#even though you spent quite a lot of your early career quite naked

[jessieren]

Dear Mr Evans

Please find within a formal letter of complaint regarding your non compliance with specific terms in your recently signed contract.

Specifically, the women of tumblr would like to express their concern that they are running extremely low on HNW content and are even having to resort to duplicating previously used content.

They are also suffering from a near complete drought of new work, new photo content and well, frankly, new you.

We hereby demand that you engage in some new projects really fucking soon, preferably with the aforementioned contractually agreed levels of nakedness.

And yes we mean any project..

Thx babe

Love tumblr

[heresince93]

Gillian Anderson Sunday Times Interview Transcript

There is a moment in the second series of Netflix’s Sex Education when Gillian Anderson’s character, Jean, sighs a deep resigned sigh as she is lying in bed one morning and spots the messy pile of small change her latest lover, Jakob, has left on her bedside table.

It’s my favourite moment of this uplifting show about the tangled love lives of British secondary school teens that manages to appeal to both parents and adolescents alike. Anderson plays the outrageously inappropriate sex therapist Jean Milburn, a stylish, confident single mother.

The sight of those coins will resonate with any woman of Anderson’s age and stage of life (she is 51), whatever kind of relationship they are in.These pennies, a symbol of how untidy life gets and the constant imposing presence of someone else even when they aren’t in the room, represent for Jean the gradual realisation that the excitement of a new love soon becomes tempered by the boring bits.

For those of us who have been married a while, the coins are perhaps the equivalent of the dull domesticity of picking up the shirt always dropped on the floor or the wet towels you always end up refolding after your teens have left them near but not on the bathroom radiator. Anderson and I chat about this a lot when we meet to talk about the second series of Sex Education, given that we are both working mothers in our early fifties.

The actress, who is most recognised for her role as Scully in The X-Files, is twice divorced and has three children, Piper, 25, Oscar, 13, Felix, 11, all of whom live with her in London. Her partner of three years is the playwright, screenwriter and creator of The Crown, Peter Morgan, himself a father of five.

In person Anderson is chatty and witty, aloof and friendly at the same time, a peculiarly feline trait that I often encounter in driven, confident women who have reached midlife. Tell me about Jakob and the coins, I say, what is it like starting a new relationship in your forties, compared with your twenties?

“It’s very different,” she says. “I think you are more fully formed, especially if you have taken time out of previous relationships to find yourself.

“Early on after the break-up of my last relationship and before my current one, somebody encouraged me to write a list of needs and wants in a future partner. Needs are non-negotiable. If you go on a date with someone and realise they won’t meet, say, three of those needs, then they are not the person for you. It may last as a relationship, but it won’t make you happy. Wants are easier, not more frivolous per se, but easier to deliver. Doing this made it clear to me going forward who would be good for me in a relationship.

“And there is a new creativity nowadays to what a relationship should look like, too. For instance, my partner and I don’t live together. If we did, that would be the end of us. It works so well as it is, it feels so special when we do come together. And when I am with my kids, I can be completely there for them. It’s exciting. We choose when to be together. There is nothing locking us in, nothing that brings up that fear of ‘Oh gosh, I can’t leave because what will happen to the house, how will we separate?’. I start to miss the person I want to be with, which is a lovely feeling. And it is so huge for me to be able to see a pair of trousers left lying on the floor at my partner’s house and to step over them and not feel it is my job to do something about it!”

I’ve never interviewed a celebrity who, even though she is wearing heels (little pointy white boots) is still shorter than me (I’m barely 5ft 2in), but Anderson is tiny. This is only important to note, I think, because her roles since Dana Scully have been so big and so powerful: Blanche in A Street Car Named Desire and Margo Channing in All About Eve on stage; Lady Mountbatten in the film Viceroy’s House; Stella Gibson in The Fall; and now Jean Milburn.

I wonder if she is perhaps filed under “tricky, unpredictable, charismatic, spiky, intelligent and fearless woman” in the casting director’s directory of suitable roles. After all, her next part is going to be Margaret Thatcher (in The Crown). And when she arrives for our chat in the closed Chinese restaurant of a central London hotel, she apologises for the sticky mess in her hair caused by wearing the Iron Lady’s wig the previous day. Her nails are manicured pale pink like Thatcher’s too.

“She had a condition that meant two fingers of each hand would curl around — Reagan had it too — so it affected her gestures and she would wear lots of rings and bracelets to distract. But she kept her nails long, which is how I have to keep them now,” Anderson says. She is fascinated by Thatcher, concluding, after studying her childhood, that “nobody ever existed like her. She was unique.”

Anderson might be unique herself, and despite giving many interviews (three last year), I see that she has been smart and managed to remain a bit of an enigma. When I listen back to the tape, she is very good at general talk, but not so hot on specifics.

She spent her early years in north London with her American parents before going back to Michigan for high school. She was a teenage punk plagued by panic attacks that have continued to trouble her over the years, particularly during her intense work schedule on The X-Files. She went into therapy at 14, then became world famous at 25, and had her first child at 26 (the same age her parents had her, before going on to have her two siblings 12 years later). She split up with her first husband three years after that.

In 2011 she endured the death of her brother, Aaron, aged 30, from a brain tumour, which she rarely discusses. She is an impressive activist, campaigning for a variety of issues including women’s rights in Afghanistan, Burma, South Africa, Uganda and South America. There are 10 charities she has worked with listed on her website, and in 2017 she co-wrote We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere, a well-received book of advice for women. She has also designed two small fashion collections for Winser London, which include some gorgeous silky blouses. I found I had three in my wardrobe without knowing they were hers.

She is a Bafta nominee and Golden Globe winner, and Neil Gaiman, who cast her in the TV series of his book American Gods, said: “She is in this strange place where everything exists in the shadow of Scully, yet she is bigger and better than that.”

When I listen to her 2003 Desert Island Discs, though, she tells a darker story. In between Radiohead and Jeff Buckley, she talks of troubled mental health that she has worked ferociously hard to improve. She has been in therapy for more than 30 years.

Anderson tells me she has been teetotal since her early twenties and despite some mild probing on my part is reluctant to elaborate on exactly why. I understand. She has soon-to-be teenage children who don’t need to know about any of the “dangerous things” she has done, as she described them to Sue Lawley.

I’m fascinated by Anderson and can see why she was the perfect person to cast as the quirky, funny therapist Jean in Sex Education, which really hits its stride in the second series. While still a comedy at heart, the subject matter tackled by its fantastic young cast is revelatory. Sex Education is one of the first productions to hire an intimacy director to make the young actors feel comfortable and process what they were doing, often naked in front of multiple cameras, to be happy and authentic about what they did and feel they had input.

Anal sex, drugs, masturbation, STDs and nudity feature graphically in this show, which I would advise all parents and teens to watch, though not at the same time — only Jean would do that. When I interview Anderson I have yet to see the finale, but Jean’s journey is that of many women in the middle of their lives after divorce with teenage children.

“There’s a grief, isn’t there?” Anderson says as we discuss the menopause. “I haven’t quite got to the place where I don’t have my eggs, but your body is going to mourn that, isn’t it? I remember the very last time I breastfed and it was heartbreaking. I wept and wept through it.

“And I know people who describe particularly difficult periods at home without realising they are describing their mothers going through the menopause.

“We’re all at the point where we’re kicking off just as our teenage children are kicking off. I was looking at some home videos of Piper when she was three and wondering where all my patience came from in my twenties. I have forgotten that version of me.”

She says she doesn’t feel quite ready for her two boys to become teenagers, but sometimes Jean slips into their conversations at home.

“I find myself saying something embarrassing at the dinner table and I don’t know if it is me or if Jean has given me the licence to say that. Maybe I have always been that way, though. Some of what she shares is too much information. I wouldn’t share it, even with my eldest in her twenties. But my son came home after having a sex education class and I completely clammed up. I couldn’t bring myself to continue the conversation. I just let it die. I really don’t know why.”

Over the years Anderson has tried to schedule her roles to fit in with her children, but like many of us who have devoted much of our time to careers, she still lives with nagging doubts about doing the right thing.

How did you deal with a small child while filming back-to-back episodes of The X-Files for 16 hours a day, I ask, especially when you decided to go it alone as a mum. “I missed her, really so much. Those moments when you see a small child in the street when you are apart from yours and the conversation just drops, it’s hard. She was on a plane a lot when she was six and we moved production to the West Coast. I justified that, I mean it was selfish on my part. I just could not imagine being away from her for long periods of time.

“I became obsessed with schedules, and I still am because of that time. I would plan and colour-code everything, make a series of propositions about schedules so I could see her, and the show would either reject or accept them.

“With the boys the longest I have been away from them was during the two X-Files movies, but again I would be travelling constantly to see them.”

I ask her if she regrets working so hard. “Not yet,” she says. “I have a feeling that will come. I definitely feel like on a level I do regret Piper flying back [to her dad, when she was six] as an unaccompanied minor.” We sit in silence for a bit, mulling over the thought.

“But there’s another version of my life where I could have worked less, had a smaller life and been more present as a parent. I could have chosen that, that could happen. But sometimes it feels like why would you, if you keep getting work as an actor, doing things you dreamt of doing and being offered incredible roles at this age, while paying the bills, and you still get to see them a huge percentage of the time and they witness a mother enjoying her work?”

She has talked to her daughter about it, but says Piper is not yet at the place where the lightbulb goes on and she realises Mum was still up at 6am the days she faced 16 hours of work to be with her, or those days we all have when we are still on the edge of the sports pitch, despite the demands of a job.

But Anderson is an all-or-nothing personality. She tells me she is either on a healthy eating plan, meditating and working out or hiding like a hermit at home eating chocolate. She has been plagued by frozen shoulders all her life, leading to months of pain-filled insomnia and cortisone injections.

“My default position is sedentary,” she tells me when I ask about her meditating and yoga right now. “I like being in bed in my PJs. When I’m working, like right now, I seem to exist mostly on chocolate. Then I go through a stage when I feel dreadful and I review it all and start a food plan, torture myself counting shots of milk and all that.

“In the cycle of all or nothing, I am in the nothing phase right now. It has gone on for quite some time, but I think I am better to be around. I was having lunch with my daughter and we were just, you know, eating, not asking for stuff without oils or sugar, and she said, ‘It’s so much better when you are not in that place.’ ”

I’ve enjoyed my hour with Anderson; she is likeable and thoughtful. I sort of hope we’ll meet again one day. It’s unlikely she’ll read the interview; she has said before that she rarely does. So what do I think as I walk away from her? I’m impressed by her curious nature and, obviously, her sense of style, a blueprint for us all at this stage of life, but mostly I’m inspired by her strong sense of self. It has obviously taken quite a bit of work for her to get there, but from what I can see, it has been worth it.

@GillianA

Sex Education series 2 is available on Netflix from Friday

Hair: James Rowe at Bryant Artists. Make-up: Mary Greenwell at Premier Hair and Make-up. Nails: Saffron Goddard at Saint Luke using Sisley Hand Care

[bandzrus]

The No Fun Tour (Part 1)

The Dirt!Tommy Lee x Reader

Masterlist

SUMMARY // You’ve been working as a roadie for Motley Crue for a number of years because of your interest in the music business and family connections with Doc.  The boys are touring with Ozzy and things are looking promising for them, but if they mess up one more hotel room they’re in big trouble with Elektra Records. Doc has assigned you to watch Tommy for the night, and while the boys are like second family to you, you realize you may actually have more feelings for the drummer than you originally thought.

NOTE // This is my first one-shot, and I’m really hoping to do more.  REQUESTS ARE OPEN!  MGK as Tommy is so friggin’ cute, I just had to write something for him.  

WORDS // 6092

 ***

                Working with Motley Crue was exhausting and never easy, but you couldn’t imagine yourself doing anything else with your life.  You had grown up being obsessed with music and your parents always encouraged you to pursue that, even though it wasn’t the most convention career path.  You had tried picking up a couple of instruments over the years, but nothing really stuck despite your passion.  You were probably the best at singing, but nowhere near good enough to make a living out of it, so you decided that working in the business was good enough. And that’s where Doc came in.  He was a family friend of your dad’s and he was kind enough to invite you along as a roadie when he got control of Motley Crue. Sure, a lot of it was packing and unpacking instruments and props, or picking up booze for the boys, but it would look great on your resume one day when you decided to make more of yourself. You were content where you were right now, and that was all because of the boys.  Mick, Nikki, Vince, and Tommy were hilarious, and getting to spend so much time with them was something other girls only dreamed of.  It wasn’t glamorous all the time that was for sure, but you still wouldn’t trade it for anything.  They made you laugh, you got to travel, and you got to learn the ropes of the business.  Besides, you were already used to holding people’s hair while they puked their guts out from your year or two in college.

              Usually you weren’t that worried when the Motley circus rolled into another town, but things had not been going over well with Elektra Records lately (and by things it meant the exceedingly expensive hotel and damage repair costs). You and Doc were very familiar with the insane partying habits of the band, but had been warned that if Motley Crue messed up so much as a single glass at their next hotel, they’d be out on the street again.  It was NOT going to be an easy task.  Doc had been massaging his temples all day on the bus, which was never a good sign.

              “Hey,” you said, coming over to him.  “We can handle this.”

              “God, I hope so,” he replied.  “Otherwise we’re screwed.”

              “Got any ideas on how we’re going to herd these cats?”

              “Well, if we can have a person assigned to each of them, then at least we’ve got eyes on them for the night.”

              “I was thinking of handcuffing them all to their beds by 7pm and calling it a night,” you chuckled, running a hand through your hair.  Doc laughed too, which seemed to relieve some of his nerves.

              “That’s not a bad idea actually,” he said.  

              “Something tells me they’re not going to be thrilled about it.  Why don’t we just tell them they can’t mess anything up tonight?”

              “You think I haven’t?” scoffed Doc.  “I’ve told them all individually at least three times, and as a group at least five.”

              “They’re probably not going to listen anyway,” you sighed, letting all the air leave your lungs for moment.  “Bunch of meatheads.”

              You and Doc exchanged defeated looks.  Tonight was going to be nothing short of a struggle for the both of you.

              “I think assigning someone to each of them is a pretty good idea thought. Any ideas of who’s getting paired with who yet?” you inquired.  Doc scratched the back of his head and looked over his shoulder at the four boys passed out in varies places in the bus.  Nikki was face down on the carpet with only one shoe on, Vince’s blond hair was peeking out from a pile of half-naked women no doubt completely naked himself, Mick was laying on the couch looking perfectly vampiric with his hands crossed over his chest, and Tommy was drooling on one of the tables.  

              “I’ll get Harry to watch Mick, since he’ll be the easiest to manage. Dom can handle Vince, I’ll take Nikki since I want to run some stuff by him tonight anyway, and I think I’ll leave Tommy with you.”

              “Me with Tommy?”

              “He’ll run over Harry, I can’t spare Dom, and besides, he listens to you best anyway,” Doc said, waving you off.  You frowned.

              “Since when does that happen?  None of them really listen to me even though I’ve been here pretty much since you’ve been in charge of them.”

              Doc sighed and said

              “Just trust me on this one, okay Y/N?”

              “Alright,” you agreed, putting your hands up in surrender.  “I’ll do my best to keep him under control.”

              “You had better or it’s all our asses on the line.”

                The tour bus finally pulled up in front of the hotel around 10pm, which meant the boys had had a couple hours to get back on their feet and down more booze. It was still early though, which meant you still had a hope of controlling them.  Doc had explained one more time before everyone got off the bus that if Motley Crue didn’t behave tonight, things with Elektra would be over. And to enforce this behavior, he had assigned the band their babysitters for the night.  Nikki was of course the first to start shouting, followed very shortly after by Vince and then Tommy.  Mick looked sulkier than usual but just shot daggers out of his eyes at Harry and made him promise he’d stay far, far away from the guitarist  while he worked out a few licks for tomorrow’s show.

              “You can’t be fucking serious!” shouted Nikki.  “We’re not damn five year olds!”

              “Stop acting like kindergarteners and maybe we wouldn’t have this problem, Nik.”

              “What the fuck are we supposed to do all night then?” inquired Vince, blond hair seeming to poof up even more due to his anger.  He looked like a scrawny blond cat.  

              “Work on your set for tomorrow, write some new songs, sober up, I don’t care, just don’t cause any mischief!” Doc snapped back.  The singer threw his hands in the air and cursed under his breath. Nikki was clearly looking for something to throw at Doc.

              “Fuck you, man,” snarled Tommy.

              “Hey, it’s one night guys, let it go,” you tried.  Only the drummer seemed to even hear you.

              “I’m going to be bored out of my fucking mind,” he groaned, sidling up next to you and abandoning his bandmates in their rant at Doc.  

              “Doc’s other idea was to handcuff all of you to your beds as soon as we got here, so be thankful he’s not doing that right now.”

              “Do we at least get booze still, or is this really turning into the No Fun Tour?”

              “I’ll buy you a few rounds at the bar but that’s it.”

              “How many is a few?”

              “Five.”

              “FIVE?” screeched Tommy.  “That’s nothing!  I won’t even be buzzed!”

              “It’s not my problem you have a high tolerance, now is it?”

              “I’m going to fucking die.”

              The drummer ran his hands through his long hair in frustration.  You chuckled.

              “You can handle one night of no booze, drummer.”

              “What the hell are we gonna do then?  It’s not like I can actually practice anything for tomorrow, they’re not going to let me bring my drums inside.”

              “We can watch TV or something, or I’m sure Doc will let you guys hang out for a while as long as you keep it down,” you suggested, waving a hand absently. He still didn’t look impressed, but didn’t argue with you anymore.  “Why don’t we go inside and find your room first before you start whining about something else.”

              And to that Tommy agreed, but only after you promised him a sixth drink.

                It was only three drinks in when he started bitching about Doc’s rules again.

              “Ah come on, Y/N, can’t we do anything fun tonight?  We could rent a car and cruise around or something, or hit up a gas-station, by some cigs, I dunno.”

              “Those all sound like potentially terrible ideas, Tommy.  Plus Doc doesn’t want us leaving here tonight.”

              “Doc can suck my dick,” the drummer muttered darkly under his breath.

              “He’s trying to keep you guys from fucking things up for yourselves. If Elektra drops you guys, it could be a while before we get another record deal and you guys are close to finishing another album.”

              “Nikki says we’re close, but Vince thinks most of the new record sucks,” confessed Tommy, motioning for the bar-tender to get his fourth drink.  

              “And what do you think?” you asked him, sipping your own drink and cocking an eyebrow at the drummer.  

              “I dunno, I just like getting to play new stuff.  I think it’s going to be an alright album.”

              “I didn’t realize Motley Crue settled for just ‘alright’,” you commented.

              “Ouch, I didn’t mean it like that.”

              “Kinda sounds like you did.”

              “It’s not done yet, I’m sure Nikki and Mick will figure some shit out and it’ll turn out great,” defended Tommy, tipping his head back to down the last of his fourth glass.  You motioned to the bartender that there would only be two more for Tommy.

              “You’re a really killjoy, you know that Y/N?”

              “Unfortunately it’s my job to take care of your sorry, drunken ass,” you shrugged.  

              “I can think of better ways you could be taking care of my ass.”

              “So could I, like calling it quits after four drinks and hand-cuffing you to your bed so you don’t cause any trouble tonight,” you smirked, taking another sip of your drink as Tommy gaped open-mouthed at you.

              “Fuck, you’re mean.”

              “Kinda your fault.”

              The two of you spent the next bit in relative silence while Tommy polished off his last two drinks.  Thanking and paying the bartender, you hopped off the bar stool and made for the elevator.

              “Come on Tommy,” you beckoned.  He gave you his best puppy-dog face and pout that really, really made your job difficult.  “Please.”

              “Fiiiiiinnne,” he whined, trailing after you and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  You rolled your eyes.  It was going to be a long night.  Pressing the button in the elevator for the fourth floor, you stole a glance over at Tommy. Sometimes it was weird seeing them all without their stage get-up and makeup on.  He was just wearing jeans and long-sleeve shirt and for once in his life wasn’t stinking up the entire elevator.  They usually all smelled like booze, cocaine, piss, cigarettes, sweat, and hairspray.  You were thankful because at some point tonight you were going to be staying in the same room as him.  Doc had insisted all the babysitters not leave the band at any time.  Follow them into the bathroom (even you), stay in the same bedroom, etc.

              “Do you want to pop in and see Vince?” you asked, walking backwards to keep eye-contact with the drummer.

              “Sure,” he shrugged.  Walking down the hallway, you spotted Dom standing outside of Vince’s room.

              “Hey Y/N,” he greeted coolly.  Dom was never much for talking, and with his size he really didn’t need to be. No wonder Doc assigned him to the little blond singer.  

              “Hey Dom, mind if we say hi to Vince?” you asked.  He nodded and opened the door.  You couldn’t help but laugh out loud as soon as it opened wide enough for you to see inside.  Vince was dressed in a fuzzy bathrobe and slippers, with the TV remote in one hand, and his other hand-cuffed to the bed.

              “Don’t even fucking start,” the blond warned Tommy as the drummer followed you inside.  You and Tommy were beside yourselves with laughter.  Doubled over, it took over a minute before you composed yourself. Vince was right back to looking like a very pissed off cat.

              “Vinny-“ Tommy started, only to burst back into a fit of hysterics again. “Oh my god Y/N please tell me you have a camera.”

              With a malevolent grin, you slowly pulled your polaroid camera out of your purse.  You used it mostly to take pictures of the boys, even though your parents had gifted it to you before you left for LA to take pictures of your travels.  You had a whole collage back home in your apartment of pictures you’d taken, but since being on the road with Ozzy, you had taken to just shoving them in an envelope.  

              “Don’t you fucking dare!” shouted Vince, struggling against the handcuff and chucking the remote at Tommy as if that would stop you from taking the shot. You took it anyway.  Snatching it from the camera and waving it around, Tommy was still trying to keep from cackling.

              “Doc is so dead after tonight,” he chuckled.  

              “I was joking about the handcuffs, I didn’t think he’d take it so seriously,” you confessed to the singer.

              “This was your idea?!”

              “I said it as a joke!” you promised, lifting your hands in surrender and dodging the bible Vince had dug up from the night-table with his free hand.

              “Dude, quit throwing shit at Y/N,” Tommy said.

              “She got me into this fucking mess!”

              “It was a joke!”

              “DO I LOOK LIKE I’M JOKING RIGHT NOW?!  Tell Dom to get his ass back in here and uncuff me!” hissed Vince, desperately trying to get the cuff off with no success.  You glanced over at Tommy who was trying his hardest not to laugh again just like you were.

              “I’ll ask him,” you sighed.  “Come on Tommy, let’s go.”

              Closing the door behind you and muffling Vince’s swearing, you turned to Dom.

              “Vince wants you to uncuff him,” you said.

              “Yeah he’s pissed, man,” affirmed Tommy, standing behind you.

              “Not until he chills the fuck out,” Dom vowed, which made you and Tommy chuckle.

              “Probably a good idea.  Might want to give him the remote back though, he threw it at Tommy and the TV’s stuck on Brady Bunch reruns.”

              All three of you laughed for a moment before you grabbed Tommy’s arm and bid Dom farewell.

                “I loved The Brady Bunch as a kid,” Tommy commented, following after you down the hallway.

              “Me too.  That and Gilligan’s Island.”

              “Shit, yeah!  I could probably still sing you the whole song!”

              “Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale

              a tale of a fateful trip,

              that started from this tropic port,

              aboard this tiny ship.

              The mate was a mighty sailin' man,

              the Skipper brave and sure,

              five passengers set sail that day,

              for a three hour tour,

              a three hour tour.”

              You and Tommy burst into another fit of giggles as you finished singing.  

              “I wish you’d sing more,” you confessed, brushing your hair out of your face and unlocking the door to Tommy’s room.

              “Really?” he asked, giving the bed a few good bounces before flopping onto his back.

              “Yeah.”

              You tucked the room key safely in your bra where you knew Tommy didn’t have the balls to steal it from you, then shrugged off your jacket.  The drummer was quiet for a bit, just content with staring at the ceiling fan as you putzed around the room.  Drawing the curtains, grabbing two water bottles out of the mini-fridge, and turning on the TV, you sat down on the edge of the bed next to Tommy.

              “I’ll see if I can find a movie or something,” you said, flicking channels. Most of it was local news, and you stopped briefly on MTV where a brunette was talking bullshit about Motley Crue’s ‘Shout At The Devil’ album.  

              “They’re still going on about that?” asked Tommy, apparently paying more attention than you thought.

              “Guess so.”

              You flicked through more boring new channels, then stopped.

              “The ship's aground on the shore of this

              uncharted desert isle

              with Gilligan,

              the Skipper too.

              The millionaire and his wife,

              the movie star,

              the professor and Mary Ann,

              here on Gilligan's Isle.”

                They were playing Gilligan’s Island reruns too tonight apparently. Tommy kicked off his shoes and propped himself up against the headboard.

              “Keep it on this,” he said, waving a hand at you to stop flicking channels. You put the remote down and started digging in your pockets.

              “You better not have brought cuffs,” warned Tommy, hands out in front of him like he was ready for a fight.  You laughed.

              “No, I didn’t bring cuffs,” you promised him, pulling your wallet out of your pocket and depositing it on the chair next to the window.  You kicked your boots off onto the floor as well, then using your legs, you shimmied up further on the bed until you were leaning against the headboard too.  You were particularly thankful in this moment that Tommy didn’t smell like his usual self. You were still a good foot away from him thanks to the size of the bed, but none the less it was nice.  It didn’t hit you until the episode was over that there was no extra cot or couch for you to sleep on.

              You reached for the phone as the credits rolled.

              “I hope they’re doing a bunch more reruns,” Tommy commented, gesturing at the TV.  “Hey, who are you calling?”  

              “Doc didn’t get me a cot.”

              “Oh… shit.”

              “And there’s no couch,” you said, dialing Nikki’s room where you knew Doc was. There was some static on the line and a yelling that could only be Nikki before Doc’s voice came through.

              “Doc speaking.”

              “Hey Doc, it’s Y/N.  You didn’t have a cot sent up to Tommy’s room.”

              There was more crackling and you could hear Nikki laughing.  What a prick.

              “Sorry Y/N, Maggie probably forgot to call it in when she booked the hotel. Phone down to the desk and see if they can arrange something.  Nikki and I are in the middle of something with Mick, so if you need anything, call Dom.”

              With that and one more snicker from Nikki, Doc hung up.  Holding the button to end your call, then redialing the desk downstairs, another episode of Gilligan’s Island started.  

              “Hey, this is room 407, would you be able to send a cot up?” you asked.

              “I’m sorry ma’am, all our cots are currently rented out and it would be another $75 a night.  We can bring you some extra bedding if that would help.”

              You sighed.  This night just got more interesting.

              “Yes, if you can send that up that’d be great,” you said, thanking the receptionist and hanging up.  Sleeping on the floor after a long day on the road and babysitting Tommy was not how you wanted this evening to go.

              “They bringing you a cot?” asked the drummer.

              “Nope, apparently they’re all out.  Someone’s gonna bring up some extra bedding and I’ll sleep on the floor.”

              “Oooor you can stay up and watch Gilligan’s Island with me.”

              “Trust me, I wasn’t going to be nodding off any time soon.  Doc made me swear I wouldn’t go to sleep until I knew you were passed out,” you promised.  

              “That’s going to be a bit difficult considering you’ve cut me off from booze and anything else that would allow that to happen.  Looks like it’s gonna be an all-nighter!”

              Tommy raised his hand waiting for a high-five.  You just sighed and took up your position next to him at the head of the bed, leaving him hanging.

              “Can we at least order room service, I’m hungry.”

              “It’s late, but I can see what they’re bring us,” you agreed.  There was a menu next to the phone on the nightstand and you held it so Tommy could read.

              “Omelet looks good,” he pointed.

              “And it comes with bacon.  I think I’m gonna go with the grilled cheese.  Want anything else?”

              “Other than a Jack and Coke?  No.”

              “Fine.”

              You picked up the phone again and ordered.  The two of you were partway through another rerun of Gilligan’s Island when the food and extra bedding arrived, and it took another episode before you cleared the dished off the bed and dropped them outside.  Ditching your socks next to your boots this time, you crawled back onto the bed next to Tommy for another episode.

              You hadn’t watched Gilligan’s Island since you left for LA, and it looked like Tommy was enjoying watching it as much as you.  Before you knew it, the two of you were at least five or six episodes in, it was way past 2am, and you had sunken much further into bed.  As the credits rolled on yet another episode, Tommy finally got up.

              “I gotta go to the bathroom,” he said when you gave him a funny look.

              “That had be all you’re doing.”

              “Would you like to come in and watch?”

              “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

              It definitely wouldn’t be the first time.  You’d watched Motley Crue pee on all sorts of things, and after the first five times you got used to it.  As the drummer went into the bathroom, you got out of the bed too and stretched.  You loved the leather pants you were wearing, but they were by no means comfortable for lounging in and you wished you had worn something else.  Sleeping in them was going to be a bitch.  Meandering into the bathroom with Tommy, you examined yourself in the mirror.  Your hair had deflated a bit, but the small bit of makeup you had put on that morning was still intact and would last through the night if you needed it to.  It was really just your pants bothering you, and somehow Tommy noticed.

              “Those can’t be comfortable anymore,” he gestured, flushing and washing his hands.

              “It’s not like I have a choice,” you sighed, running a hand through your hair.

              “You could always take them off,” Tommy shrugged.  It would have appeared innocent if you hadn’t known him.

              “You’re a prick, you know that?” you snapped.

              “Ouch, that was uncalled for!”

              “I’m not taking my pants off!”

              “I was just making a suggestion, that way you’d be more comfortable,” Tommy said, raising his hands in surrender.

