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dustedmagazine · 3 years

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Listening Post: The Clean

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The details of the Clean’s existence are pretty well known, so let’s just sketch an outline here. In 1978, brothers Hamish and David Kilgour started playing shows around Dunedin, New Zealand with a shifting assemblage of local chums. In 1980, after a few false starts and break-ups, multi-instrumentalist Robert Scott joined the Kilgours, establishing a group that accidentally changed the face of music, both at home and around the world. Their first single, the exuberant “Tally Ho!,” cracked the country’s top ten on sales alone, despite radio’s disinterest in playing something with such amateurish production. Over the next couple years, their concerts and home-recorded EPs granted permission to a generation to local musicians as disparate as the Chills and the Dead C. And even though the band broke up (not for the last time) in 1982, that influence spread around the world. The Clean have reunited periodically to make albums and tour the globe, and while it currently seems unlikely that there will be a follow-up to their most recent LP, Mister Pop, which was released in 2009, Merge Records keeps cycling parts of their catalog back into print. The most recent reissues are duplicates of the group’s first two efforts, “Tally Ho!” and the EP Boodle Boodle Boodle.

By Bill Meyer

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Justin Cober-Lake: "Tally Ho!" is just an absolutely perfect bit of pop, but it's still sort of astonishing that these tracks (along with the Dunedin Double EP and the Chills and the Verlaines not long after) would launch an entire school (genre? subgenre?) of music. The sound — the lo-fi qualities and the jangle in particular— fits the time well, but "Anything Could Happen" with its heavy debt to the Velvet Underground hardly seems poised for a (NZ-level) music takeover. That the members scattered makes it even more surprising that the songs had the sort of staying power they did, and each artist did music with other partners that still holds up.

You could make a reductive case that it was all downhill from here, and it might be true. It's not a criticism of the later albums, but a comment on just how good these early releases are. The weirder, the better. The organ in "Tally Ho!" is indelible, and "Billy Two" lingers, the drone-y pace of "Sad Eyed Lady" has never completely worked for me, but the EP recovers with "Point That Thing Somewhere Else." Their personal strangeness there marks the way that they could take VU influence and move into somewhere their own. I'm not sure it's even fully realized, but that's part of the pleasure of it; a fulfilled hi-fi version of this cut probably wouldn't be nearly as satisfying.

Bryon Hayes: I agree with you there, Justin. My introduction to The Clean was with the Merge Anthology double-CD set back in, I think, 2003. I found myself drawn to the rougher, lo-fi recordings on the first CD (early singles and EPs) rather than the (what sounded to me) more polished full-lengths compiled on the second disc. "Point That Thing Somewhere Else" and "Oddity"— two very different songs — are my favorites.

Bill Meyer: I think that the familiarity one might experience when hearing the Clean in 2021 is, in part, a result of having lived with the Clean, people inspired by the Clean and the forces that converged to help push the Clean into being for 40-odd years. In 1981, there was nothing like “Tally Ho!” on the radio around the world, outside of John Peel’s radio show. The radio sounded like Sheena Easton, Styx and Michael Jackson, not like some kids in a garbage can combining the Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys. While kindred souls existed, such as Swell Maps and the Television Personalities, they were fairly underground. And in a pre-internet time, as I know some of here can remember, it was possible for stuff to be inaccessible in ways that are hard to imagine now. The Clean’s inspirations included some pretty classic, high profile figures — The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones for sure — as well as figures that would become more iconic than they were at the time. Even people who liked the Velvet Underground weren’t trying to sound like them, and while some people might have dropped Syd Barrett’s name, Pink Floyd was getting hits by dropping that prog stuff and adopting disco beats and anthemic riffs.

New Zealand's isolation was pretty profound. While the place was culturally tied to England, in the late 1970s, it still took a month for music magazines to come from the UK to NZ. Punk scenes in the UK and the USA experienced a different kind of isolation; you might only get gigs in Manchester or San Francisco, but you could still get a cheap train or flight to your cultural capitol. And for music to move beyond local scenes, it was still pretty dependent on higher-level commercial entities, like Columbia Records or EMI. It wasn’t a common thing anywhere for some young guys from a backwater town to record a single for $50 (that’s $50 NZ, 1981 dollars) and sell enough copies to get into the national charts without radio play, which is what the Clean did with "Tally Ho!” Of course, this partly reflects that it didn’t really take that many sales to get a top ten record in NZ. But it also signaled a cultural moment that hadn’t really existed in that country before, and fed into a way of doing things that would become much more prevalent in the USA and Europe in the 1990s.

Jonathan Shaw: Like Andrew, I was lucky enough to hang around with a bunch of college-radio punks (the mighty WKDU in Philly). That was in 1987 and 1988, and the whole Flying Nun scene landed in my ears in a sudden clump. Tuatara and Tall Dwarfs' Hello Cruel World were heavy rotation records, on radio shows and in apartments. So, I knew about the Clean, but didn't have a sense of the narrative of NZ music, or the band's instrumental nature in it. The Bats, the Clean, Gordons, Sneaky Feelings — they were all in the same bin in my head.

I liked "Fish" and especially "Anything Could Happen" but didn't really listen to the Clean and Clean-adjacent stuff in a sustained way until the mid-1990s, when my then-girlfriend now-wife played Compilation and those terrific early-1990s Mad Scene records all the time. Even then, I didn't quite get the band's peculiar charms. I finally came around to their records about six or seven years ago, when she curated a Clean A-Z playlist for her KDU radio show. Then it was another ridiculously big clump of songs — huge slab-sized portions of the Clean playing in the house for hours. I was convinced.

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Andrew Forell: So true. A lot of the bands who outgrew NZ in those days ended up in Sydney or Melbourne as the next step away from isolation. I’m thinking Split Enz, the Swingers, Mi Sex, Dragon, all of whom were commercial successes there. In Australia, bands from, for instance Brisbane (The Go-Betweens, The Saints, Laughing Clowns) and Perth (The Triffids, The Scientists), did the same before moving to London, which was the first stop for The Birthday Party, Dead Can Dance and The Moodists among other locals we saw a lot. The Dunedin bands seemed happy to stay put which we found odd but I guess it was formative for that distinct sensibility.

NME and later the initial runs of The Face were our Bibles. Also, older friends, musicians we knew or saw regularly, record shop guys & RRR deejays who turned you on to NYC bands, English post-punk and early stuff like VU, Modern Lovers etc. I had a group of friends at Uni & in shared houses, and we’d see bands sometimes three or four nights a week and hang out at record stores listening and buy one or two records each which we taped and shared. I was trying to remember if we ever saw The Clean in those days and was surprised to find out they only toured Australia twice back in the day so I’m guessing not.

In the pre-internet days, you had to dig a little, and that was the great thing about finding and sharing discoveries. And being part of those subculture groups was a big part of our identities especially in the early 1980s when we were dragging our thrift shop black clad, weirdly coiffed selves around sunny Melbourne to the general apathy and occasional derision of our peers and elders. In any case, the Flying Nun bands certainly struck a chord with us and our sense of being an enclave of difference, looking to London, Manchester, Liverpool, NYC which we imagined were havens of taste while also believing the local scene we loved was on a par with those places. I think that sense of a “family of choice” based around music was a vital component in shaping the scenes outside the traditional big music centers and The Clean were exemplars of a DIY ethos that is a big part of their legacy and influence.

Jennifer Kelly: I've been listening to this over the Christmas break again, and really loving it. Unlike a lot of you, I came to the Clean backwards, via David Kilgour's solo albums, beginning with Frozen Orange (Feather in the Engine is one of my all-time favorite albums), and I was delighted at the time (early aughts when I got seriously into writing about music) to find out how rowdy and rough-edged it was compared to the solo stuff.

I'm intrigued by the way these cuts shift from really brash, primitive, organ-jamming garage tunes to a dronier, more driving, psychedelic kind of thing ("Scrap Music," for instance.) I've been reading some interviews, though, and it sounds like there was very little premeditation going on in developing the sound.

Chris Liberato: Totally, Jenny. I’ve been thinking about the mix of sounds on these records too. It must have been an awesome experience in 1981 to buy Boodle Boodle Boodle and hear a big psychedelic monster like “Point That Things Somewhere Else” after the “Tally Ho” single!

Getaway (2001) was my introduction to the band, which I find to be a really sunny-sounding and listenable album in the best way. It has its share of weird moments and a handful of song sketches mixed in, but nothing that's very disruptive to its flow. Then I picked up the Slush Fund tour disc a few months later (Other Music Cambridge had copies, I didn’t see the band in concert until 2012), and it really blew my mind. The live version of “Fish” on there is wild and wavy, and “Point That Thing Somewhere Else” is great too and played on piano instead of guitar, giving it a very different vibe from the Boodle version. I mention it because I think the band’s range — both from song to song, and from the records to the live setting — is something that really sets them apart from other groups.

But back to "Tally Ho." Our talk about these releases re-stoked my curiosity about what the phrase "Tally Ho" means in the context of the song. Which meaning of the word is it referring to and why? A huntsman’s cry? A simple hello or goodbye? Surely not a reference to the open-topped carriage. Searching around this time, I found this post from David Kilgour on the Audioculture site where he explains it. And it seems that my confusion was apt because it’s a song about… confusion. He said he wrote the lyrics at breakfast the morning of recording while he was still shaking off the effects of a bad acid trip from a couple of days prior, and he was confused and wanting to connect.

Bill Meyer: Andrew, part of what separated the Clean and other Flying Nun bands at the time was their disinclination to follow either the local “pay your dues” track or the well-worn path to Australia’s bar circuit. Chris Knox probably had a lot to do with that. Toy Love went to Australia, and had a terrible time; the experience pretty much broke the band. Tall Dwarfs was kind of a start-over, discarding everything that ground Toy Love down. Established studios and engineers, major labels and heavy touring before audiences that don’t already know the band were all out. Instead, the early Flying Nun bands started in the towns where they were based, spread out to university audiences, and (at least in the case of the Clean) the rest of the country.

In the recent Chills movie, Graeme Downes of the Verlaines describes the difference between the early Flying Nun bands and what had come before. Basically, they started writing their own songs right away, and recorded as soon as they could, rather than play for a few years, build up their chops and pay their dues. Even when the sound wasn’t very punk, the attitude was, and the practice was more punk than most punk rock. At any rate, no one was looking to Sandy Pearlman or Dennis Bovell to produce their sessions.

And Jen, It’s a rare day that could not be made better by adding a listen to Feather in the Engine.

The Clean had actually been experimenting with recording in 1980, which was the year before they started making records. They had a two track machine available in rehearsals for a while. Some of the music they recorded that way ended up on the Odditties tape (which was reissued decades later as a double LP). The songs that were done first that way didn’t change a huge amount later, except that the Boodle Boodle Boodle version of “Sad Eyed Lady” is less stoned, goofy, and long. The stuff that made it onto their two singles and two LPs was all recorded between July 1981 and the end of 1982, which is when they broke up.

And finally, Chris, for a little insight into what David might have sounded like either just before or while he was on acid, listen to “Platypus” and “Odditty.” Both of them were recorded live at the Gladstone in Christchurch on July 4, 1981. "Tally Ho!” Was recorded July 6-7 at Nightshift Studios, Christchurch. I bet that July 5 was quite a day.

I think that the Clean’s recordings were widely considered by fans at the time to be quite swell, but nowhere near what the Clean sounded like live. David Kilgour was using cheap, locally amps and not so great guitars, turned up as loud as they could possibly go. The people I’ve talked to who saw the Clean in the early 1980s said that it was like hearing airplanes taking off, or three guitars going at once; it was way too big a sound to capture on a four track. It was very trebly. The closest one might get to hearing what it was like would be the live tracks at the end of the CD version of Compilation, a Clean comp that was put together in the late 1980s. The version of Point That Thing on there was recorded onto a cassette, but you can still kind of hear the sound bouncing around the room.

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In this interview with Nightshift proprietor Arnie van Bussel (which still exists in a small building behind his house in Christchurch), there is some information about the recording of Tally Ho:

“Kilgour says Tally Ho cost $50 to make. He doesn't want to quibble but van Bussel thinks it was actually $48. "It was done using cheap mics, very quickly one evening," says van Bussel. "I charged $10 an hour.” “Those are New Zealand dollars, by the way, which even then were worth less than American dollars.”

Jonathan Shaw: It was the stoned quality (stoned is the better word here, not psychedelic) of some of the songs that hit me right back in the day — also of some of Tall Dwarfs' stuff, like "Crush" or "Pictures on the Floor." Don't do any of that sort of stuff anymore, but I still gravitate toward the slower and more distorted tunes. "End of My Dream" has an unmistakably NZ rock vibe to me, an off-the-cuff genius that's less studied in its slackness than the songs that everyone went nuts for when Pavement put out Slanted and Enchanted. Or "Do Your Thing," which glistens like a flattened beer can in the sun.

Bill Meyer: You can’t underestimate the influence of the Clean on early Pavement; if the Compilation LP and the Swell Maps reissues hadn’t happened, I don’t think that Pavement as we know it ever would have existed.

Bryon Hayes: I don’t have any direct evidence in interviews or what-have-you, but I was thinking that the Clean had an influence on Yo La Tengo as well. The vibe on Electr-o-Pura reminds me of “Point That Thing Somewhere Else.”

Andrew Forell: Yes, that rings true and I think it was the feeling those bands were just doing their thing without much care for the rest of the (industry) world that made them so compelling. Seeing the odd film clip — “Anything Could Happen” for instance — reinforced the impression. And it was the sound of the music as much as the songs that really caught the ear. Not so much that they sounded “cheap” or “homemade” but that the energy hadn’t been dampened or destroyed by the production which was the case with some of the local bands in Melbourne whose early records were nowhere near as powerful as their live shows either having been cleaned up to make them more palatable (Door, Door) or simply flattened into oblivion (Dead Can Dance).

Jonathan Shaw: I don't know any of the biographical details, so I don't know what sort of money the Kilgours had, or didn't have. And I like the idea of their sound being more lived-in than thought-of, anyways. But the use of cheap instruments and production equipment seems to provide a sort of end-run on "cleaning up" the songs for records. The weird throbbing and trebly vibrations in "Platypus" are nearly as interesting as the riff, and just about as effective. Clean that stuff out and the record isn't the same record. If those were intentional decisions, they were well made. Almost even better if the records just happened that way.

Jennifer Kelly: Bill’s comment about the live show sounding like three airplanes taking off had me trolling YouTube for videos, where I found this.

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Bryon Hayes: Oh wow, that is bombastic! It really underlines the point that the Clean’s live sound was too big to be done justice by a four-track recorder. I also like that in the comments of the video, the person says that the Clean took the audience down “a roller coaster of treble nostalgia” — it’s an apt description, for sure. And they made an audience member faint; I’ve only ever seen Mogwai do that before (in person).

Bill Meyer: By the time they were in their teens, I believe that the Kilgours lived in a single parent household. Their mom was very supportive. I think she worked as a nurse. I interviewed the band in 1995 at her kitchen table, and got my hand stuck in the cookie jar that she put out, to the amusement of the band.

There has been a very strong connection with Yo La Tengo since the 1980s. YLT has toured with the Clean and with David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights, jammed onstage with all of them at various times, and recruited David Kilgour as a member of the 2020 Yo La Tengo big band that toured in support of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. Georgia Hubley also played guitar in a later version of the Mad Scene, which was Hamish’s band with his (now ex)-wife, Lisa Siegel.

Jennifer Kelly: That’s right. I had tickets to Kilgore/YLT years ago but he bagged out, can’t remember why.

Bill Meyer: A bit of trivia: Kilgour is pronounced kilGOUR, rhymes with hour.

Jennifer Kelly: That will help with the limerick portion of this.

Here’s another vintage live clip.

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Jonathan Shaw: Man oh man, that Rumba Bar footage is just about enough to bring a tear to the eye. What a shitty, shitty decade, and what superb music emerged from it — likely in proportion to the shittiness. I wonder about songs like "Too Much Violence," and where the impulse to turn up so loud came from. Being young, sure, but our current imaginary of NZ seems very much to figure it as a sane place, where nukes aren't welcome and COVID is met with deadly serious policy and public action. Peter Jackson's early films seem to suggest the place was pretty buttoned up in the 1980s. The scene at Rumba Bar has a sweetness to it. But some of the songs are full of angst.

Jennifer Kelly: There was a bit in the Chills documentary about how Dunedin Harbor is sort of a bowl where weather gets trapped...and could be very oppressive and closed-in feeling, FWIW. I always picture NZ as being breathtakingly beautiful and green, but Dunedin is apparently not so much like that.

Bill Meyer: Jonathan, a couple songs you have referenced (“Too Much Violence” and “Do Your Thing”) are from Modern Rock, the album that they recorded in 1994.

From a distance, New Zealand seems sane, but it’s like the rest of the world, good mixed with bad, racial tensions, class tensions, etc. The music we like was generated mainly by fringy types, not mainstream folks. They first wave Flying Nun types would have been people on the anti- side of the Springbok protests in the southern winter of 1981. The Springboks were South Africa’s rugby team, and rugby is New Zealand’s biggest national sport. The country was severely divided between people who advocated a boycott as a means of challenging repression and racism, which the country was just beginning to reckon with, and people who said lined up more pro-commonwealth, pro-rugby, and small town values. There were fights outside the games, with people in light airplanes dropping smoke bombs into the fray, and a couple games was canceled due to concerns about the violence. The fall-out from the 1981 conflict was that in 1984, a landslide win for Labor ushered in the anti-nuke stance and a lot of progress on social issues.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the people starting college bands in the early 1980s would have been the last to have a memory of the effects of six o’clock pub closing. From WW I until 1967, New Zealand had a law mandating that pubs closed at six PM. The outcome was that a lot of guys finished their work shift, piled into pubs for an hour and slammed down as many drinks as they could, then came home drunk, with a consequent level of domestic violence. When I visited in the 1990s, the people who told me about the six o’clock closing related their memories with a PTSD-level shudder.

On a lighter note, what I know about the Kilgour brothers’ youth is that they were big into music and surfing. David still surfs to this day, I believe. Robert Scott, the third member, grew up in a farming community near the Taieri river south of Dunedin.

Jen, a lot of New Zealand is quite gorgeous. The whole world knows the foothills of the Southern Alps, on the South Island, because of the Lord of the Rings movies. The whole country is the product of volcanic activity, with mountains, gorges, old growth forests, and big expanses of pastureland. Because it’s an island nation, you can drive through a few drastically different weather conditions in the same day. Starting up north above Auckland, it’s semi-tropical. The further south you go, the colder the climate, and the sparser and more European-descended the population. Dunedin is nice in the summer when I was there. But I gather that in the winter it is cold, dark and wet, and since most of the country’s housing stock doesn’t have central heating, it’s hard to ever get warm. I guess it’s a bit like San Francisco without furnaces. People don’t wear those heavy wool sweaters for fashion’s sake.

Jonathan Shaw: Thanks for the bits of social history, Bill. I knew a little about the rugby riots, but didn't put them in context of NZ's scale; they must have been significant in their destabilizations of standards of public conduct. "Anything Could Happen" is sort of interesting to think about — the desire for something, for anything, to happen, and the strangeness that follows. I think that's part of what strikes me about the video footage from the Rumba Club. The kids are clearly having a good time, dancing, but they make space for one another. It's all rather polite — I don't say that with a stink on it. Just a culture's sensibility expressing itself even at its fringes.

The video for "Anything Could Happen" is pretty great. Looks to me like David K is dressed up like Bob Dylan c. 1965, the dandy troublemaker. The shots of them goofing around in Dunedin are even better. They seem to be provoking response, longing for something to happen.

Bill Meyer: If memory serves, the lyric to "Anything Could Happen” was written by Hamish Kilgour after he had a chat with an uncle about what to do with his life.

Ian Mathers: Coming in as maybe the only one here who's being introduced to the Clean by this exercise (I'm absolutely sure I've heard at least some bits and pieces before, while watching the Flying Nun documentary if nowhere else), I was definitely repeatedly struck by what Bill referred to, the way in the years since an awful lot of other bands have tried to sound at least a little like the Clean. I can hear the Pavement and YLT others mention for sure, but in terms of the singing not only did I have to keep reminding myself Robert Forster isn't in this band, I also kept hearing bits of Sonic Boom and early Thom Yorke. But in both cases really just in vocal timbre/performance, not so much lyrics or songwriting.

I think largely I'm still where Jonathan was some years ago — it all sounds good to me, but I think it would take some pretty determined and focused listening to get things to really pop into focus (lo fi stuff can still be in focus!). Weirdly enough my early gateway seems to be "Getting Older" — I really love the trumpet on that one.

Jonathan Shaw: It's a great song, Ian. And it sure resonates a bit differently with me now, in 2021, than it did in the late 1980s. "Getting Older," indeed.

That noted, the songs on Anthology are still so interesting and engaging to listen to. The freshness of their sound somehow preserves itself. "Lo-fi" wasn't schtick.

Bill Meyer: The recording technology, whether lo-fi or hi-fi, was never the point.

Justin Cober-Lake: I wonder if someone more knowledgeable than I am can talk this question through? It seems to me that their trebly sound is more emphasized by the lo-fi technology. This wouldn't have to be true (you could certainly produce a trebly tone in a state-of-the-art studio), but it seems like a nice confluence of sound, technology, and attitude, with each part of that trio amplifying the other.

Bill Meyer: I think that the two and four-track reel to reel machines they used for everything except “Tally Ho!” would necessarily fail to capture a lot of frequencies, and probably more bass frequencies than treble frequencies were lost. But they would also fail to capture the full-spectrum impact of a live band. The Clean live in 1982 were really loud. The recordings are enduringly marvelous, but they are their own thing, and no one I talked to who saw them at the time thought that the recordings captured what was great about the band’s concerts.

Chris Liberato: Since we’re talking about how loud the band is, one thing that I didn’t fully appreciate until I caught The Clean live is how hard Hamish hits his drums. And also, how much his (kind of unpredictable and very active) style is responsible for adding tension to the songs. Here’s a clip from the show I saw (in 2012 in Boston) where you should be able to get a pretty good idea of these things, especially towards the end. He really drove the band energy-wise that night, much more than Robert or David, who was in subdued, sunglasses-and-headband Dick Dale mode.

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In any case, it was a very different Hamish than the one I saw play with The Mad Scene in Philly a few years earlier. That night he played the entire set slumped down against one of the poles on the stage, strumming his guitar and singing, while the rest of the band stood up.

There's also an interview with David in a recent issue of Maggot Brain where he says that the secret to getting The Clean's drum sound is to "get a drummer that can hit the shit out of his kit."

#dusted magazine #listeningpost #the clean #new zealand #lo-fi #merge records #reissue #boodle boodle

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howdon-aldi-death-queue · 3 years

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NEW SAM FENDER INTERVIEW FOR NME

THE BIG READ

Sam Fender: “This album is probably the best thing I’ve done in my life”

The hometown hero has distanced himself from the ‘Geordie Springsteen’ tag, but there’s no shortage of rites-of-passage yarns and colossal tunes on the upcoming ‘Seventeen Going Under’

“You can see the ghost of Thatcherism over there…” says Sam Fender, pointing across the water to a vacant shipyard, where once the shipbuilding industry was so healthy that vessels towered higher than the rows of houses on the shore. We’re on the waterfront in North Shields, just outside Newcastle, and our photographer is snapping away for Sam’s first NME cover shoot.

The singer-songwriter stares stonily into the lens as wafts of seaweed and fishing trawlers are carried by the northern coastal breeze. He’s already been stopped for a few pictures with fans, but remains eager to point out the impact that Tory leadership has had on his working-class town over the last few decades. “It’s been closed since the ’80s, from the ghost wasteland of the shipyards. You’ve got all the scars of Thatcherism from The Tyne all over to the pit villages in Durham.”

It’s as good an introduction as any to the outspoken musician, whose 2019 debut album ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ was a record for his sleepy hometown to be proud of – tackling themes that range from male suicide (the heartbreaking ‘Dead Boys’) to world tensions (and the “kids in Gaza” he eulogised on its soaring title track). He set weighty topics against blisteringly well-executed Americana with the fist-in-the-air euphoria of Bruce Springsteen’s colossal choruses and sax solos. Much like his hero, Sam smartly weaves his own political standpoint and personal circumstance into gripping anthems of a generation, which earned him the ‘Geordie Springsteen’ tag.

“I can’t exactly bat off those comparisons, can I?” he says back in his cosy recording studio nearby. “At the same time, I don’t feel worthy of that tag. The first time I heard it, I was like, ‘That’s fucking sick’, but you don’t want to be riding off the coattails of The Boss for the rest of your life. I can write my own songs, they’re different and my voice doesn’t sound anything like Springsteen’s. I don’t have his growl; I’m a little fairy when I sing.”

He may have toned down the Springsteen vibes slightly on his highly anticipated second album ‘Seventeen Going Under’, due later this year, but there are still plenty of chest-pounding anthems capable of making your hairs stand on end: “I much prefer Americana to the music we have in our country at the moment. I love the leftfield indie stuff like Fontaines D.C, Squid and Black Midi, but I love a chorus and melodic songs. I think the American alternative scene has that down with Pinegrove, Big Thief, The War On Drugs.”

‘Hypersonic Missiles’ thrummed with a small town frustration almost that every suburban teenager could surely relate to. This was most notable on ‘Leave Fast’, where he sang about the “boarded up windows on the promenade / The shells of old nightclubs” and “intoxicated people battling on the regular in a lazy Low Lights bar”, a reference to his beloved local. But album two sees him fully embrace North Shields, an ever-present backdrop to cherished memories and harrowing life events of his youth and surroundings.

It’s no coincidence that the 27-year-old has turned inwards and penned a record about his hometown while being stuck at home like the rest of the country: “I didn’t have anything to point at and I didn’t want to talk about the pandemic because nobody wants that – I never want to hear about it again. It was such a stagnant time that I had to go inwards and find something, because I was so uninspired by the lifetime we we’re living in.

“I’ve made my coming-of-age record and that was important for me – as I get older, these stories keep appearing; I’ve got so much to talk about. I wrote about growing up here. It’s about mental health and how things that happen as a child impact your self-esteem in later life. On the first record, I was pointing at stuff angrily, but the further I’ve gotten into my 20s, the more I’ve realised how little I know about anything. When you hit 25, you’re like: ‘I’m fucking clueless! I know nothing about the world.’ It was a humbling experience, growing up.”

Early last year, before the pandemic hit, Sam was set to jet off to New York pre-pandemic to record in the city’s infamous Electric Lady studios founded by Jimi Hendrix. “Looking back, I’m thankful that it happened,” he says. “If I went off to New York and did my second album there… it wouldn’t have been the same record. I will go and do the third one in NYC, come hell or high water – I’m fucking out of here!

“The forced return home really informed the direction [of the record]. I was on the crest of this insane wave; we’d sold out 84,000 tickets for the [‘Hypersonic Missiles] arena tour that we still haven’t played yet. I’m still waiting to hear when it’s going to be rescheduled. It’s incredibly frustrating; I’ve got loads of frustrated fans. That was all cancelled on the day of the lockdown. I thought it was only going to be a couple of months and that it would be another swine flu thing, but fool me – I was stuck in the house like everybody else.”

