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shutupandshipit · 4 years

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Little Life - Ch. 1

Summary: A baby could ruin his career before it had even started. If anyone found out, he would be kicked out of the Hero Course at the very least and UA at the very worst. Even then, how was he supposed to care for a baby once it arrived? He was a fucking seventeen-year-old boy, not a twenty-nine-year-old omega with their shit at least somewhat together.

.....

Or where Katsuki get pregnant, but is determined to make it to graduation. No matter what it takes.

Pairing: Bakudeku

Rating: T (just for language mostly)

Chapter: 1/16

Chapter 2 -> Next

Master Post

Chapter 1: 2 Weeks

"Shit!" Katsuki spat, throwing the little pink stick with its two red lines at the wall. The stick slammed against the wall, bouncing off and along the tile of his bathroom to join all the others that read the same. There were at least a dozen of them. Three or four different brands. As many as he could find on short notice with the cash in his pocket. The clerk had raised an eyebrow at him, but kept his mouth shut as he scanned the boxes. "God fucking dammit! Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to sleep for the next nine months and forget what he'd just found out. He wanted to rewind time and make it so he never pinned Izuku to that bed. No, he wanted to go far enough back that he never fell in love with that Deku to begin with. But he'd have to go all the way back to when they were six, and he didn't think there was any quirk that strong.

So, instead, he sat on his bathroom floor, knees curled to his chest and palm over his abdomen. What the fuck was he supposed to do?

A baby could ruin his career before it had even started. If anyone found out, he would be kicked out of the Hero Course at the very least and UA at the very worst. Even then, how was he supposed to care for a baby once it arrived? He was a fucking seventeen-year-old boy, not a twenty-nine-year-old omega with their shit at least somewhat together.

There were options, he knew that. Recovery Girl would surely help if he went to her, but there would be no option after that. His secret would be out and he'd be screwed.

He could make it through the pregnancy by himself without anyone finding out, he was pretty sure. Until he got too large, then he wasn't sure how he'd explain it. Once he gave birth though, there were adoption agencies or his parents possibly. Maybe Izuku's mother.

The Planned Parenthood wasn't that far from the school, all of the omegas had been given a list and map with them marked on the first day of classes. There would be tests they could run, vitamins they could give him, and if he chose...

He couldn't even think the word. If the baby had just been some wannabe extra's, someone he would never talk to again, he wouldn't have any qualms about terminating. The issue was that the baby wasn't some wannabe extra's. It was Izuku's. His alpha. His partner. His soon to be claimed mate. They were going to intern together after the school year was done when they graduated. They were going to live together.

His omega crooned pitifully at the thought of getting rid of their baby, whether through termination or giving them up to the state.

There was no way he could. The simplest reason being because he wanted their child. He wanted to raise them together with Izuku, and love them as much as he loved their father.

Fuck, he hated being an omega. He hated the instincts that drove him into Izuku's bed and arms. He should have been born an alpha.

But he hadn't been. He'd been born an omega. Now, he had to take responsibility for his actions.

That didn't mean he had to drag Izuku down with him.

So, he stood on shaky legs, gathered up the scattered pregnancy tests in a trash bag, and buried his secret in the bottom of a dumpster behind one of the other class dorms.

.....

First things first, he booked his ass down to the second closest Planned Parenthood that was three miles out of his way. He gave blood. Pissed in a cup. Waited impatiently for three hours while they ran the test to confirm what he already knew. Then, they sent him on his way with a month's worth of prenatal vitamins, a handful of pamphlets and a list of check-ups he should schedule from month to month as the pregnancy continued.

Walking back to the school as the sun fell, he stopped at a park bench. He couldn't go back to the dorms just yet, not knowing that he'd have to look into the other's faces with the face of a liar, with a secret growing inside him. Not know that he'd have to stare Izuku in the eye and lie. Children ran back and forth across a playground as the street lights flickered on, screaming and laughing as their parents watched from neighboring benches, curled into each other.

There, he cried. He cried for the baby inside him. He cried for the career he might lose before it's started. He cried for the pain he would surely cause Izuku through this secret.

And then, he just cried. Tears streaked silently down his cheeks as he stared at the colors exploding across the sky and felt the tightening in his abdomen, as if he could feel the life growing in him already.

He didn't want this, but he did at the same time.

"Excuse me? Are you okay, Mister?" a little kid shouted at him.

He dropped his head, and froze. "I'm just... pregnant, so..."

The little girl was small with wild blonde curls, freckles across her entire face and massive red eyes. When she smiled, it was the widest thing in the world. "Oh, well, congratulations. Here, you can have All Might," she chirped, setting a battered All Might plush on his lap before stepping back quickly, "You look like you need his help. And he's always there for people in need!"

Katsuki blinked down at the doll and then back up at the little girl, his tears slowly coming to a stop. "He's... retired, kid. Didn't your parents tell you?"

"I know!" she chirped again, "But he still does a lot of stuff! He's my favorite hero. And he saved a lot of people before that too. He helps me every day. I smile every single day even when I don't want to."

"Why wouldn't you want to?" he asked, squeezing the plush tightly so the cartoonish smile warped and stretched.

The little girl kicked at the sidewalk, staring down at her shoes. "I get picked on because I don't have a quirk and I'm an omega."

