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bl00dycoten · 2 years

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decoded signals and missed memories

snakes note: hello darlings! this is Pt.2 of the way it was! i don’t know when i’ll have pt.3 out yet but soon i hope, i’m so glad you guys actually like this story i had sm fun writing it and i’m planning on getting better with writing an everything.

side note: all characters are 18! characters like max and the boys are aged up as there is a part that has drinking in it. reader is 22 and eddie is 23, three year time skip. i will also link the song i used for this!

male version!

Eddie munson x ex popular best friend! reader

warnings: cursing, angst(i’m so evil all my stories are angst), hints at depression but not specified, alcohol mentioned, if i missed anything i’m sorry!

summary: After that night at eddie’s trailer, things changed for better and for worst, the first week you acted like everything was fine and okay, but soon you stop sitting with your regular group, then you quite the team, and caved in on yourself, after graduation you felt like you had to find yourself again, only way to do that was pack up your things and leave hawkins, three years later you come back for max’s birthday and more.

After everything that went down with Eddie, you dreaded facing him again. The first day after it happened you tried to act like you were fine, doing your daily routine except a lot was different. it felt strange to you, it wasn’t the routine you were used too, you didn’t get to glance at Eddie and make faces while in your shared classes, you didn’t meet his eye in the halls like before. he wasn’t hanging a few feet away from you locker pretending to not be waiting for you before walking away.

All the time for the first week it was a loop, you would wake up, get ready, do you new daily routine, and think about Eddie Munson for the rest of the day, you dazed off in class more, beginning to grow dark eye bags from the lack of sleep because when you did it would be the same nightmare, Eddie saying he didn’t want to be friends and that you guys had nothing special together. and every morning an even worsened nightmare, waking up to the reality that you had actually lost Eddie, it wasn’t just some nightmare you could shake off by calling Eddie and telling him about it. no you couldn’t even call him at all, but oh how much you wanted too. a month and 34days since you and eddie completely ended things, you looked the worst you’ve looked in your whole life, unbrushed hair, some outfits being repeated for days on end(usually the outfits that had eddie’s shirts with them), chapped and cut lips from biting at them which was a habit you had for a while, still had eye bags that seemed to grow the size of ufo’s at this point, to you at least, to others though you looked fine, normal even with your new sudden changes.

you stopped going out to parties, finding them not important because who wants to be in a house with a bunch of horny teens grinding on each other and music that was not something they would be caught listening to. you only kept in touch with one person during all of your struggles and that was the unexpected friend you gained after that terrible night. max mayfield an angel disguised as a devil once you get to know her. you love her and treat her like a little sister. so once you graduated you can bet having to make the choice to leave max didn’t hurt just a little, okay maybe not a little maybe a lot. it hurt a lot but max understood it was for the best and told you to write her and call whenever you could, and you did, you called her every weekend and wrote to her every weekday to fill her in on how their job was, you ended up making a couple of new friends after you stopped by a guitar shop and met this girl named Scarlett, and a dude named Xander. Scarlett was a dummer and Xander was a bass guitar, and all they needed in their band was a lead guitar and singer, not that they couldn’t sing they just weren’t comfortable enough to be lead singer.

so they created their own little band, thrones of madness(idk bro), you guys started off with covering songs from other bands like metallica, queen, iron maiden, black sabbath, ect. then that’s when you started writing songs, you used some to get over eddie and others just to sing about other peoples struggles or your own, you used your music as a way to heal others since you couldn’t heal yourself, you didn’t know if people would like the songs your band produced as rock isn’t as big to a lot of people but that’s okay 1 person or 1000 is better than none. that was three months into your move to a new town, during those three years away you told max everything, she was so happy to see you happy again.

“yeah, we have a gig tonight at a club an hour away but i’ll make sure to call you before i leave and when i get home, max.” (Name) says in the phone they had in their hand, they were leaned against their kitchen wall that was on the same side as the phone hanging on the wall. “you better, and don’t forget to sleep early tomorrow so you don’t fall asleep on your way here!” max laughed and joked with you.

“please i won’t fall asleep on the wheel, i promise mayfield.” (name) said and put their hand across their heart as if max could see. “mhm you better not! i want to see you for my birthday alive thank you very much.” max said. “the big 18 woah max you’re getting old.” you joked. “says you Mx. 22.” max teases back. “pfftt whatever, so anyways is lucas going with us or.” you questioned. “well dustin, steve, lucas and robin will be coming but i don’t know about mike and nancy.” max said. “mmm and no will, jonathan and el? i miss those pains in the ass.” max let out a loud cackle to what you said. “they said they would try to catch a plane from cali to hawkins but we’ll see.” “i hope they are able to make it, where exactly are we going to anyways? i know you wanted to go to a bar but there aren’t many bars around.” “this underground bar i heard about called the hideout? i don’t know it’s pretty popular to the teens in hawkins i guess.” max said, you stayed silent, thinking about what she said. the hideout? why did that seem so familiar? than it hit you, eddie would take you there when him and croddied coffin had gigs every Tuesday night.

The memories of eddie came rushing back to you and you feared you would run into him there, but why would he be there on a Friday night? him and croddied coffin only did gigs Tuesday’s because that’s the only day eddie was able to get him and the band that payed for weekly gigs. “oh okay sounds cool, is it new or something?” you lie. you don’t know why you did, you told yourself it was to avoid talking about eddie. “no actually it’s been open for quite awhile now.” max said and you could hear talking from the other side, muffled talking but it sounded like max’s mom calling her. “well i gotta go, duty calls!” max sighed,annoyed she had to hang up with you. “aweee alrighty, bye max i’ll see you soon.” you said and waited for max to say goodbye before you hung up.

Had it really been that long since you’ve seen eddie? i guess the first year after you left you started to forget about the older male. not that you full forgot him just that since it became a normal thing for you not to see him anymore, it made him stop sneaking into your mind like before, you still had your moments though. the second year was better than the first one, you still had nightmares but not as much. and now your third year was probably the worst it’s been, your nightmare was an every night thing for about three months now, maybe because of the thought about going back to hawkins for max’s birthday or maybe you were finally getting home sick, you couldn’t tell.

The day of Max’s birthday, you had just pulled into the parking lot of the hideout, dressed in your usual clothes, (oversized graphic tee, pants/skirt(optional ), and some converse. nothing to fancy especially for a place like this, they had to blend in not stick out, because trust me that was the last thing you wanted.

As you walk up to the door to wait for max inside, you catch yourself thinking about the first time eddie took you here, and how he helped pick an outfit for you so you didn’t stand out to much with all your bright clothes. you couldn’t help but smile sadly at the thought, shaking your head as you regain focus and enter the hideout, the first thing you do was look around making sure you saw no eddie and as if your prayers were heard no eddie was in sight, sighing happily you make you way to the bartender and ask for some cheep beer, taking a sip of it as soon as the nice ice cold drink was placed in you hand, eyes drifting to the random live band playing, they weren’t bad but they definitely played music they wouldn’t listen too at least. (Name) thought about their band, thorns of madness, they had taken scarlett and xander with them to hawkins but didn’t invite them to max’s hang out as it wasn’t their hang out to invite them to, so they stayed home or went out to town looking around, whatever they were doing though you hoped they were okay. after a good 5 minutes (Name)’s beer was finished and they went to order another one, when max walked into the hideout with everyone following behind her. “max!” you said happily as you got up and gave the young adult a big hug.

“(Name)! gosh i missed you so much.” max mumbled as she hugged you back tightly. “i missed you too, happy birthday you are now officially an adult, welcome.” you joke and did a fake little bow to her, making her and the rest of the group laugh. You caught up with everyone else, as you didn’t write to them as much as max but you tried. As you were talking to dustin though trying to catch up on how the young man has been since your departure. “yeah and than after the championship we all went to mikes place and bought so much snacks to celebrate it was insane, you should have been there walker.” dustin was taking about the latest dnd campaign they had with hellfire, dustin being the new dungeon master after eddie graduated. “oh! and i also had went over to eddies to tell him about the amazing win hellfire had! it had been awhile since i saw him but he looked a little i don’t know, not so eddie. like he was there just not there. i mean the man didn’t even react as much as i thought he would when i told him about the win.” dustin had began rambling and didn’t realize he brought up eddie until after the fact you and the rest of the group went silent, Max glaring laser’s at dustin for the slip up and you were lost in your mind, thinking about what could have made eddie not be himself, he was always himself no matter what so what could it be that is effecting him so much. you continue to stay silent as you zoned out. “great going henderson, now you’ve done it.” max grumbled, smacking dustin in the back of his head as she gently shook you. “hey, (Name).” max said. steve walked over to you as well and began poking your shoulder. “did they die?” steve questions. at that you snap out of your trance and slap steve’s hand. “stop poking me, harrington.” you ‘angrily’ replied. steve laughs and max sighs, while dustin mumbled a quite sorry.

mike and will were at the bar with jane who was trying beer for the first time in their lives and talking about how it taste like ass. lucas was laughing at them talking about how they are babies because he’s on his second beer already. mike and lucas ended up having a drinking battle which lead to steve, Nancy and jonathan taking the kids home, max ended up staying with you because hello it’s her birthday and she hasn’t seen you in so long. “i heard there was going to be a battle of the bands here on Tuesday, you and your band should play, i’m sure you guys would win.” max said after a few minutes of comfortable silence. “that’s only a few days away i don’t know if we’d have a song ready by then.” you shrugged, it wasn’t a bad idea, you wanted more people to hear your music but it was true, you didn’t have any songs at the moment. “oh come oh, pleaseeeee, i really wanna see your band live.”

max begged, it wasn’t the first time she has asked to see you live and you wanted to, so you thought long and hard about what song you can think of, then it hit you, the song you wrote a few days ago, after the nightmare came back, you couldn’t sleep and it felt like you were losing the battle you fought to win years ago. your band mates saw the change and tried to cheer you up, and they did, they gave you the idea to write a song for him, not a song you had to publish if you didn’t want to but just your own personal song from you to him. “you know what, i think i do have a song in mind. mayfield you’re gonna love it, i promise.” you grab her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. “i’m going to have to practice all day until then but Tuesday will be the best battle of the bands you will ever see.” you mumbled.

“it’s the only battle of the bands i will see.” max laughed. after a couple more drinks max said she had to go home for a birthday dinner with her mom, so you said you goodbye’s and went your separate ways, you were only thinking about the battle of the bands and how to prepare for the song you wrote for yourself personally would be sung in front of a crowd. it would be the most vulnerable you would be in front of everyone in years. after spending all of Saturday, Sunday and Monday practicing you felt confident in your skills. until when you showed up behind stage, you saw eddie and the rest of his bands, along with the other bands and soloist there to preform, it wasn’t a lot but it was more than they expected.

“shit.” (Name) mumbled and turned around quickly. “what?” Scarlett said as she looked at you. “Eddie and his band are here, fuck i should have known he would be here, this is a bad idea we should go.” clutching onto your guitar. “is he still there?” you say while looking at Scarlett. “yes, he is, i don’t know why you seem so scared, raise that head and show him what he lost.” Scarlett placed head hand on your shoulder and patted it a few times before walking towards the stage. “come on, we should be next after this band is finished.” taking a deep breath, you turn around, head held tall and walk past corroded coffin.

“hey isn’t that (Name) Walker from high school?” Gareth said after you walked past them, Eddie hadn’t noticed you until Gareth pointed it out. “No way that’s Walker, werent they a cheerleader/football player? what are they doing here.” jeff questioned. Eddie remain silent as the rest of corroded coffin talked about you, he couldn’t take his eyes off of you, you looked just as good looking as you did before, your new style suited you well, Eddie kept thinking.

“Eddie?” Gareth’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “Huh, Huh what?” Eddie questioned and looked at Gareth. “you zoned out, you good over there dude?” Gareth asked with concern. “Yeah, i’m fine man just dozed off a bit.” Eddie laughed it off and changed the topic to the song they would be performing when they were cut off mid conversation by the host announcing the next band to the stage. “next we have, thorns of madness! playing an original song called decode!” the host walks off stage and some people clap, max being the loudest out of the small group in the hideout for the battle of bands.

Scarlett turns to look at you. “i know this is going to be hard for you, just say the words and we stop okay?” you nod and grab her hand, giving it a good squeeze. “i know, Scarlett. i got this though, i mean if i can come back to Hawkins i can definitely sing a song.” you smile and take another deep breath. “let’s go out there.” Xander said and pats your head. “you got this, kid.” He sent you a smile and walked out, guitar in hand. Scarlett gave your hand a good squeeze before letting go and walking to take her place behind the drums.

”now or never.” you mumbled to yourself and began walking to the microphone in the middle of the stage, knuckles turning white from how tightly you were grasping onto your guitar as you made you way up the stairs. Max screamed louder as you made your way up to the microphone. “let’s go (Name) woahhhh!” max cupped her hands together and shouted. you chuckled and looked back at Xander and Scarlett, they both send you another smile and nod. xander begins the start of the song and soon scarlett and you start to play as well.

How can I decide what's right?

When you're clouding up my mind

you began the song with your eyes straight ahead, body movement at a minimum with how anxious you were. eyes locking with max and she gives you two thumbs up, which helped calm down your nerves as you began just going with the song and beat.

I can't win your losing fight

All the time

your face twisted into a frown as you sang that line, your fingers working their magic as you play your guitar, mind filling with memories of all the things you and eddie did, they were flashing before your eyes as you poured your heart out.

Nor could I ever own what's mine

When you're always taking sides

But you won't take away my pride

No, not this time

Not this time

you move your eyes towards the direction of were you last saw Eddie, not to your surprise he was already staring right at you, making eye contact was the last thing you wanted right now but you didn’t break it, no instead you sung the next line staring right at him.

How did we get here

When I used to know you so well?

How did we get here?

Well, I think I know

Eddie frowned while he played closer attention to the lyrics now, was this song about him? he thought to himself. You broke eye contact with him and looked back to the crowd letting your body go in autopilot.

The truth is hiding in your eyes

And it's hanging on your tongue

all you could do was bop your head to the beat of scarlett’s drums and xanders guitar playing, whatever felt right at the moment you let your body do, so you leaned closer into the microphone and swayed you body to the beat. You glance back at Eddie, watching him fidget with the rings on his fingers, he had a frown painted on his face and his eyebrows twisted.

Just boiling in my blood

But you think that I can't see

Breaking eye contact again as you closed your eyes, taking another deep break to calm yourself down once you began feeling you eyes tear up.

What kind of man that you are

If you're a man at all

Well, I will figure this one out

Eddie now had a pain in his heart, was this really how you felt? he thought maybe after everything you would have stayed the same you, probably wouldn’t have cared that Eddie stopped being friends with you, or whatever you guys were. if he had known his mistake would have caused you this much hurt, he wouldn’t have let you walked out, but he did because he was too much of a coward to confess so he did what he was good at, he ran away, from those feelings he felt for you, from your feelings and from you. He knew the reason wasn’t because he was scared the town would shun you, no he knew you could handle that. what terrified him more was that you would realize you deserved more than him and would leave, and so he left before you could hurt him.

On my own (I'm screaming, I love you so)

On my own (but my thoughts you can't decode)

Scarlett hopped on background vocals as the song got closer to the end of the song. Xander was looking down at his guitar while he played, his eyes drifting towards you every now and then to make sure you are doing okay, max had stopped cheering and was listening to the way you put your heart on your sleeve with this song, she could feel every raw emotion you had while writing this and performing it.

You finally open your eyes as your guitar solo comes up, scarlett was still playing the drums but xander was standing still, hands still in his guitar but not playing, he was watching you and scarlett play with a wide smile on his face. You sent him a smile back and continued to play while staring at max, leaning down towards the end of the stage as you got close to the ending of your solo, standing straight in front of the microphone you picked up were you left off.

Do you see what we've done?

We're gonna make such fools of ourselves

Do you see what we've done?

We're gonna make such fools of ourselves

Scarlett repeated the second verse of the song as you and xander played.

How did we get here

When I used to know you so well? Yeah

How did we get here

When I used to know you so well?

Xander hopped into singing along with scarlett as the song was getting closer to the end. You were focusing on your guitar playing, eyes drifting through the crowd of people as they jammed out to your song. it put an even bigger smile onto your face, you loved seeing people enjoy your music.

I think I know, I think I know

There is something I see in you

It might kill me, I want it to be true

You sang the ending of the song, making sure you look towards Eddie as you finished the last bit of the song. the crowd was silent for a bit after the music stopped, then eddie started clapping, then max and soon everyone in the hideout was cheering for you and your band. You walked off the stage with Xander and Scarlett behind you.

“Oh my god! that was amazing, we did great they loved us up there!” scarlett squealed loudly while clutching onto her drum sticks. “we rocked guys!” xander said and placed his arms around you both. “couldn’t have done it without your amazing voice and skills though, Walker.” Xander ruffed scarlett’s hair, making the younger girl push him away. “hands off bro, my hair doesn’t naturally look this good.” scarlett joked and flipped her hair, hitting xander in the process. “oh please guys, we all did great out there, you guys definitely got to sing together more, your voices sink so well together!” you blurted excitedly while moving your guitar so it was placed on your back.

As you and your band were talking about how great the preference was Xander suddenly cleared his throat and jerked his head behind you. “Um (Name).” Eddie’s voice was heard from behind you, making you jump a bit from how close his voice sounded, turning around quickly you are met with the long curly haired metalhead. “Munson, it’s been a while.” you smiled at him kindly. You don’t know why your body was acting on its own.

“Yeah, it has oh uh! your band was really amazing, giving me a run for my money in this battle of the bands this year huh.” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously and chuckled. “Thank! we have been playing for about two years now, starting to spread out our gigs and everything. i was actually in town for max’s birthday when i found out about this so.” you rambled on without knowing and clutched onto your guitar strap.

Xander and Scarlett had slowly begun moving toward the exit, scarlett throwing you a thumps up and making a quick run to max. “So um, i just really wanted to talk to you about that night, i know i should be apologize because i said some pretty shitty things and i know that now and i’m just trying to say that the reason i let you go that night wasn’t because i wanted to stop being friends with you it was because i realized i l-“ during Eddie’s rambling, Gareth came over and tapped him on the shoulder. “Eddie we are up next, man let’s go. Oh what’s going on walker! amazing gig out there, really giving corroded coffin a run for its money.” Gareth had smiled and laughed while patting Eddie’s shoulder. “Thank you, Gareth. i’m sure you guys are much better though i mean i’m fairly new to this and haven’t been playing guitar as long as eddie has but thank you, it means a lot i’m glad you enjoyed the show.” you replied kindly even though your eye was twitching from the younger males interruption. “Gareth. Dude, i’ll be there in a second just let me finish my conversation with (Name) and i’ll be there.” Eddie muttered and sighed annoyed at the interruption as well.

“Okay, see you next time Walker!” Gareth waves and walks off back to jeff and the other member of corroded coffin. Eddie cleared his throat, making you turn your head back to look at him. “right, please continue.” you pinched your knuckles growing even more anxious as time goes on. “what i’m trying to say is i really really L-“ eddie was once again cut off before he could even spit it out, an angered look on his face as the host talks. “Amazing preference by thorns of madness, now our next and last band of the night! everyone give it up for corroded coffin!” the host walked off stage and gareth came running back. “eddie let’s go.” he tugged on eddie’s arm.

“okay, okay i’m coming, if you want (Name) meet me at my house, it’s the same old trailer as before. be there please and i’ll finally be able to finish without distractions.” eddie gently grabbed your hand and gave it a squeeze. “yeah, okay sure.” you relied back without thinking, you would probably regret that later but it’s okay, you thought to yourself as you watched Eddie and gareth walk up to the stage, hearts pounding in your chest just from the small touch you both had. “fuck, not again.” you whispered and placed a hand over your chest. There they are again, the butterflies in your tummy, the sweaty palms and fast beating heart. you had fallen for Eddie munson all over again, and you couldn’t help but want it to work this time, second times a charm right?