              “Does this normally work with girls?” you asked him.

              “Wha- no most girls aren’t wearing any pants by the time they get to me. So no.  Plus most girls are not you.”

              “You’re damn right,” you said, the both of you walking back to the bed. Another episode was already on and you were starting to wonder just how long these reruns were going to go on for. The longer they went, the less you had to worry about Tommy.  Climbing back onto the bed you cursed your morning self for picking these pants. Arms crossed, you leaned against the headboard while Tommy peeled his socks off.  And then his shirt.  You should have been used to him shirtless, you’d seen him like this a thousand times on stage, backstage, and throwing up in the back of the bus, but this was different somehow.  He was sober this time, and the way he did it was almost… graceful.  Shaking out his hair, he balled up the shirt and tossed it to the end of the bed.  Letting out a sigh, he flopped back onto the bed.

              “Is this the one episode with the totem pole thing?” he asked, glancing over at you.

              “Yeah,” you chuckled.  You recognized it too.  The two of you kept watching, quiet again.  Then Tommy spoke.

              “You seriously can’t be comfortable,” he said, back on the pants topic.

              “I can’t just take them off.”

              “You can borrow my shirt if you want,” the drummer offered, gesturing at the black ball of fabric at the end of the bed.  “It’s longer than the one you’ve got on if that’s what you’re worried about.”

              “Seriously?”

              “What, it is.”

              “No, not that.”

              “Then what?”

              “Now is the time you decide to be gentleman?” you questioned, raising an eyebrow at him.

              “Suffer in your stupid pants then.”

              “And there’s the prick I remember.”

              “Has anyone ever told you you’re really mean?” asked Tommy, turning to you and stretching his arms over his head.

              “It’s come up once or twice before, but never from a reliable source.”

              “Damn.  Y/N, the cold bitch who likes to suffer in her leather pants,” chuckled Tommy, christening you with a new title.  Snorting, you got off the bed.

              “Woah, hey, sorry.  Just not used to being sober, I say dumb stuff when I’m sober.”

              “That is totally not how it’s supposed to work,” you chided, untucking your shirt from your pants and making for the washroom.  Tommy watched you with curiosity and slight amusement as you grabbed his shirt from the foot of the bed and slammed the bathroom door.

              Letting out a breath and shaking your head at yourself in the mirror, you shimmied out of your pants and shirt.  You may have been cursing your morning self for wearing the leather pants, but you had picked out great underwear and your favourite bra.  You pulled Tommy’s shirt over your head and looked back at yourself in the mirror.  It was way longer than your shirt, which made sense.  The drummer was damn lanky, the thing went well past your butt. But the thing you noticed most was that it smelled like him.  Not booze and cigarettes and cocaine and whatever other shit he managed to find, but something else.  Something you couldn’t describe as anything other than just Tommy-smell.  You hated that this was what this night had come to. There was no way Tommy was every going to let this go.  Balling up your clothes, you stepped out of the bathroom.  You were expecting him to whistle or make some kind of joke while you chucked your clothes on the chair and crawled back on the bed, but he didn’t.

              “Better?” he asked finally, as if he had been absorbed in the TV and just noticed you.

              “Yeah,” you confessed, tugging the long sleeves over your hands.

              “Cool.”

              And that was all he said.  The two of you went back to being engrossed by the antics of Gilligan and Skipper. That is until about 4am when the reruns finally stopped and the TV switched to nothing but infomercials.

              Untangling yourself from the mess of blankets that had slowly started to form over the hours of TV you and Tommy had partaken in, you sifted through the extra bedding, preparing to set up on the floor.  You weren’t going to sleep yet, since Tommy wasn’t, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared.  

              “This is gonna fucking suck,” you muttered darkly under your breath as you laid down a couple of pillows.  

              “You could always sleep on the bed,” suggested Tommy as if it was the most normal thing in the world.  He was really trying to sell you on the innocent-puppy-dog thing today.

              “And you’ll sleep on the floor?” you raised an eyebrow.

              “Hell no I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

              “Then what, we’re just going to share?”

              “Well, yeah.”

              “No!”               “Why not?  How bad could it be?”

              “How bad?  Tommy, I know you!  I’ve already lost count of how many girls you’ve hooked up with on this tour, and that’s only the ones I’ve been unfortunate enough to have seen.  I’m not sleeping with you,” you snapped.  

              “You can like, put pillows between us or some shit.  Whatever you want.”

              “Seriously?  What is with you today?”

              “Uh, I’m sober?”

              “Other than that.  Why are you trying to peddle me this innocent nice guy crap?”

              “Am I not allowed to be nice to you?  Would you rather have me throwing the TV remote at you like Vince?” asked Tommy, looking genuinely annoyed with you for not believing him.  

              “No, but-“

              “But what?”

              “Fine,” you sighed in defeat.  “We’ll use the pillows.”

              Grabbing the extra bedding off the floor, Tommy helped you make the Great Wall of China out of pillows down the middle of the bed.  Hands on your hips, you scowled at Tommy.  He chuckled.

              “What?” you demanded.

              “I dunna, it’s just funny seeing you like this,” he confessed.  

              “Laugh now drummer, because it’s not happening again,” you assured him. Turning the TV off, you yawned. “Oh shit, did you want that on still?”

              “Naw.”

              “I don’t know what else we can do tonight, I’m sorry.”

              “I can think of a lot of things we can do tonight, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear them,” joked Tommy.

              “If those ideas go anything along the lines of ‘get wasted, get high as fuck, set fire to this hotel room, destroy three cars with nothing but a single line of cocaine and a girl’s bra, team up with Nikki to give herpes to an entire town, or stick your penis anywhere near me’ then no I do not want to hear them,” you confirmed, kneeling down on your half the bed.

              “Wow, you really do know me.”

              “I really do.  I know all of you.”

              Tommy unbuckled his belt nonchalantly and dropped it on the floor, his pants sinking just a little lower on his hips.  You found yourself staring a bit longer than you should have.  

               “Don’t get any more ideas, drummer.”

              He just chuckled again and pulled his pants off, one long leg at a time. Again, it wasn’t as if you hadn’t seen his chicken legs before.  You’d seen him butt-naked far more times than you’d like to have, but something about him not being wasted or high out of his mind and alone in a hotel room with you made it different.  Throwing back the sheets, Tommy flopped back into bed.

              “You’re going to sleep?” you asked, genuinely confused.  To him it probably wasn’t even that late.  The band stayed up to ungodly hours and therefore woke up sometime during the afternoon usually.  

              “I’m so fucking bored and there’s no more Gilligan’s Island, so yeah, gonna go to sleep and pass the time,” Tommy answered.  

              “You’re not fooling me, Lee.”

              “That’s because I’m not trying to; can you turn the light off?”

              “You’re serious?”

              “Yes, turn the goddamn light off.”

              Reluctantly you did as he asked and the room went dark.  There was still a little light from the signs outside coming in through the window, but you couldn’t make out much more than Tommy’s general outline on the other side of the Great Wall of China.

              “Are you really just gonna sit there and stare at me?” he asked.  “Because a) that’s really creepy, and b) it’s making me uncomfortable and it’s much harder to go to sleep.”

              “Sorry,” you muttered, crawling under the sheets too.  The Great Wall didn’t come all the way up to the head of the bed as it was just intended to stop body contact, and because you still needed to keep an eye on the pesky drummer.  Doc would kill you if you fell asleep first, so there was no way you were letting it happen.  Plus who knew what kind of shenanigans Tommy would get into if you somehow fell asleep on the job.

              Letting out a sigh, you let your eyes wander and adjust to the dark.  For now Tommy seemed genuine about going to sleep. His eyes were closed and his breathing mellow.  Hopefully it would last and you’d wake up tomorrow and everything would have gone smoothly. You could only hope the rest of the band would behave themselves too and things with Elektra would smooth over.  You listened as the clock slowly ticked, cars went by, and Tommy’s breathing eventually evolved into soft snoring.  He was actually asleep.  Which meant you could also finally close your eyes.  Letting your lids shut, it took all of ten seconds for you to nod off.

                You had no idea what time it was when you woke up, but it was still dark and you were freezing.  Rubbing your eyes, you peered around in the dark.  It was no wonder you were cold, all the blankets had been pulled to Tommy’s side of the bed.  Grumbling to yourself, you tried to pull at least one of them back over to your side but to no avail.  

              “Fuckin’ drummer,” you muttered, trying once more in vain to rescue one of the blankets.  Swearing under your breath and cursing yourself, you broke down the Great Wall. If Tommy wouldn’t let go of the blankets, then there was only one thing you could do.  Even your very sleep-addled brain recognized this as a bad idea, but you did it anyway.  Pulling at the corner of the blankets just enough to get under, you wiggled under and up against Tommy.  Between the blankets and the drummer’s body heat, you were finally warm again. Nestling your head into his shoulder and closed your eyes and fell asleep again, though somewhere in the back of your mind there was a little voice screaming about never living this down as long as you lived.  

                It was the phone that woke you up.  Blearily looking around, the clock read 12:47pm.  Reaching for the phone, you were stopped by an arm around your waist and a groan.

              “Fuck,” Tommy mumbled.  Wriggling, you managed to reach the phone.

              “Hullo?” you anwered.

              “Y/N, it’s past noon, we need to get the boys back on the bus in an hour so they can go to their interview.  Think you can manage?”

              It was Doc.

              “Yeah.”

              “Good, we’ll see you back on the bus then,” Doc said before hanging up. You nearly dropped the phone putting it back.  You were still mostly asleep, curled up under the blankets all warm and – holy shit – in Tommy’s arms.  You were about to get mad at him until you remembered that it was your dumbass that got under the covers with him.  Fuck.

              “Was that Doc?” asked the drummer, voice laced with sleep.

              “Mmh,” you said.  “He wants us back on the bus in an hour.”

              “Fuuuuck but I’m so cozy.  And you smell nice.”

              You didn’t want to, but you could feel yourself blushing.  You hated how nice this felt; to wake up in Tommy’s arms.

              “You’re probably smelling your own damn shirt, which I washed,” you argued, pulling the blankets back around you.

              “Can you just take a damn compliment for once,” Tommy said into your back.  His forehead was resting against your shoulder and his arms wrapped around your middle.  

              “You don’t smell half-bad today yourself,” you replied quietly.  So quiet you weren’t sure he heard it, but then he squeezed you gently.

              “This is so fuckin’ nice,” he said.  “I don’t think I’ve slept this good… ever.”

              “We can’t get too comfy, Doc needs us in an hour,” you lamented.  But as much as you tried to convince yourself to get free or Tommy’s arms, you couldn’t do it.  The two of you almost fell back asleep.  By the time you finally crawled out of bed, you only have 10 minutes to get ready and down the bus.

                “Well last night totally sucked,” grumbled Mick, his usual moody self. Nikki and Vince looked like total shit so you had to agree with the guitarist.

              “Worst fucking sleep of my life,” Nikki growled.  “Try having Doc stand over you like some fuckin’ gargoyle.”

              “Try being handcuffed all night!” said Vince, rubbing his wrist and glaring at Dom.  You were surprised Vince hadn’t tried taking a stab at the guy yet, or Doc.  

              Tommy on the other hand looked as giddy as a golden retriever on a morning walk.

              “The fuck’s with you?” asked Nikki, giving him a look.  “And why the fuck is Y/N wearing your shirt?”

              You opened your mouth, ready to deny absolutely everything or hurl insults until they forgot anything ever happened, but Tommy spoke first.

              “Y/N got ketchup on her shirt so I let her borrow mine,” he explained. You nodded a little too aggressively because Mick gave you a funny look.

              “That doesn’t explain your happy-go-lucky attitude,” Vince pushed.  

              “We watched a shit-load of Gilligan’s Island yesterday man.”

              “Dude!  That shit’s real!”

              You let out a sigh as the band started going on a tangent about Gilligan’s Island, forgetting all about you.  You were about to head onto the bus and clean up a bit, but just as you were going up the stair Tommy caught you eye.

              “Thank you,” you mouthed to him.

              “You owe me,” he mouthed back and winked.

              And just like that you knew that wasn’t going to be the last time you woke up in the drummer’s arms.

***

Wow that ended up being so much longer than I thought it was going to be.  I’m hoping to do more one-shot stuff, particularly for The Dirt.  Requests are open, and let me know if you want me to tag you in anything.

[prettywordsyouleft]

The Book That Started It All

Prompt: #101 + #125 for @noona-clock​ – “Do you want to leave?” + “It’s over!”

Pairing: Lee Jungshin x reader

World: Next in Line

Genre: university au / cheesy fluff

Warnings: none

A/N: Happy Birthday Becky! I had two options… write Jae or do another segment in your beloved world with Jungshin. I chose your soulmate this time! I hope you enjoy this and have a wonderful day. I love you! <333

Word count: 1563

“It’s over!” you exclaimed, letting out a long-winded exhale with it. Looking back at the building you had just exited after submitting the hard copy of your thesis, you tried not to shed a tear. You thought you would be excited to never step foot within it again after the gruelling years and multiple exams held within it.

You were overwhelmed by all your accomplishments. You had done all you had set out to do and more. When you started your Bachelor’s degree several years ago, you had never expected you would carry on to do honours and become an assistant teacher during your time as a student.

But here you were after it all. You had survived. There had been times during your studies where you thought you wouldn’t make it to the next term, let alone semester.

And now you were staring back at all those memories with a fond smile. You blinked rapidly to prevent the tears from falling, even wiping at your skin on your face in attempts to settle your emotions. You weren’t really ending anything. All this study had led to a full-time job and it was simply one chapter closing to move into the next.

Still, you couldn’t help the sentimental mood that washed over you.

Wandering aimlessly around the campus you could call a second home by this point in your life, you somehow found yourself climbing up the stairs to the library that stood in the middle of the university. You couldn’t fathom a guess of how many times in your education that you had thumped up and down these stairs. And now it would be your last time.

Your feet lingered on the last step into the building before you took a deep breath, walking through the entrance doors.

This place had never changed. It was the constant to your student life, the hub of all information. Whilst the books were rearranged and the faces behind the service counters might have differed, the feel never shifted. You looked towards your favourite table in the main lobby of the library, your go-to whenever you needed to stop in to study. You had spent many hours at that table, discovering new worlds and facts that had led you to this point.

Taking a seat in the chair you always picked out, you smiled, placing your hands on the tabletop. You would have no need to come rushing over here with a stack of books and laptop in tow, your frazzled state calming once deeply settled into a book. You wouldn’t need to worry about requesting texts that were already loaned out and battling it out for the high demand ones anymore. In fact, you looked over to the department that you loathed and equally loved. Getting up, you approached the section, stepping down an aisle and then stopped when you turned a corner, your eyes soaking in the tall man leaning against the shelf perusing a book.

“Took you long enough,” he said, not lifting his eyes from the text, though you saw the way his lips curled up. “I thought you’d forget all about me in the throes of your internalisation.”

“What am I internalising?” you asked and Jungshin snapped the book shut, shooting you a warm smile. You slipped into his ready embrace, burying in deeply.

It was funny; the reason you hated and loved this section was all because of Lee Jungshin. He had stolen your book and your heart within this small area. When you thought back to that moment in time, you truly wondered how you had ended up like this now. It had been a whirlwind of a romance, something that started within this university.

And although you were certain it wouldn’t ever end, you were a little on edge thinking about the outside world. When you both moved into your careers, would you find yourselves separating slowly? Despite now living together, could things change without the confines of this little campus and daily study sessions in the library?

You sighed, you were just being foolish.

Still, it was easy to have that doubt, only because all you had been a history student for the entirety of your relationship. You weren’t going to be students for much longer, technically you no longer were with all your requirements handed in for marking. And once you graduated, that would end your time here for good.

You buried in deeper, hoping it would help you hold onto Jungshin forever.

He chuckled against you, his lips brushing over the top of your head. “You know, even if I can’t read your mind, I know what you’re thinking.”

“Then you can read my mind,” you mumbled from within his embrace that tightened slightly. You eventually lifted your head away from his chest and Jungshin reached to wipe away the tears you hadn’t even felt yourself shed. “We’re going to be fine.”

“Of course we are.” Jungshin leaned down to kiss you softly before giving your upper arms a gentle rub. “Do you want to leave?”

“Five more minutes,” you bargained and he nodded, taking you back within his arms. You inhaled deeply, stabilising your emotions with the scent of his cologne you loved so much. When you felt the time had passed, you stepped back; taking his hand with a smile and the pair of you left the library and all the books you had learned from behind.

You hadn’t ended up back home after your departure. Jungshin had driven up into the hills, taking you on a scenic drive that you enjoyed a lot. It wasn’t quite yet dark out, the dusky hues in the sky casting their final light on all things below. By the time the car came to a stop, you had been lulled into contentment.

Jungshin grinned over at you and gestured to get out of the car. You did as you were instructed, coming around to his side of the vehicle and taking his hand as he pulled out a blanket from the back seat. You looked up at him. “It’s too early to stargaze.”

“Really? Then what are you? A meteorite instead?”

You rolled your eyes. “Not funny.”

“Let’s end today doing something we did the first time we went on a date, hm?” Jungshin offered and you immediately stopped scowling, chewing your lip in anticipation. On your first date, Jungshin had brought you to this spot, telling you it was his favourite place. And it had become yours as well, a place where all the stresses of the world back down in the city couldn’t reach to. You always felt so free up here.

It felt fitting with the change in your lives now to come up here.

After getting settled on the blanket and into Jungshin’s side, you both fell silent for some time comfortably. The thing you loved about him was that as much as you sought out his attention, he equally respected your need for quiet time. He was much the same as you, and despite being together, there was something intrinsically beautiful that you could shut him out and think for yourself without offending him by doing so.

This, however, meant you startled when he spoke after some time. “Y/N, the stars are almost up.”

“Really? Hm, let me see if I can find a constellation from here.”

“You always try for the impossible. The naked eye can’t see them at this time of night.”

“Leave me to my wishes, Jungshin. One day I’ll prove I’m talented at this!” you retorted and with a chuckle, he left you to it. You were avidly searching the skies when something came into your view, causing your eyes to go unfocused momentarily.

“Look, I found something,” he breathed and you gasped at the ring he held up. “I don’t think it’s a constellation though.”

“Wh-what are you, oh my God.”

“You once told me I’d have to step up my game to propose to you. That nothing could top what I had done that time in the classroom. I thought over so many different ways, even the cheesy ones.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly not cliché,” you managed through your tears and you felt Jungshin nod beside you.

“I realised after school, the world we knew would be changing. It was the perfect time to do this. I uh, didn’t know I would be proposing tonight. But when I saw you in the library, I figured I couldn’t not try. Will you marry me, Y/N?”

You were too racked with emotions to answer verbally, your head bobbing up and down so fast that Jungshin hand to grab onto it to stop the movement. He leaned in and kissed you, which was hard to reciprocate when you were already out of air from his proposal.

When you pulled away, you realised he had already slipped the ring onto your finger and you marvelled at the perfect fit of everything today. The handing in of your final assignment, the last visit to the place that started all this, and now the confirmation that you and Jungshin would be forever.

You were excited. As you whispered streams of adoration for the man at your side and spent many more moments kissing until the night sky, you were grateful for one thing in particular.

The book that started it all.

_________________

All rights reserved © prettywordsyouleft

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[krinsbez]

GI Joe: Remixed, Viper Leaders 1

More OCs by Night_stalker, in this case, the bosses of various Viper cadres

(It was very fun trying to make it fit when we found out one of the Viper-types already HAS a boss)

TELE-VIPER LEADER:

Name: Kyu-Hwang, along with many usernames online. Codename: Gwisin DoB: Unknown Former Affiliation: Bureau 121 Orientation: Het Bio: Little is known about Kyu's past, but given his past affiliation, one can make some guesses. The fact that he also has a fondness for snapping to attention whenever a superiro comes by, and is a bit rickety makes one suspect North Korea was involved in some way. That said, he's not your sterotypical nerd. Suave, charismatic, ruthless, bit paranoid.... Kyu is one part hacker, one part cat manager, as having to run a department of IT personnel in a terrorist organization does tend to turn off the actually qualified people from turning up in person. Hobbies: Movie pirating, Coffee roasting, Cooking, and Tai Chi.

LASER-VIPER LEADER:

Name: Adrian Townes Codename: Rytov DoB: April 28th, 1965 Former Affiliation: US Army Corps of Engineers ERADC Orientation- Homosexual Bio: Born into a family that had lasers in their blood, Townes was fascinated by them. In fact, he could say he was all but in love with them. Getting appointed to the Army Corps of Engineers was his dream, where he started looking at the applications of lasers on a smaller scale then his comrades. While they tinkered with making lasers able to shoot down Ivan's ICBMs, he looked at fitting them inside tanks, if not smaller. However, finding funding for laser armed tanks and such, even in the 80s was difficult, to say the least.  Matters were not helped considering that while he was incredibly gifted when it came to developing lasers, he was less then skilled at interacting with others, or with what he termed "Petty minded bureaucrats seeking only to further their own power". When the 90s came around, he found himself out of a job, the laser projects all being put into cold storage. Faced with the prospect of his life's work being left to rot in some musty filing cabinet, Adrian started making the rounds of the Pentagon's higher ups, as well as the GAO. His arguments, while very technically impressive and certainly promising quite a lot of things, well, were considerably out of touch with fiscal reality, as well as the political realities. Left fuming in a dead end post, mostly being spent watching over the laser projects in cold storage, Townes heard of Cobra's announcements, and decided this was the means to affect revenge, while also finally vindicating himself. The fact that, as an added bonus, he could likely turn his weapons against his hated rivals in the Pentagon was, in his mind, icing on the cake. Hobbies: DiY Electronics, 3D Printing, Caligraphy, and Kombucha brewing.

RANGE-VIPER LEADER:

Name: Venus Callahan Codename: Ishtar DoB: Asking a Lady her age isn't polite. Much less a ex SF Lady with more guns then employees. Former Affiliation: Canadian Airborne Regiment Orientation: Hetero Bio: Venus had a relatively normal life in Canada. Growing up in the frozen wilderness, Venus learned how to clean a rabbit before she could walk, and viewed icy temperatures as "Bit nippy". Shockingly to literally nobody, she signed up to be a officer in the Canadian Army, where she rose up the ranks due to her jocular personality, as well as being able to set a personal example for many of the men to live up to. That said, she was given one of the tougher assignments in the army, namely, the famous, or depending on who you asked, infamous, Canadian Airborne Regiment. Unfortunately for her, she was assigned to it barely before the infamous Somali Affair occurred, which meant that when the resulting inquriy occured, she was one of the victims. Naturally, being the most junior officer present who could be held accountable, she was thrown under the bus as much as possible. Being "suggested" that she resign in order to avoid a lengthy court martial that would probably lead to a lot of unsavory details being outed, well, it doesn't inspire loyalty in one towards their government. Holding a grudge against the government and establishment that had tossed her aside so easily, Venus signed up with Sandline International. When that was shut down in the early 2000s, she signed up with MARS Industries, but didn't quite fit in. Her once jocular personality had turned acidic over the years, and while her skills hadn't degraded any, well..... There were certain topics one didn't bring up around her. Or in earshot. Or someplace gossip might reach her about it. So when Cobra started headhunting, HR for MARS pitched her over so fast it was a miracle she even realized what was happening. That said, she seemed to fit in like she'd been born for the role. Her skills, combined with a refusal to take shit from literally anyone, and backing up that stance with the threat of stranding them in the middle of the Arctic, buck naked, well, it got results. Hobbies: Archery, Stamp Collecting, Gardening, Latin Dancing, Trainspotting, and Hunting. 

SNOW SERPENT LEADER

Name: Otto Koskinen Codename: Wendigo DoB: November 11, 1975 Former Affiliation: UTJR Orientation: Bisexual Bio: Formerly a Finnish sniping instructor, Otto ended up leaving the army under circumstances he's refused to reveal. That said, people suspect it's tied to his fondness for eating almost anything, and a shrink's diagnosis of him basically being a sociopath with some severe mental hangups. Shockingly, he seems to get along well with the Snow Serpents, which has helped make him the leader of those frosty psychopaths. Hobbies: Skiing, Trail Skating, Ballroom Dancing, Model Trains (N Scale), and Sewing.

EEL LEADER:

Name: Ro Yun-Soo Codename: Selkie DoB: November 18th, 1984 Former Affiliation: Republic of Korea Navy Special Warfare Flotilla Orientation: Asexual, formerly heterosexual Bio: Ro grew up in a small fishing village on Baengnyeongdo Island, the only child of a fisherman and his wife. A few years into her young life, her mother died from a North Korean artillery barrage, leading her father to bring her along on his fishing vessel to keep her safe. There, she grew to love the ocean, and hate North Korea with a passion. These passions led her to join the Navy, where she excelled in diving and swimming, leading to her transfer to the Special Warfare Flotilla. She had a promising career ahead of her, even had a fiance who was an RoK Marine assigned to the Flotilla as a liason. Then it all fell apart in a manner of weeks. Her fiance was struck and killed by a drunk driver, at first. Then she was discharged from the Navy due to what she has described only as "office politics". The final straw was her father dying in yet another North Korean artillery barrage, just a week after her discharge from the Navy. Furious at the world, and the Norks most of all, she joined Cobra, where her talents had her assigned to the Hydro-Viper program. Hobbies: Rowing, Wrestling, Chess, Starcraft, and Fishkeeping.

MORAY LEADER:

Name: Secondina Vespa Codename: Lemure DoB: December 12th, 1982 Former Affiliation: COMSUBIN Operational Raider Group Orientation: Bisexual Bio: Growing up in Sicily, Vespa learned to take crap from nobody, and that above all else, family came first. Unfortunately for her, this proved to be a dangerous combo when, years into her naval career, her brother was revealed to be a member of the infamous Motsi Mafia Clan. This naturally sank her career faster then a crash diving submarine, but thanks to her brother's career, some doors were opened up for her. Turns out the Mafia saw some benefit in a diver who was combat trained and would have no qualms helping to smuggle cargo or loot shipwrecks. Though after awhile, her brother vanished. Well, to be fair, depending on who you asked, he said he was going off to the cafe with some friends, and would be right back, or said something like "I gotta get out of town, they're after me man". Shockingly, without a brother who was a Capo, people who are openly bisexual don't tend to last long in the Mafia. That said, she wasn't stupid enough to be unprepared this time around, and on her way to the local airport, swung by the local Carabinieri ROS office to drop off a thick file of evidence for their perusal. Her bridges by now more then thoroughly torched, she fled to the Florida Keys, doing mercenary diving work for local OC. This came to the attention of a Cobra headhunter, who also saw that she had no quarrels with body alteration, or at least didn't totally read that employment contract well enough, and she was slated for the Moray program in no time at all. Hobbies: Wine tasting, Audiophile, Magnet Fishing, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

HYDRO-VIPER Leader:

Name: Brad Thor Codename: Leviathan DoB: August 21, 1969 Former Affiliation: USMC Force Recon Orientation: Het, married to a Nitro-Viper. Bio: Once a Marine Force Recon captain, Thor ran into hard financial times. Desperate to earn money to pay off some debts, he made a deal with Destro. Unfortunately, Destro didn't show, but rather a NCIS team, who arrested him. While enroute to his new prison, he reached out to Cobra, and requested a job. This was granted, and before long, he was assigned into the Hydro-Viper program. Of course, he requested it on the grounds of it being the one he was least likely to interact with Destro with, and also suited his talents the best. As luck would have it, he even met his future wife while in the basic Viper program's bootcamp. Of course, she was a Nitro-Viper, so it turned out great for all involved. His loyalty was cemented, and she got a loving husband to help get her over the last husband's untimely demise at the hands of faulty Destro merchandise. Hobbies: Fantasy Basketball, Glass Sculpting, Poetry, and Drama.

[charmywrites]

Bitter & Sweet (Pt. 2)

Summary: Loosely based on the song “Idols can’t go on for 10 years, right?” by Berryz Koubou. The reader is a foreigner who’s grown up in South Korea since early childhood, upon her mother marrying a Korean man. In her adolescent years, she’s scouted by someone working for a big company and encouraged to audition. Deciding to do it for fun, the reader takes a leap and goes through with the audition. She didn’t really plan to actually get in and go on a 10+ year journey.

Part 1.

( 2011, four years since debut. )

The magazine was thrown on the table, right in front of a young woman.

“How could you be so stupid?!” The group manager scolded, running a hand through his greying hair.

There was a page open for all to see, the other members of Ultra Smart standing solemnly behind him as they watched one of their own get punished. The picture was of the young woman, twenty-one year old Kim Nina, sleeping in some strange bed. The image was a head shot, obviously taken by whoever was sleeping next to her. Her shoulders were bare, but she wasn’t completely naked as one could see the straps of the nightie she had on. The topic of the article was ‘Sex scandal involving Ultra Smart’s leader?’ in bold, red, letters. As Ultra Smart was currently quite popular after a viral song, such a scandal brought a lot of shame onto the group and the higher ups became adamant that Nina be forced to leave.

Ultra Smart wasn’t just some group that happened to become popular. The reason why girls like you and Yoora debuted so quickly was because Ultra Smart was a group that the company planned for a long time. A lot of money and resources went into creating the group and promoting them. Not only that, the group’s music videos were well thought out and given a unique artistic flair that also went into their concerts. More than the basic staff was hired to be the backbone of Ultra Smart.

Basically, a lot of money was invested into all of the girls.

This was not taken lightly.

Even in an ordinary girl group, this wouldn’t be able to fly. And, Nina was feeling the pressure as tears streamed down her reddened face. Her head hung low in shame, unable to meet anyone gaze -- or, rather, glare. Yoora stood next to you in silence, but you knew of the older girl’s agitation at the scandal. She warned Nina to not date, at least for a while, as it would fall badly on all of you and not just her. That night, when Nina didn’t come home, Yoora resigned herself to the inevitable. Still, even she didn’t think it would be this bad.

