fight breaks out on the floor. Mickey immediately recognizes one of them as Lip and the other one as the creep from the bathroom, and intervenes by clearly positioning himself on Lip’s side and reminding the creep that he could get him in trouble, the creep backs off and agrees when Mickey tells the security guards it was an accident (in a way that isn’t obviously helpful, but in the end still makes sure that Lip isn’t hurt or arrested for punching a guy) (because he did, he punched a guy, who is thrown out by the guards after Mickey’s intervention). Lip, Carl, Debbie, and Liam is there, but it’s only Lip who knows who Mickey is. He hangs back to talk to Mickey while his siblings go backstage (and PROBABLY DOESN’T tell him a little bit about the guy being Ian’s ex, making it clear that Lip really doesn’t like him). He also apologizes to Mickey for last time. He asks if Mickey wants to go backstage, but Mickey declines. He’s decided earlier with Ian through text that he’ll wait for him and thinks it’s better to do it somewhere that isn’t backstage where he might get asked questions and have to talk to people who aren’t Ian.

He gets another beer and stands in the bar next to the merch, watching as Ian and the rest of the band come out to sign some stuff and shake hands. Ian still looks slightly damp from sweat, even though he’s obviously changed clothes and run a towel through his hair. Mickey wonders if his skin tastes like salt. He drinks his beer.

Ian comes up to him after a little while, asking well? (or texts him, which probably makes more sense? But I also want Mickey to see Ian post-show)

Not bad Gallagher, not bad at all.

Ian looks pleased and asks if Mickey wants to come over, even though Ian has an early morning. Mickey says yes and Ian asks him to wait until they’re done packing up.

Mickey finishes his beer, goes to the restroom (where he sees douchebag by the urinal) and then he goes outside to wait for Ian. (He talks to douchebag’s date and offers to get her a taxi before the guy comes out.) He smokes a cigarette, and before he knows it, Ian is by his side, carrying a fuck ton of guitars. They decide to walk, for some reason, talking on the way.

HEY

Ian says he’s got a car coming and they walk a little bit to where they’re getting picked up. They talk about trumpet lips and stuff and Mickey kisses him. They get interrupted by the car arriving, and Ian picks up his guitars and says “you coming?”

Fuck yes

They sit in silence in the car, but it’s a good one. Ian says

Lip told me what you did back there.

He didn’t tell you shit.

He did, told me you stepped in and stopped him from getting arrested

He was getting his ass kicked, someone had to help the guy

And Liam told me you got him out of a tough situation in the restroom

That was Liam? Some pedo’s creeping on a kid by the urinal, I’m not gonna stand by doing nothing.

You know that’s not what happened

Yeah, well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

He isn’t a pedo, and Lip would’ve beat the shit outta him if you hadn’t stepped in.

You defending this guy?

No, trying to say thanks.

You’re shit at it.

Thank you, Mickey

Better.

So… friend of yours.

No. (Ian isn’t forthcoming with the info)

Alright, whatever.

And he’s definitely not someone I wanna talk about, tonight.

(Ian is smiling at him, all the promise in the world in his eyes)

Fucking fair enough.

They arrive.

OR Ian joins Mickey outside and they stand around and talk

They talk about Ian’s Tom Waits impression. You’re not musically illiterate at all! Talk about Mickey’s Radiohead tee that he stole from a hookup when he was sixteen, he’s grown into it now. Talk about Ian’s onstage dancing, used to be a stripper, well, not saying you can’t still do private performances (?? you know what I mean! this is not what they’re saying but you’ll remember it)

Talk about wanting to learn playing the trumpet. Don’t have trumpet playing lips.

”Sure you and your lips can do whatever you set your heart to, I believe in you.”

Looks at Mickey and smiles.

”What?”

”You’ve been flirting with me since we first met, haven’t you?”

”Maybe.”

”Huh”

“What?”

“Oh nothing.” “Just re-evaluating everything you’ve ever said to me.”

”Re-evaluate this;” gives Ian the finger.

”That an invitation?”

”Fuck you is what it is,”

“sounds like an invitation.”

That’s when a taxi pulls up and Ian walks toward it

Could use some help with these.

They ride in silence

They carry Ian’s instruments from the car, and Ian says something cute

Mickey’s like “Stop, hold this” giving Ian back the guitar, so he can grab on to him and kiss him, smiling against Ian lips as the guitar tips over and clatters on the asphalt.

