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aparticularbandit · 2 years

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State of Bandit Fic

Because it has been over a year and a half since i did a proper one of these, and a lot of things have changed, and I want to do one.

Basically.

Under a cut because when we get extensive on these things, it gets really long. Obviously.

First off, I have been trying to transition to writing profic, which is why I had less fanfic posts in the first little bit of this year. Obviously, if you’ve been seeing my updates, you’ll notice I’ve done a longer fanfic recently - primarily involving Wanda Maximoff and America Chavez, although the Wanda/Agatha fics are pulling me back to my more recent shipping trends.

Y’all, I miss writing shipping fics and playing around with those dynamics, and it’s fun to find a new ship to write for. So y’all might be getting more Wanda/Agatha stuff (probably with Wanda/Vision stuff because when I deal with canon, I want to at least address Vision, you know).

So - looking at how I used to format these - I would, what, plans for the rest of the year and then tentatively look at plans for next year?

Y’all, I’m not that organized right now, and that may be because I stopped doing Monday updates and started just posting chapters when they’re done (which also means I’ve mostly stopped beta-ing and stopped second writes).

But I think, in terms of things I’m planning for the rest of the year, it would be something like this:

Finish Finding Family.

This is first and foremost in terms of fanfic fare. I’m in the last part. There’s still a good chunk left. I know I’ve been taking a break for Harximoff stuff, but like. I think I’m ready to get back into it now.

(This is typical for me. When I’m closed to finishing stuff, I take a break, and then do a big push. This is normal; I’m not particularly worried about this going unfinished.)

Post Love Is Not A Victory March, AKA Roisa Soulmate Timer AU #4.

This means finishing my reread of Halfway There, which is where I’m stalled.

This also means doing a second-write for consistency (because I know there’s some inconsistencies between it and Halfway There, which is why I haven’t posted it yet).

The rough has been done since early 2021. I’m just...stalled.

Post Noir fic.

This is a very tentative plan.

I need to finish going through Noir again first.

This desperately needs some editing and revision.

This fic is almost a decade old, so it needs A LOT of editing and revision.

And one of the chapters is super cringe and Bandit did NOT do the research and does not want to do the research.

But I want to post it, I’ve wanted to post it for ten years, I should maybe finally get around to doing that.

No, there are no plans for Roisa Secret Santa this year, just like there hasn’t been and are no plans for Roisa Fic Week this year.

Sorry. I’m just. Not there anymore. And honestly...I think most of us aren’t there anymore. But I’ll still take prompts for them! And, I mean, obviously soulmate timer #4 is up there, so that’s...that’s something, at least.

But those are the three things I’d like to do by the end of the year. Probably in that order. Yep.

I do not have anything specific planned for next year and am probably going to be rolling with whatever I’m interested in doing. Woo!

So - now to the itemized stuff in terms of unfinished projects and stuff I’ve talked about but hadn’t posted and, new category, potential ideas for the future, which is different from stuff I’ve talked about but hadn’t posted in that it’s. new stuff (and the former also includes stuff I definitely wrote and haven’t posted, not just stuff I was brainstorming and then forgot about).

If you’re here for Harximoff or just general Wanda or Agatha stuff, you want the last category, feel free to skip the other two. ^^

Unfinished Projects:

In order of oldest to newest:

Pokemon: Blizzard and Pokemon: Hurricane

These have been abandoned. Sorry.

Like. I still know roughly what was going to happen in Blizzard and the follow-up Thunder Snow or...whatever the third one in this trilogy was going to be, but I didn’t have a super concrete idea what was going to happen in Hurricane (I had vague ideas and concepts of some very concrete things but not an overarching story like I did with Blizzard). It’s not that I’m not interested. I just don’t feel like writing it right now, and I don’t know that I will in the future.

Sleeping Habits

This has been abandoned.

I don’t even know what the second chapter of this was going to be anymore. Like. I have a vague idea, and I know this was supposed to have one more chapter, but ???

The Adventures of Rose, the Baker’s Daughter

Also abandoned. A lot of these are going to be like that. Sorry.

Sin Rostro

I’m not sure. I like the idea of this one, but I don’t know if I’ll finish writing it or return to it, and I remember distinctly having the feeling that this particular AU was a bit out of my range to begin with - not because it’s super dark but because it relies a lot on sex, and while I could write a lot of fade to black, this one’s a little more racy than I really want to write right now. So. IDK.

Tentatively abandoned, but this is one I could see going back to.

Aftershocks

This has been abandoned.

Emilia Antonia

I shot myself in the foot when I decided to do a love triangle, and I don’t like it, and I don’t want to write it anymore because of that, which sucks because I still really like the idea of this fic. ://

Heart in Motion

Also abandoned.

Geronimo

Also abandoned.

A Handful of Dust

YEAH NO. Interesting idea, don’t want the follow-through.

Days that Bleed

Also abandoned, but only because I started doing something else with the concept.

Something else that has also been tentatively abandoned.

Jane: The Real Story

This crack has also. been abandoned.

If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now

I like the idea of going back to this one. I’d like to go back to this one. I still remember some ideas of where this was headed, but not all of them - the last time I did a read-through of this, I’d already forgotten where some of these plot lines were supposed to go - but I remember roughly what happens next and where it’s going and where it ends.

But.

This halfway point is also a good stopping point. Rose and Lu are out of the mental hospital, and they’re happy. Of course, they escaped the mental hospital instead of getting better, but. They’re happy for now.

I don’t want to say this is entirely abandoned, although it’s likely. Of my Roisa fic, this is the one that it’s most likely for me to go back and want to finish it.

Meeting at Sunset

Belle, I was going to implement some of your ideas, and now I’m just abandoning it, and I’m sorry about that.

Siren’s Call

Also abandoned, although I’ve considered taking some of this for something else.

Guns and Spurs

I also still remember the basic shape of this one. I just don’t know that I’ll actually get around to writing it. Also I feel like I would want to see Deputy again first, and I don’t own Deputy (yet?) so. If I go back to it, it’ll be a while.

Mostly I want to get back to renegade Rose, honestly.

What Dreams May Come

I WANT. TO GET BACK. TO THIS.

Do you know how much I miss writing in second person?

I was actually getting back into this, and then everything with Iami happened, and I didn’t want to write it anymore because of life circumstances, but I want to go back to this one, so like. I’m not going to say it’s abandoned because I want to go back to it eventually, it’s just.

IDK Y’ALL.

Falling

I remember the basic shape of what this was tentatively meant to be, but I don’t want to write it anymore. I, like, kind of do, but not enough to actually get to writing it. So consider this abandoned.

Gotham University

Yeah, even when I started this one, I didn’t think I would necessarily keep it going. Sorry. Also abandoned.

Time Ticking Like A Bomb Embedded In Her Wrist

I don’t want to do the Agent Carter viewing necessary to go back to this. But I still like the tentative idea of it. Abandoned until further notice (but MCU soulmate timer au ideas have been...flying. See below? Maybe).

On Myths and Hide Outs

I was originally just writing this one for me and then I posted some of the chapters but not all of them so I still have some chapters written but I was writing this one for me and not for y’all and I’m probably not going to post the rest of what I’ve got written, and IDK if I’ll even go back to writing more. Sorry, not sorry.

I do miss Regina, though. Hm.

Fragments of Color

Hey, look, one I’m still planning on finishing!

It’s taking a backseat to Finding Family, but, like, I’m still semi-excited for this one?

Excited might be a bit of a stretch.

This one doesn’t stick as close to canon as Kisses Through The Decades did, so. I’m a little more open on the Harximoff stuff here. Which I like! So! There’s that!

Still tentatively planning on a kiss every chapter, but I don’t know if I can sustain that, considering where this fic would be going.

Finding Family

Said it above, saying it again, I’m in part five, I’m planning on going back to this, I just took a break, time to crack down and finish the thing, etc.

Unfinished Series:

The Time of Your Life

AKA Roisa Soulmate Timer AU

4/5 parts done.

Fic Four still needs to be edited, as I said before.

IDK if I’ll actually write Fic Five, but we’ll see.

Where The Lightning Splits The Sea

AKA Roisa HP AU

I think I got about 50k or something into the second book and then decided to abandon it. I don’t think a lot of y’all were really reading this, and I just...it’s a lot. It’s a lot. I have five more books after this one planned, and it’s just, it’s a lot. So I’m not.

If y’all want me to post the brainstorming for those seven books, I can! I have notes on what goes in which book and what set-up is required and the tentative titles and everything. PAGES of notes. So, just, if any of y’all want this, let me know, and I can post the outline, I think.

Partly Written and Unposted/Stuff I Talked About but Haven’t Done:

Mexican Stud

AKA Rosalint fic

Yeah, I’m not posting this. I’m probably not going to go back to writing this. For a lot of reasons, even though I figured out how to get around the thing I was struggling with. BUT this was the first book in Epic Superhero Crossover, which, speaking of--

Epic Superhero Crossover

This is too big, y’all.

It is too big and unwieldy and I don’t want to...I want to write it, but it is so massive and so big and I just. I don’t want to. Sorry. I still have a lot of thoughts about it and how things went, and I’m still super into DottieLint as a result of this, but like.... Probably not going to be a thing that actually gets actualized and posted, despite all of the different stuff I have written for this.

Like - I have chunks of at least three - four - different fics for this series started. And I had...seven? or more? projected? Kind of like the Roisa HP au, but a little more vignette and sprawling and just I don’t.

Everything’s Coming Up Roses

Abandoned but potentially turning into something else.

Luisa and the Child

AKA Luisa and the Fox sequel

Abandoned. Sorry. Mostly I just wanted the freckles scene and extra mythology re: Susanna and Rose’s mom. But I don’t actually want to write this right now. So. Sorry!

Various Roisa Soulmate AUs

Potentially turning into something else.

Also I don’t remember what chorus: romance says goodnight even was at this point. I do remember dreamers often lie, but. potentially turning this one into something else.

Timeless/Noir fic

I forgot about this until I saw it one of the other updates, and I know I started it, and I like the idea of it, but IDK if I’ll get back to it. Sorry.

Also would probably want to finish seeing Timeless again first, but. Meh. Probably not.

JTV rewrite ALA Jane doesn’t get inseminated but Petra does

I also forgot about this until I looked at the last update but I’m still tentatively interested in writing this.

We’ll see.

Dani/Jamie highschool/college au?

Apparently I mentioned this?

I’m not writing this one, y’all. Sorry.

Potential Ideas for the Future:

Wanda/Bedelia Fic

AKA WandaVision rewrite #3 (wherein Kisses Through The Decades and Fragments of Color are #1 and #2, respectively)

Tentatively titled Phantom Limb, or What It Means to Kneel

I still want to write this.

I don’t know how high this is on my want to write list.

But I want to write it.

I miss Bedeals SO much and would LOVE to see her interact with Wanda in a therapeutic sense. (And also give Agatha therapy, my girl needs some therapy, everybody in that show needs therapy.)

SO. THOUGHTS. WE’LL SEE.

Baby Agatha Series

Tentatively titled A Sea Psalm for a Penitent Soul

Other fics in the series have tentative titles, but I will not be going into that here.

I’ve posted about this a lot, and this is my new dark series brainstorming bunny.

I really want to write this, too, but, like Wanda/Bedelia fic, I’m postponing it until after Finding Family.

Yes, this would be a series, despite my initial plans for this to be a single fic.

I know the first two main fics and the opening prologue one-shot-ish thing (which, knowing me, would not stay as a one-shot, but it’s planned as a one-shot).

I also know the tentative beginnings of the third fic and roughly the last couple of fics. It’s the middle I’m unsure of.

Also the other one-shots. OH WELL.

Various Harximoff Soulmate AUs

I have a weakness for soulmate AUs, y’all. I just. do.

Soulmate Timer AU has come up (and it took a bit of thought BUT I think it can be a thing)

The downside to this is that it would be yet another WandaVision rewrite, and as much as I love rewriting WandaVision and exploring that realm...this would be #4, and IDK if I want to do that many right after each other.

Can Only Be Killed By Your Soulmate AU has come up (this would probably be a short angsty one-shot)

Don’t Age Until You Meet Your Soulmate AU has come up (Agatha quietly panicking in the background while Wanda and Vision deal with their shit has so much potential for hilarity, y’all, but IDK if I actually want to write this as much as I enjoy the concept)

I may look into others - the plans for Dreamers Never Lie, like, the world-building I could potentially use for a Harximoff AU, but I don’t think those lend themselves well to Wanda and Agatha in particular (and definitely don’t to Vis, although one of them would have an interesting angle...hm).

Finding Family spin-off(s)

Wendy could have gone so many different places, y’all, and I kind of want to look into those multiversal variants.

I definitely plan to post deleted/expanded/alternate scenes. (I have at least two for this, and I might have more. I’m not sure yet.)

I don’t know if I’ll do a direct sequel - originally Wanda dealing with Agatha was going to be a sequel, but thematically it fit better where it is - but there’s always the possibility for that, I guess. I just don’t know if I have any direct sequel ideas.

Unless I did more Harximoff here, but IDK if I want that, really. These two are more QPPs than GFs.

We’ll see.

I have talked a bit about a potential Harximoff High School AU, but I fear my characterization of Agatha would make this too close to Carrie, so. Probably not actually going to do this (although I may do something else with the general idea).

BUT YEAH, THAT’S IT.

TL; DR - I’m only really interested in finishing If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now and What Dreams May Come other than, of course, the ones mentioned above, and I have a lot of Harximoff and WandaVision rewrite ideas. We’ll see what happens with those!

#musings #bandit does an update

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life-is-hard-2002 · 1 year

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They would have been born in March of 2021, conceived in June of 2020. One year old this past March. Two years old in just two months. I would have named her Rose and if it was a boy I would have named him after my grandpa or after his grandpa, William or Chris would have been so cute. Or maybe something cool like a tree or plant.

I don’t know why I still hold onto what happened. It was a relief in a way when I miscarried. It was the last thing that would have kept me trapped with someone I didn’t believe loved me. I fronted so hard that it meant nothing. Told the only two people who knew I was just going to get an abortion. I even scheduled it. But by then it was too late. And I hate the part of me that was relieved. I knew I was too young, I knew the dad cheated on me, I knew it would have changed the course of my life dramatically. Recently, when I spoke to my ex and we discussed abortion and pregnancy he said he was glad I wouldn’t kill a baby out of spite. I laughed when I read his message. Amused by how well I played the heartless character I created to protect myself. He wasn’t wrong, I told him about getting an abortion out of anger, I just left out the fact that it never got that far.

I tried so hard to forget, and it worked until 9 months after the fact when I realized I would have had a baby. Then half a year later when I saw the clothes in the store for 6 months old. Then last March when I realized I could have been celebrating their first birthday.

My own mom had over 8 miscarriages, mostly in between her first and second child. I couldn’t do that 8 times. I love too deeply and there’s nothing easier to love than your own child. I thought it was my fault, I thought it was my body destroying something because I was bad. I know that’s dumb, but I was so depressed it made sense. I drank the night I found those photos of my best friends. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I screamed and cried so hysterically I threw up. And just a couple days later I realized my period was very very late. I bought tests, took them, then cried even harder and even longer. He wasn’t there. I called him, I texted, I FaceTimed. I was so angry that I was doing this alone when he was the reason I was here. He had left for the army just a week prior. And in that week my world crumbled. He didn’t know, he didn’t feel it. I booked the appointment. Told his sister and my best friend who I found the pictures of that it was taken care of and I didn’t want to talk about it ever again. They respected that, but I wish they had asked more. I wish they had given me a hug and told me it would all be okay.

I think something inside me broke that day. I think that’s when I started to realize how alone I was. In all my worst moments there was no one there. And I tried for my first semester of college to pretend. But he was the last person I connected with and I’ve been too scared to since then. That was three years ago.

!Trigger warning for graphic details!

I woke up that morning with puffy eyes from crying myself to sleep. All I could think that night was I can’t believe I’m going to do this, in just a few days I’ll have an abortion and this will all be over. I rolled over and realized my legs were wet and my sheets were too. For a split second, all I thought was oh shit I started my period that sucks. Then a wave of shock overwhelmed me when I realized that wasn’t just my period, I was pregnant. Something is wrong. No one was home, my siblings were at college, my dad was working, and my mom was running errands. I went to the bathroom and sat down on the floor. I sat there for hours just crying. I was wearing his Coca Cola shirt and his navy blue sweatpants that quickly turned a color closer to black because of all of the blood. I’ve never had painful periods, but that was the worst one I had ever had. What could I do? Call for help? Beg my friends to drive me to the emergency room to see if I could save a baby I deep down knew I wouldn’t be able to give the best life? What friends? The ones that helped the guy I loved cheat on me? I was so incredibly alone. I might have called him 100 times, finally giving up and hurling my phone across the room. I dented the wall and cracked my screen.

I only told the truth a full year later when a friend of ours miscarried and I was trying to console her and I revealed I understood the pain. Another year after that he asked me “are you sure you were really pregnant? Are you sure you miscarried?” And I immediately broke down in tears. I was sure, but I wish I wasn’t. I wish I could convince myself it never happened because it still hurts and it feels like it will probably hurt until the day I’m able to carry a pregnancy to term. If I’m even able to do that. Part of me believes my body hates me and is punishing me in some sick way.

I thought if him and I stayed together it would be okay. That we could try again. In the months that followed I got a palm reading from a new friend I made, she told me I would have two or three kids but she wasn’t sure which. Later that week I took shrooms and had a bad trip that lasted 16+ hours and left me unconscious for two more days afterwards. I locked myself inside my room and no one saw. I told them it was bad, gave some details. But I never told anyone that for hours I sobbed over how I killed my baby. How my body failed and how I didn’t treat myself well and how it was my fault that happened. I cried for hours over the palm reading thinking she couldn’t tell if I would have two or three because I already killed my first. I knew in that moment I could never go through with an abortion. If I already blamed myself so heavily for a miscarriage, then an abortion would surely destroy me as a person.

I’m writing about this now because at the start of the week I met a client’s two kids. Their son was a premature baby, born 5 weeks early in February. His second birthday is next month. He has curly blonde hair and blueish green eyes. Last time I was at their house they had just gotten back from the hospital with their daughter, but hadn’t picked a name. They finally picked a name, Rosie. That sure was gut wrenching to say the least. They let me hold her too. She was so tiny. I finished the job, but told my manager I wasn’t feeling well and I needed to go home. The rest of the day I sat there wondering if the universe thought that was funny or if I’m just crazy. Their son was the same age as mine could have been.

I hate holding onto to things the way I do. I know for everyone else it doesn’t matter. No one else ever thinks about what happened. He never sees a two year old and cries in a public bathroom about it. Maybe I’m just too emotional, but I can’t turn this off.

We were still together in March of 2021 when I would have had our baby. I don’t think he gave that month a second thought, he probably never even did the math. I did. I bought socks. Pink and blue. I drove to the lake near my house where I used to hammock and buried the socks. I don’t know why, I just wanted to. I didn’t tell anyone because what do you even say? Oh yeah, sorry I missed your call babe, I was at the lake burying something meant to symbolize the baby I miscarried from the stress of you cheating with my two best friends, lol! No, I couldn’t because I never even told him how I felt or what happened. I avoided details and responded in extreme anger when it was brought up. I was just a bitch about it. But he was normal enough to let it go, just be angry and a little sad because his bitch ex girlfriend aborted his baby out of spite. It was easier that way. But I’m glad I told the truth, even if it took some time.

I’m terrified to ever do that again. I immediately got birth control that’s meant to last for something like 7 years. I imagine my future and the idea of being pregnant terrifies me even though I want kids. I already know that miscarriages are common on my mom’s side. I don’t want to do that. My dad cheated on my mom durning the time where she was miscarrying every time she got pregnant. I’m terrified of that too. In my mind cheating and pregnancy are tied together in some weird way. I’m not wrong, statistically. Men cheat on pregnant partners at a higher rate, they cheat after they give birth and cite not being able to have sex as the reason. He didn’t know I was pregnant when it happened, so at least there’s that.

I’m with someone now who doesn’t want kids. I know I want kids, but he’s my way or ensuring I don’t any time soon? He’s also just a piece of shit that I’m using as self harm because I’m a ball of self hatred. I’m not sure if it’s abusive, but it’s not healthy. I’m sorta scared of him and that’s enough for me to not want kids because I would never subject them to what I allow for myself.

#miscarriage

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eponymous-rose · 3 years

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E131 (March 30, 2021)

Tonight’s guests are Liam O’Brien and Sam Riegel!

Brian points out that a lot of Caleb’s greatest fears have come to pass. Liam: “It’s funny, because he’d kind of believed for a while that those things weren’t going to happen. After a while, he got complacent.” He notes that it was extra wild because everything with Trent popped up again in the midst of that complacency. And how did it feel to be defiant toward Trent? “I think Trent successfully made Caleb question if Caleb really was in control“ at the dinner party. “I feel like anything that I do is part of his plans for me, or is that just gaslighting? I’m legitimately scared of that dude.” Sam: “Of Matt?” Liam: “Sure.” He highlights the disconnect between knowing that the M9 is mechanically powerful and could possibly defeat Trent in a dice-and-stats battle, versus fearing him in a story sense and being convinced he can do almost anything.

Sam, on Luc’s death: “That was brutal, man. Matt Mercer is a-- he hates children! Clearly. He actively sought to kill a child in the campaign in as brutal a way as possible. He hates children and wants them dead. Canon. No, but to RP, that was horrible.” He highlights that so much of Veth’s arc has been about trying to get back to her family. “We had to choose something and we thought we were making the right choice. It was all Veth’s fault, and it was pretty rotten. My heart was beating pretty fast, and I certainly didn’t want to have my son die live on the stream. I don’t know what Veth would have done. That’s the end, that’s over. It’s almost worse than when your own character would die. This is something that would also kill Veth.” After the episode was over: “just shaken. I also didn’t know what to do next! That felt like a turning-point moment for my character, weirdly so close to what we assume to be the end arc of this campaign. I texted Matt later that night and was like, that’s it, Veth’s out, I’m tapping out.”

There’s an interlude in which Sam discovers a new dream to record an episode of this show from his Peloton. Dani informs him that she will not be inviting him back.

On Astrid, Liam: “I literally don’t know what she’s doing. I know that she’s dangerous, she always was ambitious, and there’s not been a moment where Caleb let his guard down with her. He’s not trying to reestablish what they had. He cares for the both of them, for Astrid and Eodwulf. He thinks about it a lot, still. He can’t tell how much she buys into everything that she experienced and is now living as a full-grown adult. He suspects that she’s bought in and is not going to change things, because she believes in the system, as much as he’d like to peel her away. He does believe that they want what’s best for the Empire, and stopping whatever wants to come vomiting out of a hole in the frozen north is good for everyone. And they’re powerful. They’re not trustworthy, obviously. But there’s enough at stake to make it worth it. He could imagine a situation where they fight each other to the death.” He was convinced Astrid was going to stop them when they left the tower and was really shocked when she held back. Sam: “Not me! I’ve trusted Astrid since day one. She’s the greatest! I sent a letter to her, she’s very nice, I think you guys would be a nice couple. I believe every word she says.”

On having to decide on Veth deciding to go off and save the world after Luc’s death. “Like I said, I was ready to be done. And then I decided somewhere in there that that’s not very D&D. So I thought I’d leave it up to somebody else, so I asked Caduceus to decide for me, essentially. She knows she’s putting her other family in danger if she doesn’t go. It’s an impossible choice, you know?” Liam: “I love watching you grapple with it, because you’re a lovely father and love your kids.”

On the Sanatorium, Sam: “That was brutal, man. Matt lulls you into a sense of complacency. We’d forgotten that Caleb was a stone-cold killer! It had been a while since he went on a murder spree. Still got it!” Liam: “I never meant for this character to be perfect sunshine.” Brian: “You don’t say.” Liam: “He’s very not-perfect, and I think in his brain, he was going in with the impression that they needed to get in and get out as soon as possible. The place is crawling with people with magic ability, and I didn’t have faith that we wouldn’t be sussed out or something wasn’t going to blow an illusion.” Everything was about getting out of there as fast as possible.

Did the conversation with Yeza help with Veth’s decision? “First of all, every conversation with Yeza is a beautiful one. Every time she talks to Yeza, it makes her feel good. In some ways, she’s gotten to the point now where she knows Yeza’s going to be supportive, she knows he’s going to allow her to do what she wants, but maybe that’s too much. Maybe she needs to not listen to him, basically, and be like, no, you need to be selfish now, dude, you need to say ‘come home, I’m sick of you leaving’. At a certain point, being supportive can turn into being enabling.”

Cosplay of the Week: Jester in the snow! (liljerbear47, photography by kairiceleste on Instagram)

On Trent’s motivations for chasing Caleb: “I really don’t know. The simplest explanation is to just hammer down the nail that’s sticking up. It has crossed his mind that all high-level wizards are in danger of their own ambition and egos, so it’s occurred to him that Trent might have the same kind of ideas that Halas had in the past, and maybe Caleb was always meant to be another body to jump into. Maybe in some sick, disgusting, twisted way, he wants him to be his successor. I am thinking of the next campaign, without getting too deep in, trying to do something that is much more ride-along. Caleb is very, very specific, and I thought long and hard about all the different pieces on the chessboard for him. For campaign three, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.”

Dani: “Do I need to be keeping lore on your fucking ads?”

On the cursed dagger: “It was a tricky one, because in campaign one, one of the characters was under the influence of a cursed weapon, but it interacted with him and he knew what it was and what it did. And it affected his gameplay as a character. For me, Veth didn’t know what it was, ever. I as a player knew what it was doing, but Veth didn’t know at all. So it was kind of like my dirty, dark secret for many months. I knew this thing was coming perilously close to killing me, but my character didn’t know enough to bring it up to her friends. Nobody ever asked! So I was like, well, I guess this thing’s just going to kill me one day, and it’s kind of going to be a surprise.” Liam: “Sam, you love danger and self-destruction so much, you might as well be Mollymauk.”

On the fight in Yasha’s sequence, Sam: “You gotta put a character in your storm giant creature. It was so fun! It was so great of Matt to involve us in this encounter. It would’ve been fun just to watch, because Matt would have made it amazing and Ashley was sweating bullets, which is always fun to watch.” Sam notes he felt guilty, but Liam was going for the kill. Liam: “Matt’s gotta be careful about giving me that kind of story beat. I do not fucking care, I just fucking flip, I’m like, well, I’m going to destroy you, and I have no qualms about it. It’s too much fun!”

