#but i still really want to see all of the edits there and see what my mutuals post

[san8ny]

Can you do tutor!reader and dealer!Ellie where r is tutoring Ellie and Ellie falls head over heels, walking r to class, driving her home, and even helping her release some stress after a hard exam

SQUARE ROOT OF WHAT ?

?: You’ve been chosen to tutor someone for a quick cash-grab, but do they have to be this dumb? Maybe you’ll have to change your teaching style a bit.. / E.W / 18+

!: back to mfin BACK!!

“That's like, not correct."

Ellie lifts her head up with the hundredth tired look, meeting your strict one with oddity— how were you still so into this after lecturing her for a good..2 hours? She was sure you’d give up on her like the rest did.

Sighing, you lean over her and hold the pencil steady for her in her own grip as you show her where and when to mark the numbers down..or round them, whatever you were saying.

To be fair, Ellie did want to pass this class bad, but her eyes were beginning to strain from how many steps it came to solving this equation and mainly how you had good tits— what? Your eyes widen and you step back a bit, covering your neckline now.

Fuck, did she say that out-loud?

Scrambling from where she had her head laid on the table, knocking down her chair in the process and slipping onto the floor— she panic strickenly apologizes, informing you she wasn’t thinking straight Literally, and that she didn’t mean it in a weird way!

Modestly, you nod, trying to conceal the faint hue your facial undertones bring out, like the girl you were tutoring didn’t just say you had the nicest rack she’d ever seen. Coughing slightly, you two sit back down at the roundtable.

“Okay, maybe we should take a small break here and meet sometime this week then? You can’t exactly do math with a uh, clouded mind.”

Ellie nods at this, bringing her hand down to rub at her nape nervously, “Yeah, good point.”

Nodding, you begin to gather your stuff, and while Ellie should take that as an initiative to get the hell up and leave, she stays back a bit, awkwardly lingering as she crouches down and hands you the broken protractor she’d cracked earlier. You give a curt smile as you take it from her, not exactly seeing the use of the broken equipment but also not having the heart to tell her “just throw it away,” so you put the cracked pieces in your bookbag.

“Again, man, i’m so fuckin’ sorry. I swear i’m not like, a pervert or stuff, I don’t even say that shi—

You interrupt her with a slight hand gesture, telling her all was well and that you actually weren’t offended, taking the bold statement as somewhat of a compliment. Ellie stares at you, tilting her head. Really?

You wave to her once more before leaving, insisting you needed to catch the city-bus but the girl shakes her head with wide eyes. No way she was letting someone like you on public transport at 9pm. No offense, but she’d had her fair share of naïvely taking it during late hours most would avoid the transportation.

With not much convincing, both of you knowing exactly who’s reasonings outweigh the other, she leads you to her car. It’s not as bad of a vehicle you’d envisioned for her, afterall, some scratches and dents were expected of someone who dabbled in street-racing and delinquency as Ellie, but her car was surprisingly clean and pristine, a newer edition of a make-model you weren’t too knowledgeable about, but then again, a car was a car.

As Ellie starts the car and begins driving, you put in the address on her GPS. “Oh! Actually, could you put it in my phone instead? My car one is faulty.” Nodding, you grab her phone, opening it with the passcode she reads out to you, once you’ve got your address in, Ellie cashes more in, “And your number.”

Your eyebrow raises at this, side balling her, was this her lame attempt at getting your number? She had no problem just..meeting you at the library prior to this at the designated spot and tine, how come she need your digits now?

“Ah..just for if I don’t show or something comes up?” You smile, typing your phone in while Ellie spares you a short glance but then back to the road, “You got it.”

From there on, it became a routine between you two. You would text often, meet up for your sessions then she’d drop you off— it was ideal for the both of you, only you found yourself wanting more.

Ellie was book-dumb. A ditz in cargo shorts. There was no doubt about that, but, she had other assets to make up for that. For one, you didn’t find yourself falling for her until she’d tell you all about her loser endeavors, like how she found a ‘make your own sillybands’ set on Amazon and she spent an entire school night making elastic bracelets or maybe, that time she added a drop of NyQuil Cough Syrup to her drink and swore down she made lean. She was a character to say the least.

Right now, she was laying on your couch as you read her flashcards. Surprisingly, she was rapidly answering.

“That’s all.” You smile, noticing her blatant improvement, “You finished them all. You’re good for the test.”

While Ellie would smile at that, she looks down at her palms, tracing the lines before taking a small shrug. You look at her confused, wasn’t she happy?

The girl stares at you some more before sitting up fully, her knees pressing yours, “We’ll..still hang after this, right?” You don’t answer right away, looking at her with a slightly dropped jaw. Ellie takes that as an answer, scooting in closer, “Right?” Her breath fans over your face a bit, proving how overwhelmingly close in proximity she was to you.

That’s one thing you’ve noticed about Ellie, and probably the only place you two collide in, the constant need for reassurance. Finding your footing, you nod, “ ‘course.” To that, she smiles.

“Well, we’re done so you’re free from my shankles for today.” You snort, laying back on the couch and reaching for your phone. Ellie hums, reaching behind her and taking out a small encasing baggie. You weren’t dumb, you could recognize weed at first glance. “You don’t mind, do you?” She coughs, leaning back too into the sofa. What else could you have said? “No, I don’t.”

Her eyes get glossy in a few passes is what you see, already so relaxed than the previous state she was in prior to this. You sit there, tracing her forearm with your nails lightly, a habit you’ve had since childhood, though no-one really complains about it.

Ellie hums, turning her head to face where you sit next to her, you’re so fucking pretty that it almost hurts her. With a slight shiver once she hits the blunt again, she leans in to nuzzle her face into your neck, laying on you softly in a slight spooning position. You were also, very warm.

You smile, raking through her hair with said fingertips, massaging her scalp. “Does it feel good?” Ellie nods, seemingly dazed by how skilled your hands were. Reaching a hand up into her hair, she grabs ahold of yours, bringing it down to her lips— pressing a chaste kiss to your soft knuckles. Your breath hitches at this, and she just looks up at you, “I wanna make you feel good too.”

“Ellie..” Your eyes widen, mouth growing drier with each passing moment her eyes are transfixed on you. Geez, she really was adamant. “You don’t need to make me feel good, dude..” You nervously chuckle, not wanting to believe her words had deeper implications.

Ellie mouth opens, but shuts again, like a fish in water when you say that to her. You don’t want her to return the favor? How come? Is there something wrong with her palms? Do you think she’s dirty? Or do you just want her to get the hell up out of your house?

Her eyes alternate from your own ones to your lips, scooting closer to your face, “But I wanna.”

Now, you were a moaning mess on your slouchy couch, legs pried open with some rando you tutor giving you the best head you’ve had in a while, “Fuckkk..use more tongue.” You sigh, hand buried in her hair as you steer her, desperately lapping at your folds while you smoke her blunt.

Ellie nods repeatedly, burying her face even further into your cunt messily, spitting on it and licking it back up. Greedy..

“You’re so good f’me, hm? That why you purposely act stupid whenever i’m teaching you math? U-ungh..you’re so dumb, caving into whatever bitch gives you a smidge of attention.”

She’s genuinely about to cry from how mean you’re being, but she’s never been so aroused from such humiliation. She tries lifting her head up to give a rebuttal but you shove her back down.

“Y’know, actually, trace the equation earlier on me right now.” You snicker, “Maybe that’ll be our new method to get that empty head of yours to work.”

[i-luvsang]

lead the way, lover — jung wooyoung

pairing : wooyoung x gn!reader ➖⟢ genres : fluff, little bit of angst, comfort ➖⟢ cw : mentions of exhaustion and stress, eating+food mention, almost crying, little bit of kissing, poorly edited ➖⟢ wc : 1.3K ➖⟢ rating : pg-13

wooyoung is a lover, through and through. and he feels everything so, so strongly, his love for you especially. that’s why he’s fidgety and restless as his work day comes to an end; he’s practically desperate to get to you, probably still holed up in the corner of a campus library, digging through archives and textbooks as you prepare for your finals.

he’s got food for you in the fridge and he’s paying much more attention to thinking through the steps he’ll go through to get to you than whatever his manager is speaking about. first he’ll call a taxi on the way back to his apartment so that it’ll be ready after he’s grabbed the food. then he’ll try calling you on his way over to your school in the rare case that you pick up. he wants to double check where you are, just in case. then he’ll find you, probably at a run until he’s inside and no longer allowed to, and hug you tight like he knows you need. that’s when he’ll get you to eat, at least a little, and ask what the best thing he can do for you is. then he’ll do that and anything else you ask him.

wooyoung’s love for you makes his worry strong too, and he tries to hide it behind soft jokes and even softer kisses because he knows you don’t like for him to get anxious on your behalf. but he also knows that you need his worry, or more so, his care—the real stem of the worry—because you always melt into his hugs and your shoulders relax a little at his jokes. he tries not to worry too much, because he does everything in his power to help make your heart feel just a little lighter, your load a little easier to carry. you tell him that’s enough, and he holds onto that like it’s keeping him afloat.

you didn’t pick up the phone, so wooyoung heads to your normal spot in the library. even seeing just the back of your head makes him feel a little better as he approaches. he does his best to be gentle, as to not startle you out of your intense focus. he’s proud when it works; the noise of the plastic bag he’s holding is enough warning before he sets it beside you, and you look up at him without jumping a little like you sometimes do. he gives you the warmest, most blindingly bright smile as he swoops down to press a kiss to your lips, and he basks in the small upturn of your mouth when he moves away.

though secretly, his heart sinks a little. he thinks that you are always absolutely stunning, no matter what, but his heart clenches when he takes in just how exhausted you look. but that little bit of light that pops into your eyes at the sight of him is certainly enough to buoy his spirits.

“you brought food?” you ask, torn between tearing into the bag and staying focused on your studies.

“of course i brought food,” he smiles, sitting down and making the decision for you by taking the container out of the bag, opening it up, and handing you utensils. “eat up, baby. the better you feel, the more you can study!” he really wishes that you’d just rest for once, but he knows the best way to get you to put your textbook aside, if at least just for a bit. you take the utensils from his hands and let him push the food closer to you. the satisfaction that wooyoung feels seeing you eat is something so full and complete that it must only be possible because of just how much he loves you like no other.

he fills the air as you eat quietly, going on about his day and the silliest things that happened in practice. he reads you so fast and easy, knowing today’s a day where you can’t bear the silence, where the sound of his hushed voice is familiar and comforting in perfect contrast with the quiet you’ve been soaked in all day.

when you’re finished, you go to pull your textbook and notes back to you, but he lays a gentle hand on your arm. he’s been aching for this all night.

“can i hug you first?” he asks, all gentle and confident as he turns his chair towards you. you inhale sharply because all you want is his arms around you, but you’re wary that the utter comfort and warmth they provide might make you cry. and if you start crying he might pull you away from your studies completely, but you can’t afford that tonight.

wooyoung can practically see you overthinking it, and the tears are already there, shining in your eyes. he knows what you’re worried about, and he won’t let that stop him from giving you what you really need.

“it’s okay,” he chides gently, “just for a minute, then we’ll get back to studying. i promise.” you push away from the table just a bit, and with that simple invitation, he gathers you up in his arms with such tenderness and fervor all at once that you can’t do anything but melt into his embrace. he rubs your back as you bury your face into his neck.

“i got you,” he whispers when you sniffle. “deep breaths,” he instructs, smoothing his hand up and down your back in a slow rhythm for you to match your breathing to. “you’re gonna do just fine, baby. you’re gonna do amazing. you’re gonna kick these finals in the ass, i know you will. and whatever happens, it’s gonna be alright. i know you can do this, you’ve worked so hard.” his voice is so full of conviction that the words actually calm you down. they’re not some empty promise said just to make you feel better in the moment, no, he fully believes in each syllable he speaks and that is the real comfort. and it never hurts to hear someone else say out loud what you’re praying for. wooyoung loves the way it makes you relax further into his arms.

he lets you stay there as long as you want, but the second he can tell your mind is starting to drift back to your coursework—your shoulders tighten a bit and you start to fidget with the hem of his shirt—he voices his master plan for the night.

“i’ve got an idea,” he starts, waiting to go on until you nod, “how about we get you a treat on the way home, and i’ll read to you from the textbook while you eat it?” it’s too good to be true, so you pull away to look right at him, adoration swimming in your eyes that makes wooyoung fall deeper and deeper into what he thinks is true paradise.

all you can come up with to say is a sweet, whispered, “really?”

“really,” he nods, “you deserve it!” that’s another one of those lovely things he says that you know he really, truly means.

“you’ll find it boring,” you protest half-heartedly. he just smiles.

“you know i always want to know more about what you’re studying. you’re so cool and intelligent, i have to keep up somehow!” wooyoung just about swells in pride when that makes you smile.

“as if,” you scoff, “you’re the coolest, woo.”

“mm, is that so?” he teases, earning him a peck on the cheek.

“yes, it is,” you indulge, smiling because you’re just so grateful for his love and care. “you bring me food and offer to buy me treats and read boring textbooks to me. of course you’re cool.”

maybe another night he’d play at mock-offense, asking if that’s all you really think he’s good for, but tonight he thinks those things are too important to poke fun at. so he just shoots you another winning smile and grabs your hand, standing with you.

“i’ll buy you anything you want. just lead the way, lover.”

[otterish]

A weird favor please...

I'm in a weird sort of bind... You see, I'm autistic, and along with that, I have narcolepsy and misophonia. What does this fucked up collection of weirdness mean? It means I am very sensitive to sound (The misophonia and the autism), and I have seizures that are triggered by stress and the tension headaches I get because of my spinal fusion.

Why all this info? You see, I have a lovely little MP3 player loaded with the most perfect white noise that is guaranteed to calm me down. It takes corded headphones, which is great because I can never find any bluetooth buds that fit in my ears. I have a birth defect that makes it nigh impossible to find any that fit. I did find some amazing corded earbuds though! They are the JVC Gummy in ear earbuds, and I've been using them for over 10 years. They only last about a year or two, but they are like 9 bucks and fit perfectly. Here is an amazon link so you can see what I mean: https://a.co/d/0drGMzDN

The thing is... I can barely afford food (We were on SNAP but they fucked everything up. AGAIN!), let alone the earbuds I need. One of my main misophonia triggers is anyone snoring, mouth breathing, and even sometimes just breathing normally. My husband snores really loud, and tends to have a stuffy nose a lot, so I cannot sleep in the same room with him if I don't have my headphones. If I had to, I would find something sharp and puncture my ear drums. It causes that much anxiety that I sincerely want to lose my hearing.

I'm down to my last pair of headphones, and when I couldn't find them at first I had a severe melt down. I wear them to bed due to my husband snoring, and I want to stay near him. I sometimes rest my hand on his back to feel him breathe, and when I wake up screaming due to nightmares, he always wakes up and holds me until I stop crying.

I know this is a long post just to ask for earbuds, but they work best for me and my sanity depends on them. If you can, I'd love it if you were able to slide one or two my way. I'm not picky on color, so my amazon wish list link is here: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/GTTJGT54GKDN

If you want another way, my cashtag is $JustAddOtter.

THANK YOU SO MUCH IN ADVANCE! My disability case is still going slowly through the pipes, plus when it goes through I'm going to have to pay $85 out of pocket for some blue lenses which will help with the seizures.

Also, may the assholes who removed headphone jacks from phones always have angry wasps land in their ears.

TL;DR: I need new headphones to help with my disability.

BTW, no guilt in not donating or even not reblogging but I would appreciate a sage nod of understanding when you read this.

EDIT: Thank you to those pointing out that my wishlist wasn't working properly, it's all fixed!

[hypervoxel]

Oh, so, like, the entire first season's establishment of the characters and their interactions don't actually matter in Helluva Boss. Okay, cool.

Like, I get that characterization develops over time and the writers come up with new ideas and places they want to take the story, but. So much of the Stolas/Blitzø stuff recently isn't character development: it's retconning.