They’re outside Ian’s house, Ian says he has to get up at an unholy hour tomorrow. Invites him in anyway.

There he asks Ian to play him something that other people don’t get to hear (mostly to be a cheeky monkey, but also because he wants it) and Ian plays him None the wiser.

I’ve walked a thousand miles to end up in your corner booth

Grinning idiot when you bitch, falling fool for your dirty mouth

Sitting on my busy hands when you swagger by and I say -

Hey waiter, pour some coffee in my cup and bring me my toast, before you fuck me up

I’ve been in some thousand fights and it’s clear that so have you, too

Faded threats and cigarettes, sharp glass polished by the sea

Wish you’d put your hands on me and make your feelings clear

Hey waiter

meet me ‘round the back door, tell me I’ve got it wrong and fuck me up some more

‘Cause I’ve fallen a thousand times but never felt this way before, like I should have met you long ago

Walked with you by my side and had your back through thick and thin

Sickness and health, come what may, and I say-

Hey waiter

pop the damn champagne

None the wiser

you fuck me up again

Hey waiter

tell me you’ll be mine

I’ll give you my life

and fuck you up in kind

I wish I was just a plain white shirt

then you could wear me off to work

and I’d be one of the things you keep close to your heart

soft white cotton wrapped around your heart

(Contrasts have faded now

but color still haunt my mind

And words ripped off from their lines

Make bitter tears flood my eyes

Don’t think I’ll stop my mourning

Don’t I know it’s overdue

Just because I’ve gotten older

None the wiser, I cry for you)

Honey, cutie, sweetie-pie

My darling boy, sweet old times

As long as I keep you in mind

I will remember what love is like

So, don’t think I’ll stop my mourning

Don’t I know it’s overdue

Just because I’ve gotten older

None the wiser, I cry for you

’Cause I always say ’I love you’

when I mean ’turn out the light’

And I say ’let’s run away’

when I just mean ’stay the night’

But the words you want to hear

you will never hear from me

I’ll never say ’happy anniversary’

Never stay to say ’happy anniversary’

Bom-chaka bom-chak 23 verses

And he climbed up a mountain

And he looked around

Some kind of forest

With all these dinosaurs

And he stripped his woman

He stripped her bare

But there was a pterodactyl

There!

[musicollage]

Joanna Newsom. Divers, 2015. Drag City. ( Recorded By – Steve Albini )     ~ [ Album Review | Pitchfork ]

On her fourth album, Divers, Joanna Newsom comes down in size if not scope. A love letter in the form of a reckoning with death, Divers deals with making tangible the huge mass of impending doom about the loss of love. You know, the small stuff. It's a gorgeous record, full of her usual harp wilyness and baroque rhythms.

Joanna Newsom's Divers is an album about a profound love, but it hardly features any love songs. The singer/songwriter recently explained to Uncut that her marriage in 2013 had invited death into her life, "because there is someone you can't bear to lose," she said. "When it registers as true, it's like a little shade of grief comes in when love is its most real version. Then it contains death inside of it, and then that death contains love inside of it." There is only one domestic vignette on the record, towards the end of "Leaving the City", where Newsom and her love go running on a beautiful day. Immediately, though, her high dims: "The spirit bends beneath knowing it must end." 2010's Have One on Me traced the death of a relationship as Newsom tried and failed to defeat a proud man's human nature. On Divers, she attempts to defeat time to stave off death.

To bear the weight of its subject, Divers fits to scale, ornate and roaming after the intimacies of Have One on Me. The arrangements—tackled by Newsom along with eight different musicians, including Nico Muhly, Ryan Francesconi, Dirty Projectors' David Longstreth, and her brother Pete—cover the ground of all her past work in a fraction of the time, making this her most dynamic and exhilarating album. The first half in particular veers between baroque poise, jaunty blues, and rococo beauty, as if searching for answers in disparate places. Landlocked between the dry, acoustic arrangements of "The Things I Say" and "Same Old Man", the lilting harp and piano of the title track casts her lover as a deep sea diver and measures the distance between them, "how the infinite divides." The meticulous internal rhymes in the chorus of "Leaving the City" contract against the tug of her harp, a cascade of tiny parts that form a huge, billowing whole, like tiny bones in a vast wingspan. "The longer you live, the higher the rent," she sings inside the frenzy.

