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mrs-gucci · 3 years

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Casting Couch {Charlie Barber x Reader}

author’s notes: hello, hello! I was driving home from work the other day and this idea just suddenly took over my entire thought process. so, naturally, I went ahead and wrote it up :)

warnings (what you see here is what you’ll get!): smut. the enemy of my enemy is my ally (with benefits). p in v sex. protected sex. rough oral sex. cum- swallowing.

(possible) tw’s: semi-public sex.

word count: 3.2k

charlie’s taglist peeps! {charlie currently doesn’t have any taglist peeps} my general taglist peeps! @frank-and-honey @shygirl268 @icarusinthesea @gildedstarlight @mrs-zimmerman @soldmysoulagain @roseepossee @pascalisfairyy @I-can’t-draw-faces @ahsoka1 @babbushka @safarigirlsp (if you’d like to be added to or removed from any of my taglists, the link to the google form is HERE or on the top of my masterlist)

Two Years Ago.

“Y/N...she fucking did it again.” Nicole says as she barges through the door of hers and Charlie’s shared brownstone. “She got the fucking TV gig.”

Charlie’s eyebrows furrow a bit before looking up at his wife with an empathetic expression, setting the notebook and pen he’d been using down on the coffee table.

“Bummer. I really thought you had it in the bag.” He says, elbows on his thighs as he leans forward a bit, folding his hands. “There will be other roles; I wouldn’t worry too much. You win some, you lose some; that’s how it goes in this industry. You’ve taken plenty of roles from her.”

She sighs, nodding. “Yeah, I know, but this one I was excited about. And I really thought I had it, too. It just stung a little extra, you know?”

Her husband nods, patting the seat next to him on the couch. “C’mere, sit with me. We’ll have a glass of wine.”

Nicole gives somewhat of a dreadful grimace, a clear sign she really wasn’t interested. Charlie’s been noticing this for the past few months, her disinterest in being with him as much as she usually was, but he figured it was just her being tired. She’s been doing a lot of odd jobs to make some ends meet lately, so it’s probably a result of that.

“Are you sure?” He asks, a twang of longing sadness in his voice.

She nods. “Yeah, I’m just gonna go lay down for a bit.”

Charlie just nods, picking back up his notebook and pen, continuing to review and add to his notes from the day.

“Let me know if you need anything.” He calls after her. “I love you.”

She only offers him a small smile over her shoulder in return before emerging into their bedroom, closing the door immediately behind her.

Present Day.

It feels strange, holding auditions for a female lead. He hasn’t had to do so in almost a decade; just yet another reminder of how much of his life has changed just in the past year.

The divorce had been painful, stressful, and he was honestly more relieved than anything when it finally came to a close, despite it not really turning out the way he’d hoped for in terms of custody over Henry.

Luckily, he’s dove deeper into his one true love, directing, as a way to cope with the loss of everything he’d worked so hard to build for himself; the marriage, the 'American dream’ family and home he wished he’d had growing up.

Now, after six months of weekly therapy appointments and keeping himself busy with work, he’s feeling more like the old Charlie he was back before everything went to shit. Actually, he’s feeling like an even better version of that Charlie, the best version of himself there’s been in a while, perhaps even before he met and married Nicole.

The first audition comes onstage and Charlie can’t decide what’s worse, her off-pitch singing or her monotonous speaking voice.

God, this was going to be a long fucking day.

You’d heard through the grapevine that the famed Broadway director had moved here to LA, and that he’d divorced his witch of a wife, Nicole.

Nicole Barber had been your biggest rival ever since you swiped that first movie role away from her. She hates you, and you don’t particularly like her, either, thus your rivalry began. And it was pretty heated, too; the two of you were always trying to one-up each other.

It really was a back-and-forth battle, her swiping roles from you, you returning the favor; it was a game, to put it simply. Although lately, you’ve been getting more roles than she has, not that you’re complaining, and there’s a part of you that hopes she quits the business for good.

Word got around that Charlie is heading his first LA Broadway production and what better way to hit Nicole close to home than to show up at her ex-husband’s auditions? Even better, what if you got the female lead in her ex-husband’s production? Oh god, that would be fantastic, not only for the rivalry but also for your career.

You’ve been looking to branch out into more theater roles, and this is as good an opportunity as to dip your toe in the theater world water. Plus, you’re not necessarily complaining about having the chance to look at and work with Charlie Barber every day...

So you prepared your piece of dialogue and a section of one of the choice songs, heading over to the theater fifteen minutes before your set audition time. Your knee bounces as you sit in the waiting area, eyes running over your script and lyrics sheet one final time, solidifying it all in your memory.

Your name is called a few minutes later and you head out onto the stage, handing over your headshot and qualifications resume. The agent hands over your profile to the handsome director, but he doesn’t even really look at it, already knowing exactly who you are. A small smirk grazes his lips as he flips to a new page of his notebook, clicking the top of his pen.

“Whenever you’re ready, Miss Y/N.”

After you’re finished, Charlie scribbles one final thing in his notebook before looking up at you. His eyes trail over your figure for a moment, another smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Would you be comfortable coming back for a more intimate audition later this week? Maybe, Friday at four? I would like to get to know you better, see if you meet all of my... qualifications.”

The look in his eye tells you all you need to know about the true motivations behind his question. You nod, biting your lip.

“It’d be my absolute pleasure, Mr. Barber.” You purr.

He shifts in his seat suddenly and quickly crosses one leg over the other before opening up your folder, handing the top sheet to his assistant.

“Diane, go ahead and have Miss Y/N put down all of her contact information.” His gaze never leave you as he speaks to the timid-seeming young woman. “Make sure she gives her personal cell number.”

You pull a pen from your bag on the stage, clicking it open before Diane hands you the paper. As you write every means of contact you can think of, starting with your cell number, you playfully bite the end of the pen and tap it against your bottom lip, something that certainly keeps the already attentive director’s full attention.

“Thank you so much for this opportunity, Mr. Barber.” Your tone is innocent-sounding, but your gaze is anything but. It sends a chill down Charlie’s spine. “I promise I won’t disappoint.”

“Oh, I’m sure you won’t.” A small tug at one corner of his lip accompanies his response. “See you soon, Miss Y/N.”

You offer him a nod.

“Looking forward to it.”

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In preparation for your upcoming...meeting with Charlie, you take a quick trip to the nearest intimates store, picking up a pretty little lace bra and panty set. Your lingerie wardrobe is long overdue for a bit of sprucing up, anyway.

When the time comes, you slip the fresh lace garments on before putting on your planned outfit, a cute-but-subtly-sexy low cut romper. You put on a light face of makeup, purely for professionalism’s sake, then head out with a small bag which contains various personal items as well as your script and composition page.

He’s not in his backstage office when you arrive, but he comes in a couple minutes later, a strong stench of cigarette smoke trailing behind him as he walks by your chair.

“I apologize for the delay. You weren’t waiting long, were you?”

You shake your head as he takes a seat behind the ratty oak desk, shifting a few small stacks of papers around on the heavily scratched surface.

“No, no I wasn’t waiting long.”

He nods, then folds his hands atop the desk, eyes flickering up to meet yours. For a moment, his eyes dart down to where your cleavage creeps out of your low-cut top.

“You’ve got the part.” Charlie says with a small smile. “You’re by far the best and most qualified audition we had yesterday, and I like the way you carry yourself. You’re exactly the type of person I like working with. Part’s yours if you want it.”

You’re overcome with joy, a wide smile spreading itself across your lips. “I’d love to be a part of this production, Mr. Barber. I’m really excited to get to work with you and the rest of the crew.”

“That’s great, I’m glad to hear it.” He nods, smile widening when as he processes your acceptance. His delighted expression falls after a few moments, replaced by one much more salacious.

“Now that we’ve gotten that part out of the way...I think you know why I called a meeting of such, uh, privacy.”

You smirk softly, shifting around in your seat slightly. “I believe I do.”

His feet plant on the ground as he pushes the rolling office chair out from under the desk, standing up and walking around the desk to tower over you.

“Before anything happens, though, I want you to know that whether or not you do this with me will not affect my casting decision. Even if you decline, you still have the part.”

You nod before standing, quickly and swiftly, stepping forward to press yourself flush against him.

“Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

Your hands rest on his chest, neck craning slightly to look up at him. “Just kiss me, will you?”

He laughs, massive hand moving to cradle the back of your head before he bends down and connects your lips in a passionate kiss. There’s nothing tender or gentle about this embrace, it’s all tongue and teeth, raw lust coursing between your two bodies.

“Couch.” His voice is soft but husky.

“Unzip me first?” You ask, turning around so he can unzip you. He does, then his hands slide down to your hips and pushes you towards the leather couch tucked in the corner of his office.

The material squeaks when you’re laid down on top of it, head resting comfortably on the cushy fabric accent pillow as he climbs on top of you. He presses his hips forward while he tucks his face into the crook of your neck and plants kisses on the skin there.

Your eyes widen as his impressive bulge rubs up against your inner thigh and you quickly wonder how in the world you’ll be able to take him. His crooked teeth scrape over the taut muscles in your neck while his hands pull the backs of your romper down over your shoulders.

His hands grab and grope your breasts beneath where they rest in your nice bra, one you wore just for him, and your back arches slightly up off the cushions with a soft sigh.

A small smile crosses his expression, teeth sinking gently into your neck. “I like the little noises you make for me, Y/N.”

“Yeah?” You smirk, running your hands through his hair. “Then I bet you’ll like my moans, too. If you think you can draw them out of me, that is.”

He laughs softly, sucking and licking at at the place his teeth have just abused. “Is that a challenge?”

“Well, it’s more like an invitation to prove yourself, but ‘challenge’ is also a good word for it.”

Charlie pulls away with a smirk, shaking his head as he sits back on his haunches and begins to unbuckle his belt.

“Brat.”

Once he’s undone his pants and pulled them down enough to expose himself to you, he leans down once more and pulls your romper the rest of the way off, leaving you completely bare, minus your undergarments. His eyes roam your figure for a moment before he dips a hand beneath the patch of black fabric nestled between your thighs.

Your breath hitches as his fingertips swipe over your erect clit, giving it a few little circles before yanking the panties off your hips and down your ankles, tossing them down alongside your previously-discarded romper.

His eyes widen in realization, cheeks flushing pink.

“Do you have any, um, protection?”

You smirk, nodding as you sit up and pat his chest. “Indeed, I do.”

He crawls off of you and you walk over to your purse, grabbing a condom from the mini-stash you keep in your wallet, the one you replenished just minutes before you left the house this afternoon. He takes it from you and pinches the tip, rolling it down his shaft. For a moment, you’re worried that it isn’t going to fit, but he rolls it on with little issue.

His hips press forward, then, entering you slowly but steadily with a soft grunt. You whine as your insides stretch out around him, hands reaching up to tangle in his hair. “S-Shit.”

“You’re really fucking tight, jesus.” He growls between gritted teeth, jaw screwed shut as his hips begin to move. “I haven’t fffucked anyone in a while, Y/N, so I can’t guarantee that I’ll last very long.”

You nod, softly. “It’s alright, Charlie; it’s been a little while for muh--me, too.”

Your eyes flutter shut and your face begins to scrunch up with each time his fat cockhead brushes up against your cervix. His pace increases after a minute or so, a consistent slap-slap-slap noise now echoing off the drywall with each snap of his hips.

“You’ve got a nice little pussy, you know that? Always knew you would be, too, knew you’d be a good little cccocksleeve.”

You moan shakily as he adjusts his position, towering over you and pinning your wrists above your head with one of his large hands. Your body begins to bounce, tits, thighs and tummy jiggling each time he thrusts in.

He’s starting to sweat, a few dark hairs sticking to his dimly-glowing forehead, more and more accumulating there as his hair rocks back and forth in time with the rhythm of his hips.

“Touch yourself, now, rrrub your little clit.” His voice is getting shaky as he draws nearer to climax.

Nodding, your hand slides down between your joined bodies until your fingertips settle onto the small bundle of nerves. The hand that’s still weaved in Charlie’s locks clenches and he lets out a sudden deep growl, hips stuttering for a moment.

“Ooooh, Charlie.” You moan, hips lifting and gyrating against both his cock and your fingers.

“God, fffuck I love this cunt.” A vulgar squelching sound knits itself within the quilt of your salacious symphony. “Wrapped around my cock like a vice, gonna pull the fucking cum right out of it. Swear you get tighter each time I push back in...christ, I’m not gonna last.”

Your fingers circle your clit faster, setting a desperate pace, one that almost matches his quick and sloppy thrusts. You’re close now, too, and it doesn’t take much longer for your orgasm to hit.

You cream around him with a long moan and a string of various other noises, with a few profanities thrown in as well. The product of your release coats his shaft in a pearlescent sheen, dripping down his ball-sack soon enough.

The sensations your climax creates around Charlie forces him to pull away almost immediately after, quickly yanking the condom off and onto his office floor, squeezing the base of his flaming red length.

His hand seizes your jaw tightly, thumb pressing down on your tongue, prying your mouth open. “I’m gonna fuck your mouth and shove my cum down your throat, and you’re gonna take it all, isn’t that right?”

You’re nodding instantly, slacking your jaw to open even further in preparation for his upcoming intrusion. He smirks.

“Good. Now, on your knees.”

He sits down where you once laid, lazily pumping his throbbing length as you get into position between his spread legs. He pulls your hair up into a makeshift ponytail with his hand, then lines you up with his cock and eases your mouth down onto him.

“Thaaaaaat’s it, oh, gooooood girl.”

You start gagging about three quarters of the way down his shaft, but he still keeps pushing until you’ve got the whole thing in your mouth. Your jaw’s already getting sore as he begins thrusting upwards, fucking your mouth.

Tears swell in your eyes and begin to spill down your cheeks the more he goes, mascara surely ruined and running down your face. The sight only arouses him further, a low groan rumbling through his puffed chest.

He’s trying so hard to keep himself together, to stave off his orgasm for as long as he can manage, but soon he finds it next to impossible to hold back. His bottom lip quivers ever so slightly as his length begins to twitch, balls drawing up.

“Fuck, I’m gonna--”

You taste and feel the salty ropes shooting down your throat before he can even finish his warning.

“Ah, fffuuuuck.” His head falls back against the couch cushions, hips bucking gently as each bit of release is spilled into your mouth. His grip on your head relaxes after he’s finished, cock softening while he catches his breath and re-grounds himself in reality.

Your chest heaves as full airflow returns to your lungs, knees and jaw aching a bit sore from their exertion. You grab your underwear from where they lay discarded on top of your romper, putting them back on before standing up on somewhat shaky legs.

Charlie also redresses, standing and straightening himself out as you do the same.

“Mind zipping me back up?” You ask, turning around again.

He pulls the zipper up your back until it’s at the end of its tracks, then steps up behind you, placing a soft kiss to your shoulder blade.

“Thank you.”

A soft smile grazes your lips. “No ‘thanks’ needed; the sweet taste of revenge and spite is payment enough.”

He laughs quietly.

“Well, I’ll certainly be available, should you ever need a little replenishing of those feelings.”

“Mr. Barber, you wouldn’t be saying that because you’d like to see me naked again, now would you?” Your eyebrows raise and you look over your shoulder, a playful smile on your face.

He laughs again, blushing a bit. “Uh, yeah, sure, I'd like that a lot. But I’d also like to see you, um...not naked, fully clothed, maybe at a restaurant in the city for dinner sometime? I totally get it if you’re not interested, it’s not a big deal if you don’t want to...”

Holy shit, he’s asking you out on a date. Well, he’s trying to, at least.

You laugh, cheeks warming at his proposition.

“Sure thing. I just accepted this new job, though, so I’ll have to get back to you about my availability...”

Charlie smiles, shoving his hands down in his khaki pockets. “I’m sure your new boss would be more than willing to accommodate. He’s a pretty cool guy, or so I’ve heard. Handsome, too.”

“Oh yeah? Sounds like you have a reliable informant.” You turn around as you laugh softly, grabbing your bag off the chair before stepping up in front of him. Your lips plant a quick peck on his, hands resting on his broad chest. “See you soon.”

He nods, biting his lip to hold back his big, goofy smile.

“Can’t wait.”

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dr3amofagame · 3 years

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vegas team 2.0 lets go !!

vegas team au 2.0 my beloved !!!

if you don’t know what the vegas team au 2.0 is, it’s an au that a couple of my twitter friends and i developed (notably, @stabbysideblog and @dreamsclock) as a post-canon version of sparrow’s vegas team au, which had c!dream, a post-revival c!wilbur, and c!quackity working together at las nevadas.

this au exists much in the same vein, but exists post-canon (and therefore, post torture from c!quackity) and adds c!sam to the crew - it’s essentially four really, really messed up people screwing things up in las nevadas and being completely AWFUL to each other. it’s a very messed up group dynamic, 50% angst 50% crack 0% fluff or healing (...unless ;) ) and it’s absolutely one of my favorite aus at the moment.

anyway, have this ficlet for the au i wrote a little bit ago that basically goes into how these four end up working together !!

tw: implied torture, unhealthy relationships (SO many unhealthy relationships), manipulation, threats, emotional distress, mental instability

When Sam first sees the two figures standing on top of the roof of Las Nevadas, the first thing that comes to his mind is oh no, I have a bad feeling about this.

The feeling is far from foreign; a "bad feeling" has been his life for the past week ever since Dream and Wilbur had disappeared from Pandora's Vault seemingly without a trace. He's tried to keep the knowledge under wraps, only telling Bad and Ant to send them on a manhunt to find the prisoner (a lost cause if he's ever seen one; the two have hunted Dream before, and all of them know that there is no way they're finding the man if he doesn't want to be found) while he and Quackity plan for the coming storm. And there will be a coming storm, he's sure - he's heard enough of Dream's desperate, deranged plans of revenge voiced in near incoherent screams through bubbling lava to think that he will come out of the cell with anything close to mercy in his heart.

Unfortunately, there's been little to nothing from the pair of fugitives running around the server, his communicator chat still buzzing with Tommy's usual shouting and Puffy's usual invitations to tea and Technoblade's usual cryptic "technoblade" messages sporadically throughout the day. It's frustratingly, maddeningly normal, and each day of waiting for the other shoe to drop only leaves him even closer to snapping completely. In a twisted, bitter sort of way, he's almost relieved at the sight of the people standing on the polished quartz roof of the casino; at least now he'll finally get some answers.

Next to him, Quackity narrows his eyes. "Nobody should know about this place," he says, lips twisting into a tight frown.

Sam shrugs, shoulders heavy and tense under netherite. "Do you think-"

"-that it's our dynamic fuckin' duo? Yeah," he breathes out, short and quick through his teeth, and his wings stretch and flutter behind him, "I think it might be."

The figures become clearer as they step closer, silhouettes dark and thrown into harsh relief against the backlighting of the sun behind them. One of them is definitely wearing armor - netherite, from the looks of it - and both are very clearly armed. Wonderful.

The taller turns towards them, gestures with a wide sweep of their arm. "Big Q!"

Sam jumps at the voice; Quackity smiles humorlessly. "Wilbur."

Wilbur turns towards the other figure - Dream, for sure then - and they seem to talk, though they are far too far away for Sam to make out anything they say. Dream seems to hand something to Wilbur, and seconds later twin dots of bluish-green arc smoothly towards the ground in front of Sam's feet. He steps back, watching from the corner of his eye as Quackity does the same, and sure enough Wilbur, and then Dream, land on the grass where their enderpearls hit the ground.

"It's been a long time, Big Q, Sam," Wilbur smiles, tight-lipped, confident, tipping his head at each of them as he says their names. He's not wearing any armor save for a crossbow - enchanted - slung loosely over his hip and a netherite sword hanging off of his belt. "How have things been?"

"Cut the crap, Wilbur." The smile stays on Quackity's face, but his eye is dark and cold and dangerous. He's changed - of course he has, you can't do what he's done in Pandora without changing, but the sight of his expression still sends a disturbed shiver down Sam's spine. "You want something."

Wilbur, to his credit, doesn't seem fazed at all. "We've been doing pretty well - I think we've made quite some progress, considering how little time it's been since we've escaped that prison - nice build, by the way, Sam." His voice is lilting, almost sincere, and he looks over at Sam with a laughing light in his eyes like they're sharing an inside joke. "It's really quite impressive - what do you think, Dream?"

Dream doesn't seem to respond; he's all decked out again, netherite covering him from head to toe, the enchanted metal plates completely dwarfing the man hidden within them. His hands clutch at a golden apple, knuckles white against the golden skin, and a plain shield is strapped over his left arm as well a hulking enchanted axe on his back. They've been busy, it seems, and Sam's teeth grind against each other; he's not sure, if it comes down to it, that this is a fight that he and Quackity can win.

"Wilbur," Quackity repeats, impatience creeping into his tone, "What do you want?"

Wilbur smiles wider; it makes Sam uneasy, like Wilbur had been waiting for this, waiting for their desperation to send them at the devil's table with paper in one hand and a pen in the other.

"You're a businessman, aren't you, Big Q? You know how business deals work - so let's talk business. I think we can come up with something agreeable, what do you think?"

Quackity huffs a short laugh- "And what's stopping me and Sam from putting a sword through your gut?"

Wilbur smiles, sharp-edged. "Well, Big Q. Resurrection magic- it's quite interesting, really. Dream was explaining it to me, you know. And here's the thing; how many lives do you think I have right now?"

What- oh. "You have all of your lives back."

"Oh, no, Sam, I'm not saying that, exactly," Wilbur waves his hand flippantly, "I'm just saying you don't know, you know? And if I were to- say, have more than one life, and you were to kill me, well," he shrugs, a thoughtful look on his face. "We were smart enough to set our beds far away from the prison, of course. It would be an awful shame if people were to find out about what the perfect, responsible Warden was allowing in his inescapable prison, wouldn't it?"

No, no, no-

"So you're blackmailing us," Quackity's eyebrows are furrowed, jaw clenched tightly. Wilbur tips his head back and laughs.

"Oh, this isn't a threat, Big Q! Just a few- let's just call them hypotheticals." He begins to pace back and forth, gait smooth and unburdened, "I'm just saying that you two are powerful right now, you know? And it's great! I love this- what was it, Las Nevadas, you're calling it? It's great. It's absolutely magnificent. I'm just saying that you might want to be careful about what people end up finding out; you know people can be about power, on this server, and it would be such a shame to see this place burned to the ground."

Quackity's wings tense, and Sam can already see the younger's mouth opening and his fingers beginning to glow white with him reaching into his inventory, and oh prime if things escalate here then they're so, so screwed-

"Business!" He shouts louder than he wants, Quackity's head snapping towards him, lips still slightly parted from the words that he never got to say, and Sam ignores him to focus his attention on Wilbur, still staring at them with a smile playing on his lips. "You said you would be willing to talk business, right, Wilbur?"

"Yes, of course! Let's talk business. What do you think, Quackity?" Wilbur pauses, looks Quackity in the eye, and the younger glares but doesn't say anything. "Oh, don't worry too much, Big Q. I honestly think that it'll be good for all of us - a mutually beneficial arrangement, if you will."

"Wilbur, just," Sam sighs, fights against the incoming headache. "Can you please just get to the point?"

"Of course, Sam," Wilbur all but chirps, "So- we have something you want, and you have something we want. I say we pool our resources- our knowledge, Dream's combat prowess, your protection and items - and make something better."

