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meetmymouth · 4 years

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AUBADE ; HARRY STYLES

WORD COUNT: 12k

warnings: smut, smoking, alcohol consumption.

thank you @harryandhockey and @burberryharold for beta-ing this baby, you guys are the sweetest angels!

When the doorbell goes off for the third time that night, she groans and tosses the lipstick on her bed, then makes her way towards the door. Through the stained glass, she sees a tall figure and rolls her eyes.

“Look, this is the third time- oh. It’s you.”

The blonde raises her eyebrows, “Who were you expecting? Also wow, I feel so welcome, thank you.”

“Sorry,” the door closes behind Charlotte, and they walk inside.

Once in the tiny kitchen, kettle already on, she takes time to coat her eyelashes with mascara.

“Who did you think I was, that was quite the welcome.”

“Couple of girls kept knocking on the door. Something about a survey. I’ve no idea. Hey, can you help me put this on?” She takes a necklace out of her jean pocket and hands it over.

It’s Thursday, which means happy hour at their local pub and after that, they’d take N31 towards Camden to listen to a friend of Charlotte’s, an upcoming indie artist. She usually didn’t like going out on weekdays since she worked 8 to 4 and she would need to wake up at 6AM sharp to get ready and leave her flat for her Friday shift. But ever since Charlotte started working for the touring musician Harry Styles, they saw each other twice- once when they toured England and the second one being right before Charlotte left for tour. Being close friends since school, it was safe to say that she felt her absence and missed her friend dearly but were also so proud of her for everything she’d achieved.

So when Charlotte came home during their break, she wanted to spend as much time as possible with her friend and if it meant spending her Friday shift hungover while cleaning up animal urine and puke from all kinds of animals, then so be it.

“There,” Charlotte pats her on the neck after she clasps the necklace and she turns around, hand reaching to turn the kettle off.

“Ta. When are we leaving? And do you think I should go for my Adidas or the boots?” She points at the heeled boots, half white half black by the kitchen entrance and Charlotte follows her gaze as she sips the hot beverage.

She looks at the boots, then her, then the boots again, “The boots for fuckin’ sure. They’re sick- where’d you get them?”

“Depop,” She lets out a chuckle, “Think they’re Topshop, ‘m not sure. Should we leave? Y’know I walk dead slow and now that I’m wearin’ the boots…”

“You really do...go get your shit, I’ll wash this.”

They’re gathered around a round table, the green paint of the wooden table beginning to chip, and everyone’s got drinks of their own, G&T being the most popular choice. There are only five of them, Charlotte, her, Phoebe and her girlfriend Jamie, and they’re chatting about anything and everything until Charlotte turns to her, straw between her red lips.

“So-”

“Oh dear, what have you done,” she cuts her off and earns a glare from her, and from the corner of her eye, she sees Phoebe and Jamie cross their arms as if they’re getting ready for their usual bickering.

“Fuck you,” Charlotte sighs, “I didn’t do anything. I just invited some more people to Julien’s show and wanted to...kinda ask if that’s alright with you”

“Oh,” she looks around the table, finding the other girls looking at their phones and she turns to Charlotte, “It’s fine. Who are they?”

Phoebe snorts at that and her eyebrows raise in question. She gives Phoebe a look, but Charlotte’s quicker as she throws a damp tissue at the blonde and Jamie laughs when it lands back on Charlotte’s lap. “You know Sarah from the band?”

“Oh, yeah!”

She remembers meeting Sarah at Charlotte’s new flat after she moved to London, the brunette bringing a cute snake plant and a weird- but cute tea set as a housewarming gift and they got on well. They talked about plants, Sarah giving her tips on how to keep certain plants alive, and she asked her lots of questions about her experience being a woman, especially a drummer in the music industry. Sarah was very soft spoken; she spoke as if she was talking to a baby, but she always made sure to maintain eye contact when she was having a conversation with you, listening and nodding when appropriate so that you felt special and...understood. She was lovely, which was why she found it weird how Charlotte was acting awkward about her joining them tonight.

“And her boyfriend, Mitch, of course,” Charlotte adds and she nods, motioning for her to keep going. “And Harry.”

“Harry Styles?”

“Oh boy,” Jamie whistles.

“Obviously,” Charlotte sucks on her straw, slurping her drink, “Yeah, him,” she repeats, this time softer.

“I...why?” She chooses to ask, surprised as she’d like to think Harry Styles as this unreachable, ever-so-busy person who wouldn’t be interested in a night out like this. She turns to Phoebe, and then Jamie, and they respond with a shrug as Phoebe goes back to cuddling into Jamie’s side.

“What do you mean why?” Charlotte places her drink on the table, “It would be rude not to since I asked Sarah and Mitch.”

“Well, I just mean, isn’t he busy?”

Jamie whistles again and sings her name, “You got a crush, babes?”

“Nonsense, never even met the guy- which,” she looks around the table, “-is one of the reasons why I was confused. Anyway, it doesn't matter,” she shrugs and turns to Charlotte, “I’m not bothered, Lotts, it’s totally fine.”

“Y’sure?”

She gives her a nod, “I just find him intimidating and don’t think he’d be into indie, that’s all.”

It was true. Despite having not met Mr. Harry Styles, deep down she knew he’d be intimidating because he was so good looking and well, just like most people, she loved One Direction. She was a big fan, she even got told off by her stepmother once when she was younger because apparently the tape she used to hang her One Direction posters was ruining the walls. She often referred to them as twinks, and she didn’t even know what it meant until she was older. She remembers how she got made fun of at sixth form because one of the girls found her old Tumblr and told everyone about it. Harry’s never been her favourite though. Not because she didn’t find him attractive, not at all. It was because he was too attractive and was everyone’s favourite so whenever asked, she’d shrug and tell people how she found Louis funny, and then Zayn because ’he’s the hottest’.

Long story short, despite her friendship with Charlotte, she’d never met Harry, never had the opportunity to attend one of his shows because she was either too busy or they were playing in a different country and she simply couldn’t afford it. So tonight would be the first time they’d get to be in the same place and to say that she was nervous would be an understatement. And her, she always thought she was awkward. Way too awkward for social gatherings but she liked going out regardless, drinking cheap alcohol and dancing to shitty songs in an equally shitty pub. She loved being a student. Loved the freedom the title had given her. What’s your occupation, she’d get asked from time to time. Student, she’d say without hesitating. She was a student. She didn’t have to be anything else for three years. Sure, she was also working part time at an animal shelter but for the most part, she loved being a student. That’s how she met Phoebe, and then Jamie. In a way, she was their matchmaker.

She remembers meeting Phoebe last year when they had a class together. She was the first person to smile at her in the overcrowded lecture theatre and she remembers thinking how nice Phoebe’s green fringe looked. Meeting Jamie though, was funny. Phoebe usually got weird when they joked about it since she met Jamie before Phoebe did on Tinder, even went on a date with her, and then right before she was about to ghost her, she thought of how similar Phoebe and Jamie were. It was then that she made Phoebe go on a date with Jamie, and after a month of pining, they got together. Even though they were similar, she always thought that they actually completed each other, Jamie being the logical one and Phoebe encouraging Jamie to let loose from time to time and live in the moment.

Charlotte reaches and boops her nose, “He’s a musician, he loves all kinds of music. He won’t eat you, babe. He’s nice, I promise.”

Phoebe knocks on the wood, getting everyone’s attention, “Can we get a picture with him? An autograph?”

She feels a throbbing pain in her feet, toes in particular once they’re in and they wait for Phoebe and Jamie to buy their drinks, knowing she’d wake up with blisters in the morning. Charlotte takes out her phone and presumably texts the others, letting them know they were already here. She felt nervous. Nervous because she always thought she was rubbish when it came to meeting new people; they either thought she was too intimidating or rude but in reality, it was only because she always felt anxious meeting new people and would rather stay quiet than talking nonsense.

She takes time to analyse her outfit, a pair of black mom jeans and her boots, oh the boots who were currently grilling her feet. Then she tries to adjust her lace bodysuit, all of a sudden feeling super self conscious about the ”revealing” outfit. She adjusts the top, hoping her tits weren’t out before, and sighs when she touches the oversized blazer, rolling up the sleeves a bit more since it was beginning to get warm, too warm for her liking inside. Considering how she often felt self conscious about her arms, she felt more comfortable with the blazer over the sexy bodysuit.

“So,” she starts, eyes studying the crowded bar before her gaze stops at Charlotte, “Are they here?”

Charlotte looks up from her phone and nods, leaning her head on her shoulder. She feels her arm going around her waist and smiles, nudging her head with hers and she looks up, giving her a smile of her own. “What’s up, blondie?” she asks, hand coming up to ruffle Charlotte’s fringe.

She sighs, “Just tired, to be honest. I’m glad I wore trainers.”

“At least one of us is happy about their shoe choice.”

They watch as Phoebe and Jamie walk towards them, the brunette handing her a tall glass as Phoebe hands Charlotte her own drink. “When’s she on?”

Everyone turns to Charlotte, “Half an hour, maybe?”

“When are your friends coming? It’s getting quite...stuffy in here,” Jamie looks around and Phoebe nods, hands going around Jamie’s waist to pull the brunette into her.

“I texted Sarah and she said Harry was parking the car- oh, I see Mitch.”

They all look around, and she spots the tall guy with long hair, walking towards them with Sarah and Harry behind. She gulps and tries to look away, praying that no one takes notice of her sweaty forehead and shaky hands.

As the trio walk towards them, she takes a moment to examine Harry, and his outfit. Even in the dimly lit bar, she’s almost sure the high waisted trousers he has on are navy, and he’s got a tan...or a beige shirt tucked in them, chest on full display and she notices a cross necklace, looking as if it was made for his pretty neck. She clears her throat as quietly as she can and looks down but not before she takes a peek at his shoes, and she almost snorts at the choice of red boots he’s got on, noticing how everyone had trainers on while the two of them had what looked like very uncomfortable boots on.

To be honest, she thinks, he looks pretty good. She looks around them, noticing how most guys had jeans and ugly trainers on whereas Harry looked like he made quite the effort with his outfit but she also knows that even if he turned up in jeans and ugly trainers, he would still look amazing. Damn Harry Styles. Was she blushing?

The three of them are in their space now, close enough so she can make out Sarah’s overpowering perfume, and she clears her throat once again when Charlotte embraces Sarah first, then Mitch. Before she can watch her hug Harry, Sarah’s in front of her.

“Hi,” she smiles, going in for a hug, “It’s so nice to see you again. It’s been a while,” she says and her voice comes out muffled since they’re still hugging and she hopes her hair smells decent because Sarah’s face is pressed against her neck and hair.

“It’s nice to see you too! How have you been?”

“‘Been alright, I suppose!” She beams at her and turns to the man with long hair, “This is Mitch.”

As Sarah introduces everyone with Mitch, she feels Harry’s eyes on her, though she can’t turn her head and meet his gaze because that’d be rude seeing how Mitch is about to reach and give her a one armed hug. Alright then, she thinks, they’re a hugger. Then, it’s Harry’s turn. She looks at him, seeing how his eyes are focused on Phoebe and Jamie as he gives them both a warm smile before Charlotte starts talking again, introducing everyone to Phoebe and Jamie, then everyone turns to her, and she feels her face heat up seeing how everyone’s attention is on her now. She knows it’s her turn.

Harry takes a step forward and her earlier thoughts are confirmed when she can finally make out the colour of his trousers. “Hey, ‘m Harry,” he gives her a smile without waiting for Charlotte to speak, “Nice meeting you,” he comes closer and wraps an arm around her, engulfing her in a hug but it’s definitely different from Mitch or Sarah’s hug. It’s tight, much warmer and he’s got both arms around her, palms flat against her back as he rubs her back.

And of course she responds with the same warmness and hugs him back, “Hiya,” she introduces herself, and once they pull apart, he repeats her name and it sounds like poetry, something so personal and...erotic. But maybe, she thinks, maybe it’s just his deep voice making her feel that way.

Despite the moment they shared, if she could call it that, felt like hours, it was merely a minute. And it wasn’t like in the films where they hug, everything around them slowing down as the people watch in awe. No, not at all. When she looks around, she sees that everyone’s been already mingling, Phoebe and Jamie smiling at each other while they sipped their drinks, and Mitch is nowhere to be seen, possibly at the bar getting drinks.

Harry turns to Charlotte with a grin, “So is she any good, should we replace you with her?” He says, nudging her with his hip.

That sort of makes her smile, seeing Harry so carefree and friendly with the people who are essentially working for him. Even though she doesn’t know Harry Styles like they do, like Charlotte does, she knows he considers these people to be his friends and colleagues rather than his employees. It’s also fun seeing him this friendly with her best friend, and she feels proud, as she always does, knowing Charlotte has made herself great friends and that she clearly enjoys working with these people.

Charlotte nudges him back, “She’s great, I wouldn’t mind being replaced by her. Oh, there she is,” she points at the stage, and everyone turns to look at the pink-haired girl on the tiny stage with a sleek looking acoustic guitar on her side. As the others start talking about Julien, she finally takes the opportunity to look at Harry. Once their eyes meet, he gives her a smile, dimples on full display, and she swears she could see him blush when he looks down after she beamed at him. Even if he did blush though, he recovers quickly when he’s offered a drink and he mutters a thank you to Mitch, then lifts the slice of lime off the rim of his glass and sucks it into his mouth and she deems it as a good time to look away.

And she does, when she feels Sarah close, and she turns to her, Sarah welcoming her with a smile, “How’s uni? It’s your last year, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” she clears her throat, “It’s alright. Exhausting, but alright.”

“You’re working too, right?”

“Yeah, I work at an animal shelter.”

“It must be exhausting.”

“It is,” she gives her a nod, “I work three days a week and I also have classes so I only have Sundays off. I’ll probably leave and focus on uni after Christmas break though, I have my dissertation next semester.”

“Oh, cool! I miss being a student,” she purses her lips and turns to Harry, who had been listening to their conversation, his pretty fingers, most of them adorned with equally pretty rings, wrapped around the tall glass, “You probably can’t relate, H, can ya?”

He rolls her eyes but laughs regardless, “Piss off.”

Despite the chatter around them, it’s not ridiculously loud so they can carry a conversation without having to shout. They fall into an easy conversation, everyone joining in, and all of a sudden a pink neon light falls over them and they all turn to the stage. Julien starts singing, and all the chatter around them dies down, some people already starting to sing the words back at her.

She looks away from the stage for a minute and catches Harry’s gaze from across the room. They’re close enough for her to make out a few droplets of sweat on Harry’s forehead, and their eyes meet as he gives her a smile, eyes sparkling with mischief, then brings the glass up to his mouth. She watches as his top lip rests on the rim before he lifts it to his mouth and when she looks up, she sees him still looking at, gaze unwavering and mouth curled upwards in a sly smirk. She was caught. She was caught and he looked like he was loving and devouring every second of it.

Julien takes a break, promising to come back with a brand new song from her upcoming EP, and there’s a group of people making their way towards the exit, presumably to have a smoke and get some fresh air.

“Where’s she gone?” Charlotte huffs, eyes searching the room for the pink haired girl.

“She’s over there,” Phoebe points at Julien and they all turn to where she’s pointing at, spotting Julien near the bar with a drink in hand.

“Is she flirting?”

“She’s got groupies already?” she says after she takes her eyes off of Harry and everyone laughs.

Charlotte comes closer and nudges her shoulder against her, “You’d know, wouldn’t you?” “Be quiet,” she nudges back, and their group falls back into their conversation except Harry, who keeps staring at her and she gulps, hands reaching to feel her blazer pockets.

“Right,” she mutters, “It’s time to poison myself. I’m going out for a fag,” once she feels the bulge in her pocket, she turns to Charlotte, “Send me a text when she’s back on, yeah?”

“I’ll come with.”

She looks up at Harry, surprised, but nods, waiting for him to follow her outside. Even though she tries her best not to make eye contact with anyone as they leave, she’s aware of them watching them, everyone in their group equally surprised, but they keep walking, Harry following quietly behind. Once they pass the smelly bodies, they’re finally outside, the wind licking her face once she steps out and she tries to hug herself closer, seeing how the thin blazer’s not doing a good job at keeping her warm.

Harry wishes he’d brought a coat.

They’re quiet as he follows her to a quiet corner, only a few people turning their heads their way, presumably recognising him, and they stop near a brick wall and she takes her tobacco out of her left pocket. She looks up, catching him staring at her ring-clad fingers wrapped around the dark green packet, and she clears her throat, making him look up at her. They share a smile, both feeling at ease with the comfortable silence between them. She spots a wooden bench near and sits down, hands already working the packet open. When she starts tearing the tobacco apart, Harry can’t help but note how quickly she’s working it between her fingers, and he’s almost certain she’s been doing this for years.

“Want one?” She asks and he saunters forward, coming to stand in front of her with hands in his pockets.

He shrugs and she takes that as a yes, fingers pausing their work on the tobacco to take out something that resembles a cigarette and it’s only when she pushes it from the bottom that Harry realises they’re filters. Placing one between her lips, her fingers dip into her pocket once again to retrieve some papers and Harry finds himself unable to look away from her lips and how pretty they look with something between them.

He looks down at her lap, where the packet of tobacco is, seeing her fingers work swiftly as she fills the thin paper, and despite knowing better not to glamorise something as horrible and disgusting as smoking, he takes his time to admire the way she pushes down the tobacco with her index finger, presumably trying to fit and secure everything inside the paper. Taking the filter from between her lips, she places it inside the paper, at the very end, and her fingers start rolling.

Oh fuck, he thinks, knowing what’s about to come. Unable to look away, he watches as she brings it up to her mouth and licks a long stripe along the paper, and despite the lack of lighting around them, his eyes make out her pink tongue moving along the paper and it doesn’t come as a surprise when he feels a sudden twitch in his trousers at the unholy image before his eyes.

“There,” she hands him the rolled up cigarette, “Hope you don’t mind that I licked?”

He wants to laugh because of course he doesn’t mind. In fact, he quite enjoyed it, according to the knot in his stomach and his twitching cock in his underwear. He enjoyed it so much that he now couldn’t stop imagining her mouth doing other things, preferably dirty things with, or to him.

“Nah, it’s all good, thanks.”

“No probs. Didn’t take you as the smoking type,” she lets it slip out.

“I...don’t smoke, really. Only sometimes. When I’m drinking. Which…” He looks at the cigarette between her fingers, “...isn’t that often.”

She notices the nervousness that tinges his words, and it makes her feel better knowing he’s also as awkward as her. “Fair,” she sends him a smile and repeats all the steps on her own rollie, putting it between her lips just like Harry, and she takes her lighter out of the same pocket. She lights her own first and reaches to light his, and he sort of bends over until his cigarette reaches the lighter. They both take a hefty drag of their cigarettes and she blows the smoke out first, Harry watching her pursed lips as he lets out his own next, both of their cigarette smoke swirling in the air and joining in together.

He takes it out of his mouth and lets his arm dangle on his side, cigarette between his fingers, and watches as she takes another drag before fumbling with the packet on her lap, putting everything back in her pocket haphazardly.

“Do you go to uni in London, or?”

“Westminster, yeah,” she takes another drag and notices how Harry hasn’t taken another one of his since.

“Nice,” he says and a grin stretches over his face, “Charlotte talks about you a lot.”

“She does?”

“Yeah, all the time. If I didn’t know about her boyfriend I’d say she was in love with you,” he laughs and gestured to the lighter in her hand and she lets him take the lighter from her hand, watching as the flame lick at the cigarette between Harry’s lip and he takes a long drag. “I mean, we...the band feel like we already know you. It’s sweet, how much she cares about you.”

“Well, I’m pretty hard not to love, you know.”

He blows out the smoke, a chuckle escaping his mouth, “That right?”

“Yeah, I’m fucking great.”

“Well, I-”

He gets interrupted by her phone going off and a pout forms on his face. She huffs, looking around, then throws the cigarette on the ground despite the sign and he does the same, not feeling bad in the slightest. “We going in?” He asks, like a lost puppy waiting for his owner’s command.

“I guess. Is it bad that I don’t want to? Like...does that make me a bad friend?”

“Nah. I...I kinda wanted to stay here too. I was enjoying our conversation.”

She sends him a grin, eyes mischievous, and stops walking, “You telling me you weren’t bored to death by my dry ass conversation?”

“Dry? You opened up and talked about your narcissistic behaviours, that’s not boring, darling,” he smirks and she rolls her eyes, hand reaching to slap his chest and it feels easy, like they’ve known each other for years. “Alright, alright, ’m just messing with you.”

She starts walking again, a few steps ahead of him, and he follows, passing three girls with phones up to their faces.

It’s easy, he thinks, it’s easy with her.

People in the bar begin to leave one by one, and it’s only their small group and a few others left, some of them still sipping their drinks and the others talking and laughing. Some even come up to Julien, who’s sipping her water from a reusable water bottle as Charlotte keeps snapping pictures of her, and they all congratulate her, telling her how excited they are about the EP. She’s all smiles, fringe sticking to her forehead due to sweat, and her long arms are equally sweaty, dressed in a tight black dress with striped knee high socks adorning her long legs, and a pair of platform Mary Janes.

“So,” Harry says, folding his arms across his chest, “Do you have any plans for October?”

Mitch snorts across him and Julien tilts her head, puzzled, “Erm...I’ve no idea, to be honest. It’s months away and God knows I’m shite at thinking ahead. That’s why I’m friends with this lot,” she gestures to their tiny group, causing Charlotte to snort and Julien continues, turning her attention to her who’s playing with the hem of her blazer, “This one though...”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Oi, what’s crawled up your bum, eh?” Julien turns to Harry again, catching how his gaze flickered over her body, then her face instead of looking at Julien and she finds herself smirking at the tension between the two.

“We’re thinking of putting a show together for Halloween. I have a bunch of new and upcoming artists in my mind that I’d love to see perform that night. Would you be interested?” Harry’s attention is back on Julien and he watches as the girl gasps, eyes widening in excitement.

“Shut the fuck up!” She yells, almost dropping her water bottle and they all laugh, Charlotte reaching to flip her on the forehead and she slaps her freshly-manicured hand away, “You’re not taking the piss, are you?”

Harry laughs, “Am definitely not. I love your vibe. That’s actually one of the reasons why I asked Charlotte if I could come tonight,” he says as he runs his fingers through his hair, the strands gliding easily between his long fingers.

“Yeah,” Charlotte smiles at Julien, “He’s on a hunt. He thinks he’s one of those talent agents. Just say yes, Jules, it’ll be fun.”

“Holy fuck. Yes. Fuck, yes. Of fucking course, yes!”

They all laugh when she lunges herself at Harry, arms wrapping around his neck, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, fuck I could literally kiss you right now but I won’t, I’ve been watching you both undress each other with your eyes all night,” arms still around Harry’s neck, Julien turns her head towards her, whom Harry’s been looking at all night, and gives her a wink before breaking their hug. “So, do I have to do anything? What do I have to do? Fuck, I’m so bad at this-”

“Hey,” Harry interrupts, “It’s fine. Relax. Are you signed with anyone? Have a manager?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m with Gleam, my manager, Alana, she’s sick that’s why she wasn't here tonight.”

“Okay, that’s fine. Just give me your phone number and your manager’s contact details and we’ll sort everything out. Hey- relax, it’s gonna be fun!” He reaches and gives her shoulder a squeeze.

“I called an Uber,” Sarah says after her phone goes off, “And it looks like…” she taps on the screen a few times, “Hassan is here.”

“We could’ve gotten maccies,” she says, pouting, as her head rests on Charlotte’s shoulder.

Sarah sighs, cuddling closer into Mitch’s side, “We’re leaving for Brighton tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, Sarah’s making us wake up at, like, five,” Mitch grumbles.

They all start walking towards the exit, Julien and Harry in the back talking about the show as Charlotte links her arm with her as they follow behind the others. As they walk, she remembers how Harry arrived with Sarah and Mitch, meaning they shared a ride, and she turns to look at Harry who seems to be in deep conversation as he waves his hands around.

She feels hot all of a sudden, remembering how neither of them wanted to go inside earlier, how good he looked and how his voice sounded, deep, so deep, when his attention was only on her and not the girl on the stage or his drink or the people around them. As selfish as it sounds, she wanted all his attention on her, she wanted him to only look at her, see her, think of her, and she feels foolish because they only met tonight, and their conversation earlier didn’t last that long.