Divers makes a landscape out of this abstract fear of loss. On the courtly "Anecdotes" and "Waltz of the 101st Lightborne", she is part of a battle fought by birds to try and wrest control of time. "You Will Not Take My Heart Alive" is the most Ren Fair piece here, on which Newsom contemplates ascension to some transcendent plane, "[severing] all strings to everyone and everything." Its sister song "A Pin-Light Bent" descends sadly back towards reason and reconciliation of her unsuccessful quest to outrun time. "In our lives is a common sense/ That relies on the common fence/ That divides and attends," she sings with palpable mourning, accepting that her life, "until the time is spent, is a pin-light, bent." Where this kind of cosmic existentialism could come off like a stoner marveling at the moon, Newsom pulls it off with balance of poetry and reason. Her fantastical world is sometimes hard to get your head around, but it brings surreal, sometimes sci-fi delight to a record that's otherwise often lyrically despairing.

Where Newsom's second and third records each overhauled what came before, Divers is a refinement that draws on elements of each of its predecessors. The shapes of her records often get misinterpreted as concepts themselves, rather than the sign of a writer attuned to her work's needs. Ys from 2006 was the five-song suite; Have One on Me from 2010, the three-disc opus. On its surface Divers is more conventional, a single disc where nine of its 11 songs are under six minutes long, but it also happens to be a wild, genuine concept album. The final song, "Time, As a Symptom", ends with Newsom in raptures, commanding white stars, birds, and ships to "transcend!" On the very last burst, she clips the word to "trans—". The first word on opener "Anecdotes" is "sending." It is a perfect loop.

Most artists on their fourth album settle into atrophy, or at least comfort, Newsom delivers such complex, nuanced music, filled with arcane constructions, that she is only her own yardstick. (In a recent interview about Divers, David Longstreth cited The Milk-Eyed Mender as one of the reasons he quit college: "[What] am I doing here if someone is already out there making music like this, on this level?") Her consummate craft is a given; what surprises every time is her ceaselessly renewing sensitivity for life's vicissitudes and the fantastic ways she finds to express them. D**ivers is not a puzzle to crack, but a dialog that generously articulates the intimate chasm of loss, the way it's both irrational and very real. Nothing will stem the fear of a loved one's death, which western culture does little to prepare us for until the very end, but by pulling at the prospect of mortality from every angle, Newsom emerges straighter-spined, and invites you to stand alongside her.

[honeymoonjin]

curious - taehyung x reader x yoongi smut

A/N: 4.4k. This has been extended for the full version as of 19/04, rather than me posting the second part separately. Taehyung confides in you and your boyfriend Yoongi that he might be bi, and the two of you offer to let him experiment with you to find out. Warnings for explicit sexual content: mxm oral, female receiving oral, exhibitionism/voyeurism, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, dirty talk, mxm sex, threesome.

Recently, date night in with Yoongi had become overrun by one of Yoongi’s bandmates and best friends, Taehyung. You weren’t sure if he just didn’t get the memo, or if he didn’t care, but week after week, the second you thought you were going to finally get some alone time with Yoongi, Taehyung had to show up. The worst part was, you could never get mad at him either.

On this particular evening, the three of you had been drinking a fair amount, trying to loosen Tae’s lips on whatever issue had been bothering him in the past week or so.

“No matter what it is, we won’t judge you, I promise.” You reach over and clasp his hand in yours, and he stares down at it sullenly.

“I just don’t want you guys to find it gross.”

“Honestly, Tae,” Yoongi groans from the other side of Tae, leaning back on the couch with one arm resting on the back, fingers brushing against the back of Tae’s neck when he moved. “One time I walked in on Namjoon jacking it to some army fanart of himself jacking it. I can’t imagine whatever you have is weirder than that.”

Taehyung takes a deep breath, avoiding eye contact with either of you. “I think…I might be attracted to men. As well as women, I mean.” He shifts uncomfortably. “If you think-”

“Taehyung,” you interrupt firmly, “there’s nothing wrong with that. Have you not been paying attention to the lyrics of your own group? All of us are fine with that.” You squeeze his hand. “But I’m so happy you felt like you could tell us.”

