#living polaroid project season four | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

littlemisslipbalm · 4 years

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“Harry’s stylist, right?”

Summary: Harry and his personal stylist are great collaborators, on screen and off. She helps his visions come to life and in turn they’ve become close friends. As she helps him to bring his fashion dreams come to life during the Fine Line era, will some other dreams come to life as well?

Harry and his stylist go from colleagues to friends to lovers because they’ve been in love with each other from the jump

this fit is very important to this part lmaooo - I literally have no idea what to call this lol, anyway I've been sitting on this for forever and I wanted to get something out for yall and i love this story there will be a part 2 when i get to a writing mood. I love this story bc its my literal dream - anyway!! pls enjoy and reblog and lmk what you think :)

Word Count: 14k | Warnings: swearing, drinking, tame for now, should be smut eventually - aka slow burn (what else would you expect from me at this point i guess)

part 2

“Hey, H, I just had a question about one of the SNL outfits? Do you have a sec?”

Harry looked up from his phone and raised his brows at his stylist, Y/N.

Y/N had worked with Harry previously. In photoshoots for Another Man magazine and his most recent Gucci campaign. As well as some other random times, such as one-off award show looks and specific appearances. However, this past summer Harry had hired Y/N to work fulltime for him, exclusively. He had told her that he was planning on releasing his second album in the winter and he wanted someone there to help him plan his clothes for music videos, award season, interview appearances, as well as tour outfits.

Y/N stood just inside the doorway of the room, leaning her back against the wall, looking expectantly at him. Her eyes were wide and her lips were pursed. She was dressed simply in a white satin skirt and a matching cropped button-up, they both had cream flowers embroidered on, paired with horsebit slim Gucci mules. Her style was eclectic, but she had definitely noticed an increase of Gucci in her wardrobe since starting her employment with Harry.

Y/N’s passion in life was fashion and clothes and she constantly worried that one of Harry’s outfits wouldn’t deliver as much as she wanted it to. He was quick to tell her not to worry so much though, as long as they both were happy with it, how could anyone else not love it. Plus, he’d always add, it didn’t really matter what anyone else thought. But as more and more events began to crop up, Y/N’s worry over her work grew. She had only been the head stylist for Harry on projects that were still underwraps - except for Lights Up which had been released a couple weeks ago now.

The first project she ever worked on with Harry as his full-time personal stylist was the Lights Up music video. She had never worked so closely with one person for so long on just one project. Harry was insistent in vision and came in the first day filled with ideas, what he imagined for the video's concept and how he wanted to incorporate clothes. She had been happy to make his dreams become reality.

The two of them spent hours at his house for weeks, pouring over every detail of every outfit he planned to wear. They both wanted it to be perfect. And eventually, it all came together, exactly how they had planned. All of the garments for the video took up two entire garment racks. Y/N had made Harry pose in every single outfit for polaroids that she dated and then put into a lookbook she started for him. She had told him she planned to document every outfit she styled for him and Harry had been so excited. The outfits he wore in the video were received with praise when it was finally released, and Harry and Y/N were overjoyed. There was already a party for its release, but they both were especially happy that night. Throughout the evening, Harry and Y/N would gravitate to one another and fall into side conversations about the outfits and what people had been saying. Even if Harry said it didn’t matter, he and Y/N both knew, at the end of the day, they loved when people were happy with their work.

“Sure,” he bounced to his feet, but Y/N made a hand motion telling him that he could stay seated. He settled back down as she crossed over and sat beside him on his couch.

She was at his house in London today planning his next few appearances that were promotion for the upcoming album, Saturday Night Live was next. Harry had been taking a break from their work until she had come in.

It wasn’t unusual for Y/N to be at his house, they had been working together for months now. First, it had been for his outfits in his music videos that were filmed in late summer and early fall, like Lights up, but also a few other ones. Now, it was clothing for promo appearances, interviews, and listening parties. Next, it would be tour outfits, which she had already started planning, but officially, they hadn’t started discussions yet. Harry had helped her to get a flat closer to his house in London just for her to be able to head over and help with the planning or fitting of his outfits more easily. She also was constantly traveling with him to his appearances, making sure outfits were perfect right before whatever show it was or making last minute adjustments in case either of them decided something wasn’t right.

While Harry was a big guy, his waist was far trimmer than a usual man built to his size, this meant she had to take in a lot of his trousers at the waist. As well, with his shirts and coats, she’d have to take them in or out depending on how Harry wanted the fit to be - either perfectly tight or perfectly oversized. He was particular, but she appreciated his drive for fashion and how he cared for his appearance. Before performances, she often had to take things in or out based on any body fluctuation that had occurred since the initial fitting.

She was looking at her sketchpad that held all of her notes on his clothes - which was different from the lookbook of polaroids - including patches of the actual colors and little Harry figures dressed in what he was going to wear. Right now, she had the pad opened to a page titled “SNL Opener - November 16, 2019”.

“So I was thinking with your opening monologue outfit, it might look better to have a different colored blazer? A matching yellow would be great, but if you did more of a toned down - maybe light tan or beige - blazer with gold embellishments, you’d elevate it to look sophisticated and stylish, rather than just stylish. It’d be exactly like the runway look - which I know you sometimes don’t like, but I think it’s what looks best.”

She ran her finger between two swatches of what she thought would be the better blazer color and the one Harry had originally wanted. He wet his lips and gazed at the page as he thought about what she said. Normally, she liked monochrome on him, but she thought the deep blue underneath a completely yellow suit might wash him out on the stage.

“Yeah,” he pointed to the top beige swatch, “I think I do like this better.” He paused and turned his head to Y/N, looking in her eyes before asking, “Is that all?”

“Er...no,” Y/N ran a hand over her unstyled hair, slightly fluffed by her constant musing of it. She often fiddled with it while she worked, better than biting nails she always said when confronted about her tick. After a sigh Y/N continued, “I was just on the phone with Jane from Gucci and she said that for Look 57 they could only send your technical size, for some reason they can’t custom make it. Meaning, I’ll have to tailor the whole thing to you when it arrives. Is that alright? Or do you want to choose something else?”

She flipped to a page that said “SNL WS.” Harry followed her hands and nodded realizing she was talking about the Gucci suit he wanted to wear for Watermelon Sugar. It was a watermelon’s inside red. When he had found out the suit came in that color, he had danced around the dining table for what Y/N had felt like was an hour, humming the tune of Watermelon Sugar excitedly. Finally, she had coaxed him to sit back down and get back to their other work, which was still picking out clothes.

“No, that’s fine,” Harry shook his head and used his thumb to scratch under his lips absentmindedly, “It really needs to be that color.”

She nodded, she knew what his answer was going to be, but she also knew he still liked to make the final decision.

“Alright, we’ll just have to meet for longer when everything arrives, to tailor that one. Then the rest of them should just be making sure the fit is perfect.”

She rose up from her seat and patted Harry’s shoulder, leaving him to his thoughts, as she went back to finish up the calls with Jane and the designers.

He caught her hand in his before she completely walked away, “Thank you, Y/N.” He was so grateful he had hired someone who was as driven as he was and understood his fashion sense and wanted to help enhance what he was thinking, rather than someone trying to control him or just going along with whatever he said. Neither would be productive or helpful, thankfully Y/N loved her job and cared to do things right.

She grinned before exiting, “H, you’re going to be this century’s style icon if it’s the last thing I do.” He laughed as she walked out of the room, leaning back on the couch to continue his lurking on Instagram.

One week later

“I’m here, H! I come bearing Gucci and more!” Y/N said as she shuffled through Harry’s front door, she held a deconstructed rack and a garment bag filled with heavy suits and things. Inside were Harry’s four most important outfits for SNL, some other garments for SNL, and some clothes they had talked about for his upcoming listening sessions later in the month. Y/N needed to check the fit on all of them and begin tailoring the Watermelon Sugar suit. The key Harry had given to Y/N, previously, had let her in, but she assumed he was home. He said he’d be.

When Y/N rounded the corner she found another empty room. Confused, she set down her large items and went to search for Harry. Y/N literally needed him to be here for this part. It was the only real time she actually needed to see him in person - but that was beside the point.

“H?”

She wandered through the different rooms of his home. Normally, Y/N didn’t go into the other rooms, she was always mainly in his lounge area, the dining room, and a little casual office room he had - sometimes the kitchen for water, his bedroom once. Still not finding him, she decided to venture to the furthest door, Harry’s bedroom, she remembered.

Harry groaned at the sound of a knock on his door, he rolled over in his bed. After a few moments of hearing nothing else than his groan, Y/N felt like she had to go in and check on him.

“H, it’s 12:30 and we agreed we’d meet at noon. Are you feeling alright?”

Y/N moved into the room and found a shirtless Harry surrounded by rumpled sheets, clutching at a pillow. He groaned into his pillow again in response. Her legs bent at the edge of the bed and she reached out to smooth some of his chestnut hair out of his face, “What’s wrong?”

He moved his head to allow his eyes to look at her, “‘M so tired, don’t know why. My stomach kind of hurts too…” Y/N looked at him quizzically, before running her hand over his tan forehead once more, this time checking for a fever. “You don’t have a fever. When did you go to sleep? Have you eaten anything today?” With her help, Harry moved into a seated position, head tilted back against the bedpost. He sat silent for a moment before blowing air out of his mouth. “Went to sleep kind of late for me, I guess...Haven’t eaten.”

“Ok, you’re just tired from staying up late, you old man, and you might be a little dehydrated and hungry. Listen, I’ll go make you some food if you get up and prepare yourself for the day. We need to get all your clothes fitted so that I can fix anything before next week.” Y/N was always good at getting Harry back on track when he got distracted - or even out of the station, when he wasn’t in the mood to work on something. She slid from her perch on the bed and walked to almost the edge of the room before Harry called her back.

“Can you pick out my clothes for me?” His soft, tired voice whined. “So hard...and you’ve got the best eye. Pleaseeee,” he pleaded softly.

Rolling her eyes, Y/N sighed and made her way back into his room. Crossing to the door that led to his walk-in closet, she set to work. As silly as he was being, she could never pass up on a chance to pick out an outfit for Harry.

“You’re literally going to be changing the entire time, H, you could have just thrown on sweats,” she called back to him once inside the smaller room. He repeated how she always picked the right thing, even for just around the house. Again, Y/N rolled her eyes at Harry, but she also couldn’t hide the warm smile on her face that was due to his compliment.

She couldn’t believe how dramatic Harry could be sometimes. Right now, he was a lesser form of hungover and he was acting like his life was ending. Y/N had made a note a while ago to never agree to a meeting on the day after any partying. She learned the hard way one particularly terrible Sunday. She had come round his house at a similar time, noon-ish and found Harry dead asleep, backwards in his bed. When she had roused him, his only responses were grumbles and groans. She had to not only pick out his clothes, but also help dress him. Then, after providing water and aspirin, she moved all their work into his bedroom so they could work from there. Harry had proved to be a baby when it came to hangovers. But, she hadn’t realized he could get like this even without being truly hungover.

After settling on his live aid t-shirt, that Y/N was eternally jealous of, located at the front of his drawer and his favorite corduroy trousers, she walked out and threw them in the direction of his toned, but slumped body. “I will not get you boxers, that is most definitely not in my job description, Boss.” Y/N sent a pointed look in his direction, moving to finally leave the room. While he was technically her boss as her employer, their work relationship was extremely collaborative and it never felt like he was in control of her, she just liked to give him shit for being a drama queen.

“Guess I’ll be going commando. How’s that going to work with me changing in front of you a bunch of times?” He teased right back, taking the clothes you had thrown at him and giving them a onceover. His teasing signalled that he was already feeling better.

Y/N shook her head and walked out of the room, “For the love of God, Harry, please put on underwear before you come out and continuously strip in front of me!”

The words he shouted after that were muffled, but they were something along the lines of how the human body is beautiful and shouldn’t be covered up. Unbelievable. As she set to work on making both of them some lunch, she finally heard Harry begin moving around. They had a lot of work to do as it was and whenever Harry was in a mood, whether it be a good mood or a bad mood, they always seemed to have a hard time focusing.

One night, that could be seen as the poster child for Harry and Y/N’s procrastination, was during the planning for the Adore You music video. Harry was in a super good mood that day and he had brought that energy to their meeting at his house. Y/N was supposed to be fitting him for the various outfits, but Harry, in his mania, ordered an overzealous amount of Chinese food. It took her and Harry hours to even make a dent in the food. And while they passed the time with eating, Harry and Y/N got further and further from their tasks, opting for conversations that included more fun topics than work. They had gossipped about some of the other people they worked with, Harry had begged for “the tea” about some of his other staffers and Y/N was happy to oblige. As much as Y/N would hate to admit it, she loved when they got off of work subjects and talked about how their day’s had been and what has been on their nerves lately. It was a nice way to decompress, it was like hanging out with a friend, except it wasn’t, not really.

Harry shuffled into the kitchen wearing what Y/N had picked out for him. Her smile grew knowing that he hadn’t changed what she’d picked. His confidence in her and her abilities never failed to feel like the biggest compliment.

“Go sit at the dining table, I’ve made us some little sandwiches and then we can decide the order we want to go through the outfits in.”

Before following Y/N’s orders, Harry continued his shuffling around, first to the cabinet for a glass, then to the fridge for water. At the end of the table, she set the plates between the head of the table’s spot and the one to its left. Harry took the side spot, so Y/N was on the end. After a bite of his food, Harry moaned loudly in contentment. This caused an amused look on Y/N’s face, there had been nothing special in his house so she had just made what was possible. This meant that Harry’s satisfaction was a little over the top.

“You’re acting like you haven’t eaten in a week. What did you do last night that got you in such a twist?” Y/N asked as she took a sip of her own glass of water. Harry nibbled at his lower lip after swallowing, trying to understand why he was particularly tired today.

“I guess I forgot to eat properly yesterday and then I went out running. And I stayed up late on the phone with,” he paused, eyes flashing to Y/N and then away again, “someone for SNL.”

Y/N hummed at his words before going back to her own eating. She didn’t understand why he hesitated about telling her he’d been on the phone last night, it especially irked her that he wouldn’t even say with whom. Professionally, it wasn’t really her business, but Harry was never secretive with her. Plus, it seemed to be work related so why was he being so flighty about it.

Moving forward, Harry peppier from eating and simply moving around, the pair set to work. They decided on trying on everything else first and then saving the Watermelon Sugar suit to the end. The other three main pieces for the night fit perfectly, Y/N had to only do minor reworks of certain areas.

“H, I need you to hold still…” Y/N interrupted Harry’s ramblings as she was crouched beside him.

She had to take up the hem on the pant legs so right now she was trying to pin them in the place she and Harry had agreed upon, without messing with the pleats.

“Sorry,” He mumbled, straightening out his back to stand taller.

He stayed quiet for a bit until Y/N popped back up, she looked at her notebook for reference on what she still had to tailor.

“Okay, next, the pants crotch is looking pretty fitted, so I assume you want it taken down a bit,” Y/N said as she got back into her crouching position. “Look in the mirror and tell me where you think letting it out looks best, I don’t have the best vantage point when I’m up this close…” she trailed off, placing her measuring tape directly on top of Harry’s crotch and running it down his leg a ways.

Once done with her first attempt at where she thought was best to let the pants out, she turned her eyes to the mirror that showed Harry in his suit with Y/N on her knees before him. Harry cleared his throat as he looked in the mirror, seeing Y/N with her eyes wide in anticipation in the position she was in made him want to run and hide. Her hands were extremely close to his dick, but it was literally her job, he knew he had to shake the thoughts that were running through his mind.

“Maybe just a bit further up actually, as much as I like the high waist with dropped crotch, I want this suit to have that specifically tailored look,” his hands motioned for Y/N to bring the drop up a ways.

Her hands then brought the measuring tape up, once again grazing over his area. Again, Y/N looked at Harry through the mirror for approval, and this time he gave it and she placed a single pin in the place where the pants would be let out to.

Standing up, Y/N hoped Harry didn’t notice the blush gracing her face. She was a stylist and used to being around naked bodies as well as touching around a man’s crotch when working. But Harry in this suit must have been magic, because she had felt extremely vulnerable on her knees in front of him in it. She had felt flushed the minute he hadn’t liked what she had done initially and she hated that she felt that way for some reason. Beginning to work on the sleeves of the suit set her at ease, Y/N was thankful to no longer be kneeling or in such close proximity to what was under Harry’s pants.

“Anything on your mind of late?” Harry broke the silence.

Y/N hummed with a pin stuck between her lips, folding up the suit jacket’s right sleeve. Plucking it from her mouth after a few silent moments, she said, “Not really, haven’t had time to do much else lately. Always thinking about you,” Y/N flushed as she realized what she had just said. “I mean, thinking about you like about your clothes and when they’re going to arrive and what I need to do about them, not you personally, sorry that came out wrong,” her blush intensified as she rapidly fumbled through her last sentence.

“Ow!”

“Oh my god!”

While Y/N had gotten flustered with her words, she managed to stick the pin she was using straight into Harry’s flesh. She immediately removed the pin from where it had stuck him.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, H, we’ve got to get this off. I need to make sure you’re not bleeding onto the suit.”

Y/N rushed around to Harry's backside and began slipping off his suit jacket as Harry chuckled and began to unbutton the shirt as carefully as possible.

“‘S alright, Y/N, if there’s any blood on the shirt it’ll blend in, blood is practically the same color.” She glared at him through the mirror and Harry continued to laugh, “That is not funny, H, I shouldn’t have stuck you in the first place.”

“No, no,” Harry hushed Y/N as she began to slip off his shirt from one side to the other, taking off the sleeve on the side she hadn’t poked, “you’ve got so much on your plate with all the planning for the upcoming events. Then you worked yourself up over a little slip.” As Y/N carefully unbuttoned the cuff of the sleeve to try and slip off the shirt with the least amount of blood on it as possible, Harry finished with, “I wouldn’t mind if you were just thinking about me, though, an’ not the clothes.”

This time, Y/N was very in control, not willing to let herself slip up a second time today. She didn’t know how to respond to what Harry had just admitted. It wasn’t like this hasn't happened before. Both of them were guilty of making little comments that made it sound like they were interested in each other in a way that was a little different than professional or friendly. But every time the other person always had the responsibility to shut the idea down or completely blow past what their counter had just said.

“Harry…” She began, it was soft and pleading, like she was saying she couldn’t entertain that idea. Examining his forearm, after pulling the shirt completely away and resting it on a nearby chair, she saw a little spot of blood protruding from the pin prick she had caused. “Where do you keep your bandages?” Y/N decided that it was best to brush past Harry’s words this time and went off to find his first aid kit. Harry stood there, shirtless, staring at the blood on his arm. It really wasn’t a lot and it wouldn’t have done anything to the suit, but Y/N was always so careful and never wanted to ruin any of Harry’s clothes.

