#it was between angels fly and Out of My System | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

enthusiasticharry · 2 months

Text

𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓 | 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 12.2k

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: after a way too long hiatus from this fic, i'm happy to tell you all that regret me is back!! the fic master post is linked ahead if you fancy a re-read or a first-time read, it's there for you! it's been lovely dropping back into this world again and i would love to hear all of your thoughts and opinions so pls come and chat to me about it!! next chapter should be out within a month or so, and it will be the last chapter of regret me!!

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: explicit language, talks of drug/ alcohol use, mentions of addiction recovery, sexual content, mentions of cheating and a stupid little boy who doesn't know how amazing he has it.

𝐩𝐥𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟓 here

Los Angeles, Spring 1975

“Are you sure you can’t come now?” Harry mumbles against YN’s lips, “I can squeeze you into my suitcase.”

YN laughed, pressing another kiss to Harry’s lips, “I can’t come now, you know that. I’ve got rehearsals for the next three weeks and then I’m coming.”

Harry groans and drops his head down to her neck, littering kisses to her skin as he squeezes her. He had been like this for the past week, ever since the seven-day countdown started. YN loved how much Harry loved her and wanted to be with her, but he was also aware that she needed to stay back in Los Angeles for a little while for rehearsals for her own tour that was starting in a month or so. Before she did kick off her tour though, she would fly out and spend a few days with Harry on his, so at least they had that to look forward to. Harry understood that this was necessary for both of them, but that wasn’t going to stop him from missing her, nor would YN stop missing him.

Harry would be busy on his tour, one which has broken records with ticket sales that YN didn’t know could exist and she was so proud of him. She would be busy with rehearsals, and sorting out everything for her tour and she would be okay. At this point, they had spent so much time together that YN thought Harry would be happy to have a break from her, but it seemed as though it was the complete opposite. She hoped spending a week together before they were both thrown into their tours at full force would at least make the rest of their time apart slightly easier.

“I know, I know,” He mumbles into her neck, finally pulling his head away so that she can look at him again, “I’m going to miss you so much, baby.”

“I’m going to miss you too, you know that,” YN mumbles against his lips, “But it’s only going to be for three weeks and then I’ll be with you.”

YN placed another kiss on his lips, running her fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck one last time to make up for the lack of it for the next few weeks. She was going to miss him more than anything. Whilst YN was ready for the time apart and had prepared, she knew that it was going to be different with her support system gone. She had a different support system to focus on now – and that was her music.

“Harry, it’s time,” It was Jeff that called his name from behind her, and Harry groaned immediately.

Harry dropped his head to her shoulder again, and she wrapped his arms around his broad shoulders and pulled him even closer to her if that was possible. There wasn’t even an inch of space between them at this point.

“I love you so much,” YN mumbled against his neck, feeling as though she wanted to cry but she wasn’t going to let herself.

“I love you too,” He pulled back and placed one more kiss on her lips, “I’ll see you soon.”

“You will,” She smiles, prying his arms off her one last time, “Now go, before Jeff has both of our heads."

Harry pouts but listens to her, placing another final kiss on her cheek before making his way towards the bus. YN turned so that she could watch the bus drive away. Harry sat down next to Jeff, a pout on his lips as he did so. YN just beamed a smile at him and crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes not leaving his.

As the bus started and drove away, YN waved and blew Harry kisses until the bus had turned out of the parking lot, and she could no longer see it.

There wasn’t time for YN to be sad though, as she had to leave to get to a meeting with Leroy about her tour, and then go and meet her new band in the afternoon and begin to rehearse for the tour. These were how her days looked for the foreseeable future, full of different things to do and not a single second in the day to think about anything else.

The drive to Leroy’s was quick, and YN spent the entire time in silence. In her head, she was going over potential setlists for her tour, and also potential outfits that she could wear (all centred around her cowboy boots of course) and also what she was going to make herself for dinner (food was a priority after all).

With all of those thoughts swirling around her head, and not a single one of Harry pushing to the surface, she had managed to drive to Leroy’s office without a single worry in her head. She was a little early, but that was better than being late, so she packed up her bag and made her way inside.

Throwing a smile to Agatha on the desk, she made her way towards the elevator and up to Leroy’s office. The last time she came here for a meeting, she was late because she was throwing back pills in the bathroom. Now, her mind was clear, and she was in control of herself, and it felt good.

YN may be sober now, but she was still the same badass. Therefore, when YN made it to Leroy’s office she didn’t knock and instead, she just walked in. Leroy was on the phone, and his eyes widened when he saw YN making her way into the room and sitting down across from him.

“I’ll, uh, have to go,” Leroy mutters into the receiver, “My next meeting is here… yeah, I love you. See you tonight.”

YN smiles, crossing one of her legs over the other, “Wife, or mistress?”

“Wife, not that it’s any of your business,” Leroy sighs, another look of shock waving over his face again, “You’re actually on time.”

YN shrugged, “That I am.”

“Who knew that getting you sober was the one thing that would get you on time?” Leroy says with a smile, but YN’s face doesn’t move.

YN was sober, she was. She had fallen a few months ago, but that was the first and last drink that she had. It was. She regretted it immediately and threw the rest of the bottle away. That was when she decided that she wasn’t that person anymore and that when she needed something to lean on, she would lean on her friends her music, and Harry.

That didn’t mean that she didn’t feel guilty about it because she did. She had been sitting on that secret since it happened, but there was no way that she was going to tell any of them about it. She was doing fine right now; she was honestly and truthfully doing fine.

“That’s not the only thing that getting me sober has fixed,” YN shrugged, messing with the hem of her skirt.

“I can see that,” He smiles at her, “You look good, you do.”

“Thank you, Leroy, I appreciate that,” She glares at him with a bashful smile across her features, “Now as much as I love talking about me, I think it’s time that we spoke about my next favourite topic – my tour!”

Leroy sighs and shakes his head. If last time was anything to go by, especially because she had given him a list of demands when she was only the opener, he dreaded to think what she was going to ask him for now that it was her tour.

“Well, how about I tell you what we have so far and then you can say your piece,” Kenneth explains and YN nods, knowing that was probably for the best, “So far, we’ve got the staging ready, booked the opener, booked the venues and the hotels for the nights that you aren’t travelling. We’ve got the bus and all the travel sorted.”

“Sounds like you’ve been busy,” YN smiles, tucking some of her hair behind her ear.

“Well, whilst you’ve been MIA we’ve had time,” Leroy explains, “Ticket sales have been good, great even. Rolling Stones did you good.”

YN sighs, shaking her head. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about the article, not since it came out and especially not since what it caused. She has, however, allowed herself to celebrate Harry’s cover, and article, because that was everything that he needed to kickstart his climb within the industry.

“Yeah, well, everybody seemingly wants to see the recovering addict perform,” YN sighed, shaking her head, “And what’s that thing you always say – any publicity is good publicity?”

“In this case, yeah,” He nods, “If it wasn’t for that article, your ticket sales would be good we all know that but nothing like what they are now.”

YN sighs and nods, “I guess I’ll thank journalist dickhead when I see him next.”

“Don’t worry, if we have control of anything you’ll never have to see that man again.”

“Good, now, my ideas,” She smiles, leaning forward and placing her elbows on the desk, “So, I want separate buses. If the last tour was anything to go by, the band and groupies will want to party, and I don’t want to be anywhere near that. I also want a separate green room. I don’t want to be involved in any of that. I can’t be involved in any of that.”

“I’ll see what I can do, YN,” Leroy nods, sincerity in his voice.

“No, it’s not you ‘seeing’ what you can do, you’ll do it,” She taps her nail on the desk, “I can’t be involved in any of that. I’ve been on the straight and narrow, and I need to stay that way.”

Leroy nods and runs a hand over his face, “Two buses, two green rooms. They’re yours.”

“Good, thank you,” She does give him an appreciative smile now, “I’ve sorted the set list, I did it on the drive over, so I’ll discuss that with the band, I’ve got my costumes in the majority I’ll just need someone to go and pick them up for me.”

“I’ll talk to Agatha,” Leroy nods, “She’ll send someone for you.”

YN nods. Yes, Leroy could be a dickhead sometimes but that was his job. It was times like this when she remembered why he was her manager because underneath that façade of being an absolute prick, he had a good heart, and he did care. If he didn’t care about her, he wouldn’t be spending the agency’s money on things that aren’t a necessity.

“You know, you’re a real sweetheart sometimes.”

“And you’re less of a bitch when you’re not on drugs.”

They share a laugh, and for the first time in a while, she thinks that everything might be okay again.

“The chord progression goes up,” YN sighs, lifting her hand to her forehead, “I don’t know if you know it but you’re going down.”

“It’s just easier that way,” Jackson, YN’s new bassist replies with a shrug as they stand in the middle of the rehearsal room, “It’s easier to go down than it is up, thought you wouldn’t mind that.”

“I do mind that, actually, yeah,” YN nods, crossing her hands over her chest before sighing, “Because it’s my song, and I wrote the progression going up.”

They had been rehearsing for the shows for a week now. YN had been getting to know all of the new members of the band and whilst some, like the pianist Pepper and the drummer Fiona, just got on with the job and listened to what YN had to say, some like the bassist Jackson and the guitarist Felix (who just had to know each other and were friends) wanted to make their lives easy and by doing this in part were not listening to YN.

“Yeah, we know you’ve written all these songs and you want them played a certain way,” Felix sighs, resting his arms across his guitar, “But we’ll be playing them over and over and for our sake, shouldn’t we simplify them slightly?”

“No, we shouldn’t,” YN shakes her head, her gaze fixed firmly on the two friends who were standing there with smug-ass grins on their faces, “We shouldn’t simplify them because if you learnt the songs right, you’d be able to play them over and over again because you’d know them, the right way.”

YN knew that after her conversation with Leroy had gone so well nearly a week ago there was going to be something that would turn it on its head and make life hard for her. Her band, or seemingly half of it, was that. They were just young, stubborn musicians who wanted to be playing for themselves and not for some random girl who was a perfectionist and made them work.

“This is the seventh song we’ve done and they’re all fucking different with their chord progressions, and riffs,” Jackson was the next one to speak up and YN was so close to either socking him in the face or kicking him out of the band.

“Well, who are you? Captain fucking obvious because that’s how songs go, they’re not the same,” YN throws her hands up in the air, taking a heated step towards him, “You are getting paid to play my songs how I want them to be played, and if you, both, have any more complaints then you can fuck right off back from where you came with no pay-check, and no tour.”

Both Jackson and Felix started to stalk towards her, but Pepper and Fiona were up and standing in front of them so that they couldn’t move closer. YN didn’t move in fact, and she didn’t look scared. She just stood there, with her arms crossed and feet planted firmly on the floor. She wasn’t scared of a couple of coked-up twenty-year-olds who were complaining because their job was too hard.

“Guys, let’s just have a break yeah?” Pepper was the first to talk, placing her hand on Jackson's shoulder but he was quick to brush it off, “We’ll all go for a smoke yeah? I’ve got some joints, and we’ll share them around.”

“Yeah, come on,” Fiona did the same to Felix, “Both of you are hitting a low, and need to relax.”

YN sighed and shook her head, “Yeah, you two go and relax and get high and by the time you’re back I hope you’ve pulled your head out of your asses and realised you’ve got a job to do.”

Pepper pushed Jackson out of the room, and Fiona did the same to Felix, but she hung back.

“I’m sorry about them they’re both –”

“Pricks?” YN filled in the blank.

“Yeah, that’s a word for them,” Fiona laughed, walking over, and placing a hand on YN’s arm, “You can join us? We can go away from them but there’s no use wasting a joint.”

YN sighs and shakes her head, “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t –”

“That’s fine,” Fiona smiles, “Well, you know where we are if you need us.”

YN offers Fiona a smile and watches as she walks out. Once she’s left on her own, YN drops down on the sofa at the side of the room and drops her head back. One day YN was going to find a band to play with her that created no problems in her life and helped her rather than insult her.

YN’s eyes had drifted shut, and she was a minute or two away from falling asleep. With the long hours and days that she had been having, as well as struggling to sleep on her own without Harry she hadn’t been sleeping well. Today though, she was so ready for bed, and she knew that the second that her head hit the pillow when she got home, she would be fast asleep.

“Knock, knock,” A very familiar voice knocked her out of her slight slumber, as well as the hit of knuckles on the door frame.

YN’s face broke out into a smile at the sound and sight of Vivienne walking into the room, a bag of food from Ed’s in her clutch. She nearly cried on the spot at that sight.

“Hi Viv,” YN smiled, opening her arms so that Vivienne could drop down and wrap YN in a hug.

“Hi babes,” Vivienne laughs, accepting the hug and then dropping down on the sofa next to her.

YN did feel bad. She had completely forgotten that she had agreed to have dinner with Vivienne at the studio today because it was their last night together. Tomorrow, Vivienne was leaving for the first stop of the tour with Pamela and her band, and whilst YN was so excited and so proud of her, she was going to miss her. At the moment, with YN’s days so stressful she was loving coming home to Vivienne and hearing about her day, and then unloading slightly about her day to Vivienne. She was just going to miss that comfort around her.

“Saw the band outside,” Vivienne says and YN sighs, her eyes widening as she shakes her head, “High as kites.”

“They can get as fucking high as they want as far away from me if it means they stop being pricks,” YN sighs, her head leaning on the sofa.

“That bad?”

“That bad,” YN nodded, sitting up and reaching over to grab the bag from Ed’s, “This is exactly what I need right now.”

YN didn’t even hesitate before taking a bite of her chicken sandwich, not caring that she had sauce all around her mouth. Vivienne laughed and passed YN a napkin, allowing her to wipe said sauce from around her mouth.

“What time are you leaving tomorrow?” YN asked, popping some fries into her mouth after speaking.

“Seven,” Vivienne responded, and YN blew out a deep breath.

“I’ll try and be awake to say goodbye, but I don’t know,” YN shook her head, “I don’t know what time we’ll be finished here and we’re not leaving until they get, I used to know done.”

Vivienne laughed, taking a bite of her burger, “You can’t say that you’re not getting your money’s worth.”

YN joined in with the laughter and shrugged, “They know what they’ve signed up for, and I have no complaints about Pepper and Fiona – they’re great. It’s just the boys, they’re…”

YN sighs and shakes her head, and Vivienne finishes her sentence, “Too fucking full of themselves.”

“Yes!” YN laughs again, running a hand over her face, “They think they’re the fucking shit and have decided that they can play my songs better than the way I’ve written them even though they’re paid to play them the way I want.”

Vivienne shakes her head, “You must have the patience of a saint to deal with that.”

“I do not, or they would still be here and not banished outside,” YN laughed.

“God, I knew Pamela was lucky with her band but every time I meet yours it fucking solidifies it,” Vivienne shakes her, drinking from her milkshake.

YN’s mouth drops open, “Where did you pull that from? Did you get me one?”

“Of course, I did,” Vivienne reached down to a bag that YN hadn’t seen and pulled out another milkshake, a vanilla one that was YN’s favourite, “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?”

“You would be such a shit friend and the fact you got my favourite means you’re the best friend,” YN laughed, taking a sip of her milkshake, “God, I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you too,” Vivienne beams at her friend, “But it’ll not be too long, and you’re seeing lover boy in a week and then you’re jetting for your singsong.”

“Yeah,” YN sighs, running a hand over her face, “Look at us, eh? Busy, busy, busy.”

Vivienne furrowed her eyebrows at the girl, and YN had a slight inclination of what she was trying to say but YN couldn’t bring herself to.

Last week all YN could speak about was how excited she was to see Harry, and a part of her still was. The only thing was, Harry had promised to phone her when he arrived, and she hadn’t received a phone call. She phoned him the next day and he answered, but the conversation was cut short. He said that he’d phone when he had a spare minute, but she hadn’t had a call. She had phoned him, but he hadn’t picked up for a few days after. So far, there hadn’t been any communication between the two and YN was sceptical.

There was a rational part of YN’s brain that knew that he would’ve been busy and getting settled into the tour wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Then, there was the other side of her brain that knew even on tour, there were a few minutes in the day that he could’ve called her, and they could have shared a few minutes of conversation. That was where YN’s scepticism came in.

“He’ll just be busy, babes,” Vivienne placed her hand on YN’s, squeezing her, “You know how much he loves you.”

“I do,” YN nods, “And I’m just stressed, and busy but he’s just busy too.”

At this point, YN didn’t know if she was just trying to convince herself as much.

YN had just been to the bathroom and then beelined to the kitchen to grab herself a cup of coffee in the studio after another full day there with what felt like a lot and not a lot done at the same time. It had been a week since Vivienne had left for her tour, and it was t-minus 2 days until YN was leaving to go meet Harry on tour.

During this week, YN, and her band (mainly Jackson and Felix) finally managed to make some edgeways. It had taken two weeks of work for them to finally realise that YN wasn’t going to back down from having her songs played properly so they might as well just do as she asks. YN knew that if she was a man, and it was a man trying to make them play their songs properly they would do it with no questions asked. She knew that she wasn’t going to back down, and she was just slightly pissed that it had taken them two weeks to finally realise that.

With her mug of coffee clutched in her hand, she made her way back into the rehearsal room.

Once she saw the sight she was greeted by – YN sighed and dropped her head back.

There were a few rules that YN had made the first day that they had started rehearsals. They were mainly to keep the focus on the music, but it was also to protect her and protect all of the progress that she had made.

Walking into that room, her hot coffee in her hand and tiredness washing over her YN could have done with anything else but seeing Jackson and Felix, sat on the sofa doing a line off of one of their guitar cases. With the rules that YN put in place, and how small this place is it would have taken them two seconds to walk into another room or go outside to do it, but yet here they are –ignoring everything that YN had said.

“Jesus,” YN shakes her head, “What the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like we’re doing?” Jackson responds, running his fingers against his nose, “Stupid fucking question.”

“I know what you’re doing,” YN crosses her arms over her chest, still clutching her coffee cup in one hand, “My question is why the hell are you doing it?”

“To get fucking high,” Felix laughs, as though it is completely normal, “Why? You want some?”

“No, I don’t fucking want any,” YN shakes her head, “There’s one fucking rule in here and that’s no drugs.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t in the fucking room so why does it matter?” Jackson shrugs.

“It matters because those are the rules,” YN scoffs and shakes her head, “It takes two fucking seconds to leave the room and go somewhere else but you two are too fucking lazy and seem to just not want to listen.”

“It’s because you overdosed, right?” Felix was the one to speak up now, a shit-eating grin on his features, “I read your Stones article. Ended up in rehab, right?”

YN’s entire face dropped. She didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t know if she even wanted to say anything. There was no need for any of this when they were supposed to be working, but as YN had quickly realised from getting sober, what is said when on drugs has no rationale. What was being said was horrible, but they were high, and YN knew that it wasn’t them necessarily who were saying it.

“Uh, YN?” A voice called from over her shoulder.

YN turned to see Rebecca, the receptionist standing at the entrance of the door with a small smile, “Yeah, Rebecca?”

“There’s a phone call for you,” She smiles.

“Thank you,” YN smiles and makes her way towards the door before stopping and turning back to the band, “Just don’t fucking do it in here.”

YN places her coffee cup down and follows Rebecca to the phone, smiling in thanks as she shuts the door behind YN, leaving her alone in the room. YN sits down on the desk, picks the phone up and places it against her ear, saying hello to whoever is on the other side.