“It only took an entire bottle of our good wine,” Yoongi grumbles, downing the last of his glass. “Anyway, is that it?”

“Well, no,” Taehyung starts, voice still quieter than usual, “I’m not totally sure. I haven’t really done much stuff with either gender before, so I don’t know for certain. It’s all so confusing.”

Maybe if you weren’t already on the deep end of tipsy you wouldn’t have suggested it, but you are, and as you glance past Tae to your boyfriend, you can see in his eyes he’s having the same idea. “The only way to know is to try, Tae-tae.”

“That’s the problem!” he protests, “I don’t…oh. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

You hum happily and lean onto him so that your faces are centimeters apart. “If you want to experiment, we’d love to have you.”

“Have…me?”

Yoongi lowers his arm so that instead of the tips of his fingers touching Tae, his whole hand is wrapped around the back of his neck, pointer and middle finger slipping up to scratch lightly along his scalp. “Let hyung take care of you, Tae. We’ll just play around for a little bit, no strings attached, and then you can decide afterwards if you’re bisexual or not. Does that sound good?”

Tae’s eyes flutter shut and his head tips back at Yoongi’s gentle but insistent touches. “I’d really like that, but only if you’re sure.”

“Oh, Y/n is definitely sure,” Yoongi confirms, “aren’t you, baby girl? I’m not small by any means but I’ve told her you’re bigger.”

Taehyung whips his head around to Yoongi. “You…you what?”

“Come on, Tae. All the members tell their girlfriends about the sexual exploits of the others. It’s basically tradition at this point.”

“You do?”

“It’s okay, Tae-tae,” you coo, “I won’t tell anybody. It just seems a shame to let your natural talents go to waste. When was the last time you got your dick sucked, huh?”

“Uh, never.”

Your mouth falls open. “Wait, are you serious? Well, that ends tonight. Which one of us do you want to suck your cock, baby?”

He flushes and lets out a little whimper, mumbling something.

Yoongi grins, catlike. “Speak up, Taehyung.”

“I want hyung to do it.”

You bite your lip, trying to subdue the excitement you feel at seeing your boyfriend kneel between the legs of another man, of one of your best friends. By now, there’s a growing dark patch on his otherwise grey sweatpants, and you can tell by the slight stretch of the fabric that he must be painfully hard.

Taehyung sighs and tips his head back when Yoongi pulls the waistband down enough to let his dick spring out, the cool air lighting up the sensitive nerves. Yoongi swallows hard, pupils blown wide and the look of lust on his face has you shifting against the couch, wanting some friction.

Unfortunately for you, the erotic sight of your boyfriend leaning in and licking a broad stripe up the side of Taehyung’s cock is never repeated. Taehyung swears, and his hand flies down to push Yoongi away by the forehead.

“What are you doing?” Yoongi huffs, but you hear the hint of concern behind his gruff tone.

“I-It’s too much, I don’t want to come like this,” he replies shakily, “I don’t want this to be over just yet.”

You smile teasingly. “What do you want to do then, Taehyung? We could all sit in a circle and sing kumbaya until you think you can last longer than ten seconds.”

His eyes are half-lidded as he stares at you and the tan of his cheeks is slightly pinkened. “I,” he swallows and wets his lips nervously, “I want to watch you guys.”

A spike of arousal shoots through you as you suck in a breath. “What do you want to watch us do, Tae-tae?”

He breaks your gaze and turns to Yoongi. “Can you make her cum, hyung?”

Yoongi looks up at Taehyung from between his legs. He blows cool air over the head of Taehyung’s cock, grinning catlike at the way Taehyung hisses and jerks his hips. “Make her cum how?”

“With your mouth,” he pants, “and your fingers.”

Yoongi doesn’t respond verbally but instead stands up and walks out of the living room and into the dining area. You frown until you hear the scraping of chair legs and you see Yoongi return, only to place a single chair in the middle of the room.

“Come sit, baby girl,” he says in a low tone.

Your heart races, but you stand up, undressing on your way there until you sit in the chair completely naked. The open air feels nice against the heat of your pussy, but you’ll go crazy if you don’t get some friction soon.

Luckily, Yoongi is in a giving mood tonight. He glances over his shoulder at Taehyung. “How many?”

