#any excuse to use a hozier lyric

[drcloyd]

bucktommy earth day fic

getting this in right under the wire.

pretty as a vine [read on ao3] “Did you know that Los Angeles has one of the most diverse urban forests in the world?” Evan asked, about five milliseconds after Tommy managed to open his eyes to the early morning sunlight.

Evan was already sitting against the headboard.

“I did not know that,” Tommy said, sleep-rough as he wiped a hand over his face and blinked sleep out of his eyes. Evan was bright-eyed and animated, though there was still a pillow crease on his face and he had a serious case of curly bed-head. Instead of hauling him back down onto the mattress and cuddling him back to sleep, he pushed himself into a sitting position and yawned so wide his jaw cracked.

“Chris sent me an article about urban tree planting his class read to get ready for Earth Day,” he said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, apparently there’s 95 species of tree native to Los Angeles, but thousands more that are non-native,” he said, putting his phone down, obviously reciting the stats from memory. He never could quite predict what scenario was going to bring forth a bunch of random facts from Evan, but he enjoyed it every time.

Also, he learned a lot.

“What else did you find out?” he asked, peppering the question with a closemouthed kiss against Evan’s mouth, just to see the way his cheeks flushed.

Apparently the research hole he’d gone down was too much to fluster him for long, because he barrelled ahead after a brief pause for a sweet little smile. “Did you know there’s three times as many trees planted in rich neighborhoods here in LA than in poor neighborhoods?” he said, a tiny furrow appearing between his brow. “That’s so unfair - do you know how many benefits trees have? They reduce the temperatures in heat deserts and improve air quality - “

Tommy listened as he continued, gesticulating wildly with his hands as he rattled off facts, and couldn’t help the fond smile that crossed his mouth. He hadn’t been lying, Evan was adorable but - it was also some pretty interesting stuff. Listening to one of Buck’s trivia binges inevitably led him down a rabbit hole of his own, though he was far less prone to sharing it than Buck.

He did on occasion attempt to drop them on Eddie - though that usually got him an eye roll and a teasing comment about how much time he was spending with Buck.

“I think we should do something for Earth Day,” Evan said, after going through an exhaustive list of all the ways planting trees in urban areas helped both the environment and citizens.

“You want to plant a tree?” Tommy asked, brow raised, by now leaning against the headboard, close enough that their shoulders pressed together (or more like bumped every few moments with all the gesturing Evan did).

“No - well, yeah - but it’s kind of short notice for that now,” he said. “I did look into some programs planting trees around the city that accept volunteers but there’s orientations and stuff - I was thinking of running it by Cap, seeing if we can make it a station wide thing, or maybe department wide…”

“Okay,” Tommy said, quiet, even, waiting for Evan to circle back around to what he actually wanted to do now.

“I was thinking I could plant something on my balcony. Not a tree, obviously, maybe some flowers for the bees or something?”

“That sounds doable,” Tommy said with a nod. “Is this something you’d like help with?” he asked.

“I - yeah, I mean if you’re offering,” he said. “I was thinking we could go to the home improvement store and get a little flower box and soil and stuff,” he said.

“Alright,” Tommy said, giving Evan’s thigh a little squeeze as he started to slide out of bed. “Get dressed, I’ll get the coffee going and we’ll head out,” he said.

Three hours later, they’d arrived back to the loft with a huge flower box, two bags of potting soil, two sets of gardening gloves, three different species of bee friendly flowers and a succulent Evan had fallen in love with and refused to leave behind.

Hauling it all up to Evan’s floor, even with the elevator, had been a trek, both of them a little sweaty by the time they carried it all across the threshold.

“There’s an information pamphlet in here somewhere,” Evan said, setting his flowerbox (a gorgeous piece in redwood that had cost a pretty penny but would hold up against rot and decay for as long as Evan wanted it on his balcony) on the kitchen island and rooted around inside where he’d put his part of the haul. Tommy put the large box filled with flowers (and the succulent) on the other side of the island.

“Okay, we’ve got some Great Blanket Flowers, otherwise known as Gaillardia aristata,” he said, pulling out a container with a few orange and yellow flowers, setting them beside the flower boxes on the island. “Then -” he squinted at the paper, “Million Bells, otherwise known as Calibrachoa,” a yellow flower with orange on the inside, “and a Sweet Potato vine, otherwise known as Ipomoea batatas,” he said.

“I was there when we bought them,” Tommy said, amused - it’d taken Evan a full forty-five minutes to narrow down the type of flowers he wanted to get, hemming and hawing about what would have the most benefit for bees, which would last the longest, be the most maintenance free - in the end Tommy’d had to wrangle one of the garden center employees over to give some professional advice before Evan well and truly lost himself in a Reddit spiral.

Evan laughed. “Just refreshing your memory,” he said. “Let’s get the flower box out there and then we can add the soil and start planting!” he said, clapping his hands together.

“Yes, sir,” Tommy said dryly, giving a little salute, the corner of his mouth quirking before he hefted up one of the flower boxes to take outside.

It took a bit of work to get them set up against the edge of the balcony, using some of the brackets that came with it (most of the time had been spent trying to find the drill that Evan had said he’d borrowed from Eddie - they’d found it in the hall closet under a pile of sheets).

“How’s that?” Tommy asked, knees clicking as he straightened up, peering down at the flower boxes that now took up most of the length of the balcony railing.

“Perfect,” Evan said, pressing a kiss to his cheek on his way past to grab the bags of soil. He was so much freer with his affection - Tommy knew it’d taken him some time to get used to it, but he always felt a little spark of warmth with every absent brush of his hand or chaste little kiss, just because - Evan had held his hand on the walk from the parking lot to the home improvement store and he’d had to bite the inside of his cheek to tamp down the smile.

Instead of helping, he watched Evan bring the two bags of soil out, arm muscles bulging, though he didn’t look as if he were exerting himself in the least.

“Both bags should be enough,” Evan said, leaving one to heft the other onto his shoulder and carry it toward the closest box. Tommy grabbed the other and did the same, and it only took a few moments to have it filled to an acceptable (to Evan and presumably the flowers) depth.

After procuring some beers, grabbing the flowers, and then going back inside to grab the two pairs of gloves, they were ready to start planting the flowers. Evan stood back, eyeing the box like a sculptor about to start chisling some marble. Tommy watched, amused and annoyingly fond, as he paced the length of the box, looked back to the box of flowers, and then back again.

“Let’s start with the Great Blanket Flowers,” he finally said after a long moment, giving a decisive nod. Tommy grabbed the flowers from the box - they’d gotten three large ones in separate pots, and set them on the ground next to where Evan had knelt down, gloves already on.

Tommy donned his, kneeling down, ignoring the cracking of his knees, and let Evan take the lead.

“I think they’d look best here at the front,” he said. Tommy nodded - he didn’t have a particular eye for flower arrangements, but he trusted Evan’s judgment. Also, he honestly didn’t think the bees would care one way or the other.

They worked in companionable silence to gently uproot the flowers from their pots, careful not to snag any of the roots. Evan dug some holes with his gloved hand deep enough to easily cover the roots, the soil easily moved. Tommy placed one of the bunches into a hole, patting the soil down around it and let Evan do the other two, reaching for his beer as he watched the careful way Evan handled the plants, even with the unwieldy gloves on.

There was a look of concentration on his face, and Tommy kind of wanted to kiss away that little furrow between his brow. He took a pull of beer instead, setting the bottle down as Evan patted down the last bit of soil.

“There. I think those look good there.” Tommy hummed in agreement. “The sweet potato vines should probably go along the back so they can drape down off the balcony when they grow, and we can fill in the Million Bells in around them?” he said, as if Tommy might have another idea about possible flower arrangements.

He didn’t.

Tommy helped, but mostly just sat back on his heels and watched as Evan arranged the flowers to his liking, his tongue occasionally peeking out between his teeth as he held the flowers in different spots before committing to their final resting place.

When the last flower had been put in place, Evan eased himself back onto his heels, close enough that Tommy could feel the heat of his body, sunwarm and shining faintly with perspiration.

“Looks good,” Tommy said approvingly, though his gaze wasn’t stuck on the flowers. Evan’s was though, a smile lighting up when a bee buzzed by and headed straight for the Blanket Flowers. He watched it for a while, and Tommy watched him watching it, before Evan seemed to tense a little, glancing over at him.

“Hey,” he said, sounding oddly insecure. “Thanks for doing this with me,” he said, eyes bright, as if he imagined Tommy would have agreed to come if he hadn’t wanted to. Tommy didn’t do things he didn’t want to do. He hoped in time he could get Evan to believe that.

“Of course,” Tommy said, leaning forward to kiss him, soft and sweet, forgetting his hand was still gloved as he brought it up to rest against his chin. Evan kissed him back, and when he pulled back he had a smudge of dirt on his jaw.

Tommy grinned, taking his glove off so that he could wipe the smudge away with his thumb.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

[pearwaldorf]

This is an introduction to Hozier playlist for my friend @junemermaid. The categories are a little idiosyncratic, but I think they make sense. I don't know what music services you have access to, so there are no links. I trust you can figure out how to get access to the songs.

Things I didn't know I needed words for until I heard these songs

Foreigner's God

Butchered Tongue (an introduction to the song from the Choctaw Theater in Oklahoma)

(additional reading: “A’ghailleann”: On Language-Learning and the Decolonisation of the Mind, by my friend Iona. It is about Gaelic and not having access to the first language you spoke, and how we deal with those sorts of things.)

Wry narration from self-aware narrators

Jackie and Wilson

Almost (Sweet Music)

Nobody

(What I mean is in contrast to something like this from Lord Huron. The narrator's a fucking idiot but I'm not sure he's aware of that.)

Horny but not really about sex (but not not either)

De Selby Part 2 (the video, starring fellow Irishman Domhnall Gleeson, is so pretentious, I love it to bits)

Talk (the song I'm totally going to make a Hannigram vid to, one of these days I swear)

NFWMB

Yes he really is Like That, Tumblr was not exaggerating

In a Week

Like Real People Do

In the Woods Somewhere

To be fair, I think he's gotten away from this a lot more since the debut album. People mean the bog prince nonsense affectionately, but I think they also use it as an excuse to ignore his more political songs. (On the other hand, the oatmeal.)

The way white people should cover songs by Black artists

Say My Name (more info on why he decided to cover it)

Problem > Regulate (As a child of the 90s I respect this so much)

The ones I'm really fucking angry about because they're gorgeous and beautiful and poetic

Work Song (the second song I would put on any Shepard/Garrus playlist)

Shrike

Unknown / Nth (this is an Aziraphale/Crowley song to me; the bridge fucking took me out at the knees the first time I heard it)

Abstract (Psychopomp) (This song is deeply weird in the best way. It is the perfect early oughts pop song I always wanted from Coldplay but it's about a formative and somewhat disturbing event in the narrator's childhood. But also about romantic love somehow?)

Unreal Unearth is, I think, a level up in terms of poetic lyricism.

The prettiest song you will ever hear about domestic violence and is really weird to sing along to live because of that

Cherry Wine

A disturbingly well-adjusted breakup song

All Things End

That random EDM song he did a couple years ago that's actually really good??

Tell It To My Heart

[artemisia-black]

Hozier’s ‘Francesca’ is from the PoV of Francesca da Rimini

Hozier has spoken about how ‘Unreal, Unearth,’ is going to be a homage to Dante’s Inferno (the first part of Dante’s poem, the Divine Comedy), and in the song ‘Francesca,’ Hozier takes us through the second circle of hell (Lust). 

When Dante first enters the circle, he describes it as: 

“So bears the tyrannous gust those evil souls. On this side and on that, above, below, It drives them: hope of rest to solace them.” 

This imagery of strong, unrelenting wind is mirrored in the first verse of Francesca, 

“My life was a storm since I was born

How could I fear any hurricane?” 

In this verse, the speaker seems unrepentant and views the punishment as something they endure because, 

“Now that it’s done.” 

And they are damned for eternity, 

“There’s not one thing that I would change.”

While in the circle of lust, Dante meets a woman called Francesca Da Rimini (see the end of this post for a brief overview of her life). Interestingly when Dante is exiled from Florence, he stays with Francesca’s nephew, Guido Novello da Polenta and some of Francesca’s lines in the Inferno also appear in Guido’s love sonnets. 

At this point, it is essential to note that Dante was theologically/philosophically influenced by St Thomas Aquinas, who viewed adultery as intrinsically sinful (‘secundum see). And when Dante speaks to Francesca about her ‘sins,’ she does not call it adultery but instead talks of love and says: 

“Love, that excuses no one loved from loving.”

Thus Francesca paints her love for Paolo as something beyond her control and greater than herself. And the motif of the sinners being tossed in the wind as their divine punishment links with this idea; the damned have no control over their bodies, which is an inversion of their sins on earth. 

Hozier captures this helplessness in the face of love in the following lyric: 

“A grip takin’ hold like a cancer that grows

Each piece of your body that it takes.”

However, Dante is not without sympathy for Francesca, and when he hears her story he, 

“I, through compassion fainting, seem’d not far

From death, and like a corpse fell to the ground.”

Yet as the writer of the poem (and therefore the true God of the Inferno), he chooses to damn her. And this judgment rests on the Christian idea that the only irresistible form of love should be love for the creator and not for another human being. 

Hozier appears to disagree with Dante’s conclusion by stating: 

“Heaven is not fit to house a love like you and I.”

From Wikipedia: Francesca da Rimini[a] or Francesca da Polenta[a] (died between 1283 and 1286)[1] was a medieval noblewoman of Ravenna who was murdered by her husband, Giovanni Malatesta, upon his discovery of her affair with his brother, Paolo Malatesta.

[silverwings22]

Take Me To Church Chapter 1: Air

Brainrot got me. Here's a 5 part mini-series for our beloved ARC trooper Fives. I will drop one chapter a day until it's all up! Series warning: 18+, flashbacks, smut, major injury, torture, death, experimentation, canon typical violence, Hozier lyrics

Kyatsa Dooku was standing alone in a Coruscanti morgue, looking down at the motionless body of an ARC trooper. Her ARC trooper, one of the finest of the 501st. Her Boy in Blue.

 Fives. 

He hadn’t known, of course, that was her name. He’d thought she was Kya Rhayko, a refugee displaced by the war and working as a secretary in the senate building. She scheduled meetings, proofread speeches, and set itineraries. It was the perfect cover for spying on the Republic, in her father’s name. Fives hadn’t known Count Dooku was her father, though. She certainly didn’t look like him, half pantoran with icy blue skin and golden eyes she’d inherited from from her mother. Her hair was a pale blush, and she had none of the family tattoos her mother, Kiyo Rhayko, had when she’d married the count twenty years before the start of the war. She’d only been born a year later, a darling little countess. 

That had been before the Sith. 

***My lover’s got humor.***

She’d been lost when she met Fives, without knowing it. She hadn’t smiled in years, much less laughed. Not since her mother had died when she was six, and only a few months later her father’s “Master” had come to call on their home on Serenno. Then her life had gone from spending time in the garden with her doting father to being trained as a Sith. Darth Caedes, he’d called her, and she’d served him faithfully. She was the perfect apprentice, because unlike any of the Sith in recent memory, she would never rise to kill her Master. He was her father, and she loved him no matter what he put her through. 

So when she’d arrived on a Coruscanti dock, disguised as a refugee and still sporting a limp from a fight with some imbecile Jedi padawan who’d managed to injure her before she’d cut his hand off on Geonosis, she hadn’t expected any kindness. Fives had been new too, fresh off Rishi Moon and a droid attack, on his first shore leave with the 501st. She remembered how bright his unpainted white armor was when she’d first seen him. He’d been talking to his brother, Echo she found out later, when he’d spotted her hobble off the transport with her aching knee that hadn’t healed right since it had been dislocated. She probably should have rested it, but there hadn’t been time. Her father had a strict timetable, and she’d been shipped off to Pantora to cement her alibi as a refugee. 

“Excuse me, miss? You look like you could use a hand, and I have two.” He grinned. “I can carry that bag for you.” He was effortlessly confident. Effortlessly handsome, too, with his little goatee and a tattoo on his forehead. “I’m Fives, by the way.”

