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wrestlezon · 2 years

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aew dynamite 10/26/22 liveblog containment zone

starting late again today (i was taking a nap and one of my friends works late on wednesdays now)

i saw a bit of the moxley vs penta thing earlier! im really excited for that!

i saw an extremely average guy in the crowd and paused to point at him and my friends marveled at my ability to quickly notice and identify the most basic of bitches in my defense he looked like shane from stardew. the pattern recognition part of my brain is always active and running, at all times

[jericho and garcia vs claudio and yuta]

hager embracing his new gimmick as the purple hat guy holy shit william regal LMFAO "melt in me" everyone gawking and excalibur just being like "i told you we're starting off hot guys" claudio special ability: pick up man angelo parker (err-- cool hand ang) cradling and kissing garcia's head?? how tender the guys are fighting we're not particularly invested in this fight so we're talking about other things wait! murder yuta! maximum aggro!! for a second we really thought jericho was going to eat the pin from yuta claudio with the ass caress technique he is so tall. oh no! the bat! finally someone counters the cheat move omg claudio is so strong. lmao even aubrey was like O_O WHAT lmfao the dude with the filipino flag limmylaughing.jpg at the dude who got steamrolled out of the ring yay blackpool combat club won. danger averted

[backstage with bryan danielson]

oh gosh… bcc won… will danielson lose to sammy… uh oh! hes mad the people are disrespecting him!! including yuta!!! who is right here!!!!!! and actively and openly disrespecting him!! oh my!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the girls are fighting claudio is so tall. break it up, boys.

WHOA WHAT [VIDEO SEGMENT SHOWING KENNY AND THE BUCKS BEING DELETED FROM AEW HISTORY]

ok listen i DETEST worked shoots HOWEVER THIS SHIT IS SO FUNNY BECAUSE OF HOW GOOFY AND UNEXPECTED IT WAS (so long as it has an appropriate amount of levity) theyre finally mentioning kenny and the bucks by explicitly mentioning how theyre not talking about kenny and the bucks hangman page's "my old friends have disappeared" bit from his promo vs moxley............. im legit excited to see where theyre gonna take this.

[backstage with the jericho appreciation society]

the mic is broken and theyre trying to power through the audio issues EVERY CHAMPIONSHIP EVEN THE WOMENS CHAMPIONSHIP JERICHO WILL TAKE IT ALL

[swerve in our glory vs ftr]

what the, is this a three way oh no the acclaimed are just here to be the peanut gallery for the battle for #1 tag contendership oh my god keith lee just vaulting over them i love swerve in our glory because not only does swerve have a maximum amount of style but keith lee is also very cool beyond just being "big strong guy" he is a big strong guy that can also pull off surprises picking up cash by his neck! lmfao the gunn brothers are here in cosplay. i didnt see them earlier i love swerve lmao so cocky whoa. mic feedback throughout the whole arena for a hot second i forgot ftr bald is dax. i got them mixed up again. its been a while since ive seen them in a match tho. forgive me very cool high german suplex oh no! cash is going to get owned they cant do a third swerve in our glory vs acclaimed match so soon. thatd be ridiculous. right??? come on omg what a kick on dax though i thought they were gonna have that pin be the winning one whoa nice catch by dax. sick moves alert hell yea this match is bumpin omg i thought they were going to do the "knocked out guy falls on other knocked out guy for the win" bit theyre doing a LOT of near falls here. the tension! finisher! oh no! swerve pulled him away! oh no!! keith lee friendly fire attack again!! what the!!!! secret low blow from swerve!!!!!!!!! gunn club with the assist!!! holding back ftr hair!!! gasp swerve in our glory wins! oh my.

the acclaimed coming in to save ftr from the gunn bros… SIOG is everything. i love their duo. their chemistry. please dont break them up

[backstage with saraya]

oh no britt is interrupting fun catchup time between saraya and renee with her britt-ness

[in the ring with mjf]

renee is interviewing instead of tony schiavone. wait is mjf going to be rude to moxley's wife crude! what LMAO HIS MOXLEY IMPRESSION mjf is so good renee is also so good. not a punching bag the audio issues. i can hear it. the distant ringing... LMAO HES BACKING DOWN ON WINNING CLEAN ooohhh hes promising to not use his ring to win against moxley i trust mjf to keep a promise as much as i am confident in my ability to pick him up and throw him and? i am very weak. i live in fear of mjf aew champ. he will become evil. he will have a reign of terror OH MY ITS STOKELY MJF IS NOT AMUSED BY HIS ANTICS theres so much tension going on here. i dont know whats going to happen!!! there are so many things that could happen!!!!!! WHAT IF MOXLEY IS GOING TO LOSE THE BELT???? i mean not to mjf i mean to penta. mjf didnt say anything about penta or "the winner" going into full gear at 110%, just moxley, right? thats just if you want to mess around and be complicated with technicalities. i do wonder what stokely is going to though… he might just simply Not Take Orders From MJF he certainly has not been hiding it

[sammy guevara vs bryan danielson]

dude im afraid that bryan might lose this match. like hes too much of a good sport and popular to actually get buried but that means the opportunity would be there for him to lose! oh god this match starts off with me afraid hes gonna get squashed by SAMMY GUEVARA LMAO help!!!!!!!!! im not even a danielson superfan but golly he doesnt have that much of a ego, i think. maybe. hes too busy being a weirdo for me to tell if he actually has an ego my friends are wailing about how much they love mjf i cant tell if bryan danielson is following through with his threat to go sicko mode on sammy because we're talking about mjf mjf. mjf. mjf that camera cut made it hard to see that knee strike sammy with the insane move (backflip off the top rope onto the outside) remsburg kick her out!!!!!!!! dang he is so lax wow this match is Q U I E T people dont even hate sammy enough to boo him theyre just fed up. or just generally tired since we're midway through the episode. where is the dead part of the shows? is this the dead slot? this is like the audience of a dark match tay melo is legit getting more boos than sammy here "you stupid dragon! i hate you" LMFAOOOO SAMMY THAT WAS SO BAD OK BECAUSE OF THAT THIS MATCH IS GOOD NOW oh just in time for danielson to get fired up too!! the crowd didnt hear sammy's terrible insult but i did. i love apocalyptically lame insults oooh! spanish fly by sammy "spanish fly" guevara i love the multi flip roll away thing. its one of my favorite spots sammy with the jump up to the top rope. thats such a cool move but i imagine its infinitely hard to pull off which is why nobody dares to do it busaiku knee! here is the danielson violence! sammy defeated. the crowd cheers! i cheer! in relief!