[thelastofhyde]

hit the road, jack!

pairing. ex!jack daniels x fem!reader synopsis. the last time you sat in jack’s infamous bronco, you broke his heart. now, a year later, you’re sitting in it with a mud-stained wedding dress and he’s driving you back to the man you left at the altar. is one night, a thousand miles, and a well-timed car radio enough to remind you of the love you shared? warnings. road trip au, exes to lovers, runaway bride!reader, mutual pining, miscommunication/no communication, idiots in love, exes in love, minor character death, infidelity, one ( 1 ) comment regarding food restriction, mentions of period, smut ( unprotected piv, dirty talk, sex in public spaces, implied creampie, fairly non-descriptive ) the reader of this fic is mostly non-descript, with mentions of having hair long enough to stick to her neck when wet and hands smaller than jack's. word count. 14.7k hyde's input. quick disclaimer that this fic was admittedly better in my head, but i tried my best :') it unfortunately never got to reach it's full potential as my friends dragged me off on an unexpected trip on friday for my birthday (which is today aka the 23rd). because of that, i've not had time to finish the last few scenes as well as i'd hoped to (it's literally 5 am as i'm editing it bc it's the only chance i've had) but i don't want to post this any later as this is my entry to the #SummerLovin'24 event, organised and hosted by @pedgito, @chaotic-mystery & @amanitacowboy , a massive thank you to them for creating such a fun event. i really enjoyed taking part and i can not wait to sink my teeth into the other amazing fics from this event. if you care to listen, here is a playlist of songs mentioned/featured in the fic.

INTRO — silver springs.

“Time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me.”

Stevie Nicks et al chant out of old speakers, a bass blown out over time and an intruding static that demands to play alongside the band. Perched upon the bar counter, they sit adjacent to a cash register that shakes each time it opens, a slam seemingly the only way to close it. The swish of a mop over chequered vinyl flooring and the squeaks of a waitress’ coffee-stained sneakers play to their own tune. The passing of time turns it all to background noise.

Through lunch, through dinner, and two shift changes you’ve survived. Out in the parking lot now sits only a semi-truck, its drivers, two men in scuffed boots and jeans that fray at their seams, the only other customers that remain. One tucks into a Sloppy Joe, the other has fallen asleep against the table, his coffee turning as cold as your own.

You ordered the coffee for nothing more than an excuse to sit a while longer. Time for figuring out what’s next. What you’ll do, where you’ll go, how you’ll get there. The elderly couple who’d been kind enough to take you off the side of the road, moving luggage into the trunk to make space for you in the backseats, are now long gone from the roadside diner.

It wasn’t a sorrowful departure. You were quite happy to see them leave, and take their pitiful glances and unasked questions with them. The looks still linger on in others. Each pair of eyes you’ve encountered, dragging over the expanse of your messed up hair, and your smudged eyes, and your mud-stained gown. It’s not hard to imagine the scenes they play out in their heads, of a bride scorned and abandoned on what was meant to be the happiest day of her life, a day meant for vows and first dances twisted into one of heartbroken wandering and roadside pit-stops.

You wonder if any of them know you’re not the victim, but the aggressor. The one who fled, leaving behind a bouquet of striped carnations, marigolds, and purple hyacinths.

Tires crunch on gravel as a car rolls into the parking lot. Whichever fool sits behind the wheel has their full beams on. A light flickers over your head. It’s been doing so for the past hour, an irritating reflection in the window that steals your attention back into the diner.

The waitress is eyeing you again, a weary look on her face that tells you she wants to approach but doesn’t know how. Maybe she wants to ask if you’re okay, or enquire about the events that led you here, deep in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe she just wants you to close your tab and leave. 

The bell above the door rings as it opens. It’s been a while since you heard it do so. A smile comes over the waitress as she greets the newcomer. Her eyes seem to take them in, slowly. From top to bottom, and right back to the top. Innocent, if not a little flirtatious. She’d not looked at either of the truckers that way. Perhaps this is her lover, here to wait about and keep a watchful eye as she works the night shift. You can’t imagine it’s the safest place in the world for a woman to find herself working through the twilight hours, nothing but open road and sky-rise trees surrounding the diner.

A sip from your coffee. It’s as cold as you expected. Bitter too, having not found your voice in time to ask for sugar. Your stomach growls, a plea for a meal. If you’d only stayed at the venue, you’d be full of vanilla frosting, and smoked oysters, and… had it been the coronation chicken or the roast sirloin the wedding planner had gone with in the end? You can’t remember. What you do remember is her unwanted advice: just stick to some light bites, no bride wants a food-baby in her pictures.

In retrospect, you’d disliked her from the moment you met her. But you had no desire to plan a wedding. And no time either, much to your future mother-in-law’s chagrin. So out she’d gone, a cat on the hunt, dragging home some mousy-brown haired wedding planner as a sacrificial lamb. Better it be her than you who stresses over the shade of napkins, and the taste of merlots, and the seating arrangements.

Footsteps thud against the floor. Slow, deliberate, not a stumble in the way they move. You stare back out the window and spy a cowboy hat reflected in it. It belongs to the waitress’ lover, who by now is likely making his way over to pull her in real close and swoon her with a kiss only men blessed by southern charm possess.

A different version of you, a happier version, used to be kissed like that every morning.

“Are you lost, sweetheart?” The voice of a man echoes. Softly spoken, yet loudly heard in the quiet of the diner. In the window, the cowboy hat stands right behind you. You turn slowly, let your eyes dance over its owner. Like a sculpture plucked out of ancient Rome, he’s a fine art only the most delicate hands could shape. He’s brown-eyed affection. He’s an aquiline nose. He’s a well-groomed moustache. He’s Jack. “Think it’s a few miles up north they’re expecting a pretty bride.”

Leather jackets and well-fitted jeans have been traded in for a suit. Simple, classic. White shirt, black tie, a trademark cowboy hat you’d never failed to spot amongst any crowd. There’s a crinkle where a cheeky grin meets eyes framed by full brows and lashes, a scar on his right temple a reminder of the kind of man he is. Dauntless, righteous, brave. An undercover agent, posing as the CFO of one of the largest whiskey distilleries in the world. 

An illusion plays out where no time has passed and his is still the face you come home to each night. A lot can change in a year, however, like the bed you sleep in, or the ring upon your finger.

He welcomes himself into the seat across from you. The protective barrier of a water-ring stained table keeps a safe distance between you both, yet you still feel his knee knock against your own as he makes himself comfortable. One arm stretched over the backrest, the other rests against the table and drums a nervous tune with his fingers.

“You’ve worried a lot of people, darliln’,” his gaze studies you. You wonder if it’s the same look he used to give his targets. The thought sours the sweetness of seeing his pretty eyes after all these months. “Runnin’ off like that, not even a hoot or a holler to let your daddy know you’re alright.”

Your dad. He’d slipped off to the bathroom, a kiss to your cheek and a promise he’d be back in time to walk you down the aisle. What must he have thought, rounding the corner to the sight of a bouquet, abandoned a la Cinderella and her glass slipper. Before you stew in guilt for too long, the rest of Jack’s words catch up to you.

He knew you ranaway. That glimpse of a cowboy hat amongst the pews had not been an illusion.

Jack was at the wedding.

“What happened?” His hand seeks you out. Warm as you remember him to be, large enough to engulf your smaller palm in his. “Why’d you run?” You stay quiet. Shrug your shoulders, eventually, and stare down as his thumb brushes over your knuckles. “You gonna give me a proper answer, sweetheart?”

Another shoulder shrug leads Jack to a sigh. There’s a pause in the quiet tension brewing between you, in the shape of the smiling waitress, pen and pad in hand. Her eyes seem to dart between you both, and you can almost hear her wondering who Jack is, if he’s the man you were meant to meet at the end of the aisle. There’d been a time when yes was the only possible answer to such a question.

“A glass of your finest whiskey. Neat, of course. And how ‘bout somethin’ to please a sweet tooth, hm?” His foot bumps yours beneath the table, calling you to look at him. You meet his eyes, watch him raise his brows in question. “Spied a pretty mean lookin’ cherry pie on my way in. That sound good to you, darlin’?” Your mute staring continues. Your stomach takes control, answers him with a disgruntled growl from within. His head turns to the side, laughing, and he nods at the waitress. “Think she’s gonna need a slice of that pie, miss!”

The right to speak returns to you at last, as you watch the glass of liquid caramel be placed down in front of him, head turning to stare out the window, a familiar Bronco sits poorly parked, obnoxious in the way it treads the line of two parking spaces.

“You shouldn’t drink and drive.”

Surprise flashes over his face, but he recovers quickly, untensing his shoulders as he sinks further into the booth. “Didn't order it for me,” he slides the glass of whiskey over to you. “Eat up, drink up. You need it.”

Though it kills you to admit it, the first bite out of the pie feels like heaven in your mouth. Tart, sweet, with pastry so golden it’s as if King Midas baked it under the heat of his own hands. A sip of the whiskey isn’t so great, but you stomach the burn and accept the erasure of nerves it promises. Your eagerness to clear the plate and empty the glass has nothing to do with the approving smile Jack watches you with.

“How did you find me?” 

“You doubtin’ my skills?” He’s teasing. You know this. Still, you fall into the trap of a panicked head shake, a cough over the final bite of cherry goodness. “I stopped at a gas station. Runnin’ on an empty in the middle of nowhere ain’t on my list of wants, you see. Overheard two kids talkin’ about some bride sittin’ at a dinner a few miles down. Don’t take no Hercule Poirot to figure it was you”

“Oh.”

You shouldn’t feel disappointed by his answer, there’s no reason a man you hurt so deeply would have any vested interest in finding you.

The last you’d seen of Jack was through your car’s rear-view mirror, his tear stricken face watching you drive away, five years of clothes, and shoes, and memories stuffed into your car. He’d begged you not to leave your shared home; offered to sleep in the spare room, give you both time to work things out between you. You’d been the one to declare it useless.

“This isn’t something we can fix, Jack!”

“But, darlin’, I love you.”

“A happy coincidence, I was lookin’ for ya anyway. You gonna tell me what’s goin’ on inside that head of yours yet?” At least this time your mute stare is paired with a head shake. “Look, I mean well when I say this, but darlin’, you’re lookin’ a mighty mess. Now, a pretty mess that may be, but a mess all the same.” His hand is back on yours, squeezing with enough strength to ground you and keep you from floating off into the landscape of your own conflicted mind. “So here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna take a trip to the gents, then I’m gonna square up whatever we owe this fine establishment, and then we’re gettin’ that pretty caboose of yours up'n out of here.”

Frozen where you sit, it takes a few moments for the warmth of whiskey to settle in your bones, lurching you forward when it does, a gasp and a tight grip at his wrist, holding him back before he can stroll away from the table.

“Where are we going?”

“For a drive, sweetheart.”

TRACK 1 — vienna

You and Jack are no strangers to a late night drive.

An entire love story, told within the confines of four wheels and a chassis. The very night you met, you wound up in his passenger seat, arms up in the air and the wind blowing through your hair, the charming cowboy next to you taking every joyful laugh as a plea to go faster, nothing ahead but the open road and a southern voice crooning out of the radio. Too lost in your own head, that’s what he’d claimed you to be, having strolled up to a lonely-you in a crowded bar, lamenting over a glass of bitter white wine, freshly fired and with no real clue of what you were going to do next. Never one to entertain a stranger, you’d tried to brush him off, but he flashed that smile and invited you, so tenderly as the intro to a Bruce Springsteen song began to play, to just give him one dance.

One dance led to unimaginable love.

As time passed, a relationship burst into full bloom, the imprint of you carved into the car’s leather. Jack insisted you grow accustomed to the life of a passenger princess. He picked you up from work, drove you to all your girls’ night outs, sacrificed hours of necessary sleep to drop you at airports, and train stations, and whatever other public transport your work trips demanded you to travel upon. But how could you dream of saying no when you got to ogle the view of him, one hand on the wheel, the other on your thigh, effortlessly manoeuvring his beloved vehicle. 

The car came on couples' vacations, too, road trip getaways. Up north, past the Canadian borders, and down south to the skyline of Mexico City. Out west, a trail up to the Grand Canyon, the Empire State Building in the east. But the late night drives, those were your favourite. Times when life felt too much, with work stressing you out, or your parents giving you grief, or a stress headache gnawing away at your remaining sanity, Jack would tug you wordlessly out into the driveway, buckle your seatbelt, and drive off into the night. Roof down, radio on, the cool breeze clearing your mind.

The only breeze you feel now blows in through an open window.

Pulling away from the diner, Jack turned the wheels south, out into the dark of the night. Trees wall the road in, a never ending sea of pine-green lit by headlights, the looming presence of a dark, dangerous, rumbling sky above. A storm brews ahead, awaiting the perfect moment to crack open and drop a downpour on the world. Little words have been exchanged between you, most of them spoken by Jack, as he tells you about the nightmare he had checking in at his hotel, and the difficulty he had finding the venue, and just how beautiful you look in your dress, tears tracks and messy hair aside. Softly playing over the radio, Billy Joel seems to speak to you, pleading that you slow down, you crazy child.

“D’you remember our trip to Vienna?”

Your head snaps over to Jack. His eyes remain on the road ahead, and a part of you is thankful, unsure of how you’d fare gazing into them as melancholy tangles itself in their shades of brown. The other part misses how it used to feel to catch him watching you from the driver’s seat, affection incarnate as his loving gaze burned heat into your cheeks, your own voice pleading him to pay attention to the road, the light’s already green, Jack!

“How could I forget you almost getting us kicked out of Saint Peter’s church?”

“Hey, now darlin’, let’s not start playin’ the blame game!” His head turns once in your direction, a teasing smile splashed upon his rosy lips. You try not to think about how you’ve felt that very smile pressed against your mouth, memorised the shape of it so perfectly you could draw it with your eyes shut. “You knew what you were doin’ wearin’ that pretty little sundress.”

The dress in question had been a purposeful attack, an attempt at getting payback for the night prior, in which Jack found pleasure in reducing you to tears, begging for release hour after hour, after hour of edging touches. Never the best at putting up a fight against his pouting lips, pleading eyes, and filthy tongue, you’d caved into his hands the moment they skimmed their way up the length of your thigh, the watchful eyes of any Lord above be damned.

“I still dream of the garden’s at Schönbrunn Palace,” a sigh floats out of you as your brain hits play on a kaleidoscope of memories of strolling the grounds, hand in hand with a man you’d imagined yourself being with for the rest of your life.

If I asked you to marry me, would you say yes? He’d asked, as you watched a couple get engaged before your very eyes.

Promise me we’ll get married here, and I’ll consider it.

“I still have nightmares of the boat.”

“The boat!” The patterns in the kaleidoscope shift into images of a viennan skyline reflected upon glassy waters, a city cruise dragging you down the canal. “I still can’t believe you fell off it!”

“I jumped.”

“Backwards? Just admit it, you fell into that water!”

“I jumped, to make you laugh!”

“Oh, don’t worry, me and the coast guard were definitely laughing!”

A silence settles between you both. Jack drums his fingers along to the closing notes of the song, your foot does the same. It crosses your mind that this, in itself, may very well be a dream. Sitting back in the Bronco, staring over at Jack as he drives you both into the aimless night. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s visited your dreams.

You watch him inhale, deeply. With a blink, his eyes reflect the moonlight, glassy with unfallen tears, the image of him too beautiful to be fiction. 

“Sometimes I wish we’d never left Vienna.”

His words cut you deep, the sorrow he speaks them with cuts you deeper. Barely a week back in your own home, suitcases still unpacked, pulling into the driveway hours after the unexpected funeral of a friend, you broke both your hearts.

All that goes up must come down and, in the very same place your relationship started, it ended. Sat across from him, rain beating down on the windows, tears trailing down your face. He begged you to stop before those words came out of your mouth, tried his best to switch the engine back on and pull out into the road. You’re just stressed, darlin’, he’d said, a deceptive whine in his voice cracking his straight-faced facade. Just need to clear your head, right? Lemme take ya for a drive. It was too late, your own hand curling back around the handle and forcing the door open, the water from outside flooding in. I’m sorry, I can’t be with you. Not anymore.

“Yeah,” you exhale, shaky. Swallowed emotions, a tight lipped smile, eyes that search for sanctuary out the window. “Me too.”

In the wing-mirror, lighting crashes amidst the sea of pine-green.

TRACK 2 — purple rain

A perfect summer’s storm.