What sort of person leaks such an intimate picture? Well, you knew, but no one else did. In a moment of weakness when you were the only shoulder to cry on, Nina told you of the guy who she’d spent the night with, but begged you not to tell anyone. She loved him, apparently, even though you bluntly told her that he must not have felt the same way. You just couldn’t understand how she would let him off the hook like that, and it left a bitter taste in your mouth when it came to men ever since.

They couldn’t be trusted.

“I-I’m so sorry.” Nina’s voice broke as she cried.

Your manager stood aside, sharply gesturing towards the group. “Apologize to them, they’re the ones who have to suffer from your actions. Do you know what the public thinks of the group now?” He asked a rhetorical question, not a soul daring to answer. “If just one girl does this, then they must all do it. They’re all cheap and easy.”

The youngest member, Lee Doyeon, sniffled; affected by all the high emotions in the room. When you lifted a hand to pat her back in comfort, she scooted a little closer. The second youngest, Im Nara, stood stone faced and quiet. The judgement on her face was apparent, however. Still, nothing was said from any of you. Some of you did feel betrayed by her actions, especially Yoora, but others sympathized. Nina found someone who made her feel special, but that person broke her heart and ruined her career.

What a pitiful situation.

A few weeks later, Nina was kicked out of the group and Yoora was made the new leader. You had occasionally seen the man who had done Nina so wrong, usually at events like Mnet, but it was only recently you decided to confront him about what he did. The world might’ve been willing to let him go without recognition, but you couldn’t.

When he saw you coming, walking with such purpose, the idol couldn’t help but smirk. “Well, here comes the golden girl.”

Back when Ultra Smart were just a bunch of rookies, many fans called you all the ‘Golden Girls’ because it was obvious how much Beyond Entertainment favored you over their older groups and artists. It confused you, because you certainly didn’t feel favored. The company put as much pressure as they reasonably and legally could on a bunch of teenagers. Sure, you were provided meals and beds when other companies didn’t even do that, but the price was a hefty schedule of lessons, appearances, concerts, and filming.

Especially as a foreigner. In Ultra Smart, there was you. There was also Nina, a Korean American, who was gone now. After her, there was a Thai trainee that replaced Ueda Aina; the former Ultra Smart member who injured herself just a year into their debut. That girl’s name was Malivalaya Suttirat, nicknamed ‘Mali’. Without Nina, it was only the two of you, and the pressure of being treated differently pushed you together. The two of you always had a sort of silent understanding with each other, the knowing that you were both sometimes still held at an arm’s length while the others didn’t go through such treatment.

After Nina was kicked out, your manager pulled you and Mali aside to make sure you didn’t ‘follow in Nina’s footsteps’. At that confrontation, you and her exchanged looks but only agreed with the man. It was obvious that he assumed foreigners must think similarly, a tiny burn of shame lit deep within you at his prejudice.

It wasn’t just Nina at fault.

“Cut the crap, Lee,” You weren’t one for small talk, using your seniority to talk informally to the other. You could tell it pushed a few buttons, Lee Junho’s smirk faltered ever so slightly. Neither of you particularly liked each other, even when Nina introduced him to try and get the girls’ blessing. You had always sensed a sort of cocky attitude radiating from the man, never finding it in yourself to like him. “I know what you did to Nina. She told me everything, so don’t even lie.”

The carelessness in his eyes made your chest burn in anger, watching as the man played stupid. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Nina cheated on me, but I’m the one you come for?” He started to walk off, but you followed him closely away from the eyes and ears of other idols. From the corner of your eyes, you could see a glimpse of young Doyeon’s face watching after you.

You were seething. “She was over at your dorm. You know it, she knows it, and I’m sure at least some of your members know it.” But, they couldn’t say anything, because it would bring down their own group’s reputation. “Why? She loved you, why would you do this to her?” You weren’t an expert on love by any means, but you had an idea of what it should be like. Hell, you wouldn’t even do this to someone you just liked.

He couldn’t meet your eyes, staring at anything else in the near desolate hallway. Your own cold ones looked him down, wanting at least some justice for your old leader. It was already a given that the female idol in a scandal take most of the blame and the harshest punishment, but that just wasn’t fair. Your mind just kept going back to why, why, why.

Wait a minute.

His group had a single coming out, dropping on the same day as Ultra Smart’s new single. Junho couldn’t possibly have been that competitive to want to sabotage his own girlfriend’s single, could he? There had to be more to it than that.

“I was angry.”

You caught the fainest of mumbles, but when you opened your mouth inquire he sent you a pointed glare. “Excuse me, sunbae, but I really need to meet with my group members right now. My personal life is private.” At that, the idol stalked off, leaving you to stew over his words.

( 2015, eight years after debut. )

Sitting at a table in a private room of a Korean barbecue restaurant, you twirled the straw in your drink while waiting for someone else to show up. Yoora’s words from a few nights ago still weighed heavily on your mind.

She didn’t want to renew your contract. She wanted to graduate.

Yoora would've been the first member to leave since Nina all that time ago. But, Sunhee would beat her to it, and it seemed like they were in a race. Apparently they had both gone to visit the CEO around the same time and asked to leave. The only difference was, Sunhee didn’t want a farewell concert. She just wanted to leave quietly in two months, when the contact was over.

Half of the 1st generation was really leaving. All that would be left were you, Nara, and Doyeon.

Which was quite hard to believe. For you, at least. The only other generational Kpop group was After School, and even then it wasn’t the same. Ultra Smart had never planned on being generational, so you’d gone into the group thinking you would be with the same seven girls for all these years. The originals; Nina, Yoora, Sunhee, Aina, Nara, Doyeon, and you. When you debuted, Nara and Doyeon were so young that you couldn’t imagine leading a group with them as your second and third most senior. Now, however, they had grown into talented young women.

‘Ultra Smart needs new members.’ Your manager had relayed the CEO’s message to you. ‘There can’t be only two native Koreans in the group, the netizens are already suspecting that the eldest girls will leave soon. So, we’ll be holding an audition next month. I want you and Yoora to be present for it.’

These were more changes than you bargained for, a nervousness -- or, maybe it was hunger -- gurgling in your stomach as you worried about the group’s future. Would the netizens accept a new era of the group after so many changes in the lineup? Would the new girls take away from the group dynamic or add to it? You had always taken pride in how well the girls in Ultra Smart got along, there was no fakeness in your friendship.

Yoora...Sunhee, why do you have to go? You mulled, not hearing the door to your private room open.

“Um, hello???” Your friend, Seola, announced herself obnoxiously. Donned in her famous black hoodie and mom jeans, she gave you a smile and walked in the room. “Got your head in the clouds?”

She was followed in by her polar opposite, a petite girl in a frilly dress; your other good friend, Minah. “Hey, sweets.” The other greeted you with a wave, both of them taking a seat in front of you.

“Sorry guys,” You shook your head with a small smile. As the waiter set out two cups of water and laid out all of the menus, you decided to wait until he left the room to continue speaking. “I just have a lot on my mind right now with the group.

“Oh yeah!” Minah exclaimed, eyes wide. “I heard that Yoora had said she wanted to get married soon. Er, well, in five years maybe.”

Such words from an average person wasn’t surprising, but when an idol said it they kind of sent the idol’s fanbase in a panic. Yoora ended up being scolded for saying such loose words, even if she wasn’t dating anyone. Just the notion was dangerous to her career. At this point, however, you knew she didn’t truly care.

‘I’m tired,’ She told you that night. ‘My youth was dedicated to this life, but now I want some time for myself. I want to find out what I really want to do in life.

You can’t be an idol in your thirties, after all. Not as a woman.’

Setting your menu down, you frowned. “She wants to graduate from the group. Sunhee too.”

Minah gasped while Seola’s eyes widened. You trusted these two with your life, being friends from the same neighborhood. This wasn’t the first time you shared information with them and they kept it to themselves.

“Well,” Seola tried to look on the brightside. “You’ll be the next leader then? That’s pretty great, to be honest. The rest of the girls already look up to you, so it’ll be a walk in the park. Right?”

Oh, boy, there was so much to unload.

“The company isn’t sure if they want me to be the leader.” That was also something your manager had told you. “...Since I’m foreign. They’re thinking about it. If not, then Ultra Smart won’t have any leader.” You decided not to mention the upcoming members yet. Too much information in too little time.

“Oh.” Seola scratched the tip of her nose uneasily, looking down at the table.

Minah slammed down her menu. “That’s bullshit!” She sat down timidly upon realizing how loud she was, giving a sheepish smile. “I mean, you’ve given that company nine years of your life. Even if there’s no leader, there’s no denying that you’re next in seniority. They can’t even give you a title? You grew up here...”

A solemn silence followed. It was only broken when Seola huffed.

“All I know is, after all this time, being leader is the least you could get from them.” She said. “If they can’t give you that, maybe you should leave too. You’ve had solo singles before, go solo and leave them in the dust.” If one could take an angry sip of water, she had just done it.

Despite her encouraging words, they left a bitter taste in your mouth. You never wanted to leave Ultra Smart and go it alone, not when you could still reasonably stay within the group. You loved those girls, loved performing with them, and they needed you now more than ever.

Still, just to placate your enraged friends, you simply shrugged.

“Maybe.”

Note: To elaborate fully, in case anyone is confused about the Ultra Smart members. Ultra Smart began as a semi-diverse group with four Korean members and three foreign members. The original lineup was Nina, Yoora, Sunhee, Aina, Nara, Doyeon, and the reader. The foreigners were the reader, Aina (a Japanese girl), and Nina (who was still considered foreign, despite being Korean American).

Currently, the group consists of Yoora, Sunhee, Nara, Doyeon, Mali, Jiang Ai, Jiang Yi, and the reader. Taking back what I mentioned in the last chapter, I’ve changed the number of members from nine to eight. A ninth member simply escaped my thought process and I decided to go with that flow.

The company truly wanted to create a diverse group, but a string of bad luck seems to follow Ultra Smart in exchange for their popularity.

How popular is Ultra Smart? Not as big as SNSD, but they’re only in second place.

When Yoora and Sunhee leave, the only native Korean members will be Nara and Doyeon -- which the public won’t take so well. So, there will be auditions for new members of Ultra Smart. They’ll likely be original characters, but let me know if you want me to switch it up and put members of existing groups into Ultra Smart. Not making promises, but I’m open to the idea.

Also, I feel SO BAD for making Junho such a bad guy, but there needed to be one. I might elaborate on him and Nina more later, but this is a blurb-like series. Boy, I really showed my age by mentioning 2PM, huh? (lol)

[robronsecretsanta]

a madness to the method

(AO3)

Rating: E

For @notforonesecond . Merry Christmas! From your Secret Santa. May this bring you as much joy as your presence on here brings me.

:::::

He stands there, script page in hand and a growing pit in his stomach, as Robert Sugden walks up to him with a grin.

“What you waiting for? Get your kit off.”

:::::

It’s his third big role, but the first one that actually means something, Aaron having acted in a couple of big-budget blockbuster films to date; the last two even giving him some lines and some stunts, the latter of which he’d done himself. But so far most of his career has involved plenty of little-known stage work and a few well-received indies, as well as a particularly popular episode of Black Mirror.

He’s fairly certain that’s what landed him this script, his wide body of emotionally driven work. Not every day a Frank Clayton production sends a part your way. Not every day Harriet Finch is attached to direct. (Aaron’s pretty sure he’s one of the few people who’s seen the entirety of her oeuvre, even purchased some of the early stuff on DVD, forcing his best mate Adam to sit through whole movie marathons of her work, dissecting every shot inch by inch.)

The film’s a period piece about two young men who fall in love as a war looms over them; two lovers star-crossed in one of the worst ways possible. Both stuck going to war terrified the other won’t come home. Only they do, if not a little emotionally scarred and a little physically injured. The reunion is emotionally sweet and full of hope — exactly the kind of story Aaron wishes he could have grown up with. Because sometimes a happy ending really makes a difference. He’d almost learned that hard way.  

“You sure you want to do this?” His mother asks, curled up on his sofa in his flat in North London and peaking up at him with big brown eyes through dark, bit-too-long bangs. “People might start asking whether you’re gay, love.”

Aaron understands her concerns and where she’s coming from. Doesn’t stop him from shrugging them off and holding firm to the feeling in his gut.

“Let them,” he says, lips downturned at the corners as he paces across the living room determinedly. “Not got anything to hide, have I?”

Despite all his bravado, there’s a flicker of doubt. If this somewhat calculated risk doesn’t pan out, it could be the end of the upward trajectory of his acting career. For all it’s progress on the LGBTQIA-depiction front, Hollywood itself isn’t as accepting of openly queer actors. And while Aaron won’t miss the perks of rising fame at all, he will miss getting to work on more interesting projects or movies, like this one.

Still, Aaron Dingle has never been a liar, and he’s not going to start now. Especially when it comes to his sexuality.

:::::

His agent, a no-nonsense woman named Priya, approves of his decision immediately. She knows he’s gay, has known from the start. But it’s never affected her decision to take him on as a client. (It’s one of the reasons Aaron’s stuck with her so long; tying his rising star to her job.)

“You’ve certainly got the talent and the range to pull this off,” she states and it feels less like a dream and more like reality. “With Finch directing it, this could become potential Oscar material. This part’ll definitely get you noticed.”

Aaron smiles and nods along, because that is nice he supposes. He’s just glad the production company don’t want yet another audition, or even a chemistry read with his yet-to-be-announced co-star. He’s sick of them at this point.

“Who’s the other lead?” He asks, fingers picking at each other, left knee bouncing in the chair. He’s about ready to leave Priya’s office. But the second he hears her answer, he’s stuck bolted to his seat. His mind reeling with the news of it.

Robert Sugden.

:::::

To say he’s heard of Robert Sugden is the understatement of the century. If anything, he’s the one responsible for Aaron’s sexual awakening.

Like most teenage boys his age, he’d been obsessed with the Transformers movies. Only unlike his best mate Adam, he didn’t fall asleep and wake up hard to thoughts of the hot female lead. No, despite his best attempts at the time, his mind always drifted to the slightly older but also teenaged Robert Sugden; the son of a famous actor who’d also made it big quite young, starring in at least two popular TV series. (In hindsight, Aaron’s desire to purchase and put up a shirtless poster of Robert on his bedroom wall should have been a big hint as to his nascent gayness. But like all sexually confused teenagers he’d managed to convince himself he was more into the trucks instead; that he wanted to be Robert Sugden, not be with him.)

He’d spent a full summer when he was 15 watching his way through Robert’s early work, bingeing that one popular science fiction series where he and a group of teens investigated strange paranormal phenomena at their English boarding school. A part of him had come alive when a body-swap episode had caused Robert’s character’s body to be a possessed by a female friend’s, resulting in him kissing and making out with her boyfriend who’d been played by Pete Barton. (Aaron had spent the ensuing weeks reading and rewatching everything to with those few minutes of airtime, refusing to let anyone play over his recording. He’d worn out the tape till it could play no longer.)  

The first time he’d come was a few weeks later, Robert’s name on his lips as he’d pictured being kissed by him, his hand moving up and down the length of his naked shaft faster and faster; rock hard and aching at just the thought of him.

Robert. Fucking. Sugden.

What are the odds?

He doesn’t know whether to quit the project or just die of mortification. How is he supposed to act against someone he’s had those kinds of thoughts about? (He’s never had limits for who you should love and be with. After all, that would be a tad hypocritical of him. But some lines shouldn’t be crossed, no matter the project, and he’s fairly convinced this is one of them.)

He mentions this to Adam when he comes over to play FIFA on the PS4 later, only his best mate doesn’t quite seem to get it. Though to be fair, he’s never really had to deal with this, has he?

“So what? You used to jerk off to him. Big deal!” Adam shrugs, cycling through the options and picking his players. “If I said I’d avoid every female celeb I did that with, I wouldn’t be able to work with any of them.”

Aaron makes a face, even if he does concede that Adam has a point — not that he’s out there having to act against… (He’s actually not sure who this week’s flavour of the month is. Adam’s feelings of attraction waxing and waning like the moon.)

“Though,” Adam says, turning to look at him when he’s satisfied with his choices. “His sister Victoria is pretty fit. Do you think you could get her number?”

Aaron tosses a cushion at his face. Leave it to Adam to miss the point completely.

It bounces off and falls onto Adam’s lap, he picks it up and places it beside him.

When he turns toward Aaron this time, he looks a lot more serious, an earnestness in his gaze that wasn’t there before.

“Listen,” he says, voice soft yet firm. “You’ve wanted to be in one of Finch’s movies ever since I’ve known ya. Don’t back out now just because of Sugden.”

Aaron nods, though he’s still not convinced. Adam must see it because he then adds, “You’ll do fine. You’re an amazing actor. That’s why they wanted you for this part, you know, instead of me.”

Aaron shoots him a look and Adam just shrugs. Turns his attention back to the TV screen as he says, “What? I’m a scene stealer. Everyone knows that.”

That triggers a laugh and when it’s over, Aaron feels a lot lighter. But even as they both accept their team and kit selections and start the game, his mind drifts back to a young, shirtless Robert…

:::::

He keeps the part after all, the announcement making some waves in the press. However, any intrusiveness into his personal life is circumvented by the latest news about Robert. Rumour has it that he’s up for consideration as the new James Bond. Aaron had laughed when he’d first read the news. But laying in bed, later that night, he can’t help but picture Robert in a trademark suit, smirking down the barrel of a gun, the way he’s become known for.

It’s enough to make him shaken and stirred — not that he lifts a finger to relieve himself of the dull, building throb. (If there’s one thing Aaron Dingle’s sure about, it’s that it’s impolite to pleasure oneself to the thoughts of an upcoming co-star. Even if they were the starring role in his teenage fantasies.)

He ends up taking a cold shower instead.

:::::

Meeting Harriet Finch is everything like he’d imagined, and yet nothing like it at all.

Aaron spends all morning practicing what he wants to say to her, pacing back and forth in his newly assigned trailer — which happens to be both bigger and more luxurious than he’d expected. None of the words of praise he’s wanted to lavish her with seeming right for the moment, or even worthy of her, but he keeps practicing all the same.

That’s why he’s thrown when she comes to see him, telling him how much she’d enjoyed his turn in a small play he’d done last summer as a favour to an old friend (and ex-boyfriend), Ed.

She smiles at him with kind, dark eyes and outlines the many ways in which he’d knocked that role out of the park, followed by his performance in those few movies and, of course, Black Mirror.

“I knew you were the right man for the part the moment I saw you,” she says, voice like a warm woollen blanket, the words wrapping him up in a cocoon of comfort. “You’ll make a marvellous ‘Thomas.’ I just know it. I’m glad to have you on this project.”

But just as he’s basking in the glow of her reassurance, she asks the dreaded question.

“Have you met Robert Sugden?”

:::::

If first meetings dictate how the rest of a working relationship might go, Robert and Aaron’s is already off to a really bad start.

He’d shown up to Robert’s trailer and gone in after knocking a few times, only to find him in the throes of being orally pleasured.

Aaron hadn’t recognised the woman, just seen the back of her head, as she’d kneeled in front of Robert and blown him. Robert was sitting on the edge of his trailer’s bed and leaning back, both arms supporting his weight across the still-made comforter. His shirt was unbuttoned and he’d got his leather jacket on, neck exposed as he half lay there jerking and groaning.

He’d seemed to sense Aaron because Robert had looked up at once, locking eyes across the short distance. He’d given him a long hard look, then flashed him a wink and a smile, before closing his eyes and coming into the woman’s mouth not very long after.

Cheeks reddening and more than a little shocked, Aaron had turned and bolted. He’d wanted to spare that poor woman the embarrassment of knowing he’d seen this happening, but more importantly, process it all himself.

Standing in his own trailer he wants to kick himself for being such a goddamn fool. The tabloids had been reporting this side of Robert Sugden for years on end. But Aaron had ignored them because that’s what you were supposed to do. (And maybe, he tries not to acknowledge as his heart continues to pound, because it had ruined his fantasy of Robert and his younger self.)

But for all his talent — and he has plenty of it — Robert Sugden has always been a bit of a playboy; has the ex-wife and half a dozen ex-girlfriends to prove it. The result of this is a respectable body of work, but no one noticing because of all the gossip. (Aaron had once suspected this was Robert trying to undersell himself, maybe a bit nervous of all the extended limelight. He’d grown up Jack Sugden’s son, had had to bear that mantle, while also carving a name for himself, with not much room for error.)

Any sympathy he’d once felt though, has now been stripped away, replaced with cold, hard knowledge. Robert Sugden actually enjoys behaving like this, and Aaron can’t believe he’d liked him.

As he starts pacing, his heart still racing, Aaron gets madder and madder. They’ve both been given a golden opportunity being cast in these roles, and it’s something Robert wants to squander?

He’d wanted to walk away from this project because he’d been worried about his own personal hang-ups. Not wanting any former feelings for Robert to affect his performance. But now all he can think about is Robert’s smile and his wink, as if showing off his sexual prowess to Aaron.

This feels good, and I made that happen. Maybe I can do that for you as well?

Aaron growls, feels like punching something nearby, hating the small part of him that had kind of enjoyed it; that place deep within himself that still tends a tiny flame devoted to Robert Sugden; that place that had enjoyed watching him come.

It’s not your fault, Aaron tells himself, trying to banish the recent memory from his mind — though he’d spent years picturing and imaging exactly that. Him blowing Robert and feeling him coming under him, his palms flat against his thighs. (Sometimes he’d imagine the flip of it too. Him coming apart in Robert’s hands, his mouth smirking as Aaron comes right into it.)

He’s just managed to get rid of it, when he hears a dry chuckle, spins around to find Robert standing in his trailer, blue shirt all buttoned and jeans up and belted, like that midday blowjob hadn’t happened.

He smiles at him, blue-green eyes glittering, “So I take it you’re Aaron Dingle.”

It sends a thrill up his neck, short hairs lightly lifting, at the prospect of Robert Sugden saying his name. But then annoyance sets in as that memory comes back and Aaron grunts his affirmation.

“What do you want?”

Robert doesn’t seem deterred, doesn’t even seem to clock his rudeness. Just smiles at him like he said something funny. “To apologise. That wasn’t how I’d pictured our first meeting.”

“Why? You plan on having your cock in someone else’s mouth?” Aaron fires back, a little shocked that Robert had ever given meeting him any thought.

Robert’s eyes widen at the accusation, but whatever it is that came over him passes because he laughs and clears his throat. “No. Wasn’t planning to, actually. Just wanted to tell you what a big fan I am.”

His eyes flit away, and his smile kind of softens. Robert looks back at Aaron. “And that I’m looking forward to us working together.”

If Aaron hadn’t seen what he’d seen, he’d believe every word of this, Robert coming across well-meaning and earnest. But then he remembers just how good of an actor his co-star-to-be really is and snorts. “Nice try. Hope you’re better on camera.”

Robert winces at that, but his smile remains, even if it’s starting to look a little brittle.

“I’m sorry about what happened, alright?” Robert says, frustration colouring his voice at the edges. Aaron can see that this really is paining him; Robert not that good of an actor. “Let’s start over.”

He takes a step forward and holds out his hand. “Hi. I’m Robert Sugden.”

Aaron ignores it, crosses his arms across his chest.

“I know who you are,” he spits out.

Robert looks confused, studies him further before withdrawing his hand and eventually letting it drop. He puts it in his jacket pocket and renews his smile at Aaron. It’s just as small and soft as earlier.

“I’m trying, you know,” he says and Aaron can feel himself willing to give him that inch, to soften and forgive Robert so they can start over. But then he thinks about how smug and cocky he’d been just before he’d come right in front of him, and a wave of pulsing, hot annoyance shoots right through him.

“Then try harder,” Aaron half-growls, taking a small step further. And then, “And maybe try keepin’ your dick to yourself.”

:::::

Production kicks off without any further hitches, and he quickly gets to know the rest of their cast and crew — even becoming friends with a production assistant named Ellis.

Though most of the time Aaron just stays put in his trailer, constantly rehearsing and working on his character.

Harriet seems happy with his performance so far, giving him any extra takes he wants to do. But Aaron hasn’t been able to get in a groove that makes him truly happy; where he has an understanding of his character inside and out.

From the script, his own chat with Harriet, and the homework he’s done, he knows “Thomas James” to be a straightforward fellow, a little tentative, but earnest with his feelings.

He’s a farmer who owns and works his own farm, before one day he runs into Felix, his new and struggling neighbour. Felix’s family has lost most of their estate; bad debts and investments before the beginnings of the war hit. All they have now, is this one farm to their name, and Felix, a city boy — or rather, man — through and through has no clue how to run it.

Unable to stand it, Thomas steps in to help him, and Felix promises to do his accounts in trade. Thomas agrees, the spark between them growing and burning brighter.

Robert and he have played and shot a handful of those initial scenes, mostly set up for the rest of the story. But as their characters have seemed to find an easy camaraderie, there barely exists one between them.

For his part, Robert hasn’t really paused his efforts to win Aaron over, always making jokes and trying to give him an opening. Internally, Aaron struggles not to let go and give in, not having run into Robert with his cock down someone else’s throat since.

He doesn’t understand how Robert can just switch into his role and then right out of it, a slippery fish if there ever was one. He throws on Felix’s skin like it’s one of those button-up shirts he so favours, constantly remaining in costume longer than needed. (Aaron actually doesn’t mind that because it’s easy on the eyes and for their characters, Robert wearing 1920 period garb like he was born for it.)

Felix is smart and inept, but also charming and funny, a gay man in his shell, with no real interest in marriage. Just a blushing eye turned towards Thomas.

And that’s the part that kind of stings in their scenes, because it’s in those moments that Aaron feels he can really see the Robert he once had a crush on; a hint of him shining through.

It’s in Robert’s small smiles and the soft in his eyes, the blue-green of them a warm summer ocean.

But then Harriet says, “Cut” and it all disappears, Robert’s eyes growing cooler, his body more indifferent; tensed and held in a way he doesn’t when he’s Felix, like he’s holding a deep breath in.

That’s the first thing Aaron notices as they take a break before they shoot their first big scene, a first kiss where both men realise their mutual attraction.

They’re standing in a field, where Felix’s tractor has broken down, and Thomas has ridden up in his horse to help fix it.

As Aaron walks through the wet grass, his period accurate boots and jeans sinking into the mud a little, he gets his first glimpse of Robert.

His shirt sleeves are rolled back and his brow is plastered with sweat. He’s clearly been out in a full afternoon of labour.

They go through the dialogue, Felix directing Thomas to the back of the tractor, some kind of malfunction trapped within it. Thomas gives it a look, and Aaron produces a short grunt of surveyance, really giving it a decent study.

Then exhaling slowly he offers Thomas’ suggestion, that sometimes you just need to push it. He does as he says, and gives the tractor a shove, before letting his knees soften and himself fall forward in the muck.

Above him, he can hear Robert’s laughter bursting forth loud and clear, and he knows instantly it’s not his acting as Felix. He turns to his side and shoots Robert a dirty look, but in his chest his heart skips a beat at it.

Finally springing into action Felix leans forward and offers Thomas a hand, Robert bending and extending his hand out. The laughter still shines in his eyes, even if it’s not coming out his lips, his breath still short and him still panting.

Something surges in Aaron and he feels Thomas’ quiet sense of humour, reaches up and pulls Robert down towards him.

Robert captures all of Felix’ (and probably some of his own) surprise, his own knees bending as he falls atop Aaron; the hard firmness of his limbs utterly unexpected, and yet fitting against him perfectly.

He’s now laying on his back in the mud, feeling the cold soak into his tough warm denim, the flannel of his shirt doing little to protect him. But none of that matters as Robert gazes down at him, both their chests pressed together.

The script says this is where Felix kisses Thomas, too physically close for any more doubted restraint. Only Robert hasn’t moved, just keeps on laying there, mere centimetres away, his eyes trained down on Aaron’s lips, as if frozen by disbelief and nervousness.

Probably just nervous about kissing another man, Aaron thinks, flashing back to Robert kissing Pete Barton, and the way his hands had cupped his face. Probably worried that this time someone might think he’s gay.

Deep inside Aaron, something aches. He lets out a small, frustrated huff, his head relaxing back into the wet dirt, resigning himself to a long wait.

And then it’s like something snaps, because Robert leans forward, lunging for his lips with everything he has; his tongue barely waiting as Aaron’s lips part. (They hadn’t rehearsed this, or even really discussed it. Aaron not wanting to spend more time around Robert than entirely necessary.)

But as he lays here now, Aaron can’t help but give himself over to it, letting Robert’s fingers skim his sides before they bunch up in the warmth of his flannel shirt, his hands finding their way onto Robert’s lower back and his hair. He holds Robert’s head firm as he deepens the kiss. His co-star isn’t the only one who can improvise.

He doesn’t feel the lack of oxygen until the tail end of a groan, too deep into it to know if it’s from him or Robert.

When they pull apart both of them are panting. Robert’s gaze comes back up and they lock eyes again, a lock of his blonde hair dropping onto Aaron’s forehead, as his breath continues to tickle his lips; both wet and a little blitzed.

Deep in the depths of Robert’s green and blues, Aaron sees a spark of searching nervousness and hesitation. He brushes that bit of hair back almost without thinking; an unconscious act of soothing.

He can hear Robert’s breath hitch at the feel of his thumb pad on his skin, sees the way his eyes drop back down to Aaron’s lips. No longer nervous, and still barely thinking, Aaron leans up and presses another kiss to his lips, this time a more sweet and chaste one.

When he pulls back, Robert still has his eyes closed, almost cute in his stunned still surprise. Aaron finds himself smiling and recording this picture mentally; filled with the desire to go back in time and tell himself, “We kissed Robert Sugden!”

