#mariah carey's on the radio so obviously it's christmas
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The Season is approaching! Felt like drawing something a little ~Yuletide~y now that the weather is growing colder. Don't know what or if I'll be doing anything this year... But ah, I can hope 💖
🎄Warmer ver. + further ramblings beneath the cut <3🎄
Wasn't sure if this was Too Much, lmao. I love my layers.
And I love these two dweebs! The things you can extrapolate from their dynamic-- Trashfire tier 💖 And that's not including the crackfic-tier backstory I have for them. Plenty of interesting ways you could contrast them.
If nothing else, it is very funny to have Morgott yell at you from utop his cringefail great-nephew(x???)'s castle like he's chasing you off his lawn with a cane.
#elden ring#fromsoft#morgott the omen king#godrick the grafted#fan art#scrawny draws#mariah carey's on the radio so obviously it's christmas#merri critma :}#have these two dweebs#peepaw forced into cosy coat + turtleneck#rick may be a mess in every sense of the word#but by grace he's a mess with style!#get out of those rags smh#lmk if these goons got a shipname#asking for a friend <3
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ok hi OBVIOUSLY chuuya x reader y’know with the Mariah Carey prompt for your Christmas event where reader won’t shut up <3 Tyty
"all i want for christmas is you .ᐟ"
gn reader . chuuya x reader. drabble. unedited writing . ty for the request . merry xmas!!!⁰ .ᐟ
it was a fine, non-christmas day morning! the winter weather forced you and your boyfriend to huddle inside for warmth. however, your boyfriend was busy. he was writing down paperwork for his work, so you had to entertain yourself until chuuya was finished his work. but it's been 3 hours already; WHAT on earth is he doing?
as you sit in your room; on the bed, kicking your legs as you looked around until your eyes caught the TV and it's remote. with a smile a thought came to mind and you jumped to your feet; rushing to the remote and quickly turned on youtube.
40 mins go by...
chuuya is seated at the dining room table, a cieling fan light the only source illuminating the room. he was just taking a quick break, listening to the radio and singing small country songs in his head...sipping on his coffee...nothing could ruin this mom-
"ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU!!~"
chuuya almost fell out his chair hearing the sound of your voice. the cracka that came out- he could mistaken them for child screams.
he spilled his coffee all over his attire- his leather jacket now going to have the stench of dark roast coffee.
he can already feel his blood boil as he rockets up from his seat and stomps towards your room.
"I JUST WANNA SEE MY BABY-"
"i swear to god if i hear another mariah carey note out of your mouth-" chuuya'a voiced caught you off guard as you currently singing your pretty little lungs out like it was the end of the movie and your the main character going through character development.
"standing right...outside my..door.."
chuuya glares at you, hands on his hips.
you sighed tiredly, rolling your eyes at your boyfriends statement; turning down the music as crossing your arms. facing him with a fake pout and replied; "is my singing that bad, my own boyfriend thinks im horrible?"
you fake dramatic gasp, hand on your chest & falling into the bed sheets of your shared bed.
you hide a giggle when you hear him groan and rub his face; "babe- you know that's not what i mean!"
"then whatever do you mean? are you telling me to shut up, or continue?" before you could take another breath you feel your body fall down back on the bed, however chuuya's body looms over you.
he stares into your e/c eyes and leaned down to kiss your lips. this isn't what you we're expecting, but you would never refuse a kiss from this amazing kisser your proud to call your boyfriend.
he pulls away; licking his lips and sighing. "just...be a bit more quieter?" he asks and you nod slowly; "i guess so...but i'm so bored! you're work is getting in the way of me and you!" you shurgged; sitting up as chuuya lets you up and walks toward the door.
"how about this, you keep singing...this...and i'll reserve us a christmas dinner tonight; my treat~" he grins seeing your eyes sparkle up like christmas lights. you grabbed the remote you were using as a microphone and kissed your boyfriend on the lips once more;
"can't wait, sweetheart~"
𐙚 tags : @chuunai , @akuji336
#bsd#bsd x reader#bungo stray dogs#bsd nakahara chuuya#chuuya x reader#nakahara chuuya x reader#bsd chuuya#x reader#bsd chuuya x reader#chuuya nakahara x reader#chuuya nakahara#bsd nakahara chuuya x reader#bungo stray dogs x reader#bsd x y/n#bungou stray dogs#bsd x you#bsd fluff#my writing#๋࣭ ⭑ rue writes 🖋
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Kaeya+ Ehat kind of Songs and Genres do they listen to?
Thank you for your time!
What type of song/genre do they listen to?
Pairings: kaeya x no one lul
Date: 18/4/22
Warnings: none
A/n: im really lazy to link my things help me.... mobile tumblr tingz
HE LISTENS TO MARIAH CAREY- slaps
okaayyy but in all seriousness. He does.
I can 100% see him blasting her songs in his radio with the windows down while driving around town.
Obviously not the typical christmas songs, there are other songs too!
The one song he could listen to non stop is Fantasy (by Mariah Carey of course), its just so addicting and feels new to the ears everytime one listens to it
Some of her songs are quite upbeat and gets him up for the day when he'd usually rather just lay down in bed doing nothing or drinking wine someplace else
go listen to the queen for yourself 🙏
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A Playlist?
Summary: Your friend gives you a playlist, but it has the same song on it
Pairing: Kazunari Takao x gn!reader
Warnings: confusion, bit of miscommunication, little bit of fluff
Word Count: 1,856
A/N: I actually went back and watched kuroko no basket because of an ask I got, and I ended up falling in love with this man all over again
"What are you doing here?" Midorima asks you, and you scoff at the annoyance in his voice.
"Can't I come and see you on a random day of the year?" you ask, and he rolls his eyes before turning around to shoot the ball, and you watch as it makes it in, the ball only touching the net.
You heard Midorima talking to Takao about wanting to practice his shooting at an outside court because the school's gym was closed for cleaning. You decided to tag along, but you're slowly regretting that decision as you jump up and down to try and get some type of warmth.
"What's in the bag?" he asks you, and you smile widely as you remember why you brought it.
"It's a present for you!" you tell him excitedly, and he gives you a confused look as he pushes his glasses up his face. "Oh, c'mon, it's not bad. Here, open it!" You hand him the bag, and he eyes it cautiously before accepting it.
You watch as he slowly opens it like he's waiting for something to jump out at him. When he pulls out the item, he holds it in front of his face before looking back at you. "It's a doll that looks like you," you explain, even though he should be able to obviously see that. "My sister made it for you. She says that you're her favorite basketball player."
You see his expression soften slightly at the origin of the doll. "It's cute, right?" you ask, and you see him tense up before he hesitates. Granted, it's not the best-looking doll out there, you would even say it's a little creepy looking. "Takao, come look at Midorima's present." You call your other friend over, and he jogs over to you, and he burst out laughing when his eyes land on the doll.
"Their sister made it," Midorima explains, and Takao's laugh seems to die down, but you speak up again.
"I guarantee that that doll will be your lucky item in about two days." You and Takao start laughing again, and Midorima rolls his eyes before neatly putting the doll back in the bag it came in. You sit on the bench, watching the both of them scrimmage with each other for so long, you don't know how much time's passed. But what you do know is that you're freezing.
You thought you had worn enough clothes for today, but you didn't expect it to be so windy today. You rub your arms violently as you shiver, and the sound of footsteps coming closer to you makes you look up. You tilt your head up to see Takao standing in front of you, holding his jacket in front of you.
"Here. Take it," he tells you, and you thank him as best as you can through your chattering teeth before taking the jacket and slipping your arms inside. You take a deep breath in as you feel the warmth surrounding you, and his scent overflows your nostrils. You snap out of whatever trance you were in, looking back at Takao.
"Thanks," you tell him softly, and he stares at you before nodding his head. It looks like he's about to say something else, but Midorima calls his name and he's jogging away from you and back onto the court. While you're busy working on warming yourself back up, Midorima is looking at his teammate with a certain expression.
Takao raises his eyebrows as Midorima pushes his glasses up. "You're not getting tired are you, Shin?" he asks, playfully, but the look he's giving him is making him nervous. He doesn't say anything, but he glances in your direction, and Takao feels his eyes widen slightly. He hasn't figured it out, has he?
"You should say something," he tells him bluntly, and he waves him off with his hand.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he responds, feigning ignorance.
~
"Takao!" you call out, jogging a little to catch up to him in the hallway. He turns around, a smile appearing on his face when his eyes land on you. You reach out with his jacket in your hand. "Thanks for letting me borrow it," you tell him, and he takes it from you, and he hopes you don't notice the hesitancy in his movements. He liked seeing you in his jacket. As a matter of fact, it was all he could think about the rest of the time he was practicing that day.
"It was no problem." He puts the jacket on, and the first thing he notices is how much it smells like you now. He has to refrain from bringing the material up to his nose and breathing in deeply. You're saying something that he doesn't catch, and you start to walk away, but he stops you. You turn around, your eyebrows raising in concern when you see his face turning pink.
You wait for him to say something, walking a little bit closer to him. He sticks his hands in his pockets, looking down at the floor before he reaches into his backpack. He pulls something out, handing it to you. You take it, confusion written on your features as you see that it's a CD. "I made you a Christmas playlist," he tells you sheepishly. "Since you said you love Christmas music."
The confusion on your face is replaced with joy as you look at the disc, your name is written on it with Christmas decorations surrounding it. "Oh, wow, thanks! I'll listen to it tonight." The bell rings and you say goodbye before running off to class, and Takao sighs, his heart racing like he just played a tight game.
~
You're about to start on your homework, digging through your bag to find your notes when your hand lands on the CD Takao gave you. You look over, grazing over the writing through the glass, and you decide to play it while you work. You put it in your radio before sitting back down, the first song playing through the speakers, and you immediately recognize it as "All I Want For Christmas Is You," the Mariah Carey version of course, and you smile at the sound of one of your favorite Christmas songs playing.
You hum to the music as you work, and you wait to hear the next song when it ends. You tilt your head in confusion when you hear the song playing again, and you just assume he put it on the playlist twice by accident, but you listen to it happily anyway. But then you hear the song play again. Then again. And again.
You start to think the CD is messed up, so you take it out and clean it before putting it back in. But your confusion is only fueled when the song keeps playing like it's on repeat. You take the CD out, looking over it. If something really is wrong with it, why would he give it to you in the first place? You don't think any damage would've been done by putting it in your bag, you made sure you were careful not to cause any.
Then you think about it. What if he actually made the playlist with only this song? You lean back in your chair as you think. Wait. You shake your head slightly at the conclusion you come to. There's no way that was his intention, right? Was this his way of hitting on you? You have to admit, it'd be just like Takao to do something like this, but at the same time, it could be a joke.
But if it was a joke, he would have been more willing to give it to you. You think back to when he handed you the CD. It was kind of hard to tell because you usually don't see him that way, but he seemed nervous.
Your homework was completely forgotten, and you spent the rest of the night figuring out what it meant. Even as you were walking through the hallways the next day, you tried to convince yourself that you were overthinking it, that there's no way that he could possibly like you. Right?
You're so busy arguing your thoughts that you end up running into someone in the middle of the hallway, and luckily you catch your stuff before it falls out of your hand. "I'm really sorry, oh, Takao."
"No, it's my fault, I wasn't watching where I was going." You both linger in the hallway awkwardly, avoiding eye contact. You didn't think you'd see him this soon, you don't really know where to start.
"Listen about that playlist," you start, but he's quick to cut you off.
"Oh, that? Don't worry about that, it was just a joke," he responds quickly, and you feel your shoulders slump a little. You really hoped it wasn't, and you struggle to say what you want to say, but you figure that everyone gets rejected at some point.
"Really? Because I was hoping it wasn't," you reply easily, and you're confused when you see his face morph in surprise and relief?
You watch as he seems to freeze in his spot, and you tilt your head in concern as you step closer to him. You reach your hand out to touch him. "Takao?"
When your hand lands on his arm he jumps, seeming to be out of the trance he was in. "Wait, wait, do you mean that you feel the same way I do? Like, you like like me?"
You chuckle slightly at the way he's babbling, and you nod as you slowly slide your hand into his. "Yes, Kazu, I like like you."
You think he short circuits again, but then he's coming back, lacing his fingers with yours. "Okay, so now ill have to tell Midorima that he was wrong. That confessing my feelings for you through a playlist was ingenious."
You laugh a little louder. "It is something that you would do." He flashes you that smile that makes your heart race, and this time is no different.
"Hold on, now I have to ask you out on a date." You smile even harder at the sudden subject change, but then he's shaking his head. "Is it okay if I ask you after school? I'm still a little shocked at the fact that you like me too. I gotta get myself together first."
You laugh again as you nod. "If you want to, but you know I don't care."
"I know, but I want to ask you properly, you know?" You're about to respond when Midorima comes up behind him and pulling him away by the collar. "Wait, Shin, wait I'm not done yet." Midorima doesn't listen, instead responds with something about him needing to get to class and to stop holding you hostage.
"I'll ask you out after school, okay?" Takao yells before he disappears down the hallway.
Of course, he's still a nervous wreck when he asks you out, but to you, it doesn't matter, your answer was already yes.
Christmas Event Masterlist!
#issematsukawwawritingevent#kuroko no basuke#kuroko's basketball#kuroko no basket#takao kazunari#kazunari takao#kazunari takao x reader#kazunari takao x you#takao kazunari x reader#takao kazunari x you
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christmas time.
what about dean and cas going christmas shopping together huh? what about cas buying stupidly cute plushies and board games for jack and dean saying how the kid's neither a toddler nor an actual kid blah blah so obviously dean ends up swiping his credit card to pay for an overpriced set of legos. it's star wars, okay? which does nothing to erase the smug look from cas’ face.
he also ends up paying for all the plushies and board games and tees (”seriously cas, spongebob?” to which cas flatly states “jack likes yellow”) and (fugly) sweaters and a pack of ridiculous reindeer antlers headbands. for fuck’s sake. is this the type of person dean is now?
then again, he could be doing worse.
on the way to the car, dean asks what cas wants for christmas, but cas only smiles and says there's no need for dean to trouble himself with that. dammit cas.
"so what, opening boxes and tearing wrappers off, that’s just for jack?" he half jokes, hoping for cas to hint at whatever he may need or want for himself, anything. if cas can name it, dean can get it.
"well, he is our kid, dean. i believe it's common for parents to just sit and watch throughout the unwrapping process." cas states matter-of-factly. "isn't it?" he adds, maybe to get confirmation.
definitely to get some sort of response. not whatever dean is offering, which is... nada.
cas just stands there, nose reddened by the cold and hair wind-swept.
as if he hasn't flipped dean's world topsy-turvy with that one array of words. cas is, for all it matters, jack's father, no questions. and, objectively, dean knows jack is family as much as sam and cas are.
hell, dean feeds jack properly (he’s hitting the produce section more often these days) and watches crappy shows and cartoons because jack wants to (scooby-doo will outlive us all, bitch) and he even taught jack how to drive, the memory of which still shocks him to this day, trusting baby into the kid’s uneducated hands. as for jack, he’s called him ‘dad’ on occasions, and dean treasures deeply each and every one of them, but it’s not something he can brag about with the cashier at the local liquor store that also sells nougats or the one at the grocery shop that carries a specific brand of juice or the one at the 24/7 pharmacy on main where he went get cough drops when jack came down with a mundane yet nasty case of flu, okay. so maybe, if only a little, he really is going all paternal on the kid. sue him. but this... put in simpler words, viewed from cas' perspective? if cas is jack's father and jack calls dean his dad and –okay sammy is also raising the kid, but his family has never been nothing if a little dysfunctional, and the dude’s been spending an awful lot of time at eileen’s, whatever– then that means–
"dean, are you okay?" cas asks tilting his head a little, and it tugs something in dean’s heart. the gesture reminds him of jack. their goddamn child. the same one they're raising. together. and who’s the reason that, three days before christmas, he and cas went to multiple jam-packed stores at the frigging mall, that’s more than an hour and a half drive away from the bunker to buy a bunch of christmas presents.
fuck.
overcome the brain-freeze, dean realizes they're a family. and the word, his long-term security blanket for all emotional outpours, takes a whole ass new meaning.
a family.
they even have the damn cutesy dog.
dean stares at cas and eyes the excessive amount of shopping bags he's holding. he smiles, and cas mirrors it.
if dean was corny, he'd think of how the pale sky threatening to snow makes cas look angelic again, now that his grace has been lost to the empty. but dean's not a pathetic sap, so he settles for the thought of cas looking like a very human blessing, as well as the only gift dean will ever want, not only for christmas but for all the days he's got left to live on this earth. and in heaven. maybe for forever.
"'m okay" he finally replies with a smile stretching the words. "more than okay, cas."
cas nods, quiet contentment wrinkling the corners of his eyes.
definitely for forever.
on the way to the bunker– no, on the way home, they make a few stops to gather supplies for the unforgettable dinner that dean has in mind (pie trifecta is what's got him the most excited. it's pie!) and some shit to decorate too.
cas goes on merrily talking about their holiday plans and jack's childish enthusiasm for everything christmas related, which, in turn, makes cas look also childlike, and damn if that isn't making dean feel giddy too.
dean feels drunk, like he drank one too many cups of that frozen kiddie champagne they saw at the store with elsa smirking at the front of the label. he laughs at nothing, at everything. cas is right there with him, echoing the sheer self-indulgent joy that suffocates them.
he veers for one last stop. this is a sort of first for all of them, this type of christmas. it has a different, warmer, tone to it. safe and mushy and loving and all that. so what if he wants to get it right?
on the radio, mariah the-traitor carey, proclaims, in that 90s pop glitzy voice of hers, all i want for christmas is you.
as they pull in at the tree farm snowflakes begin to fall gently on the windshield. with the engine dead, the temperature has dropped low enough to have their breaths turn into misty clouds, yet dean is burning under the collar of his jacket.
fuck.
he's a grown-up man in his forties and he’s freaking out. except, he isn’t.
except he's in some sort of magic trance because right in this very second he feels – no, he is a teenage boy, sweating. breathing all but forgotten and reduced to a nervous wreck, a train wreck. scared shitless.
he's a boy in his car about to kiss his crush.
and just like a reckless teenager, he does. he kisses cas, not before getting a silent confirmation from cas' tentative yet hopeful gaze and chapped pink lips.
he doesn’t know how long they kiss, it could’ve gone on endlessly, with how smooth their lips glide against each other despite the stubble and with how cas comes up for air to hold dean’s face in both his hands, with how he speaks those same words he confessed not so long ago, this time with nothing but his devoted touch and his all too caring eyes. it could’ve gone on endlessly, but it slowed down once the windshield got covered in white and the sky turned from light blue to a silvery hue.
cas knows, he does. he’s always known. but dean’s done with truths left unspoken, and if he’s happy with what he’s got right now, then saying it will give him the golden ticket right into fucking paradise on earth. it should be difficult, but it’s not. it comes to him as easy as a lovefool’s sigh.
“i love you too, cas. i love you so much.”
this year they won’t only have a christmas, they will actually celebrate it. and no, dean won’t need the excuse of standing beneath the mistletoe to kiss cas – former angel of the lord, now father of his child– but he’ll be damned if he won’t do it anyway just to wring out a squeal of surprise from their kid. jack will be over the moon, dean’s sure of it.
he couldn’t be doing any better.
#self indulgence is my weakness#i live for deancas raising jack im WEAK! and it's christmas almost and and ..#whats my other excuse i had a third one i swear but i forgot :((#someday i'll write a proper fic with a proper introduction but in the meantime they all just start like long headcanons :(#destiel#deancas#fanfic#my fic#spn#supernatural
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Plums and Chocolate
Pairing: Bucky x Natasha (BuckyNat)
Warnings: playful violence, some angst, mostly fluff
Word Count: ~1060
Summary: A look into the domestic life of Bucky and Natasha after they retire from SHIELD and being assassins. Natasha wants pancakes and Bucky is a sap (but a competitive one).
A/N: This is for @kumeko in @trekkingaroundasgardsevents Secret Santa 2020! I hope you enjoy!!
She always looked gorgeous. From the perfection of her hair - never a single strand out of place - to her toes, painted blood red and covered with stylish boots that always held her most precious weapon: an all-black dagger with a leather handle and an engraving of a blood drop. It was both a reminder of her past and a warning for her future.
From the beginning, Natasha had to be a weapon to survive; first growing up in the Red Room, getting transferred to Hydra, then working for Shield. She couldn’t let herself be anything less than perfect - than the best of the best - not without disastrous consequences. She still had the scars from her mistakes.
So she always projected confidence. She portrayed strength. She embodied perfection. And she never let anyone else believe otherwise. To do so would mean certain death. Unless she was with him.
Bucky had no expectations of her. She didn’t have to be strong around him. She didn’t have to scare him or fear him or be perfect. She could just be Natasha and he could just be Bucky. Two assassins, both created and feared by a terrorist organization, linked by the legendary Captain America, able to bond over shared trauma while believing, inexplicably, in the good that people possess, couldn’t have the happily ever after that everyone else could. They had to pay - in blood, sweat, and tears - to leave their pasts behind.
And Natasha knew that leaving everything behind was the best decision she had ever made.
__________
Natasha was sprawled over the bed, the sun illuminating her face as she slept. Her vibrant red hair lay messy on her pillow, and although she wasn’t wearing any makeup and was sleeping in baggy pyjamas, snoring slightly, Bucky thought that she was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He knew that every pound of blood, sweat, and tears it took to get to have this - her - was worth it. Rolling to the side of the bed, Bucky felt around for his obnoxiously bright pink slippers decorated with hearts - a gift from Tony. He leaned over Natasha as he stood up, pressing a lingering kiss to her cheek, and took a moment to smile softly at his wife.
Padding softly to the kitchen, Bucky tied up his hair into a messy bun and put on his neon green apron with ‘Kiss the Cook’ in purple embroidered on it - another gift from Tony. Bucky put on the radio to the quietest setting and started getting out ingredients of the fridge. Slightly swaying his hips to the beat, Bucky turned his head over his shoulder and grinned when he felt two hands on his hips. He carried the eggs with one hand, and with the other, took Natasha’s hand and spun her around, cheesily whispering, “All I want for Christmas is you” in time to Mariah Carey on the radio.