Once they’re outside, everyone sighs, almost in relief as the fresh air fills their lungs, and everyone bids their goodbyes to Sarah and Mitch, then Phoebe starts complaining about how uncomfortable and tired she was.

“That’s it from us, folks, my wife needs a shower,” Jamie pinches Phoebe’s cheek as Phoebe blushes, swatting her hand away.

She turns to Harry for a second and he’s just standing there, arms folded with an expression she’s unable to read, and Julien laughs, muttering something about catching a black cab since she now has money to waste.

Everyone leaves and it’s only them, and Charlotte comes closer to her as she nudges her hip with hers, “Hey. Is it cool if Harry gives you a ride? Tom’s picking me up.”

She panics and gives her a puzzled look. A car ride with Harry. Alone. Just the two of them.

She swallows, “How come you never mention it?”

“He just texted me, we’re driving up to Manc. Will you be okay?” She reaches and strokes her cheek, then turns to Harry, as if the question was directed at both of them.

“Well, yeah...I mean- I’ll call a Bolt or something-”

“It’s fine, I can give you a ride,” Harry says, hands now in his pockets. He looks like he’s cold too, considering how he’s only wearing a thin shirt and his chest is on full display, letting the breeze softly lick at the flesh.

“I wouldn’t want to be a bother, I can take a Bolt. Really, it’s fine.”

“I insist...whereabouts is your place?”

“Ehm,” she sniffs and her eyes look for Charlotte for a moment, and when she spots her, she’s watching them despite the phone pressed against her ear. “Marylebone.”

“Great! That alright with you?”

She looks at Charlotte again, the short haired girl failing to meet her gaze, and she turns to Harry again, lips pursed, “I guess- I mean...sure. Okay.”

Harry beams at that, the dimple on his left cheek widening with the smile, and she wants to reach out and touch it, place her finger there. She doesn’t though. Instead, she gives him a smile and looks down at her boots, feeling all giddy inside with the realisation that she’d be alone with Harry for a while and it would also be away from any prying eyes, in the warmth of his car.

Charlotte comes back and reaches for her, giving her a big hug as she buries her head in her neck, and she involuntarily breathes in the smell of cigarettes and Charlotte’s personal favourite, Chanel no. 5.

“Text me when you’re home, yeah? And text me if you need anything...he’s nice, I promise,” she whispers the last part, as if she’s letting her in on a secret, then reaches for Harry to give him a hug.

“Drive safe,” she says, walking backwards, “I mean it.”

“I will. Precious cargo, am I right?”

Harry opens the door for her and waits for her to get in, her lips form the words ‘thank you’, and once they’re both inside, seatbelts on, Harry sighs and tries to fix his creased shirt. She watches his hands, the rings catching the light coming from a lamppost outside, creating beams, and she notices the single, nearly-chipped gold nail polish on his left pinky.

“So…” they both say at the same time and he laughs, shaking his head, and a few strands fall to his eyes.

She chuckles too, eyes falling to her hands on her lap as she fiddles with them. “I think we’ve been set up,” she mumbles and looks up at him, finding him watching her carefully with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his thigh.

“Yeah? You think so?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m usually not this dumb.”

“Maybe you wanted play dumb, hm?” He gives her a smile, causing her to scoff, and he surprises them both when his left hand reaches to stroke her cheek, making goosebumps appear on her skin and she swears she could hear her breath hitch at the warm touch, feeling hot all over.

They stare at each other, his hand still on her cheek, and she swallows, “Sure, whatever you say.”

“Is this okay?” He asks, gesturing at the touch, voice as soft and smooth as honey.

She nods, because it is. It is more than okay and if it were up to her, they’d already be kissing, tasting each other’s dirty, sweaty skin and touching each other all over, feeling each other’s bodies...she wanted all of that.

She swallows again, his gaze shifting from her face to her neck, then lower and lower until it reaches her boobs. They look divine, he thinks, despite the lack of lighting in his car, they look absolutely gorgeous, sort of spilling out from the lace material and he gulps, hand beginning to make its way down to her neck. He rests it there as long fingers caress the side of her neck, discovering a few moles there, and he looks up at her, only to find her eyes fixed on his lap. He looks down to, the slight tent not coming as a surprise, and he gives her a grin, the other hand coming to rest atop his bulge.

“Hm?” He hums as he waits for her answer despite knowing what she would say.

She clears her throat and looks around, seeing the almost empty parking lot all dark except the stop sign near the exit, and turns her attention back to Harry.

“Yes. It’s okay.”

“Mmm,” his fingers curl around her throat, thumb stroking the flesh there, “Thank you, love. Can I kiss you?”

“You can...Please,” she practically moans when his thumb presses a sweet spot on her neck and he gives her a smile, hand reaching to unbuckle both of their seatbelts with a click.

It doesn’t happen that fast. First, he gives her a look, almost as if he’s trying to remember where her lips are and the nose, then her eyes...he keeps looking, and looking, and he brings his hand up to her mouth, resting his thumb on her bottom lip as her eyes shift downwards with the movement. While he watches her, she takes her time to watch him, his face, and she feels something bubbling inside her, much like the bubbles that rise to the top when you open a coke bottle.

Pressure, she thinks, pressure and the need to devour him. Thus, without thinking too much, she reaches and grabs him by the nape of his neck, his hand falling atop the car seat as their lips meet, both of them hungry for each other’s touch as their teeth clash and Harry lets out a hiss when she bites his bottom lip, suckining it into her mouth.

His hands go up to her cheeks, pushing her far enough to look into her face and eyes in particular and he smiles, the inside of his palms feeling the soft peach fuzz on her face. When she lunges forward to continue their kiss, he stops her, thumb stroking her cheekbones as she lets out a huff, and he chuckles, “Slow, baby, slow. We’ve got time. I want to feel you, taste you as much as I can, yeah?”

She nods, letting him stroke the side of her face some more and feel her skin against his soft hands before he starts leaning in, this time slow, so slow that it feels like hours to her. Before she closes her eyes, she catches a glimpse of his pink tongue dart out to lick his lips, and he finally captures her top lip, sucking it into his mouth softly and she melts under his touch, her mouth pursed as she starts responding with her own kisses. Their lips, she feels, fit together like a puzzle piece.

Harry’s tongue swipes across her bottom lip and she opens wider, letting him lick into her mouth further. It’s hot, wet, and she feels herself getting wetter and wetter as the smooch noises grow louder with each kiss. His hands are now cupping both of her cheeks, and as he presses wet pecks on her parted mouth, one of his thumbs travel down to her mouth and he stops their kiss, and she opens her eyes, giving him a puzzled look.

He shushes her, lips pursed as he does so, and her eyes watches the movement, wanting to feel them all over her body now that she knows how he feels and tastes like. He presses his thumb against her bottom lip, then into her mouth and pulls her closer to him. He shuts his eyes and tilts his head when she closes her mouth around his thumb, sucking it like a lolly, and his cock twitches in his trousers again as he watches the way she sucks on his flesh, humming around it as if she’s having the most delicious meal of her life.

“Fuck, baby,” he rasps, “Y’like playing with me, don’t you?”

She doesn’t respond. Instead, she takes his thumb out of her mouth with a pop and she holds him by the wrist, placing his hand on one of her boobs and Harry lets her warm hands and the feeling of lace overpower him as he gives her boob a squeeze, then travels his hand down to where he supposes her nipple is and brushes a thumb over it, a beaming grin stretching across his face when he feels her pebbled nipple under his thumb.

When he looks at her face, she’s biting her lips, eyes shut, and he bites his own lips as he traps her covered nipple between his thumb and index finger, tweaking it gently which causes her to breathe out a moan, toes curling involuntarily inside her boots. He tugs at it, then his hand travels up and he looks at her, as if to ask her permission for what he’s about to do. And she nods, of course she does, and she feels her upper torso getting sore from the position they’ve been in but she lets it go, reaching for his hand near her boob and places it on top of his, encouraging him to keep going.

With her hand on top of his, he slides the bodysuit down from the top, and he feels his cock twitch in interest so he has to bring his other hand down to press against his bulge over his trousers in hopes of relieving some of the tension. He plays with her nipple, tweaking and squeezing it between his fingers before finally leaning to capture the pebbled nipple into his mouth. “God damn, your tits...so fuckin’ hot, baby,” he bites her nipple and she shudders, back arching in pleasure. “Wanna do everything with you...wanna fuck you- wanna fuck these tits,” he whispers against her nipple, now wet with his spit, and his hot breath sends chills down her spine.

It’s warm, his mouth, so warm and wet around her hard nipples and she lets out another moan, arms wrapping around his neck and she tries to press against him closer. “Fuck,” a moan leaver her mouth, “Please, Harry, fuck me. Do something, just- ‘m so wet.”

“Yeah? Want me to fuck you? Jesus,” he presses a kiss to her nipple before he frees her other boob from the fabric, “You’re so fuckin’ hot. Got me so fuckin’ hard, just look at these gorgeous tits, baby. Bet your cunt’s even more gorgeous, hm?” He whispers, hands already on the other boob, squeezing the nipple and he watches as it hardens, looking so pretty and puckered for him and he gets his mouth on that one too, licking across the nipple before he bites it into his mouth.

“Can I take this off, sweetheart?” He touches her shoulder, squeezing her there over the blazer, and when he sees the hesitation in her eyes, he travels his hand up to her neck and strokes it there, “Y’don’t have to, darling. However you’re comfortable.”

“No,” she says ever so softly, “It’s okay.”

He smiles at her as she takes the jacket off and throws it somewhere at her feet. Harry grabs her by the neck and brings her in for another kiss but this time, it’s slow. And sweet. Slow, sweet, and warm, so warm that she feels it in her chest, in her stomach, and it reaches everywhere, the kiss warming anything and everything inside her. He swipes a tongue across her bottom lip before pulling away, and places both hands on her boobs, squeezing them, mouth popping open as he watches them in awe.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he brings one of his hands to the front of his trousers and the heels of his palms press against the bulge, but instead of giving him some relief, the touch makes him hiss, wishing for something softer, warmer.

“Can I fuck you? I need to fuck you, please, sweetheart,” he whispers and she nods, tongue darting out to lick her dry lips and he nods as well, looking around inside the car, swiftly examining the tinted black windows before he turns to her, “I hate that I’m about to fuck that pretty pussy in the backseat of my car instead of a comfortable bed but I need it so bad, sweetheart, I need you,” he licks his lips, “That okay?”

“Yes...more than.”

He helps her move to the backseat, boobs still hanging from the top, and he joins her in the backseat quickly. They’re closer now, nothing serving as a barrier between them, and with the way they’re facing each other, she can make out a tiny pimple on the side of his nose as well as a little mole on his forehead. Her gaze falls to his bulge again, and he’s already fumbling to get them off. With a swallow, she shuts her eyes so she doesn’t see Harry watching her intently, dilated pupils fixated on her sweaty skin, her lips in particular.

He leans in and presses an open mouth kiss to her damp skin, the touch making her open her eyes.

Take it off” she whispers, voice as sweet as honey, “Come on, I want you to fuck me,” she breathes against his hair, his head now in the crook of her neck, and she feels him nod, his hands coming to rest atop hers.

He fumbles with the button with shaky hands, her hands coming to rest on Harry’s waist and he sighs in relief when he hears the zipper. He lowers his trousers along with his underwear clumsily, the pile of material pooling around his ankles. He’s hard and leaking already, the tip an angry shade of red, and she takes a few seconds to admire the thickness of his cock and how pretty it looks, his dark, coarse pubic hair making her mouth water as she imagines deepthroating him, nuzzling the hair at the base of his cock.

Harry looks up and she’s got one hand on her boob while the other rubs herself through her jeans, presumably feeling aroused with the way the fabric is feeling against her pussy. A low, choked ‘fuck’ leaves his mouth following a growl as his long fingers begin unbuttoning the beige shirt and she watches, bottom lip trapped between her teeth with fingers rubbing herself.

Once it’s unbuttoned, he’s quick to get his hands on her jeans, eyes briefly searching for something in hers before he starts unbuttoning them. She stops him and bends over to take her boots off and he watches her back, hand reaching involuntarily to travel his fingers down her spine, stroking her waist before he bends forward to place a kiss on there as she keeps fumbling with her boots. Once they’re off, he’s quick to help her get the jeans off too, and he throws them in the front seat, smiling when she hears her giggle.

“Alright, Miss Giggles?” he says softly, palm resting on top of her thigh as one of his hands reaches and strokes the side of her face, fingers playing in her wild strands of hair.

She bites her lip again, giving him a nod, and he brings her face into his, lips pressing a tender kiss to her chin before he opens his mouth slightly and grazes his teeth across the flesh, and he presses a final, loud kiss there before he pulls away with a pop, leaving her chin all shiny and wet with his saliva. He lowers his eyes and spots her thong, fabric too tiny and flimsy to cover all the areas of her pussy, and he lets out a groan at the sight, hand immediately reaching to touch what’s under her little thong.

“So pretty, darling...so, so pretty,” he murmurs and she watches with parted legs as he positions his middle finger against her pussy over the black lace, thin, so he feels just how warm and wet she is between her folds. This makes him pause to look down at his cock, just to make sure he’s not about to spill all over the carseat since he feels the pleasure at the tip of his cock, ready to explode right then and there. “How can anyone ever resist you, hm? This pretty girl…” with one hand still between her legs, he reaches with his other hand and ghosts his thumb over her nipple, his other hand working her thong as he pulls it to the side, “...this pretty pussy,” he murmurs, making her eyes lull shut at the compliments.

She parts her legs wider to give him more room to work with, and he grins as he looks up at her hungry eyes, knowing what she’s asking for. And god, is he about to give her what she wants. The way she looks, not just half naked but from the moment he’d caught a glimpse of the grumpy girl across the room, it’s been driving him insane. Not that she was rude or looked bored, but she looked cute, kinda nervous, as if she too was as uncomfortable as Harry by the prying eyes and tipsy chatter around them.

From the moment they were introduced, Harry knew she didn’t particularly like to be looked at. Maybe he was being judgmental, or reading too much into things, but he got the impression that she was sort of nervous to be around people, especially new people. He tried his hardest not to be some weirdo, an utter creep who kept looking at the beautiful girl across him but truth be told, it wasn’t the first time Harry had seen the girl’s face.

He knew of her, stories about her, from Charlotte, and saw numerous photos and throwback videos of them on Charlotte’s Instagram, but he would never actually admit to the fact that he’d clicked on her tag on one of Charlotte’s posts, and scrolled through her feed for hours, giggling from time to time at her silly captions and numerous pictures of a Golden Retriever and a black cat cuddling.

Yes, he might have found her interesting, took a few screenshots of her posts where she proudly displayed her favourite reads, immediately ordering everything on there, and a few funny memes, but now with his middle finger circling her clit, he would never, ever admit any of that to anyone, ever.

“Harry,” she breathes, and it sounds sort of harsh, rough even, the reason presumably being a mix of the cigarettes she’d been smoking and the way his finger teasingly, slowly moves over her pussy. “Harry…” she says again, melodiously, fingers curling around his wrist and he looks up with a grin, eyes almost evil, dark and pupils dilated from hunger bubbling up inside him.

He retracts his finger and brings it up to his mouth slowly, her eyes watching him like a hawk, and his pink tongue darts out, licking a long stripe up his middle finger and he truly devours the savoury taste, eyes finding hers as he sucks the finger into his mouth. “Taste so good, sweetheart,” he murmurs, “Want me to play with that beautiful cunt, hm? Give it my full attention?”

“Yes, please, I need it so bad, I’ve been waiting for so long.”

“Yeah?” He asks, ever so softly, “How long?” He presses, his middle finger once again placed between her wet folds, and she wraps her fingers around his wrist.

There’s a bloom of pleasure in her voice when she lets out a shaky breath, a stuttered ’yeah’ because she doesn’t want to give in to Harry’s teasing game, and he leans forward, capturing her chin with his mouth as he bites the flesh while the pads of his finger massages slow and deep over her swollen clit.

He feels the spongy bit under his touch, “Tell me you’ve been thinking of this too,” he breathes against her wet chin, then brings his middle finger down to her hole. It’s wet, so fucking wet when he drags his finger back up and circles her clit faster than before which makes her legs kick out in pleasure, one hand grabbing harshly at her boob as the other go up to Harry’s soft hair and she pulls, fingernails scratching his scalp while doing so. He groans against her skin and drags his finger down to her slick little hole again, circling around the wet, soft muscle and he pushes his finger in, her cunt making a wet, lovely sound as he does so as his eyes fall to his throbbing cock.

It’s so hard, an unpleasant feeling blooming inside, so he takes his finger out of her hole, making her let out a tiny whimper as she clenches around nothing with the sudden loss of his touch. Harry brings his finger up to his mouth, and his pink tongue darts out to lick, mouth closing around to devour the slightly salty slickness.

“Can I fuck you now?” He asks as his hand goes to stroke the side of her neck, goosebumps appearing immediately at the touch. She shudders, unable to respond and Harry’s voice is softer this time, “Can I, baby? Will you let me fuck your pretty pussy now? I need it so bad, sweetheart, so fucking bad. See how hard I am for you? So fucking hard for you, baby.”

“God,” another shaky breath, “Please, I’m so wet and horny- I need it, Harry, please.”

“Need my cock, yeah? Need me to fill that little hole? Stretch your tiny little hole, darling?”

“Fuck- please, I- please stop teasing me, I need it...please, fuck me.”

Harry feels something, a prickly sensation inside him, his groin tightening, and he knows it’s her dirty mouth and sweet face to blame. He looks down at his cock, hard as rock between his legs, and grabs her by the waist, pulling her on top of him with ease. “There, sweet girl.”

He lets out a hiss when her warm pussy makes contact with his cock and she bites her lip, leaning forward until their sweaty foreheads meet. “Your pussy’s so fuckin’ warm. Shit, we need condoms,” a strong arm wraps around her waist and she gasps when he leans forward so suddenly. His face is buried into her boobs as he tries to retrieve his wallet from one of the compartments in between and she watches him struggle, unable to control a tiny laugh escaping her mouth.

“Well,” Harry mumbles, warm lips making her skin feel all tingly, “This is lovely...mmm,” a few kisses are pressed between her boobs, then another open mouth one on her left nipple, and they’re finally back to their previous position, condom package between Harry’s lips as he rips the top, never once taking his eyes off of her while doing so.

“Ready for me?” He gives himself a few lazy pulls, thumbing at the tip while she watches, one hand kneading her boob. “Hm? Ready to take my cock?” He moves his hand slowly, up and down, causing her to swallow.

“Yeah...fuck yeah. Please, fuck me.”

He looks up at her as the rubber works its way down his cock, and she joins her arms around his neck, fingers playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck, and he brings his cock to her cunt, earning a moan from her, her warm breath licking at his face ever so softly. He grunts, voice strained with pleasure when he feels how warm and wet she is at the touch of his cock and slides it against her warmth before he brings it down to her tight little hole and pauses there.

“Y’ready, sweet girl?” He nudges their foreheads together and it’s sweet, so sweet despite the position they’re in, and she nods, feeling their damp foreheads stick together, and Harry gives her a bright smile, dimple appearing on his left cheek.

And he pushes it in. With his thumb pressed against the tip, he pushes his cock inside her, the tightness squeezing his already sensitive cock as if she doesn’t want to let him go, as if she wants to keep him inside of her forever and ever.

“God, such a tight cunt, baby. Squeezing me already, hm?” He murmurs into her mouth, “Easy, darling...slow. Slow, yeah? Want to feel you properly,” his hands go up to her hips, holding her there to still the movement of her hips, and her arms loop around his sweaty neck, fingernails scratching the back of his neck and he hisses, face moving forward to press a bruising kiss on her parted mouth.

Once she calms down, hips stilled, his strong arms begin moving her up and down and they both moan, quick breaths leaving their mouths and mixing together just like how their bodies are almost joined together, two becoming one, and Harry starts moving his own hips so he can fuck into her as she helps her by moving her own hips up and down, slowly, just like he’d asked her to, feeling his cock stretching her tight hole with his every move. There’s a honking outside and both their movements still for a second, and a muffled chuckle leaves her mouth, arms tightening around Harry’s neck.

Their eyes meet, Harry’s mouth turning upwards, “What’s so funny, Miss Giggles, hm?” He murmurs as his hips speed up again, their skins slapping against each other as his cock strokes the insides of her walls ever so softly, sliding in and out of her.

“Jesus, you’re so fucking big, I- I knew you’d be big but...fuck, you’re so good, so fucking good, Harry,” she moans, earning a grunt from him as she meets his thrusts, her hands sliding down to Harry’s shoulders and squeezing his smooth skin briefly before she brings her palms down to her chest.

She strokes the hair on his chest, admiring the way his cross necklace sits proudly there, amongst his now damp chest hair, and she brings her palm to one of his nipples, thumb stroking the slightly darker nub and he lets out a groan as goosebumps appear on his chest and nipples.

“God,” she breathes and Harry can smell the fruity-sour alcohol on her breath, and his mouth pops open when she tweaks his sensitive nipples. “I love your nipples,” she moans again when his cock brushes that sweet spot inside her and he does too, arms tightening around her waist, and she tweaks his nipples again, this time harder as her hips speed up, ass slapping against his meaty thighs and she keeps jumps up on down on his cock.

As she does so, her boobs too move, bouncing up and down with her every movement and Harry reaches with one hand, capturing one of her nipples between his fingers as he tweaks left and right before letting it go, watching her skin prickle at the touch.

“Shit, y’feel amazing, just wanna keep you forever,” he groans, low and delirious, fingernails digging into her waist as he thrusts into her, “So fuckin’ tight around me...so tight and snug. I want you- want this everyday. Wanna be able to touch you, kiss that little face everyday, fuck this beautiful pussy...so good, darling, you’re so fuckin’ good, letting me fuck that sweet cunt in the backseat, hm? Are you good,” he breathes her name into her mouth, then bites her bottom lip, earning a gasp from her when his thrusts become particularly rough. “Are you a good girl?”

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m good, I’m so good, please- I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna fucking cum please keep fucking me, keep fucking me hard, Harry- keep going,” she speeds up her movements, Harry’s cock sliding in and out of her as wet, dirty sounds fill the car and he curses under his breath, hips lifting off the seat to meet her strokes.

“Are you close?” He manages to ask, a low grunt in his voice.

She doesn’t respond. Instead, she brings one hand down to her pussy and begins rubbing her clit, moaning when she touches the little nub and then, with her other hand, she reaches for Harry’s face, thumb stroking the side of the smooth skin before she places it on his bottom lip and presses hard, making him part his mouth. She pushes it in, eyes lulling shut at the feeling of his warm tongue as he sucks on her thumb, hips continuing their movements as he fucks her cunt with quick, rough thrusts.

When she opens her eyes, Harry’s watching her, sweat glistening on his forehead and she brings her finger down to where Harry’s cock meets her warmth and rubs the top of his cock, moaning when she feels the vein there. She brings it up to her clit again, all wet and warm, and she rubs harder with rough strokes as Harry juts his hips forward a few more times. “I’m gonna cum, fuck- I’m gonna fuckin’ cum, baby,” his grip tightens on her waist and she places her hands on his shoulder, squeezing there.

“Come on me, I want it on my tits,” she mutters, fingernails digging into the smooth skin of his shoulders and he lets out a grunt, pulling out quickly as she gets down, Harry’s legs parting immediately so she can get between them.

And she does, gets on her knees between Harry’s parted legs as he takes the condom off, hissing at the feeling as he tosses it somewhere on the floor, and he begins stroking his now-wet cock as she thumbs at her nipples, kneading her boobs before pushing them together. His wrist works harder and quicker at the sight and he finally comes undone, his warm cum spilling onto her boobs, decorating her soft flesh with white stripes and she looks down, watching with sparkling eyes.

“God, fuck,” he breathes, letting his head tilt back, “You’re something else, y’know that?”

She hums, sending him a grin as he gives himself three more lazy strokes before he lets go of his cock and watches the spattered cum against her skin separate with the movement when she lets them go.

“Got some on your top, sorry, love.”

She looks down, then swipes a thumb across her skin and brings it up to her mouth. Pushing it in, she sucks around her digit as she tastes the salty-sour taste and Harry watches, all wrecked and fucked out.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“You’re so naughty...come up here,” his ring-clad fingers reach for her wrist and he helps her sit next to him.