Swallowing, Katsuki slowly released his death grip and held the doll back out. "I know the real hero, so you should keep this with you. Don't let anyone ever tell you that you can't do something because you don't have a quirk or because your an omega. It's a crock of shit. Fight. Argue. But don't be a doormat for anyone. I'm an omega, and I'm going to be the number one hero. My mate used to be quirkless, but he never gave up. Now he's going to make his dream come true. So, whatever you want out of life, don't let anyone tell you that you can't achieve is."

Her eyes were wide as she took her doll back and watched his palms crackle with fireworks. She gawked up at him as he stood. "Really? You're going to be a hero even though you're an omega? Even though you're going to have a baby?"

"That's right." He jerked his head towards the playground. "Now go back to your parents before they start getting worried."

"What's your hero name going to be, Mister?" she asked as he stepped around her.

He paused. Turning back, he smiled even though he didn't want to. "Ground Zero."

Beaming, she turned and tore across the playground to her parents, a pair of women on a far bench.

Swallowing down the tears that threatened to spill again, he made his decision then and there. He could see what their child would become, whether they were a girl or a boy. An alpha, omega or beta. Just like that little girl with her wild curls and wide smile. No matter what he had to do, who he had to hide everything from, who he had to fight, he was going to have this baby and he was going to graduate. When he did that, he was going to climb to the Number 1 spot with Izuku at his side and their baby on his hip, and he would give them the best life anyone could ever have.

#my hero academia #mha #bakudeku #dekubaku #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #omegaverse #omega!Katsuki #alpha!izuku #my writing #multi-chapter #little life

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vanaera · 6 years

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The Grand Masterlist

KEY: M mature | ✎ In progress | ✔ completed | ♡ personal favorite | ☽ latest

LAST UPDATED: 09.10. 20

kim seokjin

O N E S H O T S

Just Say Goodnight and Go AU: Campus Heartthrob!seokjin + Tsundere!you / Neighbor + College AU Genre: fluff, comedy Synopsis: The spirit of Christmas is yet to be felt as a blackout on a chilly December night becomes the icing on the cake of your horribly shitty day. You just really want to sleep tonight but your neighbor seems to have lost his mind again when he comes knocking on your door to demand for an uncalled sleepover. Said neighbor is Kim Seokjin, the famed crush of the university, and no, he’s not your friend. He’s most definitely not your crush and he’s absolutely not the reason why warmth fills your entire being when it’s not even summer. (college!au / neighbor!au)

You Will Feel a Flash of Red AU: College AU Genre: fluff comedy Synopsis: Seokjin colors your life with his outrageous ideas and unnecessarily wild adventures, along with his stupid mission to always scare you whenever you run into each other. Against your better judgment, you’ve already started to entertain foreign feelings in your heart concerning the certain boy. And it doesn’t help you already get scared easily without him adding his shenanigans in the mix. You just want Seokjin to stop…making you feel too much all at once.

Defining Epilogues AU: Book rental shop owner!Seokjin + animator/artist!you Genre: fluff, crack-like comedy Synopsis: Seokjin thinks he could always see the end of something before it even comes. When an annoying girl starts to rent the weirdest books from his shop, all Seokjin could see is how she will be the one to end him.

D R A B B L E S

Point of Origin and Intersections AU: bass guitarist!Seokjin + medicine student!you Genre: angst, fluff Synopsis: In which you find yourself and Seokjin back to where you started.

Midnight Colors AU: CEO!Seokjin + club dancer!you Genre: angst, fluff, implied smut Warnings: Infidelity Synopsis: No matter how many times you tell yourself never to let men you could never have complete you, you know such promises are meant to be broken when Seokjin enters your life, giving you every bit of the things you’ve always yearned for.

min yoongi

S E R I E S

The Heart Holiday — ✎ ; ♡ ; ☽ AU: Creatives manager!Yoongi + Personal Assistant!you / Office AU + enemies to lovers Genre: fluff; humor; angst; drama; Warnings: Discussions of toxic relationships and infidelity (PG-15 Rating) Synopsis: Valentine’s Day is declared as an official holiday. However, private companies’ standards dictate it’s only for the people who are currently in a relationship. Unluckily for Y/N, she doesn’t have this year’s PRS’ (Proof of Relationship Status) “in a relationship” box ticked – the only ticket out she can have to enjoy one paid week of holiday leave away from her hellish job. And more unfortunately for Y/N, everyone around her is oh so conveniently currently committed in a relationship. Except for one person: Min Yoongi, Y/N’s biggest critic in every pitch meeting, the picky guy who always picks on her, and the most annoying jerk of the century. Desperate for that holiday leave, Y/N strikes Yoongi up with an offer: Fake date each other two weeks before February 14, just enough time for the Department of Relationship Management (DRM) to consider processing your PRSs. After Valentine’s Day, they will go back to their own ways and never speak about whatever that may happen during the plan. Good, plain, and simple. That is until, Yoongi uncharacteristically oh so enthusiastically agrees to Y/N’s offer, leaving her thinking that she may have bitten something too much more than she can chew.

D R A B B L E S

When Stars Fall AU: Bestfriend!Yoongi Genre: angst; drama Synopsis: Yoongi thinks you’re a star high up in the sky, too far out of his reach. But he still tries anyway just in case you fall in his hopeful hands.