Tag list: @lovelyela @demonstracija

#stranger things x reader #stranger things #eddie munson x gn!reader #eddie munson x reader #snakes oneshot #snakes speaks

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lotti-lyric · 2 years

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hey!! could i please get a matchup with one of the male bnha students? im v curious about who id be good with

my pronouns are she/her, i’m about 5’7, blonde, i need glasses but sometimes wear contacts & my dress sense is like girly emo idk how else to describe it im sorry 😭

i’m an enfp 7w6, im usually v hyper and talkative but i can be chill too i swear :’) i definitely need someone with a good sense of humour to talk to for sure, im rarely serious ahaha- i try to stand up for others but im not always open with my own emotions? idk man i dont like to trouble other people too much with it

i’m an artist, and im also into makeup, fashion, cartoons, a few video games (i am extremely competitive i come here to kick ass >:) ) and i have a v varied music taste, but im especially into pop, kpop and alternative bands (cough especially paramore <333)

my love languages are physical touch and quality time which basically just means i am clingy ™️ so we love that for me 👁👁 if you can’t handle me pestering you and spamming you with texts and tiktoks 24-7 i am not the one

i think that’s about all? thank u sm!!!

charlotte’s interlude 💗-HIII!! so so sorry for the delay!! i hope you enjoy this, you seem so fun holy moly!! i hope your day is fantastic as well!! also i was listening to the song i chose for yall on loop while writing this, it’s much longer than i remember🧍🏼‍♀️

warnings; swearing

i match you with…

Denki Kaminari!! (aka Chargebolt)

this!! ^^

yALL ARE SUCH A FUN COUPLE I HAD SM FUN WRITING THIS UGH

those aren’t ur glasses 🤨 those r kaminari’s now, he’s wearing them all the time 💀🤚🏻 bring backup contacts bestie 😭

he loves ur more emo style and makeup!! do his eyeliner pls

when you’re more hyper, i pray for everyone around you 💀 you both are so chaotic, bouncing off the walls and generally just having the time of your lives with each other

on the flip side, when you’re more chill, he super appreciates that too so y’all can relax together afterwards, having real talks and escaping the hectic day

he’s always there for you when you’re comfortable with opening up, you’re never a burden and he always makes sure you know that!!

he loves when you stand up for him! it makes him feel important and gives him butterflies hehehe

he loves your art so much!! he always gets super excited when you make a new piece and loves to just admire you as you work

the video game tournaments get so intense it’s actually a bit frightening 💀💀 it’s all in good fun!! you both just get competitive and it’s v funny

cuddling each other while listening to paramore, carding through his hair as you let our everything that’s been bothering you 💗

you’re stuck in an endless tiktok back and forth over text 💀

#bnha fanfiction #boku no hero academia #bnha x reader #mha fanfic #bnha hcs #bnha x self insert #bnha matchups #mha x reader #bnha headcanons #mha headcanons #mha hcs #bnha matchup #mha matchups #mha matchup #bnha kaminari #denki kaminari

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levmada · 2 years

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First Times Anthology, ch4: kiss me, please

work summary » Intimate, vulnerable, gentle. Concepts Levi is a stranger to, until you.

ch.summary: No more second-guessing, no more doubts. You learn that love really can bloom on the battlefield, and Levi chooses to be happy.

content/warnings: a magical night, doting over Levi, dancing and teaching Levi to dance, Hange ships it, descriptions of severe hypothermia, everyone is insecure, a tad of jealousy, sick Levi, unapologetic flirting, Special Operations Squad say hi, very vague description of nightmare, a little sexual tension, fluff overdose

wc: ~12.4k(AHHH)

a/n: i've been working on this since i came down w/ covid in january, which i think will be evident in this chappy😭 but i enjoy writing these two idiots fall in love sm. i had a ton of fun, but expect it'll be a sec before the next update. this one is long.. the longest chapter i've written ever, period, so if u read grab a snack djfnjrfr

previous part・work masterpost・next part

Listened to while writing:

taglist: @peace-for-levi [if you'd like to be added, lmk!]

What a horrifying shock it is to finally feel safe enough to get your hopes up again.

Levi is no stranger to loss in his life, but as he watches you put on your concentration face, seamlessly navigating the straps of your ODM gear, he’s struck by a terrifying thought: Maybe things will be different this time. Maybe I won’t get left behind again.

Blinking in his slight stupefaction, he tightens his belts, the squeeze snug and familiar. With practiced ease, he loops his cravat around his collar and ties it as he wanders over to you. You’ve just now laced your boots.

“Let me,” he tells you, and without another word kneels and starts his quality check of the ODM belts double-looping around your thighs and hips. There’s no convincing him there’s no need; you’ve learned that by now.

With a quirk of your lips, you spread your legs apart to give him more room. “Why thank you.”

He grunts. So accustomed to your touch now, he hardly even pauses when your hand lands in his hair, petting. Rather, he looks a bit thoughtful towards the last belt tethered across your chest, hesitates, then moves to tighten it.

You arch a brow at him. “Finished, Captain?”

Warmth pools below his navel. Instead of saying anything intelligent, he manages a nod and squeezes your knee before he leaves to summon his squad. Maybe if he acts normally this hopeful terror will dwindle a little; he won’t have to stew in it and it’ll quit raging inside him.

Regardless of the dynamic your relationship has morphed into, there’s very little room to play favorites out in Titan country. Now that you’ve accepted Levi's proposal—to fight alongside him as his (and the Corps’) de facto Lieutenant—he’s been given less reason to give in to his urges and do just that: play favorites.

It’s a little early in the year for an expedition, but this one should be simple: Erwin wants to reclaim a few minor checkpoints lining the waterways that lead to Shiganshina; an operation he and Levi estimated taking three days or less. The expedition shouldn’t be the major pain in the ass the brass makes it out to be, but Levi isn’t one to place bets like the Commander.

Riding alongside him and the more hot-blooded veterans he recruited into his fold some months ago—it kickstarts your heart a certain way. Gunther nods to you in kind recognition, and Petra smiles especially tenderly with your addition to Levi Squad.

You flash her a knowing smile back. As a friend you know her better than most, and her bright spirits quell the way Oluo stares flatly, unable to imitate the staunch glare on Levi’s face. As your squadron of horses approach the gate, you trap your tongue between your teeth to stop from sniggering.

As Hange incessantly rambles to Levi, you notice Oluo glaring at you, specifically. It’ll be minutes before the gates rise, so you’re hard-pressed to ignore him. He reminds you of a man from your past squadron, mostly in the way he places himself on such a glaringly high pedestal.

“What?”

Oluo scoffs like a prince. “You might be more of a veteran than the rest of us, but things work differently on this squad than anywhere else. Don’t think you’re special just because the Cap–”

“Hey, idiot!” Petra objects, “she’s known Levi longer than any of us. What if—and hear me out—you were nicer for a change?”

You roll your eyes. Levi doesn’t play favorites, after all. The reason he chose you is for your battle prowess, and besides, he knows you better than most here. We’re close, super close. But not like that.

You’re happier to be (physically) closer to him, as selfish as that is to admit to yourself. Levi is arguably the least likely to get killed out there than anyone, but just having your best friend (and the man you spend the occasional night alone with) within arm's reach helps brighten your spirits.

“Hey!” Levi rears his head towards Oluo and his blathering mouth. “Keep my Lieutenant’s name outta your mouth, Bozado. Eyes ahead.”

You fight back a smile as your and Levi’s eyes briefly meet. Oluo bites his tongue.

It was supposed to be simple, but the easiest missions and the hardest are both relatives to tragedy. Heaven can become hell at the flip of a coin—a chance only Scouts are willing to take.

The frigid air cut at your skin on the first afternoon. Titan encounters were common, so much so it seemed every one of Levi’s orders to engage followed right after another; when one duo of stumpy, idiotic-types came up on your rear, a trio seemed to take their place before the steam wafted away.

“But… We’re in the center of the formation,” Petra protested, each hasty puff of air leaving her mouth fogged. “Why–”

Black flares like rising storm clouds shot up into the air, informing every Scout with eyes to see that the rear squads had been all but wiped out. Already.

Hange’s theory was that the plummeting temperatures were forcing the Titans to cluster in abandoned villages along the riversides where it wasn't yet freezing. Titans get cold too, Hange claimed, but either way the mission was all but kaput; unless the Scouts went about slaying them all.

Hunkered down in a dilapidated church that evening—the Corps’ makeshift war room—your heart sank to your stomach at the number of casualties. Not even Hange, and especially not Levi was immune to the dire mood.

The debate was whether it was better for the Survey Corps to count its losses and return home with its tail between its legs, or soldier on.

Levi recalls the growing unease he felt, how every time he glanced over the way you chewed your lip. Your eyes would meet and he would look away, as quick as he could.

He and Mike thought it best to return back, but there was the threat of the Wallists’ growing influence, siphoning money away from the Scouts and into the pockets of pigs. You and Hange wouldn’t give it up, and Erwin took the gamble.

Now, the way you looked is all he can think of: The lift in your brows, and later, how you squeezed his hand tight. He’d told you, as he always did since that night, which sticks out particularly bold in his memory: “Survive tomorrow. As your superior, that’s an order.”

As a side effect of his efforts to quell his violent shivering, his whole body is as stiff as a board. His jaw aches as he pops a cartridge into the flare gun and shoots upward. The smoke is rich and purple, signaling the shitty emergency he’s neck-deep in currently.

“Shit,” he hisses, doubling back against the rough tree bark he leans against, squinting up at the clouds. Past the heavy snow flurries in a world of slush, twilight crawls across the sky. It’s getting dark. “Wo-Won’t even see it.”

The death of day comes with an even crueler drop in temperature and visibility—no matter how the fresh snow illuminates the landscape. More on the bright side, he thinks now is the time to maneuver down from this tree. Titans never fail to drop dead with the sun gone; not to mention the cold.

He squeezes his gloved fingers into tight fists and peers over the edge of the branch. His previous five-meter onlookers are gone. He’ll have to climb down now that his gear’s defunct, all because of the damn cold on this damn expedition too early in the damn year—the ice froze his wires. If he tries to pull his triggers again, just like last time he’ll hit the forest floor rolling, the lines sagging uselessly by his sides.

Or, he could wait for rescue—a party you better be a part of. You better be okay. The snow better have slowed the Titans enough to give you and the rest of his squad the reprieve you needed to survive after he separated. The reason he did, ironically, was to thin out the number of abnormal-types in wake of the enormous losses they’ve sustained this time.

Will rescue even come? Levi isn’t stupid—he knows his own value to the Scouts—but he sorely hopes Erwin isn’t reckless enough to commence a search-and-rescue mission in this shit. In equal measure, he hopes you aren’t stupid enough to risk your life by going alone.

No. It's not in his blood to wait around: either for a helping hand or for death to come. He needs to find his fucking horse (that's been deaf to his whistles for it so far), or he needs to find shelter. Trudging through miles of a snowscape on foot in search of the formation is a fool’s errand.

His fingers are stiff and painful when he bends them to find some traction in the tree bark. The surface is rough and unforgiving, but with the plethora of branches around, he’s smart enough to utilize his useless wires as a lasso to repel down.

The final jump down is unforgiving too. It knocks the air from his lungs and meets him with a bank of snow that swallows his shins. His breath leaves him in puffs of fog. He again grits his teeth to keep them from chattering.

With a grunt he rises to his feet, another whistle for his horse piercing the air. Still nothing. To make himself any louder would involve sticking his fingers between his teeth, but the idea tastes rancid. He’s sure even a second of exposed air will freeze the digits right off his hands.

A fire? No, it’s not like he can strike a flame when everything around is frozen solid.

Fucking January weather.

He’s too low on flares to use them on a whim. Shucking one of his blades from its scabbard, he uses it as a makeshift shovel: it won’t work for anything else, as dull as it is. Every now and then, he pierces the air with another whistle as he makes his way.

Sometimes, Levi can be a self-admitted masochist. It’s equal parts distraction and torture to turn his thoughts back to you when you’re not there, or to think back to a warmer time; one where you were sipping something warm before a roaring fireplace. Right now, he would even prefer listening to Hange blather on about things he doesn’t understand than suffer on in reality.

You stroked his arm, strong and littered with scars, and beneath the coffee table, knocked his ankle against yours in some strange game of footsie. You speckled kisses on his knuckles and he kissed where your shirt fell down just past the odd freckle on your shoulder.

“Oh, c’mon. Haven’t you ever played footsie before?”

“Haven’t you ever kept your hands to yourself?”

“...No.”

He was hard-pressed to indulge you out of how childishly soft it all was, how sweet and sick it made him feel. He knocked your foot away with his own, pinned your toes to the floor, but when have you ever been the type to give up?

Locking both of his sock-clad feet around your ankles, he hastily kissed your temple and snagged your waist to drag you into his lap. When you shrieked, his eyes went wide—immediately, he assumed he somehow hurt you.

Your belly shook with laughter, collapsing back into his chest. “You tickled me, you bastard! Don’t ever do that again!”

So, with profound satisfaction he did it again, and again. All over your sides, beneath your shirt, and the backs of your thighs.

He hates how infectious your laugh is, how unfair it is to have you, but never to keep you. You share nights, but not days. You’re promised today, but not the stretch of tomorrow.

Maybe that’s why he hates to be treated like he’s something to be cared for. You treat him too softly, with too much care. It hurts to be cared about. It’s too much. He can’t…

He can’t walk anymore, not through a foot of snow, fighting heaving breaths.

At this point, his horse must be dead. He stops trudging. Dusted with snow, his dull blade is fit to break, so he decides to use its dying moments to clear a little spot before a wide trunk. Pressing his back against it, he slides down into a sit.

Just my luck. Not even a hole in the ground to crawl into around here.

Levi leans his head back against the bark, feeling snowflakes cut into his cheeks and stick to his lashes. The sky is sickly grey, and his situation isn’t pretty either. He could die here.

His masochistic streak runs deep today. He never answered your question about footsie: I only did kiddy stuff like that with Isabel, he‘d say, if you were here.

It'd be nice if he was still shivering, too. If his body isn’t warm enough to shiver, he’s cold enough to freeze.

“Shit.”

Sniffling in wake of the dry air, he huddles in on himself, thinks, fuck it, and tears one of his gloves off. Even if he loses some fingers to frostbite, at least he won’t be dead.

The whistle that pierces the air first is sharp, but along the endless fray eventually grows wistful with his efforts and his chapped, dry lips.

Levi is strong, though—he keeps this up until his fingers fumble and his breathing thrashes. Sat hunched, his efforts grow more meager as the cold penetrates his blood.

Still, he persists, your voice in his memory. He keeps going. He thinks he hears his name uttered a thousand times, tenderly, quietly, very close by. He keeps going.

And going.

Going…

Petra screams your name like banshee, not far from where you urge your horse around the perimeter of a field blanketed by snow.

This spot isn’t far from where you found Levi’s own. It was dead—a sturdy, Corps-bred horse, frozen to death. Despite your limbs, leaden with dread, her call breaks through your half-frozen mind. You rear your horse back, racing in her direction.

You’ve never been so terrified. When Wall Maria fell, even past your share of close calls over the years—nothing trumps Petra’s scream and the sick, growing darkness filling the pit of your stomach.

Ice cuts against your cheeks, chilling to the bone. No one thought things would get this bad: it was a disastrous series of events, like dominos falling one after another. No one could’ve predicted a freezing hellscape, or Levi going MIA. It was unthinkable—and it is.

Though hope won’t cooperate, you race in her direction and force yourself to prepare for the worst. The air is so cold it feels like tiny razors to take it in; nothing hurts more, but nothing is more satisfying than taking that next breath.

Heaps of snow slow your horse’s pace to a crawl. At the sight of Petra and a small, hunched form against the tree, you think, to hell with it, and tear off your horse. In desperate leaps through the snow, you crumple down next to her.

Without a second thought tear off your cloak and drape it over Levi (as Petra already has her own), who sits eerily still. He still has a pulse, she tells you, just as her emergency flare finds the sky.

“He’s not sh-shivering, but I couldn’t just–”

Tearfully, you cut Petra off with a bark of Levi’s name. His skin is cold like the underside of death, the pallor of it too. Frost sticks in his bangs. He doesn’t answer. Petra watches, frozen stiff somewhere behind you. You don’t hear her.

Next, you tear off both your gloves, and tuck the thick cotton beneath his chin—any warmth you can get. When you don’t immediately find a pulse there, a shot of twisted desperation eviscerates your insides. Bringing your palm back, you slap Levi across his face.

The first blend of colors and shapes that bloom in Levi’s half-lidded vision turn out to be you. He fights to say your name, slurring it heavily, fights to even recall when he fell asleep.

“Where’d…” Petra’s here too. “Huh?”

It’s best to keep him talking. You do just that while Petra, relief written all over her face, races to corral your horse over alongside hers.

You wrench off your woolen hat, then your scarf—neither of which are uniform—and fit them on Levi instead. You don't even sense the fresh cold invading your skin. Nothing else exists.

He blinks, dazed, when you stumble through the question of, “How bad is it?”

Well, his cheek stings. As he is he can barely work the muscles in his face to speak, let alone stand up.

“Not...N-Not bad,” he replies.

“Right.” You could laugh. “No sleeping, you hear me?” You pat his flaming cheek again—pained that you had to hit him—before Petra crouches at your side and hands you the bundle of cloths.

“Captain?”

His closed eyes sluggishly twitch.

Petra and you exchange a glance. You’re desperate. “Levi, a Titan’s about to get us, it’ll eat me if you–”

With a jolt off the bark he jerks straight up, giving you the opportunity to drape your arm around his upper back. It’ll cost you if you aren’t gentle.

He breathes hard amidst the sea of your body heat while Petra takes the cotton presses (these, staked over a closed flame until night fell before you left camp) and covers his lap, his chest; it’s the best you can do for now. Your cloak ends up tethered around him like an extra coat.

“Hey…” Levi’s fumbles to press the small mountain of warmth closer to his cold body, mumbling, “M’gear’s broken. If. F’there’s…”

“It’s alright,” you murmur. “Petra.”

It takes two counts of Petra’s name before she reacts. She can’t wipe the shock off her face of seeing Levi in this state, and while it’s not the first close call you’ve had, just once is too many. Your heart is hammering.

She’s to join Oluo and Gunther, who joined the search as well. They must've seen her signal flare.

Her lips part, then close. “Lieutenant, are you sure?”

“Sure,” Levi mumbles from very close beside you, dizzily blinking at you. He’s beginning to shiver now that he’s warming up.

You shoot her a somber look, and nod. “I need you to report back—we’ll be right behind you.”

Petra nods, reassured, and rises again. It isn’t hard to catch up using the flares, and a word back to Erwin needs to come sooner rather than later. It’s easier this way.

Teeth chattering, “you ‘kay?”

“I’m okay,” you assure, your heart breaking. You can’t help but press your and Levi’s foreheads together, just briefly.

The fact that he can ask such a thing while hunched before you, having nearly froze to death, will never not hurt.

Gently, you invite him into your arms so you can pick him up, or at least help him to stand. Any sudden movements, as close to freezing as he is (or was) would strain his body too much.

He leans almost entirely against you, and you bear his weight. He doesn’t try—or maybe is unable—to pretend he can stand on his own. He even seems to forget Petra was ever here.

“Don’t tell me. You came ‘lone.”

“No sir,” you reply, breaths useless and shuddering.

Similar to him, you feel your legs may give out at any moment, but for different reasons. No matter how long your tenure with the Scouts, that urge to cry never fails to bubble up to the surface so easily, like your heart’s made of glass.

He grunts, blinks harshly. “That’s my girl.”

It comes slurred and heavy, but the words split a pained smile across your cheeks. He won’t succumb to the cold on the way, you reassure yourself. It’s okay. It’s okay. Determined, you keep him talking as you meander your way to your snuffling horse.

It seems his legs don’t want to cooperate right now, but there’s warmth—you, and more: a thick layer of extra capes, cloths, layers buffing up his form. He probably looks like some kind of bear. He’s surely as warm as one, the heat sinking its talons into the aimless dizziness he feels.

As his foot is shoved into a stirrup and a saddle appears underneath him, your hands show up from behind, cradling him where he sits. He shivers harder than before, then shakes and shakes.

Your chest lifts. A good sign.

“You’re doing so well, Levi,” you praise, light like a feather, and kiss the top of his head—that beanie of yours—as you urge your horse into step. “Are you cold?”

“Be craz-y.. i-if I was–wasn’t.”

He ducks down a little more, cringing at the breeze: it feels like razor blades. At his back you’re a furnace, but he notices, idly, that you’re not covered up like he is.

He’s not in danger anymore, not of freezing anyway, so he meagerly protests. You have no gloves, not even your cloak—just the jacket on for protection. Somewhere down deep, he’s seething with panic.

“You’re one to talk,” you scoff, kissing his frozen ear. “You could’ve died.”

He coughs. He doesn’t think so, but he’s already lost that train of thought. “You okay?”

“Yes,” you breathe. “I’m okay.”

Is this real? He thought he heard your voice or sensed you close by many times before this moment. Memory of the sting of your palm across his face is easier to recall than when you spoke so gently to him. Pain is always easier to remember.

“You–” He shuts his eyes, and sluggishly finds your free hand. The contact will have to do, as his fingers are too stiff to do much else. “Shit.”

You gave him your cloak, even draped it over his shoulders. It reminds him of one the first heart-to-hearts you both had, back when the Wall first fell. Now, the roles are reversed. His heart stalls in his chest. He shivers harshly.

There’s meaning in that, but none he can roll over in his mind in this state. He thinks it’s the cold that’s running his emotions so high.

“I’m here,” you assure, picking up into a gentle gallop. Worry grows when he doesn’t reply. “Levi. Talk to me.”

He realizes something, and feels sick. Maybe, if he really did die out here, he would’ve gone with regrets. Beyond the Titans—a war which won’t be over in your lifetimes—if he died and you lived, what would that mean for you? You’d move on, you’d have to, but he never would’ve gotten to speak any of these soulbound thoughts; things he wants you to know, but just… hasn’t gotten around to saying.

He doesn’t even know what it’s like to kiss you.

He rubs your wrist, signaling he’s awake. The shivers that wrack his body are almost violent, shaking out the cold.

Your lips are at the shell of his ear again. “I’ve got you. Forget the cold, okay, and when we get back, we’ll have tea. And I’ll clean your bathroom. Does that sound good?”

He can't answer. He’d stutter too much to make any of it make sense; just grunts to show he heard you.

The woolen hat slips a little. There’s a dusty layer of ice coating the crown of his head, making the urge to brush it off almost unbearable. You fix it instead, and focus on the forest in front of you; on returning back. There’s no guarantee that the weather will clear up by tomorrow, that you’ll make it back, but one thing at a time.

Your tongue darts out to wet your dry lips. Craning your neck, you notice his slow, shallow breathing. He seems on the verge of falling asleep again.

Dammit. You’d have too many regrets if he died today, or before you were back home, safe—as safe as you both could be, anyway

You urge your horse into a stronger gallop, squeezing his now-sweaty hand. Yours are clammy too.