“My name is Kya.” She’d let him take her shoulder bag, and was even more surprised when he offered her his arm to lean on. “Fives, was it? That explains the tattoo, but isn’t that a little on the nose?”

“Are you blind? It’s clearly on my forehead.” He snickered like it was the funniest thing he’d ever said. “Where are you headed, Miss Kya? I’ll make sure you get there safe.”

“The refugee center. My application finally got approved, after months of- eee!” She winced on a step up from a curb, and Fives almost instantly was slipping her bag strap across his body and scooping her up into his arms like she weighed nothing. “What are you doing?!”

“You’re hurt. Lemme see if Kix can help you out here. Who knows how long it’ll take the refugee center to get you something for that leg, and you just said you’d been waiting for months.” He jogged over to another trooper with a medical emblem, who set her on a cargo crate and treated her knee with an e-bacta shot right there in the docking hangar. He’d carried her to the refugee center afterwards, too, and offered her his comm contact just in case she needed any more help. 

***She’s a giggle at a funeral.***

She hadn’t meant to see him again. But when the refugee center placed her in a tiny lower-mid level apartment and got her the secretary job, she’d run into him on her way home from work. He’d been out at the clone bar, 79’s, with his brothers but had gotten separated from them in the ruckus of an accidentally pulled fire alarm and mandatory evacuation. He was entirely drunk, watching the neon lights as the Corrie Guard and fire department inspected the premises to make sure it was safe for everyone to go back in. She wasn’t sure how he’d recognized her, but as she passed by on the sidewalk she heard him call out. “Miss Kya! Hey!” 

He had more paint on his armor now, and she’d felt obligated to stop and speak since he’d helped her before. Halfway through the conversation that he leaned in too close and spoke too loud for, she realized he had a steadily bleeding cut on his forehead. “Fives. You’re bleeding.” 

He frowned. “Oh… I musta bounced off that table when everyone started pushin…” 

She told herself she owed him a favor. He’d helped her, she’d help him and they’d be even. “I can’t tell if you’re slurring drunk or with a concussion. Where are your brothers?”

“Echo didn’ wanna come.” He smiled sheepishly. “An… Hardcase and Jesse left with a pair of twi’lek twins before the fire alarm.” 

“Why didn’t you leave with anyone?” She pulled his arm over her shoulder. She could take him back to her apartment and clean him up. He was a grown solider, but she was a Sith and could defend herself with ease if needed. Not that Fives seemed likely to attack her… he was about as threatening as a Carosi pup and seemed twice as eager for approval. 

“None of ‘em were as pretty as you.” He grinned. Even drunk and with a head injury, he was smooth. Her cheeks flushed hot indigo and she nearly toppled them both into a gutter, but she pretended she hadn’t heard the comment. 

Back at her apartment, she bandaged his head and checked for a concussion with the limited medical knowledge she had. “I don’t think you’re concussed, but maybe you shouldn’t walk back to the barracks alone… You can sleep on the couch if you’d like.”

He’d nodded agreeably, taking off his armor and almost falling onto the threadbare loveseat she’d been given. It was actually pretty comfortable, though he was too tall to really stretch out. He didn’t mind, and she wasn’t quite willing to give up a bedroom door with a lock for his comfort. Not yet. 

The next morning, she’d offered him breakfast. She didn’t really know how to cook, but cereal was pretty self explanatory. Over bowls of the sugariest, least nutritionally dense food she’d ever had but loved, she watched him happily munching. “... Fives?”

“Yeah?” He’d looked up at her with such an honest expression. On reflection, this might have been the moment it all started. His soft, dark brown eyes and blue milk dribbled in his goatee… 

“Did you mean what you said last night… that you think I’m pretty?” She felt like a moron, fishing for compliments, but she wanted to hear it. Just one more time before the next long dark period where her only communication outside of her job was her father’s stern voice criticizing her. “Stand up straighter, Kyatsa. You are a Countess. You are a Sith Lady. Act like it, with decorum and ruthless efficiency. That pitiful act is only for those fools in the Republic. Don’t you dare come before me with anything less than perfection.” 

“Yes Father. Yes Master. I understand. I will be better.” 

Fives nodded immediately. “Of course I did. You’re really pretty. Has nobody ever told you that before? Not even your family back home?” 

Kya flushed, fiddling with the end of her hair still braided from sleep. “I have a… somewhat strained relationship with my father. And mother died when I was very young.” 

“Well, your dad must be blind. Cause you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. You’re even my favorite color.” He smiled disarmingly. “And I’ve actually seen girls now that I’m off Kamino, so I know what I’m talking about!”

The tiny giggle that rose up in her chest caught her off guard, and she put her hand over her mouth to stifle it. 

“No, nooo!” Fives waved his arms. “Don’t cover your face. Lemme see if your smile is as cute as the rest of you!”

“You’re charming, you know?” She giggled again, lowering her hand. “Do you talk like this to all those girls you’ve met since you left Kamino?”

“Nah. You’re actually the only one who’s ever talked to me back.” He grinned, sheepish. Kya couldn’t help but feel like a much younger girl, a middle schooler treading water with a first crush, when he smiled like that. When had anyone smiled at her last? Certainly not her father. Not the busy senators, who were polite but forever hurried with their workloads… the last kind face she could summon up was Zara, the Mirialan cook back in Dooku Castle who’d taken it upon herself to show love to the little Countess without a mother. 

She didn’t want to let this new source of kindness go. Her father said the Republic was full of corruption and dishonor, but the clones were innocent of it. They’d been bought by the highest bidder for this war, they hadn’t volunteered. If she looked at it that way, there was no reason to concern herself with Fives being an enemy soldier. He was good, in and of himself. That was what mattered. “... Maybe I could talk to you more often? You gave me your comm… I could give you mine?” She offered. 

He nodded eagerly. “I’d like that. It gets so boring between battlefields. Just ‘hurry up and wait’, but you never know what you’re waiting for until it shoots at you.” 

She scribbled her comm frequency on a takeout napkin for him, and watched him finish his cereal with a smile. She hadn’t had a friend in years…. “Do you deploy soon?” 

“Tomorrow morning, so today’s gonna be all equipment checks when I get back. Captain Rex is relentless, but he’s doing it so we stay alive.” He nodded. “But when I get back, we’ll go do something. Do you ever go to Republica Park?”

“I pass it on my way to work. Was there something there that you wanted to see?” She leaned her elbow on the table, flinching when she expected a smack with a cane for the lapse in manners. Fives fortunately hadn’t noticed. 

“Yeah. I want to catch one of the baby ducks, and see if they’re as fluffy as they look.” He gave her that wide grin again, and this time she doubled over the table laughing. 

“That, I have to see!” 

***Knows everybody’s disapproval***

He caught her a duck on their first visit to the park. She’d sat on the edge of the fountain in her black dress, laughing until her cheeks and ribs hurt, as he splashed through the water after the fuzzy little things in his civvies. When he finally managed to scoop up one, he gently petted its little head with his thumbs until it stopped squirming before bringing it to Kya. “It is exactly as fluffy as I thought it would be.” 

“You’re ridiculous.” She couldn’t help but be charmed at how tenderly he held the little creature, letting her pet it on the beak before setting it down and watching it paddle back to its mother and siblings. He sat down beside her, wringing water out of his sleeves. “And more wet than the duckling.”

“Quack quack.” He grinned, getting another laugh from her. 

“I was going to buy us lunch, but they’ll never let you in a restaurant if you’re dripping all over the floor.” She stood and offered him a hand to step over the fountain edge.

“Half the restaurants around here won’t let me in anyway. I’m a clone.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re… not welcome in a lot of places. Especially upper level.” 

Kya froze, looking at him for a long moment. “I… I didn’t know that.” 

“It’s okay. Not a lot of people do… not a lot of people hang out with clones that aren’t in the army too. But that’s why we end up at 79’s so often. It’s one of the safe places to go.” 

“... I’m going to have to learn how to cook, aren’t I?” She sighed and pulled up her datapad. 

“I thought all nat borns knew how to cook.” Fives leaned in as they started walking back towards her apartment, his boots making the most obnoxious squishing noise. She couldn’t bring herself to care. “You guys don’t have the mess hall like we do.”

“No. But my mother never got around to teaching me, and my father… I don’t think he can either. I’ve never seen him try. My… aunt, she cooked for us growing up. I should have asked her to teach me, but I was in a lot of classes.” She had to be careful what she told him, but it was mostly true. “Maybe I can call her later and ask for some of her recipes. Do you like Mirialan food?”

“I’ve never had it, but I’ll try anything once. But your aunt is Mirialan? Aren’t you Pantoran?”

“Half Pantoran, technically. But she’s an honorary aunt. Not biologically related, but she took care of me when my father got too busy with work.” Kya blinked when Fives put his hand on her shoulder and moved her to the inside of the sidewalk, putting himself between her and the road. It was the sweetest, most chivalrous gesture she’d ever experienced. 

***I should have worshipped her sooner. ***

Months passed, with Fives coming to see Kya every time they came back to Coruscant. Zara had been delighted to send her little Countess recipes and holo call to help her make them. “Missing a taste of home, Lady Kya?” 

“Something like that. I miss you… could you keep a secret, Zara? From Father?”

“Of course.” 

“I’m cooking for a man. He’s been so nice to me, for no reason at all. But Father wouldn’t approve of him.” 

“Oh, Lady Kya. Your father hasn’t approved of a thing in almost fifteen years, I think. I won’t tell him what you said if you don’t tell him what I did.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Kya held a spoon up for inspection. “It tastes mostly like I remember, but the color is too dark.”

“Add a little more cream to the sauce, and it’ll be just fine.” Zara laughed. “Is your gentleman caller coming tonight?”

“He’s supposed to. He was on Kamino… I saw on the news what Father sent Ventress and Grievous to do. I don’t understand why he went after the cloning facility. It’s not the clone’s fault they have to fight.” Kya scowled. 

“I don’t like either of those two. Your father made them spar with you, and you got hurt.” Zara’s dark eyes looked fierce in the blue holo. “His own daughter. If Countess Kiyo could see how bad off you were when I put you in that bacta tank, she’d have rolled in her grave.” 

“Father has his reasons… I wish I understood them.” Kya sighed, tasting her concoction after adding the cream. “I think it’s right now. I’ll tell you how he likes it.”

“Of course. Tell me all about your date when you comm.” Zara hung up before Kya could protest it wasn’t a date, and before she could send a text ping she heard Fives knocking at the door. 

She glanced in the hall mirror at the sleek black, always black because she never wore any other color, dress she’d chosen and the makeup she’d dabbed on. Okay… maybe it was a date.

When she opened the door, Fives was in a set of civvies. He’d cleaned up, but he looked exhausted. “Fives?” 

“Hey, cyar’ika.” He smiled tiredly. “Missed you.”

“Come inside. Are you alright?” She stepped out of the way worriedly. She could feel a weight on him through the Force, for once using it for a reason other than manipulation. 

“... I got promoted to ARC trooper.” He said quietly.

“You don’t sound happy about it.” Her hand found its way to his arm. 

“99 died, on Kamino. Remember I told you about him?” 

“Oh… oh Fives, I’m so sorry.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. 99 had been the kind hearted maintenance clone that had helped his original squad get through basic. Only Echo and Fives remained from Domino Squad now. 

“It’s okay… I mean, it’s not but he died like any trooper would want to. Fighting clankers, protecting our brothers…” Fives shook his head. “He was the best of us.”

“If you’d need to cancel to be with your brothers, I understand-” Kya started. She was no stranger to grief, it had lived with her for years with her trying to outrun it. 

“No, no. I… I wanted to see you. Had to see you.” He turned and put his hands on hers. “I… before the fighting started, I told him about you. He said I was being a right di’kut about you.”

“You know I don’t speak Mando’a.” She grasped his hands back. She should have learned. Jango Fett had been in and out of her life for ten years before the war, but she’d been so caught up in her own life-

“It means dumbass.” Fives chuckled. “I… 99 said I should tell you how I felt about you, before I messed up and someone else snatched you up.” 

“How you… feel about me?” She blinked, the lump in her throat that only Fives could seem to conjure reappearing. Where was the cold and calculated Sith now? She was fumbling in her own kitchen, in front of a pretty man with a face she’d seen a million times. How was Fives so glaringly unique that he could turn her inside out after a lifetime of training? 

“I like you, Kya. A lot. More than a friend… a hell of a lot more than a friend. If you don’t feel the same, tell me now and I’ll shut up about it forever and we can both pretend it never happ-” 

“Shut up.” Kya pulled his hands straight down, forcing Fives to bend over slightly. Enough she could lean in and put her lips to his. She’d never kissed anyone before, but she wasn’t so far removed from her childhood when her parents loved each other that she didn’t remember what it looked like. Her blue fingers splayed against the tan sharpness of his jaw, her pink mouth pressed into his with a tilt of her head that parted the startled new ARC trooper’s lips. For a moment, Fives was frozen as his typical smooth humor abandoned him. Then he was kissing back, hungrily pulling her against his chest by her waist. Dinner was forgotten as they took their time devouring each other in all the clumsy enthusiasm of a first kiss. 

When they had no choice but to break, both panting softly and looking mistily eyed at each other, Fives grinned. His voice cracked, half breathless. “That went better than expected. Echo thought I’d have to bring you something even better than a duck.” 

Kya laughed, looping one arm around his neck and the other reaching back to turn off the stove. They could eat later. “You brought me the most handsome ARC trooper in the GAR. That’s much better than a duck.” 

He beamed, delighted, and pulled her in for another kiss. 

***If the heavens ever did speak, she’s the last true mouthpiece.***

He was gone so much, as the war got more and more violent. She found herself omitting details to her father, making sure he wouldn’t catch the 501st by surprise. Making sure Fives was safe. Then there were other units she started guarding, people Fives called friends and brothers he loved. She started deliberately failing the secret missions she’d dress herself in the mask and robes of Darth Caedes for. She started ignoring her father’s calls. Her feelings for Fives grew with every shore leave. Every knock on her apartment door, every experimental dinner in her kitchen, every laugh he coaxed out of her. Her favorite parts were the weekend mornings when she didn’t have to be at work, where she woke up without the alarm and Fives was still in her bed. He was beautiful in the morning sun, dark lashes on his cheeks and muscled limbs tangled in her blankets. His eyes would crack open and he’d smile for her first thing, whispering “Mornin’ cyar’ika.” in a voice thick with sleep. 

She didn’t know exactly when she’d started loving him, but by the time she’d noticed it the feelings were embedded too deep to extricate herself. She wasn’t just questioning her place in the Separatists, the Sith, or the galaxy. She was questioning everything but Fives. 

***Every Sunday’s getting more bleak.***

“I was wondering if I’d find you here.” The voice, clipped and artificially polite but with a bite of mockery, was far too well known to her. 

“You.” She didn’t look up, hands on the slab by Fives’ motionless side. She couldn’t drag her eyes from his still, pale face. Fives was never pale, he was all dark eyes and copper skin, freckles on his cheeks. Sunlight that broke through the frozen surface she’d been ice-skating on all her life. He’d baptized her in warmth. 

He was gone. Death had taken him away.

“I would think I deserve a proper greeting. Unless you think you’re entitled to take liberties with your Master, Countess.”

She finally dragged her eyes over her shoulder to him, jaw clenching. She wanted to bare her teeth like a trapped animal and snarl, hiss, bite. Whatever it took to get Sheev Palpatine’s blood on the floor. “Not my Master. My father’s.” She fought to keep her voice level. A deadpan stare had once been her natural state, unaffected no matter what came at her. Why was it suddenly so hard not to scream and wrap her hands around his neck? She’d never hated anyone so much as she hated the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. What an irony, that anger fueled so many Sith and she’d never been more less of one than now, when she turned her hatred on Darth Sidious himself.

“And what would your father think, if he saw you now? Weeping over a dead trooper like a child with a broken toy.” The Chancellor sneered. “What became of the proud Countess? Or the ruthless Darth Caedes. You’ve proven yourself more than capable, just to become this?” 

“What does it matter what he thinks?” She swallowed hard. 