Robert opens his eyes and a second later Harriet yells, “Cut!” Aaron can’t help but feel interrupted.

What did you want to say? He wants to ask, as they both get to their feet. Aaron barely makes an attempt to clean himself off. He knows he needs a good shower.

Next to him, Robert seems to be avoiding his eyes, focusing a little too hard on dusting his pants off. Aaron tries not to spend too much time admiring his bum in the process.

They’re walking off set, when Robert makes the joke, voice flippant and tone just insulting.

“Feel like hitting a strip club, eh?” He says with what is meant to be a playful nudge. “Need to see some naked tits, pronto.”

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, this being a movie and all, but it still stings hard and deep all the same.

Aaron feels hot anger come over him without much warning, and he explodes back at Robert in a rage.

“All of this is just one big joke to ya, isn’t it?” He practically spits out the words in a low, angry growl as he shoves Robert backwards into a nearby trailer.

He doesn’t care if anyone’s nearby, or if they even see him. All he can see and hear is Robert.

“These are people’s lives,” he continues, the line of his right forearm held against Robert’s chest, constricting the way he breathes slightly. “Do you even get that?”

“It’s just a joke,” Robert answers, sounding both defensive and soft.

Aaron couldn’t give a toss about it.

“Excuse me if I don’t think bein’ gay is funny,” he fires back, leans in a little and lets the anger radiate off his face, hoping Robert gets the message.

Apparently, he does, because his eyes just widen, and then he’s saying, “Aaron, I’m sorry. I didn’t-“

He knows he’s not exactly hiding his sexuality, but Aaron isn’t really advertising it either, so it sends him reeling back the second he realises Robert has figured out he’s gay.

He stands there panting, anger being replaced by panic, the air evacuating his lungs just as his heart takes residence in his ears.

He turns and walks away before his balance decides to go, can feel his knees weakening with each step he takes; thinks he hears Robert calling at him in the distance.

Calling him because he knows this thing about him.

Calling him because he knows he’s gay.

Shit.

:::::

He’s exiting his trailer when he runs into Robert again. Aaron almost bolts the instant he sees him — only to realise he’s blocking his way.

“Aaron, wait,” Robert pleads, looking up at him from the bottom of those short metal stairs. Aaron almost turns around and goes back inside.

But then he notices that Robert is still in his costume — which is not too much of a surprise — but it’s a sign that he’s been waiting outside this entire time. As much as he doesn’t want to, Aaron knows he must honour that. From what he’s seen, Robert Sugden does that for no one.

“You going to invite me inside?” Robert asks when he sees Aaron willingly to stick around in his trailer doorway.. His attempt at a teasing smile fades when he gets Aaron’s answer.

“Whatever you want to say in there, you can say out here.” Aaron crosses his hoodie-covered arms across his chest, retaining the warmth within it.

Robert nods, and takes one step higher, making this whole conversation a little more private. Aaron can smell him, even standing a few inches away; the intermingled scent of mud and sweat and Robert. (The note is slightly floral but kind of muted like Lavender, but Aaron can’t be sure because he doesn’t know flowers.)

“Sorry I made those jokes earlier,” Robert says softly, and Aaron can see that he’s being absolutely serious. “I don’t think being gay is funny…”

Aaron doesn’t say anything, just keeps on watching. He can see that Robert is on the edge of something.

After what feels likes very long pause, it finally drops. “… because I’m actually bisexual.”

He can’t seem to meet Aaron’s eyes as he says that, his cheeks going pink as he looks away and to the left. Standing this close Aaron can feel the tension radiating off of him in waves, coming over him in rapid succession.

Aaron swallows, not sure what exactly to make of it; his teenage dreams all coming true in an instant. So he bites his tongue and holds back his first three replies, and then offers the one he feels is most supportive.

“Thanks for telling me,” he says and he finds that he means it. He’s actually a little touched by Robert’s choice to trust him.

“Figured it was the least I owe you,” Robert says with a shy smile, and for a second Aaron really feels like he’s looking at Felix.

His inner Thomas makes him return it.

“That why you wanted to do this movie?” Aaron asks when the moment eventually passes. It’s a big question he knows, but he needs an answer.

“No, actually,” Robert explains with a chuckle, something raw and unguarded about him now. Like he’s been acting this entire time Aaron has known him.

“I’m a big fan of hers,” Robert says with an excited smile. “She was my mum’s favourite director.”

Aaron gets it and gives him a nod. “Yeah, I’m a big fan myself.”

Robert grins at this little piece of information, a bigger reward than he was expecting.

“Guess this means we should definitely be friends,” Robert suggests, shyness still lacing his voice. “Don’t know many people who’ve even heard of Harriet.”

Aaron studies Robert, takes the entirety of him in, considers it and then shrugs. “Guess you’re not a complete idiot.”

Robert’s smile when he says that is radiant.

:::::

That night he dreams of Robert, the same one he’d had when he was fifteen. Only this time his brain fills in all the missing details.

He needs another shower in the morning.

:::::

Things improve on set by a thousandfold. Robert’s one-sided jibes giving way to Aaron returning them, both of them ribbing and teasing each other between takes. Robert somehow becomes a mainstay on his trailer’s sofa, as they hang out a lot more between scenes, running lines and even whole scenes together.

They seem to have found a quiet understanding when it comes to each other and their space.. (Though, coming out to each other does that, Aaron supposes.)

It’s crazy, but he genuinely thinks it makes both of their scenes better. Both of them now freer with how they move and touch each other. Aaron had once read somewhere that it has to do with the language of how queer people sometimes act and speak; a quiet understanding of how love can be writ across their bodies. He doesn’t know how much he agrees with that exactly. But he does feel it when Robert hugs him as Felix.

It’s a gentle gesture, Robert coming from behind and embracing him around the waist, one hand coming up to rest over Aaron’s heart. Aaron presses those fingers close to his chest, letting Robert feel the steady rise of his heartbeat as he sinks back into him; Thomas leaning into Felix.

They stand like that in silence for a moment longer, Robert’s chin on Aaron’s shoulder, both of them

bathing in the pale sunlight of a cool autumn morning, as filtered through the dusty windows of Thomas’ work shed.

It’s as they’re standing, silently breathing and hearts quickly beating that Aaron is seized by a sudden urge. Following the wave of it, he brings Robert’s fingers up to his lips, gently pressing a kiss on each knuckle as if soothing away newly-formed blisters — the results of Felix’ recent hard labour.

The moment his lips touch skin he hears Robert’s breath hitch, but it only guides him forward. He holds that last kiss longest, before pulling away and spinning them around, Robert’s back now pressing into the edge of Thomas’ workstation, their hands caught between them; Aaron’s fingers wrapped around Robert’s wrist, his thumb resting on his speeding pulse.

Robert for his part, seems to be trusting Aaron implicitly as he gazes down at Aaron first with surprise and then excitement. He smiles softly, clearly anticipating a kiss. Aaron smiles back and obliges him.

It’s completely unscripted and wholly them and yet none of it feels any bit of wrong. Aaron leans forward, slowly edging closer, his eyes locked into Robert’s. He hovers for a second, feels his breath bounce off Robert’s lips, then dips forward and claims them.

This kiss doesn’t progress as quickly as the first one did, Robert letting Aaron set the pace by which they go by. So he takes his time, focuses on nipping at Robert’s bottom lip; gentle kisses that should convey Thomas’ affections.

But then Robert’s hands start to slide across his back, pulling and holding him closer — only nothing about the gesture feels overtly sexual. It’s just two men standing and savouring the act of kissing, two men revelling in their affections.

They kiss a little longer, the pace still languid, Robert letting him take his sweet time, before Aaron decides to pause and not take it any further.

He pulls away, lets out his own small exhale — the matching one to Robert’s. He smiles at him, Robert returns it. Then with another small breath he leans his forehead against the other man’s; shuts his eyes and feels the feel of his skin against his own.

A few seconds pass, Robert still holding him close, Aaron feeling like he’s just survived a continuous free fall.

It’s in the middle of this that he hears Harriet’s quietly spoken words, “And that’s a wrap. Not going to get a better take than that one.”

:::::

He’s on his way off set when Robert catches up with him, grabbing his elbow to still him.

He doesn’t let go even when Aaron stops in place, only does when Aaron looks at him questioningly, despite the whole thing feeling natural.

“You doing anything later?” Robert asks, both hands in his leather jacket pockets, a leather messenger bag slung across his chest and shoulders. “Thought you might like to come over for a drink.”

Aaron considers it, gives it a long hard thought, but it must make Robert panic because he blurts out, “We can run lines or something.”

“Yeah, okay,” Aaron tells him, giving him a nod. And then, because he thinks Robert might have the wrong impression of him and he doesn’t at all like that.

“We don’t always have to work, you know. I do have other interests..”

Robert grins and nudges him in the side. Then he goes into an impression of Aaron.

“I’m Aaron Dingle and I think work is fun. If you don’t, then you’re a right idiot.”

Aaron tries not to, but he can’t stop himself chuckling, a little charmed by Robert’s intonation.

:::::

He finds that Robert’s home is nothing like he’d imagined, more lived in and comfortable than overly posh — though he has all sorts of shiny appliances in the kitchen. A mark of either a man who cooks, or just someone who likes the aesthetic. (Aaron is willing to bet it’s the first one.)

The bookshelves — of which there are two big ones — are stuffed to the gills, brimming with books threatening to fall off them. The walls, a nice calming shade of blue, are covered in posters paying homage to some of his favourite works of science fiction.

“Didn’t know you were such a nerd,” Aaron says when he’s got a drink in hand, as he looks up at a poster of The Xavier Files, the show he’d been more than a little obsessed with. Robert is standing front and centre as the star, his boarding school uniform fitting him flatteringly. (Aaron swallows, his blood growing warmer as he understands where certain fantasies might have originated from. He tries not to think about it in case he’ll need another cold shower. He’s already taken one before coming to this place.)

“You just don’t understand art,” Robert retorts, coming over to join him. He looks at the poster for a good second and then adds, “Or quality science fiction.”

Aaron snorts at that, unable to contain himself. “Think you’re using the term rather loosely. The ‘Gavoorians’? Come on.”

Robert looks at him in surprise, and maybe a hint of pleasure, as he says, “Don’t tell me youwatched it?”

Aaron goes red, feels his mouth turn dry, so he answers as honestly as he can, trying not to let the truth of the matter slip out even as he looks Robert in the eye.

“Might have caught an episode or two one summer,” he says, voice straining to remain casual. Then he adds, because he can’t help himself, “Saw the one where you kissed Pete Barton.”

Robert’s face goes from surprise to embarrassment to all-out amusement, barking a laugh with his neck tipped back, his shoulders relaxing and also dipping down. Aaron’s never seen him this joyful.

“What?” Robert says, growing suddenly conscious, his laughter fading and his body going still. His cheeks are pink as he studies Aaron.

“Nothing,” Aaron shrugs, voice above a whisper. His ears are hot, his pulse pounding. “Just wasn’t expecting this reaction, is all.”

“Well, it’s a bit of a surprise,” Robert explains, as if it all makes sense. “Didn’t think you’d have even heard of it, let alone watched it.”

“Why not? Because I don’t understand ‘science fiction’?” Aaron teases, oddly thrilled at subverting Robert’s expectations like this. “Don’t have to watch a lot to understand quality.”

“So you agree,” Robert smirks, nudging him with his elbow, a twinkle in his eye. “It is science fiction.”

Aaron snorts, nudges him back. “I suppose. But you’re really stretching the definition.”

They smile at each other, then go back to sipping their drinks, settling comfortably in the silence.

“I loved working on that show,” Robert says after quite a long beat, his voice holding a note of pride. But it’s quiet and with absolutely no hint of preening. “And kissing Pete wasn’t half bad either.”

Aaron feels his cheeks redden as he pictures it again, teenage Pete and Robert going at it.

“Did you have a crush on him, or something?” He looks down at the glass in his hand. He’d never thought he’d be having this conversation with Robert Sugden.

“God, no.” Robert shakes his head beside him. “Pete was pretty fit, but he’s pretty much as straight as they come.”

He waits a beat and then adds, “Decent kisser though.”

How about me? Am I decent too? Aaron wants to ask. But he just chuckles in amusement, enjoying this behind the scenes glimpse into one of his favourite episodes of television ever.

“But what about you?” Robert asks, turning his attention to Aaron. He finishes the last of his drink and asks, “Did you fancy him?”

His smile is conspiratorial and all kinds of knowing. His eyes are dark but inscrutable. Aaron’s cheeks redden despite himself, as he struggles not to blurt out, No. I fancied you, you idiot.

What he does manage to say, after a long moment of waiting, is, “Well, I wasn’t watching for the plot. Was I?”

It doesn’t feel like lying, because it is completely true. Though he does see the flash of something in Robert’s eyes. It disappears behind a laugh a moment later.

“No, I guess not,” Robert concedes, turning and walking over to the sofa. When he takes his seat, it’s with his legs spread wide, all the focus on his crotch. Aaron struggles to not let his gaze drift downward, keeping it trained on Robert’s face instead. And honestly, it’s worth it.

Robert’s smiling up at Aaron, buzzing with excitement. Aaron smiles back because it’s infectious.

“If you liked The Xavier Files, there’s a film you should check out,” he says, switching on his TV, Aaron no longer the focus of his attention. He pulls up Netflix, slowly searches through it, before he asks, “Have you seen The Cabin in the Woods?”

The way he’s looking at Aaron now is just pulling at all his heartstrings, an element of youth befalling all of Robert’s features. His eyes are sparkling, his smile is crooked, and his excitement is radiating off of him.

Robert Sugden: Horror fan.

“Uh, no, I haven’t,” Aaron says shaking his head to clear it. It wouldn’t do to fall for Robert Sugden again. Not when he’s a full-fledged adult. Not when he could accidentally act on it. (Aaron’s always has a rule against dating fellow co-stars or crew members. But no one’s been openly queer enough to test that — or even simply Robert Sugden.)

“Oh, you’re in for a treat,” Robert says patting the sofa seat beside him. Aaron glances at the screen where the movie is waiting, already cued up, then goes ahead and joins him. “Joss Whedon wrote and directed it.”

Even sitting next to Robert makes his heart rate spike, as does the warmth he feels from his proximity. Robert’s choice to sit in the middle of the sofa and almost spread himself out means he’s just a few fingers far away from Aaron, their hands centimetres apart on the same cushion; the dip caused by Aaron sitting causing Robert’s hand to slide a little closer to him.

He barely manages a nod when he hears Robert talk to him, asking him if he can start the movie. (He would have said yes, but his tongue has ceased to work. Another symptom of sitting next to Robert.)

The film begins and Robert reaches forward and places the remote on the coffee table and suddenly Aaron can focus once more; the thought of Robert accidentally touching him no longer playing on his mind, now free to enjoy the movie.

But as he watches the story of a group of friends — one played by Chris Hemsworth — who decide to spend a weekend in a cabin in the woods, there’s a growing sense of disappointment.

He quickly looks over to Robert’s hands in his lap, and starts to wish they were once again closer.

:::::

He doesn’t have to worry for very much longer, Robert reaching out and grabbing his forearm, when the movie presents its first real scare. Aaron isn’t expecting it, the move causing his heart rate to surge for the monster on screen itself, the feeling of warm, solid fingers clutching him clear even through thick fabric.

As it turns out Robert’s not a very passive watcher, constantly leaning over to make asides or jokes. But mostly it’s all facts he finds fun about the movie. (Aaron agrees. They’re actually quite interesting.)

It’s sweet, Aaron thinks, as he gets more and more invested, both fretting for the imperilled college students and watching Robert.

Gone is the tall and handsome actor who practically grew up in the limelight. In his stead sits a tall, handsome, and surprisingly knowledgeable genre film buff. He’s on the edge of his seat and mostly turned toward Aaron, a bit of a contrasting match to his own seating. (Aaron’s sat back, leaning on the right arm of the sofa, a little too tired to really make himself sit up properly.)

There’s another scare. Robert’s grip tightens. Aaron hides a chuckle at Robert’s expression, the shock of fear stealing the words out of his mouth. He’s left eyes wide, mouth open, and gaping. It’s almost as if this is his first time watching the movie.

Robert doesn’t seem to notice himself holding Aaron’s arm as the movie ticks on, and for his part, Aaron doesn’t alert him.

:::::

He’s enjoying the movie well enough when Robert excitedly tugs at his arm.

“This is my favourite part,” he says, before turning to look at Aaron, eyes crinkling in delight at the edges.

He’s not sure what it is in that moment — the steady warmth of Robert’s grip, the pinks of his cheeks undercutting his freckles, or the reminder of how much he used to want him — but there’s a swell in his chest and Aaron leans forward and steals a kiss from Robert.

His lips feel just like they have every other time, soft, firm, and tender. But unlike all those times they’ve kissed on camera, his co-star isn’t responding.

Panic sets in and Aaron instantly pulls back. He sees that Robert is frozen in surprise; lips barely puckered. Instantly, he realises he got carried away by his feelings, and so backtracks as quickly as possible.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, getting to his feet, Robert’s hand falling away in the process. The loss of warmth immediately starts to smart, Aaron already having gotten used to the feel of it.

“Aaron,” Robert starts, but he just cuts him off.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Aaron swallows roughly unable to look at Robert again, his embarrassment turning his stomach. He feels like he might throw up. “Better go home now. Early call time tomorrow.”

With that, Aaron bolts out of the room and then out the front door all without waiting for another word from Robert.

:::::

He doesn’t sleep a wink that night, just replays the moment in his mind.

Each time it gets worse than before, Robert looking at him in shock bordering on disgust, green-blue eyes flashing. (Aaron knows objectively that Robert didn’t actually sneer at him, but emotionally he might as well have.)

This is what happens when you let your feelings get confused, Aaron chides himself, tossing and turning, his sheets all a tangle. This is why you can’t fall for your co-star.

By the time it’s morning he’s tenser than before. But at least he knows what to say to him.

:::::

He goes to Robert’s trailer before he goes to his own, knocking on the door once and then going right in.

Immediately he’s faced with an eyeful of half-naked Robert in snug boxer-briefs, pacing the space and going over his lines by himself.

Aaron loses his voice, his throat going dry. He just stands there in stunned silence. (He has actually seen Robert without a top on a few times before this, courtesy of a few of his movies. But like with all things, real life is proving better. He’d forgotten just how many freckles he has — and how much he used to want to count them.)

Robert notices him ogling him a few seconds later, and he pauses mid-pace. Just stands there frozen, script page in hand.

“Hi,” Aaron says, for lack of anything better. He smiles nervously, both his hands tucked in his coat pockets, watching Robert quietly.

“Hey,” Robert greets back, sounding almost relieved to see him. He doesn’t look like he’s slept either — probably trying to come up with ways with which to let Aaron down gently. Aaron swallows nervously.

At least you don’t have your cock out again, he wants to joke. But now hardly feels like the time for that.

“About yesterday,” Robert begins, taking a step forward, his tone already sounding apologetic.

Aaron takes that as his cue to take over, and so springs into action.

“It was a mistake,” he says matter-of-factly, having practiced this a few times coming in. “I got carried away. Forgot we’re not Felix and Thomas. Don’t worry it won’t happen again.”

Learned my lesson the hard way.

Robert’s brow is furrowing and he doesn’t seem too pleased. Probably because Aaron is issuing a gentle let down for him. He’d figured this was the easiest way to save face: to acknowledge his crime and issue an apology, save Robert the trouble of having to do any heavy lifting.

“Besides,” Aaron says, trying to lighten the mood, even though it’s absolutely twisting him inside. “Wouldn’t want any rumours ruinin’ ya chances, eh Mr. Bond?”

He offers him a smile, but it feels too watery and shallow. He’s barely able to keep his lips turned upward for long.

Robert’s expression doesn’t soften even a bit, just grows more dark and displeasured. He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can the trailer door swings open.

“Oh excellent,” Harriet states, coming in with a smile, happy to see both of them. “This should save me some time.”

She must sense the tension in the air, the trailer now thick with the smell of it. Her smile fades and she looks between them, then asks, “Everything alright?”

Aaron chances a glance at Robert and finds him looking almost inscrutable. (Though to be fair, his mind hasn’t moved on from the fact that he’s practically naked.)

“Just fine,” Aaron says, with another thin smile, this one a little easier than that first one.

He’s not sure if she believes him, but she does nod anyway, so he finds that to be heartening.

“There’s been a bit of a change in the shooting schedule, seeing as the weather forecast for today is a bit unexpected,” Harriet tells them, looking from Aaron over to Robert. “So we’re going to try and do today’s scenes tomorrow, and tomorrow’s stuff today. You fine with that?”

Aaron thinks real fast, runs through his memory, trying to figure out what tomorrow brings. He realises it a second later, his stomach sinking quickly, filled with dread about how they’re going to do this.

“Yeah, sure,” Robert replies, sounding quite casual, like what’s about to happen isn’t a big deal to him.

Aaron doesn’t know whether to be hurt or happy, so he just files it as a temporary win. He nods his acceptance when Harriet looks at him questioningly, then follows it up with a, “Should be fine.”

“Perfect! I’ll let the rest of the cast know, and I’ll get makeup in here first thing,” Harriet says, smiling in relief. “Why don’t you two work on any blocking you feel you might need? Especially since all of this is short notice.”

She turns and leaves, the door slamming shut behind her. Leaving nothing but aching silence.

When Aaron finally hazards a glance, he sees that Robert’s staring down at his script page, all focused like if he stares hard enough he can change what just happened.

“So do you want to…” Aaron starts, gesturing between them, unsure what else to say. He kicks himself mentally once again, for ruining any progress in the working relationship between them.

Robert sighs, long and deep, then says, “Suppose we can just figure it out when we both get there.”

He only looks at Aaron when he’s done talking, like he can’t bear to look at him.

Aaron nods his agreement. “Cool. Better get going then. Get into today’s ‘costume.’”

It’s meant to be a joke but Robert doesn’t respond. Just nods back at him pensively.

Aaron desperately wants to ask if everything’s alright between them, but he doesn’t want to make the situation any worse than it seems to be already.

“Yeah, great. See you on set,” Robert finally says, turning away, and walking towards the opposite end of his trailer. A non-verbal dismissal.

Aaron exits, then shuts the door, letting out a sigh as he leans back against it.

It was every bit as awkward as he’d expected — only now it’s been ratcheted up to a million. They’re going to need every single bit of their acting skills if they’re going to sell what’s about to happen. Because Aaron’s not sure how else he and Robert are going to get through the rest of this day, when they’ll both be shooting Thomas and Felix’ first sex scene.

:::::

He stands there, script page in hand and a growing pit in his stomach, as Robert Sugden walks up to him with a grin.

“What you waiting for? Get your kit off.”

The words hit him before the tone does, Robert’s voice sounding teasing but brittle. Aaron’s eyes shoot up towards him, and he sees that the smile on his face is nowhere near his eyes and he’s clearly keeping up pretences.

Right, of course, Aaron tells himself, after getting over the initial surprise of it. We’re all actors here. No point pretending.

It’s silly and it shouldn’t sting as much as it does but Aaron’s still aches at Robert’s reaction. It’s one thing to not be interested in his romantic advances, but it’s another thing to pretend they completely didn’t happen. (He knows it’s hypocritical to feel this way, seeing as he’d actually prayed they could do this last night. But now that he’s living the exact reality he’d hoped for, he knows to be careful what you wish for.)

Still, he smiles right back, feels it hurt to even do so, as he lobs back a response of his own. Both of them standing there in bathrobes.

“Why don’t you get yours off first?”

Robert’s eyes widen, but his smile never falters. Instead, he winks and says, loud enough for anyone standing close by to hear, “Looks like you’ll be getting your wish soon enough.”

Aaron rolls his eyes, but his cheeks are still blushing, Robert having hit upon a wish from his youth.

Thankfully, Robert doesn’t see it, Harriet having arrived on the closed, private set, the number of people limited to just her, the two of them, and a small team of production people.

When she gives them a nod, they both strip out of their robes, both of them left standing naked, except for their actors’ modesty socks hiding their cocks and balls. Aaron does his best to keep his gaze level and facing forward, as he goes and finds his mark. The scene involves Felix making love to Thomas, on the floor of the latter’s barn.

The wooden floorboards are tad bit cool and just a little prickly — stray stalks of hay strewn across them — Aaron discovers as his bare back and arse come to rest against them, the sensation causing his skin to stand on end and his back wanting to arch off of it.

Aaron doesn’t have much time to process it, because now Robert’s crawling into his position, slowly lowering himself across Aaron and coming to rest on both his forearms. Aaron keeps his eyes pointed towards the barn ceiling and the rig of artificial lighting, hoping to make things as less awkward as possible.

He can feel Robert’s breath against his cheek, and the heat of him on his arms and chest as they silently hold these poses for the lighting check; Robert is now laying between Aaron’s spread and bent thighs, his arse exposed for everyone to see — not that he seems to care or even looks embarrassed. Instead, Aaron can feel him looking down at him, pinning him to the ground where he’s laying. Still, he refuses to look back at him, his heart furiously beating, as he refuses to make even a hint of eye contact; his last vestige of privacy.

“This isn’t going to work,” Robert says with a sigh after what feels like a day and an age, and Aaron feels his stomach clench, preparing for Robert to clamber off him, already missing him despite no part of them really touching at the moment. “Not if you don’t look at me.”

That gets Aaron’s attention and he looks up into Robert’s eyes, where he finds nothing but calm and watchful understanding.

“What?” He whispers, not meaning to come off so rude, but he’s nervous about what Robert might say and this is a pre-emptive strike — a test to see if he can handle it.

“About yesterday-” Robert begins, and Aaron immediately protests.

“I thought we were done talking about it.”

“No,” Robert insists, voice firm and kind of steely. “You talked about it. I just listened.”

Aaron swallows and lays there, his heart in his ears, as he wishes himself anywhere but here.

But then without warning, Robert dips down and kisses him, a firm press across his lips before a tongue swipes against the bottom one. Aaron grants him eager entry.

Robert pulls back, a half a moment later, remains naked and panting over Aaron.  

“What was that?” Aaron asks, body locked in surprise, though his cock is already having a bit of a reaction. He tries his hardest not to think about it.

“What I wish I’d done last night,” Robert replies, speaking softly, as he shoots Aaron a tentative smile. “What I wish I’d done this morning.”

“You mean…” Aaron trails off, struggling to compute, still feeling like this puzzle is missing a few pieces. Any thoughts about his dick fall by the wayside.

“I like you, Aaron,” Robert says like it’s a well known fact, and not something he just demonstrated with his tongue down Aaron’s throat. “And as you can see, I don’t really care who knows it.”

Aaron glances around and sees that no one’s really paying them much attention, Harriet studying the film monitors in front of her from the director’s seat, the sound guys standing and chatting in the corner.

“Guess that’s a relief,” Aaron finally sighs, when he comes back to look up at Robert’s face. “Seein’ as I like you too.”

It’s like a wave ripples between them because suddenly they’re both touching in millions of tiny ways. Robert’s arms move a little closer, Aaron’s a little wider, both their limbs now settling together. Robert’s planking position lowers, causing him to actually lay across Aaron, their chests just centimetres apart, even as their belly buttons touch, and their cocks, swaddled in their actors’ modesty socks now rest against each other; both steadily hardening. (Aaron smiles as he realises that, flushed with pride that Robert Sugden wants him.)

“So, you going to kiss me back or what?” Robert then asks, smiling down at Aaron, his arms framing either side of his face.

Aaron shakes his head, grinning back cheekily. “Thought we’d save it for the camera.”

:::::

When Harriet yells, “Action,” Robert’s focused and gazing into his eyes. But he doesn’t lunge forward like Aaron expects him to.

Instead, he slowly comes forward, nudges his nose against Aaron’s, before touching their lips together and letting them hover that way for a second, before increasing the pressure, one hand coming to holding the side of Aaron’s face.

Slowly, Aaron’s waiting lips part, as he opens his mouth and lets his tongue curl and slide against Robert’s; allowing him to steal the breath right out of him.

They kiss like that for a couple of minutes, Aaron’s hands sliding up Robert’s back to wrap around the balls of his shoulders, half holding, half gently kneading.

Slowly and gently, Robert starts to rock in place, dragging his thick and hard cock against Aaron’s. He may be simulating sex, but the feelings are all real, as Aaron feels his own shaft throbbing and aching harder.

Robert kisses his way down his jaw, and then his neck and then his chest, Aaron’s back arching unconsciously against him.

Robert comes back up kiss at his lips, the movement of his hips growing faster.

Aaron closes his eyes and pictures his teenage self and all his exploration of sexuality with another boy in his class in the local village pavilion. None of that compares to Felix and Thomas’ first time, none of that compares to this moment with Robert.

Another wave comes over him and he gives himself into it, rolling them over so Robert is now under him; shaggy hair blending with the straw on the wooden floorboards. Aaron takes his lips in his and resumes their kissing.

He continues to grind, increasing the pressure and speed just a little, chasing that spark that shoots through him when their cocks touch through their socks at just the right spot. He can feels his balls tighten and Robert groan into his mouth, the sound of it soaked with wanting. His own cock feels swollen, now more than thick and leaking, the leaking come making the fabric stick to him and his erect shaft more than sensitive.

Aaron can see his climax rising on the horizon, can feel it gathering at the base of his spine, the pressure building to a tall cresting wave, threatening to crash down over him. Under him, Robert continues softly groaning, loose hands scoring up and down Aaron’s back; the movements causing a little thrill of pleasure.

Then just when his orgasm starts to move towards his peak, pushed onward by the friction between their penises, he hears a sound that causes him to stop almost instantly, and Robert to whine under him.