He was met with a light punch to the shoulder - Natasha was getting soft in her retirement years - and a box of flour in front of him. He knew what she was asking for, even if she didn’t say it.
“Pancakes or waffles?” His voice was hoarse as he spoke, shattering the domestic scene they were in with his sudden question. But seeing Natasha in fluffy socks and his oversized hoodie, sweater paws even with the sleeves rolled up, filled something in him that he didn’t know was missing before he met her and soothed the panic of facing reality.
She swept her hair into a braid, nimble hands weaving through her hair, just like she did for him most mornings. “Pancakes? I’ll get the chocolate chips and the plums -”
“Even though plums are gross?”
“Even though plums are gross,” Natasha said fondly. Bucky scowled, his eyebrow raised, but knew she was just teasing him. It definitely wasn’t weird to have stashes of plums around the house, no matter what she said.
They cooked in perfect harmony - moving around the other in a dance so synchronized that it could only be achieved from knowing your partner’s thoughts and actions before they did. The only noises that could be heard were the sizzling of the frying pan, the rhythmic chopping of plums, and the radio playing gently in the background.
Taking the plates of pancakes, along with honey (which obviously went well with plums) and chocolate syrup (Natasha would never admit her sweet tooth to anyone else), Natasha and Bucky opened the door to their backyard, setting the plates down on a table while they went back for their drinks - hot chocolate with marshmallows for Natasha and coffee filled with cream and sugar for Bucky.
Bucky noticed when Natasha started to shiver, pulling her chair closer, and playfully bumped her shoulder. “Need a blanket?” His voice was steady and quiet, not taking away from the cacophony of bird songs they had been listening to.
Natasha smiled and shook her head, leaning into Bucky’s warmth. She didn’t need to say anything. Once again, Bucky the husband became Bucky the blanket but he definitely wasn’t complaining.
They sat there for hours, sipping their hot drinks and listening to birds chirping, enjoying the tranquility of their lives while spending time with each other, knowing that they deserved both each other and the escape from violence.
__________
Natasha didn’t want to move. She felt like a cat in the sunlight - content with curling up in the middle of the room (or with a very warm husband) and taking a nap - but she had finished her hot chocolate and she didn’t want to sleep outside, no matter how comfortable Bucky’s shoulders were.
Alas, responsibilities arose and she stood up, pressing a quick kiss on Bucky’s cheek. “Wanna wash? I’ll dry.” She gave him the most over-exaggerated puppy eyed look she could, batting her eyelashes.
“Race you? Winner dries.”
A slow smile spread on Natasha’s face. She wasn’t the best for nothing. “You’re on.”
No one would ever say Natasha and Bucky were sane or had good ideas. This one, particularly, ended up with two broken plates, a fork lodged in the sofa, a broken nose, and the honey bottle in the upstairs bathroom. To this day, no one asks about the bet - and no one lived to tell about it (to make a long story short… Bucky tripped)
__________
My main masterlist is here. Please comment/like/reblog and tell me what you think!!
#marvel#natasha x bucky#natasha romanoff x bucky barnes#avengers#cute#fluffy#angst#secret santa exchange 2020#my writing#natbucky
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Log Cabin and a Brewing Fire Part III
Pairing: Nebraska Williams (Trevante Rhodes) x Reader
A/N: here we go, I’m sorry for hoarding this chapter for so long, I actually had it 95% finished before Spring Break, I just needed to add a couple of paragraphs and revise. But here it is now and I’ve already started in the next chapter. As always let me know what you guys think, Good, Bad, or otherwise, it really helps me as a writer. Also just another reminder this is a SLOW BURN story, so yeah the actions pretty liteeeee
PART ONE - PART TWO
~*~
You awoke to the sunlight pouring into your bedroom. You weren’t quite ready to get up yet so you shrunk back into your pillow, attempting to pull the covers over your head but they wouldn’t move. You tugged a little harder but they wouldn’t move an inch. You cracked an eye open only to be met with the figure of your late night guest sleeping peacefully beside you. He also was the reason you were currently unable to retreat into your blankets, his enormous figure taking up most of them.
You took a moment to examine him. He slept on his tummy, face buried into his pillow. You knew he had to have been in an incredibly deep sleep because his durag was sliding off his head a little. You reached over and adjusted it for him, hoping it wouldn’t wake him up. He didn’t even twitch.
You decided now was as good a time as any to get up since it looked like you weren’t gonna be going back to sleep any time soon. You pulled back the covers then suddenly remembered you’d slept in just your underwear and a T-shirt. You grabbed some real clothes from your drawer and made a b-line to the bathroom to get dressed.
Once you were presentable enough to not have bacon grease pop on your bare thigh, you headed downstairs to cook some breakfast.
You had no idea what time Nebraska fell asleep last night so you couldn’t really tell if you should wake him up for breakfast or let him sleep through. The snow was falling at a steady pace and starting to really build up outside.
You decided to cook a vegan omlette with spinach for breakfast. You went ahead and made two, just in case Nebraska woke up hungry. He could always just heat it up.
You’d barely got them out of the skillet and onto the plate when he came trudging down the stair.
“Good morning sleepyhead, you’re just in time for breakfast.” You said setting down both plates.
“Morning,” his voice was still heavy with sleep. He walk to the cupboard to get himself a glass of water, chugging the whole thing then filling up another.
“How’d you sleep last night?” You asked cutting at a piece of the omelette.
“Best sleep I’ve had in a while,” he said rubbing his eyes as he sat down.
“Well they say ambiance is everything. Wish I could’ve put on my ‘Rainstorms’ playlist, that’ll really knock your out.” You rambled taking a bite of your omelette. You glanced at your phone, realizing it was later than you thought. With the snow picking up outside you’d probably need a little extra time to get to work so you decided to go ahead and start getting dressed. You trashed the remainder of your breakfast and headed to put your plate in the sink.
“You’re finished already?” Nebraska said eyeing your now empty plate. Your pretty sure this was the first time he spoke to you without you prompting him. Progress.
“Yeah I gotta go get ready for work,” you said turning around to wash your plate.
“At the museum right?”
“Yeah actually! How’d you know?”
“Your uncle told me. He talks about you a lot.”
“No embarrassing stories I hope,” you chuckled. The corners of Nebraska’s mouth turned upwards slightly in an almost smile.
“The museums closed today isn’t it?”
“What makes you think that?”
“It was on the News.” Of course he would be the type of guy to watch the news. You quickly called your boss, her phone ringing three times before she finally picked up.
“Hello?” She said gruffly.
“Mrs. Tilly? It’s Y/N,”
“Ooohhhhh Y/N! Hello dear how are you?”
“Fantastic. Is work cancelled today?”
“Oh you don’t know? There’s supposed to be a major blizzard rolling through tonight. Don’t you watch the news?” If you could express your eyeroll through the phone, you would.
“No Mrs. Tilly, I didn’t catch the news this morning,” you deadpanned.
“Oh well the museum received notice per the City Regulations Department that all public facilities, the museums and schools alike, were to be closed for the rest of the week. This is a great opportunity for you to get some rest dear, you’ve been working so hard lately on those new exhibits, take some time for yourself for once ,” she said sweetly.
“Thank you Mrs. Tilly, stay safe,”
“You too dearie!” You hung up the phone and headed back to the kitchen.
“Apparently the museum is closed. All week in fact. And I had so much work to catch up on,” you sighed, looking in the fridge to survey the amount of groceries you had left. You hadn’t been grocery shopping in a while because of how busy you’d been at work but you definitely were going to have to make a trip if being snowed in for the next 3-4 days was a possibility.
“Looks like I’m gonna have to make a quick run for groceries and supplies, would you like to go with me?” You asked over your shoulder.
“Sure,”
~*~
An hour later you and Nebraska were piled into your car and driving into town. With where your house was, it was about a 20 minute drive just to reach the entrance of town. You turned the radio up, hoping to kill a little bit of the silence but a new rendition of Jingle Bells was all that sounded through the vehicle.
“Sheesh it’s still October,” Nebraska muttered sinking into his seat.
“Not a big fan of Christmas music?” You asked, eyes on the road.
“Nah, not really .” You changed the station. Mariah Carey singing “We Belong Together,” took its place.
~*~
“Okay so almond milk, oatmeal, tofu, r-“
“Can I ask you something?” Nebraska chimed in as you read off your grocery list while the two of you strolled down the aisles.
“Of course, ask away,”
“So being vegan was a personal choice or is it a health thing or-“
“I’m not vegan.”
“Not?”
“At all.”
“Ohhhh,” he looked down awkwardly and you smirked.
“What? You don’t like my cooking?” You teased, nudging him with your elbow.
“It’s just... um.... different.” He nodded, a small smirk playing at his own lips.
“Well if you don’t like it then tell me what you’d like me to cook then,” you chuckled continuing down the aisle.
“Maybe we cou-
“Y/N! Oh it’s been so long!” You and Nebraska turned around to see just who was calling for you.
It was none other than Tonya Manning, Principal of Dauntley High School, the only high school in town. She would routinely bring her students to the museum once a semester for a field trip, which she’d always set up and coordinate through you.
“Principal Manning, it’s great to see you. I’m assuming they cancelled school today?” You smiled as she came in to give you a hug.
“Oh no they cancelled all schools two days ago. Don’t you watch the news?” She said releasing you.
“Apparently not enough,”
“Oh hello! You must be Y/N’s man she’s been hiding! I’m Tonya Manning,” Tonya said holding out her hand. Nebraska politely took it.
“Nebraska Williams. And we’re.... not... like that.” He said obviously uncomfortable.
“He’s just a friend, Tonya. He’s taking a little vacation from the military right now so he’s staying with me.” You chimed in.
“Vacation from the military? How long you in town for?” Damn this woman was nosey.
“Couple months, don’t really have a solid time frame.” Nebraska spoke but you doubted Tonya heard a word of it. She was looking this man up and down as if he was a ribeye steak and she was a starving Cayote that hadn’t eaten in weeks. You knew he was good looking but apparently you weren’t the only one with working vision in this town .
“Well, we actually have a position open at the school. Our current JROTC coach is in his 80s and could use a strong, young militant like yourself to help get the kids who wanna serve in shape. The JROTC program is getting bigger and bigger each year and we really have to start expanding.” She smiled digging in her purse to pull out her business card before giving it to him.
“Give me a call sometime and we’ll set it up.” She bit her lip and you had to resist the urge to roll your eyes.
“Yes ma’am,” Nebraska smirked and you began to realize whatever chance Tonya thought she stood might actually be mutual. You couldn’t really blame Nebraska, she was pretty, tall, had curves in all the right places and had even extra backside she retained curtesy of her two kids she had by her exhusband. Any man would go for her the same way any woman would go for him.
“Well it was nice seeing you again Tonya, call me soon and we’ll get that museum field trip in motion,” you spoke up sweetly to interrupt the giving each other bedroom eyes.
“Of course,of course! Bye Y/N, see you soon, Nebraska,” she smiled coyly, causing him to give a little wave. You could puke all over the both of them.
“So.... lets go get milk,” you smiled sweetly heading down the aisle.
~*~
The two of you were back home a couple of hours later, putting up groceries, or rather you watching Nebraska bring in and put up groceries while you attempted to help put away the small stuff.
“Are you hungry? Want me to make dinner?” You asked putting away the last of the groceries.
“No! But um thank you, I’m just not hungry.” You might have actually believed him if his stomach didn’t grumble the second he finished talking.
“Do you really hate my cooking that much?” You asked in a small voice.
“No! It’s not that! I just- I mean- you-“ he was at a lost for words and you couldn’t help the small smile that broke out across your lips.
“It’s okay, we just ate anyway so we’ll hold off on dinner for now,” you chuckled, getting a glass of water.
“Yeah we uh... just ate,” Nebraska glanced at his watch with his eyebrows furrowed. You headed up to your room and decided to get a head start on getting ready for bed since you’d be sleeping in Nebraska’s room tonight.
You really were genuinely happy he got a good night’s rest in your room. You would just take the necessities with you tonight but if need be, you could always switch rooms with him completely, it wouldn’t be too much of a pain to rearrange the two rooms.
Once out the shower and dressed for bed you decided to get as much work done as you could on your laptop for the new exhibits at the museum. Time must have slipped away from you because before you knew it, there was a light knock on your door, followed by Nebraska entering. He was dressed a bit more modest tonight, opting for Sweatpants and a T-shirt.
“Too early?” He asked, closing the door behind him. You glanced at the clock on your screen and saw it was already 9:30 p.m.
“Not at all,” you smiled warmly. You saw a small smile grace his lips before he adverted his eyes, smile still playing at his mouth.
He hopped into bed in the exact same spot as the night before, damn near on the edge of the bed. Maybe he was trying to be respectful of your side but you didn’t really see the point since you wouldn’t be here anyways.
“You can come lie in the middle of you want, you don’t have to sleep on the edge,” you said shutting your laptop and getting up to set it on your desk.
“Oh okay,” Nebraska mumbled, inching closer to the middle. You continued over to your oil diffuser and set the scent on Lavender, your favorite fragrance to get you to sleep. You then connected your phone to the Bluetooth speaker in it and set your Quiet Thunderstorms playlist going.
“Too loud?” You asked, glancing over at him.
“It’s perfect,” he muttered in that deep voice and you felt your cheeks heat up. This entire situation could be taken out of context and be used in the most romantic daydream, but you had to snap yourself out of it. He was simply a guest of your Uncle. You had no right to look at him in such a way, he didn’t come here to be harassed like that.
“Well then in that case, Good Night and Sweet Dreams,” you bid your adieu and turned the lights out, leaving only the soft everescent glow of your fairy lights illuminating the room.
“Wait, where are you going?” Nebraska asked right as you were about to shut the door behind you.
“To your room?” You said turning around.
“Why are you going there?”
“Because we’re switching rooms so you’ll sleep better. You said last night was the best nights sleep you had in a while so if my room had anything to do with it, consider it all yours.” You smiled but he didn’t notice. You saw that something was clearly bothering him.
“I did say that. Okay, well uh, Good night then,” he said gruffly and you left but the whole thing was awkward. Did he not want you to sleep in his room? Where did he expect you to sleep? The couch? Not that you couldn’t but that’d get pretty old after a couple nights.
You settled yourself into Nebraska bed, still cold and perfectly made, feeling like it hadn’t been touched in 2 years instead of just 2 days. You couldn’t resist burying your head into the pillow, trying to catch the faint scent of his cologne but it wasn’t there. You were damn near exhausted earlier and now you found that sleep eluded you.
You been staring out the enormous window when you heard the door crack open.
“Y/N? You still up?” Nebraska whispered, well as much as his deep tenor would allow, while peaking his head through the door.
“Yeah. I am.”
“Can, um, can you come... back?”
“Back to my room? You changed your mind already? I thought the atmosphere helped you go to sleep.”
“It wasn’t the atmosphere that was soothing me to sleep...” Nebraska trailed off and suddenly you knew exactly what he meant.
~*~
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Mariah Carey ain’t got nothing on Dean Winchester
It’s ass o’ clock in morning on Christmas when Sam is jarred awake by what he can only equate to a 9.5 on the Richter scale. Cautiously, Sam opens an eye, vision still blurry with sleep as he tries to focus on his attacker. Because that’s what this was, obviously. His big brother leading a one man mission to ruin his life and consequently, his desperately needed beauty sleep. And if it wasn’t bad enough that Dean was determined to not let Sam sleep past 5 a.m., of course his brother had to do it in the most obnoxious way possible. Que Sam’s teeth being rattled out of his skull by Dean bouncing on the edge of his bed, shaking the younger man like a maraca.
“Dude, what the Hell?!” Sam grumbles as he wraps his pillow around his head tightly, ratty material scrapping and irritating his skin as he pushes it flat against his ears.
It’s all in vain of course, but at that point Sam would have tried anything to drown out the cheerful sound of Christmas music blasting through the old hotel radio. Dean showing no sympathy for him or their neighbors by turning it up to God knows how high.
“Rise and shine, Sammy! It’s Christmas!” Dean’s decked out head to toe in hideous Christmas attire, handsome face light up with a happiness that Sam hasn’t seen in his brother for a long damn time.
It’d be cute, really it would, if Sam wasn’t currently contemplating the older man’s murder.
“All I want for Christmas is sleep, Dean.” Sam whines, blindly swinging his pillow at the crackling radio speaker.
“Dude! C’mon!”
Sam smiles triumphantly when he ceases to hear Dean Martin crooning ‘White Christmas’, his bed no longer doubling as a rodeo bull because his big brother is too busy staring down at the broken radio, expression on his face one of total shock.
“Seriously Sam?!”
In a flash, Dean is off his bed and scrambling to the floor, picking the radio up like a fallen soldier; look of utter betrayal in his beautiful green eyes.
“You’re such a Grinch, man!”
“Should have let me sleep, jerk!” Sam shoots back as he disappears under his blanket. Half in hopes that he can go back to sleep, but mostly to shield himself from Dean’s oncoming wrath.
“All you want for Christmas is sleep, huh little brother?” Dean asks, and Sam doesn’t have to see his face to know that he’s got that predatory glint in his eyes. That look he always got when he was about to do something Sam was going to live to regret.
But before Sam has a chance to respond or even brace himself for what’s coming next, Dean lands on top of him, knocking the wind out of his little brother with a strangled ‘OOF’.
“Well all I want for Christmas is youuuu.” Dean starts singing as he yanks the blanket off Sam’s head, quickly pulling his little brother into a head lock.
“LET GO OF ME! YOU SOUND LIKE A CAT CAUGHT IN A VACUUM.”
He bucks his hips wildly and swats at his brother who, if possible, is singing louder and more off key than ever as he gives Sam a noogie.
“Sing back up Sammy! I want to hear your best ‘and IIIII’.” Dean’s smile is so big that his eyes are crinkled and Sam absolutely loathed the fact that he didn’t know if he wanted to kiss his brother stupid or kick his teeth down his throat.
Decisions, decisions.
“If you don’t get off me the only place I’m going to be singing at is your funeral!” Sam warns, but it’s no use. His big brother has the upper hand. Sam’s body trapped under his full weight, wrists pinned above his head despite the younger man’s struggle to get free.
“Oh don’t be so dramatic, Samantha. You love it.” Dean chuckles as he smirks down at Sam. The older man’s cocky look wiped smooth off his face when Sam surges upward, crashing their lips together with such force that he can taste Dean’s blood on the tip of his tongue.
“Merry Christmas, asshole.” Sam whispers against Dean’s swollen mouth, sick satisfaction washing over him when he feels his older brother’s breath quicken. Dean grinding down against him, calloused fingers digging bruises into Sam’s soft flesh.
“Merry Christmas, bitch.”
Dean’s barely got the words out before he lays assault to Sam’s mouth once more, rocking his hips and making those filthy sounds his little brother hated to love. The ones that always kept Sam desperate for more.
Well, maybe he was wrong. This wasn’t such a terrible way to start off Christmas after all.
@sorryimnotthatkindofdoctor @lizdoral79 @minxchester
Merry Christmas, my lovelies! Have some Winchester brother shenanigans. XOXO
#wincest#fluff#be gentle with me babies it's been like two years since i've written anything#my writing skills are a bit rusty#lol
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who needs mistletoe
minicat fic - [ fluff request ]
warnings: cursing, kisses
4370 words
@firstaidquarters request
prompt: “this is my first christmas away from my family and i’m really bummed out about it but you refuse to let me be sad”
-
“Hey dude, you alright?” Tyler broke his dramatic story when he realised Craig hadn’t been listening for several minutes. The young man was staring at his coffee cup with a very vague, distant look in his eyes. When he didn’t respond, Tyler reached across the table and tapped his arm with two fingers. Those distracted eyes blinked up at him and his frown deepened. “You keep zoning out on me, what’s bothering you?”
Craig could pull a fake smile easy, brushing off other people’s concerns and reassuring them that whatever they were worried about was not a problem. But sitting across from his best friend, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead he just grimaced and shrugged, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden beneath the icy blue gaze.
“It’s no big deal,” he admitted and Tyler stayed silent, knowing better than to interrupt. “It’s quite silly really, you’ll probably laugh at me.” He breathed a small laugh that was not at all dismissing or relaxing. It grated on gravel and Tyler felt his worry increase.
He shook his head, drawing Craig’s attention to him rather than the stained table. “Don’t be stupid, I won’t laugh; whatever it is is obviously a big deal to you.” He stayed sitting tall and sipping his drink, making it seem like his comments were casual and meaningless to his friend, but Craig smiled softly at the concern that dripped from his pale blue eyes. The words, “I care about you,” may not directly drop from his friend’s tongue but he knew that’s what he meant beneath his inquiring and that alone was enough to calm his buzzing anxiety.
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to look at Tyler when he mumbled, “It’s my first Christmas without my family.” Saying the words aloud sounded ridiculous and he felt like a teenager despite being twenty-one.
Tyler’s brows rose, the explanation not one he’d expected. Though despite Craig’s assumptions, he didn’t laugh or roll his eyes or belittle his words at all. When the shorter man looked up, he saw worry, sympathy and determination flit through pale blue eyes. Tyler focused his decided gaze on his friend. “You’re staying at mine tomorrow night.”
Craig stared, slowly connecting the dots. He knew Tyler wasn’t a huge Christmas fan; he’d give shit to Craig all the time about how much of a child he was when it came to the holiday. With his family, they’d do up the massive tree and have all the relatives in the country over for dinner. The mess of little cousins and teens and uncles and aunts he didn’t even know he had was always hectic and brought a few broken dishes and a lot of four year old tears but it was always a day of joy and excitement and family.
Thinking about it again had Craig’s eyes watering and he shook the thoughts off. “No, no, it’s fine honestly. The peace and quiet will be a nice change.” The joke fell short and Tyler’s frown didn’t falter.
“Craig, how long have we been friends?”
The younger man dropped his head. “Four years…” he answered.
“Four years ago, I came to the conclusion that you were fucking shit at lying,” he said, taking another sip and sitting back. “You haven’t changed a bit. Now quit bitching, I’ve made up my mind. You can bring your stupid Christmas CD and your dumbass sweater and we can watch whatever Christmas movie you usually watch with your family.”
A lump formed in Craig’s throat as he just stared at the man in front of him. Tyler never liked Christmas that much, his family not caring for festivities. His parents preferred to spend Christmas Eve fighting rather than singing and dancing like Craig’s did.
He tried his hardest to avoid as much Christmas bullshit as he could and the fact that he’d give that up to make sure Craig wasn’t alone…
Tyler’s eyes widened in alarm as the awe-filled eyes became tear-filled too. A tear escaped dropped down his left cheek before Craig was ducking his head and hastily wiping the water from his face. Worry slammed Tyler. “I… Fuck, I’m sorry, did I say something wrong? You don’t have to come over, that was a dumb idea, I-“
“Please can I stay with you?” Craig asked, looking up between his fingers as he covered his red face. His voice was soft and weak and Tyler saw just how sad he was about spending the few days alone.
His panic dissolved into understanding and he nodded, managing a soft smile. His “cool guy” composure vanished, no longer caring for how he looked. His care for his friend was far more important. Craig needed his company and he was going to do what he could to make sure the other had just as amazing a Christmas as he usually would.
-
Craig doubted himself as he stood outside Tyler’s apartment, bag under his arm with a few things he bought for the night. The sun had set on his drive over and when he managed to knock on the door, Tyler opened it in seconds. The taller was looking rather chill, but upon scanning Craig in his ugly Christmas sweater with an armful of stuff, he couldn’t help but grin.
“Get in here, you idiot, how much shit did you bring?” he asked, holding the door open and stepping back. The brit shuffled in, finding his way to the small living room and dropping his stuff on the couch. Tyler peered over the top of him, curious about the bag only to be shooed back when Craig turned around. “What is it?” he asked, allowing himself to be ushered back into the kitchen area.
The room smelt of cooking and home and Craig felt his heart swell at the idea of having someone to eat with. “I’ll show you later,” he dismissed, taking a seat at the bench and resting his chin on his hands. “What’s cooking?”
Tyler shrugged. “I tried my hand at spaghetti. It’s not very Christmas-y but it’s…” He seemed at a loss for words, unsure how to make his cooking seem appetising. Christmas had a feel to it. A theme, a style. Spaghetti wasn’t a Christmas meal but Tyler didn’t know how to cook much else. He hadn’t wanted to try something totally knew, ruin it and have nothing to present to his overly-enthusiastic friend. But spaghetti?
Instead of disappointment, Craig looked up to him with nothing less than adoration and gratitude. “It’s perfect,” the brit said, eyes following the taller man as he stirred the pot and tipped the pasta into a strainer. He looked around the room, breathing in the aroma and letting it surround him.
Tyler served up two plates, sitting across from Craig. The way Craig looked at him had his cheeks flushing pink and eyes falling to his food.
“Thank you for this.” The spaghetti was delicious, Craig smiling through the meal. Yes, it wasn’t the most festive of meals, but it spread warmth through his body and smelt simply amazing. He couldn’t have asked for more.
“You don’t need to thank me, I wouldn’t want you to be alone.”
“Well now neither of us are alone.”
Tyler’s eyes looked impossibly pretty and the smile on his face set flames under Craig’s fingertips. A calm sort of silence settled throughout the room as the two ate, Tyler trying not to stare at his friend’s content face. He was calm and happy and the taller man felt reluctance pull him back.
Finding his friend pretty wasn’t right. Guilt came with the curiosity that settled in his thoughts, wondering how soft those lips were, wondering what Craig would do if he were to lean across the bench and press their lips together… He blinked the thoughts out of his head as Craig stood, empty bowl in hand. The brit reached across the bench and took Tyler’s also, dumping both carelessly in the sink.
They could be washed later.
“Come on, let’s go put your shitty Christmas music on.” Tyler stretched his hands up above his head when he stood, feeling warm with the meal in his stomach. He rolled his eyes as Craig pulled out a bottle of fizzy drink. He poured too glasses of the sugar-saturated beverage and Tyler wondered why he even had the shit in his fridge. “Beer?” he asked hopefully and Craig shook his head with a grin that made something unwelcome flutter around in Tyler’s stomach.
He shook it away, took a sip of the drink and followed Craig into the living room. He pulled a radio player down from the shelf, wiping the dust off it and placing it down on the coffee table for Craig to fiddle with. Music floated from the hunk of metal after a few minutes as Tyler wandered to the collection of chords and devices beside his TV.
He felt curious eyes follow him when he flicked off the lights in the room, allowing a soft glow from the kitchen to be the only thing that gave them vision. “Tyler…” Craig whispered his name with awe as he flipped a power board on and filled the room with a dim, colourful light. Mariah Carey wafted along with it and Tyler blushed slightly at the cheesy choice of music.
Craig met his eyes with undetermined emotion. Something along the lines of shock that formed an ‘o’ with his lips and he found himself worried, scratching the back of his neck as he looked around at the glimmering Christmas lights that lines the top of the room’s walls. They bounced colour off Craig’s face and he couldn’t avoid the man’s stare.
“D-did I do too much?” he asked, uncomfortable at just how shy he felt under his friend’s watch.
Craig’s grin was bright enough for the whole house and he stood from where he’d been kneeling in front of the radio player. Tyler met him halfway, dragging his toes across the carpet. He had no idea what to do but was content being entranced by the brit’s smile. “I love it,” Craig whispered, eyes sparkling brighter than the coloured lights. “Thank you so much. For all of this.” His eyes strayed from Tyler’s face just barely as he nodded at the room around them.
The music moved between them, a song Tyler would claim to hate having heard it in the shopping centre, on the radio, on TV; absolutely everywhere. This was different, though he wouldn’t admit it. He felt a warmth flush him as it pushed him to take another step closer.
Cautious fingers found his, no haste or rush in movements. Craig looked down as he carefully curled his fingers around Tyler’s. The taller man didn���t resist at all as his hands were pulled forwards, finger tips lightly resting on Craig’s waist. “Is, uh, is this okay?” he asked, not wanting to disturb the silence around them.
Instead of answering, he let his hands settle comfortably at the other man’s waist, easing them both closer again. Craig’s eyes didn’t shift from his face as his hands slipped up Tyler’s arms. They linked over his shoulders, the two closer than they’d ever been.
“I don’t know how to dance,” Tyler murmured, Craig taking a small step back and leading him to follow. His blue eyes were soft and uncertain, watching his feet closely to try match the brit’s movements. He was scared to accidently step on his foot or trip over his own feet and ruin everything.
Craig breathed a laugh, everything about him soft and warm. His skin under Tyler’s fingers, his arms over his shoulders, his comfortable gaze. His fingertips when they ran along his jaw to bring his eyes back up. “Don’t think about it.” He lost himself in the hazel eyes, trying to pick out what colour they were, trying to give them a name or a label. He came up with nothing other than “beautiful” and found it impossible to look anywhere else.
Thoughtlessly, instinctively, he reached a hand up to grab one of Craig’s, pulling it up above his head and pushing his hip softly. He smiled, taking the hint and doing a small spin beneath his arm. When he came back to Tyler, the older man flinched as he stumbled, stepping on his partner’s foot. “Sorry,” he mumbled, embarrassed and apologetic.
Craig’s smile never faltered and they continued to sway slowly around the room, Craig’s warm fingers playing with the hair at the back of Tyler’s neck. He shook his head just slightly to brush off the apology, happier than ever on that Christmas Eve dancing with Tyler under the glow of Christmas lights. Tyler’s face had never looked pretty with colour dancing across his cheeks and his hands sliding to rest on Craig’s back beneath his sweater.
His arm was lifted again, feet twisting slowly in a spin before Tyler was pulling him close and curling an arm around his lower back. “Trust me?” he whispered and Craig didn’t even have to think about it as they twisted. He was lowered slightly, arms still loosely linked behind Tyler’s neck. One hand slid down to rest on his chest as the music came to a slow end and the moment came to a rest.
“All I want for Christmas…” Tyler uttered the last line of the song under his breath, his words falling to Craig’s cheek with nothing less than love. For once, Tyler could pull his gaze from Craig’s, his pale eyes instead flickering down to focus on his lips. “Is you.”
Craig’s heart was beating out of his chest, filled to the brim with adoration for the man holding him. The song finished and silence held them together closely, Tyler’s lashes flickering and Craig’s lungs frozen with parted lips. Fear and excitement surged through him and he exhaled softly. “Is there mistletoe?” he whispered, struggling to tear his own eyes away from Tyler’s lips.
They twitched into a whisper of a smile, tongue flicking out to wet them. “No, I just really want to kiss you,” he murmured and Craig hung onto the last few seconds of space between them before Tyler was closing the distance and pressing their lips together.
It was magical. Craig vowed never to roll his eyes at dramatic romance clichés ever again as he buried his fingertips in short hair. He tilted his head slightly, stretching up to kiss back with all the love and warmth he could muster. The evening closed in around them, freezing them in a moment that could never be forgotten. A moment where their hearts synced and nerves burned.
When the eternity ended and the kiss fell away between them, Tyler eased them both upright but didn’t remove his arms from where they sat, curled around the brit’s lower back. His forehead came to rest against Craig’s, the man’s soft eyes still rested shut as he breathed in and out deeply. He didn’t seem to have the strength to open them again and Tyler knew he didn’t need to, leaning down to press a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, feeling out of breath and high above reality.
Craig’s eyes blinked open, raw love and awe shining. He dropped his hand from Tyler’s cheek to his shoulder to stable himself. “What for?” he asked, voice lighter than his breathing as another Christmas song started up behind them.
Tyler smiled, eyes flickering back and forth over Craig’s face. He couldn’t get enough of the other man, couldn’t say just how much he loved him, just how much he loved everything about him. “I’m not sure.”
Craig’s eyes crinkled with his laugh, his head falling to Tyler’s shoulder as his laughter spilt from his lips. Giddy giggling that floated on the music around them. Tyler curled his arms around him tighter and pulled them flush together in a hug. Craig seemed to have been sapped for energy, completely reliant in Tyler’s arms as he dropped a light kiss to his neck and the taller man eased the both of them back to the couch.
They fell down together, Craig’s legs across Tyler’s lap. He wouldn’t have been able to move away if he tried with the strong arm curled around his back stubbornly. Tyler didn’t seem keen to let him go anytime soon and as another kiss was placed to his cheek, Craig knew he wouldn’t want to anyway.
Neither found the need to speak as they put some Christmas movie on the TV and drowned in their evening. The lights washed over them for the hours they cuddled, Tyler getting up at one stage to bring a fluffy blanket back for the both of them. The moment he sat back down he replaced his arms around Craig and pulled the man snug to his side. Craig couldn’t remove the grin from his face all night, as Tyler occasionally kissed at his cheek, temple or knuckles. He just let his head rest on his shoulder and tried to stay awake.
By the time the movie was finished, Craig was ready to fall on his face and leant heavy against Tyler when they stood to go to their beds. At Tyler’s bedroom door he hesitated. “I was planning for you to stay in the guest bedroom but…” he trailed off, unsure how to invite Craig to stay with him for the night without sounding demanding or weird.
He knew it could be a bit much, not sure how the other was thinking about things. All he knew was that he loved the feel of Craig’s fingertips and lips and could never get enough of the heat by his side.
As it had the entire evening, Craig’s smile remained soft and happy and he nodded at the man. “I don’t want to sleep alone,” he admitted, a statement that told enough for Tyler to assume. He didn’t wait for the taller to respond or ask questions or anything before he was walking into the room with their linked fingers behind him. He crawled into the bed himself, comfortable clothes no issue when it came to sleeping as Tyler got in beside him.
Just as Craig had hoped, arms were fitted around him waist and he was pulled across beneath the blankets to Tyler’s side. He shifted around, facing away and sighing happily as Tyler curled around him and hugged him back to his chest. A kiss was laid to the back of his neck and he hummed happily, hands resting over Tyler’s as he tucked his head down.
“Goodnight Craig,” Tyler murmured, lips brushing against his shoulder.
“Thank you Tyler, goodnight,” he whispered back, smile painted to his face as they both drifted off together.
-
Christmas morning came with Craig sitting on top of Tyler and shaking him by the shoulders. “Tyler! Ty-Ty, you gotta get up!” he hissed, excitement bubbling out into his words. “It’s Christmas, dude! Get up!”
The American grunted, reaching a heavy arm up to loop around Craig and pull him down onto the mattress. “Go the fuck to sleep, it’s too early for Christmas,” he slurred, eyes still stubbornly shut.
Craig huffed, hands pushing against Tyler’s chest in an attempt to wriggle away. The arm wrapped around him held him down and his wiggling was useless. “Let me go,” he grunted, Tyler’s leg linking over the top of his to reduce his movement.
“No.” He was pulled tightly to the other’s side, squeaking as the older man tucked his face into his neck and breathed out deeply.
“Tyler, it’s eight a.m.! It’s so late already; we have to go open presents,” he whined, pulling at the brown hair and flushing red as Tyler pressed his lips to his throat.
“Christmas doesn’t start until nine, now shut the fuck up or I’ll kick you out,” he huffed, his breath washing over Craig’s neck and dragging a shiver down his spine. He tried not to shudder, accepting his fate and wrapping his arms around the man. Tyler relaxed, splayed across him and fell back asleep.
Craig played with his hair happily, feeling his heartbeat against his ribs as he breathed in the Christmas morning. It was cool in the house, making the bed ever-more comfortable and warm.
The brit drifted in and out of consciousness until the man on top of him stirred and blew warm air across his skin. He’d shed his thick sweater when he’d gotten up earlier to go to the bathroom and his thin undershirt did nothing to help the goosebumps that raised on his flesh.
“Are you gonna get up now?” he asked as the other wriggled around slightly. His only response was an unenthusiastic grunt and he giggled. “Come on,” he sung. “It’s Christmas. I wanna eat and go open presents.”
“What presents?” Tyler grumbled, warm hands sliding up Craig’s back.
Craig smiled into the fluffy hair. “I brought something for you.”
A moment of panic slammed Tyler who pushed himself up off Craig with wide worried eyes. “I didn’t get shit for you though!” he exclaimed, guilt dripping from his features. “You weren’t supposed to get me presents, you fuckboy.”
“My present was having someone to stay with,” he said and just smiled as Tyler studied his face for a moment.
“Would you be opposed to being kissed right now?”
Craig’s head tipped back with his laughter and he softened at the lips that brushed at his jaw. “Not really, only that I haven’t brushed my-“
His words were cut off as lips covered his, Tyler hovering above him and leisurely kissing him. A whine of complaint emitted from Craig’s throat but his hands only pulled Tyler closer. When he fell back against the mattress, he shoved Tyler off.
“Now get up, you lazy piece of shit.”
Tyler was greeted in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and Christmas songs playing from the living room. Neither had the effort to cook anything like pancakes or waffles and instead just snacked on a bowl of cereal each. Very little conversation was shared as they woke themselves up slowly.
When the dishes were dumped in the sink, Craig was eagerly dragging a now-awake Tyler into the living room as he complained that he didn’t want the presents.
“Just shut up and sit down. Humour me at least, it’s not like a spent a shit-ton on you or anything.” At Craig’s command, he fell into silence (but not without rolling his eyes first) and eyed the presents sceptically.
Craig watched him like an excited child as he picked up the wider gift. After a nasty glare to the brit, he tore through the packaging and huffed a laugh. The sweater was big and soft and it took the man a few extra seconds to realise that the little patterns depicted reindeer humping each other, among other patterns like snowflakes and little pine trees. Craig’s smile was too big and Tyler couldn’t hold his disapproving face. A laugh pushed its way up from his lungs and Craig giggled along with him.
“I assumed you didn’t have one so I thought I’d get you one you can wear each year,” he explained, his grin never dropping. He nodded at the item of clothing. “Put it on,” he urged.
Though he rolled his eyes, Tyler found this stupid sweater a rather sweet gift (despite the immaturity of it, and slid it over his undershirt happily. It fit perfectly and he refused to admit he loved it. Before he could say anything at all, his other present was pushed into his hands. He didn’t waste his time, opening it and exposing a little CD case. The Christmas album’s snowy cover smiled up at him and he looked to his best friend curiously.
Craig nodded at it, waiting patiently. He turned the case over and read the little sticky note attached to it.
Thank you for not letting me be alone. Now you can have Christmas spirit without me next year, and the year after that, and the year after that! Merry Christmas.
“Yeah, it’s pretty stupid but it’ll give you something to do every Christmas Eve if I’m not here.” He shrugged, almost bashful about the gift. “It’s not much at all. I know you don’t celebrate heaps.”
Tyler held out a hand to the other, pulling him towards him when their fingers linked. He pressed a kiss to the other man’s forehead. “Thank you Craig, I’ll get you something when I go out next.”
“Don’t,” Craig assured him. “Please. You’ve given me more than enough.”
“I… Are you sure?”
Craig just grinned, eyes sparkling as he pressed his lips to Tyler’s. He was really starting to love the warm tingle that spread across his chest each time they kissed. When he pulled back, Tyler swayed after him, blue eyes narrowed and dazed. Craig bit his lip. Fuck it, he thought. “If you do more of that, I’ll be more than happy,” he said bluntly, his forwardness scaring him and sparking his nerves like crazy as Tyler stared up at him.
A moment of silence filled the space between them but before Craig could begin to freak out that he’d said something very wrong, Tyler was pulling him by the hips until he was sitting on his lap with a red face and nervous smile.
“Are you asking me to ask you to be my boyfriend, Craig?”
“Do you want to ask me to be your boyfriend?”
“Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
“Of-fucking-course I do.”
So maybe Craig’s first Christmas without his family wasn’t the most festive or the loudest. It didn’t have screaming children or mountains of food or hours of present-opening. But it did have Mariah Carey, they definitely watched The Grinch and ugly festive sweaters were certainly worn.
And out of everything, Craig could definitely get used to those kisses.
Next family Christmas he’d be bringing his boyfriend with him, in matching ugly sweaters, and waking him up in the early hours of the morning with teasing kisses and promises of cuddling later. Yes. It was definitely a happy Christmas.
ask
note: i have a bad habit of making things corny as fuck so this is full of a lot more cutesy shit and kissing then probably expected but i hope it’s still appreciated ^^;. sorry if its not what you wanted and sorry that this literally took me a week and a half.
let me know what you think!
gi
#minicat#minicat fic#minicat fanfic#bbs#bbs fic#bbs fanfic#fic#fanfic#request#request fic#firstaidquarters#fluff#oneshot#short fic#kisses#christmas fic
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The Batbros’ Favorite Christmas Songs
Dick’s favorite is “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey. He plays it 24/7 starting the day after Thanksgiving and sings along. He claims he can even hit the whistle tones (spoiler alert: he can’t). He sings it to everyone at least once – sometimes more if he can tell they need a pick-me-up. He’s also a real snob in the fact that he doesn’t like any other version. If another version comes on the radio, he scoffs at how they are a poor excuse for the queen that is Mariah Carey and proceeds to change the station to something more respectable.
Jason loves “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t be Late)” simply because it annoys everyone else. He skips about the manor singing it at the top of his lungs, much to everyone else’s chagrin. He claims that he is obviously Alvin because he’s the coolest (and Bruce loves to yell at him the most), Tim is Simon because he’s the nerd no one cares about, and Dick is Theodore because everyone thinks he’s adorable plus he has a fat ass. When asked about Damian, Jason simply shrugged and said he could join Steph and Cass in being the Chipettes. Damian was not amused.
Tim listens to “I’ll be Home for Christmas" the most. It seems like every Christmas at least one person he cares about is either dead or gone out of town somewhere, so he listens to it a lot and pretends whoever he’s missing is the one singing. He hasn’t told anyone about it except Conner when he came back. Bruce, of course, figured it out, but he doesn’t say anything because it’s one of the only somewhat healthy ways of coping he has seen Tim utilize.
Damian didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas, but since moving into the manor the others have made an effort to introduce him to the holiday season. He enjoys listening to the old classics like Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” because that’s what Bruce likes. He is not a big fan of modern remakes such as Michael Bublé because he prefers the soulfulness and richness of the classics.
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Hey @calmyourpitches! Merry Christmas and enjoy your “little” Mitchsen fic (;
As Beca made her way down the stairs, her laptop bag over her shoulder, and two other suitcases in her hand, her mother called after her.
“Beca! Didn’t you forget something?” She asked sweetly.
“Of course, let me just bring the suitcases down okay?” The brunette responded before continuing her way down the stairs. When she reached the front door, she set everything down and sprinted back up into her mother’s arms. “Goodbye mom, I will miss you.”
“Goodbye honey, I’m sorry that I can’t bring you to Barden myself. Try to be nice to your dad, okay? After all, he is granting you this college education for free.” The older woman smiled and squeezed her daughter tightly.
“I will try, but no promises. I’ll visit you during the Christmas break alright?”
“I’d love nothing more. Goodbye now, your taxi is surely waiting.” The women smiled at each other before Beca turned around and walked down the stairs again. She was gonna miss her apartment and her mom.
She grabbed her suitcases, swung the bag over her shoulders and went outside. Since she didn’t see a taxi, she sat down at a nearby bench, deciding to kill time by mixing two songs together. 10 minutes later, a car honk made her look up from the screen, and she got up to put her suitcases and her bag into the trunk. She was going to hate college, she knew it. If she wasn’t allowed to go to LA straight away, she was gonna show her dad what happens if you don’t grant your child their wish.
The ride was quiet due to Beca not being up for small talk, and rather listening to the new mix she made to find out if any improvement could be made. Before she knew it, the taxi pulled up to Barden and she got out. Taking her laptop bag again, she looked at the building in front of her. Suddenly, a blonde girl appeared out of nowhere. “Hi there! Welcome to Barden University! What dorm?”
Startled, the only thing Beca could manage was “Baker Hall. I think.”
“Okay, so what you’re gonna do now…” The brunette wasn’t listening as a car pulled up next to her and a boy sang to “Carry On Wayward Son”. He noticed her looking and sang to her. Just as he was singing and mimicking the instrumental, the car continued driving and he was out of sight. Beca shook her head and turned her attention back to the girl. “Here is your campus map and here is your official BU rape whistle. Don’t blow it unless it’s actually happening.” She said with a wink.
Nodding and raising an eyebrow, Beca took the whistle in her mouth and continued her way to her dorm.
When she found her room, she discovered that her roommate was already there. “Hey, you must be Kimmy Jin. I’m Beca.” The girl just eyed her up and down, and being unsure what to do, she tried to lighten the mood. “No English?” Another glance. “Yes English. Just tell me where you’re at with English.” When the girl didn’t respond, Beca turned around and started setting up her equipment.
Suddenly, it knocked on the door. “This is the campus police, hide your wine coolers!” Her dad poked his head in laughing, making Beca roll her eyes. “Chris Rock, everybody.”
“You must be Beca’s roommate.” He said as he discovered that his daughter wasn’t alone. “I’m Dr. Mitchell, Beca’s dad. I teach Comparative Literature here.” Kimmy Jin also just eyed him up and down without saying anything. Feeling the awkward silence, he spun back around. “So, have you guys been out on the quad yet? In springtime, all the students study on the grass.”
“I don’t want to study on the grass, dad. I want to move to LA and get a job at a record label and start paying my dues.”
“Oh, here we go again. Beca, DJing isn’t a profession, it’s a hobby. Unless you’re Rick Dees or someone awesome!”
“That’s not… I… Ugh. I wanna produce music, I wanna make music, dad!” Beca tried to argue.
“But you’re going to get a college education first. For free, I might add, end of story.”
“I’m going to the Activities Fair.” Kimmy Jin suddenly interrupted. Seeing her way out, Beca quickly spun around to follow suit. “Me too, I’m going to the Activities Fair with my super good friend, Kimmy Jin. Bye dad!” And with that, she left, leaving her dad standing in their room.
The girls didn’t talk, and the brunette kind of awkwardly followed the Asian girl around until Kimmy Jin found a booth for Korean students. Knowing she lost the girl, Beca wandered around, keeping her eyes open for anything that was related to music. When she found a DJ booth, her heart fluttered and she tried her best not to run to it. When she reached it however, she noticed that there were no music symbols anywhere.
“Ah, DJs. Deaf Jews.” A girl behind her suddenly said, mimicking a scratching noise.
“Shalom!” The guy behind the booth greeted them.
“That’s not a real word but keep trying! You will get there!” The obese blonde shouted, making Beca cringe.
“Not a lot of Jewish people where you’re from, huh?”
“No… I did do Fiddler on the Roof in high school, though. It was like me and some Aboriginals. It was really Jewish.” The girl replied. Beca nodded her head politely, slowly exiting the conversation. “It was full on Jew.”
Keeping her eyes open for real music booths, she thought about the girl she just met. She was weird. The confidence that seemed to radiate from her made Beca feel like not everyone would get along with her. She was so deep in thought that she almost jumped in surprise when a redheaded girl held out a flyer for her. “Hi, any interest in joining our acapella group?”
Looking at the flyer and then back up to the girl, she smirked. “Oh right, this is like a thing now.”
“Oh, totes! We sing covers of songs but we do it without any instruments. It comes all from our mouths.” The redhead answered.
The only thing Beca could muster was “Yikes.”
“There are four groups on campus. The Bellas, that’s us. We’re the tits.” Registering that there was another girl standing next to the redhead, Beca looked at her. She was blonde and wore a pink dress that fit her quite well. Her posture screamed that she had a stick up her butt and she likes to control things.
“That could be interesting in the bedroom…” Beca thought and immediately, inappropriate images flooded her mind.
“So, are you interested?” The redhead suddenly said, snapping the brunette out of her thoughts. Panicking, she tried to come up with something.
“Sorry, it’s just… It’s pretty lame.” She ushered out, internally patting herself on the shoulder for that save.
“Acascuse me?” The blonde girl said. “Synchronized lady dancing to a Mariah Carey chart topper is not lame.” She added with an annoyed laugh.
“Great, my theory is right. She doesn’t like people talking against her and standing up to her.” Beca thought.
“We sing all over the world and compete in national championships.” The redhead chimed in.
“On purpose?” Beca almost laughed.
“We played the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, you bitch!” The blonde suddenly said, making the brunette raise an eyebrow at the snarky remark. Obviously, her friend was trying to calm her down. “What Aubrey means to say is that we’re a close-knit, talented group of ladies whose dream is to return to the national finals at Lincoln Center this year. Help us turn our dreams into a reality?” She added with a hopeful face.
“Sorry, I don’t even sing. But it was really nice to meet you guys.” Beca smiled and walked away. “Aubrey, huh?” She muttered, walking to a new aisle of booths. Finally, she found a booth about a radio station and signed her name. “Better than nothing.” She thought.
Later that day, she received a call about her internship. She had to start the next day. When Beca asked if she could play music, the phone call ended. Shrugging, she went to bed.
x
The next day Beca woke up, she groaned and rolled over, grabbing her phone. As she was stretching, she checked the time. 10:46 am. Her eyes went wide, realizing she was supposed to be at the radio station by 11. Hurriedly, she stood up, got changed and brushed her hair. After applying her trade mark, her eyeliner, she ran out of the door and across campus.
She could already see the building in the distance, but didn’t notice what was in front of her. Before she knew it, she collided with the blonde from the activities fair.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going!” Aubrey angrily said before getting back up.
“Sorry, I’m late.” Beca replied as she shoved the notebooks the blonde dropped into the blonde’s hands. The brunette turned around and continued her run to the radio station, leaving a confused and angry Aubrey behind. With a huff, the other girl turned around and walked away.
When Beca arrived at the radio station, she went inside, catching her breath.
“95.7, WBUJ, music for the independent mind.” A voice, presumably the host, said.
She looked around, being in awe at how much CDs and Vinyls there were. She couldn’t wait to be inspired for some mixes. And hopefully, she could play them too. Looking inside the booth, she didn’t see anybody. Beca could swear that she saw the host two seconds before.
Suddenly, the door opened, revealing a blonde guy. “Hey, I’m Luke, the station manager. You must be Becky, the intern?”
“Actually, it’s-“ But before Beca could continue, someone barged in, yelling.
“Hey man, what’s up? I’m Jesse.” Beca immediately recognized him as the boy who sang to her in the car. Oh boy, this is going to be great.
“I’m Luke, you’re late.” The blonde guy replied before walking over to a desk with a box full of CDs.
Beca followed suit. “Hey, I know you.” The brown haired boy suddenly said.
“No you don’t.” She replied.
“Yeah I do. I remember you. I sang to you. You were in a taxi. Wait, is your dad a taxi driver?”
“Dude, shut up.” Luke interrupted. Beca threw him a thankful look. “So, your job is stacking CDs. Start with this box. When you’re done, there is more. You guys will be spending a lot of down time together, so please… No sex on the desk. I’ve been burned before.”
The brunette girl made a gagging noise as Luke walked away. “This sucks.” She sighed. “I wanted to play music.”
“Not me. I’m here for one reason only. I really love stacking CDs.” Jesse said. Beca gave him a weird look. “So what’s your deal? Are you one of those girls who’s all dark and mysterious, and then she takes off her glasses and that amazingly scary ear spike and you realize that, you know, she’s been beautiful, the whole time?”
“I don’t wear glasses.” Beca shot back.
“Then you’re halfway there.” Jesse smiled goofily.
Beca rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the CDs. This was going to be a job that sucked, but maybe she could schmooze her way up to Luke so he would play her mixes or even let her take over the station. With a satisfied hum, she started stacking the CDs.
x
Later that day, Beca grabbed her shower utensils and headed for the shower rooms. Since she didn’t get the chance to shower this morning, she felt happy about cleaning all the sweat and dusk off of her. The radio station was in serious need of some deep cleaning. When she removed her clothes and threw her bath robe on, she started singing Titanium, knowing that nobody was showering at this hour. She selected a stall and turned on the water, waiting for it to heat up.
“You can sing!” A voice suddenly exclaimed, making Beca jump and turn around in shock.
“Dude, what the fuck?!” The brunette said to the redhead who she recognized from the activities fair.
“How high does your belt go?” The girl said, turning off the shower.
“My what? Oh my god!” Beca didn’t knew what to do, she only knew her rape whistle was too far away so that she could blow it. It was in her room, to be exact. So she hid behind the shower curtain.
“You have to audition for the Bellas!” The redhead stated, putting her hands on her own hips.
“I can’t concentrate on anything you’re saying unless you cover your junk.” The brunette looked at the ceiling to avoid looking at the very naked woman in front of her.
“Like what you see?” The ginger suddenly smirked, adding a wink. Beca almost choked on her spit.
“I would kindly request you to step out of my shower before I blow my whistle.”
“I can’t see the whistle anywhere on you.” The girl laughed. “Anyways, that was David Guetta, right?”
“You know him?” Beca looked at her, shocked.
“Are you kidding me? I love him!” The other girl replied. In her excitement, she ripped the curtain away from Beca.
“Seriously?” The brunette sighed, turning her private parts towards the wall. “I’m nude.”
“Yeah, duh, we both are. Anyways, Titanium is my jam! My lady jam.” The redhead winked, making Beca uncomfortable. “Can you sing it for me?”
“Dude no! Get out before I call for help. Seriously.”
“I’m not leaving until you sing, so.” The ginger looked at her expectantly. Beca sighed in defeat before turning around and picking up from where she left. The other girl chimed in at the chorus, and the brunette was surprised how well they sounded together. Maybe, just maybe, she will ask the girl to record a duet one day.
When they finished the song, they actually smiled at each other. Beca couldn’t believe she just sang with a complete stranger in the shower. Naked. She looked down and back up. Very naked.
“Oh yeah, I’m pretty confident about… All this.” The girl motioned to her body. “I’m Chloe, by the way.”
“Beca. No offense, but would you please go for real now? I really want to shower.” The brunette smiled awkwardly.
“Sure, if you audition for the Bellas.” Chloe shrugged and Beca sighed.
“Fine, when?”
“Next week at the drama stage. We meet at 2 pm.” The redhead smiled. “Nice tattoos by the way.” With that, she walked away, leaving Beca alone in her shower stall. Shaking her head, she turned the shower back on and stepped beneath it.
x
A week later Beca was pacing back and forth. It was now 1:55 pm and she had still not decided if she wanted to go or not. If she didn’t go she won’t be able to go to LA. If she went and endured it for a year, she could chase after a dream and make music. But what would happen if she ended up hating being a Bella? What if she quit halfway? Would her dad still allow her to go? If she was being honest with herself, deep down, she knew she wanted to join. She could actually sing and maybe show off her mixes so that the Bellas could dance to it. The only thing that sucked was that it was acapella. Professional music producers would sneer when they saw she had been part of a lame acapella group in college. But on the other hand, she felt this weird need to completely shake that Aubrey girl to the core. She was interested in her. Why was she such a stuck up bitch? Maybe there was more to her than she was showing.
The brunette sighed. She looked at the door and knew what to do. She grabbed her keys and made her way to the drama stage.
x
Standing in the door, she watched a nerd finishing up the last bit of “Since You’ve Been Gone”. Not being sure as to what to do, she looked at the flyer on the door. She noticed that this was the audition song. Shit.
“That was everybody for this year.” A guy on the stage said. “I’m really not impressed this year.” That’s when the girl realized she was too late. With a huff, Beca wanted to turn around when…
“Wait! There’s one more!” Chloe called out, turning everybody’s attention to her.
The brunette awkwardly walked in. “I uh… Didn’t know we had to sing that song.”
“Oh that’s okay! Just sing anything you want.” The redhead smiled at her.
“Uhm… May I?” Beca asked, motioning to the cup filled with pens. When Chloe nodded, the brunette grabbed it and put the pens on the table before placing the cup upside down in front of her. She took a deep breath before tapping out a beat and singing the Cup song, a song she will spend a lifetime regretting since the Bellas, especially a certain redhead, will always tease her with it.
After she was done, Chloe beamed at her and Aubrey was skeptically looking at her. But she had a glint of something else in her eyes. Had she actually impressed the blonde?
x
Later that day, Beca was walking along the sidewalk when suddenly someone put a bag over her head. She was about to scream when she heard Chloe’s voice next to her ear. “Shush, don’t scream. You can do that in the bedroom later.” The brunette could practically hear her wink. “You’ve been chosen to be a part of the Bellas. This is your initiation. Would you please let me guide you to our secret location?”
“Wow I have never experienced such a nice kidnapping. Will you get me food while we’re at it? Maybe a massage? How about a million dollars?” Beca replied sarcastically, and Chloe laughed.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” With that, she wrapped her arm around the brunette’s waist and they started walking. After what felt like hours, Chloe stopped. “We’re here.”
“Cool.” After the redhead didn’t move, Beca grew self-conscious. “Uhm, Chloe? You can let go of me, right?”
“Oh right.” The redhead in question retracted her arm and the brunette could hear her walk away. Unsure of what to do, Beca continued to stand around, after a while contemplating to take her sack off. Just when she was about to do it, she felt someone grabbing her arm and ushering her to god knows where. She could feel someone standing next to her when the person stopped her.
“We have gathered here to announce the new Bellas and to initiate them.” A voice behind her started to say, making Beca jump. “The sopranos. Jessica, Mary Elise, Lilly.” The brunette could hear something being pulled off, presumably the sacks. Nice, finally. “The mezzos. Cynthia Rose, Stacie, Kori. And our Altos. Fat Amy, Denise, Ashley and Beca.” When her name was said, the hood came off, and the brunette was greeted with candles literally everywhere. She saw something flicker next to her, which made her turn to the podium with more candles on it. Beca scrunched up her face.
“Now, we shall begin by drinking the blood of the sisters that came before you.” Aubrey said, walking over to a table and lifting up a fancy looking wine glass. The brunette almost choked on air. She had joined a fucking cult.
“Dude, no!” She exclaimed.
“Don’t worry, it’s Boone’s farm.” Chloe whispered to her and winked again. Begrudgingly, Beca took the glass and drank a sip before giving it back to Chloe.
After every girl took a sip, Aubrey handed everyone a scarf. “Please place the scarf into your right hand.” The redhead even showed it to them where they had to place it as if they were kindergarten kids. But just to be sure, Beca looked around to check if it was the right hand. “Repeat after me please.” The blonde continued. “I, sing your names.”
“I.” The girls said in unison before singing their names, which created a cringe worthy moment.
“Promise to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of a Bella woman.” Aubrey said.
“Promise to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of a Bella woman.” The girls parroted.
“And I solemnly promise to never have sexual relations with a Treblemaker, or may my vocal chords be ripped out by wolves.” Aubrey finished with a smile.
The other girls just looked at her in shock, but repeated the words anyways, even if with hesitation. “And I solemnly promise to never have sexual relations with a Treblemaker, or may my vocal chords be ripped out by wolves.”
“Congratulations, you’re all Bellas now.” The blonde smiled and the others squealed. Beca, however, still tried to take in the fact that she possibly just joined a cult. Would that mean she’d come in one day and they would perform a satanic ritual? Or would they start drinking real blood from horny fuckboys they seduced?
“Now, follow us to the initiation party!” Chloe exclaimed, and a tall busty girl squealed. “I’m so ready!” The girls excitedly made their way to the exit, but Beca stood frozen in her place.
“Beca?” Aubrey called out to her. After receiving no response, she walked over to the brunette. “Earth to Beca? You coming?”
“Huh, what?” The girl in question asked, shaking her head.
“Why were you just standing there? If this happens often, I’m going to kick you out of the Bellas, just so we’re clear. I want my girls to be fully attentive to me. If something goes wrong, they’re going to be punished. You don’t want to be punished, do you, Beca?” The blonde said.
“Woah, chill out dude. I was just lost in thought. No need to be like that. Besides, I could be into that kinda stuff, you never know.” Beca answered with a wink. Aubrey just gave her a baffled look and stared at the smaller girl in front of her, not knowing what to say. Smirking, the brunette walked towards the exit. “Are you coming now or what?”
“This feud is not over yet!” Aubrey angrily exclaimed and stormed past Beca. Chuckling, she followed the furious blonde.
Arriving at the amphitheater, the brunette cringed at the sight in front of her. People were already drunk, and some were already making out.
“Alright ladies, welcome to aca-initiation night. Prepare to soften the beach.” Aubrey announced before walking off. The other girls followed her, but Beca chose to stay where she was. When the obese blonde from the Activities Fair walked past her, the brunette spoke up.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
“Just living the dream. I still can’t believe that they let my sexy fat ass in.” The girl laughed. “I’m Fat Amy by the way.”
“Fat… Amy? Why not just Amy?” Beca asked.
“So twig bitches like you don’t say it behind my back, duh! If you’d excuse me, I need to seduce some confused frat boys. What was your name again?”
Before Beca could speak up, a voice called her name. The girls turned their heads to Jesse approaching them. “Beca! Beca, hey!”
“Ah, alright. I’ll leave you guys to it.” Fat Amy said and walked off.
“Oh great, what are you doing here? Are you stalking me?” The brunette girls asked the boy.
“Are you a Bella now? Funny, I never pegged you as the type who likes acapella.” Jesse smiled goofily. “But now you’re one of those acapella girls, and I’m one of those acapella guys, and we’re gonna have aca-children. It’s inevitable.”
“Dude, I think this is the perfect time to say it. There is never going to be something between us because I’m gay.” Beca shrugged.
“Oh, okay… Well, can we be friends then? We could be each other’s wingmen and such!”
“Woah, this is the most positive reaction I’ve gotten when I turned a guy down.” The brunette looked suspiciously at the boy in front of her. “You’re being genuine, right?”
“Of course! There will be other girls that will like me for who I am.” Jesse smiled.
“Cool. Are you sure you’re gonna remember everything tho? You seem stupid drunk.” Beca chuckled.
“Am not! I’ll prove it to you!” The brunette boy pouted.
“Okay, so if I were to push you, you’d come back without hesitation?” The girl chuckled and proceeded to push him.
Jesse proudly came back without falling. “See, coming right back. But I think you should get a drink, you need to loosen up a bit. Be right back.” With that, he walked away, leaving Beca alone. Not for long though, because a redhead grabbed her hands and pulled her towards her.
“Hey there stranger.” Chloe chuckled.
“What’s up?” The brunette smiled.
“I am so glad that I met you.” The redhead grinned and came closer, so that their faces were only inches apart. “I think that we’re going to be very fast friends.”
“Well, you saw me naked, so.” Beca winked.
“You need to be careful though, Bree was shooting daggers at you and that Treble. If you hook up, keep it a secret.”
“Oh, we won’t hook up. I’m gay and I told him that. We’re most likely just going to be friends.”
Chloe seemed to be pleased with that information. “Well, that’s good. But anyways, I promise you, being a Bella is going to be aca-awesome.”
“So awesome that no one is going to impeach Aubrey? I feel like she is going to be like a general, dictating everyone around.” The brunette said, glancing over at the blonde girl.
“Don’t worry about her. She’s a good girl and actually pretty nice once you really get to know her. Her parents just never took her out of the shrink-wrap.” Chloe smiled reassuringly.
“I don’t know what that means. But okay, if you say so.”
“I feel like this year is going to be interesting for all of us.”
“Oh yeah? Why?”
“I just feel like you’re what the group needed. Maybe you’ll be able to convince Aubrey to use songs from the 21st century and not those boring songs we always perform.” The redhead grinned.
“Wait, you’re performing boring songs? How boring?” Beca looked shocked.
“Uhm… like 20th century boring. 80s and all that.” Chloe shrugged.
“Oh boy what did I get myself into?” The brunette groaned and shook her head.
“A family for life, I tell you! Anyways, I need to go, this ginger needs her jiggle juice! See ya later!” The redhead shook her ass playfully and winked at Beca before walking off.
“Make good choices!” Beca laughed and looked around. That’s when the DJ decided to turn up the music.
“Come and dance you losers!” He yelled and everybody cheered, making their way to the dance floor. Jesse was coming back with two cups in his hands.
“Here you go. This is awesome man! I’m so ready for college.”
“Yeah it’s really something.” Beca accepted the drink that was handed to her and took a sip.
“We are the kings of campus!” He yelled, making the brunette girl cringe. Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, she saw Aubrey coming at her.
“What do you think you’re doing? You took an oath!” The blonde exclaimed.
“If I remember it correctly, that oath was about sexual relations. Not talking.” Beca smirked.
“So? You’re going to talk, then you’re going to drink and before you know it you hook up. That happened to a lot of Bellas in the past.” Aubrey spat out, stepping closer to the smaller girl.
“Dude, I am 100% positive that there’s no hooking up happening. So you can chill and maybe get yourself a drink to loosen up? Visit a doctor so he can remove the stick you got stuck in your ass?”
“How dare you talk to me like that?! You’re just trying to distract me so you can hook up with that damn Treble!”
“I’m fucking gay so the only people I’ll be hooking up with are 100% female. And last I checked that doesn’t go against the oath.” The brunette crossed her arms, glaring into the other girl’s eyes.
“Whatever. If I see you kissing that boy anyways, you’re going to be in so much trouble. Consider this your warning, if I catch you two making out, you’re out of the Bellas.” Aubrey huffed, avoiding Beca’s glare.
“Oh, and what about that girl over there? Dancing and humping that Treblemaker?” The brunette said, pointing to the dance floor.
“What?!” Aubrey’s head whipped around and saw them full on making out. “This is unacceptable! Kori!! You’re out of the Bellas!” She yelled, turning everybody’s attention, including the pair in question, at her. The next thing that happened was the girl running off, crying.
“Woah, was it really necessary to cause such a scene?” Beca asked.
“Don’t tell me how to run the Bellas.” With that, Aubrey walked away, leaving the brunette alone.
“I don’t know what just happened but damn she is a bitch.” Jesse said, shaking his head.
“Tell me about it. I think I’m gonna call it a night. See you around, Treble.” Beca smiled and turned around, walking towards her dorm.
x
The next day, Beca went to the auditorium for her rehearsal. “This is going to be so fucking awesome.” She thought as she walked in and met some other Bellas who were already there. The girls introduced themselves and the brunette kindly reintroduced herself back, and they chatted until Aubrey spoke up.
“Okay. Sit down, please. Sopranos in the front, altos in the back.” The girls did as they were told and sat down. “As you can see, Kori is not here with us. Last night she was trebleboned and had to face her consequences. She has been disinvited from the Bellas.”
“Yeah we all know after the scene you caused yesterday.” Beca muttered, but Aubrey still heard her.
“Well that’s how serious I am about this oath. I’m Dixie Chicks serious. Now, has anybody else something to confess?” The blonde looked around, but kept coming back to Mary Elise.
Knowing that the girl had been caught, she tried to justify herself. “I’m sorry, it was an accident. I didn’t-“
“Save it. Turn in your scarf and go.” Aubrey said, holding out her hand.
Begrudgingly, Mary Elise gave her the scarf. Just as she was about to leave, the blonde spoke up again. “Take your chair and drag it behind you.” The girl silently nodded and dragged her chair behind her before storming out, crying.
“Was that really necessary?” Beca asked, staring at the blonde in disbelief.
“This is war, Beca. And it’s my job to make sure that my soldiers are prepped at go time with three kick-ass songs sung and choreographed to perfection. If you have a problem with it, you can-“ But before Aubrey could finish speaking she put her hand up to her mouth and made quiet gagging noises. Beca looked baffled at her and Chloe put a hand on the blonde’s back and whispered comfortingly.
“Calm down, Bree. We don’t want what happened last year to happen again, do we?” Even though it was quiet, the girls all heard it. Lilly raised her hand.
“What happened last year?” She asked so quietly that the girls had to lean in closer.
“Excuse me? What did you say?” The redhead asked.
“What happened last year?” The girls leaned back, understanding her. “And do you guys want to see a dead body?” Even though it was quiet, Beca heard it loud and clear and decided to scooch away a little.
“Well, I’m going to be honest with you. I…” Aubrey took a deep sigh. “Whenever I get too riled up or nervous, I projectile vomit. That kinda happened last year during finals.”
Lilly suddenly whipped out a tablet and typed something into YouTube. Then she tapped on a video and played it. It showed the Bellas performing, Aubrey and Chloe in the front. The blonde took the mic from another girl and sang god knows what until suddenly, she vomited all over the front row. Some Bellas let out a disgusted noise.
“Okay, enough now. It happened, it’s in the past.” Aubrey interrupted them, pulling their attention back to her. “Now, we will practice every day for at least two hours, and I trust you will add your own cardio.”
“Why cardio?” Beca asked.
“Yeah no, don’t put me down for cardio.” Fat Amy said, making the brunette grin.
“Moving on. This is a list of all the songs we have ever performed. And you will notice that we only do songs that were made famous by women.” Beca accepted the list and raised an eyebrow. There really was nothing from this century on here.
“This list is boring. We need new songs. Songs from this century.”
“Not going to happen. We don’t stray from tradition.” Aubrey said firmly to which the brunette just raised her eyebrow.
“Whatever you say, General.”
Choosing to ignore the girl’s comment, the blonde continued. “Now, this board portrays how we will become champions.” She turned it around. “We will start with running some laps. Then we will do vocal warm ups and start with the choreography. Any questions?” When nobody raised their hand, Aubrey nodded and started with the plan.
x
Five hours later, Aubrey finally called it. The girls groaned in relief and picked up their stuff and began walking out. “Beca, a word.”
The girl stopped and turned around. “Yes, general?”
“First, stop calling me that. Second, you know you’ll have to take those ear monstrosities out for Fall Mixer, right?”
“Man, here I thought you would actually compliment me on my hard work today.” Beca said sarcastically.
“I don’t like your attitude.” Aubrey stated.
“You don’t even know me. Plus, you’re not the boss of me. So I will continue doing whatever the fuck I want.” The brunette smiled.
“I swear to god, I’m going to kick you out.” The blonde said through gritted teeth.
“You lost two girls already. I’m pretty sure you need me more than I need you, so.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s all you can say to that? That’s weak.”
“I will make your life a living hell.” Aubrey said, stepping closer.
“I would like to see you try. This is going to be interesting.” Beca smirked.
“I’m going to slap that stupid smirk off your face.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Chloe awkwardly cleared her throat, turning the attention of the girls, who were only inches apart, to her. “No need to fight you guys. I’m sure you two can figure this out.”
“Whatever.” Beca said before walking off. She hated Aubrey with a burning passion, but there was something so irresistible about her as well. Shaking her head, she walked to the showers.
x
A week later, they performed for Sigma Beta Theta. Needless to say, it was a disaster. After the frat guy dismissed them, they walked back to campus.
“Well I hope you all remember how you’re feeling right now, so you’ll never want to feel this way again. Chloe, your voice didn’t sound Aguilerian at all. What’s the matter?” Aubrey said.
Chloe dramatically whipped around, making the girls stop in their tracks. “I have nodes.” She stated.
“What? Oh my god, why didn’t you tell me?” The blonde asked, shocked.
“What the fuck are nodes?” Beca questioned.
“Vocal nodules? The rubbing together of your vocal chords at above average rates without proper lubrication.” Aubrey explained.
“They sit on your windpipe and crush your dreams.” The redhead said with teary eyes.
“Well, isn’t that painful? Why would you keep on singing?” The brunette questioned.
“Because I love it! It’s my life.” Chloe sighed. “The key is early diagnosis. I am living with nodes. But I am a survivor. I just have to pull back. Because I am limited. Because I have nodes.”
Beca rolled her eyes at how dramatic the redhead was being.
“Chloe, this is horrible. I will take that into account and see what we can do about this.” Aubrey smiled.
“Woah, the general can actually be nice? Who would’ve known.” The brunette said.
“Shut it, Mitchell.” The blonde glared.
“Make me.” Beca smirked.
Aubrey was taken aback. Flustered, she turned around and walked away. The brunette just chuckled. The Bellas exchanged glances between each other as to what just happened.
x
Beca was sitting out on the quad when Jesse suddenly put a blanket down next to her. “Uh, what is this?”
“A picnic.” The boy responded and threw her a juice pouch. “As much as I love spending time stacking CDs with you, we need to do something out of the radio station, too. You know, hang out and stuff, like friends usually do.”
“Are you insulting me? Are you saying I don’t have friends?” The girl fake gasped.
Jesse chuckled. “No, you weirdo. So, I was thinking we could watch some movies. I have E.T., Star Wars, Jaws, The Breakfast Club and Rocky. Best scored and soundtracked movies of all time. That’s what I wanna do when I grow up. Score movies, move people to tears, blow their minds and all that.”
Beca groaned. “Do we have to? I would rather talk about my parent’s divorce. Or visit a gynecologist.”
“What? Do you not like movies?” Jesse asked, raising his eyebrow, to which the brunette girl just responded by taking a sip out of her juice pouch. “What?! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“They’re fine. I just doze off somewhere and never make it to the ending. The endings are so predictable too. Like, the kid sees dead people, the guy gets the girl and Darth Vader is Luke’s father.”
“Oh, so you’re telling me you just knew the biggest cinematic reveal in history? Just like that?” The brunette boy asked.
“No, everybody talked about it when it was revealed. I have ears. But for real though, Vader in Dutch means father. His name is literally “Dark Father”. Kind of obvious, don’t you think?” Beca said.
“Whatever. You need a moviecation. And I’m gonna give it to you.”
“Oh yeah, in between the Bellas rehearsals which are always.”
“Are you guys getting ready for the riff off?” Jesse asked.
“What the fuck is that?”
“I don’t know much about it, I just know it’s tonight and we compete against the other acapella groups on campus.”
“Tonight? Shit, that’s what Aubrey meant with a trip. I swear, I imagined worse things, but I hope this doesn’t suck.” Beca groaned and dropped her head in her hands. “Hopefully we don’t have to perform those old and boring songs.”
“We’ll see. I need to go, my class is starting soon. See you tonight!” The boy waved her goodbye and left.
x
The acapella groups gathered around in the pool when the announcer spoke up. “Welcome to the riff off! Are you ready to get vocal?” Everybody cheered in response. “The winners get the greatest price of all. A microphone used by Hoobastank when they performed at the Schnee Performing Arts Center.” The crowd went crazy and Beca just stared at him. “To win, you must steal the song from the other group by picking off a word they’re singing, and make it the first word of your own song. If you can’t think of a song, you are-“ He claps. “Cut off! If you repeat a song, you are-“ More people join. “Cut off! And most of all, if you suck, you are-“ Everybody joined in. “Cut off! Now, let’s have a look at the first category!” He pulled out a weird device which projected a spinning wheel onto the pool wall. “Let’s see our first category. It’s… Ladies of the 80s!”
Beca groaned as Aubrey ran forward, but the Treblemakers cut her off before she could sing anything.
Oh Mickey, you're so fine
You're so fine you blow my mind
Hey Mickey, Hey Hey Hey Mickey
Oh Mickey, you're so fine
One of the BU Harmonics stepped up and cut the Treblemakers off.
You're so fine and you're mine
I'll be yours till the end of time
Cause you make me feel
Yeah you make me feel
So shiny and new
Like a virgin
Touched for the very first time
Like the
Aubrey turned around. “Okay guys, we’ll sing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot!” She turned back around and started singing.
Like the one in me
That's O.K.
Let's see how you do it
Put up your dukes
Let's get down to it
Hit me with your best shot
Why don't you hit me with your best shot
Hit me with your best shot
Fire away
A girl from the High Notes stepped up and started singing, obviously completely high.
Away - ay...
It must have been love
But it's over now
But it's over right now
“The negative side effects of medical marihuana, folks.” The announcer interrupted the girl. “You are…” Everybody clapped. “Cut off! Let’s check out the next category.”
“So we just pick any song that works? Even from this century?” Beca asked, turning to Chloe.
“If it fits the category, yes.”
“And you just go with it?”
“Yep.” The redhead smiled.
“Man, that’s nice. Why can’t we always be like this?” The brunette sighed.
“Alright, the next category is… Songs about Sex.”
Just as a Treblemaker stepped forward, Cynthia Rose emerged from between the Bellas.
Na na na
Come on
Na na na na na
Come on, come on, come on
Cause I may be bad
But I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air
I don't care I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But chains and whips excite me
Cause I may be bad
But I'm perfectly good at it
Sex
Beca chuckled, that category was clearly fit for Stacie. Before she could continue her humping with Cynthia Rose, a Treble stepped up.
Sex baby
Let's talk about you and me
Let's talk about all the good things
And the bad things that may be
Let's talk about sex
Alright
Let's talk about sex
A little bit, a little bit
Let's talk about sex, baby
Aubrey, who ushered Stacie back, lost her again when she turned back around to cut the singing Treble off.
Baby, all through the night
I'll make love to you
Like you want me too
And I
Jesse stepped up, cutting Stacie off.
And I guess it's just the woman in you
That brings out the man in me
I know I can't help myself
You're all in the world to me
It feels like the first time
It feels like the very first time
It feels like the first time
It
Watching Jesse made Beca chuckle. He seemed to love music so much. Knowing she had to make the Bellas win the competition though, she ran up to the brunette boy and cut him off.
It's going down, fade to Blackstreet
The homies got RB, collab' creations
bump like acne, No doubt
I put it down, never slouch
As long as my credit can vouch
A dog couldn't catch me, straight up
Tell me who could stop when Dre making moves
Attracting honeys like a magnet
Giving them eargasms with my mellow accent
Still moving this flavor
with the homies Blackstreet and Teddy
The original rump shakers
Everybody was baffled that Beca could rap. Even her group, that should have backed her up, looked at her in shock. Uncertain, the brunette continued to sing.
Shorty get down, good Lord
Baby got 'em open all over town
Thankfully, Fat Amy came to the rescue and began singing with her.
Strictly biz, she don't play around
Cover much ground, got game by the pound
Getting paid is a forte
Each and every day, true player way
Beca looked at Aubrey, who just stood there, staring at her in disbelief. Not breaking eye contact, she sung the next lines.
I can't get her outta my mind
I think about the girl all the time
“Did she just… blush?” The brunette thought. Shaking her head, she continued to sing.
I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up, Baby
I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up, Baby
The other acapella groups and even the audience joined in to sing with them. Beca walked around, grinning like an idiot.
I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up, Baby
I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up, Baby
I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up, Baby
I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up, Baby
We out!
The crowd cheered while the Bellas celebrated their victory. Or so they thought.
“Tough blow ladies.” The announcer spoke up. “The word you needed to match was “it”. And you sang “it’s”. So you are…” Everybody clapped again. “Cut off! The winners are the Treblemakers!”
“I’ve never heard that rule!” Aubrey exclaimed before walking away. “Come on ladies, come back.” The Bellas followed her. “Before everybody goes to bed tonight, I need you to make a list of everything you did wrong.”
“But guys, what we did was great, right?” Beca spoke up.
“Calm your pits, Beca, we still lost.” The blonde huffed.
“Yeah, but it was spontaneous, it was awesome. We were actually listening to…”
“Okay, everybody, hands in.” Aubrey cut her off.
“No, I refuse to accept that you want to punish us for doing something great! You don’t want to admit it, but you also know that this, what just happened, was better than anything you ever did in this Bella career. So why don’t we continue doing that?” The brunette asked angrily.
“Yeah I’m with Beca on that one. This was so great today.” Cynthia Rose said and went to stand next to Beca.
“Yeah, I agree.” Fat Amy replied, putting an arm around the smaller girl. Slowly, all the Bellas went to stand next to Beca.
“Chloe?” Aubrey asked, looking with hurt in her eyes to her best friend.
“I’m sorry, but I agree with Beca. We need new songs, we need to stray from tradition and be better than last year.” She said apologetically before walking over to the girl.
“Oh, I see how it is. I’m the jerk, the one that dictates everyone around and controls everything. It isn’t like I’m the captain of this group or something!”
“Aubrey, it’s totally okay how you run the Bellas. We just want newer songs.” The brunette tried to reason.
“No. Honestly, fuck all of you. I’m done.” The blonde said and walked away.
“It’s best just to give her space. We’ll meet tomorrow at 9 am for practice. Good night guys.” Chloe smiled, and the Bellas bid their good nights. Then, the redhead looked at Beca. “Can I walk you to your dorm?”
“Why? You scared that someone will steal me?” The brunette chuckled.
“No you weirdo. I just want to get to know you better.”
Beca nodded and they started walking. After some silence, she spoked up. “I feel bad. Aubrey didn’t deserve the whole group turning against her.”
“Hey, you tried to convince her to use a new set list. You’re not the first, I tried as well, but even though I’m her best friend, she just won’t listen to me.” Chloe sighed.
“What makes her not loosen up?”
“Her dad. He’s in the military and always trained her to be the perfect daughter with perfect grades and all that. She doesn’t want to disappoint him.”
“Her dad can fuck off. Nobody can be 100% perfect.” Beca sighed. “I just wish she would accept the fact that new songs would help. I know that she also knows it’s better. She just needs the nudge to do it.”
Chloe looked up to the sky. “I always see you out on the quad with your headphones in and staring really intently into your laptop. What are you doing?”
“Stalker much?” The brunette chuckled. “I like to mix songs together. I started it when I was around 14 and never stopped doing it. I want to move to LA and become a music producer.”
“Wow, that’s cool! Can I listen to it?” The redhead asked as they stopped in front of Beca’s dorm room.
“Well, I’m usually not comfortable showing them, but… What have I left to lose? If Kimmy Jin isn’t here, you could listen to them right away.” The smaller girl answered and unlocked the door to reveal an empty room. “Well, I guess it’s settled then. Have a seat on the bed.”
Chloe nodded happily as she sat down on the bed, eagerly waiting for Beca to hand her the headphones, when she did, the redhead immediately put them on, letting the music consume her. “Shit Beca, this is really good! I like it.” She smiled.
“Thanks, Chloe.” The brunette blushed.
“We could show this to Aubrey, maybe she will realize that the Bellas wouldn’t be lost with new songs, but that you can mix them together and we can work on the choreography.”
“You think?” Beca asked, plopping down next to the redhead.
“I’m sure of it.” They smiled at each other, and Chloe took in a deep breath. “The Bellas aside, I wanted to ask if you might want to go on a date with me? I really want to get to know you better.”
“Oh, uh… No, sorry. I’m not interested in you.” Beca scratched the back of her neck. “I see us as friends. Nothing more.”
“Oh, okay. Nothing wrong with asking.” The redhead smiled softly. “Well, I’ll be going. See you tomorrow, and bring some samples with you, will ya?”
“Will do. Good night, Chloe.” The brunette smiled and closed the door behind the girl. She sighed and put her head against the door. “Why is everybody crushing on me?” She thought. Shaking her head, she went to bed.
x
The next day Beca walked in to the Bellas panicking. “Woah guys, what’s wrong?”
“Beca, Aubrey hasn’t been home all night and she didn’t show up here!” Chloe cried.
“Shit. I’d say we spread out, look all over campus. Exchange numbers so we can message each other. She surely is somewhere.” The brunette said. “Ashley, Jessica, you’ll look for her in the school building. Maybe she is in a classroom. Cynthia Rose, Stacie, you check the dorms. Maybe she crashed somewhere. Denise, Fat Amy, you search the quad. Chloe and I will look around college. Maybe she went to the lake. Is everybody’s task clear?”
“Yes!” The girls said in unison.
“Wait, where is Lilly?” Chloe asked.
“I guess she already went to look for her. Now, go.” The Bellas went outside before splitting up. Chloe and Beca started their way to the lake.
“I’m so worried, she never did that before. I hope she’s okay.” The redhead said, sniffing.
“Hey, I’m sure she is. We’ll find her in no time.” The brunette smiled reassuringly.
When they arrived at the lake, they decided to split up and walk around either side so the search would go faster. Beca shoved her hands in her pockets and looked around, trying to spot a certain blonde. After a while, she stumbled over a treehouse. Deciding it would be worth a look, she climbed up, opened the trap door only to reveal Aubrey, sitting in a corner with her knees pulled up to her chest and her head on the knees.
“Hey, Aubrey.” The brunette said softly.
“Go away Beca. I hate you.” The blonde mumbled.
“Okay, bye.” Beca smirked, starting to climb back down.
“No wait. Please don’t go.”
Beca went back up and fully entered the tree house. “Nice hideout. Do you come here often?”
“Maybe so.” Aubrey answered, her head still on her knees.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you yesterday. I was just trying-“
“Save it.” The blonde cut her off. “Why am I never doing enough for anybody? Not even my dad is proud of me. I always tried to live up to his standards but he was always disappointed.” She sobbed and slammed her fist against the wall.
“Maybe he doesn’t want you to live up to his standards. Maybe he is disappointed because you don’t try to do your own thing. Maybe he set such high standards because he knew you could never reach them, and wanted to inspire you to break out from that and find your own way to do things.” Beca suggested, sitting down next to the blonde.
“Oh yeah, great. I’m sure he thinks that way. You don’t even know him. Not like I do.” Aubrey angrily said, wiping her tears.
“Well, maybe so. I just made some suggestions. I always make my dad disappointed in me because I don’t do as he says. Honestly, I just joined the Bellas so it would benefit me. He said if I joined a club and I didn’t like it by the end of the year, he would help me move to LA and fulfill my dream. But, then I joined and I felt this need to fix this group. To help it become better.”
“Wow, how great. You still would’ve left us after that year huh? Destroy everything and then leave, am I right?” The blonde looked up at Beca, glaring into her eyes.
“If you asked me a month ago, I would’ve said yes. But honestly, I can’t really think about leaving you all behind. I want to help you. And probably stay for these four years of hell. But I can only help if you let me.”
“Tsk, how would you even be able to help? Do you know how to think of a choreography? How to filter out all the musical instruments in a song so the acapella version sounds good? How to even put together an arrangement? I bet you don’t, so why would you be able to help?” Aubrey spat out.
“In my free time, I like to mix songs together. Create mashups. That’s my thing. I add the songs with a similar beat together. Chloe thinks they’re good. She listened to it last night and encouraged me to show you. Do you want to?” The brunette asked with a hopeful look on her face.
“The Bellas are shattered anyways, so why the hell not.” The blonde huffed, looking out of the window. Beca got out her phone and started playing a mashup of Bulletproof vs. Release Me. With each second that passed, Aubrey’s face softened more and more, until she turned to look at Beca. “Wow, this sounds really good.”
“You think? Even good enough to use it for our competitions?”
“Out of the question!” The blonde exclaimed, making Beca scooch back a little in shock. Then, the blonde chuckled. “We can consider it. But for the Regionals we have to go with our routine, we don’t have time to rehearse something entirely new.”
“Woah, is Aubrey Posen actually being nice and genuine to me? Wow, I think I must be dreaming.” Beca pinched herself and Aubrey slapped her leg playfully. “Well, I think we should head back.” The blonde nodded and the brunette sent out a text to everyone that she found Aubrey and they would be coming back to the auditorium. They jumped down the ladder and bumped into Chloe.
“There you are! I was so worried!” The redhead said, engulfing her best friend in a hug.
“I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. I just needed to be alone.” Aubrey said apologetically.
“It’s okay. Let’s go back.” Chloe smiled and the three girls walked back.
x
The regionals were a disaster. If it wasn’t for Amy’s solo, they wouldn’t have advanced to the semifinals. Beca looked at Aubrey who looked like she was about to throw up. She decided to let it slide, but when they entered the entrance hall, she witnessed the Treblemakers fighting with what seems to be another acapella group. When she saw Jesse being begged to hit one of them who obviously looked like he was into that shit, she stepped down the stairs and punched the guy in the face.
“Oh, that was awesome! Do it again!” He exclaimed.
Fat Amy appeared behind the brunette and snatched the trophy out of Jesse’s hand, getting ready to hit the guy again. “Feel the fat power!” She shouted.
“Amy, don’t!” Beca yelled.
“Fat Amy, kick me in the balls!” The man shouted excitedly and Amy obeyed, hitting him right in the crotch. “Oh that hurt so good.”
“Amy, give the trophy back!” The brunette girl exclaimed, grabbing onto it.
“I want to put this sharp weapon up his ass!” The obese blonde said, pulling on the trophy.
“Oh, cherry on top!” The guy grinned, holding out his ass. But it would never come to it. The trophy suddenly broke in half and went flying through the window, smashing it. To their luck, there was a cop just standing outside who looked up from giving a van a parking ticket and walked towards them.
“Vertical running! I’m vertical running!” Amy exclaimed and ran away, leaving Beca standing there, alone, with half a trophy in her hand.
“Ma’am, I am going to arrest you because of destruction of public property.” The police officer said and handcuffed the brunette girl.
“This is a misunderstanding, really. Can’t we talk about this?” Beca smiled innocently.
“You can talk at the station.” The officer said, ushering her out.
“Fuck.” The girl mumbled.
x
After Jesse, or more like her dad, bailed her out of jail, she was beyond pissed. She knew that her dad wouldn’t be all too happy, but when he said she wasn’t allowed to move to LA anymore, she grunted. Way to ruin dreams. She stomped into her room, only to find all the Bellas waiting for her. Immediately, all her anger faded. “You guys waited up for me?” She smiled.
“Of course we waited up for you!” Chloe said, smiling.
“They waited here for hours. It was a real inconvenience, Beca.” Kimmy Jin said before leaving the room.
“Beca, I’m really glad that you are here.” Aubrey said, making the brunette look shocked at her. “Now that we’re all here, I’m calling an emergency Bella meeting.”
“Oh no…” Fat Amy mumbled.
“First up…” The captain said.
“Oh yes…” The obese girl mumbled again, making Beca snort.
“The score sheets showed that we were almost beaten by the Sockapellas. Fat Amy, you need to do things exactly like we rehearsed them, okay?”
“Have you considered that they almost beat us just because we were boring and Amy saved our asses?” The brunette girl chimed in. “We should be taking risks, it’s not enough to be good, we need to put ourselves out there, be different.”
Aubrey glared at Beca. “And you think your little arrangements will really help?”
“Uh, yeah? Mostly because they contain songs from this century.” The brunette shrugged.
The blonde scoffed. “Actually, no. We’ll perform this arrangement again, just like we rehearsed it. Your pseudo-mashups suck and you’re a grade A pain in my ass. I’m the captain and you don’t have a say in this group.”
Everybody looked shocked at their leader. Beca felt tears starting to form, but she swallowed them and glared at Aubrey. “Honestly, fuck you. Get out of my room. All of you.” When no one moved, she screamed. “Out!” The Bellas hastily picked up their stuff and went out, Chloe shooting the brunette an apologetic look. The blonde stared angrily at Beca but followed suit.
“Rehearsal at 8 am sharp.” She just said and Beca slammed the door shut behind her. Then she threw herself onto her bed and let the tears flow. “Why the fuck is she suddenly so mean?! She liked the mashups and even had some plans for a choreography. I thought we would be friends!” She thought and let out a loud sob. Apparently the blonde was a backstabber. Beca threw a pillow against the wall and tossed and turned until she eventually fell asleep.
x
The brunette hated the months until the semifinals. Aubrey was being unbearable again, so Beca went back to her snark and sarcasm. Yes, during the time where she showed the blonde her mixes and the regionals, the girl was actually being nice and refrained as much as she could from any comment. But since they were back to square one, why should she continue being nice?
The day of the semifinals was here, and Beca woke up, turning on the campus radio to listen to music when she got ready, something she did over the months, in the hopes that Luke would finally play her mixes. It started to frustrate her. Was she not good enough for him?
Suddenly, she almost dropped her eyeliner pen. The radio station played a mix. Not any mix, her mix. She quickly got ready and stormed as best as she could in her stupid outfit to the radio station. She barged in and walked over to Luke, excited. “You’re playing my song right now! This is my track! Do you like it? You put it on the radio, that’s so awesome!”
“It’s a sick beat. The DJ at the garage does a brilliant version of this, but yours? It’s better.”
“Hell yeah it is.” The brunette smiled.
“I’m gonna listen to her tonight. Wanna join me?”
“I can’t, I need to go to a competition. Otherwise I really would have.”
“Oh, flight attendant competition?” The blonde boy asked.
“No, the Barden Bellas. We have semifinals tonight.” Beca grinned sheepishly.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as an acapella girl. Good look though.”
“Hey Beca, let’s go grab lunch before the performance!” Jesse spoke up.
“Sure, why not? Bye Luke!” Luke waved them goodbye and they went outside.
“I kept bugging him to listen to your mixes by the way. I saw that he always threw your USB-Sticks into the admission basket but he never got them out. I’m glad he finally listened to me.” The brunette boy confessed.
“Thank you Jesse! I was getting worried sick that he just didn’t think I was good enough.” Beca was genuinely touched. No one did that for her before. “I’m sorry about the other night. It just kind of ruined my dream of moving to LA after this year.”
“Ah, don’t sweat it. I’m sure if you talk to your dad you can fix this.” The boy smiled and they went into the campus café.
x
Beca hated it. She hated that everybody was nodding off. She hated that they were forced to do this again. She hated that the Footnotes were making fun of them. But most of all, she hated Aubrey. She had no clue what she did to mess things up, but it pissed her off that the blonde set their relationship back to square one. So she did what she could do best. Go against the captain.
When Aubrey started her solo, the brunette started to sing Bulletproof, earning the audience’s interest back. Even though the blonde shot her a glare, she didn’t care. Satisfied, she proceeded, like everything was normal.
After the performance, Aubrey stormed after her. “What the hell Beca?! Were you trying to screw us up?”
“Are you being serious right now?” Beca asked.
“Newsflash, this isn’t the Beca show.”
“Okay, I’m sorry that I messed you up, but in case you haven’t noticed, everybody pretty much dozed off during our set!” The brunette defended herself.
“It’s not your job to decide what we do and when we do it.” Aubrey spat back. “Why don’t you ask the rest of the group how they felt about your little improvisation?”
Beca looked around. Everybody was avoiding her eyes. “Amy?” She asked weakly.
“It was cool… It just caught us a little off guard…” The blonde in question replied.
“It caught us a lot off guard! I told you she wasn’t a Bella, Chloe.” Aubrey said, crossing her arms.
“Aubrey, don’t.” Chloe tried to ease the situation.
“Save it. You don’t have to pretend you actually have a say in this group. Thanks to General Posen, everybody is unhappy here.” Beca said angrily. “I really tried to save this group, I really thought I had a chance. Turns out I don’t and everybody is a backstabber here. I’m done with this group. Fuck all of you.” She turned around and stormed out of the door. She heard Benji calling her name, but she was too angry to talk to anyone right now. She went outside and called a cab, telling the driver to go back to Barden.
When she got back, she found a lot of text messages, mostly from Chloe, asking if she was okay. She turned off her phone and went to the garage where she was supposed to meet Luke. She got herself a drink and gulped it down.
“So, how was the competition?” The blonde boy asked.
“I don’t wanna talk about anything of what happened this night.” The brunette replied, looking at the DJ.
“Well, okay. Do you like her mixes?” Luke asked, following her line of sight.
“Yeah, she’s good. I don’t want to sound cocky but I prefer my mixes more.”
The boy chuckled and spoke up. “Listen, Becky. I want you to take over the radio station during spring break. Play your music.”
“Are you being for real right now?” Beca asked, her mouth open.
“Yeah. I want to go home and who better to ask than you?” He smiled and the brunette punched him playfully.
“Don’t you think I want home too?”
“Well, if you want to, I’ll just put something random together and loop it.”
“No, I was joking. I would be more than honored.” Beca smiled. “By the way, my name is Beca. Not Becky.”
“Well, why didn’t you say anything?” Luke asked, tilting his head to the side.
“I honestly don’t know.” They laughed.
“Well, I’ll be heading over to my girlfriend. See you around.” The blonde boy smiled and walked away, leaving the girl all by herself. She decided to have another drink before heading home.
x
Spring break was lonely. Everybody she knew left to go home, but she couldn’t due to her mom being in Europe. She spent day and night at the radio station, occasionally putting on some automatically generated playlist so she had a break of a few hours or could sleep. Those hours where she was awake were usually filled with Beca wondering what the Bellas were up to and if they missed her. She wondered if Aubrey still drilled them to death. She generally wondered what Aubrey was up to. She just couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that the blonde was suddenly so cold to her again. What in earth did she do?
She decided to go to her dad. As much as it pained her, she still had to convince him to let her move to LA. And maybe he could offer her some advice as to what to do with the Bellas. She sighed and knocked on his door.
“Beca? What are you doing here?” He asked.
“I need you.” She simply said and walked past him into the kitchen. Her dad immediately poured them her favorite tea and sat opposite of her.
“What happened, honey?”
“I quit the Bellas. Aubrey absolutely broke me apart. She just… She is such a bitch and so stubborn.”
“Well, you can’t go against everyone. Some people have to learn it the hard way that not everything works their way. I think Aubrey is one of those people.”
“It’s just so frustrating dad. She said she liked my mashups and we even started to become friends or something. And then suddenly she shows me the cold shoulder again, completely ruining whatever we had and she started being mean again.”
“Hm, maybe you said something that upset her? Not everyone takes your comments well.” Her dad suggested.
“Ugh, I don’t know. It’s kind of like she has shut me out.”
“Just like you do?” Dr. Mitchell asked.
“Huh?” Beca asked, looking at him.
“Well, you shut everyone out if you can’t stand being vulnerable around them. You shut me out too. I tried to make things right between us but you just wouldn’t let me.”
“It’s just easier, you know?” The brunette sighed.
“But also really lonely. Pushing everybody away, even those who you love most…”
“Dad, what do I do? How can I fix this?” Beca asked, looking down onto the table.
“It’s up to you. I would suggest waiting until Aubrey comes to you. Maybe she will have realized by now that the group doesn’t work without you.” Her dad said and hugged his daughter.
“Thanks dad. Will you still not let me move to LA?” The brunette asked.
“Well, I think you should fix everything here first and then decide if you still want to go to LA. Whatever your decision is, I’ll support you.” The man smiled.
“Thank you, dad.”
x
The last day of spring break came and the students came back. Beca was just walking back to her dorm from the radio station when she bumped into Aubrey. “Oh great.” She thought.
“Beca…” The blonde said, looking her up and down. The brunette knew she was in a bad shape. She was paler than before, lost a little weight and had bags under her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Pf, since when do you care about me?” Beca said bitterly.
“I’m sorry about what happened, can we talk?” Aubrey asked.
“No, I don’t think so. Good day.” The brunette turned around and was ready to walk away when she felt a hand wrapping around her wrist.
“Beca… Please.” The voice was begging. Begrudgingly, she turned around.
“Fine, but not here. Let’s go to my room.” They walked to Baker Hall and into Beca’s room. “Talk.” She said after closing the door behind them.
“After you left, the Bellas fell apart. Like, really fell apart. Over spring break, I had time to reflect on this year, and I want to genuinely apologize to you. You were trying to revolutionize the Bellas, and I didn’t let you. I guess that was because you didn’t take any shit from me and always fought back. That made me furious, and I never knew why.” Aubrey chuckled. “I came to the realization that I really did control everyone and everything, and I scared people so much that they didn’t dare to talk against me. That was until you came along. You shook me to the core and opened my eyes. And I really like your mashups. I just felt really hurt when you said that this performance with The Sign and Eternal Flame sucked. I mean, I also put work in it so we could perform it. Just like you put work in your mixes.”
“But why did you have to be so cold to me again? I actually started to like you. You basically shut me out. Just like I normally do with people.” Beca sighed sadly.
“I just wanted to show you that we didn’t suck if everything went like it was supposed to. It honestly killed me that we went back to square one. But with your comments it eventually became easier to hate you again, because some things you said really weren’t nice. So I wasn’t nice, too. And I guess I went too far during the semifinals.” The blonde sighed. “I’m really sorry Beca. I want to start over. I honestly missed you.”
The brunette sighed and looked out of the window. She looked back at the blonde. “Even if I were to accept your apology, I couldn’t do anything. We didn’t advance to the finals.”
“Actually…” Aubrey said, making Beca look at her with interest. “Benji found out that the lead singer of the Footnotes was still in high school. We advanced into the finals. And I’m asking you, Beca Mitchell, if you want to arrange a killer mashup and plan out the choreography with me, making us win the finals and beat the Trebles?”
“Well. I will accept. But if you dare to break my heart again, I’m never coming back. Do you understand?” The brunette stated, holding out her hand. The other girl took it and shook it.
“You got my word.”
“Then you got my help.” Beca smiled softly.
Aubrey stepped forward and hugged the shorter girl tightly. “Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.”
The brunette awkwardly wrapped her arms around the blonde and squeezed her a little. “No problem.��
“Well, we will meet tomorrow at 2 pm. Will you drop by?” Aubrey asked, letting go of the girl.
“No, you suck, I got better things to do.” Beca sarcastically said. “Of course I’ll be there. See you tomorrow.”
They smiled contently at each other. “Thank you again Beca. You don’t know how much this means to me.” The blonde said before turning around and leaving the room, leaving the brunette behind.
Beca couldn’t explain it, but she felt immediately better. She was happy that Aubrey seemed to care about her. She missed the blonde just as much as the girl did her. She couldn’t wait for tomorrow to come.
x
The next day she was making her way over to the auditorium when she bumped into Jesse, who began telling her about his spring break. She listened, avoiding the questions what she did during that time. After a while she saw it already was 2:30 pm.
“Shit Jesse, I need to go. See you later!” She said, dashing to the auditorium. When she came in however, she saw that everybody was fighting. Beca took in the sight before her. There was vomit on the floor, where Lilly made… Vomit angels? It was disgusting. Cynthia Rose was obviously groping Stacie while the busty girl blew the rape whistle. The other girls stood around, screaming. Fat Amy, Aubrey and Chloe wrestled for the pitch pipe. “Woah, guys! Guys! Stop!” She exclaimed, making everybody stop in their tracks. “What’s going on here?”
“Nothing.” Aubrey said, standing up straight. There was a vomit stain on the blonde’s shirt, indicating she was the one who vomited.
“Doesn’t look like nothing to me. What happened?”
“We couldn’t live with this dictatorship anymore.” Fat Amy said. “We wanted to break free.”
Beca took in a deep breath and looked at Aubrey. “Well, what if I told you Aubrey and I kissed and made up and we’re going to arrange something new for the finals?”
“Wait, you two kissed?” Chloe asked, making both girls blush.
“What? No, it’s a saying.” The brunette stuttered. “Anyways, I think it’s important for us to get on the same level. Find our sound.”
“I agree.” The blonde said and threw Beca the pitch pipe, but she couldn’t catch it and it landed in the vomit.
“Well, maybe not here. Let’s go to the pool.”
They made their way there and Beca turned around. “Ok, here we are. Aubrey, would you pick out a song for us please?”
“Bruno Mars – Just The Way You Are.” The blonde answered, smiling.
“Okay. Chloe, are you okay with taking the lead?” The redhead nodded and Beca started with the intro.
Oh, her eyes, her eyes make the stars look like they're not shinin'
Her hair, her hair falls perfectly without her tryin'
She's so beautiful, and I tell her everyday
Grinning, Beca started singing Just A Dream.
Uh, uh, I was thinkin' bout her, thinkin' bout me, thinkin' bout us, who we gon' be (I know, I know when I compliment her, she won't believe me)
Her eyes wandered to Aubrey, who was looking back at her, smiling widely.
Opened my eyes, and it was only just a dream (And it's so, it's so sad to think that she doesn't see what I see)
It was only just a dream (But every time she asks me do I look okay? I say)
The Bellas began clapping and stomping to the rhythm, all clearly enjoying what was happening.
When I see your face (So I traveled back, down that road, Will she come back, no one knows)
There's not a thing that I would change (I realize yeah, it was only Just A Dream)
'Cause you're amazing
Just the way you are (It was only Just A Dream)
When I see your face (So I traveled back, down that road, Will she come back, no one knows)
There's not a thing that I would change (I realize yeah, it was only Just A Dream)
'Cause you're amazing
Just the way you are (It was only Just A Dream)
When I see your face (Face)
They finished and everybody was grinning from ear to ear, and Beca and Aubrey were staring at each other.
“Hands in, girls.” Aubrey said, holding out her hand. Everybody put their hand on top of hers, before they counted to three and, for the first time, made a perfect harmonized sound. That was, if there wasn’t suddenly a bass note. Chloe clasped her hand over her mouth.
“I’ve never made that sound before!” She said.
“Usually you aren’t supposed to. Chloe, what did you do?” Aubrey asked.
“I might have gotten rid of my nodes via surgery?” The redhead admitted sheepishly.
“Chloe!” The blonde gasped.
“Yo, with her messed up vocal chords, she can hit the bass notes. We could perform so much more songs!” Cynthia Rose spoke up.
“That’s true. I have a rough arrangement planned out in my head too.” Beca smiled.
“This is so nice.” Lilly suddenly said, loud and clear for everyone to hear.
“Woah, what?” Stacie gasped. “You can talk?”
“No need to shout.” Amy said, making everybody laugh.
x
The weeks before finals were filled with Aubrey and Beca planning out an arrangement and choreography, them teaching the Bellas and successfully mastering it before the finals. They grew closer, too, due to them staying up late together. Chloe found them more than once cuddled up in bed when they passed out from their sessions. The redhead smiled at the sight and took pictures for blackmail purposes later.
The day of the finals was finally here and everybody was nervous. They huddled up and watched the Treblemakers perform, having to admit that they had really outdone themselves. But they had the element of surprise on their side. When the announcer walked on stage, they turned to each other.
“I love you, awesome nerds.” Beca grinned.
“Yeah, you guys are the best. Even though most of you are pretty thin, you all got fat hearts, and that’s what matters.” Fat Amy said, making everyone chuckle. “Okay let’s just smash this!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Barden Bellas!” They walked onto stage and immediately received positive feedback from the crowd due them not being dressed like flight attendants anymore. They stood in formation and Beca began singing.
x
When they ended their performance, the crowd was going wild. They gave the Bellas a standing ovation as they cheered. Beca and Aubrey looked at each other with so much pride.
“Are they really cheering for us?” The blonde asked in disbelief.
“Yes they are, doofus.” The brunette replied, making Aubrey hug the smaller girl.
“Thank you for making this possible.”
They walked off the stage, and soon, the announcer told them the winners.
“On third place, the Hullabahoos. On second place, disappointingly, the Treblemakers. But, therefore, taking the first place and winning this competition…” He trailed off, letting the drum roll take over the silence. “The Barden Bellas!”
The girls cheered and ran onto the stage. Fat Amy took the trophy and lifted into the air. “We won, bitches!”
While the girls were hugging each other, Aubrey stood there, taking in the cheering crowd. Then she proceeded to look at her girls, especially at one girl. The one girl without whom none of this would have happened. She walked over to Beca, grabbed her cheeks and pressed her lips onto hers. The crowd cheered louder, but she didn’t care because the other girl kissed her back, wrapping her arms around the blonde’s waist. She could hear the Bellas whistling, and when she broke away from Beca, the girl smiled at her.
“So I take that as a sign that you like me?” The brunette said, smirking.
“Oh shut up.” Aubrey giggled and kissed her again.
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Animorphs Secret Santa
It’s time for @animorphsecretsanta! This is for Poppy @hostilepopcorn, who loves AxMarco and the true meaning of Christmas. I hope you like it! I could not come up with a title.
Untitled Secret Santa 2017 Fic
The space alien sitting across from me has a pointed chin and my best friend’s brown eyes. He is struggling to untie the red satin ribbon on a Whitman’s sampler box of chocolates, because human hands, he keeps reminding me, are large and clumsy and don’t have enough fingers, and he is still getting used to them. “Behold,” I boom, in my best radio announcer voice. “A mighty Andalite warrior, brought low by human gift-wrapping technology.” My voice cracks halfway through the sentence, which sort of ruins the joke.
Ax glances up from his work long enough to roll his eyes at me. He didn’t roll his eyes before we started dating. I’m clearly a bad influence, which is awesome. “I am not a warrior yet. I am still an aristh. And I have not been defeated. Merely—set back. These human hands are—”
“Vastly inferior to Andalite hands, because everything humans have is vastly inferior to Andalites, up to and including our Porta-Johns, yeah, yeah, I think I get it by now.”
He blinks, startled, then gives me a tiny smile, like he’s testing out his face. “I was going to say unexpectedly strong. It is difficult to properly calibrate the amount of pressure I am applying to the ribbon.”
“Give it to me.” I hold out a hand. “I have a lot more experience calibrating my fingers or whatever.”
Ax hands over the chocolate box. “You are making an innuendo.” He sounds delighted with himself for figuring it out.
“Yeah. I have no idea what it was supposed to be implying, though.” Ax’s efforts to untie the ribbon have fucked up the bow to the degree that it actually does take me several minutes and one broken fingernail to untie it. I pass it back to him, and when he opens the box, his face actually lights up. I mean, with a big, goofy grin and round cheeks and sparkling eyes, like a box of chocolates is the best thing to ever happen to him and like nothing bad has ever happened to him, and he’s so bright and blinding that I have to look away for a second and count the pine needles under my bare feet.
Ax either doesn’t notice or is polite enough not to say anything, and when I look up again, he’s already eaten three chocolates and is cramming a fourth into his mouth, scrutinizing the little chart that tells you which flavors are where intently. The wrappers are neatly folded in a stack next to him. “The hazelnut is better than the caramel,” he tells me. “But both are vastly inferior to the dark-and-white-chocolate swirl. Suh-wirl. Hazelnut. Zel. Zel. Caramel, zel, mel.”
“And the store clerk thought I was insane for buying my boyfriend a sampler box of chocolates for Christmas.” Actually, Jake thought I was insane, too. Not that he could talk. He got Cassie a flashlight for Christmas. Mind you, this is a guy who breaks into the Yeerk Pool on a regular basis. A guy who’s been running circles around Visser Three since the eighth grade. He’s not an idiot, except for when he totally is. Who buys the girl they made out with on an alien planet—the girl who would totally be their girlfriend, if only they had the guts to ask—a flashlight for Christmas?
Jake, that’s who. I can’t tell you his last name. Partially because of the whole guerilla warfare thing, and partially because I don’t want everyone to know how totally clueless he is when it comes to girls.
I’m Marco, by the way. The handsomest, most intelligent guerilla warrior of the bunch. This is Ax, my boyfriend, an alien who can turn into a human, and into a lot of other animals. We can all turn into other animals. Can’t tell you who we are, the Yeerks are everywhere, etc. You know this already, try and keep up.
“This is an excellent gift,” Ax says reassuringly. There’s chocolate smeared across the lower half of his face. Not a cute little smudge on the corner of his mouth, either. We’re talking a full-on Hershey beard. I want to kiss him anyway, because being in love is stupid. “The variety of flavors and textures serve to enhance the already highly favorable experience of consuming chocolate, and not knowing the nature of the filling before biting into it adds a welcome rush of adrenaline to an otherwise danger-less dessert experience.”
“Wow, you should write ads for Nestle.” Ax’s brow furrows, and I move on, hurriedly, before he can force me to explain the concept of advertising again. Don’t get me wrong, Ax isn’t an idiot either, and he’s been on Earth long enough to have seen ads. It’s just that Andalites don’t really do ‘money’ or ‘companies’ or ‘capitalism’ the way humans do, so he kind of doesn’t get what they’re for. “I’m glad you like it. Merry Christmas.”
“This day bears no significant meaning to me,” Ax says, like he has every day this month. “I am from another world. Andalites do not have the same calendar as humans.”
“Ax-man, some humans don’t have the same calendar as other humans.”
“I am aware,” Ax says haughtily. The effect is somewhat spoiled because—again, chocolate face. “Rachel has made this point clear. Several times.”
Rachel hates Christmas carols, so obviously, I’ve spent every boring reconnaissance mission since Thanksgiving doing my best Mariah Carey impression. I told her it was my duty as Ax’s boyfriend to educate him about Earth culture, which as it turned out was a terrible excuse, because Ax told us last week that all human music sounds the same to him. Which is to say, terrible. Even Nine Inch Nails. Even Offspring. Which, aside from being a total affront to the glory that is The Downward Spiral, meant that I had to throw away the mix CD I’d been making him and beg Nora to drive me to the mall so that I could spend two hours searching for the perfect gift. Jake showed up to help me, which mostly consisted of him following me around and saying things like “I dunno, he likes food, right? Maybe get him a crockpot? My dad got my mom a crockpot.”
“Your dad has been married to your mom for twenty years,” I said. “I’ve been dating Ax for three months. Also, even if we had been dating for twenty years, a crockpot would still be a shitty gift, I like to think that I have a little more game than getting my boyfriend a cooking implement for Christmas. Also, he’s an alien who eats by absorbing nutrients from grass, and he lives in the woods and doesn’t have a kitchen and he probably couldn’t cook without starting a forest fire, and then where would the Ramones live, huh?”
Jake had been nodding along, but now he stopped and furrowed his brow. “The Ramones?”
“The baby skunks. The ones that Cassie saved. We named them after the Ramones.”
“I think you might be freaking out a little, dude,” Jake said, in the same carefully neutral voice that he used to talk about things like Visser One and murder. It should have felt out of place in the mall, but there was a Yeerk pool entrance in the Gap changing rooms. Jake had almost bled to death on the linoleum outside GameStop once. Jake-the-general fit right in with the fluorescent lights and the tinny Christmas carols, the same way that he did in school, or my bedroom, or every other part of my fucking life.
And he was right. I was freaking out. Which was stupid—I’d been in way more stressful situations than this. “I’m not freaking out. I’m just not getting Ax a crockpot,” I said, in my best semblance of a normal teenage boy with a normal amount of stress over my boyfriend’s Christmas present. My secret boyfriend, who was an alien, fighting a guerilla war with me and my best friend and my boyfriend’s best friend and my best friend’s girlfriend and my best friend’s cousin, who one of these days was going to snap and murder me for telepathically singing Mariah Carey songs in the body of an osprey.
You know. The normal amount of stress to have over that.
And in the end I’d panicked, and gotten Ax a freaking Whitman’s sampler, and it turns out that a Whitman’s sampler was the perfect present for your alien boyfriend of three months, who was now singing the praises of rum coconut with his bony shoulders under my arm as we sat together under the biggest tree in the forest where he lives. Even human morph is taller than I am, so he has to slouch pretty dramatically to make it possible for me to even put my arm around his shoulders. Which he does, every time we sit anywhere together, even when it means half-lying down on a bunch of tangled tree roots like he is right now. It can’t be comfortable. I’ve never asked him why he does it. The answer would probably freak me out way more than any Christmas present.
“I did not get you anything,” Ax says. He frowns. “This is not like a birth-day. Birthhh day. When you are given a gift on this day, it is customary to reciprocate, is it not?”
“It’s cool,” I say, jumping on the distraction. “I mean, like you said, you’re not even from this planet. You didn’t know what Christmas was until like a year ago, and you don’t have any Earth money anyway.”
He rifles through the chocolate box, squinting at the little flavor chart. “I have means of acquiring Earth money.”
I hold up a hand. “Please do not tell me about any more of the felonies that you and Tobias commit together. I’d like to maintain plausible deniability when you two are inevitably sent to Andalite Juvie for your crimes.”
“Tobias and I have never committed a felony,” Ax says huffily. “Property damage not involving a motor vehicle and not in excess of two hundred fifty of your human dollars—“
“Not my dollars, and are you saying you and Tobias have never fucked up a car?”
“—is not a felony.” He pops another chocolate into his mouth. “Ah. Peppermint. You are the one who has stolen and summarily destroyed a motor vehicle. Neither Tobias nor I can drive.”
“Like I have my license yet?”
Ax rolls his eyes and looks up at me through brown frizz of curls falling into his eyes. “Would you like me to steal you a car for Christmas, Marco,” he deadpans, and I laugh and give into temptation and kiss him. He tastes like chocolate and pine needles.
When I pull away, several minutes later, he says, “Why are you not with your father?”
“Please don’t talk about my dad while we’re making out.” I sit up and shake tree bark out of my hair.
Ax doesn’t follow me. He stays lying on the forest floor, hair a halo around his head, staring up at me with wide, unblinking eyes. “Christmas is traditionally spent with one’s family. These Messages and the Very Special Episodes were clear on that subject. I care for you, very much.” The way he says things like that, like they’re observable facts of the universe. The sky is blue. You have thirty-two seconds left in morph. I care for you, very much. “But we have only been ‘dating’ for three months. I do not think I can count myself part of your family yet.”
“Half of my family is probably on the Blade Ship, being used as a meat puppet to torture some poor Hork-Bajir and plot the destruction of our entire planet.” My voice comes out sharper than I want it to, but Ax doesn’t blink. Ax doesn’t blink enough, even as a human. We need to talk about that at some point. “The other half is sitting at home with his new wife, watching Charlie Brown Christmas and eating tamales, totally oblivious. Excuse me if I thought that spending the day with my boyfriend sounded more fun than watching my dad make mushy faces at my math teacher.”
“You could have gone to Prince Jake’s house. Your families have known each other since you were children. Surely they would be a viable substitute for your own family unit.”
“Oh, sure. Chinese food and movies with a known Controller, and the slim-but-terrifying possibility that Rachel will try and remove Tom’s Yeerk with a chopstick.” And Jake’s parents giving me pitying looks out of the corner of their eyes when they thought I wasn’t looking, in between scolding Jake about his failing grades. And Jake’s silent thousand-yard stare through Tom’s forehead, like all the failures of the world were on his shoulders. And Rachel’s skinny fingers with their blue glitter nail polish twitching on the edge of the table, just waiting for one of us to give the signal. “You have to admit, that family isn’t exactly relaxing.”
“So I am your last resort.” Ax looks—it’s hard to read his facial expressions, but I think he looks disappointed, and like he’s trying not to be, or at least, not to let me know. He squares his jaw and looks off to the side. Yup, that’s definitely a my boyfriend just said that he’s only hanging out with me because his dad and his best friend are both totally fucked up face.
I lean forward and take Ax’s face in my hands, so that I know that he’s listening to me. “You’re my boyfriend. Usually, people want to spend time with their boyfriends. I bought you a box of shitty chocolate specifically so that I could spend time with you, without worrying about alien space battles or alien office politics or being stuck as a flea for the rest of our lives because of alien morphing technology, or—alien things in general?”
“You realize,” Ax says calmly, like it’s totally normal for me to be leaning over him and squishing his cheeks between my hands while I talk, “That you are an alien.”
“Bzzt. Wrong. We’re on my planet, therefore, you’re the alien. Take me to the Andalite home world, then we’ll talk about me being an alien.”
“I would take you to Andal, you know.”
The thing is that I do know, I really really do. Ax wants to take me to his planet and introduce me to his parents and tell me about their trees and their grass and all the other things that Andalites think are important. And it’s too much, the way that his face over a box of chocolates is too much, the way that I care for you, very much is too fucking much. I steamroll over it, I have to, because if we start talking about family and homes I will actually have a full on panic attack, right here, in front of my alien boyfriend and this big old tree. “You are, as weird as it sounds, the most normal thing in my life. And I care about you. And I want to be here, with you, right now.”
Ax opens his mouth to say something, and I kiss him again. He tastes like chocolate, and pine needles, and absolutely nothing else.
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Christmas Starts Early
At the very moment I saw this picture, the idea popped into my head and here's the finished result! Enjoy and beware of more festive fluff coming ;)
Christmas was in the air since the 1st of December. Somehow, what felt like magic, streets changed just overnight and when you went outside on the first winter day's morning, holidays hit you straight in the face, and that means literally — you were met by a pile of snow thrown at you by a cold windflaw. Not really a pleasant start, but you were happy anyway. You cleaned your face from what now was water and squeezed your eyes shut because the sun was shining like crazy. An unusual day for London was it, for sure.
You felt someone's hands on your waist and smiled widely because you knew exactly who it was. Ben kissed the back of your head and then you felt his warm breath on your neck.
"You forgot this, babe." He handed you your favourite warm furry hat, gave you a small kiss on a cheek and walked away to get in a car. "Don't want you to catch a cold, I need you all good and healthy," he said, smiling gently while opening the door and inviting you in.
"Where is this spiced scent coming from?" you wondered, sniffing carefully.
Ben just gave you a grin, turning on the radio. Mariah Carey's voice sounded so familiar and cosy that you couldn't help but smiled for probably the hundredth time this morning.
"You went all out, didn't you?" you asked, giving Ben your best heart eyes.
"All for you, sweetie, all for you."
You knew that and it was one of the reasons why you loved this man so much. You remembered last year when you two just started dating, it was a month or so you had been going out when Christmas fell on your head all of a sudden. You didn't have any time to prepare and ended up decorating the house at 10 p.m. on the 24th of December. Christmas tree wasn't present at your place, you were running up to catch the last ones early in the morning the next day, when most of the shops were, of course, closed. So all in all, your first Christmas together turned out to be quite a mess and this year Ben was eager to fully redeem himself as it seemed.
"Have I ever told you you're the best?"
"Hm..." Ben frowned and pretended to be thinking hard. "The last time you did was this early morning when I got you a coffee in bed, so yeah, you indeed have told me that."
You rolled your eyes, smiling anyway. He was just the most adorable dork ever.
"And, let me say, I fully agree with you," he continued, finally starting the car. You merely laughed and lightly slapped his hand.
"You are definitely not suffering from the lack of confidence."
When you arrived to the building where your work place was located, you didn't want to leave the car for sure. The ride was very pleasant, you sang along to every song on the radio — there were mostly Christmas ones but that made it even better — and downed a cup of the most delicious spiced latte ever which Ben got you at some random coffee shop on your way. But now it was time for work and you really didn't want to go anywhere.
"I want to stay," you muttered, hugging Ben's arm. "Can I please screw my work for today?"
"I'd be one hundred percent up for it if you were free today, love," Ben said, caressing your knee, "but I don't want you to get fired."
"Surprisingly enough!" you replied. "You've never liked my boss. And Jeremy the clerk. And "that blonde bitch with a voice so high that I'm surprised you still haven't went deaf". You even hate our security guard!"
"I have my reasons!" Ben protested. "But you seem to get along with those weirdos."
You laughed, letting Ben's hand go and giving him a kiss. He was right there, being fired now wasn't the best idea and you were already half an hour late.
"Love you!" he shouted while you were walking towards the building entrance. You turned your head and smiled, waving to Ben. You already wanted this work day to end as fast as possible.
And it thankfully did. It was 6 p.m. when you breathed in cold wintery air and childishly opened your mouth to catch a snowflake. Sun was already down and fairylights, decorating every tree on your way home, made an impression of hundreds of fireflies stuck in snow-covered tree branches. The only drawback of the beautiful setup was the abcense of Ben by your side. He called you during your lunchtime and said he won't be able to pick you up this evening as work kept him very busy. You said it was alright and you wanted to have a walk anyway but deep down you got upset. Not for a long time though, a minute after Ben's call someone knocked on your door. Obviously, you wasn't expecting any clients during the lunch and got very curious. Turned out, it was a courier with a bouquet of your favourite flowers and a card with a very familiar handwriting on it. Your smile grew wider when you read a little note.
"To: the best girl in this whole damn world
From: the luckiest man who doesn't deserve her presence in his life
Please accept my sincere apologies and enjoy these gorgeous flowers (not as gorgeous as you ofc xx)"
This was the card you were reading again and again, walking along the street. Your house could have been seen already — it wasn't a very long way from work. You looked up at its dark windows and decided that they definitely need some decorations.
Silence met you when you entered the house. You closed the door behind you, sighing and putting the keys down at a shelf. How much you wished Ben was here! He would've made some pasta for sure, you thought, your stomach was making noises by that moment.
You jumped up as you heard something in the living room. A thought struck your head like a lightning that it might have been an actual thief! You crawled in needed direction, carefully looking into the room.
"SURPRISE SURPRISE!"
"BLOODY HELL!" you screamed after the light turned on and almost blinded you. "BEN, YOU ASSHOLE! WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO SCARE ME LIKE THAT?!"
Of course, it was Ben who bursted into laughter when he saw your shocked face.
"Why are you laughing?! I could've easily shit myself and it would have been purely your fault! And also..." you finally noticed not only the unashamed face of your beloved boyfriend but what was standing next to him. "What's that?!"
"I thought you'd recognise it but seems like you need explanation," Ben said, still chuckling. "That's what is called a Christmas tree!"
You couldn't believe your eyes. A fully decorated Christmas tree was standing right in front of you, sparkling with fairy lights. Ben was also sparkling, but with a grin. Shock on your face was little by little changing into amusement.
"Is it real?" you whispered to yourself but Ben heard it and came closer, pulling you into a hug.
"I was pricked at least five times while decorating so I can't tell it's indeed very real," he said, looking in your eyes. Tears of happiness were ready to be released and Ben embraced you for the second time.
"Don't you dare cry, love, this wasn't meant to be sad," he murmured.
"I'm not sad at all, how could you think so," you said quietly. "I'm just..."
"What?"
"Happy, Ben. Very happy."
You held him tight, resting your head on his chest, feeling calm and incredibly lucky.
"Did I make it up for the crappy last year?" Ben whispered in your ear. Instead of answering you sweetly kissed him. This was the only possible way to express all of your current feelings. You could feel Ben smiling and couldn't help but smiled yourself.
"Christmas starts early this time, am I right?"
"As early as you wish, darling."
#ben barnes#ben barnes imagine#ben barnes fic#ben barnes x reader#ben barnes fanfiction#fanfiction#imagine#fic
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A holiday song fantasy draft, because we are a sports website
WireImage
We all know what No. 1 is but the rest of the picks get interesting!
Every year, typically the day after Thanksgiving (but for some, weeks beforehand), a switch is flipped. On radio stations and in barren mall corridors across America, the sounds of inoffensive pop music are replaced by sleigh bells, snowy nights and, at least once every 45 minutes, Mariah goddamn Carey.
Without 24-hour Christmas music stations, we’d have to rely on calendars and weather to understand the biggest Christian holiday of the year was soon upon us. We’d have no idea the inherent dangers of mixing the elderly and caribou. And what would the birth of Jesus mean to the world if it wasn’t heralded Eartha Kitt seducing a chubby, immortal demigod for the one thing she really did need.
(It was the deed ... to a platinum mine.)
Indeed, holiday music eases us into the frozen hellscape of winter with a cheery smile before dropping us off in January and never looking back. And in honor of the season, we rounded up five staff members and forced them to build the perfect three-song lineup, fantasy draft-style. We drew picks at random and then went three rounds in a snaking order to crown a winner.
Here are those picks. The explanations for those picks are written by the drafters unless otherwise labeled.
1. All I Want for Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey (David Fucillo)
Why get cute? There are plenty of great Christmas songs, but Mariah Carey’s most well known Christmas song is a true classic. In spite of the candy corn criticism, I do know how to draft.
2. Santa Tell Me - Ariana Grande (Matt Ellentuck)
Find me a more re-playable Christmas song for the youths. I dare you.
3. Last Christmas - Wham! (Morgan Moriarty)
This song is an absolute banger, and the original Wham! version will always be head and shoulders above the several covers of it. The way George Michael says ‘Merry Christmas, I wrapped it up and sent it, with a note saying I love you, I meant it’ is quite possibly the greatest songwriting of all time for a Christmas heartbreak anthem. No hesitation taking this as my No. 1 overall pick.
4. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays - NSYNC (Whitney Medworth)
My literal first three picks were taken so I reached into the Christmas pop music legends archive and pulled out this gem. That entire NSYNC Christmas album is pop gold and this is the best song on there.
5. I Wish It Was Christmas Today - Horatio Sanz, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, and Tracy Morgan (Christian D’Andrea)
The one good thing Jimmy Fallon has done with his life. At roughly two minutes long, it’s the perfect length for a Christmas song, too.
6. Christmas in Hollis - Run DMC (D’Andrea)
Run DMC runs into Santa, finds his wallet, and returns it without a single mention of shoes. Meanwhile, the beat remains in your head until January.
7. Mistletoe - Justin Bieber (Medworth)
Look, I’m not even a Justin Bieber fan but this song is legitimately so good and I’m not afraid to say it.
8. What Christmas Means to Me - Stevie Wonder (Moriarty)
I realize this is a surprising second-round pick, but this is probably my favorite Christmas song of all time behind All I Want For Christmas Is You. Any Stevie Wonder song is catchy, and the soulful, groovy, yet still Christmasy beat this song has is perfect. Hate on this pick all you want.
9. Little Drummer Boy - Justin Bieber and Busta Rhymes, somehow (Ellentuck)
Bieber and Busta Rhymes. What more do you really want here? When it slaps, it slaps.
10. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (specifically the Home Alone version) - Brenda Lee (Fooch)
When I hear this song I automatically think of Kevin McCallister faking out the Wet Bandits. It’s got a nice little beat and is just a fun song.
They had a very different standard for “rockin” back in 1958. This was written and recorded back when Chuck Berry was considered too edgy for TV.
/googles “Chuck Berry”
Oh, right. — Christian
11. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - DMX (Fooch)
Rudolph is a classic Christmas carol. Something about DMX and his growl singing it is just a great alternative hook on Christmas.
12. You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch - Thurl Ravenscroft (Ellentuck)
OK, I picked this one because of the tweet.
my take is that "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" is the wildest diss track ever recorded
can you even imagine someone saying this about you pic.twitter.com/V4UcWhmU2a
— Hanif Abdurraqib (@NifMuhammad) December 5, 2016
Take notes, Nick Cannon.
13. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town - Bruce Springsteen (Moriarty)
Springsteen’s version of this song is obviously the GOAT. From the incredible saxophone solo in this, to the dude in the background literally ho-hoing like literal Santa Claus, Springsteen brings down the house with it.
14. Where are you Christmas? (From The Grinch) - Faith Hill (Medworth)
My sleeper pick! A legendary ballad from The Grinch with one of those key changes that gives you goosebumps. Faith Hill absolutely goes off in this one.
Little (maybe?) known fact: Mariah Carey originally wrote and recorded this song, but a legal dispute required it be re-recorded by someone else. Enter, Hill. — Fooch
15. Merry Christmas from the Family - Robert Earl Keene (D’Andrea)
Keene’s Christmas message: everything’s a little bit shitty but there’s nothing so broken about your family that booze can’t fix it.
Amen.
So who won 2019’s SB Nation Christmas song draft? Vote below so we can viciously mock the loser so hard they never listen to “Jingle Bells” again.
Listen along on Spotify!
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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 6th January 2019
The twelve pop songs that weren’t Christmas are all in the top 13 along with a new arrival, so, yeah, essentially this week is the same as last week without a holiday. Everything that was below the top 40 just came back in spades, hence...
Returning Entries
There’s a ton. Let’s get all of the returning entries and drop-outs in our first, very busy week of 2019, done first. Let’s go, starting from what’s at the top to what’s at the bottom. “Hold My Girl” by George Ezra is back at #14, “Baby” by Clean Bandit, Marina and Luis Fonsi is back at #15, “This is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble is back at #16, “A Million Dreams” by P!nk is back at #17, “Woman Like Me” by Little Mix featuring Nicki Minaj is back at #18, “imagine” by Ariana Grande is back at #20, “Promises” by Calvin Harris and Sam Smith is back at #21, “Going Bad” by Meek Mill and Drake is back at #22, “Let You Love Me” by Rita Ora is back at #23, “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper is at #24, “The Greatest Show” by Hugh Jackman, Keala Settle, Zac Efron, Zendaya and the Greatest Showman Ensemble returns to #25 (this was the first song I ever reviewed on this series so it’s crazy to see it back pretty much exactly a year later), “Happier” by Marshmello and Bastille is back to #26, “Advice” by Cadet and Deno Driz is at #27, “Mo Bamba” by Sheck Wes is at #28 (and while I’m at it, “SICKO MODE” by Travis Scott featuring Drake, Swae Lee and Big Hawk is back at #33), “Eastside” by benny blanco, Halsey and Khalid is at #29, “A Million Dreams” by Ziv Zaifman, Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams comes back to #30, “Leave a Light On” by Tom Walker lights up at #31, “KIKA” by 6ix9ine featuring Tory Lanez jumps back to #32, “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B rears its ugly head at #34, “One Kiss” by Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa, the biggest song of the year in the UK (yes, the year-end has been released, and I’ll rank it on my Twitter), “Funky Friday” by Dave and Fredo is at #38 (that one’s growing on me too...), “Body” by Loud Luxury and brando is at #39, and “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran rounds off the Top 40. Well, since all of these have had their own reviews on this series before, I might leave links on each song to where they’ve been reviewed or something, although my opinions have already changed. Oh, “Perfect” and “Mo Bamba” don’t have proper reviews yet but it’ll be redundant doing it now because I’ll just be covering them more in-depth on my best list anyway (sorry, spoilers). Now...
Dropouts
Oh, my goodness. Okay, so, every single Christmas song is out. “All I Want for Christmas for You” by Mariah Carey from #2, “Last Christmas” by WHAM! from #3, “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl from #4, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” by Band Aid from #6, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas” by Michael Bublé from #7, “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis from #8, “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens from #9, “Step into Christmas” by Elton John from #10, and the episode’s already half of a 1,000 words. Listen, sorry about all the changes in structure with the series, especially in this episode, but I asked on Twitter if you would rather have me review more songs and not bother with anything else, and no, it was decided by 80% to continue with the standard format in the poll, so, yeah, I guess I’ll have to do it like this for another year. Anyways, back to this nonsense. “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chris Rea is out from #11, “I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday” by Wizzard from #12, “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande from #13, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee from #16, “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade from #17, “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” by John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band featuring the Harlem Community Choir from #18 (God, that is a chore to type every week), “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney from #20 – may you rest in peace, you gorgeous novelty – “We Built this City on Sausage Rolls” by LadBaby from #21, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love from #22, “Cozy Little Christmas” by Katy Perry from #23, “Santa’s Coming for Us” by Sia from #24, “Mary’s Boy Child / Oh My Lord” by Boney M. from #26, “Mistletoe” by Justin Bieber from #28, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams from #29, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by Jackson 5 from #30, “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby from #31, “Stay Another Day” by East 17 from #36 – still not a Christmas song – “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson from #37, “Lonely this Christmas” by Mud from #38, and finally, “Baby it’s Cold Outside” by Idina Menzel and Michael Bublé is out from #39. That felt oddly therapeutic.
Now, there’s not a single song that fell this week, obviously, but there are a few that climbed outside of the Top 10, and they’re all rebounds from the avalanche.
Climbers
“Without Me” by Halsey is up three spots to #11, “Lost Without You” by Freya Ridings is up 20 spaces to #12, and finally, “Thursday” by Jess Glynne is up a whopping 27 positions to #13. Now, with the chart finally rid of those pesky Christmas songs, welcome to 2019, everyone, and this is the state of British pop as the year turns around.
Top 10
“Sweet but Psycho” by Ava Max is spending its second week at #1 today, which is cool, I guess, but i don’t imagine it holding on for that long.
Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next” is up three spaces from last week to number-two, but now we’ve got some massive jumps from scattered within the top 40 straight to the top 10.
“Sunflower” by Post Malone and Swae Lee from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is up 16 positions to number-three.
At number-four, we have an 11-space increase for Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus’ “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart”.
Finally, in what feels like ages, we have a top 5 debut, with Post Malone having his ninth top 40 hit and sixth top 10 hit this week, as his new song “Wow.” enters at #5. We’ll talk about it at length later on.
At number-six, Lord help us, we have “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong up 21 spaces from last week. This is the best proof we’ve had since Mr. Blobby that the charts are ran by children.
“Shotgun” by George Ezra rebounds by 26 spots to number-seven for no good reason. Go away, please, for my own sanity.
Oh, joy, James Arthur too, with Anne-Marie for “Rewrite the Stars” up 17 spaces to number-eight.
Zara Larsson creeps her head into the top 10 as well after a 26-spot boost up to number-nine, making “Ruin My Life” her sixth top 10 hit in the UK.
Finally, Kodak Black’s “ZEZE” featuring Travis Scott and Offset is up an undeservedly high 24 places up to #10, rounding off our top 10 at way too many words for an episode that has yet to have any song reviews. I’ll try to keep them brief.
NEW ARRIVALS
#36 – “Gun Lean” – Russ
R-R-Russ? Huh... Never expected that name to ever pop up on here, to be honest. Russ seems to only be kind of big in the US but he’s never hit the top 40, and he’s pretty much just a running joke or meme in the hip hop community so I honestly never expected any Brits to take him seriously either but this is his new single, I guess, and it’s not great. It starts with a menacing piano line that could be kind of interesting but then Russ comes in with a British accent and—oh.
#36 – “Gun Lean” – Russ splash
BBC has called new UK rapper Russ splash “Russ” instead, but who really cares? He might as well be Russ because he doesn’t say anything of substance either, with a painfully simplistic hook and chorus that doesn’t really help his lyrical ability shine (if it exists). The heavy bass is obviously trying to be have that energetic old Lil Pump energy, but it doesn’t work when your song is three and a half minutes because this song is tiring as all hell. This is generic British rap that follows the formula to a T, and I hope it doesn’t rise. Speaking of following a formula...
#35 – “Money” – Cardi B
Sigh, I do like Cardi B, but she seems to have stopped bothering and that’s a big issue because that’s the main reason anyone liked her. It’s definitely not the lyrics and while it may be the beat, she always rides it with that loud, straightforward and powerful delivery she is known for, and when you stop trying in the booth, I feel like that appeal is going to squander, and this is her ninth top 40 hit in less than two years, so the fact that it’s going quick is an issue. Anyways, this is absolute garbage. The beats is literally like two piano notes just being violently played under trap percussion and bass, with a recurring high-pitched “Money” ad-lib that is trying to break up the monotony but, no, it’s just annoying. Cardi B sounds more ruthless on the verses, which may actually be kind of unfitting, but it works, although then she gets bored on the chorus. In fact, the transition is actually pretty abrupt and forced here. At least it’s shorter and has a few good flow switches, so it’s definitely better than “Gun Lean” in that respect, but that doesn’t mean it’s good.
#19 – “Play” – Jax Jones featuring Years & Years
This is listed as a returning entry on BBC’s UK Top 40 page but this came out last year and I never reviewed so it’s safe to assume it’s new; I apologise if it isn’t, but I mean, would you care? The lead singer from Years & Years keeps up with a tiring atmospheric house beat, with meaningless lyrics and weak, radio-friendly drops that kind of take away its EDM properties immediately, I mean, the hook here isn’t that crazy of a vocal manipulation either like “One Kiss” or “Solo”, it’s just a pretty comprehensible phrase repeated and edited to sound a tad more distant. It’s so weak and pathetic, although the dude from Years & Years is trying so hard to fit on this beat, it’s kind of funny in that regard. Otherwise, yeah, who cares?
#5 – “Wow.” – Post Malone
Let me put it this way: my sister loves Post Malone for many reasons, one of which being his music, and she’s consistently loved a lot of what I’ve hated from Post like “I Fall Apart” (which is still a gruelling and confusing song to this day, read my worst list if you want to see me go into depth), but not even she could dig this, but I think I know why – she took it seriously. The tuneless keys is the only real build-up we get until Post comes in and there’s a cool noisy melody that ends with a high-pitched screech, and yeah, it’s a pretty awesomely minimal and menacing beat, so surely Post should add a lot to this... well, he literally has a whole line that is just “G-Wagon, G-Wagon, G-Wagon, G-Wagon”, but otherwise his delivery is on-point (I love his voice right at the end at the second verse), his flows are catchy, his lyrics are serviceable and sometimes pretty funny, and every single beat drop here is beautiful, seriously, that’s some perfect production from Frank Dukes and Louis Bell. After Post stops rapping, there’s a period of time where it’s just the distorted melody over some reverb-drowned drums with a chipmunk vocal coming in and him just ad-libbing “wow”, and it’s stunning. It’s not going to replace Beck’s song of the same title and in the same vein (seriously, it’s a trap-rap song too), but this is cool.
Conclusion
This week was mostly trap, huh? Well, Post Malone gets Best of the Week for “Wow.” but Russ splash is definitely bagging Worst of the Week for the dreadful “Gun Lean”. Dishonourable Mention is tied, and goes to Jax Jones, Years & Years and Cardi B for “Play” and “Money”, respectively. Not a great start, guys. See you next week!
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yellin’ at songs: june week three
capsule reviews of the pop songs which debuted on the billboard hot 100 on 17 june 2017 and 16 june 2007
16 June 2007
56) "Beautiful Flower," India.Arie
I'll cop to not knowing that much about India.Arie. I understand she has at least one classic album, and I can also see that there is no India.ArieVEVO account, so her entire career transpired when I was assuming it was acceptable to live life only listening to white men complain about women. This has clearly been to my detriment, because this song is simply astonishing. It's an inspirational song, but it's only India.Arie, a guitar, and some other voices for the occasional harmony, so it actually felt like, when India.Arie said "When they say shake your moneymaker/Shake your head," she was talking directly to me, decidedly not the target audience for this song. (I want to shout out how fucking great that lyric is again. "When they say shake your moneymaker/Shake your head." GODDAMN RIGHT. HELL YEAH. GIRL POWER FOREVER, SISTAHS.) It's such a cool and compelling twist on the girl power anthem, something toned down, but not so toned down that it feels like you're sitting around the campfire with the youth pastor. This is the second song, this and "Get Buck," that I think we unjustifiably left behind in 2007, and I say we bring it back.
78) "The Way I Are," Timbaland ft./Keri Hilson
I give Timbaland a lot of heck for being making loud and unnavigable music in these parts, but it would be dishonest of me to deny that this is a hot one. There's a build here that's absent from the rest of Timbaland's ouevre. Typically, it sounds like he's giving you a thousand things to listen to all at once, but on this one, he slowly adds more and more things, so once the chorus hits, it's the typical Timbaland mess of sound, but there's a structure, there's a logic to how everything fits together, and I can finally hear what made Timbaland the name that he was. This is GOOD trashy 2007 music. I'm down with this.
80) "Can't Tell Me Nothing," Kanye West
What 2007 vs. 2017 might ultimately come down to is that 2007 has the old Kanye and 2017 has the new Kanye. (Wait. I'm not sure Kanye West has figured into the 2017 equation at all, actually. Have I not been paying that much attention when Wikipediaing the rap songs? Has he legit not been involved with ANYTHING on the chart?) This is probably the best pure-rap song Kanye ever made, one of those songs where it's not the production carrying the day (though this is an astounding track), Kanye is actually on point with his flow and his rhymes. I sometimes rag on Kanye for the fact that his rapping might be the weakest part of his whole thing, but I'm comparing him to like Jay-Z and Kendrick and other dudes in consideration for GOAT, of course Kanye is going to falter, KANYE STILL MADE THIS SONG. This song doesn't work without a capable MC guiding the proceedings. Love this. Only reason it's not higher is because I don't want a cluster of Kanye at the top, and also I'm tickled with "Get Buck" being the rap song of the year so far and don't wanna see that end. Like, OBVIOUSLY, if this were 2007 and this song just came out, it'd be the new #1, but this is a retrospective, and I think it's important we reflect on how violent the "Get Buck" beat was.
91) "Whine Up," Kat Deluna ft./Elephant Man
You know what I don't think about enough? How pop songs end. That's partially because I am bad at this, but it's also not something I think about because we're not exactly conditioned to think of songs as stories. Songs generally don't leave you hanging, or end by saying it was all just a dream (with the possible exception of that one Nelly song from a few years back ("Cruise")), they're sort of like museum exhibits, where they present themselves to you in full, and you consider their merits as a piece. (This is why the critique Mariah Carey gave of David Cook's "Always Be My Baby," where she specifically says she loves how he ends the song on this off note and leaves it unresolved, has stayed with me.) I bring up endings because this song ends with Kat DeLuna singing "Whine up! Whine up! Whine up! Oh, yeah!" for half a minute before fading out. I think the song understands that it's really just here to go "Whine up! Whine up! Whine up! Oh, yeah!" for four minutes, but we still had a few years to go before "We Found Love" dropped, so it needed to go through the verse-chorus-verse motions, yeah sure feature verse can't have a song without a feature verse, but this is a song which knows what it is, and it gives you as much of what you want as it can before backing out, aware that there's only so much "Whine up! Whine up! Whine up! Oh, yeah!" one can take. The fade suggests the song could just go "Whine up! Whine up! Whine up! Oh, yeah!" for ten hours, but we have expectations of our pop songs, and this wants nothing more than to live up to expectations. Quality chorus, though! Had a great big dumb time with this one! 2007's got it rollin' this week! Can't wait to see how 2007 keeps the momentum goin'!
96) "Wall to Wall," Chris Brown
Welp.
97) "Bartender," T-Pain ft./Akon
This song is just comfy. A lovely chaser for the song I didn't listen to but still had to acknowledge existed. After writing a good chunk about "Whine Up," a song that may as well have had four words, I don't want to over-analyze what is simply a nice song, sort of what to let it be, want to point out the casual misogyny that kinda takes some of the chill out the zone, but mostly want to acknowledge that none of the several sets of three minutes we've all spent with this song somewhere in our space is pretty neat. Well done, everyone.
99) "Startin' with Me," Jake Owen
"I took a swing at my old man one Christmas/I never dreamed that it would be his last"
...Did. Did this dude kill his dad? Fuckin' hell, dude, someone should've caught that lyric. How many people wrote this one? Three. Three people. Not one of them said, "Hey, what do we think of this line? It sounds like this dude killed his dad with a punch." But like even if this dude didn't kill his dad, he had sex with his bro's sister, he sold his grandpa's guitar, he punched his dad, he went to jail and yelled at his brother for not bailing him out, he wasn't with his family when his grandma died, this man is fucking irredeemable, and he just goes, "Yeah, I sure goofed up some things back there, didn't I? Ha, if I had a dime..." You get to say that about small stupid mistakes, like the thing about bein' too big a dick to a girl, or the thing about smoking. You don't get to have a dime for every time you commit patricide. You don't get second chances for ruining every single relationship in your life. Who on earth relates to this song? This is nonsense. It's this dark, twisted man singing this Tim McGraw melody, and it's illogical.
100) "Do You," Ne-Yo
2:48 PM 6/4/2017: Wow! A Ne-Yo song I don't remember! What a treat!
2:52 PM 6/4/2017: ...Oh. Oh I forgot this because it wasn't great. I get it. No, no, that's fair. Learning that this was a sequel to "So Sick" is equally disappointing. We talked about endings -- whoa, a thematic link between capsule reviews, who ever heard of such a thing -- and "So Sick" has a really solid ending, that lonely, soft "Why can't I turn off the radio?" and this is, this doesn't ruin "So Sick?" But knowing that dude doesn't get over it for two years kinda makes the dude seem more pathetic than sad.
2:53 PM 6/4/2017: REMIX WITH UTADA HIKARU?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I HAVE THREE WORDS FOR THE WAY THIS IS MAKING ME FEEL. AND BABY, IT AIN'T COMPLEX AND FILTHY, I CAN TELL YA WHAT.
Two new songs in the Top 10, AND Lil Mama hangs on for another glorious week!
20) "Get Me Bodied," by Beyonce (5.26.2007)
19) "Lip Gloss," by Lil Mama (6.9.2007)
18) "I Don't Wanna Stop," by Ozzy Osbourne (5.26.2007)
17) "Stolen," by Dashboard Confessional (4.21.2007)
16) "Beautiful Liar," by Beyonce & Shakira (3.31.2007)
15) "Cupid's Chokehold," by Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump (1.13.2007)
14) "The River," by Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates (2.10.2007)
13) "Say OK," by Vanessa Hudgens (2.17.2007)
12) "Alyssa Lies," by Jason Michael Carroll (1.13.2007)
11) "Never Again," by Kelly Clarkson (5.12.2007)
10) "Can't Tell Me Nothing," by Kanye West (6.16.2007)
9) "Get Buck," by Young Buck (4.14.2007)
8) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Hudson (1.13.2007)
7) "Thnks fr th Mmrs," by Fall Out Boy (4.28.2007)
6) "Candyman," by Christina Aguilera (1.13.2007)
5) "Because of You," by Ne-Yo (3.17.2007)
4) "Umbrella," by Rihanna ft./Jay-Z (4.28.2007)
3) "Beautiful Flower," by India.Arie (6.16.2007)
2) "Dashboard," by Modest Mouse (2.17.2007)
1) "The Story," by Brandi Carlile (4.28.2007)
Strong, strong week for 2007. Congratulations, year I have randomly personified.
6.17.2017
74) "Somethin Tells Me," Bryson Tiller
85) "Self-Made," Bryson Tiller
89) "Don't Get Too High," Bryson Tiller
91) "Run Me Dry," Bryson Tiller
98) "No Longer Friends," Bryson Tiller
The artists who have debuted three or more songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in the same week this year are, in some order, Ed Sheeran (AAA), Big Sean (hip-hop stalwart, AA), Migos (one AAA hit), Future (AAA), Nicki Minaj (AAA), Drake (AAA), Kendrick Lamar (AAA), and Bryson Tiller. ...I enjoyed the couple of Bryson Tiller songs I heard the last couple of years. I would not have guessed he had the clout to release a surprise album, the wattage to get five of the 19 songs on the album to chart, but here we are! Five songs! That were all pretty much the same thing! "Run Me Dry" was noticably bouncier than the other songs, but like these songs, this dude, like, you know how, with Netflix and YouTube, they sink so much into original content because the goal isn't to create something great, the goal is to create something people will watch? Like, if you're watching something on Netflix, you're not watching something on Hulu or Twitch, so it's in Netflix's best interests to throw a thousand spaghettis at the wall in the hopes of finding something to stick. These songs are designed for you to you listen to so that you're listening to that record label's version of this and not something else on some other label. (I can think of no other reason that this should be 19 songs long. I kinda wanted to listen to this album on the bus ride home, get a jump start on these songs, but the album was longer than my bus ride. Why.) Like, these are not, technically, bad songs. I don't like them and barely remember them however-long-I've-been-writing-this-paragraph later, but I never felt compelled to hit skip, and that feels like that's what we're going for here. Listen to this hour-long album. Don't hit other buttons.
88) "Met Gala," Gucci Mane ft./Offset
"I was that nigga locked up in the cell/And they treated me like I was normal/Thankin' the Lord for them blessings/I just left the Met Gala dressin' up formal"
I wonder what a better lyricist would have done with that concept, of being an ex-con who can score tickets to the Met Gala. Like, I think Metro Boomin structured a track around that idea, of someone at the Met Gala experiencing anhedonia because they've been treated like the lowest form of humanity and now there's all these rich people who've never had anything bad happen to them, and the dude can't even feel like he's made it because this is a thousand miles from his scene. This is what the sound songs like independent of the words, at least, though I think we've established that the words are the least essential part of this kind of hip-hop. I'd probably listen to an album of Metro Boomin instrumentals, I don't see why we need Gucci Mane in here bleating about whatever.
90) "No Such Thing as a Broken Heart," Old Dominion
This was a'ight. I like that it doesn't suggest that if you love this hard all problems will go away; there's no resolution in this song, only a group of dudes promising to try their best, and that's the closest we're gonna get to complexity this side of Stapleton.It actually sort of reminds me of "Hey Ya!", not in terms of craft oh my stars not in those terms, but in its depiction of relationships where two people look at each other and say "I don't know how to be committed to you." Pop-country dude song of the year 2017, by a mile. (To reiterate, Thomas Rhett is ineligible because "Craving You" is pure bubblegum.)
94) "There for You," Martin Garrix x Troye Sivan
so baby hold me closer in the backseat of your rover that i know you can't afford, bite that tattoo on your shoulder, pull the sheets off of the corner of the mattress that you stole
from your roommate back in boulder,
we ain't ever gettin' older
99) "Butterfly Effect," Travis Scott
this was fine! travis scott can be counted on to deliver solid songs, and while I'm not gonna say this is my favorite thing he's ever done, it's still nice to hear him chime in. what a pleasant surprise! these reviews have gotten progressively shorter. the next review prolly just gonna be one word.
100) "Strangers," Halsey ft./Lauren Jauregui
So here's something I'm guilty of:
Me: There should be more women on the chart!
Y'all: Here's one we like!
Me: /sucks in air through teeth/ Not this one?
So I'm glad that Halsey made a song I think is actually pretty dope. Like, I actually went back and listened to it again, simply because, hey, girl-girl love duet, that's new! I'm actually having difficulty recalling any hit song that was specifically about a same-sex relationship, and I'm sure they exist and I'm forgetting something thuddingly obvious, but this is cool, and thankfully, it's a good song on its own merits. Halsey and Jauregui mesh really well together, and the track is a perfect complement, something propulsive, yet understated enough to let the singers do the work they need to do, a backing track that knows what it needs to be. (Suppose it makes sense that someone who won a Producer of the Year Grammy would write a decent song.)
Only one new thing in the Top 20 because I stared at the list for 20 seconds before deciding I was not going to bump Kendrick from the Top 20 for Old Dominion. We don’t consider how much optics figure into determining how much we love what we love, but they figure in quite a bit.
20) "The Heart Part 4," by Kendrick Lamar (4.15)
19) "Selfish," by Future ft./Rihanna (3.18)
18) "Slide," by Calvin Harris ft./Frank Ocean & Migos (3.18)
17) "Felices los 4," by Maluma (6.3)
16) "Now & Later," by Sage the Gemini (2.25)
15) "Bad Liar," by Selena Gomez (6.3)
14) "DNA." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6)
13) "It Ain't Me," by Kygo x Selena Gomez (3.4)
12) "Craving You," by Thomas Rhett ft./Maren Morris (4.22)
11) "That's What I Like," by Bruno Mars (3.4)
10) "Chanel," by Frank Ocean ft./A$AP Rocky (4.1)
9) "Strangers," by Halsey ft./Lauren Jauregui (6.17)
8) "Either Way," by Chris Stapleton (5.27)
7) "Run Up," by Major Lazer ft./PARTYNEXTDOOR & Nicki Minaj (2.18)
6) "Green Light," by Lorde (3.18)
5) "ELEMENT." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6)
4) "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi ft./Daddy Yankee (2.4)
3) "Issues," by Julia Michaels (2.11)
2) "iSpy," by KYLE ft./Lil Yachty (1.14)
1) "Hard Times," by Paramore (5.13)
Also I feel like bumping the Camila Cabello joint for the Lauren Jauregui joint is me drawing a line in the sand I wasn’t ready to draw. Please don’t hate me, the teens, I do not know what dramas have unfolded, what feels you have unfelt.
Who won?
So I actually did go through the weeks before I was reviewing 2007 releases, since I created a Google Sheet for YAS because, when my computer became unusable, I realized it was probably unwise to have just one file trapped inside one very bad computer. But since I put the stuff in spreadsheet form, it made week-by-week comps easier. As it turns our, 2007 got off to an early 3-0 lead, what with “And I Am Telling You,” “Candyman,” and “Jump to the Rhythm” all dropping in the first few weeks, but 2017′s been doin’ better as of late, thanks to two weeks where 2007 didn’t... it didn’t really do anything.
2017: 12
2007: 11
And that’s all the difference! 2007 crushed it this week, which is good, because the next few weeks look pretty bleak for ol’ 2007y. Good opportunity for 2017 to create some separation in this fake competition between two entities that have no sentience as they are arbitrarily determined measurements of time and not actual things. See y’all after seven sunsets.
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