You tip your head back at the question, and Taehyung lets out a breathy chuckle. “How many can she take?”

Yoongi hums in consideration and runs a single finger up the inside of your naked thigh. “She’ll take everything I give her like a good little slut, won’t you, baby?”

“Yeah,” you breathe out dumbly, knowing that he can probably smell your arousal from down there if he can’t already see it. Yoongi always knew exactly how to get you excited fast.

Taehyung groans and Yoongi laughs at the sound. “Of course, she will need to be able to fuck us once I’m done, so maybe we’ll cap it at two for now, hm?”

Without further confirmation from Taehyung, though it does come in the form of another desperate groan, Yoongi readjusts his position so his face is inches away from your heat. You automatically let your legs tip open wider for him, and he rewards you with a gentle smile, teeth resting on his bottom lip.

Slipping one hand under each knee, he leans down and flicks the lightest kitten lick against your clit. You exhale shakily. “Yoongi, please, hurry up.”

He hums but otherwise ignores you, slowly pulling your legs wider apart for him and tugging in one solid motion so that your butt slips out from under you. You squeak in surprise and latch onto his shoulders, now with your tailbone resting right on the edge of the chair.

He lets go of your legs after lifting one up over his shoulder and letting the other hang limp and reaches between your legs to spread your lips.

You whine as he shifts to the side and turns around slightly, pulling your leg with him further. “Come here, Tae,” he commands, “come see.”

Taehyung swears and goes to tuck his erection back into his pants but Yoongi shakes his head. Reluctantly, the younger boy comes to kneel beside Yoongi, cock still dribbling precum hopelessly, bobbing in the air when he moves. You don’t envy him; at least you’re getting some relief.

“Doesn’t she look so pretty, Tae? All spread out and ready for us?”

You groan at the use of the word ‘us’ and feel yourself grow even wetter. Taehyung glances up at you and smiles shyly. “She’s beautiful.”

You flush but the sweet moment is interrupted by a small growl from Yoongi. “Watch and learn, buddy.” Without a moment’s hesitation, he plunges a single finger into you, palm down.

Yoongi grins at your pleased whine, and begins fucking you slowly, corkscrewing his finger as he goes for more friction. It feels so good after being turned on for so long, but it’s not enough, and you shift your hips up, eager for more. “Look at her,” Yoongi whispers sultrily, “we’ve barely even started and she’s desperate to cum. Don’t worry, baby, you’ll get enough orgasms tonight to last you the week if you’re lucky.”

He pulls out his drenched finger and pushes it back in with another, not thrusting, just curling up and pulling out some of your copious amount of wetness and offers the shiny digits to Taehyung. “Have some, baby boy. We need to get your appetite up.”

Taehyung stares at Yoongi unsurely as he leans forward and gently laps up your cum off of Yoongi’s fingers. Once most of it is gone, he pushes his tongue so that the two fingers split apart and licks up through the middle to collect all that’s left, breaking the strings that stretch between Yoongi’s digits.

The sight is unbelievably erotic, and it’s all you can do to keep your eyes open to enjoy it when the bliss you feel as well as the sleepy buzz from the alcohol wants you to shut them. You bite your lip and whine again, wanting the attention back on you, and Yoongi obeys, this time landing his mouth on you.

In teasing but calculated strokes, he stimulates your clit, flicking over it and under and around the sensitive hood. Instead of giving you more penetration, he has to use one arm across your hips to keep you still, and the other hand to keep you spread and open for him.

“So good, Yoongi,” you breathe heavily amongst pleasure-filled pants, digging your heel into Yoongi’s back, and you’re too blissed out to notice Taehyung approaching you quietly and reaching a hand out to touch your chest.

At the exact moment that he grabs hold of your left breast, thumb and forefinger skimming over the top to roll your stiff peak between them, Yoongi stops licking you and sucks your clit into his mouth, dragging the flat top of his tongue against it firmly.

You cry out and jerk in the chair, catapulted into a powerful orgasm. Taehyung gasps and hastily takes his hand off of you, worried that he’s done something wrong, and you whine at the absence of pleasure on your chest as your clit is played with all throughout your orgasm.

Yoongi plays rough but he’s not cruel, or at least he isn’t this early in the night, so once the pleasure gives way to stinging oversensitivity and you push at his head, he backs off with a glossy, wet face and smug eyes.