It’s not the first setback that Sam has dealt with in his career. In the summer of 2019, he was ready to make his Glastonbury Festival debut with a Friday afternoon set on the legendary John Peel Stage, a rite of passage for any emerging artist, but had to pull out due to a serious health issue with his vocal chords. The mood in the room shifts dramatically at the mention of this devastating period: “I don’t want to focus on that, to be honest, because it’s just negative news and it’s in the past.”

“The further I’ve gotten into my 20s, the more I’ve realised how little I know”

Looking back now, he says, it was a tough decision, but ultimately the right thing to do: “We were doing so much at the time and I just burnt out. If you damage your vocal cords, you can’t take it lightly. If something happens like that and you keep going, you’ll fucking lose your career forever. I never want to end up behind the knife; I just refuse to put myself in that situation.”

The fact that his 2019 breakthrough ground to a halt again in COVID-decimated 2020 “was frustrating as fuck”, he says, “but I took solace in the fact that everyone was stopped in their tracks that time; it wasn’t just me.” This was in stark contrast to the singer’s experience of pulling the biggest moment of his music career in order to rest his vocal cords: “I didn’t talk for three weeks; I had to be silent and just watch Glastonbury on the TV, going, ‘This is completely dogshit’. But you can’t even say that out loud – you’re just saying it over in your head like a psycho. I’d take a pandemic over that any day.”

There was a brief flash of light when he headlined the opening night at the world’s first socially distanced arena, Newcastle’s Virgin Money Unity venue, to an audience of 2,500. Yet Sam’s not in the mood to wax lyrical about that, either. “It was amazing,” he says, “but it didn’t happen again.” A local lockdown in the North East brought the following shows – which would have featured Kaiser Chiefs and Declan McKenna – to a premature end in September: “It was another false start. We thought everything was going to get moving again but then we were just sat around [again].”

As for this reaction to the Government’s handling of the pandemic? It perhaps says it all that he’s selling face masks emblazoned with the words ‘2020 Shit Show’ and ‘Dystopian Nightmare Festival’ on his website. “I think everyone has said enough haven’t they?” Sam suggests. “I never want to see Boris Johnson’s or Matt Hancock’s face ever again. As soon as they come on the TV, I just turn it off.”

Political tension bubbles through ‘Seventeen Going Under’. Its second half boasts tracks such as ‘Long Way Off’, a brooding but colossal festival anthem brimming with angst and unease. “Standing on the side I never was the silent type,” Fender roars, “I heard a hundred million voices / sound the same both left and right / we’re still alone we are.” It’s gripping stuff; a Gallagher-level anthem ripe for pyro and pints held aloft.

Sam says the song is about feeling stranded amid political divisiveness here and in the US, epitomised when Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington back in January: “You’ve either got right-wing, racist idiots or you’ve got this elitist, upper-middle-class section of the left-wing, which completely alienates people like myself and people from my hometown.”

“The polarity between the left and the right has me feeling like I have no identity”

Closer to home, the last UK election, in 2019, saw the so-called ‘Red Wall’ crumble as working-class voters in the north defected from Labour to Tory. “The polarity between the left and the right has me feeling like I have no identity,” Sam says. “I’m obviously left-wing, but you lose hope don’t you? Left-wing politics has lost its main votership; it doesn’t look after working-class people the way that it used to. Blyth Valley voted Tory just north of here. Now, that is saying something! We’re in dire straits when a fucking shipbuilding town is voting for the Tories – it’s like foxes voting for the hunter.”

He’s even seen his own working-class friends peel to the blue side: “I’m like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ I understand it, though. I’d never vote for the bastards because I fucking hate them and I know what they’re up to, but I get why people don’t feel any alliegiance to left-wing politics when they’re working-class.”

As ever though, Sam isn’t masquerading as an expert: “I’m not fucking Noam Chomsky, you know what I mean? I’m not going to dissect the whole political agenda of the Tories and figure it all out because I can’t. All I see is a big fucking shit sandwich – every day through my news feed – and it’s just, ‘Well: that’s what your dealing with.”

The singer is fond of describing North Shields as “a drinking town with a fishing problem”. Today he adds: “That’s been the backdrop of my life: all of these displaced working-class people. It’s a town that’s resilient that still has a strong sense of community. In a lot of big cities that’s dead. In London everything changes from postcode to postcode, but everything is quite uniform up here.”

When NME was awaiting Sam’s arrival outside the studio before the interview, a passerby clocked our photographer’s gear and asked, “Oh aye – are you waiting for Sam? We all know Sam – a good lad; very accommodating with nae airs or graces about him.” Another pointed to The Low Lights Tavern down the road, where Fender used to pull pints on the weekends: “He was a terrible barman, and he’ll be the first to tell you that. I think he got sacked about six times during his time there.”

Sam (who confesses of his bartending know-how: “He’s totally right!”) hit the local to celebrate when ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ won him a Critics’ Choice gong at the BRIT Awards in 2019, placing the trophy on the bar. “I owed The Low Lights one for being such a shit barman,” he says. “I wanted them to be proud of us because they fucking certainly wasn’t proud of us when I was around working there!”

“Celebrity stuff freaks me out. I’d rather just live my life”

He’s clearly a key member of the local community, then. How did he see the pandemic impact on his family and friends – especially when the North East faced the toughest Tier Four lockdown restrictions last December? Sam pauses before bluntly saying: “I lost more mates; there was suicides again. Mental health was the biggest thing. We lost friends who had drunk too much.”

A track on the new record, ‘The Dying Light‘, is an epic sequel to ‘Dead Boys’, with the poignant last line of the album ringing out “for all the ones who didn’t make the night”. Sam, unable to truly distance himself from The Boss after all, explains: “It’s very Springsteen. It’s my ‘Jungleland’ or ‘Thunder Road’ – it’s got that ‘Born To Run’ feel; there’s strings and brass [and] it’s fucking massive. It’s a celebration. It’s a triumph over adversity.”

He stresses that it was vital for him to be in regular contact with his friendship circle through that traumatic time: “It becomes important when you lose friends to suicide… You realise it’s always the unlikely folks. We lost a friend to suicide at the beginning of last year and it was someone you’d never expect. It really hits home; it’s important to check in on your mates.”

Sam has alluded in previous interviews to a health condition that he’s not yet ready to fully disclose, and tells NME that he spent three months shielding at the beginning of the pandemic: “I was alone for three months and that was very tough… When you’re completely alone and isolated, it’s impossible. I spent a lot of time drinking and not really looking after myself and eating shit food, but I wrote a lot of good lyrics.”

There’s a certain resulting bleakness to some of his new songs, but Sam also wanted light to shine through. “It’s a darker record, but it’s a celebration of surviving and coming out the other end,” he explains. “It’s upbeat but the lyrics can be quite honest. It’s the most honest thing I’ve done.”

You might expect a young hometown hero to rail at having been denied the chance to capitalise on his burgeoning fame in the last year or so, but Sam insists, “I still have imposter syndrome,” adding: “I don’t feel like it’s happened… I’m walking around the street and people ask for photos and it just feels bizarre. I’m like, really? I feel like I haven’t come out of my shell yet.”

Sam has rarely been one to court celebrity, and revealed in 2019 that he’d turned down the chance to appear in an Ariana Grande video. “It was an honour but I would have just been known as that guy in the video,” he tells NME. “All of my mates would have been flipping their heads off, but I don’t think she would really want an out-of-shape, pale Geordie. I’d rather just live my life, because all of this celebrity stuff freaks [me] out, you know?”

He might have to get used to it: things can only get bigger with the arrival of the new album. “As a record I think this one is leagues ahead [of ‘Hypersonic Missiles’],” he says, “I’m more proud of this than anything I’ve ever done. It’s probably the best thing I’ve done in my life. I just hope people love it as much as I do. With the first album, a lot of those songs were written when I was 19, so I was over half of it [by the time it was released]. Whereas this one is where I’m at now.”

“This is a dark record, but it’s a celebration of surviving and coming out the other end”

Still, he adds: “At the same time, this record is probably going to piss a lot of people off.” He’s referring to a line in one of the more political tracks, ‘Aye’, where he returns to his most enduring bugbear, divisiveness, and claims that “the woke kids are just dickheads”. Sam’s no less forthcoming in person: “They fucking are, though! Some 22-year-old kid from Goldsmiths University sitting on his fucking high horse arguing with some working-class person on some comments section calling them an ‘idiot’ and a ‘bigot’? Nobody engages each other in a normal discussion [online] without calling each other a ‘thick cunt’.”

He’s eager to make this statement, though, come what may: “I don’t fucking care any more. I’m not really sure how the reaction is going to be. People used to say things online about me and I used to get quite hurt about it, but now I’m like, ‘Well, they’re not coming to my house’… [But] I get so angry. In Newcastle we say ‘pet’ and someone was trying to tell me that was fucking offensive towards women. You’re not going to delete my fucking colloquial identity. It’s not even gender-specific; we say it to men and women. My Grandma calls me ‘pet’! That brand of liberalism is fucking destroying the country. We could be getting Boris Johnson and all them pricks out of office if we stopped sweating over shit like that”.

Sam might be outspoken, but he’s self-aware, too. When we were talking politics earlier, he said: “I didn’t want to start on ‘cancel culture’ because I don’t want to sound like Piers Morgan [and] I fucking hate that cunt. But there is a degree of it which lacks redemption; people fuck up. Everyone is a flawed character. If you’re not admitting that you have flaws, then you’re a fucking psychopath. The left-wing seem to be that way and the right-wing are fucking worse than they’ve ever been. Politically I have just lost my shit.”

In all of this uncertainty, though, it seems a sure thing that Sam Fender will take his rightful crown – as soon as the world lets him – with the colossal ‘Seventeen Going Under’. “It’s going to be a hell of a return,” he insists. “I know the fans are still there, you know? So I’m not really worried – I’m ready to go out there and do my thing. Finally!”

#sam fender #majestic interview #some important points were raised #loved when he said that he hates the 'celebrity façade of things'#long post

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himbeaux-on-ice · 4 years

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Who are your top five NHL teams and why?

Ooooo this is fun! Thanks anon!

Short list:

Habs ❤️🤍💙

Pens 🐧

Canucks 🌈🌊

Caps 🦅

Leafs 🟦🍁🟦 (no really! I know I don’t talk about them much but its true!)

Over-wordy explanations/backstory for my relationship to each of these teams below the cut for those interested!

Montreal Canadiens. My dearly beloved Nana, who half-raised me, is a lifelong diehard Habs fan who grew up listening to their games on the radio and then later as an adult watching them duel with the Leafs on Saturday nights on a black-and-white tv (also a BIG Carey Price stan). Needless to say she rubbed off on me immensely, and I remember saying to myself at some point “well, if that’s Nana’s team, that’s gonna be my team too” and it stuck for life. I also had a friend in middle school who was a RELIGIOUS Habs fan who also worshipped at the altar of Jesus Price in those early 2010’s, so I heard a LOT about all of that every lunch break as he argued with friends who were Pens and Bruins fans lol. We went on the Bell Centre tour during the annual 9th grade French class trip to Quebec, and while I was mostly focused on getting to the gift shop to buy Nana a souvenir, I swear my friend’s eyes were the size of quarters the whole time lmao. (Would LOVE to go back now that I care a lot). Basically the Habs are the closest thing to a local NHL team our region has bc we get their broadcasts (though people choose their own team allegiances for various random personal reasons), and I grew up absorbing through osmosis both the legends of yore and the latest updates on whatever Carey and PK and the lads were up to. (Also I’ve been quietly in love with Price myself since at least the 2014 Olympics lol. My first best fav ❤️) Bottom line the Habs are My Team, the “I’m gonna be here even when it sucks, even when players move on, this is attached to me in a way I can’t quite explain” team that every hockey fan has in their heart. GO HABS GO!

Pittsburgh Penguins. If you were an elementary school kid in Nova Scotia when Sidney Crosby was first released and up through the 2010’s, you had two options: love him, or hate him, but you better accept you’re gonna be hearing about him a LOT. I settled on “vague fondness” and followed Sid from a newspaper-scanning distance and vaguely rooted for him because when he brought the Cup home it felt like we all won. And like I said, lots of passionate Pens fans in my grade school classes to hear from (he’s also the only non-Habs player my Nana likes lol). Then I got into hockey properly last year and learned about Geno beyond just knowing his name, and my chronic affection for large loveable Russians got combined with my longstanding vague “I hope the Penguins win” feelings and my “time to get the full story on the Sidney Crosby’s Penguins narrative I only ever watched from a distance” research, in a manner not unlike the creation of the PowerPuff Girls ([chemical X] etc etc lol) to create a potent adoration for this team that rocketed them to second place in my heart. Also the fandom is just so damn fun and makes such great content, and that definitely feeds my level of engagement with the Pens!! Sometimes, when I want an emotional pick-me-up I watch one of their last 3 championship films just to remember what joy and optimism is — I would love to be present as a real-time fan for another adventure like that. With how much I know about them and how much I care, they’re my #2 for sure. I love those flightless fucks!!

Vancouver Canucks. So I started watching live NHL hockey games last summer around I think game 2 of the Habs’ first round series against the Flyers (I saw Price’s “Miracle Save” on twitter while following along bc I was intrigued by the fact that they made it through the play-ins, and was like “OKAY NOW I GOTTA SEE THIS SHIT LIVE”). That was really fun! Riiiight up until the Habs got eliminated. :/ And I was like “well, shit. I’m enjoying this hockey thing too much to stop now. who else is still around I can root for?” And the Canucks were the last Canadian team still in it, and there was buzz about their miraculous first-round win but also uncertainty I believe Markstrom had *just* got injured. So I started watching, ended up witnessing the Bubble Demko Miracle unfold live, had my heart charmed off me by “whatever the hell those two lil blonde bitches have going on” and a delightful underdog story, and here I am. Hitched to the Canuck wagon whether I enjoy it or not. Here for whatever happens! (Doesn’t hurt that I love me some Elton John too 😉)

Washington Capitals. I’m a person who is more likely to be really engaged with a team that has super interesting personalities, characters, and narratives around it — and my GOD are the Capitals good for that. I absolutely definitely started down this road with that mic’d up video from the 2018 final of Ovi telling Nicke “after me, I give it to you baby!” re: the Cup. Like I can pinpoint that there was a day I saw that for the first time in a gifset, squinted at the screen, said “you’re fucking with me...”, went to youtube, watched it be for reals, and was like “well. now I need to know more about ALL this.” After watching games and learning more about the team, I really enjoy the Caps’ “big dumb found family of stone-cold total weirdos” energy, their fun collective chemistry, their Cup story, etc. And oh BOY the fandom is fun during game lb’s! I love all the in-jokes and player nicknames, our delight with the quirks of our colourful wonderful broadcast crew (shoutout Wine Uncles & Co), the way we cheer for record-breaking milestones like they’re a first NHL goal! Being a fan of the Caps AND the Pens can be a bit awkward sometimes, and the team certainly has its blemishes, but my heart is big enough for two Metro teams for sure, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Toronto Maple Leafs. So like, as you can imagine from my previously described upbringing in Hab Land, “haha Leafs suck” is a punchline I have long been familiar with and trained to recite. I got a solid 3 days of laughter and entertainment out of the whole Zamboni Driver Saga last February, oh boy did I ever. But the thing is.... I have the Leafs to thank for the fact that I watch hockey now. See, the entire reason I started paying proper attention to the playoff bubble last summer was because one day, I happened to see the phrase “WHAT IS HAPPENING” trending at 16k tweets on twitter, and clicked on it like “huh?”. Turns out the Leafs were in the middle of their miraculous 3-minute comeback against Columbus and the country was losing its mind. And when they won, I was like “huh... the Zamboni Team is doing THIS??? I may have to start paying attention to this playoffs thing, because if they go All The Way I think that might be the only thing funnier than the Zamboni Incident”. Aaaaand when they immediately lost the next game and were eliminated I was like “lol, sounds about right” and was then immediately distracted by news of the Habs winning the play-in round. So then I spent several months watching playoffs and forgetting about the Leafs. And then one day in early October, looking on YouTube for more hockey to watch after the playoffs ended, I stumbled across something called a Hat Pick, and boy I actually enjoyed this shouty man’s sense of humour and takes on the game... and then when I ran out of Hat Picks and Dangits I watched some Trade Trees, which pulled back the curtain on the business side of the game... and then I discovered LFR’s, which were good background noise for doing tasks... and then I was recommended the episode of the Steve Dangle Podcast about Mitch Marner and The List... and next thing I knew I was listening to more of this podcast, because I found Steve and the guys to be insightful and funny and there was no hockey to watch, and I was trepidatious about accidentally stumbling into the more toxic corners of hockey fandom if I branched out for other content... and, well. If you spend enough hours listening to people passionately analyze every facet of a team, shout and cheer over a team, make fun of that team, nearly cry over that team... it’s really REALLY hard to not start to care about it. Leafs analysis was basically how I learned most of what I’ve learned about hockey this past year! And kudos to Steve and Adam and Jesse, their passionate investment in the Leafs and great content has got ME invested in the Leafs mainly because I want to see things go well for them. I want Charlie Brown to kick the football! I love a triumph over adversity story! Also, I think if the Leafs did Do The Thing it would basically be the combination of “Cubs win the World Series” and “Raptors are the champs” and I wanna watch the city of Toronto go fully apeshit from a safe distance. I don’t adore many their individual players as much as I do some other teams higher on this list, and I still laugh far too much when things go super comically impossibly badly for them, but I am actually pulling for the Leafs!! I want to see it all pay off for them. I want them to go all the way. Gimme that “LEAFS WIN!!!” (Unless it’s against someone above them on this list lol)

#if u get the joke in the Canucks emojis bless u #long post #asks #anon #actually I would root Leafs in a TOR vs WSH playoff series but it would break my heart to do so lol #Washington has a Cup already ya know?

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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years

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Pitchfork Music Festival 2021 Preview: 15 Can’t-miss Acts

black midi; Photo by YIS KID

BY JORDAN MAINZER

While yours truly won’t be attending Pitchfork Music Festival this year, SILY contributor Daniel Palella will be covering the actual fest. If I was attending, though, these would be the acts I’d make sure to see. 5 from each day, no overlaps, so you could conceivably see everyone listed.

FRIDAY

Armand Hammer, 1:00 PM, Green Stage

Earlier this year, New York hip hop duo Armand Hammer released their 5th album Haram (BackwoodzStudioz) in collaboration with on-fire producer The Alchemist. It was the duo’s (ELUCID and Billy Woods) first time working with a singular producer on a record (though Earl Sweatshirt produced a track), and likewise, The Alchemist actually tailored his beats towards the two MCs. Haram is the exact kind of hip hop that succeeds early in the day at a festival, verbose and complex rhymes over languid, cloudy, sample-heavy beats, when attendees are more likely to want to sit and listen than dance. And you’re going to want to listen to Armand Hammer, whose MCs’ experiential words frame the eerie hues of the production. “Dreams is dangerous, linger like angel dust,” Woods raps on opener “Sir Benni Miles”, never looking back as he and Elucid’s stream-of-consciousness rhymes cover everything from colonization to Black bodily autonomy and the dangers of satisfaction disguised as optimism. (“We let BLM be the new FUBU,” raps Quelle Chris on “Chicharrones”; “Iridescent blackness / Is this performative or praxis?” ponders Woods on “Black Sunlight”.) There are moments of levity on Haram, like KAYANA’s vocal turn on “Black Sunlight” and the “what the hell sound is this?” type sampling that dominates warped, looped tracks like “Peppertree” and “Indian Summer”, built around sounds of horns and twirling flute lines. For the most part, Haram is an album of empathetic realism. “Hurt people hurt people,” raps Elucid on “Falling Out of the Sky”, a stunning encapsulation of Armand Hammer’s world where humanism exists side-by-side with traumatic death and feelings of revenge.

You can also catch Armand Hammer doing a live set on the Vans Channel 66 livestream at 12 PM on Saturday.

Dogleg, 1:45 PM, Red Stage

It feels like we’ve been waiting years to see this set, and actually, we have! The four-piece punk band from Michigan was supposed to play last year’s cancelled fest in support of their searing debut Melee (Triple Crown), and a year-plus of pent up energy is sure to make songs like “Bueno”, “Fox”, and “Kawasaki Backflip” all the more raging. Remember: This is a band whose reputation was solidified live before they were signed to Triple Crown and released their breakout album. Seeing them is the closest thing to a no-brainer that this year’s lineup offers.

Revisit our interview with Dogleg from last year, and catch them at an aftershow on Saturday at Subterranean with fellow Pitchfork performer Oso Oso and Retirement Party.

Hop Along, 3:20 PM, Red Stage

Though lead singer Frances Quinlan released a very good solo album last year, it’s been three years since their incredible band Hop Along dropped an album and two years since they’ve toured. 2018′s Bark Your Head Off, Dog (Saddle Creek), one of our favorite albums of that year, should comprise the majority of their setlist, but maybe they have some new songs?

Catch them at an aftershow on Saturday at Metro with Varsity and Slow Mass.

black midi, 4:15 PM, Green Stage

The band who had the finest debut of 2019 and gave the best set of that year at Pitchfork is back. Cavalcade (Rough Trade) is black midi’s sophomore album, methodical in its approach in contrast with the improvisational absurdism of Schlagenheim. Stop-start, violin-laden lead single and album opener “John L”, a song about a cult leader whose members turn on him, is as good a summary as ever of the dark, funky eclecticism of black midi, who on Cavalcade saw band members leave and new ones enter, their ever shapeshifting sound the only consistent thing about them. A song like the jazzy “Diamond Stuff” is likely impossible to replicate live--its credits list everything from 19th century instruments to household kitchen items used for percussion--but is key to experiencing their instrumental adventurousness. On two-and-a-half-minute barn burner “Hogwash and Balderdash,” they for the first time fully lean into their fried Primus influences, telling a tale of two escaped prisoners, “two chickens from the pen.” At the same time, this band is still black midi, with moments that call back to Schlagenheim, the churning, metallic power chords via jittery, slapping funk of “Chondromalacia Patella” representative of their quintessential tempo changes. And as on songs like Schlagenheim’s “Western”, black midi find room for beauty here, too, empathizing with the pains of Marlene Dietrich on a bossa nova tune named after her, Geordie Greep’s unmistakable warble cooing sorrowful lines like, “Fills the hall tight / And pulls at our hearts / And puts in her place / The girl she once was.” Expect to hear plenty from Cavalcade but also some new songs; after all, this is a band that road tests and experiments with material before recording it.

Catch them doing a 2 PM DJ set on Vans Channel 66 on Saturday and at an aftershow on Monday at Sleeping Village.

Yaeji, 7:45 PM, Blue Stage

What We Drew (XL), the debut mixtape from Brooklyn-based DJ Yaeji, was one of many dance records that came out after lockdown that we all wished we could experience in a crowd as opposed to at home alone. Now's our chance to bask in all of its glory under a setting sun. Maybe she’ll spin her masterful remix of Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” from the Club Future Nostalgia remix album, or her 2021 single “PAC-TIVE”, her and DiAN’s collaboration with Pac-Man company Namco.

Angel Olsen; Photo by Dana Trippe

SATURDAY

Bartees Strange, 1:45 PM, Red Stage

One of our favorite albums of last year was Live Forever (Memory Music), the debut from singer-songwriter and The National fanatic Bartees Strange, one that contributor Lauren Lederman called “a declaration of an artist’s arrival.” He’s certainly past arrived when you take into account his busy 2021, releasing a new song with Lorenzo Wolff and offering his remix services to a number of artists, including illuminati hotties and fellow Pitchfork performer (and tour mate) Phoebe Bridgers. Expect to hear lots of Live Forever during his Pitchfork set, one of many sets at the fest featuring exciting young guitar-based (!) bands.

Catch him at a free (!!) aftershow on Monday at Empty Bottle with Ganser.

Faye Webster, 4:00 PM, Blue Stage

Since we previewed Faye Webster’s Noonchorus livestream in October, she’s released the long-awaited follow-up to Atlanta Millionaires Club, the cheekily titled I Know I’m Funny haha (Secretly Canadian). At that time, she had dropped “Better Distractions”, “In A Good Way”, and “Both All The Time”, and the rest of the album more than follows the promise of these three dreamy country, folk rock, and R&B-inspired tunes. Webster continues to be a master of tone and mood, lovelorn on “Sometimes”, sarcastic on the title track, and head-in-the-clouds on “A Dream with a Baseball Player”. All the while, she and her backing band provide stellar, languorous instrumentation, keys and slide guitar on the bossa nova “Kind Of”, her overdriven guitar sludge on “Cheers”, cinematic strings on the melancholic “A Stranger”, stark acoustic guitar on heartbreaking closer “Half of Me”. And the ultimate irony of Webster’s whip-smart lyricism is that a line like, “And today I get upset over this song that I heard / And I guess was just upset because why didn't I think of it first,” is that I can guarantee a million songwriters feel the same way about her music, timely in context and timeless in sound and feeling.

Catch her at an aftershow on Saturday at Sleeping Village with Danger Incorporated.

Georgia Anne Muldrow, 5:15 PM, Blue Stage

The queen of beats takes the stage during the hottest part of the day, perfect for some sweaty dancing. VWETO III (FORESEEN + Epistrophik Peach Sound), the third album in Muldrow’s beats record series, was put together with “calls to action” in mind, each single leading up to the album’s release to be paired with crowdsourced submissions via Instagram from singers, visual artists, dancers, and turntablists. Moreover, many of the album’s tracks are inspired by very specific eras of Black music, from Boom Bap and G-funk to free jazz, and through it all, Muldrow provides a platform for musical education just as much as funky earworms.

Revisit our interview with Muldrow from earlier this year.

Angel Olsen, 7:25 PM, Red Stage

It’s been a busy past two years for Angel Olsen. She revealed Whole New Mess (Jagjaguwar) in August 2020, stripped down arrangements of many of the songs on 2019′s amazing All Mirrors. In May, she came out with a box set called Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories (Jagjaguwar), which contained both All Mirrors and Whole New Mess and a bonus LP of remixes, covers, alternate takes, and bonus tracks. She shortly and out of nowhere dropped a song of the year candidate in old school country rock high and lonesome Sharon Van Etten duet “Like I Used To”. And just last month, she released Aisles, an 80′s covers EP out on her Jagjaguwar imprint somethingscosmic. She turns Laura Branigan’s disco jam “Gloria” and Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance” into woozy, echoing, slowed-down beds of synth haze and echoing drum machine. On Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “If You Leave”, her voice occupies different registers between the soft high notes of the bridge and autotuned solemnity of the chorus. Sure, other covers are more recognizable in their tempo and arrangement, like Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell ballad “Eyes Without a Face” and Alphaville’s “Forever Young”, but Aisles is exemplary of Olsen’s ability to not just reinvent herself but classics.

At Pitchfork, I’d bet on a set heavy on All Mirrors and Whole New Mess, but as with the unexpectedness of Aisles, you never know!