Aaron lays there panting, cock now more than aching, he curses the gods and this particular profession. He brings his forehead to rest against Robert’s. The sweat on both their brows mingling as the chill in the barn begins to set in.

“Alright,” says Harriet from somewhere behind them. Her voice is firm and brooks no questions. So they know better than to protest it. “This was great. But let’s try that again.”

Aaron drops his head into Robert’s neck and groans.

:::::

An hour later he starts to wonder if Harriet is doing this intentionally; guiding them close to the edge with her takes and directions, only to cause them to pull back again, just adding to their rising frustrations.

His only solace is the presence of Robert, who moves from over to under — and even one time, beside — him, as they keep kissing and grinding against each other for the camera; both more sensitive than ever.

“Come back to mine after,” Aaron grunts softly in the middle of one take, too soft for the boom controller to hear him. Robert’s mouth nipping at his shoulder.

“And do what?” Robert whispers, when Aaron rolls them over. It’s clear that he’s a little beyond thinking.

Aaron gets it, biting his tongue as a wave of pleasure sweeps through him.  

“What do you think?” He asks, through gritted teeth, as his hips begin simulating trusting. Then he grins slyly as he looks down into Robert’s unfocused eyes.

“Reckon we could run lines or something.”

:::::

They bolt off set before Harriet can even declare it a wrap — or pull either one aside to talk to them — neither of them able to keep the smile off their faces. Aaron tries not to speed, or run a red light, but it’s a struggle with Robert’s right hand on his thigh, slowly inching higher and higher the entire time.

He manages to still his breathing — and his body’s tetchy reaction — as they exit the vehicle and later enter his building. In fact, they make it all the way up and into his flat, without him making even a single move to try and tear Robert’s clothes off.

“Nice place,” Robert says, as Aaron shuts and locks the door behind. Aaron glances around at the classic film posters on his own living room walls and the lived-in state of his sofa; the prime location for all his movie marathons between projects.

“Thought you might want to see it,” Aaron says coming up to stand in front of him, his hands coming to rest on Robert’s lips.

“You were right about that,” Robert says, though his focus is on him. He smiles and adds, “I’m a big fan of Aaron Dingle.”

Aaron smiles back. There’s a flutter in his chest, like a flock of birds flying back after winter. He swallows roughly and gives his answer, his voice coming out rougher as his gaze drops to Rober’s lips, “I’m right about a lot of things. Guess you’re going to have to remind me.”

That’s all it takes because Robert’s lips are on his, with all the urgency of a man drowning.

Aaron grabs at his jacket and starts pushing it off him, as he also walks him to the bedroom.

They stumble a little, the room still a mess from this morning, Robert grabbing Aaron’s biceps so as to not trip backwards over a pair of kicked trainers lying in the middle of the floor.

“You know, a little tidying never hurt anyone,” Robert says coming back in for a kiss.

“Do you want to talk cleaning, or do you want to fuck?” Aaron growls back, still very frustrated from this morning.

Robert stripping him of his hoodie is his answer.

Grinning into the kiss, Aaron tugs Robert’s shirt up and out of his jeans and then makes quick work of the buttons up front — not caring if he loses one. He pushes it off him, and trails kisses down his neck, before pausing to nip once at his collarbone.

Robert inhales sharply, pressing closer into him. So Aaron does it again, just a little bit harder, earning him a groaned, Aaron.

Smiling again, he licks the same area once, then kisses it as if to make it better. Then he turns his attention to Robert’s jeans, his dick already bulging in the front of it.

Robert’s hands are once again moving, pushing Aaron’s own jeans down to pool against his feet. He tries to step out of them, while undoing Robert’s belt buckle, only to feel one of Robert cup his cock through the fabric of his boxers, the pressure firm but gentle.

Aaron lets out a gasp as Robert just chuckles, “Well, hello there Mr. Dingle.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Aaron asks, as he tried to focus on the jeans button in front of him, Robert’s cock already straining against his zipper, as his hand slips from outside Aaron’s boxers into them, drawing out a shuddered gasp as he squeezes his erection.

“Make me,” Robert says with a smug little grin, the words a low purr that goes straight to Aaron’s eardrum.

Aaron takes him up on his offer, kissing him thoroughly, before pushing him back against his mattress.

A thrill runs up his back as he sees a mostly naked Robert Sugden, resting on his elbows and across the unmade purple sheets of his bed. He kneels down at the base of his bed, then reaches up and pulls the hem of Robert’s underwear down. His cock springs out, already wet and leaking, and every bit as long and thick as Aaron had expected.

He runs a hand up it, giving it a test of a stroke, in front of him Robert twitches.

Pleased with the response, Aaron leans forward and hovers over it, feeling Robert’s eyes watching carefully. Then he smiles up at him, before dropping his head down as he sets up about fulfilling a fantasy.

On either side of his head, Robert’s thighs jerking and flexing — just like that first day in the trailer. Only this time it’s Aaron with his mouth on his cock, him being the one to draw the groans out of Robert.

Down between his own legs, his cock is once again aching, having been denied release too many times in one day. Aaron wraps a hand around it, smearing his own pre-come over his head and down around it, his thumb flicking the edge of his frenulum and causing a thrill of excitement. He keeps on steadily stroking.

When he feels Robert nearing the edge — now more than well-versed in his body — Aaron pulls off and hears the expected moan of disappointment. He gives him a kiss as he reaches for the lube, eager to avoid a painful experience.

He slides two fingers in, gently twisting and scissoring, Robert groaning and pushing down into it.

When he feels he’s ready, Aaron slides his now slick dick into Robert and gets a satisfied sigh for his efforts.

He waits a second for Robert to adjust to the discomfort, but all he gets is grunted, “Hurry up and fuck me.”

Doing as he says, Aaron sets up a punishing pace, the front of his thighs smacking against the back of Robert’s in a satisfying rhythm.

It’s not too long before he feels his climax once again approaching, having been at the edge of his fingertips all day. Below him, Robert’s busy stroking himself as he keeps on moaning Aaron’s name, punctuated by a gasp every time Aaron hits that special spot.

His neck is tipped back and his eyes are tight shut, his hand is rapidly pumping, Robert lost to the build of his own orgasm.

With his own edge within sight, Aaron makes a quick decision, he leans down, hips still rolling as he positions himself right beside Robert’s ear, and then whispers, “It was you I liked, not Pete Barton.”

He hears Robert’s strangled cry and his come hit his chest. It’s enough to make him come inside him.

:::::

He wakes up a few hours later to Robert on his phone, just laying next to him naked. The white light from the small iPhone screen illuminates the side profile of his face in a strong but gentle white glow; his features looking like he was sculpted from marble.

There’s a fondness in his eyes and a glow in his cheeks as he lays on his back, biting his bottom lip, staring at the screen intently, probably skimming the news on a gossip news site. (Aaron actually reads a few of them himself, a couple proving quite reliable in terms of casting news and breakdowns.)

“Anything good?” He asks, when he’s drunk his fill — though he’s finding that his thirst for Robert might be bottomless.

Robert doesn’t startle or even really flinch, just looks over at him like he was gently awakened. His smile is radiant — but more so in this light, white teeth flashing in the phone light, which also renders his freckles a little paler.

“Nothing as good as what’s right here,” Robert says, affection coming through loud and clear. He then lifts his right arm above his head, an open invitation.

Aaron accepts it, shuffling in closer, and bringing the covers with him. He snuggles in closer until his head is resting on the ball of Robert’s shoulder as he turns himself sideways on his left side. Robert’s arm comes back down, wrapping around his back and resting on the curve of his arse.

When Aaron turns towards the phone screen he sees instead that it’s a book, Robert’s attention instead captured by some kind of video.

It takes him a second to clock what’s happening on screen, because then he gasps in disbelief.

“Are you watching my episode of Black Mirror?” He shifts to gaze up at him, searching Robert’s face for any detail of an answer.

“Why?” He asks, horrified.

Robert turns from the phone to look down at him, and then says without any embarrassment or shame. “The first time I ever saw this, I knew I had to meet you.”

“You’re joking me,” Aaron barks a laugh. “My character was mental.”

“Yeah,” Robert agrees, his index finger now rubbing a lazy circle into Aaron’s hip, the feel and motion of it deeply soothing. “But you played him with such intensity.”

“Probably just thought I was fit, or something,” Aaron protests, rolling his eyes at Robert. “I spent half the episode naked.”

“Well, obviously there was that,” Robert concedes, but even with his playful tone, Aaron can tell he still means it. That he’d actually been attracted to Aaron’s acting.

“Does this mean you fantasized about me?” Aaron asks cheekily, even though he’s nervous about the answer.

“If I didn’t, I’d be mental,” Robert says with all the confidence in the world, like this is an undisputed fact.

He’d wanted to hear it, but it still makes him blush. Aaron rolls inward towards Robert’s shoulder. Robert’s hand and finger don’t stop their circling.

“Shut up,” he chides him gently.

“It’s true though,” Robert admits, voice quiet in the night, his face growing ever more thoughtful. “It’s why I wanted to do this project. Figure at least this way I’d get a chance to work with you.”

“More like, hoped you’d get a chance to shag me,” Aaron retorts, but there’s nothing in his voice but affectionate lightness.

“Not going to lie and say I didn’t dream about that,” Robert chuckles. “Though I did really hope you might be bisexual as well.”

“Worked out in the end, I suppose,” Aaron says quietly.

Robert hums his agreement. On his phone screen a younger version of Aaron fights against a male co-star.

Time passes, a few more moments go by, then Aaron says, trying not to keep the worry from creeping into his voice too much, “You know, if people find out about us, we might have to come out publicly.”

He doesn’t want to say it, but he feels like he has to, not wanting to cost Robert his career. “You could lose the Bond role.”

“I told you, Aaron, I don’t care who finds out.” It doesn’t sound flippant, and it doesn’t sound thrown away. It sounds sure as can be and confident. “Didn’t exactly take this job to prove I could do my own stunts. Though I think we both did well on that front.”

Robert pinches his hip as if to underscore the point, sending a spark of shock right through him. Aaron startles and arches his back closer, his bare chest now snug into Robert’s side.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Aaron grumbles poking his chest. Under his left ear, Robert shakes with quiet laughter.

“Yes, but an idiot you like,” Robert says when he can finally answer. “And an idiot you had a crush on.”

Aaron rubs his hip sorely. “I can still kick you out of bed, you know.”

“You wouldn’t do that to a poor, defenceless, idiot,” Robert offers in his defence. Aaron just rolls his eyes at it.

“Do you seriously ever shut up?” He questions, not really annoyed.

Robert’s voice is low when he replies, “Like I said. Go ahead and make me.”

Aaron comes up for a kiss.

:::::

They do come out eventually, when doing the rounds to promote the movie, and all their fears are brushed aside as it makes their stock rise even higher. Suddenly they have interviews scheduled with all the top publications, with joint profiles in both The Guardian and Variety. (Aaron asks his mum to go buy extras of both, his idea to have them framed as an eventual moving-in present.)

The movie’s a success as it starts to do the circuit, opening first in limited release and then going wider and wider. It garners great reviews, most of it focusing on Aaron and Robert’s performance, with plenty of mentions of their chemistry. (Robert particularly likes reading those aloud in bed, pulling them up on his phone not long after Aaron awakens.)

Amongst all the furor and the immense fan support, the good news start to trickle in. George Miller wants to meet Aaron to discuss a possible part in Mad Max, while Robert has a meeting about playing Bond after all. As it turns out, times are very definitely changing, and the minds in charge of the franchise have decided they’d quite like to adapt along with it. Neither of them expect anything to actually come of it. But they still joke about Robert wearing that suit and celebrate.  

A few months after that, Harriet calls waking them both up, the film — as well as both their performances and her direction — having been nominated for an Oscar. They lay there together, Robert’s phone on speaker on Aaron’s bare chest, his cheek close beside it, neither of them daring to breathe in their shocked silence.

Aaron cracks first, a long and loud laugh, seconds later Robert starts to join him.

“Can you believe it?” Robert asks, lifting his head. The diffused sunlight from the hotel room balcony window backlights him, showing off his bedhead in all its glory.

“Sure I can,” Aaron shrugs easily, taking in the high cheekbones and the freckles dotting them, the unexpected pinkness of Robert’s lips. Then he looks into Robert’s eager eyes, letting the now-alert green and blue wash over him. “Harriet Finch, innit?”

“But you and me, nominated for an Oscar…” Robert quietly marvels. “Do you think we could win?”

Aaron just watches him, memorising this face, already planning their celebration. He brings a hand up, and cups Robert’s cheek, stroking a thumb across a warm cheekbone. Then he leans up, gives him a soft kiss, then lies back, his head hitting the pillow.

Robert’s eyes open slowly, and his smile grows softer; a small one that he reserves for Aaron.

“Reckon we could,” Aaron says, feeling himself return it. “Who doesn’t love a good love story?”

[blouisparadise]

It’s been a while since our first A/B/O fic rec was created and because a ton of amazing A/B/O fics have come out since then, we decided to make a second part to this list. These are all alpha Harry/omega Louis fics (of course).

Happy reading!

Edit: We’ve added a third part to this rec list, which can be found here!

1) We’ll Stumble Through Heaven | Explicit | 6504 words

Louis likes to be a good boy for his alpha.

2) The Unsuccessful Promise | Teen & Up | 7152 words

At the end of the previous school year, Louis swore to everyone that he would return in the fall as an alpha. He made this promise especially to his arch-nemesis Harry Styles, who has already presented as an alpha himself.

Unfortunately over summer break, the worst thing possible happens: Louis presents as an omega. Now school is back in session and he has to return and face the consequences of pre-determining his status.

3) Something To Prove | Explicit 9425 words

Louis is the first and only omega to work at Red Valley Medical Center. Despite being more than qualified, he still faces prejudice for his career choice everyday. From patients refusing his treatment to condescending alpha doctors intervening with his work, practicing medicine in Boston is more challenging than Louis had ever thought it would be.

4) Night Out | Mature | 9741 words | Sequel

Symphony hall was the first place Louis had felt at home in this city, and he always had the box to himself. Until tonight.

5) Enjoy The Ride | Not Rated | 11103 words

The one where Louis, an omega more than tired of being treated as lesser than alphas, is forced on a road trip by his beta besties only to meet Harry who might just be the alpha he never knew he wanted.

6) Overwhelming | Explicit | 13261 words

Louis is an omega attending university to get his degree and most definitely not waste his time with unimportant things such as finding a mate. Harry is the alpha who manages to unwittingly mess up that plan.

7) No One Else Will Do | Mature | 13237 words

It takes Louis’ early heat for Harry and Louis to figure things out.

8) Anybody Have a Map? | Not Rated | 13873

The one where Louis met Harry in NYC where they bonded as fellow Brits in the large city. Years later, with Louis’ upcoming heat, maybe it’s time for their friendship to become something more.

9) If You Want More, Then Here I Am | Not Rated | 14558 words

The one where Harry and Louis are soulmates, but they can’t quite seem to get on the same page.

10) Just Let Me | Mature | 14714 words

The party was going well. So well, Niall had already sworn undying love to one multi-tiered chocolate cake, two friendly corgi-poodle mixes, Zayn’s hair, and the entire population of Los Angeles. So well, Zayn had only laughed and ruffled Niall’s hair and not even twitched towards a cigarette. So well, nearly everyone had spilled far past the boundaries of the night’s original plans, extracting bottles of vodka from the cabinets and losing a lot of clothes. Harry had proclaimed that he was finally going to throw a small and very grownup dinner party and of course here they were three hours later, fifty people half-naked in the pool. Soon to be full-naked, if Louis had to guess. Everybody in LA loved a heated pool. Everybody loved Harry.

11) Baby Honey | Explicit | 14744 words

When the next great war strikes, all alphas have to ship out. Alex leaves a little more behind than some of the others.

12) Never Understood What Love Was Really Like (But I Felt It For The First Time Looking In Your Eyes) | Not Rated | 18431 words

The one where Louis meets Harry at 14 and things don’t quite go as planned.

13) I Didn’t Fall For You (You Fucking Tripped Me) | Explicit | 20681 words

These days Louis tends to steer clear of dating alphas. He’s dated too many knotheads in his time, and he’s ready to just focus on school and his friends and his pet monitor lizard, of course.

Too bad the alpha next door won’t take a hint and stop using the worst pick up lines of all time on him. He’s really got to stop laughing with him–and talking to him and walking to class with him and letting him bring him coffee and tea and gifts for his lizard and watching Netflix together and…

14) Out Of The Wild | Explicit | 21502 words

Louis has spent most of his life as a wolf in the wild, Harry has spent most of his life as a human in the city. Their worlds collide during the audition process for the hottest new singing competition. What happens next should have expected.

15) Mark My Word (We Gon’ Be Alright) | Explicit | 35524 words

An A/B/O AU featuring an oblivious Harry as the pack leader, a pining Louis as his second-in-command, and an entourage of friends and family who are a little too good at keeping their mouths shut.

16) Worth Dying For | Explicit | 44906 words

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Louis says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. In the center of the table, a set of three glossy photos stares up at him, mocking him.

“A security detail is non-negotiable, Louis, you know this,” his mum reminds him, tapping the middle photo with two fingers.

Louis doesn’t look back down at the pictures, gesturing towards them wildly, over-dramatically. “This is not a security detail!” he protests. “This is a lanky college student. In what world do you hire someone like this kid to protect me?”

17) I Found A Love For Me (Darling Just Dive Right In) | Explicit | 46652 words | Sequel

Louis, an omega with very little control. Harry, an alpha with a lot of emotion. Neither of them have any idea what do to with this little thing called love, but they’ll be damned if they don’t put up a good fight.

18) I Want You So Much (But I Hate Your Guts) | Mature | 83648 words

AU in which Louis gets accepted to play for the Manchester University Alpha-Beta Football Team. The only problem: Louis is actually an Omega. He is determined to make it big in the football world, though, and he can’t do that bound to an Omega team. With the help of a faked doctor’s certificate and some pretty strong suppressants he is ready to fight for his dream.

That Harry Styles (Alpha, second year and youngest football captain of the A-B team in ages) doesn’t seem to like him complicates matters, though.

19) Where You Lay | Explicit | 86035 words

Note: There’s a small implied BH mention.

When Louis's upcoming heat threatens his success at his new dream job, he asks the best (and only) person he can think of to help him through it: his best mates' best mate, Harry Styles.  Harry reluctantly accepts, and together the two navigate a strange friends with benefits relationship that quickly turns complicated.

20) A Taste Of Desire | Explicit | 104414 words

A Victorian ABO where Harry is the owner of the most successful cotton mill in Manchester, and Louis is an opinionated social activist about to disrupt Harry’s world.

21) Falling Into You | Mature | 143109 words

In the grand scheme of adolescence and boyhood, Harry was still working himself out, so far with little luck. But four things he could say for certain: 1) he’d been at the top of his class all through primary and secondary school, 2) he was the shittiest alpha to ever walk the earth, 3) Liam Payne never let him forget it, and 4) he’d been in love with this boy, Louis Tomlinson, ever since he was fifteen years old.

22) Cold Little Heart | Teen & Up | 194740 words

Louis is a soft omega with an abusive past and an alpha child. A few months after getting a divorce, Louis meets Harry, an ex-military alpha wolf that offers him something odd.

In exchange for teaching him how to cook, Harry will babysit his son, Abraham. Louis really could use the help.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

[theworldisourcliche]

Chapter Fourteen ✘ William

William woke again to a bright white room, the sun’s rays filtering in past drawn curtains and the distant scent of sweat and sex clinging to the sheets surrounding him. His eyes were heavy, like he had been drugged the night before, and as he sluggishly pulled himself from the dream he’d been having, he realized that reality was just as much of a wonderland.

This time, as he rolled to his side and opened his eyes, he found he was not in bed alone.

(It sent a series of butterflies plummeting to the pit of his abdomen and he couldn’t help as a smile tore its way over his lips.)

(He realized, possibly for the first time, if that was possible, that he lived for waking up next to her.)

This time, Noora’s naked back was perfectly silhouetted against the mattress beside him. The sheets pooled around her waist, and she had an arm gently slung over her face atop the pillow, shielding herself from him and the world. By the even rise and fall of her back, William could tell she was still fast asleep.

He stayed still in that moment and watched her like he wished he had ever since he’d been ripped of the opportunity. Those first weeks in London without her had been the hardest. He’d reach out at night to pull her into him only to find that he was alone. Not much in the world gives you a sense of loneliness quite like being abandoned by the one person you’d finally allowed yourself to trust.

So, as William watched her sleep, he made a point to look at her as if this might be the last time. He wasn’t certain it wasn’t the last time. The fact that she was still there was promising, but it didn’t guarantee anything. After all, this was her apartment. In a sense, she was a prisoner in her own home…granted that was only if she wanted to be rid of him. He hoped that wasn’t the case.

He noticed again the way she’d let her hair grow out; it still splayed out behind her head the way it had before when it was shorter, but now it almost touched his pillow. If he scooted closer, it might just barely trace the tip of his nose. Ever so gently, he reached out and traced the line of her spine, his hand disappearing for the briefest of moments beneath the sheets as he reveled in the dimple at the small of her back. Goose bumps smattered across her skin and she shifted so as to gain warmth from somewhere, though William knew she could come up short unless she pulled the sheets back up over her shoulders. When she stilled, he let his fingers hover over each freckle that occupied the canvas of her back and shoulders.

They were perfectly spread out, creating a constellation of beauty on an already perfect being. He’d never tell her this, because it wasn’t anything anyone else needed to know, but he never spent this kind of time appreciating other women. No one drew him into a state of awe like she did.

Noora stirred again and rolled over onto her back, forcing William to retreat just a fraction of an inch. He was graced with a plentiful view of her chest and collarbone. Languidly, like she had all the time in the world, she let her eyes pull upward and her lips followed suit, casting a sheepish, hesitant smile his way.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice still thick with sleep.

She reached out and traced her index finger over his lips, then touched the tip of his nose the same way she used to when they were younger. In many ways, Noora looked the same to him, though he couldn’t deny that she’d aged some in the time that had passed. She’d always acted older than she was, but now she had a body to match the part. William dared say it suited her. He wondered if he looked older to her as well—if she ran her fingers over his features out of the need to reaffirm her memory, or a need to make them anew.  

William sunk into the bed and inched his way down a little so that he was at eye level with her midsection. Keeping eye contact with her in case he went too far, he dipped his head to the spot just above her hip and mumbled “good morning,” into her skin, sending a minutia of vibrations up through her abdomen. Her eyes softened and she pushed her hand through his hair, sweeping his bangs out of his face and trying in vain to tuck it behind his ear. The small act gave him the confidence he needed and without hesitation, he disappeared beneath the sheets to give her a proper kiss good morning.

An hour or so later, they were both propped up against the wall, her pillows wedged behind their backs to provide a little support. Noora was in nothing but William’s shirt, William was in nothing but his briefs, and both of them held a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

Noora nestled herself securely against William’s side and took a hold of his only free hand, placing it gently on her thigh, palm up, and began to run her fingers over the creases that weaved their way like a map across his skin.

“What are we doing?” she whispered. The words effectively shattered the rose-colored glass that had secured their blissful night—they’d been lucky that it hadn’t been shattered first thing that morning. Even though he hated to think about ‘what they were doing’ he knew it was something they needed to discuss. Or at least acknowledge.

“Whatever you want,” he said. He knew he was putting a lot of pressure on her, but he needed to know where she stood with the situation before he made everything blurry with his own wants.

Noora tilted her head to look up at him out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t know what I want,” she said, hesitant. “I didn’t expect to be in this situation.” She played with his hand for a few seconds more, then cleared her throat. “I know I don’t want you to leave.” She leaned into him even further, if that was possible, and he moved the hand she’d been holding so that it was wrapped around her shoulders instead.

“I won’t leave until you tell me to,” he said into the crown of her hair.

“Good, because I might need your help if I get fired.”

A chuckle rumbled its way out of his chest. “You’re not going to get fired,” he said.

“What makes you so sure?” Noora said, exasperated. She removed herself from his grasp and thrust a hand up to her forehead. William took a moment to revel in the way she looked wearing nothing but his collared shirt—this was his favorite version of her. Hair mussed from a night of sleep and sex, lips slightly swollen, a few hickies staining her skin and his shirt, buttoned half way up, leaving just enough to his memory. She looked radiant in the early morning light. The cup that sat perfectly balanced between both her hands pulled the picture together. Under his intense stare, she faltered. Her brows pulled together before one shot upwards, giving him a quizzical look.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” William said quietly. “You’re so beautiful. You’re not going to lose your job.”

“Beauty has nothing to do with it, Willhelm.” She sat forward slightly and let her hand trail down her leg, leaning in his direction. The look on her face said she was teasing, but there was something in her eyes that let him know she truly thought that was his implication.

“That has nothing to do with it, you’re right,” he said. He didn’t mean it that way, of course, but she was right. That was how it had come across. Noora narrowed her eyes and cocked her head. “But you don’t need to worry about her,” he went on. “She’s not going to jeopardize her career and slandering you means slandering herself…trust me, she’s way too concerned about her image to run the risk of letting anything negative come out in the media.”

Noora slumped back against the wall. “I shouldn’t have gotten personally involved in business anyway. It’s my fault if something does come of it.” She stood from the bed and put her coffee mug on the dresser across the room, putting more force behind the gesture than was necessary.

“Are you pissed?” he asked.

“I’m not pissed,” she said. She turned to face him, and her face was covered in red blotches, her eyes full of tears about to be shed. Instantly, William knew he’d said something wrong.

“What is it?” He stood to join her and placed his own mug next to hers before pulling her into him. He was getting frustrated and he tried to keep his emotions in check. “Don’t let her make you feel badly.” His tone held a little bitterness and in an effort to let her know it was not directed toward her, he added, “I’m not going to let anything happen.”

They might have stood like that for an hour, just leaning into one another, using each of their bodies to hold the other up, but a knock from the front door interrupted them and sent Noora spiraling backwards out of William’s arms.

William wanted to ask if she was expecting someone, but it wasn’t his place. They’d only just fallen in bed together again after years and years of being apart. He had no right asking her who she did or did not invite into her own home. Noora didn’t offer any explanation but the look on her face indicated that she was only slightly less confused than he was. As she pushed past him and headed into the living room, he picked up their mugs and followed behind her, admiring the way she was still only wearing his shirt.

He thought briefly that he should suggest she put pants on, but a selfish part of him liked the way this marked her as his. He was territorial like that. Especially when it came to her.

The small kitchen sat to the side of the main living area, so while Noora answered the door, William topped of their coffees, giving them a renewed warmth. The second she opened the door and he heard Eva’s voice, William thought he should have seen this coming. He inched his way closer to the hall but stayed far enough back that he could hear the conversation without being seen. A goofy grin made its way over his face as Noora hastily tried to quiet Eva.

“Oh my god, is he here?” Eva said. He heard the door swing wide and hit the wall. “Oh my god!”

When William turned the corner, Eva was holding Noora at arm’s length.

“Careful,” Noora chastised, pushing her friend’s arms away and reaching behind her to grab the door. At the exact moment she was about to slam it shut, Chris appeared on the other side of the threshold. His eyes widened and a he bared his teeth, emitting a fake primal growl.

“Someone’s been naughty.” He pushed his way in and looked Noora up and down.

“Careful,” William said, repeating Noora’s words. Chris licked his lips in an attempt to not laugh and reached out to bring William into a hug.

“Nice of you to drop in,” Chris said.

“Nice of him to drop in?” Noora said, pulling bashfully at the ends of the shirt she was wearing. “Why are you here at…” she searched for a clock but couldn’t find one. “It’s too early for you to barge in here! Why are you here?”

“I sent you a text last night and you never replied. I was worried something had happened,” Eva said, covering her mouth. She pointed between William and Noora. “This was not what I expected.”  

“She wasn’t too worried,” Chris added, one arm still slung over William’s shoulders. “She didn’t want to come check on you until I told her I’d talked to our good friend, here.”

As soon as Chris had removed his arm from William’s back, William made his way over to Noora and gently suggested she go get dressed. She immediately put her hands to the hem of his shirt and excused herself, encouraging everyone to make a plan for breakfast while she was changing.

___

Twenty minutes later, Noora and Eva were seated at a window table in a small café down the road. William and Chris had just approached the counter and were currently waiting for their orders to be ready for pick-up. The girls sat in excited anticipation, both of them watching and waiting for the second the guys were out of earshot.

As soon as the coast was clear, Eva turned to Noora with her hands folded under her chin, the apples of her cheeks rosy with excitement, and her mouth poised and ready to ask questions. She might as well have had hearts for eyes the way she was looking at her best friend.

“Tell me everything,” she said, only sort of being quiet. “Are you guys getting back together? How did this happen?”

Her excitement was contagious and overwhelming at the same time. It wasn’t that Noora hadn’t been excited on her own before Eva and Chris arrived, but something about the four of them being together again made the reality of her situation sink in. It didn’t feel like they were in school again, per se…but she couldn’t deny that there was a small part of her trying to navigate the waters of past and present, siphon through the ways in which she’d grown in her absence from William in an effort to determine if she were better off with him or without…

Just thinking about being without him after the past two days sent a surge of sadness through her heart.

“So…are you guys getting back together?” Eva asked again.

Noora drew her eyes away from William at the counter and let them fall back to the friend seated in front of her. She pushed away the hopeful look that she knew she had plastered across her face.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. She looked over to the counter one more time to make sure they had time before the guys would return. “I think I want to take things slowly. Well, I mean I guess we sort of ruined that right out of the gate, but…he was engaged, for Pete’s sake.”

Eva brushed her off. “Yeah, but so what. She sounds like a troll.”

“She’s anything but a troll,” Noora said, her eyes finding their way back to William’s frame.

