#WHAT SCREAMS CONFIDENCE MORE THAN BEING THE GUITARIST!!!!!!

[eyesfullofsttars]

☆ I've waited here for you, everlong...

Sypnosis: Ellie Williams, the guitarist of Lost in the Darkness, has questionable methods for handling her stage fright, which results in an accident where Abigail Anderson, a medical student, has to intervene.

Notes: God, this is so dumb, sorry, I'm a lesbian. Also, it's 1.97k words...

Warnings: This is just fluffy stuff with mentions of alcohol (should I put a warning for that?) But nothing more than Abby and Ellie being silly lesbians for each other, nothing sexual or anything!

Stage fright was a frequent challenge for Ellie, despite being the guitarist of Lost in the Darkness, her band. At times, the anxiety and pressure of stepping onto the stage overwhelmed her, feeling all eyes on her, scrutinizing every move and waiting for her to make a mistake.

This obstacle left her with sweaty hands, making it difficult to move her fingers to play the guitar strings, while her chest heaved with each breath, rising and falling incessantly, without giving her a moment to calm her mind.

Despite these challenges, Ellie had found a solution that, although not the healthiest or ideal, allowed her to continue doing what she loved most in the world: playing music, sharing her songs, and being part of Lost in the Darkness alongside her friends Dina and Jesse.

So, facing the consequences, without much thought before stepping onto the stage, Ellie turned to alcohol, taking a couple of shots to calm her nerves and silence the intrusive thoughts that invaded her mind.

That was Ellie's routine before taking the stage to play guitar in front of everyone, delivering a show without hesitation, knocking back shots of vodka continuously just minutes before any gig, even if it was just a modest one at the local bar— the band's current limit—performing in small venues packed with crowds drawn by their love for music.

The shift had been sudden for Ellie, transitioning from jamming in her old man's garage to local gigs and opening for bigger artists. In essence, the band was inching closer to success, but with each step forward, Ellie's fear mounted, seeking solace in alcohol to silence her racing thoughts.

Typically, it had the desired effect; it freed her, making her more outgoing, encouraging her to express herself more boldly, strumming the guitar freely on stage, harmonizing with Dina, charming the admiring girls. Instead of ignoring the bras tossed her way, she would boldly grab one, spinning it around her finger with a confidence fueled by alcohol.

Without alcohol, Ellie would regress to a mere girl with her guitar, tucked away in a corner, absentmindedly tapping her foot, gazing downward with her short hair obscuring her freckled face, lacking even a trace of the confidence that her natural guitar prowess deserved.

Alcohol was a solution that used to work, except Ellie never considered the possibility that her solution would end up complicating things even more.

Now, she was facing the consequences as her dirty Converse sneakers began to get tangled in the guitar cables while she stumbled around the stage in her drunken state.

Eventually, she ended up tripping over the cables and falling off the stage with a loud crash, eliciting screams of shock and surprise from the audience and causing both Dina and Jesse to express concern and rush to her side.

Abigail Anderson possessed a peculiar charm, extremely chic in her act of privacy, coupled with the money inherited from her family of doctors. She inherently embodied elegance, remaining private and reserved, avoiding public events unrelated to her agenda.

It felt like a privilege to have her attention, even a personal luxury to distract her from her primary responsibility, making appearances anywhere other than her classes, her father's private library, her country club playing tennis, or simply hosting a tea gathering at her apartment.

That's why accepting the invitation from her friends Leah, Nora, Owen, and Manny to go to a small local bar for beer and heavy rock music was a surprise to everyone but enthusiastically celebrated.

Taken as an acknowledgment that Abby needed a break from her upcoming exam season, during which she would disappear without being reachable by anyone for weeks.

So there was Abby, seated in one of the uncomfortable chairs of the small bar, her loose blonde hair with two braids hidden among its length, smiling faintly as she watched all her friends having fun, taking sips from her beer bottle, its scent mixing with her white tank top and light blue shirt.

Abby was gently swaying her head to the rhythm of the second song of the night by the band that had taken the stage, enjoying the guitar solo performed by the girl who elicited screams from all the women present, going wild over the presence of this girl with messy hair, black crop top, and denim jorts, whose body seemed to come alive as she played the strings with precision.

Until the guitar solo was abruptly interrupted by the loud and startling sound of a fall, causing the female voices to switch from desperate screams to gasps of shock, and the band quickly ran off the stage, everyone forming a circle around a spot without moving.

"Did the guitarist fall?" Abby heard that question more as an affirmation from Nora, which quickly caught her attention, making her turn to look at her with a furrowed brow, surprising the entire group.

Once it was established that the guitarist had indeed fallen off the stage, all eyes turned to Abby, the always sought-after option whenever something a medical student could handle occurred, but even more so for Anderson, coming from a family of doctors.

"I'll go check..." Abby whispered timidly, unsure of where to look as she noticed all her friends looking expectantly at her, knowing she was capable of helping in this situation.

Abigail slowly rose from her seat, setting down her beer, running her hand through her hair to clear her vision, and asking for permission as she made her way through the crowd to approach the scene. There, she found the guitarist lying on the ground, surrounded by her two concerned bandmates.

After regaining consciousness, the first thing Ellie remembers seeing is none other than an angel sent by the Lord to her, to take her to the afterlife. This moment would forever be etched in the memory of rock, as she passed away following her guitar solo.

At least she was bidding farewell to the world of the dead in peace after being in the presence of an angel, gently caressing her freckled face with gentle yet firm hands. Despite Ellie never being, nor ever will be, a religious person, she could begin to believe after this.

"Oh God, I'm so glad you woke up," Ellie hears the relieved female voice, managing to focus her clear gaze, snapping out of her reverie. "Are you okay?"

Ellie simply nods slowly, realizing that she was still alive, sitting outside the bar, leaning against the brick wall with the cold night air brushing against her exposed skin.

Her hand grazing over her eyes and as she does, her freckled skin becomes more marked with the black eyeliner already in place. However, this motion allows her to see the woman in front of her more clearly.

Strong features, smooth skin except for a sharp scar on the cheek, long blonde hair, concerned blue eyes focused on no one but her, and hopefully, it would always be this way, in addition to her strong hands, larger than Ellie's face, trying to offer some comfort to the guitarist.

No one was allowed to laugh at Ellie's naivety for mistaking that woman for an angel, not even to laugh, because who wouldn't have done the same?

"Who are you?" Ellie dares to ask, still staring at the woman, her green eyes meeting hers, feeling her heart beat even faster at the beauty before her.

"I'm Abigail. Abigail Anderson, I study medicine..." the woman responds and Ellie immediately gets distracted trying to associate Abby's face with that name, fascinated by the small detail. "Are you okay?"

Amidst the silence and observation, Abby slightly furrows her brow in concern, quickly placing Ellie's face between her hands to look for any signs of a concussion.

Though the closeness intimidates her, Abby tries to remain professional and ignore how attractive Ellie is, with her unusual vibe, smudged eyeliner, disheveled hair, and piercings shimmering in the night light.

"Does your head hurt?" Abby manages to get the words out to ask the right question, while her hands still caress Ellie's face, searching for any signs of pain or confusion.

Ellie shakes her head, feeling a little weak but comforted by Abby's presence. Abby's sweet touch is even more comforting for Ellie, who can't focus on any possible pain in front of her.

"No, everything's fine, I think..." Ellie responds in a whisper, attributing her headache to the mix of alcohol and the fall to the floor. "Thanks for caring, doc" she adds with a smile on her lips, the alcohol still in her system making her more confident and unafraid to flirt with Abby.

A giggle escapes Abby's lips as she sees Ellie's attitude, who quickly shakes her head, assuring her that she's fine. Despite everything, Abby remains concerned, removing her hands from Ellie's face.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," Abby whispers, avoiding Ellie's gaze. "Let me know if you feel worse or notice any other symptoms, tell me right away."

Abby's serious tone causes Ellie to snort, nodding obediently, letting Abby know she's listening. Perhaps Ellie misunderstood the situation, or her charms had no effect, or maybe her image lying on the floor wasn't the most attractive.

It's true, Ellie remembers with embarrassment the situation of being sprawled on the floor, completely mesmerized by Abby's image in front of her, caring for her without any ulterior motives. Shame washes over Ellie like the alcohol coursing through her veins, quickly sobering her to reality.

"Sorry..." Ellie mutters under her breath, unsure if Abby can even hear her, but she says it nonetheless, hoping to alleviate some of her humiliation.

Abby listens attentively, but she doesn't respond verbally, just nods quickly, seeking to reassure Ellie that everything is okay, unable to form a coherent sentence herself, longing for Ellie to regain her composure and speak again.

"Thanks for looking out for me. I really appreciate it..." Ellie speaks again, a small smile on her lips, which elicits a smile from Abby too, as if it were contagious, filling her with warmth.

Ellie attempts to rise from the ground on her own, bravely and abruptly, without worrying about the potential consequences, but before she can complete the action, Abby's hand extends towards her, offering assistance in a delicate manner that Ellie quickly accepts without hesitation.

"So... you're heading off alone now?" Abby asks, unsure if it's professional concern for Ellie's well-being or simply a desire to prolong their interaction a little longer.

Although Abby is adept at concealing her intentions, being reserved and formal, a woman who values her privacy, it seems impossible or challenging for anyone to read her and uncover her true motives. But this time, Ellie notices it, realizes it, and discerns the intention behind Abby's words.

Despite Ellie always leaving with her band, escaping from bars to be together, heading to another nightclub to continue the party, always repeating the same routine of getting drunk and picking up girls with the story of being in a band, Ellie nods her head slowly, a smile on her face for understanding what Abby truly means.

"I could use some more medical attention just in case," Ellie responds in an instant, too quick to seem disinterested, but still not trying to hide it beneath the guise of a small joke without taking it too seriously. "Will you walk with me?"

The words catch in Abby's throat, unable to speak as she sees Ellie's smile, her beautiful, freckled face, and that flirtatious yet timid intention mirroring her own. Unable to truly respond, Abby nods dumbly, quickly taking off her jacket and draping it over Ellie's shoulders, covering the sliver of skin exposed by the crop top.

#ellie tlou #masc4masc #abby anderson #abby anderson fic #abby tlou #ellabs #ellie the last of us #ellie williams #ellie williams fic #ellie x abby #ellie williams tlou #ellie williams tlou2 #ellie williams the last of us #abby the last of us #abby anderson the last of us 2 #abigail anderson #abby tlou2 #tlou ellie #tlou abby #ellie williams fanfiction #ellie willams #abby anderson fanfic #ellie tlou2 #lesbian #the last of us fic #tlou fic #tlou #the last of us #ellie williams fanfic #ellie fanfiction

[bioexorcizm]

drabblecember day #21 - a walk down memory lane

ship: dewmav

word count: 1097

summary: dewey and maverick reminisce.

“‘Member when we met?”

“Course I do.”

The bar is loud, crowded, but clearing out quickly after the show. Dewey shoves his guitar into the back of the van, playing his own roadie as he fits everything with pedantic precision into its place, drumkit, bass, shit he was sure the band hadn't even used in five years, all loaded up and raring to go.

Go home, that is. He sighs, leaning against the doors as he slams them shut, closes his eyes, imagines a future where people are begging, pleading to be able to shove all this shit back into the tour bus for him, “Sign my guitar! Sign me!” and a crowd cheering his name as he walks off stage…

But when he opens his eyes to the back of an empty lot of a dive bar, his smile becomes longing. Everyone else had already hiked it out, either with their one-night stand, or just so they wouldn't have to assist him, he figures.

A drink would be more help than them, anyways.

He trudges back into the bar, pulling the hoodie he'd changed into closer to his shoulders. He walks the clear path to the counter, and slides onto one of the peeling leather stools; He turns his head towards one of the mounted TVs, a replay of some college football game that he couldn't care less about being still the most interesting thing in the room.

A voice draws his attention. It's smooth, calm, even over the ambient chatter and blown out jukebox speakers, quiet somehow above it all. That's the first thing he notices, and not them asking him if “Hey, you're the guitarist that played tonight, right?”

When he turns his head, then it's their eyes. The way their makeup emphasizes them, dark eyeliner making the pale green pop, jet black hair and vibrant ombré mesmerizing him for the moment before they speak again.

“You looked pretty cute on stage, earlier.”

“Uhh…” he trails off, pauses, blinks slowly. He tries very hard not to notice the tight leather and lace that hugs the bartender's skin so tight, surely they weren't talking to him? He realizes then he has to say something, anything -- No way they were talking to him, right? His brain’s a scrambled mess of panic and awe as he dumbfoundedly stares back at them, and what a sight he probably was, mouth slightly agape as whoever they were began to worry. Just ask them if they liked the show! Ask them if they really noticed you! Literally anything!

One thought in his head screams out over the other clutter, "For fuck’s sake, Finn, answer them!"

His words come out in a jumbled mess, some mangled combination of every question he actually wanted to ask, but before he could stop it he was already speaking:

“Do you like me?”

Well that's not what he meant to say. Holy shit, you dumbass.

They tilt their head, unsure if they'd heard him right. Probably not over the crowd.

“What?” they ask with a laugh.

“Did you like the show?” Dewey quickly corrects his tongue-tied thoughts, and confidently raises his voice to beat the noise.

“Oh! Yeah, I did.”

Dewey tries to hide his chuckle in a cough, playing it cool as he crosses his arms and leans into the bartop. He looks them over again, and as his eyes meet their gaze he realizes their stare -- it's a hard kind of stare, analyzing him, squinting in contemplation.

“I know you!” they finally relent, pointing towards him with the hand they weren't leaning on across from him, “You work at the record shop down on Barrett, don't you?”

He nods, “Just a dayjob. I prefer this to that any day.”

“Playing a show? Or chatting up the wait staff after?”

“Well, if they were all as hot as you, I guess it'd be hard to say.”

They share a laugh, and Dewey takes in the way they toss their hair gently over their shoulder, eyes flicking up towards him after.

“But...I did mean playing. Nothing beats it.”

“Well, you look good doing it, too.”

They crack open a drink behind the bar, and pass it over, “On me, for putting on such a great show.”

Dewey grins, lingering his hand over theirs on the bottle before pulling it towards himself, “Do I get a name to go along with that pretty face?”

“Maverick.”

“Maverick…Different. I like that.”

“And what can I call you, Rockstar?”

“Dewey.”

“Mm, fits you, I think.”

He takes a sip from his beer, watching carefully as they wipe down the metal countertop. In a rushed urge to keep the conversation going, he clears his throat. Maverick beats him to it.

“What happened to the rest of the band?”

“Probably all headed home…Or, out.”

“Left you behind, huh?”

“Nah, I mean -- you know how it is. Play a show, go home with a groupie…”

“And leave you behind to clean up the mess. I get the feeling.”

Dewey takes a glance around the bar, and notices the distinct lack of servers. Maybe they weren't so different. There was something comforting about the idea.

“I’d, uh, ask if you come here often, but I think I know the answer already.”

Maverick giggles, tossing the towel they hold over their (bare, as Dewey was very much aware of now) shoulder. 

“Too much, maybe.”

“I know a couple different gigs we can hit. Real lowkey places, maybe I can show you around sometime, if you like.”

“I’d like that,” Maverick grabs two small glasses next, pouring a shot for either of them.

“To a great show?”

“I’ve played better, but…” Dewey shrugs coolly, “Sure. What the hell.”

They both take the drink, both of them taking it in stride, despite the strong stinging flavor of the tequila.

“Can't do too many of those, or else my ass will never make it down the sidewalk.”

“No way you're walking home,” Dewey states matter-of-factly.

“I do every night.”

“Not today.”

“I’m off in thirty,” Maverick replies without hesitation, “If that's an offer.”

Dewey panics for a second, exhaling slowly to calm his anxiety. He feels the warmth of the alcohol dull his nerves well enough despite being clear-headed still, and he takes another drink to hide the way his lips curl into a smile. 

Well, that was certainly one way to get a pretty girl to agree to go home with you.

“I made you breakfast the next day, too.”

“Mhm,” Dewey presses a kiss to their forehead, “Think I fell in love with you right then.”

#.writing #.dewey #drabblecember2023

[whatisreggieshortfor]

Studio Musician

Semi x gn!reader

When the studio told you that they found a fill in guitarist for your band, you were wary. Most studio sanctioned musicians had an ego, they often wanted to force you to change your music to fit the way they played- but you couldn’t argue this time. The album needed finished to make the release date and your fingers were broken. Your drummer, Ichiya, had never been more anxious, he knew your dislike for studio musicians and was afraid you’d replace him since it was his fault- he hadn’t actually meant to do it, but the bass player Mei had convinced you to prank him with a scare after the band had watched Friday the 13th together. He didn’t recognize you under the hockey mask, slamming his window shut on your fingers as he screamed in panic. You didn’t hold it against him, but being an up and coming rock musician boosted his confidence, it didn’t quell his anxiety, so you just tried to reassure him every day that you wouldn’t leave him behind.

So here you waited, sagging in a chair at the soundboard as you waited for the guitarist.

Who was running late.

The sound designer swore he would be there any minute, but you were getting irritated the longer he left you waiting. It had already been twenty minutes passed the agreed upon time, you had other things to do besides waiting to argue with some guy that you weren’t changing the song to fit how he thought it should sound!

Tossing your head back, you scowled at the ceiling, ignoring the studio workers that flitted about the room in preparation and review of what you’d already recorded. “Doesn’t this guy know what being on time means?” You groaned, noting the clock read he was now thirty minutes late.

“Hey! Sorry, I’m here. Traffic is a nightmare.”

Lifting your head, you regarded the bowing man just inside the door. Why was he wearing a dress shirt? You could even see his tie dangling to the floor in front of him. “Better late than never. You received the tracks and sheet music, right?”

“Yes?” He answered in a questioning tone as he stood up straight, regarding you where you sat. You were glad you were already annoyed, otherwise how pretty he was might cause different attention issues. “Could you get the singer for me so we could get started?”

The studio staff around you seemed to freeze- you weren’t exactly known for having an easy going nature while you worked, even if you treated them with what most musicians viewed as more respect and friendliness than they deserved. They also knew you were having a bad day after forgetting your pain medication on the table of the apartment you shared with your band mates. Half of them had secretly placed bets on whether you’d even still be here when the guitarist showed.

Bracing for an argument, they watched as you scoffed, “I am not here to serve you. Get in the booth and show me what you’ve got.”

The grey haired man furrowed his brow, looking more like he was remembering something than he was preparing to snap back, “Wait a second, I know that voice from interviews… are you Y/N?”

“And we have a winner.” You rolled your eyes, standing from your seat and gesturing to the sound booth door you couldn’t open with a cast on your dominant hand, “Are we gonna get started or what? It’s already late and I have more mixing to do tonight.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He pulled his guitar from the case, gently fixing the tuning as you moved back to glaring at the ceiling. You just wanted to get this over with. You wished you were at home, watching tv or pranking Ichiya again because you were terrible at learning from mistakes or- “Can I make a suggestion before we start?”

The sound designer choked on her drink as the question came out- she was a huge fan of yours but panicked any time someone would question your music, she didn’t want to see you kicked from the studio. Your gaze shifted to meet his, fire burning in your irises, “What suggestions?”

He shrugged- were you even going to learn his name before it got printed on the album?- and finally finished setting up his guitar, “Just wondering if you could play me the tracks first so I can hear how you wanted it to sound outside of the sheet music.”

Your gaze was scrutinizing as you stared at him like he’d grown a second head, before finally giving a nod, “I’m sure Dahla can bring those up for you.”

“Who?”

The sound designer waved her hand at his question, you gestured to her, “Dahla. Our sound designer. Do not raise your voice to her, do not make demands. Make a request in a normal tone and she’s usually happy to comply.”

“Uh,” he blinked, unsure why he was being given this information, “Do you guys have shitty luck with studio players around here or something?”

“You could say that.” You gave her a pat on the shoulder, and she immediately queued up the first track, letting him get a feel for it before he disappeared into the sound booth.

It has been three days of working with the same musician, and you still didn’t know his name. Normally you wouldn’t care, when the recordings finished you generally went on your way and didn’t give them another thought, but unlike the others he respected your music. Unlike others, he heeded your words about the way to treat Dahla. Like Ichiya, she suffered anxiety that she majorly overcame to get a job working with artists she admired, but any time she was treated poorly it racked at her self esteem. This guitarist had been the first in a while that you could watch her willingly engage with. And you found yourself watching him more and more as the editing sessions and recordings continued. At the end of the final recording, Dahla just had to open her mouth about it, “So, Y/N, are you going to take him out to celebrate finishing? You know, like you usually do?”

You absolutely did not usually do that, but she mentioned it in front of him for a reason, making you stutter, “Uh, sure? If, you know, if he wants to. We should still be able to find somewhere open, if it’s not too late at night.”

It was pushing eight o clock, there were plenty of places open, but at the same time it gave him an out to claim he had to be up early or that he couldn’t go for one reason or another.

“Sounds fun, will you be joining us?” He shined that smile you’d realized was damn near perfect at Dahla, who offered up an easy laugh.

“Oh- can’t! I have to get the final cut to the agent, and Ichiya and Mei demanded I bring the hard copies over tonight.”

His brow furrowed, “Couldn’t Y/N just bring it home with-“

“Nope!” Dahla cut him off, waving and smiling, “It’s my job as the sound designer to make sure everyone is happy with the finished product.”

Blinking, the man turned to you as if looking for help, but you just sighed, “I would just let it go if I were you. Stubbornness is one of the reasons her tracks are always perfect.”

Dahla knocked her hip against yours as she stood up, slipping her jacket on, “And it’s why you always request me when working in the studio. Now, I’m off, have a great night you two!”

The man- you really needed to learn his name- raised an eyebrow as she scurried out the door, “She’s not a subtle one, is she?”

A bark of laughter escaped you, you hadn’t thought he caught on, “No. No, she is not. But how about that bite to eat?”

“So, what do you do?”

He was caught off guard by the question, blinking at you, “I play guitar?”

Rolling your eyes, you turned in your seat at the ramen counter to look at him, “Thanks, genius. I meant, what do you do usually? I figured it was safe to assume you didn’t wear a suit the first day because that was how you dress to play guitar.”

“Oh.” His cheeks flushed, “Yeah, sorry again for being late. Traffic actually wasn’t bad, but I got held up at my day job. Was afraid to say it because I didn’t want to studio to take the job back.”

“Not like they could.” You smirked, waving your still casted hand, “I can’t play. All the musicians staffed by the studio refuse to work with me. So they called in a…”

“Civil servant Semi Eita, at your service,” he mock saluted, “I work for the government, but music is my passion. Why do the other musicians refuse to work with you?”

You hummed, chuckling as you looked back at your bowl, “I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m not exactly a ray of sunshine. The musicians that have filled in before- say when Mei was sick or Ichiya managed to slam his fingers in a car door- they always tried to make me change the music to fit their style.”

He scoffed, “It isn’t their music to change.”

“Exactly!” You exclaimed, “But it labeled me as hard to work with, especially since I take part in the whole process up to when it actually hits the shelves.”

“You didn’t give me much trouble, aside from when I made you wait.”

“Made me wait and assumed I was studio staff.”

Semi winced, playing with his chopsticks to avoid looking up at you, “Yeah, not my best move. You look different outside of your stage get up.”

“My stage ‘get up’ isn’t a look.” You laughed, “I just happened to be very dressed down for a day in the studio when we met. Can’t do my full look with this cast on.”

He seemed to regard you for a moment, before offering a shrug, “You look good either way.”

You snorted, giving him a funny look as he seemed to realize what he said, “I was kidding- you know that right? No sane person would do that much work for an every day look.” He nodded, but you didn’t think he was even registering your words as he stared into space with a stone stiff posture. “Uh, Semi? You okay?”

He jerked to look at you, eyes wide despite the usual confidence you saw in him, “You know my name?”

Cringing, you gave him an embarrassed smile, “I didn’t until you said it, when you said you worked for the government.”

Was that a flash of disappointment in his eyes? “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

“To be fair, you never told it to me when we met. Which is probably my fault. I was annoyed you were late, and then I was glad you were late because if I stayed annoyed I wouldn’t get distracted from the work.”

“Why would you get distracted?”

“Cause you’re hot?” You were confused, didn’t he know that?

Suddenly the confidence you knew came back, a smirk sliding onto his face, “You think I’m hot?”

“I assume most people do,” you countered easily, sipping your sake, “I mean I have working eyes.”

“Good to know.” He answered, more to himself than anything, the smirk never leaving his face that night.

If your tour a few months later happened to have his band as the opener, many fans speculated that he must have impressed you- it was common knowledge that he was credited on the album after all. No one ever confirmed or denied the allegations, because, well… the reasoning was for you two to know.

No matter how much Dahla and Ichiya gave you shit about it.

Masterlist

#haikyuu #haikyuu x male reader #haikyuu x gender neutral reader #haikyuu semi #semi x reader #semi eita

[chloenotfound404]

Hi! Do you have any ler headcanons for some of the ghouls?

I’m so sorry this took so long so much happened and work caught up with me 😭💀 anyway LER HEADCANNONS!

Ler headcannons of the nameless ghouls!~

Swiss-

This cheeky fucker pulls out EVERYTHING.

So so so sneaky. He will literally hide and pounce on you, berating you with tickles everywhere.

He whole hold you tight into him to make sure you can’t get away as well.

His fingers skilled from his guitar playing, he knows how you get you to scream.

Such a little teasing shit, teases about EVERYTHING. Your laugh, your spots, how cute you were-literally everything.