lmao taz "you gotta take care of your group there regal" taz telling regal to keep his house in order. him. from taz of all people. taz of team taz fame

[backstage with alex abrahantez and rey fenix]

fenix: i am confident penta will win the world championship. alex: and you should be a double champ too. with the all atlantic oh! its christian cage and hes saying luchasaurus is the one who deserves fighting for the all atlantic title, moreso than fenix! orange walking in: hey are yall talking about me? are yall talking about my title? wanna have a three way? im sitting on my hands. im not going to say anything about how orange is just walking around, having three ways, i mean it does make sense from a competition standpoint. you technically do less work because you can let the other 2 people fight each other. my god. hes a genius who is also into three ways

[riho vs hayter]

YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im so excited for this match. i love: riho. i love: hayter. riho's outfit very cute and frilly and i love the iridescient silver coloration on hayter's outfit oh! hayters outfit is slightly new too. theres less danglies and the design is difference wow! what a bodyslam from riho! snap suplex! dude hayter's ass is unreal. taunting her!! nobody should fight against someone in the britt baker squad without backup. its bad news! choking. cool. i wish the camera wasnt blocked by the rope schiavone: "how do you spell google" excalibur: "two gs and two os. not in that order" lmaooooo omg hayter grabbing riho to stop the roll move but then succumbing to it eventually! so cool aew la show (crying sobbing) why do they keep selling tickets for la shows at the worst possible times for me financially. also me and my two friends DID all get covid from going to the last show... wait, theres wrestling! code red! sick moves. booo riho lostttt but hayter won… im conflicted

tony storm appears! she is so bronzed. and also? her outfit

[renee backstage with eddie]

whaddup eddie omg lmao shes talking about the intervention last week eddie: me? im great. :) i love eddie so much. he rules omfg "everyone else? leave me alone." STARES AT THE CAMERA

[black and white video segment with darby]

he... broke up with sting? well. ok jeez who is jay lethal's secret friend who knows darbys weakness darby vs lethal is. certainly gonna be. a match me and my friends: ehh… shrugging… ok..........

[DADDY ASS BIRTHDAY BASH ANNOUNCEMENT]

me and my friends: HELL YEAH!!!! WOOOOO!!!!!!!! NOW THATS WHAT I CALL WRESTLING

main event time!!! [jon moxley vs penta]

my friends: mjf is gonna be watching this match right me: if stokely fucks with his match… you know, eddie is friends with both of these guys thats me. im always working the kingston angle. my friend is trying to work the max caster mjf angle so bad. via the gunn club connection and the tweets nuzzling to start it off. hell the yea lmao penta took that guy's hat oooo cool backstabber by penta WHOA THAT CORNER SUPLEX MOVE WAS FAST jumping slingblade move! whoa did he pull off the armsnap move? gasp wow that kick had a hell of a sound oh god i couldnt tell whos leg was whos there on the steps LMAO augh i guess the armsnap didnt stick lmao that kickout was uh… i am respectfully looking away and into the instant doublefinisher and the winning pin? i am respectfully forgetting--

GASP! ITS THE FIRM ohhhhhh mjf is gonna be so mad omg the bcc is locked into their locker room!!! oh no! who will help moxley will mjf help moxley…….. HE IS HERE HE IS SO CONFLICTED HE RUNS IN omg the firm should beat mjf up-- THEY ARE lmao THEYRE STRIPPING HIM "please take off my shirt when you beat me up. i need the world to see the abs i have cultivated in my absence" me: what if max caster came out to save him my friends: shut the fuck up. stop talking omg they killed him. faceturn mjf? :) every time i say "faceturn mjf" i know my friend adds 10 more percent to the gloating levels for when he eventually reveals he was pretending to be a good guy the whole time

can you imagine if there was some sort of 4d chess plot where mjf and stokely agreed to do a "pretend to betray me really hard" plot or if there was a 4d chess plot and regal was the one who made a deal with stokely to light a fire underneath mjf im also fine with stokely being an independent troublemaker too. stokely is very cool one of my friends said the most insane thing would be if cm punk was involved which is like the most "never gonna happen" thing of all time but if it did happen (it wont) i'll yell for real (because it would be the most outlandish thing to happen) (hes so fired. im not even playing around here)

#livezon

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messwriting · 3 years

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LEE, IT'S NANA FROM A NEW BLOG 🤩

I hope ur doing fine and I'm sending u all my love! Prob I'll dm u in discord dropping something cute 🤩

JWJSJSJSJSJSJS YOU'RE TOO CUTE MY HEART WILL BURST OKAY NANA ;-;

Following the new blog already! 💕🥰

#you're so cute i CANT OSJSJSJSJSJHSSHHS #i feel loved!!! thank u ;-; s2 #nana #the mutuals pile #ive been off for so long i forgot my tags OMG #lee answers #there #one i rememebr #jsjsjsjsjsjsjsjjs

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dickpuncher420 · 3 years

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fic writer review

tagged by @chitsangenthusiast thank u kath <33

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

23! which is. so crazy to me?? no way i’ve written that many stories lmao

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

144,536 (also like half of that is from this past year alone LMAO??)

3. how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

only 3: atla, daughter of smoke and bone, and leviathan. and since 2015 ive only written for atla lol

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

fumbling towards ecstasy

love language

sunday morning

the kind of love (i’ve been dreaming of)

before the storm

5. do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i try to!! i’ve def been slacking recently, and i generally only respond to comments on a new fic for a certain amt of time after it’s been posted. but i like to do it bc i LOVE when fic authors respond to my comments, so i just want to return the favour to other ppl who might feel the same way! :)

6. what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

LMAO i was about to say none and then i remembered as we fade in the dark, which i wrote years and years ago so i just forgot it existed hfhsjs

7. do you write crossovers? if so, what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

nah, not a fan of em

8. have you ever received hate on a fic?

omg YES i got THE funniest comment on victory lap where this person was just SO MAD that sokka was a dick to zuko abt figure skating, calling him toxic and shit akwhdjwhs like i swear they just completely missed the entire point of the fic it was so funny

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

FUCK yeah i do baby. idk if i would say i specifically write a certain kind of smut but i am very fond of writing established relationship sex where they’re just very comfortable w each other and already know each other really well. which is funny bc my most popular fic is a first time sex fic but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

10. have you ever had a fic stolen?

as far as im aware no

11. have you ever had a fic translated?

nope! i did have fumbling towards ecstasy podficced tho if that’s anything?