Mother nature’s mid-June release of pent-up heat, making space amongst the skies for what’s yet to come in the scorching months of July and August, the last of any rain to be seen until September brings back the sombre skies and cooler weather. The rain falls heavily, a persistent thump-thump-thump of water that bounces off the car’s roof, bonnet, windows. In the sky, thunder roars an angry sound, each one louder than the last, followed by an even brighter flash of lighting that electrifies its surroundings, turning the black night into shades of violet, and midnight, and indigo, and purple.

“You’ve not bought any new albums? None at all?” The question comes as you flip through Jack’s collection of discs, a notable lack of change in his roster since the last time you’d sat in his car.

This lack of change is likely not without good reason, like the lack of time to go CD hunting between secret missions to save the world, or a general lack of interest in newer records. He’s always been a fan of the old fashion, after all, the home you’d once shared made up of collections of vintage whiskeys, and classic records, and faded wallpaper that he convinced you gave the kitchen charm.

“Nothin’ new since…” His eyes shift over your way, the look in them enough to wordlessly end his sentence. “You were always the one buyin’ me music. Said you didn’t want me get-”

“Getting bored on missions,” impulse seems to be what forces you to speak, an honest smile sent his way. “I remember.”

It had been a while into your relationship, with i-love-yous and apartment keys exchanged, until the truth of Jack’s job came up.

On your first date, he’d told you he was a businessman. A few dates later, he specified that he was an investor, dipping his fingers into the honey jar of some classically Texa whiskey distillery. Only a half lie, and not one that was hard to believe. Every fibre of his being, stitches and loose threads included, made sense as a man in the business of selling whiskey. The overzealous amount of Statesman whiskeys occupying the shelves in his apartment, the photos he’d send of the view from his high-rise office, the endless number of suits and ties that occupied his wardrobe, even his damn name, Jack Daniels. 

Then, out came the truth.

A phone call from one of Jack’s co-workers, Ginger, lasting no more than five minutes and of which only three words mattered: Jack’s been shot.

A bullet through his head. Any ordinary man would have died. Yet there was your Jack, eyes open, a measly bandage over his temple, and standing up-right. To your own credit, you managed to keep a grasp on your sanity long enough to drive him home, cook him dinner, and sit yourself down across from him at the table. But when he pricked his finger on the tip of his knife, the rivulet of blood dripping down his finger was enough to send you over the edge. Open mouthed sobs, hands clinging to him the instant he sank down on his knees at your side, tears staining every inch of his white cotton t-shirt.

You could’ve died, Jack.

Now how could I go dyin’, when I got such a pretty reason to live for?

You begged with questions, he promised with answers. Hands intertwining with your own, a gentle voice guiding you out the apartment, the soft slam of a car door closing. He turned the key in the ignition, pulled your hand up to his mouth for a kiss, and drove you both off into the night. Under the melodic fall of rain beating down on the car, you came to terms with three facts: Jack was involved in the business of selling whiskey; Jack was otherwise known as agent Whiskey, esteemed senior agent to the Statesmen secret intelligence agency; and Jack was not often shot- at least not in the head.

Arriving home that night, with the rain falling heavy on your front lawn, you’d tried your best to dash from the car and into the house but Jack had other plans. He’d gripped your hand, and pulled you close, and kissed you under the flash of lighting. And when you dared whine that your clothes were soaked, he held you tighter and let himself guide your body into a gentle sway, two lovers under the moonlight and the storm. That night had ended with a fatal promise from Jack, your limbs entangled upon a shared bed, his lips pressing into your forehead.

I promise I’ll always come home to you safe.

“Don’t need no discs anyway, already got all I need right here,” Jack’s impeccable timing, seemingly sensing the shift in your demeanour. It’s like he knows what you’re thinking about, and trying to drag you out of the past and back to the present, his fingers stretching over to turn the volume up. A familiar set of haunting chords plays over the radio, a grin instantly appearing on his face. “Shit, they even got Princ-”

“Stop the car.”

“Huh?”

“Just pull over, Jack!”

Despite the confusion, he abides by your words, foot pressing down on the break, hands steering the wheels off-road, fingers switch the car off. Without the hum of the engine, the rainfall grows louder, the view out the windscreen suddenly blocked behind a wall of flowing water. The radio plays on, the voice of an angel singing lyrics that so aptly match the purple shades painted across the sky by the storm above. There’s a cautious echo of your name, and, for a moment, it’s easy to forget this is the first time you’ve heard him actually say it in over a year. It feels like just yesterday he was calling out to you, begging with solutions you weren’t willing to give.

Your heart beats with a longing to escape your chest, hard and steady against the cage that is your ribs. Your eyes fill with emotions from the past and of the present, as every version of yourself that’s sat within this car comes together as one. Your hand curls around the silver grip of the door, pulling it open and lunging yourself out into the pouring rain.

Under the storm's wrath, you’re reborn. Baptised by mother nature, a soul cleansed of all its prior troubles, returned to you brand new and free of heartbreak. As the rain soaks your face, your neck, your dress, it washes all the pain away. Breathing easy, head tilted back, eyes closed. It's the feeling of being alive, an anomalous euphoria found only beneath a thunderous sky. The tears that dare fall here mean little, a known comfort that they’ll mix with the rain and be swept away.

Enthralled under the moonlight and barefoot, you drift on through the trees that line these woods, chasing the sweet promise of petrichor. You’re unsure if it comes from the sky, or the trees, or Jack, but something calls your name. A fallen tree trunk becomes your own personal tightrope as you dance over the length of it, one careful foot in front of the other, arms stretched out to the heavens above. All it takes is one misplaced step and you lose your footing, slipping over moss and bracing for impact that never arrives.

“Heaven to Betsy, darlin’!” Jack’s hands, warm as a summer breeze, catch you by the waist, your shoulder socking him square in the face as you fall back into his figure. He makes no complaint of pain, taking it like a champ and placing you back down on steady ground, upon unsteady feet. “Did’ya sneak a few extra whiskeys when I was takin’ a leak?”

You open your mouth to reply, to deny, but the rain comes to a stop, and the thunder no longer rumbles, and the moonlight breaks through the parting blanket of clouds, and you’re suddenly so aware of how close you both are.

Like his hands, do his lips still feel the same? Soft as a feather, pillowy as a cloud, as sweet as a peach? It’s not something a married woman should be thinking about another man, about the man another version of her had loved.

But you’re not a married woman, are you?

Wet to the bone, it's as if your wedding dress has shrunk, possessive linen meant to warn you away from leaning forward till your face meets his.

“Careful where you point those eyes, sweetheart. Don’t go givin’ me a reason to make a dishonest woman out of you.” His warning only makes you want to lean in more, test just how dishonest he’s willing to make you, in a dress you wore for another man, upon a forest floor covered by moss, and mud, and rainfall.

He’s stepping back and holding out his hand before you can even try, saving you the trouble of mixing up your head even more. 

Careful steps back to his car, where the radio plays on as Prince’s voice slowly fades out. The headlights are back on, the key sits in the ignition, and you half wonder just how quickly he chased after you, abandoning his precious car so carelessly at the side of a darkened country road, free for any Tom, Bill, or Sally to claim for themselves.

“You’re lucky I got spare clothes in the back,” Jack’s voice echoes out from where he stands, bent at the waist, and rummaging through the floor of the back seats. You want to think he’s not going this on purpose, putting himself on display so obviously, but it feels easier on your conscience to blame him for your own inability to stray your eyes away from how snugly the soaked dress pants hug his behind. “Ain’t no hope in hell I’d let you in my car, all drippin’ wet.”

“You never used to complain about me being wet in your car.”

It’s a quickfire response, the kind you don’t quite get the chance to think over before you say it. Though it may shock your own ears to hear, it seems to shock poor Jack more, the smack with which his head hits against the car’s roof loud enough that you almost feel it in your skull.

You rush over to his side, dress dragging through more mud, and more leaves, and more broken gravel. No chance to even rest your hand upon his arm, Jack’s already pulled himself out the car to face you, a splash of pink brewing across his cheeks and a hand soothing over the back of his head. In the backseats, his hat lays abandoned, knocked off in the commotion.

“Can’t just be sayin’ things like that, darlin’,” he says as he holds out a change of clothes for you, smugness in his voice yet a shake in his hand. “Not unless you’re tryin’ to give old Jack over here a heart attack.”

In silence, you both turn your back on each other. Jack does so in spare of your modesty, and you, in search of someplace dry to lay down his clothes. You do so upon the passenger seat, hands immediately contorting every manner of way they can to reach the dress’ buttons that span down the length of your spine, each more finicky than the last. You manage to free only two, in the very centre, before you sigh and wonder if the entrapment you feel in the white gown could get any more literal than this.

“Jack,” it only feels right to seek out his aid, you tell yourself, the sooner the buttons are undone, the sooner the dress will be off, the sooner you’ll be changed, and the sooner you’ll both get back on the road again, destination unknown. It only makes sense, really, so who could blame you when you say, “come help me out my dress.”

No reply comes your way.

At first, you think he’s not heard you. Then, you worry that he has, and is choosing to ignore such a request, thinking it best he keeps his hands away from any act that involves undressing you. Then, fear that you’ve given him that heart attack after all. Fingers brush wet hair off your shoulders before you can turn to check on the cowboy.

Cicadas scream out into the night, and some faceless host rants over the car radio about the rising conspiracy theory of spycams in childrens’ toys, and your heart beats louder than any set of drums could ever hope, but all you can hear is the steady breaths Jack pulls in and blows out behind you, so close you feel each exhale brush your skin. His fingers do so too, with each button they pop loose, each inch of skin he reveals.

Before you can ask him to touch you with more than just his mouth and breath, his own voice fills your ears.

“I used to dream about doin’ this someday.”

“I think we both know this isn’t the first time you’ve gotten a girl out her dress, Jack.”

“Is your mind ever anywhere but the damn gutter?” A pinch delivered against your left side, a chastising tsk accompanying his words. “I meant that I dreamt about this, me helpin’ you take your weddin’ dress off.”

There’s an audible hitch in your breath, one that perfectly tells Jack everything your own voice seems to fail to. Air stings at your eyes, yet you refuse to blink, too aware of the tears building within them. His warm hands dance back up your spine as the final button is loosened, tracing slowly over skin he’d once memorised, a missionary returning to the land it once knew.

Your dress falls to the floor.

“‘Course I never thought I’d be doin’ it on the side of the road, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

TRACK 3 — lover you should’ve come over

“Wait, are these pyjama pants?”

The realisation dawns upon you twenty minutes after you hit the road again. Confined to the small space of the Bronco with little to look at— besides Jack, his clothes still damp and smelling of summer rain, a towel laid over his seat— you’ve resorted to the finer details, picking apart the scraps of clothing he’d handed you. A plain white t-shirt that, when paired with one of his tight-fitting jeans and a corduroy-lined leather bomber jacket, becomes a Jack Daniels staple. You find it best to ignore how it smells of campfire, and sweat, and the cologne you’d bought Jack on your last anniversary. He’s paired it with a pair of blue chequered pyjama pants, loose-fitting yet tied securely around your waist by a fraying draw-string.

“Took myself and the old gal up to Alaska a few weeks back, chasin’ after a view of the Northern Lights.” There’s a flash of something hot, bright, green as you register his words, myself and the old gal, tamed and dampened only when you remember that’s what Jack calls the Bronco, his old gal. “I was livin’ out my car the whole trip, figured it was easier than trynna find some inn out in the middle of the Alaskan woods. In fact, if you check down there, pretty sure you’ll find some uneaten energy bars I packed for the trip.”

He seems to point aimlessly down at a space around your legs, hand back on the wheel and guiding the wheels around a harsh bend before you can truly pinpoint what he’s referring to. You settle on the glove compartment, sitting upright and reaching a hand out to pop it open.

Then you remember what it houses, the weapons Jack carries in there. The lasso, the whip, the pistol, the bullets. A sickness burns your throat, your eyes unable to even glance down at the opened compartment, instead searching for Jack’s own eyes that stare back with equal amounts of surprise.

“I forgot those were in there.” He steals the words right out your own mouth, a nervous chuckle following them. You’d known to never touch the dreaded compartment, for your own sake, too eager to forget about the parts of him that made him an agent, the parts of him that put him in danger. “You can read ‘em, if you want. They were written for you anyway.”

Confusion floods the soul, curiosity winning over survival and dictating that you muster the courage to turn your head, take a peak at what sits inside the glove box. When you do look, you find there’s no whip nor pistol, no piece of Agent Whiskey in sight. What is there are the energy bars he’d promised, a hiking guidebook of sorts, a map, and a stack of wrinkled envelopes.

One glance back at Jack, he encourages you to take them with a nod, and so, you do. Feel the weight of them all in your hands, do your best to not drop any as you pull them out onto your lap. They scatter all over you, each a different shade of white, unopened and all sporting a red return to sender stamp. All appear addressed to the same place, and it takes only a moment of wondering why it seems so familiar for you to realise.

It’s your old address.

“They’re all labelled with dates, I wrote the first one a few weeks after you left. Wasn’t sure where you’d moved to, I figured there was a chance you’d gone back to your old place. I never forgot about how much you loved that apartment,” he says, and you did. Leaving it behind had been hard, the first real home you’d made for yourself since moving out of your parent’s place, the first space you made your own in the world. The idea of making a new space with Jack, a place you could build together, share together, had outweighed the pain of saying goodbye to your little one-bed apartment. “Wrote the second one because you didn’t reply, and I was missin’ you. Then I just kept writin’ em, and sendin’ em, and waitin’ on you writin’ back, even if just to tell me to get lost. I got a note back, along with the letters, but it wasn’t from you. Some older couple moved in to your old place, told me they’d been keepin’ em all safe incase you ever came round to collect your old mail, but they figured it was time I stopped writin’ to a ghost.”

Attentive to his every word, you search for the letter with the earliest date. Sent two weeks after things ended, with a colourful stamp and a seal that’s slightly opened at the edges, the glue’s hold loosening with time and neglect. You tear it open completely and unfold the sheets of paper found within, eyes drawn immediately three quarters down the page.

I saw our friends tonight for the first time since you left. They asked how you’re doing and where you were. I thought they were just being cruel at first but no, they didn’t know about the break up. I told them you weren’t feeling well, that you decided to stay home tonight. I guess I just wanted one more night where you were still mine, even if it was just in the eyes of our friends. I will tell the truth next time I see them.

You feel as though you’re invading his privacy, reading over words he’d written months ago, despite being the intended audience. That doesn’t mean you have the willpower to stop, however, eyes diving deeper down the page.

Or maybe I won’t have to tell them. Maybe, next time I see them, you’ll have come home. There’s still a chance for us. I believe it because I love you. You said this wasn’t something we can fix. I think you’re wrong. There’s never been an issue we couldn’t solve by talking it through, why should this one be any different? Let’s get coffee, darling. Our usual place, our usual time, next Tuesday. We can get through this, you just have to let me know it’s something you want, that I’m something you still want. 

Jack’s quiet in the driver’s seat, forgiving with the time he gives you to read over his letters. When the turning of pages and the ripping of envelopes rings too heavy in the car, your shoulders tensing up in a discomfort of disrupting the peaceful silence, he wordlessly turns the radio back up and the voice of Jeff Buckley greets you both.

You return to his letters, the second he’d sent already open in your palm.

I went to our usual spot. You never showed up. Your lack of reply to my letter should have been enough to tell me that, but I still had hope. Maybe I really am a fool. Our friends seem to think so. I told them about us and they immediately asked what I’d done wrong. There was no answer I could give them. The worst thing isn’t just that I’ve lost you, it’s that I don’t even know why.

You open the next envelope, and the next one, and the next one, paragraphs melting together into a heartbroken shape.

I tried to sleep in our bed. I lasted half an hour before crawling back to the guest room.  Our room just feels too empty without you. I smell you everywhere no matter how many new sheets I buy.

Eggsy and Tilde got married. It’s the first wedding I’ve been to without you. I’m doing a lot of firsts without you recently. I hate it. Our friends (am I wrong to call them our friends? I’m not ready to just call them mine) tried setting me up with someone new. They showed me a picture and she’s beautiful, but I just kept comparing her to you. Against your beauty, she’s nothing.

Your mother was at the Statesman ground tour today. I was surprised to see her, she already done the tour years ago. I tried not to talk about you too much, I didn’t want her knowing how desperate I am to hear about you. Congratulations on your promotion, I always knew you’d get it. I’m so proud of you for finally applying for it. I heard you’ve started seeing somebody, a veteran turned mechanic. Your mother was kind enough to give me his name. I hope you understand that I don’t want to invade your privacy but I had to make sure you’re safe. The guy’s got a clean slate, other than a sketchy trip down to South America with some other vets. He seems like a good man. I want you to get your happy ending. Are you happy? I’m not. 

Only one envelope remains unopened. The weight of it sits heavy in your lap, a fear settling in that has you not wanting to open it. You study the front of it, find out it was mailed three months ago. The radio moves in sync with you, it seems, the song that plays reaching its climatic moment at the same time as you do, tearing open the final letter. Next to you, Jack clears his throat and wrings his hands over the steering wheel.

This last one, you read the letter in full.

Darling girl,

Spring came faster this year. The daffodils you planted bloomed in early March. I’ve been tending to the garden, I know how much love you put into it. The flowers are coming up alright, the fruit and vegetables not so much. If only I had your green thumb.

I visited Tequila last week. I don’t know if it’s right to call him that anymore. Champ’s still not named his successor, part of me thinks he wants to retire it. That’s not what Tequila would’ve wanted. He would’ve wanted Ginger taking on the mantle. The grounds he’s on are beautiful, if not sombre. They overlook a lake, and the grass is cut everyday, and the sun shines on his grave from sunrise to sunset. I didn’t say much to him, just sat and enjoyed the view. Thought about a lot of things, and finally realised why you left.

You were scared. For me. I thought you were being selfish, breaking my heart like that, but I finally understand how awful that day must’ve been for you. We’d just buried my comrade, our friend, and you had to watch Tequila’s wife say her last goodbye, knowing it was almost me in that casket and you on the podium. That was my mission he went on, I could’ve been the one who didn’t come home to the woman I love.

I’m sorry I took so long to understand. I retired from my position at Statesman. I’m agent Whiskey no more. I’m coming to find you, and hope you give me one last real try at fixing us.

Love always,

your Jack.

“Your wedding invitation found me first,” Jack says, foot off the accelerator, eyes off the road, hands on the wheel.

The weight of his stare drags down to your lap, where the heap of papers now all sit, piled atop one another and rustling with every movement you make. Your own eyes have welled with tears that slip down the apples of your cheeks and splash the papers below, smudging the ink.

The confirmation of his invite knocks out the questions of how he wound up in the pews.

“I didn’t invite you,” you’re unsure if the truth is crueller than fiction. No part of you wants him to think you’d be so spiteful, so hurtful as to invite him to a day you’d once promised to share together. “I didn’t invite anyone. I was… busy, with work. My mom dealt with the invites, she must’ve written you down by accident.”

Your lips may be the ones to say it, but your own ears struggle to believe. Your mother’s always been a meticulous woman, practical, with her affairs eternally in order. The only mistakes she makes are the ones she means to.

“Yeah,” Jack sighs out from the driver’s seat, resignation in his voice. “I figured you didn’t invite me.”

TRACK 4 — 50 ways to leave your lover

Jack drives deeper into the night.

Out the car window, you watch as the world flies by, a blur of unlit trees and unmarked road signs. Earlier’s storm has rolled away and revealed the blanket of stars above, twinkling alongside a full moon. The road is long, and winding, and seemingly never ending. There’s no discussion of destination, no sanctuary you’re waiting to reach. You feel no urgency for it, either. So long as you sit right where you are, passenger in a car, you don’t have to take the wheel, you don’t have to choose where to go, or what to do. You can just exist within this liminal space, where no wedding lies in the balance and no hearts lay broken.

It’s just you and Jack, like the old days, going for a drive.

“Ask me,” permission comes off your tongue as you observe the driver and his less than subtle glances your way. “I can see the wheels turning in your head. Everything you wanted to know in the diner, I promise I’ll answer this time.”

“I guess I’m tryin’ to put myself in your shoes, figure out what was runnin’ through that pretty head of yours,” Jack is, at his core, a gentleman. For hours, he’s let you sit beside him, biting his own tongue and fighting back his own curiosity, a trait so vital to his existence it led him into a world of spies, and guns, and movie-esque kinds of evil. Even now, with your promised approval, he eases his way into his questioning, the part of him that knows you better than your own self dictating that this is something he must address with care.  “How’d you do it?”

“I just slipped out the back, Jack,” there’s a chuckle of sorts that welcomes itself out the depths of Jack’s chest, your choice of words going hand in hand with that of the Paul Simon record reaching its end over the radio. As quick as the humour appears, it goes, leaving nothing but the unfortunate reality of the situation. “Someone left a door open, it led out onto the back gardens. The further away I got, the faster I started to run. I made it all the way past the highway on foot before an older couple pulled over. They dropped me off at a diner, and that’s where I stayed until-”

“Until I found you,” it’s a reminder you shouldn’t want, the image of Jack setting off to find you in the midst of the commotion of a missing bride. It’s not healthy for your poor psyche, already at odds with what it wants, no need for further complications brought on by unresolved feelings. You can’t help but smile at him, however, no filter strong enough to cover your subconscious’ joy. “Why did you run away?”

Your smile fades.

The promise you made is already at threat of being broken. You thought there’d be more questions, more time until he hit you with the heaviest of them all.

Why did you run away?

You know the answer. Of course you’ve known the answer, from the moment you decided to turn on your heel and sprint down the halls, in search of an escape. As much as you can pretend otherwise, and feign naivete, you can’t change the truth. That doesn’t mean you’re ready to admit it out loud, and so you refute it with a question of your own: “Why did you come to the wedding?”

It would be easy to forgive Jack for getting irate when faced with your avoidant response. He doesn’t even acknowledge it. Instead, he spins the steering wheel and shoots you a smile, the kind that used to keep you warm at night.

“I wasn’t goin’ to come at first,” comes his admittance. You can’t say you blame him, really, a picture of yourself in his shoes, receiving an invite to his wedding. The thought conjures a painful throb from your heart. “Nearly tossed the damn thing into the fireplace when I got it. A few weeks later, I met with Champ for a drink. Drank myself blind, till I started tellin’ him all about the invite. He told me I had to come.”

A lift of your eyebrows, a snap of your head towards him. There’s a desire to have his full attention on you. There’s also the awareness that the road acts as a buffer for the tensing heartache that swells and lulls between you, each exchange of words a game of painful chess. You make the choice to bring forth a pawn this once, a simple why?

“He said I’ve been livin’ with life on pause since you left, maybe watchin’ you marry another man would be the thing to help me hit play at last.”

INTERLUDE — go your own way

Like tires upon gravel, time rolls on.

No matter how easy it is to forget about the world outside, look out the window and pretend you’re simply on a train, trapped in a constant onward motion, there’s no ignoring the orange glow that begins to grow on the horizon, nor the red lights on the car radio that read 05:38. A new day grows fast upon you and, where you remain mute to it, Jack can not allow the fantasy to go on any longer.

The tires screech against the gravel and everything comes to a stop.

“Thinkin’ time’s up, sweetheart,” his hands retreat from the wheel, finding purchase on his thighs. You try not to follow their descent over the tailored suit, try not to think about the thick muscles that sit hidden beneath the black trousers. It’s not your place to think about them anymore. “Where are you goin’?”

Decision has never been something you’ve struggled with, much less when the choices are so simple and limited. Either you go back to the wedding venue, and meet whatever fate awaits you of scornful mothers, and disappointed fathers, and abandoned fiances. Or, you can go anywhere.

You make a mistake, let your mind wander to places it shouldn’t, and end up asking yourself where will Jack go. He still lives in the home you once shared, this you know. Will he go there, pour himself a drink, and try to forget this night even happened?

You can still picture it all. The coffee table Jack hand-carved, both your initials engraved on the side. The picture frames all along the wall, a mural of memories shared between you. The matching set of mugs, eternally sitting on the drying board, waiting for Jack to stagger his way down the stairs and fill them with boiling coffee. If you walked through that door again, would you find everything just the way you left it? Or, has he gotten a new table, changed the pictures in the frames, bought new mugs? Is there someone there, right now, sleeping in his bed and waiting on his return?

A bitter taste overcomes your tongue at the thought, your insides twisting up like you’ve not spent the past few months sleeping next to someone else and saying yes to proposals you weren’t expecting.

“What do you think I should do?” You don’t want him to tell you to go home, you want him to say come home.

“You can’t ask that of me. My answer’s gonna be nothin’ but selfish.” Would it really be so bad, you wish to ask, if Jack was selfish? Maybe life would be easier if he was. He clears his throat, like he clears his mind, and gone is your moment to tell him you want selfish. “I can say this, though… Your fiance’s a good man, a kind man. Kind enough to trust your parents words and let me, a stranger, go searchin’ for you. He deserves to know what decision you make. It ain’t just your weddin’, it’s his too.”

He’s right, and you hate it.

There’s no way you can tell him now that you were even contemplating not going back, of disappearing into the sunrise with him, driving till life leads you down the right roads to find a new home, your old home, Jack.

The muddied wedding dress seems to call to you from the car boot, a whispering of your name that tells you to put it back on, go back, and walk down that aisle. You owe that much to your fiance, if he’ll still have you. With him, you’ve never had to worry about him coming home safe. With him, you could live a happy enough life, keep yourself busy enough to ignore all the what-ifs your mind would try seduce you with.

Besides, that’s what Jack needs, right? To see you marry another man, a final nail in the coffin named us, so he can finally move on with his life. You owe him that much, at least.

With a nod of your head and the straightening of your spine, you set your choice in stone, “drive me back to him, Jack.”

The engine shudders to life and the radio sets itself back on course, some upbeat voice that demands you go your own way, a musical slap delivered upon your face. Jack turns the steering wheel, rerouting the car’s course with an effortless u-turn before he presses down on the accelerator, propelling you forward down the paths you’ve already travelled.

You tell yourself you’re doing the right thing, even if a familiar dread starts to settle in the pit of your stomach, brushing them off as rational nerves. Who wouldn’t be anxious when facing a man they left at the altar?

A yawn escapes you.

“We’re a few hours out from the chateau.” There’s something in his voice that weighs on him, the tone between you shifting to something of desperation. Goodbye is a few hours away. This time, for good. “Sleep, it’s late.”

“Aren’t you tired?” Pull over, you want to say. Let’s sleep. The wedding can wait a few more hours.

How unfortunate that he cannot read your thoughts, understand the intentions behind your staring as you recline your chair, turn to face him on your side, hands crossed protectively over your abdomen.

One blink, and your eyes are already fighting to stay open, dragging you down into the depths of slumber.

“I’m fine. Don’t sleep much these days anyway,” the sound of Jack’s voice fades slowly into the background, melting away with the hum of the engine, and the turn of the wheels, and the voice on the radio. “Never got used to the feeling of an empty bed.”

TRACK 5 — i’m on fire

When your eyes next open, the sun’s warmth is caressing your face.

The sound of children’s laughter fills the air, and the smell of smoke fills your lungs, and the feeling of resting against Jack’s shoulder fills you with dread. Fearful to move, you take in all of him that you can see from this angle.

There’s no suit upon him, replaced with the casualness of a cotton t-shirt and a pair of faded denims. The hat’s back on his head, the curls of ungelled hair that peak through dry as a bone. A cigarette rests neatly between fingers on his left hand, the right one grasping at the neck of a beer bottle. No wheel sits in front of him, no gear shift keeps space between you. The Bronco’s been replaced with the view of your parent’s backyard and the comfort of a well cushioned outdoor couch.

You know this memory.

You’ve lived this memory.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” just like you remember, Jack’s stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette the moment he notices your open eyes. “How you feelin’?”

“Like my uterus is trying to carve its way out of me,” your mouth plays along with the dream, speaking the same words it had years ago.

“That good, huh?” A beer stained kiss meets the corner of your mouth, another follows up to your forehead, as Jack’s free hand reaches into his pocket, reemerging with silver foil between two fingers. “Got these off your mother. Let me go get you somethin’ to eat, then you can take two, hm?”

You remember thinking that you love him. You didn't dare speak it, however, simply nodding as you took the blister packet of paracetamol out his offering grasp and uncurled your legs back down onto the floor, stretching your arms. Jack bends down, presses his lips against the crown of your head, and then he’s off, venturing over to where your father stands grilling another round of burgers on the barbeque.

Jack’s always been a confident man. He carries himself with a head held high and a careless smile on his face, no chip on his shoulder and no flare for anger in his bones. A southern gentleman, who knows his own charms and, most dangerously, how to use them. Place him alone with your father, however, and watch how he crumbles like a house of cards. To the untrained eye, it’s unnoticeable, but you don’t miss the glances he spies your father with each time he throws out a joke, nor the way his hands can never seem to relax, a nervous tic of drumming against his thighs or balling into fists as he makes conversation with the older man. He’s desperate for the approval of your monotonous father, so desperate he fails to see he won it months ago, 

“Eat up, drink up, you need it,” he says as he hands you the paper plate, and his half-drunk bottle of beer. He settles back down on the couch, pulling you into him once more. “Your old man was sayin’ we should probably head off soon, ‘fore it gets too late. Think he’s startin’ to warm up to me, he’s even worryin’ bout me drivin’ in the dark.”

“Oh, he loves you,” you take a bite, break two of the pills out their casing, wash them down with a swig of bitter beer. The summer sun burns in the corners of your eyes, forcing them into a squint. “He kept looking for you at the dinner table at my mom’s birthday, you should’ve seen his reaction when I told him you were stuck in New York slaving away in your office.”

Months later, you’d come to find out he wasn’t in New York, surrounded by mountains of paperwork, but somewhere in the south of France, hunting down some billionaire wine-maker with plans to poison the crops of surrounding vineyards, leaving only his wine safe to consume.

In your memory, Jack plucks the hat off his own head and rests it gently upon your own, a shaded barrier against the bright light in the sky. You thank him, he watches on quietly as you continue to eat, gaze not peeling itself away from you the whole time.

“What? Do I have ketchup on my face? Or, in my hair?” You’d asked him, mid-chew. No answer, more staring. Panic made a debut in your mind, suddenly alert to his unusual behaviour. “Wait, is it a bug? Jack, is there a bug in my hair?”

“I love you.”

No build up, no grand-speech, no overly romantic setting.

He said it like one shares the weather, or the time, or what they’re wanting for lunch. He said it like it was something he always said, would always say, despite it being the very first time you’d heard him do so. Tears had flown in quickly, your hormones already gone haywire with the unexpected arrival of shark week earlier that morning. There’s a vague assurance that you told him you loved him too, through tears, and he teased your weepy face with kisses down your cheeks and full-chested laughter.

“Bless your cotton socks, my sweet girl, cryin’ all cause old Jack says-”

“Tell me now baby, is he good to you?”

You jolt awake.

Jack’s by your side, suit on, hair air dried, one hand on the wheel, the other rests out the window. The roof is down, letting the sun shine on you and his caramel eyes. An old Springstein song plays in the background, the very same thing that coaxed you awake. Just like the dream, he takes a few minutes to notice your opened eyes, head turning your way as another car shoots off ahead of you both, overtaking him.

“You were mumblin’ in your sleep. Were you dreamin’ of somethin’ sweet?”

“I was,” too quick comes your reply. Too honest. Nerves have you stumbling over words, scrambling to pick them off the floor of your mind and spew out the first thing that doesn’t involve Jack and his easy-going professions of love. “About the first time my fiance told me he loves me.”

You regret it as soon as you speak, the visible halt to his smile. He overcorrects it, forcing a grin that stretches the corners of his mouth so tight it almost looks painful. “Well, c’mon, don’t go keepin’ it to yourself!”

“He, uh, wrote it in the sky.”

“How romantic. Pricey too, I bet.”

“It was his best man who did it, an ex military pilot.”

As you try to reminisce on the day, little memories blossom in your mind. Instead of vivid motion capture, the day is black and white, no sound. You don’t remember where you were, what he was wearing, how you felt when you read those words up above.

It happened only two months into your relationship, that you do remember. You also remember being parked in your old neighbourhood the night before, twenty minutes spent trying to will yourself to go knock on the door to your old home. The Bronco was in its usual spot, parked outside. No lights were on as you pulled away and willed yourself back to rational thinking.

“Jeez, if that’s how he’s tellin’ you he loves you, I can’t imagine how he proposed.”

You wonder if this is as tortuous for him as it is for you, listening to you detail the life you’d gone on to live just months after walking away from five years of love. “In a restaurant,” you can’t remember the name, or what you ate, or what you wore, as if the memory is one that doesn’t belong to you, never belonged to you. “I ordered dessert, ‘will you marry me?’ was written on it in cherry sauce.”

“You must’ve said yes immediately.”

“I did.”

You leave out the part where the whole restaurant had watched him get down on one knee, or the part where you rushed to the restroom right after accepting the ring, spewing your guts out in a stall. By morning, you told yourself it was fine, you were just feeling nervous. 

After all, you loved him enough to spend time with him, so why not spend the rest of your life with him?

TRACK 6 — she’s always a woman

It had been too easy to forget the thing you loved most about road trips with Jack.

It wasn’t his constant commentary of interesting facts on sites you’d drive past, or his love for taking the long-way to anywhere and everywhere, or his ever-present need to drag your hand up to his lips with every few miles.

The thing you loved most was listening to his voice, unfiltered, unashamed, outloud, singing along to his favourite songs. The voice of a crooning angel and the shyness of a bashful fox. Every so often, when he’d catch you watching him a little too fondly as he sang along, he’d throw in a voice crack, or twist up a lyric into a sickly innuendo.

In the present, it’s you who interrupts his spirited rendition of a Billy Joel classic.

“You were right, in the letters,” the leather of your seat squeaks as you fix your posture, sit yourself up straight if only to force yourself to stop observing the way his lips fall into a natural pout and, instead, focus on memorising the licence plate that drives ahead. “I’m sorry.”

“Right about what?” As though nothing has changed, his hand extends towards your own, effortlessly intertwining your fingers, beginning an ascent to his mouth before mind takes over instinct and he’s letting you go, setting you free.

You give up on the licence plate ahead, turn your face once more towards Jack and his pouty lips.

“I couldn’t be with Agent Whiskey anymore.” A relationship made up of a man, a woman, and an agent. Whiskey would kiss you goodbye in the morning, while Jack would be the one to come home to you. With the passing of time, three became a crowd, and so you removed yourself. “I didn’t want to break your heart, Jack, I swear. But I also didn’t want to let you break mine. And you did, every time you walked out of our home and left me wondering if you’d ever come back. Then, when Tequila… You loved your job. You loved being Agent Whiskey. How could I ask you to leave that part of you behind?”

“Darlin’ if you think there’s any world where losin’ you was easier than losin’ Whiskey, you’re out of your mind.” Like his first I love you, he speaks words that flow out of him as easily as an exhale, as though they carry no weight to them. As though they do not momentarily flip your world on its axis and have you wishing he’d turn the car around, driving you both off into the forever you never got.

Yet another car overtakes the Bronco, its driver angrily pressing on his horn. You both continue to ignore the speed at which Jack drives. Up ahead, everything you’ve been dreading comes into view, an unmissable billboard. Clearview Manor.

50 miles to go. 50 miles till goodbye. 

“I’m hungry.”

“Those energy bars should still be in there, if you’re wantin’-”

“Jack, I’m hungry,” you say it louder, hoping he’ll pick up what you’re laying down.“Can’t we stop somewhere for breakfast?”

His answer comes in the form of a left blinker switching on, wheels cutting over gravel and carrying you off the main road. Then, as if to break your heart some more than his last declaration, he turns to you. “If it had been me waitin’ on you at the end of the aisle, would you have ran?”

You try to picture it.

Jack, in his suit and tie, hands clasped behind his back to keep him from drumming nervous fingers over his thighs, eyes brimming with tears as you take your first step down the aisle. Would the panic have settled in? Would you have felt that same wrongness as when you’d been sneaking a peak at your fiance waiting down the aisle?

Would you have ran?

“It’s not something I planned, y’know? Running. I didn’t think it was even an option,” you’re laying your final card on the table, a truth you couldn't bring yourself to admit earlier at last coming out to play. You’re unsure if it dismisses or further condemns you for your runaway crimes. “I took a peak, at the ceremony hall, while waiting for my father. I needed to see what I was about to walk into. I guess I thought the nerves were just from that, the unknown. Then I saw you, a few rows from the back. At first I thought I was hallucinating, that you were just a man who happened to be wearing a cowboy hat. But then I saw my mum pulling you in for a hug, and I caught a glimpse of your face. That’s why I ran. I couldn’t… marry another man, not with you standing in the crowd.”

“You’ve not answered my question,” it’s the first you’ve seen Jack put his foot down since he dragged you out the diner, the seriousness etched into his frowning forehead and stamped onto his lips. “Would you have ran?”

“No.”

Jack just keeps driving.

TRACK 7 — dancing in the dark

“You can’t be serious!”

Squeezed into the corner booth of a dingy, run-down bar, you and Jack sit across from one another, digging into a stack of pancakes lathered in maple syrup.

The bartender and two of his patrons glance at you both every so often, and you have to wonder how odd a pair you and Jack must make. One dressed to the nines, if you ignore the dried mud at the bottom of his dress pants and his loosening tie, the other wearing yesterday’s make-up paired with cotton pyjama pants. You prefer it to the stares you’d gained in your wrinkled gown.

“Deadly. I’m a serious tap-dancin’ student,” his fork stabs into the fluffy goodness, dragging it along the plate, soaking the pancake in as much syrup as possible. You try not to think of mornings that used to be spent like this, sitting at your own table, flour in his hair and eggshells in your own, both of you ignoring the disastrous mess in the kitchen begging to be cleaned as you tuck into your homemade pancakes. “Retirement breeds weird hobbies.”

“Before long, you’ll be playing bingo at the old folks home.”

“I just have to ask, I really do,” a dread you haven’t felt since stepping out the car— with the help of Jack and his offering hand, the other holding your door open— creeps back in. You don’t want to talk about your own current reality, not when it’s been so easy to pretend none of the wedding fiasco happened and, instead, you’re simply catching up with Jack after bumping into each other in this bar.  “This fiance of yours… is he bigger than me?”

As quick as it inflates, the tension pops. 

“Oh my god, Jack!” You laugh, a little too loudly, and dip your head as other tables turn their heads your way.

“What?”

“You did not just ask me that.”

“Oh, but I did.”

“You can’t just say things like that!” In mock surrender, he throws his hands up. Your own grab ahold of your knife and fork once more, an ironclad focus on the near-empty plate as you will the shameful heat away from your face, mumbling over your words. “But, no, he isn’t bigger. Happy?”

“You’ve no idea.” As though you’re being haunted by music, a song begins to play over the speakers. You’re not the only one who takes notice, Jack’s eyes lighting up with a devious look, his legs already rising out of his seat. “Think that’s our queue, darlin’.”

“Sit back down.”

“Oh, c’mon now, don’t be so uptight,” he lays out his hand, begging for you to place your own in it. Flashes of a memory, six years back, the very same song playing as the very same man attempted to coax a dance out of you. “One dance, sweetheart, then I’ll leave you in peace.”

Just like your younger self, you’re incapable of resisting his baby cow eyes, letting him guide you out onto a makeshift dance floor before it’s too late to run back and hide in your seat, the eyes of strangers already piercing you with their questioning stares. If you weren’t deemed a strange pair with your attire alone, you certainly are now, feet stumbling awkwardly along with Bruce Springstein.

“This song was playin’ when we met,” he says it like you don’t know, like you don’t remember, like you aren’t replaying that night as you speak, pretending you’re both in that same crowd of swaying bodies, young, and naive, and on the cusp of experiencing the greatest love you’ll ever know, rather than here, on an empty dance floor, stumbling blindly through the hardships of holding each other so close, mutually aware you’re dancing on borrowed time and, soon, you’ll have to go. “Knowin’ now how it ends, if I was sent back in time, I’d still ask you to dance. I’d do it all again.”

“This gun’s for hire, even if we’re just…”

He spins you, drags you closer, sways you. It’s far less care-free than the first dance you shared, no alcohol to dull the shame and a whole lot of history packed between your bodies.

The first dance had been the thing you had dreaded most about your wedding, dancing with your husband, to a whole room of loved ones watching. Dancing now with Jack— even through all the embarrassment you feel as an elderly couple point over at you— feels easier, less daunting, so much so that you can’t help the way you start to laugh, arms loosening around his shoulders, hips moving less abashedly.

The two of you inch closer, and closer, and closer as the song reaches its end. Like a happy couple finishes their first dance, Jack’s mouth lands atop yours.

A gentle kiss, innocent of sin, it begs you to give back, to press your own mouth against his. You answer its calling, hand clasping at the back of his neck, holding him safely against you, less he drifts away and reveals this all to have been a dream, a nightmare, a delusion. Like coming home after a cold winter’s day, his kiss is the comfort of knowing you’re exactly where you belong.

And it’s absolutely terrifying.

You rip away from him, flashes of your fiance’s face blinding you as you stumble off, doing what you do best: running away. You miss the way the patrons all go back to their own drinks, and the way a new song comes on, and the way Jack chases after you, stopped only by the slamming of a bathroom door.

You come up for air when you find yourself faced with the image you paint in the mirror.

Never has there been a more heartbroken girl, eyes a mess of tears, and faded eyeliner, and smudged mascara, hair a nest fit enough for any bird to build its home in, body draped in the clothing of an ex-lover. It’s almost as frightening as the image you made yesterday, wedding gown freshly laced and make-up pristinely done.

A knock rings against the door. 

It’s followed by a gentle call of your name.

You switch on the tap, welcome the cold splash of water over your face. Pray that, if you scrub hard enough, you’ll wipe away the taste of him, forget the shape of his touch, purge yourself of the desire to follow anywhere he may go. Your hand slips down your face, the dim bathroom light catches on something.

Your engagement ring, a tight shackle that binds you to someone else, reminds you of the closure you owe to Jack.

He calls your name again.

“Darlin’,” it’s muffled behind the door, but the regret in his voice is all too clear. “I just got caught up, I’m sorry. Come on out and we’ll get back on the road-”

The hinges creak as the door opens, only a crack, and your hand shoots out, grabbing a hold of Jack’s tie before you can will yourself to be rational.

He lets you invade his space with little protest, mouths returning to the dance they never got to complete. Hands move, slipping off ties, and undoing draw strings, and locking doors. There’s a mumble, are you sure, followed by a moan, please.

All hope of forgetting his skin is lost, a leg hooked around his waist, fingers tangled in his hair. He bites at your neck, and kisses along your jaw, and pants into your ear, all the while his hips rock back and forth against your own, filling you inch by inch. Mouth covered by your own hand, muffling a cry of his name as you feel him brush against that spine-tingling spot inside you. Your head falls back, eyes slip shut. Jack’s quick to rectify it.

“Watch, darlin’,” he whispers, a hand tilting your eyes down to where your two bodies meet. “ Want you to see how perfectly your lil’ pussy takes me.”

You do as he says, hypnotised by the sight of his cock, glistening in your own arousal, sawing in and out of you, each thrust deeper than the last.  

“He can’t fuck you like this, can he?” Despite his ego-fueled words, there’s a desperation in his voice, a soul lost in a sea of darkness, searching for a life jacket. “Tell me he can’t.”

He can’t, you tell him, clinging onto him tighter, needier, begging him to never leave.

Any minute now, you worry, someone’s going to knock on the bathroom door, kick you both out. Instead, the music that plays outside the door seems to increase in volume.

“Fuckin’ made for me, meant for me,” both of you grow increasingly desperate, fingernails digging into flesh, and mouths rejoining in a frenzy of kisses, and the tightening of an invisible string, drawing you nearer and nearer to the edge. “My sweet girl.”

An end that comes all too soon, both of you exhausted, and spent, and collapsing against one another, a sticky mess left between your legs where his hips continue to rut into you through his own overstimulation.

“I’m sorry,” his head falls against your shoulder, burrows into the warmth of your neck. There’s a press of his lips against your skin, and a million apologies that follow. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I love you.”

“It’s okay, Jack,” you lie, sooth a hand over his back, ignore the tears you feel falling against your skin.

TRACK 8 — hit the road jack

The clock reads 13:18 as Jack brings the car to a stop.

A set of stairs lead up to a grand double-doored entrance, a sign post declaring the extravagant building as Clearview Manor. Rented for the whole weekend, the wedding party isn’t cited to leave until late Monday evening. Though all cars remain parked in the driveway, no familiar faces await your arrival.

“I hope you get your happy ending,” the two of you step out of the car in sync. A voice whispers that it’s the last time you’ll step out the Bronco, you brush it off and follow Jack as he makes his way over to the boot. “No one deserves it more than you, Jack.”

“No promises, darlin’,” he extends his arms to you, you almost move in for a hug.

The sight of your wedding dress, no longer porcelain white, stains of brown upon a greying fabric, reminds you of why you’re here. You try your best to smile earnestly as you take it off his hands, but fear it only heightens the distress that dilates your pupils. “I’ll see you inside, right?”

The boot slams shut, and it’s an awful reminder that your time together is coming to a close, Jack dons his signature smile, cowboy hat back on his head, a head that’s shaking no.

“The mighty fool that I am, thinkin’ I could stomach watchin’ you get married to another man. After this little road trip of ours… well, I guess I just ain’t ready to hit play yet.” A tongue made of lead, shoes filled with weights. Moving feels impossible, talking even more so. You want to say his name, tell him you don’t need to marry another man, crawl back into the Bronco and beg him to drive off. “Go’on, get! There’s a good man in there, waitin’ to give you everythin’ you deserve.”

Instead, you just turn on your heel, take the first step towards the rest of your life. A life without Jack.

Halfway up the stairway, the sound of Jack’s engine reaches your ears, followed quickly by the obnoxiously poignant car radio, giving its final performance for you both.

“Hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back, no more, no more, no more, no more!”

Eyes meeting where Jack sits, back in the driver’s seat, you share one last laugh.

OUTRO — everywhere

“Thank god you’re okay.”

Two arms, strong and secure, wrap around your waist.

On the other side of the bridal suite door stands both your mother and your mother in law, ushered out by your fiance upon your return the moment he noticed the panic on your face as questions and fingers prodded at you.

You block out the thought of the scowling faces, burrowing your own into the space between his shoulder and neck, whispering your inquiry on, “how bad is the damage?”

“We told everyone you were suffering from food poisoning. All our guests think you’ve been spewing out of both ends the past few hours, but I think that’s justified for the bruising you’ve given my ego.”

“Santi,” the shape of your fiance’s name feels foreign in your mouth, the taste of it sour on your tongue, so much so that you can’t say it in full. “I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t be, what matters is you’re here now.”

Jack was right, your fiance is a nice man. A good man. A man anyone would be lucky to land in the arms of, the kind of man people dream of, and romance authors write of.

But to you, his arms just feel like a cage you’ve lost the key for. “Why did you ask me to marry you?”

“I don’t know. We just… make sense.”

“We do,” you pull apart, at last, nodding your head along to his answer. “But is that all marriage should be? Two people who make sense?” You stumble a few steps back from him, feet needing space to begin pacing back and forth as your filter slips and the word-vomit begins to spew itself out onto the pristine carpeted floors. “Do you really love me enough to spend the rest of your days with me? Because I don’t think you do, and I don’t think I love you like that either.”

Santiago is calm, collected, and completely unresponsive.

The longer he watches you pace and rant, the quicker you do each thing, as though you’re racing ahead to escape the fear of breaking his heart more than you already have, his love possibly more intense than you make it seem. He ends that fear in one foul swoop of words.

“When you didn’t walk down the aisle, I felt relieved. I also slept with someone at my bachelor party and the guilt has been eating me alive.”

“I just fucked my ex in a bathroom!” In an almost paradoxical response, the pair of you keen over in laughter, any expected animosity thrown out the metaphorical window and leaving you both no choice but to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. “God, we’re a mess.”

“Wait, the cowboy’s your ex? I should’ve known, your dad told him you were gone before he even bothered to tell me.” Santiago had little luck at winning over your dad, though admittedly it was no fault of his own but, rather, your father had yet to move on from Jack. There’s a sudden commotion as Santi rushes past you, peeling back the curtains and peering down out the window. “What car is it the cowboy drives?”

“A Bronco.”

“Well, you might wanna hurry, because he’s just pulling out of the parking bays.” It’s more than just a warning. It’s a blessing to leave. Overcome with emotion, you dive back into his arms and find there’s no fear of goodbye, not like there had been with Jack. An engagement ring that slips off with no resistance, no longer a shackle that ties you both together. You hand it back to him gently. “Go, before it’s too late! I’ll take care of this mess, see if I can spin this in a way that’s heartbreaking enough to get our deposit back.”

There’s more you want to say, but now’s not the time. Apologies and thank-yous can wait till you pick up your things from his apartment, right now you’re too busy rushing to the door.

A call of your name comes when you’ve got one foot out it, treading into the now motherless hallway. You face Santiago with a smile, ready to say that magic word. 

Goodbye.

“Promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t invite me to your wedding.”

You make it out the double-doors, which slam loudly shut behind you, before you spot the retreating shape of Jack’s car and an anxious glee commands you to break out into a sprint, legs kicking faster than they ever have before.

Don’t speed up, you think, watching as the Bronco slowly creeps down the driveway.

“Jack!” You call out to him, hoping that, with the open roof, he’ll somehow hear you over the radio. Pushing your feet to move a little faster, your arms join the mix, waving wildly to the wind, a careless attempt to catch his attention in the rearview mirror. “Wait!”

The car breaks with a squeak, the blaring music comes to a halt, and Jack turns to face you with his own eyes, as though he can’t trust the mirrors. When you reach the car, you pull at the door handle and find he’s already unlocked it. You slide in with ease, back into the seat you’ve always belonged in: by his side.

He can’t seem to move, frozen with his eyes focused on nothing but you.

“Drive, jack,” you finally proclaim, asking him what you should’ve the moment you saw him in that diner, in the pews, in the heartbreaking hours post-burying a friend.

“Where to, darlin’?”

“Anywhere, everywhere!” You can’t help the smile that overcomes you as he pulls your hand up to his mouth, planting a familiar kiss upon it, before the engine hums back to life. “It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with you, all roads lead home.”

Like old times, you lean forward and turn up the radio, a familiar tune filling the air as you sink back into your seat, the wind back in your hair and an open road laying ahead, ready to lead you both wherever the wheels may take you.

“Oh I, I wanna be with you everywhere.”

bts with hyde. this is just a little reflective commentary that i put down here, to avoid flooding my author's note with too much rambling. please feel free to skip this!!

this fic is a compilation of firsts for me. it's the first challenge i've taken part in within the pedro fanspace, which has been equally exciting as it has been daunting. i struggle immensely with writing on a time schedule, and so i'm pretty proud of myself for not posting this (too) late.

this is also my first time writing for jack. admitedly, i'm not sure if i've done justice to him, as his character is somehow incredibly strong and, yet, so open for interpretation that i found myself struggling to connect with him in my writing. i have no plans to write for him in any future wips, but that might change. it was definitely fun to push myself out my comfort zone and write for a new character!

something i want to praise myself for is the attention i put into smaller details of this fic. for example, each flower mentioned in this fic has a very specific symbol/meaning attached to it, fitting with the themes of the scenes in which they're mentioned. the other place i hyperfocused on very unimportant details is the playlist. it opens and closes on the only two songs fronted by a female vocalist, with my intention being that these songs are a representation of the reader's inner turmoils and thoughts in the opening and closing scenes. the rest of the playlist is full of male vocalists, giving a peak into jack's mind despite the entire fic being told through the reader's eyes.

okay, i've given myself enough delusional and unnecesary praise, i'm going to sleep now. please don't be mean if you didn't like this fic, it's literally my birthday 🫡

if you've read this far, ily, i hope you have a good day !

[spenceragnewfics]

Can you do a fic where you're a crew/cast member and have been in a relationship with Spencer for a few years and he finally proposes? I'm thinking something cute where he proposes on set where the two of you first met after everyone has gone home for the day. Love your work btw!

I love this one so much!

I THINK I WANNA MARRY YOU | Spencer Agnew x F!Reader

TW: None

Word Count: 1.1k

Description: When the four newest Smosh cast members are curious as to how Y/N and Spencer met. The story time turns into another heartwarming story.

People always say that you will know when you find the one. The person you’re supposed to be with for the rest of your life. It’d be like a cool wind or just a relaxed feeling when you meet them.

That’s what Y/N thought back in 2016 when she was dating Kevin. He was a nice guy. He had a good job and was pretty attractive, but he was a major cheater. You see, Y/N found him multiple times with multiple different women after promising time and time again not to do it again.

During this time, she started working at a new company called Smosh as a cast member. Her job was to be funny but it was really hard with everything going on in her life at the time. Thankfully, she made many friends with Courtney, Shayne, Keith, and Olivia when she first started but one person stood out in particular. She remembers the day like it was yesterday.

“Court, I’m telling you. I don’t need someone right now. I’m enjoying being single.” She says, she had been at the company only a couple of weeks but was already very close to the blonde. “Please, Y/N/N! You know I can help. I know that Kevin was a bad experience but you can’t let that hang you up.” She looks at Courtney with a bored expression before her eyes move behind her to the editing area, someone catching her attention.

He has curly hair that is styled back with dark stubble that matches his hair color. His skin is light with some olive undertones. He’s focused on the video in front of him but Y/N’s breath is caught in her throat. “Hey, hey, girly, are you okay?” Courtney asks, waving a hand in front of her face.

“Yeah, yeah, just…Court…who is that.” She nods her head towards the man as her friend turns to look, “Oh, that’s Spencer. He’s one of our editors. You haven’t met him yet?” They ask, shocked that she still hasn’t met him. “Well he’s going to be helping with the shoot today, you two can be introduced then,” Courtney says, smirking to themself with a thought.

Later when Y/N, Courtney, Damien, and Keith are getting miced up, Spencer walks in with his head focused on something. “Spencer! Hey, can you come over here?” Shayne asks, in on the plan Courtney thought up. He walks over, his laptop under his arm with raised brows “What’s up, Shayne?” 

“Have you met Y/N yet? Our newest cast member?” Spencer looks over to see her chatting with Courtney, Damien, and Keith. Laughing at something Keith said and is taken aback. “N-No, I haven’t.” He stutters out. Shayne wraps an arm around Spencer’s shoulder, walking him over to the group.

“Y/N.” Shayne says and she turns, a big smile on her face that makes Spencer melt just looking at her. “What’s up?” She asks, looking at Shayne before her eyes widen when she sees Spencer. “I wanted to introduce you to Spencer. He’s one of our best editors here.” He pushes the man closer to her.

The two both look nervous, making their friends smile. It’s adorable. “N-Nice to meet you.” Spencer stutters out again, putting his hand out. She shakes it with a shy smile, “Nice to meet you too, I’m Y/N.”

“And that was how we met all those years ago. When you babies were still just babies.” Y/N says, cuddled into Spencer’s side as she talks to Chanse, Trevor, Angela, and Arasha about how the two met. “So you two have been sickeningly cute since you met? That’s not fair!” Chanse whines, making the couple laugh.

“Eh, I guess. We did have our rough patches though. We made it through, that’s all that matters.” Spencer says, kissing the top of Y/N’s head and she smiles. “Okay, okay, you two are making me sick. I’m going to get lunch. Who wants to join me?” Arasha asks, getting off the floor that the four were sitting on around the couple like it was story time.

“Me.” Trevor and Chanse say, following Arasha. “Wait, I wanna ask more questions!” Angela says while Chanse drags her with him. Y/N waves goodbye to the four, a loving smile on her face.

As the years have passed she has become a welcoming figure in the cast along with Courtney. She’s moved to be mostly on Games with Spencer and the two had become known as the parents of the gaming channel.

“Can you believe it’s been almost ten years? Where has time gone?” She asks, playing with his fingers and enjoying the two of them being alone for once. “I know, it seems to be just passing by. Feels like we just started dating not too long ago.” He says, smiling at her.

She gets off the couch and looks around, “It’s still crazy that Courtney got Shayne in on a plan for us to get together and now they’re married.” She says, giggling at the memory. “And the fact that we met, officially, on a set like this.” He says, getting off the couch and wrapping his arms around her waist. “Yeah, time is weird.” She says, leaning her head onto his shoulder.

“You know, I never really thought about marriage. At least, not until I met you.” He said, making her look at him confused. “You know I’ve dated a few people but I never really saw anything long-term with them. You’re different though, I knew the moment I saw you that I wanted something and I wanted it long-term.” He cups her face before moving to one knee.

“Spence, are you really?” She asks, covering her mouth. “I have loved you for years. I never want to stop loving you. You have been here for me through thick and thin. I cannot think of anyone more I want to spend my life with than you. Y/N L/N, will you marry me.” He asks, pulling out a small velvet box with a beautiful ring inside it.

“Spencer, oh my god.” She says, getting on her knees to be eye level with him. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.” She says grabbing his face and kissing him.

When the two pull away, he slides the ring on her finger as she looks at him lovingly. “Should we go tell everyone?” He asks, “In a minute. I just want to be here with you for now.” She says before kissing him again.

[happypedrohours]

Mel speaking: It has been amazing to spend this weekend getting to know more of you, I have found some lovely new moots thanks to Happy Pedro Hours. As always with everything I do, I was a bit wary that no one would interact and this fandom keeps proving me wrong. I have loved reading and seeing all the lovely creations you've made for the Charcuterie Board challenge, I have loved coming up with ideas and brainstorming with Sara for us all to have a good time! I have loved trying new recipes!

I have loved chatting with you (I have some asks still waiting to be answered, I'm feeling a bit weird because of yesterday but I'll get to them). I think I sent at least two asks to all our followers, and if you did not get any, it's because your asks are MIA on your blog (either disabled or a glitch) and I wish I had thought of what @nerdieforpedro did and just slap the questions in a proper post with the questions and tags, that was brilliant. Ah well, I'll know it for next time.

Sara speaking: My Darlings! 🥰 It was really a pleasure brainstorming with Mel in preparing this event for you all. Once again, I want to thank her to being the real creative brain and driving force behind all this. Mel you are a superstar! 🤩❤️🤩

It was amazing interacting with you all… I really enjoyed searching for new cocktails & mocktails recipes for the virtual bar! Some of you gave me real challenges with your requests and it was super fun! I hope you have enjoyed your orders! 😃 I still have to read some of your reply to the questions I’ve sent you and I look forward in the following days to read all your creations you prepared for the Charcuterie Board Challenge!

Thank you so much for participating in such large numbers! 😀 Much love.. ✨💖✨

Below is a poll to see what you have thought of the event. Depending on the results, we're already thinking of organising a second edition (with a new Challenge and new games), so do let us know if you'd be interested in that. Either way, we love and appreciate you all

[causenessus]

love letters

part 0.05. intros.

EXHIBIT ONE: COFFEE ENTHUSIASTS

l/n y/n °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

college student majoring in photography <3 also works at onigiri miya on the side but spends a lot of her time doing client portraits and taking photos in her free time to add to her portfolio and get experience. really enjoys taking photos of street art, including graffiti and interactive pieces because she thinks they have so much meaning and significance. wanders around with suna a lot as they look for more art. went to itachiyama and knows sakusa the best but they both became good friends with inarizaki because atsumu would always bring osamu and suna with him to visit them in high school. y/n would sneak glances at suna when she thought he wasn’t looking and was always too nervous to say anything. in college, they grew closer and things became more comfortable as their friend groups hanged out more. however, by then, she was also in a happy relationship with sugawara koushi <3 a second-year studying to be a teacher! they met in a library when he fell asleep at a table and almost pushed his computer off the table </3

akaashi keiji & sakusa kiyoomi °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

akaashi

double majoring in literature and photography <3 whenever their classes assign group projects, akaashi, y/n, and kenma usually all work together. even on individual assignments, they usually go out together to keep each other company while they find their focuses <3 but he’s really going thru it, spends a lot of his time and money in coffee shops (and takes advantage of getting free food at onigiri miya). doesn’t have a very big booking schedule for client photography because he’s so busy but he’s always booked because people are obsessed with how good his eyes and skills at editing photos are. met and got to know y/n at the high school games between fukurodani and itachiyama when she would come to take photos of the volleyball team for publicity.

omi

wing spiker for the msby college volleyball team and majoring in athletic training. frequents onigiri miya but will only eat what y/n or osamu makes. he definitely grew close to y/n and trusts her because she’s just as much of a clean freak as him. their first interaction went something along the lines of her watching someone on the vball team trip on her equipment bag and her coming up to sakusa saying “your teammate just touched my bag with his dirty sweaty shoe and now i have to sanitize it. please tell them to stay away from my stuff.” and he was immediately sold. sometimes feels like the caretaker of his group, making sure everyone’s taking care of themselves because akaashi and y/n often get in the habit of partnering together to make bad decisions or locking themselves in a room to cram for classes

miya osamu & kozume kenma °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

osamu

went on a whim and started onigiri miya while also going to school for a degree in hospitality. works most nights with yn allowing them to grow pretty close. in high school, she also felt the most comfortable with him out of all the inarizaki boys and he would tell her all kinds of stories about suna because he could see how she looked at him. they still usually gossip while they work together and he definitely enables her whenever she feels like doing something (as long as it’s not harmful to herself or detrimental to her future!!!). whenever msby travels to away games, he usually gets the chance to set up a stand outside the court and will leave yn in charge of the tokyo location. is also close besties with akaashi because they share an immense love for food and has given him a free pass to eat there whenever he wants (atsumu on the other hand pays and sometimes gets a discount, usually only if yn is the one taking his order bc she feels bad for him)

kenma

photography major and part time streamer. literally is the only reason yn and akaashi have good cameras because he’ll give them his old ones whenever he buys a new one or will buy them equipment they need as a present. (in return) yn and akaashi definitely help him in general classes. feeds and has basically adopted a cat that somehow climbs their window sill everyday. he’s like the keeper of his dorm because he’s always home so whenever someone is out and has forgotten something, they’ll always spam kenma asking him to “pretty please” bring it to them. posts a lot of the photos he takes on his main twitter account. definitely takes a lot of street photography and spends more time editing photos that people send in but sometimes does portraits if requested.

extras <3

yn, akaashi, sakusa, and kenma all live together

osamu doesn’t pay rent but he’s often over bc he doesn’t want to be amidst the chaos of his actual roomates

kenma’s been forced to keep his depression clutter limited to his room because sakusa and y/n are both clean freaks

(sometimes if he lets her, y/n will come in to help him organize and clean his room)

sakusa often ends up cooking for everyone to eat because he knows no one will eat if they have to make something themselves

his one rule is you cannot be in the kitchen as the same time as him or he will stare you down

y/n usually just makes something for herself at onigiri miya but she’ll always take sakusa’s cooking over it

do not come at me abt how the real world works with businesses please 😭 let me be

taglist: @wyrcan @oyasumeii @froyaoya @gyuijns @nbcvs (form to be added to taglist! <3)

m.list | next

[riseoftheangstywriter]

How do u think the turtles would react if s/o got the turtles their favorite franchise(Jupiter Jim or Lou jitsu) merch after they attempted to buy it(but they were broke)?

Love this idea! I plan on writing a little scenario for each of the rise turts but part 1 will just be Mikey and Donnie(part 2 coming soon), enjoy!!

Mikey

You're guided through the lair by the heavenly aroma that could only be the result of Mikeys' incredible baking. It was truly a delight to see whatever he was whipping up when you managed to stop by at just the right time.

You practically float into the kitchen, the box turtle in the middle of pulling a tray out of the oven.

"Something sweet?" You hum, watching as his surprise melts into joy at the sight of you, smile matching his grin. You've mistaken it for the sun more than once.

"More like someone sweet." He removes his oven mitts and meets you halfway in a tight hug. "I made brownies y/n!" The syllables of your name slip fondly from his tongue, his enthusiasm enveloping you with warmth.

His head fits right in the crook of your neck, his usual resting spot in an embrace such as this. He smells like chocolate. Feels like home.

"I have something for you." Unable to contain your secret any longer, you pull away, presenting him with a bag, orange tissue paper loosely sticking out.

His eyes light up, fingers dancing in anticipation at whatever this thing might be. "Really?!"

All you can do is nod, holding your breath as he takes it from you, tearing through the packaging with that contagious unconfined energy you adored.

You know the exact moment he sees what it is, his jaw dropping in time with your gleeful giggle. Your hand covers your face, unable to hold back the joyful sounds escaping your throat.

"Is this the limited edition Jupiter Jim cookbook? Which has all the food and beverages from the films and comics?!"

You nod, knowing he had been dying to get it whenever it had come out. Being such a niche piece of merchandise, it sold out almost immediately. Not to mention it wasn't exactly in his price range.

He was a good sport about not being able to add it to his growing collection, but seeing his crestfallen expression for even a second was all it took for you to decide you would stop at nothing to get it for him.

Now that you've gotten it, Mikey could-

"Woah!" Your feet leave the ground as you are lifted in the air, being twirled around multiple times. A reminder of his incredible strength despite his size.

"Ohmigosh y/n! This is incredible! You're incredible!" One hand cradles your face, his other arm wrapped around your waist, holding you up. "I love it!" He repeats multiple times, kissing your cheeks over and over. "I love you!"

"I-I love you too!" You manage to stutter out between the onslaught of pecks, dizzy and lovesick.

Planted back to reality, Mikey shakes your shoulders. "Do you have plans tomorrow? If not, I'm making a three course- no, a five course meal! I have to go shopping, I need to call April!"

"You have all the time in the world." You reply reassuringly, still endeared by his eagerness.

"I know, I know. It's just I've been wanting this for like forever!" He calms, now seeming to finally process what you've done. "...You remembered?"

How could you not? You're already far into that stage of wanting to know every little thing about him, and what you have learned was already committed to memory forever. You knew he was no mind reader; you just wanted to express yourself to him like he did to you. It mattered, really. Deeply.

"Of course." Simple and sweet words were enough for him to understand. He leans into you, your hand pressed against his plastron, tracing the sticker on its' surface.

"You're the best." He swears to you, like a promise he plans to never break.

What ensues next is a playful back and forth, ending in more laughter. Sunshine finds its' way in, even in the underground tunnels of New York.

He leaves you with the brownies, rounding up his family with an extra spring in his step. You take a bite of a corner piece; relishing in its sweetness, it being cooked to perfection as usual. Although it was nothing compared to Mikey's affection.

Not even close.

Donnie

Like clockwork, you arrive to Donnie's lab. A weekly cycle, but the farthest thing from a chore. A highlight seems like a more fitting description.

The doors open for you with a hiss, inviting to you while perhaps ominous to a stranger. His space, and now, in a way, yours too by association.

He's working. Focused. Diligent as ever. He's rarely been irked by your interruptions when they do occur, but out of respect you keep your distance. Besides, you didn't mind observing from afar. Or admiring.

He greets you, like always. The creaking of a nearby chair is indication of your "sitting down and vegging out on your phone after a long day time", so he doesn't shift his attention to you just yet. Wanting to complete his current task first.

You aren't on your phone, however. Instead, you wait patiently. Wanting to get his reaction whenever he sees... it.

It takes around fifteen minutes before you hear a satisfied sigh and a readjust of his googles. Then a pause, an empty space where his first words to you should be.

"..y/n?" He turns in his chair, eyes narrowed and an immaculate eyebrow quirked.

"Yes?" You mirror his questioning expression, feigning ignorance. An attempt to be cute, hoping to add to your charm that got him to fall for you, somehow.

"What did you put on my desk?" A harmless, even logical question; but you have a terrible poker face and are horrible at hiding when you're excited about something.

You focus on the subject of conversation. A gray box, with more height than width. Decorating it is a purple satin ribbon.

You look between it and him. "Oh that? I don't know. Maybe you should open it and see."

For a moment you're sure he'll question it, but to your delight he obliges to your initial request. Your stomach churns; that means he trusts you. That was great, amazing even. Yet..

Going by his side, you watch as he puts the package in his lap, slowly tugging on the fabric of the ribbon, letting it loosen so he can pull it away with ease.

His hands linger over the lid, a silent ask for permission in his subtle glance upwards.

"Well?" You say, sweaty palms concealed behind your back.

A huff in response, and the lid is popped off.

It's quiet for about a minute, Donnie peering inside the box, hands still firmly on its' sides. The suspense is gnawing at you, screaming internally for any reaction at all. Please.

Then he lifts it out, holding it carefully in his skilled fingers. The holy grail itself. An Atomic Lass figurine. Not just any figurine. It's Atomic Lass in her outfit from Jupiter Jim's Pluto Vacation IV, which just so happens to be his favorite film in the franchise. Not to mention this item was so hard to find, not even the soft shell himself could get it in his possession.

Biting your tongue so hard it might bleed, you try to piece together his thoughts by a thorough study of his expression. You knew how particular he was about his well-kept merchandise collection. You polished it yourself, only pleased once it shined like the titanium bust of his head. Desperate to impress him; even now, after all this time. Dreading what would happen if you managed to fail. Had you failed already?

He sets down the figure, staring at it. Then an exhale, as he squares his shoulders, facing you.

"How much do I owe you?"

What? "What? Nothing." That was the last thing you had expected him to say. Your gesture had no price tag, but feeling the need to elaborate just to bring the point home, you add. "Zero dollars."

His eyes are cast downwards, but it's unmistakable. He's thinking. Now you see. He's calculating how much it might have cost you. How many hours you worked at your job in order to pay for it. Classic Donnie overthink. You wouldn't allow that.

With purpose, you bend down to eye level, pressing a gentle kiss on the area between his pinched brows. "It's a gift, Donnie." Fingers meet his chin as you lift his head up. "You don't owe me anything."

It seems to have pained him, how easily you assured him no favor was needed, or even wanted by you. "No. No- you cannot possibly expect me to just take this," his fingers grasp your wrist, hand almost shaking. "This is too much."

His sweetness, yet hypocrisy is extremely adorable. "It is most certainly not. There's plenty of times we've been in this exact situation, just the other way around, and you know what you said every time I tried to repay you?"

Not really asking for an answer, you continue, "You say it's fine, and that your purpose of doing things for me is never to get something in return," you trace his jaw, feeling it clench. "It's the same thing for me."

Using his own principles against him was a killing blow, seeing his conflicting emotions settle into resignation, yet the apprehension was there. "I have no doubt it was difficult for you to find such rare..." He trails off, eyeing the statue and all its' details. "It's magnificent."

His breathless praise fuels your ego, just a bit. "I'm really really glad you think so." You kiss his cheek, pulling yourself out of his loosening grip.

With a surprised gasp he brings you right back in, kissing you with a sudden ferocity that makes your head spin and skin shimmer, a bubbling warmth threatening to boil over. The position you're in is a little awkward, but with Donnie's lips on yours like this you found no reason to complain.

"Please," Almost like a plea, his eyes rake over your contented smile, breath hitching. "Let- Let me do something for you. Anything."

The constant need Donnie had to help you stoked the embers in your heart even more. Falling impossibly further for him just when you think there couldn't possibly be anything else to love, to admire.

Your nose meets his snout with a meaningful nuzzle, and you caress a wrinkle on his forehead with a thumb. "Anything? Well... a movie right now sounds nice. If I may throw out a suggestion here, what are your opinions on Jupiter Jim's Pluto Vacation IV?"

Once he realizes the direction you were taking with his proposition, he scoffs, the familiar sound furthering your fond amusement. "Is that a serious request, y/n?"

"To be honest," you cup his cheek, seeing how youthful he looks like this. Wide eyes and shining pupils. "Just this is plenty, but if you actually feel like you have to repay me, which you don't... then yes, I'm serious."

He sighs into your touch, clearly wanting to argue your "request". That push and pull between you both was always fun to indulge in; but in this case, he accepts. "Very well, even though I do not consider that sufficient in the slightest." He could grumble all he wants, he knew you had succeeded.

Movie night commences shortly after, and you listen as he brainstorms how exactly he'll display his figurine, insistent just setting it alongside the others wasn't enough. Soaking up every word, you cuddle closer. You should surprise Donnie more often. You could get used to this.

[eatmeandbirthmeagain]

Random as heck but can you please do one where the reader is very good at the harp (harp music is so beautiful!!) Like so good people gather around when she plays and Baldwin IV loves listening to her play and it just relaxes him so much. One night Baldwin was in pain and he asks her to play it. Thanks in advance!❤️❤️❤️

♡ The Lullaby Of An Aching Heart - King Baldwin x Reader ♡

♡ Fluff ♡

A/N: Hello Anon!!! This is the first of many amazing requests I have gotten today! I got so exited when I saw this, it is an adorable idea, I love it so much so thank you for sending it in 🫶. I hope it is what you had in mind! As always this is based on the film Kingdom Of Heaven, not the real historical figures. Enjoy!

PS: (EDIT) I re-wrote a lot of this because when I wrote it last night I was sleep deprived after 2 all nighters in a row.. 

TW: Leprosy

Baldwin loved music.

Beautiful, melodic sounds brought him nothing but relief from a life of pain and suffering.

But of all music, there was something special about the harp. More importantly, his wife's harp.

Her music was his favorite, there was really nothing like it. Since hearing it for the first time, no other instrument or musician could even come close to being half as brilliant as her.

In between the notes of her songs, he made a home and did not plan on leaving anytime soon.

Her music was like a warm blanket, wrapping itself around his frail body and keeping him safe from all harm and pain.

Y/n was famous in the kingdom for her music, many gathered to listen to her play. Still, Baldwin was always there amongst the crowd.

He never missed any opportunity to listen to her beautiful songs.

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

One night, the pain was worse than usual. His head throbbed and his body ached.

Baldwin had returned to the royal chambers after a visit to the physicians for new bandages and some medicine in hope to relieve him of the pain.

But for the entire day, there was only one thing on his mind.

The single thing that his tired mind craved more than rest was his wife's music.

Her sweet melodies had put him to sleep on many painful, restless nights. That night would be no different.

As he entered the royal bed chambers, y/n rose from her desk to greet him with open arms, just as she did every evening.

She wrapped her husband in a warm embrace, her hand resting itself on the back of his head.

“How is my beautiful boy?” she asked, her voice softer than silk.

Baldwin only hummed tiredly in response. That told the young queen everything she needed to know.

Y/n sat him down on their large bed and removed his mask, exposing his freshly bandaged face to the cool night air.

Carefully, she helped him take off his day clothes and put on a cotton nightgown. The texture was pleasant on the areas of his skin that still had sensation.

As she was laying him down, Baldwin spoke.

“My love, could you please play for me?” His voice was quiet and filled with pain. It hurt her heart to see him like this. It always did.

“Of course my darling, anything for you” y/n replied, leaving him for a moment to move the harp closer to their bed.

Taking a seat on the small stool, the queen began to play.

The beautiful music filled the room. Baldwin sighed as he allowed the music to envelop him, feeling his aching body relax further and further. All sense of tension released him from its firm grip.

The king desperately tried to keep his eyes open for a little while longer. He wanted more than anything to stay awake and listen to her gorgeous song, but as his eyelids grew heavier with each note, he finally surrendered himself to sleep.

The last thought that went through his mind was of how beautiful she looked while playing. The dull moonlight and candles illuminated where she sat, she looked like an angel.

When the song finished, y/n looked up at Baldwin, half expecting him to request another song. But she smiled at the sight of him, fast asleep, thankful that he was no longer in pain.

She stood and went to sit down on the edge of the plush bed.

Admiring his resting features was always the best part of her day. In wake, the king's mask made him look stern and much older, as did his calm temperament.

But in sleep, he looked completely different.

She could see just how he really was, no mask, no words, no expressions. Just him. Her wonderful husband.

Pressing a kiss to his forehead, y/n stood to pull the covers over his body, tucking him in.

Giving Baldwin one last look, the queen laid down beside him and closed her eyes. The knowledge that he was safe beside her allowed her to sleep easy that night.

[feroluce]

While he doesn't quite confirm it in canon (he could technically still just be kidding about BOTH parts and his right eye is fine), I love the thought that Boothill actually did lose his right eye based on his "Knowledge" voiceline.

Because after this line, I actually did go back to rewatch his trailer, and yeah. Even when Boothill is literally flipped upside-down, his bangs stay in place. We never see the right side of his face to confirm it one way or the other.

EDIT: So it turns out you CAN see juuuust enough of his right eye under his hair in-game to confirm it's there and looks the same as his left. I am going to promptly file this under canon things I choose to ignore because hc is more fun, but wanted to add this in because I don't like spreading misinformation. Thank @ultigoblin for the info everyone!

And obviously being a Galaxy Ranger comes with a lot of opportunities to lose body parts. Especially given the people he's after, I would not be surprised at all to find out Boothill lost it in some bounty hunting gone wrong haha

But my personal favorite thought is that he lost it during the rebellion on Aeragan-Epharshel.

Boothill brushes aside what happened to his home, he'll openly say it's gone now but after that he just kinda moves on. He doesn't say what happened to it, and I'm sure he would gloss over the loss of his body and his eye the same way. And combined with how he always talks about himself as a Galaxy Ranger, always about the here and now, I feel like it's kinda easy to forget sometimes that oh, right.

This guy fought in warfare.

His character stories don't go into detail either, but it IS described as guerilla warfare. And it makes it clear there was a large technology gap between the IPC and Aeragan-Epharshel. It's possible they didn't have the means for things like cybernetic prosthetics- or if they did, it would have become harder to implement them during a rebellion, with the IPC breathing down their necks.

And I feel like in order to have a cybernetic prosthetic put in, the wound probably has to be healed a certain way. Like it takes medical intervention. There's a whole plan and procedure for it. And especially if Aeragan-Epharshel didn't have that technology in the first place, Boothill wouldn't have had the chance to heal it that way. Like it healed fine, just not in a way that allowed a cybernetic replacement.

So when one of the IPC shot out his right eye (with a "warning shot" of all things), it was pretty much already a given that he was going to be blind on that side from then on.

When he forced the procedure to change his body, there was nothing they could do for that empty right socket. To this day, it's still sealed over with a patch...probably with something rude drawn on it smzjmsmsks

And even though Hoyo is always giving really cool unrealistic designs for eyes, I do like to think his left eye is a cybernetic- that's what the crosshair is there for. It's to make sure Boothill's aim stays consistent and as good as it is when he's in top shape, even through pain or hindered vision. Like it's an aide, yes, but the skill is all his from years of hard work.

But even with all the replacements, all of the upgrades.

Behind that crosshair, he made sure to keep the natural color of his own eyes.

[em-writes-stuff-sometimes]

My Work on Archive Of Our Own

Please ignore if me gushing about the reception of my fics is irritating. I understand there are some people who genuinely hate when fanfic writers do this, so I'm putting it under the cut so you don't have to see it!

(And fair warning; if this irritates you and you still decide to click 'keep reading' and you then decide that I am obviously up myself so I deserve a hate anon or several, I need to preemptively remind you that I gave you the choice not to engage. You will be blocked and I shall call you a silly little guy if you do this.)

I also would like to make this an invitation to anyone who wants to share their proudest stats, or a nice comment they got, or even just something they are really really happy about in having written their fic. (No need to click read more, just go for it and use this as your excuse to show some pride.) On any platform!

Gonna tag the following: @lya-dustin @ewanmitchellcrumbs @the-common-cowgirl @the-wonderland-madnesss @marthawrites

@vampire-exgirlfriend @exitpursuedbyavulcan @emilykaldwen @ripdragonbeans @aegonx

Feel free to turn this into a pass-on game, if you like! We should celebrate the things that make us happy, too. ❤️

I've not ever really posted about this because, IDK, I worry about being considered a conceited asshole. I figure, though, that this is my blog and my safe space and if I want to celebrate something I'm proud of then I should be able to do so. Nor am I implying that I believe this is any sort of metric of popularity or superiority, OR that I write for the sole purpose of validation through clicks and numbers. I have very little interest in engaging with any of that rhetoric. NO. It's just a convenient bonus, kinda like how I love my job and the fact I get paid is awesome but not my primary reason for doing it.

Okay, I think I've got the disclaimers out the way? (Can never be too sure with fandom.)

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reads my stuff. Not only on here, but on Archive Of Our Own, which is more or less a place I consider the Ultimate Fanfiction Site (TM). It used to be fanfiction.net for me, but then their ads got annoying and their content ban gross, so AO3 it is! I've read fanfiction on AO3 since I was like 13, and I still find it crazy beyond belief that my work is not only on there, but that it gets any sort of traction at all.

As a little acknowledgement of something I'm proud of, I wanted to document my stats on my big series, terms of endearment, as of June 2024. It is by and large the biggest project I have ever done, and I've poured countless hours of researching, writing and editing into it.

darilaros (princess)

Words: 48,843 Comments: 254 Kudos: 801 Bookmarks: 111 Hits: 21,971

gevivys (beauty)

Words: 52,147  Comments: 578  Kudos: 2,965  Bookmarks: 490  Hits: 106,019

dōnus riñus (sweet girl)

Words: 58,775 Comments: 660 Kudos: 3,414 Bookmarks: 635 Hits: 141,339

ilībītsos (little slut)

Words: 62,725 Comments: 556 Kudos: 1,880 Bookmarks: 289 Hits: 99,939

ñuhus prūmȳs (my heart)

Words: 104,063 Comments: 1,188 Kudos: 2,274 Bookmarks: 368 Hits: 110,356

jorrāeliarzus (beloved) (ongoing)

Words: 38,451 Comments: 234 Kudos: 454 Bookmarks: 86 Hits: 16,208

That makes for a total of 365,004 words; 3,470 comments; 11,788 kudos; 1979 bookmarks; and 495,832 hits. Jesus Christ.

To everyone who kudos'ed, commented, bookmarked, subscribed or even just clicked on the link to the fic, thank you very much. This series has grown and grown, not just in my head but also in audience. It's given me so much encouragement and support in my writing, and a feeling like maybe I am decent at this? I don't know. I used to write when I was a kid, but I stopped during high school. Rediscovering the joy of it hasn't just been rewarding in terms of having fun with it, but also in discovering that there are people who genuinely want to read what I'm putting out. I've spent a lot of my life feeling powerless and silenced, so this really means so much to me.

I am going to keep on writing for as long as I possibly can, because I genuinely haven't found a hobby as long-lived and fulfilling as this.

Thank you. I'm so very lucky. I'm so grateful. I love you all!

[syoish-aot]

I can't stop thinking about this really obscure reader/eren idea so hear me out:

post canon (sort of???)

reader/eren

reverse isekai & memory loss

not smut (sorry)

word count: 690

*********

The last thing Eren remembers is the chaste press of Mikasa's lips against his as the world fades away into nothing.

The first thing Eren feels is the ticklish brush of your lips against his as the world comes back into view.

He died. He knows he died because that was the whole damn point of almost destroying the world. Almost killing everyone so his friends have someone to stop and they can be seen as heroes instead of devils.

It was his plan all along. The only plan that made sense. And he'd succeeded, he knew he had succeeded so-...

So why is he still alive?

Eren doesn't want to open his eyes, so he doesn't.

Instead, he lays there against the bed- a bed so much softer than one he'd ever had the pleasure of laying against, especially after years and years of fighting.

Eren can't remember the last time he didn't wake up sore- probably not since he was a little kid, ignorant to the truth of the world.

But right now he's not sore. Right now he's in a soft bed and the lips that had been against his had long since faded into a shuffling at the other side of the room.

Was it Mikasa? Would he open his eyes and be in that cabin he had created, just for the two of them?

If he didn't open his eyes then he could pretend that's what it was. If he didn't open his eyes he could be anywhere.

But then-

"Eren." You laugh softly, from the other side of the room.

It's not a voice he recognizes.

You look over at your boyfriend, who's still laying shirtless in bed even though it's well past eleven. It might be a Saturday, but the two of you had plans and you'd agreed the night before that you would not give them up to spend the whole day lazing around your apartment wrapped up in each other (as wonderful as that sounds right now, especially with how dreamy he looks with his face relaxed in blissful peace and his hair splayed out across the pillo- No no no no no- NO DISTRACTIONS!)

You see his eyelids twitch, meaning he’s awake but he’s purposefully trying to pretend to be asleep.

That jerk.

You figure he can have another few minutes though so you turn back to the mirror in front of you and put in your earrings. Then, you stand back and flatten out your cocktail dress. 

It’s a simple dress, but one of your favourites. Form fitting and long sleeved with soft dark blue fabric that cuts off mid thigh. It makes you feel mature, which is something you should probably already feel in your mid twenties but-... but honestly you normally feel more like a teenager playing pretend. 

Speaking of playing pretend: 

“Eren, seriously.” You laugh again as you cross the room. “We have to leave in forty five minutes and you need to take a shower.” You say as you crawl back into bed and straddle him, your thighs against his hips. You lean forwards, placing your hands against the pillow on either side of his head and lean down so your lips can ghost over the shell of his ear. “When we get back home we can do that thing you like~ and if you get up now I’ll even let you-”

Suddenly you’re flipped.

Eren has you pinned against the mattress with your hand painfully pressed against your back. 

“E-Eren!” You exclaim as your shoulder strains, wrist no doubt bruising against his tight grip. 

He’s done this to you before- playfully, with less strain against your arm and when you’re in the mood to get a little freaky but right now this- this isn’t that. This is something else.

And that’s confirmed when he finally speaks, adding a slight pressure to your arm which has you hissing in pain:

“Who the hell are you?” He demands in a tone that you don’t recognize. 

It’s your boyfriend behind you, you know it’s your boyfriend behind you.

But at the same time, it’s a total stranger.

(edit: I continued this...

PART 2 -> )

[misty--nights]

Episode 5, here we go! This episode is a roller coaster. It has some of the funniest gags in the series, but also some of the most heartbreaking scenes. I'm surprised at how many thoughts I had about the characters with this one.

The editing of the recap has me dying! Who decided to cut from Niko asking if Edwin wanted to kiss Monty to that shot of Charles from when Edwin was enraptured by him and then back to Edwin saying "I don't know"? I gasped when I saw that. Fantastic

Charles is leaning in for a kiss when before Crystal says they need to talk. No, my boy, someone give him a hug

I said it before in episode 4, but it's wild to me that there was apparently like no real investigation done into Brad and Hunter's deaths

The envelope with Niko's letter has the same stickers as her envelope with rent from last episode. As someone who also finds every excuse to use cute stickers, I find this amazing

For all of Maxine's glaring problems, she actually makes a pretty good librarian. Love that she greets Niko by asking if she's done with her reading. Also love that apparently Niko borrows at least some of her manga from the library (we love supporting libraries in this house)

Charles looks genuinely intrigued when Niko mentions having her own case. I really wish we had gotten to see more scenes with these two because they'd make an amazing team. Just imagine the chaos and good vibes of the two of them combined

I know the eight ball is supposed to be predicting her imminent death, but the "outlook not so good" fits really well with the outlook of the date. And it shows right after she says she's feeling lucky about her case, so, I think it applies to that as well (in a way, you could say it's predicting Maxine's death in the episode? Maybe?)

When they go to the dragon's den, Brad says people don't go there anymore because they miss him and Hunter too much, which is an interesting way to put it. Like, I understand why he'd interpret it like that, given the kind of people the two of them are, but still. It didn't click until now that that is most likely not what other students think when they imagine going to the dragon's den

Edwin looks so concerned about what a hand job is. Especially after Charles reaction, I'm dying

There is a genuine record scratch after Maxine mentions the nightshirt thing. I rarely pay attention to the background music in shows and music, so this one took me by surprise. It works really well with the scene, though, I like it

I know part of the reason this case affects Charles so much is because he's trying to tell himself he's not this terrible person because of his trauma and anger. But do you also think Brad and Hunter remind him of the guys he used to hang out with when he was alive? The ones who killed him? He looks really hurt when he tells them "you were cruel just for the shits", and I think it would make sense for him to be remembering his own friends' cruelty. Towards that other boy they were kicking and that he tried to defend, and towards Charles himself when they killed him. I think maybe in that moment he's remembering the way they laughed as they hurt him, how they cheered as he froze in the lake and tried to avoid their blows

Did they put eyeliner on Charles just so that his eyes would look all smudged every time he cries? Because it's devastating seeing him like that each time. And that hopeful smile he gets right before hugging Edwin? Ugh, my heart

Also in that scene, the way Charles nuzzles against Edwin's face during the hug, I swear!! Someone needs to give this boy like a thousand hugs right now

"I could smooth everything out again." This line breaks me knowing Crystal's backstory. Can you imagine her, letting David posses her because he promised to dull out all of this rage and hurt that have festered inside of her for years? And he does, he takes all of that and the memories and everything, but she's left trapped inside of herself, unable to do anything but watch him do as he pleases with her body. I think she should also get like a thousand hugs right away

Is Monty's ring a bird skull? Because that's adorable and very on brand

[byooregard]

Since I spent like an hour on friday going through my copy of iwtv (1977 first Ballantine Books Edition) so here's where every episode title is said in the book.

possible spoilers for the show; definitely spoilers for the nearly 50 year old book.

S1E1 "In throes of increasing wonder" page 13, Louis only every directly says the words "increasing wonder" ("From then on I experienced only increasing wonder") about his first meeting with Lestat

S1E2 "...after the phantoms of your former self" page 81-82, said by Lestat ("You are in love with your mortal nature! You chase after the phantoms of your former self!") when they're having one of their many arguments about Louis' feelings about killing, right before they turn Claudia

S1E3 "Is my very nature that of a devil?" page 73, after Louis and Lestat are driven off of Louis' plantation & are rejected by a mortal woman Louis likes & thought would protect them

S1E4 "...the ruthless pursuit of blood with all a child's demanding" page 98, said by Louis about Claudia (in narration) ("She was simply unlike Lestat and me to such an extent I couldn't comprehend her; for little child she was, but also fierce killer now capable of the ruthless pursuit of blood with all a child's demanding)

S1E5 "a vile hunger for your hammering heart' page 116, Louis to Claudia, telling her the story of how she was turned ("I felt for you again, a vile unsupportable hunger for your hammering heart, this cheek, this skin.") While S2E7 gives us more context on how Claudia was turned, in the book it was very different-- Louis just straight up saw her and couldn't resist nearly killing her, & a few days later Lestat decides to turn her to save their marriage

S1E6 "Like angels put in Hell by God" page 148-- Louis says this to a priest in confessional after Lestat 'dies'. ("I am not mortal, father, but immortal and damned, like angels put in hell by God.")

S1E7 "The thing lay still" page 138, Louis' description of Lestat's dead (ish) body

S2E1 "What can the damned really say to the damned?" page 168, Louis contemplating what he might find in Eastern Europe as he and Claudia sail to Europe.

S2E2 "Do you know what it means to be loved by death?" page 224, said by Santiago in basically the exact same context, although the play is different.

S2E3 "No pain" page 225, said by Armand, who is onstage & is the one who kills the woman in the first performance we see at Theatre des Vampires

S2E4 "I want you more than anything in the world" page 284, said by Armand to Louis when they're on a little date in this abandoned tower Armand likes to hang out in, notably after Louis turns Madeline without approaching Armand about it; I believe he also repeats it twice same as the show

S2E5 "Don't be afraid. just start the tape" page 3; said by Louis to Daniel basically the same way it happens in the show.

S2E6 "Like the light by which God made the world before He made light" page 142, something Louis says while contemplating his existence directly after Lestat 'dies'. ("I had now lived in two centuries, seen the illusions of one utterly shattered by the other, been eternally young and eternally ancient, possessing no illusions, living moment to moment in a way that made me picture a silver clock ticking in a void: the painted face, the delicately carved hands looked upon by no one, looking out at no one, illuminated by a light which was not a light, like the light by which God made the world before he Had made light.") (jesus, anne. i thought i wrote horribly long sentences)

S2E7 "I could not prevent it" page 307, said by Armand, also repeated twice like he does in the show, although this is said as he's saving Louis rather than in the present day interview

S2E8 "And that's the end of it. There's nothing else" page 341; idk if this is the actual episode title, but it's what wikipedia is telling me and it makes sense enough. The last thing Louis tells to Daniel before ending the story

under the cut-- other lines i remember from the show that i underlined while reading the book; please add on if you have any more or correct anything i got wrong

(also this is all just my memory while reading the book, so it's messy and imperfect) (all of the book quotes should be correct, but forgive me if i cannot remember the lines from the show exactly and don't bother to search for them)

interview begins with "You weren't always a vampire, were you?" and then "There's a simple answer to that. I don't believe I want to give simple answers. I think I want to tell the real story." page 4

Daniel says "ah, that's the accent" and notes that there's a "slight sharpness to the vowels" also page 4

the monologue louis has about becoming a vampire "A dull roar at first and then a pounding like the pounding of a drum" to "i realized that drum was my heart" page 19

various things louis says about lestat in the first interview. i can't remember the exact lines in the episode but i think i remember "I was his complete superior and I had been sadly cheated in having him for a teacher" from page 31 and "he appeared frail and stupid to me, a man made of dried twigs with a thin, carping voice" on page 34

"The blood poured out of him, down his shirt front, down his coat. It poured as it might never pour from a mortal man, all the blood which he had filled from before the child and from the child..." page 137, describing Lestat dying

After they first attempt to kill Lestat, Louis also says the words "beginning the great adventure of our lives" page 142

page 216, when Armand and Louis meet, Armand does say "I will not harm you", and the note on his buisness card says "Bring the petit beauty with you. You are most welcome, Armand."

page 244, parts of the shpiel about concious & unconcious death from the first theatre performance

page 339, Armand says "She never loved you, you know. Not in the way that I loved you, and the way that you loved us both." after which he leaves Louis, something he hasn't managed to do in the show yet, though, to be fair, in the show after he said this Louis immediately ran into the sun

page 343, "This... after all I've told you... is what you ask for? " and "You don't know what human life is like! You've forgotten. You don't even understand the meaning of your own story...", though in the show they change this line a bit to make it sound more natural for a high 20 year old in San Francisco in 1973

[tac-owo-sensei]

An Awkward Encounter

I wrote this when I was tired as fuck and I'm too lazy to edit it so enjoy

“So not only have you been stealing my things, possibly contaminating my food with your weird little wall germs, but you’ve also been watching me since I’ve gotten here?”

“...Well it’s not steal-”

“I’m sorry, are you going to give it back?” Audrey snapped. She didn’t know what to expect when she woke up this morning, but it certainly wasn’t a person the size of her pointer finger on her counter, now trapped within her fist.

The borrower, as he introduced himself, gave a lopsided smile in response. This wasn’t good, this wasn’t good at all. No, it was okay, even if she was…gigantic, humans were still normal people, like any other borrower…right? He just had to act like he normally did…like the possibility of being crushed wasn’t so real.

“Well…do you want me to?” He raised his eyebrows and his smile wavered. Peace, keep the peace. The more compliant you are, the less likely you are to die. Audrey let a sigh out of her nose, her breath slightly ruffled his hair. Nope, this was not terrifying at all.

“No, no, I- you can keep it.” She paused for a moment, like she was debating something. Then, she lowered her hand and unraveled her fingers the moment it touched the counter. The borrower could feel himself relax as her hand retracted, but his guard was still up.

“Anyway…uhm, if you don’t need anything else, can I- yaknow, go…like…now? Please?” A pause.

“Yeah, sure…just- look, I really don’t mind you being here, but can you try to not touch the food you’re not going to eat? Like if you’re stealing- I don’t know, a chip- or- something from the bag, can you try not to touch the other chips?” God, that barely sounded coherent. 

His eyes widened. That…was it? She didn’t want him to leave, to kill him, to trap him or…anything? That was it?

“Yeah…uhm, sure.”

“Do you want help or anything-”

“No, nope, absolutely not.” He said way too quickly. “I-I mean, not that I don’t want your help-” He didn’t. He did not wish to go through being held, having all of his limbs restrained, to be so directly left under the mercy of a stranger again. “But I can do it on my own.” He finished. He awkwardly cleared his throat. “If that’s all, I…guess I’ll be seeing you around.” He wanted to thank her for not harming him, but he assumed that would be a strange thing to thank someone for. He turned around, before he was stopped by her voice.

“So will I be seeing you again?” She blurted out. He paused for a moment.

“Uhm, maybe.” Hopefully not.

“Oh, alright.” Before she could say anything else, he sprinted behind the coffee machine. He expertly removed the outlet and hurriedly put it back once he was back, safe inside the confines of the walls. Never again. (Spoiler alert, they had another encounter)