On her return, Y/N came upon a shirtless Harry perched on the edge of the table, with one arm crossed and his other - that was bleeding - being held slightly away from his body, as if Harry was afraid to touch it. His posture was slumped so Y/N could see his spine curving beneath his tanned honey-soft skin and his shoulder blades slightly flexed. While most of Harry’s body was covered in tattoos, she noticed how the closest tattoo to his back was the small line drawing of a guitar on the back of his left shoulder. Other than that his smooth back was bare. Y/N found it interesting that Harry had never chosen to ink his back. She jogged lightly back into the room and Harry’s head turned to watch her approach. His bottom lip was caught between his teeth as he regarded her. She noticed he was being particularly quiet, but she had no idea why. Maybe he was still tired.

Y/N set to work on finding the correct tissue, neosporin, and bandage for Harry’s small wound. As she worked on fixing up her mistake, Harry’s eyes followed her movements. Green eyes flickering between her hands on his arm and her own eyes focusing on her task.

“After this, I actually can just head home and finish the rest of the work,” Y/N said as she unpackaged the bandage, “I already know where I need to take in the suit sleeves and the shirt’s sleeves were looking fine. So, I can get out of your hair and you can get to sleep early tonight.” She placed the nude toned bandage over Harry’s arm, she was a little sad to find he didn’t own fun bandages. That was something that she expected from Harry, but she resigned that maybe she didn’t know everything about Harry.

Before Harry could speak, Y/N continued, “Don’t rehearsals for the show start tomorrow? When are you flying to New York?” She ran her hand over the bandage, smoothing it in place. Her hand lingered there as her eyes looked up and met Harry’s. Harry twitched his arm away from Y/N’s touch and scratched his nose slightly.

“Yeah, I’m flying out tomorrow morning. When are you set to fly out?”

“Friday. I’ll get in before the final dress rehearsal and then I’ll be there for the show.” Y/N stepped back and began to rehang the suit jacket and shirt that they had discarded in her haste to not get blood on them.

Then Y/N stood there staring at Harry. He looked at her slightly confused by her doing nothing when she said she was leaving. “Pants, H.” She said finally when she realized he had forgotten he was still wearing the suit pants. “Oh! Sorry,” Harry exclaimed as he began to unbutton and remove the pants he was wearing. He handed her the pants and she exchanged them with his live-aid t shirt. He took it graciously before slipping it on and disguising his toned body beneath it. Then he took his pants from earlier and fully redressed himself.

“Damn!” Y/N said and Harry’s head flipped to watch her as she began to put all of the clothing back in their garment bags and take down the rack.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just pinched myself with the rack, I’m all left feet today.”

“Here,” Harry chuckled as he walked over to help Y/N, “let me help you with all this. Just in the boot of your car, yeah?” Y/N nodded and smiled in appreciation for Harry. He grabbed her keys laying on the table and then took the rack and a garment bag. Even if things sometimes got tense between them, for whatever reason, he was always quick to move past it and be thoughtful and kind in the best ways for Y/N. After shaking her hand out, she grabbed the last garment bags and followed Harry out to her car. Harry shut the back of her car softly and turned to face Y/N, she stood beside her car door, ever so slightly leaning against it. He walked to her side and smiled.

“I’ll see you in a week,” he said before wrapping his arms around Y/N’s much smaller frame. His body was radiating heat and it felt good against Y/N in the crisp night air of London. She pressed into his hold and wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed him hard. “Less than...Can’t wait to see you make an absolute fool of yourself out there.” Harry protested her tease with a small, “Hey!” but mostly focused on his hands on her back and the way her hair felt especially soft under his chin. Finally, Y/N pulled away, “Kidding! You’ll be amazing and you’ll look killer while doing it.” She winked before opening her car door and driving off. Harry was left with the lingering scent of her perfume and shampoo mingling in his nose.

It was the Saturday night, November 16th, 2019.

Harry and Y/N were in his dressing room before the show started. His outfits for the night were lined up, except for his opener one that Y/N had just dressed him in. His first change would be for Light’s Up, then a couple skit outfits that had to be moved elsewhere for quick changes, then the Watermelon Sugar suit, and then finally his end of the show casual look. The opener looked incredible, it’s fit was impeccable and Y/N knew people were going to love it.

She stepped back from Harry to give his whole body a once over, the SNL hairstylist had just blown out his hair and given him a sort of middle part. It definitely looked good and paired with the suit - Y/N could already tell it was going to be a hit by all accounts. Harry grinned back at her, doing a little dance to show just how much he was loving his clothes and how excited he was.

Grabbing the lint roller, Y/N gave the lapels of his suit jacket a once over and then moved it slightly out of the way to roll the big collar of Harry’s shirt and the bits of the body of the shirt that were showing underneath the jacket. Basically, Y/N was lint rolling over Harry’s clothed abs. Apparently, that was a ticklish area for Harry because he began to squirm and giggle under the tool’s touch.

“Seriously, H?”

She smiled as she said it, so excited for Harry that she couldn’t be mad at his relestness.

“Can’t help it. ‘M so giddy. Plus, I’m a wee bit ticklish.”

Y/N gave him a single laugh before removing the lint roller and smoothing over the shirt against his stomach and then over the lapels when she put the jacket back in place. She adjusted the Gucci reader’s she was wearing today, that were more for decoration than anything, but she liked to pretend they made her see better.

“You look smashing, Mr. Styles. Absolutely gorgeous, if I do say so myself.”

“Are you talking to me or the suit?” Harry asked as he flipped to look in the full length mirror in the dressing room.

“Can’t it be both?”

“Sure,” Harry said, he noticed the clock and realized it was his time to get in places. He leaned down and placed a small kiss on Y/N’s cheek, “It’s my time, thank you, Y/N.” She blushed at his words and actions. As he walked out the door, she called after him, “Break a leg, H!” He sent a final air kiss in her direction before completely disappearing.

She looked at the clothes hanging on the rack in the room and palmed over the fabric. Checking the lapels and brushing the lint roller over the, she finally stepped back and was happy with how they looked. When the show was just about to start, she flitted to the part of backstage where she could watch Harry perform. She giggled along to his monologue and grinned whole-heartedly when the crowd would roar with approval. Y/N had heard all of the jokes already because of the dress rehearsal yesterday, but it didn’t matter. Harry was killing it. She also took time to appreciate how good Harry looked in his suit on stage. In front of the lights and all the people, his suit shined brightly with the pops of blue and yellow and the oversized grey-iege jacket. His soft chestnut hair billowed perfectly to frame his forehead as he sipped from the faux martini. Y/N bit her lip to stifle her laugh. The fact that Harry, her boss and friend, was up on the Saturday Night Live stage with pink and blue nails sipping from a faux martini, it was perfect.

When Harry came back for his first performance change Y/N was right there waiting for him.

“Hi, that was really good,” she smiled up at him as he began to take off his coat.

He smiled brightly back at her as he exhaled a hefty breath, “You think so?”

“Yes! C’mon, everyone loved it. You delivered it all perfectly…” she took over undoing the buttons on the shirt because Harry was moving too slowly. “I’m in a man band now…” Y/N mumbled under her breath before chuckling.

“Did you just imitate my accent?” Harry said, now pulling off his sleeves.

Y/N moved around his back to take the shirt to hang and grab his Lights Up outfit. They worked like a well-oiled machine together, constantly taking over roles to get things done more efficiently, but never stepping on each other’s toes.

“Nope,” she winked before handing him the black sequin jumpsuit and exchanging it for his yellow pants. After rehanging the pants and bringing over Harry’s different set of boots, Y/N said, “Y’know, I’d have to say that your hair is giving your suit a run for its money.” She placed the shoes on the table beside Harry and began to fix into the place different parts of the jumpsuit, moving to zip up the back and then coming to the front to smooth it.

“What do you mean?” Harry looked in the mirror and delicately touched the edges of his hair, considering Y/N’s statement.

“No one ever really sees it how it is, nicely blown out but not too much product so it falls to frame your face. What’d you tell the hair person you wanted?” Y/N stepped back to allow Harry to change his boots from one Gucci pair to another, like he did with most of his wardrobe.

“Just told them to make me look mature. You think it looks good?” He looked up at Y/N when he asked the question.

“Think it looks sexy, that’s what I’m saying, no one’s gonna be able to focus on your clothes with how good your hair looks.”

“Ah,” he deftly runs his hands down his suit as he looks in the mirror.

Y/N just stares at Harry, checking him over one more time. She wasn’t lying about his hair, it was sexy and she wanted to run her hands through it to feel how soft it was. In a complete friend way of course.

“I like it…”

“It looks like you just rolled out of bed, but the bed was made of angel feathers.”

Harry laughed at Y/N’s description. He shifted his body to face her more and moved closer to her in the process.

“Alright, you should probably get back out there,” Y/N closes the gap between them and adjusts the chain of his jade and silver crosses and brushes over his broad shoulders.

They’re professional touches, but her movements hold an undercurrent of intimacy that neither of them realize. If anyone had been looking on, they would see how Y/N’s fingers delicately caressed Harry’s skin right before she cradled the pendants to move them in place. They would also see Harry instinctively lean forward into her touch and breathe slightly deeper to take in her scent. When she brushes over his shoulders, he straightens up at the touch and shows he’s ready to get back out there. It’s as if she prepared him to go.

Harry sings Lights Up and the crowd loves it. Sarah kills her drumming and Mitch eats up lead guitar. The backup singers bring out a different tone to the song. It is all around an amazing performance.

As Y/N clapped along with the crowd from backstage, Aidy Bryant approaches her.

“You’re Harry’s stylist, right?”

Y/N turns her head at the woman next to her, “Yeah?”

Aidy smiles, eyes slightly gleaming, “Well, you’re wonderful at your job.” As Y/N is about to thank her, Aidy continues, “And Harry knows that too, he talked about you all week. We all thought you were his girlfriend at first.”

Y/N laughed lightly and had to keep herself from letting her jaw drop at Aidy’s words. She even choked a bit on her own spit and had to cough slightly before even being able to think of a response, “Well, um, yeah...no, H, Harry is just my employer and...friend. No dating, we just get along well. Which is important since we spend a lot of time together - for work of course!”

Aidy smiled sweetly at Y/N, “Yeah, Harry explained that when Beck asked him how long you’d been together. At first he had said a couple months and then said ‘wait, Y/N is just my stylist, we’ve been working together for a couple months’ and then we all felt really dumb.”

“Don’t feel dumb,” Y/N reassured her, unsure why she was actually continuing this conversation, “He loves to talk about clothes and that’s where I fit in to his life, so I’m sure my name would come up a fair bit. Was that it?”

“Yeah I guess, but-” Aidy began to say more, but Y/N cut her off.

“Oh gosh, I’m sorry, but Harry’s finished and I’ve got to go help him change for his next song.”

Aidy was left in Y/N’s wake, chuckling to herself, fully reassured about the reason that they had all thought Harry had been dating Y/N. Because they already acted like a couple. And they were both helplessly in love with one another and neither of them knew.

The rest of the show went off without a hitch. Harry continued to wow the crowd and Y/N sent him off from his dressing room always looking fabulous. Just as he was about to walk back on stage for his final farewell, Y/N noticed a tiny string on his trousers zipper. Unable to stop Harry and unable to grab at the string without looking odd, she had to let him walk on stage with it. It wasn’t actually a big deal, but Y/N sighed in annoyance because she knew that string was going to bug her for the rest of the night.

“Treat People With Kindness!” Harry finishes off his farewell.

Applause begins to sound and the cast is out front hugging and chatting, while Y/N is watching from the side still fixated on the string on Harry’s pants, now simply dangling. Finally, they begin to clear the stage because it’s time for the after party. Y/N knew there was no stealing Harry away to fix the problem that was now fixated in her mind. Every cast and crew member was trying to talk to him, congratulating him, hugging him, anything to spend time with the incredible man. Y/N couldn’t blame them, but she also wanted to be able to go some place quiet and debrief with Harry about his outfits. She wanted to look up what people were saying about his clothes and discuss the critiques with Harry. She also wanted to start discussing what was coming next with Harry. But most of all, she just wanted to hang out with Harry.

What Y/N wanted wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, which she knew, but it still only grew her annoyance with that string. If only she could get it off of him, maybe then her mind would be able to relax a little.

She meandered backstage, resigned she wouldn’t be talking to Harry for a while. There she went to find the band’s dressing room, knowing she would find Mitch or Sarah who she’d be happy to talk to. They weren’t ones for the spotlight and no one ever really seemed to want to brownnose with them at events like this. Y/N had met them a few times.

The first was when Harry had asked Y/N to meet him in the studio in mid July, Mitch and Sarah had both been there helping Harry finish up something for the album. Y/N never asked what, she liked music quite a bit, but when it came to the technical part of it, it went completely over her head. Harry had introduced them both and they seemed lovely. After that, she had seen them around for an event or two of Harry’s. It wasn’t much, but it was more than any of the other people around right now.

Just as she was about to knock on the door it swung open, revealing Harry’s entire backing band. “Hey,” Y/N said sheepishly, “Harry’s being fawned over by the masses and I don’t actually know anyone else here. Is it alright if I hang out with you all at this after party? I doubt there’s going to be anyone really dying to meet the stylist.”

She smoothed her own clothes as she spoke. Y/N wanted to look professional tonight because sometimes when she was dressed in more fun or “young” clothes she got mistaken for someone who had snuck in. The only thing that got people to not question her authority to be where she was, was a card that read ‘staff’ that she would clip onto whatever she was wearing at places like this. Tonight, she chose a pair of purple plaid pants, a sleek lilac tank underneath a cream knit shawl, and cream Gucci mules. Ever since Harry took an interest in Y/N’s pearl necklace, she had largely stopped wearing hers because she hoped never to be photographed matching with him. However, she had known the pearls would have completed the look, even putting them on in her hotel room, twisting a pearl in her hand as she looked in the mirror, and then taking the necklace off again and settling on a different silver necklace instead. The ‘staff’ card was clipped to her pants pocket tonight.

“Of course!” Sarah said as the band began to file out of the room, “You might want to take your tag off now, though, you’re done working for the night.”

Her laughter rang sweetly through Y/N’s ears and she smiled back before removing her identifying card. She hated the piece of plastic and was glad to take it off, it never went with her outfits, but she had gotten tired of taking out her business card every time someone asked what she was doing. Y/N was sure that during the tour she’d be fine without it, but as Harry’s show appearances were beginning to ramp up she knew it would be helpful to have.

“Thanks...you all were amazing out there tonight. Second time on the SNL stage right?”

The group of you began to walk in the direction of where the after party was being held. Mitch piped up, “Thanks. Yeah, I love their box stage setup, it’s pretty cool.” Y/N was happy that she had people who were easy to talk to so that she wouldn’t be alone tonight.

Arriving in the room of the party, they were all quick to grab the alcohol that was being provided at the pop up bar. Y/N wasn’t normally a fan of drinking at events like these, mainly because she was not usually invited to this part of the night and when she was she wanted to be alert. But she figured there wasn’t much else to do so she took a hearty sip of the champagne. It was a little sweet, her face scrunched.

“Too sweet?” Mitch questioned when he saw Y/N’s face.

“Just a little for my taste.”

“Harry’s not going to be drinking tonight then. So particular about his alcohol,” Mitch continued.

Y/N laughed, “Well I’m glad, then I don’t have to deal with him being a baby about his hangover tomorrow.”

Mitch quirked an eyebrow at Y/N’s statement. Sarah and the others in the band had dispersed to mingle with the SNL party goers, leaving Mitch and Y/N to their conversation.

Realizing what she said could be seen as slightly weird out of context, Y/N quickly started again, “because I’m supposed to go shopping with Harry tomorrow. He wanted to go to Gucci and a couple other stores here before flying to LA. I’m going back to London until the listening parties, so we need to figure out the finishing touches for those and..” Y/N trailed off trying to remember which looks weren’t completed yet for the next few shows, Mitch waited patiently, “a few of the suits for the Late Late Show. He’s not happy with one of them so we might switch it. But anyway, you know how he is with a hangover. Proper child.”

Mitch threw his head back in laughter at Y/N’s serious look that she gave him. “Yeah, he can be...a lot. I meant to tell you, Harry looked great tonight. All of the clothes were fantastic,” Mitch added.

He was kind and Y/N appreciated him sticking with her. The two of them had rested themselves against a wall near the bar, sipping their champagne and enjoying each other’s company.

“Thank you.”

Mitch opened his mouth to say something else, but Heidi Gardener, another SNL member interrupted.

“Y/N, right!?”

Y/N and Mitch both turn to her, equally taken aback by the sudden burst of energy from this person they didn’t really know. Y/N nodded.

“Oh my gosh! You have to tell me where you got the jacket Harry is wearing!”

Heidi even goes as far to point in Harry’s direction. Y/N knows what she’s talking about, but her eyes still wander to where she pointed. Harry stood in a clump of people, surrounded by Ben Winston, James Corden, and the Gerbers who had all come to watch. She sighed as she watched his eyes shine as he laughed with a smile on his face. She hoped that by now the string had fallen off his pants by now, if not she was going to kick herself later.

“Oh, it’s Bode,” Y/N’s eyes coming back to meet Heidi’s happy face, “but it’s custom made from a vintage blanket. There’s only two that exist.”

Y/N and Mitch watched as Heidi’s face dropped.

“And I’m pretty sure the designer owns the other one,” Y/N added, “Sorry.”

Heidi smiles and jokes, “Know any ways I could possibly get Harry to give me his?”

“He loves that coat. I have no idea what you could possibly do to convince him he didn’t need it anymore.”

“Sex, probably,” Mitch says under his breath.

Heidi doesn’t catch it as she walks back off and Y/N turns to swat him with her free hand.

“What? He always gives away his clothes to girl’s he has crushes on.” Y/N rolls her eyes at Mitch’s words.

“Probably best if you don’t inform the masses about that,” a new voice says.

Unbeknownst to Mitch and Y/N, Harry had broken away from his entourage to steal a few minutes with his two friends, his best friends if he was being honest. They laugh together as he wraps his arms around their shoulders and pulls them both into his chest. Y/N feels the warmth radiating from Harry’s body as she snuggles into his side. Her hand wraps under his jacket and around his waist to squeeze right about his hip bone. His face is gleaming with a small sheen of sweat, but his smile is so big she barely notices his perspiration as he looks down at her.

“Heard you were talkin’ shit?”

Mitch quips, “Us? Never.”

Harry scoffs, “Come off it!”