12. have you ever co-written a fic before?

yes, once, and tbh i don’t think i’d ever do it again djhsjshs it’s just not rlly my jam

13. what’s your all-time fave ship?

i rlly don’t think it’s that hard to guess LMAO

14. what’s a fic you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

ughh i hesitate to say lover come back bc i am still dead set on finishing it one day but i just haven’t made any real progress on it in so long and just arrfgghhdh it haunts me. i have so much of it written already and i don’t want it all to just go to waste :(

15. what are your writing strengths?

i’d say…dialogue and having my writing feel very physically grounded in the moment. personally, i don’t like to spend a lot of time in that sort of abstract, reflective headspace—i prefer to focus on specific, concrete moments and interactions. i try to bring attention to the sensory side of things to make it feel more tangible

16. what are your writing weaknesses?

both over- and under-editing lol. sometimes i’ll rework a line or passage too much when it was much better off the way i’d originally written it. and sometimes i’m so intent on just getting things done and posting that i don’t spend much time editing at all

17. what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages on a fic?

personally i would never do it myself, and i’m not a huuge fan of it in other fics either. there is one rlly old makorra fic that i love tho that does it and i think it works incredibly well in the specific context that it’s in

18. what was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

leviathan! those books were my first introduction into any kind of fandom stuff, they still hold a special place in my heart

19. what is your favorite fic ever written?

my favourite fic that I’VE ever written is probably victory lap, closely followed by love language. i’m still incredibly proud of both of them, but victory lap wins out in that it was such a huge, daunting project that i never expected to actually complete—and then i smashed out 26k words of the most self-indulgent au i’ve ever written in a little over two weeks and i was like. holy fucking shit. i can’t believe i did that JFHSJSH

also i’m very happy with the way i managed to execute all the stuff about sokka’s feelings and motivations and the struggles of being an athlete. it was just such a fun and fulfilling way to combine two of my biggest interests ^_^

now if we’re talking abt my favourite fic that someone else has written….shit. pls don’t ask me that, i can’t choose >_< i have a favourites tag in my bookmarks for a reason

tagging: @dameferre @goldrushzukka @ofherlionheart @foyal @lesbianvampireboyfriend @quenchyest @zukkababey @badgerfrogzukka

#im on mobile if the read more doesnt work im sorry yall #tag meme #dick punches

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barnesandrogersfanfics · 4 years

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Baby Love - Part 9

A/N: OMG its been a while!

Hope your all doing okay 💕

This is just a chapter full of fluff im not gonna lie! 💕

Waking up the day after the premiere i dreaded looking at my phone so i just left it on the side and headed to the kitchen to make some breakfast. I wasn't ready to read all the hateful comments again, as long as i didn't look i could just pretend they didn't exist and enjoy my day with Chris. I switched on the radio and hummed along to the song on the radio as i started cooking the bacon and eggs, i actually felt pretty good.

Once breakfast was ready and i had fed Dodger i headed to the bedroom to wake Chris up, he'd had a few drinks last night and had slept like the dead!

"Hey babe.... wake up i made breakfast" i said leaning against the doorframe as i admired the naked man in front of me... he was laying face down hugging my pillow with the sheets just covering his ass. He cracked one eye and looked at me, a sleepy smile spreading across his face as he reached a hand out to me.

"Come back to bed" he mumbled.

"Nope, ive cooked breakfast its getting cold" i chuckled crossing my arms and waiting for him to get up.

"At least come and give me a kiss first"

"I forget how needy you get when your hungover..." i rolled my eyes shaking my head but took the few steps forward and took his hand. Chris pulled me closer and rolled onto his back with a wicked grin. As he pulled me onto the bed with him we both laughed before i leaned forward and gave him the kiss he wanted. I suddenly pulled back with wide eyes looking down at him, i saw the worry flashing over his face.

"What is it? Did i hurt you?" He sat up suddenly trying to work out what was wrong. I slowly shook my head before a smile spread on my face.

"The baby just kicked.... like a proper kick. Not just the little flutters i've been feeling....shit! it did it again!" I laughed grabbing Chris's hand and placing it on my stomach where id been feeling movement.

"I can't feel anything..." he said sadly shaking his head.

"Just wait.... give him a minute"

When the baby kicked again Chris's eyes went wide before he started laughing, excitement in his eyes as he brought his other hand up to cup my baby bump.

"Shit..... i felt that!"

"I told you!"

"That was something else....." he muttered staring at my bump his eyes tearing up, I leant forward pressing a kiss to his lips quickly.

"God i love you"

"I love you too. But come on, your son is hungry.... and mama needs sustenance" i laughed jumping up and rushing back out to the kitchen, i heard Chris laughing behind me and i turned round to catch him following me as he finished pulling on a pair of sweats.

"We're going back to bed after though right?" He asked catching up and wrapping his arms around me from behind.

"I think that can be arranged".

Scott had called around lunch time and Chris had obviously told him all about feeling the baby kicking..... half hour later Scott was at the door!

"Uncle Scott is here to feel the kicks!" He said sounding far too excited when he came bursting through the door.

"Sorry Uncle Scott but your nephew is not very active at the moment" i frowned rubbing a hand over my stomach.

"Thats fine i can wait..... i brought chinese" he smiled holding up the bag of take out, my eyes lit up instantly!

"Ooh did you get..."

"Yes! Of course i got you ribs! Do you take me for a fool??" He asked looking insulted that i would even consider he forgot the ribs.

"Your the best!" I beamed over at Scott suddenly overcome with hunger at the mention of ribs! "Hey babe?...."

"I'll get the pickles" Chris called back before i even asked making me laugh, i could just imagine the looks being exchanged between the brothers but i didn't care. Weird pregnancy cravings were the norm by now. A few seconds later Chris walked in with a plate of ribs, a few pickles on the side.... as soon as the smell reached me i felt the baby kick.

"Hey Scott.... your nephew is kicking!" I called out to Scott who was still plating up his food, be came running out and dramatically dived into the empty seat next to me.

"Hey! Be careful!" Chris scolded his brother shaking his head as he handed me the plate.

"Sorry but i didn't want to miss it again!"

"Give me your hand" i held my hand out for Scotts hand and placed it where i was feeling movement "okay just wait a minute......" i said casually as i tucked in to my food, a moan escaping at how good this food was!