“Hey. What if—when we get back to Trost—I’d kissed you? Would that be crazy?”

At once his eyes fly open. He shudders harder. You think you catch a small noise in his throat, but he kills it before letting it escape.

You’re burning all over. “Like on a date,” you clarify, barely even hearing yourself. “Could I?”

“S’not crazy.” His voice sounds like he’s been gargling glass. He’s shivering, head bowed, as if shrinking into your arms. It’s too dark to see his expression.

“Y-Yeah? Promise?”

“I prom–promise.”

The expedition was cut short, of course. There were casualties on the way back—cutting into the Scouts’ wounded pride further—but everyone important to you was still pulling breath when you reached the gates. That’s what matters.

“If things changed…”

“We’ve been through everything together, this is no different,” you resolve, as final as a breath. You smooth that worried wrinkle between Levi’s brow with a single pointer finger.

True to your word, you both made it back behind Rose, but he wouldn’t let himself be confined to the wagons carrying the injured—typical for the most stubborn man you’ve ever met. Rather, Erwin hesitantly allowed him to ride with the supply wagons (the safest part of the formation) while you and Eld oversaw the rest of the squad.

By the time the Wall was looming into view, you couldn’t tell if it was worry or relief that was making you sick. Levi swore up and down that he was fine, ignoring anyone who told him otherwise all the way into the night. He explicitly warned you’d have to drag him to the clinic before he got these death certificates signed and condolence letters written. That was until you slammed both hands down on his desk, told him, Take a shower and get your ass in bed, or what did I go through all that worry for?

If you were Hange or Mike, he probably would’ve glared you down with another scathing, Fuck off. He did look at you pretty viciously, but he has a soft spot for you; after all, he better.

As it turns out, he fell ill the next day—scraggly coughing, a swelling fever. You didn’t need Hange to tell you that it was a case of a stubborn cold.

Honestly, you were relieved. You prefer a sick Levi than what could’ve been the day you lost your best friend. Of course you petitioned Erwin to let you take care of him, which didn’t take much convincing. Hange was in the room when you informed Levi—for extra insurance.

He wasn’t happy with the idea of a nurse, but at least it was you. He surrendered with a dismissive wave of his hand the moment your brow began to raise. Hange laughed at the sight. It was only later, out in the hallway, that they said anything about it.

“You know, everyone and their dog thinks there’s something going on between you two.” They scrubbed their hands together. “C’mon! Divulge a little.”

Before all the blood in your body could attack your face, you acted incredulous at the idea and waved them off, your stomach fluttering like a hundred angry butterflies. Levi couldn't have heard even if he was well enough to prowl around—he was finally asleep by then.

As much as he rejected the idea of a caretaker, it’s only about as unbearable as doting in a sick kid—that is (and it makes you smile to think of it), Levi ironically gets bratty when he’s sick: He shoves away the sheets when the hot flashes invade, only to shoot you the most vehement pout when the chills return with a vengeance; coughing his lungs up and then insisting he doesn’t need any help (in his version of reality, he never needs help) until his throat starts burning.

Before then, it took a total of three lectures and a visit from the Commander (plus forcing a thermometer in his mouth) for him to accept the fact that he’d come down with something.

“Try putting that thing in my mouth and your fingers won’t bend the same after.”

“You're impossible. C’mon, be a good boy.”

“Shut the hell up!”

Today, he's much better. His fever broke sometime last night, taking the stiff aches and watery eyes with it.

It’s not as if you two aren’t stepping around the elephant in the room, but it’s easy to stick to his bedside like glue when he’s sick; that in mind, you both have an excuse not to address it.

You have plenty of free time too. Now that expeditions are on hold until springtime breaks in the new year, the Scouts have been given time off.

Your lips curl into a small, meaningful smile. Beneath his mountain of blankets, he sniffles through the congestion and eyes you warily.

Though his independence has been so violently stripped from him since that day, you both have bigger issues. You’ve sharply shifted the soft, tentative feelings you share, tethered beneath the title, best of friends.

This is the first time the topic has even remotely come up. He only felt well enough to indulge in deeper conversation with the rise of this morning’s sun. You pretend the anxiety isn’t eating you alive.

His sick pallor still leaves him as pale as the snow, but you bet if he really tried, he could fool most into believing he just hasn’t slept well recently. Dousing your rag again, you dab the cold sweat across his brow away, only for his fingers to wrap around your wrist.

Another heap of anxiety, then guilt jabs at you.

Unsure, he watches you through bleary lids, licking at chapped lips. “Don’t avoid the question. You meant it.”

It’s a question, though he doesn’t phrase it that way. He knows you did, but he needs to hear it from you.

Gently, you pry his fingers away, giving them a little squeeze.

You did. It was out of the blue, sudden, but your feelings have been blooming for forever; from a sprout, exploding into a painful bloom who-knows-when. Maybe it was the last time you two spent the night together, or shared the last of his expensive tea, or…

To say it outright outside the Walls in the middle of blistering cold weather was stupid too, but the words slipped past your lips before you could help it. You only realized it then, paralyzed by the idea that he could’ve died that day; that he’d be gone, just like that. No blinding end, or long goodbye—just a frozen, quiet, wilting away.

“Yes.” your answer balances on bated breath. “If there was any time to be honest, it’d be when you were…”

You trail off, reassured by his nod. He understands it too, that feeling of regret.

“I thought it’d help you not to fall asleep, too. I was worried—if you did, then…”

“I’m alive,” he reminds you, voice low and gruff. “Don’t worry about that.”

You smile a little. The conviction in his tone is swept away by how comically rough the stuffiness makes him. Still, “I meant it. I really wanna kiss you.”

Levi's chapped lips press together, brow wrinkling. It’s something he often does when extremely flustered, like he’s tasted a lemon. But his eyes are still on you, bleary, and yet ironclad in focus. If the walls were crumbling around this room, it’s possible his gaze would stubbornly remain on yours, flickering ever so often down to your lips.

You skirt your forefinger across his jaw and almost lean in. It’s a helpless thing to stop, you both know that. You couldn’t kiss each other and then pretend it never happened—things have already changed, distinctly and irrevocably.

And if not now, what if time runs out before you can? If you don’t take that step today, now, what if you never get up the guts to do it again?

You go to ask if this is alright—a second nature between you two—before three fingertips fall over your lips. He leaves them there for a moment, brows drawn together heavily. He looks defeated.

His adam’s apple bobs when he speaks, tenderly, “I’ll get you sick. Don’t.”

He turns his head a little with a twinge to his lips, beyond embarrassed, and kisses the fingers on his own hand. Then, he presses them to your lips, rough against soft, and passes the gesture on.

You smile beneath them, puckering your lips so he knows exactly where you stand on the matter. His gaze is as soft as silvery moonlight, thumb swooping to trace your cheekbone before he pulls away.

More often than not, you know better now than to be insecure. Especially now, with the longing tugging his lips into a frown; the way he looks at you, there’s no room left for doubt.

In the evening, you return to Levi's quarters with limbs made of lead, more tuckered out than usual. Keeping Levi’s squad in top form keeps you on your toes, but that’s to be expected from the best.

With a catch of his name, you wander down the narrow hallway and brush his bedroom door agape. Inside, a strange sight greets you: Levi, resting halfway across his bed. The sheets are still made neatly, and his booted feet dangle over the side. His belts are sloppily strapped on too—loose and lumpy in places.

Yanking your dampened sweatshirt over your head, you step to him and bury a hand in messy, dark locks. “Hey, you. Training in dreamland?”

He wakes sluggishly, bats your hand away while grumbling about something only he knows, and begrudgingly pulls the rest of himself onto the mattress. He’s shivering, too tired to even realize his boots are on the bed.

You calmly croon his name again, a gentle sing-song as you crawl over and bully your fingertips beneath the belts tethered to his waist, freeing him. Evidently, he thought he was well enough to weather the two flights of stairs and train till he dropped.

You smile a little pitifully, something warm swelling in your heart. Didn’t even get that far.

It’s worse to imagine him perched at the side of the bed, boots stubbornly tied while scrounging together the strength to stand. Levi, who’s known for nothing if not his strength.

As you tug his belts aside, he actually whines. He's starting to shake again with chills, and just like that, your heart plummets.

You admonish him a little, stroking his back: “I know this is hard. But if you want to get out of bed, and stay out, you need to stay in it a little while longer.”

He grumbles his distaste with the idea, his booted foot awkwardly knocking against your side. You catch his ankle, and gape incredulously at his beady glare. “So violent…”

“Fuck off.”

With a roll of your eyes, you pop off both of his boots, setting them down by the vanity on your way to the bathroom. You need to rinse off hours of pushing your body to its brink.

You take a brisk shower, and afterwards your muscles throb with a pleasant sort of ache. After a splash of chilly water from the sink, you almost feel brand new.

Levi isn’t in any better spirits back in his room. A lone, empty cup proves that he’s taken the medicine he needs to get better, but he doesn’t look better.

Always so stubborn, he’s sitting up again. The rest of the leather belts pool on the floor beneath his bare feet, and a mucky grey color has soaked through his white, wrinkled button-up—hot flashes again. He seems to be internally debating whether to take it off.

You say his name. Levi hisses a sigh through his teeth and hangs his head a little, dark bangs hiding his expression from you.

You know too well how he loathes to be seen like this. To your memory, he’s only been bedridden with illness a handful of times, or even less than that, but you don’t mind. It’s okay to be human, you remind him, and unless he wants a real nurse, he’s stuck with you.

With a dismissive shake of his head, his hand falls to his rumpled collar, popping the buttons in an arduous, slow process. “Nobody should see this. It’s pathetic.”

“We’re all pathetic at some point,” you rationalize, wringing your hands a little. It’s not often you get to see him shirtless. Shit, what kind of person does that make me? Ogling his tits when he’s sick.

“Not me.”

Unimpressed, your lips form a flat line. You pad over just as he skirts the sleeves down his arms, and snatch it from his hands. The glare on your face is set as you throw it aside without a glance and crouch to cradle his cheeks in your palms. His resulting glare looks more like a bitter pout.

“Yes, you. Remember that time you were nearly eaten by a Titan and cut its nape from inside its mouth?” You smile cheekily. “You reeked like a swamp for three days, but the Corps got enough funding for three whole expeditions.”

His brow furrows harder. “What’s that have to do with–”

“You’re sweaty and shit-mouthed and a real brat when you’re sick. But,” Molding the slight plumpness of his cheeks in your hands, you plant a sweet kiss on his forehead, “you’re adorable, and so strong. You’re kind and flustered so easily, like a grouchy little teddy bear that I could–”

“No. That’s, I-I–”

Quickly, His cheeks heat beneath your palms. Mortified, his shoulders hunch, and he averts his eyes to a random spot on the wall.

“You are, honey. Being sick and pathetic doesn’t take away from the fact that you’re the cutest. That you’re pretty and I love being around you–”

He wiggles to escape. “You’re crazy–”

“Do crazy people mean the things they say, you adorable asshole?”

You’re nose-to-nose now. He blinks at you through his lashes, sighing a little shakily. You press your lips to the scarlet-red tip of his nose, and his face scrunches, fingertips digging into your palms in some haphazard version of hand-holding.

“Careful,” he grumbles. “Keep getting in my face like this and you’ll regret it.”

Your brow quirks. “Oh? Gonna make me sick?”

“Yeah.” He doesn’t bother hiding his straying eyes: If one of you slips up, your lips could easily brush together. “That’s a threat.”

You decide to let it go with a loose smile. Your heart thunders in your ears beyond a dry mouth, completely betraying how nervous you truly are. “Shit, well consider me threatened.”

He lets go of a tight breath. The harshest blush you’ve ever seen blankets his cheeks, creeping below his bobbing adam’s apple—probably his ears too, underneath sloppy tufts of hair.

“I’m a grown man,” he bitches more, nose scrunching. “Not... all that shit you said.” He sounds sheepish suddenly.

You hum skeptically, plopping his dirty shirt in the wicker basket and plucking a fresh, darker one. You round the bed and pointedly avoid staring south of his sharp collar. Instead, you squish his cheeks together again.

Quirking your lips, you pretend to give it thought. “Try again.”

Cheeks plush and pushed together, Levi huffs unhappily. The fact that he hasn’t wrenched your hands away yet is incredible, but you know he likes being praised.

“You look good without a shirt on.”

Coolly, he tuts. “Watch it, sweetheart.”

And then, it’s your turn for your cheeks to heat.

You sleep curled up like a cat in Levi’s plush sitting chair that night, and when you can’t sleep, you accidentally prick your fingers with each attempt at fiddling with his sewing supplies. Horror clambers into your memory every time you make your way to sleep’s door: a million flashes of a dark, sinister snowscape.

You think about him, bundled up in the room down the hall. Growing unbearably antsy, you open your eyes.

In the foggy limbo of three or four in the morning, you crawl into bed next to him. With the flu all but ebbed from his body, his head shoots from the pillow, thick blankets pooling beneath his chin.

All it takes is a look.

Levi understands. Like a blind gopher, he tugs the covers aside and nestles you in his warm arms for another night.

He sleeps long into the morning while you’re shoveling hay not too far from brown and black-speckled horses, next to a woman from your retired squad—Alina. She’s as clumsy as ever, and you'd scold her if you weren't busy thinking, rethinking, and overthinking the previous day.

Like a tightrope yanked, raised high into the air, this comfortable back-and-forth between him and you is shifting quickly. He has your stomach dropping from the vertigo, stealing the air from your lungs. It’s scary, but how could you possibly reverse what’s already happened?—Do you want to? Of course not.

But then, there’s the idea of ruining your entire friendship with him. You’re as secure as a bipedal pony and he’ll sooner eat glass than ask for a helping hand. Is the possibility of growing even closer to him really worth the risk of losing him forever?

You can’t help but worry you aren’t ready; maybe change isn’t good for him right now, either. No one can dispute that you came on much stronger than usual the day before. What if you're pushing too much?

What if, what if, what if.

White-knuckling your pitchfork, you shake away the begging whirlwind of questions. If he really felt one way or the other, all you can do is trust that he’d let you know—one way or another. If Levi's one thing, he’s honest; mostly to a fault.

“Mayfest?” You shoot Alina a look, attempting to bury the fact that you weren't listening. “I figured it’d be held later in the year, after how cold it’s been.”

Who are you kidding? More than the appeal being a festival to rejoice the end of a dead, dark winter, mingling, drinking and dancing is really the festival’s lifeblood. Cold weather or no, plenty will be celebrating. The implications of the whole thing runs your blood a little cold.

Alina tells you the same between foggy huffs and puffs for breath. Through a veil of bright bangs, the woman chuckles, planting her pitchfork in a fat pile of hay. “It’s funny. When we’re outside the Walls, you act like a totally different person.”

“Different?”

Alina flashes you a sheepish grin. “Shy, that's all.”

Yeah, no shit. While it’s a good skill to practice and pretend, you’re more of a rabbit than a fox in person. Putting up a front, talking through an issue and getting the job done—simple. Making it personal, not so much. Gushing over Levi’s morning voice and hearing him snort, ask, What’s gotten into you? and accepting the ramifications of why you like it are two entirely different ballfields.

Alina muses on about who she’ll be attending Mayfest with: a whole evening of dancing and throwing back chilled beers beckons a date. With a sparkle in her eyes, she giggles and sneaks in a word or two about Eld, who always attends these sort of things with Gunther for merriment if nothing else. You’re happy to indulge her—anything to keep the conversation off yourself.

You’ve had your fair share of ill-fated dates to the festival, memories that irk you to so much as glance back on, but you’ve only been once in the past few years. Other people just don’t interest you, regardless of who’s asked for your hand.

A honeyed tone finds you with a friendly, “Squad Leader! Hey, Alina.”

“You don’t have to call me that anymore,” you snort, nodding in greeting towards Christoph as you slide the stable gate shut behind you. “Lieutenant’s fine—or my name.”

He laughs like he isn’t sure what you mean. Neither of you know each other that well.

You note how Christoph is out of uniform. Showing up to watch you and another comrade polish horse shit, on his day off? With tanned skin golden like honey, a speckled blush shows even darker on his face.

Gods, you hope he’s here for Alina; not to fraternize with his last Squad Leader in a show of something that’ll get you battered by the brass. War leaves no room for relationship, after all. None at all.

Hypocrite, you chide yourself.

“I’ve heard that Captain Levi’s come down with something. How’s he doing?”

Balancing on the neck of her rake, Alina smiles toothily at Christoph’s question. “You’re taking care of him, aren’t you, ma’am? You better find him a different nurse in time for Mayfest. You’ve gotta come this year.”

“Ah, well. You know Levi…”

There’s not a doubt in your mind that he’ll be back in top shape before next week—it’s just how he is. Christoph on the other hand, clearly asked just for pleasantries. He gives no sign of nerves, simply crosses his arms across his wide chest and bemoans how difficult it is to get a date; not many women in the military after all, too many maidens outside it who are too soft around the edges.

You see where this is going. With a nod and a casual wave you make your escape, leaving Christoph a comment wishing him luck. To a man like him, it’s enough for him to pin his tongue between his teeth with embarrassment.

It feels like puzzle pieces being neatly slotted together. Levi’s bangs frame his face, neatly combed, and he’s immaculately dressed for the first time in days. That familiar glare is even pressed into his eyes.

All the same, “What’re you doing out of bed, Cap’? You’re not cleared for duty yet.”

Hange’s lab is dank, smelling distinctly of musk and pine needles when you step inside. It’s messy, giving reason to the fact that Levi stands warily to one side, mindful of haphazardly sprawled textbooks and concoctions of all kinds. His shoulders hunch.

Hange glances between you two and laughs. Their feet dangle from the table they perch upon, just like a kid on a swing set would. “So that’s why you said you had to be quick. Your lady was out lookin’ for you.”

“Shut up, Hange.”

Not understanding and rendered a bit speechless, you look aimlessly between the two of them. Levi seems on his way out already, as if you’ve intruded on something.

Something pricks at you, but you decide not to ask. Smothering a sigh, you idle, telling Levi you’ll see him later. He grunts, and the door whines shut behind him.

“So-o, whaddya need?” Hange grins cheekily, friendly enough. “I love visitors, but two within the hour is a little much, isn’t it?”

You gesture dismissively and idle some more. Things are too cluttered to search for a seat, which might be why Hange is perched on the table.

“Just... men,” you snort, and wrinkle your nose. You sound like a teenage girl. “Needed an out, that’s all.”

“Yuck.” Hange crosses their legs and flits their messy bangs out of their eyes. “Well, you came to the wrong place. Levi was fretting about—well,” they quirk their lips, “he doesn’t like his dirty laundry aired. Unfortunately.”

You’re not worried. Why should you be worried?

Hange pries further. “Does your ‘men problem’ have to do with the festival? Did someone ask you, someone we know!? Or did you ask someone?”

“Someone asked me.”

Their eyes go wide with alarm. “Well? What did you say?”

“I—well he didn’t exactly ask, but…” You scuff the floor with a shake of your head. “It doesn’t matter. Never mind.”

“But–”

Louder, “see you later, Hans!”

—

You spend the last hours of daylight kicking around the courtyard, and picking up idle tasks from those who can’t be bothered to do them; wasting space, wasting time.

In your mind’s eye, Hange’s shocked expression bugs you: how awkward it was, and how with Levi it was much worse. It’d be stupid to assume he avoided you just because he was up and walking around when he shouldn’t have been. He doesn’t trek down to the ‘shithole’ (as he calls it) that is Hange’s lab on a whim—it must’ve been for a reason.

You don’t get it. Reasons are gnawing to you, even though you have nothing to back them up with. The fact that he’s clearly keeping something from you is enough.

Evening creeps over the horizon, and the dining hall is buzzing with plenty of able, hungry bodies. Too nauseated to eat, you opt out of dinner and march right up to Levi’s quarters. Like usual, you pick out the key and enter without knocking.

There he is in the center of the room, idly pacing back and forth. He doesn’t even notice until you slip the door shut that you’re there. He pauses, then stands frozen and watches you as if you carry with you some horrible news.

“Hey Lev',” you greet, feeling strangely unfit for your body. “Feeling better, I see.”

He shrugs, the muscles in his jaw twitching in a strange, nervous way. Without a word he strides across the room, into the kitchenette, and you’re inclined to follow. He’s setting out a teapot and bags, and naturally you fall in step beside him—only, he bats your hands away.

“Sit,” he tells you, curt and unreadable. “I’m making it.”

A cold stone worms around in your chest. You frown, but do as he says. Even with the room perfectly lit and his presence not too far from you, the wrongness persists.

“You didn’t eat dinner,” he gathers.

“Well, neither did you.”

The corner of his mouth twitches at your attitude, but all he does is tut before pinching open a cupboard and pulling out foodstuffs: a bag of rice, some preserved vegetables, seasonings…

Sometimes, you swear you don’t get him at all. He’s distant—has been distant today—and yet practically vibrates with nerves.

The last time he’s been so finicky in your presence was the first night you slept in bed together. Under the warm glitter of sunlight peeking through your curtains, you’d woke to him beside you. You remember his furrowed brow, the dark bruises beneath his eyes. He’d asked if you slept well after keeping awake most of the night, too tense over possibly thrashing awake with a terror and disturbing you in any way to sleep himself.

You hold your breath as he sets a steaming cup of tea down in front of you. You feel like a broken bone. “I’m worried I did something wrong.”

He stares a little incredulously at you, then lightly pets your head before turning back to the stove. “You didn't.”