You pant, going boneless, feeling the walls of your pussy clench periodically as aftershocks run through you.

“I didn’t hurt her, did I, hyung?” Taehyung asks innocently.

Yoongi chuckles. “No, you didn’t, she liked it. And as a matter of fact, even if it did hurt, she still would’ve liked it. Dirty slut.”

Taehyung’s eying up your heaving breasts as you come down fully. “I thought you said two, Yoongi.”

Yoongi smirks. “You’re right, I did say that. You ready to go again, baby girl?”

You hum your confirmation, expecting him to start small like last time, but your eyes fly open and your hips jerk in his grip when the hand by your pussy suddenly gets into action as he fucks you with two slightly-curled fingers at a brutal pace.

Every stroke drags against your g-spot, and your toes curl when Yoongi pairs the merciless thrusts with hard sucks at your clit like it’s candy.

“Ah-a-ah, Yoongi!” you cry out desperately under the overwhelming assault. It’s like all your nerves are on fire, and you don’t know that you can take much more. You whimper when you feel Yoongi pull his mouth away from you for a second to command Tae in a gruff voice to play with your tits.

Taehyung jumps forward eagerly and cups your breasts firmly, playing roughly with your peaked nipples. The added stimulation launches you into a second orgasm which has you swearing and crying out far louder than the first one. Taehyung keeps his fingers rolling your nipples until it becomes too much, and you cringe away.

Once both Yoongi and Tae sit back and you feel like you can breathe again, you let your leg fall off Yoongi’s shoulder and tuck them together, too sensitive for anything else.

“What do you want now, baby?” Yoongi mumbles, voice muffled. You look down at them in confusion only to see your boyfriend nibbling at Taehyung’s neck, the younger member’s eyes squeezed shut in bliss, baring his throat to his hyung. “Are you ready to join in now?”

Taehyung swallows hard but nods eagerly. “Yeah, hyung.”

“Mm, good.” Yoongi pulls back and admires the blossoming hickeys he’s sucked into Tae’s golden skin. “You sure you don’t want me to suck you off?”

Taehyung looks like he’s turning down free money as he shakes his head miserably. “I know I won’t last. God, I feel ready to burst even now and I’ve done nothing but watch you two.”

You adjust yourself in the seat with shaky legs. “Tell me, Tae: do you reckon you’re a top or a bottom?”

He coughs. “A what? I- I told you guys I haven’t done this kind of thing before.”

“Surely you know, though,” you reason, “there’s a pretty big difference between fucking someone and getting fucked in the ass.” You grin cheekily. “Yoongi would know.”

The man himself turns around to glare at you. “That was one time. Behave, little girl, or you won’t have the strength left to get off that chair.”

You gulp but stay silent. Your clit still hasn’t stopped twitching from that last orgasm, and you think pissing your boyfriend off maybe isn’t the best idea right now.

Taehyung shrugs. “I don’t know, I just… I’d rather one of you tells me what to do here. This is my first rodeo, after all.”

“Bottom, then.” Yoongi sits up on his knees and stretches languidly, pulling his shirt off to reveal the unblemished planes of his lean but soft stomach and wiry shoulders. “We’ll need to prep you first, baby boy. Will you be good for us?”

Taehyung nods, and the use of the plural ‘we’ makes you feel more in control and less on the chopping block than you did before. You manage to stand up off of the chair, wincing at the large puddle on the outer edge that drips onto the carpet. “Let’s take this to the bedroom, Yoongi. The last thing I need is jizz stains on our good cushions.”

Yoongi raises an amused brow at your commanding tone, but follows, letting the loose elastic waist of his old sweatpants hang low on his hips as he strolls down the hall, leaving Taehyung to help escort you and your weak legs down like a gentleman.

Yoongi’s already into the lube when you arrive and collapse onto the bed, and you shuffle up against the pillows, watching happily as your boyfriend positions Tae in front of you, face to the sheets and ass up, still fully clothed.

“This is your last chance, Tae,” Yoongi warns, “are you sure you want to do this? No hard feelings.”

Taehyung props himself up on his elbows. “I want this, hyung. This…feels right.”

“Then strip for me, baby.”