"Jesus, you really like those ribs don't you?" Scott laughed.

"You cant even begin to imagine the satisfaction i get from this right now" i pointed to my plate "its even better than sex!"

"Hey!" Chris moaned looking at me like i spat in his food.

"Im not saying the sex is bad.... because wow i cant get enough of you..."

"Ewww" Scott grumbled making me and Chris laugh.

"Sorry Scotty! But its true!" I took a bite of my pickle and moaned again "honestly, you have no idea how good this is right now".

As if the baby was agreeing he gave a kick right where Scotts hand was resting, his eyes went wide for a few seconds then he was leaning closer talking to my bump, introducing himself as Uncle Scott promising to be the best uncle ever!

"Scott you do know the baby cant hear you" Chris rolled his eyes at his brother as he sat the other side of me.

"Of course he can! Babies can hear in the womb Chris and this baby is gonna know his Uncle Scotts voice!"

I looked at Chris smiling and shaking my head "his right, the baby can hear some stuff.... don't worry" i grabbed Chris's hand "he already knows your voice"

"You don't know that...."

"Sure i do, he moves more when you talk" i smiled "he knows his daddy's voice".

"Promise?"

"Promise".

We eventually finished eating and Scott was happy enough that he had felt the baby kicking. We were halfway through some movie the two of them chose when Scott looked up from his cell phone.

"How was your social media this morning after last night?"

"Not a clue.... i refused to look. I was in a good mood this morning , i didn't need to read all of those shitty comments....it stresses me out and thats no good for the baby....."

"You may be surprised, i've seen nothing but nice things being said. Obviously theres still the odd comment.... but most are saying how their happy for you both"

"Seriously....?" I looked over with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah"

"Wow..... i didn't expect that after the last time i was seen in public with you"

"Anything about the baby?" Chris asked his brother who shook his head.

"Funnily enough no one has mentioned it! Im surprised to be honest i thought they'd be all over that, you weren't exactly hiding that bump of yours"

"Maybe you should make an announcement before it gets out some other way...." i looked at Chris and ran a hand over my swollen belly.

"We can do that if your comfortable with it?...."

"Honestly i just want to be able to leave the house without worrying what i'm wearing, worrying that someone will see that i'm pregnant before we've had the chance to break the news ourselves....."

"Okay..... we'll sort something out".

At some point in the evening i must have fallen asleep because one minute i was watching the movie with Chris and Scott and the next i woke up in bed. The room was dim the only light coming from a lamp on Chris's side of the bed. He was laying close i could tell from his body heat, i was just about to turn to see if he was awake or not when he spoke, but he wasn't talking to me..... he was talking to the baby.

"Hey buddy..... i'm your dad....." he said quietly and i felt him gently stroke my stomach "god i suck at this...." he sighed "i just.... i guess i just wanna make sure you know me and that i love you and your mama so much. I promise i'm gonna take real good care of you both....."

"You already do take care of us" i said quietly reaching a hand up to run through his hair....he looked up at me looking a little embarrassed.

"You wasn't supposed to hear that"

"Are you really worried that the baby won't know who are?" I asked looking into those gorgeous blue eyes of his that i get lost in way too easy!

"Well i wasn't until Scott opened his big mouth but now its all i can think about"

"Chris i promise you your son knows your voice already......"

"How can you be sure?"

"He goes crazy whenever your around especially when your talking"

"He does?...."

"Yep" i smiled moving his hand over to the other side so he could feel the constant kicking currently going on.

"See!"

"Thats kinda crazy"

"I know right?..... so can you please turn off the light and come to bed im exhausted" i chuckled, Chris quickly kissed me and bent to drop a kiss on my baby bump before switching off the lamp. He got into bed pulling me against his chest, his hand spread on the bump and mumbled a goodnight.

"Goodnight.... we love you"

"I love you both too".

I fell asleep with a smile on my face thinking about how god damn sweet this man was and i couldn't help but think about what a great dad he was gonna be.

Baby Love tags: @jennmurawski13 @mybabyboytony @ms-betsy-fangirl @vampgirl1997 @ajosieface @afuckingshituniverse @chmedic @esoltis280 @southerngracela @bethabear12 @letsdisneythings @sellulii @patzammit @katiew1973 @princess-evans-addict @deidrahouseofpain @siren-queen03 @shipatheart @little-dark-empress @barnesandrogersworld @dumblani @xxloki81xx @jesseswartzwelder @lizzyclifford13-blog @booktease21

#chris evans #reader insert #steve rogers #steve x reader #chris evans x reader #babylove #baby love #friendstolovers

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twoidiotwriters1 · 4 years

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Starcrossed Losers 2.IV (Josh Wheeler xF!Reader)

A/N: I’m sorry it took me so long omg I’m the worst. Let me know if I forgot to tag you or if you wanna be tagged -Danny

Words: 2,022

Series’ Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Listen to me!

I guess you're all expecting me to say something about what happened. I should, after all, I hid this piece of information from you, not that I owe it to you, but I guess it's confusing...

'More than just a dream...'

Josh and I are still holding hands while we start the tour, and I wish I could say I was feeling bad about it but to be honest I'm still way too drunk on the bliss to be ashamed. I felt bad though, I did promise Nathan a date before everything went to hell. As a matter of fact, he was going to be my homecoming date.

Where to start? Perhaps you'd like to know who Nathan was in my group of friends? Easy.

*Throwback time*

Nathan was the 'popular' of our group. Do you know how there's always that one friend that seems to know everyone for really strange reasons? The one that 'knows a guy, that knows a guy, that has a cousin'... that's Nathan.

He was also the good looking guy of our group. I know I said Alex was attractive, but man, Nathan was the real deal, he had charisma and a great smile, try to beat that when you're sixteen and have zero social skills.

I didn't have a crush on him though, but it was a very well thought decision like I said before, I wasn't going to let someone close to me break my heart, and both Nathan and Alex were too close, so I buried those thoughts about him before I could even consider it.

I never had a thing for him until... well, until he asked me to homecoming. I never knew why he asked me, I mean sure we were good friends but he never tried to make a move (and this is not me being oblivious this is me saying Nathan never even commented on my looks not even once). While I do remember having said to him something along the lines of "you're so pretty you annoy me" one night while I was completely shitfaced.