When he releases Y/N and Mitch from his grasp, Mitch straightens up while Y/N’s eyes immediately go down to Harry’s crotch. She’s not paying attention to their conversation as she tries to make out in the dim light whether the string is gone or not. The men realize she’s not listening and they both follow her gaze.

Confused, Harry asks, “Y/N, any particular reason you’re staring at my dick?”

Her head shoots up, eyes wide and cheeks flushed from embarrassment.

“I wasn’t!”

Mitch laughs and decides he wants another glass of champagne right then, mumbling something about how that was his cue. Harry smiles, knowing she wasn’t doing what he had said, but still intrigued to know what was going on in her mind.

“You had a string right on your zipper and it’s been bugging me since you went out for your outro. This is the first time I’ve seen you on your own and I couldn't exactly go up to you in a random crowd and grab at your crotch. But now I can’t see in this light…” Y/N bit at her lower lip and furrowed her brow still trying to see if the string was there.

“Have you really been thinking about it this whole time?” Harry asked, slightly concerned.

“Yes...I know it doesn’t matter, but I just want your clothes to look perfect.”

Harry takes a deep breath as he makes a small smile at Y/N. Then he brushes over the front of his pants, hoping he removes the string if it's still attached to him. “There, I’m sure it’s gone now. I’m sorry you had to worry about that. Just know everyone I’ve talked to has been raving about the clothes.” He placed his ring-clad hand on Y/N’s upper arm and squeezed it.

“You did an amazing job,” Y/N said.

Harry pulls her into his chest one more time. This time without Mitch so both of Harry’s arms go around her shoulders and both of hers go around his slender waist. Again her hands disappear under his coat and thumb over his warm white t-shirt, her face resting on his chest right next to the word ‘Sex’. His arms tighten around her back as they rest there for a while. Y/N always has to make herself pull away, knowing that Harry will stay there for as long as he can - in anyone’s embrace - and remembering they’re in a public setting, she didn’t want anyone to assume things, even if she had already been made aware that people had.

“We’ll debrief more later tonight, yeah? The champagne is terrible so I won’t be drinking,” Harry said.

Y/N laughed under her breath as she smiled at his words. Mitch and her knew Harry too well. She nodded about getting together later, “Alright. Get back to your fan club.” Harry narrowed her eyes at her words, not sure if she was trying to sound sarcastic or not.

Hey, I’m back at the hotel. Just let me know when you want to debrief :) x

Y/N texted Harry the minute she got back to the hotel, she had no idea if he had left before her or was still at the after party. All she knew was that it was late and she was starting to get tired. Still, it was important for them to talk about their plans for tomorrow and she also really wanted to just be with him alone. Whenever they would debrief after big events Harry and Y/N would laugh at all the outrageous stuff they had seen go on throughout the night.

When she was still a freelance stylist she had helped Harry to plan his Camp outfit at the Met Gala. That night, they never even went to bed and had to debrief about the clothes the next afternoon over tea at the Palace. Both her and Harry were recovering from their exhaustion and nursing equally terrible hangovers. But there they were, sitting in the center of the dining area of the hotel, being served some of the nicest tea and sandwiches Y/N had ever had. It was amazing. Y/N had never felt that rich in her life before and Harry had told her the craziest stories about the most famous people in attendance. It was almost unbelievable what these people would reveal to Harry and Y/N was happy to listen to all of it, promising to never tell anyone else. That outing was probably the first time Harry realized he really liked Y/N and wanted to work more closely with her.

While tonight wasn’t quite as wild as the Met Gala had been, Y/N was still excited to hear any funny stories Harry might have in addition to their clothing talk. They really hadn’t had much time to chat since she had gotten to New York yesterday so it would be nice to just be alone together. Even if Y/N chalked their debriefs up to ‘shop talk’, she was always very excited for them.

As she reached her hotel room door, her phone buzzed with a message from Harry.

I’m still out, but should be heading back soon. Up to you if you want to wait up or we can just debrief in the morning while we shop. x H

Y/N sighed at the message, she wanted to wait up and debrief before tomorrow, if not for alone time with Harry but professionally for being able to plan out their shopping tomorrow. Where Harry was carefree, Y/N was meticulous and planned out. She liked to have fun, but she knew when she had to get her work done, even when Harry was off in his own mind. Their work styles mostly coincided, Harry could be serious and focused, too, but often when he was surrounded by all his famous friends he had a hard time saying ‘no’ to whatever came up. So Y/N knew that Harry’s definition of ‘soon’ could range from actually soon to almost dawn. She really hoped he actually meant soon, so she shot him a text saying:

Just knock on my room and if I open it we can debrief lol x

Harry smiled down at his phone when Y/N’s text came through, slightly chuckling before double tapping and placing a heart reaction of her text. Then he was pulled into the limo that one of his friend’s had gotten them and was handed a flute of champagne.

Back at the hotel, Y/N threw her phone on the bed and decided to change and simply settle in for the night. If Harry made it back, he made it back and if he didn’t she’d wake up well rested.

Maybe thirty minutes into scrolling on her phone, Y/N heard a rough knock on her door. She was actually quite surprised that Harry had indeed been back soon. Rising from her snuggled place in the bed, she shifted around her night clothes and padded to her door. There stood, rather hung, a slightly disheveled Harry. His hair was whipped into disaster, something was smudged on his face, and she noticed a stain on his t-shirt that hadn’t been there the last time she’d been with him.

He slurred her name as he stumbled through the doorway. Y/N closed her eyes and sighed in exasperation. She was in awe that somehow Harry hadn’t gotten off his ass in the past hour and a half.

“What happened to not drinking tonight?”

She walked beside him and helped shove him into a sitting position on her bed. He flapped his arms, chaotically trying to get his plaid jacket off. Throwing her phone in the direction of her pillow, she moved to help Harry with his jacket. After quite a bit of strugglings, Y/N finally got the Bode jacket off of him successfully and threw it onto the nearby chair. Sighing, she settled beside him.

“So, Harry, care to explain?”

“Hi, Y/N…” He swayed slightly, attempting to face Y/N more. She threw out a hand to his shoulder, gripping him tightly to try and steady him.

“We went in this limousine, and they had champagne - good champagne - and I drank a bottle or so pretty quickly.”

“Or so? Oh Harry...I mean you’re free to make your own choices, but I don’t know if this was one of your best.”

“Wasn’t...wasn’t my idea. I was planning on just going back to the hotel. Then James convinced me to come out for a bit. Then the champagne was looking good so I went for it.”

“Like I said, you can make your own choices,” she patted his arm and went to the en suite bathroom to wet a washcloth to clean off his face.

“So, is it champagne on your shirt or am I going to have to go through hell to get the stain out?” She called.

Harry groaned and leaned back on the bed, fingering at the crisp white sheets. “Champagne,” he finally muttered as Y/N reappeared into the dim room, only the outside world and the light in the bathroom lighting this area.

“And on the face?”

She climbed onto the bed and kneeled beside Harry’s prone body, beginning to swipe at the smudge on his face. He tilted his head to face her, bringing the cheek with the dirt to lay facing perfectly up. His jawline showed perfectly and she felt the strength that laid beneath the skin she was washing.

His eyes flitted up to her face, trying to stop the spins he was currently experiencing. He hadn’t thought he was that drunk until he had been required to find his way up to their floor on his own.

“Lipstick?”

She sighed, running the washcloth over his cheek once more, and tried to push the image of some woman (or man who wore lipstick, she guessed) with her lips all over Harry’s face. She didn’t want to know who it was or why it was. It was too hard, especially after the day of people asking her about Harry and her relationship and insinuating things about him and his romantic life. She just liked to keep the words Harry and romance apart as much as possible, it made her life easier that way.

“It was only from-”

“It’s ok, Harry, I don’t need to know who you were…” She stopped herself, not even wanting to say ‘kissing’ or ‘snogging’ or even worse ‘shagging’. Adults were human beings and they could do a lot in an hour and a half. And again, she didn’t want to know.

“You keep doing that. Are you mad at me?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Calling me Harry, not ‘H’. Is it because you’re mad at me?”

“No,” she sighed, shifting to sit more casually, “No, I’m not mad at you. I just wasn’t expecting you to show up at my door like this. I try not to worry about you, but then when you show up like this, it kind of affirms I had reason to be concerned.”

She took a hand and smoothed over Harry’s tousled hair, he rolled his head back to face the ceiling. “Like I said, you’re an adult, capable of making his own decisions. And, I am just your stylist. I’m just glad you made it up here and knocked on my door. Probably would have given someone else a fright.”

He laughed, starting to sober up as the spinning in the room stopped. Her hands on his face and hair were soothing and sobering.

“Thank you for caring about me, love. And going beyond being just my stylist, you’re my friend Y/N.”

His eyes flickered shut and Y/N stared at his soothed features. His words were still slurred and she was sure the use of love was just his britishness slipping through his drunken state. The part about being more than a stylist, she tried to push it away, telling herself not to read more into it than her heart would like to. Even though he said she was a friend as well as a stylist and not anything more, it still sent so much joy through her body. He didn’t just see her as a work colleague and he had said it. But in his inebriated state, Y/N didn’t want to take everything he said as gospel.

She moved him up the bed with a little bit of his sleepy self’s help into a more comfortable position. It was pretty late now and she wasn’t going to kick him out. It would have been rude and unkind and that were two things Y/N rarely was. She went and grabbed the extra blanket from the cabinet and draped it over Harry’s large body for extra warmth since he refused to get under the covers. She also slipped off his boots and stained shirt per his request before getting into the other side of the bed and falling asleep.

She awoke to a shifting body beside her and she sat up confused as to who it could be. Quickly, Harry showing up drunk at her door came flooding back and she turned to look at the groaning Harry beside her. His arm was thrown over his face as he moaned, just waking up as well and experiencing the first bits of his hangover. This was going to be a long day.

“Hullo,” his voice was especially low, groggy and hoarse from the night before. He peaked over at her from behind the crook of his elbow. His eyelids barely open and his eyelashes weighing them down so much so that she could barely see his sleepy jade eyes.

“Good morning, H. Have a nice rest?” Y/N sat up and began to ready herself for the day, rummaging through her suitcase for an outfit and moving about the room.

Harry’s arms went to his sides as he worked to sit up, eyes following her figure as she moved around, seemingly not groggy very much unlike him. “Erm...I’m sorry for showing up pissed.”

“S’fine, H. Just glad you didn’t end up in a ditch or someone’s bed - someone’s that you might regret…” She barely regards him, throwing a single glance his way before shuffling to the bathroom to change. She knows they’ll be photographed today, it’s almost inevitable right now. Everyone knows Harry is in New York and people are buzzing to see him after his performance last night. She slips on the 70s inspired dress, the v-neck and long sleeves settling perfectly on her frame, it hugs her curves and lands around mid-thigh. Rolling on the bold mustard yellow tights and strapping up the brown leather mary jane heels, she looks herself over in the mirror. She then tries to tame her hair and do the rest of her routine, knowing she needed to get on with the day, shopping first and flying home second. Making sure Harry was okay was also on that list, but she couldn’t pretend like she wasn’t a little disappointed in him after last night.

When she returns, Harry is sitting with his legs hanging off the edge of the bed, head hanging as he’s hunched over himself. “C’mon, you gotta get going, kid. Lots to do today.” She’s pacing over to Harry’s deflated figure to pick him up and prompt him to get moving. When she arrives by his side his head lifts and his now more awake eyes stare up at her.

“I’m sorry for yesterday, really. I mean it.”

“I told you already. It’s fine.”

“It’s not - or it wasn’t. You called me ‘Harry’ last night. I don’t think I’ve heard you call me that to my face since we started working together. I took your answer last night because I was swimming in it, but now, thinking about it. I know you were upset.”

She huffs, taking a seat beside Harry on the bed, choosing to not look at him, slightly confused why she had been so upset and why he was pushing it. “Ok, yeah I was annoyed, but I was also genuinely worried. I didn’t know you could physically get that drunk in that small amount of time. And then you show up at my door with somebody else’s…” Y/N falters, catching her slip up and deciding to fix her gaze on her shoes and their intricate design built into the leather.

“You’re upset that I had lipstick on me?” He’s trying to meet Y/N’s gaze, but her eyes are really interested in her shoes. His tone is confused, he’s trying to understand what’s going on in her mind.

She scoffs, risking a glance to Harry but then returns quickly back to her dress this time. “Please...it was just inconvenient for me, okay? Thought we were going to debrief and stayed up late for you. Then I had to take care of you after you hung out with your famous pals and I had barely even seen you all day. Felt a bit used.”

Harry shifted in the bed, turning to face her by tucking one leg beneath him. He places a hand on hers that was placed on the end of her dress. Her eyes finally meet with his and she feels her breath slightly catch in her throat. His eyes are piercing, his gaze intense, maybe even a tinge of anger. “Y/N, I would never have come to your room if I even had an inkling that this would be how you’d interpret it . Even though I was drunk, I wanted to see you, that’s why I came up here, because I wanted to be with my friend, one of my best friends, not because I just needed some pushover to care for me.”

She sighs, feeling icky still about the whole situation. She sometimes found herself in fights that she never intended, she wished she hadn’t said anything at all. But she also knew that wasn’t healthy either. Flipping her hand, she intertwines her fingers with Harry’s and smiles for the first time that morning. His expression softens at it. “Look, I’m sorry too, H. It honestly wasn’t that big of a deal, but I appreciate that you’re such a great guy and boss to want to truly apologize and make sure I’m comfortable and happy… Oh, and I promise I’ll never call you anything but H from here on out - unless you tell me otherwise.”

He cackles unabashedly at her words, before suddenly clutching at his temple with his free hand. “Fuckin’ hangover,” he mumbles. She smiles and stands up, beginning to throw his shirt and shoes from the end of the bed at him, “You need to get ready. Go pop some advil or whatever. My flights at 5 so we haven’t got all day, H.”

“There she is,” Harry grins, beginning to put back on the stained ‘Sex’ shirt.

As he hustles out of the room, shoes in hand, she calls to him one last request, “When you’re in fresh clothes make sure you bring me that stained shirt. Gonna have to spot clean it when I’m back in London!”

“Of course! And we’ll debrief as we shop, yeah?”

“Yes!”

The two of them were shouting to each other as the door continued to close on them. Chuckling to herself, she begins to pack up her room, knowing she had to check out before they left. Her spirits already lifted, she doesn’t even notice as she throws Harry’s forgotten Bode jacket into her suitcase with some other items that had been on her chair. She wouldn’t notice it until she was back in London unpacking from the trip.

Shutting the case, she springs back up from her crouched position and walks to look in the full length mirror again. Her fingers run the length of her dress, leafing over the slightly darker brown embroidered flowers that were woven into the tan fabric. She squints as she turns sideways and pops a heel up behind her. It looks good, but something is missing. Rummaging through her carry-on she pulls out her old butterfly bandana she used as a head scarf and begins to fix it into place on her head. Placing large sunglasses on the bridge of her nose, she feels like the look is complete and gives herself some poses in the mirror; a peace sign, an air kiss, a Marilyn Monroe. She laughs at herself.

A knock on the door shakes her from her childish fun. Straightening up, Y/N saunters over to the door, swinging it open with ease. “H?”

“You ready?” Harry stands in a fresh pair of Marni trousers paired with a striped orange and mauve Marni sweater. He, like Y/N, had this thing about wearing the brand you planned to shop at. He didn’t always stick to his rule, but he usually didn’t like to wear Gucci when he shopped at Gucci.

“Yeah, just need to check out and drop my baggage at the front to be held for later.” Y/N slips through the door and notes how his outfit compliments hers. She wouldn’t mention it, but it's something to think about since he had known what she was wearing. She wasn’t sure why she noticed things like that, if asked, her answer would probably be that it was the stylist in her, just her job.

Stepping out of a black town car on the side street next to Gucci to go in the side entrance would never get old for Y/N. She had never really enjoyed the idea of fame, but from a young age she had known she wanted to be able to afford the finer things in life. Going into the Gucci store now, especially with Harry, was like going to the candy store once you’re a grown up and can buy whatever you want rather than what your parents will allow you to.

Today, Harry and Y/N didn’t have as much time as they would usually like to spend in the store, but they were just happy to be doing what they loved. Y/N had been ecstatic to find out Harry found shopping to be an essential part of his life and that he liked to do his outfit shopping in person rather than online. Trying on clothes and picking out things you liked just was so much more fulfilling when you were in the physical store. Then make that all happen with Harry Styles as the buyer, then it was a real party. The stores liked to pull out their Champagne and clear the store to allow him privacy, specifically when it was for clothes for projects under wraps. In the beginning of her employment, it was only ever Harry who would do the trying on of clothes, but as the two of them got acquainted and comfortable with each other, she found herself trying things Harry would pick out for her. At first, she would veto some items saying they were too expensive for her, but eventually she learned that her new salary covered whatever it was. She had always enjoyed designer labels and choosing to be a stylist meant she had nice clothes, but only working for Harry had caused her closet to double in size and triple in value.

“So we are looking for some trousers today,” she tells the worker at the store, reminding them of what she had already called ahead about. The employee nods and proceeds to lead them into the room where they had laid out an assortment of pants for Harry to pick from.

“What do you think of these?” Harry walks out and strikes a pose, popping one of his hips to the side and his hands on his hips. The pants strain around his thighs, but fit practically perfectly everywhere else. His slim waist is perfectly encircled by the fabric and he’s decided the sweater he was wearing didn’t match them and he’d rather go shirtless. This choice technically should allow her to solely focus on the pants, but it actually makes her focus that much more diverted. She makes a spinning motion with her pointer finger as she purses her lips. He takes a quick spin and the boot cut slightly flares with his movement. The pants are a dark brown with a single plaid crossing in a lighter brown. They are only lightly flared, which she prefered to the extreme flare that some of Harry’s suits had. She narrows her eyes at the pants to keep her gaze from shifting to the taut muscles of Harry’s arms and torso or the dark ink that licked over his skin in the beautiful designs of his choice.

“They’re nice,” she pulls up a picture of the top part of the outfit he was planning on wearing, “Do you think they match with this though?” Harry walks over to her seated position and bends to look at her phone. His skin radiates heat and the smell of his cologne and she sniffles slightly with her sensitive nose. His eyes flicker to her face when he notices her little noise, but returns to looking at the phone when she doesn’t spare him a glance. She felt his gaze on her, but couldn’t bring herself to look from the phone. She knew his proximity would make it even harder for her to keep her eyes off his naked torso. The expensive smell of Harry mixed with the expensive smell of the store was a lot to handle.

“Yeah...no. You think they’re not right,” she widens her eyes at Harry’s words when he pulls away. He turns to the mirror in the open dressing room and fiddles with the waistline of the pants. “I agree,” he finishes before stalking back into the room and shutting the heavy velvet curtain that worked as the door to it.