“What did Hange need?”

“Nothing…That blabbermouth didn’t gossip to you, did they?”

“No, but–”

“Who asked you to the festival?”

You could scream. “Nobody! Everyone’s acting strange as hell today, including you, and that’s the worst thing of all! I don’t–” As he deflates in front of you, you gesture stupidly to wrangle your scattering thoughts, “–I’m just worried. About everything, like usual. So stupid.”

Blurry tears of frustration crowd your vision.

“Look. I…”

“No,” you sniff. You dismiss it. “If you’re okay, that’s good. I’m just being–”

“If you call yourself stupid again...” He trails off. He doesn't have the heart to threaten you. "You aren’t. You’re only stupid to think of yourself like that. Like…”

"Like?”

He scoffs, setting a pair of oven mitts aside. “Like you’re not the opposite of all those shitty words you call yourself.”

“I’m sorry.”

He ruminates for a moment, thinking, before padding over and petting your head again. You lean into it, so he stays, idly slipping his free hand beneath your chin and settling on your shoulder. The hug is strange.

“No. It’s fine.” His hand buries in your hair, and suddenly you’re afraid you might cry. “Erwin pissed me off today. He always gets like a mother hen when something goes wrong with me. It’s annoying.”

You snort weakly. That sounds about right, except Levi doesn’t mind when you ‘mother hen’ him. That must mean you’re special.

“Something else,” he goes on, a heavy pause following.

You wish you could see his face, but all you can do is press closer and hear his heart. His hand is still in your hair.

“I wanted to ask. I thought you had… or, if you—fuck,” a tense huff, “it doesn’t matter. I-I want you to go to that festival with me.”

Your eyes snap to his, a little alarmed. You have to ask if he means Mayfest—“No shit.”—and whether you two will be going as friends, or simply for the alcohol, or–“No. You know what I mean. I wouldn’t be ripping my hair out over asking if all I got out of it was liquor.”

“Oh,” you say. Any second, you think you might float away. Silver eyes watch you, both meek and hopeful, gauging your response.

Just then, the rickety oven timer set aside on the counter cries out. He jolts like he’s been shot and pulls away; shuts it off, tends to supper.

“So?” He shoves the oven mitts on like the air is on fire. “Your answer. What is it.”

“You were scared I’d say no?”

A thrilling shot of something lifts you to your feet. It occurs to you again that he absolutely loathes functions like these, and then how an evening beneath lights, swimming in music would be the perfect time for all sorts of romance.

“I’ll get you sick. Don’t,” he’d told you.

Your stomach flips.

“I wasn’t scared,” he argues, like the word disgusts him. The meal he’s baked is a savory-smelling casserole, which he sets atop the oven.

“So—what were you talking to Hange about? Can I hug you?” (Levi still doesn’t appreciate being snuck up on.)

“Tch, it’s fine. Listen, I told you it was nothing.”

The realization dawns on you, sparking a grin as you surge up from behind and slip your arms around his waist.

He sighs. Still grinning, you tuck your face against his neck, nosing playfully at his collar. He smells like soap, mixed with a forest after it rains. You picture him begrudgingly descending the stairs to Hange’s lab, tripping over how to ask you out for the evening; or maybe about Mayfest, whether you had a date already.

A giggle escapes your lips. He must’ve lingered outside the door after leaving, overheard you say, “Someone asked me,” but stormed off before the rest.

Levi, jealous? Oh my god.

Everything is prepared, so he’s out of things to do with his hands. Levi senses your breath tickling that spot behind his ear and battens down the urge to shiver.

“I can hear you thinking. Let it go, you brat.”

“Mm.” You’ll never let this go. “Awe… You needed advice on how to ask me. That’s precious.”

More than a bundle of kittens. He's mentioned it before, so you know it’s true how popular he is with women—that’s why it’s strange that he went to Hange.

He finally surrenders and relaxes against you, clasping your hands. “People fucked in the Underground, they didn’t date, that’s all.” He tosses a smoldering look at you over his shoulder. “You think I’m insecure?”

“I said you’re precious,” you return.

He rolls his eyes and promptly slips around in your hold, clumsily reaching for your hand and squeezing it. “Whatever you say.”

“Why Hange?”

“Because Erwin doesn’t get laid and it’s Mike’s day off.”

You hum. That means he’s on a booze trip—likely with Gelgar and Nanaba, the members of his squad. Hange is at least in bed with their research; and Moblit.

Taking your interlocked hands, you kiss his bony knuckles and admire the scars licking at his forearms. Strong muscles peek out of his rolled-up sleeves, just shy of his elbows.

He looks good, but just as precious. The apron he dons, colored like eggshells, has a picture in its center. It took quite a bit of badgering, but he gave in and let you iron it on, once. It’s a light-colored kitten poised with a ball of yarn. You can’t stop smiling.

“I’d love to,” you tell him, just in case he didn’t get the message the first time.

—

Most of those in the military—Scouts especially—live inside the barracks without a separate place to stay during the holidays. Levi gets paid enough to buy or rent one and you have family deep in Wall Rose, but neither of you ever bothered.

This makes the fact that Captain Levi has an apparent date to the annual spring festival hot gossip in Trost HQ.

Whatever, he thinks, and taps his foot against the wooden floor of your sitting room more frantically. Morons with lives so boring they feel the need to stick their noses in his own must be pretty miserable.

Hange suspected for years that there was something going on between you and him, and badgered him constantly for answers like a starved pigeon; Erwin too, even if seldom and being much more subtle about it. Mike always knew—with a nose like his, Levi’s sure he smelled it on you both, but never said a word.

For the nth time, he wonders if what he has on is too much for an event like this: a sharp button-up loose at his collar, tucked neatly into shockingly dark slacks which a pair of suspenders are also tethered to. He spent about fifteen minutes wondering about a blazer (knowing you took double that time just to shower) before opting out of an overcoat entirely. He neatly folds his sleeves again, exposing veiny forearms.

He wonders if you’ll ask him to dance. He’s escaped attending Mayfest every year since he first reached the surface, so the bulk of what he knows about it is it’s in Mitras, where the city centers are reserved for music and dance for the evening.

He's never gone dancing in his life and he never planned to, hence the sturdy leather shoes on his feet. Cows, and by extension the leather, is quickly becoming a luxury in your world.

Would he have the gall to turn you down, though? Certainly not if you shoot him your lost-puppy look.

The effect this woman has on me is ridiculous.

At last, your bathroom door yawns open and out you peek, like a groundhog woken from its winter spell. Your mouth is moving, but he’s trapped in a dazzled stare, blinks a few times, then flounders like a fish to respond. “What?”

“My necklace,” you chuckle, all too nervously for how stunning you look in your cinched, swooping cotton and ruffles. “Give me a hand. And, do I look okay?”

It’s not everyday he gets to see your hair so immaculately styled, just the right amount of makeup complimenting your features to render him positively braindead.

You’re wearing lipstick.

He nods, stands at once, and in his reverie doesn’t answer your question.

In your words, he looks nice. Suddenly, he understands the stupid, dopey look Moblit gets on his face anytime their personal lives are brought up in conversation—like he was dazed, dreaming awake. Damn four-eyes.

“...Thanks,” he replies, his mouth like sand, and handles the delicate piece of jewelry loosely in his palm.

You step into the bathroom, and he trails after you. Your eyes briefly meet through the mirror’s reflection as he shuffles up behind you. He’s going to mess up your hair. “You don’t look bad.”

You laugh, so genuinely your shoulders bounce. “Shakespeare’s blushing.”

His brows furrow, partly in concentration, partly in confusion. “Who?”

He doesn’t read much old literature. You explain that you mean he has a beautiful way with words, which only perturbs him more because there’s no way in hell that’s true—until he realizes you were being sarcastic.

Idiot, he calls himself.

He grumbles something lost on you as he brushes your stray locks to the side, not to get in the way of your jewelry.

You wouldn’t be able to avert your eyes if you tried: Levi really does look nice. Handsome, really, in an effortless way. He looks like the creation that was made to top the most glorious thing already existing on earth, and also he looks like you want to spin around and yank him in by those tight-fitting suspenders for a kiss. Every bit of his outfit looks plastered to his body.

You tuck your tongue between your teeth to keep from shivering as his fingers glide across your skin.

Cool silver loops around your throat. You hold your breath, and he seems to be holding his, too. Still, he never falters. There’s a signature sound of the metal clasping, then you giving it a very gentle tug to make sure it’s secure.

Meanwhile, he tuts a little and smooths your perfect hair back into place. He clears his throat, deciding humor is the best way to rectify this feeling of teetering on the edge of a sheer cliff. “By now, the entire Corps suspects something of us.”

“Oh? That Humanity’s Strongest Soldier is dating his Lieutenant?”

He wrinkles his nose at your honesty. You know how much he hates to be called that. “Maybe.”

You turn in jest and smooth down his primly, already-perfect collar; simply an excuse to touch his chest. “My family thinks we’re dating already.”

He chokes on air, scanning your earnest smile to check if you’re serious. Your self-defeating shrug says it all.

In the end, parents will assume all sorts of things about their kids, especially mothers, though he doesn’t have the personal experience to say for sure.

He’s met your closest relatives before. They’re kind people who overheard that you’re friends with such a man, and how said man didn’t have loved ones to attend to for the winter holidays. You let it slip that you’ve been friends for a few years, and suddenly your mother hears wedding bells.

With a stern shake of his head, he smooths down the smooth cotton that stretches beneath your collar. The blue ribbon looped above your chest is askew, but he doesn’t dare touch. If he did, the golden buckle cinching your waist would be calling to him next.

“Why am I not surprised?”

That’s his only comment on the matter, until it isn’t. He thinks of the coy look on your face at his disgrace of a compliment towards your appearance. You’re practically glowing—you deserve more than ‘not bad’. You deserve perfection; in more than just one sense.

While memories of his mother are as fleeting as the seasons, he's certain that she would be overjoyed by someone who made him feel and act this way. As young as he was when she died, he knows how she would feel. Memory of love is impossible to forget, however short-lived.

To you, it’s perhaps the highest praise Levi could give. Quietly, he tells you, “glad they like me already, then. Mine would feel the same.”

—

Levi greets the hordes of dancing drunks tripping over one another’s feet, the tangy stench of fruit juices and spilt booze, and the strung assortment of hued lanterns with a sour sort of reverie. Bodies in flowing colors speckle the streets, and lights stretch into the sky. He isn’t particularly pressed over the years he’s missed these festivities, but you’re so awed and giddy he forgets all about his own qualms.

Your attention is regularly snagged by the vendors and all their sweet, sugary snacks; drinks that seem to fizzle; streamers and flowers passed in the streets, symbolizing the joy of a new spring. You lock eyes several times in a silent question of just how much he’s tolerating all the excitement.

He really doesn’t mind it at all.

He’s thankful: he can stare at you in absence of heavy thoughts, feel his head buzz despite the lack of alcohol and let you lead him along. Sometimes, the brazen sunset—setting the receding day so alight the sky seems to burst with colors he’s never seen—snags his eye.

Your arm is anchored with his. When the crowd grows thick he squeezes your hand in a silent request to—Keep close. I don’t want to lose you in this mess.

Your shoulders knock together, and you shoot him a smile. No worries, it says.

Mayfest is almost exclusive to the capital, Mitras. This means the tea is so sweet that even when you both ask for an extremely simple order, the stuff has even your nose is screwing up at the taste. The air is soft, and thick with the smell of fresh flowers as you two stroll through gardens, content to idly chat and muse about the events of the evening.

“How many city squares are in Mitras, anyway?” you ask, munching on a gooey cinnabon.

“Four.”

Technically, Levi lived in Wall Sina for most of his life, if underneath it. The occasional MP he spots keeping the peace this year probably even recognizes him. It was only about four years ago now that he got out of the Underground. Visiting Mitras never fails to make him feel nostalgic, in a sickening sort of way.

You hum at his side. He breathes the brisk air, and savors your warm presence by his side, his drink heating his palms. Even at a time when steel lamps are flickering on and dusk is seeping in, many people are still out and about.

“Did you ever think you’d go to an event like this?” There’s mirth on your tongue.

“No,” he answers immediately. “It looks like a rainbow vomited everywhere... but it isn’t horrible. You look happy.”

You snort. “True. Well… are you happy?”

For what it’s worth, in a world where joy is precious, sweet tea and cinnabons aren’t a horrible thing to jump for joy over. There’s a silent question of how much you both deserve it, and how fleeting it’ll come to be. He knows better than most that loss waits around every corner, so he takes his time to answer.

Truthfully, there’s no place he’d rather be right now. He is happy, but to admit it aloud to the world is like telling a secret; it’s making the feeling tangible. And the world has a knack for stealing it away once it knows.

“I’m glad I came here with you,” he decides.

You understand his hesitation all too well. With your pointer finger you tug his attention towards you, regard the rare sense of peace on his face, then the silent question.

Not yet, it seems. You gently pat his cheek, then hop to your feet. “Let’s go dancing—please?”

“I don’t dance,” he tells you for the hundredth time tonight, but stands. Your jewelry seems to glitter in the lamplight, but that same ribbon on your chest is still askew.

Flippantly, you rock on your heels. “‘Don’t’ is beginning to sound a lot like ‘can’t’. Don’t worry, I’m a good teacher.”

“You better be, you train our squad.”

Our squad. Your heart glows.

Levi discards his empty cup in a wastebin. That pout on your face is back the next time you close in on him, taking his hands and rocking them like a bridge in high wind, crossing them this way and that.

“Please?” you ask. The puppy-look is coming out. “Please, ‘Vi?”

With a scoff, he squeezes your hands and reels you in, smoothly slipping his arms around your waist so you don’t end up smacking into him. He gently squishes each side of your mouth—not dissimilar to how you did it when he was sick—so your lips puff up.

The result is too cute not to feel gooey about, so he straightens out your ribbon instead. It’s a sleight of hand so quick it’s easy to miss.

He takes your hand. “Fine. Lead the way then.”

—

Compared to Mitras’ narrow backstreets, the wide, open space of the square is like a stream running off into a lake. Fiddles, handheld instruments which thump and jingle, and humming violins seemed like a dream from far away. They come to life now that you’re both in the thick of it.

Levi automatically closes the space between your bodies, alert and put off by the sounds and the crowd. They’re dancing, many paired up, streaming and lunging around with such grace it almost looks practiced. He’s oddly intimidated by it.

You laugh at his clinginess and loop your arm around his waist, straying to the outskirts of the chaos. “Let’s wait for a slower song, yeah?”

He nods at once, doubting his voice will carry over the happy bedlam. It’s a superbly rare feeling too, your arm snug around his waist. He feels comforted, and as such is completely out of intelligent responses.

You notice his nerves, and your expression shifts. Despite your earlier badgering, you insist that you two could go somewhere quieter if he needs, but he turns you down. No matter how temporary nerves rattle him, he was resigned to the fact hours ago that the evening out would end here. He’s also been wondering what that dress of yours will look like in a twirl.

You find a space relatively devoid of suits or dresses. Reflexively, his hands find your waist when yours land on his shoulders.

“Before it starts, let me show you how it’s done.”

He’s eager to learn, and learns quickly; how your feet will move in tandem so neither trips, and if he loses his rhythm, to follow your lead. It’s nothing incredible, not in so little time, but at least he won’t make a fool of himself—if he can help it.

The strings wind down. People hoot and holler their applause, a new array of red, pink, and purple petals dashing into the air from those who throw them.

“Well?” Levi’s voice is scratchy. He hears a steady beat, then more strings. It’s quaint, a song he imagines would play during your evenings in front of his fireplace. “Lead me.”

Unexpectedly, the command takes your breath away. You squeeze his hand, and his heart wobbles. “Gladly.”

At first, his motions are uncertain and delayed, but he watches you carefully, and picks up on what to do. It isn’t as hard as he expected. He can feel your eyes on him, and his brow wrinkles. “Quit laughing at me.”

“I’m not!” you protest, arms gliding over his shoulders. Your giggles betray you. “I just think it’s cute. You look like such a pretentious bastard when you’re thinking.”

He scoffs at this, but can’t quite stay angry, not with the profound fondness behind your irises. He suddenly can’t look away.

The tide of the music sinks, then slows to a more intimate ballad. The violin player must be having a field day leading the rest of them along. He thinks the song is pretty, but he doesn’t know much about music. But then, the smile on your face grows, and it doesn’t matter—he definitely thinks it’s pretty.

Levi’s hands glide across the small of your back as you meander into step with each other. It reminds him of an embrace, almost, and a little tension leaves his brow when your steps slow. He senses your fingers playing at the nape of his neck as you drift together—as if there was no better place for you to be.

You’re close, so close it’s possible you’ll hear his heart hammering against his chest. The lofted lanterns cast a gilded glow over your features. The golden hour comes to his mind. You look like sunshine.

“This good for you?”

He huffs at the question, betraying his scattered breaths. He’s sure you hear them; even more so that your lashes are kissing his cheekbones, you're so close. The sweet music’s timbre is all around you both. The rest of the world has gone somewhere else, or maybe it no longer exists.

Things will be different this time, he thinks, and isn’t so afraid of the idea anymore. The music drifts on, your perfume dancing in his nose, and from somewhere deep and dark, he feels like he’s lifting away from himself. The hand on your waist drifts to your cheek, so he can take you in.

“Levi?” His name is gentle on your lips. Only you can make it sound so kind.

He never answered you before, come to think of it—whether this is good for him. It’s perfect, which is why he’s afraid to open his mouth and blurt it out.

He finds his throat dry when he swallows. His entire body shudders when your hand follows, trailing the sharp line of his jaw, idling at his lips. All he can marvel at through the whirlwind is how bright your eyes are.

Your name has never felt sweeter on his tongue, then a hoarse whisper. “Kiss me.” His heart is in his ears. “Please.”

Eyes frantically searching his, you don’t hesitate.

It’s as if time slows and creeps to a pause: your heads tilted, his hands cradling your face, yours tender on his jaw. It’s like sunshine. Somewhere, the music is swelling.

You meet. Your lips are soft, he notices immediately. Soft and plush and sweet like the peaches you had earlier. He can taste the minty smooth pull of chapstick when you shyly move your lips over his, and he stutters to do the same.

Levi has warm, full lips—silky almost, as if he’s anxiously wet them multiple times tonight. You lean in closer, the curve of your smile molding the kiss together.

It occurs to him that your slow dancing has eased to a pause, along with the world. The kiss deepens, and he smolders, pressing your waist closer in turn. He wants this to never end. Then your hand shifts, playing at his nape, caressing. The touch says: Stay. Stay with me, as if he wants anything else.

Though, the magic of moments like this is borne in bitter ends.

You glide together, sinking into a comfortable stride. Past your hesitance, his awkwardness, you breathe deep through you nose—very soon kissing him comes as naturally as the tides dance with the coastline; like you spent far too long waiting.

In this small snippet of time, you both remain long enough for him to taste small traces of sugar—as if you were made of the stuff, even if it’s just the cinnabon. He must taste like sweetness too.

It isn’t over when he senses eyes on you two somewhere in his periphery, Hange, who cries out, delighted, but doesn’t approach and instead flees back into the square. Plenty of people you know are here.

His attention is only snagged for a moment until you bring him back with a coaxing hand on his cheek. With your lips swelled, almost lewdly pink, he chides himself for pausing for even a moment. He feels a whole different brand of elation when he realizes he can kiss you all he wants now—if you liked it.

You grin at him. He feels dizzy.

“Levi,” you say. His chest lifts. “You’re a good kisser.”

“I’m? Sure.” Even to his own ears his voice sounds ragged. He’s glad for the low lights, else his cheeks would glow rosy.

Now that you’ve done this, it’s well and truly it for him, undoubtedly. There’s no turning back. He surrenders.

Again he kisses you, lips slotting together frantically, then tenderly. Again, and again.

And again.

| levi masterlist | main masterlist |

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thelukesalvez · 4 years

Text

Luke Alvez x Reader: Seeing Red

Request: “Can I request an imagine where Luke is jealous of someone the reader is interacting with? Thank you :)”

Tagged: @ssaic-jareau , @alvezstan , @saintd0lce , @ogmilkis, @reidswords , @ssa-morgan , @garcias-batcave , @akimagies, @zhangyixingxing1 , @pinkdiamond1016

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: none

A/N: kjsdkljfa sweet baby luke being all insecure made me so soft, i luv him sm. pls come talk to me about luke.. ok enjoy!

You had been doing it all day. Maybe not intentionally, but enough for Luke to notice. Luke wasn’t the jealous type. He was secure, and he felt confident in his relationship with you. Jealousy was stupid, and Luke wasn’t stupid. So why was he noticing the way you and the deputy of the Austin field office naturally interacted with each other with such ease?

Luke had a case file in hand. It was pertinent that he remain focused on his assigned task. And he tried, he really did. He was reviewing victimology, reading up on what the Austin PD had on each of their missing women. Or at least attempting to.

But when the deputy made a joke and reached out to touch your arm for added effect, Luke started seeing red.

He had to read the page four times before comprehending any of it.

Throughout the remainder of the team’s time in Austin, Luke tried to remain level headed. He kept reassuring himself that he was overreacting. This wasn’t flirting.

Emily had sent you to go with him to visit the latest crime scene upon your arrival, so he was probably just trying to be friendly- make you feel welcome.

But did he really have to look at you like that while you delivered the profile? Or request that you take a ride to the latest victim’s apartment with him? And did he really have to have you doubled over laughing over something he’s said at the back table?