St. Vincent, 8:30 PM, Green Stage

Annie Clark again consciously shifts personas and eras with her new St. Vincent album Daddy’s Home (Loma Vista), inspired by 70′s funk rock and guitar-driven psychedelia. While much of the album’s rollout centered around its backstory--Clark’s father’s time in prison for white collar crimes--the album is a thoughtful treatise on honesty and identity, the first St. Vincent album to really stare Clark’s life in the face.

Many of its songs saw their live debut during a Moment House stream, which we previewed last month.

The Weather Station; Photo by Jeff Bierk

SUNDAY

Tomberlin, 1:00 PM, Green Stage

While the LA-via-Louisville singer-songwriter hasn’t yet offered a proper follow-up LP to her 2018 debut At Weddings, she did last year release an EP called Projections (Saddle Creek), which expands upon At Weddings’ shadowy palate. Songs like “Hours” and “Wasted” are comparatively clattering and up-tempo. Yet, all four of the original tracks are increasingly self-reflexive, Tomberlin exploring and redefining herself on her terms, whether singing about love or queerness, all while maintaining her sense of humor. (“When you go you take the sun and all my flowers die / So I wait by the window and write some shit / And hope that you'll reply,” she shrugs over acoustic strums and wincing electric guitars.) The album ends with a stark grey cover of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s “Natural Light”; Tomberlin finds a kindred spirit in the maudlin musings of Owen Ashworth.

Get there early on Sunday to hear select tracks from At Weddings and Projections but also likely some new songs.

oso oso, 2:45 PM, Blue Stage

Basking in the Glow (Triple Crown), the third album from Long Beach singer-songwriter Jade Lilitri as Oso Oso, was one of our favorite records of 2019, and we’d relish the opportunity to see them performed to a crowd in the sun. Expect to hear lots of it; hopefully we’re treated to new oso oso material some time soon.

Catch them at an aftershow on Saturday at Subterranean with fellow Pitchfork performer Dogleg and Retirement Party.

The Weather Station, 4:00 PM, Blue Stage

The Toronto band led by singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman released one of the best albums of the year back in February with Ignorance (Fat Possum), songs inspired by climate change-addled anxiety. While the record is filled with affecting, reflective lines about loss and trying to find happiness in the face of dread, in a live setting, I imagine the instrumentation will be a highlight, from the fluttering tension of “Robber” to the glistening disco of “Parking Lot”.

Revisit our preview of their Pitchfork Instagram performance from earlier this year. Catch them at an aftershow on Friday at Schubas with Ulna.

Danny Brown, 6:15 PM, Green Stage

The Detroit rapper’s last full-length record was the Q-Tip executive produced uknowhatimsayin¿ (Warp), though he’s popped up a few times since then, on remixes, a Brockhampton album, and TV62, a Bruiser Brigade Records compilation from earlier this year. (He’s also claimed in Twitch streams that his new album Quaranta is almost done.) His sets--especially Pitchfork sets--are always high-energy, as he’s got so many classic albums and tracks under his belt at this point, so expect to hear a mix of those.

Erykah Badu, 8:30 PM, Green Stage

What more can I say? This is the headliner Pitchfork has been trying to get for years, responsible for some of the greatest neo soul albums of all time. There’s not much else to say about Erykah Badu other than she’s the number one must-see at the festival.

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searchingteutonic · 4 years

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White supremacy is not welcome in Heathenism.

Read that again.

When I first started researching family blood lines and getting into Heathenism, I was maybe in my early twenties. This was shortly after my mother died and my family split up, but I decided I was going to start researching my ancestry and trace my family lines. I was impressed when I found a lot of our family on both my mother and father’s side, came from the Scandinavian countries as well as Germany. Most of the line traced back to northern Finland.

During this time for me in college, I found myself often taking a bus from my home city to the next city over, where I frequented a downstairs occult book shop. They had all matter of herbs I often purchased for this and that, usually medicinal herbal tea blends and the like. I was in in the thick of my research on family blood lines when I came across Edred Thorsson’s (Stephen Flowers) book Northern magic, and some of his other texts. This book was mostly centered around the history concerning Nordic magic and practices, where it came from and the movements to revive Nordic spirituality over the last century.

I found it fascinating because I always had a love for Nordic mythology and stories growing up. Even prolific writers such as J.R.R Tolkien took a great and heavy inspiration from Norse and Scandinavian folk lore and writings. Many wonderful fairy tales and stories have come from my family’s culture, and it wasn’t until after my mother’s death that I was able to fully explore and learn about who I was as a person. Even with such a rich cultural heritage and ancestry, there was something that I took away from all this research. Something a little darker than I expected.

Reading Stephen Flowers’ (Edred Thorsson) works, I learned a great deal of history about the revivalist movements that happened in the early 1900′s. During this time, spiritualists and revivalists attempted to make a come back in northern Europe, attempting to open temples to begin practicing the ancient ways. Prior to that, it had been some time since there had been many Heathens since a majority of Teutonic practitioners were converted to Christianity or killed during the Crusades. Some still practiced of course, but there had yet to be a larger revival centuries later. Sadly that early 20th century revival would need to wait a little longer, as WW1 and WW2 were around the corner. There was a revival, but not the kind we had wanted. The German romantic Volkisch movement in the early 20th century lended itself to the Nazi movement. Many important Germanic and Teutonic spiritual symbolism was perverted and twisted from it’s original meanings and purposes.

Galdr Stave runes, Elder Futhark, and other important symbology was adopted into the Nazi mysticism practiced amongst it’s higher ranking officers. It seems like something out of an Cult Science fiction novel, but there is no mistake that Hitler himself was fascinated with Occultism. Flowers talks about this in his book, as well as his Reading an article by John Farrell from 2019 put a good amount of this into perspective. While Thorrson presents his writings in a way that gives the impression he would condemn these perversions of the Runes by White Nationalist and Nazi-paganism, Farrell suspects otherwise.

Trying to figure out where this racist and nationalist rhetoric came from, it did not start forming itself until the Nazi movement in the early 20th century, and then later picked up by a Heathen Revivalist in the late 1960s by a Danish Migrant named Else Christensen. A fan of the new paganism movements in the 60s and 70s, she started the Odinist fellowship, which was more of a politically charged ideology with blatant racism interwoven into the tapestry that was presented under the guise of a New and modern Asatru. There is a lot more history that can be pulled up with a quick google search explaining in depth and detail the amount of hate-rhetoric that was planted like seeds in the early revival in the united states as Christensen toured the country spreading her ideologies after the dead of her husband in 1971. The point of the matter is that this modern based Heathenism at best feels disingenuous at best. White Nationalism was groomed into the practice for over 60 years in the united states, and over a century if we go back prior to WW1 and further with the Germanic Volkich movement. A century and more worth of rhetoric and twisted spirituality that has tarnished much sacred symbolism.

As heathens, we need to dismantle these dangerous ideologies and hate based rhetoric. They do not reflect the old ways, and they never have. It is a bastardization at best. They do not represent our people or speak for our gods. I certainly will not share my table with any man or woman who follows this path, and I hope the rest of the Heathen community that stays true to the Teutonic path does the same.

White Nationalism does not belong in Heathenism.

It never has and never will.

#white nationalism #asatru #heathenism #paganism #white supremecy #nazism #nazi #witch craft #pagan community #Heathen #heathenry

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writingwithbella · 4 years

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Old Scars/Future Hearts: Salty Like A Summer’s Day

series summary; one summer. one tour. six people. touring with your older brother and the band he manages is supposed to be fun. you get to be with all of your favorite people, go to different cities, and jam out to shows every night. so why is pope so set on making your experience a living hell?

pope heyward x routledge!reader

2.4k words (👁👄👁we really went off with this first chapter ngl)

a/n: yay! first chapter in @bricksatanakinswindow and I’s new fic! We are both very excited to share this with you and would love to hear what you have to say on the first chapter! this fic is definitely going to be a wild ride, but one we hope you enjoy as much as we do!

JJ Maybank sees you first.

He’s booking it across the parking lot, his hat close to flying off his head and his backpack slapping violently against his back as soon as you step out of your car. You’re too focused on tugging your charger from the port to realize he’s barreling towards you at full speed. When you finally look up, you have less than ten seconds to brace yourself before JJ is slamming into you, squashing you between him and the car.

“y/n!” he shouts, nuzzling his face in the crook of your neck. “JB said you were coming but I said I wouldn’t believe it ‘til I saw it. You know how flaky you can be, right?”

You roll your eyes and shove JJ off of you, a grin making its way onto your face. “Fuck off, Maybank. I always keep my promises.”

Before he can answer you, another voice sounds from the other end of the parking lot in the same tone of elation as JJ. “Thank god!”

Kie’s making her way towards the two of you, a radiant smile on her face. She looks as beautiful as ever, her hair falling behind her shoulders in curls. Her skin is glowing, and her eyes are bright. You move from JJ’s grip in favor of pulling Kie into a bone-crushing hug, a small giggle escaping your lips when she gasps.

“If I had to suffer through this tour without you or Sarah, I’d go insane,” she says, moving to drink you in. “You look good, y/n. When did you start wearing so much black?”

You laugh a little, shaking your head at her. The last time Kie had seen you, you were going through your pink phase. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, really, except for the fact that it wasn’t your style. You had experimented different styles over the past few years, deciding that a mixture of pretty much everything suit you. “Just recently. I decided it’s the right vibe for now.”

“Well, I, for one, don’t care about clothes. Let’s go back to the bus,” JJ says, grabbing two of your bags. “John B. says he misses you. Surprising, right?”

“Shut up, JJ!” you and Kie say at the same time, falling into a fit of giggles as he rolls his eyes at you.

Kie links her arm with yours, guiding you towards the tour bus that would house you for the next four months. You had been excited when John B. had called and asked you to help him manage to band on tour. Your summer was originally going to be spent in your hometown, pretending your brother wasn’t traveling the country while you worked a minimum wage job.

But this option was much, much better.

You see John B. and Sarah before they see you. You can tell right away that your brother is smitten with Kie’s best friend. His attention is fully on her, a smile brighter than the sun painted on his face. You knew your brother like the back of your hand, having watched him fall in love with girls time and time again.

“Ah, so JB is already making moves?” you ask teasingly, resting your hands on your hips.

“Sarah Cameron does have that effect on people,” Kie comments.

You snicker, shaking your head at your brother. He is a hopeless romantic through and through. You could only hope Sarah possessed some of those traits.

“I was hoping JB was lying when he said you were coming along for the ride.”

Pope’s voice turns your blood into ice. He was the last person you wanted to see – the person you were dreading seeing. Pope wasn’t nice to you. There was no way around it. For some god-awful reason, Pope Heyward fucking hated you. And because you weren’t one to back down, you reciprocated those harsh feelings.

It was exhausting being around him, always being so angry and rude. But you weren’t going to let him push you around.

You turn on your heel, catching Kie’s eye. She sends you a pleading look, one begging you to be nice. You can hear her voice in your head; C’mon, y/n, it’s the start of the tour. Let’s not do this right away.

“I promised,” you say stiffly, your eyes raking over him lazily. You ignore the tug at your heart when you see him. He always looks attractive, but today especially, he seems to have turned up the heat. He’s wearing ripped black jeans, a Nirvana tank top, and his hat backwards. He looks like a tall glass of water, begging to be drank on a day as hot as this one.

But then he opens his mouth.

“We all know how hard it is to keep your promises,” Pope says dismissively. “Kie, did you see where JB left the keys? I want to get the AC going so we don’t all heat case.”

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask him?” She replies offhandedly, gesturing towards the love-stricken boy. Pope rolls his eyes, but not frustratedly like he had with you. Rather, he seems amused, humored by the older boy’s antics. You scoff, but rather than begin the argument again, you turn to face Kie and JJ who are trying to ignore the obvious tension in the air.

“This is gonna be so much fun!” JJ mocks, to which you and Kie laugh raucously, catching John B’s attention and breaking him out of his Sarah-Cameron-centered trance.

“Alright, alright, calm down kids. Let’s get on the bus, I feel like I’m dying.” He pulls the keys out of one of the pockets of his cargo shorts and begins walking towards the bus. The rest of them follow after, lugging their suitcases and duffle bags behind them as if they had been walking for miles. Under his breath, Pope mutters.

“That’s such a great idea, John B. I wonder who literally said that not ten seconds before?” You can’t help the snicker that you make at his words. He looks over at you, but before he can make whatever snarky comment had come to his mind, John B interrupts, opening the door to the bus and gesturing to the ample space within.

Note your heavy sarcasm.

“Welcome to your humble abode for the next four months. There’s a living room, a kitchenette, and in the far back, behind the curtain, the bunk space. Bunks are first come, first serve, so if you want a top bunk, I suggest you claim it now.” His words spark a race within the group and the six of you push and shove each other out of the way to claim your ideal bunk.

You are reaching to seize the top bunk for yourself when a dark arm moves past you and places an olive green duffle bag on the undressed mattress. You turn to look at the owner of said arm and, unsurprisingly, find it attached to Pope, who is smiling innocently.

“That’s my bed.” He laughs slightly, to which you cross your arms and stare him down with your most intimidating look. He laughs harder.

“Really? I didn’t see any stuff on it saying that it was yours. No sign, no luggage. In fact, the only stuff on there is mine, so I think this is my bed. Sorry.” You can tell by the smile on his face that he is in no way sorry. But, it doesn’t matter. JJ and Kie are giving you both wary looks as if waiting for a fight to break out and this is going to be a four-month long tour. You will have plenty of time to annoy and argue with each other later.

For now, for them, you’ll just grit your teeth and bear it.

“Fine. I’ll just take this one. But, if I hear a single snore from you, I won’t hesitate to smother you with a pillow.” You place your stuff on the next bunk down, ignoring Pope’s looming presence behind you.

“Fine, but one peep from you and I won’t hesitate to push you onto the floor.” You scoff.

“Fine.”

It’s hours later that you find yourself alone with Kie, JJ and Pope having left to get either groceries or something they’d forgotten to pack, while John B is still attempting to woo Sarah by taking her to some park nearby. A sort-of goodbye to the Outer Banks before they depart for their four-month venture.

“It’s so weird,” Kie mutters, sipping on a can of beer she’d pulled from the minifridge. The boys may not know how to pack the basics like a toothbrush or enough socks, but they’d remembered to stock every cool place in the vehicle with alcohols of all types from cheap beers to hard liquors.

“What’s weird?” You reply, sipping on a cold beer of your own and staring out the tinted windows into the nothingness of the parking lot beyond. There really isn’t much to do on the bus when it’s just the two of you, resigning you to talking or staring—you at the outer world and Kie at her phone.

“I feel like, I don’t know, we should all be at a dinner, celebrating us leaving for tour. Instead, we’re just sitting here, doing nothing, while everyone else does whatever. Just feels like a shitty start to tour.” You shrug, looking away from the window, and turn to face her, who hasn’t looked up from her phone in the entire time she talked.

“Well, there’s still time for us to do all that. Maybe not a celebratory dinner, but we leave at 11 o’clock tomorrow. We could have a nice breakfast send-off.” She scoffs lightly, jokingly, and finally looks up from the screen to meet your eyes.

“Very funny. I’m just saying, I thought tonight would be going differently, that’s all. I thought maybe we would all be sitting around a table and drinking and laughing and talking about all the things we want to do on tour. I thought we’d be trying to keep you and Pope from killing each other and be separating John B and Sarah so they didn’t try to fuck right there in front of us all. Instead we’re all separated and we’re drinking and I don’t know. I just thought things would be different.” You could definitely see where she was coming from. This isn’t how you thought tour would be starting off either, though you couldn’t say you were surprised. The group had never been very well-organized, so the idea that they are all on different pages doesn’t surprise you.

“Well, there’s still enough time left in the day for me and Pope to start arguing again, so don’t discard that idea yet. But seriously, if you want to have a celebratory send-off, I can goad my brother into a breakfast thing tomorrow. I’m sure they’d all love to eat before the four-hour drive to Raleigh.” Kie shakes her head amusedly, looking down at the can in her hand.

“Nah, I don’t want to force the boys to do anything they don’t want. If they want to start on a low note, that’s on them. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of group meals on the road, it’s kind of inevitable. Speaking of low notes, what the fuck is up with you and Pope?” You suspect that this was the motive behind the entire conversation—to get you to talk about Pope, but you can’t find it within yourself to be surprised.

The tension between you and Pope has always been a point of contention within the group. No one within the group seems to know how it started, not even you. All you can remember is Pope meeting you and immediately treating you with hostility, which you returned because you didn’t know what else to do. Now, because you both possess deep friendships with every other member of the group, you are forced to tolerate each other's unbearable existences. But your friendships with the others doesn’t mean you won’t still make comments and pick fights with each other every chance you get.

“Nothing new. He’s still an asshole and I still don’t know why. But I’m trying to be nice, for you and JJ. He just makes it so difficult. He keeps making little digs at me and stealing my bunk? He just keeps acting like a child! I don’t get it, what did I ever do to him?” Kie shrugs, but before she can reply, the door opens and the topic of your conversation enters with JJ, carrying multiple bags. At the sight of you, Pope’s expression sours.

“Hey, so we got some basic needs for the road so we aren’t just eating junk all the time.” JJ tosses a bag to you, which you examine with an amused expression.

“This is exclusively gas station junk food. There’s not a single healthy item in here.” JJ laughs, swiping the bag from your lap as he and Pope move past you and Kie to the kitchenette. Pope refuses to look at you.

“Okay and? Fresh fruits would rot so fast, it doesn’t make sense to have them. At least these things will last.” JJ says, pointing at you.

“Yeah, but my waistline won’t. We have to eat healthier, even if it means buying fruits and veggies and eating them within the day,” Kie speaks. Pope rolls his eyes, but jokingly, like he’s amused by what she said. You’re sure that if you had said the same thing that he would be going off on you or making comments. It’s frustrating to you that he held you to a different standard than his other friends.

“I’m going to bed, guys, you all have fun,” you mutter, chucking your empty beer can into the trash can in the kitchenette and maneuvering past the confused boys. You just don’t have it in you to deal with Pope at the moment and it makes more sense for you to just remove yourself from the situation entirely rather than listen to Pope make snide remarks towards you all night.

You dress quickly for bed and ensure the curtain is closed before you slide into your bunk, covering yourself with the blanket you had packed, not realizing the beds wouldn’t come with any sheets. You’d have to buy something soon if you were going to survive the next four months.

As you lay still in the bunk, eyes open despite your pleas for sleep to come quickly and easily, you hear Pope’s voice cut through the silence of the bus despite its hushed tones.

“What’s her problem?” It’s said jokingly, a mockery at your expense, but the reply you issue within the depths of your mind is serious: you are.

taglist; @sarahcxmeron @northcarolinanative

#pope heyward x y/n #pope heyward x reader #pope heyward fic #pope heyward imagine #pope heyward fanfiction #enemies to lovers #outer banks imagine #outer banks #jj maybank #pope heyward #outer banks fanfiction #john b routledge #outer banks x reader

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #338

“i can’t decide if you’re wearing me out, or wearing me well”

Are you a fan of techno? I've gotten more into it lately, actually. I've never minded it. Who’s your favorite horror movie villain/monster? Pyramid Head, though he's called Red Pyramid Thing in the movies. Do you have a favorite muscle car? Nah. I'm not big into cars. What would be a total deal-breaker for you, relationship-wise? You so much as lift your hand at me, bye, motherfucker. Would you consider yourself to be accepting of others? Yes, but not as much as I used to be. There are certain opinions I just don't tolerate in people anymore; I feel like by staying associated with people whose views invalidate or in any way harm others (racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.), you're on the side of evil as well, even if indirectly. However, I genuinely do feel I have a wide range of viewpoints I'm willing to accept in others, even if I don't agree with them. Are you flirtatious? No. I think I'm only capable of flirting with someone I'm already with and very comfortable around. I'd feel way too shy and awkward otherwise. Have you ever just felt "drawn" to someone, but you didn’t know why? "Didn't know why," no. I've felt drawn to people with good reason, like if I was romantically interested in them. Is there anyone you currently want to reach out to? There's a number, honestly. Especially with the aid of therapy, I'm being motivated to strengthen bonds with old friends and/or acquaintances via Facebook. Freddy or Jason? I think Jason is scarier. Freddy tends to come across as cheesy for me. Have stickers or gems on your cell phone? Nah. Ever teased your hair? Bitch I damn well tried in high school because I wanted the ~ l e g i t ~ emo hair, but mine was just too heavy to hold, at least with the hairspray my sister had. Have any friends with benefits? Nah, that's never been my thing. Ever lost of bunch of valuable information? Ummm I don't believe so. I've lost massive RP posts before, but I can't really call those "valuable information." What drinks or food make you hyper? None, really. Most expensive thing you ever bought? With my own money, my snake. She's a champagne morph ball python. What type of toothpaste do you use? Crest. How much time to spend putting on makeup daily? Zero. When listening to a song, what do you listen for (lyrics, bass, beat, ect)? The beat, more than anything else. What is the color of your toothbrush? It's a white electric one. What is your favorite color(s) of eye-makeup? Black. Just black. Are you sexually active? I'm not. Do you have sensitive skin? Very. Are you attracted to several guys atm? I'm actually not attracted to any guys in my personal life atm. How many toilets are in your house? Two. Do you have an older sister? Excluding the one I don't know, I have three older sisters. Favorite song by Owl City? Probably "Hot Air Balloon," but I don't know many at all. What color is your mum’s car? White. Do you truly understand the (LDS) Mormon religion? I don't know what "LDS" means, but as my former best friend developed into a Mormon, I learned some stuff from her in her self-discovery. I don't remember a lot of it, not that I knew all that much in the first place. Where do you keep your kitty litter box? Ugh, Mom's unmovable about it being in my fucking room for some reason. And we have an extra goddamn room no one uses yet. Roman's shit STINKS, like we think something might actually be wrong, but nope, it has to stay in here. e_e It would literally inconvenience nobody if we moved it in the spare room. Are you a lighter complexion than your father? MUCH lighter. He's very tan. Do you like apricots? No. Solid soap bar or liquid body wash? 100% body wash. Bar soap slips so easily, and as someone who lives with another person, I'm not rubbing my body with the same bar my mother uses, no offense to her. Sharing it's just gross. Where do you live (country or state)? Shitty 'ole North Carolina. Do you use plastic, wooden, or wire hangers? I think we have a mix of them, actually. What is your favorite shade of yellow? I only like pastel yellow. Otherwise, it's one of my least favorite colors. Are there any shades of blue that you don’t like? If so, which ones? Ehhh not really. What is something you want to accomplish before you turn 30? God, can I please have a stable career by then. Who has the best decorated house in your town? I don't know. We live in a cul de sac community thing where it's just houses next to houses, so there's a lot to choose from. I don't pay attention to them. What is your favorite part of Halloween? The decorations. Do you feel a connection to the moon? "As above, so below," as the saying goes. What does your heart long for? Peace and contentness with myself. Did you decorate a pumpkin this year? Last year, I didn't. I do want to this year, though, if I can just think of a really good idea. I have to be motivated. What are some fall activities you would do with your kids? I'm not having kids, but I'll follow along, hypothetically. With how much joy Halloween brought me as a kid, I'd want to do SO much as a family with them. Homemade decorations, carving or painting pumpkins together, and hell yeah I'd be taking them trick-or-treating once I felt they were ready and they wanted to. I'd be one of those parents that probably spends too much on whatever costumes they want, haha... Oh, and then besides Halloween, I'd certainly rake leaf piles together for them to jump and play in. This question has brought to mind like ONE thing I could enjoy as a parent, haha. Have you ever seen a fox? I have; besides in a zoo setting, I've seen one or two in the wild run out of sight, and I also found one poor fellow as roadkill that had been disemboweled by I'm assuming vultures. With my whole roadkill photography thing, I literally almost kneeled into a strand of intestines I didn't see at first. :x What color are the squirrels where you live? We only have brown ones. Is there anything about Halloween you find offensive? lol no What do the trees look like where you live? Lots, and lots, and LOTS of pine trees... There are others, but I'm not well-informed on tree species and such. Oh, then of course there are dogwoods (our "state tree"), which are unmistakable because they smell like fucking manure. What is your dream vacation? Maybe the mountains on the western side of NC during the fall... ugh, that would be breathtaking. We actually have an abandoned The Wizard of Oz-themed park around there that allows tours at certain times of the year, and I'd love to visit and photograph there. As well, western NC has the zoo, which would be spectacular to visit with autumn weather and, once again, load up on photos. Did you like field trips when you were a kid? I LOVED field trips. Do you find museums boring or interesting? Very interesting! Would you ever wear a shirt with your country’s flag on it? No. I'm not patriotic enough at all for that. What’s a medicine that makes you sleepy? Historically, larger doses of Klonopin can knock me the fuck out. Do you like bath bombs? Never used one, because I don't do baths. Who are your favorite small YouTubers? I'm going to guesstimate you mean less than 1M subs as "small," because I really don't know what you consider to fit that description. I watch a lot of people with less than 1M, so it's hard to say, but lately it's probably been a let's player John Wolfe. He's really funny. Then there's some tarantula YouTubers, along with the animal educator Emzotic... and really just many others. I think most of the people I watch actually have sub-1M, but more than 500k. Who are your favorite big YouTubers? Markiplier is absolutely, positively #1. I also really enjoy Snake Discovery, GameGrumps, Jeffree Star (don't judge me ok, he's a fuckin hoot), and while I haven't watched them in years, Good Mythical Morning will ALWAYS be deeply, deeeeply embedded in my heart. What was your favorite girl group when you were growing up? Ummm probably the Spice Girls? Have you ever used an outhouse? Ugh, yes, at old childhood sports games. What was the last good cause you donated towards? When I cut off like 8+ inches of hair to accomplish the style I have now, I donated it to Children With Hair Loss. My hair has always been mega-thick and healthy, so why in the world waste it? One of my most cherished items is the certificate I got in return many months later that my donation had been used. Have any of your exes gotten married or had kids since your breakup? I haven't had contact with Juan in many years, don't know what Tyler's up to either, and I haven't spoken to Jason since 2017, so. I'm very doubtful he's married or has kids yet, though, just knowing him and how "I need to be fully prepared for this" he is with big life stuff like that. Does it bother you when people get super emotional? Not at all. I'll do my all to comfort them. Have you ever worked in a restaurant? No. Do you get a lot of thunderstorms where you live? Depends on the time of year. Summertime? Brief but super intense thunderstorms every late afternoon. What was the last drive-thru you went through? Taco Bell w/ Mom. Do you know anyone who claims they can see/feel spirits or other supernatural ‘things?’ No. Do either of your parents have a mental illness? My mom has depression, and Mom is also convinced Dad has either depression masked as anger and/or bipolarity, but following the divorce, I don't see it in him at all. He's never seen a doctor in that field to be diagnosed with any mental illness. What fun things are there to do where you live? Jackshit. Do you know anyone with a really poorly-trained dog? Mother of fucking god, yes. My little sister lives with her best friend, and said friend has a colossal black lab named Hudson that is absolutely uncontrollable because she neglects the shit out of him. Won't listen to you even if it saved his life. He jumps on you, barks endlessly, and if he escapes the house? Good fucking luck getting him inside. She has absolutely no right to own a dog with how shitty of an owner she honestly is. When you were growing up, did your family rent or own your home? They owned it. The idiots who were moving in after us accidentally burnt the place to a fucking crisp, and my parents were SO not happy to lose that house because people were dumb enough to place boxes atop the goddamn stove. Do you do meal-prepping? No. Do you know anyone who got preggo less than a year into their relationship? Multiple people, not that that's my business. What did you dream about last night? I don't remember it clearly, other than I was with Jason and his mother was also present. What's the biggest age difference you've ever had in a relationship? That would have been with Juan, but I don't remember exactly how old he was. I just know I was a freshman and him a senior that got held back a year or so in HS. If you could save one animal from ever becoming extinct, what animal would you pick? Probably bees, given how vital they are. Name the coolest thing about one of your grandparents. My maternal grandmother worked at Disney World. I can't remember what her position was, though. Do you ever eat peanut butter straight from the jar? If I want a healthy snack, sometimes I'll have a scoop. Do you prefer your clothes loose or close fitting? They need to be loose. Favorite thing you’ve ever painted? This big painting of meerkats grooming on burlap I did in high school. Do you always wear a bra? I question the self-love of anyone who can sleep with a bra on. ;__; Do you normally finish one book before starting another? Oh yes, I can't read more than one at a time. Do you prefer reading books, comic books, manga/graphic novels, magazines, or the newspaper? The normal book. Do you know how to play chess? I don't. Are you watching anything? No, but I do have Manson's "Third Day of a Seven Day Binge" on in another tab. What is your blood type? A-. Has anyone ever borrowed something from you and never returned it? Yes. Do you twitch when you're falling asleep? Dude, I more than "twitch." I can just suddenly spaz out and look like I'm seizing for a moment. Another side effect of my nightmare suppressant medication. Are any of your pets “overweight”? No. Has anyone ever bought you a ring? My mom has bought me a few, and Jason gave me one for one of our anniversaries. Where was the last place you took a bath/shower, other than your own house? My sister's place. What first attracted you to the last person you kissed? Just how unique and happy that way she is. And her pretty much undying loyalty. Has someone ever taken a pic of you while you were making out with someone? No, considering I wouldn't go that far with someone unless we were alone. Had a crush on someone you thought shared your sexuality, turns out didn’t? Yes. What’s your favorite color to wear? Black. Does it gross you out if a guy has hair on his chest? I personally don't find an excess of it attractive, but it doesn't "gross me out." If they bathe themselves just like everyone else, why should it? Do you think sexuality is a choice or not? It is absolutely not a choice. If it was, I'd assume most people would choose to be straight, given phobias, hatecrimes, etc... I could write an essay on this. Do you like industrial piercings? Yeah. Do you think stretched ears are disgusting? "Disgusting" is, once again, the wrong word. Gauges don't really gross me out - hell, I want tiny ones -, but they can reach a size that, to me, is not visually appealing. Did you watch animated Barbie movies when you were little? I do remember loving Princess and the Pauper as well as the Rapunzel one; my sister was addicted to them. Oh yeah! Then there was the Swan Lake one that she adored, too. We usually watched movies together. Do you like fruit in your cereal? Big No. Do you like raw vegetables? Ugh, no. Do you listen to A Day to Remember? I do! They're on my list of faves. Do you like funnel cake? I actually don't. Have you ever been with someone while they were getting a tattoo? Yuh.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''third day of a seven day binge'' by marilyn manson

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subarubi · 4 years

Text

Desert Days

Pairing: Sam Wilson x Reader

Summary: “If this war ever ends-- and he assured you that it will eventually-- you’ll tell Sam Wilson you love him.”

