#they jump in with their fucking opinions every time anyone mentions liking an album and they're just so fucking annoying about it

[thegardengrows-infrozenrain]

bitches be like "i'm a fan of [band] but anything besides their first 2/3 albums is just pop trash and really forgettable and i hate every song on the first few albums besides [tiny list] and honestly they've overstayed their welcome as artists and need to stop producing and if you like their first few albums/[specific album that is popular/unpopular] you're a tiktok fake fan who's only posing and pretending to like them"

like honey you're not a fan you're a toxic piece of shit

like yeah don't consume anything entirely uncritically but at the same time don't become an asshole who does nothing but criticize yknow

[thesunsethour]

my official ranking of (basically) every song by hozier

(ignoring some collabs/songs from soundtracks etc)

(this is just my opinion no one shout at me)

(he has no Bad songs, only Less Brilliant ones)

52) To Noise Making (Sing) (the sing chorus at the end goes on just *that* bit too long

51) Sunlight (slightly repetitive)

50) Nobody (maybe this is controversial? does however contain one of my favourite lyrics “it’s suicide Tuesday back in LA”)

49) Sedated (the lowest ranked song of his self titled album and it’s not because it’s not good it’s because his discography is fucking insane)

48) Someone New (only ranked this low because it was very overplayed in Ireland when it came out)

47) Almost (Sweet Music) (this was never my favourite song but who can resist “i laugh like me again she laughs like you”)

46) Son of Nyx (hozier made the best study music song of all time)

45) Wasteland, Baby! (sounds exactly like the album feels, if that makes sense?)

44) Swan Upon Leda (would be higher but i keep accidentally forgetting to add it to my playlist because it’s not on an album. also Free Palestine)

43) Better Love (hozier’s voice is so beautiful)

42) Dinner & Diatribes (ever since someone said he sounds like Count von Count in this song i can’t un-hear it)

41) It Will Come Back (so sexy. one of the sexiest songs in his oeuvre)

40) NFWMB (an under appreciated classic. i remember playing this in the car when my dad was dropping our friend’s kid to school and getting in trouble for the cursing)

39) The Parting Glass - Live from The Late Late Show (not only a beautiful rendition, but it was also performed during covid when everyone was feeling very hopeless and he just captivated ireland for a few short moments. gorgeous)

38) Anything But (we are reaching the territory of songs that are so goddamned good that it feels a crime they are so low down. he has dozens of such songs)

37) In the Woods Somewhere (eerie vibes which are beautiful and exacerbated when you find out he based this on a dream he had)

36) To Be Alone (again, CRIMINAL that this is so low down. blame hozier having so many good songs. don’t blame me)

35) Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene (a bop AND a banger AND a jam. triple threat)

34) Damage Gets Done (their voices are soooo beautiful together)

33) Be (“When Atlas acts the maggot” is one of Hozier’s best Irish culture lines)

32) The Jackboot Jump - Live (BUT THE JACKBOOT ONLY JUMPS DOWN ON PEOPLE STANDING UP!!!)

31) Shrike (this song made me cry when i first heard it and i am Not one to cry)

30) To Someone From a Warm Climate (Uiscefhuaraithe) (GAEILGE MENTION!!!!)

29) Jackie and Wilson (one of my first ever favourite hozier songs)

28) Talk (i love the myth of orpheus and eurydice and i ALSO imagine being loved by hozier)

27) Moment’s Silence (Common Tongue) (blowjobs)

26) Eat Your Young (hozier wrote this for all first year trinity students who had to read Swift for their intro to irish writing lectures)

25) All Things End (don’t be sad. we begin again :). hozier said so)

24) I, Carrion (Icarian) (soft, sad, beautiful. like hozier)

23) Nina Cried Power (feat. Mavis Staples) (also very overplayed in Ireland but this time it really deserved it!!)

22) Cherry Wine - Live (one of the most beautiful and recognisable guitar bits of all time. yes i said guitar bits i don’t know anything about guitars)

21) As It Was (the drug the dark the light the flame…)

20) First Time (“anyway”)

19) Who We Are (makes me feel like my chest is being lifted to god)

18) No Plan (“As Mack explained, there will be darkness again” is one of the all-time great Hozier lyrics actually)

17) Would That I (it’s illegal for anyone to dislike this song)

16) De Selby (Part 2) (he wants to run against the world that’s turning!! he moves so fast that he’d outpace the dawn!!)

15) De Selby (Part 1) (AN ENTIRE VERSE AS GAEILGE)

14) Like Real People Do (once again, how is this so low? hozier is too good. “we should just kiss like real people do” lyrics of all time)

13) Butchered Tongue (i wrote an entire essay post about this song. with citations)

12) From Eden (time has maybe made us forget just how fucking insanely good this song is. IDEALISM SITS IN PRISON CHIVALRY FELL ON HIS SWORD INNOCENCE DIED SCREAMING. also reminds me of verse 2 of Human by The Killers)

11) Work Song (WHEN MY TIME COMES AROUND LAY ME GENTLY IN THE COLD DARK EARTH. NO GRAVE CAN HOLD MY BODY DOWN. I’LL CRAWL HOME TO HER. also special mention for: “in the low lamp light i was free” aka the name of one of my criminal minds fanfics. moving on)

10) Run (SOOOOO underrated. literally rare is this love keep it covered! run to me run to me lover! run until you feel your lungs bleeding!)

9) Movement (i played this song every day on repeat for 2 months when i was 17)

8) Arsonist’s Lullabye (wario of better love. don’t ask me how or why)

7) In a Week (feat. Karen Cowley) (the most gorgeous beautiful song of all time their voices are perfect for each other - I’D BE HOME WITH YOU)

6) First Light (BUT AFTER THIS IM NEVER GONNA BE THE SAME!!! AND I AM NEVER GOING BACK AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!)

5) Francesca (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. URGAAAHHHHHHHH. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I’D TELL THEM PUT ME BACK IN IT!!!!!! DARLING I WOULD DO IT AGAIN!!!!!! IF I COULD HOLD YOU FOR A MINUTE!!!!! DARLING I’D GO THROUGH IT AGAIN!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

4) Unknown / Nth (DO YOU KNOWWWWW I COULD BREAK BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF THE GOODNESS LOVE I STILL CARRY FOR YOU!!!! he had no right to sing this. and as beautifully as he does. makes me cry. sha-la-la)

3) Abstract (Psychopomp) (this wasn’t originally my favourite when i first listened to Unreal Unearth has grown on my heart and will not let go. did you know the memory hurts but does me no harm. and did you SEE HOW IT SHINESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

2) Take Me To Church (this being his debut single. DEBUT. SINGLE. no one else was doing it like him. the vocals the lyrics god the beautiful lyrics the MUSIC VIDEO!!!! ireland’s best living artist.)

1) Foreigner’s God (my favourite song of all time. no notes. utterly perfect in every way.)

[binniedeactivated]

txt reactions. || 👾👾

as dads... 👨🏻‍🍼

a/n; i’m sorryyy i’ve been in a fluffy mood lately I haven’t posted smut in a while but I promise I will! enjoy this though <3

soobin -

bro, he’s the clueless dad

doesn’t know anything about being a parent. is lazy about preparing to be a dad but he has a few tricks up his sleeve

everything would fluster the hell out of him. when the baby poops, when the baby pees, when they baby pukes, or when the baby cries he’d get surprised about it every single time as if it doesn’t happen

you know those type of dads where everything is literally a learning moment for them? yes, that’s soobin

is a dorky dad

his children will most likely own him, he won’t own his children

type of dad that gets beat up by his toddler kids for absolutely nothing

they walk in and kick him in the shin while he’s cooking

or pull his hair while he’s trying to read to them before bed

feel like his daughter would be the exact replica of him like seriously, would have his his whole entire face and matching dimples

with that being said, is an absolute sucker for his daughter

gives her anything she wants even if she’s a spoiled brat he’s scared to say no

needs his wife to teach him how to put his foot down

i feel like soobin’s son would be wild asf lmao

repeats every inappropriate thing that soobin says

“daddy? what does bullshit mean?”.

will scold his kids if they’re acting too wild but they never listen to him so it doesn’t really matter

again, he needs his wife to help discipline the kids

i know it can be quite common for parents of color (minorities) to hit their children but in my opinion I don’t really think soobin would hit his kids all that much

he  would pay a lot of attention to them though and know them like the back of his hand but he can’t really control the shit that goes on in his wild household

his wife will mainly come home every night to a messy kitchen and messy living room with soobin passed out on the couch and the kids curled on top of him snoring

all in all he loves them though, they’re his babies <3

yeonjun --

honestly, yeonjun is a pretty attentive father

i think he would be veryyyyy playful and affectionate

would want to do EVERYTHING with the baby

want to cook, want to clean, want to watch tv, want to talk to him/her and hold them all the time

has separation anxiety when his children are away from him for too long

even if he’s at work he’ll face time his wife often just so he can see the baby

if he takes his kids to the park he’s literally watching their every move

will still hug and kiss them on their cheeks and forehead no matter how old they get

extremely overprotective

no really, don’t touch yeonjun’s babies unless you want to die

protects his daughter from anyone that tries to date her

i think yeonjun’s son would most likely pick up one of his talents and his daughter will pick up the other

his son can sing and his daughter could dance, vice versa

encourages them to follow their dreams

supports anything and EVERYTHING they

definitely documents everything lmao, even if it’s small he’ll record or take a picture

will make a photo album of all of his children’s achievements

is the type of dad that’s always talking about his kids

literally fr--he mentions them in every conversation

he’s just a proud dad alright? don’t judge him

i think yeonjun’s children would be extremely well behaved and well kept 

mostly because yeonjun doesn’t play around LMAO

nah fr, he’s a dad that knows how to scold and punish. his kids know better than to cross him

gives his kids anything they want

takes them on vacations allllll the time 

universal studios, disney world, legoland, you name it and he already booked the trip

honestly the type of dad that’s always somewhere having fun with his kids and posting photos on social media

is IN LOVE with being a dad

beomgyu --

lmao beomie is the cool dad

literally will talk to his baby like he/she is grown 

“i’m tired of this show. you want to watch netflix? big mouth has a new episode”.

“can you stop crying? that’s weird. all you did was pee. you’re acting you’re a baby or something”.

“why don’t you just use words? tell me when you’re hungry. stop acting like you can’t talk”. (his baby is literally 2 months old)

loves sleeping with his babies the most. loves when they cuddle with him in bed and just fall asleep in his arms and on his chest

plays with them all the time, chasing them around the house playing laser tag or ‘the floor is lava’ lmao

loves playing video games with them, doesn’t let them win just because they’re young

will literally beat them in every game with no remorse, he just tells them they have to learn how to beat him

when they’re older he’ll literally let them do whatever they want 

“dad can I go to a party?”.  “sure whatever”.

“dad I’m going to a club with my friends”.  “alright. be safe”.

“dad I think I’m pregnant”.   “damn how that happen? I hope your baby’s father isn’t ugly tbh”.

is the type of dad that will lie to his wife about their children’s bad grades to save their asses

always sugar coats the parent teacher conferences to his wife, telling her that they’re the star students (even if they’re bad as hell)

laughs when one of his kids curse

teaches them the cheat codes to getting what they want in life

his kids ADORE him lmfao

is the most understanding and caring dad there is

taehyun --

strict dad who is a good listener lmao

i think taehyun would be more prepared when he knows he’s about to be a parent. of course he knows he doesn’t know everything but this man would be so prepared lmao

literally would do research on different things just to try and get a better understanding of how children’s minds work

his kids would be baby geniuses please

his daughter would be playing mozart on the piano at the age of two

his son would be a mathematician at four

LMAO i feel like his kids would be smart and mean ASF

literally the bougie kids at school with the latest clothes and shoes and don’t want to associate with the dumber kids

spoiled ROTTEN by taehyun will literally call him for the smallest inconvenience

“dad can you put more money on my credit card? I’m feeling sad today”

“dad I need a spa day”.

and yes taehyun will do these things for them at the drop of a dime

i feel like he’s the type of dad that knows everything, literally can’t outsmart him

if one of his children lies he already knows that they’re lying and already has evidence to prove it

I don’t think any of his children would ever lie to him though lmao taehyun don’t play that shit

type of dad that will allow his spoiled ass kids to live in his house for as long as they want without requiring them to move out

absolutely weak for them

will set up bank accounts and college funds for them

literally does EVERYTHING for them i cannot stress this ENOUGH

will buy their first apartment if they want it

will buy them their first cars

taehyun’s kids : part time job? what’s that?

type of dad that his kids can talk about anything and everything with and they love him for it

can be a crackhead dad too, will do the craziest shit to make his kids laugh

his kids are his world <3

kai --

lmfao i feel like kai is the fine line between being prepared and not knowing what the fuck to do every second

literally needs his wife because he’ll get anxiety trying to make big decisions for them

i think he would be at his prime parenting during the toddler stage since he has a lot of energy. he would bring his kids to trampoline parks and bounce house places allllll the time

his kids’ fondest childhood memories would be somewhere in a bounce house jumping and having fun with their dad

would also love turning on a soft playlist and have coloring sessions with them

is the type to make his kids dress like him, oversized sweaters, baggy jeans and cute sneakers

would buy his kids matching outfits and toys

also would be big on accessories i think. would love buying them cute backpacks, lunchboxes, and pens and pencils lmao

i think kai’s children would be chaotic as helllllllllllll

extremely hyperactive and don’t know the concept of bedtime

has frequent food fights in the kitchen

whenever they take a bath they get suds all over the floor

they eat and nap in the kitchen cabinets even though kai specifically told them not to do that

kids would be EXTREMELY cute so it would always be hard for kai to scold them

his version of scolding is literally, “hey don’t do that”. will never yell or hit

can never find a babysitter for when him and his wife have date nights because his children are always on a rampage

and when they do have do have date nights his children always find a way to facetime him fifteen hundred times about nothing

i think out of all kids, kai’s kids would be the baddest ones in school just because of the contrast lmfaoo

his son draws curse words on his desk

his daughter gets into fights all the time

parent teacher conferences are the funniest because kai is smiling no matter how bad the teacher says his kids are

literally cannot control them LMAO

but they’re so funny and sweet to him he can’t help but become weak for them

when they’re older though I feel like they’ll mellow out only a little but still kinda rebellious 

kai is a positive dad who tries his absolute best lmao but he loves them with all his heart <3

[emotions-ew]

A Collection of Queer Country Artists and Songs for anyone who doesn’t feel like there’s country music they can relate to...

There is this idea that country music is like just Republican men singing about beer, and trucks and also Jesus,  and that is kind of fair because loads of it is but there are some cool as hell queer/lgbtq+ country artists. Finding those and finding that representation in a genre of music I was literally raised on kind of changed my life in a tiny way and I wanted to share that.

(This is by no means a comprehensive list and also I’m basing the “Country” part of this sometimes on my subjective opinion/limited music knowledge so yuh please don’t hate me if I get some wrong)

Also link below for a Spotify playlist of my favourite gay/gayish country music, some mentioned in this post some not, (with a title that isn’t obviously gay for anyone who can’t openly listen to gay stuff on their public accounts for whatever reason) so feel free to skip the massive essay and just jump straight to that. And pretty please repost if I missed anyone/ any songs you love.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7KB6PmUxnpkU7lih8Bysvw

Artists To Follow:

Chely Wright

- Right off the bat, Chely Wright is a legend and I’m in love with her. So, in the 90′s Chely Wright was kind of a huge deal. She started her career as a singer/songwriter and released her first album in ‘94, which was critically acclaimed although never reached the commercial success of her later works. By ‘97 she was really hitting her stride, dropping her breakout hit “Shut up and Drive” (a personal favourite of mine) followed two years later by the biggest hit of her career “Single White Female”. Throughout all that Chely Wright was, to the world, a good old fashioned, heterosexual southern gal. Privately it was a bit of a different story. She had public relationships with male country artists, all while pursuing a secret decade long relationship with a woman. 

I hadn’t ever really heard a Chely Wright song until a few years ago so I never knew about her music or career pre-coming out but I do know that even though by the time she came out in 2010 she was by no means at the height of her fame Chely Wright is kind of one of the biggest names in country music to be out and proud (in my opinion) and I love her like an insane amount. I literally play her music in my car when I have passengers just so I can be like “fun fact this singer is actually gay-” and then subject them to a lengthy explanation of her entire career. She came out with an album and a memoir and the album is my favourite of her work because it’s so fucking raw and because I relate to most of it immensely. Anyways Chely Wright went fucking through it in her journey to being her authentic self and now she’s out and proud and married to a woman and they have a family together and I’m a fucking sucker for a happy ending and y’all should add her to every playlist you have. And on top of that her music is genuinely good. Coming out undoubtedly damaged her career but I think that

Brandi Carlile 

- As far as I can tell Brandi Carlile has been out her whole career. I feel like this list is just going to be me saying “I’m in love with her” about a bunch of women old enough to be my mother but in my defence, I am honestly in love with her. She’s been making music since she was like, seventeen, and has had a bunch of massive hits, as a singer, songwriter, and producer. If you want to cry kind of happy tears listen to her performance of “Bring my Flowers Now” with Tanya Tucker. She’s won Grammy’s and CMT awards and she’s done it all as an out Queer woman. She’s also a founding member of The Highwomen, an all-female country music group who released their first album in 2019, comprised of Carlile, Marren Morris, Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires. I really love this band because they’re four artists who are immensely successfully in their own right collabing, much like the Highwaymen, and their music is phenomenal while also being a fuck you to mainstream country music and their inability to properly represent women in country music spaces. 

She’s been married to a woman (smoking hot and also brilliant) since 2012 and they have two kids together and if you want to cry (again) then you have to listen to her song “Mother” about her eldest daughter. A queer country artist absolutely worth adding to all your playlists. 

Brooke Eden

- As I understand it Eden came out publicly in January of this year. She’s engaged to Hilary Hoover, who she’s been dating since 2015 apparently. I can’t even imagine the pressure that must be on a person and how stressful it would be to keep a relationship secret from the whole world for years and personally I think they’re a cute as hell couple and I wish them literally all the happiness in the world. 

Brooke Eden has a few older songs that I think are really good, my favourite being “Act Like You Don’t”, and while her new stuff isn’t my usual country vibe I am a sucker for literally anything gay and it is legally my gay duty to stream any song that she releases to support my fellow queer. It’s quite different to anything Wright or Carlile sing but I actually kind of love that because it shows that country music of all different shapes and sizes and styles can be sung by queer artists. 

Amythyst Kiah

- Okay so I am a very new listener to Amythyst Kiah, but her music is literally so beautiful it would be a straight up sin to not include her on this list. Her music is country-blues-roots esq (more roots than country, I think?) and her voice is so unique. She grew up in Chattanooga and has been playing music since childhood. She recently made her Opry debut which is fucking awesome. She also belongs to a band called Our Native Daughters, described as “A supergroup of Black women in traditional music”. Their debut album “Songs of Our Native Daughters” did numbers and I haven’t listened to the whole thing but my favourite so far are “Black Myself” and “I Knew I Could Fly” so y’all add that to your playlists along with “Wild Turkey” by Amythyst Kiah because holy hell her voice on that will blow your mind.

Steve Grand

-        The first man to make this list, he should frankly be honoured. Grand has been an out and proud gay man making country music since like 2013, and I have so much respect for an artist who chose to simply never be in, choosing instead to simply write gay ass songs about being in love with men and letting the chips fall where they man. His music is always going to have a special place in my heart and, he’s cute so if you’re into men and music by men give him a google. add him to your playlists, his All-American Boy album is literally just a dozen songs that are perfect to yell-sing along to.

Katie Pruitt

-        Not hugely knowledgeable on Katie Pruitt but her music makes me feel crazy intense emotions and is absolutely gay

 Honorable Mention Artists I haven’t Really Listened to But Who I Know to be gay thanks to google and might be your thing so totally check them out:

Brandy Clark

Ty Herndon

Shelly Fairchild

Lavendar Country

Trixie Mattel

Cameron Hawthorn

Drop any other names of artists or songs you know of 

 Specific Songs That Make Me Fucking Cry or (in good and bad ways (but always in a gay way)) or basically are just gay as hell:

If She Ever Leaves Me; The Highwomen

- So, this album came out about a week before my first (and only) girlfriend broke up with me. The general gist of the song is a woman singing about how her loved isn’t ever going to leave her but if she does it sure as hell won’t be for a creepy man in a bar. A little ironic that I felt I related to it so intensely, considering she did in fact leave me. There’s this one lyric that goes “I’ve loved her in secret/I’ve lover here out loud/the sky hasn’t always been blue” and my girlfriend and I were crazy deep in the closet so I drew her a cute little picture of a grey cloud and on the back I wrote that lyric and I gave it to her and to me it was kind of a promise that one day I’d get a chance to love her out loud and even though I never actually did this song is forever going to make me cry because of the little bit of hope that lyric gave me and the way it’s inclusion on this overwhelmingly mainstream country album made me feel like acceptance was just that little bit closer. 

 All American Boy; Steve Grand

- Definitely one of the first gay country songs I ever heard, and Steve Grand didn’t once sacrifice a scrap of country for the gay. It’s beautiful, it’s a little sad, it’s hopeful. It’s forever going to hold a special place in my heart and the music videos is kind of one of my favourites ever. I found this song before I found myself and the way it made my heart warm should have been a stronger sign than I took it to be. 

Like Me; Chely Wright

- When you love someone you kind of make it your mission to know them in a way that no one else can. This song by Chely Wright is sort of an ode to that, and how even once you lost someone, you’re still going to know every little thing about them. On top of that it sort of speaks to the idea that all these things Wright learned about this woman, she learned in secret and she knew her and loved her in secret and now that they’re gone from each other she’s left with all of this knowledge and all of these questions and no one to answer them. I love the way it’s so slow and the melody and her voice, the way it’s low and a little raspy, make this one of my favourite Chely Wright songs.

The Mother; Brandi Carlile

-        Sorry but a song about being a mother by a queer woman is going to make me cry every time and actually I’m not that sorry. It’s quite a simple song, if any song written by Brandi Carlile can ever be described as ‘simple’, it’s an ode to her daughter. My favourite line is “you are not an accident/where no one thought it through” because it speaks to the fact that in order for queer women to have a kid together they have to want it so damn bad and also I just like the way her voice sounds on that line. This song is also the perfect thing to listen to if you ever for a second feel like being gay/queer is going to stand in the way of you having a family because it absolutely doesn’t have to and if that’s something you want, you can have it. Don’t let people try and convince you otherwise.

Loving Her; Katie Pruitt

-        Unapologetic gay love. Opening a song with “If loving hers a sin, I don’t wanna go to heaven” is a fucking baller move and she went there. The lyrics are beautiful, and her voice is phenomenal. It could be a sad song, about confronting religious repression and grappling with what that means for your love, but instead its triumphant. Katie Pruitt doesn’t give a fuck if you have a problem because she’s going to write songs for her lover.

Jesus From Texas; Semler

-        Not actually totally sure this is a country song, but it has the words ‘Jesus’ and ‘Texas’ in the title so I feel safe including it in this list. Honestly, I don’t really know why I relate so hard to this song. Like, I wasn’t really raised with religion, so I don’t know what it is about this funky little tune that makes me want to sob but there’s something about this tune that makes me want to do whatever the opposite of get up and dance is, but like, in a good way.

Lovin’ Again; Steve Grand

-        Breakup song that ends kind of positively? So good to sing along to at high, high volumes. The idea that losing someone doesn’t have to mean losing yourself and just because you can’t love them doesn’t mean you’re not ever going to love again. But also kind of about how it’s hard to get over someone, I don’t know it’s just good.

Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears; Lavender Country

-        Jesus christ if this isn’t the coolest shit I’ve ever heard in my life. Sorry but a gay country group formed in 1972 who dropped possibly the first gay themed country album, and this was the title of one of the songs. God I am in love.

 Songs that (to me) are a little fruity or that I just relate to in a gay way:

Picket Fences; Chely Wright

-          Chely Wright is gay but this song came out long before she did and when she wrote it, it wasn’t supposed to be gay which is why it’s in this section and not the previous. The reason it’s included at all is because frankly ma’am, Mrs Wright, it’s a little fruity. And I feel a little bad for joking because honestly to me, the way I hear this song and knowing the context (that Wright was deeply closeted at the time she wrote and released it), it’s kind of just sad. The general gist of the song is Wright asking what’s so great about a traditional lifestyle anyways. It could be read as a woman genuinely questioning why we push that expectation that she’ll have two kids and a husband and a picket fence lifestyle, or even could be read as a woman who’s trying to deflect how much she does in fact want that, you have to listen and form your own opinion. But to me, it feels like a woman who’s desperately trying to justify why she doesn’t want that life not because she can’t have it, but she knows it will never be right for her. I don’t know it’s hard to explain I just feel like this song is a little bit gay even though I’m sure she didn’t intend that.

Sinning with You; Sam Hunt

-          Sorry but this song is gay. Sorry but you can’t write the lines “I never felt like I was sinning with you/Always felt like I could talk to God in the morning” and “if it’s so wrong why did it feel so right” and “But I never felt shame, never felt sorry/Never felt guilty touching your body” and not to mention the opening line of “raised in the first pew/praises for yeshua/case of a small town repression”, and expect to not sit in my car sobbing as I realised that while I never felt like what we did was a sin she absolutely did, and wishing I could have told her that I was sorry for making her carry the weight of both our souls but also that it wasn’t a sin and nothing in the world could feel that good and be that bad and it isn’t right that she had to be so ashamed of something that was just so good. Sam Hunt actually said after he wrote the song that while it was reflection on his own relationship with faith he genuinely hopes that people in the lgbtq community can like find comfort or whatever in his words and like go off king, we stan an ally.

  How do I Get There; Deana Carter

-          This ones easy, it’s about falling in love with your best friend and suddenly realising you want more than just friendship with them. Sorry Deana, that’s gay. In my Deana Carter of like Year 10 I played this song on repeat and screamed along to the lyrics as though singing it hard enough would make her like me back.

[damselofblueroses]

The Name of the Rose

Summary: Your study-buddy Doh Kyungsoo comes with you for a long-awaited trip to Tokyo, Japan. There is a tension between you, however both of you decided to build a friendship instead of a relationship.

Content: Unestablished relationship, AU, Hurt/Comfort, Anger, Slight Violence, Emotional Complications and Healing.

Warnings: Well, the story contains NSFW/Smut, please minors do not continue.

Note: This story was inspired by D.O.’s album, Empathy, the album of 2021 in my opinion. It is an ongoing mini project, I planned to write it as a one-shot when I started, however I realized there are a lot to say about Empathy Era and I cannot stop shut my mouth, or prevent myself from writing… So, here we go.

Second chapter, the Hunter and the Goddess is out :)

Word Count: 3.6k

Chapter 1: The Hunter and the Gazelle

Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.

You were excited.

No, it was not the correct word to be used. You were hyperactive, more than your usual self, and God knows that everyone could testify on how hectic your personality was. According to your family and very close friends, you were a walking catastrophe, funny but a fucking tease and potentially dangerous for environment.

And now, as you had been waiting for your flight, you could not manage to even stay still. Your hands were everywhere, you proved yourself again by dismantling your tote bag as poor thing was on your lap and you were playing with it unconsciously.

“Enough.” you heard your companion’s baritone voice tone. “If you will continue like this, you have to buy your belongings again in Japan. Do you have that much money?”

He reached to you and took the bag from your lap. For a second, his fingers brushed your thighs, and you lost your concentration during that fucking second.

Focus! you told yourself.

“I can always lend some money from you.” you cocked one of your eyebrows. “What? Will you bare me from some bucks?”

“Yes.” he was always plain and simple. On the contrary of you. “Unless if it is not a necessary. I am not a guy of sharing.”

What type of guy you are, can you give me a demonstration?

Your trip to Japan made you very excited, but you had to confess at least to yourself in the depts of your mind. What made you frenzied was the presence of your companion.

Doh Kyungsoo.

Your long-term study-buddy. Actually, he was more than a study-buddy, he was a kind of your comfort zone, even though you never express your opinions about him. You have known each other for almost 7 years since the last year of bachelor. Both of you continued your ways in academic world and you were currently being Ph.D. candidates.

To be honest, he never lose his impacts on you. You had a sweet spot for him since almost the beginning of your friendship which made him more than a study-buddy. It did not mean that you were restraining yourself from having dates time to time, but all of them were ended up with the same result.

They were clever and handsome guys, but they were not Doh Kyungsoo.

Sometimes you could not help but wonder, how it would be if you did not meet him as a friend? Could you two manage having a relationship as your best friend, Baekhyun, supported like a bloody zealot? Or one of you would give up as your brother, Jongdae, always believed?

“Hey!” you heard Kyungsoo’s voice and jumped off from the bench. “Come back to your senses or we are going to miss the plane.”

“And you are going to take its money from me.” your murmured inside of your mouth but obliged to what he said by starting to walk. He was generally quiet during flights, but you knew his mouth will not be shut when you will visit the restaurants he wanted to try.

He does not come for Tokyo, he comes for fucking eels, octopuses, or crabs. Kyungsoo and his appetite.

“Naturally.” he approved your words on money, but there was a ghost of smile on his lips. “Since you are the one who became a sleeping beauty.”

Do you think I am beautiful?

This was another problem you had. With Kyungsoo, you were so relaxed, and you felt extremely safe, so you did not need to control yourself as you generally did. Of course, it was a good omen for your friendship, as much as you were sure Kyungsoo never lied to you, it was also a disadvantage on your part, because sometimes you wanted to ask some questions that should be remained in silence.

“If we would be fairy tales,” you smirked. “I would be Belle while you are the Beast.”

“Fine by me.” he shrugged his shoulder. “He is a very good guy. I am happy for Belle; she understands the assignment. You would not most probably.”

“Sweetheart, you are slow to catch the signs.” you playfully smacked his shoulder when you reached to the control point. You thought he would be annoyed, but he stopped and seriously gazed at you. You shivered and wondered why he was looking at you like he wanted to say something.

“What?” you inhaled.

“Since when I am slow to catch the signs?” he pressed on every word of his sentence, and to your dismay he used that voice tone, almost a whisper but goddamn strong. “Give me an example.”

You shuttered down, and this was the last problem you had with Kyungsoo, he was the only one who could make your brain stop working especially in times when the occasion calls for full-speed devilish progress. You just stared at him and shrugged your shoulder.

“Eh Soo,” you murmured. “You missed a lot of beautiful girls, right?”

Your response was so weak even to your ears. If Chanyeol, number two best friend of you, could hear your words, he would burst into laughs by hitting everyone beside him. You could imagine Junmyeon’s disgusted face as a plus.

“I did not miss anyone, my dear.” he chuckled. “Let me rephrase, anyone I want just one exception, but exceptions do not ruin the calculation in your famous mindset.”

