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munson-blurbs · 1 year

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Chapter 4: Every Time You Smile, You Laugh, You Glow

Collaboration with my ultimate soulmate, @corroded-hellfire 💚

Series Summary: Based on the Jonas Brothers song of the same name. You and Eddie share a hospital room in the wake of Hawkins' turmoil, striking up an unlikely friendship that could lead to much more.

Chapter Summary: Eddie's determined to help Sunshine wake up, but when she does, will the truth break them apart or bring them closer together?

Warnings: eventual smut (18+ only, minors DNI!), Eddie survives the Upside Down, hospital, mentions of surgery, angst, hurt/comfort

WC: 6.3k

Divider credit to @firefly-graphics

It seems like years pass before the doctors come out and report that they’ve been able to stabilize you, but that you need your rest and can’t have any more visitors today.

“Her body has been under immense stress, physically and mentally,” Dr. Sanoj explains patiently. “You can come back during tomorrow’s visiting hours and see her if she’s strong enough.”

If she’s strong enough. The words grate at Eddie, chipping away at his resolve to remain calm. Of course you’ll be strong enough; you’re the strongest person he knows.

He and your mom wordlessly make their way out of the hospital. Maybe it’s his eyes, red-rimmed from crying and lack of sleep, but it brings out a sympathetic side of your mom.

“You should get some rest, too,” she says gently. She manages a small smile. “No sense in going in there tomorrow all sleep-deprived.”

Eddie nods, mutters a, “you, too,” and hurries to his van. The last thing she needs is to have to comfort him while her own daughter’s life hangs in limbo.

To his credit, Eddie does try to take a nap. He tosses and turns for forty-five minutes before giving up, swinging his gangly legs over the side of Gareth’s couch and walking over to where Sweetheart is regally perched on her stand. He strums a few unenthused chords, attempting to muster up some semblance of ambition. Nothing he plays seems right anymore, like every note is out of tune. If he’s honest, it’s how his life feels without you in it.

He thinks back to the day you formally met Dustin, Robin, and Steve. The way they insisted that there was something between you two. Jeez, Harrington went as far as to call it a spark, like a budding relationship could explode at any moment. And Robin had made that joke about how sad he got when the nurses “took his Sunshine away.” Like that song Wayne always sang around the house.

Eddie hums the tune now, trying to match the pitch and find the right chords to play. He slowly picks them up, but there’s something still…off about the way the sweet, mellow song sounds on the electric guitar.

“Hey there, Ed.” Wayne comes through the front door, wiping his boots on the welcome mat. “Got some good news for ya.”

“Mm,” Eddie murmurs, still entrenched in his music.

Wayne holds up a manila envelope. “You’re officially cleared of all charges related to the Cunningham girl,” he announces, a big grin spreading across his typically stoic face. “Chief Hopper was able to pin it all on the Russians; easy enough, considering what happened at Starcourt last summer.” Wayne shakes his head at the memory. “‘M tellin’ you, boy: you’re real lucky the Chief of Police is also involved in this monster hunting thing.”

With the help of his friends, Eddie explained the truth about what happened to his uncle as soon as he got home from the hospital. And while Wayne was certainly skeptical—who wouldn’t be, with a story about an evil supervillain from another dimension?—he’d believed every word.

“That’s good,” Eddie says now, no trace of enthusiasm in his voice.

Wayne frowns. “What’s up your ass today? You’ve been cleared of murder charges, and you don’t so much as crack a smile?”

Eddie sighs, finally looking up at his uncle. “Even if they don’t charge me for the crime, people are still gonna think I did it. That I’m some kinda Satan-worshiping cult leader, or whatever.”

Wayne sits down on the couch next to Eddie. “Let me get this straight,” he says, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. “I’m supposed to believe that the same kid who would fight to the death over a traffic ticket doesn’t care that he’s no longer wanted for murder?”

“I fucked up, Wayne,” Eddie chokes out, brushing the tears from his eyes. “I fucked things up with Sunshine, and now there’s something really wrong with her, a-and she might not wake up, and I can’t get this stupid song to sound right with this stupid guitar!” He pulls Sweetheart over his head angrily and places her back in her stand.

“Well,” Wayne says, dropping a comforting hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I may have only met her a few brief times, but even I could tell that she’s a fighter, that one. And just because someone’s not awake, doesn’t mean they can’t hear ya. Remember we’d sit by your mom’s side in the hospital and you’d tell her about your day? She’d wake up a few hours later and, like magic, she knew what you said to her. Pretty sure Sunshine’s got that same magic. When you go back there and visit her, tell her what’s on your heart. She’ll hear ya.” Wayne pauses and takes a deep breath. “Now about this song business…I dunno how to help you with that one. You and I both know my musical ability ends at putting records on. What song are tryin’ to learn?”

“You Are My Sunshine,” Eddie grumbles, not taking his eyes off of his feet. Wayne can’t help but smile at that. He always knew his nephew was a softy deep down, but there weren’t too many times that he’d let anyone on the outside world see that.

“S’a good song,” Wayne says. “And I ain’t known you to never get a song just right before. Keep fiddlin’ with it.”

Wayne pushes himself off the couch, but before he can leave the room, Eddie calls out to him. “Wayne? What, um, what should I say when I go visit her?”

His uncle shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest. “Just speak from the heart, boy. Keep it real honest and tell her how ya feel and what’s been on your mind.”

“Thanks,” Eddie says. Wayne gives him a nod and heads into the kitchen. After staring at Sweetheart for a few moments, Eddie picks her back up and starts to strum. He sit and practices for hours, occasionally massaging the back of his neck when it starts to stiffen up from staying in the same position for so long. He’s so enraptured in perfecting the song that he doesn’t even hear Wayne come back into the house.

“Ed? You still at it?”

“Unfortunately,” Eddie mutters, standing up and stretching his back with a groan. “You can come in if you want. I need a distraction before I fling myself out of the window.”

Wayne peeks his head in, a mischievous grin on his face. “Good thing we’re on the first floor then, huh?” He laughs at his nephew’s inevitable eyeroll. “C’mon out; I’ve got somethin’ to show ya.”

Curiosity getting the best of him, Eddie follows his uncle to his rusty old sedan. Laying in the backseat is an acoustic guitar. It looks a little beat up, but definitely playable.

“Where–how did you–” he starts, unable to speak because he’s so stunned by Wayne’s kind gesture.

“Ya can’t play a sweet old song like that on the electric guitar. Need one of these,” Wayne says proudly, pointing towards the instrument. “Guy at the pawnshop said she just needs a bit of a tune and she should be good to go.”

Tears spring to Eddie’s eyes, and he envelops his uncle in a tight hug. “You’re the best,” he says, voice muffled by his cheek being pressed against Wayne’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I haven’t been the easiest to deal–”

Wayne dismisses his concern with a wave. “Enough of that. I’m just glad to have you back here, alive. Now,” he says, the joyful glint returning to his eyes, “go learn that song so you can get the girl and leave the damn house once in a while.”

Eddie’s unable to suppress the smile that grows on his face. He’d never thought of himself as someone who would “get the girl,” but then again, he’s never felt about anyone the way he feels about you.

Re-energized by his gift, Eddie brings the acoustic guitar inside and starts to practice again. Right away, he can tell the difference.

“Much better,” Eddie says to himself. Wayne was right, as usual—not that he’d ever admit that to his uncle. Before, Eddie felt every second drip by as he tried and failed to make the song sound right. Now, the hours were flying by faster than Eddie even realized. Footsteps march into the living room and Eddie reluctantly looks up to see Gareth standing in the doorway.

“Yeah?” Eddie asks.

“Do you know what time it is?” Gareth asks, raising his eyebrows. Eddie shakes his head and goes back to strumming. “It’s after three in the morning. Dude, if you don’t get any sleep, she’s going to think you look like shit tomorrow.”

Gareth managed to find the one thing he could say to make Eddie put the guitar down. He didn’t have an official place to put this one, since Sweetheart was already resting in the stand. Standing up, Eddie grabs his guitar case from behind the couch. Gareth shuffles back down the hallway towards his room as Eddie flips open the latches of the case. He sets the acoustic down inside and smiles as he looks down at it. His first precious guitar has a name, and now he has the perfect idea for the next.

“Goodnight, Sunshine the Second.”

When Eddie arrives at Hawkins General Hospital the next morning, he’s not surprised to see your mom already by your bedside. He winces when he notices the tubes in your nose, another painful reminder of your weakened state.

“Any changes?” he asks softly, a pang of disappointment settling in his chest when she shakes her head no.

“No better, but no worse,” your mother reports, running her thumb over your hand, carefully avoiding the needle in your vein. “How’re you holding up?”

“All right,” Eddie shrugs, peeling the guitar case off of his back and setting it down. “Wish she would wake up, though.”

Your mom laughs kindly. “You and me both, kid.” She takes notice of Sunshine the Second and smiles. “Did you just come from band practice?”

“Nah,” Eddie shakes his head bashfully, letting his messy curls brush his cheeks. “I, um, wanted to play her a song. If th-that’s okay.” He’s never been good with parents; they’ve always written him off as some punk or, worse, trailer trash. He anticipates disapproval, so he’s pleasantly surprised when your mom’s face brightens and she encourages him to play.

“I’ll be right outside if you need me,” she excuses herself, giving his shoulder a maternal squeeze.

Eddie clears his throat. “Hi, Sunshine,” he starts, pausing briefly to give you a chance to reply, but the silence dashes his hopes. “I’m so fucking glad you’re alive. I kept thinking about you, and this song, and I—I wanna play it for you.” He unzips the case and slings the guitar strap around his body. Tuning it quickly, he starts to sing:

You are my sunshine My only sunshine You make me happy When skies are gray You’ll never know dear How much I love you Please don’t take my sunshine away

He’s not sure what he was expecting; it’s not like his warbling voice would heal you. But he can’t help the disappointment that sinks into his chest like a bag of rocks in a river when you remain perfectly still.

He strums absentmindedly, playing whatever songs he can remember off of the top of his head. His usual repertoire of Metallica and Black Sabbath don’t sound right on an acoustic, so he thinks about some of the folk-y music that Wayne listens to.

So kiss me and smile for me Tell me that you’ll wait for me Hold me like you’ll never let me go ‘Cause I’m leavin’ On a jet plane I don’t know when I’ll be back again Oh babe, I hate to go

The mention of an airplane reminds him of the argument you two had had before he was discharged. “I know you weren’t sure about if you wanted to fly with me to California and try to make it as a dancer,” he murmurs, “but whether or not your plans include me, I really think you should.”

He sighs, continuing to play random chords as he speaks. “Feel kinda bad right now. I mean, if you were awake, you might tell me to fuck off. And I wouldn’t blame you, honestly. But you can’t tell me that, so I’m just pouring my heart out whether you care to listen or not.” He laughs softly.

Eddie’s fingers are moving of their own accord against the strings, his mind drifting off in a thousand different directions. It isn’t until his ear catches on the familiar notes that he realizes he’s playing a new song, one he heard a lot growing up, thanks to Wayne.

Woah, my love, my darling I've hungered for your touch A long, lonely time And time goes by so slowly And time can do so much Are you still mine? I need your love I need your love God speed your love to me

His voice catches on the last few lyrics, his throat constricting and his eyes become heavy with unshed tears. Taking a deep breath, Eddie keeps strumming the guitar because he needs something to do with his hands. He slips his eyes closed, trying to compose himself, but it doesn’t do much. When he opens them again, a few stray tears escape down his cheeks.

“Sunshine, wake up,” Eddie pleads. “I don’t like this. Sunshine, wake up.”

He switches gears, going back to the original plan for the acoustic guitar. What he practiced for hours so it would be just right for you.

You are my sunshine My only sunshine You make me happy When skies are gray You’ll never know dear How much I—

Eddie is cut off by the gentle fluttering of your eyelids. His heart stalls in his chest, his breath freezes in his lungs as he stares at you. In reality, it’s about four seconds of you blinking before your eyes are fully open. To Eddie, it was an agonizingly long wait. His hands are still on the guitar, too shocked to move. You’re looking up at the white ceiling above you before blinking a few more times. Slowly, your head turns towards Eddie and when your eyes lock with his, all of the emotions that have been swirling around and building up for days now hit their breaking point. The tears surge and Eddie sets the guitar down to wipe them from his eyes. He’ll be damned if anything keeps him from looking at you, alive, awake, wonderful you, even if it’s his own damn tears.

“Sunshine,” Eddie breathes out, a rush of breath and a sigh of relief all wrapped up in the nickname. You look slightly groggy still from all the medications, but Eddie can tell you’re looking into his eyes, which is all he needs. Gently, taking care of the needles and wires hooked into you, Eddie takes your hand. “Sunshine, can you hear me?”

Your mouth opens and you go to speak, when a look of pain flashes across your face.

“Shh, no, no. Don’t speak. Just squeeze my hand if you can hear me,” Eddie says.

The soft pressure of your delicate hand tightening around his is enough to bring another round of tears. These, he scrubs off with his sleeve before they can make it too far down his face. Once his vision is clear again, he looks down to see you smiling at him. He’s not sure if you’re genuinely glad to see him, or you’re still so hopped up on drugs that you would’ve been happy to see Pennywise standing over your bed.

“M-Mom?” you whisper, and your head is filled with sandbags as it lolls to one side.

“No, Sunshine, it’s me. It’s Eddie.”

To his horror, you start to cry. He doesn’t know how to interpret it, so he quickly stands up. “I can go get her, okay? You don’t have to be scared.” Running over to the doorway, he pokes his head out towards the waiting room, catching your mom’s eye as he waves her over.

“She’s awake,” he tells her, watching her body visibly decompress with relief, “and she’s asking for you.”

Your mom rushes into your room, heaving sobs wracking her body as she takes in your open eyes and small, chapped smile. “Hey, baby,” she murmurs. “I’m here now.”

Eddie awkwardly shifts from one foot to the other, not wanting to intrude on such a sensitive moment but not wanting to leave. “I can come back later,” he offers, but your mom shakes her head and pats the seat next to her. The two of them sit in silence as you go in and out of sleep, waking to ask for some water before dozing off again.

After an hour, you finally claw your way out of a groggy stupor, focusing on the two people by your bedside. “Wh-What happened?” you manage.

“Honey, you had trouble waking up from your surgery,” your mom reluctantly tells you, sharing an uneasy glance with Eddie. “Your, um, your heart stopped; they had to revive you. We didn’t know if you were going to make it.”

“We should’ve known,” Eddie chimes in, offering as much of a smile as he can. “I mean, you’re a total badass. If anyone can cheat death, it’s you.”

It takes you a moment to piece together what’s going on. The last time you saw Eddie, anger and disappointment marred his normally cheerful disposition. There was no trace of the young man who theorized about future soap opera plotlines or who fell asleep with his cheek nestled against your shoulder; there was only hurt.

The Eddie sitting before you now is different altogether. He looks like he’s about to burst into tears at the sight of you, like he wants to hold on to you and never let go.

There’s so much still left unsaid, and your head swims at the mere thought of such an intense discussion. Instead, you opt for a more obvious question: “Is that a guitar?”

“Eddie was playing some songs for you,” your mom explains, looking between the two of you. Eddie hasn’t taken his eyes off of you since he’s sat down, and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to stop any time soon. “I’m gonna grab something for him and I to eat; maybe he can play them again?”

“You don’t have to–” Eddie starts, but your mom waves him off with the promise of whatever sandwich looks the least unappetizing.

“You always sing for your mortal enemies?” you ask wryly, a hint of teasingness in your tone that you hope carries over.

“Just your run-of-the-mill sacrifice chants,” he jokes back, and you audibly sigh at the easy slide to your usual back-and-forth banter. He lowers his voice and takes your hand in his, weaving your fingers together as he says, “and you’re not my mortal enemy.”

“I’m really sorry that I lied to you,” you tell him, a misty film covering your eyes. “I just didn’t wanna disappoint you. And if you saw me sad, then you’d get sad...”

Eddie lightly presses his palm to your cheek. “Sunshine,” he says mournfully, “I never wanted you to hide your feelings from me. You’re my Sunshine because you’re you, not because I thought you were happy all the time.” He uses his free hand to rub behind his neck. “But I could’ve asked. I guess I was just so in my own head, thinking about myself, that I took you for granted. Poured my heart out to you, but never gave you the same chance,” he chides himself.

“Or I could’ve spoken up,” you point out truthfully. “I could’ve said, ‘Hey, I need a bunch of surgery and I may never dance again, and I’m really fuckin’ sad about it.”

Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up. You may never dance again. And there he was, blowing up on you because he thought you didn’t want to run away and pursue your dream; the whole time, your dream may have been yanked from your grasp.

“Can you play me one of the songs?” you interrupt his thoughts, and he just nods wordlessly as he positions the guitar on his lap.

“It’s kinda lame–”

“Just play it. Or do I have to almost die again?”

“Sheesh, all right,” he chuckles, latching his gaze to yours as he sings:

You are my sunshine My only sunshine You make me happy When skies are gray You’ll never know dear How much I love you Please don’t take my sunshine away

You’re giggling and crying at the same time, a sight that must seem completely absurd. You don’t want to think too long about what Eddie’s making of the way you look right now. His voice is rough and gravelly from years of metal covers at the Hideout, but it’s soothing nonetheless. But it’s the way he sings one particular part that replays in your brain over and over.

You’ll never know dear How much I love you

Maybe it’s just a song lyric. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. He just sings it, not even remotely flustered, as though his love for you is common knowledge.

“So,” he says sheepishly, “what’d you think?” When he realizes that you’re cry-laughing too hard to respond, he grins. “Oh, Sunshine. What did I do to your heart–fix it, or break it?”

“I’m not sure,” you half-joke, because if you get your hopes up that he does love you the way you want him to love you, and then he doesn’t, it might shatter into a million pieces. “That was the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

Eddie pauses, biting his lip nervously before he speaks again. “Can I try something?” When you nod, he cups your jaw and lets his thumb graze over your lower lip. You cringe at how dry they must feel, but he doesn’t seem to care as his mouth presses to yours. It’s a quick kiss, over too soon for your liking, but it still leaves you breathless.

He leans his forehead on yours, smiling as he caresses your cheek. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before,” he confesses, “and it kinda scares the shit outta me.”

“Only kinda?” you tease, nudging your nose to his.

Eddie leans back in his chair, letting out a shaky chuckle and rubbing his palms on his worn-out jeans. “I want us to be honest with each other. I don’t want any more secrets. From either of us,” he clarifies, so you know he’s not only talking about you. “Starting with what really happened the night of the earthquake.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you trust that I’ll tell you the truth?” he asks, and you nod. “Okay. So, um, shit, where do I even start? I guess…well, the earthquake…it wasn’t really an earthquake.”