He reaches the little pocket behind one of the seats, taking out some tissues as she watches him take out a few and clean her up as much as he can. Then their eyes meet, both sleepy and wrecked, and he lifts his hand up to her cheek, stroking it, and she leans into the touch, making him smile. “You’re lovely,” he mumbles, hand still on her cheek.

“You’re lovelier.”

He chuckles as she fixes her top, “You really are. Really lovely.”

“Stop it, I’m not good with compliments.”

“Well,” he shrugs, reaching for his trousers on the front seat, “I said what I said. You hungry? Thirsty?”

“I’m kinda thirsty. Aren’t you?”

As they lean against the bonnet of Harry’s car, now parked outside a McDonald’s, there’s a comfortable silence between them as they sip their waters, bodies close to each other, close enough for Harry to smell his faint cologne on her skin.

“You cold still?” He turns to her as she takes a bite of her chocolate muffin, and he follows as a few crumbs land on her chest.

“I’m good. Feel very warm...ed up,” she chuckles, thumbing at the corners of her mouth.

Harry groans, nudging her with his shoulders and she nudges back, harder, and he gasps, “Oi, be nice. I’m feeding you.”

“Soz. Guess I owe you like...what is it, a fiver?”

“You’re a very mean girl.”

“I’m the nicest. I’m good,” she gives him a grin, earning another eye roll from him as she takes another sip of her water before placing it on the floor, “Seriously though, thanks for the muffin.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m kinda bummed you turned down the nuggets but…maybe next time?”

“Next time?” She asks, crossing her arms, trying to warm herself up despite her promise from earlier.

“Well,” he clears his throat, hand going up to his necklace, “I’d love to see you sometime. Again. Preferably for longer than an hour and...you know, just us two? Hanging out?”

She smiles and leans forward, taking him by surprise when she presses their lips together. It’s a sweet, slow kiss, and his hands grab the back of her neck, pressing their faces closer as they kiss. Her hands find his waist and she gets on her feet, coming to stand between his legs without breaking their kiss, and she loops her arms around his neck, smiling when he moans at the feeling of her fingers playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck.

He tastes the muffin, the chocolate, and himself, and as foolish as it sounds, he wishes there was a way to be closer to her somehow, closer than they already are at this moment. She pulls away, their foreheads pressing together as they smile at each other.

Harry scrunches his nose and smiles, bringing it forward so their noses touch, “What was that for?” He whispers, hands tight around her waist as he hugs her closer.

“Just felt like it...just felt like kissing you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I like kissing you. I liked kissing you a lot tonight.”

He smiles, nose booping against hers once again, “I liked kissing you a lot too. I’d like to kiss you a lot tomorrow. And maybe the day after that.”

“That’s fine by me. You can kiss me tomorrow...and the day after that,” she whispers, pressing their bodies together.

Harry closes his eyes, taking a deep breath as she watches with curious gaze, eyes crinkling with a smile.

“What are you doing,” she whispers, and he shushes her, smiling when he opens his eyes to find her staring with her eyebrows raised, “What are you doing?” She asks again and he squeezes her waist, forehead pressing against her once again and he leans in closer to press a tiny kiss on the corner of her mouth.

“I’m listening,” he whispers, lips almost touching hers as he speaks.

“Listening? What are you listening to?”

He strokes her cheek, “A song.”

She raises her eyebrow again, “What song? I can’t hear it. Are you- you’re not actually serious, are you?”

“Ssh, it’s a song. Listen,”

“Har-ry,” she groans, pressing her forehead on the crook of his neck, “What is it?”

Harry smiles, arms hugging her closer as she presses a tiny kiss to the side of his neck, “Aubade.”

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d-criss-news · 3 years

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Nine Songs: Darren Criss

When Disney, Phantom Planet and Mr Hudson collide: Glee star, Emmy and Golden Globe winner and musician Darren Criss talks Andrew Wright through the pivotal songs in his life and the unexpected ways they found him.

“When we are younger, our gateway drugs to a lot of popular things don’t come from the sexiest of places. It’s up to you how proactive you want to be with your curiosity from there, and how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, if you go down at all.”

Choosing the songs that define you is a tricky business to say the least, especially when the power of song has provided an ongoing soundtrack to your life. “When you’re as avid a music consumer as musical artists are, trying to pin down Nine Songs is difficult,” Darren Criss laughs. So much so, his final choices only really crystallise as our conversation draws to its close. “It’s hard for me not to see the value and joy in literally everything,” he explains. “The curse of the creative person is that your ideas and your interests always move way faster than your body can execute.”

Criss is a creative par excellence. As well as his Emmy and Golden Globe winning performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace, where he played serial killer Andrew Cunanan, to his upcoming role in Muppets Haunted Mansion Halloween special as The Caretaker, he’s also a prolific musician. Criss enjoyed a decadent musical consumption since childhood, so “this was a bit of an archaeological dig,” he admits. As such, everything from jazz standards, to 808s, punk rock, ‘90s teen pop, and musical numbers are excavated in the course of our extemporaneous journey through the music he loves.

Equally on his mind is how to go about approaching the task of creating his Nine Songs, full stop. “The interesting social experiment is: Are my answers going to be songs that actually shaped my life and were formative to me as an artist? Are they songs that were formative to me as a human being? Or am I picking songs that I think represent who I am to people that do not know me? All three of those things aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

He reaches a conclusion of sorts. “For the purposes of making some kind of decision, I’m gonna lean less into trying to look cool to your very cool readership, and more into the literal, ‘What made me think about music in a different way? And hit me in a very emotional way?’ I think that’s probably the healthiest route.”

Embracing the accessibility that characterises Criss’ picks - or at times the initial touchpoints that led him to them - are something he vacillates over during our chat. “I’ve seen a lot of other people’s Nine Songs and they’re super cool. It’s like Leonard Cohen B-sides and old opera records and stuff. I’m gonna be pretty honest with the pop culture zeitgeist of how I grew up but explain why there is so much value in those moments.” His contemplation continues into the next day, Criss’s publicist passes on his regrets at being tentative to admit how he encountered one of his song choices via the Shrek soundtrack.

A yearning to reinterpret accessibility and the value attached to it drives Criss, however. He tells me that a festival performance that applied the anarchic verve of punk rock to a more refined Great American Songbook number remoulded his perception of music entirely. His love of the fusion of these two genres in particular symbolises the salient musical backdrops of his childhood - the guitar bands he played in with friends, and his musical theatre endeavours that led him to Broadway and multiple Ryan Murphy juggernauts, including his breakthrough playing Blaine Anderson in Glee.

Criss employs these contrasting musical lexicons, and other areas in between, on Masquerade, his new EP. Comprising five stand-alone “character-driven” singles, it sees Criss donning different musical personas. “I’m leaning into people that might know me as an actor,” he explains. “Because if actors can do Shakespeare, romantic comedy, and then do a horror movie and wear a prosthetic nose and a wig, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just do that with music.” The song “walk of shame” draws on jazz-standard chords interlaced with hip-hop production, “i can’t dance” looks to new-wave, and “for a night like this” is the product of Criss’ goal to create the ultimate end-of-the-night crowd-pleaser for a new-year bash, wedding or bar mitzvah. “This is all of the parts of me as a lifelong fan of these genres, trying my hand at servicing the pieces of them that I love.”

“I really love all styles of music and understanding what makes them unique and special and what makes them really pop. There are so many things that really make things sing - for lack of a better verb - and I like acknowledging those things and celebrating those things.”

“So, let’s begin. I have runners up and shit, and I have artists, I don’t just have the songs, so we might have to pick them as we go.”

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“Part of Your World” by Jodi Benson

“When people read this, they’ll go ‘That’s cute, he likes Disney songs’, but it’s more profound than that. Some of the most formative pieces of music to hit me at a very early age would have been any of the songs that were coming from ‘The Disney renaissance.’ The early-mid ‘90s explosion of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and The Beast.

"One of the through lines between the three of those musicals was Howard Ashman, who is one of my all-time heroes. Dramaturg, songwriter - he really was the voice behind what made those songs great. I have always loved Howard’s lyrical sensibility and also Alan Menken, his partner who wrote these songs with him. There was a musical structure to a lot of the songs which I would unconsciously pick up in my own songwriting, not just musically, but the idea that not only did somebody make these songs, but they wrote them for a story.

“There’s a clip of Howard Ashman vocal directing Jodi Benson, who was the original voice of Ariel. It’s a wonderful example of his genius, where not only was he songwriting but he was storytelling in the way he would tell her how to perform it, and you can really see the song coming to life in that clip. That’s when you cross the street from ‘It’s a song’ to ‘This is an experience.’

"There are certain ingredients that are required to elevate music that goes beyond just a nice melody, a beautiful orchestration and a good voice. There are things that are required to really give a performance a characterisation, context and a vulnerability, that he architects in real-time with Jodi Benson. You see that what he’s doing is what makes the record so special, and that’s something that’s always been inspiring to me.”

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“MMMBop” by Hanson

“I think my love of Hanson was because some people didn’t like it, so I was like ‘Fuck you, I like this, how do you feel about it?’ But this is difficult for me, because you know, I’m speaking to The Line of Best Fit and we’re trying to be cool! Although, do you know what’s cool? Being accessible! Writing a pop hit when you are 10 years old. Being in a band with your brothers and you’re all below the age of 15, you have a record contract where you are writing, producing and performing songs that are doing well.

“I was 10 years old when their first album Middle of Nowhere came out, and I remember reading somewhere that there were these kids that had a record. At the time, I was playing guitar and I was writing songs, but in my mind I was a kid, and that was it. I couldn’t be on the radio; you had to be a grown up to do this.

"This was the first time where I realised ‘Holy shit, kids can do stuff!’ It’s the value of seeing yourself in the media - that’s a whole other conversation to talk about - but there’s an immense value in feeling like there’s a piece of you out in the zeitgeist and doing well because it’s encouraging. You go, ‘Holy shit, maybe I can do this as well.'

“When you see children doing things, you’re ‘Wow, this is so cute and fabulous’, but then when you actually look at it you go, ‘This is miles above what most people in this age group are capable of,’ and that’s all I saw, because I was in the same age group and I was so inspired by that. This whole album was really a turning point for me, where I was like, ‘I can do this, I can do music too, because these guys can.'

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“Ooh La La” by Faces

“This song really blew my mind. It became my own theme. It’s that ‘Make your heart sing’, nostalgic moment when you’re a teenager, driving in the car listening to it, playing guitar with your friends and you’re singing “I wish that I knew what I know now / When I was younger.” You’re like, ‘because I’m an adult now, I’m 15-years-old. If I only knew what I know now.’

“I was doing theatre from a young age and I was part of a young conservatory called A.C.T. in San Francisco. By way of somebody who knew somebody, I had an audition for a movie. As a kid not being near New York or Los Angeles it was really exciting, and this audition was for a film called ‘Max Fischer’, which would become the movie Rushmore, which would become one of my favourite movies of all time by the now very distinguished Wes Anderson.

“Separate from my own objective love of Wes Anderson, when this movie came out I was just around the age of getting into my own sort of identity with music, but also movies - indie movies - and trying to assert who I was. So, I see this movie Rushmore and I love it. I love the soundtrack, I love it so much, it’s one of my favourite albums ever. This song is the end sequence, and the way it made me feel - the vocals on it, I could play it on guitar and it was part of a cool movie - it really represented a lot in my life.

“And because of the acting thing, and Rushmore being great - it’s about this kid in high-school who's misunderstood but has his own agenda - everything about it was just so fucking cool to me. To this day, I cite that song as one of my favourite records of all time.”

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“Recently Distressed” by Phantom Planet

“A guy that really formed the way I would sing and write songs is Alex Greenwald, the frontman of Phantom Planet. I went to see Phantom Planet because I loved Rushmore and I found out that Jason Schwartzman [who had been cast as Max Fischer] was also the drummer for a band called Phantom Planet.

"So, when I saw their name on the bill I went, but I didn't know their music. I was barely 14, but their set blew my mind. It was Rock and Roll, but I loved Alex Greenwald’s voice. I loved everything, and I would follow their career from there. I always tell people that my voice is a combination of me trying to be Alex Greenwald, Paul McCartney and Rufus Wainwright, but failing. Alex was incredibly formative for me.

“One of their biggest records was a little while after I first saw them, which was the song for The O.C., "California." That was more of an Elvis Costello thing, and they employed a lot of stuff that sounded to me like The Beatles and a lot of ‘60s mod/pop-rock. But later they would employ things from Fugazi, Radiohead and harder shit, and that eclecticism, again, only accelerated my love for Phantom Planet.

“Recently Distressed” is from their 1998 album Phantom Planet Is Missing. This was a cool rock song that employed these George [Harrison] and Paul [McCartney] background vocals and included all of the things that I loved. It was harder but melodic and employed minor 4th chords and more complicated chords than I was used to. I had grown up with power chords - which are very Gregorian - on a lot of alt. punk rock, like Green Day or Nirvana, and if Kurt Cobain was using power chords then that’s how I was playing guitar. Hearing this music was like ‘Oh, I’m using full chords, not sevenths, minor 4th chords, diminished chords’, shit that I would learn to use more and more.

“When you haven’t experienced much, anything that gives a hint towards possibility, even though it’s probably always been there, you’re like, ‘I like this, I’ve always kind of liked this, but it’s very encouraging to hear somebody else do it and it’s gonna make me reconsider my possibilities.’ That was literally the moment that my power chords turned into full barre chords.”

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“Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” by Rufus Wainwright

“I forgot the other day how I got into Rufus Wainwright, because all of this stuff I was getting into quite young. It’s like when I talk to 11-13 year olds, it’s funny to think that this was when I was really starting to build my musical identity. But then I remembered, and I didn’t want to say because I didn’t want to sound uncool, because he is such a revered artist who exists in a much cooler place than what I’m about to say.

“I loved soundtracks and I would always buy soundtracks for movies that had cool playlists. I had the Shrek soundtrack, and there’s a cover of Leonard Cohen’s seminal “Hallelujah” that Rufus does and he smashes it, and I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is Rufus Wainwright? What a beautiful voice.’ Then I saw that he was going to be at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco one week, so I go and he’s there promoting his new album Poses. I remember I didn’t have enough money to buy the album that day, so I had him sign my sneaker and I saved that shoe.

“The first song on Poses was “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, which is a very dark and reflective song about his own battles with addiction, but he’s singing it over this really beautiful, whimsical song that has a lot of really great wordplay. I always love when artists, especially lyricists, can encapsulate an idea with not exactly what they’re talking about. The song’s called “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, it’s not called “Addiction”. Its talking about things that he craved and how that’s representative of other things that he’s gone through. There was a sophistication and elegance to that that I really gravitated towards, that I didn’t possess but wanted to shoot for. So when I saw him, that was a big one for me and he would also continue to influence me later in my life.

“I’ve become friends with Rufus since. I’ve performed with him and we’ve made records together, which is crazy. His songwriting was very complex and punk-rock, but he had this classic cabaret voice, the kind of voice that I don’t have. I was fascinated that there was somebody that could write this really dark material but have such elegance on top of it. He was virtuosic on the piano, which I thought was very cool because musicianship is always the thing that gets me going the most about artists.

“You know what? People say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes.' I completely disagree. Chase the living fuck out of your heroes. I’ve spent a lifetime doing so, it’s made me a better artist, and I’ve sometimes got to meet them and work with them. I’ve worked on music with Alex Greenwald of Phantom Planet. I’ve performed with Hanson. I’ve performed those Disney songs with Alan Menken at The Hollywood Bowl.

"This is all because there are people that I love who I have put on my vision board, and the things that they have done are the things that are bringing me to them. So it is nuts, but at the same time you’re like, ‘Well, what else did you think would happen?’ They did stuff that some part of me connected with, so obviously there’s a magnetic pull towards that person.

“Rufus Wainwright is one of my absolute favourite artists of all time and like I said, me trying to sing like him and failing is a big part of my own journey as an artist.”

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“3x5” by John Mayer

“John Mayer’s another guy that came around when I was 15. I heard a song of his on a middle-of-the-night, singer/songwriter college radio show. This is where I used to get music. You would listen to these carefully curated playlists that you wouldn’t be able to hear anywhere else, and the host played “No Such Thing”, a new song by this young kid who had just dropped out of Berklee College of Music - John Mayer.

“I’m listening to this song and I’m like, ‘Not only is this guitar playing really interesting, but the lyrical value and everything that is going on here ticks all the boxes.' It was jazz, but it was pop. And he did something that all these other guys and girls I’ve mentioned did. They made something very unique and very accessible.

“I immediately went out to buy this album, Room For Squares, and I listened to it over and over again. It was an album that was really formative for me. "3x5” is a really beautiful song that employs a lot of chord structures and melodies that blew my fucking mind at the time, and it made me wish that I could write songs like that.

“That album was a huge turning point in the way I played the guitar, because it was the first time in my life where I would look up tabs. Up until this point in my life, if I heard a song I could play it instantly. It was like a party trick, I would get how it worked if I heard it, because most of the songs I would hear on the radio - especially those that involved a guitar - were [centred around] power chords. And now I’m hearing all of these ninth chords and thirteenths, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ So I’d have to look up tabs.

“I think any young artist can attest to this - when you try and learn other people’s shit, it’s the best tool for educating yourself. Playing other people’s music really helps you lock in what your own style is. Trying to learn these songs - and sometimes pulling it off and sometimes not - really changed the way that my hands moved around the guitar and considered chords and voicings that I’d never really thought of.

“There’s another tie to musical theatre here, where I remember seeing Audra McDonald, who is a very venerated theatre actor, and she did a cabaret. If you’re familiar with cabaret culture, it’s more about performing the story of the songs – ‘Life is a cabaret’. She did a John Mayer song because she thought it was from a musical theatre show, and I was so tickled by this, because I was like ‘Yeah, if you really think about it, I don’t think he knows this and I don’t think his fan base even thinks about this, but there’s a number of his songs that feel very theatrical in the way that the lyrics play with each other and the way the chords move’.

"When I saw this I thought, ‘That is why I like John Mayer’, because yes, he’s an amazing guitar player, but he’s also a really strong songwriter.”

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“Cabaret” by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

“Also, around this time growing up in San Francisco, as a guitar player playing music with your buddies, the number one thing that you play is punk rock. There are different parts of the spectrum of punk rock, there's the NOFX, Swingin’ Utters, like real punk, punk. And then there’s the pop-punk thing that was happening at the same time, which was also equally influential - blink-182 and Green Day.

“Fat Mike was the frontman of NOFX. I loved NOFX, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were a supergroup of different members from different punk bands, of which Fat Mike was one of the main architects. They would cover songs and turn them into punk rock songs. They have an album of hits from the ‘60s, and they also have an album called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes: Are a Drag, and that record is just a tonne of musical theatre covers that are done through punk rock.

“That was completely in line with everything I loved at this time of my life but didn’t really know how to articulate. I loved punk rock but I also really loved musical theatre. Not only the performative element of it, but there was a real musicality to musical theatre that wasn’t as present in some of the other shit that was popular at the time, just harmonically, or where chords would go. There was a sophistication I loved that seemed to not exist in punk rock.

“Then hearing Fat Mike at The Warped Tour going ‘Alright, which one of you Motherfuckers loves Julie Andrews?’ and hearing a mixed bag of reactions, because people were ‘What? I was not expecting that from you, sir?’ And then they start playing “My Favourite Things”, a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein song which is very accessible, but sophisticated nonetheless. And I am just living. I’m like, ‘This has got the attitude and simplicity of punk rock, but the sophistication of a beautiful song.’

“That was the first time in my life where I went, ‘It’s just all music. All these categories and boxes are completely arbitrary.’ So I thought, ‘I can do that.' I was playing power chords in punk bands but I realised that you can take chords and make them into other rhythms and voicings and have the same song. I could take a punk song and make it jazz. I could take a jazz song and make it country. So, quite providentially, I would end up on Glee, where they took popular songs and would sometimes do their own versions.

“By that point, I had been doing this my whole life. The first time this ever became a possibility for me was seeing Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and that way of thinking about music and genre. I’ve put that into Masquerade, and it’s all born from that moment of ‘Oh my God, nothing has to be one thing. It’s just about how you look at it.'

“Cabaret” is from a pretty famous musical that I would’ve probably heard about later in life, but I first heard that song as a punk song and then I went back and heard the original. It doesn’t matter how these things happen, the inspiration happens and then you can go from there. But Me First and The Gimme Gimmes were a huge gateway drug and I play “Cabaret” now every year at my festival. That’s why the festival is called Elsie Fest, because it covers the song.”

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“Modern Nature” by Sondre Lerche

“One of the great joys of being a younger brother is that you get to inherit the music of your elders. My brother and I were both really proactive consumers of music, so we would share stuff with each other all the time. But then he would come home from college, which is like coming home from a music festival essentially, right? He was in a new time zone with new people, so he’d bring home these mix CDs that he’d made from people that he’d heard about, and he brings home this guy named Sondre Lerche.

“Hearing this guy blew my mind, because he also was using jazz chords and drawing on musical theatre. Musical theatre’s a massive category, so I can’t just say that musical theatre sounds like one thing, but when I say this, I’m referring to The American Songbook, the jazz standard songbook. “Modern Nature” was a duet that I would go on to play many times with one of my oldest musical collaborators, Charlene Kaye. When we got to college and we both found out that we loved this guy.

“There was a much more whimsical way to how he wrote these songs. And what’s crazy is that loving this guy meant that we also loved Rufus Wainwright, that we also loved these other artists. But Sondre was the first time I considered that I loved that type of music, but I didn’t know that you could be a singer/songwriter and put out music that sounded like it.

“I don’t know if ‘twee’ is the right word to use, but with “Modern Nature” there was a playfulness about it, and again, a musicality that I really gravitated towards. There is a through line - there was a sophistication that was accessible, and me trying to learn those songs did make me rethink the way that I was writing music. The structures were weird and different and I liked that.

“To this day, I find myself writing songs that I think might be difficult for people to ingest, because they’re a little too left of centre, and I realise that I’m trying to write like Sondre Lerche, or I’m unconsciously just copying him.”

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“Everything Happens to Me” by Mr Hudson & The Library

“I was in an H&M in Stockholm when I was 21, and I heard this really cool groove and the lyric was “Why must I always play the clown?” It was sung with a really thick British accent, had an 808 feel on it, and lyrically it had an attitude. Who would say something that sounds so like you’re in a Gilbert & Sullivan musical, but it feels hard? It was cool.

“I went home and looked this up and it was off the record A Tale of Two Cities by Mr Hudson and the Library, which would really, really fuck me up. I bought the album immediately because I loved this song. I had to order it on the internet because I couldn’t find it. It was doing well in England and he was on the festival circuit in the early-mid 2000s, but the first song on the album was a musical theatre cover with 808s.

“It was a pared-down, sort of a hip-hop version of “On The Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady, and I’m like ‘No fucking way, this guy gets where my head is.’ I’d thought about punk rock musical theatre, but I never thought about 808s and 909s scoring these beautiful songs. I go down the track list and he has “Everything Happens to Me”, which is another very famous standard, and he had this really cool, what we would now call chill-hop, ‘study beats’ version of this song. I was like, ‘This is it. This guy gets that good music is good music and you can reinterpret it to offer it as a new song.’

“I would later become great friends with Mr Hudson. I got to meet him years later when I was with Columbia Records, and they said to me ‘Who do you want to meet?’ He was at the top of my list. I went to London and we’ve been friends ever since and have created all kinds of music together.

“He told me a story where Tyler the Creator went up to him once at Coachella and said, ‘Oh man, “Everything Happens To Me”, that’s like my song.’ We both wondered if Tyler the Creator knew that it was a Chet Baker cover. And we were thinking how cool it is that you can offer these songs to a new audience through a different lens. Tyler’s a smart guy, he’s very cultured, and I’m sure he did know. But it’s more the idea that if someone experienced this song and didn’t know that it was a cover, and this is like the first time they ever get to experience it.

“Mr Hudson would go on to do his own thing with Kanye and was on 808s & Heartbreak and has had his own career. I think “Supernova” was a hit in the UK, it didn’t really cross over here to The States, but before that moment for him, that Mr Hudson and The Library album changed my life. People use that phrase willy-nilly, but this literally was a turning point in my life. It all had to do with the same thing that happened with these other songs, where I saw someone do what I always wanted to do but didn’t really know how to pull off. Where he had this fusing of old songs delivered through a contemporary lens, but also laced it with his own original material that also employed the things that made that old songwriting interesting.