He laughed it off then, not bringing it up to tease me the next morning. He knew he was attractive and I certainly used to dream about dashing men like him coming to take me out for a ride or a movie, but I never thought that it'd be him the one who would ask me out.

'All the days I waited for you You know the ones who said I'd never find someone like you'

Then the end of the world happened and we never went to homecoming, yet we remained on the same group until one day he just vanished. No notes, no nothing. He left. He was also the first one to go, followed by Aria, then Phillip, then Lily, until we were just Maya, Alex and I, you know the rest.

We heard about Nathan a few weeks later though, the first loner on Glendale (Josh was very good at keeping a low profile, we didn't know he was by himself) and I thought it was a great idea to do the same, you know, follow the loner's path until I had Katie back... and you know how that turned out.

My point is, how was I supposed to know he was going to come back and still ask me for a date? What kind of person does that?

"Here we have the Cheeramazon division," Josh pointed to the sports section of the mall. "We teach sign language for those who are interested in learning, it's also handy for communicating while we're outside on a Ghoulie area..."

"Why're they here?" Nathan asked in a voice that was completely unlike him. "I mean, I know their old place got trashed but why haven't they looked for a new place?"

"They don't have enough people or resources," I replied. "They'll wait here until enough girls decide to join them or until they get enough food to survive on their own."

"And you guys are okay with that?"

"Good relationships with old tribes are everything," I shrugged. "We want to keep it friendly with everyone, we don't want to start another war."

"Really? Because you seemed ready to go out and set houses on fire five minutes ago," Josh replied sternly.

"That's different!" I scoff. "Those kids need our help and you know it!"

"What kids?" Nathan asked in curiosity.

"Are you familiar with the AV club?" I ask him.

"The kids with the podcast?"

"Exactly! They've been kidnapped and I've been trying to convince my tribe to go out and look for them but they refuse–"

"Because we're barely recovering from Triumph," Josh interrupted. "Listen Y/N, we can't be heroes fighting against some kids in suits..."

"Here we have the gamer's layer," I continue, forcing them to leave the subject. "But you don't have to write that down, they're leaving in a few days to their old cave. Been here to help us with some tech stuff..."

"Those over there are the X-jocks," Josh points over a couple of kids playing and exercising at the other side of the mall, "they followed Turbo after he was kicked out. They're no longer Jocks, but they don't want to be called Daybreakers either."

"They don't wanna mingle with all the weirdos, apparently," I roll my eyes.

"We have a healers division, which is coordinated by Y/N," Josh puts a hand on my shoulder and smiles. "She's great... a training division that Wesley and Turbo handle... Am I missing something?"

"The Daybreakers, which are lead by this loser," I look at Josh with a smirk. "He schedules our vigilance system, the hunts– Oh, and the weekly competitions."

"What are those about?"

"We organize tournaments and the awards are free days from working or having to go outside, stuff like that."

"Okay," Nathan nods, writing everything down. "I think that's all..."

"Cool," Someone calls Josh and he looks back at us. "Can you finish the tour on your own?"

"I– Yeah, okay," I reply anxiously. "See you in a while..."

Josh gives me a quick kiss and leaves to where he's needed, leaving me alone with Mister 'U-owe-me-a-date'.

"So..." I awkwardly start.

"I think I owe you an apology," He replies immediately.

"What?"

"I didn't know you and Josh... what I said was completely out of place anyway, who asks that kind of stuff to someone they haven't seen in months? I–"

"Nathan," I stop him, "It's okay, really, you didn't know, it's alright."

"I'm sorry," He repeats, this time calmer. "I ditch you and the group, I just... I don't know, I felt stuck..."

"I get that, we left too, eventually," I shrug. "Went to look for my sister, but... she died."

"Oh," He frowns. "I'm so sorry... was she–?"

"A Ghoulie, yeah," I sigh. "It's okay, I'm better now, I have this place and I have..."

"Josh..."

"I was going to say I have a sledgehammer, but sure," I joke.

He smiles and suddenly I remember why I used to like his smile so much. It really is quite dreamy.

'And you were out of my league All the things I believed You were just the right kind Yeah, you were more than just a dream'

"Those kids..." He mentions. "The AV club?"

"Yeah?" My heart jumps at the mention. "Do you know anything about them? Anything that could help?"

"No, but Josh mentioned kids in suits? I think I've seen them–"

"Y/N!" Josh runs back to us in a hurry. "They found them!"

"What? Who?"

"The AV Club!" He replies.

I try to walk over to the gamer's layer but Josh stops me.

"Wait," He holds me in place. "It's an X-Pug zone."

"That, or the kids in suits want us to believe it is," I point out, "Josh let me go! I want to know where it is!"

"We're not taking anyone there! You know we can't, Y/N! We don't have enough people, who knows how many of those are out there..."

I want to argue back but I know that Josh is right.

"Fine," I let go of his arms and he does the same with me. "Can I at least take a look? Maybe one day we'll go and... and just take a look..."

Josh doesn't need me to end the sentence though, he understands.

"Okay," He starts walking when Nathan speaks up.

"Can I see?"

We turn to see him, both wearing the same confused expression.

"It's just..." He moves his weight from one foot to the other. "I was telling Y/N that I've seen those kids before and maybe... I could talk to Sam, maybe she'd like to help?"

I look at Josh with my best puppy eyes and he sighs in defeat, nodding along.

"Fine..."

Nathan catches up with us and grins at me. What I shame I lost my chance with this guy, he looks like straight out of a fantasy, who knows, maybe he was the one meant to be with me if all this apocalypse stuff never happened in the first place...

'You were out of my league Got my heartbeat racing If I die, don't wake me 'Cause you are more than just a dream'

When we arrive Aria takes me directly to her laptop and points to the image in it. I hear her talk to Nathan for a moment while I see the streets and the directions and since I know the whole city by heart it takes me a minute to memorize the whole thing. I don't tell this to Josh, of course.

"Are you going to leave us alone now?" She asks irritatedly.

"Sure thing, you can leave during the night and I wouldn't even bat an eye at it," I reply, still looking at the screen. "Let me just..."

I pull out my phone and take a picture of the screen, is not perfect but it's quick and it's just in case. Josh gives me a warning look but I smile.

"Thank you for doing this," I step closer to him and put my arms around his neck. "See? It didn't kill us to find out, right?"

If I've learned anything in my short stupid life, is that flattery can take you places... and it distracts a boy's brain faster than anything else.

Josh smiles at me and I know I have his whole attention, so I quickly put my phone away.