Your eyes widen as he plunges into a story that sounds like it could be one of his D&D campaigns.

“It was the first time I’d ever seen anything like it,” he tells you, explaining how some monster nicknamed “Vecna” had snapped Chrissy Cunningham’s bones like twigs. How he’d hidden in his drug supplier’s boathouse—a detail you’ll have to unpack later—until Dustin Henderson tracked him down. How the whole town was convinced that he was some kind of heinous murderer, when he’d never hurt a fly.

All of that pales in comparison to the World War III-esque scene that awaited him in the Upside Down, an alternate dimension controlled by Vecna. “Every moving part was connected to him. Like a hive mind,” he says now. An arachnid-shaped force called the Mind Flayer that could possess anyone with a painful jab of its long pedipalps. Thick vines, far more dangerous than the poison ivy that showed up in your backyard each spring. “Nancy, Steve, and Robin—they almost died from them,” Eddie says somberly, and you sit up as much as you can and rub his back.

“Is that how you…?”

Eddie cuts you off with a quick shake of his head. “Henderson and I were supposed to lure the demobats from Vecna’s lair. That’s all we had to do. And we did it,” he flashes a sad smile. “But all I could think about was being a hero. Saving my friends. Finally facing danger instead of running from it.”

They’d just made it back to safety before the storm of bats surrounded the trailer, busting through vents and shaking the foundation. “Henderson went back first, an’ he was calling my name. Everything in me was screaming to climb the rope, get myself back to the real Hawkins.” He’s sobbing, and you have to lean in closer just to understand what he’s trying to say. “But I cut the rope and I went back.”

“To the Upside Down?” you interrupt, blinking back tears of your own.

Eddie nods. “Those little bat fuckers got me good. I thought I was gonna die, right there in that weird, fake Hawkins. But my friends dragged me out, got me to a hospital…and here I am,” he finishes, trying to muster up a smile.

“Here you are.”

“Scariest shit of my life,” Eddie says with a sigh. “But it landed me in the same hospital room as this really beautiful girl, so I guess something good came from it after all.”

His compliment brings a shy smile to your face, and your mind starts to remember all the laughs and conversations the two of you had in that room. A room, you assume, Max is still in.

“So, uh, is this all how Max went blind?” you ask.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, his eyes dropping down to your hand in his. He rubs his thumb along the back of your hand, taking care to avoid your IV line. “When Vecna targeted Max, she started levitating like Chrissy did. Her bones started to snap and her eyes started to bleed. When Vecna was torched, she was released. But the damage had been done. Lucas—her boyfriend, swears she died while they were waiting for an ambulance. And she was in a coma here for a little while.”

“She seems like a good friend. Loyal,” you say.

At that, a small smile curls on one side of Eddie’s face. “Yeah, Red’s a good kid.”

“When they brought you in,” you say, lacing your fingers with his. “What did they tell the doctors was wrong with you? It’s not like they could’ve come right out and said you were attacked by multidimensional bats.”

“Steve and Henderson were arguing the whole way here about what their story should be. In the end, it didn’t matter though. The hospital was so overwhelmed by patients that they just wanted to know what my injuries were and didn’t even ask how I got them.”

“This is all so insane,” you say with a shake of your head. Eddie’s brow pinches up and you’re quick to reassure him that you believe his story. “Eddie, what you had to go through was insane. The fact that there’s this whole other dimension existing alongside ours. Why is this shit happening in Hawkins of all places? Land of the boring doesn’t seem like the type of place that evil creatures would want to strike. At least, not according to most of the monster or disaster movies I’ve seen—and there have been a lot.”

“Before Vecna became…well, Vecna. He was just some kid who lived in Hawkins. With weird as shit powers he used to kill part of his family,” Eddie says.

“That’s almost more morbid than the killer vines,” you say. “So, he chose to create a new dimension?”

“Not exactly. He was…banished there, more or less. By this badass little superpowered girl that all my friends know. I haven’t gotten to meet her yet, though. But she sent Creel there and he corrupted it to his liking, apparently.”

“Wait, did you say Creel?” you ask. “As in, The Creel House? Victor Creel?”

“His son, actually. Henry Creel. Henry is Vecna,” Eddie explains.

“Jesus,” you say, leaning back against your pillows. “I know this whole thing is all pretty unbelievable…but do you know what part is bothering me the most?”

“The fact that there are worse creatures around here than regular old spiders?” Eddie teases, getting a giggle out of you.

“No,” you say. “Though that doesn’t thrill me either. It’s that the stupid people in this town would actually believe you’re capable of murder. And why? Because you like metal music? Because you play D&D? That’s such bullshit.”

Eddie can’t help but smile at your words. How could he ever have thought that you were like all those other assholes in this town? Well, he knows the answer to that, unfortunately. It was bound to happen over the years of bullying and abuse he endured, that now he’s just become paranoid that people are always fucking with him. Trusting people becomes a harder process, but falling for you is oh so easy.

There’s a gentle knock on the door and your mom sticks her head in. “Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all,” Eddie says, his politeness towards your mother ever more endearing now that he’s kissed you.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked,” your mom says as she sits down in the chair next to Eddie. She has a plastic container holding a sandwich in each hand. “I’ve got ham or turkey. Take your pick.”

“I’ll go with turkey,” Eddie says. Your mom hands him the sandwich and the two of them tuck into their food. You let your eyes roam around the room, which is smaller than the one you shared with Eddie—and then Max. Hopefully, you’ll get to move back into that room once you get a little strength back. But this room isn’t bad. It’s private, quiet, and you have a nice view out the window to your left. Dragging your eyes back across the room, they land on Eddie’s guitar laying next to his chair.

“So, you play guitar,” you say, staring at the instrument. “Electric and acoustic, I take it?”

Eddie nods as he finishes the bite of food in his mouth. “Mostly electric. Just got this bad boy yesterday, actually. But it’s pretty much the same. You can play one, you can play the other.”

“Do you play any other instruments?” you ask.

“Nah,” Eddie says. “I tried piano when I was younger, but the white keys…the black keys…too many to keep track of. What about you?”

“I was in band in middle school. Played the flute, but that was about it,” you say and your mom lets out a guffaw of laughter.

“I don’t know if I’d consider what you did ‘playing’ the flute, hun.” She leans in towards Eddie. “Those concerts were brutal.”

Eddie laughs and you feel your face warm up. “Thanks, Mom.”

The conversation lasts for another forty-five minutes before your Mom decides to head back home. She thanks Eddie for being there, enveloping him in a warm hug. It’s loving and maternal, and not frantic like when they were both anxiously awaiting your prognosis.

“So,” you say, peering at Eddie through your eyelashes, “is it my turn to tell you what happened to me?

He shakes his head. “Another time,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your forehead. His lips are soft and kind, and you never want him to break contact. “I had something more fun in mind for the rest of our afternoon.”

Your cheeks flame, and you press your lips together shyly. “Um, I don’t think I can do that for a little while,” you whisper.

Eddie’s eyes widen. “No, shit, that’s not what I meant. I mean, eventually, hell yeah, but not right after you rose from the dead.” He crosses his arms over his chest and gives a dramatic pout. “D’you really think I’d try to get in your pants now?”

You shrug. “I dunno. Maybe you have, like, a coma fetish.”

He wrinkles up his nose as he stares down at you. “Is that a thing? Never mind, I don’t want to know.” He scoots on the edge of your hospital bed and proudly announces, “I’m taking you on a date.”

“Eddie, I can’t leave the hospital,” you say, gesturing to the litany of wires you’re hooked up to. “Not sure if they’ll even let me leave my room.”

“Only one way to find out,” Eddie says. He gives you a mischievous smile as he stands from your bed and strolls out of the room. You try to situate yourself so you’re able to see out the door, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever Eddie is up to. A few minutes later, he steps back inside, pushing a wheelchair in front of him. Raising his eyebrows, his eyes dart from you, down to the chair, to you again, as if saying impressive, huh?

“Whatcha got there, Eds? We going somewhere?” you ask.

“On our date, m’lady. You’re cleared to go downstairs.”

“What’s downstairs?”

“You’re just full of questions today, aren’t you?” Eddie asks as he parks the wheelchair next to your bed. “Let me ask you one. Do you like coffee?”

“I’m a college student,” you say. “I need it to live.”

“Well, Miss College, would you accompany me to the cafeteria for a coffee date?” Eddie bows at the waist, offering one of his hands to you and the other rests against his back. “I may also buy you a cookie.”

“Spoiling me, I see. I would be more than happy to go on this date with you.” You push the blanket off your legs and move to sit on the edge of the bed. Before you go to step off the bed, a frown comes to your face.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asks, standing up straight again.

“I feel a little weird about leaving my room in just my hospital gown,” you admit, face heating up.

“Not a problem.” Eddie shucks his leather jacket off and holds it out in front of him. The smile that lights up your face is involuntary at his sweet gesture.

You stand up and reach behind you to keep your gown closed. “No free show,” you tease him with a smirk.

Eddie chuckles and lays the jacket over your shoulders. “I mean, I am paying for your coffee…” He lets out a yelp as you playfully swat at him with your free hand. He helps you get seated in the chair and once you’re comfortable, you slip your arms into the sleeves. The scent of Eddie surrounds you as you're enveloped in his jacket. It feels soft against your skin and you just want to snuggle up in it.

He unlocks the wheelchair brakes and gently begins pushing you out the door, carefully navigating the frame so he doesn’t bump you. “Never thought I’d see the day that I was a responsible driver,” he quips, and you giggle. “Now, how do we get to the cafeteria?”

You crane your neck to look up at him. “How am I supposed to know? I didn’t exactly ask for a tour when they carried me in on a stretcher.”

“Ooh, feisty,” Eddie teases, continuing down the hallway until he finds a map of the hospital. His eyes scan the figure until they land on his destination. “Aha! Looks like we have to turn right at the end of this hall, then take the elevator down to the first floor, and it’ll be on the left.”

“Onwards!” you command, and Eddie gives a little salute as he brings you to the elevator.

You reach the cafeteria, and he wheels you over to a table. “How do you take your coffee?” When you give him your order, he repeats it over and over again.

“If you forget, just call out and ask me,” you reassure him, but he shakes his head.

“Wayne told me once that you should always know how your girl takes her coffee,” he explains. “‘S like one of the Ten Commandments or something.”

A grin spreads across your face. “Your girl?”

“Y-Yeah, if you want?” he stammers, shoving his hands in his back pockets and rocking back and forth.

You crook your finger, beckoning him down to your level, and you kiss him passionately. He relaxes into you, deepening it and parting your lips with his own. “Yeah, I want,” you say softly, twirling a strand of his hair around your forefinger.

As he walks towards the carafes of lukewarm coffee, you admire him. Your boyfriend. He claims that revealing what happened to you won’t make him like you any less, but you have a niggling feeling that it might. He only knows you as Sunshine, and the one time you showed any emotion other than optimism, he left without a word. What if he decides that it’s too much? That you’re too much?

Maybe he’s better off without you and your baggage dragging him down. As if he can sense you getting in your own head, Eddie slides your coffee in front of you and plops down in the seat next to yours.

“My girlfriend gets the cutest little crease right between her eyebrows when she’s thinking too hard,” Eddie says.

“Sorry,” you say with a sheepish smile. You take a sip of your coffee and let out a hum of approval. “Perfect.”

“No overthinking on our first date. Wait for the third or fourth for that.”

“Sounds fair,” you acquiesce.

Eddie looks at you before taking a sip of his own coffee. “You know you don’t have to hide anything from me, right? I don’t run away. Not anymore.” He reaches out and strokes the back of your hand with his thumb, bringing it to his lips for a kiss.

You swallow your nerves, forcing yourself to meet his gaze. “Okay,” you agree slowly. “Okay. I’ll tell you.”

taglist: @thebrookemunson, @mystars123, @h-ness1944, @hazydespair, @ajkamins, @aysheashea, @jasminelafleur, @brittney69, @arsonfrogger, @brassreign, @lunarzstarz, @aftermidnightwriting, @justtryingtobecreative, @micheledawn1975, @kailynn-exe @afunkyfreshblog @fangirling-4-ever @crimsonsabbath @babyexpertlampskeleton @whenshelanded @ches-86 @acmbooksfilmtelevisionandreads

#albl #eddie munson fluff #eddie x reader #eddie x you #eddie munson #eddie stranger things #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #fanfic #eddie munson stranger things #stranger things

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int-writersmind · 5 months

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Songbird & Spider

Peter Parker x f!Reader

You're Peter Parker's neighbor, an aspiring songwriter who can't help but play your work-in progresses out loud, and Peter can't help but overhear.

Word Count: 1.3k

Fluff

The first thing Peter remembered about you was that song you played outside your window one early morning. You were sitting on the windowsill, one leg inside your apartment the other resting on the fire escape. Your eyes were closed as you strummed along to a jazzy little tune on your guitar, half singing the words, half mumbling along. Peter was coming home from a late night patrolling the city, he was going to go through his window since it was still so early, but settle for the roof so as to not disturb your singing.

The two of you almost stumble into one another when you exit your apartment and as he enters his, damn New York City apartments and its tight hallways.

“Late night?” You say.

Peter shrugs and says, “Early Morning?”

“Yeah, I picked up an opening shift.” You turn and lock your door, giving a quick goodbye. “See ya.”

Peter watches you as you hurry down the stairs.

Later that day, after a few hours of sleep, Peter decides to take to the skies of the city as Spider-Man, just swinging by and keeping an eye on things. Unknowingly he passed by the little diner you worked at in the morning. He only knew since he ran into you one day when coming back home, you in your bright diner outfit you tried to hide with your jacket. He couldn’t help but hang back for a minute, seeing you inside. Watching you attend some tables, a smile on your face as you held a serving tray with multiple plates. You had a natural aura that made people drawn to you. You liked the attention, but not in a self-centered kind of way, but in the way that showed that you were meant to be a performer.

Another day, when Peter was catching up with his dirty dishes, he heard you from the other side of the apartment’s thin walls. You were stomping your way, mostly likely back from a long shift, since the sun was currently going down. Peter couldn’t help but open his window as he had a feeling that’s where he’ll find you.

And there you were, still in uniform, sitting on the fire escape, guitar in hand, book off to the side. “Trying to catch a sneak peek?” You say, eyes still closed.

Busted for his peering, Peter just nervously glances around before just resolving to the situation and steadying himself on the fire escape. “Just getting some air.”

“Hmm, sure” You smile at him, peeking with one eye before going back to strumming. “Had an idea on the way back from work, I didn't want to forget.”

“I’ll leave if you want, you know, if you want to be alone.” Peter stumbles out.

“What kind of performer would I be if I shooed off an audience,” You stop playing for a moment to write something in your notebook.”Even an audience of one.”

“Now I feel kind of special.”

You smile back at him, before readjusting your guitar and clearing your throat. “Can I play you something?”

“Uh…I’d be honored”

You nod before you strum the guitar, playing a few chords that reminded Peter of a jazzy type of beat. When the words came, your voice was low, rich and just a tad husky, dragging some notes to the melody of the song.

Peter was starting to get into the music when suddenly you stopped short. “That’s all I got so far, I’m sure the rest will come. Thanks for listening.”

“Anytime.”

You check your watch, silently cursing to yourself before turning back to Peter, “Anytime huh? Well I play at the club around the corner from here most nights. Maybe I’ll see ya.”

You go back inside your apartment, leaving Peter alone with an open invitation and his thoughts.

Peter did visit the club, kinda, except from the outside and not as Peter Parker. It was about a week later, he came around after a run in with the Shocker left him itching for something less jolt-y. But there you were inside the club, he made your voice out from the open windows and door. He recognized some of the songs that you played, many jazzy interpretations of modern pop songs. Unknowingly, he had stayed for your whole set as he watched you walk out of the club's door by yourself, guitar case strapped to your back.

He kept an eye on you, promising himself that he’ll only see you home. He swung from building to building, making sure you didn’t leave his sights. There were a couple of run-ins that he thought might escalate into something, like bumping into the shoulder of a partially grumpy passerby or a group of shady individuals that gave you a second glance. But none of that phased you, you weren’t delusion or even naive. You were confident and that confidence radiated off of you that signaled to others that you weren’t just anybody to mess with.

As soon as you made it to the apartment building, Peter decided that you were safe enough to not have some spandex wearing hero watching over you, even if that was a gross oversimplification of the materials of his suit.

It was until a few hours later, with the sun starting to pierce the sky, Peter decided to return back home. He landed on the far side of the apartment’s roof, on the other side of the door that led to the actual apartments themselves. As he was changing back into more Peter appropriate clothing when he noticed a familiar tune. The same tune he heard that early, rainy morning, the same tune as the day you caught him listening. He peered around, trying his best to not to alert you of his presence, leaning against the outside door to hear the song to completion.

The song was a mix between something jazzy and something folky, for lack of better words. It seemed to be a story of a stranger who has strange hours and does strange activities. The stranger helped those who needed it without asking for anything in return. The stranger was known to all but no one knew the stranger, not truly it seemed. It ended on a mystery, with you no longer singing and just carrying on the instrumental from the verses.

“Just as good as last time.” You say out loud.

Peter was perplexed, “How did you-”

“I’m a musician,” You simply state. “I have great ears. And you’re not as quiet as you think you are.”

You turn around, still continuing to play, as Peter asks, “So, who’s the Stranger in the song?”

“Hmm,” You think it over, “A neighbor of mine.”

“Do I know them?”

“I think the two of you are well acquainted.”

“Really?” Peter tries to rack his mind, who could this neighbor be?

“This neighbor of ours…it is actually quite famous. Locally famous, but I think news travels far.”

“Huh…I think I’m stumped.” You turn around in a lazy circle, slowing down your playing, but not stopping. “This neighbor likes to frequent the roof but sometimes, when he thinks everyone's asleep or no one’s watching, likes to go through windows.”

Peter tries, and fails, to hide his stunned look. “Ummm, I–”

“The apartment has dreadfully thin walls,” You walk closer to Peter, dipping your head close to his, “And our fire escapes are awfully close to each other. But don't worry stranger, your secret is safe with me.”

You give the guitar one sharp little strum before moving it away from your body. You lean against the edge of the roof, glancing over at the city surrounding you.

“So will this stranger make any more appearances in your songs?

“I say so,” You grin, “He’s much too interesting, but I would prefer to get to know him a little more.”

“Do you?” Peter moves in close to you, placing his hands on the edge of the roof, staring at you as you bring your attention back to him.

“Why don’t you come back to my apartment so I can play you some more songs, over a couple of drinks?”