“It’s like changing the font of a great essay but finding the font and figuring out that that font is its own art form. He really displayed that marvellously on this.”

The Masquerade EP is out now

#darren criss #the line of best fit #press #sept 2021

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let-me-write-shit · 3 years

Note

Could u do one w famous!reader (singer and actress) and she’s Brazilian and they met at late late show or idk some other talk show?? Thank u love ur writing

A/N: Thank you so much for the request, @lebortoletto, and sorry it took so long! Hope you like it!!

Word Count: 4,746

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The Late Late Show

Y/N always loved coming on James Corden’s ‘The Late Late Show’. His team was always super organized and kind, and James sometimes treated his guests with a meal at a restaurant after the taping since it was usually filmed during dinnertime, and they always had a lot of fun on-set. James was one of the few television hosts whom Y/N would consider a friend.

Of course, being an actress provided Y/N an opportunity to meet and make friends with hundreds of other celebrities, and she considered herself to be amongst nearly all groups of celebrity friendships, but there were some more notable people which she hadn’t had the pleasure to meet, yet. One being Harry Styles.

She’d wanted to meet him since the days of One Direction, but their paths somehow never crossed, which was odd considering nearly all of her friends were mutuals with him. They followed each other on Instagram and Twitter, and would occasionally like the other’s pictures or tweets, but that was about as far as it went. She didn’t have the courage to message him. But that ended today. Both of them would be appearing on his show together.

She and her team arrived early, being escorted to a private room. Most of her team went to the main backstage room while Y/N got her hair and makeup done in her private room. There was still some time left to spare by the time they were finished, and Y/N, along with her PR person, decided to greet everyone backstage and have a quick snack before she changed clothes. She bumped into Reggie and a few other members of James’ team on the way back, smiling and chatting with them while they walked down the hall. As soon as she entered the room, she heard her name called out.

“Y/N! Hello!”

Y/N turned her head in the direction of the voice and smiled when she saw James Corden in the middle of a conversation with Harry Styles and someone else she hadn’t recognized, presumably on his team. She made her way over, noticing Harry holding a small, half-eaten sandwich, and trying to keep her composure.

“Hello, so good to see you again,” Y/N grinned, taking Jame’s hand and pecking him on each cheek before turning to Harry, heart pounding, “Hi, how are you? I’m Y/N.”

“Good, thanks, I’m Harry,” his voice was deep and muffled, trying to introduce himself with a mouth full of sandwich. He leaned in for a one-arm hug and pecked either side of her face. Once they pulled apart he had dramatically swallowed his food and smiled sheepishly, “Sorry,” he chuckled, “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“We were just talking about you,” James interrupted.

Your expression changed to one of surprise before Harry chimed in, holding a finger up and nodding, “Yeah, I’m a big fan. Salacity was incredible.”

“Oh, thank you so much,” Y/N blushed, looking between the two of them, “Well, I’m obviously a fan, too. Who isn’t?”

“Obviously, you mean me,” James joked, flicking his imaginary hair back.

The two laughed while Y/N nodded, “Obviously.”

Y/N continued on, asking James about his family, and attempted to remain calm while Harry’s overwhelming presence barely a foot beside her lingered. She could feel the warmth radiate from his side, fighting the urge not to look over at him every five seconds, though she couldn’t help but feel his eyes occasionally glance her way.

Since James was so close with both Harry and Y/N, it seemed to be easy to hold a conversation. But when James was ushered away by the crew to start prep and begin filming for his show, it left Harry and Y/N an opportunity to talk. They still had a bit before they would be called out.

“So, I heard you’ll be in the new Marvel film,” Harry turned to her.

Y/N’s mouth fell open, smirking unsurely. That news hasn’t been released yet, and as far as she was aware, not even her biggest fans knew about it. “How did you hear that?”

He grinned, looking down and then back up at her, “Uh, Alexa may have mentioned it.”

“Alexa Chung,” Y/N repeated, rolling her eyes with a smirk. Alexa Chung was a supermodel and one of Y/N’s closest friends. She shook her head, muttering, “I knew she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Yeah, I mean the contract is still under negotiation, but it’s looking good.”

Harry smiled, “Congratulations. I’m sure it’ll be amazing. Can’t wait to see it in theatres.”

“Thank you,” Y/N nodded.

Soon they were joined with more people from the crew of The Late Late Show, as well as more people from their own team as they were told the order of operations and how things were going to run tonight. James had a few segments he had to do on his own before interviewing the two of them, then on to a game, and a small break before Harry would perform.

They listened, intently, a handful of m&m’s in her hands. She noticed Harry shifting in her peripheral and when she turned to see what he was doing, he was already looking at her, pointing at her hands and mouthing, ‘throw me one’. Y/N giggled, picking up a red chocolate candy and scanning the circle of people to make sure no one was staring at her before quickly flicking it across the circle. Harry jerked to the left, trying to catch it in his mouth, but it just bounced off of his chin and to the floor. Only one girl seemed to notice and chuckled.

Harry turned to her, mouth ajar and brows scrunched up, pretending to be indignant and mouthing, “What was that?”

“Another,” Y/N mouthed, grabbing a blue one, this time. Once again, she scanned the circle and chucked the m&m higher.

This time, Harry hardly had to move. He opened his mouth and caught it, smiling and chewing on the candy. “Nice throw,” he nodded, approvingly.

After the meeting, Y/N’s Publicist urged her back towards her private room so she could get changed. She slipped into a sexy red pantsuit that plunged down her neckline and flared at the wrists and ankles, pairing it with a pair of matching red high-heels. Again, she made her way backstage where Harry was, talking to some more people, and when they both saw each other they froze, eyes widened for a moment before their smiles turned into laughter.

He made his way over, now wearing a white button-up underneath his red suit and matching red pressed pants and red shoes. “You copied me!”

Y/N shook her head playfully, joking, “We should swap our suits mid-show and see if anyone notices.”

Harry laughed, “Yes! I can wear yours for the performance!”

The two were greeted by another crew member and led to the side of the stage where they had to remain silent. They looked at each other and back to their crew, silently shimmying and to the sound of James’ voice before their names were called and an eruption of screams and claps echoed through the air from the live studio audience.

Harry let Y/N walk out first and followed her towards the stage as they smiled and waved to the crowd before stepping up on the platform to greet James with a friendly hug and peck on the cheek, sitting side-by-side on the couch.

When the cheers died down, James turned to the two with a grin and said, “It’s great to have both of you back on the show. What is this?” he motioned towards their outfits, laughing, “You’re wearing the same outfit! Did you plan this?”

They both laughed and Harry joked, “Yeah, I rang her and asked what she was wearing and went out and bought the same exact thing.”

“I wanted to give you a heads up so you could match us, too, but Harry told me not to because you would outshine us,” Y/N played along, making James belly-laugh along with the audience.

“I was this close to being upset with you both for not including me,” James laughed, settling down, “You two have never actually met before, have you?”

“No,” they both shook their heads, looking at each other for a second with a smile, “First time.”

“That’s surprising because you both seem to have a lot of the same friends.”

Harry nodded, “Yeah, we seem to run in the same circles, but never at the same time.”

“I think he was just avoiding me, really,” Y/N nodded, making the boys laugh.

Harry chuckled, “yeah, I see her at a party and I duck behind the trash cans,” he did his best impersonation.

James laughed, turning towards Y/N, “You must have been partying a lot this past weekend after your big win.” Y/N smiled widely while the audience, along with Harry, clapped loudly. Cheers, again, echoing from the crowd. James continued, “You’re new movie, Salacity, was nominated for a bunch of awards, but you made history as the first Brazilian to win an Academy Award for Best Actress. What was that like?”

Cheers erupted again and Y/N bit her lip, nodding and looking up at everyone. This never got old. “Thank you,” Y/N grinned, turning back towards James, “Honestly, I think I blacked out when they called my name.” Everyone laughed as she continued, “It was so surreal. I’ve always dreamt of winning an Academy Award but never thought in a million years that I would be the first Brazilian to win. I’m incredibly proud and grateful and just so honored to even be in the same room as all of those talented people. I’m very lucky.”

“Well you deserved every bit of it,” James nodded, earning a voice of agreement along with more cheers from the audience, “Salacity was also nominated for Best Original Song, which was written and sung by you, is that right?”

Y/N nodded, “Yeah, Harry’s not the only talented musician here.”

Both of them laughed as jokingly threw his hands up, stood, and pretended to walk off set. When he plopped back on the couch he said, “First you steal my outfit, then you steal my job?”

“I’m so sorry. I’ll let you open for my next tour,” she joked back.

She felt silly for being so nervous when she woke up this morning. Truth is, this is one of the easiest interviews she’s done. Normally she struggled for the right words to say or with getting a feel on whether she needed to be more professional or if she could let her silly flag fly. Because she knew James so well and got along with Harry so quickly, it made things a lot easier.

They discussed Harry’s career for a bit before circling back to Y/N as James said, “Now, we had your counterpart, KJ Appa, on our show last week. Such a nice guy, by the way.”

“So sweet,” Y/N nodded in agreement as James continued.

“And he had nothing but good things to say about you. He even said that you were one of the best on-screen kisses he’s had” James admitted, making the audience awe as Y/N blushed and smiled. James carried on, “But he did mention a particularly….awkward moment between the two of you on set. Care to elaborate?”

When Y/N’s eyes widened and shifted in her seat in embarrassment, James laughed. She looked at Harry beside her to see him curious and she began to explain, “Well, as you know, Salacity is a very, uhm, how do you put it?”

“Erotic?” James offered, laughing again.

Y/N nodded, chuckling, “Yes, there’s a lot of sex scenes. So, anyway one the very first sex scene we filmed, I’m in this sexy, lacey black lingerie, basically strapped onto this harness contraption in the air and KJ’s character has to come in from behind me, but the harness that was holding my arms snapped, tore off my bra, and I was dangling by my legs upside down with hundreds of crew members watching. And KJ, the sweet guy he is, sees that my bra came off and panicked, and he jumped in, practically hugging me as I was hanging upside down to cover me. But he didn’t realize that the only thing he was wearing was this sock that covered his dick because we were just about to film this sex scene, and it was all up in my face.”

Everyone burst into laughter as Y/N explained, “That poor guy was just trying to help, but they got me down pretty quickly. But it definitely lessened the tension for the rest of filming. We got closer after that.”

“Can’t get much closer than that, can you?” Harry joked, making her laugh, as well.

When that portion of the interview had finished, cameras cut and their team had rushed over to do a few quick makeup and hair touch-ups, laughing and joking with each other about how well it was going so far. They were then directed towards a different area of the stage, sat around a table with rancid smells lingering around.

“Have you ever done this before?” Harry asked her as they were getting re-wired and James was getting prepped.

Y/N shook her head, pushing her hair behind her back and screwing up her face, “No, and I might vomit just looking at all this stuff.”

Harry nodded, “I’ve got an extra toothbrush you can have afterward.”

James came back and they were given two minutes to get situated before the cameras focused in on them. Reggie and the band played the theme song of Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts, while Y/N rang her fingers and Harry looked between her and James. Cheers and claps sounded and James smiled teasingly at the two.

“You both look thrilled to be doing this,” he said, sarcastically.

“Oh, yeah, can’t wait,” Harry retorted.

Y/N pursed her lips, shaking her head, “I must have been out of my mind when I agreed to this.”

They laughed as James directed their attention to the table, spinning it, “Alright, let’s see what we’ve got here. We’ve got 1,000-year-old egg, Fish eye and bird saliva, cow tongue, salmon smoothie, cow blood and pork tongue jelly, bull penis, hot dog water, which is the absolute rankest thing I’ve ever had, and giant water scorpion.”

“Why?” Y/N groaned, sitting back in her chair in disgust.

Harry chuckled and James laughed as he explained, “So here’s how this game works. We are gonna ask each other questions, okay. The questions are written here and we have not seen them. We have a choice. We can either answer these questions truthfully, or, we have to eat the food that the other person chooses. Okay?” Harry and Y/N nodded in understanding. “Alright, ladies first. Y/N, you are going to choose a food for Harry that he has to eat, should he not answer the question.”

She glanced and spun the tabletop in search of food, bending down and taking a whiff of something awful, she gagged, making them laugh, turning the tabletop until something was placed in front of him, “I’ll go with the fish eye and bird saliva.”

“That’s the one I was least looking forward to,” Harry groaned.

“Were you looking forward to any of them?” James shot back, laughing. “Alright, Y/N, what is your question for Harry.”

Y/N turned her card over in her hands and scanned it before chuckling, blushing, and looking up at him, “Harry, backstage you mentioned you were a big fan of my new movie. How much of it had to do with my sex scene, and what did you think about it?”

“Which one?” he joked, smiling, making everyone in the audience gasp and giggle.

Harry blushed, straightening out his suit, a lopsided, shy smile still stretched on his face, “Uh...I mean, even without the sex scenes it’s a brilliant movie. But, uh, yeah. They were very….Oh god,” he slapped a hand on his forehead, looking down and making the audience laugh. Y/N shook her head in amusement as he attempted to regain composure, “Yeah, they were very realistic.”

“How many times did you rewind those scenes?” James teased.

“No, no, no, that wasn’t the question. It’s my turn now,” Harry waved his finger, making everyone laugh again as the band played and Harry spun the table. “James, I’m going to give you….well, I know how much you love hot dogs, so I’m gonna give you the hot dog water.”

“You dick,” James groaned, taking a sniff and gagging, “That really, truly is the worst thing we’ve ever had on this show. Alright, then, what’s my question?”

Harry picked up the card and grinned, “James, you have had a lot of big-name celebrities on your show. Who was the biggest disappointment?”

The crowd ooed as James’ face fell, shaking his head and looking back at the producers, “Who wrote these?”

“Come on, don’t be a pussy, answer it,” Y/N joked, making everyone laugh.

James shook his head, “I can’t. I can’t,” and he picked up the shot glass and tipped it into his mouth.

Everyone gasped and he immediately reached for the bucket and spit it all out, “That is horrible!” he exclaimed, rinsing his mouth out with water, “Why do we still have that? Alright, Y/N, I am going to pick for you….” he spun the table around before grinning and halting a pink, meaty cube in front of her, “Cow blood and pork tongue jelly.”

Y/N winced, poking at the large cube and gasping, “Oh my god, why is it so hard?”

“That’s what she said,” Harry chimed, making everyone laugh.

“We all know how you feel about my movie, Harry,” shot back, making everyone burst into laughter and Harry blush.

Harry hit his face for a second before James continued, snorting, and looking up at Y/N, “Y/N, you’ve been rumored to have very famous exes. Between Timothee Chalamet, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Zakhar Perez, rank them from best to worst in bed,” Y/N’s mouth fell as the audience gasped and laughed.

“Pattinson’s gotta be the best, hasn’t he?” Harry assumed, making Y/N hide her face.

“Now, this is not to say that any of them are bad. Maybe they're in the top three,” James suggested, “But of the top three, who is the worst,” he laughed.

Y/N uncovered her face and looked between the two men, reaching for her fork and knife.

“Oh god,” Harry winced, as James shouted, “No! No!”

She dug her fork in and sliced a corner off, “I never kiss and tell,” placing her knife down and taking a deep breath before hurriedly putting it in her mouth. The texture was what she imagined dog food tasted like, and she gagged, grabbing her tin can and spitting it in before swishing her water around in her mouth and spitting that out, as well.

“That was disgusting,” Y/N blotted her mouth with the towel.

“I can’t believe you’ve done that,” James shook his head.

“And I’m not doing it again,” she took another sip of her drink, “Is it my turn now?”

“Yeah, Y/N, you go ahead and choose something for Harry to eat if he doesn’t answer the question.”

She spun until she landed on the 1,000 year old egg. James announced what it was as Harry nodded and said, “Alright”. Y/N picked her card, turned it around, and said, “Oh, no.”

“Oh, God, what is it?” Harry sat up straighter.

“Harry,” Y/N started, “You and Niall are the only remaining members of One Direction who are not parents. Rank the members of One Direction from worst to best parents.”

Without hesitation, Harry stabbed his fork into the egg and shoved it in his mouth. Everyone gasped and Y/N pulled away, covering her face with the card and using it as a sort-of shield. He made a show out of slowly chewing it, holding back a gag. He used his water to swallow it down and stuck his tongue out to show that he had finished it.

“No way,” Y/N shook her head, nose scrunched.

“You are insane,” James shook his head.

“Tastes exactly the way you think,” Harry took another sip of water. “Right, James. I’m going to choose for you…...the water scorpion.”

“The giant water scorpion. For reference, this is what he’s chosen for me,” James picked up the stiff, hard, black bug and showed the camera. “Go on, what’s your question.”

Harry cleared his throat, picked up a card, and chuckled, “James, I’ve been on your show for years, and even taken over for you twice. Who is your favorite member of One Direction.”

A smile slowly spread on James' face and he shook his head, staring off at the audience as they screamed and laughed. “I can’t choose that,” James breathed, turning to face him.

“Well, you have to, or else you’ll be eating a giant water scorpion.”

“Oh, come on, we all know it’s not Harry,” Y/N joked, earning an amused glare from Harry.

“Excuse me,” Harry said, “I happen to know, for a fact, that it is me. Go on, James. Tell ‘em.”

“You think it’s you, do ya?” James questioned, looking between them before finally picking up the water scorpion, “You keep thinking that,” he joked before taking a bite of its head and chewing. He laughed mid-chew, spit it out in his bucket, and took another sip of water.

“How dare you,” Harry joked, indignantly.

James laughed, turning the table, “Y/N, It’s my turn to ask you a question. But first, I’m going to give you the salmon smoothie.”

“Ugh,” Y/N sniffed it’s pungent aroma, sitting away from the glass of pink, chunky fish.

She looked up at James as he scanned the card and laughed, “Y/N, you were nominated for a lot of awards this year. Who has won against you that didn’t deserve to?”

“Oh noooo,” Y/N trailed, throwing her head back, causing James and Harry to laugh.

“No, come on, we were all shocked on at least one of those categories,” James offered. Y/N shook her head, taking hold of the glass.

“Chug, chug, chug!” Harry chanted, compelling the audience to join in.

“Fuck off,” Y/N mouthed to Harry, making him laugh as she took a swig of the monstrous drink.

The second it hit her tongue, she heaved, quickly grabbing the tin and spitting the contents in as James called the end of the game. She took several sips of water, gulping it down to alleviate the lingering taste in her mouth. They called for a wrap, and Harry immediately dug out a packet of gum from his pocket, offering one to each of them while more crew rushed up to them.

Y/N thanked him, shoving the wrapper in her suit pocket, and after they were briefed from the crew, they had about fifteen minutes to spare while they set up for Harry’s performance. People from each of their teams tried to talk to them, but Y/N had something else in mind.

“Follow me,” she told him, grabbing his arm and jogging through the halls backstage. He chuckled, confused, but intrigued, following closely behind her until they reached the door of her dressing room. “Give me your suit jacket.”

Harry’s eyebrows raised and mouth formed an ‘O’, realizing what she was doing. With a grin, he unbuttoned his suit and shrugged it off, carefully handing it over to her. She shot him a smile, which made him grow steadily more keen, watching as she slipped into the room and closed the door behind her, disappearing. He waited, leaning against the wall for what seemed like a little longer than necessary for switching jackets. When she emerged wearing his jacket, his smile widened.

“Looks better on you,” he smirked.

She smiled, passing him the clump of red fabric that was her top, “Let’s see if we can say the same about you.”

He slipped his arms through the sleeves of her jacket, and although there was plenty of room in the arms because of the flare, the chest and waist were a bit tight. He made sure not to tie the sash too tightly and straightened it out, “How do I look?”

She giggled, flattening the collar of the jacket and joking, “Beautiful.”

They made their way back towards the main area of the backstage, surrounded by their teams and crew, laughing about the jacket change and prepping Harry some more as he rummaged through a small travel-sized toiletry bag for the disposable toothbrushes and toothpaste, and the two of them brushed their teeth.

Eventually, Harry was ushered to another stage where he and a band were situated. Lights dimmed and shone strategically on him as he was announced and began to play. Y/N, never having been to a Harry Styles concert, and a fan of his music, watched from the side of the stage, arms crossed and leaning against a large black case of some sort. He looked over at her a couple of times, trying to hide a coy smile, he danced around the stage and used the sash on her jacket like a rope, swinging it around.

When he finally finished, she, along with the studio audience, clapped and cheered for him. He thanked them, clasping his hands and bowing a few times, humbly repeating, “Thank you,” while James announced it was a wrap. Y/N joined Harry on the stage where the two of them, along with James, greeted people in the audience, signing pictures, papers, and phone cases, just chatting with the fans and taking selfies with them.

James, Harry, Y/N, and their publicists spent about an hour and a half to two hours after the taping to sit down at a nearby restaurant for a bite to eat. They were seated at a private table, enjoying some more banter and fun. She had a feeling that Harry was flirting with her, or maybe she was just hoping he was. He started it off by sneakily stealing bits of fries off of her plate throughout the meal as he sat across from her, and she would reciprocate by ‘accidentally’ stepping on his toes under the table.

“Hope I didn’t scuff those Gucci loafers,” she winked, smirking.

As much as she didn’t want the night to end, there weren't many excuses she could make to prolong the conversation, and everyone else was very clearly tired aside from the two of them. Y/N stayed towards the back of the group as they made their way back outside, and Harry slowed his pace and hung back until he was walking side-by-side with Y/N.

“I guess I should give this back to you,” he slipped the jacket off of him as they exited through the back, letting the cool LA air swirl on their faces.

Everyone was giving hugs and saying their goodbyes. Y/N looked down at her jacket in his hand and she leaned in to kiss either side of his face, lingering a little longer than normal. When she pulled away she shook her head and lightly pushed the jacket back towards him, “No. Keep it. An excuse to see you again.” And as she began walking backward to join her group, she called out, “check the pockets.”

His toothy smile turned into a furrowed eyebrow. Confused, he dug his hand in either pocket of the jacket until he pulled out what looked to be the gum wrapper. But, upon closer inspection, he noticed a series of numbers written in black ink. Her phone number. He looked up just in time to see Y/N opening a car door.

“Call me!” she shouted, smirking, before getting in and closing the door.

Harry’s smile grew even more, clutching the red jacket tighter and slinging it over his shoulder, making sure to carefully store the gum wrapper in his wallet and watching as her car drove off down the street and out of view.

------------------------------------

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cheri-translates · 3 years

Text

[CN] Lucien’s Radio Broadcast Date

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date, 电台之约, which has not been released in EN! 🍒

[ This date was released on 17 May 2021 ]

[ PROLOGUE ]

Part One: A Weekend Arrangement

On the weekend morning, I wake up contentedly, doing a big stretch on the bed.

Feeling for my phone beside the pillow, I tap on the unread text that was received five minutes ago.

Lucien: Are you awake? Little Lazy Bug.

A small smile involuntary surfaces on my lips. Nuzzling the soft pillow case, I get up at one go, washing my face and brushing my teeth.

After fifteen minutes, I knock on Lucien’s door.

MC: Lucien, it’s me!

Not a moment later, he opens the door, wearing light-coloured home wear that I rarely see, a pair of golden-framed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

It’s been a while since Lucien and I last saw each other. He has been staying in the research centre recently, and I’ve been busy with filming a new show.

Since we both have a rare break, we made arrangements to meet today.

Lucien: I even thought I’d only get to see you at noon.

Upset, I look at his teasing smile.

MC: In Professor Lucien’s eyes, am I a person who doesn’t keep to her promises? I finally get to see you, so of course I’m seizing every moment.

The arcs at the corners of his lips grow deeper. He turns his body to the side, beckoning me to enter.

Following Lucien into the living room, I see several thick English books left open on the coffee table, and my shoulders droop subconsciously.

MC: Lucien, do you have work to handle today?

Lucien turns around, his eyes curving when he sees my appearance. He walks to me, then lifts my shoulders up gently.

Lucien: Of course not. I finally get to see you, so of course I have to be entirely focused.

Part Two: Pondering on the Play

After releasing a secret sigh of relief, I become curious regarding the books on the coffee table. Picking up one of the books, I see its name on the title page -

MC: “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare”? Are you reading Shakespeare’s works?

Lucien: To be more accurate, I’m selecting a play.

MC: Selecting?

Lucien doesn’t respond to my question, turning around and walking into the kitchen.