“He has a habit of asking me about your welfare.” Palpatine stepped even with her, looking dispassionately down at the dead man. “It’s quite annoying.”

She scoffed, reaching over to fold Fives’ hands over his waist carefully. His fingers were still pliable, rigor mortis not yet set in. Still, they were cold. Her sunshine, cold… it made her want to climb up on the table and be dropped into the cremator with him. Maybe she’d finally be warm enough at the end. “You chose him. You came to our home to drag him to the Dark Side.”

“And you followed willingly. There’s blood on your hands just like his, and mine.” Palpatine gave her an appraising look. “Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly lost your nerve, over a traitorous clone.” 

“He wasn’t a traitor!” She snapped before she could stop herself. Her voice echoed around the empty morgue, rattling off sterile metal. “He was the most loyal man I’ve ever known! The kindest, the bravest!” 

“He tried to kill me.” Palpatine rolled his eyes. 

“Then you should have died!” She clenched her fists. “Could you leave me nothing?! Isn't it enough you took my Father? I was six years old, and you stole him from me and left a cruel Master in his place. Now you take Fives, and expect me to pretend he didn’t matter?!” 

She was snatched by her wrist by the elder Sith, forced to her knees as fury bloomed in his eyes. “Do not mistake my leniency with you for permission. I’ve suffered through your insolence long enough.” He snarled. “There are apprentices with far more promise than you that I’ve killed for daring to speak to me with half that cheek.” 

Kya didn’t care. “Then do it. Lightning, lightsaber, whatever it takes. Send me to my mother and Fives.” She challenged, snatching her hand out of his grip. When the punishment didn’t come, she narrowed her eyes. It didn’t make sense…. She hadn’t been seen coming here, she knew she hadn’t. She’d been here too long and access had been forbidden to give credibility to the idea that Fives had some kind of mild-altering virus. A lightsaber wound would cast suspicion on the Jedi, something Palpatine would want…. “You can’t do it.” She breathed. “You need me.” 

“You give yourself too much praise, girl. You’re a decent assassin and spy, nothing more.”

She pursed her lips. “You’ve been in the Senate, with more knowledge of goings-on than I had… you didn’t need a spy. You were keeping me close as a bargaining chip against my Father, weren’t you. He’s funding your war for you.” 

It all made perfect sense now. She was a cog in the wheel of manipulation, her training one part of a long-term plan to bring the entire galaxy to its knees. Kya had to give him credit, Sheev Palpatine was disgustingly intelligent. 

“I”m beginning to wonder if you’re worth the effort, or if I shouldn’t just kill you and have the Kaminoans clone another one. A quieter one. I’m sure an infant version would keep the Count more loyal than a mouthy little-”

“Just get out.” She climbed to her feet and turned back to her dearest, darling, dead clone. “You’ve got everything you need to win, no matter how the war goes. The money, the power, the Jedi backed into a corner. Take the galaxy. Just let me grieve my little part of it you’ve already destroyed.”

He stared at her profile for a long moment, considering her in her entirely. She wore no makeup, sweat on her pale blue brow. Her shoulders slumped, defeated, as she held herself up over the edge of the morgue slab. Her hair was a tangled mess from a pell-mell dash across half the city sector, trying to get to Fives when he’d called her half-coherent. She’d made out “Tup… dead… it’s in our heads… cyar’ika, I need you… 79’s…” 

Her clothes, a rumpled knee-length dress with breeches and flats, had been what she’d been wearing at her apartment as she finished making Zara’s recipe for muffins. There was even a flour smudge on her front, since she kept forgetting to buy an apron. Fives had been supposed to be back sooner, but he’d said he was detouring to Kamino because something was wrong with Tup. He’d tell her when he got home what happened, he always did…. Even with all the evidence of the hardest day of her life, she was a pretty girl. Tall, fit, with large gold eyes and a silent strength that could even get her to stand up to him.

“You make no sense to me.” He finally muttered. “You’re a decent looking young woman, an heiress to a vast fortune with breeding and education. And you’re no stranger to war or death. I don’t understand why you would fall apart over a clone?” 

“Of course you don’t.” She said tiredly. “If you did, none of this would have happened.” 

A Sith Master could never understand. If they knew love like this, how could they bear to destroy it? 

He just shook his head as she leaned over a little further, touching the trooper’s cheek softly. “Just come when you’re called, you insolent brat. Your father’s affections for you may be in question, but yours for him are not.”

“Fine.” She smoothed her thumb over Five’s cheekbone. He didn’t even look like himself with his head shaved, in unpainted white armor. “Just get out.”

Palpatine seemed bored watching her broken heart bleed, and walked out with a slam of the metal door. Once he was gone and the echoes had faded, Kya finally dropped her head against his motionless shoulder. “I’m sorry.” She rasped, tears dripping from her cheeks. “I didn’t get there in time. I didn’t save you. You saved me and I couldn’t save you. I’m so sorry, Fives…” 

He’d be with his twin, Echo, now. He’d be happy in whatever afterlife the Force afforded clones. She hoped it was a beautiful one, and that he didn’t hate her too much for lying to him. 

When her fingers grasped his chestplate, trying to convey one final act of love before she gave up on anything worth living for and sank into the darkness her father had chosen as her inheritance, there was a faint gasp by her ear. Kya snatched her head up. 

The empty, blank face she’d been staring at for well over an hour was just as pale, but his brows were pinched together. Slowly she flicked her hand up, the rolling cart of tools waiting for Fives’ autopsy in the morning rolling to her. She plucked a bone saw up, shuddering at the touch of the cold metal, and placed the dull back of it under Fives’ nose. A tiny mist of fog appeared on the stainless durasteel. 

A breath. 

“Fives?” Kya’s breath shuddered out in a rush. He was alive. 

She had to get him out of here. 

***Fresh poison each week***

[judasgot-it]

okay, i need your opinion. Do you think tecchou would dedicate songs to his partner? Would he like when his partner dedicates songs to him? What songs do you think he would dedicate?

Ok i have like 3 different asks im doing rn but i fucking love shoving my opinions down peoples throats and im also a fiend with my music taste so im forcing everyone to listen to my music headcannons RN

also im adding Jouno cause idk I have so many music headcannons for him he seems like such a music guy

Headcannons: Songs they would dedicate to their partner (Tecchou, Jouno)

Tecchou

Ngã Tư Không Đèn

Silly Crush

Shallow (i wont lie this is kind of a suegiku song for me idk)

Personal headcannon but he strikes me as the kind of guy who could probably listen to anything, but mostly listens to cheesy romance cause he likes the lyrics or the sound better. Definitely is singing along to them in his head while at work but is making up half of the lyrics to be about whoever he's thinking about.

Idk if he would make a playlist but he would probably listen to these songs casually from a movie or on the radio and be like :) Yea, that's so us.

Work Song (again this is just kind of a suegiku song for me)

Я сошла с ума (Ya Soshla S Uma)

Listen I hate to admit it but I would dedicate almost all hozier songs to this guy but that's just a me thing. But this one is so Tecchou.

Would probably think it's sweet that his partner dedicates songs to him, cause that shit is cute af like come on. Might go out of his way to listen to it a couple of times but he doesn't strike me as the type to listen to music much in general (he probably works out in silence like a freak)

Jouno

Early Sunsets Over Monroeville (100% an Akutagawa song too, my emo kings <3)

IFHY

Passionfruit

I feel like his music taste ranges wildly sometimes, but is a bit of a snob. He definitely knows his genres and instruments like the dork he is.

I like to think he has a playlist for his partner and will only listen to it when he knows he's alone because he gets really lost in thought. The lyrics mean a lot to him but will he ever share that? No.

Probably cried at least once or twice but he would never admit that. Just a random headcannon but I like to think that he listens to a lot of music that makes him regret his past.

I Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You

Angel With a Shotgun (this is 100% a suegiku song too sorry)

Tries to act cool about it but he 100% has a playlist dedicated to any songs he knows his partner likes. If he really likes any of the ones he's recommended he puts it right into his own playlists, although he probably has a separate one he dedicates to them because he's trying to decode how their brain works or something. He made up a million excuses to himself but he just is cheesy and likes them.

SORRY IF THE FORMAT IS WEIRD BUT ALSO OMG listen they are 100% opposites on the music spectrum so it works for me

[blackbirdsinatrenchcoat]

been a hot minute and nobody asked for it but it’s back

top ten songs that i feel were written for the sole purpose of ending me

Ascension by Natalie Holt. i watched the loki finale. yeah i’m still mentally stable (lie). this SOMG. my GOSH. i cry almost every time i hear it /gen. and not just cus of the finale. this was composed so beautifully and i. guys. help me(don’t help me i will not shut up about this song)

when the flies fell by Sub Urban. i can’t explain this one it’s just. yeah. the contrast of the gentleness and aggression in the song is so. and the lyrics. his voice is so SOMETHING that it feels like a conversation and y’all. a gentle ‘i want to be here, but i’m so tired. i don’t have any more in me to give.’ i can’t even today

Sick of the Silence by Mother Mother. sigh. when i say this is what it feels like to want to scream i MEAN it. this song encapsulates that helpless feeling of being trapped in your head and having no words or knowledge of how to fix it. and the whole ‘i don’t wanna know what’s buried underneath’ about being afraid of introspection because you don’t know how (or what you’ll find) is so. UGH. sob

We Don’t Speak Anymore by Bears in Trees. it’s so soft in the beginning but then it gets loud and yeah. that’s how it feels to say ‘i miss you’ quietly but what i mean is ‘you took a big chunk of my heart and now it’s not beating right and i want you to tell me what went wrong so i can fix it and you can come back but i know that nothing went wrong and you’d go either way’. who let them do that

the back of the moon by Cavetown. it’s one of the songs that reverberates so deeply that you can truly feel the emotion in it. ‘the glow might remind her of me’ excuse me? i love how it’s so soft and lavender and sweet and loving and ‘i’m so proud of you! go do great things! (just remember me. please.)’ yeagh. this song stabbed me

POWDER by Melanie Martinez. it’s so perfect. some people don’t like how it’s vocoded but that’s what makes is good. like, ‘i can’t go on like this, i can’t help you anymore but i wish i could this is something you have to do on your own. i still love you.’ who gave her permission to do that.

Be by Hozier. GUYS. this song is so violently tender. and also he yells at politicians? plus religious imagery? i could talk about the vocals for years. ‘when the sea rises to meet us, and there’s nothing left for you and i to do, when there’s nobody upstairs to receive us, when i have no kind words left, love for you’? *loudly coughinh*

Meteor Shower by Cavetown. i am violently sobbing. it’s so. i cannot get enough of this song. ‘my heart and the earth share the same rule, it starts with love and it ends with you’. DAMN. that’s the line. everyone else go home. how else can you say that? i cannot help but to love you, it’s in my nature, and in nature itself? i’m never writing again because i can’t ever live up to that

Hurricane by Panic! at the Disco. listening to this song as a kid fundamentally changed me as a person. i’m being so serious, this song changed me. sneaking my tablet, speakers to my ear, eyes wide, realizing that there was other music made me a little bit different. ‘fix me or just conflict me, cause i’ll take anything’ SOB. guys i. who would i be without this song

All Eyes On Me by Bo Burnham. did you think you’d make it through this list without Bo. this song is. i don’t have enough words. it’s underwater, it’s drowning, it’s choking, it’s the fifth state of matter. i cannot explain how this song feels.

[ichayalovesyou]

~Act One: In Denial of Pon Farr~

Blood Moon~by Saint Sister, Madrid (Album)

“To return home, and take a wife… or die.”

Spock is feeling anxious and unusually lonely, more resentful of his complex heritage than usual. Feeling rejected, but not by Jim, he finds his thoughts wandering to T’Pring. Who he feels deep resentment toward, she hasn’t contacted once him in the two decades he’s been gone from Vulcan. He has yet to realize it is the beginnings of Pon Farr.

“I am sure, you craved me once before. When I think of all the fruit I’ve found, and how easily you left it on the ground.”

Evening On The Ground (Lilith’s Song)~by Iron & Wine, Woman King (album)

“I hoped that I would be spared this.”

Spock’s yearning and loneliness transforms into anger and frustration. He knows Pon Farr has begun, and he hates it. He has no desire to return to Vulcan, worse still, he loathes that he yearns for someone who he does not know. Worse still, she’s not the only one he’s longing for…

“We were born to fuck each other one way or another but I’ll, only lie, down by the water side at night”

I Want You (She’s So Heavy)~(Originally) by the Beatles, performed by the Cast of Across the Universe, Across the Universe (Album)

“How do Vulcans choose their mates… Haven’t you wondered?”

Spock cannot bear the tearing between Human & Vulcan halves that has come ferociously to light under the stress of Pon Farr. His duty is to that man on the bridge, but the call of Koonut Kalifee is only getting louder. He has no desire to burden Jim with horrible display of emotion. Yet desire is quickly becoming all that he can think about.

“I want you, I want you so bad, it’s driving me mad, it’s driving me mad.”

~Act Two: Blood Fever, The Nightmares of Plok’tow~

Howl~by Florence + The Machine, Lungs (Album)

“To have their logic ripped from them, as this time does to us.”

The first, foreboding rumblings of Plok’tow have begun. He dreams of a hunt, he’s chasing someone, he does not know who. Each time the blood of this faceless, slaughtered, ravaged victim is a different color, every time he turns around, green, red, green, red, green, red, green, red…

“Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins, I want to find you, tear out all your tenderness.”

The Horror of Our Love~by Ludo, You’re Awful, I Love You (Album)

“It strips away our veneer of civilization.”

The dreams are getting worse, more violent, detailed, intense. He knows his quarry-

Jim.

He tears his captain apart in a thousand visceral, grotesque ways, physically, mentally, no love, no hate, no want, just blinding hunger. And the most frightening part, he enjoys it. He begins withdrawing from Kirk, for fear of what may happen should dreams threaten to become reality.

“Carnivorous and lusting, I’ll track you down among the pines.”

Become the Beast~by Karliene, Become the Beast (Album)

“It is the Pon Farr, the time of mating.”

The last of his Blood Fever dreams occurs after Kirk confronts him about his behavior. This one is, much to Spock’s relief, not violent. The lyrics are spoken through the faces of fellow Vulcans- T’pring… childhood tormentors… Sybok… his cold and disapproving father… T’pau… Surak… himself.

The rage and hunger has cooled into ice rather than fire, for now.

“Do I terrify you? Do you feel alive? Do you feel the hunger? The desert howl inside?”

The Woods~by San Flemin, Jackrabbit (Album)

“You humans have no conception.”

When James Kirk grabbed the shiv from Spock’s hand in their confrontation, a shard of Spock’s Blood Fever came with it. Spock was spared a nightmare this final night, but not Jim. The dream even dared to be pleasant initially, alone together in the woods. Before the arena of Koonut Kalifee erupted violently around them, as did Spock. Yet, before Spock could deal the final killing blow, Kirk found himself sinking into the sparkling sands below. He startles from his slumber, feeling suffocated.

But he does not remember how, or why.

“The nights are lovely dark and deep, but I’ll appear when you’re asleep. You’ll wake up with a sudden hurt, your mouth and nose all full of dirt”

~Act Three: Kalifee, the Death of A Friend~

Take Me Down~by Brother, Pax Romana MMV (Album)

“I’ll get you to Vulcan somehow…”

All Jim knows is that Spock is getting worse, and that he needs him. Not knowing, and not daring ask whether the shiv was meant for himself or Spock haunts Kirk, as does the ghost of his forgotten dream. He does not know what will come of this wedding. Only that he will do whatever it takes to make certain Spock lives. No matter what, it’s a race against time.

“The powers that be, the powers that run you through, I’m taking a stand I know what it comes down to, God knows I do.”

Hunting Grounds (feat Joe Cotela of Ded)~by In This Moment, Mother (Album)

“He is deep in the Blood Fever, he will not speak with thee again.”

Kalifee has begun, Spock has completely lost himself to the Blood Fever, and Kirk must fight for his life. He finds himself outmatched by the environment, and by Spock’s rage. He knows two things, he has no desire to die, but he cannot, under any circumstances, kill Spock. (I imagine this duet could be as seen as Maria Brink=Kirk, Joe Cotela=Spock)

“Like a predator sink my teeth into your neck.”