When he chuckles, you can feel your blood tension rocks your body. His heart shaped lips does something to you, and you do not want to name it.

“Exceptions run the world, Doh.” you tried to push him to elaborate his words a little bit more. “Who is that lucky girl who run away from you?”

“That’s my secret.” he smirked and put his hand onto your waist in order to led you the controller lady. “Show your passport, I do not want to wait here forever.”

Who was the girl he mentioned? You could not help but started to feel anxious, how much you tried to press your instincts and feelings, whenever he mentioned a girl, there would be a dire need of crying in the pit of your stomach. You took a deep breathe and followed his instruction. While you were walking into the inside of plane, you struggled with the sudden sadness. You wanted to tear that off yourself, so you reminded yourself the splendid trip ahead you. You found your place and processed to sit down.

“May I help?” Kyungsoo asked you but he already fetched your belongings and placed them correctly. You smiled to him and sat down.

How could you meet someone like him? He was a little bit grumpy sometimes, a person who could give unexpected reactions, but he was reliable, kind, lovely and always thoughtful of his environment. You did not want to lose him. You never want to lose him, on the contrary, you want to keep him in your life until the very end. You could not think a life without Kyungsoo, you always desire him to stay your side.

You were pretty sad, you had to admit, and there was regret. You were regretful on your decision to not go further with him, you wished you could be braver and tell him about your feelings for him. How much you were confused because of him, how many days and nights you spent sleepless because of him. To make the things more complicated, you had zero idea about how he would be responded your confession if you pull yourself together and manage to do. For once, you heard his cousin Minseok talked about you by saying you were very important for Kyungsoo, however you did not know in which extent you were important for him.

You two were always closed to each other, you spent almost 3 or 4 days together, you were living in the same campus, your departments were close to each other. He was a huge part of your life, that’s one of the reasons why you were hopelessly trying to conceal your inappropriate feelings for Kyungsoo. The idea of losing his extremely valuable presence was the only scenario could make you sob.

“Am I the only one who is very uncomfortable?” he whispered to your ear and made your stomach twisted. You could kill him for this, but he was not aware of how he affected you. “You are deadly silent.”

“No, I am just thinking.” you run away from him like an Olympic athlete. “About the trip. I am very excited.”

“If you are,” he flinched your forehead. “You have to talk non-stop. You are silent when something bothers you, what are you hiding from me?”

“Nothing, Soo.” you found a smile from somewhere and presented to him. “You know I never find the chance of visiting Japan; I am really overwhelmed.”

“So, speak to me.” he grunted. “Do not act like I am not here.”

“Okey, okey.” you raised your hands to air. “Sorry for that.”

“I start to feel like I am disturbing you.” he turned his head to the Name of the Rosethat he was reading. Umberto Eco, he had a taste for everything of course. “I asked you twice if you are okey with going to Japan with me.”

You could laugh if you were not so tense since he mentioned girls.

“And I told you this is okey, Soo.” you pinched his upper arm. “You are a good companion for trips.”

“Only for trips?” he asked. What the fuck was wrong with Kyungsoo today? He was behaving weird, and his questions made you more baffled. “I thought I am good companion for everything.”

You bit your lips in order to send back the sudden answer you wanted to give. Instead of declaring your ignorance about his performance on everything, you refined your words.

“You are a good friend, Soo and sorry for making you feel unwanted. I am happy you are coming with me.”

“Hm.” he hummed but he did not look like he was satisfied with your answer. You decided to not think about what the heck he wanted to hear, you also turned to your book that you were supposed to read since the departure. At least Pavese helped you to collect your mind till the plane landed in Narita Airport. He helped you while you two took a cab for the way, he was acting like his usual self, so you accused yourself because of searching hidden messages in his questions. You were such an idiot.

“I will be seeing you at dinner.” he waved his hand when you finished the registration process of the hotel you would be staying for the week. You were in front of the elevator. Both of you already decided to take a nap before dinner when you were planning the trip, so you approved his words and took your keys.

“See you.” you smiled and walked to your room. When you opened the door, your smile widened, the room is so light and minimalistic as you really liked. There was no crowded furniture, crazy designs, or unnecessary modifications. The walls were light blue, the furniture was white, and all looked very harmonious. There were plants and flowers, you immediately run to the flowers as you loved them more than anything else. The hotel staff managed to place even Sakura blossoms into the room that made your heart flattered and smoothed your nerves.

And there was only one blue rose, which was your favourite flower in the world. Just one, between a bouquet of daisies and it looked magnificent. You leaned to smell it while smiling as a little freak. You did not have to see your face; you knew how you looked like. Chanyeol always said that when you see a blue rose, you lost your shit. Another creature made you drunk in happiness was white butterflies. You had a sweet spot for blue roses and white butterflies.

And for Kyungsoo.

You grunted to yourself in your mind, and you headed to the bathroom by tapping your feet to the ground harshly. You were done with your obsession with Kyungsoo, it became something out of control, and you were tired of yourself at this point.

You had to live your goddamn life, you had to stop fucking fantasizing about your study-buddy.

You stripped out from your clothes and jumped into the shower. Cold water helped you to take the control of yourself, both as physical and emotional. You were okey, you were in bloody Japan as you always wanted, and you were going to fucking enjoy it. After shower, you threw yourself into the bed, tucked yourself inside the blanket and set the alarm for one hour later.

After one hour, you were swearing at yourself with your very glorious vocabulary because the only thing you did was fantasizing about Doh Kyungsoo.

“Did you rest?” he asked to you while you were leaving the hotel. You held your growl inside. “Did you take a nap?”

“I did not sleep but I leaned down for a while, so it was good. You?”

“I slept like a baby. It was very interesting when you think I am more like an insomniac.”

“I guess, your insomnia is rubbing on me.” you grumbled. “Where are we going now?”

“Eh, at least something about me can rub on you.” he rolled his eyes, your chin was dropped due to his response. “There is a tiny noodle restaurant in Ebisu, but they are very famous. We are going to there.”

“Okey.” you nod and walked beside of him.

“You look very pretty.” he turned to you. “That dress looked very good on you.”

You instantly took a look on your navy, long dress. It was very comfortable, but also elegant and your fashion freak cousin persuaded you the colour and style gave you a

“Thank you.” you replied. “Sehun chose this for me, you know he is the chef kiss when it comes to fashion.”

“He did well.” he smiled. “How is Sehun by the way, I did not see him since ages. Did he come back from France?”

“No.” you pouted. You really missed your noisy cousin. “He just came to visit for a week, then came back to school. I am not sure if he will come back to be honest, he got some important invitations from European universities.”

“Very good.” Kyungsoo’s face was lit up. He was proud of Sehun. “I know you miss him, but he has a bright career ahead of him.”

“Yes, I know.” you also smiled. Thinking about your successful but extremely playful cousin made you happy. “I just worry about him.”

“Stop babying him.” Kyungsoo punched your arm as half serious half joke. “How old is he, 27?”

“Yeah.” you laughed. “I know I baby him very much, but we all do, Kyungsoo.”

“You are just one year older than Sehun.” he smirked. “Who is going to baby you?”

“Chanyeol.” you exhaled. Kyungsoo looked at you for a second, then both of you burst into laughs because it was well known that you also took care of Chanyeol and Baekhyun as well as Sehun. “Jokes aside, I am a strong and big girl, Kyungsoo, I do not need someone babying me.”

“Maybe you can start looking for a sugar daddy to baby you?” he cocked his eyebrows to you. “Before it is going to be too late?”

“Actually, I had some candidates in my pocket.” you devilishly beamed to him. “You have no idea.”

“Beg your pardon?” his face suddenly transformed from joy to deadpanned seriousness, and his smile was disappeared immediately. “I was joking.”

“I was not.” you blinked your eye. “Some people really proposed to me.”

“For being your sugar daddy?”

“I know I am very little in your eyes, Kyungsoo” you took a deep breathe before continuing. “But here the breaking news: some people could find me attractive.”

“We are not talk about usual dates or men.” he held your arm and turned you to himself. “If you receive this kind of proposes, you have to tell me.”

“Next time, I will report you so we can decide who is going to be my sugar daddy.” you poked his ribs while he burrowed his eyebrows and radiated a strong sense of discontent. “Come on Kyungsoo, I am not going to say yes to this type of proposes, what do you think about me?”

“We are always joking about this issue,” he looked like he was cursing beneath his breath. “But when it comes to you and Baekhyun, I always suspect if you are serious or not.”

“Sugar daddy is a joke.” you hissed. “Of course, it is a joke, I have no interest in having a sugar daddy.”

“What about the proposes? Are they real?”

“Well, they are.” you murmured. Suddenly, you felt like the table was turned and you just played your ace card too early. You felt like Kyungsoo’s eyes investigated your soul to the bits.

“How many?”

“Three.” you gave up. “One from faculty, two from outside.”

“Unethical son of bitches.” he lowly cursed and caught you off guard because he generally preferred to use more polite words, even if he was cursing. “Keep them away from yourself.”

“Oh really?” you teased him by hoping to break the strange tension between you and managed to put a little smile on his face.

“Stop mocking me.” he warned you but now he was smiling widely. His mouth became a heart again, this time you averted your eyes from his face.

“Who I am to dare mocking you?” you squeaked but it was fake.

“Oh, you mock me more than even that walking noisy machine Baekhyun.” he flicked his hand. “We have to stop at this station, Ebisu Garden Place is on the way.”

He put his hand onto your waist again, and you felt like electrocuted again. Every time he touched you, and unfortunately, he sporadically did, you felt like you are dying for more. More what? You were not sure what you really wanted from Kyungsoo, but you were certain on you were desperate for more of him.

More of him.

The bus was crowded, Kyungsoo led you to a little corner, and stayed in front of you. He could be a little bit protective when it came to crowded places since you were clumsy, he generally insisted to keep you close to himself in order to catch you, if you would lose your balance, so you did not surprise when he held your wrist.

What made your heart to do a perfect all kill type of somersault was his next move, his fingers did not stop on your wrist, on the contrary they moved into your palm and grasped your hand tightly. You raised your eyes to him, he never hold your hand, never ever.

“I want to be sure.” he whispered by catching your question before you ask. “Since both of us do not know the way, and the bus is full of passengers, this is more secure.”

“Ah.” This was the best of you at the moment. You quickly realized what the heck you said but Kyungsoo sometimes can be quicker than you.

“Why? Are you unsatisfied with the reason?” His dark brown eyes were shining, his perfume smelled fucking good and the proximity between your faces did not help you.

“Why should I be?” you had to be back to play as soon as possible. “I grant you the chance of holding my hand, that’s count as charity.”

He looked at your hand for a moment, and you saw a smile formed on his lips and instead of a sarcastic reply as you expected, his eyes shaped like a crescent and shined as the fucking moon itself during a cloudless, navy night.

“Thank you, your highness.” he genuinely smiled. “May I continue to hold your hand?”

“Why?” the tone of your question was full of surprise, sounded exceptionally strange.

“Because I want to feel you.” he simply answered, and he squeezed your hand a little bit more. “For once let me feel you by my side.”

You knew that your eyes blown up, your mind was playing some tricky and dangerous games with you, you lost your shit, and you were sure about you finally made yourself mad because of your platonic interest in Kyungsoo, but even if God himself would appear in the bus in order to stop you, that would be a fruitless attempt.

You held Kyungsoo’s hand.

If he wanted to feel you by his side, you could not refuse.

You never refuse Kyungsoo.

How could you?

He was the protagonist of your secret dreams, fantasies and your goddam powerful imagination.

He was your gazelle and you were chasing him since the first day you met.

[welllpthisishappening]

Drew Stars Around My Scars

Hello, hey, hi there. It’s raining, I’ve already lost track of the number of times I’ve listened to Taylor Swift’s new album and haven’t written anything in weeks. Until now! Thanks, Taylor Swift. And @optomisticgirl​​​ who reblogged this post a few days ago from @initiala​​​ about how Killian holding Emma in 3x22 isn’t just that he’s trying to comfort her, but he’s trying to make sure she didn’t disappear. 

Which, like...ok, cool. Anyway, I have thought about this for far too long now and started slamming on keys when the kittens weren’t sitting on my laptop and here’s like 4.1K that may or may not make sense, but at least includes some scathing opinions of Back to the Future. Also, thanks to @shireness-says​​​ for always being like...yeah, I want to read that. 

-----

She sniffles. 

She can’t seem to stop. 

Tears stream down Emma’s face without much thought because thinking too much is a daunting obstacle that she can’t even begin to consider yet. Or ever. Definitely ever. Another sniffle, this one actually making her cough somehow, which is a bodily reaction she was not aware she was capable of. 

Until right now. 

When everything seems to be falling apart around her. 

God, she hates time travel. And magic. And evil queens. And parents who can’t recognize her. She supposes she should give them a pass. For a variety of reasons, least of all the magic that’s cloaking both her and Kill—no, that’s not right. Hook. Captain Hook. He’s Captain Hook and she’s still not a princess, but the dancing was almost nice and he hadn’t even slowed down before he was drawing his sword and the jacket spin was something even her muddled thoughts have been able to cling to, so—

He’d held onto her while her mother burned. Tightly. Almost too much. 

Emma nearly trips over a tree root. 

“Shit,” she breathes, pressing the pads of her fingers into damp cheeks. Her dress is too long. Maybe she’ll mention that to Rumplestilskin later. 

Once they get home. 

Back to Storybrooke. Those are not interchangeable words. None of this is interchangeable. 

Even the trees around Emma look different than the ones she only vaguely remembers from her last jaunt through the Enchanted Forest, taller and a little more imposing, like they’re also aware that she’s one good sniffle away from falling off the metaphorical edge. 

Directly into a chasm without magic or parents and she didn’t even get to talk to Mary—

“Nope,” Emma says entirely to herself. So, it seems insanity is looming just a bit closer than she realized. “Not here.”

Or ever. There’s that phrase again. Two words, technically. 

Two words probably don’t constitute a phrase. 

What does she know, she didn’t graduate college. Or high school, technically. 

“Literally,” Emma mumbles, and it’s almost impressive how that one word still manages to sound as loud as it does. As if it’s bouncing off the sides of those same tall and decidedly imposing trees. “Literally didn't graduate high school.”

Something snaps behind her. 

There are far too many twigs on this forest floor. 

Spinning on the balls of her feet, Emma’s hands fly up, only one of her wrists cracking in the process, and it’s difficult to make out the face moving towards her, but the set of his shoulders is exactly the same as always and that cannot possibly have any deeper meaning. 

“Swan?” “God, fuck what are you—” Emma is out of breath. That’s absurd. And a rather unfair commentary on her lungs ability to function. She’s had something of a day, after all. Running a hand over her face, she does her best to retain her higher brain functions, but that’s admittedly difficult when there’s moonlight gleaming from the point of Killian’s sword. 

Captain Hook. 

Captain. Hook. 

Maybe the state of her lungs is partially his fault. He really held on very tightly. 

“What are you doing out here?” Emma manages to get out, once she’s taken another pitiful breath. She hopes her lips don’t start to chap. There’s probably not an easy remedy for that in the goddamn Enchanted Forest. 

Hook gapes at her. 

She grits her teeth. And regrets the state of her knees. They keep wobbling under her, traitors to her emotional cause and the state of several body parts aside from her obviously failing lungs. Whatever’s happening in the general vicinity of her heart seems unstable. 

Erratic, even. 

“Making sure you’re alright,” Hook says like it’s obvious, and it almost is. Almost. What another piece of garbage word. “You’ve been—” Shaking his head once, the ends of his hair don’t move as much as normal, and Emma flinches when he sheaths his sword. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright, that’s all.” Emma is going to lie. She is. Has every intention of letting the word fine pass through her lips, but those lips open without any sound coming out at all and Hook’s eyebrows jump. 

“Thank you.” “Excuse me?” “Thank you,” Emma repeats, finally giving into the urge of her knees and, if nothing else, the length of this dress makes it easier to sit on one of these overly large tree roots. Hook’s eyebrows don’t move. “Should have, uh—should have mentioned that before, probably.” “Thanking me?” “What part of this is confusing for you?” “Quite a bit, in fact,” he admits, and he doesn’t sit, but he also doesn’t look away from her and Emma is pleasantly surprised to find she almost sort of likes it. Almost. Again. 

Letting out a breath that she wishes sounded more like a laugh than it does, Emma’s tongue darts out. “Shit, that..well, that sucks, doesn’t it?” His eyes widen. “That’s not a euphemism,” Emma adds. “Just out of place slang.” “You might have to be more specific, love.”

“That’s fair. I—ok, stuff sucking is...well, it just means that stuff is...not great. Like right now, you know...things are—” She shrugs. And tries to smile. It fails spectacularly. 

Emma sniffles again. 

“Not great?” Hook ventures, and he has to readjust his sword to sit next to her. 

“Less than ideal.”

“You’ve been gone for nearly half an hour. I was worried something had happened.” “Hence the sword.” “Never want to be too careful. And you’re—” “—At least capable of still punching people,” Emma argues, not sure why she’s doing that exactly, but it feels like a matter of pride at this point. She exhales loudly. “But, uh...it’s nice that you came out here. I’m sorry that you had to do that too.” They both hear the words for what they aren’t — vast and a little overwhelming, and time travel is so overrated. Emma can’t believe what a popular fictional trope it is. Snow White was never supposed to die. The ends of Hook’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t actually smile, and that’s actually nice and maybe that’s her biggest issue. 

Everything about him has been so goddamn nice. 

He was much better at dancing than she expected him to be. 

And he keeps following her. She doesn’t mind that. 

Might even—

No. Not now. Not yet. Or ever. Again. God. 

“It’s not a problem, love.”

Emma swallows. Nods. Tries not to fall over that ledge. “I just...needed some time to think, I guess. Is that dramatic?” “No. And suggesting it sucks does have a certain charm to it.” “And you know all about charming, don’t you?” His left eyebrow arches. Some things never change, she supposes. Emma focuses on that. And not how she’s fairly certain she can feel waves of heat rolling off him, even with the few inches between them. Possibly a foot. She’s not great at estimating measurements. 

Or much else, it seems. 

That’s a far too depressing thought, though. 

“I believe I’ll leave that particular moniker to others in the party,” Hook says softly, sitting down. “Would you like to talk about it?” “Which part?” “Dealer’s choice.” “That one crossed realms, huh?”

“Some sayings know no bounds,” Hook smirks, and whatever sound Emma makes at that is even closer to a laugh than the last one. She takes that as a positive. “None of this is your fault.” “Practice that a few more times and it might sound more legitimate.” “Swan, that’s—” “—No, no, no,” Emma objects, not standing up, but she shakes her head quickly enough that strands of hair slap at either one of her cheeks. A few of them stick there. Probably because of the tears she can’t seem to stop. “All of this is my fault. I—I should have waited for help with the portal and everything I’ve done here has only made it worse and—” Another sigh, dragging her hand over her cheek. “—Fuck Marty McFly. And Doc Brown. It was so weird that they were friends, why didn’t anyone ever explain that?” “Did they not?” “No, not once. We were just supposed to accept that Marty met some senior citizen inventor guy who was more than willing to steal dangerous chemicals—” “—And he wasn’t a wizard?” “No, he wasn’t a wizard. No magic in the real world.” Or me, Emma thinks bitterly, but that’s not going to help the situation anymore than her current rambling, and she can’t seem to stop rambling. “But Marty and Doc hung out all the time. And Jennifer didn’t even think it was weird.” “Who is Jennifer, exactly?” “Marty’s girlfriend, I guess, but it always seemed like they were just starting to date at the beginning of the movie and then they got married. Just like that. You think they went to the same college or something? Like once Marty left—shit I can’t remember the name of the town.” Hook hums, a sound Emma can’t actually cling to any more than she can hold the one positive thing that has happened to her in the last twenty-four hours in her hands. It is not lost on her that both of them have to do with the man sitting next to her. 

Or how quickly his fingers keep fluttering over the hilt of his sword. 

“How far do you think we are from Aurora and Philip’s...land?” Emma asks. “Is that the right way to say that? Did they have a land?” “I believe the word you’re looking for is kingdom.” “Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Should have known that.” “That’s not your fault either.” “You’re really harping.” “Playing a symphony, it seems.” She laughs. She does. It’s not that loud, and there’s a distinctly watery edge to it, the muscles in Emma’s face aching when she manages to smile, but she’s having a difficult time coming to terms with the dexterity of Killian’s eyebrows and her hand moves before she thinks about it. 

The metal is cool under her skin, a smooth surface that she can drag her thumb across. Which is exactly what she does, an attempt to ground herself and remind her that she’s still here when she isn’t entirely positive she’s supposed to be. 

Hook doesn’t move. Might not breathe, if the state state of his shoulders is any indication and Emma hadn’t realized she was in possession of so many opinions regarding Captain Hook’s shoulders. Or her ability to recognize them. 

No matter what, it seems. 

“While it may appear that I know everything—” “—Ok, I never said that.” Hook’s smirk grows more pronounced. “I was in Neverland for quite some time, and the boundaries of some of the Enchanted Forest kingdoms changed in the last hundred or so years. But,” he adds when Emma opens her mouth again, “we’re more than a stone’s throw from the land Aurora should be ruling. At least several days' travel.” “God, that’s confusing. And did all these kingdoms have separate laws and everything? Who came up with that? Seems like a garbage way to rule.” “I believe you’d have to file a complaint with several different monarchies for that, love.”

Emma scoffs. “It’s quieter here than it was in Neverland, though.” “Most places are.” “Colder too. I hate the cold. I’m always—can’t ever seem to get warm and my toes are always freezing, it’s...I’m a notorious blanket thief.” “Pirate of sorts, huh?” He grins as he says it and part of Emma wants to scream. Stand up and run, as fast as her feet and far-too-long hem allow. But that part is also smaller than usual, and she’s all too aware of the state her knees are in. “Something like that,” Emma agrees. “When I was a kid I used to live in this place. Snowed for months at a time and I—I hated it. Wanted to be anywhere else. Kept trying to find somewhere that was warm, sunny. Like that would chase away the shadows.” Hook is disarmingly quiet. 

And Emma can’t shut up. 

“But then I got some place where it never snows and it wasn’t what I thought it’d be. Dry heat, you know?” He shakes his head. That’s fair. Pirates with several-hundred years of experience under their belts should not be expected to understand meteorological cliches. 

“Anyway,” Emma mumbles, “it wasn’t what I expected or thought was supposed to happen and—” She scrunches her nose. Hook waits. Presumably for the rest of the sentence, but it doesn’t come and she finds it difficult to breathe again when he starts talking.

“Sunlight always seemed better on the sea. Would reflect off the surf. Could see the entire horizon if you wanted to.” “And did you?” Hook nods. “As often as I could. Even when I was lad. My father used to bring my brother and I—” This might be their best and least organized conversation. Gritting his teeth, his shoulders shift when he inhales sharply. “These stars are different from Neverland’s.” “Really? Weird.” “Mmhm, made navigating something of a challenge.”

“But you’re here now, right?” “Presently, you mean?” Another head shake. More moving hair and unmoving fingers. Emma’s knuckles are white around the hook, holding it like a lifeline and she might have to spend the rest of her life thanking him for this. 

It’s not as daunting a prospect as it should be. 

“I mean past you is here,” Emma says, “in the Enchanted Forest. Doing pirate type things and offering Mary—” Her tongue gets in the way. As disgusting a thought as that is, Emma knows it’s better than thinking about what is actually happening, feeling as if her throat is collapsing in on itself while her heart does its best to beat its way out of her chest. “Shit.” Killian shuffles closer, not stopping until his knee bumps hers. “That happened from time to time. Leaving Neverland, doing jobs for—” “—Pan?” “Sometimes. He couldn't leave the island, you see. Not without losing the magic as well. Jolly’s crew was his only option. Although we always managed to stay here longer than he wanted us to.” “Well, pirates hate rules, don’t they?” “I believe that’s in the bylaws, aye.” She’s got absolutely no idea what sound that one is. Shaky and a little wobbly and some dark, half-forgotten part of Emma’s brain believes it’s drifting close to giggle territory. That can’t be right. She can’t giggle while she’s still crying. 

The bylaws of the Universe probably frown on that. 

“Is that how you wound up with Cora, then? Stuck around longer and got a good deal?” Nothing. 

No answer. No jokes. Certainly nothing even remotely resembling a giggle. 

Just the muscle in Hook’s temple, jumping rhythmically and consistently and Emma really does try to stay patient. Her sniffling makes that difficult. 

“Something like that,” Killian repeats evasively, staring straight ahead like he can see through the trees. Maybe he can. What does Emma know. Some pirates probably have to have good eyesight. Make up for the eye patches and whatnot. 

She nods. No one asked a question. “Ok.” “Ok?” “Ok,” Emma echoes, “you’re a real shit liar and I’m real great at telling when you’re lying, but—” “—Me specifically?” Yes. The answer is yes, but she doesn’t give voice to that either and maybe she should be writing all these things down. The things she’s not saying. 

Should say. 

Emma can’t believe she time traveled and didn’t even get to talk to her mother. 

And that’s the first time she’s really allowed herself to think of Snow White as her mother. 

“Super power,” Emma continues, waving her free hand towards her temple. Her other one is still clinging to his hook. “But that’s fine. You didn’t pry, so I won’t pry, I just—” Collapsing throats, she imagines, are supposed to hurt more than this does. This doesn’t hurt, per se, just feels passably uncomfortable, like there’s a wad of cotton in her mouth, making it difficult to say anything and Emma is so bad at saying anything, but Killian is staring at her and—

Killian. 

She lets herself call him Killian. In her head, at least .

“I can’t come up with anything else to say except thank you,” Emma whispers. 

“You don’t have to.” “Still.” “You’re welcome,” Killian says, and maybe words carry more weight in the past. By default. 

“Can I ask you something, though?” He tenses. Noticeably. It’s another round of fair and understandable, Emma’s teeth finding her lower lip until she tastes blood. Another reminder that she’s still here. With her fingers wrapped around Captain Hook’s—

No, that’s not right. Captain Hook did not follow her into a time vortex. Or ask her to dance. Or wear the fuck out of that jacket. Although that last one could use a bit more work, at least when it comes to sentence structure. 

The point still stands. 

Captain Hook didn’t do any of that. Killian Jones did. 

And he—

“When we were watching everything in the castle and Regina was you know…” Killian lips go thin. Emma might be staring at his lips. Past him had been a very good kisser as well. Maybe she’ll mention that at some point. After this. “Well, I just,” she stammers, “I was terrified, for my mom and my dad and even Ruby—God, is that her name here?” “Introduced herself as Red when Snow White sent her.” “Weird.” “Perhaps the best word for the entire situation.” “Or shitty.” “Aye that too,” he smiles, which is not weird. At least not as weird as it should be. “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.” “Yeah, me neither,” Emma breathes, not exactly the explicit truth, but at least several steps without moving. “I—you have very strong arms.” “A compliment?” “An observation.” Killian chuckles, and this hair really is unfortunate. Normally, that one bit that Emma has come to regard as her own personal torture device would artfully fall across his forehead, a metaphorical arrow towards eyes that always seem to get brighter when they’re looking at her.

As they often are. 

But while the hair is different, the distracting tendencies of his tongue are the same. The tip of it finds the corner of his mouth, a soft push on the inside of his cheek, and Emma’s not keeping a list — at least not acknowledging her want of a list — but the tongue thing is definitely one of Killian’s most telling tells. 

Seriously, her sentence structure sucks. 

“Although,” Emma adds, “it wasn’t that bad.” HIs tongue goes back in his mouth. She’s got to stop thinking about his tongue.

“No?” “No,” she says. “It was...nice.” So, off the top of her head, she needs to fix — sentences, her grasp of the English language, her tendency to repeat herself, and finding better adjectives for emotionally charged moments. 

Possibly. 

Emma still hasn’t called him Killian to his face, after all. 

“What did you think was going to happen?” No tongue, but an obviously tight jaw makes Emma’s stomach jump into her still-collapsed throat. “Like I said, love. I wasn’t sure. Just wanted to make sure you’re alright.” The lie feels like it reaches out, smacks her across the face and then backhands her for good measure. It leaves Emma’s cheeks tingling and something tugs at the base of her spine. Not magic, because she still doesn’t have magic, but maybe magic adjacent, like a memory or hints of a dream that keep lingering at the edges of everything, and she promised. 

She doesn’t push. She doesn’t prod. 

She doesn’t pry. 

And Killian has to move his sword again when he gets back to his feet. “We’ve got a fire going, if you’d like to warm up.” “Yeah, ok. Thanks.” Emma doesn’t let go of the hook, keeps her fingers curled around it as they move back through the trees and neither one of them stumble, a very small, but much needed victory because—

Well, everything kind of continues to suck. 

At least for a little while. 

Snow White isn’t dead, but she’s a bug, and then she’s not a bug and Emma has no idea where Ruby goes. She’s too busy worried about this nameless woman and wielding a branch gets her another laugh and a smile she’s going to think about for at least seventy-two hours straight. Then there are trolls, and tears of the less-pained variety. Rumplestilskin continues to be any forest’s biggest asshole, and there’s magic and another round of crying and—

Emma runs. 

Sprinting across Storybrooke, she ignores the ringing phone in her pocket, determined to hug her parents and hold her kid with her own display of impressive upper body strength. 

And it gets better, less suck-like, at least. Food and smiles and the way her mother’s hand feels when it rests on top of Emma’s. 

Until she’s sitting — tucked into the corner of a booth with her own face staring at her from the pages of Henry’s storybook and Emma can’t quite recognize the person there. The happiness on her face feels like...well, a story. A good one, but something that she can’t believe was hers or is hers or could be hers and she’s got to add tenses to that list she only kind of remembers. 

Glancing around, the muscles in her neck object to the stress she’s putting them under, because time travel is awful and exhaustion is starting to creep its way up her spine. 

“Looking for someone?” her mother asks, and Emma’s lips pop. 

That’s it. 

She understands. Fucking goddamn finally. 

Emma might nod. Or shake her head. It doesn’t really matter. 

There are no words. No explanations. Just clamoring back to her feet, the bottoms of her boots sticking to the linoleum near the door because one of the dwarves definitely spilled punch at some point and—

His head snaps up as soon as the door closes behind her. 

“So, do you think Rumplestilskin is right?” Emma asks, dropping into one of the wrought-iron chairs at the table Killian has commandeered. Pirate term. “I’m in the book now. He said everything, besides our little adventure, would go back to normal. Do you think that it is?”

“He’s right. Otherwise I’d remember that damned bar wench I kissed.” She smiles. Wide and honest and easier than anything has ever been. And Killian doesn’t flinch when she teases him, like that’s something Emma is allowed to do, but she figures once she uses his name and once they start making out like teenagers it’s fine, and this is her favorite kiss. 

By far. 