Thanks for reading, comment if you like, it would be greatly appreciated and look out for Part 1 of my Christmas Peter Parker x Reader series starting this Sunday! Bye

masterlist

#peter parker fluff #peter parker imagine #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x reader #peter parker one shot #spider man #spider-man fluff #spiderman fluff #spider man fluff #peter parker

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canmom · 7 months

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Music theory notes (for science bitches) - part 2: pentatonics and friends

or, the West ain't all that.

Hello again everyone! I'm grateful for the warm reception to the first music theory notes post (aka 'what is music? from first principles'). If you haven't read it, take a look~

In that stab at a first step towards 'what is music', I tried to distinguish between what's a relatively universal mathematical structure (nearly all musical systems have the octave) and what's an arbitrary convention. But in the end I did consciously limit myself, and make a beeline for the widely used 12TET tuning system and the diatonic scales used in Western music. I wanted to avoid overwhelming myself, and... 👻 it's all around us...👻

But! But but but. This is a series on music theory. Not just one music theory. The whole damn thing. I think I'm doing a huge disservice to everyone, not least me, if that's where we stop.

Today, then! For our second installation: 'Music theory notes (for science bitches)' will take a quick look through some examples that diverge from the diatonic scale: the erhu, Japanese pentatonic scales, gamelan, klezmer, and blues.

Also since the first part was quite abstract, we'll also having a go at using the tools we've built so far on a specific piece, the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura.

Sound fun? Let's fucking gooooo

The story so far

To recap: in the first post we started by saying we're gonna be looking at tonal music, which isn't the only type of music. We introduced the idea of notes and frequencies by invoking the magic name of Fourier.

We said music can be approximated (for now) as an idealised pressure wave, which we can divide into brief windows called 'notes', and these notes are usually made of a strong sine wave at the 'fundamental frequency', plus a stack of further sine waves at integer multiples of that frequency called 'overtones'.

Then, we started constructing a culturally specific but extremely widespread system of creating structure between notes, known as '12 Tone Equal Temperament' or 12TET. The main character of this story is the interval, which is the ratio between the fundamental frequencies of two notes; we talked about how small-integer ratios of frequencies tend to be especially 'consonant' or nice-sounding.

We introduced the idea of the 'octave', which is when two notes have a frequency ratio of 2. We established the convention treating notes an octave apart as deeply related, to the point that we give them the same name. We also brought in the 'fifth', the ratio of 1.5, and talked about the idea of constructing a scale using small-integer ratios.

But we argued that if you try and build everything with those small-integer ratios you can dig yourself into a hole where moving around the musical space is rife with complications.

As a solution to this, I pulled out 'equal temperament' as an approximation with a lot of mathematical simplicity. Using a special irrational ratio called the "semitone" as a building block, we could construct the Western system of scales and modes and chords and such, where

a 'scale' is kind of like a palette for a piece of music, defined by a set of frequency ratios relative to a 'root' or 'tonic' note. this can be abstract, as in 'the major scale', or concrete, as in 'C major'.

a 'mode' is a cyclic permutation of an abstract scale. although it may contain the same notes, moving them around can change the feeling a lot!

a 'chord' is playing multiple notes at the same time. 'Triad' chords can be constructed from scales. There are other types which add or remove stuff from the triads. We'll come back to this.

I also summarised how sheet music works and the rather arbitrary choices in its construction, and at the end, I very briefly talked about chord notation.

There's a lot of ways to do this...

I recently watched a video by jazz musician and music theory youtuber Adam Neely, in which he and Philip Ewell discuss how much "music theory" is treated as synonymous with a very specific music theory which Neely glosses as "the harmonic style of 18th-century European composers". He argues, pretty convincingly imo, that 'music theory' pedagogy is seriously weakened by not taking non-white/Western models, such as Indian classical music theories, as a foil - citing Anuja Kamat's channel on Indian classical music as a great example of how to do things differently. Here's her introductory playlist on Indian classical music concepts, which I will hopefully be able to lean on in future posts:

There's two big pitfalls I wanna avoid as I teach myself music theory. I like maths a lot, and if I can fit something into a mathematical structure it's much easier for me to remember it - but I gotta be really careful not to mathwash some very arbitrary conventions and present them as more universal than they are. Music involves a lot of mathematics, but you can't reduce it to maths. It's a language for expressing emotion, not a predicate to prove.

One of the big goals of this series is to get straight in my head what has a good answer to 'why this way?', and what is just 'idk it's the convention we use'. And if something is an arbitrary convention, we gotta ask, what other conventions exist? Humans are inventive little buggers after all.

I also don't want to limit my analytical toolbox to a single 'hammer' of Western music theory, and try and force everything else into that frame. The reasons I'm learning music theory are... 1. to make my playing and singing better, and be more comfortable improvising; 2. to learn to compose stuff, which is currently a great mystery. How do they do it? I do like Western classical music, but honestly? Most of the music I enjoy is actually not Western. I want to be able to approach that music on its own terms.

For example, the erhu... for erhuample???

The instrument family I'm learning, erhu/zhonghu, is remarkably versatile - there are no frets (or even a soundboard!) to guide you, which is both a challenge and a huge freedom. You can absolutely play 12TET music on it, and it has a very beautiful sound - here is an erhu harmonising with a 12TET-tuned piano to play a song from the Princess Mononoke soundtrack, originally composed by Joe Hisaishi as an orchestral piece for the usual Western instruments...

youtube

This performance already makes heavy use of a technique called (in English) 'vibrato', where you oscillate the pitch around as you play the note (which means the whole construction that 'a note has a fixed pitch defined by a ratio' is actually an abstraction - now a note's 'frequency' represents the middle point a small range of pitches!). Vibrato is very common in Western music too, though the way you do it on an erhu and the way you do it on a violin or flute are of course a little different. (We could do an aside on Fourier analysis of vibrato here but I think that's another day's subject).

But if you listen to Chinese compositions specifically for Erhu, they take advantage of the lack of fixed pitch to zip up and down like crazy. Take the popular song Horse Racing for example, composed in the 1960s, which seems to be the closest thing to the 'iconic' erhu piece...

youtube

This can be notated in 12TET sheet music. But it's also taking full advantage of some of the unique qualities of the erhu's long string and lack of frets, like its ability to glide up and down notes, playing the full range of 'in between' frequencies on one string. The sheet music I linked there also has a notation style called 简谱 jiǎnpǔ which assigns numbers to notes. It's not so very different from Western sheet music, since it's still based on the diatonic major scale, but it's adjusted relative to the scale you're currently playing instead of always using C major. Erhu music very often includes very fast trills and a really skilled erhu/zhonghu player can jump between octaves with a level of confidence I find hard to comprehend.

I could spend this whole post putting erhu videos but let me just put one of the zhonghu specifically, which is a slightly deeper instrument; in Western terms the zhonghu (tuned to G and D) is the viola to the erhu's violin (tuned to D and A)...

youtube

To a certain degree, Chinese music is relatively easy to map across to the Western 12-tone chromatic scale. For example, the 十二律 shí'èr lǜ system uses essentially the same frequency ratios as the Pythagorean system. However, Chinese music generally makes much heavier use of pentatonic scales than Western music, and does not by default use equal temperament, instead using its own system of rational frequency ratios. correction: with the advent of Chinese orchestras in the mid-20thC, it seems that Chinese instruments now usually are tuned in equal temperament.

I would like my understanding of music theory to have a 'first class' understanding of Chinese compositions like Horse Racing (and also to have a larger reference pool lmao). I'm going to be starting formal erhu lessons next month, with a curriculum mostly focused on Chinese music. If I have interesting things to report back I'll be sure to share them!

Anyway, in a similar spirit, this post we're gonna try and do a brief survey of various musical constructs relevant to e.g. Japanese music, Klezmer, Blues, Indian classical music... I have to emphasise I am not an expert in any of these systems, so I can't promise to have the most elegant form of presentation for them, just the handles I've been able to get. I will be using Western music theory terms quite a bit still, to try and draw out the parallels and connections. But I hope it's going to be interesting all the same.

Let's start with... pentatonic scales!

Pentatonic scales

In the previous post we focused most of our attention on the diatonic scale. Confusingly, a "diatonic" scale is actually a type of heptatonic scale, meaning there are 7 notes inside an octave. As we've seen, the diatonic scale is constructed on top of the 12-semitone system.

Strictly defined, a 'diatonic' scale has five intervals of two semitones and two intervals of one semitone, and the one-semitone intervals are spread out as much as possible. So 'diatonic scales' includes the major scale and all its cyclic permutations (aka 'modes'), including the natural minor scale, but not the other two minor scales we talked about last time!

However, whoever said we should pick exactly 7 notes in the octave? That's rather arbitrary, isn't it?

After all, in illustration, a more restricted palette can often lead to a much more visually striking image. The same is perhaps even more true in music!

A pentatonic scale is, as the name suggests, a scale which has five notes in an octave. Due to all that stuff we discussed with small-number ratios, the pentatonic scales we are about to discuss can generally be mapped quite easily onto the 12-tone system. There's some reason for this - 12TET is designed to closely approximate the appealing small-number frequency ratios, so if another system uses the same frequency ratios, we can probably find a subset of 12TET that's a good match.

Of course, fitting 12TET doesn't mean it matches the diatonic scale, necessarily. Still, once you're on the 12 tone system, there's enough diatonic scales out there that you can often define a pentatonic scale in terms of a delta relative to one of the diatonic scale modes. Like, 'shift this degree down, delete that degree'.

Final caveat: I'm not sure if it's strictly correct to use equal temperament in all these examples, but all the sources I find define these scales using Western music notation, so we'll have to go with that.

Sakura, sakura and the yonanuki scale

Let's start with Japanese music. Here's the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura, which is one of the most iconic pieces of Japanese music¸ especially abroad:

youtube

This uses the in scale, also known as the sakura pentatonic scale, one of a few widely used pentatonic scales in Japanese folk music, along with the yo scale, insen scale and iwato scale... according to English-language sources.

Finding the actual Japanese was a bit difficult - so far as I can tell the Japanese wiki page for Sakura, Sakura never mentions the scale named after it! - but eventually I found a page for pentatonic scales, or 五音音階 goon onkai. So we can finally determine the kanji for this scale is 陰音階 in onkai or 陰旋法 in senpou. [Amusingly, the JP wiki article on pentatonic scales actually leads with... Scottish folk songs and gamelan before it goes into Japanese music.]

However, perhaps more pertinent is this page: ヨナ抜き音階 which introduces the terms yonanuki onkai and ニロ抜き音階 nironuki onkai. This can be glossed as 'leave out the fourth (yo) and seventh (na) scale' and 'leave out the second (ni) and sixth (ro) scale', describing two procedures to construct pentatonic scales from a diatonic scale.

Let's recap major and minor. Last time we defined them using semitone intervals from a root note (the one in brackets is the next octave):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) major: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12)

From here we can construct some pentatonic scales. Firstly, here are your yonanuki scales - the ones that delete the fourth and seventh:

major: 0, 2, 4, 7, 9, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12)

Starting on C for the major and A for the minor (the ones with the blank key signature), this is how you notate that in Western sheet music. As you can see, we have just deleted a couple of steps.

The first one is the 'standard' major pentatonic scale in Western music theory; it's also called the ryo scale in traditional Japanese music (呂旋法 ryosenpou). The second one is a mode (cyclic permutation) of a scale called 都節音階 miyakobushi, which is apparently equivalent to the in scale.

In terms of gaps between successive notes, these go:

major: 2, 2, 3, 2, 3 - very even minor: 2, 1, 4, 1, 4 - whoah, huge intervals!

The miyakobushi scale, for comparison, goes...

miyakobushi (absolute): 0, 1, 5, 7, 8, (12) miyakobushi (deltas): 1, 4, 2, 1, 4

JP wikipedia lists two different versions of the 陰旋法 (in scale), for ascending and descending. Starting on C, one goes C, D, Eb, G, A; the other goes C, D, Eb, G, Ab. Let's convert that into my preferred semitone interval notation:

in scale (absolute, asc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 9, (12) in scale (relative, asc): 2, 1, 4, 2, 3 in scale (absolute, desc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12) in scale (relative, desc): 2, 1, 4, 1, 4

So we see that the 'descending form' of the in scale matches the minor yonanuki scale, and it's a mode (cyclic permutation) of the miyakobushi scale.

We've talked a great deal about the names and construction of the different type of scales, but beyond the vague gesture to the standard associations of 'major upbeat, minor sad/mysterious' I don't think we've really looked at how a scale actually affects a piece of music.

So let's have a look at the semitone intervals in Sakura, Sakura in absolute terms from to the first note...

sakura, sakura, ya yoi no so ra-a wa 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; 0, 2, 3, 2, 0, 2-0, -4

and in relative terms between successive notes:

sa ku ra, sa ku ra, ya yo i no so ra-a wa 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -2, +2, +1, -1, -2, +2, -2, -4

If you listen to Sakura, Sakura, pay attention to the end of the first line - that wa suddenly drops down a huge distance (a major second - for some reason I miscalculated this and thought it was a tritone) and that's where it feels like damn, OK, this song is really cooking! It catches you by surprise. We can identify these intervals as belonging to the in/yoyanuki minor scale, and even starting on its root note.

Although its subject matter is actually pretty positive (hey, check it out guys, the cherry blossoms are falling!), Sakura, Sakura sounds mournful and mysterious. What makes it sound 'minor'? The first phrase doesn't actually tell you what key we're in, that jump of 2 semitones could happen in major or minor. But the second phrase, introduces the pattern of going up 2, then up 1, from the root note - that's the minor scale pattern. What takes it beyond just 'we're in minor'? That surprise tritone move down. According to the rough working model that 'dissonant notes create tension, consonant notes resolve it', this creates a ton of tension. This analysis is bunk, there isn't a tritone. It's a big jump but it's not that big a jump.

How does it eventually wrap up? The final phrase of Sakura, Sakura goes...

i za ya, i za ya, mi ni yu - u ka nn 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; -5, -4, 2, 0, -4, -5 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -5, +1, +4, -2, -4, -1

Here's my attempt to try and do a very basic tonal/interval analysis. We start out this phrase with the same notes as the opening bars, but abruptly diverge in bar 3, slowing down at the same time, which provides a hint that things are about to come to a close. The move of -5 down is a perfect fourth; in contrast to the tritone major second we had before, this is considered a very consonant interval. (A perfect fourth down is also equivalent to going up a fifth and then down an octave. So we're 'ending on the fifth'.) We move up a little and down insteps of 4, 2, and 1, which are less dramatic. Then we come back down and end on the fifth. We still have those 4-steps next to 1 steps which is the big flag that says 'whoah we're in the sakura pentatonic scale', but we're bleeding off some of the tension here.

Linguistically, the song also ends on the mora ん, the only mora that is only a consonant (rather than a vowel or consonant-vowel), and that long drawn-out voiced consonant gives a feeling of gradually trailing away. So you could call it a very 'soft' ending.

Is this 'tension + resolution' model how a Japanese music theorist would analyse this song? It seems to be a reasonably effective model when applied to Japanese music by... various music theorist youtubers, but I don't really know! That's something I want to find out more about.

Something raised on the English wiki is the idea that the miyakobushi scale is divided into two groups, spanning a fourth each, which is apparently summarised by someone called Koizumi Fumio in a book written in 1974:

Each group goes up 1 (a semitone or minor second), then 4 (major third), for a total of 5 (perfect fourth). The edges of these little blocks are considered 'nucleus' notes, and they're of special importance.

Can we see this in action if we look at Sakura, Sakura? ...ehhhh. I admit, the way I think of the song is shaped by the way I play it on the zhonghu; I think of the first two two-bar phrases as the 'upper part' and the third phrase as the 'lower part', and neither lines up neatly with these little groups. Still. I suspect Koizumi Fumio, author of Nihon no ongaku, knows a little more about this than I do, so I figure it's worth a mention.

Aside: on absorbing a song

Sakura, Sakura is kinda special to me because it's like the second piece I learned to play on zhonghu (after Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star lmao). I can't play it well, but I am proud that I have learned to play it at least recognisably.

The process of learning to play it involved writing out tabs and trying out different ways of moving my hand. I transcribed Sakura Sakura down to start on F, since that way the open G string of the zhonghu could be the lowest note of the piece, and worked out a tab for it using a tab system I cooked up with my friend. Here's what it looks like. The system counts semitones up from the open string, and it uses an underline to mark the lower string.

(Also, credit where it's due - I would never have made any progress learning about music if not for my friend Maki Yamazaki, a prodigiously multitalented self-taught musician who can play dozens of instruments, and also the person who sold me her old zhonghu for dirt cheap, if you're wondering why a white British girl might be learning such an unusual instrument. You can and should check our her music here! Maki has done more than absolutely anyone to make music comprehensible to me, and a lot of this post is inspired by discussing the previous post with her.)

When you want to make a song playable on an instrument, you have to perform some interpretation. Which fingers should play which notes? When should you move your hand? How do you make sure you hit the right notes? At some point this kind of movement becomes second nature, but I'm at the stage, just like a player encountering a new genre of videogame, where I still don't have the muscle memory or habituation to how things work, and each of these little details has to be worked out one by one. But this is great, because this process makes me way more intimately familiar with the contours of the song. Trying to analyse the moves it makes like the above even more so.

More Japanese scales

So, to sum up what we've observed, the beautiful minor sounds of Sakura Sakura come from a pentatonic scale which can be constructed by taking the diatonic scale and blasting certain notes into the sea, namely the fourth and the seventh of the scale. But what about the nironuki scale? Well, this time we delete the second and the sixth. So we get, in absolute terms:

major nironuki (abs): 0, 4, 5, 7, 11, (12) major nironuki (rel): 4, 1, 2, 4, 1 minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Hold on a minute, doesn't that look rather familiar? The major nironuki scale is a permutation, though not a cyclic permutation, of the minor yonanuki scale. And the minor nironuki scale is a cyclic permutation (mode) of the major one.

Nevertheless, these scales have names and significance of their own. The major one is known as the 琉球音階 ryūkyū onkai or Okinawan scale. The minor one is what Western music would call a 'minor pentatonic scale'. It also mentions a couple of other names for it, like the 民謡音階 minyou onkai (folk scale).

We also have the yō scale, which like the in scale, comes in ascending and descending forms. You want these too? Yeah? Ok, here we go.

yō scale (asc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 10, (12) yō scale (asc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 3, 2 yō scale (desc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 9, (12) yō scale (desc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 2, 3

The yō scale is what's called an anhemitonic pentatonic scale, which is just a fancy way of saying it doesn't have semitones. (The in scale in turn is hemitonic). The ascending form is also called the 律戦法 ritsusenpou. Here's the complete table of all the variants I've found so far.