“Hey baby,” YN’s body relaxes slightly, as she leans against the wall the desk is pressed against.

“Harry, hi,” Her face breaks out into a beaming smile just at the sound of his voice, “How are you? How have you been?”

“I’m fine baby, just busy,” He sighs into the receiver, and YN can hear slight shuffling, but she just puts it behind her, “How are you? How are the rehearsals going?”

“They’re –” YN hesitates for a second before shaking her head, “It just feels as though every time we take one step forward, we’re also taking about seven steps back.”

“I’m sorry about that baby,” Harry’s voice relaxes her, but also for some reason, it feels as though something isn’t quite right, “But hey, two days and all you’ll have to think about is me.”

YN laughs, “Hundreds of people screaming your name every night isn’t enough, eh? You need me to be obsessed with you too.”

“Well, I’m obsessed with you baby, so I hope you’d be the same,” Harry laughs over the receiver, “I can’t wait to see you, I’m sorry I haven’t phoned that much.”

“I can’t wait to see you either, Harry,” A small smile graces YN’s lips, “Don’t worry about phoning, I know you’ll have been busy, and I just can’t wait to –”

“Harry come on, or we’ll start without you!”

YN’s eyebrows furrow and her head tilts slightly. The voice that interrupted her over the speaker wasn’t one that she recognised. It was female, but it didn’t sound like Sarah or any of the other female members of Harry’s band or the ones that he’s surrounded by.

“Give me a minute, I’m on the phone to YN,” Harry responds to the voice, and it does ease YN slightly.

“Who’s that?” YN asked after she heard the door shut on the other side.

“It’s just Mary,” Harry responds, “She’s the lead singer of the opener.”

“Huh,” YN nods her head. She hadn’t heard much about Harry’s opener, before or even after he had left for tour, “What are they going to start without you?”

“I don’t know,” YN hears rustling, as though he’s running his hand over his face, “I think we’re playing some sort of card game, I don’t know…”

“I don’t want to keep you if they’re waiting for you,” YN smiles, finger running along the edge of the table.

“No, it’s fine baby they can start without me,” He’s quick with his answer, but YN shakes her head.

“No, you need to go and play, and win,” YN laughed, knowing exactly what Harry was like when it comes to games, “I need to get back to rehearsal anyway, and it’s only two days and then I’ll see you.”

“You will, baby,” YN could hear Harry smiling on the other end of the phone, which made her smile in turn, “I miss you so much.”

“I miss you too,” YN chuckled, “Now go and play whatever it is, and win because we all know you’ll be in a mood if you don’t.”

“You know me too well,” YN just sighed at Harry’s voice, obviously having his attention on something other than her. She knew what it was like she supposed, and how everything on tour heightened senses and the rest of the world just seemed to revolve around their little bubbles, “I love you, baby. I’ll see you in two days.”

“Bye Harry,” The words slip out of YN’s mouth but just as she mutters, “I love you too,” The phone line stops.

YN sighs, putting the phone down and running a hand over her face. With another sigh, she stood up and made her way back into the studio. Pepper and Fiona had shown up at that point, and there wasn’t a drug in sight in the room anymore. Whilst she might have preferred to be able to get this off her chest with Harry, she was happy that he sounded okay, and that he was just as excited as she was to see each other.

Just after YN walked into the room and picked her coffee back up, the boys walked in. They looked significantly more relaxed than they did before her phone conversation, and a part of YN was relieved by that. It meant that YN hoped that their high would last long enough for her to get through a few more songs before she could call it a night – and leave them to do whatever they wanted to do without her being around.

“Shall we run it from the top?” YN asked, watching as for the first time in a long time they all fell into line.

YN would be lying if she said she didn’t in relief at the sight. They would run through the songs; YN would go home, and she would be a step closer to Harry and have a relaxing week with him.

YN nodded at Fiona, watching as the girl tapped her drumsticks together to count them in. The music started, YN opened her mouth, and she sang and just like that – nothing else mattered in the world.

YN walked out of the Pittsburgh airport, sunglasses perched upon her nose and suitcase dragging behind her. The weather had just begun to warm up, as the seasons slipped between spring to summer, the sun was out in full force. It was as though it knew that YN was having a break, ready for her time with Harry and the sun became the one to greet her for that experience.

YN’s eyes bounced from left to right, looking through the taxi rank to see if she could spot Harry. She knew when her flight was getting in, and he said that he’d already planned to be there when she arrived.

Then, there he was.

Her face broke out into a smile, and she picked her bag up so that she could bounce over to him quicker. He was standing with his arms crossed, resting against a yellow taxicab with his sunglasses perched upon his nose. The second that YN stood before him; his face beamed a smile at her. He uncrossed his arms, and YN took that as her cue to drop her bag down onto the sidewalk beside them and threw her arms around his neck, Harry’s immediately resting in the small of her waist. It felt right, it felt safe – and it felt like home.

“Hi, baby,” YN mumbled, immediately placing a litter of chaste kisses upon his lips, “I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too,” Harry smiled, accepting the flurry of kisses YN pressed against his lips, “You ready?”

YN sighed with a blissful smile upon her lips, “More than ready.”

She moved to pick up her bag, but Harry slipped his arm through hers and grabbed the bag for her. He set off towards the trunk of the cab. He nodded at the driver and bounced back to open the door for YN, “My lady…”

YN giggled and nodded her head at Harry, and stepped into the car, “Why thank you, kind sir.”

YN pushed herself across the back seat of the cab so that Harry could slip in behind her. He threw his arm around her shoulder, the girl slipping underneath with ease. It was as though their movements were in sync, as though they knew exactly how the other was most comfortable and where they wanted to be – as close to each other as possible. YN moved her hand so that it could link with Harry’s free one, and rest them on his thigh, squeezing it until his attention was back on her. She lifted her head in his direction, accepting another chaste kiss upon her lips, and another and a flurry of more until the two of them were in a fit of giggles in the back seat. YN wondered at what point the driver of the cab would realise who they were, and whether or not this would be a headline the next day, but she didn’t care – she was in the arms of the man she loved.

“I think we should scrap the party tonight,” Harry mumbled against her lips, pulling away and resting his head upon hers, “I haven’t seen you in too long, and I have no plans of sharing you tonight.”

YN shook her head, unable to control the laugh that escaped her lips. She slipped her head into the nape of his neck, placing a kiss there, “Whilst I don’t hate that idea, we can’t exactly not show up to a party that is being thrown for us.”

“I think that’s exactly what we should do,” Harry nodded, his lips pouting ever so slightly, “You’ll have your time to catch up this week at some point — I need my time to catch up with you all on my own.”

YN rolled her eyes lightly, but a smile never left her face. She knew what Harry was doing, and she also knew that they would have plenty of time for that before the party started, so there was no need for them to miss it.

“Whilst there are things I can’t wait to do,” YN mumbled against his neck, her teeth grazing the skin ever so slightly, “I can’t wait to see Sarah and Mitch, and what was her name again? The singer in the opener?”

“It’s, uh, Mary,” Harry mumbled, and whilst YN heard the slight shift in his voice, she decided to ignore it, “You’ll get to meet her tomorrow, even if you don’t tonight.”

“Harry,” YN warned, turning to face him with a slight raise of her eyebrow, “We’re not missing it. Don’t want to hear another word about it.”

The cab stopped outside the hotel after around half an hour of driving, and YN would be lying if she said that she wasn’t thankful that she had finally stopped travelling and could rest. The drive hadn’t been that long, but the flight included meant that it had been non-stop all day, and she was truly ready for said rest.

YN’s lips parted in shock when she walked into his hotel room, “Jesus, Harry, is this a hotel room or a house?”

“Only the best for you,” Harry gleamed a smile at YN as he placed her suitcase at the end of the bed, “In all honesty, ticket sales were through the roof and the label only wanted me to have the best of the best.”

“God,” YN sighed, dropping down on the bed that truly felt like a cloud, “I hope I get this treatment.”

Harry dropped down next to her, reaching his hand out to move her hair off her face, “You will. I have no doubts about that.”

YN sighed, sitting up, “Well that makes one of us.”

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed from his place on the bed. He sat up and moved closer to YN so that he was directly behind her. He rested his head upon her shoulder, pressing a kiss to the skin there ever so gently.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” YN shook her head, running her hand across her forehead, “It’s nothing. I think I’m just tired.”

“You know you can tell me anything,” Harry mumbled, head still pressed against her neck, “Whatever’s worrying you.”

“It’s nothing, I promise,” YN nods, turning her head so that she can place a kiss on his lips, “If it gets too bad, I promise I’ll tell you.”

His hands came to wrap around YN’s waist, pulling her towards him, “We’ve got time to rest before the party.”

YN’s head turned to look at Harry, “I thought you didn’t want to go to the party.”

Harry sighed and offered her a smile, “I suppose it would be rude not to show up to our party, like you said.”

YN just chuckled, leaning forward to place her lips upon Harry’s. It was strange how quickly the two of them had just fallen back into the comfortable familiar space that they often found with each other. YN’s fingers found their rightful place in the nape of Harry’s neck, tugging on the curls that rested there. It was crazy how much she had missed this man whilst they had been apart, but she supposed that was what love is – always wanting to be around the person and missing him when he’s not around.

YN should have been surprised when their kisses were more from more than just a peck, but she wasn’t. Their tongues began moving together in blissful harmony. There were other things that she missed as well as just Harry himself. It was a feeling that she couldn’t find on her own, and she needed him to be with her for it.

YN’s body turned, and her hands slipped around Harry so that they ran up his back. She could feel the curl of Harry’s lips as he smiled against hers, “I thought you said you were tired.”

“I am,” YN’s lips curled into a smile as well, “But I can rest later.”

“That you can.”

YN giggled as Harry’s hands moved down her body, gripping the lacey material of her tank top and pulling it over her body in one quick motion. She had forgone a bra that morning, mainly for comfort on the flight but she would be lying if she said there wasn’t the thought of easy access for a situation such as this one. Harry’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets at the sight, as though he was a boy again and seeing his first pair of tits.

“You’ve seen them before,” YN giggled, watching as his eyes jumped from her chest to her eyes and then back down to her chest again.

Harry just beamed a smile at her, “And it’s like Christmas every time.”

He dropped his head down to her neck, placing kisses along the skin until it met her chest before they landed directly on the plush skin of her breast. His teeth grazed her nipple, tugging at the peak lightly to elicit a hiss from her lips. He knew exactly what buttons on her body to push, and whilst she sometimes hated it, she loved it at the same time.

“No teasing,” YN spoke breathlessly once Harry had released her nipple, her hands resting against his cheeks to pull his head back up to him, “I don’t have the energy for teasing.”

“Another time,” Harry nodded, and YN breathed a sigh of relief when he obliged her request.

He pulled his shirt over his head in one quick motion. Whilst he was doing that, YN made a quick move to take her pants off, throwing them upon the pile of clothes that was collecting at the side of the bed. She watched as Harry pulled his trousers, and underwear off at the same time – those too landing upon the pile. He dropped back on the bed, resting against the headrest and allowing YN to climb over and straddle his waist.

“Wanna ride you,” YN mumbled against Harry’s lips, “Need to be close to you.”

“I’m here,” Harry nodded, “Take what you want.”

YN rested one of her hands on his shoulder, using it to steady herself as she lined herself up with his cock. His hands found their rightful place upon her waist, helping her to comfortably drop down onto his cock at whatever pace she needed to. YN moaned against Harry’s cheek as she accommodated his full size, feeling that comfort and fullness that she hadn’t since Harry had left.

“So full,” YN mumbled against his cheek, “Feels so good and deep.”

The pace that YN and Harry had decided upon was slow, but it was deep. The pleasure that it provided was too much for both of them. Harry’s hips bucked up to YN’s to match her pace, their lips meeting and never disconnecting from each other’s apart to allow a moan to slip past.

“Can feel you squeezing me,” Harry mumbled into her lips, “Getting yourself off on my cock.”

“Missed this, missed you,” YN moaned, her lips parting as his hips bucked deeper in her.

Harry’s hand slipped down between their bodies, his thumb resting upon her clit and beginning to circle the little nub. YN gasped into Harry’s mouth once more, unable to hold back from the overwhelming pleasure she was feeling. It was everything together, moving all at once that caused her to tighten around Harry’s cock once more, her orgasm washing over her soon after. Harry followed not too closely behind, his grip on YN’s wait tightening as he did so.

“How did I last so long without you?” Harry mumbled, his head falling onto her shoulder, “Think you should be with me, forever.”

YN just chuckled, using Harry’s shoulder to lift herself off of him. She whimpered slightly at the loss of contact, but Harry was there to stabilise her once she had done.

“I’m here now,” YN dropped down on the plush bed again with a smile. Harry leaned over to place a soft peck on his lips, moving her head to rest upon his shoulder, “God, I do need that rest now.”

“We’ve got time,” Harry nodded, placing a kiss on YN’s hairline, “Can have a quick snooze now, if you fancy?”

YN nodded, snuggling into Harry’s body. It didn’t take her long to fall asleep, dropping into dreamland ever so quickly just by knowing that Harry was there with her. Harry didn’t move the entire time that she was asleep, knowing that she needed it more than he needed his arm. He would be lying if he said that he didn’t drop off at some point, waking to the sound of YN fluttering around the room.

“This is a nice wake-up call,” He beamed a smile at her from the bed, watching as she sat at the vanity with only a towel wrapped around her body.

YN just giggled, “You slept right through my shower. Seems like I wasn’t the only one who needed rest.”

Harry stood up from the bed, bare feet padding across the carpet until he was behind her, “Haven’t slept the best this tour, seems like I needed you in my bed.”

YN huffed a laugh, “In more ways than one, I presume. Now, shower. We can’t be late.”

“We can,” Harry nodded, head resting on her shoulder, “If we have to go, we can at least be late.”

YN groaned and pushed Harry in the direction of the bathroom, “Shower.”

Harry groaned once more but did as she said and stepped into the bathroom. YN took her time, doing her hair until it was sitting perfectly, and until her makeup looked flawless. The dress that she decided to wear hugged her body in all the right places, the sleeves stopping at her elbow where they extended into a bell shape. It was a light iridescent fabric, and once YN had placed her bangles on her wrists and her cowboy boots were on her feet she truly felt excited, and ready to party.

“God,” Harry whistled as he walked out of the shower, his towel resting low on his waist, “Are you sure we have to go?”

“Yes,” YN continues to fasten her earrings, “Get dressed.”

Harry dropped the towel, walking over to grab his clothes, “Positive?”

YN groaned, pushing past Harry, and opening the wardrobe to grab the clothes she wanted him to wear. She threw the jeans at him, as well as the vest and shirt that she loved ever so much. He just smiled at her, slipping his underwear on.

“You look gorgeous,” Harry smiled, and YN couldn’t help the flush that covered her cheeks.

“Thank you,” She placed a chaste kiss on his lips, “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

By the time that YN and Harry had walked into the room where the party was being held, it was already in full swing. Harry’s arm was securely wrapped around YN’s waist, and hers around his. It didn’t last very long though, as the second that YN saw Sarah in the distance her face was beaming out into a smile, and she was deserting Harry and making her way over there.

“Oh it’s been too long,” YN smiled as she wrapped her arms around Sarah.

“It’s Harry’s fault,” Sarah sighed with a shake of her head, “He’s kept you all to himself.”

YN rolled her eyes, “It took some convincing to even come today, basically had to force him out of the room.”

Sarah laughed and pointed towards the drinks table, saying that she was going to get them a drink. YN sighed and nodded, saying that she’d wait here. Her eyes danced around the room, obviously trying to find Harry. She found him standing in the corner of the room, a bottle of beer grasped tightly in his hand, talking to a blonde girl with a smile on his face.

Sarah returned with a bottle of cola in her hand for YN and a beer in her hand for herself. YN smiled at her, but her eyes returned to Harry and the girl across the room.

“Thank you,” YN nodded, taking a sip, “Who’s that Harry’s talking to?”

Sarah’s eyes followed the direction that YN was pointing in, “Oh that’s Mary, Harry’s probably told you about her.”

“He has,” YN nodded, pointing her head back in Mary’s direction, “Introduce me?”

Sarah widened her eyes but nodded, walking towards the pair. YN cleared her throat the second that they stood in front of them, interrupting whatever conversation they were having.

“Mary, this is YN,” Sarah nodded.

YN smiled and wrapped her arm around Harry’s waist, “Harry’s girlfriend.”

“No, it’s, uh, so nice to meet you!” The girl beamed, the British accent shocking YN slightly, “I’ve heard so much about you.”

It was then that YN saw it. The constantly shaking hands, the blown pupils and the fidgeting with her nose were everything that YN needed to know.

“Vivienne’s having a good time,” YN nodded as she walked back into Harry’s dressing room after finishing up her phone call with Vivienne, “I tried to ask about the tour, but it was Pamela this and Pamela that."

Harry nodded, opening his arm out to YN so that she could drop beneath it, “She’s in love, leave her be.”

“I am, don’t worry,” YN laughed, bringing her feet up so that she could curl up with him, “I’m sure I was just the same. It was probably always Harry this and Harry that.”

Harry just shook his head, pressing a kiss to her hairline. He was dressed and ready for the show, and Mary’s band was already on stage for their set so she knew that it wasn’t going to be long before Harry would be whisked up onto stage.

“The break’s not too long away, right?” Harry asked, finger messing with the frill on YN’s shirt, “Then she’s coming to see you, right?”

“Yeah,” YN nodded, absentmindedly running her finger across the material of his trousers, “She won’t tell me much, I’ll probably have to pry it out of her.”

Harry just laughed, “Or you could just wait for her to tell you herself?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” YN grimaced with a shake of her head.

It was then that YN felt Harry’s fingers move from the frill of her shirt to the soft skin of her stomach. She could tell what kind of a mood he was in (despite what they had done that morning, soft and slow wrapped in the covers from the bed) and found it even more so when his fingers slipped beneath the material of her skirt.

“We don’t have time for that,” YN mumbled, her teeth clamping down on her bottom lip as his teeth started to graze the nape of her neck.

It was no use though, for Harry already was slipping his hand underneath her body to pull her onto his lap. Once his lips were upon hers, it was as though nothing was going to stop them. She was drunk off him, and nothing was going to stop them.

His hands rested firmly upon her ass, his fingers digging into the flesh eliciting a moan from YN’s lips. YN sighed against Harry, rocking her hips towards his. She hadn’t a single idea of how long they had been making out like a bunch of horny teenagers.

“Harry!” The door burst open, and Harry and YN’s lips disconnected to see who it was that interrupted them, "You should see it out there it’s… oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” YN offered the girl a smile, clambering off Harry’s lap, “Don’t worry about it.”

“I forgot you were here if truth be told,” Mary spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. It did cause YN’s eyebrows to furrow at the girl, “I’m just so used to walking in here.”

YN furrowed her eyebrows once more and turned to look at Harry, but he wasn’t looking in her direction at all. YN watched as Mary walked into the room and dropped down on the sofa across from them. It was hot on stage, but the sweat that was dropping off her body was more than just the heat from the stage that was causing her to sweat in such a way.

YN’s suspicions were once again confirmed when the girl pulled a small bag out of the trouser pocket and tipped the contents onto the table in front of them. YN’s heart started to beat quickly, and she reached over to grab Harry’s hand.