No sounds, no rum, nothing except the feel of his fingers in her hair and her knees bumping against his and she tries to claw her way into his space, a burst of colors behind her closed eyes that she knows is magic and him and them, a collective unit that—

“You came out here,” Killian murmurs, the words barely making their way through the haze of Emma’s post-makeout brain. 

She bumps her nose against his. “Turnabout and all that. I...I didn’t want you to be by yourself. And I had a thought.” “Which was?” “Did you think I was going to disappear? When Regina tried to kill my mom. I—you said you didn’t know what would happen, but that wasn’t—” “—Super power, huh?” “Not cool to interrupt when I’m theorizing.” “Well, you don’t like being cool, do you, Swan?” Her smile is going to get stuck on her face. That’s...nice. “Was that what it was?” “The thought had crossed my mind, aye.” “Smart guy.” “High praise.” “I’m an official princess now. In the book and everything, so favors from me hold a certain weight, don’t you think?” He smirks. She tries to memorize it. Every shift of his mouth, the spark in his eye and slight scrunch of his nose, what might be a few freckles there or a trick of the dim lights above them. 

Emma’s skin feels like it’s vibrating. 

“Thank you.” “You don’t have to keep saying that, Swan.” “Yeah, I know, but—I didn’t think about disappearing, but I did think about wanting something to hold onto and that’s...thank you.”

It’s not enough. Not really, but even the concept of holding her tight enough to ensure that she didn’t disappear in some fairy tale realm is a lot for Emma to wrap her mind around, so she’s going to give herself a pass on this one. 

And kiss him instead. Kissing Killian is quickly climbing to the top of a brand-new list of Emma’s favorite things. In every known realm. His tongue swipes her lips and she opens her mouth at the same time her eyes fall shut again, a tilt of her head and bump of their chins, and it’s not easy to deal with all of their assorted limbs at this angle, but that just ensures that this is a bit slower and softer and something that is, quite obviously, the start. 

Because she came after him this time. 

[consumedkings-archive]

WITCHING HOUR, a john seed/deputy fic.

chapter five: dark vibrations

word count: 11.4k

rating: m for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop, tags will be updated accordingly.

warnings: body horror, hallucinations (?), mentions of self-harm, mentions of suicide. spooky scary activities ensue. elliot has an increasingly difficult time keeping a grasp on reality. we knew this was gonna happen, though!

notes: howdy! i hope y’all enjoy this. sometimes i go weeks without updating and sometimes i wait like, 4 days before manically writing an entire chapter. you know how it be like that sometimes. i was feeling a bit more inspired and felt like i finally hit a groove on where this story was going, which i think definitely helped, and i hope you all enjoy it!

thank you, as always, to everyone who reads, likes/comments, even if you just come into my dms with two nice words or write something nice in your tags; it really does make my whole night to see even one person enjoying anything i’ve made. <3

Cold morning light filtered in through the window, drenched in wedding-silk grays thanks to the wintery cloud-cover. Everything in the room looked to be placed with absolute intent and care; polished, porcelain-white decor in elaborate geometrics, gold accents, a king-sized bed with impeccably pressed sheets. Truthfully, John had thought for certain he’d come back into the house to be informed by Elliot’s statuesque mother that, in fact, she had rescinded her offer to let him stay and actually, he would need to depart immediately, lest the authorities be called.

He was glad that it hadn’t come to that, of course, because it would’ve been such a shame to have to dampen Scarlet’s opinion of her own daughter so quickly into their meeting.

Dropping his small bag of belongings—the manila folder packed full of information, including his own scribbled notes; the burner phone; a few quickly-packed clothes that had been meticulously cycled to avoid the most long-term wear—John paused as the heat in the house kicked on with a delicate whirr.

Everything in Scarlet Honeysett’s home seemed to be precisely the shape and color that she liked, with not a single thing out of place; and yet, as the heat kicked on, he was certain that he could hear the sound of sharp, hushed voices downstairs, a little ripple in the woman’s perfect, arcadian home scene.

It was good. It felt good, to be here. To have gotten the upper hand. So much of the past weeks he’d spent with Elliot had felt like he was slowly, violently spiraling out of control, but this? She was here, and she had to play by his rules for once, and—

And he’d wanted just one more second alone, with her. To watch the way her eyes flickered over his face, to drink in the way her chin tilted up in defiance but not unlike the way she used to do it when she was waiting for him to kiss her, the same lovely high-color in her spreading along her cheekbones and the same little spark in her gaze. Whether it was anger or allure was neither here nor there, anymore; with Elliot, they were interchangeable, a stepping stone one way or another, just the way it had always been with them.

Because John liked her anger. He liked her wrath. He wanted to put his hands on it, his mouth on it, break it into pieces and wring it out of her and put it back and do it all over again, while she said his name, his name, and not anyone else’s. God, she’d been so fucking close—so close, and he couldn have just had her if he really wanted to, grabbed a fistful of her hair and kissed her when the sting of her slap was still fresh on his face. She liked when he did that; kissed her, like he was starved for her. Because he was starved for her, and then she could knot her fingers into his shirt or dig her nails into his skin or whatever it was she wanted to make him desperate.

The sound of excited barking downstairs broke him out of his thoughts. John blinked, taking one last swift look-over of the immaculate room his mother-in-law had decided to put him up in before he nudged his bag beneath the bed and stepped out into the hallway.

To say old money would be almost an understatement. Surely, this house had to have some kind of historical significance; it was several stories, with one of those grand staircases that was wide going up, hit a landing, and then split to either side of the house. As he made his way down, he caught sight of the flicker of Scarlet’s silk robe in the kitchen; music drifted out of it, the same kind of hazy, older music that Elliot had turned on in her mother’s house back in Hope County.

“Stop moving,” Elliot was saying to Boomer, strapping him into a little reflective vest that sat on him like a saddle blanket. For a second, she didn’t notice his presence—or willfully ignored it; he couldn’t say for sure one way or another—and instead focused on the Heeler, rubbing his ears and kissing the bridge of his nose. A tiny little smile ticked the corners of her mouth, and he thought he heard her say, so handsome, best boy, yes you are.

Boomer’s attention snapped to John, now at the foot of the stairs. He let out one sharp, accusatory bark (could dogs sound accusatory, John wondered, or was that just Elliot getting to him?), and what little of his hackles were visible from out under the vest spiked up instantly.

“Good to see you too, beastie,” John greeted him, trying to ignore the way the hound’s low-pitched, reverberating growls made his skin crawl. Flashes of Boomer’s numerous and vicious takedowns of not only Eden’s Gate members but at least one member of the Family that had the misfortune of having chained the dog up darted across his memory, like a flipping through a photo album.

“Don’t talk to him,” Elliot snipped, cupping Boomer’s ears protectively. “I don’t need him getting the idea we’re friendly.”

John rolled his eyes. “More than friendly, I’d say.” His eyes darted over her, drinking in once against the shock of her appearance—red hair, so fucking red that every time he looked at her it was almost like staring at a stranger until he took in the rest, the freckles smattering her nose and the flush in her cheeks, cupid’s-bow lips that were glossed. Had he ever seen Elliot with more than river-soaked mascara on before?

The woman shot him a look, dry and unamused, coming to a stand. He asked, “Going for a walk?”

“Trying to,” she replied tartly, “but someone is evil enough that Boomer doesn’t trust them.”

“We’re pals,” John offered pleasantly. “Me and the beast. You know, were, anyway. He probably just needs to spend a little time with me.”

“Speaking from personal experience, more time makes you less palatable.”

“Let me come on the walk with you,” he tried again, letting her little barbs and jabs roll right off of him, water skating off of his feathers. At this point, he really quite enjoyed her venom; it was familiar. “I’m sure we’ve got plenty to catch up on.”

Elliot eyed him warily, eyes giving him a scathing once-over—eerily reminiscent of her mother’s own disdainful look, and now he thought, ah, yeah, that is where she gets it from, then—as her mouth twisted around whatever it was she wanted to say but wouldn’t let herself. Something too vicious for Scarlet to overhear, perhaps. The threats she’d made in the past had been wildly colorful, but each second that Ell spent considering her words more carefully rather than saying whatever it was she felt with her eyes darting to the kitchen was another second that John became more aware of how little Scarlet actually knew.

“Fine,” Elliot said at last, her eyes narrowing. “I suppose that we do. Mama, we’re leavin’.”

The little quirk of an accent at the end of her sentence made him swallow back a laugh. He’d barely heard that Georgia accent back in Hope County, but maybe spending time with her mother had reinspired it.

“Alright,” Scarlet said, drying her hands on a towel as she stood in the doorway. Her eyes glanced between them, inquisitive for a moment, before she said, “Be quick. Doctor’s appointment in an hour and a half.”

John tilted his head. “Oh? Baby check-in?”

“Can’t imagine what else it would be, Mr. Seed,” Scarlet idled. “Are you familiar with the process of pregnancy?”

“Not beyond the knowledge of a man, I’m afraid.”

“Well, allow me to educate you,” the blonde said, her voice light. “When a woman is carrying a baby, she has to make frequent visits to the doctor, to ensure that all is well. Can’t have anything going wrong with the baby, you know.”

John steadied the intake of breath so that it did not sound so abrupt. He would have done a double-take and thought perhaps she was just overbearing, and not attempting to insult him, were Elliot not smiling. Certainly, only her mother’s attempted insult of him could elicit such an expression out of her.

“Then my arrival was fortunately timed,” he announced. “I look forward to it.”

“And you’ll be sorely disappointed,” Elliot cut in, her humor fading. “You won’t be coming.”

Ah, yes. That’s why I don’t love her attitude. “That’s absurd,” he replied, incredulous. “It’s nearly six weeks, and I haven’t seen a single ultrasound of our baby.”

He was careful, this time, to keep it to our baby. He’d seen the way Elliot’s expression tightened when he’d said my baby, even though that’s what came so naturally to him now, being that they were hardly on the same team—but he’d seen it, that look in her eye, the way she’d squared her shoulders like she’d suddenly been ready to go at him.

Only one thing to do with a rabid dog, Jacob had said, not two days before they found Elliot drenched in another man’s blood in the woods.

John half-expected Scarlet to jump in, to say that it was the father’s right to be there; she was more traditional than Elliot, if her comment about wedlock or her insistence of him staying were anything to go by, but when he turned his gaze to her, the older woman’s expression was devoid of any sympathy. Typical of Honeysett women, he was coming to find.

“If she doesn’t want you there, then you won’t be there. I won’t have my daughter stressed out,” Scarlet told him. “Stress is bad for the baby. Surely that falls within the realm of what a man knows about babies, Mr. Seed?”

He pressed his mouth into a thin line. “Surely.”

“Good. Hour and a half, my beloved, do not be late.”

That a woman had become so capable of tacking the softness of my beloved onto something that verged on a threat was nearly beyond John—would have been, certainly, were he not accustomed to Isolde’s particular brand of venom that was not so unlike Scarlet Honeysett’s.

“I won’t,” Elliot promised. “Can you call the handyman? My TV’s been acting up lately. Turning on static and whatnot.”

“Fine,” Scarlet replied, waving her hand. “I’ll have them come out this afternoon.”

Elliot turned on her heel and opened the front door out into the frigid morning, letting Boomer dart out ahead of her and not waiting for him in the least. He fell into step beside her easily, shrugging into his coat halfway out the door as it clicked shut behind him; she trudged through the snow, passing the garbage can and opening the gate that led out into what had once been pastureland and towards the woods.

It was the same fence that she’d been standing at, early that morning, face lax and serene. If the return to the fence bothered her at all, it didn’t show on her face any more than her irritation at having him there.

“Your mother’s quite...” John’s voice trailed off. “Tall.”

“Mm.”

“Statuesque, even.”

“Mmhm.”

“I get the feeling she doesn’t like me that much.”

“Yes,” Elliot acquiesced, her tone dripping with something close to venomous amusement, “I’ve never seen her take so poorly to someone so quickly before.”

“I suppose I should be flattered.”

“You would be.”

A fourth of the way into the snowy pasture and Boomer was far ahead of them, leaping like a little speckled gazelle in drifts of snow. It was easy to forget that the dog had been ready to rip him to shreds just a little under an hour ago (and once more, more recently). Still, as they trudged through a path that it seemed Elliot had worn through a few times before, John let out a little puff of breath and glanced over at her.

For just one second, she wasn’t spitting any venom at him, but rather seemed to favor the act of pretending like he wasn’t there, which was a bit worse than having her fix her fury on him. Her gaze was focused forward, following Boomer’s little lines in the snow. Attention at all was one thing, but acting as though he didn’t exist?

John said, “So, Burke just got his autopsy reports back and dropped you off right here at home, huh?”

Elliot’s face had already gone pink from the cold, right on her nose and spreading through her cheeks. At his words, a new flush of color rose, a shade more vicious than the last, and her gaze slid to him. If looks could kill, he thought, that dreamy little spike of delight at her eyes on him going straight to his head. Look at you, my little Wrath. You’ve got the good girl mask on, but I know what your true face is.

He’d seen it. Kissed her when the blood was still in her mouth. Let her feed the monster inside of her when she told him to beg, when she dug her nails into his skin, when her breath hitched in her chest from the pressure of his knife blade against her sternum—not in pain, necessarily, but delight at that pain.

The scar had to still be there, of course. The reminder of its existence, swathed in the heavy winter fabrics she wore now, made his fingers itch. If he could just get his hands on her—get his mouth on her, if she would just stop being so obtuse—but he didn’t think he’d be so fond of her if she wasn’t.

“The same way the government probably drove you and your siblings back to the compound and dropped you off,” she replied at last, her voice tight, “isn’t that right?”

John flashed his teeth at her in a grin. “Very astute, hellcat.”

Her expression tightened at the moniker. She sucked her teeth, fixing her eyes forward again, shifting back into the strategy of being withholding of her attention rather than entertain him.

“Oh, come on,” he said, swinging around in front of her and stopping her single-minded journey across the pastureland. “You can’t say you didn’t miss me even a little bit, Ell.”

“I told you,” she replied tartly, “not to call me that.”

“Because it reminds you of what it was like when we’re together,” he agreed.

An exasperated noise came out of her. “Did you forget that I lied to you?”

“At the end, sure,” John said, eyes flickering over her face. “But I don’t think you’re so good a liar you could lie about all of the times you said please, or the way that you said my name, or—and I think you’ll recall I’ve insisted on this bit from the beginning—the undeniable connection that we’ve had since we met.”

“You are a fucking lunatic,” Elliot snapped, her face flushing red. “And don’t fucking talk about me like I’m—like I wasn’t there, I know what I—” She sucked in a sharp breath; lower, and more threatening, “I’m aware of what I said. Of what I did.”

“And you’re going to tell me that it was all fake?” he prompted, unwilling to let go of this little thread. Gripping, sliding through his fingers, but he wouldn’t be so quick to let it escape him now that he didn’t have to think about her mother pitching in an unwanted opinion. “That you lied the whole time and you don’t feel anything for me, that—”

“Of course it wasn’t fake,” she bit out. Her voice had gone venomous, sharp, unbridled in its timbre. “I’m not a fucking psychopath, John, I can’t fake loving someone like you can.”

John opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it. He hadn’t been expecting that. Sure, there was a part of him that was sure Elliot had her doubts about his intentions, otherwise she wouldn’t have fucked off to the middle of nowhere (nor turned them in), but—still?

“You think I—” He paused again, blinking. “You’re not that stupid.”

Her eyes narrowed. Everything about her stiffened, quite suddenly, like maybe she was bracing to take another swing at him. “You are fucking begging for a punch to the face.”

“I mean,” John began quickly, waving his hands a little, “that you surely don’t think that whole time I was just—”

Elliot made a disgusted sound and brushed past him, letting out a high whistle; the sound immediately drew a flurry of activity as a flock of birds when bursting from the treeline, followed closely behind by Boomer’s gray-and-black speckled form. John fell back into step with her, huffing out a breath of air. He was going to table that discussion for later—she was clearly still upset, still a little sore and tender from their departure, and that was fine. There were a lot of things at play concerning his wife’s mood, including but not limited to being pregnant.

So she did, he thought, glancing at her through the corner of his eyes. Love me. Back then, and maybe now, still.

“How have you been sleeping?” is what he said instead, when the moment had spread between them long enough for him to think that he was safe to speak again with incurring her wrath once more. Her lips pressed into a thin line.

“Fine,” she replied, her voice tight.

“Yeah?” he asked, keeping his tone conversational. Elliot blinked once, slow, clearly trying to temper herself. “I just remember what a restless sleeper you were, back home.”

He wanted to say, I saw you at three AM, twice, staring out your window and then walking out into the snow barefoot. I saw you sleepwalking, I know you aren’t sleeping well.

He wanted to say that, and he couldn’t, because if Elliot knew he’d been tailing her for a while she’d go berserk—pull the plug, self-destruct, take whatever loss she had to in order to fucking end him.

“I’m sleeping fine,” the redhead reiterated. For a second, she looked like she wanted to say something; her eyes flickered uneasily, like something was bothering her and she hadn’t been able to say it to anyone but maybe she wanted to, and maybe she could say it to him, but something in the treeline drew her attention away. They were about ten yards away, now, the low breeze skimming pine needles against each other as Boomer barked conversationally at the birds that had so rudely taken flight.

Elliot’s molars clicked, grinding together. Her lashes fluttered, and she sucked in a sharp little breath through her nose.

“Elliot?” John glanced at the trees, but that was all he saw—tall, dark pines, bunching together erratically through years of growth spurts and inevitable fellings. He turned his gaze back to his wife, gaze inquisitive. “What?”

“Don’t you—?” She stopped herself, and sucked in another sharp breath, and now John felt the concern spike sharp and hot in him, because when he reached up she didn’t even seem to register his movement; Elliot, the same woman who had snatched his wrist and threatened to snap it in half for having the audacity to ‘sneak up on her’ when he’d been in the middle of talking to her, completely transfixed on something that he couldn’t see.

“Elliot.” He tried something firmer this time, his hand coming up to sweep the strands of her hair away from her shoulder and neck. The gesture finally startled her out of wherever it was she had gone, yanked her back to reality.

Her shoulder bunched up to her jaw in an effort to deter his hand, swatting at him absently with her hand. “Don’t touch me.”

“Are you going to tell me where you were just now?” John asked, tilting his head inquisitively.

“I was here. Just thought I saw something in the trees,” she replied tightly, turning away from the treeline and clearing her throat. “Just birds.”

Just birds, she said, even though the birds had already taken off and the forest was otherwise still and serene. Behind her, Boomer whined before beginning to follow her back towards the house. Elliot moved with a newfound purpose, one that she had been distinctly lacking before.

His mouth pressed into a thin line. John turned his attention back to the trees, searching for anything—any tangle of branches of play of shadows that might read sinister or threatening.

Only the trees and their shadowy pines. He thought about that night he’d fished Elliot out of the Family’s grip, when she’d been so fucking drugged up to her gills that she’d balked at the sight of the treeline on their way out. I don’t think I can, she’d said then, her voice pitching high with the anxious vibrations of panic. John, I don’t think I can—

“John,” Elliot snapped from ahead of him, “are you coming, or are you just gonna stand there all fucking afternoon?”

He thought about the way Ase had grabbed her hand, blood and viscera coating Elliot like she’d become a tried-and-true Scream Queen. If he searched long enough, if he sat in the memory long enough—did Ase’s mouth open? Had she said something to Elliot? What had she said?

“John,” came the grinding demand, again, less patient than before. “As much as I would love to leave you to freeze to death for insinuating I’m stupid, mama would hate to have to deal with a corpse on her property and I’d never hear the end of it.”

“I missed our banter,” he replied, though the jest did not quite land the same way that it would have were he not so deep in his own thoughts. By the time he’d started walking in her direction, his back to the forest, something uneasy had settled just under his skin; the feeling of being watched, eyes on the back of his neck, anticipation prickling along like his spine.

The house loomed, polished and pristine, on the horizon; as they picked their way across the snowy field, Elliot puffing out breaths occasionally from the labor of it all, John tried to shake that pervasive feeling of dread that had settled over him.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Weyfield was just Weyfield, a small town not unlike Hope County, and maybe he was just jumpy from the way the Family had conducted their business, and maybe it was the same for Elliot, who had certainly been put through a different experience than he—but regardless:

The sooner they got out, the better.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Shouldn’t have agreed to let him drive me here.

“Have you been getting enough sleep?”

It was stupid. Stupid, I should have put my foot down, told him to fucking stay at the house and wait for me to come back.

“Elliot?”

She blinked, vision fuzzing and refocusing around the sterile white of the doctor’s office. Her abdomen was sticky, and the ultrasound machine had been turned off along with her shirt tugged back down. Like usual, Dr. Harding did not say anything about the gossamer-webbing of scars, but did pause upon first seeing them, as though she hadn’t seen them times before.

“Sorry?” Elliot said, the apology quirking up at the end in question. She sat up from the bed, the paper crinkling beneath her as she moved.

“I asked,” Harding reiterated, “have you been getting enough sleep?”

Elliot knew the answer. She felt the exhaustion souring in her mouth already, the way something spoiled when it went too long without attention. A sickness. She should say that she hadn’t been sleeping well at all, that she’d begun sleepwalking, that

(seeing things, I’m seeing things when I close my eyes and when I look in the dark treeline, I see faces, heads, people I don’t know but they feel familiar and their faces drop down in between the branches of trees on invisible silk threads and their terrible dark mouths open but they can’t scream)

she’d been feeling out of sorts, as of late. That seemed like a nice way to put it.

The dark images that had fluttered between the trees on her walk earlier that morning with John felt as real as any memory—and that wasn’t to say that her memories always felt real, because they didn’t. But the validity of this morning’s waking nightmare of floating heads drifting between tree-trunks, swinging loosely while John asked her how she’d been sleeping.

“Fine,” Elliot said after a moment, feeling a fresh wave of nausea come over her. “I think, um, maybe the stress about the baby is keeping me up at night.”

Harding regarded her for a moment. The severe sharpness of her dark hair pinned back did nothing to soften her expression—though the woman was hard-pressed to be cheerful, she, at the very least, never sugar-coated anything. “Have you been trying those breathing exercises before bed? And spending time at the stables, as I suggested?”

“I have,” she replied, which wasn’t entirely untrue—she was doing at least one of those things. “It’s just been a lot of—stress, is all. I’m sure it’ll get better once the holidays are over.”

“That can definitely help,” the woman agreed, nodding her head and typing a few loose notes into the computer. “If you find that you aren’t getting enough sleep—enough,” she continued, pointedly, “restful sleep, you let me know and we can figure out some next steps.”

Elliot nodded, coming to a stand; the sudden movement had her head rushing, and she for a second she thought again of the floating heads, swaying with the breeze through the pine boughs.

“I’ve been sleep-walking,” she blurted out impulsively, her doctor’s gaze turning quizzically towards her. “I mean—um, just twice.”

“Do you have a history of it?”

“No,” Elliot began, “but I’ve always been a restless sleeper.”

“It’s not uncommon for sleepwalking to increase with pregnancy, Miss Honeysett,” the doctor replied, her voice even-keel. “It sounds like you’re under quite a bit of pressure, as well. I would suggest trying something mild—an over-the-counter sleep aid would be fine. Unisom is a typical one. Try half of one first, and see how it makes you feel.”

“Okay,” she murmured, sliding her coat back on. Something that was less heavy-duty than the pills her mother had left for her might be good. “Are there any—symptoms? To sleeping pills?”

The doctor adjusted the glasses on her nose, regarding her for a long moment. “Some adverse side-effects, on occasion. Usually with stronger, prescription sleep aids, you could have worsening anxiety and depression, day-time drowsiness. That kind of thing.”

So, no hallucinations, then. No sleepwalking, no lost time, no...

“Are you having other symptoms?” Harding asked.

You’ll think I’m crazy, Elliot thought, you’ll think I’m fucking nuts if I tell you about my dream with the television, and Joey’s body, and walking out nearly to the treeline in my sleep clothes. You’ll think I’m fucking nuts and I’ll have to be committed.

So Elliot said, “No, just curious,” and Dr. Harding hummed as she scribbled the name of the sleep aid onto a sticky note for Elliot to take out with her.

“You have a healthy baby, Miss Honeysett. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?” The brunette gestured for Elliot to head out the door, walking with her back up the hallway that led to the front lobby once again. “Next appointment we can find out the gender, if you’d like.”

“Oh,” Elliot said, surprised. Was it that soon already? Had it already been that long of being—like this? With child? She swallowed, pleasant little flutters in her chest. It was the first time that she’d felt something other than dread concerning the baby. Well, first time, sans John’s annoying little assertion about his claim. Why had that bothered her so much?

“You can decide to keep it a surprise,” Dr. Harding added, sound a little amused. “Think about it, and in the meantime, get some rest. Half a pill to start, remember.”

“Will do, thank you.”

She waded through the small collection of people in the lobby and out onto the street. Something strange was humming inside of her—it was sad, she realized, with a little spike of panic. She felt mournful. So fast, and so soon, she would figure out the baby’s gender, and suddenly the baby would be all the more real and she’d have to start thinking about names, she couldn’t have a baby without a name, and how was she supposed to pick a name? How was she supposed to decide something a real human being was going to be saddled with, forever?

Was the baby a Seed? Or a Honeysett?

Which one was she?

“What’re you doing, just standing out here? You’ll freeze.” John’s voice broke her out of her thoughts, shaking her back to reality again. He must have seen her standing there, glassy-eyed in the middle of the sidewalk, from where he’d been waiting—perhaps, if she was lucky, even suffering over the fact that he hadn’t been allowed into the doctor’s appointment—and come out. He’d kicked up a big enough fuss about not getting to come in that she’d said, fine, you can fucking drive me there, but that’s it, and true to his word John hadn’t pressed the matter any further than that.

Even though he wanted to. She could tell he wanted to, the second they had parked on the main street. She could tell he wanted to say, so, maybe I do come in, hm? What do you say to that? But he hadn’t. And that was...something.

Fuck, she needed to stay focused; she couldn’t keep letting her mind wander like that. Twice in less than an hour?

“I was just—thinking,” Elliot replied, feeling exhausted already. John’s brows furrowed at the center of his forehead, and she sighed. “Stop looking at me like that.”

He arched a dark brow loftily. “Like what?”

“Like you fucking care,” she snapped.

“Contrary to what you might believe concerning my feelings for you,” John quipped, his voice tart, “I do have every reason to be invested in the well-being of our baby.”

She thought to reiterate again that the baby was, in fact, hers, and not any part his, as she was doing all the work and John had done nothing to endear himself as an acceptable father-figure, but she was too tired. Something about the doctor’s office and the way she’d had to dodge the truth of how she’d been feeling left her empty, scooped out her insides like she was a Jack-O’-Lantern and left her floating, aimless.

“Ell,” he began. His voice had pitched lower, now, and his hand reached up; she saw it move in the corner of her vision and something inside her said, yes yes yes, this is what we want, we remember you, we know you. He twisted a loose curl around his finger, letting it smooth out against her shoulder, the corner of his mouth ticking upward when she absently batted his hand away. “Tell me about the appointment. Did everything go well?”

“The baby is fine,” she told him, and then sighed. “I mean—healthy. The baby is healthy. The doctor wants me to pick up an over-the-counter sleep aid, so we’ll need to stop at the store on the way home.”

“I thought you were sleeping fine?” John prompted. He sounded sly. His was a gotcha tone, the way he got when he thought he’d walked a particularly fine circle through the holes in what she chose to tell him or not. Elliot’s expression flattened. She ignored the way that he was looking at her—hungryhungryhungry, always greedy and never, never content with what he had—and fixed her eyes on the passing traffic behind him.

She said, “Just when you’re being somewhat tolerable, you have to go and ruin it.”

“If it’s intolerable for me to point out when you’re withholding information from me about your health,” he demurred, “then I’d prefer intolerable.”

“I cannot believe that I have to say this to you,” Elliot bit out, the sudden spike of irritation flaring hot and violence in her chest, “but I don’t fucking owe you anything. I don’t owe you the truth, or an explanation, and quite frankly, the fact that I allowed you to even chauffeur me to this fucking appointment is a sign that I’m being incredibly generous with you—far more generous than what you deserve.”

John’s teeth flashed in a grin. Before, back in Hope County, the venom had bothered him—he’d hated it, frowned and fought back with a little poison of his own, despised that he had to work so hard to get to the nitty-gritty underneath. But he had once, and perhaps now that he had known her, it only thrilled him.

How frustrating.

“Everything I did,” he said, lowering his voice as he closed some of the small distance between them now, “whether you believe me or not, was for us—”

“Ugh.”

“—and I might have gotten a little heated,” John continued, and this time when he reached up again Elliot’s mouth twisted into a grimace and she tilted her face away, don’t say it don’t say it don’t you fucking say it fuck you fuck you fuck you, “back at the ranch, but I meant it when I said that I l—”

“Honeysett!”

It was Via. Her greeting immediately cut off John’s words, effectively driving a wedge between their metaphorical—and physical—closeness. Snapped her out of the magic of his cologne and his voice and his hand coming up to her shoulder with its grounding weight.

“Missed you at the barn today,” the blonde chirped, cheery as she approached, hands tucked into her fluffy parka pockets. Her eyes flickered over to John, inquisitive. “Friend?”

And then Via turned her eyes back to Elliot, waiting expectantly. It struck her quite suddenly that Sylvia was checking—that despite the kindness and warmth in her voice, she was giving Elliot the opportunity to escape, to wave a red flag and ask for help. She said friend?, and what she meant was, is this man bothering you?, and it made a fuzzy warmth spread right through Elliot’s chest, uncomfortable in the softness is inspired in her.

“Hey, Via, this is...” How best to proceed? How to explain, this man is the father of my baby—which, by the way, I’m pregnant—and also technically we are legally married, oh and also he’s supposed to be in Federal custody right now but he isn’t, somehow, but it’s fine, we’re all good? “...my...John.”

Sylvia eyed her for a moment, sticking out a gloved hand. “Howdy, Elliot’s John. I’m Sylvia.”

John was clearly trying not to have the biggest shit-eating grin on his face as he shook Via’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Sylvia,” he replied pleasantly, once again reminding Elliot that the man was a tried-and-true practiced liar and could slip a perfect face on at any time. The knowledge was almost enticing, to know that she’d seen him without the masquerade, more than once.

It made, in hindsight, reflecting back on that moment he’d come unraveled at the ranch—No way, baby, I’m fucking it for you—have a different light. She had done that to him.

Good.

“Y’all busy?” Sylvia asked, blissfully not prying any further for an elaboration on what the nature of their relationship was. “I was just about to meet Wyatt at the Wild Rose. It ain’t trivia night, but they do have a live band playing tonight that’s supposed to be good.”