Die Today~by The Txlips Band & Guitar Gabby, Queens of The New Age (Album)

“Kill Spock? That’s not what we came to Vulcan for is it?”

The Kalifee has been an intense drain, Kirk knows, deep down, that not even the “Triox Compound” could save him in this fight. He feels his life flash before his eyes, he bears no ill will toward Spock, he’s not in control of himself. He reflects on their relationship, and how much it has meant to him, and accepts, that for Spock to live, he has to die.

It was worth having known him, saving a friend isn’t the worst way to go out…

“If you die today, if we die today, at least I’d be in your arms.”

Pearl Diver~by Mitski, Lush (Album)

“You may find, that having, is not so pleasing a thing as wanting.”

Spock is absolutely distraught, he’s disgusted with himself, he loathes every single Vulcan he’s ever known, but most of all he is angry with Kirk. That he had to be the moth to his flame. How dare he want to get close to him! How dare James Kirk ever have the stupidity, the courage to love him?! The wanting had driven Jim to his death, and himself to murder. It was illogical, and he will never, forgive either of them for it. Curse having, curse wanting, and curse himself too.

“But hunter you were human don’t forget it and go safely. And I? I’ll live without you, though the struggle will be daily.”

Sweet Dreams~by JOSEPH, I’m Alone, No You’re Not (Album)

“I shall do neither, for I have killed my Captain, and my friend.”

Spock languishes in the agonizing hours between the Kalifee and confronting Bones about what must be done. He prays for a short and cruel life… and dares ponder the question, do Humans have Katras?

“I’ll return to my sleepless night, dreaming with my eyes open, watch the shadows play on the ceiling.”

[The final act is a little on the smutty side, here’s a read more just to be safe.]

~Act Four: The Need is Met~

To Be Alone~by Hozier, From Eden EP (Album)

“I shall offer no defense, their is no excuse for the crime of which I’m guilty.”

Though overjoyed and relieved that Kirk is alive, Spock continues to anguish over the reality that had Bones not intervened, he would have killed him. Jim knows better this time, he will not let Spock continue down this path. A tender and honest conversation puts salve to Spock’s fears. In any event, while the Kalifee burned away the Blood Fever, it becomes clear the needs of Pon Farr still remain. Kirk suggests, delicately, to put a new Bond in place of the old.

Spock accepts.

“You don’t know the hell you put me through, to have someone kiss the skin that crawls from you, to feel your weight in arms I’d never use.”

Mermaid’s Calling #2~by the Cast of The Lure, The Lure (Album)

“The ancient drives are too strong, eventually they catch up with us.”

The thrum of Bonding needs no words, it is not just a joining of minds, but of bodies as well. They complete one another, no thoughts, no voices are required. They soon find that the physiological differences between them can be more than a little… fascinating.

“…”

The Deep~by PHILDEL, Wave Your Flags (Album)

“One touches the other, in order to feel each other’s thoughts.”

The tangible, physical world of course has it’s pains and pleasures, to be joined physically is one thing, to be joined in soul and mind alongside those sensations is a different ordeal entirely. If this, completeness, is what it means to be Bonded, Kirk now understands why Vulcans go mad over it.

“Give me a sign ‘cause it runs through my mind like your heat, caught in the web you’re so easily lead to the deep.”

The Mermaid~by Kate Rusby, Life in A Paper Boat (Album)

“In this way, our minds are locked together...”

Unbeknownst to anyone else in the universe, James Kirk & S’chn T’gai Spock are now Bonded, and neither has ever felt less alone. For once, it does not matter to Spock that he is of two worlds, here, he is home. For once, Kirk does not feel as though he is forced to live the Enterprise’s life, this time, she helped him live his. A shining, blissful moment in the vast, expansive sea of stars that they have devoted their lives to exploring.

For them, the journey itself, is home.

“In peace now, the sea it comes, and peace now, in her arms where I’ll be love, sleeping in the sea.”

[bakasara]

im sending this bc ive hit my post limit for the third time this week but every day i listen to Hozier's "It Will Come Back" and i think of it as garaks pov in the wire

oooh that's nice! love it. I heavily associate it with a different ship so it never occurred to me it could be a garashir song. Actually one Hozier song that gives me major still-on-ds9/pre-canon garashir vibes is Better Love! All of it but:

Staring into blackness at some distant star The thrill of knowing how alone we are, unknown we are To the wild and to the both of us I confessed a longing, I was dreaming of Some better love [...] I have never loved a darker blue Then the darkness I have known in you Honed from you [...] When our truth is burned from history By those who figure justice in fond memory Witness me

Like fire weeping from a cedar tree Know that my love would burn with me Or live eternally Short list of garashir songs with snippets/commentary you didn’t ask for but just gave me a wonderful excuse to share:

• Some Riot by Elbow. This is THEE The Wire song for me. The tone. The lyrics. It’s perfect. Excerpt:

A friend of mine grows his very own brambles They twist all around him until he can't move Beautiful, quivering, chivalrous shambles What is my friend trying to prove?

• Starlings by Elbow. Also kind of freaky how garashiric this is both in tone and lyrics. Elbow have A WAY with words holy shit. I don’t want to spoil the whole effect of the song in case you don’t know it but here’s a couple passages and I can’t bring myself to pick just one:

How dare the Premier ignore my invitations? He'll have to go So, too, the bunch he luncheons with It's second on my list of things to do At the top is stopping by Your place of work and acting like I haven't dreamed of you and I And marriage in an orange grove You are the only thing in any room you're ever in I'm stubborn, selfish and too old [...] Sit with me a while And let me listen to you talk about Your dreams and your obsessions I'll be quiet and confessional The violets explode inside me When I meet your eyes Then I'm spinning and I'm diving Like a cloud of starlings

• The Chain by Ingrid Michaelson for a sadder one. I think this works so well for an immediate post-canon scenario when both think they didn’t take their chance when they could and now they’re bittersweet and angsty about it, but despite all they’re still drawn to each other and deep down, hopeful.

The sky looks pissed The wind talks back My bones are shifting in my skin And you my love are gone [...] And if you come around again Then I will take the chain from off the door

• One Day Like This by Elbow. This is. GET OUT. This is later-stage garashir on Cardassia and then on to their horridly happy victorious little enjoined cottagecore life that makes my heart implode. Oh my god look at this

Drinking in the morning sun Blinking in the morning sun Shaking off a heavy one Yeah, heavy like a loaded gun What made me behave that way? Using words I never say I can only think it must be love Oh anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day Someone tell me how I feel It's silly wrong, but vivid right Oh, kiss me like a final meal Yeah, kiss me like we die tonight 'Cause holy cow, I love your eyes And only now I see the light Yeah, lying with you half awake Oh, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day

GET OUTTT

• انا بعشق البحر  / Ana Ba’shaq Al Bahr (I Love the Sea) by Najat Al Saghira. ok LISTEN. When I heard this song in full I thought it sounded beautiful and then I read the lyrics and I cried regardless of garashir. It gets to me. But LISTEN. Garak found this in some old Earth archives. And when he heard it, his Cardassia feelings and his husband feelings tangled in a way that was a little too funny and it gave him a new illness of the mind. He listens to this in a daze on the floor and it makes him useless for the rest of the day. He babbles about #Cardassia and his beautiful space husband that came to live with him there. You’ll find slightly differing translations of course but here’s a snippet

I love the sky Because, like you, it's forgiving Sown with stars and joy A lover and a stranger And because, like you, it's distant And sometimes, like you, near, with eyes that sing I love the sky

[deberiaestarescribiendo]

The Tragic and Magic about You. Modern day bounty hunter Din Djarin x F!reader #Writer Wednesday 05/12/21

Summary: You’ve been running away, and trying to start a new, but suddenly you’re captured in a car with a mysterious bounty hunter that has to deliver you to your old boss. But the road can be a dangerous place and the journey will change both your fates forever.

Words: 4,6

Warning: swearing, guns and murder. “there’s only one sleeping bag” trope. Fluff at the end.

A/N: Hi! Another week another thank you to all the amazing writers that participate and everybody that read, comment, like, reblog etc. And of course to @autumnleaves1991-blog for creating this and bring a platform to smaller blogs like myself. Sorry for any bad grammar, misspelling etc and excuse my zero imagination to create fictional names for characters. This is vaguely inspired by Hozier “From Eden” song and specifically the video.

The Tragic and Magic about you

“So you don’t talk much huh?” you say, it’s been a few hours since he’s taken you and he hasn’t said a word. His dark brown eyes fixed on the road and he doesn’t even react when you talk.

“Can I turn on the radio?” before he answers you’re already touching the buttons. A few notes escape from the stereo and in a second it’s gone, he has reached the device and has turn it off. “Not a big fan of music, gotcha” you reply with a huff. Bored, you observe his profile, his hair is disheveled, a chocolate brown as his eyes; he has a striking beauty you think: strong jaw line, aquiline nose and a stern expression. Gosh, you always on the look for bad men and you laugh at yourself for being as simple as to being attracted to the bounty hunter that has finally catch you.

“So you’re kinda nostalgic? Cool car” you brush your hand over the beige leather inside the silver blue Cadillac. “And expensive, you must be really good at this bounty hunt thing, well, you got me and I’ve been running for a few months. I really thought I was safe to be honest, it’s been a long time since somebody got close so I became a little bit too comfortable, I must admit. God! I’m going to miss my apartment” you pout” I had plans for the weekend, and even bought all the ingredients to make a cake. I was almost there! Shit! Now my flat is going to stink with all that food expiring and probably my landlord is going to steal all my stuff, fucking prick, I hate him so much” The bounty hunter reaches for the radio and turns it on. You smirk watching as he has adjusted his posture and his index taps rapidly on the steering wheel.

“Oh I love this song!” you turn it up to the maximum and start singing clearly not knowing the lyrics you just mutter the final syllables of each word, watching him intently as his eyelid trembles and he’s breathing deeply now, his knuckles white holding the wheel so hard that you think he’s about to break it “Isn’t it beautiful this country? look at this, we really don’t appreciate it much, look at the red and oranges of these mountains, the vastness, the sand and how you cannot reach the horizon with your eyes. You must love this, just riding solo with your cool car just doing whatever you want. Real freedom”

For the first time since he arrested you, he turns to you giving you a warning look and you bite your lip, he’s intimidating, a big man and you know if he’s in the business he’s capable of anything, but here you are pressing all his buttons until, if it works, he’s going to snap.

“What’s your name?” He sighs deeply and keeps on driving ignoring you once more “I mean you know many things about me, it’s only fair”

“Mm, let me guess” you tap your finger over your chin “Tom?” no, too posh for you. Jack? you could be a Jack but no. Oh! oh!” you move nervously on your seat and slap on his arm with both your hand handcuffed together “I’m going to call you Clint. You know why?” you wait a few seconds “Clint Eastwood, my friend, a man of a few words. You know who he is, right? Dirty Harry? All those westerns? They’re really not my thing, but he’s a legend, you surely must know him”

The few following hours you asked him about many things and you don’t know anybody this strong, if you were in his place you would be already dead or inside the trunk.

The sun is getting down and the desert starts to be submerged in a violet light and there’s nothing around. You wonder if he’s really going on until he has to give you up without stopping. You’re hungry and thirsty (after too much talking) and you really could use a bathroom.

“So Clint, we ain’t stopping just for bit? I really need to pee, and it would be great if you take this off for a bit” you shake your handcuffs close to his face, and finally you have achieved his limit. He stops the car abruptly and opens his door without saying a word. You follow him with your eyes and when he comes to your door you think of begging mercy knowing that you don’t deserve it, poor guy must have had it.

You turn on your seat and face him. Clint bends down a little and grabs you by your hip taking you out of the car by a swift movement.

“Careful!” you scream

“Shut up” he doesn’t raise his voice. It’s the second time he has said something. The first time being when he stopped you on the middle of the road and after confirming your identity, he had caught you and handcuffed you but he hadn’t said a thing, until now. His voice is deep and low and you wish to hear more but he opens the door to the back seat and throws you on it. He reaches for his jeans and you actually freeze thinking he’s reaching for his gun but he takes out a black bandana and comes close to you. His large broad body occupies all your space, his leather jacket making his shoulders look stronger than you had thought at first glance.

He’s surprisingly gentle, his big hands circling your head while he adjusts the fabric over your mouth “Really it’s not necessary” you say before he reaches your mouth with two fingers and pushes the black bandana between your lips. He ties it a little bit tighter. Your head is on his chest over his white shirt and you scold yourself when you feel you have closed your eyes smelling him: leather, fresh soap and something else that it’s entirely his, once the knot is done on your nape he looks at you and raises one eyebrow “Too tight?”

“i-f not nefecessary f-really” you say and he stays too close to your face for a bit, probably thinking if he should just shove the thing inside your throat and shut you forever. You feel your cheeks burning because you’ve been looking straight into his eyes, they’re surprisingly gentle, there’s warmth in them that you haven’t seen in anybody in this kind of business.

“Just be good and stay quiet for the rest of the journey. We will arrive soon” Clint then proceeds to grab you by your legs and puts you in a more comfortable position on the seat and takes the precaution of fastening your seatbelt. He is extremely careful on his movements and he barely brushes his hands on your hip while doing it, but his neck is so close, shining in a thin layer of perspiration and you are lost again thinking things any sensible person would never have in mind while you’re been taken against your will to answer for messing with the wrong people.

You moan in disappointment when he gets away and closes the door. Then you are left there alone, his scent lingering over your body and you think about how your life had come to this but then...

You feel the air hitting your right side first and the projectile breaking the sound close to your ear second, then the million small pieces of the glass. Some other gunshots hit the trunk and you’re already screaming and trying to get down but the handcuffs and your trembling hands don’t find the way to unlock the seatbelt.

Clint is pressed against the car, you see the top of his head and he’s firing back to whomever is attacking you. You throw your body on the back seat and in the second your back hits the leather, two gun shots blast both windows and many sparkling bits of glass hits your face.

“Release me!” you shout “I can f-helpf” your chin is covered in your saliva but who fucking cares when you’re about to die. Clint raises and you see through the door how he’s attacking back with two guns, his face contorted and sweaty and then you hear the sound of tires screeching the road and your captor lowers his guns.

“Are you okay?” he says through the broken glass on the door

He opens it and what was left of the glass windows crashes to the ground. Clint looks at it for a second; his cool vintage car is destroyed. He climbs over you and takes out the wet fabric out of your mouth

“Are you okay?” he asks again, with the gentlest touch of his fingers he shakes off of your face the small crystals

“Yeah” you whisper. It’s sad that this is the kindest anybody has been to you in a long time.

He reaches for your hands and turns them softly seeing that a red line has formed on your wrists. Clint then lowers the collar of his shirt to reveal a long silver chain with what looks like a skull with horns and one small key to the side, he takes it out and you hear the small clic sound once you’re free.

“Come on we have to go”

When you get out of the car, you curse seeing that they have completely destroyed the tires and the smell of gas and the dark puddle on the road assures you that the car is useless. But there’s nothing around and zero traffic. The vast desert is now covered in the blue shadow of the night and the temperature is beginning to sink.

“So what’s the plan?” Clint has taken a big duffle bag on his shoulder and pushes you from your lower back to the side of the road

“We will spend the night here, if we stay in the open they could find us easily” he says walking towards the darkness where only the shadow of the sharp bushes and cacti cover the space.

“Who are they?” you ask and try to fix your feet on the ground but he still pushes you towards the emptiness of the desert

“Probably competing bounty hunters, you have a big price on your head, you know?” he responds

“But spending the night in the desert, we will be dead by the morning” you protest. The few lights on the road are getting farther and farther away as you both walk towards some indeterminate point. He walks slowly by your side, actually not paying much attention to you, his hand now lies lazily on his side and so you decide in a rush to run away towards the only thing you deem safe, the road. You hear him sigh before he starts running behind you

“Stop, please” he shouts but you go on. You feel your legs as if they were made of iron, heavy and stiff. You gasp the air in your lungs exiting all at once, once he catches you and raise you over his shoulder. You become a little dizzy with your head upside down grabbing the belt on his jeans for your dear life

“Let me down!” he ignores you and keeps on walking, his hand are strong lock on your thighs and the other in your calf so you cannot kick him “I said let me down!”