So, in summary: Japanese music uses a lot of pentatonic scales. (In a future post we can hopefully see how that applies in modern Japanese music). These pentatonic scales can be constructed by deleting two notes from the diatonic scales. In general, you land in one of two zones: the anhemitonic side, where all the intervals between successive notes, are 2 and 3, and the hemitonic side, where the intervals are spicier 1s and 4s and a lone 2. From there, you can move between other pentatonic scales by cyclic permutations and reversal.

If you analyse Japanese music from a Western lens, you might well end up interpreting it according to one of the modes of the major scale. In fact, the 8-bit music theory video I posted last time takes this approach. This isn't wrong per se, it's a viable way to getting insight into how the tune works if you want to ask the question 'how does this conjure emotions and how do I get the same effects', but it's worthwhile to know what analytical frame the composers are likely to be using.

Gamelan - when 12TET won't cut it

Gamelan is a form of Indonesian ensemble music. I do not at this time know a ton about it, but here's a performance:

youtube

However, if you're reading my blog then it's likely that if know gamelan from anywhere, it's most likely the soundtrack to Akira composed by Shōji Yamashiro.

youtube

This blends traditional gamelan instrumentation and voices with modern synths to create an incredibly bold and (for most viewers outside Indonesia!) unfamiliar sound to accompany the film's themes of psychic awakening and evolution. It was an inspired choice, adding a lot to an already great film.

'A gamelan' is the ensemble; 'gamelan' is also the style of music. There are many different types of gamelan associated with different occasions - some gamelans are only allowed to form for special ceremonies. Gamelan is also used as a soundtrack in accompaniment to other art forms, such as wayang kulit and wayang wong (respectively, shadow puppetry and dance).

Since gamelan music evidently uses quite a bit of percussion, and so far we've been focused on the type of music played on strings and wind instruments - a brief comment on the limitations of our abstractions. Many types of drums don't fit the 'tonal music' frame we've outlined so far, creating a broad frequency spectrum that's close to an enveloped burst of white noise rather than a sharply peaked fundamental + overtones. There's a ton to study in drumming, and if this series continues you bet I'll try to understand it.

But there are tonal percussion instruments, and a lot of them are to be found in gamelan, particularly in the metalophone family (e.g. the ugal or jegogan). The Western 'xylophone' and 'glockenspiel' also belong to this family. Besides metalophones, you've got bells, steel drums, tuning forks etc. Tuning a percussion instrument is a matter of adjusting the shape of the metal to adjust the resonant frequency of its normal modes. I imagine it's really fiddly.

In any case, the profile of a percussion note is quite different from the continual impulse provided by e.g. a violin bow. You get a big burst across all frequencies and then everything but the resonant mode dies out, leaving the ringing with a much simpler spectrum.

Anyway, let's get on to scales and shit. While I have the Japanese wikipedia page on pentatonic scales open, that it mentions a gamelan scale called pelog (written ᮕᮦᮜᮧᮌ᮪, ꦥꦺꦭꦺꦴꦒ꧀ or ᬧᬾᬮᭀᬕ᭄ in different languages) meaning 'beautiful'. Pelog is not strictly one scale, but a family of tunings which vary across Indonesia. Depending on who you ask, it might in some cases be reasonably close to a 9-tone equal temperament (9TET), which means a number of notes can't be represented in 12TET - you have that 4 12TET semitones would be equivalent to 3 9TET semitones. From this is drawn a heptatonic scale, but not one that can be mapped exactly to any 12TET heptatonic scale. Isn't that fun!

To represent scales that don't exactly fit the tuning of 12TET, there's a logarithmic unit of measure called the 'cent'. Each 12TET semitone contains 100 cents, so in terms of ratios, a cent is the the 1200th root of 2. In this system, a 9TET semitone is 133 cents. Some steps in the pelog heptatonic scale would then be two 9TET semitones, and others one 9TET semitone. However, this system of 'semitones' does not seem to be how gamelan music is actually notated - it's assumed you already have an established pelog tuning and can play within that. So it's a little difficult for me to give you a decent representation of a gamelan scale that isn't approximated by 12TET.

From the 7-tone pelog scale, whatever it happens to be where you live, you can further derive pentatonic scales. These have various names, like the pelog selisir used in the gamelan gong kebyar. I'm not going to itemise them here both because I haven't actually been able to find the basic pelog tunings (at least by their 9TET approximation).

Another scale used in gamelan is called slendro, a five tone scale of 'very roughly' equal intervals. Five is coprime with 12, so there's no straightforward mapping of any part of this scale to the 12-tone system. But more than that, fully even scales are quite rare in the places we've looked so far. (Though apparently within slendro, you can play a note that's deliberately 'out of place', called 'miring'. This transforms the mood from 'light, cheerful and busy' to one appropriate to scenes of 'homesickness, love missing, sadness, death, languishing'.)

The Western musical notation system is plainly unsuited for gamelan, and naturally it has its own system - or rather several systems. In one method, the seven tones of the pelog are numbered 1 through 7, and a subset of those numbers are used to enumerate slendro tuning. You can write it on a grid similar to a musical staff.

But we could wonder with this research - is the attempt to map pélog to 'equal temperament' an external imposition? Presented with a tuning system with seven intervals that are not consistently equal temperament, averaging them to construct an equal temperament hypothesis on that basis, and finally attempting to prove that gamelan players 'prefer' equal temperament... well, they do at least bother to ask, but I'm not entirely convinced that 9TET or 5TET is the right model. Unfortunately, most of the literature I'm able to find on gamelan music theory with a cursory search is by Western researchers.

There's a fairly long history of Western composers taking inspiration from gamelan, notably Debussy and Saty. And of course, modern Indonesian composers such as I Nyoman Windha have also been finding ways to combine gamelan with Western styles. Here's a piece composed by him (unfortunately not a splendid recording):

youtube

Klezmer - layer 'em up

If you've known me for long enough you might remember the time I had a huge Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird phase. (I still think he's great, I just did that thing where I obsessively listen to one small set of things for a period). And I'd also listen to old revolutionary songs in Yiddish all the time. Because of course I did lmao. Anyway, here's a song that combines both: Kahn's modern arrangement of Arbetlose Marsch in English and Yiddish:

youtube

That's a style of music called klezmer, developed by Ashkenazi Jews in Central/Eastern Europe starting in the late 1500s and 1600s. It's a blend of a whole bunch of different traditions, combining elements from Jewish religious music with other neighbouring folk music traditions and European music at large. When things really kicked off at the end of the 19th century, klezmer musicians were often a part of the Jewish socialist movement (and came up with some real bangers - the Tsar may have been shot by the Bolsheviks but tbh, Daloy Politsey already killed him). But equally there's a reason it sounds insanely danceable: it was very often used for dances.

The rest of the 20th century happened, but klezmer survived all the genocides and there are lots of different modern klezmer bands.

The defining characteristics of klezmer per Wikipedia are... ok, this is quite long...

Klezmer musicians apply the overall style to available specific techniques on each melodic instrument. They incorporate and elaborate the vocal melodies of Jewish religious practice, including khazones, davenen, and paraliturgical song, extending the range of human voice into the musical expression possible on instruments.[21] Among those stylistic elements that are considered typically "Jewish" in Klezmer music are those which are shared with cantorial or Hasidic vocal ornaments, including dreydlekh ("tear in the voice"; plural of dreidel)[22][23] and imitations of sighing or laughing ("laughter through tears").[24] Various Yiddish terms were used for these vocal-like ornaments such as קרעכץ (Krekhts, "groan" or "moan"), קנײטש (kneytsh, "wrinkle" or "fold"), and קװעטש (kvetsh, "pressure" or "stress").[10] Other ornaments such as trills, grace notes, appoggiaturas, glitshn (glissandos), tshoks (a kind of bent notes of cackle-like sound), flageolets (string harmonics),[22][25]pedal notes, mordents, slides and typical Klezmer cadences are also important to the style.[18]

So evidently klezmer will be relevant throughout this series, but for now, since we're trying to flesh out the picture of 'how is tuning formed', let's take a look at the notes.

So it's absolutely possible to fit klezmer into the 12TET system. But we're going to need to crack open a few new scales. Though the Wikipedia editors enumerating this list caution us: "Another problem in listing these terms as simple eight-note (octatonic) scales is that it makes it harder to see how Klezmer melodic structures can work as five-note pentachords, how parts of different modes typically interact, and what the cultural significance of a given mode might be in a traditional Klezmer context."

With that caution in mind, let's at least see what we're given. First of all we have the Freygish or Ahavoh Rabboh scale, one of the most common pieces, good friend of the Western phrygian but with an extra semitone. Then there's Mi Sbererakh or Av HaRachamim which is a mode of it, that's popular around Ukraine. Adonoy Molokh or Adoyshem Molokh is the major scale but you drop the seventh a semitone. Mogen Ovos is the same as the natural minor at least on the interval level.

Which means, without the jargon, here are the semitones (wow wouldn't it be nice if you had tables on here?):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) freygish: 0, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2 mi sberakh: 0, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 3, 2, 2, 1, 2 adonoy m.: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2 mogen o.: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2

...that's a big block of numbers to make your eyes glaze over huh. Maybe this 'convert everything to semitone deltas' thing isn't all it's cracked up to be... or maybe what I need to do is actually visualise it somehow? Some kinda big old graph showing all the different scales we've worked out so far and how they relate to each other? ...hold your horses...

[It seems like what I've done is reinvent something called 'musical set theory', incidentally.]

OK, having enumerated these, let's return to the Wikipedian's caution. What is a pentachord? Pretty simple, it's a chord of five notes. Mind you, some people define it as five successive notes of a diatonic scale.

In klezmer, you've got a bunch of different instruments playing at once creating a really dense sound texture. Presumably one of the things you do when you play klezmer is try and get the different instruments in your ensemble to hit the different levels of that pentachord. How does that work? Well, if we consult the sources, we find this scan of a half-handwritten PDF presenting considerably more detail on the modes and how they're played. The scales above are combined with a 'motivic scheme' presenting different patterns that notes tend to follow, and a 'typical cadence'. Moreover, these modes can have 'sub-modes' which tend to follow when the main mode gets established.

To me reading this, I can kind of imagine the process of composing/improvisation within this system almost like a state machine. It's not just that you have a scale, you have a certain state you're in in the music (e.g. main mode or sub-mode), and a set of transitional moves you can potentially make for the next segment. That's probably too rigid a model though. There's also a more specific aspect discussed in the book that a klezmer musician needs to know how to move between their repertoire of klezmer pieces - what pieces can sensibly follow from what.

Ultimately, I don't want to give you a long list of stuff to memorise. (Sure, if you want to play klezmer, you probably need to get familiar with how to use these modes, but that's between you and your klezmer group). Rather I want to make sure we don't have any illusion that the Western church modes are the only correct way to compose music.

Blues - can anyone agree?

Blues is a style of music developed by Black musicians in the American south in the late 1800s, directly or indirectly massively influential on just about every genre to follow, but especially jazz. It's got a very characteristic style defined by among other elements use of 'blue notes' that don't fit the standard diatonic scale. According to various theorists, you can add the blue notes to a scale to construct something called the 'blues scale'. According to certain other theorists, this exercise is futile, and Blues techniques can't be reduced to a scale.

So for the last part of today's whirlwind tour of scales, let's take a brief look at the blues...

There are a few different blues scales. The most popular definition seems to be a hexatonic scale. We'll start with the minor pentatonic scale, or in Japanese, the minor nironuki scale - which is to say we take the minor diatonic scale and delete positions 2 and 6. That gives:

minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Now we need to add a new note, the 'flat fifth degree' of the original scale. In other words, 6 semitones above the root - the dreaded tritone!

hexatonic blues (abs): 0, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, (12) hexatonic blues (rel): 3, 2, 1, 1, 3, 2

Easy enough right? Listen to that, it does sound kinda blues-y. But hold your horses! Moments after defining this scale, we read...

A major feature of the blues scale is the use of blue notes—notes that are played or sung microtonally, at a slightly higher or lower pitch than standard.[5] However, since blue notes are considered alternative inflections, a blues scale may be considered to not fit the traditional definition of a scale.

So, if you want to play blues, it's not enough to mechanically play a specific scale in 12TET. You also gotta break the palette a little bit.

There's also a 'major blues' heptatonic scale which goes 0, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, according to one guy called Dan Greenblatt.

But that's not the only attempt to enumerate the 'blues scale'. Other authors will give you slightly longer scales. For example, if you ask Smallwood:

heptatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, (12) heptatonic blues (rel): 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2

which isn't quite a mode of any of those klezmer scales we saw previously, but nearly!

If you ask Benward and Saker, meanwhile, a Blues scale could actually be nonatonic scale, where you add flattened versions of a couple of notes to the major scale.

nonatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3/4, 5, 7, 9, 10/11, (12)

There's also an idea that you should play notes in between the semitones, i.e. quarter tones, which would be a freq ratio of the 24th root of 2 if you're keeping score at home.

The upshot of all this is probably that going too far formalise the blues is probably not in the spirit of the blues, but if you want to go in a blues-y direction it will probably mean insert an extra, flattened version of a note to one of your scales. Muck around and see what works, I guess!

Of course, there's a lot more to Blues than just tweaking a scale. For example, 'twelve bar blues' is a specific formalised chord progression that is especially universal in Jazz. What it means for chords to 'progress' is a whole subject, and I think that's the next thing I'll try to understand for post 3. Hopefully we'll be furnished with a slightly broader model of how music works as we go there though.

To wrap up, here's the spreadsheet showing all the 12TET scales encountered so far in this series in a visual way. There's obviously plenty more out there, but this is not ultimately a series about scales. It's all well and good to have a list of what exists, but it's pointless if we don't know how to use it.

Phew

Mind you even with all this, we haven't covered at all some of the most complex systems of tonal music - I've only made the vaguest gesture towards Indian classical music, Chinese music, Jazz... That's way beyond me at the moment. But maybe not forever.

Next up: I'm going to try and finally wrap my head around chords and make sense of what it means for them to 'progress', have 'movement' etc. And maybe render a bit more concrete the vague stuff I said about 'tension' and 'resolution'.

(Also: I definitely know I have friends on here who are very widely knowledgeable about music theory. If I've made any major mistakes, please let me know! At some point I hope to republish this series with nicer formatting on canmom.art, and it would be great to fix the bugs by then!)

#Youtube #music theory #music notes #music #notes #japanese music #gamelan #chinese music #klezmer #blues #i took my new adhd meds and hyperfocused on this all day instead of working ><

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live-love-be-unique · 7 months

Text

But It’s Home To Me

Summary: Eddie was meant to be the next metal god but things didn’t work out and he ended up a mechanic stuck in Hawkins, but with you by his side, that might not be such a bad thing.

This was inspired by a line from one of my favourite songs, Tomorrow by Shakey Graves, that just screamed Older Eddie to me:

Well, you love this heart and this six string, girl, oh

But they've been outta tune yeah for some time.

Parings: Older Eddie Munson x f reader

Warnings: none.

The dull ache that had started in his left shoulder as he drank his morning coffee had steadily traveled its way down into his lower back throughout the day and then, by the time he headed home it had reached his knees. I’m not old enough to have shitty knees, he thought, running a hand over his tired eyes, I’m only in my thirties.

As he drove home he remembers Wayne working the same long hours at the same garage, returning every night to the same trailer park the same ache in his bones and the bitterness returned as it always seemed to do lately, it was a sharp buzzing sound that filled his brain with a familiar doubt.

Eddie reached over and turned the radio up as Metallica filled the cabin of his old van, he could feel his grease covered fingers tapping out the familiar guitar chords. He still played of course as a way to keep connected to his dreams, and to make a little extra money on the side. Tutoring some of the kids in Hawkins was fun but not as fun as being on stage.

Corroded Coffin, his old band had traveled to Chicago to submit their demo tapes to a big music exec, who took their tapes and gave their music to another band without even giving them a chance. The band had broken up a few years later, he still kept in touch with the guys of course, getting together for regular jam sessions, they all had families of their own so those jam sessions were few and far between.

We could have been up there with the greats, the bitter thought invading his brain as the final notes of Enter Sandman die out. I should have put this shithole town in my rear view mirror years ago and never looked back.

He hadn’t though, he needed the money so Wayne had pulled some strings and gotten him some shifts at the garage and he never left. His shoulders felt heavy and the buzzing in his brain got louder as he pulled into the trailer park. Can’t even afford a proper house.

He’d met you on his first day, the world's prettiest receptionist he’d thought, he couldn’t even get the words out when you smiled at him at the end of his first day and asked how everything had gone.

He was smitten, so he went to Steve the next day for advice about how to ask you on a date. He tried to be smooth, he had a whole speech planned out, but when he saw you, he’d shyly stumbled out the words “would you want the movies…with me?” He cringes to this day at the memory. But you just smiled and accepted and that Friday night you were sharing popcorn as you watched Michael Myers disembowel teenagers, and later, when he dropped you off at your house he kissed you and asked you to be his.

You were his for two years, you were his own personal sunshine, he’d pick you up every morning and drive you home every night just to spend more time with you, you were never apart. Things were perfect, but that didn’t stop him from feeling guilty, like he was holding you back from something or someone better, someone like you deserved so much more than what he could offer, so he did what his father had done, he ran.

Fuck, Eddie thought, I was a fucking idiot, letting the best thing that ever happened to me slip through my fingers. He pulled into the driveway and turned off the ignition, he slumped down and leaned his head against the steering wheel, hands still tightly gripping the wheel.

His friends had told him that he was an idiot, he’d agreed of course, told him to get you back and somehow after six long months you had cautiously let him into your life again under the condition that he wouldn’t break your heart again. That was four years ago.

He looked up and glanced towards the kitchen window of his trailer and there you were, cooking dinner and swaying to some music. A soft smile graced his worn out features as he watched you sway along to the music playing.

Dropping his bag by the door as he entered your small trailer, chuckling a little at the familiar strains of your current favourite song playing softly. Eddie made his way to the kitchen. He watched you for a while as you cut up vegetables for dinner, you were wearing that little sundress he loved so much, god, he thought, you’re so gorgeous, he moved forward, wrapping his arms around your waist, he smiled as you jumped in surprise. Eddie pulled you tighter against his chest as his head dropped down to rest in the crook of your neck.

“Missed you baby” Eddie mumbled against your skin. He ran his hands over your swollen belly, your son would be here in a few short months.

You ran your nails along his arms eliciting goose bumps, the shine from the small diamond on your left hand catching his eye. He’d felt bad about not being able to afford anything more, but you didn’t care about that, he remembered fondly that you had squealed with joy when he proposed. You never complained about not having more, you always said you were happy with your life, with him.