Luke’s biting back the urge to cross the room and wrap his arms around you, right in front of the deputy who was simultaneously doubling as an apparent comedian. Maybe if he pulled you in for a long kiss, it’d get this joker to back off, as he claimed you as his.

But Luke shook the thought away. He was definitely overreacting.

…

Luke drops a coffee cup in front of you early the next morning. The team was still working the case in Austin, and with no new leads, it seemed likely that you’d be here for a while. You’re hunched over a pile of paperwork, a piece of banana bread in your hand.

Luke watches as you flash him an appreciative smile. “Thanks, but I’ve already had some today. Why don’t you give this to Tara? She takes her coffee the same as I do.”

But Luke frowns. “When did you have time to get coffee?” he asks, already knowing that you’d been in the precinct all night.

Without even looking up from the file in front of you, you reply, “I didn’t, Henry brought me one, and this bread. You gotta try some, it’s his grandma’s recipe-”

Luke’s jaw drops. A gesture you don’t notice, because you’re too busy focusing on banana bread. What you do notice, is the way he scoffs lightly. It makes your head turn.

By the time you look up, Luke’s already standing up. He grabs the coffee off from the table harshly, and without a word, drops the full cup in the trash can before exiting the room.

…

He wasn’t angry.

At least not at you.

You and Luke had a solid relationship. He trusted you and that was all there was to it. Whether it was Henry, or another coworker, or any of your male friends, or whoever- Luke wasn’t worried and you never gave him a reason to be.

But Luke didn’t like the way seeing you with the deputy made him feel. Like at any moment, you could leave him for someone with dirty blonde hair and fair skin and biceps bigger than his. It made him feel vulnerable, like he had something to lose- because he had everything to lose.

…

The team spends six grueling days in Austin before catching the Unsub responsible for kidnapping and murdering 3 women.

Luke had been avoiding you for the vast majority of the week. He’d work late hours, leave the room when you entered, never meet your gaze. It was more for his own sanity than anything. This sudden realization that you could do better, and honestly deserved better than him, was all consuming. It made focusing on the case incredibly difficult.

Luke’s gathering his remaining items from the precinct, the jet waiting for him and the rest of the team, when he hears it.

Luke looks up from the table to see the deputy approaching you. He’s too far away to hear what he’s saying, but not so far so that he doesn’t see the folded note that he passes you.

In an instant, Luke’s entire face falls. He felt like screaming.

On the jet ride home, Luke sits between Emily and Matt, which was unusual. Typically, the two of you spent rides home together.

He was dreading the car ride home from the BAU. That would be the first time the two of you would be alone since the coffee incident. He may have been a little dramatic, without meaning to. Luke didn’t want to be the jealous boyfriend. Jealousy was unfair and manipulative and gross. But the idea of another guy buying you coffee, or making you laugh, or giving you his phone number on a folded up piece of paper, made his stomach churn. The truth was, he didn’t want to lose you.

But Luke didn’t know how to say that to you without coming across as a total lunatic.

He’d have to figure it out before landing at the BAU.

…

You don’t want to cause a scene on the jet. But the minute you and Luke are alone at the BAU office together, you corner him strategically at his desk.

“What the hell?” is all you can manage to blurt out. You’re fuming and on the verge tears, Luke’s silent treatment was just about pushing you to the edge. You’d spent the past week focused more on why Luke was suddenly so mad at you than you on the actual case.

There’s a long pause, Luke refusing to meet your gaze.

“Are you gonna tell me why you’ve been avoiding me all week?”

You’re met by silence.

“You’re being childish. Are you really not gonna talk to me?”

Finally, Luke turns to you, and says slyly, “That deputy gave you his number, right? Why don’t you call him? I’m sure he’d love to talk.”

In an instant, a wave of understanding washes over you.

“Are you- are you jealous of Henry?” you ask, unable to hide the hint of a smirk spreading across your face. The idea of Luke being jealous of a deputy from Austin, Texas seemed absolutely ludacris. It was so far fetched that it seemed perfectly reasonable to cross your arms and laugh at your fuming boyfriend.

He rolls his eyes. “No,” he scoffs.

He knows you don’t believe him.

There’s a brief pause before he sputters, “Maybe.”

The smirk on your face only grows bigger. Luke grabs his bag off from his desk before pushing past you, muttering a quick, “So what?” on his way by.

But you turn around and keep pace with him, looping your arm through his. You’re pleased when he doesn’t pull away.

“Baby,” you coo, a playful tone to your voice, you tug at his arm to stop him from walking any further. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Luke turns his body to face you, but his gaze doesn’t quite meet yours.

“Because jealousy is stupid, and it’s for couples who don’t trust each other, and I trust you.” He pauses and bites his lip before whispering, “You know you could have anyone you wanted.”

You drop the smirk, because you realize Luke was actually bothered by this. You squeeze his hand gently. “What are you talking about?”

“Seeing you with that guy, seeing him gawk over you- it just made me realize that you can do so much better than me,” Luke says quietly, because it’s true.

You’re shaking your head before he even finished his sentence, because the idea of anyone ever being better than Luke was even more ludicrous than him being jealous in the first place.

You reach into your pocket and pull out the note the deputy had given you just hours earlier. Luke watches as you unfold the piece of paper.

Luke quickly sees that it’s not a phone number.

“It’s his grandma’s banana bread recipe,” you explain. “I told him how much you liked banana bread, and that I wanted to make some for you, so he gave it to me..” your voice trails off. “I talked about you a lot actually- but that’s not unusual. I always talk about you a lot.”

You watch as the realization that washes over Luke quickly turns into embarrassment. He fumbles with his words.

“I-I uh.”

But you spare him. “I want you, Luke. And you are exactly what I need, okay?”

Luke blinks as he watches you take a step closer to him. Your arms wrap around his waist, and you pull him so that you’re flush against his body. Luke’s own arms wind around you as he looks down at you, his brown eyes glistening.

“Banana bread, huh?” he muses.

You nod. “Seems like you have quite the competition.”

He smirks, “Man versus yeast.”

You roll your eyes and plead, "Will you just shut up and kiss me?"

Luke leans in, pressing his lips to yours, slow and steady, tasting and feeling every crack and every inch of those lips that you haven’t kissed for days.

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shnuggletea · 3 years

Photo

Since I can’t schedule a post on FF or AO3, I have to post this here. Greetings from the past as I set this up on Friday!

Anyway, this year’s @sins-week is open to all fandoms so I’m going to try and do both SM and IY this year! I originally pitched this to @neutronstarchild as an IY fic but I have another fic I REALLY want to do for sin’s week as my IY fic! And this one fits SM better in my opinion.

Synopsis: Stardust x Willy Wonka: Charlie and the chocolate factory. Endymion is in love with a girl and wants to marry her. Only problem? He’s the poorest boy in the village while Beryl is the prettiest girl. Her family isn’t nobility but that doesn’t stop her from getting offers. When she promises to consider his proposal upon him getting a more prosperous career, Endymion has no choice but to broaden his horizons and get a lucrative job. Good thing the once ‘closed to all outsiders’ Luna company is seeking new employees.

“Put anger aside. It is not a solution. Patience and love is a solution. With compassion and action, together we can end slavery.” - Author: Somaly Mam

Endymion was resisting the urge to pace, leaning against the house of the girl he was waiting for. The flowers he held were wilting already in the heat. And he had saved up for two weeks to buy them.

“What a waste,” he murmured to himself.

He intended to present them as a gift and open conversations about marriage, but Endymion would only embarrass himself as it stood now. Boisterous laughter spilled from the corner behind him, and Endymion recognized it, standing up straight to meet the girl he’d waited over an hour for.

Beryl stepped around and into sight…with her arm looped through another’s. Although disheartened, Endymion didn’t cave into his insecurities. A beauty like Beryl would have many suitors; it didn’t mean she thought any less of him. What did have the hairs on the back of his neck rising was the man who held her arm.

His fine clothes and slicked back hair told Endymion he came from money. But it was more than that; this man was a Duke.

The pair stepped up to him bravely, the nobleman searching Endymion over with a smirk. His smirk grew to a grin when he spied Endymion’s bouquet.

“For me?” Beryl gushed, taking the unoffered blooms out of Endymion’s grip.

“Yeah, I waited here an hour to give them to you too.”

Endymion sought two goals with his admission; to make Beryl feel guilt and to show his determination. But, instead, the grin that remained on the Duke’s face told Endymion he’d only succeeded in making himself look more pathetic.

“Endymion, this is Lord Kunzite. Duke of Lazaburg.”

Beryl read out Endymion’s rival as if it were a resume. She didn’t bother to do the same for him, and Endymion knew why; he was a nobody. Poor bastard son of a seamstress, he took care of his mother and elders instead of the other way around. Something he was now late getting to but couldn’t make himself leave Berly alone with the Duke.

“I had hoped to speak with you, Beryl. Privately?”

Her attention was split between the two men and barely-there -as it were- on Endymion. His anger was rising to a peak at this point, but showing it would only make him lose faster.

Beryl giggled as though embarrassed while her face bared no signs of it, her skin still pale. “I’m afraid I have no time for you today.” Then, with a few whispered words and push in the right direction, Lord Kunzite left them alone and entered Beryl’s house. “I have promised my time to Lord Kunzite today, I’m afraid. If only you’d come to me sooner….”

“I had other obligations,” he had to work a shift at the salt mine first, so he wasn’t sacked.

“I see,” Beryl whispered, looking towards her front door, “Lord Kunzite has no obligations other than to court me.”

Finding his bravery was easier than expected, what with his rage billowing and burning any nerves Endymion had. Beryl’s head whipped back to him when Endymion took a step closer, closing the distance between in an instant. A smile grew on her ruby red lips at his boldness. “Would you prefer to be an obligation or have someone willing to move the heavens to spend time with you?”

There was no doubt; it was a struggle for Endymion to find time to spend with Beryl. And he was sure that was why she sought out other suitors. However, what looked like disinterest was the opposite; Endymion wanted to marry Beryl more than anything. He was in love with her. He had never been in love before, but he was confident; it felt like this.

Beryl looked between him and the surrounding area as if to catch those spying. “Perhaps then,” she pursed her lips together, and Endymion found himself leaning in closer as though she might let him kiss her, “you could return tonight? I will wait for you. Come to my window on the backside of the house and do not wake my family. We need privacy.”

Beryl stepped back, leaving him with the promise of seeing her again later, and disappeared inside. He tried not to dwell on how Beryl was with the Duke while he trotted home. Even helping his family and completing his chores did not help distract his mind, though. Something all took notice when his grandfather on his mother’s side whelped in pain.

“Sorry!”

Leaning over as much as the frail man could, he swatted Endymion’s shoulder, “what is yer thinking, boy? ‘Cause, you ain’t here with us!”

“I’m sorry, Papa.” Endymion relented, focusing on being gentle as he rewrapped the bandage on Papa’s ankle. He had just finished cleaning the wound his Papa received when Papa decided to try and get out of bed on his own. “I have a lot on my mind as of late.”

Endymion’s mother was still at work, finishing up some lavish dress for a wealthy family. He used to visit her at the shop but stopped when he took a look at what she was working on last time. The sleeve of the gown she sewed would feed his family for a month. It made Endymion sick, so he didn’t return.

His grandmother on his mother’s side, Grand, tugged on his sleeve; the ratty shirt and slacks replaced his nice suit from earlier. It was the only one he had, and he needed it clean for the evening. “What’s troubling you, dear?”

Casting his eyes over his family, he quickly caught on that they were all concerned for him. “It’s just that… there’s this girl….”

All of them began talking at once, this and that about marriage and commitment, when Papa held up his hands to silence them. “Who’s the girl?”

Endymion hesitated. He hadn’t told his family anything about who he wished to court, and he worried how they would take it. “Ms. Beryl Tungston.”

They were silent, looking at Endymion heavily until his grandmother on his father’s side, Gre-Gre, whispered, “isn’t she the prettiest girl in town?”

“I heard she had many fine fellows after her,” Endymion’s grandfather, Gramps, added, but it was far from news to Endymion.

Grand huffed, “yes, and Endymion is one of them!”

Gramps held up his hands in defense, reminding Endymion he needed to check his blood pressure. “I ain’t saying that he’s not! Ms. Tungston would be lucky to have a smart and clever boy like Endymion for a husband!”

“Is no one going to say it?” Papa stated, and they all grew silent. “Fine, I will then. You ain’t got the funds to marry. Not yet. And if yer did, it wouldn’t be enough for a woman the caliber of Tungston. They’re a fine family and need to keep it that way.”

“So what are you saying, Papa? I should give up?” He looked at his family with wide eyes, and they all caved quickly.

“No! No one is saying that,” they all said in one way or another.

Endymion hung his head, looking at his Gramps’ watch while he measured the beats of his pulse. Then, with his Gramps’ wrist still in his clutch, Endymion felt the reaction to his words. “I love her, so I have to try.”

No one said a word more, letting Endymion face his battle with his determination on high. He was getting ready to leave when his mother finally arrived home. Catching him in his fine suit had her attention right away. “Where are you off to at this hour?”

He had told his family about his intentions but not that he was due for a late-night rendezvous. Endymion worried about how it might look and didn’t want to dirty Beryl’s reputation.

So he lied, “I am seeing a man about a job.”

That would explain his dress but not the hour. “Now?” He shrugged and tried for nonchalance while his mother helped him into his jacket. “Thank you for working so hard for us. We all appreciate and love you dearly.”

“I know,” Endymion muttered, turning to look his mother in the eyes, “I hope to make you proud.”

She pulled him into a fierce hug, “you already do, my love! I am so proud!”

When she released him, Endymion took a few moments to spend with his mother. She fixed herself a small portion of bread and cheese with a glass of wine that was so cheap; it was grape juice. Sitting across, Endymion watched her eat and looked at the bones peeking out from under her skin. “Mother, you don’t eat enough.”

“I eat enough. I keep my strength. And that is enough. Although, I nearly fainted at the order that came in today!”

He sighed, unable to escape tales of extravagance while they nearly starved. “What was it this time? A diamond-coated muffler?”

His mother chuckled, “close. A wedding gown of pale pink chiffon and the most delicate lace I’d ever seen. I was so afraid I would rip it with my hands shaking as they do.”

Endymion’s mother should have stopped sewing three years ago when her tremors began. But they couldn’t afford it even with his position at the salt mines. They were hanging on by a thread (forgive the pun), and the last thing they could afford was his marriage. Endymion could only hope that his accolades would make up the difference soon.

He rose to make his meeting, and his mother called softly after him. “If this interview doesn’t go well, there was a memo posted in the square today. Had the whole town in a tisy.”

“Oh? What was it for?”

“Luna is hiring. Offering great pay and even benefits.”

Endymion barked out a laugh, “Luna hasn’t opened its doors to others in years. Something about thieves. Do they really expect us to walk in there with the threats they laid on us about closing up and moving away?”

“Endymion…it’s a great opportunity. It would help if you considered it. They ask for honest people, and that’s it. And you’re the most honest man I know.”

His mother had a knack for complimenting him when he least deserved it. “Alright, mother, I’ll consider it. I must be off.”

Endymion’s mother blew him a kiss, and he ran as soon as he had his front door shut, making it to Beryl’s just as the moon sat at its highest. It lit up Beryl’s yard, making it easy to find rocks to use. Endymion worried the taps (although soft as possible) would wake her house. With her light extinguished, it seemed as though Beryl forgot him too. But after a few heart-wrenching moments, her lamp turned on, and Beryl opened her window.

Out of her usual up-do, Beryl’s red hair fell in curls that framed her face. Endymion could make out the flush on her cheeks, and it made his heart pound with the emotion he called love. “Hello,” he whispered as loud as he could, and Beryl held a finger to her lips to silence anything more.

Gesturing, Beryl told him to meet her at her back door. The soft white she wore made her look like an angel in the moonlight, her dark green eyes black in the night. He took her in for a few moments of silence when she cleared her throat. “What did you wish to speak with me about?”

Endymion shook the vision that was Beryl out of his head and focused on his mouth. “I wanted to speak about our futures.” He had practiced this many times in the dull mirror outside his room, and now he would say it perfectly. “Beryl…you are exquisite. The most beautiful woman in the world, and I love you. I wish for us to be married. Will you be my wife?”

Her mouth parted in an open smile, shocked at his proposal. Endymion was sure it was the best she’d ever receive. “Oh, Endymion,” she whispered in shock, “you’re so kind. And handsome. But…I have already accepted a proposal. To Lord Kunzite.”

“What? When?!”

“This afternoon. My mother has already ordered my dress. It’s going to be a lovely pink with lace!”

Beryl was going on and on about the dress she would wear to her wedding as she married another man. Endymion was trying to breathe again. His heart had shattered and cut deep into his lungs, piercing them and making drawing breath difficult. But then there was anger, burning and cauterizing the wounds for him. “I waited, as you asked. I was patient, and this is how you reward me?”

Beryl pursed her lips in displeasure, “well, what did you expect, Endymion? I love you too, but you’re the poorest man in town! I had little choice but to accept the Duke’s offer!”

“You would choose money over love?”

“And status! And comfort! Endymion, there are many things a girl must consider when selecting a husband. Unfortunately, love isn’t one of them, so I’m sorry, but I must decline your offer.” Beryl was twisting the knife now, only to coo and come in closer to him, patting his shoulder, “if only you had a decent career? Then I could at least consider you. It’s not my fault; really, it’s your own. I’m the one broken-hearted as you do not love me enough to better yourself for me.”

She leaned up and kissed his cheek, the final nail in the coffin. But Endymion was nothing if not determined, calling out to Beryl before she disappeared back into her sleeping house. “What if I got a job? One better than the salt mines? A job with Luna?”

Beryl scoffed but then smiled brightly back at him. “IF you had a position with Luna, I would consider your offer again.”

She left it at that, and Endymion considered the challenge—and then accepted it. He would get the job at Luna and make Beryl fall at his feet.

Tags:

@kagometaishostory @master-ray5 @sailorlolo @jayangel10 @zelink-inukag @malditamigs @liz8080 @infamousblueskies @jjwalla12 @gofoulpuppycollector @carbidopa-lynseydopa @witheykd @yeagro @preciouslyours @angelarin @pia-bartolini @blairex @reispinkoveralls @billyjbradshaw @littlemissinukag @usako98 @sloeaction @mamabearcat @wolverine1092 @dayfreshie-blog @windkissedsakura @kitsune-nomajo, @neutrons-inukag @parkdangbee @fawn-eyed-girl @yukinon-writes @bluejay785 @lavendertwilight89

#sailor moon fanfiction #AU #sins week #sins week 2021 #wrath and patience #Sil Mil adjacent #stardust AU #willy wonka inspired

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loth-wolffe · 3 years

Note

hey hon! i saw that your requests were open and since we both know that i have hella angst capabilities hehehehehe i wanted to send a request from the song lyrics list 💕 would you possibly be willing to write #15 for my lovely hardcase? i know this is evil but i had to do it

hiiiiii! i hate u for requesting this and I also love you sm. i hope you like this though<3 and also hope it's the angsty level you asked for heh 👉🏻👈🏻

Everywhere

Pairings: Hardcase x reader (no y/n)

Prompt: 15. I try and try to erase you, but you won't disappear - Everywhere by Niall Horan

Word count: just 810 words filled with sadness and heartbreak.

Warnings: this is so f sad and I must warn you I did cry a little while writing this. ALSO. major character death. nothing explicit, just the fact that baby's gone and he ain't coming back. (also trashy ending but that comes with my writing alright I'm sorry)

A/N: I noticed I never said hardcase's name, but I obVIOUSLY had him in mind I mean. but like, if u want to picture any other clone that's alright too<3 enjoy and suffer with me. mwah.

You keep seeing him everywhere, in the simplest of things, in the darkest rooms. You still feel him sometimes, a touch so quick that chills you to the bone, makes you jump in your place, heart beat so fast and tears fill your eyes.

You look for him everywhere, at any time, and it breaks your heart when you don't find him.

It's been days, and weeks, and months.

It's been so long since they told you, the day you feared the most came uninvited, unwelcomed. Came like a quiet morning, and a sunny day. Entered with a knock on the door, and a friendly face.

They didn't tell you, there was no need, their eyes were sad, an apology behind them, a knot in the throat didn't let them speak, but you knew, you knew because he wasn't there.

It felt like your heart was ripped from you, slow and deliberate, a pain so harsh, so brutal, it took away your breath. It stung, so deep and so fast, a growing loop of ache and misery.

It couldn't be. He couldn't be gone.

But he was.

And his departure made it all so... challenging. You couldn't do anything, paralyzed in your bed, tears fat and never ending.

You miss him every day, every day.

And you tried to let it go, to let him go, but he followed you everywhere.

He was in your showers, you could hear clearly how the door opened, his warmth enveloping as he hugged you from behind along with his lips on your neck. He would whisper some silly things, a good morning sunshine and convincing pleads for you to call in sick.

He was in your walks to and from the office, his gloved hand holding yours as you walked through the dirty streets of the lower levels, kissing you under the neon signs, pressing you closer to him in a protective way.

He was in your kitchen, swaying his hips to the beat of whatever song was playing on the radio, commenting about how good it smells, babe, pouring a drink for you before dragging you to dance with him.

He was in your friends, that gave you pitiful looks because how hard it must be to lose the love of your life, and as you remembered simpler times, with you on his lap, drinking and laughing with everyone as he told them something funny because he was the funniest guy.