He tries on five more pairs of trousers and finally settles on two pairs for the two different listening parties. A heavier, wool-tweed pair that was dark brown and then a lighter brown tweed pair. He was still in the lighter pants as he stared into the mirror. He beckoned to Y/N, and she quickly set down the flute of Champagne she had been sipping at lazily as he admired himself.

“Is it possible for you to take it in a bit more,” he says in a hushed tone to her, not wanting the workers to overhear. They were helpful but if they overheard they would wait for the store to tailor the trousers and he preferred for Y/N to do it. He rubs at the waistline again and she moves closer, her hands going to his sides. Her fingertips graze the naked skin above the trousers and Harry shivers at the coldness of the new touch. She ghosts softly over the waistline herself and smooths the fabric until she’s pinching a small amount on each side. She hums, pulling back from Harry and looking at the fit of them now, examining whether that makes them look better.

Then she nods and smiles up at Harry, “Ever the slender waist,” he grins right back as she admires him. She knew how much he liked praise and she was happy to give it to him, especially when he was so deserving. “I’d say size down, but then your thighs and bum might strain the fabric too much.” His face turns to a smirk as she blushes at her words. She releases the fabric and takes a hand to pat Harry’s smooth chest before walking back to her seat on the lovely couch.

“You sure you don’t want to try anything on, Y/N? Saw some killer boots when we walked in that screamed you.” Harry calls from behind the curtain, presumably getting redressed. Her laugh comes through the curtain slightly muffled, yet still a sweet melody in Harry’s ears.

“Definitely not now, we’re leaving any minute. Plus, I’ve got plenty of Gucci boots, don’t even show me them or I’ll be tempted.”

His laughter rings through the curtains, loud and unrestrained. She smiles to herself, unable to discourage the pleasure that weaves through her at the sound. His presence in all the different ways she experienced it was instantly comforting.

When she arrives back to her London flat, she practically flops on her couch once she’s inside the door. Her luggage forgotten at the door, as she shrugs off her coat. It was around 7 am because she had chosen to take the red eye for some reason. She groaned as she thought about the day ahead of her. Even though Harry was halfway across the globe, she still had plenty of work to do. She had to finalize the outfits for the listening parties now that they had the pants to complete the looks. Then she had to start thinking about Harry’s December appearances. She had sent ahead his Late Late outfits that he had needed in Los Angeles for the pre-filming, but she still had to deal with the outfits for the live part of the show.

Today, she was set to go pick up the other pieces needed for the listening parties as well as items for the Graham Norton Show and Jingle Ball. She was most excited for her travels because that meant looking at brand new clothes that were perfect and gorgeous. She also knew she needed to spot clean Harry’s shirt, which didn’t spark as much joy in her tired mind.

The idea of the shirt staining with alcohol was what brought her out of her snuggling with her comfy couch. Sure, it couldn’t get that bad, but still she was a worrier and it would pain her if the iconic shirt got ruined. She padded back over to her luggage, now without her jacket or shoes. Her major suitcase got flipped on its side and she began to unzip it. It came open easily seeing as it was stuffed with her clothes and various items. She had to rummage a minute for Harry’s shirt that seemed to have run away inside the bag. Finally, the large white shirt made itself known and she grasped it happily.

As she looked over the stain near the collar of the shirt, her eyes traveled to a piece of fabric peeking out of her suitcase. It was a familiar blue, cream and white. A specific fabric she would never misplace, would never not recognize. Harry’s plaid Bode jacket. It was iconic and she loved it, but why did she have it in her suitcase. She definitely didn’t mean to have it, it’s genuinely just one of Harry’s jackets so it wouldn’t make sense for her to bring it back with the show's wardrobe. She tries to think back to yesterday, when she was still in New York. Thinking about why she would have it, she places the memories of Harry coming to her room, taking off his coat, and accidentally leaving it in her room all fit together. She must have just absentmindedly placed it in her suitcase without even realizing. She’s sure Harry wouldn’t mind, she’d shoot him a text, though, to tell him she had it. So he wouldn’t worry about whether he’d lost it or not.

When she gets ready for the day, she finds herself being drawn to blue and cream. Her outfit is understated and she just knows the jacket would finish the look. She loved that jacket and now that she had it, would it be a big deal if she wore it out. She figured it was fine. After she grabbed her purse, keys, and other essentials, she slipped on the coat. Harry was very broad shouldered and it hung oversized on her. She loved the look and snapped a selfie in the mirror before she headed out. While it felt a little narcissistic to constantly take photos of herself, she felt like as a stylist it was important to document her looks just as much as she documented her clients.

What she didn’t think about is just how much the rest of the world liked to document her client and those who were seen with her client. She didn’t think about how she had just been seen with Harry yesterday. That thought didn’t even cross her mind as she walked around the streets of London picking up her work. As she saw some photographers out and about (whom she assumed were for famous celebrities, not her). How it might seem with her wearing the Bode jacket Harry had worn on SNL two nights ago. The Bode jacket that there were only two of.

None of it crossed her mind. Not until it was the end of the day and she had a whole slew of texts from Harry’s manager. A few from Harry, and others but the other fifteen were solely from Jeff. She was a bad texter so as she walked into her flat and finally looked at her phone after putting down all of her garment bags her eyes went wide.

Please tell me you’re not out in London right now!

What are you wearing??

That cannot be Harry’s jacket Y/N

Seriously?

Please call me.

CALL ME. NOW.

- All from Jeff.

She grimaced. The others from her friends including Harry would have to be ignored right now. Even if Harry was her boss, Jeff was who she had to deal with when it came to public appearances and it didn’t seem like she could get around this one. Normally, she never had to deal with him, but it seems today wasn’t normal.

part 2

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minghellafine · 3 years

Link

Full interview below.

The first thing Max Minghella does when he joins our Zoom call is ask me about the weather. It wasn't just a conversational cliché though, he really wanted to know what it was like where I was. I tell him I'm in New York City, where spring can surprise you with a day that's colder or warmer than it looks. This particular day was chilly. "I'm always cold," he interjects, "I'm reptilian. My body finds a way to keep me cool." He shivered as he spoke, sitting in his sunny backyard in Los Angeles wearing a T-shirt. I checked the temperature right after our call. It was 80 degrees in L.A.

Despite any discomfort, Minghella is just really happy to be at home. Unlike the millions of people who spent 2020 in quarantine, he was working on season four of The Handmaid's Tale throughout the spring and summer."I'm sort of jealous of people who have this moment to pause and reflect," he says soberly. "Even with all of the trauma it's caused and all the things that obviously were detrimental, I know a lot of people who've had big life changes in the past year."

He acknowledged, however, that creating something in a time when everyone wished they could escape was ultimately a lucky thing. "There was a ubiquitous sense of gratitude," he adds.

Outside of the global pandemic, the dynamics on set had shifted — this season, his co-star Elisabeth Moss (or "Lizzie" as he affectionately calls her), was a director. "She was amazing on set," he explained. "Just very in control and it ran super smoothly. When I saw the episodes she directed, it just kind of blew me away. Her style — it's very cinematic and it really underlines the sci-fi elements of the show. It has a real kind of scope and confidence to it. I think she's a real filmmaker."

RELATED: Marvel's New Face Danny Ramirez Has the Range

Minghella's character Nick has an interesting arc this season too – he's realizing his role as a senior member of the Gilead ruling class, but also still in love with June [Moss]. It's a complex character that challenges you as an audience member. He is the brooding love interest, and while you may root for him and June to be together, you also have to see him for what he is: an architect of a world that kidnaps women and uses them for childbearing.

What made the previous three seasons of the show even harder for viewers to digest was the fact that people so badly wanted to believe there could be a good guy defector — maybe even Nick — in a room full of bad guys. During those years, many people felt that the dystopian elements of the show were reflective of the nationalist agenda being put forth in the United States by the Trump Administration. So much so that a group of protesters famously wore Handmaid costumes to protest anti-abortion bills and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings. Without saying much about the parallels in the show — other than chalking them up to "pure coincidence," Minghella felt the Handmaid's Tale, whose protagonists are anti-Gilead, are "on the right side of history." He added diplomatically, "Ultimately, I'm most proud because I think it's really great fiction."

I get the sense that the pursuit of "great fiction" is something that consumes Minghella. He's someone who appreciates art (he got his big break in 2006's Art School Confidential), and his parents are Anthony Minghella, the late award-winning director of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and actress Carolyn Choa. He loves details (see our earlier weather conversation). Even the way he talks about Los Angeles has a story-like quality. He tells me about how he knew when the city became his home after a feeling he got driving past the Silver Lake 7-Eleven. As he told it, I pictured it like a scene in an indie movie starring Zach Braff.

"I had this sort of pathological obsession with movies from birth. [My mother] worked for the British equivalent of the Motion Picture Association, so she would watch three films a day. By three or four years old, I was just kind of an obsessed movie person." It's his favorite movie, Beverly Hills Cop ("I think I saw 100 times by the time I was eight years old," he says) that inspired another big role he was working on during quarantine: Minghella stars as a detective opposite Chris Rock in the Saw franchise spin-off Spiral: From the Book of Saw.

"The movie was so serendipitous for me. I feel like I almost manifested it in my life," Minghella muses. "There's a line very early in the movie where we're investigating these crime scenes and we come to a grizzly one. My character looks nauseous. Chris's [character] says to me, 'Are you okay?' And my character says, 'Yeah. I mean I'd been dreaming about this since I was 12-years-old.' And that was a very kind of weird line because it's just true."

Now at 35 years old, Minghella is feeling settled. He is still a "film nerd" that gets giddy with each new opportunity, but he's less anxious about the results. Next thing on his list? Vacation.

"I'm hoping in May once the movie comes out I can run away somewhere."

Read on for his cheesy would-be campaign slogan, his fast-food weakness, and the time he escaped a tornado while working on a film with Blake Lively.

Who is your celebrity crush?

Mary Tyler Moore.

What's the last thing you do before you fall asleep?

I listen to 1950s radio shows. Usually Dragnet. I was researching a project in that period briefly and got sort of into the radio culture of that time. And now I find it incredibly soothing.

Favorite villain?

Hans Gruber.

Describe a memorable dream.

I had a recurring nightmare as a child in which my grandmother turned into a cat. So Tom Hooper's Cats was very traumatizing to me.

First album you ever owned?

My mother bought me the Top Gun soundtrack on audio cassette.

If you were required to spend $1,000 today, what would you buy and why?

I would do anything to help a distressed dog.

If you ran for office, what would your slogan be?

Some kind of tacky pun using my first name. "Take it to the Max," or maybe "Max on, Max off."

Name one place you've never been but have always wanted to go.

Easy. Japan. I went when I was one, but I don't think that counts.

What's the most uncomfortable outfit you've ever worn?

I did a film called Art School Confidential and I had to wear a beret and I found every moment of it truly humiliating. I remember being completely traumatized by it.

Describe your first kiss.

My first kiss was at a bus stop. I was 14 and I lied and told the girl that it wasn't my first kiss, but I think it was probably immediately evident that it was.

What's one dish you're always tempted to order if you see it on a menu?

There are so many things. That's the sad answer. French fries is the truth.

Favorite on-set memory?

I did a movie called Elvis and Anabelle with Blake Lively like 100 years ago and we shot in Texas. There was a tornado one night that forced us to evacuate the set and we had to sort of drive off in a hurry. I put on this song by The Knife called "Pass This On" in the car which is very dramatic and cinematic. The tornado was sort of in pursuit of the vehicle while we were speeding away. And it was just far enough that it wasn't life-threatening, but also a radical visual. That's one of my favorite life memories.

The Handmaid's Tale season 4 premieres on Hulu April 28, and Spiral: From the Book of Saw hits theaters on May 11.

Photographs by Emily Malan. Grooming by Sonia Lee for Exclusive Artists using La Mer. Polaroid Photos by Max Minghella. Special thanks to Polaroid. Production by Kelly Chiello.

#max minghella #the handmaid's tale #saw #spiral #elvis and anabelle #the social network #interviews #*

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ohpsshaw · 3 years

Text

~DFS Christmas Special~

No desire to draw lately, so I’ve been doing little prose sketches instead.

Just in time for December, here’s what turned out to be Uncle Jack taking Al Christmas shopping. This would be circa 199X B.G. (Before Glenn), making Al in his early 20s.

(Watch out if you have high blood sugar, cos this gets KINDA SACCHARINE.)

It had finally stopped snowing, thank goodness. The fresh white blanket reflected crisp light in through the windows, making him feel chilled inside. Luckily Pop was a comfort creature who kept a stock of hot chocolate mix in the pantry. Al never seemed to reach for it back at his apartment, but something about visiting home in the winter months made a warm mug feel as essential as a limb.

Uncle Jack had asked Al to accompany him for some holiday shopping later, and a chocolate briquette would be good to have heating his gut. He took it to the couch in the living room. Someone had dug up the old photo books and left them on the coffee table a few days ago. Flipping through, he noticed that half the pages were completely empty— photography had never been a popular concept in the Czar household. The preserved moments were of family trips and landmarks, rambunctious sepia-washed office parties, Al’s school portraits. Rarer was anything taken inside the house. One shot of himself at four or five years old, standing on the yellow-sunlit staircase and showing the camera a toy car, surfaced a memory of being coached to keep his mouth closed so as not to alarm a 1-hour photo developer. Thinking on it, it may have been more than coincidence that most of these were instant Polaroids.

Through the window, he heard the muffled sound of a car door, then: “What the fuck are you doing!?” Hey, Pop’s home. Al pulled back the curtain to watch the drama unfolding at the end of the driveway, where Uncle Jack had been chipping at the wall of powder the afternoon snowplow had left. Xav had just returned from morning errands and parked in the street, storming over the slush to stop his brother from working.

Cold air blasted from the foyer. Snow crunched as Xav shook out the snow shovel behind him. “Why was he doing this by himself? Did you become a quadriplegic when I wasn’t looking?”

Al flipped through the Rolodex in his head for the answer that would earn him the least amount of grief. He shrugged, as if confused by the absurdity of the question. “He didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t ask, Max.” Jack took the shovel back. “But you’re right, I should have. Reckon it was my vanity what did me in— I can’t stand to be upstaged by some young buck doing the same job in half the time.” He winked at his nephew. “Well, three-quarters.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Xav spat, the corners of his mouth curling up against his will. “You both know I’m not being unreasonable. You’re not a guest, Alan Henry. As far as I’m concerned, you still live here. You earn your keep during the day, and MAYBE I’ll consider putting on my robe and letting you suckle dinner from my left tit.”

Al choked on his hot chocolate.

“Shit. Careful on the carpet. I’ll get you a paper towel.” Xav left for the kitchen, grumble-exorcising demons as he walked. “If Papa caught one of us sitting on our ass while the other did chores...”

Why did Pop have to save his best lines for when people were eating? Bent over and lapping chocolate out of the crevices of his palm, Al thought he saw a piece of marshmallow among the bubbles. Heh... hope that didn’t come out of his nose.

“You still need me to shovel?” he asked Jack.

“Son, I would be honored,” Jack nodded, holding the shovel on the doormat like a knight leaning on an orange sword. “Gitcher boots on and you can finish the job before we head out. I’ll make sure your Pop watches the show from inside.”

Xav returned with the towels and a smirk. “Talking shit about me, Jack?”

“I was just sayin’ how you’ll hate to see us go, but you’ll love to watch us walk away.”

“Got that fucking right.” Al cleaned his face while Xav dabbed each of his fingers individually. An oddly tender gesture. “What are you two going out for, exactly?”

“Juuust... shoppin’. I need Alan’s opinion on somethin’.”

“Uh-huh.” Secrets being a rare and dangerous thing in this family, there wasn’t much question as to what this was really about. Especially between brothers who were as close as twins. But the holidays were about giving, after all, so Xav seemed to decide to give them the benefit of the doubt. A game is more fun when everybody plays along.

Truthfully, even Al wasn’t sure what they were going to get for his father. A successful family man hitting his sixties doesn’t want for much. By this point, Xav had enough neckties and “#1 Dad” mugs to be buried surrounded by them like a pharaoh. Jack could always steal the show by reaching into his deep D.D.S. pockets or by making a new piece of furniture, but the son was held to no such standards. Xav had simple hobbies, and he seemed to have the house exactly how he wanted it. Was Al too old to make a coupon book, redeemable for hugs and remembering to use a coaster?

Or maybe his gift to Pop could be giving college another shot. Dropping out had caused some... friction, a flint-strikes-wood situation that had led to Al moving out of the house, and eventually out-of-state. He had to admit, the independence felt good. Putting his shoes on the coffee table, not having to tell anyone where he was going... he’d definitely become more promiscuous. No independent murders, though, which was starting to grate on him. He’d realized lately that he had always expected to be allowed to do more, without his father and uncle. Maybe if he did what Pop wanted, things would calm down so he could move back to Michigan and use the cabin. But the idea of sitting in another classroom, taking notes on a subject he didn’t care about, all for the promise of 50 years chained to a desk... It made him want to sleep forever.

When the car pulled up to the mall, Al was not surprised at all by the entrance his uncle had chosen. “Mind if I peek in Sears?” Jack asked, as if wild horses could stop him.

Home improvement and appliance stores were another phenomenon Al only seemed to experience at home. The dusty, unvarnished smell and high ceilings had been a frequent backdrop during his childhood— for Jack, they seemed to be akin to a candy store. He was talented as a carpenter and repairman, and sincerely relished something going wrong with the house if it meant he could pull out his toolkit. He also liked to make things go wrong with human bodies on occasion, but there was a separate box for those tools waiting up at the cabin.

Two steps in the door, and a weary-looking holiday hire hit them up with a canned pitch: “...and I’m happy to help you find whatever’s on your list!“ Aggressive customer service, the bane of the paranoid shopper. Jack was the front line for shaking off overly helpful greeters, which Xav had called “the second-worst thing to come out of the 80s after Iran-Contra.”

“Just lookin’, God willing— I brought my conscience with me to make me behave,” Jack looked to his nephew. “Don’t let me buy a single screw, y’hear?”

“Got it. Bulk purchases only.” That earned Al a shove.

Salesperson successfully deflected, Jack ducked toward his usual corner: the big ticket carpentry goods. When Al caught up, he was running his hand over a table saw. As much as he loved his uncle, Al wasn’t particularly interested in watching him fantasize about cutting wood, or even bone. “You have a project in mind?”

“A bit of a science experiment, next time we play cards,” Jack’s pupils darted along the equipment, still in reverie. “I’ve been readin’ a book about crucifixions, and how they affect the body.”

“Oh, that’s seasonal.”

“‘Course, I won’t be able to try it ‘til next year. You think your Pop would let me pick out a rabbit by April?” Jack chuckled. He was not talking about the Easter bunny. “We can see if she comes back to life after three days.”