“Are you going to run again?” he stops

“No” you sigh

“Great” and he bends down so your feet can touch the ground.

He gave you a bottle of warm water and some energetic cereal bar while he prepares a small camp. He knows his ways in all this, searching for a specific place in the wilderness where you two could be safe. Two tall red rocks shield you from the night and he is now cleaning the ground so he can lay down the sleeping bag.

“I guess you did well in the Boys Scouts” you comment, he’s been silent again

“I’ve never been one” you open your eyes widely; it’s the first time he has answered one of your stupid comments.

“It comes with the Master Degree in Bounty Hunt, huh Clint?” you laugh

“My name is not Clint”

“Alright, so what’s your name?” you cross your arm over your legs waiting for an answer but he doesn’t give you one. He sits opposite you with his eyes on the road far away

“You know we could talk a little, we have a bond now with this near death experience”

“Rest in the sleeping bag, I’m going to stand guard” he cuts you

“I’m not that tired” even in the dark you see his eyes glaring at you, and you obey. The bag is on his right side and you get inside it feeling the hard ground on your back. Your muscles protest feeling all the tension going away and even if you try not to your eyes begin to close begging for a few hours of sleep.

You curl and make a ball out of your body, when you open your eyes is a dark pitch nothingness in front of you and you tremble for a second until the stars and the moon cast enough light to see a few meters away. It’s so cold now, your jeans and basic cotton shirt are not enough and even the fabric of the sleeping bag couldn’t protect you from this. So you turn and watch your captor’s shape huddled down pressed against the stone.

“Aren’t you cold?” you teeth chatter and he doesn’t answer and the worst possible scenario begins to form on your head “Clint tell me you’re not dead for fuck sake! what would I do in this shithole?”

“I’m not” he simply says, you see that he has zip up his leather jacket, his hands protected inside his armpits

“Come here, we need to stay warm” you get your arm out and blindly trying to reach for his body

“I’m okay”

“Come on, I’m freezing, do you really want to bring me in dead?”

“They actually didn’t care, I could bring in you in cold or I could bring in you in warm”

“Well, be kind and bring me warm” you guess he’s thinking about it or actually it’s going to be brave and spend the night like that, but you hear him moving towards you and lie down against you with a huff.

“Don’t be shy, Clint” you say pressing your body against him. He tenses for a second but then agrees to put his arm around you and his warm breath brushes the hair on your neck

“My name is not Clint” he mutters

“Then why don’t you tell me your name and we will be over it, Clint?”

“I don’t tell anybody, especially those who I catch and deliver”

“I bet you’d never lied down spooning with anyone you caught in the middle of the desert, Clint, but here we are” you whisper

“You never shut up, right?”

“I bet your tongue must be tired for all this talking, Clint” he exhales deeply and moves a little. His big body is surprisingly warm and you think that maybe he could have survived the night out in the open, but you’re thankful that he did join you. You relax your body feeling how tense it was once the temperature lowered “I guess it must be a very horrible name and that’s why you don’t want to tell anybody. But I don’t judge, I mean if anything it’s your parents fault and I will never judge a parent, I’m a very shitty mum myself”

“You are a mum?” his voice sound surprised

“Yeah...I was young when I had him” you feel a warm tear rolling on your otherwise froze cheek

“Wh-where is he?” he tentatively asks

“Far away, with a family I thought would take good care of him, but they’re assholes” you cough before actually starting to cry

“You cannot get him back?”

“I was trying to, that’s why I took the money from my old boss. To start a life with him far away from all this shit and the things I did in the past” you feel how he turns abruptly and raises his upper body to look over at you

“You’re not making that up to get yourself out of this, right?” his words are harsh and the moonlight hit his serious face “I take very seriously anything that has to be with children, it’s part of my creed”

“I’m not lying” you mutter he doesn’t move for a bit but then you see him fluster when he’s aware that you’re very close and he’s on top of you.

Then you’re both in silence you press your eyelids shut trying to regain sleep or maybe to control the urge to cry.

He was actually right. The gas station was not far away, he looks at you from the payphone while you devour a doughnut he has paid and a cup of coffee.

“One of my associates is going to pick us up in a bit” he leaves the duffle bag over one of the gas pump and searches something until he has taken a black plastic clamp “I’m sorry I have to” he takes your hands and brushes his thumb over the marks, you hiss and he looks at you with warm eyes “it would be loose, but don’t do anything stupid” when he ties it, it barely touches your skin “Is it okay?”

“Yes, thanks”

While in the car, with the other man driving, Clint doesn’t say a word and he’s back to the brooding and mysterious bounty hunter. You want to ask him a million questions, know his name, what his creed is or what the collar he hides is and you know that time’s up. You will be delivered to Mr. Horzag and then...you actually don’t know what he’s going to do to you. You have been avoiding those thoughts but now it’s time to face your fate.

His club looks completely different in the daylight. The liquor and the suspicious stains on the velvet couches are visible and the dark paint is chipped, all the frames and lamps dusty, you think that you’ve been lucky the time you’ve worked for him not catching anything bad from touching this sticky place.

“So you are as efficient as they told me” he says with that slow and deep voice of his

Clint nods and softly grabs your forearm bringing you towards the table where the old man smokes.

“Oh, my sweet runaway, it’s a pleasure to have you back” he smiles and you shiver

“Unfortunately I can’t say the same”

“Where’s the money?” he changes his fake smile to a violent expression

“I don’t have it” you shrug

“That’s inconvenient you know that, don’t you?”

“I told you I needed the money, I deserved it for many long hours in this shithole and doing jobs you never actually paid for. I told you I needed it as soon as possible and you ignore me. I just took what I was owed” you replied

“Oh! Yes! To finally play the mummy you actually never wanted to be. How sweet!” he laughs. The two men by his side laugh with him but it sounds faked. Everybody dances at the sound of Mr. Herzog music in this hell; you must always do what he does. “And if you needed the money to get your baby back, where is he? Oh! Maybe you got lost on your way as always, right? And actually expended it on yourself, poor baby is better off without you. Who would want a hoe like you as a mum?”

Again the sound and the air hit you first before you could even process what’s going on. Clint has his two guns out and he has hit Mr. Herzog just in the middle of his forehead, the faster man of the two lies dead with a similar shot and the other, being slower falls down to the ground with his gun on his hand that he hasn’t had the chance to use.

“What?” you shout

“We have to go, is there any other way out? The men at the entry will arrive soon” he says and grabs your arm to rush you when you are still gasping looking at the scene

“Over there” you point to the bathrooms

There was a small door, with a warning claiming that behind it there was just the electric panel but it was actually a door out to run away in case of police raids. You grab Clint‘shand and run through the dark corridor knowing your way in the dark

“We will arrive few streets away” you announce

You try to catch your breath once you get out but he doesn’t give you that time to rest and grabs you and keeps on running gathering insults and screams while you bump into people. He doesn’t stop until you’re on a parking lot on some supermarket; he walks casually until he stops beside the door of a car.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting us a transport. Go to the other door” he covers himself with his body, and you hear the clic when the doors unlock.

A few miles after, you have already caught your breath but still your body is shaking

“Why did you do it?” you mumble. Clint looks at the road, his face is dirty and his jacket dusty, he looks at you before he answers, his eyes glow and you can see tears forming at the corner of his eyes. “A child should be with their parents. They should be loved and taking care of” he says and nods “Where’s your son?”

The neighborhood is dead silent; you drive slowly watching the white fences, white painted houses.

“That’s the one” you say

“Let’s go” he stops the car in the middle of the road and you follow Clint not knowing exactly what is he planning to do.

“We should wait until the morning and ask for him”

“They tried to blackmail you into paying them for getting your son back, what do you think they’re going to do?” he mutters and you sigh knowing it’s true. They didn’t even let you see him after hours of driving if you didn’t gave them something.

He works his magic hands again as he did with the car and opens the door without a sound. He turns his head to both sides until he finds the small panel of the alarm. “Go to his room, I will work the alarm. Don’t make a sound”

You climb the stairs and they creak a little but you’re swift and enter the small room where you know he will be on his crib. You have to cover your mouth to prevent you from crying.

He has a white shirt too big for him and he is cuddling the soft frog plushie you bought him last time you visited him.

“Sh, sh, I’m here, ranita” (little frog) you take him with the small white blanket he has over him, and press his small body to your chest. He protest a little and holds tight his soft toy but doesn’t make another sound or wakes up. So with all the care in the world you climb down and Clint is at the door and waves his hand to rush you.

“Probably the alarm will go off in a few minutes. C’mon”

You could sleep, your body and mind begs you for it, but you can’t take your eyes off of your precious baby. His small lips parted in a relaxed slumber, in a way he knows his at home, his with you and that makes your heart beat faster and bring tears to your eyes. “Thank you” you say, he drives slowly, the light from the cars illuminates his smiling face “It’s a beautiful baby”

“Greg, that’s his name, told you I will not judge if you have a horrible name. I should have thought about other but I wanted to please my boyfriend at the time, just for him to run away...fucker”

“It’s Din” he says

“Din?” you say back and repeat it a few times loving the way it sounds on your lips “It’s beautiful”

“Thank you”

All the waitresses stop to smile and say a few sweet words to your son and you feel proud, in this horrible and ungrateful life you made something so pure and beautiful, he smiles at them once he’s awake and one of them even makes the effort of pressing some fruits to make something for him to eat. Din has his arms crossed over the table eating his breakfast but keeps his eyes on you. You see him observing you and the baby from the corner of your eye and when you get him he blushes and keeps on eating.

“Say hi to Din, ranita. He saved us” you grab his chubby hand and waves it to Din that smiles back at him. Greg opens his toothless mouth at him and laughs “Oh you like him! Enough to lend him your froggy, huh?” you ask the baby and he smiles while eating another spoon of his purée “Take the frog and look inside” you motion to the soft toy that is over the table. Greg actually pouts when he takes it but doesn’t cry.

The toy has a small white Velcro slot where normally there would be a small battery to make sounds but inside there’s a plastic bag with a thick bundle of bills.

“Your payment. I guess it’s only fair. I went to those fuckers’s house to get my baby but they asked for more money. So I looked for a job, a proper one, to pay the rest and well, the rest of what I’ve stolen couldn’t be in a bank and what’s a better place for hiding than a place in plain sight, huh?

“I cannot accept it” he says pressing the Velcro “You have to provide for your baby” he shakes his head and puts the frog back to its place much to Greg content.

“And what would you do? You cannot possible be back to bounty hunting”

“I can move to other place, start somewhere new. Nobody really knows me” he shrugs

“We do, I do” you whisper and then there’s silence between you two, and it feels the cafeteria is silent, there’s nobody around except for you and the invisible string that ties you together, a string full of dreams and longing for a home, for love and acceptance, to truly belong somewhere. “If you starting a new, and I too...I...well”

“That’s no life for a baby...” his voice shakes and he’s back to fix his eyes on his plate

“A baby deserves to be love and taking care of, you said it. And Din, you’re the first person that has cared for us”

“I guess I could protect you until you’re both safe and settle” he says softly like he’s trying to convince himself “For a bit...”

You smile and nod tears gathering on your eyes. It’s the happiest you’ve been since forever “For a bit” you agree.

(As you saw I have zero imagination for names and called baby Grogu, Baby Greg and Mr Harzog is the name of the actor for The Client in The Mandalorian 🤦)

[for-a-muse-of-fire]

tame your demons

the wench and the witcher

"tame your demons”

Fandom: The Witcher (2019)

Paring: Geralt of Rivia x Fem!POC Reader.

Summary: Geralt keeps pieces of himself locked away and sheathed in ice. Sooner or later, the ice does have to melt.

Warnings: Possibly hard teen - we get a little smexy towards the end of this one, but nothing graphic. We are definitely getting into some angst now, kids.

A/N: I have a lot of feelings about these two. Basically, Hozier’s quote about “trying to love a damaged person” stuck with me and I refuse to give it up. Lyrics and title for this one come from “Arsonist’s Lullaby”, which was actually one of the first Hozier songs I ever fell in love with.

@coconutxraikage - @onyour-right - @ly–canthrope - @kianya-loves - @c-s-stars - @gczanetti1 - @alwaysnatz - @agniavateira - @witchernonsense - @owillofthewisps - @hina-chans-stuff - @yespolkadotkitty​

When I was a man, I thought it ended When I knew love's perfect ache But my peace has always depended On all the ashes in my wake

Gods, you should be used to the cold by now. For his kindness and warmth, your Witcher is capable of it. Biting cold, harsh as freezing rain. You try to insulate yourself against it, hoping that you can somehow bear the winter of his moods when they roll through, but it never seems to get any easier. You brace against the ice-cold of his silences and the way he draws himself away from you – steel your spine, try to smile when the flint in his eyes chips away at you.

Geralt can drop the temperature of a room without so much as a word. It’s remarkable.

And it fucking hurts.

He won’t look at you as you carefully clean the blood from his split knuckles. You kneel at the edge of the tub he soaks in, focused on the task at hand and swallowing back what feel like chips of ice caught in your throat. Even with the hearth fire at your back and the slight humidity from the steaming water, you feel like you’ve been thrown in a damned snow drift. It aches down into your bones.

The hunt had gone badly. Some alderman and his cronies unwilling to pay up for services rendered – and speaking up would have meant leaving town on the end of a rope. Geralt had blown in two weeks ago with an arctic cold around him, frosted over too thick for even you to break through, and then…

And then, there were those backwater pricks from Hagge.

You’d tried to be firm, but polite at first. The Witcher was your guest, and you didn’t take kindly to anyone speaking ill of the people under your roof, but they’d turned their drunken cruelty on you without so much as a second thought. Nothing new, there. You bore the insults when they came without flinching; it was just how it worked. They were the sort of men that didn’t much like being told what to do by the likes of you. A woman – stupid tavern wench.

‘The Butcher’s Bitch’, they’d called you.

And in all the time you’ve known him, you don’t think you’ve ever seen Geralt so furious.

You’d managed to pull him away before it devolved to a full-on tavern brawl and crushed aside the hurt when the Witcher had ripped his arm from your grasp. The instigators were summarily banned from the premises; the rest of the night had drawn to a close without incident, save for the fact that you’d practically had to snarl at Geralt to let you tend to his wounds.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break a finger,” you mutter.

Silence. The cold of it sinks in deep. You bite your tongue, standing and letting go of Geralt’s hand in favor of packing your healer’s kit up once more. The bottles clack together with a little more force that necessary as you grit your teeth; under the sting of your ego, you can feel your own anger bubbling just under the surface. Gods, you want to shake him – shout him down, throttle him around his stupid, thick head.

‘Let me in’, you want to scream.

“I’ll be downstairs,” you tell him instead, tone short and hoarse. “Need to settle the accounts for the week.”

He doesn’t stop you until you try to skirt past the tub. One big, scarred hand reaches up from the water and grips at your wrist, halting you in your tracks. His palm burns on your skin.

“Do you know why they call me that?” he growls out.

“No,” you snap. “And I don’t fucking care – “

“Well, you should.”

Geralt looks at you. Finally – finally – meets your gaze and you’re shocked to see those bright eyes have lost the ice behind them. He just looks tired; tired, and angry, with something that could be sorrow hidden just underneath. The firelight dances over his wet skin, reflects off the hammered copper of the tub to give the Witcher a gilded look about him. Pale and broad, tinged with gold. You study him, taking in the fall of his damp hair around his face. He looks so much younger.

You turn your wrist in his grip, shift to lace your fingers with his, and kneel at his side again. He stares at you and nearly seems to lose his nerve, shifting his gaze to the surface of the water. “Do you know of the Curse of the Black Sun?” he mumbles.

His other hand spins lazily over the bathwater, rippling it with a soft noise against the edge of the tub. “Heard it was shit,” you tell him. “Gave a lot of men the excuse to hurt a lot of young girls.”

The Witcher’s soft mouth twitches up, just for a moment – barely a smirk. The line of his jaw goes tense, same as it does when he’s biting his tongue. “Renfri… she was one of those girls,” he says after a moment. “I met her in Blaviken.”