Warnings: 18+, profanity, angst for days, extreme injury and death (blood), mentions of PTSD, implied smut

A/N: 9.6k word count, goddamn. This is a very Sam heavy one-shot. Also, I tried to make the reader as gender neutral as possible!

2001.

A colossal mountain of mutilated steel and concrete rubble sits, smoking, in the center of the world. Lower Manhattan. Financial District. Eight blocks that make up ‘Wall Street’, some elusive playpen for the invisible but potent power of ‘stock’. Destroyed. And with it, lives, hopes and dreams. 2,606 bodies buried there in the debris. An illusion of invincibility crushed in too. In the flames that lick at ruins of the Twin Towers, an Indian summer. The warm September haze forcefully burrows itself in the guts of New Yorkers, Americans, the world. It’s fear, not flush. It’s anger.

How could this happen? To us?

The news outlets evoke the memory of a vastly different war. They call it a day that will live in infamy. Which, it will. Undoubtedly. Yet, it’s hardly the same as Pearl Harbor. Perhaps, the only thing comparable, but dissimilar all the same. Since the greatest generation created generations of their own, the pastime of waging war happened elsewhere. On other lands. In other homes. To other people.

September 11th, 2001 burst the bubble of willful ignorance. War is happening. And there is a debt to be paid for crimes. All crimes. Even American.

Sam Wilson is only twenty when it happens--

--waking up next to a girl from English class that he’d been playing footsie with in the library the day before. Her cellphone, pink and bejeweled, rings at 7 am drawing them both from slumber. Sam rubs the hangover from his temple as she unwinds her limbs from his, both sticky with sweat. Through tears she turns and tells him.

Four planes hijacked. Two crashed into the World Trade Center. One at the Pentagon. Another in a Pennsylvania field.

Sam’s from New York City. Harlem. He’s stood at the bottom of those towers before-- a kid with a skateboard carving lines over all five boroughs. But he hasn’t been back to the East Coast in years. No reason to. Mom was laid to rest next to Pops and Sam ran away to the other side of the country not long after. The news isn’t any less devastating.

He’s at UCLA, majoring in philosophy of all things. It all seems so pointless then. Studying knowledge, reality, existence, when the rest of the world is bleeding.

Everyone is in pain.

Soldiers. Doctors. Accountants. Car Salesmen. Kindergarten Teachers. They demand their pain be spread. They want revenge. They want blood. War is now felt by all.

In October, the US invades Afghanistan.

Sam enlists in November.

2003.

“Superman School” is what it’s called. Sam thinks it should rather be called simply, “Hell”.

Indoc is easy. Sam has always liked the water and it’s just nine weeks of basically swimming. But what follows is two grueling years of vicious emotional and physical exertion. The events, the ache inside that led him there, are practically forgotten when the training starts. In Combat Dive School, he’d panicked the first few times an oxygen tank was strapped to his back and a regulator shoved in his mouth. In Paramedic training, he’d slipped and stabbed his fingers practicing sutures so much that he lost feeling there for a week. During SERE, Sam lost a toe nail; that hurt like a motherfucker. It was probably the most physical pain he’d ever been in at the point of his life. The guys, other PJs in training, don’t let that one go for a couple of months. At least.

The best part, perhaps the only remotely good part, is Army Airborne and Military Free-fall Parachutist training.

“It’s not exactly flying, but it feels like it,” Sam speaks animatedly into the receiver after chow on a Tuesday night, “It feels like fucking flying and you always imagine that flying is cool but then you do it and, I swear--”

He spends the next fifteen minutes going on and on and when his girlfriend, Lisa from English class with the pink bejeweled phone, finally hangs up, Sam feels like there’s so much he still hasn’t gotten to say about it.

In a different life, I might’ve been a bird, he says during a poker game later that night.

They're all chasing their own highs after the first jump, but no one’s as dumb with it, as corny about it as Wilson. They give him shit for it. Sam is too hopped up on finding his first love to care.

It’s easy to forget why they’re there and what they’re working toward. Graduating. Deployment. War.

Afghanistan is a long way from Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. But with every day, every training course completed, Sam Wilson closes that gap with flying colors. And eventually, in May of that year, he found himself in Nevada with the 58th Rescue Squadron. Impossibly, closer now to Afghanistan.

There, he’s given a maroon beret and dubbed a “Guardian Angel”. Small consolation prizes for the news he’s being deployed.

2004.

It’s hot in Afghanistan, he’s heard. Sam had never expected it to be so bad; it’s summer, everywhere’s hot in the summer. The hottest place on earth is the Lut Desert in Iran. Barren, sparsely vegetated, open scrub. 70.7 Celsius recorded. That’s about 160 Fahrenheit. But nowhere, not even the hottest place on earth, is as sweltering as Bagram Airfield in July. With fatigues stuck to his back with sweat, stomach coming up on ‘E’, split red knuckles being bandaged: 40 Celsius feels like 5,000 Kelvin. Dry heat with nowhere to go but through him. It adds ten pounds at least to the weight in his shoulders.

Sam made one comment. Just one. But a scathing reply from his least favorite Squadron member was enough to unravel him.

This is the land of your peoples, Wilson, stop bitchin’.

Sam flexes his fingers on his bouncing knees, sitting and waiting stoically; internally, he’s burning.

When he enlisted just three years ago in a fervent bout of passion and patriotism, he didn’t anticipate the racist pieces of trailer park trash he’s supposed to call brothers. The amount of self-control it would take to not punch the asshole square in the jaw. The fucking heat.

Three years after waking up that fateful morning, turning on the news with Lisa taking calls non-stop, flames and smoke reflected in his brown eyes and he’s stuck waiting in a tent for disciplinary action. At least it’s reprieve from the merciless Afghanistan sun.

The tent flaps rustle softly, heavy boots command Sam reflexively to stand at attention. It gets his knee to stop bouncing. It’s in his face when he sees you. The faltering expression in his eyes that he tries to hide behind a stone slate. You’re not his CO there to NJP him, he’s never seen you on the base and he’s sure he would’ve remembered your face had he, but the patch on your chest dominates him anyway. A stray bead of sweat tickles Sam’s temple underneath your blank stare. You’re not, but you look ten feet tall over him. He’s never been someone so easily intimidated, but you? You are formidable.

He wonders which part of you gets to him the most.

It might be your impossibly straight posture, one that he could never fully get right much to the ire of his commanding officers. Or maybe it’s the sharpness to your eyes, dissecting him piece by piece before he even hears your voice. Or, it could be, that you’re really fucking hot.

Christ, are you.

But that last one might be skewed by the fact that he’s been on tour now for a couple of months and his girlfriend, not Lisa, now Kerry, has been giving him blue balls. Sending letters so salacious, they’ve found home in the john for everyone’s personal use.

He’d remember you if he saw you. He’d never be able to forget.

Another body entering the tent brings a breeze to save him from the downright oppressive warmth of your stare. A man, another Sam has never seen around, stands much more relaxed and close to your side. He’s tall and blonde and somehow pale even after hours spent in the sun.

You look at him and smile. So nice and pretty without any trace of your previous hardness.

“So, you’re Sam Wilson?” he asks with a hint of a smirk in his voice, “Heard a lot about you.” There’s laughter playing at both of your smiles and Sam’s fists instinctively clench. Are you making fun? He’s not in the mood. It’s hot and sticky, and he might be fighting down an embarrassing and painful semi.

“Yes, sir.”

The man at your side laughs, digging his elbow into your side, “You hear that? He called me sir!”

“Fuck off,” you roll your eyes, flicking his ear so hard it draws a hiss. The first words he hears spill from those lips, twisted now in a smirk, don’t match your silvery voice.

Fuck off, so rough and yet said in dulcet tones with affection.

Sam’s hot again when you step forward, away from your partner-- the breeze was only fleeting. Nowhere is as hot as in that tent on Bagram AFB, you, just five feet from him, hand held out with a soft smile to introduce yourself. Warm and sweet, but somehow it burns.

God, he needs to get laid, like, yesterday.

He didn’t even realize he shook your offered hand until he misses the feel of it as it slips from his own. “And this is Riley, he got dropped on his head as a baby,” straightening beside the man in question, Sam catches an all too short flash of white as you laugh.

“So, what did he say?” Riley asks. At the quirk of Sam’s head to the side, he gestures to the wrapped right hand, “I mean everyone’s talking about it. You’re gonna be on latrine duty for weeks!”

“Riley,” you sigh, smacking his chest that shakes in laughter with the back of your hand. A comforting smile when you turn back to Sam, “We have business to do.” The file you hand him, which he had not noticed was in your hand until it was heavy in his, it changes everything.

Why me? Sam doesn’t let the question slip past his tongue, but it’s there.

You shrug, as if you’d heard him, “You’ve made quite the reputation for yourself, Sam Wilson.” A soothing smile, big and easy. Like the one you sent Riley. He’d like to see it his way again.

And you’re not lying.

9 months in Afghanistan and word carries of a PJ falling from the sky like some vengeful archangel of salvation, laying suppressing fire steady as breathing, healing hands flipping the bird at death. Sam Wilson, orphan boy from Harlem, amateur philosopher, provider of quality spank bank material, was made for this.

The first time he sees it, Sam doesn’t know what the hell he’s looking at.

Like a big black horseshoe crab, washed up dead on the shore, metal back shining slick with sea water. Three of them, laid out on a table in a hangar removed from the rest of the air base. Engineers rattle off all sorts of specs, some Sam understands, some he hasn’t the slightest idea the meaning of. He looks to his right, at you, then Riley. The pair of you, grinning at each other, bouncing on the balls of your feet like children. Always so lively with each other. Always overflowing with enthusiasm-- in each other, something you now extend to him.

All happening so fast. Too fast. Sam’s queasy from the whiplash.

A month ago, he’d only just gotten used to the cycle: Jump. Find cover. Fire back if need be. Don’t mind the blood. Do what he can. And if he can’t, say a prayer. Swallow his vomit. Back to camp. Brush his teeth. One. Twice. Rinse. Repeat.

How did the saying go? ‘These Things We Do, That Others May Live’. Sam’s swallowed enough of his own vomit that the taste doesn’t even phase him anymore. Partially because he’s scrubbed his tongue raw and numb with toothpaste.

Then, you and Riley ripped him from it.

Bought him dinner in Kabul. Offered him a cold beer. Which, he hadn’t had one in a year and fuck if it wasn’t orgasmic on his tongue. You two wined and dined him, told him he was special, he was meant for more. Made him feel good. Reminded him he wasn’t just some cog, some tool in a war that was quickly losing support. That he had a chance to do something important. Christ, he was surprised there wasn’t a good old fashioned fuck at the end of it. He’d put out on the first date.

EXO-7 Falcon. In a different life, I might’ve been a bird. He maintained a year out that jumps were everything.

But wings? Actual wings?

It’s unbelievable. No. Fucking insane. He can’t fathom it. Not free-falling and convincing himself its as close to flying he’ll ever get, but actually flying without the disappointing fact that eventually he’ll have to pull the chord.

It’s just a prototype, don’t blow your load too soon, you laugh, hand on his bicep, for now, we just get to ogle them looking all nice and pretty.

He doesn’t have the balls to tell you he already has. In the showers. Numerous times. Your smile flashing behind his eyelids.

It’s just a waiting game now for the prototypes to be approved.

Sam finds his stride again, much quicker than the last, in this new routine. He suspects his easy adjustment has everything to do with you and Riley. PT at 0600. Showers at 0800. An emergency non Falcon rescue mission about two, three times a week. Chow together in the mess at 1730. Sometimes, the three of you eat MREs outside instead, watching the sunset like a bunch of cornballs.

You guys talk a lot, typically always over a meal. And Sam, who usually speaks a mile a minute, is slowed and forced to take a breath. Between the three of you, the fight for air time is intense.

Everything is learned and shared in that small circle of three, sometimes too much.

In some sleepy Georgia town, five houses away from each other, you and Riley spent your entire childhoods not meeting until basic.

Kismet, Riley grinned between mouthfuls of a macaroni and chili MRE that he traded for. That green sucker had no idea what he was getting into with Riley’s chicken a la death.

The pair of you, southern belles, you’d joked. Attended the same Sunday service, learned how to ride a bike on the same stretch of asphalt, enrolled in the same high school but different years. Riley lost his virginity to your older sister in the back of his dad’s wood paneled station wagon. You remember she complained about a cum stain on her favorite skirt around that same time.

Too much? you ask with a widening smirk at Sam’s grimace.

The two of you are so close, Sam can only be grateful for how easily you’ve let him fall into place by your sides. As welcoming, as kind and as warm as you are, in those early years, Sam can’t help feel an outsider sometimes.

You and Riley are so so close.

He’s sure he’s only seen you guys separated by bathroom breaks and sleep. An inordinate amount of time side by side. Fond smiles come often and effortlessly. Only ever fully at-ease in each other’s vicinity. You’re left handed and Riley’s right handed and your elbows always knock when eating. Which seems purposeful because once, when Sam suggested you just switch your normal places at the table, he was met only with blank stares and shrugs. And when the three of you walk across the airfield together, Sam naturally has to fall back slightly because he’s pretty sure you and Riley are tethered together with an invisible string, footfalls in sync. Your right leg in time with his, strides equal.

He’s not sure he’s met a pair of friends ever more suited to each other.

So, are you guys, like, together? Sam asks Riley hesitantly one night when you’ve gone to speak with some other officers. The pair of them lay on their backs on the rocky ground, gazing up at the clear expanse of stars. The new addition to your little merry band of friends tries to appear casual when asking. But really, it’s been nagging at him for months now.

It’s a valid question.

You and Riley are almost abnormally close for two people that have only known each other for a couple of years. Sam’s never seen anyone, not even his disgustingly in love for 30 years parents, so attached. If he were honest, sometimes it’s scary. Uncomfortable.

Mostly, because it’s never been defined. And Sam is, by nature, curious.

Partly, because the things he thinks about you... well, he doubts Riley would appreciate him thinking about his significant other that way. Especially a friend thinking that way.

Riley’s bellowing laugh draws angry hushes from surrounding PJs trying to sleep. He cackles so hard with hands clutching at his abdomen, he practically rolls.

You’ve got it bad, Wilson, is his only reply before getting up to go take a leak.

2005.

Euphoria. That’s the only word Sam can use to describe it. Like sex. Maybe, even better. Up there, in the clouds, where everyone below are just little black dots, his stomach lurches and flips and folds itself over and under. Actually flying, not free-falling and biding his time until he eventually must pull the chord. He’s shaky with it at first. Like a baby on fresh legs, wobbly and awkward. Even still, he’s fucking flying.

Back on the ground, him and Riley gush with it. Joy. Freedom. Ecstasy.

They talk a mile a minute, even though their burning lungs are screaming for them to just breathe. They brush off the medical staff urging them to put on oxygen masks for a few minutes. Can’t, Riley rejects it, too fucking wired.

You’re up next, burning with the need to get yours too.

It all moves so fast. Sam and Riley each in one of your ears, telling you how amazing it feels. How much you’re gonna love it. They watch, chests heaving, hands on hips, as you’re strapped in, take your place 50ft away and nod along to all of the instructions given. Giving you pointers like they’ve been doing this for years. You roll your eyes. The pricks only have an hour of experience each. Though, that’s an hour more than you have, so you listen despite your pride.

You fail. And just as everything you do is, you fail brilliantly.

Sam and Riley watch helplessly as you crumble in the clouds, tumbling in the wind, barreling towards the hard rock and sand beneath their boots. The limp wings thrash in the wind, punching sharp welts into your sides. Your blood curdling scream rips out above, echoing in the valley. They can see you scrambling, panicked brain searching for a fight or flight response. But you can’t do either.

Can’t fly.

Can’t fight the merciless pull of gravity.

You get ahold of yourself long enough to pull the emergency chute at the lowest possible altitude. A heap of nylon lines and cloth on the ground, your impact striking up a cloud of dust.

Their feet can’t move fast enough, rushing to your side, hearts in their stomachs and stomachs in their asses.

Don’t fucking touch me!

Riley’s hand that gently grabs your bicep swiftly retracts as if you’d burned him. You won’t let them help. You just lie there, forehead pressed into the sand, body shaking with adrenaline, pained wails vibrating behind your grit teeth.

Silence except for the sick sound of your brokenness.

More than the acid cuts on your palms and cheek. More than a cracked rib. More than the ugly smattering of red and purple that will appear on your torso later. You mourn what is lost in your failure.

Back on the ground, you gush with it. Wrath. Anguish. Woe.

Sam feels sick beside Riley. Watching you there is the hardest thing he’s ever done. He reminds himself of the careful routine. Don’t mind the blood. Do what he can. And if he can’t, say a prayer. Swallow his vomit. He remembers the taste now.

The prognosis is: you are a no-fly zone.

You barely hear the flurry of words thrown at you, in front of you, around corners when you’re not supposed to hear. Cracked rib. Major contusions to the trunk. Sprained wrist. Can’t handle it. Right side too weak. Six weeks recovery, then return to regular duty. Maybe, you can work on it in PT and try again in 6 months. Not likely. Third prototype destroyed. Only two Falcons.

Weren’t supposed to hear that.

The next few days are eerily quiet. Filled with silent tension, Sam and Riley sending worried glances your way, forcing down winces at your every labored movement. You’ve abruptly walked off at seemingly random points of conversation. You’ve lashed out at Riley when he tries to help a little too much, pushes back against your attitude a little too hard. You’ve retreated. No joking around, no smiling. They have, at least, the clemency to avoid any mention of the Falcon jetpacks in your presence.

When they train, you avoid it like the plague.

The crowds they draw. The hooting and hollering cheers of the other PJs as Sam and Riley defy all odds in the air. The time will come soon, for them to employ the EXO-7 Falcons in an actual rescue. You pray that you aren’t healed by the time the first mission comes.

God, whomever, hears your pleas whispered into the tough canvas of your cot.

Four weeks after your failed flight test, an Apache helicopter goes down in Taliban infested territory. You haven’t been cleared.

Sam walks up on the Chinook, dressed for the first time in his full suit. It would feel so gratifying, had you not been standing there with Riley, heads bowed lowly in short whispers underneath the raucous whirring of the engine.

You haven’t talked to Sam in more than a few words. Only Riley. You only really talk to Riley. Sam has walked in on an abruptly cut off conversation a few times now. Shut out. It burns at him in the middle of the night, keeps him from drifting off in much needed slumber. You and Riley are his people now. Confidants. Friends. Comrades. Family. He wants to be there for you both, but you don’t let him. Just, give her time, she’s upset, Riley had supplied a dejected looking Sam when you stormed away at his advance for the third time.

Now, at his careful approach, you look up and force a tight smile across those lips he sees in his dreams. An awkward, heavy hand on his shoulder that makes his heart clench, Good luck, Wilson.

He’ll still feel it burning through his fatigues hours later.

When they successfully return with the entire crew safe and sound, the base is alive with celebration. A friendly football scrimmage is thrown together by Riley in amber skies of late afternoon, their focused play-calling set behind 50 cent blaring on the boombox.

You’re noticeably absent.

Sam stands outside of your barracks with his hands stuffed in his pockets, uncertain if you’ll even speak to him. You haven’t before. Why would you now? When everyone is happily relishing in something you can no longer be a part of. His boots scuff in the sand as he debates leaving. Letting you alone for the night to surely lament in your loss.

“Shouldn’t you be out there kicking ass, superstar?”

Your face, a familiar smile there that he’s been desperate to see for weeks, evokes an overwhelming sense of guilt in his gut. It was you and Riley from the start. Always you and Riley. The two of you had recruited him. And now he’s taken your place and they’ve left you in the dust.

His return smile comes out more like a grimace without his permission.

The large tent, usually filled to the brim with airmen stacked atop of each other, is empty. Everyone’s either getting chow or at the makeshift field spectating or playing. It’s just you sitting on a makeshift bed on the ground, softly closing the book you were reading when he entered. Sam doesn’t think the two of you have actually ever been alone together. Not like this. No Riley, no one milling about in the background, no rescue mission. The closest thing might’ve been the first time you met. And even then, you hadn’t said anything to each other until Riley joined.

“Honestly,” Sam swallows hard, shaking his head in what looks like a humorous gesture, but really, he’s trying to find his footing again. “How does Riley have so much energy?”

You smile wider and his heart, it fucking aches. For you.

Knees pulled up tightly to your chest, ignoring the sharp pangs in your ribs at the action, you tilt your head softly up at him, “It’s all sugar and tai chi.”

Sam nods, a ghost of a chuckle humming from his throat. He sits on the ground next to you, knees bent, forearms hung over them. Tries not to make the hitch in his breath known when your thighs brush against each other ever so lightly.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks.

You shake your head at the ground, sighing deeply in defeat-- as if it would magically ease the pressure in your temples. “I think I forgot, it’s so easy to forget. But I dunno, all this self-pity and for what? Because I don’t get a cool pair of wings?”

“You’re allowed to be upset,” his hand hovers over your back. Half afraid of hurting you, half afraid of you rejecting him.

Eyes like the cosmos lift to his and you lean back to close the distance for him. The press of his palm over your shoulder is warm, his fingers flexing slightly in the contours of your back. Gooseflesh fanning out from where they indent your skin, hidden beneath the fabric of your shirt.

“My last rescue op, that kid whose lower half was blown to shit?” Sam nods solemnly, he remembers. How could he not? “He couldn’t stop crying about how his girlfriend was gonna break up with his dickless ass. And then he broke into a whole other fit because he didn’t have an ass either,” you laugh humorlessly, “I’m alive and in one peice. I’ve got a sweet ass and a fucking elephant trunk of a dick swinging between my legs.” Sam snorts, can’t help the gap-toothed grin that makes his cheeks ache.

You pause, licking your lips. Sam’s got a smile is like the sun. All warm and bright. The way it feels to bask in it’s glow, a personal beach day, you don’t think you’ve ever been so content to just be looked at.

“I guess, I just-,” brows furrow, struggling to find the words. “You spend months preparing for something, with your best friends, you’re all excited about it, mostly because you’re doing it together. Me. Riley. You. Demented three musketeers,” you smile sadly, a cracking phantom of a thing Sam has come to love. “And then it all goes to shit. So easily slips through your fingers.”

There are tears that you’ll never let fall, but you trust Sam enough to let him see the way your eyes shine with it. The glossy finish of your glum and how it paints you blue.

“I’ve been with Riley since basic. Never been an op where I haven’t had his back and him mine.”

You know. You know you’ll never fly again. No one’s said it outright, but they look at you like a kicked puppy enough for you to get it.

“Will you promise me something, Sam?”

Sam. Sam. Sam. He’s heard his name said a million times in a thousand different cadences, but never like that. Never so soft and honeyed and certain. All at the same fucking time.

“Anything.”

“There are going to be ops for just the two of you that the rest of the unit, that I can’t go on. Will you look after Riley?” You’re so close, practically whispering. Sam could count your lashes if he wanted to. “I love him, but he’s a fucking idiot. Just doesn’t think sometimes.”

Without question. Fervently. For you, “Absolutely.”

And you just listen to each other breathe. In and out. So steady and sure. Content in just the sweet sound of each other, living.

2007.

Hands, calloused from fast-roping down from a helo, splayed out on the contours of his shoulders. Hot and urgent, everywhere and nowhere at once. The emotion in them permeates through his skin-- flooding him, filling him to the brim. Had he always been so empty before? Or had that space always been carved out for your touch? Your eyes are above him, searching, pleading. Lashes fluttering down at his face. Lips falling open in soundless utterances, mouthpiece of the gods. Breathless. His ears are ringing, eyes blinking away that white hot blindness licking at the edges of his consciousness. You’re so beautiful there, rays of sun peeking out behind you, he might pass out.