Al snorted. “Jesus.”

“Precisely. Y’know, Christ is usually depicted with holes in his hands, but in actuality, the Romans would have put the nails through his wrists.” Jack picked up Al’s arm to demonstrate, dancing fingers across his palm. “Ain’t much to take hold of in here. It’s too fragile and open-ended. But if you move up the arm,”— he pressed his thumb into the straightened portion of Al’s median nerve— “You can hook the radius and the ulna. Much better support.” Jack’s eyes flickered with glee. “And it hurts like a bitch!”

“Wait, are you going to go first, or last?” Playing cards was usually a once-a-year affair, and the night Al looked forward to the most. If Jack snuffed her out before he had his turn...

“Oh, don’t worry, son. Done right, she could last for days.” Not that she would, since Pop would probably have something to say about that. “I just want to try, er... doin’ as the Romans do. And who knows, maybe you’ll like it. Every bachelor eventually needs to have a girl nailed down!”

They cackled and then shushed each other, wincing like sneaky little boys at the idea that someone would hear them over the store’s ambient shopping muzak. They really shouldn’t talk like this in public, even with code words and euphemisms. Though over the years they’d learned that people can be experts at ignoring what’s right under their noses. Certainly none of the men had ever overheard anyone else planning a murder.

“It’s just a pipe dream, I’m still in the plannin’ stages,” Jack added. “Ain’t even got the lumber yet. So if you wanna put some packages under the tree that are, say, 4-by-6 and 72 inches long... I promise to be shocked when I unwrap ‘em.”

Al’s attention shifted over his uncle’s shoulder, to a shelf of handheld orbital sanders. Al was more of a hands-on kind of guy— he still got a little queasy thinking about Jack’s experiment to see which sandpaper grit was the best at removing skin.

“So what was it you wanted me to look at? I don’t think Pop needs a crucifix for Christmas.”

“Oh, I’m just killin’ time before our appointment.”

“Appointment?”

“At the photo studio. I want you to give your Pop a picture.”

“...of us?”

“Naw, just you.”

Al loved that. “Yeah, that’d be hilarious. Merry Christmas, Pop, I got you me!”

A pause. “Oh, you’re serious.”

“As a heart attack, son. It’s just what he needs.”

“Do you have, I don’t know, a backup plan?” Al faltered. “Something less self-centered? I’m not exactly his favorite person right now. He kind of thinks I’m a failure.”

“Alan, you are not a failure. You are...” Jack patted his nephew’s cheek. “An unbroken mustang who has not yet found his ranch. And your father is just tryna keep you from bein’ sold as horse meat.” He slid them into a far aisle for more privacy. “He worries about you a lot, and he misses you somethin’ fierce.”

Al chewed his cheek. “Well, talk to him about showing it sometime.”

“No, son,” Jack took him by the shoulder, looking around to make sure they were alone. “Your father cries. At night when he talks about you, he starts wellin’ up like a waif. He doesn’t need to hear that you know about it, but it’s the God’s honest truth. All he talks about is wantin’ you back home.”

“I think movin’ out has been good for you, and I’m happy you did it. But it wounded him to his core. You’re his heart, kid.”

Al wasn’t sure how he was taking this information, but he knew how he was supposed to. He scrunched his eyes closed and took a deep breath.

“Okay... If you’re completely sure he won’t think it’s stupid.”

“Are you kiddin’? He’ll put it on the nightstand.” Jack grinned. “And if you smile for it real nice, I’ll take you to that steakhouse in the plaza after.”

Al cocked an eyebrow. “You were gonna go there anyway.”

“Yes. Yes, I was. But won’t you enjoy your ribeye that much more knowin’ you’ve earned it?” Mmn, maybe. “Besides... did you have any better ideas?”

⬥ ⬥ ⬥

Come Christmas Day, Xav had unwrapped the waist-up portrait and just said “thank you”— which was worrying because he was usually much more verbose than that— and gone silent in his chair. At least he wasn’t mad. Al looked to Jack, who smiled knowingly and handed him a package to keep the gift exchange going.

Al figured it was because Jack had given him something funny, but then he heard his father breathe in sharply.

“Maudit tabarnak... you fucking assholes,” Xav’s voice sounded high and squeaky, like it was being squeezed through slabs of rock. He ducked his chin into his bedshirt collar to hide his face.

“You, fucking... why’d you have to...” He shook his hand at the framed photo. Oh boy, he really did hate it. The whole idea was idiotic. Al had sat in front of that artfully-mottled green backdrop and squinted for a man with a bow tie and no indoor voice for nothing, except for the sheer discomfort of it. And a ribeye steak with a baked potato.

Xav blinked up at the ceiling and gulped, his Adam’s apple fluctuating grotesquely. Eventually he seemed to find his voice again. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having pictures taken, so I could make sure he had his fucking hair combed?” He showed them the photo. “Look at his bangs— they’re all over the fucking place.”

Al had to admit, they did look a little wild. “Aw, shoot. Sorry, Pop,” he laughed.

Jack tutted. “I think it looks nice. Rugged.”

“That’s because you don’t know how to comb your hair either, Jack.” Xav brought the photo back into his lap, looking it over. “Looks like he fought a bear before sitting down. But don’t worry, I still like it. You look handsome, kid. Maybe I can find some space on my nightstand.” Al and Jack exchanged victory grins, and didn’t catch Xav wiping tears from both eyes.

#writing #DFS #Alan Czar #Jack Czar #Xavier Czar #old men being evil and shmoopy #hopefully this helps solidify their voices/family dynamic for people #and why Al tends to be so passive in social situations haha #don't ask me why Jack talks like that because I will not tell you

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lebritneeey · 4 years

Text

second chance series (prologue)

inspired by don’t wanna cry, lie again and second life & a little idea from reply 1997 and 1988.

genre: romance. fluff, angst pairing: y/n x ??? (svt)

a/n: hi guys! so my imagination started running after listening to dwc, lie again and second life on repeat lmao. i’ve always love reading angsty fics and so i came up with this series based on these three songs! disclaimer!! if there’s any similarity with other fics, it is coincidental, everything written here is based on my idea! no to plagiarism!! also, pics and gifs here are NOT mine! hope you guys enjoy this series i might be posting this on aff too so don’t be alarm if you come across it on aff! enjoy!

SERIES MASTERLIST

What if you could get a second chance at love? What if it was the wrong time but the right person all along? Would you take it? This second chance?

Meet y/n, a 25 year old girl who had to revisit the city she once loved, Seoul. It was a city filled with both good and bad memories for her. When she left, she swore never to return. But here she is, back in Seoul, hoping to not run into a certain old flame that might reopen old wounds and remind her of how broken hearted she was back then.

prologue | chapter 1

prologue: here goes nothing.

2020, Singapore

Y/n sighed as her best friend, Angel, went on and on about how she disapproves of her decision to visit South Korea after a long time. “I really don’t get it, of all the countries around the world, you chose Seoul?” Angel exclaimed as she helped Y/n pack several of her jackets lying on the bed.

“I didn’t choose it, it’s where the client is so I got to go there and finish up a couple of meetings. Plus, it’s autumn season now, so the weather is going be quite comfortable and cold.” Y/n took a few pairs of her favorite jeans and packed them inside her luggage. Angel handed her a bag of skincare and makeup, frowning. “Still.. Seoul? I thought you wouldn’t want to be back there after..” Her voice trailed off, afraid to explicitly bring up the past in case it reminded Y/n of some unpleasant memories.

Y/n slowly zipped up her luggage and brought it down from her bed. She turned to see her best friend giving her a concerned expression. “It’s been three years,” Y/n sat down on her bed, staring at her bottom drawer at her nightstand, “I’ve moved on. Right now, all I care about is going to Seoul and get the meetings done once and for all. I’ll be back home as soon as everything is finished smoothly.” That was what she ever wanted, to complete the task her boss assigned her to do in Seoul and then fly back immediately. But life seemed to have a couple of surprises for her.

///

“So, are you all packed and ready for your flight tomorrow? What time is it?” Y/n’s mother asked as they sat down together for dinner. “Yup. The flight’s at seven in the morning, so I got to be at the airport by four-ish.” Y/n’s father cleared his throat before scooping some dish and placing it on Y/n’s bowl, “and you do not mind going to Korea again? After.. that incident.”

Y/n’s mother jabbed her chopsticks into the fried fish in front of her as she sighed. “Why wouldn’t she mind? It’s not as if she went through something very traumatic isn’t it? Couples break up here and there, you move on and when the right one comes along, you’ll know it.”

Y/n gave her parents a small smile especially at her mother for being truthfully candid. Her mother isn’t wrong, some relationships end, couples break up and they just moved on. It just so happened Y/n was one of them though her situation was a little uncommon but nevertheless, she has moved on and is happy right now.

///

After double checking everything in her luggage, Y/n settled into her bed, ready to sleep before her trip. She looked to her nightstand drawer and opened it. There lies a metal box. Y/n opened it and smiled at the first thing that she saw. A polaroid photo of her and him. She had whipped cream smeared on her cheeks, that was taken on her birthday a few years ago. Gosh, she looked so young then. Him too. Both were smiling so brightly like a typical couple in love.

She flipped the polaroid over and behind it was written:

y/n’s birthday! 사랑해!

Y/n chuckled as she remembered that day. Oh such simpler times when it was the whole “us against the world” notion. She continued rummaging through the box and found an old concert ticket and poster.

IDEAL CUT 2018

‘Ah, this ticket.. Guess I was blessed, not needing to pay for this.’ She thought as she stared at the poster. Thirteen faces staring back at her, but her eyes were just fixed on that one guy. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss you, but I can’t. I can’t miss you.”

Y/n sighed as she closed the box, shoved it back to the drawer and went to bed. It’s no point thinking back about the past, she has moved on and it should remain this way.

///

“All passengers departing for Seoul, Incheon, please proceed to gate D twelve for boarding.. I repeat, all..”

Y/n hugged her parents and Angel as she got ready her passport and boarding pass. “Alright, I got to go. I’ll text all of you when I land okay? I will be back in a few weeks’ time.” Her parents waved her goodbye as they watched y/n walked into the transit area. Y/n would be lying if she said she wasn’t feeling anxious at the thought of visiting Korea after so long. Seoul was the place where she had a lot of fun and pleasant memories. It was the place where she experienced what love was really like. It was also the place where she did her exchanged program at Yonsei University back in 2017.

Flashback to Dec 2016, Seoul

It was a month to the start of Y/n’s exchange at Yonsei University. She opted for a year-long exchanged in order to earn extra credits rather than earning them through project work. Y/n decided to arrive a month before the exchange program start to settle down and familiarise herself with campus and the city. Back in Singapore, she took it upon herself to learn some basic Korean language after finding a hobby in watching k-dramas.

Instead of living in a dorm, she opted to rent an apartment just five minutes away from the university. She wasn’t the only tenant of course, housing alongside with her were two other girls from Yonsei as well – Hana and Choyi. Luckily for y/n, both knew how to speak basic English, so language wasn’t a problem.

Hana and Choyi threw y/n a small dinner party in the house on the night of her arrival. “Thank you for helping me unpack all my stuff, I couldn’t have done it without you guys’ help!” Y/n gratefully thanked the two girls as she raised her can of beer. “It’s nothing! We’re just glad to meet a new friend from overseas!” Hana grinned as she slurp her ramen. Choyi nodded, grinning as she chewed on the beef.

“Oh oh! Music Core is about to start!” Choyi grabbed the remote and switched the tv channel to MBC. “Is your favorite singer performing later?” Y/n chuckled as her eyes turned to the tv.

“Choyi’s a carat.” Choyi nodded excitedly to Hana’s reply.

Y/n’s eyes looked at them, confused. “Carrot? The veggie?” Hana burst out laughing while Choyi sighed, “not that carrot. Carat, as in, diamond carat. It’s just our fandom name.”

“Whose fandom name?”

“Them.” Y/n looked to the tv screen where Choyi was pointing.

“They’re called Seventeen.”

On the screen stood what seemed like twelve or thirteen guys standing and dancing alongside fangirls screaming.

“Oh, I’ve heard of them! Didn’t they have this song called Mansae or something?” Y/n heard about the boygroup before but didn’t really pay attention to it because she wasn’t a fan of k-pop music but k-dramas instead.

“Omg yes! Are you a carat too?!” Choyi excitedly ask though her eyes were not leaving the tv screen even for a second. “Um, not really. I just heard of them heh.” Y/n gazed back onto the tv screen bringing her attention to that one particular member who caught her eye, oh, that guy is kinda good looking.

///

2020, enroute from Singapore to Seoul

“Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin our descent towards Incheon International Airport. Please ensure that your seats are upright, tray tables are stowed and..”

Y/n woke up to the landing announcement being made and adjusted her seat upright as she looked out the window. There it was. South Korea, the country filled with both good and bad memories.

Y/n sighed as she unbuckled her belt and waited for the cabin crew to open the doors. She was to make her journey to Seoul but the mere thought of it made her feel a little anxious. It’s fine right?

It’s a big city so the chances of bumping into people I know here is small. Very small. She comforted herself as she made her way to immigrations. Here goes nothing.

#seventeen scenarios #svt scenarios #seventeen imagines #kpop scenarios #svt x reader #svt imagines #kpop imagines #seventeen x reader #seventeen #secondchancesvtseries

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gorgxoxus · 4 years

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Mental illness Klaine fics:

(I DONT like blangst - give me proper diagnosed mental illness or give me nothing)

Reverb by Fickeloden:

Post-Michael thru Season 4, Blaine's just a little unwell, and it's not long before everyone can tell. Physical and Mental illness. Hurt/Comfort. If Robin Cook wrote for Glee and General Hospital, the story would probably go like this. Universe Expansion for Seasons 3 and 4 wherein I add some elements to canon and leave some out but manage to get everyone back to place where they can still have the endings they got in canon. Honestly, I just wanted to write H/C, but the more I hurt Blaine, the more I realized he wasn't going to handle that very well, so I added in diagnosed mental illness.

Heliophilia by bitterlee (PDF):

Blaine Anderson's first year at NYU is documented through a series of meetings with his therapist, and several over-exposed polaroid photos.

Hurricane by a phase that cuts these lips:

Two years after Kurt and Blaine's messy divorce, Kurt finally wins full custody of their daughter after a long and painful battle. A week later, Blaine attempts suicide. He has no one else to turn to, and Kurt volunteers to take him in, believing that he can rehabilitate Blaine. The man he fell in love with is still in there, somewhere - he just has to figure out how to bring him back. The process, however, won't be easy for anyone.

Wonderful life by pulling the puzzles apart:

Blaine walks the same bridge in New York every evening considering jumping and ending his life. He decides to ring the Trevor Project Hotline and hears Kurt's voice. Can he help him? Can he show him that it really is a wonderful life?

One in four by aswinggirlatheart:

When Blaine finds out that Kurt's not being entirely honest with him about who he is, things go to hell in a handbasket pretty damn quickly. Things in Kurt's head were never as simple as they seemed.

Significant others by lovely_sparkle (PDF):

Five years after a nasty college break up, Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson are leading very different lives than they expected. Kurt is a successful assistant fashion designer, engaged, and a father-to-be. Blaine is struggling with a failed college career, depression, and drug addiction, ultimately alone. What brought them to those points in their lives, and what happens when they meet one another again?

Sessions by lovely_sparkle:

Kurt goes to see a therapist at the insistence of Rachel and is surprised to discover it's none other than Blaine Anderson, his former best friend and high school crush. Blaine tells Kurt he can't treat him, but what enfolds is something neither could have predicted: a chance for healing for them both.

Down on the corner by flowerfan:

AU after Season 5/ Alt!s6. Blaine went back to Lima after the breakup, but Kurt stayed in New York. They do in fact reunite on the corner outside the loft in six months, but it doesn't go as either of them expected. Over the course of the next year, Blaine struggles to find himself, and Kurt struggles to find Blaine. And while they both realize that love doesn’t necessarily conquer all, they discover that it definitely helps.

#klaine fanfiction

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onestowatch · 6 years

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POLAROIDS + Q&A’s: The 6 Best Emerging Acts from Bottlerock 2018

Bottlerock really stepped up its game this year, featuring a stellar line up with headliners like The Killers and Bruno Mars. In terms of emerging act, the Napa Valley festival typically showcases an amazing “sampler platter” of the newest and coolest acts to keep an eye out for. From indie rock to alt-pop and everything in-between, we picked our favorites from the festival this year -- scope interviews & polaroids with each below.

AMY SHARK

Amy Shark just came off a US tour with MILCK, which included many sold out shows. Yet, Amy somehow still sees herself as only a “normal girl from Australia.” Her songs are vibey and most importantly real with honest lyrics all written by Shark herself. She has a connection with her audience when she’s on stage that makes fans instantly fall in love. Her new album Love Monster is set for a July release.

OTW: Tell us about your current single, “I Said Hi.”

Amy: “I Said Hi” was a song that was always going be written by me because it's kind of a real passive aggressive anthem for my struggle in the music industry for a good ten years. I think the main thing I want to communicate in that song is just whenever you are waking up every morning, trying to fight for whatever you believe in — you just need to keep going. As much as it's very personal about my experiences, I definitely wanted to keep it open for everyone to be able to connect with. It’s like anyone that's just been trying, and trying, and trying and getting nowhere, having no one believe in you — and then you get somewhere on your own merit and it's the best feeling in the world. It actually started when I signed to my manager, and he kept telling me, "I've got a meeting with John Smith or whatever." And it'd be someone that I had tried to get a meeting with — And I just ended up saying, "Tell him I said hi." And that was how it started, and then this one day I just found that melody.

OTW: Your single, “Adore You” has over 37 Million spins on Spotify to date, how do you feel about that?

Amy: The last time I actually celebrated was when I hit a million streams — I was like, popping bottles! That's just so many people listening to it. It's great. It's amazing. America is such a big base for an Australian to tackle, so I'm just going to each city, and playing shows and meeting great people and artists, and working with great producers and that's just where I'm at at the moment.

OTW: Can you tell us anything about your upcoming album, Love Monster?

Amy: Love Monster is, I mean, I like to describe it as the first season. You know, when you just start watching a season on Netflix, and it's really exciting and that's what you can think about? There's romance, and lies, and passion and there's probably a death — that's what I feel like this record is. It's got so much personal, but angsty, heartache and passion. It's like a first series of a really great Netflix drama.

OTW: What’s next for you?

Amy: There's going to be more festivals — I'm doing Lollapalooza. It's so funny to even say that — and doing a big tour at home. Then, I'll be back here in the fall, to tour.

OTW: Who would you say is your “One To Watch”?