If you were laying in bed watching something, cuddling or just chilling, he would lightly use his tail and flick it over your sides and stomach.

Additionally, he would pull you in and start blowing raspberries and nibbling.

He’s a mischievous shit and he LOVES it.

Sodo/dew-

More of a gentle ler than anything but also like Swiss- a shit when he wanted to be.

He would be much more of the cuddly ler type than Swiss. (Most of the time at least)

Holds you in a hug just gently spidering getting you to giggle.

I feel like he’s the type to tickle you to wake you up and to also tire you out. If you’re tired, lazy tickles. If you’ve had a nightmare, calming and relaxing tickles. That type for sure.

His teases are mostly identical to Swiss, but he adores seeing the anticipation of your giggles when he hovers over a spot.

I feel like he’d have lots of ler quirks. His ears would flinch and twitch hearing your laugher and his eyes would soften. Also tail wagging.

When he is a little shit, he is RUTHLESS.

Expect to be pinned under him and relentlessly teased and tickled.

He would giggle along with you and raspberry everywhere, like EVERYWHERE.

His fangs would nibble at you and he would use tools like a madman. Feathers, brushes, glossers-the lot.

Rain-

I view rain as lee-leaning for sure.

A really cutely awkward ler surprisingly.

Wouldn’t really know what to do if you hinted that you wanted to be wrecked.

I feel like he would ask you what you want so he doesn’t overstep or hurt you.

Awkward and slightly flustered to start with, but after a while he would start enjoying it.

This man’s fingers like sodo and Swiss, tickle like HELL.

Defiantly would target your weak spots and exploit the teases that fulfil the lee mood in you.

He would be such a sucker for giving sleepy tickles and somewhat romantic tickles. He always used tickling to flirt with you or play fight with you for sure.

In a way it was a love language even though he’s so awkward about it.

He’s a baby, he’s working on his confidence.

Mountain-

A surprisingly good ler actually.

Incredibly teasy and ruthless.

He would always chase you down to tickle you. He would even ask the band where you went to just dose he could have his fun.

Would destroy your weak spots in an INSTANT. Pulls out every technique to have you snorting and screeching.

A form of teasing for him would be trying to teach you drums, having you sat in his lap and jabbing your sides, ribs, stomach and armpits as you try and play.

Much like rain he uses tickling as a form of flirting and play fighting.

When you’re alone with him, he would be ruthless with you. Restraints, tools, maybe some spicy things too if you wanted that (I.e; gags, the long feather duster things, cuffs, other toys)

He would always keep those nights and private tickle moments between you. Even though most of the time they were playful.

Shockingly kinky shit but also incredibly playful.

Phantom-

Being the newer ghoul you were still getting used to his random attacks and playful nature.

Seems incredibly shy but defiantly is a playful little shit (like all the ghouls to be honest)

Defiantly the most playful of the ghouls, sneak attacks, tickle fights, annoying pokes. The whole lot.

If you’re every around the other ghouls defiantly expect him and them to gang up on you (mainly Swiss).

Again, being a guitarist his fingers are torturous and fast.

He would be rehearsing or practicing and use you as a guitar instead and tickle the shit out of you.

Being newer, his fangs were slightly blunter and make the perfect tickle tools to have you squealing.

I don’t see him using tools or restraints but he’s the type to pin you to him or against something, and he uses his fingers/claws, tongue, fangs and tail as his tools of choice.

Loves giving playful baby teases just to hear your giggles and see you blush.

Aurora-

This baby, so small yet such a lethal but gentle ler.

Gentle and relaxing tickles all the way.

Stressful day? She’s always the one to go to.

Loves giving you relaxing tickles whilst just letting you vent the troubles of your day. Or just letting you giggle let’s be honest.

If you’re ever nervous she’ll just wreck you.

Not a merciless or mean wreck, but gentle wrecking.

Gentle fluttering fingers jus gently wrecking you to let your nerves settle.

Would totally give you gentle teases and tickles as you two just relax together.

Might on occasion team up with phantom for a little play fight with you when you’re tense.

Cumulus-

This queen is a playfully lethal ler.

Sneak attacks are her specialty especially when you’re doing your work around the ministry.

Doing chores? Expect surprise tickles. Doing paperwork? Expect pokes to your sides. Helping out on tour? Expect to be fully wrecked.

Surprisingly a more reckless ler like the ghouls but defiantly a more sympathetic one.

She just loves seeing you happy because when you’re happy she’s happy too.

No tools or restraints, she loves tickling you just for the bonding and playfulness.

Might team up with Swiss to tease you, maybe pin you to help Swiss wreck you.

Cirrus-

Much like aurora a gentle queen.

Doesn’t usually ler much but she’s so precious when she does.

Such a gentle baby, gentle tickles and teases.

Defiantly checks in on you to make sure you feel comfortable.

Gentle tickles are her forte, specifically gentle arm, back and side tickles.

She would absentmindedly trace her nails over you whist chilling just to hear your giggles.

Probably would use her tail to gently tickle you if she was rehearsing.

Such a baby. So so cute.

(Also giggles with you can’t change my mind)

#tword content #tword community #ticklee #tickler #twordish #the band ghost #tickle #tickle community #ghost band #nameless ghouls #nameless ghoulettes #swiss ghoul #sodo ghoul #phantom ghoul #mountain ghoul #rain ghoul #aurora ghoulette #cumulus ghoulette #cirrus ghoulette #the band ghost fic #the band ghost headcanons

[glitterdustcyclops]

okay can someone do me a favor and read this and tell me it's not absolute garbage so i can get my brain to stop second-guessing itself? thanks

this is the first part of the first chapter of one of my WIPs, which is like if velvet goldmine were a romance novel instead, featuring my favorite neon disaster girl frankie, her BFF and platonic life partner gabriel, and gabe's new love interest, the Very Totally Heterosexual matt

“Wake up gay boy!”

There were a lot of moments in Gabriel Foster’s life that he regretted, but he thought this one would probably rank in at least the top ten. And wasn’t that sad? But he couldn’t say he appreciated being awoken by the sound of his best friend in the entire universe, Francine Takahashi, quite literally throwing her bedroom door open and practically screaming at him at the top of her lungs as she did.

There was a woosh of a soft and heavy lump landing on his head, and that turned out to be pants. His pants.

And that was when Gabe realized he was lying in Frankie’s bed with his face mashed into her pillow and his bony body wrapped in her hand-crocheted granny square afghan, clad in nothing but his sluttiest club-going briefs. And, of course, there was the fact that he was also horribly, inescapably hungover.

So just like any other Saturday morning, really.

Gabe groaned in indignation, his head pounding merrily away while obnoxious amounts of sunlight poured in through Frankie’s thin lacy white curtains, painful even from behind his desperately shut-tight eyelids. He decided right then and there that he hated every atom in the universe that made up this moment very, very much. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to stop the horror from occurring, of course.

Christ what time is it?

Probably, if his past experience was anything to go by, late enough in the morning it technically counted as afternoon, and Gabe figured he had to have been pretty fucked up last night if Frankie had brought him back here instead of dumping him at his own place. It wasn’t exactly a rare occasion to find himself here in his best platonic soulmate’s bed under her (actually rather soft, he had to admit) afghan, feeling like the residue on the bottom of a garbage can. No. It was depressingly becoming a regular occurrence at this point, and Gabe thought he should probably worry about what that said about his steady descent into alcoholism at some point, but for the moment he couldn’t be fucked to do more than lay there wallowing.

Snatches of the previous evening were coming back to him. Most of it was still blanked out by lots of alcohol and neon lighting, but he was getting enough to form a somewhat coherent picture of the events, and definitely enough that he could be utterly mortified by it.

They’d all gone out together, The Peaches, like they’d been doing a lot lately; soaking up the hard-partying rock-god lifestyle while they could, before their tour officially started. Frankie had been performing at The Ruby—their favorite queer burlesque/drag venue—and everything had been so sultry and seductive under the glitter of the lights, the warmth of expensive whisky flooding his belly, and then…fuck. Warner had been there too, of course. As the lead guitarist for The Peaches William Warner was no stranger to The Ruby, and he had just looked so incredible there in all his untouchable golden glory, so confident and sure in himself even as the lone heterosexual at a queer club. So of course the two of them had started dancing together, and Warner had been laughing and he always looked so fucking good when he was laughing, and then—

Gabe moaned in utter agony as he remembered what else the two of them had got up to last night. In the bathroom of a gay bar. With his supposedly straight bandmate. Again. Jesus Christ could he be any more of a cliché? Gabe made a silent promise to himself then, one that he knew he would never actually keep, that he would not do this again. He would stop drinking if he had to. Not another drop of alcohol would touch his sinful lips for as long as he lived, and then he would stop getting himself into Situations with Straight Boys.

Amen.

“And how are we this morning?” Frankie practically sang at him in perfect Disney Princess pitch, as she plopped down at the foot of the bed. Right on top of his poor vulnerable ankles.

Damned harpy Gabe thought, but all he managed in reply was a small anguished “unnnnhh.”

Frankie giggled. Meanly. “Y’know, I bet the fansites would get a kick out of this. I should go grab my camera.”

The sound of her joy at his misfortune felt like iron stakes being driven directly into his skull, and Gabe groaned pathetically again.

“Nnnnh fuck you.”

“I know babe, love you too.” She patted his leg condescendingly, and Gabe could just imagine the wicked smirk that would be on her face as she did. “C’mon, get up, get dressed, let’s go. Hangover Breakfast. My treat.”

It had been their Saturday Morning-or-Afternoon Tradition, even long before they’d started staying out all night being indie-famous rockstars. Back when Gabe had just been a newly-out self-conscious college freshman and Frankie had made it her mission to induct him into the Homosexual Lifestyle by taking him out to bars and watching him make a fool of himself in public. The two of them had been doing it for over half a decade at this point, and time had proven there was no better cure for an evening out drinking than a quality Hangover Breakfast at their favorite seedy local diner, Mel’s.

But for the life of him, at that moment Gabe honestly couldn’t remember why. Just the thought of sitting upright, in public, let alone in an establishment dedicated to serving heaping plates of artery-clogging fare, sounded like a scenario straight out of a bizarre breakfast-themed Saw rip-off. All Gabriel really wanted to do right now was curl into the smallest possible ball he could manage, and then die.

“Nooo…don’ wannaaa…”

“Oh yes you do, ya big baby. Come on, up up up! You’ll feel better after some food, I promise.” Frankie poked him somwhere near his ribs and Gabe squirmed helplessly as much as he could, trapped as he was underneath her blanket.

He honestly didn’t think he could handle putting anything else in his body right now—and of course he wanted to groan again at the reminder of what, or rather, who he had been putting in there last night—but Gabriel knew better than to try and argue with Francine Takahashi: Most Stubborn Person in the Universe. So instead he kicked his feet vaguely in her direction as a final act of rebellion and then managed to pull himself to sit up, muttering darkly the entire time.

Frankie positively beamed at him, her neon-pink-orange dyed hair glowing almost painfully bright from the light through the windows, and Gabe flipped her off before he disentangled himself from her sheets and then stumbled out into the hall, towards the bathroom.

For a split second he worried how it might look, coming out of Frankie’s bedroom practically naked, but Frankie’s roommate Aurora tended to be so blithely self-interested it was like she didn’t notice anything that wasn’t happening about four inches from her face on the glowing surface of her phone screen. He shook his head a bit. Aurora was a weird one, making her living dressing up as a mermaid and being photographed at hotel pools, but she and Frankie had somehow remained good friends since her first year living in the dorms, when they had been thrown together through the whims of the University Student Housing Department, so Gabe tried not to question it.

It was a little strange that Frankie was still living here at all, he couldn’t help but think. At this point none of them strictly needed roommates since The Peaches’ last album was doing so much better than any of them could have predicted. They had been signed to a shiny new label and were about to go on a sold-out North American tour, a fact which made Gabe’s stomach nearly lurch up his throat every time he thought about it for too long. It seemed that his and Frankie’s starving artist days were officially going to be over. But maybe it was nice for her to be somewhere familiar, when everything else in their lives were changing so fast. He honestly couldn’t help but envy her a bit, for that she had that.

Gabe reached the shared bathroom in the hallway opposite Frankie’s room without further incident, and he didn’t bother to turn on the light as he shut the door and awkwardly hovered over the sink, the glittery plastic skull nightlight glowing eerily purple next to him casting strange shadows across his face. Things were a bit dicey there for a moment, but he guessed he must have already vomitted up the contents of his stomach at some point during the previous evening, because all Gabe really managed were a couple of weary dry heaves that lead to nothing but painful hacking coughs that scraped across the sandpaper surface of his throat.

The water from the sink was almost pathetically refreshing after that, and he took several grateful gulps to get rid of the dead-carcass-picked-over-by-vultures feeling in his mouth.

He observed himself in the mirror then. The remnants of his eye makeup had been smudged past the point of “artfully dishevelled” into raccoon territory and his lips were dry and cracking, while a very obvious hicky was already purpling up along the sharp incline of his collarbone. He winced. Hiding in Frankie’s bathroom for the rest of his life seemed a more appealing option than having to go out there and face the sober light of day, and at that point he was actually desperate enough to consider it. Until Frankie herself appeared, pounding on the door and threatening to drag him out by whatever parts she could grab, clothed or not.

So Gabe emerged a few minutes later, hungover and grumpy and feeling ever-so-slightly used and a whole lot pathetic. But at least he had pants on. And at least he was a bit less nauseous than he had been before. Small miracles.

Frankie laughed again, but she managed to make it sound slightly sympathetic that time.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Gabe muttered as he followed her from the hallway out into the living room.

“Yeah, I honestly kind of am.”

The living room was even brighter, somehow, than Frankie’s bedroom had been. Clean white late-morning-or-early-afternoon (Gabe still wasn’t sure, and he couldn’t be bothered to check) light flooded in through the shitty wooden blinds that did fuck-all to stop the glare, while Aurora herself had been haphazardly thrown across the futon, her face awash in the familiar glow of her phone, a look of deep concentration etched into her furrowed brows.

Only that woman could’ve made scrolling through Instagram look that intense.

“Morning,” she said vaguely, without looking up, her long blonde hair slipping loose from the clip holding it up in a messy bun to hang around her face.

“Morning!” Frankie trilled back while Gabe said nothing, because he was too busy covering his ears to muffle the sudden pain.

Frankie left him listing slightly to the side but mostly still upright in the entryway to the living room while she skipped over to the kitchen, grabbing a giant bottle of Gatorade out of the fridge and a mysterious bottle of generic pills—probably Tylenol, or maybe if he was lucky, tranquillizers—and then skipped back over and shoved them in his hands. The magical combination of lemon-lime Sport Drink and painkillers made him feel marginally less like a reanimated corpse than he had before, so Gabe murmured a grudging thank you in her direction before he was shuffled out the door and into Frankie’s precious lime green Volkswagen Beetle, Daisy—so named for the white daisy stickers she’d stuck all over the sides—and driven to Mel’s.

Gabe couldn’t decide whether or not the routine was comfortingly familiar, or just depressing. Or maybe both. But he liked having these places that belonged just to them. Mel’s Diner was something of a local institution, Gabe’s one-time employer and the secret hideaway of several local bands, including The Peaches. They were familiar enough with the staff that no one would rat it out to the press, and the peeling red glitter vinyl booths and slightly-sticky plastic tables had become a safe haven for him over the years. Which was rapidly becoming a necessity, the more recognizable The Peaches got.

Well, at least if Gabe had to put up with getting recognized in public (which was still a total mindfuck every time it happened), he was glad to have Frankie beside him. She had been his bestest best friend for practically forever at this point. Over a decade, now. Since that very first day when she had knocked over the music stand they were sharing in sixth grade orchestra. She’d giggled like mad and Gabe had fallen ever-so-slightly in love with her, just like that.

God.

That felt like it was an entire lifetime away. Probably there was something unhealthily co-dependent in relying on one person for that long, but whatever. She was his Frankie, his Manic Pixie Fag Hag, self-appointed platonic soulmate and rhythm guitarist for The Peaches, and as much as he liked to complain about what a terror she was, Gabriel knew he would never trade her for all the money and riches in the world.

She was even being considerate for once, keeping the volume of her car stereo low—Pet Sounds on tape as always—and not talking incessantly as she drove, like she normally would have. Gabe slumped against the side of the car with his face pressed against the cool glass surface of the window, his hand on the crank ready to roll at a moment’s notice. Just in case. He’d fished out one of the many pairs of heart-shaped sunglasses that Frankie kept stashed in the glove compartment and they made a valiant attempt to block out the 2:00 PM sunlight.

Well, 2:00 according to the dash clock, anyway. So it could have been anywhere from 11 to 3, depending on the last time Frankie had actually bothered to update the thing. And who knew when that was.

Gabe was still stubbornly refusing to check his phone. It seemed better to exist in that timeless morn-afternoon void than be confronted with…well, Warner probably hadn’t bothered to text him anyway. Rarely did, these days. And of course Gabe wouldn’t have cared if he did. At least, he tried to tell himself that, but he wasn’t sure how well he was listening, as some horrible stupid moronic part of his brain insisted on making his stomach go all fluttery at just the thought of reading Warner’s hypothetical texts.

Ugh.

Ridiculous.

They ambled into Mel’s eventually, Gabe trying to rub the sleep crumbs from his eyes as he followed behind Frankie and they took their usual booth. It was blessedly empty, another perk of being friendly with the staff. Frankie sprawled across the entire left half while Gabe dutifully took the side facing the doorway, and after a moment’s hesitation he threw himself onto the surface of the table with another pitiful whimper.

“You are such a drama queen!” Frankie admonished him, and Gabe could practically hear the eyeroll in her voice. He’d known her for way too long. “Seriously, babe, worse than me.”

“Frankie?” Gabe replied, his voice muffled from where his head still rested against the table. “Shut. Up.”

“Blehh,” she responded eloquently, and then they were interrupted by a new voice.

“Hey there you two! Can I getcha started with some drinks?”

Gabe’s brain was too busy pounding like an entire invading army company was marching through it for him to even contemplate doing something as unthinkable as lifting his head up to look at their waitress—not one of the ones he was personally acquainted with he guessed—but still he knew, deep down in his soul, that he hated her deeply. Intimately. And the sound of her too-cheery voice sliding along all his nerve endings like a cheese grater definitely didn’t help matters.

“I’ll have a strawberry milkshake and he’ll have water,” he heard Frankie say.

“Alrighty! I’ll be right back with those, go ahead and take a look at your menus and let me know if you have any questions.”

Questions? It’s a diner not the Ritz.

Eventually Gabe did manage to sit up, resting his palm under his chin and attempting to give Frankie his most dour of glares, but the effect was probably ruined somewhat by the pink heart-shaped sunglasses he hadn’t bothered to take off, and you know, the massive hangover too. He was sure his expression was giving more “pained grimace” than “haughty glance” but it was close enough.

“Isn’t the traditional hangover remedy always coffee?” he groused, just to be difficult.

Frankie wrinkled her nose in response, a move Gabe normally found rather endearing when he wasn’t committed to hating her for forcing him to be in public when he felt like a hungover gay disaster.

“And when, my dear, in the history of forever, have you ever voluntarily drunk black coffee?”

“Touché.” Gabe shrugged, and couldn’t quite hide the hint of a smile lurking at the corners of his lips.

“I swear,” she continued, fiddling idly with the paper band from her napkin, because this was a classy joint, “It is actually amazing how bad you are at being hungover, considering how often you do it. You’re the worst rockstar ever, babe.”

Frankie giggled again.

“Wasn’t aware it was something you could get a good grade in,” Gabe replied, before sticking his tongue out at her and laying his face back down on the table.

Sure, he wasn’t exactly new to this particular experience; if not for his misspent early twenties as a slutty club kid, then the past three or four trying to become a rock legend and playing in shitty bars would’ve seen to that. But even so, this particular hangover felt like a new and exciting kind of terrible, especially when he considered the whole moronically-throwing-himself-at-his-straight-bandmate part of the deal. And the worst part was that Gabe knew, as sure as he knew his own name, that as much as he was protesting right now, he would probably be doing it all over again the next time they performed.

The feeling was just too addictive. Everything went all shiny-bright and warm; electric and alive as the alcohol pouring through his veins turned all his limbs loose and free. When he was under the influence, he could get out of his stupid head and away from his stupid too-short limbs, the whole of him flowing out to spread around to all those other warm, interesting bodies surrounding him on the dance floor or the stage. That sweet release of escaping into the beat. It was a high, plain and simple, as thrilling and seductive as any Gabe had ever known. Whether he was singing to a crowd of hundreds or one anonymous body in a sea of others, the feeling was the same.

But he couldn’t think of a way to describe that to Frankie that wouldn’t make her think he definitely had a problem, so he just sighed dramatically and let her continue gently poking fun at what a ridiculously miserable lump he was right now.

After a while he vaguely overheard Frankie ordering food for them, and just the sound of it was enough to make his stomach turn again. He almost ran to the bathroom but he was too tired to move, and after a couple of worrying lurches the feeling passed, so he let it go. Instead he fantasized about melting off the booth to settle into a puddle on the floor underneath so he didn’t have to person anymore. But then Gabe shuddered to imagine what crumbs and things could be lurking down there, so maybe no melting. Not today.

And it didn’t matter anyway, because suddenly Frankie was kicking him rather pointedly in the shin with one of her stupid platform heels, and he was pulled out of his head with a petulant whine.

“What?”

“Food’s here.”

“Ugh,” Gabe sighed, managing to pull his head up again.

Which was a mistake, because then he found himself face-to-face with an honest-to-God breakfast fucking orgy. Just sitting there across from him, wafting horribly tormenting smells his way: a huge platterfull of all of his very favorite things. Bacon and eggs and hashbrowns and sausage and pancakes and more bacon, all of it lovingly arranged and mouthwateringly decadent in that perfect greasy-diner way.

And all of it Frankie pulled towards herself, before nudging a small, sad plate of dry toast in front of him.

“Eat up.” She smirked.

“You are a cruel, cruel woman,” he sniffed back.

“I mean, yes, obviously. But come on, I doubt you could actually eat any of this right now. Toast’ll help soak up all the gunk left in your stomach, babe.”

“I don’t want toast. I want bacon.”

Gabe knew he wouldn’t have been able to eat it just then, but still. Bacon was worth that sacrifice. Frankie gave him a dubious look.

“Let’s see how you do with toast first, kay?”

“Harpy.”

He gave the corner of his toast an experimental little nibble as he leaned his chin on his hand again. The slice tasted mostly of cardboard and sadness, but he knew it was about the most he could handle at the moment. Which, of course, didn’t make him feel any better as Frankie helped herself to a thick, perfectly crisp slice of bacon, gesturing around with it and dancing by herself in the booth, conducting her own private symphony as she devoured her breakfast orgy. It simply was not fair that Frankie could be so effortlessly carefree at a time like this.

Of course, that was how it had always been. Frankie had a disturbingly high alcohol tolerance, and what was worse was that she also never drank, apart from maybe two times that Gabe could remember in their almost two decades of friendship. She didn’t smoke or do drugs either, not even weed. She never judged anyone around her who did, but she preferred a “natural high” as she described it once. And with anyone else that would have been obnoxious as hell, but it was Frankie.

He wouldn’t want her to change for anything in the world.

It was one of the things Gabe loved most about her, actually. Her carefree zest for life without chemical enhancements. Her ability to find humor and joy even in the smallest of moments. It’s what kept him sane, kept him grounded when everything else in their lives felt so shiny and unreal it threatened to overwhelm him. It was what made her precious, his sweet slice of sunshine. Even if it made him terribly, horribly jealous sometimes.

Because Frankie would never have the pleasure of getting wasted at a gay bar before performing ill-advised fellatio on a bandmate.

God.

Thankfully the finer details of last night were still mostly blurred behind an alcohol haze, but one singular moment stood out in shining awful clarity, of course: Gabriel, on his knees like a wanton harlot, the grimy tile of the men’s bathroom digging into him as he looked up at Will above him, with all those miles of perfect golden skin peaking out from underneath his tight white t-shirt, his flushed cheeks and panting chest and oh, the wanting, such wonderful longing all for him. And Gabe wanted just as much. Wanted everything, the heat and thrill of Will’s calloused fingers against him, the desperate yearning to be taken apart.

In the present Gabe sighed again, staring somewhere at the middle of the table and fiddling idly with a butter knife, having given up on the toast completely.

The rational, objective part of his brain knew it was totally pathetic to be so wrecked over the whole thing, but the rest of him couldn’t seem to stop. It almost felt good in a painfully self-indulgent sort of way, to soak in all of his misery and terrible gay pining. He was helplessly, hopelessly head-over-heels in love with his supposedly straight friend, and the fact that Warner was also the lead fucking guitarist of his band didn’t seem to be a deterrent. If anything it made the whole thing more appealing, getting to watch him on stage night after night gilded in those bright lights, playing his heart out, sweaty and raw and so alive.

All Gabe’s strict rules about not fraternizing with fellow band members had flown right out the goddamn window, long before he’d gotten to his knees in that bathroom stall, if he were honest. It should have concerned him more. He knew he was probably fucking up everything he’d worked so hard to build, all for some dumb boy with pretty green eyes. God. He was fucked.

Tomorrow, Gabe resolved, he would take all of these feelings and lock them back up in a box and bury it somewhere deep deep down in his psyche. Last night was the last time. He needed to get over this pathetic crush and focus on what really mattered. If this tour went well the label would be more willing to give up some creative control for their next album. The Peaches were on the verge of greatness, as absolutely wild it was to think, and all the things Gabe tried to tell himself were silly to want, the money and the fame, actually seemed within their grasp.

So. It was time to pull his head out of his ass and focus. But, for today at least, he would stew as much as he liked. And thankfully Frankie seemed content to let him marinate, busy amusing herself by playing with her pancakes and making dinosaur noises as she ate.

Gabe couldn’t help the fond smile that lurked at the edges of his mouth as he watched her from behind his borrowed glasses. Frankie was usually so bright she almost hurt to look at. His neon-colored girl. She was giving excellent Manic Pixie today, with her clashingly-bright vintage floral dress and her signature magenta-orange bisexual bob cut and thick black cat-eye frame glasses, her bangs blunt and her smile the color of a blue raspberry snowcone, yellow glittery pineapples dangling from her ears.

That was who she had always been. Loud and sparkly and too much, the exclamation point at the end of a sentence that demanded attention. It was how the two of them worked so well; Gabe was all mystery, all dark shadows and dark hair and dark eyes and soft-spoken voice, and Frankie was the dazzling disco ball that cast the light on whatever she was around. When they were younger he appreciated that she would soak up all the glorious spotlight for herself while he faded quietly away into the background, but now as Aiden Wilde, frontman of The Peaches, he had learned to channel his darkness into something sultry, something seductive and a little dangerous. The leather-clad panther against her neon sparkling weirdo, the contrast that brought both into sharper clarity.

They were a pair, and whatever else happened around them, Gabe was never ever gonna let her go.

But of course, right at that moment, with Gabe feeling like an absolute pathetic mess while Frankie did something ridiculous in the background, was the same exact moment that William Warner himself waltzed into Mel’s like he’d been conjured specifically to fuck with Gabe, and he felt his heart nearly lurch up into his throat. Jesus Christ Warner looked so good and it wasn’t fair; he had to have been as drunk as Gabe was last night. But you couldn’t tell by looking at him, in his loose jeans and tight t-shirt, his stupid floppy sandy blond hair hanging as if it were hand-sculpted by the gods to look that fucking good.

He wasn’t alone either, surrounded by the members of Massive Aggression, a local alternative band that was also gaining prominence among the indie scene, and all of them were laughing and talking like the popular clique in a 90’s teen romcom.

Fuck.

In addition to his posse of much-cooler friends, Warner had a frivolous little piece of arm candy dangling off him, all pin-straight extensions and fake tits, her eyes gleaming like a cartoon wolf who had just spied a particularly juicy steak. Frankie would’ve probably called Gabe out on the misogyny of describing another woman like that, and part of him hated that he was going all “Jolene” about a straight dude he drunkenly went down on like twice, but still. Gabe’s hands curled into fists of their own accord, his heart beating rapidly and his stomach full of butterflies as he nearly choked on a desperate intake of breath.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Of course, as Satan was the personal set-designer for Gabe’s shitty goddamn life, and because their table was close to the entrance, the Cool Kid Clique would have to pass right by their booth to get to one of the open seats.

“Oh fuck me,” Gabe moaned in horror, slamming his head down onto the table again.

“Babe, don’t you think you’re being a leetle overdramatic? I mean, it is just a hangover.” Frankie was probably rolling her eyes again, totally unaware of the mortifying ordeal that had been unfolding behind her.

“Oh my God Frankie, please,” Gabe pleaded, as if Jurassic Park rules applied and as long as they didn’t make any sudden moves no one would notice, “for the love of God, just shut the fuck up.”

“No I will not shut the fuck up! Look I’m sorry you don’t feel super great but you’ve been acting like kind of a jerk all morning and I love you, but I think it’s fu-uh-err—”

And then suddenly Frankie had stopped mid-rant, her voice trailing off into an awkward little squeak.

“Oh, Warner,” she said desperately, after a beat of horrible silence. “Uh hey dude! Fancy meeting you here, ha ha!”

“Hey guys,” that achingly familiar warm voice rumbled right next to their table, all surfer boy charm dripping like honey from every syllable.

God.

All the hairs on the back of Gabe’s arms were suddenly standing at attention, a helpless little shiver running up and down his spine at the slight rasp to the edge of Warner’s voice. He was abject over the man, and it was pathetic.

Gabriel bolted upright, part of his brain wishing this was all just some weird alcohol-induced nightmare, even as he tried to pretend he wasn’t still hungover as hell and dying inside at the sight of him.

“Uh hey man! What’s up!” Gabe practically shouted, pretty sure his smile was edging into deranged territory.

“Y-ya okay?” Will asked instead, an edge of genuine concern knitting his brows.

Gabe gulped, pointedly ignoring the amused chuckles from Warner’s little posse behind him. Massive Aggression had been trying to court Warner over to their side for a while. He always claimed he wasn’t interested, they were just buddies, but seeing them all together like that…

Something hot and angry and sharp flared in Gabe’s stomach then.

Warner looked away guiltily, as if he could read the thoughts written on Gabe’s face. Hell, he probably could. Fuck, this was the worst. Gabe wanted to unzip his skin and crawl out of it like cicada shell. He wanted to run very very far away, and at the same time dissolve himself into nothingness. But most of all, he just really wanted Will to stop looking at him like that, as if he had been caught. Red-faced and ashamed.

So Gabe panicked, just a bit.

“Oh yeah man, totally fine! I mean, why wouldn’t I be? Haha, yep, it’s all great over here. So thanks but we’re all super fine, okay? See you later!”

Frankie and Warner both stared at him, and Gabe was pretty sure he was in the midst of an actual breakdown. Warner’s posse all laughed rather enthusiastically, and he could swear Frankie’s mouth was actually hanging open a bit.

“A-alright?” Will attempted, blinking back and forth between Frankie and him as if he was trying to understand a complex puzzle. “I guess…I’ll see you guys at practice?”

“Sure thing!”

With a final awkward wave William Warner stumbled away, turning back to his cooler friends. Who were openly mocking Gabe at this point as they all went to their own table. Neat.

Gabe managed to turn his gaze back to Frankie, who was still perched there with her blue lips in that perfect little “oh,” genuinely stunned silent, for once.

“Not. One. Word,” Gabe growled through clenched teeth, glaring at her from behind his sunglasses, as if it would help anything.

Frankie blinked once, twice, and then finally errupted into a fit of hysterical laughter.

“Oh my God babe,” she said, breathless with giggles, leaning her own head in her hands as if she couldn’t hold herself up with how ridiculous Gabe was, “what the entire fuck was that?”

“Nope.” Gabe was definitely not blushing right now. “Nuh-uh, nope. I’m not saying anything.”

“You are the most absurd person I know,” she said, finally calming down enough to speak normally, though her eyes were still practically glimmering with mirth. Because she was a horrible person. “And you know it’s bad, cuz it’s me saying that.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, his arms crossed in front of his chest defensively and his foot bobbing wildly underneath the table. Running away was seeming the more appealing option by the second.

“Soo…” Frankie started, when it became obvious that Gabe was intent on sitting there in stone cold silence for the next millennia or so. “Do…are we gonna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Oh come on! I’m your platonic life partner, I’m here for you! You can tell me anything!”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come onn Gabe,” she pouted. “You can’t just sit there pining for forever.”

“Frankie,” Gabe said, an acid edge of warning to his voice. “Leave it.”

“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes.

There was a beat of silence then, Frankie looking everywhere but at Gabe’s face.

“I said leave it,” he growled at her again.

“What? I didn’t say anything!”

“I can hear you thinking it.”

Francine Takahashi gave her best friend a very vocal look, the singular deadly quirk of her sharp black brow speaking volumes. Because of course she already knew every intimate detail of Gabriel’s hopeless wretched crush on Will; on the past few years he’d spent pining and the previous nights of drunken mistakes. Because she was his best friend, and she knew everything about him. Unfortunately.

And of course Warner was refusing to talk about any of it, preferring to stay in the zone of plausible deniability. And Gabe let him. He knew he was a total moron for it, but he kept going back anyway. It had to have been some kind of masochism or something. Some self-destructive impulse to take the one good thing in his life, the thing he’d wanted so desperately and dreamed about for so long, that he’d never thought he’d have but somehow managed to build anyway, and then completely fuck it up over a stupid crush.

But whenever they were on stage, and William gave him that look, all heat and longing—just for show, he’d claim—or whenever they were together in private, always sitting close as possible, sometimes Gabe perched right on Will’s lap, and he never seemed to mind then, or whenever Will gave him one of those rarer, soft smiles that he only shared with him, God. It was like being lit up from the inside. He was powerless to stop.

And Frankie’s judgmental little eyebrows were definitely not helping the situation, at all.

“I seriously hate you,” Gabriel finally said, sighing in defeat.

“No you don’t,” Frankie replied, another roll of her eyes. “I mean, who’s the kind-hearted soul who, instead of focusing on perfecting her legendary drag act, took the time to ferry your skinny hipster ass out to the club and then babysat you while you got smashed, and didn’t complain once the entire time? And who’s the absolute saint who then drove your drunk stupid ass back to her own apartment at like three in the goddamn morning, when she could have instead been spending her time being flirted at by hot queers, listening to you moan about him the entire fucking time? And who then spent the rest of the very very late evening-slash-early-morning scrubbing your vomit out of her precious Daisy, huh?”

Gabe cringed.

Okay. So maybe he was being a bit of a total asshole, when she put it like that. He wished he could blame the way he’d been treating her on everything going on with Warner, but that wasn’t really fair to her. Honestly, Gabe knew he��d been taking her for granted lately. And sure, Frankie was a horrible person who had bullied him into going out in public when he was feeling miserable and hungover and ashamed, but she was still his very best friend in the entire universe. And sure, she had been a little bit too amused at his plight earlier, but she had also been spending the entire time—and probably most of the previous evening as well—taking care of him.

Honestly, she’d been doing that for a lot longer than just last night. Because she always did. That was Frankie. And it wasn’t her fault that Gabe’s life felt like such a disaster zone right now.

“I—” he sighed again. “Thanks, Frankie. I’m sorry you have to put up with such an asshole for a best friend, but thank you for looking out for me.”

He hoped she could hear the subtext behind those words. I love you.

“You’re right, you are such an ungrateful bastard,” she snipped back at him. “And you’re welcome.”

Then she smiled, and Gabe knew what she really meant to say. I love you too.

And with that their weird little fight was forgotten, and Frankie went back to her normal ridiculous pixie self. The two of them sat in companionable silence for a bit, Gabe’s face propped back up on his hand while he watched Frankie drag a half-eaten sausage through the remnants of her pancake syrup and hum a little melody to herself. After a while she valiantly offered to go up to the register and pay while Gabe did his very best impression of a slightly-less-miserable lump.

She’d left him the last piece of bacon, he realized, and he was ridiculously touched by that as he munched slowly on it and waited for her return. Gabe knew then that the situation was more dire than he first thought, because not even bacon was able to lift his spirits.

Frankie waltzed back eventually, taking a final slip of the mostly-melted milkshake remnants in the bottom of her glass, before setting it back down and smirking at him.

“You better yet?” she asked, towering over the booth in her absurd platform heels. She was wearing the electric blue ones today, to match her lipstick. Of course.

Gabe gave her a noncommittal mumble, but made no further effort to dislodge himself from his side of the booth just yet.

“Because if you get any more vomit on Daisy I will be dumping your ass on the side of the road, hangover or not.”

“Time to go?” he asked instead.

“Yeah I’m bored.”

Gabe didn’t really want to be in this place any more either, so he finally pulled himself up and followed Frankie as she skipped her way out the door.

And out of some idiotic whim he would never, ever understand, Gabe took one last look back over his shoulder, scanning the tables. For him. And of course, there he was. Gabriel was like a stupid horny moth drawn to that golden-bright flame; Will in the center of his table surrounded by cooler people, that bimbo basically in his lap as he laughed, gilded in the attention of the group around him.

Suddenly Will must have felt Gabe’s eyes on him, because he looked up just then, and for one lingering perfect moment, they made eye contact across the diner. Gabe felt his insides go all gooey like taffy as the weight of Warner’s dazzling gold-green eyes settled on him, but then the moment was gone. Warner broke their eye contact, looking away and laughing at something someone had said to him.

Wrecked Gabe utterly, just like always.

“Gabe?” Frankie called, standing expectantly by the doors and holding one open for him.

“Yeah?” he shook his head, finally managing to tear his gaze away. “Coming.”

And at least he did not turn around again as he walked out, trying to put the saunter back in his steps. Just because he felt like the residue on the bottom of trash can didn’t mean he had to act like it.

Gabe expected to be bundled back into Daisy and driven back to The Factory—the literal converted factory warehouse that he’d bought with the advance from the label, part apartment, part home recording studio, part rehearsal space—but he thought Frankie must have realized he was still in a funk because instead she grabbed his hand and lead him off down a side-street, deeper into downtown. One of her mad little Adventures. They used to do it all the time when Gabe still lived near Mel’s. Frankie’s incorrigible sense of weirdness tended to lead them to all sorts of strange little places that he normally overlooked.

First, a local record store that they liked to pop in on sometimes, where Gabe argued with the clerk about genre classifications and Frankie called both of them pretentious assholes. Then they found their favorite thrift store and played their usual game of finding the most ridiculous stuff to force each other to try on; Frankie threw an impromptu fashion show right in the middle of the store as she modeled her face off, wearing an oversized atrociously 80’s sweater paired with a floral silk kimono and a feather boa.

Just to make Gabe smile.

He thumbed over the video on his phone fondly as the two of them ambled down the street. They came across a farmer’s market of some sort spilled across a brick-lined plaza in the middle of a nearby park, in defiance of the already-hot weather, and there was live music and the overlapping chatter of milling voices. People hawked their wares while a cute couple chased their dog down and some of the milling crowd laughed, while a few kids were running around in that carefree way only children could manage. Even from here it smelled like fresh grass and baked goods, and Gabe wanted to bottle up the moment and tuck it away inside his pocket, to keep forever.

Frankie turned to face him, her hand warm where it still gripped his and her chipped glitter nail polish glinting faintly in the early-afternoon sun. She had a wicked glimmer in her brown eyes, a smirk on her face.

“Shall we?”

Like he had a choice? But Gabe laughed anyway, feeling just a bit lighter as she lead him down the little walkways between the stalls, her free hand poking and prodding at everything she could, interrogating each person she talked to about their raw honey or organic bath products or whatever else they were selling. Because that was Frankie. She dazzled in the small moments, her attention flattering and overwhelming in equal measure. Gabe was content to bob along behind her, smiling warmly whenever someone glanced at him, but not saying much.

As Frankie scrutinized a fresh brie from a local cheesemonger Gabriel let his attention wander, and that’s when he heard it. It wasn’t hard to miss, and he’d been attuned to it over the past few months. That sound was becoming more and more familiar lately; whispers somewhere behind him, along with a few nervous giggles.

“Oh my God I think that’s them!”

“It totally is. Should we go up?”

“Eee! I don’t know, you do it.”

“No way, you do it!”

He turned and saw two teenagers standing a close-but-respectful distance away, sporting obviously-amateur dye jobs and all-black clothes, one of them wearing a truly impressive amount of heavy black eyeliner for a Saturday afternoon. A pang of fondness, a certain nostalgia flared in Gabe as he took in the two Youths. A memory of a lifetime ago, of Frankie and him with similar amateur dye-jobs and ratty Converse and too-much makeup, and he couldn’t help but smile. He caught their eyes and flashed the two teenagers his best smolder, beckoning them closer, and they both squealed.

God. That would never stop being weird.

“Hi, um, are you Aiden Wilde?” one of them, the purple-haired one, tall and curvy with a they/them pin on the strap of their shiny black pleather bat-shaped backpack, said hesitantly.

“The very same,” he said, letting the smoke come out in his voice.

“Oh my god, hi!”

“I’m sorry if this is lame, it’s just, we’re such big fans,” said the be-eyelinered one, blushing profusely.

“Nah, that’s awesome. You guys wanna take a selfie?”

“Oh my gosh yes please! And oh you’re Frankie! Oh my god I love you!” Purple Hair said to Frankie, who giggled sincerely.

“Aww, you flatter me! Here, I have long arms, I’ll take it.”

They Took the Selife, and after a bit more fawning and the hurried signing of whatever piece of merch they could grab, Aiden Wilde bid adieu to his young fans. Frankie was smirking at him as the two youths scrambled away still squealing. Gabe blushed, but there was definitely a glow in his belly. As much as part of him still thought he was getting away with something, and eventually the universe would realize the error and come correct it, there was something still thrilling about being recognized. About being able to make someone’s day just by taking a selife with them. He hoped he never got used to it.

After a silent negotiation they ended up in the park with Gabe’s head pillowed comfortably in Frankie’s lap as she fed him slices of brie and strawberries from a little brown paper bag she’d bought when he hadn’t been paying attention. The berries were ripe and sweet as a summer’s kiss, and Gabe’s stomach had settled enough he could actually appreciate the juicy flavor of them exploding across his tongue, the contrast of the creamy-salty cheese she fed him after. Frankie giggled at nothing, still humming whatever melody was in her head as she fed him, her free hand tangled in his hair. It was a gorgeous early summer afternoon, blue sky forever and not too deep in the 100’s just yet, and they had found some dappled shade under a tree. And it was just…nice. A sweet little moment, and Gabe felt most of his bad mood slip away with the berries and the barest hint of breeze that rustled through the leaves.

But of course eventually it had to end, as all such moments did. They strolled back to Daisy silently and Frankie drove them back to The Factory, singing along to The Beach Boys softly as she tapped out a rhythme on the wheel.

It still blew Gabe’s mind, just a bit, that he owned a goddamn warehouse. So far he’d been keeping the Rockstar Extravagance mostly to a minimum—part of him convinced that it was just another glitch in the Matrix and any minute now The IRS or whoever would be showing up on his doorstep to take it all away—and apart from some flashy clothes and a couple dream instruments he’d had his eye on for years, he tried to stick to his former starving artist budget. But when the lease on his old apartment was ending and he realized he didn’t have to find another one, he could afford to live wherever he wanted, Gabe couldn’t help but live out a little House Hunters fantasy, born from years of watching HGTV late at night with nothing to do. When he saw the listing for this place, it felt like fate calling to him.

He was trying not to get too pretentious with it, at least, but it felt wrong not to indulge in his deepest-held arty bohemian whims at least a little bit. And of course, since Frankie’s love of home décor almost rivaled his own, he had let her go a bit nuts with the makeover, sourcing vintage Oriental rugs and bespoke iridescent acrylic tables, a gigantic disco ball hanging down from the ceiling like a glam rock planet with its own galaxy. It was a legitimately cool little space, with plenty of room for The Peaches to hang out and even play music together sometimes. And it was his, and he could cover the whole thing in nude male pin-ups and as much glitter as he wanted, and no one could stop him.

As Gabe let her through the rolling garage door he heard a thumping bass rhythm and figured Lance and Kiki must have already shown up, probably warming up on their respective instruments. Well, Lance was warming up. Kiki was lounging on the vintage dusty rose velvet sofa Gabe had found at a consignment store for a steal, frowning in concentration as she played something on her yellow Nintendo Switch. Probably Animal Crossing, if he had to guess.

It was just a random chance that he had found the two of them, but he would always be glad for it. The Peaches had become something like a family over the years, and while he would never love them the same way he loved Frankie, he wouldn’t want anyone else in his band. In a way, it felt like Lance and Kiki were always destined to find him. Gabe knew things wouldn’t be the same without either of them there.

Kiki, whose birth name was Kimberly Kikuchi but if you called her that she would try to stab you, preferred to dress like a sweet, innocent little porcelain doll; but that was the disguise she wore to distract from the fact that she was a total bitch and she owned it. She loved playing into men’s expectations of her as a cute piece of empty-headed cotton candy fluff, with her long blonde hair and penchant for babydoll dresses, and then proceeding to absolutely destroy them on her drum kit and ruin their fragile egos. And it made Gabe die laughing every single time.

Lance, by contrast, was The Quiet One of the group, but that didn’t stop them from being a total chaos gremlin, and a little bit of a heartbreaker to boot. A Black Nonbinary Icon in their own right who used both he and they pronouns and shredded on the bass with a flair for tasty funk rhythms, Gabe was also lowkey jealous that they had a lovely longtime boyfriend—a professional chef named Ash—waiting for them at home.

Together with Warner the five of them made The Peaches what it was, a collective of (mostly) queer weirdos with eclectic tastes. They brought influences from all across the music spectrum, Kiki’s love of metal and Japanese folk music and Frankie’s longstanding obsession with disco, Lance’s jazz and soul influences and Warner’s taste for harder rock and alternative. It was their secret ingredient, the bit of magic that also made them the buzz of the indie scene lately. Gabe wouldn’t have traded any of them for any one else in the world. Even Warner.

“Well you look like shit,” Kiki said bluntly, once she’d heard Gabe and Frankie come in.

“Doesn’t he?” Frankie giggled back, before adding something else in Japanese which made Kiki laugh louder.

He knew the two of them well enough to know whatever she’d said, it wasn’t flattering. But he also knew better than to say anything back, because that would only dig the hole deeper.

Lance just gave him and Frankie one of their signature cool-guy head nods and went back to strumming on their bass, their long thin ring-covered fingers dancing across the frets as they played something intricate and lovely that they’d surely written themselves. They had their long braids down today, tossed casually over their shoulder, while one of their fancier bejewelled septum rings glinted attractively from under their strong, striking nose, the inky black polish on their nails catching the light too as they played.

Frankie set her ridiculous little frog-shaped purse down and pulled her glittery pastel purple guitar out of its case and started tuning while Kiki finally put her Switch away to join them at her kit. There was the pleasant noise of the four of them warming up together, finding their rhythms. Gabe started doing his vocal exercises, pacing around and trying very hard to ignore the lead weight in his stomach as he kept his eye trained on the front door.

Warner was late.

Warner was never late. In over three years of practices, not once had the guy shown up later than ten minutes early. They all made fun of him for it; Frankie liked to say that he wasn’t gonna get a better grade at the end of the semester for always being on time, that he wasn’t cut out for the rockstar lifestyle. And Warner had just smiled good naturedly and mumbled something back about wanting to do the right thing, while Gabe had privately found it incredibly fucking adorable. That was always Warner, affable and sweet, earnest. Golden-haired and easy with a smile.

Was it any wonder Gabe had fallen head over heels for him?

3:45 PM.

Warner was late late. And he hadn’t texted. If Gabe hadn’t literally seen him just an hour or so ago he would have panicked, thinking something had gone wrong. Still the asshole anxious part of his brain tormented him with it any way, horrible flashes of Warner at the bottom of ditch, bleeding out and dying alone, no one the wiser.

But no. Gabe realized, with a sick sinking feeling in the pit of him, that it wasn’t an accident.

Warner just wasn’t coming.

And that fucking asshole hadn’t even bothered to text him.

Fuck.

Just then Lance’s hand went to their pocket, fishing out their phone. Their eyebrows knit in confusion, and Gabe’s heart sunk further.

“Guys, Warner, uh. Says he’s not coming.”

Fucking bastard.

“What?” Kiki said, her eyes going large enough to take up half her face as she spun on her stool, her pigtails swinging wildly. “Is he bleeding from the head? Is he insane? Tour starts in like two weeks!”

“And he couldn’t even call?” Frankie scoffed, eyebrows going lethal as she fiddled with her strings, plucking at them randomly. She hadn’t plugged into her amp yet so there was just a faint discordant jangling, and it felt appropriate. Matched the rhythm of Gabe’s heartbeat.

“We saw him at Mel’s. With Massive Aggression. He’s…I don’t think he’s coming back.”

Kiki cursed loudly in Japanese while Lance whispered a soft little “oh fuck.”

That about summed it up.

And then the rest of the band launched into Damage Control mode while Gabe stood there and felt like the scum of the earth.

“What do we do? Do we know anyone who can cover for him?”

“I mean, Dani’s band is already opening for us, she’s the only person I can think of who could conceivably pick up Will’s solos in time. Shit.” Frankie scrubbed a hand through her hair, staring up at the disco ball glittering down from the ceiling as if she could find the answers reflected in its shiny surface.

“Don’t suppose you wanna pick up lead guitar duties for once, eh?” Lance smirked slightly and Frankie glared at them. It was an old fight-that-wasn’t-really at this point. Frankie would always be Gabe’s right hand woman, his Platonic Life Partner, and she was a fairly good guitarist in her own right, but she preferred letting someone else take the lead parts while she held down the rhythm section. And Lance liked to needle her about it.

“Fuck you.”

Lance chuckled softly and blew her a kiss.

“What about Jesse? He knows like, every fucking band in Vegas, doesn’t he?”

“Well every fucking band in Vegas will probably be busy touring, same as us. You wanna ask him if he has a student he could lend us?”

“You want to tell Rick we’re letting a twelve year old join us on a sold-out national tour?”

The three of them continued to bicker back and forth while Gabe wished he could melt into the floorboards. Fuck. He’d ruined everything, and there the rest of The Peaches were, gamely trying to fix his fuck-ups for him. He didn’t deserve any of them.

He sighed as he fished out his own phone from the too-tight pocket of his painted-on skinny jeans. There was only so much sitting around waiting for someone else to clean up his mess he could handle. It was time to act like the Band Leader, as much as the sick pit of acid-hot dread in his belly tried to convince him it was all ruined beyond saving. He took a deep breath to steady himself, and then he pulled up the number quickly.

“Hey Rick?”

There was a hush amongst the rest of The Peaches as Gabe finished the call with Rick’s normal brevity. He’d been their manager almost since the beginning, and all of them both feared and respected the man in equal measure. He dressed like the hapless dad in a 90’s sitcom and acted like a mix between the cattiest queen Gabe had ever met and a bloodthirsty business shark, and he was exactly the kind of fearsome protector they had needed to guide them through all of the shady twists and turns of the music business. The man could be an absolute terror, but it was usually fine as long as you did your best not to be on the receiving end of Hurricane Rick.

Something Gabe had somehow managed to forget, until Rick steamrolled into The Factory seemingly a second later, already in the middle of a call as he swept in.

“You signed a contract, asshole. If you don’t get that tight little twink ass down here and play that fuckin’ guitar like your life literally depends on it—cuz it does—I will wrap you up in so much fucking litigation you’ll look like I let a Japanese pervert let loose on you with a bundle of rope when I’m done. Do you hear me, fucker?”

There was heavy silence as Rick glared down at the phone, Warner’s tinny voice saying something back, before Rick disconnected the call.

And then he rounded on Gabe.

“What the fuck did you do to him?”

“Me?”

“Hey leave him alone!”

“Yeah, it’s not Gabe’s fault!”

“He’s citing ‘artistic differences’ as his reason for taking a ‘leave of absence,’” Rick hissed back, with the air quotes around “artistic differences” and everything. His eyes narrowed then, as if he knew exactly what “artistic differences” was code for.

Gabe’s heart plummeted down by his kidneys with the sudden wave of fresh guilt that hit him. As nice as it was to have his friends defend him, he knew that it was, quite literally, his fault. God, if he hadn’t been such an idiot, throwing himself at the boy like a desperate cock-hungry harlot. No wonder Warner had run screaming for the hills and into the arms of Massive Aggression. He’d fucked up, and he’d known it, but the consequences of his actions still really fucking sucked.

“No, guys, Rick’s right. I’m the leader, this is my mess.”

“Sweetheart I don’t really give a shit whose mess it is, because I’m the one who has to clean it up. So listen up kiddos, because if another one of you fucking brats pulls anymore stupid stunts between now and the start of this fucking tour I will quite literally murder you, and then pay my lovely friend Garett who does taxidermy to stuff your corpse and shove an instrument into it. Alright?” And with that evocative threat hanging in the air, the rest of The Peaches gathered around, and listened as Daddy Rick laid down the law.

#my stuff #nebulaverse #oc talk

[hxroic-wxlls]

Drabble: A Crisis of Chocolates and Love

Valentines Day. Oh, what an occasion, it is. The smell of sweets and affection linger in the air like a heavy fog that was far too heavy to lift. A time for friends and romantics alike to empty out their hearts to those who they’ve fallen head over heels for. Giving each other confections so sweet it that could rot a thousand teeth, engaging in skip ship with hugs, hand-holding and plenty other forms of holding themselves against each other, and then finishing things off with gentle, yet meaningful kisses. 

For those who have any semblance of confidence, this would be a time for celebration! Youthful teenagers with their hearts ablaze going out to buy matching clothing, watching movies, spending time at the park and watching as the brilliant sun illuminates over them like a spotlight, or even baking meals for each other.

However, in the case of a particular guitarist--

“ Ughhhhhhhhh... “

It felt more akin to being slapped in the face. Seriously, how could normal people do this kind of thing without freaking out!? Revealing all of your flaws to the people you trust the most, laying bare all of your dirty secrets for your friends and the world to see... That’s no different than a public execution! If that ever happened to her, she’d die! Shrivel up, turn into dust, and pathetically float away into the upper atmosphere, becoming one with the clouds and acting as the catalyst for a terrible and depressing storm.

Needless to say, Valentines Day was an occasion that Hitori Gotou would much rather spend in the comfort of her household all by her lonesome, ignoring the harsh reality that she could never be a part of the that rose-scented world of romance and affection.

That is...until now. You see, normally, the pinkette would be on her guitar, working on lyrics or recording covers for her channel. That was her norm, something she COULD feel confident about. Having a routine like that comforted her like a warm blanket, shielding her from the merciless storms of doubt and self-pity that threatened to overwhelm her in a flood of pain and despair. 

However, instead of delegating herself to said routine, she was too busy screaming into her bed’s pillows, her hands clenched tighter than ever before as she held her blanket in a death grip. Now, why is she currently freaking out like a deranged banshee, you may ask? Well, it’s quite simple!

Before the time of Kessoku Band, Hitori had been whole-heartedly certain that the feeling of love for another would never find itself in her heart. Outside of the familial love she showed for the her parents, sibling and dog, any other type of affection would forever remain a stranger to her lonely self.

After the band had become a part of her life, though--she had been a left total wreck. It’s just...it’s not fair! It’s not fair at all! She had no right to be feeling like this for any of the people who dedicated themselves to dragging her out of her shell. They were stars, brilliant beings of endless potential that deserved to shine on and mark themselves in the book of history for all future generations to see and look up to. In contrast, she was nothing more than a pathetic little water flee. A bundle of anxiety that struggles to even hold a conversation with a classmate. Someone who turns to dust at the idea of wearing anything other than her track suit. Simeone who explodes at the mention of attaching her identity to a social media account, to be left unprotected by the mask of anonymity. Someone...who never had any right getting as far as she did.

And yet, despite all that--they cared for her. Took her out of the shadows and right onto the stage. 

To Hitori, it was like being on an endless roller coaster. A ride that she couldn’t get off, no matter how many times she tried to undo the buckle. Her feet were glued to the floor, incapable of escaping no matter how many times she tried to convince herself that this couldn’t work. She was just going to drag them all down, and it would’ve been all her fault.

Instead, to her utter shock and surprise...she found herself not wanting to get off. The attention, the love, the adventure, it’s like a gift that she never even knew she wanted, but wouldn’t replace it for anything else in this endless and vast world. It was like a drug.

Nijika, Kita, Ryo--they all worked so hard to give her life a new meaning. To push her to try new things. To be the anchors that held her down, no matter how many times the harsh winds of anxiety tried to blow her away.

Nijika, the band’s drummer...she led her away from the cold and lonely swing set, inviting her to join in on the path to becoming a true rock star. Her determination to see her dream come true inspired Hitori like nothing ever had before.

Kita, the band’s vocalist and secondary guitarist...she acted as the physical embodiment of sunshine, energy and confidence. A pillar of support that Hitori could always lean on, no matter how hard things got. Someone who always pushed her to try new things, even if it didn’t always work out.

Ryo, the band’s bassist...quiet (and a bit bad with money), the blue-haired rocker never failed to wow Hitori at every turn. Despite her relaxed nature, the guitarist could easily see just how much she truly cared for her bandmates. Even if her habits of asking for money often left Hitori with an empty wallet, she would never ask for anyone to take her place.

All three of them are absolutely amazing people, that she couldn’t see herself living without.

However, that same affection is the entire reason she’s currently melting down, just like a PC that had a whole bucket of water tossed on top of it. You see, Hitori, after years of making herself out to be an expert at avoiding tricky situations like this...had finally gotten caught. Stung by the aggressive and merciless insect known as the love bug... She loved them. Not in a way suited for friends, or even best friends. No, it was something far beyond. that.

The catch, though...said bug had three stingers. She was in love with not one, not two...but all THREE of them!

“ Kill meeeeee nowwwwwwwwwww! “ She’d screech out, voice muffled from being buried into her harshly abused pillow. To put it simply, she currently felt like scum. Like a piece of trash on the sidewalk. ‘Great going, me! You come this far, and now you’re going to ruin the only friendship you ever had with your stupid, stupid feelings! Bet you feel real great, huh?’ She’d think, mentally berating herself for being so selfish.

...She doesn’t even know how to bake chocolate, either. This. Is. The. WORST! 

Still, even if she knows that she shouldn’t say anything, that she shouldn’t risk anything doing something that could destroy everything that her friends worked so hard for...the pain in her heart refused to let up, threatening to pile on until it eventually crushed her, whole. If she didn’t let these feelings out, she felt like was going to pass out.

In all of her eighteen years of existence, she never felt more lost than she ever has now.

--Once she’d finally decided to give her poor bed a rest from the brutal wrath of her tantrum, she’d let out a tired sigh.

This is a mistake. This is a VERY big mistake. The worst in history, in fact! She knows that for a fact.

Slowly turning the knob to her bedroom door, she’d make her way to the kitchen. On her phone, she’d pull up a video on how to make a supersized bundle of chocolates...and how to deal with feelings for multiple people in a healthy manner.

“ Hehehe...what am I even doing? “

#{anxious rock: ic} #tw: long post #{drabble} #valentines day #bocchi the rock! #hitori gotou

[teruthecreator]

we all know kris can play the piano. but consider the following: 

noelle plays the guitar. she’s been playing since she was little because her mother wanted her to learn an instrument and noelle wanted to learn the same instrument her sister was playing (dess learned guitar from rudy). she inherited her father’s old acoustic guitar after everything with dess goes down, but she doesn’t really feel comfortable playing it because of all of the Emotional Baggage. so, as a christmas present, her parents get her an electric guitar and an amp. she usually only plays when her mom isn’t home because she knows how noise travels through the house, and she teaches herself a lot of metal songs (to impress susie, mostly, but also bc she’s genuinely a metalhead and has been for years) 

susie starts to learn the bass when she becomes friends w kris. not like they know how to play, but the dark world provides a plethora of musically-inclined people that susie never would’ve known before. specifically, i think it’d be funny if ralsei knew how to play string instruments? he probably plays some form of a lyre, but once you know one vaguely-guitar-shaped instrument you know them all. the reason susie picks a bass, rather than a guitar, is because she likes how it sounds. low and funky; the bass lurks in the background of every song, providing ample support to the much louder guitar riffs and vocal performances. and, in finding herself in this friend group she is starting to slowly accept as family, she realizes she rather likes not having to always be the loudest person in the group and that supporting can actually be...pretty badass. (plus she finds a bass for cheap on Monster Ebay, so she’s working with what she got) 

berdly is a percussionist. this is HIGHLY indulgent because i used to play the drums, but i also feel like drums work surprisingly well for berdly? they’re more tactile and reliant on rhythm, which berdly would have more of an affinity for (being an avid gamer; a hobby that requires tactile use of your fingers). if hometown highschool had a marching band, berdly would be the drumline captain. he just has that vibe. he just screams percussionist in the high school band to me, i really can’t explain it. i also think it gives berdly the opportunity to really let loose in a way that he doesn’t allow himself to do. being the “smart kid” doesn’t allot for a lot of opportunities to go crazy or goof off, but sitting in front of his drumset for an hour or two a night gives him the privacy to really spread his wings (both literally and figuratively). he picks up a pair of drumsticks from the school when they Attempted to have a band class, and just...kept them when the course ended up falling through. his one and only School Crime. eventually, his father notices berdly drumming beats on everything and decides to buy him a snare, which then spirals into berdly being gifted a full drumset for his 15th birthday. it sits in the half-finished basement, along with a lot of the family’s storage, and berdly takes care in making sure his drums are the nicest thing in that room. 

ALL OF THIS TO SAY: lightner gang garage band au when

#deltarune #kris dreemurr #susie deltarune #noelle holiday #berdly deltarune #kris deltarune #noelle deltarune #berdly #ignorance cloud on #PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. HEAR ME OUT. COME ON. #WHAT A GREAT WAY TO BOND!!!! TO PLAY SHITTY MUSIC IN A GARAGE!!!! LIKE ALL THE MOVIES!!! #but also i just like the idea of them all knowing how to play an instrument. not just kris. #noelle being the guitarist (and lead vocalist) is such a heelturn but it feels SO RIGHT FOR HER #like literally chap 2 was all abt her conquering her fears and standing up for what She wants. and to be CONFIDENT!!!!! #WHAT SCREAMS CONFIDENCE MORE THAN BEING THE GUITARIST!!!!!! #also i just think a bass works for susie. sorry but im right. im never wrong abt anything #and berdly being a percussionist is just :-) i want it :-) let him have hobbies #he learns game osts and plays them on the drums like that one streamer #also sing he has wing-hands or some shit i didnt wanna have to figure out how he'd pluck a guitar string or somethin. so drumsticks. #ANYWAYS if u have ANY thoughts or questions please bug me abt this #yes i do have other asks in my inbox to answer that are deltarune-related. yes i Will ignore them :-) #ill answer them eventually i swear i am just so stressed and sad and stress-sad

[asherlockstudy]

How to do perfect staging: a lesson from Italy

I mentioned at some point I might actually make a post drooling over Italy's Måneskin performance and staging. I was kinda bored to be honest and decided against it but then all those trashy rumours that try to bring the winners down seemed so disgraceful and embarrassing to me that I decided again to do it. Now, the truth is that their performance was a little better in the semi-final introduction act. Perhaps this was due to the anxiety of the Grand Final. This is why I am going to use photos and gifs from that act and perhaps this will show to some that the perfect package might need a little bit of everything, and not just slap your language on the audience's ears with the expectation that this alone is always enough. *Did I make this too personal?*

Anyway, I digress. And I don’t mean that the Grand Final performance wasn’t still the best of the night, I just mean it wasn’t at the same God Tier level as the semifinal one.

Here's why the Italians took advantage of the Dutch stage until its very last millimeter and way more cleverly than any other country.

This is the only act that starts from the back of the stage, where the singer Damiano David waits for us alone.

Even with the rest of the 25 competing countries, this intro makes you forget that you are watching a contest with 26 countries as guests. Unlike anyone else, Italy looks like the host, like this place belongs to them and the frontman waits for you to show you around and possibly drag you to the world of Måneskin. In fact, you almost forget it’s Eurovision - this now looks like a Måneskin concert or, even better, a more private space of theirs with an ominous industrial feel. One of the most impactful things now is the lighting. Take a look at it. Almost all contestants throw all the lights on themselves or on some important prop they have prepared. The Italians are the only ones who chose to just light the stage itself. The simple white lights on the black stage give the impression of depth and it is the only act which shows emphatically the size of the stage. Why this? Well, we already established that in the first seconds the viewers feel they are in a new space belonging exclusively to Måneskin - the lights make us feel that their area is vast and dark and we are about to be drawn to its depths.

Damiano indeed guides us to the front as he sings, where the rest of the band are on the top of a platform. The other members won’t come down and join Damiano until he sings the appropriate verse “Buona sera, signore e signori” (=Good evening, ladies and gentlemen) and accompany it with a theatrical flamboyant bow (that feels very Italian). That’s when, technically introduced to the audience after the official greeting, bassist Victoria de Angelis and guitarist Thomas Raggi come off the platform and join Damiano.

There’s nothing excessive about the visual effects. Only the use of white lights that give the perception of depth and in the background the big shadows of the group’s silhouettes. They are in the front and they cast their shadows in the back; they create to you a feeling of being trapped by them but do you really want to escape?

When the second verse starts, Victoria and Thomas take the paths left and right of the stage and leave Damiano alone. They take even more advantage of the stage and in a typical classic rock band way. These two play with the side cameras but the focus is more on Damiano, whose verse sounds more like a tongue-twister. Since the cameras are rightfully on Damiano, I must now address the elephant in the room. Damiano is particularly attractive. In fact, the whole band is almost mind-bogglingly attractive and they clearly take a lot of care about how exactly they are going to look but Damiano, as the frontman, does especially so. So let’s talk about the outfit. They all have essentially the same outfit, however it is cut differently for each based on the person’s looks and personality. Isn’t it fantastic?

Damiano, who oozes confidence and sex appeal, has accordingly the most “provocative” outfit of the four. His chest and arms are bare so that his many tattoos can be seen. I’ll talk about the other outfits later as they all have their place in the... uh... white lights.

During the second chorus Victoria and Thomas return at the center and after the chorus it is time for the first solo; Victoria’s. The cameras are now on her but the lighting remains modest to accentuate the dark beat of her bass.

Victoria is the only girl of the group and the most dressed of them all - how refreshing! Her outfit is more similar to Thomas but she is buttoned up in the front. How does she wish to underscore her uniqueness as the woman of the band? But of course, with long flamboyant girly sleeves that come to delicious contrast with her aggressive stomping and her wide strides. Both her hairstyle and her outfit is inspired or basically just outright 70′s classic rock look.

It’s time for the bridge of the song right after her solo and Damiano has his attention on her and also draws the viewer’s attention to her some more. This part of the song is lower and softer - in relative terms - that’s why Damiano “chooses” her to sing it to. The lights now turn red, the intensity rises but there’s light flirtatiousness between them, with many smiles to each other and the camera that turns around them as they launch at each other playfully.

Then the song gets darker, more intense, the guitar stronger than the bass and Damiano’s voice turns to a scream. For this part, he turns to his bro, guitarist Thomas and he now draws the attention to him.

He grabs Thomas by the neck in an intense, intimate way (that doesn’t mean sexual, just intimate. His interaction with Victoria wasn’t sexual either). It is clear that through different ways Måneskin want to stress how good and close their relations are and that their singer, who is apparently a show stealer by birth, wants to ensure that they all get equal amount of attention from their audience. I love this.

True enough, nobody is left behind! The last chorus starts with a drums solo and Damiano goes up to the platform to now meet and introduce to us Ethan Torchio. Ethan stands up and his giant shadow is on the now blue background: this is the moment for the - so I hear - somewhat shy drummer to shine in his own aesthetic. The Italians leave none of their assets to fall down and Ethan’s impressive hair rightfully steals the show.

Just like Victoria and Thomas look alike, so do Ethan and Damiano, that’s why their costumes are the most similar. Ethan has a vest that covers him more than Damiano but leaves his arms bare. Because whose else the arms do you need to see if not the drummer’s?

This song has something peculiar because it was not a song originally written for Eurovision; it slows down in the end and  does not end on some impressive note from the singer as usual but with the last solo we expect, that of the guitarist, because everything is fair in Måneskin! The focus has to leave Damiano, so now it’s the time for the visual effects to finally catch fire, literally,  because nobody is allowed to take their eyes off them! Måneskin use a huge amount of pyro that however feels appropriate for the intense chorus and the ending guitar solo.

Thomas steps up for his solo and I forget we are in 2021. This is the most 70s thing I would ever hope to see.

In a hell of pyro, Thomas looks like he was tranferred right from a 70s rock ‘n roll concert. His outfit would be gladly taken by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. The unbuttoned jacket with this boho tie, such a classic 70s fashion touch. His haircut and even his FACE are the epitome of the 70s - what an ending sequence!

But hey we reached the end and this is Eurovision, the song slows down dangerously. Like I said, the Italians forbid us to get distracted. The attention must return to Damiano ASAP. Damiano says one last line and takes the audience with him to the very end with a death drop.

There you have it. Måneskin had me holding my breath for the full three minutes and I did not want to take my eyes off my TV. There are countless shows that are awesome - in this very Eurovision as well - but I was impressed by how they seemed to have found the perfect balance for everything in every single moment. They found the perfect stage concept for the song, they relied on visual effects only when they needed them and they stressed every twist and turn of their sound with a perfectly fitting move or interaction. They also all effortlessly could hold your attention and they made sure that they all would, with members often helping bring out other members. This performance was beautiful and, above all, clever which is why it was undoubtedly the worthiest of the win.  

#eurovision #eurovision 2021 #esc 2021 #eurovision song contest #italy #italy 2021 #maneskin #damiano david #victoria de angelis #ethan torchio #thomas raggi #music #songs #zitti e buoni #flashing tw #more

[starshipsofstarlord]

hey! so i was re-reading one of the 5th second one-shot (the after hiatus one) and i couldn't stop thinking what y/n was really like back in the day! like when luke mentioned she chased niall around the arena and that she was a handfull. so maybe i thought i could request y/n goofing around and such (maybe like annoying a member of 1d and got in trouble with liz) anyways, take care! <3

One Second of Direction

Summary: based on the request

Pairing: 5SOS x member!reader, 1D x reader, Luke Hemmings x reader

Warnings: insecure Luke, minor angst, slight jealousy

Word Count: 958

Masterlist Link

The sound of Niall screaming reverberated Luke's ears as he stopped his motion on the segway, watching as the irishman bolted across the back of stage, though the younger male was not surprised. Since they had joined the worldwide famous boy band on tour, they had grown used to the child like occupancies that they exhibited within their behaviour; it made him and his own band members closer to them and feel as though they fit into the environment better. And so when your body whisked past his eye-line, chasing the heels on the boy that had just passed, Luke was unaffected. He knew he was dating an idiot, but being away from your homeland was only further proving that fact and succumbing it to reality.

When you had temporarily migrated to London to pursue better chances at getting noticed as a musical group, it shun light on how all of you behaved without adults around. It was exactly what you expected. Chaos. Though technically Liz was lurking around somewhere, as she had travelled across the world to continue to supervise her son and his friends, which sounded more like a chore than a vacation, however she had no regrets of doing so, it was a duty that was condoned through being a parent. And as expected, the blonde woman came stalking out, her movements effortless as she knew that eventually she was catch the troublemaker whether that be sooner or later; you couldn't run forever, and thus she wouldn't have to chase you for such an amount of time.

"Lucas." Sure that wasn't realistically his name, but the guitarist opted against correcting his mother, and instead lifted his head to look her in the eyes. "Where did your girlfriend go?" Sighed his mother in question, unsure of how you had become this much of a pain from being elsewhere but Australia, usually she'd be praising you for your good behaviour, though it was clear that the clash of overseas bands had brought a new spark to your actions - to disobey everything that any adult said. They had been trying to do your hair for a photoshoot, nothing grand but apparently through it it had been impossible for you to sit down, and now you were gone, along with Niall.

"Dunno." He shrugged, only to earn a brooding squint from his mother. "That way." He gave in after a second, aware that you'd be complaining to him later about the fact that his own mother would have called your parents, and you'd earn yourself an earful about responsibilities and maturity over the phone. That was certainly not what you were striving towards, however that was inevitably what you were going to receive. Liz followed his surrender of direction, as Luke pondered what he was to do next until you'd return and grumble to him about the lack of fun that you were enduring.

Luke squinted, hating the look in his eyes as he looked at you. They got along, well in fact, but it was clear that the pair of you were attracted to each other. Just thinking about the walls of your bedroom back home with posters of the Harry Styles on them made him grit his teeth, hating the way that you laughed together. A kick to his leg made him switch his gaze to the side, though he wasn't confident on directing his view away from where you were snuggled up with the brunette. "Don't worry about it mate." Louis spoke, and now Luke too felt like he was fraternising with the enemy, though none of them had specifically done anything wrong.

He knew that you'd never cheat, and there was an age gap between you and Harry anyways; but he found himself preferring that you'd be a fangirl of him than a real life friend. That thought made him nervous, he believed you could do better than him and such a thing was currently under your own nose. "I'm not worrying." He replied, his tone deafeningly saying otherwise.

"Sure you're not." Sarcastically spoke the Brit from beside him. "But know that whilst she's sat over there with him, she is thinking of you. I was talking to her earlier, and she wouldn't shut up about how long the two of you had been together and how much she loves you and how excited she is to start this road to the rest of your lives together. Y/n is your girl, and she knows that." He patted him on the shoulder, standing from the dressing room couch, whistling to capture the attention of his friend. "Hey Harry, d'you wanna go play some ball?"

"Actually-" Louis rolled his eyes at Harry, clicking his tongue unamused at whatever excuse that the lead singer was about to come up with.

"Get your arse up, I need to talk to you about something." Louis emphasised his pronunciation so that Harry could tell that he was not joking around, and with a long sigh, Harry stood whilst bidding you goodbye. As soon as they left, you dived onto the sofa beside your boyfriend, laying your head on Luke's lap. You reached your finger up and tapped the tip of his nose.

"Hey." He spoke softly, realising that he couldn't hold anything against you even if he tried. His brooding face broke as he looked at your features, unaware of Liz looking through the gap that the retreating males had left in the doorway.

"Did I tell you with my phone call with my parents?" It was a full circle made by your words, and he shook his blond head, keen to hear what you had to say, even if you were going to do nothing more than actually complain.

Taglist@itscheybaby @coucoukayy @reallygroovyholland @lukehemmingsleftnipple @innocent-as-a-rose@marvel-af@kingxnichole@winchestergirl907

#luke hemmings x reader #luke hemmings x y/n #luke hemmings imagine #5sos imgaines #5sos one shot #5sos fic #5 seconds of summer imagine #5sos imagines #5sos imagine #5sos luke #5sos x member reader #5sos x y/n #5sos x reader #5sos x you #imagines #imagine #xreader

[oro-e-diamanti]

The one where it takes Thomas a year

Description | There's something between you and Thomas, but as time goes on, it becomes more and more difficult to figure out if you're on the same page.

Content | Angst, fluff, little bit of smut (but no detailed descriptions)

Pairing | Thomas x gn!Reader

Word Count | 5972

Tag list | @ginny-lily @ethaneskin @tabi-toast @mywritingonlyfans @manesimp @ohtorchio @daddydamiano @bidet-and-legolas @maybanksslut

***

January

The bar is dark and dirty, shoes sticking to the floor wherever you walk, unidentifiable music playing lowly in the background. You don't mind. You're sitting around a table with people you barely know and there's a skinny white boy animatedly talking about something or other and you decide that as long as you can keep looking at him, you'll stay here forever. He has got that kind of beauty about him that belongs in Gucci campaigns and on music magazine covers. He doesn't know that you barely understand a word of what he is saying. Not only is his speech far beyond your comprehension skills in Italian, but he is also apparently speaking in a Romanesco dialect. You don't mind.

His hands are moving around so much they almost shove the bottles and glasses off the table and your drunken mind doesn't let you focus on anything but his long, slim fingers. His nails are painted black and you never found nail polish on men all that appealing but somehow, everything about him is. One of his hands wraps around a bottle of beer, one of his rings causing a clacking sound that no one but you hears and you cannot help fall into fantasies of that same hand touching you.

A couple of people are getting up now. You are not sure what the plan is, but you're assuming they're heading to the bar for another round of drinks. You don't immediately realise that he is talking to you now, which seems ridiculous with how closely you have been watching him all night, but when you do, you awkwardly admit that you don't actually understand a word of what he is saying. He laughs a wonderfully melodic laugh and repeats himself in English. You decide you love his laugh.

He is talking about music, playing live, some records you have never heard of and you cannot keep up. You don't know nearly enough about the technical sides of the subject that he keeps raving about and you've had too many drinks to pretend. He doesn't mind.

Neither of you notices the others coming back, already in deep discussion. You don't know if anything you say makes any sense at all, but he is nodding along and looking at you with wide, open eyes and hanging onto every word so you keep talking. He is drunk, laughing at things that aren't all that funny, but so are you, so you laugh along.

The bartender ringing the bell for last call is the only thing that is able to pull you out of your conversation. Both of you slowly shuffle to leave the bar, losing your friends along the way. The cold outside air hits you like a ton of bricks, yet you don't feel any more sober. For a moment, as you both look at each other with expressions not quite identifiable, you consider taking him home. Dragging him into your bedroom just to see what he is hiding under those clothes. To see what his fingers feel like on your skin.

But then one of your friends pulls you into a taxi they have called, someone shuts the door and the driver starts the car before you have a chance to protest. You can see him standing on the sidewalk still, lighting a cigarette and watching as the car takes you away.

February

It takes you a moment to remember where you have seen him before when you bump into his body backstage. He surprises you by pulling you into a quick hug but you don't want to be weird so you hug him back. He asks you what you are doing here and you reply that you could be asking him the same thing. He laughs shamelessly and you wonder what is so funny until he reveals that you are actually backstage at his gig. You feel foolish but he tells you it's refreshing to talk to someone who is not impressed with who he is. You don't tell him that you are, in fact, very impressed, just not because he is in a band.

Without any further questions, he throws his arm around your shoulders and leads you to his dressing room, where various other people are gathering. You give a quick nod to a friend of yours who is playing in the support band and the only reason why you're backstage at all but all he does is wriggle his eyebrows at you and... You realise you still don't know the blond boy's name.

Thomas, he tells you. Thomas Raggi. It fits him perfectly and you cannot explain why. You tell him yours in return and he repeats it, rolling the letters off his tongue and you think your name has never sounded this lovely.

When the support band goes on stage you watch from the side, cheering on your friend and singing along and Thomas never lets go of you. It's painfully obvious that he has never listened to them before but his dance moves make up for it, twirling you around and making you repeat his steps and you never stop laughing once.

An hour later, it is Thomas' turn to take the stage and it is the first time you connect the dots as to who is in the band with him. The drummer looks ethereal, dark hair flying around as he gives it his all, the bassist is a gorgeous little blonde that screams confidence, the singer might be one of the most charismatic beings you have ever seen, but no one draws you in quite like the guitarist does.

You love watching live music but Thomas is something else. He gets into it like no one else. His heart is in it in a way that makes you wish for him to love you with a matching passion. You almost forget to dance along, too distracted and too deep into your own thoughts. You barely notice the support band gathering next to you to watch, or your friend squeezing your side, thanking you for coming.

As the gig ends, the singer presses an open-mouthed kiss to Thomas' lips and you wonder what it feels like. You think you would quite like to find out tonight.

You don't get the chance, though, at least not really. The band has to load in, pack their things, chat to a few people and then they're being told to get a move on, get in the van so they can travel to the next city on their tour, get to the hotel, and sleep.

Thomas pulls you aside, shouting to the rest of his band that he's going to smoke one more cigarette, and then he'll be ready to leave. He offers you one as well but you refuse. He looks hot when he's smoking and you hate it. Neither of you speaks for a minute.

Then he asks to see you again. His hand is on your waist. You tell him yes, what else are you supposed to say. When he is looking at you with his doe eyes. When you still cannot stop thinking about his mouth. He tells you he'll be home all day next month and then lets go of you to type your number in his phone. You cannot tell if he will actually call.

His band shouts for him to hurry up, so he throws the cigarette to the ground and stomps it out with the heel of his boot. He hesitates for a second, then presses a soft kiss to your forehead that feels much tamer than what you had been hoping for.

This time you're the one standing on the sidewalk watching him drive away.

March

He does call. In fact, he calls repeatedly, asking you out, asking you to tag along somewhere, asking you to visit him. You are busy with your job and your family and your friends and you are dying to see him but it's hard to make free time. So you talk on the phone. You're scared you're getting in too deep, scared that you're starting to build up a version of him that only exists in your head, scared that you will be disappointed when reality cannot live up to the fantasies you have lying awake in bed at night.

It's mid-March by the time you pack a weekender and turn up at his place. Not unannounced, of course, but somehow it still feels unexpected to see him. It is the first time the two of you are alone, during the day, in a private place. You don't spend a lot of time talking that first day.

He kisses you, passionately and impatiently, the second you drop your bag. You do not complain, you wouldn't dream of it. His mouth feels even better on yours than you had pictured in your imagination and you already know you are not going to get enough of him any time soon. There are hands clumsily pulling at clothes and tongues tracing along skin and a lot of time to explore each other's bodies. He causes you to see stars, multiple times, and you do the same for him. It is hot and heavy and full of moans and you cannot remember the last time you had sex like this.

When you wake up again, dawn is just on the brink of coming around and you're alone in his bed. You can spy him sitting on his balcony, cigarette in hand and you quickly put on his shirt before joining him outside. You mean to take a seat next to him, but he pulls you onto his lap immediately. You lean into him, taking in the quiet and the dark and the way he still smells like sweaty sex.

It feels too good, being here with him. He presses soft kisses to the nape of your neck you feel yourself slipping back into a state of utter bliss. He turns you around so you face him, straddling his lap, and it doesn't take long for him to start fumbling with the shirt you are wearing. You do it again right then and there, out on the dark balcony with the world around you asleep.

You spend the rest of the weekend like this. You're insatiable and he's not much better, constantly clinging on to you. Even when you decide to cook a quick meal, his arms are wrapped around you from behind and his chin is resting on your shoulder.

You don't change into any of the clothes you brought. Whenever you aren't naked, you usually slip one of his shirts over your head. You haven't seen him wear more than his boxers ever since you arrived. Both of you use the time to get to know each other inside out. You start to learn what the other one enjoys, where they like to be kissed the most, how to get the highest moans and most desperate whimpers out of each other. But you also learn about each other's fears. Of your pasts and your families and your plans for the future. What you expected your life to look like when you were ten and how wrong you were. You learn that he doesn't love anyone more than his three band members and how he likes his breakfast. He learns all about your favourite movies and how you ended up in Italy.

Sunday evening hits both of you hard. He tells you he will never forget the way you look right in that moment, bag already in hand, and it feels like goodbye. You cannot stomach the thought. But he says he will call you and he might be at the studio a lot but maybe you can come and visit. You're not sure if he is being serious or if he just doesn't want to see you cry. He tangles his hand in your hair to pull your head to his once more and gives you a mind-blowing kiss you will dream about until you get to see him next.

April

The studio is more like a house. Four bedrooms and a pool almost make you forget they are here for rehearsal. You finally get formally acquainted with Damiano, Victoria, and Ethan but Thomas still monopolises your time. The others get annoyed at you sneaking off to be alone and after Damiano accidentally bursts into Thomas' room while the guitarist's head is in between your legs you decide you should make more of an effort.

You break the ice by cooking a massive dinner, starters and desserts included, and find out that everyone was right about getting into people's hearts via good food. Dinner is served out on the terrace, Damiano helps set up, Victoria brings the wine and you end up talking for hours. Damiano tells you he is glad that there's more to you than the moans you make at night and you almost get offended but Thomas slaps the back of his head and you know their banter means no harm. Ethan helps you clean up afterward, then disappears into his room as you head back out. You cannot help overhear the other three talking outside as you're approaching and you cannot help stopping in your tracks to continue listening.

Damiano's voice is easily distinguishable and probably louder than he intends it to be. It is the wine's fault, really. How come you brought her here, you hear him ask and you're glad you made the effort to improve your Italian over the last few months. You've never brought anyone anywhere. Victoria chimes in, agreeing with Damiano, almost poking fun at Thomas. Yeah, what's up with that. Are you in love?

You hate that he scoffs at the suggestion. So, you haven't talked about what you are doing. You haven't talked about what you are, exactly. But there is no need to refuse this option straight away. You don't catch exactly what Thomas is saying as he is mumbling along, but you are certain you hear him refute. They all giggle in a way that almost makes you feel like they are making fun of you. So you take a deep breath, holding your head up high, and step out onto the terrace.

They don't look embarrassed. They don't even look caught. You think maybe it's because they don't think you heard. Or understood. Damiano suggests a late-night swim in the pool and you agree before he finishes his sentence. Both you and Thomas dash to his room, quickly changing into swimwear and you have to swat his hand away when he briefly plays with the string that holds up your top.

Thomas doesn't actually need to be dared to jump into the water but Victoria does so anyway. You watch from the edge of the pool, amused, as you suddenly feel hands on your back attempting to push you in. You react quicker than you ever have in your life, turning to grab the offending person - who turns out to be Damiano - and pulling him into the water with you. Both of you emerge spluttering and laughing. Victoria takes the stairs, loudly proclaiming herself a lady among peasants, and is quickly dunked by Thomas. She complains about her ruined hair but cannot keep the giggle hidden.

You enjoy the heated water around you, while the cool April air hits your face. Damiano joins into the game of dunking for a while but you stay on the sidelines until Victoria joins you. She looks gorgeous in the light, wet hair plastered to her forehead, and you wish you had an ounce of the poise she possesses. She tells you she has been friends with Thomas the longest, meeting in school, long before any of them knew that one day their lives would be irreversibly intertwined. She says she has nothing against you - much the opposite - but Thomas is like a brother to her and she cares for him deeply. It is incessantly clear that she is protective of him and it endears you. Apart from constantly distracting him, you're doing him good, she says. She hopes to see you around more.

You hope so too.

May

Life feels domestic with Thomas by your side. You don't see each other as often but when you do he tends to stay at your place. His touch still lights you on fire but there's another aspect to it. The waking up next to each other, your head on his chest or his on yours. The cooking and the clean-up after. The standing in front of the mirror and brushing your teeth, doing your skincare routine, and leaving dots of your moisturiser on his face to annoy him.

You're not sure if he enjoys it quite as much as you do. He laughs along with you but he is also the first one to initiate sex. And, oh, the sex. Now you're alone with each other again, and not in the constant danger of one of his bandmates catching you, you explore more. You find out just how much he enjoys being submissive and you enjoy creating a new, more dominant role for yourself. There's leather and latex, chokers and harnesses, spanking and bondage, and both of you discover new sides to yourselves and each other.

As May draws on, his visits become shorter. You don't notice at first but the first time he tells you he is not staying the night you suddenly see a clear pattern emerging. He is willing to help you cook if he gets sex afterward. He is happy to wake up next to you in a peaceful tangle if he got sex beforehand. You're torn. You don't know whether you should mention it, whether he is aware of it, or if you're simply reading too much into it. You decide to test him.

It's almost midnight when he stumbles into your apartment that day. He is all over you immediately, exploring hands and hot kisses, but you tell him you have some leftover tiramisu. He seems happy enough. But then you drag him into the bathroom for your evening routine and you put on your comfy pajamas and snuggle into bed and he seems a bit lost. He doesn't say it, though. Instead, he crawls into bed with you, gets under the covers, and spoons you. You fall asleep.

You don't stay asleep for long. Thomas is tossing and turning and when he wraps his arms around you again you know why. He is hard. You whisper his name in the dark and are answered through a groan. He is gripping you tightly now, one of his hands wanders up to grasp your breast through the fabric of your shirt. It doesn't take much. It is impossible to deny him.

When you wake back up again the next morning, the bed is empty. You call out for him, hoping he might just be in the bathroom or the kitchen, but there is no answer and when you sit up and look around the room you realise all of his clothes are gone. You feel used and annoyed. You also feel like your hypothesis has been confirmed. The thought is tiring you out enough to wrap yourself back into your blanket and allow sleep to take over once more.

June

It's weird seeing Victoria without Thomas. The only time you have ever met her was when you were attached to his hip, so when you run into her on the patio of a restaurant late one evening, it almost takes you a split second to remember where you know her from. She, however, knows you immediately. The hug takes you by surprise. She asks you if you're here with Thomas and you wonder why she doesn't know. You tell her no. You don't tell her you have not spoken to him at all this week. She is blissfully unaware of the turmoil inside of you. That much becomes obvious when she invites you round for a party at hers the next night - but surely, Thomas has already told you about that. You neither confirm nor deny, but accept the invitation simply because there is no saying no to a face like Victoria's.

No one seems to notice that you and Thomas arrive separately. In fact, by the time you get to Victoria's, he's a couple of drinks in and the life of the party. He is in the middle of demonstrating his best dance moves on the kitchen table when he sees you. He jumps down, almost crashing to the ground, before stumbling over to you and smothering you in kisses. Whispering sweet nothings of amore mio and cucciolo and cara mia. You revel in the attention. You love that he is doing this in front of everyone, showing them you're his and he's yours. You ignore that it might be drunken talk.

You pull him into the kitchen, where the music is slightly more muffled and there aren't quite as many people, and make yourself a drink. He's hanging onto you like you are his lifeline. You want to pretend it is always like this, like he always adores you this much, like he calls, like he wants to hang out with you because of who you are, not what you do to his body. Yet, it's his body you cannot refuse.

Two strongly mixed drinks later Thomas has you pressed against a wall, hands desperately grasping for each other and his mouth on your neck. You barely notice Victoria shouting at you to get a room and no, not mine! It's the first time in weeks he takes you home to his and you want to be elated but it's impossible. His fingers feel as good as ever as they trace your skin but in your mind, you know his heart is not in it.

In the morning, it's you who is awake first and it's you who gets up, gathers belongings, and leaves. You only hesitate once, right before opening the door leading you away from him, but it's not worth the heartbreak, so you go. It doesn't feel good and there's no relief in it.

July

If you ever thought you could simply banish Thomas from your life, you were sorely mistaken. You don't think he understands why you keep trying to walk away. He does understand that something is wrong, though, and he tries to make things better. He tells you about a little summer house he has been thinking about renting and asks you to come along. You ask why you cannot just spend time together right here, right now and he says he wants to be alone with you. In a way you cannot help but interpret this as I don't want more people to see us together, I don't want any more questions about whether you are mine, I don't want to explain myself. It should have been romantic but there is another sentiment seeping through.

You agree anyway. It is hard to say no to the gorgeous boy when he is begging you with those doe-shaped eyes. So you pack your things, heart still heavy, and he plants a wet kiss on your lips when he picks you up. You decide to push your doubts away and enjoy yourself.

The place is adorable, a little house just on the beach, tiny and homely, and barely anyone around. You look at Thomas standing in front of the window, sunlight hitting his face, and think he is beautiful. It barely seems fair that someone like him would exist because everyone else just pales in comparison. You think you might never get over him. You surely will never get over looking at him.

You walk over to the man that isn't yours, wrapping your arms around him from behind and you cannot help your hands wandering lower, grasping his hardening flesh. He might never be fully yours but until your heart can take letting him go for good, you will take his body if that is all you're getting. He takes you on the kitchen counter, making you scream in a way that has you thanking your lucky stars, before dragging you into the shower and taking you once more.

The days are a daze of being entangled with each other. You barely leave the house, but when you do he takes you out to a lovely restaurant not too far away but you know it's only because no one here knows you. He holds your hand and he opens doors for you and tells you that you look beautiful. Then you get back home, or what you wish you could call home for the rest of your days, and makes you come undone time and time again.

You feel yourself falling for the gorgeous boy more and more and it is one morning, curtains forgotten to be drawn closed the night before, where the early sun hits his sleeping form just right that you realise you love him. You're so far beyond infatuation. You are getting deeper and deeper into this fantasy you are building for yourself, one where it is always the way it is right now, one where he proudly holds you in his arms in public, one where he is screaming from the rooftops that you are his and he is yours. The more time you spent with him, the harder it becomes to face reality. You're slipping.

August

It is festival season and Thomas is away a lot, sometimes coming home for a couple of days at a time and then vanishing again for longer. You miss him terribly, you almost feel lost without him. He calls, but it's not the same. Victoria calls too, and you don't know what you did to deserve her attention. She tells you Thomas is miserable whenever he is off stage and a plan is quickly hatched. Two days later you are on your way to Denmark.

Victoria meets you at the hotel, making sure you get a room on the same floor the band will be staying on for the next two nights, and then takes you to the festival grounds. It's loud and crowded and crazy and if you weren't dying to see Thomas, you would ask her to just leave you alone in front of one of the stages and let you lose your mind, but you don't.

You follow Victoria into the backstage area, quickly flashing the pass she supplied you with, and walk past a labyrinth of vans and busses and busy areas where musicians and everyone who works with them is hanging out. Victoria says she's not entirely sure where Thomas is but he's bound to be where alcohol is being served and you soon reach a little outdoor bar area. You see a glimpse of what looks like him vanish behind the bar stand and quickly follow. You don't notice if Victoria is still behind you.

It turns out you were right, as you round the corner and see the man you had been craving, but you wish you weren't. Your heart doesn't break all at once, but the beat becomes a deafening pounding and you think you might throw up. He is pinning a girl against the wall of the bar. That is when the first piece of your heart breaks off. He is touching her the way he touches you, uses all the moves you have gotten to know, and another piece of your heart crumbles and dies. Her hand is between his legs and the way he whimpers causes your heart to collapse into itself.

You barely hear Victoria shouting, you cannot understand the angry Italian words she is throwing around, and you want to turn and run but your feet are rooted to the ground. You simply watch as Victoria pulls Thomas off the girl who is quietly slipping into the background and disappearing and even with your lack of comprehension, you know the two friends are exchanging heated words. At some point Thomas turns to you, asking you why you are even here, but Victoria interjects, shouting at him because she misses you and you've been miserable, bastardo!

It is when he tells both of you that he doesn't owe you anything, that you're not together, that you're certainly not exclusive, when your body regains its sense of movement. The sound of the harsh slap your hand delivers to his cheek seems to echo and you don't wait for his reaction. You leave. There is nothing left here for you but more heartbreak.

September

You do not hear from Thomas. Victoria is trying to reach you numerous times but you do not answer. You spend the days in a dull state of being. You go to work. You do your chores. You cry yourself to sleep. And repeat.

October

Thomas is trying to reach you. You do not answer. Victoria is trying to reach you sometimes but you do not answer. Life has not become any easier. You go to work. You do your chores. Sometimes you meet friends. You cry yourself to sleep. And repeat.

November

You don't want to go out but your friends have had enough. They do your hair and your make-up, they set out a sexy but comfortable outfit and they make sure you get a first shot or two in before leaving. You don't admit it out loud but it does make you feel better.

The place they drag you to is loud and crowded and crazy and it makes you feel like you can forget for a while. It would have worked better if you hadn't spotted Damiano and Victoria on the dance floor. A twisting feeling settles in your stomach. You decide to get yourself another drink only to see Ethan there. He spots you and gives you a little wave. You wave back but the panic rises and your face doesn't match the action. They are all here. Probably.

You cannot help yourself. Drink in hand, you pretend to go looking for your friend but as you are circling the club you are looking for someone else entirely. You spot him easily. He is sitting on a table in a corner, on his own, beer bottles in front of him. He looks miserable. As if he knows, he lifts his head and your eyes meet. You feel like you're about to hyperventilate, so you turn on your heels and all but sprint to the smokers' area behind the club. There are barely any people out here, cool November air nipping at the bare skin on your arms and legs. You don't expect him to follow you but he does.

He looks worse up close. His hair looks like it hasn't seen a brush in weeks but not in the stylish way he usually wears it. His eyes are bloodshot and there are dark circles underneath. You know he's drunk, you know from his appearance and his demeanor, but he is not the usual life of the party. You wait for him to say something. Then he walks up to you, carefully throwing his arms around you and pulling you close. You almost push him away but your heart tells you differently.

He mumbles chants of I'm sorry and I'm an idiot and I don't deserve you and you have to slowly push him off you because this is not going to be over with a few apologies. You sit him down on a picnic bench standing in a corner, leaving a bit of space between you. You are aware he could win you back over with just the right looks and just the right touches but you need more.

You talk until you're frozen to the bone and only then do you accept his embrace again. You re-live your whole relationship and it becomes crystal clear where your shortcomings were. Where you went in different directions without telling the other. Where you expected what the other couldn't or wouldn't provide. You are brutally honest and the tears that soon begin rolling down both of your faces prove it. Discussing the Copenhagen disaster hurts most but you get through it. He is quick to admit fault. Yes, he was miserable. Yes, it was because he missed you. Yes, it was also because it scared him and he wasn't ready and he tried to deflect by hooking up with a girl he had literally just met. Yes, you are allowed to hold that against him forever.

That night you go back to his place with him and for the first time, nothing happens. You undress each other down to your underwear but there is nothing sexy about it. It is just two people who care deeply. You both get under the covers of his bed, holding each other close and studying each other's faces. His hand strokes your cheek. Both of you still have puffy eyes. You feel safe. No one says a word. You are simply looking into each other's eyes, content, until you drift to sleep.

December

Thomas is holding your hand. He just finished playing a gig and you're gathered backstage and you look at everyone around you who can see him holding your hand. It's a silly little thing to obsess over but your heart feels like it's going to burst with happiness. No more hiding, no more are-we-or-aren't-we, no more proclamations that only happen when he's drunk. Just two adults in love with each other.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows but you both know what you want. Communicating has gotten easier and is not reduced to what you do in the bedroom. Instead of locking each other out, you talk now. He looks happier and people have told you so do you. And you are. You never thought you were going to find the man of your dreams and for the past year it hadn't looked like Thomas was the one. But you are happy to have been proven wrong.

Victoria grins at you. She has long forgiven you for ignoring her calls back in September and October. She gets it. Sometimes you think she was angrier with Thomas than you were. She tells you it's because she saw that you are the best thing in his life from the get-go and she hated how he was throwing it away. Now you're back and you've gained a sister in her, too. You are glad for Ethan and Damiano as well. Thomas' little family has opened its arms to you and you didn't hesitate. You love being with them. All lingering awkwardness from April has vanished. They are still not fond of accidentally walking in on you and Thomas, though.

The band goes out to meet some fans and you tag along but hang back. The way certain girls touch Thomas still doesn't sit right with you, but you see the way he reacts and it's a relief. Taking a step back, removing hands from his body, smiling politely but with determination. He does it when you're not watching, too. Victoria has told you as much.

He catches your eye for a second, realises you are watching him, and throws you an air kiss. The people he was talking to turn around to see who he is aiming for, but quickly lose interest. You keep watching. His animated hands as he talks. The smile lighting up his face when someone pays him a compliment. You think he is drop-dead gorgeous. And you think that as long as he allows you to look at him like this, and as long as he does the same to you, you'll stay here forever.

#maneskin fiction #maneskin imagine #thomas raggi x you #thomas raggi x reader #thomas raggi imagine #thomas raggi fiction #fluff #angst #my writings

[issaxcharlie]

Something so right

Pairing: Alive! Luke x Fem reader

Summary: A date with the golden boy of the school reveals Y/N’s and Luke's true feelings for each other and they have no choice but to face what they feel. Who will take the first step?

(The fragments of the song are from Sparks Fly by Taylor Swift)

Luke Patterson was more impatient than usual. 7:30 pm and no sign of his best friend, the one who had never missed a Sunset Curve rehearsal in these two years that they had been playing together.

“Am I the only one worried about Y/N? She is not usually late."

Reggie slaps his forehead, a memory snapping back into his head. "I forgot to tell you she won't be here today, she said something about a date."

The guitarist feels a punch in the stomach, he tries to hide how bitter the news fell on him, but his friends know him better than that.

“A date? With who?” Alex asks, genuinely curious.

“Austin Grayson.”

“Ugh, really Y/N?” But of course it had to be the school's golden boy. Luke can't help not feeling insecure. Austin Grayson is everything Luke Patterson isn't, and that scares him. What if that's what she's really looking for in a partner? He just wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Nice, he really has to like her to invited her despite what everyone says." Bobby responds as he takes advantage of the short break to rest his hands. Reggie and Alex nodding in agreement.

“What do they say?” Luke asks, completely lost.

“Oh please, most of the school thinks you guys are dating. There isn't a day that I don't hear someone call her Patterson’s girl." Alex replies, and Luke looks even more lost.

He can somehow understand why they would think that, he always enjoys having her and feeling her close. Usually touching her hand or arm in some way, hugging her whenever he sees fit. Carrying her books in the hallways or supporting her at her basketball games, just like she accompanies them to all the band's rehearsals and performances, or how she sometimes wears to school the clothes that he 'accidentally' leaves at her home when her mom invites him to dinner. On second thought, it’s easy to understand the confusion.

You don’t know what is happening. Austin is sweet, handsome, smart, and yet you feel nothing. Forced yourself to laugh falsely all night, and couldn't help but think that it would have been more fun to join the boys in rehearsal, especially when they were only a few days away from Sunset Curve's first performance at school.

When you finally get home, you walk with your head on the floor, trying not to make eye contact with your date. Austin gently grabs your chin so you turn to see him.

A fake cough from behind causes you both to jump away from each other. You don't even have to turn to find out who owns that perfect timed cough.

“What are you doing here?” You refuse to turn around, but you know he's smirking anyway.

“It’s movie night, love.” You force one more smile towards Austin as you curse Luke under your breath, who emphasized the last word in that seductive deep voice he sometimes does when he sings and that secretly melts your legs.

“Patterson." Austin tries to get past the awkward moment by participating in the conversation, and Luke responds by approaching and placing his arm on your shoulder.

"Grayson. Thank you for bringing her safe and sound." He sounds sincere, and that makes you smile for real for the first time of the night.

“It was nothing... I should go. Goodnight Y/N, I had a great time.”

Luke lowers his arm from your shoulder and leans back, ashamed of his rare moment of insecurity and letting you say goodbye to the boy.

As soon as he leaves, you turn to see your best friend, who looks sadly at the ground, and you hug him tightly.

Luke has been through very difficult months, and it is easy for someone who is vulnerable to feel insecure, especially in situations new to them. Not to mention that you are definitely not going to fight with the person you love for putting his arm on your shoulder or calling you in an affectionate way, which are things that he usually does, guy in your doorstep or not. You decide that he showing a little jealousy for once is not the end of the world.

“I missed you so much, rockstar.” You murmur still against his chest, your statement only makes him hold you tighter. You can't help but think about how just hugging him for a few seconds makes you so much happier than the whole date you just had.

“I’m sorry for making a scene. No wonder everyone thinks we are dating.“

“I don’t mind. I couldn't wear your cool flannels or your necklaces if I was dating someone. Plus it would take away valuable time that I can use as the president of the Sunset Curve fan club.” He chuckles. You can feel his body relax and his heartbeat begins to calm down. He gives you a sweet kiss in your hair before letting you go.

Best friends walk into the house, and as Y/N goes to change into something more comfortable Luke sits at the kitchen counter to chat with his second female best friend.

"You have to do something quick, I don't want to have you here crying and eating ice cream while she's on some date with some graceless snob.”

The guitarist can't help but laugh. Y/N's mom has always been a music lover and one of his greatest inspirations. She gave him his first guitar and taught him how to play, always supporting him in each of his steps as a musician. She has always loved him like a son, believing in him with all her might and always blindly entrusting him with what she loves most in the world, her daughter Y/N.

“I know, I will I promise. What I felt today when I saw Grayson touch her face and so close to her lips... I never want to experience that again. I was thinking maybe at homecoming? Sunset Curve is going to perform.”

She wrinkles her nose in response and Luke laughs again.

"Yeah too much information, I’m sorry. And I know, but we have to start somewhere. As soon as we get booked at a good enough club you'll be the first guest.”

They both make a pinky promise and smile.

“I’ll make you proud someday. I swear.”

“I’m always proud of you, my sweet boy. I know you’ll do amazing things, just take good care of my princess during tours.”

“You know I will.” They pinky promise again and reunite with Y/N in the living room to watch movies til the teens fall asleep cuddling.

Homecoming day arrived and you don’t have a partner. It is not hard to imagine why, being surrounded by at least one of the Sunset Curve members 24/7, especially Luke who tries to be close to you as much as possible, as if he is afraid that you will forget him if you spend too much time separated. Which is actually something you like, if you are honest with yourself. Is not something you would tell him but feeling him close and having his attention devoted to you most of the time feels quite special.

The date with Austin didn’t feel right and only confirmed what you've been trying to deny yourself for months. You are in love with freakin Luke Patterson. And you are in really deep, loving the good, bad, fun, boring, charming, and annoying parts, absolutely every side of him. And now is the time to finally do something about it.

After the guys show tonight, even more girls will be raining down on them than usual and things could get really messy, it's best to make your move first. Inside your heart you know that he feels the same, and if he doesn't have the courage to act on it then you will.

The first and most important thing you need to do to get the operation going is to kidnap Reggie, Alex and Bobby.

After a little threatening session everyone sang about Luke's idea for tonight, which made you grin like an idiot and feel more confident about your plan. The surprise that he will get when he sees how you sabotaged his plan.

Convincing Luke that it was best for you to come on your own so that they would have more time to prepare was not easy, but in the end you succeeded.

He's not a suit kinda person, but you went along with him to get a dark blue one that looked unreal on him just a few weeks ago, and you knew he would find a way to wear it sleeveless so he will look even more irresistible. You opted for a black dress that fades beautifully to blue towards the bottom of the skirt and in which you really look pretty good If you can say it yourself.

Sunset Curve finishes singing the first song, Now or never. It's time for the song Luke wrote for you, but he turns to see his friends scared when he still can't find you in the crowd. They smile at him and start to play the song they practiced with you just a few hours before.

“The way you move is like a full on rainstorm, and I'm a house of cards. You're the kind of reckless that should send me running, but I kinda know that I won't get far.”

You walk onto the stage as you start the first verse, Luke is shocked for a few seconds but then grins from ear to ear.

“And you stood there in front of me just... close enough to touch.” He recovers much faster than expected and pulls you by the waist towards him, just the microphone separating you two while he looks at you with the most seductive face you’ve ever seen.

“'Cause I see, sparks fly, whenever you smile... Get me with those green eyes, baby as the lights go down.” He blushes a little and smiles while his eyes are locked on your lips, capturing every move.

After what seems like an eternity, the song ends and before you can even say thank you, Luke's lips crash against yours, and it’s even better than what you’ve dreamed plenty of times. All the people start screaming, but you especially hear Reggie and Alex a few steps away who sound pretty happy for you.

“Reggie, an issue occurred, I have to go, sing home is where my horse is if you want to.” Luke whispers to his friend, before effortlessly carrying you off the stage.

“Admit it, you just want to touch my legs.” You joke while he walks with you on his shoulder.

“I’m in love with a really smart girl.” You stay quiet, your heart wants to jump out of your chest and you don’t even want to imagine how red your face is right now.

The guitarist finally brings you down when you leave the building, and you both walk to the park next door, where you met when you were just kids.

"Do you remember exactly how we met?" He asks while taking your hand.

“Reggie and Alex teamed up to destroy you in a game they invented and I was the only one in the park, so you invited me to join your team. And when we managed to win you said that we were the best duo on the face of the earth, that we had to be best friends forever."

“I sound very intense.”

“You are.”

They both laugh at the memory.

"You were still right."

“When did you finally realize that you loved me?” Luke asks, smirking playfully.

“I've known for a long time, but I didn't dare to admit it until recently.”

He completely accepts my answer and sincerity and smiles at me.

“I always knew that we would end up together, you eat me with your eyes when I'm not wearing a shirt.”

His teasing takes effect and you blush just remembering him in that situation.

He smiles cheekily and then takes mercy on you and changes the subject.

“So, we are the best duo on the face of the earth, best friends forever, and now an official couple?”

“That’s right, handsome and smart. Nice.”

Both approach until their lips touch, the kiss begins calm but quickly becomes more passionate, his tongue claiming every inch of your mouth, his arms strong on your hips. You let this amazing sensations envelop you and you lose yourself in him, happier than you've ever been.

When you are with the right person, everything feels just right.

Thank you for reading!

Taglist:

@siennanoelle01 , @totomoshi , @kiss-themoongoodbye , @writerinlearning

#luke patterson fanfiction #luke x reader #luke patterson oneshot #luke patterson imagine #luke patterson x y/n #luke patterson x reader #luke patterson imagines #charlie gillespie imagines #charlie gillespie x y/n #charlie gillespie one shot #charlie gillespie x reader #charlie gillespie imagine #jatp fanfiction #jatp fanfic #jatp imagine #jatp one shot

[sunset-curve-fantom]

What If- Alive!Luke x Reader

You had spent countless hours attempting to find out the perfectly logical reasoning as to why Luke had blown you off today… But there you were at a two-hour meeting with the wedding planner with no real excuse as to why you were alone yet again.

This was a moment you had been looking forward since you met Luke Patterson. He was a light that was brought into your life right after you lost your Dad, and he was the rock to help you grieve. But no sooner did you become friends, did the two of you fall head over heels for each other. From 17-year-olds to now, everything you did was to further your careers. After all Sunset Curve was your brilliant idea after meeting Alex and Reggie at school.

You wanted nothing more than to live your life out with Luke, he was the one person that meant the world to you. No matter what happened, your love was always a constant.

Flash forward to this moment, where the anger was finally taking over you. How dare he stand you up, again. He was so caught up in the band and the new music, that he forgets that you are also a member. Not like you can play without the rhythm guitarist- but in Luke’s mind he could do anything he wanted.

More than anything you just wished you had the time to be yourselves again, full of happiness and love without the pressure from the band, and record labels, and fans. Just two seconds to focus on you, and this wedding you both desperately wanted- well at least you desperately wanted.

You marched right into rehearsal- they had already started your new song and you weren’t even there! Seriously?

Reggie caught you gaze as you came into the room, the anger clearly emanating off you. He stopped playing, before catching Alex’s attention. They were trying to stay out of the middle of a fight, but lord knows that was not going to happen. Especially now- you were there, and you were angry.

“Hey lover, where ya been?” Luke said as you approached him, he went in for a kiss. You held your hand up in front of your face. Reggie sucked in a deep breath behind you- he knew Luke was in trouble now. You never avoided a kiss, no matter how angry.

“Where have I been? You are kidding me, right? I know that did not just come out of your mouth.” You said, anger gripping your words as you tried to hold back the screaming. You felt hot tears beginning to pool in your eyes. This cannot be happening; he doesn’t even remember.

“Uh-no. I seriously have no idea where you have been all day. We had to start rehearsal without you, you know we have this big showcase coming up. I need you on your game, lovebug.” He said ruffling your hair, trying to get back into rehearsal. But that was the final straw, you couldn’t contain the pain in your chest as anger erupted in your words.

 “Are you actually kidding me? You want to complain to me about being late, and missing things? Luke, you want this huge future for us, for you and me, when I am barely a part of your life now. I have become a shadow in your world, and that is unacceptable. You have music is coursing through your veins and that is truly remarkable but now- now I am a background player again. I am the rhythm guitarist that you sometimes pay attention to, but that’s usually when I fuck up. When we started this together, the band- our future was supposed to include each other and now I am just a face in the crowd. The sad part is you don’t even notice how alone I am.” You screamed at Luke.

He yet again forgot another meeting and he didn’t even know it. If it wasn’t band related, then it wasn’t important, per usual. So yup, he forgot the meeting with the wedding planner and here you were screaming at him, in the middle of rehearsal. You were nothing- and that was clear after today.

“You are being ridiculous, I forgot one meeting, one stupid meeting. It is not the end of the world- you are blowing this completely out of proportion, Y/N. I don’t know why you are acting like a brat.” Luke said back, anger hanging on to every word. Tears sprung to your eyes; you were not being ridiculous. This was your wedding for fucks sake. This was supposed to be your big day and now- god now you don’t even know him.

“I am ridiculous? Luke, are you fucking blind? Clearly you missed the memo again because the meeting was for our wedding, you know the day where I wear a big white dress and commit my life to you? Do you have dementia or something? Cause apparently you forgot about even proposing to me, because YOU HAVE MISSED EVERY MEETING WE HAVE HAD. I am not being a brat, I am upset, and angry, and heartbroken because I thought I was going to spend my life with you but now- now that is over. I am done trying to be perfect for you, and for this band, and for the whole fucking world. I am done. I-I-I just can’t anymore. You now have the perfect what if situation, because what if I never met you, I wouldn’t be so fucked up.” You raised your voice, clearly angry at him. You yanked your ring off your finger placing it on his amp and turning on your heel. This just was not working- not anymore, if he made some effort then maybe- but now, you had no idea what you saw in him all those years ago.

You heard heavy steps behind you, so you ran. Trying to reach the comfort of your car, not wanting to have another fight. You had just dumped Luke, and you didn’t even mean too. Everything you said- you never meant. You were just so mad, you heard Luke’s voice behind you, “WAIT”

You closed your car door behind you, briskly pulling out of the driveway. You could see Luke in your rearview mirror- Reggie was comforting him. You knew he was heartbroken- but you couldn’t be a background pawn any longer. You were supposed to be his future wife, and he treated you like dirt.

You drove around for what felt like hours before going to the one place you knew Luke wouldn’t be- Alex’s apartment.

Wiping your cheeks, you knocked softly on the door. Waiting for Alex to pop his head out, but instead it was Reggie who opened the door,

“Hey Reg- can I come in? I’m just not ready to go home”

He nodded, stepping to the side. He knew how much you were hurting; Reg was your best friend and you confided everything in him. He knew that Luke had blown off multiple meetings and he knew how confused you were, he was so happy about the wedding in the beginning and now- he could give two shits about it, clearly.

You plopped down on the couch; Reggie followed close behind. He knew you just needed a listening ear.

“Reg… I-I-I” You couldn’t even find the words before sobs began pouring out of you. You thought you and Luke were going to be endgame and now- that probably wasn’t going to happen. You had ruined everything with your mouth getting in the way.

“I am only going to say this once- you have not lost him. You are his entire world, no matter how much he has fucked up” Reggie said, wrapping an arm around your shoulder. He knew Luke better than anyone and what he was saying was the truth, Luke would go down fighting for you.

You giggled under your breath, “Yeah I know Reg, you don’t speak girl. But thanks for trying. I just messed up today, I let my anger get the better of me but at the same time Luke shouldn’t have stood me up, AGAIN. I mean you know how it has been, it’s awful. Like I am pretty sure the wedding planner thinks I am marrying myself. How am I supposed to plan a wedding when he is too busy for even a simple meeting? Like he would probably miss our wedding day all together because he is so damn busy…” You said, trying to bring humor to the situation. Luke was your person and now, now you needed to fix everything.

You looked at Reggie who hadn’t spoken to you, but you followed his gaze to the kitchen. There was Luke, with his head deep as anything in the fridge eavesdropping on your conversation. He was seriously a five-year-old.

“Seriously Luke? Do you have to listen into everything? I am not exactly happy with you!” You said annoyed.

He chuckled at you, “I know you aren’t happy with me. But I wanted to give you space, I didn’t think you would come here… I thought you would go home. I didn’t think you would actually want to see me. ”

You shook your head, “I didn’t want to intrude, that is why I came here instead. I didn’t want another fight, cause I am tired of it. I am tired of feeling less. ”

He walked towards where you were sat, “Honey- there would be no fighting. I am going to make this simple. I love you- and I wish I had known how much of an idiot I have been. I love you more than anything in this world, including my music. You are the inspiration behind everything I do, and I am so so so so sorry I forgot the meetings. I have been trying so hard to plan things in advance so we could have an incredible wedding. Oh baby, I am so so sorry for making you feel less. You are my whole world, hell my whole solar system and I wish I had noticed how sad you have been. I want nothing more to be your husband, if you will still have me...?”

Tears ran down your face, “You really wanted to marry me?”

He laughed, wiping tears off your face with his thumb, “of course, you dork. I wouldn’t have asked in the first place if I didn’t.”

You threw yourself off the couch and into his grip, it was the first time in a long time you felt safe and at home. You tightened your grip around his neck, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. He just chuckled in your ear before pressing his lips to yours, it was like you were made for each other. Every kiss felt like it was molded perfectly for the two of you.

You truly were a match made in heaven.

“That’s like super gross…. Can you go home and have sex? I really don’t need that image in my living room, especially on my new carpet.” Alex said, causing laughter to escape from the both of you.

“Too late for that bud... that carpet is way broken in. ” Luke said before throwing you over his shoulder. Trying to run away form the horrified look rested on Alex’s face.

You were barely out the door when you heard Alex screaming orders at Reg, “OH MY GOD, REGINALD GET THE STEAM CLEANER. I-UH-UH I NEED TO CLEAN. THIS IS DISGUSTING. I LAY ON THIS CARPET. UGHHHH”

You were home, and that was the most important thing to you. You knew some way, some how Luke was your endgame and that was not going to change.

@parkeret​ @coldlamaspersonspy​ @calamitykaty​ @all-in-fangirl​

#luke patterson imagines #luke patterson #luke patterson x reader #luke patterson smut #luke #reggie #reggie x reader #reggie julie and the phantoms #alex #alex x reader #alex julie and the phantoms #julie and the phantoms #julie and the fat ones #julie x reader #julie x luke #julie #luke julie and the phantoms

[creativeashproductions]

If I Stay Part Two (Final) // Luke Patterson

Summary: Life as you knew it shattered and now you’re left picking up the pieces with memories of a boy with hazel eyes in your dreams. A handsome guitarist who easily becomes your unseen number one supporter. If only you could see him again.

Warning: Swearing, mention of injuries, mention of car accident and talk of death.

Words: 2.5k (excluding the song lyrics of “I Won’t Let Go” by Rascal Flatts)

A/N: Second and last part to If I Stay! I really enjoyed this story because I adored Charlie St. Cloud and I really enjoyed If I Stay. The second part to Lost Time will be up soon when I feel confident in the storyline of it.

If I Stay Part One

Masterlist

In a split second for the first time, you felt yourself, poof, away to a sterile white room staring down at the person in the bed. Covered in cuts and bruises of all colours, was you. A broken version of you that made you sick to your stomach. You desperately yearned to go back to being unaware.

“I’m…a ghost?” You breathed looking at your blemish-free hands, a juxtaposition to the arm in a cast. Then in a nauseating thought, the grief faded for fear on your family. Had they survived? You ran out of the room straight to a nurse, “Where are my parents! Where’s my cousin Lou?”

Of course, the nurse was unaware of an upset, emotional teenage girl, a victim of a car crash and in a battle for her life. Realizing no one would answer you spent hours running around the hospital searching for your parents or Lou.

“Lou!” You shouted through the halls unfazed as you ran literally through gurneys and medical equipment even the odd doctor.

At the very last room, you found Lou sitting up in a bed staring silently at the white wall with an official man seated by the side of her bed. He held a clipboard in his hand.

“Lou, how are you feeling?” The man spoke, his white coat embroidered with his profession and labelling him a psychiatrist.

“Fine.”

“You’ve suffered a trau-“

“I’m aware. I was there. I saw a paramedic violently hitting my cousin’s chest, I saw so much blood. I didn’t know there could be that much blood!” Lou snapped glaring the man down, “I saw the brains of the idiot that caused the accident! You don’t know shit! Oh, your little degree magically has you able to understand what I’m going through?!”

“Lou-“

“You wanted me to talk! So, let me talk!” Lou screamed at the man startling you with the anger, “My cousin! My best friend, my SISTER is up in a bed in a coma! A coma because I wanted to go to a stupid resort to ski! It’s my fault! And no one will tell me anything about my aunt and uncle!”

You stumbled back at the pain Lou displayed, it broke your heart, and you couldn’t listen to it anymore.

“Lou, let’s talk about survivor’s gu-“

You fell through the closed door before you could hear anything more from the psychiatrist. You ambled around the floor aimlessly feeling the worst you ever had and to think for two weeks you hadn’t been aware of anything.

“Did you hear?” A nurse spoke from just outside your hospital room. You jogged over reading her name tag of Melissa.

“Heard what?”

“The father of the mountain accident he flatlined in surgery. Doctors got him back, but they’re concerned about brain damage.” Nurse Melissa told her fellow nurse with concern pinching her expression.

“That’s the father of the Y/L/N patient, right?” Nurse Lucy spoke glancing at your hospital door, “I hope they’ll be alright.”

“That poor girl has quite the decision to make. To live or to die. It’s all on her now.” Nurse Melissa replied, “Her mother died-“

“Little unprofessional to gossip about patients in earshot of everyone. Did you know that coma patients can often hear things while unconscious? Or my favourite tip…did you learn about HIPAA?” The doctor on duty asked, staring the two nurses down with a glared. Each nurse shifted on their feet, “Stop gossiping and do your job. I’m sure you can change bedpans or give sponge baths.”

The nurses scattered, leaving you standing in shock at the information given to you. Your mother was dead, your father could be brain dead, and Lou wasn’t coping well. Leaving you in a state of wondering what to do. Should you stay in a world without your parents or let go to join them in heaven. The thought had you collapsing into screams on the floor as everyone went about their work; walking through the hysterical teenager.

A warm hand slid into your own with a comforting squeeze, but all you wanted was to feel your father wrap you in a bear hug. To listen to your mother’s laugh, move in the air with that beautiful musical sound. You want Lou to be okay.

Luke was quiet as he sat the floor, squeezing your hand every once in a while. You slumped into his arms, staring unfeeling at the door that separated your ghostly form from your physical one. Luke poofed you to the Molina garage right on the couch where he held you tight for god knows how long.

“She’s dead.” Your voice cracked tears rolling down your cheeks once more, “My mom is dead.”

“Sh.” Luke cooed pressing his lips against your temple as you curled further into his body. His heart broke for you as the gravity of the situation became crystal clear.

“Hi.” Luke’s eyes met the concerned ones of Julie Molina, a girl that would undoubtedly know how you felt. The thing that connected you being the loss of a mother figure, “I’m Julie.”

Your blank expression lifted to see a girl you had often seen in the halls of Los Feliz High School and vaguely remembered her. She had been performing during the Spirit Rally months ago.

“I’m a friend of Luke, Reggie and Alex. I’m sorry you’re going through this, but you are more than welcome to stay here. You can be in my room or here if you’re more comfortable.” Julie offered knowing exactly how you felt when a year ago, she had been grieving the loss of her mom.

“Thank you.” You replied hoarsely. Exhaustion from sobbing closed your eyes, something that was different to Luke as a ghost was your ability to sleep. 

Alex theorized that you could sleep because your body was still alive, whereas the boys had no physical body. They were just ghosts. He and Reggie were in the studio sadly watching as you slipped in a deep unsettled sleep. Luke’s broken eyes met his best friends before he had Alex come over.

“Please stay with her.” Luke whispered, leaving the tall blonde to switch places. Luke disappeared without another word.

“Where’s-“Julie began, but Reggie interrupted her with a sad smile.

“Remember when we took you to Luke’s house? He’ll do the same but with her.” Reggie supplied coming to sit on the floor in front of the couch; his hand grabbing yours in support.

In a medium-sized house with a backyard kept tidy by the neighbours, Luke found his way to your room. His grabbed a few items of clothing and sneakers into a discarded bag before he dropped the bag off in Julie’s bedroom. His next stop was your hospital room. Luke settled himself in the chair beside you watching your chest go up and down from the breathing tube.

“Hi. I don’t know you in this form, but I know your spirit. I’m not good with my words, but I’m going to try. Two weeks ago I met you in a record store, and I fell in love faster than I can tune my guitar and believe me I have the record in the band. I never believed in love at first sight, but I also didn’t believe in ghosts, but here we are!” Luke chortled leaning to place his hand on yours, but it slipped through.

His smile saddened, “As much as I love holding you and kissing your head… I’d much prefer feeling that aching and yearning feel in my gut. If I felt that then it meant you would be alive and well. I’d rather be sad that I can’t feel you than have you die so young.”

Luke saw your eyelids flicker and he hoped it was because you could hear him.

“You have so much to live for. It’s gonna be hard. I can’t deny that, but I need you to stay. Stay alive and fight for me. For Lou.” Luke choked, squeezing his eyes shut grateful when a hand rested on his shoulder. He knew it was Alex.

“Whatever you’re saying. Continue.” Alex whispered, “It’s working, her body is slowly becoming transparent.”

Alex’s words were further proven as Nurse Melissa jogged in surprised as she took vitals, “Well I’ll be damned. You decided to fight.”

Alex and Luke shared a relieved expression as you got even more strong. Together they returned to the garage. Luke was able to press one kiss to your forehead before you flickered once, twice, thrice before you dissipated.

In that hospital room, a beautiful thing occurred. Your eyes opened. Luke swore the birds sang better at the moment.

Recovery was hard. Relearning the little things, you took for granted was frustrating. Lou would hover as if you would disappear and you thought you were going insane. If you were waking up screaming by nightmares of the crash than it was waking confused on dreams that felt like memories.

The small victories helped like when you walked the entire hospital or when you were able to use the toilet and not the bedpan. The best win was being discharged to Lou’s parents and only needing outpatient physical therapy. Six months later, your father was awake and getting better; the loss of your mother still burnt hot and red.

It was on the sixth month anniversary when you walked down an oddly familiar street. Merritt happily trotting on his afternoon walk; Merritt had been an immense help. In your first month of recovery post coma, you met Merritt who would become your service dog.

A sense of déjà vu nudged you as you took in a vintage styled record store you swore you knew before. Continuing on you stop again at a toy story with a dollhouse.

 “My cousin had one…for her unborn niece.” The sentence floated in your mind, but you couldn’t put a conversation.

 “Caspar?” A male voice recalled in a distant memory of a dream a few days ago. You couldn’t think of anyone who had that voice, and absolutely no way had you ever seen that dollhouse before.

“Just coincidence.” You mumbled scratching Merritt’s head as his wet nose nudged your head before you could worry more. You watched people roaming thankful that you could do that, that you survived.

It was the building on the very end that confused you the most. Your eyes scanned the name proudly announcing itself as a tattoo parlour. A gasp left your lips as a vivid memory popped into your head with a boy that matched that voice you had thought of earlier.

“Luke. My name is Luke. Hey! I know this shop!” Luke beamed, stepping back to take in the storefront. In the twenty-five years since he last saw it, the blue faded into a teal, but the door was still the same as it always was.

“You have a tattoo?” You asked, scanning his arms bare in the cut off shirt he wore.You couldn’t see any ink on his skin. Luke couldn’t help the smirk on his faceat the blatant heated gaze.

“No.It was 1994. We just played our biggest gig at the time, and Bobby decided we should get tattoos.” Luke’s mouth twisted at the mention of his former friend, “Of course we were sixteen and Alex just about fainted in the shop. The guy took one look at Reggie and laughed at our fake IDs. Told us to come back in a few years.”

“So, you’re a ’90s kid.” You raised an eyebrow coming to a stop on the edge of the street, pressing the button to cross.

“Technically a ’70s kid. We died in ’95 a few hours before a life-changing gig.” The mood turned sombre as Luke thought back on that one night that life decided to raise both middle fingers at his dreams, “Death by a hot dog.”

You were so thankful for Merritt as he nestled up into a dog version of a hug as you felt the crippling anxiety. He was always there and knew about to help, support dogs don’t get enough credit.

When your eyes opened, it is like a dam broke and suddenly you remembered walking this street with three guys. The conversations and even the garage where one had held you in an incredibly vulnerable moment. Three ghosts that helped you when you needed it but didn’t know.

“Luke.” You breathed seeing a form shimmer in the sun as it flickered into a hazy form. Similar to how you did in the garage before going back to your body, he flashed three times. He solidified on the fourth with a great big grin.

“You can see me.” Luke cried, walking closer as he felt on top of the world when your eyes focused on him. He finally felt that yearning to meet your gaze fade away, “I missed you.”

You followed him to the Molina garage.

“I thought we’d never be able to talk again.” Luke sighed, reaching over, and he physically grabbed your hand, “I don’t know if I can touch you because of your former state or because of Julie.”

“Hm?” You questioned sitting cross legged on the bed.

“When I wasn’t watching over you, I was with Julie and the guys.” Luke went into detail about Caleb and the jolts, “We didn’t cross over because it’s not our unfinished business, but the stamps were destroyed when Julie hugged us. We’re sure that just like our instruments are connected to our souls that Julie did as well.”

Your hand brushed Luke’s cheek taking in the silky feeling of his skin, “I thought I was going crazy. I had these dreams of things I didn’t do in reality. My mind just wasn’t ready to remember the beauty of our connection.”

“This is an interesting little relationship you and I have.” Luke chuckled, thinking on how lucky he was to even know you, “You’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you.” You whispered gratefully to intertwine your fingers with Luke’s hand as well. It was like they were made for each regardless of the circumstances that brought you together, “I’m not ready for anything more than friendship, but I do strong feelings for you.”

“Being dead has an advantage. I can wait for eternity, and for you, I would. Just so you know, I have strong feelings for you as well.” Luke beamed scanning your face, taking in the blemishes from the crash. In the time you hadn’t been aware of him following coming out of the coma, he had become acquainted with your injuries.

When those little victories of weight-bearing, walking one step then two and finally that entire hallway Luke had been there unseen cheering you on. When you ‘graduated’ from the inpatient therapy Alex, Reggie and Luke had been there in silent support.

“Do what you need to do, and I’ll be right here for you.” Luke smiled gently, removing his guitar from the case, “Can I play something?”

You nodded in response as started strumming to a new song he had created in the last handful of months.

“It’s like a storm

 That cuts a path

 It’s breaks your will

 It feels like that

You think you’re lost

 But your not lost on your own

 You’re not alone

I will stand by you

 I will help you through

 When you’ve done all you can do

 If you can’t cope

 I will dry your eyes

 I will fight your fight

 I will hold you tight

 And I won’t let go

It hurts my heart

 To see you cry

 I know it’s dark

 This part of life

 Oh it finds us all (finds us all)

 And we’re too small

 To stop the rain

 Oh but when it rains

The song touched you so intimately as he sang the last few lines softly keeping eye contact with you.

“…Oh I’m gonna hold you

 And I won’t let go

 Won’t let you go

 No I won’t”

You pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek that flushed at the feel of your lips against his skin. His heart fluttered and knew that you were his soulmate and he truly hoped Julie could find someone that could love her like she deserves. Luke’s heart belonged to yours and yours alone and vice versa for you as well.

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[softkuna]

Sukuna || Concert || Fic

Part 2 (oc) Part 2 (reader)

Content   ║  Sukuna x Reader 

His vocals held that pompous cockiness he was renowned for. It dripped down with the sweat along his neck and chest. His bandmates followed yet were lost in their own worlds. They let the instruments take control of them. You would never admit that you liked the music, either. It was that 90’s punk-grunge Christian parents thought lead to devil worship. The screams weren’t for the devil, no. They worshipped The King of Curses. Now you understood why.

Count      ║ 1,664 words.

Consider ║ Cursing. Sukuna being kind of being a dick. Female reader. Grammar issues most likely ^^”

Creator   ║ So uh…. I saw a photo of Rockstar Sukuna and this happened. Enjoy my self indulgence. Also… Song for Reference.

Ryoumen Sukuna positioned himself on stage. The sea of people were glued to every motion he made. You were one of those people in the front. Dead center. Your editor paid a lot of money for that spot, too, but you still wanted nothing to do with it. Sure, you needed a big story to get out of that damn plateau but this was not what you had in mind. You focused on fashion, not punk boys with eyeliner.

  His face turned to the stage, knees rocking his body to the beginning of a simple, yet effective beat. Broad, muscled shoulder curled forward, securing his zone. But then the guitar came in. A near feral grin ricocheted onto his features as it did. In an explosive leap, his feet left the ground only for the scuffed Doc Martens to slam into the stage at the second beat. Right hand whipped the mic’s wire out of his way, left arm jostled as he started to sing.

  Bitches love me 'cause they know that I can rock

Bitches love me 'cause they know that I can rhyme

Bitches love me 'cause they know that I can fuck

  Docs crashed with every step, their synchronicity with the band behind. One hand kept on the mic, the other whipped its wire out of his way. It wasn’t that he was energetic, no. He was captivating, calculated in every step, yet casual. His control over his body and the crowd… immaculate. It was a precarious balancing act that he pulled off with little to no effort at all. Steps were to the beat, his entire torso being thrown into the movements.

  He wore a white tank top with a breast pocket. The branding of it was recognizable simply by the pristine floral embroidery along the bottom and hems. It hung past the hem of black leather pants. A custom-made silver necklace beat against his chest with each toss of his built physique. You snapped a photo.

  His prowess was obvious, even for someone like yourself who knew not a single lick of rock culture. Even with the vulgar and energetic lyrics, the whirling stop-start slow-fast tempo, Sukuna perfected the music as though he were at one with it. Embodied and embraced it. The sharp smile he threw to the collage of faces before him was the only thing you needed to know that he was in his element.

  His vocals held that pompous cockiness he was renowned for. It dripped down with the sweat along his neck and chest. His bandmates followed yet were lost in their own worlds. They let the instruments take control of them. You would never admit that you liked the music, either. It was that 90’s punk-grunge Christian parents thought lead to devil worship. The screams weren’t for the devil, no. They worshipped The King of Curses. Now you understood why.

The song was strong, heady even. It buzzed throughout your mind and swung at your heart like a right hook. Each punch of the drums was exhilarating. Every kick of the bass left you wanting more. As alive as Sukuna was on stage, you were there feeling it with him.

  The concert went on, moving through each piece like a surging smooth river. It was hard to tell when one song began and the other ended. Whenever you could, you’d snap a photo. There were some good shots in there. Some of his imposing form dangling at the edge of the stage, arms wide out displaying his designer bracelets. Others when he’d toss his entire spine back. The best, though, were when he’d come face to face with the guitarist, his brother, in a beck and call. In their wardrobe, they were a delicate balance of blacks, whites, and coral.

  A certain thrill came about you as you realized the wardrobe of each member reflected their position. They weren’t to outshine him, but they all had a theme. Everything must have been custom ordered and hand tailored. Their entire image was just as important to the show as music. Every photo was set up to illustrated the complementing lights and darks they had set up on stage, a living and breathing portrait of youth.

  You couldn’t help but notice how every time you’d point the camera at him, he’d lock those brilliant eyes onto yours. He recognized you before. How could he not? Out of everyone in the front row, you were the only one wearing some preppy knit dress. He never would have expected to see a face like yours in his crowd. Some rising reporter with a side blog. He never cared about press, but you’ve been making a name for yourself due to your precise analysis of social culture and clothes. He actually thought your last article on street fashion was interesting and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t gawk at your Instagram after. All in all, he kept his glances for your camera instead.

  The stage lighting shifted, illuminating the beads of sweat sparkling along his tatted skin like diamonds. The unnatural redness in his eyes blew an intense gaze across the still crowd. They came to a complete stop. Unease settled into your stomach. This was your cue to go. You knew what would happen next and you weren’t ready for when it did.

  His foot tapped. The guitar started. A mosh pit rioted.

  It was a concert tradition according to the fan page you looked at moments before walking through the door. ‘If you don’t leave with a black eye, did you even go to a Two Faced concert?’ they’d ask.

  Your frame was shoved against the rail, knocking the wind out of you. Bodies collided behind and you felt trapped. Your lungs squeezed and your hands scrambled for your bag. Inhaler. Inhaler. Tightness inflamed your chest as a particularly bulky man squeezed you into the rail. Your hands clasped to inhaler, but before you could press it to your lips, another body collided into you. It clattered a few feet over the rail, hitting the stage. Fuck.

  From the corner of his eyes, he saw it happen. Panic painted across your face as you hauled your torso over the rail. Your arm reached for what was dropped before it immediately covered a coughing fit. What idiot would come to his concert an, his domain, and expect to just come out unscathed? It was your own damn fault if you got the wind knocked out of you, but he had to give you credit for trying. Just as he was about to look away, someone grabbed the back collar of your dress.

  Sukuna wasn’t one of those artists who genuinely cared about their fanbase or paparazzi. That was for the other members to do. It was well known, too. He didn’t indulge in pictures if he didn’t want to or wasn’t on stage. He didn’t sign anything without a check. No one knew music like he did. No one performed like he did. No one mattered like he did. Whatever it was that overtook him then, he wasn’t sure, but he dropped the mic. A sharp blare washed over the P.E. system. All eyes turned to him. Bandmates faltered for only a moment.

  Two steps back. Sprint. The tips of his shoes left the edge of the stage. Ryoumen Sukuna took flight. Arm reached for him, stopping his prized body from colliding with the harsh concrete below. The hand on you left, desperate to make contact with The King of Curses. The band went on, the crowd’s scream piercing the air as they swayed the singers body this way and that. You clambered over to grab the inhaler, took a hit, and dove for an exit.

  That’s how you found yourself where you were now, in a backstage hallway, staring directly into the fierce gaze of the lead singer. He smelled of sweat and cedar. A brow rose, hands stuffed into unimaginably tight pockets. Confidence wasn’t lost through Sukuna’s stature; shoulders back, weight slightly on one leg more than the other. What was lost, however, was the excitement. In fact, you felt like studied specimen, eyes scanning your limbs and stopping on your ribs. The bruise forming under your dress seemed to flare in response. His tongue clicked disapprovingly.

  “What do you want? You’re not some rabid fan.” His voice was smooth as a sip of whiskey. He already knew the answer. For a moment you wondered why he didn’t just call for guards. He wondered the same thing. Just as he wondered why he leapt off the stage. Not that he regretted the act seeing as it got him trending for the umpteenth time.

  Sukuna had become accustomed to certain responses. Some offered him their bodies in exchange for a few moments of his time. Shit like that was beneath him. If he wanted a quick fuck and a column, he’d find it himself. His free time was his and that was non-negotiable. So, he almost always cut them down to size. It didn’t matter to him if he made them cry or threatened their careers, he’d always say no. Pictures? No. Signature? No. Coffee? Get the fuck out of his face. Attention and fame may have been his drug of choice, but desperation and disrespect were one in the same and you do not disrespect the King.

  “No. I didn’t even know who you were until 12 hours ago,” you admitted with a shallow breath. You stroked his ego like velvet rubbed the wrong way. He opened his mouth, ready to toss you out then and there. The look in your eyes was enough to shut him up. Hunger. And he was your dish of opportunity. “However, I do want an interview, maybe even film you for an expose,” Your hand reached for his.

  His mouth pulled into a beautiful predatory grin. This one had ambition.

  “I’ll allow it.”

#this is just me being indulgent #ryoumen sukuna #sukuna #ryoumen sukuna x reader #sukuna x reader #jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #🍺.fic #🍺.jjk #⛩.sukuna #⛩.fic

[ruzek-halstead]

meet me in the afterglow: first date

request from @felicitysmoaksx: i would like to see a continuation of the “i’m so stressed out during finals that i show up to the exam in my onesie and you tell me i look cute” university au. maybe like their first date?

read the original fic here

-

Luke and Julie ended up at a 24-hour diner a few minutes off campus. There was a light wind blowing through Julie's curls, and she was glad her onesie was so warm and fuzzy. Luke seemed perfectly at ease in his sleeve tank, but then again, she could feel his warm skin every time her wrist knocked against his arm. Her hand was still loosely clasped in his. She expected it to be slightly awkward; she had just met Luke and this was unlike anything she had ever done before. In her past four years of studies, she didn't have much time for a social life, much less a boyfriend. But there was no way she could've turned down his invite after the entirety of the situation.

When they reached the exterior of the diner, Julie spotted various empty booths. There were a few students who were quite obviously studying, what with their textbooks and highlighters strewn around the table, but it was generally quite empty. Even though it was relatively empty, Julie was still hit with a wave of anxiety with being seen in this onesie by everyone in the diner. It was dumb, she knew that; she had completed her exam in front of people with this onesie and even walked across campus with it. But for some reason, she couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling. When Luke moved forward to open the door, he stumbled back and realized Julie had stopped walking. Their intertwined hands pulled him to a stop. He noticed Julie's worried eyes and moved closer, ducking his own head to catch her gaze. "Hey, what's wrong? Are you okay?" God, Julie wanted to scream. This is not how their first date was supposed to be going. "This is going to sound weird," Julie laughed nervously. "But I'm feeling super self-conscious about this onesie right about now." Luke's facial features softened, and he stepped even closer. He let go of her hand to bring it up close to her face; Julie's breath hitched and he stopped his movements. "Julie, believe me when I say this, you look stunning in that onesie. Honestly, I’m too distracted with your beauty to even notice anymore.” Her brain was short-circuiting and no words were coming to mind. His green gaze was so captivating, she couldn't look away. But they were standing outside the diner and she had to do something. His hand that stopped mid-air dropped back down, outlining her arm through the onesie to intertwine their pinkies. Julie felt her knees begin to shake. She swallowed hard. “Well, I am pretty hungry.” That was the most her incapacitated brain could come up with currently, but the comment sent a brightening smile to Luke’s lips. “Great,” he added, once again pulling open the front door. Julie took a deep breath to regain her confidence. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought; it only mattered how she felt. And if she was being honest, she felt pretty damn good after hearing what Luke had to say. There was a sign at the front saying ‘seat yourself’ so Julie slid into a widow booth. Luke slid in across from her, his vibrant smile still on full display. It had been quite some time since Julie went on a first date. It was also pretty obvious that she was out of her element, but Luke seemed perfectly okay with taking the lead. “So, what’s your major, Julie?” He waited until their waitress came over to hand them menus and bring two glasses of water to ask his question. He was casually perusing the menu, but inside, he was dying to know more about this mysterious girl. “You mentioned something about an Evidence course?” Julie glanced up from her menu with a soft smile. She hadn't really gotten a chance to celebrate the fact that she was officially finished her major, (however, she couldn't think of a better way to celebrate than a date with an incredibly cute and caring guy). "I was in Criminology. That was my last exam ever, actually." Luke's eyes widened comically, a large grin spreading over his face. "Congratulations, that's amazing!" He cheered, reaching over to softly squeeze her wrist. "Wow, I should be taking you out to a five course meal — not this." Julie's eyes snapped up to meet his. He was grinning and he looked confident, but Julie could see the underlying insecurity beneath. It was intriguing to see, given how comfortable he had been since they'd met. "This is perfect," she replied evenly, meeting his eye with assurance. Luke matched her smile. The waitress came back to take their order, smiling knowingly at the adorable couple. Luke ordered a chocolate milkshake with a cheeseburger and fries, while Julie also ordered a chocolate milkshake and a chicken caesar wrap with sweet potato fries. “Perfect. I’ll put that order in right away and it’ll be out soon,” their waitress assured them with a bright smile. “What about you?” Julie asked, straw between her lips. She didn’t miss the way Luke’s eyes flickered down for a nanosecond; it gave her all the confidence in the world. “Your major?” Luke took a moment longer to reply (yes, he was composing himself, what about it?). “I’m actually a music major.” Julie’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Oh, really?” “Yeah. I was just taking that course as a filler,” he explained. “That was my final exam too.” Julie’s face lit up in excitement. “Doesn’t it feel great?” “Unbelievable,” he chuckled. “A little scary because what the hell am I supposed to do now?” Julie’s smile dimmed a bit. She was in the same boat and she had been avoiding thinking about it for as long as possible. However, she was still young and there was always the possibility of going back to school (although, her current outfit and mental stability would argue against that). “But we’re not going to think about that right now,” she replied with a coy smile. Luke opened his mouth to rebut, but he was instead distracted by the mouthwatering scent of their food arriving. He was mesmerized, but Julie was straight up emotional about it; she truly thought she might cry. “Oh God,” she mumbled, her senses completely overloaded. “It’s been so long since I’ve had proper food. Does coffee count as a food?” Luke was already shoving fries into his mouth. “Definitely not,” he replied through a full mouth. It definitely wasn’t first date etiquette but Julie was so hungry, she couldn’t be bothered to notice. Not that she cared anyway, she was quickly gnawing down her wrap, nearly forgetting to breathe. Once Julie was satisfied that her hunger was appropriately satiated and she could finally multi-task again, she took a sip of her milkshake and turned her attention to Luke once again. “So, music. How’d you get into it?” Luke was momentarily surprised at the question, but he was more than happy to speak about it. Music was everything to him; he could talk about it all day. “Honestly, it kind of just happened. A cousin of mine used to have a guitar and we taught ourselves to play.” “Are you any good?” Julie meant it to come out teasingly, but it really ended up sounding more flirty than anything. “Maybe you should find out.” Luke very easily matched her tone and Julie found herself sweating before him. “How do you propose I do that?” Well, she may as well continue with the ruse. She had leaned forward in the booth, resting her chin in her hand. “Lucky for you, I have a band.” Julie’s brain immediately stopped all function. He was attractive, he had amazing biceps, he was sweet and respectable and he was in a band? “You — you’re in a band?” Julie cringed at the obvious fumble in her words. He can’t just drop that on her and expect her to be okay though. An unconscious smile spread across his features. “My best friends and I are in a band. We try to play gigs whenever we can; you know, exposure.” “Oh — you play gigs,” Julie swallowed. God, her throat was dry. “Does that mean you have original songs?” Luke nodded again; he looked so excited. “My band calls me the Shakespeare of songwriting. Can’t help myself.” Julie’s brain started screaming at her again: HE WRITES SONGS. Julie grabbed her glass of water and drained it halfway. “That’s awesome. Uh — so, are you the guitarist?” “Lead guitarist,” he smirked with pride. “I’m also the lead singer.” Julie squeezed her water glass so tight, her knuckles turned white. Luke’s eyes dropped to her hand and his smirk only widened. He was full-on torturing her now and he knew it. “How the hell are you even real?” Julie was never known for her subtlety. Luke should know that by now since she basically went off on him in the exam room already anyway. He wasn’t, however, expecting that random question. His eyebrows rose in surprise, but Julie didn’t elaborate. Instead, she seemed to be almost glaring at him. He laughed, a hint of nervousness in his tone. “Excuse me?” “You’re a guitar player in a band, you write songs and you sing them. You’re ridiculously sweet and kind and I haven’t seen any red flags yet, which is literally unbelievable nowadays. You’re somehow interested in me and you’re ridiculously hot. There must be something else going on here because there is no way in hell that this is real.” Luke could only blink at her. He took a moment to mull over his next words before he relayed them with a frown. “If you’re impressed by my kindness, which should just be basic human behaviour, then men clearly need to do better.” Julie bit her lip as she sighed. “Sorry. That was a lot. I just mean—” Luke interrupted. “You seem to be really surprised that someone like me could be interested in you and I just don’t understand,” he explained, brows furrowed together. “What you and I see is clearly different. I see someone intelligent and dedicated enough to her studies to block out everything else and get it done. I see someone beautiful, no matter what they're wearing. I see someone who doesn't think as highly of themselves as they should because I've only known you a few hours and that's enough for me to know that I want you in my life." Now it was Julie's turn to blink. "Sorry," Luke popped out a smirk, "That was a lot." "Listen," Julie breathed, openly avoiding eye contact as she started her explanation. "I'm not, nor have I ever been, that successful in the dating department. This," she motioned between her and Luke, "Has never happened to me before and I'm not entirely sure how to handle it. So, I'm sorry if I'm butchering this." Luke instantly reached forward to grab her hand. "You're not." "Are you sure?" She laughed nervously. "I've given you more than one reason tonight to think I'm certifiably insane." Luke looked up from their conjoined hands with an earnest smile. "I hate to break it to you, but it's going to take a lot more than that to drive me away." Julie considered it for a moment. "You know what, I'm okay with that." "Good," he laughed. He stood up from the booth. "I'll be right back." Julie took this opportunity to momentarily reflect. In the span of twenty-four hours, she had gone through a range of emotions like something she'd never experienced before. But she had successfully completed her exams, and thus, completed her major. She could now take a break from school and decide how she wanted to proceed. Somehow the worst week of her life ended up as one of the best. Luke returned a few moments lately, shoving his wallet back into his back pocket. "Alright, we're all squared away. You ready to go?" Julie nodded with a smile, easily following him outside. "Thanks for the meal, Luke. I needed it." "Of course." He was unable to lose the grin from his face. "Hey, is it alright if I get your number?" Julie almost tripped over herself in taking out her cellphone from the pocket of her onesie. They exchanged phone numbers with a smile. "I live just around the corner over there," Julie motioned with her index finger. "But tonight was great, and I had a lot of fun." Luke's eyebrows furrowed together. "Oh, that's great. But I'm walking you home." "You don't need to do that," she replied automatically. "I want to." Well, Julie couldn't dispute that. Luke once again reached for her hand and Julie led the way. She knew it would be an exceptionally short walk, but he kept the conversation going for all of it. It felt like he couldn't get enough of talking to her and it seriously made Julie's heart squeeze with affection. When they reached the doorstep of Julie's building, she turned to him with nervous eyes. "I would love to take you out again," Luke murmured quietly. The energy around them had suddenly changed and Julie was hyper aware of his thumb stroking her palm. "I would love to see your band," she replied, because honestly, she still hadn't gotten that image out of her head. An immediate grin broke out on Luke's face. "Then it's decided," his eyes softened once again as he took a step down. "Get some sleep, Julie. Celebrate your achievements by forty-seven hours of sleep." "You know what?" Julie threw her head back in a laugh. "I think I just might." His eyes were sparkling as he observed her laughing. It was the best sight he'd seen in ages. Julie could see his hesitation and decided he'd done enough already (especially through her multiple freak-outs over the course of the day). With his small step down, he was finally at her height. She took a small step forward and pulled him closer with a soft hand of the back of his neck. She met his wide eyes as she moved closer and pulled a smile as she pressed her lips dangerously close to his lips. She kept her hand where it was and only moved back to glance in his eyes. His own hand slid behind her back and she savoured every moment of his touch. No words were needed. All they needed was the mere presence of each other. Julie finally pulled away, throwing a shy smile in his direction. "Goodnight, Luke." He was grinning the widest she'd seen since they met. "Goodnight, Julie."

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #juke #juke fics #jatp fics #juke au #jatp au #luke patterson #julie molina #julie x luke #luke x julie

[kissinginkitchens]

You Bring Me Home—Chapter Five: Like Real People Do

a/n: hellooo and welcome to the next part of ybmh!! i am sooooo excited about this next chapter (and upcoming chapters😏 ). Thank you again for all of your kind words and wonderful feedback! It's always so much fun to hear from you all, so as always, feel free to come chat in my inbox once you've finished this next part. I have a feeling there will be much to discuss👀 Much love, Mel <3

Pairing: Hawai'i!Harry x Original Character

Warnings: swearing, allusions to sexual content, mentions of drowning

Word Count: 5.6k

read parts one, two, three, and four

“I’m not going,” Alani says finally, discarding the outfit in her hands onto a pile on her bed. The clock reads 7:55 pm, only five minutes before she was supposed to be at the studio. She still hadn’t selected an outfit, but her hair and makeup were still relatively intact from her shift at the café.

“You have to!” Pua whines. “You told him you would!”

“Then I’ll tell him I’m sick or something—food poisoning. Period cramps, maybe,”

She begins placing the clothes on hangers to put back in her closet, but her sister reaches for her wrists to stop her.

“You’re just nervous,” Pua says calmly, getting eye level with her older sister. “But you’ll regret it if you don’t go,”

“Go where?” a woman’s voice calls from the door frame. Their mother, Estrella, peeks her head through the cracked door.

“To a party with a cute boy,” Pua explains.

Alani shoots an icy glare at her sister before turning back to her mom. “It’s not a party. I’m working on a piece about a local musician and he’s recording some music tonight and said I could go. You know, to write about it,”

Estrella nods, not convinced. “So why don’t you wanna to go?”

“Because they almost kissed—”

“Pua!”

“Hey, hey,” Estrella cuts in. “Mija, you’re twenty-two years old, I don’t expect you to stay single forever. If you want to go out and see a cute boy, you don’t need to lie about it,”

“But I’m not lying,” Alani defends. “It’s just… complicated, and I’m trying to be professional about it.”

Estrella steps away from the doorframe and envelops her daughter in a hug. “Sometimes, you just have to do what feels right and hope for the best,”

Alani is grateful for the piece of wisdom from her mother, feeling a small weight lifted off her shoulders.

“But if I were you,” her mom continues. “I would wear the black strappy dress with those wedges.”

********

8:10. Harry checks his phone for the third time in one minute, growing more disappointed each time the same three numbers stare back at him, almost mocking. He doesn’t feel any better when the time reads 8:11.

“Can I interest you in a piña colada?” Mitch pipes up, sauntering over with a glass in each hand.

The choice of drink seemed perfect when Harry had suggested it earlier in the day, but he deeply regrets it now. Despite the tightening at the back of his throat, Harry accepts the drink and chooses to nurse it in a different corner of the room. A part of him feels guilty for being such a buzzkill around his friends these days, and he wishes more than anything that he could just enjoy living in this moment with them. Being away from Alani had produced a strange feeling in him similar to the sickness experienced when leaving home on a long vacation; Harry didn’t know exactly how to cure it, but he hoped that lots of alcohol would do the trick.

When the clock reads 8:20, he accepts that she isn’t coming and decides to make the best of a shitty situation. He drains another piña colada and joins his friends who are huddled around various instruments and sound equipment. A few more of Harry’s writer and producer friends had joined the trip temporarily, and he’s grateful, now more than ever, for their presence—it distracts him from the overwhelming emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Jeff hands Harry a microphone and some headphones while Mitch plugs a white electric guitar into the amp. The guitarist begins with some chords that the crew has been messing around with for the past couple of days: an upbeat riff reminiscent of some of Harry’s favorite 70s rock pieces. His head is spinning mildly, but he uses the feeling as inspiration. He pinches his eyes shut and tries to let the lyrics flow, but the only words coming out are “she’s driving me crazy”, so he starts with that. The group also runs with it, adding a few yells and lyrics of their own. The song isn’t coherent in the slightest, filled mostly with laughter and choppy melodies, but it’s the best Harry has felt all night. He traded the piña coladas for a glass of tequila fit snugly in the palm of his hand, and true to Mitch’s word, the giggles emerge. At one point, he shouts the words “I’m havin’ your baby”, which makes zero sense to anyone in the room, including him, but they decide that it sounds cool and keep it going.

“It’s none of your business!” Mitch calls back, voice raised in his best soprano to mimic that of a woman. The shoddy attempt makes Harry laugh even harder and his hand clutches his stomach.

They continue on for what feels like hours, but in reality has only been forty-five minutes. At 9:05, Jeff Azoff heads outside to catch his breath and cool down. As he takes a seat on the steps, a yellow Ford Bronco pulls into the lot and Alani steps out once it's parked. She emerges in a black dress that falls mid thigh and a baby pink leather jacket, making her way nervously up the steps.

“Alani,” Jeff greets warmly with cheeks flushed. “Welcome. Party’s inside.”

She shoots him a grateful smile and reaches for the studio door, slipping inside cautiously. The music had been audible a mile down the road, but it’s even more overwhelming inside. Standing on a small coffee table in the center of the room is Harry with an arm draped around a shorter man wearing a black and white Adidas shirt. His dimples are on full display and his warbled words carry over the speakers to attack her from all sides. She recognizes Mitch hunched over a guitar and Jeff Bhasker spinning in an office chair, but she can’t put names to the other faces lingering around Harry. Alani feels extremely out of place, not knowing where she belongs in all of the chaos—it all seems to her like a living Jackson Pollock painting that she can’t look away from. In the middle of his off-key rendition of Wannabe by the Spice Girls, Harry’s eyes land on Alani and his smile grows ten times wider. He puts one foot in front of the other, completely disregarding the small size of the table, but he catches himself just as Alani lunges forward to help him. This results in their two bodies pressed flush against one another, the coolness of her leather jacket versus the warmth of his intoxication.

“You made it,” he slurs.

Alani takes a small step back and clears her throat. “Yeah. Sorry I’m late,”

“Don’ worry ‘bout it,” Harry shrugs, his eyes lighting up when he remembers something. “There’s piña coladas! In the kitchen,”

The fact that he remembered such a detail from their previous conversations and made an effort to incorporate it into this night makes her cheeks warm.

“Okay, cool. Thanks,”

Harry scans her appearance and his stomach flutters.

“Y’look really pretty,” he offers. Alani can tell that it takes every ounce of effort to do so.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, voice small.

“Wanna get some fresh air?”

“Yes, please.”

The two of them slip out through a side door and into the backyard, stopping just before the pier. Alani doesn’t know how much of these next moments Harry will remember in the morning, which makes her feel a little more confident to share what she’s truly thinking.

“Harry, I—”

“God, you’re so pretty,” he interrupts, running a hand through his hair.

Her cheeks heat up, but she pushes past the feeling. “And you’re drunk,”

“Yeah, true. But you’re still pretty. Always think so,”

Alani searches his eyes, which are sleepy and bloodshot, but there isn’t a trace of insincerity. In this moment, she also feels the overwhelming urge to be honest—about the butterflies in her stomach that only set flight when he’s around, and the way she constantly wonders what his lips would feel like against hers. But there’s an intensity behind Harry’s gaze, despite his intoxicate state, that stops her.

“You’re making this so hard,” Alani laughs lightly, more to herself than him.

“‘M sorry,” he offers. “Don’t mean to,”

She smiles at Harry’s completely innocent reply, not knowing what to do with all of the pent up affection she has for him. A part of her simply wants to scream in his face to stop being so goddamn endearing. Instead, Alani turns on her heel to put some space between them, but stops when she feels a warm hand tug at her fingers.

“Why d’you always do that?” Harry asks, his expression a little more sober.

Alani takes a deep breath. “Do what?”

“Pull away when I get close. Did it in the car that one time. And the other time at the beach,”

There’s a beat of silence where Alani isn’t sure how to respond, but before she does, Harry releases her fingers and takes a step back.

“Wait, that was stupid. ‘M sorry if I did anything—”

“No,” Alani interrupts, taking a step closer. “You haven’t done anything wrong,”

“So why?”

She releases a breath and swallows. “I don’t know,”

It isn’t the answer Harry is looking for, but he accepts it with a slow nod. Suddenly feeling the need to flee, he takes a step onto the railing of the pier and Alani’s heart rate speeds up.

“What’re you doing?”

“S’hard to tell,” he shrugs before letting himself fall into the water below.

“Harry!” she screams, heaving over the edge of the railing to find him. The drop, unbeknownst to her, is only six feet and he’s done it many times before.

After a few seconds, Alani sees him reemerge at the surface, shaking his wet hair out. There’s a small strip of sand along the shore below, so she bolts down the stairs to meet him at the bottom.

“What the fuck?!” She cries, panic welling in the brim of her eyes. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” he deadpans.

“You could’ve hurt yourself,” Alani croaks, her limbs shaking. “You—you could’ve—”

Harry reaches out to comfort her but she steps back.

“I gotta go,”

“Alani,” he says gently, but she doesn’t respond. “Alani, wait!”

She walks briskly back to the front lot, Harry close behind.

“Alani, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t follow me.” she orders.

Her words are like a dagger through his chest, but he respects her wishes and stops dead in his tracks. Harry stands soaking wet under the moonlight, feeling helpless as he watches Alani disappear into the darkness.

********

She wakes the next morning with puffy eyes and a heavy heart, still wearing the same black dress from the night before. The warm water of a morning bath eases some of the tension in her muscles, but she knows it will take a lot more to soothe the tightness in her chest.

Why do you always do that?

Do what?

Pull away.

Their conversation from the night before lingers like a nasty bruise in Alani’s mind, but she senses a bit of harsh truth in Harry’s words. She did have a bad habit of walking away when things got hard, especially concerning matters of the heart. Her instincts were all flight and no fight, so even if Alani had stayed, she isn’t sure how she would’ve explained her reasons for panicking. How do I gently pepper in the whole almost dying thing? she wonders, a lump forming at the back of her throat. Alani was only eight years-old when she nearly drowned, and though almost fourteen years had passed since then, she still vividly remembers the helplessness of sinking further under the strong tide. On nights after a particularly stressful day, Alani’s sleep is often disturbed by the sensation of her lungs slowly filling with water only to wake up drenched in sweat and clutching the sheets. She had worked hard for several years after the incident to overcome her fear of the ocean, but a part of her still couldn’t shed the debilitating need for caution. After all, it was easier to avoid the water altogether than to wade in blindly and get sucked under. Watching Harry sink into the unknown stirred the same sense of panic that Alani had felt all those years ago and threatened to undo her progress, but she quickly realized that it was the idea of losing him that had sent her into flight mode. She imagines the hollowness she would feel at the sight of waterfalls and the scent of vanilla; piña coladas—the drink and the song—tainted in her memory forever. The thought of Harry's absence was all too much to bear, but it’s how she knew that his presence must mean something. He meant something, and she couldn’t let him go.She ends her bath quickly and sifts through the first pair of clothes she can find. Suddenly none of it mattered: what she wore, how she looked, Rolling Stone—nothing but him. Alani thinks back to her mother’s words: sometimes you just have to do what feels right and hope for the best. All she needed to do was see him and the words would find themselves. The sky is overcast when she steps outside, so she quickly puts the top on Stevie and pulls out into the road, deciding to make one quick pit-stop before setting off to find him.

********

Harry’s head pounds and he feels as if the sun has been set to maximum brightness. His clothes reek of saltwater, his skin feels like sandpaper, and his mouth is the Sahara desert. None of this compares, however, to the sense of impending doom that settles in when the memories of the night before, particularly those of Alani, resurface. I’m so fucked, he groans. Harry doesn’t quite remember every detail, but he remembers enough; he remembers how pretty she looked, and reminding her of it. He feels the temporary warmth of her fingers and the coolness of her jacket pressed against his chest. There’s a bit of fuzziness between the Spice Girls and piña coladas, but then Harry remembers crashing through water and his memory gets clearer. He fucked up. He had upset Alani in some way and although he doesn’t quite know how, he knows that he would spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it. Harry sits up suddenly and the whole room spins, but he makes an effort to stand anyway. Need to see Alani, he thinks with determination, I just need to see Alani.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Mitch comments from the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee.

“What time is it?” Harry croaks.

Mitch takes a sip of coffee and checks his phone. “10:30,”

“And last night was…”

“The party?” Mitch fills in the gaps. “Yeah,”

Harry rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and takes a seat at the table. “Did...did you see Alani?”

“No. I don’t think anyone did, actually. Did you?”

“Yeah,”

“So… I’m assuming it didn’t go well?”

Harry’s throat tightens and he hopes that she at least got home safely. He can’t bear to think about anything bad happening to her on his watch.

“No,” he confirms with a sigh. “No it didn’t,”

“Are you gonna go talk to her?” Mitch prods.

“Dunno if I should. She was pretty pissed,”

Mitch thinks for a second, taking another sip of coffee. “What would Noah Calhoun do?”

Under normal circumstances, Harry would be very amused by his friend’s reference to The Notebook, but right now he’s too focused on making things right with Alani. He devises a plan of action and stands.

“On a scale of one to ten,” he starts. “How shitty do I look?”

Mitch scans his best friend over, head tilting from side to side as he considers the question. “About a 7.5.”

“Good enough.”

Harry swipes the keys to the Cadillac off the counter and slips his feet into a pair of beat up vans before heading out the door.

********

The restaurant is fairly empty, as far as Alani can tell from the back. The kitchen staff are gathered in the break room for the time being, which allows her to tiptoe around unnoticed as she grabs the necessary ingredients for her peace offering to Harry. She hurries out through the employee entrance as soon as it’s complete and the key is already turning in her car’s lock when she hears a voice over her shoulder, calling her name.

“David?” she responds, turning to face the brawny man leaning against the car that is parked beside hers.

“Hey,” he starts, offering a flash of pearly white teeth. “I know I’m not supposed to be back here, but I just wanted to talk to you,”

Alani swallows, the icy chill of the drink in her hands reminding her of what needs to be done.

“You know, now’s not really a gr—”

“I haven't stopped thinking about you,” David interrupts, taking a step closer. “Since the other day when you stopped by. I mean, I think about you all the time but…” he trails off and Alani waits awkwardly for him to finish his ill-timed confession. David takes another step towards her and rests his forearm against the hood of her car, practically boxing her in with no escape route.

“We were really great together, don’t you think?” he asks, scanning her face with his prying eyes. “I don’t even remember why we broke things off,”

Alani’s brow furrows, her mind failing to come up with a logical explanation for this very sudden and uncomfortable conversation. She hadn’t lied when she told Harry that David wasn’t her ex, but she hadn’t been entirely honest, either. They had started hooking up during her senior year of high school—mostly because he was the star swimmer on their team that all the other girls fawned over, and despite all the attention, he had wanted her. It made her feel momentarily special, though she knew he wasn’t the boyfriend type. “Just a bit of fun” is what they called it, and the arrangement worked out well until Alani’s freshman year of college when she realized that there was an entire world of opportunities waiting beyond the confines of high school. A world that had brought her Harry, who was probably going to leave just as soon as he’d arrived if she didn’t make amends quickly.

“No,” Alani says decisively, nudging his arm away. “We weren’t ‘great’ together, we weren’t even good for each other,”

“Alani-”

“We were really young,” she continues. “And we did what we did, but that’s all in the past-”

“If you would just give me a chance-”

“I didn’t even know what I wanted for myself back then, let alone what I wanted out of a partner. But I do now,”

She doesn’t have to say Harry’s name, but they’re both thinking it. David steps back, arms crossed, and though he had always been somewhat intimidating, he looks small standing before her now.

“It’s because of that British guy, isn’t it?” he asks, despite the feeling that he already knows the answer.

Alani lets out a light laugh but she doesn’t confirm his suspicions. “We have nothing in common, David. We want different things out of life, you’ll see,”

“And he,” David continues, an accusatory tone on the word “he”. “Wants everything you do?”

She thinks for a moment, her heart pounding as she considers what Harry’s response will be to her confession. “I hope so.”

********

Harry had considered going to Alani’s house first, but he wasn’t sure who else would be home and didn’t particularly want his first interaction with her parents to occur whilst hungover. Sitting parked on the back road behind the café, however, he wishes that he had stopped there first to save him the painful sight ahead. Harry recognizes the other man from the restaurant he had taken Alani to the first time they had hung out, a name that started with the letter “D," though probably not the one flashing angrily in his mind. His arm is draped comfortably along the roof of her car, their bodies inches apart in what appears to be a very intimate moment. While he still can’t remember the exact details of his actions that had upset Alani so much, he fits this piece into the puzzle and it becomes much more clear. She has a boyfriend, and no amount of apologies could reconcile this fact, however tempted Harry may be to try. The word “boyfriend” sits uncomfortably in his mind, but it suddenly puts everything else into perspective. It explains why she fled his car so quickly when his wandering eyes had hinted their desire for her kiss—both times. He could have sworn that it would have happened had her phone not interrupted them the second time, but perhaps it had all been a trick of the rose-colored light. The sudden realization makes Harry feel sick, and a bit foolish, so he speeds off before he can be spotted.

He drives aimlessly for a while, mind still racing with the image of the other man’s depraved hands on Alani’s soft skin. The uneasiness boiling in the pit of his stomach is pathetic—he’s well aware—but he can’t stop himself from wondering why not me? It’s a selfish thought, but it eats at him, nonetheless. It should have been me. But the reality is that it wasn’t him, and it never would be. Despite any feelings he’d had that Alani was the one for him, he was not the one for her, and it’s a fact he must learn to live with. If this thought were a rock, he’d turn it over in his fingers until they bled.

********

Alani pulls up to the studio hesitantly and waits a beat before making her way up the stairs. She knocks twice, but there’s no answer, so she presses her ear to the door in search of any sound. Silence. There’s no trace of the cars Harry usually drives when she wanders to the back lot, either, so she figures that he must not be here. Alani racks her brain for other possible locations, but it’s a dead end. She doesn’t know what hotel or house he could be staying at, and her heart begins to race at the idea that he might not even be in Hawaii anymore. For all she knows, he could be on a return flight to L.A. or London, gone forever with the same instructions she had left him: don’t follow me. Alani lifts her phone with trembling fingers and searches Harry’s name, pressing the phone to her ear and praying like she had never prayed before. It rings three times before she’s sent to voicemail. The sound of his voice on the recording brings temporary relief, but it’s gone as soon as the message ends and she is prompted to respond. She clears her throat gently and speaks as if he is at the other end waiting to hear the right words and pick up.

“Hi, it’s Alani,” she starts slowly. “I, uh…. I’m at the studio. I don’t think you’re here though,”

She walks in small circles around the backyard and lets her eyes roam to the pier where it all went wrong. It sends a pang of guilt through her spine, but it fuels her next words.

“Listen, I really wanna talk—about last night. I shouldn’t have left, I know that now. It wasn’t you, it was me, and I know that sounds cliché but it’s true,”

Alani swallows down the emotion bubbling at the back of her throat and wishes that she could just see him, face to face, one last time. There’s so much more she needs to say, but it’s a conversation she doesn’t want to have with his answering machine.

“Please just call me when you get this. I wanna explain everything if you’ll let me.”

She hangs up and nearly throws her phone into the ocean. Though her trauma response wasn’t completely in her control and it isn’t something she should feel guilty about, she wishes she had been able to explain. Alani hadn’t always been comfortable sharing that part of her life, but there was a security in Harry’s presence that made her feel okay to do so. She wanted to share everything with him, the good and the bad, but she needed to find him first.

Only twenty minutes had elapsed at the studio when Alani decides to head out; there was still no word from Harry and she needed to be anywhere else beside the site of their potential last meeting. She drives with no particular place in mind, the windows rolled down to let in the chilly, overcast air. It isn’t until she’s halfway in the opposite direction that she gets the urge to visit one other location. There’s an extremely small chance that Harry will be there, but she goes less in search of him and more for her own personal wallowing.

When Alani pulls up to the lookout where the two of them had spotted the rainbow, there is another car already parked: a pink Cadillac. The sight makes her entire body freeze.

“Harry?” a small voice calls behind him. He almost thinks that he had hallucinated it until he reluctantly turns his head and sees a timid Alani emerging from her car. A million emotions run through his mind at once, starting with confusion and elation and ultimately ending in grief.

“Hey,” he responds, weakly, still leaning against the hood of the Cadillac.

Alani slowly makes her way over, not entirely sure that he’s actually there. Once she gets closer, however, she can smell the faint scent of vanilla and her chest swells.

“I left you a voicemail,” is all she can say.

Harry’s brow furrows as he tries to remember any phone calls, but he suddenly figures that in all of his rush to see her, he had forgotten to grab it from his bed.

“Left my phone at the house,” he offers.

There’s a brief silence where the two of them size each other up, weighing their own motives against what they assume to be the other person’s. Harry speaks first.

“Alani, ‘m really sorry,” he says gently, stepping away from the car and towards her. “I know I fucked up—”

“Harry—”

“But I understand now,” he continues. “I know why you were upset,”

Confusion settles into Alani’s body and she wonders how he could possibly know about her accident. Or if he didn’t know, what else he could be referring to. She doesn’t have to guess for long because Harry continues despite her silence.

“I saw you with him—your boyfriend, I mean. Derek?” he explains. “But not in a creepy way I just.. wanted to talk. Bad timing,”

“Wait,” Alani cuts in, her brain finally sorting out the pieces. “You saw me and David..today?”

Harry feels as if the knife in his chest has been twisted further at the mention of the other man’s name, but he nods. An uncontrollable bubble of laughter finds its way up Alani’s throat, and the sound would typically bring butterflies to his stomach, but it only exacerbates the heartache.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Alani clarifies. “He’s delusional. And a huge pain in the ass, but I think he finally got the hint when I turned him down earlier,”

Harry’s ears perk up at the news, but he’s still wary.

“But you two were—”

“Ancient history,” Alani reassures him, taking another step closer. “He might as well be Socrates,”

A faint smile tugs at the corners of Harry’s lips and he feels a wave of relief wash over his body. The news is music to his ears, but he still wants to know what he had done to make her walk away that night.

“So you weren’t upset because you have a boyfriend and I tried to make a move?”

Alani takes a deep breath, knowing that she has avoided saying her piece long enough. Before she can start, though, a rumble of thunder interrupts her thoughts.

“Can we talk in Stevie? I don’t feel like standing in wet socks again,” she asks, which Harry obliges.

The two climb into the truck and settle in, the atmosphere quickly becoming more intimate than Alani had planned. His vanilla cologne has also become more perceptible in the confined space, and there’s a whiff of spearmint, most likely his gum, that briefly draws her attention to his mouth. She snaps her mind back to the conversation at hand and clears her throat.

“I’m sorry,” she begins, reading his eyes carefully. There’s a faint reassurance behind the emerald surface, so she continues. “For everything that happened last night. You did nothing wrong, please know that,”

Harry wishes he could reach out and comfort her, but he gets the feeling that whatever she’s about to say is important so he doesn’t want to dismiss it.

“It’s hard for me, sometimes, to be around the water,” Alani continues despite the prickling feeling in her eyes. “Because when I was eight years old, I almost drowned,”

The revelation hits Harry like a ton of bricks and all at once he understands. He hadn’t even thought twice about jumping into the water that night, so it didn’t occur to him to rule that out as a possible offense. He understands now that he couldn’t have been more mistaken.

“And I know that has nothing to do with you,” Alani explains, her voice wavering ever so slightly. “Except that it terrified me to think about, you know… if you hadn’t been so lucky,”

Her composure quickly cracks, a single tear spilling down her cheek before she wipes it away with the sleeve of her sweater. This time, Harry does reach a hand out and Alani accepts it gratefully; the warmth of his fingers are a welcome contrast to her icy appendages.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he murmurs as his thumb rubs small circles over the back of her hand.

“But I do,” she sniffles. “Because—”

Alani pauses, unsure of how to finish her thought. Just do what feels right and hope for the best.

“Because I care about you,” she says finally, noticing the way his Adam’s apple bobs at her words.

Harry's jaw tightens at her confession and every muscle in his body longs to bring her close, leaving no inch of space between them, but he lets her lead despite his instincts.

"But it’s also because I care about you that I can’t let this go any further,”

Alani’s words surprise herself just as much as they terrify Harry, but she knows that it’s the right thing to do as soon as it’s done.

“Alani—” Harry starts, all of his worst fears crashing down on him.

“Please, don’t make this harder—”

“Don’t I get a say?” he questions, tightening his grip on her hand, though she still manages to slip away.

Alani runs the free hand through her still damp waves and lets another tear roll down her cheek. “What is there left to say?”

“How about ‘I care about you, too’? How about ‘I want to be with you’?”

“It’s too messy—”

“Everyone has baggage,” Harry defends. “God knows I do, and I would never ask you to carry all of that,”

Alani lets her eyes meet his again; they’re bloodshot and glossy, which sends a pang of guilt and sorrow through her entire body.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she reasons, this time thinking not only about her own issues, but about everything—the lies she had told and the ambitions she was still nurturing. She hadn’t given up on her dreams and unless Rolling Stone had suddenly changed their mind about the Joni Mitchell piece, there was only one way she was going to achieve them. Alani hadn’t yet reconciled the fact that she would have to put aside her own feelings for Harry to get what she wanted, but she knew that time would heal the wounds.

“All I want,” he continues. “Is a chance. And I know nothing I do will ever change the past, but two hands make the load lighter. So, please, let me carry some of that with you. Give me a chance,”

As she studies the pleading in his eyes, something stirs deeply inside Alani’s chest. She had started the day thinking only of him, but with selfish intentions. Now, she was trying to do right by him, having realized that she couldn’t have both him and the story that would launch her career. Something would have to give, and Harry deserved more than that. He deserved more than her. Despite all of this awareness, there is something else nagging in the back of her mind that she can’t ignore. Don’t walk away, it screams. If Alani ignored her true feelings for Harry and refused his plea, she would be walking away from someone who believed in her, someone who cared deeply for, and wanted to understand, her. Perhaps the universe truly had brought Harry for a story, but to be a part of hers instead of the one she had been so eager to publish. There would be other chances, just like Dr. Hudson had said, but there would never be anyone else like Harry. So with this in mind, Alani decides to stop walking away and stand still, right in this very moment, with the boy who shined brighter than the sun itself and who had only asked for a chance to make her happy.

“Okay,” she breathes and it’s like the weight of the universe has been lifted from her shoulders.

Harry leans in, their foreheads pressed together gently, and cups her cheek in his hand.

“Can I kiss you?” he whispers.

Alani nods and nudges the tip of his nose with her own. “Please.”

Their lips meet like electrically charged magnets, with a force so natural and strong it sends bolts of electrons through their entire bodies. Harry’s mouth is warm and gentle against hers, and the coolness of his mint gum soothes the searing touch of his kiss. Alani’s fingers glide up his chest and along the sides of his neck, pulling him closer as if he’s the anchor keeping her from floating away into the dark clouds above them. Over and over again, their lips collide fervently, breaths mixing and filling each other’s lungs. Their hands eagerly explore the curves of each other’s faces, the softness of hair, and the occasional heat of exposed skin. Harry is the first to break the kiss, panting lightly as he pulls back to search Alani’s face.

“Y’okay?” he asks.

“Never been better.”

next chapter

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