“Uh, Mary,” Harry spoke, leaning forward in his seat slightly, “Do you think, that, maybe you could do that somewhere else?”

Marry let out a laugh, but that dropped when she saw the serious expression on Harry’s face, “Are you being serious? You’ve never had an issue before.”

“I know, and now I do,” He shrugged, and then stood up, “Think it’s time for me to get out there.”

He leaned down to place a kiss on YN’s lips, “Smash it, I love you.”

“Love you too,” He walked towards the door, “You’re coming to watch, yeah?”

“Course I am, give me a second.”

YN waited until the door had shut behind him when she turned to Mary, who had just finished her line. Mary wiped her nose, turning to look at YN who was still facing her.

“Do you want some?” Mary asked and YN shook her head.

“No, I don’t,” YN sighed standing up, “Are you coming to watch Harry?”

“Never miss it,” Mary nodded, “I’ll be there in a second!”

YN sighed and walked out of the room, moving towards the side of the stage. She smiled at Jeff who was already there, and watched as Harry did what he did best. Their shared love of music, and the way that it brought them and so many people closer together. Seeing him dance and sing his heart out and have all of those people singing along with him –caused her heart to grow even more for the man on the stage.

“It’s insane that he can do what he does,” Mary spoke from the side of her, “He’s just amazing.”

YN offered Mary a smile and nodded her head, ready to turn her attention back to Harry but then she saw Mary, and she saw the look that the girl was giving Harry as she moved on the stage. It was a familiar look, but YN couldn’t quite place her finger on what it was that was familiar. Then when she turned to look at Harry she realised what it was.

It was the look that YN had given Harry every time that she had seen him on stage, the one that for herself manifested in her love for him. YN couldn’t stop whatever feelings the other girl was manifesting for Harry, and she couldn’t control what would happen, but she could love Harry as much as she could.

All she had to do was hope that was enough.

“How come you’ve got a private jet?” YN asked nudging Harry who was sitting in the seat next to her with her elbow, “I feel as though you’ve got everything this time.”

“You’re just jealous,” Harry responded, sliding down into the seat further, “You just wish that you’d asked for a private jet.”

YN just huffed, settling further down in her own seat. Sarah and Mitch just laughed from their seats across from the couple, watching as Harry tried to wrap his arm around YN but she pulled away with a pout on her face.

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Sarah shook her head, “It’s small and cramped and you can hear everything that everyone is saying.”

That became ever so obvious when the four of them dropped silent, and everything that was being said at the front of the plane seemed to get louder. YN tipped her head down the centre aisle to see a few of the other members of the band, as well as the opening act. Although YN couldn’t see exactly who was in the middle of the group, she had an incline that Mary would be one of those present.

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” YN nods, grimacing slightly, “I think I’d lose my head if I was stuck on a plane with just my band.”

“You’d have Leroy, yeah?” Harry mumbles, dropping his head down onto YN’s shoulder.

“Yes, I would have Leroy, but I don’t think even he’d be the best company that I’ve ever had,” YN shrugs, moving her arm slightly so that Harry could get even more comfortable.

“He seems alright from what I’ve seen,” Sarah shrugs.

YN groans, “He is, he’s okay. He’s just forty and I think he’s potentially going through a midlife crisis and that isn’t exactly where I’m at in my life.”

Sarah and Mitch both laugh at her words, and it’s at that point that they realise that Harry’s already fallen asleep. It hadn’t taken him long. YN gently kicks her bag over to Sarah, asking if she can take a photo of the two of them. YN smiles as Sarah points the polaroid in her and Harry’s direction, the man already beginning to drool on her shoulder – but she didn’t mind.

Sarah passed the printed photo to YN, smiling as she watched the girl shake the print a few times before smiling at the sight. YN was smiling in the photo, but it seemed as though Sarah had managed to capture YN as she had turned to look at Harry’s sleeping form. It was a beautiful photo, and it would be one that YN would cherish forever.

“Can I ask you both something?” YN asked after a minute or so, her eyes dropping to Harry just to ensure that the man was still asleep. It was then that YN realised that Mitch had also fallen asleep, and it was just her and Sarah left awake, “Or, can I ask you something, Sarah?”

“Of course, you can,” Sarah responded quickly, as if it was the easiest response in the world.

YN sighed, her eyes resting upon the photo that she had left face-up on the table in front of them, “How is he? Genuinely.”

“Harry?” Sarah asked, her eyebrows furrowing slightly as YN nodded, “He seems fine to me.”

YN nodded, “It’s just… I mean, we didn’t talk much before I came out and it just feels… possibly, as though he’s hiding something.”

Sarah shook her head, “I highly doubt it, YN. That boy can’t keep secrets for shit. When he first started seeing you, Mitch and I could tell that something was off with him, but he kept denying it and denying it until he said that someone was joining us in the studio the next day.”

“And it was me,” YN smiled, remembering that day.

She had been nervous when Harry had asked her to come into the studio with him. She knew the band and had already met them many times before (being on tour with them and everything) but, seeing as though she left that tour in a less than desirable way she was nervous to see them all again. The nerves also came being in the studio with them, and whilst yes she performed in front of them every night – being in a studio with them was a completely different experience. It was way more raw, and exposed and vulnerable.

But, despite all of YN’s worries and her concerns none of it mattered. None of it mattered because the second that she walked into that studio; they all accepted her with open arms. It was as though none of them judged her or thought less of her due to what happened and instead, they all just cared about her well-being, and also any of the ideas that she may have.

“I wouldn’t worry, YN,” Sarah shook her head, “I think you would know if you had anything to worry about.”

YN had hoped that would ease her mind.

There was a part of her that knew that from Harry’s side, she had nothing to worry about. She knew that he was in love with her, and she was with him and there was no reason for her to dispute that ever. The thing that worried YN was that she knew that Mary harnessed some of those feelings for Harry, and she had no reason not to act on them. Whilst to some people, being in a relationship would be reason enough not to try something with a person –unfortunately, YN knew better when it came to some musicians.

At the same time though, she could be worrying herself for no reason and she had no reason to judge Mary at this point as she didn’t know the girl. But there was something in the back of her mind nagging her that she should trust her gut and trust her instincts.

She just hoped that her instincts were wrong.

The second that YN stepped into her and Harry’s hotel room, she made a beeline for the shower. Harry trailed behind her, but they didn’t say a word to each other. Her conversation with Sarah and her doubts were spiralling around her head.

With a sigh, YN reached into the shower to turn the water on, taking a second or so to allow the water to warm up before she stripped and stepped inside. It always felt night to wash travel off of her body, and that was no different now that she was in a private jet instead of just a normal plane. The shower allowed for YN to wash the flight off of her, but also allowed her body to relax from all of the thoughts that had been circling in her brain.

She had just begun to shampoo her hair when the door opened, revealing Harry’s body ready to get into the shower with her.

“Can I join you?” He asked, a soft expression on his face rather than what she expected it to have.

YN nodded her head, “Help me shampoo?”

Harry smiled but nodded, stepping into the shower, and closing the door behind him. He wasted no time in slipping his hands through her already soapy hair and began to massage her scalp, just as she had been doing but it felt so much better when he was doing it.

The fact that Harry was so close to her, and yet she felt as though there were things that they both were hiding from each other. It was difficult, and her brain was struggling to handle that fact. The last time she felt like this, she would turn to drugs, alcohol, or anything just to numb the feelings that she was having. And yet, she couldn’t do that now. She wouldn’t do that now.

Instead, as Harry continued to run his fingers through her hair the only way that she could express what she was feeling was by crying. It started as one tear slipping down her cheek until multiple were and then her shoulders started to shake. Harry’s hands stopped running through her hair, and that was when she knew that he had noticed her crying.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Harry’s hands grasped her shoulders, turning her around so that she was facing him. The water began to run over her head, and she closed her eyes so that none of the shampoo would go into her eyes. The crying didn’t necessarily help with that, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” YN shook her head, but she couldn’t stop the crying either, “I don’t know, I’m fine I think.”

“Well, you’re not,” Harry pointed out with a small smile on his face, his thumb coming to rest on the soft skin of her cheek, “But you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Just tell me how I can help.”

That only made YN cry more. The fact that Harry was so understanding of her, and seemed to know exactly what she needed even when she didn’t even know herself.

“It’s nothing, I swear,” YN pouted slightly, “I think I’m just sad that I’m leaving in a few days.”

“YN,” Harry shook his head, moving closer to her to wrap his arms around her body. YN slipped hers around his waist, pushing her body as close as she could to his.

If she didn’t feel comfortable enough at this moment to say how she truly felt, she knew that she could say something else. It wasn’t a lie either, because there was a nagging in her head that worried about how both of them would respond to being apart again. She hadn’t even thought about her tour the entire time that she had been here, and that thought was slowly creeping up to the forefront of her mind as well.

“I’m sorry,” She shook her head, “I don’t know, I think I’m maybe just nervous about my tour and leaving you.”

“Don’t apologise,” Harry shook his head, placing a kiss to her forehead, “I feel the same way.”

YN’s heart broke at the fact that Harry was feeling this way too. She supposed that he didn’t have the same feelings regarding Mary that she did, but that didn’t matter. She was struggling with the idea of leaving him with no control over the situation, and also toying with the stress of being without him.

It was a struggle that neither both of them would have to do alone though, and that was the bliss of it she supposed.

“Hey, we’ll call at every opportunity,” Harry nods, dipping his head so that he caught her eye-line, “I promise I’ll be better.”

“You’re perfect,” YN shook her head, “As long as we do this together, we’ll be fine.”

Harry dipped his head down once more to place his lips onto hers, and she accepted the kiss with no hesitation. She dropped her head onto his shoulder, a small smile crossing her face as she did.

“I have an idea,” Harry spoke, his head resting upon hers, “But I don’t know how you’ll feel about it.”

“What is it?” YN lifted her head up, the water still cascading over her shoulders.

“I want you to come on stage tonight,” He spoke, looking down at her with nothing but adoration in his eyes, “I want to sing Cherry, with you – just us.”

YN began to cry again, but it wasn’t due to any sadness, but it was just the overwhelming amount of love that she felt for the man in her arms.

“I’d love nothing more.”

“We’re starting in Nevada,” YN spoke, her fingernail tapping against the glass of water she had in her hand as she spoke to Jeff, “Then it’s three months, I think, maybe four and then we’re finishing in L.A. Troubadour actually.”

“God, that’s amazing YN,” Jeff shook his head, a proud and truly glad expression on his face, “Let me know the date and I’ll see if Harry’s free.”

YN’s face broke out into a smile, “I’ll get Leroy to send the details over, I’d love to have him come out.”

“I’m sure he’d love it too.”

Harry and YN had already spoken about whether or not he was going to join her for her last show, and seeing as though his tour would be long done and he’d be back at home in L.A, it made sense. There was the panic that came over YN’s body at Harry’s request of flying his mother out so she could meet YN and see them perform. YN had never been in a relationship such as this one before, one that felt as though it was going to last and to the point where meeting parents was actually on the cards. But, she wasn’t going to say that to Harry when he had been so excited over the prospect.

“Speaking of Harry,” Jeff sighed, checking his watch, “He should be here. Mary finished five minutes or so ago.”

“Oh,” YN looked around the room and saw Sarah and Mitch and other members of the band but no Harry, “He’s probably in his dressing room, I’ll go get him.”

YN placed her glass down on the table and walked out of the room. Harry’s dressing room was just down the hall, and she had been in there with him earlier but she could tell that he needed a moment so she decided the best thing to do was make herself scarce. It didn’t upset her that he needed his space, God knows she’s the same before she performs but it was strange that he wasn’t with the rest of the band when they were supposed to be going on stage soon.

Not thinking that anything would be amis, YN opened the door and walked into the room and then her heart dropped.

Harry was sitting on the sofa, with Mary straddled across his lap and their faces pressed together. YN must have gasped, because both of them turned to her. Harry immediately threw Mary off his lap, but it seemed that all three of them were frozen in shock.

YN’s eyes started to glass over, “Jeff is, uh, looking for you.”

Without another word YN turned and walked out of the room, ignoring Harry’s calls of her name from behind her. She walked towards the green room but before she could step inside, Sarah threw the door open.

“Oh,” Sarah jumped slightly at YN being stood outside the door, “Are you okay?”

The girl’s expression dropped at the shocked look on YN’s, “I’m fine. Is it time?”

“Yeah, we’re just ready to go,” Sarah’s attention was taking by Harry and Mary walking towards them from behind YN, and even though she wanted nothing more than to turn and walk away from this entire thing, she had made a promise to perform with them, and it would look strange if she didn’t uphold that promise.

It was also a good way of ensuring that YN didn’t do something that she would regret in the future.

“Let’s get this show on the road then,” YN nodded and turned and walked away from the group without another word.

When Harry began performing, it was obvious that something was amiss. He wasn’t his usual chatty self, and there were few times that YN thought that he was going to cry. YN tried with everything in her might not to cry, because she wasn’t going to give Mary (who was standing just a few feet away from her) that satisfaction. The girl, even though she might have been involved in one of the worst things that had ever happened to YN seemed to have not a single feeling about the situation. But YN also knew that when someone was using heavy drugs, just as Mary was emotions and reality didn’t exactly work the same as a normal person would.

That angered YN more than she expected it to.

She hadn’t even realised how much time had passed until a microphone was being thrust into her hand, and she realised that Harry was speaking to the crowd.

“Now,” He held his hands out to quieten the crowd as much he could, “I have a very special guest coming out tonight to sing this next song with me. She’s… she’s my world, she’s my everything and I love her so much. So, can you all make some noise for YN YLN!”

Exhaling a breath, YN walked out onto the stage. It was crazy to her that the second she found herself on stage and she heard the crowd chanting her name – all of her worries seemed to ease ever so slightly.

The music started, and she turned to look at Harry, but he was staring straight ahead as though he was trying everything in his power not to look at her. It broke YN’s heart.

“Don’t you call him baby/ we’re not talking lately/ don’t you call him what you used to call me,” Harry started to sing, and even though YN tried not to she couldn’t help but be captivated by him, “I, I confess I can tell that you are your best/ I’m selfish so I’m hating it,”

YN lifted her microphone up to her lips, trying to compose herself before she started singing , “I’ve noticed that there’s a piece of me in how you dress/ I take it as a compliment,” YN took a breath, “Don’t you call me baby/ We’re not talking lately/ He doesn’t call me what you used to call me.”

Once she had finished singing, she turned to look at Harry who was this time staring right at her. He had angled his body in her direction, and she did the same for him. Now, it didn’t matter how many other people were on stage with them, or how many people were in the audience listening to them. It was as though they were the only two people on the stage.

And it broke YN’s heart.

“I, I just miss/ I just miss your accent and your friends/ Do you know I still talk to them?” YN closed her eyes, listening to Harry and everything that he was singing at her. His voice broke, but he managed to recover quicker than YN would have been able to.

“You know he takes me walking round his parents’ gallery,” YN could feel the tears starting to collect in her eyes, and she saw that the same were collecting in Harry’s.

“Don’t you call him [me] baby/ We’re not talking lately,” Everything that was wanting to be said between the two of them was being spoken to each other just by the looks in their eyes. The hurt, the betrayal, the regret. To an outsider, this must have been the oddest experience and yet one that spoke the loudest words.

“Don’t you call him what you used to call me.,” The two of them finish at the same time and there was silence, “He doesn’t call me what you used to call me.”

Once the crowd broke out into cheers they both knew – it was over.

#rm #harry styles #harry styles one shot #harry styles imagine #harry styles writing #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles au #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles x reader #harry styles x yn #harry styles x you #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #harry styles series #series

68 notes · View notes

scekrex · 7 months

Note

You know who it is, it's ya boy! 🕺

So. Obviously a crack fic, if anyone is wondering - no, I don't smoke pot, I'm just very stupid with dumb, but creative ideas, about Adam, Lute and the reader having a mission given to them from Sera, we're they have to got to the Earth in their human disguises (Of course Adam is just Adam without the mask and brown eyes, because Alex Brightman, fuck yeah) to do some business with some of the governments. What they didn't think of is the fact that when they got their human disguises, they also came with human traits, like being able to get absolutely hammered. Like for angels it would take a lot of alcohol (I'm looking at you Castiel when you drank a whole ass liquor store) to get drunk, but humans have a weaker immune system when it comes to percentages. So Adam the drunkest of them all getting the amazing idea of stealing a shopping cart, a little less drunk reader agreeing and them running off before Lute could stop them, Adam in the cart, reader pushing. In the end they accidentally drove off the sidewalk and launched themselves into the damn brook. Lute panicked before they emerged, laughing their asses off, Adam just started to glide his hands over his clothes as if he wanted to hand wash them. Here cue the meme:

-I'M WASHING ME AND MY CLOTHES

-He's drunk as fuck

-Biiitch, I'm washing me and my clothes 😌

With the "I'm washing me and my clothes" being Adam, "He's drunk as fuck" being Lute and the reader just floating in the water next to Adam wondering what the hell he was doing before catching the vibe and doing the same. Now imagine Sera just wanting to check on them and their progress through that orb in Heaven like during "You didn't know" 😂 Miss girl would face plam so hard her big ass lashes would fly off her face 😂😂😂

Bro. Bro I adore you and I adore your fucking crack prompts, they're my new favorite thing to write. So here ya go babes

Drunk 'n' Nasty

pairing: Adam x male!reader

warnings: language, use of alcohol, yet another crack fic

note: not beta read bc fuck you I don't have beta readers

Lute grabbed your wrist and pulled you away from the bar entrance, Adam had already been grabbed by his shirt to keep him from entering the building. “No, Sera explicitly said that we need to get this over with as fast as possible,” the lieutenant spoke in a firm voice as she dragged both you and your husband away from the pub, “So we will finish the job and then straight up head back to heaven.”

You pounded at her, “You’re no fun, c’mon Lute just let us have one drink, in and out in no time.” But the exorcist shook her head and stood her ground, “No. One drink will lead to two and two drinks will lead to you and Adam getting completely wasted.” Adam wiggled out of her grip and slapped the hand she had wrapped around your wrist. Yes, Sera had given you orders, but where was the fun in having human disguises if you weren't able to enjoy the night on earth?

“Oh fucking quit it, danger tits, we all know it will end like that either way,” Adam groaned and rolled his eyes, “Loosen up, bitch.” Lute side eyed the first man critically but eventually gave in with a sigh. She wordlessly stepped aside so the two of you were able to enter the crowded bar and Adam dragged you inside before Lute was able to change her mind again. “Let’s fucking go,” the brunette cheered and sat down at the counter. He patted his thigh as his now brown eyes caught yours, “C’mere babes.” That he didn't need to tell you twice, you closed the small gab that was left between the two of you and sat down on his thigh as the first man ordered two shots of whiskey for the both of you, he knew Lute wouldn't drink, she appeared to be quite tense ever since the three of you had arrived on earth.

Once the drinks were put down in front of you, you immediately reached for the tiny shot glass and downed it in one go by tilting your head back, Adam's eyes were locked on your throat as he was able to see how you swallowed the liquid, a nasty grin appeared on his lips as he leaned in a little closer to you, “Fuck, how often will I get that view tonight?” “Depends,” you grinned back at him, the pleasant yet unusual burn of alcohol made you shiver slightly, “How often do ya wanna see it, pretty boy?” Adam leaned in even closer until his lips brushed softly against your ear and his hot breath hit your face, “I don't think I will ever get enough of it.” And with that he downed his own shot just to slam the empty glass on the counter and ask the bartender for another round.