400 LUX — ♡ AU: Boxer!yoongi + bestfriend!you Genre: angst, drama Synopsis: We deconstruct the conventions, pick apart every bit of our rationality, and keep our head out of windows until we learn to lay and stay in each other’s arms. We’ll form a world of our own. Just the two of us–you and me.

jung hoseok

O N E S H O T S

Love at First Snow AU: Dance major!Hoseok + Genius!you College!AU Genre: fluff, humor, slight angst Synopsis: It is during the first snow Hoseok first meets you. It is also during the first snow he prepares to put a ring on you. Little does he know, fate has other plans. (Alternatively: As Hoseok relishes in the spirit of the Holiday season, he cannot help but also reminisce how you two, though entire polar opposites of each other, ended up together).

D R A B B L E S

Your Side of the Bed AU: Rebound!Hoseok / friends to lovers AU Genre: angst, slight fluff Synopsis: Hoseok will bask in the crumpled sheets of your bed until you learn to erase your past’s name on the duvet and replace it with his. It’s been long since the sheets were changed. He’s got a better one, a much warmer one and he hopes you could see the permanence laced in its every thread.

kim namjoon

D R A B B L E S E R I E S

Sun + Moon — ✎ (hiatus) AU: Online friend / broke college student, fanboy!namjoon + idol!you Genre: fluff, humor, angst Synopsis: Frequently exposed to the blue light from laptop and cellphone screens, Namjoon, using the username MonJoon, finds a stable online friendship with someone known as SunnyY/N, a fangirl who shares the same hardcore, dedicated adoration for Y/N, the biggest solo artist in the kmusic industry. What starts as simple chatting and exchange of Y/N’s pics turn into something more when Namjoon finds out that his online friend is actually the apple of his eyes, who is more exposed to the paparazzi’s lights and camera flashes than relationship talks.

D R A B B L E S

The Powers That Be (M) AU: Tennis player!namjoon + reporter!you / secret romance/fwb AU Genre: angst; smut Synopsis: Everything was simple at first until you entangle yourself deeper with a powerful man you know will devour you. You can’t let yourself fall; such works of the heart can never be dealt with a man who cannot settle for fickle affections.

park jimin

O N E S H O T S

Daffodil Rings AU: Idol!jimin + law student, part-time florist!you / Soulmate AU + Strangers to lovers Genre: fluff; angst; implied smut (PG-16) Synopsis: In a world where the red-string-of-fate tale has been proven true by science, each scientific journal has been up to date with every new-found “soulmate system,” and everyone out there has been in their never-ending search for their soulmate, there stands one bug in the system: You. You don’t believe in the absoluteness of the soulmate phenomenon, nor the too-perfect-to-work-out soulmate systems, arguing each and every bit of them are for everyone but you. With 17 years of defiance against such natural occurrence, you did not expect you will be literally swept off your feet by your soulmate on some ordinary Thursday into the wildest night of your life. Everything only goes downhill when you learn that “soulmate” of yours happens to be Park Jimin, the singer from the worldwide famous boy group BTS, you have embarrassingly fangirled over for six years.

D R A B B L E S

Sober (M) AU: Friends with benefits AU Genre: angst, smut Synopsis: Every night, you live and die in different beds of different men but tonight, you’ll give yourself a chance to live and die in the arms of Park Jimin.

kim taehyung

O N E S H O T S

Of Cliches and Romcom Tropes AU: Prince actor!taehyung + ticket booth attendant!you / Carnival AU Genre: fluff, slight angst, comedy that’s close to being crack Synopsis: You find yourself literally living a classic Romcom trope by being the nerdy introvert in love with her unexpected friend, Kim Taehyung, your university’s golden theater boy and campus heartthrob. It only turns more disgustingly cliché when you learn he part-times as a prince actor in the same carnival where you work as a ticket booth attendant. Trusting on the clichés you’ve watched in numerous Romcom films, you embark on a plan to get your crush to like you back this Halloween.

jeon jungkook

S E R I E S

My Time — ✎ , ♡ AU: Cop!jungkook + artist!you Genre: science fiction, mystery, angst, action Synopsis: A future technology allows cops to jump in the past and future to investigate crimes that have happened and prepare for those that are about to happen. A simple hit-and-run turns into something more when Captain Jeon Jungkook finds himself as the victim of a culprit who cannot be identified by the system. Especially when the culprit seems to be the same person behind the new case that’s threatening the order in the justice organization. All goes haywire when Jungkook gets involved with Y/N L/N, the clairvoyant sketch artist who may be his only help to solve the case.

O N E S H O T S

Translucent Fireworks — ♡ AU: Laundromat owner AU Genre: fluff, drama, angst Synopsis: Jungkook yearns for a New Year to come after the warmth he sought in Busan turned lukewarm. Sparks start to alight when spring comes and a girl with a weird laundry schedule stepped in his laundromat.

→ D R A B B L E S E R I E S

The Prince and His Rose — ✎ ; ♡ ; AU: Football player!jungkook + childhood friend!you / College AU Genre: Fluff, comedy, slight angst Synopsis: Weaving through galaxies and masses of planets around the prince, he keeps his ground, eyes set only towards his rose, magnificent in her beauty amidst the starless night with the whole world enclosing around them. The only assurance he has is a single petal from hers and promises of the worlds she creates. “Write that, write that!” “Really?” “Yes! That would be wonderful!” And so will be our story, Jungkook smiles.

o l d w o r k s

Things You Said ↳ Multiple AUs — fluff; angst; smut ❝ A couple of entries centered on things that came from the heart. Inspired by this prompt list.❞

Songs To Read Playlist (STRP) ↳ Multiple AUs — fluff; angst; smut ❝ Come close and lay your head on my chest. I’ll play you the melodies the songs failed to relay - A.K.A. Send me a song and I’ll write you a fic! ❞

Disclaimer: All scenes from movies, lines from songs, and plots from books used for some of these stories are noted in the stories and are the properties of their respectful owners. The rest belongs to the author. These stories are for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.