Wilson, can you hear me?

And then a laugh. Loud and boisterous and Holy shit! You just got your world rocked! Riley beside you, his face a picture of delight, buzzing with adrenaline.

Along with the rapid pops of gunfire and cracks of an AK returning, gentle jingling of hot casings hitting the ground, steady lines of communication running down the line of airmen, Wilson, I need you to confirm that you are okay.

He nods dumbly at your insistence. Remembering suddenly how to breathe when you grab him by the vest and yank him up off the ground. He’d been blown on his back by the sheer force of a screaming mortar impacting the earth nearby. Your smack on his helmet is enough to refocus him, and all attention is back on the vic, packing the wound, applying pressure. You radio in controlled and calm-- GSW to the leg and shoulder, hoist out exfil necessary, popping green smoke on our location.

Helmand is hell. But you grin and bear it so well.

Things have levelled out. The three of you adjust to yet another new routine; much remains the same. The months are filled with morning PT, showers, any and every conversation under the sun shared over chow, a game of Slapjack or Bullshit after the sun’s gone down. Standard combat search-and-rescue, thankfully, for your sake is unchanged. But you have to get used to watching Sam and Riley soar through the sky like it’s what they were born to do. You stick to field medicine when they become something altogether different than PJs. Though, they were never just PJs. And you pretend it doesn’t just ache the tiniest beat when they leave you behind for some confidential mission.

Being the failure is hell. You grin and bear it to keep the pain from spreading to them.

Hours later he finds you pelting the metal floor of the HH-60 Pave Hawk with an unwavering jet stream of water, diluted blood dripping from the sides.

“Any special plans for when you get home?” Sam watches your face as it remains focused on lazily hosing down any memory of a bleeding young Corporal laying slack in your helping hands from the bird.

Six weeks. His tour ends in six weeks. He plans on sleeping-- sleeping hard, sleeping in, sleeping around. Riley joked about Sam burying himself in alcohol and puss, ‘it’s a toss up which addicts anonymous circle he’ll end up in’. Sam laughed and cheered in good fun, but the scent of JP-8 stung his nostrils. You and Riley have three more months left in this tour. Sam doesn’t like to think about the fact that he’ll be home, smelling apple pie and boob sweat, and you’ll be stuck here, sniffing jet fuel; that’s the smell of freedom, airmen say.

“Might take up yoga,” he quips.

Your eyebrows raise slightly, lips spreading into an easy and knowing smile, “Bet you would, you horndog.” Yoga pants, nylon and lycra second skins that hold everything just so, are all the rage all of the sudden.

Sam laughs, leaning against the side of the helicopter with a cheeky smirk. That smirk you know so well now after three years. You count on that smirk. Pray on it. How something so small can bring you so much comfort, impossible to say.

“If you come to LA, I can take you to all the studios. You’d love it.”

Sam Wilson’s always been a social butterfly. The lifeblood of every party. The guy that gets along with everyone. The funny, effortlessly cool guy. He thrives on meeting new people and cracking jokes.

But really, if Sam could do anything when he gets home, it would just be to see you. And Riley, of course. He wants you to come to LA, go to a bar, hide in some corner and just talk. Like you always do. Except, in civvies and heavily lubricated. He’d wait that excruciating month and a half before you’re back stateside too. He’d wait, not so much as think about alcohol, if it meant the three of you could share that first cold one together. You and Riley, you’re family. The first he’s had in a long while.

He can’t help himself. “Will you? Come to LA?”

You smile, so nice and pretty, big and easy, like the one you’d once reserved only for Riley.

2008.

Hands, softened with shea and two months R&R, fisting the back of his shirt so tightly he fears the fabric might disintegrate. Feverish and needy, fingernails digging into his warm skin, leaving ardor shaped crescents in wake of their campaign to conquer his back. Scorched in the spots first touched, soothed by the soft sound of sliding skin.

Panting. Clenching. Burning.

Your eyes squeezed shut, tears pricking at the edges. Lashes, all 359 of them -- he’d counted -- fanning his cheeks. Sweet wetness. Trembling fire. Mouths, hot and urgent, moving against one another. Whiskey tongues, sliding together, worshipping every inch. Lips numb. Teeth clanging. Both chests heaving, humming with moans too gentle and too desperate. You’re so beautiful there, in a bar’s dark and dirty bathroom stall pressing chest, groin, thigh, and leg against him.

Gushing with it: joy, freedom, ecstasy. Overwhelmed by what he swallows from that heavenly spout: wrath, anguish, woe.

You’re so beautiful he might die-- without question, fervently, for you.

2009.

The world works in strange ways. People will pay a 1,000 USD for a mattress that perfectly shapes to the curves of their spines. Commercials demonstrate you can balance a wine glass and simultaneously jump like a giddy kid in a hotel room without any risk of stain-- and for good measure, in the event it does stain, some special formula ensures it’ll come right out. Such strange desires of men. Sam sighs into his pillow-- zero cost, no secret formula. Sand, his mattress covered in 1500 thread count egyptian cotton; rock, his feather pillow that corrects his posture; a heavy coat of dry heat, his comforting New Zealand sheep wool blanket. Riley snores soundly beside, drool dribbling from the right corner of his mouth, chest spluttering in his exhales-- his white noise machine.

He’s never been more comfortable. And in strange ways, he’s glad to be back, just starting his second tour at twenty-seven now, another successful Falcon mission recorded with the capture of Khalid Khandil.

Sam’s almost disgusted with himself. He’s so stupidly content to be there, in the middle of the Afghani desert, sleeping on the ground. As if it’s not a fucking war.

Well, as the world turns.

Do you ever think it’ll be over? you’ll ask one night, a whisper on his lips as soft as the dripping beside you. Never defined, never talked about, but most nights, when sleep evades you, you’ll slip from the barracks to the empty showers. And you’ll sigh in pleasure in time with the echoing splash of leaky faucets.

And Sam has to bite his lips from saying the words ‘God, I hope not’ into your neck.

Stateside, he has a joke of a life. The year in between tours was almost unbearable. He’s supposed to call that land home? It feels more foreign to him now than Afghanistan. A place where people create mattresses with different settings on two sides for maximum comfort.

Strangers see him in uniform and either say ‘thank you for your service’-- which always feels hollow-- or looking like they want to spit on him. Suffocating. He could only breathe the three times you visited him in Los Angeles and the five times he came to Virginia for you. Only felt comfortable there with his face in your thighs, heart and breast in his hand, lips in his teeth.

Here, he has structure. Purpose. Brotherhood. You. In war, he’s important. He’s helping people, not in any misguided, easily skewed fight for freedom and self-righteousness. He’s actually helping people. ‘These Things We Do, That Others May Live’. It’s what PJs do.

In Afghanistan, he gets to fucking fly.

In the US, his wings are clipped and everything feels so dull in comparison.

Eventually, it has to, he’ll murmur back to spare you from his terrible thoughts. You’re so soft and sweet under him, and Sam knows just how much this war tears you apart.

The guilt that plagues you because not everyone can be saved, but everyone should be. You’ve said before that the PJ credo implies death yourself. ‘That Others May Live’. But you’re alive and so many have died beneath your palms despite best efforts. Those trained fingers that sometimes feel useless apart from bringing Sam to bliss.

If you knew how he truly felt, how even if he’s a good man he harbors such selfish thoughts, it would only hurt you more.

So he keeps it to himself and kisses your worries away. Soft pecks at your eyes that never cry but are always on the brink; the tip of your nose that’s become immune to the overwhelming metallic scent of blood; the crease between your brows that screw together in torment; lips, that despite all of the above, smile for Riley and for him.

He’ll hold you so tenderly with strong steady hands, that it’s easy to forget the two of you are pressed together in a shower stall. You seem to have a habit of getting into compromising positions in bathrooms with Sam.

A soft moan of appreciation escapes your lips, just to see that charming gap-tooth grin it draws from him. A taste of his light. So wanting, so desperate for that warm glow that emanates from Sam Wilson, you peel the shirt from his back sticky with sweat. Fingers scrambling to run across the smooth, hot skin there, chasing that tranquil day at the beach that is him even in the middle of a goddamned war. Greedy hands draw silken lines down the length of Sam’s spine, smiling in his mouth at his shuddering. How he leans into your touch reflexively.

You’re drawn tight against him, his arms snaking around the base of your back, your hips flush against his, heels digging into his hamstrings. So close you become almost indistinguishable from him, simply a heap of warm skin and desert camo bracing the shower walls.

A single kiss, languid and saccharine, suddenly turned quick. Sam is urgent in unfastening your top, splaying it open to lay you bare and panting before him. Each snap undone, a breath more labored. Your own hands, fumbling for the belt at his waist, mourning the loss of kissed raw lips against you. Hurried, as if at any moment one of you will perish. And the other, having tasted a body so divine, would simply crumble into dust-- there could never be another that they craved the same. Disappear forever in this desert, to perhaps be stamped down by another set of lovers’ boots. Here, in the sand soaked with your blood, Sam’s sweat, Riley’s tears

A vow taken in the sighs of pleasure quieted by amorous mouths.

If this war ever ends-- and he assured you that it will eventually-- you’ll tell Sam Wilson you love him.

2010.

He’d wished for this, hadn’t he?

To live in War. This ungodly, disorienting flurry of chaos that feigns a sense of order. Mayhem, no matter how many hours ripping apart his muscles to put them back in place in accordance with military regulation, how much firepower there is to decimate enemies. A messy, merciless machine, endless. Running on the energy expelled from eating-- young men chewed up and spat out, shoved back into the hungry mouth, and chewed and spat again. And again. An emulsified puddle of blood and sweat leaking from the bottom.

This, is war. Not fucking in the showers, watching the sunset while playing cards, and trading MREs like it’s elementary school.

Structure. Purpose. Brotherhood -- all of the things Sam craved. It all means jack shit once someone steps on an IED, the distinct crisp sound of AKs firing off, or staring an RPG straight in the eye.

Sam can’t stop looking at the way the blood squeezes through his shaking fingers. Thick and scarlet and slippery, bubbling through the cracks, seeping into the lines of his skin. Unyielding to Sam’s hands desperately clasping at the ripped flesh, trying and failing to apply pressure to the wound. No matter how much pressure he applies, the blood persists. Gushing, oozing, turning black under his palms. Because it’s everywhere and he only has two hands. Why did God make man with only two hands? Why?

Come on, man!

It’s a pathetic sound, the way it rips from his throat, raw and pleading. His arms, trembling so hard they shake the body beneath him too.

Sam removes one hand to pop a yellow smoke outside of the ditch he’d pulled them into, using his teeth to pull the pin from the canister.

He’s whimpering, choking down the sobs he so desperately wants to let out, communicating in broken sentences through the radio. Deaf to the return chatter.

His eyes refuse to leave his bloodstained hands when the Pave Hawk is hovering above, his team of six fast-roping down, quick and methodical in employing care under fire protocol. Four of them stationing themselves at a pole just outside of the ditch, laying suppressing fire.

You’re there, he can feel you rushing forward with your pack already slung over and onto the ground at their sides. But Sam won’t look at you, can’t-- if he sees your face, he’ll lose it.

Moving, but nothing feels like it’s by your own volition. Rather, muscle memory. Flipping up your NVG, your eyes flit over the scene fast, thinking, but not feeling. And somehow, you’re thankful you’re numb at the sight.

You’ve never seen it quite so... he doesn’t look human.

It was just supposed to be a standard op. A marine stepped on an IED, and no one had metal detectors so the normal PJ unit couldn’t land. They were supposed to fly in and out, barely even touch the ground.

And it all got fucked. How had it gotten so fucked?

Helpless. Nothing he could do. Like he was up there just to watch. Squint in the dark night for a body barreling towards the ground. So much like your first flight test. That sickness churning his gut.

Sam. Sam. Sam!

His eyes flit to meet yours wide and white in the dark and just can’t bear it. He careens over to the side, retching this morning’s powdered eggs ugly and loud. Emptied, body too spent, the sobs finally overtake him.

Quickly, you cut open his top, pulling the tattered fabric from where it tangled up with his body. Your hands take up the spot where Sam’s once pressed, pulling out combat gauze with your teeth. Deperately packing until you run out of gauze. It does nothing. The white is quickly stained so red that it just resembles more mutilated strings of flesh.

“Okay,” you breathe, but it does nothing to return the oxygen to your lungs, “okay we need to stabilize the wound, tourniquets”-- the wound, he’s more wound than whole-- “and I need someone on chest compressions.”

You’re met with stares. Seven red-rimmed eyes, just staring as the very fluid of his life drains from him, body going cold under your hands warm, soaked in his blood. The only thing holding him, all mangled chunks of burnt tissue, together is you.

“But-”

“But what?”

But, it was an RPG. So what? We’re fucking PJs, aren’t we? But, he’s lost too much blood. We’ll do a transfusion. But, he’s dead.

“Just do it!”

No one has the heart to stop you.

You work over Riley’s corpse for the entire ride to the hospital. They have to rip you from him on arrival. Because he’s dead. And you’ve just spent an hour elbow deep in a mess of blood and guts that feel like your own, exhausting yourself-- keeping nothing alive but your own sanity.

Riley’s a pair of boots, an M16, a helmet, and two shiny dog tags clenched in your fists.

That’s it.

The rest of him was put back together as best they could, shoved in a pine box shrouded in stars and stripes, and sent off to Georgia. He’ll be received by his parents, two little brothers, three nieces, and his dog. They’ll write about him in the paper, a hero he’ll be called-- when really, he was a dumbass that got dinked by a rocket.

He’d enjoy the fame in your small town.

Idiot.

Dropped on his head as a baby.

As you squeeze the dog tags hanging from his M16, so do you squeeze a tear from your eye. A warm thing running down your left cheek that feels just like Riley’s blood in your palm.

Sam’s behind you, head bowed low, maroon beret in his hands. The amount of times he’s said sorry, some blubbery, some frustrated, some murmured in your hair, some screamed at you.

You’re both raw.

Hands scrubbed with soap, but stained Riley red.

Those showers have been tainted now with the fresh memory of pink streams circling the drain. Where once you found yourself lost in lust, now, in misery. Riley in your hands disappearing into the pipes, into nothing forever.

“My tour’s up in three months,” Sam watches you carefully as you release the silver tags imprinted with Riley’s information. You stand and face him, wiping away that traitorous tear. “I’m going to leave active duty.”

When he was twenty, and the world was bleeding fresh scarlet, he’d hardly imagined he’d be retiring at thirty. But twenty seems so far now, just as the aftermath of 9/11. Now, the blood has caked into a mountain of pain, dried brown. Revenge, and then some.

He enlisted for patriotism, duty, selflessness. He stayed for you and Riley, for flying.

He can’t stay anymore-- can’t see you die too.

"You’re retiring?” your cloudy stare, brows pulled together, eat at him, “Okay.”

Okay. Sam never tried to guess what you’d say, but ‘okay’ somehow seems like the only thing that would ever make sense on your lips. So soft and simple. You. Always supportive, always sure.

You nod with a gentle smile, and while he doesn’t know where you’re headed-- somewhere that’s not Riley’s makeshift shrine-- Sam trails closely behind. Partially because he has more to say, but mostly, because he’s bound to you now. His chest is tethered to yours, feet instinctively falling in line. He heels, like a dog. For you.

The barracks are empty for chow again. Neither of you are hungry. Meals are different without Riley.

So familiar, the two of you sitting side by side on the ground, knees bent, forearms resting on them, thighs brushing. Alone together.

Sam has ocean eyes. Warm brown eyes that look like the ocean. They’re still on you but they move. You’ve never noticed. How they swell and glimmer, so constant yet always in motion-- pure in how he allows himself to live so freely. Going with whatever flow his heart takes him: dropping out of college and enlisting; punching ignorant airmen; and giggling like a girl at the feeling of flying. Making promises you both know he has no control over. Kissing you in a bar because he can’t take the longing for a second more. Leaving the Air Force because it’s getting in the way of his light. Even if it means giving up flying.

Sam slips his hand in yours, so warm and soft, his squeeze, a plea.

“Come with me.”

You’ve never met a person who lives like him.

You laugh, fondly. Sam Wilson is so earnest in almost everything he does.

“Can’t.”

So tempting. You remember now, how close those words once were to falling from your tongue. I love you. It seems pointless to say now, he’s leaving, you’re staying.

“Come on, don’t be a martyr.”

Like Riley, he says without ever needing to flex his vocal chords that way.

Morbid as it may be, you’d be glad to die like Riley. He always believed in the cause more than either of you. He was dumb and goofy, but he truly believed in it. All of it. You’ve never been so bound by an unearthly force like that-- religion, ideology, patriotism.

Must be nice, Riley mused, not having to answer to God. No, it really isn’t. It’s... lonely. You want to try your hand at it now. Might do you some good. You’re looking at another two years, or whenever your tour is up, alone now. Why not fuck around and find some higher power? God, the PJ creed, macaroni and chili MREs. You’ll figure it out.

“Eventually, it has to end. Right?” It’s his own words. You knew he never believed them. And neither do you now, really. “So I’ll see you then.”

Or in a pine box.

Ocean eyes are wet with his sorrow. You are so lovely. Love. He loves you. He thinks he might’ve loved you from the moment he first heard your velvet voice. Fuck off. So lovely. Sam kisses you, and the waves have come to drag you out to sea. If he could, he’d beg you to come home in his riptide.

Wherever that is.

2012.

A Goliath building with tall glass windows that turn sunbeams into rainbows with rows upon rows of fresh tulips surrounding. Brilliant yellows and oranges-- like poppy field sunsets in Afghanistan. In the center of the free world. So much meaning there now behind what it means to fight for freedom. No place knows it quite like this house of warriors. This is a place of healing. Of mending brains put in a blender, frozen in some eagle shaped mold, and then thawed out with guns in their hands and a burning vendetta to satisfy.

Sam Wilson is thirty-one now, and remains a man of routine.

He wakes to darkness. Unfolds himself from the tight ball he’d curled into at some point. On the floor. Again. Sam gives himself just five minutes to lay blinking at white walls painted 5 am blue, bleary eyed birds just starting up their morning songs.

And then he’s up. His teeth are brushed, sneakers laced up, keys thrown into the pocket of his shorts. Sam runs along the Potomac with the familiar soft pink aura of dawn crawling along the horizon. Around the Washington Monument, past the Lincoln Memorial, down Pennsylvania Ave.

He feels so small among those giant monoliths of the land of the free. Not purple mountain majesties, but the marble Hill.

Sometimes, he feels you and Riley running beside him, like all those years ago bright and early for 6 A.M. PT-- wearing ankle high socks, grey t-shirts with white wings splayed across the chest and those little navy shorts Riley complained crushed his balls.

God, he misses Riley.

He misses you too.

In college, Sam was a philosophy major of all things. He studied questions of human nature while picking up ‘cerebral chicks’.

A decade later, the questions he once pushed away have all come up again. It all seems so important now.

When he closes his eyes he sees your smile, yes, but he sees fire and smoke too. Like the rubble of the Twin Towers, his memories of war are shrouded in destruction.

Sartre said, Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from defeat.

So much cost, tangible and not. Cities riddled with bullet holes and missile craters, conquered and hailed as a successful operation so long as it forces the Taliban back. Beautiful landscapes marred with IEDs and shrapnel which will make the Americans wish they never step foot in Afghanistan. Invisible things too, like a mass grave of men, women, and children-- some military, some civilian. Glass shards of minds, not broken, but cracked.

Sam is bleeding. Veterans are bleeding. Everyone is bleeding.

The puddle of blood and sweat at the bottom of that machine, fathomless.

He ends up in D.C., staring up at that Goliath building with the scent of fresh spring tulips in his nostrils-- Department of Veterans Affairs. He needs help and he needs to help. Post-traumatic stress disorder is such a big name, and he never fully understands his meeting. What he does know: sleeplessness, irritability, paranoia, numbness, waking nightmares.

Healing is a process, but Sam’s doing it now. Himself, through others.

Things are getting better.

He’ll never be completely whole, but the circle helps. ‘It’s a toss up which addicts anonymous circle he’ll end up in’, Riley joked. Sam laughs up at the sky, his dumbass friend was probably sporting a smug smirk wherever he is.

This morning Sam is chipper, today is a good day. He smiles wide at the girl at the front desk; she’s pretty and shy and always tucks her hair behind her ear when he’s flirting. Sam snags a classic glazed from the box of free donuts from Astro and it hangs from his mouth as he goes about setting up for a meeting. Unfolding chairs, he arranges them in a comforting position. In a circle, everyone is equal-- no one is alone or an outsider.

And then he waits with a welcoming smile as everyone filters in. Some are regulars and he’ll exchange ‘how are you’s. Some are new and uncomfortable so he gestures to an open chair and says ‘Welcome’ with that beach day grin. Soothing, calm, comforting.

Sam listens so well.

For as much as he likes to talk, listening is sometimes better. He only speaks when he’s sure they’re done and comfortable, offering what has helped him best.

Adjusting to civilian life is hard. No one expects how hard it truly is, because it’s never talked about it. They’re supposed to push themselves to the extremes of human experience and then come back as if any of that was normal. As if they didn’t just come from a war, that still persists. Even if by a different name, in a different place, against a different group, it persists. And no one ever tells them how hard it is to just sit there, surrounded by friends and family where you’re supposed to be happiest, and act like it’s not burning you from the inside out.

But it’s important to remember the good things too, he’ll tell them. When the dark shadow threatens to swallow them up whole, there is always light. It’s important to know that and make sure they stay separate.

Like Astro donuts and playing soul music all the time and showering without a dozen people next to you. And the freedom of getting to do whatever the hell they want.

Sam tells them, if it makes them happy: do it.

“You’ve made quite the reputation for yourself, Sam Wilson.”

He’s seeing you, looking just the same as the last. With that smile, that’s only his now-- nice and pretty, big and easy. You are beautiful, so beautiful Sam wonders how he’s survived so long without seeing it.

His own smile falters when his ocean eyes travel from your face.

You are exactly the same, except, you’re missing a few pieces.

Your left arm, which he expects to lead down to those calloused hands somehow impossibly soft, is cut off abruptly, cruelly, above the ghost of your elbow. The left hand, your dominant one, that he had known the comforting feel of on his shoulder, burning through the cloth of his uniform, gone. The hand that breathlessly trailed down his torso, tickling and seducing, leaving goosebumps in its wake, missing.

He’ll ask another time. You’ll tell him of more casualties of war, this one visible, and of others invisible.

But for now, he’s rushing at you, and it’s still not fast enough to quiet his screaming heart. He grabs you, doesn’t care if there are still people lingering from the end of the meeting, and really kisses you. And your right hand still finds its way to his torso.

I love you, breathless. It was never pointless to say.

No, the war is not over, maybe not even eventually, but you’re here in D.C. wrapped in his waves, alive.

He’ll never be completely whole, but you get him damn near close to it.

#sam wilson #the falcon x reader #sam wilson x reader #falcon #marvel #fanfiction #reader insert #one shot

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hedwigstalons · 4 years

Text

High Expectations - Ch16

Gordon gets a little bit more fun in his life because I couldn’t crush the precious squid forever.

@willow-salix had been forever patient and has been wonderful putting up with me over this.

Earlier parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen

AO3 chapter link

Chapter Sixteen

Gordon and Alan returned to the apartment, not to the usual sound of silence, but instead to music and the smell of fresh brewed coffee. Alan was plenty old enough to walk home from school by himself but more often than not Gordon found himself outside the gates in the afternoons and Alan seemed to appreciate the company, especially on Fridays where, without the pressure of homework Gordon would sometimes take the long route back and go via the arcades.

Today, however, Alan had been keen to head straight home although Gordon hadn’t known why until they reached the apartment. He should have guessed something was up, normally his younger brother was racing ahead to maximise his time on the games machines but tonight Alan had been itching to get back.

“Virgil? I didn’t know you were coming home.”

Virgil just gave a knowing grin and made sure his mug was out of harms way before Alan could send it flying with his exuberant greeting.

“I take it you knew about this?” Gordon received a matching grin in return from his youngest sibling who had finally released the family teddy bear.

“Yup. It’s been killing me not to let on.”

The older two couldn’t help but notice Alan’s eyes tracking round the apartment and attempting to peer into the kitchen.

“Sorry Al” Virgil said apologetically, “John’s flight from Boston got delayed so he won’t be here for a few more hours. Actually, it’s a toss up who will be next out of him and Scott now.”

“John’s coming? And Scott?” Gordon couldn’t help but look astounded at the revelations. It took a minor miracle to drag John away from his studies and a major one to get all five brothers in the same place at the same time. They hadn’t even managed it at Christmas after Scott got posted abroad, their eldest brother had only finished his overseas tour a few weeks ago. Thinking about it the last time all his brothers had been in one place had been just after his Olympic win and the day of celebration that had felt far too short. “What’s the special occasion?”

Virgil looked at him with an expression of soft affection.

Alan looked at him like he was an idiot.

“Erm...your birthday?” Okay, now he knew Alan thought he was an idiot.

His birthday. On Monday he would be turning eighteen. It was an important milestone but not usually majorly significant, not like turning 21 which had been the big celebration year for Scott and Virgil. Eighteen wouldn’t normally warrant the family converging together from their far flung parts of the country. The confusion must have showed on his face.

“We just thought, what with your WASP plans, we didn’t know when we would next get the chance to celebrate all together. Scott can get sent pretty much anywhere at a moments notice and you’ll be the same one you’ve enlisted.” Gordon noticed that Virgil never defined the ‘we’ who came up with the plan to get everyone together for his birthday but he had a suspicious feeling that the man in front of him was probably the key player in it all. He was also aware that his place at WASP wasn’t yet confirmed but Virgil was treating it as a certainty; he appreciated his brother’s confidence in him. “John and Scott are both due in at about 7 tonight.”

As it happened John made it to the apartment next but only because Scott stopped to get take out on his way from the airfield. The eldest brother arrived laden with cartons and accompanied by tempting smells that had his brothers launching themselves on the unfortunate pilot in their haste to reach the food. When Jeff finally arrived a short while later it was to find all five of his sons sprawled on the lounge floor, chopsticks in hand as they shovelled noodles into hungry mouths.

Five heads whipped round guiltily as he walked into the room.

“Sorry Dad, we should have waited for you.” Scott scrambled to get up off the floor but Jeff waved him back to his meal.

“No, no, you carry on. You must be hungry after your flights. There any left for me?”

Scott nodded and pointed through to the kitchen, his mouth already full again. Jeff went to investigate and soon returned with his own carton, retrieved from the warming unit. He settled into his arm chair rather than joining the huddle on the floor.

“So boys, everyone have a safe journey?”

There were mumbled answers to the affirmative and various nods and thumbs up signs given when mouths were too full to answer politely. The gathering was more subdued with Jeff in attendance, the random outbursts of laughter he had heard as he first unlocked the door fizzling away as topics of conversation stayed in the territory of the neutral and mundane.