Lucien: Are there any plays that you like?

MC: Hm... I can’t think of any that I especially like. All the plays I’ve watched with you seem pretty good. What about you?

Lucien: Do you still remember the play we watched called “André & Dorine”?

[Trivia] André & Dorine depicts the enduring love between an elderly couple as their lives are disrupted, but not overcome, by dementia

MC: I remember! Was it that mime theatre production? I still remember how you pondered over the guitar case on stage for a long time after the performance was over.

Lucien: I wasn’t pondering much. It’s just that after watching it, I felt that life is very short.

Lucien brings over a cup of steaming hot cocoa from the kitchen. He places the cup in my hand naturally, his eyes meeting mine.

Lucien: It has to be spent with the person one loves.

Part Three: A Typical Day in the Radio Broadcast Station

The temperature within the house seems to rise along with the the piping hot cocoa. I pat my slightly flushed cheeks, pulling the conversation topic back.

MC: Come to think of it, why do you have to select a play?

Lucien sits down unhurriedly, his tone steady as he gives me an answer which leaves one utterly confused.

Lucien: I need to confess something to Producer MC -

Lucien: I accepted the invitation of another radio broadcast station.

After waiting for Lucien to finish with his short “confession”, I finally understand why he has to select a play.

Two days ago, Lucien received an invitation from the Loveland Radio Broadcast Station to participate in a 520 Special Broadcast Program called “A Day in a Play”.

[Note] 520 stands for 20 May, a day celebrated by the Chinese as another Valentine’s Day. This is because 我爱你 (“wo ai ni” - “I love you”) sounds like the numbers 5, 2, and 0 (“wu er ling”) when said aloud

This program regularly invites theatre fans from various occupations to share their favourite plays, and Lucien is one of them.

Hearing such news bogs me down with mixed feelings. On one hand, I’m silently in awe at the good choice made by the radio station. On the other hand...

I sneak a peek at Lucien. His head is currently lowered as he blows on the steam of the hot cocoa, his expression levelled.

...if I were to get jealous about Lucien agreeing to participate in another show, it’d be an incredibly inconsiderate thing, right?

Just as I think about this, Lucien suddenly lifts his head towards me. He crinkles his eyes into a smile, as though he has completely seen through the little grumblings in my heart from earlier.

Lucien: Oh yes, this show requires me to invite a partner. The Great Producer MC would grace me with her presence, won’t she?

[ DATE ]

Lucien: “Come live with me and be my love,”

Lucien: “And we will all the pleasures prove,”

Lucien: “That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,”

Lucien: “Woods, or steepy mountains yields.”

Lucien: “And we will sit upon rocks,”

Lucien: “Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,”

Lucien: “By shallow rivers to whose falls,”

Lucien: “Melodious birds sing madrigals.”

Lucien: “...if these flights thy mind may move,”

Lucien: “Then live with me and be my love.”

Lucien: What do you think about this poem? Do you like it?

Lucien sets down the manuscript in his hand, lifting his eyes slowly.

He’s leaning next to the window of the guest lounge. The warm light of spring falls on his shoulders, creating a mild, brilliant white halo in the air.

A few days ago, Lucien invited me to participate in the 520 Special Broadcast Program called “A Day in a Play”.

The content of this show consists of idle talk related to plays, and it regularly invites theatre fans from various occupations to share about their favourite plays.

The stanza that Lucien just read aloud came from a poem written by a playwright called Christopher Marlowe.

MC: I like it very much.

Returning to my senses, my expression is sincere as I look at him.

MC: Lucien, have you ever thought of changing occupations and becoming an actor?

When Lucien hears this, his eyes arch into a smile. He walks over, tapping the manuscript gently on the top of my head.

Lucien: An exaggerated compliment would make it lose its sincerity.

Just as I’m about to firmly express my sincerity, I notice from the corner of my eye that there are several markings on Lucien’s manuscript.

Leaning over to get a better look, I realise that those markings are notes taken down on the poem by Lucien with a pen.

I recall how he’s been incredibly busy in the previous period, and how there were many times when I had to remind him to eat...

Even so, he made notes on the manuscript regarding reciting techniques for this show. In my heart, I deeply respect his endless energy. At the same time, I can’t help but be envious.

MC: Does Professor Lucien need to do homework beforehand too?

Lucien: Techniques are required for specialised skills. I’m not a professional at reciting poetry, so of course I need to do my homework beforehand.

I deliberately fold my arms, letting out quiet “hmph”s.

MC: But you don’t seem to do any preparations as a consultant for Miracle Finder.

Lucien: Since I’m a consultant, I can’t let the producer of the show see me do last minute work.

He draws slightly closer to me, lowering his voice.

Lucien: At a place you can’t see, I’ve always been working hard for you.

The evident slyness in his tone causes my breathing to turn slightly ragged. Clearing my throat, I put some distance between us.

MC: [blushing] That’s not what I meant...

Lucien: I understand.

Meaningful arcs hook the corners of his lips, as though he sees through the feelings in my heart. He tugs me over to sit on the sofa in the guest lounge.

Lucien: Or should I only participate in the shows you produce next time?

MC: ...I’m not asking you to go that far either!

He narrows his eyes and turns his head to the side, pretending to give it some thought.

Lucien: In that case, I’ll always ask for Producer MC’s opinion before appearing on a show. Is that okay?

I nod, face red from his teasing. All of a sudden, my heart stirs.

MC: Verbal statements can’t be relied upon. Concrete evidence is needed.

I lift my hand, removing the small hair tie on my ponytail. Then, I indicate for Lucien to give me his hand.

He seems to guess what I plan to do. Supporting his chin casually with one hand, he stretches the other hand in front of me.

With a serious expression, I put on the hair tie on his wrist solemnly, as though I’m conducting a formal ceremony.

MC: It shall be the evidence. In future, the Professor Lucien on the big screen will be completely reserved by me!

After sitting in the lounge for a while, the director comes over and goes through today’s show schedule with Lucien and I briefly.

The show is segmented into reading letters from theatre fans, reciting monologues from plays, and monologue appreciation, among other things.

In every episode, this show will choose a particular theme of plays, which will then be used to expand on the contents of the show.

In order to be in line with the special day of 520, the theme for this episode has been set as the “possessiveness” between lovers.

As such, the plays and characters we selected are related to “possessiveness”.

The first segment consists of sharing letters from listeners. The show team had collected various reviews of plays from listeners, as well as their personal takeaways from the plays.

There’s only ten minutes before the show begins. Seizing this final free time, I sit in the studio, skimming through these letters briefly.

Some of the letters include analysis spanning over a thousand words on the extreme possessiveness of some classic characters in plays...

Some of the letters created a hearty one-act play based on the word “possessiveness”.

My line of sight roams over these letters, and I can sense someone leaning over from the side.

Lucien: What are you looking at?

MC: Letters from the listeners. Which letter would you like to read later?

Lucien glances at the open letters on the table for a while. Then, the corners of his lips suddenly curve upwards.

Just as I'm about to follow his line of sight, the director gives us a signal from outside, telling us that the countdown to the broadcast is about to begin.

Suppressing my curiosity, Lucien and I begin today’s radio broadcast with the guidance of the host.

The segment of reading letters arrives on schedule. I select a satisfactory review of a play to read. Very quickly, it’s almost time for Lucien to read a letter.

Host: Would Professor Lucien be reading an interesting review of a play as well?

Lucien picks up a pink coloured envelope in the middle directly, as though he has long since made a decision.

Lucien: Even though it isn’t a review, ever since I saw this letter before the show, I really wanted to share it with everyone. However, it looks like the owner of this letter is female. If I were to read it, I’m afraid it’d be slightly inappropriate.

Lucien turns over, handing the letter to me.

Lucien: Could I request Producer MC to read it for me?

I blink, taking the letter without knowing what’s going on.

Opening the letter, the childish handwriting brings with it a fragrance as it unfolds before my eyes.

MC: “Hello hosts, I’m a student from junior high.”

Slightly puzzled, I look at Lucien. He smiles slightly, indicating that I should continue reading.

MC: “Recently, I’ve been feeling troubled.”

MC: “Ever since coming to junior high school, my deskmate has been a very playful boy, and he always bullies me.”

MC: “He often tugs on my ponytail, or asks me to give him my seat in the canteen. Even though he gives me snacks, he says that it’s only because he doesn’t want to eat them.”

MC: “While eating his snacks one day, a classmate suddenly teased us and asked if we liked each other. At that time, I was in a fluster and shouted without realising, ‘How could I like him!’”

MC: “Ever since then... my deskmate hasn't spoken to me.”

MC: “I thought I’d be really happy since I’m freed from his bullying. But whenever I see him distributing snacks to other girls, I actually feel the impulse to cry.”

MC: “I even secretly placed his snacks on my own table, pretending that my deskmate gave them to me...”

MC: “ --so that I can attempt to stake my claim in front of other girls.”

MC: “Last week, I watched a stage play, and the experiences of the lead character were somewhat similar to mine.”

MC: “Afterwards, I read the reviews. Everyone was saying that the lead character was fiercely possessive, and a little abnormal...”

MC: “Am I also such a person? What counts as being possessive? Is being possessive truly an illness?”

After reading the last line, I lift my head to meet Lucien’s eyes, giving him a knowing smile.

Host: I didn’t expect Professor Lucien to select such an adorable letter. How would you respond to this young listener’s question?

Lucien: I’m very sorry, but I’m unable to respond. This question might require a consultation with a professional. But I once read a document on concepts in psychology related to “possessiveness”, and I could share it with everyone.

Lucien stretches his hand towards me, and I hand the letter to him in tacit understanding.

He unfolds the letter, casually lifting his spectacles. Then, he lowers his hand, his fingertips tapping rhythmically on the table.

The sound of tapping stops abruptly. He lifts his hand to support his lips, then tilts his head slightly, as though recalling the contents of the document.

Lucien: The following information is for everyone’s reference. Possessiveness is typically expressed as an exceptional cherishing of the other party, and being concerned about the other party in various aspects of their life.

For some inexplicable reason, along with Lucien’s words, I suddenly recall scenes of myself heading to the research centre to bring him bentos.

Lucien: Only allowing oneself and the other party to have a connection, and not wishing for others to get close to the other party.

My heart once again inexplicably recalls the bitter taste when I heard of Lucien participating in this show.

Lucien: If one finds that the other party no longer belongs to them, they’d use all sorts of methods to stake their claim.

Lucien appears to deliberately twist his wrist slightly, revealing the small hair tie on it.

...I have a feeling that Lucien is implicitly referring to me. I keep my eyes on Lucien, and can’t help but purse my lips.

He seems to sense my “complaint”, but his eyes remain on the letter in his hand, a smile on his lips tugging upwards.

Lucien: This is simply a definition, and isn’t enough to ascertain the intensity of a person’s possessiveness. However, satisfying one’s possessiveness in an appropriate manner isn’t a bad thing. If possessiveness is unable to obtain a suitable outlet, it’d end up violently engulfing the originally balanced love. Furthermore, possessiveness isn’t a disease.

Lucien sets down the letter. As though sensing my gaze, he turns his head and gives me a slight smile.

Lucien: It accompanies a strong love. It’s a human instinct.

After the letter reading segment, Lucien, as the main guest, has to read a monologue from a certain play in the next segment.

This play narrates an account in mid-century Europe, involving the love story of a wealthy lady and a butler who grew up together since young.

This butler was naturally more intelligent than others, and had a composed temperament. If he were to craft a career for himself, he’d do far better than being a butler.

However, in order stay by the side of his beloved lady, he was willing to remain within the four walls.

The naive wealthy lady didn’t understand the genuine feelings of the butler. Like every other wealthy lady, she looked forward to marrying her own prince.

But when she was arranged to get married to a wealthy duke, her heart started to waver.

Because the intensity of the butler’s possessiveness went to his head, he eventually poisoned the wealthy lady, then vanished into the night.

With his own hands, he buried the love of his life, and from then on became a fugitive, living a life that was neither dead nor alive.

The monologue that Lucien is about to read is taken from the part after the butler finds out that the lady is inclined to marrying the duke. It’s the first time he reveals the depth of his possessiveness.

Lucien selected this monologue himself, and I can’t help but anticipate it.

Host: Listeners and friends, we’ll now lend our ears to Professor Lucien -

Lucien nods slightly, tilting his head towards me and blinking slowly. His lowered voice gradually seeps into the earpieces.

Lucien: “I thought she was just a canary which would only sit by the window...”

Lucien: “When the sun rises every morning, she’d be at the glass window, facing the blazing sunlight and preening its feathers to its heart’s content.”

Rich affection is in Lucien’s voice. It’s as though I can see a talented and handsome young man staring at the girl’s back in the room with deep feelings.

Lucien: “Her wings are vibrant and heart-stirring. She spends a lot of time on them, combing them gently with a bristle brush.”

Lucien: “Whenever this happens, I’d stand behind her, carrying a cup of hot tea, waiting for her quietly.”

Lucien: “I know that in this moment, she belongs only to me.”

Lucien’s voice suddenly turns soft and barely discernible. I can’t help but be immersed in it -

The modern studio around me suddenly shifts, as though turning into wooden furniture in Western Europe.

Ripples of colour reflect off the windows and onto the floor, glistening with light. An expensive fragrance of rogue diffuses in the room.

Lucien: “Only I know what she's thinking of, and only I understand everything about her.”

I turn my head to Lucien, who is behind me. He’s wearing a fitting suit, standing at a spot where shadows and light mingle.

Lucien: “We will be forgotten in this place by the world, but the strings of fate will tie us together.”

He suddenly pauses, the intermingling of shadows and light distorting his expression into shreds. He trembles slightly in the darkness.

Lucien: “...before meeting that duke, she was always in front of that glass window, being my bird.”

Lucien: “She should realise that if she were to fly out, she would have cuts and bruises all over from those impetuous dandies.”

Lucien: “She would discover that there is an entire sky of canaries which are just as beautiful and frail as her. Those dandies only have to reach out gently--”

Lucien: “And her beloved feathers would be easily plucked out.”

Lucien: “If this is the ending... if this is the only ending...”

Lucien: “Then her feathers should belong to me.”

When I see his calm and shadowed expression, I hold my breath momentarily.

Lucien: “Only belonging to me.”

The monologue ends.

Lucien: In the short span of one minute, you’ve already hesitated to say something to me five times.

Lucien sighs, setting down the cup of water in his hand.

After the monologue ended, the subsequent segments no longer involve the guests that much.

Lucien and I have left the studio earlier, and are sitting on the sofa in the lounge, waiting for the show to officially come to an end.

It’s just that... ever since we stepped out of the studio and I saw Lucien returning to his normal state, my heart has had difficulties making the adjustment.

MC: ...I was just so stunned.

Tickled by the exaggerated tone in my voice, Lucien chuckles softly.

Lucien: I’ll take that as a compliment.

MC: Of course it’s a compliment! I didn’t expect you to perform so well. You were basically an entirely different person earlier!

Lucien: I was simply portraying the role as I understood it. But I accept Producer MC’s compliment.

He takes a shallow sip of tea calmly, returning to how Lucien typically is, and completely different from the butler he was acting as earlier.

Seeing him like this, a question suddenly surfaces in my heart -

I wonder what Lucien’s possessiveness looks like?

Director: Sorry for the wait! The two of you have worked hard today!

After the show ends, the director returns to the lounge, carrying a stack of manuscripts in his hand.

Director: The responses for today’s show are extremely good! Many thanks to Professor Lucien and Miss MC for the spectacular performance!

Lucien: We’re also grateful for your invitation to participate in this show.

Director: Professor Lucien is too polite. Both of you truly did very well. The comment board for the show is filled with positive remarks. To tell you the truth, there’s something I need to ask of the two of you.

The director unfolds the manuscript in his hand. Lucien and I lower our heads to look at it. It’s the script from that earlier play.

Director: We’d like to include a special 520 Easter egg for this episode’s theme. It would be the final scene between the butler and the wealthy lady. Earlier, Professor Lucien’s monologue left a deep impression on the listeners, and the responses were very enthusiastic. If possible, could you and Producer MC record this Easter egg today?

The director clasps his hands together, inviting Lucien sincerely. However, Lucien turns his line of sight to me.

Lucien: My rights to participate in a show belong to this lady. If she agrees, I’ll naturally have no issues with it.

The director looks over in confusion. Just as Lucien is about to showcase the hair tie with a dead serious expression, I hurriedly agree.

MC: Yes! We can!

The director unclasps his hands quickly, preparing for the recording of the Easter egg. Lucien and I remain in the studio to go over the lines.

After familiarising myself with my lines, I lift my head, realising that Lucien is leaning against the sofa, reading the script meticulously and silently.

Seeing him look so serious, I suddenly become curious again.

MC: Lucien, could I ask you a question?

Lucien: Does it have to do with why I agreed to participate in this show?

MC: ...as expected, I can’t hide anything from you.

He sets down the manuscript, grinning as he tidies the hair at my ear.

Lucien: I simply care about you exceptionally. I’m guessing that what you want to know even more is why I’d bring you along to participate in this show.

My eyes widen slightly, and I give him a thumbs up.

He chuckles after seeing this. Waves of gentleness ripple in those eyes that have always been difficult to read.

Lucien: I know that we differ from others in the way we’re always handling our own matters. It’s difficult to meet, much less have each others’ time. I also know that you’re always doing your best to give your free time to me -

Lucien: Bringing me bentos with plenty of dishes, attending conferences when I release new books, and taking me to see the spring day in your eyes.

Lucien: So, I want to tell you that whether or not you can see it, I’m also doing my best to own every moment of your free time.

Lucien: To me, participating in this show is akin to watching a movie together. I simply want it to be a special moment for us which belongs only to you and me.

He leans down, drawing closer to me, encasing my surroundings with his unique scent.

Looking into his eyes, a wave of gentleness seems to ripple in my heart, and my cheeks flush slightly.

MC: I’ll also do my best to create special moments belonging only to the both of us. I’ll invite Professor Lucien to look forward to them.

Lucien: You being like this is already good enough.

The corners of his eyes turn upwards, and he puts some distance between us.

Lucien: Let’s go over the lines together. The director’s waiting for us to record the Easter egg.

I nod. Taking a deep breath, I return my focus to the script again.

In the final scene between the butler and the wealthy lady, the wealthy lady is holding a love letter she wrote to the duke, naively wanting the butler to polish her writing.

Even though she senses that she shouldn’t let the butler see this letter, he’s the person she trusts most.

In front of the butler, she’s like a young girl experiencing her first awakening of love as she reads the love letter aloud.

The butler, whose unbridled possessiveness and intense jealousy have rushed to his head, finally poisons his beloved in his arms after she reads the final line.

Using a letter from a listener as a prop, I place it in his hand and begin the monologue.

MC: “You must definitely listen to this letter...”

MC: “It contains my heartfelt sincerity. No matter what, I don’t want there to be any mistakes.”

Lucien: "If you read it to me, it will be your first mistake.”

MC: “Please! You’ve never refused anything I ask of you. I’ll just treat it as tacit consent, just like always!”

MC: “Dearest Great Duke...”

MC: “I’m writing this letter to you, and it contains my sincerity...”

Following the script, I read the letter written to the duke.

MC: “...and with this, I look forward to your reply.”

These are the final words on the letter. Following this, there are a series of stage directions.

“The wealthy lady grips her love letter, brimming with anticipation as she stares out of the window. The butler is silent, handing her a cup of hot tea as he usually does.”

“The lady drinks it without putting up any defences, but doesn’t know that he had poisoned this cup. The love letter floats to the ground, and she falls into the butler’s arms.”

“...he speaks into her ear: ‘You belong only to me.’ The canary in his arms twitches for a while, then never stirs again.”

Seeing the tragic ending of this love story, my heart can’t help but sigh.

The butler’s love made him lose his mind. In order to possess his beloved forever, he pushed both himself and her into hell with his own hands.

I recall the scene from before when Lucien was reading the monologue, and how he usually has eyes as calm as a deep pond.

That earlier thought once again surfaces in my mind -

I wonder what Lucien’s possessiveness looks like?

Just when I’m thinking about this, I feel a forceful tug on my arm.

I stumble, then fall into familiar arms.

Puzzled, I turn my head towards Lucien. A sense of restraint is concealed in his eyes, and the unfathomable dark eyes hold within them intense emotions.

Lucien: “This letter will never be sent, just as the bird will forever remain in her cage.”

Lucien takes a deep breath, leaning his weight against my body.

I feel scorching breaths on my exposed shoulders, and his hand brushes against my lips gently.

Lucien: “You can only belong to me.”

A familiar scent cages me in his embrace. For a moment, I’m unable to tell if the person before me is the butler who went mad because of love, or if he’s Lucien himself.

I abruptly return to my senses - the performance should already be over.

However, Lucien doesn’t let go of me, as though he hasn’t disengaged from the performance.

Just as I prepare to remind him that it’s over, he suddenly leans near, leaving a soft kiss at the corner of my lips.

Lucien: Very sweet. I’m referring to the taste of the tea.

Stunned, I look at Lucien - he’s changing the ending of the script...

While he looks at me, the foreign emotions in his eyes suddenly vanish. Then, he crinkles his eyes into a smile, just like how he smiles at me every time.

I already knew that I couldn't hide anything from him.

This is his response to that question I’ve never asked -

Lucien: The person I want to possess will eventually possess me.

🎙 Texts and Moments: here

🎙 Support the cafe by dropping by the tip jar!

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc spoilers #OK THIS IS REALLY GOOD #LUCIEN GAVE ME TINGLES #AHHHHHHHHH

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wissbby · 4 years

Text

Boyfriend head-canon - Oikawa Tо̄ru

⤙ Summary: basically, a head-canon about how I imagine Oikawa in a relationship. ⊹ Genre: fluff, smut and a tiny bit of angst ⊹ Word count: 1779 ⊹ Warnings: NSFW ⤙ Author’s note: this head-canon is a bit bigger than I anticipated. I still feel like I’m missing so much more so I might edit this in the future and add onto it. For now, I hope you just enjoy it :)

So, let's say you and Oikawa got together.

I don't see Oikawa as someone who opens up easy. It takes the man a lot of time and trust so you'll have to be patient if you want to develop a relationship with him.

You must've been (very very good) friends before he even sees you as a potential significant other.

I've seen a lot of Haikyuu fans bashing on the man because of that one scene with Kageyama. They don't realise that Oikawa was at his lowest point during this moment and was overall just doing very, very bad.

It's also a scene where we get to see Oikawa's fakes finally breaking down.

You need to show Oikawa you're there for him, even if he pushes you away at the very beginning.

He's afraid to show you his insecurities, even if you're already aware of them in the first place.

He's just so so afraid of losing you. He’s afraid you’ll leave him behind once you get to see the other -not so pretty- side of him.

So, try to break him,

in a good way, of course.

Also, give him a lot of space. And by this, I mean, give the man attention but let him do his things like he always has done.

Even though you're now his partner, Oikawa is still selfish in that perspective. He won't try his hardest best to change his schedule for you.

You know volleyball is important to him, right? So you must understand why he won't do so.

Trust me,

He'll come back running once he realises this kind of behaviour was the exact reason his ex broke up with him.

"I'm so sorry. It's just- I'll try harder."

And if Oikawa says so, he really means it. This man keeps his promises, I'll give him that.

He's just very insecure about a lot of things, though he might not show that side of him immediately.

If you've come across the point where Oikawa fully knows he's accepted by you, he'll show you his true colours.

Expect him to break down in front of your -yet to be opened- front door.

Just take the man inside and comfort him.

He likes to be pampered.

Now, onto a bit more fluffy stuff.

This man is one hundred per cent the affectionate type.

If he wants to feel your skin, he will do anything in his power to do so.

Out in public but suddenly craving you? He's kissing your forehead and pushing you against his chest while holding your waist with his right arm and intertwining your hands with his left hand.

Together in one's bedroom? He'll either plop on top of you, burying his head into the crook of your neck with his body all over yours or will push you against his chest and let you rest your head in the crook of his neck while running his hands slowly through your hair until he hears your evening breaths.

He just likes to know you're still there with him.

Sorry buddy's, it's the insecurities.

It's also a way of apologising for the time he loses with you because of volleyball. He tries his hardest best to make the time you two have unforgettable.

If he finally got a day off, he will one hundred per cent take you on a date.

Expect this man to go all out.