#masterlist #aera writes #happy reading hons!#hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed writing them #and don't forget to leave some love uwu

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oscillate-wilde-ly · 7 years

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A Small Town

You ask around enough in the right small town in Texas, and someone will be able to tell you about the James family. Some folks get stuck on one of them: on the mother or the old lady, or the boy or his boy, but it's the sum of them that makes people remember. It's the drama. It's the love story, the deception, the comeback that everyone roots for.

Once upon a time on any sticky night in August, you could hear Freddy James from near about anywhere in town if you listened hard enough, just on account of the girls that got to whispering loudly and the boys that took to puffing their chests out like a million balloons inflating all at once. About Freddy James, the old woman would say:

"He's asking for trouble, with hair like that. He's got a mouth on him just made for it. Trouble."

Whatever her real name might have been, it was lost when someone first called her Pixie. Hell, maybe that was her real name. About her name, the old woman would say:

"Don't you have some cleanin' to go do, boy?"

In a town full of dust and dying grass yellow as the teeth on the old men who chew tobacco (who used to be handsome boys who chewed tobacco), Pixie had a mean streak in her that could have cowed any one of those beaten up dogs who get tied up and forgotten on front porches. A favorite story: when she caught wind that her daughter Lily finally got to getting mixed up with Freddy James, her hollering damn near shook the aluminum siding off a whole block of houses. It wouldn't be the last time their love nearly brought the town down.

Time moves slow in a small town, and then all at once, in a blur of illegal fireworks and the sounds of crickets struggling over old rock n' roll music pouring out of tiny houses, sticking in the heat or drying up in the cold. About her daughter getting pregnant, the old woman would say:

"Don't you think you're getting away with this, Freddy James, not for a second."

Lily used to talk about getting in the movies, people say, but no knocked-up trailer park Texas girl was ever getting too far from her momma. You ask around in the right small town in Texas, and people will tell you that Lily showing up round as a full moon and glowing twice as bright wasn't rightly a surprise to anybody.

Lily and Freddy James were their Bonnie & Clyde, only most folk still say Freddy had twice the looks of Clyde and about three times the charm.

About her grandson, Sidney James, the old woman would say:

"'Least he's not got his father's kicked-by-a-horse looks."

Most folk would disagree. The spitting image of the town's celebrity lovers, Sidney James was all dark eyes and dark hair and that's not all, either. Even Freddy's brother Art, local troublemaker and rumored fairy, couldn't help but wax on about what a family the three made.

On a sticky night in August, you could hear sad little two-week-old Sidney James from anywhere in town if you listened hard enough and about Freddy skipping town, the old woman would say:

"Never was any good, that boy. And he broke up her heart, just provin' it."

But anyone would swear she was talking about herself, when she said it.

After that, there wasn't much to hold them: the old lady, the mother, and her boy. Dirt and dying grass – the sound of lonely cats and lonelier guitars just couldn't drown out the roar of Freddy James's engine when he drove out of town without a word that August in his old beater car.

Local burnout and rumored junkie, Art, couldn't help but wax on about what was going to happen when his brother finally called, finally wrote, finally came home. You ask around in the right small town in Texas, and you'll find that lots of folk have theories about what happened to Freddy James: he hitched across the United States and was holed up out in the mid-west with a new name growing wheat for some GMO company, or maybe that he'd gotten in trouble with some Mexican drug cartel and was laying low out in Louisiana, trying to drum up rapport so he could break into politics how people always said he should and secure a new life. The only thing people are certain about, is what happened to Lily James and her boy.

About her daughter moving to Los Angeles, the old woman would say:

"She's meant for better things, that girl. Better than this town could ever give her."

Anyone would agree that Los Angeles isn't any kind of place to raise a boy, and Pixie didn't mind helping out after a time, no matter what she liked to tell the neighbors on her way into town. Art told stories to the boy about his daddy, just the same as Pixie, and the three of them would read letters from Lily and pass the phone through the house on weekends even when Sidney hadn't learned to say much yet. And every once in a while they'd get a package in the mail from the west coast, a VHS they could put in the T.V. and watch dark-haired Lily James say some poorly written lines, as somebody else, for a bout ten seconds on a daytime soap that didn’t air in a small town in Texas.

Once the boy entered school, Lily came home. There's not much talk about Lily James coming home, not in Texas or anywhere else. Homecomings are never as special for anyone else as they are for the people who waited up for it, hoping, Lily liked to tell her boy. But she was sure glad to see his face, anyhow.

About the boy asking for a guitar when he was nine, the old woman would say:

"Nothin' more suspicious in children than silence, after all. Boy's not half bad, once you learn to tune it out."

Local washed-up rockstar wanna-be and rumored good-for-nothing, Art, was a good guitar teacher, and the records he gifted Sidney were only that much better. On a sticky night in August, you could hear Sidney and Art trying to bring that old beater car back to life from anywhere in town, if you had ears for listening at all. Few more years gone by, and the girls were set to whispering and the boys were set to puffing all over again.

Sidney James, however, wasn't anything like his daddy, once you saw through those dark eyes and dark hair and that's not all, either. About her grandson, the old woman would say:

"He's dumber than a box-of-rocks but Lord if he isn't sweet - when he's not makin' a sour face at least."