The Beau/Yasha tower date was in part inspired by not being able to give gifts as easily this last year. “This thing that we do together is a gift, but I love finding these moments, like the book for Jester and the tower for Yasha and for Beau. I really just wanted to give both of them a little magic for a night. I wanted them to leave this-- we’re trying to be as entertaining as possible, but shit is having an effect on all of us too, and I wanted them to have an escape, a great place to escape to.”

Fan Art of the Week: an amazing group shot, plus Marion, Yeza, and Luc! (vocaz on Twitter)

On choosing Essek over Trent, Liam: “It would have been so interesting and awful and great! Essek and Astrid and Eodwulf are everything that Bren used to be attracted to that are terrible for him. Essek, hopefully he can with time find a way out of the hole that he dug himself into, but it was only two months ago where he was found out and his ambitions came crashing down around him. Long-term, I have high hopes for him, but I think it’s going to be hard.” In contrast, Astrid and Eodwulf are still “deep in the shit. It would have been really hard to navigate, but fun to play at the table. We made the right choice with what we went with. Essek’s just getting started, and Caleb doesn’t trust him entirely, because he was burned so hard not too long ago. He’s still more trustworthy than the other three. So it’s the better choice. While Caleb has all these ties on the other side, they’re really fucking dangerous. So if you have to choose, you choose Essek. But fuck that die.” Sam: “Veth, much like Sam Riegel, makes instant decisions about whether to trust someone or not and sticks to it forever. Astrid, 100% trust. Eodwulf, 100% distrust. Essek, completely distrust. I still don’t think he’s a good guy. Ikithon? Trust. 100%. Because you know where he’s coming forward, you know what he wants. I still want him dead, but I trust him.”

On Veth’s post-adventuring plans: “Veth is probably still too in it right now to think about what comes next. I, Sam Riegel, have a good idea of what I want Veth to do post-campaign.” Brian: “Maybe you shouldn’t tell us. Save it for the show!” Sam: “All she knows is she can’t do this anymore. It’s very unhealthy to be battle-wounded every other day. It’s fun for a while, but college has to end at some point, and she’s gotta go home.”

On Frumpkin changing appearance and returning to the Feywild: “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but the way it feels now for Caleb is that he feels too enmeshed in everything that has happened, and too much good has happened, and too much needs to happened, that that really narcissistic, selfish goal has the risk of harming everything else, which is more important. And that’s how he looks at it now. So he’s gearing towards letting everything from the beginning of the campaign, and where he started, go, and trying to figure out what use he’s going to be now and what he’s going to do if they’re not all dead. If Matt throws that shit down, I don’t know what I will do, I think about it a lot. But turning Frumpkin white and saying you’re free either way is him preparing to let go of everything he’s been holding on to for a really long time. He’s addicted to that idea that he can fix himself, and we’ll see if that hard choice gets presented, what he might do. But where he stands now, he doesn’t think that’s going to be reality, and he sees a way that he can be of use that he never really anticipated before, so he’s slowly shifting gears towards living with the pain he was trying to remove.”

On the last request scene and confidence heading into Aeor, Sam: “I feel like that’s a good request. I think all of us realized that if we die, that probably bodes badly for the world. I feel like all of us are at a point now as characters and as friends, that the first order of business would be to take care of everybody else’s shit, although we probably have different ideas of how to do that.” Liam: “I want the Empire to be healed, Caleb has all these memories of his parents and what they wanted for the world, and he wants that too. It’s clearly not in place now, the system needs to be broken and replaced. That could be a part of Caleb’s sunset. I don’t want Caleb to die, so maybe he can work on that after. As everything starts to shake out and we start heading towards our destiny, Caleb’s just free-floating. He’s not even going after the same thing he started for. So he’s looking at Veth’s family, and Luc specifically, and seeing that’s me, that’s a little boy in the Empire.”

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

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ceruleanskies · 3 years

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closed.

hi everyone,

i’ve considered leaving this blog for a while now (since around the start of the first lockdown back in march of 2020) but never really plucked up the courage to. tumblr was my safe space for the longest time, a place where i uploaded my works for you all to enjoy. i started writing for NCT back in 2018 and am so proud of how much i’ve grown since then. from establishing neowritingsnet in early 2019 to all the amazing friends i’ve made on this site, i never would have expected this kind of outcome when i began writing over three years ago. if you had told me back in 2018 that i would have well over 4,500 followers in 2021, i would have laughed in your face.

but i’m tired. tired of the toxicity that comes with running a tumblr account. people have been hounding my ask box with hate messages and abuse a lot more often now. so much so that, before i made the decision to officially close this account, i decided to take some time away from tumblr. originally, it was meant to be a hiatus. but then i realised how much of a toll running this blog and the network took on my mental health.

in running this blog, i often feel pressured to write, which in turn means the works i put out aren’t ones i’m proud of and ones that i personally like very much. writing has become a chore for me, rather than something i love to do. i’ve tried to nurse my mental health (2020 was a shit year for me; i lost friends, family members and had other things happen which i don’t want to discuss) but have suffered both a relapse into my eating disorder as well as depression. running this blog was a large contributor to that.

as such, i’ll be dropping out of all of the collabs i am in: each collab organiser has been contacted separately. i am truly sorry for dropping out on such short notice and i’d be more than happy to help you find replacements and promote the posts if you so wish.

as i said before, lack of motivation to write is another contributor to me closing this blog. throughout my time on tumblr i advocated for readers to engage more with the content creators whose works they enjoy, through reblogging their works or sending them a kind ask. sure, placing motivation to write on the amount of engagement my works get is unhealthy, but it gets tiring when the notes-to-follows ratio of all of your works averages out to around one like for every thirty followers and one reblog for every seventy or eighty followers. in my time on this site i’ve seen the downturn in reblogging works and just how it affects content creators. it’s draining and made me hate writing. i’d think, what’s the point if i didn’t get any feedback or support?

you may have noticed that all of my works have been deleted, too. this decision was one i made as a way of preserving my works and the integrity of those works. call me selfish, whatever. in my time as a writer on tumblr (over three years) i’ve had to file close to eighty copyright claims on wattpad. i don’t want to have to run the risk of having my works passed off as someone else’s on other sites. so, i will be deleting all of them. as time has passed, i’ve grown to resent a lot of the works i’ve published.

so, this is goodbye. if we’re mutuals, you’re more than welcome to message me and ask for my socials! thank you for everything,

kai <3

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path-of-my-childhood · 3 years

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CABIN FEVER - Aaron Dessner: Producing folklore and evermore

Sound On Sound Magazine // March 2021 issue // By Tom Doyle

The pandemic gave Taylor Swift a chance to explore new musical paths, with two lockdown albums co-written and produced by the National's Aaron Dessner.

Few artists during the pandemic have been as prolific as Taylor Swift. In July 2020, she surprise-released folklore, a double-length album recorded entirely remotely and in isolation. It went on to become the biggest global seller of the year, with four million sales and counting. Then, in December, she repeated the trick with the 15-song evermore, which quickly became Swift's eighth consecutive US number one.

In contrast to her country-music roots and the shiny synth-pop that made her a superstar, both folklore and evermore showcased a very different Taylor Swift sound: one veering more towards atmospheric indie and folk. The former album was part-produced by Swift and her regular co-producer Jack Antonoff (St Vincent, Lana Del Rey), while the other half of the tracks were overseen by a new studio collaborator, Aaron Dessner of the National. For evermore, aside from one Antonoff-assisted song, Dessner took full control of production.

Good Timing

Although his band are hugely popular and even won a Grammy for their 2017 album Sleep Well Beast, Aaron Dessner admits that it initially felt strange for an indie-rock guitarist and keyboard player to be pulled into such a mainstream project. Swift had already declared herself a fan of the National, and first met the band back in 2014. Nonetheless, Dessner was still surprised when the singer sent him a text "out of the blue" last spring. "I mean, I didn't think it was a hoax," he laughs. "But it was very exciting and a moment where you think it's like serendipity or something, especially in the middle of the pandemic. When she asked if I would ever consider writing with her, I just happened to have a lot of music that I had worked really hard on. So, the timing was sort of lucky. It opened up this crazy period of collaboration. It was a pretty wild ride."

Since 2016, Aaron Dessner has been based at his self-built rural facility, Long Pond Studio, in the Hudson Valley, upstate New York. The only major change to the studio since SOS last spoke to Dessner in October 2017 has been the addition of a vintage WSW Siemens console built in 1965. "It had been refurbished by someone," he says, "and I think there's only three of them in the United States. I heard it was for sale from our friend [and the National producer/mixer] Peter Katis. That's a huge improvement here."

Although the National made Sleep Well Beast and its 2019 successor I Am Easy To Find at Long Pond, the band members are scattered around the US and Europe, meaning Dessner is no stranger to remote working and file sharing. This proved to be invaluable for his work with Swift. Dessner spent the first six weeks of lockdown writing music that he believed to be for Big Red Machine, his project with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. Instead, many of these work-in-progress tracks would end up on folklore. Their first collaboration (and the album's first single), 'cardigan', for instance, emerged from an idea Dessner had been working on backstage during the National's European arena tour of Winter 2019.

"I sent her a folder and in the middle of the night she sent me that song," Dessner explains. "So, the next morning I was just listening to it, like, `Woah, OK, this is crazy."

On The Move

As work progressed, it quickly became apparent that Swift and Dessner were very much in tune as a songwriting and producing unit. There was very little Dessner had to do, he says, in terms of chopping vocals around to shape the top lines. "I think it's because I'm so used to structuring things like a song, with verses and choruses and bridges," he reckons. "In most cases, she sort of kept the form. If she had a different idea, she would tell me when she was writing and I would chop it up for her and send it to her. But, mostly, things kind of stayed in the form that we had."

Dessner and Swift were working intensively and at high speed throughout 2020, so much so that on one occasion the producer sent the singer a track and went out for a run in the countryside around Long Pond. By the time he got back, Swift had already written 'the last great american dynasty' and it was waiting for him in his inbox. "That was a crazy moment," he laughs. "One of the astonishing things about Taylor is what a brilliant songwriter she is and the clarity of her ideas and, when she has a story to tell, the way she can tell it. I think she's just been doing it for so long, she has a facility that makes you feel like you could never do what she's capable of. But we were a good pair because I think the music was inspiring to her in such a way that the stories were coming."

Swift's contributions to folklore were recorded in a makeshift studio in her Los Angeles home. Laura Sisk engineered the sessions as the singer recorded her vocals, using a Neumann U47, in a neighbouring bedroom. Live contact between Swift, Sisk, Dessner and Long Pond engineer Jonathan Low was done through real-time online collaboration platform Audiomovers.

"We would listen in remotely and kind of go back and forth," says Dessner. "We used Audiomovers and then we would have Zoom as a backup. But mainly we were just using Audiomovers, so we could actually be in her headphones. It's powerful, it's great. I've used it a lot with people during this time. Then, later on, when we recorded evermore, a lot of the vocals were done here at the studio actually when Taylor was visiting when we did the [Disney+ documentary] Long Pond Sessions. But Taylor's vocals for folklore were all done remotely."

Keeping Secrets

Given the huge international interest in Swift, the team had to work with an elaborate file-sharing arrangement to ensure that the tracks didn't leak online. Understandably, Dessner won't be drawn on the specifics. "Yeah, I mean we had to be very careful, so everything was very secretive," he says. "There were passwords on both ends and we communicated in a specific way when sharing mixes and everything. There was a high level of confidentiality and data encryption. It was sort of a learning curve.

"I'm not used to that," he adds, "'cause usually we're just letting files kind of fly all over the Internet [laughs]. But I think with someone like her, there's just so many people that are paying attention to every move that she makes, which can be a little, I think, oppressive for her. We tried to make it as comfortable as possible and we got used to how to get things to her and back to us. It worked pretty well."

Drums & Guitars

For the generally minimalist beat programming on the records, Dessner would sometimes turn to his more expensive new analogue drum generators - Vermona's DRM1 and Dave Smith's Tempest - but more often used the Synthetic Bits iOS app FunkBox. "There's just a lot of great vintage drum machine sounds in there, and they sound pretty cool, especially if you overdrive it," he says. "Often I send that through an amplifier, or through effects into an amplifier. Then I have a [Roland) TR-8 and a TR-8S that I use a lot. I also use the drum machine in the [Teenage Engineering] OP-1. So, a song like 'willow', that's just me tapping the OP-1."

Elsewhere, Dessner's guitar work appears on the tracks, with the intricate melodic layering on 'the last great american dynasty' from folklore having been inspired by Radiohead's In Rainbows. "Almost all of the electric guitar on Taylor's records is played direct through a REDDI DI into the Siemens board," he says. "It's usually just my 1971 Telecaster played direct and it just sounds great. Oftentimes I just put a little spring reverb on it and sometimes I'll overdrive the board like it's an amplifier, 'cause it breaks up really beautifully.

"I have a 1965 [Gibson] Firebird that I play usually through this 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb. So, if I am playing into an amp, that's what it is. But on 'the last great american dynasty', those little pointillistic guitars, that's just played direct with the Telecaster through the board."

Elsewhere, Aaron Dessner took Taylor Swift even further out of her sonic comfort zone. A key track on folklore, the Cocteau Twins-styled 'epiphany', features her voice amid a wash of ambient textures, created by Dessner slowing down and reversing various instrumental parts in Pro Tools. "I created a drone using the Mellotron [MD4000D] and the Prophet and the OP-1 and all kinds of synth pads," he says. "Then I duplicated all the tracks, and some of them I reversed and some of them I dropped an octave. All manner of using varispeed and Polyphonic Elastic Audio and changing where they were sitting. Just to create like this Icelandic glacier of sounds was my idea. Then I wrote the chord progression against that.

"The [Pro Tools] session was not happy," he adds with a chuckle. "It kept crashing. Eventually I had to print the drone but I printed it by myself and there was some crackle in it. It was distorting. And then I couldn't recreate it so Jon Low, who was helping me, was kind of mad at me 'cause he was like, 'You can't do that.' And I was like, 'Well, I was working quickly. I didn't know it'd become a song."

Orchestra Of Nowhere

Meanwhile, the orchestrations that appear on several of the tracks were scored by Aaron's twin brother and National bandmate, Bryce Dessner, who is located in France. "I would just make him chord charts of the songs and send them to him in France," Aaron says. "Then he would orchestrate things in Sibelius and send the parts to me. I would send the parts and the instrumental tracks to different players remotely and they would record them literally in their bedrooms or in their attics. None of it was done as a group, it was all done separately. But that's how we've always worked in the National so it's quite natural."

On folklore standout track 'exile', Justin Vernon of Bon Iver delivered his stirring vocal for the duet remotely from his home in Eaux Claires, Wisconsin. "He's renovating his studio, so he has a little home studio in his garage," says Dessner. "It was Taylor's idea to approach him. I sent him Taylor's voice memo of her singing both parts, and he got really excited and loved the song and then he wrote the extra part in the bridge.

"I do a lot of work remotely with Justin also, so it was easy to send him tracks and he would track to it and send back his vocals. I was sending him stems, so usually it's just a vocal stem of Taylor and an instrumental stem and then if he wants something deeper, I'll give him more stems. But generally, he's just working with the vocal layers and an instrumental."

Vernon also provided the grainy beat that kicks off 'closure', one of two tracks on evermore that started life as a sketch for the second Big Red Machine album. "It was this little loop that Justin had given me in this folder of 'Starters', he calls them. I had heard that and been playing the piano to it. But I was hearing it in 5/4, although it's not in 5/4. 'Closure' really opened everything up further. There were no real limits to where we were gonna try to write songs."

Given the number of remote players, Dessner says there were surprisingly few problems with the file swapping and that it was a fairly painless technical process. "It was pretty smooth, but there were issues," he admits. "Sometimes sample-rate issues, or if I happened to give someone an instrumental that was an MP3, that sometimes lines up differently than if you send them an actual WAV that's bounced on the grid. So, sometimes I'd have to kinda eyeball things.

"If there was trouble it started to be because of track counts. I probably only used 20 percent of what was actually recorded, 'cause we would try a lot of things, y'know. So, eventually the sessions got kinda crazy and you'd have to deactivate a lot of things and print things. But we got used to that."

Soft Piano

Aaron Dessner's characteristic dampened upright piano sound, familiar from the National's albums, is much in evidence throughout both folklore and evermore. "The upright is a Yamaha U1 that I've had for more than a decade. Usually, I play it with the soft pedal down and that's the sound of 'hoax' or 'seven' or 'cardigan', y'know, that felted sound. It kind of almost sounds like an electric piano.

"I always mic it the same way, just with two [AKG] 414s, and they're always the same distance off the wall. I had a studio in Brooklyn for 10 years and then when I moved here, I copied the same [wooden] pattern on the wall. And the reason I did that is 'cause of how much I love how this piano sounds bouncing off that wall. It just does something really special for the harmonics."

When on other folklore songs, such as 'exile' or 'the 1', where the piano was the main sonic feature of the track, Dessner played his Steinway grand. "A lot of times we use a pair of Coles [4038s] on the Steinway, just cause it's darker. But sometimes we'll have the 414s there as well and choose."

Keeping Warm

On both folklore and evermore, Taylor Swift's voice is very much front and center and high in the mix, and generally sounds fairly dry. "I think the main thing was I wanted her vocals to have a more full range than maybe you typically hear," Dessner explains. "'Cause I think a lot of the more pop-oriented records are mixed a certain way and they take some of the warmth out of the vocal, so that it's very bright and it kinda cuts really well on the radio. But she has this wonderful lower warmth frequency in her voice which is particularly important on a song like `seven'. If you carved out that mud, y'know, it wouldn't hit you the same way. Or, like, `cardigan', I think it needs that warmth, the kind of fuller feeling to it. It makes it darker, but to me that's where a lot of emotion is."

Effects-wise, almost all of the treatments were done in the box. "There's no outboard reverbs printed," says Dessner. "The only things that we did print would be like an [Eventide] H3000 or sometimes the [WEM] CopiCat tape delay for just a really subtle slap. But generally, it's just different reverbs in the box that Jon was using. He uses the Valhalla stuff quite a bit and some other UAD reverbs, like the [Capitol] Chambers. I often just use Valhalla VintageVerb and the [Avid] Black Spring and simple things."

In some instances, the final mix ended up being the never-bettered rough mix, while other songs took far more work. "'cardigan' is basically the rough, as is `seven'. So, like the early, early mixes, when we didn't even know we were mixing, we never were able to make it better. Like if you make it sound 'good', it might not be as good 'cause it loses some of its weird magic, y'know. But songs like `the last great american dynasty' or 'mad woman', those songs were a little harder to create the dynamics the way you want them, and the pay-off without going too far, and with also just keeping in the kind of aesthetic that we were in. Those were harder, I would say.

"On evermore, I would say 'willow' was probably the hardest one to finish just because there were so many ways it could've gone. Eventually we settled back almost to the point where it began. So, there's a lot of stuff that was left out of 'willow', just because the simplicity of the idea I think was in a way the strongest."

The subject of this month's Inside Track article, 'willow' was the first song written for evermore, immediately following the release of folklore. "It almost felt like a dare or something," Dessner laughs. "We were writing, recording and mixing all in one kind of work stream and we went from one record to the other almost immediately. We were just sort off to the races. We didn't really ever stop since April."

Rubber & Vinyl

Sometimes, Dessner and Swift drew inspiration from unlikely sources; `no body, no crime', for instance, started when he gave her a 'rubber bridge' guitar made by Reuben Cox of the Old Style Guitar Shop in LA. "He's my very old friend," says Dessner of Cox. "He buys undervalued vintage guitars. Stuff that was made in the '50s and '60s as sort of learner guitars, like old Silvertones and Kays and Harmonys. These kinds of guitars which now are quite special, but they're still not valued the same way that vintage Fenders or Gibsons are valued. Then, he customizes them.

"Recently he started retrofitting these guitars with a rubber bridge and flatwound strings. He'll take, like, an acoustic Silvertone from 1958 and put a bridge on it that's covered in this kind of rubber that deadens the strings, so it really has this kind of dead thrum to it. And he puts two pickups in there, one that's more distorted and one that's cleaner. They're just incredible guitars. I thought Taylor would enjoy having one 'cause she loves the sound. So, I had Reuben make one for her and she used it to write `no body, no crime'."

Another friend of Dessner's, Ryan Olsen, has developed a piece of software called the Allovers Hi-Hat Generator which helped create the unusual harmonic loops that feature on `marjorie'. "It's not available on the market," Dessner says of the software. "It's just something that he uses personally, but I think hopefully eventually it'll come out. I wouldn't say it's artificial intelligence software but there's something very intelligent about it [laughs]. It basically analyses audio information and is able to separate audio into identifiable samples and then put them into a database. You then can design parameters for it to spit out sequences that are incredibly musical.

"When Ryan comes here, he'll just take all kinds of things that I give him and run it through there and then it'll spit out, like, three hours of stuff. Then I go through it and find the layers that I love, then I loop them. You can hear it also on the song 'happiness', the drumming in the background. It's not actually played. That's drums that have been sampled and then re-analyzed and re-sequenced out of this Allovers Hi-Hat Generator."

The song `marjorie' is named after Swift's opera-singer grandmother and so, fittingly, her voice can be heard flitting in and out of the mix at the end of the track. "Taylor's family gave us a bunch of recordings of her grandmother," Dessner explains. "But they were from old, very scratchy, noisy vinyl. So, we had to denoise it all using [iZotope's] RX and then I went in and I found some parts that I thought might work. I pitch-shifted them into the key and then placed them. It took a while to find the right ones, but it's really beautiful to be able to hear her. It's just an incredibly special thing, I think."

Meet At The Pond

Taylor Swift finally managed to get together with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff in September 2020 for the filming of folklore: the long pond studio sessions, featuring the trio live-performing the album. It also provided an opportunity for Swift to add her vocals to some of the evermore tracks.

"It did allow us to have more fun, I think," says Dessner. "Y'know, drink more wine and just kinda be in the same place and have the feeling of blasting the music here and dancing around and just enjoying ourselves. She's really a lovely person to hang out with, so in that sense I'm glad that we had that chance to work together in person.

"We were using a [Telefunken] U47 to record Taylor here," he adds. "Either we were using one of the Siemens preamps on the board, which are amazing. Or I have Neve 1064s [preamps/EQs] and we use a Lisson Grove [AR-i] tube compressor generally."

One entirely new song, `tis the damn season', came out of this face-to-face approach, which Swift wrote in the middle of the night after the team had stayed up late drinking. "We had a bunch of wine actually," Dessner laughs, "and then everybody went to sleep, I thought. But I think she must have had this idea swimming around in her head, 'cause the next morning when she arrived, she sang 'Us the damn season' for me in my kitchen. It's maybe my favourite song we've written together. Then she sang it at dinner for me and my wife Stine and we were all crying. It’s just that kind of a song, so it was quite special.”

National Unity

One key track on evermore, 'coney island', features all of the members of the National and sees Swift duetting with their singer Matt Berninger. "My brother [Bryce] actually originated that song," says Aaron Dessner. "I sent him a reference at one point - I can't remember what it was - and then he was sort of inspired to write that chord progression. Then we worked together to sort of develop it and I wrote a bunch of parts and we structured it.

"Taylor and William Bowery [the songwriting pseudonym of Swift's boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn] wrote 'coney island' and she sang a beautiful version. It felt kind of done, actually. But then I think we all collectively thought, Taylor and myself and Bryce, like this was the closest to a National song."

Dessner then asked the brothers who make up the National's rhythm section, drummer Bryan and bassist Scott Devendorf, to play on 'coney island'. Matt Berninger, as he often does with the band's own tracks, recorded his vocal at home in Los Angeles. "It was never in the same place, it was done remotely," says Dessner, "except Bryan was here at Long Pond when he played. It was great to collaborate as a band with Taylor."

No Compromise

folklore and evermore have been both enormous critical and commercial successes for Taylor Swift. Aaron Dessner reckons that making these anti-pop records has freed the singer up for the future. "I think it was very liberating for her," he says. "I think that's the thing that's been probably the biggest change for her has just been being able to make songs without compromise and then release them without the promotional requirements that she's used to from the past. Obviously, it comes at this time when we're all in lockdown and nobody can tour or go on talk shows or anything. But I think for her probably it will impact what she does in the future.

"But I also think she can shapeshift again," he concludes. "Who knows where she'll go? She's had many celebrated albums from the past, but to release two albums of this quality in such a short time, it really did shine a light on her songwriting talent and her storytelling ability and also just her willingness to experiment and collaborate. Somehow, I ended up in the middle of all that and I'm very grateful."

INSIDE TRACK - Jonathan Low: Secrets of the Mix Engineers

Sound On Sound Magazine // March 2021 issue // By Paul Tingen

From sketches to final mixes, engineer Jonathan Low spent 2020 overseeing Taylor Swift’s hit lockdown albums folklore and evermore.

“I think the theme of a lot of my work nowadays, and especially with these two records, is that everything is getting mixed all the time. I always try to get the songs to sound as finalised as they can be. Obviously that’s hard when you’re not sure yet what all the elements will be. Tracks morph all the time, and yet everything is always moving forwards towards completion in some way. Everything should sound fun and inspiring to listen to all the time.”

Speaking is Jonathan Low, and the two records he refers to are, of course, Taylor Swift’s 2020 albums folklore and evermore, both of which reached number one in the UK and the US. Swift’s main producer and co‑writer on the two albums was the National’s Aaron Dessner, also interviewed in this issue. Low is the engineer, mixer and general right‑hand man at Long Pond Studios in upstate New York, where he and Dessner spent most of 2020 working on folklore and evermore, with Swift in Los Angeles for much of the time.

“In the beginning it did not feel real,” recalls Low. “There was this brand‑new collaboration, and it was amazing how quickly Aaron made these instrumental sketches and Taylor wrote lyrics and melodies to them, which she initially sent to us as iPhone voice memos. During our nightly family dinners in lockdown, Aaron would regularly pull up his phone and say, ‘Listen to this!’ and there would be another voice memo from Taylor with this beautiful song that she had written over a sketch of Aaron’s in a matter of hours. The rate at which it was happening was mind‑blowing. There was constant elevation, inspiration and just wanting to continue the momentum.

“We put her voice memos straight into Pro Tools. They had tons of character, because of the weird phone compression and cutting midrange quality you just would not get when you put someone in front of a pristine recording chain. Plus there was all this bleed. It’s interesting how that dictates the attitude of the vocal and of the song. Even though none of the original voice memos ended up on the albums, they often gave us unexpected hints. These voice memos were such on‑a‑whim things, they were really telling. Taylor had certain phrasings and inflections that we often returned to later on. They became our reference points.”