“Oh,” Elliot said faintly, “I don’t think—”

“That sounds excellent!” John interrupted. “I’ve barely seen anything of Weyfield. What do you say, Elliot?”

I say you can eat shit, she thought, but Sylvia was watching her closely—trying to make sure everything was okay, she supposed, considering Elliot had said nothing of John since they’d become friends. She took in a little breath and looked at the blonde, giving a small smile.

“No harm in a little time out of the house,” she agreed after a moment. “I’m starving, anyway.”

She wasn’t hungry in the least. The sticky note with the doctor’s suggested sleep aid was crumple in her pocket, and a little sweaty from the way she’d been clutching it, but somehow the idea of returning back to the house only seemed to fill her with more dread.

The tv, buzzing static, dull and thrumming in the back of her head, in the roots of her molars. HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING STRANGE DREAMS? And the heads, twisting and turning in the breeze, their silk-spun puppet threads invisible, their mouths swinging open as they try to scream.

HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING STRANGE DREAMS?

“Well, can’t have you starvin’,” Sylvia said amusedly, looping her arm through Elliot’s own and beginning to walk. “You’re not keeping my girl well-fed, Mister John?”

“Trying my hardest,” John replied, his gaze sly, “but she can be a bit ornery.”

“Hm, that does sound like her. Where are you visitin’ from, anyway?”

As they chattered, over her, John on one side and Sylvia on the other, Elliot got the distinct impression that her friend was quietly, politely fishing for information without putting Elliot under the stress of it.

HAVE YOU

Snow underfoot. The forest breathing, expanding, swelling because it holds some great, dark beast just waiting for her to get close enough.

BEEN HAVING

(Itwaitsforyouitwaitsforusallanditwillhaveyou)

STRANGE

“Careful,” John cautioned, reaching for the door with all of the gentlemanly nature of a man not possessed by the devil to hunt her down across states, “it’s slick.”

He opened the door into the Wild Rose, the sweep of warm air rushing over her a pleasant shock to her system that managed to draw her back to reality. Sylvia nudged her inside, effectively planting herself between Elliot and John as they moved single-file into the crowded bar.

She was tired, and having nightmares, and once she finally got some sleep she would feel a lot better about everything. All she needed was some sleep. And in the meantime, try to enjoy her time with her friends as best she could.

Get some sleep. Feel better in the morning. Burke’s old mantra popped up in her head, running through the worn grooves that were a sad, bittersweet sort of comfort to her now; the second you think you can’t anymore, you keep going anyway. Dig, dig, dig, until her fingers were dirt-packed and bloody, as deep as she fucking needed to go to keep moving, because it wasn’t just about her anymore.

Get some sleep.

Feel better in the morning.

Sylvia had drifted out from their little formation to make her way to the booth they had recently staked out as their own, where Wyatt already sat waiting and waving for them. John planted his hands on her shoulders, squeezing and lowering his mouth to her ear. “What do you want to drink?”

“You’re acting awfully domestic for someone who should be in Federal custody,” Elliot replied lowly, looking at him over her shoulder just in time to see him flash a smile that was all teeth.

“C’mon, hellcat,” and he all but purred the words at her, making her skin prickle in a type of anticipation that wasn’t purely dread. Traitorous, treacherous body. “You can at least play at liking me while your friends are around.”

“Iced tea.” She shrugged, disembarking his hands from her shoulders. “No lemon. A lot of ice. Think you can swing it without, I don’t know, lying halfway to Hell on your way there, Slick?”

“Anything,” he replied, pitching his voice even lower amidst the din of the bar, “for my lovely wife.”

Elliot’s head snapped around, ready to grab a fistful of his shirt and remind him to watch his fucking mouth, but he’d already started his journey to meander through the crowd and reach the bar on his little fetch quest.

Fucker, she thought, even when her stomach twisted with something other than vicious disdain. John had only been here for a day and was already too comfortable taking liberties; she’d have to make sure that got nipped in the bud before he got any funny ideas about his own personal redemption arc.

It would have been nice, to just be able to turn off any and all feelings whenever she wanted. But she couldn’t, and that meant she’d have to do the next best thing:

Get John the fuck away from her.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Eden’s Gate did not make a good first impression. Eden’s Gate did not even make a good second or third impression; in fact, Isolde had come to the conclusion that Joseph’s little compound was incapable of making any impression that didn’t fill the observer with a sense of despair. Every time she stepped out of the little building Jacob had set her up in, she was overwhelmed with disgust—eyes followed her, but none of them held anything beyond a dull spark of interest, nearly smothered by what seemed to have been a full-body beat down by the other cult.

The other cult, she constantly had to remind herself, because that’s what Eden’s Gate was. A cult.

A few miserable days at the hands of Montana’s coldest winter by record had her in a foul mood. The snowfall seemed inevitable, like it wouldn't ever stop, and the amount of times there had been paths shoveled between buildings—all leading to the chapel—were equally endless. Isolde couldn’t imagine coming to fucking Montana for fun, let alone for work, and yet she was somehow here for the latter and not the former. Distinctly, painfully lacking in fun.

It didn’t help that Joseph was insufferable. It didn’t help that every time he fixed his eyes on her, she felt an uncomfortable heat dripping down her spine like some kind of molten IV, like they hadn’t left on the worst of terms. Like she hadn’t told him to get the fuck out of her loft, like she hadn’t thrown an engagement ring on the floor like it was poison.

That was a time of her life that she had the distinct desire to not revisit, not even once, and yet in his presence—she found it nearly impossible to ignore. Joseph seemed to take a special, muted pleasure in making her hackles raise, and at least that hadn’t changed about him.

“Sol!”

Jacob called to her from halfway down the compound’s yard, a truck idling beside him. She stopped her trek back to her little hovel and looked at him, arms crossing over her chest.

“You wanna get out for a little?” He inclined his head toward the truck. “I’ve got some errands to run.”

“What kind of errands do the Collapse dictate?” she asked.

“The important variety.”

“Hm.”

She didn’t elaborate on that any further, and Jacob waited only one heartbeat before he reached for the driver’s side door and opened it, slowly.

“Going once—”

“I am not a child, Jacob.”

“—going twice—”

Fuck, did she want to get out.

“Fine,” Isolde snapped, “but bring that truck here. I’m not hiking through a snowdrift to get to you.”

Jacob, sounding quite pleased with himself, replied, “I thought you weren’t a child?”

He seemed moved enough by the dramatic eyeroll to oblige her, and if he found it annoying, it didn’t show; enough so, at least, that Isolde was able to clamber into the passenger side of the truck once he pulled it around, tapping the snow off of her shoes before pulling herself in.

“Thank you,” she huffed, shutting the door and rubbing her fingers to circulate the blood again. “This weather’s a bit abnormal, don’t you think?”

“Not anything out of the ordinary for this time of year, no,” Jacob replied. He nudged the windshield wipers on, plowing a thin layer of snow that had already begun to accumulate off of the window before starting to pull out of the compound. “I think you’re just not suited to the snow.”

“Could have told you that myself,” Isolde snipped. “I’m a hot-blooded creature.”

Jacob made a noise, something like an mm, a place between agreement without incriminating himself by agreeing too fervently or elaborately. She glanced over at him through the corners of her eyes as they turned onto the highway. In the comfortable silence that elapsed between them, Isolde settled back against the seat of the truck and tried to appreciate being out from the stifling dread of the compound.

It did seem to her that Joseph was markedly different than he had been, before. In the few instances in the last couple of days where he hadn’t been picking a fight with her, it almost felt normal—but of course, he was doing it in his own way, this pot-stirring, this instigating. With politeness. With kindness. By remaining completely unrattled by anything she said to him, every, any critique, so self-assured in his righteousness that not even reason could make him look twice at the state of his congregation.

Then, he had always been that way. Righteous. Assured. She had found it appealing, once—she liked a man with confidence—but now she found it—

Equal parts frustrating and attractive. Objectively, of course. Not anything that she felt herself.

“Trying to account for the bodies of the Family against the ones we know we saw before,” Jacob explained, when she had been quiet long enough to let him sort out his thoughts. “Seems like they started killing themselves, in pairs, once the two leaders were done with. I sent out a couple of scouts and they radio’d back some locations, but they’ve gone quiet for a while.”

“Dedication,” Isolde murmured, digging the nail of her thumb into her lower lip. “How dreadful.”

“The dedication, or the act?”

“Both. Imagine being so bound to something or someone.”

Jacob’s mouth twisted in a wry smile, and he brought the truck to a crawl. Two bodies, swallowed by snow nearly up to their waists, sat propped against the cliff face. He fished a pad of paper and a near-worn out pencil out of the center console of the truck and held them out to her.

“Mark it down, Sol.” When she blinked at him, he continued, “What, you thought you were gonna get out and not help me?”

“Well, I was hoping.”

She sighed, taking the pad and pencil—a glorified secretary is what I am, she thought bitterly—and marked two tally marks down. From where the car was stopped, she could see that the arms of the corpses came together, and though it was buried in snow, she had to think that beneath the white frost their hands were intertwined.

They went like that for a while; Jacob would drive to a spot, have her mark down the amount of bodies, and then go on. By the time they had reached Fall’s End, Isolde had counted nearly twenty dead bodies. As they rolled into the far end of town, Isolde realized very quickly that most of the buildings were blackened, and when she rolled down her window, the stale scent of charcoal still sat in the air.

“What happened here?” she asked, grimacing and scrunching up her nose.

“Dunno,” Jacob replied tightly. “Someone with an agenda.”

Isolde’s gaze snapped to him, to try and wring any information out of his expression, but true to his nature Jacob remained completely unreadable. It wasn’t until they had gotten to what appeared to have once been a bar and tallied up the bodies there that Jacob threw the truck into park.

“What in the fuck?” he muttered, eyes fixed forward. When Sol followed his gaze, she realized that it was fixed on someone—someone running towards them, frantically, nearly falling over themselves in the snow.

“Is that one of yours?” she asked. “Jacob?”

“Shh.”

He had busied himself fishing around in the back seat, and as he did Isolde squinted, trying to get a better look at what was going on. The man running definitely had to be Eden’s Gate—he had the big red emblem on his shirt, but he wasn’t wearing any coat, and—

And there were others.

“Jacob,” Isolde said, “there are more.”

“What?”

“Bodies,” she managed out, “there are more bodies.”

The snow wasn’t so deep on the roads that she couldn’t see the width of a body, and she did—see it, that is, tousled dark locks reflecting wet and sticky in the overcast, late-afternoon light. The man running was waving his arms and yelling for help, and then he fell over one of the bodies, fell to his hands and knees over the body of someone else, and made a sound kind of like anguish.

Jacob finally managed to pull out what he’d been looking for—a pair of binoculars—and immediately lifted them to his face.

“Shit,” he said. “Fuck, they’re ours.”

“All of them?” Isolde demanded. “They’re all—”

“Yes,” he bit out, opening the driver’s door and grabbing the rifle from the back seat. “They’re all ours. Isolde, stay in—”

Jacob’s words were cut off by the violent crack of a gunshot. For a split second, Isolde saw nothing; in the space between heartbeats, sluggish from panic, she saw the arterial spray coming from the back of the running man’s body before he hit the ground, screaming.

He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead, he was still crawling, dragging himself through the snow, leaving a smear of red behind him, and that’s when Isolde saw them.

Jacob had stopped moving as well. The person at the far end of the main road leading through Fall’s End had yet to shoulder their weapon. From here, Isolde could see that she was tall—short-cropped, blonde hair, swathed in dark clothes, but beyond that the features were near impossible to make out.

“Close the door,” Isolde hissed, not moving, her instincts screaming to duck but the fear that sudden movement would draw attention prevailing. “Jacob, close the fucking door.”

The eerily satisfying click-click of what could only be the bolt-action rifle in the hunter’s hands clattered around in her head. The rifle was returned to their shoulders, brought up level, and then fired again.

Out of pure instinct, Isolde flinched—but once again, the bullet was aimed not at them, but at the man already crawling in the snow. The sound of the gunshot, and the subsequent bullet-on-bone impact, was enough to make her stomach churn; now, at least, the man lay slumped in the snow, one of the many bodies that seemed to have been the unfortunate pull-and-fire clay birds for the stranger.

“Who,” Isolde whispered furiously, as Jacob carefully put the truck into drive without letting it move forward at all first, “Jacob, who the fuck is that?”

The redhead’s expression was unforgivingly tight, pulling taut with it the scars and mottling of his skin visible outside of his beard. He wasn’t looking at her, but rather kept his eyes fixed forward, as he closed the driver’s side door.

“Fifteen men,” he ground out between his teeth, “that’s fifteen fucking men I sent out here to figure out the body count.”

The stranger finally lowered their rifle, apparently satisfied with their work. This far away, it was hard to tell, but Isolde got the distinct impression that they were being watched, looked at now, where before the attention had been elsewhere.

And then it was confirmed, because the stranger lifted one gloved hand and pressed her index and middle fingers right against the hollows of her jaw. A snakebite. A cut right to the carotid. A message.

Jacob cranked the wheel, the tires shrieking in protest against the snow as he pulled between buildings in a sudden rush of acceleration. The stranger was quickly cut out, stifled by the side of the used-to-be-bar, leaving them out of direct range of a sniper rifle. Not that her companion seemed that pleased about it, anyway.

“Fuck,” he bit out, seething as he tried to navigate the narrow space in the clumsy Eden’s Gate truck. “Fuck, did you count how many bodies were on the ground?”

“Hm, no!” Isolde snapped viciously. “I was a bit too busy trying to make sure they were going to shoot us!”

Jacob gritted out another string of swears between his teeth, turning the truck until he could take what looked to be a back alley in the opposite direction of their little hunter. He checked the rearview mirror frequently; his expression was set in a deep frown, and he only looked at her once before continuing his regular scanning of the road behind them.

“Well, aren’t you going to turn around?” she demanded.

“For what?” Jacob replied flatly. “I’ve got a hunting rifle, not my HTI.”

“I don’t know what that means, and I don’t care,” Isolde bit out.

“It means, the chances of me getting shot before I get a shot on them are significantly lower,” he told her, his knuckles whitening along the steering wheel, “and as confident as I am that I could kill them before they killed me, I’m not confident they wouldn’t take a shot at you first.”

Isolde’s stomach rolled. It wasn’t the violence that bothered her—it wasn’t the death, or the guns, or even the blood—but the message itself. The Stranger had been hunting the Eden’s Gate men and women for sport. For fun. To pass the time, while they waited. But what for? What could they be waiting for?

She stayed quiet, listening to Jacob radio back to the compound quick, short orders that flew right over her head. She couldn’t stop thinking about it—the gesture. The stranger. Who were they? The remainder of the other cult, perhaps? What were they waiting for?

You’re next, that two-fingered, snake-bite-right-to-the-carotid gesture had said.

You’re next, and I’m coming for you.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Sylvia did not seem that impressed with John Seed, and Elliot could not blame her.

John was exceptionally charming. So charming, in fact, that he and Wyatt seemed to get along smashingly. It was almost frustrating, how quick the blonde took to John—but then, Wyatt did strike as the type of man who got along with everybody until they gave him a reason to think otherwise. After all, he’d been kind to her, and she was...

Needless to say, Sylvia was a harder sell, which was nice. Reassuring. It made Elliot feel more grounded, to see Sylvia politely smile at John’s chatter—she’d nearly forgotten how much he liked to talk—but then decidedly turn to Elliot to ask her about something or dive into a different conversation. It was pointed, and if the way John watched them interact was any indication, the message of it was not lost on him.

By the time the evening had drawn to a close, for her and John at least, the brunette had departed to go warm-up the Jeep and left her standing by the doorway, keeping warm, with Sylvia.

“You sure you’re doin’ okay?” the blonde asked after a moment, propped up against the wall in the tiny little doorway that led out to the main street. “You look tired. Stressed out. I was worried when we didn’t hear from you this morning, about comin’ to the barn.”

Elliot felt a little pang of guilt digging in, just there below her sternum. “I’m okay,” she promised. “I’m sorry I didn’t call, I—had a doctor’s appointment this morning that I completely forgot about until my mama reminded me, and John showed up this morning too, so it’s just been...”

“A crazy day,” Via agreed, her nose crinkling cutely in amusement. “He’s a funny fella, that John of yours.”

Oh, if only you knew. “I think so, too.”

“What is he?” she asked, conversationally. “Maybe a—car salesman?”

Her friend’s playful jab was enough to elicit a laugh, billowing out of her and catching even herself by surprise. But then, she shouldn’t have been shocked to find that Sylvia had gotten a quick read on John. Given the way she’d quickly diverted from the attention on Elliot’s scar and carried on, she thought maybe Via was more perceptive than she liked to let on.

“Lawyer,” Ell replied, and Via winced comically.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I mean—Elli,” Via intoned playfully, “he might as well be sellin’ you snake oil when he’s a lawyer.”

Elliot sighed ruefully, glancing out the window to see John clambering out of the front of the jeep. Snake oil seemed a light judgment for him, all things considered.

“Hey, Via,” she began, swallowing a little, “if I tell you something, you’ve gotta promise you won’t say anything?”

Via regarded her curiously, head tilted. “Okay, sure, Freckles. What’s up?”

She shifted on her feet. “John and I are actually, um—” Elliot paused, swallowing thickly. She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to, because saying it out loud—her, and not John—made it real. Gave it legs. Forced her to face what had happened and what she couldn’t change yet.

“You don’t have to,” Via told her gently. “I could tell there was somethin’—you know, out of sorts. You don’t get a slick-talkin’ lawyer grinnin’ like the cat what ate the canary if he hasn’t done somethin’ to piss a woman off.”

Elliot shook her head. “We’re actually, uh,” she tried again, pulling at a loose thread on her shirt, “m—married.”

Saying the word out loud didn’t feel as wretched as she thought it would, which was almost three times as concerning. She felt, instead, more dread waiting for Sylvia’s reaction—waiting to see what her one friend had to say or think about that.

The woman’s face screwed up comedically. “Oh, Freckles,” she said, her tone teasing. “Say it ain’t so.”

“I’m not kidding!” Elliot felt a nervous little laugh bubble out of her. “I mean—what, Via? You clearly have an opinion on him.”

“I don’t know the man from Jack walkin’ down the street,” Sylvia demurred. “I just think...well, I just think you’re a real peach, you know? And you didn’t seem too pleased to have this John walkin’ around, and I take that kind of thing seriously.”

Sighing, Elliot scuffed her shoe against the ground, watching John pick his way through the crowd back down the street.

“We left on—bad terms, sort of,” she explained. “He showed up to make amends.”

“Do you want to make amends?”

The question caught her off-guard. It was an obvious one—obvious in that, it should have been one of the first things anyone asked her regarding John, even John himself, and yet: no one had. Not a single person had asked her if she wanted to suffer through making amends with the man who had lied to her, violated her trust, and still somehow managed to be the one person she didn’t have to fear seeing the worst, ugliest parts of her.

“I don’t know,” Elliot said after a moment, clearing her throat. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Then I will reserve judgment,” Sylvia replied firmly, “so you can make a decision on your own.”

The door to the street opened, bringing with it not only a waft of chilly wind, but John himself and the scent of his viciously-expensive cologne. It took every ounce of Elliot’s self-control not to burst into laughter at the absurdity of it—John Seed, charisma-extraordinaire, somehow managing to make poor first impressions both on her mother and her friend.

“Car’s all warmed up,” John announced, rubbing his hands together. He glanced between the two women, the corner of his mouth ticking upward. “What’s so funny, hm?”

“Nothing,” Elliot replied. “Just talking about you.”

This piqued his interest. He said, “Good things, I hope,” and she could see it on his face—the painful reminder of the way John had craved Joseph’s approval, the way he’d lit up like a nuclear mushroom cloud the second Joseph deigned to say anything remotely kind to him.

“Jury’s still out,” Sylvia said lightly, and then flashed a pretty smile and clapped him on the shoulder. “But don’t worry bud! We’ll get you there eventually.”

John tried very hard to feign polite laughter, but the uneasiness bled through readily—and it was a little satisfying, to see John squirm, to see him out of his element, no longer surrounded by a constant chorus of Yes hitting his dopamine centers nonstop. No wonder the man had a conniption anytime someone dared to dislike him.

“Better get this lady home, she looks like she’s about to fall asleep standing,” Sylvia announced, reaching and giving Elliot a gentle hug. “Night, Freckles.”

“Goodnight.”

John and Sylvia bid each other a pleasant goodbye as Elliot stepped out onto the street, careful to avoid icier parts of the concrete as she made her way to the car. Her brain felt fuzzy—a lot of socializing, a lot of time spent trying not to let John get to her. It had been long enough since she’d had to hold her walls up for so long that she felt exhausted from doing it, even for this long.

Maybe that was his strategy. Wear her down, then swoop in, just like last time.

“Did you have fun?” John asked, and she realized that she was at the car, having climbed into the passenger seat already. He closed the driver’s side door, settling in before carefully beginning to back out of the parking spot.

“I mean, having you loom over my shoulder the entire night was a little odd.”

He made an affronted sound. “I was not looming.”

“You were,” Elliot told him, “a little.” She paused, feeling the exhaustion pulling at the edges of her vision, begging for her to close her eyes—but she couldn’t. Not in the car, not with John driving. If she did, he might just keep driving and not turn back around. “It’s funny—”

“My quote-unquote looming?”

“How much different you are,” she finished, “when you’re not around Joseph.”

John was clearly trying very hard not to look like he was stiffening at her words. Gotcha, she thought, with a little pinprick of pride. Yeah, I didn’t forget. I didn’t forget how much you hated it when I brought him up.

“I don’t know what you mean,” John replied, keeping his voice light. “I’m exactly the way I’ve always been.”

“You haven’t tried to drown me a single time.”

“That time was a miscommunication,” he insisted. “I wasn’t trying to drown you. Just—coerce you. And besides, that’s behind us now. I know you, Elliot Honeysett, intimately, which means such forms of brute persuasion aren’t required.” He paused. “It’s much better when you indulge me willingly, anyway.”

Elliot’s nose crinkled. “You sound fucking nuts when you say that. ‘That one time I thought about drowning you was just a miscommunication’. No wonder Sylvia doesn’t like you.”

“So she told you? That she doesn’t like me?”

He paused for a moment, his gaze flickering over to her, and when he saw the very subtle upturn of her mouth he exhaled out of his nose.

“You’re fucking with me.”

“Not necessarily. But if I was—it would be the least you deserve.”

He was different, out from the insane pressure of the cult, out from under Joseph’s thumb. It was like, given room to breathe, he was suddenly relearning what it was like to make his own decision—to exist outside of Joseph. Back in Hope County, John had been fervent in his belief that he owed Joseph everything. Maybe the distance had done him some good.

Don’t, something inside of her insisted viciously, as she turned her attention out to the side of the road where the headlights illuminated snowdrift after snowdrift. Don’t get soft on him. That’s how he got you last time, you know. Don’t let it happen again.

But if he wanted to press the issue about Sylvia—or about her comment concerning Joseph—John seemed to exercise a remarkable amount of self-control and instead focused on driving. In the quiet, without him chattering on about doing things for them or how much he missed our banter, it was almost...Comfortable.

“Finding out the gender,” Elliot said after a moment, the exhaustion now settling like a deep chill in her bones. “Of the baby, I mean. At the next appointment.”

The brunette shifted in his seat. In an attempt at nonchalance, he said, “Oh, yeah?”

What am I doing? she thought. He plays nice for one night. He’s good at that. Short-term goodness.

“I’m nervous,” she added after a moment. “About finding out.”

“Not excited?” John tilted his head.

“No,” she admitted. “Nervous.”

Ahead of them, she saw the dark blur of a figure. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. John was saying something—something about how he’d read a number of books and it was normal to feel nervous, or some other kind of psycho babble—but she shifted forward in her seat, eyes straining to see.

“Slow down,” she said, “I think there’s a dog...?”

“What?” John asked. “Where? I don’t see anything.”

“Just up ahead. Have you not been paying attention to the road?”

He made an indignant sound—“I am the best driver between the two of us, you know,”—but before Elliot could think up a response, the dark, furred creature slowed down ahead of them, stopped in the middle of the road, and turned its head.

The headlights caught it immediately. It was a dog, four-legged and large and shaggy black fur, but when it turned its head, it was a man’s face, the mouth slung open and the gently-rounded teeth of a human’s mouth blaring white in the headlights. Something dark and slick oozed between the teeth, in that split second, she watched the dog-human-creature push off from the ground and stand on its two hind legs.

She screamed, and John swerved, and immediately threw the car into park and slammed his hand on the hazard lights button.

It was dread, pure dread and fear, sending a pulse of adrenaline straight to her brain. Bent over at the waist, Elliot closed her eyes tight, trying to will the image out of her head, out from behind her irises. John had quickly unbuckled and reached over, his hands doing the same to hers.

“Elliot,” he said urgently, fingers pushing the hair back from her face. “Ell, take a breath, come on—sit up, you have to take a breath—”

“Is—is it gone?” she asked, but the words came out closer to a wail, the fear spiking viciously in the timbre of her voice. Please, God, what the fuck, please let it be gone. God, oh fuck, what the fuck what the fuck— “The—the—”

“There’s nothing—?” John stopped. Elliot frantically scrabbled at the high neck of her parka, fingers shaking and clumsy. “Ell—”

“Can’t breathe,” she managed out. “Too hot, can’t—”

The brunette reached over the console and stilled her hands. She was still bent at the waist, but he made do, pulling the zipper of the parka down until she could pull her arms from it; once it had been deposited in the back seat, his hand went to the back of her neck.

She sat up slowly, her eyes immediately making a frantic search of the road. There was nothing. Only quiet snowfall.

“Where—” She paused, swallowing thickly. “Where did it go?”

“Ell,” John murmured, “there wasn’t anything in the road.”

“What do you mean?” she moaned. “I saw it, the—I saw the—”

“You saw...?” he prompted. His thumb swept across the back of her neck, coaxing.

“The dog,” she insisted. “It was a dog, but it had—it’s face was—it was a man’s face, and it f-fucking—it fucking stood up, John!”

He was watching her carefully, his gaze searching her face for a long moment. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t see anything,” he told her. “Just that you—you just screamed, so I pulled over.”

“I’m not crazy,” Elliot bit out, her voice wobbling.

“I know,” John replied plainly. “Maybe it was just—you know. The snow. In front of the headlights.” And then: “Have you really been getting enough sleep, Ell?”

She felt her lip tremble, the desire to cry almost overwhelming. She couldn’t stand it—couldn’t stand John being tender to her, worrying about her, questioning the validity of her saying that she had been sleeping fine because he could see that she couldn’t. He was wretched and wicked and it needed to stay that way.

“Please take me home,” she said finally, re-buckling and rolling the window down to let the cold air on her face. “Please just take me home.”

John waited for a few heartbeats before he turned the hazard lights off and put the Jeep in drive.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he told her after a moment, glancing at her a few times. “I mean it, Ell.”

“Fuck you,” she replied, exhausted and feeling furiously wound up. “Just take me home.”

Get some sleep.

Feel better in the morning.