He was in your clothes, and in your bed, and in the spare pair of blacks he wore around the house that were still in your top drawer, and he was in the milkshakes he begged you to share with two straws and he was in the lamp he brought after breaking another.

He was in everything. In every breath you took and every step you took and every beat of your heart.

And you were so afraid because you begin to forget him, so slowly, without knowing, but there were times you couldn't remember the way he looked at you with an adoration that made your legs weak, and the sound of his voice when he called you sweetheart, and the touch of his lips against yours, and the vibration of his laugh when you rested your head on his chest.

You felt him slipping away, unwillingly, with every sunsetting and every sunrising, he was slipping away.

And didn't know what to do, with this pain and hurt that always kept crashing down to you like the waves into the sand, over and over again and you are just so tired.

So tired.

Tired of seeing your heart, dripping with blood, being crushed on the hand of his ghost, being split open by the knife of his memory.

You just want him back, but that's not happening anytime soon.

But he's still around, tormenting you, chasing you, and it's not only the fact that he's not around to tell him, to beg him, to stop, but it's the constant reminder that you will never be able to murmur into his lips how much you love him nor trace his tattoos as you lay down with him, you won't get to go to Naboo because baby you have to see those waterfalls, you can't hear his bad singing or see his killer moves.

You don't have him anymore, just the constant reminder that there was so much to do, to live by his side, so much to say and to give.

And maybe it's egoistic of you or maybe it's not but you don't care. You miss him, and you can't do anything about it, about him, being left powerless, weak and exhausted.

Left with nothing, with no one to hold on to, no one to wait for, no plans for the future, nothing but to fight to live another day, for him.

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theeverlastingshade · 3 years

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Favorite Albums of the 10s

25. Shaking the Habitual- The Knife

The Knife made a name for themselves with their third and most celebrated LP, Silent Shout, but it’s their fourth LP, StH, that pushed their idiosyncratic blend of electroacoustic synth-pop to the furthest, most far-flung places that they’ve gone yet. The record deals with a diverse range of topics from the surveillance state, to fracking, pollution, gender discrimination, and unchecked greed with colorful, ketamine-fused candy cotton synth work and ritualistic percussion. There are long passages of ambience like the menacing build of “A Cherry on Top” dispersed between roaring apocalyptic dance numbers like the astonishing industrial eruption “Full of Fire” and the electro-acoustic freak out “Without You My Life Would Be Boring”. With the exception of the mid-album ambient epic “Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized” every song on StH justifies its length with consistently engrossing arrangements that sustain their momentum without compromising an ounce of their potency. Everything about the record lives up to its title, from its thematic ambitions, to the breadth of the sonics, pacing, and performances themselves. StH if the full manifestation of the darkness that was lurking beneath the surface of their music from as early as their breakout single “Heartbeats”, but thankfully the music never collapses under the weight of their thematic concerns. Their resilience remains inspiring all these years later, and if Karin and Olof never reunite for a fifth LP we couldn’t have asked for a better send off.

Essentials: “Full of Fire”, “A Tooth for an Eye”, “A Cherry on Top”

24. XXX- Danny Brown

Hip-hop grew to remarkable heights throughout the 10s, and yet there were few rappers that displayed the level of growth and consistency from record to record throughout this past decade quite like Danny Brown. The Detroit native spent the aughts hustling the mixtape circuit, finally catching a spark with 2010’s The Hybrid, his strong debut LP. But a year later Brown returned with his sophomore LP and magnum opus XXX, a twisted rap odyssey that ignited the blogs, and signaled that a new era of hip hop was beginning to emerge. XXX found Brown rapping over an assortment of wonky boom-bap instrumentals courtesy of Bruiser Brigade producer Skywalker that fused classic hip-hop, trap, baroque pop, and techno into shapes far more disorienting than the beats that the vast majority of his contemporaries were rapping over. While it was evident beforehand, XXX really cemented the notion that Brown could rap over anything. The beats here are generally extremely impressive, and there are plenty of singular stylistic touches like the slurring violin stabs of “Lie 4”, the menacing synth lurch of “Monopoly”, or the distorted brass loops of closer “30”, that really stand out, but the appeal is first and foremost Brown’s rapping. His voice alone is one of the most versatile and unpredictable instruments in hip-hop, but aside from his masterful vocal alteration, always perfectly synched to the tone of any given moment on any given song of his, he’s a naturally gifted writer, as thoughtful as he is straight up hilarious. Whether bragging about his destructive lifestyle (“Die Like a Rockstar”), describing how much he loves cunnilingus “I Will”, mourning the desolation around him “Party All the Time”, or reveling in his come-up “30”, Brown is a thoroughly engaging presence throughout the entire album. On XXX profanity and profundity march gleefully hand in hand with one another, casting Brown as one of the last decade’s most singular voices.

Essentials: “Die Like a Rockstar”, “Monopoly”, “30”

23. House of Sugar- Alex G

On Alex G’s latest LP, House of Sugar, his concoction of warm guitar pop and warped electronic production reached a new peak. The songs on HoS detail the misdeeds of various characters succumbing to their greed, and the vignettes that he paints are growing increasingly well-realized thanks to a continuously sharpening songwriting voice and a plethora of tasteful pitch-shifted vocals that help imbue his characters with color and personality. HoS opener “Walk Away” provides a reasonably sonic barometer for what’s to come before dropping us into a series of the most immediate pop songs that he’s ever penned. “Hope” and “Southern Sky” are nimble acoustic guitar pop songs that are almost disarming in their immediacy, and framed around references to the real life death of a friend of his due to opioids and a dream he had, respectively. By the time we reach acoustic guitar and sitar-drone of “Taking” the pitch-shifted vocals are at the forefront of the music and HoS shifts gears into its abstract middle section which owes a lot to the new-age beat deconstruction of avant-garde electronic producers, specifically Oneohtrix Point Never. On the instrumental “Sugar”, a sublime concoction of pitch-warped whispers, dissonant strings arpeggios, and creeping acoustic guitar plucks, HoS reaches the depths of its depravity. The next song, “In My Arms”, leads us to the suite of sublime acoustic reveries that close HoS, arguably peaking with the gorgeous acoustic love ballad “Cow”. The dramatic sonic left-turn that HoS takes midway through may leave some new listeners a little cold, but for most Alex G fans nothing about the eclecticism of HoS should come as a surprise. Nor should the overwhelming quality of the songs here. From Alex G’s debut, Race, in 2010 up through HoS, he released a remarkable catalog of some of the most eclectic, and vital indie rock of the century, and I have no reason to believe he won’t top HoS at some point.

Essentials: “Gretel”, “Sugar”, “Walk Away”

22. Sea When Absent- A Sunny Day in Glasgow

A Sunny Day in Glasgow may be one of the 21st century’s most underrated bands, but not even Pitchfork could resist the coveted BNM tag when it came time to review their fourth and strongest LP, Sea When Absent. Building off of their first three idiosyncratic LPs that superbly fused electronic pop with shoegaze and dream pop, A Sunny Day in Glasgow moved into decidedly more psychedelic territory with their fourth LP while still retaining the sharp melodic sensibility of those first three. Much of the shift is easy to credit to vocalist Jen Goma who joined the group on their third LP, Autumn Again, and here her soaring vocals deliver rich melodies that are more fleshed out and focused than anything on their past releases. SWA sidesteps the kaleidoscopic sprawl of their 22 song sophomore LP, Ashes Grammar, and instead delivers 11 tight, stargazing pop songs. Whereas on the prior records it more often than not felt like the band were throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck (with primarily successful results) on SWA the band commit more thoroughly to their ideas, writing songs that are well within their wheelhouse but have never been so well-realized. “Byebye, Big Ocean (The End)” and “Boys Turn Into Girls (Initiation Rites)” erupt with a wall of dazzling distorted guitars that slowly build into engrossing melodic payoffs while “Never Nothing (It’s Alright (It’s Ok))” and “The Body, It Bends” are sublime, soft spoken breathers that put a premium on texture and melody, and are among A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s most impressive songs yet. Even seemingly inconsequential moments like the “Double Dutch” interlude positively radiant with melodic warmth and joyous energy. Their strain of sun-kissed, jubilant dream pop tonally stands in stark contrast to much of the pop that’s dominated the airwaves this past decade, but their temperament doesn’t sound naïve so much as defiant. They have yet to follow up SWA with another LP, and I can’t blame them if they feel like they’ve said everything that they have to say with SWA.

Essentials: “The Body, It Bends”, “Never Nothing (It’s Alright (It’s Ok))”, “Boys Turn Into Girls (Initiation Rites)”

21. Strange Mercy- St. Vincent

Annie Clark has spent the past decade releasing music under her St. Vincent moniker, collaborating with the likes of David Byrne, producing for Sleater-Kinney, and appearing on the sketch comedy Portlandia. Although she began her solo career in earnest with her strong 2008 debut, Marry Me, in 2011 Clark released Strange Mercy, her third, and strongest record to date. Produced by John Congleton, SM is a compelling fusion of art rock/and chamber pop that often lands with a jarring, visceral impact, but is still imbued with a sense of grace that heightens the sentiments of her bewitching songwriting. Her first two records showcased her singular voice and tastefully, ornate baroque arrangements, but on SM Clark begins to let loose and lean into her virtuosic guitar playing. Songs like “Cruel” and “Northern Light” are propelled by her nimble riffs caked in distortion while strings rise and fall in a satisfying sweep all around her triumphant vocals. “Surgeon” brings the pace down to a crawl and gets a tone of mileage out of sensuous synth arrangements as Clark sings softly of depression and carnal desire “Stay in just to get along/Turn off the TV, wade in bed/A blue and a red/A little something to get along” before the song erupts into a furious storm of guitar distortion. The balance between fury and serenity animate the record from start to finish, and Clark seamlessly toggles these impulses from start to finish. On the title track, over a lumbering tom/kick drum rhythm, the incessant ping of a synth, and bluesy guitar licks Clark brilliantly sums up the record’s theme with a scene of police brutality “If I ever meet that dirty policeman that roughed you up/No, I, I don’t know what” that depicts the contraction inherent in the way justice is carried out by police in the west, and the way those contradictions bleed through to our understanding of morality on the whole. SM is a record full of these sorts of messy contradictions, and the music constantly reflected that perpetual sense of disarray with songs as colorful and chaotic as they were controlled.

Essentials: “Northern Lights”, “Surgeon”, “Strange Mercy”

20. A Moon Shaped Pool- Radiohead

Radiohead’s eighth LP, 2011’s solid but unremarkable King of Limbs seemed to cement the notion that while Radiohead may not have another game changer left in them, they were probably weren’t ever going to make a bad record. And with all of their various solo pursuits it seemed plausible that we may never get another Radiohead record, as underwhelming as capping off a career as thrilling as theirs with KoL would have been. Thankfully things didn’t pan out that way, and in 2016 Radiohead released their ninth LP, A Moon Shaped Pool; the platonic ideal of a master stroke from a legacy act. The album is partially composed of older songs re-worked into new forms, such as the tense string onslaught of opener “Burn the Witch” while a few of the newer songs like the gorgeous, ambient “Daydreaming” are string-laden compositions that are as eerie as they are radiant. For a band that’s been prophesizing the increasingly dismal state of the world that we now find ourselves in for the past several decades, they sound increasingly comfortable with their position in the world, and there’s no question that they’re in full command of their craft here. The production is sublime throughout the entire record, with a sense of encroaching doom bubbling just beneath the surface juxtaposed against rich baroque instrumentation. AMSP is the Radiohead album most informed by Johnny Greenwood’s work scoring films like There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, and as a result there’s a remarkable sense of immersion at work even for a Radiohead album.

So while there are some recognizable forms from records past, such as the brass-lead krautrock strut of “Ful Stop”, or the twitchy IDM drum work of “Identikit”, the spectral production heightens the potency of everything here. The compositions on AMSP are the most elegant, and nuanced of Radiohead’s to date, and Yorke’s voice continues to age superbly. Yorke’s lyrics touch on familiar topics, more relevant now than ever, such as climate change on “The Numbers” “The numbers don’t decide/The system is a lie/A river running dry/The wings of butterflies” the dangers of unchecked authority on “Burn the Witch” “Abandon all reason/Avoid all contact/Do not react/Shoot the messengers/This is a low-flying panic attack” and the broader, horrific realities of the world that we live in on “Ful Stop” “Why should I be good if you’re not?/This is a foul tasting medicine/A foul tasting medicine/To be trapped in your ful-stop”. What’s more unexpected are songs like the graceful string-led “Glass Eyes” and the devastating ambient closer “True Love Waits”, two songs that are poignant tributes to Yorke’s ex-wife, Rachel Owen, who passed away from cancer in late 2016. AMSP isn’t just a spectacular late-career gem that would make a superb swan song; it’s also the most human record that Radiohead have made yet.

Essentials: “True Love Waits”, “Daydreaming”, “Ful Stop”

19. Eye Contact- Gang Gang Dance

Few bands set the tone for the kind of cross-culture hybridization that would become the sonic norm for music throughout this decade quite like Gang Gang Dance. Throughout the early aughts they cut their teeth in the Brooklyn noise scene alongside bands like Animal Collective, Black Dice, and Exceptor blending noise, experimental rock, and worldbeat into blistering, unconventional shapes. As the years progressed Gang Gang Dance gradually began to open up their sound, folding elements of hip-hop, dance music, and psychedelic pop into a colorful concoction of rhythmically robust, delightfully manic pop music that was just as forward-thinking as it was infectious. The shift really began on their criminally underrated 2005 LP, God’s Money, but began notably on their terrific 2008 LP, Saint Dymphna. On the follow-up to SD, their remarkable fifth LP, Eye Contact, the sound of Gang Gang Dance crystallized into something more immediate and far-ranging than anything that they had done prior (or since so far). On EC, everything that the band had attempted throughout the course of their career (tribal rhythms, eastern melodies, shards of refracted noise) was gloriously combined into a hyper-saturated tapestry of progressive future pop. EC is the peak of Gang Gang Dance’s prior decade of sonic exploration, and nearly a decade later there’s still nothing that sounds anything like it.

Beginning with the astonishing slow-burn intro of “Glass Jar” that finds the band patiently building up what begins as a pent up ambient composition toward something more volatile that eventually rips open midway through, spilling into a calamitous, euphoric release into the song’s second half, EC is bursting with joyous energy and possibility. The melodies are some of the sharpest, and most direct that vocalist Lizzi Bougatsos has ever penned, providing a warm immediacy that cuts through even the most outre arrangements here, and they continually expand into shapes as the songs continue to progress. “Adult Goth” and “MindKilla” are bolstered considerably by Lizzi’s dynamic vocal performances, and the off-kilter, spellbinding synth arrangements of the band’s keyboardist Brian DeGraw, while “Romance Layers” provides an ideal mid-album psychedelic breather.. And on the album’s closer, “Thru and Thru”, the band deliver a send-off that succinctly sums up a prior decade’s worth of experimentation into a nearly six-minute song overflowing with eastern melodies, mesmerizing chants, and infectious tribal rhythms that congeal into a sound that couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else. Although they’ve only graced us with the somewhat underwhelming 2018 record Kazuashita since, when Gang Gang Dance are firing on all cylinders, as they are on all of EC, there’s simply nothing like it.

Essentials: “Glass Jar”, “Adult Goth”, “Thru and Thru”

18. Shields- Grizzly Bear

Although the zeitgeist was already beginning to dramatically shift by the time that Grizzly Bear released their fourth LP, Shields, guaranteeing that it wouldn’t have the same immediate impact that they enjoyed with its predecessor, their 2009 breakout LP, Veckatimest, they still ended up releasing their magnum opus. Compared to Veckatimest’s approachable folk-pop leanings there are moments on Shields that sound downright prog, but the band never let these intricate baroque pop/psychedelic folk arrangements get away from themselves or compromise the remarkable melodic instincts that were undeniable on their terrific sophomore LP, Yellow House. The ten songs throughout Shields are perfectly paced, and there isn’t a single moment that overstays its welcome, but they each develop just as much as they need to. The band’s primary songwriters, Edward Droste and Daniel Rossen, were each peaking as singular songwriters in their own respective rights on Shields, and they both deliver a handful of the band’s strongest songs to date. Droste’s songs tend to creep in ethereal waltzes with delicate baroque instrumentation (“gun-shy”, “A Simple Answer”) unfolding patiently while sustaining a remarkable sense of tension while Rossen’s are jaunty folk rippers that unfurl in unpredictable, and thrilling cacophonies that still retain the grace that the ornate instrumentation demands (“Yet Again”, “Speak in Rounds”) but unfurl in far more complex structures than those on Veckatimest.

Grizzly Bear’s progression from Droste’s cozy lo-fi folk bedroom project to a knotty baroque folk juggernaut was one of the most quietly satisfying of any band from the past decade, and on Shields they hit a gorgeous peak. While Droste and Rossen had peaked as songwriters here, their contributions never overshadowed those of Chris Taylor or Chris Bear, and the chemistry on Shields is sharper than most bands ever come close to achieving. It’s easy to get lost admiring the sheer craft of their meticulous arrangements, crisp production, provoking but elusive songwriting, and the sharp interplay between Droste and Rossen each on their own individual merit, but on Shields everything that previously stood out about their artistry is amplified, and congealed in a way that’s approachable yet inimitable. On Shields Grizzly Bear umped the ante from Veckatimest on both fronts, and proved that they could grow more immediate and melodic while still dazzling with rich compositional complexity. Grizzly Bear followed it up with Painted Ruins in 2017, that while a perfectly good record in its own right is nowhere as cohesive, and most unfortunately, patient. And to be honest, I haven’t heard a baroque folk record released since Shields that’s as consistently engrossing, or one performed with such remarkable execution. Shields isn’t their most immediate, but it best distills their singular essence, and its generosity knows no bounds.

Essentials: “gun-shy”, “Yet Again”, “The Hunt”

17. The Money Store- Death Grips

Anyone from future generations looking to hear a band that’s most emblematic of the 10s as a full decade probably couldn’t do better than Death Grips. The trio consisting of vocalist MC Ride, keyboardist/producer Flatlander, and drummer Zach Hill released their abrasive Ex-military tape in 2011, and right out of the gates the trio had a fully-formed sound that plucked unapologetically from west coast hip-hop, industrial, hardcore, and noise. Although far from the first band to draw equally upon genres like these, Death Grips stood out immediately thanks in no small part to MC Ride, who has since proved to be one of the last decade’s most compelling frontmen. His lyrics are cryptic, and intelligent yet visceral, with a deceptively wry edge. Although there’s quite a bit of variety to his delivery, it’s always propelled forth with an overwhelming intensity that can take some time to become accustomed to. Ex-military was received rapturously by critics and bloggers, but as exciting as group like them may have seemed at the time it would have been hard to predict any kind of real longevity for them. And their unrelentingly antagonistic streak (leaking No Love Deep Web, putting a picture of Zach Hill’s dick on the cover of said album, skipping performances or just playing recorded music instead of performing, trolling fans, faking a breakup) would have decimated the momentum of almost any other band, but Death Grips feed on this sort of chaos like a troupe of anarchist vampires. Their arc from Ex-military to 2018’s Year of the Snitch is one of the most rewarding streaks of any act throughout the 10s, and while most of these records are great, there isn’t one that better distills their essence than their 2012 debut LP, The Money Store.

While Ex-military presented them as an admittedly idiosyncratic, yet undeniable product of their environment, TMS blew their sound wide open proving that they had range far beyond sounds of their native state. Right from the bass arpeggios that jolt opener “Get Got” to life, it’s clear the fidelity has improved considerably, but they haven’t compromised an ounce of their fury. This still scans as music custom-tailored for little other than violently thrashing your limbs, and little else from the past decade as been anywhere near as effective at distilling that aesthetic so neatly across the run of a single record. But on TMS Death Grips were still writing actual songs, with memorable hooks, sticky melodies, and conventional structures that served to heighten the potency of their tantrums. Songs like “I’ve Seen Footage” and “Hacker” are shocking for how immediate and unthreatening the band sound despite MC Ride’s sour bark, while songs like “The Fever (Aye Aye)” and “The Cage” showcase early peaks for Flatlander’s immaculate, and underrated synth work. MC Ride is at his best here, whether talking shit and espousing authenticity (“Hustle Bones”), calling out doubters (“Bitch Please”), or just railing against general conformity, he delivers 13 career defining performances in neat succession. Death Grips have continued to relentlessly experiment on all their subsequent records, and while some have come close to matching the excellence of TMS, they’ve all fallen short. Thankfully, the immense exhilaration and urgency of TMS sound more potent with each successive year that we inhibit this desolate hellscape.

Essentials: “I’ve Seen Footage”, “The Fever (Aye Aye)”, “Hacker”

16. Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)- Car Seat Headrest

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that a re-recording of a devastatingly personal LP that Will Toledo recorded at 19, with better production, stronger arrangements, and cleaner vocals, would end up being his best record to date. What was surprising was that he decided to return to the record of his that’s most important to him, and give it the sort of justice that it deserves after having developed into a far more adept talent in the years following its release. And although I’m sure some of those songs (if not all of them) were painful to revisit, the discipline and audacity paid off enormously. Twin Fantasy centers entirely around falling in love with another man at 19, and the arc of their relationship from mourning the distance between them on the opening song “My Boy (Twin Fantasy)” to the newfound acceptance of their relationship’s dissolution on closer “Twin Fantasy (Those Boys)”, detailing the highs and lows with unabashed sincerity. While the original still holds up fairly well, there’s no question that the re-arranging, cleaner vocals, and stronger fidelity overall just heightened the potency of what was already there without diminishing any aspect of the original record. Will’s cleverness, sense of humor, and dynamism as a bandleader elevate TF beyond a melancholic teen drama into a searing document of formative growth, demonstrating craft, ingenuity, and wisdom far beyond his years. More so than any other record released throughout the last decade, TF exemplifies just how potent indie rock still is.