Eddie stayed like that while you cooked, needing to feel your comfort. Whatever shitty things happened at work always evaporated whenever you were around.

“Daddy!” A tiny voice came from behind the two of you as your daughter padded into the kitchen in her little Snow White princess dress. Eddie turned and scooped up the tiny little girl with the same unruly dark curls and dark eyes as his.

“Hi pumpkin” he smiled as he shifted the little girl in his arms, holding her on his hip as she wrapped her tiny, chubby arms around his neck.

“I made you a picture” your little girl, Evie, proudly informed him, showing him the finger painting she’d made clutched in her tiny hands.

“You did?” Eddie asked, taking the paper and examining the drawing “I love it pumpkin!” he said, putting it on the fridge.

“Steve called, wants to have us over for a barbecue this Saturday” you mention, placing dinner on the small table. “I was thinking of making potato salad”.

Eddie places his daughter in her high chair and takes a plate from you, “it would be good to see everyone again”

He smiles as he watches you feeding your daughter, the feelings of comfort and warmth of his little family slowly replacing the bitterness he felt earlier.

“What?” You smile up at him and his heart skips a beat, the same as it did the first day you met.

“Nothing” he smiles, maybe not being a rock star isn’t so bad. It’s not much, but it’s home to me.

#eddie munson #eddie x reader #eddie imagine #eddie munson drabble #eddie munson x female oc #eddie munson imagine #older eddie munson #eddie munson x you

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oyesmendes · 2 years

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message in a bottle

a/n: sadness, anger, breakups; and words, lots of it. this was inspired by a couple of new songs i've heard, and you can find them in a playlist i linked below! as usual... comments and love are much appreciated <3

in which singer!y/n leaves five messages on her new album for her ex-boyfriend, charles leclerc.

masterlist here! | playlist here

"mate! did you see?" pierre opened the door to his best friend's apartment, eyes glued to the screen as he set the borrowed clothing items down.

charles looked up from the piano score to him, "see what?"

"razzo's new album, she just put it out last week." charles stared blankly at pierre. he hadn't heard your nickname on such a long time, it almost didn't register to his brain. but of course, how could the universe let him forget about you?

his razzo. his little sky rocket. the nickname you'd gotten from his grandma the first time you visited monaco. and it stuck ever since then.

"do you want to listen to it?" pierre asked.

charles felt like a deer caught in headlights. because he in fact, did really want to listen to the sound of your voice again, but will he ever admit to it?

"no- no, no. there isn't a need to."

"are you sure?" pierre asked again. charles nodded, distracting himself by arranging the score sheet that sat perfectly on the piano.

"okay, i'm just dropping these off. gotta go."

the door closes, and charles takes out his phone immediately, typing your name into the search bar on instagram. of course, you pop up almost instantly, and charles doesn't hesitate before clicking on your name.

his heart flutters when he sees the first picture on your feed. a picture of you smiling from ear to ear, champagne in your hand - classic album release picture;

thereal_y/n: more than a million streams in two days. you guys are unreal!

he reads the congratulatory messages in the comments, scrolling through all your mutual friends until he stops by one that catches his eye.

fans_ofy/n: tell me that cover isn't of monaco?

there's a flurry of other comments following it, and charles couldn't help but to continue scrolling through.

then he sees it in the next post.

the title of the EP - message in a bottle. it was in your handwriting, covering the center of a picture which made charles gasp. that picture. the one he was all too familiar with. the one you took using your film camera in the summer of 2019 - the sunset in monaco, with charles back view being the focal point of it all.

his heart nearly plummets to the ground.

this is why pierre asked if he wanted to listen.

now charles couldn't help but to click on the link in your bio, which led straight to the album on spotify. twenty tracks. ten of which were your voice notes.

he connects his phone to the bluetooth speakers, and pressed play.

go the distance -

"ahhh the opening of an ep. it has to be a banger, right?" you chuckle, "i wrote this a couple of years back when i was in a long distance relationship. It was tough, the both of us having to travel the world for our jobs, we hardly got to see each other."

charles had to hit pause, the sound of your voice too shocking to his system. he covers his mouth with his hand. you sounded so soft, so gentle, like the calm in the absolute chaos of the world. he pressed play.

"and even if we did, it was usually only for a couple of days. it was rough, being so far from the one you loved, but i knew that deep down it was always worth to hold on, because we were so good, and we had the chance of going the distance."

it goes silent for two seconds, before jumping to the tune he knew all too well.

deep down i know, we'll go the distance. charles knew every word to that song. the familiar melody echoing through his house all those years before. hell, he had that song even before it was put together like this. the raw vocals, the squeaking of guitar chords was all he could remember. the way you both slow danced in the kitchen to the stripped down version of it.

he knew the meaning behind every word, the story each line held. it felt like a cruel trip down memory lane, the silhouettes of you and him now floating around the apartment you once shared with him. it was your song with him - yknow the one that every couple has? yeah, this was it.

it wasn't long before the three minutes and forty seconds are up, and the song ends, allowing your voice to come through the speakers again.

heart won't let me -

"now this one," you sigh, "it's a complete switch of moods, a switch in timeline. go the distance was very much at the start of a relationship, when you think everything would work; but then comes heart won't let me, which shows how things don't work. how you're constantly arguing about the same things over and over again. how you struggle to work things out with your partner and you should probably leave but your heart doesn't allow you to."

charles heart squeezes at your words. it went back to you and him, standing in this very apartment, arguing about something he didn't remember -

"why the fuck are we doing this, charles?" you stand, back pressed against the counter top, your arms folded in front of you.

charles rubs his face with his hand, "i don't know! you're the one making a big fuss out of it."

"yeah because you promised to come to the show, charles! my parents, friends, they were all there, excited to see you again-"

"i had a bad race, y/n. forgive me if i didn't want to entertain your people." he said sarcastically.

"then maybe i should leave." you mutter. you grab your keys, one hand on the door, but charles grabs your arm, pulling you towards him. he closes the gap between the two of you, resting his head on top of yours, whispering softly,

"no, don't go."

tears now ran down his face, and he wipes them with the back of his hand. everytime i try, everytime i try to leave, my heart won't let me.

"fuck me," he pauses the song, grabbing a beer from the fridge that he shouldn't be drinking. he scrolls through the tracks, reading each one of the titles. but it doesn't give him much hints, or any form of preempt for his heart.

the next song plays.

what a time -

"what a time - this one has got to be my favourite. it literally came about with one chord and one phrase from me. ahaha, we were in the studio pretty soon after my breakup, and mikey just looked at me, asking why i looked so grim. he was playing a chord over and over again and i told him about my breakup, about everything."

"fuck." charles mutters, taking another swig from the bottle. he didn't know if he could take it. not hearing your voice for six months straight, and he's now listened to it for ten minutes.

"but yeah, this is about a night i had with someone. we were in belgium, it was literally in the middle of the night-" you laugh breathlessly, "we sat in a park and talked for hours upon hours about our future. and when i look back at it now i just think - what a time, yknow?"

"mmm, and i thought it would be good to have a male perspective of things; because breakups or relationships, they always involve two people, and i wanted to hear the other side, his side of things. that's how niall came into the picture. we wrote this, pretty much in twenty minutes? now i'm just rambling, haha- hope you guys like this one as much as i do."

charles holds on to the neck of the beer bottle so tightly that his knuckles turn white. i admit that i think about it sometimes. your voice start to turn into white noise.

you both sat on a park bench at 2AM in the morning, just after the belgium gp. charles head was in your lap, your hand massaging his scalp. the air was cool, and quiet; the perfect setting for the both of you.

"how many kids should we have?" charles asked.

"i want two, at least."

"a boy and a girl?" you nod.

"where should we raise them?"

"monaco." you stated simply. he sat up to face you, "not in the states? or france - where your parents are?"

"oh never in the states. i live there because of my job, and besides, france is literally a stones throw away from monaco- we can decide when the time comes, love." you smile, cuddling into his arms.

irrational anger bubbles in his chest - who was this niall? and who the fuck is he to give his perspective on a breakup that he wasn't even involved in? what a lie, what a lie. charles disconnected his phone from the speakers and put in his airpods.

he needed to get out of here before he drowned in painful memories.

when you lose someone -

the elevator ride down seemed to last a lot longer than he remembered.

"more sad ballads...i probably should put a warning on this thing."

"this is about losing someone that you love. well to be honest, it was meant for my grandma, the light of my life that i lost last year. but in between then and the million things happening, the song got morphed into losing the love of your life. and yeah- i, i think it speaks for itself."

your voice echoes in his brain now, fogging his mind. and he doesn't realise that pierre, his every loving best friend, was waiting downstairs. charles stops right in front of him, and the dejected look on his face tells pierre everything he needed to know.

"you listened to it?" pierre was stating the obvious. he knew charles would listen to it. he knew he didn't have the control to stop himself. he knew he still cared.

"i'm left with the last two." charles tells him.

"give me the keys."

"you're not driving my-"

"then we'll take my car," pierre readily unlocks the honda. charles didn't protest, climbing into the passengers seat.

he connects his phone to the speakers in the car, and the song plays while pierre drives into the night. It feels like a Ferrari racing. pierre hears the lyric, his eyes darting to his friend who's expression falters just slightly. he wants to press the radio button, but charles swats his hand away.

"maybe this was a bad idea." pierre mutters.

charles just looks out of the window, the skyline of monaco passing him, "just drive, please."

he had to listen to it all, he had to know how much he hurt you.

"maybe we should break up."

"excuse me?"

you had been arguing over the last ten minutes, over something so minuscule it was ridiculous. charles had had a bad race weekend, and you, well you had just lost your grandmother. the both of you in the worst frame of mind possible.

but you hadn't expected him to say those words.

"maybe i should leave." charles repeats. you frown, trying to close the gap between the both of you but he moves away. you knew the words were no longer an empty threat. they held weight; very heavy, heavy weight.

"why are you doing this, charles?"

"its for your sake, y/n." he couldn't even look you in the eye when he spoke.

"bullshit. don't put this on me when you stopped fighting for us. you stopped loving me."

"i love you, razzo."

"then why now? why after the funeral? why at my lowest, at my breaking point did you decide it was right to break up with me?!" you screamed so loud, charles was afraid the entire family was going to barge into the room.

"because i can't do this anymore, mon ange. but i promise-" he reaches to grab your hand, but you pull away quickly.

"get the fuck out of my sight."

charles takes a huge inhale, and pierre is at the verge of muting the radio. when you lose somebody you love. the hardest thing i've ever had to learn.

"charles-"

"pierre, please. just let me listen." but pierre hits the pause button on the speakers, stopping at a red light. he turns to his best friend.

"i have to tell you something." charles nods slowly, looking into his friend's eyes,

"she's in monaco."

time freezes for him. pierre doesn't have a choice but to turn back to the steering wheel and keep driving when the light changes. he sat in silence, unable to play the last voice note, the last song. the car pulls to a stop at a building, one that charles knew all too well.

and they let the next track play.

come back home

"come back home," you sigh, "if you haven’t noticed, i wrote this for him." you pause, "this entire EP, from start to finish was a message for him. for us. i don't know. i thought alot about it, before i released this EP. i thought about the consequences of my actions and words. but the more i let these songs sit with me in a closet, the worse i felt. so i decided to release this, as a message in a bottle. you know? like the ones that you find at the beach? i don't know if it only happens in movies but yeah. this is for the both of us, for him, if he ever listens - to come back home."

from the outside, it wasn't clear who he was, because god knows you had your share of exes. but charles knew.

pretending that we don't care, but tension cuts the air. you never stopped caring. in fact, you cared more than ever. getting regular updates from the rest of the drivers on the grid about charles. watching every race, every interview, just to get a glimpse of him.

"why don't you ask him yourself, razzo?"

"we're not together anymore, pierre." you paced around your apartment in LA, the 2021 abu dhabi gp podium ceremony playing in the background.

"but you obviously still care." pierre sighs.

"i never stopped caring, pierre. charles was the one that left, remember?"

charles finally had the courage to speak, "she's up there?"

"she's with daniel and lando. but they're on their way back, if you want to see her."

he nods. hell, what do I know where you and I go? damn it, I hope you come back home.

both of them had gotten out of the car, resting on its hood in a comfortable silence until they hear a commotion.

they turn their attention to the noise, and there you stood, in all your glory. laughing at something the boys had said, arms linked with the both of them as you strut down the pavement. lando nudged you to the direction of the two drivers.

your breath is caught in your throat.

charles' heart races.

daniel and lando take the hint, unlooping their arms from yours, bidding you goodbye. charles had to admit that you looked amazing - dress hugging your curves in all the right ways, your hair cut till your shoulders, the way it framed your face so well. oh, how he missed you.

pierre pushes him forward, and they make their way towards you; giving small waves to the mclaren drivers as they leave.

"hi razzo," pierre hugs you, "hi pierre."

he pats you on the shoulder, then charles, and they exchange something in french before he leaves.

leaving you alone, with him.

you laugh nervously, "guess you listened?"

"razzo-"

"charles-"

"ladies first," charles chuckled. it felt too real.

"would you like to come up? for a coffee?" you gestured to the lobby of your apartment, "i really just want to get these heels off."

charles nodded, following you up to your home. he operates on autopilot, taking off his shoes, then kneeling on the ground to help with the straps of your heels-

"charles..." you breathe out, a pained expression on your face. then he panics. he pulls his hand away from your ankles, standing up quickly. you hurry to unbuckle the straps on your own, padding towards the kitchen.

"water, coffee, tea or beer?" you peek from behind from the fridge door.

"water." charles replies. you hand him a bottle, settling for a beer for yourself. it was awkward, standing in an apartment with your ex, after releasing an entire album for him- to him.

"razzo. i- i je suis désolé. i'm sorry." charles sighs, sinking his forehead into his hands. you squeeze his forearm, a sad look on your face.

"je ne trouve pas les mots" i can't find the words. he tells you.

"then use your actions."

it almost felt like a taunt, as if you were mocking him. but charles took his shot, leaning forward and kissing you softly. something that he had been yearning to do the day you packed up your bags and left. and you let him, gave him permission to continue. his hand cupped your face softly, and he could taste the same strawberry chapstick on your lips.

he pulls away first, forehead still pressed against yours.

"pas besoin de s'excuser," no need to be sorry, you finally tell him. you caress his cheek with your thumb, "i'm just glad you got the message."

taglist: @primadonnasdream @dr3lover @chicadelapartamento512-blog @thebagginsofbaggend @starlightoctavia @d0ntjudgemy50shades @cowspew @justthatgirlxox @ggaslyp1 @fromthedeskofjoii @lorenakaspersen @words-4u @o0itsjustme0o @ambrosialilly @totowolfff @gulsolsikke @enjoymyloves @rmaddens @care2703 @katcontrreras @tattered-tales @luvrboygaslys @piceous21 @shristi-jaluka @kyomihann @sgkophie @jpotterdilf @guardians-ofthe-lastyoungkilljoy @idkiwantchocolatee @monte-carlando @bigdiccricc @organasith @anthonykatebridgerton @icecoldtires

#charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x you #formula one x reader #formula 1 x reader #formula 1 one shot #formula 1 #formula one #pierre gasly #pierre gasly x reader #daniel ricciardo #lando norris #f1

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togrowoldinv · 1 year

Text

Ice Cream

Kate Bishop x Reader

Kate wants to get ice cream with you when it’s freezing cold outside

Note: Yay soft Kate comfort! Enjoy!

Kate Bishop Masterlist, Main Masterlist

You watch as your girlfriend gets a perfect bullseye and wins the archery tournament for her team. Kate is lifted up on her teammates’ shoulders and they’re shouting her name. You take a video for her to remember this moment.

“Congratulations baby!” You tell her as she climbs down from their shoulders and she pulls you into a hug.

“Thank you!” Kate says. You bury your face in her chest and soak up the warmth from her.

It happens to be one of the coldest days of the season so far, but you had to support your girl.

“How are you not cold?” You ask Kate, your voice is muffled by her archery suit.

“The adrenaline I guess. Let’s go get ice cream to celebrate?” Kate suggests.

You lift your head from her chest and examine her face. You find nothing but seriousness.

“Katherine Bishop it’s like two degrees outside. Why do you want ice cream?”

“Damn, full naming me, huh?” Kate asks with a laugh.

“Yeah baby because you’re crazy,” you say.

“Alright, fine,” Kate says. Her tone is full of humor, but she pouts.

Naturally, you lean towards her and kiss the pout off of her lips. She reciprocates the kiss until you both break apart from smiling too much.

“Come on all star, let me get you some hot chocolate like a normal person would have in this weather,” you as you take her hand and walk towards the car.

You open the car door for her and close it behind her. By the time you get to your side of the car, Kate is already reaching for the aux chord. You laugh and start on the car so she can play her music. She sings along to the songs the whole way to the coffee shop.

You park the car and go into the shop hand in hand. As you order the hot chocolate, you notice Kate eyeing the treats that are displayed at the counter.

“Do you want donuts too, my love?”

“Yes please,” Kate says. You smile at her cuteness and order the donuts too.

Once you get your food and drinks you and Kate sit at a table together. It’s an easy conversation as you talk about her tournament and everything else happening in your lives.

Kate suddenly gets a really serious look on her face and you reach for her hand.

“Are you alright?” You ask her. Your voice is soft with worry.

“Yeah, it’s just- I’m so lucky to have you,” Kate says.

“Oh babe.”

“No, I know it’s cheesy but just sitting here with you is everything I could ever want. I love you,” Kate says.

“I love you too, Kate.”

You hold her hand on the table tight and bring it up to your lips to kiss it. She grins at you.

“You still want ice cream, don’t you?”

“So badly,” Kate admits.

“Only because you’re so cute, let’s go,” you say.

“Yay!” Kate shouts as you stand up.

You take her hand and are off to find ice cream in freezing weather for your crazy girl. You wouldn’t miss the opportunity to be with her for the world.