[ewdaviddd]

folklore think piece

for a lower case album such as this, i will be writing a lowercase think piece on the subject. i will not explain why. you get it or you don’t.

the 1: i have never been in love or any type of romantic relationship that left me with lasting feelings of any kind. but, on my fourth listen through of this song today, what once was just a promising and fun intro to this peasant girl summer gut punch, brought me to actual tears as i sat on the toilet in my lime green childhood bathroom as if i were mourning the one that got away (another great song). however, i am an expert on being hung up on the past, the “what could have been”, and made up hypotheticals. this song also introduces the film motif seen a lot in this album. i think dating an actor has really gotten to her. anyway what a killer way to begin, top notch stuff. how can a song be so fun and so soul crushing at the same time?

cardigan: when did taylor wear black lipstick? this is important to me. an old cardigan is an inherently bisexual article of clothing. that is not an opinion. i read it somewhere today and i believe it. this is the tip of the queer-coding ice berg in folklore, never fear. another reference, “tried to change the ending / peter losing wendy”. this year i wrote a movie script where both peter and wendy were both gay. coincidence? probably. basically this one is classic taylor poetry on every level and it being one of a trio in a larger story makes it that much better. yet again, high school romance is not a universal experience (like for me for instance) but haunting my “what-ifs” is going to haunt me for a long time. and the thought of someone saying i was their favorite cardigan makes me want to scream into a pillow.

the last great american dynasty: my favorite ts songs have always been the ones with detailed characters and stories and this one introduces the trope of the “mad woman” who comes back later on as well a long with many fun character details. at first this song is just cheeky and cute, very visual, a fun world to jump into. but then this particular stretch of lines makes your heart drop into your chest and reminds you why taylor isn’t just always fun and always cute and always creative, she also holds the ability to nimbly sock you in the gut when you least expect: “fifty years is a long time / holiday house sat quietly on that beach / free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / and then it was bought by me.” my jaw is still on the floor. and i’ve never bought a house myself. but i’ve spent numerous christmases having a marvelous time ruining everything (so i’ve been told) so this song still applies to my life.

exile (ft. bon iver): i’m gonna be honest. for as long as i can remember i have strongly disliked bon iver and i never remembered why. it is a matter of principle at this point. i just don’t trust him. but then taylor announced she wrote a song with him which filled me with tremendous anxiety. but i can rest easy. much like “the last time” this song is a ts and male artist collaboration i can get behind. also the film motif again: the only time i’ve left a theatre when i didn’t like a movie was never because movie tickets are so expensive and if i’m shelling out 11 dollars to sit in a chair, i’m staying the whole time no matter how bad the ending. but i probably would have left my sister’s keeper if i had seen it before if i’m being honest. so i get it. thats why i read spoilers for everything i watch before watching it, because the anxiety of worrying about how it ends make me not enjoy it in the first place. the end of this song: the call and response felt… ethereal? i felt like i was watching a broadway musical from the splash zone seats, crying as i was spat on.

my tears ricochet: this song is what i picture stepping outside in the middle of the night when an inch or so of snow has just fallen and i can see the flakes fall in front of a street light sounds like. or the scorned secret ex lover throwing themselves onto the coffin demanding to know why they weren’t enough.   which is to say it feels like a sign from some sort of god. yet again, haunting is brought up, an overt reference to the fact that this album will live in my brain rent free for eternity. for some reason this song reminds me of the relationship between hamilton and burr when burr kills hamilton. that could be because i just watched the disney+ recording last week. one lives, one dies, but neither survive, both pay for it. Which is a super romantic and understanding view on murder. both musical experiences equally chilling and moving. if i die under mysterious circumstances this will for sure be played at the funeral.

mirrorball: first off, this is my mom's favorite which is very important. also, it has skewered a very specific but also universal insecurity of mine; existing just to please others and yet miserably failing. it is comforting that ts is not a “natural’ and feels she must always “try try try” because i too lack natural ability, but also rarely “try” even just the one time. the best way i can describe listening to this song is walking through a silent disco where everyone else is listening to some classic lady gaga jam and you are listening to a calming lullaby sung very far away. but don’t let the soothing sounds fool you. it still will have you reflecting on what it means to look and be looked at. a dark rabbit whole, like falling through the looking glass. i’ve never actually read that book though so i could be wrong.

seven: i’m dumb and on my first listen of this song i thought she “hit her peak” at 7 clock as opposed to age seven. but i always saw taylor swift as someone with an early bedtime. also a fun discovery while writing this, “seven” is the 7th song on the track list. clever. although this song is young and innocent and so nostalgic for a time when screaming ferociously was a widely accepted form of expression, it also sounds like a very old secret someone is whispering to me. a love from long ago that lasts beyond the person being in your life, passed down to me and it all just sounds a little gay. not just because of the specific line to hiding in the closet. but that certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. when i was seven i was definitely in love with girls and assumed that was just what friendship was, playing pirates and making plans of running away together.

august: the eighth track for the eighth month. her mind. also my birth month so that’s special. controversial opinion: from what i’ve read most people seem to think illicit affair is the third song in the triage of teen love. i will strongly make the case that it's actually this one. first of all, the subject: a short lived summer fling, which is specifically mentioned later in “betty”. the central heartbreak of this song is liking someone who always belonged to someone else. yes, this song is a window into a different summer, far from pandemic central and the escapist imagery is delightful. but a whole song from the pov of the “other woman” to james and betty is just so much more fun. and there are two more specific lyrics that prove my point. “remember when i pulled up and said "get in the car”” you will see later comes back from the other person’s perspective. and most of all: the repeated line, “meet me behind the mall”? only teenagers make plans to meet up behind a mall. i rest my case. so now we have cardigan and august. two pieces of the puzzle.

this is me trying: i’m glad i now have a succinct message to send to anyone when they ask me what the hell i’m doing at any given moment. this song just sounds like regret and waste in the most self-assured and confident way. this is “back to december” with the training wheels off.  i have no apologies for my efforts at wasting all my potential. but in this song, taylor has opened her arms to me in a warm embrace and has forgiven me for all i’ve done wrong and reminds me to not take for granted the “try”. okay mom. i’m crying again, but okay.

illicit affair: this is the kind of thing that makes you feel sixteen, living in a dull suburb, while secretly screwing your 38 year old married neighbor who’s rich but wants to be an artiste. aka like a character in euphoria or something. it’s sexy and dangerous until you think about it and then it's just dingy and creepy. but this song starts and stays beautiful. most importantly, this song is too sad and depressing frankly, to be a part of the trilogy. we could never forgive james for leaving such a mess and making her a fool. you don’t want to be this girl. you want to walk up to her and shake her and yell “you exist and will not be ruined by any dumb man”. and that’s feminism.

invisible string: is it reductive if i say this one’s about joe? all my non-stan friends have asked me which ones are about him. we forgive them and point them in this direction. because it is lovely and beautiful that we are all tied to our soulmate for our whole lives before we ever meet them (because that would in fact mean that there is someone out there for everyone which might be naive or dumb but i am both of those things and whats the point of living if you don’t believe in the power of love). this honestly gives me “begin again” vibes in the best way. it’s red-era level with the wisdom of lover-era tay. sublime.

mad woman: the second mention of the “mad woman” as both taylor herself and the character in the story. as usual, tay stays calling out double standards and the manipulation of women into “going crazy” for expressing reasonable anger. I, personally, wish i could say “fuck you forever” without someone saying i’m “overreacting”. this is my least favorite song on the album and i’d still listen to it three times in a row and need to resist the urge to set a man’s lawn on fire. just girly things.

epiphany: i know she said this one is about her grandfather’s experience in the military but all i imagine is a slow montage of harry style’s character in “dunkirk” on the beach. and it’s beautiful. and much like my sophomore in high school self reading “all quiet on the western front” it evokes a pain from deep inside me that engulfs a loss i could never describe and a sadness too awful to witness. you will listen to this song and feel absolutely powerless to the will of the universe and it’s cruelty. and the faint but steady heart monitor beep in the background… i’ve never seen “grey’s anatomy” but i can imagine why it has so many fans sobbing. and let me end on this: two soldiers in some old war (meaning both men based on dunkirk) watching each other like this and living and dying together…gay.

betty: the first verse was pulled directly out of my subconscious fantasy of being in love in high school and it being so wonderful and painful and dramatic. and taylor riding a skateboard… is a mood. the song has been out for less than a week and it’s already a cold take to talk about how this is her gayest song to date (close runner-ups being reputation’s “dress” and “cardigan”). but of course i will still talk about it. the lyrics embody such authentic awkward gay energy (see the lesbian in booksmart for reference) and having been a 17 year old only three years ago, i can say with reasonably good authority that no 17 year old straight boy could stand in front of a crowd of peers and beg forgiveness from a girl he hurt. it’s just not realistic. these are all awkward, over-dramatic, young girls stumbling through love. and it’s awesome. james is the speaker of this song, and the subject of “august”, the summer fling that was never truly there due to james’ love for betty, the titular role of this song. thus completing the love triangle. and there are so many obvious references in this song to both “august” and “cardigan”. rhyming cardigan with car again makes me want to light myself on fire in the best way. i love it. “i dreamt of you all summer long” is the final nail in the coffin for the girl in “august” who was clearly just a place-holder. totally separate from taylor swift, my favorite word is porch. so the amount of times it appears in her lyrics is wonderful. say it out loud. it just feels nice. anyway, this song makes me want to be young and dumb and in love. the second can really only be tolerated because of the first and third. i hope the story has a happy-ending. if james were a boy i’d wish him the plague.

peace: the coming-of-age movie starring james and betty (and inez) is over. we have come to “the age” i guess. there’s a thought that’s gonna fester. if this song was just the line, “would it be enough if i could never give you peace?” over and over for four minutes it would still smash me to pulp and fill my body with helium gas. i can and will cause a car wreck when this comes on the aux. if this song is what being grown up is like (bare in mind grown up to me is like, 30) then i’m ready to be done coming of age. because i already worry if i’ll be at all enough for anyone and way too much for someone at the same time. but like all good poetry, this song isn’t about what it “means”, but how it “feels”. and this is new york city, the summer, pouring rain, a long walk home, desperately fearing and hoping they are there waiting for you.

hoax: a one-sided conversation between me and my stubborn clinical depression. i too, constantly stand alone on the cliff demanding a reason. one has not yet been presented. it operates both within and and against me. i could be bigger and stronger than it. but instead i tend to it like a prickly plant. (“no other sadness in the world will do”). there is nothing both sadder and funnier then the scene in “avatar: the last airbender” when prince zuko stands alone on a cliff screaming at the sky for lightning to strike him. i don’t know why this song reminds me so much of that. what a way to end such an emotional rollercoaster. it is so emotionally draining that it simply forces me to start folklore again from the top and listen to it all over again.  or take a long therapeutic nap.

there are no skips. and it will still surprise you on your 267th listen. proceed with caution.

i knew you, in a past life maybe. i have not met you yet, but folklore has made me believe you exist.

@taylorswift 10/10 good work

@taylornation this had to be shared and i don’t have a twitter so

[doc-pickles]

lovin’ me, touchin’ me

Fun Fact: Reputation is my least favorite TS album. But when I listened to it again looking for inspo, all I could dig up was smut. So… there’s that… 

Welcome to your midweek smut break! I wrote this to take place early season 13 before Alex’s trial. I am constantly upset that we didn’t get more Jolex steamy scenes so ya know… I decided to take matters into my own hands. Don’t Blame Me just seemed like the perfect song for them, especially in that moment and how everyone’s opinions constantly affected their view on things  Also I literally never ever write smut so this might be weird but bear with me, I’m expanding my horizons this week. AND THIS WEEK ONLY SO DON’T ASK FOR THIS AGAIN. And without further ado, the smutty Reputation fic that came out of nowhere.

TW// Sexual Content. That’s it, that’s literally the whole fic. Sorry not sorry.

-

And baby, for you, I would fall from grace

Just to touch your face

If you walk away

I'd beg you on my knees to stay

“Jo. What’re you doing here?”

Alex stared at Jo, standing in his doorway with a sad expression. He hadn’t seen her in weeks, not this close anyways. The times they had passed each other in the halls at work, they had both looked away and avoided interaction. The longing glances and barely spoken words were wearing him down, his heart jumping at the mere sight of Jo standing less than three feet away from him. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Alex looked around, as if waiting for one of their friends to jump out and tell them how bad of an idea it was that they were together. “You shouldn’t be with me.”

“Would you shut up,” Alex is shocked by Jo’s straight forwardness, her eyes meeting his as they stand under the dim porch light. The look she has is one he’s seen many times before, but he tries to convince his brain that Jo’s eyes aren’t filled with lust and wanting right now, there’s no way they could be. “You should know by now that I don’t care about what anyone else says. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I can’t have my last memory with you be something horrible. I can’t play through that every time someone mentions your name.”

Alex watches in confusion as Jo steps forward, one hand coming up to his cheek as she fixes him with the look he had tried to tell himself wasn’t there. It was filled with longing and desire, her eyes dark and cloudy as she met his. He missed this, the feeling of Jo being so close to him. He restrains himself from touching her, his hands almost trembling as she takes the final step towards him, her chest hitting his as his eyes close.

“Just one more time,” Jo whispers, her lips ghosting over Alex’s momentarily. His hands come to her hips as if by a magnetic force, fingers already brushing up under the hem of her shirt. “Please Alex, just one night.”

His lips don’t verbally answer her, instead they close the small gap between hers and pull her into a searing kiss. He won’t say it out loud, but Alex needs this just as much as Jo does. And so, Alex tries to use the two beers and the shot of tequila he had earlier as an excuse. Because that makes it easier, right? That makes things easier to explain when his conscience decides to start beating him up later. So he blames the alcohol. He blames it as he pulls Jo through the doorway, as his hand skates up and under her shirt. He blames it as he lets her hands claw from his toned stomach down under his sweatpants, his fingers finding their way to curl against her heat as hers find his hardness. Alex knows better than anyone that he shouldn’t be doing this, but he needs the comfort of holding the love of his life one more time, of having a solid memory of her in his arms. Whatever tomorrow and the next day bring, he needs this with her.

“Upstairs, please,” Jo’s words are breathy, punctuated with moans as Alex’s tongue slides down to her neck, his hardness still pressing against her hands with a roaring urgency. “Take me to bed, Alex.”

He doesn’t need any more confirmation, Alex quickly hoisting Jo up and letting her wrap her legs around him as he climbed the stairs easily. His mind quickly flashes to the first time he carried her up these same stairs, but he brushes the thought off quickly. His lips are still on her neck, marking his way down her collar bone with a trail of love bites that are bound to be blue and purple tomorrow. Mine. All mine. No matter what, you’re mine. 

They stumble through the doorway of his room, Alex fervently pressing Jo against the wall as he kicks the door shut again. Her hands are desperately clawing at his shirt, finally pulling it off of his body as he leans back just enough to allow it. Their eyes meet briefly, the uncertainty shining from both of them before Jo’s lips are pressed against his neck, her words soft and slow as her nails gently rake against his now naked back.

“Please, Alex. Make love to me, one more time. Please.”

The pleading words are all it takes for Alex to move from hot and heavy to slow and sensuous. His hands move from Jo’s waist up her back, sliding underneath her shirt one last time as he pushes it up with his hands. It’s gone before he can lay her on his bed, thrown across the room in a blur as his lips trail from her neck down her body. He kisses tenderly at the lace edges of her bra, torturing the sensitive skin there with his teeth as Jo bites back a moan.

Her hands are clawing at his back desperately now, Jo’s moans growing as his tongue darts underneath the black lace to tease her nipples. The rosy peaks push against the fabric of her bra and Alex desperately reaches behind her to unclasp it and throw it clear across the room. With newfound access, Alex fully envelopes one of Jo’s breasts with his tongue, teeth darting out to bite lightly at her nipple. One of his hands comes up to tease her other breast while the other floats down to release the clasp on her jeans.

“Alex,” the moan is breathy and not all there, Jo’s hand sliding down Alex’s body to grasp at him through his sweatpants once more. He grins as his fingers slip beneath the denim and the lace of her panties, finding her center easily and eliciting another moan from her. “I need you, please.”

“Are you sure Jo? I…,” Alex meets Jo’s eyes once more, hers glancing up at him with a certainty he doesn't think he's ever seen. “I fucked up, you don’t want me.” Jo’s face softens at his words, her arms and legs working in tandem to quickly flip him onto his back. She’s leaning over him now, her bare chest pressed to his as her lips ghost up his neck and towards his ear. The sensation makes Alex close his eyes in pleasure, Jo’s hands still desperately working down the band of his sweatpants, fingertips caressing the delicate skin under the fabric.

“I just want you, no one else. Nothing else, you're all that matters to me.”

Alex’s body relaxes at Jo’s words, allowing her to finally rid him of the sweatpants in one fell swoop. Her jeans fall next and before he can comprehend what she’s doing, Jo is straddling his waist, his erection straining painfully against his boxers as her wet heat presses against him. Their lips meet again and Alex has to physically hold back the groan waiting in his throat. His fingers drift further and further up Jo’s exposed skin until his fingers are pinching at her nipples, a loud moan inviting Alex’s tongue into her mouth. Alex tries to wrangle his desire in but he finds that he can’t with the way that Jo is moving on top of him. He lets one hand fall from her breast to the waistband of her panties, pushing the thin fabric down and off of her as his fingers dip into her wet heat again. 

Jo breaks apart from Alex then, her pleasure and moans too much for her as she writhes on top of him. He flips them back quickly, Jo’s back pressing into the mattress as Alex moves his fingers in a slow dance against her. His free hand moves to her hips to hold her in place as she moves restlessly against him, desperately aching for more friction. Taking the note from her, Alex slips his boxers off and kneels over Jo with a smirk. 

Their eyes meet one last time, Jo’s cloudy with lust and that look of love that Alex had missed so badly. He presses their lips together as he surges forward, coming together with Jo in ways he had only fantasized about for weeks on end. He can feel her hands on him, one tangling in his hair and the other scraping down his back harshly. Alex relishes the feeling of Jo’s nails against him as he pumps steadily in and out of her, the slight pain assuring him that she is indeed real and not a daydream. The moans of his name coming from her urge him on, one hand coming to tangle in her hair as his lips move down her neck and biting down softly.

“Oh god, Alex,” Jo’s words barely make it out, her breath hot against Alex’s neck. Her legs move to wrap around his waist, pushing him deeper into her as she writhes against his bare chest. “Yes, yes. God yes.”

He presses into her harder then, hands pushing her hips into the mattress quickly as his pace moves faster. Alex can see one of her hands reaching carelessly down in search of her clit, but he brushes it away and snakes his hand down to rub her hotly. Her breaths come quickly, pants and moans leaving her as Alex buries his face in the crook of her neck. 

This is what she wanted, he thinks. This moment of just them coming together in a dance they had practiced more than enough. It was comforting, the feeling of her skin against his as they moved together. This is the comfort that Jo had so desperately craved and Alex understood now why she wanted it so badly.

“I love you Jo,” Alex’s words are almost lost as his lips brush against her shoulder, but the small cry she lets out signals to him that she heard him. “I love you so much, I always will.” She breaks then, falling over the edge and contracting against Alex as she moans his name. Her hands find purchase on his upper arms as he continues to move above her, his body quickening its pace as he chases his own release. 

“Alex, Alex,” his name tumbling from Jo’s gently parted lips is all it takes for Alex to come apart, spilling into her as his teeth sink into the soft skin above her breast. “I love you too, oh god, I love you so much.”

It’s quiet then, only the sounds of their deep breathing filling the room. Alex’s lips are moving softly against Jo’s chest, his lips trailing up to her neck and then her cheeks. The soft and smooth skin is wet and it’s then that Alex realizes that Jo is quietly crying. His fingers brush against her cheek, trying to swipe away the tears but her fingers wrap against his and hold his hand steady. Eyes moving to meet Jo’s, Alex leans his forehead against hers as they stare at each other in a deafening silence. 

“Please,” the word comes out so quietly that Alex is sure if he wasn’t listening so intently he would’ve missed it. “Please don’t leave me, I can’t- Alex please. I need you, more than just one night. I need you forever.”

The words stir something in Alex, his head nodding wordlessly as his lips find Jo’s again. There’s an unspoken promise between the two as they fall into their all too familiar rhythm, bodies moving in tandem as they chase their joint release once more. Jo’s voice calls out Alex’s name again and again and he knows then that it’s more than lust or the heat of the moment. She’s begging, pleading with him not to leave her like she’d been left so many times before. 

“I got you, I’m not leaving, I swear.”

[xxisxxisxxis]

Gateway Drug | Part Thirty-Nine

Table of Content or Part Thirty-Eight

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Word count: 4K

Warning(s): Explicit language, Drug abuse

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PMRC DEMANDS CENSORSHIP, DEVELOPES A LIST OF THE "FILTHY 15."

1. Prince, "Darling Nikki", flagged for sex/masturbation

2. Sheena Easton, "Sugar Walls", flagged for sex

3. Judas Priest, "Eat Me Alive", flagged for Sex/Violence

4. Vanity, "Strap On Robbie Baby", flagged for sex

5. Mötley Crüe, "Bastard", flagged for violence/language

6. AC/DC, "Let Me Put My Love Into You", flagged for sex

7. Twisted Sister, "We're Not Gonna Take It", flagged for violence

8. Madonna, "Dress You Up", flagged for sex

9. W.A.S.P., "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)", flagged for sex/language/violence

10. Def Leppard, "High 'n' Dry (Saturday Night)", flagged for drug/alcohol use

11. Mercyful Fate, "Into the Coven", flagged for occult themes

12. Black Sabbath, "Trashed", flagged for drug/alcohol use

13. Mary Jane Girls, "In My House", flagged for sex

14. Venom, "Possessed", flagged for occult themes

15. Cyndi Lauper, "She Bop", flagged for sex/masturbation

Tipper freaking Gore, the wife of the senator at the time, Al Gore, and bunch of other political housewives got their panties in a twist in 1985 and decided to demand artists either censor themselves when creating music, leaving no room for even the slightest hint at sex, drugs, alcohol, satanism, occultism, violence, language, or anything else almost every artist uses one of to express themselves in their music.

When musicians across the board practically told Tipper, the other wives, and everyone else that called themselves a member of the Parents Music Resource Center, to go fuck themselves, they decided to slap censorship stickers on records that contained any of the mentioned offenses.

Even John Denver got hit with censorship for his song "Rocky Mountain High."

It didn't shock me when my mother was photographed with Tipper after attending one of the hearings.

Mötley was invited to a hearing to defend their content and speak their opinions with a handful of others being censored, but they never batted an eye when the news first came out because they knew having an "X" or "XX" or "XXX" rating for violence, language, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. would only make kids buy the record more. And it did.

"It's bullshit." I state, tossing the news paper article aside.

"It's politics." Fred replies taking a bite of his bagel.

"These womens' sex lives must be atrocious or else they'd be spending more time on their husbands' dicks and less time on these people's." I motion to the article with the list on it.

"Babe--"

"If these polotical lunatics spent as much energy taking care of their own damn kids, as they're spending attempting to villainize artists who're expressing themselves, they would realize that it's not Mötley Crüe's or anyone else's job to raise their children. If you're so scared of your kids trying all this stuff, have a conversation with them about it and tell them about it, honestly, instead of relying on the music they listen to, to properly teach them about it. And at the end of the day, they're gonna buy the record whether their parents want them to or not, and they're going to try all kinds of stuff, no matter who talks to them about it, if they really want to try it." I continue my rant, Fred, Doc, Nikki, Vince, Tommy and Mick all looking at me, waiting for me to be done.

"Are you done, Sister Christian?" Vince asks me and I glare at him.

"Viv, it's publicity. Who gives a fuck?" Nikki asks me. "The kids are gonna go for the nastiest rated album anyway. The more 'X's the better."

"Yeah, but the audacity of--" Tommy's teaching his hand around my shoulder and covering my mouth before I can continue and I look at him where he's beside me.

"I've got a headache. I'm hungover, Viv. I love you, but I don't need to hear a Vivian Bitch Fit right now." Tommy explains to me.

I just look at him like he's lost his mind for shutting me up, and he cautiously moves his hand away.

I give him a ten second reprieve before shouting, at the top of my lungs:

"The audacity of these people pisses me off!" I finish what I was going to say and Tommy and Nikki are both jumping out of their seats a little at the sudden shouting, covering their ears, wincing, before Nikki's looking at me, sharply.

I roll my eyes at him and he grabs roughly at my thigh under the table, uncomfortably sinking the tips of his fingers into my flesh.

Ignoring him, I take a sip of my coffee, as he glances around and stands up.

"I gotta piss." He tells us, but I know why he's going to the bathroom.

I wait for him to disappear past the "Men's Room" sign in the Denny's before I get up and follow after him.

I walk in, catching the tail end of him snorting a line, and I cross my arms, waiting outside of the stall he's in.

I hear the familiar "click" of a needle being uncapped.

"Nikki. It's 10:00 in the morning." I tell him.

"Fuck off."

"Nikki."

"Fuck off."

"Nikk--"

"Fuck off."

"Make me."

I wait for him to come out of the stall and do what I dared him to, but I just hear the sound of him sighing out in relief as opiate hits his system, drowning out whatever argument we were about to get into.

When he didn't want to hear me complain or try to talk him out of stuff, he would run to his favorite room in his mind: his heroin den.

If we were at home, he'd lock himself in the closet, with me begging him to come out.

He'd open the door for me right before passing out so he could at least say he tried.

If we were in public or at a hotel, he'd lock himself in the bathroom and do the same thing.

The sound of vomit smattering the floor has me wincing as he mumbles "fuck it" and opens the stall door, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Don't fuckin' give me that hit dog look." He tells me, moving past me to the sink, splashing some water on his face, smearing his already smeared eyeliner that makes him look like a raccoon that's been digging around in a dumpster.

"I'm not giving you any kind of look." I mumble, forcing him to look at me as I wet a paper towel and wipe his black-coated eyelids clean.

The smell of his vomit infiltrates my nostrils and I throw the paper towel away before pulling at his wrist to leave. 

Being that he's perfected his magical potion, he isn't too jittery from the coke or nodding off from the heroin.

He's just quiet.

We leave Denny's and head straight to the airport to head back home, being they wrapped up the last show of the U.S. tour last night.

Next is Europe.

Once we land in L.A., Christmas music blares through the speakers of the airport and reminds me that it's already nearing the end of December.

Apparently Vince is reading my mind because he mumbles, "apparently time flies when you're in hell."

Amen, Vince. A-fucking-men.

The second Nikki and I get into the limo to take us to our house, he's busting out a vile of blow that's nearly empty.

"Fuck, I gotta get Jason over, asap." He tells himself and I rub my lips together.

"You know, we haven't even bought a Christmas tree since we've been married." I tell him, trying to distract myself from his previous comment.

"Yeah." He says, basically blowing me off and I reach the toe of my sneaker out and nudge him on the kneecap as he gets the tip of our house key and scoops some from the bindle, snorting a bump.

"Babe." I continue to tap his kneecap until he's got his hand around my ankle, loosely, stopping me.

"What, Viv?"

"What did I just say?" I ask him, crossing my arms.

He just blinks at me, smirking a little.

"I'll gladly tell you when I finish this." He holds the bindle up.

I lean forward and take it from him, holding it hostage when he attempts to take it.

"You'll get it back when I get a Christmas tree." I tell him, raising my brows.

"Are you fucking me right now?" He asks, chuckling, not thinking I'm serious.

"No...but now that you mention it, I want that, too. Then you can get it back." I add and he smirks.

By the time we get to a department store, get my clothes back on and his pants zipped back up, grab an artificial tree, lights and ornaments, and finally get to the house, it's nearly one in the morning.

"Okay, Saint Vivian, gimme my shit back." Nikki states, carrying the boxed up tree while I carry the bags of lights and ornaments.

"Put the tree up so I can decorate it and I will." I reply.

"That wasn't apart of the deal." He argues, his tone still light.

"Well now it is." I reply.

"That's cheating."

"I made the deal. I make the rules." I shrug.

"You're making me work for something that's already mine." His free hand pulls at my waist, turning me to him and I grin mischievously as he shakes his head a little. "That's it, Sixx." He tells me before crouching enough to wrap his arm around my thighs and throw me over his shoulder.

I laugh manically, partially out of fear that he'll drop me, but also because this is the Nikki I fell in love with.

Playful, lighthearted, aggravating but meaning well, Nikki.

He manages to dig his house key out again and unlock the door before stepping in and turning on the lights in the foyer.

"Baby, put the bags down for now." He tells me and I drop them as carefully as I can while he puts the box the tree is in, down.

He's walking us to the living room, laughing when he pretends to trip and I gasp, digging my nails into him like a cat holding onto its owner to avoid a bathtub full of water.

When he flips the next light on, he stops immediately.

My mind is in shambles for a moment as I try to put together why so many people are in my house once Nikki's nearly dropping me out of shock, not even hearing them all scream out, "surprise!"

Steven and Tansy are at the forefront of people as the explosion of glitter, a mixture of neon and pastel decor, an abundance of various alcohol options, scantily clad women, a handful of Nikki's friends he hangs out with outside of Mötley Crüe, and a big ass, two-tier cake with every curse word known to man written in pristine is cursive font on the sides of it is soaked in by mine and Nikki's eyes.

Steven's wearing a beer hat, smiling widely, while Tansy looks like a sallow Barbie doll, but she's still forcing out a grin for the sake of us, and everyone's waiting for mine and Nikki's reactions.

Nikki and I exchange looks, confused as ever.

"Why is it a surprise?" I finally ask, deciding it's best if I ask instead of Nikki, because all he wanted to do was come in, shoot up, have a few lines, fuck around with me some more, and pass out.

But instead he's being forced to socialize in his own house.

His safe place has been infested.

Steven and Tansy seem horrified that we don't understand the reason for the apparent party.

"...Because it's your birthday?" Tansy reminds me.

"And Nikki's was a couple weeks ago, but he wasn't here to celebrate it." Steven adds, his smile is long gone, his eyes focused on Nikki who looks like he could kill someone right now.

"Oh, right!" I pretend that I know that it's my birthday today, and everyone seems to let out a breath of relief. "It's been a long day." I explain, stepping to the two blondes, hugging them both tightly. "Thank you so much."

While everyone else starts going on with the party, music starting to blare throughout the house on the stereo speakers, cracking open beer, whiskey, and vodka, as girls strip down to bikinis to go swimming, Nikki's still standing at the door, the look on his face is a mixture or pissed off, disappointed, and "I need another dose."

"Babe." I say gently to grab his attention, hazel eyes looking to me as a jaw tightens. "C'mon, just for a couple hours."

"I'll be right back." He tells me, shoving through people to get to our bedroom.

I brush off his attitude the second I feel hands on my shoulders, squeezing them a little and I snap around to meet Duff's chest.

"Hey, birthday girl." He greets me cooly, and I'm hugging him before I can stop myself.

Something wet falls on my hand when I pull away, and just as I'm about to look around for whatever it was, his fingers that are sticking out of leather gloves that just cover his palms, are brushing at my face.

"What's up?" He asks me, furrowing his brows a little.

What is up? Why the hell are you crying?

"I-I'm happy." Is all I can say, chuckling, wiping more tears.

He knew it was bullshit. I was happy, sure. Happy to get the fuck off the road. Happy to get a break from Nikki and Tommy harassing Vince. Happy to get away from Doc's constant pressing for more tour dates to milk as much money as possible. Happy to be able to hangout with balls of optimism and sunshine like Duff and Steven and have Slash show me his pet snakes like he'd been meaning to, and for Izzy to tell me what music I should have been listening to, and for Axl to go on and on about Tansy but then completely deny he was interested in her because he was too much of a dork to just ask her out.

"I'll be right back, alright?" I tell Duff, looking around to see Nikki's nowhere to be seen.

"Okay." He tells me, swigging from a bottle of vodka.

I thread through people who tell me "happy birthday" and I thank each of them, genuinely, before opening up the bedroom door, and shutting it behind me, stepping to our bathroom.

"Baby?" I ask, seeing Nikki standing at the mirror, teasing his hair some more. "I had no idea they would do this." I tell him.

"I had no fucking idea it was even your birthday, apparently." He grumbles. "Shows how much I care, right? Husband of the year. Something else to be hung over my head anytime we get into a fight." 

"Hey, I didn't even know it was my birthday. The guys didn't either. You've all been busy and working hard and tired. I'm not going to hold this over you, Nikki." I assure him, fixing a piece of his hair for him.

I didn't realize his pride was so hurt by the gesture Steven and Tansy made.

I found out later it was Duff who brought up the idea to Tansy, who recruited the Ken to her Barbie: Steven, to help her orchestrate it.

That was another indication to Nikki that he needed to slow down, forgetting his own wife's birthday, but he didn't listen to it a bit.

"I really don't want to do this shit, Vivian." He tells me, rubbing his eyes.

"And I do?"

"They're your friends." He sighs.

"What's mine is your's." I say as I kiss his cheek and he groans.

"You owe me." He tells me as I step out of the bathroom. "Matter of fact, I want my coke back."

"Um, I can't hear you, babe. I'm sure I will when these people leave." I tell him.

"Viv--"

"I-I think you're breaking up, I'll talk to you later." I keep going, walking to the bedroom door.

"I'll break something up when these people get the fuck outta my house!" He calls back and I shut the door behind me.

The night goes on as people play beer pong on the dining room table, dance on whatever and whoever they can, snort lines off any flat surface available, and chug whatever is in their cups, drowning pain and becoming oblivious.

I hate to break it to Nikki, but I don't want these people driving in their condition, so they'll have to stay here tonight or call cabs.

After a few hours, people are either pairing off or grouping off to go get laid, passed out, or too high to function properly and are just chilling out.

Steven's observing his work, drinking from his beer cans perched in his hat when I approach him, looking for Duff.

"Have you seen Duff?" I say over the music and he nods.

"Yeah, I think he's by the pool." He tells me.

"The pool?"

"Yep."

I furrow my brows, stepping to the French doors leading outside, seeing Duff and Tansy sitting down on the pool deck, talking

"Is he pissed?" She asks me, referring to Nikki, after I sit next to her.

"I would say go see for yourself but I don't want to toss you into the lion's den." I admit. "He hasn't come out all night."

"I'll go talk to him." She says. "If he's mean to me I'll just cry and make him feel bad like I do to Vince."

Duff and I exchange looks at her confident words before she's walking away in her neon pink bikini.