It feels like the bits of ice at the back of your throat have started to melt and you find you can swallow again. Geralt’s hand is warm over yours, both from his own body heat and the steaming water. He’s silent for a long stretch, the quiet broken only by the quiet whisper of the water and the occasional crackle of the logs on the fire. His gaze stays where it is, but he finally begins to speak again.

You learn about Renfri and her men. How she called them off when they were ready to hang Geralt in the woods outside Blaviken. He tells you of Stregebor, and you can hear the sneer in his voice when he mentions the sorcerer by name. How the old man told him that Renfri was a monster, something mad and deadly that needed to be put down. He tells you Renfri’s story. He tells you about the marketplace.

Renfri’s death.

The stoning.

The Butcher of Blaviken tells you his story in a low, even, almost monotone voice. He doesn’t glance at you, not once. But neither does he push you away.

“That’s where the name comes from,” he says at the last of it, and it’s so quiet you’re not sure if he’s meant to say it out loud. “And with good reason.”

You inhale slow, taking in a breath that you didn’t realize you were holding. It catches in the back of your throat. You half expect him to shrug away, but when you lean against the edge of the tub – when you grip his hand tight and press your lips against his temple – Geralt seems to relax into the contact. He smells of your soap, and oiled leather. You nuzzle softly into his damp hair.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper to him. “I’m so sorry you had to make that choice, dear heart.”

The Witcher lets out a slow breath, shoulders sinking further into the warm water surrounding him. He lets you take gentle hold of his chin, lets you turn his face until he’s meeting your eyes. You study him, carefully, taking in the sharp cheekbones and the slope of his nose. Your thumb brushes gently over the stubble at his jaw. He leans into your hand, just for a moment.

“You are not the Butcher here,” you tell him, and your tone is fiercely gentle. “You were never the Butcher here, not to me. You are just Geralt – my Geralt.”

Pretty gold eyes flash back at you. There’s a curiosity behind them, something sharp that makes your stomach drop towards your knees because you realize the implication of what you’ve just told him. Shit – shit. Your face goes warm. You bite your lip, but don’t drop the Witcher’s gaze, and you see his soft lips tilt up at one corner. “Yours, hm?” he mumbles.

Your face feels too hot, but you nod regardless. “Aye.”

He stares. Studious, intense, and the heat in your face flushes downward, prickles over your skin until you feel sweat begin to bead at the back of your neck. You duck your head. The Witcher lets you break the spell, lets you escape and stand to grab the large bath sheet hanging by the hearth. You hear water slosh when he stands and steps out of the bath; you feel oddly shy when you hand him the warmed fabric, chewing at your bottom lip as Geralt rubs the water from his pale skin. Shadow and firelight play over the cut of his torso – you watch a bead of water slick its way down the side of his thick neck before it catches on the dip of his collarbone.

All the while, he watches you. You try not to fidget and fail. Gods, you can’t stand it when he looks at you like that – it’s curious heat and shameless, open desire. It makes you feel like you’ve laced your bodice too tight and you clear your very dry throat.

“Are you hungry?” you ask weakly.

The Witcher shakes his head. He stalks towards you – for that’s the only way to describe the movement – dropping the bath sheet as he closes the distance, all pale, naked skin and solid muscle. You can feel the beat of your pulse in your throat when he crowds close and he cups your face in his scarred hands before slanting his mouth over yours. The kiss is deep, but unhurried. Geralt licks your gasp out from behind your teeth, growling in return when your hands grip the solid plane of his back. He kisses you until you feel dizzy, until your heart thunders hard against your ribs and your legs go weak.

“Are you mine, then?” the Witcher growls, low and ominous as summer thunder. He keeps one hand at your jaw; the other trails sweetly down your neck. His fingertips skate over the smooth, polished wolf’s tooth of your necklace. He tugs the laces at the top of your bodice.

“Hm? Does that make you mine, sweet girl?”

The lacing whispers free of its grommets and though the tension on your bodice goes slack, you still find it difficult to catch your breath. You can barely remember how to fucking nod, but you do it. “Yes,” you whisper.

Geralt kisses you again. The heat of it scorches.

[carbootsoul]

i was tagged by @katarahairloopies!!! thank u :mwah:

name: leo! @/zeitgeistofnow on ao3, @lazypigeon & @timetohope on here, altho i’m considering uh switching back to not having an art blog :/ i have to think abt it.

fandom(s): ace attorney is my main one rn bc i’m replaying the games with a friend of mine and it’s reminding me how invested i am in the characters!! a lot of my recent fic is atla stuff, altho i’ve been distancing myself from the fandom bc i’ve kinda exhausted my interest in it. finally i’ve been reading a lot of mp100 fic but i don’t think i’ll ever write for it. i just love how dumb all the characters r (with the dubious exception of ritsu)

where you post: ao3!! tbh i always get suprised when people say they write/read fic on any other platform like i haven’t messed around w wattpad or ff.net since middle school... catch up........

most popular oneshot: going just by “one chapter” as the definition of a oneshot, the firestarters, bc it’s fluffy and modern au :) i wouldn’t necessarily call it a oneshot tho bc to me a oneshot shows like, one scene? so like by my definition and your sweet sweet sun makes me crazy (i wanna lay you down and see how you amaze me is my most popular!! (also @ kit u thought UR fic titles were unnecessarily long??? i’ve hit the ao3 LIMIT for characters in titles. it’s about the aesthetic

most popular multichapter fic: sdkjflakjlkj it’s two crowned kings; and one that stood alone, which is a w359 fic i wrote back in late 2017. it’s literally the last fic i haven’t orphaned from when i actually wrote podcast fic (i have 4 other podcast fics but they were all borne out of nostalgia and written after i stopped participating in the fandom). i rewrote all but the last chapter? the last two? about a year ago and i fucked up halfway through so like chapter 6 and 7 are repeated and there’s something missing but i’m too lazy to fix it. no one’s going to read it now anyway :) it WAS the top minlace fic for a little while tho which i take great pride in.

favorite story you’ve written so far: oh that’s a hard question akfsldkfj i honestly like most of them!! and i write a LOT so there’s a lot to choose from. tonight, we are young is def one of my favorites- it was fun to write and i got to explore the ways zuko and yue r similar, which i LOVE to do outside of a zukka/yukka view. you can lean on my arm as you break my heart  is one that i’m really proud of? the whole “cooking as an expression of bato’s love” is definitely some of my favorites. a lot of my ace attorney fics would be categoried as my favorites if i hadn’t improved, too, if that makes sense. like they’re no long my favorites because i can see where my writing is shitty and it bothers me, but if i had written them a month ago they’d be my favorite.

fic you were nervous to post: figures 1-5: killing gods def!! it’s a lot more purple-prose-y than most of my fics and it was also written before i’d kinda like emersed myself in the atla fandom so i didn’t have as good a grasp on the general understanding of zuko’s character as i do now. tbh it’s one i’m rly happy w tho!! i have a few people leave really nice comments on it and rereading them makes me really happy. also it was the start of me hating the position of fire lord and being at least passively anti-it in my fics.

how you choose your titles: they’re almost all song lyrics!! only 14 of my 50 words AREN’T song lyrics and about half of those are from before i started writing ace attorney fic lol. sometimes i go into a fic with a song in mind for the vibes and then i usually go with lyrics from that (like in ‘cuz we’re the greatest /they’ll hang us in the louvre), but otherwise i usually pick an artist i’ve been listening to and go through their songs until i find a lyric that fits. sometimes the lyric doesn’t even really fit the fic and i just chose it at random or because i searching up the word “fly” in my spotify library or whatever. honestly i like coming up with titles? i know a lot of fic writers hate it but being able to just use song lyrics is v soothing for me and while i know that most people won’t search out a song just bc it’s a fic title like.. seeing that the title of a fic is a hozier lyric does affect how i read it and i kinda like that.

do you outline? i outline my long form/multichaptered fics with varying strictness. usually anything over ~8k will have some kind of outline. sometimes i go into it with every single scene planned out, sometimes it’s just notes on the side of the google doc that say “it's about MORE family. about how it's not betraying your existing family to find more” and “scenes i want to include: [...]” and “vampires... ngl kinda hot.” i’m trying to outline super strictly less bc i’ve found it’s less fun? but i do try to keep a plot arc in mind. since most of my fics are more character-driven than plot-driven, that usually just means keeping track of what character development i want to happen or what is motiviating the characters. 

complete: um everything posted on ao3 i guess. also the MULTITUDE of orphaned fics out there asksfjldkj i always click ‘leave my pseud on’ so if u look up my username you see all of my fics and then a. lot of other ones.

in progress: - a fic titled ‘dad phoenix’ that is actually just a no DL-6 au with defense attorney miles edgeworth and single dad bartender phoenix where neither of them want to date for A While but phoenix gets wrapped up in one of miles’s cases. it’s about family. it’s about writing teenagers. it’s about the background franmaya which is ALWAYS what i’m here for in wrightworth fics - a franmaya werewolf/vampire au because i’m ~gay~ and love rivals to lovers and also franziska and maya both being angry their older brothers r dating each other. - my secret santa fic!! which i can’t talk about much but it does feature toph and zuko and also piandao and jeong jeong???? idk where they came from but they are Part Of The Fic Now also i forgot iroh existed for half the fic and wrote piandao as zuko’s father figure and now i’m in too deep. - a 5+1 bakoda fic (maybe a bato/hakoda/kay fic??? i need to decide. that’s part of why this fic is still incomplete bc i can’t decide which relationship dynamic i prefer) that’s 5 times bato said he loves hakoda and one time hakoda said it back. possibly i have already written him saying i love u back and i need to change the title a little. - retail au klapollo where klavier works at an overpriced boutique and apollo comes in to buy earrings for nahyuta’s birthday. klavier gives him a punch card (one that the store doesn’t actually offer anymore as a bid to get apollo to come back) and all of apollo’s family come in to use the punch card and also give klavier variations on the shovel talk/find out if he’s actually into apollo. - a LOT of atla fics that i don’t think i’ll ever finish :(

coming soon/not yet started:  - i want to write some blackmadhi bc they’re.. cute..... and it’s a good excuse to also write athena and i love her - my stuff for yueki week!!! i have NOT prepped enough but hopefully i’ll remember in time! i wrote the prompts in a way that kinda set up stuff i’ve already wanted to write (don’t look at me lol) so hopefully i’ll get at least two or three fics finished in time. - i want to rewrite the wrightworth fic i have about them not getting married bc it was interesting and i like what i wrote about but i think i could have written it better and made it more interesting. rewriting fics is hard tho bc i’m never sure if it makes sense to just edit in the new work or to repost it? and then if u repost it do u delete the old one? conflicting so i might just not

do you accept prompts? totally!!! a disclaimer tho i’m not super into writing atla stuff anymore (most of the atla stuff i’m still writing is  something i made a commitment to finish) so if your prompt is an atla one i probably won’t do it :/ basically anything else is fair game tho!! podcasts/aa/sa/uh i don’t remember anything else but like if you search a fandom on my blog and come up with more than two posts about it chances r i’d be happy to write fic for it!

upcoming work that you’re most excited about: oh huh i mean probably the no dl-6 au!!! it’s the longest ace attorney fic i’ve written already and since it’s wrightworth it’ll get more attention than any franmaya fic i write. my standards r so high now tho after getting to much feedback from atla fans... love u all... obviously i have no choice but to pressure my atla mutuals into playing ace attorney. pls ask abt it bc i WIll Give You A Sales Pitch about why you’d like it in relation to atla

tagging: i’m not rly tagging anyone!!! @deadflora if you still consider urself a fic writer also consider urself tagged! also any of my other mutuals who write fic i just can’t think of anyone rn

[lokilickedme]

Because of "The Department", I am starting to become interested in Hozier. Are there any songs you would recommend for new listeners? Does he have anything romantic and sad?

Ohhhh my goodness.  Does he have anything romantic and sad…DOES HE HAVE ANYTHING ROMANTIC AND SAD?!  (sorry, I’m hyperventilating with excitement here)

Sit down honeypants, have I got a playlist for your listening pleasure.

First, you’re fortunate that he’s only got two officially released albums, two EPs, and a handful of covers and film tracks - because frankly the world couldn’t handle much more than what he’s given us so far.  We need time, we need to acclimate, we need to be strong enough to take it.  And for what he has given us thus far, we are thankful.  *amen*

I don’t even know where to start categorizing his songs individually, but since you specifically asked for “romantic” and “sad”, I’ll begin there:

ROMANTIC AND/OR SAD HOZIER SONGS TO PINE AND/OR YEARN TO:

Work Song - Gotta start here, for reasons.  This song is what I would call the epitome of romance.  It’s a nod to the field hymnals of the deep south, with the religious solemnity replaced by a mournful sort of romantic adoration for a lover who somehow saved him from a past he had all but lost himself to.  Sweet and gentle and worshipful, it fairly reeks of bad man redeemed by the love of a good woman.  He thanks the higher powers every day for the gift of his lover, whether the gods are listening or not, whether he is worthy of their attention or not - he no longer cares about that, because if there’s no eternal heaven for him, this moment on earth with his love is more than enough.  You are his deity now, his redeemer, his savior…and he’s at peace with his past because he knows you love him as much as he loves you.  Beautiful and hopeful, and almost painfully romantic.

Like Real People Do - Gah, I don’t even know where to start with this one.  It was inspired by Seamus Heaney’s series of poetic odes to the bog bodies discovered in the wilds of Ireland, which in itself doesn’t seem like a very ripe field to plow for romantic sentiment.  However, let me direct you to the following verse:

I will not ask you where you came fromI will not ask, and neither should youHoney just put your sweet lips on my lipsWe should just kiss like real people do

Yeah, we’re done here.  Basically it’s a vague fairy tale whose implications you’re free to ascertain for yourself.  Is it grave robbing?  Murder?  Some dark fae magic resurrecting an ancient being for some dark purpose he can’t recall? A lonely woman enlisting a disreputable spell to conjure a lover for herself from the long-dead bones of a forgotten victim?  Or was he simply buried by his grief/pain/sadness and “dug up” by the love and care of a stranger?  Whatever it is, it’s lovely.

To Be Alone -  Howling and intense, feral and wild, this is a tune to fuck to.  Romantically, of course.  The Celtic drums, the yowling chorus, the stomping that brings to mind a tribal Druid ceremony, untamed and darkly sexual in all its heathen glory…

Honey, when you kill the lightsAnd kiss my eyesI feel like a person for a moment of my life

Need I say more?  How about this:

To feel your weight in arms I’d never useIt’s the god that heroin prays to

Powerful, right?  And any song that has Feels good, god it feels good as a repetitive chorus can’t be anything but babymaking tunes.  Trust me.

Better Love - This is a film soundtrack song that appears on the ending credits of The Legend Of Tarzan.  Lush and frantically heartfelt and literally gushing with a profound romance that rises and rises until it hits a crescendo that you just gotta listen to on headphones with your eyes closed.  It’s a religious experience, the kind that’s easy to imagine yourself screaming OH GOD!! in the middle of.  Yeah, that kind.  The rising fury of the music, the piano, the horn section, his voice, is all very reminiscent of that kind of love.  Just beautiful, urgent, and will have you imagining yourself in a Victorian dress standing on the bank of a river somewhere waiting for your love to return from some distant place.

Dinner And Diatribes - Speaking of that kind of love, here we have a song that uses those very words to describe what loverboy wants and is asking for from you, his passionate yet momentarily bored significant other.  The two of you are stuck at some hideously stale social engagement and his soul is dying slowly with each dull conversation he has to participate in; his only reprieve is in staring at you from across the room and sending you subliminal messages about what he would very much like for you to do to him as soon as he gets you out of there.  Let there be hotel complaints and grievances raised, yeah that kind of love.  Romantic?  Not strictly, no, not on the face of it.  But really, what’s more romantic than knowing your partner well enough to know that one look from you across a crowded room will have them searching for a way to excuse themselves from the party so they can go home and absolutely rail you?