You watch Taehyung’s whole body shivers at Yoongi’s dark tone, but he tugs off his shirt and wriggles out of his pants and underwear, until he’s lying flat on the bed, dick trapped between his stomach and the bedsheets.

“Ass up, Taehyung. I want you to stay that way until I say you can move, got it?”

“Yes, hyung.” Tae follows his command and sighs into the mattress when Yoongi runs a warm and still slightly sticky palm over one cheek, giving it a playful smack.

Normally, you would be touching yourself at this point, jealous of the action you were missing out on, but you were so tired that the only thing even keeping you awake was how erotic the sight in front of you was. Over the next few minutes, Yoongi began stretching Taehyung open for him, praising him for how well he was taking Yoongi’s fingers. One became two, two became three, and soon enough, Yoongi was rifling around in your bedside cupboard for two condom packets.

“Here’s the plan,” he states upon his return, giving his cock a few lazy tugs before rolling a condom on, “you think you might like men, so I’ll fuck you. But you also think you probably like women, so you’ll fuck Y/n. Put this on.”

Tae lets out a quiet groan and fumbles for the foil square Yoongi threw on the bed, struggling to put it on his dick from his all-fours position, but obediently staying there nonetheless. Eventually both men are ready, and you shuffle yourself down a little further until you are slotted underneath Taehyung.

“Hey,” you greet teasingly.

With the ceiling lamp illuminating his mop of hair, Taehyung looks like a dream as he beams down at you in nervous excitement, muttering a breathy, “hey” back.

“You get used to Y/n’s pussy and then you can take me, okay, Tae?”

Taehyung nods shyly at Yoongi’s command, and reacheds down to place his cock at your entrance, endearingly shoving it between your legs blindly a few times before managing to slip in. Your body was so wet and relaxed from your two orgasms that the moment he finds the right spot, he sinks in a good few inches. He lets out a startled gasp and swears, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Does it feel good?” Yoongi asks from behind him.

You let out a quiet laugh, relishing in the feeling of his blunt head inside you. “Don’t speak too soon, Yoongi. He hasn’t even got halfway yet.”

“A-ah!” Taehyung lets out a deep cry as Yoongi scoffs and pushes down harshly on Taehyung’s hips, forcing him to plunge fully inside you without warning. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh god,” Tae chants, shaking over you.

You can’t help but laugh at his cute inexperience, but it’s with a furrowed brow because Yoongi is right; Taehyung is definitely bigger than him. It’s a stretch you’ve never felt before, and even just the mere act of light laughter causes shocks up your spine as the slightest shift of your pelvis makes his cock hit parts of your vagina that you didn’t even know a dick could reach.

Taehyung wiggles his hips a little to get used to the feeling of being inside someone, and you let out a low, long moan, making Yoongi chuckle at the sound. “Oh, I think Tae-tae’s not the only one having fun tonight, hm? Does my little slut like having another man’s cock inside her?”

“Mm, it’s good, baby. You’re missing out on feeling him stretch you open. It’s fucking delightful.”

Taehyung blushes at the praise but Yoongi just tuts. “I don’t think I’m missing out at all, not when I get to enjoy his perfect ass. You ready for me, Tae?”

“Oh, please,” Taehyung sighs, shuddering as he feels the pressure of Yoongi pushing into him.

It takes a while since Taehyung is so tight, but eventually the three of you are completely flattened together, your hips reaching around all the way to Yoongi, enjoying the way lifting your hips at that angle makes Taehyung slide even deeper.

“Fuck,” you breathe, “if one of you doesn’t start to fuck me, I’m going to go crazy.”

“See, Taehyung? My dirty girl is insatiable. Should we give her what she wants?”

Taehyung nods feverishly, whimpering ever so softly as Yoongi begins to rut into him shallowly. Once he gets a hang of the rhythm, he begins fucking into you every time Yoongi pulls away, forming a cycle of alternating thrusts, back into Yoongi and forward into you, over and over.

You tip your head back and allow yourself to be lazy, simply taking whatever Taehyung gives you. The friction has you worked up yet again, although you’re not really expecting to come again.

Behind Taehyung, you can see the look of pure focus on Yoongi’s face as he builds up his strength until the only noises in the room are the slapping of skin and the sounds of pleasure emanating from the three of you.

You’re struck by the thought of how harmonious the three of you sound; Taehyung’s much deeper voice balancing out Yoongi’s and your higher ones.