"Everyone calming down?" Duff asks in a slur, and I nod, glancing through the doors to look at the guests for a few seconds. "How does it feel to be twenty-two?" He adds, rubbing his nose and I raise my brows a little, glancing at the bottle of vodka he's been working on all night.

"It's weird." I mumble. "I was a senior in high school five years ago." The reality hits me and he raises his brows. "God, I'm old."

"You were seventeen your senior year?"

"In pre-k my teacher decided I was too smart for the class and vouched for me to be moved up to kindergarten, and it didn't take my kindergarten teacher long to convince the principle of the elementary school to let me start in the first grade since they hadn't really started in on their curriculum for the year." I explain.

"I couldn't even meet the basic requirements of alternative school." He tells me.

"You're a freaking genius, you just didn't apply yourself." I tell him and he shrugs.

"I had more important things to get done.

"I guess you did." I agree, gently scoring the bottle of alcohol away from him.

"I know you're tired of me saying this, but, Viv, you gotta get back to dancing."

"Yeah?" I ask.

"Yeah. I mean, imagine me giving up music for someone I'm in a relationship with so I can hold their hand or fucking babysit them or whatever. I mean, sure it shows I love them a lot, but it would just make who ever I was with look like a fucking bitch. And I've talked to Nikki before and he told me he didn't want you to quit dance and he wanted you to go to school." He explains. "Why didn't you?"

"I had more important things to get done." I repeat him.

"I don't know if you're selfless sometimes, or just not thinking." He says, before his face suddenly falls. "I sound like an asshole right now, I'm sorry." He apologizes and I shake my head.

"I'm not upset, I know what you mean." I assure him.

"Okay." He rubs his eyes again like a sleepy child.

"Do you need me to help you to bed?" I offer and he waves his hand at me a couple times.

"No, no, I got it." He assures me, standing up.

He nearly falls over.

"Yeah, I'm sure you do." I comment, helping him inside as he apologizes.

"I'm sorry I'm being out of hand right now, Viv, I don't get like this every night." He tells me as I open our guest bedroom and thank God nobody's in here, although it's obvious someone has been screwed to oblivion on the bed.

I just throw the blanket on the edge of the bed over the mattress and help him lay down.

"Thank you." He says as I pull his boots off and set them nice and neat on the floor at the foot of his bed.

"You're welcome." I reply, setting the garbage can beside him incase he needs it. "Goodnight."

I'm about to leave, but his hand gently grasps at my hand, stopping me.

"What is it?" I ask him.

"I'm really glad we met and we're friends, Viv." He tells me, grasping my hand in his like I'm going to walk out anyway and not listen to what he's got to say.

"I am, too, Duff." I say back, smiling a little. "Sleep tight, okay?"

"Yeah." He nods his head.

"Alright, goodnight."

I go to kiss him "goodnight" on the cheek, but my entire system and body locks up the second he misreads my intentions, and kisses me.

This sounds so counteractive to who I am now and what I stand for currently, and it was ignorant of me to think such a way back then, when so many people close to me were heavily affected, some of them even dying, by drugs and alcohol...but I use to wish I liked alcohol or drugs, or even felt drawn to them.

By '87 I'd had several miscarriages, my marriage was hanging by a thread after only being married for four years, I was having an identity crisis and my entire world was seeming to fall apart and it became routine to buy a bottle of vodka or whiskey, or pills, or blow and just stare at it--trying to convince myself to go for it--for an hour before pouring it out or flushing it.

The people around me, which by that point was mainly Duff and his band, started to pick up on this struggle I had. And although they knew I had to be in some kind of extreme pain to be considering reaching such lows, they carried an "if you don't laugh about it, you'll cry" method of pulling me out of such spells.

Anytime we would be hanging out and I'd opt to try something they were doing, they would call it the "Golden Question Game" because the "Golden Question" was always "is Vivian actually gonna do it this time?" and they wouldn't argue with me about it or try to stop me because they knew the answer would always be "no" even if I didn't think it would be.

I even made the reckless suggestion to try heroin, and got as far as Izzy getting it in the syringe for me, trying to explain to me how to shoot it, how to angle it, how to know I'd hit a vein, with Steven, Slash and Duff all waiting to see if I was that desperate for an escape.

Like everything else I would think about doing, I just sat on the floor next to Izzy and stared at the golden liquid in the syringe and thought, "who the fuck are you to get pissed and angry at Nikki and Tansy for their addiction to this shit, and how it's destroying them, and then turn around and do it yourself?"

I shot it into the air away from me, handed the empty syringe back Izzy, thanked him for letting me waste his time and dose of smack, went to the bathroom with Duff at my heels, and cried.

I never went through with any of it because I knew I would never, ever, come back from it.

I would've drank myself to death or drugged myself past the point of no return and would have ended up a statistic.

I just needed a new escape because my original high became a heroin addict, and December 23, 1985, had me realizing more about Duff than what I had noticed before: Vodka was a hell of a lot easier to be around than heroin.

[speaknowslut13]

Folklore FINAL SPOILERS

Betty.

Sonically, the beginning chord succession has a similar sound to Never Grow Up.  And the harmonica reminds me of Piano Man.  Interesting mix, Taylor.  The Character is singing to Betty.  It sounds like this person is in high school, and left Betty for a summer fling. I find it fun to hear Taylor say fuck in her songs.  She makes it so poetical.  Ah.  We have the name of the character!  Their name is James.  James and Betty.  And this third girl?  Oh wait, this is the teenage love triangle!  The other girl doesn’t have a name, sad.  So, Cardigan, August, and Betty tell a story of teenage love angst.  I love to see it.  This song was wistful but not sad, so I appreciate that break.  Thank God.  

 Peace

I could really relate to this feeling.  Peace was a beautiful, hopeful number.  The premise is not feeling good enough for someone, yet still trying to give them everything.  It’s interesting to note, that the Character mentions giving their significant other a child.  Which plays in later.  Though I can’t take credit for the idea.  Beautifully done, once again.  

Hoax

I made it.  The last song.  I was unsure of what to expect with Hoax but I just wasn’t expecting to be left sad and confused.  Hoax is a deep song.  The emotion in Hoax is complex.  I had a hard time gripping on to it.  So here are some interesting thoughts I had, while listening to it.

The Chorus is Your faithless love is the only hoax I believe in.  I felt that this was a sad opinion.  She is talking about jumping off cliffs, again.  She’s screaming give me a reason as if she wants to jump.  I take it as this love is a suicide attempt. Its so intense that she knows that it’s going to hurt.  Once the bridge kicked in about being pulled apart, I started crying.  It feels like such a breakup song.  I am not sure though.  It might not be though; it could be just that the love she has for this person is so sweet that its just as bad.  I do not know, man.  I left the album feeling very unsettled.  The last two albums ended on such high notes.  Even 1989 ended with Clean, a ballad of rebirth.  What is a faithless love?  Maybe its not that deep, and I am a clown.  

Either way, I made it through.  I’m dying inside, but it’s a beautiful death at least.  I know I’m going to listen to this album on repeat.  I’ll fight anyone who says this isn’t her best album.  Now, I know I say that every new album cycle, but this time its true.  

 Upon my husband’s first listen, he pointed out an interesting theory.  That the character in Peace is the same as in Hoax.  BEFORE I CONTINUE, it is important to note here that I am NOT making any assumptions about Taylor herself.  This is a sensitive subject that my husband and I are awfully familiar with.  And to be honest, it made sense to me once it was brought up.  In Peace, the Character says she wants to give the subject everything, including a child.  In Hoax she mentions that her lands are barren.  Barren can also be defined as unable to conceive.  It is possible that the character is saying that they don’t understand how this person can keep loving them even though they cannot conceive. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE do I want to hear ANYONE discuss Taylor Swift possibly being unable to conceive because that a sensitive subject and none of our business.  In the context of the story being told, it could be a possibility. Hoax made more sense to me under this context because my husband and I struggled to get pregnant.  We found out after that my health problems make conceiving difficult as well as unsafe.  We will not be having any other children.  So, don’t come for me.  

 Overall the album was deep, complex, and beautiful.  And heavy. So heavy.  Okay I’m going to go cry about it all over again.  

Love,

Ren

[immimidi]

GFOTY - Ham Chunks and Wine

 Girl Friend Of The Year (GFOTY) has released one of (if not) my favourite EP of 2020 so far.

Ham Chunks and Wine is such a creative collection of music; giving elements of experimental, dance, europop and pop. 

The title of the album is the perfect amount of weird and intriguing. conjouringing images of experimental/weirdo music with the mention of Ham Chunk and images of classy pop music, with the addition of Wine, perfectly summing up album.

Most importantly this EP is the most fun I have had with an EP for a while and GFOTY comes across as someone who knows how to have fun with her music.

Track one: Wide - Wide is the most ‘PC Music’ style of song on the EP, the use of heavy pulsing bass synths and re-pitched/pitch shifted vocals are very reminiscent of most of PC music’s big hitters. The chilled out middle section breaks up the song perfectly allowing for a change in the energy when compared very tense chorus sections and the utterly chaotic final section, which to my ears is one of the most beautiful pieces of chaotic arrangement I have ever heard, In fact it made me shout “FUCK HECK YES!!!!” and pull that face everyone pulls when the beat drops. 

The voice production in wide starts the EP off as it means to go on pulling the attention of the ears by providing the melody section due to the very heavy processing and re-pitching of the vocals. It sounds stellar giving it a nice futuristic vibe that tbh until this EP only SOPHIE had been able to create to such a standard consistently. This heavy vocal processing and the use of SFX and ASMRy...ASMR-esque sounds combine to make such a perfect vibe and production aesthetic for the track. While we are talking about the voice I do need to say that the lyrics of this song are inconsequential apart from the titular word, they to me don’t provide any extra context to the track, they are their purley to support the voice and provide more for the voice to do....They are perfect in this role. ‘Wide’ is the perfect word to be used for this song as despite all the sound and processing the mix has soooooo much room in it and the movement and panning create a suitably wide mix. 

That 3rd section I cannot do justice by words. LISTEN TO IT. It is phenomenal and chaotic and I LOVE IT. It gets my Mwah chef’s kiss moment for this track.

4.75/5 /A+/ Big YES

Track Two: Magician’s Wand - What to say about Magician’s Wand, other than I wish it lasted longer. 

That lazer gun bass synth that ‘BWAHHS’ its way across the low end of the mix being paired with equally lazery high synths and that ever present robot voice production that GFOTY is so good at - Keeping that amazing futuristic vibe that ‘Wide’ had but building on it by adding more layers and filling the mix out slightly.  The chaos of the harmonic elements is a great for keeping the interest of the ear while very simple beat in both the intro section and the second sections seals the chaotic experimental sounds in a pop music shell, keeping the music palatable for non-experimental music listeners, something that GFOTY had difficulty with in the song USA -Which I adore but my friends found hard to listen to. 

The vocal production is very similar to ‘Wide’ which is nice to see a consistent aesthetic throughout the first two tracks giving us expectations to be subverted in future tracks. A big plus to this tracks vocals is the lyrical content as it provides nice little sound bites that are kinda suggestive adding a bit of human in the robot aesthetic of the voice.

Mwah moment - the ‘BWAHH’ synth that truly sets the mood for the rest of the much too short track.

4/5 /A/ Big YES

Track Three: Rid Of All (Feat Count Baldor) - This track’s intro is the perfect change of pace from the last two tracks, subverting the expectations of another experimental PC Music style synth fest, by opening up with a clean held pad synth and a less processed vocal alongside it. 

Describing the pad synth used in my notes I simply wrote ‘lovely pad’ but that doesn’t do enough justice to how soft and clean this pad is, if a pillow was a pad this pad would still be softer it is so cool to hear after the chaos and the ‘BWAHHs’ of the previous two tracks.

The break section with the whispers is so beautifully haunting and it serves as the perfect jumping off point for this song to take in any direction and GFOTY/Count Baldor jump off perfectly and unexpectedly into a 00s/eurodance style beat with perfectly cheesy bass synths (LGBT+ club music/my kind of music). 

The voice in this new section is also unexpected and shouldn’t fit into this style of music but does perfectly. It shouldn’t fit in because its a metal guitar - I can’t figure out if its a talkbox or the single most processed voice ever recorded or if it’s a guitar and a voice with the same fx being cut between by Baldor and their amazing DJ skills, or if it’s all three, but tbh I don’t care it’s incredible and sounds so good in context with the rest of the track. 

The eurodance section dies down and returns to that clean synth/vocal section, which reminds me of Imogen Heap and Bjork, in this section we can get a breather from the utter glory and madness that was the previous section and we get to hear the lyrical content and the lyrics are phenomenal in this section they are perfect for the eurodance/electro pop vibe the track presents and are most importantly FUN, something that in my opinion some pop music has been shying away from by trying to sound profound. I love the use of harp and SFX in this section further reminding me of Bjork and also giving the section a faux dream quality before adding the heavy bass synths in getting ready to drop us back into eurodance madness. 

The Eurodance sections do not fail to put a smile on my face and I love every second of them, I am happy that GFOTY/Count Baldor chose to break them up with some slower ethereal sections because it makes their inherent cheesiness even more happy.

Mwah moment - EURODANCE GUITAR VOICE MADNESS (the only way i can describe it)

5/5 /A+/ BIGGEST YES

Track Four: By My Side - This track slaps, simple as. It’s another track that made me shout ‘FUCK HECK YES!!!’ it is another track that knows how to have fun and puts a smile on my face. 

The track opens with a simplistic and effective pop-house piano melody with pop voice production. Yet again GFOTY’s voice production is stellar the change from the robotic re-pitching to very subtle FX usage in this track works and it creates this nice pop music moment and proves our girl doesn;t need to sound like a sexy robot to sound incredible - though if you know any of her other work you already knew this.

The background synths in this section give a nice dance music vibe off especially those saw melodies and that when that liquid bass comes in and white noise generators hit I am transported to Ibiza, loving every second of the song...and then It happens, that sampled melody is used and I LOSE MY FUCKING BLOODY MIND. GFOTY may have used sampled melody better than anyone ever, GFOTY samples ‘I’m Blue (Da Ba Dee Da Ba Die)’ and it is glorious I don’t think I could ever put into words just how amazingly good the use of sampling is, how perfect the sample is and how happy and excited it made me (Mwah moment for sure). A counter synth is used and it is very true to the vibe of Ibiza dance but it just seems like it could do more that flick between chords - though a new counterpoint is used in the next sample section, YES IT HAPPENS AGAIN.

But before it happens again we are given space to breathe with a house section using the first counterpoint synth as a counterpoint chord synth with the classic house piano to take us from modern Ibiza to 1989 and then the trance-esque melody synth used in the background flings us straight into the 90s and the birth of trance music - kinda reminds me of ‘9 PM Till I Come’. This section is the perfect length of breather and is a credit (as is the rest of the album tbf) to just how good GFOTY is at arrangement of synth based music. I love her voice in this little breather section she sounds so good with this minimal (compared to the previous tracks) production and the fact she is singing in a lower register as well, I really love her voice here. 

After a short build section we are given the treat of that sample again. The use of voice synth in the build section is very nice and a great callback to the previous tracks. But the only thing that matters is that sample and it hits just as hard if not harder the second time, as it has all of the synths surrounding it.

This track is a love letter to 90s-00s dance music and honestly I love every second of it. 

Mwah Moment - THAT SAMPLED MELODY

6/5 /A++/ BIGGER THAN THE BIGGEST YES

Track Five: Here With Me - The perfect ending to a perfect EP, so perfectly subverts expectations the previous tracks have set-up and showcases GFOTY’s pop writing prowess, her prowess as a performer and that she isn’t all silliness. 

The track opens on a gorgeous, musical theatre esque piano line. The piano has such a beautifully natural timbre which is expertly countered with a processed (I think re-pitched) vocal and it is phenomenal. Despite this heavy processing GFOTY is able to give a ridiculously emotional performance with the voice cracks and vocal fries being present making this robot character that the processing has created since the beginning of the EP appear even more human and broken - it is powerful songwriting and production intertwining. 

The overall aesthetic of this track is very musical theatre, when making my notes I even wrote ‘Almost Disney’ it is just a pure performance being backed up with some of the strongest production I have heard in experimental pop music for a while. The Lyrical content is so beautiful and emotional and says a lot about mental health and how relationships and dependance can affect a person.

GFOTY’s vocal performance is entrancing I have already gushed about how much I love her singing in a lower register. In this track it is no different her voice in the low register is beautiful and when she lifts into her high notes they hit more emotionally to my brain because i can hear her strain and it makes her performance that much more satisfying to listen to.

The extra instruments that add phrases to the track throughout give a little bit of variation to the instrumental arrangement ensuring that the voice/piano combination doesn’t grow stale. As the track buidls and adds more instruments they don’t stick around to clog the mix up. A lesser artist (Me) would have left them in and keep adding instruments to keep building leading to parts of the mix and arrangement feeling clogged up, GFOTY knows when to add and lose instruments to keep the mix open. 

The Guitars are really pretty touches in what feels like the final build of the track only for the build to die completely and become that beautiful haunting marimba section, with the string swells adding to the emotion and the theatre of this section before the perfect outro of just voice and piano - I almost cried.

Mwah Moment - That voice, That performance 

5/5 /A+/ BIGGEST YES

Final Thoughts

Honestly all electronic acts should be scared of just how good this is.This EP spans the emotional range being Tense and Bone Crushingly hard in track one,  Imaginative and Cool in track two, Silly and Fun in tracks three and four, and emotional and beautiful in track five. A testament to GOTY’s talent and just how good electronic music can be. I was smiling throughout, such a good EP

Mwah Moment - The arrangement of each track on this EP is fantastic and perfect.

Overall - 5/5 /A+/ BIGGEST YES

[incomprehensiblelentils]

I did not get around to this yesterday but, a short selection of fictional things that meant a lot to me over the last decade! ...it is going under a cut bc it is Too Long sorry lmao.

Books

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: this book came out in September 2017 and I have read it four times already. It’s the kind of book I want to write but I’m not sure I’m clever enough to: every event and every character is so purposeful and you won’t catch everything the first time through. Every time I reread it I find something new to marvel at. I hope the Hulu series is half as good

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: this was the first piece of fiction I ever found with a family with a Chinese father and a white mother. This family is a lot less functional than my family, but I've read this three times because that means the world to me. 

Ash by Malinda Lo: I discovered this in 2011 and it was the first f/f novel I ever read, and as I would later learn, one of a handful with a happy ending at the time, particularly in YA fiction. For a long time, I reread it every time I felt hopeless. I just reread it again last month and it is still as beautiful and meaningful to me as in 2011.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: This is an Asian-inspired fantasy (becoming more common now, but still irritatingly rare) written by a queer Asian woman, with f/f. I think it is only the second one of these, after Ash? It is frustratingly rare, anyway. The worldbuilding is incredible also.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan: We are getting more stories about biracial Asians, but they are still pretty rare and I treasure every one. This one felt so real to me.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth: The first half of this book captures so beautifully what it’s like growing up queer in a religious environment when you don’t even have the words or self-awareness to know what you’re feeling. This was another one I read over and over again when I was feeling low.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: this is just a book for horse girls. I don’t know how else to describe this lol. I also feel like the romance is super downplayed until the very end, and honestly barely feels like a romance to me, so that’s refreshing!

Movies:

Pacific Rim (2013): I remember having this weird feeling when asked to give my top 3 movies once in high school, like maybe my favorite movie hadn’t come out yet so I couldn’t answer properly. I was right; this is the movie I was waiting for. This is my favorite movie. The feelings this movie gives me is the standard I hold all movies to.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019): but Megan, didn’t this just come out? Yes, and it’s my other favorite movie now. I love (almost) every second of this movie. This movie made me feel a way that I thought maybe I might never feel again, after a certain other franchise movie this year took a dump on my heart. I don’t care that we’re never getting a sequel, we got this and that’s enough for me.

Thor (2011): Those of you who have been around awhile know that I really love this movie. I loved it before we all jumped on the Thor train after Ragnarok and I will continue to love it probably my whole life. It just makes me happy.

Aquaman (2018): This is Thor but underwater and with a biracial hero. It made me cry in the theater and I do not want to hear any negative opinions about it, I find them personally wounding.

Belle (2013): The fact that Gugu Mbatha-Raw isn’t a superstar is tragic, and this movie is gorgeous and lovely and made me feel a lot of things as a biracial person.

Mad Max Fury Road (2015): I remember seeing the trailer for this in the theater and going “yikes that looks like a thing I would never watch.” Joke’s on you, past me!!!! I find this a deeply stressful but glorious film that I can only watch like, once or twice a year.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010): I do not need or want to hear about how this movie is Problematic, I know all of its issues, and yet. It brings me joy and it was one of the first movies I saw when I was just starting to break out of my religious upbringing and I laugh until I cry every time I watch it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): I am starting to realize that I am not and never really was a Star Wars Fan, which is to say that like...I love this movie specifically, I love the characters, I love the interactions, I love the stuff that happens. I do not so much love Star Wars as a whole? I like it fine! But this movie is the only part of the franchise to really make me go “oh, I get it.”

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017): This was a weird little movie that nobody saw and nobody talked about, but I adore it because it’s so gentle and romantic. I don’t know how accurate it is to history and frankly I do not really care.

Big Hero 6 (2014): are you tired of me mentioning I’m biracial yet? This movie has biracial protagonists and a cute squishy robot and no romance and superhero stuff and I love it so much.

F8: The Fate of the Furious (2017): I went to go see this on a whim with my wife and it was one of the most joyous theater experiences of my life. I don’t know, I just love everything about it.

TV shows:

Community: This only kind of counts because it started in 2009 but I started it mid-s2 so eh. Seasons 1-3 of this show are written on my heart, I can quote a ridiculous amount of dialogue from them and these characters will stay with me forever. Warts and all, this is my show.

Dollhouse: Another technicality but like, I met my wife because we both loved Bennett Halverson so I gotta put this on here. It’s pretty significantly affected my life! Also I find that it holds up fairly well, if you’re down for the admittedly iffy premise and an ending that’s a bit of a mess narratively due to sudden cancellation.

Agents of SHIELD: I would never claim that this show is “good” but I do think that it has mostly figured out what the hell it’s doing. And it has been a pretty significant part of my fandom life for the last 6 years, so to leave it off this list would feel wrong. It gave me Daisy Johnson, first canon biracial superhero as played by a biracial actor, and for that i will always be grateful.

Warehouse 13: I could not tell you why I fell so deeply in love with this dumb, badly written show that shit the bed in the final episode more spectacularly than I could have imagined, and yet I did! I think probably it is because I love found family so much, and also I find goofy camp charming more often than not. And of course, there is Bering and Wells, the femslash ship that fandom forgot. I will never be over how no one knows what we have suffered!!!!!

Runaways: wow was this a surprise! The Runaways comic is my favorite comic besides Marjorie Liu’s X-23 run, and this show has basically nothing to do with it, and normally that would piss me off but they got my kids’ personalities down so well and all of the actors are so perfect that I really can’t complain. And also, this show has canon f/f and neither of them die at the end! Which is...better than some other shows I could mention!

Doctor Who series 1 and 5: I had a very intense Doctor Who phase in college, and after all was said and done and I quit the show for a time, I realized that although I love a lot of the characters, and Thirteen’s run is pretty good so far, what I really loved was Nine’s run and Eleven’s first season. That is the show at its best to me. Eccleston is my Doctor and Amy is my favorite companion.

Legends of Tomorrow: Look, I am as shocked as anyone that this, the scrappy underdog of the DCTV lineup, is the one that’s most emotionally competent and has the best character arcs! But here we are. Season 4 was some of my favorite TV I’ve seen, uh, ever.

Albums

Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae: I listened to this for basically a year straight after it came out. It’s just ridiculously good.

Something Fierce by Marian Call: This was my on-repeat album in college. i drew a lot of strength from it, and I think that it’s still the best album to recommend to people who ask me about her.

Standing Stones by Marian Call: I heard most of these songs live at concerts before they were quite done yet, so it was really special to get to hear them all collected together like this. I’m going to get a tattoo with a lyric from one of these songs because no one’s quite been able to put my basic philosophy into words quite like Marian.

Heartthrob by Tegan and Sara: Hot Take, I know, because a lot of people hate this album, but it was so affirming to go out and buy A Lesbian Album from A Lesbian Band in 2013.

The Rent movie soundtrack: I know, I KNOW, but in my defense, my parents got me this for my birthday my first year of college and I needed it so desperately. I can definitely still do “La Vie Boheme” from the beginning and probably most of the other songs too.

In the Heights OBCR: I can only listen to this when I want to cry, but it’s my favorite musical. I got to see the show in 2018 and it was incredible. I think it’s better than Hamilton and I can’t wait for the movie to come out.

Trouble by Natalia Kills: this album is really great and also it says fuck a lot, which I used to be very nervous about hearing or saying, and this helped immensely!

[r3b3lgrrrrrrrl]

A LunaTic and her Gunn (Part 20)

"🎶It's Kismet🎶

@creatureofthen1ght-v3

Once out of the overly, steamy shower, Luna and Colson sit at the kitchen table sharing a cup of coffee. Colson is bare chested, as always, in a pair of joggers. Luna has her blonde hair half up, she's wearing a simple, long sleeve, white cotton shirt and cut offs, no makeup, but tons of jewelry as usual. He fires up a joint as they talk about their last couple of days, enjoying the rarely empty kitchen.

"She really is beautiful." He thinks watching the natural light play off of her.

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

"I don't think I'll ever get used to those Fucking eyes." She thinks, getting lost in him.

"Ready?" He asks breaking her thoughts once the joint is finished. She nods, following him downstairs.

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

In the studio Colson's heart is racing. She knows nothing about his new album. It's killed him to not talk to her about it in detail as they got to know each other. But he wants to see her honest reaction and values her opinion as an artist. "Ok." He begins, setting her down on the couch by the shoulders. "I want you to sit and listen." He says "Just listen. What do you need to not move for the next hour? Weed, water, a snack?"

Luna laughs. She knows exactly the vulnerability he's feeling right now and finds him to be incredibly cute in his fluster. "We have weed and water. I'm good. So, ready whenever you are, Bunny." She smiles to reassure him.

"Ok..." He sighs sitting down at the sound board. The opening electronic beat has her immediately bobbing her head. She looks up when the woman speaks. He puts his hand up "Listen." She nods in agreeance as the next song begins. She likes this beat too and notices he's riding it much smoother than his other albums. And he's fucking FIERCE. As the next songs begins her ears perk up. He watches her eyebrows furrow as she nods her head, focusing on the beat. He sees the exact moment she makes the connection he's waiting for. Her head shoots up, mouth open, wanting to speak, but doesn't.

Her eyes immediately well up. "Oh, FUCK, it's "Numb." She thinks as one hard tear rolls down her face. They reach for each other's hand.

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

"I knew she'd get it." He thinks stroking her hand with his thumb. Comforted by her acknowledgment.

She doesn't let go of his hand, only giving him a fake shocked face over a particular lyric, through her tears. As a woman's voice comes onto the next song. Nodding to the beat, she squeezes it. He can see tears flowing down her face, as she's trying to control her breathing, listening as he runs through the last year. She lets out a whimper, when she hears a certain set of bars, referring to a night in his kitchen. She looks into his eyes aching, they had talked about it that night at the pool but hearing it on tape is different. He hands her his bandana as she climbs onto his lap, not bothering to wipe her tears. She slides her legs through the chair holes, straddling him. They're cheek to cheek as the next song slams her in the stomach too. She squeezes him tightly, listening to him expose himself to the world. The beat is catchy and she can't help bobbing her head by the end.

"UGH!!" She thinks, soul aching for her Lover. "It's heartbreaking and melodic, like truly great fucking songs are..... I'm gonna kill his fucking mother." She decides to herself.

Her thoughts break and she laughs loudly as she hears Pete's voice come on. Thankful for the small lift from the heavy, she kisses Colson on the cheek as she squeezes him again, climbs off him and settles back onto couch. Lighting a joint as the next song begins. She's bobbing her head again to the beat. Listening intently, he's coming hard. Popping her chin in her hand, on her knee, she tosses him a long glance, catching the second set of bars. She's still bobbing.

"Aight, Bunny...." She thinks to herself impressed, thoroughly enjoying his talent.

He's watching her reaction to every song. He loves how she catches certain lyrics and the way her face lights up as the beats change. She's swiveling her hips, couch dancing to this particular beat. She goes to say something again but catches herself as he shakes his head. One look. They smile, knowingly. The next is another banger. He rides the beat flawlessly, giving her 90s hip-hop flashback feels. Another lyric stabs her in the heart.

"Fuck. He's not playing." She thinks as he lays his shit bare, all over the table. Slaying the fucking beat. And her heart.

As another woman's voice opens the next track, Luna sparks another joint. She's on an emotional rollercoaster and needs a slight grip. She lays down on the couch, on her back, letting the smoke billow above her from the joint as tears roll down her face. She's listening as he explains unapologetically, all of his pain that they've talked about since meeting. Some parts truly scaring her.

He's still watching her. The next song comes off more poppy but she catches the dark lyrics instantly. She passes him the joint, sniffling, but laughs, shocked, as a certain "B" lyric by Redd slides through. She looks at him with an amused look as the next song begins. She knows what it's about as it continues. Not her favorite but it's still catchy. The next opens with Phem haunting the track. This song makes Luna sad for Colson too. She's back on his lap again, this time with an arm around his shoulders listening intently to the smooth, old west coast beat. Once the track finishes, he flips the sound off, looking up at her. He doesn't have to ask.

"That was a lot...That was amazing...I am so fucking proud of you...I HAVE to smoke a cigarette...all the cigarettes in the world...while we talk about this." She blurts out as her hummingbird hands fly, never taking a breath. Kissing him all over.

Colson loves when she gets excited like this. "C'mon, we'll grab you a beer too and sit on the patio." He says laughs, lifting her up to head upstairs.

"I fucking love YOU." She says, following behind him

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

They sit on the patio, unpacking the ride he just sent her on through his head. She mentions Cara to his surprise, not thinking anyone would catch that. She asks if that beat is by The Mark's, which only slightly shocks him that she knows her music so well, but makes him laugh with how she refers to them. He tells her that Casi is the ASMR on the one track. She didn't catch that one and it absolutely tickles Luna's soul. Her eyes well up again as they talk about Chester. She thinks it's a GREAT, subtle homage to their friend. They touch on all the little different shout-outs, lyrics and meanings. There isn't anything he needs to explain to her. Even though she finds it haunting and slightly worrisome, she loves the album and understands and relates to it completely. Getting SUPER hype over certain pieces, he loves how she knows and respects his career. She credits him for his raw fearlessness. How it is not simply an album but an experience. This pleases him, it's what he was aiming to accomplish. She does mention that it ends very heavy and abruptly. Comparing the entering of the hotel track with needing an exit track. He likes where her mind is as the wheels of his begin to turn.