(That was something she had to acknowledge. Ever since they’d found their way back to one another, she’d had a hard time taking her eyes off him. He was the altogether the same and altogether different at the same time—and that scared her. There would be so much they’d need to relearn about one another.)

“You know,” she started, still watching William, “He’s not asked about last time…I keep sort of wondering if it’ll come up. Surely, he harbors some kind of resentment at the fact that I just packed up and left. I know I would.”

“Maybe he’s moved on,” Eva offered.

Noora’s face pulled in reaction to her suggestion. “I doubt it,” she said. “I’m certain we’ll have to talk about it eventually. He might be happy to never bring it up, but if we don’t clear the air, it’ll be a giant elephant in the room for the rest of our lives…I don’t want it to be something we hold over one another in an argument a year from now.”

“Noora,” Eva said, reaching out and pulling the blonde’s hand to her so that she’d pay attention to what she was about to say. Her tone softened, the teasing and bubbly excitement turning into a gentle consolation. “You can’t take your eyes off him. I know you’re nervous…which is smart. You should be. But, listen to yourself. You’re already thinking about a fight you may or may not have a year from now. That’s got to mean you’re at least slightly interested in having a future with him.”

“But I’m worried about us fighting! Shouldn’t I be with someone I don’t worry I’ll fight with every morning? We skirted a fight this morning. Maybe we have to face it and we’re just not meant to be together long term.”

“Do you really mean that though? Look at you two.” Eva tilted her head in the direction of the counter. “The second you turn your head, his eyes dart over here and I swear,” she leaned back and folded her arms close to her chest, the devilish smile returning to her face. “If he doesn’t drag you off to the bathroom before he lets you leave for work, I’ll give you 200 krone.”

Noora blushed which only encouraged Eva’s smile to widen.  

“Do you need me to tell you it’s okay if it doesn’t work out again? Because it’s okay if it doesn’t work out again. But if you ask me, I think you owe it to yourselves to give it a real shot. Besides. I’m getting tired of going out with Borkis and his girlfriend. He has this…it’s like a tick, but it’s not…he clears his throat and spits snot while we’re walking down the street and it’s just…I can’t anymore...”

Noora was vaguely aware of Eva talking, but her attention was focused on William as he stood beside Chris at the counter. She thought through what Eva had been saying, and in her heart, she knew she was right. They’d ended things abruptly and without real reason last time. They had also been very young and moving in together so soon had probably not been the best idea. But the problem wasn’t with her heart. Her heart wanted William. Her heart had always wanted him.

It was her head that was the problem. It was her rational side. The part that reminded her they’d spent a lot of time arguing, that reminded her of the way he’d been consumed by work and the need to prove himself. Her rational side was a nag. It kept her from taking chances…it convinced her to leave one of the only people she’d ever felt really saw her for who she was, and somehow, against all odds, they’d found their way back to one another.

As she watched him laughing with Chris, she felt herself growing open to the idea of giving it another shot. She didn’t know what she wanted, that was still true. But she knew she wanted to find out, and in order to do so, she’d need to give them a chance.

Just as she was coming to this conclusion within herself, a young and attractive brunette came to the counter with an assortment of plates and bowls on a tray. She flashed a bright smile to both Chris and William, but a moment later was leaning in a little closer than necessary to William. Noora’s heart lurched and fell into the pit of her stomach. Her blood thrummed through her veins and pooled in her ears, making everything around her go fuzzy. The woman tucked her hair behind her ear and said something that sent William into a brief spell of laughter.

Noora felt like she was a teenager again, watching him potentially flirt with someone who wasn’t her. Being conflicted between thinking he wasn’t good for her but not being able to deny the fact that she wanted him regardless.

God, did she want him.

Without looking to Eva, Noora pushed herself up off the chair and carried herself across the room, snaking her hands under William’s jacket and around his torso from behind. She leaned into him, pressing her body against his. Her hands wound their way up his chest and lightly skirted over the material of his shirt until he spun to face her.

Over his shoulder, Noora could see waitress retreating into the back of the café. She didn’t care where she was going or what she was doing so long as she wasn’t talking to William. Noora was normally very confident. Jealousy wasn’t really a trait she would have acknowledged having but…perhaps the fact that she had only just got him back was making her more territorial. Maybe she was willing to acknowledge the fact that she wanted him all to herself. Even if her head and her heart were still navigating the fine balance between being smart and being reckless.

“Hi,” William said, leaning in to capture her lips.

“Hi,” she whispered back. Distantly, she noticed Chris saying something that sounded vaguely like ‘get a room’ as he carried as much as he could back to the table.

William let his hands travel down to cup her ass and it sent a series of butterflies shooting through her abdomen. She leaned into him a little more until she was almost inside his jacket. He ran a finger over her brow then trailed down the side of her face until he was pinching her chin and pulled her into him for a real kiss. They were still standing at the counter, but Noora was completely lost in him, completely unaware of the fact that the whole of the café could see what they were doing.

As they pulled apart, Noora could tell William was studying her.

“What?” she asked, hesitant.

He paused for a moment, that hard-to-read stare focused on her. She memorized the way his brow was furrowed just slightly, memorized the way his eyes were soft even though his jaw was set. She tried to remember that there was a whole world inside his head that he never allowed the people around him to enter. She forced herself to give him the time to say what he needed to on his own terms.  

William raised his hand again and pushed her hair out of her face, unsuccessfully attempting to tuck it behind her ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t come after you before,” he said, his voice quiet.

Noora’s face turned red and she could feel the heat emanating from her. “No,” she said, too quickly. “I’m sorry I left like that. And then I did it again the other day.”

William shook his head and moved his other hand up from where it had been resting, letting it instead sit along her hip, toying with the hem of her shirt.

“It’s not your fault though,” he said, shaking his head. “I should have never put you in the position. Either time.”

Noora licked her lips and put her hands on either side of his face, pushing his hair back out of his eyes to no avail.

“I can’t believe you still have this haircut,” she said.

He rolled his eyes, but his face remained soft. It was a silent acknowledgement that they would each let bygones be bygones. It was an unspoken, I forgive you.

“Hey, you,” she said, drawing his attention back. When he was focused on her again and she was certain that he knew she wasn’t holding any resentment, she said with clarity, with certainty, and with a plea that implied need and want and desire, “Stay with me.”

“Okay,” William said.

He leaned down and captured her lips and distantly in the background, they heard and uproar of cheering and loud applause. It was decidedly small and almost certainly only coming from one table.

When they pulled apart, Noora buried her head in William’s chest and he extended his hand in the direction of their best friends, only one finger exposed. The cheering didn’t necessarily stop, but it did turn to laughter.

Laughter, old and new memories and much more were shared across the table as the four enjoyed their breakfast in the rays of Oslo’s early autumn-sun. It had been forever since the four of them had sat down and actually talked - if ever. Back in high school, Chris and Eva had always been in this weird ‘not dating but kinda exclusive’-stage, which meant that hanging out with them had never really been an evident option to either of them. Yet now that they were here, feeling like they all knew each other inside out, they somewhat regretted that fact. Noora, who’d always seen Chris as nothing but a fuckboy, began to see what Eva found attractive in the guy. He was actually pretty smart and from what William had told her, he had a good heart as well. She could only smile to herself and shake her head as she thought of how big of a misunderstanding her three years in high school were…

Whilst other hand was gently allowing her to take a sip of her coffee, Noora used her free, ring-clad index finger to press the button of her phone. It’d become a habit - good or bad was debatable - to constantly check on time. Her eyes widened - startled by the time - immediately putting down the coffee cup and pushing her chair back. This immediately caught the other’s attention - especially William.

“I’m so sorry, but I have to leave now! I’ll talk to you later,” and with a last sip of coffee, the rushed movement almost causing it to spill all over herself, the journalist grabbed her bag and rushed out onto the street. The three abandoned friends could only look at each other - or mostly just Eva and Chris looking at William - with profound confusion. It almost felt like William’s feet were burning a hole in the floor beneath the table, as he could almost physically feel Noora get further and further away from him with every step she took. The burning sensation in his feet quickly spread to the rest of his body, like an out of control wildfire, making him feel uncomfortable and cramped in his seat. It didn’t take long for Chris to notice.

“You know you don’t have to stay here, right?” Chris’ confusion had quickly faded and had transitioned into a cocked brow, quickly understanding the strained look on William’s face - even though he’d probably never understand the weird things his best friend experienced because of that woman. Few seconds later, William took his friend’s advice and pushed out his chair to leave the café. As soon as he made it outside, after shuddering at the chilly weather and pulling his coat on tighter, he spotted the blonde hair flying in the wind just down the street.

It felt silly. It wasn’t like she was leaving, running away from him, but his entire body was high on some kind of adrenaline rush. Almost like a hunter that was about to put down his pray. He could fight it all he wanted, but his body was yearning for her and he simply couldn’t stay on the spot. There was nothing he wanted more than grab her, drag her back home and hide with her behind the curtains and beneath the covers. She had become a necessity. Not just to his happiness, but entire living and being.

“Noora!” He hadn’t even realised he’d called out her name, before she spun around with lips parted in surprise and hair flying around her head-  almost in slow-mo like in a movie.

His legs finally got moving to meet her by the end of the street, where she was waiting on the corner as cars rushed by and made their way to work and school. As he got closer and closer, he could tell that she had a worried look in her eyes and that’s when it hit him that he actually had nothing specific to say. All he could was blame his emotions for bringing him here.

“What’s wrong?” She pushed her wind-caught hair behind her ear, exposing her almost distressed-looking eyes. No wonder when he came running after her like that.

By then he’d finally caught up with her and realised he had to do something, just something, or else she’d worry too much. Worry that he felt regret, that he’d draw back his emotions or even leave her like she’d left him. So he did the only thing he could think of. Right then and there on the spot. In order to close the little remaining gap between them, he instinctively lurched into her to crash their lips together - almost knocking her over - only to save her by grabbing her waist and spinning her around. Acting upon instinct as well, the blonde quickly caught up with his actions and grabbed his face with her already cold hands - he’d never in a million years mind though. People and cars rushed by, not paying attention to the now euphoric star-crossed lovers, whilst they themselves were in their own little world. While it was passionate, the kiss was sweet and held a lot of emotion, beautifully balancing out last night’s passionate acts. They didn’t have to look at the other two know that they were both smiling, even as the lips detached and their noses were left as the only connection between their faces.

“What was that for?” She chuckled, weakly and just barely enough for him to hear, before sliding a hand down to her neck to delicately caress his neck.

He took a moment to catch his breath, looking down before up again to connect with her eyes. “You left and I realised that I was homeless.”

Noora retreated her head and broke the facial contact, but slid the other hand down onto his neck, keeping a loving hold of him as she studied his facial features. Just one more time, she told herself. “Every time I tell myself that William Magnusson couldn’t be an any bigger cliche, you prove me otherwise…” She giggled and paused. “You…” then let one hand wander away from his neck to push his bangs out of his face. “I’m just going to work. You’ll see me again in a couple of hours.” Noora quickly noticed how an amused smile appeared, telling her that he was having a good laugh on the inside.

“While I do love your very metaphoric train of thought…” he slowly leaned in and pecked the tip of her nose, haltering for just a second before continuing. “I meant literally homeless. I have no place to go, and God be damned if I have to stay with those two fuck-bunnies back there. Then I’d rather stand in the cold and wait outside your office for hours - like a sad puppy.”

“Well,” she had to laugh at that before continuing. “No need to be a sad puppy,” he could feel her fiddling with something in the pocket of her coat, causing his eyes to switch from hers to the mystery object hiding in the soft fabric. “Mi casa es tu casa.” Out of the pocket, held between her index finger and thumb, hung a keychain with a couple of keys in it.

He grabbed the hand, closing his around hers before gently placing them both down by their sides. “Damn… I forgot that you speak Spanish. Either you’ll have to teach me or you’ll have to translate what you just said.” He leaned in closer, once again pressing his nose to hers.

“I can be your teacher…” Her green eyes passionately drilled into his, and William definitely noticed the sensual movement of her hand sliding onto his chest, gently working in circles across the sweater and into the surface that kept his heart safe. Not that it was only his heart that was feeling aroused right then… He somewhat wanted to blame her for making him feel like this in public, but on the other hand he’d been the one to start. Karma.

“But not right here. For now, I’ll just tell you that it means that you need to go home, get into bed and wait for me.” Still surprising herself every time she said something like that, Noora had to add a chuckle as to break the already boiling tension and give the young man in front of her a decent chance. And to William that was the most beautiful smile. He found it stupidly adorable every time she’d explicitly flirt with him, and every time flashed a smile at him, toothy or not; loud or quiet, it was the most beautiful smile. Sophia’s had never made him feel that way, and while t it did also make him feel somewhat guilty, he also knew that it only proved his love for the Norwegian girl to be the right one. The only authentic one. Another kiss was planted to her lips, grabbing her waist and drawing her in again once more, though not for as long as before. After sending her yet another loving smile, he looked down and reached out to gently grab the key from her hand. She let him. His eyes wandered back to hers and they were still smiling. Bust being so infatuated, he didn’t even get to bite his tongue as three very important words almost slipped out of his mouth.

“Noora… I lo-“ He quickly caught the words falling out of his mouth and bit his tongue. Thousands of red flags and alarms appeared in his mind. This was too soon. He’d just been engaged to another woman. Hell, he’d dated her for multiple years while the two had had no contact whatsoever. He had to be careful. Luckily, he managed to correct and save himself.

“… I’ll see you at home.”

She wasn’t neither deaf or stupid. It was Noora’s turn to have an amused smiled plastered across her face. There was no more doubt in her mind about what she wanted, and whilst she couldn’t blame him for feeling insecure, she knew that they’d have to work past it at some point.  “Yeah, I’ll see you at home.”

She received an innocent nod and weak smile from his part, before he spun around and started walking back to the cafe. Hiding them from the cold, he quickly buried his hands in the warmth of his pockets. He could at least stick around at the cafe with Eva and Chris for a bit. It’d keep him from being left alone to think for too long.

“William?”

Even through the strong wind, he clearly heard her and halted. As soon as he’d turned around to see what was going on, her eyes had already caught his. They were very sincere, almost so intense that it intimidated him but also very blissful at the same time. Without leaving her gaze, he could see that she was thoughtfully biting into her bottom lip. He loved when she did that. What hit him next would only send him into new dimensions of surprise and emotion.

“I love you too.”

[uptightcitizensbrigade]

Annie Clark is not where she’s supposed to be. At the last minute, the artist known as St. Vincent decided that instead of trekking to a country store as planned, she wanted to stick closer to her studio in the hills of Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon. When I arrive at our new meeting spot, breathless from a steep climb, the first thing I notice is that neither of us is dressed appropriately for a rendezvous in the domesticated wilderness. Of course, in Clark’s case, this means looking pretty damn cool, in a sky-blue duster, gray sweatshirt, and leopard-print shorts, her trademark curly dark hair (which took a silvery lavender turn last album cycle) pin-straight and tucked under a Duran Duran cap. We make our way to a picnic table in the middle of a hiking trail that apparently enjoys more use as a bird lavatory. “Is this OK?” she asks, straddling the bench and setting down her mug of Yogi tea. It is. Anything to stop moving vertically.

“Up,” however, is a fitting direction for the 34-year-old Clark. Over the past decade, she has evolved from a clever multi-instrumentalist to critical darling to indie icon—her last record, 2014’s St. Vincent, took home the Grammy for Best Alternative Album. She’s a road warrior (with the bed bug stories to prove it), having toured for much of her life, beginning as a teenager when she was the tour manager for her uncle’s jazz duo, Tuck & Patti. And her latest album, MASSEDUCTION, is most definitely a career summit. It’s her Lemonade, her OK Computer—whatever reference conveys the urgency with which it demands to be listened to when it drops on October 13. “This one’s better,” she says of her fifth solo effort, nodding. “I was focused on writing the best songs I’d ever written.”

That goal comes at a cost, or so Clark’s body language seems to say on this late-August evening. She stifles a yawn, and cradles her tea. For the last couple of months, she’s been celibate and sober. Some of the monasticism she favors during recording stuck: An illness last March prompted her to quit alcohol altogether. “I loved my white wine,” she says. “But I just can’t stand the smell anymore.”

She is also insanely busy, still recuperating from yesterday’s flight home from Australia for press, not to mention the whirlwind trip to Tokyo that preceded it, where she performed at Summer Sonic (and shot this cover). And while it’s been three and a half years since she released an album, Clark’s been working on it all the while. “I’ve just been collecting things, bowerbird-style, and making elaborate plumage,” she says. Meanwhile, she’s been flexing her creative muscles: A week ago, Lionsgate announced that the Dallas native would be helming its female-led adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. (Clark made her directorial debut earlier this year with a short called “The Birthday Party” for the female-driven horror anthology XX.)

She’s also spent a good part of the last year getting over her breakup from 25-year-old British supermodel and actress Cara Delevingne. The pair dated for 18 months, thrusting Clark into a tabloid existence she’d never known before. You won’t find her in any formal pictures from (the old) Taylor Swift’s last Fourth of July bonanza in 2016, but she and her soon-to-be ex were captured by paparazzi in a private embrace. “It was really bizarre,” she says. “No joke, I’ve been in high-speed chases in London with at least five cars and six motorcycles following me and Cara. You’re going to kill someone, and for what? A photo of a sweet girl?”

The last thing she wants to talk about is how much of this album was informed by that relationship. She’s baffled by such inquiries—she only just recently admitted that 2011’s Strange Mercy was partly about her father being sent to prison for investment fraud. “I never think, ‘If I only knew who Kate Bush was singing about in “Running Up That Hill,” I could enjoy the song,’” she says, shooing a mosquito off my shirt. “I do not wonder who or what songs are about. And the Texan in me is like, ‘It’s none of your goddamned business.’” I ask whether she cleared the disclosure of her dad’s incarceration with him beforehand. “Is it OK with me that he’s in prison?” she responds dryly, but quickly adds, “I’ve only ever spoken highly of my father.”

Clark is a vivid storyteller whose knack for relating tales of dirty policemen or down-on-their-luck friends would make her the most popular guest at a dinner party. On MASSEDUCTION’s first single, “New York,” which debuted last June, she sings along to a plangent piano about “the only motherfucker in the city who can handle me.” While the song’s grief over lost heroes could easily apply to David Bowie or Prince, as Clark has suggested, it’s the identity of the “motherfucker” that piqued curiosity. “I totally understand it, I do,” she says, and frowns thoughtfully. “But the point is for the song to mean whatever it means to somebody else. Some people have a real hang-up about being misunderstood. I don’t care.” She stops to clarify this point: “I would be concerned if someone was like, ‘Wow, she seems like a Holocaust denier.’ But racism, sexism, or homophobia aside? I’m happy to be misunderstood.”

In the past, Clark’s music was more often respected than adored, like Love This Giant, her 2012 album with Talking Heads savant David Byrne. She is a masterful guitarist, a performance artist unafraid of experimentation. Artificial sounds, brass sections, unhurried choruses? All play a part in her eclectic repertoire, and she rarely stays monogamous to any one genre or rhythm.

“A lot of people are skilled at bending notes, but I think she actually bends the parameters of what guitar is,” says longtime friend Carrie Brownstein, whose prowess on the same instrument helped usher Sleater-Kinney to stardom. “She doesn’t approach it in a traditionally worshipful way. While she’s playing guitar, she seems to be destroying the very concept of it, which I think is very exciting.”

The opening track of her last album famously depicted Clark running naked from a rattlesnake. MASSEDUCTION (pronounced “mass seduction” on the title track) somehow finds her even more exposed. Clark says “New York” was the first time she ever wrote something and thought, “This could be somebody’s favorite song.” The same could be said of many tracks on the album, which, taken as a whole, sounds like Clark violating her own sense of privacy in order to grant access to her vulnerability. “I’m not eschewing any of the work I’ve done in the past,” says Clark. “But I was less concerned [here] about doing a lot of musical tricks that to me are intellectually interesting. The point of the record was to go, like, mainline to the heart.”

For this, Clark enlisted co-producer Jack Antonoff. Through his work with Lorde and Taylor Swift, as well as his own band Bleachers, Antonoff has developed a reputation for channeling ideas and emotions into their most approximate, frequently synth-driven expressions. “Jack changed my life for the better,” says Clark. “He makes you feel like anything is possible. We were merciless, trying to push all these songs past the finish line to accept the gold medal.”

None of which is to suggest that Clark has sacrificed any virtuosity or ambition. Several of the best songs break off into their own compelling codas. “How could anybody have you and lose you and not lose their mind, too?” moans Clark on “Los Ageless,” backed by an aggressive beat that would not be out of place at an adults-only club, before dissolving, like a film melt, into a series of bleary synths and barely audible whispers.

The theme of Clark’s last record was “near-future cult leader.” Here, having traded in those wild lavender-platinum curls for an austere black bob, “It’s dominatrix at the mental institution,” she says. “I knew I needed to write about power—the fiction of power and the power of fiction.” The concept is at its most powerful on the more adrenalized songs, like “Pills,” whose opening lines function like a Valley of the Dolls reboot: “Pills to wake/ Pills to sleep/ Pills, pills, pills every day of the week.” The words are delivered by Delevingne in a demented, cheerfully vacant chant.

“You mean Kid Monkey, obscure DJ,” says Clark, gamely referencing her ex’s pseudonym. “It needed to be a posh British voice. I was like, ‘Cara, wake up. I need you to sing on this song.’ And she’s kind of grumpy. And I’m like, ‘Please. It sounds so good. One more time.’” That song, too, starts with a blinking alertness but finishes drowsily, like Pink Floyd at the planetarium. Clark says the inspiration came to her after popping a sleeping pill on tour, and speaks to larger issues of opioid addiction that have affected people she cares about.

But the song that’s most likely to be picked over lyrically, for obvious reasons, is “Young Lover.” It’s set in Paris, where gossip rags once reported that Delevingne, proposed to Clark. The relationship described in the song suffers as a result of the titular subject’s hard-partying ways. “Did I have experiences that emotionally resonated in the way they do for that character? Abso-fucking-lutely,” says Clark, who’s also been linked briefly to Kristen Stewart. “But did that exact scenario happen? No!” She makes a dismissive face.

Clark didn’t grow up feasting on the sordid details of celebrity coupledom, though she admits to a fascination with Kate Moss, Shalom Harlow, and the early-’90s supermodel set. (The musician has recently done some modeling herself as one of the new faces of Tiffany & Co.) Her parents divorced young, and Clark lived with her social worker mother and two older sisters. “I was free to be a wild card, because the other roles were spoken for,” she says. A breeze kicks up and she rubs her legs as they prickle with goosebumps.

A tiny part of her early musical education includes a crate of CDs that fell off a truck in front of their house. “It was good taste for someone in the suburbs of Dallas,” she says, citing Nine Inch Nails and Pet Shop Boys. Clark started playing guitar at 12, and was encouraged by her maternal uncle, who hired her as a tour manager for his jazz duo when she was a teenager.

Eventually, her family swelled to include eight siblings, with whom she is close. A younger brother now works as her assistant. “We grew up hearing my dad talk business on the phone, and it was ‘motherfucker’ this and ‘fucking cocksucker’ that,” she says, laughing. In part, this informed her curse word of choice on “New York.” “If people don’t curse at all, I always think they’re hiding something,” she says.

The next day, Clark is filming a video for MASSEDUCTION’s as-yet-unannounced second single at a soundstage in Hollywood. She spends more time on the West Coast now that she has built a studio here, but still keeps properties in New York and Texas. She hesitates to use the word bicoastal, which feels “kind of douchey,” she says.

The video set changes from a Pepto-Bismol pink beauty salon, where the pedicure tubs are filled with green slime, to a yoga studio. Clark is dressed in a cheetah-print leotard with an open-face hood. She’s been bending over for 15 minutes straight in order for director Willo Perron to get a dolly shot of her face hanging between her legs. I marvel at her stamina. “Are you really asking me how I’m good at bending over?” she says, wryly. She rests between takes, curling up on the yoga mat like a cat in a sunbeam.

Clark wasn’t involved with the concept for the video. Back in Laurel Canyon, she admitted to being preoccupied with Dorian Gray, working with Elle screenwriter David Birke and rereading the book for the first time since high school. “I jumped at the chance to explore themes of transgression, narcissism, youth, beauty, queerness, but through a female protagonist,” says Clark, who’s currently considering a cast for the project. She’s new to this milieu, but credits Tuck & Patti with teaching her the rigors of knowing her shit. “They really were the coach in Rocky,” she says of her uncle’s duo. “I learned how to be professional. It’s not as if I need to be a camera expert in order to direct something, but you have to have the respect of the crew. This is not a vanity project. This is something I want to do for the rest of my life.”

Melanie Lynskey, who starred in Clark’s XX short, was pleasantly surprised by the musician’s command of the set. “It was like working with someone who had been doing it a very long time,” she says. “She’s so smart and she had such a clear idea of what she wanted, but gave me all the room in the world to come up with ideas and collaborate.”

In the meantime, Clark is also preparing for this fall’s Fear the Future Tour. As we slowly make our way down the hill, clutching at branches to steady ourselves, she says there won’t be as much postmodern dancing this time around. “The record is full of sorrow, but the visual aspect of it is really absurd,” she says. “I take the piss out of myself. The last tour I sat atop a pink throne, looking very imperious.” She kindly helps me down the last step. “This one will let people see that I have a sense of humor.”

[imaginebeatles]

Art and Obligation | Chapter 20

Pairing: John/Paul

Rating: Nc-17 (PG-13, for this chapter)

Set in: 1820s (au)

Summary:  John Lennon works as the apprentice of a well-known portraitist and is tasked to do the picture of the young Mr. Paul McCartney. He is the son of Jim McCartney, a wealthy and powerful landowner, and has the reputation of an arrogant, spoilt brat with a pretty face, who has a way of wrapping anyone around his finger. But soon John finds that things are not as straightforward as they may seem.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Beatles and this is fictional. I do not make money off this.

Author’s note: Here it is! I hope you’ll like it! At least it’s a relatively long one. 

For John it felt strange to be back in Liverpool, to be back to doing his regular job with the same old people, and live in the same old house again. So much had changed during those two weeks of travelling with Paul, none of which he had shared with anyone yet, knowing it would be too dangerous, especially for Paul. And even if it wasn’t, he knew no one would react positively to the news of their newly established relationship. Yet, he fell back into the rhythm of the day with ease, and managed to keep ahead of his work, despite the many times his mind drifted off to more pleasant things, such as the image of a brown-haired young man with pretty doe eyes that were glazed over with lust as he lay under him in his Parisian bed, his head resting on a fluffy white pillow, while his pink lips trembled with need as he whispered his name in a voice that made the hairs on John’s arms stand up, even if he could not actually hear him. Occasionally, he would pause in his work to scold himself, needing to focus on what he was working on, only to take up the fantasy later in the privacy of his own room.

Mr. Edwards had been proud when he had shared the news about Mr. Arpin and his willingness to take him on as an artist and see what he could do for him. He had patted him warmly on the back as he had congratulated him, telling him how he had always known John’s talent would get him somewhere, and how John could always come to him if he needed anything. Stuart had felt happy for him as well, though there had been some tension between them when he had told him so. John could understand why; he knew how much Stuart wanted recognition for his work, and if there was anyone who deserved that, it was him. But being the good friend and kind soul he was, Stuart hadn’t said anything of it and had merely smiled before he had turned around to pour them something to drink in celebration of the good news.

Although everyone around him appeared more than impressed by the news, however, having also received delighted felicitations from other people, such as Cynthia, but also his aunt Mimi, who had barely ever shown any interest in his choice of career, John did not share their enthusiasm. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the opportunity. He was well aware of how lucky he was, and was incredibly happy that his career was developing into the direction he had always hoped it would, but his mind kept drifting to other matters that kept him occupied.

He had not heard from Paul at all since they had arrived in Liverpool and Paul had brought him home. He had helped John carry his luggage out of the coach, and wished him goodnight with one last gentle kiss in the shadow of the carriage, where no one would be able to see them, before he had climbed back inside and had driven off to his own home, leaving John standing on the pavement with a goofy grin on his face that he would not normally admit to if someone were to accuse him of it. They hadn’t spoken since, and neither had Paul shown up to work on his portrait that Wednesday afternoon, which left John disappointed, but mostly worried, wondering what his father could possibly have wanted to discuss with him that would warrant Paul to come home a day early. He could only imagine it had something to do with his future marriage, but Paul had said himself he still had two months to find himself a wife before his father would do it for him – months Paul had intended to spend quite differently from what his father wanted. Apart from that, he had no idea what else it could be, seeing as he barely knew anything about the family that was not already known to the larger public, leaving him with too few and yet too many options at the same time. In truth, all he knew was that it had to have been something serious, as Paul had gone rather pale when he had read the letter, but apart from that, he was clueless.

He had attempted to find out more by asking innocuous-sounding questions to various people, of whom Stuart, Cynthia, Mr. Edwards, Aunt Mimi, the postman, a police officer, and even Dot, were just a few, but that had proven to be a fruitless endeavour. He had asked Richard as well, who, as he had learned from Stuart, had needed to sail out again a lot sooner than anyone had expected, and whom he had sent a long letter explaining what had happened in Paris, while leaving out every little thing that could point to his and Paul’s growing relationship with meticulous precision, before asking if he knew anything that could be the cause of their early departure. Of course, the fact that Richard was at sea made it so his letter would not reach him for a while, but he figured it was worth a try. The man had an ear for gossip, something he had failed to appreciate before.

For now, though, he had come to accept that if he was to learn anything about the McCartneys that he could trust to be more than just highly imaginative hearsay, it had to be through Paul himself, who appeared to be too busy to speak with him. He preferred that explanation to the other possibility that would often plague his mind in the early morning hours when the world was fast asleep and his deepest thoughts and worries would come out, that possibility being that Paul was avoiding him, or maybe didn’t care for him at all. “Just sex.” The two words would swim through his head as he lay wide awake in his bed, haunting him, making him twist uneasily under the covers in an attempt to block them out and get more comfortable, only to fail.