Tag List: @gracebutnotgraceful @i-wished-for-you-too @be-missed @likefirenrain @hehehehannahthings @mythosphere-x @laaurrel @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @milfloverslut @yelenabelovaisthebettersister @alotofpockets @wandassitcom @marvelwomen-simp @maia-lightwoood @xxromanoffxx @picnicmic @exhaustedfangirl @wandaslittlewhore @marie45019 @inluvwithfictionalwomen @kacka84 @jujuu23 @the-night-owl-blr @musicinourlips @avatarsnips @red1culous @natashasilverfox @harleysincairo @lovelyy-moonlight @wandas-slut-heart @natblackwidow2 @youralphawolf72 @btay3115 @itbeila @shin-conan-kun @notbornbutforged @makegoodchoices @anabananas13 @theprinceofmarvel @blue-serendipityy @bookfrog242 @wizardofstories @karsonromanoff @wandasbb @natismywife @dumb-fawkin-bitch

#kate bishop x reader #kate bishop fluff #kate bishop comfort #kate bishop

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likeadevils · 7 months

Text

2003 Lover Diaries Transcripts

Mar 23, 2003- Wyomissing, PA

Ok, where did I leave off? Friday. Ok, on Friday in school we had a “Code Red” drill. That’s when someone comes into the school and everybody gets freaked out and the teachers move all the students to the back of the room and turn off the lights. That night I had to babysit Austin while mom + dad went to a Vonda Shepard concert. Saturday mom and I got up early to go to NY for an hour ½ voice lesson. On the way we listened to a CD that mom bought from the concert the night before. It was this band called Sugarland and the lead singer is this girl that’s really good. I like their one song called “Baby Girl”

May 17, 2003- Wyomissing, PA

Hey. Today Mom and I went to New York. We talked and laughed all the way up and parked in a garage near my voice lesson. We walked to her apartment and we worked on Smoky Black Nights after doing all of her warmups. I didn’t do it well @ first but she said that the song was “ingenious.” Cool. After mom and I went to this cowboy/western store nearby. We got a white shirt that buttons up, jeans, and a white T w/notes in it. Then we had pizza at a pizza place and walked back to the car stopping @ Tasti D-Lite, our FAVORITE ice cream store. It’s kosher, non-cholesterol, Extremely tasty, dreamy, frozen yogurt, and only 40 calories. Does it get any better than that? Then we went home and got movies. You know, sometimes I think about what my first kiss is going to be like. It’s going to be great and romantic. I’m such a romantic. I just dream about looking into someone’s eyes and feeling something I’ve never felt before, you know? I just never was able to put a face to my fantacy. But something tells me that my first kiss really far away from happening! Because the guys in our school aren’t even worth worrying about. They are all in it for one thing and I think you know what is, sex. I guess I’ll be okay without a first kiss!! XOXO Taylor

May 19, 2003- Wyomissing, PA

Oh I was SUCH a b**** today! When mom picked me up, she was late again because she thought I had Varsity Singers. I was nasty to everybody!! Oh, I tried to practice my songs for Nashville, but I completely psyched myself out and broke down crying. I don’t know if I can do this. I want it so bad but I get so scared of what might not happen! When I miss notes, I dive bomb and the whole thing goes crashing down. I just have to breathe in … and breath out … breathe in …. relax, Nashville is not going to kill me … I can handle it. I’m okay. I’ll be fine. I’m young. I’m talented. They’ll see it in me. I’ll be ok. I’ve got to hang on. Can’t worry. I’m only 13. I’m allowed to make mistakes, right? Oh, this is a lot to handle. Taylor XOXO P.S. Pray for a better day tomorrow!

Jun 5, 2003- Wyomissing, PA

Hey Journal, I had to sing @ the Garden Party today so Mom and I went to the field and got some of the equipment set up. Then we went home and I got ready. When we got there, all of my friends were there, and they helped set up (kind of). I started my show and in one first three chords of the first song, my guitar pick broke in half and flew out of my hands! There was this huge silence! It was awful! I had to bend over and pick it up in front of everyone! And while I was singing, this guy was shouting stuff like, “Go on, b*#@h! Sing that country bullsh*t! Go on motherf*cker!” It was awful. After the Garden Party, we all went to the Reading Hospital to visit Nanny. She looks worse everytime we go. I sang I Used to Fly, A Little More Like you and Same Girl for Nanny and her roommate, Penny. Penny has liver cancer and is bald from chemo. All of the nurses loved listening to it. It went really well. Then we went home and I worked on a song called Not One day. It’s ok, but I don’t know. Taylor Swift

Jun 19, 2003- Nashville, TN

Hey Diary, This morning, I woke up and I went over to RCA records and did a small showcase and “chatted” with them. We talked to this girl and she was really hip and cool with me. They really liked me and said they would call on Monday because she would be on vacation that weekend. Then we headed over to Capitol Records and met with the president and vice president of the company. They totally flipped out over me! They even said I was the most talented 13-year-old they had ever seen! They told me that I should be thanking God every day for the incredible gift he gave me. Well, I appreciate the compliment, but then they followed it up with “I’d just hate to see you jump into this right now and have a short-lived career.” They very politely agreed that country is directed to 35-year-olds. Radio just doesn’t play teens. That’s where I’m gonna prove them wrong! Well, he took me on a tour of the building and gave me about 25 cds of Capitol’s artists. Isn’t that nice? Then we went back to the hotel and then we went to the Bluebird Cafe, this cafe where like 4 songwriters go in and sing their songs. We sat all the way in the back. I have a radio call, meeting with Warner, and flight to catch tomorrow. I need my sleep!! Taylor I have a good feeling about RCA! <3

Jun 24, 2003- Wyomissing, PA

Hey Diary, I got a record deal! AHHHHH! RCA records in Nashville wants to give me a development deal!!! We were taking Sassy to the airport (late) and when we headed home, we stopped at a Taco Bell. My manager called us on Mom’s cell and she gave the phone to me. He had Dad on conference call. He started out by saying, “Well, we got follow ups on all of the labels. And they think you need a couple years to grow so they can put you on the radio … Except for RCA, who wants to sign you!! Congratulations!” I was going crazy. I cried. I guess I never really expected to get one! It’s a development deal, but those are the only details we have. I told a bazillion people! We were making CDs for a New Hampshire concert I have Friday til 2:00 AM tonight. AHHH! Record deal! R • C • A baby! Taylor

Aug 25, 2003- Wyomissing, PA

Hey, Today was my first day of school! And you won’t believe how much better 8th grade is than 7th!! The real problem last year was the grade above us, and now they’re 9th graders so we never see them. I love being older than the 7th graders! I never knew how stupid I must have looked, carrying around that HUGE book bag running and bumping into everybody trying to get to class on time! Okay, here’s my schedule! 1. Accel. integrated studies 2. science 3. american studies 4. latin 1 LUNCH 5. Accel. English 6. Accel Math 7. Intro. Computer studies 8. Chorus/Gym I think I might just live through this year!! I just hope I can keep up. My locker is 117 and my combination is 35-8-27. I love being older! I think my teacher’s gonna give me a spotlight solo in chorus! This year could be fun. I don’t care what people think of me now because I won’t let them bring me down. <3 Taylor

Oct 15, 2003- Wyomissing, PA

Hey, I really have decided that school is a big disappointment. It's only cool when you're popular. I'm not. It's only cool when you have a boyfriend. It's cool when everybody likes you. I don't have that. But my extracurricular "life" is what really matters to me. I guess I'm just not good enough for people my own age. Or maybe I'm not bad enough? [peace sign] Taylor Swift XOXO <3

(2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007 & 2008 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015 • 2016 & 2017)

#lover diaries*#note: dates and place names are from my notation not taylors #and i didnt transcribe the specific lyrics bc the formatting was giving me a headache #so go to taylorpictures.net if you want those

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collecting-stories · 2 years

Note

🏕 "There are love letters coming in the mail but with nothing written on the outside, not even a name, so I always give them to you, because I just assume they’re for you because I think I’ve seen you holding one of the envelopes before and you’re the kind of person that has a secret admirer, definitely not me…" from the roommate au prompt list with any of the stranger things guys, you pick!

Sorry this is so overdue, I was really going through it.

Love Letters - Eddie Munson

Summary: You've been giving Eddie love letters that he's been leaving in the mailbox for you.

A/N: I can't even explain how much I love this boy. Also I recently wasted money on stickers for my ipad case and half of them are Eddie Munson themed.

Stranger Things Masterlist

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

You assumed when you graduated high school and proudly left the world of lockers behind you had also abandoned all the high school cliches. Love letters and secret admirers felt like something that you should have graduated out of and, technically, you supposed that you had. The letters, that seemed to appear like clockwork in your mailbox, were not actually for you. At least, that was the conclusion that you had come to early on.

The letters were, in your mind, all for your roommate. It made sense at least. Eddie was the one playing gigs in the city with his band and it wasn’t a far stretch of the imagination to think that maybe someone found out where he lived and was sending him notes. Maybe a little creepy but what groupies weren’t?

None of them actually had his name on them, or any name on them for that matter, but it still felt like the most obvious explanation to the letters that showed up.

“You got another one.” You announced, holding the blank envelope up in your hand as you leaned against the doorframe of Eddie’s room.

He was laying on the twin bed that he shoved in the corner, listening to Metallica with his eyes closed, no doubt trying to memorize the chord progressions in the song. Eddie was really the only musically talented person you knew but that didn’t stop you from being absolutely in awe of his ability to learn a guitar solo from sound alone. He had a great ear and you constantly told him he could be going to some fancy music conservatory if he really wanted. (“You’d blow all those snooty Julliard kids away”). Instead he was here, getting secret love notes from someone on campus, living in an apartment dorm with you, and pretending that he gave a shit about college classes. (“You know where the best audience is? College campuses!”).

Eddie cracked an eye open and then sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and patting his hair back into place as he reached for the letter with his other hand. This was entirely routine. “Why do you always assume they’re for me? What if they’re for you?” He hadn’t opened any of them either, sitting in a pile on his desk.

“Why would they be for me?” You almost wanted to laugh and say something self-deprecating but you held your tongue. “Who’d even be sending them?”

“I don’t know, could be anybody,” he waved the envelope around in the air, “you could open it and find out.”

You raised an eyebrow at him skeptically, “I feel like you know who it is,” you replied, grabbing the envelope from his hand, “I mean, you’re acting like you know who it is.”

“If I knew who it was,” he replied, “wouldn’t I tell you?”

You tore open the envelope as you stared at him, “It’s probably that creepy guy from downstairs who hangs around the mailboxes and stares at my ass all the time.”

“I mean it’s a nice ass,” he teased, laughing when you smacked him with a pillow. He leaned back against the wall and pulled his feet up to sit cross legged on the bed, “it’s a compliment!”

“Some kind of compliment,” you laughed, “guess I can rule you out as my secret admirer then...if these letters are for me.” You unfolded the letter in question and looked down at the typewritten words, “oh yeah...definitely not for you.”

“How do you know it’s not me?” Never one to sit still, Eddie hopped up off the bed and moved into your personal space, standing right beside you, leaned over your side, hair brushing your cheek as he silently read the letter that had been sent, as he claimed, to you. “Wow, this is some really shakespearen shit. Take a real professional to write a letter that good.”

“Jealous? Maybe you should take it then...probably one of your groupies. Look,” you pointed to a familiar phrase in one of the passages, “this is in that song you like isn’t it? The one you guys always open shows with.”

“So you know my setlist?” He questioned, stroking his chin dramatically. You rolled your eyes. “Interesting.”

“Not interesting,” you replied, “of course I know your setlist, I go to every show. So does the person who wrote this, obviously.”

“Or maybe they play an instrument in said show.”

“Eddie,”

He hummed in response to the sound of his name passing your lips.

“You’re not dicking me around for a laugh or something are you?” You asked, looking at him suspiciously. You wouldn’t go so far as to catorgize Eddie Munson’s jokes as pranks but you wouldn’t deny that he was definitely the type that enjoyed pulling off shenanigans at the expense of his friends. Especially, it usually seemed, you.

You’d fallen victim to plenty of harmless teasing (and you usually gave just as good as you got). Somehow cheesy letters in the mail with no postscript or marking felt too serious to joke about, as if the grave matter of secret admirers and the ones they loved was too touchy a subject to breach in a joking way. Or maybe you were just fishing for Eddie to say something that ultimately you knew he wasn’t going to say.

“What?” Eddie looked genuinely surprised at the accusation, as if messing with you was an unfathomable act. Though maybe it was just messing with your feelings that he couldn’t imagine. Any jokes he’d pulled in the past had always been tasteful enough that you found them funny, no convincing needed. “I would never joke about a love letter.”

“I still don’t know how you can be sure that the letter is for me. It literally has no name on it...aside from being in our mailbox, which I’ll remind you is super fucking creepy, there’s no indication that it’s for me.”

“Well,” Eddie looked as if he faltered for a moment before raising an eyebrow at you, “why do you think it’s for me?” He asked.

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, “if I had to choose between the two of us, I wouldn’t send myself a love letter.”

“Yeah cause that’d be fucking weird.” Eddie laughed, “I mean even I’m not that weird.”

“You know what I mean Eddie,” you smacked his arm.

He nodded and took the letter from you, skimming over it curiously as if you hadn’t just read it out loud to him. “Definitely not for me.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“Sure I can.” A smile broke out on his face as he stepped away from you to grab the other letters on his desk, “I wrote it. These too.”

“You wrote them?” You couldn’t keep the shock off your face. Not at the fact that he had written them, you knew he was an amazing writer (a person’s not that good at world building without being talented with a pen) but you hadn’t expected them to be coming from him. And it was almost as if your brain wasn’t fully capable of working out exactly what Eddie was trying to tell you. “Why would you leave love letters in our mailbox?”

“You know,” he mentioned, grin still in place, “I did my senior year of highschool three times.”

“What?” You asked, blinking.

“You were valedictorian right?” He asked.

“Yeah, so? What does that have to do with this?”

“Just that...you’re kinda dumb sometimes.” He laughed and jumped out of the way when you tried to smack him again. “Hey, hands to yourself sweetheart! I’m just stating the facts here.”

“I’m not dumb, Eddie!” You insisted, though truth be told you were feeling a little dumb right now. There was an answer right there in front of you but it was like your brain just couldn’t reach it. “I just...don’t get what you’re trying to say.”

“I’m trying to say that I’ve been sending love letters but not to myself,” he replied, still ering on the cryptic side.

At this point you were positive you needed a giant neon flashing sign spelling out the words for you to fully comprehend them. It wasn’t that you didn’t get what he was saying, more so just that you were scared to get it. If you got it, if he meant exactly what you thought he meant and he wasn’t just playing around with you, which wasn’t an Eddie sort of thing to do at all, then that was a whole other can of worms to open and you weren’t entirely sure you had the strength of heart to manage. But god he was staring at you with that too sweet half smile and you wanted to kiss him on the mouth and hold his hand and read all the letters he’d written.

“Did you like, have a stroke or something? Are you still with me?” Eddie asked, waving a hand in front of your face.

You pushed his hand away again, “I’m just...like, processing this whole thing.”

“What’s there to process?” Eddie knew he was supposed to be nervous or worried or maybe even a little anxious but he wasn’t. He was just excited, practically buzzing as he waited for you to react. It wasn’t that he was especially sure of himself either, but Eddie wasn’t stupid and he certainly didn’t think you were either. If he’d noticed the changes in your relationship, the closeness and flirtation, than you had too.

“I just...you like me?” You asked, the words slow to leave your mouth, as if you didn’t quite believe what you were saying, “I mean like...you like me?”

Eddie scoffed, “are you kidding, I fucking love you.”

“Why didn’t you just say something?”

“Honestly, thought this would be more fun...didn’t realize you were a moron.” he replied, matter of fact.

“Eddie!” You whined, glaring at him. So maybe you were pouting like a little kid but you couldn’t help it. This was just like him though and maybe that was exactly why you should have figured it out in the first place. Dramatically epic and romantic, well thought out, elaborate, and yet he was teasing you at the same time.

“Well?” He took a deliberate step closer to you and leaned in, “you still haven’t told me how you feel. Here I am, pouring my heart out to you on paper and you’re just standing there twisting the knife with your silence.” He pressed his hand over his heart as he spoke, making a fist as though he were holding an invisible knife and wrenching it into his chest.

“Typically I make it a rule not to encourage people who make fun of me,” you replied, biting your lip at the look of faux shock on Eddie’s face.

“I would never,” he immediately interjected, “I’ve never said a mean thing about you in my life.”

“You just told me I was a moron.”

“Wasn’t me. Must’ve been some other Eddie...” his eyes shifted back and forth as if he would find someone lurking in his room.

“Must’ve been,” you rolled your eyes.

“In that case-”

“In that case,” you repeated, cutting him off, “I guess I love you too.”

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lepetitfruit · 1 month

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Hi! Thank you for the facts. It's so cool that emeralds change color based on how the lights hit them!! I'm frothing at the mouth for this information.

Here are my fun bird facts: for one, most birds don't sleep in a nest year round! Supposedly, they only sleep in nests when they're protecting a clutch of eggs. Otherwise they just kinda park themselves on a branch and chill.

As well, birds have a split vocal chord that lets them make two notes at once when they sing! That's so cool in my opinion. I never realized when listening to bird songs that sometimes they hit two notes at the same time.

Final cool fact - black capped chickadees can walk upside down on certain trees?? I only know this from observation, I've watched them just hang on by their feet on the underside of their branch. They're either buff enough, small enough, or both for that to work.

Hope you enjoyed the facts! 🥰

!!! delightful facts thank you!!

They just?? Plonk?? How do they not get eaten??

Oooh!! That split vocal cord thing is SO COOL and remind me of this alien from one of my favvvv books ever. Are there like. Limits to how far apart the notes can be?

I haven't seen them doing that before, but ill keep an eye out!! Very on brand for them, we have a few dozen of them that come to my mom's backyard feeder that a really fun to watch :] chickadees were my favorite as a kid because they say their own name and I think that very silly and fun

#yay yay thank you for the facts :]#this is excellent i shpuld do fact trades more often!!#petit talks #mutuals <3 #asks

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cornflowershade · 4 months

Text

youtube

No One Else Like Me - English Cover

Finished editing my third bl-song translation cover today? (The second in… two days?) I actually translated this one LAST MARCH. I tried recording for it about four previous times but didn’t like any of the results. This song is actually bonkers, like… so unassuming, yet murder on the vocal chords. Harder than the ofts song by far. The notes go super low and super high and half the time you just gotta jump between them with no progression, who’s idea was thissss. The amount of respect I have for Satang singing this so frequently, and so well live, too?? (His voice is always beautiful ahh.)

Anyway, after my Just Try cover, I felt a little more in practice with my singing (I need to keep using my voice so that it’s not falling apart every time I do one of these) and also realized that YEAH, maybe I could do this song if I sung it in two octaves and then edited them together (like with the last project). Low and behold, that worked. ANYHOW, I recorded this LAST NIGHT and edited it all today because I was inspired to finally get this done. It’s a project I’ve been suuuper excited about and I think it turned out so pretty!! I think this is my favorite cover so far 🥺 I absolutely love the harmonies (which weren’t simple to come up with haha) and how they came together. I feel like with every song I’m even more proud of the editing process like. The mixinggggg. As always it’s gonna be better on headphones if you wanna hear the original idea, but it’s not bad without them either. I did a lotta extra steps to try and ensure that lol, so I’m glad it (mostly) worked—though it does blur together a lot more when it plays off of my regular computer speaker, though less so when I turn it up.