This new version of TF is more of a “re-imagining” of the original record than anything else, and as such the thematic scope as it initially existed, along with the exact same track listing, is held perfectly intact. The record’s two epics, those being “Beach Life-In-Death” and “Famous Prophets (Stars)” are both even longer, and benefit more so than anything else here from their new arrangements. The fidelity has been cleaned up notably, but TF is still far from overproduced, and without any fuzz obscuring a lot of the detail you can hear just how crisp, and superbly layered these arrangements are. The new-wave outlier “Nervous Young Human” practically radiates with a newfound sheen, and is handedly the most radio-ready song the band have ever written, but it still folds seamlessly into the record’s mid-section between the anthemic, distortion-fueled peaks of “Sober to Death” and the record’s mid-album power-pop stunner, “Bodys”. Toledo’s drawing from a great deal here of different sub-genres here, and he manages to land on a remarkably uniform sound that belies the myriad of intricacies at work that prevent these compositions from being crushed underneath the weight of their own ambition. The album’s greatest achievement is how deftly Will manages to tell a story about the most profound event of his life coupled with music that’s as multi-faceted as the human experience being conveyed. TF may be proudly out of step with the current cultural zeitgeist from a sonic perspective, but the sentiments conveyed throughout are sublime missives from a distinctly millennial outlook. As far as concept albums about a single relationship are concerned, Toledo has set the bar this century with TF.

Essentials: “Famous Prophets (Stars)”, “Beach Life-In-Death”, “Bodys”

15. Modern Vampires of the City- Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend have come a long way from the indie afro-pop roots of their debut to their pastoral, jam band informed fourth LP, Father of the Bride, but on their third LP, Modern Vampires of the City the band refined their sound to a sublime strain of chamber music and art pop filled with Ezra Koenig’s strongest writing to date. Whereas their first two records were entirely produced by the band’s multi-instrumentalist and not-so-secret weapon Rostam Batmanliij, on MVotC Ariel Reitscheid, a producer known for working with acts like Charli XCX, Haim, Solange, etc joined the proceedings, and there’s a lighter feel to a lot of the arrangements, but everything has more dimension overall, and the low-end really pops on a lot of these in a way that it hadn’t really before. There are plenty of welcome production choices throughout, like the sprinkling of auto-tune on “Step”, or the blistering saxophone solo on “Worship You” that do a great deal to expand the parameters of the band’s sound without ever finding them really going out of their depth. Compared to their prior records there’s a fairly vast tonal gap on MVotC, with a heightened sense of existential dread and fixations on mortality, nostalgia, and faith. It’s weighty stuff without question, and the exceptional pacing goes a long towards helping evenly pack in the melancholic, languid compositions like “Everlasting Arms” and “Don’t Lie” with infectious up-tempo numbers like “Diane Young”, “Unbelievers”, and “Finger Back” that, while far from the best of what’s here are still as immediate as anything they’ve ever released and benefit from the same immaculate arrangement, production, and writing as everything else here even if they don’t break as much new ground. But the best of what’s here are without question among the best pop songs released so this far century.

Both opener “Obvious Bycycle” and “Step” are devastating looks at nostalgia that frame Ezra’s thoughtful character sketches in rich compositions that in the case of the former consist of soft wisps of grand piano, percussion that sounds like a stamp being punched, and surprisingly visceral bass, while in the case of the latter the band opt for gorgeous harpsichord arrangements, and a swaggering bassline. But “Hannah Hunt”, which is for the record the best VW song to date, is on another level entirely. It opens like the sun after the storm with field recording of a crowd of people clearing away for delicate grand piano and the gentle rumble of bass. Ezra sings of a relationship slowly starting to break apart as a couple travels the country together “A gardener told me some plants move/But I could not believe it/’Til me and Hannah Hunt/Saw crawling vines and weeping willows”. The song slowly builds into a rousing baroque pop crescendo over roaring keys as Ezra delivers one of his most devastating lines to date “If I can’t trust you then damn it Hannah/There’s no future, there’s no answer/Though we live on the US dollar/You and me we got our own sense of time”. Rostam left VW in 2016, and although their first record without him, the aforementioned 2019 comeback LP, FotB, his absence was sorely felt. On “Hudson” it almost sounds like Rostam is singing to Ezra, under that lens especially, it’s functions as a poignant, but fitting cap to VW’s first era. As great as FotB, Rostam’s 2017 debut Half-Light, and I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, his 2016 collaboration with Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen, I hope that MVotC isn’t the last time the two of them work on a full LP together.

Essentials: “Hannah Hunt”, “Step”, “Ya Hey”

14. Channel Orange- Frank Ocean

Few albums released throughout the last decade have brought about the sort of sweeping sea change that Frank Ocean’s sublime debut LP, Channel Orange, did. Ocean’s kaleidoscopic, self-released 2011 mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra established his artistry as something far beyond that of the go-to hook ghostwriter identity he cut his teeth establishing for himself. A year and a half later, amidst signing to Def Jam, collaborating extensively with Tyler, the Creator, Kanye West, and Jay-Z, and writing a now legendary tumblr post stating that his first love was for another man a few days before releasing his immensely anticipated debut LP, Frank Ocean released that album, and decided to call it Channel Orange. Like Ocean’s music itself, the narrative surrounding his ascension feels both timeless (moving to LA after Hurricane Katrina struck his hometown of New Orleans, ghostwriting and joining Tyler, the Creator’s hip-hop collective Odd Future before releasing his own music, which drew primarily from soul, classic r&b, and funk more than anything that was on the radio at the time) and modern (sampling extensively on N,U, having a few key co-signs that seemed to unlock all the right connections, leveraging the power of the internet along with the rest of Odd Future to build and sustain a fanbase) but none of it would matter if the music didn’t live up to the hype. But all of this is particularly interesting to consider when talking about CO, especially considering that it’s the best debut LP of the 10s, and an absolute master class in songwriting.

CO is a remarkably fully-formed debut LP that finds Ocean in complete control of his craft on all fronts. The instrumentation is a lush palette of analog keys, bass, and strings, and with the exception of a few fairly stripped down ballads, shows a keen command for maximalism that never sounds overwrought. Even a song like the colossal, mid-album change-up “Pyramids”, is saved from complete indulgence after the beat seamlessly shifts into a woozy down-tempo trap instrumental with plenty of space for Ocean’s falsetto to linger in. Ocean would shift gears dramatically with the 2016 visual album, Endless, and his second studio LP, Blonde, trading in the rich, dense analog soul and r&b for a minimal psychedelic soul sound. While the production on Blonde and Endless is more impressive than that of CO, neither record was quite able to match the lush immediacy that seemed to come to Ocean so naturally here. Ocean produced the record alongside the musicians Jonathon Ikpeazu, Malay, and Om’Mas Keith who all provided additional keys, drum programming, and/or guitars. Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler, the Creator, and Andre 3000 are the only guests that provide verses, and while each completely delivers, CO is Ocean’s record through and through. Regardless of whether Ocean is singing about the emptiness of privilege (“Super Rich Kids”), or depicting a tale of someone’s life falling apart due to crack addiction (“Crack Rock”) or delivering the closest thing he’ll likely ever come to a straight forward love song (“Thinkin’ Bout You”) his eye for detail, wit, intelligence, and empathy render the characters as rich, and multi-faceted regardless of what angle he’s coming at them from. The warmth and immediacy of the instrumentation and Ocean’s voice draws you in, but it’s the sheer strength of his songwriting that elevates CO from simply being another immensely promising debut to the classic that it is.

Essentials: “Crack Rock”, “Bad Religion”, “End / Golden Girl” ft. Tyler, the Creator

13. Sunbather- Deafheaven

Deafheaven were far from the first band to blend black metal, shoegaze, and post-rock, but on their stellar 2013 record Sunbather they distilled elements of these genres into a punishing, and breathtaking sound that’s unmistakably theirs. Their solid 2010 debut Roads to Judha showed tremendous promise, but their songwriting wasn’t on par with their ambitions yet. But on Sunbather, Deafheaven lived up to that early promise. Sunbather is primarily a blistering fusion of black metal drumming and shrieks engulfed in walls of shoegaze guitar that often give way to instrumental outros that shine with the radiance of Sigur Ros or Explosions in the Sky. George Clarke delivers the lyrics in an indecipherable shriek that either amplifies the intensity of the surrounding arrangements, or is used as a sublime juxtaposition to their fleeting moments of transcendent beauty. Sunbather is seven songs long, and superbly paced so that the band’s lengthier compositions are evenly split between songs that include a dreamy minimalist guitar/piano composition (“Irresistible”), a menacing baroque-noise march that congeals midway through into a jangly guitar conclusion (“Please Remember”), and an eerie collage of vocal samples and droning strings (“Windows”). This odd assortment of songs may seem random, but they do a nice job of breaking up the surrounding onslaught, and demonstrating the band’s range, while still adhering to the record’s searing aesthetic. It’s remarkably accessible music as far as metal is concerned, and if you can make it past the tone of Clarke’s voice there’s a lot to love about this album.

For all of Sunbather’s seemingly impenetrable harshness, there’s a great deal of beauty glistening just beneath the surface. On Sunbather, Deafheaven managed to strike a near perfect balance between beauty and chaos that, while greater heights were achieved later on, they never quite improved upon. The longer numbers here transition into moments of transcendent, cathartic beauty, and back into frenetic fury so subtly, and masterfully, that the juxtapositions quickly begin to seem less like extreme exercises in contrasting dynamics and tones so much as the fluid spectrum of Deafheaven’s multi-faceted artistry. And while the lyrics throughout Sunbather match the brutality of the corresponding arrangements, they also match their life-affirming, triumphant sense of urgency. Whether Clarke is reflecting on habitual patterns and habits that he just can’t shake “Lost in the patterns of youth/And the ghost of your aches comes back to haunt you/And the forging of change makes no difference” on “Vertigo” or ruing the alcoholism that he inherited from his father “In the hallways lit up brightly but couldn’t find myself/I laid drunk on the concrete on the day of your birth in celebration of all you were worth” on closer “The Pecan Tree”, his lyrics throughout Sunbather imbue his tortured yelps with a devastating poignancy rendered all the more morose by the band’s unflinching, formidable poise. It’s not hard to hear why Sunbather was the best reviewed album of 2013, and a game changer for black metal. Few records, metal or otherwise, have managed to convey such overwhelming emotional intensity through such ambitious composition. Its crushing beauty hasn’t lost an ounce of its potency in the years since.

Essentials: “Dream House”, “The Pecan Tree”, “Sunbather”

12. To Pimp a Butterfly- Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar caught the attention of the zeitgeist with his generation defining sophomore LP, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, but that record’s follow-up, To Pimp a Butterfly, cemented his status as one of the definitive musical auteurs of his generation. Whereas the former record was a gripping street epic that seamlessly tucked a coming of age story into the larger fabric of a blockbuster west coast hip-hop record, the latter record blew open the history of black music and wove together a tapestry of disparate styles that congealed to express a more multi-faceted look at the black experience. The beats are composed of live instrumentation courtesy of Terrance Martin, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, and a plethora of the west coast jazz elite, and they span the likes of jazz, r&b, soul, and funk alongside instrumental hip-hop without showing the seams. The music runs the gamut from uplifting anthems (“Alright”) to bouts of unbridled fury (“The Blacker the Berry”), and everywhere in-between, but thanks to Kendrick’s deft pacing and execution nothing sounds out of place, and there’s no mistaking these songs for the work of anyone else through sheer scope alone. Kendrick’s writing and rapping had increased considerably since GKMC, but throughout TPaB he spends less time trying to prove what a capable rapper he is, and far more time using his ability to explore the nuances of systemic racial issues through the lens of a plethora of different characters. TPaB couldn’t have possibly sounded more out of step with the zeitgeist upon its release, but in venturing beyond what hip-hop in the mid 10s sounded like, and exploring perspectives beyond those of himself, he was able to tap into something far more universally human.

Throughout the course of TPaB Kendrick tackles a wide plethora of topics with music that’s matches the breadth and scope of his thematic ambitions. The g-funk strut “King Kunta” is one of the most immediate songs in his career, and he juxtaposes the song’s infectious backdrop against verses that evoke the resilience of Kunta Kinte in the novel Roots as a through line for the jarring shift he experienced throughout his come-up after growing up in poverty. “u?” brilliantly distills the sort of tragic survivor’s guilt that Kendrick experienced in the wake of his success watching so many of his friends continue to succumb to the perils of systemic racism through harsh free-jazz arrangements, while “i” gains power within the context of the record as an uplifting neo-soul anthem of self-love after the preceding storm has subsided. The uplifting anthem “Alright” has become a canonical protest song in the wake of civil unrest as a result of excessive police brutality while the finale, “Mortal Man”, begins with some of his strongest verses to date before transitioning into a fabricated interview with 2Pac. There’s an absurd amount to unpack within the songs on TPaB, but the album never buckles under the weight of its ambition, and delivers performances that are striking at every turn. Kendrick never shies away from depicting the devastating realities throughout the history of the black American experience, but he finds reasons to persist through these tribulations in the power of community, god, and love.

Essentials: “The Blacker the Berry”, “u”, “Wesley’s Theory” ft. George Clinton

11. Lonerism- Tame Impala

On Tame Impala’s debut, Innerspeaker, the band proved adept at piecing together the finest moments from their record collections into strange, idiosyncratic new shapes, but on their sublime sophomore LP, Lonerism, they began to push their sound into the present moment. The flanged guitars, shuffling drum rhythms, and frontman Kevin Parker’s Lennon-esque falsetto are a hallmarks of classic psychedelic rock, but the spellbinding synth textures, evocative samples, and cavernous production showcase a definitively 21st century sensibility. There was no mistaking them for a pure homage act on Lonerism. With the exception of piano on a few tracks courtesy of Jay Watson, and a spoken word interlude courtesy of Melody Prochet, Lonerism was written, recorded, and produced entirely by Kevin Parker, and it helped signal a major shift from bands being the dominant artistic vehicle in indie music to the solo artist taking up that mantle. Lonerism is a perfectly paced album, and aside from a few breathers, and a few epics, it almost plays like a greatest hits set. There were signs of the disco-prog synth act that Tame Imapa developed into on a few of Lonerism’s more immediate moments, but this is still thoroughly steeped in the lineage of psychedelic rock, acid rock, and blues rock. With Lonerism, Parker began to show signs of the poptimist that he was all along, but he hadn’t yet compromised the instrumental ingenuity that he’s capable of for a strong melody, and so here you get the best of both worlds; the band’s sharpest hooks and most adventurous production. Lonerism is where Tame Impala evolved from a promising project with immense potential into one of the defining musical acts of Parker’s generation.

Lonerism is a record that completely lives up to its title as a concept record about isolation. Every song here finds Parker grappling with some aspect of self-imposed isolation set against hazy, psychedelic pop/rock instrumentation. Some songs like, the disarmingly immediate “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” spells out his anguish explicitly, with a love interest that he keeps falling for against his best judgement, while “Endors Toi” finds Parker rejecting the hardships of reality for the bliss that’s only possible when you’re literally dreaming. The lyrics rarely go deep, but on a record like this they’re entirely beside the point. Thankfully Parker’s writing works superbly within the context of the concept without detracting from the instrumentation and production. Parker wrote a few strong hooks on IS, but they were the exception, not the norm. On Lonerism, Parker’s melodic intuition had fully blossomed, and the hooks on songs like “Elephant”, “Why Won’t She Talk to Me”, and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” were more immediate, and more memorable than anything on the top 40 at the time. The songs on Lonerism are bursting with sonic personality; whether we’re talking about the euphoric streaks of synth that send “Apocalypse Dreams” into the stratosphere, the phaser-smeared guitars and immersive samples that bring “Sun’s Coming Down” to its triumphant finale, or the propulsive drum fllls that propel “Endors Toi”, Lonerism is the most sonically rich record that Parker has ever released. Parker would achieve more audacious and unexpected heights on his superb 2015 follow-up, Currents, but he has yet to top Lonerism’s consistency, and near perfect balance between studio experimentation and pure pop craftsmanship.

Essentials: “Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control”, “Sun’s Coming Up”, “Apocalypse Dreams”

10. Flower Boy- Tyler, the Creator

Flower Boy may not have come as a surprise to those who closely followed Tyler Okonoma’s progression from the lo-fi hardcore hip-hop days of Bastard and early Odd Future through his chaotic, candy-coated third LP, Cherry Bomb, but for the casual listener it may have seemed like an unthinkable evolution. And no one could have predicted its consistency. The signs of Tyler progressing into melodic, psych-leaning neo-soul were on the wall as early as his terrific 2013 record, Wolf, but on FB his melodic sensibilities, compositional chops, and an increasingly empathetic outward writing perspective all coalesced into an idiosyncratic tapestry of vibrant sound and color unlike any hip hop record ever recorded. It’s the first time that Tyler’s chops had fully caught up with his ambition, allowing him to completely deliver on the promise of a truly genre-adverse opus that Cherry Bomb merely hinted at. The lyrics are somber, and reflective, demonstrating Tyler’s newfound sense of maturity that would have been unthinkable throughout the early OF days. The sincerity and vulnerability of the lyrics go a long way towards heightening the potency of his vibrant, melodically rich compositions. FB capitalizes on all the strange contradictions that have always been inherent in his music, while removing the adolescent excess that have bogged down each prior release. The result is a highwater mark for what hip-hop and neo-soul can sound like unbridled with concern for what music should sound like. That attention to detail and unrelenting creative spirit are what helped propel FB into being the classic record that it ended up being.

Eschewing the lo-fi Neptunes meets MF DOOM beats of his past records, Tyler landed on a perfect blend of neo-soul synths, jazz strings/horns, and drums that split the difference between classic boom-bap and mid-10s trap for FB. The music is bright and vibrant, with a wealth of detail tucked within each mix that rewards multiple listens. There are songs that are completely in Tyler’s wheelhouse, like the frantic, mid-album trap cut “I Ain’t Got Time!”, and a few like the show-stopping psychedelic soul ballad, “Garden Shed”, that dramatically expand the parameters of his sound, but they all cohere together superbly into a fully-realized kaleidoscope of sound. Even the songs like “Pothole” and “November” that seem like more run of the mill Tyler cuts showcase a renewed sense of focus and tight production that belie their simple construction. FB is a record that’s focused on unrequited love, and while themes of abandonment, disillusionment with fame, growing pains, and insecurity emerge as on past records, the bulk of the action is focused on Tyler coming to terms with both his bisexuality and the anguish of a missed connection. Rarely does heartbreak sound so unflinchingly, thrillingly alive. True to form, the music is never mopey or saccharine, but it’s always brimming with the intensity of young love. FB is the record that Tyler has always set out to make, and while I’m sure he’ll top it at some point, it currently stands at the definitive realization of his singular vision.

Essentials: “911 / Mr. Lonely” ft. Frank Ocean & Stevey Lacy, “Garden Shed” ft. Estelle, “See You Again” ft. Kali Uchis

9. Until the Quiet Comes- Flying Lotus

After Steve Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, dropped his masterful third LP, Cosmogramma, it seemed like he could take his sound anywhere, but doubling down and improving on the maximalist excess of Cosmogramma would have proved a near impossible task. Thankfully, on his stellar follow-up LP, Until the Quiet Comes, FlyLo swung all the way in the opposite direction, and despite it being the flavor of the decade minimalism rarely ended up sounding better on any other artist. UtQC is a minimalist electronic jazz/instrumental hip hop record with dreamy meditative arrangements that belie their complexity at every turn. The album is a concept record that finds FlyLo exploring the realms of human consciousness coupled with ambitious arrangements and immersive production that complements his thematic ambitions perfectly. FlyLo is still making beats in a traditional sense, but the compositions on this LP are more rich and varied than the entire discography of most producers, and the music he draws from spans the likes of ambient, psychedelia, r&b, post-rock, progressive rock, and meditative astral jazz as much as his usual instrumental hip hop, IDM, and free jazz touchstones. And so while UtQC is more insular, less immediate, and more likely to necessitate multiple listens than any other record of his, it’s the best showcase of FlyLo’s versatility, melodic intuition, and use of texture.

The compositions are short and sweet, and barely last longer than it takes for FlyLo to introduce an idea, tweak it, thwart expectations, and move on. Like on Cosmogramma, UtQC incorporates live instrumentation weaved throughout various compositions (Thundercat’s bass playing was cemented as a staple element of FlyLo’s sound here) as well as vocal features from the likes of Thundercat, Thom Yorke, Laura Darlington, and Niki Randa. The features are all utilized tastefully, and heighten the potency of the existing arrangements without detracting too much. There are songs like “All In” and “Yesterday/Corded” that just feature FlyLo alone constructing remarkable, lived-in soundscapes from his usual toolkit of drum machines, samplers, sequencers, and keys, while others like the title track and “DMT Song” that commit thoroughly to their minimalism, and coast effortlessly around strong melodies or guest vocal performances. Many of these songs retain the visceral low-end and celestial sweep of his best work, but they don’t serve to overwhelm and disorient as much as they sedate and mesmerize. “Getting There” hits the sweet spot, with and infectious, heavy-hitting low-end juxtaposed against Niki Randa’s sweeping falsetto. UtQC may not go for the jugular as FlyLo’s prior two records, but it’s just as captivating in its own quietly confident way.