Pond Life

The making of the National’s 2017 album Sleep Well Beast and the setup at Long Pond were covered in SOS October 2017; today the studio remains pretty much the same, with the exception of a new desk. “The main space is really big, and the console sits in the middle,” says Low. “In 2019, I installed a 1965 WSW/Siemens, which has 24 line‑in and microphone channels and another 24 line channels. WSW is the Austrian branch of Siemens usually built for broadcast. It’s loaded with 811510B channels. The build quality is insane, the switches and pots feel like they were made yesterday. To me it hints at the warm haze of a Class‑A Neve channel but sits further forward in the speakers. The midrange band on the passive EQ is a huge part of its charm, it really does feel like you’re changing the tone of the actual source rather than the recording. Most microphones go through the desk on their way into Pro Tools, though we sometimes use outboard Neve 1064 mic pres. Occasionally I use the Siemens to sum a mix.

“We have a pair of ATC SCM45 monitors, which sound very clear in the large room. The ceiling is very high, and the front wall is about 25 feet behind the monitors. There are diffusers on the sidewalls and the back walls are absorbing, so there are very few reflections. Aaron and I will be listening in tons of different ways. I’ll listen in my home studio with similar ATC SCM20 monitors or on my ‘70s Marantz hi‑fi setup. Aaron is always checking things in his car, and if there’s something that is bugging him, I’ll join him in his car to find out what he hears.”

Low works at Long Pond and with Dessner most of the time, though he does find time to do other projects, among hem this last year the War On Drugs, Waxahatchee and Nap Eyes. When lockdown started in Spring 2020, Low tacked up on supplies and "had a bunch f mixes lined up". Meanwhile, on the Eest Coast, Swift had seen her Lover Fest our cancelled. With help from engineer aura Sisk, she set up a makeshift studio which she dubbed Kitty Committee in bedroom in her Los Angeles home, and began working with long-term producer nd co-writer Jack Antonoff. At the end of April, however, Swift also started working with Dessner, which took the project in different direction. The impressionistic, atmospheric, electro-folk instrumentals Dessner sent her were mostly composed nd recorded by him at Long Pond, assisted by Low.

Sketching Sessions

The instrumental sketches Aaron makes come into being in different ways," elaborates Low. "Sometimes they are more fleshed-out ideas, sometimes they are less formed. But normally Aaron will set himself up in the studio, surrounded by instruments and synths, and he'll construct a track. Once he feels it makes some kind of sense I'll come in and take a listen and then we together develop what's there.

"I don't call his sketches demos, because while many instruments are added and replaced later on, most of the original parts end up in the final version of the song. We end up in the final version of the song. We try to get the sketches to a place where they are already very engaging as instrumental are already very engaging as instrumental tracks. Aaron and I are always obsessively listening, because we constantly want to hear things that feel inspiring and musical, not just a bed of music in the background. It takes longer to create, but in this case also gave Taylor more to latch onto, both emotionally and in terms of musical inspiration. Hearing melodies woven in the music triggered new melodies."

Not long after Dessner and Low sent each sketch to Swift, they would receive her voice memos in return, and they'd load them into the Pro Tools session of the sketch in question. Dessner and Low then continued to develop the songs, in close collaboration with Swift. "Taylor's voice memos often came with suggestions for how to edit the sketches: maybe throw in a bridge somewhere, shorten a section, change the chords or arrangement somewhere, and so on. Aaron would have similar ideas, and he then developed the arrangements, often with his brother Bryce, adding or replacing instruments. This happened fast, and became very interactive between us and Taylor, even though we were working remotely. When we added instruments, we were reacting to the way my rough mixes felt at the very beginning. Of course, it was also dictated by how Taylor wrote and sang to the tracks."

Dessner supplied sketches for nine and produced 10 of folklore's 16 songs, playing many different types of guitars, keyboards and synths as well as percussion and programmed drums. Instruments that were added later include live strings, drums, trombone, accordion, clarinet, harpsichord and more, with his brother Bryce doing many of the orchestrations. Most overdubs by other musicians were done remotely as well. Throughout, Low was keeping an overview of everything that was going on and mixing the material, so it was as presentable and inspiring as possible.

Mixing folklore

Although Dessner has called folklore an "anti-pop album", the world's number-one pop mixer Serban Ghenea was drafted in to mix seven tracks, while Low did the remainder.

"It was exciting to have Serban involved," explains Low, "because he did things I'd never do or be able to do. The way the vocal sits always at the forefront, along with the clarity he gets in his mixes, is remarkable. A great example of this is on the song 'epiphany'. There is so much beautiful space and the vocal feels effortlessly placed. It was really interesting to hear where he took things, because we were so close to the entire process in every way. Hearing a totally new perspective was eye-opening and refreshing.

"Throughout the entire process we were trying to maintain the original feel. Sometimes this was hard, because that initial rawness would get lost in large arrangements and additional layering. With revisions of folklore in particular we sometimes were losing the emotional weight from earlier more casual mixes. Because I was always mixing, there was also always the danger of over-mixing.

"We were trying to get the best of each mix version, and sometimes that meant stepping backwards, and grabbing a piano chain from an earlier mix, or going three versions back to before we added orchestration. There were definitely moments of thinking, 'Is this going to compete sonically? Is this loud enough?' We knew we loved the way the songs sounded as we were building them, so we stuck with what we knew. There were times where I tried to keep pushing a mix forward but it didn't improve the song — 'cardigan' is an example of a song where we ended up choosing a very early mix."

The Low Down

"I'm originally from Philadelphia," says Jonathan Low, "and played piano, alto saxophone and guitar when growing up. My dad is an electrical engineer and audiophile hobbyist, and I learned a lot about circuit design and how to repair things. I then started building guitar pedals and guitar amps, and recorded bands at my high school using a minidisc player and some binaural microphones. After that I did a music industry programme at Drexel University, and spent a lot of time working at the recording facilities there.

"This led to me meeting Brian McTear, a producer and owner of Miner Street Studios, which became my home base from 2009 to 2014. I learned a lot from him, from developing an interest in creating sounds in untraditional ways, to how to see a record through to completion. The studio has a two-inch 16-track Ampex MM1200 tape machine and a beautiful MCI 400 console which very quickly shaped the way I think about routing and signal flow. I'm lucky to have learned this way, because a computer environment is like the Wild West: there are no rules in terms of how to get from point A to point B. This flexibility is incredible, but sometimes there are simply too many options.

"l met Aaron [Dessned] because singer-songwriter Sharon van Etten recorded her second album, Epic [2010] at Miner Street, with Brian producing. Her third album, Tramp [2012] was produced by Aaron. They came to Philly to record drums and I ended up mixing a bunch of that record. After that I would occasionally go to work in Aaron's garage studio in Brooklyn, and this became more and more a regular collaboration. I then moved from Philly up to the Hudson Valley to help Aaron build Long Pond. We first used the studio in the spring of 2016, when beginning to record the National's album Sleep Well Beast."

Onward & Upward

folklore was finished and released in July 2020. In a normal world everyone might have gone on to do other things, but without the option of touring, they simply continued writing songs, with Low holding the fort. In September, many of the musicians who played on the album gathered at Long Pond for the shooting of a making-of documentary, folklore: the long pond studio sessions, which is streamed on Disney+.

The temporary presence of Swift at Long Pond changed the working methods somewhat, as she could work with Dessner in the room, and Low was able record her vocals. After Swift left again, sessions continued until December, when evermore was released, with Dessner producing or co-producing all tracks, apart from 'gold rush' which was co-written and co-produced by Swift and Antonoff. Low recorded many of Swift's vocals for evermore, and mixed the entire album. The lead single 'willow' became the biggest hit from the album, reaching number one in the US and number three in the UK.

"Before Taylor came to Long Pond," remembers Low, "she had always recorded her vocals for folklore remotely in Los Angeles or Nashville. When I recorded, I used a modern Telefunken U47, which is our go-to vocal mic — we record all the National stuff with that — going straight into the Siemens desk, and then into a Lisson Grove AR-1 tube compressor, and via a Burl A-D converter into Pro Tools. Taylor creates and lays down her vocal arrangements very quickly, and it sounds like a finished record in very few takes."

Devils In The Detail

In his mixes, Low wanted listeners to share his own initial response to these vocal performances. "The element that draws me in is always Taylor's vocals. The first time I received files with her properly recorded but premixed vocals I was just floored. They sounded great, even with minimal EQ and compression. They were not the way I'm used to hearing her voice in her pop songs, with the vocal soaring and sitting at the very front edge of the soundscape. In these raw performances, I heard so much more intimacy and interaction with the music. It was wonderful to hear her voice with tons of detail and nuances in place: her phrasing, her tonality, her pitch, all very deliberate. We wanted to maintain that. It's more emotional, and it sounds so much more personal to me. Then there was the music..."

The arrangements on evermore are even more 'chamber pop' than on folklore, with instruments like glockenspiel, crotales, flute, French horn, celeste and harmonium in evidence. "As listeners of the National may know, Aaron's and Bryce's arrangements can be quite dense. They love lush orchestration, all sorts of percussion, synths and other electronic sounds. The challenge was trying to get them to speak, without getting in the way of the vocals. I want a casual listener to be drawn in by the vocal, but sense that something special is happening in the music as well. At the same time, someone who really is digging in can fully immerse themselves and take in all the beauty deeper in the details of the sound and arrangement. Finding the balance between presenting all the musical elements that were happening in the arrangement and this really beautiful, upfront, real-sounding vocal was the ticket."

A particular challenge is that a lot of the detail that Aaron gravitates towards happens in the low mids, which is a very warm part of our hearing spectrum that can quickly become too muddy or too woolly. A lot of the tonal and musical information lives in the low mids, and then the vocal sits more in the midrange and high mids. There's not too much in the higher frequency range, except the top of the guitars, and some elements like a shaker and the higher buzzy parts of the synths. Maintaining clarity and separation in those often complex arrangements was a major challenge."

In & Out The Box

According to Low, the final mix stage for evermore was "very short. There was a moment in the final week or so leading up to the release where the songs were developed far enough for me to sit down and try to make something very cohesive and final, finalising vocal volume, overall volume, and the vibe. There's a point in every mix where the moves get really small. When a volume ride of 0.1dB makes a difference, you're really close to being done. Earlier on, those little adjustments don't really matter.

"I often try to mix at the console, with some outboard on the two-bus, but folklore was mixed all in the box, because we were working so fast, plus initially the plan was for the mixes to be done elsewhere. I ran a couple of mixes for evermore through the console, and `closure' was the only one that stuck. It was summed through the Siemens, with an API 2500 compressor and a Thermionic Culture Phoenix and then back into Pro Tools via the Burl A-D. I will use hardware when mixing in the box, though mainly just two units: the Eventide H3000, because I have not found any plug-ins that do the same thing, and the [Thermionic] Culture Vulture, for its very broad tone shaping and distortion properties.

"The writing and the production happened closely in conjunction with the engineering and mixing, and the arrangements were dense, making many of the sessions super hefty and actually quite messy. Sounds would constantly change roles in the arrangement and sometimes plug-ins would just stack up. So final mixing involved cleaning up the sessions and stemming large groups down."

Across The Rubber Bridge

The Pro Tools mix session of 'willow' has close to 100 tracks, though there's none of the elaborate bussing that's the hallmark of some modern sessions. At the top are six drum machine tracks in green from the Teenage Engineering OP-1, an instrument that was used extensively on the album. Below that are five live percussion tracks (blue), three bass tracks (pink), and an `AUX Drums' programming track. There's a 'rubber bridge' guitar folder and aux, OP-1 synth tracks, piano tracks, 'Dream Machine' (Josh Kaufman's guitar) and E-bow tracks, Yamaha, Sequential Prophet X, Moog and Roland Juno synth tracks, and Strings and Horns aux stem tracks.

"Most of the drum tracks were performed on the OP-1 by Aaron. These are not programmed tracks. Bryan Devendorf, drummer of the National, programmed some beats on a Roland TR-8S. I ran those though the Fender Rumble bass amp, which adds some woofiness, like an acoustic kit room mic. There's an acoustic shaker, and there's an OP-1 backbeat that's subtle in the beginning, and then gets stronger towards the end of the song. I grouped all the drum elements and the bass, and sent those out to a hardware insert with the Culture Vulture, for saturation, so it got louder and more and more harmonically rich. There is this subtle growing and crescendo of intensity of the rhythm section by the end.

"The 'rubber bridge' guitars were the main anchor in the instruments. These guitars have a wooden bridge wrapped in rubber, and sound a bit like a nylon-string guitar, or a light palm mute. They're very percussive and sound best when recorded on our Neumann U47 and a DI. On many of those DI tracks I have a [SPL] Transient Designer to lower the sustain and keep them punchy, especially in the low end. There's a folder with five takes of 'rubber bridge' guitar in this session, creating this wall of unique guitar sound.

"I treated the 'rubber bridge' guitars quite extensively. There's a FabFilter Pro-Q3 cutting some midrange frequencies and some air around 10kHz. These guitars can splash out in the high end and have a boominess that's in the same range as the low end of Taylor's vocal, so I had to keep these things under control. Then I used a SoundToys Tremolator, with a quarter-note tremolo that makes the accents in the playing a bit more apparent. I like to get the acoustic guitars a little bit out of the way for the less important beats, so I have the Massey CT5 compressor side-chained to the kick drum. I also used the UAD Precision K-Stereo to make the guitars a bit wider. The iZotope Ozone Exciter adds some high mids and high-end harmonic saturation sparkly stuff, and the SoundToys EchoBoy delay is automated, with it only coming on in the bridge, where I wanted more ambience."

Growing Pains

"Once we had figured out how to sit the 'rubber bridge' guitars in the mix, the next challenge was to work out the end of the song, after the bridge. Taylor actually goes down an octave with her voice in the last chorus, and at the same time the music continues to push and grow. That meant using a lot of automation and Clip Gain adjustment to make sure the vocal always stayed on top. There also are ambient pianos playing counter-melodies, and balancing the vocals, guitars and pianos was the main focus on this song. We spent a lot of time balancing this, particularly as the track grows towards the end.

"The vocal tracks share many of the same plug-ins and settings. On the main lead vocal track I added the UAD Pultec EQP-1A, with a little bit of a cut in the low end at 30Hz, and a boost at 8kHz, which adds some modern air. The second plug-in is the Oeksound Soothe, which is just touching the vocal, and it helps with any harsh resonance stuff in the high mids, and a little in the lower mids. Next is the UAD 1176AE, and then the FabFilter Pro-Q3, doing some notches at 200Hz, 1kHz, 4kHz and close to 10kHz. I tend to do subtractive EQ on the Q3, and use more analogue-sounding plug-ins, like the Pultec or the Maag, to boost. After that is the FabFilter Pro-DS [de-esser], taking off a couple of decibels, followed by the FabFilter Saturn 2 [saturation processor], on a warm tape setting.

"Below the vocal tracks are three aux effects tracks, for the vocals. 'Long Delay' has a stereo EchoBoy going into an Altiverb with a spring reverb, for effect throws in the choruses. 'Chamber' is the UAD Capitol Chamber, which gives the vocal a nice density and size, without it being a long reverb. The 'Plate' aux is the UAD EMT140, for the longer tail. These two reverbs work in conjunction, with the chamber for the upfront space, determining where the vocal sits in the mix, and the plate more for the depth behind that.

"At the bottom of the session is a two-bus aux, which mimics the way I do the two-bus on the desk. The plug-ins are the UAD Massive Passive EQ, UAD API 2500 compressor, and the UAD Ampex ATR102. Depending on the song, I will choose 15ips or 30ips. In this case it was set to 15ips, half-inch GP9. That has a nice, aggressive, midrange push, and the GP9 bottom end goes that little bit lower. There's also a PSP Vintage Warmer, a Sonnox Oxford Inflator, plus a FabFilter Pro-L2 [limiter]. None of these things are doing very much on their own, but in conjunction give me the interaction I expect from an analogue mix chain."

#Aaron Dessner #bryce dessner #Jonathan Low #the long pond studio sessions #making of #folklore album #evermore album #interview #about taylor #taylor swift #songwriting #producer #evermore era #folklore era #Sound on Sound Magazine #scans

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princecharmingmendes · 3 years

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Invisible String | Werewolf AU | Raul Mendes

Raul is a werewolf and his mate turned out not only to be human, but his best friend's little sister. And as much as he tried, he could not ignore that invisible string tying her to him.

Hello hello! This is a bit of an experimental thing and I'm really excited about it, I've always been highly interested in everything about alternative universe and fantasy in general, and ever since I received the first ask to write a werewolf piece I've been wanting to do it but also a bit nervous. So hopefully this meets your expectations and you guys like it! Let me know if this was any good and if you guys would like to see something else like this!

*Word Count: 8K+;

*Warnings: a few curse words, a little angsty (i guess), minor drinking;

*Posted: March 28th, 2021.

-*-

Raul felt like life liked playing sick little tricks on him.

Like the fact that werewolves had a very strict hierarchy and normally it worked nicely. The Alphas are the ones in charge and responsible for keeping the pack safe and in order. Betas normally were kind of the strength of the pack, trained to listen and do whatever the pack needed and physically skilled to fight off anyone. And the Omegas were the glue to all of it, the sweet and naturally more caring ones, and it was an ancient thing that was followed to this day. Until Raul and his twin brothers were all born Alphas. It was hard informing the pack that they’re all going to be the Alphas of their pack. And since normally it was only allowed one wolf to claim that position, it was harder to make older ones respect their decision and actually accept, but at the end of the day, they didn’t have much of a choice. The Alpha genes ran in the Mendes family for generations and thankfully their dynamic was actually great and the triplets formed a great group of wolves.

And that was just an example of the things Raul blames on fate or whatever for making his like a bit more difficult. But maybe the hardest one was having mated with not only a human, but his Beta’s younger sister. His best friend’s and right hand’s sister, one of the only girls that was off limits had to be his mate.

And it wasn’t even his choice. Mating is a common thing between werewolves and other creatures, often seen as a blessing, a reason to celebrate. It’s similar to what most people have as a soulmate. It’s two souls that were meant to be together and are deeply connected to the other. Sometimes it’s harder to notice, it can take a few years and sometimes it’s almost instantaneous, and it can’t be undone or ignored. And even though sometimes it can be denied by one of the sides, according to the ones who’ve been through it, it’s an awfully painful experience. Some even go as far as describing having a piece of you being pulled out of your heart.

It also doesn’t have to be necessarily tied to a romantic relationship, you can simply be friends with them for the rest of your lives, even though it doesn’t happen most of the time. Most of the time it isn’t even something to think about, it just feels natural, you feel whole when you’re around that person, they’re meant to be your other half and normally it just clicks. And when you grow up surrounded by wolves, it’s normally a beautiful connection to witness. Raul always found their parents relationship amazing, and deep down longed for a similar deep relationship with someone, finding his mate and falling in love. He just didn’t expect it to happen the way it did.

It was over four years ago and he was running a bit late to Mike’s, his best friend, nineteenth birthday he was having at his parents’ house. Raul got caught up sorting through some pack stuff and when he was finally done with it, he was already half an hour late and it was outside their little secluded “neighborhood” in the wooded area. It was a bit far from the town so the wolves wouldn’t have a problem with the humans since their existence was still a secret. Only very few and selected humans knew about them. So it was best for everybody if they built their little community on the woods just beside the town, and keep their presence among humans only when seen necessary.

Mike’s father, who is a werewolf, fell in love with a human (Mike’s mom) and they decided to move into town to be closer to her job since she was a nurse and needed to be near the hospital in case of an emergency. And when Mike was born a wolf, they decided that he was going to be raised like his dad was in the wolf community and would make his decision in joining it or not when he was older. And he did choose the pack life since it felt more natural to him. But Y/N, his younger sister, was actually born a human and was raised by his parents like any human kid, and she was never taken to their community since she was three years younger than her brother and Mike was very protective over her, not knowing how his pack would treat her or react to her.

So when Raul parked his car right outside the address that was sent to him and ringed the bell, he wasn’t expecting to be met with his mate. But there she was, Y/N stood with the door open as her eyes widened the slightest bit and he was sure he wasn’t breathing. He felt like he was floating and her sweet scent of something like Roses and Strawberries was all he could feel. All his other senses were clouded by her presence just a few inches away from him. He didn’t know how to react or what to say, and for the first time in his life he was completely speechless. Raul was normally a very socially skilled person, he was good at talking to people and reading someone’s expressions like a book, always had a sharp answer at the tip of his tongue and knew what to do at most situations, but Y/N caught him off guard.

She seemed a bit confused as well. Her mouth slightly a gape as she held to the wooden doorframe. Y/N was really happy she was finally meeting all of her brother’s friends and getting to know a bit more of this part of his life she was deprived of. And she was a bit shocked to notice how big and strong all of his friends were, specially Shawn and Peter, who Mike explained to be the Alphas. They were also incredibly nice to her, she suspects it was her brother’s doing since every time they would say something or curse, they would always look at Mike first. But when the doorbell rang again, she knew it was Raul, he was the only one missing and they knew he was late due to “pack stuff” as they explained. She felt a bit jittery and basically ran to the door from the spot she was sitting next to it on her phone, wanting to get to know her brother’s best friend for a while now. But she wasn’t prepared to meet him.

Sure, he was identical to his twins, but there was something different about him that hit her hard. Of course, he had more tattoos and a few more piercings, he looked a bit rougher in the edges with his leather jacket and wild golden eyes, but there was something that wasn’t about his appearance that took her breath away. And suddenly she didn’t know what to do, they’re both stuck in their place staring at each other. And even though her mind was screaming at her to stop being awkward, invite him in and actually act like a decent being, Y/N couldn’t move a muscle, and he’s probably thinking she’s an idiot and too polite to invite himself in. And in the middle of her internal turmoil, he regained some self control for the sake of both of them.

Raul cleared his throat shaking his head a bit “Hi, I’m Raul, you must be Y/N” he said and she swore she melted at the sound of his voice “it’s really nice finally meeting you”

He offered his hand to her to which she swiftly grabbed, feeling his warmth seeping throughout her palm, his fingers curling around her much smaller ones. He had a beautiful design tattooed on the back of his hand and she got a little lost in it.

Y/N sighed relief he broke the awkward moment and looked up back at him, trying to control her thoughts “Yeah, that’s me, nice to meet you too, would you like to come in?”

Raul smiled as he let go of her hand a bit reluctantly “sure” was all he said as he stepped in closer to her, being hit with a fresh wave of her sweet scent, forcing him to take a deep breath.

“The boys are outside in case you’re wondering” she said placing a strand of hair that fell out of her little updo behind her ear.

Raul held back the urge to do it himself “Oh, so they annoyed you into staying in the living room?”

“No no” her eyes almost budged out of their socket “I was just- I was just waiting for you since I knew you were running late and they’re all talking, so I didn’t want to intrude and I-“

“Y/N it’s just a joke” he said through a chuckle as he saw her face flushing “relax a bit, honey”

Y/N giggled softly as she closed the door “I’m sorry, I-“

“Hey, dude!” Mike called from across the room, making their heads snap towards him “how’s everything back home?”

“All settled” Raul said taking a step closer to his Beta “just arrived actually”

“Oh, so you met my little sister” and even though it seemed like a normal sentence, Raul knew Mike and knew his posture like the back of his hand, he knew this was a reminder of the conversation they had back home about staying away from her.

“Yeah, she opened the door for me” he said and from his peripheral he saw Y/N nodding confirming his line.

“I see, the guys are outside, let’s go grab a burger for you” Mike said patting him on the shoulder and dragging him away from the front door where Y/N seemed to be frozen in place.

Raul remembers vividly every little second of that night. Remembers how he decided he should keep his distance for the sake of his friendship and for Y/N herself. She was only sixteen when they met and she is human, which means the bond isn’t too strong for her, specially at first glance, and dating a werewolf was hard. He lived far into the woods and didn’t necessarily mingle with people in town, who were probably her friends and she wasn’t raised with his type, so maybe it would be too much for her. And Raul’s sure Mike wouldn’t be happy about it, at least not now where they first met and she’s that young. So he kept his distance, only talking to her when extremely necessary.

And that was a pattern he kept for the remaining four years of their limited interactions (which he intended keeping that way).

As older as Y/N got, the closest she got with the pack. She was always close to Mike, but since she was young she wasn’t allowed to walk or drive alone to the community, but as soon as she was old enough she was always around on the weekends and important dates. And she was just lovely, so everyone adored her, always wanting to have her around for monthly movie nights and even going as far as inviting her to spend the night. Raul couldn’t really blame anyone for wanting her around, he did too, but he couldn’t, so he didn’t say a thing about it. And he knew he made her hesitant on accepting those invitations, cause at every attempt she ever made to get closer to him, he shut her off. And he could see Y/N was hurt, but it was for the best.

He even tried dating someone else for a while and he noticed Y/N didn’t like it even the tiniest bit. The girl he was dating was a Beta that was temporarily living with them as her pack solved something around the area, and she was nice. But it didn’t last long, she was only staying for a few months, and on the day she left, there was a barbecue in celebration to one of the older wolves and of course Y/N was there. Raul was late since he was taking his ex to the airport, and Y/N didn’t even look at him when he stepped into the little location they were all settled. He found the act odd but didn’t say a word, only walking towards his brother’s and Mike who were laughing probably about something dumb one of them said. Raul spent a few minutes with them, but he kept looking over his shoulder where Y/N was sat, noticing after an hour she was missing and he instantly started trying to find her.

He dismissed his friends as he walked into the pack house, trying to clear his senses to track her in case she was hurt (since she was a bit wobbly on her feet already), but only to be met with her staring at her phone while sitting on the couch with a huge pout set on her lips. Raul was about to turn and leave when Y/N looked up, noticing his presence and he swears his heart stopped at that moment. She had tears filling her eyes and her lips were trembling slightly, a deep frown set on her brows.

“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t be here” she mumbled sniffling softly “I just needed to clear my head a bit”

Raul nodded with softer eyes as he walked closer to her “it’s okay, are you hurt? Are you in pain?”

Y/N shook her head “I honestly don’t know why I’m so upset, I didn’t even drink that much or anything, I just-“ she sighed heavily and looked up at the celling.

“Tired?” Raul offered gently and she nodded her head slowly “want me to drive you home?”

“No, please, just go enjoy the night, isn’t Samantha here?” she said as he sat down beside her, still keeping some distance.

“We broke up, she left today” was all he said and she looked up at him with wide eyes, but before she could start apologizing, he just pressed his hand to her knee gently “it’s okay, it wasn’t anything serious, no need to apologize, sweetheart”

“I- okay”

“Still wanna stay?” he pressed gently “I can still take you home”

“No, it’s okay, I was supposed to spend the night anyway” she shrugged.