Amy: The Smith Street Band. They're super Australian, they're like punk rock, and his lyrics are just gonna destroy you. It's so amazing. It's punk, but Will Wagner is such an amazing songwriter — and they're not even really sort of trying.

BILLY RAFFOUL

We’ve covered Billy Raffoul since his first single “Driver,” which was released last year, followed by stellar singles “Dark Four Door” and “Difficult.” His newest single, “I’m Not A Saint,” was co-written with Grammy Award nominee Julia Michaels before she decided to go out on her own as an artist. Billy’s sound is a Nashville-leaning modernized take on classic rock with a soulful raspy vocal that’ll likely make anyone a fan after just one listen.

OTW: Tell us about the writing process for “I’m Not A Saint.”

Billy: It came from a conversation I had with a friend [and the] co-writer, Julia Michaels. That was the first time that we had met, which was three years ago. I was really nervous — I didn't know who she was. She didn't really know who I was, she had heard my voice and I had heard from a mutual friend who went on to be my publisher that she was incredible — [and] bound for greatness. I was nervous — I swear all the time and then maybe a little more when I'm scared. At some point, we just started shooting the shit about things that we do that we shouldn't do — it was all just a joke. At some point I had said, "I'm not a saint, but I could be if I tried," like as a joke. She said, "Well, there's a song," and that was it.

OTW: Who are you most excited to see at Bottlerock?

Billy: I'd love to check out Muse, of course. We saw The Struts already and I love The Struts so much — good buddies of mine. I would've liked to see LANY.

OTW: what's next for you?

Billy: Back to the studio — I'm working with some great people, producing some music, songs that I've written. Working with Linda Perry next week. I'm going to put a song out every four weeks.

OTW: Who would you say is your “One to Watch”?

Billy: Jessie Reyez — She put out a new tune a little while ago called "Body Count." It’s fucking awesome — So good.

THE NIGHT GAME

You might remember a tune called “The Great Escape” by an emo band called Boys like Girls. The former emo band was fronted by singer Martin Johnson, who started a new project called The Night Game, but it 100% different from Boys Like Girls. In fact, The Night Game sounds more like a modernized classic rock throwback like Don Henley of The Eagles’ solo career. After a break from being in the spotlight and writing for artists like Avril Lavigne, Martin decided it was time to return back to center stage, which has excited both old and new fans alike.

OTW: Tell us about your newest single, “American Nights?”

Martin: It's funny, it kind of started out as a party anthem, like that was a little bit like just a song I was writing from the outside. [I] wasn't even sure it was going to be for me as an artist, but slowly kind of came into vision what it was really about — it's like the classic American blueprint, like “Born in the USA,” you know that kind of not-so-hidden message. What I got from that was like the upbeat sort of positive chorus that I had, [and] in the verses, I could show the true characters and the truth in what America is. I isolated three characters that stuck out of my head as the three sides of the coin and then included myself a little bit in there and, it's just about how everybody's got this undying search for the American Dream. Even if you don't live here, you do.

OTW: People have compared your sound to Bruce Springsteen and Don Henley with a strong 80’s vibe, what do you think of that? Did you do that on purpose?

Martin: Not really. It's funny — a lot of journalists have been saying 80s, 80s, 80s, but it's like, I kinda grew up in the 90s — I'd be too young to remember the culture of the 80s. My influences in formative years — I was doing musical theater. I [would be] in a show listening to the soundtrack, and I was in a little ska band — my background musically is very weird. Obviously, I'd listen to classic records that you would say influenced what this kind of is, but at the same time — I think a song should tell a story. A song's about a story, and an emotion and I wanted every sound that was on the record to tie into what that emotion was, based on lyrics. When I was making the songs, it wasn't really like, "Man, I need this to sound really specifically like this record from 1982 and you can only use this drum machine..." I just did what felt good and if chorus guitar chords felt good, then it's what I did.

OTW: You have an extensive background as a writer/producer, in between the time from Boys Like Girls to this project — how did you decide to make the jump back to being an artist?

Martin: You know, at the time it was really working for me, so I just kept at it. I lost track of who I was — I don't know if it all has to be negative in this big sob story. A lot of times in interviews they make this whole thing, "I lost track of what my musical identity was and I missed telling stories," which is true, but at the same time it was like, dude, it was fun. I've been quoted saying this before, — you get your first guitar, you're a kid, and then you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, “I'm going to rock.” I did lose that kid, and I had an opportunity to say, "Hey man, before the gray hairs come in I want to sing.” I really want to sing and started playing music because I wanted to sing, I wanted to tell stories, I wanted to write songs — I have more stories to tell.

OTW: Who would you say is your “One to Watch”?

Martin: The Band CAMINO. We took them out on tour, they're really great. I like those kids.

JACOB BANKS

Jacob Banks has been releasing music since 2013, but he made his Coachella performance debut earlier this year and is currently recording his first full-length album. Jacob says about his songwriting, “I'm always two months ahead. You're hearing songs that I recorded a year ago. So once I put them out I'm thinking, okay, I've already written something else that I'm excited about.” His sound is a wonderful mix of modernized American Blues and Gospel, and his vocals will literally soothe your soul.

OTW: “Unknown (To You)” has over 10 million spins, how does that feel?

Jacob: The ungrateful answer is to say I don't care, which is kind of my answer, but at the same time I'm grateful because people have listened to it. But at the same time, I think if we quantify success via spins, I don't think it's a fair representation of how much a song means to someone. It just means they listen to it — it doesn't mean 10 million people love your songs. I'm more amazed that people come to my shows — you're choosing to spend your time. I think that's a more wonderful accolade for me.

OTW: What is “Unknown (To You)” about?

Jacob: It's kind of like, “say how you really feel.” Over the years, I think it's become more about just communication, especially between the dynamic of men. I think we're raised to feel as though speaking is some hard task, and it creates so much division between us and how we treat the whole world. Because we're just not raised or taught how to speak, and to be open in what we say. [James Blake] put out a song called “Don't Miss It,” and he released a statement saying every time he puts out music people always say “Sad Boy,” and he's like “Why can't I just share my emotions without being temperamental, or being classed as sad boy?” I think we're currently in the highest state of depression among men, and suicides, so I think it's important for men to share how they feel. In the same way I see some women crave men who talk to them, but in the event that they do, I see women say, "he's too nice for me." Aka, I'm not used to this kind of love. I'm not used to someone who actually wants to hear me.

OTW: What was it like working with Louis The Child?

Jacob: It was dope — we were only in the studio for one day. We wrote two songs, which one of that was “Diddy Bop.” They're just homies, man. It's always good working with friends — I spend time with them when I'm out in LA. I think it's rare that happens as well. It's work. You don't go to work and make friends with everyone you work with. It's very few people that hang around because you have some sort of special connection. They're really good guys as well, I'm a fan of their work.

OTW: What’s next for you?

Jacob: We just came off tour with X Ambassadors, we've been touring for like a year and a half straight. We're doing festivals until the end of September, and then September, I hope to drop an album.

OTW: Who would you say is another artist who is ‘One To Watch’ for you?

Jacob: There's a lady called Maro that I absolutely adore. She does like really jazz inspired stuff, but she sings half in Portuguese and half in English — and she's the best thing since sliced bread for me.

RIVVRS

RIVVRS, AKA Brandon Zahursky is actually from Napa Valley, where Bottlerock takes place. And conveniently, many of the songs in his library contrast what it was like to grow up in Napa versus being a working musician in Los Angeles. His newest single, “Burn Me Up,” is the perfect example of his experiences with the egos of the entertainment industry as opposed the simpler life he lived before. RIVVRS’ sound could be described as Mumford and Sons with a dash of the ‘80s raspy icon, Bryan Adams — take a listen for yourself and see.

OTW: What was the inspiration behind "Burn Me Up”?

RIVVRS: I moved to L.A. four years ago from [Napa], so you can imagine — It was a beautiful life up here, and it just kinda turned to egos — all these things kinda caught up to me. I'd say I definitely entered a phase of just not being comfortable in my own skin. [Which] is why I titled the first record Unfamiliar Skin, cause I wasn't feeling very comfortable in this whole new industry. I wrote [the song] to my girlfriend, with the intention of it being if all of this doesn't work out, I want you to know that I will still go back to the life we had — the lyric is "I could've had everything, but I don't want everything. I want you, and I want you to burn me up," — meaning "I want you to burn up my past self, so the person that I was when I wasn't the most comfortable being myself, I want that erased from your memory. I don't want that light to be the only light you see me in.”

OTW: Who are you most interested in seeing at Bottlerock?

RIVVRS: Shakey Graves and Muse were the two I wanted to see today.

OTW: Who would you say is another artist is a one to watch?

RIVVRS: Billy Raffoul.

FLOR

You wouldn’t get that flor has a comedic side by listening to their music — in fact, you’d likely think they were very serious after listening to the songs on their album, come out. you’re hiding. The tunes on their debut album have a synth-pop mellow vibe that fans have taken notice to — and likely are anxiously waiting for album number two to drop sometime this year. As for comedic elements, most of the guys were happy with being around wine for the weekend, except McKinley who couldn’t seem to decide on any drink of choice while in the nation’s most popular wine destination — seemingly a problem.

OTW: Is it true that you use voice memos to help remember your ideas for songs?

Dylan: It's interesting when you're doing a voice memo. Just out of the blue, you're listening [back] to it and you know the rhythm when you're recording it, but then you listen to it two days later and you have no idea what the rhythm is supposed to be.

Zach: Yeah, it ends up sounding like some avant-garde classical piece. It just doesn't make any sense.

OTW: Why did you decide to title the album, come out. you’re hiding?

Zach: Originally I wanted it to be Come Out of Your Hiding, and I was like, "that sounds messed up.” So I dropped a word and now it doesn't make any sense. But that's exactly why I like it. You can interpret that how you want.

McKinley: It's about the insecurities of releasing something you've been working on and creating for years in your bedroom.

Dylan: ...And then all of a sudden you're putting it out to the world and, I mean, we got lucky and everyone, or a lot of people, liked it.

OTW: Do you ever get nervous when releasing new music?

Zach: I knew that our fans were going to love it. Like, we'd been touring a little bit. I knew that they were going to appreciate it. It was terrifying to me —I don't actually go on YouTube to this day and I don't look at any comments because it's still terrifying to me.

McKinley: It's kind of scary putting yourself out there like that. And especially, it was our debut album. It might get scarier from here on out, cause we have expectations to fill.

OTW: Can you tell us anything about album two or future music?

McKinley: I feel like we feel confident about album two. And then maybe I'm scared of album three cause it's like four years away.

Zach: There's enough songs written, but we can write more and we can write better. And if we write more and better, then maybe we have zero songs for the album ready.

McKinley: [It’s] been a constant battle for us — that's why we did a deluxe version of our album. Some of the songs we wrote, at this point, like four years ago. Like our biggest single, "Hold On," we wrote when we were like 21 — and then it came out two years later. We probably have thirty-something songs sitting on the back burner right now. There's also no consistency in how those songs come to be — you can not write a song for three months, and then Zach will write six songs in a week.

OTW: Who would you say is your “One To Watch”?

McKinley: I would say Now, Now is a big one for us right now.

Dylan: They came out with a new record that just really, really resonated with all of us. It just sounds phenomenal.

McKinley: I'm excited for the next COIN record [and] I think The Aces — They've got some cool stuff up their sleeves. Maybe an ace.

#bottlerock festival #interview #amy shark #billy raffoul #rivvrs #jacob banks #flor #the night game

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taeminsphltrum · 7 years

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My Burnt Blackened Love

Chae Hyungwon | Angst | Word Count: 2.5k

It hurts, I miss you so much I’m going, I’m going, I’m leaving

A/N: this is heavily based off of this music video, but not 100%. (watch the video because the descriptions might be confusing)

He should be passed this. It’s been months.

But everything reminds him of you, so how could he be fine with you no longer by his side?

Simply walking down a street the two of you would fool around on; chasing or racing each other, betting the loser to buy the snacks at the convenience store.

The shortcut he discovered when on his way to pick you up years ago, with the not-so-hidden brick, spacious structure of some sort. It became your favorite place after he showed it to you the following week, the love and attention you put into making the abandoned space to make it beautiful, to make it yours. He didn’t and still doesn’t understand how you did it, how you cleaned all of the dirt, dust, and debris out so quickly. Vines with gorgeous pink and white flowers draped across the walls and ceilings, other potted plants he never remembered the name of varying in blues, yellows, purples, and reds, and even a few branches sticking out randomly soon replaced the dinginess from before. Vintage furniture inside; a couple of chairs and several mirrors strategically placed. Candles and empty wine bottles littered atop a couple of the vanity mirrors; bird cages, lamps, and pictures you got from garage sales and flea markets littered the perimeter of the room, while white whole flowers and single petals were scattered across the center. It was a beautifully messy arrangement that mirrored you, a beautiful girl with an equally beautiful spirit and a chaotic, unplanned life.

A sad smile stretches Hyungwon’s lips as he walks his usual path from work to his house, the building several feet away to his left. His mind is practically screaming at him to keep it moving, to walk straight and to his house. But his feet follow his heart, leading him to the place he spent so many of his days with you.

In the spring and summer, it was such a beautiful sight. The sun rays seeping through the large window of the shed, the plants living inside illuminated and vibrant. He isn’t sure how often you tended to them, but it was rare for him to catch sight of a dead plant. Each and every flower and vine was your baby, and you felt so accomplished when your babies bloomed. It took a while, but you were so patient. And with Hyungwon there whenever you needed him, the wait was definitely worth it. The huge smile that adorned your face when everything was just about complete is still on his phone. He can’t find it in himself to delete it. He isn’t done holding onto something that isn’t there anymore.

The memories of conversations the two of you shared within those four walls never fail to make Hyungwon smile, a nostalgic one turned into a sad, almost pitiful one. The bond that was created within the masterpiece was one he never shared with another. Hyungwon’s young and is sure he has many more bonds to make, but he can’t imagine them coming close to what he shared with you. Years of sitting across from each other with food and drinks on your laps, never running out of things to say. There were many silent moments, where his mind was still running a mile a minute, but the content look on your face as you ate or looked around to admire your work was such a beautiful sight.

The days he met up with you and you asked for assistance with the plants, he admired the brightness in your eyes as you tended to your babies; watering, caressing and speaking to them so softly. When Hyungwon teased you for having small conversations with the flowers you had glared at him, rolling your eyes with an explanation of the benefits. And when you caught him telling a bundle of roses how beautiful they were, his fingertips gingerly touching their petals, you had the fondest smile stretching your lips, kissing him and telling him how much you loved him when he blushed at getting caught.

Hyungwon sniffs at the memory, removing his hands from his pockets to rub under his nose. His steps are dragging, his mind fighting hard to stop him from breaking his heart even more, but the organ in his chest desperately wants to go back. He wants to go one last time before he really puts in the effort to get over everything. Hyungwon knows wanting to forget it all is stretching it, he knows it’ll be impossible. Everything still feels so fresh, like it was just yesterday his world turned upside down.

Just as quick as he removed his hands from the warmth of his jacket pockets, he returns them. The bite of the wind has him tucking his chin further into his turtleneck, hugging his trench coat closer to his slim form.

Things got cold and gloomy in the winter, but somehow you still managed to keep them aesthetically pleasing to the eye. It was impossible to keep your project as perfect as it was in the warmer seasons, but the cooler ones gave it a different feel. Colors were cooler, duller, but beautiful nonetheless.

Twigs snap beneath Hyungwon’s boots, the sound almost faint to his ears with all the thoughts circling his mind. A few more steps and he’s in front of the screen door he surprised you with. It had been an open walkway and you hated it, so he took it upon himself to get the door. Hyungwon hadn’t a clue of how to put up a door, but hours of manuals and the internet assisted him and the look on your face was worth the cuts and bruises his clumsy self received in the process. His eyes start to sting with incoming tears he doesn’t let fall, his stomach and heart both dropping at the sight of the now dingy door that was once so white it glowed.

He can do this, he repeats mentally.

It’s so dark inside. Dust and dirt stain the window, little to no light coming through it. The sight before him is no longer breathtaking, instead it’s gloomy; depressing. Not a single petal in sight. Dried up vines and dead grass, fallen furniture and mirrors scattered. Hyungwon hasn’t been here in months, he should’ve expected such a drastic change. But it still crushes him that things will truly never be the same. His heart yearned for there to still be life in between these four walls, yearned for any trace of you continuing to come here.

Candles now have cobwebs inside and around them, the glass of the wine bottle in pieces along the front of the vanity. It’s a pitiful sight, and he feels just as pitiful. Hyungwon can’t help but wonder where you went, why you left. Do you still think of him like he thinks of you? You’re constantly on his mind and it sucks. The bittersweet feeling he gets when he thinks of your smile, your laugh. How perfectly you fit him, against him. The sweet words that slipped through your lips, the kisses those lips burned into his own and the rest of his body. God, he misses you. Did you find another place to decorate beautifully wherever you are? Or would it remind you too much of him?

Who is he kidding? You’re not taking this half as hard as he is.

His long fingers graze along a framed mirror before lifting it up and inspecting it. His reflection pisses him off. Watery eyes, the most pathetic look spread across his features. Hyungwon lowers the glass and lets it slip from his hand, glass instantly shattering into pieces of all shapes and sizes.

His eyes sweep across the room more, taking in the bird cages, fancy lamps, and chairs knocked down. Did somebody finally find this place and trash it? Did you trash it before leaving?

Only one chair is upright in the middle of the floor. A plethora of visuals plays behind his eyelids when he closes them and takes a deep breath.

This was a bad idea.

Hyungwon can see you sitting prettily in the seat, goofily posing as he took pictures of you with his Polaroid camera. He remembers giving you a promise ring while he was sitting in that very chair. You were so happy, smiling like crazy when he slid it onto your finger and sliding your way onto his lap and kissing him. The chair was spacious and sturdy, keeping in place as you lifted your flowy dress up and slid your panties to the side, unzipping his pants to ride him. Everything was perfect. You were content and that made him content, the scenery he took in when his eyes weren’t shut tightly was beautiful.

That chair is also the one you were sitting in the last time he saw you. You’d worn such a down, yet guarded expression. Almost emotionless. It didn’t fit your beautiful surroundings. This place was your happy place, your escape. You only smiled, laughed, and cried tears of joy when here. This was your alternate universe of some sort. An escape from reality. Other times you had a similar expression were beyond these four walls. When taking a walk, when in either of your beds… just not here. Each time something was bothering you, Hyungwon comforted you with physical contact. But when he reached his hand out to gingerly hold the side of your face, you moved away from his touch. You always leaned into it. You didn’t look into his eyes no matter how intense Hyungwon’s gaze was on your face. And when he felt something cool and circular being placed into his still outstretched hand he flinched, eyes dropping down to see the ring he gave you. Hyungwon questioned you, trying to make sense of the situation. There was no way you were ending things. Especially like this. You apologized softly as you stood, voice close to cracking. You said you had to go, that what the two of you had could no longer be. You wished him a good life because you wouldn’t be there to see him live it anymore.