“How does it feel, Tae-tae?” Yoongi grunts between thrusts.

“Ah, so good, hyung, it feels so fucking good. O-oh god, I’m close already.” Taehyung keeps slamming his cock into you on the offbeat of Yoongi’s thrusts, and his moans begin to come a little more unevenly. “Mmm, fuck, I can’t- Ah, I’m gonna- fuck!” Taehyung’s cries become a growl as Yoongi freezes and reaches a hand around to grip Taehyungs cock tightly at the base, stopping his impending orgasm.

“Not yet,” he gruffly commands, “you don’t get to cum until I say so, pretty boy.”

“Please,” Taehyung whispers, but doesn’t protest, hanging his head in frustration.

Yoongi releases his grip, slapping him sharply on his right ass cheek. “Did I say you could fucking stop?”

Taehyung sighs out unsteadily and starts picking his rhythm back up. “Hyung, I can’t hold it back, she’s so tight and you’re so big.”

“Compliments won’t get you to cum faster, Taehyung,” Yoongi scolds, slamming into the younger boy with all his energy, sweat beginning to bead on his chest. “I want you to beg for it.”

You bite your lip and moan. Taehyung feels so good inside you, and his slight curve means he’s dragging against the bottom of your clit with every stroke, but it’s the dirty words from your boyfriend that have you beginning to approach the edge. You reach a hand up to begin lazily rolling your nipples between your fingers, eyes lolling shut in raw pleasure.

“Please, hyung,” Tae moans, “it’s too much, please let me cum. I need it so bad. I’ve been a good boy, Yoongi.”

Yoongi chuckles darkly. “And good boys get to cum, do they?”

“Ye-es,” he whines wantonly.

“Cum for us, Taehyung. Now.”

Your hand is roughly squished, and the breath is knocked out of you when Taehyung suddenly collapses onto you fully, his hips wildly jerking as he screams out his orgasm. His feral desperation, paired with Yoongi’s beautiful cries as he finds his own release prove too much for you, and you’re thrown without warning into a third orgasm.

It’s much weaker than the other two, but it comes out of nowhere and hits you like a train, leaving you shuddering under Taehyung’s heated torso.

Once all three of you calm down, the two men pull out one at a time and both stumble over to the trash can like it’s an office water cooler, taking off their used condoms and disposing of them properly.

In a half-asleep daze, you hear Yoongi tell Taehyung to go back on the bed, and you feel the bed dip under his weight as he lies on his side facing you. Yoongi joins the two of you, lifting your dead limbs up one by one to maneuver you under the sweaty sheets, then following suit.

For about ten minutes, your pants all mingle together in the otherwise silent room, but eventually Taehyung speaks up. “…thank you,” he whispers with a croaky voice, “I really appreciate this, you guys.”

You hum in content. “You’re welcome, Tae-tae.”

“So, what’s your consensus?” Yoongi ventures.

Taehyung’s shyness seems to have vanished after his orgasm. “I sure liked getting fucked more than I thought I would.”

Yoongi lets out a hearty laugh. “Glad I could be of service, then.”

“Thank you, hyung. Thank you, noona.”

You close your eyes and snuggle into the sheets. “Night, Tae.”

“Oh. Am I not… You don’t want me to go?”

Yoongi shuffles on the bed, presumably sitting up to face Taehyung. “If you don’t get under the sheets and spend the night, I’ll have to make you stay myself.” There’s no bite behind his threat but Taehyung laughs weakly and does as he says anyway.

You enjoy the sound of their breathing evening out for a few moments, but then poke Yoongi’s cheek. “Do you reckon any of the other guys might want a sexual education while we’re at it?”

You let out a squeak when he turns quickly and nips your finger. “Watch it, Y/n. Your pussy isn’t a public service.”

Taehyung sighs blissfully. “It fucking should be.”

Yoongi grumbles. “Goodnight, everyone. Taehyung, I hope you enjoyed this one-time offer. Sleep well.”

You have to laugh at his tough demeanor. “Don’t worry, baby. I’d take your dick over Tae’s any day.”

“Good, because the buffet is closed.”

“…but maybe it can open again for special occasions?”

“No.”

“That’s fair. Night, Yoongi.”

“Goodnight, baby girl.”