“Wanna go upstairs and take a nap?” was all he asked and she shook her head.

“The thing is I was supposed to stay at Stacy’s room tonight, but her boyfriend showed up, so I guess I got the living room” she explained “which is totally okay, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful, I know you don’t like me much, and I don’t want to make things worse”

And at that his heart shattered “wait, what?”

“Oh no, I really don’t mind, I can call a cab too, I can leave in twenty minutes too, I’m sorry I-“ she started breathing a bit heavily as he picked up her heart racing more than usual.

Raul shook his head, turning on the couch to face her better “No, it’s not that, I’m not mad at you or anything, I just- who said I don’t like you?”

“I- no one” she opened her mouth a few times before closing it until she said something that shattered his heart in a billion pieces “no one, it’s just something I’ve noticed throughout the years”

“What do you mean?”

Y/N sighed deeply as she glanced down at her lap, fidgeting the bracelet she always wore, which Raul caught on a long time ago to be a nervous habit “I know you get uncomfortable when I’m around and Mike told me it was probably something about you not being used to have humans around, and I totally get it, it’s just sometimes it seems like my presence is enough to put you in a sour mood and I don’t think it’s because I’m human or anything, and I shouldn’t be saying this to you, I’m sorry”

Raul took a deep breath as he squeezed her knee gently and seeing her relax a bit at his touch “stop apologizing for everything, you did nothing wrong, sweetheart, well, besides assuming I disliked you”

“Oh” was all she managed out as her brain ran a million mile per hour.

Y/N has had a crush on him for years now, ever since the first time they met. He was the literal description of her type, but the dreamy part ended there. Of course Raul was always polite and never made anything to directly hurt her, but he kept pushing her away and avoiding her like the plague, and maybe it was all in her head, but he didn’t seem like that whenever he was around others. And that did nothing to help her case. She knew nothing would ever happen between them, he made it pretty obvious he wasn’t attracted to her, but she’d like to try and be friends with him but even that didn’t seem to interest him. And it wasn’t his fault, she didn’t even knew the reason as to why she felt the need to have him around, but she just did. So Y/N just lost hope after all the attempts to make him like her, but he was always so distant and it still affected her after all this years.

In the other hand, Y/N had no idea how hard it was to push her away. Raul was certain she knew exactly what to do to get to his heart, she had to. Every little thing she did made his heart flutter and she was just so good at having people wrapped around her fingers that she made her way through all of his friends lives. He thought they were mates at first glance, her scent was a great clue, but as they got to know each other better, even indirectly, just made him sure of it. Y/N meant much more than what he thought was possible, seeing her stressed over school stuff or sad about whatever reason was enough to put him in panic, not knowing how to keep his distance and stop her from hurting. And all his cold exterior wasn’t necessarily his choice, he knew Mike confessed he hoped his sister would not get with an Alpha, that meant she would have to give up a few things in her life and that would herself in danger for having Raul’s scent all over her. And Mike also told him he would do whatever he could to avoid that to keep her safe.

So he did it for her, to keep her safe from the problems that came along with living in a pack, dating a werewolf and being a human. But it was getting harder, and tonight he decided to ignore it, that she needed him more than she needed to stay away from him. And that’s what pushed him to wrap his fingers around her wrist, making her look up at him

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” he offered in a lower voice “maybe it will help you clear your head a bit” and Y/N seemed a bit shook, looking up at him with wide eyes and she nodded slowly.

Raul smiled fondly at her as he got up with her following him up the stairs to the little movie room the pack out together for movie nights. They sat down side by side as he offered her to pick something for them, then Raul proceeded to reach for a fluffy blanket that was thrown on the corner of the sofa. When he turned back to her she still looked a bit lost, so he offered to put on a show he knew was her favorite, and she just nodded in response. Y/N was too nervous to do anything wrong that would push him back into being his closed off distant self, and she knew she looked ridiculous all tense and barely breathing by his side.

Raul noticed her stiffness right away and decided to turn off the lights hoping this would make her relax even a little bit. And as the episode progressed he noticed she was getting more and more loose. An hour later, in the middle of the second episode, he felt her leaning closer to him, probably searching for a bit more warmth, so he lifted his arm to rest on the back of the couch and to make room for her in case she wanted. It only took a couple more minutes for her to be basically leaning most of her weight on him, and when her arm slipped, she fell mostly laying on his chest. And as soon as Y/N was ready to start apologizing, Raul shushed her softly, asking her to relax and pulling the covers up both of their bodies, and so she did.

He didn’t notice he was falling asleep until he woke up many hours later with the sound of voices downstairs from his brothers. Raul looked down at his chest to find Y/N cuddled to him, sound asleep as his arm wrapped around her waist held her still. He took a deep breath and almost chose not to wake her and just go back to sleep, to deal with the stiffness due to the sitting position he held and the consequences of sleeping there with her in the morning. At least until he heard the door cracking open slowly and Shawn’s head popping in.

“Are you two okay?” his brother whispered as he noticed the girl asleep on the couch, and to that Raul nodded in response, afraid to wake her up “take her upstairs to your room, dude, Mike will find out you like her sooner or later and he’ll deal with it, just don’t let her sleep on the couch”

Raul sighed and nodded. Shawn bid his goodnight and closed the door with a soft click. Peter, Shawn and his mom were the only ones to know about his mating situation, and he liked it better that way. They tried convincing him to tell her at least, but they understood that maybe it wasn’t the right time just yet and let him decide what to do with his feelings.

So he ended up taking his brothers suggestion and as gently as he could, he rearranged the girl in his arms to he could carry her upstairs to his bedroom. Y/N grumbled softly in protest, nuzzling her face further on his neck as she quieted down. Raul had to stop himself from cooing at her. As he walked out into the bright hallway she mumbled something unintelligible before calling his name.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, I’m here, it’s just me” he whispered as they walked into his room, before placing a kiss to her hair, gently lowering her to his mattress.

Y/N slowly opened her eyes “Raul? I’m sorry, I fell asleep on you” she mumbled quietly.

“It’s okay, just thought a bed would be a better place for you to sleep other than the couch” he said standing up to his full height and bringing the covers up her body “that’s why I brought you to my room”

“Thank you” she said grabbing his hand and he just nodded at her with a gentle grin on his lips “why are you up?”

“I’m going to crash downstairs on the movie room” he stated caressing the back of her hand with his thumb and she started shaking her hand.

Her hold on him tightened “No, not a chance, I’m not taking you out of your bed for you to sleep on the couch, please stay here with me, please”

And how could he possibly say no to her looking so sleepy and so sweet?

He breathed a chuckle with a nod “just let me change first, do you need a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt instead of what you’re wearing?”

“Yes please” she murmured feeling a bit embarrassed for making him do all of this for her.

And as if he could read his mind “Don’t look at me as if you’re being a headache, yeah? It’s okay, sweetheart, let me just grab you some clothes” he squeezed her hand before letting go of it in favor of picking up what he promised.

He came back from his closet in only a pair of sweats and a thin white t-shirt, a similar paring folded in his hands for her. She got up to change on his bathroom as he climbed on his bed, trying to contain the excitement of the prospect of having the girl he’s been fond of for over two years, the possible love of his life. Y/N quickly returned in his clothes, following suit and diving under the covers, laying on her side away from him as he stayed on his back, trying to control his breathing after turning off the lights. A few minutes passed and he’s sure she was asleep, the room dark enough so he could only see the silhouette of her body by the faint glow of the moon seeping through his curtains. But then he heard the soft rustle of his sheets as she turned to face him, and he only turned his face on the pillow to properly look at her.

“Can I ask you something?” she whispered almost as if she was afraid to break the comfortable silence that fell over them.

Raul hummed in response “anything you want” his voice a soft and raspy tone, making her shiver slightly.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” her voice barely audible as if she was nervous to ask, or maybe the answer frightened her more.

“You don’t have to worry about it, you should just rest for now” was his response and she sighed in defeat, nodding her head before facing him away again.

The clear defeat on her features, despite the darkness was enough to make him regret his words. So Raul turned on his hand, raising a careful hand to caress her exposed bicep. She flinched at first, not expecting his touch, but quickly relaxing to it as he felt goosebumps raise on her skin. He decided to scoot a bit closer almost as if he were testing the waters and she shuffled closer in response. Soon the hand on her arm slid to wrap her waist gently and Y/N sighed happily in return, finally resting her back on his chest. Raul placed a kiss at the top of her head as she melted under his sweet gesture.

When she was in transition to dreamland, she swears she heard him whisper into her hair, the place he decided to muzzle his face “I’m sorry I made you think I disliked you, Y/N that’s not the case at all” he took a deep breath and she was far to gone to say anything back “You just seemed like you needed me tonight, and I’m sorry if I ever made you think your presence here was unwanted, you’re just too good and I don’t deserve you, sweetheart”

And not knowing if this was true or not, his whispered confessions with that slightly raspy and almost honeyed at the same time voice lulled her completely to sleep.

-*-

In the weeks prior to that event, neither of them said a thing about that night, not even in an indirect way. Raul barely spoke to his brothers about it, but they already knew what happened, and Y/N didn’t feel like telling Mike would be a genius idea, so she decided against it. And to her disappointment things got back to the old normal, at least for the most part. She felt like Raul was a bit more comfortable around her and didn’t try so much to stay away, but it wasn’t like that day, and it still hunts her that she actually caught a small glimpse of what their relationship could be. But it was also taking its tool on him, that night he slept like a baby and allowed himself to daydream that this could’ve been their reality if things were a bit different.

He woke up that morning pretty early as usual, for his perimeter check, but only this time Y/N was sound asleep on his chest, and maybe he stalled a bit to enjoy her sweet scent a bit more before slowly peeling her off of him and gently laying her back down on the pillows. There was only a bit of resistance in form of a whine but she ended up pulling his pillow to her chest before settling down. It was harder than he thought leaving her on his bed as he quickly changed and jogged downstairs to go on his run, but maybe it was better like this, this way he could run and put his head at ease and actually come up with his next moves. So that’s what Raul did, but as soon as he was back on the house, already in two feet only, she was already wake and preparing something in the kitchen as she chatted with Peter.

Raul leaned on the doorway as he watched her, back on the clothes from last night, talking about her next college project as his brother sipped on his coffee mug, so he cleared his throat not to scare her as he walked in “good morning”

“Morning, Raul, can you keep her company as she eats her breakfast? I actually need to run to Sam’s house to pick up some stuff before he leaves for work” Peter asked, a knowing look on his face as Raul just shrugged it off “thanks, got to go, Y/N, good luck with that sheet!” his brother said before leaving the kitchen completely.

“Hi” she said, eyes trained on the eggs she was making as he stood beside her, his hip leaning on the kitchen counter “would you like some?”

“Sure” he said looking around the room “did you sleep well?”

Y/N’s body visibly stiffened as she cleared her throat before answering “yeah, thank you about last night, by the way”

Raul nodded before changing the subject and seeing her relax at that, knowing it was for the best, mentally deleting the speech he came up with. And that’s where the whole conversation died.

-*-

Months later Raul found himself in an equally as hard situation.

Y/N was spending the weekend at the pack house that was a bit more empty than usual, since a few of the wolves (including Mike) decided to go on a little getaway to run from the cold that was arriving sooner than expected, and since her parents were out of town, his best friend asked if she could stay with them so Y/N wouldn’t be all by herself for four days during the possibility of a storm that was estimated for that weekend. And of course they couldn’t deny it, specially since she was very sweet and everyone loved her.

And tonight was the second night of her in the house and Raul was pacing back and forth on his room, probably about to open a hole on the floor from pacing too much, but he didn’t know what to do. She was downstairs on the living room working on some sort of paper for college and he decided he was going to bed, but as soon as he reached his room, the storm that was expected to happen finally arrived and he literally heard her heart rate speeding up exponentially, but didn’t know how to approach her or even if he should. However, when he heard her curse under her breath when a lightning lit up the whole house he knew he could not do nothing, so he opened the door to his room and basically ran down the stairs.

As Raul reached the bottom of the stairs, he identified Y/N to be the little ball wrapped up in a fluffy blanket in the middle of the couch. He took a deep breath before carefully walking towards her, he tried making enough noise so she wouldn’t get caught off guard but not enough to disturb her. But as soon as he reached the side of the couch she looked up at him with wide teared eyes from the little cocoon of blankets she was. Raul physically stopped himself from cooing at her and pulling her to his lap.

Y/N gave him a little sad laugh as she rubbed her eyes harshly “I’m sorry we always end up meeting like this, I must seem like an idiot, right?”

Raul shook his head sitting down beside her “You’re not an idiot, what’s making you so upset?”

She took a deep breath before answering “I guess I’m just tired, and this paper is a bit harder than I thought and I’m actually a bit afraid of storms, and this is all stupid and I-“

“Hey, it’s not stupid, it’s stressful and it’s okay, no one really like storms, they’re dangerous and pretty scary”

“Sure, when you’re five” she said playfully rolling her eyes as he chuckled softly.

“Oh, darling, you know that’s not true”

“Are you scared of storms?” she asked with an arched brow.

“No”

“See?”

Raul chuckled as he shook his head “you’re really something, aren’t you?”

Y/N shrugged as she saved the document before moving to the book she was using as reference “Why are you up if you’re not scared then?”

“You are”

Y/N turned her head in his direction “Oh, I didn’t mean to wake you up”

“You didn’t, I just knew you were afraid and decided to come check on you” he said already regretting admitting to it.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you didn’t have to come though, I’m a big girl, I can take it”

Raul gave her his signature lopsided smile that she had only seen a few times directed to her, making her insides a bit toastier than before “I know you can, sweetheart, just didn’t want you to be alone if I could come down and try to help”

“Yeah, that’s the Alpha spirit, right?” and with that sentence Raul rested his head on the back of the sofa with a laugh.

“Maybe” Raul turned his head to face her, deciding he was going to ignore the whole ‘pushing her away’ speech, at least for a moment “I was thinking that maybe we should make some hot chocolates if you want to finish this paper tonight”

“Are you serious?” Y/N had to confirm she wasn’t going mad and that he was actually willingly wanting to spend some time with her.

“Of course I’m serious, you can’t joke about stuff like this”

“What? Hot chocolate?” she asked holding back a laugh.

“Well obviously” he pushed himself up from the couch, relieved to see she seemed distracted enough to forget about the whole weather outside “I’m aces in the kitchen”

Raul offered her his hand and she smiled at him shaking her head before closing her computer and pushing it aside, taking his outstretched hand and letting him pull her up carefully “well, how did I just find that out?”

“Because I’m normally too tired and busy most of the time to actually make a meal”

She noticed he didn’t let go of her, and she wasn’t going to be the one to do it or point that out “oh yeah, being the Alpha and bossing everyone around must take a lot of your time and energy”

Raul chuckled as he walked her to the kitchen, letting go of her hand against his will in favor of grabbing the ingredients “Mike’s a bad influence, I bet his the one who told you that”

“You certainly didn’t, we barely talk at all” and as soon as the words left her mouth she regretted it.

Raul was with his back facing her as he sorted through the stuff to prepare their drinks, and she was ready to start apologizing, afraid he was going to push her out all over again. Why did she have to go and say something like that? As much as the mood between them was playful, mostly cause he was trying to distract her and she knew it, but it was light and fun, she had to say such thing and ruin it. Sometimes things felt so natural with him that she just forgets that they aren’t that close. But before she could freak out and start spitting strings of ‘I’m sorry’ he did something Y/N wasn’t expecting. Raul started laughing out loud, turning to face her and she ended up laughing as well, maybe out of nervousness or out of relief, either way she laughed.

“I deserved that” he pointed out “but I guess that will have to change since you have such a distorted vision of the Alpha role”

“I wouldn’t particularly mind” she added softly, in hopes he wouldn’t pay much attention to it, but again, Raul was, apparently, a little box of surprises.

“Me neither, darling” he said before turning on the stove.

Y/N felt heat rising up her chest to her face and decided to clear her throat before changing subjects “Who taught you how to cook? Shawn’s a mess in the kitchen, Peter’s good but I know he took lessons”

“I guess I just learned from watching my mom, when I was little I used to spend a lot of my time in the kitchen with her whenever she was using it, my grandma too, and I guess I somehow absorbed that”

“Oh, they’re good?” Y/N took a tentative step closer to him, eager to learn about him and taking the opportunity of his sudden interest in spending time with her to milk all the information she could.

“My mom’s good, but my nan is just fantastic, she told me she used to sit on the counter by her father and watch him, and I guess I did the same”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to do the same cause my kitchen experience resumes to making toast, sandwiches and eggs” she said and he looked at her from the corner of his eye as if he was pondering.

“Then do it, I don’t mind a little audience” he said and she giggled, hoping on the counter beside where he stood.

And that’s how they spent most of their night, with light chatter and a bit of healthy teasing going around and they were ecstatic about it. Y/N felt like she was finally able to relax after all the stress and she felt weirdly complete, almost as if before she was missing a piece. And Raul, he was over the fucking moon and already regretting keeping her away for that long, avoiding every type of contact with her and he was almost telling Mike to piss himself and ignoring all this stupid made up rules he made. He sat down by Y/N’s side as he helped her finish her paper and he was actually able to, finishing it in less than twenty minutes, so they just sat down side by side talking about random stuff, until he noticed she was starting to get sleepier and sleepier with every passing minute.

“You should go to bed, sweetheart” he pointed as she was basically leaning her weight on his side, not that he minded, but they got really close really fast

“Already trying to get rid of me?” she joked and he laughed despite being afraid that was something she actually believed in, and maybe that’s what drove him to ask her what he did next.

“Never, and if you’re still a bit nervous about the rain you can sleep in my room, I can always take the couch”

“I can’t kick you out of your bed” she said looking up at him

“You’re not kicking me out, I’m inviting you and offering to stay elsewhere”

Y/N shook her head “I don’t mind sharing if you do”

Raul didn’t expect it, but he also wasn’t mad about it “If you really don’t mind, then yeah”

“Okay, I’m ready for bed if you are” she said grabbing her stuff.

Raul nodded as he helped her to carry her school material up to his room, which he placed on top of his dresser before turning around to face her standing awkwardly in the middle of his bedroom.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“Hmm, nothing I just-“ she mumbled as he chuckled.

Raul stopped by the end of his bed “I can still take the couch if you’re uncomfortable”

“It’s not that, you don’t make me uncomfortable” she said as she walked up to him “I don’t know what it is, I just feel safe around you, is it weird?”

Raul was not expecting it as he looked down at her “No, not at all, you can climb on the bed, darling” he offered as he did the same on his side.

She ended up taking up on his offer and laying down on the other side, pulling the covers up her body “you can be really sweet when you want to, you know?” she mumbled softly after a while, after the lights were already off and the only source of light in the room was coming from the lamp on his bedside table.

Raul said turning to face her, only to find Y/N already on her side facing him “Don’t think many think the same”

Y/N laughed and shook her head “guess you’re just good at pretending you’re this big bad Alpha when you’re just a big softie”

Raul laughed throwing his head back and she couldn’t stop herself from admiring the sound, his neck and his beautiful face, looking a lot more soft than normally.

“I really like your laugh” she blurted out before she could think.

His laugh was cut short when he realized her words and he smiled at her “I like yours, wish I could hear it more often”

“Well, it’s not really hard to get me to laugh”

Raul smiled at her “yeah, hm- I wanted to apologize”

“For what?” she asked, genuine curiosity shining on her eyes.

“For being a dick to you, for such a long time, there’s not an excuse for that, as much as I tried to come up with one” he finally admitted running his hands through his curls.

Y/N bit her lower lip as she looked at him “you’re never a dick to me, you’re a bit closed off, yeah, but never a dick, you never made me feel uncomfortable or anything like that, and ever since that night where you made it clear you didn’t dislike me, a few things started making more sense to me”

“Like what?” it was his turn to get confused.

She sighed heavily “I thought for a very long time you just hated my guts or didn’t want me near for being a human or an outsider, but then you said it wasn’t the case and you were so sweet to me that night, and the morning after, and ever since that day, even though you weren’t necessarily cuddling with me and being around me all the time, you were slowly opening up, spending more time around me when I was here and at first I was confused, but then yesterday I was talking to Peter and he may or may not have told me this was something to do with Mike”

“What?” Raul almost sat up, but he didn’t want her to stop talking, so he held back his impulse and just kept laying down.

“And I also talked to my mom about it, very recently, and she said my dad had a similar reaction to her when he found out they’re mates… I’m not implying anything, and I can be totally wrong about it, but I thought about it for a second and I swear it made sense, it explained why I felt so drawn to you since I first laid eyes on you” she admitted, coiling into herself a bit.

Raul was completely taken back, not knowing what to do or what to say, not expecting her to come into realization and not knowing how to proceed, that until she mumbled a soft “please say something, anything, just don’t shut me off again”

“No, darling, it’s not that, I’m sorry” he said reaching for her hand as grabbing it in his “I’m just speechless, I- you feel it too?”

“Is it true?”

“I- yes” he sighed in relief.

“You’re my mate?! Or I’m yours, I’m sorry, I don’t know how this works” she giggled nervously.

Raul couldn’t stop his smile to blossom on his lips as he nodded his head what felt like a thousand times “whatever you want, I don’t mind”

“So what does that mean now?” she said shuffling closer to him.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything, I know your brother wouldn’t appreciate the idea and I don’t want to hurt you or cause any pain, darling, I just want what’s best for you” Raul said squeezing her hand gently.

“You could never hurt me, and I don’t honestly care about what Mike thinks right now” she said placing a hand on his chest “what do you want?”

“Honestly?” he asked and she nodded eagerly, which made him chuckle “you, in any way you’ll have me, but I also don’t want to rush you into anything, this works differently for me since I’m a wolf”

“Yeah, I know how sensitive you guys can be” she joked and he laughed, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead “but I want you, I feel the pull to have you near me almost as a need”

“I know, sweetheart, I feel the same way” Raul admitted pulling her closer by her waist “just don’t want to skip any steps with you, but I kept you away long enough”

Y/N nodded tipping her head back to look at his beautiful face better, their noses brushing due to the proximity “agreed, but I still want you close”

“We’re already close, darling” he breathed a chuckled and she shook her head.

“Are you afraid of kissing me? What are you? Twelve?” she teased and he laughed, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose.

“Of course not” he whispered leaning a bit closer.

“Then what’s taking you so long?”

“Bossy little thing” he teased one more time before closing the space between them in a gentle kiss.

Y/N tangled her fingers in his wild curls as he cupped her jaw carefully, afraid that if he squeezed her even a tiniest bit she was going to disappear. But his gentle touches soon turned into a bit more urgent ones and she pulled his hair, encouraging him to deepen the kiss. Raul tighten his hand on her waist, trapping her bottom lip between his teeth, pulling it to him softly before lessening the sting with a swipe of his tongue. And unfortunately Y/N had to pull away too soon for her liking due to her stupid lungs needing oxygen. Raul leaned in to press a bunch of soft, barely there, kisses all over her face.

She giggled a bit breathlessly as she murmured “Mike will murder me when he finds out”

“Shh, we can worry about that when he’s back, he’ll have to get over it eventually”

Y/N giggled before leaning in for one more kiss.

“Okay, love, we really should sleep, and then tomorrow I can maybe take you on a date if you want” he said pressing a chaste kiss to her lips before resting his forehead on hers.

Y/N smiled up at him “Or we can have a little movie marathon here and you’ll make me dinner”

Raul laughed “you’re a mean one, you know that?”

“Why?”

“Because you know I can’t say no to you” he said and she smiled at him.

“Good boy, you’re such a good puppy” Y/N teased and he laughed.

Raul shook his head “okay, it’s definitely time for you to go to bed”

-*-

*Please reblog or like this post if you liked it so I’ll know.

*I’m sorry if there are any spelling mistakes.

*Please do not repost this without giving me the credit, this is a completely original piece and I do not give permission to copy this!

*Hope you guys enjoyed it!

*xoxo

-🌙

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haileygarciasunshine · 3 years

Text

Welcome to The Serpents

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Fem!Reader

Written: March 6th, 2021

Posted: March 6th, 2021

Warning: None.

Word Count: 1,066

Summary: Friends to Enemies Trope ish

Author’s Note: I’m not sure if anyone actually reads these things but here goes. This year has already been very tough for me. Everyday I struggle with the loss of my grandma. I’m not going to lie, it has put me in a very dark place for the past three months. However, I’m starting see change and a small twinkle of hope. I’ve decided I wanted to take better care of myself and that starts from the inside. I saw myself going down the dark path of being an alcoholic, unfortunately it runs on the both sides of my family. It dawned on me that I was following the similar path of my family members. As I realized this, I decided I would stop drinking. Let me tell you, the thirst makes me realize just how much power and hold it had over me. I’ve officially been four days sober. Anyways, thanks for reading my thoughts!

Author’s Note Part Two: I’m accepting requests so please feel free to send me some! Request Here

Sweet Pea Masterlist

“Come on, Y/N,” Betty whined as she leaned against a set of lockers beside yours.

Sighing, you rolled your eyes. “Why is it important to you that I come?” You frowned, turning to face her. “Jug’s going to be there.”

“Yeah.” She nodded in agreement, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “But I need my sister.”

“You talked Polly into going?” You questioned tilting your head as you raised an eyebrow in question.

Scoffing Betty shook her head. “You know Polly can’t come.” Her shoulders slumped slightly. “Besides, I need my favorite sister there.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Betty Cooper.” You grinned. “I’ll be there if it means that much to you.”

Squealing, Betty threw her arms around your shoulders pulling you in for an enthusiastic hug.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

Giggling you couldn’t stop the giddy feeling from bubbling up inside. The overwhelming feeling of someone boring holes into you caught your attention. Lifting your gaze over Betty’s shoulder, you were met with a pair of harsh chocolate ones.

Sweet Pea always seemed to be lingering in the background, wherever you were. Sending you a harsh glare, he disappears just as fast as he appeared. Frowning you furrowed your eyebrows together in confusion. Sweet Pea had always been hostile towards you since the moment you met, for no apparent reason.

Pulling away, Betty’s hands rested comfortably on your shoulders. Her illuminated face quickly fell.

“What is it?” Her voice dripping with concern.

“Hm?” You questioned bringing your attention back to the blonde in front of you. “Oh, uh, nothing.”

“He was around wasn’t he?”

Your silence was the only response she needed.

“He doesn’t hate you, you know.” She spoke, walking beside you towards the parking lot.

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t feel like that.” You shrugged. Your hands resting on either side of your backpack straps that rested along your shoulders.

Betty let out a huff. “You both are the most stubborn naïve people I’ve ever met.”