He falls into the chair, teeth digging into his bottom lip to stop it from quivering.

Pathetic.

You were a contradiction. Such an open book, yet so many secrets. It was almost like you lived a double life in a way. When you came to him when you were feeling down you were always so vague, never giving enough detail for Hyungwon to know exactly what was wrong and how he could help fix the problems with you. You were stressed, tired, had family problems, had personal problems. Most people your age are. Hyungwon just figured it was the problems others around him had, giving you the same comforting words he’d give his friend’s when they came to him with similar problems.

But after you left, Hyungwon started questioning everything. There had to be more to the story. You were such a strong woman and he admired how you got through your obstacles, loved how you’d kept a smile on your face eighty-percent of the time.

Were you really just a coward all along? Too afraid to tell him what was actually wrong? To work through whatever it was and stay? Were more than half of the smiles fake? Did you really have to flee?

Who were you, really? There’s so much he never got the chance to know, and it irritates him so much that he’s still wondering what he could’ve done to make you stay.

He wants to hate you. And a part of him does. It was a shitty break up with no explanation and barely any emotion. It was so abrupt he hadn’t seen it coming. Just days before the two of you were laughing and cuddling; holding onto each other so tight and leaving no space in between you as you shared kisses and looks full of love.

Hyungwon sniffs and shakes the tears away, standing and exiting the depressing room with long strides.

Streetlamps are on, the streets empty. How long was he there? What time is it? His phone is in his hand, but he doesn’t feel like removing it from his pocket. Instead, he pulls the other hand out and examines the ring his fingers have been fiddling with since the flashback of the day you left came to him. Hyungwon still hadn’t taken it off after all these months until today, now pinched between his thumb and forefinger. The tears gathered in his eyes finally drop one by one, slowly dragging down his cheeks. He feels so weak.

He hadn’t realized he wasn’t walking on the sidewalk. As soon as dirt and grass became concrete and asphalt he stepped into the empty road. No cars have passed him, no pedestrians.

A sob shakes his body, startling him. Hyungwon hasn’t let himself cry over your departure. He kept his mind busy and whenever he couldn’t shake you off his mind and he felt the emotions start to kick in, he’d watch something funny or call a friend to distract him.

That isn’t healthy. In order to get over something, you have to face it.

So here he is, stopped in the middle of the street. No matter how many tears fall down his face his eyesight doesn’t clear up. Months of pent up emotions are finally coming out and he can’t stop it. He can barely move.

His mind goes blank, his body goes horizontal.

Pitiful.

Arm lifting up, he stares blankly at the silver circle that means so much to him. Tears fall down his temple and into his hair at the new position. And after a while of staring at the ring, a feeling of disgust crawls up his spine. A small part of him definitely does hate you. He’s never been this guy. Crying in the middle of the night, in the middle of the fucking street over a girl, over anything. He’s broken. You broke him.

His arm falls down to his side, his grip on the jewelry loose and giving out at the impact of his arm falling. The circle rolls for a bit before rattling and falling flat inches away from his fingers.

The vibration of his phone scares him, breaking him out of his stupor.

“Where the hell are you? We were supposed to meet up two hours ago.”

Hyunwoo’s voice stirs something within Hyungwon, causing him to slowly stand back up and brush his back off the best he can.

Hyungwon can function perfectly without you. He can get over you, his first love. It’ll take some time, but Hyungwon isn’t this weak, weeping little boy you’ve turned him into.

He can live his life just fine without you. He can walk the shortcut in the wooded area without always thinking of you. He can walk down the street without missing you.

The first step is over. He’s done denying you left, denying his feelings.

Your pictures are deleted from his camera roll on his walk home, but he keeps them in his Recently Deleted album.

(Okay but tell me the gif doesn’t go perfectly with the plot. I got way too hype when I found it, sorry)

#hyungwon scenario #hyungwon scenarios #mxwriters #mxnetwork #kpocwriters #monsta x scenario #monsta x scenarios

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lilacmoon83 · 6 years

Text

The Best Gift is You

@charmingfamilysecretsanta

Merry Christmas JustMeandMyKeyboard! I'm your Charming Family Secret Santa. I know you’re not on Tumblr, but I’m posting this here for everyone to enjoy. Also available on FF.net and AO3.

Your prompt was: Emma drives herself crazy to pick out the perfect gift for her parents. Thinking she's found it, she risks sneaking out in the worst snowstorm the east coast has seen in years...promptly getting stuck in her bug in the freezing cold of a December night. Snowing to the rescue!

I hope you enjoy what I came up with! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

The Best Gift is You

It had finally happened. Storybrooke was in a state of non crisis. There were no curses this year or snow monsters to vanquish. Gold hadn't cause a lick of trouble since the final battle ended and there were no other villains stomping around trying to wreck havoc. No Evil Queen, no Hyde, no Cruella De Vil and no Hades. Just peace. Peace at last and a bit of normal in a not so normal town.

Despite David's lamentation that a Thanksgiving dinner with this large extended family might, quote, suck, it was actually quite pleasant. They had celebrated with a large dinner at the Charming farmhouse with both the Mills and Golds in attendance.

It had been the absolute best Thanksgiving Emma had ever experienced for sure, especially since most of her Thanksgiving dinners before Storybrooke involved pop-tarts and sodas. Even after she got out of prison and started making a good living as a bail bonds person, she hadn't bothered with more than Chinese takeout on the big Turkey day.

Going from that to this large family gathering was a bit intimidating sometimes, but with all the danger around them swept away and her acceptance of her parents, it had been a Thanksgiving like she used to dream of when she was a kid; the kind you only saw on Television. Only this was much better. And it only got better as the Christmas season began. The day after Thanksgiving, Emma began thinking about what to get her parents for Christmas. They were going all out of course with decorations and Christmas shopping. She wondered if it was a good or bad thing that she had introduced them to online shopping.

The digital camera she had urged her father to buy her mother for their anniversary was working overtime, but at least it made her stop using the Polaroid. She often teased her about how she and Neal were going to go blind from all the flashing. But it made her wish she could give her parents things from her childhood. That's when she wondered if it was more possible to get some of those thought to be lost mementos, after all. This was the age of the Internet, after all, as she was fond of reminding her parents.

She started first by contacting the first group home she had been in after her first family had given her up when she was three. She got the run around at first and after calling for a straight week, someone finally took pity on her and agreed to speak with her.

She learned that her social worker might the only one to have anything or know what became of any of her personal items. She knew anything she made in school or projects were gone. But there was a chance, however slim, that a few baby items might have survived somewhere.

Unfortunately, her social worker was retired now, but thanks to the Internet, Emma found her. She was still living in Boston and agreed to meet with Emma at a restaurant in Boston. The day before Christmas Eve, it was all planned. Emma told her parents she was making a quick day trip to Boston, under the guise that she was getting something special for Henry. They offered to go with her, but she told them she'd be fine. Her father warned her that the weather might not hold out, as a storm system was moving in, but she insisted that she'd be back long before the storm hit. Emma Swan had faced the worst of villains, so she was determined that a snow storm wasn't going to stop her.

She arrived in Boston that day around lunchtime and met with her social worker. She was a nice woman and so Emma was happy to regale her with the information that she had found her birth parents. She modified much of the story for obvious reasons, but told her that they hadn't abandoned her by choice and had done so to save her life. The now elderly woman was extremely happy to hear such, for not many of her cases always had happy endings.

She then apologized to Emma for not having much and despite telling herself not to get her hopes up, she felt her heart sink when only a shoe box was presented to her. It was a miracle that anything survived though and she was trying to calm her emotions, as she opened the shoe box. But her heart instantly lifted at what she saw inside.

They were a bit beat up, but there were a pair of little white baby shoes and a wallet sized baby picture that was still in fairly good condition. And finally, there was a hospital ID bracelet that was a little tattered, but she could still make out the words Baby Emma on it.

"This is perfect...thank you so much," she thanked the woman profusely. They shared a hug and the woman warned Emma that a storm system was moving in. The blonde promised to leave in time to beat it home, but she simply had a few more stops to make before she could head back. One of those stops was at a photo store where they were able to scan her picture, clean it up digitally, and enlarge it. She made an 8x10, a couple 5x7 sized ones, and several 4x6 sized ones as well. They even had the option of making magnets and mugs. Emma couldn't resist and had them pull a picture of Neal from her phone as well, so she could put them both on mugs, magnets, and key chains for her parents. She paid for all her pictures and merchandise, before climbing back into the bug.

She still had to clean up the baby shoes and bronze them. Normally bronzing baby shoes involved sending them away for weeks to get them done, but she would be able to do that herself when she got home to Storybrooke with a little magic. So it was time to finally head back.

She ran by a coffee shop for a quick coffee for the road and began the four hour drive home to Storybrooke. She was so excited that she had the absolute perfect gifts for them that she was blasting Christmas music over the radio the whole way home.

Unfortunately, she probably should have been listening to the forecast, for about two hours in, she ran into the mother of all snow storms.

From then on, it was white knuckle driving along the treacherous highway and the bug was notoriously bad in the snow. Her Dad had been prodding her lately to let him put snow tires on it and she so wished she had let him do so right now. Six hours into what should have been a four hour trip, Emma's bug skidded over the town line. She felt relief, thinking she was home free at this point, but the treachery of the town line would get her as it had so many before. She lost control on a patch of black ice and skidded into the ditch. She banged her head on the steering wheel and her vision swam, as she raised her hand. But the sparks of magic only fizzled, for it was impossible for her to make her magic cooperate without a clear head. So she turned to technology next and found her phone, with no signal of course.

"Dammit…" she cursed, as she huddled in the cold bug. She had two options now. Walk home in the blustering storm or stay in the bug and wait to be found.

Snow gazed out the window, watching the fierce snow storm batter their town with worry in her eyes. Emma was two hours late...two hours and Snow's mind was a flurry of horrible scenarios and worry for her daughter.

"David…" she called back. He had nearly paced a hole in the floor himself.

"I know...she should have been home by now. I'm going to find her," he finally decided, as he grabbed his coat. Snow wanted to go too, but one of them had to stay with Neal and David's truck did the best in the snow.

"Come on Wilby," he called, as the dog to his side and Snow kissed him tenderly.

"I'll find her, Snow," he promised and she watched helplessly, as he ventured out into the raging storm. Neal cooed at her, as he gummed his teething ring.

"Daddy will find Emma, sweetheart. He'll find her," she promised, as she cuddled her baby close.

Emma tried turning the key again, but the engine refused to turn over.

"Oh dammit...dammit...dammit…" she cursed, as she smacked the steering wheel. She got out of the car and stomped around in the snow, as she tried to decide what to do. She was freezing already and knew she should stay where she was, but she just wanted to get home so badly. She climbed around the snow packed bug to try and get the box in the back to take with her when she felt a pain in her ankle.

"Ow…" she cried, as looked down and saw that she was caught between the car and some icy covered snow.

"Ouch...dammit, this night couldn't get any worse!" she cried, as she tried to free her ankle and started to sniff, as she realized she was stuck in the snow outside her car. She wasn't someone who cried, but since the moment she hit the town line, nothing had gone right. She should have known though that the family motto would lead her father right to her, but she was still surprised when she saw his truck roll up.

"Emma!" he called.

"Dad…" she cried in relief, as he climbed down into the ditch.

"Oh Emma...do you have any idea how worried we were?" he said, as he hugged her tightly and cradled her head. She sighed in relief, as she hugged him back.

"I'm sorry...I really thought I could beat the storm. It was stupid," she sniffed. He smiled and wiped a few of her tears away.

"No...you're not stupid and I'm just so glad you're okay. Your mother is pacing a hole in the floor at home," he said, as he gently freed her ankle.

"Looks like we better go to the hospital and have your ankle looked at," he mentioned.

"No...please Dad, I just want to go home," she pleaded.

"Emma…" he started to scold.

"Really...I think it's only twisted. I'm sure Mom has all the stuff to treat it and you know how much she will love to fuss over me," she reasoned. He sighed.

"Okay...but if we find out it's broken, you're going to the hospital immediately," he relented, as he lifted her into his arms and climbed out of the ditch.

"Oh no...there's a box I need in the backseat," she cried, as he put her in the truck.

"I'm having Mr. Tillman tow the bug out of the ditch. We can get it tomorrow, I promise," he replied.

"But...it has the most perfect gift for you and Mom in it," she lamented.

"Oh princess...don't you know by now?" he asked.

"Know what?" she grumbled.

"You're the most perfect gift we could ever have," he replied, as he kissed her forehead. She sniffed, as he got into the truck and slowly drove them home.

When her father carried her into the house, the relief on her mother's face was palpable and she immediately started fussing, just as Emma knew she would. Her father took Neal and put him in his swing, while Snow went about getting her wet coat off and started wrapping her ankle. David got her some aspirin for her headache. She let it slip that she bumped her head, but since she didn't have any nausea or other symptoms, they were pretty sure she didn't have a concussion.

After her mother was done, she wrapped a blanket around her daughter's shoulders and her father served them all hot cocoa.

"I'm sorry guys...I shouldn't have tried to beat the storm," she said.

"Why did you go to Boston today?" Snow asked curiously.

"Because I needed to find the perfect gift for you and Dad. And I did...it's in the bug," she replied.

"Oh Emma...I'm sure whatever you got us is lovely, but you're our true gift. We only just found you and we can't lose you again," Snow said.

"I know...I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking," Emma replied.

"Honey, you don't have to apologize. We're just glad you're okay," Snow said, as she hugged her daughter again and Charming kissed her hair.

"I love you guys," she said.

"We love you too, Princess. Having you with us for Christmas is the best gift we could ever get," he replied.

With the help of Henry, the next day, he was able to go get the box out of the bug for her, since Snow refused to let her lift a finger, never mind actually leaving the house. Henry brought the box to her and together, they wrapped what she had brought back from Boston.

"You know, you're going to make them cry, right?" he asked, as he looked at the little booties. She smiled.

"That's the plan," she replied, as they finished wrapping and put them under the tree.

Christmas Eve night came quickly and the Charming Mills clan gathered for a Christmas eve potluck of Regina's famous lasagna, Snow's wonderful cheddar broccoli soup, and David's amazing Christmas cookies, a recipe his mother had made when they had the money for the ingredients. Emma contributed the eggnog and made the hot cocoa with cinnamon, while Zelena made an assortment of delicious finger foods.

After they were all stuffed and content, they gathered around the living room to exchange gifts. Emma could barely pay attention to her gifts though when her parents got to the one addressed to them both from her.

"Is this the gift you went to Boston for?" Snow asked. She simply nodded and watched impatiently, as they tore the paper together. They smiled at each other and opened the box, as they peered inside. Their faces went slack and their eyes went wide, as Snow pulled out the tiny little booties and Charming picked up the little hospital bracelet.

"Emma...these were yours when you were a baby?" Snow asked in disbelief. She nodded.

"That's why I went to Boston. I met with my old social worker and I'm afraid, not much survived. But the booties, the bracelet, and a small picture did. So I took the picture and had it digitized. They cleaned up the graininess and digitally remastered it. Then I had a bunch of copies made," she said, as she felt the tears gather in her eyes. Her parents were already crying, as they gazed at the photos.

"You...you are beautiful. Just like you were in my vision," David said in awe, as he looked between the picture and their grown daughter.

"Oh...you made mugs and key chains too…" Snow cried. Emma smirked.

"Yeah, you two seem like the types of parents that will put their kids' pictures on any surface available, so I put the squirt on the mugs and key chains too," she replied.

"Oh...I love this. And I love these," Snow said, as she held the booties and one of the mugs.

"Oh Emma...this is all so wonderful," David added, as he kept looking at the baby picture of her in pure awe that only a father could have.

"I love you guys...you're the best parents anyone could ever have. I just wish it hadn't taken so long for us to be together," she said, as she hugged them both and David cradled her head.

"Oh baby...we love you too," Snow cried.

"We wish that too, Princess. But I think we'll be able to make the best of all the years we do have left together," David said wistfully, as he gazed into Snow's misty eyes and then at their daughter. Neal cooed in Snow's arms and Emma leaned over and kissed his little head.

"We have amazing parents, kid. You're going to grow up and have everything I didn't. But that's okay, you know. I'm really glad I found them so they could have you…" she said, as she teared up and they teared up too.

"Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad," she said.

"Merry Christmas Emma," they replied together, as they held their babies close and shared a tender kiss.

It may have taken them a long time to get to this point, but finally being together as a family was well worth the journey.

#@charmingfamilysecretsanta #for JustMeandMyKeyboard #Snowing #Charming family feels #mama Snow #Daddy Charming #Merry Christmas

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freckleslikestars · 2 years

Text

The X Files: Memento Mori

Living Polaroid Project: 87/219

#theres a tenderness to this episode #his thumbs in that last gif #my gifs #xf gifs #the x files #txf #x files #msr #cancer arc #memento mori #living polaroid project season four #living polaroid project

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analogmagazine · 7 years

Photo

“The Termignon Project” by Nicolas Blandin

Nicolas is a French photographer who creates captivating visual stories, which explore life and culture in different places around the world. With a simple and uncomplicated approach, Nicolas’ images immerse us in the lives and traditions of the people he portrays. The series presented here focuses on the production of an almost extinct French cheese, the Termignon. A combination of carefully composed landscapes, portraits and stills creates the perfect atmosphere to narrate the story of this old heritage.