Sidney James kept to the girls, but Sidney James kept his distance where it counted all the same, his head full of choice words from his momma and grandmomma at all the wrong moments. You have some pretty thing pressed against you close in the back of the car you and your uncle only just fixed up, and she's pulling your hand under her shirt, last thing you want to hear is the sound of your momma's voice asking you just what in the hell you think you're doing.

Come time for the boy to grow up, and he'd only just barely graduated high school. Local homosexual slacker and rumored drug addict, Art, was the closest he got to a “male role model” and while Sidney's uncle had a heart as kind and good as any you'd ever seen, heart didn't do much outside the little shack of a dance hall Uncle Art played at every weekend. Sidney couldn't know to want for much more, not until the Army recruiters came to town the last week of school. Duty, honor, seeing the world and being a hero sounded like the best chance Sidney had any sort of a future outside the right small town in Texas.

About the boy joining up, the old woman would say:

"Like I said. Dumber'n' a box-of-rocks."

And she wouldn't say much else about it, not for a long while.

War changes a man, but Sidney James didn't know that. Women can change a man, too, but it took a time for the words of his mother to stop ringing at all the wrong moments. Either way, nobody saw either war or a woman on the horizon for Sidney James. Problem was that war is never over for the soldiers, but the woman just walked away.

First came war.

Sidney may have been First Lieutenant by the time he shipped out to battle, but there isn't a title in the whole force that protects a man against pain, against heartbreak, against losing his mind after he's lost all else. About Sidney being shipped home on honorable discharge after hijacking a tank to drive back to The States and rescue his dyin' grandmomma, the old woman couldn't say much. Buried under six feet of dirt, there's not much anyone can say on the subject, Sidney James least of all.

Then she came.

You spend a while doing odd jobs, drifting through the country on the run from a collection of ghosts while wearing a face too much like the one on Freddy James, and you're bound to meet a couple of slippery women. You play guitar the way Sidney James could, and you're bound to meet your undoing. You have some pretty, dark-eyed thing pressed against you close in the back of the car you and your uncle fixed up over a decade ago, and she's pulling your hand under her shirt, you better pray to God you hear the sound of your momma's voice asking you just what in the hell you think you're doing. About getting the woman pregnant, your momma would say:

"Don't you think you're getting away with this, Sidney James, not for a second."

And you don't want to get away with it, but she does. And she did.

Then she left.

For a little boy, Clayton James handled the demons that lurked in his daddy's head and the ghost of his disappeared momma like it was Sunday brunch and right then and there Lily knew there wasn't a thing alive or dead that could take down this family. You ask around in the right small town in Texas, and every person you meet has a story about what happened to the James boy: killed in combat, every part of him a war hero, or run AWOL to Canada, living under a false name and looking for his runaway daddy whom he blamed for all his hardships in life.

You could easily find them, the two of them, Clay and Sidney, on some interstate between jobs or schools, Clay telling his daddy all about how and why he'd gotten kicked from middle school, high school, boy scouts, band practice, this time. And Clay just kept that beaten up guitar that Sidney couldn't bring himself to sell, and just kept playing it, and just kept getting better, and just kept rubbing it in Sidney's face on those long drives together.

Local bag-of-bones and rumored bleeding heart, Art, had skipped town to head west, some little place called in the California desert where the trailer felt like home but everything else was a little less sticky come August. About the James boys rolling into town sometime afterward, no one said a word, all dark-eyed and dark-haired and that's not all, either.

#sidney #short story #a small town #lily #freddie #the jameses #original content

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notorgazmo-blog · 7 years

Note

14; 16; 17; 28; 29

14. Were they involved at school? Sports? Clubs? Debate? Were they unconnected?

Joe was very involved in school! He did theater all throughout and majored in it in college. He’s been obsessed with Grease since he was little, and played Danny Zucko at summer camp two years in a row, then in high school, then in college. He was on the cheerleading squad (”because Lisa made me”), the soccer team and the floor hockey team, and was voted class treasurer one year and vice president the next. He was heavily involved in charity clubs (organizing card signing for sick students, orchestrating Day Without Hate) and became known as a bit of a teacher’s pet. He headed anti-drug campaigns and was involved in an after school program where high schoolers tutored elementary school students. He was a peer counselor. He sang in the choir, and sometimes played piano for them and various school concerts. He was student director of the spring musical in his junior year. French club, Spanish club, ping-pong club… He tried to join Forensics but threw up the first time they watched slides of crime scenes. He was a member of the 4H club. Played saxophone in band for a few years. Joe was very much over-involved in high school, to keep himself busy.

16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike?

Joe is an actor a porn star. After his mission work ended, he was cast in Orgazmo, which accidentally became an overnight success, somehow bridging the gap between adult film and mainstream media. He’s obviously embarrassed about it, and thinks it’s pretty immoral and exploitative at first, but the camaraderie of the cast and the great friends he makes shifts his mindset; if the people doing it like what they’re doing, then who is he to judge?

He still finds a lot of it pretty gross, like DVDA, but it’s all become a lot less taboo. He doesn’t like how controlling and entitled some of the industry professionals are (i.e. Maxxx Orbison and A-Cup) and now that he and Dave own the Orgazmo franchise together, he does his best to make their set a safe space where everyone has the freedom to have a say in how they are treated and what they will and won’t do.

Lately, he has been developing a penchant for photography. Down the road, he will go to school to become a counselor.