“Hey!” You exclaimed furrowing your eyebrows together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Betty let another huff tumble past her lips. “Nothing.” She shook her head. “It means nothing.”

----

“I’m going to Jug’s tonight,” Betty spoke, bursting into your room. “Cover for me?” She questioned plopping down on your bed beside you.

Giggling you rolled your eyes. “Don’t I always?”

Making herself comfortable, she laid down beside you. “You’re the best.”

“Yeah.” You giggled. “I know.”

“What are you going to do about Sweet Pea?” She questioned.

You didn’t have to look at her to know she had raised an eyebrow at you.

“Why do I have to do something?”

Betty groaned. “How long are you two going to dance around your feelings?”

“I...I don’t have feelings for him.”

She snorted, rolling on her side to face you. “Riiight.” She dragged out the word.

“What?” You questioned in confusion, turning your head to face her. “I don’t!”

Rolling her eyes, she let the subject go.

---

“I’m nervous,” Betty spoke, her face twisting with the uneasiness she was feeling.

“Don’t be.” You spoke, placing your hands on her shoulders. “You’re hot. Jughead’s going to love it.”

Nodding her head, she attempted to swallow her nerves. “But-”

“But nothing.” You cut her off. “Betty, there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be on the side of the stage waiting with your dress in hand.”

“You’re the best.” She spoke her voice quivering slightly. Pulling you in for a hug, you could feel her body slightly shaking.

Standing beside the stage, you gazed around the crowd in White Wyrm. Your eyes locking with the familiar pair that normally sent you a harsh stare. Much to your surprise, he was gazing at you softly.

Your breath hitching in your throat, before you dropped your gaze to the floor before you as butterflies erupted in your stomach. Sweet Pea had been harsh to you the moment you met. Your thoughts often betraying you as they filled your mind with all the possibilities that you could’ve done to make him hate you so much.

Betty walked onto the stage with a confidence you hadn’t seen before. Your face twisting in awe. As she went on with the Serpent dance, you couldn’t help but think about Sweet Pea watching your sister dancing. Frowning, your stomach burned. Turning in the direction he was in, you were met with an empty space. Furrowing your eyebrows together in confusion, you frowned. Gazing around the room, you couldn’t find the comforting chocolate eyes you had come to like.

“I don’t hate you.” A familiar husky voice spoke from behind you.

The hair on the back of your neck stood at attention as goosebumps began forming on your arms.

Turning to face him, you were confused to see him gazing at you with an emotion you hadn’t seen before.

“What-”

Reaching up, he scratched the back of his neck, dropping his eyes to the floor. “I...” Sweet Pea’s voice trailing off as it seemingly got lost in his throat.

A strong wave of confidence washed over you. Stepping forward, you came into Sweet Pea’s view.

“I...I don’t hate you either.” You breathed, feeling the butterflies in your stomach once again. “Quite the opposite, actually.” You spoke, smirking at him.

“You don’t?” His expression etching itself into confusion. “I’m sorry.”

Grinning, you stepped closer to him closing any remaining space between you. Your chest flush against his. Quickly, you placed Betty’s clothes on the counter freeing up your hands. Placing hands on his, you traveled up until they laced in his raven hair. Leaning down, he rested his forehead against yours as he closed his eyes.

Betty quickly rushed off the stage once she was done, chirping at you about her clothes. Giggling, you unwrapped yourself from Sweet Pea, grabbing Betty’s clothes and handing them to her.

Jughead approached your group, placing Betty's Serpent jacket around her shoulders.

“Welcome to the Serpents,” Jughead spoke, giving Betty a chaste kiss. “Let’s get out of here.”

Nodding her head, Betty wrapped an arm around Jughead’s waist as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Leading her through the sea of Serpents, she quickly turned around glancing at you and Sweet Pea.

“You guys coming?”

Gazing upwards at Sweet Pea, a dusty pink danced along his cheeks. Grinning, he mirrored Jughead, placing an arm around your shoulder. Leading you through the White Wyrm.

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scintillasofbeomgyu · 3 years

Text

winter in itaewon || Choi Beomgyu

Pairing: Choi Beomgyu x gamer!fem!reader

Genre/s: Fluff; Angst; Humor (if you squint)

Word count: 5,0k

Warning/s: it is implied that reader was subject to violence (once); although it says the reader is a gamer, there are not that many references towards to actual gaming lmao; this was proofread like once (😭)

Hyunjin and Jeongin take Beomgyu out to the PC Room in Itaewon for his birthday; a year after their last visit. As he reminisces the events of the year before, every corner of his mind is revisited by her — as if he were capable of forgetting her anyway.

a/n: happy beomgyu day!!💞 the inspiration to write this hit me in the middle of the night, coming from these kickass headcannons by sumi, and it's completely different to the initial idea i shared with amie sksjsjs alsothislowkeysucks. nevertheless, i hope you all enjoy!!

12 March 2021, 23:30

Despite being embraced by his thick padded coat, the freezing air still managed to disrupt the warmth in annoying, sharp gusts every time the wind blew. Itaewon was always more alive while the rest of Seoul slept soundly, and tonight was no exception. The streets were aglow with the lambent signage of the many stalls and establishments which lined it’s pavements, and were filled with clusters of people who either visited the stores, window-shopped or were simply enjoying the night-life.

Beomgyu wasn’t very enthusiastic about joining Hyunjin and Jeongin when they had initially posed the idea. He’d been spending much of his time in the studio and practice room, so the plan was to get some sleep when he had some free time. His conscience eventually got the better of him, though – he hadn’t been able to meet up with his friends in months due to work and the pandemic, and his scheduled birthday live thwarted the possibility of holding it off until the following day.

“Are you good?” Jeongin asked, pulling Beomgyu out of his thoughts, arching a brow at his dazed friend. He noticed that he had been lagging behind the two of them, and that their features were now etched with concern. Beomgyu pushed the bangs out of his face before waving them off, mumbling that he’s okay.

There was a look in their eyes that Beomgyu couldn’t quite decipher, but pushed it off as nothing when Jeongin draped an arm over his shoulder and lead him further down the street. His feet stopped squarely when they made it to the PC Room, cementing themselves before the front door. Jeongin looked at Beomgyu and smiled.

“Are you coming in?”

It wasn’t that Beomgyu didn’t want to respond, he simply couldn’t. Sure, it may have seemed like a trivial thing to answer, the words just wouldn’t formulate coherent sentences – his mind didn’t have the capacity to make them. Her. That was the only thing it could manifest. Her.

The pressure of a years-worth of his bottled emotions had finally blew it’s top – thoughts, images and memories which had been ingrained into his subconscious coming forth to hit him like a train.

“We’ll wait for you inside, then.”

31 December 2019, 22:00

Laughter ringing through the air, Hyunjin, Jeongin and Beomgyu pushed open the door to the PC Room. Beomgyu stopped at the door while the other two signed in, arms rubbing away the remnants of snow on the arms of his black coat. Removing his mask, he smiled into the warmth of the heated building. Their schedules after debut had left no space for any recreation, so it was liberating to spend New Years Eve with his friends, doing what he does best.

“Ready to have your butts kicked?” Beomgyu cackled, with his whole chest, as they took their seats next to one another in the isle, earning him much-deserved glares. As soon as he’s logged on and the headset is donned however, his usually playful demeanour is replaced by one of a much calmer nature – studying the map, observing enemy tactics and carefully directing his support as his fingers glide skilfully across the keyboard.

Hyunjin groaned after the umpteenth attempt to beat him, dropping the headset onto the desk as Jeongin whined into his hands. A smirk rolled onto Beomgyu’s lips as he leaned back into the swivel chair, flashing his brows at them. “I refuse to believe this is possible, it’s got to be rigged!”

“Ah, after all this time I’ve still got it,” Beomgyu retorted, chuffed with himself for doing as well as he knew he would. Hyunjin rolled his eyes. “I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ranked first with the amount of times I kicked ass on this server.”

Jeongin, who had taken it upon himself to do the fact-checking, smirked at the screen before calling the two of them over. “Actually–”

Beomgyu screamed in frustration, tossing the headset onto the desk before pushing against it, sending him flying across the floor in the chair. No matter how hard he tried, no matter the strategy he just couldn’t beat the player in first place. The commotion startled the other two, who had fallen asleep waiting for Beomgyu to finish up, the satisfaction of witnessing his losses long past.

“Just one more game, I swear!” he whined as they dragged him away from the PC screen.

Hyunjin seethed, “that’s what you said three hours ago! No, we’re leaving. Jeongin’s parents have been waiting up for us.”

Beomgyu huffed at the front counter. While the older took care of the bill, he found that the room was completely empty – almost. The light emanating from a desk directly across from where he stood, lit up the face of a young-looking girl. She seemed to be in high school (that’s what the uniform she wore indicated atleast) and the big, round, metal-framed glasses settled on the bridge of her nose, mirrored the computer screen. The sight pacified Beomgyu, for a reason he couldn’t quite explain, a smile stretching across his face.

He sauntered closer, eyes searching around for nothing in particular, trying not to look like a creep as he approached you. His smile only grew when he found her eyebrows knitted together, teeth biting down on her bottom lip in concentration. And then he saw it. The graphics reflecting from her glasses seeming all to familiar to him, he rushed around the desk, eyes darting to the top corner of the screen.

ID: winter996

12 January 2020, 22:30

Beomgyu’s foot tapped impatiently as he waited at the desk closest to the entrance, checking his watch every few minutes, before running a frustrated hand through his soft silvery locks. He had finally gotten the chance to visit the PC room again, most of his time having gone into practice and rehearsals for award show season, and he wasn’t leaving until he saw you again.

He ran out of the practice room as soon as he heard that they would have the following day off; he was exhausted and had been waiting for almost two hours – but he refused to leave until he saw you again.

The owner noticed the boy sitting at the desk he usually reserved for you, lips curling at the sight of the fidgety youth. He had visited on three prior occasions; once with his friends, and the remaining times himself, sitting in exactly the same spot he was now sitting. Instead of chasing him away as he did everyone else, he simply waited to see how this turn of events would unfold.

You pushed open the glass doors with a huff, adjusting the strap of your backpack on your shoulder before blowing the stray hairs from your face. Keeping your eyes fixed on the ground beneath you, you nod to the owner and he returns the gesture with a smile, although he knows you won’t see it.

Beomgyu, who had almost surrendered himself to the fatigue, sat up straight when you pulled back the chair next to him. He watched as you scrunched up your nose in attempt to push your glasses up the bridge of your nose before putting the headset on, and chuckled softly.

He watched in awe as you cleared level after level, climbing the ranks as you went along, with seemingly no effort whatsoever. You kept the mic off and communicated with your group though the chat, which was probably why he never realised you were a girl. Your strategy seemed way too complex for him to understand, and his amazement never faltered for even a second, as you dominated each and every position you played.

It was a little over an hour before you decided to take a break, wondering where the owner was since he usually brought your snacks around that time. Pushing the headset around your neck, you stretched upward to see where he was, only to find yourself roughly pushed back down and turned toward a strange boy whom you’ve never seen before.

His eyes, sparkling with absolute wonder, coaxed your surprise and made your heart race with a feeling as unfamiliar as he was.

“You have to tell me how you do that! Teach me, please, Winter996!”

25 January 2020, 22:30

“Aren’t you supposed to be at practice?” you voice rang from the speaker of Beomgyu’s phone. He never questioned your reasons for not turning your mic on during the game, but insisted that you speak directly to him instead. “On your left, be careful.”

“I know, I see them. And yes, but I have some time before the next session starts.” After much pestering, about something having to do with ‘senseis’ and ‘disciples’, you agreed to let Beomgyu play with you. He was rather beside himself when you told him you never really used any strategy, though; you ‘just did what felt right’.

An adorable smile had tugged at your lips during his three hundred-and-fifty paged slideshow about the importance of strategy and observation, one he would not soon forget.

“You could just wait until Itaewon.”

“Is it my fault you only go when your rank drops?”

Soobin’s dark head of hair popped into the studio, and he glared upon finding Beomgyu tapping away at his laptop on the sofa. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! The break as been over ages ago–”

“(Y/n), (Y/n), go, go! I’ll cover you!”

“Beomgyu, I think–”

“You’re playing again?! With a girl?!”

5 February 2020, 22:00

You’re quieter than usual and Beomgyu noticed right away. Over the phone, you never had any qualms in conversating with him– when you were playing the game, atleast. The thought that it was because of him does cross his mind, but he catches the frown you’re desperately trying to hide, by biting the inside of your cheek.

A thick scarf is wrapped around your neck, your chin buried into the red woolly folds, and your hair frames your face, but he sees the light swelling on the side of your face and around your eyes that you’re trying to hide. The feeling in the pit of his stomach makes his nails press crescents into the palms of his hands, but he fights the urge to ask.

“Beomgyu! What are you doing! They’re coming!” you yell, pulling him back to reality, hearing the sound of your voice at long last calming him a tad.

“Right, sorry.”

You played together straight through into the early hours of the morning, sharing victory after victory, with him right by your side. You froze up when he instinctively pulled you into a hug upon your last win, gulping as he slowly removed his arms, laughing it off as his adrenaline high peaked higher.

The van’s horn blared outside, catching you both off guard. Beomgyu quickly grabbed his coat before making his way back up the way he came, but paused before he opened the door. Craning his head back to look at you once more, he smiled.

“I’ll text you later.”

12 February 2020, 23:30

Beomgyu’s hands move quickly across the controls, your voice shouting orders to him through the headset as the current game hit it’s climax. Playing with Beomgyu all the time had made you a lot more comfortable with engaging with the other members of your group, so although you were still pretty anxious at first, you made the decision to turn on your mic.

“We did it!” Beomgyu cheered as your team cleared yet another level.

Gaming was something mundane to you and winning was easy; but sneaking out to the PC Room from time to time helped alleviate the pressures of your personal life. The life which you would rather die than share with Beomgyu. But after being swayed by his nonsensical attempts at convincing you, logging onto the server had become your favorite thing to do.

Every victory felt extraordinary when shared with him, and you could have sworn that at that very moment, you could see the way the ends of his eyes creased as the edges of his lips pushed up his cheeks. The way his arms would be stretched up in happiness, as his intoxicating laugher filled the air.

On the other end, Beomgyu leaned back into his desk chair, smiling into the darkness, envisioning the way you’d be pretending it was no big deal whilst your eyes sparkled with happiness and a smile dug into your rosey cheeks.

“Hey, (Y/n)?”

You hummed into the mic, your head rested on the desk and your eyes closed, just listening to his voice, savoring every second of it.

“Do you...have a Valentine or something?”

14 February 2020, 18:00

From the moment the car pulled up down the street, Beomgyu was unable to take his eyes off from you. His eyes travelled up from the scuffed white sneakers which tapped against the pavement nervously, to the washed out jeans, to the oversized cardigan, which bunched up around the wrists of your hands, which shifted between nervously tucking your hair behind your ears, to pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose, to straightening out your outfit.

You were going to be the death of him.

He hurried toward you as soon as he saw you shiver. The sound of his soles against the wet concrete caught your attention and you turned in his direction, the look in your eyes nearly resulting in a fatal blow – the way they bewitched nearly had him hitting his head against the sidewalk.

Your hands tightened around the strap of the bag slung around your shoulder as you watched the dark-haired boy make his way down the street to you, a stupidly giddy-looking expression plastered across his face. You couldn’t stop yourself from feeling the way you did about Beomgyu – even though you knew you shouldn’t.

You were never really interested in fan culture, but some of the girls in your cram school were very invested. When you heard them gushing about a group called ‘Tomorrow X Together’ and it’s members the previous afternoon, a knot formed in your stomach. The first thing you did when you got home, was do research. You decided to listen to all of their albums and watch all of their music videos, interviews and content videos. Unsure what to do with all the new-found information and conflicting emotions, you pulled the covers over your head and tried to sleep instead. But you couldn’t.

Beomgyu flicked the side of your head, bringing you back to the present, and your cheeks flushed upon realization of his proximity. He smirked, wrapping his brown scarf around your neck. “It’s still winter you know, Winter. You should dress warmly.”

You clicked your tongue and pouted at his teasing use of your in-game alias, and marched off without him. He trailed behind you, laughing and relieved that you were no longer frowning as you were before. You froze when he caught up with you, feeling the warmth of his hand as it slipped into yours, tucking it into his coat pocket. Burying your face into his scarf, which smelled just like him, you smiled giddily, letting him pull you along with him.

He took you to dinner and the amusement park after that. He was thrilled to know you liked rollercoasters as much as he did and embarrassed to know he couldn’t even beat you at the kid’s games. He ended up going home with a truckload of new plushies, and you, with ever-increasing feelings that you had no idea what to do with.

28 February 2020, 23:42

Beomgyu burst through the doors of the PC Room no longer than 10 minutes after receiving a call from the owner. He still wore his sleepwear, over which his coat was thrown, his hair was disheveled and his bare left foot was stuffed halfway into a sneaker, while his sock-wearing right foot was slipped into a black slipper.

The owner, with worry painted across his features, cocked his head to the desk where the two of you usually sat. His heart ached at the sight of your curled up figure beneath it. Your bloodshot eyes widened when you realized his presence, the surprise enabling him a few seconds to examine you up and down before you turned away from him. Your bottom lip was cut and bruised, your cheek was swollen and bruises were littered across your face and the length of your arms and neck, your hair as messy as his was.

You insisted that you’re okay, even though he took you into his arms without asking anything at all. You insisted that you’re okay, but as his warmth enveloped you, tears began streaming down your face. He felt the way your body trembled in his arms, so he begins rocking you back and forth slowly, pressing soft kisses into your hair, whispering a single phrase over and over again.

“I’m here.”

4 March 2020, 19:00

Due to the pandemic, one of the award show ceremonies the boys were supposed to attend had been cancelled and moved to a later date. Worried that they’d feel disheartened about their performance, you decided to host a little award ceremony of your own. His friends were as welcoming as he was, so you quickly got along- even more so since Beomgyu stuck even closer to you since that day.

“The first award of the evening,” you announced, clearing your throat in the middle of the living room. The boys, who were cheering your on from their seats on the dorm sofa, quieted down as Yeonjun hushed them, gesturing for you to continue, “goes to a very versatile young man. The winner of the ‘Fourth Generation It Boy – In Everything Except Braincells’ Daesang, goes too, you guessed it, Choi Yeonjun!”

The rest erupted in laughter as an exasperated Yeonjun made his way to where you stood, empty wrappers crackling under his feet. He threw a glare at the boys before he bowed before you in the most formal way possible, and you handed him the pretty mediocre, handmade certificate, before enamored laughter spilled from his lips.

Soobin received an award for being the ‘Best Leader of the Greatest Global Shookies’, to which he sighed. Taehyun received the Grand Award ‘The Best Son, Our King, Vocalist Kang’, which the rest labelled unfair and favoritism. Kai received the ‘Gotta Hit That High Note Like-’ award, which he proudly accepted with absolutely no complaints, beaming at the poorly made certificate.

“And last, but not least,” you started, peaking at Beomgyu from the corner of you eyes, determination almost faltering at the sight of his anticipating countenance. Peering down at the clipboard in your hands, you frowned, “well, I guess that’s all we have for tonight, folks-”

The sound of their hearty laughter filled the dorm once again, Yeonjun nearly toppling over the armrest of the sofa. Beomgyu nodded, tongue in cheek, clearly bothered by the whole ordeal. You joined in on the laughter, before glancing back to the clipboard, your heart rate picking up a little.

“Oh, what’s this?” you feigned surprise, “We have two more awards left! To Choi Beomgyu,” you said, pausing to steady your breath, refusing to make eye contact with him, “goes the award for ‘The Most Annoying Amateur Gamer-” laughter once more, Beomgyu joining in this time, “Best Friend and Utterly Talented All-rounder’. And lastly, to Tomorrow X Together for ‘Best Group of All Time’!” you cheered, relieved that they all got up and cheered as well, without teasing you.

Beomgyu took your hand and slipped the certificate from the board. You may have been embarrassed at the self-proclaimed ‘lousy’ attempt at decorating his certificate, but within seconds, that sheet of colored board became the most important thing to him in the world - his most prized possession. He pulled you into a bone-crushing hug, and the rest all joined in without a second to spare, endlessly praising you and expressing their affection as you giggled in response.

Later on that evening, after you left and the others were fast asleep, he laid on his bed, limbs splayed across the comforter. He sighed dreamily up at the ceiling, bringing his hands up to cover the bashful grin playing on his lips. He turned his head ever-so slightly, and peeked through the spaces between his fingers at the certificate perched on his night-stand and sighed again.

What was he going to do with you.

13 March 2020, 20:00

You pushed aside everything that had been happening in your life to be happy on your best friend’s birthday. You were convinced it was the least you could do in return for everything he did for you. Deciding to host something small at the PC Room, the owner was pretty enthusiastic to make a contribution to the happiness of his ‘favourite patrons’, you invited his members and some of his closest friends.

Although Beomgyu would have loved to spend the day with just you, he was extremely grateful to know efforts you had made to make him enjoy his day. You had been chattering away with the owner at the front desk, but somewhere amidst conversation with Taehyun, he had lost sight of you. He frowned, apologizing to Taehyun before excusing himself.

Ready to grab his coat and leave, he stopped in his tracks when the lights were shut off. Slowly, the room was illuminated once more, by the flickering flames atop birthday candles, and the enormous smile across your face as you sang, “happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,...”

The cake, in the shape of a bear and embellished with chocolate decorations of every variety, was placed on the table in front of where the rest had seated him. Eyes not once leaving you, absolutely entranced by your beauty, Beomgyu gulps, his heart racing a million miles an hour.

“Make a wish, before the wax gets onto the cake, Dummy.”

He pulls his lip between his teeth and flicks the top of your head gently, chuckling softly, before clasping his hands together and closing his eyes. For a reason unknown to him, Beomgyu couldn’t think of something to wish for. No, rather, he knew exactly why he had no idea what to wish for. He opened his eyes once more, and grinned at your anticipating face, the pining in his chest only running deeper and deeper.

He blew out the candles.

“What did you wish for-”

Beomgyu grabbed your hand and pulled you with him as he ran out onto the wet Itaewon streets. You didn’t run too far, before he pulled you into one of the alleyways. Completely lost for words and a little out of breath, you stood there, staring at him. The same puzzled look you had given him when you first met is etched into your face and his lips curl upward. Your breathing hitches as he takes a step closer to you and he pushes the rain-soaked hair from your face, eyes flitting to your lips before meeting your eyes again.

He pulled your chest flush against his and it was quiet for a moment. Quiet, save for the sound of the rain pitter-pattering across the rooftops and the alley floor; quiet, save for the sound of your thumping hearts.

“I love you.”

He feels you tense up, so he tightens his embrace. There is a silence again, and it is a lot less pleasant than the first. The sound of your sniffling alarms him, so he brings your face to meet his, his heart aching at the tears dripping down your face. You start making attempts to break free of his hold, shaking your head and him, whimpers escaping your lips every time you tried to speak.

Tears now streamed down his face too, a piece of him torn away each time you pushed him away. Beomgyu fought desperately to keep you in his arms, but before he knew it, you had slipped right through his fingers.

“I’m sorry.” was the last thing he heard you say through persisting sobs, before you disappeared down the street, without a trace.

30 June 2020

Beomgyu smiled before the cameras and press, laughing along with interviewers and staff members like it was the easiest thing in the world.

You had been missing for over three months. You blocked his number. You didn’t log onto the game, someone else had long taken your position on the leader board. After composing himself that day, he had bolted after you, but it was as if you had vanished off the face of the earth. Beomgyu stopped by the PC Room as much as he could in the following days, his condition only worsening each time he did, but due to the growing numbers of positive cases and the increasing amount of work scheduled for him, the time he spent there was limited.

When he did go, he sat in your chair, staring at the front door until he had to leave. The owner, who had been watching him in sympathy, called him up to the desk one day before he left – the last day the owner saw him. He looked sleep-deprived and downcast, the same pained expression drawn into his features every time he left.

“She... came here a lot. I think her first visit was around the time she was in middle school. She never spoke much, and never seemed to have any friends,” The owner told him, looking out to the isles of computers in front of him, before turning back to Beomgyu. “The first time I saw her talk- no, the first time I saw her smile, was with you. She liked you...alot.”

Beomgyu sighed, with a short, hollow chuckle.

“I know.”

12 March 2021, 23:55

The room was empty and dark when Beomgyu finally walked in, eyebrows knitted together as he tried to see through the darkness. He tried calling out for Hyunjin and Jeongin, but the only replies he received was the wind rattling the window-blinds.

The flickering of candles illuminate the room, just like they did many months ago, and Beomgyu’s heart stopped. He tried to not look disappointed when it turned out to be his members with Hyunjin and Jeongin carrying the cake, singing happy birthday to him with the most excited expressions on their faces, but his throbbing chest betrayed him.

They brought the cake up until where he stood and Yeonjun arched a brow, a knowing smirk rolling onto his lips. “You really do have a wild imagination, don’t you? Ow!” he cried, when Beomgyu hit his arm. “Ugh, just make a wish already.”

Beomgyu clasped his hands tightly before him and squeezed his eyes shut, just as he did before. Only this time, he knew exactly what he wanted. The subject of his pining, worry, and love. Her. He would give anything to see her, just one last time.

And when he opened his eyes, that was exactly what he found in front of him.

“Happy Birthday, Choi Beomgyu.”

The lights went back on, and Beomgyu blinked repeatedly, making sure that it wasn’t just his mind playing tricks on him. But there you were, with tears brimming your eyes, in all your glory, the love of his life.

He takes in all the little changes, like your trimmed hair, and that fact that you seemed to have lost weight – which made him frown. And then there was that smile, that dazzling smile, which only seemed to shine brighter now than it did before.

Your hands tremor a bit, the way he just stares at you making your heart leap. “I-I’m sor-”

The cake hit the floor with a plop, eliciting laughter from the others as he wraps his arms around your figure and he reels you into his arms in one swift movement. You feel his tears soak into your blouse, and you hold onto him tighter, your eyes already wet from your own tears. You were finally with him – you were finally home.

The owner gathered everyone together for a photo towards the end of the celebration, Beomgyu following suit wherever you went, refusing to let go of your hand for even a second. You offered him a loving smile when Hyunjin teased him for it, and placed a soft kiss to the back of his hand.

Beomgyu lead you up to the rooftop to see the sunrise, momentarily letting go of your hand to flush your back against his chest, before grabbing hold of it, and the other hand, again. The bright orange and yellow rays peeked from behind the mountain in the distance, and you had never felt more at peace.