Following we want to present an interview that we had with Nicolas:

am - First of all thank you very much for your contribution to our project. Can you please introduce yourself for us? NB - Thanks for the invitation! My name is Nicolas Blandin, I’m a 35-year old French photographer based in the French Alps (Annecy) and a former translator. These days I split my time between freelance work, long-term personal projects and my 3-year old daughter.

am - How did you start in photography? NB - Photography arrived almost by accident. In 2007 I bought an old SX-70 Polaroid camera and fell in love with the physicality and uniqueness of the medium. Because the film was getting so rare and precious, I quickly learned to make the most of every frame. Then in 2011 I took a sabbatical from my translation job and travelled for almost a year through South America and New Zealand with my girlfriend and a backpack filled with the bare essentials, a medium format camera and a stack of film. At some point we stayed with an indigenous community at the foot of the Chimborazo in Ecuador, where I did my very first series of portraits, and I caught the bug.

am - What inspires your work? NB - The world is a well that never runs dry. I’m excited about looking at the world and how photography enables me to see something in a new way, how it can bring me to places and situations that I wouldn’t have a reason to be in otherwise. I also love the visual language it offers to translate invisible emotions and thoughts into something visible, and to transform the specific and ephemeral into the universal and enduring. I feel it’s a lifelong journey of discovery, of both the world and the self.

am - What is “The Termignon project” about? NB - This ongoing (and as of yet untitled) long-term project documents the remaining traces of the Termignon blue cheese tradition in France’s Vanoise National Park. This rare and unique cheese dates back to the 18th century and is now manufactured by only five producers holding on to their heritage, ancestry, and connection with the land. My intent with this project is to explore and document an evolving pastoral tradition and living heritage, present a nuanced portrait of an ancestral lifestyle as it unfolds across seasons, and ultimately question our relationship with the mountains and the natural world.

am - Who are your favourite photographers / artists? NB - The list is potentially endless and ever changing, but I particularly enjoy the works of Edward Hopper, David Hockney, Georgia O'Keeffe, Vermeer, Raphael, Paul Strand, Guido Guidi, Alec Soth, Jungjin Lee, Eva Vermandel, Gerry Johansson and Vanessa Winship to name just a few.

am - Favourite songs / bands at the moment? NB - These days it’s a mix of Four Tet, Nils Frahm, Typhoon (look up that Tiny Desk concert) and Palace.

am - What’s your favourite movie? NB - I don’t have a favourite movie, but I enjoy the cinema of Aki Kaurismäki, the Dardenne brothers, early Jarmusch… I loved Gondry’s Science of Sleep. These days I’m rediscovering Tarkovsky. Stalker is such an incredible film.

am - Do you have any rituals or practices that help you get into the creative zone? NB - I need to go hiking or just walking in natural environments at least once a week. That’s how I clear my mind, reconnect body and soul and refocus.

am - What is your favourite photo book? NB - Again I don’t have a favourite, but these days I keep coming back to the following: • A New Map of Italy by Guido Guidi • Bilad Es Sudan by Claude Iverné • D’après Nature by Jean Gaumy • Splinter by Eva Vermandel

Don’t forget to see more of Nicolas’ work following the link to his site on his name above.

#analogmagazine #analog photography #analogica #analogue #film photography #fine art photography #fine art #photography #fotografia #Contemporary Photography #contemporary art #france #cheese

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mtwy · 7 years

Photo

Rolling Stone

USA May 9th 1985

On sale April 23rd

How Rosanna Arquette, Madonna and director Susan Seidelman lost tempers and found each other through ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’

Lucky Stars

By Fred Schruers

Our ostensible subject is Desperately Seeking Susan, the bargain-budgeted ($5 million) little film, directed by Susan Seidelman, that went from being an oddball artistes showcase to Orion Pictures rush-to-release entry for the Easter-season box office. Though the picture breaks many rules, both artistic and commercial, the result is one of the fresher entertainments to make it through the Hollywood bottleneck in these formulaic times.

Part screwball comedy, part satire, part set designer’s equivalent to “out” jazz, Susan turns on mistaken identity. Arquette’s bored housewife, Roberta, follows the trail of Madonna’s gutterball schemer, Susan, into a slapdash murder mystery that scrambles suburbanites and hipsters into something between farce and freaky fable. Early on, Roberta gets a knock on the head that gives her amnesia, and the two undergo an identity switch, setting up a skein of sardonic jokes that bounce off the wall at unexpected angles. Madonna owned a platinum LP when she signed on to the project and has since earned a second one. The consensus, even among industry skeptics, is that the singer has the goods onscreen, too. What clearly has Arquette cutting conversational wheelies, though, is Orion’s promotion of the film, in which she seems to play background to Madonna’s phosphorescent pop icon. “Can you blame them?” she says. “A studio sees a hot commodity and they immediately capitalize on it. It’s a little misleading, because it’s not a teen movie. I know the preview has been playing before The Purple Rose of Cairo, and it’s been booed. The audience was people who love Susan Seidelman and who would go to see me, and that’s sad.” There are precious few young actresses who can give Rosanna a power outage, onscreen or off. From a speck on the horizon, hitchhiking cross-country and arriving in Los Angeles at age seventeen, she’s built a career mostly on the kind of quicksilver expressiveness she showed in Baby, It’s You and in TV’s The Executioner’s Song; at twenty-five, she’s in the front rank of actresses arriving at stardom. Today she drove in to Hollywood from her new house an hour up in the Topanga Canyon hills, leaving a coating of ocher dust behind the back tires of her otherwise gleaming Saab Turbo. Her silky, silvery dress is a bit of a war whoop among all the cut glass and linen of this Beverly Boulevard restaurant’s cool, mirrored spaces, yet there’s something more fundamental out of place. It’s as if her heart were thudding audibly, even visibly, while she charges forward and back in a virtual self-interview. “I’ve never been like this. I’m a wreck. I get hurt easily. I don’t have a tough shell. That’s why I’m so freaked out. I’m so insecure. I’m really insecure. It’s pretty stupid for me to be in this business, isn’t it?” Rosanna pauses, then gives a little tadpole wriggle with her right hand to signal that she’s not really waiting for an answer. She glances once more at the Polaroid and tucks it away. She can’t stifle these complaints, yet she can’t stand voicing them. “We’re great friends,” she concludes in her trigger-burst style. “All these things I said to her. I think her performance is really good. All I’m saying is, ‘Let her be an actress.'” “I had a few scenes where I was really sh*ttin’ bricks,” says the twenty-four-year-old refuge from Pontiac, Michigan. “A few times I was so nervous I opened my mouth and nothing came out.” Madonna is anything but mute tonight, as she takes a break from the Los Angeles rehearsal sessions for her first tour, and though she pauses occasionally to punctuate a phrase with a Mae West-ian secret smile, she lets you into the conversation only edgewise. “I think I surprised everybody, though, by being one of the calmest people on the set at all times. I think that had to do with the fact that I was in total wonderment: I was gonna soak everything up.” One keeps waiting for the brittle bitch, the self-absorbed bombshell who’s supposed to lurk under her winking, vamping, wriggling electronic image, but the Madonna who sits talking over coffee comes on disarmingly humble. Rosanna has expressed resentment over the insertion into the movie of a Madonna song backing a quickly rewritten scene in which the Susan character gyrates around a New York club. A video clip using the unreleased tune, “Into the Groove,” spotlights Madonna. “It does take things out of context a bit,” says Madonna, “kinda calls attention to another facet, but…” What that “but” means is, it sells tickets, chumps. Still, it’s become an issue… “Yeah, really?” says Madonna. “Who’s it become an issue with – besides Rosanna?” Her laugh is quick and not unkind. Insiders say the song found its way into the film on its own virtues. “Susan Seidelman was not out to make a pandering rock & roll movie,” says executive producer Michael Peyser, 31, who worked on Susan after serving as associate producer on Woody Allen’s film The Purple Rose of Cairo. One of the music coordinators, Danny Goldberg, had no time to compile a soundtrack LP when the film’s release date was pushed up, but in talks with MTV execs, he paved the way for “Into the Groove” to air, even though the song might never show up on vinyl. Madonna is not naive about the studio’s gambit: “I have a big audience of kids for my music, and you know how they use soundtracks to push movies – I think they’re using me in the same way, and it’s really a drag, because I’m trying to establish myself as an actress, not as a singer making movies. But I’ll be happy if it becomes a commercial success, simply because it’s a different kind of movie than most of what’s out now. There are a few formulas people have been using the past five years, with Flashdance and Breakin’ and all that stuff; this movie is like a return to those simple, straightforward caper comedies Claudette Colbert and Carole Lombard made in the Thirties. They give you a taste of real life, some poignance, and leave you feeling up at the end – none of that adolescent-fantasy bullshit.” If Madonna is a fan of screwball comedy, Susan Seidelman is more intent on spray-painting her own signature on the canvas of the blank generation she grew up with. “I think I’m a little bit of a satirist,” she says. “I grew up in the epitome of Sixties suburbia. You know, Dunkin’ Donuts shops, TV dinners. We had canned vegetables at home because we thought it was more modern than having fresh vegetables. So that pop-Andy Warhol-whatever aesthetic is something I took for granted. “Inside that, I wanted to make a fable about identity and appearances. But this film isn’t an essay. I dislike movies in which the theme becomes the plot, where everything is like an essay on Loneliness or Frustrated Housewives of Sexual Whatever. If you look at movies like Some Like It Hot or Tootsie, you could probably write a lot about sexual roles, but the films don’t get bogged down in their message. To be able to show something rather than tell it is much more interesting, and the best devices are the ones that work most invisibly. I mean, if Rosanna’s character is torn between her husband and another guy, and we see her in a magician’s box being sawed in half – that works great if you think about it, but it’s gonna work on an immediate level, too. To me, a script is a skeleton that I liked enough to – well, hang my skin on.” The skeleton of Desperately Seeking Susan had been rattling around Hollywood for five years before finding its skin, and it would be there still were it not for a coming together of inspired amateurs who – not incidentally in this male-run industry – are mostly women. The script was the debut effort for Leora Barish, 36, who has quit life as sometime saxophonist in Manhattan’s East Village and moved to California seven years ago. She brought it to a close friend, Sarah Pillsbury (whi indeed is from Minnesota cake-mix clan her name evokes), who went from Yale to producing documentaries, including a 1979 Oscar winner. Teamed with friend Midge Sanford, savvy in the Byzantine ways of Hollywood development deals, Pillsbury optioned Barish’s script as their first project. It floared through studio limbo, gathering praise from many women and indifference from most men, but it refused to die. “We reconceived it as a lower-budget, up-and-coming-star kind of movie as opposed to using the older, established actresses we’d been talking about,” says Sanford, and finally Orion took up the option. Sanford and Pillsbury sent Arquette’s agent the script, and a week later, in June of last year, she signed up. The producers had been fans of independent filmmaker Susan Seidelman’s critically lauded debut film, Smithereens, and they tapped the director for Susan early on. Seidelman, 32, had come out of the split-level Philadelphia suburb of Abington, studied fashion design at Drexel University and clerked for a few months at a local TV station before applying to film schools; New York University “shocked” her with an acceptance. She moved to the Lower East Side in 1974, when St. Mark’s Place was a strip of shuttered hippie boutiques. She gravitated toward directing in the three-year course and began piling up awards with her twenty-eight-minute debut, “And You Act Like One, Too,” about a too-married woman. Smithereens, begun in 1980 with $10,000 from her grandmother’s will, became the surprise hit of the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. (“I think they wanted to make a statement about mainstream American films,” she says diffidently.) In it, young actress Susan Berman played Wren, a sort of punk-rock groupie living by her wits against the harsh and indifferent backdrop of the Lower East Side and it’s punk rajah, Richard Hell. Shooting was delayed when Berman, racing along a row of loft windows, ran out of fire escape (“like some horrible Road Runner cartoon,” recalls Seidelman) and broke a leg. Still, Seidelman brought it in for $80,000, and it earned plenty more – enough to buy her a SoHo loft whose spotless varnished-wood floors and sparse, Sixties-gauche furnishing hardly mirror the unkempt world of her films. So messy and wheedling are her heroines that Seidelman’s films seem to have at least one foot in the genre pundits are calling “slob comedies.” Madonna’s Susan is an empress of trasg, a libidinous but untouchable she-wolf who washes down cheese puffs with vintage wine, cadges triple tequila sunrises and steals other peoples’ goods and services with an amiable, Pigpen-ish air. Madonna admits that when she arrived in New York in 1978, she, like Susan, “relied on the kindness of strangers.” When Seidelman heard of the singer’s interest in the part, she invited her over: “She was nervous and vulnerable and not at all arrogant – sweet, but intelligent and verbal, with such a sense of humor. I just started seeing her as Susan.” The chiefs at Orion were skeptical – some 200 actresses had read or been video-taped for the part – so Madonna was given a screen test. “She had this presence you couldn’t get rid of,” says Sanford. “No matter how good the other people were, we kept going back to that screen test.” “Susan is conniving, an opportunist,” says Madonna, “but she really did care about {Roberta’s husband} Gary Glass and her boyfriend, Jim, and all these people.” Part of her cockeyed charm is a warmth underlying her aloof facade: “Anybody who goes around acting like nobody matters obviously is protecting themselves and hiding what they really feel. So I always wanted to have that little underneath there.” What underneath may be the “little tiny girl” Arquette is sure she sees in Madonna – perhaps the girl whose mother died when she was six. “I knew I had to be extra special supercharming to get what I wanted, ’cause I grew up with a lot of brothers and sisters {she was the theirs of eight children}, and we had to share everything, I did all I could to really stand out, and that nurtured a lot of confidence and drive and ambition.” Poet Edward Field wrote that Mae West “comes on drenched in a perfume called Self-Satisfaction,” and it’s a knack Madonna shared. She and Seidelman had a decent repport, but conflicts between the young director and three precocious pros – Arquette, Laurie Metcalf (as Roberta’s vituperative sister-in-law) and Aidan Quinn (as Roberta’s love interest) – were frequent. Production veteran Michael Peyser often picked up the pieces. “Susan has a wonderful quality; she guileless, totally honest,” he says, but he pegs her as a Hitchcock-style director: “She comes from filmmaking, as opposed to directing. She was working with excellent people, like Laurie and Aidan, who are and will be major stage actors of their generation; they’re used to a little more stroking.” “I really do like actors,” says Seidelman. “I’m not manipulative, at which Hitchcock prided himself. I’m not good at hiding what I feel. I can’t say, ‘Oh, brilliant’; when I’m unhappy, it’s written on my forehead.” Amid the production’s turmoil, Madonna took consolation from Mark Blum (so likably obtuse onscreen as Roberta’s husband, Gary). “If I’d get upset, he’d take me aside and tell me a joke or make an analogy about the situation, chill me out.” Rosanna, fresh from her dream collaboration with director Martin Scorsese on his forthcoming After Hours, was not to be chilled out. She and Seidelman staged tense debates over the degree of Roberta’s amnesia, and during one twenty-hour day, an angry Rosanna burst into tears. Stalled and frustrated, Seidelman cried too. “You could say it was cathartic,” says Seidelman. “You scream, cry, get it out and go on.” “Our whole souls were in it,” says Rosanna now, “but any film I’ve ever made was hard. By the second month, she would look at me and I would know what she wanted. It’s just that I had never worked with a director who needed complete control of me. See, I never rehearse my lines exactly how I’ll say them. I just memorize them and know my character.” While making After Hours, she points out, Scorsese was “never negative. In one situation he came up to me and said, ‘Do you think you should laugh in this scene?’ and I said, ‘Oh, no, Marty. I can’t see where she’d laugh in this scene.’ He said, ‘Oh, yeah. You’re right. You’re right. Forget I ever said anything.’ And he walks away. That’s what he does, very subtly. It’s like he planted the seed, watered it and split. And as I was doing the scene, I don’t know where it came from, but I just started laughing.” Arquette also had few problems making Lawrence Kasdan’s next film, Silverado. “I’m just a pioneer woman heading west who has a very strong vision. And she wants to work her land.” She’s completed two other projects, a public television play, Survival Guide (“It’s just a very bizarre half-hour comedy”) and the recent disaster The Aviator, which prompted At the Movies reviewer Gene Siskel to say, “This is garbage,” while Roger Ebert confirmed, “Transcendentally bad.” Rosanna’s one-time boyfriend, Toto drummer Steve Porcaro, had been so upset at the love scene in The Executioner’s Song that she says she made The Aviator partly because “it didn’t have any nudity, it was safe – one of those all-American kind of movies.” Her eventual breakup with Porcaro spurred her recent spate of work. Now Arquette is with L.A.-based record producer James Newton Howard, and things seem… serious: “We work hard on our relationship. We have an incredible therapist. Our guy’s name is Don, and he’s great. We’re gonna work out all the shit in our relationship before we make a giant decision like getting married. “I don’t want to talk about my relationship with Steve Porcaro anymore,” she says, with some heat. “We’re very good friends. But everybody’s gotta ask me, ‘Well, you’re the Rosanna in the song,’ and blah-blah. Isn’t it boring? Say this: ‘I am so bored talking about my relationship with Steve Porcaro.'” She made another change around the time of the breakup. “I had gone to drug program with a friend. That was another thing {reported in the media}, that I was the one with a drug problem. I did take drugs. I smoked a lot of pot. I don’t think I was an addict.” (These days, Rosanna will not touch drink or drugs, and her choice for lunch is a spinach-and-avocado salad and mineral water.) “Life is wonderful. Why do you guys have to look for the shit? ‘Cause it’s bad karma for you to do that, do you know that? It’s not proper journalism.” It has become clear that Rosanna just had a crash course on this subject: “I did nine interviews yesterday.” The actress and her publicist seem determined to blow back the Madonna promo machine by filibuster. The problem is that the quick-draw dramatics that are a blessing in front of the camera make her emotional dynamometer shudder ominously during what should be a simple talk. “I grew up pretty fast,” she says of her gypsy-like upbringing on the artsy-hippie circuit traveled by her actor father and writer mother. “I think I was nineteen when I was fifteen. And now I’m fifteen. Madonna taught me a good lesson, because she just laughs off the band press. They think they’re hurting her, and she just laughs: ‘Ah, that’s bullshit.’ But I still get hurt.” She’s balancing her promo chores with acting class: three times a week, she joins a group of about fifteen (Nicolas Cage among them) for four-to-five-hour-sessions with Sandra Seacat. “She’s also Jessica Lange’s coach,” says Rosanna. “She’s a very spiritual, highly realized being, a guru.” Her list of professional heroines includes Lange, Christie, Hawn, Winger and Spacek, but hovering above them all is Natalie Wood. The cat who shares Rosanna’s hillside retreat is named Natalie, and when Arquette was being costumed for her character in Baby, It’s You, she balked at a pageboy haircut until someone reminded her it recalled Natalie. Wood is an interesting point of reference for Arquette – two beauties whose acting carries a seemingly artless transparency. Right now, Rosanna is a capital-A Actress, and as a result she’s in many ways a considerable snob. But for the last three pictures she shot, she took pay cuts that left her with perhaps half of her real price. She’s pouring her life into her work, and that leaves rough edges. She’s walking contradiction in terms, a Topanga Canyon firecracker. Rosanna abruptly jumps up and reaches into her coat pocket, fetching a plastic bag of sizeable vitamins in assorted colours. She counts out a handful, recounts and down them with water: “Stress depletes your body of vitamin B and C.” As an afterthought, she pops one more. The ritual seems to take the pedal off the floor, and she looks across the table apologetically, coat over her arm. “This is who I am, just hyper and emotional. I always have been. My emotions have always been right there.”

#1985 #rollingstone #rosannaarquette #susanseidelman #desperatelyseekingsusan #thevirginera

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