I hope you enjoy the translation, too, I think it sounds a lot like the original and I like how I wrote up the lines xD This really is such a sweet song full of backhanded insults pfffff. I feel like it’s even funnier to listen to when you can tell what’s being said lol.

Anyway, enjoy! 💗

— also if you missed either of the previous bl covers and are interested then here ya go! (x) (x)

#satang kittiphop #my school president #msp #soundwin #song translation #song cover #mine #I’m literally SO happy with this one. I think it’s my favorite

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wordsafterhours · 8 months

Text

SAY Chapter 15 Snippet

AN: Trying to write but also struggling through a massive Fourth Wing hangover. I love good books but I also hate them. Here's an entire word document page of words :)

PS - @lunadorned, this part isn't scary.

Expectance hung in the air as Aelin waffled between telling Rowan no or sucking it up and playing. She hadn’t played in years. The piano was surely out of tune, the ivory keys covered in a telltale dust film. It was a talent, a habit long forgotten, buried beneath a barrage of painful memories.

The feel of smooth keys beneath her fingers could never be forgotten and suddenly her fingers were itching to glide across them. To artfully construct notes into beautiful chords and drown out the world until only music remained. Nothing else mattered when she sat at the bench. Maybe, just maybe, that was what she needed.

“Just one song.”

“Just one song,” he agreed. He sounded somewhat surprised, but Aelin wasn’t too sure since her back was still to him.

She brushed around the foyer table and pushed apart the dark wood pocket doors, revealing a beautiful brown piano, nestled in the far corner, between a window and fireplace. Without much thought, Aelin raised the lid, and then sat down, flipping back the cover, revealing keys ivory and gold keys.

The piano had been a gift from her parents one Yulemas, after she’d shown promise with the instrument. It had been redone just for her; the traditional black keys replaced with gold. After the finished stretching her hands, she played a few notes to ascertain how out of tune it was.

It wasn’t as out of tune as she thought and a small, pleased smile turned the corners of her mouth upwards. Out of the corner of her eyes, she watched Rowan’s large frame settle into one of the chairs that faced the piano. Her hands slightly trembled, the gravity of the moments to come setting her nervous system haywire.

Assuming proper position, Aelin moved to the edge of the bench with her back straight, arms out and relaxed in front of her. The opening chord notes tinkered through the air, harsher than they out to have been—her wrists were dropping. In the back of her mind, the severe chastisement of her former tutors reminded her that she wasn’t “grasping the keys”, thus her wrists were not lifting accordingly, the notes not soft.

Playing solely from memory, more than a few missteps occurred, but if Rowan noticed, he never gave it away. His green eyes were piercing, watching her with rapt attention. He could have been a stone statue if not for the occasional rise and fall of his shoulders.

Moving to the next piece, her fingers glided across the keys, caressing them in near reverence, like one would caress a lover after long being separated. Tendrils of blond hair slipped forward, partially obscuring her view of the man sitting opposite her. The wisp of privacy came at the perfect time, as the piece entered its crescendo.

Furiously, her fingers danced upon ivory and gold with precision, the familiar ache settling into her hands and shoulders. Uncertainty, grief, life—it ceased to exist as Aelin gave all of herself to the notes. It wasn’t until the last beautiful note filled the air with a resounding resonance that she let herself breathe.

It was so silent; Aelin could have heard a pin drop against the hardwood. Rowan was still sitting there, but said nothing, jaw resting against a balled fist, watching her with an undecipherable gaze. Had she not played as well as she thought? Was he trying to find the words to critique it? Critique her? Vulnerability and anxiety came on swift wings, like thieves in the night, whisking away her joy.

His opinion should not matter, especially under the circumstances now encompassing their friendship, but it did. Rowan’s opinion perhaps mattered more than anyone’s and she hated he had that power over her. It was power she gave him, but the heart was a fickle, stubborn thing, particularly the one housed beneath her own twelve pairs of ribs, and it did not adhere to the principles of logic.

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#rowaelin #rowan whitethorn #rowaelin au #rowaelin fanfiction #throne of glass #rowan x aelin #songs about you #throne of glass fic #slow burn

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doodle-pops · 2 years

Text

Need To Know

Ecthelion x reader

Kinktober 2022: Mutual Masturbating/First-Time

Request: NSFW 11. “do you think of me when you touch yourself?” Ecthelion 👀 smut x fem!Reader - anon

A/N: I hope this turned out good enough for you anon because I have mixed feelings about it. The smut part of my brain wasn't smutty for this fic.

Warnings: fembod, soft dom! Ecthelion, mutual masturbating, first-time, Ecthelion is a titty guy

Word Count: 4.1k

Synopsis: When the rain forces Ecthelion to spend the night at an inn with a single bed and his crush, all he could think of doing was blowing off some steam.

Prompt: "Do you think of me when you touch yourself?"

Breathing heavily as he held you in his arms, Ecthelion rose from his seat and tugged you closer until you fell into his chest. His right arm rose to encircle your waist as the left trailed up your arms to cup your face, tilting it upwards. Dipping his head lower to meet yours, you realized what your Lord was about to do, and it urged you to lift yours halfway to meet his. With your lips hovering just an inch apart, he whispered where only you could hear, “May I have the honour?”

Your nod was all that Ecthelion needed for his lips to crash against yours, pulling a string of musical notes from not just his throat, but yours as well. The breathless sighs you released as he would draw his lips from yours before colliding once again urged him to kiss you with great vigour. The dangerous clashing of your lips, teeth and tongue was far from soft and gentle – a fascinating contrast to his quiet aura. A beautiful song was created between you both as his lips interlocked with yours, a song he’d long to produce. The harmonious sighs and mewls as his lips moved from your lips to your throat and the gasps and moans that intertwined with each chord he struck made him want to write a symphony, and you were all that he required to complete the masterpiece.

His hands that moved from your waist now ran across your body, eagerly mapping out your dips and curves and scars. They were like little constellations mapped out on your skin and his fingers enjoyed running over them to feel all your hard work. All the times you placed your life on the line as his captain and obtained those grave scars, they deserved to be cherished. His hands made beautiful work of dancing across your body while his tongue danced across your neck, sucking purple iridescent flowers into your fragile skin. Ecthelion loved the feeling of your nails clawing into his biceps as he did so, and it spurred him to continue. Now he could openly say that he wasn’t a coward and rub it in Glorfindel’s face.

Tilting your head back with his left hand to give him more room, he dipped his head to latch his mouth to your clavicle, groaning into your skin as his tongue swiped and tasted your skin. Bringing his other hand up to meet his left, he gripped your shirt with the intention to rip it off your body until your voice stopped him.

“Wait, don’t rip it! Just – just unbutton it, I have to wear it tomorrow my Lord.” Your voice was hazy and dripping in ecstasy.

Refusing to lift his head from the base of your neck, Ecthelion’s hands busied themselves, pushing yours out the way as he unbuttoned your shirt. As his hands tugged the buttons off your shirt, his mouth followed, kissing all the way down to your navel where your trousers rested. In due time, your shirt was peeled with grace from your body and your bosom was now on full display for your Lord to satisfy his cravings. He refused to hold himself back as a hand descended onto your hardened nipples, thumbing the sensitive nub with a child-like wonder. His larger hands easily covered your breast as he played with them, toying and tweaking your buds and listening to your sighs of relief.

He watched as you threw your head back and allowed for your loose hair to cascade like a waterfall down your back and leaving your neck open for assault.

“Does it feel good?”

“Hmm, yes my Lord.”

“Lie on the bed for me, will you?”

Pushing you to walk backwards with a hand on your stomach, Ecthelion guided you to the lie on the bed and soon followed as he hovered above. Kneeling between your legs, he ensured that you were comfortably positioned and nestled in the pillows of the awfully small bed that barely sustained your long limbs. Hovering above your smaller frame, his steel-grey eyes were wild and frantic, it was as if there was a lightning storm ranging forever on. He was fighting an internal battle to determine if to be gentle and cherish this moment or devour you like the savage elf he was capable of being. The hands that rested above your head and on your stomach were trembling from the adrenaline surging through his body. His breathing was uneven, unmatched and rising as thoughts of his future actions dwelt heavily on his mind.

Lifting your hands to cradle your Lord’s face, you ran it through his hair watching as his eyes fluttered before closing and relishing the feeling. Your hands felt heavenly on his skin, stroking and caressing as they travelled down his neck and clothed back. The tortured moan that escaped his throat forced him to rip himself out of your hold and remove his shirt from his skin – he wanted your hands to roam the expanse freely and shiver under your touch. Taking the opportunity given, your hands did not hesitate to wander his chest, mapping out the godly image of the elf above you. Your fingers dipped in between his pectorals, trailing lower and running over his abdomen, marvelling at his sculpture.

“Your hands feel heavenly on my skin,” he cast his eyes downwards to speak with a strained voice, but there was more to his statement that he had not spoken, and you understood.

Continuing to wander your hands lower until they reached his trousers, you yanked the waistband, tugging him forward as your eager fingers undid his laces. He said nothing as you disrobed him and only breathed heavily in the delight of your direct actions. He was afraid that his voice might fail him should he continue to speak on his desires, thus, he would save it for when the moment required his words. Unlacing his trousers and pushing them down his hips, your own breathing increased in anticipation of seeing your Lord in his naked glory. And slowly did his material peel away from his pale skin and his erection sprung from his pants to slap his abdomen, redden at the tip and swollen with his release.

A sigh of relief slipped past his lips and his head was tossed back when your hand cautiously came down to grip his erection with want and desire. With his pants bunched at his thighs and head was thrown back, groans were ripped from Ecthelion’s throat as your hands stroked him off. You could see his will slowly chipping away with every stroke of your wrist and flick of your thumb over his tip. The precum leaking from his tip in beads of pearls tempted your tongue to wet your lips as thoughts of taking swallowing him whole circulated but Ecthelion acted faster than your thoughts. Shuffling off the bed in agony, he removed the rest of his trousers and rushed to remove yours as well, tugging the material down your warrior's legs.

Discarding it aside, his hands ran up your legs as he climbed back onto the bed and crawled to settle between your legs, spreading them wide for his sterling silver eyes to fall upon. The groan that was emitted from his throat echoed across the room as his eyes fell upon your folds coated in arousal and glistening under the dim light. In response, you boldly widened your legs even more and propped yourself up on one arm while your other hand trailed to your cunt to part your folds. Keeping your eyes on your Lord, you ran your fingers through your folds, collecting your juices and moved to run your clit, giving him the performance of a lifetime. He appeared lost and deep in thought as he watched your fingers rub your little delicate nub before moving lower to sink two fingers into your heat.

Ecthelion’s lower lips were pinched between his teeth as he observed how your finger pumped themselves in and out of your heat and listened to the obscene squelching. Panting at the rising pressure building up between your hips, Ecthelion's velvety voice rang out to you.

“Do you think of me when you touch yourself?” A bed of sweat ran down your face as his question sang into your mind. Should you be honest with him, you were already in a provocative situation with him, it made no sense to lie. You should tell him how much you think about him during your lonely nights.

Lifting your eyes to meet him, you opened your mouth to answer shakily, “I-I do, every night.”

“Describe it to me.”

Your fingers halted their motions to look at him with surprise etched into your eyes, “S-Sir?”

“Tell me what you think of...of me.”

Your Lord wanted you to tell him about the lewd thoughts you have about him as you touched yourself. It was a shame that you couldn’t disobey, you were accustomed to following his commands, and you wished you could curse your mouth for opening.

“You would kiss me first…on my lips and then m-my neck, trailing your lips lower leaving your marks. You would touch my breast and suck on them while rubbing your cock against...my cunt,” you paused to take a deep breath and shuddered at the idea of his cock against you with a bright blush across your cheeks, “whispering words into my skin about…how g-good I taste…”

Your voice had softened and drifted off as you notice the rise in colour on his cheeks at your enchanting spell, even your cheeks were flushed. His eyes were closed as he listened to your words and pictured everything you were saying – imagining himself with you – which made his cock painfully hard. His fingers had acted on their own and his hand reached for his cock to stroke himself off. A firm grip on the base as he took his time to run his hand, squeezing and twisting while the other hand fondled his balls.

“Hmm, go on.”

“You’d r-rub your cock against me before sliding in to take me…h-hard and fast. You’d tell me how g-good I was for you and how good I-I was making you feel – shit,” your voice trembled and stuttered as you continued to speak. You were slightly embarrassed to share you personal fantasies about your favourite Lord even though he was turned on by them.

Lying before him as his eyes opened and bore into yours, the temperature of your skin couldn’t help but betray you and rise increasingly high. The bright red blush embedded into your skin gave away just how much you were turned on by the current state either of you was in. A flick of his eyes over your body and you felt all flushed with fever. They trailed from your face to your breast down your clenched stomach all the way to where your hands hid your most precious place of worship. Shorter finger, far more delicate than his that could barely cover the distance and width his could, attempted to stretch yourself open and crooked to find your soft spot. A wail slipped from your lips when your fingers brushed, and you couldn’t help but convulse under the slightest pleasure.

Sweat coated and covered every inch of you and it did nothing to tranquillize the burning stare he bore into your body. To you, he appeared far more relaxed and in control of his body. Towering above you, one hand on your knees, spreading it far apart to his liking and the other gripping the base of his cock, stroking it in moderation. Ecthelion had the upper hand in controlling his body but not today, not when you were laying before him like a meal for his taking. He was finding it beyond difficult to remain focused on his pleasure. His hands would falter as he drifted off staring at the way your fingers pumped into your heat followed by the lewd squelching. A lick of his lips and his hand would halt as his mind drifted further. His cock was long forgotten as he wished to touch you.

Taking pity on you and wanting to do something, Ecthelion’s other hand rested on your clit as you pumped your fingers in and out of your heat. His rough fingers felt divine against your delicate nub. Panting and calling out his name in soft cries, you threw your head in the pillows, tossing them from side to side as his pace increased. His touch was a burning coldness and instead of shrinking from it, you welcomed it with open arms. You allowed it to consume every ounce of fibre in your body, creeping and crawling and washing over you like cool crisp crystal waters, and in response, you returned the favour.

Long had his hand forgotten about his own pleasure and out of sympathy, you inched yours over to rest upon his cock and stroked. His hips jolted at the touch of your hand once again on his cock and thrust forward into it. Revelling in the warmth he once missed, his hips worked in sync with your hands, allowing himself to bask in the pleasure you gave so freely. Ecthelion’s head was lost in the clouds as he swam in ecstasy. Head tossed back, eyes shut, and lips parted – occasionally darting out to wet them – he allowed for soft moans to flow from his throat and float through the air melodiously. It was as if he was singing for you, and he was.

Both your hand and his were wrapped together around his cock, sliding up and down as he thrust. It was a ground-breaking experience for you both since neither expected any of this to happen. Getting each other off, who would have thought that this would have been the first move either of you would make? Neither of you, but you weren't about to complain, not when his touch was blindingly intense.

At the rapid pace of his fingers grew a fire in your pit and your body buckled off the bed, arching into his touch but recoiling from the oversensitivity. He didn’t stop dancing his fingers as your orgasm washed through your body, if anything, it urged him to send you into an oversensitive frenzy. The cries of his name followed by the shrieks told him that he was doing a good job, doing exactly as you described. But Ecthelion refused to let up, he wanted to pull another from you despite the overstimulation – he didn’t care, he was greedy. One taste wasn’t enough for him, he wanted more, and you were going to give it to him.

“M-My Lord, it’s t-too much.” Your voice trembled as your body bowed off the bed to run from him, but your Lord was quicker.

Lowering himself atop you, he pressed you into the bed while keeping the quick motion of his fingers on your clit – yours had long ceased their thrusting. Keeping his hand on his cock, and still pumping, he brought his head near yours and caged you in. A stern expression governed had spread across his face as his lips hovered dangerously close to yours, leaning in to brush them against each other and listened to your whines.

“I’m not finished with you yet darling; I want more…” he growled into your ear as his lips attached themselves to your neck.

His lips were heavenly and soft as they rested on your skin more and sent you into a frenzied state of mind. Your hands rose to grip his back, sinking your nails into the muscles he’d developed over the ages. Mapping them out and raking your nails down his back as his tongue licked a fat stripe up your neck, your legs rose to wrap around his waist to press him against your cunt. His groan reverberated in his chest and the vibrations tickled your nipples, hardening the poor buds. His actions were rough and if he wasn’t careful, he could break the tiny bed you were about to fuck on. How awkward would this situation become, but the level-headed Lord was cautious despite the hurried attempts of driving his cock into your welcoming heat.

Quickly biting your lips to hold back a gasp as Ecthelion’s cock scrapped past your walls, your actions had failed, and your gasp turned into a moan which tinkered into his ear. A pleasant sound that satisfied his pride. Feeling the bed creaking with his powerful thrusts, your eyes rolled into your head when his cock brushed immediately against your soft spot. How did he find it so quickly? It was as if he was reading your thoughts because the chuckle that echoed above you said enough – he was just that good. With an expert roll of his hips, your nails dug deeper into his back leaving little moon crescents on his skin. He was loving the feeling of your touch and leaned in to give you more.

“Is this what you think of my dear?”

“Y-Yes.” You hiccupped.

“Tell me, fuck, where t-to kiss you,” he whispered.

“My breast, p-please.”

And his head dipped lower to finally encase his warm cavern over your begging nipples. His tongue flicked over your buds before wrapping his entire mouth over them to suck as if water from heaven would burst forth and bless his mouth. His mouth was suctioning the life out of your breast for the sake of a miracle happening. Ecthelion moaned into the fat of your breast at the deliciousness he tasted, everything about was sweet. He felt as if he was in heaven as he tugged and nipped at your nipples, waiting for you to bless him. One hand was gripping your free breast while his mouth was making love to the other. He was moaning in contentment as your sugary skin brushed against his tongue with every flick.

The rise and fall of his hips as its momentum increased prompted your own hips to move against his rhythmical and timing his pace to gain maximum pleasure. Sweaty skin was slapping against the other, slipping and sliding with a struggle to find stability. The luscious friction felt uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time. Your hands were fighting to grip his back, sliding all the way down to his ass for security. Once your hands were locked in, you gripped his ass, feeling the muscles flexing under his powerful thrusts. Ecthelion couldn’t help but moan at the sensation of your nails scrapping his ass under your firm grip.

The bed frame was rattling with each quick motion of his hips, and you were afraid of him breaking the inn’s furniture, but still wanted him to rattle your bones. And that was exactly what he was doing. Your breasts were jumping with the sheer force of his thunderous thrusts, bruising the inner of your thighs and pelvis. His hips were punishing against yours as your words replayed in his head about not wanting to walk when he was through with you. You were getting your wish granted.