“Sir,” Lute had managed to get through the crowd somehow and was now standing behind you, “That was your one shot, we'll leave now.” Adam looked at you, it was so weird to see the first man with dark brown eyes instead of bright golden ones, but it was something you could get used to, they seemed honest, not that his golden eyes were serving you lies but the brown orbs just felt different, more personal. “Lute, do us a fucking favor and find some dude who will pull that massive fucking stick outta your ass so we can enjoy ourselves for a little while,” your husband shared his opinion on Lute's behavior towards the both of you, then he turned around again to focus on the drinks on the counter. The first man raised his glass, you did the same and in union you purred, “To us.” Another shot was swallowed and you slowly felt your cheeks heating up because of the alcohol. Oh how you had missed the burning liquor.

“I will regret this,” Lute grumbled as the exorcist sat down on the stool next to you. Your eyes beamed at her and you were quick to order three cocktails, visibly happy that she had decided to join you. “Just because I'm sitting down doesn't mean I will drink with you, it's enough of a burden that you two are,” she hissed and eyed the neon pink drink suspiciously as it was placed in front of her. “Don’t be such a princess, it's just one drink,” Adam commented and pushed the pretty looking drink a little closer to Lute. She however, simply passed it to some chick that was passing by. And that was the moment you chose to ignore the woman for the rest of the evening. If she was fine with staying sober and doing as stupid fucking Sera said, so be it, you and Adam however had other plans.

It didn't really take long for the alcohol to actually punch you two in the face though, heaven offered no such things as alcohol, weed, crack or nicotine so the tolerance bar for Adam and you was basically on the floor. And that was probably part of the reason why the two of you had one hell of a blast running away from Lute.

And then Adam spotted the supermarket that wasn't too far away from the pub so he made quick work of picking you up bridal style and then he was on his way to investigate whatever it was that was going on there. “What now, big guy, are we taking off together? Away from stick-in-the-ass-Lute and go-fuck-yourself-Sera?” you chuckled as the brunette continued to carry you over to the empty parking lot. “Damn fucking right, babes,” Adam agreed. The taller man let you down once your destination was reached and he immediately saw something new he wanted to investigate.

The fucking shopping carts.

So you tagged along, mainly to make sure Adam wouldn't hurt himself but also because you were curious too. You weren't quite sure how, but somehow Adam had managed to disconnect the metal chain from the cart, the first man was pulling it away from the others and as soon as it stopped moving, he climbed in it to sit down, “What are you waiting for, bitch, fucking push me!” Adam pointed to the street.

Lute had just managed to catch up to you two drunken asses as you rushed past her. You pushed the shopping cart as fast as physically possible, “Fuck yeah,” Adam yelled and threw his fists in the air, that man was having the time of his life - or well, existence. Either way it was fun, you two were having fun.

Lute on the other hand regretted every single decision that had led her to his exact moment, if she could she would punch her past self for even agreeing to coming with you. Fuck what had she been thinking, that you two would take this serious for once? Yeah, dead fucking wrong.

It was all fun and games until you stumbled over your own feet, lost control of the cart and pushed it right into the brook that was besides the sidewalk you had been running on. Your alcohol clouded brain didn't even think of letting go and therefore you fell with Adam. Instead of being bummed about it, you thought of this as an upgrade though, because now you were floating on water.

“Adam look,” you called for your husband, “I’m floating.” Adam turned around in order to see what you were doing and chuckled at the sight. “‘m washin’ me ‘n’ my clothes,” the brunette explained what he was doing as he slid his hands all across his body, crumbling up his very wet clothes.

Lute had finally managed to fully catch up to you and just watched you with annoyance. “He’s drunk as fuck,” she grumbled, clearly talking to you but you simply shook your head violently, you somehow managed to get over to where Adam was washing himself and his clothes and helped him by sliding your hands all over his body too, “Bitch, we're washing him and his clothes.”

The brunette turned around to face you and poked your chest, “If you handsome bitch keep touching me like that I might just fuck you right here, right now,” the words he spoke were a little hard to understand die to the alcohol he had been drinking earlier. But hard to understand didn't mean impossible to understand, because as soon as your brain had processed the words your husband had spoken you pressed your entire body against his, your wet clothes clinging onto each other.

“Oh Lord have mercy,” Lute prayed as she covered her ears and turned around so that she wouldn't have to watch.

“Yeah? What's stopping you, big guy?” you were up for the challenge, if he wanted to fuck you right there, then he should get to do that. At least that's how you saw it.

Sera had a gut feeling that told her to check on the group and so she did. But what she saw was something she surely hadn't expected. Lute was standing on the sidewalk, the woman was still covering her ears and had squeezed her eyes shut in order to tune out what was happening behind her back.

Because Adam and you were standing in a brook, both fully naked. Sera immediately regretted what she had just done, she wanted to unsee what her eyes had been able to see. She stopped the transmission in an instant. That had simply been too much for her nerves, she had also made the decision to never address what was currently going down on earth.

Spoiler: Adam was going down on you.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel adam #adam x male reader #male reader #adam x y/n #adam x reader #adam x you

88 notes · View notes

henryspearl · 15 days

Text

hey!!! it’s been a while i know and i have been quiet on here. i am still here, i have just been on holiday but i am flying back home tomorrow and all systems will resume back to normal!! i had the idea before i went away that i would continue writing on my phone while lounging in the sun, but did that happen? nopeeee🫠 perhaps the two week break from writing will give me bursts of writing energy 🤞🏻

thank you @firstprincehornyramblings for the tag and without further ado…is it sentence sunday or smut sunday? 😈

a little (and a little bit longer to make up for my absence) snippet from what i wrote for my Bridgerton AU before i went away…

When Henry returns to him, the curtain closing in on them, Henry instantly slots his body between Alex’s legs and they start making out furiously, rutting their bodies and their cocks against each other. Filthy moans escape their lips and Alex hooks his ankles around Henry’s lower back and starts thrusting desperately against Henry’s cock.

Henry laughs huskily, “We still need to prep you, angel.”

Angel. He and Henry are hardly angels, or saints for that matter but the term makes Alex’s body shudder.

“I believe you also mentioned that you were on your hands and knees when you were fingering yourself,” Henry continues, his lips hungrily moving to Alex’s neck and moaning softly at the taste. “Am I correct?”

“Yes,” Alex moans, his fingers curling into those beautiful blonde locks. “Yes I was. My cock was dripping on the sheets as I thought of you.”

Henry growls in retaliation. When he moves and looks at Alex, his eyes are dark. “The stage is yours. Hands and knees, now.”

Alex blinks, “What?”

Henry just smirks. Adjusting himself as he goes back on his haunches, gently wrapping his hand around Alex’s calf and placing a delicate kiss to his ankle before dropping it onto the mattress. As he shuffles back, Alex’s other leg gets released back down onto the mattress and then he is reaching for the bottle of oil that is lying beside them, waiting.

“Hands and knees,” Henry repeats, jerking his head to the side as a silent order for Alex to roll onto his front. He holds the bottle of oil up to eye level, pinching the tip between his thumb and index finger and wriggles it. “And this time, I’ll be doing the work.”

Henry winks and Alex’s body shudders with excruciating arousal that another load of pre-cum comes oozing out of his slit.

Alex has never met anyone who can get him off, make him react in completely natural arousing ways untouched and make him feel things that only Henry can.

Alex never wants to go back.

In fact, he won’t.

tagging: @iboatedhere @onthewaytosomewhere @softboynick @heysweetheart-writes @taste-thewaste @babygirlgalitzine @fullsunsets @jmagnabo92 @theprinceandagcd @priincebutt @henrysfox @thesleepyskipper @clockwrkpendrxgon @myheartalivewrites @anincompletelist @lizzie-bennetdarcy

#sentence sunday #rwrb #red white and royal blue #firstprince #my writing

36 notes · View notes

ersatz-ostrich · 2 months

Text

See You Again

Chapter 4: The Waynes

Jason Todd x f!reader

You meet (some of) the Waynes. Things start to get complicated in more ways than one, but you’ll figure something out eventually…right?

[A/N]: AEEOEOEEEUUUGHHHH I'M SO SORRY EVERYONE I'VE BEEN GONE FOR LIKE TWO MONTHS 😩 I guess you guys have seen all manners of excuses by now but I was definitely agonizing over the dialogue for each character. I wanted to showcase all the ~funny stuff~ that's happened to the reader as a side effect of this silly little virus and introduce some conflict between Jason and the reader because a reunion like this can't be all sunshine and rainbows and happy tears. There's got to be sad and angry tears and awkward moments, too (I mean, it's not every day that someone you used to know comes back from the dead, right? And then you discover that they and their whole family are the most notorious vigilantes in your home city...anyways). It doesn't help that I've been pretty busy with other things over the past few weeks. So sorry for the wait and I hope you guys like this chapter!

Warnings: a little profanity

read here on ao3 (tbh I recommend it because this chapter's like 4.8k words)

<< previous || next >>

masterlist

The Batcave

5:45:03 AM ET

True to its name, the Batcave was damp and bone-chillingly cold.

Tim knew that it was probably because the Cave’s sensitive electronics and weaponry benefited from cooler environments and that the damp was unavoidable in the enormous cave system, but he liked to think that Bruce kept it that way because it made him feel like he was really the ‘Bat’ in ‘Batman’.

At least the Batcave didn’t smell of guano.

The cold light of the Batcomputer burned into his tired eyes as he sifted through the computer’s files on the Batfamily’s special guest. He found scholarly articles, a few brief reports from news outlets in your hometown, and of course, the media firestorm that had just begun to pick up speed.

“Still awake?” Tim felt a firm hand on his shoulder—Bruce’s—but made no move to meet the Bat’s gaze. “Your patrol shift ended hours ago.”

“I know,” Tim replied, fingers flying across the Batcomputer’s keyboard. He knew all of Bruce’s hotkeys and had also programmed his own to expedite his surfing through the supercomputer’s expansive resources. “It’s just…I got curious about our new case.” Standing behind Tim’s chair, Bruce hummed.

“Yes, well…” He eased his strong but aging body into the chair next to Tim’s with a sigh. “...it is a little more personal this time.”

“Oh, yeah? Do you know Dr. L/N?”

“I’ve known her since she was in the seventh grade,” Bruce answered. “She and Jason met when I enrolled him in Gotham Academy. She was there on an academic scholarship—Y/N was very bright, and young for her class. Jason grew very attached to her during that time. From what I understand, she gave him a sense of normalcy in his life and kept him company when he felt isolated from their other classmates.

She took Jason’s loss very hard. Alfred and I did our best to support her, especially since Jason had died during a critical period in her academic career. She’d gained a reputation for her academics and research projects while she was a student at the Academy. There were a lot of eyes on her. She experienced significant pressure to perform.

Jason’s death made me feel a responsibility to do right by Y/N. I opened the Manor’s doors to her, as well as my connections to Gotham’s academic circles. I helped pay for her tuition when she went to Yale, and then her doctorate at the University of California in Los Angeles. And so…having her here is another way I want to support her, for Jason’s sake.”

“I saw what happened to her. I was just getting off patrol when Jason brought her in. IT looks like he cares for her a lot…I’ve never seen him act like that.” Tim paused. The clicking of the Batcomputer’s keyboard and the white noise of the Cave’s machinery filled the air as the pair fell into a comfortable silence. Finally, Tim spoke. “How much do we know about Y/N’s case?”

“Ah, the Polestar virus. It seems like her vaccine, which was still in an early phase of testing, neutralized the virus in a way that allows it to live within the tissues without consuming it.”

“This is so niche,” Tim muttered as he read your file. “Information almost exclusive to the CDC, STAR Labs, and…the Public Health Agency of Canada?” Tim was used to being puzzled by cases with limited information. This one in particular intrigued him. “What’s Canada got to do with this case?”

“The Polestar virus was discovered by a joint US-Canada expedition into the Arctic,” Bruce answered. He reached over to type in a series of commands into the Batcomputer, which summoned a file window containing an internal government write-up about the expedition. In it were photos taken by the researchers of the remains, mummified by the ice, of three ancient humans, whose hair and nails had remained intact after millennia beneath the ice. One of the mummies—a small girl—displayed peculiar metallic spots, especially on the extremities, which the researchers noted.

“The mummies have been exhumed from the ice and are currently being held in Canada,” Bruce read off the file. “There’s also a write-up from Canadian anthropologists about the tattoos on the bodies. Traces of the virus were found in the girl’s body, but the samples STAR Labs works with were extracted from an ice core they took from the site.”

“Do we know why there were humans in the Arctic, thousands of years ago?” Tim asked, incredulous. “That sounds…improbable. But then…we’ve seen weirder things, haven’t we?”

“Precisely. What happened to the media coverage?” Restings his elbows against the Batcomputer, Tim ran his hands down his face, blinking a few times to stay awake.

“A break-in at STAR Labs is always troubling news,” Tim replied. “Anchors and analysts are beginning to speculate about the political premises of the situation, but the government’s kept quiet about the details. No one knows what’s been taken or why the break-in happened.”

“So rumors are flying.”

“They’ll die down once people realize the government isn’t going to let slip what happened. You never know what journalists might find, though. They’ve already confirmed independently that all of the surviving staff have been accounted for…except for one missing researcher.” Bruce’s eyebrows shot up.

“Interesting.”

“It might be best for Y/N’s safety if we cooked up a story about an abduction,” Tim commented as he browsed the growing collection of Polestar files. “We should find out who broke in and why they wanted to obtain the Polestar virus.” Tim’s hands stilled over the keyboard. “I wonder what’s so important about this virus. What do they know that we don’t? Why is it so important that it doesn’t leave the government’s hands?”

“Y/N almost gave her life to protect the security of this virus. I suspect she knows something we don’t.”

“She could be protecting something whose potential she doesn’t even know. Someone’s definitely out to get this virus, and she could get caught up in the meantime.” Something flashed in Bruce’s eyes.

“Even if STAR Labs withheld that information from her, she’d find a way to get it out of them,” Bruce murmured. “She wouldn’t be satisfied with being kept in the dark. She’s relentless. That’s something…”

“I think you see a little bit of yourself in her. Is that why you stuck by her all this time?” Tim prodded in a teasing tone, which earned a small huff out of Bruce.

“Perhaps.”

You slept deeply and without stirring. To any outside observer, you looked serene. Unbeknownst to them, though, you were caught, body and consciousness, in a bizarre dream.

You stood under stormy skies, on a set of steps that seemed to reach for the heavens and stretch towards infinity. You could feel the cracks and imperfections of the rough stone beneath your feet; they felt as if they were worn by the beats of hundreds of footsteps that had come before you. You could feel the coming storm in the air and the wind whipped against your skin. You looked down at your hands, still blackened and stained like they were covered in burnished iron, and flexed them experimentally, astonished by your dexterity and control over your body in what you knew to be a dream.

Free me.

Your head snapped upwards. Those words kept echoing through your head, in the way that voices in dreams did, not quite heard as waves rippling through the air but also not completely within the confines of your mind’s realm.

You stumbled up the steps. The stones dug into the soles of your bare feet. You could feel a pull leading you farther up the steps, as if you were magnetized. With every step, that magnetism became exceedingly strong; what was at first a tug that was barely there started to feel like a harsh hand dragging you. Your arms and legs grew heavier, as if weights had been strapped to your wrists and ankles, and when the burden became unbearable you collapsed on the steps, the worn edges of each stone step scraping your exposed skin.

Grunting, you willed yourself to lift one hand, and with significant effort, the other. You could still feel the invisible power pulling your chest into the ground. When you finally raised your head, you saw Jason, as he was months before his death, standing before you on the steps.

“Jason…” You forced through gritted teeth. To your horror, when you blinked again, that image of Jason disappeared, replaced by a crumpled form on the stone steps before you. “Jason!” You cried out. Panic flooded your body, propelling you to crawl up the steps toward where he lay. Slowly, agonizingly, you gripped his shoulder and turned him over. Your eyes widened when you saw his clear blue eyes framed by a tattered domino mask.

It was then that you realized that he was dressed in the Robin suit you had seen in photos and blurry vigilante-chasing videos while you were in high school. Your panic and desperation peaked when you saw how his body was broken and bloodied, fresh bruises blooming all over his youthful face and the skin exposed by the tears in the Robin costume.

“Help…me…” He croaked out, and you felt your heart split.

“Jason, stay with me, please,” You rasped, clutching his bare hand, his gloves lost in a melee you never knew he’d fought in. You could feel the sticky, congealed blood—was it his? Or someone else’s?—coating his palm and seeping into every groove and crevice in his skin.

Free me.

The voice returned, compelling you to turn your gaze skywards. At the top of the stairs, which you once thought had no end, was a purple glow.

Free me!

The voice seemed to echo from there, the owner of the voice still obscured from where you were sprawled.

“Please, I can’t let you go…please…” You begged. Jason’s grip on your hand waned as your grip on his tightened. You couldn’t stop the tears from flowing as you screamed,

“JASON!”

Wayne Manor

10:48:39 AM ET

“JASON!” You cried out. Your arms shot forward, outstretched, and you pitched forward into a sitting position. The covers were disheveled and your pillow was on the floor.

A strong grip caught your flailing arms as you reached out desperately, breathing heavily as your heart hammered in your chest.

“Easy now, I’ve got you,” Jason’s warm, deep voice soothed you as he let go of your wrists to pull you closer into his arms. Your shoulders shook as he ran a comforting palm up and down your shoulder blades, yet your heart refused to slow as the world came back into focus.

When you finally pulled back from the embrace, your heart was still thumping wildly. Pinpricks of heat rose in your cheeks and tinting your ears.

“Jason, you…actually stayed for the whole night?” Now it was Jason’s turn to flush with embarrassment. “I thought you would…”

“Leave?” Jason interrupted. “I slept like a rock.” Truthfully, it had taken Jason at least an hour to tune out the feeling of liquid fire coursing in his veins when he lay next to you. He shifted his gaze to the bedside table, where the vintage clock read 10:48. At the base of the clock was a handwritten note in Bruce’s script.

Sleep in. BB is covering your routes. Come see me after breakfast.

—B.

Jason cracked a small half-smile at the slip of paper. He made a mental note to bring Cass some takeout the next time they went on patrol together as thanks.

You opened your mouth to say something, but the words died on your tongue when Jason’s gaze returned to yours.

Odd, you thought. You thought his eyes were blue, not green.

“Are you hungry?”

“I’m starving,” You answered. You hadn’t eaten since your lunch break back at STAR Labs, nearly twenty-four hours earlier. You’d elected to skip dinner that night so you could spend an extra-long session running tests in the Coffin, but of course, things just had to go awry.

“Come on, then,” Jason got off the bed—he’d slept on the covers, you noticed—and offered you a hand. “I’m sure Alfred’s prepared something good.”

You followed Jason out of the bedroom and down the long corridors, reaching the Manor’s grand staircase where the late morning sun was already filtering through the windows. Their curtains had been drawn by a single, faithful butler every morning without fail.

“Hey, is everything alright? I heard screaming and—wait a second!” You caught sight of a blonde stopped in her tracks at the foot of the stairs, dressed in what looked like a purple stealth suit with a flowing cape and hood. “Jason, who the hell is she?” She called out, gaping at you both.