"Anyway!" I break the spell and look at the gamers. "You guys did a good job, I'll leave you now. Nathan, let me walk you to the door..."

Halfway to the entrance, Nathan speaks.

"You're so not going to listen to what Josh told you to do. I know it, I can see it in your face."

"How long till I can hear from you and Sam?" I ask him in a business-like voice.

"A day, maybe two?"

"You think she'll help?"

"That if we can push Maya to a side."

"Don't mention my name and you'll have a bigger chance to succeed."

I stop at the door and turn to look at him decidedly.

"You have no idea how much this means to me."

"If you're risking your stay at the mall and your relationship with Josh, I assume a lot," He raises a brow.

"He won't kick me out for this," I roll my eyes.

"He's your leader, Y/N."

I remember that none of our feelings ever stopped Josh from kicking me out the first time. So he's not entirely wrong.

"Don't sweat it," Nathan shakes his head, "I'll do my best to keep everyone happy, just like you've been doing for the last few weeks. Consider this my thank you gift for all the hard work you've been doing, Vinchi."

"Oh," I cringe. "I don't really go by that nickname anymore..."

"Oh, sorry," He pouts. "Just Y/N, then?"

"Unless you have a new nickname for me," I grin.

Nathan tilts his head like he's considering what I'm saying.

"I'll think about it," He smiles.

"I'll see you in two days," I smile back.

'Yeah, you were more than just a dream...'

Taglist.

@letsbe-queer @slythermyg @loving-u-3000 @one-loud-mind

#twoidiots writing #daybreak fanfic #daybreak #josh wheeler #josh wheeler xreader #Starcrossed fic

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starsfelld0wn · 3 years

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Hello so i stumbled across your fic "fragile youth (I devour it)" from the woo/san tag on here and just came back after reading it. i left a comment but i saw that your user didn't exist anymore but i couldn't not let you know how i felt after reading it because it changed me!!!!! feel free not to answer but i just wanted to let you know ur writing is amazing!!!!! here is the comment i left on the last chapter though:

"i know this isn't the final chapter but i wanted to leave this comment anyway. i just spent the last hour crying so much over this fic because all 56k of this gloriousness just hit home for me so bad and it brought back a lot of memories i thought i forgot or got over. i love the way you portray wooyoung and his puppy like behavior around san and how almost pitifully lovesick he is-- how lovesick they both are but san not as obvious. and how relatable san was when falling in love. i also really love how all the characters were portrayed and the dynamics between all the characters. and the detail that really got me was how often san thought about wy when comparing themselves to yungi (o em gee he doesn't even realize how in love he is and it HURTS). another detail that hurted me was whenever wooyoung would just give in so easily and how freaking romantic he is whenever they make up after he and san 'fought'....that it's almost PAINFUL to read because been there done dat.

ahhhh this is honestly one of the best fics ive read EVERRRRRR!! and i have read a lot over the years. geeeeez. this is art and i don't think i can ever forget the mood that this fic set and how it made me feel. and you got me obssessed with the playlist, specifically "i'm not in love" by 10cc which played on repeat while i cried over this ;-; this broke me omg

anyway i will assume that wooyoung and san get their happy ending or maybe not?... but they were destined to be in love :') thank u for this i will come back to this fic forever bc this jus hit different esp at 12am on a saturday night. i am IN LOVEEEEEE but also sobbing!!!!!!! kudos x2348728734 <3"

Sorry for the long comment but i wanted to share it because i feel like a CHANGED MAN!! so thank u sm :')

i have notifs off for tumblr on my phone and dont really get on but i accidentally somehow ended up on the page for fragile youth (like purely on accident) and saw someone left a comment and when i read it omg it literally made me so happy! ugh i really do regret deleting my old ao3 bc that fic is lowkey part of me. i have this weird connection to it even though i refuse to read it all the way through. i put a lot of emotions into that fic and projected a lot onto the characters lmaoo i also wrote it over a long period of time which it didnt register until i deleted it but i really do get really happy when people read it and can relate to it and it makes me feel less alone i guess? but i was going through it when writing it and going through something similar so writing helped but im so happy that ppl liked it like its so hard for me to explain but it makes my day reading comments like urs:((((( and the way u describe them is so accurate and i love how u caught onto san comparing him and wooyoung to yungi bc that was literally me trying to make him connect the dots in his head that he was in love or at least wanting to be in love with wooyoung. and omg im not in love by 10cc is literally their song like that sums up their relationship in san’s eyes exactly. and as for their ending well tbh originally it was going to be an open ending but since i accidentally deleted it i got to thinking about changing the ending so for now they get whatever ending you want<3 thank you for ur comment once again and feel free to message me whenever <3

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kissryuwuji · 4 years

Note

ok so i have no clue how to send the song things like you did so i’m just going to tell you some of the songs i’ve been listening to, uh but it is not as upbeat as your stuff give us a little love —fallulah i can’t handle change —roar you know it —colony house replay —lady gaga feel something —bea miller take a walk —passion pit daddy issues —the neighbourhood crush —tessa violet play with fire —sam tinnesz DREAMERS is also vv good too imo, then all the other songs on my tag game are good! ily

Lee!!! Ehrjfuucifirejdjjxicjjcirjjejwjsnndnckgiriieiwjenndjfirr thats how long it took me to calm down LOL also for inserting music into the ask, u gotta update the app which i admit is a pretty damn cool feature but adding tags is sTILL WONKERS alsO ALSo its ok i listen to a lot of depressing sounding music anyway lmao

Ok i love the instrumental and tempo on this and i wrote a whole paragraph abt this but it did not save in my drafts 🤡 i love her voice and the song!!!

First off i relate to this title and its lyrics LOL love the instrumental build up and reminds me a bit of hippo campus's newer songs (and some other band too buT IDR WHICH) so yeah id hum along to this when im drawing bc its just such a nice song man idk i feel like u just get me

COLONY HOUSE!!!! I recognize them uh ok as u can see im that person who will b like i listen to this band but really only know one of their songs LOL i love their song silhouette so yeah i love this too ofc

Replay

Omg lady gaga 😳 i havent listened to her since idk telephone i forgot how good her music is omg i couldnt stop smiling listenibg tk this bc of the sheer thought of it being lady gaga LANDNXJFB def sharing this w my sis so we can jam to it in the car

This song did in fact make me feel smth 🤧 u just reminded me of like how good female artists are like ive been deprived of their works anyway idk how to describe it but im obviously listening to this again LOL

aGAINNNNN the instrumental !!! His singing is good too i just like it im adding this to my car playlist (haha get it im not gonna explain bc i tried and it sounded dumb)

I admit this is the second song ive heard from the neighborhood besides sweater weather LOL i do be liking this tho 😳 the beat and tempo are so nice

Omg this song,,,,so cute,,,, could not stop bopping my head to it no words needed but ok this brought me back to pre teen yrs LOL

Whoa this gave me imagine dragon vibes i love this and the back up vocals but also why does it feel like u took a peak into my 6th grade plalist omg

DREAMERS DJDJFJCJR I LOVE THEM TOO my fav songs r die happy and fake it til u make it and teddy bear and thats what i can think of rn LOL

Ok i noticed the reviews were getting shorter but i didnt want to repeat but just know i added all these songs to my playlists and i love them 😌 omg also i love that u sent songs uve been recently listening to bc the songs i sent were also songs ive recently listening to too (except careless whispers) LMAO might send u my fav throwback songs tho

#song recs #lee!!!!#with four exclamation points #this just in: we do share the same music taste LOL #i love these omg imma lay in bed and loop thru them again #also sorry for taking so long to get thru it i wanted to include the music in the post LOL #the bar is high idk what id rec to u next man #next time on overthinking #gotta listen to the ones on ur tag game too bc these were hella good

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literaetures · 4 years

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omg ive never met anyone who likes the medici show!!!!! pls share ur thoughts

you must be new here bc i Love the show! it’s one of my all time fave period dramas (coming from someone who knows nothing about the actual history of the family other than the one (1) page history that was given in her high school history textbook and sporadic wikipedia diving when watching the show— i just love period dramas) and i often quote this post by @hotniatheron when talking about this show (because that’s literally. the whole show)

the cinnamon topography, the sets, the characters the costumes, the d r a m a, the storyline! i love it all! i’ve written a few posts on the show as well that i’ll link here if you want some memes (and usually gifsets i rb are filled with commentary) but if you really care about why i love the show, i’ll try to give you as much of a summary as i can (w o w so this got long because i have a lot of feelings so i’ll leave this under the cut but tl;dr i adore this show and i think about it more than once a week and have tons of half-written meta posts sitting in my drafts fjwkjfewn)

i watched s1 when it first came out and immediately fell in love, watched the whole thing in one day (avoiding a paper i had due lmao) and completely fell for it. i loved the morally ambiguous leanings of everyone in that season— no one was quite Good™️ or Bad™️, they all did things with their own ambitions and their own ideas of what a good future may look like in mind— i loved all the scenic shots and the duomo (the true protagonist), i loved the characterization of “the banker that wanted to be an artist”, the attack and murder of albizzi and his son! in the forest! in slow motion! while the duomo is being consecrated! the mist of the forest combining with the smoke from the lamps! still gives me chills! i hated every moment cosimo wasn’t respecting his amazing wife who rode in oh horseback! in the signoria! just to save his ass! and he completely shunned her for it! i loved lucrezia’s depth they gave her towards the end that was later extended in s2 (where you could Tell contessina took her under her wing and gave her the single braincell of the family) and even more, i loved the multi layered storyline of the season— the coming of age story of cosimo, the murder mystery of who killed his father, the PLOT TWIST of who killed his father!!! (i kept forgetting in my first and second rewatches of the season and every time i forgot it felt like i experienced it for the first time all over again!) but most importantly, i loved the narrative of not knowing what to do in life, that every decision you made is a gamble with outcomes that are both good and bad, but there will be people around you who support you and get you through it

and then. s2. by far the better written of the two three seasons with a more clear plotline and timeline that allows you to really take in the characters and the plotline at once while allowing for more nuance and depth in a way that we didn’t get in s1! here we have the distinct battle between Good and Bad which was shocking after the morally grey complexity that we saw in s1 but made for a fresh new season that i instantly enjoyed! b u t!!! it did not go! where i thought it was going to go! as someone who knows nothing about the history, i went into it completely in the dark and solely began crafting possible endings in my head. i thought. i had pictured. that lorenzo and francesco started off enemies, francesco realizes his uncle jacopo (sean bean) has been manipulating him, switches to the “good” side, hears the acts of betrayal, and instead of falling back into his uncle’s plotting and manipulation, i thought! i assumed! that francesco was playing him! i thought! that francesco would see through the manipulation and the abuse and was in a double agent scenario where he was plotting the “pazzi conspiracy” but he told lorenzo and giuliano about the plot and they’d catch jacopo in the act, give him a trial, and give him a prison sentence! i thought this WHOLE thing! even at the end of ep7! even after the hugs (i thought the extra squeezes was francesco signaling to lorenzo and giuliano that everything was going according to plan (because remember the whole Good and Bad clear divide? i thought this was going to be the grey zone of s1 to remind us of moral ambiguities)) and even when ep 3 “mass” was going. i was sitting there in my clown paint waiting for francesco to get! his! redemption arc! because i forgot! that this! was a historical period drama about real events! and it wasn’t until lucrezia’s scream that i realized “OH. it’s not going to get better” you can imagine. my pain. but i think that’s what made this season so good? anyone could have watched it and fallen in love with the storyline and good narrative they presented that allowed you to get lost in the characters and the story

and as for s3. i’m withholding as much of my thoughts as possible because i will be watching it when it finally airs on netflix and i want to properly give it the binge watch that i’ve given the past seasons to really sit with my thoughts to have fully formed thoughts and onions on it!

in any case, i love this show. so much! i cannot wait for the renaissance project to happen with seasons about all the artists, but g o d am i going to miss this disaster family so! much! (and all those scenic duomo shots)

i love contessina and francesco (those are my two fave characters from the show) and there’s honestly so much more that i can say but honestly you can scroll through my series tags and see me cry about it because i’m rambling so much i know— if you give me a chance to tell you my thoughts on my obsessions! i’m so sorry in advance!

but i’m sure this is. not the length that you expected, but i hope it’s at least a bit entertaining! thanks for letting me talk about my obsessions for a bit!