You recalled the way your chest tightened and the way tears burned at the corners of your eyes upon receiving his confession a year ago. You had been so happy. So, so happy. But you knew you could not accept him. At the time, you knew that you were in no place to be with someone like him. He was, and is, too wonderful for someone as messed up as you are. You didn’t want burden him with your issues, not when his career had just taken off.

“Beomgyu?” he hummed from where his head against yours, “I love you.”

You stepped away from his embrace, giggling when you noticed the way he pouted. Your turned to face him properly, before attaching your arms around his waist. “Back then... I was in a really bad space. It’s not excuse, and I certainly shouldn’t have run away from you. I...have gotten help ever since, and I want to tell you my story. Would you like to hear it?”

He leaned back and thought for a moment. He then cupped the side of your face with his hand and ran his thumb across your cheek, before pulling you in to press a gentle, lingering kiss to your forehead.

“Whatever you’re willing to share, I will listen to and accept with open arms. I love you for who you are; and that includes everything that has shaped, and will shape you into the amazing person I already know you are.”

“That includes the way you absolutely kick my ass at gaming.”

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canonicallysoulmates · 3 years

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J2′s Virtual Con Panel (March 7th, 2021)

Alright, let’s talk j2! As all of you probably know by now Jared and Jensen had a virtual con panel today (March 7th, 2021); it was the first j2 con panel of the year, and we started on a good note. I will be providing some time stamps, and as always I will be providing a link to the whole panel at the end of this post so y’all can watch it for yourself, I highly recommend doing so, it was a really good panel.

Okay, let’s jump right into it!

- The panel started late, and the reason I am mentioning that is because I have to comment on how stressful that wait was with the grey screen saying ‘standby!’. I much rather preferred the countdown, it was less stressful 😅

- Anyways, the panel starts off with some cute banter between the boys, they spend around 6mins just talking to each other, joking about Jensen’s hair, telling stories about each other. Honestly, answering questions was unnecessary because I would have happily seen a full hour of that, of just them talking.

- Jensen said he missed Jared 🥺

- So...Jared addressed Jensen’s birthday and okay let’s talk about this. After Jensen says he missed Jared and that it’s been so long since they’ve seen each other, Jared fumbles on his way to comment about how he was gonna post for Jensen’s birthday. You can practically see his brain buffer cause I s2g that man was this close to saying he was with Jensen before his brain kicked in, and then he switched lanes to mention taking a trip with G for their anniversary.

Of course I have an opinion about this, I don’t know if I’ll be able to express it coherently, but I shall try; it is so incredibly convenient he’d mention what has been a big talking point in fandom for the past couple of days. This is such a stupid thing to lie about, and it’s a lie that falls apart in seconds cause if you think about it shit don’t make sense.

We know that Jared and G were on a trip, but we also know they were in Colorado. Thanks to D’s hairstylist, we know Jensen’s also in Colorado.

So, I’m expected to believe that these two men who are incredibly close, who in this same panel mention how much they’ve missed each other, that Jared who says he didn’t post on his boy’s birthday (and yes he called Jensen his boy again 🥰) because he got all emotional thinking about how this was gonna be the first birthday in years he wasn’t gonna be by Jensen’s side and be able to give him a hug- I am expected to believe that Jared was in the same state and didn’t even make a pitstop by where Jensen’s at?! That they’d be in the same state and not even meet up?! Not only that, Jared and G’s anniversary was on the 27th which fell on a Saturday, based on reports we know they took that trip from the 28th to the 1st, if this was an anniversary trip why not make it a weekend thing from Friday to Sunday? Why do it from Sunday to Monday which was a workday? And I’m also expected to believe that they went on an “anniversary trip” and little mrs. social media preferred to post an old ass pic and not post anything at all from said trip, even posting a pic as if she were in Austin on the 1st. Bitch please, I love you but go to someone else with that tale cause I ain’t buying.

- Continuing with the panel, the boys start answering questions and I’mma just tell y’all right now a lot of the questions in this panel are kinda shit. This is the first panel of the year, both these men have big projects going on and yet the first question is about parenting. Their answer is pretty much the same thing they always answer, that they can’t do it alone, that most of it is their wives, Jared says he helps with the kids in the morning and then goes to the guest house and leaves Gen to it, if you’ve heard once you’ve heard it a million times.

- Next question is about dreams, and Jensen makes a joke about mushroom induced dreams that Jared finds so hilarious he has to duck out of frame. I don’t know if y’all have ever seen The Late Show with Stephen Colbert but Stephen’s wife is usually there when he’s filming and that woman laughs at even his stupidest jokes, if you see them interact they are that couple that is so obviously in love years into their marriage, they make each other laugh, and the reason why I am bringing this up in a j2 post is because that is the vibe that moment had! Actually, that’s the vibe a lot of this panel had; that mushroom joke was not that funny yet Jared reacted as if Jensen was the funniest man in the world. And the j2 doesn’t stop there because when it’s Jared’s time to answer the question the boys say they’re in each other’s dreams. x

- Jared said he sits in the Impala in his garage 🥺 Jensen said his Impala is safe and covered in a secure location in Austin, which I’m going to interpret as he left it with Jared.

- A fan asked if we would see director!Jensen make an appearance on Walker and Jared revealed he was supposed to! Jensen was slated to direct episode 5 of Walker but due to commitments to The Boys he sadly wasn’t able to but both boys say that it will happen and it’s something they’re looking forward to. So are we boys, so are we ❤

- When talking about how Jensen was supposed to direct episode 5 of Walker, Jensen commented that Jared was looking forward to having someone who knew him so well and could help him creatively on the set. Now, I will for no particular reason remind y’all that G works on the show.

I love Jensen ☕

- Moving on! Jensen talked about his production company. He said it is currently developing 5 different projects including one that they will be delivering to the network this week and that they have a project he’s excited about with an spn alumn. He said working on these projects and his company is what he’s been spending his time on in Colorado.

- Jensen put on a beanie and y’all are not ready for what happened. Not only did he look cute af, not only did Jared like how Jensen looked and compliment him but he called Jensen babe 😍 Now listen you don’t have to take my word for it, listen to the audio a couple times, form your own opinion about what you hear but I have listened to multiple versions of that clip with headphones multiples times at different volumes...and imo Jared calls Jensen babe, you can try to take that from me over my dead body. x

- They were talking about a fight outtake they did on the finale in slow motion, and did an example and when I tell y’all those two somehow managed to do an in perfectly in sync slowmo fight virtually!

- They showed their matching tattoos!

- Jensen sends Jared shirtless selfies and gives him beard updates. I swear I am not making this up.

- And in the line of things I swear I am not making up is that Jared grabbed the pic Jensen send him, and edited it to make it seem as if Jensen was singing the clean version of WAP, that is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen 😂

- Jensen said him and Jared like to watch the early season gag reels 🤗

- At one point Jensen tried to tell one of Jared’s jokes and not even three words in this man was already in tears laughing so hard, he says it’s something that makes him laugh every time he thinks about it, he could barely get through the joke and to be fair it is hilarious; the joke goes: Did you hear there was an explosion at a cheese factory in France? The brie was everywhere. That cracked me tf up and it left them in tears 😂

- Jensen called Jared a freaking ox 😂

- Jensen says that if the roles were reversed and Sam had died, Dean would have wasted away at the back of a pool hall 😭

- The panel ends with j2 saying I love you to each other 😭❤

It was a really good panel, I had missed these men so so so so much, they have brightened my spirits and I’ve been in a good mood since I watched it, they just make me so happy 🥰. If you haven’t seen it yet I highly recommend doing so, the boys were looking cute, it was funny, they kept making each other laugh and there was even heart eyes! Jared kept getting the cutest little smile when Jensen was speaking, it was adorable!

J2 Virtual Panel

#j2 tinhat #this was supposed to be up hours ago but then i had dinner that led to a nap 😅#so many good little moments #mine #annianvi #now if y'all excuse me i need to go to sleep it's almost 5am over here

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dailytomlinson · 4 years

Link

While many artists would jump at the chance to tell you how lockdown has been a fruitful opportunity for self-improvement, full of pseudo self-help books and pompous podcasts, former One Directioner Louis Tomlinson is adamant that he has done, well, nothing.

“I’ve just watched loads of s___ TV,” he says after a long pause. “The Undoing is decent, isn’t it?”

Twenty-eight--year-old Tomlinson from Doncaster was always the down-to-earth Directioner, frequently describing himself as fringe member who spent more time analysing the band’s contracts than singing solos, known for chain-smoking his way through several packs of cigarettes a day and swearing like a trooper. A rarity, these days, among millennials who’d rather suck on a stem of kale and tweet about their #blessings.

He's getting ready to rehearse an exciting one-off gig that will be live-streamed from a secret London location on December 12, announced today exclusively via the Telegraph. The proceeds of the night will be split across four charities: The Stagehand Covid-19 Crew Relief Fund and Crew Nation, Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice and Marcus Rashford’s charity FareShare, to help end child poverty.

The gig means a great deal to Tomlinson, whose first ever tour as a solo artist, to promote his debut solo album WALLS, was cut short back in March after just two concerts in Spain and Mexico. It was an album he’d spent five years working on: a guitar-led project that ruptured with the preppy pop anthems of One Direction, inspired instead by Tomlinson’s love for Britpop.

No doubt he was anxious to get it right following a decade “grown in test tubes”, as Harry Styles once described the band’s formation on the X Factor, where they came third before going on to make a reported $280,000 a day as the most successful band in the world. The pressure, too, was intense: all four bandmates had already released their own solo debuts.

Was he left reeling, I ask, unable to perform at such a crucial moment?

“The thing that I always enjoyed the most about One Direction was playing the shows, so my master plan, when I realised I was going to do a solo career, was always my first tour. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for the best part of five years now. I got so close, I got a taste for it, and it’s affected me like everyone else, but I’m forever an optimist,” he says down the phone, with what I can only imagine to be a rather phlegmatic shrug.

Sure, I say, but the last year can’t have been easy. Didn’t he feel like his purpose had popped?

“You know what,” he says, reflecting, “maybe because I’ve had real dark moments in my life, they’ve given me scope for optimism. In the grand scheme of things, of what I’ve experienced, these everyday problems...they don’t seem so bad.”

Tomlinson is referring to losing his 43-year-old mother, a midwife, to leukemia in 2016, and his 18-year-old sister Felicite, a model, to an accidental drug overdose in 2018. The double tragedy is something he has been open about on his own terms, dedicating his single, Two of Us, from WALLS, to his mother Johannah, while often checking in with fans who have lost members of their own family.

It’s not unusual for Tomlinson to ask his 34.9 million followers if they’re doing alright, receiving hundreds of thousands of personal replies. It’s not something he will discuss in interviews, however, after he slammed BBC Breakfast for shamelessly probing his trauma in February this year. “Never going back there again,” he tweeted after coming off the show.

“Social media is a ruthless, toxic place, so I don’t like to spend much time there,” says Tomlinson, “but because of experiencing such light and shade all while I was famous, I have a very deep connection with my fans. They’ve always been there for me.”

In return, Tomlinson is good to them. Last month he even promised some new music, saying that he’d written four songs in four days. Does this mean that a second album is on the way?

“Yeah, definitely,” he says. “I’m very, very excited. I had basically penciled down a plan before corona took over our lives. And now it's kind of given me a little bit of time to really get into what I want to say and what I want things to sound like. Because, you know, I was really proud of my first record, but there were moments that I felt were truer to me than others. I think that there were some songs where I took slightly more risk and owned what I love, saying, ‘This is who I want to be’. So I want to take a leaf out of their book.”

Fans might think he’s referring to writing more heartfelt autobiographical content such as Two of Us, but in fact, he’s referring specifically to rock-inspired Kill My Mind, he says, the first song on WALLS. “There’s a certain energy in that song, in its delivery, in its attitude, that I want to recreate. People are struggling at the moment, so I want to create a raucous, exciting atmosphere in my live show, not a somber, thoughtful one.”

He sighs, trying to articulate something that’s clearly been playing on his mind for a while. “You know, because of my story, my album was a little heavy at times and a little somber. And as I'm sure you're aware, from talking to me, now, that isn't who I am.”

It must be draining, I say, the weight of expectation in both the media and across his fanbase, to be a spokesperson for grief and hardship. To have tragedy prelude everything he does and says.

“Honestly, it’s part of being from Doncaster as well, I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. That’s the last thing I want.”

Too many incredible memories to mention but not a day goes by that I don't think about how amazing it was. @NiallOfficial @Harry_Styles @LiamPayne @zaynmalik . So proud of you all individually.

The problem is, says Tomlinson, he doesn’t have the best imagination. “I have interesting things to say musically, but what’s challenging from a writing perspective is that I write from the heart, and I can’t really get into someone else’s story. And right now, being stuck at home, you have so little experience to draw from. It’s actually quite hard to write these positive, uplifting songs, because actually, the experiences that you're going through on a day to day basis, you know, you they don't have that same flavour.”

There is something that’s helping, though: a secret spot near Los Angeles, where he divides his time. “It’s remote and kind of weird, and I’m going to go there for three days and write. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to it. I found it via a YouTube video. It’s got some very interesting locals who live there, it’s sort of backwards when it comes to technology. It feels like you’re going back in time when you’re there. But I don’t want to give it away.”

Another source of inspiration for his second album is the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ back catalogue. “I grew up on their album Bytheway. And during lockdown I've been knee deep in their stuff. I’ve watched every documentary, every video. And I find their lead guitarist John Frusciante just fascinating.”

Has he spoken to Frusicante?

“I f______ wish,” snorts Tomlinson.

Surely someone as well-known as Tomlinson could easily get in touch?

“No, honestly, I think he’s too cool for that. He’s not into that kind of thing.”

Tomlinson’s passion for all things rock is also spurring on a side hustle he picked up as a judge on the X Factor in 2018: managing an all-female rock band via his own imprint on Simon Cowell’s Syco label. While the group disbanded before releasing their first single, and Tomlinson split from Syco earlier this year, the singer is keen to nurture some more talent.

“I'm not gonna lie, my process with my imprint through Syco, it became challenging and it became frustrating at times,” Tomlinson says a little wearily. “The kind of artists that I was interested in developing – because I genuinely feel through my experience in One Direction, you know, one of the biggest f______ bands, I feel like I've learned a lot about the industry – they weren’t ready-made. So I had lots of artists that I took through the door that were rough and ready, but major labels want to see something that works straight away. I found that a little bit demotivating. I love her and she's an incredible artist, but not everyone is a Taylor Swift.”

Tomlinson spends much of his free time scouting new talent either on YouTube, Reddit or BBC Introducing – he’s currently a huge fan of indie Brighton band, Fickle Friends. His dream is to manage an all-female band playing instruments. “Because there's no one in that space. And I know eventually if I don't do it, someone else will!”

Before he drives off to rehearsals, we chatter about how much he's been practising his guitar playing, and how he can't wait to take the whole team working at his favourite grassroots venue, The Dome in Doncaster, out ice-skating after he performs there on his rescheduled tour. “Because I've got skills,” he says, and I can hear his chest puff.

And then I ask the question every retired member of One Direction has been batting off ever since they broke up in 2015, after Zayn Malik quit. Rumours that his bandmates saw him as a Judas went wild after some eagle eyes fans noticed they’d unfollowed him on Instagram. Payne, Tomlinson, Horan and Styles have barely mentioned him since. Recently, however, they re-followed him, and Payne has teased that a One Direction reunion is on the cards.

So: might 2021 be the year of resurrection?

“I thought you were going to ask something juicier!” say Tomlinson witheringly. “Look, I f______ love One Direction. I'm sure we're going to come back together one day, and I'll be doing a couple of One Direction songs in my gig. I always do that, so that's not alluding to any reunion or anything. But, I mean, look, I'm sure one day we'll get back together, because, you know, we were f______ great.”

#telegraph uk #press #louis tomlinson #241120 #its FULL of stunts as telegraph usually goes #stunt mention #Eleanor Halls

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blueberry-sunghoon · 3 years

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"meet me at the ice rink after school" | park sunghoon

words: 5.3k

genre: high school romance, fluff

warnings: none that i can think of

i hope you like this story :))

☆September 2013☆

One late summer afternoon, you and your best friend Sunghoon were at the ice rink, your all-time favorite hangout spot. Of course, your skating skills weren’t nearly as stunning as Sunghoon’s, but throughout the years he had taught you enough so you could manage yourself on the ice. Sunghoon liked to show off new moves he had learned every time he saw you, and he loved to see how your face lit up with amazement when he pulled it off perfectly.

You mainly liked each other’s company, though. When you both were skating with each other, you were free to tell each other everything from your joys to your worries, trusting that the other would laugh with you or be there to comfort you. To each of you, skating with the other felt like home. Today especially, you both needed that. It had been a long day for the both of you; it was your first day of fifth grade, which also happened to be your first day of middle school.

“Today was rough,” you said as you skated alongside Sunghoon.

“Yeah. I didn’t think we would end up not having any classes together. Being apart from you for the whole day… ” Sunghoon sighed before he finished his sentence, “that’ll take some time to get used to.”

“By some miracle, we ended up in the same class every year from kindergarten to fourth grade,” you replied. “Obviously I didn’t think we would have every single class together until 12th grade, but I didn’t think about how hard it would be to be without you.”

“Me neither,” said Sunghoon. "After we got off the bus in the morning and I said goodbye to you, I only saw you once more the whole day. Unfortunately, we were in the hallway and you were way too far away for me to say hi to you. But sitting through eight classes without you in any of them felt really weird, like there was something missing.”

“I didn’t see you at all. All I could do was sit through all my classes, lonely because I barely knew anyone. I missed you, Sunghoon. I don't know how I’m going to do this,” you said with a cracked voice.

Sunghoon noticed you were about to cry, so he stopped skating and hugged you tightly. He let you rest your head on his shoulder as you cried. “It’s okay, y/n, don't cry.”

“It’s not okay!” you retaliated. “How am I supposed to survive middle school without you?”

“We won’t be without each other,” Sunghoon assured you. “I’m still alive, you know. We can still hang out like this after school. And once school clubs open up, we can find one we both like. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll make some new friends; you’re good at that. You won’t be lonely for long, I promise.”

There was something so reassuring about Sunghoon’s voice that made you feel better. He was right; he wasn’t going anywhere. Even if you couldn’t be together in class, you would still see each other all the time. “Thanks, Sunghoon,” you said softly.

“Mm-hmm,” he said as he pulled away from the hug and wiped away one last stray tear from your face. “Are you good to keep skating?”

“Yeah,” you answered, and the two of you continued to skate. The two of you were quiet for some time, and then a lightbulb went off in the boy’s head.

“y/n, what’s your locker number?”

“56. Why?” you asked.

“Nothing,” Sunghoon said slyly as a sneaky smile crept up onto his face, “I was just curious.”

~~~

The next morning in second period, you were daydreaming instead of paying attention to the teacher. Among many other things, you were thinking of why Sunghoon wanted to know where your locker was. I’m sure it was nothing, you reasoned, but for some reason you couldn’t push the thought away.

After what seemed like forever, the bell rang and the class was dismissed. Your locker was right outside of that classroom, so you went there to switch out your things. As soon as you opened your locker, however, you were surprised to see a sticky note posted on the inside of the locker door. You were more surprised to see Sunghoon’s handwriting on it. Sunghoon had written you a note. It read,

What do you call a factory that makes okay products? Satisfactory!

You playfully scoffed at the joke before you continued to read the note.

Now you have this corny joke to remember me by all day so you won’t miss me as much. I’ll see you after school :)

From, Sunghoon your favorite person

P.S. My locker number is 179. Do what you will with this information ;)

You were so happy that your best friend had done something that special for you. You took the note and carefully placed it inside the cover of your binder so you would never lose it.

179, huh? You made sure to write Sunghoon a note in reply and put it in his locker before the day was over.

And so began a tradition between you and Sunghoon. Every day you would place a note in the other’s locker, whether it was a corny joke or a word of encouragement if one of you had a big test or a blank note on April Fools day. You never skipped a day; the only way one of you wouldn’t receive a note was if the other person wasn’t at school that day. This continued far beyond the fifth grade. You kept this up all the way through middle school, and now, almost all the way through high school.

☆March 2021☆

You and Sunghoon were now high school seniors, still each other’s closest friend.

Friend. You now shuddered to think of the word. You didn’t regret being by Sunghoon’s side for as long as you both could remember, but over the last two or so years you had developed feelings for him. You wished so badly that you could be more than friends, but you never brought the subject up to him because you didn’t want to risk what you’ve had since you were babies. The sophomore version of you figured that it was probably just a phase, that soon enough your little crush would go away and you wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

How you wished that was the case.

Instead, your feelings were stronger than ever, and you found yourself constantly worrying. High school graduation was only three months away, and after that, the two of you were heading off to different universities. Would I have missed my chance by then?

Sunghoon, who was sitting next to you in history class, tapped his pencil on your desk, shaking you from your thoughts. You whipped your head in his direction, confused. He then pointed his pencil at the teacher, who was looking at you and expecting an answer. “I asked you a question, y/n.”

You glanced around the classroom and noticed that the whole class was staring at you. Embarrassed, you mumbled, “I’m sorry, Mr. Kim, I didn’t hear your question.”

Mr. Kim sighed in frustration. “I asked you what year the French Revolution started.”

You hesitated for a second. “Um, was it 1799?” you guessed, unsure of yourself.

“No,” he replied sharply. “1799 would be the year it came to an end. The revolution started in 1789. y/n, this is the third time I’ve caught you daydreaming during my class this week. I suggest you start paying attention.” And with that, he continued teaching.

You heard a few snickers around the room and you felt humiliated. You felt more blood than you thought you had rush to your face and you slouched down in your seat in shame.

Sunghoon glanced over at you sympathetically. He gave you a sympathetic smile as if to say, “I’m sorry,” and you reciprocated his smile.

You tried your hardest to pay attention to Mr. Kim for the rest of the class period, but it wasn’t easy. In fact, you were so far gone that the bell’s ringing at the end of class escaped your notice. As Sunghoon was packing up his things, he noticed you staring off into space, so he tapped his pencil on your desk once again. “Class is over, y/n,” he said. You saw that half the class was already gone and Mr. Kim was giving you an evil look. “Oh,” you said as you began packing up your things.

By the time you started to pack up, Sunghoon had already finished. You were lucky that he was nice enough to wait for you. “I’m sorry, Sunghoon,” you said apologetically.

“Don't apologize, y/n. I have no problem waiting for you,” he replied. “I have lunch right now anyways, so it doesn’t matter if I’m late.”

What did I do to deserve such an understanding friend?

Finally you finished packing up your things. “I’m ready to go now,” you said to Sunghoon as you put your backpack on.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Let’s go.” You walked with Sunghoon into the hallway.

“Is it an A day or a B day?” you asked as you walked alongside him. “I’m either going to study hall or AP Bio right now and I have no idea which one.” You hoped it was an A day, because you needed some time to yourself after what just happened in history.

“Today is a B day. You have a double period for Bio.”

You sighed in frustration. “Ugh.”

The two of you went quiet for some time. Then Sunghoon finally broke the silence. “y/n, are you okay?”

You quickly glanced at your friend, not knowing what he was referring to. “Yeah. What made you think otherwise?”

“You seem so unfocused lately.”

“Okay, Mr. Kim,” you said sarcastically.

“I’m serious, y/n. And I’m not just talking about history class. Like, you’re always on top of things. These days you seem so forgetful. For example, you’re the one to always remind me whether it’s an A day or a B day, yet today you had no idea. I know you tend to daydream easily, but these days you just seem so out of it. Is there something on your mind? You know you can tell me anything.”

I like you, Sunghoon. I like you a lot, but I have no idea how to tell you. I’m scared of ruining our friendship. I have the constant feeling of running out of time before we go to college, and I don't want it to be too late before I finally get the courage to tell you how I feel.

Of course, you couldn’t tell him any of that. All you could say was, “Don't worry, Sunghoon. I’m fine.” You felt a bit guilty because you rarely hid things from Sunghoon. He was aware of nearly everything that had ever worried you. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to tell him about this.

Sunghoon didn’t believe that you were as fine as you said you were. He thought that there was no way something wasn’t bothering you, not with you like this. However, he wasn’t the kind to pry, and he trusted that you would come to him once you felt comfortable. He said, “Okay. If you ever need anything, you know I’m here for you.”

You simply nodded, and the two of you continued to walk in silence until you approached the AP Bio classroom.

“I’ll see you later,” you said.

“Yeah. Um, I have ice skating practice after school today, but I’ll FaceTime you as soon as I get home. I’ll see you then.” He then smiled at you and said, “Keep your head up, okay?”

Once again, you responded by nodding your head. Sunghoon waved you goodbye and he was off to his next destination.

You watched hopelessly as he walked away, and you didn’t enter the classroom until he was completely gone from your sight.

~~~

As soon as you got home from school, you went straight to your room and onto your bed. You pulled your sheets over your head and closed your eyes, trying hard not to think about anything. You were mentally exhausted from thinking so much. Of course, your efforts to not think about the things that stressed you only made you think about them more. Finally, you felt yourself drift into sleep.

After some time, your eyes fluttered open and you checked your phone to see the time. You were out for two and a half hours. You wanted to face your problems instead of avoiding them, so you sat up on your bed and decided to call your friend Sunoo. Sunoo’s good with stuff like this, you thought as your phone rang. You bit your nails as you anxiously waited for him to pick up.

“Hey,” you heard Sunoo say finally.

“Hey Sunoo,” you replied. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much, how about you?”

“Well, I kind of wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Go ahead, I’m listening.”

You took a deep breath to get rid of the nervous energy before you explained. “See, there’s someone that I like. A lot. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way, but I don't know how to tell him how I feel. We’ve been friends for a long time now, and the last thing I want to do is ruin our friendship right before we head off to different colleges.”

“Oh,” said Sunoo. “Sunghoon, right?”

You felt your heart skip a beat and you raised an eyebrow. That’s suspicious. That’s weird. I’m pretty sure I never told Sunoo that I like Sunghoon. In fact, I didn’t tell anybody… “Um, yeah. How did you know it’s Sunghoon?”

Everyone and their uncle knows you and Sunghoon like each other. I’m pretty sure you two are the only people who don't know. You guys make it painfully obvious, Sunoo thought. “Um, uh, well I know Sunghoon has been your closest friend for a long time now. I figured if there was anyone you liked, it would be Sunghoon.”

“I suppose so,” you said.

“You should tell Sunghoon how you feel.”

You didn’t answer. You wished there was another way around this problem, but there wasn’t. The only option you had was to tell Sunghoon how you felt about him.

“y/n? Are you there?”

Shaken from your thoughts, you hopelessly said, “I can’t, Sunoo. I’m too scared.”