“Steph—” Jason began, but she cut him off.

“Oh, shit, I’m still in my gear! U-uh, don’t worry, I’m just a really dedicated cosplayer—”

“Steph, it’s okay!” Jason exclaimed. “She knows. It’s all good.”

“Oh, in that case, I’m Stephanie. I just got back from patrol, so I’m gonna go shower and I’ll join you guys for breakfast. Or is it brunch?”

“Nice to meet you, Stephanie,” You replied weakly, still wondering what Stephanie had to do with the Waynes—or the Bats. With an exasperated sigh that had no real aggression behind it, Jason led you down the stairs and into Wayne Manor’s bright and airy kitchen. The counters and cabinets were spotless and the enormous stove showed signs of frequent use but also careful maintenance. Freshly cleaned pots hung over the kitchen island where an astonishing breakfast spread was displayed.

“Sometimes I forget you guys are richer than God,” You whispered. “That looks like a week’s worth of my groceries.”

“Probably costs as much,” Jason whispered back. “Definitely took a while to get used to after growing up on Park Row.”

“We feed a large family here at Wayne Manor, Miss L/N.” Alfred materialized in the doorway, putting away a cloth he had been using to polish some silverware. “Please, help yourself.” You grinned as you set about putting together your breakfast, chasing away the stomach pangs with big bites of food.

“What did we do to deserve you, Alfred?”

“I ask myself that every day,” He replied dryly. “Enjoy, Miss L/N, Master Jason.” Alfred disappeared into the mansion, off to perform some obscure chore or aid the Bats with their operations.

Your focus returned to the ghost sitting across from you.

“So…what happened last night?” Jason asked. “Were you having a nightmare?”

“Something like that,” You mumbled, gluing your eyes to your breakfast plate. You didn’t dare mention that you saw him, right before his death, even though you had never witnessed it happen. “Probably a side effect of the infection.”

“What happened?” Jason asked, brows raised. “I thought the infection was done with. What did you see?” Your brow furrowed.

“Jason, why do you want to know so badly?” You replied defensively. In your peripheral vision, you could see Jason tense subtly. “I had a nightmare. I don’t remember what happened, only that I was scared and I panicked.”

Jason’s fork and knife rattled on the china.

“You’re lying.”

“So what if I am?” The hostility in your voice rose. “What happened last night is the least of my problems right now. I don’t want to talk about it.” Jason’s stool scraped against the kitchen’s immaculate floors.

“Fine then. Keep it to yourself,” Jason stalked out of the kitchen. You stood up swiftly, disturbing some of the dishes on the countertop.

“What—Jason, where are you going?” You shouted frustratedly at his retreating form. He didn’t turn around. You sat back down and put your head in your hands, feeling the turmoil grow inside of you. The emptiness Jason’s loss had created in your heart yawned, threatening to collapse like a sinkhole.

“I hate to intrude, but—.” You raised your gaze from behind your palms to see Stephanie, dressed in flannel bottoms and a Gotham University sweater. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just…forget it,” You sighed. “I don’t want to keep you from your breakfast.” At that, Stephanie filled her plate and took a seat next to Jason’s forgotten breakfast. “Did you see where Jason went?”

“He probably went off to the Batcave,” Stephanie replied. “You’ve been there, right?” You nodded.

“It was the first place he took me after I got here.”

“Where are you from?”

“Los Angeles, but I’m originally from Gotham. I grew up and went to school here.” Stephanie raised her brows.

“Is that how you met Jason?” You nodded again. “Huh. I guess that’s why we never met.”

“Are you part of the Wayne family?”

“What? No, I’m not a Wayne. I’m just…it’s complicated.” Stephanie laughed lightly. “My name is Stephanie Brown, but you can call me Steph. I used to date Tim, y’know, one of the Wayne kids. Keyword, used to. Now, I just work with the Waynes.” Something clicked in your head.

“I haven’t told you my name; I’m Y/N L/N, by the way. Do you work with the Bats under the alias of Spoiler?”

“Nice to meet you, Y/N. Yeah, I’m Spoiler. Do you follow Gotham vigilante news or something?”

“Sort of. I live and work in LA now, but I like to keep tabs on what’s going on in Gotham. Most of the stuff that comes my way ends up being updates on Batman and other vigilantes.”

“Then…whoa, what happened to your hands?” A grin broke onto your face as Steph’s eyes widened.

“I’m surprised you didn’t notice earlier,” You replied. “This is why I’m here.”

“What the hell?” She stood up, rounding the kitchen island to inspect your skin. “What happened to you?”

“What the hell is an understatement,” You joked. “Long story short, I got sick. I got treated here at the Cave, but it left…some lasting effects.”

“Do I even wanna know?”

“It’s so weird! My hands are like metal, but not. They feel normal, but I think they have the strength and properties of metal.” To demonstrate, you walked over to Steph’s almost-empty glass of orange juice and knocked your knuckles against the glass.

“Wow,” Steph breathed. “Duke’s gonna be so stoked that there’s another meta at the Manor.”

“Who’s Duke?” You inquired.

“Another Wayne kid, Duke Thomas. Bruce took him in not too long ago. He works the day shift, so he’ll be back later today.”

“Wow, Bruce has been busy collecting strays since I’ve been gone, huh?”

“You have no idea,” Steph laughed. “So, how did you get to know the Wayne family?”

“I met Jason in middle school, at Gotham Academy,” You answered. “I studied there on a STEM scholarship funded by Kane Industries. Jason and I became friends, I came over to the Manor a few times and met Mr.—I mean, Bruce. After Jason died, he paid for me to go to college and grad school.” You smiled sadly at the memory of finding a letter outside your dorm room in Bruce’s script. It was late in April of your senior year, just a few days before you were due to commit to your college of choice—and just a few days before the anniversary of Jason’s passing.

“Wow, I had no idea you went way back with the Waynes,”

“So do you, right?” You replied. “I guess we’re both, you know…bystanders to everything the Waynes have done.”

“I’d say we’re both victims of the Wayne drama. Us and Babs and probably Cass, too.” You laughed lightly, trying to mask your unease as the memory of Jason storming out of the kitchen came crashing back.

“Who’s Cass? And who’s Babs?”

“If you’re gonna stick around the Manor, you’ll meet them eventually.” Steph collected your empty plate and her own and dropped them in the sink with the silverware and glasses.

“Wait, let me—” Steph raised her hand, stopping you.

“It’s better if you didn’t. Alfred would never allow a guest to do the dishes in his house.” Grabbing your wrist, Steph led you out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into Bruce’s study.

“Are you taking me back into the Cave?” You asked.

“If I’m right, Jason is down there with Bruce right now. And if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll apologize to you.” Steph turned the clock hands and the front of the clock swung open to reveal a staircase. “Come on in.”

The Batcave

11:10:44 ET

“So, what do you think?”

“I think this equipment was distributed underground, Jason,” Bruce replied. “Whoever was running this operation knew what they were getting into. But that’s not what I want to focus on right now, because we can’t figure out anything if you don’t calm down first.”

“The fuck do you mean?” Jason bristled. “I haven’t done anything.”

“You might think I’m a bad father, but don’t think I can’t tell when you’re frustrated.” Bruce leaned in over the table covered in illegally-traded weaponry and equipment Jason had taken back from the Los Angeles break-in. “Tell me, Jason. What’s on your mind?”

“Why do you care now, of all times?”

“Because something’s clearly bothering you. I’m doing this because I want you in the best possible state of mind, for the sake of everybody, including yourself.”

“You can just say that you think I’m unstable, Bruce.”

“Just tell me, please. I want to help you fix whatever is bothering you.”

“Jason?” Jason’s eyes flitted up to a platform carved out of the formations of the Batcave. There, he spotted you and Steph.

“Y/N? Steph?” He called out. “What’s going on?”

“Jason,” You repeated, descending the steps to where he and Bruce stood. “I don’t—I can’t—I’m—” You stammered, struggling to translate your thoughts into speech. You started to fidget, not knowing where to place your hands or your gaze. “I’m sorry I was so defensive earlier. What happened last night was hard to process. I hope you can understand that Iwasn’tcomfortablenoughtotalkaboutitwithyouand—” You rambled, inhaling sharply. “—andI’msorryifImadeyoumad—”

“Y/N.” Bruce cut you off. “Breathe.”

“I—” Jason sighed deeply, running a hand down his face and grimacing. “Don’t be sorry. It’s my fault I got mad.”

“I feel like I’m thirteen again,” You complained. “I don’t know what to say.”

“If you’re thirteen, I must be ten. I shouldn’t have walked out on you. That’s the last thing you needed right then. I’m sorry.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen Jason apologize like that,” Steph whispered to Tim, who had floated over from the Batcomputer when you’d arrived. “Like, that’s totally different.”

“I know,” Tim hissed back. “They definitely have history.”

“Like…history?”

“Still,” Jason pulled a swivel chair away from a nearby terminal and sat down. Nervously, you took a seat across from him. “Will you tell me what happened? All I want is to make sure you’re okay.”

“It’s complicated.”

“That’s okay. Shit, when is anything not complicated?” Jason shifted his arm, as if to reach for yours, but at the last second his arm fell away to rest on the workstation you were sitting next to. “Take it slow. I’m not going anywhere.”

The Batcave

12:34:08 PM ET

“That’s all I know about the virus. I’ve only been on the team for a few months and the project’s fairly new. I was already crossing a line when I tried to investigate its origins and behavior even further on my own.”

“Still, it helps us figure out who might be interested in it, or why it’s been kept on the down low,” Said Tim Drake, spinning around in the chair in front of the Batcomputer. He looked to be no more than six years younger than you—twenty, maybe twenty-one. His eyes were tired, as if he had been awake all night, but analytical. You could see that behind them, his mind was constantly chugging away, considering different approaches and theories. You understood the feeling—of always contemplating something; of being in constant, restless motion and never being able to stop. “Oracle and Jason are doing their best to trace who sent those guys. Is there anything else that you don’t know that we could try and find?”

“STAR Labs has my work phone and my work computer, but…I kept all of my personal observations from my tests in a lab notebook that I kept at home. Maybe it would help if we had whatever data I managed to record in my notebook. If there’s anything else, it’ll be at STAR Labs, but I don’t think it would be a good idea for any of us to revisit that place now that it’s been…compromised.” You replied uneasily. “Speaking of which, the authorities still think I’m missing.” You raised your hands to show Tim. “And if I turn up again, they’re definitely gonna notice this.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna have to finesse this. When you inevitably reappear, we can cover up your skin easy enough,” Tim mused. “And we can definitely get a hold of your notebook. What else has changed?”

“Bruce and Jason told me I’m magnetic now.” Tim cocked an eyebrow.

“Huh…maybe it’s time to run a few tests.”

The Batcave

1:15:56 PM ET

An MRI, a blood test, and many, many fridge magnets later, you and Tim had reached a (potentially publishable) conclusion.

“So you are magnetic,” Said Tim. “Like, on-and-off, ‘cause this MRI is unreadable because of all the interference but it’s not like every piece of metal you walk by sticks to you.”

“Unless I really concentrate,” You added. “It’s like using the Force. Or whatever Magneto does.”

“It’s like you’re Dr. Polaris or something.” Tim muttered.

“What? Who’s that?”

“Oh, sorry. He’s some Green Lantern villain.”

“You know Green Lantern?” You blinked owlishly at Tim.

“It’s a long story.” He sighed.

“Okay, you nerds,” Steph appeared beside you, holding what looked like pieces of body armor from her Spoiler suit. “Time for some field testing.” You followed her to the side of the Batcave where an array of training apparatuses had been set up—punching bags, weight racks and machines, life-size dummies, the works.

“Field testing?” You echoed.

“Yup.” Falling into a fighting stance, Steph strapped on a blocking pad meant for sparring and held it in front of you. “Punch it, not me, to be clear.”

“ Punch it?” You said incredulously. “I don’t…I’ve never…” You faltered.

“Don’t worry! Chances are, you won’t hurt me. This stuff’s built to withstand a lot. I’m already wearing my gauntlets, too.” You made a face and wound up, landing the punch half-heartedly on the cushioned, reinforced material.

“That all you got? Punch it, hard as you can.”

“Okay,” You replied uneasily. “Here goes.” You drew your fist back again and swung with all your might, and yelped when the impact produced a louder sound that you’d expected and made Steph stumble back.

“Y/N? You okay?” Jason called out from where he and Bruce were communicating with Oracle, who was stationed at the Belfry.

“Y/N? Why isn’t anyone asking if I’m okay?!” Steph argued, tossing aside the blocking pad. “Holy shit! I was not prepared for that. Not the first time I’ve been punched by a super. You never get used to the feeling, though.”

“I…I had no idea I could do that.”

“Are you kidding? You’ve got fists of steel…literally. That virus definitely did something to you.”

“We’ll know more once I get a biopsy and more scans. In the meantime, maybe try the punching bag instead of Steph.” Tim remarked, walking over to you and Steph.

“Wait, try this first,” Steph hurried over to a corner of the Cave and returned with a piece of wood. You suspected it to be part of a crate.

“She’s not some black belt martial arts master…” Tim grinned mischievously. “...hit it as hard as you can.”

From across the cave, the sound of splintering wood made Bruce and Jason jump.

“Holy shit!” You yelled.

“Are you okay? Do you have any splinters?!” Steph exclaimed, holding the crate lid, now split into two jagged pieces where you tried to smack-slash-karate-chop it. Tim grabbed one piece and raised it as if to smash it over your still-outstretched fist, and you held your hand still, bewildered. Upon impact, the wood was reduced to smithereens, only a small piece left in Tim’s hands. You had barely felt the impact on your hand.

“No! Yes! I mean, no! No, my hand’s fine!” You stared at your hand, all shiny and discolored, with wonder. “What the hell is wrong with me?” Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Tim approaching with a sheet of metal. “Oh, don’t you fucking dare … ”

~~~~~~~~~~I REALLY NEED A BETTER DIVIDER HELP~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jason, walking past Y/N, Tim, and Steph: …what are you guys doing? Y/N, covered in fridge magnets: *peels off a magnet saying “I Beat The Riddler And All I Got Was This Stupid Magnet”* Y/N: Um…scientific experimentation?

[A/N]: LOL the ending of this chapter is so unserious I swear, I couldn't have pulled this off without all of the kind comments and support. Yall are amazing ♥️ Thanks again for reading! x

~~~~~~~~I MEAN IT THIS LOOKS SO WEIRD ON MOBILE~~~~~~~~~~

See You Again taglist:

@witchymomfrien

If you would like to join the taglist for this fic, let me know in the replies!

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #red hood #red hood x reader #jason todd x you #red hood x you #dcu

31 notes · View notes

avonne-writes · 3 months

Note

"#he can’t be a simple mortal#gale cleven" reminds me of the angel au, which is my fav of all of your ideas (though there's tough competition in there!), and those tags got me wondering if you'd like to talk more on that au? for example, what would buck and bucky's interactions look like? if gale can't be seen or talk to john, how would john become aware of him? (i have high hopes for your creativity in that matter, given the beautiful liminal spaces you created in reverie) also, can gale look for emotional support from angel friends when things start going sideways? and who are the higher-ups who assign him to john? and as for john, when/if he becomes aware of gale, what does that do to his belief system and his many superstitions? (so many questions, feel free to ignore any or all of them, i'll keep waiting patiently for the story, no worries)

Thank you so much, I’m so happy that you like the angel AU! It’s on my list, but I needed a break from heavy multichapters after Reverie.

Great questions! 😊 (here's a drabble previously posted in this verse)

From the ethereal plane, Gale is able to interact with the human plane in various ways, mainly through nature (wind, warmth etc.), sensations (a caress), chance (creating "coincidences" for example) and suggestions that the human interprets as their own thoughts. He can also attune himself to particular humans and sort of listen in on their thoughts. Some angels are better at these, others are not so talented.

The problem with Bucky is that his previous guardian fucked up and Bucky is now resistant to angelic influence. He ignores it or straight-up acts against it. After a while, Gale figures out that Bucky only responds to humans. So, he has to appear as a human too.

Gale also hugs and touches Bucky a lot from the ethereal plane. Whenever Bucky is particularly lonely or upset. It’s a calming sensation that helps Bucky breathe/sleep/cry, whichever he needs. He doesn’t feel it as a touch and it's different for Gale too. Gale is not used to touch on the human plane and he would shy away from it at first.

Gale has angel friends. The most important one is Benny. They meet up sometimes, talk about their humans and race each other flying. Gale is also higher ranking than a lot of other angels and he can give orders to lower ranking ones.

I haven't decided about Gale's higher ups yet. Probably OC versions of actual angels. This is a challenge I need to figure out for the ending of the story.

Excellent question about Bucky's belief system - my current hc is that he developed his superstitions in the first place because of the botched job his previous guardian did. Basically, Bucky tuned in on the angelic influence and started to try to make sense of it and take control of it. A part of him feels triumphant when he learns the truth, there's a sense of knew it! in his mind. But he also feels like a huge gap opened between him and Gale and it devastates him. He plummets into despair because he doesn’t Gale the angel, only Gale the human.

The storyline and the details of this world are still a work in progress, but these are my current ideas. Thanks for the ask! 🩷

#buck x bucky #mota #clegan #john egan #gale cleven #fallen angel au

36 notes · View notes

rapha-reads · 2 months

Text

IWTV rewatch

(fascinated by the choices made between books and show so I gotta study them like bugs under a microscope. Spoilers for the whole show and the books)

Season 1 episode 6 [Like Angels Put In Hell By God] - part 1/2

- [Louis] "Excruciating pain was the proof I was still alive." - that's one way of confirming proof of life.

- [Daniel] "'He could fly?' [Louis] 'Yes.' [Daniel] 'Like Superman?' [Louis] 'Not like Superman. Superman is a fictional character.' [Daniel] 'But in the air, with a 'fuck you to Newtonian physics' flying?' [Louis] 'He said it was more like floating, arising at will, propelling in a direction by the decision. He called it the cloud gift.'"

Love how Louis is adamant in pointing the difference between Lestat and Superman: one's fictional, the other is very much real. No fiction here, no sir-e. And hello canon callback, the Cloud Gift.

- [Daniel]"That's the voice of Doctor Fareed Bhansali." - EXCUSE ME. WHAT. WHO. HOW. WHAT. Filed under things that mean nothing to the non-book readers but will make the book readers lose their minds.

- [Louis] "Are you still dreaming about our first meeting, Daniel?" - I'm gonna go ahead and say, yeah, from what we know of that meeting now, that's definitely the stuff of dreams. Bad dreams, that is.

- [Daniel] "Can you fly, Louis?" - helloooo PTSD.

- [Louis] "I suppose he thought if he exposed all his power to me, I would never feel his equal and the relationship would suffer." -… Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that exactly what it came to be? Also, in book canon, Lestat doesn't like using the Cloud Gift. It's very tied in with Akasha and the abuse he goes through at her hands, and he resents that loss of control and bigger divide between him and humanity.

[Daniel] "'He only beat me the one time, Officer. It's not his fault.' Classic Stockholm, eh, Doc?" - still tripping over the fact that THAT'S Doctor Fareed, oh shit, 1, he's hot, 2, THAT'S FAREED BHANSALI. Oh, and also, Daniel is right and he should say it. But also he doesn't have all the facts, which are 1, we love Lestat, 2, one murder attempt kinda makes up for it, they're even now, and 3, "memory is a beast".