17. Did they travel? Where? Why? When?

Joe grew up in Salt Lake City, but he went to summer camp in Tulsa, Oklahoma every year from third grade until he graduated high school. He’s also visited his sister Kimmy in New York City, which he found to be overstimulating. He took a class trip to Spain his senior year with his Spanish class. His other sister, Alma, lives in Provo, Utah, and he visits her every now and again. Basically he has family all over Utah, Idaho and… almost the entire country.

He went to Los Angeles for his mission work, and has lived there ever since.

28. Who is your character’s mate? How do they relate to him or her? How did they make their choice?

Joe started dating Lisa when he was sixteen years old. She’d been courting him since they met in the church choir in middle school; their families are close and Joe’s parents always urged him to pursue her, because she’s a nice looking girl and a devout Mormon. They also considered that his best shot at getting over his same-sex attraction, which they were suspicious of from a young age.

They bonded over singing and in response to extreme pressure from his family, he proposed to her just after graduating from BYU, right before his mission. Joe loves her, and she often joined the same clubs as him in high school. He’s always thought she has a kind heart and excitable nature, which didn’t go unappreciated… but he’s not in love with her.

For years, he tried to force himself to be. A hopeless romantic, he’s always known what love is supposed to feel like (via love songs and poems and books) and when those feelings didn’t arise with Lisa, he assumed they must just be exaggerated descriptions and that it was okay he just loved her like a friend. He hoped maybe one day those feelings would just come, because his family wanted it to work so badly and he never wanted to let them down. But he could just never relate to her—she was always quick to point out when he was acting strange, or tell him to stop joking around, or get angry when he would take things too seriously. He’d accepted that maybe that’s just what love was.

However, when he left Utah and went to Los Angeles for his missionary trip after graduating from BYU, Joe met Kevin Price.

All the love songs, all the sappy poems—it finally made sense to him and he didn’t even know he could feel that way about someone. It scared the living daylights out of him, mostly because Kevin was not a girl and Joe had done everything in his power by that point to deny the notion that he’s gay.

He would go out of his way to make Kevin laugh (because the sound of it and the way Kevin’s face scrunches up gives Joe heart palpitations) and they confided in each other everything about their families the pressures of being Mormon.

They’re a real yin and yang pair. Kevin can be uptight and pessimistic, and Joe would level him out with his goofy nature and ever-loving belief that the world is an inherently good place. Kevin would tell him about Uganda, and how he questioned Mormonism (and God in general) as a whole, which planted seeds of doubt in Joe as well, paving the long and winding road he would eventually take to letting go of his suffocating ideals. Joe tried to get Kevin to see the good in everyone. Kevin helped Joe to see the world more for what it actually is, and tried his darndest to help Joe understand that everything he’s been taught isn’t the only way to live, that he can actually be happy, and not just fake Good Mormon Hetero Joe happy. They really balanced each other out, and taught each other a lot about themselves. Kevin opened up Joe to a whole other world, like he held up a mirror in front of him and Joe saw himself for the first time in his life.

They grew up a lot together in that year and a half. They smoked weed for the first time (with their ‘investigator’ and neighbor, Dave—not the lighting guy) they had their first drink together, they broke rules and made up what came to be known as inventifakers. Every day was a blast. They were constantly laughing and smiling, which was a stark contrast to the first day they met, when they experienced some violent and graphic food poisoning via a sketchy taco truck on the corner near their apartment.

Joe felt an overwhelming desire to care for and protect Kevin. He was the first person Joe ever told that he was gay, though it wasn’t really necessary to say out loud after the first night they pushed their beds together and fell asleep tangled in each other’s arms.

They lived in what @elderxprice and I refer to as their ‘gay bubble’ for the majority of their mission, until the last few weeks when Joe started to panic about having to return to their normal lives as Good Hetero Mormons. Kevin’s mission ended a good six months before his, and about three weeks before it did, Joe had a mental breakdown and broke up with him. The guilt of cheating on Lisa, of sinning against Heavenly Father, and lying to his parents got the best of him, and the fear of living a life so wildly different than the one he had planned pushed him over the edge.

They didn’t see each other again until Joe was in town in Provo house sitting for his cousin, and while it took a little while to break the ice, the ended up breaking in his cousin’s couch. Joe had to secretly buy her a new one.

For a while, they kept in touch, Joe trying to convince himself to call off his wedding, until ultimately, he couldn’t bring himself to, and he stopped contacting Kevin as the nuptials drew close.

That was the next time they saw each other: the wedding. Joe thought Kevin hadn’t been invited, but a sneaky Lisa sent him an invitation to the reception. Joe crumbled into pieces during a brief hug and confessed his morbid depression concerning the entire affair—the wedding, his life with Lisa, etc. and Kevin sat on his hands to keep from pulling his hair out while he watched the love of his life have his first dance with his new wife. Joe’s sister Kimmy bought them some time alone, and though it was clear that they were both very unhappy and very, very much still in love, they parted ways yet again.

Kevin is Joe’s mate. For life. For every lifetime. He loves him to the ends of the earth, and it takes roughly three more years of heartache and turmoil until Kevin shows up during his spring break, unannounced, to see Joe.

Lisa is away on a weekend intensive training session with her singing coach (or, a weekend sex marathon, as Joe later finds out) and Kevin is roped into doing a last minute fill in for Choda Boy in Orgazmo 3: It’s Not Gay If It’s In A Threeway.

On that day, Joe reaches an epiphany that forces him to realize he can’t live in utter misery any longer—if he doesn’t make things right with Kevin, he won’t make it through another day. Bonus: Choda Boy and Orgazmo share a beautiful, magical on-screen kiss that has literal fireworks in the background. Everyone on set is floored.

Joe figures if he can become the real life Orgazmo and beat up a gang of thugs, he can be an openly gay Mormon. #kjoeforever

29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?

Joe is a people pleaser, and extremely gullible and optimistic to a fault. He often gets roped into uncomfortable situations due to his meek nature. He has trouble communicating his true feelings sometimes, but Kevin brings them out.

He relies heavily on planning to prevent anxiety, and has countless lists for his life plan and likes to schedule his days down to the minute. If something goes awry, he becomes scatterbrained. Sometimes the slightest inconvenience can deter him from taking action. Like a door being locked or a restaurant being closed.

He often times puts others needs before his own, which causes him to feel unfulfilled and ultimately depressed.

Though he takes his life seriously, he can be a huge goofball sometimes, and Lisa used to get angry with him a lot for not taking things seriously or making jokes at inappropriate times.

He also sticks to his britches a little too harshly sometimes (i.e. breaking up with the love of his life because his family is counting on him to marry Lisa).

#headcanon ✅💭; how would christ benefit from me putting my tongue in someone's mouth?#kevin 👬🍞; mormons aren’t supposed to do a lot of things #kjoe #ask #elderxprice

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yvynyl · 7 years

Audio

// Letters to YVYNYL //

Fragile Gang - Thinking of You

/ I lost this incredible story in my email inbox from over a year ago. I don’t even know how I found it again. So bummed I hadn’t posted it earlier, but this letter is extremely worth the read and the record is fantastic; dreamy, heavy. Arlo Klahr’s letter hits hard. The experience he tells us about having his friend getting randomly murdered fits well with blasting guitars.

Hi Mark,

How are you? This is Arlo from Fragile Gang. I wanted to tell you about our new album, For Esme, and some of the stories behind it and behind our lives in music.

First off, the album is a tribute to our friend Esme Barrera, who passed away in 2012. She was a vital part of the Austin and El Paso, Texas music scenes and a volunteer at the Girls Rock Austin camp, among many other things. She touched hundreds and thousands of people’s lives with her energy and enthusiasm and friendship. For our part, I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say we might not have made it past our beginnings as Fragile Gang without her.

Secondly, this is the first time anyone besides us has ever put out our music. (Our friends in the band Young Jesus just put out the album as the first release on their label, Hellhole Supermarket.) Aisling and I have been playing and recording music together—being in the same musical orbit—in some form or another for almost 20 years now.

We both met Esme around 2003 at our first Fragile Gang show in El Paso. It was in a building inside a junkyard out in the desert part of town. The bands played up on the flat bed of a big truck that was about six feet off the ground. I was about 29 then and thinking I’d have to leave music. I don’t know why. It’s too complicated to go into. Just feeling like a loser. I couldn’t see any kind of life in music from the place my mind was at then.

When I was younger, things had just seemed so much easier and more spontaneous. The feelings in my heart were undiluted. I was more sure of myself.

On one tour (back in the grunge days) my band Foss showed up in San Francisco without a show. We noticed there was a Matador Records band playing that night. An idea sprung up between us: we went to a payphone, found the number for the club and pretended we were Bruce and Jonathan from Sub Pop Records (we liked Sub Pop). We asked if the club would consider putting the band on the bill because the label was thinking of signing them and wanted to see how they’d do in a few live situations before that. We had to call the club back a few times and talk to a bartender, a booking agent, a manager, but somehow we got the show.

Then we proceeded to suck.

It was one of our worst shows. We hadn’t practiced in a while and we were kind of freaked out playing in a big city with a big band. At one point I managed to pull loose all the cables from the amps while thrashing around, so the song was just the drummer drumming and ad-libbing words that weren’t part of the song.

But despite this, or maybe because of it (and the Sub Pop connection), the reactions were strangely positive-seeming: “So…Sub Pop’s signing you all?” It sounded like a complex statement full of disbelief, awe, envy, confusion. Or: “Hey, what’s your name again? Where are you from?” another person asked. “You were rad.” But were we rad? Or did we suck? The overheard conversations—ranging from disdain to befuddlement about whether we were the future of grunge or how Sub Pop must really be branching out—gave us no conclusive answers to those questions. But those kinds of questions never stopped us for long back then. We just wanted to play.

On another tour we sneaked across the Canadian border (pre 9/11). It was to play a show with Leslie Feist when she was in a band called Placebo and before she became known worldwide as Feist. We had become friends with her on a previous tour. The band was turned away at the border and banned from the country. We had booked a tour of Canada with no documents and our alibi fell through under scrutiny by the border guards.

Another idea sprung up: One of us (the one who couldn’t drive a stick shift) was a dual American/Canadian citizen. The band drove out to the smallest crossing in the middle of some farmland in North Dakota and then in the middle of the night drove out farther to some fields. The idea was to walk north (and to guess which way north was) and the driver would go back to the border, try to get across and then wait somewhere down the road.

He managed to drive the car (full of fireworks and amps and records) and get through the crossing. It took the rest of the band about an hour walking across fields and marshes, flushing geese out of lakes, getting wet, being scared, walking, sometimes running in the pitch black. They hit the road somewhere, took a left (good guess) and eventually saw some tail lights. It was the tour station wagon. We missed our show in Winnipeg but ended up playing with Leslie in Calgary. (This story is sort of documented, but just barely. There’s a garbled video online where she introduces her song and mentions our band sneaking across the border to play.)