You heard Sunoo sigh before he responded. “There’s a chance he might like you too. But you have to shoot your shot, y/n. Because if you don't, one day you’ll be forty years old, wondering what might have been if you had told the boy you liked when you were 17 how you felt.”

You hated how right Sunoo was. “Sure, there might be a chance that he likes me too,” you started, not believing for a second the statement you just said, “But what if he doesn’t? I will have ruined our friendship.”

“I doubt something like that would ruin your friendship,” said Sunoo. “The bond between you two is incredibly strong, probably stronger than you realize. It’s gonna take a lot more than that to break you guys up. Of course, if he didn’t reciprocate your feelings, things might be awkward for some time, but eventually things will return to normal. Sunghoon would never leave you no matter what, and I know you wouldn’t leave him either.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But how do I even go about telling Sunghoon that I like him?”

“y/n, you’re way overcomplicating this. It’s a lot easier than you think. All you have to do is say the words: ‘Sunghoon, I like you.’ Repeat after me: ‘Sunghoon, I like you.’”

“Sunghoon, I like you,” you mumbled with clenched teeth.

“Louder, y/n, I can’t hear you,” Sunoo teased in a singsong voice.

You took a deep breath. “Sunghoon, I like you.”

“That’s more like it,” Sunoo said, satisfied. Then, all of a sudden he got an idea. “Don't y’all leave notes in each other’s lockers every day?”

You weren’t sure where Sunoo was going with this. “Yeah, why?”

“Slip a note in his locker asking him to meet you at the skating rink tomorrow after school. It should be easy to tell him then.”

You had to admit that it was a good idea. Wait. Tomorrow? “Tomorrow? That soon?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Sunoo answered without hesitation. “I don't see why not. Otherwise you’ll keep pushing it off and you’ll never actually do it.”

At this point, you were almost infuriated by how right Sunoo was.

“Okay, bet. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“You better. In fact, I’ll make sure I call you before I go to bed to ask you how it went.”

You laughed a little. “I hear you laughing!” said Sunoo in a playful tone. “I’m serious, I will call you.”

You heard your mom call you for dinner. “Yeah. Listen, Sunoo, I have to go now, but thanks so much for the talk. I really needed that.”

“No problem, y/n, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay, bye.”

You put down your phone. I can do this, you said to yourself, feeling more determined than ever.

~~~

Not even five minutes after Sunoo got off the phone with you, he received another call. Who could that be? He thought to himself as he looked away from his homework and at his phone. A sneaky smile appeared on his face when he saw who was calling him.

“Hi Sunghoon,” said Sunoo as he picked up the phone.

“Hey,” said Sunghoon. “Uh, I called because I need to talk to you about something.”

Sunoo could see where he was going. “Of course. I’m all ears.”

“Well, there’s someone at school that I’ve liked for a while, but I really don't know how to tell them. I’m also worried that I might ruin our friendship.”

The smile wouldn’t come off Sunoo’s face, no matter how he tried. Are y/n and Sunghoon really that oblivious? “Park Sunghoon, it’s about time you talked to me about this.”

Sunghoon was confused. “What do you mean?”

“It’s y/n, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Sunghoon, more confused than before. “But what do you mean ‘it’s about time’?”

“Sunghoon, everyone knows that you like y/n. I’m not sure you could make it any more obvious. The way you look and smile at them when they’re talking to you says everything. You’re obviously whipped. When I first noticed, I was so excited for you, and I wanted to talk to you about it. But I didn’t want to bring it up first because that might have made you uncomfortable. So I waited. It’s been two long years.”

Sunghoon could feel his face flush red with embarrassment. Sunoo really said “This you?”

“Oh,” Sunghoon replied softly. “Well, does y/n know? Do you think they like me too?”

No, they don't know. They’re just as oblivious as you. It kills me how unaware of each other you guys are. Sunoo took a deep breath and chose his next words very carefully. “I can’t say. The only way you’ll know for sure is if you ask.”

“But I can’t tell y/n how I feel. I might ruin our friendship.”

Oh my god, thought Sunoo, it’s almost like they share the same brain. Sunoo assured Sunghoon that he wouldn’t ruin his friendship by telling you how he felt about you. Then, to spice things up, he decided to give Sunghoon the same suggestion he gave you.

“Wait, you might be on to something,” said Sunghoon.

“I know,” said Sunoo, “it’s a gift of mine.”

“That’s actually a good idea, Sunoo. I’ll try it. I have to go now though, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Alright, see ya.”

Sunoo hung up the phone, feeling quite proud of himself. “I love it when a plan comes together,” Sunoo said out loud as he continued his homework.

~~~

It was third period the next day. Calculus was your favorite subject, and the one you usually paid the most attention in. Not today, though. All you could think about was going to Sunghoon’s locker and putting the note in there. Once you did, there would be no going back.

You pulled out the note you had written from your folder. Meet me at the ice rink after school today, there’s something I want to tell you :) was what you had written. You stared at the piece of paper as if it would eat you alive. Your hands became sweaty and you could feel your heart racing. How could something so simple torment you so much?

The sound of the bell ringing interrupted your thoughts. Calculus was over, and it was time to go to lunch. You packed up your things and left the classroom. This was usually the time of day when you would slip your daily note into Sunghoon’s locker, so today before you went to lunch, you started to make your way there. It was the same time that Sunghoon would normally do the same thing (except he was on his way to physics), so you two would cross paths in the hallway.

Today when you crossed paths, you quickly said “hi” with a smile to each other. Of course, you both knew that you were going to each other’s lockers, but what you didn’t know was that you had the exact same message for each other.

As you approached Sunghoon’s locker, your heartbeat quickened and your temperature rose, making your glasses foggy. With shaky hands, you put in the combination on the lock and opened his locker. You stood there for a moment, negative scenarios flashing through your mind. You thought about what you would be risking (which, by the way, was everything). We’ve built so much over the years. Do I even dare?

You fixed your gaze on the small, blue, diamond-shaped magnet on the door of Sunghoon’s locker. Every day since fifth grade, you would use that magnet to attach your message to his locker. He had managed to keep the same one all these years. You were so used to seeing it everyday, yet soon enough you wouldn’t be seeing it anymore. That reminded you that you didn’t want to lose your chance with Sunghoon. It’s now or never.

You took a deep breath, then attached the note to the inside of the locker door. Before you could think about taking it back, you closed the locker shut and headed off to lunch. There was no turning back.

After lunch, you went to your locker to switch out your books. Once you opened it, you saw Sunghoon’s note... It wasn’t anything near what you were expecting. Your heart skipped a beat, and your eyes opened wider than you thought they could. "Meet me at the rink after school, there’s something important I need to tell you."

As if you weren’t more nervous today than you had ever been in your whole life, Sunghoon’s note sent you into anxiety overdrive. What could Sunghoon possibly have to tell me? There were endless possibilities. You thought for a second that maybe, just maybe, he wanted to tell you the same thing you wanted to tell him. But you immediately rejected that idea and laughed it off. Don't be ridiculous, y/n.