Scarcely can speak for my thinkingWhat you’d do to me tonightNow that the evening is slowingNow that the end is in sightHoney, it’s easier knowingWhat you’d do to me tonight 

 And we’re not even going to discuss the pounding Celtic tribal drums that set up a rhythm through the entire song that subtly mimics a headboard banging against the wall.  Rowdy loud romance at its pulse pounding best.

In A Week - Nothing says romance like two lovers decomposing in a field together, scaring the cows and slowly turning into food for the foxes and crows.  A beautiful tune, gorgeously sung as a duet with Karen Crowley.  He claims this was meant to be very tongue-in-cheek, and god I hope he’s not lying because I worry about the boy sometimes.

Nobody - My personal favorite, this one is a road song chronicling a love through comparison.  He tells his sweetheart how much he misses her, not with the actual words I miss you, but through a series of either/ors:

If I had the choice between hearing either noiseThe excitement of a thousand, or the soothing of your voiceAt first chance I’d take the bed warmed by the bodyI once warmed my hands over a burnin’ MaseratiStill I’ve had no love like your love

A cute love song full of playful devotion to an absent lover.  Just perfect.

Shrike -  I should have put this higher up on the list, I know.  You’ll understand what I mean when you listen to it.  A Shrike is a murderbird, btw.  Yeah, he’s comparing his powerful desire to express his love (after having tragically/stupidly missed a prior opportunity to do so) to a Shrike (him) impaling food on a thornbush (her).  Again, it’ll make sense when you listen to it.  A beautiful, haunting, lushly lyrical song about wistful longing.

Wasteland Baby -  This song, geezus.  The world is ending, it’s here, it’s happening, and he’s watching it all come down while sitting next to you, holding your hand, waiting for it to reach the pair of you as the flames lick the sky.  Neither of you are scared, just at peace, together, waiting for the end of it all to take you.  Oddly beautiful, and his voice - god, his voice.  Wasteland baby, I’m in love, I’m in love with you.

Movement - A love song to all the things you see in your lover that are lacking in yourself.  Poetic and poignant, coming from a towering giant with a tendency to trip over his own feet, singing about his lover being graceful and feeling moved by the way she moves.

NFWMB - Yes, it means what it looks like.  Nothing Fucks With My Baby, and yes he says that word every other line.  But the way he utters it with such dreamy conviction is just…ugh, it’s a horny song okay?  Just unabashedly horny.  And romantic, because he’s not making a bar room threat as in NOTHING fucks with my baby!!, he’s issuing a laid back warning that if you DO fuck with his baby, she will straight up fuck you up and he will sit back and watch, shaking his head in an I told you so sort of sympathy.  His baby is so terrifying that the goddamn apocalypse willingly averted itself when it saw she was in the vicinity.  An ode to a strong lover that he respects with every fiber of his being and by god you should too.

From Eden - Basically a love song from the devil’s point of view.  I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door.  That’s romantic, folks.

Moment’s Silence (Common Tongue) - My second favorite song in, like, the entire history of music.  Remember when I said NFWMB was unabashedly horny?  Well, this is a song about oral sex.  No qualms, no masking in flowery terms, and a whole lot of borderline blasphemous comparisons to religious verbiage to boot.  And it’s one hell of a banger, with Hoz howling like his baby just put her mouth on him (which is the chorus, more or less).  A no-apologies hard driving ballad devoted to fellatio, which I find oddly romantic in the simple fact that he speaks of it as a holy act of devotion.  He worships his lover, who is, ironically, the one on her knees in the holy posture of prayer in front of him.  And god does he love her for it.

Jackie And Wilson - This one is tricky, because it’s a rousing catchy tune flowing around a set of words that, once you listen carefully to them, become a whole lot of not what I thought.  He speaks of love, and of being saved, and of the attentive care that his lover gives him.  Only later do we hear the truth behind those words - that the love was obsessive and immature, that the savior casually abandoned him without even saying goodbye, that her care was no more than an amused tolerance to his childish adoration.  She knew all along that she wasn’t in it for the long haul, while he was making plans for forever.  But all hope isn’t lost - he’s not irreparably damaged, he isn’t ruined for life.  He simply goes and digs up the version of himself that he buried at the beginning, and starts again.  A little more experienced, a bit more jaded, but ready to do it all over again because maybe it’ll be right next time.  A hopefully romantic little cautionary tale that somehow doesn’t lose its playfulness, even as he’s putting out his cigarette and noticing that she’s gone.

Do I Wanna Know - this is a cover/retool of the song of the same name by Arctic Monkeys, and it is sublime in its sad yearning.  While the original is a driving, dark, sexy ode to obsessive love, Hozier’s version is a gentle, tender, hauntingly heart-tugging song about longing and uncertainty.  It’s a slow game of she loves me, she loves me not being played by a lover who is unsure if it’s worth the bother to try to fall in love with someone else if the current object of his laconic affections is no longer interested in him, or if he should just keep trying to win her back and keep the status quo as is.  And his voice…god, the way he caresses words is like he’s making love to your ears without the messy cleanup afterward.

There are more - but I’m going to draw the line here and say ENOUGH FOR NOW, YOU’RE NEW, YOU’RE NOT PREPARED FOR THE REST.  I mean…Angel of Small Death?  Sedated?  Arsonist’s Lullaby?  The hardcore underlying symbolism of his flagship ballad Take Me To Church?  It Will Come Back, for god’s sake??  No, not yet.  Go, dip your toe into the waters, and then come back when you’re ready for more…because everything this man has ever done is brilliant and beautiful and profound, and oh boy do I look forward to ruining another innocent with it all :)

[lewyn-martell]

5, 6, 17, 32, 37, 38, 39

i’m so sorry it took me this long, my computer was with my little bro and i needed it to check the songs on my playlist seeing how long they last and etc.

5.  a song over 5 minutes long

Kajira Re by Alisha Chinai

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thank you brazillian novela caminho das índias for giving me this song.

6.  a song under 2 minutes long

El Mundo es mi Familia from Coco soundtrack (in spanish)

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this song is like 50 seconds long but i love it so much, i YEARN for a full version.

>>> honorable mentions to Jessica Jones’ Main Title and Double Trouble from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’s soundtrack.

17.  a song for raging

Cat People (Putting Out Fire) by David Bowie

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my dudes this is to rage with class, i really REALLY wanted to put helter skelter by the beatles where it’s like a punch, but THIS ONE it builds the tension so beautifully and then it punches you in the face and it’s WORTH IT. 

32. a song whose lyrics shocked you once you were old enough to understand them

Love the Way You Lie by Eminem ft. Rihanna

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well, rather than shocked in a bad way, getting older made me actually understand and appreciate this song even more. the lyrics showcase an abusive relationship primarily through the eyes of the abuser and it blew me away to see the circular narrative of the abuse, the highs and lows and how they lie to each other and to themselves for their own reasons to keep it. it made me seriously be in awe of how each section works: the first presents the relationship to us and establishes all the ups and downs of it, the second one tells us how the initial high exploded into hatred and how she tries to get away from it, leaving him in pain which brings us to the last section where he desperately tries to make excuses to get them back together, promising to change when in the last line we get the “If she ever tries to fuckin' leave again, I'ma tie her/To the bed and set this house on fire” which... WOW. i truly have no words.

37.  a song you’re ashamed to have in your music library

i don’t think i’m ashamed of any music i like... i mean, have i tried to conceal to a classmate that i listen to the high school musical soundtrack? sure, but for tumblr??? hiaskjnkasjn we all embarrass ourselves daily on this site, it’s not like my questionable taste in music is the most scandalous thing i’ve ever presented about myself here.

still, i’m trying, but idk,,, maybe one less lonely girl by justin bieber? maybe because it’s understandable for society to listen to a catchy pop song when it’s released but then everyone moves on and i still have it in my library ever since i listened to it and i still enjoy it?

38.  ok what’s the song you were too ashamed to even post for #37

i’m out of options. maybe the fact that i still listen to the smiths on streaming even though morrissey is Like That. but that could be said about a lot of artists on my playlist that i have no idea if they are indeed Like That.

39.  the most played song in your music library

this is a very hard one because i only got spotify premium pretty recently so that site that shows this kind of stuff wouldn’t show it with accuracy, and neither will any of the other platforms i listen bc i also used another streaming service during the high of my beatles obsession so my library of downloaded songs would not cover that, so there’s really no way to know. BUT the song i heard the most ON SPOTIFY IN 2019 was Shrike by Hozier if it’s worth anything.

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[stateofgrace-acoustic]

lover - first song ranking & thoughts

first of all i just need to say i legitimately don’t feel ‘meh’ about a single song on this album. on any other album. i always had one or two songs i was just kind of ‘take it or leave it’ about. but Lover really did that - they’re all amazing and wonderful. but here’s an attempt at an order of how much i love them!

18. it’s nice to have a friend

this really reminds me of you are in love in the way it recounts all the small gestures and steps involved in becoming close to somebody. it’s really cute and at the perfect space on the album, leading to daylight. not a mindblowing song or anything, but the vibe fits onto lover really well. i’m glad that it’s here 

17. you need to calm down

yeah, i cooled down on this one a little bit. it’s fun and the message is important, but me! is the better single tbh. still though, the feeling of empowerment this gives me over my nonexistent online haters is wonderful. and i love the attitude of the song of just looking at the assholes who live their entire lives putting energy into hating people and just being like....why are you like this. it’s pathetic. calm the hell down. so needed in our current debate culture

16. me!

a real grower! taylor and brendon urie have such good chemistry, tbh that’s really the backbone of the song. it’s just a really nice carefree spring/summertime self love song, a perfect soundtrack for when you feel happy and content with yourself. 

15. the man

just dropping the complete truth on us with this one. i’ve wanted taylor to make this song for years (and i know she said she’s been wanting to but just never found the right words!) the bridge really elevates this too. and it’s sad how relatable the entire song is in literally every aspect of professional (and personal) life for women. i don’t think it’s quite as strong as it could have been, but still really solid

14. i think he knows

this is like the fun version of dress. that’s all i got to say. just as explicit, but this time around it’s super cheeky and i love it. also goals of self confidence if i’ve ever seen them

13. paper rings

the joyful energy this has!! just makes you smile and want to dance immediately, a wonderful wholesome happy bop

12. false god

listen.....this is special. i absolutely think this is the most experimental song on the album, both in terms of the music (is that a saxophone in the bg?? it’s almost got a jazzy vibe? completely uncomparable to anything she’s ever done and still so distinctly Taylor), but also with the lyrics, where she goes into the love = religion theme which honestly....as a Florence + the Machine and Hozier fan, i don’t even need to go into how much of a vibe that is. I couldn’t have imagined it working so well for Taylor though, but honestly, this song feels perfectly brooding, summertimey, melancholy, - it’s almost like taking the darker underside of Cruel Summer and exploring it in depth! this is very much a song i need to be in a Specific Mood to really appreciate, but it’s damn well made

11. afterglow

i love the maturity of this. not just the apologizing for picking a fight, but explaining how it came to be - at the end, from a place deep seated anxiety. ‘it’s all me, in my head’ (those high notes are beautiful) you can really feel how sorry she is. at the same time, the song sounds like something bigger, like an anthem - almost like that place high above that she’s trying to elevate them to.

10. i forgot that you existed

SO MUCH FUN i keep repeating that but that’s just the mood of this album tbh, playful and mature at the same time. this song is just like, when you’re over someone but you just can’t help yourself and have to throw shade one last time before moving on. i love the bouncy beat!!

9. lover

this song is literally the feeling of ‘home’ in music. so cozy, comfortable, blissful. dreamy. perfect title track. also completely timeless - i think this is one of those songs that we will look back on in years as a classic in her catalogue, a song you will always want to play again

8. the archer

this was my definite favorite of the pre released songs. anxiety, doubts, the way they all just keep coming back and eating at you, it’s described so perfectly and painfully. and the production really makes it sound like you’re in a separate space from reality, just stuck in your head trying to find a way forward, to soothe yourself. the ‘they see right through me / i see right through me’ transition in the bridge is fantastic and keeps giving me chills. so much personal connection to this one

7. soon you’ll get better

feels weird to even rank this but......just wow. the harmonies with the dixie chicks are so beautiful, and the way the lyrics talk about the feeling between denial and desperate hope, the transition from “because you have to” to “because I have to” - I have to cling to this hope, or i won’t make i - it completely broke my heart. and the fact that Taylor can conjure all these complex emotions with just a guitar and a few words is incredible. i’m so so sorry for them and i wish all the best for Andrea with my entire heart. 

6. london boy

i already see people underappreciating this, what is going on??? there are multiple cute bouncy joyful songs on this album but this is my favorite because it’s just got a fantastic flow and melody, and i love all of the references to places and dialect specific words and it’s just so wholesome?? but what really makes this is (once again) the bridge. stick with ME im your QUEEN like a tennessEE stella mccartNEY, just the energy!! the fun!! excuse me while i listen to this every day for the rest of my life

5. miss americana & the heartbreak prince

okay, taylor’s brain in this one. i made a post talking about how this song has three layers - at first there’s the high school setting, then it references the ‘cancelling’ of Taylor’s public persona, but then it can also be seen as a comment on US politics and the whole climate of society right now. and it’s all tied together perfectly because high school is the perfect metaphor for this!! she’s basically saying we’re all behaving like immature school children, bullying each other for the stupidest reasons, mob mentality, stupid contests, fabricated stories made up to tear people down, and the feeling of loneliness but also fear and horror that comes with all that for the people who are the victims of it.....it’s literally all like high school in the worst way. i just love this concept, and the melody and production give me a little bit of a reputation vibe almost? which is perfect for the song, the dark dramatic vibe shows the feeling of fear most of all and that’s just....too real. 

4. death by a thousand cuts

........listen, i surely didn’t think that Taylor would write one of her best breakup songs in the year of our lord 2019, but here we are. it’s once again, the small moments she recounts. taking the long way home. the uncertainty if it will ever be fine again. and the bridge/second verse / whatever that part is but that entire part. ‘paper cuts from my paper thin plans’, excuse me. the fact that she wrote this about a movie where a couple breaks up after years really shows tbh, because it’s especially that kind of....not being able to find a part of yourself that isn’t influenced by the other person, that’s so horrible and makes moving on so painful. i also love the production which makes this sound so uptempo, contrasting the lyrics! idk the entire song just clicks into place for me

3. daylight

this is like a summary of the entire album (and with the reference to the past and especially red, it’s even connecting her entire discography together). it’s like the clean of this album, except this time around it feels more complex - all the subtle references to past mistakes, ghosts, that might not be so easy to wash away. i’ve already mentioned that i love about the album (and this song especially) how it doesn’t gloss over negative experiences but addresses them directly, like looking them in the eye and then saying ‘you don’t have the power to define me’. that’s what this song feels like - it’s not unabashedly celebratory, it’s actually quite melancholic, but also full of real healing, a feeling of peace and reconciliation. and the ‘i once believed love would be black and white / burning red, but it’s golden’.....excuse me.....how dare she

2. cornelia street

god, what a magical song. the kind of episodic buildup that Taylor excels at. the vibrancy of the production matching the vibrancy of the relationship as it develops, revolving around this one place in its multiple stages, and then the repeated, deep seated fear of losing all that. it’s just. ugh. what can i even say. and so so catchy. the “listen..” killed me. just like delicate, the vibe between fear and being drunk on happiness is so so well done.

1. cruel summer

oh yes. and here we have an absolute perfection of a pop song. incredible catchiness. smart, clever lyrics but also that underlying vibe of sadness and anxiety. seriously, the complexity this has?? and then that soaring bridge, the chaotic but beautiful but painful reality of all of it coming together. ‘i love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?’ idk this song just transcends everything for me friends. it’s like the vibe of out of the woods or maybe even style but the lyrics are even more sharp, they cut a little deeper, literally ‘summer’s a knife’. this is a song she only could’ve written influenced by reputation: there’s happiness but there’s that edge in it too. idk if anything i’m saying makes sense. i love this song so so so much. 

[divinecuriosity]

(via https://open.spotify.com/user/rorytunes/playlist/0PZ6RKvHIQl8VmIPNCHoq8?si=N9WvX6Q_TieHfkmVDR97FA)

Einkil Stonespeech - Dwarf - Warlock

Here’s some Thoughts about my boy (he’s gay)!