"She's right. I need a smoother ride out." He's thinking of the song they're about to work on and the one he has going with Dom. "Maybe I can slide them in around 5:3666...." He decides to hit Dom up later.

Turning his attention back to Luna. "Wanna see what we've got together?"

"Most definitely." She agrees. They grab 2 more beers and head back down to the studio.

-------------------------------------------------:

He first plays her the beat he's come up with. It's her melody from the piano "So, I think you should open here..." Letting the melody flow until a beat drops. "I'd come in here." She nods, listening as her melody still rides in the background. Before it comes to the forefront again as he points at her. As the beat changes again, she's bobbing her head. He stops the music. "What do you think, open with you and we'll play off each other?" He asks her. She likes it.

"Yeah, lemme see what else you got.." She says pulling her lyrics out. They sit at the table and begin to build together, singing back and forth to one another. Everything's flowing easily, they're telling a true story.

🎶I want you forever//Even when we're not together//scars on my body//So I can take you wherever🎶

He sees her thinking "What?" He asks.

"I don't like scars line...." She shakes her head.

"Ok, what do we flip it to?" He asks.

She thinks for a minute. "What about tattooed? She asks.

"We getting tattoos?" He asks amused.

"Fuck." She laughs looking at both their bodies. "Is there even any open space on either of us?"

He lifts his arms looking around. "Here!!" He excitetedly points to a blank spot on his inner left arm. She looks at hers. It's covered mainly with the lyrics from The Beatles "Black Bird" blended with the silhouettes of birds and other imaginary. She looks to her right.

"AHA!!" She shouts pointing to a small bare space, in almost the same spot, just the other arm. They look at each other deviously.

"What do we get?" He asks?

"Lemme get a peice of paper, please." Once she takes it, she draws for a couple minutes before producing a cartoon style, punked out bunny.

"YOOOOOOO!! THAT'S FUCKING SICK!!!! Check him out!! I fucking love it" He shouts jumping out of his chair, bouncing around studio with the drawing before kissing her deeply. "Let's go!!! Right now!! WE OUT!!!" He says after he releases her.

She puts her hand up, laughing "Chill, Wild Boy... Let's arrange these lyrics, then we'll go. Then, we'll come back and lay the track."

"I love the way you think." He says kissing her before sitting down to finish their work.

Both are satisfied, agreeing the tattoo line is better. Luna stands up, kissing Colson before she heads upstairs to change into an easier shirt to be inked in. He calls his tattoo guy. Then Alex and Joe.

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"Who's going first?" Asks Colson's tattoo guy, Kevin.

"Ladies first." Colson smirks. He wants to see how Luna handles the chair.

"Whatever." She shrugs, sitting down and getting comfortable. Kevin cleans her arm and sets the stencil. Luna double checks it's placement in a mirror before sitting back down. She nods her head, signaling to Kevin that she's ready to begin. The sound of the gun makes her nipples hard in excitement. As soon as the needle touches her skin she feels a warm wave wash over her. Colson is talking to her but she shakes her head, leaning it back, closing her eyes. She truly enjoys the act of being tattooed, taking it all in.

Colson watches her sit for her tattoo, completely relaxed. "She looks so peaceful, like she's on a fucking beach or some shit." He admires her. "She IS a bad ass bitch...."

Once Kevin finishes, she lifts her head, finally opening her eyes. She fucking loves it. Staring at it, she looks up at Colson. "Better not back out now, Motherfucker." She smiles at him as Kevin wraps her up. She's never referred him like that before. Her aggressiveness makes Colson's dick jump in pleasure.

"All in." He beams, hoping into the chair. They have two different tattooing styles. Colson chats uncontrollably. To Luna. To Kevin. To the fucking dog. Luna can't help but laugh.

"So how long have you guys been together?" Kevin asks. Luna and Colson look at each other, before bursting out laughing.

"I'm sorry, Man." Colson apologizes laughing still. "A week?" He asks Luna with a slight snort.

She shrugs, "I don't know." She says laughing honestly. "I don't even know what day it is after Seoul."

"It's Sunday, Kitten." Colson laughs.

"Seeeee, I thought it was fucking Monday, it's so fucking confusing!!" She exclaims. She's only slightly good at math. Counting the American days in her head. "11. We've been together for 11 days. I think" She laughs, opening her eyes wide.. Grinning at a happily staring Colson.

"I would've never guessed." Kevin says in the background "You two compliment each other really well." They hold each other's eyes and smile at each other knowingly. One look.

"11 days.." Colson says with wide blue eyes and a beaming smile, while nodding his head.

🎶What can I say, it's kismit, ain't it🎶 She sings to Colson. He laughs, pulling her in for an upside down kiss. Both if their bodies flushing from the physical and emotional touch. Once Kevin finishes and wraps Colson, they thank, pay and tip him before happily heading back to Colson's Rover.

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"I FUCKING LOVE IT!!" Colson declares.

"ME TOO!!!" Says Luna cheesing like an asshole, bouncing around the passenger seat. Colson pulls her over to him. She submits easily, sliding over, on top of him. They kiss each other hungrily and wet as Colson runs his hands across her skull, thru her long blonde hair, gripping it at its base. His dominance makes her pussy gush. They're in the parking lot, in broad daylight but that doesn't stop them. Kissing each other sloppily, they pull each other's shorts off quickly. His dick is too big and her shorts too tight for a slide over. Lifting high, she works him into her. Making him moan with each shift. Once he's in, she rides him hard and quick. With his hands on her hips, she grips the back of his neck and hair. Holding him close. FUCKING him hard. They're both turned on by fucking in public. It's not long before they both moan for each other loudly, feeling that the other is ready. It's rare for them not to talk during sex. This is so quick and intimate, that it takes one last solid shift of her hips and that One Look before they lock mouths, cuming for each other instantly.

Luna lays her cheek against Colson's chest, as he rests inside her. Trying to catch her breath. He's rubbing her back trying to do the same, enjoying being inside of her.

❗BANG❗They're startled by a dirty man peering in, on the drivers side window. "WHAT THE FUCK!!??" Colson angrily shouts.

"Got any money?" He asks.

Colson's still looking at him in bewilderment. The New Yorker in Luna isn't fazed and has already reached into her purse. She puts the window down slightly, before sliding a 20 out it. "Now, go.' She instructs, putting the window back up. The man makes a prayer gesture and walks away.

"What the fuck, Loons!??" Colson is still angry.

"What, Colson?" She asks, sliding over to the passenger side so she can slip her shorts back on. Lighting a joint she continues "So, he got $20 because he was lucky enough to walk up and catch a show." She shrugs passing him the joint "He doesn't know who we are, and that probably made his week, if not his month. Fuck, don't make me think past a month." Her heart feeling sad "Plus, had it been a fan or a cop, it would've cost us a fuck more then a 20 and a little shock."

Side eyeing her with a smile, hitting the joint, he knows she's right as he buckles his belt before starting the Rover. Driving up the PCH she turns to him. "Besides, WHAT could truly ruin today? It's our first Bunny&Kitten MessAbout!!!" She leans over to kiss him before wiggling her fingers like a witch while dancing in her seat. "We wrote a fucking slamming song, got our first tattoos together AND got caught fucking by an old dude!!!!" Luna takes the joint, while she laughs uncontrollably causing Colson to join in with her. "Now, let's go lay down musical history." She says cockily, leaning over to kiss him. She hits it multiple times before passing it back.

"I fucking love her perspective." He thinks to himself laughing as he hits the joint and they pull into the driveway.

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Alex and Joe are already at the house. Colson greets them warmly before introducing them to Luna. They "know" of each other through The Industry. "It's nice to finally put a face to you guys!!" Luna says, causing them all to laugh.

Down in the studio, Colson and Luna get set up in the booth. As the melody begins playing in their headphones, Luna waits for her cue. Turning herself with the mic, she begins singing to Colson directly.

🎶I know I'm outta my head. But I haven't lost my mind. How is it that you know the bad things I like? We're so good, I can't explain it. What can I say, it's kismet, ain't it🎶

🎶All things you say. All the things you do, make me fall more in love with you. Oh, Bunny, I can't escape it. I'm all in, there is no maybe🎶

She's giving him THAT look, swirling her hips.

As the beat shifts Colson jumps in. Resting his hand on Luna's hip. Rapping to only her.

🎶We both bad, but it feels so good. And you "come" again, like I know you should. And we both wild. And the night's young. You're my drug. Breathe you in 'til my face numb. Drop it down to that bass drum. I got what you dream 'bout, fingers pulling my hair out. Eyes closed while you scream and shout. And you keep me in with those hips. While my teeth sink in those lips. While your body's giving me life and you suffocate in my kiss🎶

🎶Then you said I want you forever. Even when we're not together. Tattooed you on my body so I can take you wherever, Like, I want you forever. Even when we're not together, tattooed you on my body so I can look at you whenever, yeah🎶

He sings the last part as they exchange knowing smiles before she starts again. Leaning herself and the mic towards him.

🎶I know I'm outta my head. But I haven't lost my mind. How is it that you know the bad things I like? We're so good, I can't explain it. What can I say, it's kismet, ain't it🎶

🎶All things you say. All the things you do, make me fall more in love with you. Oh, Bunny, I can't escape it. I'm all in, there is no maybe🎶

Colson comes back in. Leaning into her, grabbing her ass.

🎶I can't explain it. I love our range. And I love the way your breath numbs me of novacaine. And we are, always high. Keep it strange🎶

Luna jumps in to harmonize with him , smiling as she sways her hips in his hands. They sing in unison. Pushing playfully against each other.

🎶Okay, yeah, I'm insane. But you the same🎶

Colson continues rapping

🎶Let me paint the picture. Counter in the kitchen. Taking all your clothes off. Losin' our religion. You're my pretty little vixen and I'm the voice inside your head. That keeps telling you to listen to all the bad things I say🎶

Colson continues. As Luna dances loosely in his grip. Singing again.

🎶And you said I want you forever. Even when we're not together. Tattooed you on my body so I can take you wherever, Like, I want you forever. Even when we're not together, we're not together, tattooed you on my body so I can look at you whenever, yeah🎶

Luna kicks back in. Running her thumb across his bottom lip, dragging it across his jawline.

🎶I know I'm outta my head. But I haven't lost my mind. How is it that you know the bad things I like? We're so good, I can't explain it. What can I say, it's kismet, ain't it🎶

🎶All things you say. All the things you do, make me fall more in love with you. Oh, Bunny, I can't escape it. I'm all in, there is no maybe🎶

Continuing Luna lays down the hook, making finger guns as she snakes her body, holding the mic. Colson to grins, shaking his head, trying not to laugh, as feels his dick perk up even more.

🎶I'm just a LunaTic, with her Gunn. When we're together, Bad Things happen. The way you touch me, is better than ecstasy. When we're not together, I still feel you coursing through me🎶

Together they sing, pushing and playing off of each other still.

🎶And you said I want you forever. Even when we're not together. Tattooed you on my body so I can take you wherever, Like, I want you forever. Even when we're not together, we're not together, tattooed you on my body so I can look at you whenever, yeah🎶

Luna continues smiling...

🎶I know I'm outta my head. But I haven't lost my mind. How is it that you know the bad things I like? We're so good, I can't explain it. What can I say, it's kismet, ain't it🎶

🎶All things you say. All the things you do, make me fall more in love with you. Oh, Bunny, I can't escape it. I'm all in, there is no maybe🎶

Hearing the beat fade out, Joe comes into they're ears. "I think we got it guys!! He says excitedly. They look at each other grinning.

"Ahhhhhh!!!!" She squeals jumping into his arms, he laughs as she wraps her legs around him, kissing him deeply. "That was fucking AWESOME." She beams, pulling back to look at him. High from singing with him.

He's grinning too "It was fucking AMAZING!!" He squeezes her ass tight. Touching her pussy. "I wanna fuck you so bad right now!" He whispers into her ear. Making her moan and giggle, before letting her slide down his body, against his hard cock.

They come out of the booth to a pumped Alex and Joe. "One fucking take guys!!" Alex shouts in disbelief. "ONE FUCKING TAKE!!" Luna and Colson high five each other. "I want Luna in for some solo vocals to layer in, in mixing and the same for you, Kells."

Joe jumps in "But after that. Polished and its done! Solid fucking work guys!!!" They share a celebratory beer and joint while listening to the rough track before Luna heads back into the booth. Everyone beyond pleased with the authenticity between Luna and Colson.

"Dude, she's AMAZING!!" Alex says to Colson. "Obviously you hear about people in the industry, you know...but, fuck. She's got them Billie Holliday pipes on her!!" He looks at Colson seriously for a second. "So, I'm guessing you guys are together?"

"Don't even fucking think about. Ima bout to wife her up." He gives Alex a look.

"Can't blame a brother for asking." He replies, making Colson chuckle. Once she finishes, he steps into the booth. Luna shares another joint with Alex and Joe. Chatting but never taking her eyes off Colson.

After Colson steps back out, they begin the mixing process. Luna's fully engaged until she sees the time. "Fuck, Bunny!! I have dinner with the girls soon!!" She exclaims in a panic.

He grabs her hand. "It's ok, Kitten. Go to dinner. I'll finish up here and show you when you get home." He kisses her to reassure her.

"Home?" Her mind takes a big breath. She shakes it off.

"I fucking love you." She declares before thanking the guys and heading towards the door, she stops "You want me to bring you back anything?"

"Nah, I'm good." He pushes his chair across the room to kiss her again, appreciating her thoughtfulness. "Thank you, though." They exchange sweet I love yous before she heads upstairs to change and head to dinner with Frannie and Paris. She's excited to have some down time with them and doesn't want to think about what home entails.

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To be continued.....

[trans-son-of-perdition]

Why I relate the Trench album to my own personal life and struggles.

A couple things before I begin. I am aware the true meaning of this album relates to Tyler Josephs career and struggles with mental health. However, art is subjective. It’s meant to be interpreted however you want. I’m not trying to invalidate his experiences, this is just how the album helped me and how I related to it in a way that made it important to my life and my coping with realizations I had around the time Trench was being teased and released. This post is not meant to attack a specific faith, however given my own opinions and viewpoints this post could be uncomfortable for current believing members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If you are uncomfortable with exmormon viewpoints, this might not be the post for you, and I would like it if you didn’t try to force your views onto me as a result of this post. I will also give warnings for abuse mentions, cult mentions, mentions of suicidal thoughts, and mentions of transphobia. 

In this post, I’ll go through each song in the album and explain what it relates to in my life. I’ll also go into the lore of Trench and how I relate to the Clancy letters, as well as explaining why my icon and blog banner are what they are.

If you have not heard this album, I recommend it entirely. And even if you have, I recommend listening along to this post. You do not need to be a fan of Twenty One Pilots or the album to read this, however, and you do not need to understand the deeper lore or know about the Clancy letters to read this post.

With that being said, this will be a long post, so I’ll put the rest under a read more. 

Let me begin by briefly introducing myself. I am a 22, nearly 23 year old Exmormon who was born and raised in the church near the heart of Salt Lake City, Utah. I was a devout member of this church until I was 15, which was when little things started to not make sense anymore. This was when I was shown that it was okay to feel differently about my gender and sexuality, when I started to realize there were words to describe why I felt so weird about the concept of being a girl, etc. In a lot of ways, 15 was when my faith started slipping. There are journal entries from then where I’m crying about how I didnt want to feel the way I did, it was kind of the usual young mormon kid has a crisis over their sexuality and gender and tries to pray about it over and over but nothing changes. I even had a moment at 17 where I found a place to hide where my family wouldnt hear me and prayed for about an hour because I was questioning if the church even was true. I got no answer to this.

By the time I was 18, I no longer attended church. I still called myself mormon, and was actually kind of an apologist for years. It was only early last year that I started realizing something didn’t seem right, which was what led to a very long beliefs crisis and eventually me formally resigning from the church. It was also the year that repressed memories finally started to surface, and the true extent to which I had been abused and neglected started to show. Near the end of 2018, one of my best friends helped me escape Utah and get far away from my family, and currently I am living happily in Arizona far from the church’s influence.

Now enter the Trench album.

Instantly, when the Jumpsuit video was first released, something felt comforting about it. And every song since has been extremely comforting to me because of how I have related it to my life. Here is how each song ((and even the videos and extra lore)) have helped me and have related to my life as a secret exmormon who felt trapped in Utah.

Jumpsuit

This song actually came out just as I was questioning the church and realizing some things that were very long. With every little thing I found that was wrong, it was like my life crumbled a little more. I’ll admit, the “spirits in my room” lines I took much more literally, having lived in a very haunted house in a very haunted part of Utah, but the lines “Felt it in my youth, feel it when I’m old” also felt like a reassurance to me that the doubts and feelings I had in highschool when I was just beginning to question myself and my life were valid. Like they weren’t just a passing phase, this was something that had been going on my whole life. And then we have the bridge. 

I'll be right there But you'll have to grab my throat and lift me in the air If you need anyone, I'll stop my plans But you'll have to tie me down and then break both my hands If you need anyone

My life up to this point had been manipulated by those around me. My parents controlled my actions, I sat there and let them abuse and disrespect me. If any of them needed anything, I jumped to help. This had spread into my other relationships as I felt the need to be there for everyone, be the personal therapist to everyone, try to fix the emotions and problems of everyone I knew because my family had made me think thats what I needed to do. Like in the video, I was very much stuck under the spell of the “smearing” of the bishops. My family knew how to manipulate my emotions into feeling like I was in the wrong, like I inevitably had to love them and follow them no matter what. Which was why the “Cover me!” screamed at the end makes my heart beat faster. In his “Cover me!” I felt my heart scream it too. I couldn’t out loud, because my family would have yelled at me and made my life hell, but I could scream inwardly with him. I could feel myself running from the bishops with him. That song felt more joyous, more releasing, and more moving to me than an LDS Hymn had in years. Even as I’m writing this, the “Cover me!” makes me feel deep and strong emotions that at one point I would have called “the spirit” or “the holy ghost” and its stronger than any feeling I attributed to those things from talks or lessons in the church.

Levitate 

This song actually gave me courage to be more openly myself again. To stand up for myself and look for other options. To admit that the way my life had been was fucked up and that there were better things out there. The line referencing Car Radio was cool to me, because Car Radio was a big song for my depression and dysphoria. I wont go into it too far, since I’m focusing on Trench music, but I’ve always taken Car Radio as a good way to describe how I felt about my life, the world, and my own dysphoria and struggles with suicidal thoughts. And so having this song tied to rebellion against how my life had always been reference another song that had helped me with coping was so encouraging to me and honestly really cool!

This culture is a poacher of overexposure, not today Don't feed me to the vultures, I am a vulture who feeds on pain.  

I mean. Come on. I lived in Utah. Utah culture is oversaturated in the church. Its in the politics, in the laws, in the tv shows and on the radio. There’s a ward building everywhere you go. You cant do anything without seeing it somewhere, at least not in big cities ((or at least not living as close to downtown Salt Lake City as I did.)) Admitting to being exmormon while there felt like I was risking being separated from the rest of society. While this isn’t entirely true, I grew up seeing how my family treated exmos. The way they treated them like poor misguided souls that would eventually have their “sins come crashing down on them and turn their hearts back to the church”. 

The next few lines are kinda self explanatory. “Sleep in a well-lit room, don't let the shadow through,” both refers to the whole “haunted house” thing I mentioned ((a story I wont go into here tbh)) as well as me using my room as the one place I could hide and be more myself, discuss the things I believed and thought. “And sever all I knew, yeah, sever all I thought” has to do with the slow realizations of the lies I had been taught by the church my whole life. The next few lines refer to what sounds like him asking for help to keep away from the ledges, which both feels like my reaching out to online friends for support both to reassure me that I wasn’t crazy as well as their help in keeping me away from my increasing suicidal thoughts.

The video actually felt like my chosen family in general, them getting me away from these ideas and worries I had had burned into my brain at a young age, pulling me out of this DEMA and into their Trench, where we all could support each other and help each other realize that the false things of our past didnt have to shape our futures for us. And much like Tyler, I was still struggling with my parents pulling me back in by tugging at my emotions, making me feel guilty for my rebellion.

Morph

Lets be honest, in order to explain this one I need to post the whole song. It feels like a mixture of my beliefs crisis and dealing with an abusive and transphobic family, to be honest. 

Can't stop thinking about if and when I die For now I see that "if" and "when" are truly different cries For "if" is purely panic and "when" is solemn sorrow And one invades today while the other spies tomorrow We're surrounded and we're hounded There's no "above", or "under", or "around" it For "above" is blind belief and "under" is sword to sleeve And "around" is scientific miracle, let's pick "above" and see For if and when we go "above", the question still remains Are we still in love and is it possible we feel the same? And that's when going "under" starts to take my wonder But until that time, I'll try to sing this

Here we have my crisis, where I was doubting my own doubts and wondering if I was wrong and truly destined to end up in a lower kingdom away from my family and if I was sinning. It led to a fear of death, a fear of the end of the world, a fear of anything related to it because what if the mormons were right? Honestly, this is an ongoing thing that causes panic attacks to this day, and this song is where I turn to when these doubts happen.

If I keep moving, they won't know I'll morph to someone else What they throw at me's too slow I'll morph to someone else I'm just a ghost I'll morph to someone else Defense mechanism mode

A lot of people in the transgender community have brought up that this is a really relateable few lines. I’d like to add on top of it being about my gender, it also can relate to how I spent years pretending to be someone else in front of a lot of people ((and still am to some extent, I’m working on that.)) in order to keep myself safe.

He'll always try to stop me, that Nicholas Bourbaki He's got no friends close but those who know him most know He goes by Nico, he told me I'm a copy When I'd hear him mock me that's almost stopped me

This part I actually relate to my younger brother, who is almost violently abusive towards me and who I have had not only threaten harm to me, but have had mock me and tell me that nobody truly cared about or loved me, along with much worse things that were so intense and awful that when my sister ((the only family member I truly trust)) heard it and told our parents what happened, they were legitimately worried about me knowing about my suicidal thoughts and were bugging me the entire time I was at work and while I walked home to make sure I was safe and okay. My brother is a horrible person, and I honestly am afraid for whoever ends up marrying him based on his treatment of everyone else in our family. My sister and I have even shared our concerns with each other that he could one day lash out and hurt/kill one of us. Hes one of the biggest reasons I and her hurried to leave the state as fast as we could.

Well we're surrounded and we're hounded There's no above or a secret door What are we here for? If not to run straight through all our tormentors? But until that time I'll try and sing this

This again relates to my family, along with the opinions of the church towards transgender and gay people. I don’t think I need to go into what the LDS church thinks of us. 

The final part of the song, to me at least, feels like the loneliness of my situation, and wanting someone to be open with in real life that would understand where I was coming from. It also is about my reaching out online when I couldn’t find support in person.

My Blood

I actually don’t need to go into this too deeply. My whole chosen family relates to this song, and so hearing it reminds me of them. This song is how we are to each other and how we feel about each other. Pretty straightforward. Especially since this song likely is about Tyler’s brother, so the fact we all consider each other brothers and sisters works with this.

Chlorine 

Another straightforward one. It kinda feels like I’m singing this to the people of my past. My family especially, but also the friends that were part of why I hid so much about myself. They were toxic, but I made myself stay near them out of love. And as I “decayed”, the feeling of rebellion started to grow more until I found myself running for my life away from them all. 

I'm so sorry, I forgot you Let me catch you up to speed I've been tested like the ends of A weathered flag that's by the sea Can you build my house with pieces? I'm just a chemical 

This final part is more towards myself, however. How I forgot the true me, how I’ve been broken and hurt by these people, and how I need to finally build my life up again away from them all.

Smithereens

Another one that makes me think of my chosen family, and makes me think of my best friend who helped me escape Utah. I’m not a violent person, I actually consider myself a pacifist. But if someone threatened my loved ones I’d do everything I could to stop them.

Neon Gravestones

Yeah, I had to get to this one eventually. This song hit me hard the first time I heard it. If you haven’t heard any songs from this album at all, THIS IS THE ONE YOU SHOULD HEAR. It speaks very bluntly about how fucked up the media’s portrayal of suicide is, among other issues around that theme. Its beautiful in my opinion. 

Obviously yes, as someone who struggles with suicidal thoughts, this song obviously does resonate with me. But this is where I’ll go into the deeper lore for a moment.

In the world of Trench it’s been mentioned that the Neon Gravestones are one of the big symbols of Vialism- the religion in DEMA that is a religion that worships false light. In Vialism, those who have died in the name of Vialism are revered, respected, and glorified. Now look at the church. How many people have had their hardships and deaths be romanticized by the church? How often have I heard people say that if you die in the name of the church, you will be exalted? How many LGBTQ+ youth in Utah have killed themselves because they think that its better to die before they have sinned? How often growing up has the “Martyrdom” of Joseph Smith been romanticized and used to show how committed to the church he was? For hell’s sake there’s a song WRITTEN ABOUT HIM saying that he now will be glorified for eternity because he died for the church! He’s held with more respect than even Jesus in the church! I could go on for hours about how I feel about the way the church treats death and how fucked up it is that there have even been cases you can find online where people have been told it would be better that they killed themselves than be gay or be an apostate. I’ll get more into the Neon Gravestones symbolism later when I reach the Clancy letters. 

The Hype

Yet another song about reaching out for support and community as I was realizing the truth about the church. I also had a huge falling out with a close friend around the time the album released, so having this song to cope with it helped too. It feels like the acceptance of the fact I was slowly getting out of brainwashing and programming I’d had since I was an infant, and though I didn’t know where I was going in life anymore, I knew that I would have the people I trusted there with me every step of the way as I became a normal member of society and began a new, better life. 

A lot of songs in this album seem to be very chosen family oriented. This one just feels like a reminder to myself that I’ll be okay.

Nico and the Niners

This one is a little obvious. But i’ll go through it regardless. 

East is up, I'm fearless when I hear this on the low East is up, I'm careless when I wear my rebel clothes East is up, when Bishops come together they will know that Dema don't control us, Dema don't control East is up

This song was released at the same time as Jumpsuit, and honestly some of the same things apply. I realized how much this really fit my life at the time as I was working on getting out. How the literal bishops and leaders of the church as well as the figurative “bishops” of my life were who I was rebelling against. DEMA is a something I have actively called Utah ((mostly Salt Lake City and all other areas in the main valley)) before, for reasons from it literally being a city surrounded in huge walls((both the mountains as well as figurative walls)) that circled around a main central part ((Temple square)) where the bishops resided and performed rituals in the name of Vialism. The next lines mention that they, the bishops, want you to make you forget. They want you to be docile. To conform to them. Follow their rules and laws and teachings without questioning. Ignore and forget the things they don’t say in the moment are truth. In the video, Tyler is seen quietly preparing to escape, hiding in his room as yet another ritual is performed elsewhere in the city. He sneaks out of his dark room, where he meets the Banditos. He seems hesitant and scared at first, but they calm him down and welcome him.

What I say when I want to be enough What a beautiful day for making a break for it We'll find a way to pay for it Maybe from all the money we made, razorblade stores Rent a race horse and force a sponsor And start a concert, a complete diversion Start a mob and you can be quite certain We'll win but not everyone will get out

During this part, Tyler is loudly rebelling in the center of a courtyard, where all the people hiding and silently judging the Banditos from their windows can see and hear them. He sings about escaping and finding ways to prepare to run away, escaping the walls of DEMA and the watchful eyes of the bishops and those devoted to them. It’s after this that his friends, the Banditos, help him escape into the night from DEMA before he can be caught by the bishops, but leaving a trace behind to hopefully inspire the children still growing up and learning inside DEMA.

I compare my chosen family to the Banditos a lot, something that will become clear when we get to a song later on. My open rebellion, being myself and leaving the church, leaving Utah and the judgmental eyes of those still devoted to the church and their teachings... This is what the song is to me. I’ll win, I’ll escape, I will do what I can to inspire my younger brothers and sister to follow me out when they can. I’ll do what I can to help anyone still stuck in their DEMA, but in the end I had to leave. I had to listen to my chosen family and run. I had to get out of those walls before the metaphorical bishops of my life, my family, dragged me back down again into them and broke me further. In that way, Nico and the Niners is both the presidency of the church, but its also my parents. 

Cut my Lip

This one actually speaks to how I used to be, letting myself be abused and mistreated. The cycle of trying to escape but being dragged back in. Knowing I was being hurt but letting my programming and the thought that I had to love my family no matter what hurt me over and over. But though I’m bruised, I’ll keep moving.

Bandito

This is the big chosen family song. We have called ourselves Banditos a lot. I personally consider myself a Bandito. 

This is the sound we make When in between two places Where we used to bleed And where our blood needs to be

We are all in Trench right now, to various extents. I am mostly out of my DEMA, having physically left it but still dealing with the mental battles and the pulls from the “bishops” to return. Other members of my chosen family are dealing with abuse, neglect, trauma, mental illnesses, isolation, etc. We all have our own DEMA to escape, and we all do what we can to pull each other back into Trench and support each other as a family. 

In city, I feel my spirit is contained Like neon inside the glass, they form my brain

In Utah I felt trapped. Confined by what I could and could not say around my family because I was afraid of what would happen if they knew some of the things about me. About my opinions of the church. I had realized my brain had been manipulated and formed into what the church wanted, and I was starting to break free of it.

But I recently discovered it's a heatless fire Like nicknames they give themselves to uninspire

The opinions of my family and the church have begun to feel less important and the thought of rebelling against this has become easier and I have become more confidant in my beliefs. 

Begin with bullet, now add fire to the proof But I'm still not sure if fear's a rival or close relative to truth Either way it helps to hear these words bounce off of you The softest echo could be enough for me to make it through

I’m still afraid though, and I still have doubts pop up. And until I can fully break free of the brainwashing I was subject to for 21 years of my life, I’ll still have those doubts and fears. But hearing my chosen family reassure me and validate those feelings I have about the church helps me get past it and grow as a person.

As far as Sahlo Folina? We use it in my chosen family. When we see each other say it, we hurry to support each other and pull each other back from the personal bishops we have. For those who don’t know, Sahlo Folina in the lore is the call the Banditos cry out when they are stuck alone in Trench and need help. It doesn’t have a canon meaning otherwise, but many people have given it the meaning of the joy or act of creating. And my chosen family and I use this phrase to warn each other of panic attacks, or of dysphoria, or of a moment when we just need a little validation. This song is so important to us, and is one of the most beautiful songs on the album in my opinion. If you haven’t heard it, take a look at imabandi.to, its an interactive music video for the song that explains some of the deeper lore of Trench and is in general visually stunning.

Pet Cheetah

Honestly this is really just a bop, but its good for when I feel angry. Not just even at the church, in general its a good anger song because of how intense it feels. It also speaks to the isolation I felt, how I tried to calm myself down from my doubts for the longest time. It helps that the song kinda has a “Fuck it” moment halfway through.