- [Louis] "Are we the sum of our worst moments? Can we be forgiven if we do not forgive others ourselves?" - THIS. I don't have more comments, just this, so much.

- Oof. Welcome to physical therapy. As a vampire, that must be excruciating.

- [Louis] "'If you ever wanna talk about what happened to you while you were gone, you know you can, right?' [Claudia] 'Uh-huh.' [Louis] 'Or you could just tell me his name, write it on a scrap of paper.' [Claudia] 'You gonna be my knight in vengeful black?' [Louis] 'I am the knight.'" >> 80 years later, "I own the night", we love character development when the seeds are planted from the beginning. And puns, we love puns too.

- [Lestat] "The Book of Hours, extremely rare, 15th century. Silver and gold in the vellum, palettes of blue and old rose." - I want that book so bad… Ahem. I mean, nope, forgiveness will not be bought by gifts, no matter how impressive or expensive.

- [Lestat] "Perhaps we should let him decide if he wants to see me or not." - I think the coffin flying out of the window is a very clear answer.

- You know what, I'm ready to incorporate in my belief system that Emily Dickinson is a vampire. After all, s2 already said Samuel Beckett is. Let's add the Brönte sisters to the list too. Not the Austens tho, I don't think so.

- I love how mature Claudia looks in that hairdo.

- [Lestat] "I'm nothing without both of you." - sweetie, you need to grow an independent self.

- [Louis] "For six years in all, these raw and desperate mea culpas came like the tide. And for six years, they were greeted with silence or fire. We burned more gifts than bodies in that decade, but they would not stop coming. And Lestat's relentless determination began to crack my considerable armor. Perhaps it was the modesty of the gesture. But in the spring of 1937, one broke through."

If they were real people, I'd say" girl, no, run, stop". But the beauty of fictional characters is that the more messed up, the more compelling, and I am on the edge of my seat getting ready for Lestat to come crawling back and for Louis to fall even harder.

- Aaaaaaaaaah, Lestat singing!!!! Rockstar Lestat wheeeeeeeeeeeeeen.

- [Louis] "The audacity of it all was matched only by its sincerity" - that's the definition of Lestat, that here.

- [Louis] "Six years of begging, you think a song's gonna get a rise out of me?" -… Babe, you just swam the Mississipi and broke down a door, I'd say he managed it.

Also, hello again, Sam Reid's training routine. Man, that chest.

[Louis] "Write me a song and put your lover's voice in it?" - I don't know if I wanna applaud Lestat's boldness or rip his heart out for his casual cruelty.

Sorry Antoinette, nobody ever holds a candle to Louis in Lestat's eyes…

- [Daniel] "'You took Lestat back.' [Louis] 'The vampire bond. There is no human equivalent.' [Daniel] 'Lover, murderer, maker. You took him back.' [Louis] 'It's a bond than can never be fully severed. A bond like that makes you believe there's only the two of you on the planet.'"

Daniel Molloy season 1: giiiirl he's abusive and violent and a cheating liar, why would you take him back?

Daniel Molloy season 2: never mind, better the guy who loves you and would have died to save you even though he's the one that broke you than the psycho besides you who's been lying for 80 years and is the reason your daughter's dead, I am now the number one Loustat defender.

Mate, same.

- I am absolutely mesmerised by Louis's eyes in this episode. Oh, boy, how is he so, so beautiful.

- "His name was Magnus. He took me from my room in Paris, as I kicked and screamed. He kept me for a week, locked in a room full of corpses - some freshly killed, some bloated and black. But they all looked like me - my coloring, my physique. My own eyes staring back at me from rotting faces. He fed on me every night. And then he put me back in the tower with the look-alike corpses. I thought for sure I'd be one of them, but instead he turned me into this. No grand history of vampiric origins or physiology, no rules, no counsel. Just a sweeping hand to a pile of money and the sight of him throwing himself into a fire. And then I was alone. I thought… 'I can't drink hot blood. I can't feed on others.' I cried. I called to God. I didn't want this. But I have a capacity for enduring. It's why I don't particularly like being abandoned."

Aah, this is such a fascinating moment. Lestat is trying so hard to remain impassive and neutral, but his voice wavers all through the story, and his gaze is distant and clouded when he recounts the worst parts, his fear, his loneliness. And then Louis looking at him with so much compassion and so much pain, fully empathising, and Claudia, even though she also feels some modicum of pity, immediately looking to Louis and seeing that he's fully back to loving Lestat, and for his sake, for his sake only, she agrees to Lestat coming back… Beautiful.

And then when you think about Lestat's origins as a vampire (and we haven't even touched on his human history because damn that part too is hard), enduring is really his main trait. He's a survivor. In every meaning of the word. Survivor of rape, because that's what his turning is, survivor of several types of abuse going back all the way to his childhood, survivor of his own demons,… As Louis said, are we the sum of our worst moments? In Lestat's case, I feel like the answer is clearly "no. We are the sum of how much we're trying. We mess up at times, we fail, we hurt each other - but we keep trying our best and we keep trying to stay true to ourselves and we make amends and we recognise our faults".

A pause, here. Breathe. And then onto part 2.

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #iwtv amc #amc iwtv #iwtv s1 #iwtv rewatch #episode reaction #like angels put in hell by god #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #claudia de pointe du lac #armand de romanus #daniel molloy #loustat #rapha talks #rapha watches shows

27 notes · View notes

matttgirlies · 5 months

Text

Matt & Me🎀

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

a story heavily based on Priscilla Presley’s Book “Elvis & Me” based in the 1950’s - 1970’s.

fem! reader x singer! matt

disclaimer!! - in no way am i saying matt would ever support or do these kind of things, for the sake of the book certain unethical things do happen at times.

warnings - small mention of drug use

y/nn = your nickname in case your confused🩷

Chapter 6

It was after three o’clock the next afternoon when Matt called. “Alan’s on his way to pick you up,” he said. Alan Smith was another of his employees.

When we arrived at Matt’s house, I found him upstairs dressing. As soon as he saw me, he kissed me and asked, “How would you like to go to Las Vegas? We could really have fun and I could show you around my favorite places.” Not understanding his contradiction regarding my staying with the Barrises the night before, and feeling uneasy asking any questions, I answered, “I’d love to. When?”

“Tonight. We’ll load up the bus and head out about midnight, arrive in the morning, sleep all day, and see the shows and party all night.”

Excitement was in the air—Las Vegas. I’d never dreamed of going there and I really didn’t know what to expect. Actually, I really didn’t care where we went as long as I was with him.

I had two immediate concerns. One, I didn’t know if I could afford—or at my age should even wear—the glamorous clothes suitable for Vegas, but Matt said not to worry, Alan would take me shopping that afternoon.

It was a strange experience, shopping with someone I barely knew, particularly a man. He seemed as uncomfortable as I but assured me we would find something. He was familiar with all of the boutiques and took me to Saks Fifth Avenue as well.

As I selected a couple of outfits I worried about my other concern: the promised daily letter to my parents. How would I explain Las Vegas postmarks? I couldn’t. But I could prewrite letters for the time we were gone, number them one through seven, and have Arnold mail them from Los Angeles daily. My problems were solved. On to Las Vegas!

That evening Matt’s front lawn was alive with activity. There seemed to be people everywhere. The huge bus that George Barris had custom-designed for Matt stood in the driveway. The guys streamed in and out of it, loading suitcases, records, a stereo system, and cases of Pepsi-Cola. All the preparations and excitement made it look as if Matt were moving out, but in fact he always traveled this way. He was still uneasy about flying—a fear he later conquered—and felt much more relaxed driving. Because we didn’t know how long we’d stay, Alan and Gene Smith brought along whatever Matt enjoyed, so he would feel as comfortable as if he were at home. I was happy. It was the first time we’d be together without restrictions or curfews.

Just before midnight, they all gathered around the big bus; it was time to say goodbye to any visitors the regulars were leaving behind.

Matt was dressed in a white shirt, black pants, black racing gloves, and his everpresent yachting cap. As we pulled away, he yelled out the window, “We shall return,” and we hit the highway for Las Vegas, Nevada. I didn’t know what I was headed for, but I loved the idea of adventure.

And I felt proud; there was Gene to my right, me in the center, and Matt driving. I learned that Matt always preferred driving at night; it was cooler and there was less traffic. He came alive at night. There was a big difference between the daytime Matt and the nocturnal Matt. When the sun went down another personality took over, and on this particular night he was in great form. On a break between films, away from Colonel William, free of pressures and responsibilities, he could relax and play.

On the way to Vegas we all listened to music, nibbled on snacks, and drank Pepsis. In the front seat, Matt and Gene joked in their own language. Matt would say something and Gene would reply with completely made up words. When conversation lagged, they engaged in surprise attacks, punching each other. If Gene thought he’d landed a good one, he’d take off running toward the back of the bus, aware that Matt could always pull over and chase him.

These antics continued throughout most of the exhausting drive across the desert. I felt out of sync with the private jokes and crazy high jinks. It was quite obvious that the boys picked up on Matt’s every mood. I did not yet fit in.

Las Vegas

We arrived in Las Vegas around seven in the morning. I was tired and falling asleep when Matt called out, “We’re comin’ into Vegas. Look around—all you see is hotels. It’s called Sin City. Isn’t that right, Smiff?” Gene mumbled one of his silly replies and Matt laughed as usual.

The Strip looked quiet. There were a lot of taxis, some cars, and a few tired people strolling along the streets. I noticed it was extremely hot for 7 a.m., especially since it was only June.

We checked into the Sahara Hotel and to my amazement, despite the early hour, people were everywhere. Matt pointed to the casino, noisy with the rhythmic sounds of the slot machines, the sporadic ringing of bells, and an occasional yell from the craps tables.

“Is this normal?” I asked Matt.

“Honey, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Wait till tonight,” he replied.

That wouldn’t be easy. Despite being tired, I stood fascinated, watching the gamblers clustered at the various tables and the slot machines. Matt took my arm. “Come on, Baby. Let’s go up to the room. There’ll be plenty of time for this later. We better get some rest.”

We followed the bellboy to the suite, and the entourage efficiently began arranging the rooms to Matt’s liking. They unpacked his clothes, placing them neatly in his closet, lining up his shoes by color, and setting out his toiletries in the bathroom. In the living room, they set up his record player and speakers, lowered the lights to create the right atmosphere, and turned on all the television sets.

“Why do you always have the TV on?” I asked Matt.

“It keeps me company,” he said. “When it’s on, I feel like there are people around.”

He despised entering a quiet room, and soon I too adopted the habit of automatically turning on the TV whenever I walked into a room.

An hour later the assistants had the suite looking lived in, with everything in its proper place. Matt said good night to the boys and cautioned them not to wake us too early. He locked the bedroom door and got undressed and into bed. As I climbed in beside him, I noticed that he was taking a number of prescribed sleeping pills, but I didn’t pay much attention to them. I wasn’t knowledgeable enough even to suspect any potential threat.

I lay there blissfully happy: Finally we were able to spend an entire night sleeping together.

Matt was looking at me. “Do you believe this, Baby? After all this time, here you are. Who’d ever have thought we’d pull this off? Let’s not even think about you going back. We’ll have a good time. We’ll think about the other when the time comes.”

His words were starting to slur. His reactions slowed down. He pulled me closer and told me, again and again, “I’m glad you’re here . . .” And then—silence. I looked over at the bottles of pills near the bed and realized I still had competition.

When I awoke the next afternoon, I looked over at Matt and snuggled against him as closely as I could. He put his arms around me, holding me as he slept. I studied his eyebrows, his long black eyelashes, his perfect nose, and his beautiful, full mouth. After a while I ached from lying in the same position but I didn’t move; it might wake him.

I thought about the pills he had taken earlier. They mystified me but I felt Matt must know what was best for him and I decided to put the matter out of my mind.

He must have sensed that I was staring at him; he suddenly opened his eyes and started to laugh. “What are you doing? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were putting a hex on me.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said, embarrassed that he’d caught me studying him. “I guess I’m too excited.”

Sitting up, he said, “Well, Little Girl, the first thing I need is a cup of black coffee. Press number four on the intercom and tell Billy to order us some breakfast. He knows what I like and just tell him what you want. Tell him to have it here in half an hour and to make sure the coffee’s hot.”

Getting out of bed, he flipped on the TV and walked into the bathroom. A moment later he stuck out his head and grinned. “Get dressed, Little One, I want to show you off a little.”

That was all I needed to hear. I jumped out of bed and ran into my bathroom to get ready. As I dressed in a casual summer outfit I could hear music coming from the living room. I cracked open the adjoining door and was surprised to see all the boys up and dressed, with breakfast set up on the dining-room table.

I finished combing my hair and walked out to the living room, where the guys greeted me with friendly smiles and hellos. Matt wasn’t there yet, so no one had begun eating. Everyone was pretty quiet. Although it was after four in the afternoon, it seemed like early morning.

About fifteen minutes later, Matt came into the room, all dressed up in a three-piece suit, and I realized that nothing in my wardrobe was suitable. He walked over to the stereo and put on his latest record, saying he’d just finished a recording session and wanted me to hear the songs. Then we all sat down for breakfast.

It was fun hearing his recordings before they were released to the public. He asked me what I thought of each song, and since I knew what the kids back in Europe were listening to, I felt my comments might be helpful. At least I wanted to believe they were. “I really like the fast-paced ones,” I said, “like ‘Jailhouse Rock.’ Why don’t you record more songs like that? These don’t seem as much like rock and roll as your earlier records.”

Matt shot me a look of such pure disgust that I was petrified. “Goddamn it,” he snapped. “I didn’t ask for your opinion on what style I should sing. I asked if you like the songs, that’s all—yes or no. I get enough amateur opinions as it is. I don’t need another one.” He got up and stalked into the bedroom and slammed the door. Trying to regain my composure, I fought back tears. I was embarrassed and confused. What was wrong with what I’d said? How could that upset him so?

Luckily, the boys had already left the table and were all doing odd jobs or were in another room. I didn’t know if any of them had heard Matt’s tirade, but I didn’t want to face them. I knew Matt had a temper—I had witnessed it in Germany—but never before had he directed it at me.

Slowly I rose from the table, wondering where to go. Matt’s bedroom door was still tightly shut and, although I was sharing his room, I hesitated to go in for fear he’d start yelling. Not knowing what else to do, I sat down next to the albums and started going through them, pretending to look interested. Soon I heard the bedroom door open and saw Matt standing in the doorway. He motioned to me to come over. Reluctantly, I put back the records and walked into the room, fearful of what he was going to say. He closed the door, sat me down on the edge of the bed, and—to my surprise—began to apologize: “I’m sorry, Baby. What happened before really had nothing to do with you. I just finished that recording session and it’s pretty damn good compared to what they usually want me to do for these movies.”

He talked more about his last film, the story line, the songs, the dialogue, all of which he thought were inane. _ I was beginning to understand some of his frustrations and dissatisfaction. I remembered our talks in Germany. Matt had been proud of his film accomplishments before entering the Army. He had talked hopefully about doing movies with more substance and fewer songs.

“y/nn, from now on I plan to keep my singing career and my acting career strictly separate.” He believed he was capable of performing more demanding roles than he was getting, and to prepare himself, he still studied certain actors whom he admired, such as James Dean in Giant and Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront and The Wild One.

“But I keep getting offered the same musicals, same story lines,” he complained, “and they’re getting worse and worse.”

His biggest problem was that these films and their soundtrack albums were always huge hits.

Shaking off his serious mood, he grabbed my hand and said, “Come on, Baby, we’re goin’ shopping.” This was Matt’s way of making up for his outburst, but it took me a little while to get over it. Forcing an enthusiastic smile, I went along. I was beginning to understand how everyone’s mood played off Matt.

Taking Gene and Alan with us, we jumped into a waiting limo and rode around until Matt spotted a boutique where glamorous gowns made of sequins, lace, and frills graced the beautiful mannequins in the window. He called out to the driver, “Let’s stop here.”

Taking my hand, he led me inside, followed by the entire entourage, surely the most unlikely band of characters ever to invade an elegant dress shop. The salesgirl was speechless.

“Hello, ma’am. I’m Matt Sturniolo and we’re just looking around. Maybe you could show us something that might interest my little friend over there.”

They both looked over at me. The look on the clerk’s face told me we were thinking the same thing: These clothes were far too sophisticated for such a young girl. But when Matt saw something he liked, he didn’t think in terms of age. While the saleswoman went to the back to rummage around for whatever she had in sizes six and four, Matt was rifling through the racks, pulling out a number of dazzling creations, asking me which ones I liked.

��They’re all beautiful,” I said. “I just don’t know how I’d look in them.”

“You let me be the judge of that,” he said, winking at Gene, who mumbled one of his made up words. We all dissolved into fits of laughter that brought the shopgirl rushing back with a huge selection of dresses. Matt designated his preferences and said, “Try them on. And pick out any others you like.”

Thrilled, I chose a half-dozen gowns with matching shoes and headed for the dressing room. The salesgirl followed. Away from Matt’s eyes she treated me like a little kid, but I was so enchanted with the clothes that I didn’t care.

As I posed in front of the mirror in a long black jersey gown and a pair of gold highheeled sandals, I hardly recognized myself. I definitely appeared older, very sexy and very sophisticated.

As I stepped out of the dressing room, the salesgirl mumbled, “Not bad for a kid.” Matt took one look and said, “Hot damn, we’ll take it.”

We stayed for over two hours, while Matt bought me not only the black sheath, but also a midnight blue satin, several lovely silks and chiffons, and a beautiful baby-blue brocade gown, all accented by matching capes and bags and shoes.

When we left the shop we found a crowd had gathered. Matt glanced at Alan, who immediately disappeared. Then he gave a number of people his autograph, said goodbye, and Gene quickly led us through the back of the shop and out the door, where Alan was waiting with the car ready to take us to the hotel.

Back at our suite, Matt said, “I’m hungry. Nate, order me a steak, but make sure you tell them well done. What do you want, Honey?”

“Hell, M,” Matt said, “I always tell them well done.”

“Well, tell them again,” Matt shot back. “I’ll be goddamned if it doesn’t always come back half raw.”

To Matt, raw was slightly pink. Everyone specified “burnt” when ordering for him.

Matt turned to Alan and said, “Hog Ears” (he had pet names for all his employees), “make arrangements for Red Skelton’s midnight show, and see if there’s anyone in the hotel who can do y/nn hair and makeup.”

“Hair and makeup?” I said. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

It was long and y/hc, casually combed. But beyond feeling he didn’t like my hair, now I began to think he didn’t like my looks.

“There’s nothing wrong with it, honey. It’s just that this is Las Vegas. Everyone has their hair done. You need to apply more makeup around your eyes. Make them stand out more. They’re too plain naturally. I like a lot of makeup. It defines your features.”

Defines your features? At that time it made a lot of sense—and Matt knew best.

While we waited for dinner, Matt put one of his records on the stereo and sat next to me, singing along with his own voice on the record. In that moment I fell in love all over again. When he sang about lost love or a life lived out in grief and pain, he delivered the lyrics with such conviction that I’d feel the hurt. He’d been a fan of country music since long before it became popular and was always impressed by the raw emotion in those recordings.

After dinner we got ready for the evening. At Matt’s request, Armond, a hairdresser at the hotel, came in and spent nearly two hours creating my new look. He teased and twisted up my hair with one long curl falling in front of my left shoulder. Then he applied my makeup so heavily that you couldn’t tell if my eyes were black, blue, or black and blue. It was that look of the sixties, only more extreme. That was what Matt wanted.

When I put on my brand-new brocade gown, my transformation from an innocent sixteen-year-old to a sophisticated siren was complete. I looked like one of the lead dancers in the Folies-Bergère.

“Goddamn, what happened to Little y/nn,” Matt said when he saw me. “You look beautiful. Nate, come here. Look what I found.”

Nate walked in and did a double take.

“Sure doesn’t look like the same girl we met in Germany, wearing a sailor dress,” Nate said.

Everyone laughed, and we left to see Red Skelton’s midnight show.

We arrived just after the lights went down, and the maître d’, using a flashlight, quickly led us to our table. Matt always tried to arrive unnoticed so he wouldn’t distract attention from the headlining star. But word always spread throughout the audience that he was there and within a few seconds, the whispering would start and heads would turn.

At the end of a show Matt would try to exit just before the house lights went up, but on that night we didn’t make it. The lights came on and suddenly we were surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd of people pushing and shoving, hoping to get an autograph.

Being just under five foot five, I was engulfed in the crush and I began to feel faint. I reached out for Matt as I started to panic and said, “I can’t breathe. I have to get out.”

At first he grinned, then his look turned to concern as he saw my desperation. Still smiling and signing autographs, he said to Alan, “Get y/nn out quick. I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

Alan took one look at me, grabbed my hand, and pushed his way through the crowd, out of the hotel. Once in the fresh air, I regained my composure. From that experience I learned to scout out the exits whenever Matt and I entered a crowded room.

When we came out a few minutes later, like clockwork, the limo was waiting. We jumped in and sped off to the Sahara Hotel for my first adventure in gambling. Matt wasn’t a serious player—it didn’t matter if he won or lost. He played for the fun of it. A cigar jutting impressively from his mouth, a drink in one hand, and his eyes squinting suspiciously at the cards, he gave a flawless impersonation of Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. I sat proudly beside him, his very own Scarlett O’Hara.

I’d never played blackjack before, but after a few hands, Matt thought I had the hang of it. He handed me five hundred dollars and jokingly said, “You’re on your own, kid. What you win is yours, and what you lose . . . well, we’ll have to discuss that later.”

I smiled and called for the dealer to include me in the game. I looked at my hand, counting on my fingers under the table. Nine plus eight is seventeen, then a five makes . . .

“Twenty-one!” I shouted. Throwing down my cards, I looked over to Matt for his approval.

“Let’s see,” he said, slowly scooping up the cards. Squinting one eye, he counted them. Then, leaning over to me, he grinned and whispered, “Sorry, Baby. It’s twenty-two.”

I was so embarrassed that I excused myself and took refuge in the ladies’ room. When I gathered up the courage to return, I tried again, and luckily ended up winning two hundred dollars.

For the next two weeks, we slept during the day and played at night. If there was a show, we saw it; if there was a casino, we played it. To help me adapt to this fast-paced life-style and unusual hours I would join Matt and the others in taking amphetamines and sleeping pills. Despite whatever misgivings I had about pills, I took them. In order for me to keep up, they became essential.

I was adapting. My inhibitions were dropping away and I became more assertive, especially after taking the pills. I liked the feeling. Even though it was an escape from reality, we were in sync and to me I was fitting more into his world. We were learning all about each other and using this trip to make up for the two years we had been apart. Both of us were falling more in love—and avoiding any thought of the moment when we’d have to part again.

Excerpt from: "Elvis and Me" by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley. Scribd.

This material may be protected by copyright.

a/n - long long chapter todayyy🎀

#matt stuniolo fanfic #matthew sturn #matthew sturniolo #matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #sturniolo edit #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo imagine #sturniolo smut #sturniolo triplets #sturniolo x reader #nick sturniolo #Spotify

26 notes · View notes

louisupdates · 4 months

Text

[Translated from Spanish]

Louis Tomlinson in Chile: You infected us with your faith in the future

It's very confusing; how can we identify our favorite in One Direction? It is truly a difficult decision to make and clearly we can't stop thinking about the pop group of cute heartbreaking guys, but it is very clear that each one plays their best version on stage.

That was the case of Louis Tomlinson, who returned to our country on his Faith In The Future tour. After two years since his last visit, he stole sighs again, conquered with his messy hair, and took the breath of all the attendees by performing a powerful setlist full of surprises that reflect his influences in music, and also revived the success of what was one of the most important boy bands of recent times.

A few minutes passed from nine at night. In the middle of the numbing cold, all the lights of the Bicentennial Stadium in La Florida abruptly went out. Between scenographic fumes and the screams of a fan who woke up as if she were a monster, sirens began to sound and the screens were turning on one by one.

A mirror-effect Louis approaches us and writes on a scoreboard, ‘Faith In The Future,’ while his entire band positions itself to start the intro of The Greatest. In the middle of a "Sing it with me, Santiago!’, the pyrotechnics and crazy screams of a stadium warming up, a high-caliber show began.

"Kill my, kill my, kill my... you kill my mind," the audience chanted loudly as the fan action begins, the flash lights of the cell phones turned on and began to move impressively coordinated, I wonder: How did they do it? In a moment all the seats up and then the court down to end up together going up and down the lights creating an effect of fireflies dancing to the sound of one of the highest-grossing songs of Louis’ debut album Walls.

I think it was one of the most energetic beginnings of concerts I've seen in the first half of this 2024. It was a very special artist-public connection. Without being a devout fan, I ended up letting myself fall into the screams of a crazy teenager who gets excited for every first chord of the songs of their dream artist.

"Bigger Than Me", "Holding On To Heartache", and my favorite "Face The Music", continued to present Louis’ new works, but I think that reviving One Direction with "Drag Me Down" and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go", was the most appreciated climax by the attendees, firstly for being a selection very much in line with their tour and second because I think they will always be in our hearts as our favorites.

"This is fucking crazy, I mean it's cold, but I’m feeling really, really good on stage tonight, Chile": these were the words Louis expressed after seeing the uncontrollable energy of the public, that despite the fact that the enclosure was not full at its maximum, the voices multiplied as if their capacity was tripled.

For me, the surprises of the night were really the covers he performed. I mean that clearly the influence of these artists are part of his musical career, and listening to him live confirmed that Post Malone and Arctic Monkeys are on his playlist.

"Chemical" and "505" were presented at the Bicentennial and, as if they were Louis’ own. The public began to sing them from start to finish.

"Back To You", "Angels Fly" and "Out Of My System" ended a fluid and continuous concert, full of energy and insatiable screams. The dances and the fan action were present, but when the pyrotechnics were done and Louis shouted a dry, "Good Night!" and the lights of the whole stadium went out, the attendees wanted more.

"Louis, Louis, Louis, Louis!" We all shouted at the dim light of the stage. We wanted more, Luchito, please come back.

Between shouts he returned with his band to perform "Saturdays" and close with "Silver Tongues.” I honestly thought he had forgotten it, because it is one of the main singles of the latest album and as the song, "I don´t feel like going home" says, none of us wanted to leave.

The grand finale was simply a souvenir, between fireworks and a rain of feathers and red bows, Louis left the stage leaving a tear in the eye of more than one of us who were present. I don't know if you, but I kept thinking about why Tomlinson has a lot of faith in the future, becoming without a doubt one of my favorites.

Louis Tomlinson | Date: 05/24/2024

Place: La Florida Bicentennial Stadium

Producer: DG Media

Photographer:@cqphotographer

Journalist: Cristopher Orrego Jiménez

Photos: [x] [x] [x]

#louis tomlinson #louis press #louis review #24.5.2024 #fitfwt24: santiago

25 notes · View notes

thatlovinfeelin · 1 year

Text

Flightless Bird | eighteen | Bradley Rooster Bradshaw

Synopsis: Josephine Wilson Miller is alone for the first time in her life. She got married after her first year of college and became a housewife, but that life is gone now. So she runs to San Diego, to her childhood best friend Jake, where she meets the man who could very well be her salvation.

series warnings: unplanned pregnancy, just pregnancy in general, talks of infertility. past mental and emotional abuse. anxiety. talks of women's reproductive systems (idk)

“Mommy! Hurry up!” Wren said, dragging Jose behind her, “Auntie Nat twell her!”

Natasha only laughed and walked next to Jose. They were on their way from the parking lot to the tarmac for the airshow. Jake was set to be flying and Wren was begging to go see it. Although, Jose tried to normally stay away from Airshows in general just in case someone certain was there.

“So, I have some news,” Nat whispered to Jose.

“Oh?”

Natasha just smiled and twisted her wedding ring, something Jose noticed the female pilot did when she was a little anxious. Her and Jake got married two years prior in a small ceremony on the beach. Not to big and fussy, as both of them wanted simple friends and family. A certain Blue Angels pilot was not able to attend, so Coyote was Jake’s best man while Jose was the maid of honor, with little baby Wren as a little flower girl. It was beautiful and simple and perfect.

“You can’t tell anyone yet,” Phoenix stated, “But I’m pregnant.”

Jose stopped in her tracks, much to Wren’s dismay who let out a little wail and tried with all of her might to pull her mom forward.

“Oh my god, Nat!”

“Are you mad? I know you-”

“Mad? Oh my god no, I’m so happy for you!” Jose exclaimed, hugging the other woman, “Does Jake know yet?”

Natasha shook her head, “No I haven’t found the time to tell him yet.”

“How far along?”

“Six weeks? I think? I have a doctors appointment next week to confirm,” She explained, “But I’m so scared to tell Jake. We’ve talked about kids, but not yet.”

“Well, I’m assuming you weren’t using anything?” Jose asked carefully.

“We weren’t trying,” Nat swore, “But we weren’t not trying.”

Jose couldn’t help but laugh. That sounded like the most Jake and Natasha thing.

“I want Gampa Mav and Nenny,” Wren whined, snapping the two women out of their hug.

“Okay, let’s go munchkin.”

Wren was dressed in little combat boots, one of the flight jackets that Jose bought for her before she was born, and a pink tutu. She looked like a little combat princess as she strutted in front of Jose and Nat.

For a nearly four year old, she had a lot of personality. Maybe too much for her own good. But Jose loved her daughter with all of her heart. There wasn’t a thing in this world that she wouldn’t do for her.

“Thank you for coming today,” Nat nudged Jose with her shoulder, “I know it means a lot to Jake to have you guys here for this.”

Jake was set to be a part of a super important Legacy flight, one of the only f-18 pilots chosen. He couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks prior. Jose wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen him so excited for something related to work before.

“We couldn’t miss it,” Jose shrugged, “Wren wouldn’t let me.”

“Mama we see Unca Yake?” Wren asked.

Jose couldn’t help but smile at the way that Wren said Uncle Jake. They were still working on her speech, but the little munchkin was getting better and better every day.

“Yeah sweetheart, we’ll see him soon, I promise,” Jose replied, “But let’s find Gampa Mav and Nenny first, okay?”

She nodded enthusiastically and wiggled a little in Jose’s arms. Little Florence loved Maverick and Penny, now lovingly known and Gampa Mav and Nenny. They stepped right into the role of grandparents to Wren without a second thought. They were there to support Wren and Jose with no questions asked, even after Jose forced Braldey to leave.

They never once asked what happened between the two of them. Instead they just loved Jose and her little daughter with all of their hearts.

“Gampa Mav!” Wren wiggled out of Jose’s arms and took off running towards the older pilot, “Nenny! Auntie ‘Melia!”

“Shit,” Jose cursed, chasing after her little girl.

Wren jumped into Mav’s arms, hugging the older man as tightly as she could. Mav laughed and hugged her back, not seeming to notice the fact that the little girl ran off without her mother. Penny was a little more attentive and scowled at the little girl as best as she could.

“Wren, what have I told you?” Jose was out of breath as soon as she reached them, “You need to stay with me!”

“But I saw Gampa Mav and Nenny.” The little girl blinked up at her mother, not seeming to understand.

“You can’t run off-”

“Mav! There you are!”

Jose froze. She didn’t dare turn to look at the source of the voice. A noise escaped her, sounding like a small wounded animal. She didn’t even check to see if they were going to be here today. Normally she checked every air show, but Jake was so excited that she was going to come and bring Wren.

“Bradley,” Mav said, handing Wren over to Phoenix who finally caught up, “Didn’t expect to see you until later.”

“I had a second and saw you guys over here.”

Wren looked at Bradley with wide eyes. He was in his blue and gold flight suit, looking like a hero in his own way. Wren was mesmerized by any pilots. She loved planes, and the people that flew them.

“You fwy pwanes?”

Bradley was stunned for a second. He finally realized who was standing next to Mav and Penny. She looked so different, and yet exactly the same. Her hair was longer, and she was thinner than he’d ever seen her. So much so it made him wonder if she was eating enough. But he didn’t have the right to worry about Josephine Wilson anymore, not when she kicked him out of her life.

“I uh-” He cleared his throat and directed his attention to the little girl in Phoenix’s arms.

Somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that this was the little baby he once loved with all of his heart. She was so much bigger, with wide eyes that mirrored her mother’s. She looked just like Jose. There’s no way that wasn’t her daughter. It made him want to cry. He loved her like a daughter and he missed out on so much of her life.

“Yeah, I do,” Bradley smiled at the little girl, forcing down the emotions. He leaned down so he was eye level with her, “See that blue and yellow plane over there?” he pointed down the way a little to where all of the Blue Angels were lined up, “That one is mine.”

“Woah,” She replied, “Auntie Nat can we go see?”

Nat carefully looked over at Jose, who still hadn’t allowed herself to look over at Bradley. Jose nodded quickly, watching as Nat along with Mav, Penny, and Amelia made their way towards the row of planes.

Jose swallowed the thick lump in her throat. She felt like she could cry. She always did her best to avoid Bradley at any event that the Blue Angels could be at. Jake always understood. He hated it, but he understood. She wanted to be mad at him for not warning her that he would be here today. She felt tricked and like her heart was going to explode.

“Jose.”

She closed her eyes and licked her dry lips before opening her eyes and turning to face him, “Hi Bradley.”

“It’s good to see you,” He said slowly, carefully even.

“Yeah, um, you too,” She replied, “You look good.”

“I am. Pensacola has been good for me,” He replied, voice sounding like gravel.

She nodded. She wasn’t sure what she expected him to say. What do you even say in a situation like this? How is she supposed to do this? How was she supposed to face Bradley, when all she wanted to do was be held by him again? She wanted to feel his lips on hers again. She wanted him more than she could dare to put into words.

“You look…nice,” Bradley had to force the words out. He wanted nothing more than to hold her.

“Try keeping up with a three year old, see how you look,” She responded quickly.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I genuinely meant you look nice.”

She looked down at her little sundress and sighed. She hated this feeling between them. This rift, the distance…whatever it was. She wanted to feel close to him again. But she didn’t know how she could ever feel close like she used to.

“She’s gotten so big,” Bradley was looking over his shoulder now, looking towards Wren, “She was so tiny when I left.”

“Bradley about what I-”

“Bradshaw! Time to get ready.”

His eyes closed as he took a deep breath. His shoulders squared before his eyes opened again and he was back to being Rooster. He forced a smile and held out his hand for Jose to shake. How do you even shake hands with the man you’re still madly in love with?

“Nice to see you again, Josephine. Look for me in the skies.”

She wanted to say more. Wanted to beg for his forgiveness. Wanted to beg for him…just for him to give her a second chance. But he was gone before she had the chance. He disappeared into the crowd of people like a leaf disappears in the wind.

Jose was still holding her breath when Natasha came back to stand next to her, “Mav has Wren. Are you okay?”

Jose’s eyes started to water, “I didn’t realize how much I missed him. And then he’s right here and I can’t say any of the things that I want.”

“You’ll get your chance,” Natasha assured her, “Now c’mon, Jake is up next. Don’t want to miss him.”

Later that night, Jose was sitting in her bed alone. Wren was staying with Jake and Natasha tonight, so the house was silent. Jose didn’t quite know what to do with herself. So she poured a big glass of wine and settled in. What she didn’t expect was her phone pinging at eleven, with a text from a number she never expected to see again.

She found herself scurrying out of the bed and fumbling her way to the front door. Her breath was ragged as she threw the door open to reveal Bradley standing there. He looked too good to be true.

“Hey,” She said stupidly.

Bradley was on her in an instant, hands cradling her face, “Tell me you don’t want this.”

“I-” She took a second, “I want you. I always have.”

Then he was kissing her like she was the only thing that mattered in the whole world.

#bradley bradshaw #bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw imagine #rooster top gun #rooster bradshaw imagine #top gun #top gun maverick #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw fic #rooster bradshaw x oc #top gun rooster

65 notes · View notes

were-bastard · 3 months

Note

Hey dude!! Thanks for always liking my posts! You rock!! 😸 I think you’re super cool btw! Being a fellow cat AND a thunderstorm too?? That rocks!!! How did you discover you were a thunderstorm? Does the feeling tie into being a griffin too since griffins can fly and thunderstorms are above ground, or are they more separate feelings?

Sorry for not answering this sooner! I saw your question and I had to think about it for a WHILE.

Extremely Long Ramble below:

So, I’m still not sure if I actually am a thunderstorm itself, but I’ve always (like, since I was a kit) been extremely connected to storms and other such weather. Whenever it’s stormy out, or just “bad weather” (the best kind of weather) like hail or rain, I cant help but smile ridiculously. I love it so much and I associate myself strongly with it.

Additionally, as you said, me being a gryphon gives me another layer of deep love for and connection to the sky and its weather. Something interesting I’ve found is that I (as a gryphon) consider myself under the umbrella of dragon, though moreso dragonfolk than anything, and (being a werecat), I see myself in most big cats (& larger lesser cats). As a werecat, I carry many lion and mountain lion traits- including my build and coloration. So, I find it fascinating that I associate thunderstorms with these creatures. Did I project myself onto them, or did they leave an imprint on me?

In a bit more detail, storms always felt like they embodied the archetypical role of a lion or a dragon- like how a thunderstorm can purr or roar, how it can shake the sky, and is, in general, animalistic. Weather always seemed like a living thing to me (in a way).

It’s also always been interesting that I, as both a sub-arctic gryphon and a cold weather feline (with thick fur & feathers) am so well suited to storms. The storms I’m used to are cold and biting, and I, in a body that is without my true fur or feathers, somehow was born with all of the features I need to endure the cold and wind. As an avian and a feline, I should have thick integument, ample fat reserves, and thick skin to insulate me. And somehow, despite being born into a body that is neither of these creatures, I have these things. Out of most people I knew, I’ve always been uniquely suited for harsh weather and cold environments that perfectly match my hearthome- the habitat I should be in.

I’m not spiritual in any way, yet the perfect alignment of my shape and the ability to enjoy the storms I so love is amazing. I’m a bird whose literally meant to hold and be held by the sky, and despite it being unable to reach me here, I still carry the traits that show I belong to it. Being so intertwined with something like that, in both love for it and design for it, often makes it difficult to distinguish between it and myself. When a bird is flying in the sky, being lifted by both its own wings and the sky’s updrafts/winds, is it strange to not separate the two? When I fly (if I COULD) we’re the same entity, I am a bird up in the sky- in a storm- just as I am the storm and the sky carrying a bird within it.