Diplomat’s Son - Vampire Weekend

If I ever had a chance it's now then

But I never had the feeling I could offer that to you

This song’s actual lyrics don’t totally fit Einkil’s whole schtick, but it’s the song that inspired everything, so it will remain the first on the playlist. There was a lot Einkil could have said when he was stuck at Tirion’s, a strong temptation to just...stay and not look back. Maybe that’s the feywild talking? This snippet is immediately followed by the words “To offer it to you would be cruel//When all I want to do is use, use you”. Take that how you will, I guess.

Fantasy - Superfruit

Evergreen, chemistry

It feels like it's all a dream

We both have secrets

But you got me speechless

Here’s where our story picks up...five (?) days of Feywild, some kind of chemistry, some kind of Deal. “Take me back to your wonderland” and “We’re living in a fantasy”

Any Other World - MIKA

'Cause it's all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in

Take a bow, play the part of a lonely, lonely heart

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in

So Einkil’s dad might be a little bit of an ass. He’s sent home, still injured from the Feywild, suddenly a scandal after all the work he put into repairing his image from his teenage years. Einkil takes it in stride, or at least, plays his part. But his world won’t ever be the same...

Worldly Matters - Carly Rae Jepsen

I keep on walking, I start ditching all my plans

I wanna climb that cedar tree and leave me in good hands

A scar heals over, a call takes root somewhere in Einkil’s mind. Let’s take a college gap year tour just a little late, what could go wrong? Also, we can do magic now?

World Is Ending - Matt and Kim

Please tell me what you want from me I gave it all i got and the world is ending

And

Told me there is no more laughs all the jokes been told time and a half now

And

There is so many fish in the sea but only a few that really know me now!

And

we wanted to see the world so open up your eyes take a look around you

can't explain it from the start but stories get better as stories fall apart yeah!

New friends, a town burned to the ground, this dwarf is really trying his best, the gods are making that a little hard...And all with the backdrop of not knowing his place or why he’s got the powers he has... Stress Times

Castle on the Hill - Maygen Lacey

Found my heart and broke it here

Made friends and lost them through the years

And I've not seen the roaring fields in so long, I know I've grown

But I can't wait to go home

And

And I miss the way you make me feel, and it's real

We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill

Hey, we’re headed back to his home town! New friends in tow, Einkil reflects a little bit on how much he’s changed in the past months. And the last time he was here...he was a little heartsick (see second lyrics, first line), and very lonely, friends wise. But what could go wrong with seeing Mom?

The second bit just has me picturing a post campaign image of the sun setting over the Keep, the party all gathered and swapping stories. Alternatively, there’s a white stone tower in the feywild, where the sun sets sometimes, when it feels like it.

Bloom - The Paper Kites

In the morning when I wake

And the sun is coming through,

Oh, you fill my lungs with sweetness,

And you fill my head with you

Of course these last two songs are love songs, as of 3/1 I have no excuse not to put them on this playlist. Or, I, Cas, have hesitation, but Einkil is feeling sappy and excited for this upcoming conversation. If anything, this could have been a backdrop way back in Feywild times, some sleepy mornings in that highest room...

No Plan - Hozier

There's no plan, there's no race to be run

The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun

There's no plan, there's no kingdom to come

I'll be your man if you got love to get done

Sit here and watch the sunlight fade

Honey, enjoy, it's gettin' late

There's no plan, there's no hand on the reign

As Mac explained, there will be darkness again

And here’s a slightly more realistic take on the upcoming convo... Einkil doesn’t know what’s going on, just that he wants to help. He’ll put himself on the line (or, in the relationship. In the deal)  if it means the power to stop the darkness (Nikoletta, Bane, good old Asmodeus). “ When I'm laying on the marble, marble of flowers you have made” I hope that’s not prophetic of something angsty to come, but Tirion certainly makes flowers!

[canadahowriting]

Like Real People Do

I can only spend so many hours rewriting this. This will have to do.

There isnt enough Louis x Clem fanfiction out there, writers get your shit together!!!

First song is Like Real People Do by Hozier while the second song is With a Little Help From my Friends by The Beatles.

In which Clementine fully experiences music.

The sun had long past set behind the school, darkening the courtyard and beckoning the kids inside. Clementine and AJ were the first to retreat indoors as they had spent the day increasing the size of the schools safe zone. It was no surprise that AJ insisted on going with Clementine and Aasim, claiming he was old enough to go on such a simple job. Clementine found no point in arguing with him.

AJ was clearly exhausted from the long trek but Clementine knew he’d never admit that. She now knew he probably regretted tagging along, too, but he’d never admit that one as well.

Louis couldn't help but feel disappointed as he watched the pair retreat inside with a frown. Violet scoffed. “You’re hopeless.” She said as she stood up from the bench the pair sat at.

He couldn’t help it. He was looking forward to talking with her as he hadn’t seen much of her all day. They had headed out before sunrise and Louis wasn’t much of a morning person.

“C’mon, kicking me while im down? Now that's cold, Vi.” Louis placed a hand over his heart as he watched Violet leave with a teasing smile. He could practically see her rolling her eyes.

“Why not just go talk to her?” Violet asked with a raise of her eyebrow. She, however, didn’t stop to hear his response.

Louis paused, taken aback. “Like go to her room?” He thought aloud. He may not know as much as he would like to about her, but he knew enough to know that she wouldn’t love that idea. Yet, despite his better judgement, he found himself in the hallway by her room.

It had been surprisingly long since Louis had been to this side of the school. Since Minnie and Sophie died, he didn’t have any reason to. Furthermore, this just left him with fewer excuses to stop by Clementine and AJ’s room.

He was still a couple doors down from their room when he stopped dead in his tracks, a voice silencing all of his previous thoughts. He couldn’t quite make out the words, but he had no doubt the voice came from Clementine.

Louis took a few more light and short steps towards the room until he could make out her words. My god was she singing?

“I had a thought, dear, however scary. About that night, the bugs and the dirt” He couldn’t recognize the song, which was surprising as his collection of old records was always growing. He found himself focusing on her beautifully imperfect voice. “ I will not ask you where you came from, I will not ask you, neither should you.”

His cheeks felt red hot as he pictured her face to the voice. She sounded so relaxed, something he noticed, wasn’t very common for her.

With that thought he realized this was a moment he really shouldn’t be eavesdropping on.

He retreated back towards his room, but not without the new song humming from his lips and Clementines voice plaguing his thoughts.

Louis couldn’t stop smiling.

Marlon had insisted on Clementine and AJ taking the day off. Clementine, however, couldn’t agree to that.

She had little problem leaving AJ with Tenn as he was easily distracted by the countless amounts of colours to share. Watching AJ make his first friend brought a heavy weight off her shoulders but she couldn’t help but fear that it wouldn’t last long. Groups like this never really did.

Knowing Aasim, Brody, and Violet were already out hunting and fishing, Clementine decided to look for Louis. She knew he had been the one to upkeep the greenhouse when it was still functioning, so she decided he would be the first step to getting it back in working order.

Marlon told her you could always find him in the library with the piano, where she first met him.

The closer she got to the library, the louder the piano became. It wasn’t as confidently played as the first time she heard it. Instead, she heard the same few chords in different keys being played over and over. She could feel his frustration.

Clementine stopped as she entered the doorway, genuinely interested in hearing him play. She never expected there to be people who kept up with the arts and cultures of the old world.

Louis had his eyebrows furrowed in thought. He was obviously heavily focused on the song in his head. It was surprisingly comforting to see him play, to ignore the hell going on outside the walls like it never existed. A small smile graced her lips.

“I will not ask you where you came from....” Louis started to sing, pausing every once in a while to hum the lyrics instead. Clementines mouth opened wide in surprise. “I will not ask and nei- Oh, hey Clementine!”

All shock turned into anger as Clementine quickly made her way across the room. Louis’s eyes widened as she shoved him off of the pianos bench. “You were eavesdropping, weren’t you!” She accused, placing her hands on her hips for dramatic effect. She stared down at him with a fire in her eyes.

Louis took a second to process what exactly was happening, but when he did, he couldn’t stop the grimace rising to his face.

“I swear I didn’t mean to!” Louis started as he carefully stood to his feet. He kept his hands in front of him in an attempt to ease her. “I was stopping by your room to give you something, but that song you were singing was really good! I just really wanted to learn it, y’know?”

The tension in Clementines shoulders slowly left as she rolled her eyes. “So what was it then?” She asked with a tight frown. She was used to singing AJ to sleep, but the thought of someone else hearing her was super embarrassing.

“What?”

“What were you bringing me, doofus.”

“Oh...” Louis paused. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. “My attention of course.”

Clementine felt herself begin to blush at the silly one liner. He sat there with a confident grin and his head slightly tilted, waiting patiently for her reaction. She quickly looked away, not being able to maintain eye contact with him any longer. She wasn't sure why.

“Well,” Clementine started, moving her hands from her hips to cross her arms over her chest. “you were way off key.”

Louis felt his smile grow wider, if that was even possible. “What, and you could do better?” He challenged with a raise of his eyebrow. Of course he knew she could do better, as she actually knew the song. He just hoped she would take the bait.

Clementine couldn’t help the small tilt in her lips as she rolled her eyes once more. “You are the musician, aren’t you?” She teased.

Louis took a seat on the pianos bench once again and moved over to offer Clementine a seat. He was surprised when she took it. “Yet here I am, asking you for help.” She looked down at the keys with uncertainty. “That’s what im here for.” He assured, placing his hands on the familiar keys. “I just need help with some of the lyrics.”

It took strength to not let out a chuckle at the face Clementine was giving him. “You really expect me to sing along with you.” She deadpanned.

“I could only dream.” Louis murmured, a dreamy look on his face. “Just tell me where im wrong.”

Clementine felt her heart pounding in her chest, but swallowed a breath down hard. She gestured for him to start.

“ I had a thought, however scary...” The chords he played were shockingly familiar to the original, one that Clementine hadn’t listened to since she discovered it in the new frontier. She decided she liked his version better. “About that night, with the bugs and the dirt. Why were you digging? What did you bury?“

Clementine stopped him before he could continue. “Your pacing is off- the lyrics are a lot more lighter then what you are singing them as.”

“Oh?”

She rolled her eyes. She was falling right into his trap, but she found that she really didn’t mind.

Clementine absentmindedly placed her hands on the keys, lightly enough to not actually play them. She kept her eyes on her fingers as she felt Louis’s eyes burning into her face. “I had a thought, dear, however scary, about that night, the bugs and the dirt- See?”

Louis played along absentmindedly on the piano as his focus was mainly on what she was saying. She wasn’t really singing, more speaking the lyrics in the general tone of the song. That was a lot more then what he thought he’d get from her.

“So then the first verse- I will not ask you where you came from

I will not ask you, neither should you.” Louis paused to look at Clementine for her to continue the lyrics for him. That was about as much as he heard her sing the night before.

Clementine hesitated, turning to look at him to gauge his reaction as she sang the next lyrics. “Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips, we should just kiss like real people do.” She finished off with a nervous and shaky breath, something that caught Louis very off guard. He felt his face and neck turn all shades of red.

“Wow.” Was all he was able to come up with in response. “You have a really nice voice.” He later added after too long of a pause.

Clementine broke eye contact him and let out a cough to clear her throat. She moved over slightly, much to Louis’ dismay, as she realized just how close they had gotten. He suddenly felt the urge to change the subject, feeling as if she was quickly closing herself back off once again. “Who is that song even by, anyways?” He asked, trying to lighten the tension.

“I don’t know.” Clementine started with an uncommonly unsure voice. “I found a lot of records and discs at one of the larger groups I used to be with. It helped AJ sleep through the night when he was a baby. Now, its me singing instead.”

Louis watched as Clementine smiled fondly at the memory. It was nice to listen to her open up, even with something as small as that. He wanted her to smile more often.

“Well, that gives me the perfect idea.”

Clementine spun on her chair to face Louis as he stood from the bench. He made his way over to the record player placed on the table where she first found her backpack. There were records scattered messily around the table, some even stacked on the ground. “You’ve got quite the collection.” She noted.

“Ah, yes.” Louis said with a hum, stopping at a certain stack of records until he picked out a particular album he was looking for. He held the album up proudly for Clementine to see. “The Beatles! These guys were huge way before we were ever born.” Clementine, of course, recognized the name from her parents. It made her realize how long it’s been since she thought about anything before this all started.

“I personally think their hits are a little overrated.” Louis admitted as he fiddled with the stylus of the record player. The fuzzy static eventually blended into the song. “This song, however, is my personal favourite.” He added, sending her a smile from over his shoulder.

“What would you think if I sang out of tune?

Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song

And I'll try not to sing out of key.”

Clementine couldn’t help but laugh at the way Louis moved his hips as he walked towards her. He was horrifically off beat. “You’re horrible.” She said as she tried her best to hold back her laughter.

“That’s the point!” Louis grinned, moving his arms in time with his hips. “Who cares. Enjoy the moment.” He held out his hand to her, an offer.

Clementine looked down at his hand skeptically. “I don’t dance.” Despite her words, she put her hand in his. Louis softened.

“Just move with the music. Don’t think about it. Dancing isn’t about thinking.”

Louis took her other hand in an attempt to ease her. He moved their arms back and forth in a goofy fashion, his body swaying side to side. Clementine stared down at their feet, hesitantly following his movements. “You’re still thinking too much.” He started, bringing her eyes back up to him. “Just feel the music.”

Clementine found herself focusing on him instead. She went from studying the dreads that were beginning to cover his face to his carefree smile and then to his freckles. His face was covered in them and she couldn’t help but admire them. She hadn’t seen them up close before. AJ once questioned him about them.

“What’s with all those spots on your face?” AJ asked, not at all concerned with offending.

“AJ!” Clementine had scolded, giving him a stern look. Louis only laughed and squatted down to his level to give AJ a better look at his spots.

“They’re called freckles. I was born with them. Just like how you were born with such curly hair.” Louis explained, much to Clementines surprise. She found herself thinking fondly of that moment, and many other moments shes shared with him.

Louis soon brought her out of her thoughts “Now you’ve got it!” He praised, laughter bubbling in his throat. “You’re a natural.”

Clementine smiled up at him, but it quickly dissipated as her attention was brought to the floor. The track faded out and was replaced by a scratchy buzz. Louis looked down at her with a frown, their hands still locked together despite the fact they were no longer dancing. “What is it?”

“What are your intentions?” Clementine asked, very suddenly. She looked back up at him and quickly continued before he could answer. “Why are you so nice to me? To AJ?”

Louis’s eyes widened as he looked down at her, clearly caught off guard. Was it not obvious? “I mean, I thought it was pretty clear.” He spoke with a nervous laugh. Clementines face said otherwise. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”

Clementine let go of his hands so she could cross her arms over her chest. Louis awkwardly placed his hand on his neck. “Fine! Fine. I mean, I like you, Clem.” Her mouth widened in shock. She guesses it was pretty obvious, with the constant flirting, but she told herself it was just who he is. Or at least, everybody elses reactions told her that. “At first I thought it was just attraction, but there’s something here. I don’t know what to call it, but I know you feel it too. I want to help you, Clem. You and AJ. Bring some silliness into that kids life.”

Louis watched Clementines shocked expression shift into admiration. The same sort of expression she wore when he gave AJ his dinner. Louis felt his heart beating in his throat.

Clementine broke eye contact as she looked at the ground with a blush. “I... I didn’t think I was capable of feeling that way.” She spoke with an awkward laugh. Louis couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

Clementine quickly picked up on it as his expression spoke wonders. She grabbed his hand, a new force of determination overtaking her. “But I do.” She assured, confidently. “I do feel that way.”

Louis visibly relaxed, a relieved sigh leaving his lips. He couldn’t help but pull her into a hug, head tucking into her neck. “Thank god. That would’ve been pretty awkward.”

Clementine laughed before humming a thank you into his chest. “For what?” Louis asked, pulling back only enough to get a look at her face. He wasn’t ready to let go of this moment just yet.

“For reminding me and AJ what its like to be real. To be human.”