You convinced yourself that it likely had something to do with his ice skating - he probably had been invited to a championship or something like that. It wasn’t the first time Sunghoon had invited you to the rink so he could tell you something important. It was just a coincidence that you both had big news that day. You switched out your books and walked to your next class feeling confident.

~~~

When you made it to the rink after school, you saw that Sunghoon was already there, putting on his skates. “You’re late,” he teased.

“Yah, no I’m not! Just cuz you got here first doesn’t mean I’m late. I’m here after school, aren’t I?” you said as you playfully punched his arm.

Sunghoon burst out into laughter. “y/n, what was that? That didn’t even hurt.”

“I could have made it hurt if I wanted to,” you teased. “You’re lucky I’m nice.”

You went to get your skates, and a few minutes later you both were skating alongside each other. You and Sunghoon were talking to each other, but it was mostly small talk. It was obvious that you both were preoccupied with what you wanted to tell each other.

“How’s your sister?” you asked.

“She’s doing good.”

A pause.

“Have you decided on a topic for the English essay?” Sunghoon asked.

“I’m most likely going to do the Civil War. You?”

“I’m doing the Industrial Revolution.”

“Nice.”

Another pause.

Sunghoon sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair, a habit you noticed he had when he was nervous. “Let’s get rid of the elephant in the room. We both have stuff to tell each other," he said.

You felt your heart rate go up and you found yourself playing with your fingers to ward off the nervous energy. “Mmm-hmm.”

Sunghoon noticed that you were a bit uneasy. “Do you want me to go first?”

As much as you wanted to say yes, you didn’t trust yourself to not chicken out at the last minute. It took every nerve in your body for you to say, “I’ll go first.”

“Okay. I’m ready when you are.”

“It’s definitely a big one,” you said. You stopped skating, and Sunghoon followed. You were so nervous that you couldn’t even make eye contact with him. I can do this, you thought to yourself as you began.

“Well, Sunghoon, we’ve been best friends since the beginning, you know? And, um, through all these years you’ve been there for me through thick and thin. You’ve honestly been the best friend I’ve ever had. Well, you see, it’s been about two years since I started feeling differently about you. I’ve been dying for so long to tell you how I feel, but I was scared that I might ruin our friendship. But I’ve been thinking a lot about my feelings lately, and I just can’t hide this from you anymore.”

Are they about to tell me what I think they are? Sunghoon thought to himself.

You took a deep breath before you continued. “I guess what I mean to say is,” you said as you finally looked up to make eye contact with Sunghoon, “is that I like you, Sunghoon. Could we be more than friends?”

At this point, you were insanely anxious. Your heart was beating out of your chest, and you thought you could faint. And it didn’t help that Sunghoon wasn’t saying anything, just staring at you. What you didn’t know was that he was just as anxious as you; he was just better at keeping it all in than you. He could hardly believe that he had just heard those words from you.

You immediately broke eye contact with Sunghoon and looked off to the side so he couldn’t see how embarrassed you were. “Or not,” you mumbled. “I mean if you don't wanna be more than friends that’s okay I mean we can still be friends that’s completely fine I just hope I haven’t ruined everything oh God who am I kidding what have I done-”

You were interrupted by the sound of Sunghoon sighing. Out of the corner of your eye you could see him smiling from ear to ear. You turned your head to face him and said, “What?”

“Stop rambling already.”

Before you had time to process what he said, he leaned in and quickly, yet softly, kissed your cheek. You were in utter shock and disbelief, and you felt your face go hot. A tiny smile came across your face.

Sunghoon saw your glasses fogging up and that’s when he knew you were blushing. He decided to tease you. “Aw, I make you flustered.”

You became playfully defensive and flicked his hand. “Yah! No you don't.”

Sunghoon laughed. “Yes I do,” he said as he swiftly took your hand and intertwined it with his. He swung your hand up and down and his smile got even bigger as your eyes lit up. “You look like the pleading eyes emoji right now.”

You let out a nervous yet happy laugh. “Sunghoon, you’re killing me.” Never in your wildest dreams did you think this moment would ever come to be.

Sunghoon cleared his throat. “In all seriousness though, y/n, I really like you too.”

“I’m so glad I was able to get that out,” you said as you let out a happy sigh. “I’d been keeping it in for a long time. I was so worried about messing up our friendship and especially over the past few weeks I’ve been worried about once we go to college, we’ll be physically apart. Thankfully, though, yesterday I talked to Sunoo about everything and he really helped me muster the courage to tell you how I feel.”

Sunghoon’s heart skipped a beat when you mentioned Sunoo. There’s no way. “Oh, you talked to Sunoo? I heard he’s good with stuff like that. What did he say?”

“You know, he told me that it was better for me to shoot my shot so that down the road I wouldn't regret not taking a chance. And he was right. I don't regret this at all.”

“Well, I’m glad you told me, because I would really like to be more than friends with you. And, um, I’m not worried about going off to different colleges or being physically apart. I believe in us; we’ll find a way.”

“Then I’m not worried about it either,” you said, relieved.

“I’m glad,” Sunghoon said. “Does Saturday work for a date? I can pick you up at your house around 7:00.”

“That sounds great, Sunghoon.”

“Perfect,” said Sunghoon, his smile bigger than ever. “You wanna keep skating now?”

“Yeah,” you answered. “I’d like that.”

You and Sunghoon continued to skate, and the rest of the afternoon was filled with happiness and laughter. The smiles never came off either of your faces, and neither of you had even thought of letting go of the other’s hand. The two of you were so happy in this moment and you didn’t want it to end.

All good things must come to an end, though, and your afternoon with Sunghoon was no different. Sunghoon felt his phone vibrate in the pocket of his hoodie and he pulled it out. His mom had sent him a text. “My mom’s asking me where I am,” said Sunghoon with a twinge of disappointment. “I guess I can’t blame her; we’ve been here for almost four hours. I should get going.”

“No problem Sunghoon. I should probably get home as well. I need to get started on my homework.”

You and Sunghoon left the rink, still holding hands. You two were parked next to each other in the parking lot, and there you said your goodbyes. Before you went in your car, however, you thought of something. “Hey, Sunghoon, did you have anything in mind you wanted to tell me when you invited me here? You know, anything not related to what I told you?”

“Nope. That was exactly it,” Sunghoon said with a smile. “Believe it or not, I also talked to Sunoo yesterday evening.”

“No way,” you said, a bit dumbfounded. “Did you actually?”

“Yeah. Looks like great minds think alike.” He gave you a wink, and before he turned around to get in his car, he said, “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

#enhypen #enhypen sunghoon #sunghoon x reader #enhypen imagines #enhypen x reader #enhypen scenarios #park sunghoon #enhypen blurbs #enhypen fluff #enhypen soft hours #enhypen writers #enhypen reactions #enhypen timestamps #enhypen angst

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scathecraw · 3 years

Text

BBRae Week 2021 - Day 3: Into The Woods

“Summer camp has been so much fun, Rachel. Teether hasn’t cried once since the day after you dropped us off, and Tommy got first place in the obstacle course. You were right, we should have done a camp last year, too.” Melvin chattered excitedly on the office phone while Rachel listened patiently. “They’ve made a bunch of arts and crafts, and the woods here are so cool. They’re really old, and Gar knows so muchabout all the trees and animals and bugs.”

“And who is this Gar, Melvin? A new friendof yours?” Rachel’s emphasis was obvious, and Melvin’s blush was practically audible.

“NO! He’s a counselor. He’s really nice, but he’s really old. Like, 50 or something. You’ll meet him on parent’s day next week.”

Rachel didn’t remember anyone older than the director, a middle aged woman she had spoken to when getting them enrolled and again during drop-off. She suspected Melvin was fibbing to cover her embarrassment, but she brought it on herself by teasing the preteen. “I’m sure I will. Does this mean that you’re going to drag me out into the forest when I come? I thought it was going to be an afternoon of arts and crafts and then some campfire songs, not a forced march.”

“Duh. Arts and crafts are lame. Gar said that next year he’d show us how to whittle, which sounds better than making lanyards.” There was muffled adolescent shouting, and Melvin covered the receiver and yelled back. “I gotta go. We’re going swimming. I’ll call you on Friday. Love you, bye.” She hung up before anything could be said back, and Rachel was left with dead air while Melvin sprinted after her friends, untied shoelaces flailing behind her.

Arriving at the aforementioned “Parent’s Day”, Rachel wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The camp had at first seemed like a good way to get the three adopted children outside instead of rotting their brains, but the sheer noise of a few dozen milling, clamoring kids and groups of socializing parents made her wonder what she had subjected them, and by extension, herself, to. She was late, which probably didn’t help the situation, but she looked around the chaos in an effort to find her own three chaos engines. Instead, she was spotted.

A wild, dirty missile made a high-volume impact with her legs, nearly toppling her and babblingso fast that even Rachel’s practiced ear couldn’t discern what he was saying. She was wobbling and about to fall over when a firm hand caught her upper back and helped her regain her balance. “Teether, dude! I said you could go get her, not try to body slam her.”

Rachel finally planted her feet, acknowledged Teether with a gentle hand on his head, and looked up. And up. They both froze for an instant, but the tanned, blond man recovered first. His slack jaw snapped into a smile, and he said “Hi. You must be Rachel. I’m Gar, one of the counselors here.”

His hand was still on her back and heat radiated from it like afternoon sun. Her face had never fallen into the silly expression his had, but unconscious thought raced before she could regain her composure. ‘Definitely not fifty,’ she thought. “Hello. Yes, I’m Rachel, Teether’s mother.” She peeled Teether from her leg with practiced ease, and he sprang off of her and ran.

Gar realized that his hand still rested behind her, almost possessively, and retreated to a more respectable distance. He chuckled, nervously. “Heh. Um, Melvin and Tommy are with their friends, still, but we should probably get them. Ms. Waller asked me to show you around – she said you had just moved to the area?” It wasn’t a question, but he phrased it like it was. They began walking back towards the milling crowd of parents, children, and quite possibly enough noise to drown out a jet engine.

“Yes, it’s our first summer here. She mentioned that most of the kids made this an annual activity, but I didn’t think we’d be so strange as to warrant a personal detail.”

“Oh it’s nothing like that, it’s just that there’s not really many other summer camps around, and ‘cause we go from K-12, we get pretty much everyone. A lot of the other parents already know everybody. You’re not strange, just… new.” His eyes never left her, even as they began walking.

Back with the crowds, Melvin and a gaggle of similarly aged girls watch the two of them. One of them nodded decisively and turned to Melvin. “Okay. They’re too cute together. Look at how awkward they’re being.”

Anotherhuffed a little. “They’re just staring at each other. They should be holding hands or something, right?”

Melvin’s eyes narrowed critically. “It’s been like 10 minutes and they aren’t kissing yet. Gar’s probably too much of a nerd to do anything. We need to do something to make sure they know how perfect for each other they are.”

“Like what? They aren’t going to start making out in the middle of the crowd.”

An evil smirk crept across Melvin’s face. “Maybe not in the middle of the crowd, but what if they were all alone in the woods? Then they’d have no excuse not to!”

A look of awe crossed her companions’ faces. “That’s evil. I love it.”

But the smirk fell, half-formed plot evaporating. “But how could we get them out there alone? It can’t be anything serious, or else Rachel will ground me forever, and I bet she won’t even go unless we can trick her into it.”

“Could you just tell her you feel sick?”

“No.” Melvin shook her head slowly. “Then she’d either stay with me or just take me home early.”

One, heretofore silent, chimed in. “I think I know what we can do. But Mel, you’re going to have to make a lanyard.” She giggled at the disgusted look, and said “C’mon, we only have like 15 minutes before they start wondering where we are.”

Across the crowd and a million miles away, Garfield and Rachel were, in fact, being tremendously awkward as they watched the kids run and play. Gar fumbled his words and couldn’t decide to stare at her eyes, the curve of her neck, or decidedly anywhere except her. Rachel was the opposite. She answered in short, monosyllabic whispers and swallowed, trying to ease her desperately dry throat.

“So, uh, you said you just moved here! Do you have a job, er, of course you do, unless you don’t! That’s fine, too! Nothing wrong with… that. Yeah.” He trailed off, before gamely trying again. “So what do you do when you’re not, y’know, coming to summer camps?”

Rachel took a deep breath and centered herself. Gar started. “I’m not, like, annoying you, am I? I’m sorry, I tend to blabber -”

“No. I’m just… a little off-kilter. I’m a curator of antiquities at the museum.”

“That is so cool. Gar’s eyes were like dinner plates. “I love the museum! I always wanted to volunteer there, but I never feel like I have time between summers here and planning classes during the year.”

“Oh, you’re a teacher? Grade school or high school?”

“High school and occasionally some classes at the community college. I figured I was already teaching AP and college bio isn’t much different. I’m sure the kids get tired of me after the sixth year, though, heh.” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, uncomfortably warm even for a summer afternoon.

“I suppose they wouldn’t let you teach so many years if you weren’t good at the job. Not that biology is my area of expertise.” She clarified, hearing his unspoken question. “I studied history and preservation, so a natural history museum is certainly a big change.”

“Wow, I bet. Still, nobody does what they expected to when they were in college. I got a bachelor’s in Environmental Science, but it turns out most of those jobs are just telling corporations what they want to hear.”

Rachel leveled him with a newly assessing gaze. “Believe it or not, so are quite a few jobs in archaeology. It’s what put me off of the field.”

“But hey, teaching led me to Jump and to Lake Titan Camp, so I can’t complain.”

While the two nominal adults conversed, a far more intricate conversation was happening in the craft cabin. Kole, a pink haired co-conspirator of Melvin’s, was creating a half finished lanyard in pink and purple while the rest strategized. “Okay, so I need to throw her off so she’ll agree. The pink and purple color scheme is good – pink for me, purple for her, but I need something to knock her off her game.”

“You could tell her something that surprised her, maybe. But what?”

Realization dawned. “Okay. This is a little mean, maybe, but I was planning on talking to her about it anyway. I know just what to say. Kole, how’s the lanyard coming?”

“I’ve got it to the perfect length. Just long enough that you might ‘Need a little while to finish it, pretty please.’” She held up the dangling lengths of string. “Everything ready? We’re running out of time.”

“Now or never. Let’s go.” Melvin took a deep breath and led them to the doorway.

Garfield and Rachel were deep in conversation. The initial awkwardness had faded, and while there were still sparks flying whenever they made eye contact, it was more a static buzz than the almost painful live wire sensation of their first glances. At some point they had migrated closer to where Teether and Tommy’s two groups had merged into a supercrowd of children all making noise, forcing them to stand closer to one another to be heard. They were in this huddle, all focus on each other except for both of their frequent check-in glances to the children. Rachel had dipped her toe into a hint of vulnerability to test the waters, quietly and without fanfare explaining that she had adopted all three of them from the same orphanage she had found herself aging out of.

Gar reciprocated. “That’s really incredible. I was adopted pretty young by some family friends. I know how complicated that sort of relationship can be, but it’s doing something amazing for all three of them.”

Melvin, seeing their closeness, hesitated, just a bit. She was messing with fate, a little. But she was certain it was for a good cause. And it was now or never, they were already cutting it close to “Shared Activity Time” for her age group. “Umm. Rachel.”

“Yes, Melvin?” Rachel saw that Mel was nervous. Melvin was never nervous.

“I want to finish a project for you, but won’t have time later. So, uh, I need you to find something else to do. During the Activity Time, I mean. I just want to finish making this. Please, M-mom?”

Time stopped for Rachel. She had adopted them six years ago, and there had never been a time when Melvin had consciously called her “Mom”. Forms asking for “Mother’s Name”, sure. Mother’s day celebrations, absolutely. Even a few mostly-asleep, teary pleas, but never, never while Melvin was in control of her faculties.

But while time had stopped for Rachel, it marched onward for everyone else. Melvin held her breath and waited for long, tense seconds, but Rachel didn’t seem to be coming back to her senses, so she hurriedly spat out “Okayloveyouseeyousoon,” and fled back to the safety of her friends.

Gar, too, was frozen. Not to the same degree, nor for the same reasons, but he felt like he had intruded on something intimate that he had no business being a part of. He looked around, helplessly as Rachel gaped. After several seconds of silence, he couldn’t not do something. “Uhh. Rachel? You… okay?” More frozen immobility. He waved a hand in front of her face. “Rae? You there? Do I need to get a doctor?”

She seized his hand. “Did… did she just call me “Mom”? Or did I have a stroke?”

“Yeah, ouch. She did. I’m guessing this was new?”

“I… Yes. She’s never… What… what do I do? Was she angry I didn’t answer? Where did she go?” Rachel began looking around for her.

“Whoa, slow down. She’s with her friends. She wasn’t mad, it seemed like she was nervous, but not scared. And what you do is let her come to you and talk to her like you always do, and just make sure she knows you’re okay with it. As long as you are okay with it, right?”

“Of course. I just thought...” Rachel trailed off.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about! She loves you and just told you how she feels. That’s a good thing. Let’s give her a chance to do whatever she’s doing. The rest of the kids are about to go do an activity, so we have time.”

“I think I need to get away from the crowd for a minute. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but is it alright if we just go for a walk?”

“Of course.” Gar’s grip had at some point shifted to be holding her hand back, and he led her down a dirt path towards a grove of trees. “This path is quiet and not too hard.” Her sudden harsh look had him follow up. “You’re not really wearing the shoes for hiking, Rae.”

“Hmf. And since when did I say you could call me Rae, Garfield?”

He looked stricken. “I am so sorry. I dunno what I was thinking, Ra-chel. Rachel.”

She narrowed an eye. “Rae is… acceptable, as far as diminutives go. Just don’t make a habit of it in public.”

“Cross my heart. Hey, at least being a little mad at me put your mind off of Melvin, right?”

“And now it’s right back. So very helpful,” she deadpanned.

“Easy come, easy go, right?” His smile grew a little. “I don’t wanna pry or anything, but is it really that surprising? She said you were her mom like, a dozen times during camp.”

“I suppose not. It caught me very off-guard, though. Teether and Tommy sort of switch between Rachel and Mom, but Melvin’s never really seemed like she even wanted that sort of, I don’t know, ‘Official’ title for me.”

“Listen, the whole ‘mom’ thing isn’t as scary as you’re making it out to be. You’re already giving her the kind of love a mom is supposed to, and she loves you. She talks about all the time with stars in her eyes. Being adopted doesn’t make her less your daughter. Rita Farr isn’t any less my mom for taking me in when I was eight, and Marie Logan isn’t any more or less important to me just because she’s not around.”

Rachel took a breath and sighed it out. “Thank you. That does make it easier.” They walked in silence for a short time. “Wait, Rita Farr, as in the movie star? As in, the philanthropist and art collector, married to Steve Dayton?”

He blushed a little. “Whoops, probably shouldn’ta dropped that so casually, I guess. Yeah. Steve and Rita adopted me when my parents died. It’s not always easy, but I love ‘em.” He watched her reaction carefully, hoping she wouldn’t suddenly start treating him differently for having such well-known parents.

Rachel schooled her face after having that bombshell dropped on her. “Well, if we ever meet we’ll be able to talk about some historic pieces she has that I wrote papers on.”

A beat passed, then Gar’s loud laugh broke relative silence of the forest. “Aw man, she is gonna love you.”

And just like that, the tension was broken. All the concern, the lack of balance, everything fell away, and the static buzz of easy conversation punctuated by something just a little too close to intimate for an average friendship was back.

They wandered together down the shady paths, miles away and only a few trees distant from the campground. Rachel didn’t notice the distance she had walked on the formerly dreaded forest hike, and Garfield forgot to try quite so hard with his jokes and wise cracks. They walked, hand in hand and only somewhat realizing how close they were to one another, shoulders nearly touching.

The spell was eventually broken, as they always are. They rounded a final bend, seeing in the distance the campground they had left, what, less than an hour ago? And the reality that they had left behind when they entered the sun-shafted canopies woke them up, and they found that really, their hands were quite slick. Had they been clasped together the whole time? And Rachel, especially, was starting to sweat from the heat and the walk. Garfield was suddenly nervous, after all, he never talked this much, not without making a fool of himself.

But even after emerging from that hazy dream, they held on, gently rising out of the fog and into the real world so no sudden movements could disrupt the memory, the closeness that two almost strangers that fit together like complementary puzzle pieces had shared.

It wasn’t even fully dispelled when their hands slipped apart to be wiped on cargo shorts or dark jeans, though the almost hidden flight from behind a few low-branched trees of blonde hair and untied shoelaces and quiet giggle quickly sobered them.

Garfield turned. “Was that -?”

“Melvin. Oh, that little brat, she is too damn smart for her own good. I would put money on her scheming to get us alone.” Rachel fumed and her face tightened into a mask of cold anger. “I can’t believe that she would manipulate me like this! How could she – How could she finally call me -” and the mask broke, shifting from anger to near tears in seconds.

Gar panicked. “Whoa, hold on, no. She’s not that cruel, I know it and so do you. We’re probably missing something. You just said you can’t believe she would do this – she probably didn’t. Rae I promise you, there’s got to be an explanation that makes sense.”

Rachel took a deep breath, followed by another, centering herself. “I am going to get to the bottom of this. Where would she be doing this “project” she made up?”

“The craft cabin. I’ll take you there, but I guarantee you it’s not as bad as it might sound.”

It was like the crowd parted for them without even reacting. No one looked at the worried counselor or at the steely featured parent, but nonetheless they found their path almost unimpeded. Gar held up a hand just outside the door. “Let me get you two some privacy. Please.”

“Fine. Do it.” Terse and unhappy, Rachel’s displeasure was apparent in her voice, and it made Garfield wince.

He opened the door to see five preteen girls, huddled and tittering. At least until they saw him and his serious frown. Then their eyes went wide, and they looked to Melvin in a panic. “Out, girls. Clear the room. Not you, Melvin.” He stopped her when she tried to take shelter in the middle of the pack. He turned to follow them, and glanced back almost pityingly, then shook his head and exited.

The girls all ducked their heads when they saw Rachel just outside the cabin and hurried off, racing to be the first around the corner and away from the ticking time bomb.

Garfield simply nodded, and left her to it. Rachel entered the cabin and saw Melvin almost trembling, and it broke her heart. She had worked up a head of steam on the walk and the wait, but seeing her precious daughter actually afraid stopped any real anger and left only a bitter emptiness.

Rachel wasn’t quite sure what to do with her hands. She settled on a vague, open armed shrug gesture. “Why, Mel? Was it just a prank? Just a way to manipulate me?”

Tears brimmed in Melvin’s eyes. “No, I just wanted to give you guys a chance to talk alone. I’m sorry I lied, I really did try on the lanyard, but I’m just bad at them so I had Kole do it. I’m sorry, I am.”

“What? What lanyard? Melvin, I don’t care if you had a friend help with a lanyard! I just can’t believe that you would call me your mom, just to trick me into talking to someone. I can’t tell you how badly that hurts me. I… I love you too much for that.”

“What!No, nononono, Mom, I promise that wasn’t a trick. I promise. I was gonna talk to you about it, but I just – I thought that if I – I thought that maybe if I just did it you’d just let me and maybe you’d talk to him and then it everything would be perfect. I promise. I love you, Mom. I do. And I was just trying to maybe make you not spend all your time watching me and talk to him. He’s really cool, and I could tell you like him, and he’s completely in love with you, and you’re perfect for each other. I was just trying to help you be happy!” She sobbed, breathless.

Rachel froze, then instinctively wrapped her daughter in her arms and let her cry. “Mel, you don’t need to worry about me. I am happy, I promise. I don’t need you to try to trick me into being happy. Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to say I’m not mad, but I get it. You don’t have to trick me into talking to, what did you call him, “really old, like 50 years old” guys? If we talk, we talk. That’s how adults work.”

“No, it’s not! I’ve never seen you go on a date, and you just ignore people when they try to talk to you. I know it was dumb, but I had to try something ‘cause otherwise you’d just give him that serious face until he ran away, and he’s perfect for you if you’d just give him a chance!”

“Mel. Mel, okay. I promise. I will give him a chance. But you don’t need to be worried about me. I don’t need a twelve year old playing matchmaker. You should be doing kid things, not bad romcom plots.”

“*SNRK*. They’re not bad. They’re sweet. And you like them, otherwise you wouldn’t have so many of them.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and glowered.

Rachel internally cursed Kori. “If you say so. Now let’s sit here for a minute, then we can go wash your face and you can go hand out with your friends. And I will have a talk with Garfield, and you will not stick your nose into my dating life. Understand?”

“Yes, mom.”

It still startled Rachel to hear that coming from Melvin, but it also warmed her heart. She hadn’t even known she wanted it until it happened, but it was like a spoken guarantee that she really was doing things right, and her little family really was working.

They sat together and Melvin showed her the lanyard that she had made via Kole. Rachel put it on the silver chain she wore around her neck and let it rest beside her heart promising mostly to herself that it would be kept safe at home. Then, when Mel had calmed down, they headed to the bathroom where Mel cleaned the tear tracks from her dirt-smudged face and rinsed her red rimmed eyes. Rachel gave her a final kiss on the forehead, and sent her off.

Gar found her standing there, staring off into space against the wall of the concrete shack. He leaned against it and slid down to sit around the corner and next to her. “So.”

“So,” she said back.

“Not saying it just to confuse you?” He glanced at her, gauging her reaction.

“No. But she wasn’t against confusing me.”

His eyebrow cocked. “Not mad?”

“Still mad. Still going to be grounded, probably. But she did it out of love.”

“Y’know, I don’t want to say I told you so, but...”

“But you totally want to say ‘I told you so,’” she finished for him.

“Yep. So what now?”

“Now, I guess I do what I was going to do before we had all this to deal with,” she said, the soul of nonchalance.

“What’s that?” he said, and when she didn’t respond, he stood up and looked around the corner. “Rae?”

“This.” with only his head around the corner, she turned and kissed him, gentle and sweet, and far too short for either of them. “I’d like to go out sometime. I want to take you to a behind the scenes at the museum, and I’ll let you choose the restaurant.”

His head spun and his eyes were out of focus. His thoughts were like molasses and he could barely get out the word “Okay.” before she was gone, a little bounce in her step.

AO3 FF.net

#bbraeweek21 #bbrae #fic

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favescandis · 3 years

Photo

New Q&A with Alexander Skarsgård and Esquire Middle East

‘Alexander Skarsgård on pro wrestling, death metal, the joys of Godzilla vs Kong’ - by William Mullally, March 25, 2021

The Swedish star speaks to Esquire Middle East about his latest film, being home in Stockholm, and staying ripped for The Northman during quarantine

Alexander Skarsgård did not have the 2020 the rest of us did. There was no quiet quarantine, no tubs of ice cream devoured at three in the morning, no existential boredom, no staring out the window as we wondered if we’d ever be able to start doing things again.

No, Skarsgård had to spend the year staying in the best shape of his life to play an honest-to-god Viking warrior and Nordic prince Amleth in Robert Eggers’ upcoming epic The Northman. Not that he minded, of course.

Skarsgård is in a very good place. Before The Northman, he filmed Godzilla vs. Kong, which was one of the most joyful experiences of his career. It’s a film that is much better than anyone could have hoped, that fixes the flaws of the previous outings of the franchise in Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla: King of Monsters by making its supporting characters actually interesting to follow—including Skarsgård’s turn as a conspiracy-loving mad scientist named Nathan Lind—and making the battle between the legendary behemoths the stuff of Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant.

Esquire Middle East caught up with the 44-year-old Swedish actor, who is aging like a vampire, fittingly enough, over Zoom ahead of the film’s release.

Read the full ESQ&A with Alexander Skarsgård below:

Alex, it’s great to see you again. How are you?

I’m pretty good. You’re in Dubai, right? I’m in Stockholm, Sweden at the moment.

How long have you been home?

I’ve been here for two months now since I wrapped The Northman.

How’s that been?

Yeah, it's been really nice. I mean, it's obviously a difficult time, but considering everything, I'm lucky, because everyone is doing alright. It's a nice opportunity for me, as I'm constantly on the road normally. It’s great to just be home, and not just for a week around Christmas or weekend over summer. I actually get to be here and spend some real time with my family.

You didn’t have any downtime in 2020?

Well, I was actually shooting for most of 2020. When the pandemic hit, I was in Belfast about to start filming the Northman, then we shut down for three months, and during that I had to train basically. It's a very physical role, so I had to keep working out. I was still in work mode for the whole lockdown. Then in July, we started shooting till the end of the year.

Did you prefer it that way?

I was very grateful to be able to work. It was definitely different from the normal set because we were completely isolated. We got tested three times a week and I basically lived in a bubble up in the hills of Northern Ireland and didn't see anyone didn't do anything for six months other than work and sleep and train.

I have a friend Adlai who lives in that village in Northern Ireland and I kept trying to get him to go break into your set because I needed to know more about this movie.

It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The most amazing experience.

You’ve been making a habit of working with great horror filmmakers, with Robert Eggers (The Witch) on the Northman, and Adam Wingard (You’re Next) on Godzilla vs. Kong.

What’s interesting about all these guys like Adam and Rob Eggers is they produce these really dark and twisted movies but they are two of the nicest human beings I've ever met. They're so sweet and genuine.

What do you and Adam like to talk about?

Death metal, probably. He's a big metal fan.

Are death metal people sweethearts, generally speaking?

Yeah, actually. Sometimes I feel like that's sometimes the case when you meet musicians in death metal bands they're like the sweetest, loveliest people who talk about their grandmothers and stuff.

Why do you think that is?

Maybe it's cathartic. It's a way to get out all that dark energy onto the big screen or as a musician onto an album.

Did you and Adam click immediately?

I met him years ago for another project. We didn’t end up working together on that but it was such a memorable meeting that we stayed in touch over the years. He’s not only a wonderful guy but so intelligent, such a film buff who knew everything about not only the horror genre, but even just films in general. When Godzilla vs Kong came up, I was just really excited to get an opportunity to work with him.

Were the words ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Kong’ enough for you, or did something specific draw you to this one?

I think it was a combination. I had just come off of a couple of really dark intense projects. I did the Little Drummer Girl, which is a limited series based on the John le Carré novel about conflicts in the Middle East, and I just come off Big Little Lies, two seasons of domestic abuse.

Did you just need something different?

It was just really two of the most rewarding experiences of my career but also really, really draining really intense experiences. I was just craving something fun and exciting. I hadn't done any big tent pole matinee-style movies and since Tarzan.

But you said it was a combination—are you also a Godzilla nerd?

Oh man, I was like a little boy. I just got giddy when I saw the renderings, the drawings, the storyboards, like the world that they wanted to create. I thought tonally they were the right people to make this kind of movie because I thought they had the balls to go all the way and make it as big and crazy and fun as it as I think it deserves to be, with the right amount of sarcasm and irony, but while still taking the topic seriously, and the characters seriously, and really caring about both Kong and Godzilla.

Did you and Adam share a lot creatively back and forth?

Oh, yeah. He would run up to me and ask what if they run into a creature that almost looks like an owl and start explaining how it works. And then you start sketching something on a piece of tissue. And then a week later, he would come back with something amazing that the visual artists have created. To be part of that from an early stage is so exciting to me.

As a pro wrestling fan, that balance of ironic and serious you mentioned sounds awfully familiar to me. Did you guys make a pro wrestling movie on purpose?

It’s a lot like pro wrestling. Like, you want the fights to be big spectacular, fun, and entertaining. But you want to care about the wrestlers, right? You want to root for them. I think Adam did such a great job in finding that tone. They beat the sh*t out of each other on an aircraft carrier, but you also want to connect with these creatures and care about them. The movie asks, what does Kong really wants other than beat up Godzilla? What is he longing for in life?

That’s exactly what I think when I watch the Undertaker throw Mankind off Hell in a Cell.

Absolutely!

Godzilla vs. Kong is in theaters now across the Middle East

https://www.esquireme.com/content/51448-alexander-skarsgard-on-pro-wrestling-death-metal-the-joys-of-godzilla-vs-kong-the-northman-interview

Photo from WarnerBros. Entertainment. Thanks to SophTop on Delish for the find!

#Alexander Skarsgård #Godzilla vs. Kong #Esquire Middle East #Alexander Skarsgard #The Northman

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sapphic-yearning-lesbian · 3 years

Link

This is chapter two (Chapter one)

Nurse Namaari struggles with the idea of visiting her past patient Raya, but caves.

Warnings: Brief mentions of addiction, and survivor’s guilt.

Word Count: 2533

Three days later

Namaari was sitting in her office writing reports when she heard a knock on the door. "Come in," She said as the door slowly opened.

"Hello, It's Sisu; I'm a Psych nurse, we've seen each other multiple times around the ER, but you officially meet me while I was comforting Raya, a past patient of yours. Could I possibly speak with you?" Sisu confidently states while poking her head through the crack of the door.

Namaari raised an eyebrow, shocked to see Sisu at her door. Nevertheless, she nodded. How could she forget that day? Raya's pale body...Sisu's screams...

Snap out of it!

Because of Hippa, Namaari was not allowed to check on Raya. Once a patient leaves the ER, they are no longer her patients, and she has no say in their care, and nine times out of ten, she'll never know if they survived. "Of course. Come take a seat," She finally answers as she motions with her hands that Sisu sits across from her.

Sisu nervously walks over to the chair, sitting down. She looks at a Namaari whose eyes are locked on her purple ones. She chuckles. "This isn't me talking to a coworker, okay. This is me talking to my friend about another friend." Sisu states as she watches Namaari's eyebrows raise before she nods yes, "Raya is in the cardiovascular/pulmonary unit. She survived the emergency surgery! She's still recovering, but she has made it clear she wants the gorgeous nurse that saved her life to visit her."

Namaari was extremely relieved but also confused. "Wait, what? She isn't your girlfriend?" Namaari asked as Sisu's face turned bright red, and she burst out in laughter.

"Hahaha, no! We dated for like a week during nursing school, but we never clicked romantically; We've been best friends ever since tho." Sisu managed to say between her laughter. Once she was able to control herself, she continued talking, "Anyways, she is in the J6 unit in the room: J601," Sisu says with a smirk before standing up from the chair; walking to the door, before stopping to say, "If you visit her, don't do it as a nurse. She's not looking for another member of her health care team. She wants to get to know the YOU who isn't a nurse." With that said, Sisu walks out, closing the door behind her.

Namaari sits at her desk, even more confused. She leans into her chair, thinking for a moment. She really found this girl alluring in every sense, but how was she supposed to chase after a girl she talked to for two minutes before she practically died in her arms. Not practically! She did die!

Maybe that's the reason.

What a great love story would it be...

When Namaari finished her shift three days ago, she broke down: She hadn't cried like that in years! She does remember crying somewhat similarly when she lost her first patient five years ago, but it was a different kind of sadness.

The truth is death was something Namaari had grown accustomed to. Of course, she felt emotional distress when a patient died, but when Raya flatlined; It shattered her.

She often found herself running through the event over and over in her head, trying to pinpoint how she didn't realize the gasps for air between Raya's flirting, where she struggled to breathe.

She should have seen the signs.

She should have realized Raya's heart was straining itself to keep her alive; that's why her blood pressure and pulse skyrocketed before they plummeted.

No matter how many times she runs the scenario in her head, she always blames herself.

When in reality, Namaari is excellent at her job. She has ample experience and education.

Yes, Raya's smile ultimately left her defenseless, but Namaari stood her ground.

Yes, Namaari's heart was fluttering for her patient, but she still put those feelings aside to save her life. Maybe she should stop scolding herself and accept that life is unpredictable.

And one thing holds true: Namaari felt immense attraction for Raya, but she still acted professionally.

Namaari blinked a few times, trying to pull herself out of her thoughts before bringing her hands up to her face, gently rubbing circles into her temples. "What has she done to you?". She asked herself as she laughed and looked at the time; 4 PM, her shift will be over in three hours. After her shift finishes, she'll shower quickly in the staff showers and change into clean scrubs. She scoffs when she realizes she'll have to wear blueberry-colored scrubs; that's the only colored scrubs the hospital provides.

The hospital has their staff color-coded, adult nurses wear grey scrubs, child nurses wear pink, x-ray technicians wear black, pharmacists and phlebotomists wear light blue, nursing assistants wear burgundy, and surgical residents wear blueberry-colored scrubs. Actually, most residents wear blueberry scrubs, but most commonly, you'll see surgical residents marching around the hospital in their blueberry scrubs.

"OWW OWW OWWW," Raya screams as a surgical resident removes the chest tube that was once allowing the excess air pooled in her chest cavity to escape her body, caused by her collapsed lung. It was no longer needed as the punched lung was fixed during her emergency surgery; they should have taken it out before but hadn't, fearing her lung could collapse again.

Raya felt utterly stupid. She was an extraordinary nurse, and she knew the signs of a collapsed lung, pneumothorax, but she ignored them.

If she thinks back to that day in the ER, she can vividly remember her chest burning in pain; shortness of breath, lightheadedness, an elevated pulse, and finally, the icing on the cake, her left shoulder hurt: All tale signs that her broken rib punctured her lung. Yet, she chose to ignore the warnings.

At least now, she can fully understand the power of adrenaline on someone's mind and body. It can genuinely make you believe that severe pain is minimal and that you'll be okay.

"Sorry, Ms.Hart. Do you want me to press on your magic pain button" The resident stated, causing Raya to stare back at them with frowning eyebrows before nodding no.

Raya was given a medicine button she can press for narcotics every so often, but she was trying not to press the button unless she really needed to. She knows firsthand how quickly people can get addicted to those meds.

The resident chuckled. "Sorry, I forgot you're a nurse, and I don't need to call it a magic button." Raya faked a smile before chuckling. She wasn't trying to be mean at all, but she hated being on the other side. Raya loved being the nurse, and suddenly she's the patient.

The resident smiled once more before excusing themselves out.

"You can stop fake smiling now," Sisu said.

She was curled up on a couch against the window. She had her eyes closed as she was sleeping. "Ughhh, I'm going to be late to my shift," She said, opening her eyes, noticing the clock on the wall before standing up from the couch, where she stretched before smiling. "Nightshift is the bestttt" She joked as she folded the sheets she was using to sleep.

"You must be exhausted! You haven't left the hospital in three days because of your back and forth from your shifts to watching me!! Go home, sleep in your own bed, and shower with shampoo that actually cleans your hair because your hair looks a mess right now." Raya sighed as she sat up in the bed, looking at Sisu with pleading eyes.

"You're my best friend, Raya!" Sisu stated as she finished folding the sheets and turned to look at Raya with tears beginning to pool in her eyes. "You dead...I watched you die." She exhaled as solo tears escaped her eyes; she quickly wiped them away with her thumbs.

Raya was looking at Sisu with sorrow and regret. She knew getting into a fight with Tong was stupid, and they didn't mean to injure each other terribly, but somehow they did. However, she knew she couldn't keep this conversation going as Sisu had 10 minutes to get to the psych department for her shift. So instead, she smiled and raised an eyebrow. "Note to self! Never die again." This statement caused Sisu to chuckle as she picked up her overnight bag; that holds her clean scrubs.

Sisu quickly walks over to Raya, side hugging her gently to not hurt her before pressing a quick kiss on her cheek. "I got to go. If anything happens, please call my office, okay! I MEAN IT." She stated firmly before running out the door.

Raya sighed before she burst out in tears. She had been playing strong for Sisu, but she was in shock. She was sure her best friend knew, but Raya really wasn't ready to talk about it. Raya knew deep down that she was having survives guilt, an overpowering and almost dominating emotion.

Her tears soon became sobs, and she felt her body begin to shake. She knew it was a panic attack, so she began to take deep breaths to calm herself.

Eventually, the trembling stopped while her tears persisted; her body was weakened by the energy needed to cry. She was also physically distressed now as each sob caused a painful sting to travel up her spine.

So she finally pressed her medicine button.

As time went by, her tears lessened, and her pain was managed. Soon enough, she found herself drifting off to sleep.

"You're the girlfriend?" Some unknown voice asked.

"Yeah, sure." She heard Namaari's voice hesitantly answer. "I've been in here for an hour, and she just doesn't wake up. Is everything okay?"

The other voice hummed as the conversation amused her. "I'm looking at her patient chart, and it only says to release personal information to Sisudatu." The unknown voice said, probably her night nurse. "HIPPA Man. I wanna help you, but--"

"Yea, I know. It was worth a try, though." Namaari answered, sighing.

"She's just tired. Look closely at her face; maybe you can figure out why she is so exhausted--ANYWAY, press on the call light if you need anything, or poke your head outside the door. Great to meet you...girlfriend Namaari." The nurse chuckled; it was clear she didn't believe that.

Raya so badly wanted to open her eyelids, but they felt so heavy. She tried to speak, but she was too tired to make words. So as she heard Namaari sit on the chair next to her bed, gently grabbing her call button (that's also a tv remote), turning it on. With the very little energy she had, she smiled as she drifted to sleep once again.

Nammari woke up curled up in a chair. She looked to her left, seeing a snoring Raya in her patient bed. She smiled, noticing the puffy eyes were gone.

When she came in yesterday around eight pm, she found Raya passed out with red puffy eyes. Tears had stained her cheeks, and her eyebrows frowned. Namaari knew she probably cried herself to sleep before she got there; she even tried to confirm it with her night nurse but to no avail. She yawned as she brought her left hand up to her eye level to look at her watch. 7:30 AM.

She lightly rubbed her tired eyes as someone burst into the room. She removed her hands from her eyes, spotting a very tired Sisu pulling the curtain open. Once Sisu noticed her, a wide smile spread on her face; she turned and noticed Raya was sleeping, so she whispered, "Hey, Namaari. Great to see you! Did you just get here?" She said excitedly as she yawned, placing her bag on the floor; Quickly shuffling to the couch that folds out to a bed.

"I came yesterday, but she was sleeping. It looked like she shouldn't be left alone, so I kinda fell asleep here," Namaari replied as she watched Sisu unfold some sheets, probably getting ready to sleep, she presumed. "I don't work today. I can stay with her..." She began to say as Sisu's eyes shot up from the couch to meet her's with a massive grin on her face.

"Are you completely sure?" Sisu asked, raising an eyebrow. Namaari noticed the eyebags and the apparent exhaustion. She nodded yes before opening her mouth to speak but was cut off by another voice. Raya's voice.

The voice Namaari's been repeatedly hearing in her mind. Precisely when Raya called her a 'godly woman.' Thinking back to that moment made her blush.

"She's... *yawn* ...giving you... *yawn* ..an out.. *yawn* ...take it," Raya stuttered as her eyelids fluttered open. She noticed Namaari first on her right and smiled but brought her gaze back to her best friend. "Go home. It's been four days now. I'm okay."

Sisu tilted her head to the side, looking at Raya with knowing eyes. She turned to look at Namaari. "Raya had a panic attack after I left. That's why she was so exhausted; I'm assuming it's survivor's guilt, but I'm her best friend, so I'm not allowed to evaluate her." Sisu said while crossing her arms across her chest, raising her eyebrows before turning her gaze to Raya. "I'm scared to leave again," She admitted as her tone became soft.

"I'm very much capable of taking care of her," Namaari stated. She knew this current situation was unusual. Truthfully a part of her wanted to leave, believing she didn't deserve even a slimmer of a chance of happiness. However, something kept her there—the desire to TRY and get to know Raya.

Namaari was very self-aware that if she let the opportunity of getting to know Raya personally slip, she would always wonder, what if . Because the truth is, if it doesn't work out, then she can at least say she tried.

Sisu uncrossed her arms and looked over at Namaari. "As a friend?" Sisu questioned Namaari, "Or as a nurse?"

Namaari chuckled. "I'm not part of her medical staff," She stated as she raised her hands in defeat. "I'm here as a friend."

"I thought you said we were girlfriends tho? Or was I dreaming?" Raya randomly blurted, both the other girls looking at her. Sisu's face showing confusion, and Namaari's embarrassment.

"OKAYYY, that's my queue to leave! Tong should be here around 2 PM so you can go home, Namaari." Sisu said, winking at Raya before grabbing her bag and walking out of the room.

Namaari's heart was beating faster, realizing she was alone with Raya. Her cheeks burning as if they were on fire. She turned to look at her and found she was already staring and smiling at her. "Was it a dream?" Raya asked again as she slowly sat up, clutching her chest.

"No, it wasn't a dream," Namaari whispered as she brought her hands down, looking at them.

Namaari was unsure how the next few hours would unveil. All she was certain of was:

She is sitting in a past patient's room.

She agreed to stay for hours.

She's highly attracted to this patient.

She thinks she's lost her dam mind.

I’m already working on the next chapter. It should be up in the next coming days. But realistically once I finish it; I’ll post it.

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louistomlinsoncouk · 4 years

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“I’ve just watched loads of s___ TV,” he says after a long pause. “The Undoing is decent, isn’t it?”

Far from aimless, however, today the singer is full of beans, cheerily shushing his barking dog as he potters about his North London home where he lives with his best friend from home, Oli, and his girlfriend, the model Eleanor Calder.

Was he left reeling, I ask, unable to perform at such a crucial moment?

Sure, I say, but the last year can’t have been easy. Didn’t he feel like his purpose had popped?

In return, Tomlinson is good to them. Last month he even promised some new music, saying that he’d written four songs in four days. Does this mean that a second album is on the way?

It must be draining, I say, the weight of expectation in both the media and across his fanbase, to be a spokesperson for grief and hardship. To have tragedy prelude everything he does and says.

“Honestly, it’s part of being from Doncaster as well, I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. That’s the last thing I want.”

There is something that’s helping, though: a secret spot near Los Angeles, where he divides his time to see his four-year-old son, Freddie, whom he shares with his ex Briana Jungwirth, a stylist. “It’s remote and kind of weird, and I’m going to go there for three days and write. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to it. I found it via a YouTube video. It’s got some very interesting locals who live there, it’s sort of backwards when it comes to technology. It feels like you’re going back in time when you’re there. But I don’t want to give it away.”

Has he spoken to Frusicante?

“I f______ wish,” snorts Tomlinson.

Surely someone as well-known as Tomlinson could easily get in touch?

“No, honestly, I think he’s too cool for that. He’s not into that kind of thing.”

So: might 2021 be the year of resurrection?

#louis tomlinson #24nov20

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