“So what’s the plan for this weekend then?” asked Gordon once the topics of school, work and training had been fully exhausted. “Or aren’t I allowed to know?”

“We thought we would keep it just family” said Virgil. “I don’t think much is planned really, except maybe a meal out tomorrow night.” He looked over towards their father for confirmation.

“That’s right,” Jeff confirmed, “I’ve booked a table for us tomorrow but the rest of the weekend is your own. You still need to fit in your school work” he looked pointedly at Alan who groaned in response “but there’s no big party I’m afraid.”

Gordon was secretly quite relieved to hear this. Unlike Scott and Virgil who’d had hoards of school and university friends to celebrate their 21sts with he was acutely aware that his own social circle was practically non-existent. His classmates had been more acquaintances than friends as all his energies had gone in to swimming or looking after Alan, and anyway, most of them were off at university now. And although he was swimming again as part of his fitness regime he had been keeping his distance from the swim squad he had been so cruelly ripped away from, the memories there were still too fresh and raw.

“Suits me fine, I wasn’t expecting anything so it’s just nice to have everyone back.”

A badly stifled yawn from Alan put an end to the evening, giving the sudden reminder that it was late. Bodies began to protest at the foolishness of having a floor picnic after various amounts of air travel and the brothers hauled themselves up with varying degrees of dignity. The following night had the potential to be a late one and so, one by one, after clearing up the detritus of the meal, the family retreated to their private spaces to rest.

xoxoxox

Saturday evening found a flurry of activity in the apartment as six individuals all tried to get ready around each other. Bathrooms that were normally unused suddenly found themselves shared by far too many individuals all clamouring to use showers and mirrors at the same time. Bottles of shower gel were traded for tubs of hair gel as brothers found they had left various items behind.

“John, go and find out what is taking so long ” Jeff instructed when all but Scott and Virgil were gathered in the lounge. There was still plenty of time before their reservation but he abhorred lateness.

John rolled his eyes at being sent to play sheepdog but was careful to ensure he did it after he left the lounge, no need to direct unwanted attention to himself if their father was starting to get irritated. The voices issuing from Virgil’s room suggested both the missing brothers had ended up there; he stopped outside, rapped on the door, then strode in before waiting for an answer. He gave a little snort of laughter at the sight that greeted him.

Virgil’s room was strewn with clothes while the man himself was stood there half naked. A pile of discarded shirts was draped over a chair and John counted at least four pairs of pants strewn on the bed. Scott emerged from the closet brandishing two more sets.

“These are the last pairs” he waved the pants in Virgil’s direction, “but I think they are smaller than the last ones. Have you updated your wardrobe at all since high school?”

“Course I have. I’ve got smart pants, I just didn’t bring them because I knew I had stuff here.”

“Problems?” John smirked from his place in the doorway.

“Yeah, idiot boy over there kinda forgot he’s bulked up a bit. Honestly, some of the stuff here looks like it would barely fit Alan.” The last two pairs of pants joined the others on the bed after it became clear they would struggle to go past Virgil’s knees, let alone do up and be comfortable for a meal out. “None of my stuff fits him either.”

“Well you’d better come up with something soon, Dad’s starting to get impatient.”

“It’s no use I’ll just have to go in my jeans, it’s either that or no pants at all” Virgil sighed. He dug through the holdall he had brought from Denver, pulled out the most acceptable pair of jeans he could find and yanked them on. A pair of shoes swiftly followed and moments later he was as ready as he could be.

Trailing a few steps behind Scott and John as the trio made their way into the lounge he soon found himself subject to his father’s glare.

“Virgil, tuck that shirt in.” The order was barked out and he had no option but to comply. Unfortunately, stuffing the hem of his shirt into the waistband of the jeans only served to reveal the paint stain that marred the material. “On second thoughts…” Jeff glared at offending garment and Virgil sheepishly pulled his shirt back out to hide the stain.

“If Virgil can wear jeans, why can’t I?” whined Alan. Jeff didn’t dignify that with an answer.

“I presume you have a good reason for your...unorthodox outfit.”

“Dress pants don’t fit any more.” Virgil mumbled.

Jeff sighed. If that was the reason then it was far too late to go shopping to remedy the situation. While Scott and John could perhaps get away with swapping clothes Virgil was built on different lines to the rest of the family. He might have plenty of money at his disposal but what they lacked now was time, the jeans would have to do. At least he hadn’t chosen a venue that insisted on full evening dress in deference to the sons’ preferences; he knew they hated being overly formal.

xoxoxox

The Tracy name was well known throughout the city and securing the patronage of one of the wealthiest men in the country, if not the world, was not easy. Securing a repeat booking was known to be even harder and so if the restaurant itself had any issues with Virgil’s outfit then the management used their discretion and refrained from passing comment.

The top floor restaurant gave sweeping views over the cityscape from its panoramic windows but the family cared little for the view. Nor it seemed did most of the other patrons and the family felt uncomfortably under the spotlight as they were led through to a table near the back. A group of six was always going to draw attention on a night where every other table was a couple, it was one of the hazards of having a Valentine’s day birthday. A group of six comprised of the full complement of Tracy masculinity drew stares that bordered on rude and more than one man found himself being compared unfavourably to these most eligible of bachelors by his date. The family were used to attracting attention though, particularly when appearing as a unit, and the group successfully navigated the room seemingly unfazed by the other clientele. Appearances can be deceptive though and the family was grateful to be seated in a private alcove where they could relax out of the public eye.

The meal passed without incident but it wasn’t the most comfortable of experiences. For a start the food wasn’t really to any of their tastes. Gordon’s diet tended to lean towards carefully counted micronutrients with the occasional junk food binge and while this had eased now he no longer had a swimming coach analysing the composition of his plate he still wasn’t used to the offerings presented on lavish menu. In fact, despite the size of the family fortune only Jeff was really familiar with high end dining and that was mostly due to there being an expected standard at the business lunches or charity galas he attended. For the brothers all were in agreement that the Chinese take out of the night before had been the better meal.

As dessert drew to a close Jeff cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the rest of the table, although Alan still needed a swift kick under the table from Virgil to get him to sit up and focus properly.

“This has been a year of changes and I know there are many more changes yet to come. With Gordon turning eighteen I’ve been given the stark reminder of just how much he, and the rest of you, have grown up. I have every faith that Gordon will get into WASP and earn his place as one of the youngest officers in the history of the submarine service” he settled his gaze on his fourth son before continuing “You’ve shown me time and time again that you shouldn’t be underestimated but it’s a lesson that has taken me a long time to learn.” Gordon shifted uncomfortably at the attention and praise that was still so rare in his life.

“In just a few months time John and Virgil will both complete their postgrads and go on to Tracy College to further specialise in astronautics and aeronautics while Scott and Gordon could be posted to anywhere in the world to help protect our planet.” This earned John and Virgil a jealous look from Alan, there was no denying that the youngest of the family was following in the footsteps of his next but one older brother in terms of a passion for space.

“I want you to know that I’m proud of you. All of you.” Each brother felt the force of their father’s attention in turn as Jeff looked at the assembled company, pausing to make eye contact with each one. Jeff, seeing his sons all gathered side by side, found himself struck by just how blessed he was to have such an impressive family. Somehow his children had turned into talented young men, often without him realising it, and he reflected that the skillset around the table was truly exceptional. Scott’s leadership abilities, Virgil’s creativity, John’s intelligence, Gordon’s determination, even Alan was showing an unnatural talent in the air; his sons were a force to be reckoned with as individuals and potentially unstoppable if they pooled their collective resources. “But tonight is meant to be about celebrating Gordon’s birthday which I’m sure you will find much easier to do without me around so this is the point where Alan and I will say goodnight and leave you four to your evening.”

The four oldest brothers looked stunned as Jeff ushered an indignant looking Alan away from the table, the youngster clearly not happy about being excluded from the after party. As he passed Scott’s chair Jeff paused and handed something across to his eldest son.

“Now Scott I’m trusting you to take charge but just remember that Gordon doesn’t officially turn 18 for two more days and as far as the state is concerned John is also still under age. Don’t make me regret this.” The instruction was quiet but serious.

Scott looked at the small rectangle of black plastic in his hands and swallowed. “No sir.”

And then the youngest and oldest of the family were gone.

“What was all that about?” asked John.

“I think Dad just gave us permission to hit the town” he carefully placed the card on the table where all four could see it “and he gave me his credit card.”

The seemingly innocuous piece of plastic was viewed with wide eyed amazement by Virgil and John while Gordon just stared after the retreating backs of the two departing Tracys in astonishment, the words of his father’s little speech still replaying in his mind; for once he was being acknowledged as an adult and treated as an equal to his older brothers.

Scott settled the bill and the four brothers exited the restaurant into the chill February night, a city of possibilities open before them.

“So where now?” asked Scott as they walked along the sidewalk, skirting around the lines of people queuing to get into the various clubs and bars that dominated the district. “Where do the kids of LA go when they want a night out?”

Three sets of eyes swivelled towards Gordon.

“How should I know?”

“C’mon Gordo, you must know somewhere that’s lax on the IDs? Cos even if you can blag it Johnny boy there still looks every inch the freshman” Scott looked accusingly at John who was sporting a particularly preppy shirt and sweater combination.

“I’m only six months off 21,” there was defensive indignation in John’s voice, “what makes you think I couldn’t get in?”

“Six months? May as well be six years. Have you ever tried to get served?”

John wilted under Scott's gaze knowing his brother’s words were true, he was both baby faced and lacking in interest in the messier side of the social scene at university which meant he was more likely to be found propping up the library stacks than a bar.

“So,” Scott turned his attention back to Gordon, “where do you go on the weekends to get a drink?”

“Hmm...Croatia?” the sarcasm dripped off Gordon. “Yeah, Croatia was good; think you can fly us out there? The after party for the ‘59 World Championships was pretty sweet. Seriously guys, I’ve spent most of the last 5 years in training or away at competitions, the club scene wasn’t really on my radar.” After Scott’s derision towards John’s drinking habits, or rather the lack of them, he was feeling a little defensive.

“You weren’t away all the time though, there must be somewhere you go for fun.”

“Hmm...fun.” Gordon gazed up towards the sky, finger to his lips as though giving the matter serious contemplation. “Nope, not a lot of that round here. You and Virg might have been able to tag team and hit the bars back in Kansas but in case you’d forgotten there’s noone else here for Alan and he spends enough time on his own as it is without me sneaking out for the sake of a few drinks. And even if Dad didn’t notice my coach would have and I’d have been off the squad faster than you can scramble that jet of yours. Hitting the town the night after a competition is one thing but here in LA the best I got is taking Alan to the arcades.”

“Arcades you say?” asked John with a glint in his eye. “I’ve not been to one of those in a while and Virgil here owes me a round of air hockey.”

“What, you fancy losing again?” Virgil snorted at the idea of John being any sort of match for him at sports, even of the table variety.

“I did not lose, I was set to win ‘til Frankie barfed on the table.”

“When the hell was this?” Gordon asked, sensing the start of a heated debate between his next two eldest brothers.

“Seventh, maybe eighth grade. Me and Johnny both got an invite to the same party seeing as whizz kid here shared half my classes in middle school. The battle of the air hockey got cut short cos someone dared Frankie to try every colour of slushie except instead of mixing them he tried to force down a full cup of each one. Lucky escape for you, eh Johnny?”

“We’ll see at the rematch. And it’s John, thank you very much.” There was an arrogant confidence in John’s voice, coupled with mild annoyance over the repeated use of the nickname; Scott might have got away with it but he wasn’t going to put up with it from Virgil too.

“Seriously, you guys want to go to the arcades?”

“Sure,” Virgil shrugged “it could be fun. What do you say, Scott?”

The group looked to their de facto leader who shivered in the cold night air.

“Why not, if it’s still open. It’s either that or head home so lead the way.”

xoxoxox

A quick taxi ride later and the four found themselves outside a 24-hour gaming centre, the lights and sounds of the various machines spilling out into the night. John grinned at the sight of all the games on offer and even Virgil, the brother least likely to pick up a console, looked eager to get stuck in.

Scott led the group in, bought a load of credits for each of them, and disappeared with a quick promise that he would be back soon once he had located some drinks for them. A few short minutes later and he was back with an armful of bottles; he distributed two to each brother.

“Mountain Dew?” Gordon looked at the lurid coloured drinks with incredulous surprise; it wasn’t exactly what he had been expecting.

“Look, the liquor store over the road didn’t have a lot of choice and this place has a strict no alcohol policy. That being said,” he continued with a glint in his eye “go easy on the blue one and if you need a top up just ask.” He patted a slight bulge in his jacket that hadn’t been there previously.

Gordon cracked the lid on the blue bottle, noticing it was already unsealed, took a swig and instantly felt the tang of spirits hit the back of his throat with a kick that left him wondering how much of the bottle was actually still Mountain Dew. Whatever Scott had added to the mix was strong but then so was some of the stuff he had sampled after competitions, he held his brother’s gaze and swallowed without reacting, earning himself an approving nod from Scott and leaving himself with the suspicious feeling that he’d just passed some sort of test.

He’d always been a stage removed from his elder brothers. John might not be that much older than him but being bumped up two grades, or occasionally three for some subjects if it was true he had been taught alongside Virgil, had left a chasm between them even without taking their differing interests into account. Scott and Virgil had always been the cohesive unit, John had existed alongside them if the middle brother had been forced to join the crowds and he and Alan had always been the kids left behind. To cross the social divide was a new experience for Gordon but one he was enjoying.

The group worked their way through the banks of machines, settling old scores and generally slipping back to a more carefree stage of life. Battles were won and lost and the undisputed master of air hockey was unanimously declared to be Virgil, a decision that was greeted with a decided pout from the middle brother who’d had his eye on the title. It certainly wasn’t how Gordon had expected to celebrate his birthday but then he hadn’t really expected to celebrate it at all.

Thanks to Scott’s illicit supplies it was a slightly stumbling group that finally made it back to the apartment in the small hours of the morning, taking the exaggerated care of the drunk not to bump into things and risk waking the other occupants. After some hurriedly whispered goodnights Gordon headed off to his room, stopping only to grab some water to soothe the inevitable headache he would have in the morning. He was feeling happier than he had done in years and he was sure that wasn’t just down to the drinks; he hadn’t realised quite how much he enjoyed his brothers’ company or how much he missed them when they were away. He went to crawl in under the covers but couldn’t help giving a little smile when he realised he would not be sleeping alone as a significant heap of plushies now adorned the foot of his bed. John might not have been master of air hockey but even after so much to drink he’d practically needed to be carried home, he was definitely king of the claw machines.

#thunderbirds #Thunderbirds fanfiction #High Expectations #Gordon Tracy #all the family together #Happy Birthday Gordon

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neoarchipelago · 5 years

Text

Lisbon lights (John wick x reader part one)

AN: here's the first chapter of the small serie! Hope you enjoy it guys!

Edit: i forgot the translation x) *to the Continental hotel please, as quick as possible.

Word count : 4 767

Warnings: cursing, sexual talk?

__________

Walking through the crowded streets of the city, you sighed, feeling the fresh breeze of the ocean hit your skin. The summer heat was sometimes unbearable even in a city so close to the ocean. Your tight black dress that reached half of your thighs was the only way to feel a bit more relieved. The thin straps and the low cleavage showed more skin than it should, attracting some curious looks your way. It didn't matter to you. You had recently finished a contract and was taking some time out here in the beautiful city of Lisbon. The night had already fallen, and the crowd had started to come out into the streets. Music beamed everywhere, as people sang and danced.

The soft and neon lights everywhere made the city look beautiful, almost like a dream. Walking in heels was nearly impossible though, you mentally noted that whoever had the idea to make soft stone pavements in the entire city must have hated to walk around. You quickly fixed that by wearing some sandals.

You walked through the streets of Bairro Alto, reaching a small place where a show was occuring. You decided to stop, watching the drag queen walk around showing to the public it's lit torches. 'I will survive' was beaming loudly from a big speaker, and you watched as fire danced around. You smiled, clapping with the crowd. The man walked around with a small basket to anyone who wished to offer something. You reached your small hand purse and grabbed a golden coin. You received a knowing look as you gave it, as you simply smiled back.

You kept watching, expecting another show when something felt off. You could feel someone stare at you. You weren't a trained assassin for nothing after all. You looked around discreetly trying to figure out who might be watching you. You started to feel annoyed when you failed to find out the person. Deciding to test out this new situation you walked further down the city, barely a few 400 meters away, to an ongoing concert. Soft classical music played as many people had gathered around the stage. You watched the orchestra play one of Beethoven's symphony, as silence stood among the crowd. You enjoyed this, the complete change of atmosphere through the city at night. You could find some peaceful, classy places and more joyful and energetic ones.

But as much as you enjoyed the soft tune, your skin still burnt from someone's gaze. You heart rate started to raise as you were now sure someone was following you. You decided not to look around, preferring to take another approach. You started walking down again, going closer and closer to the ocean side of the city. Streets were a bit more lonely, empty, and darker. You still felt at ease though, you knew those streets by heart and could walk this city your eyes closed. Throughout your Journey to the small dock, you still felt like you were being observed. Not observed like the many men did when they saw you walk by in your tight little black dress, no. Observed like you were being hunted by a predator.

A small shiver ran down your spine at the thought. You were actually enjoying this for the moment. Whoever was hunting you hadn't tried to make a move to kill or hurt you so for now you simply enjoyed the little chase. Slowly walking down, trying not to trip over the slippery pavements you took a quick glance back. Your breath hitched as you quickly looked back towards your destination. Your (e/c) had met dark ones that you knew all too well. Not that you knew the man to be exact but it was hard not to know him. After all his name was feared by the entire underground network. Baba yaga.

You could definitely feel yourself getting anxious now. You were being hunted by the most feared assassin there was. Your mind spun at all the reasons why. You hadn't done anything to anger the man, at least not that you knew of. If he wanted you dead, you probably would have been as well, as you had walked through complete empty streets where you were alone with him. You were feeling curious now but decided to walk to the docks first before even trying to make contact with the man.

Finally reaching the ocean you shivered at the sudden cold breeze. You mentally scolded yourself for not bringing a jacket with you, the city getting cold at this hour of the night. You wrapped your arms around yourself trying to feel a bit of warmth. You suddenly felt a presence right behind you, making you hold your breath but not turn around.

"Mr Wick. What can I do for you?" You asked in soft voice.

You heard the man walk to your side, planting his eyes directly into yours. You felt yourself instantly melt under his dark gaze. The man was intimidating, handsome. His perfect looks, three pieces suit, hair gelled back, beard perfectly tamed made you feel hotter than you wished.

"Miss (y/l/n). I need to talk to you." He said in a serious tone that promised many things.

You chuckled, sending him a teasing look.

"But you are talking to me…" you said in a seductive and playful tone, walking around him.

You took in his body, imaginating what might be under the suit he wore. You stood in front of him again eyeing him up and down, your eyes resting on his strong hands for a second wondering how they would feel around your neck. You looked up at him a dark lustful look on your face.

John stood there as if nothing happened. You weren't surprised the baba yaga wasn't so easily tricked.

"I mean business." His voice sounded strict.

You moaned and frowned softly.

"I'm on a vacation mister Wick. I do want to mean business." You said in an annoyed voice.

You turned to look back at the ocean, humming the strong smell of the salty water.

"You know the city by heart you've been here more than any other… co-worker. I need you to help me find someone."

You sighed clearly getting annoyed at the man's insistence.

"There's plenty of other people that know the city. I'm not playing the tour guides for you, mister wick." You said looking at him darkly.

"John"

You stared at the man. Not fully understanding.

"I beg your pardon?" You asked softly.

"Don't beg, call me John." He repeated.

"No." He looked taken aback and you mentally high-fived yourself for that. You figured it out he was trying to play the same game as you, trying to seduce you to have what he wants. "I'm not interested in calling John. I don't plan on spending enough time with you to do so." You resumed, starting to walk along the docks.

The moonlight reflected in the water, illuminating the waves, who sparkled and danced. You heard John start to walk behind you.

"So you're still planning to spend time with me just not enough right?"

You groaned and rolled your eyes.

"I'll give you half of the reward."

"I don't want it."

"I'll have dinner with you."

You narrowed your eyes and threw him a dark look before answering in a dark voice.

"I.don't.want.it."

You kept walking trying to make him lose interest in you. You heard him sigh and out of nowhere felt two powerful arms around your waist. You spun around in his firm embrace, ready to turn around and slap him when he grabbed your wrist.

"Easy." His dark voice whispered.

You were suddenly too close. You forgot all about the fresh breeze as your body was slammed against his. Your skin burnt under his hand and you felt your heart rate quicken. He was inches from your face, his cologne leaving your mind in a haze. You were a master at seducing targets, being the mermaid that would drown them. Yet in this situation you felt yourself wicken in the arms of the man, unable to pull yourself together. Something about him was toxic, inviting.

"Please." He whispered again.

You mentally slapped yourself as you closed your eyes. You quickly pushed him away. Sighing as if he was an annoying child.

"Who are you looking for?" You said in an angry voice, hating yourself for giving up so easily.

"Your old boss, Miguel."

You looked at the ocean. You remembered him clearly. He had been your first boss, putting all faith in you. You were young yet he trusted you. He was that annoying rich old man that thought he owned the world. He had a daughter who wasn't any better than him. The Apple doesn't fall far from the tree. You had stopped working for him as soon as you had discovered his real business. He kidnapped young women who traveled to the city and sold them to other countries such as Brezil. You shivered at the thought feeling the need to throw up. You were glad someone was finally taking him out. You were even happy to help John.

"He usually spends his time at the Palácio Chiado. It's his favorite Hotel in town. A fancy little place of Bairro Alto." You said looking at John. You chuckled at John's confused look.

"You have really no idea where that is right?" You said slightly laughing.

He looked at you sending you a dark look, that didn't make you stop laughing but still sent a sweet shiver down your spine. Or maybe was it the fresh air?

"I arrived in town two hours ago. I only had time to check in at the continental." John said, his raspy voice sounding a bit too sweet to you.

You sighed. You wanted to help him. After all Miguel deserved to be killed and you were glad a man like John Wick was on the contract. It was just a matter of an hour perhaps. You could then forget about Mr Wick here and go on with your little time off. Just showing the hotel and then leaving to the continental until he'd done with the Job. You looked at him studying him. He saw you analyzing the situation and took a step forward. You took a step back, frowing and sending him a dark look. He simply smirked at you.

"You look adorable with that frown."

You starred at him in shock. What did he just say? You felt your blood boil for a second before remembering, that's it. You had to look adorable that was part of your way to trick your targets. Always be like a ghost, leave not a soul alive to tell the features of the pretty face who killed them. Only some rare people knew you correctly. Miguel and his daughter Luana, the director of the Lisbon Continental who's also your best friend Amalia, Winston the director of the New York Continental and probably the high table. Though you had started to suspect that only the Elder knew about you as well. You weren't called for every contract. Simply for those where the death had to stay a mystery. You aced in poison, dagger kills and seducing your prey. Everything that contrasted with Mr Wick's way of working. You threw back your focus on the man in front of you.

"You should be careful then mister Wick. I'm not only made of sugar, spices and everything nice." You said in playful tone as you started to walk to the Tram's stop. You heard John follow in your footsteps as sat down at the stop waiting. You weren't going back up the hill walking. No. Your were on vacation. John sat by your side, your shoulders touching. The fucking… you closed your eyes. You knew he was doing it on purpose, just to pull you off track.

"What are we waiting for?" You heard his vocie ring next to you, low and making your skin crawl.

What was it with the man? Why was he having such a strong influence on you? Maybe was it the myth around him that made you want to have a little one night stand. Maybe was it just too long since you had sex. It was probably that. You were going to find some entertainment right after this.

"For the train." You simply answered, keeping your eyes closed.

You shivered slightly as you felt the cold breeze again. It was a big contrast compared to the day time heat. Your breath hitched as you felt his lips close to your ear.

"You're cold." He whispered in a deep voice.

You opened your eyes slowly and turned your head to him just as slowly, throwing him a dark look. He seemed unshaken by it as your words dripped of anger.

"Don't."

John looked at you before slightly leaning away. You didn't even thought your murderous gaze would make him actually back off, but apparently even the Baba Yaga knew when to back off. You sighed looking at him.

"I'm helping you because I hate Miguel and he deserves to die. I don't care about you or your stupid contract Mister Wick."

"John." He corrected. You ignored his intervention.

"I am showing you the hotel and then leaving you there. I'm not helping you, I'm not your fucking tour guide. Mister Wick."

You finished as you looked away. The silence felt heavy between you two for a few minutes before your heard him speak again.

"Thank you for helping. I apologise for bothering during your time off. I know how those can be rare."

You sighed, feeling your anger already leaving you.

"Whatever. I suppose one hour won't kill me."

Well you never thought you could be this wrong in your life. Actually one hour with John was pretty much what you needed to almost get yourself killed. The train had arrived and you both walked in the crowded wagon. The fast start had made you trip and you felt John's powerful arm around your waist again. You had blushed furiously as you hid your face in his chest. You had nowhere to hold onto but him so you let him hold you so you wouldn't fall. He was holding onto the iron bar near the roof, and you were too small to reach it. The heat was getting unbearable but you actually couldn't tell if it was from the crowded place or because your body was slammed against John's, one of his arms firmly around your waist.

Your face rested next to his neck and you clearly felt your mind get cloudy. Another sharp turn made you cling to John's jacket a bit tighter, falling even more onto him and you swore you felt John groan. You looked up at him, ready to apologise thinking you had hurt him but you froze as you met dark eyes staring at you.

"Stop that." He said in a very dark and low voice that made you want to moan.

"Stop what?" You let out in a breath.

"Your little game of seduction. Can you be serious for a moment?"

You felt slightly annoyed at the man. Game of seduction? He was the one whispering in your ear a few minutes ago. You frowned again.

"I'm not playing anything at all John. That's a little hypocrite of you to say don't you think?"

John smirked and you gave him a puzzled look. What was so funny?

"So it's John?" He said, making you realize your mistake.

You moaned, closing your eyes feeling suddenly stupid, you opened them again to stare into darker ones that were slightly narrowed. You swallowed hard, being in the man's grip and having him look at you so darkly was too much right now.

"Don't." His voice was rough, almost mean.

You felt slightly pained at his sudden mood change, again, mentally slapping yourself and screaming that you didn't give a shit if he liked you or not.

"Don't what?" You answered just as roughly.

"Moan. Don't moan." He said in a growl.

You felt yourself blush again as you looked away, a small smirk on your lips anyway as clearly you could still have some sort of effect on him. You finally reached the stop at Bairro Alto in front of the big place of Camoes where a beautiful and enormous statue laid there. You walked out of the train with John following you as you breathed in the fresh air. You were sweaty because of the heat, and it felt nice to feel the breeze on your skin. Your skin softly glistened under the neon and colorful lights of the surrounding bars. You could feel John's eyes roam your body but you tried to ignore the sinful look as you walked down the street back to where the orchestra was playing earlier. John was walking next to you and the silence between you two was making you feel tensed. You arrived in front of another small place, this time where green grass had grown and a small fountain rested in the middle. On the left side a huge building stood with the words Palácio Chiado written in the front. You stood quite far enough to show John the building while not being seen by anyone you might know.

"Here's the Hotel. Miguel is in the best suite. It's in the last floor, the left door." You said while inspecting the waiters from afar.

"How can you be so sure?" John whispered next to you.

"Because like you said I've worked for him. He's not a man to change habits. Plus he adores this stupid hotel he practically made that suite his apartment." You answered monotonously. "The hotel is not in touch with the underground network. The waiters, the cooks the whole place is civilian. There's an entrance in the back that you can reach though the maintenance door in the left corner of the hall. If you're discreet enough you can make your way up there through the staff's staircase."

You turned to walk away as you finished giving him a few tips but felt his large hand grab your wrist and pulling you so you'd turn to him again. You rolled your eyes, this man never gives up now does he? He looked at you, still holding your wrist.

"Thanks for the help." His voice was soft making you melt slightly.

You sighed and looked at him in the eyes, getting lost in the darkness for one last time. When you felt your skin burn again you simply nodded and freed your hand.

"Be careful...Mr Wick." You finished in a soft smirk.

He smirked back at you and walked to the hotel. You entered a small bar that faced the hotel. You knew you should go back to the continental and forget about all of this. You were sure Miguel or his daughter would try to kill for betraying them like this but hey. They deserved everything that was falling on them right now. You sat down on a table that gave you visual access to the entrance of the hotel. You were just going to check that John had managed to finish his contract and then you'd leave. You were sure it would go smoothly.

Miguel's daughter was really the one to be afraid of. She was sadistic, taking part in her father's business and managing to be even more cruel then her hideous father. Besides the horrible things she did, she was a very good fighter and you were sure she was a psychopath. She enjoyed torturing in the cruelest ways and see her victims suffer in agony. You remembered that one time she had ordered you to stay and watch her torture a poor girl and you had threatened to kill her 5 mins through. Her father had not punished you since you were one of his most priced possession at the time. You never had to watch again but you grew a large amount of hate towards the egocentric and cruel daughter Luana.

You had quickly quit after that, finally understanding the family business that was occuring behind your back. You had been told that Luana was not in the country right now, she had traveled to Mexico on a business trip. Miguel was most likely alone, without barely any protection, especially not his daughter.

The waiter came to you, taking your order. You asked for a cup of Beirão licor. It was quickly brought to you as you sipped the sweet but rough alcohol. Your eyes stayed glued to the hotel for the next 5 mins before you almost choked on your drink. A Bentley parked in front of the Hotel and you watched as Luana got out of the car.

"Shit!" You half whispered half yelled out loud.

That was not good. John still hadn't come out and Luana was not part of the plan. If she saw John who just killed her beloved father she certainly would torture him to death. John was a man of focus, commitment, sheer will. You knew he could fight, kill but he also many times was caught. Sure, he managed to escape every time, but Luana didn't need to kill him. She needed to catch him that that would be all. You cursed again as you stood up, leaving money and your still full cup on the table.

You saw her enter the hotel as the car drove away. You stopped in front of the bar you walked in, pondering on your options. You could run to her, catch her and pretend you needed to talk to her, buying John a bit more time but you were sure that wouldn't work. You and her had nothing to say to each other and Luana clearly knew that you would never come to her to talk about anything at all. Even is she'd accept the conversation she probably would invite you to her father's suite to talk privately. You cursed again, your mind racing.

You had to walk in, get John and walk out before she reached the suite and without her seeing you. You ran to the hotel entrance and walked in, the waiters not paying attention to you. Luana was at the bar and you thanked the gods for her slight alcoholism. You reached the maintenance door you had told John about and climbed the stairs as quick as you could you while reaching to your right thigh, under your dress, where a thin lace wrapped around it. You checked the small knife you had strapped there.

Rule number 1: never leave the house without a knife. You ran up the stairs to the last floor and opened slightly the door. You looked into the hallway to see men already lying on the ground dead. You pushed the door open and ran to the door on the left. You opened it and walked in checking that no one was nearby, especially not Luana. You quickly walked into the small living room.

"John?!" You could feel your lungs burn, but your mind was perfectly clear. You were used to those adrenaline shots though never in a situation where you could be discovered so easily. Usually your targets didn't know you, you had the surprise card on you, but not this time. You heard footsteps coming from the bedroom into the living as you spun to see John. He was holding a gun and looked confused at you.

"(Y/n)?"

You ran to him not really caring about the possible threat he was. After all you barely knew him and you had walked in on the Baba yaga hunting.

"We need to leave, NOW!" you said grabbing his hand and pulling him to the entrance door.

"What's going on?" He asked, following either way.

"Miguel's daughter has arrived. I didn't expect her to be here." You said opening the door just enough to take a look in the hallway.

"Alright, and?" His voice sounded amused and you sighed in exasperation.

You threw the door open when you were sure no one was around and grabbed John's hand again pulling him to the maintenance door.

"Luana is not her father, she's cunning, cruel, sadistic. She has more security than the fucking queen of England." You walked into the maintenance staircase John still following you. You ran down the stairs your hand still holding John's.

"She has been the one taking care of the family business recently she's the one you should be careful about. She's unreachable for us right now. We don't have the proper attire. No guns, not bulletproof vest. And the worst isn't that she'll kill us no that's the best option."

John was still frowning but listening closely to you.

"I saw her torture a 14 years girl because she felt bored. She's a psychopath and trust me." You said as you stopped in between two floors looking at John worriedly.

"She'll torture us until we beg to die because we killed her father."

John looked at you before slightly squeezing your hand.

"I killed her father." He corrected you.

His words reached your brain and you realized you had thrown yourself into the lion's den without any actual reason. Or maybe there was one. But you decided to ignore it entirely prefering to think of something else instead of thinking that it was to try to save John.

"I helped you. She'll torture me too." You quickly said, looking away.

John's hand reached your chin making you look at him. You planted your eyes into John's ones.

"Thanks for coming for me." He said in a sweet voice.

You closed your eyes groaning.

"Oh shut up and hurry!"

You pulled on his hand as you darted running down the stairs again. This was no moment for this cute shit. You finally reached the bottom floor and you opened the door slightly staring into the crowded hall and restaurant. Everyone seemed busy and that was very good. You noticed Luana wasn't there, so you had little time before she saw her dead father. You opened the door and pulled John with you. You walked normally to the entrance door trying not to attract any suspicions on you two. John wrapped his arm around your waist pretending to be your partner. You could almost feel the relief as you reached the doors. But one last look behind you and you knew your vacation was over. Your eyes fell into deep blue ones, as you looked at Fernando, Luana's personal body guard and sometimes lover. He nodded at you. You realized he probably hasn't seen the dead body yet. You softly smiled and walked out of the hotel.

"Fuck." You simply said a fake smile plastered on your lips.

John had also noticed the interaction. Yes. Soon enough Luana would link you and John to the death of her father and your peaceful moment was going to end.

"Does he know you?" John asked in your ear.

"Unfortunately yes… we're fucked." You said slightly whining as you waved to a taxi. He pulled over and you walked in pushing John inside with you as you were still holding his hand.

"Para o hotel Continental por favor, o mais rápido possível."*

You said in Portuguese to the driver. He nodded and started the car.

"Do you think they will link you to this?" John asked lowly.

"I'm sure they will. You've just ruined my vacation John." You said in an annoyed tone.

"So it's John?" He asked again.

You turned to him angrily. You didn't actually know if it was against him for joking in such moments or if it was against yourself for putting yourself in this stupid situation for a man like John who probably didn't care about you.

"Yes it is! We're probably going to spend months into an abandoned building being tortured so yes! It's John! " You said feeling your nerves really being wrecked.

John wrapped his arms around you, bringing you to his chest.

"I'm not letting anyone touch you ok?"

You breath hitched as you closed your eyes your head resting on his chest.

"You've helped me I'm going to help you now."

The last words brought you back to reality as you slowly pulled away. He was trying to retrieve a favor. Nothing more. You felt anger run through you as you coldly spoke, surprising and confusing John again.

"I don't need your help. That's the difference between you and me."

_____

@thatbemyhouse @magdazwolska

#john wick series #johnwickgif #john wick #john wick x reader #keanureevesgifs #keanugifs #keanu reeves #fanfics #fanfiction #fanfic

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sohannabarberaesque · 5 years

Text

Underwater America with Peter Potamus: Florida’s Space Coast

art by MaudeDraws (https://www.deviantart.com/maudedraws)

This story continues a Friday Fanfic series which debuted late last year, in which Peter Potamus and friends go on a cross-country tour of the nation’s most interesting diving sites in the hope of selling their adventures to television. This story takes place early in the summer of 1970.

I drove the bus out of Ocala at around six o’clock in the morning while everyone else inside was still sleeping off our latest refreshing adventure.

Early into the next leg of our cross-country tour, I pondered taking the winding country roads instead of the highway. I eventually decided on the highway, for the roads were generally less bumpy—thereby making the crew less irritable—and faster, even though we had lots of time to get to our next stop: Florida’s famous State Road A1A, featuring the longest stretches of beaches one could ever hope for.

About 90 minutes later, once everyone was awake, alert and begging for breakfast, we stopped at a diner in Ocoee, not far from Orlando, Walt Disney’s latest conquest. In fact, as we sat in two separate booths looking at menus, the conversation turned to the resort.

“What do you think he’s got there?” Breezly pondered.

“Do you think we could get up close and take pictures?” asked a slightly hyperactive Squiddly, shivering with delight.

“Yeah!” Magilla giddily exclaimed. “Maybe we could have a piece of history!”

“Please,” Mildew said in his usual sassy style. “I doubt they’d let anyone near a construction site. Plus, this is Disney we’re talking about, so they’d probably shoot you!”

“Indeed,” I added, dead serious. “I’m not going to waste valuable time going there. We’ve got Cape Canaveral coming up in a few hours.” The thought of me or any of the others possibly getting arrested for trespassing immediately came to mind. “Let me remind you all that even though we’re all having fun here, I’m spending my life savings to make this dream happen. You all have nothing to lose, but not me.”

Squiddly and Magilla clammed up immediately. I figured they knew what I was talking about: nobody else had any means of support. Hokey and his partner Ding-a-Ling only had their street smarts to get them out of jams. Lippy and Hardy were just struggling. While Magilla could simply go back to Peebles’ Pet Shop, it simply wasn’t a life. This was a ticket to a new life for them and I was not about to risk that for something stupid.

Breakfast, otherwise, was nothing special. The coffee was a little too strong for some of them, and some of the meals just weren’t up to par. Lippy, sitting opposite from me, wasn’t thrilled with the slightly-soggy pancakes, either. We still paid for the meal, though, and went on our way. At least Squiddly loved the bagels and lox.

To compensate for the lack of Disney in our lives, we made an unplanned stop at the Tosohatchee Wildlife Management Area in Orange County. The area brings hunters, birdwatchers, campers, hikers, botanists, fishermen and wildlife enthusiasts together under one roof, and today all of the above were out enjoying themselves.

We took plenty of pictures of birds that morning, with bald eagles and kestrels hunting for their next meal, while herons and ibises, among others, hung out in the wetlands. We were also able to get on camera a group of wild turkeys congregating nearby, with Mildew and Hokey instantly regretting not bringing a shotgun—if only we had one.

“Monsters,” Loopy said with a smirk, although I am certain that, deep down, he would’ve wanted it.

The excursion turned out to be a good thing: the heavy showers came in a few miles after we got back onto Route 524. Better now than later.

“Oh, dear,” Hardy moaned. “That’s going to ruin our plans.”

“Aww, don’t sweat it, Hardy!” replied his optimistic friend, Lippy. “Better now than when we’re out on the boat, right?”

“If you say so,” the sour-flavored hyena moped. “I suppose it could have been worse. We could have been out in the water when—“

As if on cue, lightning struck a few hundred feet away from us, startling everyone but especially Hardy, who would’ve jumped into Lippy’s lap had the seat belt not prevented him from doing so—and yet, we all soldiered on past the rain and out of danger, and just in time.

The timing was perfect: the sun shone brightly on the Indian and Banana rivers, the first things one sees before entering State Road A1A from the north. Sandwiched between the two rivers is Merritt Island, home to the John F. Kennedy Space Center, known throughout the world for NASA’s Apollo space missions that eventually put man on the moon for the first time in history.

We stopped at the northernmost point of Florida’s Space Coast—the town of Cape Canaveral, where space tourism and beach tourism combine to provide an unforgettable experience. As we were on a mix of both pleasure and business, however, we immediately sought out a boat to rent for today’s underwater journey.

Once we secured one, we got to work loading our gear from the trailer into the boat. To avoid confusion and clutter, not only are the swim fins and masks hooked to the belt of the harness, our names are marked on the backs of the harnesses so we do not end up wearing someone else’s kit. We then started on our way, into the Atlantic Ocean.

As we continued on our way, we were able to get a glimpse of houses lined along the streets, not far from the Space Coast’s gorgeous beaches. These streets bear the names of past U.S. Presidents, the greats and not-so-greats among them: Washington Avenue. Adams. Jefferson. Eventually ending with Harding.

“Huh. Coulda sworn Van Buren would get his due,” Wally said before letting out his familiar, ear-pleasing laugh, noting the absence of his own street.

Further along the coast, the beaches were endless, although the places had different names. Cocoa Beach? Satellite Beach? Melbourne Beach, just a drive away from the city of Melbourne? It’s all good. You get to enjoy the feeling of sand between your toes.

I made certain to check my gear to ensure everything was operational. I took a breath from the regulator and found no problems. While everyone else was testing their tanks and regulators, I went into the cabin to plot out a course for ourselves using a nautical map.

Now, Cape Canaveral itself is not an ideal place for diving. Consulting the guidebook, I had two options: either explore a natural reef twenty miles out of Port Canaveral in an area called Pelican Flats, or explore the wrecked Dutch steamship Laertes, the Allied cargo vessel sunk by a German U-109 in May 1942. We couldn’t tackle both at once, as those two were a mile apart. As I looked further through the book to see if there were other reefs, it turned out there are plenty of other wrecks along the waters off A1A, some of them much, much older.

My mind was made up: we would be exploring a reef that day. …Or at least, I thought! Maybe some of the gang wanted a change of scene early. If there were other natural reefs along the coast, they were hard to come by. So, I told them we’d go to the reef.

After agreeing amongst ourselves on 90 feet for 40 minutes with a seven-minute decompression stop, we geared up for our journey into the depths in our familiar way: tanks secured to harnesses; harnesses worn and buckled securely; fins snugly worn; mask lenses spat-at-and-rinsed before donning; regulators being given a final check.

art by Kandlin

After a final safety briefing and the dropping of the anchor line, we were about to back-roll into the ocean when an Atlantic flyingfish flew up from the water and landed right on Breezly’s lap. We all had a terrific laugh over it, even after Breezly non-chalantly threw the fish back in the ocean, toward where the little fella had hoped to go.

“We could’ve had some lunch!” Lippy laughed. “Why’d you throw it back?”

“I didn’t want to punish him for one simple mistake!” Breezly replied with a warm smile to match his warm heart.

After that slight delay, we back-rolled into the water and slowly followed the anchor line down to the ocean floor, right next to where the reef was located.

Immediately the ten of us split up into several groups, giving us several times the opportunities for fun things to happen, though the feeling of water against one’s skin or fur is always a source of delight, regardless of the results of these dives.

One thing we noticed was that the reef was not a coral reef as some of us had hoped. Instead, we found plenty of short seagrass, an important source of nutrition for some of the aquatic life. The lack of coral gave me the first impression that the reef resembled a formation of mossy rocks and boulders one would perhaps find in the woods.

On the ocean floor nearby, Hardy swam close to what appeared to be a small, wide formation. It looked like it was a little smooth to the touch, unlike coral, so he brushed a few fingers along the length. The “formation” moved slightly, causing Hardy to jump back a little. The thing Hardy touched was a Florida sea cucumber, one of many such invertebrates found along Florida’s waters. To reassure Hardy, Lippy gently picked it up and showed its underside, with its many rows of tube feet, and the oral tentacles on the front side. Hardy nodded, having fully understood.

Meanwhile, Hokey and Wally, apparently not yet over their hunger pangs, scoped out a sizable group of lobsters congregating beneath a portion of the reef. With no net with which to catch them, and no way to bring them back, lest they carry it with them throughout the dive and even the decompression stop, they were at a loss. Even so, they were not about to be defeated.

Hokey beckoned for Loopy to swim over. Once Loopy joined the pair, Hokey pointed to the lobsters that were taking cover, then rubbed his belly to communicate everyone’s favorite language—food.

Loopy looked at Hokey quizzically, pointing up to the surface: did Hokey really intend to take his dinner up to the boat? When Hokey and Wally nodded in the affirmative, Loopy shook his head, not wanting anything to do with it.

Wally, however, had a plan, and he started to take off Loopy’s scarf, despite the wolf’s objections. Once Hokey got into the mess, Loopy had no chance. He then laid down one end of the scarf by the lobsters, waiting on one of them to take the bait. It didn’t take long, as one of them gripped the scarf.

Excitedly, Hokey pulled the scarf out, but the lobster, sensing what was happening, let go and rejoined the others.

Wally laid out the bait again, but before a lobster could hook onto it, Loopy, disgruntled, snatched the scarf away and swam far from them in order to put it back on. So much for lunch.

Meanwhile, our camera-octopus, Squiddly, located a gorgeous queen angelfish swimming alongside me. The somewhat fluorescent-looking colors on its body make it stand out from most of the other fish. Getting to experience seeing one up close is exciting enough, but when about a dozen more show up in the vicinity, you get worried about whether or not you actually loaded the film into the camera!

Some of the others were able to witness a loggerhead sea turtle swim by them. Mildew started off by following it, with Loopy instinctively joining his lupine companion. Soon, Lippy and Hardy were on the chase as well, though I do believe they just wanted to pet it. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just get it over with and form a conga line.

I followed Magilla and Breezly when they decided to stray a little from the reef. We had reached a sandy area where the two of them went fish-watching, without any of the others getting in the way.

We were able to witness a group of African pompanos on their way to the reef. While the juveniles prefer to go where the ocean currents lead them, adults prefer the coastline, in depths of up to 100 meters.

Outside of that, we were unable to find many fish of interest, outside of a solitary cocoa damselfish that swam right between the polar bear’s and gorilla’s bodies. The two of them turned around in unison just as the fish passed them; perhaps those two should have signed up for synchronized swimming instead.

We were about to rejoin the group when we saw what appeared to be a large school of fish—at least from a distance. As they drew ever closer, however, we realized they weren’t fish, but a group of about three dozen manta rays swimming towards us and above us. We quickly turned around, kicking our legs as quickly as we could, swim fins waving up and down, so that we could alert the others. We were going to get a chance to swim along with the rays.

art by Enookie

Squiddly got in front of us so he could capture this epic scene. I positioned the other camera at a different angle, and we were on our way.

As we followed the group of rays, we were awestruck by the graceful movement of their pectoral fins. Taken individually, it’s a gorgeous sight, but to witness over thirty of them doing it was like viewing real-life natural art.

Mildew had the right idea when he swam the backstroke. The rays’ movements, combined with the limited light of the sun, made for the best viewing experience.

The mantas have a pair of horn-like cephalic fins on either side of their mouth. When the manta forages for food, these fins flatten in order to channel food into their mouths. At the surface they will feed on zooplankton such as shrimp and krill. At deeper depths such as these, they will feed on small or medium-sized fish.

As were were approaching a variety of fish, we had no choice but to let them be. Squiddly kept filming, yet kept a safe distance. As the rays fed on the sundry fish, I discovered, while editing this film for broadcast, that one of the rays may very have well feasted on that same cocoa damselfish Magilla and Breezly saw earlier. That’s the way life goes for an animal: one day you’re minding your own business, and the next day you’re gone. I would talk about life’s fleeting mortality, but that’s for some other show. It was time for us to ascend, anyway.

In deep dives, nitrogen starts to accumulate in the diver’s body. If a diver ascends like one usually would in a relatively shallow swimming pool, these nitrogen gases could turn into bubbles, thereby causing decompression sickness, which can be potentially fatal.

To help relieve the pressure, the diver’s ascent must be approximately thirty feet per minute. Depending on the details of the dive, a decompression stop may also be necessary fifteen feet from the surface. In this case, because of a 90-foot dive for 40 minutes, our wait was seven minutes. Even in dives at shorter depths, precautionary safety stops of three minutes may be required.

Because of the potential for danger, it is advised that dives are planned carefully. Use the most conservative figures when consulting dive tables. Know how much air you have, and do not plan lengthy dives if you don’t have the air to do a safety or decompression stop.

Squiddly Diddly, bless him, doesn’t have those disadvantages we mammals have. While we waited to ascend again, the good old octopus took the time to take one last tour of Pelican Flats, showcasing all its flora and fauna in its glory, however fleeting it may be. Who knows—maybe the fish Squiddly caught on camera could be the next to be swallowed up by a manta ray!

After the decompression stop, we made our final ascent to the boat, where we climbed out of the ocean, one at a time. Some of us laid back, gear still on, a little worn out from overstimulation.

“All those wasted years of trying to catch lambs,” Mildew chuckled. “Now this is living!”

“Who woulda thought? Swimming with manta rays!” Magilla said giddily, removing the gear one piece at a time and drying himself off.

“I think all of us needed that spark in our lives where we truly got to experience something special,” said I, stacking my fins and mask together as Squiddly climbed back onto the boat, the last to do so. “We’ve all forgotten how much of a thrill life could be. All we’ve been doing before is trying to survive.”

Lippy and Hardy, having known the feeling for years, nodded in agreement.

I slowly arose from the ledge and walked to the cabin. “All right. Let’s get this boat back, we get the gear back in, get our tanks refilled, and then finally we relax. I hear there are some good seafood places here.”

“How about a lobster?” Hokey said, smiling, eager for something exquisite.

“Me, too!” Wally added.

“Eh, we’ll see,” I said with a laugh, and the others were pretty much amused.

Once back on shore, we got the tanks refilled and all the gear loaded back onto the trailer. We bade farewell to Cape Canaveral and continued further south along A1A. Although Cape Canaveral isn’t a haven for divers, what we did see was good enough to warrant a visit, and the beaches are still very exquisite. If you would like to get to know NASA’s space program up-close and get wet and sandy—preferably not at the same time—set aside some time to visit the Space Coast.

Although we never got a chance to explore the Laertes shipwreck, a greater opportunity arose pre-dive when I learned of an early 18th-century Spanish ship, part of the doomed 1715 Treasure Fleet that transported goods and treasure from Spain’s territories back to the mainland. In our next episode, in which we travel to Florida’s Treasure Coast, we will explore one of those ships lost to a hurricane, the Urca de Lima, and perhaps come away with some treasure of our own.

#underwater america #scuba diving #peter potamus #fanfic #sohannabarberaesque #magilla gorilla #squiddly diddly #breezly bruin #hokey wolf #wally gator #lippy the lion #hardy har har #mildew wolf #loopy de loop #submission

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thesloppiestbitch · 6 years

Text

Sick Day - Roger Taylor x Reader

A/N: I’m sick and my girlfriend lives in a different country, so this is how I’m passing the time and comforting myself lmao enjoy

I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors, I don’t feel well enough to proof read

Masterlist

You groaned quietly as you sat up, voice cracking quite a bit, as you attempted let the man beside you continue his sleep. Your hands dragged down your face, and, as you did so, you noticed you had a small fever. Nothing that a thermometer would pick up, but a fever nonetheless.

Perfect, because to be sick is exactly what I need today, you thought as you slowly swung your feet over the bed, head already becoming swimmy.

Today was the last day the boys had to work on their album, and they wanted you there to hear what they’d been working on, and to help them choose tour stops in the US, as you were really the only one who’d travelled there enough to know what cities had the good bars and clubs. They were really counting on you being there, but it’s not like your presence would make or break the meeting, and you knew that, but you’d been waiting all month for this.

You sighed again, finally ready to attempt standing up. Which did not go so well. As soon as you stood, your sinuses seemed to clog and your vision darkened around the edges. You also began to feel nauseous and the room looked like it was tilted for some reason. Nevertheless, you needed to start the pot of coffee and hop in the shower, hoping the combination would give you enough energy to make it through the day.

You stumbled forwards, stubbing your big toe on the dresser and cursing under your breath. The thud and the speech was enough to wake Roger. He sat up slightly, obviously stretching under the duvet. “You alright, love?”

You nodded. “Yeah,” You spoke, voice hoarse and croaky due to your immensely dry throat. You attempted to clear it, but only winced in pain. “I’m fine,” You croaked.

“Are you sick?” He asked, sitting up completely, now fully awake.

“What? No,” You waved him off, now supporting yourself by leaning on the doorframe, afraid you might fall over if you didn’t have something to prop yourself up. “I just need a glass of water,”

“[Name], you’re as white as the wallpaper. Get back in bed,”

“No, Roggie,” You whined. “I need a drink,”

He laughed at your childishness, rolling his eyes. “I will get you a drink,”

You looked to the ground, suddenly feeling self conscious. “I gotta pee, too.”

He chuckled, standing up. “Fine, go to the bathroom and I’ll get you a drink. You’re not leaving the bed today,”

“But we have that meeting with the boys!” You protested, attempting to stand straight, but wobbling side to side slightly.

“They’ll understand,”

“Don’t they need you for recording?”

“They’re mixing. If it’s anything that’s that important, they’ll wait till I get back or call,”

You sighed, throwing your head back, suddenly realizing it was pointless to argue with him once he had his mind set to something. “Fine.”

“Good,”

•••

As the day went on, you grew to feel more disgusting. Your nose continued to run, and you got tired of wiping it, so you’d stuffed small wads of toilet paper up your nose. You knew you looked stupid, but you didn’t really care. Plus, Roger still made you feel like the prettiest girl in the world.

“Rog, I feel bad,” You started, looking down at your hands. Your voice sounded a little funny due to your stuffy nose, as well as the toilet paper up there.

“I know,” He interrupted. “You’re sick. That tends to go with it; kinda like a package deal sorta thing.”

You rolled your eyes, chuckling softly. “No! I mean I feel bad about you missing the meeting today. You really didn’t need to stay home and babysit me,”

“Oh, [Name], babysitting is fun!” He teased.

You were slightly taken aback by his response, but still laughed, even though it hurt your throat. “Can you pass me the Halls please? Oh, and I think you should have a good heaping of ‘be nice to me, I’m sick’.”

He laughed, handing you the small package of couch drops. “You really don’t have to feel bad about this, love. The boys were very understanding on the phone; they even offered to stop by after the meeting and bring us something for supper,”

A small smile broke out on your face. “Well aren’t they sweet,”

He nodded. “Plus, if they weren’t able to finish everything today because we weren’t there, they can always book extra time with the studio tomorrow; it’s really no big deal. Plus, I like getting to spend the day with you in bed,”

You rolled your eyes.

•••

A few hours passed and you’d managed to fall back asleep to the sound of the TV playing some rerun of a show you’d seen a million times before. You cuddled right up to Roger, happy to have the extra heat to keep you warm.