"Pool our resources- wait wait wait, you mean you want to fuckin'-"

"I don't know how much Dream has told you, but I've been dead for a pretty long time; there really isn't all that much to do in the Void, you know. I've gotten pretty bloody good at cards, if I do say so myself." Wilbur grabs Dream, ignoring the way he flinches as he slings an arm around his shoulders, "What do you say? Have room in Las Nevadas for two more, Big Q?"

Sam blinks. Prime, give him strength. "What?"

Quackity hisses quietly, "You want to help with Las Nevadas? Both of you?" Sam watches as he turns his glare from Wilbur to Dream, and oh, so that's what this is about. He points his thumb jerkily in the direction of the masked man, watching, as Dream ducks his head down, unable to back away too far with Wilbur's arm still braced behind his neck. "And why should I work with him?"

"Two in one deal, Quackity, you have both of us or nothing at all," Wilbur drawls, "Besides, I know you've wanted the power of the resurrection book - and done quite a lot to get it! I'm really very impressed. Of course, we couldn't simply give it to you, but with us on your side, there's hardly even a difference." Quackity opens his mouth, looking like he's about to protest- "And, really, it would be nice to have Dream on your side in case the Blade comes for your other eye, no?"

His mouth shuts with an audible click, one-eyed glare meeting Wilbur's all-too easy expression, before finally nodding jerkily. "Fine. As long as he doesn't cause too much trouble."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Wilbur claps Dream on the back, and he curls into himself more, arms raising up to his head. "You've done more than enough to keep him obedient."

"We'll have to write out the terms later," Quackity presses on. "Don't want either of you trying anything. I've put so much fuckin' time into this place, I'm not letting you fuck it up, you hear?"

"Of course, Big Q," Wilbur's smile is jagged, all teeth, as he holds his arm out between them. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

Quackity breathes in, out, looks over at Sam. There's a question written in the tight edge of his shoulders, in the way his wings are braced and held to his sides - are we sure about this?

Sam tips his head in a shallow nod. Do we really have a choice?

Quackity takes Wilbur's hand, shakes it. "Then welcome to the team."

Wilbur laughs, and it sounds like flames and explosions and the ground shaking beneath your feet, burns with the cold heat of smoke and ash - and Sam knows, with a bitter, searing certainty, that this is going to collapse around them in a blaze of glory, that they've all but signed their death warrants, have nothing left but to wait for the countdown timer to hit zero and blow this place up to kingdom come. Wilbur meets his eyes - dark, dead, grey like cinders and gunpowder - and he knows that the other man is thinking the same thing.

"I think this is the start to something beautiful," Wilbur says, and Sam grits his teeth as he steps into the building.

Something beautiful, indeed.

#-> vegas team au 2.0 #queue <3 #tw torture #tw toxic relationship #tw unhealthy relationship #tw manipulation #tw emotional distress #tw mental instability #tw threats #long post #my writing :D #my asks !!

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maryeve-the-bitch · 3 years

Text

Un jour de février

Fruk week 2021

Day 4: winter / spring

Words: 2,565

Summary: Domestic fruk. Old married couple vibe. The couple is visiting Matthew in Quebec city during the cold month of february.

Warning: French, so much french (Translations are at the end), and mention of sex. Not really explicit though.

Francis couldn’t wait to visit his son in february. However, he was dreading the cold and the weather he would face when they’d arrive in the city. He wasn’t used to that kind of cold anymore ergo he knew how much he would suffer through it. At least, he would be in good company and his boyfriend Arthur was coming as well.

As soon as Francis and Arthur landed in Quebec city, they traveled straight to their hotel since Mathieu would only be coming the next day and his meeting in the capital got delayed. Hopefully, Francis would enjoy a nice evening with his dear Arthur. The hotel room they picked had a cozy fireplace with a plaid fluffy blanket laid on the king bed. The decor of the room reminded Francis of a lumberjack’s cabin with deer antlers hanging down from the wall and the wood-like walls. While it wasn’t the usual style Francis would like, he did appreciate the coziness of it. He reminded himself not to let Arthur choose a hotel for them by himself again. At least, the bathroom was huge compared to what he is used to and in the middle of it, there was a bath that could easily fit 3 people in it. At the sight of the bath, Francis gave Arthur a teasing smirk as he tucked a lock of his blond hair behind his hair. Arthur rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Sure, love. Later.” Arthur agreed to his boyfriend’s silent plea.

Francis wrapped his arms around Arthur’s from behind.

“Je te promets qu’on passera un bon moment.¹” Francis whispered to his ear as he delicately bit it.

“I promise I’ll kick you in the arse if you don’t stop teasing.” Arthur said with his jaw clenched and a blush on his cheeks.

The comment made Francis chuckle and hugged his boyfriend closer.

“C’est trop facile de te taquiner."² Francis kissed Arthur’s cheek and let go of him.

Since they were both exhausted from the flight and the jetlag, they decided to go to bed early after they took a shower.

In the morning, they decided to wait for Mathieu to tell them when and where they would meet in their room after they got back from eating breakfast on the first floor. Francis looked outside the windows, contemplating the landscape from the city under the snow, as Arthur finished getting dressed and buttoned his shirt up.

“On n’a plus d’hiver comme ça par chez nous, hein?”³ Francis sighed.

“You never had winters like this before. Unless you count the ice age.” Arthur commented.

“Ouais. Du coup, c’est ben mieux que ta pluie 10 mois par année.”⁴ Francis retorted, looking back at his boyfriend.

Arthur glanced at Francis before taking his jacket from the bed and put it on.

“Tu sais que la reine vient pas aujourd’hui, hein?”⁵

“Shut your bloody mouth and get dressed, Francis.” Arthur sighed.

Francis let out a dramatic sigh as he let himself fall on the bed face first and grumbled Arthur’s name on the pillow. Arthur just rolled his eyes, ignoring his melodramatic scene as he was well too familiar with it. Francis turned around and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Peux-tu m’aider, mon amour?”⁶

“What? Help you get dressed? You’re not a child anymore.” As Arthur spoke, he received a notification from his phone that was placed on the desk and charging. He picked it up to see what it was.

“It’s Matthew. He wants to meet at the castle at noon.” Arthur paused to look at the time. “You’ve got one hour to get ready.”

“Quoi? Une heure?” Francis whined. "Ça nous donne même pas le temps de faire l'amour."⁷

"We would if you hurry the fuck up and stop whining."

Francis finally got up from the bed, not without whining even more. At the end, he did get ready in under an hour. When Francis got out of the bathroom, he paraded in front of Arthur who was sitting on the chair in front of the desk. Francis wore an open blue see-through shirt with some kind of green flower pattern on it. As for the bottom part, he wrote black trousers with the same flowery pattern.

"We're not going to a gay pub or a fashion show."

"Ah mais il faut que je sois à la hauteur de moi-même quand je sors. Je ne peux pas sortir comme si je serais un pauvre paysan. Pour qui tu me prends, putain?"⁸

"What the hell does that mean?" Arthur sighed. "You're going to wear a warm coat at least?"

Francis walked over to his suitcase and pulled out a navy blue double button wool coat and put it on.

"C'est sublime, non?”⁹ Francis turned around to show all angles of his outfit, feeling proud of it.

“Yes. You’re looking very handsome. You’re going to be cold though. Have you not brought something warmer?” Arthur put his hands on his waist.

“J’ai une écharpe qui ira bien avec. De toute façon, on restera pas trop longtemps dehors. Qui serait assez fou pour aller dehors en un temps pareil?”¹⁰ Francis replied.

“Right. Don’t say I haven’t warned you, frog face.”

Francis would probably die of humiliation if he had to wear something ugly so he’d rather die of hypothermia and being pretty than be seen wearing something hideous. The couple left their hotel room and took a cab to get to their destination. They were still a few minutes late, but nothing Arthur would mind and Mathieu was already waiting for them in front of the castle as agreed.

Upon meeting, Francis hugged Mathieu tightly since he hadn't seen him for months. Arthur greeted him politely under his giant coat that he brought to make sure he didn’t freeze to death. He wore both a winter hat and the hood of his coat with a scarf and at least 2 pairs of gloves. Since Mathieu knew both Arthur and Francis, he didn’t make a comment on how they were dressed. In his opinion, one was overdoing it and the other thought fashion was more important than warmth.

Since Mathieu was getting hungry, they went and looked for a restaurant. While Francis wasn’t hungry, he was gladly welcoming the idea of getting inside. He’s only been 2 minutes out and thought his nipples were already frozen. On their way to the restaurant, Francis tried to warm himself with his hands in his coat pockets and holding his arms close to his body, without much success.

After going down some stairs, at Francis’ displeasure, they walked down a small street that led to the restaurant. Francis remembered that street, he visited it during summer a long time ago. It changed a bit but not enough to not recognise it. He would admire the scenery if he wasn’t so goddamn cold. He just couldn't wait to get to the restaurant at last. Mathieu was explaining to Arthur the historic facts of some buildings even though Arthur already knew those facts; he just forgot. Their chatter sounded mostly background noises to Francis as his focus was mostly on his movements.

Finally, they reached the restaurant. They got seated and offered the menu to order.

“You’re awfully quiet, frog.” Arthur commented as he opened the menu. “Not complaining. That’s just unusual for you.”

Francis glared at his boyfriend. They both knew why he was quiet.

“Can you two stay civil please?” Mathieu asked. He knew his dads and their tendency to fight or argue way too well.

“Of course, lad.” Arthur replied. “I’d offer you my coat for a while, at least until you warm up, but I know too well you won’t accept it.” He continued.

“J’ai pas besoin de ta pitié. Je vais juste commander un bon café chaud et ça ira.¹¹ Francis replied.

“If you say so, love. I hope they offer good tea here.” Arthur said, dismissing Francis’s passive aggressivity.

The waitress came soon after and they all ordered their food and drinks. She took back the menus and left for the kitchen.

“You two are so different. I sometimes wonder how you are still together.” Mathieu commented.

Both Francis and Arthur looked at each other, Francis smiling lovingly.

“Cause we have great sex. That’s why.” Arthur answered Mathieu’s wonderment. He soon received a kick under the table from his partner.

“C’est vrai.”¹² Francis added.

“Please stop. I don’t want to know.” Mathieu interrupted Francis before he would add anything too explicit for him. The Frenchman chuckled while Arthur smiled. Well, at least, Mathieu succeeded to ease the situation between the two.

While they waited for their order, Francis grabbed Arthur’s hand under the table.

“Fucking hell, Francis!” Arthur exclaimed when he felt his boyfriend’s cold hand on his.

“Ah. Je suis désolé, mon amour.”¹³ Francis apologised, looking dejected.

“It’s fine. You surprised me, that’s all.” Arthur said softly as he took Francis’s hand in his.

Thankful, Francis smiled and let Arthur warm his hand. Usually, Arthur hated public displays of affection even as small as hand holding, so it overjoyed him that he accepted to do so.

They talked about Alfred the rest of the time they waited for the order. The American was quite busy at the time so he couldn't make it, but Matthew was grateful he couldn’t because he could easily bring all the attention to him. He appreciated the rare times he got alone with either of his parents. Even when Alfred wasn’t here, he got all the attention, but that was fine with Mathieu. He’d prefer that over Alfred present and talking loudly and interrupting him.

After lunch, Francis felt warmer and happier from the cup of coffee he drank and the small affection he received. His joy wouldn’t last long when Mathieu offered to walk alongside the river and the old port since they were close by. Arthur agreed to it too quickly, Francis thought.

“Et si on allait faire du shopping? Ça serait pas mal, non? Tu m’avais pas parlé d’un centre commercial avec un mini parc d'attractions à l’intérieur?”¹⁴ Francis suggested.

“Well, Matthew and I never liked shopping much and I don’t especially like theme parks either.” Arthur protested as he put his coat back on.

“Besides, there are probably too many people there already.” Mathieu added.

Francis pouted and followed the other two outside. They walked a few minutes until they reached a pedestrian path near the river. Arthur narrated the scenery with tales of the past, including Mathieu in it. Francis would normally enjoy joining in and teasing his partner, but he had troubles following them up even though they walked at a relatively normal pace. The Frenchman wished he was anywhere else other than outside in the cold. He thought of leaving them, calling a taxi and going back to the hotel on his own, but his fingers were already frozen again and he would have to look for the taxi’s number. Arthur probably had the phone number since he called one earlier. However, Francis was too prideful to ask him the number.

They walked and walked until they reached a small park in front of the train station. By that time, Francis thought his fingers were so frozen that he might lose some of them. His feet weren’t any better. Arthur and Mathieu spotted a bench and sat on it to take a break while Francis stood in front of them. At this point, Francis had his hands inside his coat pockets and the bottom half of his head hiding behind the scarf. Some of his hair locks were frozen too for some unknown reason and his cheeks and ears were red, almost turning to purple. When Mathieu sat down, he noticed how cold Francis looked.

“Es-tu correct, papa?”¹⁵ Mathieu asked him with concern.

“Ouais”¹⁶ was all Francis could be able to say through his shivering.

“Would you like to go back to the hotel, Francis?” Arthur sighed.

Francis nodded.

“You could have said so before, you dumb bitch.” Arthur added as he took his phone out to call a taxi.

The Frenchman didn’t have the energy to insult him back. Mathieu stood up and removed his jacket and offered it to his papa. He wouldn’t have taken it if he wasn’t so desperately cold and if he didn’t appreciate and enjoy gifts he received from his kids. The inside of Mathieu’s jacket was really fluffy and warm, like wearing a cloud.

When Arthur was done telling the taxi operator their current location, he hung up the phone and noticed Mathieu gave his jacket to Francis and only wore a red t-shirt.

“Aren’t you cold, Matthew?” He asked his son.

“Nah. It’s only -10°c anyway.” Mathieu shrugged.

Arthur almost choked himself with his saliva at this comment.

“What do you mean, ONLY -10°c? That’s too bloody cold, lad.” Arthur replied, making the taller blond boy laugh. “Even I want to go back inside and get warm. Perhaps get a cup of tea or something.”

“We can wait for your taxi inside the train station if you want.” Mathieu suggested.

The other two didn’t even have to say anything; they both agreed and followed Mathieu inside the train station.

Back at the hotel room, after Arthur took out his own coat, gloves and hat, he helped Francis get undressed and wrapped him around in the fluffy tartan blanket from the bed.

“Sit down on the chair and I’ll light up the fireplace for you.” Arthur requested him.

Francis smiled softly as he sat down in one of the two sofa chairs in front of the fireplace. It didn’t take long for him to sit with his bare feet on the chair, holding his legs close to his body. Arthur took a match out of the matchbox sitting on the top of the fireplace and lit it up. He quickly threw the match inside the fireplace and closed the glass door.

“Right. I’ll get some water boiling for tea. Would you like a cup?” Arthur asked.

“Oui, s’il te plaît.” ¹⁷

Arthur kissed his boyfriend’s red cold cheek and left to the small kitchen to boil some water with the kettle. Francis laid on the side of his head on the chair and watched him, smiling. While Arthur rarely said he loved him or complimented him much, he did care a lot when it mattered. He was there for him if he needed him and of course, Francis would do exactly the same.

Arthur came back with two cups of boiling hot water and put it down on the side table between the two sofa chairs and sat down next to Francis. The Frenchman noticed his boyfriend brought his own tea bags and even thought of bringing Francis’ favourite kind of tea even though he preferred coffee over tea. He watched as Arthur soaked the tea into the cup.

“Are you feeling better, love?”

“Oui. Merci.”

“You’re welcome”

Francis got up from his chair and went to sit on Arthur’s lap.

“What do you think you are doing?”

Francis wrapped his arms around his partner’s neck and kissed him tenderly.

“I love you.” Francis whispered after he was done kissing. Arthur blushed and pulled Francis closer.

“Je t’aime aussi.”¹⁸ Arthur whispered back.

Translation:

¹ “I promise you a great time.”

² “It’s too easy to tease you”

³ “We don’t have winter like this back home, do we?”

⁴ “Yeah. At least, it’s better than your rain for 10 months a year.”

⁵ “You know the Queen isn’t coming today, right?”

⁶ “Can you help me, my love?”

⁷"What? One hour? We won't even have time to have sex."

⁸ "I must be at the top of myself. I can't go out like a poor peasant. Who do you think I am?"

⁹ “It’s gorgeous, right?”

¹⁰ “I have a scarf that would look good with it. Anyway, we won’t stay long outside. Who in their right mind would stay outside in that kind of weather?”

¹¹ “I don’t need your pity. I’ll order a nice hot coffee and I’ll be fine.”

¹² “It’s true

¹³ “Ah. I’m sorry, my love.”

¹⁴ “What about going shopping? Wouldn’t it be nice, would it? You told me about a shopping mall with a mini theme park inside, didn’t you?”

¹⁵ “Are you ok, dad?”

¹⁶“Yeah”

¹⁷ “Yes please.”

¹⁸ “I love you too.”

#frukweek #frukweek2021 #aph fruk #hws fruk #fruk #ukfr #aph ukfr #hws ukfr #aph england #hws england #aph france #hws france #THIS TOOK ME TOO LONG #i do love fluffy old married couple trope #no beta read #we post the first draft like the finnish in russia #i legit thought we were during winter at the end like bruh we're only in August. its hot out

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didsomeonesaydaddydraco · 3 years

Text

Sweet secret | Tom Felton one shot

Request: yes. @anonymous

Word count: 2,710 words

Pairing: Tom Felton x reader

Note: This one was requested a while ago, I just had troubles writing it. But I really hope you guys like it! Don’t forget that my requests are still open and there’s a prompt list waiting for y’all to check it out. Also, let me know if you’d like to be added to my tag list! Take care babes xx

Being the only child of a rockstar had its own benefits. For example, it was a lot more easier for Y/N to meet her favourite celebrities and make connections with influential people from all type of industries. Having a world wide famous rockstar as a dad meant that she spent most of her time in the limelight, always travelling with him and being his biggest fan from the day she was born. By the age of sixteen, she had already travelled the whole world and successfully used her name to speak up about social issues and help different charities and organisations. She had never stopped talking about the importance of acceptance, equality, support and love. She lived her life like that. She didn’t care who you were, where you came from, as long as you didn’t hurt the ones she loved, she loved you and supported you. That was what she saw from her parents, and she was proud of her family being one of those celebrity families who never let fame get in their heads and go crazy over their net worth. They lived a humble life, and shared their love with the world.

But of course that lifestyle came with the content rumours and paparazzi chasing after them in the street. They tried to capture an awkward moment that could be laughed at, a bad hair day that could be the reason to judge, but what they wanted most, is to capture her with someone from the opposite sex. She always kept her love life private, hardly sharing any information about who she was seeing or who she was in a relationship with. She was happy that they could keep their relationship a sweet little secret for almost six months, and enjoy the privacy and intimacy of their bubble. It was until one day a fan of Tom successfully took a picture of them, being in the same car, driving around Los Angeles.

She met Tom through a mutual friend, who was aware of their silly little platonic crush on each other and knowing Y/N and Tom, she thought they could be a power couple. So when she learnt that both of them were going in to in LA for weeks, she didn’t hesitate to throw a summer party in her beach house and invite both of them. She kept it as a secret, didn’t want them to think they are being forced into something that they didn’t want in the first place. Y/BSF/N knew Y/N just recently got out of a terrible relationship and she was a little bit afraid to start something knew, fearing that the new guy would be the same as the previous one. And she knew that Tom, no matter how many times he said and acted like he wasn’t, was lonely and wanted to finally find someone who he could share his life with. She knew she had nothing to worry about, because the second they were introduced, they just immediately hit it off and spent the whole afternoon and night by each other’s side, talking about movies, music, travel, dreams and goals, and when the cocktails finally kicked in, they weren’t shy to shamelessly flirt with each other. Tom was confident about their mutual sympathy and felt something that he hadn’t felt in a very long time, and two days later, he asked her out of their first official date. He was a real gentleman. He picked Y/N up at her flat, brought a huge bouquet of white roses to her and treated her like a queen the whole night. He arranged a candlelight picnic dinner on the beach, far from the popular parts, so nobody could ruin their first date. They fed each other with fruits and cuddled while they watched the stars. It was nothing crazy, nothing fancy and extravagant. Money wasn’t in focus, but they were. That night was all about them. And when the night eventually had to end, Tom walked her to the door and sweetly kissed Y/N. Ever since then, the couple couldn’t imagine their days without at least FaceTiming each other. They were happy and crazily in love, of course they wanted to keep that a secret as long as they could , not wanting the media to ruin in for them. But life didn’t work like that. Paparazzi had no mercy and they were paid to take preferably the highest quality pictures of the top celebs and their close family. And social media users wanted something they could talk about, because that was the main priority for most people nowadays. Stalking the subject of their obsession and use the protection of anonymity of social media to hate and judge other people.

“Have you seen the pictures?” Y/N asked Tom when she finally found him chilling by the pool in his backyard. It was a rather hot day in LA, and he had a few days break from shooting his next movie, he wanted to get the best out of his little break and spend every single minute with his lady “My dad just sent me them” she gave her phone to Tom, so he could check out the short article with the attached photos. It was from a few days ago, when they went to grocery shopping together. They were just leaving the parking lot, and it was visible that Tom was holding up their interwind hands to his lips to kiss on her knuckles. Another picture of them showed how Tom opened the car door for Y/N, and as she was getting in the vehicle, he playfully patted her butt. He quickly clicked on the link to see the full article. It was really short, probably because the journalist didn’t have any solid evidence or information about their romance.

“What can I say? I just love your ass” Tom handed back her phone and chuckled at her expression “Darling, stop worrying. A fan sent those pictures to TMZ, so what? They have no evidence that we’re dating” he put his hand of her calf and looked up at her girlfriend. He knew they couldn’t keep their relationship a secret forever. No matter how much Tom liked the excitement of sneaking around and having privacy, he wanted to show the world how beautiful, amazing and perfect his girlfriend was “This shall too pass, just like any other rumour that is left without a word.”

“Alright” Y/N sighed and decided to ignore the article, the photos, the comments and the mentions. Tom was right. This whole thing will be long forgotten in a couple of days, if neither of them say anything about it. In that case, the media couldn’t blow it up “I just hate the media and the drama it causes every time”

“I know” he smiled at her sweetly, not liking the frown on her face from annoyance and worry “So will you finally join me in the pool or do I have to throw you in it again?” Y/N laughed and put her phone down on the deck chair. She winked at Tom and take of the think summer dress she was wearing to reveal Tom’s favourite swimsuit, a white one-piece with a deep V-cut. He whistled at her as she was walking down the few steps of the pool and swam up to him “You just made this already hot day way hotter, baby” he pulled her close, kissing her passionately and making her forget all about that article.

2 months later -

Having a boyfriend who was constantly traveling and filming wasn’t making a relationship smooth, and if you add a girlfriend who was working on her own career just as hard, then you could easily how Tom and Y/N’s relationship was. But they knew what they wanted and they did everything to make it work, even if they were in two different parts of the country. They called each other every time they had the chance, made sure to send a supporting message to the other, letting them know they were proud of their achievements in life, and of course memes. Tom was a huge fan of memes, and he liked to spam Y/N with them, especially with the Harry Potter ones. Y/N lived for the smile on Tom’s face and she knew how much he loved surprises, so when she could finally take a week off from work, her first thing was to book a flight to the city Tom was currently at. The smile on his face and how excited and happy he was when he saw his girlfriend after almost two months of only being able to see her through his phone was worth anything to Y/N.

“I missed you so much, baby” Tom said in between kisses, not letting go of the laughing girl in his arms “I was getting rather lonely without you” his was got an octave deeper and the familiar flame of lust and love appeared in his ocean blue eyes. Slowly, his lips made their way down to her neck from her lips, kissing along her jawline, holding her closer than ever.

“Mhm, as much as I want this” Y/N pulled away and looked up at Tom, who was pouting like a little boy who’s favourite toy was taken away. It was party true, one of his new favourite things to do was kissing Y/N whenever he had the chance “You have to go live in a less than 5 minutes. You promised a Harry Potter watch party to your babies, and I don’t want you to disappoint them” she kissed his nose and forced his arms off of her waist. Tom knew he couldn’t disappoint them, and he didn’t want to, but he still groaned as he went to make sure everything was okay with the internet connection and the light ring. Y/N watched how Tom settled with his guitar and a cup of tea, already smiling that she could watch her boyfriend interacting with his fans.

“I’ll just sing a little in the meantime” Tom said to Y/N, who was packing out of her suitcase, and changing into one of Tom’s Teddy Fresh hoodies. They were the most comfortable hoodies she had ever worn, and it was just a pleasing addition that they always smelled like Tom. She kept on packing and tidying up the mess Tom usually leaves in his room in the morning, and listened to his smoothing voice. She always loved when Tom was singing. I didn’t matter if it was a song from another artist, one that he wrote or just an improvised nonsense about something that caught his attention in that very second. She loved to see him happy, and singing made him happy.

Tom finally started his Instagram live and was singing one of his old songs. One that was very dear to both of them, because he sang that song on their one month anniversary and told her he was in love with her.

“I was in the right place, at the right time, that day we spent together” Tom kept looking at her behind his phone, his smile getting bigger when she blew him a kiss “There’s no where else I’d have put myself, or to share the day with anyone else” he finished the song and greeted his fans who were already sending hundreds of heart emojis and cute little love confession to him in the comment section. Y/N layed down on the bed, with her phone in her hands and read the comments, screenshooting a few cute ones to save them for later.

“Alright my little wizards and witches” Tom said “Shall we continue our magical journey to the one and only Hogwarts?” His voice was filled with excitement, he hadn’t seen any of the movies in so long, he really wanted to share this experience with those people who had such a huge impact in his career as an actor. Little did they know, the fans saw the secret glances and how Tom blushed at the sigh of his girlfriend taking off his hoodie, staying in only her shorts and a tank top. Even after all these months, he still thought of her as a goddess. The fans had been suspecting that Tom had someone special in his life. They caught on his glow, and how his smile became brighter. He always sang love songs during his lives and left little Easter eggs in his Instagram stories, or in his captions. They were happy to see him being in love, they were only waiting to finally be able to see who was the reason of Tom’s behaviour.

“Questions time!” He announce after the 11 minutes of the movie ended. He grabbed his guitar again and started playing spontaneously on the strings, creating a beautiful melody. It was the moment, when Y/N realised her phone was on 5%, and her charger was somewhere behind Tom. She knew it would have been suspicious, if he just grabbed it and handed it her, so she decided to go and grab it herself. From where she was laying, it looked like her charges was out of the frame, and nobody would see her. She tiptoed to the charger and made sure not to bump into anything that could alert the fans. It was their time with Tom, and she didn’t want to interrupt their little date.

“God, you’re so beautiful” Tom blurted out when he saw her behind him, grabbing her charger from the coffee table. As soon as the words left his mouth, they both froze. Y/N realised she was in the frame, being very much visible. She looked at her boyfriend with a socked expression, not being sure what to do next. Stay or go? Say something or stay silent? Wave or smile? As for Tom, he didn’t mind that she accidentally walked into the live. He wanted to tell the world for a while now about their relationship. He was tired of not being able to share his happiness with his fans and hiding their love. It was nothing wrong about it. Love, in any kind of form, should have been celebrated in a daily basis. And that was what he wanted.

“I guess it’s time to finally introduce you to my other family, baby” Tom put down his guitar and reached out to her hand, pulling her completely in the frame. He sat her on his lap and hugged her by the waist “Ladies and gentlemen, please, welcome the woman who has being making me the happiest man alive in the last six and a half months” he looked at her the way every girl wants to be looked at. If anyone would have question the love they had, they only had to watch how they were looking at each other. Love, adoration, passion and devotion. It was all in one single look “Sorry for keeping this a sweet little secret for so long, but I just wanted to have her for myself as long as I could” he chuckled and kissed the blushing cheek of his girlfriend. Y/N was still in a little bit of shock. This definitely wasn’t the way she wanted to announce their romance to the world, but she was revealed deep down. She could finally show her love and support freely.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Tom has many dates with you guys on Instagram” winked to the camera and refused to look at the comments. She was floating in happiness, she didn’t want the haters to ruin it for her.

“I’m so damn lucky” Tom whispered and grabbed her face to give her a quick but sweet kiss on the lips. Nobody could stop him from posting about his girlfriend and what they had. He was finally able to show off, and make sure everyone saw her as she was. Not Tom Felton’s girlfriend, not the daughter of Y/F/N, but as Y/N Y/L/N. He was proud to have you, and planned to keep it that way till the rest of his life.

#tom felton #Tom Felton one shot #Tom Felton x reader #Tom Felton fluff #Draco Malfoy imagines #Draco Malfoy one shot #Tom Felton imagines #request #Tom Felton requests

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fiddlepickdouglas · 3 years

Text

Viva Las Vegas, Pt. 18 -Chemistry

Summary: Sunset Curve Alive AU, Willex, what will they do?, 2.5k

@trevor-wilson-covington is the bestie who makes these lovely edits, we stan supportive friends

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17

“Two, three, four!” Alex counted off and the band sprung into action inside the studio. The one good thing about the drums was that it made him hyper aware of every limb on his body. There was no room for distractions or intrusive thoughts when he was keeping time. It was almost like the euphoria of being dizzy, only without the dizziness. He could be okay in this state for a little while - just long enough to reset his mind and declutter itself.

As they finished their take, they heard a familiar voice from the sound booth.

“Sounds incredible boys!”

Caleb. There went the whole ‘reset and declutter’ thing he had going.

Each of the guys looked around at each other, knowing they would have to do their best to pretend they didn’t know anything. This was the first time they were seeing him since Alex had given the news to the rest of the band. None of them had actually discussed what they would do the next time Caleb happened to stop in. Setting down their instruments and slowly filing into the sound booth, they all greeted Caleb, trying to appear happy to see him.

“Let’s hear that playback, shall we?” he said as they all sat together. He pressed a few knobs on his soundboard and they all listened closely to their own song. It was just gonna be another session with notes on where they could dub vocals here and there or duplicate tracks to fill things out - it had to be normal, Alex prayed.

“And let’s stop here for a minute,” Caleb was saying after getting into a couple minutes of the track. “Reggie. What happened to the bassline?” Reggie sat up, blinking at being called out. “That’s not what was on your demo; why did you change it?”

Reggie’s face had already fallen as he made flustered attempts to respond.

“I-I...I just liked that line better...I think it fits the style and the direction of the song,” he stammered, shoulders slumped, avoiding eye contact. His hands came together in his usual fidget - the one he did when he got yelled at. Alex saw Bobby’s hand curl into a fist.

“Alright, alright, trust me,” Caleb placated. “I understand, probably more than any of you, why improvising a part feels so good. I wouldn’t host a jazz club if I didn’t get that. But here the difference is that no one knows your songs yet, boys.”

“We’ve had faithful fans for years,” Luke interrupted.

Caleb cut him off with a mere look. Shutting his mouth, Luke scratched the back of his head nervously. After taking a breath, Caleb simply let out a sigh.

“Boys.” His tone was really drawing on the charisma, Alex noticed. “My job in helping you reach the stardom that you all one hundred percent deserve is to help you create a footprint on the walk of fame. A footprint means as beginners we can’t mess with the core elements that make your brand. These songs need to stay consistent until we have thousands of fans singing back to you in the audience the very lines you wrote in your humble garage. They need to know the first few seconds of that drumbeat and recall who you are on the radio. They are going to learn those basslines and those chords and add them to their own repertoire while they aspire to be legends like you! Don’t you see how important that is? I know. Playing around is fun; experimenting with new ideas and sounds is the whole reason we’re here. But from now on, I want you boys to stay in one lane, and I will match your speed.”

Eyeing each other warily, they all awkwardly murmured and nodded to agree with him. None of his words had been all that comforting. Alex was stuck thinking about how Caleb had made an appeal to every single one of them and somehow been right on the nose. It was like he could read their minds and it felt rather invasive.

“We’ll remember that,” Alex told him. He knew the other three were battling with their fight or flight responses and it would be suspicious.

“Oh, good,” Caleb replied. “I can see we’re having an off day, but maybe Alex can get the rest of you on board. Let’s run that song again.”

Exchanging glances, the guys stood up and headed back into the recording booth.

“Man, chemistry sucks,” Bobby complained from his seat in the armchair in his garage. Books were spread out around him, as well as about a dozen crumpled up pieces of notebook paper. “Reggie would get this.”

Alex looked up from the history homework he’d been focused on. He was gaining such an ear for whenever Reggie or Bobby mentioned one another and it made him laugh inwardly. For now, though, he had to hide the smirk.

“Well, I would call him, but he’s taking care of his sister tonight.”

“Yeah, I know. I don’t want to bother him anyways.”

This was one of the rare occasions where it was just Alex and Bobby together. Usually at least Luke would be around, but he was out on some date with Julie and there was no telling when he was expected back. Bobby had been helping Alex with history for a little bit but about half an hour ago remembered his own homework in a panic. Now they were both having trouble focusing. Their time in the studio that morning was clearly still on both of their minds.

“Hey, did Reggie tell you we were playing for his cousin’s wedding?” Alex asked in a non sequitur fashion.

“What?” Bobby said, finally sitting up and tearing his eyes off the diagram he was making. “No, he didn’t. Since when was that happening?”

“I’ve known for a couple weeks,” Alex told him casually.

“Oh.” Bobby looked down at the floor. “Any reason you haven’t mentioned it until now?”

Alex shifted in his seat on the couch at the suspicion in Bobby’s voice, but tried to play it off with a shrug.

“I just forgot. We’ve had a lot going on since he mentioned it to me.”

It did the trick. Still, Bobby sat in thought for a while, playing with his tongue inside his mouth absent-mindedly. Alex physically bit his own tongue to keep himself from asking what was on Bobby’s mind and pretended to turn his attention back to his history work. There was a long, static pause.

“Reggie’s been really weird lately,” Bobby said.

“Is that so?” Alex didn’t look up this time.

“Yeah. I mean, he’s always been goofy and everything, but I mean, he’s been unusual even for him. You know what I mean?”

“I guess I haven’t been paying as close of attention.” Alex flipped a page in his text book. “But I’ll take your word. Are you worried about him?”

Furrowing his brow, Bobby frowned in thought.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I mean, I always worry about him, you know, cuz of everything he deals with at home. But I don’t know...this is different.”

“Is it because of what Caleb said today?”

“I didn’t like that either, but no, that’s not it.”

He looked so serious that Alex couldn’t find it funny anymore. Actually, Bobby seemed so distressed by it that it was making Alex distressed.

“Hey,” he said with concern. “Why do you look so bummed about it?”

He received a glance as though a great weight sat upon Bobby’s shoulders. It was so familiar it shot him in the chest. His friend looked so lost and uncertain, so afraid to speak his mind. And Alex thought Reggie had been conflicted. It was a little worrying.

“I think you actually know what's going on, huh?” Bobby said in resignation.

Nope. Now it was just frustrating. Alex sat up and looked at Bobby directly.

“Okay, I know expressing yourself isn’t your strong suit, Bobby, but please say it out loud. You can do it. Especially with me.”

His friend’s eyebrows knit together even further, trying to convince himself to get it off his chest. A minute passed, and finally he shut his chemistry book, set it aside, and faced Alex.

“I have feelings for Reggie.”

Thank god.

“Good job! You’re officially the last to know!”

Bobby’s face fell into a confused expression.

“What?”

Alex merely shrugged. They were so helpless, but luckily he was better at trying to solve others’ problems than his own.

“I had to let you come to your own conclusion. It was exhausting; you took forever.”

Bobby folded his hands and fidgeted with his thumbs.

“How long have you noticed?”

“Technically? Since before playing at the Pearl. But that’s when it really started to be obvious.”

Smirking, Bobby just bowed and shook his head.

“You know,” he began. “When I was first getting to know you, I didn’t trust you. Luke and I were already so close, and he introduced me to you and Reggie and you two already were such good friends. For a while I couldn’t figure out when you were being sarcastic or serious and I didn’t want to admit I was too sensitive. Reggie helped me figure out the difference and I just sort of dropped anything I was upset about.”

Alex listened carefully, nodding at his words.

“And now you’ve started getting all personal because you know I’m the most trustworthy one here, right?” he half-teased.

Nodding, Bobby smiled a little.

“I guess this is the part where you tell me to get my crap together and tell Reggie?”

“Yep,” Alex said. “But go at your own pace. The last thing I want is you two making things even weirder than they already are by trying to discuss things when you’re not prepared. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great, but don’t forget the rest of the band in the process.”

“Oh, yeah,” Bobby pondered. “You have a point. Speaking of weird business, I’m still not cool about us pretending to go along with making the album while knowing what we do about Caleb.”

“Me neither, but I think Luke was right. We’re just being careful.”

“Since when is Sunset Curve careful, though? We would just set up and play wherever we could until we got chased off the property, and then we’d just find a new location the next night.”

“The difference is we were nobody fifteen year olds who didn’t have contracts signed. You said it yourself, we could risk losing the rights to our own music if we break things off.”

“We read the contracts, though, right?” Bobby insisted. “I made sure we did. I don’t remember anything that seemed too controlling in them.”

“Would we have known what to look for?” Alex responded.

Sighing heavily and flopping back into his chair, Bobby stared up into the ceiling. It felt like no good answer could be given. Alex was frustrated too, but he remembered what Tía Victoria had told him as well. He believed Willie, of course, especially since Victoria hadn’t actually seen or spoken to him. She hadn’t been able to get a sniff of Caleb’s true nature, and she was a professional investigator. If Caleb could fool her that easily, he’d tied their hands while they willingly held them out.

“Bobby,” Alex started. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking we should stop laying ourselves on the ground and letting him walk all over us. None of this ‘establish the brand’ B.S.”

Straightening his posture, Alex sat up and folded his hands. That was exactly what he wanted to do, too. Even if he didn’t know anything else about Caleb, the way he’d gone after Reggie had left a sour enough taste in his mouth. Before he could say anything else to Bobby, Luke stepped into the garage.

“Guys, I was thinking - ” he started.

“You wanna go after Caleb too?” Bobby said.

“Whoa, how did you know?” he sat back in surprise.

“Bobby and I were just talking about it,” Alex told him. Luke raised his eyebrows as he flopped onto the couch beside Alex.

“Were you guys mad when he singled out Reggie, too?”

“Yes!”

“Nobody shames Reggie like that!”

“Bobby, you should go cheer him up,” Luke suggested. “We all know you’re in love with him.”

“Oh my god!” Bobby cried, throwing his arms into the air in exasperation. Immediately he stood up and gathered all his books. “Just for that, I’m turning in you guys. Have a nice night, Alex. Luke, I hope it’s cold.” He stormed out of the garage and into his house while Luke and Alex simply laughed together.

“I, uh… I already gave him a speech about it,” Alex told Luke, smirking.

“Thank you!” Luke cried. “I know they tease me about being dense but at least I go for what I want! And so do you!”

Smiling at the acknowledgement of him and Willie, Alex slowly started packing up his homework. He could finish it tomorrow night.

“By the way, how was hanging out with Julie?” he asked.

Placing his arms behind his head, Luke got that dreamy far-off look on his face. The ‘Julie on the mind’ look. He smiled like he’d seen an angel and the angel had smiled back in kind.

“Oh, she’s awesome. She’s way better at roller skating than me. I wish there were two of me just so one of us could hold her hand while skating with her and the other could sit down and watch.”

Alex made a face at the odd visual, but he understood what Luke was talking about. He wondered what he and Willie looked like from an outside perspective. Did they look as happy as he felt? Did Willie bring out something in him that he’d never seen in the mirror? Or even something the rest of the guys didn’t know yet? That was something he really wanted to discuss with Willie now.

“I can’t wait until her mom gets out of the hospital,” Luke was saying. “I want to learn everything she can teach me. She told me she took two years just working on the production of an album for her band. Imagine what we could do with our songs if we had her in the studio instead of Caleb.”

“Wow,” Alex commented. “At this point, I really wish we were working with the Molinas. At least they seem to get us.”

Luke looked at him and Alex knew he’d heard all the underlying meaning in that sentence. All the guys had been accepted by Julie’s family in a way none of their own seemed capable of. Alex almost wished he hadn’t said it out loud because it only tempted him to forget about heading home.

“Maybe one day, we will, Alex,” Luke said, giving him an encouraging smile.

He chuckled as he shouldered his backpack and headed out the door.

“Yeah. That’d be sweet.”

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #fanfic #jatp fanfic #sunset curve #alive au #willex #willie #alex mercer #luke patterson #reggie peters #bobby wilson #julie molina #caleb covington #viva las vegas #vlv #chemistry #fiddlepickdouglas

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amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines · 3 years

Text

Luke//the very first moment i beheld you, my heart was irrevocably gone

Request: Can you do a Luke Hemmings x female reader one-shot? The reader is a British actress and was cast as Elizabeth Bennett in the movie Prejudice and Zombies instead of Lily James (I have nothing against her, it’s just that she needs to be removed from the one-shot in order for it to work) and her boyfriend Luke’s there when she and Sam Riley film Elizabeth and Darcy’s fight scene and they go out for lunch with Sam and his wife afterwards? The scene’s from the video on the YouTube channel Movieclips

hey! so i know that this scene wouldn’t have been filmed all in one shot, but i just thought it would be better if i wrote it like i did. i also know they probably didn’t do their own stunts (lie, lily james can do absolutely anything and everything) but well, i made it so you do! anyway. how’s everyone’s day? i hope they’re well! and i hope future me’s day is going well too! i also hope future you is good too!

Your whole life you’d been dreaming of this. Everything you’ve ever done has been leading up to this moment. Your first feature film, before this you’d had small roles in a few cable shows and side characters in a couple of films, as well as playing the main character in some indie film a friend was doing, but this was your big break.

The director and casting agents saw something in you, sent you the script and asked you to send them a tape. You’d done it at 10am, and found out you got the job at 2, so they were clearly very impressed.

And when you told Luke he was even more impressed. You’d never seen him smile so wide and the two of you jumped up and down in excitement before you phoned all your friends and family.

Two weeks later you were on a place back to England with Luke in tow so you could find a small flat to rent for the months you’d be rehearsing and filming. You were of course happy to be home, your house with Luke may be lovely and LA’s weather may be a lot better than Britains but it doesn’t stop the home sickness. However that’s what you were worried about with Luke, he hadn’t been in London for this long since he lived here with the band, so you were worried he’d end up bored and lonely.

But to your surprise he was loving it. He was glad to be back and with you being away filming for most of the day it gave him the chance to do some song writing and to catch up with other hobbies he may have neglected since the success of the band.

Today however, Luke had asked if he could tag along with you. He wanted to see you at work and watch you do what you loved. He said it was only fair because you’d been to all of his shows you could possibly go to, and for a while you were even on tour with him. So now it was his turn to return to the favour.

Plus, he said he needed to see you in action in order to hype you up to everyone he spoke to.

“Okay!” The director calls and the room goes silent.

You make eye contact with Luke and send him a thumbs up which makes him chuckle and shake his head.

“Everyone ready? Good. And action.”

“I’ve come to feel for you a most ardent admiration and regard, which has overcome my better judgement.” Sam starts, his head moves as if he’s trying to find the right words and you stare at him in, your lips pulled into a straight line and your eyebrows furrowed at his sudden declaration.

Even when the camera’s not on you you need to act, it helps keep you in character, helps keep you in the moment, and most importantly it helps whoever you're acting alongside. If they see your reactions to the words they are saying, they can use that to better their own performance and that gives everyone the most authentic scenes possible.

“So.” He takes a deep breath and gets down on one knee. You take a step back, a small gasp leaving your lips as you stare down at him. “Now I ask you most fervently to end my turmoil and consent to be my wife.” He asks and there’s a few seconds of silence while you look between him and the floor.

“If I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you...” You start, your voice quiet. Hurt flashes through your eyes as you take a deep breath and say your next line.

You have to admit, the way Sam is staring up at you, it does kind of feel like you’re turning down an actual marriage proposal, and if this is what it feels like when you’re just pretending, you hope you never have to do it in real life.

“But I cannot.” You sigh, nodding your head just to get your point across. “I never desired your good opinion and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly.”

Sam blinks and looks at the floor, not really sure what to say next. He stands, confusion thinly veiling the disappointment that’s written all over his face and you shift awkwardly. The fabric of your dress crinkling is the only thing that can be heard in the room as you smooth the skirt out, waiting for Sam to say his line.

“Might I be informed why?” He huffs. “With so little, endeavour at civility, I have been rejected?”

“You intentionally ruined the happiness of my my most beloved sister.” You reply, and tilt your head up to try and regain some sort of authority. “Do you deny it?” You ask and he lets out a short breath.

“I have no wish to deny it.” He replies, bitterness lacing his tone and you raise an eyebrow at him. “I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister.”

Your jaw tightens and you look him up and down, both of you have a silent conversation, just to make sure the other one’s ready, and then you kick him. He throws himself backwards, landing on the desk with a loud crash, a fake vase breaks under the weight and you shout. “How could you?”

“Because I perceived his attachment to her to be far deeper that to hers to him.” He replies, narrowly avoiding the books you’re throwing at him. Of course you’re told to try and miss him on purpose, but it still is really fun to be able to throw things at someone and get paid for it. “I believed her to be indifferent.”

“Indifferent?!” You gasp incredulity. “She’s shy!” You seethe and finish throwing the books. One of the smashes a window and Sam looks behind him concerned before looking back at you.

You walk around the room, deep in thought and Sam watches you as you grab a fire poker from the fireplace.

When rehearsing this part, you seemed to have a problem with waving it around too much.

You think you get a bit too into it and each time you swung it around you always seemed to break something, so you’re hoping and praying that this time you won’t cause any property damage.

The props department has already had to replace three vases and a clock because of you, so let’s hope you don’t break anything or anyone else.

Sam gulps as you slowly make your way towards him and he takes a few steps backwards, looking incredibly nervous as his gaze moves from you and the stick.

“Did you suggest to Mr Bingley that his fortune had some bearing on the matter?” You ask and he backs up towards the glass. Nothing you’re saying is threatening, but the way you’re brandishing your new weapon, you do look like you’re going to stab him.

Luke watches on amazed, he’s never seen you like this before. This is you in your element, doing what you love to do and transporting yourself and the people around you back to a time where people wore corsets and zombies ran around.

Luke knows people that when they step in front of a camera or onto a stage, they are just totally themselves. Whatever they’re doing, whether it’s singing, acting or dancing, it’s like a second nature to them. They know what they need to do, when they need to do and they don’t even have to think about it.

But he’s never seen anything like this before. A part of him wonders if it’s just because he loves you, but then he realizes that everyone else watching you and Sam work together are also totally floored by how brilliantly the scene its going. How the two of you work together, the small glances and little touches, every little thing you do just adds to the scene and he’s never been prouder.

“I wouldn’t do your sister the dishonour...though it was suggested.” He adds and you swing the poker over your head. He ducks, missing each attempted hit and you fall onto the table. He takes the opportunity to jump over it and when you turn around to try and regain your balance, he grabs your wrists and pins you to the table.

“By Miss Bingley.” You ask furiously and his grip tightens.

“By your mother, at the ball.” He replies and you shut up. He glances down and you stare at him annoyed, pushing him off you and swinging your weapon around. He misses each hit, just like you’ve practiced and you can’t wait to watch it back.

“Your character was revealed to me many months ago by Wickham.” You say after each missed hit, and he wrestles you to the floor, making you drop your weapon. “As I heard of his scandalous misfortunes at your hand.” You spit and wrap your ankles around his neck, squeezing just a tiny bit.

“Oh, yeah. Mr Wickham’s misfortunes have been very great indeed.” He struggles to speak and grabs on your legs, his hands shake so it looks like he’s struggling and when he’s finished you pull him forward just a little and pretend to punch him in the face, making him stumble backwards again.

A chair smashes when he lands on it and you quickly stand up, grabbing the letter opener as you do. He rolls over and stands and the two of you stare at each other before you move forward. He blocks each attempt at a hit and the two of you move backwards and forwards.

Fight scenes remind you of well rehearsed dance numbers. You move one way, they move the other. Each hit has to be choreographed to make it look real but remain safe and both of you have to know exactly what you’re doing otherwise it can end in disaster.

“You withhold the advantages that you know were designed for him.” You slice the letter opener down his shirt, popping the buttons and he stares down at it, watching the small pieces fall to the ground. He looks back at you, letting down his guard and you swing your arms up to hit him in the face. He grabs them and pushes you into the door.

“This is your opinion of me?” He asks, grabbing the poker of the floor and swinging it around a few times. “Then I thank you for explaining it so fully.” He slowly edges towards you and you do the same, giving each other untrustworthy looks.

You lunge towards him, raising the blade and he narrowly avoids it, using one hand to grab yours while the other slices the top of your dress. The buttons pop and a part of it comes down, exposing the top of the corset below.

You both look down before you slowly raise your head to glare at him. He looks at you afterwards, and he glances at you, raising his eyebrow before you take a deep breath and spin kick him.

He falls to the floor and you raise the blade above your head, an annoyed groan escapes your lips as you run towards him. He grabs your arms spinning the two of you around and you back hits the floor with a loud thud.

You feel the air being knocked out of you for a split second Sam looks worried that he’s hurt you, but you send him and look and he seems to get the message. Get the job done and then ask if you’re alright.

His hands pin your arms to the hard floor and he rests between your legs, the two of you panting and hot while staring at each other.

“You could not have made the offer of your hand, in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.” You say through gritted teeth. “I had not known you a month, before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.” You finish and he lets go.

You sit up, pointing the blade at his chest and he stares down at you, hurt flashing through his eyes. However the facade quickly comes back and he pulls his gaze away from you, his expression hardens as he stares straight ahead.

“You’ve said quite enough, madam.” He forces himself to look at you. “I fully comprehend your feelings and now have only to be ashamed of what my own have been.” He stands and quickly walks away from you.

He turns back around to watch you stand, his hands resting on his hips as he figures out the best way to end this.

“Please forgive me and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.” He bows and quickly leaves the room.

You pull yourself up onto the chair, waiting for the sound of the door closing as your cue to start crying. The camera slowly zooms in on you, tears run down your cheeks and you let out a shaky breath.

“Cut!” The director calls and you look at him.

“Did we get it?” You ask and Sam pokes his head back through the door, glancing between you and the crew.

“Yeah, we got it. Good job guys!” He replies and everyone cheers.

“You were brilliant!” You grin at Sam.

“You did pretty well too.” He jogs over to you, his boots squeaking as he runs and you let out a small giggle. He reaches his hand out to you, helping you stand and leading you off set and towards Luke and Alexandra.

“You’re such a gentleman.” You tease. “You’re very lucky Alex.” You smile and she laughs, rolling her eyes at her husband.

“Yeah. Sure I am.” She replies and the three of you laugh, while Sam just glares at you. You pull a face at him and he huffs loudly at you.

“Take lunch guys. Everyone needs to back by 2.” A producer tells you and you let out a pained breath.

“Oh shit. Are you okay. You hit that floor pretty hard.” Sam asks and Luke’s eyes widen in concern. He’s stood in front of you instantly, gripping your arms and he looks you over.

“Babe, are you okay?” He asks and you smile at his concern.

“I’m fine. It wasn’t so bad, I think it’s just the corset making it feel worse. I’ll be fine when I take it off.” You reassure them and Sam nods slowly, not quite believing you.

“Come on. I’ll take you back to your trailer.” Luke says and looks around to try and figure out where he’s supposed to be going.

“You go out of the door, walk all the way down the corridor, take a left and then a right and then another right. Go through them doors and her trailer is the first one you’ll see.” Sam explains and Luke’s blinks at him.

“I’m fine.” You laugh. “Come on. I can get there on my own. I’ve cracked a rib not my brain.”

“You’ve crac-”

“Joking.” You place a hand on his arm and he lets out a nervous breath.

“Not funny.” He pouts and you pull the same expression.

“Aww.” You pinch your cheek. “Come on.” You grab his hand and start pulling him away. “Oh, do you guys want to head out for lunch together?” You call over your shoulder. Sam and Alexandra look at each other before nodding, an eager smile twitching at their lips.

“Yeah. Sounds great.” Sam replies.

“Great. Swing by my trailer in like twenty minutes and we can get going.”

“Okay!” He replies and you wave one last time before disappearing through the door.

“So, what did you think?” You look up at Luke and he gives you a toothy grin.

“That was amazing!” He exclaims. “You were so fucking good. How are you so badass. How did I get the most talented, pretty, smart and badass girlfriend in the world. You like destroyed him and you still gorgeous while doing it. How? I jump around on stage for a bit and by the time I get off I look like a sweaty giant. But you. You literally fake fight people and act and cry all in a massive dress and you still look like...like that.” He motions wildly and you look at the floor, heat creeping up your neck and spreading across your cheeks.

“Did you really like it?” You ask one more time.

“Yes!” He laughs. “If I wasn’t a singer, I definitely would be an actor.”

“You could be both. Harry Styles acts.” You reply, pushing through yet another door. He stops in the doorway, and hums as he thinks about what you’ve just said.

“Yeah.” He nods. “That’s very true. Hey!” He smiles brightly. “You never know. One day we could be in a movie together!”

---

“Have I ever told you that you look really hot wielding a weapon.” Luke asks as he watches you shuffle out of the bathroom. Your dress is bunched around your waist while you slowly try and pry yourself out of the fabric.

Luke stands behind you, undoing the buttons at the bottom of it and after he’s done the last one it falls to the ground. You stand in a corset and stockings, with your hair up in curls and look over your shoulder at him.

“No, you haven’t.” You blush. “But you can tell me if you want.” You wink and his own cheeks heat up once he realizes he’s been caught staring.

“Well, you look very hot when wielding a weapon.”

“Thank you.” You smile and step out of your dress. “Can you pick that up and just hang it on that please?” You point towards the hanger on the chair. He nods and you watch him carefully pick your dress up.

“It’s not going to break you know.” You tease as you undo the top of your corset.

“With my luck it will.” He mutters and you snort a laugh.

“True.” You agree.

“Would you like some help?” He asks after watching you struggle for a while.

“Please.” You slump as best you can and a pout takes over your appearance.

“I hope when I ask you to marry me you don’t have the same reaction.” He mumbles while fiddling the strings and buttons.

“It depends how you ask me, and how much you’ve annoyed me that day.” You shrug and he pauses to give you a disapproving look. “Joking.”

“Not funny.”

“You always say that.” You frown. “But I think I’m hilarious.”

“Yeah. You think you’re great.” He grumbles and pulls on a bit of fabric. “And done!” He cheers and let’s go. You turn around and look at him surprised.

“How did you do that so quickly?”

“I’m just that good.” He winks and you roll your eyes.

“Sure you are.” You walk towards the bathroom and pat his shoulder. “Give me five minutes to get changed and then we can get lunch.”

“Take all the time you want.” He replies. “I’m going to snoop while you’re gone.”

“If you find my secret phone and pictures of my other boyfriend can you just put them back where you found them?” You tease and he looks at you amused.

“Of course.”

“Thanks.” You grin and push the door closed.

---

“So how are you finding London?” Sam asks after swallowing the last of his lunch.

“I love being back home!” You grin. “I’ve missed England’s shit weather so much. There’s nothing like a miserable day to really cheer you up.”

“Are they pulling that corset a little too tight?” Alexandra teases making you giggle while sipping your water.

“I think it’s just an English thing.” Luke replies, shaking his head playfully while staring at you.

“I think it’s just a Y/n thing.” Sam replies and you send him a glare.

“Hey, LA weather isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The rain can be good you know.” You argue.

“Sure it can be.” He replies. “What about you Luke?”

“It’s great! This is the longest I’ve stayed here in years and I love it. I’ve been seeing friends I have’t spoken to in years.” He talks enthusiastically and you watch him fondly as he waves his arms around. Sam and Alex share a look before looking back at him.

“You guys are made for each other.” Alexandra smiles. “How did you two meet?”

“Oh.” You giggle, a little embarrassed as you think of the story.

“Ooo, you’re embarrassed. Tell us.” Sam prods your arm and you swat him away.

“Fine.” You huff. “I was a fan of his music, so I sent him a DM and asked if he liked a certain show that I was in. He er, he told me he did and I told him I was in it, so he asked who I played. I told him and we just kind of started talking from there.”

“Awww.” Alexandra gushes and you rolls your eyes. “And how is it dating an actor?” She asks Luke. “For me it’s a nightmare.” She looks at Sam and he stares at her offended.

“What did I do?”

“The black eye.” She raises and eyebrow and he shuts up.

“The black eye?” You ask.

“He came home with a black eye a while ago. I thought he’s been beaten up or robbed or something. It didn’t help that he limped through the front door, there was blood on his lip and everything. He wouldn’t tell me what happened and then after a few minutes of me panicking, he told me it was just make up from a film he was doing.” She explains and your jaw drops.

“Sam!” You gasp.

“I thought it would be funny!” He defends.

“How is that funny?!” You and Alex say at the same time.

“That is pretty funny.” Luke laughs and the three of you look at him.

“Thank you!”

“Fine. I’ll do that and then we’ll see how you like it.” You reply and he shrugs.

“Well, you’ve told me you’re going to do it now so I’ll know what you’re doing.”

“And what if I have actually been mugged? Are you going to take that chance?” You raise an eyebrow.

“She’s got you there.” Sam says. “And I wouldn’t argue with her, she’s got a hell of a kick when she wants to.”

“I didn’t even touch you.” You roll your eyes.

“That’s not the point.” He argues.

“I can actually kick you next time if you want?”

“No thanks.” He shakes his head quickly. Him and Alexandra start their own conversation about what to have for dinner and so you turn your body to face Luke. He’s already staring at you when you look at him and you feel yourself become breathless.

“What?” You wonder.

“Nothing. I’m just proud of you.” He shrugs. “So when you win your first of many oscars, will I be the first person you thank?”

“Hmmm.” You pretend to think for a while. “As long as I’m first on your grammy speech?”

“Deal.”

#luke hemmings #luke hemmings imagine #luke hemmings x reader #luke hemmings x you #luke hemmings x y/n #5sos #5sos imagine #pride and predjudice and zombies

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liam-93-productions · 4 years

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I remember meeting Liam Payne once before. I was writing the cover story on One Direction for this very magazine four years ago and, finally, after endless tail chasing and schedule clashes, I managed to pin all five members down backstage at the O2 shortly before they played to what seemed like a bazillion screaming teenagers. The air was heavy with the fug of Haribo Starmix and raging hormones; even at that point the band were already more popular than The Beatles in some circles. Or, as John Lennon would have put it, Jesus.

The band members were courteous and convivial. One certainly got the impression that their time wasn’t their own, although any cracks that would end up splintering the band some years later were kept well hidden. I remember Payne for being perhaps the most grounded out of all five of them. He seemed to have an ease with his status and fortune that kept his ego in check. He seemed genuinely bamboozled at the hysteria going on around them. He was a young, ambitious pop star caught in fame’s full beams.

Last week, in some respects, a very different man sat down for an exclusive chat with GQ Hype. He’s certainly more hench, as this exclusive shoot with fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott prove. Whoa. We talked about his sizzling new underwear campaign with Hugo Boss, his first nude shoot (which may well be his last if his dear mother has anything to do with it) and we reminisced about his One Direction days, a period which he came out of shaken, sure, but not completely upside down or inside out.

He’s been through a great deal since the end of being one fifth of the biggest boy bands in history – drink problems, therapy, (...), anxiety – but at his core he’s still that same multi-talented, hard-working boy from Wolverhampton, honest about his faults and still excited to see where all this is taking him. Undoubtedly, he’s a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. Well, when he’s wearing any sleeves at all...

GQ: So how’s the build-up to the debut album, LP1?

Liam Payne: Good, can’t complain. Just rewriting a lot of things in my world at the moment. That’s why I was in with my top, top manager for a while just reconfiguring things towards the end of the year.

What are you reconfiguring?

Well, we just kind of ticked off album one. The writing process was interesting to say the least. I mean, it was almost like blind dating in LA with different writers, and when that happens it’s hard to get traction, or get to know anyone properly, or let your guard down in a way. You feel like you’re going into different rooms all the time, with different styles. There are so many things that can affect the writing unless you find that one person who can carry you all the way through a record. Post Malone has a producer called Louis Bell, whom he works with, and there's a common stitch throughout the whole thing that kind of puts it all together properly, whereas we never really found that.

How come that never materialised?

I was going through a bunch of stuff when we started writing the album – growing up and all sorts of different shit coming out of the band. So for me it wasn't the best entry into the writing side of it and making personal music rather than writing for a band. So it was difficult, but I mean the album is done and coming out and I absolutely love it and it's just interesting to see that my favourite is from when I was younger. The first albums I listened to actually helped create my first album, so super cool.

It sounds like it’s been a long process getting the debut album finished?

It’s been, since “Strip That Down” really, the best part of two maybe three years to get everything finished. And it was difficult. I mean, it's opening up at first and trying to figure out who you are and what people want to know from you. And what the sound is. Trying to find that medium point for all those things. It's just the most difficult thing, especially at a young age when you're constantly changing and you don't really know yourself yet. We spent the best part of five years in a band closed off from the world and I had to go through this really weird transition inside that band as the world, and then myself, came out of it. I mean, even in my therapy sessions, my therapist asked me, “What do you actually like to do?” And I'm like, “I don’t know what I like doing!”

Most people presumed you came out of One Direction fully formed. That wasn’t the case?

Everything changed. New teams, new managers, new labels. Building those working relationships can be tricky. You also become the boss of your own shit, and I was 21, 22 when I first started doing my own thing, so it’s all a bit scary and can be a bit lonely. That’s not a complaint; it's also a lot of fun as well. We have a great time. Now the band members have all worked our way through this first couple of years, you can kind of see everyone's finding their own feet. Take Harry [Styles] at the moment. You know, he's just found what I think is his sound and exactly where he wants to be, which took him a little minute to get into since he had his last album out. So, yeah, it just takes time.

Towards the end of One Direction, were you aware of everyone’s own tastes developing?

I think so. I mean, for me, someone like Louis [Tomlinson] always had a very specific taste – things like Green Day, that was the era he was from... also Oasis and old Robbie Williams. Harry always played an eclectic mix of stuff too. I can always remember the one time Harry put Rick Springfield’s “Jessie's Girl’ on and I had never really heard it before but it was an interesting choice. I liked it nevertheless. And then for me, I mean, when I wrote “Better Than Words” for the last 1D album, it had a different rhythm for us, something we hadn’t done before. So you could definitely see those unique tastes early on. I think funnily enough it was through fashion and style that our own perspectives could be seen most of all, all hints of what was to come for us. We would always wear black on stage, black skinny jeans and a black T-shirt, but maybe we’d add something else as individuals. I remember Harry having these cool rings, for example, and then he’d go crazy with his shirts as time went on. Saying that, I think Louis still dresses pretty much the same as he used to.

Was it competitive with the other band members?

I mean, for me personally, I don't think I ever really looked at it that way. I think the biggest question for all of us at the start was figuring out who the hell we were without each other around, which is a really weird thing because you’d found your dynamic and role within the band. But then when you started a solo thing it was almost like leaving like school or university and trying to find your place within the real world. So I think it was more the pressure of that than anything else, rather than us competing with each other on, like, dress sense or vibe or even the music.

You mentioned therapy. Was that while you were still in the band?

I went into therapy a couple years after leaving. I kind of went off the rails a little bit and just couldn't really figure out what was making me sad. So, you know, my team got somebody around to help me through a couple of different, difficult things that I was going through. I was just trying to figure myself out. It was just such a strange course through life, and then when the switch turns off you're left to your own devices...

Did it throw you off when the band’s scheduled just stopped? Going from having a two-year plan to not even having a two-day plan?

I mean, yeah, we went through a really weird retirement phase. It’s quite funny, when my dad retired, I was telling him what to expect: first off, you're not going to get out of bed for ages, and then all of a sudden you get an urge to get out of bed all the time and start trying to do stuff just to seem like you are doing things. But I think everyone in the band went through this really weird retirement phase and trying to switch off. For me, I remember standing in my garden at my house and just looking around thinking, “It's been a lot of fun, but what do I do now that’s done? What actually happens at this point? Who do I call? Who is the ‘point of’ person?” I just didn't really know what was going to happen; a very strange thing to be involved in. All of it is weird, but that was a real strange moment. But things pick up and slowly you start getting back into the groove again.

Were you worried about not being famous any more? Or making music? About it all just stopping?

Actually, no. I kind of always knew that something would happen. I just didn't know what the hell it was going to be. And that was the scariest part of it. You just didn't really want to make a fool of yourself at that point. I think after such a long legacy of your band being absolutely amazing, the most important thing was make sure you don’t step off that pedestal; don't embarrass yourself. The biggest worry was don't ruin the legacy.

Let's talk about the underwear campaign with Hugo Boss. These are some incredible photographs taken by Mert and Marcus…

It got very raunchy very quickly. I hadn’t been properly warned about the amount of nudity Mert and Marcus do in their work, let's say. Mert’s actually become a really good friend now. We were in his house to three in the morning the other day singing karaoke, which is so funny. Yeah, I mean, really great to work with. I think everyone was quite surprised early on that they wanted to work with me and it kind of gave us a little nod and an entry into working in fashion proper.

Had you always wanted to land an underwear campaign?

Before we landed the deal with Hugo Boss I’d gone into my gym and said, “I'm going to get an underwear commercial.” I just wanted to do it; I knew I could do it. And then it actually happened! And I worked my ass off and I'm still hitting the gym: I didn't realise once you get on that thing you can't really turn it off. You've got to keep it going. Like I said, it’s been a lot of training and being an athlete and working out – it became 90 per cent of my job for the best part of a year leading up to that shoot, which was crazy. Come 2019 everyone's a lot more open about body image and I wanted to get in shape. Not to show off my body to anyone else, I just knew that’s what would give the confidence on set. I didn’t want to arrive not ready and not looking like I’d worked hard to get there. But what a thing to do and then to go on to designing clothes for Hugo Boss too – an amazing experience. We actually had the first design meeting [for the clothing line] here and I remember in the car on the way to the meeting thinking, “What have you got yourself into?” That always seems to happen to me. I was lucky enough to spend some time with a friend of mine, Kim Jones [artistic director at Dior menswear], and he gave me some great advice: “It’s the same as music: once you’ve had a hit you know what people want from you.” And I took that with me into the design meeting and used that to help the whole process. Find the hit and make it work.

Have you done a nude shoot before?

No! Well, not a planned one, at least. There was a lot of tequila involved for this shoot. I mean, the first day we did most of the shots for the capsule collection and then the last shots were the box shots for the front of the underwear packaging – which was just like, “Wow, I get to be the guy on the box,” which was a real moment. I’d never take that for granted. And then like the next day, we set up again and the model, Stella Maxwell, she's in the shoot with me. And it just ended up being a lot more naked than I thought it was – and for her as well. She was also naked. And I was just, you know, “Don’t look!” She was naked behind me and I was thinking, “Liam, don’t look whatever you do.”

Talk to me about the curtain shot...

Wow. Yes, I mean it was just a room full of five or six people and a hell of a lot of tequila to get me to this level. I was standing there and all of a sudden it was, “Right, OK, take them off.” I'm like, “Really? Take them off? Off, off? Like on-the-floor off? Oh, my God.” And there was a real hollow moment afterwards where I was sitting outside smoking a cigarette thinking, “I have basically just shot soft-core porn.” For one, my mum is going to kill me. For another thing, I don’t know how far this is going to go... That was just the first shot! It was a lot of fun to shoot but my mum wasn’t best pleased. There’s this really raunchy shot of me and Stella, and I showed my mum. She took one look at it and gave me a clip round the ear. All I was thinking was, “I better not tell her about the London buses!”

Still, your parents must be very proud?

The One Direction thing was enough. Just to get to that level. I would have happily walked away at that point. But now with all the other things I have managed to achieve, not least this underwear campaign with Hugo Boss, it’s meant a lot to me personally. I think it’s got me closer to those men whom I respect so much, people like David Beckham and Brad Pitt, such icons in their own lifestyles. It’s a real pinch-me moment. I can’t believe it hasn’t all burnt down to the ground yet, to be honest.

You mentioned a bad patch, a depression of sorts?

There was a lot of stuff. I was drinking too much and getting into really bad, bad situations for quite some time actually. And I hit a peak moment where I knew the drinking was going to get me; I needed to do something about it. I spent a lot of time drinking to escape the crazy world that I had created for myself. I didn't know what I was doing. That first therapy session and being like, “I don't even know what I like or anything about myself” – it was pretty scary stuff. I was afraid of how far my career was going and that it might go even further. You can say, “Who is afraid of success?” But that’s what it entails sometimes. Success has got the better of me on more than one occasion. When I am losing I tend to concentrate more.

Did you stop drinking for a bit?

Yes, I got sober for about a year, cutting down so the only vice was cigarettes. I hadn't planned to go sober forever, it was more important for me to say I didn't actually didn't need to drink. I wanted to prove it. I did the whole year, no booze completely, and at that point I didn’t actually know being sober was making my life any better. Things went up, but things like my social life plummeted. I was the biggest recluse on the planet. I would get up at 5am and go running in the park, but at night I would be in bed by 7pm. Is that a way to live your life? And in a strange way I am trying to still figure all that out and get the balance right between being a party animal and being an animal in the gym – the latter not being fun at all. We are all at fault; we all need balance.

So, 12 December: Boris or Jeremy?

I think I will vote but I am always out of the country. We need a mobile app where we can vote with our thumbprint or something. I mean, in regards to Boris or Jeremy, I don't think we give people enough time. Same with West Brom football club. They always change their manager every week it seems and we never get time to gel with anybody. So it's like, if I was changing my manager every week, I'd probably be really shit too. We need to give someone a chance to at least have a proper go of it or it will never be fixed. Also, I don't think it's always the one person that's to blame. Take Winston Churchill, people hated him at first, thought he was a drunk, that he had no clue, [wondered] what’s he doing going to war. Maybe we should all just be more like Winston Churchill.

Zayn has been through his own difficulties with fame and anxiety...

I think for anybody entering into these talent shows we do them for specific reasons. And I've often asked myself this question a bunch of times because we all went through it. You know, for me, as I was younger, from my own experience, I entered the show because I wanted to make my dad proud. Fast forward ten years and here we are in his office, talking about an album and an underwear campaign – incredible. But here’s the thing: you just don't know until you get there whether you're built for this or not. For Zayn, he loves music and he's an amazing talent. He genuinely was the best singer in One Direction, hand on heart, out of all of us. But for him to get to a point where, you know, he can't step on a stage? It's a lot. I mean, he's doing great. His streaming numbers are ridiculous but I do think he misses out on the performance side a bit, you know. He can't seem to get past that part. We all have it. I mean, I have this, like, brain fart syndrome: I was on medication for a while, and it was something to do with epilepsy, but I was using it for something else. And it was to do with anxiety for me too, fully prescribed, but I didn't realise that [on the medication] certain lights made me forget, well, everything. I totally forgot who I was. And lyrics. It still happens. I have a fear of it now. It happens all the time. So we all have our little beasties in that sort of scenario. But this era of talent shows, it is dangerous and some people just don’t know what they are getting into.

Did you want to reach out to him?

I did, yeah. I didn’t want him to feel like he was going through this all alone in some ways, or that we were all out to get him. We're the only people who know what you're going through. The only five people who know what you are going through were all in a room together once, and you left – fair enough – but you don’t want anyone going through such evils for no reason. But it got to a point with me where I wouldn’t know where to begin with Zayn. I hope he has good people around him, but I don’t at this stage think it’s anything the rest of us can solve.

Are there still grudges between the five of you?

Definitely in some part, yeah. We had our differences throughout the whole experience with some things. I still think about some stuff that was said and done that now I would do differently, but then that's all part of growing up. Being in One Direction was such a schoolyard mentality somehow – the One Direction University, I call it. Everyone has stuff they’ve said at parties they wished they hadn’t but, for us, the difference was that it was all happening in front of the world. Now we are older, for me certainly there are things that I am just not as bothered about. I think with Zayn’s particular exit and the way he chose to go, we haven’t really heard from him since he left. He didn’t even say goodbye, if I am being honest. It was a really sordid scenario, from our side certainly. A bit strange. It’s difficult.

The Hugo x Liam Payne bodywear collection is available now. Payne’s debut album, LP1, is out 6 December and available to pre-order now.

#liam payne #british gq #hugo boss #hugo bodywear #lp1 #liam's interviews #04.11.2019

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dongiovannaswife · 4 years

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Legacy; Vampire!Giorno Giovanna x Fem!Reader (Teal and Burgundy prequel.)

Side note (READ AFTER, SPOILERS); Alright, here we go again :3c JJBA is highly characterized by mentioning and playing with concepts such as the correlation between fate, destiny, coincidences, opportunities and luck. In some way, this piece happens around these, playing and suggesting some things (I’m sure you’ll be able to identify which scenes play around which one, dear reader). Here’s a little statement I want to make; the scene where Giorno feels a headache is a callback to Dio using the stone mask. I’m sorry if Jolyne feels out of character, I haven’t read part 6 and for what I’ve seen, she’s portrayed like this by some fans? Idk, sorry. Last, “destiny” was wrote in June, and “Fate”, “Legacy and the unnamed sequel were written between October 23-30 (same year), so the change is pretty noticeable and I feel deeply worried about it, but I think that rewriting “destiny” would be useless, since I feel like the emotions poured in that won’t be replicated this time, and maybe the concept doesn’t ring too good. Anyway, enjoy! Warnings; PTSD mentions, body horror (light, but still, take care), nightmares, blood. Feedback is always appreciated. The slow, pleading, arguing, begging and crying sound of Jeff Beck’ guitar solo during his interpretation of cause we’ve ended up as lovers fills the silence of Giorno Giovanna’s office, don of Passione for eleven years now, bringing a tone of presence to the enormous headquarters he’s in, after giving some of his soldatos a pair of missions and after a long and tiring meeting with La Squadra di Esecuzione. The young don behind the desk, the one who once looked thin and weak has come to hit a growth spurt after turning seventeen, looking like the man of the photo he still carries on his wallet, Dio Brando. A man he doesn’t know about, but one he’s created his own expectations in order to have an image to follow, even if he doesn’t say it out loud; it’s a secret he’s been keeping as deeply intimate, part of the child he never got to be, but that still resides deep within his heart. The non-so typical hairstyle form back then now replaced with his locks surrounding his shoulders, contrasting with the variety of well pressed suits he uses now.

Polnareff, Passione’s consigliere, pointed out his physical similarities with Dio Brando some time ago, proceeding to talk in little details about him, and if he was trying not to break down and scream at him for the actions of that man, it was clear by the way his voice wavered that he was still feeling the losses, maybe not because he felt culprit, but for the things that could have been about their lives. Maybe, Iggy would be with them now, or maybe not; maybe, Avdol would be still working on his shop, or maybe not. Maybe, Kakyoin would have been working as a CEO, maybe not. Everything about it was based around suppositions. Suppositions Polnareff could only think of, swallowing sadness and regret.

The Speedwagon Foundation found Giorno a couple weeks ago when unfortunately, one of the traces of the drug dealers they have just took care of leaded to him. Soon, a letter from Jotaro Kujo arrived three days before the actual events, signed by a cordial extent to meet him, alongside the members of the Joestar family; a petition of Joseph Joestar. In a way, it felt like destroying the stone mask through Murolo was useless, he could have easily done it himself, and all this cordiality could have been avoided. Giorno signed the last page of what seemed to be a directory, but it was, in fact, a compilation of the reports regarding the incidents with drug dealers around Naples when the doors opened and a well-known face appeared carrying the folders with the reports about each one of the members of the Joestar family. Getting up from his desk to greet her, Giorno took the folders and lay them on the mahogany wood desk, turning around to greet her completely with a kiss on the lips and a smile. (Y/n) straightened the collar of his teal dressing shirt, that seemed like a compliment for his eyes, the fabric making his eyes seem like the loveliest pieces of jewelry in all Europe. “Thank you, bella.” He says, kissing her lips again before turning around to take one of the folders, opening it and leaning on the desk behind him. Each report has annexed photographs of the persons and relatives, as well as the events mentioned, allowing him to get a more expanded view and judgment. The Joestar family didn’t seem to be a big family, but the links and powers associated with it were big and impotent. It seems like being born in that family is a sentence to do something big. Starting with Joseph Joestar, the older man that started all of this. Age: 93. Fought against an ancient and superior race of Aztec warriors found in a Mexican temple around 1939, their existence was linked directly to the stone mask, and the searching of a mysterious jewel. Joseph was a hamon —the power of the canalization of the energy residing in breathing, — and a stand user. Occupation: real estate. His wife is Suzie Q, his biological sons are Holy Kujo and Josuke Higashikata —from a relationship with a Japanese woman, Tomoko Higashikata. — His adopted daughter is Shizuka Joestar. His parenthood towards Josuke Higashikata was recognized until 1999, when he traveled to Morioh with his grandson Jotaro Kujo. Humming to himself, Giorno closes the folder, taking the following, (Y/n) leaning on the desk, gazing at the folders casually. Jotaro Kujo, Age: 43. Stand user, killed Dio Brando in 1989. Giorno frowns at the line, of course he knew Dio Brando was dead, Polnareff have said it back at that time, explaining briefly that he was an evil man. His daughter is Jolyne Kujo and has an ex-wife. Marine biologist at charge of the Speedwagon Foundation. Josuke Joestar —Higashikata for his mother, Tomoko Higashikata. — Age: 30. Stand user, nurse at the Morioh hospital. Had a direct impact in the events in Morioh regarding a serial killer and the arrow. Jolyne Kujo, Age: 20. Stand user. Student. No further information.

A knock at the door makes echo in the office and the couple recognizes the three paused knocks as Mista’s message; they’re here. Looking down at his girlfriend, Giorno allows himself a moment of weakness by letting his eyes show how afraid he really is. The vulnerability is somethings he’s not accustomed to show, but that somehow always end up being one of the most comforting things he’s ever felt; maybe because he’s always looking though and untouchable that vulnerability allows him to relax a bit: more so, in her arms. Oh, her arms feel like home; if heaven could be represented as something the man knows, then that’ll be her arms: if paradise have to be summarized in feelings beyond the comprehension of words, Giorno could hold her, and feel in paradise. (Y/n) looks up at him, gazing through her lashes lovingly, and noticing his expression, her lips curl upwards in what he interprets as an inspiring smile. Suddenly, it feels like everything will be okay as long as she’s by his side, holding his hand through whatever fate has to offer. Her gesture coaxes the resolve he needed and straightening his back and gifting her with a smile of his own, the boss sits behind his desk, posture proud and confident. And as (Y/n) stands by his side and puts her hand on his shoulder, Giorno speaks in that tone that screams power and determination; pride and experience. “Come in.” The door cracks open and with a nod, the first person in step in the office, now in silence after (Y/n) paused the music, is Jolyne Kujo. Jolyne smiles politely as she makes her way to the couch, but doesn’t sit and instead stays on her feet, crossing her arms. The next person is Josuke Higashikata, who smiles politely too, muttering a “Good morning” while his attention is posed almost completely in guiding Joseph Joestar to the couch. The old man nods and smiles brightly, looking tired and taking a seat in the expensive couch. Last but not less important, the one who he knows will be harder to treat with, Jotaro Kujo. The man looks at him calm for a second and then, when he seems to take on his features, his eyebrows rise and he freezes in the umbral. Almost instantly, his brow lowers and his right hand rises to point a finger at him; jutting chin and voice hoarse, violent with anger. Jotaro Kujo shifted to suspicion to shock to anger in less than Giorno expected. “DIO.” He says, angrily and with fists clenched at his sides and clenched jaw. His stand glaring at him, ready to attack. “I thought I killed you in Egypt, you bastard.” With voice filled with a dangerous determination, Kujo stays there, expectant. The tension in the room is overwhelming, and despite Josuke’s thoughts to stop Jotaro from getting hurt and hurting others, he’s not sure if he’ll be able to reach and surpass Star Platinum’s speed. Jolyne seems ready to jump between them, knowing way too well what’s happening; but she’s not sure either: Star Platinum is a though enemy, and with Jotaro blinded by rage and something more, it’s sure that it will be harder than that.

Lord knows what may happen if he attacks, we don’t know Giorno’s powers.

It may seem like a communal thought, and if there was tension surrounding them, now fear adds something to the mix, terrifying like a sniper hiding between buildings, pointing at a target surrounded by civilians. And in fact, it is; and more so, when the only opportunity to stop him falls in the minimal possibility of a coincidence or an opportunity gifted by whatever or whoever who rules the world. With her hand still pressed against his left shoulder, (Y/n) can feel the sudden and almost unnoticeable tension on Giorno’s shoulders and back, raising from the depths of his being. Perhaps Jotaro´s last statement hit something on his heart, or maybe on his moral. It’s not a surprise, but something praiseworthy, when Giorno remains on his don acting; straight back, shoulders throw back, head high and lifted chin. His voice holds respect and perhaps a bit of his charming nature slips in between his words when he speaks, not intending to sound mocking. “I think, Mr. Kujo, that you’re confused. And surely, I don’t need to explain to you that Dio Brando, my father, is dead. As you may already know, I’m Giorno Giovanna.” Jotaro stares at him, jaw clenched and brow still furrowed. Expression hard and far from calm, fueled with rage and a determination Giorno recognizes as the determination a warrior carries within him —however, this is not a coliseum and there’s not pride or luck to prove; there’s no battle to fight. —

If Jotaro had something to do or say, it all was stopped by Joseph Joestar. “You look like him.” His words are almost unrecognizable and his voice in general sounds way too raspier, his age not helping him to articulate as a young person would, but still, even if it takes a bit more of effort, it’s still not impossible to understand him. All it takes is a bit more of attention. Giorno doesn’t stop looking at Jotaro, aware of the stand still present. The don doesn’t show his own stand, merely because doing so would mean a fight. And he’s sure that fighting for the sins of a dead man wouldn’t bring him out of the bottle he’s in; of a bastard. Maybe he’s viewed by them as the same trash Dio Brando was. Perhaps they all are ready to kill him; maybe not. Whatever they want, Giorno knows it’s not about this. And if it is, then he’s ready to fight. “You look like my grandfather, just like grandma Erina described him.” Jotaro swallows hard and presses his lips in a tight line, his brow is still furrowed; silent, he steps back and struts away, Mista keeping a close eye to him until he leaves in the same way they came. “I’m sorry for that,” says Josuke, “he’s… deeply affected by that battle.” Giorno nods, looking at Mista and once the gunslinger catches his sight, Giorno looks at Polnareff. Mista nods and taking Polnareff he looks at (Y/n), silently according to take care of Giorno while he’s away. (Y/n) nods and Mista closes the door behind his back. Looking at Josuke, Giorno nods. “I understand.” Joseph Joestar looks at him with half lidded eyes and a polite but more sincere smile, and Giorno takes the opportunity to talk. “Please, take a seat. May I ask what business do you have with me?” Jolyne sits beside Josuke, who’s at Joseph’s right side. “It’s not business, actually. It’s a family matter.” Jolyne states, looking expectantly at her great-grandfather. Joseph takes his time to catch his breath before speaking. “The Joestar family can defeat anything as long as it stays together.” When Giorno arches an eyebrow questioningly, Josuke smiles brightly, trying not to laugh. Still, his cheerful nature acts. “Yeah, Giorno, you’re a Joestar.” When Giorno tries to pull up an argument regarding Dio Brando being an adopted son of Jorge Joestar, Joseph raises his metallic hand; and when he does it, it makes a clicking sound that startles (Y/n) a bit, her hand locked with Giorno’s now as she sits beside him, in another office chair. “Let me tell you about the family, Giorno. And you’ll understand.” Giorno nods and Joseph starts talking, mentioning Jorge Joestar and Mary Joestar; Jonathan Joestar and Erina Pendleton, Dio Brando and the stone mask, Robert Speedwagon, William Zeppeli; then it’s about him, Suzie Q, Caesar Zeppeli, Jorge Joestar II and Elizabeth Joestar and the pillar men; Jotaro Kujo, himself, Jean Pierre Polnareff, Mohammed Avdol, Noriaki Kakyoin, Iggy, DIO and the atrocities he committed, the families he broke and the innumerable lives he ended on his way; Josuke, Okuyasu Nijimura, Reimi, Arnold, Koichi Hirose, Rohan Kishibe, Hayato, Tomoko Higashikata, Kira Yoshikage; Jolyne, her mother and Jotaro. By the end of the story and since Dio Brando and his actions were explained, Giorno holds (Y/n)’s hand in a tight embrace, as if he’s trying to calm himself with her presence. When Jolyne excuses herself and goes out to look at her dad, Josuke turns to him, and as if he’s reading his mind, Crazy Diamond’ user speaks, “It’s not your fault, you know, I mean, everything Dio did.” “It isn’t my fault, but I know he did damage to all of you. Starting off with Jonathan Joestar, who could have lived a good and long life. It’s not my fault, but it makes me think and have a different vision of him.”

Joseph smiles, then, and with a certain wisely expression, comments. “I know how you feel, and no; it’s not your fault. None of it. In fact, I thought you were going to scream at Jotaro for what he did.”

Giorno’s shrugs, starting to feel more in some kind of confidence with them. “Justice may come for all; one way or another.”

Josuke smiles, deciding to lighten up the aura in the room, aware of Giorno’s thoughtful expression. “I like him.”

Joseph laughs, “Someone says something accurate about justice and you like them just for that?”

As father and son laugh, (Y/n) looks at him, and while doing so, he does look at her. Grasping his hand, (Y/n) tries to make him feel better. Even if she knows that he’ll talk about it later, when the privacy of their room brings peace to the don.

•••

When Giorno gazes at the photograph of Jonathan Joestar and Erina Pendleton, his heart sinks on his chest. (Y/n) sits by his side, her hand around his arm. Looking at her, Giorno’s lips open, but he’s not able to talk. (Y/n) leans backwards, bringing him with her and when he’s finally settled on top of her, hands locked and bodies fused in relaxation, he starts unraveling.

“Remember when I told you about the expectations I used to have about him?”

(Y/n) hums in approval, running her hand down his back, noting how his strong muscles shift under her touch.

“With the truth… All of them are shattered.”

His statement feels like a call for help, a desperate need to choose if the truth is better than a fantasy. Then again, the only thing that survives is the truth, righteous actions and the consequences will always come out; whether he was aware of this, the expectations weren’t created during his teenage years, but during those nights when crying was useless back at when he was six.

And now, in his adult life, Giorno feels like a child again. Discovering that he can feel something more aside from fake calm; discovering that he can be loved and love; discovering that he’s human after all,

and nothing will ever take his humanity from him

. Only fate could decide about him, but it was so damn desperate sometimes, to think that despite being powerful aside from his social position, not even his stand could ever rewrite his past or his future.

“I understand what are you trying to say, and I think, in all seriousness, that you know who you are. Your progenitors don’t define who will you be. You may have their genes, but the person you decide to be, it’s up to you.”

“I don’t want to be like him, (Y/n).”

“I know, Gio. And you will not be; who you are is up to you.”

♦♦♦

Gazing around the coliseum, he looks down and the first thing he notices is the pink suit. Then, the blood on his hands, the strong smell of the iron surrounding his face and the wet sensation on his mouth and lips; and then, gazing down when something soft shifts underneath him the terror of the pile of bodies under him is almost exorbitant. The first faces he recognizes are Narancia’s and Fugo’s. Then, Abbacchio’s and Bruno’s clothes, Trish skirt stained with blood; and then, Risotto Nero and his men; all of them dead, their bodies seeming rather absorbed off blood. Feeling his heart beating furiously, Giorno looks at his hands once again, but his hands are no longer there; what was supposed to be his hands are now a pair of mirrors; and when both mirrors are in front of his face, Giorno finally gets to see were the smell of iron comes from: his lips and mouth are full of blood; and it’s not hard to connect the points and realize that they all are dead because of him. Of the monster he really is.—

With shaking breaths and cold sweat, Giorno’s eyes open just to find (Y/n)’s worried orbs looking at him from above as she stands at his side, barefoot, her hands on his shoulders and when it finally clicks, Giorno’s breathing quickens again and as (Y/n) sits beside him, the tears don’t stop.

•••

It’s been two weeks since his hopes were reduced to ashes and the most horrible sensation of fear woke up when Giorno sits on his desk resting his eyes after the piles of paperwork he worked through the day. His teal eyes are fixed intensely on the sunset, noticing each orange and pink tone lacing the sky when a sudden pang of sharpen pain on his head makes him close his eyes and lean his head on his hand.

“Giogio, are you okay?”

(Y/n)’s voice brings him out of the exorbitant pain and seems to ease it almost instantly. “Yeah, I’m just tired… And thirsty.”

She smiles sweetly and entering the office, the sudden warm of her hand makes him realize how cold he really felt. (Y/n) frowns, and as she leads him out of his office, asks “Are you sure you aren’t sick? You’re cold.”

“Must be the lack of physical movement, cara.”

She hums, “Right then, We’ll walk to the restaurant, Mister Giovanna.”

Giorno smiles and as they pass besides the painting of the goddess of love, supposed to be the guardian of the Joestar’s in Joseph’s words, Giorno almost prays to her for not being like him,

even if the pain of his head felt like the welcoming ritual for a life beyond human understanding.

#Teal and Burgundy #vampire!giorno #vampire! giorno giovanna #giorno giovanna x reader #fem reader #fem s/o #sfw #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken #JJBA Vento Aureo #guido mista #panacotta fugo #Bruno Buccellati #naranica ghirga #Leone Abacchio #Risotto Nero #La Squadra di Esecuzione

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onaperduamedee · 4 years

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Writing Tag Game

I was tagged by @pers-books. Thank you so much!

AO3 name: Radiolaria

Fandoms: currently Star Trek: Discovery, but I have written for Doctor Who, Leverage, The Pretender, The Avengers (the 60s British show), Sleepy Hollow.

Tropes: Found Family, Pining, Friends to Lovers, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death.

Number of fics:a little under 100? I have a couple of metas, fanarts and fan videos on AO3 as well.

Fic I spent the most time on: My current Disco on-going project, Sand and Water.

Fic I spent the least time on: I think I remember NFFNSNC came out fully formed, probably because it was deeply personal.

Longest Fic: Sand and Water.

Shortest Fic: La conductivité de l’anneau (The conductivity of the ring) a French crack fic about fictional ladies having a sleepover and not being too happy about Galadriel glowing in the dark.

Most hits/kudos/comment threads/bookmarks:

Hits - for some reasons, Synchronisation, syncope, syncopation, a fluffy, crackish Doctor/River fic.

Kudos - Sand and Water. No surprise here; it’s the longest running.

Comment threads - idem.

Bookmarks - Sand and Water (22), Cretan holiday (17), Ruling Power (17), The rush of being home in rapid fading (12), Remembelonging (12)

Total word count: Not counting my old Pretender fics on defunct sites and forums, 441739.

Favourite fic I wrote: Remembelonging remains my favourite. I’m sorry more recent works, but yeah, I peaked while writing about River and her weird TARDIS mom.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: none, although I still do have chapters for Drifters which was a collection of fics featuring River and Jack.

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on: not sharing anything on Sand and Water but a few weeks ago I was going through old WIPs for Who and stumbled on Faith Graft, a story about River’s first night in custody and her trial. I forgot how hard I went in this story and I kinda want to pick it up again.

“For the first time in my life, I am being completely honest with myself. I ruined my life ; I survived my life. What I am looking at is a future branded and I do not accept it. Have you come trick or treating this time? What do you have to offer? Because I don’t want it. Perhaps later. When I can feel guilt, rather than this desire to kill you and be done with it. The uncertainty. The hiding. The compromise.”

“I know I will regret saying this in the future or maybe it will be mixed up in your head right in the middle of the pile of all the times someone who loves you said “no, not this time”. I don’t like compromise, not for you, not for myself. I’d rather hurt myself trying to escape than compromise here. Right now, I hate you so much I could kill you.”

“You make me feel extremely afraid of myself and what I could do. I ruin myself constantly, but I never wanted it to end. You, on Lake Silencio, make me want to end everything. And I hate you for that. So, please, now, leave.”

She didn’t add he was hurting her being here. That he was the point at which love and trap met and after everything she went through that night, it was enough. She may learn in the future how to be grateful for his cleverness. Not tonight.

The lady with the eye patch hurt. The spacesuit hurt. The fixed point hurt. Connecting the dots hurt. Everything that happened or never happened in the eternity that never was hurt. It would have hurt less if her hurting would have led her to save herself. Instead, he saved himself, with little consideration for what she had went through beside her providing the last piece for his plan falling into place. Or perhaps worse, he cared. He cared enough to feel guilty, and feel ashamed, and doing his darnest to make up for it, without even dreaming she could need at this very moment to be left alone.

No-pressure tagging : @youngneemleaves @amillionmillionvoices @nomi--sunrider @elissastillstands @starfleetdoesntfirefirst @mygalfriday @whatisreddust @cinemaocd @thatlightsaberlesbian @drstrangewillseeyounow @tincanspaceship and any of the talented writers out there who wants to talk about their work

#j'en connais au moins un et peut-être aussi les trois autres #le premier c'est Anatole #le second c'est Croquignole #le troisième c'est Barbemolle #le quatrième c'est encore Anatole #writing #rescribo #again no pressure at all to answer or do anything #if anyone needs the distraction and wants to talk about writing #I hope you are all okay

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vroenis · 4 years

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When The Best You Can Do Is Shoot A Gun

The Animal Crossing / Doom Eternal Covid19 launch coincidentally seems to be related to this discussion, even tho I’d say Doom Eternal has an excellent combat system and isn’t really relevant to what I’m going to bring up. I don’t have a problem with shooty-shooty, I have purchased, played and will continue to purchase and play plenty of video games that engage with firearm violence. There are plenty of discussions about how intelligent, consenting adults can do this without any problems and I won’t retread them here. Doom is simple game themed vaguely around demons; demons bad, player protagonist good, good player shoot bad demons - OK you got it, apply an incredible movement system into that and enjoy.

What I want to discuss involves of-course that pesky word and idea nuance, which annoys the shit out of more people these days, for its applications and misapplications - fingers-crossed I don’t fuck it up, but first I want to bring up Ubisoft and systems, so now’s as good a place as any for a stolen picture from the internet.

As far as concept art goes, that’s actually very representative of the final product in-game.

Ubisoft appear to have a long-term open-world tech development objective. I believe at some point very soon, these individual objectives will converge into one single middleware product with a mandate to producce retail licenses that combine what each of these individual franchises have been testing and achieving in isolation, those being;

Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint: 3rd person Load-On-Demand

The Division: 3rd Person Cover and interactivity

Assassin’s Creed: Environmental mapping and interactivity

Starlink: Scaling Load-On-Demand

Far Cry: First Person implementation of various combinations of above

I’ll put it another way;

Ghost Recon: Load everything

The Division: stick to everything

Assassin’s Creed: climb everything

Starlink: scale everything

Far Cry: do it in first person perspective

It looks like all of these games are running in Ubisoft in-house proprietary engines. Ghost Recon and Assassin’s Creed are running in Anvil, developed for the very first Assassin’s game and in which the Prince of Persia 2008 and Forgotten Sands also ran in. Oddly, (Rainbow Six) Seige, Steep (lol) and For Honor are also running in Anvil.

Both Division games and Starlink are running in Snowdrop and this appears to be due to The Division having come from Massive Entertainment. I’ll be honest, from the perspective of a consumer (read: punter) and someone with extremely minimal 3rd-hand development experience, The Division looks far more impressive than both the Ghost Recon and Assasin’s games, and former Massive brand and art director Rodrigo Cortes has said of the engine that it was design to “do things better not bigger” and I think it shows. Anyway, it was still developed with Ubisoft so as I understand it, they own it. Massive is a Ubisoft subsidiary, their studio based in Sweden.

Far Cry is going to be a little different, being a little older and having its roots slightly before... what shall we call this mess... the cynical age? The microtransaciton age? Anyway. The first game used the CryEngine developed by Crytek. At some point, Ubisoft seemed to develop an offshoot of the engine called Dunia because the CryEngine was licensed and clearly lucrative, I think. I’m not entirely sure, but Dunia does appear to remain in-house and under the auspices of Ubisoft Montreal. Where am I going with all this?

Starlink was “toys to life” a-la Skylanders but way too late, combined with No Man’s Sky-lite, but the game itself other than being overstuffed with Ubisoft copy-and-paste template-quests is an excellent proof of concept.

I do need to say that in general, I don’t have any particular affinity for Ubisoft. So I am yes, absolutely fascinated with something I do think is happening as far as tech goes and now I’m writing about it in this piece, and yes you can tell I’ve played and even enjoyed some of the games they’ve produced and published, but there’s a lot not to like about many of their practices, the least of which is the overbearing sense of cynicism pervasive in many of their games.

I played Far Cry 3 long after it released and got perhaps 20% thru the campaign before giving up entirely. For starters, nothing about how it controlled felt right and I appreciate that’s purely a personal preference. Being a Battlefield player, there’s something about DICE’s sense of locomotion that is perfect to me, even tho it varies from title to title from Bad Company 2 all the way to V most recently. Other things about Far Cry bother me tho - if there’s wildlife around, it always attacks the player, guaranteed. Everything about this game seems to be designed to force the player into engagement, to provide you with materials to collect, craft or sell, but also to run you short of ammunition to either scrounge for more or have to buy it because *surprise* - it prompts you to purchase ammunition for real-world money. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Fuck off. I uninstalled the game immediately. I can deal with ridiculous AI with magical aim and irrational scripting. I can deal with absurd narrative for the sake of reading (and roasting later), but the entire package culminating in purchasing more ammunition was otherworldly, it was truly bizarre. To this day, I don’t understand what world Ubisoft inhabits that this is something that makes sense to anyone in management or marketing, and yet there it is and there are consumers that not only accept it but embrace it. No doubt there are metrics from the mobile industry that support it and dear lord the capitalist apocalypse is upon us.

What will Ubisoft do when they can merge these technologies? They definitely want to and likely already have in-house, they just need the engine to run client-side for the Consumer. You and I and Inside Gaming are all laughing it up at Stadia right now, but we’re at the wrong end of the business. For Ubisoft, they can ignore the faltering at the start, it’s the long-term they focus on. The pittance Google are losing now, even if they end-up shuttering the project will be meaningless if they end-up getting the hardware to work, even if the end-result is the hardware sitting in a box in the consumer’s home in 10 years. Sure, that’s a long loop, but the journey still doesn’t matter, only the eventual ROI.

If this piece hasn’t gotten boring for you yet, it’s about to because you’re probably excited for what Ubisoft will do with this impending technological power and development and I rally am not. What will Ubisoft do with it? Probably just more Assassin’s Creed, except you’ll be able to snap to cover and have a fully mapped country. Probably more The Division, but you’ll have a fully mapped city that you can also climb on the outside of buildings and then enter them without any loading. Probably more Far Cry but with bigger maps and more interactivity and less loading. The next generation of consumer hardware consoles from Microsoft and Sony are upon us and as much as PC enthusiasts hate to admit it, the consumer market is largely gated by the generational hardware stepping of these platforms. That may change after this era depending on how Google, Amazon and indeed Microsoft and Sony go with cloud computing, but for the moment the status-quo will remain as alternative products develop. Bear in mind with Covid19, climate change and the general sustainability and ethical standards of working and living being under growing scrutiny the world over, things are changing more each day, our technology development may change in ways we don’t expect so who even knows what’s in store for the future.

So What Do I Actually Want?

Good question. NB: before you ask, Animal Crossing isn’t my thing. I played it years ago on Gamecube. It’s cute, it’s fine. I’ve no interest in it. I’m writing this note in retrospect because I realise you may say “Just play Animal Crossing or The Sims but hopefully I can illustrate by neither of those games is what I’m after, nor do I just want to build a house in something like No Man’s Sky and fill it with crap. Let’s see if I get there... A few weeks ago I wrote about how the best thing Naughty Dog did with Uncharted 4 was Elena and Nathan’s domestic spaces. I did purchase The Division 2 on the cheap a couple of weeks ago and I’ll be honest, there’s a lot about it that I’m enjoying quite a bit. For a start, visually it’s stunning. The art team have done an excellent job of both filling the world with immense detail, but also making every area of Washington unique and distinct which is a huge feat given the total space covered. Thus far, I’ve spent a whole lot of time just walking around and gathering resources, in part just to sightsee and explore without any particular objective in mind. After a while, I got the impression that the map was a bit flat, but the more you explore, the more you find places where you get verticality, and then doing missions always adds verticality and variety in environmental and art design, it’s a marvel to see.

Apologies to James and Thomas (above) for ripping these images, but I’m glad your names are in frame so you have direct credit - outstanding work. The art in this game is without question its strongest element.

And that’s just the thing - The Division is an interesting game in that what I enjoy most is the sense of walking around exploring, gather resources and helping people. I’m not here on an anti-violence kick - I play Battlefield, I actually don’t mind the shooting in The Division, it’s fine, whatever, I’m not going to justify that. What I’m saying is that it gets boring.

THERE ARE A LOT OF GAMES ABOUT SHOOTING.

Like... a lot. More than enough. There will always be a lot of games about shooting and that’s fine. I think I’ll always play them. Hey, I even play games about shooting *in very specific ways* - it’s not like I don’t care about the shooting, I’m playing The Division with only a bullpup DMR and shotgun combo, plus I’m trying to use my sidearm when traversing the streets as much as possible so don’t at me, I’m in the game.

But we seem to mostly get high detail assets in games with guns because shooty games get all the money. I get it - shooty games get all the sales because we as gamers like to play them - sure, I’m one of them, but I didn’t buy The Division until it was under AUD$30 because gotdam the shooting is so boring and even now yes, it really do be just more boring shooting, just like it’s boring in Uncharted, just like it’s boring in Ghost Recon (my goooooood so boring), just like it is in Destiny, and the umpteenth shooty mcshooty game. I’m getting too old for this.

Uncharted 4 had an opportunity to do something more and it almost did. For many players, it probably achieved enough of what I was after by those two visits to the Fisher and North residences but I wanted so much more of that. I want to see Sully’s house or houses, more of his life. I want to know where Chloe’s life is at. I want to know of their lives and emotional engagements outside of the frankly stupid narrative I have no interest in because it’s clearly stupid and an excuse for running and jumping that other games have since done better. If Uncharted as a whole was a subtext for character, then by the fourth game, the focus should have been the characters that carried the series thru to the end - no disrespect to Tom Baker - not the heretofore unrevealed older brother.

For Years I Didn’t Know “Walking Simulator” Was A Pejorative

I think this is why I replayed and continue to replay Dear Ester so much. I remember laughing my ass off at YouTubers making videos about how it wasn’t a game and that it didn’t have objectives. Yet there were still threads and might still be on reddit or Discord wherever gamers congregate these days - about “virtual tourism” and “just chillin’ in place x because it’s so awesome” etc. It’s fine, each generation will rediscover virtual tourism again and again and we can’t denigrate anyone for doing so, it’s certainly nothing we invented given it comes from literature and oral tradition before that, but it’s remarkable that there’s this resistance to experiences crafted purely for the purposes of being immersed in them.

I adore Dear Ester and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture. Absolutely loved What Remains Of Edith Finch and only if you have already played Edith Finch, because it’s full of spoilers but also its own spoiler warnings, I heartily recommend Joseph Anderson’s outstanding video The Villain of Edith Finch. It’s a 53 minute watch so I won’t embed it, and he has a certain style of presentation that won’t gel with everyone, nor do I always agree with everything he says which should go without saying but at some point folks, you have to stop pursuing art, criticism and media that just wholly aligns with your own views. That said, I generally do find most of what he says agreeable, innit. Anyway he’s great and the video is great.

While Dear Esther is more surreal and Rapture and Edith Finch are in part slightly more fantastical than the real-life settings of Uncharted 4′s home and Division’s post-apocalyptic cities, they all visually represent dense, very human object-rich spaces that to me are quite interesting to explore. Dear Esther might be a little more rooted in nature but its human elements tie-in to its narrative in an extremely interesting way. Each game offers different levels of interaction, some that serve the narrative directly, some as subtexts and others quite mildly in the periphery.

I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself but I remember seeing a promo for Battlefield Hardline coming off the back of Battlefield 4 and the ridiculous marketing phrase “levolution” - the term they coined for large-scale environmental destruction (please take the keys away from the marketing department). I remember seeing video footage of a large construction crane falling in a level and thinking

“All this intelligence, all this tech, and this is what we do with it? Is this all we can achieve? This is it?”

That’s how I feel about this emerging technology. Somewhere out there (on YouTube, to be fair), there’s all this footage buried of the Beyond Good And Evil sequel that to everyone’s knowledge is still in development. I’d put my money on that being the first project built in Ubisoft’s convergence engine that they hope successfully implements everything that each of these games executes individually. I know the BG&E fans are frothing for it and when I saw those early demos, what I interpret of the tech did blow me away, but from an experience perspective, I did still think the same thing...

“Is this it?”

Because of-course, a huge part of the new game is going to be combat. I just - don’t - care. When I think about what was lacking in Uncharted 4, what I wanted more of, it was intimacy. What didn’t I like about the conversation and resolution between Elena and Nathan? About the tours of their homes, the little time spent playing as Cassie, the few insights into Sully as a character, the absence of Chloe who was such a great contrast to Nathan, Elena and Sully all-together... it was intimacy. Yea oroight, so I don’t exactly mean the type of real-life intimacy between lovers, do I - that much is clear. But if I don’t mean shooty because there’s enough of that, and I’m leaning into domestic detail and emotional exploration and reflections of that in objects, spaces and interactivity, then that’s what I mean.

Tho I’m loath to bring it up, I feel like in the worst possible way, David Cage is right on the periphery of this discussion (and for that reason, I ain’t tagging him or his games in this entry, get fucked). He has the most vague notion of trying to ground his games in the intimacy of human experience, so he tries to tie human locomotion and objects to the digital representations of interactivity. If we take those as perhaps the worst possible examples and then come back to some really good examples in Uncharted 4 so I can stop whipping it - I maintain that the house tours are strengths and the high-points of the game, and then look at something like The Division and consider opportunities for more complex interactivity centred around helping people and emotional engagement, I feel like that’s what I’m after.

Which is impossible, right? No-one’s going to make a game even a quarter of the scope of The Division, with all that amazing dynamic lighting, with all those awesome textures and mapped objects, animations, rigged character models, complex scripting and AI, interactivity, load-on-demand tech and full voice-talented support, just to be a game about exploring, sightseeing, meeting and learning about people and helping them? Because who would play that?

I would, for a start.

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ssttitdramon · 5 years

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Ready To Hear It?

Ramón Morales x Stella Nicholls

Request: Ramón x Stella thing where Ramón comes back from the war and Stella confesses her feelings to him and idk what else to put

Word Count: 2,769

Note: Sorry that I posted this later than promised. You might’ve just wanted a Ramón x Stella moment, but the thought of the three in college, letters from Ramón in Vietnam, and Ramón’s family was something stuck in my head so I included all of that too. If you’d like to send in a request, take a look at the rules.

Also: The random u.s. state generator gave me Texas so that’s where he’s from in this fic (M.G. is actually from there btw!) and I made up family members because the ssttitd writers really didn’t give us much on Ramón’s backstory.

Warning: Brief mentions of the Vietnam war, including an injury/surgery (left hand + broken ribs)

Stella riffled through her backpack once again, checking that she had everything she needed before leaving to Texas. Two years after Ramón left for Vietnam, he came back on a stretcher with three broken ribs and on the verge of losing his left hand.

According to his sister, Elizabeth, he was finally home from the hospital a week and a half later, recovering from a broken hand and lower rib removal surgery.

When Stella received the first phone call from Elizabeth, she and Auggie were in the middle of flipping through flashcards for an upcoming major government test. The knocking on her door woke up Chuck, who was passed out on the floor and tried to reach for it.

Stella beat him to it first, opening the dorm door to the bossy redheaded RA, “Yeah?"

"There’s an Elizabeth on the phone for you down there.” she scrunched her face at the sight of Auggie and Chuck in the room.

Stella turned to look at them, both shrugging. The boys still followed Stella downstairs and stood close by, trying to figure out who the mysterious Elizabeth was.

“Hello?”

“Ah hi, Stella Nicholls?” answered the quiet voice from the other end.

“Yes, this is she. May I ask, who are you?” Stella asked, looking over to the two boys in confusion.

“Oh, I’m Ramón’s sister. He gave me your number some months ago, but I wanted to let you and your friends know that Ramón is back home now and-” her voice cracks and she sniffs, “I’m sorry. He’s injured, but he’s okay.” she manages.

Stella was stunned, “Ramón is back…” she said softly, trying out the words in her own mouth. Stella was afraid saying it any louder would somehow make it false.

“What?” Auggie and Chuck snap in unison, getting closer to the girl.

“Ramón is back.” Stella declared, bringing her hand up to her mouth. “Wait, so he’s injured? Have you seen him?"

"No, he came in four days ago and is held up at the hospital. They won’t tell us more, but we’ll get to see him tonight.” Elizabeth answered her, voice shaking and on the verge of tears. She couldn’t help but to think about her older brother, she lost him and can hardly handle the thought of losing another brother too.

Stella quickly thanked her for thinking of them and asked to be called for any more news on his recovery. When she hung up, the three were all silently staring at the phone, no one knew how to react.

“So Ramón’s back? How is he?” Auggie broke the silence, eyeing his friend carefully.

As Stella started to explain the call, she didn’t realize she was tearing up until Chuck wiped her cheek with his sleeve. She pulled the boys in for a hug, the three letting themselves wallow in a pit of emotions.

Now, while she was packing up to visit him, she couldn’t stop the onslaught of questions she’s already mulled over since the first call.

How much has the war changed him? How is his family dealing with his return? How different could he be now since he last wrote? Is he in a lot of pain? What if he doesn’t want to see us?

She frowned at the last one, she couldn’t think like that now. Not when the three were practically invited by his family with his consent. Plus, Chuck finally convinced his roommate to let the trio borrow his car and make the 20+ hour drive to Houston, Texas.

As Stella walked over to her shelf to grab her journal, the metal tin box containing all of Ramón’s letters caught her eye. Her heart jolted, she opened it up and peered inside, feeling warmth at the sight of the boy’s slanted, tall handwriting. On the nights when Stella had panic attacks, she would open the box and read over bits and pieces of Ramón’s day, finding comfort in his letters.

Stella flipped through some of the trifolded letters, catching random sentences from the top of the papers,

“My mom finally wrote back and she’s not mad at all, I forgot how much I missed her worrying over me…”

“You’re not much of a flower girl, are you? Here’s this neat flower I pressed, the villagers around here call it Hoa Dao-“

“Sorry it’s been so long, the sky’s been pouring buckets on us in the past month and we’ve only…"

"Tell Chuck I won’t be able to write him back until next week, but tell him I said congratulations for winning…”

“but I might go to Japan for R&R in a few months,”

“My dad’s still learning English and he’s practicing some on his letters. It’s the best thing seeing chiquillo next to ‘today I took your sister to the tienda y ya ni la hacen aquí, mijo-’”

“I’m telling you, you’ll be a famous writer. You’ll be selling out all over the world, just wait.”

“oh and there’s this guy here who laughs just like Auggie.”

“This one will be short, the Sgt just got back and already complaining about one grain of sand too many inches to the right- the boys here call him Ol’ Knuckles,”

“Also, remind Chuck to add 5th platoon to my address,”

“but the package that my sister sent me lasted a good two days because-”

“and he had to tackle this stupid scrawny kid to the ground as soon as the dirt started kicking up,”

“the team did lose two men before we got there though, they left a rosary behind and I didn’t even notice there was a-”

What if I tell him?

That’s a question she’s been avoiding, but it still managed to pop up out of nowhere. Stella never really figured out when she started to have strong feelings for Ramón. Maybe it was when they were running around Mill Valley together trying to figure out the Bellows girl. Maybe it was in the midst of writing back and forth, finding ease in his words. Stella felt silly, she knew she liked him the minute she barged into his car at that drive-in, but she did not expect for the small crush to stick around for that long.

Stella felt conflicted with the idea of confessing to her first real crush. What if he could only see the two as friends while she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about him for the past two years? Plus, Ramón just came back from Vietnam and if she considered the stories of those who have come back, would he even care about something like this right now?

She felt her heart twitch at the thought of Ramón’s head still stuck on the other side of the Pacific.

The knock on her door snapped Stella out of her thoughts. Putting the box back on the shelf, she grabbed her journal and went out to Chuck. He flashed her a goofy smile and dangled his roommate’s car keys by the fingers, “I’m driving first, already argued with Auggie about it and it’s settled.”

The drive to Texas was a long one, the three would switch between driving, reading off from the map and sleeping in the backseat. The first time Auggie was on the wheel, they accidentally veered off course because Chuck apparently doesn’t know how to hold a map. The pair argued in hushed voices, but Auggie’s frustration still woke up Stella. She groggily pushed her way up front and looked over the map, commenting on Chuck’s great sense of direction. Immediately, she pointed her finger at the new route they found themselves in and flopped back down.

In a small town where they stopped to get gas, a couple of middle school students were playing baseball in a nearby field and nearly missed the car’s windshield by an inch. In a split second, Stella was having to hold Chuck back from freaking out on them and had Auggie throw the ball back to the apologetic kids.

Later that night at a lonely rest stop’s restroom, the boys rushed out of there swearing up and down the men’s room was haunted. “Stella, I’m telling you, the only flickering light was the one in the last stall. We were washing our hands and we suddenly heard shaky humming from there, with no one inside.” Chuck widened his eyes and wiggled his fingers at Stella.

The tall grass that surrounded the rest stop waved about from the light wind, seeming to make waves towards the woods. As the three looked beyond the pasture, following the waves into the trees, they could barely make out several tall, slender figures in the moonlight at the edge of the woods.

“Those are just tree trunks right?” Auggie asked quietly, until one of the “tree trunks” seemed to let itself glide back like a blade of grass from the wind.

“Alright, I believe you.” Stella admitted as the three rushed into the car, she began to pull out of the parking lot, “I’m so not dealing with this shit again.”

They drove a few towns over before agreeing to stop at another rest stop that wasn’t completely abandoned and slept in the car for a few hours.

Once they reached the Louisiana-Texas border, Auggie and Stella kept their eyes peeled as they drove an hour into Houston. They managed to find Ramón’s house after passing by it twice and knocked on his door.

Elizabeth welcomed them in, “Hey, my parents are out right now, but Ramón’s awake upstairs.” she noted, closing the door behind them.

Chuck and Auggie immediately noticed the wall of family pictures by the entrance. Elizabeth was quick to point out Ramón’s baby pictures and mentioned the charming resemblance between him and their older brother. Stella looked closer at the image of Ramón and his siblings at a pool before following Elizabeth upstairs.

They stopped at the first white door to the right and lightly knocked, “Ramón, your friends are here.”

After hearing his “come in”, she opened the door to see Ramón sitting on his bed, occupied with his younger brother. The toddler was too distracted with his plastic dinosaurs to notice the visitors, only looking up when Ramón stopped playing with him and finally noticed everyone at the door.

“Vente,” Elizabeth held her arms out to the small boy, “en un rato juegas con Món.”

The toddler hesitated with leaving Ramón, but after getting his older brother’s go-ahead he walked over to Elizabeth’s arms. The two disappearing into the hallway.

“Món?” Chuck asked cheekily as Ramón carefully got up.

“Mateo can only pronounce Món and it stuck,” Ramón smirked, “also, I can’t hug you entirely, so you’ll have to do with my right side.” he informed, getting closer to the three.

Stella was the first to hug him, careful with his left side as she buried her face into his shoulder, “If either of you start crying, I’ll start crying too.” Ramón jokingly warned, hand stroking her hair.

“You hear that, Chucks?” Auggie nudged Chuck’s arm before hugging Ramón.

“Yeah, whatever. I’ll start bawling for our guy here any minute now.” Chuck quipped before turning serious, “No really, we missed you dude.”

“Me too Chucks, even when your letters would keep on ending up miles away from me.” Ramón pulled Chuck in.

The four settled on his bed, catching up with him for hours into the afternoon. Chuck even took the liberty of drawing on his small arm cast, “Does your hand hurt?” he asked, doodling himself onto the white.

“Right now it doesn’t, mostly numb thanks to the pills. I still don’t know when I’ll be able to move it and use it.” Ramón noted as Stella grabbed another marker and started to draw a dragon onto his cast.

When Ramón’s parents came home, they invited the three to stay for dinner. Despite the awkward communication and Auggie’s choppy Spanish, they were all comfortable at the table. Most of all, Stella felt content with Ramón sitting next to her and seeing him with his family. Even considered confessing her heart out later that night, but she was still anxious about his reaction.

After hearing that the trio planned on staying at a hotel for the night, Mr. and Mrs. Morales did not like the idea. “En un hotel? No, como crees. Diles que por lo menos se queden aquí esta noche y ya ven si se van a un hotel mañana.” Mrs. Morales told her daughter, eyes darting between the three.

“Mija, deja que se duerman en tu cuarto, tú te vas con Ramón.” Mr. Morales added.

Elizabeth smiled, “My parents want the three of you to consider staying here at least for tonight. You guys can sleep in my room, there are two beds there.” she translated.

Chuck’s eyebrows shot up, “Really? There’s no trouble?” he asked.

“Nah, you guys are fine. My other sister, Ana, is out of town this week and Elizabeth will sleep in my room.” Ramón assured.

The three thanked Mr. and Mrs. Morales with an awkward, but genuine “gracias”. Chuck and Auggie even got up to help Mrs. Morales gather and take the dishes to the kitchen, much to Ramón’s amusement. Left alone at the table, Ramón and Stella decided to go back upstairs with Mateo on her hip.

Ramón went into the restroom, took out a bottle of pills from behind the mirror and started to brush his teeth, “Ever since the surgery I’ve been getting tired easily and these pills knock me out.” he explained. “Won’t be able to stay up with you.”

“It’s no problem, we need some sleep too.” Stella let Mateo down once he nudged at her arm to get down.

I should tell him now.

There it was again, she pondered over confessing as she followed him into his room. For a while, the two were deep in conversation on his bed until he started to drift off, “Sorry if I just fall asleep on you.” he apologized with a small smile.

“Ramón, I…” Stella hesitated, biting her lip. Ramón’s eyes fluttered open a bit, trying to listen to anything else she had to say.

As Ramón’s eyes grew heavy, Stella tried again. “I think I…” she began, hands fidgeting on her lap. “I think I’m in love with you.” she whispered, it was finally out but Ramón was already asleep.

The next morning as everyone went downstairs for breakfast, Ramón winked at Stella and pulled her close for a hug, “Good morning, how did you sleep?” he asked with a raspy voice.

“Alright, you?” she chirped, the idea of him having heard her last night racing through her head.

“I actually slept pretty well, no nightmares. Think it helps that you’re all here.” Ramón smiled, not knowing what he was doing to the poor girl’s heart. “Tonight, you, Auggie and Chuck should stay in my room to keep the jungle away for another night.” he added.

After breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Morales rushed to work, promising everyone they’d come home early. Everyone settled to watch TV in the living room except Elizabeth, who had already secured plans with her friends.

“Mateo’s fine with four babysitters today, huh?” Elizabeth commented, carrying the toddler over to Chuck and Auggie’s place on the couch. The two kept the smaller boy laughing by mocking the voices of characters from Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! on screen. On the other couch, Ramón and Stella sat close with his right arm over her shoulders, hand mindlessly playing with her hair.

Once the three boys tired themselves out from imitating random noises from the TV, they fell asleep with Mateo sprawled out over the older boys. Stella took the opportunity to tell Ramón how she felt, again.

“Ramón, last night in your room.” she recalled, feeling his gaze on her. “I told you something I don’t think you heard.”

“I heard you, Stella.” Ramón nodded, “I can tell it’s hard for you, but I know what you said last night.” he kissed her temple reassuringly.

“Yeah, it’s hard but I feel like I need to make myself clear.” Stella explained, finally turning to look at him.

Ramón shook his head, “That’s okay, every time I got your letters it would become more and more clear. I feel like I’m the one who hasn’t made myself clear,” he cooed. Hearing that, Stella felt her heart at ease.

“Ready to hear it?” he asked with a knowing smile.

Before he continued, Stella spontaneously began to pepper kisses all over his face, drawing out a soft giggle from Ramón.

*Feedback is always welcome!*

#ramon morales #scary stories to tell in the dark #ramon morales x stella nicholls #stella nicholls #august hilderbrandt #chuck steinberg #ssttitd #mine #when you do a bunch of vietnam war research #and not even half of it makes it on the work -_-#the ssttitd writers did ramon dirty tho omg #he's got a brother and he ran away :) no :) further :) questions :)

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ukulelecal · 5 years

Text

Biggest Fan pt. 5

In which you’re a famous singer and Calum is a fan of your music.

Warnings: none?

Pairing: Calum Hood x Reader

Requested By: Anonymous originally

“hi can you do a blurb on calum where you’re also famous and u find out he’s interested in you and low key loves your music? shebjdjsj idk jus make it fluffy and ill love u forever“

A/N: hell YEAH!!! so, as usual: do you guys want me to continue this? tell me what you thought!!! i love for feedback!! if you want more parts i can add some uhh angst and some uhh smut

Requests are CLOSED!

*Gif not mine*

Series Masterlist

Calum returned home from tour about a month ago, and you couldn’t be happier.

You couldn’t meet him at the airport in LA when he got back. Both of you being there at the same time would have been too hectic, so you agreed to wait till the next day to see each other.

You met him at his apartment that next day, and he had pulled you into the biggest hug you’d ever experienced, and gracefully smashed his lips against yours.

It was a pretty good day.

He was now in your apartment, and you were both sitting in the small room that you had dubbed your music room. All your instruments were scattered about, and you had awards hung up on the walls. It was like a safe space for you, where you knew you could express yourself without a care in the world. It’s where you’d written some of your best music.

Calum was sat at the piano, messing around with some chord progressions, and you were on the couch, desperately trying to tune your acoustic guitar that had been giving you a problem for a couple weeks now.

“Need help?” Calum finally chuckled, taking his fingers off the keys. You groaned and held it out to him, and he set it on his lap.

“Stupid thing has been out of tune for like, two weeks,” you mumbled, slumping down on the couch. “The pegs are hardly moving and I haven’t been bothered to fix it.”

Calum snickered at you, softly shaking his head. You watched him as he worked, and you couldn’t help but admire the way his fingers easily twisted the pegs, and smoothly got the guitar back in tune.

“Thanks,” you grinned, taking the instrument and setting it back in your lap.

“Of course, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart had become Calum’s favorite pet name for you. He frankly used it just as much as he used your real name, and it brought a smile to your face every time.

The both of you continued to fool around on the instruments, experimenting with random sounds and tunes. It was relaxing; you and Calum did it a lot, just each gave each other some space and made some music.

“We should write a song together,” you randomly suggested, placing your hand over the strings of your guitar to stop the sound.

Calum stopped playing as well, looking over at you. The corners of his mouth were slowly turning up at the idea.

“We should,” he agreed, turning the piano stool to face you. “Just us two or is my band included in this?”

You laughed, shrugging.

“We can write it ourselves, and then decide if they’re going to be on it when we record it.”

“Record it? Like, actually?”

“I mean, yeah. We don’t have to release it if we don’t want to, but we can have it for ourselves still.”

He paused a moment before shaking his head.

“I want to release it. I mean, pretty much everyone already knows we’re dating, but I think the song could be a cute way to make it official, you know? And we could always write more in the future, just for us.”

You smiled lovingly at that. It was true that everyone had their suspicions about your relationship; not that that was anything new. Another leaked photo of you and him walking his dog, Duke, together a couple weeks before pretty much verified it for the world. No one exactly needed anything to make it official, but based on the mostly positive reactions you had been getting, people would love it.

It was also true that you could write more songs later. With both of you being fairly high profile people, you could only keep your relationship so private, but having your own unreleased songs was one thing you could have for yourselves, one thing the public didn’t have to know about you.

“Yeah, you’re right,” you mumbled, and Calum turned the stool to face the piano again. He then scooted over to make room for you, patting the space next to him with a wide grin on his face.

You set your guitar down and grabbed some paper and a couple pencils from your desk, placing them on top of the piano. You sat down next to him, the small stool making for a tight fit, but neither of you minded. Calum bent his head down, pressing a kiss against the top of your head.

“Let’s write a killer song, sweetheart.”

Many hours, a few cups of coffee, and a couple breaks consisting of making out and quick back massages, and you had a song. A great one.

Both of you were in love with it. The lyrics were special to you, the instrumentals flowed perfectly, and you knew everyone else was going to love it too.

As soon as the song was finished and you shared a celebratory kiss, you and Calum collapsed onto the couch, both of you too tired to make it to your bedroom, falling asleep almost instantly. It was almost three in the morning when you finished, and songwriting could be exhausting.

The next morning, you woke to find yourself alone on the couch, curled up in a ball. And freezing. You and Calum fell asleep without a blanket, but he was a human space heater. He kept you warm all night, but now you had nothing.

Shivering, you sat up, wrapping your arms around yourself to try to keep at least a little bit warm. The smell of bacon filled your nose, signalling to you that Calum was making breakfast. You smiled to yourself, pushing yourself up off the couch and walking into the kitchen.

Calum was standing at the counter, sticking pieces of bread into the toaster. He turned around at the sound of your footsteps, a smile spreading across his face. He opened his arms for you, and you scurried over to him.

“Good morning,” he mumbled as he pulled you into a hug, and you tilted your head up to give him a kiss. You sighed in content, relishing in the warmth radiating off of him. “I was just making - Jesus, Y/N, you’re freezing!”

He had pulled away from the hug, reaching for your hands, but immediately jerked away when he felt them. You pouted, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Well I wouldn’t be if the person who was keeping me warm didn’t get up,” you mumbled with a teasing tone. Calum rolled his eyes, but the grin on his face told you he was only being playful. He pulled his sweatshirt off his torso and handed it over to you, leaving him in only a t-shirt and his basketball shorts.

“Should keep you warm, baby,” he said with a wink, and you glady slipped the clothing on. You were practically swimming in it, but it was comfortable, definitely warm, and smelled like him, so you couldn’t complain at all.

“Thank you, bub,” you mused with a smile, standing on your toes to peck his lips. He smiled back down at you, and then forced his expression to a serious one.

“I’m not getting that back, am I?”

You laughed, shaking your head.

“Nope.”

He let out an over exaggerated sigh, and it was his turn to peck your lips.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he joked, and you shrugged innocently in response. “Anyway, breakfast?”

“Yes, please!” You exclaimed dramatically, and Calum chuckled at your enthusiasm. You helped him finish up the food, and then you sat down to eat.

“I was thinking I could call John later, and he can help us record our song. Maybe get Ashton to play drums for us,” Calum suggested after he polished off his serving of eggs. You figured the John he was referring to was John Feldmann, a friend of his and the band’s. You had never met the man, but Calum had all good things to say about him. Ashton was of course his bandmate and best friend, who you had only met a couple times - very briefly in Chicago, and one more time when Calum got you to come to his apartment to meet all the boys after they got back from tour - but had definitely taken a liking to. He was a fun guy to hang out with.

You nodded in agreement, swallowing down the bite of toast in your mouth.

“Sounds good.” You grabbed your napkin and wiped your hands and mouth. “You can play bass, obviously, and I can play guitar.”

“Yeah, and maybe we can split the piano part.”

“Okay. You have to do that part with the accidentals you wrote, though, I seriously cannot play it.”

Calum kicked your shin under the table, and you kicked him back out of instinct, causing a whole game of footsie to break out. Laughter sounded from both of you, clutching your stomach. You stopped kicking, both of you trying to catch your breath. You were overjoyed. Playing footsie and laughing with Calum was such a special thing to you, even if it seemed lame.

Calum was a special thing to you.

“Alright, alright, I’ll play it,” he said, a light pink tint to his cheeks.

You finished up breakfast, and Calum sent out texts to John and Ashton. You both also texted your management, who were very supportive of the idea and promised to get everything arranged.

“John said we can meet him at the studio at 4:30, and Ash is on board too,” Calum said, coming back into the room after he got off the phone with John, who called Calum immediately after he texted. “Does that work for you?”

You nodded, shoving your hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt.

“Yep, I have no plans.”

Calum nodded, sliding his phone into the pocket of his shorts and coming up to where you sat at the table, placing his hands on your shoulders.

“I should head home. I have to change and feed Duke and stuff, but I’ll pick you up on the way to the studio, okay?”

You smiled and stood up to meet him, his hands never leaving your shoulders.

“Text me when you’re on your way?” You asked, and he agreed. You walked him to the door, leaning in to kiss him after he slipped on his shoes.

“Bye, sweetheart.”

“See you later,” you said with a smile, shutting the door behind him.

During the time between Calum leaving and then returning to pick you up to go to the studio, you took a quick shower and made yourself presentable, making sure to put Calum’s hoodie back on. It was the first piece of clothing you had gotten from him, and you were in love with it already. He was definitely not getting it back.

You got a text from him around 4:15, saying he was here. You grabbed everything you needed; your guitar that you had transferred to a case, the papers with the song written on them, your phone. The studio should have anything else you needed.

You walked outside to Calum’s car, and he quickly got out of the car to help you put your guitar in the trunk.

“Hey,” he greeted, hand on the small of your back as he leaned down to kiss you and lead you to the back of his car. Once you got your guitar in, laying it next to his bass, you got in the car and drove off to whatever studio John and Ashton were meeting you at. It wasn’t the studio you normally worked at, but you had driven by before.

You and Calum grabbed your instruments from the trunk and headed inside, finding John and Ashton were already there, waiting for you.

“Hey, guys,” Calum greeted, causing the men to look up.

“What’s up, Cal?” John exclaimed with a smile, going to hug him. Ashton came up to you, easily pulling you in for a hug.

“It’s nice to see you again, Y/N,” he said cheerfully, and you grinned up at the dimpled man.

“Yeah, you too!”

You felt a gentle hand return to the small of your back, and Calum pulled you back to his side.

“John, this is my girlfriend, Y/N. Y/N, this is John Feldmann.”

You extended your hand with a smile, and the man firmly shook it.

“It’s great to meet you,” you said, bringing your hand back and readjusting your grip on your guitar case.

“You as well,” he responded with a grin. “My daughter and I love your music.”

“Thank you,” you chuckled, and you felt Calum pull you a tad closer.

“Alright, let’s see this song you guys have.”

You and Calum got out your instruments, and you showed them everything you had written. You both sang the lyrics for them, and showed them the instrument parts. John and Ashton loved it, praising you for your collaboration. They made some suggestions, which made the song even better, and you helped Ashton figure out a drum part. Then, it was time to start recording.

You recorded the instruments first. You played your guitar first, then Calum on bass, Ashton on drums, and you and Calum split up the piano part.

When it was time for vocals, you and Calum recorded your solo parts before your parts together. The entire time you were singing alone, Calum was watching you with a love struck look in his eyes. He admired how beautiful your voice sounded, the way your eyes fluttered shut as you got into it.

You looked like an angel.

You did the same during Calum’s turn. His voice was a godsend, and you felt chills run down your spine as he hit his notes perfectly.

Then you had to record your parts that you sang together, and you both entered the booth and slipped pairs of headphones over your ears. Once John gave you the okay, you started singing, and the two men outside were in awe.

Your voices melded together perfectly. You were able to harmonize beautifully, and John and Ashton didn’t miss the quick glances filled with adoration that you two made towards each other. They grinned at each other; they could tell you really liked each other, and they were happy that their friend was happy.

After everything was recorded, everyone sat down to put it all together. John layered the parts together professionally, everyone listening closely to make sure it was perfect. You had to record a few things again, but soon enough, the song was done.

“Congratulations, guys,” Ashton said, exchanging hugs with everyone. “You’ve got yourselves a fucking awesome song.”

“Thanks so much for helping,” you returned, lacing your fingers with Calum’s.

“We really appreciate it,” he continued for you, giving your hand a squeeze.

“Glad we could do it,” John smiled.

You all exchanged your final goodbyes before parting ways, John and Ashton heading to their respective cars while you and Calum walked over to his car. You put your cases in the trunk, and right when Calum pushed the door shut, you threw your arms around his torso, pulling him tightly to you.

He chuckled, returning the gesture and wrapping his strong arms around you.

“We have our own song, babe,” you breathed out, looking up at him with a smile.

You were in disbelief, honestly. The thought of a collaboration wasn’t strange to you, but the thought of doing one with your boyfriend was different. It meant something.

Calum felt similarly. He wrote songs and sang with his band all the time, but a duet was a little more foreign to him, and. he loved it. He loved singing with just you.

“I know,” he laughed softly, shaking his head. He kissed your forehead, and you couldn’t help but sigh in content at the feeling. “I’m so excited, sweetheart.”

“Me too.”

Some time had passed since you recorded your song, and you were finally ready to announce it. All of the logistics got worked out, cover art was created, and the song was ready to go up.

You were practically trembling with excitement while driving to Calum’s place. You were planning on tweeting to announce the song, both of you saying the same thing at the same time.

You parked the car and headed up to his apartment, rapping on the door with your knuckles. It opened pretty quick, revealing a smiling Calum.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he mumbled, greeting you with a kiss.

“Hey, bubba,” you responded and happily accepted his affection. “You ready?”

“More than ready.”

He lead you into his living room. It was a tad messy, but that was something you had grown used to. You snuggled up on the couch, you in his lap with your back against his chest.

“What should we say?”

You discussed a caption for a few minutes, and included a picture of the cover art; the photo was of you and Calum lying in a bed of roses, eyes fixed on each other while laughing. You were supposed to have serious faces, but you couldn’t contain your laughter, and ended up actually liking that picture better. The title of the song was printed across the top, and your names across the bottom.

Once you both had the tweet typed out, Calum spoke up.

“On three?”

You nodded, taking a deep breath.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

You hit send, and then it was official.

“LA VILLE DE L’AMOUR. Our new song PARIS out Friday.”

278 notes · View notes

1dreality · 4 years

Link

Last week, in some respects, a very different man sat down for an exclusive chat with GQ Hype. He’s certainly more hench, as this exclusive shoot with fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott prove. Whoa. We talked about his sizzling new underwear campaign with Hugo, his first nude shoot (which may well be his last if his dear mother has anything to do with it) and we reminisced about his One Direction days, a period which he came out of shaken, sure, but not completely upside down or inside out.

He’s been through a great deal since the end of being one fifth of the biggest boybands in history – drink problems, therapy, marriage, fatherhood, anxiety – but at his core he’s still that same multi-talented, hard-working boy from Wolverhampton, honest about his faults and still excited to see where all this is taking him. Undoubtedly, he’s a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. Well, when he’s wearing any sleeves at all...

GQ: So how’s the build-up to the debut album, LP1?

What are you reconfiguring?

How come that never materialised?

It sounds like it’s been a long process getting the debut album finished?

Most people presumed you came out of One Direction fully formed. That wasn’t the case?

Towards the end of One Direction, were you aware of everyone’s own tastes developing?

Was it competitive with the other band members?

You mentioned therapy. Was that while you were still in the band?

Did it throw you off when the band’s scheduled just stopped? Going from having a two-year plan to not even having a two-day plan?

Were you worried about not being famous any more? Or making music? About it all just stopping?

Let's talk about the underwear campaign with Hugo. These are some incredible photographs taken by Mert and Marcus…

Had you always wanted to land an underwear campaign?

Before we landed the deal with Hugo I’d gone into my gym and said, “I'm going to get an underwear commercial.” I just wanted to do it; I knew I could do it. And then it actually happened! And I worked my ass off and I'm still hitting the gym: I didn't realise once you get on that thing you can't really turn it off. You've got to keep it going. Like I said, it’s been a lot of training and being an athlete and working out – it became 90 per cent of my job for the best part of a year leading up to that shoot, which was crazy. Come 2019 everyone's a lot more open about body image and I wanted to get in shape. Not to show off my body to anyone else, I just knew that’s what would give the confidence on set. I didn’t want to arrive not ready and not looking like I’d worked hard to get there. But what a thing to do and then to go on to designing clothes for Hugo too – an amazing experience. We actually had the first design meeting [for the clothing line] here and I remember in the car on the way to the meeting thinking, “What have you got yourself into?” That always seems to happen to me. I was lucky enough to spend some time with a friend of mine, Kim Jones [artistic director at Dior menswear], and he gave me some great advice: “It’s the same as music: once you’ve had a hit you know what people want from you.” And I took that with me into the design meeting and used that to help the whole process. Find the hit and make it work.

Have you done a nude shoot before?

Talk to me about the curtain shot...

Still, your parents must be very proud?

The One Direction thing was enough. Just to get to that level. I would have happily walked away at that point. But now with all the other things I have managed to achieve, not least this underwear campaign with Hugo, it’s meant a lot to me personally. I think it’s got me closer to those men whom I respect so much, people like David Beckham and Brad Pitt, such icons in their own lifestyles. It’s a real pinch-me moment. I can’t believe it hasn’t all burnt down to the ground yet, to be honest.

You mentioned a bad patch, a depression of sorts?

Did you stop drinking for a bit?

So, 12 December: Boris or Jeremy?

Zayn has been through his own difficulties with fame and anxiety...

Did you want to reach out to him?

Are there still grudges between the five of you?

#liam payne #liam's solo project #liam's promo #liam for gq #liam's album #liam on 1d #ziam #lirry #lilo #liam on mental health #liam & fashion #liam for hugo boss #liam on politics #Well isn't liam chatty........

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foreverbeingthunderbuddy · 6 years

Text

Just Say It [one-shot]

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Prompt: “Not to be dramatic, but I am going to die if we don’t do something … like now.”

Summary: Tony throws a Halloween party – the first ever for the reader. What to wear when you want to impress your superhero crush, Steve, but also want to hold on to your dignity? light, fluff, and one or two cuss words ;)

A/N: This is my piece for @starksparker’s 10k Writing Challenge! I’m so so sorry this is coming so late :// Prompt is in bold. Also first time I wrote for Steve so please don’t kill me :) Word count around 5,5k. Gif by @drunkromanogers .

Masterlist

Until you moved to New York, Halloween was never really a big thing for you.

Your little group of friends in your hometown never bothered throwing an actual party or attending one, it was always more like a coming-together while wearing cat ears and eat chips in candlelight kind of thing. Of course a scary movie would play on TV and you’d spend your night screaming at too many badly done jumpscares while your friends would laugh and talk about how badly done these jumpscares were.

You like to think you never went to a party dressed like a slutty bunny because you are better than that, but behind that carefully built wall of denial you know it’s because you never got invited.

So? There are worse things in life.

For instance, being invited by your boss Tony fucking Stark to come to his probably way-over-the-top Halloween party with no Halloween party-experience on your side whatsoever. Do people still go slutty these days or are scary costumes actually in now? Should you come alone or bring someone? Besides, for a party of that scale, do people even put on costumes or is that just an excuse to have another sinful fête (how May, your supervisor, always calls it) and everyone wears the usual glamour and glitz-attire?

Google doesn’t seem to be able to give a clear answer.

Another question. Assuming people actually go scary nowadays, what could you wear that would both showcase your funny, spontaneous side by committing to a creative, spooky outfit, and your sexy, I’m-single-too-must-be-destiny side by, well, wearing something sexy?

Even though sexy isn’t usually the style you feel most comfortable in, a party is a party and a party whose guest will be Steve “strongest BDE” Rogers calls for special actions.

“Before I forget, have you finally figured out your costume for the party next week?” Roxie asks and takes a sip from the cup filled with hot chocolate in her hands. Her dark eyes roam over your face curiously, eager not to miss the smallest hint of emotion. Roxie knows about your crush on Steve.

“Nope. Last night I had a drink, or four, and I thought it’d be super funny if I showed up as Captain America. With a shield and angry eyes and everything. But then I thought, maybe that’s weird to dress up as … Steve basically to impress said Steve.” Your last words hang in the air like a question and you see Roxie raise her eyebrows.

“Odd mating call, I have to admit,” She says and breaks into a grin but collects herself when you threateningly lift your index finger. “But of course, I, too, think that’d be a great idea. Or you don’t dress up as an Avenger when going to a party hosted by the Avengers. Just a suggestion.”

You sigh and look down into your own cup on the table in front of you. You’re sitting in your little kitchen, both gulping down hot chocolate like it’s water and listening to old songs playing on the radio.

She came straight from the hair salon to show off her now super short hair à la Danai Jekesai Gurira and you spent the last fifteen minutes admiring every single inch of it. And then you spent another ten minutes praising the white eyeliner she’s wearing that builds the perfect contrast to her dark skin and got all the details about the collection that “Never gonna buy anywhere else, Y/N, I’m serious”-eyeliner comes from.

“What if- I mean, we know Steve lived in the 40s right, so what if you went all retro and dressed up as someone from the fourties or fifties? That’s trendy nowadays and you like old stuff, right?” Roxie asks and you don’t miss the teasing sparkle in her eyes.

“You like old stuff?” was the exact question she asked the moment you told her you fell for Steve Rogers. She didn’t intend to be mean, she just wanted to provoke you out of your Finally-we-have-world-peace, trance-like state that you were in during the first weeks of having a thing, a huge thing, for him.

“Isn’t he like a hundred years old?”

“Um, no, I mean, uh- no. He didn’t age, Roxie, not his fault he was frozen.”

“….. Imagine the diseases he could have. I’m sure a hundred years ago diseases were different. I don’t think our modern bodies are made for 40s’ STDs. You could die.”

“Um, I don’t think our bodies are made for any kind of STD but that’s not the point.”

She has admitted she finds him kinda hot, too, but she’s too proud to go any further than that. Sometimes you wish you could read her mind. Or more accurately, all the time.

“Yes, I like old stuff. Old music and clothes, everyone does. It’s called vintage,” You say and try to distract her before she gets the chance to start philosophizing about Steve’s STDs again.

Alleged STDs. She has no proof he actually has them and you’re definitely not going to tell her that he probably was a virgin until he woke up in the modern day. Again, no proof, but people talk and people speculate, especially people who work for Stark in the Tower or Upstate Facility and who regularly pick up a couple of words and sentences here and there, making six out of two and two.

You probably shouldn’t believe anything that gets exchanged in the daily Stark Industries gossip meetings in the hallways and kitchens but … believing Steve didn’t bang his way through the country in the 40s does help calm your jealousy a bit. A tiny bit.

You know he had girlfriends since starting to work for Tony but a girl can ignore that and wait ‘til she’s home and has a glass of wine in her hand before she turns to google to figure out what the “Ten Signs He Likes You” are. Preferably, there’s a phone in her other hand and her best friend (Roxie) on the line.

Cliché, you know, but … there’s a reason why these things are cliché, they’re just too fitting. And relatable. Roxie disagrees.

“But just imagine. You, in a 1940s vintage style tea dress, grey tartan, short sleeve. Black T-Strap Pumps, but sexy. I’m talking five inch heels. You’re going to a Halloween party, not church. Ooh! And one of those little hats that women wore on the side of their heads. And red lipstick, heavy eye make-up, some rouge. Did they have anything else? A highlighter?”

“You look remarkably excited about your vintage ideas for someone who doesn’t like old stuff,” You comment but can’t hide a smile. Your best friend is a stylist first and a lawyer second. Only the latter professionally, but the former at heart. If you let her, she would give you a complete make-over. Needless to say, the thought alone scares the shit out of you. She is just too unpredictable.

“Y/N, maybe try to contribute to this brainstorming, would you, I’m trying to get you somewhere.”

*****

You shouldn’t have made brownies. What made you think bringing brownies to a Tony Stark party was a good idea? You are going to make a fool out of yourself if you walk in there with two loads of self-made goods in your hands. What made you think this was “cool and spontaneous”?

Ah, yeah, right. Ally told you this year’s party wouldn’t be held in one of Tony’s mansions or the Tower. Due to some mild excesses last year, Tony – and the various authorities involved, yikes – has decided to keep it small and personal this year. His words, not yours. The party will be at someone’s apartment in New York where you live, but rumour has it that that someone is loaded as fuck, so apartment probably doesn’t apply entirely.

Read: a gigantic loft.

The fact that there aren’t going to be as many people here as you thought, makes you a little nervous because your anonymity and option of turning invisible, if everything gets too much, go downhill the minute you step through the front door. Hard to disappear without leaving if there’s hardly any space to disappear into.

Why the brownies?

How Ally put it, it sounded like this is a cozy, little get-together among friends and bringing something is usually what you do when you’re invited to something like that, right? Right?? Roxie talked you into it, to be honest.

“Men love those!” She screamed whilst wildly pointing at the freshly baked goods on the counter, “Everybody loves chocolate caramel layer scares, trust me. He won’t know what’s happening to him.”

Ha. You can guess what’s going to happen to him if he tries more than one of these: diabetes. Not that you told her that.

It’s fine, Y/N, it’s gonna be fine, just drop the brownies on the diamond counter and never get near the kitchen again, so no one will suspect any connection between you and these health risks.

You take a deep breath and one last look at the intimidating building in front of you before you start walking to the entrance. It’s been a while since you last wore heels, but thankfully Roxie doesn’t just understand style but also comfort and picked a pair that looks and feels good. You shouldn’t get too optimistic, though, the evening hasn’t even begun yet.

Before you reach the glass door, you see your own reflexion in the dim street lights.

Your outfit is exactly what she envisioned in your kitchen, grey, very 40s, very femme fatale and tight on the right places. She even got you one of those “little hats women wore on the side of their heads”. Her sister Florence took care of your make-up which means you have your face all done up, smokey eyes, lashes who aren’t exactly your own, dewy cheeks and serious red lipstick.

To add a tiny scary factor, Roxie and Florence put some fake blood on your stomach area to make it look like you got stabbed, some on the side of your head where the hat sits – “Someone crashed the hat needles into your skull, Y/N, and blood is dripping down your temple” – and on one corner of your mouth.

You wish you could have taken Roxie with you as your plus one, but Ally said no companion – small circle. Well, judging by the music already coming from a window on the, what, sixth floor (?) small circle means something entirely different to Tony. Who knows how many people he invited.

You step into the building and walk to the reception. Yes, you heard right. Reception. This is going to be fancy, you can tell. Doesn’t help your goddamn nervousness. The box in your hands gets heavier and heavier the longer you hold it and there’s one needle attaching the hat to your head that just pokes into your scalp like it’s holding on for dear life. You need to fix that as soon as you find a bathroom.

Nothing in this lobby hints at the ongoing party or its theme, everything looks as sterile as possible. Not Tony’s style, admittedly, but you guess he had trouble with the neighbours, so he refrained from decorating everything.

“Good evening, Miss, can I help you?” The man behind the desk asks and looks up to you over his round little glasses. Is that a smile or just a coincidental shadow illusion on his face?

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N, I was invited to Tony Stark’s Halloween party,” You answer (um look at my costume?) and try another smile that doesn’t get reciprocated, instead he nods and pulls up a piece of paper that looks like a list. Oh, there’s a smiling pumpkin candle on his desk, right next to the little box of paperclips. Mister Dead Inside rebelling against the stuck up neighbours, what a nice touch.

Within a few seconds he finds your name, puts a check mark behind it and meets your eyes again with a sober look on his face.

“The elevator is over there, the party is on the fifth floor, 1-0-3-1 is the code for tonight. I hope you’ll have a very nice evening, Miss Y/L/N.”

I hope so, too.

You thank him and walk to where he pointed, punch the numbers into the little keyboard on the wall and step into the opening elevator. The last thing you see before the doors close is him pulling out what looks like another pumpkin candle from one of his drawers and positioning it on his desk.

There’s no music coming from any speakers in the elevator during your ride up, but there’s definitely music coming from outside the elevator, growing louder and louder the higher you get. Hrrr, your pulse really has no business speeding up like that. It’s not like you’ve never been to a party.

You’ve just never been at a party smaller than Tony’s huge orgies (basically) and therefore never got the chance to talk to Steve with a champagne glass in your hand and no “I have to go save the world now, sorry, dear” between you two. All you know is Business Steve, stern eyes, determined eyebrows, important stuff to do. You have no clue what Private Steve is like. And that’s … kinda scary.

What if Private Steve is a douche? No. He isn’t. You don’t need to know him to know that. But what if Private Steve is boring and stiff (hmm) or … what if he likes to collect stamps or miniature trains? Is there a bigger mood killer in this world than collecting miniature trains and would you be able to stand above it?

Roxie would be of great help right now, it’s a shame you couldn’t bring her.

The doors open and reveal an open, dark hallway that is decorated with spider nets, candles, two skeletons, fake blood on the wall, a couple of pumpkins, a crooked mirror and various dusty boxes and murder equipment. This looks surprisingly awesome. After what you saw in the lobby, your expectations fell to a humble level but this is really cool.

At least a dozen voices can be heard from around the corner and the music is a notch too loud for your liking. You hesitate for another second before entering the apartment and slowly walk around the corner. What you see definitely has Tony Stark written all over it.

Take the decorations from the entrance and multiply it by a hundred. You have never seen this many different candles, and someone really had a blast with the fake spider nets. There is even a broken chandelier hanging from the ceiling, adding to the dim, mysterious atmosphere produced by the candles and blinking chains of lights.

It looks like a great party.

Oh and the people? As diverse as it gets. From vampires, werewolves and witches to pirates, various animals including a giraffe, to cartoon show characters, murdered people, injured people, angry people, to clowns, zombies, princesses, nuns, nurses, monks, angels and devils, the KFC guy and oh, is that one-armed Spongebob?

Looks like people go scary, sexy and funny. Questions answered. Time to drop off the brownies that are still in your hands and that feel like two hundred pounds at this point. No one seems to notice you as you walk past the Power Rangers and follow Ernie and Bert into a hallway that hopefully leads to the kitchen.

It doesn’t. It leads to another hallway with several closed doors which could be bedrooms. Ah. Ernie and Bert want to make out. Your bad. You turn around and walk back to the gigantic living room that in itself looks like a loft and try to make out the way to your admired location.

“Am I having hallucinations or did the 1950s just arrive at my party?” A voice suddenly asks and you jump, not expecting the noise next to you. The person who the voice belongs to turns out to be a black Aladdin, open vest showcasing abs and everything, completed by silver eyeliner and a fake wig to get the typical 1001 Nights Prince’s hair but doesn’t quite fit the rest of his appearance. But who are you to judge a dedicated man’s Halloween costume at his own party?

“Yeah, that actually might be a hallucination because I don’t represent the 50s, but the 40s,” You say and smile, just as Albert Einstein walks past you. Something to tell your grandkids about.

“Oh, I’m sorry M’lady, I got the decade wrong but the costume looks, um, fetching.”

Is this really how people talked in the 40s? Probably not. You laugh and feel a little of your nervousness go. Only a little, but still.

“So this is your party? Can you tell me where the kitchen is then?”

“Over there, next to the skeleton on the wall and the bloody unicorn. Thank you for bringing something, Miss 40s, I really hope this is dessert.”

“It is. Brownies,” You say and watch as Aladdin punches the air in joy.

“Nice! I’m glad Tony invited you, no one else brought Brownies yet. Speaking of, Tony should be here somewhere,” He informs you and roams the crowd.

Oh, please let him be Genie! Please let him be Genie, God, please!

Tony Stark topless in blue body paint and a little ponytail on the top of his head is something that would make the whole stress worth it.

You scan the room and look for Tony but you find someone else. Steve. Standing with a small group of people, a beer in his hand, he looks too beautiful to handle. So much about getting calmer.

“Okay, I’ll bring these to the kitchen, thank you!” You quickly announce and start to move.

“It was my pleasure, a lady in distress, how could I not help? The royal court has raised me to be a Prince, not a dizzard,” Aladdin proclaims and tips his fedora- you mean, his little hat. Didn’t Aladdin grow up on the street and only got access to the palace when he met Jasmine? This Aladdin here either forgot his own origin story or had more than a couple of drinks already.

While dodging guests, you walk over to the skeleton and the bloody unicorn (another guest) and enter the kitchen. Having a will of steel, you didn’t once look at Steve or check out his outfit. Like a powerful queen.

You walk around the kitchen island and put the box on the huge counter (not diamond by the way) and start unpacking. It looks like a lot of people brought some stuff, thankfully, and you place yours at the dessert side of the buffet. There are a couple of vampires with you in the room, but suddenly you hear more people walk in behind you.

“… like it’s the worst, Abe.”

“If anyone makes another theatre joke to my face, I think I’m actually gonna shoot someone,” A deep voice answers and you turn around.

Abraham Lincoln and a zombie nurse are deep in conversation while the nurse pours glasses of bowle on the kitchen island for them. You need a couple of seconds to recognize them as Mark and Jess from your department.

“You chose the outfit, Mark- um Abe, so you gotta live with that now. Just suck it up like a real man and get drunk with me. I never drank with a president before,” She says and hands him his glass. That’s when she notices you.

“Y/N, hi! Good to see you! Nice costume, are you … I don’t know who you are. Someone from the 60s? A celebrity? Meryl Streep?”

Did she just say 60s? Wait, did she just say Meryl Streep??

“Um, no. I-“

“Jess, why would she be Meryl Streep, she looks nothing like her, look at the hair. There were other actresses besides Meryl in the 60s, by the way. Also, I don’t think Y/N is going for the 60s, I think she is going for first World War,” Abraham Lincoln muses and takes a sip from his cherry bowle.

1910s definitely wasn’t what you envisioned.

“That’s why she is all bloody, because she served in the war and got killed by a grenade splinter in her chest,” He continues and seems very sure of his ability to identify vintage fashion.

“Women didn’t fight back then,” Jess retorts and pushes a strand of red hair out of her face. Even if women had served in the World War, they wouldn’t have worn a dress and heels. Time to solve the mystery.

“I’m a lady from the 40s and I got brutally murdered by my unfaithful husband who didn’t want to pay for a divorce.”

“Makes sense.”

“At least you got the decade right, Abe,” She says and pinches Mark’s side who squinches his eyes at her comment.

“The first World War wasn’t in the 40s, that was the second one. Did you leave your brain at home tonight?”

Geez.

“Y/N, by the way, Steve was asking about you.”

What.

WHAT.

Your eyes grow wide as you stare at Jess.

“He was?”

“Yup. Wanted to know if you’d be here, too, ‘cause he had overheard Ally telling you about Tony’s invitation. I said I didn’t know and that you’ve never been to Tony’s Halloween party before, so who knows if you’d be going.”

Yeah, because you’ve never been invited before but that’s the details. Steve asked about you!! Is this even real?

“I, um, okay? Cool. Well … I’m here. Um … do you know why he asked?” Okay, can your voice sound any more unstable? Try to keep your cool, for god’s sake!

“Nope,” She simply says and eyes you curiously. Poker face! Poker face!! You smile.

“Okay.”

Short silence.

“Wow, Y/N’s got a thing for Cap. That’s cute.”

“Mark!”

“Jess, I’m Abraham Lincoln, please respect your presid-“ A rather violent punch against his shoulder cuts off his sarcastic remark.

At that moment, a small group of people walks in and to the dismay of your previously relatively steady heartbeat you see Steve with them, now being nerve-wreckingly close. The kitchen seems quite crowded now.

Did he dress up as Han Solo? Heart be still!

Before he can catch you staring, you quickly turn back to face the counter and pretend to be occupied with inspecting the cover of the box you brought the brownies in. Oh, click-closure, interesting. But is it purple from both sides…?

From the corner of your eye, you see someone push in right next to you, and you don’t need to look up to know who it is. You’d recognize that cologne anywhere. You dare a glance to your left and realize that Steve has his back to you and is talking to a fantastic-looking blonde in a Super Woman costume.

It’s easy to see that every single woman in this room and a couple of dudes are subtly staring at Captain America and you can’t blame them.

He doesn’t notice you and you think you’d get away when, on the other side of the room, two of your co-workers in sexy Harry Potter costumes (Hufflepuff and Slytherin) come up to the kitchen island. Hufflepuff sees you, claps her hands and laughs, getting everyone’s attention.

“I didn’t think you would come!”

Slytherin whistles approvingly at your costume and excessive make-up just as Steve turns from having his back to you to looking at you. His expression is kind of friendly when he turns, surely because he’s having an inspiring discussion with Wonder Woman, though he also looks curious to see who Hufflepuff is yelling at, or at least that’s how it seems to you. The minute his eyes meet yours, he freezes and stares.

“Look at you!” Slytherin calls out and grabs an empty glass to fill it with bowle, “That dress is beautiful, so retro, I love it. 50s? You should come to work looking like that, no wait, we should all come to work looking like that. Every Wednesday. We’ll make it our Mean Girls-inspired theme day. Minus the fake blood of course.”

You want to run. You don’t want everyone looking at you.

“You have no idea how long I have waited to hear those words,” Hufflepuff comments and goes for her own glass, “I’m a sucker for everything vintage. It’s so cute.”

“I’m actually a lady from the 40s, whose, um, whose husband cheated on her and now doesn’t want to pay for a divorce, so he, uh, killed me,” You explain, now not so sure about your costume idea anymore. You also try to avoid Steve’s beautiful eyes which are so painfully close and they are looking at you! One might think you never had a boyfriend before, it’s pathetic.

“Ooh, drama! I like that,” A guy who you don’t know says, “Trouble in paradise?”

Trouble in paradise? Does he think you had beef with your *non-existent* boyfriend and now you went for Murdered Wife? That’s something Roxie would do, no doubt.

“No, just liked the idea.”

The general attention in the room moves away from you and the little groups get back to their own conversations.

You chance a look at Steve out of the corner of your eye and see he’s still staring at you, no longer frozen. There is activity behind his eyes, lots of it. Just nothing you can understand. You stop trying to look at Steve without looking like you are looking at Steve and take a step forward.

“Can you pour one for me, too?” You ask Hufflepuff and she does as you ask. Steve’s gaze burns into the backside of your head. Why isn’t he saying anything? He never seemed shy around you.

The music in the living room changes into a different song and a Pink Power Ranger shrieks and pushes against the pirate next to her.

“Let’s go dance! Please!”

“No, let’s just stay here for a while.”

She sighs and looks annoyed, as far as her body language tells you because the mask covers her face completely. All of a sudden, you feel a heat at your back, like someone came up behind you and you think you know who it is. For the sake of your reputation – ‘cause you’d definitely ruin that if you turned around now and stuttered like a horse – you keep your back to him and hold on to the surface in front of you.

“We’ve been standing around all night. I need to move!”

The pirate doesn’t answer and demonstratively takes a sip from his cup. You do the same and listen to the music blasting through the apartment (Steve has moved to stand next to you now), all while ignoring the tension between the two of you in the air.

The music goes into the chorus and the bass booms.

“Not to be dramatic, but I am going to die if we don’t do something … like now.”

“Sarah, if you want to go dance, go.”

Seriously. You start to grin at her childlike crossing of the arms.

“Y/N.”

The blood in your veins freezes at his voice, so close, so him, captivating you instantly although you try not to let it show. You turn your head, still smiling, and look at him. You barely smile around him, let alone at him, because you are usually too nervous but he took you off-guard this time. Then you realize where you are, only a few inches away from Steve fuckin’ Rogers, and your smile dies on your face.

He is still staring at you, but now he is staring at your mouth.

You feel your knees get a bit weak.

The tension gets unbearable, so all you have in mind is ESCAPE. You turn away and attempt to walk around the kitchen island when Steve grabs your wrist.

“Hang on, Y/N,” He says.

He pulls you back gently and you involuntarily get close again, head tilted up to meet his eyes but immediately regretting it because how are you going to get out of this situation now?

“Hm?”

“I like your outfit. Been a while since I saw someone dressed like that.”

Roxie would high-five you now if she was here.

“Thanks.”

“I was actually … hoping to see you here, I-“

“Oh my god, who made these brownies?!” Someone cries out next to you and both of you turn your heads to the side. Albert Einstein stands at the counter, eyes huge, one of your brownies in his hand and his mouth is chewing wildly.

“Me,” You inform him and hesitantly raise your hand.

“These are unbe-fucking-lievable. I’m in love. Everyone please leave me alone now, I need some me-time.”

You smile at him, what a nice thing to say, especially from a physicist that legendary.

You look back at Steve and realize he is watching you again, this time a small smile plays around his lips. Seeing a Private Steve Smile up-close creates a tingling flutter in your belly and kind of detaches you from reality for a second. Where are you again?

“Y/N, what did you put into th-“

“Okay, that’s it,” Steve declares, interrupting Hufflepuff, lays one arm around your waist and starts to move, so you have no other option than to follow him. “I can’t even have one solid conversation with you without anyone interrupting.”

You don’t say anything because you’re way too overwhelmed by the sudden physical contact. He has never really touched you before, aside from shaking your hand or platonically laying a hand on your shoulder, and now you don’t really know how to react. The wild beating of your heart doesn’t help the matter.

He guides you out of the kitchen and you find yourself standing in the loud living room. Pink Power Ranger is dancing like there’s no tomorrow and if this wasn’t such an important moment, you would laugh. Are you being dramatic or just needy?

“I mean, I’m sure the brownies are great, but … well,” He says, arm still around your waist, blue eyes looking down at you, his smell has long catapulted you into a Steve-induced trance, “What I was saying is, I’m glad you’re here because- actually I was trying to approach you at the Tower this week but you’ve been busy and I didn’t want to interrupt, and … well, I was wondering if you want to go out-“

“Han Solo and Lady 40s, arm in arm in my living room! Never thought I would see that happening,” Aladdin booms a few steps away from you. Is this night even for real? Since when have you been so popular??

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Steve bursts out, grabs your hand and drags you past Aladdin into a hallway. You shoot the host an apologetic look but don’t bother stopping the grin on your face. This is kinda funny, not gonna lie.

The hallway is empty and there seem to be no other horny guests so far. As soon as he knows the air is clear, he turns around to you and moves way into your Personal Space (like always, it seems), his beautiful blue eyes locking on yours.

“What I was trying to say is-“

“Hey, Steve my man-“

“You better piss off now, Carl, or I can’t guarantee for anything anymore!” Steve growls at Carl, who just appeared behind him, without even looking over his shoulder.

At this moment he sounds so threatening that you can’t help but wince a little, your eyes grow huge as you watch Carl do a 180 and walk into the direction he came from. Your gaze flickers back to the man in front of you and it’s obvious he is trying not to lose his temper – a trait you never thought he had in him, losing his temper, you mean.

A small muscle in his jaw twitches and his eyes look unusually dark while they stare at the corner of your mouth, so you try a smile. At that, his face changes and he looks up into yours.

“You wanted to ask me something?”

Phew, who would have thought you would be that fucking courageous. Roxie won’t believe this.

“Yes.”

He gets even closer, so you retreat until your back hits the wall, and he puts his big hands against the surface next to your shoulders. Caging you. It’s just that it doesn’t feel like it. He could show you a way out and you would still stand glued to this spot.

“Before anyone gets in the way again, I’m gonna make this short. Do you want to go out on a date with me?”

****

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