But back to that night at the junkyard, we tried to play well, but I just got the feeling that it didn’t matter. Or no one was listening really. Or that we weren’t really that good. The sound was lost, the people were scattered, we kept making mistakes, and I was trying to overcompensate. I also had a weird (and maybe perfectly reasonable) feeling being older: What did I have to say? Who could relate to it? Should this lifestyle be over? And also the frustrated feeling that I did, we did, have something to say. That there was a reason for this—but that I just couldn’t reach it.

A girl came up to us after our show. She seemed young (about 19 or 20) and also just full of life, had a shy yet bold demeanor. It was loud and dark in that place with the next band tuning up and people talking and songs being played over the PA. She leaned in close and shouted something.

“You’re my new favorite band,” she said. One of us might have even said “What?” in surprise and disbelief. But then she went on: “You’re just the kind of band I like: a girl, a guy, both singing, playing guitars. Just like all my favorite bands. Can I be in your fan club?” That was Esme. We became friends and we became part of her fan club. (She had a big and growing group of Esme supporters.) We even wore buttons that had her name. Went to dance parties where she DJ’d. Wrote and mailed letters back and forth (even when we lived in the same city).

And we stayed friends with her (even when we moved to different cities). In the early hours of New Year’s Day 2010 my mom passed away after a number of years living with and fighting cancer. When we did our album Twister in the Ocean a few months later, Esme was there. We recorded it in the living room of the ramshackle house I grew up in surrounded by the tumultuous and vibrant oil paintings my mom had left behind from her life as an artist and teacher. Esme came in from Austin where she was working with special needs children and volunteering for the rock camp and was selling music when she was on the job at Waterloo Records. She was also learning to play the drums. (We always said we would be neighbors and be in a band together one day.)

She took the sunset photo that became the album cover and she sang some backing vocals. She even helped convince us that we should keep the name Fragile Gang, which we’d been thinking of changing. On the last minute of the last day of the five days we had set aside to learn and record the songs—as the sun was starting to fade outside—we finished the album. We had just done the backing vocals on one of the songs (they felt triumphant and joyous) and then the group of us walked up the hill at the end of the street. There were a few drops of rain falling and an electric sky. Esme snapped the picture. I only wish she was in it.

Two years went by. It was New Year’s Day 2012. I was sitting down to observe the anniversary of my mom’s death and to appreciate her and to try to work on some writing. It was a bright blue sunny cool Los Angeles day. You could see a little snow on the tops of the mountains. It felt like such a beautiful day to start something new, appreciate what you have, remember what you’ve lost. Our friend and bandmate Matt called from El Paso. He asked me what I was doing and how I was. I told him what I was up to. There was an uncomfortable silence and then he told me the news that Esme had been murdered.

There’s a front-page article in the El Paso Times from around that time. The headline calls Esme a beautiful and gentle soul. She was. It was a horrible time for everyone who knew her. We were in shock. Someone had come into her house in the early morning hours of New Year’s and killed her. Later we found out that he had assaulted two other women that night. And others during his time in Austin. Then we found out that he had killed himself in a gruesome way. There was no justice. No closure. No explanation. Just horror. I found it hard to do anything during this time.

It took awhile, but we started writing new songs. We began to realize that they were about Esme. Sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. About her or inspired by her or just written with her somewhere in our hearts and thoughts. We volunteered at the Rock N’ Roll Camp for Girls in Los Angeles that summer in Esme’s honor. We talked about her with other people who knew her and with people who didn’t know her. Then we decided the songs would be a tribute to her. If we could do it in the right kind of way, then we should.*

Music was always a place for me and my friends. A place to hide away and a place of possibilities and joy and sharing. Our experience back then in El Paso (probably no different from a lot of young people anywhere) was that you had to find ways to be creative, entertain yourself and your friends, support each other. It was communal.

One time back in the Foss days we got on a local cable access TV show by claiming we were a gospel band. It was a conservative, religious-oriented political talk show and we figured we could learn a couple of classics (we were into folk music of all kinds) and play our songs too. While we played our songs and were being interviewed about the dangers of gangster rap, a bunch of bored kids—some we knew and some we didn’t—from all over El Paso called in and pestered the host and his sidekick. It was nighttime. They were stuck inside their homes. There was nothing to do. They saw some music on the TV. It was live. They called in.

Esme helped me remember the spirit of those times: how important music, sharing and community can be. Despite any day-to-day struggles she might have had, she was unfailingly positive. Her influence spread far beyond our small scenes.

It’s part of why I’m here sharing this with you. Although it can be hard at times with people I love gone, Esme still encourages me to play and keep hold of some of the best that music can offer. Spontaneity and openness. Inspiration and joy. Being connected to people you love and who love you. The chance to bring some color and light and motion into being. Some gentleness and beauty. Some vulnerability and strength. Some good times.

If any of this interests you, we’d be honored to be mentioned on YVYNYL and are happy to make your acquaintance this way and bring our Fragile Gang music and stories to your attention and to your readers.

Lots of love to you. Thanks for reading,

Arlo & Fragile Gang.

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#Fragile Gang #Letters to YVYNYL #Hellhole Supermarket #Austin #El Paso #Los Angeles #death #murder #Esme Barrera

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