Clothes, shoes, accessories, oh yeah, and the date itself too

He almost forgot about that, but let's ignore that for now

Okay, so these are the type of dates he would definitely take you on,

Coffeeshop dates, picnics, star-gazing, home-theatre.

Let me explain each date

Coffeeshop dates: it has to be one of those cosy, very warm atmosphere shops. He likes to see a lot a brown, dark green, some orange and of course, plants. It's an aesthetic the pretty setter loves to be surrounded by to unwind from everything going on.

It's also a perfect colour palette for his Instagram feed.

He'd wear a grey sweater with vinyl pants and -of course- wear his glasses to add to the look.

This mf is actually blind without them but only wears them when they match his outfit.

Anyway,

Picnics: Oikawa would take care of everything. The only thing you need to do is just be there. He likes to lay down with you, telling you about his day/week. The pretty scenery above your heads and in front of you keeps amazing him. He will never get tired of the prettiness Mother Nature offers. Bonus!! Bring him milk bread and he’ll spin you around before settling you back on the ground and pecking your lips ever so slightly.

Star-gazing: I see Oikawa as an intelligent human being. Besides that, he is very curious about various things. He almost always has a question about something. If he feels romantic or just simply wants to see you, he’ll call you when the sun has set, telling you he is waiting for you outside. I know for a fact that this dude has some secret hide-out since he was a child. He hasn’t shared it with anyone, not even Iwaizumi, because it was his spot to completely shut the outside world out. He really doubted whether he should tell you about it or not. But, he wanted to show you himself, all of him. He loves you too much to let you be apart of that “outside world”. Arriving at the spot, he would lay down with you in the tall grass, eyes immediately fixating on the bright stars. He would point out the zodiac signs, telling you some facts about his sign and yours (yes, he did his research). On the court, Oikawa feels big. He feels big with his team and is not afraid to lose if it were with them. But now that he lays underneath the big open sky, he realises how tiny he is in this universe. He starts to think about how lucky he is to have met you in this big universe. Expect some sappy shit and maybe some tears if he feels vulnerable.

Home-theatre: sometimes, it’s better to stay indoors with your loved one. And Oikawa completely agrees with that. After a long week of school or work he just likes to unwind. Now, he would invite you over. And girl- when I tell you what he did. You didn’t exactly expect a fort in front of his television. But then again, we are talking about Oikawa here. It’s adorable, though. There are fairy lights all over the place, candles lit and an unnecessary amount of pillows and fluffy blankets. You both lay down and pick a movie. Settling on “Ponyo” because Oikawa once mentioned the drawing style makes him feel at ease. This man has one of his arms either wrapped around your figure or intertwined his fingers with you. He prefers to have you cuddled into him, whether that be spooning or laying on top of his chest. He just likes to keep you close. It’s these moments Oikawa cherishes the most: the domestic ones.

Let’s hope I fed you enough fluffy content because I’m ready to flip the switch once again.

Like I mentioned before, Oikawa is a curious man.

And this also applies to kinks.

I know for a fact he is not scared to try out new things. He just wants two things: trust and honesty.

He wants you to trust him and trust you. He also wants you and him to be as honest as possible.

Do you not like something even though he seemed to be into it? Tell him, he wants it to be as equally enjoyable for you as it is for him.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of headcanons telling Oikawa is a switch with sub tendencies.

I’m only gonna have to agree on the first part.

This kid is, indeed, a switch. However, he is more of a switch with dom tendencies, in my eyes.

Big on praise, like, very big.

Secretly likes receiving more than giving, but you never heard that from me.

He also is into slight bondage. Handcuffs, ropes etc.

He likes to tie you up and block your sight. It makes him feel in control.

Also, the way you squirm whenever he’s breathing or whispering into your ear when you least expect it, gets him rock hard every time.

However, do the same to him and he’ll obey.

After being the fattest brat ever, of course.

#pegoikawa2020

Some other kinks he has are breath play, cockwarming, degradation, role-play, overstimulation, pain, food-play, stockings, cute lingerie and sadism.

(There are so many more kinks he likes and I want to go into detail about all of these but this shit will get too long so I won’t. Request if you want to see what I’d say about his kinks.)

He can go all out.

But Oikawa prefers the more gentle sex where you just take time to enjoy each other’s carcasses.

Is super vulnerable whenever that happens and has indeed broken down a couple of times during the act.

He can’t help it: he loves you too much that he can’t even keep on that facade anymore.

Aftercare with this baby is so cute.

If the previous moments were a lot rougher, he likes to check up on you and praise you for your work.

However, he gets you a glass of water and a towel to clean up the mess every time.

When taken care of, he likes to plop down and just hold you as close as possible. Usually runs his fingers through your hair to confirm you’re still there with him.

Falls asleep real quick, ngl

If I can give you a piece of advice: get up the morning after to make him breakfast

It’s something small but Oikawa really feels loved whenever he’s taking care of

Asks you to take place beside him and shares his breakfast with you

Yes, he is the type to put food into his mouth and share it with you with the help of a kiss that transfers the piece of food into your own mouth

Mornings like these are intimate and Oikawa cherishes them the most

Usually followed by just a lazy day of enjoying the presence of one another and probably some romance anime or Black Mirror binge watch.

Overall, this baby needs a lot of reassurance in his relationship. Let him know you’re there and won’t leave him (one of his, if not biggest, insecurities). Make him feel loved and let him take his time to warm up to you. Oikawa is worth the wait.

Bonus!!

Iwaizumi is so very glad to see his best friend happy. He’s very grateful you two have met. Will never not show you how much he appreciates him.

“Thank you for loving him, Y/n-san,” Iwaizumi would say, voice lowered in hopes his friend wouldn’t be eavesdropping.

“Iwa-chan! Are you flirting with my girlfriend?”

“Shut up, shittykawa! You don’t deserve someone as good as her!”

He’s just happy his best friend is finally able to share his insecurities with someone he loves so much.

You’re a blessing to the both of them.

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starlightmeadowbloom · 3 years

Text

The Animation of My Favourites; Cuphead

This is the post I would like to show you all, there are so many that I have to pick the best one. I thought Cuphead would be a good start since the Cuphead Show is coming this fall in Netflix which I’m so excited about.

🌈Roll or Die | (Cuphead Cartoon Rap Battle), full animatic

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWUsz7jT-No)

What I like about this is that it somehow show what it would look like if someone would make a music video with the song (the Cuphead rap battle). In fact, yellow-py on YouTube somehow made the best Cuphead characters when it comes to songs that inspired Cuphead. When it comes to ‘wake us up inside’ chorus, I just love when the cup-bros were facing the bosses who has yellowy-gold eyes as a sign a ready to fight the final round. The animatic looks closer to characters in the game, the best storyboards.

The video came out in 26 Oct 2018 with 4,118,151 views and 37K likes when I last saw it.🌈

🌈🎉🎵CUPHEAD CARTOON RAP BATTLE: PART 1 & 2🎵

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZT15vuD20U)

The final animatic for this was epic! I kept watching repeatedly like five times a day for two, full of colours and more details. It was definitely a legend for the game to have this fully made as a music video. (It’s like my dream came true.) I mean, each bosses rap their personality with no fear until the chorus hits which I find it like ‘okay, I’m ready for round two’. The song seems to be the best one ever with this fantastic animatic!

The video came out in 22 Nov 2018 with 125,131,358 views and 950K likes when I last saw it.🎉🌈

⭐Greedy Rough Animatic

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umv6ZE2u8Qc)

Both best song and animatic ever! The reason why? Because it shown great detail of personality for the Devil (along with King Dice when the chorus ‘nowhere to run, nowhere to go’ played). This would be the best welcoming and boss battle because I’ve got few ideas for the future… Anyhoo, it would be great with colours but it still the best music video. Ichi-CooCoo on YouTube should give more credit to make it a re-animatic…

The video came out in 28 Jan 2018 with 592,365 views and 14K likes when I last saw it.⭐

🎉Cuphead the Musical - A fan animatic

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSmsT28J-WQ)

This one is very good because it add colours and details. Also loving the song that kinda sounds like you are in the musical theatre. I wonder if there going to be a proper musical after the Cuphead Show on Netflix… Anyhoo, the same YouTuber yellow-py has made a good effort for this animatic.

The video came out in 8 Jul 2018 with 6,931,247 views and 88K likes when I last saw it.🎉

❤Cuphead Animation (King Dice Song)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG93ETV_OD8)

Someone who made this animation should give a lot of credit because they used FlipaClip which is an app that you can make your own animation. At the moment, I tried to do my own but this may going to take long. Anyhoo, GgBen animations did a splendid job for doing King Dice and other characters. I just hope that the YouTuber would be planning on fully colouring and polishing this in the future because for the FlipaClip is the best app to use when you want to do some great ideas of animation. Now, I felt like this would be perfect for the Cuphead Show or as a music video…

The video came out in 22 Sept 2019 with 27,988 views and 803 likes when I last saw it.❤

💙Friends On the Other Side (CUPHEAD ANIMATIC)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jt9MyksVYU)

Both of my favourite song and animation, again! I suddenly felt like that Dr. Facilier is my head-cannon voice for King Dice, or maybe Wayne Brady as King Dice! Although, I wish DeVillefor on YouTube should make a full scene for this because it looks so epic!

The video came out in 22 Dec 2017 with 339,754 views and 21K likes when I last saw it.💙

🌟The Other Side | Cuphead Animatic

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZb2vp8wtic)

I don’t know why but this is a perfect fit! I mean, imagine; Casino Cups! And that would have this song as Cuphead made a deal with King Dice so he and his brother would work with the Devil since they tried to find a job.

The video came out in 19 May 2018 with 30,180 views and 1.1K likes when I last saw it.🌟

♥♦♠♣♔FINALE♔- King Dice [LYRIC COMIC]

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0U6GuWfoWk)

Zaraegis is the best animator ever! I like when she created comics and animations when it comes to Cuphead. I like ‘Guity’, ‘Don’t Mess with Me’ and ‘Crown’ but the Final is the best one yet! I even had some theory about this battle and that King Dice is one badass gentleman and the Devil regrets it giving him some powers that turned against him. I wish there’s something I could do to help her get her mojo back… I mean, like… The moment when King Dice shuts the door, and the info pans up to show him with that sinister smirk was so badass. It's got to be almost my favourite moment in the finale before it head to ‘I am the people’ chorus. I love the whole thing, from beginning to end. All the songs fit the comics extremely well, the art style is awesome, and I was incredibly invested in the plot. While it’s sadded me a bit that the series ended, especially because I am a bit curious about what C&M has been up to in this verse (especially because they are most likely going to notice that the Devils Casino is now owned by KD), this was still a great conclusion non the less.

The video came out in 21 Mar 2019 with 462,652 views and 12K likes when I last saw it.♣♠♦♥

🌹Me and the Devil [CUPHEAD FAN ANIMATIC]

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZROxzO58PwQ)

This is very interesting… The moment I saw this, my whole world seems to stop as my thoughts came to build even more ideas of theory about the Cuphead Show. I mean, it is a little fantasy of King Dice’s story. I loves the song with the drawing, it’s so perfect, by the way, beautiful drawing style. And I also can find very easily when I noticed no one seem to watch this music video…

The video came out in 24 Jun 2019 with 2,849 views and 172 likes when I last saw it.🌹

#cuphead #mugman #the devil #king dice #my thoughts #talk some stuff #X-Over Anon #my favorite animation

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phantomnostalgist · 3 years

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An Interview with Peter Karrie

From “POTO: The Phantom of the Opera Magazine”, Millennium Edition (2000), published by Carrie Hernandez. (This btw is the greatest Phantom fan publication ever made, and if you ever see it on eBay you should snap it up. I don’t even have my copy because it’s with Paul, who conducted this interview with Peter in 1994.)

Enormous thanks to @panto-of-the-opera for typing this interview up for me!

Peter Karrie, interviewed by Paul Day Clemens:

Since falling under the spell of “POTO” (the day the Original London Cast album (OLC) became available in the U.S.) I’ve seen many fine – and a few brilliant – Eriks but only two performers have ever made me feel I was in the actual presence of the Phantom himself. One was Michael Crawford – yes, he really was that special (and you can forget the OLC which is but the palest shadow of what he was like on stage!) – and the other is Peter Karrie.

Commanding, dangerous, elegant, chivalrous and heart rending with an unparalleled physicality and wealth of detail, Peter not only made the role his own, completely, but by some rare and strange alchemy, somehow managed to make me forget I was watching a performance at all.

Thrilled, hypnotized and deeply moved, it was not until visiting with Peter after the show that the full impact of his transformation hit me. How could this warm, funny, soft-spoken, down-to-earth guy possibly be the same man I was watching on stage not an hour before hand?

Therein lies the difference between craft – albeit of a rare excellence – and true inspiration. Dare I even say greatness?

Yeah, I dare. For Mr. Karrie’s Phantom is simply one of the greatest portrayals by an actor in the musical theatre that I’ve ever had the privilege of experiencing.

I had the great pleasure of interviewing Peter at length in December 1994 in Toronto as he was getting ready for the Far East tour of “POTO” and what follows here are never before published excerpts from the interview. – Paul Clemens

Paul Clemens: Do you find that the role of the Phantom makes enormous demands on your voice, in terms of the wear and tear of doing at night after night? If you had a sore throat, for instance, would you be able to get through the show?

Peter Karrie: Yeah. You learn I guess. All professional singers in theatre have to cope with colds and sore throats. Otherwise you’ll be forever off ‘cause it’s a breeding ground of germs. And you develop your voice for stamina over a period of time where you’re doing eight shows a week. You have to. You have to survive it.... So, basically, yeah.

You take the angel [scene] for instance where [the Phantom is] absolutely broken. I’ve had very, very bad laryngitis and I’ve sung that and it sounded great! Simply because you’re breaking down in your voice is all kinds of scuffed up and cracky, you can enact it. But the show takes horrendous wear and tear on the body. It really does. You end up playing mind games with the role.

PC: That’s interesting. How so?

PK: Well, it’s such a powerfully written piece for the actual Phantom. You have to portray a person who’s schizoid, psychotic... and it all sounds very grand and technical. But the actual emotion of it can cut only come from the inside. And so you continue fighting with it.

[Note from Christine posting this in 2021 - Erik isn’t actually schizoid or psychotic (not that either are “bad” things). I know this is pedantic of me to point out, but I pointed it out at the end of Ethan Freeman’s interview from the mid 90s so I’ll point it out here too.]

PC: I imagine you found a core within the character of identification, something you had an understanding of and could feel a great deal of sympathy toward.

PK: Yes. You have to put yourself through the gambit of it. You have to be the Phantom emotionally for that time, and then it comes out quite naturally. You don’t have to think about it.

PC: Do you find, after all the times you played the role – first in London and now in Toronto – that the emotions are still immediate for you?

PK: Oh, yeah. But as I say, there’s wear and tear. When the mind gets tired then you find you get into problems.

PC: How do you keep the role fresh?

PK: There are all types of hand holds all the way along, from the time you start ‘til the time you finish. I guess the majority of it is set in the rehearsal room where you rehearse at a certain level into a certain standard, and it becomes automatic. But each show will always be different because you have a different audience, different weather conditions, you have different musicians playing in the pit, you have different people you’re playing opposite. So you will always get a variation on the theme. And so that, coupled up with what you’ve put together in rehearsal so you get a fairly high standard of performance every night, merges together. And so you do get a different show every night. But, as I say, it’s a very wearing role. More so than Jean Valjean, where you’re virtually on stage for three and a half hours. But I find the Phantom far more draining.

PC: I can imagine. Whenever you’re on stage you’re at peak intensity and you run the emotional gamut. So that, combined with the vocal demands, must make for one walloping experience.

PK: Exactly.... That, coupled with the exposure. You’re so exposed on stage. Whenever the Phantom does appear, it’s either him on his own, or it’s him with Christine, and something powerful and moving is happening. He doesn’t appear with the chorus – barring the “Masquerade.”

PC: For that reason, a number of the actors who have played the role have complained about a sense of loneliness and isolation. I wondered if you felt that way about it?

PK: No, I haven’t felt that. But I’ve always mingled with the rest of the cast and crew. I can’t abide all this keeping the door shut. So we open the door and play rock and roll music.

PC: Do you ever feel hampered by all the makeup involved?

PK: You get used to it. Totally. In fact, there are times when you forgotten you’ve got the mask on in the wig lady has to ask you for it. And you think ‘What? I’ve already given it to you!’

PC: That’s right – you wouldn’t be able to feel it, would you? Because it’s actually touching the appliances rather than your face.

PK: You feel it slightly. You know, if you first put it on you’d know it’s there. But after a while... But the wire band ‘round the head lets you know it’s there! And the edge of it catches you sometimes. But no – it becomes part of you. And as for the lip which is built up top and bottom ‘round your mouth, you get used to that as well.

PC: Has it ever come loose during a performance?

PK: Oh, God yeah! We’ve had some great moments where it’s been hanging off. That’s a bit gross. And the bald cap’s come loose in the back, so you do the Second Lair with one hand ‘rounds the back of your head holding your bald cap in place? [laughs] Yeah, you’ve got some good moments.

PC: How did you find the voice which is so distinctive?

PK: Well, that, once again came from the feeling inside. It was like once you had all that stuff on, and I discovered the walk, and kind of latched onto his intention, the voice just followed.

PC: Your interpretation of the line “You try my patience“ is unforgettable. So chilling. I was wondering how that evolved.

PK: Well, I felt that was the climax of the man. That, literally, for me, is where he turns ‘round and he’s at the actual peak of his hate, his frustration. I knew I had to find something which made that moment special. It was set to be special by the music and the way it was directed. That was the key to the man.

PC: It’s as if your voice came from some deep well – as if it bubbled up from some deep, dark place.

PK: That’s right! That’s exactly how I felt it. And then when Christine kisses him it’s like he can’t believe it. “I’ve won!” That euphoric feeling... “She can suffer this face! I think I’ve got her! I think, yes, she does love me!” And then, as he reaches out to touch her... a moment.... He’s taken in the scene of Raoul hanging as he went back to her... and then, all of a sudden, it struck a chord.... “Hang on....” And then the realization hits him: “She’s just doing it for him. She’s literally giving me her self to save him. She loves him... She can never love me the same as she loves him.” And it’s all a kind of mental game there. And you’ve only got split seconds to get the audience in on it, so he has to be kind of demonstrative in his actions.

PC: After the kiss, there was a moment where you sort of winced, pulling away from her twice like a wounded animal, your right arm almost becoming spastic... there were so many levels, all going simultaneously.

PK: He’s coming to terms. All these thoughts are rushing through his head and he’s off balance. Everything has shaken him and he’s lost his façade of “everything-under-control.”

PC: And the body is breaking down.

PK: That’s right. He’s been stripped of everything just by having to face himself – and face the truth. That one clear moment where he realizes this is wrong – this is all wrong – this is not how it should be.

PC: And when the phantom cries “GO NOW AND LEAVE ME!” – you built each word into a series of escalating crescendos which was tremendously effective, I thought. Very powerful.

PK: It’s all the process of him actually coming to terms with himself. It’s as you say – one after another, one after the other – then finally she’s gone and he’s left.... This is after she’s given him the ring and she’s gone... And he looks... and he sees the empty throne. And he knows that’s all his life is.

PC: That’s very moving. Do you ever find that the final words – “It’s over now the Music of the Night” – are difficult to get out with all the emotion you’re experiencing?

PK: I did at the beginning, yeah. Sometimes I used to get caught up in it, which is a dreadfully dangerous thing, ‘cause then everything tightens up and you get the proverbial lump in your throat.

PC: It’s sort of walking a bit of a tight rope, isn’t it?

PK: Yeah! [laughs] That’s right. And then there’s a moment where I can get space to subdue all that and concentrate on doing the last bit. That’s where he’s got the veil in his hand and she’s in the boat comin’ across the back singing with Raoul and I say “Christine I love you” very, very quietly, and very broken, and then I can take some breaths which calm it all down and get myself kind of poised for the last bit. ‘Cause that’s gotta be kind of the statement: “You alone can make my song take flight.” That is the statement of release. It’s like a rhetorical statement – you will always be the music of my life. And therefore I can’t change it.” It’s that feeling he’s got in his body. He bends over backwards. And then the final moment is where he turns around and wipes it clean. And he does it in a far stronger attitude than anything else he does... “It’s over now the Music of the Night.”

PC: I’ve read that you feel he’s starting a new life at that point.

PK: Yes! Yes... When I’m walking to the chair, I let the veil just drop behind, and I think to myself “It’s over. Now what else is there? There must be something else... It’s over.” And you do it with such a final flourish – the cape and everything – you’re back in control of yourself. You’ve had the osmosis. You’ve come out of the one period of your life which actually threatened to ruin you, and you’re now standing on the threshold of another one.

PC: Oh yes. It’s wonderful to hear what’s going through your mind as you’re doing the scene. And the impact of that final scene is tremendous. Do you have a favourite scene in the show?

PK: That would be it. ‘Cause it’s only six minutes long, that Second Lair. And in that six minutes you literally travel from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. It’s a whole journey.

MORE BELOW... Keep reading, it’s a long interview, with plenty more thoughts and content about Phantom, including some really funny classic mishaps.

PC: The show obviously touches a universal cord in many of its audience members, sometimes to the extent that a bracket (sizable) number of people see the show again and again. Men and women openly moved to tears by the play are common sight in Phantom’s audiences. And yet, paradoxically, a substantial number of critics have charged the show with having no heart.

PK: I think they’re being very unkind. There are some Phantoms – just as there are leading men and women in any show – who do not commit themselves quite as much as they should do.

PC: I’ve seen that it does make a difference in the overall impact of the show.

PK: It makes a big difference, yeah. ‘Cause eight times a week to commit yourself to it to it as it should be done is hard work. But once you get used to it and once you get into it you can’t do it any other way. At least I can’t. They said to me many times, like when you’re feeling rough or whatever, “Can you mark it a little bit? You know just take it easy. You don’t have to give one hundred percent.” But you see, it’s not a question of giving that. That’s just the way I do it. If I start altering that, I am altering a lot more than just singing a lift show. You’re altering a thought process which I can’t control. I wish I could mark it. It would be a lot bloody easier! But you can’t. You have to do it as you do it when you do it, and that’s it.

PC: I believe you hold the record for the most injuries sustained by any actor playing the role.

PK: Touch wood it’s never been completely death-defying! [laughs]

PC: Is it true that you asked if you could actually ride the chandelier down to the stage at the end of Act One?

PK: Yes. But I’m afraid the insurance people did not exactly share my enthusiasm for the idea.

PC: The stories about technical mishaps are legion. Can you relate some of the more memorable moments along those lines that you can recall?

PK: Well... there’s been so many of them now. There’re many, many boat stories. And the same thing happen to Colm, has happened to Michael, has happened to ‘em all. The boat has a life of its own. The monkey also has a life of its own. That can be very temperamental... I’ve had some excitement in the Angel, where people have tripped over wires and tipped it up while you’re inside it, and you’re hangin’ on for grim death... I fallen off the proscenium, yeah...

PC: [laughs] you say that so cavalierly.

PK: [laughing] Cracked a couple of legs and so forth. And the Star-Trap, the same thing. I’ve fallen down that the wrong way... In London one day, the Star-Trap didn’t open at all. So you did the “Your chains are still mine – you will sing for me,” and threw the cape – I always threw the Cape up to make a trail as you go down the Star-Trap. So the trail came down and I hadn’t gone anywhere. In the cloak – they had a bigger cloak for the Masquerade then – and it just piles on top of me. And I couldn’t get it off because you’ve got the mask on. So it ended up with the two managers having to lead me off! [laughing] I mean, here you’ve got this dreadful creature saying [puts on a creepy voice] “Your chains are still mine – you will sing for me!” And then, all of a sudden, the managers are saying [whispers] “Come on! This way, this way!”

PC: [laughs] In one of the U.S. Touring Company performances, the Punjab lasso failed to work, and so Raoul just fell to the floor and lay there writhing as if he were in the grip of some supernatural force.

PK: [laughs] many times things go wrong with a bloody lasso! One time I was over here in Toronto, Byron Nease [Raoul] all of a sudden acted like an invisible hand had gripped him ‘round the throat – the noose was nowhere, it was on the floor many miles away from him – but he’s going [Karrie makes some strangling sounds] and it was as though he was being thrown—forced backwards! And he got to the grill and his hands came outstretched and he was like held there by and invisible force...