One evening when he couldn’t sleep and he had spent about an hour and a half worrying about Paul and his failure to show up for their usual appointment, he got up from his bed, pulled on a robe to keep himself warm, and walked over to the small desk at the opposite side of the room, where he searched for the small package of matches and struck one to light a candle, letting the warm glow of the flame light up the desk, before he sat down. Letting out a deep yawn, he pushed some papers away to clear some space, and pulled open one of the drawers to get himself some paper to write on, only to find it full of unfinished drawings of Paul, some good, some bad, most of them beautiful, which John had to admit was not because of his own skill, but the beauty of the man himself. The recent ones he had made in Paris were in there as well. John smirked to himself as his eyes fell on the one drawing he had done of Paul naked, memories flooding back that caused his crotch to give a slight tingle. He ignored it, and pushed the papers aside in search for an empty sheet, which he found somewhere between the countless drawings. He laid it out on the desk, rearranged the drawings into stacks, and closed the drawer, before grabbing himself something to write with. He didn’t think of what he wanted to say or how to say it, and simply started writing, putting the words down as they came to him, not thinking about them, but letting them flow.

 Paul,

I hope you are doing alright. I haven’t heard from you in a while, and considering how things were when we last saw each other, I’m worried about you. I hope you’re okay and that the issue with your father, whatever that was, is resolved. I miss seeing you. I wish you were here. Please tell me you are okay. I need you.

With love,

John

 He felt silly for writing it, for putting his feelings down on a page like this, making them appear all the more real, without even knowing whether Paul felt anything similar to the way he felt, never mind the fact that Paul most likely wouldn’t think it was his place to know about the issues between him and his father. And why would it be? Paul had had, for as far as John could tell, numerous affairs in the past, so why would this one be any different? If it truly was, as Paul put it, “just sex, no harm done”, he had no reason at all to be sharing personal issues like that with him. Olivier had been one of Paul’s short-lived affairs, and he had said so himself that “Paul doesn’t do that sort of thing”,  so why would that change now? He wasn’t anybody special. He wasn’t incredibly handsome, especially in comparison with the types of men Paul usually took to his bed. He wasn’t rich. He wasn’t upper class. He wasn’t intelligent or successful, or anything like that. He was a poor, failing, amateur artist with money problems who worked as an apprentice for a portraitist, and whose master had offered him a room out of pity because he could not afford anything by himself. There was nothing he could offer Paul. Nothing. He would be a fool to believe that he could be anything more to Paul than “just sex”. Sending a letter such as this… And besides, he knew couldn’t send it. It’d be dangerous for the both of them if this letter was to be read by anyone else but them.

He considered writing another letter, one less soaked in sappy romance, something more reserved, polite, platonic, but he decided against it. If Paul felt the need to discuss anything with him about what was happening, he would do so on his own accord; writing him a letter to urge him would not help. If anything, it would make him more reluctant to do so. Sighing, he folded up the letter, blew out the candle and stumbled his way back to bed, holding out his hands in front of him to make sure he did not bump into anything on the way, and knelt down to stuff the letter under his mattress, safe and out of sight, before he crawled back under the covers. Needless to say, he did not sleep well that night.

          “Are you still working on that thing? You’ve never been this slow with any of your other works.” John frowned at his friend’s words and caught sight of him from the corner of his eye. Stuart was standing with his hands behind his back, studying the unfinished canvases that rested against the wall. He appeared to be looking at one canvas in particular, although John couldn’t see which one. Still, he could make an educated guess. For now, though, he ignored him while he finished the careful stroke of yellow paint he had been working on, forming a neat curl of hair that framed the young lady’s face on the unfinished canvas before him. Once finished, he sat back in his chair, nodded at the young lady to tell her she could move again, took the rag that lay draped over his lap and started rubbing the paint off his brush as he glanced up at Stuart to see what he was talking about.

“I mean, I understand you have to work carefully, but you’re nowhere near finishing it and you’ve been working on it for weeks!” Stuart said, gesturing at Paul’s portrait, which John had to admit was taking far longer than it normally would. Still, it was slowly coming along, and even though it wasn’t yet finished, John could see it was going to be one of his best works, the quality of the unfinished portrait being striking in comparison to the canvas he was working on at the moment.

“Well,” he said, laying the rag back down and dipping his brush in the lighter yellow to bring detail in the locks of hair he was working on, mixing it with a hint of light brown to get the exact colour he wanted, “normally I’m not working on a portrait for the McCartneys. They are quite demanding, in case you had forgotten.”

“Oh, I hadn’t,” Stuart said with a chuckle, “but still, though. You could have finished this one weeks ago and get a similar result, couldn’t you? Or at least up to a point where you would need only a few more brushstrokes?”

“I don’t think Mr. McCartney would appreciate me finishing the portrait weeks before the deadline, Stu. He’ll think I didn’t take it seriously. Besides, I don’t mind taking my time with it. There could have been worse portraits to do than this one.”

“You like working on it, then?” Stuart inquired, suspicion in his voice.

“Of course. It is my job, isn’t it?” John answered, trying to sound as unaffected as usual, but he could see by the look on Stuart’s face that he remained unconvinced. He pretended not to notice, though, and quietly went back to work, smiling politely at the young lady as she resumed her pose. Luckily Stuart didn’t say anything further about it either, and went back to his own easel to continue his own work as well. Still, the silence on the matter of the McCartneys did not last long.

“Do you think he’s coming then?” Stuart asked after a short while. “He’s usually here on Friday afternoons, isn’t he?” John shrugged and continued working on the portrait, not even looking at his friend in the hope he would let the conversation rest. Naturally, he didn’t.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t though, you know. Perhaps he is busy, but even if he’s not… They barely show any regard for others, the McCartneys; either they feel like coming and they do, or they don’t and then they just… don’t.”

“I know, Stu.”

“Especially Paul McCartney. He-“

“I know, Stu!” John repeated, more harshly than he had intended. At least it got Stuart to remain silent for a while. But still John was certain he could see a tiny little smirk on his lips, careful and barely there, but still obvious enough for him to pick up on from the corner of his eye. He hoped, however, that it had only been his imagination, knowing that if there was anyone apart from Richard who could find out about the nature of his relation to Paul, it would be him. Stuart knew him better than anyone.

He hadn’t even meant to come across as harsh as he had, but in reality he was worried about Paul, and with every day that passed without a word from him, the worse it got. His absence last Wednesday couldn’t be that easily explained by saying that it was due to his family, or even his haughtiness – after all he knew how serious Paul took his appointments, seeing as he hadn’t even been prepared to cancel one for some highly fulfilling morning sex. If there was anything Paul didn’t act on, it were whims. He didn’t think Stuart would understand that, however; most of his opinions on Paul and the McCartney family in general seeming too fixed to be able to change.

The minutes ticked by as John continued working on the portrait in front of him, his mind occasionally wandering off to other places, only to be brought by back by Stuart asking him stuff, or by Mr. Edwards who came in to check on them and see how they were faring, before going back to his office. After a while – he couldn’t be certain how long – he had given up on the hope that Paul would show that afternoon, the doorbell still not having rung, and he couldn’t help but be disappointed.

Not long after, however, the doorbell rang anyway, but John did not react, being too focused on his work to even notice it when Stuart got up to answer the door. Still, his ears pricked up when he heard the sound of mumbling voices coming from the hallway, one of them sounding suspiciously similar to Paul’s voice. He reasoned it was his mind playing tricks on him, but the slight animosity in Stuart’s voice as he spoke to the unknown man made him doubtful. Not long after, he could hear Mr. Edwards descending the stairs to meddle in the conversation and tell Stuart off for his attitude, his loud booming voice being impossible to miss even through the thickness of the walls. Stuart muttered some protests in reply before the conversation finally quieted down to a silence. John looked up in curiosity when the door opened and Stuart and Mr. Edwards came back in, the unknown man following closely behind.

“John, Mr. McCartney is here to see you,” Stuart said, his voice almost a grumble, and John’s body momentarily tensed up in surprise at the name. Sure enough, Paul was standing in the doorway, his hands behind his back, looking as handsome and immaculate as always, with his cheeks and jaw cleanly shaven, hair perfectly combed, and his suit well pressed. His expression was as cold and serious as during their first meeting, and if it hadn’t been for the slight hint of a smile that pulled at his lips when their eyes met, John would have thought all that had happened over the last few weeks had been a dream, there being no hint of recognition at all in Paul’s expression or mannerisms other than that barely noticeable hint of a smile. He quickly rose to his feet when he realised he had been staring.

“Mr. McCartney! I-I didn’t think you were coming this afternoon,” he told him truthfully, and swallowed the lump in his throat as he realised that might have come off as a tad impolite. Judging by Mr. Edwards, who was frowning at him in disapproval, he certainly thought so. Paul, on the other hand, only stared at him, his face expressionless.

“Not that you aren’t welcome here, of course, Mr. McCartney. I am sure Mr. Lennon was just about finished with the young lady, weren’t you, John?” Mr. Edwards said, saving a situation that did not need saving, but Paul thanked him anyway and John was quick to turn to the young lady who was still sitting in her seat, her eyes moving from the one man to the other in curiosity.

“Yes. I erm… we were just done for today, weren’t we, Miss Marsh? Mr. McCartney, please take a seat, I will be right with you. Miss Marsh, if you could go with Mr. Sutcliffe, he will see you out,” he said and both Paul and the young lady did as he had said. Stuart, however, shot a couple more curious looks between him and Paul, before he led the young lady out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving them.

Mr. Edwards made some polite conversation with Paul as John switched the portrait on the easel with Paul’s and got himself a couple of clean brushes to work with. He then took his seat as well and started to prepare everything. From the corner of his eye, he could catch glimpses of Paul, and he watched him silently as he spoke with Mr. Edwards. Every once in awhile, their eyes would meet and John would smile at him, while Paul pretended not to notice. He remained perfectly calm and serious as he discussed the weather, his trip to Paris, and John’s artistic talent with Mr. Edwards, praising him in a way John hadn’t heard before, and it made him feel strangely proud. Paul seemed to notice, his eyes sparkling kindly whenever their eyes would meet. Thankfully, Mr. Edwards did not appear to take any note of the wordless conversation that was going on between the two young men and continued his own conversation uninterrupted.

“Mr. McCartney? Shall we get started?” John asked once he was ready, and Paul nodded as he turned away from Mr. Edwards and towards him, his legs uncrossing as he moved into the usual position with surprising ease. He didn’t appear to notice the dumbfounded expression on the painter’s face as he came to sit exactly how John wanted him without any assistance as was usually required, and waited patiently for him to begin. Mr. Edwards, realising he wasn’t needed any longer, excused himself from their presence, and vanished through the kitchen door, leaving the two men to themselves at last with the reassurance that if either of them needed anything, they could come to him. Again Paul thanked him and John pushed his momentary surprise away and dipped his brush in the paint to begin.

For a while it remained quiet between the two of them, both men glancing nervously at one another while John worked on the portrait, being careful with his brushstrokes as he began to get a feel for it again, the strokes, angles and curves feeling foreign yet familiar. Every picture felt different and it had been awhile since John had last allowed himself to draw him. Neither of them knew what to say or do, and it wasn’t until John noticed Paul smiling to himself that he found his voice again.

“What?” he asked, subconsciously copying Paul’s smile.

“Just that it’s been awhile since you last called me ‘Mr. McCartney’. It sounded strange coming from you now,” Paul explained, his smile widening. John, though glad to see Paul acting freely towards him again and get some indication that what had happened between them had not been his imagination, rolled his eyes in return.

“You were the one who insisted on me addressing you properly the first time we met. If you hadn’t, I might not have needed to.”

“I didn’t say I necessarily disliked it,” Paul replied with more cheek than John had expected from him. He stared at him for a moment, before his lips pulled up into a smirk, his hand pausing in its work.

“Maybe I should continue to call you that, then, Mr. McCartney.”

“I still prefer you calling me Paul, though.”

“As you wish, Paul.” Paul chuckled at that and shook his head as he ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back and out of his face, while at the same time messing it up. Still, it looked as perfect and immaculate as before, but John figured he might be too biased to make any objective observations like that. Not that he thought Paul would mind it if he did, seeing how much he appeared to care about his appearance. John supposed it was a class thing. He cleared his throat before turning back to his work, forcing his eyes away from the gentleman before him in favour of his responsibilities.

“I meant it, you know. I hadn’t expected you to show up today,” he said after a momentary, more comfortable, silence.

“Because I didn’t show up last Wednesday?”

John nodded, but kept his eyes on the canvas. “That, and you’re late.” Paul sighed and for a moment it remained quiet between them to the point where John thought that had been the end of their conversation. But then, Paul suddenly began to speak.

“I should have let you know I was unable to come. I needed some time. For myself. To think.”

“Because of your father?” John inquired, turning his head to Paul, who was staring down at the floor, his fingers knotted together in his lap. He looked deep in thought, but nodded at the question.

“He’s found me a wife.”

“A wife? But I thought you-“

“Change of plans. It happens in my family. I-I needed some time to consider some things. To consider us. Her. Jane – that’s her name – she arrived at the manor last Tuesday morning with her father to arrange everything. The rest of her family is coming later when we’re ready to announce our engagement. I don’t know when they want to do that, but I don’t doubt they’re planning to do it soon. They want us to marry this winter. Early February, I suspect.”

“Early February…”

“Hmm… she- she’s a nice girl, though. Pretty, clever, accomplished – everything you could want in a wife. Her mother’s side of the family even has ties to the royal family.”

“Right…” John mumbled as he paused again in his work and lowered his brush, resting his hands on his thighs as he looked down at himself, trying to control his breathing as he listened to Paul’s words, trying to take it all in, while attempting to figure out what he was feeling.

“She…” Paul started, but he cut himself off before he could continue that sentence.

“She what?” John demanded, glancing up at Paul to lock eyes with him, being shocked to see not a shimmer of emotion of his face. He merely took a deep breath before continuing.

“She doesn’t have any illusions. About me. About us.”

“She knows?!”

Paul nodded.

“Did you tell her?”

Again Paul nodded. “It wouldn’t have been fair towards her if I hadn’t, John. She deserves to know what she is marrying into. And besides… I knew she would understand. I wouldn’t have told her otherwise. But letting her marry me without knowing exactly who she would be marrying and what kind of relationship she could expect… I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t have been fair.”

“But this is,” John snorted, making Paul frown.

“You knew this would happen someday, John. I told you this would happen.”

“That you did.”

“John-” Paul tried, but the other man shook his head, telling him wordlessly to not even bother explaining himself. To his surprise, Paul complied. He nodded and sat back in his seat for a short while, waiting for John to say anything, but when he didn’t, he rose up to his feet and straightened his clothing.

“Maybe,” he said, “maybe it’d be best if I left. My father told me to inform you he wishes the portrait to be finished a couple of weeks sooner. I suspect in time for the engagement. He will be in touch with you soon.”

When John did not respond, neither verbally nor physically, Paul nodded to himself, gathered his belongings and started to head for the door. Before he could lay his hand on the doorknob to turn it, though, John spoke up.

“Is this it, then? Just like that?”

Paul froze at the words, but when John ordered him to turn around and face him, he did as he was told, more out of habit than because he wanted to. John had gotten up as well, and appeared threatening as he stood beside his easel, legs spread, knees slightly bent, shoulders broad and head held high. Yet his eye shimmered sadly back at him, revealing the hurt behind the wall of anger.

“You are just going to leave me like that? As if I were a drunken mistake you shouldn’t have made in the first place, ready to be thrown aside when it becomes inconvenient for you?”

“I don’t want this either, John. I don’t have a choice!“ Paul retorted, trying to keep his voice down to make sure no one heard what they were talking about. John shook his head.

“You always have a choice.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?”

“No. You don’t. You’re an artist. You’re working class. You can marry whomever you want, whenever you want. You can do anything, but I…! I can’t. I have obligations, responsibilities, not only to myself, or to Jane, or even to my father, but to the whole family, to Jane’s family, to all those people on our estate, who work for us, who depend on us. They depend on me! I can’t simply refuse for no good reason. If I could, oh believe me, I would, but that isn’t possible. This isn’t a good reason. I don’t expect you to understand, but you have to accept that.”

Paul had barely noticed it that John had been coming closer to him deliberate step by deliberate step, and only realised how close he was when he was standing right in front of him, locking him in between him and the door. He had been about to open his mouth to add something, but before he could make a sound, John had closed in on him all the way and his lips had sealed onto his own in a piercing kiss that knocked all the air out of his lungs from surprise and made his head spin as he momentarily forgot how to think, the issues they had been discussing vanishing from his mind as swiftly as if a switch had been turned in his mind.

It was their first kiss since their hurried goodbye in the shadows of the carriage that previous Sunday, and Paul had almost forgotten how hot John’s mouth felt against his own, how rough his lips and unshaven jaw were against his skin, and how he could feel his blood pulse through his body as their tongues locked together. His hands came up to wrap themselves around his neck, pulling him closer and refraining him from pulling away, needing every bit of contact as urgently as a dying man needed water. He could feel one of John’s hands on his hips, locking him against the door, while the other vanished into his hair, pulling him closer with a violent tug, being just as starving for contact as Paul was.

“I need you with me, Paul,” he grumbled against his lips, sounding almost angry, and when Paul shook his head, John felt as if someone had ripped out his heart and dropped it in a bucket of ice water, their kiss breaking.

“We can’t, John,” he said, his breathing coming out in short gasps against John’s spit-slick lips. His fingers, meanwhile, tightened their hold on John’s neck, refusing to let go.

“Please, Paulie,” John muttered and kissed him again, and he was certain he could feel Paul’s lips curl up in a smile against his own as their bodies melted together.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Just for now. Just for now.”

Previous Chapter

[sunaddicted]

Comets (00q, Rainbow sequel)

James sighed heavily as he looked down at Q, passed out and drooling over his keyboard: it was such an adorable sight that he almost couldn’t find it in himself, the energy to be angry at him for once again overworking himself.

“Will you stare at him for much longer or are you dragging him home any time soon?” Eve asked, a teasing grin appearing on her lips: it was a renown fact that the big and scary Double-oh Seven had the biggest soft spot for the alien Quartermaster and that he was completely smitten with him, resulting in an absurd overprotectiveness - people couldn’t even look at Q vaguely wrong that they’d have a threatening agent, with no much sense of self-restrain, menacingly breathing down their necks.

James glared at Eve but he bent down anyway and scooped Q up in his arms, frowning at how easy it was; no matter how much Q ate - and he did, rather a lot - he seemed unable to gain more than a couple of kilos: the popular opinion in Medical was that Q’s body wasn’t designed to digest, and therefore absorb, most of the nutrients in human food. To be fair, for once, the doctors had offered a good plan of action but it was Q who had refused to follow it: he loathed the idea of slowly inserting in his diet one kind of food at a time, with the prospect of being later deprived of things he liked to eat but shouldn’t because they were useless for his body.

As if aware of the agent’s presence even in his sleep, Q relaxed to the point that a couple of tentacles slithered out and lethargically wrapped themselves around James’ shoulders; their usual whiteness was dotted with bright splashes of yellow and green and James smiled, pleased that the other was apparently having a pleasant dream.

“Look at you, so sweet” Eve teased as she quickly started to gather Q’s things and put them back in his laptop bag “Are you taking him at yours?”

“Yes, it’s easier than going through all the security checks to get in his flat” James was pretty sure that it was an expression of Q’s lingering fear of humans that not even years of close contact had managed to quite eradicate. Of course, the fact that Q trusted him completely and wasn’t scared of him at all, it only contributed to make his smugness grow - just like the other agents’ envy. Not even advertising that Q was an alien worked to discourage the other Double-ohs from trying to get the Quartermaster’s attention like a bunch of spoiled and whiny kids.

“James?” Q purred confused, burying his face in the other’s neck and breathing in the familiar scent of gun oil and a spicy cologne that made him dream of exotic destinations he had never been to “Can I have tea?”

“In the morning”

“Want it now” Q pouted, a tentacle slipping upwards to gently tug at James’ ear in a pleading manner, not even hearing Eve’s delighted snigger or the sound of the car door being opened, so that he could be buckled in.

James barely suppressed an endeared laugh “We’ll see at home, deal?” He proposed, knowing that Q would be out cold again by the time they arrived at his flat.

Q’s tentacles briefly tightened their grip on the agent before letting him go and snuggling in the car seat “‘kay. Can we sleep together?” He asked, peeling his eyelids open to look up at the other.

“I’m so going to tell everyone about this”

“Yes, of course we can” James reassured, stepping not too gently over Eve’s foot to shut her up as he bent down to bestow a kiss on Q’s cheek.

Neither he nor Eve noticed the little star seemingly falling down the alien’s cheek, a burst of light under his skin, getting lost in the honey-hued yellow of Q’s dreams.

***

James woke up to a faceful of tentacles and the weirdly synchronized rhythm of three hearts, beating slowly.

The first time he had let Q snuggle up to him, after an excruciating but rather necessary visit with a doctor, James had been startled at the sudden realisation that he could hear three distinct heartbeats coming from the alien. And yes, it had taken him more time to get used to that than to tentacles sleepily petting him in the morning.

Gently, James pushed the tentacles away from his face and huffed in amusement when one of those appendages annoyedly slapped his hand away “Good morning”

“Shut up” Q harrumphed, clearly displeased with the fact that his human pillow was moving around and talking when all he wanted to do was to sleep.

James carefully flipped them over “Yessir” he grinned, purposefully giving Q and obnoxiously loud kiss over the forehead that made the alien squirm in displeasure. Then, he slipped away and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Like the rest of the flat, also the kitchen had been greatly affected by Q’s presence in his life. At the beginning of his career as one of the boffins in Q-branch, the alien had been released in his care and they had shared his flat, so that Q could get used to living as a human in a sheltered environment with someone ready to help if he needed anything; though, even after Q had bought a place of his own, he spent more time at James’ rather than his own flat. Which meant that the fridge and the pantry were always stocked, books and used mugs were scattered around in the living room, the bathroom was filled with the alien’s huge amount of hair products and bath bombs and scrubs - in short, Q had made James’ pristine and cold house into a home.

One of the first things Q had gotten obsessed with, it was tea. So, James put the kettle on before going to explore the fridge and find something to eat for breakfast; Q ate almost everything - they still bickered over spinach sometimes, though - but James tended to spoil the alien and wanted to make his favourites whenever he had the ingredients on hand.

The pancake batter was still fresh enough, since he had made it the morning before, and he settled for making a fruit salad and whipping up some cream to go with them.

Satisfied with the menu, James started cooking while humming an old song to himself as he confidently handled knives and pans.

When Q heard the kettle hiss, he dragged himself out of the bed and made his way to the kitchen, yawning and stretching carefully as he made sure that the sheet didn’t slide away from around his narrow hips.

Getting used to clothes had been quite the challenge, if he was to be honest: his species didn’t use anything to cover themselves, not when the colours and patterns swirling under their skin was a huge part of their interactions, besides their words. No matter how much he liked woollen jumpers and tweed pants, Q still thought that having to cover himself was quite weird.

So, at home, while with only James’ company, he had assumed that going around naked would be fine - certainly humans didn’t use clothes even when in their houses? But his assumption had been quickly proved wrong when James had choked on his saliva at the sight of his bare body stretched on the couch.

Later, James had explained to him that he wasn’t bothered by nudity and that he just hadn’t been expecting it - still, from then on, Q was always careful to wear something. At least out of bed: while sleeping, he still needed to be just in his skin and thankfully James never made him feel uneasy about it.

Rubbing at his eyes with a tentacle, Q lifted the kettle and poured the hot water in two mugs “What time is it?”

“Half past nine” James answered, putting a slice of pineapple close to Q’s tentacles, so that they could snatch it.

“Too damn early” Q scowled before popping the whole piece of fruit in his mouth; as the juice of the pineapple burst on his tongue, sweet and tangy at the same time, Q closed his eyes and hummed in pleasure: good definitely was one upper side about being stranded on Earth - that and James “I don’t have to be at work until later this afternoon”

James turned around and huffed Q from behind, affectionately nuzzling his neck “So, you can have all the time in the world to have a relaxing bath before dinner” he suggested, kissing Q’s nape.

Another star fell unnoticed, slipping down Q’s spine.

[actressemiliafox]

Emilia Fox On Silent Witness And Her Real-Life Dramas I've come to care very much about Nikki, my character in Silent Witness. She's been a huge part of my life for over a decade. We've been through a lot together and in many ways she's been the steadfast in my life during that time. I'm like Nikki in that we've both got careers we're committed to and feel passionately about. But she is a workaholic and uses work as a distraction from an absence of any personal life. Happily, I go home to a daughter and family life. I'd love to give Nikki a good talking to about her disastrous love life. She always chooses the wrong man! After 13 years, she really needs to put more effort in. I can't reveal whether things improve for her in this series, but she deserves to find love. There have been some surreal moments during filming. We've had quite a few sleeping corpses! You'll be doing a post-mortem and then suddenly you realise the "body" is snoring on the slab. There are warm hot water bottles on the slab so the actors don't get cold. A lot of time is spent making sure the real-life actors playing dead are OK. One poor girl had to run through a wood virtually naked, then as a corpse she had maggots stuck in her fake blood and they were crawling through her hair. Off screen I'm the school swot, the one who takes it all seriously. Liz Carr [forensic scientist Clarissa Mullery] is the joker of the regular cast, and the banter between her and David Caves [forensic scientist Jack Hodgson] is hilarious. Richard Lintern [Thomas Chamberlain, head of the forensic pathology centre] isthe one who is just so nice to everyone. Some of the hardest scenes I have to do are those cases involving children. Very early on a pathologist told me that there are some pathologists who won't perform post-mortems on children. Nikki doesn't have children, so she does do them, but as I have a child I find it very difficult, even though I'm acting. The last episode of the new series is set in Mexico, and is a big celebration of Silent Witness. It was incredibly ambitious and certainly the most challenging episode I've ever worked on. You see a new side to Nikki and I had to do a lot of stunts. I can't reveal too much, but there are heights and depths involved... On relationships, parenting and family... The way I've made being a single parent work is exactly what I talk to Rose about, which is that all families are different and you make it work for them. You give your child as much stability and security as you can. And talk about it a lot. Fingers crossed she's a happy, settled little girl. I'd definitely like a significant other in my life. I've never been on a blind date and my friends would never set me up on one - I am very shy. When the time is right for someone else to be in my life it will happen, if it happens. My parents are mostly based in the West Country now, but we usually see them once a week. They're amazing, hands-on grandparents. My mum and Rose do silly stuff together and there are a lot of tea parties and making things. My brother Freddie is a massively hands-on uncle too. One of the loveliest things to come out of Silent Witness is the friendship that's developed with Dee, my driver. He is part of our family life now and is like another grandfather to Rose. Very often you're sitting in the car trying to deal with your home life, so there are no secrets between us. We talk about everything, he gives me advice and I trust him completely. On body and soul... I consider Botox every time I look in the mirror. Seriously I need to be putting it in now! If only it didn't involve the word "tox" and it going into my head. But, yes, I'd love it if I could smooth out my forehead and not have a massive frown line. Not many people know this but I have a tattoo on the inside of the middle finger of my left hand, a tiny outline of a heart. I had it done a few years ago when I was in Los Angeles. I was with a friend who was getting a tattoo. I'm terrified of needles but my friend said "you have one" and I was so jet-lagged I agreed. She suggested the heart. When he started doing it I literally leapt out of my seat. I was like, "do not fill it in because I can't take the pain." I'm absolutely never having another. I'm still having therapy. I'll see someone as regularly as I can, work permitting. I'm not saying that therapy is to be recommended for everyone, but we look after our health, we look after our bodies. I see it as looking after my mind and my head, exercising that. On work... I'm not naturally cut out for acting. I'd have been much better in an office job where I knew what was happening every day. I'd like the routine of it. The precariousness of the acting profession: I'll never know why I did it having seen it first hand with my parents. I didn't have rose-tinted spectacles - and yet I still went into it! I wish I'd travelled more and done other things before going into acting, and yet I can't regret it because I've got here. At that point in my life I also needed to prove that I could do it. I'm darned lucky that I've been working for 20 years. Eventually I see myself being on the other side of the camera. My dream is to turn a children's book called The Ordinary Princess into an animation. It's my favourite book, about a princess who is given the gift of ordinariness and I've just started reading it to Rose. On the new year... I'm very excited to be back on stage this month for only the second time in ten years. It's a play called Sex with Strangers at the Hampstead Theatre and, yes, the title is very, very racy. I'm a bit worried that people will come with huge expectations about what I'm going to be doing onstage! It's not necessarily what you instantly think. I'd love to conquer Spanish this year. Well, start learning it anyway. Rose goes to Spanish club and I'm thinking I can tag along and learn as she learns. My thirst for knowledge gets greater and greater as I get older and realise there's less and less time. I'm also looking forward to seeing Rose start another year - all the new things she'll be discovering, and seeing if I can keep up with her. And then Silent Witness will be going into its next year, so that will be another celebration. EMILIA'S ESSENTIALS Chocolate or exercise? Oh, chocolate. Dream dinner party guests? Dawn French... Dawn French... Dawn French! We've just worked together on Delicious (Sky), as well as on another project. She's fantastic in every way. Favourite way to unwind? Reading. I always have a pile of books by the bed. Secret skill? I can make my right nostril droop! And I've got a great memory. I can remember details of things that happened years ago. Spender or saver? I'm a spender! Habit you'd most like to stop My coffee habit. Habit you hate most in others? Bad manners. Would you do Strictly? I am obsessed with Strictly and I'd love to learn the dancing, but I'm way too shy to go on the show. http://www.womanandhome.com/news-and-entertainment/541193/emilia-fox

[theliterateape]

Hope Idiotic | Part IV

By David Himmel

Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.

