#the least they can do is take her to a Blondie concert and do their darndest to get her noticed by Deborah Harry

[artiststarme]

Eddie and Steve only break up once. It’s not because of a fight or a disagreement. There’s nothing nefarious about it but it isn’t quite a mutual decision either.

They break up at Steve’s request for a night so he can properly commiserate with Robin about being single.

He felt like he can’t accurately discuss her feelings and feels badly about giving her advice that he can’t even fathom anymore, not since falling in love with Eddie. As her bestest friend and the co-owner of their shared brain cell, he decides to fully support Robin by being single with her for a night.

He plans on going to gay bars with her, hyping her up as the best single wingman he could be, and commiserating the impossible dating scene with her. That’s not quite what happens though.

Instead of having a fun night out on the town as single queers in the big city, Steve spends the night wrapped up in Robins arms under a fluffy blanket on the couch wailing about not being loved anymore and Eddie breaking up with him.

Robin very much thinks it’s real, very much hates Eddie for approximately 14 hours for breaking Steve’s heart and comforts Steve to the best of her ability. She even watches sucky rom-coms with him and listens to Tears for Fears on repeat.

They cuddle together on the small couch in their apartment, loving each other and scolding Eddie in solidarity. Robin spews words of anger towards the dumbass metalhead that decided to break her best friend’s heart so callously on a random Friday night. And for no reason as well! Blasphemous in her mind.

She stews quietly all night and much more loudly when she and Steve are awoken to Eddie bringing them coffee and waffles from their favorite cafe down the street.

When she finds out that they only broke up for the night and it was very much not real, Robin is absolutely furious and makes them take her to a Blondie concert in revenge. It’s the least they can do after stressing her out so much in just one night. Deep down though, she’s happy it wasn’t real because she can see how happy they are together, if not the stupidest people she knows.

[this-daydream-is-dangerous-13]

Is the song happiness Taylor telling him to move on? How do you interpret it?

Thank you for this ask. I am working on a whole evermore analysis post but am swamped these days so it is on pause right now. I will take this instead.

So based on the songs on Fine Line, there was clearly still something there for him. And on folklore in songs like The 1— “persist and resist the temptation to ask you ‘if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?’” — and the teenage love triangle exploration and exile, she also had some unexplored, unfinished feelings.

So I think these fictional worlds allowed her to work through all the stuff she couldn’t do in diaristic writing *because H has been so hidden from her actual, public-facing narrative.*

I initially thought is might have been exactly what you suggested, but now I think it is more *her working through her feelings to see how she would react if he actually DID move on.*

Because besties? She has not historically been great with him and women who are not her.

In Hits Different she tells us:

And when he is actually pictured with other women?

Jan 17, 2014, at and Eagles concert.

Which is followed almost immediately by some throw-down and rapprochement about which…

Ryan Tedder tells us. And look at the song they wrote. Look at the dates!

And we have all heard Question…? She certainly gave in to the temptation she described in The 1. During my first listen to that song, my jaw hit the floor. She’s been in a different relationship for at least 5 years and she is asking him “do you wish you had made different choices and NOT lost me? Is everything 2nd best compared to me, including your ‘suitable girlfriend’? Do you still dream of touching me?” The chutzpah! And she already knew the answer!

It’s linked to verse 2 of happiness, I think:

She does not seem to excited about the prospect of being replaced, huh?

Which, to his credit, he tells her will likely never happen entirely in As it Was:

He is NOT “a boy who wouldn’t stay” Blondie; stop calling him that!

But back to happiness, where Blondie drops her biggest truth bombs in the bridge (as is her habit):

He is a good man. She is a good woman. They hurt each other. And she doesn’t know how deal with that, nor how to transition to friendship with this person with whom she once shared absolutely everything. She loathes the fake niceties, most significantly because she? Spent years getting so much more that that from him. Love and devotion and care, in physical and emotional form. After screaming colour, who wants to go back to black and white?

And so - the final verse. She is steeling herself for the moving in, convincing them both that:

And she concludes that “the new her” can offer forgiveness and a new, fresh friendship start because despite everything:

What a lovely sentiment. And fleeting!

Because she totally walks it back with Question….? and her admissions in parts of Maroon, but that is a story for another day.

[slavghoul]

And one more interview from Rock’N’Roll Magazine. Here Tobias & Jonas discuss some of their favourite and least favourite records. It’s pretty fun :)

--

Tobias Forge and Jonas Åkerlund are international stars as frontman of Ghost and film director for rock legends respectively. Jonas hasn't made a Ghost video yet, but he will.

“And I'm looking forward to it," says Tobias.

We meet at Tobias Forge’s and Jonas Åkerlund's favourite restaurant, Garlic and Shots in Stockholm, to which the former has donated a large portrait of himself as Papa Emeritus painted by a fan.

The first album they find is "Nightfall" (1987) by Candlemass

Tobias: Candlemass is so much better than most other doom metal bands.

Jonas: I had the luxury of being with the band at that time. I drove the bus when Candlemass was out playing.

Tobias: And you made the video?

Jonas: For "Bewitched", yes. Mostly because I was the only one with a camera, I guess, hehe. I wanted it to be bad weather, but it was bright blue sky that day.

Mercyful Fate and King Diamond, "Curse of the Pharaohs" and the mini-LP "The Dark Sides"

Tobias: Musically, this has influenced me a lot. But from the second Ghost album and onwards, it hasn't been a major goal to sound like King Diamond or Mercyful Fate.

The aforementioned second Ghost album, "Infestissumam" (2013) lies in the pile of records, as does the latest, "Prequelle" (2018).

Tobias: I think about how the records came about. One memory is dearer than the other. Now I want to make something even better and fresher on the new album, which will be out this fall.

Uriah Heep with "Demons and Wizards" (1972)

Tobias: I just wish Uriah Heep had a more consistent image, and kept the same logo all the time. Maybe had a monster mascot. Then they'd be ten times bigger. They fucked up their career. They should have done what Iron Maiden did, kept stuck with the same logo and artwork throughout the whole career.

Jonas: Today they're gubbs, but damn they play well. There are almost no young bands that have the energy of Heeps.

What do you say if Mick Box calls and wants you to do a Uriah Heep video?

Jonas: Sure, if he includes a time machine in the budget so we can go back to 1972, haha!

Status Quo's five albums from 1972-76

Jonas: Wow, all the good records. It's almost impossible to pick a favourite among these.

Tobias: For me, Status Quo hasn't meant that much. I bought this one ("Quo" in 1974), when I was ten or eleven. But for me, who grew up in the 80s, Status is "In the Army Now"

Jonas: Me and my buddy were hitchhiking around when Quo was around. I saw all the concerts in Sweden and Norway.

From the same era comes Thin Lizzy with "Fighting" (1975)

Jonas: I've always loved Lizzy and saw Phil Lynott's band Grand Slam several times at the Marquee in London.

Tobias: Thin Lizzy had so many cool elements. Like they came from a different place, Ireland, which Phil Lynott portrayed so well in his lyrics. I thought of Lizzy when I played in Dublin, and felt like seeking out some pub where they used to hang out.

Blondie, here with "Best Of". Jonas made a video for "Good Boys" in 2003.

Jonas: It was fantastic. Debbie has acting ambitions, so I also worked with her in another film I did.

Meanwhile, Tobias stares admiringly at Debbie Harry’s picture on the cover. He looks almost in love.

Tobias: She's so beautiful, I can't take it.

Jonas: She still looks good.

Tobias: And sings well. Good songs. Love Blondie. Nothing but hits!

Black Sabbath with a Japanese compilation and Ozzy Osbourne as a solo artist with "Mr. Crowley"

Jonas: I've done a few videos with Ozzy. He's pretty easy to work with, Sharon (Osbourne) as well. They like good ideas. My wife, who's a stylist, works with Ozzy a lot more than I do. She calls me sometimes and says "I'm going to Ozzy's house" because she knows I'll be jealous.

Tobias: Black Sabbath have meant a lot a lot to me. Look how dangerous they look. The sick thing is that it's only because they have mustaches. They're really only 22.

- Will you be an assistant next time Jonas does an Ozzy video?

Tobias: Absolutely, yeah. I grew up in the 80s, if you liked hard rock then Ozzy was a superstar.

Time to discuss the Deep Purple family: "Deep Purple in rock" (1970), "Rainbow rising" (1976), "Ready and willing" (1980) by Whitesnake and Gillan's "Future shock" (1981).

Jonas: These are just my favourite bands.

They make a list of albums where Rainbow a bit unexpectedly comes above the family uber-heads Deep Purple, with Whitesnake third and Gillan last.

Jonas: Rainbow has meant so damn much to me.

Tobias: Same here. Deep Purple was something older that I later had to look back in history to find. My brother had the first three Rainbow records, so I've been listening to them for as long as I've been alive.

Carola Häggkvist in fishnet stockings and a mini short leather skirt in the band Standby in 1982.

Jonas: She seems pretty nice, doesn't she? Tobias: She certainly was. Jonas: Do you really think so? Tobias: She is from Norsborg, after all. I also lived in Northern Botkyrka back then.

An unofficial and double live album by Metallica.

Jonas: I've done several videos with them, "Turn the page" "Whiskey in the jar" and "ManUNkind" I would have loved to work more with Metallica.

- As a Lizzy fan, what do you think of their cover choices?

Jonas: Actually I shouldn't say this, because Lars reads everything and probably your magazine too, but I don't think "Whiskey in the jar" was a good choice. They didn't do it as well as Lizzy. I would have chosen a different Lizzy song. "The Rocker" for example. I guess Lars is gonna be pissed. The video wasn't very good, but the one for "Turn the page" is one of my favorites.

The twelve-inch single "Parental Guidance" (1986) by Judas Priest

Tobias: When I was a kid, I had a lot of posters on my walls. Several live pictures of Judas Priest. Mostly from Okay Magazine. Rob Halford is so damn cool.

Jonas: I love Rob. He saved me when I was doing the movie "Spun" and Iggy Pop got ill. Rob stepped in and did a small part (as assistant in a porn shop) and was great. I asked him why he hadn't acted before. Rob's answer: "Hey, I have I've been acting almost all my life" - until he came out of the closet.

Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers with "L.A.M.F." (1977) gets Jonas talking about the drama documentary he's supposed to direct about the main character, who passed away in 1991

Jonas: It's been in the works for a long time, and there's a hell of a script. But it's a difficult project to sell.

Tobias: Johnny Thunders is almost like a ghost in Stockholm's music business. Many have memories of him: "I knew Thunders, I knew Thunders, I played with him, here's his old friend.”

Girlschool with "Play Dirty" released in 1983. When asked if Jonas has ever dated anyone of the girls, he looks glum.

Jonas: Uh, yeah... I have.

Tobias: Oh? Nice, nice.

How did you get together with Kim McAuliffe?

Jonas: Around 1982-84 I often hung out at Marquee in London. Kim and Denise Dufort were always out, and I often bumped them.

Onkel Kånkel with the LP "Kalle Anka Suger Pung" (1990).

Tobias: When I was twelve years old, Onkel Kånkel was the funniest thing I ever heard.

Back then, Tobias couldn't possibly have imagined that he would one day become Onkel Kånkel's guitarist.

Tobias: I played on three of the four gigs that Onkel Kånkel did.

What songs did you perform from this record?

Tobias: Let's see, "Shit on the pitt" "Suck my rock'n'roll penis" "Schnitzel Fritz"...

Jonas: Haha! Good titles.

Was Onkel Kånkel secret?

Tobias: Yes.

How could you do gigs when Onkel Kånkel was secret?

Tobias: This was 2002, before social media. You could still do things relatively incognito.

Jonas enjoys the album cover drawings.

Jonas: Wich one of these guys were you?

Tobias: Stomi-Bertil, I think. Or Epilepsy-Kurt. No, it was someone else.

Jonas: Haha! Still secret I see.

Tobias: The tragedy is that Håkan Florå (1962-2009), as Onkel Kånkel was really called, was an incredibly talented person. He could have been the star of the world, so super talented, handsome, smart, fit and funny as he was.

Tobias and Jonas like occult rock, but what do they think of the equivalent, i.e. Christian bands like Stryper? The guys do nauseating grimaces, and refuse to keep the album "To hell with the devil" (1986) other than upside down.

Tobias: Stryper is the worst shit. I hate this stuff.

Jonas: Same here.

Tobias: Since I was a kid I've drawn an equation between rock music and the devil, where the devil is intellectual and liberating. Bands with an image that is the opposite of that are a paradox. I feel this way about Christian rock bands: you can’t play rock'n'roll if you don't look the part! That doesn't mean you can't have a faith, but when Christianity becomes pronounced in rock music, it becomes an anti movement.

"Kiss Alive!" (1975) and that band's predecessor Alice Cooper with the "This Sweet Sickness" gets more than a passing grade.

Tobias: They have inspired me to become a made-up frontman. Kiss was the first band I really worshipped.

"Doom and gloom" from the Rolling Stones from 2012, which Jonas directed the video for.

Tobias: I don't think I've seen that video. Sorry.

Jonas: Just so you know, I've heard ALL of your songs. All of them!

He smiles wryly.

Jonas: Noomi (Rapace) is in the video. I love the Stones, they're great to work with. Mick Jagger is incredible. What a drive. He takes his shirt off, sits down and there's not a crease on his stomach - and he’s 70 years old!

In conclusion, shouldn't you do a Ghost video together?

Tobias: We've talked about it many times.

Jonas: My biggest goal in life is to make a Ghost video.

Tobias: Hehe, we'll never get it together time-wise.

Jonas: If it's the last fucking thing I do in life, I’m gonna do a Ghost video!

Tobias: I'm looking forward to that.

[adramaticbeauty]

Fairies and Dragonflies

Warning: If you didnt read the previous chapters you will be so fucking confused so best to go back with this link: https://my.w.tt/nw0KOnbfRcb

Now onto the trash dump!

Chapter 8: Trouble for Both

You gotta be kidding me." Gray grumbled in disbelief. He still tightly clutched the newspaper that headlined what could either make or break his career.

It was about 9 in the evening, and he just trudged through his door.  Gray flopped on the couch, his limbs sprawled any which way. He was the personification of a mess right now.

The talk with his manager, Mr. Kyoji was unusually awkward and gruesomely long.Gray wasn't usually one to formally apologize but if it saved his ass from punishment, it was worth it.

He never knew what the protocol was for this type of situation, fraternizing with a rival band. He guessed him and Juvia could always vouch they were just hanging out as friends. But either way rumors would start, considering it was just the two of them. Plus he didn't have the most squeaky clean record involving females.

Either way, it damaged Juvia's career the most however you looked at it. The public always seemed to target women the most when it came to romantic endeavors. Not that there ever would be one between them now.

Gray chuckled horsely as he thought back to 3 days ago. So much had happened in so little time, that he never even got to  process Juvia's rejection. Not that it was a proper one.

It seemed like everything was going great at first and then it was as if she completely changed into a different entity. She became snarky and he dare say bitter. It didn't make any sense to him. Why would anyone ever be bitter with him? Well he had a few reasons but its not like he even knew the girl for long. The scene kept replaying in his head, although he knew it was useless to think about it now.

The more he thought about it the more he got pissed. Who the heck did she think she was? He hadn't done a damn thing and he definitely didn't deserve to get verbally trashed like that. It all just left a sour taste in his mouth.

"That girl...whats with her." Gray mumbled to himself more than anyone.

Gray rested his eyes as he only took in the sound of his own breath. He hated when it got like this. So quiet. He honestly despised when it became so stilled, as if the world stopped spinning. He hated it, as it felt like there was a missing element. In his life, his home and even maybe his heart. Although Gray would never admit it , even to himself.

Gray's stomach grumbled ferociously and it reminded him of his lack of food from today. Gray's contemplation of whether to order pizza became meaningless, as a ring echoed throughout his apartment.

"Unknown number huh?"

Gray pressed reject and slouched back into his couch, again trying to create the somber mood once more. Once again the phone rung, and with the same unknown digits.

Probably some crazy fan found out his number, although he couldn't imagine how. Guess he had to change it once again. Unless it was...

He did give his actual phone number to Juvia, even if she didn't give hers. He picked up almost a little too quickly and tried to sound as natural as possible.

"Hello?" 

"Is this Gray Fullbuster?"

Anddd not Juvia. As he reached for the decline button, he couldn't help but recognize the voice in his subconscious.

"Who the hell is this?"

"Um Lucy Heartfilia? From 'Fairies'. We were introduced after our concert-"

" Wait which girl were you again?? The red haired hot one?"

"What- no! I'm the blond one! This is already irritating..." There was a discreet groan at the end of the line before she cleared her throat and took on a more stern tone.

" I'm calling because I wanted to ask about the day you went out with Juvia."

Well this was not what he was expecting.

"Oh thank god. Thought this call was because you wanted to hook up or some shit."

"I really want to hang up right now, but I need answers. Tell me what happened before you end up on my shit list please."

"How about this- you tell me who gave you my phone number. I deserve to at least know that much."

He could feel the girl roll her eyes even over the phone.

"Can't say."

" You can if you want answers. What's it gonna be blondie?"

" Fine. It was from the paper in Juvia's....purse."

"Wait. Don't tell me you stole her purse and took my phone number? The hell-"

"I didn't steal! It was just sitting there! And I remember you giving her yours on that tiny piece of paper."

"So...you stole it."

"ANYWAY! Can you answer my question today please?"

Gray scratched his head, contemplating on how much to tell her. The event was a bit embarrassing, even for him. Not like all his dates ended that badly.

" To be honest, not much. We went on a date and things were going well. Then she just freaked out and blew up at me when we were heading back. That's all really."

There was no answer on the other end.

" Hey are ya still there??"

"Yeah dummy, do you hear a beep? And wow. Juvia looked totally not into you when you guys first met. Surprised she even agreed to a date."

Gray could feel his cheeks burning in embarrassment.

" Well I sort of saved her life, so it would be nice if you just shut up."

Lucy frowned as she twisted her blond hair in between her fingers. A quirk known to all her closest friends when she was in deep thought.

" Another thing. I have only seen Juvia get pissed once in my entire life. And I've known her for 3 years."

"You known her for that long? Was she as difficult back then as she is now?"

"You must have said something really dickish. I swear to God if you said anything to hurt her feelings-"

"Of course not! If anything I'm the victim!"

" Yeah, well explain why Juvia hasnt come out of her room for 3 days, except for practice!?"

"How the hell would you know that?"

" Juvia, Levy and I all live in the same complex. So I know-"

"That's fucking weird, just saying. What are you, her babysitter?"

" You know what? I don't need to take this shit. I'm hanging up!" Lucy seethed.

"And make sure you give my number back to her so she can apologize whenever."

The only thing that met his voice was the sound of continuous beeping.

Great. That girl had to call him, demanding answers and make him remember the incident all over again. Gray frustratingly glided his fingers through his frazzled hair. Not like he wasn't already thinking about it, for some unexplainable reason.

What bugged him in the back of his mind though was a bit unsettling to him. Why did Juvia even keep his number if she really hated him that much? In fact, she could have threw it away as soon as she had gotten it from him.

He wondered if she would have called him first if he just did absolutely nothing. Gray cursed under his breath before he trudged up to the bedroom. Feeling the coolness of the newly washed sheets gave him temporary comfort to the ache in his heart.

At times like this, he could still hear the softness of his mother's voice. It plagued him so, but at times like this he appreciated the soothing voice setting his mind at ease. Hearing a voice that you knew you could never touch, felt eerie at times. But when he would try to recall the appearance of the voice which beckoned him so much, there was always nothing.

[goksiiiiii]

Fake Blondie changed my life - Zabdiel De Jesús

Note: This is my first imagine ever, and first time I am actually trying to write something like this. I hope it is not too bad. I am sorry for all my mistakes but I hope you understand because ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE.

The life has never been easy. I mean, how can it been easy for a girl who doubts her worth and hates herself every day more and more? It hasn't always been like that, you were a happy child, full of energy and love for life. Unfortunately, you just didn't have luck, you bumped into wrong people, the ones that broke you. "You are actually so ugly, I mean look at your body, not only that you don't have boobs but neither do you have ass, you are so fucking flat, nobody would even fuck you and let's not talk about possibilty that someone would fall in love with you." were the words you would often hear, just in different ways. Sometimes you would hear it from your "friends", family and exes who left you after they didn't get what they wanted. It is not that you haven't been a strong girl, it has just become too much to handle. You would always wonder how they couldn't understand that you didn't have an opportunity to choose the way you would look like. It doesn't even matter because we all can be loved the way God made us.

You have moved to Miami, you were hoping for a better life. When you thought about better life you didn't mean having hookups and fucking every night different boy, no, the better life for you meant FREEDOM. You were hoping that you will be FREE, that you will be YOURSELF, you were hoping that nobody would judge you and make you feel even more shitty, if that was possible.

You got a job to work as a fashion designer for a latin boy band CNCO. It was your dream to work as a fashion designer because you have been so creative since you were very little. You were from Europe so you didn't have an opportunity to hear about them earlier. You started exploring things about them, not because you were interested in them, but because you wanted to see how they like to dress so that you can do your job well and make everyone happy. Sometimes, it seems like all you ever cared for was to make people around you happy. You have always put yourself last. It never crossed your mind that handsome boys like them would even notice you. Everyone wanted them and nobody ever wanted you, because at the end of the day you were just a flat girl. At least that's what you thought.

"I heard we will have new fashion designer" Zabdiel stated. "Oh dios mio, really?" Erick asked curiously "I really hope that we will finally be dressed up like our bodies deserve." "Carla said she will be here soon, so I will go outside to wait for her so she doesn't get lost" Richard tells the boys while heading towards exit. "It is a girl?" Christopher immediately stops playing Fortnite. "I guess, but you know, you don't need to flirt with every girl in the wolrd" Joel rolls his eyes at Chris. "Ay papa, you need to wake up man, la vida es solo una" Chris tells Joel while having a big smile on his face.

You enter the building but you don't see anyone. You try to stay as calm as you can, not allowing your anxiety to come in and ruin your dreams. As you start walking up the stairs, you bump into someone and fall down. "Oh my God are you okay?" Richard asks you worriedly "I- I- am so sorry, I was looking for our new dresser and I was in a hurry, I didn't want her to get lost." he says while helping you to get up. "In that case, I won't give you the worst clothes, I will save them for other memebers who misbehave" you tell him smiling a little. "Oh- are you-" you cut him saying "Yes. That's me" "God, I am such an idiot nena, sorry." Richard says facepalming "I almost made you break your leg on your first day." You both laugh "No need to worry, I know to be clumsy." "I am Richard and thank you for taking it easy on me and not ruining my fashion model career because of this." "I am Y/N, and don't worry, you still need to earn my trust." you said jokingly while Richard shakes head "Trust me other boys are more problematic than me, let me introduce you to them."

Richard was really nice and kind to you and you were yourself joking a bit with him, but then you remembered that you don't want to get attached to anyone. Who the hell knows what's behind that charimng smile Richard has. You don't want new friends who will hurt you at the end or even worse you don't want a boyfriend. You don't trust anyone anymore so you decided to stay as distant as you could with all the memebers from CNCO. But then you slightly shook your head and thought to yourself "Like anyone would want you anyways." A really loud and excited voice stopped you from overthinking "Oh, mamita welcome, soy Christopher, ma mas sexy of them all" he smiles at you and at that moment you wish you had his confidence.

"I am Y/N, nice to meet you." you simply say with a small smile on your face. Erick and his ugly shirt caught your attention next. "Okay you seriously need help with that." you say looking at Erick from top to the bottom. "Omg that hurts." Erick tells you while pretending to wipe a tear. He had extremly beautiful eyes and you knew it will be hard to stop staring at them. "It will be alright, no llores." you say patting Erick's back. "What's up with others? You ain't going to introduce yourselfs?" a beautiful blondie spoke up while walking towards you. "She knows me already because I almost killed her." Richard defends himself. Zabdiel gives him a confused look but decides to focus on you "Okay so, the boy who tried to kill you is Richard, the least sexy guy in here is Christopher-" "Ay papa, why so mean to me?" Chris squeals while pretending to be crying with Erick. "Oh God with who I am working." you chuckle and shake your head. Zabdiel smiles so softly at you which almost causes you to blush but you don't because you know the smile isn't for you, he is just being kind and polite, your mind tells you. "The boy who needs your help with style is Erick, the quiet one eating french fries is Joel and I am Zabdiel." he finishes introducing. "I am not quiet, I just thought she knew us." this time Joel defends himself. "I am from Europe and unfortunately Latin music is not on the big level there" you state. "Anyways I am really glad I have an opportunity to work with you guys, I know you have a concert in 3 days so we can start looking for stuff that you will wear." "Ay nena, relajate, you have time." Chris says while putting his arm around your shoulder. "You didn't tell us anything about yourself." You try your best to be kind to the boys but you were scared you will end up being hurt again. "Look, I am here to work, not to hang out with you, so please just call me when you are ready to work with me and to make an idiot of me." You exclaimed while walking out of the room. The boys look at each other in shock. "What's up with her?" Christopher asks. "No clue, but that was weird." Erick adds. "Don't be rude. We don't know her story." Zabdiel tells them. It seems like Zabdiel was the only one to notice, you are still healing your wounds.

You came to your apartment and just locked the door and threw yourself on the bed overthinking how you reacted to the boys. You knew you were so rude and that they didn't deserve it at all but you couldn't help it. You wanted to protect yourself and you thought it was a good way. But was it really? Even thought it was pretty early to sleep, it was 8pm, you just wanted to fall asleep and forget about everything. Suddenly, as your eyes start to close, you hear a bell ringing. You aren't getting up, hoping that whoever the hell it is will be gone. "Come on Y/N, we know you are in." you hear Chris' voice. "Open up please" Joel begs. You get up to open the door surprised with the fact that they found out where you live. "What the hell are you guys doing? I am trying to sleep." you say. "Sleep? At 8pm on Saturday night? Erick asks seriously. "Yea?" you state simply. "Can we come in and talk? Please." Zabdiel looks into your eyes. You quickly look away and walk away leaving the door open. The boys take that as a yes and slowly walk in.