“Ngh – fuck – you’re fucking me so good my Lord,” you were mewling response after response in his ear leaving goosebumps.

“Am I now? Am I fucking you like you’ve fantasized? Am I satisfying you well?” he spoke intensively as he forced himself off your spit-covered breast to sit on his hunched, lifting your body off the bed to meet his thrusts. The little heart eyes he gave your breast as he glanced at the purple imprinted didn't go unnoticed.

This position gave him a better view of his cock sliding in and out of your heat. Your juices had coated his entire length causing it to glisten under the light of the lamps. Placing a thumb on your clit, he wasted no time in wanting to get you to cum on his cock, sealing the deal to his own fantasy. The cry that escaped your throat made his eyes narrow in concentration as beads of sweat rolled down his face and body. There was the undeniable desire to release inside you as he felt the fire growing in the pit of his own abdomen but is it what you would want. Would you what him to mark you as his own?

There was great love in his heart for you and for long he desired to have you as his. This between you two could just be a simple fling more so on your end and not his, it was sentimental.

“So close, right there.” Your voice cried out to him, snapping him out of his obtrusive thoughts and urging his nimble fingers to speed up their motion.

Pumping his elegant hips into your bruised ones, Ecthelion reached out to lift your back off the bed and pull you into an upright position. It allowed his cock to reach even deeper than before and constantly brush against your soft spot persistently as he bounced you on it. Scrambling to keep your hold on him, your arms bounded themselves around his neck and drew his lips in for another round of kisses. Moaning into his mouth about how good his cock felt and how he filled you up, was enough to take his mind off the impending thoughts and focus on your pleasure.

Your rhythm was falling off and required Ecthelion to control your motion with just one arm around your waist while the other assisted with your shaking. Trembling and buckling in his arms as the effects of your orgasm were washing through you in a violent manner. Clutching his shoulder, you buried your face into his neck and bit into it as you were overcome in an ocean of ecstasy. Swimming in violent delightful bliss caused by the elf Lord who was still fucking you so good through your orgasm to achieve his. There were tears in your eyes as your release flooded your walls and coated his cock, spasming your walls to choke him. The pleasure was undeniably great.

Your face was still buried in his neck while he was littering kisses on your shoulder as your muscles contracted around him, driving him into a frenzy. He could feel his hips twitching and his abdomen tightening as his own climax was approaching. His baritone voice dropping octaves deeper than usually to moan your name angelically was the final call before his hips stuttered and halted. With a deep grunt, your love-making session had finally paid off with Ecthelion’s release flooding your insides. The warmth that spread through you left you both moaning in bliss that the sensational feeling. Perfection.

Wrapped up in each other’s embrace, he laid on top of you, attempting to not place all his weight so that he doesn’t crush you. His head was resting in the crook of your neck while your lips were pressing into his shoulder, focusing on catching your breath. His arms were holding you tightly pressed against his chest as both your lips kissed each other’s skin as an act of saying ‘thank you’. When his lips travelled upwards and hovered above your lips, his eyes flashed up to meet yours and leaned in to capture your lips for another delectable kiss.

Ecthelion didn’t know what came over him because his emotions were acting on their own and made him embrace you into a tight hug, pressing you deeper into the bed. Butterfly kisses were placed across your face filled with whispers of ‘I love you’ in between along with giggles. You could feel the elation emanating from deep within his soul as he held you closely in contentment rolling around the tiny bed. Pulling you to lie atop his chest, he reached for the discarded sheet and tugged it over your naked body. The rain was still pouring heavily outside with little intermittence of thunder and lightning.

“That was...interesting,” was his first comment to break the silence.

“Same can be said my Lord,” you tinkered.

“You know, you can call me by my name, I would very much love to hear it falling from your lips.”

“I’m sure you would but I don’t think the guest in the inn would.”

Widening his eyes in fear of realizing that he and you were intimate in a public space where the walls were thin, made the hair on his head nearly turn grey. You could feel the evident panic rising in his chest as he figured out some solution to save his dignity.

“I’ll...I'll just pay them to pretend they didn’t hear a thing.”

Masterlist

Taglist: @spidergirla5 @eunoiaastralwings @someoneinthestars @lilmelily @aconstructofamind @mysticmoomin

Kinktober 🏷: @rain-on-my-umbrella @something-about-twilight @hoshinokurasa @wandererindreams

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kazanskyed · 1 year

Text

heaven in your eyes

pairing: pete "maverick" mitchell x tom "iceman" kazansky

wordcount: 1.1k

summary: a look into mav and ice's first night together in their new apartment. (title taken from heaven in your eyes by loverboy)

notes: fluff <3 this is my first time writing for topgun but it was so fun writing these two idiots. this was inspired by @k9effect's beautiful art and the topgunners discord server. hope you enjoy!! --> p.s. also mav is trans because. i said so.

read on ao3

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When Ice hauls the last duct-taped cardboard box through the front door of the—their, he corrects himself, it’s theirs now—new apartment, the sun has long since dipped silently below the horizon, yielding for the waxing gibbous that hangs delicately from the star-studded expanse of night sky.

The watch on his left wrist tells him it’s just past midnight. They’ve been lugging boxes to and fro all day today: first from their old place to the car, then from the car to the new apartment. The drive hadn’t been long, not by any stretch of the imagination, just a little over twenty minutes all the way from the academy, but they’d had to make two round trips so that they could transport all the furniture and miscellaneous items that had been previously strewn across various surfaces of the old place. That added up to eighty minutes of Maverick sticking his head out of the window like a golden retriever to “take in the sun”, changing the radio station after every other song, and doing his best to get them both into a car wreck by distracting Ice in the driver’s seat in more ways than he’d known was possible (at one point, Ice had had to pull over on the side of the road so he could kiss Mav’s stupid face properly without causing a major collision).

This building isn’t fancy by any means. The place they’ve decided on is twenty or so miles away from Top Gun, far enough away so that it feels like a fresh start, but close enough so Mav can commute to his new job as instructor without much issue. They’re on the fifth floor, a quaint, charming two-bedroom thing that he and Mav had looked at together three weeks ago. It’s dark in the living room now, but as Ice stands in the doorway, he can see light streaming out from across the hallway, where the kitchen is.

“Mav?” he calls quietly, kicking off his shoes. The California summer nights are muggy and warm enough that he’d discarded his shirt at one point while trekking up and down the creaky apartment stairs. Mav had wolf-whistled like the little shit he was when he got an eyeful of Ice’s bare chest, prompting a fond glare from his boyfriend.

There’s no response from the kitchen, and Ice starts forward, the wooden floorboards creaking under his feet. When he peers around the corner into the small galley kitchen, the first thing he notices is Maverick, leaning against the counter, eyebrows furrowed as he fusses with the CD player he’d gotten from Carole as a “house-warming gift”. The next thing he notices is that Mav is shirtless. His white tee has been thrown carelessly over one of the cardboard boxes labeled KITCHEN in Ice’s jagged scrawl, leaving him in just jeans, socks, and a cowboy hat that’s seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Ice’s heart warms at the sight of him so relaxed. It’s been years since Mav’s surgery, but the other man is still getting comfortable with his own body, so seeing him so at home already, in his and Ice’s shared space, has a smile creeping across Ice’s face (“You’re going soft, Iceman. You’re melting.” “Shut up, Sli.”). He watches silently a little longer as Mav fiddles with the controls on the player, tongue sticking out in concentration, before the first tinny synth chords begin issuing from the speaker. Mav steps back in satisfaction, turning around and starting a little at the sight of Ice leaned against the doorway. In seconds, though, the surprise on his face morphs into a cheeky grin. “Well, hello there, stranger.”

Ice rolls his eyes as Mike Reno starts to croon softly, music filling the small space, but the smile stretching across his face is a dead giveaway of his fondness. “You have the worst music taste.”

Mav gasps, putting a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Take that back.”

“Never,” Ice says, and then he’s striding over to Maverick, pulling the shorter man into his arms as the music swells.

Mav huffs a soft laugh, letting himself be taken into Ice’s arms. He’s like a space heater, has run warm for as long as Ice has known him, and even though it makes sleeping in the same bed during the California summers absolute hell, it’s comforting, especially during times like this. It’s grounding. Mav’s here. Ice is here. They’re both here, in an apartment that they can call their own, together in the sky and on the ground. Ice hadn’t known it was possible to feel this way, so much joy and love and contentment that it aches.

“What are you thinking about, Kazansky?” murmurs Mav, cheek pressed against Ice’s chest as they sway gently to the music.

It might be the fatigue, or maybe the beers he’d had with the rest of the squadron before they’d set out this morning are still running through his blood, but his mouth is moving before he can think too hard about it. “You. Us.”

Any other time, he’d be gagging at his own sappiness, but he tilts his head down and meets Mav’s eyes, sees the all adoration he feels reflected right back at him, and in that moment, he swears that he’d shout love confessions from the rooftops if Mav just asked.

Instead of replying, Mav reaches up, plucks the hat from his own head, and deposits it carefully onto Ice’s. The gesture is strangely intimate—he can feel Mav’s breath as the shorter man shifts his weight onto his toes and leans in so he can reach Ice’s head.

Then he drops back down flat onto his feet and grins wolfishly at Ice, all teeth and sparkling eyes (Ice thinks he’s falling in love for the second time tonight). “There,” says Mav, giving Ice a self-satisfied once-over. “Now you’re a cowboy.”

Ice raises an eyebrow. “My cowboy,” Mav clarifies, and this time, Ice can’t help but pull that face into a kiss. The slow drumbeat of the music seems to strike straight into his heart, shaking the emotion loose. As Mav leans into him, he takes the opportunity to drag his hands up along the other man’s sides until he reaches the scars that span across his boyfriend’s chest. He traces them with two fingers, painfully gentle.

“I love you,” he whispers against Mav’s lips.

Mav throws his arms around Ice’s neck, dragging him down and in closer. “You know I love you more, Tom Kazansky.”

In your eyes

I want to see your love again

In your eyes

I never want this feeling to end

It took some time to find the light

But now I realize

I can see the heaven in your eyes.

#top gun #icemav #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #fanfic #fanfiction #iceman x maverick #i love them #<3 #top gun 1986

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itsren-again · 8 months

Text

Familiar

Rating: E for everyone | Word Count: 1718 | Pairing: Adam x Jonah (@sustainably-du-mortain OC Detective) x Nate | Notes: I feel so lucky to have gotten Jonah in this draw. He has been an absolute delight to get to know and work with. Thank you, @sustainably-du-mortain for providing so much detail and information about him. This is actually my first TWC fic in general and I hope I did him and the others justice.

And thank you @wayhavenficexchange for hosting this event and giving me a reason to reach out of my comfort zone.

***

It’s quiet here in Wayhaven, not in the eerie sense, but in the sense that you can still hear footsteps over the gentle bustle of the streets. The few cars that pass by and the nearby cafe chatter won’t drown out the steady tread of shoes against brick sidewalks, even for non-vampires. Vampires, of which there are several in town now, hear even more.

For some, it’s a relief, a welcome distraction from the sensory overload that comes along with being an agent within the supernatural community’s Agency for peace. Peace and tranquility is what a town like Wayhaven promises, a small community where everyone knows everyone and the days pass by a little slower.

Peace is not what Commanding Agent du Mortain has found on the streets of Wayhaven this morning. A dense fog is blanketing the square, it has been since their arrival late last night. That the townspeople don’t seem to take special note of it tells him it’s typical for the area. How dreary.

But it’s not the low visibility or foreign territory that has dug itself under Adam’s skin and made itself at home. It’s one of those sounds that is so easily isolated in such a quiet town. This one is more prominent than the others. It is to him, at least. He furrows his brow and follows the trail without realizing he’d deviated away from the other members of his team.

The hunt doesn’t take him far; nothing in Wayhaven could be considered far. An apartment building. It mercifully blocks out what sun has dared to escape through the thick fog, casting Adam’s face in heavy shadows that feel cool and welcoming on his skin. It’s an interesting contrast to the warm feeling spreading through his chest. He might prefer the chill.

It’s easy to pinpoint the exact window; it would be, even if it weren’t one of the few ones propped open at this hour. Musical notes blossom from the open space and coast easily to where Adam stood in watch. They turn the westerly wind into their own personal stave, organizing their melody on the gentle breeze.

It’s familiar.

Not that he had heard it before, but that maybe he had felt those same emotions before. It was his mother’s lullaby; it was also the rich scent of rosemary from atop her coffin. It was the song he learned to waltz to. It was every melody Nate played in the background while he read late into the night.

Conjured by the very thought, Nate appeared in his peripheral view. Chances are he’d been there the whole time, and he knew the others were likely not far. They would, after all, follow wherever he led.

If he wasn’t imagining, he knew Nate would feel the same way, and turned to him. His eyes were fixed on the same window. Maybe the music drew him here instead of his sense of loyalty. He isn’t wholly here either. Their eyes meet on the crescendo and Adam wonders where the notes are taking Nate and if he could join him there.

Fumbling chords and rampant curses take the place of the entrancing melody. The spell is broken and Adam is left staring at the shameless grin on Nate’s lips. It’s not quite enough to shake the haunted feeling from his shoulders. The weight of his memories doesn’t feel as light as it had a moment ago. The good reasons he had for following the siren’s song are somewhere scattered on the asphalt around his feet.

For the first time in a long time, Adam thinks about prayer.

***

Nate stood with his usual graceful poise, the violin nestled beneath his chin as if it were an extension of his very being. His fingers, long and deft, poised lightly upon the strings, radiating a sense of familiarity and intimacy with the delicate wooden frame. The violin itself seemed to respond to his touch, the wood resonating with a knowing vibrancy.

As the bow made contact with the strings, a hushed magic filled the air. The initial stroke was soft, a tender caress that awakened the strings’ dormant melodies. The notes emerged with a sigh, a whisper that invited any listener to lean in, to partake in the secret world he was about to unveil.

With each sweep of the bow, Nate’s body swayed ever so slightly, as if he were a conduit for the music itself. His eyes, closed in concentration, felt every nuance, every emotion encapsulated in the composition. The bow danced with precision, weaving a tapestry of sound that carried both sorrow and joy, melancholy and exuberance.

His expression was a reflection of the music he conjured–a myriad of emotions painted across his face. A furrowed brow during a crescendo of tension, a soft smile as the melody took a hopeful turn, and the subtle lift of an eyebrow during an unexpected flourish–every detail communicated a profound connection to the composition.

And as the music reached its zenith, his body seemed to become one with the melody. The final notes quivered in the air, hanging for a breathless moment before fading away. Nate lowered the bow, his chest rising and falling with the rhythm of the piece they had just re-birthed.

For a few suspended moments, the world remained wrapped in the echoes of the performance. Nate’s world had been marinating in this melody ever since it found him outside that apartment building. He played it over and over in his head in a desperate attempt to cling to its every note, to carve it into his subconscious and never let it go.

He hadn’t felt like flesh and blood like this in too long. The melody was every word he couldn’t think of to describe his home, his life. It felt more like him than he did on some days.

Familiar.

In that, maybe he remembered a part of himself that he had laid down once before and never bothered to go back and pick up. Maybe the artist from the window had found it instead.

Nate turned towards the new presence standing in the doorway. Adam changed the atmosphere like a storm; he didn’t need to see him to know he was there. He wanted to ask him what the song felt like to him. The weight of it had filled the space between them since that morning, comfortably connecting all the ends they couldn’t make meet before. Had he remembered it correctly? Did he do it justice? Was it theirs now?

He didn’t need to ask any of these things out loud. They have known each other too long for that.

***

In the heart of Wayhaven, a subtle shift began to stir the very air that had once held a sense of cozy familiarity. It was as if the town itself had taken a collective breath, and with that breath, an unseen transformation began to unfold.

The sun, once casting its golden glow with a gentle warmth, now seemed to hang lower in the sky, casting elongated shadows that stretched across the streets. The daylight held a slightly different hue, carrying a touch of melancholy as it filtered through the leaves of trees.

The townspeople, often seen bustling about with carefree smiles, now moved with a different cadence. Their footsteps seemed softer, more contemplative, as if attuned to an underlying shift that had settled over their surroundings. Conversations held a hint of hushed anticipation, as though they were sharing secrets with the town itself.

Buildings that had stood for generations seemed to hold their breath, their aging facades taking on new character in the changing light. Shadows crept along the brickwork, adding depth and mystery to familiar landmarks.

The air itself carried a distinct crispness, a harbinger of the impending transition.

Amidst this shift, there was a sense of introspection that seemed to settle over the town like a soft mist, especially for Jonah. He gazed upon familiar vistas with fresh eyes, finding beauty in the nuances he might have overlooked just two days ago.

The atmosphere, once characterized by its lively rhythms, now held a more contemplative melody. It was a shift that acknowledged the passing of time, the cyclical nature of seasons, and the collective spirit of the ebb and flow of life.

It wouldn’t leave Jonah alone.

This new melody emerged from the ashes of every song he had ever written, ever listened to, and branded itself on his skin alongside every dragon keeping him company. He played it over and over, trying to capture the peculiar and haunting change that was happening around him, maybe just inside him. Something had changed.

He pulls his father’s jacket tighter around his shoulders and wonders when he had made the decision to walk to work. It wasn’t the type of day he would typically do this. Wind whips the hair around his face and into his field of vision. But something in the air needed savoring. The end of the song was on the wind.

The station was on the horizon. The rising sun peaking over the tall trees highlighted its familiar lines. Something was going to happen there. Nervous and excited energy filled his stomach and fluttered through his chest with each step closer to the front door. Vehicles with out-of-state license plates filled parking spots that were usually left empty.

The melody became louder in his head as he pushed through the front door. It spilled out through the low hum vibrating in his throat. He thinks it’s getting louder, but he’s hardly the one controlling it. Everyone in the front office goes unacknowledged for fear of losing the next note and the one after that.

He’s still humming it, overjoyed at every second it doesn’t get lost in the ever shifting composition in his mind, when he pushes through the door to his office. Visitors he hadn’t been expecting stared back at him. The melody dies on his lips, but he sees it in the eyes of one and then another. An impossible understanding passes through the three of them and it’s gone in the next moment.

The new sun and moon who have pulled the atmosphere of Wayhaven into this new reality are standing in Jonah’s office. The previous celestial bodies never stood a chance, surrendering the natural cadence of the town instantaneously. Jonah knew with absolute certainty that things were never going to go back to the way they were.

#wayhavenficexchange #the wayhaven chronicles #twc fanfiction #adam du mortain #nate sewell

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