PC: Yes – the “magnetic grill!“

PK: Yeah! And I just looked at him and I started laughing. it was like a three act play to get him to the back of this grill...! But I think the funniest thing is words. The things people say. Quite innovative and inventive. I remember when I was in the wings doing the “seal my fate tonight...” and sometimes your mind wanders. It’s that mind-game I mentioned about concentration. You have to keep focused all the time – blah blah blah. And so I’m saying “seal my fate tonight... I hate to have to cut the prisoner short...” Prisoner short? Prisoner short? And I thought, no, that can’t be right. And I’m thinking that while I continue singing... And the words have gone ‘cause I’m singing “but the ducks warring in...” And I said “ducks warring in??? – By now I’ve turned away from the monitor ‘cause I’m singing on an off-stage mike – and I’m lookin’ at my dressers. And I’m waving to them as if to say “Tell me the words! What are the words??” And now I’m singing “Let my destiny ride, ‘cause my music’s afire!” And I sang it as though I’d been singing those words all my life! Loud... And of course I’m falling around. And the conductor – I can see on the monitor – he’s laughing and waving! The baton had gone to hell!!

PC: [laughing] That’s marvelous!

PK: But what was the funniest thing what the poor people on stage! ‘Cause you had the managers and everybody else all walking ‘round in this trance – like, floaty, floaty choreography. And all of a sudden, as soon as I got to “ducks warring in” – by all accounts – they as if on cue, turned up stage; all of their backs to the audience! And they all walked to the back of the stage! And they’re all laughing and laughing, ‘cause it got it worse and worse. The more I was singin’ the wrong words the more they were laughing! ...And when I came on for my bows that night, all the course we’re going “Quack, quack!” ...So the next night I got changed I did my sound-check, and all of a sudden there’s a call over the tannoy for a meeting in the greenroom. And I went there, and I thought, well, somebody must be coming down to see us. And all of a sudden, over the gentle hubbub in the greenroom, I could hear on the tannoy my voice doing this “cut the prisoner short, but the ducks warring in...” and everybody started laughing. And then all of a sudden, the company manager showed up and presented me with a cassette – they record every show, you see – and the company had the words printed up and framed, and they presented it to me with the cassette. And that’s how I know the words so well!

PC: I’d love to hear that sometime!

PK: I learned from a very early age that if you’re gonna sing the wrong words, sing them as loud and convincingly as possible. And everyone in the building will think you’re right and everybody else is wrong.

PC: Of course. Because that if they haven’t seen the show before, they’re not going to know.

PK: That’s right. It’s so true, because I had people in that night for that magic moment, and they didn’t know anything was wrong at all.

PC: [laughs] Be honest with me – are you tired of the music after all this time? For example if you’re in an elevator and you hear a song from Phantom do you just want to scream?

PK: No. I get out of the elevator. You do try to escape from it after doing eight shows a week... A number of times we’ll go into a restaurant ,] my wife Jane and myself, and we’ll sit there. And all of a sudden you’ll hear the music come on – Phantom. And you think, oh God! You don’t want to be reminded of it when you’re out enjoying yourself. But I’m not tired of the music when I’m performing it.

PC: You’re about to take Phantom to Singapore and Hong Kong. I understand that their audiences tend to be rather formal. I believe it is considered disrespectful to make too big a display of appreciation. That will be quite a change for you. How do you think you’re going to handle it?

PK: I did a satellite link up the other day with about forty reporters from the Far East, and the same questions came up then – “How are you going to cope with the way Singaporean and Hong Kong audiences show their appreciation?” And I told him as long as they enjoy the show, I don’t care... It’s quite funny actually, because when I started off working in Britain, I used to do clubs in the Northeast which is the hardest area prefer performer to work in. [laughs] The miners – it’s a big mining area – and they didn’t used to applaud. They threw ashtrays onto the stage.

PC: [laughing] Ashtrays?!

PK: That’s right. You do a Sunday lunchtime and they’d all be sitting reading the Sunday newspapers. You walk onto the stage and there’d just be a sea of newspapers. And at the end of the number, if they liked you they drop one hand onto the table, pick up the ashtray and throw it onto the stage as a mark of respect. Or are they’d just bang the table with one hand two or three times. But still, never, never, did they come out from behind the newspaper. Not unless the performer was of the female variety.

PC: [laughs] Your rock band – Peter and the Wolves – how long did that last?

PK: About four years, I think.

PC: Are there any records available?

PK: I doubt it. What records were made have probably long since been turned into ashtrays!

PC: To be thrown on stage by miners, no doubt! ...Well ,a final question: in Phantom, when you’re up in the Angel, do you ever feel a mad desire to plunge headfirst into the audience?

PK: No. Quite the opposite.

PC: Not a serious question, but I appreciate the answer nonetheless.

PK: The desire to jump off is never further from my mind.

PC: Sometimes I wonder the way you move around up there!

PK: [laughs] It does get a bit hairy up there sometimes! But it depends on which way it swings. If it swings left to right, you’re okay, but if it swings front to back then ya’ got trouble!

PC: This has been a delightful interview, Peter. Thank you.

PK: My pleasure.

- Paul Clemens

#peter karrie #poto #phantom of the opera #the phantom of the opera #classic phantoms #phantom legends #musicals #musical theater fandom #musical theatre

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write-orflight · 4 years

Text

Like Real People Do. Chapter 4

*Gif not mine*

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Rating: M, eventually will be smut.

Words: 2.3k

Warnings: Sexual themes, talk about sex (not NSFW though), fainting, reader just being thirsty in general.

Request: OPEN/CLOSED

A.N We’re getting into the main crux of the story now! Message to be added to the taglist. thanks for reading! Much love, Cia

Chapter 4: Why were you digging?

Months pass and the early spring turns into hot humid D.C summer. You were never a big fan of the summer, you preferred the colder months despite the bad memories you had associated with them.

Things changed and some things stayed the exact same. You caught bad guys, which was typical, you actually ended up getting tackled by a drunk Unsub once which results in you being out of the field with a broken arm for four weeks. You found a cat in an alley digging through the trash near your apartment one day when you were walking home. You left food out for him since until one day he decided to come up to you. And now you have a cat you affectionately named Garbage.

You and Ethan (the guy from the bar) had a “situation-ship”, as Garcia liked to call it for about a month and a half. In your opinion, there was no situation-ship, you guys had mediocre sex until he wanted more and was upset you “worked too much”. So when he “broke up” with you, you weren’t really upset. Your heart wasn’t in it anyway.

You and Spencer never talked about that night at the bar. In fact, you hardly talked at all. Your Saturday’s together stopped, you had no excuse to see each other now you were finished with school. Now that there was no thesis, there was no thesis for him to help with.

That didn’t stop Spencer from occupying the space in your head rent-free though. You couldn’t help yourself, he was always in the forefront of your mind and frankly it was starting to affect how you worked. It was a paperwork day and everyone was working silently, merely coexisting and since there was nothing really going on your mind couldn’t help but wander. Spencer was sitting across you reading case files, taking occasional notes in a legal pad next to him. Your eyes instantly went to his hands as he traced it down the page as he often did when he was reading. You studied them for a while, long slender fingers resting on massive palms. You never thought you were someone who’d be attracted to hands but the amount of times you thought about them on particularly lonely nights, specifically the things he could do with them.

Yea, it was enough to make you a cheirophile.

You went back to watching him when suddenly one of the aforementioned hands were waving in your face.

“Y/N” he said. “I’ve been calling your name for 3 minutes.”

“I’m sorry, Spen.” You flush instantly at being caught. “What did you need?”

“I asked if you had a red pen I could borrow?”

“Yea.” You rummaged through your drawer, producing the pen in question. His hand brushes yours as he grabs it, you try very hard not to shiver at the contact but you couldn’t help it. “Keep it.” you say.

“Hey, are you okay?” He says. “You’ve been extremely out of it lately.”

He was right, you have been out of it lately. Spencer was putting you out of it. You hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that night at the bar and your almost kiss. Since then, it was like he was trying to constantly bring your attention to his mouth, whether it was by his habit of stealing lollies from Garcia’s office or the constant biting and licking of his lips whenever he was deep in thought. They had seared their way into your frontal lobe without permission.

Working with him had become exceptionally hard and an unwelcome distraction, especially out in the field. Last month, the two of you had gone undercover in a nightclub, an unsub had been murdering young couples who were overly affectionate in public, so you had to spend the night practically wrapped around the man you had an insane crush on, breathing in his scent. You sipped your “cocktail” (it was just cranberry juice) as Spencer kept his arm steady around your waist. Eventually, you hear Emily in the earpiece you were wearing.

“You’ve gotta do more guys if we’re going to draw him out.” She says.

“Yea and loosen up. If you guys look uncomfortable, no ones going to believe you’re a couple.” Morgan adds.

You and Spencer look at each other for a beat.

“If I do something that makes you uncomfortable, you’ll tell me right?” He whispers to you. You nod instantly. Suddenly Spencer’s arm is tighter around you, pulling you flush to his body. He dips down attaching his lips to your neck and jawline. You gasp, you had not been expecting that at all, you clutch your drink harder other hand moving to his side. He pulls you in tighter somehow, suddenly you feel his hand move downward until he is palming your ass, you bite your lip to keep your composure but his lips suddenly meet that spot behind your earlobe that he couldn’t have possibly known about prior. A quiet moan unintentionally rips through you and you could’ve sworn you felt his fingers twitch, squeezing your ass slightly. Emily and Morgan were right, the Unsub did approach you guys shortly after that and led you into the alley like he did so many couples before only to be met by your badges and guns.

Then there was the time a couple of months ago when you and Reid had gone to interview a child psychiatrist and discovered that he was a molester. Spencer had been livid talking to the man, making threats that honestly should've been promises to throw the man in jail. You had never seen Spencer angry or at the very least this angry, and for some reason that turned you on beyond belief.

You decided to close that can of worms and save it for another day.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” You say, smiling tightly at him turning back to your stack of files. You couldn’t be mad at Spencer for your inability to keep it in your pants while you were working. So that’s what you did, worked and tried to avoid Spencer as much as you could. And if that night from the club replayed in your head often while you were alone in your bed that night like many nights before, it was no one’s business but your own.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the morning, you woke to the sound of construction equipment being used next to your apartment. D.C’s already so dense. What more could they be building? You thought as you got up to make yourself a much needed cup of coffee.

Now without your schoolwork or standing date with Spencer, Saturdays always felt too long. You drank your coffee, read a book, watched some TV and when you looked at the time it was still only noon. You sighed heavily before getting up to get changed. The weather was nice, you hoped a jog would at the very least tire you out so you could waste a couple hours napping.

So off you went, down the path of a nearby park. You had been jogging for about 30 minutes when you see a familiar shape in the distance. As you get closer you notice it’s exactly who you wanted it to be.

“Hey, Spen!” You say excitedly as you slow to a stop in front of him. He looks up from the book he was reading on the bench. He smiles once he sees you. “Y/N, Hey.” He says.

“What’re you doing in the park alone?” You ask.

He lifts up his book. “I just came to read, thought a change of scenery would do me better than sitting around my apartment.” He says

“Same here. Now that I finished school, it feels like I have too much time in the day. Now it just feels like I’m doing stuff just to keep myself busy, hence the jogging.” You say lifting your leg slightly, pointing out the running shoes you were wearing. You felt his eyes slowly trail up your bare legs, taking in your form slowly and diligently as if he thought he would forget it all the second he blinked. His eyes finally stopped at yours and you released the breath you didn’t know you holding.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to your book. I’ve still got 2 miles to go.” You say, as you start to jog away, you hear Spencer call out to you. You stop and turn back. “Yea?” you ask.

“Umm…” He says trailing off before taking a breath. “I’m going to see a movie later, I was hoping maybe you’d wanna come? It’s in french, but I can whisper-translate for you.” He says.

“Yea sure, I’m doing anything else.” You say, a little too excitedly. Calm down, Y/N, he didn’t even say it was a date. You think to yourself. “What time should I meet you there?”

“7?” He says.

“Great! See you at 7, Reid!” You say before jogging away.

------------------------------------------------------------------

You leave your house around 6:45, after spending about an hour and a half trying to find something to wear. Since it wasn’t a date, or since he didn't say it was one, you opted for something casual. A pair of comfortable jean shorts and your favorite band’s t-shirt. You did light makeup, and after an inspection in the mirror you decided you looked the right amount of cute and comfortable.

Spencer was waiting outside the theater when you arrived. He was dressed casually too, a blazer over a simple t-shirt, cuffed jeans and converse. He smiles brightly at you as you walk up to join him.

He insists on paying for the movie and you have to fight him to get him to let you at least pay for snacks but soon you are seated in the almost empty theater together.

He moves close to you as the movie starts, whispering translations in your ear. At some point halfway through the movie, his arm ends up around your back as he continues to translate, your hand falls instinctively to his thigh.

The movie ends eventually, and the two of you begin to walk outside together. You know a really good ice cream place that’s not a far walk from the theatre so you suggest going Spencer instantly says yes. You guys walk in silence for a while before you open your mouth to say something.

“Can I confess something to you?” You ask him.

He turns and looks at you. “Yea, what is it?”

“Je parle quatre langues, dont une est le français.” (I speak four languages, one of which is french.) You say.

He looks at you incredulously. “Pourquoi m'avez-vous laissé traduire le film entier pour vous?” (Why did you let me translate the entire movie for you?) He asks

“Tu veux dire, pourquoi t'ai-je laissé chuchoter à mon oreille pendant deux heures d'affilée?” (You mean, Why did I let you whisper in my ear for two hours straight?) You smile flirtatiously at him. “Je suis sûr que tu peux comprendre celui-là.” (I'm sure you can figure that one out) You nudge him with your arm. “Come on, I believe you owe me ice cream.”

----------------------------------------------------

You and Spencer, deciding you don’t want the night to end just yet, take your ice cream and walk to a park. You lick lazily at the cone you opted for opposed to the cup he got. You guys seem to try and catch up on everything the two of you had done since your last coffee shop visit. He tells you about the books and Doctor’s journals he’s read. You explain to him the entire plot of the latest season of Drag race. You talk and talk and talk, to the point you don’t even realize it’s getting late.

“It’s late.” he says, “We should head back.”

And so you do, the two of you walk back to your cars parked near the movie theatre in semi-silence. As the two of you approach your driver door, you turn to look at each other.

“This was fun, to hang out, I mean.” You say.

“Yea, it was.” He adds. “I’d like to do it more, if you don’t mind.”

You shake your head. “No, I’d love that.” you say.

He takes a step closer to you and you do the same. This was it, he was finally going to kiss you. He looks down at your lips and up to your eyes again as if searching for the approval you give a quick tiny nod. He smiles, moving a hand to the side of your head leaning into you--

Your phone rings. He takes a step back.

Moment ruined.

You look at your caller ID. “It’s Hotch.” you say, he nods at you while you answer the phone “Y/L/N” you say.

“Y/N/N, you need to meet me at the office. Right now.” He says.

“Why sir? Is there a case?” You ask.

“No case.” He says. “Gabriel Ferguson’s date has been set.”

That name.

You tried everyday to forget that name.

The name of the man who took your family.

Your innocence.

Your way of life.

Gabriel Ferguson.

The Beechwood Killer.

You freeze. Spencer is watching you, concerned now. “W-Why do you need me to come in for that?” You stutter.

“Because… he’s refusing to tell us where he dumped the first bodies.” Hotch pauses. “Until he speaks to you.”

You drop your phone.

The last thing you hear is Spencer calling out to you while everything fades to black.

Taglist: @haylaansmi @yoruebeautiful @kianagilder-blog @l0ve-0f-my-life @bihoeofmanyfandoms @dreamer7black @baby-banana @drreidshands @blameitonthenight21 @slyskyeey @liaabsurd @di-essere-amato

#spencer x reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer x you #spencer reid x you #criminal minds #bau x reader #spencer x reader smut #spencer reid x reader smut

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anonniemousefics · 4 years

Text

The Nine Terrifying Moons | Chapter Three

Fandom: The Folk of the Air | Jude + Cardan

Synopsis: Based on the response to this post. :) Jude’s not sure what she expected motherhood to be like, but it isn’t this.

(SO MUCH FLUFF HERE. Really. Just. The fluffiest. I can’t help myself.)

Chapter Three: The Third

I think maybe I am meant to be a cautionary tale, not a happy ending.

I think that someone who has manipulated and lied and schemed as much as I have is destined only for tragedy.

And now it’s finally come for me.

I think this over and over again, like a spell I’m chanting to grant myself some measure of grim acceptance, while Cardan and I ride a ragwort horse all the way to the mortal realm. It’s the best course of action we can come up with in the moment of panic.

The moment I knew we were facing a potentially devastating complication, I wanted – no, needed – a human doctor.

Pregnancy is rare among the Folk, and I now find I’m not interested in trusting faerie midwives with a decidedly human condition. If there is something wrong with me, or with our baby, I want to know what it is, everything about it. I don’t trust anyone who might want to strike a deal for my child’s wellbeing or concoct some potion that, while saving the pregnancy, also gives our baby a third eye or snaggle-teeth or an appetite for blood. I’m also having flashbacks of a conversation long ago with Oriana, when she divulged details of Oak’s horrific birth. How there’d been complications that had cost Liriope her life. How Oriana herself had carved the baby out of her friend’s stomach.

I shudder hard at the recollection and press my cheek hard against Cardan’s back as we ride, my face between his shoulder blades. Hard pass. On every bit of that. Just – one massive hard pass. We are finding a real doctor.

Cardan didn’t even argue. Though he insisted it was time to tell The Court of Shadows, if only for safety reasons while we made an unannounced, unplanned emergency run to the mortal realm.

Nothing goes like either of us had hoped. There are no tears of joy. There are only tight, grim expressions and tense words while plans are made. How we will prevent our enemies from learning of the child and our absence. How we will remain protected while among mortals.

I have hardly a word of help to offer, and that alone is horrifying. I have always schemed and survived – it’s what I am. But there, instead, I can only sit with a hand at my flat stomach, my sole focus on willing this little rebel in me to hear her mother’s first command.

Don’t go. Please. I love you.

Please stay.

Please.

I’ve resented this for weeks, and now I’m begging for the nausea, the aches, the exhaustion to stay – all of it. Any reassurance that I’m not losing this newfound love before I’ve even really gotten to know it.

But I also wonder if I should just accept fate. I have always felt from the beginning that I did not deserve this. That I am stealing a happiness that I have not earned.

“How are you faring?” Cardan asks me over his shoulder, the whine of the wind in my ears. We’re somewhere over the sea, jostled by the roll of the ragwort horse’s gallop beneath us.

“The same,” I answer. Sick. Dizzy. Terrified of what comes next. Unconsciously, I grip his body to mine harder. He’s tense, every muscle on edge. This is unlike any journey we’ve made yet. There’s nothing to fight, and still everything to lose.

“Nearly there,” says Cardan, but it sounds like he’s saying it more for his own benefit. He hates the journey over the sea, the precariousness of ragwort horse travel. I’m not in any state to offer reassurances, or even tease him to lighten the mood.

Sure enough, the clouds part, and the city lights along the coast of Maine wink up at us. It’s evening, and dark beneath a heavy rain cloud, and as soon as we’re low enough, we’re being pelted with sheets of rain. By the time the ragwort horse alights its oaken-hooves on the pavement, Cardan and I are both soaked to the skin.

We dismount, invisible beneath a glamour, at the far end of a hospital parking lot. The sign at the entrance glows with a red cross and the name, Down East Community Hospital. It was the best I could think of to do at a moment’s notice: instruct the ragwort horse to find us an emergency room.

I wrap my arms around myself as Cardan holds out a hand to gather up the horse. The leaves of its mane and the bark-like coat of its body begin to curl in on itself, like a plant rolling in on itself for the night. A moment later, it’s only a few leafy twigs that Cardan can hide in his pocket.

We both look absurd, and I’m just now realizing it. We look like we’ve just run out of a community theatre dress rehearsal for a low-budget melodrama. Cardan’s tried to dress down, but he’s still Cardan, and he’s wearing tight black trousers and tall boots over his calves. He’s thrown one of the zip-up hoodies I keep in my wardrobe for trips to the mortal realm over a loose white shirt. He also must have been feeling particularly festive this morning after last night’s romp, and he’d gone and added a bit of kohl to his eyes before I’d woken up and shit hit the fan. And he’s still wearing gold rings all over his fingers and in his pointed ears. Combined with his soaked, inky hair, he looks a bit like a member of an 80’s rock cover band who’s recovering from being pushed into a pool.

It’s kind of nice. He rarely looks a mess. It makes me feel like we’re in this together, at least.

For my part, I didn’t let Tatterfell braid my auburn hair today, and now it’s just long and windblown, so I’ve tried to pull it all to one side to keep it managed. I’m wearing a simple pair of brown trousers with little silken flats that were my least flashy pair of shoes. I’ve got a shirt and olive-colored vest on beneath a hoodie similar to Cardan’s that was supposed to keep me warm, but now it’s sopping wet.

We both pulls the hoods on our sweatshirts up over our heads as we make a mad dash for the automatic sliding doors of the ER, racing against the onslaught of rain. Once we’re inside the vestibule between sliding doors, I stop a moment to grab Cardan’s arm and gather myself. He puts a bejeweled hand over mine, his expression tightened in concern.

“I’ve never done this before,” I confess, breathless. Hospitals, emergency rooms, doctors. It’s all foreign to me.

“I’ve done it even less.” Cardan’s looking more pale by the minute. The rising terror in both of us is palpable.

“I should call Vivi,” I spout, and Cardan’s nodding furiously in agreement, for once graciously not pointing out how he’s been saying this very thing for weeks.

But when I look around, there’s not a phone in sight. There’s only a poorly lit waiting room on the other side of the glass vestibule, and bored-looking nurses waiting at intake windows. Shit. Shit. How do mortals do this? How to they get treatments for mortal ailments and weaknesses and not fall to pieces fretting over their inherent, inevitable vulnerability in the process?

Suddenly, the surety of immortality is looking rather cowardly by comparison.

“Maybe one of the nurses will let me commandeer a phone,” I mutter, and I let my fingers slide from Cardan’s arm to his hand. My palm is starting to sweat when he laces our fingers together, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

The glass door to the waiting room slides with a hissing whisper, and inside there are people crowded in the cheap chairs lining the walls. Somewhere, a toddler is wailing out of sheer boredom while the evening news anchors jabber on a TV mounted in the far corner above a potted plant. Cardan’s already drawing stares with his ominous, messy appearance. He found a beanie in the pocket of the sweatshirt to cover the pointed tips of his ears, but there’s still kohl streaking his prominent cheekbones. I’m gonna need to clean him up at some point.

Right now, all I’m focused on is slipping into the first open intake seat and figuring out how in the hell I’m going to see a doctor for the first time in my mortal life. I am going to be brave. I have trained for nothing less.

“Hi, how can we help you today?” says a warm-looking middle-aged nurse behind the desk. She has short grey hair and floral scrubs, and a pair of readers perched on the bridge of her nose. Her badge says her name is Josie.

“Um.” My mouth feels dry, but I push on anyway. “I am—I am pregnant, and, um, I’m having some…” I draw in a shaking breath. Why is this so hard? “Some bleeding. I think I need to see a doctor right away.”

“Of course, honey,” Josie says, and peers over her readers. “Have you spoken with your OB?”

“I don’t have one,” I shake my head, my face starting to flush as Josie’s concern increases. I’ve never felt like I belonged in the mortal realm, and it’s never felt more apparent that I’m an outsider.

“Okaaay,” Josie says, slowly, adjusting her readers as she turns to her computer. “Let’s get you registered. Name?”

I hesitate again. I’ve never given my name in any sort of official capacity here among mortals. Especially not since I’d gotten married. What do I want to be called?

“Jude Duarte-Greenbriar,” I hear myself answer. From the chair beside me, Cardan titters a little amused laugh to himself and then bites it back when I shoot him a look. He likes the sound of it, too.

“Okaaay,” Josie says again, pecking at her keyboard. “I’m gonna need you to spell that for me, honey.”

I appall Josie further as the registration process yields the fact that I have neither a driver’s license nor an insurance card. With each of Josie’s judgmental sighs, I can sense Cardan stiffening with repressed irritation next to me, and it’s only stressing me out more. I should have had a talk with him first about promising not to curse anyone. I’m half-expecting Josie to sprout cat ears at any minute.