"I have brought lots of snacks and drinks!" Richard says pointing at paper bags "We are going to make you a welcome party." You just got back into your bed and covered yourself with a blanket. "Yea, you guys have fun, just please don't break anything I literally moved in this morning." you tell them closing your eyes. "I knew that this was bad idea, we should give her time." Joel whispers to Zabdiel. "Yes, we shouldn't force her to open up, if she is not comfortable with us Zab." Erick agrees with Joel. "What, is it blame Zabdiel day or what? We haven't even tried to make her feel comfortable with us! How can she feel comfortable when there is Christopher who just comes in front of her and says "Yo I am the sexiest." I mean stop complaining and try your best to help her feel okay. She is going to be with us now every day." Zabdiel exclaimed. "Did you fall for her in like 2 hours or what?" Chris asks him with a smirk on his face. "Can you be serious at least for 1 minute? It is not always about flirting and fucking. You sometimes need to help people." Zabdiel tells him while shaking his head. "She was really happy when I bumped into her, she was so chill and I loved her humor, idk what happened later." Rich says while taking a sip of his favourite drink. Chris comes closer to you grabbing whipped cream while whispering to you slowly. "If you don't want to come to our party.... party will come to you." Chris says while spraying whipped cream all over your face and running away from you. "Christopher Damn Velez!" you shouted at him while jumping out of the bed to get your revenge but then Erick grabs you by your waist and stops you. "Run bro, run bro! I got you" Erick yells. "Erick, let me go rn or you will have an ugly style forever!" you tell him. "Y/N don't do that to me..." Erick says making a puppy face. "I am warning you!!!" you say acting seriously. Erick looks carefully at Zab coming slowly behind him and let you in his arms. "You have nothing to blackmail me with." Zab wishpers in your ear while wrapping his arms around your waist. Your body shivers at his touch and you get gooseboomps from his breath on your neck. You don't know why, but it just happens. Seems like your body was giving you signs and trying to tell you "He is the one." "Zabdiel..." you managed to say something. "You either let us introduce ourselves in real light and have good time with us or..." "Or what?" you ask "This." not even finishing the sentence he started tickling you. "N-no, n-no Zabdiel!" you exclaimed while laughing. "Stop, stop please!" you begged while tears were rolling down your face from laughing. But he didn't plan to stop, he was just tickling you even more intensively. "Then promise..." Zabdiel orders. "O-okay, te lo prometo!" you say breathing heavily. "Omg, you are such an idiot!" you tell him while throwing a pillow at him. Zabdiel didn't care about you wanting to kill him at the moment, he just knew his heart was happy because he made you smile. And if his heart and emotions could talk at that moment. They would say it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.

"So it is sleepover then?" Joel asks. "It is." you roll your eyes playfully. "I even got stuffed animals!" Richard tells you and burst into laughter. "Omg you guys are so sweet." "OH DIOS, chicos this is our first compliment!" Chris claps his hands in excitement and everyone else make sarcastic shocked faces which causes you to laugh even more. They all light up candles and ties up balloons trying to make this interesting as much as they could. But also, they were making sure that you are comfortable and fine with everything they were doing. Zabdiel makes comfy place for you to sit next to him. "Come here." he tells you while patting the seat next to him. "No, I am still mad at you." you say trying not to laugh. "Ik how to make this even." Erick says while spraying whipped cream all ove Zabdiel's hair. "NOT THE HAIR!" Zabdiel screams. Christopher started laughing so much which made you burst into tears of laughter because his laugh was the most contagious laugh in the world. They all kept making mess throwing food at each other. "You all are going to clean this I swear." you say looking at the mess they made. "We are going to sing to you now. We will make you forget about all bad things we have done!" Joel says while smiling softly. "Oh hell no, I bet you all suck..." you say teasing them. Zabdiel raises his eyebrows at you, and you felt like your heart was just going to melt. And you were right. Erick starts slowly playing "Tu Luz" on guitar he brought here.

"Dime tú, cómo hago para captar tu atención

Sé muy bien, que en el pasado

Te han roto el corazón"

Zabdiel sings to you while tucking a piece of your hair behind your ear. He sang with so much passion, and that, together with the meaning of the lyrcis, made you get so emotional.

"Abrázame fuerte y no tengas miedo amor

Déjame explicarte..." Chris starts singing to you and his harmonies were already bringing the death to you.

"Quiero ser el que llena de felicidad

Cada espacio de soledad

Déjame ser tu luz"

they all sing together and you couldn't help it with all the emotions and their beautiful voices. "I- I- am sorry, I will be right back." you say with a low voice while crying your eyes out you run to the bathroom.

Everyone look at each other worriedly. "Zab go with her." Joel tells him. "Go see if she is okay." Richard adds. You sit down on the cold bathroom tiles leaning in the wall. You remember all the things people did to hurt you and the way Zabdiel sang to you "I know very well that in the past they have broken your heart." made you think avout all the times people came into your life to waste a couple of months and then leave you when they didn't get what they wanted. "Y/N.. please open the door." Zabdiel says while knocking on your bathroom door. You couldn't even hear him because you were overwhelmed with so many emotions at that moment and you felt like panick attack would get you soon. You try to calm down yourself but you just keep shaking and sobbing even more not realizing how loud you were getting. Once Zabdiel hears you his heart starts beating so fast "Y/N I don't care I am coming in." he tells you while opening the door. He sees you sitting down trying to calm your breathing down. Zabdiel doesn't say anything he just knees down to you and pulls you into his chest hugging you tightly. "Y/N, I am here, you are okay." Once he wrapps his arms around you body your heart starts slowly to get back in normal rhythm. He genlty grabs your face in his hand making you look at him. "Nena, it is okay, I am here, you are safe, no one is going to hurt you." he tells you looking deep into your eyes. You just nod slowly at him and hugs him tightly. You didn't know why you did that, but the only thing you knew at that moment was that you felt so safe in his arms.

After a few minutes of silence but comfortable one, you spoke up. "I am so sorry for causing such a scene in front of you and the boys." you say playing with your fingers. "I have never wanted to be rude just-" "Just you are scared to let us in your life for some reason?" Zabdiel cuts you off "You don't have to apologize for anything nena. I know how ew people can be, and how they can turn your mind against you." he tells you. "Just.. you have no idea how much I hate myself and everything about me.. I- I- don't even know why you guys want to hang out with a girl like me." you tell him while wipping your tears away." Zabdiel puts his hand on yours making sure you are okay with it. "There is absoultely nothing in you or on you that you should hate." Zab says simply. "If me and guys hadn't felt and seen that you were such a nice girl and such a great person we wouldn't even bother coming here." "I know you have every right to think I can be just some another lie, but this is me looking you right in the eyes now and promising you that we are here to protect you. I am here for anything you need. If you want to rant, go on I will listen, If you want advice I will try my best to give you great one. I am here for anything you need. Just give us a chance and we will prove to you that you can count on us." Zabdiel tells you not taking his eyes off of you. You smile at him and deep inside your heart feels that he is honest but your mind tells you to be careful. "Muchas gracias Zab, I will try my best but I hope you understand I will need time." you tell him not noticing your thumb was slighty stroking his hand. "Vale niña, we will be waiting for you. You will work with us every day, you need to get close to us sooner or later." he smiles and purposely bumps his shoulder with yours. "Now go shower, relajate and go to sleep. You need rest." You nod at him while he leaves the bathroom. Zabdiel tells his bandmates what happened and they all gave a promise that will do their best to make you feel good with them. "Can't sleep Zab?" Chris slowly whispers. "Nah." Zab replies. "You thinking about Y/N?" Chris asks. "All I know Chris is that I want to make her be able to smile without being afraid to." Zab tells Chris. "And I am sure, you will bro." Chris tells him being so confident about his words. In the morning, boys got up early to clean the mess they had made. You woke up hearing Chris' laughing about God knows what. "Ohhh, buenos dias sleeping beauty." Richard tells you. "What are guys doing?" you ask. "Nada we took a day off to help you clean." Joel answers you. "Omg, why would you that? I could do it, I was just joking last night." you tell them. "Shhh!" Erick tells you "Less talk, more work!" Erick says grabbing a brush and paint in his hands. "Are you guys like going to paint my apartment?" you ask worriedly. "Yup this place is really ugly and you need to start fresh here soo..." Erick tells you while throwing a brush at you. "Vamos a trabajo!" You just look at them in disbelief and shake your head.

"Let's start from the top." Zab says. "You know not everyone has your height." you tell him playfully rolling your eyes. Zab bends down and picks you up so you can sit on your shoulder. "What about now?" he asks. "Omg you are such an idiot." you smile. Zabdiel was happy because he was making you smile. He really liked having you close to him. "Zabdiel, bro, you have been painting the same sport for 2 minutes now, are you okay?" Chris asks while moving hand in front of his eyes. "Um- yea yea, I am fine, I was just thinking about something." Zab defends himself. You decided to distract him from his thoughts so you put a bit of blue paint on his nose. "Ohhh.... my bad, lo siento." you tell Zabdiel. "Excuse me? What was that for?" he asks while having a big smile on his face. "Nothing, it was an accident." you say trying to stop yourself from laughing. "Oh?" Zab says while putting a paint on your thigh. "This was also an accident." he casually tells you. "Zabdiel! Don't do that" you scream at the feeling of cold paint. "Do what?" he acts innocently. You use your brush and this time paint his hair. "Here, it is better, I didn't like blonde anyways." you say. "Oh my God, oh my God, you are so bad." he says while bringing you down and pushing you to the wall. Zabdiel starts moving his hair on your face. "Zabdiel! Detener!" you yell at him while laughing so much. "Oh, I love this new look of you." he says while smirking at you. "I swear you will stay bald." you try to seriously tell him. "Nah, my stylist won't let it happen to me." he says looking deep into your eyes. "Oh really? We will see." you tell him. Zabdiel's heart was beating fast and his breathing was getting heavier. He wished nothing more than to press his lips against your. He was trying to refrain especially because of the deep talk you two had last night. "I swear I dropped my ring in here-" Richard enters the room looking for the ring he lost. Chris notices you two being close to each other pressed against the wall. "We are sorry!" Chris tells you two while grabbing Richard's hand and dragging him out of the room. "Um, let's get cleaned." Zab says trying to ease the tension. "Vale." you tell him kinda thankful for Richard and Chris entering the room because you felt like if Zabdiel wasn't going to kiss you, you would do it instead. After you and boys finished painting they decided to go out with you to show you Miami a bit. "I swear Erick just kept eating the whole day, he hadn't painted anything." Joel complained. "OMG bro stop lying." Erick tells him. "This man is a liaaaar, this man is a liaa a a a r" Richard starts singing. "Madre mia, are you guys this childish every day?" you ask curiously. "What is it supposed to mean?" Chris asks while crossing arms like a kid. "Nada." you say giving up. "Nah, I swear we are normal." Zabdiel says. "Pff, yes especially you." you tell him while looking at the sunset on the beach. Other boys went to grab something to eat while Zabdiel told them he is not hungry and that he will stay with you. As you were enjoying the feeling of walking barefoot on the wet sand you see your ex friend. Well, more like ex friend with benefits. "Y/N?" Marco says. "Is that you?" he says coming close to you. "Um- yeah hi." you tell him smiling awkwardly. Marco was your friend in highschool. You guys would always have such a great time together. He was so sweet to you and whenever someone bothered you he would try to make you forget about it giving you the best pleasure ever. He was simply good in the bed. That lasted until everyone discovered you two were fucking. After they found out, people started teasing him how he couldn't find a better bitch to fuck and then he threw you away like a garbage. "Omg I haven't seen you for ages!" he says. "Who is this?" he asks pointing at Zabdiel. "He is a friend." you tell him. "With benefits? New one? Is he better than me?" Marco kept asking dumb questions which embarassed you so much. You didn't want Zabdiel to think you were just another girl wanting to fuck every second boy.

You were a teenager and at that time, that was the only way for you to escape the reality. "No Marco!" you yell. "That's in the past, I am not a kid anymore and I am not wasting my time on it. I am actually trying to find someone who is worth to love and not just to fuck. I am trying to have a normal life. Maybe you should do it too." you tell him while grabbing Zabdiel's hand and walking away from him. "Yeah good luck with that, hole is hole for every boy no matter how ugly you are." Marco shouts. Zabdiel was going to run after your ex friend but you stopped him. "I am so sorry about that." you tell Zab completely embarassed. "It is fine." he says. "But what's not fine is the way he was talking to you. It is so disgusting. I am literally disgusted with all males." Zabdiel tells you. "Dw about it, I am really used to it." you sigh. "No, damn it, you are the most chill and beautiful girl I have ever seen. And I don't even care what you say but I don't know what is better about you, how hot and beautiful you look or your incredible personality." he tells you speaking so quickly. Zabdiel couldn't handle this all and before you got a chance to answer him he asks "Is he your type?" You look at him confused but answering anyways. "No, honestly I don't know even who is my type. They all end up hurting and breaking me at the end." you say looking at the sea. "I don't want you to think I am girl like that, you know, just looking for someone to have sex with for one night-" "No, Y/N I know you are not." Zabdiel simply says. "I know you are much more than that." "Thank you Zab." you tell him smiling a little. "So let's say, a Puerto rican, 22 years old, fake blondie wanted to be your type, what would you say?" he asks you looking at your hands on your lap. This time, both your mind and heart were telling you that he was the one. The right one. "I love fake blondies." you tell him biting your lip trying not to smile so much. Zabdiel quickly moves his head up to look at you smiling so much. "So this fake blondie wants to ask you if you could give us a try?" he says. You nod at him putting a hand on his cheek slowly stroking it with your thumb. Zabdiel puts his forehead on yours and slowly moves his lips to yours, kissing you softly and passionately. "I will make you happy nena, I promise you." he tells you pulling away and bringing your hand next to his heart. "You have already done it, you have changed my life for such a little time." you tell him smiling for the first time without being afraid that you will end up being hurt. "LENGUA KISS! WE WANT LENGUA KISS!" boys shout while running to hug you both. The moment Zabdiel hears their voices, he knows whats is comping up, so he quickly grabs your hand and make you two run into the water of calm ocean.

He changed your life. He made you feel like a queen. His queen.

Sometimes you need to go through a lot of pain and experience awful things to be happy. "You will be happy" said life "but first I will make you strong."

Thank you for reading!:)

Please message me and tell me what do you think about my first work ever. Ly xx

[mickmarstookmyheart]

Not that Old

Pairing: Chubby!Reader X Mick Mars

Requested on Wattpad

Remember that requests for Mick are open!

(babies, just look at them)

You were just dreaming of your favorite band of all time when you heard a knock on your door. You groaned and managed to sit on the edge of the bed when you heard another knock this time a bit louder.

"Be there! Fuck." You walked to the door and opened it.

"(Y/N)!!!" One of your best friends, Hanna, yelled making you deaf. She hugged you tight and walked into your apartment.

"Sorry about her. You know how is she with birthdays." Amanda sighed glancing at you. "Happy birthday, (Y/N)!"

"Thank you, Amanda! To be honest, I didn't even remember it when I woke up." You giggled closing the door and letting your calmer bestie in the house. Hanna was already decorating your small living room.

"So where we are going to tonight?" Hanna asked eagerly still bothering with a 'Happy Birthday Girl' paper decoration.

"Can't we just stay here and have a girls' night or something?" Parties and clubs weren't your things. You loved listening to rock music, but your friends weren't fond of it.

"No, (Y/N)! You need to go to a real party sometime! Anyway, we already know where we are going, I just wanted to pretend if I was polite." She laughed heading to your bedroom and gesturing to follow her. You and Amanda shared a look and made your ways towards your bedroom.

"Don't worry, you will love it." Amanda took your hand and squeezed it and gave you an encouraging smile. This made you a bit relieved. She was a truly honest person and she knew your taste in almost everything...even if it was about boys. When you entered the room, Hanna was already throwing clothes out from your closet.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Just choosing the perfect dress for the night."

"Why can't I decide what to wear?"

"Cause you would choose a boring black trouser with a band merch which you always wear!"

"And what's your problem with that?" You asked adjusting your large wireframe glasses on the top of your nose. The blood froze in your veins when Hanna was holding a tight black dress in her hands smiling.

"Hanna, I don't think (Y/N) would be happy in that. Remember that she needs to be happy on her birthday." Amanda said in a calm tone. She always got your back. You loved both of them but Amanda understood you better. Hanna put the dress back while making a face and started searching again.

"Then, there is nothing here!" She pouted. "Wait, I think there is hope!" She grabbed your black leather pants and showed it to you. You had a mix of emotions for that piece of clothing. You would kill for pants like that but you didn't have the guts to wear it.

"Umm, I don't know." You rubbed the back of your head.

"(Y/N), it's perfect, believe me!" Amanda said admiring your pants. "Go put it on." 

You still hesitated.

"You heard Amanda. If she says it's perfect then it's hella perfect!" Hanna handed the pants and a black shirt to you and sat down on your bed while you went to your bathroom to change. "Maybe, these leather pants aren't that bad." You thought when you saw yourself in the mirror adjusting it.

∆

"Come on, (Y/N), we are almost there!" Hanna was already a bit tipsy. She was dragging you towards the surprise place.

"You know I don't like surprises!" You yelled.

"You will like this one, just trust me!" Hanna added. When you turned at the corner you gulped. No, this can't be. You felt the excitement of recognizing the area. From a hundred meters you could see the familiar place. There was already a huge crowd in front of the club queueing in a line.

"No way! I can't believe you brought me here!" You cheered, the brightest smile on your face.

"We told you you will love it." Amanda pushed you playfully by the shoulder. "And have you seen who will play tonight?" You took a glance. Your mouth dropped when you saw the name. The name of the band which was now your life. Mötley Crüe.

"Omg!" You cursed. "I can't believe you managed to arrange this!"

"Anything for you, (Y/N)! You deserve it!" Amanda said with a smile.

"And the rest is just in the corner," Hanna added with a devilish smile on her face.

When you were finally in the facility you headed towards the bar to get some booze.

"We are okay here." You said gripping your bottle.

"Are you kidding, right? I can't even see the stage from here, then how I supposed to see that bass player's beautiful face?" Hanna pouted pulling your hand towards the first rows.

"At least can I choose the side?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Then, I will stay here, on this side.." You announced.

"That old man's side?" Hanna asked.

"Don't dare to call him old! And yes, I will stay here and watch him play those badass riffs of his." Hanna's answer was a shrug.

When Nikki and the others stood on the stage the whole crowd screamed and cheered for the band. When Mick came up on the stage, you froze. He was dressed in black, even his guitar was black except for those yellow stamps on it. His raven hair slightly flew in the air during those guitar solos and riffs. There were moments when you felt he was right staring at you, but you were sure he was looking at someone else. Why would he look at you, anyway?

∆

"Wow, (Y/N), you need to bring us more to this band's concert! Why haven't you tell about them yet?" Hanna asked still under the effect of the concert and the whole show.

"I have already told you, you just didn't listen as usual." You murmured sipping from your beer. "Which song did you like the most?"

"Hmmm, I can't remember any title but those beautiful eyes being the puff of hair of the bass player." If it was possible, Hanna would've had hearts instead of eyes.

"You didn't disappoint me." You muttered.

"I quite liked Starry Eyes, Take me to the Top and Live Wire," Amanda added remembering back to those songs. "And those riffs were truly extremely good."

"Indeed they were." You were happy that someone also paid attention to the songs and not just the boys' appearance.

"If you had the chance whom would you kiss?" Hanna asked while you almost choked on your drink.

"Hanna, you passed a line." Amanda snapped.

"What? It was just a harmless question!"

"Well, it's not gonna even happen...so I would kiss Tommy," Amanda added imagining kissing the drummer.

"I thought you would choose the singer."

"I'm not into blondies. Okay, so Hanna has already made us clear she would choose Nikki, what about you, (Y/N)."

You hesitated. They already thought that Mick was an old man, while he looked sweet and caring. And his eyes. Damn.

"(Y/N)!" Hanna's yell brought you back to reality from your daydream.

"Sorry. Well, I think Mick." You admitted.

"Really?" Hanna raised one of her eyebrows.

"Hey, he looks good, too and you know (Y/N) is into creepy, weird guys!" Amanda said. You didn't know if you should thank her or just hit her in the arm for that last statement.

∆

After the concert, you and your friends were just sitting at some tables. Some guys tried to join in but Hanna always rejected saying you have other plans for the night. You didn't like surprises and Hanna had crazy ideas sometimes.

"Are you ready?" Amanda asked looking at you. Due to the amount of alcohol she started to act like Hanna which you didn't like. Who will stop Hanna from doing senseless actions?

"To go home?" You had high hopes.

"No, you silly. For your birthday present." Amanda giggled taking your hand and helping you get up from your seat.

"I don't know. I'm not so sure." You bit down your lip waiting for the disaster. When you walked beside the stage you stop in front of the backstage door. A giant guard stood there who was twice as tall as you.

"Um, hello, sir. I...we have the arrangement to get backstage. I have talked to Doc...Doc McGhee and he said yes. To us..meet the boys." Hanna was a bit tipsy now. The guard still didn't move.

"Okay, listen here you giant. This girl right here celebrates her birthday today so don't ruin it. She fucking deserves to meet those guys there inside." Hanna crossed her arms and sent death glares at the guard. His answer was just a growl and a stare.

"It's okay, Hanna. We have already seen the guys. It's not necessary to get ourselves killed by some big guy." You said holding back your friend.

"Hey, Chuck, let them in. They look harmless and we could use a company." Vince appeared and gazed at all of you. The guard, Chuck opened the door and let you in.

"Thank you. It was kind of you." Amanda said.

"I heard that one of you have a birthday today so I thought why not? Anyway, I'm Vince." He smirked and guided to the room where the others were.

"I'm Amanda, she is Hanna and the birthday girl is (Y/N)." She introduced all of you.

"Happy birthday, (Y/N)!" Vince turned back for a moment and gave you a big smile. You were just looking down and adjust your glasses.

"Thank you." You said shyly.

"Hey, Everyone, I brought some company!" Vince yelled as soon as you arrived in the room. Nikki, Tommy immediately looked up and smirked looking over you and your friends. You were looking over Mick who was drinking and he also slowly lift his head. When he looked into your eyes you felt your face burn and your heart race.

"That girl has a birthday today so let's have a big party!" Vince said pointing at you.

∆

Well, not the best birthday present you had. The girl ditched you, Amanda was flirting with Tommy and Hanna sitting close to Nikki. She whispered something in his ear which made him smirk. Vince was busy with his blond girlfriend and Mick was away. He said he had something to do and left an hour ago. You were sitting in the corner of the room on the couch and was looking everywhere but your 'friends'. Cool friends. You were jealous how easily they could flirt with boys but it was so much easier for them. They were skinny and had a model look.

"Have I missed the party?" Mick stood down beside making you jump. You didn't notice him returning. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"Nah, it's okay." You tensed but tried to breathe properly. "And don't worry, you didn't miss anything."

"I see. Well, I brought some beers for you and a little surprise." Mick said searching in the paper bag he brought with himself. You gulped. Did Mick bring you a surprise?

"Oh, you didn't have to." You said shyly.

"I did. You have a birthday and there is no birthday without some candy, is it?" He gave you a little smile. He put a little cupcake on the table and a candle. He lights the candle and handed it to you. You felt tears in your eyes from happiness. You took the cupcake in your shaking hand and blew it after wishing.

∆

"So they are your friends?" Mick asked after you and he was the only one who was in the room.

"Yeah."

"Are you mad at them? Because I can help you revenge if you want. Ditching you like this for those idiots was quite rude if you ask me. Especially, on your birthday." Mick said gazing at you.

"They aren't that bad. They brought me here after all and they can be kind, too. They come here just for me." You played with the package of the cupcake. "They aren't into this kind of music." You sighed.

"And what about you? Did you like the concert?"

"Definitely! It was awesome! I have already been to one of your concerts, but this was the best one so far! You become better and better, guys." Fangirling took all over on you again and you realized it. "Sorry, if I talk too much."

"Hey, I asked you so feel free. You know, I'm not the talkative one." He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. You almost melted from that smile and can't help but smiled, too.

"Thank you for keeping me company. And for the cake."

"It's nothing. You are kind and you deserved it. Moreover, your music taste is pretty good." He added making you giggle. He liked making you laugh. He adored your beautiful eyes behind your adorable glasses and your personality. He knew he wasn't able to know you fully during this short time but he wanted to. "Umm, (Y/N), would you like to meet again?"

You felt the blood froze in your veins and the smile immediately faded.

"I'm sorry?" You were sure you just misunderstood it.

"I would like to know you better. And you to have someone you can rely on and have a talk whenever you want cause your 'friends' clearly aren't capable of that." He was angry. You were speechless. You were in shock. "They don't deserve you."

"I don't really know what to say." You loved your friends, though they can be a pain in the ass sometimes. And why don't be friends with your favorite musician? It would be a dream. "I would like to know you better, too, Mick. You seem kind and generous. And you look good, too." It wasn't your intention to confess. Damn, that beer.

"Why would you say that? I'm an old man." He scoffed flinching.

"Have you seen me?" You snapped. It wasn't fair what he was thinking. He wasn't that old and he was so much prettier than the other boys.

"You are young. And far more beautiful than me."

"You are not old, Mick. Yes, the boys are younger than you but that doesn't you are old. And believe me, you are handsome." Your face was now crimson red and it was burning.

"Then you have to believe that you are gorgeous, too. Being skinny doesn't mean beauty. Everyone is beautiful in their way. And if other men don't realize it, then they are blind."

You smiled at him and still couldn't believe those things Mick has just said. In the morning you were just staring at him on the poster in your room now you were face-to-face and was complimenting each other. That's what you call improvement!

"This might sound weird but can I hug you?" You asked worryingly.

"Of course!" He leaned closer and hugged you tightly. You put your chin on his shoulder and filled your lungs with his scent.

"Thank you so much. For everything."

"Me, too, (Y/N). Me, too."

Tags: @leatherandheels @littlemisscare-all @karrotkate ❤️

[dippedanddripped]

Debbie Harry doesn’t believe in harbouring regrets. “I have made many, many errors, but nobody leads a perfect life,” she reflects down the telephone from New York. “So, should I regret anything? No. It is a waste of time. It really is a waste of time.”

Dial back to the turn of the 70s and the life that Harry led before fronting Blondie – prior to her image being burned onto the retina of popular culture – was colourful to say the least. “I was so desperate to live life,” she says of her time spent hanging with the outcasts and artists of downtown New York. “I was jamming in as much experience as I possibly could and I don’t know if I could have done anything differently. I learned a lot.”

The old Bowery music venue CBGBs has long passed into music folklore as the place that called the likes of Television, Patti Smith, and the Ramones their house bands. It was also where punk and new wave progenitors Blondie cut their teeth before they sashayed into the wider world with the protean panache that would make them a household name. Classic singles such as “Heart of Glass”, “Call Me”, “Atomic”, and “Rapture” have been responsible for more worldwide rug-cutting than an industrial carpet tool. To imply that they were merely a solid singles band is to do them a cardinal disservice, however.

And although they’ve always cocked their attention to the things ahead of them, Harry and her Blondie cohorts have spent a lot of time looking back just lately. Harry’s long-awaited autobiography, Face It, hit the shelves last year, and Blondie co-founder and one-time partner Chris Stein published Point of View: Me, New York City, and the Punk Scene, a photography book featuring personal snaps taken during the band’s pomp in the 70s and early 80s. “We can’t keep on touring and doing club dates the way that we used to. It would be physically impossible,” Harry concedes. “Living through this pandemic has certainly made us take a long look at the value of what we’ve got with our body of work.” Asked if it is a process of attempting to frame their legacy, she admits it’s something that they “have to do”.

This deep-dive into their canon has culminated in a mouth-watering archive set, Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982, slated for release next year. Coming in four formats, it promises to include extensive liner notes, “track by track” commentary by the entire band, a photographic history plus rare and unreleased bonus material. The group will also go out on the road – coronavirus permitting – for an autumn Against the Odds UK tour with Garbage.

The artist born Angela Trimble was put up for adoption only a few months after she was ushered into the world in the summer of 1945. A loving New Jersey couple took her in, rechristened her Deborah Harry, and raised her as their own. She grew up in a suburb that she “never left”,  was voted best-looking girl in her high school yearbook, and oscillated within a social circle that consisted of “many of the same people” throughout her childhood. “I was somehow shy within that,” she recalls, “(but) somebody once said to me that being shy was an ego trip and a light went on in my head. I thought, ‘Oh, uh-huh, let’s have none of that!’”

Harry travelled by bus as a curious teen to nearby Greenwich Village, imbibing the febrile inner-city atmosphere. In 1965, she graduated from junior college with an associate of arts degree and New York’s allure became too enticing to resist. She decamped to the bright lights of the city and made ends meet with a succession of odd jobs, including secretarial work for the BBC, waiting tables and an infamous nine-month stint as a Playboy Bunny.

The period was a traumatic one, too, with Harry enduring an ex-lover-turned-violent-stalker and a near-miss with serial killer Ted Bundy (although Bundy’s identity is contested by others). In her memoir, she writes candidly of the time she was raped by a man wielding a knife while on her way home from a concert with Stein. Music offered a vessel for her creativity, and she spent time as part of girl group The Stilettoes and folk ensemble Wind in the Willows before her meeting with guitarist Stein which set the foundations for Blondie. Their classic lineup was completed by Gary Valentine (bass), Jimmy Destri (keys), and Clem Burke (drums).

“Somebody once said to me that being shy was an ego trip and a light went on in my head. I thought, ‘Oh, uh-huh, let’s have none of that’” – Debbie Harry

Although they self-identified as punks, the parochial and nihilistic mandate as promulgated by the genre’s militant diehards never fit Blondie comfortably. The group looked outwards from the moment they started, drawing inspiration from their cosmopolitan city. Their sound was a melting pot pulling at the seams of culture’s fabric, and they would weave their own patterns from it.

Harry agrees that their eclecticism was down to good fortune in coming from the “metropolitan area of New York” where they ingested “a lot of musical influences”. Taken as a whole, their catalogue bears this out. Blondie never stood still musically – yet never sounded like anyone else – and they loaded their songs with more hooks than a fisherman’s trawler. 1976’s punchy, eponymous debut married surf-rock textures with 50s girl-group sensibilities, and their palette had expanded exponentially by the time of seminal third album, Parallel Lines (1978). Eat to the Beat and Autoamerican followed, by which point they could boast flirtations with disco, rocksteady, funk, hip hop, and more within their enviable output.

When asked to pick one track that encapsulates the essence of Blondie, Harry opts for their 1981 US number one single “Rapture”. “What happens in ‘Rapture’ is very comprehensive,” she says. “It took a form of music that was, or still is, very modern and can be very political. Rap and hip-hop songs back then didn’t have their own songs. Rappers would just rap on somebody else’s music. (‘Rapture’) was crafted specifically for that rap. Until then that hadn’t been done. It was a breath of fresh air.” It stands as one of the things in her career that she feels “very good about”.

Blessed with the sort of features that could sell sand to the Saharans, Harry’s appearance caused a stir from the band’s earliest days. “That’s part of showbiz,” she says to me, trying to downplay it. “We always had an eye for that, the entire band. We always had an idea of making a look that represented our sensibilities and links to British pop and mod.” Maybe so, but it was Harry alone who was immortalised by Andy Warhol in one of his iconic silkscreen prints, and who posed for era-defining photographers including Robert Mapplethorpe and Anne Leibowitz.

Did the disproportionate attention she attracted ruffle feathers within the Blondie camp at the time? “Yes and no,” Harry remembers. “We were all happy that it was working. I suppose there was a certain amount of competition or jealousy but ultimately, no. I think that’s a better question for Clem or one of the other members in the band. Of course my relationship with Chris was so close that he was very happy about everything.”

The band’s wheels eventually came off after their muddy and unfocused sixth album, The Hunter, dashed against the commercial rocks in 1982. They had to abandon their subsequent tour after Stein became gravely ill with a rare autoimmune disorder, pemphigus vulgaris, that proved extremely difficult to diagnose. Blondie had no option but to bow out of the public eye, and they broke up quietly.

15 years later, with Stein fully recovered, the group reconvened and released a critically acclaimed and commercially successful comeback album, No Exit. They even topped the UK charts with lead single “Maria”, but faced tussles with erstwhile members at the time too. Former bassist and co-writer on “One Way or Another”, Nigel Harrison, and guitarist Frank Infante attempted to sue the rest of the band over their omission from the reformed lineup. And when Blondie were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, Infante grabbed the microphone to express his ire publicly.

Fast-forward to 2020 and the settled iteration of the band are working on a new album with John Congleton, who produced 2017’s Pollinator. Does Harry have a formula when it comes to songwriting these days? No, as it happens. “When a phrase or a sentiment makes me respond emotionally or physically, I write it down and I save it,” she explains. “At a certain point, I’ll sort of review things. A lot of times I like to just work with a rhythm track. Just a drumbeat or some kind of drone-y rhythm, a groove. Other times people will give me a rough sketch of some chord changes – an idea that they’ve got. I seem to work in a lot of different ways.”

Thanks to her effortless chic and timeless looks, Harry’s relationship with the fashion industry has been a mutual love-in since forever, and she recently announced a revival of her partnership with ethical fashion designers Vin + Omi – the duo responsible for her profane ‘STOP FUCKING THE PLANET’ cape worn at the Q Awards in 2016 and throughout Blondie’s Pollinator tour. They have teamed up for a new sustainable clothing line entitled HOPE, and her enthusiasm for the project is palpable. “I love Vin + Omi,” she says. “They are so creative and adventurous. They have this desire to prevail and do things that are smart and modern in terms of recycling and making energy count. I think that is brilliant.”

As a fledgling bee-keeper, the plight of the bees is also something close to Harry’s heart. It was one of the reasons why 2017’s Pollinator was, well, named exactly that. “You’re either being stung by a bee or you’re going to eat its honey,” she chuckles softly, marvelling at the absurdity of the contrast. “But bees and water are two issues we cannot escape from. We should be concerned with finding better ways of living, using our resources in the best way possible.”

Help is coming, she hopes, through the election of Joe Biden, who is “firmly attached” to the idea of helping the environmental cause – and she believes his ideas can help the economy, too. “I’ve been saying for quite a long time that solar and wind power are renewable (energies) that can create jobs,” she says. It’s a far cry from her feelings towards outgoing President Trump and his “daily infusion of bullshit” and “thunderstorm of endless diatribes”.

“One of the most exciting things about rock’n’roll was that it was about breaking the rules, and (‘WAP”) is certainly a part of that. It’s titillating and aggressive and it is part of what is exciting about popular music. The nature of what we try to do is to shock and entertain at the same time” – Debbie Harry

What strikes you when you speak to Harry for an extended period is not only her warmth, but her unexpected humility for someone so staggeringly famous. I reference a Bob Dylan BBC interview from the 80s in which he observed with sadness how his fame had the ability to change a room’s energy and how he missed seeing people act naturally around him. She paws the comparison away, saying she’s nowhere near famous “to the degree of Bob Dylan”, whom she calls “such a megastar”. This could sound like false modesty coming second-hand, but in person it feels like a sincere statement, even if it is a little bewildering coming from an international icon. She will concede, however, that she has “definitely noticed and felt something like that” and has often wished she could simply be “a fly on the wall”.

There is also an inquisitiveness that makes the conversation a more two-way affair than your quote-unquote typical ‘interview’. She fires questions back at you, not as a deflection tactic, but to expand and explore a topic further. This happens when conversation turns to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s ubiquitous “WAP”. A recent interview had her fangirling over the track, but Harry’s feelings no longer appear to be as clear-cut and she wishes to discuss the song further. “I love it and hate it at the same time,” she now shares. “One of the most exciting things about rock’n’roll was that it was about breaking the rules, and (‘WAP’) is certainly a part of that. It’s titillating and aggressive and it is part of what is exciting about popular music. The nature of what we try to do is to shock and entertain at the same time.” She pauses. “I don’t know. Everything is revealed and maybe sexual explicitness has come of age.”

Pushed about what she dislikes about “WAP”, she says she would “hate it” if any young girl or woman was hurt by the song’s message. “I think that, in a way, men have to know that women think like this, and that there is this component,” she says, “but I would hate it to mean that everyone should be treated like this. I don’t think anybody should be hurt by sex”.

Harry has long championed the LGBTQ+ communities. When she refers to her dearly departed friend and Hairspray co-star Divine as a ‘drag queen’ in Face It, she acknowledges the term in some instances is no longer accurate or politically correct. I suggest that it can often seem as though the evolution of our language is speeding up in the digital age – by necessity, of course – and ask her if online culture fills her with concern when it comes to using the right terms. “Yeah, (because) in many cases it can be a slip of the tongue, especially for an old dog like me! Things do move so very, very quickly. It is hard to keep up,” she observes. “Fortunately, I have a lot of godchildren!”

Speaking of younger generations, Harry likes to think she’d have coped with social media if she were coming up today, but is thankful that she had her “dark cocoon” in which to “bloom out of”, a place where she was able to “ripen”. “When you’re under the harsh glare of constantly being analysed, that shapes you whether you want it to or not,” she says. “It’s a germ or a seed that’s planted in your mind. It can take surprising turns and it can affect your growth. For good or for worse, who knows?”

“When you’re under the harsh glare of constantly being analysed, that shapes you whether you want it to or not. It’s a germ or a seed that’s planted in your mind. It can take surprising turns and it can affect your growth” – Debbie Harry

One thing that remains is her fierce level of self-criticism. “I always want to do better,” she declares matter-of-factly. “I’ve always been very critical of everything. I hear things or look at them and say, ‘Oh God, it should have been that (instead).” Maybe this hypercritical inclination is what still drives her forward. “I honestly don’t like resting on my laurels. I like working and I like creating. I always beat myself up about not being more creative or more prolific.”

When looking at the bounty of projects she has lined up, no one in their right mind could put Debbie Harry and laurel-resting in the same sentence. Aside from the new album, archival set and fashion project, the paperback edition of her autobiography will be released with a brand-new epilogue in April of next year. (Just don’t ask her what’s in it – “I don’t remember what I wrote. I’ll have to look it up!” she says with a laugh.)

The signs are that the musician is done looking into the rear-view mirror, though. Time may be passing, the tide may be higher, but Debbie Harry is doing more than merely holding on. Her eyes are locked to the future and she’s positively thriving.

Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982 will be released next year; Face It is out now via Harper Collins

[lovemesomerafael]

Others Like Me                                      Chapter 1:  Abduction

Source:  @heybinary​

[Oh, shit.  I might be obsessed.  Again.  This is my first attempt at writing anything related to The Avengers, and I’m really only focused on Bucky and Steve.  Not sure what’s gonna happen here.  It’ll be full of swearing (helloooooo?  It’s me) and it’ll be smutty, but not sure yet who’s gonna be doing whom.  Stay tuned.   Right now, Bucky’s about to make a new friend.]

It’s a beautiful spring day when they come for Bucky.  It’s calm and sunny, just warm enough not to need a jacket, with the first promise of true summer on the breeze, and he’s walking around Brooklyn.  Just walking around, minding his own business, trying to pull memories out of the deepest recesses of his mind.  The places Hydra never touched.  

He stands outside a deli that he swears was there when he and Steve were kids and, judging from the age of the building and some of the fixtures, he could be right.  It’s the smell that holds the closest thing to a memory for him. So he’s just standing there, breathing it in and squinting a little behind his nano mask, trying to fill in the bare sketch that could be a memory, or might just be a fantasy.

When Bucky sees them coming for him, he knows they’re real enough, but he almost doesn’t believe what he’s seeing.  It’s the way they move.  It’s too synchronized.  It’s like they’re one person in many bodies – twelve or fourteen, he thinks – moving in absolute concert without a command or even much sound.  From every direction – including up – they converge on him and before he has time even to register a threat, it’s too late.  They just appear from doorways, dropping down from balconies where no one had been a split second before, and piling out of a dirty, beat-up panel truck so perfectly common he hadn’t even noticed it.  He feels a stupendously painful pinprick, and he’s out.  They bundle him into the truck.  The whole thing takes fifteen seconds and, of all the passersby on the street at that moment, not one is sure anything strange happened.

He comes to, and finds that he’s as trussed up as he’s ever been, and he’s been bound plenty of different ways in the course of his hideously eventful life.  These restraints are different.  They’re not the crude clamps used by Hydra back when he was first their prisoner, which relied on bulk for strength.  They’re not even the crazily redundant engineered system used on him in Berlin.  These are something he’s never seen before, something so advanced he thinks even Tony Stark would be impressed.  For one thing, they’re too light.  He knows before he tests them that they’ve got to be made of something immensely strong. Vibranium, maybe?  What he knows for sure is, he can’t get out, and the people around him in the plane know it.  He’s struggling against the bands holding his arms, legs, chest and abdomen, and they’re barely paying attention to him.

He wonders, irrelevantly, what happened to his nano mask.  It’s when he’s testing the restraints that he realizes he can’t move his left arm.  It’s just lying there, powerless, dead and useless.  How the fuck did they manage that?

They don’t even seem to care that he’s woken up, although he sees them notice.  It’s the same people  who captured him in Brooklyn; he remembers catching glimpses of most of them.  They’re obviously a team of some sort.  Soldiers, or operatives or something.  He guesses he’ll call them “agents,” for lack of a better word.  They’re not wearing street clothes now; all of them are wearing what looks like tactical gear, although they’re not wearing body armor at the present.  They’re speaking Russian, debriefing his capture.

A striking-looking woman with a lot of hair bound up in a tight knot at the back of her head is clearly the leader.  Bucky’s fascinated for a few minutes by the fact that, although most of her hair is dark brown, there’s a section on the right side that’s blonde.  He’s also fascinated because she seems to think the mission went badly, sloppily.  Which pisses him off, because they sure as shit took him without a fight.

“Where are you taking me?” Bucky decides to ask, because it’s kind of getting to him the way they’re pretending he’s not there.  He doesn’t like it at all.  It reminds him way too much of what it was like… before.  

A few of them look at him, but none of them answers or responds in any other way.  Until he hears sounds from behind him and a tall, fit, older man in the same type of tac gear as the rest of these people steps in front of him.  His hair is a very short, white cap and his skin is badly weatherbeaten, as though he’s seen a lot of time in the field.  Bucky thinks his head looks like a bullet, and immediately christens him Bullethead.  The guy has true believer written all over him, and Bucky notices he’s holding one of those fucking stun batons he learned to hate so much.  

No.  Please, no.  These people cannot be Hydra.  Hydra is dead.  It can’t be happening again.  He can’t be going back… there.  Bucky Barnes makes a decision right then and there.  He’s not going back to that.  He’ll die first.   Hopefully, he’ll get to take some of these motherfuckers with him.  He feels a tight, cold core of fear form in his stomach, and stuffs it away like he’s done a thousand times before.  That’s easy. He’s got a limitless vault inside him where he can stuff fear and pain, and get on with whatever he’s got to do.

It’s the other stuff that’s always been harder to ignore.  Stuff like guilt.  Steve’s gonna be insane with grief and fear when Bucky disappears without a trace.  And now there are more people who care about him, too.  People like Sam and Natasha, Clint and Bruce and Scott.  Even Tony tolerates him, although it's debatable whether Tony can be said to really like anyone other than Pepper.  He’s let them all down, and he knows that Steve will come looking for him.  Again. That’s a whole lot of distraction he can’t afford right now, and it’s a hell of a lot more difficult to stuff that mess into the vault and slam the door shut on it.

Bullethead, holding the stun baton in one hand and smacking it into another, speaks to him in German-accented English.  Of course, Bucky thinks.  Why’s the accent always gotta be German?  The dread boils inside Bucky’s chest and he stuffs that into the vault with the rancid memories that come flooding through him just hearing the guy’s voice.  

“It’s an honor to meet you, Sergeant.  I’ve been studying you for a long time.  The things you’ve accomplished…  I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with you.”

“Can’t say I feel the same,” Bucky growls.  The leader of the team of agents flicks a look at him as he speaks.  There’s no expression on her face.  

“Do you need anything? A drink of water, perhaps?  Are you feeling all right?  The tranquilizer can make some people a little queasy, I’m told.” Bucky decides he really, really hates this guy.  The whole thing about being smugly courteous to a prisoner has never sat well with him.  He prefers being smacked around.  At least that’s honest.  He doesn’t bother answering, just closes his eyes and leans his head back.

“Very well.  We’ll let you sleep it off.  It’s a long flight.”

 They must drug him again, because the next thing Bucky knows, he’s waking up in a cell.  The walls are solid, riveted metal of some indefinable dark color, and the door is a grate of thick bars.  It’s so familiar he nearly vomits just from the hellish sense of déjà vu.  It’s not the same cell, not the same place as before.  But it’s close enough.  In fact, it’s so close he wonders if he’s back in Siberia.  He can feel the same dry cold, and smell the same musty scent.

He’s no longer bound. No need to be; he’s not getting out of this cell.  It’s made of whatever metal the restraints were made of, and his arm’s still as dead as it had been on the plane.  It feels unbelievably heavy.  He squeezes his eyes closed as tightly as he can and concentrates on his breathing. For a full five minutes, he forces all the chaotic, roiling emotions he can’t afford right now back into the vault in his mind, and seals the door tight.  

When he opens his eyes again, he realizes that the leader of the team of… agents who abducted him is standing inside his cell holding a tray of food.  He has no idea how she got there without him hearing her, but there she is. And the cell door is shut behind her. If nothing else, he has to admire her guts.  She’s wearing the same tac gear as she was on the plane, and he again notices her dark hair. It’s in a plain ponytail today, and it’s strangely thick and very long.  That blonde patch is cool, Bucky decides.  Half her bangs are blonde, and the blonde continues a ways toward her right ear.  He wonders if it’s natural.  There’s something odd about the idea of hired muscle worrying about her hair but, then again, he never met a dame who didn’t.  He christens her Blondie.

He nods to the tray.  “You really think I’m gonna eat that?”  He spits out, just to be difficult.

“I hope so,” Blondie says, in English, with an almost-perfect American accent.  There’s just a slight hint of something else, something Slavic, behind it.  She sets the tray down on a small folding table next to the cot he’s lying on.  As she does, she looks him straight in the eye. Her eyes are large and deep brown, and unlike when they were on the plane, there’s an expression in them now.  “We’ll both be glad you did.”

Bucky has no idea what that’s supposed to mean.  She stands up and takes a step back, looking to her side out the bars of the door.  There’s someone there, and she gives the slightest nod of her head and says, “Devyatnadsat.”

Huh? Nineteen what?  Bucky doesn’t get anything this chick has said so far, even though he’s understood every word.

A hulking blond guy with a military-looking haircut comes to the door and unlocks it, and Blondie turns her back on Bucky and walks out of the cell.  She’s obviously not too bright, turning her back on a prisoner like that. It’s been so long since Bucky’s met anyone who wasn’t afraid of him that it never occurs to him to think this woman might not be.  

“Eat.”  She says as the blond guy closes the cell door behind her. “Please.”

Bucky eats.  Because why the hell not?  Or maybe that’s his reason.  He really wonders what Blondie meant by “We’ll both be glad you did.”  It’s a little more difficult to eat when his left arm’s completely useless, but he manages.  He pays no attention to what the food is.  It’s fuel.  That’s all that matters.

There’s no way to know how long it is before they come to get him.  It could be one hour, it could be five or six.  There are no windows, nothing going on that he can see or hear, that might help Bucky measure the passage of time.  But if there’s one thing he learned in the Army, it’s how to wait. As he does, he reiterates to himself his determination that he will not go back to being the Winter Soldier.  If he has to die to escape that fate, that’s what he’s gonna do.  He sits up on the side of his cot and says a little prayer that God, and Steve, will forgive him.  But he’s pretty sure they’ll both understand.

It’s Blondie that leads a team of whatever-they-are to the door of his cell.  They’re all the same ones from Brooklyn, and wearing the same tac gear they had on when they were on the plane, only this time, they are wearing body armor.  They’re heavily armed, and they’re bristling with other weapons.  The blond guy unlocks the door of Bucky’s cell and, again, Blondie just walks in casually.  She does take the precaution of handing her weapon to another woman behind her, but she’s still got a massive sidearm, an automatic pistol strapped to her thigh, and three knives that he can see, not to mention some other things on her belt and in her armored vest that are undoubtedly weapons, too.  

Bucky thinks about it. Of course he thinks about it.  If she’s that dumb… but there are simply too many of them, and they’re just too heavily armed.  Anyway, if he’s going to take somebody out with him, he wants it to be more than just Blondie.  So when she takes a pair of combat boots from one of the others and kneels down to put them on him, he lets her.  With only one arm, he can’t do it.  

It’s then that Bucky realizes what he’s wearing.  The same black tac gear as the rest of these people.  Why the idea that somebody changed his clothes while he was unconscious bothers him more than anything else that’s happened so far, he doesn’t know.  But it does.

Blondie stands up when she finishes fastening the complicated buckles on his boots.  Bucky stands, too, and when she signals him to, he just turns around and lets her bind his wrists behind him with cuffs of the same material he was bound with on the plane.  There are ankle chains, too.  This is all so fucking familiar.  The helplessness.  The absolute lack of options.  It gets harder to ignore the terror.

They surround him – four in front, two on each side, and four in back - and walk him through what must be some kind of bunker, because there are no windows anywhere.  Everything’s metal, utilitarian, ugly.  Just like before.  Again, he notices the eerie synchronization in the way these people move. They walk in step, their strides all the same length.  They turn corners in formation.  If he didn’t want to kill them all so badly, he might find them graceful.  

But that’s the last remotely pleasant thought he has, because they come to a set of doors that looks way too fucking familiar.  Thick, metal doors with a small glass slit of a window in each.  There are armed guards in front of it, outfitted and armed exactly as his escorts are, and they pull the doors open without a word or signal that Bucky can see.  The escorts don’t break stride or slow in the slightest as they arrive at the now-open doors and walk into a large room where he notices several people and a bunch of what looks like… oh, shit…  oh fuck no…  

Bucky can’t help it. He stumbles and recoils in horror when he sees that same fucking chair with the same damn restraints and the same hellish apparatus behind and above it, like a massive mechanical halo with those things that clamp onto his head and…

Strong hands take Bucky’s arms and legs, and he’s lifted from the floor as if he weighs nothing and placed, quickly and efficiently, into the chair.  He tries to fight, but there are too many of them, and they all seem to be a strong as he is.  Besides which, he’s shackled.  Eight of the black-wearing agents hold him down while Blondie engages the restraints built into the chair.  One of the agents unfastens Bucky’s handcuffs once his upper arms are bound, and two others wrestle his forearms into cuffs in the chair’s arms.  The rest take positions around the room, all of them with weapons aimed at him.  

Even with all the thoughts wildly careening through his brain and the horror that has broken completely free of his control, even as he screams in defiance, Bucky has the presence of mind to realize that he is the only one making any noise.  From the time they appeared at his cell door to bring him to this torture chamber, no one has said a word.  Not one.  There have been no commands, no questions, nothing.  

Once he realizes he’s fully trapped, unable to escape no matter what he does, he stops wasting energy on shouting, even though the stream of profanity he’s been yelling helped with the panic.  He needs to focus.  He needs to figure out how to die before they use that accursed machine on him again. He can already feel the overwhelming agony that’s coming.  No. NO.  Anything, even death, but not that.

And then something utterly bewildering happens.  The rest of the team, or whatever they are, let go of Bucky now that he’s fully strapped into the chair, and back away.  As they do, Blondie leans over him, ostensibly to check a strap and, so close to him that only she and Bucky can see it, flicks something into her hand from underneath a wristband she’s wearing.  

“Say nothing,” he hears her mutter into his ear as she sticks whatever it is to the inside of Bucky’s left arm.  It’s tiny and apparently strongly magnetic, because he can feel it latch onto his arm.  And when he does, he feels his arm come to life.  

As she backs away slightly, she again makes full eye contact and pulls at other restraints as if to check them, too.  “Watch. Be ready.”

It’s so quiet he can’t be sure he heard her, and her lips don’t move as she says it, but there’s no mistaking the eye contact.  

What.  The.  Fuck.

He doesn’t move his hand or his arm.  Mostly because he’s so stunned.

“Vocem’!”  A man with a hideous scar where one eye and cheek should be barks at Blondie.  She steps back from Bucky and goes rigid.  Her eyes go blank.  “What did you say to him?”

She looks toward the others in the room, away from Bucky.  “To whom, Sir?”

“To him!”  The man’s harsh, guttural Russian only accents the hate in his voice.  He’s already pulling one of those damn stun batons from a loop on his belt.  

Blondie blinks and fights not to let amusement show on her face.  

“To… to him?”  She asks, indicating Bucky, as though it’s the most ridiculous thing the man could possibly have suggested.  “To the… cyborg murder-bot?”  

One of her team members, standing very near the scarred man, cracks a grin.  It’s the most emotion Bucky’s seen on any of their faces.  The guy nods to the scarred man.  

“Good one, Sir.”

And several of the others in the room laugh a little.  Bucky notices that, in addition to the armed team, there are men and women in uniforms who, to Bucky’s trained eye, are clearly higher-ups.  He sees, with a roll of nausea, that they are, indeed, wearing the skull and tentacles symbol of Hydra.  Bloody hell!  How the fuck many times do they have to kill these assholes?  Why doesn’t Hydra fucking die already?  

There are also a number of men wearing lab coats.  Some of them are fiddling with dials and pushing buttons on the banks of electronic gizmos lining the walls, others are just standing, watching him as if he’s some particularly fascinating lab specimen.

That’s when Bullethead, the guy from the plane, comes from behind the chair to face Bucky.  “Sergeant, welcome back.  It’s very gratifying to be a part of helping you to return to your previous extraordinary level of functioning.  I look forward to seeing Hydra’s most legendary asset in action.  You are the model on which we’ve built these troops,” he indicates the team of armed agents scattered around the room with their weapons trained on him.  Bucky notices that even the ones who strapped him into this chair are now aiming weapons at him.  There’s something really odd about their positioning, though.  They’re everywhere in the room.  Why aren’t they all equidistant, making a perimeter around him? He doesn’t get much of a chance to consider that, because Bullethead’s not done speechifying.

“Of course, they have nothing like your ability to function as a one-man strike force, but Hydra has decided that is as it should be.  After all, those with your skills have proven much more difficult to control than this… livestock.  But they are useful in their own way, if only as a unit.”

There is no flicker of emotion on the faces of any of those the man’s just described as “livestock.”  Jeez, Bucky thinks maybe he should be flattered.  At least they’d called him a weapon.  

The man goes on and on, pacing a little in front of Bucky as he warms to his sermon about the re-emergence of Hydra, so long in the making, and how he, The Asset, as they like to refer to him, will be integral to bringing it about.  Bucky’s not listening.  He’s too busy choking down bile and trying not to scream.  

Blondie sniffs.  Just once, and very quietly, but it seems odd in the circumstances, and Bucky automatically looks at her, standing behind the preaching jagoff who’s still spouting off about the new Hydra.  She moves the barrel of her weapon the tiniest fraction to the right.  It’s a slight movement, but Bucky’s a sniper, and he sees immediately that she’s no longer aiming at him.  She’s still looking at Bucky, but she’s now aiming at the man in front of him.  Bucky swears she nods imperceptibly at him before sweeping the room with her eyes.  

Bucky does the same.  No one is aiming at him anymore.

And then she makes two short, soft whistling sounds.  Immediately, Bucky hears every one of the armed agents in the room fire their weapon twice, but the only reason he knows it’s multiple weapons is the volume of the sound.  The shots are in absolute, perfect synchronization.    

Almost before Bullethead falls dead at Bucky’s feet, Blondie hands her weapon to another agent beside her and steps over Bullethead’s body to Bucky.  She begins unfastening the restraints holding him in the chair.

“Thirty-two, make sure they’re all dead,” the woman orders, still speaking Russian. The entire squad begins to move with a purpose, each one clearly well aware of his or her assigned task.  

This is crazy.  One second he’s surrounded by mad scientists and Hydra brass, the next every one of them’s been double-tapped and the same babe who strapped him into the chair is now getting him out of it.  Bucky feels like he’s in the hall of mirrors at Coney Island and all he can think of to say to the woman is, “Cyborg murder-bot?”

She kneels in front of him, taking a key from her armored vest.  As she unlatches his ankle chains, she looks at him with a wide-eyed, open gaze.  In English, she says, “You better be.  Otherwise, we’re not getting out of here.”

Once again, Bucky understands her words but has no idea what they mean.

“What the hell is going on?”  He demands. Bucky’s completely free of restraints now, but he doesn’t get up from the chair.  He stays perched on the edge.  

“What would it take to get you to trust me?”  The woman asks.

“A miracle, and about a thousand years,” Bucky answers.

“We have three-point-eight minutes.”

“You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me.”

The woman turns to her left just as another agent tosses an armored vest to her, which she hands to Bucky.  “Put this on.”  She doesn’t have to ask that twice.

While he’s strapping the vest on, her teammate tosses Blondie a weapon like the ones the agents are carrying.  “You know how to use one of these?”  She asks, holding it out to Bucky when his vest is secure.

Bucky gives her a look that he hopes conveys his disdain at such an asinine question, and takes the weapon.  She grins a little and holds up her hands as if in surrender, mocking him back.  

“Are you… You don’t actually think I’m gonna lead you all out of here like Moses to the Promised Land, do you?”  Bucky asks, incredulously.

In another situation, the offended look on her face would be funny.  “I will lead my squad,” she says imperiously. “No one’s asking…”  Her expression changes again, this time to one of confusion. “You do understand that we’re rescuing you?”

“Yeah, you don’t get a whole hell of a lot of credit for that seein’ as you’re the ones who brought me here in the first place.”  

She gets up and takes her own weapon back from the woman she’d handed it to.  “Now we’re getting you out.  Let’s go.”

Bucky stands then and slings the strap of the weapon over his shoulder.  “Thanks for the help, Doll, but I’ll make my own way from here.”  He begins to cross the room to the door through which they’d entered.  

“Really.” He hears the woman say from behind him, all attitude now.  “You got a plan for getting out of here?  Because I do.”

Bucky turns around.  

“A route, accomplices, staged weapons, supplies and transportation once we’re clear of the bunker.  You got any of that?”

“This was kind of a last-minute trip,” he shrugs.

“I see. Well, just so you know, genius, that door you were about to go through leads you to a nest of guards we didn’t kill.  You might want to at least use the door we’re using.”

“Fine,” Bucky bites off and crosses back toward her, then follows her to a door on the other side of the room.  They join three other members of the squad and begin making their way carefully and quietly down a dimly-lit hallway.  

It’s way too easy, and Bucky’s pretty sure this is all an elaborate trick of some kind. He feels completely unhinged, and he doesn’t trust these people in the slightest.  Plus, they’re dumb.  They’ve got him at the back of the line, with no one covering him.  Which is why he slips down a hallway without a sound and hopes like hell he’s far away before they notice.  

He needs to think, and find a way to get his bearings.  It occurs to him that maybe the best thing to do is get out of sight and hope there’s a ventilation system with shafts big enough for him to crawl through.  He’s not small.  That’s a pretty tall order.  But desperate times…

He finds a door that’s slightly ajar and whips into the room, surprising a guy sitting at a desk.  The guy’s dead before he even looks up at the noise.  Closing the door, Bucky scans the room.  He swears viciously when he finds a tiny ventilation grate on one wall.  So much for that idea.  Next, he rifles the desk to see if he can find some kind of map of this place.  No such luck. He’s going to have to try the hallway again.  Striding toward the door, he sees that there’s a little sign on the back of the door with the fire evacuation route marked on it.  Bucky actually smiles.  God bless bureaucrats.

Back in the hallway, he flattens himself against one wall and makes his way along the route the sign indicated.  He makes it halfway before three people in uniforms emerge into the hallway in front of him.  He takes them out easily, but it makes a lot of noise.  Damn.  He doubles his speed and comes to the T-intersection where he needs to go left.  Except Bucky has the bad luck to peek around the corner just as a guy in an officer’s uniform is striding purposefully right toward him. The guy opens his mouth to shout and, at that moment, a small red dot appears in his forehead, just above his right eye, and he crumples.  Bucky whips around to see Blondie standing halfway out of a doorway, her weapon still aimed at the officer.  

“They said you were smart,” she mutters quietly, and jerks her head toward the doorway she’s in.  Bucky shakes his head and runs down the hall to follow her.  When he gets to the room, he sees it’s some kind of equipment room, and she’s climbing a metal ladder to a hatch in the ceiling.   He slings his weapon to his back and follows her up.  What the hell.  If she’s playing him, he’ll just kill her.  

It’s a long, straight shaft that goes God knows where, and Bucky’s very surprised to see that he and Blondie are the only ones in it.  He has no idea where the rest of the squad is now.  They climb up what must be four or five floors until, at last, they come to the top.  The ladder ends in front of a metal doorway with no hinges or handle on this side.  Blondy waits until Bucky is just beneath her on the ladder, then knocks softly on the door in a definite pattern.

The door’s instantly opened by a woman Bucky recognizes from Brooklyn, one of the ones who dropped onto the street from a balcony, he thinks.  He’s surprised to see that they’re outside now.  It’s nighttime, it’s freezing, and there’s a foot or so of snow on the ground.  Yep. Siberia.  The shaft they’ve just climbed is the only part of the bunker above ground.  From outside, it just looks like a small utility shed within a large complex of buildings. Bucky has no idea what the other buildings are for, but most are big and have very few, if any, windows.  They’re all made of concrete blocks.  

Again, neither woman says a word or makes a signal.  The one who opened the door silently hands Blondie and Bucky white coveralls, which Blondie immediately begins to put on, so Bucky does, too.  When they’re zipped into the coveralls, the woman hands them fresh weapons, and also gives Blondie a small package which she tucks into a pouch on her armored vest. With that, the other woman goes in the metal door.  Bucky sees her begin to descend the ladder as Blondie closes the door and engages the latch.  

“Low and fast,” Blondie says to Bucky.  She shoulders her weapon and, at a crouch, begins to sprint across the area between the door they’ve just exited and a long, low building fifty yards away. He follows, the heavy snow pulling at his legs.  The white coveralls will make them harder to see in the snow, but the second they begin to run, shouting and gunfire erupt from somewhere behind them.  Blondie and Bucky both aim and fire blindly behind them, not hoping to hit anything, just trying to make the assholes shooting at them knock it off and take cover.  

It doesn’t work very well, but they make it to the other building where, just as they arrive at a man-sized door within a larger roll-up door, another of Blondie’s squad opens the door and they rush in.  Several bullets hit the door as it closes behind them.  

This building is some kind of garage.  Blondie keeps running across the floor toward a group of vehicles, flinging both of her larger weapons to the floor as she does.  “Get rid of those,” she calls behind her to Bucky, so he tosses his away, too.  He’s let the second one fall before it occurs to him that she still has several guns and knives and probably other weapons, but now he’s unarmed again.  Smooth, Barnes.  Well, if he has to relieve her of some or all of her weapons, he will.

They’re running between the vehicles when a deafening alarm goes off, and the whole garage lights up like mid-day.  Bucky squints but neither of them slow.  Blondie approaches a long, black SUV but he’s shocked to see that, rather than climb in, she drops to her belly and slithers underneath it.  

“C’mon, Sergeant,” she hisses, and he rolls his eyes and drops to the floor, too. Blondie’s now squeezing into a shallow box of sorts built into the underside of the SUV.  Bucky sees that there’s a part of the exhaust system that’s separated from the rest, hanging down on hinges.  He just has time to admire the cleverness as she urges him silently with hand gestures to hurry and slide in beside her.  He does, and doesn’t need to be told to pull up the hinged section of the vehicle’s undercarriage and secure the latch he sees on the inside.

It’s pitch black in the cramped space, but at least the alarm is quieter from in here. Bucky’s pressed up against Blondie and they’re both panting from exertion.

“What now?”  He asks in a whisper.

“Catch your breath and stay quiet.”

Within a very short time, there’s yelling and the sound of running feet outside, and the SUV starts up.  Bucky can feel the vehicle begin to move, and he spends the next half-hour in a very tiny space with a woman who has abducted him, put boots on him, frog-marched him into a torture chamber, insulted him several times, and is now helping him to escape.  He doesn’t even know her name.

“Hey,” he says in a low voice that can barely be heard over the engine and road noise. “What’s your name?”

“Tishina,” she hisses angrily.  She’s not telling him her name.  She’s telling him, in Russian, to shut the fuck up.

The SUV stops several times, and there are tense, shouted exchanges in Russian at each stop.  Each conversation is about the search for Bucky and, he guesses, the team of rogue soldiers, because they keep talking about “Trup vocem’” – Troop Eight.  

After the fifth or sixth stop, Bucky feels the SUV cross onto a gravel road. He feels Blondie tense, and she leans toward him and whispers into his ear.  “This is the tricky part.”

Bucky wants to make a crack about that – which parts of this haven’t been tricky? But he has a sinking feeling he’s not going to like what comes next.  

“Unlatch that panel again, but don’t let it drag on the road.”

He does as he’s told, hoping like hell she’s not about to say what he’s afraid she is.

“When I say so, let go of the panel, and slide out as fast as you can.  Try not to get run over.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Ten seconds,” she replies calmly.  

It’s both the shortest and the longest ten seconds of Bucky Barnes’s life.  

“Now!” Blondie hisses and, for good measure, gives Bucky a healthy shove onto the panel he’s holding up.  It falls to the road under his weight, with him on top of it.  He swears mightily – but quietly – as he slides to a painful, scraped-up stop on the gravel road.  The small amount of snow in the gravel probably helped him slide further to dissipate his speed more smoothly, but not nearly enough.

He looks up in time to see Blondie fall to the road from the bottom of the SUV, sliding and only missing being run over by the thinnest possible margin.  Snow flies up around her as she slides and , when she comes to a stop, she wastes no time getting to her feet and running to the side of the road, where she throws herself into a shallow ditch.  Bucky gets up and does the same, then crawls through the snow up the ditch until he gets to her.

“You OK?” He asks, wiping a hand across his cheek where he is sure he’ll have gravel embedded for the rest of his life – however long that might be.

She looks at him strangely and turns to the side of the ditch away from the road. He hasn’t really had time to wonder where they are, or how she knew when to bail out of the SUV, but when he looks up, he sees that she clearly knew what she was doing, because they’re at the side of a small airfield.  The SUV they were in has now turned onto a short road leading to a series of hangars and outbuildings.  In the middle is a small, two-story building with more windows than the others, which looks like it houses offices.

“You can fly a jet, yes?”  Blondie asks, not sounding confident.

“Which one?”  Bucky asks, seeing that there are a few different types on the tarmac, some of which he can probably fly.  Probably. It’s been a while.

“That one.”  She points and Bucky relaxes.  A little.

He’s not nearly as confident as he sounds when he says, “Yeah.  I can fly that.”  

Bucky turns to Blondie.  “I have no idea why the hell any of this happened, but thanks for getting me out.  What are you gonna do now?”

“I’m coming with you.”  

“You’re… But…”  Bucky sputters, finally resolving on a simple, “Huh?”

“It’s complicated, Sergeant, and we have a long flight ahead of us.  I’ll explain once we’re in the air.”

“But what will you-“

“Sergeant.  Focus. We need to go.”

“Fine. I’ll take you with me.  On one condition.”

She looks at him expectantly.

“Tell me your name.”

She hesitates just a beat.  “Eight.”

“Huh?”

“I am Troop Eight.”

“That’s not a name.”

The look that flashes across her face makes him wish, fervently, that he hadn’t said that.

“No. It isn’t.  But it’s all I have.  Can we go now?”

Bucky wants very much to apologize.  He spent a very long time not knowing his own name.  Being referred to as “The Asset” or “Soldat,” with no idea that he should even have a name.  He, of all people, gets why she’s looking at him like that.  But it’s way too much to get into right now.

The jet’s not that far away, maybe half a mile, but it takes over an hour to get there. First, they have to low-crawl their way through the snow to a chain-link fence, and then they have to cut through that fence.  That’s when they ditch the white coveralls, which helped hide them in the snow, but will make them more visible as they run from object to object to hide in the shadows from the bright light spilling over the tarmac.  Finally, scraped up, cold, and tired, they make it to the shadowed side of the jet.  Bucky boosts Eight up to unlatch the cockpit entrance and roll in, then she reaches down and pulls him up as he scrambles after her.  He’s stunned at how strong she is.  

Once they make it into the cockpit of the jet undetected, they take a few minutes to simply rest and catch their breath.  They can’t take off yet, anyway.  Eight tells Bucky they’re waiting for a signal.  Members of her squad are going to have to incapacitate the skeleton crew manning the airfield, or their flight will be disappointingly short.

“So what’s the signal?”

At that moment, half the little office building explodes.  

“That.”

“Subtle,” Bucky grins as they strap themselves in.  He begins flipping switches and says a little prayer that flying a jet is like riding a bike.  

Whether it is or not, there are suddenly a small group of people running out of the burning building, shooting wildly at the plane that’s just roared to life on the tarmac.  Bucky wastes no time getting them off the ground.

“Where are we going?”  He asks once they’re airborne and out of danger.

“You tell me.  This is as far as the escape plan goes.  From now on, I’m following you.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

[writerrain]

You Must Forge Your Own Path -Chapter 1

You can find this fic on AO3

Summary:

When the Golden Fleece is stolen from Camp Half-blood, Chiron sends his best team to retrieve it. The days go by fast, and the Greek demigods ask the Romans for help.

Will Barry Allen, young scout from New Rome, be able to help his new friends? Or will he be too distracted by someone with pretty blue eyes?

Characters: Barry Allen, Leonard Snart, Charlie, Sara Lance, Zari Tomaz, Mick Rory, Ray Palmer, Nate Heywood, Jax Jackson, Martin Stein

Tags: Percy Jackson au

Many thanks to @areyouscarletcold for all her help.

Chapter 1 - Barry

Barry loved the feeling of running through the woods. He had always loved it, since before joining the Legion, since before his mum had died and his father disappeared from New Rome. Before vanishing, his is father always said that Barry's love for running was due to the fact that he was a legacy of Mercury, but the kid liked to think that it was something his , not something that had been determined by a godly relative (in this case, his maternal grandfather).

Barry had been a scout of the Legion for years now, but running surrounded by trees never got old. Barry loved the smell of the woods, the feeling of the sun and then the cool shade flashing on his skin as he dashed from patches of light to the shadows. He felt thrilled, he never knew what he was going to see (even if mostly it was simply trees and the occasional animal, rarely a laughing Dryad). With the wind blowing into his hair he felt free. He felt like he was on an adventure.

Little did he know what an adventure that would be.

Barry was a good scout, which was why the Legion had decided to send him to help Camp Half-Blood to retrieve the Golden Fleece. The camp of Greek demigods had been protected from monsters by the Fleece, but it had disappeared a couple of weeks before. They had sent one of their best teams to look for it, but it was yet to be located and brought back. After discussing the situation with Mr. D extensively, Chiron had asked the Romans for help, and that was where Barry came into the game. Well, not only Barry, more like Barry and his team, but in that moment Barry felt alone.

It wasn't, however, a bad feeling, because it actually felt like he was at peace with the world. Barry loved nature, it calmed him, which was why when he was a child, when he felt particularly sad, he had often run away from Joe's house in the city to run in the woods just outside New Rome. It had been reckless, but it had been worth it: thanks to this “training”, Barry had become the great scout he was, and at such a young age, since he was almost eighteen.

All of a sudden, Barry became aware of something wrong in front of him, something unusual, and unusual was never a good thing for a demigod. There was something strange with the shadows. They were swirling, contorting, darkening. Barry was running too fast to stop, though. That was one of his many defects: he was always too fast for his own good.

Barry run straight into the shadows. And, to his surprise, he hit something solid.

The collision made him stumble and fall on his ass, yelping an “Ow!” so unmanly his egregious grandfather would scold him for it. Not that he had ever seen Mercury (or was he planning to), but Roman gods were usually pretty keen on wanting their offsprings to be as strong and brave as possible. The entire education kids received in New Rome was based on this concept: everyone had to be capable of handling emotions, any of them, even fear and surprise.

Yet, Barry's yell concealed neither.

“Is this the best they could send from New Rome?” a velvety voice asked, and Barry looked up to see...

… To see the most beautiful pair of blue eyes he had ever seen. Scratch that, those eyes were even prettier than Iris's, and she had the warmest eyes in the entire city, and Barry loved them so much...

Anyway, these eyes were different, colder, calculating, yet Barry knew that he could lose himself in them. He was also aware of the fact that he was gaping.

The eyes belonged to a young man who was towering over Barry, but the runner was almost sure that if he had been standing up their heights wouldn't be much different. The man was wearing a black shirt, mimetic cargo pants, and combat boots. He looked like a mortal soldier thanks to the outfit and a buzzcut, but the long-sword on his back betrayed him for a demigod.

Barry stared for a bit at the hilt of the sword. It was black, as dark as night, with a sapphire at the bottom; for the life of him, Barry couldn't tell which material it was made of. In New Rome they mainly used Imperial Gold, and he was pretty sure that the Greek used Celestial Bronze, yet that sword was clearly no bronze at all. Not recognizing the sword made him feel a tad uneasy.

Also, Barry realized that while he had been staring at the man and his sword, some time had passed (yes, Barry was quick on his feet and he was pretty fast in maths and chemistry, but his social skills were as slow as a sloth's).

“Speak for yourself! Did the Greek send a stalker to look for the Fleece?”

(A socially awkward sloth).

The guy raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I'm one of the Greeks?”

“What makes you think I'm one of the Romans?” Barry remarked.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the t-shirt with SPQR written on that you are wearing, Scarlet.” The man pointed at Barry's red tee, and he felt himself blushing a bit. The guy had a good point.

“And you have a sword?” Barry didn't sound very convincing.

The guy rolled his eyes. “You won't go far if you trust every creepy guy with a sword that you meet in the woods.” The guy sounded like a snarky asshole, but at least he was kind enough to extend his hand to help Barry get up from the grass.

“I'm Barry,” the grandchild of Mercury said, once he was standing on his two feet, shaking the hand that the man had given him.

The guy rolled his eyes again. “You do trust the first creepy guy with a sword that you meet in the woods, huh?”

Barry chuckled. “You're not the first creepy guy with a sword that I met in the woods.”

The guy smirked, but Barry interpreted it as a smile.

“I'm Len.”

Barry smiled back, and he was sure he was smiling dumbly because gods, those eyes are beautiful , but a rustle coming from the trees behind Len made him grip tightly the dagger he had tied to his belt, ready for a fight.

From the woods came out a beautiful young woman with dark skin and an attire Barry thought would be more suitable for a punk concert than a stroll into the woods. Gods, are all the Greeks so damn hot? Barry asked himself, as the woman approached. Barry couldn't really say how old she could have been. She looked his age, but something in her eyes betrayed that she could be older. She looked wise beyond her years, yet there was some mischief in her twinkling dark eyes and in her little smirk. She looked dangerous, and Barry felt slightly intimidated by her.

“You know you shouldn't use shadow-travel too much,” she scolded Len, sounding concerned, but then the woman moved her gaze to Barry, analysing him. She had a strong British accent, which Barry found weird to say the least, but he had seen some pretty unusual stuff in his life, an unexpected British accent in a forest in Florida wasn’t something surprising anymore.

Len rolled his eyes. “I was just greeting our new friend Barry here.” He pointed to Barry, who awkwardly smiled at the pretty lady.

“Barry, this is Charlie, but don't gape too much because she is taken,” Len jocked, and Barry felt himself blush again. Had he really been staring at the Greeks that much? “Charlie, this is Barry the Roman.”

Barry shot a look at Len, who smirked again.

“Oh, I bet getting to know you is gonna be a pleasure.” Charlie winked, and Len shook his head. Barry couldn't do much but blush.

“Where are the others?” Charlie continued. “We heard you approaching so our captain sent us to look for you. I'm pretty sure the Romans didn't send only one guy, did they?”

“My friends will be here shortly.” Barry looked at his watch. “Ten minutes tops.”

Charlie nodded. “Let's wait them at our camp then, it's close.”

Barry followed Len and Charlie into the woods. The three demigods walked silently to their destination, even if Charlie and Len seemed to be having a wordless conversation of their own. After a few feet, Barry heard what could only be sounds from the camp... which was a lot louder than he thought it would be.

It was a camp in the woods! It wasn't safe to be that loud! Hello? There were monsters around! What were the Greeks thinking?

In the middle of the camp there was a plastic table, and a broad guy and a tiny blond girl were sitting there, ready to arm wrestle, Barry noticed, while four other loud demigods were already cheering and making bets. An older guy with glasses was sitting in the back on a camping chair, looking half amused and half annoyed by the unprofessionalism of his team.

“What the –” was all Barry could say, before Charlie sprinted towards the couple. As soon as they saw her getting closer, the people cheering welcomed her, asking if she was going to place a bet too.

“What are you doing, Sara?” Len asked, after a sigh. He sounded like a concerned big brother to Barry.

The blond girl rolled her eyes, and then she gestured to the broad guy to take her hand. Immediately, the cheering grew in volume. Someone whistled.

“Mick was being annoying again,” the blond girl, Sara, replied, smiling innocently at Len.

“Can't you behave for two minutes while I'm gone, Mick?” Len sounded more amused than concerned while talking to the guy. After a second look, Barry decided that Mick was one scary dude, and that Sara girl had to be out of her mind to think about arm-wrestling with him.

Mick snorted. “If Blondie here wants her hand broken for the rest of the quest, it's not my fault.”

“What did you do to anger Sara?” Charlie looked like she was having the time of her life.

“Just commented that it must suck to be so short,” Mick answered, and then he returned his attention to Sara. “Ready?”

“Are you kidding me?” Charlie huffed. “I’ve been trying to get under Sara's skin with creative insults, like calling her 'stuck up', for ages, and it's calling her short that makes her snap?”

“Shut up, Charlie,” Sara replied, in a monotone voice, as if she had been saying the exact three words for two weeks.

“See!”

“Poor Charlie.” A cute girl with an ink-black ponytail and a flashy necklace winked at her, blowing a kiss in her direction.

“Thanks babe.”

Apparently, the cute girl with dark hair was the first – and only- one to notice Barry, and she waved at him. “You found a Roman in the woods?”

“Yep,” Charlie popped the p, finally getting close enough to what Barry realized was her girlfriend, by the way she hugged her.

“Hi, I'm –” Barry started to say, but before he could finish the sentence Sara ordered a “Say hi to the new guy.”

There was a not so heartfelt chorus of “Hello!”, then everyone returned their attention to Mick and Sara.

“On my mark,” Charlie’s girlfriend said, grinning at Sara and Mick.

“Ready. Set... Go!”

As the arm-wrestling match started, Barry smiled to himself. This group looked extremely disorganized, they were loud and a bit rude, and evidently they needed all the help possible to complete the mission, but they were a fun bunch, or at least that was his first impression. Barry thought about Oliver, his praetor, and how horrified he would be by the entire scene, but Barry just wanted to laugh alongside the others, despite not knowing them well.

As it turned out, the match was pretty short, with Sara almost dislocating Mick's wrist. Len rolled his eyes, whispering something Barry didn't understand because of all the voices around them.

Once the cheering was over, Sara went to Barry, extending her hand.

Barry shook it, smiling. “Barry Allen, from the Fifth Cohort.”

“Sara Lance, captain of the Legends.” She gestured around her to her teammates, smiling proud.

“Legends? Do people call you that or... is it something you guys say? Because that would be very lame.”

Sara and the others laughed at his words, but when she looked back at him, Barry saw something sad behind her eyes.

“Let's say that's what a lost friend used to call us.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” Barry felt like an idiot for having asked. Life as a demigod was not easy, and he knew that especially the Greeks' life expectancy was pretty low.

In the meantime, the youngest of the group, no older than fifteen, had gotten closer to them. “He called us that because our adventures are usually legendary. Because nothing ever goes as it should.” The boy grinned, earning himself a playful punch on the shoulder from Sara.

“This little runt is Jax.” She smiled at him, and Barry noticed how close they were, kind of like siblings. “You already met Charlie and Len.” Sara pointed at the two other demigods, who had both moved to mix with the rest of the group.

Sara pointed at the two guys Len was standing next to. “Those are Mick the sore loser and his boyfriend Ray.”

Mick grumbled something, but Ray greeted Barry with a cheerful “Welcome!”, then he promptly returned to fuss over his boyfriend's wrist.

“The one standing next to Charlie is her girlfriend Zari, while our personal grumpy old man back there is Jax's brother, Martin.”

Zari waved, still hugging Charlie, who had a happy smirk on her lips, while Martin, who was clearly the oldest of the demigods, probably close to his thirties, went to shake Barry's hand.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Barry.”

“While Nate is – where the hell is Nate?” Sara turned to Jax for an explanation.

“He's looking for a bit of ambrosia, he's afraid you broke Mick's wrist.”

Both Sara and Mick rolled their eyes at the same time, and that made Barry grin.

“I bet this is fairly different from what you're used to.” Len – when had he snuck up next to Barry? – had a eyebrow raised in question.

“Len, stop using shadow-travel to sneak up on people!” Sara scolded him, but then the girl saw Nate reappearing from the trees where he had put his supplies and she moved towards him to scold him too. Barry guessed she had to be the mother of the group more than the captain.

“Shadow-travel?”

Len shrugged at the question. “One of the many perks of having the Lord of the Dead as a father, I guess.”

That didn't answer Barry's question, since he still had no idea what shadow-travel was, but he nodded anyway.

“This looks like a nice team,” Barry commented, looking at the demigods in front of him, all chatting enthusiastically as if they weren’t in the middle of the woods, while on an important mission.

“It's a bit chaotic sometimes, but they're all a good bunch. Funnier than the Romans, I bet.” Len smirked, looking at Barry as if asking to prove him wrong.

“Speaking of which... my team should be here by now. I am a fast runner, but they should have arrived. They are on a chariot with horses.”

A dark feeling crept in Barry's chest. Where was his team? What was taking Cisco, Caitlin, Iris, and Wells so long? Had they been attacked by a monster? Barry had seen none while running, but now he wasn't sure anymore. Maybe he should have run slower, to keep more attention at his surroundings. It was his job, wasn't it?

“Hey kid, I'm sure nothing bad happened to them.” Len put his hand on Barry's shoulder, grounding him. Without even realizing it, he had almost let himself drift into panic, and the warm hand on his shoulder helped him ground himself and his thoughts.

“You sure?” Barry's voice was barely a whisper, but Len heard him anyway, and nodded in answer.

Sara had witnessed the exchange despite being pretty far from them, and acted accordingly.

“Don't worry, Barry. They're probably having some trouble finding us. Charlie, do you mind looking for them while we wait here?”

Charlie snorted in annoyance, but she detached herself from Zari's embrace, gave a mock salute and then she transformed into a jaguar, and then she sprinted back into the forest.

“Oh my gods!” Barry squawked, making Len chuckle.

“Charlie is a descendant of Periclymenus, which means she can turn into any animal she wants,” Len explained, and when he started to talk Barry realized he was still gaping, so he closed his mouth. Also, Len still had his hand on Barry's shoulder, and Barry started to blush because of how close they still were. Gods, those eyes were really gorgeous.

“That's pretty cool.” Barry had no idea if she was talking about Charlie's shapeshifting or Len's eyes, if he was honest with himself.

“Yeah, it is, but don't tell her I said it. Her ego is already big enough as it is.”

Barry felt scrutinized by Len's blue eyes. It was like the other demigod was looking directly into his soul. Which, for all he knew could be exactly what was going on. Hades dealt with souls, right? So maybe his children could actually see souls. Barry had to ask at some point.

“Would it make you calmer if I went looking for your team too?” Len asked after a long pause.

Barry wanted to make a joke, because Len had sounded extremely entitled, but he was too worried about his friends, so he welcomed the proposal.

“If it's not a problem... that would really help, thanks.”

Len turned to Sara, waiting for her order. The blond girl just nodded, even if she didn't look too happy about Len's idea, and before Barry could understand what was going on, Len moved his hand from Barry's shoulder and his figure blended with the shadow of the trees, and the guy disappeared.

[aboysbestfriendishismum]

Chapter 53 - Captain Kirk, the talk and the ex talk

In the previous chapter: Eddie and Angie talk every day on the phone. The day of the concert in Portland is near, Meg will go with Grace and Laura, whereas Angie won't be there. Cornell's going back home at dawn when he finds Eddie sitting outside Angie's door. He tells him he's hitched a ride and travelled during the night because he wanted to go back home. Angie and Eddie finally see each other again after the kiss.

**

“What the fuck have I just seen?” Meg's right here next to me, laughing and clapping her hands, together with the small group who rallied around our friends in the parking lot.

“Need bleach to disinfect your corneas?” Stone stoops to talk to her, keeping his arm around my shoulders “Want me to go inside and ask for some?”

“They're admirable though” I remark.

“For their courage and total lack of shame or restraint? I couldn't agree more” he said seriously.

“No. I mean, that too. But I meant their artistic choice”

“Artistic?” Meg eyes me suspiciously, then Jeff and Laura drag her away and they all walk up to the champs who've just given the performance.

“Well, yeah, they could have played it safe without taking any chances and go for an easy WMCA or In the navy. Yet they chose a niche song”

“Well, I wouldn't call it niche...”

“You gotta admit it's not the typical Village People party tune” I shrug and turn around and start walking back to the club.

“Now that I think about that...” Stone follows and reaches out to take me by the hand.

“They even had to make up a dance routine”

“Hehe that's true, you're right” he smiles and gives a little squeeze at my hand and I just snap.

“WHAT?”

“Huh?”

“What the fuck are you talking about Stone?” I plant myself pretty close to the entrance.

“Did you take any drugs that are kicking in now?” Stone studies my face with a perplexed look and a badly hidden smile.

“Come here!” I change direction and drag him back into the parking lot but towards the back, actually towards the band's van.

“Did Village People give you subliminal advice on how to spend the night? Well, the rest of it...” he asks as I gesture for him to open the door of the van.

“I see you've still got some sense of humour for me too!”

“Gracie, what's wrong?” he opens the van and flails his arms, while I walk around to get on the passenger seat.

“Get on and I'll tell you”

“So?” we're sitting and we're locked in and that fucking grin is still there.

“What's happening to you, Stone?”

“To me? I should ask you this question...”

“You haven't even made fun of me once since I got here!”

“What?”

“Being tender and sweet is ok... although I have to admit that sometimes while we were talking on the phone I wanted to yell 'Leave this body!' because I don't know you anymore”

“I can't... I don't understand”

“But at least you were joking with me, I mean, it was always you, though covered in a thick layer of … candy? Tonight you just keep on... fucking agreeing with me!”

“Should I not?”

“NO!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure, I want the good old... well, the old Stone, not his pale copy. If this is the way you are when you have a girlfriend, you know, I'm not sure I want to take on that role”

“Oh. Well, that's curious” Stone looks surprised and he's not even trying to hide that grin anymore.

“I mean, I want that role, I like you, I really do... It's just, I can't understand what's wrong with you lately”

“That's curious because all my exes preferred the pale copy”

“Your exes?”

“Actually, they required it”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that girls usually get with me, then regularly try to change me... 'Did you really have to make that joke?'... 'Don't embarrass me!'... 'You said you'd call at 7. It's 7:01, what the fuck are you doing?'... 'Do you need to spend the whole night of your concert with your bandmates?'... 'Do you really have to play tonight?'... 'How could you make fun of my dress? My record? My mother? My dog?'... And each and every time I was like, you know, where have you been? Who have you been dating? Don't you know me? I thought you wanted to be with me and this is literally who I am”

“I don't wanna change you, you're fine to me the way you are”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, you can call me 15 minutes later, sleep with your guitar or... with Jeff! And you can easily insult my whole wardrobe”

“Even 20 minutes later?”

“Even one hour!”

“Really?”

“Sure! This is bullshit, stupid little things, nothing to focus on”

“Ok in that case... it looks like you passed the test” Stone holds his fingers up to his chin as if he's pondering something, then gives me a peck on the nose and gets out of the vehicle just like that. He walks around the van and opens the door for me.

“What?”

“And with flying colors!”

“What test?”

“Stone Gossard's Stress Test”

“And what the hell is it?”

“A kind of stress you couldn't stand for... mmm... not even five hours” Stone looks at his watch to calculate the time spent together tonight and I get out shocked from the van.

“Are you telling me... you did it on purpose?”

“Sure”

“And the cheesy phone calls?”

“Those too.” he's about to lock the van and my puzzled face tells him he needs to elaborate more “Oh that was to figure out if you're a clingy psycho. And you're not. You're a normal young woman with normal insecurities and doubts about the guy she's just started dating”

“So, what if I had given in and gone along with you?”

“I'd have dumped you on the spot” he finally locks the van and circles my shoulders with his arm once again, kissing me quickly on the lips.

“On the spot?”

“Well, no, of course I'd have waited for us to at least meet in person so we could talk” we walk up to the back entrance of the club and I can't help burst into laughter.

“Hahaha shut up! You'd have broken up with me on the phone with no remorse. Actually, you'd have probably asked Jeff to do the job for you!”

“God, you really do know me” he stops in his tracks, grabs me by my hips and pulls me in a tight hug, amused.

“Yes. And I still want to be with you, isn't it crazy?”

“Well, when I called you normal I was clearly putting it mildly”

“What are we then? I mean, are we a couple, are we dating or what?”

“What do you want us to be?” he asks as he rests his forehead against mine.

“Well, I want to be with you... but I want to take it slow”

“Uh what a coincidence! That's exactly what I want as well” he suddenly pulls away and takes me by the hand as we resume walking.

“Anyway, considering we already had the talk, I'd say we're well on the way”

“The talk?”

“The ex talk”

“Uh, that!”

“Well, you didn't give me the details but...”

“We can easily skip those” he shakes his head.

“And then there's the part about my ex boyfriends that still remains untold”

“Can't we skip that too?”

“You're not jealous, are you Gossard?”

“Nuh, it's just pathetic cases make me sad”

“Ha-ha”

“You said you liked my sense of humour, now enjoy it” he jokes as we walk hand in hand and he delicately rubs the back of my hand with his thumb.

“Can I reconsider it quickly?”

“No. You've even just called me by my surname to act as the funny alternative girlfriend, you can't go back”

“Any other remark before we get in?” I question when we're at the door.

“Yes, one thing. How many M&m's did you kill to make that skirt?”

“HA! I KNEW YOU HATED IT”

“You can't imagine the struggle to keep my mouth shut the whole time. And I did it for you, you should appreciate that”

**************************************************************************************************************************************

“Hey, did you see Mike?” Eddie runs into me in the parking lot and asks the wrong person.

“Mmm no, the last time I saw him he was mimicking tango moves with Cantrell along that railing, while the other Village People were doing the wave”

“That was... intense”

“I don't know now. Oh you know what? You should try and find the coordinates of the spot where I'm standing right now and calculate the one that's exactly the antipodes on the earth's surface 'cause that's were he probably is. Most likely” I spew my bile on poor Eddie, who remains confused.

“Ok”

“That or... he's, you know, inside” I add as I calm down.

“Ok, thank you Meg.” Eddie smiles and is about to leave, then waits “Mike's got nothing against you, he just wants to be by himself for a while so he doesn't fuck anything up”

“Yeah, well, I can't wait for him forever” I flail my arms then fold them back against my chest, buttoning up my jacket. It's cold tonight, fuck.

“Don't worry, he knows” Vedder nods at me and gets in the club, leaving me standing here like a lemon.

Sure he knows, he knows pretty well. Maybe that's what he hopes for. He wants me to get tired of waiting for him. I just need to find someone else and he wouldn't be in trouble anymore, right?

“Hey? Hey girl!” I hear someone yelling behind my back so I turn around to see if by any chance they're talking to me.

Two guys, apparently intoxicated by alcohol or something else. They come close smiling and elbowing each other. Yeah, unfortunately they're talking to me.

“Yes?”

“Hi! Excuse me, my friend and I are right in the middle of... of a...” the blond guy can't find the words, his friend with the dreadlocks comes to the rescue.

“A dilemma”

“Yes! A dilemma. You're the only one who can help us”

“You can't decide who's the biggest jerk between the two?”

“Hahahaha that's a good one!”

“I told you she seemed funny”

“We can't decide what's the worst cover version between Hotel California by Al B. Sure and Under my thumb by Sam Kinison. Do you know them?”

What. The. Fuck.

“The first one, for sure”

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeah! See? What did I tell you, I won!” blondie growls and beats his chest like a gorilla.

“Fuck you always win, that's not fair”

“And what did you win?” I ask 'cause I wanna see where this nonsense is going.

“The chance to hit on you, sweetie!”

“Don't you have a friend?” his buddy asks, still disappointed.

“Fine. Well you had your chance. It didn't work. Sorry. Bye!” I make wide gestures with my arms and hands and quickly step off.

“Aw come on! Why? Where are you going?”

“Guys, you need to change your technique because I swear this isn't just the worst pass ever done at me, it's the worst I've ever witnessed in general”

Sorry, Mike, given the available men around, I'm afraid the solution to your problems is still way too far.

I get back into the club right when Vedder's exiting, together with two friends of Mike's. That's why he was looking for him.

“Good night Meg!”

“Night”

Is he leaving? Where? Huh. The hall seems even bigger now that the show is over and there's a little less people on the floor, dancing to the dj's setlist.

“Baby here I am, I'm the man on the scene!” a Mike, but not the one I was looking for, sings aloud into my ears, dancing and skipping behind my back.

“Hey Starr, I've been told from a very believable source you're not a bad dancer at all”

“That's right! Your roommate was very satisfied with the performance”

“Yeah, despite your quick hand!” I retort as I jokingly squeeze his asscheek.

“Shhhhhh don't say it too loud! If Jerry hears us, he will get all upset and want to beat me up once again” Mike stops in the middle of the hall, looking around and gesturing me to shut up.

“Did he beat you up?”

“Nuh, he's all talk and no action, he never does it in the end. But there's a first time for everything”

While Starr describes his fears, I inspect the crowd and at some point I spot a Stevie Ray Vaughan style hat I know too well. Two girls are talking to that hat.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA you're killing me!” I give him a small nudge but he doesn't move.

“Ok. It didn't seem such a brilliant joke to me though”

“Hahaha no it wasn't but just laugh all the same, ok? Laugh! Would you please fucking laugh?!” I grab him on his shoulders and literally shake him.

“Are you high?”

“Just pretend we're having very much fun, ok? HAHAHA!” I throw my arms around his neck and maybe this dumbass finally understands something.

“Aaaaaah I see! Mikey's looking this way, isn't he?” he understood but doesn't uderstand that if he turns around he's gonna ruin the whole thing.

“Don't look!” I grab his curly head and straighten it forcefully up so he looks back at me.

“Hey, relax... I just wanted to check if he was with any girls”

“I can tell you: yes, he is. Happy now?”

“Well, yes, because if there's girls around, you get mad” he smirks and he almost gets me more mad than the girls themselves.

“Oh thank you! And why would that make you happy exactly?” I grasp his neck again but less gently.

“Because the more upset you are, the more you'll be seeking for revenge. And I can take advantage of the situation!” he wiggles his eyebrows and tries to cop a feel.

“You're such an asshole” I shake my head and let go of him, leaving him alone in the middle of the dance floor.

“Meg, where are you going?” Mike, still the wrong one, follows me as I make my way through the dancing people and catches up with me at the bar “Come on, I was just kidding! You know me, we're friends, aren't we?”

“Ok”

“But if you want to do what that chick with the bandana is doing to Mike, I'm in. Anything to help a friend in need!”

I frown and turn around and see the girl has just pulled up her shirt right in front of Mike, who just stands there in the middle of a group of howling men without batting an eye. First her friend laughs at the scene, then imitates her and pulls her top up as well.

“Fuck you, Mike” I hiss after I down my whiskey shot.

“Who? Me or him?”

“Both”

**************************************************************************************************************************************

Monday. Weird day choice for a concert, especially for the last gig of a tour. Actually, as far as Eddie told me, they were initially supposed to play last Friday. Then there were problems and it all slipped to today, so the guys had a long free weekend. This kind of gift is even better when it's unexpected. Just like the cancelled class this morning. I spend the morning running errands and doing all the chores I needed to do, I had a slow lunch, I studied for a couple of hours not to feel guilty, I even baked a cake, which would actually make me feel partially guilty, and now I'm free. Free to make a small change in my plans with Eddie. Luckily I manage to park just outside his condo, I grab the cake, enter the building thanks to a guy that's perfectly dressed for a bike ride who holds the door for me and I run up the stairs.

What if I disturb him?

You don't.

He must be resting after his shift.

His shift ended hours ago, he's got nothing to do.

Maybe I'm about to show up right in the middle of the writing of a new song and he'll lose inspiration because of me.

Well, if he really tells you he's busy-

He'd never tell me, Eddie's too sweet.

If you actually notice by yourself that he's busy, you can just give him the cake and leave, after all you'll see him at the show tonight.

That's not the same.

You can see him whenever the fuck you want, Angie.

What if he's not at home?

If he's not, nobody will open the door.

What if Jeff's there?

Then Jeff will have the whole cake, just stop with the drama.

What if he's with another girl?

Please! Who?! Eddie's so antisocial you're the only girl he found.

I get to the aparment and through the closed door I can hear the unmistakable voice of Ian MacKaye. This is Eddie, for sure. I ring the doorbell and the music is turned down a little. The door opens almost immediately, in a tiny crack.

“Hey!” Eddie greets me, quickly closes the door to unlock the chain, then opens it again.

“Hi E-” he pulls me towards me and without realising it, I find myself inside his apartment, in the middle of a hug and a kiss.

“What are you doing here? What time is it?” Eddie glances at his wrist but there's no watch on it, then clumsily walks backwards, dragging me within.

“It's almost half past four, Eddie”

“Wait, were we supposed to meet now? Sorry, my mind's kinda confused” hi little lines on Eddie's forehead! I missed you.

“Hehe no, we said tonight at the show, don't you remember?” this morning I saw him at the mini market and went there for a quick hello before going to class. He almost got us caught by Hannigan as we were kissing beside the ice cream department.

“Right! Weren't you busy today?”

“Yeah, but once I got to the university I found out two professors weren't there, so I got some free time” I put the cake on the small table at the entrance to keep it safe.

“Great!” he exclaims maybe with a little too much energy as he hugs me once again.

“And I thought... well, I could drop by and... surprise you”

“Even greater!” I takes me by the arms and loops them around his neck before kissing me.

“Didn't I disturb you?”

“Pfffft no”

“Are you sure?”

“I was just chilling a little”

“Chilling? With Fugazi?”

“You know, I'm weird.” Eddie rubs his nose against mine and his dimples are way beyond the alert level “You look so beautiful”

“Did you smoke pot?”

“Can't you just... like... take a compliment?”

“Sure I can. But that doesn't change the fact you've been smoking” my nostrils don't lie, neither does his face.

“Yes. But pot's got nothing to do with the fact you're beautiful”

“Ok. Do you have any left?”

“Sure, my princess!”

I realized I like hanging out with Eddie. Wow, what a huge discovery! I've always liked it, obviously. It's just, well, after... what happened, I was afraid things would change, that we wouldn't be us anymore, that nothing would ever be the same. Yet it's exactly the same. We're friends, we laugh and joke together, we talk about anything, we go out together, everything is the same. Since he came back, we met every day. On Friday afternoon we played basketball at the court, on Saturday he came to the diner at closing time, yesterday we did another tour of Pike Place. I mean, it's all like it used to be. Kisses, cuddling and make out sessions are a plus, lovely interludes that take nothing away from the rest. Everything's going just right and I'm sure it'll stay like that. As long as none of us talks about the whole matter, of course. Meg can't believe we didn't say anything to each other, whereas I think that's why this thing works. I mean, sure I'd  like to make sense of all this, to figure out what we are: we are together, we're not together, we're a couple, we're friends... I don't have much experience about relationships: with Sean, well, we both set up what we would do together, whereas Martin asked me with a card (Do you wanna be my girlfriend? Cross Yes or No); then came Drake and Dave that were, in two totally different ways, actual non-relationships, nobody said anything, nobody knows if they even started, we just know they ended by themselves; and finally, Jerry, well, no need to explain that. I mean, I went from school boyfriends to adult relationships, there's nothing in between and I have no idea how you know as an adult wether you're in a relationship or not. Do you have a talk specifically about that? Or one of the pair simply starts addressing the other spontaneously calling him or her my boyfriend or my girlfriend and you just start considering yourselves a couple by implication from then on? Nobody says shit and if you haven't told each other to fuck off after N months then you're a couple? Do you automatically become a couple after a minimum time-span of exclusive sex? How do I figure out if I'm with Eddie or not? Is it so necessary to figure it out? Uhm probably yes, if you don't want to get shafted like with Jerry Cantrell. I have the right to know what's happening and decide if I’m ok with it or not. The truth is, I'm so very ok with this situation, with Eddie, the way it is, that I'm scared stiff I'll do or say the wrong thing and fuck it all up. Eddie's the best thing that's happened to me in a long time. I loved Jerry, and I somehow still do, I can't deny it, 'cause I care for him and everything. Anyway I never had the same connection, the delicious complicity, even the intimacy I have with Eddie, although we haven't done anything actually intimate... What if he wants to do it? SHIT, WHAT IF HE WANTS TO DO IT NOW?! Lounging on a small couch with Eddie listening to post-punk, eating chocolate cake and smoking substances that remove inhibitions: not exactly the best recipe for abstinence.

“Hahaha this was a particularly good idea” Eddie grabs two more squares of cake, he eats one immediately and places the other on his leg, his thigh that keeps rubbing against mine.

“And I had no idea about your induced appetite”

“It's a great idea regardless of the munchies. Take another bit” he suggests chewing.

“No, I'm fine, I ate a quarter alone!”

“So what? I ate half of it, there's another quarter left” Eddie gets all serious as he shows the different fractions of cake on the plate with the knife.

“That's for Jeff”

“But... Jeff's not here now” he whispers seductively, as if he was suggesting to cheat on a boyfriend with him and thank god I don't have a boyfriend because Eddie can be so convincing. Even now that his eyes are two thin slits and he can't stay more than ten seconds without laughing. Actually, when he laughs it's even worse.

“But if he still finds some when he comes home and eats it, that will make me happy”

“So selfless” he moves a lock of my hair away from my face and it falls back in the same place right away, he gives me a small kiss, then another, then one more, and he keeps smiling so wide that I'm afraid he'll gouge my eyes out with those cheekbones.

“Err Eddie?”

“Yes?”

“The cake” I point at the chocolatey square that's about to crumbe between our legs.

“Oops!” he lets go of me and takes the piece of cake, eating it in one bite.

This couch is a mess, there are crumbles everywhere.

Luckily it's not your apartment and it's none of your business. Focus on something else!

The B side of 13 songs has come to an end and this time I decide to go and turn off the stereo. I need a diversion.

“I... gotta go to the bathroom!”

“Ok”

My interior monologue goes on, both on the toilet and at the sink, as I wash my hands.

Why am I like this?

Because you're stupid.

Why do I freeze? I'm comfortable with Eddie... so why do I have these totally awkward moments?

Because it's a new thing, you still have to get used to it.

Get used to what? To making out with a hot guy? That should be the easiest most natural thing in the world! I should be in the living room with him now, not here, fixating on my face in the mirror.

The joint you smoked may be responsible for the fixation, the rest is just insecurity. Try and act normal, relax and don't think too much.

Easier said than done...

I get out of the bathroom and walk back into the living room. Eddie's not here. He must have gone away. And he probably left a message with FIX YOUR FUCKING PROBLEMS written on it.

He can't leave, you dork, you're at his place.

Oh. Right.

“Hey, here you are! I was looking for something to drink. There's a bottle of red wine I really wanna open with you but not today. With the show and all the rest, I'd better not, what do you think?” Eddie comes out from the kitchen with a carton of ACE juice and two glasses.

“Hehe yeah, maybe you'll better not” I answer as I take my glass from his hands.

“This is Jeff's stuff, healthy and vitamin filled” Eddie fills my glass then does the same with his, puts the carton on the coffee table then seats on the armchair.

On the armchair. Sure.

Well done, Angie. Congratulations. You sent him the message to stay away. I drink a sip of juice and place the glass on the table, Eddie makes gestures and mumbles something I can't decipher because he does it as he's drinking.

“What? Do you need something?”

“Mmmhh”

“The cigarettes?” I ask pointing at the pack.

“The remote. Let's watch some tv, do you want to?” he finally explains himself. Eddie wanting to watch tv? I guess my message was too strong.

“What's up with the tv? Do you wanna take a nap?” why don't I just keep my fucking mouth shut? He gets close and you push him away, he finds something to do to pass the time and you have to pick on him. Nothing is ever good for you.

“Hehe no, no napping, just relaxing a little” he replies stretching out a little to put his empty glass on the edge of the coffee table. I move it towards the center so it doesn't fall down, then I get the remote for Eddie.

“Here”

“Thanks” I'm about to go and sit down on the couch but Eddie grabs me first by the arm, then by the hips, and in a couple of seconds I find myself sitting on his lap .

“Eddie! Come on, what are you doing?”

“Where did you think you were going?”

“On the couch, I can't sit here... like this...” I pry up the backrest of the armchair to turn around and look at him as I speak.

“No? And why?” he reaches between my knees and pulls up one of my legs so it lies across his.

“Because I can't be... all sprawled out on you like this” he does the same with the other leg and now I am indeed in his arms.

“Who said that?”

“I'm heavy, Eddie, I'll crush you...” we'll end up falling asleep and I'll suffocate him.

“I can't fell any burden at all” liar.

“It's the drug, it numbed you”

“Haha Angie, it takes much more than a couple of joints to numb me, trust me” Eddie squeezes my hip and with the other hand is still caressing my knees over the jeans.

“But... you're uncomfortable”

“I've never been so comfortable in my whole life” he states and rests, well, actually drops his head against my chest.

“If you say so...”

“Are you comfortable?” he asks looking up. Hi again, Eddie's frown!

“Yes...”

“Great,” he kisses me in a way that I almost fall off this fucking armchair, then gives me the remote “turn it on then”

“Ok, what do you want to see?”

“You choose”

I start zapping through the channels and hope to find something that can give us a prompt of conversation and thank god I find it amost immediately.

“Uh! Star Trek reruns! Do you like it?”

“I used to watch it as a child. I'd say I was more into super heroes and sitcoms rather than science fiction, but I do remember it”

“So you haven't seen the new series? The Next Generation?”

“Uhm no”

“No big deal, I prefer this old one too, but the new one is not bad at all, you know?”

“Hehe ok”

“If you don't like it we can watch something else”

“No Angie, it's good” he steals the remote, turns up the volume a little and sticks it somewhere between the armrest and the pillow.

“OH MY GOD, IT'S ARENA!”

“That is...?” Eddie gives me a perplexed look for my sudden excitement.

“It's a memorable episode! Captain Kirk against the Gorn, have you seen it?”

“Err it's not like I remember it all, as I told you”

“Oh if you had seen this episode, you'd remember, trust me” I adjust myself better on Eddie's knees.

“Is it good?”

“It's one of the best episodes ever!” I let go of the backrest and clasp my hands behind his neck.

“Cool!”

“And it has the worst fight scene in the history of American television”

“What?”

“Maybe even world television but I don't have the instruments to venture a guess”

“How can it be one of the best episodes if it's got a scene that literally sucks?”

“It's something I can't explain, you wouldn't understand”

“You mean that it's so bad that it's good?”

“Yes, but no. Not really. All I can say is that Star Trek is made of this too”

The episode has already started, although not long ago, so I do a quick summary for Eddie. The attack on Cestus 3, the space battle between Enterprise and the enemy ship, Metrons getting upset because fuckers invaded their sectors.

“Isn't it basicallly some kind of fight trial?” Eddie asks as he's still holding me firmly. When his limbs start tingling and losing feeling and I crash down on the floor, I'll say I TOLD YOU!

“Exactly! A trial by combat. As in, you came here fucking around in our space, now we're gonna take your two captains and put you in this desert planet so you can take this shit elsewhere and sort it out between you two, until one of you dies”

“Who lives, wins”

“Yeah and the one who dies condemns his crew to death too”

Eddie watches the episode in silence, either he's very focused or he's stoned. Now it's me resting my head against his shoulder. All in all, it's just Eddie, why should I freak out? I don't know if I owe it to Captain Kirk or if it's because of the forced contact on the armchair but I feel much more relaxed now.

“I think I smoked too much, I see it all in slow motion” he points out after a while and try and I hardly stifle a laugh.

“It's not you, that's the scene”

“What do you mean?”

“This is the terrible fight I told you about, it's at normal speed”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Hahahaha no”

“What the fuck was that two-handed punch?”

“That's Captain Kirk signature move! He uses it often”

“Yes but it's totally useless”

“Details”

“And why is that alien so slow?”

“He's big, he can't be too sleek”

“He couldn't even kick him! Here, now he's crushing him”

“But Kirk reacts and tries to strangle him”

“He'll never make it”

“Oh he will, with the powerful move of the-”

“Head slap?! Hahahaha”

“See? He stunned him”

“Run away!”

“He can't, he has to fight him to save himself and the Enterprise”

“What the fuck is he doing now?”

“He throws a rock at him”

“That guy's big, the rock won't do him anything”

“Metrons told them they'd find all the resources on the planet”

“If he kills the alien with that pebble, I swear I'll scream”

“It must weigh a lot. Look, look at the elegance of the throw gesture”

“There it is hahaha! As I said, he didn't even move”

“He managed to make him even more upset”

“Where is he going? Jesus Christ yes! Now that is a rock”

“He wants to respond by throwing an asteroid at him basically”

“Such a poor figure for the Captain of Enterprise”

“Shut up, heretic! Kirk is not up for debate”

“Come on, you can't deny he sucks at fighting right now”

“But he's good at dodging asteroids”

“If they go on like this, this fight could last for ages”

“Hehe luckily, it ends at some point”

“Are you sure they're not still fighting right now?”

“No no, I swear”

“Thank god”

And the end of the fight finally comes. Kirk builds some kind of mortar with bamboo, diamonds and colorful dust he found on the planet. He fires it and hits the Gorn.

“So MacGyver didn't invent anything new?” Eddie says and I giggle.

“Hehe no, he didn't”

“Won't he kill him?”

“No, he won't. That's the best part of the episode. Rhetoric, I know, but I'm a sucker for the Federation's moral culture”

We watch the episode till the end: Kirk spares the Gorn's life because he realizes he was just trying to defend his corner of space. The Metron shows up and he's touched by Captain Kirk's pity, a trait he wasn't expecting to find in humans, and saves both him and the Gorn.

“A positive moral in the end”

“Yeah, there's still hope for humanity”

“Anyway... that fight really sucked, I can't” Eddie lets go of my legs and covers his face with his hand as he laughs.

“I can't deny it. But you gotta understand it was 1968”

“Yeah, sorry, you're right. That's how people fought lizard aliens at the time”

“Hehe yeah, now we know much more about lizard aliens but at that time that's how it was done”

“We should have recorded it so we could watch it again in slow motion. I didn't really understand what was happening during the fight, they were too fast”

“Hahaha”

“How can they broadcast such a violent thing at this time of the day? Don't they think about children?”

“You're funnier when you watch Star Trek, I'll take a mental note”

“It's got nothing to do with Star Trek”

“Oh right, it's pot. I'll take a note anyway”

“It's not that either”

“What is it then?”

“It's you”

“Oh...”

**************************************************************************************************************************************

“Did you hear that too?” Angie abruptly breaks our kiss and looks around.

“What?”

“That noise”

“What noise?”

“I don't know, some kind of thud”

“I didn't hear that... I don't know, I must have left a window open” I shrug and kiss her again.

“When I went to the bathroom I didn't see any open window from the hallway” she insists.

“No noise then” I nip her nose gently and try again with the kissing.

“But I'm sure I heard something” it seems there's nothing to do.

I thought she was calm now. She was so tense... I can't see why though. I'm trying everything to make her comfortable.

“Maybe it came from outside?” I cup the side of her face, lean in and...

“I don't know, it seemed more like it came from round here” she explains generically pointing at the entrance and the hallway.

“As I said, maybe someone has just got home and shut the door”

“Yes... it can be... you're right” she finally smiles at me and I can pick up where we left off.

At least until someone rings the door bell. Unlike the previous imaginary sound, we both can hear this clearly.

“Someone's at the door” Angie slips away from my arms and stands up in the middle of the room.

“Yeah, let's see who the fuck it is.” I reluctantly get up from the armchair and walk to the door “Jeff?”

“Sorry man, I forgot the keys” my roommate enters and throws his backpack on the floor.

“It's ok. But what are you doing here? Didn't you have to work until six?”

“Yeah. It's almost seven o'clock, Ed” Jeff laughs as he takes off his jacket and hangs it on the rack.

“WHAT? Already?”

“I see you couldn't stand Violet but if I were you, I'd wear the watch she bought you as a present, you'd need it” he pats me on the back a couple of times, folds his arms and looks at me. A huge grin on his face.

“I'll buy another one...” I nod and walk to go back to the living room, then turn around expecting to see him right behind me, following me. No. He's still there, standing near the door, laughing. Why the fuck is he laughing?

“I'm gonna go and take a quick shower, we're supposed to do soundcheck in half an hour” he finally breaks from his position and makes his way through the hallway.

“HI JEFF!” Angie calls him from the living room and Ament turns tail.

“Angie? Hi! I didn't see you!” I join them and see Angie, holding her bag with her coat on. I can't say I was expecting to see her like she was five minutes ago, stretched out on the armchair with her shirt unbuttoned, but...

“Eh you were walking fast...”

“What are you doing here? Wait, don't tell me you're not coming to the show!” Jeff pretends to get mad and Angie doesn't buy it.

“Don't get all worked up, I'm coming tonight! I just popped by to bring you something” she barely points at the plate and the bass player basically throws himself on the cake.

“Chocolate! Great. Well done, Angie, especially since you brought it to us and not to the other losers”

“I wanted to. But bringing a cake to the Off Ramp was kind of impractical”

“Extremely impractical, totally agree” he adds with his mouth full of cake.

“Weren't you going to take a shower? Aren't we late?” I ask as I walk up to them.

“Oh well, whatever, the acoustics always suck at the Off Ramp”

“Ok, so, gotta go now” Angie dribbles Jeff, and me.

“Already?” I complain.

“Yeah, I can see you're busy”

“Why don't you just wait and come with us to the club?” Jeffrey has the best idea of the century.

“Sure! A little patience and we can go all together” I chime in.

“Thank you but... I can't, I've got a couple things to do that I can't postpone hehe. See you tonight!” Angie dashes my hopes and heads for the door.

“Bye Angie, thank you for the cake” Jeff shrugs and sits down holding the plate in his hand, cutting another slice. I'm surprised he's not splitting the cake with his bare hands. Maybe it's because she's still here. Not for long though.

“Bye guys!” she stops and looks back at us one last time, waving her hand, then disappears. I can barely make a move to catch up with her and I already hear the door open and close.

What the hell...?

“Did I interrupt something?” I'm still trying to process what's just happened when Jeff asks me.

“No”

“Are you sure? It looks like there was a nice party going on in here...” my friend points at my shirt randomly abandoned on the coffee table, the stubs in the ashtray, the glasses.

“Sure. Ehm... I'll be back in a minute” I take a few steps back.

“Where are you going?”

“I gotta... I forgot I had something to tell her”

“Really? And what is that?” Jeff crosses his legs on the couch and keeps on cackling at me.

“Work stuff... I'll be right back” I clear out and dash down the stairs.

I didn't tell anything to Jeff but I have the feeling he sensed something. Well, it's not like he didn't know before, he's not stupid. Anyway, I'd tell him. But obviously Angie doesn't want anyone to know. How can I tell? Well, let me think... maybe the fact that on Friday, after we had spent a great afternoon together, when we met with the whole gang at the Scottish Pub to celebrate the end of the tour, she barely talked to me and sat as far from me as she could? And what about Saturday night, when I went to Roxy's to see her and we were holding hands and she dropped mine in a second as soon as Meg appeared? I see it's been only a few days but I can't see why we should hide.

“Angie!” I draw up to her between the second and first floor and she looks particularly confused when she sees me.

“Eddie? What's up?”

“What do you mean, what's up? What was that?” I stop a flight of stairs higher.

“What was what?” she asks and it looks like she really doesn't understand.

“That” I reply, mechanically waving my hand at her and going down a couple of steps.

“A universal greeting gesture?”

“And didn't you forget anything?” I roll my eyes and keep walking down.

“I don't know... what did I forget?”

“I don't know... something like this?” I get right next to her, cup her face with both hands and kiss her.

“Oh. You meant this” she awkwardly answers.

“Yes, this.” I add with another quick kiss “Why did you leave like that?”

“Well, Jeff was there...”

“So what?”

“He could see us”

“I repeat: so what?” Angie and I haven't talked about it yet. Actually every time I try and talk about us, she changes the topic of the conversation and I didn't want to push until now. After all, it's only been a few days. But maybe now it's time to finally do the talking.

“Eddie...”

“What's wrong if he sees us? He'll find out sooner or later”

“Yes but... I don't know” Angie drops her gaze down to the floor.

“You don't want anyone to know, I get that. I just can't see why”

“Just for now”

“I didn't ask you how long, I asked you why”

“Because... you know how it is with the guys... they never mind their own business” she starts bantering and gesticulating.

“Angie”

“You're in my friends' band and if something happene-”

“Angie, I'll tell you a secret: they really don't give a fuck about us. Sure, they can tell a couple of jokes, make fun of us, gossip a little. Then every one goes back to their own lives and their own problems”

“Hehe I know!”

“So?”

“I just want to wait before telling them, that's all”

“We don't need to actually tell them, we don't have to make big announcements, we can just... stop hiding. And our friends will sniff that out”

“Can't we just wait for a while before having them... sniff?”

“You're ashamed. Of me”

“What?! Shut up, what the fuck are you talking about?!”

“What's the matter then? Don't you trust me?”

“It's not that, Eddie”

“'Cause if you don't, just tell me what I have to do so I can be trusted”

“You don't have to do anything”

“I am not Jerry” if she doesn't want to talk about the elephant in the room, then it's up to me.

“God, I know!”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I know or I wouldn't be here with you”

“I'm not... shit, I don't want to hide 'case I've got nothing to hide, ok? What am I? The new non-boyfriend? The secret boyfriend of the week?”

“What... what did you just say?” Angie finally looks up at me, only she does it like she had just seen a ghost.

“That I don't want to hide and-”

“No, after that” Angie leans against the stair railing, holding on to it with both hands.

“That I've got nothing to hide?”

“Right after that”

“Secret boyfriend?”

“Yes. That one. What... what is it supposed to mean?” she asks wide-eyed.

“Well that's something I don't like. Being your boyfriend and nobody knows. I can't-”

“You... are you my boyfriend?”

“Well yes... am I... not?” I thought I was. Maybe I got it wrong.

“YEAH! I mean, I don't know, we never talked about it...” she looks down again and I get closer to her.

“I never talked about that because you didn't seem at ease, every time I tried and say something...”

“I know, it's true... it's my fault”

“Fault? What fault? There's no fault. It's... this new thing started between us and it's a beautiful thing and we're spending time together. And it's great but you're kind of embarrassed because it's fresh, there's nothing strange, it's perfectly understandable”

“So... what are we... you and I?” she asks and I can feel it's really hard for her to be so upfront.

“What do you want us to be?”

“I asked... uhm, I asked you first” she retorts with a little smile. Her well known irresistible smile.

“We're together”

“Ok”

“And what do you think?”

“I think we're together too”

“Great” I take her hands off the railing and kiss them one after the other.

“So... you haven't been seeing other people?” she asks and my eyes roll so hard I can see my brain.

“No, Angie, I haven't been seeing anyone else...” then suddenly, a suspect as I drop her hands “Wait, are you seeing someone else?”

“What? No!”

“Tell me if you have” what if all this secrecy and embarrassment are only because she's been dating another guy? After all, we never talked about it, so we never decided how exclusive this relationship was. Who the fuck is going out with her? I swear I'm gonna beat the shit out of-”

“Who do you think I'm going out with?”

“I don't know, you tell me”

“Nobody, Eddie. Only you” this time she takes my hand, delicately holds it caressing the back first, then the fingers and the palm, carefully studying it, without looking at me.

“Ok”

“So... we're a couple”

“Yep... let's go tell Jeff the good news!”

“Eddie, please”

“Just kidding”

“Let's keep this between us, for a few days... ok?”

“Ok, princess”

[grumpykittenandtiredfox-blog]

Beats of the Heart

Chapter 2 - Muted Note

The moment of excitement over finding a new bandmate was short lived as Yang's smile was replaced with a frown of concern. She started to fiddle with the cymbal stands again before asking, "Why would you offer that?" Weiss opened her mouth to reply but Yang cut her off, infuriating her in just a moment. "And why come to us of all people? You don't even know us."

Weiss crossed her arms. She has a point...

"I have my reasons," Weiss stated firmly, before looking at the other two. The black beauty had no expression on her face but the one with the dyed hair looked a bit worried.  I am offering to get them the things that they need and they don't even want it. Don't normal people normally jump at the offer of money?

"Listen, Princess-"

"Heiress, actually."

Ex-heiress...

The blonde shot her friend a quick glance before continuing, "How do you expect us to trust you if you won't even share your reasoning as to why you want to help us? I think we deserve to know."

Weiss studied Yang. She looked exhausted from this specific interaction, as if just talking with the ex-heiress tires out her entire being.

"Listen," the blonde said, "We are perfectly fine on our own. Thank you, but we don't need your help."

"I am literally giving you an opportunity to get all that you need," Weiss gritted through her teeth, panic setting in as she started to realise that this chance to a new and better life (better than her own life) might slip through her fingers. She couldn't let that happen. She needed this. This was her escape. "And you just continue to shoot it down ungratefully."

The blonde got up from her stool and stalked to Weiss, towering over her. "We don't need your money," she stated lowly, lilac eyes locked onto her ice-blue ones. "Even if we did accept, you'd use it as an excuse to make us do what you want." So that was the actual reason, she was afraid of betrayal. But I am a Schnee, a proper Schnee. I am not that petty, not like him.

Just before Weiss could respond to the attack, the small voice from before cut her off.

"Yang." It honestly took Weiss by surprise because the blonde's voice was so loud and demanding while the shorter girl had an unsure and quiet voice. The contrast was so great, it immediately caught Weiss' attention. "Can- can I talk to you?" The girl was between them now and Weiss could just barely see over her head. "Just for a mo-moment," the girl added as an afterthought.

Weiss watched as the girl dragged the blonde to the other side of the stage by her forearm. Her irritation still stubbornly rising as she watched the blonde look over the other girl's shoulder at Weiss every few seconds with a judging look, gave a few comments here and there but ultimately stayed quiet to listen.

Huh, so the big oaf can listen instead of interrupting people all the time.

Weiss saw the girls nod to each other, although blondie seemed a bit reluctant to do so, before making their way back towards her. She rested a hand on Myrtenaster's body in an effort to calm herself. The blonde looks just about ready to bite Weiss' head off while the one with the dyed tips was fidgeting with her hair, eyes casted down to her shoes. One was untied.

"Don't think that we trust you-" the blonde started, but stopped when the shorter girl put her hand on the blonde's shoulder. The blonde puffed air through her nose in agitation, crossing her arms and glaring at Weiss.

"Yang." That quiet voice again. As soon as Yang had disagreed with Weiss' offer, this girl when back into her shell, as if she didn't really want to be there. As if she was intimidated by this girl...

Weiss had seen this act too many times before. With her mother, her sister, even her brother. With her. This was the act of someone who was too afraid to stand up for herself, someone who had been belittled, someone who was beaten for being herself. Someone who was too embarrassed to be herself.

Weiss glared at the blonde, the one who probably made this girl the way she is. There are too many people in the world that shun others for being themselves.

Weiss looked to the shorter girl who now stood a few feet away from her. She continued to look at her feet and Weiss couldn't hear her mumbles. "Speak up, I cannot hear you," she stated firmly. Weiss knew cases that was similar to this and most of the time, it took firm words to get the submissive to actually stand up for themselves.

Yang bristled next to her but still, she kept quiet.

The girl flinched and tried to look up but her eyes just made it to Weiss' knees before they shot back down to the floor between them. She took a deep breath before starting, "We'd love to have you join our band." Weiss let out a breath that she didn't know that she was holding. Great, I don't need to go back to that place. She started to remove Myrtenaster's strap from her neck, stopped when the girl continued, "But..." She took in a breath before locking her eyes with Weiss'. Weiss was frozen. But what? "You have to-"

"Weiss? Weiss Schnee?"

They all turned to the voice. Flynt was climbing onto the stage, the smirk on his face irritated Weiss. Always that damn smug look on his face. As he approached Weiss, he crossed his arms and tilted his head up, looking down on her. She kept her face neutral as his demeanour turned serious. "Don't think that I forgot what your family did," he said loud enough for the others to hear. She could see that this statement had already caught Yang's interest.

The last time they saw each other, they were at least civil. So now that he was hostile, Weiss tried to remember what her father did or ordered others to do whatever he wanted. Weiss came up blank. She didn't know what her father did this time and she won't blame Flynt if he was still angry about it, but he just should not blame her for her father's actions.

Weiss could feel the rest of the group's eyes on them and honestly, who wouldn't stare? An heiress and a jazz band leader's son having a stare down in the most unlikely place to ever spot either, a downtown bar-turned-hall. They didn't know how Weiss and Flynt knew each other. The last time they spoke to each other was at one of his father's jazz concerts and the Schnees were invited. Weiss was placed next to Flynt and they had to socialise. It turned out to be just a bit better than Weiss had expected, Flynt was a refined young man with hopes to earn his place in his father's band. He had shared his hopes in the upcoming years and in turn, she shared hers. They were civil. At least that was what she thought.

Now, all Weiss hopes is that he didn't bring up what her father did, no matter how angry he was with her family. She needs to gain the others' trust, Weiss will tell them of her father once she is sure that they won't just discard her.

The corners of his mouth pulled up into a genuine smile. "Your father is an ass for what he did," Flynt said and unfolded his arms, taking on a more relaxed stance.

She blinked. Thank goodness.

He slung one of his arms around her shoulders in a side hug and she let the feeling that he was still angry with her go. He wasn't angry with her but her father. He faced the others. "I initially came to kick you ladies out, it's closing time and everyone but you four have left." They all turned to find that the hall was indeed empty. "But," he announced, drawing their attention again. He smirked and removed his fedora, "I overheard you all discussing whether or not to let Weiss into your group. you would not regret it if you let her in." Weiss shrugged his arm off her shoulders and raised her eyebrows. Oh? "From what I know, she will get this band in tip-top shape before all of you even know it. And by the performance that you gave tonight, I'd say that you need it."

Weiss crossed her arms and sent a smug look Yang's way. You were saying? She smirked when the blonde scowled, bending down to place her drumsticks into the side of her calf, held securely by the sock and boot.

Flynt put his fedora back on just as Blake appeared beside Yang, drumkit already packed away. "I'll send an email to Yang as soon as the results of tonight's performances are done." He walked to the side and hopped off the stage. He turned around, holding a finger up as if he had just remembered something. "And you'd have to re-register if you do decide to have Weiss join your band. Just let me know. Ciao."

They all stared after him. That was one person Weiss did not expect to encounter today. It was a pleasant surprise, though. At least there is one person other than Winter that believes in me. She gave his retreating figure a small smile, grateful for his words from earlier on.

Something nudged Weiss' thigh and she looked down, seeing Myrtenaster's case. The girl with the dyed tips gave her a shy smile. Weiss removed the guitar from her neck and placed it in its case that the girl opened.

When she stood up again, the girl with the long, black hair and bow calmly introduced them all, "Welcome to the team." Yang grumbled something low from beside her and the girl nudged the blonde to keep quiet. "I'm Blake. This is personified ball of sunshine is Yang and she's Ruby. We are glad to have you on our team."

Well, two of them are, one would probably be happy when a bus would run Weiss over.

Ruby tried to clear her throat for a few seconds before she looked up at Weiss again. "Yeah, welcome to 'Ruby and the Yang Bangers'!" Ruby exclaimed excitedly, only to stop in her tracks a second later, her cheeks flushing red from embarrassment.

Weiss just stared at the girl. The name has to go.

[itwasanangryinch]

3...2...1... Happy New Year!!

For the first (?) time, I’m actually going to make and complete a New Years meme, because fuck it, I had a good year. I’m also going to put much shorter answers for last year since I had wanted to do this then, but then... didn’t.

Favourite new (to me) band: Against Me!     5 favourite songs:

The Ocean

White Crosses

True Trans Soul Rebel

I Was a Teenage Anarchist

Norse Truth

I’ve known about Against Me! since lead singer Laura Jane Grace since she came out as trans in 2012 with her Rolling Stone profile, but I hadn’t heard any of their songs until a couple of years ago. This year was the first year I really got into her music (both here and with The Devouring Mothers) after reading her biography Tranny while on vacation in Melbourne.

Runner up: Miss Guy and the Toilet Boys, seen for the first time at Wigstock 2.Ho

2017′s answer: Ataru Nakamura, the very, very talented trans performer who played Yitzhak to JCM’s Hedwig in Japan (and because of the staging, also played Hedwig for the non-singing part of the script.)

Favourite new (to me) city: Melbourne, Australia.

If you had asked me last year, my answer would have been Tokyo, Japan and this year’s is my favourite for much the same reasons: Melbourne is very easy to get around, very fun to walk around, and I got to see the wonderful John Cameron Mitchell perform there.

Melbourne is absolutely beautiful with so many shops to explore and a free (within the few square blocks I mostly kept to) public transport system.

Runner up: Sydney, Australia. Very similar to Melbourne and might have been the favourite if I had been able to stay there longer, but.... schedules.

2017′s answer: Toyko, Japan. For the reasons listed above. I could actually see myself moving to Tokyo at some point. Not right now, but possibly eventually.

Favourite concert: John Cameron Mitchell: The Origin of Love, Brisbane

This year I have seen this concert seven times in addition to one very abridged show in Portland, Oregon to go along with a double header of Hedwig and How to Talk to Girls at Parties.

On this particular date, the band gelled really well; John was in a great mood, great energy; the crowd was incredible..... Everything just... Worked. (Even tho this was the concert I had the least amount of interaction with John afterwards, lol.)

Definitely looking forward to seeing where John takes the performances for his upcoming stateside tour and at a later, yet to be announced, time in Japan.

Runner ups: (aside from the rest of the OoL tour), Rocky Horror with Mason Alexander Park, Taboo 15 (with Mason), Alice Cooper, and Wigstock 2.Ho where I finally got to see NPH performing as Hedwig.

2017′s answer: Hedwig and the Angry Inch: October 14th, evening. Tokyo, Japan.

In my estimation, this was the best of all of the Hedwig concerts. By this point, everyone had performed this in front of an audience twice before and the show from beginning to end gelled really well. Again, there was an incredible energy between the band and the two lead performers and the audiences for all of the Japan shows were great. From beginning to end, this one was the best.

From about the Tommy monologue til the end, the final Tokyo show (Oct. 15th) was the best because there was this crackling, alive, angry energy that had an almost dangerous feeling to Exquisite Corpse and was the only show (surprisingly!!) where I cried at the delivery of my favourite line “Then love the front of me.” On that show, with the exception of Exquisite Corpse, I cried from that line til John started the encore song, ‘The End of Love’ and I had only stopped there because I had completely forgotten he was doing an encore song.

Favourite movie: Black Panther

I’ve been waiting literal years for this movie to be made and there was not one thing to be disappointed in in its final rendering in my opinion. I realize that unlike a large portion of the audience, this movie was very much not reflective of my experiences and at no point would I claim to be represented by it as anything other than a nerd and a comic book fan.

Being a fan of the Black Panther for years has meant having tone deaf comic lines, sidelined animated stories, and much less content, merch, and even cartoon adaptation than some of his paler counterparts. So to see a film that was technically and narratively perfect being rendered so beautifully and taking the box office for many, many weeks was a wonderful way to start this year.

Runners up: Deadpool 2, Bad Samaratian, and does How to Talk to Girls at Parties even count for this year if I saw it last year in Japan??

2017′s answer: a strong tie between Transpotting 2 and HtTtGaP. T2 because it was so much better than I could have ever hoped it to be. It married themes and footage from the first film perfectly to the characters’ lives 20 years on. It gave me hope for an eventual Hedwig sequel in terms of quality because based on interviews, they share a similar tone in terms of ageing characters. Plus Danny Boyle’s cinematography was truly beautiful with the use of shadows, call-backs, foreshadowing.... A true equal to the most iconic of Scottish films.

HtTtGaP because well.... John Cameron Mitchell’s direction mixed with an alien invasion set against punk rock and the Queen’s jubilee? How could I not love it? To me, it’s a strong second to Hedwig in terms of quality and netted my absolute favourite review via the BBC (‘This is one of the worst films ever made’, trust me Beeb reviewer, if that were true, cinema would be a far more enjoyable art form.)

Favourite vacation: Australia

Long story short: I met my favourite actor five times. It’s very rare in this life that you can actually tell an artist who influenced your life in a very meaningful way just how much their art and they as a person mean to you. This year, after seeing JCM perform live eight times and on video, no lie, thousands of times, I had the chance to actually do this. And unlike how I was worried about for the past three years, I wasn’t actually nervous to talk to him at all. Part of that is that he is a very easy person to feel at ease with, very comforting presence.... And part of it was that during the first Australian show I went to where I’m dressed as the very first Squeezebox Hedwig, John lay on top of me as part of the final number. How could I be scared to talk to him after that introduction??

Runners up: going to see Taboo 15 in New York with my best friend and touring the David Bowie Is exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum (March), going to see Wigstock with Risa. Technically, I ditched work to be able to go, but.... 10/10, I would do it again. I saw a lot of amazing performers for the first time, had a chance to chat with Mason again, and saw the tour de force that is Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig and Lena Hall as Yitzhak.

Hopefully next year, the Hedwig section will be able to be longer. (Or maybe Yitz will perform by himself. Or multiple Hedwigs. Or just the entire Hedwig script delivered at the end of a seven hour drag festival pre-show.)

2017′s answer: Hedwig in Japan. Not only did I get to meet my friend @miyacantdecide for the first time in person, I was able to see the wonder that is JCM as Hedwig live. Even when he’s not delivering the script, his presence as Hedwig is truly something else. And having seen him perform as himself (but in a version of her makeup) this year, I can honestly say that She has a completely different stage presence to Him and how incredible of an actor to be able to deliver such radically different interpretations of the same material and songs??

Outside of Hedwig, I can honestly say that I came back from Japan a changed person. Better in so many ways than I was a year previous. Almost completely made whole again after past traumas (and completed a year later on a different trip.)

2017′s runner up: seeing RENT 20 live. I had a blast hanging out with my mother most of the days and the RENT 20 cast? Holy shit. What talents. Cried from ‘I’ll Cover You (Reprise)’ til the end of ‘Finale B’. Just goes to show: it doesn’t matter if the show’s set in December and it’s hot As Fuck outside if you have a talented cast bundled up in sweaters for 75% of the script.

Favourite album: Golden by Kylie

Not only does pop’s most talented princess talk about her recent breakup with Joshua Sause (sp?), there’s themes of her ageing as this year our princess turned 50. While I agree with reviewers that this isn’t her best musically or vocally, I find myself replaying this one over and over on my stereo and headphones more than almost any other album this year. Favourite song: a toss up between Shelby ‘68 and Low Blow.

2017′s answer: Pollinator by Blondie. It had been two years since the release of 2014′s Ghost of Download, but unlike Ghost’s offerings that went largely unnoticed by me at the time, every single from Pollinator got me more and more hyped not only because of the excellent music evident on songs such as Fun, Long Time, and Doom or Destiny, but collaborations with artists such as Raja (on the video for Fun) and Joan Jett (the aforementioned Doom or Destiny), the honey-thick entrancing song Fragments, and the wonderful Love Line.

This year has been weirder, queerer, and more wonderful than any year yet on record. I’ve been to a number of technically-but-not-really drag shows, revisited some of my favourite artists in concert, met two of my favourite Hedwigs, and saw four total Heds perform.... I’ve read and learned more about the queer experience that not only deepened my understanding of my larger community, but of my own experiences and how they fit within the community. I’ve become more confident being out to coworkers and customers at my job....

I had the pleasure of meeting two of my close friends @hedwig-in-a-jukebox and @fdelopera in person (with plans to meet up again early-2019) as well as making some new friends.

Here’s to an even better 2019! Onwards and upwards.

[postpunkpontypandyphantomthief]

New Year New Roomate (the self insert stories) (The Young Ones)

A couple of short stories I thought up about The Young Ones some of which involve my oc Kelsie (the new "5th" roommate).

Chapter 1

 The 5th Roomate

It had been a few days since recovering from the bus incident luckily Mike was able to get enough money for the boys to continue living in their Bristol student house, They were given news that there would be a new roommate living with them.

Her name was Kelsie, the 5th roommate she was a drama/media student and she was new to scumbag college She entered, she put her belongings in her room and was quiet She had a jacket, band shirt, choker, shorts, leggings and boots on

Mike, Vyvyan, Rick, and Neil were confused but fascinated Unlike other birds, they had previously seen this Kelsie girl didn't talk much outside of mumbling and sarcasm

Rick decided to talk to her while he was studying Kelsie got out her notebook and started writing

Rick peeked over at what Kelsie was writing about

“So what’s the course like?”

Kelsie shrugged

“It’s alright I guess what do you study?”

Rick said, “Sociology and Domestic Sciences”

From the living room, Neil overheard saying “Domestic sciences maybe you should help me with the cooking sometimes”

“Shut up Neil” Rick answered back

Kelsie finished writing and watched TV  ignoring him

when she went to the sink to put her dishes away she saw Vyvyan sitting on the counter drinking tea

Kelsie complimented his t-shirt

“Oh Rush that’s a great band”

“I know what bands do you like?”

Kelsie answered

“I love Blondie, Iron Maiden, Sex Pistols, Simple Plan and various other bands”

Vyvyan said,

“Good taste, I don’t know what Simple Plan is though”

Kelsie asked

“What do you study?”

Vyvyan said,

“Medicine I’m going to be a doctor if I can be if not I’ll be a surgeon”

Kelsie joked “So you like playing with people’s bodies”

Vyvyan laughed

“Yes, with all these new diseases people need someone to help them and considering the bastards in charge of the health system no wonder people are dropping like flies”

Vyvyan chuckled again sipping his tea

“You know that bastard rRck?”,he once tried to down laxatives and goes on and on about starting a revolution but never actually goes through with it"

“I see” Kelsie answered

Vyvyan said,

"I mean he's alright sometimes but other times he does my head in so we fight a lot"

"perfectly understandable" Kelsie responded

Later after realizing not much was on television that night they went to bed

Chapter 2

: Distracting Mr Balowski

Mr Balowski is about to annoy the boys once again but will their new roommate be able to distract him?

It was like any other day for four college students Vyvyan was watching television, Rick was reading & Neil was doing some coursework while Mike was busy doing "Business" on the other sofa in the room the newest member the 5th roommate of the Young Ones was relaxing until there was a knock on the door... It was Mr. Balowski what sort of scheme was he planning next?

the house had just gotten cleaned after all the time warps and if Mr.Balowski was going to do anything that would make Lazy Vyvyan and Rick get off their asses to have to deal with that would be an ant being a molehill.

Vyvyan sighed at the doorbell ringing "Oh No"

Rick said

"Wait I've got an idea"

Kelsie yawned on the sofa with her headphones on

when Rick suddenly ran over to her "hey Kelsey you're studying Drama right?"

Kelsie nodded

"Yeah?"

Rick made a suggestion

"how about you try to distract Mr. Balowski"

Kelsie didn't know who he was talking about

"Uh, whos' Mr. Balowski?"

Vyvyan answered

"The most annoying bastard in the world second to Rick"

which Rick glared at

Kelsie sighed

"I'll see what I can do"

Kelsie then answered the door looking stoic

"Hello what are you selling"

Mr. Balowski explained

"Yes, I'm looking for Mr.Rick, Mr. Vyvyan, Mr.Mike, and Mr.Neil"

before he removed  his shades

"Oh, Oh my and who are you?"

Kelsie attempted to sound like a generic sexy anime girl

"Oh, It's". she flipped her hair seductively Kelsie"

Mr. Balowski realized

"I might have the wrong address"

Kelsie said

"you know I love guys with Russian accents"

Mr. Balowski blushed

"Oh my "

Kelsie asked holding her phone out

"you want me to show you this band I like My Bloody Valentine?"

Mr. Balowski was turned off and disgusted

"erm no thanks have a good day"

Mr Balowski had ran off

Kelsie cringed

"Oh my that line made me cringe it sounded so wrong"

Rick grinned

"brilliant  at least you got rid of him now we know the best way to stop him is to gross him out"

Chapter 3

: Looking for SPG

Vyvyan can't find his Glaswegian hamster SPG so he tries to think of a plan to get him back

Vyvyan had lost SPG so he was looking around the house for him

"SPG SPG SPG!!!!!!!!!! Where are you?" he yelled

Neil was confused as to why Vyvyan was repeating himself

"why are you saying the same thing over and over again?"

Vyvyan shouted

"It's SPG he's gone missing"

Neil shrugged so he could get something out of the fridge

"Oh well, I'll be using some food for class and?

Vyvyan suddenly got an idea

"I know I'll get some hamster food and bait surely he'll arrive when sees it"

so Vyvyan got some hamster food and poured it all over Rick who was having a nap on the sofa

to get SPG's attention

SPG crawled out of a hole noticing the bait

"I see something"

Kelsie was also resting next to Rick

"I see a sweet looking lass"

SPG walked along Kelsie and then started to jump and crawl all over Rick

Rick trembled unamused

"Ah! something's biting me get it off get it off VYVYAN WHAT PRANK DID YOU PULL THIS TIME?"

Vyvyan smirked as he had found his hamster

"I didn't pull a prank I was just looking for SPG"

Rick scoffed and whined,

"oh your filthy hamster that explains why I smell like onion sandwiches"

Vyvyan explained,

"I needed bait and I knew you'd be the perfect test subject"

Chapter 4

: The Reveal (Rick)

Kelsie (their new roomate) has been hiding their gender identity for quite sometime and they decide to come out to Rick the person that they thinks will understand

It was around dinner time and Kelsie hadn't joined usually kelsie would just chill in her room but this time was longer than before Rick snuck upstairs to see what was the holdup  

he saw Kelsie looking in the mirror of her wardrobe trying to press in her breasts making it looks like she didn't have them

Rick was puzzled by this he had also overheard Kelsie punch a mirror mumbling about how she felt about her gender identity so he observed until he saw Kelsie's eyes turning indicating that she had seen him notice.

Rick asked

"What are you doing"

Kelsie answered

"You must promise not to tell a soul"

Rick nodded making mime like hand gestures

"Cross my heart, not to die, punch a fascist in the eye". "Vyvyan and Neil know enough about me to make me the next celebrity my secrets might be around but I'll keep yours safe and sound"

Kelsie rolled her eyes

"was that another hiaku of yours?"

Rick shrugged it off

"anyways what is this horrible and private secret you want to tell me?"

Kelsie confessed

"I-I may be biologically female but I feel more like a male and sometimes I just feel like nothing ever since I was little I would identify with boys most of the time"

Rick said

"Oh well that's not bad I feel nothing all the time, the world's existence is nothing"

Kelsie tried to explain

"What I mean is I want to be seen as a boy more than a girl sometimes it's hard having to deal with forced expectations and all the pressure"

Rick processed the information, taking the information in a serious understanding way as he also got  personal in his response

"I understand as someone who is androgynous I understand that gender roles are stupid I'm in a similar boat I'm biologically male but I'm non binary those feelings are normal society might say your not ladylike or that you don't fit their standards  who cares what society thinks I think you should be what you want to be and if that involves you sometimes being one of us boys then I have no problem with that"

Kelsie felt accepted as she sniffled a bit "Thank you, Rick, living with mainly some conservative brothers I would always feel different compared to the other girls it's great that I have a roommate who feels the same I accept you

they then held each other in an embrace

only for Vyvyan and Neil to walk in

Neil said "Rick's a transvestite"

Rick was offended at them ruining such an emotional moment

"STOP BRINGING THAT UP!"

Vyvyan joked

"is that why you have girly pigtails in your hair?"

Rick whined

"OF COURSE NOT beside it's in fashion now for men to have more femmine hairstyles"

Kelsie smirked at him

"so you won't be offended by the poof comments?"

Rick was still glaring at Vyv and neil but he smiled when addressing Kelsie

"Not particularly but I want all men to love each other like brothers men like you"

Vyvyan laughed while he started a slapstick fight with Rick

"HA Rick's still a poof"

Rick screamed fighting back

"AM NOT"

Neil asked

"So you're Gay?"

Rick ranted

"NO, I just wish males were more friendly towards each other!"

Neil moaned

"Gay also means happy"

Rick kept shouting

"When am I ever Happy?"

Vyvyan smirked

"then why did you smile at kelsey and not at us?"

( while kelsey just watched tv ignoring the others they were blushing.)

Chapter Management

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Chapter 5

: The Reveal (Vyvyan)Summary:

After what happened earlier Vyvyan decides to go to a Rock festival with Kelsie which he unexpectedly enjoyed (both the music and the cuddling)

Chapter Text

Vyvyan announced

"I've got tickets to a punk festival who wants to join me?"

Kelsie decided to join him

(At the concert)

Vyvyan and Kelsey were sitting on a picnic rug eating mozzarella sticks, hot dogs, and junk food while enjoying the music

Vyvyan felt like maybe he could make a move while he had the chance so he put his hand round, Kelsie, while she was busy bobbing her head along to the musical screeching she found the cuddle to be quite comfortable

Usually Vyvyan was the tough type who was rowdy, loud and tough but on the inside, he had a soft spot for women and platonic emotional connection he would never tell any of the housemates that except for that one time he accidentally joked/blurted out to Rick one time that he fancied him Rick was the poof not him.

It was a fun concert but the fuzzy feeling he had in his heart made the concert more enjoyable than it was planned to be

then the band Against Me! performed onstage

Kelsie awoke from her Nap "is that Laura Jane Grace?"

Vyvyan nodded as he ate from his crisp packet

halfway through the performance, Kelsie asked: "Do you like Against Me?"

Vyvyan yelled

"Of Course I bloody love them one of my favorite punk bands of all time"

Kelsie lowered her voice

"Vyv can I tell you something?"

Vyvyan said

"What? you're going to have to yell It's a bit hard to hear you

Kelsie made her voice louder

"It's something personal Vyv"

Vyvyan answered

"alright whisper it then"

Kelsie explained

"Vyvyan sometimes I feel like a bloke sometimes I know I'm biologically a female but I don't feel like one I like the idea of transitioning but I want to wait for a while first because of the risks involved

am I a bloke or am I a woman?

Vyvyan understood

"I know that feeling all too well Kelsie, a few years ago I myself started my transition from a woman to a bloke it was a rocky road but worth it, in the end, I'll give you advice sod what people think whether your a bloke a woman or anything in between your still Kelsie and that's what matters"

Kelsie smiled as he and Vyv headbanged to the song being performed only for Vyvyan to hold Kelsie's hand before they cuddled

Chapter Management

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Chapter 6

: We are all Mad hereSummary:

the authors ideas on the backstories of the characters (including Kelsie)

Chapter Text

Neil wasn't just a hippy he was a trustafarian while he loved learning about different cultures and saving the planet he came from a very posh high-class family but there is a reason for his self-deprecation because he was so different compared to his family he felt like an outcast so much so he questioned whether or not he was needed at all he eventually just stopped caring about himself altogether.

He became what was known as a flower child he had a connection to nature that others in his family didn't while he hated society he loved the theory of the world's existence whether it meant the many flowers in his families garden or the amazing animals he would find at the zoo.

He learned about Buddhism and he decided to study peace studies at university and made a friend there at Scumbag college he met 3 other misfits, even though he thinks they don't care about him they do they have a soft heart on the inside.

Vyvyan was a troubled child his mom was a shoplifting bartender who cared more about drinking, smoking & stealing than caring for her daughter turned son, she and Vyvyan would sometimes fight and because of her behavior Vyvyan had trouble fitting in as a child other kids were scared of him, authority challenged and broke him mentally he was a rough kid often mistaken for a bully when really he just wanted friends but his own bullies made him bite back making his behaviour violent at times when he didn't want to be.

His dad was ok for a short time he was in his life but  his mom divorced and due to his dad's busy work schedule they rarely spoke however... he did introduce Vyvyan to the Metal scene due to enjoying many horror movies and comics that involved different creatures and scientific experiments that gave Vyvyan the idea to study medicine while he hated society he also hated how diseases like "AIDS" and "Cancer" had the ability to kill so many people.

The reason why he acts strangely is because of how he was raised, he didn't know any better and was mostly raised on television,comic books and the working class neighborhood he lived in that and other than his metalhead buddies at scumbag college he didn't really have any friends to mess with or joke around with or share his video games with he hides it with the anger problems he has but deep down he does care.

Mike's dad was an Italian immigrant who would often bring girls home to pleasure  Mike had a happy childhood but he knew the government and society were crumbling by the time Margaret Thatcher became prime minister he inherited his flirting skills from his papa, he was close to his dad but he had no idea what happened to his mother not that he cares anyway.

Rick was an outcast despite being raised conservative he leaned more left when Margaret Thatcher was in office Rick would cringe internally when he'd hear what her next scheme was going to be on the news he didn't feel like other guys  they were all about sports, getting girls and being tough while he was more interested in changing the world, the arts and fashion he often would write poetry when feeling down so he used that to his advantage.

However his parents didn't really approve of some of his choices and would often take their anger out on him Rick didn't have many friends despite trying to join various groups at school giving up but having developed an ego due to his good grades to hide the fact he was hating life he made jokes but not many people would find those jokes funny he thought he was entertaining the audience when really he was annoying them.

He went on to study sociology at school he also read up about socialism and anarchism and felt like starting a rebellion (in his head).

He genuinely is a weak coward and he knows it but he hates that fact too so he distracts himself often whether it be with poetry, mind games or just failing to get back at Vyvyan for 80th prank he pulled on him that week he may get irritated by Vyvyan and Neil's shenanigans but they are the only friends he has...well until Kelsie came along.

Kelsie never really fitted in at school she used to think she could entertain people like Rick but after getting bullied by kids younger than her  she stopped that idea she was interested in fantasy and witchcraft but then a rumour was spread around the school saying Kelsie was possessed and worshiped the devil she did not want her brothers to find out about her religious beliefs.

After doing research Kelsie became an anarchist she was often used as a scapegoat and felt socially awkward often sometimes tilting her head randomly or occasionally stuttering due to a development disorder she has but never mentions. She had a confusing personality trying to be kind but as times passed became more stoic and emotionless due to trust issues via the internet she delved into escapism through tv, music, anime and various other media based outlets.

She moved to scumbag college and ended up in the same student house as Neil, Vyvyan, Rick and Mike she felt more accepted there and every day was a day of laughter, randomness and unexpected hijinks after joining Kelsie started working on her social skills and wasn't as shy as before.

(despite Kelsie being the same Kelsie from the Matzelberger stories since this is in a more human universe her backstory is slightly more like "Kelsey" (the author) than Kelsie (the OC).

Chapter 7

: Why am I screaming why can't I stop?Summary:

Kelsie has a unexpected panic attack,luckily the boys try to help her

Chapter Text

(Note: this particular scenario was based off a real-life event that happened to me but that didn't end as well as this scenario did)

Sometimes your mind plays tricks on you and sometimes you are your own worst enemy

Kelsie had planned to spend the Saturday afternoon relaxing, However, that didn't go as planned she didn't feel well but not in an "I have a cold way" in an "I'm shaking and shivering and I can't stop while uncontrollably crying" way.

Kelsie tried distracting herself with music but something odd was happening

her hands felt shivery, her stomach was continuously feeling warm and sweaty

then Kelsie started to howl  as she held her throat lightly it felt warm, dry and she was drowsy a little faint

Kelsey's mouth felt like it was blocked by something feeling like she wanted to choke

her body was heating up like an oven and her mind was giving her a feeling of terror and fear

this caught the attention of a certain spotty faced anarchist as he ran down the stairs wondering where the screaming was coming from

"Kelsie?  a-are you alright?" he said concerned

Kelsie shook her head "No Rick I feel like I'm having a panic attack" Kelsie burst into tears "why can't I stop crying I was fine earlier?". "make it stop make it stop WHY CAN'T I STOP??"

Rick tried to understand what was going on as he ran over to the sofa

"Oh dear"

he tried to reassure Kelsie

"it's ok I'm here um how many breaths can you take?"

Kelsie started to attempt some breaths

Rick nodded

"that's good"

before Rick pondered

"As much as I don't want to ask Vyvyan for help I'll probably have to he is a medical student so he'd know more about handling these situations than I do"

"Stay on that sofa Kelsie  I just need to go and get something I'll be right back," he said before running upstairs past the hallway into Vyvyan's pigsty of a bedroom

"VYVYAN!!!!" he yelled

Vyvyan yelled back

"what do you want?"

Rick asked

"Do you have any books about Panic Attacks?"

Vyvyan complained

"what would you need my bloody textbooks for???"

Rick explained

"it's Kelsie she's had a panic attack"

Vyvyan understood

"Oh... have you made her breathe in and out?"

Rick nodded

"Yes her breathing is normal but she's been sweating, shivering and feeling drowsy"

Vyvyan answered

"Right I'll see what I can do"

Vyvyan and Rick ran downstairs where Kelsie was sitting her legs felt weak shaking like a jellyfish

Rick said

"Kelsie! Vyvyan's here I think he might know how to help"

Vyvyan then got a cold washcloth and lightly rested it against Kelsey's face, Neil was told about the situation so he prepared a tea with two sugars and some milk.

Kelsie was eventually able to settle as she laid snug in a blanket as she watched some tv with Rick and Vyvyan Kelsie got better in the past when she would have panic attacks she would've either hid the fact she was having one or she was left to deal with it herself at least now she had Vyvyan, Rick, Neil and sometimes Mike she wasn't alone.

The Young Ones may be a boisterous bunch but they are a soft bunch as much as they don't like to admit it sometimes.

Chapter Management

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Chapter 8

: Cuddles

It's a Stormy night resulting in power outages and a certain punk showing a weakness of his

It was like any other evening at Scumbag College as the storm crackled in the dark dim sky.

Mike was upstairs with some bird he somehow managed to get with

struggling to find food in the kitchen was the grubby self-deprecating Hippie Neil scavenging the fridge for leftovers as he rarely used the oven even if he did that would be dangerous considering the appalling weather.

Trying to ignore the noise was Rick in his room listening to some Dexy's Midnight Runners before the radio paused to static.

Kelsie was sitting at the table doing some coursework on the other side of the room Vyvyan was playing a video game.

Up in Rick's room when the radio and lights turned off it gave Rick a surprise.

"Oh Well that's just bloody great isn't it because of Thatcher and Republican oil deals it's been messing with the weather which is preventing me from enjoying some pop music stupid fascists they'll stomp on anyone's fun"

with a bored shrug, Rick reluctantly went downstairs to see what the rest of the flatmates were up to.

Rick ran down the damp steps when he heard a groan coming from Kelsey trying to practice some play dialogue for their coursework.

"Ugh I can't do it the words are coming out but my tone just doesn't fit the scenario and I just can't seem to smile today IT'S ALWAYS A FAKE ONE!"

"Now Kelsey I'm sure you can do it I fake a smile all the time what emotion is your character supposed to show?" replied Rick in a soft sounding tone while a stoic stubborn Kelsey answered coldly with

"Happiness"

Oh well, how do you feel when you are with me, Vyvyan, Mike, and Neil when you have to put up with all their nonsense and feel so eccentric your skin crawls?"

Kelsey took a bite into her Dorito before saying in a more neutral, calm laid back sort of way "I don't mind it actually It's quite a funny feeling like I  belong with you guys seeing what odd scheme Mike's planning or what concoction Vyvyan is preparing is a thrill to my day".

Rick was taken aback but it made him grin a little except it wasn't out of arrogance like it usually was.

clapping his hands together he said, "See? you can be happy sometimes when you are playing your southern belle stereotype just think that some of us are there with you sure you'll be able to steal the show!"

"Thanks" mumbled Kelsey sounding timid under her duffle coat while she proceeded to pack up her scripts and file folders into her bag placing it next to other bags under the staircase.

The Thunder had turned into lighting as the bolts struck the sky with a loud "CRACK".

Kelsey and Rick joined Vyvyan on the sofa while Vyvyan ignored them to focus on his game swiftly fidgeting the buttons on his controller staring at the blinding television screen despite how bleak the room had become.

Mike was trying to shag a gorgeous woman he was with....when the lights went out

He couldn't see a thing not even the irresistible looking woman sitting before him clad in only underwear.

As she tried to get to the next base, Mike was still puzzled he knew he was in his room but he didn't have a clue that he was supposed to be laid tonight suddenly he felt several sharp pricks at various regions of his body he fell backward feeling idiosyncratic as he left the room. After he had seen some light he noticed the lady had dug her painful fingernails into particular areas of his body Mike was usually the calm, collected flatmate of the group but not this time.

he yelped "ahh!" as he dashed downstairs clambering onto the sofa before shutting up

the final crack of lightening hit the power supply when Neil came running to the back of the sofa blocking Vyvyan's view while he completed the game Vyvyan was confused since the words "GAME OVER" are usually displayed when you die in a video game

it terrified him to notice his surroundings seeing the four other people taking up his space

the little hot headed metal head punk had enough as he screamed

screaming louder than the sound barrier making the electricity work again like magic

"Whoah! that was heavy like heavier than Thor's hammer" exclaimed Neil in wonder at what had just happened

Vyvyan shuddered feeling quiet a feeling he would only really show during classes or when sleeping

h-hold me he meekly said under his breath like if his voice colliding with the Thunder was too much for him

almost like he was scared though he would never ever admit to being scared of anything

Vyvyan? asked Rick concerned that his normally loud psychotic rival was acting like more of a "poof" than he was

"There there," said, Mike, as he rubbed calming circles on Vyvyan's back Kelsey lightly rested his head on Vyvyan's shoulder and Rick gave Vyvyan a gentle cuddle startling him slightly

"You Poof what are you doing?"

"I'm cheering you up matey you were scared of the thunder weren't you that's a bit soft ain't it?"

Vyvyan hated that his weakness was revealed sobbing a little not being able to think of any insults to get back at rick with

"Cuddles are alright even if they are for poofs" Vyvyan answered calming down before an irritated Rick started arguing with him making the punk smirk as the sun started to come out starting the beginning of another day.

Chapter 9

: Apolitical Anarchy

Rick and Kelsie babble about politics

Kelsie and Rick were protesting

Kelsie held a megaphone as she said

"Teresa May is trying to turn Britain into an authoritarian government

Rick said "Teresa's bloody Britain that's what I say"

Later a news crew who were recording people who were voting recorded their protest.

the News Reporter asked, "are you voting for labour or the tories?"

Rick proudly stood on his soapbox

"None of the above"

the News Reporter added what about Ukip?

Kelsie said "they are a bunch of fascists"

(later)

Rick innocently asked, "What is Northern Ireland's political spectrum like?"

Kelsie blankly stared "it's crap"

[katychan666]

Revenge

Alec getting back at Jace for making fun of him constantly and cockblocking him and Magnus all the time. The alcohol helps to untangle his tongue perfectly and Magnus has the time of his life listening to him.

Part 2 of Can’t handle how perfect you are

''Alec, shut the fuck up!'' hissed Jace through his teeth, growing annoyed by his parabatai's behaviour. He didn't know what was going on with Alec, but the older one was annoying as hell. And his boyfriend wasn't any better either. The three of them and Isabelle were currently at the Pandemonium, Alec chugging drinks down like a champion, while Magnus was at least trying to pretend to be somehow elegant about it, but it was obvious that the alcohol was getting to Magnus as well; his speech had gotten a lot more slurred at he was unbelievably peppy. Jace rolled his eyes. Great. Now, they would had two drunks to deal with. He didn't sign up to be a fucking babysitter when he agreed to go out with Alec that day!

“Make me,” said Alec, stuck his tongue out and started laughing when he saw that Jace was even more annoyed than before, looking over at Magnus, who was sitting next to Izzy and enjoying the show. His head was feeling kind of fuzzy and the room started to spin, but he came to the conclusion that he could allow himself to have a few more drinks, looking at Isabelle, who was also having fun listening at Alec poking fun at Jace. However, as she was about to start making evidence for later on her phone, Magnus took the phone from her and shook his head.

“No, no, no, my dear Isabelle,” said Magnus and hiccupped. “Pardon me,” he said and let out a drunken giggle. “No filming of Alexander, you’ve done enough the last time,” he said and narrowed his eyes. “Besides, the only one who can film him, is me… doing much more interesting things than this,” said the warlock and Isabelle started grinning, but didn’t pressure again, not wanting to anger Magnus.

“Ah. I didn’t know my brother was into that kind of stuff,” joked Isabelle and Magnus whistled.

“Oh, then you don’t know Alexander at all,” said Magnus, taking the glass of martini into his hand and emptied it in one big gulp and looked over at Alec, who was having the time of his life as he was sipping on his fifth – or sixth – beer already. Jace, on the other hand, was red in the face, anger boiling inside and the warlock grinned. “Jacey, Jacey, why the long face?” asked Magnus and Jace said something under his breath, which Magnus couldn’t make out what it was. “It’s rude to mumble,” he then said, speech slurred and Jace rolled his eyes.

“Jacey’s just annoyed because Clary blew him off today,” snickered Alec and earned a punch from Jace, but he didn’t let that shut his mouth. “Oh, yes, she’s rather spending time with Simon,” said Alec, enjoying himself. He was getting back to Jace for the time he and Isabelle left him all alone in the bar and he had to make all the way back to Magnus’ apartment alone and heavily drunk. Also for all of the times that Jace made fun of him. And interrupted his time with Magnus. Honestly, the list could go on and on.

“Can’t blame her. Sheldon’s more fun than Blondie,” said Magnus.

“Simon had a concert with his band, so that was why Clary went with him. To support him, as a friend,” explained Jace, painfully slowly and Alec rolled his eyes.

“Sure,” said Alec and nodded, but then shook his head when he looked over at Magnus. “Also, have you ever noticed that your girlfriend looks like a carrot? Her hair is just so… orange,” said Alec and while Magnus started laughing, Jace looked at Isabelle, who just shrugged, but when he looked away, a grin spread across her face and she couldn’t deny it. It was fun seeing Jace being the one on the teasing end.

“Oh yeah?” asked Jace. “Well, your boyfriend over here looks like a Christmas tree,” said Jace, his poor comeback making all of the other three laugh.

“Christmas trees are pretty,” said Alec and then looked over at Magnus, his eyes transforming into hearts and he sighed happily. “And shiny. Just like Magnus. Yes, he is pretty and shiny,” said Alec and then looked at Jace. “And carrots are just… carrots. Boring. And not really tasty. So, I win,” he announced, drunk smile spread across his face and he then clapped to himself.

“He has a point, you know,” said Isabelle and Jace gave her a dumbfounded look.

“You’re on their side too?” asked Jace and Isabelle only shrugged.

“Everyone who is smart is on the side of The High Warlock of Brooklyn,” announced Magnus proudly and Alec perked up.

“And The Head of the Institute,” chimed Alec in and Magnus giggled.

“Who gives a good head,” whispered Magnus into Isabelle’s ear, whose eyes widened and even though she was used to practically everything, that caught her off guard. Magnus looked completely unphased as he reached over for the new glass of martini and slowly sipped on the drink, lifting the glass high up in the air, congratulating himself for having so talented boyfriend, raising an eyebrow, playfully batting his eyelashes when Isabelle shook her head.

“Wow, you must be really drunk,” commented Isabelle and Magnus nodded.

“I might be,” said Magnus and as he looked up, the lights dancing in front of his eyes, he nodded and then looked over at Isabelle. Izzy’s prediction was correct, he was drunk. “You were right, I appear to be drunk,” said Magnus and Isabelle only laughed.

“Oh, oh, oh!” said Alec when he emptied his fifth – or sixth – glass of beer and then rubbed his palms together, getting ready to tell another story about Jace. The past hour was let’s-see-how-embarrassed-we-can-make-Jace-feel hour, because Alec kept on telling embarrassing stories from Jace’s life. “Do you still have that teddy bear mom gave to you?”

Jace went red into the face at that and Magnus’ loud laughter could be heard miles away. “Alec, stop it, I’m warning you!” said Jace and adverted his gaze from the warlock, who was now practically rolling on the floor with laughter, tears forming in his eyes. “And for the record, I’ve never owned a teddy bear. That’s just-”

“Mom gave it to you when you were ten! And you used to sleep with it until you were… what? 16?”

“I didn’t.”

“But you loved Mr. Pringles!” said Alec and just as he said that, Magnus started laughing again, because how couldn’t he?

“You named the teddy bear Mr. Pringles?!” managed to ask Magnus in between his laughter, arms wrapped around his stomach, which was now hurting from laughing and Isabelle was now laughing as well, because it was true. No matter how much Jace wanted to hide the past, Mr. Pringles was a part of him. “That’s too good to be true.”

“It’s true,” said Izzy and Alec nodded.

“Mom gave him a duck plush, but I had to come rescue him because he was scared of that toy,” went on by saying Alec, words just falling out and even if he wanted to stop himself, he couldn’t. Alec could see that Jace was annoyed, but it served him right. He would always make fun of him when he would get drunk, so now he was just returning the favour.

“Alec. Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” said Jace and Magnus gave him an offended look.

“Hey, you don’t talk to Alexander like that,” said Magnus and with a flick of his fingers made Jace’s mouth close shut, so that Alec could continue telling his story. “Go on, darling, what was that about a duck?” he asked, interested and he sent a wink to Jace as the other was struggling to speak, but when he saw that Magnus had that under control with his magic, he just folded his arms on top of his chest and rolled his eyes, wanting to disappear.

“Jace is afraid of ducks,” said Alec, speech slurred again and he hiccupped, but then looked over at Magnus, who was laughing again. “Just a week ago, when we went to a park for a mission, he didn’t dare to go close to it until I got rid of the ducks there,” said Alec and Isabelle face palmed herself when she remembered that. Yes, that was embarrassing as hell, even for her.

“Really?” asked Magnus and narrowed his eyes, flicking with his fingers and a small duck appeared in the air, floating above his hand, blue sparks flying underneath it and he unmuted Jace, wanting to put that to the test. Jace’s eyes widened when he saw a floating duck coming near him and tried to play it cool, but when it appeared on top of his nose, he freaked out so much that he ended up losing balance and he fell off from his chair.

“Okay, Alec, now I’ve had it! It’s enough!” said Jace as he picked himself off the floor and Alec shrugged.

“So now you know how it feels,” said Alec and narrowed his eyes. “When we go out, you always make fun of me. Izzy too, but it’s usually you who starts it,” said Alec and sighed. “And not only that, but you take videos of me as well. Not to mention showing them to all of the people you know. Even Simon, for God’s sake,” said Alec and Jace felt his ears heating up, because his parabatai had a point.

“Oh,” said Jace and Alec nodded. “And why have you been like this to me, then?” he asked and turned to the warlock.

”Because it’s fun,” said Magnus and shrugged. “I don’t like you very much,” he said and Jace gave him an offended look. “Fine, that was a lie. I’m starting to warm up to you. However,” he said and made a short pause. “You really need to stop interrupting me and Alexander every single fucking time. Use the phone. Or at least the doorbell, which my loft is fully equipped with,” said Magus, wanting to put it into words less harsh, but due to the alcohol in his system, he didn’t have a filter. “And same goes for you, my dear Isabelle. Stop taking videos of Alec when you go out and using them later on for blackmail. It’s not cool.”

“Yeah, I know. And I’m sorry,” said Isabelle and Magnus nodded, believing her words. “It won’t happen again.”

“It better not, because I’m coming for you if it does,” said Magus, joking now and Izzy gave him a little smile back, while Jace was now just looking down in his lap, learning his lesson and decided to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the day, while Alec was wearing a proud smile. They sat in silence like that for a few moments, until Magnus got onto his feet and offered his hand to Alec.

“Wanna dance?”

“Yes!” said Alec happily and allowed himself to be pulled up onto his legs. As the two of them were on the dance floor, Alec’s arms went around Magnus’ waist, pulling him close and a smile was on the warlock’s lips as they danced. “You think they learned their lesson?” asked Alec and Magnus nodded.

“I think so. Jace sure did,” said Magnus and grinned, looking up at Alec, who was looking down at him. “You feeling okay? You had quite a lot to drink, so-”

“Oh, I’m fine,” said Alec and shrugged. “Just a bit tipsy, but that’s all.”

“Okay,” said Magnus happily and Alec started laughing when Magnus spun them around, Alec leaning down and they kissed slowly as the music transformed into a slower paced one, their lips not parting as they continued slowly swaying to the rhythm of the song.

[analogscum]

HARD ROCK ZOMBIES (1985, d. Krishna Shah)

NOTE: I RECOMMEND WATCHING HARD ROCK ZOMBIES BEFORE READING THIS REVIEW IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS!

Human ambition is a funny thing. It can lead to great triumphs, but also great tragedies. Without human ambition, we would not have rock n’ roll, the most vital of American art forms. On the other hand, human ambition also lead the Third Reich to exterminate more than six million Jews, Catholics, homosexuals, physically and mentally handicapped, and Romani people. How does this tie in to today’s film, Hard Rock Zombies? Well, for now, let’s just say that it is a testament to both sides of the coin of human ambition that the sickos who made Hard Rock Zombies said to themselves, we’re going to make Hard Rock Zombies…and then actually went out and made Hard Rock Zombies. I’m honestly not sure if I mean that as a compliment or not.

We open on two metalheads riding a T-Bird convertible down a winding desert road. Lo and behold, they stumble upon a buh-buh-buh-baaaaabe hitchhiking. What are they gonna do, NOT invite this bodacious blonde into their sweet ride? We now cut to a dwarf with an eyepatch and a troll dancing around with a guy holding a camera by a river. You read that right. The metalheads and the blonde pull up on the other side of the river, strip down to their skivvies, and do a little skinny dipping. Suddenly, she drowns each of them one by one! And also does something else, because the water turns blood red, but I have no idea what that could be. The camera guy takes pictures of this gristly scene, while the dwarf and the troll celebrate the carnage. They chop off one of the victims’ hands, blondie picks it up and sings “I wanna hold your hand.” Again, you read all of that right.

Cut to: our heroes, the band, whom the movie never bothers to name (seriously, this band has no name), rockin’ out before a sold out crowd. Right away, we’re confronted with the major problem of all of these 80s metal horror movies: these guys just do not sufficiently rock. I mean, they have a synth player, for cryin’ out loud! This was not too long after Van Halen risked losing their metal fanbase by adding synths to “Jump,” because synths were pop, and pop was for pussies. But seriously, these guys make Billy Joel sound like Napalm Death. Oh well, at least the crowd of roughly 12 people seems to be having a good time.

Backstage, the band strip down to their banana hammocks, and their manager, Ron, tells them that they have to have their photos taken with a bunch of groupies. None of the dudes in the band, especially the lead singer, Jesse, seem to want to do this. They’re incredibly ambivalent about potentially sleeping with these women. Which of course is par for the course for 80s metal bands. Most of Motley Crue’s autobiography, The Dirt, is about the dudes politely sipping Earl Grey tea and discussing Nietzsche. We soon get an idea as to why Jesse is not interested in all of these women who want to ride his mullet, and believe me, you’re not gonna like it.

As he’s escaping all of these annoying women who wanna show him their boobs, Jesse runs into Cassie. Now, the movie is not entirely clear on how old Cassie is supposed to be, but let’s just say she’s young. Like, teenage. Like, below the age of consent. She warns Jesse to stay out of the town of Grand Guignol (subtle), where the band is scheduled to play the next night. Jesse instantly falls in love with her, because this movie hates you, and we’re treated to white hot, sexually charged flirting such as this:

Jessie: You're neat.

Cassie: No, I'm not.

Jessie: Yeah, ya are.

Cassie: ...shakes head...

Jessie: Yeah, ya are.

Guys, it’s rare that I make a point of writing down dialogue in these movies that we talk about, but Hard Rock Zombies left me with no choice but to slam that pause button and record some of these lines, because holy macaroni, peep this screenwriting magic:

“I got it from a book. You know, a boooooooook?”

“You guys ready for the show? The loud show? Loud music show? Rock and roll?!?!”

“Oh bullshit, young stupid!”

“You suck, mister! I know it and everyone knows it!”

Eat your heart out, Aaron Sorkin!

So the band arrives in Grand Guignol, and wouldn’t you know it, they pick up the same hitchhiking blonde, who invites them to stay at her family’s mansion. The family is pretty normal, you’ve got blondie, the photographer, the dwarf, the troll, the groundskeeper who, um, is that a Swastika armband he’s wearing, and grandma and grandpa, who speak in thick German accents and we meet them while they’re in the bone zone and the dwarf and the troll are watching them. Oh, and by the way, they’re secretly Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, and Eva Braun is a werewolf. I PROMISE THAT ALL OF THIS IS TRUE.

As it turns out, everyone in Grand Guignol is a backwards rube who thinks that rock n’ roll is the devil’s music that will lead to “physical sex” (again, actual quote). So they get super duper outraged when the band engages in some antics that wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of The Monkees. They skateboard around, do silly dances, and mug for the camera. The sheriff throws them in jail, the town council cancels their concert, and outlaw all rock n’ roll in general, leading to a scene where everyone throws their records and tapes in a pile and destroys them (again, subtle).

Meanwhile, Jesse and Cassie keep running into each other and falling deeper and deeper in love, and the movie keeps rubbing our faces in their obvious age difference, because apparently the overt Nazi imagery wasn’t cringeworthy enough. Just wait until we get to the song he writes about her, because you’ll have to go to jail once you hear it. They practice at the creepy mansion, and the family tries to electrocute them. That doesn’t work, so instead they murder the band members one by one overnight. The drummer is stabbed in a terrible homage to the Psycho shower scene, the keyboardist is felled by werewolf Eva Braun, I don’t remember what happens to the guitarist, I think he falls out of a window or something, and Jesse is crucified and disembowled with a weed hacker by the groundskeeper. This means Hitler is finally ready to turn California into the fourth reich…here we go…no turning back…complete with gas chambers. Which come into play later. THIS IS ALL FROM A REAL MOVIE THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

Luckily, before he croaked, Jesse gave Cassie a tape he made of a bass lick that can raise the dead. Look, just roll with me here, ok? You’ve made it this far. So Cassie plays the tape at the band’s grave, and they rise from the dead, ready to get revenge on Hitler and Eva Braun and co. In zombie form, they all sport weird mime makeup that kinda looks like KISS in the early days before they figured out their image, and they walk around as if they’re doing a combination of the robot and the Macarena. These are both choices that the filmmakers made. So they pretty much instantly murderize the Hitler clan with no problems, but whoops, they don’t stay dead for long, because now they’re zombies too, and they’re attacking all the hicks in town, which makes THEM zombies. Now we’ve got Nazi zombies and redneck zombies running around, which is not an ideal situation to say the least, but for now, the band have to go play their big gig.

This is where we finally get to hear Jesse’s love ballad to Cassie in it’s entirety, and, well, here it is…

“I’m so in love, but you’re so young.” BARF BARF BARF BARF ETERNAL BARF. Anyway, see ya in jail, which is where I live now because of this song!

I’m really loathe to talk about the rest of the movie, because at this point, it takes a turn into goofy comedy, and just completely falls flat. Not that their satirical bits about the PMRC and anti-metal hysteria were all that biting, but at least they were trying to say something, whereas these Zucker brothers-lite groaners are just insufferable. There’s a gag about a girlfriend who’s so possessive of her boyfriend that she won’t let any other women get near his severed head after a zombie rips it off, which the filmmakers obviously thought was beyond hilarious, but is really torturous. Then there’s an even less funny gag where some Pointdexter is like, hey, since zombies are brainless, they must be, like, allergic to brains? So if we all walk around with these giant cardboard cutout heads, they’ll leave us alone? Huh? And of course it doesn’t work, and of course the zombies just eat everybody, and as he’s being devoured, the Pointdexter yells, “Don’t believe everything you read!” Ugggh, read this: you suck, movie.

OK, there is one running gag from this section that I liked: after the troll becomes a zombie, he just eats his own body until he’s a burping skull. I happened to think that was charming and great.

Eventually the townsfolk try to sacrifice Cassie to the zombies, because they read that if the undead feast upon a virgin, then they’ll rest for another hundred years. Whatever. So Cassie is totally about to be gang banged and devoured by zombie Hitler and his gang (wow, what a sentence), when luckily the band shows up, and lures them away by playing that resurrection riff that Jesse learned from a book (you know, a booooooook?!?!) And where do they lure them? Ugh, sorry…here goes…they lure them to the gas chambers, where they’re all gassed to death. You know, like in the Holocaust? I have nothing more to say.

The film ends, in perfect fashion, by spelling co-writer/director Krishna Shah’s name wrong in the credits. Fantastic.

When a movie looks particularly bad, I often like to say that it reminds me of a fake movie meant to play in the background of a real movie. Well, as it turns out, that’s the actual origin story of Hard Rock Zombies. Originally, the film was supposed to be 20 minutes long and featured as the movie the characters in another Krishna Shah production, American Drive-In, go to see. Apparently Shah decided at some point that he could double his profits by turning Hard Rock Zombies into its own feature film. This begs the question: is this where all the Nazi stuff was added? Because it’s easy to imagine characters in a movie occasionally checking in with the drive-in movie and seeing a bunch of rockers rising from the grave, but that Hitler subplot is just so bizarre and so incongruous that I can’t help but think it was tacked on.

Hard Rock Zombies is the craziest film I’ve seen in awhile. It approaches Demonwarp and Spookies levels of what the hell am I watching madness. You genuinely will not be able to predict where this movie is gonna go from scene to scene. However, the tacked on nature of that madness keeps you at arms length a bit, and eventually it just becomes tiresome once you realize it’s not going anywhere beyond mere shock value. I mean, this movie is nearly an hour and forty minutes, and ends with a scene in a goddamn GAS CHAMBER. So, by all means, show this one to your friends, just don’t blame me if they never talk to you again. You may be right, they may be crazy, but in the end, it’s still rock n’ roll to me.

[mickmarstookmyheart]

“Not a tempting deal”

Here is the last filler chapter. I tried to wrap the whole 'Too fast for love' tour, the new album. I will make some changes in the next chapters because I didn't really look up anything when I wrote them so there many many timing problems there. But don't worry, I got this.

The only law is not to meet with their past form, right?

Okay I thought that was funny. *clears throat*

Let's kickstart this chapter.

Gif belongs to @tattooed-lies

"So you really thought, that I would end up with Tommy?!" You asked Mick, trying not to laugh. He looked embarrassed for thinking that. You two were sitting still by the river from last night, tho now the sun was rising. The others went back to the house to pack their stuff, it was time to go home.

"Why didn't I? You always hang out with him."

"Yeah, cause he was kind and was the only one who didn't want my death for this camping idea?" You raised one of your eyebrows.

"Okay, you are right, but...he was this 'friendly' with you before the trip. He always laid in your lap for fu-..." You burst into laughter. You couldn't believe him. 

"What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing. Just the situation, you know. Before and during the holiday I thought you hate me. I know you already said why however it's still funny you were jealous at Tommy. Gosh..." You wiped away the tears and was smiling at him. You looked into each other's eyes but didn't say a word. Mick leaned closer now his face inches away from yours. He brushed your cheek with his thumb then your lips.

"Can I kiss you?" He asked, closing his eyes. You took a shaky breath and slightly nodded. Seconds later he pressed his lips on yours. His fingers were running through your hair, while you intertwined your hands behind his neck. The kiss wasn't a long kiss, but it was full of love, which you felt a long time ago. When you tore apart you didn't open your eyes just pressed your forehead to his.

"Hey, doves! It's time to go!" Nikki yelled while packing to the back of your car. You smiled and glanced at Mick. He was grinning and shook his head.

"Well, if you accept me as your boyfriend, I have to tell you that you have to deal with them, too. I know it's not a tempting deal, but I can't help it."

"I will consider it." You put your finger under his chin and pecked his lip. You stood up and stretched cause your back hurt like hell from sitting all night. Mick did the same and you two headed towards the house while holding hands.

When you arrived there, Nikki and Tommy were grinning, tho Vince didn't.

"You can still change your mind, darling." He said winking.

"I think I will pass, Vince." You said giggling. He pouted but continued packing the bags. After you brought your bag and helped with Mick's, you were about to sit in the driver's seat when Mick took the keys from your hand.

"You know, it will be quite complicated to start the engine without that." You said pointing at Mick's hand.

"I'm driving." He simply stated and hushed you away. Well, you didn't mind you wouldn't have to drive that long route, tho you quite feared your brand new car. To be honest, it will be best if Mick drives since you barely slept at night.

"Are you ready, guys?" You asked looking in the rear-view mirror to see them.

"Nooooo." They all yelled, not wanting to go home.

"So as I see it was just a good idea, huh?"

"Well, it wasn't good. It was fucking awesome!" Tommy cheered. You smiled turning back.

"Then let's go home."

∆

29 May 1983, US Festival

The guys were so deep into the new album, they were quite surprised a week ago when Doc told them about the festival.

"I don't want to do this. I'm not ready." Vince said while walking up and down on the stage.

"Are you nervous? You?" You asked him while setting your camera.

No. Maybe, I don't know. It's gonna be a huge concert for a crowd we have may never see. And I'm pretty nervous." He said still walking around.

"Damn, Vince, just calm down. Come, sit!" You ordered sitting on the edge of the stage. He didn't sit, just stood in front of you. "Listen. Just breathe, okay? Think of something relaxing. Like the river and the forest we were." You said smiling after he seemed a bit more relieved.

"Thank you, (Y/N)." He said before placing a soft kiss on your cheek and leaving you there alone and some of your co-workers. He was so much different. He sometimes played offended whenever Mick was nearby, but he didn't think it seriously. Mick was watching him carefully, fearing Vince might steal you from him. You constantly have to remind him that you will never leave him, especially for Vince. Your connection with Nikki was neutral, you talked sometimes but it was nothing special. The only thing which you shared was your past, your terrible childhood. Tommy was still goofy around you.

When the concert started you could still see Vince worrying. He looked at you, you took the opportunity to gesture him to breathe. He took a deep breath and told the boys to start the show. You quickly learned the tricks and position to take photos during the concerts. This time it was different since this show was open-air. They didn't need fans to blow their beautiful hair to fly.

Between two songs you tried to take a photo of Vince when he wasn't paying attention, but he ran backstage. You sighed and turned back to take a few shots of the audience. When he came back the crowd cheered and you turned there, too. Vince was holding a camera also and started to take photos of you. You blushed and hid your face with the camera so no one could see your crimson red face. Mick was just shaking his head, Nikki and Tommy were smiling.

After the concert and later on, they were all preparing for the release of the album. The album will appear at the end of September, tho they were already finished, they just needed to record it. The constant concerts and the album consumed most of their time. While they worked on their music life, you learned, learned, and learned. Maybe this university thing wasn't the best idea. But if you had already started, you had to finish it, now.

You and Doc were currently in the studio along with the boys to record some of the songs. You were sitting in the chair with your notes for school.

"(Y/N)!" You heard your name and jumped. Doc was laughing at you and you glanced from the booth.

"I'm sorry what?" You asked pushing the button to let them hear you.

"You liked it?" Vince asked.

"Yeah, sure. It was pretty cool." You said showing them a thumb up. To be honest, you didn't really pay any attention.

"You said the same to the last five songs." Nikki groaned.

"Cause they were awesome." You tried your best to sound honest like you had played attention.

"Alright, guys. Let's take a break." Doc announced. He looked at you, you were deep in your notes again. "(Y/N)?"

"Yes, Boss?"

"If you need some day-off to study you are free to go. There are..." He said rubbing the back of his head.

"Thanks, but I think I can handle it. But really, I appreciate it." You said smiling at him. He patted your back and left the booth. After the boys put down their instruments they burst into the room except for Nikki. Tommy sat down on the couch along with Vinnie. Mick stood in front of you, placing a soft kiss on the top of your head. You smiled looking up at him. He took the notes from your hand and gestured you to stand up. You did as he wanted and he took your place. You huffed, then he grabbed your hand and pulled on his lap.

"Are you alright?" He asked looking into your eyes.

"Yeah, just tired and now kinda fed up. At least it will be over in a few days." You sighed resting your head in the crook of his neck.

"So you will get your diploma or what?" Tommy asked.

"It's just one exam, Lee, tho a quite big one... There will be more of it. You know, that's what uni is about. Isabelle must've been doing the same." You hardly spoke to your sister, she was either not in her room or you had to work, luckily, you talked with Dylan on a daily basis. "Anyway, the new songs are truly extraordinary. That song, Bastard will be huge!"

"Hey, that's my favorite, too." Mick said, placing a kiss on your neck.

"Get a room, guys!" Tommy said covering his and Vince's eyes.

A few days after, it was the day. You got dressed, you took on an elegant pantsuit and comfortable heels.

"Woah, where are you going in that dress? You became a flight attendant or what?" Vince asked laughing when he saw you in the hall of the hotel.

"Haha, very funny of you. No, dumbass, I'm going to write my exam, you know." You said while checking your bag to see if you have everything needed. Your legs were shaking from the stress so you sat down beside Vince. You placed your face in your hands and stomped your feet.

"(Y/N), are you alright?" Vince said while rubbing your back with his hand.

"Yeah, just I feel like I know nothing." You said nervously.

"Hey, you know everything okay? You need to relax." You looked at him. "Just breathe." He said smirking, remembering the day you told him the same. You did as told and indeed it was helpful. Sometimes you really need to accept your very own advice.

"Thanks. And sorry for calling you dumbass."

"No hard feelings. Anyway, why aren't you going?"

"Mick will take me there by bike. I'm waiting for him. But it's like his wedding or I don't know how much it takes him to get ready?!" You complain before Mick finally appeared.

The exam was way easier than you thought. There were hardly any questions you didn't know, so you would consider it as an achievable exam. When you got out of the building you could see a bunch of girls screaming. Poor, Mick. You smiled seeing the happy girls and you felt lucky to work with the boys. Your eyes widened when you saw the blondie singer beside his bike.

"So how was the exam?" Vince asked you, giving the last signature to the girls who walked away giggling yet stayed close.

"Where is Mick?"

"He couldn't come. He had a headache or what. So he sent me."

"Sent you? You?" You raised one of your eyebrows not believing Mick had just started to trust Vince now.

"Is that so unbelievable?" He got on his bike before you did the same, hugging him from the back to hold.

"Yes, it is."

"Okay, Mick didn't feel good and I thought I will get you back to the hotel."

"Okay." Something was on. You just didn't know what.

After 10 minutes, Vince parked the bike in front of a tattoo salon.

"So, what are we doing here exactly?" You asked getting off the bike and adjusting your clothes on yourself.

"We will get you a tattoo, photographer girl." You gulped, not really feeling this tattoo thing at all. He winked and opened the door for you. When you stepped inside one or two rockers sat in the salon glaring at you. You felt quite awkward being in that suit and not in your usual clothes.

"Really, Vince? Now?" You whispered to him when he sat down next to you. To be honest, Mick was on your mind since Vince told you about him. You hoped he felt better.

"Instead of complaining all the time, pick something for yourself." He murmured handing you the book full of tattoos.

"And what about you?"

"I will get the band's name or some sexy girl."

"Wow, so original." You mumbled focusing on the pages.

"Who's next?" A guy looked at you judging your outfit.

"I had an exam today, alright? Don't need to look at me like that." You mumbled standing up and following him.

"Took you long enough." You heard the singer yelling when the door opened. You heard Nikki and Tommy, but not Mick. Maybe he wasn't better.

"Okay, so what do you want and where?" The guy asked still looking in the same way.

When you were finished you sighed, really wanted to get rid of this suit.

"Hi, (Y/N)!" Tommy grinned and jumped in front of you to see where did you get your tattoo. "So, where is it?"

"None of your business." You simply said sitting down. Vince looked up from the magazine he was reading, glancing at you curiously.

"Come on, (Y/N)! Don't tease us!"

"Who's gonna tease and whom?" Mick asked stepping out of the restroom. You smiled seeing at him. He settled down beside you and placed a soft kiss on your cheek. "Hey, babe. So did you get your tattoo?" He gazed all over you to see a sign of it. Tho he couldn't see it.

"Yeah."

"And? Where is it?" He asked smirking.

You whispered in his ear, not wanted to let know the others. You saw him blush and gulping.

"Mick, please!" Tommy whined.

"I can't, drummer." He cleared his throat and still smirking at you. "I can't wait to go back to the hotel." He whispered in your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

∆

The next day, you were at the reception wanting to get your bed changed and the room cleaned. Needless to say what happened last night. You were only wearing a robe on yourself and underwear. When you told the receptionist you wanted, Nikki appeared next to you, waiting for the lift, too.

"Good morning."

"Mornin'. Someone had a pretty long night?" He asked smirking. The door of the elevator closed and suddenly Nikki pulled the string of the robe letting him see your body, including your new ink.

"What the hell?" You screamed pulling the robe tight in yourself. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" Nikki was just laughing at you. You felt your face burn and your fist tightening.

"I thought it might be on somewhere hidden! You could show it to us!"

"You know, I didn't want to take off my suit in front of everyone and show my breast, you idiot. I have pride."

"If you say so." He said still laughing, wiping his tears away.

26 September 1983

The boys finally finished recording the album and since you finished your exam you were all relieved. They still had shows, but now they could party and don't stress or fight on the album. However, there were many people who weren't really relieved about the upcoming album.

Next chapter

tag: @leatherandheels