I'm done with tip-toeing, I'll stay in my room My house is the one where the vultures are perched on the roof

The song then expresses the fear of losing everything, but its too late now. The anxiety is raising again, but I’ll do what I can to relax and keep going. 

Legend

This song actually makes me cry, because it reminds me of my grandparents. They were the two I was closer to than my own parents, and I was destroyed by their deaths. Even though I still feel them with me, I deeply miss them and I was scared for so long that I would never be able see them again because according to the church, I would have not been allowed to be near them again for eternity. “I look forward to having lunch with you again.” is the line that has made me break down crying before, because I know that no matter what happens, it’ll be okay. I wont go into my current beliefs here, but I know that my grandparents love me and that no matter what I’ll still get to see them again one day. 

Leave the City

And now that i’m crying from legend, let me personally sob for a moment about Leave the City, because this song is what I played as I finally left Utah. On my main blog, the title comes from this song. 

I'm tired Of tending to this fire I've used up all I've collected I have singed my hands It's glowing Embers barely showing Proof of life in the shadows Dancing on my plans  They know that it's almost They know that it's almost over 

This song expresses how I felt from my depression, the doubts, the abuse, the ongoing crisis as I realized more and more how much I had been lied to. I was being reassured by my chosen family and my other friends that it would be alright, that I’d get away and life would be better. Now that I’ve been out of that state for several months I can say they were 100% right, but while in the moment I was drained and tired and just wanted to be free. And the knowledge that one day I would leave was what kept me going and kept me alive.

But this year Though I'm far from home In TRENCH I'm not alone These faces facing me They know What I mean

Again, this feels like my chosen family, my Banditos. My real family, the people I trust most. The know who I am. They know where i’m coming from. And though I’m far from my end goals in life, and I’m still here in Trench, I am not alone. I have them with me, and for now that is what matters. 

Now, onto the lore and Clancy letters. Because honestly my relating to this doesn’t just stop at the music.

The following are quotes from the many “Clancy letters” that have come out sine the album was being teased.

Note 1:

As a child, I looked upon Dema with wonder, today, I am wrought with frustration, as I spend each day squinting for a glimpse of the top of the looming wall that has kept us here. It was upon my ninth year that I learned that Dema wasn’t my home. This village, after all of this time, was my trap. 

Before I became realized, I had deep affection for Dema. There was a wonderful structure to the city that put my cares to rest. Streets and locations were dependable, and the responsibilities of the day seemed to be accomplished with minimal effort. Once a task was taught and understood, we delighted in our ability to complete our obligations timely, and felt secure in knowing tomorrow's duties would be accomplished with the same efficiency. We all worked to represent our bishop with honor, and knew that each inhabitant of our region had a like-minded dedication to consistency.

Note 2:

To refer to Dema as my home has never felt accurate. Dema, to me, has simply been the place that I’ve existed, or, the 'slot' they've put me in. I've heard stories about the idea of "home," and its depiction has always seemed warm from the storyteller's description. There was a romantic ownership of the place they inhabited that I admired, but could never relate to.

Note 3:

Am I the only one who realizes that we've been lied to? Am I the only one not afraid of the notion that the nine have hijacked our trust, and extinguished the hope that once motivated our existence? We used to close our eyes and picture a better life, now this city is full of dry eyes caught in a trance of obedience, devoid of any trace of an identity.......My hope of something more is all I have in this rigid tomb, and I will not let it die.

I wanted to quote the fifth note, but the whole thing feels relatable to me as someone who left Utah. So here is the full letter:

I've made it out. I feel weightless. I know that place had always held me down, but for the first time, I can feel the unity that I had hoped for. It's been three nights now, and my breathing has changed - it's slower, and more full. It's like the air out here is actually worth taking in. I can see it back in the distance, and I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't constantly on my mind. I wish I could turn that fear off, but maybe the further I go, the less that fear will affect me. I feel betrayed by what I assumed was home. If I ever end up back there, I won't be able to look at it the same way. They are asleep. They're so sure that they know the truth, and carry on throughout their day with the same meaningless tasks. They've forgotten to look up, and to look outward, to understand that this isn't about 'in there.' This is about 'out here.' This new world surrounds me. I used to think the walls back home were massive- these green cliffs engulf me, and place me right in the middle- Trench is quite precarious at times, and it's easy to grow weary. But it's real, and it's true, and I'd much rather endure reality than to mindlessly be obedient to a life that someone else created for me. I've obsessed about this world for so long, that it feels more like home than anything I've experienced. Somehow, in this vast openness, I feel more protected than ever. The landscape feels endless, and I've found myself walking for hours without any true evidence of getting further down. But I've seen plants and colors out here that I'm not sure I've witnessed before. There's a beauty in the strangest places,- and the curiosity of what's next continues to motivate me. I wonder who else is out here. If what i assumed inside is true, there's got to be more like me. Sometimes I'll feel a presence, only to look up and see nothing. It's just another thing that I'm afraid of that also excites me. It all just confirms all of the things that I hoped to be true for all of this time. I am out here and I am very alive. I'm sometimes scared, but always discovering something new, and I will not stop. Cover me!

I’m not going to go into why these relate, it should be clear from my explanations of the songs why I can relate to these letters. If you are exmormon yourself, you might understand already anyway. 

Now finally, I’ll go into the letters in the site that I mentioned earlier, imabandi.to. These are actually where my blog icon and banner come from.

Remember when I explained Vialism? One of the notes goes further into it. 

The text reads “The necropolis glorifies the early graves of those who lost themselves along the way. Let us overthrow this concept as a symbol of dedication to and celebration of life.” and is accompanied by a caption that reads: 

STEADFAST IN OUR REBELLION AGAINST THE TEACHINGS OF VIALISM, WE TURN THEIR FALSE DOCTRINE UPON ITS HEAD. PROTECTED MORE THAN EVER, THE DOUBLE BARS ARE A SYMBOL OF LIFE AND HOPE. 

Overturning the symbol of false doctrine in order to celebrate the concept of life and being alive. This is what I want to do. Life should be enjoyed and celebrated and not controlled and given up for false teachings.

The icon for this blog is the Vulture symbol of the banditos. It comes from this note:

It reads: “The fear and pain shall not be elements that stop us, but what feeds us to persevere. The vultures above are our symbol of turning death to life.” And its caption reads:

WE ARE VULTURES. THE VULTURE SEES BOTH WORLDS, DEVOURING DEATH. A SYMBOL OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO TURN DEATH INTO LIFE. MAY WE LEARN FROM WHAT WE'VE LOST, AND COMMIT TO LIVING.

So another symbol of committing to being alive and to life itself. It is to me a symbol of rebellion against the things I was taught and becoming my own, free person.

Finally, the banner I use on my blog. 

This one I have compared to being an apostate. The caption reads: 

THOSE WHO SEE CORRUPTION INSIDE THE LIES OF DEMA FEEL A RESPONSIBILITY TO GET OUT, AND ATTEMPTED ESCAPE SHOULD BE HONORED. MANY ARE PUNISHED WITH THE FAILED PERIMETER ESCAPE BADGE, BUT WEAR IT PROUDLY. IT IS THEIR SYMBOL OF THE BANDITØ UNDERGROUND — THE FEW, THE PROUD, AND THE EMOTIONAL. 

The label apostate is used often by people in religions as a label meant to shame, but we use it proudly. There are posts I have even seen about how “Apostate” means freed slave, and how it is a thing to be proud of. Much like how the note above says: “ We shall call our label of delinquince by a new name. This is who we are, and let us never be ashamed by the penalty placed upon us by false authorities.” I’m not ashamed to call myself an apostate anymore. I feared it at one point, but now I embrace it. It is what I am. I am freed, I am openly defying and rebelling against the false teachings of my childhood. And seeing this note was what solidified me relating this album and its lore to my life entirely. In my opinion, I escaped my DEMA. I saw the outside of the walls and was helped by those around me to escape them and find true freedom beyond them, in Trench. And although it will be a long time before I am truly free from the trauma and leftover programming that happened to me while I was in the LDS church, I have those around me who will reassure me and support me and let me know that I am never alone.

Anyway. I’m finally at the end of the post. Thank you for reading this. Cover me!

[ageeksnerdyworld]

A Facade Well Fed

Characters: Zale Young, Emery Becker, Dexterity Burrows, Zephyr Allen & Esteem Wells

Word Count: 4,934

Trigger Warning: Drinking, Drunk Shenanigans, Drug Mention, Death Mention

Notes: Good news is I figured out what to do with my cow boy. Bad news is this story is like all over the place. As always The Cyber World and the viruses therein belong to @voiceoflarka

Summary: After finishing a set at local bar the members of Midnight Decoy decide to celebrate. With drinks, and friends, to go around everyone seems to having a good time. Except for Zale who's having a very difficult night. His past won’t leave him alone tonight. So he heads off on his own to clear his head. But the night is just about to get even worse. Click that read more if you'd like.

~~~

"Now get the hell out," Emery shouts into the mic.

The small crowd, that actually stayed to listen, yelled. A few people called for an encore. But that wasn’t their shtick. Emery yells again, more vulgar and aggressive than the first time, and a few people back off.

As the band dismantles their equipment, and instruments, they chat about the show. It seemed that tonight, for whatever reason, was one of their better performances. They all thought so anyway. But the band didn't care. They made music they wanted to hear. It didn't matter to them if anyone liked it. A few people stuck around and voiced their opinions. Some were fans but most were wannabe critics. Most of them were screaming their thanks for the end of the impromptu concert. It seemed that everyone had something to say about each band member.

“Everyone always thinks they know music better than we do,” Zale mutters as he sees a few people approaching the stage.

The other three nod in agreement. Emery notices that he doesn't want to deal with any of the people tonight. So he gives Zale a nod; a verifiable go ahead to sit this one out. In turn Zale mouths his thanks before heading upstage. He starts to pack their equipment in the respective cases.

Alone, with the sound of chatter at his back, he feels a hand at his back.

Biting his lip he tries to ignore it.

Most of the comments Dexterity receives weren't really about their drumming. The viruses who walked up talked about the music, but, the words were nothing more than an excuse to get close. Dexterity approached whoever was speaking with a smirk. They did what they did best; flirted excessively. Dexterity pulled some of the viruses aside and spoke to them in private. Those then left with the drummer's number and the promise of a good night.

Emery just smiled, eerily, in each angry face. When each critical roast was over he told them all the same thing.

"I don't give a flying fuck what you think."

Zephyr was always the nicest of the group when it came to fans and critics. He knew of course that nothing anyone outside the band could've said would make a difference. Midnight Decoy was never going to make music everyone enjoyed. The band wasn't going to go on tour. Nor would they mass produce an album. That was selling out; something none of them wanted. But Zephyr Allen still spoke to each person with a genuine smile and an interested brow.

As the others dealt with the people as they saw fit Zale stayed upstage. He didn't say anything to any of the viruses who called out to him. Despite the excited screams, and the occasional jeer, he kept his head down. He was focused on packing up the amps and his guitar. Or so it seemed.

Something else was occupying his thoughts.

Someone else.

“You alright, man,” Zephyr asks; stepping behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Liar, liar, a voice whispers darkly in his ear.

With the meet and greet, and clean up, done Emery hops off the stage. He lands on the barroom floor with a light thud. His bright purple eyes shine with excitement and leftover adrenaline. The lime green veins that cover his skin pulse rapidly. Hollering to the others he points out the bar. Zephyr nods and also jumps off the edge of the stage. When he lands he runs a hand through his long dark blonde hair; moving it out of his eyes. Dexterity smirks and gives the young man they had been flirting with a soft kiss goodbye. They rush over to catch up with the group.

Zale, somewhat reluctantly, follows the others’ lead.

As the group makes their way a very excited virus rushes up to them.

The virus wears a black leather jacket over a thin, green tartan, shirt. Light blue jeans are tightly tucked into his black boots. Dark boysenberry colored veins glow beneath his gingerbread brown skin. Wide, round, ears emerge from either side of his face. A brown tail, matching his skin tone, hangs lazily behind him. Small, curved, white horns poke through his side-swept hair. The virus’s hair is a light orchid purple with a few streaks of dark eggplant running through it. His eyes are blue at the edges but shifted to green. The bright green colors the rest of his irises.

Eyes that shine brightly with enthusiasm.

"That was your best set ever, guys," he says passionately.

Zale, Dexterity, and Emery simultaneously roll their eyes. This guy came to every random concert they had. His name was Esteem Wells and he was the group’s, self proclaimed, biggest fan. Every time he saw any of them he talked rapidly about how he wanted to buy merch and hear their music on the radio. In reality he annoyed the whole group. He completely missed the point of their band and the music they made.

But as always Zephyr talks to him with a smile and an open ear.

“Thanks, man. Glad ya liked it.”

“It was awesome. And the way Emery did his screaming thing when you played that riff? Epic.”

Before he could ramble on Emery pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. This guy was full of shit and he knew it. There was something else he wanted. It couldn’t just be the music. No one in their right mind would go see the same band over thousands of times. Running his hand through the hair at the base of his skull he looks away for a split second. He gathers the words and then outright asks the cow virus.

“E, my dude, my guy, how the hell can you be this excited about something I do every show?”

“I’m getting a drink,” Zale mutters to Dexterity. “Meet you at the bar.”

“See you there,” they reply with a wink.

As he leaves the others the thoughts come floating back again. It happens whenever he's not occupying every thought and movement with something else. He tries to shove them out and focus on something else. But he knows that neither his mind or his body are truly occupied at the moment. He's alone and oh so helpless against it.

Against her.

Bonsai Warner haunts his mind like a ghost. An ever present feeling, but, only showing up when no one else is around.

As he winds his way through the other patrons he feels her presence slowly materialize. He can see her in his peripheral. Every part of her is a pristine version of the last time he got a good look at her. Her white skin and long, midnight black, hair. The light coffee brown eyes and bright tangerine colored veins. She wears a white tank top, one of his thicker hoodies, ripped jeans, and thigh-high black boots. A silver and blue ring sits on her right hand. Thin, leather, bracelets cover her wrists. A thin metal ribcage, with a small red stone, hung from a chain around her neck. Her winged eyeliner is perfectly done. Bonsai takes his hand and leans her head against his shoulder.

He doesn't resist.

Her voice whispers in his head.

You did great out there, Zay. I miss you so much.

He looks down at his feet and smiles; embarrassed. To him their relationship never made much sense. She deserved to be with someone who could give her things she wanted. Not a punk with a skateboard, a guitar, and a drug problem. Not to mention the fact that Bonsai Warner was completely out of his league. But he doesn't say anything.

Zale makes it to the bar without any sort of incident. He sits at the only empty seat, the last stool at the very end of the bar, and signals for the bartender. The centaur virus nods and returns a half-empty bottle of scotch to the shelf. He trots over at a causal pace.

He orders a double bourbon with no ice.

The others still haven’t arrived.

A minute or so later his drink is placed in front of him. The drink comes in a tulip shaped glass with a short, round, bottom. The liquor itself is a rich and see-through amber color. The hanging lights above the bar hit the glass and reflect a bright orange glint in the bourbon. Zale picks it up and brings the glass to his lips. It has a strong caramel smell with a small hint of vanilla. The liquor is smooth going down and tastes sweet. As he swallows, the caramel and vanilla flavors linger on his tongue, he turns around on the stool.

The image, only he can see, of his once girlfriend stands next to him.

Looking for the others he accidentally makes eye contact with a woman on the opposite end of the bar.

Her hair is a deep, dark, red. It flows down her back in large, swooping, waves. She wears a black ribbon style choker around her neck. A tight, black, dress with a plunging neckline, and a slit along her right thigh, leaves very little to the imagination. Even from the distance he can make out the ink in between her breasts. The tattoo is of a knife surrounded by peacock feathers. This mysterious woman gets up and makes her way to where he sits.

Zale downs the rest of his drink as the woman steps through his vision of Bonsai. The image of her dissipates like fog clearing. He turns back around and rests his arms on the bar. She whispers one last message before she goes.

Say hi to Mayor Whiskers for me. I bet he misses me.

"Hey there, stranger," the woman says as she sits. She speaks with a slight twang and a soft, comforting, voice.

"Hi," he says; staring straight ahead to avoid really looking at her.

"Heard y'all playing earlier. You were really good."

He shrugs and puts his glass down. Signally for a refill he mutters; "It's just the bass. Nothing special."

"Don't sell yourself short, sugar. Name’s Lotus, but, you can call me Lo."

With the drink quickly refilled he picks it up again. Zale smiles at her comment but tries to hide it with the rim of his glass. This is the last thing he wants right now. The memories, and the love he felt, are far too recent. Far too strong.

"You seem familiar," he says; turning to look at her.

As she starts to speak her face shifts. Her nose changes shape; becoming shorter and more round. The woman’s eyes change color. Shifting effortlessly into a light coffee. The crisscross of veins lining her face also turn from a light daffodil yellow. The woman's face morphs into Bonsai's and he freezes.

"Like your dead girlfriend?"

Deep down he knows that wasn't real. He knows this woman didn't say what he heard. But his mind and his heart drown out his common sense. His eyes go wide and his lips part, just barely, in shock.

What the fuck?!

He mutters the expletive to himself and quickly turns away from her. She gasps, audibly shocked and offended, loudly. Her thin, white, fingers grasp whatever's nearest. They close around the short, thick, glass some other bar patron was drinking from. She throws the rest of the drink on him and stomps away. The liquor soaks his hair and plasters the fringe on his forehead. He sputters; spitting out the bit that landed in his open mouth.

Apparently I said that out loud, he thinks as he watches her leave.

He downs the rest of his drink and orders another.

Bonsai materializes once more at his side. Zale wipes the liquor from his face with a napkin. He blinks as the image of her comes into focus. But before he can say anything to her the voices of his band-mates ring loudly through the bar. He sighs, relived, and turns to see the group with their unwanted groupie close behind. Dexterity sits on the open bar stool to his left. Emery sits on the opposite side.

“Can’t believe Zeph invited this shithead to drink with us,” he says through grit teeth. “Why can’t the guy grow a fucking backbone?”

Dexterity nods in agreement. They lift a hand to get the bartender’s attention. The centaur virus trots over and takes the order. But before he goes to fill the drinks Dex touches the man’s tattooed hand. The bartender blushes at the touch and turns back to face Dex. They lean in to whisper in the man’s ear. The man takes a napkin from somewhere behind the counter and hurriedly scribbles a phone number on it. As he passes the napkin to Dex they take the pen from his hand. They take his non-inked hand in their own and writes an address on his skin.

“I’ll leave the door unlocked,” they say as the bartender leaves.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Emery exclaims with an annoyed expression. “Some of us wanna get shit-faced, Dex!”

“Oh, you will,” they reply with a wink.

Let’s get out of here, babe.

He thinks about it and his gaze shifts to where Zephyr and E sit. They’re in deep conversation about the logistics of doing a pub crawl/concert tour. His gaze moves back to the friends sitting on opposite sides of him. Dex and Emery started a shot contest. Both are currently on their fourth shot of vodka. The bartender is excitedly watching the face off and pouring shots. But his infatuation with the drummer makes it more difficult than it normally is.

Zale reaches over the bar and takes a bottle of bourbon from the shelf. Thankfully the bartender is far too busy with the others to notice. He shoves the bottle in the inside pocket of his hoodie and zips it up. Flipping the hood over his head he steps off the bar-stool. He quickly gives his goodbyes to the others. Emery seems the most upset by his hasty exit. But Zale has his reasons; a lonely and starving cat at home.

So they let him go.

He weaves his way back through the crowded bar. Shoving past other viruses he heads straight for the backstage area. Zale quickly finds his way to the greenroom. Looking around he takes a minute to find his backpack. The faded blue material blended into the gaudy 50′s decor. Almost everything in the room was blue. He swears that the place didn’t look like this when the band came in earlier in the night. Unless it was and he just didn’t notice.

Thankfully his board is still sitting underneath his bag.

He slings the bag over his shoulder and carries his board under his arm. As he walks through the room to the rear exit someone loudly clears their throat. He turns to see Esteem leaning against the door frame.

“Need a lift?” he asks with a surprising sincerity.

“Nah, man, I’m good,” Zale says; gesturing with the skateboard.

“You sure? My bike’s right outside. Pretty sure I can get you home faster than your board.”

An annoyed growl escapes Zale’s lips as he steps up to the cow virus.

“What’s your plan here? Weasel your way into the group? You want an in and you’re trying everybody. And that’s why you’re offering me a ride. You want some reason to have an input on what we do.”

Esteem shakes his head and pushes himself off the wall. He chuckles and closes the remaining space between the two of them.

“You’re a helluva lot smarter than you look.”

Zale scoffs but says nothing. He turns away and crosses to the exit. The last thing he wants to do is talk with this guy. But the other man isn’t backing down just yet. He follows Zale like a shadow; barely even a step behind. He puts his hand on Zale’s shoulder as he pushes the door open.

“Hear me out, okay,” Esteem says. “I know what I’m talking about. My uncle owns Renegade Records so I can hook you guys up. Think about it, Zale. Do you really want to spend your entire goddamn career playing in shitty bars?”

“Newsflash, asshole, we’ve hated you the entire goddamn time,” he says; turning on his heels and walking through the door.

~~~

He walks through the cold night air with hands in the pockets of his hoodie. The dark gray hood is pulled over his head. His light brown fringe pokes out from the edge of the fabric. As he walks he lays his board down on the concrete and steps on. Using the bit of momentum he had he pushed the skateboard forward with his left foot. Cars, and a couple motorists, pass by ignoring him. Headphones in both of his ears, blaring music, block out the sound of the cars. The sidewalks are empty. Zale is as alone as he could have ever been.

But he wasn't.

He feels her at his back; looking over his shoulder. He hears her voice despite the music.

I miss you. Come with me.

He ignores her words and keeps his eyes forward. He knows that she isn't really there. She can't be. Ghosts don't exist. But he still feels her body against his, her arms around his chest, her head on his shoulder. He hears her familiar melodic voice in his ear.

Zale, c'mon baby. You know you want to.

He shakes his head violently as if he's trying to physically push her off him. That doesn't work. She's still there. Digging his foot down on the concrete he tries to move away from her. But she stays on him like a fly on a wall. His thoughts can't escape her on nights like this. She's always with him whenever he's alone.

As is his guilt.

Biting his lip he brings his left foot down again; pushing as hard as he can. He places that foot on the back portion of the board. Gliding down the sidewalk from his own force.

Zale rides his board for a couple blocks before turning into a driveway. The driveway turns into a gravel covered lot that leads up to a fence. Two sections meet in the middle to form a gate. A large lock and chain runs through the front of the gate. Thanks to the streetlights he can make out that much. But everything else beyond that is dark shadows against pitch black night.

Stopping with a hard grind he simultaneously slips the backpack off his back. He unzips the front pocket and takes out a flashlight. Setting it down on the gravel next to him he fishes a large pair of wire cutters from the bag. Picking up the flashlight he clicks it on. The light illuminates the ground in front of him. He shines the beam on the fence and the gate. A pair of bright yellow signs with black symbols warn of the dangers within. One has a silhouette of a fire and the other has a skull and cross bones.

Leaning in closer to the fence he moves the light around to attempt to make out what sits inside.

This isn’t what I meant.

“Yeah, I know,” he says aloud. “But this is what I’m doing so deal with it, babe.”

Picking up his board he walks to the eastern side of the fence; away from the front gate. Holding the flashlight in his mouth he kneels down a few inches in front of the metal. He makes quick work of cutting the thin metal. Returning the wire cutters to the backpack Zale then grabs hold of the cut fence. He’s careful as to not grip the sharp bits. His face scrunches up in a grimace as he pulls the fence away enough to move through.

Before crawling through the gap he shoves his board and his backpack through.

With flashlight in hand he wanders the area.

He walks quietly, passing building after building, with the presence of Bonsai at his side. Surprisingly she stays quiet for the moment. After some time he sees an open door to a building on his right. With an excited smirk he rushes over.

The door is barely open but he squeezes through.

“Well, would you look at that,” he mutters to himself.

Standing in the doorway he looks around the building. A series of furnaces line the farthest wall. Large, grate covered, windows hang high above the structures. Everything about this place forms the coolest looking ramshackle indoor skatepark he could have ever wanted. Thick, curved, metal sheeting forms a half pipe. One overturned metal table sits in the middle of the empty floor. Just looking at it he knows that it would make a good rail.

He sets his backpack down near the door and takes out the bottle. Opening it he takes a long drag and returns the cap. Carefully setting the bottle down by his backpack he gets on his board.

As Zale rides around the empty building, landing a few tricks, exhilaration rushes through his body. He runs the same routine and tricks until he gets bored of it.

With a tired sigh he slowly cruises back to his backpack.

Clutching the bottle by the neck he takes the cap off and throws it behind him. Taking a long chug from it looks around and sees a staircase near the door. Pulling the bottle from his lips he wipes the excess off with the back of his hand. He walks to the staircase and stumbles on his feet.

Sitting down on the bottom step he drinks his way through the rest of the bourbon.

When the bottle’s empty he throws it on the ground and it shatters. He chuckles. Rushing over to his board he picks it up and throws his backpack over his shoulder. Zale trips on his own feet and almost falls on his face but he catches himself. He rapidly turns the edge of the bottom step; his hand grazes against the rail.

Climbing up the rusted steps he grips the side rails as tight as he can. Looking down he sees the glass, and dust, covered floor. He can see the furnaces that sit along the far wall. The metal structures have large black spots around their doors. Signs of the fires that burned in them some time ago. Something near one of the furnaces catches his eye and he slips.

But he quickly catches himself.

You’re gonna get hurt, you know.

"I'll be fine," he says to no one.

At the top of the stairs he sets his board down and carefully steps on. The metal underneath him shifts and creaks loudly. Zale can feel that it’s dangerously close to collapsing. He feels his heart jump in his chest as he grabs the rail to avoid falling. He laughs out a shaky breath. Righting himself on the board he pushes off.

As he skates the air whips through his hair. The feeling sends a shock of euphoria through him. He rushes from one end of the catwalk to the other. When he realizes that he did so and made it out without a scratch he laughs. Pushing harder this time he shoots off and immediately turns the corner instead of stopping. Much to his surprise Zale makes the turn without a problem. Slowing down just a bit he cruises atop the catwalk and feels the air on his face.

Remember what else felt like that, but, times a million?

“Yeah, I do,” he says to the voice of Bonsai in his head. “But this doesn’t come with a side effect of death.”

Not a problem for you anymore, though, is it? Guess it isn’t for me either since you already killed me.

“I didn’t know,” he cried to the empty building. “I wouldn’t have done it if I did and I sure as hell wouldn’t have let you do it.”

THEN MAKE IT RIGHT!

"I'm sorry. If I could take it back I would! I'd trade places with you in a heartbeat but, dammit B, I can't."

He sighs audibly with frustration and turns another sharp corner. But his mind is otherwise occupied and so he misjudges the timing. Instead of cruising with the rail he sharply collides with the rusted metal. The half-broken rail gives way and he crashes to the floor.

Zale lands on his board and his head harshly hits the concrete. The force of the impact knocks him out almost instantly.

Toldja.

~~~

An hour or two, he has no idea, later Zale wakes up. He’s lying on his back facing the night sky above. As his consciousness returns he feels something poking his back. He smells the uncanny reek of lighter-fluid. With a groan he reaches behind his back and grabs hold of the object. He pulls it out and looks at it; more confused than he already was.

In his hand he holds a small plastic wheel.

Once again her voice floats through his head; Don’t you remember? Or is your mind that worn?

He ignores her. Struggling to his feet he stumbles slightly. He barely notices when the wheel falls from his fingers. Zale reaches out to the nearest thing in an attempt to keep his balance. His hand touches a cold concrete pillar and he latches onto it. Even with that stability he feels like he can’t stand. Bile rises up in his throat and he puts a hand over his mouth. 

“Hey kid,” someone yelled from across the street. “You’re not a kid anymore. What the hell are you doing?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Zale shouts back.

The stranger says something else but thanks to the blur in his head and the white noise in his ears Zale doesn't catch a word of it.

Shaking his head he tries to shake the fog from his mind. Nothing about this makes any sense. But then again not much made sense when it came to Bonsai. Sometimes he felt like he never actually knew her. And now he’ll never have the chance to see her again. To hear her voice.

He hears her in mind, but, that isn’t really her.

With a sigh he pulls his phone out of his back pocket.

He isn’t the least bit surprised when the screen is shattered. Small bits of glass fall out into his palm. Muttering under his breath he curses himself for putting his phone there. Carefully as possible he taps the screen; bringing the phone to life. The images of the screen and the apps are a mess of static lines and blocks of black.

Oh, poor baby. Calling for help?

Clicking the small white text box icon he opens his messages. He stares at the screen; scanning for the group text. After a minute or so he finds it. The text thread sits near the bottom of the list. He hadn’t sent anything through there in awhile. But the thread underneath it had been empty for a very, very, long time. It had been at least a year. Maybe verging on two now.

Her name glows brightly through the screen.

Zale’s thumb hovers over it for a minute.

But he clicks the one above it. He doesn’t type a message to the others. Instead he simply sends an emoji. A red square with a white capital “B” inside it. Leaving the phone in his hand he leans against the pillar. It’s cold and strangely comforting in the moment. He slides down into a crouching position as he closes his eyes. Closing his empty hand into a fist he taps it against his forehead.

Times melds into nothingness as his consciousness fades once again. Blackness covers his vision and he lets it overtake him.

Wake up, Zale.

“Go away,” he says with a tired, drunken, voice.

“Zale,” the voice repeats over and over again. Each time the voice repeats his name it’s louder than the previous time. But with each new iteration of his name the voice of Bonsai Warner fades away. It deepens and drops a series of octaves. The typical subtlety on her tone is replaced by a brash, loud, attitude.

He blinks slowly. His vision is blurry and he can only see swatches of color. Most of what he can make out is white. The edges are black. But there is a bright, almost blinding, watermelon pink at the top of what he can see. Zale blinks hard but the sensation of a harsh slap across his face brings him to.

“Wake the fuck up, dude!” Emery shouts.

“Hey,” Zale says, still tired and drunk but, happy. “You guys came for me.”

“You texted us,” Emery replied as if that explained everything.

“Of course we came, man,” Zephyr says; wrapping his friend’s arm around his shoulders.

“You think we’d leave you when you need us the most? I’m hurt.” Dexterity says with a fake pained voice.

They shoot Zale a wink and a smile. They take the other side of Zale, wrapping their arm around his waist, and help Zephyr walk him out of the building. Emery leaves and comes back after a few minutes with Zale’s bag in his hand. The parts of his skateboard are in Emery’s other hand. He apologizes to Zale and promises to buy him a new one. Zale shakes his head and declines the offer.

The quartet exits the building and walk out into the night.