Just as Roger was about to fall asleep as well, a knock at the door caught his attention. He stood up carefully, trying to make sure you stayed asleep as you clearly needed the extra rest.

When he opened the door, he was greeted by his three other band mates. They were all smiling as they waited for their friend to let them in. Roger glanced down, seeing Freddie was holding a bag from KFC and returned the smile as he opened the door wider, motioning them inside.

“Where’s [Name]?” Brian asked on his way to the kitchen.

“How’s she feeling?” John asked, staying behind an extra minute to take off and hang up his coat.

“She’s asleep in the bedroom right now, and she seems to be feeling a little better. She’s still being her sassy, jokey self,” Roger replies, closing the door once all three were in his flat.

“You should’ve called us! We don’t want to wake her,” Freddie called softly from the kitchen.

Roger shrugged it off, making his way towards the room as well. “Its fine, she’s been asleep for a few hours anyways, she’s probably starving. She hasn’t eaten all day; didn’t even want her coffee that she insisted I make for her,” He laughed as he recalled the last part.

“Well, go wake her then, I suppose,” Freddie replied, getting plates from the cupboard.

Roger nodded, making his way towards the bedroom. When he walked in, he saw you sprawled across the bed, mouth wide open, and the wads of toilet paper still sticking out from your nostrils. He smiled to himself, thinking you still looked adorable.

Roger knelt beside the bed, gently rubbing your arm to wake you up. You stirred in the bed for a moment, and eventually your eyes fluttered open.

“What time is it?” You croaked.

“Almost seven, love. The guys are here and they brought chicken. Care to join us?”

You nodded, stretching your arms above your head as you sat up.

Roger laughed as he watched you do this.

You glared at him. “What?”

“Might wanna take out those snot wads before you see them. If you don’t, they’ll never let you live it down.”

Your brows knit together in confusion as you reached up to tap your nose. You laughed softly, having forgotten you’d stuffed them up there. “Okay, look away,”

He laughed. “You act as though I haven’t held your hair back for you as you’ve thrown up before,”

“Roger!” You scolded, laughing. “Just look away!”

He put his hands up in surrender and turned away.

After you’d made yourself look slightly more presentable, Roger helped you keep your balance as the two of you went to the kitchen where the rest of the band had set up plates, utensils, glasses, and had made you some tea. You audibly “awe’d” upon seeing this.

“You guys really didn’t have to do this,” You said after clearing your throat.

“We wanted to,” John shrugged.

Roger pushed your seat in for you before sitting beside you. “They’re sickeningly sweet when it comes to you, but if one of us were to get sick, the others wouldn’t do jack shit for them. You’re really something special to us, [Name].” He commented, grabbing the box of chicken strips.

You nodded, sipping your tea. “Thanks guys,” They all nodded in response, all getting some sort of food or waiting for someone else to finish with what they wanted. “And I’m really sorry for missing the meeting today, I feel really bad about it. And about keeping Roger home all day, even if he did insist on staying even after I told him to go,” You shot him a glare to which he shrugged.

“[Name], it’s no big deal, really. We did miss you, but we can always have another meeting once you’re feeling better,” Brian reassured.

“What, you didn’t miss me?” Roger asked, pretending to be hurt by this.

“Nope.” Freddie responded, biting into some food.

“Not in the slightest.” John added.

You laughed at their comments

•••

After supper, and after the guys had left, you sulked back to bed after having had a refreshing and relaxing soak in a hot bath. You were only beginning to feel better now, but you still didn’t feel at the top of your game. You knew you’d be feeling the same tomorrow, but you didn’t really care. There was nothing planned for the following day, so you weren’t stressing over anything.

After a minute or so, Roger climbed into bed beside you and you cuddling up close to him again. Despite the hot bath, you were still freezing cold.

“You have a fever, love,” Roger mumbled, resting a hand softly on your forehead.

“I know,” You croaked.

“Did you take any medicine?”

You nodded. “Uh-huh.”

He laughed softly. “Tired?”

“Very.”

“Alright then, goodnight, love,”

“‘Night.”

“I love you,” He stated quietly, shifting in a way so he was closer to you.

You opened your eyes to find him very close to your face, about to kiss you. You shuffled back a little bit. “Don’t, you’ll get sick.”

“Don’t care,” He said nonchalantly, leaning in again.

You chuckled, kissing him.

“Don’t complain to me when you wake up feeling like shit,” You whispered once you two had pulled apart.

He laughed. “I won’t.”

“I love you,”

“I love you, too,”

You cuddled close to him again, hoping for a restful sleep.

#roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor imagine #queen #queen imagine #queen band #freddie mercury #john deadon #brian may #bohemian rhapsody movie #bohemian rhapsody #borhap #borhap imagine #ben hardy #ben hardy x reader #joe mazzello #gwilym lee #rami malek

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xxdearlybeloved · 5 years

Text

The Burgess

A John x Reader Story, set in 1960′s New York City

Summary: Based on an idea from @the-blue-tiefling, John falls in love with a girl in America who doesn’t know what a Shelby is. Let’s see how he figures this one out...

Warnings: Violence (including against reader), Smut, Language, miscommunication, difficult goodbyes, smelly men, and lots of drinking

A/N: This fic is 5300 words. I mention the song I’d Rather Go Blind by Etta James. Forgive any typos. Please for the love of John let me know what you think!!!!!

“I love you,” John said, his voice groggy and heavy as you placed the water next to the bed.

“You’re only saying that because I’m giving you water,” you laughed, moving before he could grab you.

“Hey! C’mere,” his playful eyes looked at you and you walked towards him, sitting on the bed and stroking his hair as he lay back. “I really do.”

“What?” You were confused, having gotten lost in your own thoughts. Being with John was so easy.

“Love you.” His face was unusually serious as he took your hand and kissed it before softly pulling you to lay next to him. You wrapped your arms around him, feeling secure and free at the same time.

A few months earlier

You’d had your eyes on him since he walked in. Your curls were tied up, fully exposing your cheery smile and your bright eyes. There weren’t many bars that let you work these hours, but once the owner saw how great you were with the customers – well, he wasn’t a fool.

You wiped down a section that had just cleared before going to refill the drink for a man at the other end of the bar. You knew he was watching you – his green eyes burning into your back in a way that made you self-conscious of every movement. You knew this couldn’t go on.

Having moved to the city only a few weeks ago, you were still getting used to the attention. Back home, you knew everyone and everyone knew you. It was always the same old, same old. The same guys who had flirted with you and every other girl they could were the only thing you had known, and now you were introduced to people who knew nothing about you. It had been intriguing and exciting, but distracting all the same.

You made the man who had caught your eye his drink, blushing slightly when his hand rested on yours for a second too long, before you withdrew and slammed your hands on the bar. You had to do something or you were going to go crazy.

“Anyone want a drink?” you asked loudly to the people closest to the bar.

You poured the shots, handing one to everyone who asked before you downed one yourself – closing your eyes as the drink burned your throat. Then you heard it, the chords in the air – and you couldn’t stop yourself. Your hands were in the air and your hips were swaying. You began to lip sync to your love, Etta James.

“I would rather go blind boy. Than to see you walk away from me”. And what serenade would be complete without the choreography? You hopped onto the bar to the cheers of the patrons, swinging your legs over as you sang to them. Your hands brushing the occasional cheek as you threw a flirty glance in their direction.

As if it was pre-planned, you ended the song back on the bar, the people who had become your family clapping and cheering you on. You laughed as you hopped off, going to refill drinks and cash people out. The night was still young.

“Hey, love,” you heard a voice call in an accent that was not from the city. Not even from the country, you would bet.

“What can I do for you?” You walked over to the man, his boyish face and blue eyes making you glad you ventured out into the world.

“Whatever you like,” he said full of confidence, eyeing you in a way that told you he liked what he saw. Another newbie, you thought to yourself as you set a glass in front of him. He seemed like the whiskey type.

“Where you from, hun?” you asked as you poured his drink, smiling as you pushed it his way.

“Birmingham.”

“Alabama?” you asked, unsure. You were from the south and you had never heard anyone say it like that.

“No, love. England.” You should have known. He didn’t know any better.

“Oh, well welcome to the States” you winked, going to take care of another customer.

John couldn’t take his eyes off of you. He didn’t even want to drink. He had heard the music while he was exploring the town with Tommy and Arthur. They were exploring the city after checking out the bar they had just taken as a debt payment from some poor bloke who wagered more than he could lose. The Shelby’s had used the acquisition as an excuse to visit the states. They would stay until they had set up the business, legitimate and otherwise.

They were looking for a fun night out, taking in the sounds and sights of the biggest city in the world. John heard the music coming from inside as some people opened the door and he followed them in, surprised by the crowd but immediately taken by you. Your smile was blinding and your eyes were shining as you held him under a trance, making him wish he was the only man in the room.

He was surprised to find you behind the bar, working and flowing so easily that he knew the only way to get your attention was to order a drink. He was surprised by how quickly you walked away, being used to girls batting their lashes and giggling when he called out to him. But with you, he barely made an impression. You were already shooting the same smile to another man at the bar.

He continued to watch as you worked, genuinely impressed by how good naturedly you handled the customers seeming to all demand your attention at the same time. But everyone seemed willing to wait their turn and he knew why. When you finally got to them, you made them feel like they were the only person in the room.

He didn’t know what he was doing, nodding every time you asked if he wanted a drink. The time passed and he worked over how to ask you for dinner or to show him around. He panicked when he saw a man come behind the bar and pick you up for a hug. “Get home safe” he said, putting you down as you kissed him on the cheek.

Jimmy was the owner and he took good care of you, including letting you get home at a reasonable time after keeping his customers happy for hours. You grabbed your jacket, waving goodbye to the regulars as you made your way out of the door. You felt someone grab your arm and you turned, finding yourself staring into the eyes of the man from somewhere that wasn’t Alabama.

You didn’t say anything as you gently tugged your arm away, hoping he would get the message and not follow you out of the door. It didn’t happen often, but usually they checked themselves. Guys with a few drinks in them could be a bit bold.

“Hey love, can we talk?” His voice was almost as charming as his face, but you didn’t have time to be a one night stand or a personal tour guide.

“Sorry, I don’t know you,” you started to walk away.

“But wait -”

“The lady said she doesn’t know you, man”. It was Jimmy. He always had your back. Jimmy was an ex boxer who made his money training other boxers and he knew how to use his presence to be intimidating. You took it as your cue to leave, watching the defeated look cross the man’s face. He’d find someone to fawn over that adorable accent.

You learned a long time ago that big cities could be small. People may say they want change, but you knew there was comfort in the routine. Your surroundings became your home, the people like projections from a half remembered dream. So you weren’t surprised when you saw not-from-Alabama again.

You averted your eyes, saying a silent prayer that he would let you be. You felt his eyes on you like fingers brushing on your back and you couldn’t help but turn. His eyes pulled you but you let your feet carry you away before you said something you would regret.

He would come to the bar sometimes, not saying much when you asked him what he was drinking, and you were grateful. Maybe even slightly disappointed. As you were wrapping up a shift one night, Jimmy asked to talk. You were nervous, watching him swing a towel in his hands before eventually wrapping it around his shoulders. “Come on Jimmy, spit it out. Are you letting me go?”

“Not exactly.” Your face must have showed what you were thinking, because Jimmy moved to place a hand on your shoulder. “You’ve been… requested.”

“What?”

“Remember the fancy spot downtown… The Clifton?” You nodded. “They got some new owners, some foreigners with money who got the place from some foreigners with money. Long story short – they want you to work for them.”

That made absolutely no sense. “I don’t understand.” He told you the specifics of the offer and it was more money than you made in a month working for Jimmy and it didn’t even include tips. You were blown away. “Why would they want me?”

“You’re kidding right? You saw what you did to this place?” You smiled, thinking about the past few months you’ve spent in these walls. And the offer was unreal. You would finally be able to move to a better place. Buy a new dress. Maybe even take yourself to dinner. “They want to start you off at one night per week, see how you’ll do. But I know you’ll be great.”

You couldn’t help but hug him from the excitement. “Thanks for everything, Jimmy.” You felt yourself getting choked up. This man took a bet on you when a lot of people wouldn’t. You would never be able to repay him, and you knew it.

“Don’t mention it”.

---

The place was nicer than any establishment you had been in. The marble pillars and the plush chairs screaming luxury as you made your way to the bar. Behind it stood a man smoking a cigarette, the light reflecting off the rings that covered his hand. He looked you up and down, a soft smile playing on his face.

“Can I help you, love?” his British accent took you by surprise. The city wasn’t that small.

“I… was requested? To work the bar tonight.”

“Is that right?” he said. “Show me what you can do, then.”

You smiled, taking off your jacket and placing it on the stool before lifting yourself onto the bar. The place may be nicer than you were used to, but a bar was still a bar. You swung your legs over, bringing yourself close enough to the man to smell his cologne. As you slid off, you grabbed a glass – reaching for one of your favorite whiskeys.

“You look like a guy who can enjoy a glass of brown at the end of a long day,” you said, watching him as you topped off his glass and put the bottle back on the shelf.

“Do I?” he said, picking up the glass and bringing it to his lips.

You nodded as you looked around, taking in all of the liquors they were able to procure. “This is a fascinating establishment you have”.

“Only the best for the best, love”

“Is that right?” You said, mocking his accent as he smiled at you. You turned your attention to the footsteps approaching.

“Who’ve we got here, Arthur?”

“A lady who just got herself a job as a bartender at The Burgess,” he said, smiling at you as he took another sip.

The man nodded towards the bar, pointing to Arthur’s drink indicating he wanted one as well as he took you in. “Are you the girl John sent?”

“John?” You asked, pouring his drink. “I was told you had an opening for the night. Don’t know who asked – Jimmy just said the owners?” You placed his drink on the bar top, trying to avoid those blue eyes that felt like they were piercing your soul.

He didn’t say anything as he took a sip, making you wonder if he had heard you at all.

“You hear that Tom? John thinks he runs the place.”

“He said she was special,” Tommy said, either to you or Arthur - you couldn’t tell. You take both their empty glasses, moving to refill them. “No need love. Come on Arthur.” He hops the bar much less gracefully than you did, following Tommy out of the door.

“So do I still have the job?” you called.

“We’ll see you tonight”

“How’d someone like you get to an establishment like this?”

“I walked” you said with your sweetest smile as you went to help another customer. This man had been obnoxious the entire night and you couldn’t wait for him to leave. These customers were not as fun as the one at Jimmy’s and you couldn’t wait for your shift to be over.

“Hey sweetheart, I’m not done talking to you!” The man shouted and you tried to ignore him as you poured another drink. There goes a tip. You did your best to ignore him as you tried to salvage the other customers you had, laughing as they asked you if you dealt with jerks like him often.

You heard the glass shatter behind you and you turned, taking in the man’s red face. You didn’t care if it was from anger or from being overserved, but you were pissed.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” You shouted, avoiding the glass as you stepped closer to him. You were beyond over it. Money be damned.

“When I ask for a drink, I expect a fucking drink” The man was shouting right back at you.

You pointed towards the door, completely over this idiot making your first shift a nightmare. “Get your fat ass out of my bar!”

You should have been prepared for the man to try to grab you, but you were not prepared for how fast he moved, hopping the bar and grabbing your neck before you realized what was happening. The screams and yells were just a blur as he pushed you down, the glass shards stabbing into your back as you tried to gasp for air.

Your vision was growing blurry as you tried to get the man off of you, his body odor stronger than the alcohol that covered the floor. You lay there, water leaking from your eyes either from strain or shock.

And then it was over. The air rushed back into your lungs as you coughed, holding your throat and trying to sit up. Arthur had pulled the man off of you, and was hitting him with what looked like a broken bottle. You heard yelling and running as you tried to put as much distance between you and the man as possible.

“I’ve got you” you heard a familiar voice say in your ear as he helped you up. You realized it was the man from the bar, and you figured he must be John. The hostess helped you get the glass out of your back and you ignored her insistence that you go to the hospital. That was the last place you wanted to be.

You were grateful the place was empty when you came from the back, going to the coat check room to grab your jacket. As you came out, you saw the man from the bar waiting, his coat in his arms and a cigarette at his lips. He put it out as you approached, moving to put on his jacket. “Can I walk you home, love?”

You just nodded, afraid to speak. Your throat was still sore and when you closed your eyes you saw the man jumping at you. The walk was silent, letting you finally put air into your lungs. You were grateful for John’s company, his presence making you feel safe. He didn’t pressure you and stayed away just enough to let you have your space.

You made it to your door, pausing for a moment as you looked at him, trying to find the words to thank him for escorting you.

“Can I do anything?” he asked, his hand behind his neck. He hated that this was how your first night went, and felt guilty for the whole thing. This was not how he wanted it to go.

“I’m okay,” you said, clearing your throat as you fiddled with your keys. John watched you, not sure what to do but wishing he could do something.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked as you both stood in front of your door. Your heart had been slowly making it’s way up your chest and on your next exhale the tears started to flow. You found yourself sobbing into his arms, the odor from the man who attacked you still filling your nose. You tried to mask it with John’s scent as you clung to him, letting your tears dampen his jacket.

His arms were strong and secure around you, and you let yourself fall into them. He was your anchor as you tried to steady yourself. You don’t know how much time passed as your breathing calmed and the tears slowed. Feeling light headed, you sighed as you let yourself step away.

He watched you, wanting to take you inside to make sure you were okay. He also didn’t want to be unwelcome, so he let you go up the stairs, waiting until you were safely inside. You turned and tried again to say thank you, but his eyes told you that you didn’t have to say anything. You nodded and went inside.

----

He waited for you every night that you worked at The Burgess. You would wipe down the bar as he smoked a cigarette by the door, waiting for you to finish. Sometimes he would roll up his shirt sleeves, helping the crew put the chairs on the tables as they started to polish the floor. You would grab your jacked or he would have it waiting for you, and you would begin the familiar journey to your house.

There was something about the stillness of the nights. The normally bustling streets would be your nightly stage as you transformed into a different girl. The walks became longer as you started to walk slower, your aching feet not enough to keep you from taking in the cool night air.

You asked the questions first, learning that the Shelby’s were a pretty wealthy self-made family. The parties John described with a faraway look in his eyes sounded like festivities in a F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. He surprised you when he told you he had read one of the books you mentioned. Your insights into the characters and the way your face lit up when you talked about them made him want to do anything to keep that smile on your face.

“So how did you end up working as a bar keep?” Usually that question was condescending, but John seemed genuinely interested.

“I don’t know, I guess… I was doing it for easy money at first. You know, work a few years, save enough to go to trade school and get a real job.” You hadn’t thought about it for a long time, you realized. It wasn’t all true. You’d had your life planned, and you were checking off the boxes when you just felt.. wrong. A trip to New York turned into a job, turned into your life. And you weren’t sure where it was going.

“What would you want to do?”

Usually, you had your spiel. You knew the plan. But with John, it didn’t feel right. So you told the truth. “I don’t know.”

You expected a reaction, more questions or ideas. When you looked to John, he just shrugged and said “Who does?”

---

You looked over the bar to see John sitting at a table and you found yourself smiling at him. The dim lighting and the glow from the lamp made him look like the angel he was. He caught your eye and smiled back, causing you to quickly look away. He was just John, you told yourself.

Going back to work, you made a few more drinks, thinking about what would happen if you invited John in tonight. What would he think you wanted? What did you want? You imagined him smiling at you, close enough to touch. You glanced at him again, hoping to catch his eye. Instead, your smile fell as you saw a girl sat on his lap, her fingers running through his hair as his lay on the small of her back.

“You okay hun?” one of the waitresses asked, brining a tray of empty glasses to you. You nodded, faking a smile as you took them from her, turning your back as you dumped the glasses in the water and tried not to let the tears spill over. Why did you even care? He was one of the owners, so it shouldn't have surprised you.

You were only a little caught off guard to see him waiting for you, thinking that he would have gone home with the little darling he was holding in his arms. The walk home was a bit more awkward than usual, your easy banter slowed by your staccato responses.

When you reached your door, there was not even a thought of asking him in. You couldn’t if you wanted to. John didn’t know what had changed between you, but he was genuinely confused. He thought it might have something to do with the girl from earlier, but you flirted with guys all the time. Either way, he didn’t want to pry.

It wasn’t until you came in for your next shift, saying hello to Tommy and Arthur as you completely ignored him that he knew something was wrong.

“Piss off the old lady, did we John boy?” Arthur teased, clapping his shoulder as he went to the bar.

John had no idea what was going on. He thought you were finally starting to like him, and he didn’t know what to do to fix something he didn’t know he had broken. He got up and went over to the bar, watching you get ready for the place to open.

“Can we talk?” you head him ask. You turned, seeing him agitated which you had never witnessed before. You nodded, going around the bar to the back and hearing him follow you. The door had barely closed before he spoke. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” you responded, keeping your face as neutral as possible. “Is something changing with the shift?”

“Cut the shit, why did you just ignore me?”

You did not expect a direct confrontation, figuring he wouldn’t even care if you acknowledged him. “I didn’t mean to offend you, John”

“Did I do something?”

“No.” This was incredibly awkward and you wanted to be anywhere but that room. You moved to leave.

John closed the door, making you turn around angrily. “I said there was nothing -” John had closed his lips to yours, cutting off your words. You pulled away in shock.

John’s heart raced as he waited for you to say something, wondering if he had completely destroyed any chance he had with you.

“You think just because you own the bar you can kiss me?” you asked, a smile playing at your face. He nodded before leaning in to kiss you again, more slowly this time. You let him.

You found yourself falling in love with him. It was embarrassing and easy and awkward and perfect. He was your favorite part of the day, slowly becoming your best friend. His kisses were making you want more, and you knew you weren’t alone.

You felt like a little girl sneaking him inside your place, holding his hand as you went up the stairs. Your neighbors weren’t exactly the quietest people on the planet, but that didn’t stop you from motioning for him to keep it down. As you turned on your light, you felt a little embarrassed – your humble abode no where near as nice as The Burgess.

You turned to see his reaction and found his eyes full on you, his thoughts apparent in a way that sent your heart racing. “Make yourself at home,” you said, taking off your jacket and moving further inside. John closed the door and took off his jacket, placing it on the small table as he followed you to your room.

“Can I get you a drink?” you defaulted to what you knew best. You were excited and nervous, not sure how this would go. He didn’t say anything as he closed the distance between you, gently placing his hand on your chin as he kissed you. You kissed him back, wrapping your arms around him as you moved your lips with his. You didn’t care if he would be gone tomorrow, you wanted him right now.

He placed your hands in his while he walked backwards to the bed and you followed. As he fell backwards you laughed as you went with him, feeling lighter than you had in awhile as you looked into his smiling eyes. You kissed him again, wrapping your leg around him and moaning as his hands pulled at your hair.

His mouth went to your neck and you clung to him, wanting to have him inside you. He brought his lips back to yours and you went to undo his shirt, both of you frantically undressing each other as your kisses grew needier. John’s hands explored your body, his light touches making you shiver as you explored his as well.

John climbed over you, wrapping your leg around his waist to open you wider for him. “Are you sure about this?” His head was teasing your entrance and you moved your hips to take him. You nodded and he kissed you again as he slid into you. You clenched around him, the intrusion making you slightly panic and he slowed, whispering for you to relax. You did, trusting John as he sheathed himself inside you, letting out a moan that made you wetter still.

He pulled out, making you whine before driving home again, the rhythm making you writhe beneath him to chase your own pleasure. Your pants filled the air as John’s body connected with yours. His fingers interlaced with yours as your tongue traced his ear. You moaned his name, making him lose his rhythm as he cursed before kissing you again.

You reached down, rubbing yourself as you moved your hips to meet John. “Close?” he panted in your ear and you nodded, moaning as John slammed into you harder before you came, you walls squeezing around him as he followed you. He collapsed on you – both of you catching your breath as you came down.

“Fucking hell,” John said, moving to lay next to you.

You awoke the next morning, John’s arms still around you and you couldn’t help but smile. You stretched slowly, turning to look at him in the light. He was still fast asleep, his boyish features warming your heart as you placed a kiss on his lips. You climbed over him to go to the bathroom before making some coffee and toast.

The noise told you John had woken up, so you set the table, waiting for him to join you. He smiled at you as he ran his hands through his hair.

“How’d you sleep?“ you asked, kissing him back when he pecked your lips before sitting at the table.

“Your snoring’s gonna take some getting used to” he said, smiling as he bit into his toast. Your mouth dropped in shock.

“I do not snore!”

“Yes you do, love. I thought the whole building was coming down”

-----

You walked into the Burgess, saying hello to the brothers and going to kiss John. Something was off.

“Is there a funeral that I missed,” you joked squeezing John’s hand and looking at Tommy and Arthur. They both looked at John and you knew something was wrong.

“We’ll leave you to it,” Tommy said. Arthur didn’t even crack a joke. You and John had been dating for almost a year and everything was finally perfect, or so you thought. You had moved in with him, giving up your old place and still working nights at Jimmy’s every now and again. Tommy and Arthur had become as much a part of your life as John had.

You moved to sit next to John, taking his hand in both of yours. “Babe, what’s going on?”

He leaned forward and sighed before telling you. “We have to go back.”

“What? Go back… to England?” He just nodded. “But… why?”

“We’ve been gone too long. People are beginning to… take advantage of that” John moved both his hands to cover yours, pleading you to understand.

“Why can’t you stay here?” your voice was small, scared. You didn’t know what this meant.

“My family, they need me, love.” You couldn’t stop the tears from falling from your eyes.

“But what about me?”

“Come with us.”

“To England?” you were incredulous. Moving to New York was one thing. You couldn’t imagine being so far away from your family. He nodded, squeezing your hands in his. “John, I can’t – I need to think” you pulled you hands from his, standing up from the table.

“What do you need to think about?”

“I just need time, okay?” You tried to give him a smile you were sure was far from reassuring as you went to get ready for your shift. You were more distracted than usual, mixing up a few drinks and spilling more than usual. England. Part of you was over the moon, the other part was terrified.

As usual, John was waiting for you to walk you home. The home you shared together. He didn’t ask you about England again, both of you walking in silence as you thought about leaving the home you had come to know and love. John reached out to grab your hand and you took it, moving closer to him as you put your head on his shoulder.

Then it hit you. You stopped walking, not letting go of John’s hand. He turned to look at you, his face full of worry. The whole walk, he had been waiting for you to tell him you were going to end it. He couldn’t blame you, he was asking for so much and you had only known him for a year. What right did he have?

“John,” you began, pulling him closer and wrapping your arms around his neck. “You are my home.” You were smiling, but John was still confused and it showed on his face. You didn’t want to take the chance of never seeing that face again. “I’ll go wherever you go.”

He couldn’t believe his ears, the look of shock turning into one of pure joy before he picked you up and spun you around. That night, while you lay in his arms, your heart racing as you thought about your future together and what you were leaving behind, John asked you that question he had asked you all those nights ago.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” You didn’t know the words to tell him the mix of emotions that were flooding in your mind, so you just moved closer to him. He was still your anchor, and just like before you didn’t have to say a word.

He knew.

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