YEARS OF OVEREATING AND NOT EXERCISING had finally taken their toll on Chuck’s mom. She collapsed from a heart attack in her Indiana home — the same small, rundown place where Chuck was raised. She was recovering at the nearest hospital a few towns away. It was a massive attack requiring surgery to add stents and to repair the lining of her heart’s wall. She also had a deadly case of type-2 diabetes. Her body was crumbling. She was in a fragile state, and death seemed imminent.

“That’s not something I’m ready for,” Chuck said to Lou at Bella’s the night before Lou left town. “I’m flying out there in a few days, which means Lexi has to pretty much move in to your place all by herself. I can’t even help pay for a mover because every cent is going to go to Mom’s medical bills.”

Chuck’s family never had much money. His father Cal flew bombing missions in Vietnam. When he retired from the service, he used his military skills to become a terrible businessman. His mother Barbara never worked a day in her life but watched a lot of daytime television. His other brother Darryl was the town simpleton. The reason — although no one knew it or even considered it to be the reason for his social and learning disabilities — was that he was autistic and had Asperger’s, both of which went untreated for 26 years. Healthcare wasn’t of any importance in the Keller home. So it required no second thought when Chuck’s parents sold off their health and life insurance when Chuck was 14 to pay the bills and take the only vacation the family ever took together. To Disneyworld of all places. The lack of insurance was a recent discovery for Chuck. And it finally explained why his family could suddenly afford the trip back then.

 “Why can’t we just have socialized medicine?” Chuck said.

“That’s not very libertarian of you,” replied Lou. “Don’t put that in the magazine.”

“I just don’t know what to do.”

“How much stuff are you guys moving? Because I have everything you need. You’re getting a furnished home. Throw your crap in storage. Keep things simple.”

Lou was leaving Las Vegas, not unlike how the Hebrew slaves left Egypt; with little preparation, a terrible sense of direction and absolutely no idea what the Promised Land would really be like. He’d packed his Volkswagen Golf with clothes, books, his collection of clippings and a box of photographs. The first-place trophy he was awarded by the university’s film department for the short film he made back in college also made the cut.

She had money; they could get an incredible place just on her salary alone. At least, that was one plan Lou considered. He’d pitch in as soon as he landed a gig.

He left everything else perfectly in place — a collection of a decade — clothes he didn’t wear anymore, his complete DVD and VHS collection, his two TVs, his large office desk, the foosball table, his pots, pans, skillets, flatware, bowls, cups, mugs, plates, towels, bed sheets, beds, bed frames, tools and the vacuum.

He saw no reason to pack up the entire house. He had no place to put it all. There was no Chicago apartment waiting for him to bring his leather couches or his desk and certainly not the foosball table. Just as well. Lou was downsizing his entire life. He was going from a house with an office and a guestroom with its own bathroom to, well, nothing. He didn’t even plan to bring his beloved wooden hangers.

No. All of those things could stay. He’d be back for them soon enough. Just as soon as the house sold. Certainly he’d have a job and a nice apartment by then — one with plenty of room for wooden hangers. Maybe he’d get a place with Michelle. She had money; they could get an incredible place just on her salary alone. At least, that was one plan Lou considered. He’d pitch in as soon as he landed a gig.

“I think you have nice stuff, but Lexi and I want to actually live there, not just house-sit or squat until your real estate agent kicks us out,” Chuck said.

“What the hell should I do with everything?”

“Why don’t you get a storage unit?”

“A storage unit? Chuck, I’m moving to Chicago in twelve hours. How am I going to pack up my house and store everything in less than twelve hours?”

“You can keep the furniture there. We’ll use it. We don’t have much in the way of furniture.”

“And the rest of it?”

“Why didn’t you think about this before? Why do I have to think of everything for everyone?”

Chuck was right. If Lou had been thinking of anything other than fleeing as swiftly as possible, he’d have done the right thing and boxed up the last ten years of his life and put it under lock and key in some climate-controlled storage facility off the freeway. Of course, he couldn’t bring it all with him. He was taking a two-week road trip through the Pacific Northwest before pointing the car toward Chicago. And one can’t navigate last-minute route changes with a U-Haul van or trailer full of wooden hangers and World Market end tables.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Lou said. “You’ve just had a world of shit land on your head, and the last thing you need is to figure out my problems. Do you mind if I keep the stuff in the garage?”

“That would take up half of the space, wouldn’t it?”

“Most likely, yeah.”

“Come on, man. What am I paying you the market rate in rent for your place if I can’t make use of the two-car garage? And through the summer, no less when a car needs its shade.”

“Meet me in the middle. Please.”

“I’m fucking with you. That’s fine.”

“All right, thank you. I should go. Need to finish packing up the house before I leave tomorrow.”

“Quit pouting. I’ll help.”

✶

BY THE TIME THEY FINISHED MOVING all of Lou’s remaining worldly possessions, sans beds, couches, tables, desk and foosball table, into the garage, the sun was peeking over the Black Mountain Range. It was Lou’s favorite time of day. The early sun made the variegated sediment of the mountains glimmer in delicate shades of pink, purple and brown. And though he loved a beautiful sunset, a beautiful sunrise offered the hope of a great day with adventure and possibility. The day was new, nothing yet happened to spin things terribly out of control. And this particular sunrise provided copious amounts of hope for Lou, more than any other before. It also provided an equal amount of gut-wrenching fear.

Besides not having a place to live, he didn’t have a single job lead in Chicago. He’d certainly been looking and even dropped off his résumé to a few magazines and newspapers while visiting Michelle over the winter, but still, nothing was on the horizon but pretty colors. And pretty colors don’t pay. And while things were great in his personal life, that, too, was at risk. Since he left home, his parents had divorced and his younger brother became a drug-addled alcoholic with a phobia of success. And what of Michelle? What if they learned they were better as a couple seventeen-hundred miles apart? Instead of leaving Vegas as a legend and being welcomed to Chicago a hero like he’d always imagined, Lou was aborting a great life he loved. He well knew that in exchange for a fair amount of certainty there existed the terrible knowledge that troubled waters could lay ahead.

“I don’t want you to go,” Chuck said as the garage door opened up in preparation for take off. “But I understand why you have to.” The day’s first light snuck in on the hill of cardboard boxes that now contained Lou Bergman’s life, which the two friends spent all evening fitting into as tight a space as possible — like Tetris with memories. “You have to go after what you want: your career, your family, your girl. I envy what you’re able to do right now, and I want you to have it all, but I still don’t like to see you go.”

“I’m not so sure this is the right thing for me to do right now,” admitted Lou.   Chuck put his arms around him and hugged him. Lou hugged back. They stood there like that with tears filling their eyes for several minutes before Chuck let go.

“Your first stop will be Carlsbad,” Chuck said. “Don’t look back until you get there. And even then, don’t look back.”

“Take care of your mom. Give your family all my best, and let me know if you need anything. If you need me I can drive down there and help out.”

“Will do. I love you, man. Drive fast, drive safe and avoid arrest.”

“I know the rules. I love you, too. Don’t fuck up my house, and don’t fuck things up with Lexi. Just don’t fuck anything up.”

✶ 

AS LOU CROSSED THE CALIFORNIA STATE LINE, he thought about what Chuck was doing at that moment. “If he’s anything like me, which he is, he’s swimming naked in my pool.”

At the house, Chuck was floating on his back stark naked. I see why this was his favorite thing to do, Chuck thought. He closed his eyes and smiled, letting the already hot Las Vegas sun drench his body.

Before any road trip, the vehicle had to be gassed up and the tires inflated to maximum speeding pressure. All cargo had to be securely stored with careful consideration given to placing items within easy reach that the driver needed while in motion. These items included bottles of water, a thermos of coffee, cans of Red Bull, packages of beef jerky, Twizzlers, and CD booklets. Once everything was in order, takeoff could commence.

And at that specific spot where the on-ramp ends and the freeway begins is when the driver can set the trip odometer to zero, stomp the gas pedal into the floor and crank the car stereo as loud as it will go, blasting America’s “Ventura Highway.”

Those were the rules. The grocery supply is interchangeable, based on tastes and dietary restrictions, but “Ventura Highway” must be the first song played because it is the perfect song to begin any road trip. Make no mistake: it is not a song about the Ventura Freeway — that stretch of southern California road between Ventura and Pasadena — it is a song about a stretch of road that can be — and is — everywhere you’re driving, riding and hitchhiking. It is a song that is past, present and future. And it is a song with an insanely catchy guitar hook.

On Lou’s family road trips, there was an endless supply of candy and jerky. His father Benjamin was a neurotic about tracking the mileage, even using it to quiz his sons on math problems: “If we’re driving seventy-five miles per hour, and we have one-hundred-thirty-six miles to go, how long will it be until we get there?” Bergman family road trips were not quiet affairs. Freeway games like Padiddle and State Plates, where the first one to spot all fifty state license plates won, were highly competitive. The winner of the determined game would decide when and where the family ate, when it stopped for bathroom breaks or be given full car-stereo control.

While the battle over the radio could be any other family’s undoing, the Bergmans never disagreed on what to listen to. Most often, it was an oldies channel. This inspired other games like Name That Tune and Who Sings It. As Lou and Aaron got older, they grew tired of their parents beating them at the music games, so they studied the music of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. And eventually, the kids became formidable opponents, not only knowing the song title and artist, but also who wrote the song or what month and year it peaked on the charts. This music knowledge served Lou well when he went on to work as a disk jockey.

When games weren’t played, the Bergmans were singing. And they sang loudly. And they sang in tune. And they sang in harmony. Singing only stopped at night. If someone — usually one of the kids — nodded off during daylight hours, the singing was never sacrificed. “Sleep through it,” Benjamin told his sons. “You should be able to sleep through any noise so you can always catch a good rest.” Benjamin loved proving this point every time Lou’s mom, Sarah, would zonk out. He’d poke her in the cheek and flick her legs and arms with red licorice vines until she woke up. When he did this, Sarah always woke up grumpy.

There was a moment, when Lou was twelve years old, that he would never forget. The family was on a spring-break road trip to Washington, D.C., with a stop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The family roadster at the time was the first of several white Plymouth minivans. On road trips, Benjamin removed the middle seat, which gave everyone more room and allowed the boys to lie on the floor of the van and doze off in sleeping bags rather than risk spine misalignment from sleeping with a head against a window.

It was very late — maybe very early. Lou woke up somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania. There was a bright, full moon shooting white light through the windshield and splashing it on his face. The radio was playing Barbara Mason’s “Yes, I’m Ready.” Lou hadn’t heard that song before, but he liked the way Mason’s voice was filled with such weighted anticipation to learn to love and be loved, to touch and be touched. It moved him. The moonlight made silhouettes of his parents’ faces as they so gently turned toward each other and sang the words to one another. Then, they turned their eyes back to the road and, like it was choreographed, his mom and dad reached out and held hands. With the minivan’s tires and shafts churning underneath him and his parents in the spotlight of love, Lou fell back to sleep. When he woke up later in the morning sunlight, his parents were clapping along and belting out the lyrics to “Cecelia.”

✶

BENJAMIN AND SARAH WERE NOT AN INCREDIBLY AFFECTIONATE COUPLE IN PUBLIC. There were plenty of niceties, however. They kissed hello and goodbye, they obviously had had sex at least four times — once for each kid, once for the time Lou walked in on it and once for the time they were so loud, Lou and Aaron had to sleep in the basement with pillows over their heads just to muffle the sounds — and Benjamin sometimes came home from work with flowers. They hired babysitters and went on dates, but romance was not a top priority in the young Bergman home.

Benjamin and Sarah never yelled at each other or fought publicly or bad-mouthed the other to the kids, so Lou was never sure of the exact reason his mom moved out. Or why they finalized the divorce four years later, just two months before Lou moved back. Maybe they weren’t sure about getting divorced. After all, it’s so, well, final. Just like marriage. Lou liked the idea of an everlasting love — a relationship that triumphed over the evils of the world — but these relationships were so hard to come by. But they were there. He saw it with his grandparents Abe and Adina, and he saw it with Michelle’s parents Lynn and Barry. Lou told me he saw it with me and my wife Natalie. I hoped he was right. And he was hoping he would see it with him and Michelle. I hoped he would, too.

Good relationships have never been just about love. Love won’t hold water — much less hold two people together — if the relationship doesn’t function. Lou was certain his parents loved each other, but something in the marriage just didn’t function. Whatever that illusive aspect was, it was none of his business. That’s how he saw it. He had heard the adage that divorce was not the fault of the children. And by the time Benjamin and Sarah opted to split, Lou was old enough to know that he and Aaron had nothing to do with it. Their marriage, and whatever was wrong with it, was between the two people in it. So he never bothered to ask that ever-pressing question: What went wrong?

Since his parents split, visits felt strange to Lou without the other person there. When he went home, he had to book two dinners, two lunches, etc., so he could see both his mom and his dad in equal-quality time. He hoped living with divorce in close proximity would make it easier and that he’d just get used to the split.

✶

LOU FELT A LITTLE LIKE THE BARBARA MASON SONG AS HE BEGAN HIS TRIP to Chicago and his new life. He was as ready as he would ever be — or so he kept telling himself and anyone else who asked. But was now the best time to move? Why didn’t he wait to land a job before moving? What was the rush? He knew it was Michelle. Since making the ultimate decision to leave the desert behind and be with her, she had been hitting him with every reason why he needed to be there sooner. She loved him, wanted to begin her life with him, and she was excited to see where his career would take them. An earlier arrival would mean a better job sooner, and so on. She made an incredible case for him to hurry because as a lawyer, making cases was her forte.

But because moving to Chicago meant kicking the next stage of his adult life into gear, he didn’t want to hurry home too fast. With no job waiting, he had no pending responsibility, so there was no reason in the world he couldn’t make his shift into real adulthood after a two-week adventure on the road. Being a seasoned road tripper, Lou was embarrassed to admit that he’d never properly done a tear through the northwestern states. He didn’t know when he’d have the freedom to go discovery driving out west again. Therefore, he had no trouble convincing himself that it was now or never.

So, he mapped out a loose plan. From Las Vegas, he’d head down to Carlsbad to spend a night with an old friend from Brushwood — the south suburban town where Lou grew up. Then it was up to Los Angeles for a day or two with his college roommate and fraternity brother, Eric. After L.A, he’d be on his own. No couches to sleep on, no longtime friends to catch up with. Just Lou, the Bergman family traditions and a game he made up called, Christian or Pop.

This was where the stereo scanned stations, and when a good song came up, he’d stop it. Then he’d have to guess whether it was Christian pop or not Christian pop. Out there in America, there’s a lot of Christian radio. And the music sounds a lot like secular radio. Most of it isn’t any worse than Nickelback, and there’s even some of it that’s quite good, so getting stuck with a song about Christ in your head isn’t the worst thing.

He’d move along the coastal Highway 1 to San Francisco, into Oregon and to Portland, over to Boise, Idaho, and on to Crater Lake; then take the state highways into Ketchum and pay homage to Earnest Hemingway’s final stop before blowing his brains out. Then he’d roll on through Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Madison and Milwaukee; Wisconsin and park the Volkswagen in Home Sweet Chicago.

 ✶

THE TRIP STARTED OUT JUST FINE. “Ventura Highway” with the windows down — and it was only four hours before he was laughing heartily with his friend and his wife in Carlsbad. He met their new baby, and he drank a shot glass full of breast milk — it tasted like person, he decided. So far, so good.

But L.A. was different. Eric and Lou were inseparable best friends throughout college and for a few years afterward. But Eric married a money-hungry, label-obsessed, E! Network-addicted real estate agent named Johnna, who convinced him to move to L.A. because as she put it, “The Las Vegas housing market is as yesterday as Paris Hilton.”

It had broken Lou’s heart when Eric stopped coming around and eventually left town a little more than a year before Lou’s move, but what could he do? He had made every effort he keep the friendship alive. When it died, Lou quietly blamed its demise on Johnna. But the truth was that it was just as much Eric’s fault as it was hers. Lou was never one to take friendships lightly, thus taking their ends hard.

In spite of the still hurt feelings, it was nice to spend a couple of days hanging out again. The visit worked out perfectly because Johnna was away for a conference. The two old pals didn’t go sightseeing or run through the L.A. streets drunk and belligerent. Rather, they laid low and caught each other up with their lives. Eric seemed to be happy for Lou, even slightly jealous of the two weeks he had ahead of him. On the other hand, Lou felt sorry for Eric. He was a shell of the man he used to be. Johnna had whittled out the best of Eric’s personality, leaving behind a bored, domesticated husk. As nice as the visit was, Lou was happy to drive away from it.

In an effort to save money and time, Lou never stayed in hotels when driving on his own. When he grew tired, he’d pull into a rest stop or populated parking lot and throw his seat back or nap under a tree. Rest stop bathrooms were perfectly suitable for brushing his teeth and rinsing out his contact lenses. And not that he was looking for it, but he never once saw any homosexual trucker activity occur, as was so often assumed by those who likely never took to the road themselves.

Lou preferred to do his driving during the day. He hated missing scenery or the chance to swing into a town at any moment for a bite to eat and a taste of the locals at a Greasy Spoon. So he’d push himself and his car until as close to midnight as possible and pull off to sleep under the light in a hotel parking lot. This was a trick his father taught him. Rest stops were fine during the day, but rest stops don’t often have big lot lights. Sleeping under a light was an exercise in safety. Most vandals would avoid breaking into a car under light with a half-bearded, mostly unwashed person sleeping in the driver’s seat.

Michelle didn’t like this idea. She wasn’t a fan of the two-week road trip at all. She kept saying to him, “Just come home. You need to find a job. You don’t have enough money to drive all over the country.” Despite all of her pressuring and the little fights, disagreements and explanations, it was clear to her that Lou was bent on making the trip and that there was nothing she could do to change his mind. To compromise, she ordered him a book of America’s hostels so he’d have somewhere better to sleep than in his car. He thought it was sweet and promised her he’d use it.

The two weeks of solitude on the road was not just about visiting states and streets he hadn’t seen, but also about the preparation for what was to come. Similar to the way deep-sea divers or astronauts have to go through pressurization before beginning their mission to the beyond, Lou had to do the same. And as he drove along the edge of America on that coastal highway, with the ocean air whipping through the car, his Best of Hall & Oates CD dancing through the speakers, San Luis Obispo the next potential stop, he began to sense the amount of pressurization he’d need.

A drink was necessary, and as soon as the 101 hooked inland past Pismo Beach, billboards for San Luis Obispo wineries sprung up. He pulled over at the first one. He didn’t have the time or the need for a proper tour; he just wanted the alcohol’s effects. The place was quiet, and the kid behind the counter seemed happy to have someone finally walk through the door.

“It’s not usually this dead,” the kid said. He wasn’t any older than nineteen or twenty. His family owned the place. “But we don’t see a lot of business on a weekday. Hopefully we’ll see more people like you come through.”

“People like me?”

“People just stopping in for a quick drink. Most of them are on their way to San Francisco. Where are you headed?”

“Chicago. Well, eventually Chicago. Yeah, San Francisco. Then up into the northern states. Depending on time, I might even sneak into Canada.”

“What’s in Canada?”

“Don’t know.”

“So why go to Canada?”

“Because I don’t know. How about a glass of… that one.”

The usual cost for a flight of wine was twelve dollars, but the kid didn’t charge Lou and even filled the glasses completely instead of the customary tasting sip. After three full glasses of mediocre wine, Lou bid the kid farewell and jumped back in the Volkswagen. He was riding the perfect buzz — warm, energetic and hopeful. And he had gone less than one-hundred miles before he was pulled over by a California state trooper for bounding along the winding coast at ninety-six miles per hour.

“Of course I didn’t know how fast I was going; otherwise I would have slowed down,” Lou said dryly, trying to elicit a laugh from the trooper. It didn’t fly. He produced his driver’s license and insurance card and waited while the cop ran his information. If he’d not still been on the wine high, he’d have been in a fit of panic. He had alcohol in his system and was driving thirty-one miles over the limit — reckless beyond a doubt.

The trooper asked Lou where he was headed. “You have a long trip ahead of you,” the trooper said. “And I’m in a good mood today, so I’m just going to cite you for going ten over. That way you don’t have to come back for a court date. Just mail in the fine, or pay it online. And slow down, for Pete’s sake. I don’t want to have to clean you off the side of one of these mountains.” He handed Lou the documents, tipped his trooper hat and got back in his cruiser. As he pulled back onto the road and passed Lou, he waved, then slammed on the gas and took off. Lou took the trooper’s kind nature as a sign. Things were going to be all right.

Part I Part II Part III

[flauntpage]

Thanks, Doc

When people die, we all hurry to share our thoughts, to impart our experiences with them.

On one hand, it feels callous to turn someone else’s misfortune into a personal story. On the other, there’s probably no better way to honor a person than to share how they impacted your life in some small way, or maybe even a big way.

When that person is a professional athlete, those stories are in endless supply. Some are told by friends and family, but most come from mere admirers who likely never met the person or at most had fleeting, memorable encounters with them.

Athletes, celebrities and other public figures have outsized impact on those who view their work. Their performances can mark time for total strangers. I remember where I was. Those things aren’t just part of sports fandom– often they’re part of people’s lives.

There’s been no shortage of those stories since news of Roy Halladay’s death broke yesterday. We all remember when the Phillies traded for him, where we were during his perfect game (which he threw during Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals), and for his postseason no-hitter. We remember his love of Chooch. We remember “funner.” We remember him running the steps of Citizens Bank Park. We remember the time he saved a naked man from an Anaconda. Teammates remember clubhouse antics, personal exchanges, his work ethic, and being in the presence of greatness. They remember the person and the teammate.

But for all of those fond memories, today there is a family in mourning.

For better or worse, Halladay’s Twitter feed serves as a stark reminder that while he was a baseball hero to many, he was a loving husband and father to a few. These Tweets… they rip your heart out and smash it on the ground:

I love the Players & Parents of our Florida Burn! They keep proving why they’re the best team on the field but more important the classiest! http://pic.twitter.com/4agAeCO4wY

— Roy Halladay (@RoyHalladay) November 6, 2017

Yes here are the HS kids and me with my son! Proud dad, Proud coach, Proud member of a coaching staff! #family http://pic.twitter.com/3WgoW0kwC6

— Roy Halladay (@RoyHalladay) May 28, 2017

My son in the middle of the dog pile after closing out the semi-final game!! So proud!!#family http://pic.twitter.com/LmRmqi6toZ

— Roy Halladay (@RoyHalladay) May 28, 2017

First official day of summer break for my son! What a day! Icon A5 we spent 5hrs 3.2 flying, 1.8 chill'n, 100% buds! http://pic.twitter.com/DCclvMMvhs

— Roy Halladay (@RoyHalladay) May 19, 2017

Flew a Dog Rescue trip to Alabama for two 5m old puppies who's ears were cut off w/ scissors to prep them as practice for dog fighting!! SAD http://pic.twitter.com/A6EYYFGoT5

— Roy Halladay (@RoyHalladay) September 26, 2016

Come on.

Virtually every other Tweet from the last two years was about his love of his new plane, Chooch, or saving puppies.

None of us can speak for what his family is going through and what they’ll continue to deal with for a long time. In an instant, everything Halladay had worked for, earned, and enjoyed was rendered meaningless due to an unfortunate accident.

If there’s any good to come out of this, it’s that we’re hearing some stories about Roy, the person, that we never knew. This one from ESPN reporter and local guy John Barr may be my favorite:

1/ I have a story about Roy Halladay that sums up the player and the man. It was after he threw his 2010 post-season no-hitter v the Reds

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

2/ I was fortunate to be assigned to that game for ESPN and I saw it from the ESPN radio booth. By the 4th inning we saw he had no-hit stuff

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

3/ After the game, we interviewed Halladay and Chooch on the field as they were still riding sky high. Then we went to file our story.

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

4/ more than an hour later, I was walking thru the tunnel and it occurred to me I should check in at home. So I called the family

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

5/ As I rounded a corner, with my wife on the line, I saw Halladay up ahead. By then he'd finished all interviews and was milling about

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

6/ I asked my wife to hold on, put the phone down, and thanked Halladay for his earlier comments and for giving us a special moment

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

7/ when I put the phone back to my ear, my seven-year old was on the line. A HUGE Halladay fan. He said: "Dad, was that really Roy?"

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

8/ And then I took a look back at Halladay, and noticed he wasn't in any hurry to go anywhere and I proceeded to break protocol.

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

9/ I asked if he'd take a quick second to talk to my kid, who wanted to tell him "Great job!" So Roy takes my phone and talks to my son!

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

10/ Then my 7-year old goes into reporter mode. Asks Roy what it was like to throw a perfect game and no hitter in same year!

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

11/ Pretty damn good question from a kid, right? They spoke for about a minute or so. Then Roy hands the phone back.

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

12/ When I get back on the phone it's my wife, telling me my son started crying. He was overwhelmed by what he'd just done and processing.

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

13/ The next day he told the kids at his elementary school: "Yeah, I talked to Roy after his no-hitter."

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

14/ There are a helluva lot of athletes who I would never dream of approaching with a request like the one I put in front of Roy that nite

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

15/ But @RoyHalladay was special. He was the stuff childhood dreams are made of. And he made us all soar that night.

— John Barr ESPN (@JohnBarrESPN) November 7, 2017

Those are the stories I’m glad we’re getting to hear.

I’m genuinely at a loss for words. I have been for more than 16 hours now. I’m just sort of stunned, saddened, surprised, shocked, whatever. I never had an encounter with Roy. But he does hold some special meaning for me beyond just the baseball field.

The first ever post I wrote on this site was on the day the Phillies traded for him in December of 2009. I of course celebrated the arrival of Halladay but criticized Ruben Amaro for trading away Cliff Lee to make it happen. It’s a bad post. But it’s also one that quite literally changed my life, or at least my “career,” if that’s what you can call sitting at home blogging about sports.

I started multiple sites over the years, and none of them stuck. No one read them. But interest in Philly sports may have been at an all-time time high when the Phillies traded for Halladay. I figured I’d try one more time to start a website and see if I could make something of it.

I took to Facebook to create a Halladay fan page. At the time, you could be a fan of anything on Facebook– from a sausage link to a famous athlete. The social network wasn’t used for brand or official pages yet, and there were probably 10 or so dedicated to Halladay as a Phillie, but for some reason mine is the one that stuck, and it quickly amassed a few thousand fans, and then 10,000, and eventually more than 80,000.

I realized that I had a captive audience and that I could post links to my blog posts on the page. Despite the accusation of some Phillies bloggers at the time, I never posted as Roy or pretended to be him, I simply ran a fan page dedicated to him.

The readers I got from those early posts are the reason the site exists today.

Obviously it helped me grow an audience, but perhaps more importantly it gave me the motivation to keep going since I knew people were actually reading what I wrote. I am quite confident that I would not have continued with the site were it not for the early audience I got from that page.

After a while the page became redundant once I had amassed a following of my own on Facebook and Twitter. I made an effort to reach out to either the Phillies or Halladay’s agent (I forget which) to turn the page over to them. I never got a response. But after about a year, when Facebook went through the process of verifying official pages for brands and athletes, they reclaimed it and, at some point, turned it over to Halladay’s agency.

I believe the page now named “Roy Halladay Official” was the page I started in 2009. It has more than 300k fans and, agonizingly, contains posts from well-wishers mourning his death. For a while, Halladay (or his agent) was posting to it. The last one came in 2015 and was a picture of Halladay behind a guy wearing his shirsey at an amusement park. It’s become a pretty popular image:

I tell you this because, though Halladay didn’t know it, he is literally responsible for my livelihood. I had jobs in sales and marketing but had always wanted to do this. Halladay was the break I needed. And now it feels weird to juxtapose the celebratory posts from his arrival with news of his death.

As a fan, I of course have my own stories.

My Dad texted me last night and reminded me that we attended four of his five postseason games. What an honor. To me, almost as impressive as the no-hitter was Game 5 against the Cardinals in 2011. Halladay battled through that lineup and gutted eighth-inning outs to give the Phillies a chance. You just felt that he was willing them to win. He almost did.

But it was Roy’s first postseason start that was truly memorable. Probably the greatest sporting event I ever attended live. This is me, and my Dad:

If only iPhones had image stabilization back then.

These are the moments I talked about earlier– that’s not just a sports moment, that’s a memory. My Dad and I have attended hundreds of sporting events together, but we’ll never forget that one.

It’s those moments athletes create in our lives. They’re unwitting family members, if for just a day. It’s the bonds they create between fathers and sons. The most gut-wrenching part of this is that those are the moments Roy will no longer get to share with his sons.

Braden and Ryan will go on without their father. They won’t get to experience the joy of watching their favorite player, or their favorite team, with their favorite person. That’s really hard to swallow. Halladay had retired perhaps earlier than he needed to. As pointed out by Jim Salisbury, many players in his position would have turned to performance-enhancing drugs to heal an injured shoulder. But he decided to spend his time and wealth at home with his family. He slowed down to embrace what’s really important. For as good of a pitcher as he was, he was, by all accounts, an even better family man. He spent his time coaching and doing what he loved best– flying. There’s something poetic about that, I guess, but trolling through the pictures and videos on his Twitter and seeing him tweet so glowingly about what would ultimately lead to his death is just eerie. Most of all, it’s sad.

I’m not sure what else to write. Halladay was friends with Kenny Chesney, so I feel like maybe it’s best to just post this video about cherishing the small moments in life and then have a good cry. Feel free to join in.

Thanks, Doc published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv