#cow boys band

[teenagedirtstache]

Per Lui January 1989 photos Bruno Casolaro

#per lui #bruno casolaro #zip #cp company #1989 #80s #cow boys band #rifle jeans #emanuel jeans #unlimited

[ride-a-cow-boy]

⛓️ The Slashstreet Boys. 🔪

#the slashstreet boys #slasher parody #slashers #slashstreet boys #mask #parodic band #band #parodic boys band #slashers band #freddy krueger #jason voorhees #leatherface #ghostface #michael myers #pennywise #cowboys #cowboy hat #cow-boys #cowboys dance #the merkins #horror slashers #horror

[hershelwidget]

DHMIS week day 5: Health/Transport !!!

They look like a Superhero Squad here- Yeah I put the Healthy Band in several different “Conductor Fits” I had considered for Choo Choo!! Also there’s some neat symbolism with their colours uahahaha

@transgenderduckguy​

#dhmis #dont hug me im scared #dhmis week #dhmis fanart #dhmis fridge #dhmis steak #dhmis spinach can #dhmis bread boy #dhmis healthy band #dhmis choo choo #you've heard of lamb/sheep lamp. now get ready for cow steak #slowly turning all the teachers into barnyard animals /j #i had an. sort of. a.i idea with fridge. because i can #ALSO THIS PIECE CAUSED ME TO REALIZE WHY I AM OVERWHELMED WHENEVER I DRAW THE HEALTHY BAND. ITS. #ITS BECAUSE. GUYS. THEY'RE OVERWHELMING IN THEIR ACTUAL APPEARANCE. I FIGURED IT OUT IM SO SMART #coghg cough um anyways uhhhh. transgender steak that is all amen

[osmiabee]

Jim in looks up at you with big pathetic cow baby eyes .. "moo m-moo" he stammers out while blasting thick fat ropes of soya milk into your might of tea

My man went through the entire cow hybridisation process to produce thick fat ropes of plant based milk alternative 😍 his soyboy swag is just too powerful 😭🙏 Thank you for your service Jimin

#I know I *just* posted about drinking a soy latte but I'm actually lowkey pretty intolerant to soy lmao #which is what makes mine and jimins relationship so interesting and compelling i think 🥰💕 #i have no idea what jimin looks like or what band he's in he's nout but a cow-boy to me 🥺 #ask #anon #but like...... hiii robiiiiin

[transvampireboyfriend]

Teacher AU

Eddie who studied to be a music teacher but right before graduation Corroded Coffin takes off. It's fast, they have to mail him his diploma to avoid a crowd of fans at his classmates' ceremony.

But it goes as fast as it comes, a few years of touring and then popularity wanes. Eddie is not bothered by it, neither are the guys, they enjoyed it while it lasted, yet they all knew they couldn't live like that for the rest of their lives, so it's all for the best.

Eddie lives off of album and merch sales and writing songs for other bands and artists now. This is when his best friend, Chrissy, tells him she heard the music teacher was retiring at her old pre-school.

Eddie applies for the vacant position, fearing they won't like his former star status but ultimately, after a good interview, he gets the job.

Steve who became a pre-school teacher and started teaching as soon as he could. He lives with his best friend, Robin, and coaches the town's junior basketball teams (both boys and girls) on his off time.

Steve who's nearing his thirties and getting a little frustrated with his love life. No matter how many dates, no matter how many 6 month relationships, no matter how many 1 year and a half and moving in together debacles, he still just never quite fits his partners, he never feels that thing, that excitement everyone talks about. No matter how amazing the person. Robin calls him an idealist, says he's being naïve. Steve sticks by his instinct to hope for more.

Steve who stares (a little slack-jawed) at the new music teacher for a good minute when he comes pick up his kids. Trying to take in the wild hair pinned up by a pencil, the glasses around big cow eyes, the tattoos peeking out of his long sleeves, the dimples.

He was aware Mrs. Wallace retired and a new teacher was brought on, he just hadn't expected his heart to race at the mere sight of him.

Steve completely misses his name, has to ask him to come again when those beautiful brown eyes get a mischievous sparkle and look expectant, like he got stood up waiting for an answer.

"I said it's nice meeting you" the new teacher repeats

"Oh! Of course! You're very nice. I mean it's very- It's nice meeting you too" Steve says and forcefully shuts his mouth, pressing his lips into a thin line.

The new teacher's smile just gets bigger and he nods and leads the kids to his class.

Robin thinks it's beyond funny that Steve doesn't know the new teacher's name, but she refuses to explain, refuses to tell him what it is and encourages him to find out on his own.

Steve approaches the guy in the teacher's lounge at lunch.

Beyond whatever the hell makes Steve's brain functions jump ship when he's around him, Steve does think it was rude of him to stare and not even introduce himself when they first met.

His mother may have been real shitty, but she didn't raise someone impolite.

"Hi," Steve starts, making the other man look up at him from underneath his glasses. Steve looks away for a second to avoid getting lost in those eyes.

"I think I owe you an apology," Steve starts, the other teacher raises his eyebrows and lowers the book in his hands.

"I'm sorry?"

"That's my line," Steve points out, he's rewarded by a small laugh and dimples, "I was rude," Steve explains, "I was staring and I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Steve." he smiles and extends his hands to the other man.

"I know." the guy says, smiling big enough to show his teeth, but gently taking Steve's hand in his own "I told you, they were nice enough to put all the names in my schedule, remember?" he says,

Steve freezes.

How come he didn't think of that? His schedule is the same, all schedules for teachers have everybodys' names. They even distributed new schedules for everyone when the hiring decision was made, Steve just hadn't bother to look at it yet, knowing the important bits hadn't changed.

Steve would facepalm if his dominant hand wasn't otherwise occupied.

"Uh-" Steve starts, thankfully the other man cuts him off,

"Hey," he says, with the kindest eyes Steve has ever seen, and still gently holding Steve's hand, "It's cool. I get it." he tells Steve,

Then he asks, "Are you a fan?"

Steve stares again.

Excuse him?

Judging by Robin's smirk accross the room, Steve's face must be as red as a ripe tomato.

Steve yanks his hand back.

Well, that's presumptuous. Just because Steve isn't very good at thinking whe he's around him, doesn't mean that- Sure, Steve came prepared to flirt with him, but he does not appreciate beaing treated like he's easy.

Steve frowns at him before turning around and promptly walking away. He guesses he'll have to go check his schedule if he wants to know the name of this jerk.

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steddie au #steve x eddie #steveddie #steddie headcanon #. #bonus when robin meets Chrissy shes like oooooh. oh wow. love does exist #steve is that vine of the lady on the bus yanking her hand away agagshsjsksjs #sorry if this isn't at all legible. I don't know if the confusion is clear here idk idk im sleeby

[princessbrunette]

outlaw!johnb had tried not to take advantage of your sweet body during his stay. what transpired between the two of you on the evening you met felt wrong. not-gentlemanly. like he’d taken advantage of someone sweet and sheltered. he’d been determined to keep his hands to himself until the time was right once more, but as your parents extended their stay away — leaving the house for the two of you to be alone in even longer, he found it increasingly more difficult to do so. especially when you were so keen on playing house.

you’d settled into a routine. john b would get up and tend to the ‘handyman’ things that needed to be tended to, like fixing the fence that had been destroyed in the storm or odd jobs around the house, and you would do all the domestic stuff — like cleaning, preparing meals, tending to the animals. today was laundry day, and clearly the routledge boy was ill prepared for what this meant.

whilst hammering away at the planks of wood beneath the blistering sun, the wavy haired brunette raises his head to see you appearing not far from him, a laundry basket balanced on your hip, wearing the flimsiest, shortest white sundress known to man. he allows his gaze to wander, offering you a small smile when you wave. you set your basket down to begin hanging up laundry on the line to dry, and as you bend down to retrieve the first clean clothing item — a warm breeze gently blows your dress astray, displaying your glistening cunt. john b tips his head towards the sky, closing his eyes with a pained groan. there would be no stopping him.

he tried, for a solid minute — but as he continued to watch you bend, your folds gently spreading each time you did so, he grew hard beneath the hot sun and decided enough was enough. he’d give you what you’d been pawing at him for all week.

“uh, are you kidding? you’ve got to be doing this on purpose. right?” that familiar chesty hum comes from behind you as you hang up a dress and you freeze, a gentle breeze washing over you.

“s’laundry day, john b.” you shrug, not daring to turn around. you wasn’t sure if you could control your lustful gaze.

“yeah? okay well — the lack of underwear is definitely gonna make this a lot easier.” he mutters as he strides closer, wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his crotch to your ass. “touch your toes, sweetheart.” he commands and you shakily do so with an aroused whimper.

he decides it’s not enough, and when you’re fully bent at the waist, he gives you a gentle nudge forward and you topple onto your knees in the plush grass. “yep, stay riiiight there.” his words are somehow comforting as you hear his belt buckle unlock and his zipper come down. he pulls your dress up your back and swears under his breath at your puffy wet pussy staring back at him. “definitely… knew what you were doing there, huh.” he speaks mostly to himself.

“can you please try n’give me a baby this time, daddy?” you mewl, as he lines himself up and he squeezes his eyes shut.

“please shut up.” he blurts out before opening them. “i mean, uh… just… you can’t say those things sweetheart. trying real hard not to be too rough here.” he pushes in and your toes curl in the grass, a high pitch squeal leaving you as you grasp around at nothing. “i know, hey— stick with me here lil’ pup.” he coaches you, watching the way your body tries its best to relax. john b was big, and taking him with your ass in the air and your cheek in the dirt made him feel heaps bigger.

he bottoms out, tipping his hips completely forward with two hands on your lower back and his jaw agape. “wow.” he breathes out, staring intently at the way you’re stretched around his thickness. he’s snapped from his trance by your head craning round, some dirt on your cheek and grass in your hair.

“john b, the cows are gonna watch you give me a baby.” you’re pouting, and whilst the whole innocent act turns him on — he needed to lock in or he’d really cum inside you again. without much thought, he yanks his bandana from his neck and stuffs it into your mouth before gently pushing your cheek back to the grass.

“there you go. just hold on for me, okay?” he asks before he starts to thrust, bottoming out each time making his thighs slap against your ass cheeks. with each thrust, you let out a devastating little sound — pussy drooling around him. “see? gooood girl. you really like the whole mean, ruffian, outlaw thing, huh? soaking me here, bub.”

#john b prompt #outlaw!johnb #hold me kiss me universe

[mediumgayitalian]

“Halt!”

Across the common, three suspicious figures freeze, glance behind them, and then resume walking as casually as they can.

“I said halt! Do not move! Cease all function!”

Milling nervously towards each other, Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest pause, shifting the three massive cardboard boxes they hold each.

“Hi, Annabeth,” Will says, smiling innocently. Cecil and Lou Ellen match him, eyes wide, expressions angelic.

Annabeth stomps over to them, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She is entirely unmoved by the cherubic display in front of her. Nico stays right where he is, hidden by the shade of Cabin Eight.

“Explain yourselves,” Annabeth orders.

The three stooges exchange a look.

“Whatever do you mean,” Lou Ellen asks, shifting the boxes to free up her hand only to place it delicately over her chest. “Why, we are only helping our dear friend William —”

“Our dear, dear friend,” Cecil adds.

“— carry these many boxes of medical supplies, so as to lower his great burden —”

“Massive burden,” Will says sagely.

“— and free up his evening in order for him to spend his limited time with us, his most cherished friends.”

“Especially cherished,” Will and Cecil chorus together.

Unable to bite back a smile, Nico rolls his eyes so hard his skull hurts. They’re not even trying to not get caught, at this point.

Clearly agreeing, Annabeth scoffs. “Yeah, right. Boxes down, all three of you. You’re being detained for suspected illicit substances.”

“Annabeth!” Will cries, mock outraged, “after all I do for this camp, you would accuse me of being — illicit?! Me?! The outrage! The insult! The impugn, the —”

“Can it, Solace. Open the boxes.”

Huffing in perfect unison, the three of them carefully lower their boxes to the ground.

“Tape off.”

Intentionally slowly, they run a nail along the edge of the packing tape.

“Flaps open, guys, c’mon.”

With flourish, the trio fling open the thin cardboard panels. Inside each box is rows of bandages, packaged syringes, sterile bands, tongue compresses, and more that Nico can’t name.

“See?” says Cecil, gesturing grandly. “The shipment just came in from my dad.”

Annabeth’s eyes narrow. “Your dad is in a conference with the rest of the Olympians right now, Markowitz.”

“Well,” Cecil says, and then nothing else.

“He meant it in the royal sense,” Lou Ellen pipes up in his silence. Cecil nods frantically. “You know, ‘just’ as in, like, recently, as in this morning —”

“Do you three think I’m stupid —”

“It’s just medical supplies! You can look through them if you want —”

Even if they weren’t acting like criminals, Nico knows his friends. He knows his boyfriend, especially, and recognises that damn look on his face. He can also physically see Annabeth’s stress ulcer coming back.

Closing his eyes, Nico fades into Cabin Six’s shadow. It’s a quick jump, so the stretch is easy, and the darkness bows easily to his hold. He reappears silently behind the group, taking advantage of the setting sun, and darts out to grip Lou Ellen’s arm.

“Boo,” he whispers.

She shrieks at the top of her lungs, jumping three clean feet in the air. Coincidently, the boxes of medical supplies flicker, turning into a truly baffling amount of instant mashed potato boxes as her grip on the Mist loosens.

“I knew it!” Annabeth shouts.

On cue, all three doofuses turn to Nico, jeering and complaining about ‘ruining the fun’. Nico’s glare is ineffective on Doofus #1, but the other two can be cowed. He focuses on channelling the flames of hell to reflect in his eyes like his father showed him until they look away, muttering at the ground.

“We still don’t have any illicit substances,” Will insists, glaring right back. Nico sticks out his tongue. He crosses his eyes like a four year old. How immature, honestly. “So we’re just gonna take our stuff and —”

“Absolutely not, Golden Boy. Put that hand away.”

Wisely, Will draws slowly back from the boxes, tucking his hands in his pocket.

Annabeth stares, hard, at the three of them, flicking her dark eyes from the potatoes and back. The tips of her worn-out converse tap slowly on the packed grass, tip-tap-tip-tap, as they all squirm.

Understanding suddenly dawns on her.

“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, for the strawberry plants.”

They squirm harder.

“Oh, you godsdamn bitches.”

“It would’ve been really funny,” Cecil mumbles, staring at the ground. “Rain making the ground turn into a sea of mashed potatoes. Like Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.”

“The only meatballs around here are the ones clogging up your skull!” Annabeth shouts, which doesn’t quite make sense but sounds clever coming from her anyway. “Who was gonna clean that up, huh? Magic?”

“I mean, probably,” Lou Ellen says, promptly shutting up at Annabeth’s glare.

“And you, Will! I cannot believe! Where is that responsibility you’re known for, huh?”

Will pouts. “I can be responsible and do fun things.”

“Fun, he says. I’m going to fucking kill you. The one day I’m left in charge, I cannot believe —”

“If it helps, it’s less about you and more about April Fools being tomorrow,” Cecil interjects tentatively. “Like, we were going to do this whether or not Chiron left.”

Annabeth glares darkly. “Of fucking course you were. It’s always you three, I swear to the gods. I should have known.”

“It’s honestly kind of embarrassing for you guys, stopped before you’re even started,” Nico adds. He smiles smugly at them, relishing in their rolled eyes and mocking hands. “Like, everyone expected this. You did this to yourselves, honestly.”

“Boo, you jag,” Lou Ellen protests. The other two knuckleheads joint in the booing, Will taking it an extra stop forward and blowing a raspberry, both thumbs pointing down. Nico responds with a bright grin and two middle fingers.

“Enough,” Annabeth says, rubbing her temples. “Extra chores, all three of you. Go help the cleaning harpies until sundown. And not another peep of complaint or I’ll have you on chores tomorrow, too.”

Without another glance at them, she turns around and walks away, muttering at least you caught it early at least you caught it early at least you caught it early over and over to herself.

“Pretty sure you guys have physical labour to do,” Nico says brightly when she disappears into the Big House. “I’d get started on that, if I were you.”

“Butthead,” Cecil mutters.

“Kiss-ass,” Lou Ellen agrees, making a face.

“Traitor,” Will whispers, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he walks past.

Nico watches them go, standing guard over the boxes in case they try to come back for them.

He can’t help but think that they all look a little too jovial for having their plans ruined before they even started.

#untagged and unedited #will post the whole thing tomorrow swearsies

[bovineblogger]

DAILY COW #030

boy band..

#cow #cows #animals #silly #daily

[meryldian]

★ Growing up with Tokio Hotel (Devilish) ★

AN: It is no secret that I adore the childhood friends trope with all of my soul. This is very self indulgent and I have zero shame about it.

!! Some if not most hcs are based off events from Bill Kaulitz’s book “Career Suicide” !!

Part 2

Warning! Underage drinking and Smoking, small mention of bullying, some sexual themes briefly addressed. Friendly reminder it’s Tokio Hotel we’re talking about

How did you end up in Magdeburg or Loitsche is up to you, but there is no denial in saying that you were at the right place, at the right time when you met a little boy with spiky black and red hair at your new school playground

Little Bill Kaulitz thought you were cool from the second he saw you. There weren’t many people in the school that he had an interest on or that even payed any positive attention to him. With you it was different. You looked kind and unique!

Quickly he introduced you to his brother Tom, him being a kid with a bit of an inflated ego it would take him some more time to warm up to you.

In the meantime, you and Bill became inseparable. You were basically glued to each other’s hip. His mom would drop him off at your place every Saturday for you guys to play with your Polly Pockets, Power Rangers, dressing up in some ridiculous outfits that were the highest of fashion for your little selves.

Bill’s mom genuinely loved how her son was not scared to be himself around you. She would often ask how you were doing and when you would come over next.

You started to grow on Tom thanks to his mom’s faith in you. If his beloved mom trusted you then so could he.

Tom was getting into skating at the time, he would offer you to learn with him or watch him do tricks.

He loved the attention.

He probably tried to charm you up but gave it up when he saw of how much worth you were. You guys did not bring it up again, only in interviews later on when you wanted to dirt on Tom.

Unfortunately you wouldn’t always be shielded from the chaos in their childhood. One way or another you would probably end up trashing a train or smoking blunts behind the school bushes very early on.

It wasn’t uncommon for you to show up to class totally high.

On the evening you guys would grab your bikes, or you would ride with one of them, and head down by a lake to smoke, chat and unwind. Throwing rocks in and seing how many times it bounced.

With time the twins found their one true love, music. They dreamed big, long gone were the school talent shows and weddings. They wanted to reach the world.

For that, their little singer, guitarist duo with a keyboard that played bass and drums wouldn’t work.

One morning right before class the boys came up to you, literally sprinting and blabbering at the same time. You only understood “band, you, join, casting”

From that moment on you were doomed.

If you didn’t play an instrument already the twins’s step-dad would happily accept you into his music school for free.

Through his acquaintances you guys found a drummer. He was immature for his age according to Tom. He wore glasses and a little shirt with a cow skiing.

When the day of the “casting” as the twins called it came, Gustav played some Phill Collins and solos for you guys. Clearly it wasn’t a real casting and you were fully aware that this boy was your best bet at getting a drummer for your newly formed band. Yet, the boys took it very seriously.

Tom replied “alright good you have the job” and rolled with it.

What were the odds that at the same music school Gustav attended there was an aspiring bassist.

Again, it was your best bet so you took Georg in.

If your first language was english it could’ve gone two ways when the twins came up with the name “devilish”. You either loved it and thought it was sick or you cringed yet had to tag along with it for the boys.

Now you guys had the time of your lives with the band.

Weekdays after school would be spent entirely at the garage jamming out and drinking. You all sucked at the beginning, barely mastering your instruments but your charm stood out.

Georg and you became friends right away. His energy jumped right at you and you both became such a comedic duo.

He started the fire and you just added fuel to it.

You loved to prank your friends so much.

And innuendos. So many innuendos.

Once Tom joins into your madness, it’s over for everyone else.

It wasn’t rare for you three to come back home all messed up and pass out on Tom’s couch.

Gustav baking and making little snackies for the band while you rehearse !!

Well, you drank and lazied around more than rehearsing per say.

Tom, Georg, Gustav and you playing video games all coddled up on a couch together.

Thank god Bill is there to kick your asses so you actually play music.

Tom and You developed a habit of playing back to back. You thought it looked cool.

Gustav is the glue that keeps you all together, and away from major trouble. Half he time at least.

Quickly enough you gained a little fanbase in town.

At school you might’ve been the outcasts still, but the older and “cooler” kids took you in happily.

Not much changed, it was the same old story of drinking, smoking, trashing shit down but now with the slight change that everyone around you was discovering their sexuality.

You walk in and Georg’s wanking in the corner? Throw a blanket over him and continue with whatever you were doing.

Being around four young boys and their friends surely set you up to become just as shameless as them.

You guys got very familiar with one another and could not care less about changing in the same room or sleeping in the same bed.

You guys were starting to become a set of quintuplets.

You were probably one of the first if not the first person that Bill ever talked to about questionning his orientation and the little romance he had with his old friend.

If you happen to be a part of the community as well, Bill was your confidant as well. It was you guys’s little secret before coming out of the closet.

Needless to say, when Bill got the confirmation that he would be attending “Starsearch” he jumped right into your arms. You were one of his biggest supporters and he wanted you to be there for him.

Bill might’ve not won the competition, but it opened a door for your little band.

#bill kaulitz #bill kaulitz x reader #georg listing #gustav schäfer #tokio hotel #tokio hotel imagine #tokio hotel x reader #tom kaulitz x reader #tom kaulitz #georg listing x reader #gustav schafer x reader

[m1ssunderstanding]

You know if even Francie is saying it I'm starting to think old Jim Mac may have been slightly abusive, I don't think that's the right word since what happened it was a different time and place etc. But with the way he treated Paul and Mike, especially after Mary's passing and how he expected so much more when his son was one of the most famous musicians in the world, it's just - his whole family to he fair it's like they never really saw him as human and more akin to a musical monkey

Yeah I would actually call it abuse. I think Jim probably had mostly good intentions and genuinely loved his sons, but that doesn't mean his treatment of them was just or didn't have any affect on them. By my definitions, there's emotional as well as physical abuse going on (Paul was expected and pressured from the time they started to realize how intelligent he was to grow up and save his entire family from poverty; Appearances were everything and emotional needs suppressed; There was no financial security; After Mary's death, Paul was extremely patentified, depended on emotionally and materially by the person who was simultaneously physically abusing him)

About the normalization of the physical abuse specifically for a minute, if it was so normal for the time, why is Paul the only one of the four Beatles to have experienced it? My family has always been working class, and my grandparents who are Paul's age were not subjected to the violence that Paul was. Not saying it wasn't more common then and more accepted, but it's also not something you can just pass off as "that's what everyone did in those days".

Also, I wouldn't be surprised at all if even in that one interview where Paul specifically talked about how he got Jim to stop hitting him, he was downplaying. That's what Paul does. We have no way of knowing. But it does fit with Paul's usual story-telling and framing of events that maybe it was more than what he said.

And yeah, the financial abuse started early and clearly continued far into adulthood, maybe up until Jim's death when Paul cut Angie and Ruth off for selling his birth certificate. Paul was trained as a door-to-door salesman for Jim's club as a nine year old in the literal projects. He figured out how to snatch other people's lunch tickets out of the fire at the inny and pass them off as unused. What are we going to do without her money? He first saw John when he was a paper boy and John was buying chips. As soon as the band started making money, he became the head provider of his family (Jim made 10 pounds a week at the cotton brokers while Paul made 15 a week in Hamburg) and when the band wasn't making money, he found whatever work he could to make up for it. Meanwhile, we have no reason to believe Jim wasn't gambling insatiably. As the child of an addict, I know addictions don't just go away and then resurface when they're affordable again, and Jim was certainly an addict. He gambled so much Paul had to buy his house back for him (that he'd bought for him in the first place while Paul himself was living in an attic room like some kind of starving artist at the same time as the rest of the band was buying their mansions).

Paul clearly loved his dad so much and craved Jim's approval, trying to find a girl Jim would approve of after Jane, trying to be a good family man, trying to stay close to his working class roots. You can even see it in his music, from When I'm 64 to A Walk in the Park with Eloise. (I think the 1920s & 30s influence in much of his music came from him genuinely loving it and also from a desire for his dad to appreciate his talent). But he also had no patience for Jim's frailty toward the end, didn't go to the funeral, and didn't write about Jim's death in MYFN.

I really don't know too much about the extended family, anon, but it does seem the case that part of Paul's role in it, from the beginning, was to be a savior and a cash cow, and no one considered his humanity.

#paul mccartney #the beatles #jim mccartney #thanks for the ask!

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Comet Donati [Chapter 9: Why Don’t We Go There]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (+18), beef cattle, drugs, alcohol, smoking, Walmart, vegan baking, David Archuleta, mental health struggles, pregnancy, pigs, bodily injury, death, miscarriage, Jace acting vaguely human, angst, Southern Baptists, Cookie Monster pajama pants.

Selected Chapter Quote: “You have no idea how much I’ve kept from you.”

Word count: 8.6k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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The last day of summer, the first day in Kansas City: emerald seas of soybeans, cornstalks taller than you are, massive tractors rolling laggardly on the shoulder of the road, red-tailed hawks perched on utility poles, cloudless cerulean skies, sunlight that beats down like soft rain. There is a long, rambling dirt driveway that leads from Route 210 to your parents’ farm. When you climb out of the Escalade, you cannot hear traffic or voices or some playlist of bygone pop hits or ice cubes jangling in misty glasses or the roar of jet engines. You can hear only the sounds of the Midwestern earth: wind in the leaves, cicadas humming, the distant mooing of black angus cattle. For a moment, Comet Donati just stands there breathing in the unhurried, golden air like the atmosphere of a new planet, their lungs acclimating, their eyes wide and peering around. Where have we landed? Any signs of intelligent life?

There are footsteps and then the squealing creak of the screen door as your dad throws it open. Along with your parents pour out five Australian cattle dogs. They bark uproariously, herding the new arrivals like errant calves. Aemond laughs and crouches down in the dust of the driveway to pet them. Rhaena screams and clings to Luke.

“Belmont! Bel, you git down!” your dad scolds, pulling her away from Rhaena by the collar: pink, so everyone knows she’s a girl. “Don’t be scared, sweetheart, she don’t bite none.”

“Unless you’re a cow, of course,” your mom adds, tittering merrily. She starts handing out glasses of sweet tea, already dripping with condensation. Outside it’s 80 degrees even.

Your dad whistles as he studies Aemond’s scar, his sightless left eye like a pool of blue fog. “That must’ve hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“Jeff!” your mom objects mildly; she abhors swearing.

Aemond considers your dad: a man who doesn’t flinch away from him, who doesn’t bury truths under the cover of night. “It did.”

“My uncle came back from ‘Nam with something like that. Was never right again.” He taps his own skull. “You must be tough as nails to be carrying on like you are, son. What happened to you was a damn shame.”

“Jefferson, please!” your mom says.

“The man’s been to New Jersey, Carol! I think he’s heard worse words than bitch and damn!”

“Her name’s Belmont?” Rhaena says, frowning nervously at her canine tormentor: rust-orange, brown-eyed, tail wagging eagerly at the prospect of making new friends.

“You betcha.” Then your dad informs Aemond: “That’s Lone Jack you got there.” He points to the remaining dogs. “And the others are Carthage, Kirksville, and Island Number Ten. We call her Tenny.”

“They’re all named after Civil War battles,” you tell Comet.

“Civil War battles in Missouri,” your dad says. He turns to his guests. “Were you aware that over 100,000 Missourians served in the Union Army? Ulysses S. Grant’s first military assignment was in Missouri. He met his wife Julia here.”

“Daddy, they’re English. They don’t know what the Union Army is.”

“Were they for or against staying colonies?” Aegon asks, and Criston covers his face and groans.

Your dad spots the motorcycle Aemond rode here from the airport, weaving between the Escalades until Criston stuck his head out a window to yell at him. “Lord almighty, is that a Gold Star?! Made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company?”

“Yes sir,” Aemond says, smiling down at a delighted Lone Jack and scratching his long pointy ears.

“An ingenious piece of machinery! ‘55?”

“1960.”

“Remarkable.” Your dad admires it. He’s wearing red flannel, Wrangler jeans, the UChicago hat that you bought for him your freshman year of college.

“We’ve been told you don’t eat meat,” your mom says to Aemond, with a gentle, sympathetic tone like she’s conscious of some bad luck that’s recently befallen him: a grim diagnosis, a storm that carried away his house. “So I’ve got some chicken soaking in buttermilk to fry up for supper.”

Aemond chuckles uncertainly.

“No, she’s serious,” you tell him. And then: “Mama, we went over this on the phone. He’s vegan. That means no animal products at all. No meat, no poultry, no fish, no dairy, no eggs, nothing that came from an animal.”

“Well I’ll be, what the heck does he eat?!” your dad says. “Carrots? Acorns? Sticks and leaves? He can graze out in the pasture if he likes.”

“We’ll find you something,” you promise Aemond.

Your dad surveys Aegon (white cargo shorts, neon pink tank top, sparkly matching Crocs) and then Jace (black skinny jeans and a violet sequined blazer with nothing underneath except a mosaic of tattoos). “I suppose you two will be wanting to share a room. Well, it ain’t my place to pass judgement, I reckon. But I don’t want to overhear nothing that couldn’t be done in church.”

Jace is confused. “Huh…?”

“No, Daddy, they’re not gay.”

“What, me?!” Aegon exclaims. “Gay?! For Jace?!”

Jace says: “Sir, if I ever start looking at Aegon that way, I give you enthusiastic permission to take me out back and shoot me dead like a horse with a bum leg.”

Your dad guffaws, a deep gruff rumble like an earthquake. “I don’t think I could oblige you, buddy.”

Your mom gestures to the front door. “Y’all go on in and make yourselves at home. We got a few extra bedrooms and a nice big den if anyone’s willing to sleep on a couch. But be warned: you’ll probably end up having a dog or two snuggled up with you.”

“We are guests here!” Criston shouts at the band as they begin dragging their luggage inside, suitcase wheels bumping up the creaking wooden steps of the wraparound porch. “You will not humiliate me! You will not break things! You will not cause any problems whatsoever or you can stay at the Hilton with the security guys and I’ll have them handcuff you to a bed!”

“He will,” Aegon warns the others. “I’ve seen him do it before. To…um…somebody.” He disappears into the five-bedroom farmhouse: mint green paint, white accents, two rambling stories plus an attic and a cellar.

Criston waves to the security detail as the Escalades turn around in the driveway—stirring up dust like a parched cough of earth—and then head back towards Route 210, towards the light pollution and acclaimed barbeque joints of Kansas City. Now Aemond is standing by the barbed wire fence of the pasture and looking longingly at the black angus cattle grazing on tall swaths of windswept, green-gold switchgrass. Lone Jack, Carthage, and Kirksville are all bounding around him hoping to elicit praise and scratches. Tenny has taken a liking to Baela and follows her and Jace into the house. Belmont, still held captive by your dad, whines and struggles.

“Aemond, you can’t pet the cows,” you say. “They’re beef cattle. They spend most of their lives out in fields, they don’t get handled very often, they’re not used to people. They can be aggressive.”

He is disappointed. “Oh, okay.”

“You can pet the pigs though,” your dad says.

“Pigs?” Cregan perks up. “There are pigs?”

“Sure are. Well, they’re pigs now…come Thanksgiving, they’ll be hams! Hahaha. They’re right ‘round the back of the house. You’ll show ‘em, chickadee?”

You reply: “Yeah, Daddy. I’ll show them.”

As the rest of the band claims sleeping spots and unpacks their suitcases inside, you lead Cregan and Aemond—and Lone Jack, Carthage, and Kirksville, all blue speckled with random splatters of white markings like stray dabs of paint—to the pigs. They have a large, muddy enclosure surrounded by a wooden fence that stops at your waist; pigs, fortunately, cannot really jump. They immediately come trotting over to their visitors, tails swishing and snouts twitching, spewing a chorus of guttural oinks. Aemond leans down to pet them, beaming, then takes a Ziploc bag of raw cauliflower out of his jeans pocket and starts dropping pieces into the pigs’ gluttonous, slobbering, gaping mouths.

“Wow,” Cregan says. He’s grinning broadly, something that’s rare for him. He slips out his phone and starts taking pictures. “Iris is going to love this.”

On the second floor of the farmhouse, a window slides open. “Aemond!” Aegon calls. “I need help! It’s an emergency!”

“What’s your problem?” Aemond snaps.

“Tell Jace I need the bigger bedroom!”

“Please go away.”

“Aemond! Do not betray your favorite brother!”

“Hey!” comes Daeron’s muffled objection from inside.

“Aemond! Threaten to break Jace’s face again!”

Aemond exhales in a loud sigh and then makes for the house.

Still taking pig photos, Cregan glances over at your belly: ten weeks. Not enough to be properly showing, but enough that you can feel a difference, an extra inch here and there, a heaviness that settles in you like stones plinked in a jar. Your parents don’t know. Nobody knows but Aegon. “So,” Cregan says. “Have you told Aemond yet?”

Your attention jolts to him, a lightning strike, a surge of adrenaline. “What?”

“I remember what it looks like when someone’s trying to hide the fact that they’re pregnant.” He smirks. “And I remember that night at Club Camelot.”

People are going to start figuring it out eventually. Aemond is going to figure it out. “Do you think he’ll take it well?” you ask hopefully.

“No,” Cregan says.

In your chest, a sinking like dead weight: “Oh.”

“But he’ll probably come around to the idea eventually.”

After he’s said something unforgiveable. After he buries another knife in me, spilling blood and scraping marrow. You stare down into the pigpen, observing them root around for remnants of cauliflower and blink their awfully intelligent eyes, too clever for the fate they’ve been assigned.

Cregan lights a cigarette and puffs on it, taking advantage of a rare moment out of Criston’s line of sight. “When I first found out about Iris, I did not behave in a way that I would consider to be honorable. But fortunately, nature gives everyone time to adjust to these things. I had my head right by the time she was born. If I had to guess, I’d say it will be similar for Aemond. Then again…” He takes a deep, meditative drag. “I’d like to think I was never as fucked up as he is now.”

You study Cregan. “So you’ve been watching me. I’ve been watching you too. You haven’t been partying as hard. A few vodka shots, a secret cigarette on occasion. But no more disappearing with Aegon to do lines in the bathroom or arranging drop-offs with drug dealers.”

He shrugs. “Someone has to be the adult. Someone has to help Criston look out for the others. It used to be Aemond, but not anymore. He’s different now. One day he’ll figure out where he’s supposed to be and he’ll stop touring with Comet altogether. So I’m going to do it. There are people who need me.”

“Comet is your family,” you say. “Just as much as your mother and siblings and Iris. They love you. They belong to you, and you belong to them. And that will never change.”

He smiles; his greyish eyes are teasing but kind. “Good luck, Stargirl. You need it.”

“Thanks, Cregan.” And together, you leave the pigs and join the rest of the band inside.

Your parents’ farmhouse, the same one you grew up in—a different world, a different you—is painted in shades of gold: late-afternoon sunlight, chicken thighs and drumsticks browning in canola oil, mashed potatoes wet with cream and butter, corn cut from the cob, an enormous pan of baked macaroni and cheese, homemade rolls, a butterscotch pie cooling on the windowsill. You find a vegan alternative for Aemond in the pantry: a box of Barilla spaghetti, a jar of Ragu marinara sauce. Criston insists on cooking it so everyone else can enjoy their supper. Cregan asks your parents about tips for raising pigs; Rhaena asks about the history of the farm; Aegon eats butterscotch pie until he has to roll out of his chair and lie sprawled on the hardwood floor for a while, Australian cattle dogs licking at his pink palms and cheeks. And when Aemond finally receives his spaghetti and marinara sauce, you think: That’s the same thing he was eating in Rome. And you remember the razored sting of the comet tattoo, the nightscape motorcycle ride, the incomplete truth about Aegon, the realization of what you felt for his scarred, perfect, brilliant, haunted younger brother.

“I didn’t know the weather would be so nice here,” Baela says as she scoops herself a third helping of macaroni and cheese. Tenny lies by her feet under the table, her muzzle resting on her paws.

Your dad nods, but his words hold a warning. “It can turn quick.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“He could be a stay-at-home dad,” Aegon suggests. It’s the next day and you’re up in a hundred-year-old white oak tree, killing time until the Escalades arrive to shuttle Comet to soundcheck and their first of two shows at Arrowhead Stadium in downtown Kansas City. You’re sitting on a colossal, sturdy branch only four or five feet off the ground, your feet dangling; Aegon is a few limbs above you, alternating between swinging like a monkey and lying on his stomach so he can peer down at you with those large, oceanic eyes.

“No. If he chooses to, sure. But not because he has no other options. A baby is not something to paper over a quarter-life crisis with.”

Aegon thinks, then is struck with inspiration. “He could work for your dad on the farm!”

“The beef cattle farm?” you say. “You want the traumatized vegan to spend the rest of his life as a cog in the blood-drenched machine of American industrial agriculture? Besides, I’m sure he hates Missouri.”

“I don’t know, I mean I thought I hated Missouri too. But lowkey it kind of slaps.” Aegon closes his eyes and smiles as the warm, sunlit breeze breathes through him, tousling his hair. It’s long again, it’s almost down to his shoulders. He smells like sunscreen and Axe body spray and the homemade waffles your mother made for brunch, soggy with dollops of butter and a river of amber-colored maple syrup. Something’s missing. It takes you a moment to realize it’s the scent of beer. Your parents don’t approve of drinking, the house is bone dry. Aegon hasn’t complained about that yet, a miracle, Moses turning the Nile to blood. Maybe Missouri is good for him after all. “How’s Starbaby?”

“Good, I think. I’m not nauseous anymore. Now I’m just super hungry and horny.”

“Oh my God, you can’t say stuff like that around me, now I’m having immoral thoughts.” He squeezes his eyes shut, frowns mournfully. Goodbye forever, pornstar pussy. “When are you going to tell Aemond?”

“Soon,” you say noncommittally, like a coward. Not a coward: someone who’s been hurt before. Not just hurt: slaughtered, buried, exhumed, robbed for the jewels on the bones of her fingers. You’re finally whole again. You’re in no hurry to imperil your resurrection. “Cregan knows.”

“Rhaena knows too.”

“What?!”

“She asked me in Dallas, but she waited until I was sloppy drunk first. Smart girl. I tried to deny it, but honestly she already had it figured out.” Aegon looks at you meaningfully. “If you wait much longer you’re going to lose control of this thing. It’ll get to Aemond before you can. And I think it will be worse if he finds out from somebody else.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. I’ll tell him, Aegon, I promise. Before Comet flies out of Kansas City.” They’ll be leaving you here, though no one except Aegon and Criston know that yet. Their private jet will take them to New Orleans, and then Miami, and then all the way to South America: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Buenos Ares, Lima, Santiago.

Now someone is trekking across the field behind your parents’ house and towards the centenarian white oak tree. It’s Jace. He’s wearing a rather understated outfit today: a lavender polo, denim shorts, boat shoes. His dark curls whip and tangle in the wind.

“Ugh,” Aegon says once Jace close enough to hear. “Why don’t you go try to pet a rage-filled, 2,000-pound mound of unprocessed cheeseburgers?”

“I’m here for my complimentary therapy session.”

Aegon stares at you. You stare back. The only sounds are made by the earth and the sky and the animals, air in the leaves, the low mooing of cattle. You both wait for Jace to rescind his request. He does not. At last, you relent. “Okay. Fine. Aegon?”

“You want me to leave you alone with this inked-up ogre?”

“Confidentiality is important. I’ve always given it to you, Jace deserves the same.”

“Does he really?” Aegon flings back; but he obediently climbs down from the tree and walks to the farmhouse. Your parents have no booze, no internet, a landline telephone, and a single tv with basic cable. Everyone else is in there playing Uno, doing animal-themed puzzles, and baking apple cider cookies in honor of the first day of autumn. You’d think Comet would be losing their minds after adapting to months of nonstop, breakneck excitement, but they seem to be enjoying themselves. You feel like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. You don’t miss the jet, you don’t miss the bars or the five-star hotels, you don’t even miss your apartment in the city that is still being sublet by some grad student with a Flemish Giant rabbit. You wonder if you ever wanted to leave the farm at all, or if you only wanted to leave the way you felt about yourself the last time you called this place home.

Jace grins and hauls himself up onto the tree branch to sit beside you. “Want to see my new tattoo?”

“Comet has definitely already been to Kansas City.”

Still, he’s acquired one, left wrist, black ink: a single star the size of a quarter. “For you, Stargirl. So I don’t forget about you. So I don’t lose you in the sea of gorgeous women I have marooned myself in.”

“It looks like a pentagram,” you say. “That’s appropriate, since you’re basically Satan.”

He’s not offended. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I want to talk about?”

“I already know.”

“Do you really?”

“You’re happy, but you feel bad about it. You wanted to be the leader of Comet, but you wish it could have happened a different way.”

Jace opens his hands and offers you a crooked, wry smile. “I might jibe at Aemond, but I don’t hate him. Why else would I let him knock out four of my teeth without expecting any penance in return?”

“No, you certainly don’t hate Aemond.”

“And what happened to him…it sucks. I mean, obviously, it was life-ruining for him. Not ruining, I shouldn’t say that. I’m sure he’ll get a new life someday. But it wrecked him in ways I’ll never be able to understand.”

“You’ll have to let him go when the time comes.”

“Yeah,” Jace says, unusually somber, gazing out across the field of white wild indigo, prairie dropseed, blue star, yarrow.

“And if Baela gets into ballet school, you’ll have to let her go too.”

Now Jace turns to you, startled. “I can’t. I’d miss her.”

“Yes, but you aren’t right for her. Sometimes we have to give people the freedom to realize they want something more than us. It’s the greatest act of love we can do for them.”

He laughs, a disdainful little snort. “That’s what everyone says. If you love someone, let them go. But then nobody ever really does it. They cling and they manipulate and they beg. Nobody helps the people they love leave them. Nobody escapes the indignity of becoming a regret.”

Please don’t let that be true. Please don’t let Aemond regret meeting me, touching me, maybe even loving me. “Why do you think that is, Jace?”

And he says, like it’s obvious, like you should already know it: “Because letting go is too fucking painful.” He hops off the branch and drops into the tall grass below. Then he extends a hand to help you down. “Come on. I bet those apple cider cookies are ready.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You see glimmering dresses, incandescent string lights, neon signs, the winding reptilian sheen of the Missouri River in the distance, faint dots of stars muted by the city’s synthetic luminance. You taste your faux Bramble: ice, cranberry juice, a sliver of lemon on the rim, sweet and tart and cold. The speakers are thumping out Prayin’ For Daylight by Rascal Flatts. Aegon is in neon yellow. You almost wore the same, but the flowing yellow gown you bought in Reykjavik suffered an unfortunate Australian-cattle-dog-related incident before Comet left your parents’ farmhouse for the concert. You opted for the short sparkly black dress embroidered with silver stars instead…and hurried out the door before your parents could catch a glimpse of your comet tattoo.

“No way!” Baela cries as she checks her phone. “Look, look!” Liam Payne has just posted a selfie on Instagram. Cuddled up next to him on a beach in Ibiza is Shelby, tan and with her long blond waves flying everywhere. The comments are a smorgasbord: Cutest couple EVER! Aww, did you and Aemond break up again :( Enjoy your vacay, girlie! Guess love really can’t conquer all. You are stunning, Shelby! I’m still hoping you guys get back together. You deserve better! What is Aemond even doing these days?? Is this why Comet took A Girl Named After A Car off their tour setlist :(((

“Damn, poor Liam,” Daeron says. “Should we warn him?”

Aegon replies: “Bruh, this is so tragic. That dude has enough demons already.”

“Good luck, Liam,” Luke says, toasting his Mai Tai against Aemond’s fully-alcoholic Bramble. “Thoughts and prayers.”

“Maybe he’s dumb enough to sign up to be her boy band baby daddy,” Aemond quips. You and Aegon exchange an uneasy glance. Then Aegon gets an incoming FaceTime call. It’s Taylor Swift. He beams—he lights up, he glows—and rushes away to find a quiet spot where he can talk to her. Criston chases after him, extra vigilant since Aegon’s overdose in Las Vegas.

You gulp down the rest of your not-cocktail cocktail. The bartender calls over: “Another cranberry juice, ma’am?”

“Cranberry juice?!” Daeron says. “That sounds…healthy?”

“Why aren’t you drinking?” Baela asks you. It would be a rude question if you didn’t know each other so well. Though not quite as well as she thinks. Cregan and Rhaena peer awkwardly down into their glasses, eyebrows raised.

“Because. Um.” You hesitate. Aemond looks over at you curiously. “I’m an alcoholic.”

Baela blinks. “You’re what?”

“Um. I was developing an alcohol problem so to be safe I stopped drinking altogether.”

“How mature of you!” Rhaena chirps, then drags Baela towards the dancefloor. Luke and Jace go with them. Daeron and Cregan depart to charm some potential paramours: a flock of Kansas City University students for Daeron, a bachelorette party of flattered, giggly soccer moms for Cregan. You procure another cranberry juice from the bar and then return to Aemond. You are alone together, a strange combination of adjectives: solitary, secretive, appreciated, known. You migrate towards the edge of the roof and sip your matching drinks, wearing your matching black clothes, wind in your hair and the sounds of late night traffic on the streets below.

“So this is the place,” Aemond says, playful, wistful. “Where you and Aegon…met.”

“It feels so different now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You look out over the city, breathing in humid night air and a verdant, ancient wildness. “You know how when you’re a kid, you’ll go somewhere and it feels endless and magical, and then you go back five or ten or fifteen years later and you’re disappointed? Like, that’s it? Is this even the same place?”

He swigs his Bramble. Ice clinks; the glass is frosty in his hand. “I know what you mean. But it hasn’t been that long. A little over a year.”

“I guess I’ve changed.” More grounded. Less restless. Less aimless. More pregnant.

“I hope Comet hasn’t traumatized you.”

You laugh, and he’s looking at you like you’re the only two people at this rooftop bar, in this city, on this planet: one river blue eye, one pool of sightless otherworldly mist. He hasn’t worn sunglasses since Shelby’s deportation from the band’s retinue. “Not yet.”

He is mischievous. “There’s still time.”

Not much of it. Aemond’s iPhone rings, Mr. Brightside. He checks it. “Is that Shelby offering you ten thousand blowjobs if you take her back?”

Aemond smiles. “No. It’s Helaena.” He answers and puts it on speakerphone. “Hi, LaeLae. Can I call you tomorrow? I’m at a very loud, very crowded rooftop bar.”

“With her?” Helaena asks, delighted.

“Yes, actually.”

“Okay. Call tomorrow. I wanted to tell you about the praying mantis I found in the garden. Check the weather. Goodbye!” She hangs up before Aemond can.

“Weather…?” he muses, then shakes his head and slips his phone into the pocket of his dark jeans. He returns his attention to you. “Ten thousand blowjobs, huh? I think I’d rather have another ten minutes in a bar bathroom.”

You are so game. It’s humiliating how game you are. Dear Starbaby, today I had slutty bar bathroom sex with your slutty dad, the same place I hooked up with your super slutty uncle. “Really?”

“No,” Aemond says sheepishly. But the corners of his lips are curled up in fond nostalgia. “That’s not my usual style.”

“What is your style?”

He drains his Bramble and turns to you. “Do you want to get out of here?”

You want few things more. “Yeah.”

You leave your empty glasses on a tray by the edge of the roof. Aemond lets Criston know that you’re taking one of the Escalades back to the farm. Aegon pauses his conversation with Taylor Swift just long enough to wink at you. No need for condoms, he mouths with a grin. And then he shouts, as the opening notes of Starboy blare from the speakers: “Stargirl, it’s our song!”

The Escalade makes one pitstop: the Walmart just off Route 210, the same one you always shopped at growing up. Aemond piles the requisite ingredients for vegan chocolate chip cookies in the screechy-wheeled cart, flour, baking soda, salt, white sugar, brown sugar, dark chocolate chips, rice milk (Aemond swears it tastes like Rice Krispies), vanilla extract, coconut oil. You wander down the aisles together talking, joking, finding excuses to touch each other, hands on wrists and collarbones and waists.

As you scan the items at one of the self-checkout kiosks, two guys buying frozen pizzas and White Claws peek over at you and start snickering. You grab snippets of their conversation like fireflies from the air: critiques of your body, critiques of your soul. You ignore them. This happens sometimes when you’re home. Someone from high school will recognize you, someone will remember.

Aemond is staring at them. Not staring; glaring, seething, mentally splitting flesh and dislodging teeth.

“Aemond, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.”

“It’s not a big deal. I’m not upset. Just ignore them.” He walks away from you. “Aemond, don’t!”

He grabs the closest man’s shoulder and spins him around. “You got a problem?”

Both men gawk up at him, mouths hanging stupidly open and eyes inane like fish. The one he’s clenching sputters: “I’m sorry, are you…are you…are you Aemond Targaryen?!”

“I’m the guy who’s about to go to prison for second degree murder if you don’t shut the fuck up.”

He puts both hands in the air. “Hey man, I am actively shutting the fuck up. You have a nice evening.”

Aemond releases the man with a shove that sends him staggering back into a rack of tabloids. He returns to you, puts the bags in the cart, starts pushing it out to the parking lot.

The man turns to his friend. He is starstruck, elated. It might be the best day of his life. “Bruh, I just got assaulted by Aemond Targaryen…!”

The Escalade glides through the dark to your parents’ farm and drops you and Aemond off in the dirt driveway before zooming back towards the city. Aemond insists on carrying the shopping bags…but he doesn’t go inside. He stands near where his Gold Star is parked and gazes up at the night sky: moon, stars, the hazy white shadow of the Milky Way, all unmarred by the arrogant, buzzing radiance of electricity.

“Aemond?”

“You can see everything out here,” he says. “Maybe Kansas isn’t so bad.”

“Missouri.”

“Missouri,” Aemond agrees. “But you’re still the best thing about it.”

You smile. “I don’t know the names of any of those constellations.”

He points to show you. “Ursa Major. Ursa Minor. Perseus. Draco. Hercules.”

“Heroes,” you say.

“And animals.” He ascends the steps of the front porch. They creak beneath him, weight that will soon be gone, to New Orleans and Miami and South America and God knows where else.

Your parents are watching the 11:00 news in the den. The weatherman is issuing tentative warnings for tomorrow. Summer is gone, storms are coming in. They politely ask what you and Aemond are up to and then try not to look repulsed when you mention vegan cookies. You’re actually pretty excited; you love cookie dough, and because it will have no raw eggs in it, you can eat as much as you like without endangering Starbaby.

On the kitchen counter is the same CD player that your mom has owned since 2008. You press play on whatever she has currently spinning around in there. MercyMe? TobyMac? Danny Gokey? What you hear instead is Crush by David Archuleta.

“That’s a throwback,” Aemond notes.

“My parents love David Archuleta. He’s Christian, he’s cute, he’s gracious, he doesn’t swear. I remember them incessantly calling in to vote for him when he was on American Idol. They put in a prayer request at church to help him win the competition. I guess God used his executive veto power.”

“Do they know he’s…?” Aemond draws an invisible rainbow in the air with his fingers.

“No, they don’t use Google.”

“We won’t tell them. He needs the record sales.”

You and Aemond mix the cookie dough and then portion it out on a baking sheet. He slides the sheet into the oven, sets the timer, and then notices the reserve of dough you’ve left in the bowl. You dip your pinky finger in and then lick it slowly, savoringly: sweetness, chocolate, fats obtained without the sacrifice of a soul.

“Looks good,” Aemond says, a little hoarsely.

You swipe your index finger around the curve of the bowl and then offer it to Aemond. He holds your hand still and licks your finger clean, his tongue dragging over your skin, goosebumps rising on your arms, heat stirring up everywhere. You’re transfixed by him; you can’t stop watching. Then he closes the gap between you and cups your face in his palms and kisses you, not in some glittering city or on a stage or for an Instagram post but in the kitchen of a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, the home of nobodies. His lips are sweet, swift, seeking more. He only pulls away when the noise of heavy footsteps approaches the kitchen.

“Smells great in here, chickadee! Even if they are vegan cookies.” Your dad says the word vegan like someone else might say the name of a tourist destination halfway across the globe. He can’t quite get the pronunciation right. His eyes snag on the bare skin between your shoulder blades. “Lord almighty, what is that on your back?!”

Your comet tattoo, that’s what. “Uh, Daddy—”

“It was my idea,” Aemond says quickly, seamlessly. “They’re my lyrics. Lyrics I wrote before the accident, I mean. And I was feeling just…purposeless, and useless, and really doubting myself. She wanted to show me that my work still mattered. So when the band was in Rome, Jace got a tattoo and I suggested she get one too. It’s entirely my fault.”

“Huh,” your dad replies uncertainly. “Is that right? Well, I suppose there’s not much to be done about it now.” He chuckles and moves your hair so it’s covering your tattoo. “Let’s not mention it to your mother. She’s already got high blood pressure. Say, can I try one of them cookies when they’re ready?”

Criston and the rest of the band arrive back at the farmhouse just as the cookies are coming out of the oven. Miraculously, no one is drunk enough that your parents are aware of it. Everyone samples the vegan chocolate chip cookies and agrees that they are nearly as delicious as the cruelty-enhanced version. You and Aemond watch each other from across the kitchen that’s now crowded with people, hearing them but also not, wanting more and knowing you can’t have it, here in this place with little privacy and very few remaining secrets.

Comet scrambles to get ready for bed, racing to claim bathrooms and banging on doors to peer pressure people into finishing their showers faster. Back in your bedroom, clean and alone and wearing an oversized Backstreet Boys t-shirt and your favorite Cookie Monster pajama pants, you rearrange your pillows over and over again and try not to think about the band leaving in two days. Strangely, you don’t really want to go with them; you don’t want to board the jet, you don’t want to sightsee, you don’t want to be surrounded by people ingesting poison in all its forms. But the thought of being away from the band—from Aegon, from Aemond—is impossible, unbelievable, horrifying. You’re humming something as you crawl into bed. You don’t even realize what song it is until you’re under the covers and sinking into sleep: The Man Who Can’t Be Moved.

You’re only asleep for ten or fifteen minutes. When you wake your eyes are watery and you can’t remember your dream—you almost never can—but you know that Aemond was there. Now he’s here in your room as well. He’s gently stroking your cheeks, your forehead, sitting on the edge of your bed.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” he’s murmuring, only a silhouette in the darkness. But you would recognize him anywhere. “You had a nightmare. You were crying, I heard you.”

“Were you lurking outside my door or what?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead he asks: “What were you dreaming about?”

“You.”

And when you reach for him, he meets you without hesitation, his hands in your hair and his lips on yours, blankets thrown aside, his weight between your thighs, your fingertips ghosting against his face, reading his past and future like braille. He bites your lower lip, nips at the curve of your jaw, kisses a path down your throat like the contrail of an airplane. You yank off his t-shirt. He lifts away yours. He’s touching you everywhere, fingers beneath your pajama pants, smothering his moans against your neck so no one else will hear.

He whispers breathlessly: “I don’t want to rush this time.”

“I’m yours for as long as you want me.” Forever, I hope. And then: “Can I turn on the light? I want to see you.”

For a moment, he doesn’t answer. And then he reaches out to click the lamp on. The nightstand is cluttered with your souvenirs: refrigerator magnets, snow globes, figurines, cosmetics, snacks, crochet celestial objects, the frisbee from New Jersey, your plushie sika deer nestled together with the hammerhead shark from the aquarium at the Mandalay Bay. In the weak golden lamplight, you study Aemond like a painting, a marble statue, a comet you’ll only see once in a lifetime.

You say, softly like a prayer if you believed in such things: “You are so fucking beautiful.”

He doesn’t believe you, but he doesn’t stop. He wants to see you too. Your clothes are gone, every scrap of fabric and concealment; if he is cognizant of any minuscule changes in your body, he is not suspicious of them. Now he is bare for you as well, now he is pushing your thighs apart so he can marvel at you, taste you, drench his mouth and chin in your wetness, bring you to the edge of a cliff with no bottom, no rocks to rupture against. Now he is inside you, tremendously big but also careful, listening to you, watching every line of your face, slowly, so exquisitely slowly, his tongue darting between your lips and his palm against your cheek. And you remember how Aegon felt—always so simple and yet transient, soothing and welcome but never necessary—and Aemond could not be further from that. Nothing about what you have with him is simple. It is profound and intense and singular, and the thought of it not lasting forever is agony.

Afterwards, he retrieves his vintage metal lighter—small, square, Targaryen etched into one side—and a shimmery gold pack of his Benson & Hedges cigarettes out of the pocket of his pajama pants that are crumpled on the floor. He lies on his back and takes deep, drowsy drags, smoke like opaque morning mist in the air, one arm draped across you as you rest your head on his chest, lungs and heart and bones and blood.

Secondhand smoke isn’t good for the baby. You get up out of bed and sneak across the treacherously creaky hardwood floor. “Let me open a window.”

“So your parents won’t know?”

“Yeah.” You push the window open and then turn to him. “You should stop smoking. It’s really bad for you.”

Aemond smiles faintly. “Why would I care about that?”

“It’s bad for the people who love you too.”

He looks at you for what feels like a very long time. “Come back,” he says at last.

You do: to Aemond, to his warmth and lust and tenderness, to the space he occupies that will soon be empty like the vast expanses between comets, between stars.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I would like to say something.” You rise from your seat at your parents’ long dining room table, perfect for hosting judgmental-church-people gatherings and family reunions. Lunch for Comet Donati is steak and baked potatoes, lovingly prepared by your mom just before she and your dad left in their Ford F-150. It’s Sunday, and your parents will be at church socializing with their friends until late afternoon. Aemond is suffering through another meal of boxed spaghetti and Ragu marinara sauce. He doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite; not for food, anyway. You take turns glancing at each other and then looking away, smiling, flushing. Now he is intrigued by your announcement. His brow knits into thoughtful little grooves. The Australian cattle dogs scuttle around under the table for scraps. The television is on in the den. A tornado watch has been issued for the greater Kansas City area; no big deal, they get alerts like this once or twice a week here sometimes. It rarely amounts to carnage. Outside the sky is a tumultuous grey but not especially sinister at the moment: no greenish hue, no cloud rotation.

“You agree that Aegon hooking up with Taylor Swift would be disastrous for everyone involved,” Jace jokes.

“No, I know what it is,” Aegon says. He pokes at his baked potato with his fork, melancholy.

“I want to thank you for giving me this amazing opportunity,” you tell Comet. You have perhaps not dressed for an occasion of this significance: flip flops, a tie-dye One Direction hoodie, an old pair of shorts you found in your bedroom dresser. You like the way Aemond watches you when you wear them. “And I’ve experienced so many things, and learned so much from all of you, and I sincerely hope that we’re going to be in each other’s lives forever. But for right now…for this tour…Kansas City is my last stop with Comet.”

“What?!” Baela cries.

“No!” Rhaena gasps, her dark doe-like eyes glistening.

People are asking you why, people are asking you to reconsider. Aemond only stares, a sharp hostile look, menacing like storm clouds.

“I really, really appreciate everyone’s concern. But it’s been over three months, and this was never intended to be a permanent arrangement. Right, Aegon?”

“Right,” he reluctantly agrees.

“And it’s time for me to figure out what the rest of my life is going to look like, because I can’t just follow Comet around the world forever.”

Cregan nods to Criston. “Did you know about this?”

“I did, yeah,” Criston confesses. “We finished up the paperwork last week.”

“But we’re going to miss you,” Baela says. She sounds shockingly close to tears. Jace tries to soothe her and she shrugs his hand away.

“I know,” you concede. “And I’m going to miss you too. But we’ll still talk all the time, and I’m always willing to help you guys with anything, and maybe in the future I can visit—”

Aemond stands, his chair squealing against the hardwood floor, and flees from the dining room.

“That went well,” Jace says.

Aegon points towards the doorway Aemond left through and asks you: “Do you want me to…?”

“No, I’ll do it,” you say, and go after Aemond. He’s outside by the pigpen, his hair and t-shirt whipping wildly in the strengthening gusts of late-September air. Sparse raindrops fall from the sky. The pigs are agitated, pacing, oinking, scampering in and out of the shed they have for shelter. Aemond is smoking, embers glowing on the end of his cigarette; you purposefully stand upwind from him.

His voice is stunned and dazed and beneath that dangerously angry. “You’re leaving the tour.”

“Yes.”

“When we get on that jet tomorrow, you’re not going with us.”

“No, I’m not.”

“And you told Aegon and Criston but you didn’t tell me.”

“I had to tell Criston. And Aegon…” What can I say? What is the truth? “Aegon is easier to talk to about things like this.”

“So you feel like you can’t talk to me?” Aemond demands.

“Well, yeah, because sometimes you’re kind and patient and the single most incredible man I’ve ever met, and then something rattles your demons awake and you’re this…this…this vengeful, mistrustful, irrationally insecure person, and I can’t do anything right because you’ve already decided what my intentions are.”

“I want you to stay with Comet,” he says suddenly.

“I can’t, Aemond.”

“In Tokyo you asked me what I want, so now I’m telling you. I want you to stay.”

“Why, so you can sometimes love me and sometimes hate me, and refuse to build a new life for yourself, and relive what happened at the Budokan over and over and over again because that’s the background noise of everything you do now? Why?”

He gestures vaguely. “So we can figure things out.”

“I’m figured out, Aemond! You’re the one who isn’t and I can’t help you anymore, you have to do it for yourself, you have to want it!”

“You’ve never wanted to stay with me. You’re a liar, you’re a user. I’m glad Comet could fill that gap in your resume.” He takes a forceful drag and exhales smoke that the wind snatches away. “All you do is keep things from me.”

Venomous, violent disappointment blooms dark and scarlet in your veins. “You have no idea how much I’ve kept from you.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

You watch him, mourn him, commit him to memory for when you can’t see him anymore, every thread of him, miraculous and doomed. Saint Jude, you think, a man your parents as good Southern Baptists do not pray to. You tell Aemond: “You’re a lost cause.”

“And you’re a nobody.”

You turn away from him like ripping a page in two. You don’t want anyone to see the tears welling up in your eyes, escaping down your cheeks, marking you as someone who was weak enough to believe you could save him. You know that’s not the way it works, you know people have to be willing to accept the truths you help them uncover like prehistoric bones. Still, you believed in him. Why? Why?

Because I wanted to. Because I love him.

Your flip flops pound against the soil of the driveway, raindrops leaving spots like freckles, dust flying everywhere. You swipe at the tears that blur your vision. When you are far enough away that nobody can see you from the farmhouse, you rest your trembling hands on your belly. The life in progress there is half-built of Aemond, you carry pieces of him around with you like coins jangling in you pocket. You can’t forget him. You can’t forgive him. It shouldn’t be possible to be so close to somebody and yet so far away.

There’s no one out on Route 210. Your flip flops cross from a dirt road to black pavement. You lose track of how long you’ve been walking. Five minutes, ten minutes, it doesn’t matter. What are minutes when your mind is years away?

How will I keep Aegon in my life without tabloids finding out about the baby? What will I tell my child when they ask who their father is?

A vicious wind, so strong it snaps branches from trees and almost knocks you over. And then you hear it, that sound that every inhabitant of the Lower Midwest knows: a deep rumbling like a train. You peer up into a sky that is dark and murderous and glowing a strange sickly green. And above your head, spiraling with increasing speed: a funnel cloud, an emergent tornado.

~~~~~~~~~~

Criston is herding everyone towards the cellar, bellowing, waving frantically: Aegon, Luke, Rhaena, Jace, Baela, Cregan, Daeron, five yelping Australian cattle dogs. Through the window, they can see the tornado approaching the farmhouse, a column of shadowy atmospheric fury, unpredictable and unstoppable, here and then gone, the meteorological version of a comet.

Aemond slams the door as he sprints inside from the field behind the house. He breaths heavily, his chest heaving as his clear right eye studies the band’s panicked faces. “Where is she?”

“What the fuck do you mean ‘where is she’?!” Aegon pitches back. “She was with you! She’s with you, right?!”

Aemond looks at Aegon, looks through the glass at the tornado, grabs the keys to his 1960 Gold Star off the dining room table.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re running, but you can’t see; there’s dust and debris everywhere, there are pieces of trees and fences careening through the air, when you breath you choke on airborne earth. The wind keeps pushing you off the road and then you have to fight your way back. You have to find your parents’ driveway. You have to get to the house. The sun is gone, and the roaring like a freight train is louder, louder, louder. And now there is another sound too, a different sort of growling, mechanical and familiar. Punching through the haze like a bullet, Aemond and his Gold Star screech to a stop beside you.

“Get on!” he screams over the storm, then helps drag you onto the seat behind him. You link your arms around his waist and then you’re flying together, just like Rome, just like before Reykjavik or Paris or Singapore or Tokyo or East Rutherford or Las Vegas or any of the other cities happened, back when you believed you could cure him like a witch with a spell, back when you wanted him in a way that was unburdened by truths you wish you didn’t know.

The Gold Star rockets by trees, utility poles, fence posts seconds before they are ripped from the ground by 200 miles per hour winds. Aemond steers roughly onto the dirt road of your parents’ driveway. You cling to him, breathing him in: smoke, cologne, memories, nightmares, dreams. In the rearview mirror is a maelstrom of dark, churning grey peppered with wreckage.

Something collides with the motorcycle, a pence post, a tree limb, you don’t know, it doesn’t matter. The Gold Star is knocked off the driveway like a bloodied tooth from a jaw. You sail off of it as it begins to roll; you hit the ground hard on your back, loose a pitiful wounded howl, try to start crawling towards the farmhouse.

“No, stay down, stay down!” Aemond is saying over the roar of the tornado. He covers you, he shields you, he pins you to the ground, he puts his hands over your eyes. The last thing you see is the Gold Star lying on its side a few yards away, its wheels still rotating. It’s over 400 pounds, too heavy for Aemond to lift even if you helped him, even if that couldn’t hurt the baby.

The baby?? Your own hands go to your belly. You try to ascertain if the heat throbbing in your back has traveled anywhere else, reached with blood-red, needle-sharp talons to your child, to your future.

The wind is letting up; is that your imagination? No, the tornado is receding, the debris fall to the earth, the deafening runaway train made of rogue air evaporates. Cautiously, Aemond rises from you. When you look at him, the right side of his face is riddled with shallow, bleeding gashes; but his eye is mercifully unharmed.

“Aemond,” you say, pained, reaching for him, trying to clean the blood from his face with your sleeves, a hoodie with some boy band on it, men you don’t know and don’t care to meet, fantasies that pale in comparison to the reality that stains you like rust.

“I’m fine, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think so…”

They come stampeding down the driveway: Criston, the rest of Comet, the barking Australian cattle dogs.

“Oh my God, they’re alive!” Jace exclaims, and soon everyone is there, surrounding you and Aemond like a circle, a ring, an orbit, something that goes around and around and might fade but never ends.

You aren’t worried about the baby. There’s no cramping, no pain except the throbbing in the curve of your back, blood loosed and then trapped, indigo bruises tattooed under your skin like ink. You press your palms to the earth and brace yourself so you can stand. No one is helping you get up; why is no one helping you? Why are they only staring, gasping, covering their mouths with shaking hands?

“You’re bleeding,” Aemond says, a panicked voice through fog. Slowly, like trying to run in a dream, you look down. There are thin rivulets of scarlet snaking their way down your thighs, calves, shins, ankles, painless ruinous tributaries, constellations unraveling until the patterns cease to exist, no myths, no monsters, no men, just senseless pinpricks of distant light you’ll never know the names of.

“No,” you whisper, like you can stop it from happening if you refuse to believe it, like it’s a mistake you can talk yourself out of. You gaze up at Aegon. Knowledge flies between you, something shared like an heirloom or an oath.

“Call an ambulance,” Aegon says to Cregan. “Tell them that she’s…” His eyes dart to Aemond and then back to you. “Tell them to hurry.”

Aemond is holding you, he is touching your face, he is asking: “Are you cut, do you need stitches—?”

“I’m alright, it’s nothing, it’s—”

“What are you talking about?! It’s not nothing, you’re bleeding, why are you bleeding?”

“Aemond, it’s nothing—”

“Tell me what to do, tell me how to help you!”

“It’s just…” And a sob breaks from your throat, and your words are brittle and splintering, and you can’t lie to him anymore. You’re out of time in so many ways. “It’s just the baby.”

#aemond one eye #aemond targaryen #aemond x you #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond x reader #aegon ii #aegon x reader #aegon targaryen #aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen ii

[teenagedirtstache]

#cow boys band #beppe lopetrone #1990 #90s

[rhysdarbinizedarby]

Rhys Darby has ‘not an ounce of scaredness’ about son’s band dreams

NZ actor Rhys Darby and his musician son Finn interview each other. VIDEO CREDIT: David White/Stuff

Rhys Darby is proudly listing career moments - but they’re not his own.

He’s recalling watching his son Finn’s band, Great Big Cow, “absolutely rock” iconic LA venue Troubadour to sold-out crowds.

As a parent, “you worry about a bit of nepotism,” he admits.

“Are we just ‘yay, our boys!’ when really they’re dreadful?”

But, he says, the band’s indie folk rock is “brilliant”, and keeps getting better. And, he insists, people are paying attention.

“We’re shocked as parents a little bit,” he jokes.

The band, Rhys and I are nestled between a Street Fighter arcade game and a pinball machine, in a dark corner of Auckland’s Whammy Bar. The US-based teen band has been sound-checking for their first international show.

Rhys has donned weathered jeans and a plaid jacket - approved by Finn. His son is wearing Dad’s socks for the night. While Rhys talks, Finn pulls faces and shares quiet in-jokes with his band mates. There are plenty of laughs.

Finn, Paolo Pesce, Will Angarola and Wyatt Nash originally played together in a school jazz combo, and went on to form Great Big Cow in 2022.

Rhys Darby, left, watches his son Finn’s band dreams without “an ounce of scaredness”. DAVID WHITE/STUFF

Now, Rhys insists, they have a growing fanbase. Some of whom “[do] that thing where you dance really closely … Moshing”. He points to my notebook.

“Put down there that I did know what moshing is.”

Sure, Rhys Darby - one of New Zealand’s most well-known comedy exports - helped the band get bums on seats and lock in bigger venues, but they were also recently featured on LA public radio station KCRW’s Young Creators Project, can be found on Spotify and their mainstay is house parties.

“I think because I'm a bigger deal [in NZ], it might have been a little different. In LA, no-one really gives a shit about who I am,” he laughs, looking over at Finn who’s patiently had his hand raised while Dad spoke.

There are people and groups in LA that have helped the band too, says Finn, and he’s not sure those opportunities would have happened back in NZ.

“I would have got you on bFM for sure,” Rhys quips back.

He looks on at Finn’s creative path with, “not an ounce of scaredness”.

“Obviously as a child I had many different dreams, but at the base of everything was art and performance,” he says, describing his younger self as a “dreamer” who wanted to entertain.

Rhys Darby with son Finn before Great Big Cow played Auckland’s Whammy Bar. DAVID WHITE/STUFF

“When it comes to [my kids], I see different ambitions, but they have the artistic talent - I’m completely open to whatever they want to do. I’ll always be there for them.”

Where New Zealand has a bit of a reputation for tall poppy syndrome and an air of negativity, LA is hugely positive, says Rhys - especially for fostering young talent.

And it was in LA, at a house party, that Finn recalls being caught up in the “electric energy” of playing live.

“The whole audience was moving. And I think two people got lifted up above the crowd and surfed around above the crowd,” he says.

Finn’s not the only Darby putting in some work while in Aotearoa. Following Rhys’s joint 50th celebration with wife Rosie, he’ll be returning to the local stage, performing his Rhys Darby 25 Years stand-up show at Waiheke Island’s Wild Estate on April 3.

It encompasses the best bits from his previous shows, but performing it at Waiheke is “just another excuse to put on a show, really”, and to show his US mates another part of Auckland.

Rhys Darby, following a stint in the army and then university, kicked off his career with stand-up, before becoming a household name with an impressive TV and film CV, including Flight of the Conchords, Yes Man, The Boat that Rocked and Our Flag Means Death.

As for whether he still loves stand-up, “love is a strong word”, he laughs.

“I still enjoy it. But it's it's less of a thrill than it used to be.”

What he’s really loving is throwing himself into acting, and challenging himself with more dramatic roles - different to the very physical, crazy “shenanigans on stage”, requiring more focus for the comedian and “not just being a silly bugger”.

Plus, he’s 50 now.

“It’s much easier to do the stuff where I'm just sitting down,” he laughs.

Still, there’s no denying he’s been part of a movement that threw New Zealand comedy into the wider world, and he speaks proudly about his own work, but also that of other Kiwis such as filmmaker Taika Waititi and actor Rose Matafeo.

It’s a type of comedy, he says, that “has a signature” and can’t be copied.

Rhys Darby and son Finn at Auckland’s Whammy Bar. DAVID WHITE/STUFF

“I think it’s that positivity thing, which is ironic coming from a place with tall poppy syndrome. We don’t like each other but you guys love us, eh?”

It’s one of the reasons Darby is still living in LA, “still waving the flag [and] not changing my accent”.

And while Darby’s big break may have been the role of band manager Murray, when it comes to Great Big Cow he and Rosie “don’t want to be helicopter parents too much”.

“We're there when they have a question.”

And while Rhys says he can’t talk about any of his own projects, Finn interrupts with a quiet word about vague plans for a comedy musical theatre show featuring Rhys and the band.

Looking back at his own career, the highlight was breaking into the US market - name-dropping X Files and Our Flag Means Death as highlights.

“What's next? It's all peaks and troughs,” he says - mentioning Hollywood is turning to AI, but “thankfully, there's no one that can do a better robot impression than me”.

Still, the changing industry is worrying.

“People are losing their jobs, and AI is having a lot to do with it,” he says - dropping the quips and gags for a moment.

“After the strikes, I know, it's taken a while to get the industry back on its feet, but I'm hoping that it will get there,” he says.

“But it is worrying. It's really worrying the moment.”

Source: Stuff NZ

#rhys darby #finn darby #interview #great big cow band #stuff nz

[astarionbraiinrot]

One for the Road

Having acquired himself a brood of many daughters, and with enough years passed since the last was born that he's certain they're done having any more, Astarion is content to be a very happy certified Girl Dad™ to his flock of lovely little feral princesses. Which he's over the moon about, because honestly, what would he even do with a boy? No, he’s quite satisfied with the pack of little gremlins he has, thanks very much, all braids and pink ribbons and lace trim, and he’s not interested in adding to it. He and Tav are living their best No More Babies life. They're consistently sleeping through the night without interruption, they can have a glass (or four) of wine whenever they want, and he can’t remember the last time he’s had to wipe an ass that wasn’t his own. No, their house is FULL and they are DONE. No new Ancunins, shop's closed.

She’s bright red herself, wailing with all the power her little lungs can muster. He still can’t see much of her from where he sits, not with Tav sagged back against him, finally able to rest. The Midwife says something he doesn’t catch as she gently wipes the babe off. He’s too busy whispering to Tav about how well she did to pay much attention to anything else right at this moment, but Tav isn’t, and she starts to giggle, quietly, just this side of audible. Odd, he thinks, but adrenaline’s a hell of a drug, so he doesn’t think about it too hard. His towel-wrapped (and still a little fluid-covered) daughter is gently placed on Tav’s chest as the Midwife busies herself with cutting the umbilical cord and delivering the afterbirth. The baby calms a bit as Tav gently coos to her and strokes her back, her cries tapering off into soft whimpers.

So of course, barely three days after finally clearing out and donating all of their various and sundry baby stuff, Tav informs him that there's going to be a last-minute addition to the family, very soon (school had just started back again, and the girls had spent the entire summer banding together to hide increasingly-inappropriate new "pets" in their rooms no matter how many times they got caught, so he supposes Tav can be forgiven for having mistaken the symptoms of yet another impending-dhampir as typical parenting exhaustion. He certainly had). It's the middle of the night when she tells him, and he spends at least an hour pacing the floor of their bedroom and summoning every scrap of memory from his law school days to argue that she must be mistaken, because their eldest just started COLLEGE and their youngest is TEN and they've already given away the crib and you can't have a baby if you don't have a crib because where would it even sleep? So obviously they can't be having another baby. Checkmate. He rests his case, Your Honor.

When his arguments to the contrary do not, in fact, render the impending child any less impending, and he’s had another hour to stomp around the backyard lecturing himself (quietly, so as not to wake the girls or the neighbors) that this is what happens when you drink two bottles of wine and an entire cow and can’t keep your stupid hands to yourself and convince Tav to throw caution to the wind because “it’ll be fine just this once, what’s the worst that could happen,” you idiot, he comes around to the idea. Because, sure, maybe they're starting all over with the diapers and the teething and the sleepless nights, but their other children are old enough to mostly mind themselves now, and the youngest had started asking for a baby sister as soon as she was old enough to figure out that her parents were where siblings came from.

Plus, if he's honest with himself, he may have - just a very teeny tiny bit - missed the feeling of holding a tiny infant curled up on his chest, burying his nose into their fluffy newborn hair to inhale the scent of their little scalp, listening to those soft snuffly noises they make as they fall asleep, his finger held in a ridiculously tiny hand only just barely big enough to wrap around it. Not enough to have another one on purpose, obviously, but if she's coming along anyway, then he supposes he might as well enjoy it all the same.

So he starts the same preparations for her that he did with all her sisters, sewing tiny frilly things as Tav knits yet another blanket and they bounce potential names off each other. Of course it's a girl, he says, when questioned on his name suggestions. With how many children they already have, there would have been a boy by now if there was going to be one. He scoffs each time Tav jokes over the next few tendays that this one feels different, and they could have a little combo-breaker on the horizon. No, not possible, he assures her, with an unearned confidence that he nonetheless felt was quite deserved. Their Standard Operation Protocol is that, once a baby is on the way, a little girl is born soon after. No deviations, and no reason to expect any now after all this time. Repeated experiments have produced the same result every time. They'll have another member for their infamous flock of Ancunin Daughters before the month is out.

When Tav tells him one evening just before their soon-to-be-second-youngest's bedtime that the little one's announced her debut via a puddle on the kitchen floor, there is no panic, no rush, no mad dash to ready everything. They've been through this far too many times for that. He takes a moment to be grateful that at least this one had waited until the sun was down to kick things off. Most of her sisters had not been nearly so courteous, choosing instead to have their first act be one of defiance against their poor stressed out father by beginning their journey into life in the middle of the day.

He bundles the girls off to the neighbors' house for the night, leaving them with a quick kiss on the head each and a promise that he'll send a Message as soon as their new sister has arrived, before making his way to fetch the Midwife. He vaguely wonders if she's even necessary, considering they have enough offspring that he's got the whole process all but memorized and is fairly certain he and Tav could deliver the child themselves at this point (and had done, once. Baby number five had been VERY eager to make her way into the world, with such a swift entry that she'd nearly been born on the living room floor. He'd had no time to even grab a towel and was forced to catch her with his bare hands. She'd ruined his shirt, and the rug, and nearly scared the unlife out of him on top of it. He'd been very calm throughout the entire event, though, a paragon of unflappable stability, patiently waiting until the babe was born, cleaned, and moved upstairs to the bedroom where she snuggled peacefully in her sleeping mother's arms, before politely stepping out the bedroom door and proceeding to have the quietest panic of his entire existence).

When he arrives back home with the Midwife, he doesn’t bother to direct her to the bedroom. She knows where it is, this isn’t her first rodeo with an Ancunin birth either. Water is boiled, clean towels are at hand, their nice bedding has been replaced with plain serviceable sheets, a layer of newspaper underneath to protect the mattress, a tiny outfit and knitted blanket sit ready nearby. Check, check, check. He completes each step with pure muscle memory and no prompting, all routine, everything exactly as expected.

The next nine hours are spent keeping Tav as comfortable as possible. Rubbing her back, walking circles around the house, stopping at each contraction to gently sway and do the breathing exercises that they'd learned so long ago the first time they did this. Normally, she'd catch what sleep she could in between contractions in these early stages, but this one is determined to allow her mother no rest. He really hopes that's not an indication of what the little one’s sleep schedule will look like once she's here.

They near the end of this whole ordeal with the first light of morning. He's sat behind Tav, holding her up, as she grits her teeth through near back-to-back contractions and shakes with the effort of bringing this last child into the world. She's exhausted, grumpily hissing between pushes that of course his child would be fucking nocturnal and think the asscrack of dawn was a splendid time to be born. He considers reminding her that most of their children had been born during the day, so he really didn’t think the timing of this one could be blamed on him, but any response he might have had is cut off with the next push, when he feels his knuckle bones grind together as she once again resumes her efforts to reduce them to powder. It's probably for the best that he keep that comment to himself right now, anyway, he thinks.

One more big push to get the head out. It's barely visible from his position, head leaning over Tav's shoulder, but he can see that she definitely has the same full head of hair all her sisters did, and maybe his hair color as well, though it's hard to really tell through the blood and fluids plastering it all to her scalp. Could be red for all he knows. He mutters something about not being able to see her hair through the blood, and Tav gives him a sly sideways glance and starts to crack a joke, something about him not having eaten since yesterday, he thinks, before she’s interrupted by a loud, pained, groan and the need to push again.

A few more hard, steady pushes, guided by the Midwife, for the shoulders this time. This is always the hardest part, he remembers, the final hurdle. He whispers gentle encouragement into Tav's ear as, timed with her pushes, the Midwife carefully guides first one shoulder, then the other, out into the world. Poor Tav is bright red from the exertion, covered in sweat and panting. He places a cool hand on her forehead and she leans into his palm as, with a scream and one last push, the babe is finally brought into the world.

Oh.

Able to get a closer look at her now, he can see this one bears more than just a passing resemblance to her father. Frankly, she looks exactly like him, albeit smaller, wrinklier, and with fewer teeth (for now). Pale, even for a newborn, with tiny, finely-pointed ears, and a head of unruly white curls. When she finally opens her eyes, leveling her parents with an annoyed glare that could have come right off his own face (or so he’s been told), he sees his own gaze reflected back at him in pale green, the color they’d learned with the birth of their second daughter that his eyes used to be. He feels a little bad, honestly. Tav did all the hard work, and yet here their daughter is, their last baby, him in miniature. Not bad enough to keep him from preening a bit when he mentions how beautiful she is, though.

Tav is still giggling. Quietly, but noticeably louder now than before his comment.

He raises an eyebrow at her and asks just what is so funny, and her giggling increases to laughter.

You, she says, in between fits of giggles. She asks if he had been paying attention to anything the Midwife had said, and the confused look on his face only serves to make her laugh harder. He waits while she tries to contain herself, releasing a very put upon sigh when, a few minutes later, she’s still laughing at whatever this joke at his expense is.

Finally, she takes a deep breath, holding in her laughter, eyes still sparkling with mirth, and slowly unwraps their daughter. He is, once again, confused, and the baby’s none too happy either, starting to fuss with the sudden loss of warmth. Before he can say anything, Tav shifts and places the now bared and still slightly-slimy infant in his arms, advising him to get acquainted with their newest little one. He wrinkles his nose at the goo rubbing off onto his sleeves, some sarcastic remark ready on his tongue, reaching out with one hand to take the towel from Tav as he looks down to begin settling his daughter, and-

Well.

That explains why Tav was laughing at him, at least.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks that he probably should have caught that a lot sooner. It’s almost embarrassing really, considering his various skillsets, he’s usually pretty good at noticing little details. He doesn’t really have the brainpower to ponder that too long though, because the rest of his mind is still trying to reconcile this shift in information.

The best he’s able to come up with is dazedly asking Tav how that had happened, which just induces her into another fit of tired giggles as she presses a gentle kiss to his lips, and another to the top of their son’s fuzzy head.

He smiles and thinks that the girls will be delighted at this change of protocol.

#astarion x tav #astarion/tav #dadstarion #astarion ancunin #astarion #bg3 astarion #astarion bg3 #baldurs gate astarion #baldurs gate 3 astarion #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #One for the Road #This is literally my first time ever posting fic pls be gentle lol #and if you see any mistakes no you didn't #this started out as a reply to a request for dadstarion headcanons and now it's over 2k words help #started out with a kiss how did it end up like this etc #Also considered calling it either Going Out of Business or Fire Sale re: the ''shop's closed'' line #2k+

[the-froschamethyst4]

Wildflower

𖤐Pairing: Cowboy! Gaz x College! F!Reader

𖤐Pronouns: She/Her

𖤐Warnings: smut, language, kissing/making out, P in V, age gap, fingering, public sex (?), groping, nipple playing, eating out, female and male masturbation,

𖤐Summary: Gaz works on your father’s farm and you came home from college for the Summer, what happens when you spend a little too much time outside with Gaz instead of your family?

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A black BMW pulled up on the gravel driveway. The cowboys on her father's farm all stopped and stared to see who it was. The shirtless cowboys came to the white fence leaning on it and watched a girl come out of the black BMW.

She wore light colors, she didn't look like she belonged on a farm. The owner of the farm came out of the barn and looked at the driveway.

"Boys, that is my daughter, Y/n," he says.

"Hi, dad!" She yells from the car, she shuts the car door with her hip and opened the trunk pulling out some bags.

"She's staying with us for the summer," he tells the cowboys.

"Dad! Is my room still free?" She asks.

"Yes!" He yells. She skips to the house opening the front door.

"She is college, sir?" One cowboy asked as they got back to work.

"Yep. GAZ! SADDLE UP!" He yells. Gaz was one of the best hard working cowboys on the farm and he was the most trusted as well.

"Mama, who is the guy riding with dad?" Y/n asked, looking out of the window in the kitchen, seeing her father and Gaz riding in the field.

"His name is Kyle Garrick, but your father calls him Gaz," she tells her daughter. "I was going to make some lemonade for them, you wanna help?"

"Yes ma'am," she says, helping her mother.

Gaz and Y/n's father were roping some new calves that were born, they were going to band them and tag them, and Y/n's father needed some help and Gaz knew what he was doing.

Gaz ropes one of the new born and taking it to the ground. Y/n's father got off his horse and started to band the baby boy calf, he grabs a tag labeled 14AB and tagging his right ear.

"Alright, next one Gaz," he says as Gaz removed the rope from the calf's legs and he took off to his mother.

-----------

After a while, Y/n and her mother walked out of the house, Y/n's mother called out for the guys to come get some lemonade.

The cowboys stopped what they were doing all rushed towards the two women. Y/n gave the cowboys a soft smile as they took a glass of lemonade.

The Gaz came up, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a white rag and took a glass glancing up at Y/n. She smiles at him and he smiles back.

"I'm Gaz," he says.

"Y/n," she smiles.

"Any left for me?" He father asked coming up to his wife holding her waist. Gaz and Y/n glance back each other and hid their red blushing faces.

----------

A Few Weeks Later

It's been a few weeks now, the cowboys always being over at the Y/l's. Y/n laid next to the pool in a pool deck chair, laying on her stomach, a floppy hat giving her shade to be able to read her book. She was in a light pink bikini, she was 'distracting' the cowboys from their work.

The black metal fence that separated the cows pastor and the pool deck, had cowboys staring at their bosses daughter.

"HEY BOYS!" The cowboys jumped at their boss's loud voice and Y/n turned seeing the shirtless cowboys getting back to work and Y/n giggled at them.

She can't help that she beautiful.

Gaz walks to the black fence, he leans on the fence and cleared his throat getting Y/n's attention from her book. She looks up and smiles seeing Gaz. She puts her bookmark in her book and walked up to Gaz.

"Shouldn't you be getting back to work?" She asked him.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine, Gaz," she places her hand on his buff chest, almost in a way for him to go back to work. "My dad will get mad, if he sees you slacking."

"I'm fine, I'm his best employee," he teases.

Y/n just shakes her head, she looks up at Gaz. "Around lunch, can we meet in the barn?"

"Sure," he smiles.

"Good, now back to work," she gently pushes him again. He chuckles and walks away.

----------

12:10PM

"LUNCH!!" Y/n's mom yells to everyone. The cowboys all sat at the large picnic table just under the patio. Gaz grabbed his plate since he was done and looked up seeing Y/n head into the barn.

He looks over his shoulder and saw that everyone was just talking, eating and laughing. He throws his plate away and discreetly heads to the barn.

"Y/n?" He calls out.

"Up here," he looks up seeing her up in the loft where they kept the hay. He climbs the ladder and sees her laying on the hay.

"What did you wanna talk about?" He asked.

"No talking," she stood up and started to push her straps of her sundress off her shoulders. She holds the top of her dress to her bare chest.

"W-What are you doing?" He asks.

"Come on Gaz, we've been teasing each other for weeks, I think you know," Gaz quickly looked behind him to make sure no was in here and started to unbuckle his pants kicking off his boots and crawling towards Y/n.

Holding her waist and leaning forward kissing her lips. Her hands still holding the top of her dress but her hands were being moved from her dress and letting it fall.

His hands then went up her waist to her boobs, groping her fatty breasts and pinching at her nipples. His lips then kissed her jawline and neck, he sucked on her neck leaving a purple hickey on her neck.

She tosses her head back and Gaz gently lays her on the hay. He then pulls her dress off her body putting it next to her. His calloused fingers then hooked around her panties pulling them off her lower half. He licks his lips and then starts moving down kissing her stomach and her inner thighs.

He licks his lips and then licks between her wet folds, her thighs wanted to clinch around his head but his hands were holding them in place. He then pulls her up, he was sitting up and she was getting a clear view of his tongue fucking her.

She moans seeing his tongue glide through her folds. She grips the hay then found his thick thighs gripping his jeans. He smirks and then continues to fuck her with his tongue but also managed to pull his jeans off.

He stops for a little bit to stand up kicking his jeans off, he pulls his boxers off and she gets a clear view of his thick dick. She smiles and leans back on her elbows as he comes down eating her out again.

"Ah! O-Oh my god!" She moans.

He grips at her thighs and she felt herself about to come, she lets out a soft moan and Gaz felt a sweet, salty thick liquid in his mouth. He moves his tongue and saw the thick liquid come from her clit and on his tongue. He smirks and wipes his mouth clean.

He starts pumping himself, and Y/n moved her fingers down to her clit pumping her fingers in and out of her. He watches her face seeing pleasure all over her face, he moves her fingers away and starts pumping his middle and ring finger inside of her.

She tosses her head back, arching her back and both of her hands gripping at his wrists.

"AH! Ah!" She moans. Gaz smirks and kisses her knees and then he looks down at his tip seeing pre-cum leak from his tip, he smirks and then replaces his fingers with his cock.

She moans putting her head back in the hay. Gripping the hay and hiding her face from him.

"Don't hide that pretty face from me," Gaz says, gripping her chin making her look at her and then bending down kissing her lips. His tongue pushed it's away passed her lips.

His thrusts were hard, his hands held her waist, making her arch her back and he starts to go a bit harder, her thighs over his, her hands resting on his lower stomach and she looks up at him.

He seemed like he was focusing on trying to make her come again. She places her hand on his cheek, he looks up at her, moving back to her lips kissing her.

"G-Go slow...please..." she says.

"Are you sure?"

"Y-Yes," she says, he starts going slow, she bring his head to her neck, he kissed her neck, holding her body close to his, her legs wrapped around his waist.

Grunting, skin slapping and moans filled the barn. There was only a few minutes before lunch was over and they made to move quickly, but Gaz was listening to Y/n, if she wanted to go slow, he'll go slow, if she wanted him to go fast, he'll go fast.

"HEY GAZ WHERE ARE YOU!?" They both jumped hearing Y/n's father call for him.

"Fuck," Gaz says. Gaz pulls out of Y/n, she covers her mouth to muffle her moans. Gaz quickly leans over the loft but made sure not to show his lower half.

"Hey sir!" He says.

"What are you doing up there?"

"I was going to feed the horses," Gaz lied.

"They have hay."

"A quick nap," he quickly says.

"Okay, well get down here, we have some goats that need to be banded."

"Alright," Gaz says. Y/n's father left the barn and he looks at Y/n who seemed upset and angry that they were interrupted. Gaz quickly pins Y/n back on her back. "We'll make it quick," he says, stuffing himself back into her.

She lets out a loud moan, she was bouncing quickly due to Gaz's rough thrusts, he needed to get going but he's not going to leave Y/n sexually frustrated.

He starts feeling himself close to coming, Y/n let's out a soft moan and Gaz quickly pulls out pumping himself and coming on Y/n's stomach. She looks down at his come on her stomach, she smiles.

"I have to get going," Gaz says quickly getting his boots and jeans back on.

Y/n looks at him, her legs wide open and come leaking from her, he needed to go but he wants to lick her clean.

"Y/n-"

"Go on," she says, shooing her hand at him. He smiles and grabs her hand kissing her knuckles.

"I'll see you around?"

"Uh-huh," she says, smiling and kissing his lips.

As Gaz was climbing down the wooden ladder, Y/n was getting her panties and sundress back on. She fixes herself up, and climbs down the ladder.

----------

It was dark now, Gaz was heading back to the house with Y/n father. Gaz rubbed the back of his neck as if it was hurting him, Gaz is a tough man, neck pain was the least of his problems.

"I know you had sex with my daughter," Gaz's eyes felt like they were going to pop out of his head.

"What? Sir-"

"Don't deny it, Gaz...I know..."

"Sir, I'm sorry-"

"Don't be...I saw how you two acted with each other and how you two always flirt with each other, just...don't hurt my daughter."

"I would never, sir."

"Good, also...you'll have to work a double tomorrow."

"Is that my punishment, sir?"

"It is, if I catch you two doing it in the barn again, you won't be leaving the farm."

"I'll be working all day and night?"

"Yep," he says popping the 'p'.

"That's fair, sir."

"He is hot."

"Mama~" Y/n groans.

"What? He is. So, where did you do it?"

Y/n was silent.

"No!"

"Mama, I didn't even says where."

"But I know. You did it in the barn!"

"Mama~" she groans again.

"You come home for the summer and you are having sex in your fathers barn with one of his employees," she shakes her head.

"So, you and dad did it in the goat barn."

"THAT'S DIFFERENT!" Y/n's mom says.

"No it's not."

"Go to your room."

"I'm 26...I'll go to my room because I want to," she says walking away.

#cod modern warfare #cod mw2 #cod mwii #cod x reader #fandom #fanfic #call of duty #mw2 #cod #gaz x gn!reader #kyle gaz garrick #gaz x reader #gaz cod #gaz x y/n

[in-hav3n]

 ✮ 𝓘𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 - 𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮

❘❘ The reader is younger than James.

Fifth show, Sweden. On this beautiful sunny warm afternoon, you were doing the same gestures for the tenth time. You didn't mind. You loved to feel useful for people and you loved this new job you got. Being a roadie on Metallica tour was an unexpected turn in your professional career but still, it was the most interesting job you've ever done and you enjoyed every minute of it.

James, Kirk, Lars and Rob were rehearsing, testing the mics as well as their instruments, walking around the stage in their comfortable clothes whilst the Met crew was working to settle everything. You were sticking the sheets of schedules and setlist at every post at the right place for the staff and settled all kind of stuffs they'd need for tomorrow's gig.

Walking around in comfortable clothes too - no need to wear black outfit like for a gig ; plus the day was particularly hot, you decided to wear a black top and a jeans skirt - you were listening with one ear as doing your tasks, sometimes whispering some lyrics or moving your head on the rhythm. Not paying attention to what was happening around you, you were busy on fixing something under the stage when you heard James calling you.

"Are there some guitar picks down there (X/Y)?", he asked you, recognizing you at your hair color.

Normally roadie would never had any contacts with the band but you were introduced in the Met crew by Lars' drum's technician so you had some kind of special place. Plus you were doing your job, not complaining or trying to become friend with the band, like others did before. But that didn't stop the guys from being naturally kind with everyone and since you were "part of the family", they tried to get to know you a bit more than with any other roadie.

You looked up at him and your heart started to beat faster. You nodded at him and quickly went to give him one. Standing on your tiptoes, you leaned over the big stage to give it to him. James kneeled down, chuckling as he noticed you had to do that to be able to reach him. Your fingers connected for a moment and you let out a discreet gasp. He took the picks and smiled at you. "Thanks sweetheart". You managed to mumble a "you're welcome" and stood petrified for a while, looking at him going back to the stage center. He was rehearsing "Creeping death" riffs, focusing on his play as smoking his cigar. Even with just a brown short, a "Bastardane" shirt and a cow-boy hat, he was gorgeous.

Here were your big secret. You were craving for James Hetfield and it wasn't right. He was 59 and you were much younger. Plus he might had someone since he divorced last year but you didn't know, you weren't in the confidence and it was none of your business. But still, you couldn't stop dreaming of him, day and night. You knew nothing would ever happen and never you'll do something to seduce him or something. That would be very inappropriate. You just enjoyed the fact that you could sneak around him and took any opportunity you had to look at him or admired him from far away. That was already enough.

Later, you came back inside the backstages, your duty around the stage finished for the day. Since you had nothing else to do, an assistant asked you to put bottles of water inside the guys backstage's rooms, in case they'd need it for tomorrow. You accepted and quickly did this new task. The guys were still rehearsing at the moment so they would never know you had came inside their private areas. But the assistant knew and trust you enough to do it.

You started with Kirk's, Rob's and then you arrived in James'. You came in and a strong smell of cigar smoke and male perfume hit your nose. You chuckled. No surprise. You put the bottles in the mini fridge, not really paying attention to the mess all around, until you notice to sheets who were supposed to be stuck on the wall. It was the schedule and setlist again. The person who did it didn't do his job properly. You sighed and quickly went out to search what was necessary to put it on again. 2 mins later, you were back, on a chair to fix it in a good level so you were sure the sheets won't be unhooked and fall again. But impossible to take some tape. You were fighting with it, cursing until you heard footsteps coming and a door closing. You quickly turned around and your eyes landed on James.

"Oh I'm sorry...I was just..", you mumbled, showing him the duct tape. You felt completely ridiculous like this, in his backstage room, standing on a chair but you were just doing your job. James took a drag of his cigar with a nod and sympathetic smile.

"It's okay, keep doing your job. I'm just searching for something", he said with a nice tone as searching some things in his bag. You gulped and went back to your task, trying to focus but it was hard. He was just a meter away from you and you could feel the smell of his cigar from where you were standing. You finally managed to took some tape, put the duct on the chair and stood on your tiptoes to fix it. You didn't see the duct falling on the ground but James did. He looked over and put his cigar in the ashtray on the coffee table. He kneeled down to grab it and as he looked up to give it to you, he noticed he had an interesting view from here. He could see under your skirt and a cocky smile appeared on the corner of his lips. Interesting, he thought. Very interesting.

He got up and stood next to you, handing you the duct. You saw nothing until your peripheral vision noticed it and you slightly jumped of surprise and nearly lost your balance. You didn't hear him coming closer. James chuckled at your reaction and placed one hand on your hips, the other on your lower back to prevent you from falling. "It's just me sweetheart. Relax", he said with a smile. You thanked him, your cheeks soon flushing hard when you realized where his hand were. You managed to place the paper and turned over to face him.

"I-Is that good over there for you?", you asked him, showing him the paper placed on the wall.

"All good. Thank you. Now get down before hurting yourself", he said with a kind tone. You chuckled to him with a shy smile and accepted his hand to got down carefully from the chair. You didn't know if it was the weather but you felt a sudden heat radiating inside your body and you realized that it was James touches and kind gesture towards you that provoked it. It was completely insane.

Once on your feet, you stood face to face with him and you realized that he was closer than you expected him to be. You could smelled his masculine perfume mixed with smoke and it was enchanting. James looked over at you with his piercing blue icy eyes and it was really intimidating. You gulped and opened slightly your mouth to get some air cause it started to be difficult to breathe.

"Did you enjoy the show earlier ?". You assumed he was talking about the rehearsals so you replied honestly.

"Oh, yes, I did !". He nodded.

"Did you enjoy the music ?"

"Yes I did". Why was he asking you these questions ? You didn't understand but you kept answering.

"Did you enjoy watching...me?". You were about to reply positively again until you realized his question. You opened your mouth and immediately flushed harder. You got caught.

James relished of the effect he had on you and smiled. Of course he had noticed the way you were looking at him and it started to get his curiosity at the second show. Then he started to play with it, with his gestures, his attitude even with words, calling you "honey" or "sweetheart" to see your reaction and it pleased him a lot. But he never had the chance to be alone with you until today and he really wanted to enjoy every minute of it.

"I-I'm...I shouldn't..I'm sorry", you mumbled, your face all red and your glance fixed on the ground. You felt ridiculous, ashamed. You thought you were discreet when it was about watching him from afar and you were all wrong. Silly you. Now what will he think about you? You had been betrayed by your eyes and emotions...

James chuckled and raised up your head with his finger under your chin. Your eyes locking with his blue ones. "Don't be sorry sweetheart…" he said low, almost like a whisper as he came closer. Naturally, you stepped back, your back hitting soon the wall behind you. Breathing was becoming difficult and you were wondering if it was a dream or reality. "I like it actually", he confessed and put his left hand on the wall, next to your head, to lean on it. You were locked and trapped, like a prey. But god, you liked it. A sudden heat and strong pulsed inside your womanhood when you realized what he just confessed. This was insane. He liked it ? Does that mean that...? You couldn't believe it.

"I-I don't understand... Why me?", you found the courage to ask him.

He grinned with a cocky face before taking your hand in his. He was still delighting of the power he had over you.

"Let me show you", then he placed your hand on his crotch, where you could immediately felt his bulge. You gasped when you felt him becoming harder at your touch. Exactly like you dreamed it. Your eyes opened wild and looked at him. James leaned to speak lower near your ear.

"See? You feel it baby? This is what I feel when I see you looking at me…". The nickname and his revelation were enough to make your legs trembled. Thank god, you had a good support with the wall behind you. He nodded, like if he wanted to convince you even more of it.

"I know you want this too. I saw it in your eyes before and I see it now. I bet you're completely wet under this pretty little skirt". You bite your lips and rubbed your legs together, the desire you were feeling right now becoming painful. But still you've never been so aroused in your life and it was dangerously pleasant.

James noticed your moves and chuckled. He was so damn proud of himself. He took back your hand and kissed it.

"Meet me tonight. 5th floor." You nodded, not leaving his hypnotizing gaze. He smiled, gently stroked your cheek, took off his cowboy hat to place it on your head before leaving.

"Tonight sweet girl...", he said again with a wink before disappearing. And this is how James Hetfield left you in his backstage room, with a soaked wet panties and a heart beating fast. Rehearsals turned into an unexpected temptation...and you couldn't wait to taste it.

#james hetfield #papa het #james hetfield x reader #current james #first try #hope you'll like it! #can't believe I wrote this omg #but I needed to get this out of my head #now I'm going to work on other idea and requests I got #I can't waiit #idea 1