That interconnectedness often leaves me with a feeling similar to an almost animalistic angel. Since I am both myself and the storm, it’s difficult to perceive the whole of me without losing part of it from your field of view. Having my feathers, my talons, my wings, and pairing those with something as ever shifting as a storm gives the impression of an angel, despite me being perfectly mundane. It makes me feel bigger than myself, which is a sensation similar to the divinity(?) of a fallen angel- changed, but not fallen too far (aligned with earth). I fill that grey space that often drives humans to apotheosis, something large and impactful, but not supernatural. Like how some people say a supercomputer or the interconnected root system of a forest is an “angel”. I’m not divine, deific, or angelic, just large and interwoven between the parts of myself.

Being dragonkith as well gives a sense of belonging with the large growling things of the sky (not saying all dragons must be large or flighted, but those are the ones I relate my storm + self form to). As a gryphon on my own, I am a creature (or even a critter)- barely bigger than a bobcat and only intimidating towards small rodents and leporids- but in tandem with a storm, I am a beast, a force to be reckoned with (a dragon, in a sense).

I haven’t found a label that encompasses my “connected -> being” feeling that I have for storms and the sky, and despite attempting to make my own label, nothing fits. So, I just say that I’m a thunderstorm- even though that doesn’t even begin to cover or properly convey being sense of being.

So, yeah! I’m a thunderstorm, both distinct from my gryphon-ness and because of it!

#I’m so sorry for y’all who opened the read more #Zeph Squawks #Bird Stuff #felid follies #the sky above #therian #alterhuman #nonhuman #otherkin #gryphonkin #griffinkin #griffonkin #dragonkith #dragonhearted #wingkin #aviankin #dragonvibes

18 notes · View notes

kinsey3furry300 · 1 year

Text

My (very late) take on Ricky “Jupe” Park from Nope.

So, when I was a small child, my sister and I were taken to a local museum by my father and it was a wholesome and fun day out for all the family EXEPT FOR THE BADLY TAXIDERMIED WHALE SHARK HANGING FROM THE CEALLING MY GOD WHAT WAS THAT THING?! It was huge, it looked and smelt terrible, the room was poorly lit and crowded and decorated to look like the bottom of the sea and you had this thing with it’s huge open maw hanging right over you all the time. I distinctly remember that I couldn’t look. I could not look. Between the, the ocean episode of walking with dinosaurs, the underwater segment of myst, and fucking books like this that were everywhere in the 90’s!

Fuck you Nigel Marven and Jasper James, Fuck you.

…both me and my sister developed a lifelong fear of being eaten alive by giant, aquatic-type monsters. And because it was advertised and a film about a brother and sister fighting off little green men, and not advertised as a film where 40 people get fucking vored by a flying Portuguese man of war, me and my sister saw Nope together in the cinema and ohhh boy 1, did I catch shit from her about it, to this day, and 2, while I love that film, it scared the shit out of me. It scared me so badly I tried not to think about it until I plucked up the courage to re-watch it this weekend. So I’m a little late to the party, but speaking on behalf of people terrified of being gobbled up by ever-present sky-sharks (you know they’re there prove me wrong!), I’d like to talk about Jupe.

How was this not a best Supporting Actor win? Give him all the awards!

I’ve seen a surprising amount of commentary say that he’s an idiot for endangering and getting all those people killed, and that he deserves his fate, and while there is a little element of truth to the first part, I can’t fathom the second. One, no, no one deserves that and two… Do, do you guys know how story strucure works? Jupe is a foil for OJ. His life and arc mirrors OJ to a surprising degree: they’re both people of colour working in a white-dominated Hollywood system who have been held back by, or are stereotyped because of, their race. They both witness “a bad Miracle” that’s starts with a strange popping/crunching noise (the balloon for Jupe, Jean Jacket regurgitating indigestible items above them for OJ), that results in death, where a seemingly imposable thing happens (a coin falls from an empty sky, a shoe balances perfectly on one end) and where they are spared death because they don’t look the danger in the eye (Jupe has the table cloth between him and the chimp, OJ looks around whereas Ottis senior looks up and so is hit in his unprotected eye), and are traumatized. Both deal with the trauma badly, and surround themselves with constant reminders of it (Jupe’s Gordy shrine, OJ’s horses and ranch. I mean he keeps the fucking coin!). Both try to commodify and sell their trauma for fame and fortune (the paid tours of the Gordy shrine, getting that “Oprah shot”). Both also want to use Jean Jacket to reclaim the heritage that the film and TV industry has taken from them (OJ wants to save the ranch and memorialize his family’s role in the invention of film, Jupe wants to be remembered for the Starlight Lasso and not just as that Asian kid who survived a chimp attack, for taming the beast, not just surviving it). Both unwittingly train JJ to attack humans (Jupe by teaching it to associate people and music with food, OJ by putting it off horsemeat by feeding it a decoy). Both are a bit greedy, and kind of disrespectful to the dead, and nether Get Out (couldn’t resist sorry) when they should. Both put their family, friends and strangers in danger to get their payday, and both get at least one person killed doing it.

So why does the film kill Jupe and his family in such a hilariously awful way, but spare OJ and Em (and Angel: we love you Angel)? What’s Jupes fatal flaw, that greek tragic hubris that dooms him and that separates him from OJ? Why is he the one who gets vored by an angry stetson? Is it a eat the rich narrative? A critique of the idea of Asian Americans as the “Ideal minority?”. Is it killing off the comic relif, or just done for shock value? No, I don’t think Jordan Peele would be that heavy handed or un-imaginative. I think it’s something far more clever.

It’s this: from an early age, Jupe was trained to perform, whereas OJ was trained to handle performing horses. OJ thinks about how to safely provide the spectacle, whereas Jupe was trained to be the spectacle. OJ communicates with Angel in clicks and gestures without realising: OJ’s internalised how to talk to horses, how to use body-language. But Jupe...His plan, upon finding out that there’s a UAP flying around his home is to build and stage and make it into a rodeo attraction. That’s not a sane person’s reaction, that’s how Homer Simpson would try and Monetize first contact with alien life. That’s how Peter Griffin or BoJack Horseman would treat ET…. That how a 90’s sitcom character, who never got over that one role, would treat the situation.

Every time a name is mentioned in the chapter titles of Nope, the living being it refers to dies… except the title card “Lucky.” The horse (so long as the final shot is real and not Em hallucinating) lives. It (and OJ) makes it out. But then again….

Jupe probably thought of himself as Lucky, after the Gordy incident. He was probably told time and time again that he was Lucky, until he internalized it. He learnt the wrong lessons from the experience, he learnt that he not only needed to perform, but that he was special. “You’re’ chosen.” He learnt that he needed to perform, to be a spectacle, to survive a horrible industry that swallows people whole and chews them up and spits them out and occasionally has animal control shoot its stars dead if they go of script. He was conditioned, and trained, from an early age to treat everything that ever happened to him as part of a performance, until he can only talk about his own trauma in terms of how good the SNL take on it was.

And like every other trained living being taken from their natural habitat and forced out on stage as spectacle in this film, his training fails him at the worst possible time.

He’s “Lucky”, and he’s tragic, and he’s just another victim of spectacle, and that’s the scariest part of the film. ...Other than the FUCKING MURDER PANCAKE IN THE SKY OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?

#nope movie #nope jordan peele #jordan peele #jupe from nope #Ricky Jupe Park #Steven Yeun #Jupe is my woobie and i would fight god for him #but i'm not fighing Jean Jacket sorry bro nope nope nope fuck that #nope spoilers

129 notes · View notes

am--f · 3 months

Text

TikTok, Seriality, and the Algorithmic Gaze

Princeton-Weimar Summer School for Media Studies, 2024 Princeton University

If digital moving image platforms like TikTok differ in meaningful ways from cinema and television, certainly one of the most important differences is the mode by which the viewing experience is composed. We are dealing not only with fixed media nor with live broadcast media, but with an AI recommender system, a serial format that mixes both, generated on the fly and addressed to each individual user. Out of this series emerges something like a subject, or at least an image of one, which is then stored and constantly re-addressed.

TikTok has introduced a potentially dominant design for the delivery of moving images—and, potentially, a default delivery system for information in general. Already, Instagram has adopted this design with its Reels feature, and Twitter, too, has shifted towards a similar emphasis. YouTube has been providing video recommendations since 2008. More than other comparable services, TikTok places its proprietary recommender system at the core of the apparatus. The “For You” page, as TikTok calls it, presents a dynamically generated, infinitely scrollable series of video loops. The For You page is the primary interface and homepage for users. Content is curated and served on the For You page not only according to explicit user interactions (such as liking or following) or social graphs (although these do play some role in the curation). Instead, content is selected on the basis of a wider range of user behavior that seems to be particularly weighted towards viewing time—the time spent watching each video loop. This is automatic montage, personalized montages produced in real time for billions of daily users. To use another transmedial analogy—one perhaps justified by TikTok’s approximation of color convergence errors in its luminous cyan and red branding—this montage has the uncanny rhythm of TV channel surfing. But the “channels” you pass through are not determined by the fixed linear series of numbered broadcast channels. Instead, each “channel” you encounter has been preselected for you; you are shown “channels” that are like the ones you have tended to linger on.

The experience of spectatorship on TikTok, therefore, is also an experience of the responsive modeling of one’s spectatorship—it involves the awareness of such modeling. This is a cybernetic loop, in effect, within which future action is performed on the basis of the past behavior of the recommender system as it operates. Spectatorship is fully integrated into the circuit. Here is how it works: the system starts by recommending a sequence of more or less arbitrary videos. It notes my view time on each, and cross-references the descriptive metadata that underwrites each video. (This involves, to some degree, internal, invisible tags, not just user-generated tags.) The more I view something, the more likely I am to be shown something like it in the future. A series of likenesses unfolds, passing between two addresses: my behavior and the database of videos. It’s a serial process of individuation. As TikTok puts it in a 2020 blog post: these likenesses or recommendations increasingly become “polished,” “tailored,” “refined,” “improved,” and “corrected” apparently as a function of consistent use over time.

Like many recommender systems—and such systems are to be found everywhere nowadays—the For You algorithm is a black box. It has not been released to the public, although there seem to have been, at some point, promises to do this. In lieu of this, a “TikTok Transparency Center” run by TikTok in Los Angeles (delayed, apparently, by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic) opened in 2023. TikTok has published informal descriptions of the algorithm, and by all accounts it appears to be rather straightforward. At the same time, the algorithm has engendered all kinds of folk sciences, superstitions, paranoid theories, and magical practices. What is this algorithm that shows me such interesting, bizarre, entertaining, unexpected things? What does it think I want? Why does it think I want this? How does this algorithm sometimes seem to know me so well, to know what I want to see? What is it watching me watch? (From the side of content creators, of course, there is also always the question: what kind of content do I need to produce in order to be recognized and distributed by the algorithm? How can I go viral and how can I maximize engagement? What kinds of things will the algorithm want to see? Why is the algorithm not seeing me?)

These seem to be questions involving an algorithmic gaze. That is to say: there is something or someone watching prior to the actual instance of watching, something or someone which is beyond empirical, human viewers, “watching” them watch. There is something watching me, whether or not I actually make an optical image of myself. I am looked at by the algorithm. There is a structuring gaze. But what is this gaze? How does it address us? Is this the gaze of a cinematic apparatus? Is it the gaze we know from filmtheory, a gaze of mastery with which we are supposed to identify, a gaze which hails or interpellates us, which masters us? Is it a Foucauldian, panoptic gaze, one that disciplines us?

Any one of us who uses the major platforms is familiar with how the gaze of the system feels. It a gaze that looks back—looks at our looking—and inscribes our attention onto a balance sheet. It counts and accounts for our attention. This account appears to be a personalized account, a personalized perspective. People use the phrase “my TikTok algorithm,” referring to the personalized model which they have generated through use. Strictly speaking, of course, it’s not the algorithm that’s individualized or that individuates, but the model that is its product. The model that is generated by the algorithm as I use it and as it learns from my activity is my profile. The profile is “mine” because I am constantly “training” it with my attention as its input, and feel a sense of ownership since it’s associated with my account, but the profile is also “of me” and “for me” because it is constantly subjecting me to my picture, a picture of my history of attention. Incidentally, I think this is precisely something that Jacques Lacan, in his 1973 lecture on the gaze in Seminar XI, refers to as a “bipolar reflexive relation,” the ambiguity of the phrase “my image.” “As soon as I perceive, my representations belong to me.” But, at the same time, something looks back; something pictures me looking. “The picture, certainly, is in my eye. But I am in the picture.”

On TikTok, the picture often seems sort of wrong, malformed. Perhaps more often than not. Things drift around and get stuck in loops. The screen fills with garbage. As spectators, we are constantly being shown things we don’t want any more of, or things we would never admit we want, or things we hate (but cannot avoid watching: this is the pleasurable phenomenon of “cringe”). But we are compelled to watch them all. The apparatus seems to endlessly produce desire. Where does this desire come from? Is it from the addictive charge of the occasional good guess, the moment of brief recognition (the lucky find, the Surrealist trouvaille: “this is for me”)? Is it the promise that further training will yield better results? Is it possible that our desire is constituted and propelled in the failures of the machine, in moments of misrecognition and misidentification in the line of sight of a gaze that evidently cannot really see us?

In the early 1970s, in the British journal Screen, scholars such as Laura Mulvey, Colin MacCabe, and Stephen Heath developed a film-theoretical concept of the gaze. This concept was used to explain how desire is determined, specified, and produced by visual media. In some ways, the theory echoes Lacan’s phenomenological interest in “the pre-existence to the seen of a given-to-be-seen” (Seminar XI, 74). The gaze is what the cinematic apparatus produces as part of its configuration of the given-to-be-seen.

In Screen theory, as it came to be known, the screen becomes a mirror. On it, all representations seem to belong to me, the individual spectator. This is an illusion of mastery, an imaginary relation to real conditions of existence in the terms of the Althusserian formula. It corresponds to the jubilant identification that occurs in a moment in Lacan’s famous 1949 paper “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience,” in which the motor-challenged infant, its body fragmented (en morceaux) in reality, discovers the illusion of its wholeness in the mirror. The subject is brought perfectly in line with this ideal-I, with this spectacle, such that what it sees is simply identical to its desire. There is convergence. To slightly oversimplify: for Screen theory, this moment in mirror stage is the essence of cinema and ideology, or cinema as ideology.

Joan Copjec, in her essay “The Orthopsychic Subject,” notes that Screen theory considered a certain relationship of property to be one of its primary discoveries. The “screen as mirror”: the ideological-cinematic apparatus produces representations which are “accepted by the subject as its own.” This is what Lacan calls the “belong to me aspect so reminiscent of property.” “It is this aspect,” says Copjec, speaking for Screen theory, “that allows the subject to see in any representation not only a reflection of itself but a reflection of itself as master of all it surveys. The imaginary relation produces the subject as master of the image. . . . The subject is satisfied that it has been adequately reflected on the screen. The ‘reality effect’ and the ‘subject effect’ both name the same constructed impression: that the image makes the subject fully visible to itself” (21–22).

According to Copjec, “the gaze always remains within film theory the sense of being that point at which sense and being coincide. The subject comes into being by identifying with the image’s signified. Sense founds the subject—that is the ultimate point of the film-theoretical and Foucauldian concepts of the gaze” (22).

But this is not Lacan’s gaze. The gaze that Lacan introduces in Seminar XI is something much less complete, much less satisfying. The gaze concept is not exhausted by the imaginary relation of identification described in Screen theory, where the subject simply appropriates the gaze, assumes the position created for it by the image “without the hint of failure,” as Copjec puts it. In its emphasis on the imaginary, Screen theory neglects the symbolic relation as well as the issue of the real.

In Seminar XI, Lacan explicates the gaze in the midst of a discussion on Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Again, Lacan’s gaze is something that pre-exists the seeing subject and is encountered as pre-existing it: “we are beings who are looked at, in the spectacle of the world” (75). But—and this is the crucial difference in emphasis—it is impossible to look at ourselves from the position of this all-seeing spectacle. The gaze, as objet a in the field of the visible, is something that in fact cannot be appropriated or inhabited. It is nevertheless the object of the drive, a cause of desire. The gaze “may come to symbolize” the "central lack expressed in the phenomenon of castration” (77). Lacan even says, later in the seminar, that the gaze is “the most characteristic term for apprehending the proper function of the objet a” (270). As objet a, as the object-cause of desire, the gaze is said to be separable and separated off from the subject and has only ever existed as lack. The gaze is just all of those points from which I myself will never see, the views I will never possess or master. I may occasionally imagine that I have the object, that I occupy the gaze, but I am also constantly reminded of the fact that I don’t, by images that show me my partiality, my separation. This is the separation—between eye and gaze—that manifests as the drive in the scopic field.

The gaze is a position that cannot be assumed. It indicates an impossible real. Beyond everything that is shown to the subject, beyond the series of images to which the subject is subjected, the question is asked: “What is being concealed from me? What in this graphic space does not show, does not stop not writing itself?” This missing point is the point of the gaze. “At the moment the gaze is discerned, the image, the entire visual field, takes on a terrifying alterity,” says Copjec. “It loses its ‘belong-to-me aspect’ and suddenly assumes the function of a screen” (35). We get the sense of being cut off from the gaze completely. We get the sense of a blind gaze, a gaze that “is not clear or penetrating, not filled with knowledge or recognition; it is clouded over and turned back on itself, absorbed in its own enjoyment” (36). As Copjec concludes: “the gaze does not see you” (36).

So the holes and stains in the model continuously produced by the TikTok algorithm—those moments in which what we are shown seems to indicate a misreading, a wrong guess—are those moments wherein the gaze can be discerned. The experience is this: I am watching a modeling process and engaging with the serial missed encounters or misrecognitions (meconnaissance—not only misrecognition but mistaken knowledge—mis-knowing) that the modeling process performs. The Lacanian point would simply be the following: the situation is not that the algorithm knows me too well or that it gives me the illusion of mastery that would be provided by such knowledge. The situation is that the algorithm may not know or recognize me at all, even though it seems to respond to my behavior in some limited way, and offers the promise of knowing or recognizing me. And this is perhaps the stain or tuche, the point at which we make contact with the real, where the network of signifiers, the automaton, or the symbolic order starts to break down. It is only available through the series, through the repeated presentation of likenesses.

As Friedrich Kittler memorably put it, “the discourse of the other is the discourse of the circuit.” It is not the discourse of cinema or television or literature. Computational recommender systems operating as series of moving image loops seem to correspond strangely closely to the Lacanian models, to the gaze that is responsive yet absent, perceptive yet blind, desired yet impossible, perhaps even to the analytic scene. Lacan and psychoanalysis constantly seemed to suggest that humans carry out the same operations as machines, that the psyche is a camera-like apparatus capable of complicated performance, and that the analyst might be replaced with an optical device. Might we substitute recommender media for either psyche or analyst? In any case, it’s clear that the imaginary register of identification does not provide a sufficient model for subjectivity as it is addressed by computational media. That model, as Kittler points out, is to be found in Lacan’s symbolic register: “the world of the machine.”

#writing

8 notes · View notes