And a few of the songs on the back half of the record are some of the most gorgeous that FlyLo has ever composed. The loose and dreamy “Only if You Wanna” provides a simple but sublime bridge from the drum and bass rush of “The Nightcrawler” into the droning r&b mirage with Yorke’s vocals wafting eerily through the crevices in the mix. From there the record moves into “Hunger” and “Phantasm”, two songs that skew the closest that FlyLo has ever veered toward straight up ambience, and they slowly unfurl into gorgeous, unpredictable string progressions as Niki Randa and Laura Darlington deliver understated, ethereal vocals, respectively. From there we’re led into “me Yesterday//Corded”, one of the strongest songs that FlyLo has released to date. It begins in the same somber, minor-key tone of the preceding songs before erupting into a cosmic drum and bass coda with a euphoric melody and pitch-shifted vocals. The final song, “Dream to Me” is a whirring synth and woodwind lullaby that brings everything full circle, leading us right back into the intro, “All In”. UtQC breezes by in nearly 47 minutes, but there’s another singular, self-contained universe of detail packed into this record’s spellbinding grooves.

Essentials: “yesterday//Corded”, “Electric Candyman ft. Thom Yorke”, “All In”

8. Carrie & Lowell- Sufjan Stevens

By the time that Sufjan Stevens released Carrie & Lowell he had already released several classic records and had undergone several stylistic change-ups, but nothing in his discography established the precedent for a masterwork quite like C&L. On C&L Sufjan returned to the sparse chamber folk sound of his superb fourth record, Seven Swans, but he replaced the short vignettes and character studies that peppered that record with an engrossing scope that centers around his tumultuous relationship with his late mother who suffered from substance addiction and schizophrenia. The music is hushed, and minimal, consisting of little more than finger plucked guitar, banjo, ukulele, and an assortment of strings underneath Sufjan’s tender delivery. His music has always radiated a sense of overwhelming empathy, and so when plumbing the depths of his psyche for memories of his mother the tone is often devastating and cathartic in equal measure, but never overly morose or self-pitying. With C&L Sufjan succeeded in honoring his mother’s memory as honestly and as faithfully as he could while his songwriting hit a new peak.

C&L sustains an almost overwhelming poignancy throughout its duration, but it’s never a slog. The heaviness of the sentiments never really subsides, but these songs are each filled with strong hooks, sweeping melodies, and a disarming directness that he’s never quite managed on prior records. Songs like the opening cut “Death with Dignity”, “Should Have Known Better”, and “The Only Thing” soar with warm, infectious hooks and nimble guitar arrangements alongside a few electronic and orchestral embellishments, while songs like “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross” and “Fourth of July” bring the tempo to a crawl and bask in Sufjan’s falsetto and minor-key acoustic guitar arrangements. It all comes to a head on the devastating centerpiece “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”, as Sufjan depicts the self-destructive behavior he engaged in right after his mother’s death “There’s blood on that blade/Fuck me, I’m falling apart/My assassin/Like Casper the ghost/There’s no shade in the shadow of the cross” just so that he could feel closer to her.

Essentials: “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”, “Death with Dignity”, “The Only Thing”

7. Some Rap Songs- Earl Sweatshirt

Earl Sweatshirt was arguably the greatest living rapper before dropping his magnum opus, Some Rap Songs, but since its release it’s become much harder to dispute. On SRS Earl runs through 15 songs in 22 minutes, delivering sometimes little more than a hook and a verse per song before transitioning into the next one. The songs operate according to their own logic, and forgo traditional song structure for a loop-based compositional approach. Earl produced the bulk of the record himself, and heavily opted for dusty, de-tuned pianos, shuffling, lo-fi percussion, and a plethora of discordant texture. Earl’s precision is remarkable, and what may initially scan as awkward or clumsy flows slowly reveal themselves to be masterfully sidestepping the rhythms entirely. But for all its challenging aspects, SRS is hardly a precious, posturing sort of record. It demands your full attention, but will reward it several times over.

The songs throughout SRS are bleak missives from a remarkable talent unpacking years of trauma. The record tackles many of the same themes of abandonment, drug abuse, and depression as his past records, but he’s cut out any lingering excess in his prose, distilling only what’s absolutely necessary into each bar. The rapping is lean, and virtuosic, but never showy, and the brevity of the songs themselves is indicative of how succinct and substantial the music there is. Songs like “Red Water” have just a single couplet that he repeats a few times as the ebb and flow of the instrumental sustains the onset momentum, while other songs like “The Mint” are closer to convention, but still unfold along unpredictable loops, and verses that zig zag in and out of the mix at irregular intervals. There are songs like “Cold Summers” and “The Bends” that are the closest that Earl comes to rapping accessibly, and there are those like “Playing Possums” and Peanuts" that owe more to tape loops, ambient, and noise music than anything resembling hip hop. SRS and it’s follow-up EP, Feet of Clay, are easily the most challenging, experimental, and divisive records that Earl has released to date, but they’re also singular masterworks that push hip hop into stranger, and more human realms.

Essentials: “Peanut”, “The Mint” ft. Navy Blue, “December 24”

6. New Bermuda- Deafheaven

After releasing their superb second LP, Sunbather, Deafheaven had become one of the most acclaimed metal bands of the century, and had achieved a level of popularity unprecedented for metal bands. Never mistaken by anyone as purists, Deafheaven began their career flirting with through lines between shoegaze, black metal, and post-rock before tastefully combining them on Sunbather. While they easily could have churned out another LP of post-rock/blackgaze of the same stripe, the band went deeper and darker, and re-emerged with their third LP, New Bermuda, the heaviest, and arguably most melodic, record of their career to date. Across five songs that collectively clock in around 46 minutes Deafheaven continue to expand their parameters of their sound, incorporating heavier tremelo guitars, incendiary blast beats, and sweeping post-rock passages that are more adventurous, expansive, and gorgeous, than what any other bands are doing today. NB may lean the furthest towards the brutality of classic black metal, but the band’s 2015 onslaught still amplifies an immense feeling of transcendence alongside the terror.

Opener “Brought to the Water” rustles to life with the ominous sway of church bells before its lead guitar riff kicks into gear, foreshadowing the premium they place on atmosphere with foreboding timbres. Throughout the next several minutes the band continue to build a scorched earth black metal composition bristling with distortion and rapid fire drumming that eventually slyly segues into a sugary breakdown reminiscent of “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer. It’s disarming, and unprecedented, but a perfectly logical evolution of their sound that reaffirms their status as the most versatile band at the vanguard of contemporary black metal. “Luna” and “Come Back” are two of the heaviest songs that Deafheaven have ever released, and get a ton of mileage out of their seismic guitar riffs and pummeling percussion, while “Luna” boasts one of the loveliest melodies they’ve ever penned, gliding alone a star-dusted, stratosphere-bound guitar riff. Closer “Gifts for the Earth” is a succinct culmination of the preceding 38 minutes, capped off with their most cathartic coda to date with jangly guitar and minor key piano softly swirling around Clarke’s feral shrieks. The warmth exuded beneath Clarke’s shrapnel-laced delivery posits Deafheaven as a band executing well-beyond the scope and limitations of metal.

Essentials: “Gifts for the Earth”, “Brought to the Water”, “Luna”

5. Halcyon Digest- Deerhunter

By the time that Deerhunter geared up to record their fifth LP, Halycon Digest, they already had a rich body of work behind them, but very little of their music set the kind of precedent for where they would go on HD. Here, Deerhunter tapered down their most avant-garde impulses in favor of cleaner guitar arrangements and big, bright melodies, unearthing the pop band they’ve always been at their core with poise and aplomb. The walls of guitar noise, ambient interludes, and studio effects that had defined their previous releases became relegated to marginal aspects of their song craft, and they began opening up their songs like never before. Thankfully, they didn’t dilute their sound, they just cleaned it up, and the 11 songs that make up HD are the most immediate, and richly produced (thanks to Ben Allen, who produced this record after nailing Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion a year prior) of Deerhunter’s career to date. Deerhunter’s shift towards accessibility only seemed to accentuate their inherent strangeness, and HD remains one of the most engaging and endlessly replayable indie pop records of the 21st century.

From the droning low-end thump that ignites opener “Earthquake” it’s clear something substantial has shifted. Allen’s biggest contribution was a heightened low-end that caused Josh Fauver’s bass to really pop without distracting too much from the rest of the arrangements. This extra oomph propels songs like “Don’t Cry” and “Coronado” well into infectious, anthemic territory while it helps ground more ambitious cuts like “Helicopter” and “Desire Lanes”. Frontman Bradford Cox had completely grown into his role as a charismatic, provocative frontman with the pipes and poetic disposition to back up the antics, and propel his band towards a stadium sized sound even if they would never end up touring them. Bradford’s vocal melodies on closer “…He Would Have Laughed” and centerpiece “Helicopter” are the strongest that the band ever penned, while he delivers two of his most impressive vocal performances on the lulling “Sailing” and the pensive “Earthquake”. The closer, a tribute to the late Jay Reatard, is perhaps Deerhunter’s finest moment to date, with Bradford spinning surreal couplets “I live on a farm, yeah/I never lived on a farm” around the band’s steady harpsichord pulse until the composition bursts with euphoria, and then slowly begins to fade out before cutting out abruptly. Deerhunter have never made a bad record, but HD was the last time they showed how simultaneously adventurous and immediate pop music can be.

Essentials: “He Would Have Laughed”, “Helicopter”, “Desire Lanes”

4. Black Messiah- D’Angelo & The Vanguard

In the years following D'Angelo’s spectacular second LP, Voodoo, it seemed increasingly likely that he would never release another record. But then in the twilight days of 2014 D'Angelo surprise dropped his 3rd and best LP to date, Black Messiah, with a new band supporting him called The Vanguard (which consisted of Questlove on drums, Pina Palladino on bass, Isaiah Sharkey on guitar, Roy Hargrove on horns, and a handful of other musicians). BM eschews the warm r&b/neo-soul solo singer-songwriter sound of the first two D'Angelo LPs in favor of a fiery cocktail of avant-garde soul, jazz funk, and psychedelic r&b that’s simultaneously more abrasive and experimental than anything he had done prior. D'Angelo still has a remarkably agile falsetto, but it’s been notably weathered by the years away, and it now has a grainier disposition that happens to be a much better fit for the songs throughout the record. The band’s chemistry is just remarkable, and it’s hard to believe that they weren’t all cutting records with each other for decades prior. Unlike most artists that come back with new work after a notable dry spell, D'Angelo has never sounded more human than he does on this latest LP of his. Thankfully, despite the years apart D’Angelo hasn’t lost an ounce of his remarkable talent, and brings a magnetic charisma, sublime range, and a much sharper point of view to songs that reflect the turmoil of the preceding years of unrelenting police violence, yet respond in a multitude of ways. The Vanguard prove to be an ideal backdrop for D’Angelo’s songwriting, and together they achieve a new standard for neo-soul.

Although it had been 14 years, D'Angelo’s return felt right on time in the immediate wake of the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and plenty of others at the hands of the police. While D'Angelo’s music has never shied away from political statements, BM is by far the most explicitly political record of his career. “1000 Deaths” opens to a sample of a Khalid Abdul Muhammed speech about Jesus being black and quickly gives way to a visceral, funk rock rhythm and red-lining guitars with D'Angelo dissecting the difference between courage and cowardice “Because a coward dies a thousand times/But a soldier just dies once”. On the following track, “The Charade”, D'Angelo opts for searing soul that builds into his most anthemic melody to date while he delivers devastating imagery of the cruelty still inflicted on black people all over the world “All we wanted was a chance to talk/‘Stead we only got outlined in chalk” while “'Til It’s Done” contains D'Angelo’s finest melody to date and finds him questioning the nature of our existence and whether we’re really reckoning with the way that capitalists are destroying our planet “Perilous dissidence evening up the score/Do we even know what we’re fighting for?”. He also delivers some of his best love songs to date, including the funky mid-tempo shuffle of “Sugah Daddy”, the tender soul ballad “Betray My Heart”, and the spellbinding centerpiece “Really Love”. These songs fold neatly within the larger fabric of the record as a whole, and complement the politically charged songs without breaking the greater aesthetic. D'Angelo’s conviction is palpable throughout it all, and the newfound wisdom that he accrued in the years since Voodoo enrich the perspective that he brings to the songs in such a generous, humble way. Even if D’Angelo never releases another record we couldn’t have asked for a better swan song from him.

Essentials: “’Til It’s Done”, “The Charade”, “Really Love”

3. MBV- My Bloody Valentine

Like D'Angelo, it didn’t seem likely that My Bloody Valentine would ever follow-up their masterful second LP, but 22 years after the release of Loveless, in the dead of February 2013, MBV, the third My Bloody Valentine, finally emerged. There are 9 songs here, and they can neatly divided into three sections that find the band progressing from an extension of what they were doing in the 90s to styles never associated with them. MBV picks up right where Loveless left off, beginning with expansive suite of shoegaze songs rendered with the kind of sublime texture and tone as we’ve come to expect from the group, and slowly but surely they branch out into psychedelic pop, ambient, and pure noise, realms they’ve teased in the past but have never quite committed to prior. You can hear the band straining against their limitations, and although seeking out perfection is a fools errand, they nearly achieve it.

There’s no mistaking MBV as the work of any other band, but here they’re painting in darker, bolder hues than they’ve used in the past. Beginning with the opening song, “She Found Now”, their sound is much richer, and more forlorn, than it’s ever sounded, with thick plumes of guitar washing over wispy androgynous vocals and faint, skeletal percussion. Even as the tempos increase and the melodies begin to peak out beneath the fuzz, that wistful, melancholic tone remains. “Only Tomorrow” amps up the tempo with a driving rhythm and scorching guitars perpetually firing into the red

while “In Another Way” is a bludgeoning slice of driving noise pop with a strong melody from guitarist Belinda Butcher. “Nothing Is” coasts off the hypnotic repetition of its bludgeoning guitars for 3.5 minutes, and perfectly segues into the glorious noise piece, “Wonder 2”, which closes the record on a note of whirring guitars that approximate the overwhelming euphoria of first wave shoegaze, but takes the listener to much stranger places.

The nine songs throughout MBV strike a perfect balance between updating the shoegaze style that they perfected on loveless while wading into new territory, but it all hangs together beautifully. Kevin Shields and Belinda Butcher still harmonize on the bulk of these songs, and they’re ethereal delivery is still the perfect counterbalance for the aggression of the guitars. The searing slow-burn of “Who Sees You” is the peak of their vocal interplay, while on the midsection pop numbers like “New You” and “In Another Way” Butcher takes the reins and delivers two of the band’s strongest melodies to date over driving percussion and sleigh bells. The relative immediacy of “New You” is new sound for the band, and they completely deliver on its hypnotic pop premise. “Is This and Yes” and “Nothing Is” are the two instrumentals at the polar ends of the band’s sound that perfectly balance out the more dynamic songs, and the aforementioned noise piece “Wonder 2” complements the opening song “She Found Now” perfectly in that it’s an exploration of what My Bloody Valentine might explore more of if they ever release a fourth LP. It’s a miracle that MBV even exists in the first place, so the fact that it’s this good is just icing.

Essentials: “Only Tomorrow”, “New You”, “In Another Way”

2. Blonde- Frank Ocean

After releasing his generation defining 2012 debut Channel Orange, it was hard to say where he was going to take his music next. A cryptic series of videos in mid-August 2016 featuring Frank building a ladder led to few clues, but at the end of this week we received an audio-visual album titled Endless. Before anyone could really acclimate themselves to sleek, genre-agnostic minimalism of Endless, the proper follow-up to CO, titled Blonde, released a day later. Whereas CO was the sound of a singular talent discovering what he can do, Blonde is the sound of that talent capitalizing on those gifts with unparalleled precision. On Blonde Frank opts for a striking minimalist palette of psychedelic pop, avant-garde soul, ambient, and jazz, that are off-kilter and adventurous without sacrificing the warmth of his past work. Like CO, Blonde primarily explores themes of nostalgia, heartbreak, identify, and the nature of human perception, and here his eye for detail and attention to detail remains unmatched by any songwriter of the last decade.

From the opening song “Nikes”, Blonde presents itself as a drastic stylist departure from what Frank was doing prior. The first half is a distorted r&b dreamscape with Frank crooning in a pitch-shifted higher register, and actually has him rapping a few verses, before returning to his normal register. Blonde is filled with strange, yet tasteful stylistic touches like this, from the distorted shrieks at the end of “Ivy”, to the collapsing, pitch-shifted orchestra that gives way to an eerie children’s choir’s on “Pretty Sweet”, the album rarely shifts into anything that scans as conventional. “Pink and White” is the most straight forward moment on the album, but the verses rarely stay grounded, and soon give way to a soaring chorus that slyly tucks Beyonce’s voice into the fold before the instruments dissolve from the mix entirely. “Skyline To” and “Godspeed” flirt with ambience and put a great deal of emphasis on exploring texture and negative space, while “Close to You” is a brief, glitchy cover of Stevie Wonder’s classic that provides a terrific segue from the “Facebook Story” interlude into the record’s devastating centerpiece, White Ferrari. The record covers a remarkable amount of ground sonically, but it coheres in a way that completely belies this scope.

“Nikes” sets the tone for the record on the whole as Frank watches his friends lose themselves to the spoils of his fame and begins to recognize himself as a placeholder for a partner’s lost love. “Self-Control” depicts the story of one of Frank’s relationship’s imploding “I’ll be the boyfriend in your set dreams tonight/Noses on a rail, little virgin wears the white” set to a mesmerizing neo-soul slow-burn that unfurls a gorgeous, understated melody while “Nights” juxtaposes the highs of the come-up “Oooh nani nani/This feel like a Quaalude” with a guitar pop/boom-bap instrumental and the perils of fame with a woozy, cloud-rap adjacent second half “Shut the fuck up I don’t want to hear your conversation/Rollin” marijuana that’s a cheap vacation". The record hits its peak with the spectacular ballad, “White Ferrari”, the strongest song of his career to date. Over warm acoustic guitar provided by Alex G Frank details the permanence of the love that he’ll have for someone that he’s no longer in a relationship with “I care for you still and I will forever/That was my part of the deal, honest/We got so familiar”. The humility and humanity of the moment is heartbreaking, and speaks volumes about the depths of Frank’s artistry. Blonde set a new benchmark for avant-garde pop, and is arguably the most influential album of the past decade.

Essentials: “White Ferrari”, “Nights”, “Self-Control”

1. Cosmogramma- Flying Lotus

After breaking through with his superb sophomore LP, Los Angeles (a singular blend of IDM, trip-hip, and woozy Dilla & Madlib-esque instrumental hip-hop) it would have been easy for Flying Lotus to continue mining the same sounds for successive records that were just slight variations on that singular template. But for FlyLo’s third LP, Cosmogramma, he blew his sound wide open, eschewing the quantized beat grid for a lusher, more sprawling sound that couldn’t be confined to standard rhythms. Cosmogramma is steeped in the lineage of instrumental hip hop and IDM like its predecessor, but it manages to juggle a wider palette of disparate styles such as four on the floor, drum and bass, jungle, free-jazz, and experimental bass while incorporating a wide variety of guest musicians that do a superb job of fleshing out his expansive compositions. Cosmogramma is a record that can barely contain its ambition, and despite having been released over a decade ago it still shines like a beacon illuminating the boundless possibilities of where music can go.

The sublime fusion of the live instrumentation, supplied by Thundercat on bass, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson contributing string arrangements, and Ravi Coltrane providing tenor saxophone, among many others coupled with FlyLo’s mind-warping production is what gives the album it’s compelling thrust. The first half primarily splits the difference between frantic drum and bass/synth-pop heaters and atmospheric cosmic-jazz interludes, and the pacing is just remarkable, with no moment overstaying it’s welcome and plenty of space to give each idea the space it needs to develop. Thom Yorke drops by for a wispy vocal performance on the agile IDM strut “And the World Laughs With You” while Thundercat delivers a formal career introduction on the tender ballad “MmmHmm” before the record shifts into the infectious four on the floor centerpiece, “Do the Astral Plane”. From here the record deploys the astral jazz and eastern influences in a more pronounced fashion on songs like “German Haircut” and “Dance of the Pseudo Nymph” respectively. The celestial ambience of “Table Tennis” featuring Laura Darlington is a welcome breather for the life-affirming synth surge of closer “Galaxy in Janaki”, ending the album on a somber, but ultimately uplifting note with Flylo sampling the ventilators that his mom was hooked up to on her death bed for a euphoric, synth-streaked send-off.

The enduring appeal lies in its function as ambition existing for the sake of ambition. The songs throughout Cosmogramma all vary in texture, tempo, and tone, and they all around great on their own, but it’s the journey from start to finish that Cosmogramma exemplifies as a spiritual experience. Cosmogamma was intended to function as a loose concept album of sorts about lucid-dreaming and out of body experiences influenced by the study of the universe, heaven, and hell, and it’s remarkable to hear just how much of that vision that he’s able to convey without the prevalence of vocals. Although electronic music has changed dramatically in the decade since Cosmogramma was released, the execution of FlyLo’s masterpiece hasn’t been in matched, in electronic music or anywhere where else. Cosmogramma is both the pinnacle of where music has been, and a glimpse at the possibilities of where it could go moving forward.

Essentials: “Galaxy in Janaki”, “Do the Astral Plane”, “MmmHmm” ft. Thundercat

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