“While we can’t legally decline services based on insurance,” Josie says, doing little to suppress her concern, “I will need you to sign this agreement that says you understand that, since you are not presenting insurance today, you will be personally responsible for the entire cost of today’s visit.” And she shifts a clipboard toward me.

“Oh, look, love,” Cardan suddenly chimes in. He slides a wet leaf from his pocket across the registration desk as his voice takes on the heady, dangerous quality of magic. He’s conjuring a glamour. “I think you can see all of the insurance information you require here.”

“Oh, good, you found your card!” Josie exclaims, delighted, as she takes the leaf and begins happily clacking away at her keyboard.

“Do not get carried away,” I hiss at Cardan while Josie’s distracted. “That should be a one time thing.”

But Cardan just slits his kohl-lined eyes at me, looking like the smug bastard he’s always been, and leans an elbow on the registration desk, throwing Josie a coy smile. The glamour in his voice when he speaks again is just as sinfully seductive.

“And Josie, my sweet,” he says, “you’ll let my wife borrow your phone to speak with her sister, won’t you, dearest?”

“Of course, Mr. Greenbriar,” Josie replies, with the charmed-sweet smile of the glamoured. She shifts her desk phone to me, handing me the handset. “Just press nine for outgoing calls, honey,” she tells me.

I’m frowning at Cardan’s wicked smirk as I accept the phone.

“I don’t think that was entirely necessary,” I whisper to him while Josie types away. He grins at me. I don’t really want to admit that he’s just been pretty useful, and he knows it.

Regardless of how ill-gotten this privilege is, I do need Vivi. I dial her cell phone, one of two numbers I know, and wait while it rings.

And rings.

“She might be screening her calls,” I say to Josie, sheepishly. “Her father is…” Oh, how to describe what Madoc is like these days. “…over-bearing and tricky.” And I hang up and try again. Josie gives a tight, uncomfortable smile, peering over her readers.

“You are not concerned about how unusual this is,” Cardan tells her, the glamour dripping off his voice, and I smack his arm to get him to stop. Josie settles again as the phone keeps ringing.

I have to hang up and dial two more times before Vivi finally picks up. She sounds irritated when she answers.

“Vivi, this is Jude,” I say, slumping in relief that she’s finally answered.

“Jude? Seriously? What?” The annoyance in her voice vanishes as she’s scrambling to understand. “You’re calling me? Where are you? Are you ok?”

“I’m at the Down East Community Hospital emergency room,” I say. “Can you come?”

“Oh, my God.” It sounds like Vivi’s suddenly frantically looking for her keys. “Yes, I’m coming. I’ll be there. Why are you there? What’s going on?”

“It’s a lot to explain over the phone,” I say, slowly, white-knuckling the handset. “I’m ok, and Cardan’s here, but I just really need you.” I hate it more than anything, but I can’t keep the frightened younger sister out of my voice now that I’m actually talking to Vivi about this. The first rush of relief hits me when Vivi replies without hesitation:

“Ok. It’s gonna be ok. I’m on my way.”

I let out a long breath as I hand the phone back to Josie.

“The nurse will call you back when they’re ready for you,” says Josie, and gestures to the crowded waiting room. “Have a seat.”

“Or--” Cardan starts, leaning forward, and I know he’s about to throw out another glamour to speed things along. In the blink of an eye, I clap a hand over his mouth before he can say another word.

“Thank you,” I tell Josie, through a gritted smile, and urge Cardan to move along.

“Your moral stance on glamours ought to have a loophole where our child is concerned,” Cardan gripes as we shuffle to the nearest available two chairs.

“You Folk are like addicts with glamours,” I snap back as we take a seat. “You don’t know when to stop.”

“I believe I’ve proven myself capable of great restraint,” Cardan says, looking miffed for a moment until a People magazine on a nearby table catches his eye and his curiosity of mortals gets the better of him.

He has the right idea, I think. Distraction would be the key to getting my mind off the blood and not falling apart right now. I’ve done everything I can at this point, and now we must wait.

I busy myself for a moment by wrapping the cuff of my sleeve over my fingers and wiping off the rain-splattered streaks of kohl off Cardan’s face, so that the father of my child looks less like the troubled D-list celebrities his People magazine is trashing. He’s not drawing any less attention, but there’s not much either of us can do about that. If you’re not accustomed to the allure of the Folk, it’s nigh impossible to not stare and stare and try to decipher what it is about them that’s so otherworldly. But at least now they’re staring for the right reasons and not at his ruined eyeliner.

With nothing more at arm’s length to distract me, I rest my head against the wallpaper behind me and let my vision go unfocused in the general direction of the TV in the corner. I don’t want to think about the whining toddler in the room, who’s mad at his mother for not bringing the right stuffed animal with them to the hospital. What would I do with a half-human child in Faerie who fell ill or wounded? What would we do? Would the land let Cardan heal him? Would we have to make this journey again? What if I forgot the right stuffed animal, too??

Amazing that I’m suddenly assuming this child is going to survive whatever’s happening now, I realize, and this worry spiral is helping no one.

Once upon a time, I’d been the girl determined to become a thing feared. What has happened inside me, that I’m now this terrified woman? I hate it. I hate it, and I don’t know how to stop it.

“You’re not afraid of that everything will change?” I remember asking Cardan, three moons ago. I had thrown out the last of my birth control that day. We’d snuck away from a revel to lie beneath the massive tree that grew out of the top of the palace of Elfhame, staring at the stars above and dreaming of what they could hold.

Cardan looked to me, his hands behind his head in the loam, his crown slightly askew. He smiled, and the moonlight made him almost too beautiful to bear.

“I cherish every change you’ve ever brought me, Jude,” he said, and he stretched out a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers softly lingering at its rounded edges. “I don’t see why this should be any different.”

“You’ve not always felt so gracious about the changes I’ve foisted upon you,” I pointed out. “And you don’t get to exile me now if my parenting pisses you off.”

I’m not sure what I thought he’d think of such a statement, but it was out in the night air anyway. His gold-rimmed eyes darkened as he pulled his hand back, folding it over his chest. I watched him as he stared up at the stars again, waiting for his response, and with each second, regret began to sink in.

“I consider myself fairly thick-skinned,” he said at last, “but that was uncalled for.”

“I was teasing--” I started, but he shot me a dark look.

“There was a measure of truth in your voice,” he countered. “You don’t lie as well as you think you do.”

“I don’t see what you’re so put out about,” I huffed, pulling back to glare at the night sky. “You weren’t the one living in exile.”

“Not this again,” Cardan groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Five years, Jude. It’s been five years,” he sighed into his palms.

“And now we’re discussing children, and it’s a very large and potentially aggravating change,” I said. “Maybe I am a little wary.”

“Of me?” The moment I saw the unguarded devastation on Cardan’s face, it was like I’d slapped him, and not in the fun way. I wanted to be swallowed down by the loam, covered in a grassy grave. Everything about this was awful. I wanted children with this man. Why was I dredging up ancient history?

But Cardan had been right. There’d been a measure of truth to it. It’s been a deliriously wonderful five years, but we are not entirely new people. We have a terrible past. And I feared what demons a significant change like this could summon.

When I didn’t answer right away, Cardan sat up so his back was to me, burying his head in his hands.

“Cardan…” I shifted so that I was propped up on my hands.

“What else can I give you to make this right?” he fretted to the ground in front of him. “I have given you everything. Every part of me, everything you see before you. It was wrong for both of us to take our games as far as we did, but I would have thought by now--”

“It was an off-handed comment made in poor taste.” I wanted to put a stop to everything that was happening. Rewind the whole evening.

Instead, he looked over his shoulder at me, visibly aching.

“I will not be like my father. I refuse it,” he retorted, and when I cocked my head to the side, not understanding, he went on. “Eldred collected consorts and sired children the way some people curate shoes: to suit his vanity. And I have that in spades already; there’s no need to spawn more. What I would want for a child, more than anything, is to not know what it is to grow up as an accessory. To not fear that his mother will be discarded. Jude, if you cannot trust so little of me, then this is poorly timed. Perhaps we need another five years. Or ten. Or however long you require.”

I sat up and scooted next to him, tucking my chin against his shoulder.

“I trust you,” I assured him in a whisper, and, as if he couldn’t help it, his eyes closed as he leaned his head towards mine. He smelled like oakwood and leather, like everything I’ve ever wanted. “I would not still be with you if I did not trust you.”

I wanted to push back the thick curls from his forehead, and so I did. And held my palm against his jaw as I leaned my forehead to his while the stars twinkled overhead.

Five years later, and sometimes we’re still finding little bits of armor that need to come off. For me, becoming a fearsome thing is not an option for handling motherhood, just as Cardan refuses to mirror his father’s vanity. But when I take off this bit of armor, this need to be feared and respected, it feels as if there is nothing underneath yet. Only vulnerability. Only terror.

I think of it now, in the ER waiting room of the Down East Community Hospital, while I snake my arm through his, looking at him while he’s ogling People magazine. He looks a mess, and there is no one I trust more. I’m still not convinced we’re shining examples of excellent would-be parents. But I’m afraid and vulnerable in the worst ways, and there’s no one I’d rather see me through it.

“Eldred would never have done something like this for any of his consorts,” I point out to him in a whisper, and he looks back at me with a pleased smirk.

“You are my wife,” he indicates, and gives my cold knuckles a swift kiss before turning back to whatever filth is engrossing him in People.

“Jude Duarte-Greenbriar?” There’s a nurse at the emergency room door calling my name. I draw in a breath. Here we go.

The nurse in blue scrubs takes my vitals and makes us somewhat comfortable in a makeshift space where we’re surrounded by taupe-colored curtains on three sides while I wait on a hospital bed. There’s a squeaky grey plastic chair for Cardan to sit on, and no more TV or People magazine – just the assurance that a doctor will see me soon. And then we’re left with our dread to stare at the taupe curtains around us, listening to the squeak of hurried shoe soles against linoleum and the occasional beeping of hospital pagers. The air is acrid, like someone’s tried to scrub it clean, and it’s making my stomach lurch. It must show on my face as I swallow hard against the rising bile, because Cardan swiftly hands me a blue plastic barf bag that the nurse has left him in charge of. He’s wary of my empty threats to aim for his shoes.

“Jude, are you decent?” calls a voice from the other side of the curtain. “You have visitors.”

The curtains scrape against their tracks on the ceiling, and I can’t hold back a relief grin at the sight of Vivi and Heather.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” It’s all Vivi can say as she sweeps in to wrap me in a hug.

“Hey,” Heather graciously greets Cardan while the two are awkward to the side. She’s looking effortlessly cool, with her shoulder-length pink hair in soft waves. She has holes in her jeans in all the right places, and she’s wearing a breezy, colorful boho top that shows off her brown shoulders. I try to give her a wave while Vivi is squeezing the life out of me.

“What are you doing here?” Vivi demands when she pulls away, holding me by the shoulders. She’s given her golden hair a short, edgey chop that almost hides the pointed tips of her half-fae ears when it falls the right way. She tends to favor t-shirts and jeans, but today she’s in tight black pants and a grey v-neck under a jacket, and I’m hoping I haven’t interrupted a date.

“Well.” I shift a glance between the two of them, simultaneously gladdened that they’re here and nervous with how I now I have break the news. “This isn’t how I wanted you to find out…” And then Vivi gasps.

“Are you pregnant?!” she squeaks.

“Oh, my God, V,” Heather rolls her eyes. “You can’t ask people if they’re pregnant.”

“She’s right, though,” I interject. “I am.”

“Jude!” Vivi exclaims, fondly, and takes my face in her hands, and, for a brief moment, I realize this is all I’ve been wanting for weeks. I grin, sheepishly. Then Vivi narrows her cat-like eyes at Cardan.

“You knocked up my sister?” she jabs.

“Bold of you to assume it’s mine,” he quips back, and Vivi feigns a disgusted gasp as throw the empty barf bag at him.

“Force of habit,” Cardan tells Heather with a shrug.

“Congratulations, Cardan,” Heather replies, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

“But why are you here?” Vivi turns to me again. “Does Taryn know? Does Madoc?”

“No on both counts,” I shake my head. “It’s early. And we’re here because--” Ugh, I hate this. I hate this. “I started bleeding.”

“Oh, no.” Heather’s face is etched with genuine concern. It’s been a roller coaster of a few minutes.

“But why are you here?” Vivi tries again, and I see what she’s getting at. Why not be seen to by the royal midwives?

“I’m mortal,” I say, quietly. “This is a mortal thing. I felt like I needed a mortal doctor.”

And Vivi takes my face in her hands.

“I completely, one-hundred-percent agree,” she says, whole-heartedly, and there’s relief there, too. She’s always wanted me to spend more time in the mortal realm.

We crowd around the hospital bed for a while to catch up. Heather makes a run to the vending machine to bring back some snacks, and soon the tightness in my chest is releasing and unwinding. This was the distraction I needed. For a few minutes there, I could almost forget what had brought us to this weird, curtained-off corner to begin with.

But then the curtain scrape on the track again. There’s an orderly waiting there in blue scrubs, pushing a wheelchair.

“They’re ready for you in ultrasound now, Jude,” he tells me, and indicates that I’m supposed to ride in the chair. I bristle at the gesture. I’m not sure of the last time I’ve been asked to do something so vulnerable and humiliating. I am not ill. I don’t need this.

Vivi notices and puts a hand at my arm.

“It’s just standard hospital procedure, Jude,” she says, in her tone of voice she uses to convince Oak to eat vegetables.

So I comply. Heather and Vivi tell us they’ll wait for us to get back, and then we’re off. Cardan follows the orderly, and every once and awhile, I hear him having to jog to catch up – he’s easily distracted by what all the mortals are up to in this place.

I’m wheeled into a dark room with an exam table. Next to it is a bunch of strange equipment I’ve never seen before – screens and wands and all sort of buttons. A technician waits for us there, a woman in pink scrubs with a badge that says her name is Brenna. Her dark, curly hair is pulled back tight against her scalp, and she has kind brown eyes that smile when she tells me to make myself comfortable on the exam table.

“And is this Dad?” Brenna wants to know, cheerfully waving Cardan in to have a seat on a grey plastic chair next to me.

“Not my dad,” I say, not understanding the question at first. Then it dawns on me. “I mean, he’s the father, yes. Of the baby.” Oh, my God. This is off to a great start. Cardan’s trying very hard to not laugh outright at me and failing miserably. His laugh comes out like one long snort.

“Happens all the time,” Brenna says, with another cheerful wave, which makes me wonder why she’s still asking it, then.

“First baby?” Brenna now wants to know, making small talk while she’s queuing up her equipment.

“First everything,” I reply, hoping that will explain my nerves. “First baby, first ultrasound, first try.”

“Oh.” Brenna sounds impressed and looks to Cardan as she wheels around in her swivel chair. “Nice shootin’, Tex,” she tells him, with a wink.

“Thank you, Brenna,” Cardan accepts graciously, puffing out his chest a little. I roll my eyes.

“This may be the only time I’m ever complimented on my marksmanship,” he tells me. “Let me have this moment.”

“All right!” Brenna interrupts. “Let’s see what you’re cookin’ in there, mama.”

She rolls up my shirt and tucks in some scratchy paper into my leggings. Then squirts some cold gel across my abdomen. I watch in fascination while she rolls her device over my stomach, and then she turns her screen to us.

“And here’s your little guy,” she says. “Or gal. Can’t tell yet, obviously.”

For a moment, time stops.

Next to me, Cardan draws in a breath.

Something squirmy and alive curls and stretches in the grainy black and white pixels of Brenna’s screen. It doesn’t look quite human. Or fae. It looks kind of alien, if I’m being honest. But I can see its tiny limbs and the outline of its perfectly round head, and it’s moving. Like a manic little seahorse, our little shrimp is bobbing all over the place, alive and well.

“Looking good,” Brenna says, and Cardan barks out a surprised laugh. I’m smiling so hard my face might break.

“Oh, I was sure I’d stabbed it,” Cardan sighs in relief, slumping in his seat, and it’s my turn to laugh.

“That’s not actually possible,” Brenna tells him, and maybe now he’ll believe it. “Let’s see if we can hear the heartbeat.”

She clicks and clacks at some buttons, then turns a knob. Pushes a little harder on my abdomen.

A fluttering, steady whooshing sound fills the speakers in the room. I don’t know when I grabbed Cardan’s hand, but I’m squeezing it hard now. I glance at him. He’s utterly transfixed on the screen, his dark eyes wide, his lips parted. He looks like how I feel when I’m in bearing witness to great and ancient magic.

This isn’t all vomit and exhaustion. This is happening. This is real.

We are making something new. Something entirely unique. Like magic.

“Ok, this might be your issue.” Brenna breaks the enchantment, zooming in on something dark on her screen. My heart, which moments before felt like it might burst, squeezes and contracts in panic now.

“This is a sub-chorionic hematoma,” she says, pointing to the screen and making some notes. “The doctor will explain all this to you.”

“What is it?” Cardan’s voice is tight, panic thinly-veiled. “Is it dangerous?”

“They’re pretty common,” says Brenna, not looking at us while she takes measurements and notes. Like she drops these kinds of bombs regularly. “It’s basically an accumulation of blood between the uterine wall and the fetal membrane. It can cause bleeding, especially as the baby gets bigger and jostles it around. They usually resolve without much issue.”

“Usually?” Cardan’s not assuaged.

“Well, again,” Brenna says, looking at him sidelong, “the doctor will read this and give his advice. But it can increase the risk of miscarriage in some cases. Not always, though. The doctor will tell you how he wants you to treat it, but it usually involves some bed rest or limited activity, nothing too strenuous or crazy. Don’t go horse-back riding!” And she laughs as if only a crazy person would get on a horse while pregnant.

I look to Cardan. He looks to me. It’s hit us at the same time.

The ragwort horse.

How the hell are we getting home?

“Huh.” I barely had time to digest my realization about the ragwort horse before Brenna was back with more. She swivels the device on my stomach around some more. Cocks her head to the side.

“Are either of you a twin?” she asks.

Cardan points at me like I’ve done something wrong he doesn’t want to be blamed for.

“Why?” I ask, slowly, cautiously.

“It does run in families,” Brenna says, and turns the screen to us again. “And I’m seeing two babies here.” She looks back at Cardan. “And on the first try, Tex,” she says, looking impressed again.

Now, nothing feels real. I think I might leave my body. There are two squirmy aliens in the black and white screen, the lazier of the two now floating into view. Brenna adjusts the knobs some more to bring the new heartbeat into focus, just as strong as the first.

“Jude.” I can’t decipher what Cardan’s feeling now. He looks unlike I’ve ever seen him before. Something between elation and sheer dread is warring between his wide eyes and furrowed brow. He grips at the beanie over his hair like he’s trying to keep his own head from flying off.

“Are you and your twin identical?” Brenna asks. I nod, stupidly.

“These, too,” she nods, and points at the screen. “See: they’re sharing a sac.” She draws in a deep breath. “This does elevate the risk more, with the hematoma. The doctor will go over all of this with you. But I’ll bet he’ll want you on some kind of bed rest. Weekly check-ups. That sort of thing.” And then she squints hard at the screen. “What is that?” she wonders aloud. “Is that a tail?”

“You don’t see a tail,” Cardan says, but he’s so flustered and shell-shocked, he’s forgotten to use the glamour.

“I think I might, though.” Brenna squints harder.

“You don’t see a tail,” Cardan says, louder and hurried, this time with the weight of magic heavy in his tone. “Everything you see looks normal to you.”

A glamoured smile flutters over Brenna’s pleasant features as she lifts the device from my belly and clicks off her equipment.

“Everything looks normal,” she hums, happily. “Congratulations, you two.”

“Everything but the hematoma, right?” I cock my head to the side as she rolls away her swivel chair. “The doctor will speak to us about that.”

“What hematoma?” Brenna’s still smiling as she stands with her clipboard. “Everything looks normal. I’m going to call an orderly, but pretty much you’re free to go. Congratulations!”

“Cardan,” I accuse under my breath as she leaves, leveling a glare at him.

“You are carrying twins.” He’s just agape at me, either unaware or unrattled by how the poor wording in his glamour just muddled everything.

“The doctor won’t know about the hematoma now!” I exclaim.

“We’ll scrounge up another one somewhere,” Cardan waves me off. “Jude. Twins.”

It’s not helping me feel any better, him saying it over and over again. I slump into my hands, weighted by disbelief and frustration. What am I going to do? This can’t possibly be real, can it?

“I am going to get so huge,” I moan into my palms in self-pity. I know it’s vain, but at the moment, it’s all I can think. In the land of willowy Folk, I already stick out like a sore thumb. Now I’m going to be a sore and massively swollen thumb.

Cardan’s shifted to stand in front of me on the exam table. And he runs his hands up and down my arms, almost reverent.

“You are magnificent,” he reassures me, softly, and presses a kiss against my head.

“Why are you not freaking out?” I ask, and pull him by the hoodie pockets so I can hug him again if I need it. I think I may need it. “This is two babies. We don’t even know Thing One about taking care of one baby, and now there will be two.”

“We may require a few more house cats,” Cardan jokes, and when I scowl, he asks, “That’s still not amusing? I shall persist. One of these days.”

“You know, I hear that’s a mortal fatherhood trait,” I point out. “Persisting over and over with the same unamusing joke to the embarrassment of everyone around you.” And I wrap my arms around his waist as I look up at him. He’s warm, and everything is a little more bearable when he’s close and smiling.

“I think you are implying that I’m excelling at fatherhood so far,” Cardan grins down at me, and I’m surprised to see it looks as if his gold-rimmed eyes are glistening.

“Are you all right?” I ask, softening at the sight. He blinks, furiously, as he buries his long fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck, holding me close as he looks over my face.

“I just--” His voice is hoarse when he starts, so he clears it and tries again. “This is more than I ever dared to consider,” he says. “I did not dream that this kind of life would ever be an option for me. Family that looked after each other, that loved each other – that always seemed to me to be a strictly mortal gift. As if the Folk had bargained for everlasting life long ago and forsook all hope of familial love in the process. I had accepted that it wasn’t mine to have. But you.”

He shifts his hands so that he holds my face, and I feel swallowed by the adoration in his admission. All I can do is close my eyes as he holds me. I can think of nothing else when his nose brushes my forehead.

“I am overcome by all you have given me,” he whispers, and I think I might cry. My hands twist in the fabric of the sweatshirt he wears.

“I love your words,” I whisper back, “but you give me too much credit.” I pull back to look at his mirthful, glistening eyes and say: “If it were left up to me, I would never have given you twins.”

He laughs outright, unguarded and thrilled.

“Lucky for me, then,” he says, and kisses me.

I have kissed him hundreds, maybe thousands of times. We have shared passionate, unbridled kisses and desperate, devouring kisses. We’ve kissed at quick partings, and we’ve kissed with soft, gentle comfort. I like everything about them all. But this is something entirely new, something that surprises me still. It’s filled with gratitude and promises and dreams of the future, and though it is intimate, I would not have felt ashamed if someone had walked in.

It’s the kiss of complete trust, and in that moment, I feel assured that, in Cardan, I have not made a mistake. There is much to figure out still. But this is right.

So, we will have twins. I will meet this challenge with resolve. For right now, anyway, the quantity of babies is the least of our concerns.

“How in the hell am I supposed to get home?” I ask, the moment we pull apart. Cardan rests his hands on my shoulders, screwing up his beautiful mouth in thought. The ragwort horse. The bed rest. The doctor we must scrounge up somewhere. There are a dozen new bullets swirling on a to-do list, and none of them lead us back to Faerie any time soon.

“I haven’t the foggiest,” he confesses. “Which further complicates matters, because there is absolutely no chance that I am leaving you here.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” I say, and press back a smile. “And also glad,” I add.

Cardan meets my smile with a little wicked smirk of his own.

“Is it time we scheme together once again?” he asks.

We cannot get home until this is resolved, and we cannot leave Faerie ungoverned. I have no idea where to even start on this problem.

But that’s certainly never stopped us before.

There’s a knock at the door. The orderly has arrived with the wheelchair to take us back to Vivi and Heather. I give Cardan a secret, knowing smile.

“I suppose it is,” I agree.

-----------------------------

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#the folk of the air #tfota #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #jurdan #jurdan fanfic #vivienne duarte #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #post-qon #babies!#baby fic #pregnancy fic #fluff #jurdan fluff

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