#messages #anonymous #thank you for letting me talk about something i love for a bit!#i really enjoyed it!#and sorry if it's overwhelming

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deathvsthemaiden · 4 years

Text

(Warning for over the top totallyyyy justified passive aggressive bullying towards one (1) ☝🏽 specific tumblr user. We’re chill I can do this and (probably) not get blocked ✨)

BRRRRREAKING NEWS! 🥺 Sometimes effort DOES pay off!! 🤩 It is with great pleasure that I announce that I have been t- ive been t— omg I cant even say it I’m so excited!! I’ve been tagged!! By @howaboutswords 🙈🙉🙊—!!! BABXBSB!! I feel like making one of those text weaving posts or whatever now about the joy you feel when at long last love is finally reciprocated!! 🤩 Everything is golden! I’m posting this from over the moon in every sense but physical 🌙 Anyway I already did this 10 song shuffle thing very recently but I’m doing it again (bc I was tagged by @/howaboutswords!! 😳🤭) But this time I’m going to rip a page out of her diary and say a little random smth smth abt each song tooo~🎶

1. Pearl Diver by Mitski. My 1st Mitski song and I had to listen to it a few times to really like it. I was reading Beauty by Robin McKinley at the same time I looped it a bunch and now the two are forever and always connected in my mind ✌🏽🐚 9/10

2. Help by Surveyor. Nice voice, fast paced and has the word “ocean” in it 😊🌊 9.5/10

3. All We Do by Oh Wonder. My 1st ever Oh Wonder song. It’s lost its splendor, I’ve listened to it so much but! Still very good. I just never need to hear it again you know? 💫 8/10

4. Another Thriller by Minimatic. One of the few instrumentals out there that manage to keep me mentally engaged the whole time! Funky and the most newly discovered song on this whole list. Makes me wish I was in space and I don’t even like space. 🔵🔺🔶♦️9.5/10

5. Lovit by Marian Hill. Marian Hill was a guilty pleasure artist for me back in the day before I almost totally stopped caring (abt feeling guilty for pleasure)🎵 8/10

6. Indigo Night by Tamino. Not normally into hypnotic soulful crying songs but wowza🎆 9/10

7. It All Depends On You 👊🏽 by Ruth Etting. Spotify recommended Etting to me once upon a dream ago when I was listening to the mfmm soundtrack on repeat a bunch. Catchy but not addictive imo :P I prefer Button Up Your Overcoat and Harvest Moon 🌑🌕 7/10

8. You Were Only Passing Time With Me from the Miss Fisher soundtrack! 🕰💔8/10

9. Holy Ghost by BØRNS. I just think it sounds neat :D 👻 8/10

10. Real Sugar by Minden. I had a brief and intense affair with this song a few years ago and then totally forgot it existed. I listened to it a bunch when I first discovered Gunka no Baltzar so despite being completely incompatible in tone with this war based manga I associate it deeply with said war based manga and its endearing grizzled MC🍬🔫⚔️ 8/10

Tagging: literally anyone can and should do it if they wish, say I tagged you in spirit! Join me over the moon! Spread the wealth! 🎼

#tagged in #thank god for tags! I can now easily check on this post later and be sure this wasnt a fever dream 🤗

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aharris00britney · 6 years

Photo

ASKS 12

spoookyyyy season, lmao I tried answering as many as I could but now I am going to be deleting the rest of my inbox so sorry if I didn’t get to answer you :( also WCIFs are on hiatus rn but you can find a lot of the stuff I use on my cc finds blog

Anonymous said: hey, have you ever thought about making a blackpink inspired hair?

Most of my hairs start off being K-Pop inspired and then don’t look like what I was trying to achieve, so if I tried making one it wouldn’t look right once I finished it haha, I have a hair based off Lisa though!

Anonymous said: are all of your hairs also male compatible? there's a guy sim i want to make who has shoulder length hair and one of yours would be great to use

I never check that since I make them for female sims, but if you change some tags in S4S you should be able to check the hair you want yourself :D

Anonymous said: would you be ok with people converting your hair?

Sure! I plan on converting some hairs eventually but if other people do it then I don’t mind at all. Just credit me obvi and link to the original post

Anonymous said: Hey, I love your CC (especially the hairs) and your sims are so beautiful! However, I noticed that so far you only uploaded your female sims (not that I’m complaining, they’re all gorgeous!) but I was just wondering if you could upload one or two male sims sometime? They look amazing too!

I actually have had my male model sim in my drafts since JANUARY ready to post, I just need to get his tray files haha. Will try to do it soon! Also ty

Anonymous said: Have you posted your female "model" for everything on the sims 4 gallery?

yeah they’re on the gallery! Aharris00britney is my origin ID

Anonymous said: hiya, i was wondering if you created your own hair textures or if you used ea's (or anyone else's textures)? thanks!

I use EA textures as bases and usually edit them somehow by combining different ones together when needed.

@ellebellsims said: Hello! Tysm for all the lovely hairs you provide for us! I end up using at least one of your hairs for every household in my game, haha. I had two quick questions.. the first, for someone that has limited abilities in making recolors (and never with hair before) how difficult is it to add an ombre accessory or recolor for one of your hairs? Also, how difficult would it be to convert for kids?

Recolors are really easy to do, there are tons of tutorials on YouTube that will help with that. Ombre accessories are a bit challenging but hopefully I can get a tutorial for those out one day. Converting to kids is really simple if you know Blender basics, you can use my converting to adults tutorial to get an idea of how a conversion would work.

Anonymous said: You had a obession with the flowers lmao

lmao, very true!

Anonymous said: wcif the ice cream in this post? /post/174729716466/icecreamedit

the ice cream was drawn in by @ayoshi-sims :( so it isn’t a real thing

@wholegrainsims said: hey there! i saw in your about that your favorite show is game of thrones! mine too! also your hair that’s coming out on 9/30 looks like a mm cersei hair & i’ve been dying for some mm got cc! looking forward to it!

omg true! I didn’t even think of Cersei while making it lmao, thank you for pointing that out to me :D

Anonymous said: O M G your selfie in the 57 facts tag was the most adorable thing ever. You're like insanely handsome?? I am shook???

Anonymous said: how does you feel being extremely beautiful?

@theforgottensimblr said: omg, just saw your post at the fire alarm and I just have to say that you are so cute. That's it, you're cute. Hope you're having a good day

Anonymous said: YOU ARE SO BOOTIFUL

Anonymous said: You are a very beautiful human being. I like your face and personality very much.❤️

haha thank you guys! I don’t find myself that attractive of a person so the compliments helps keep me from being super self conscious :P thank you again <3 very much appreciated

Anonymous said: not sims related, but opinions on the most recent bts comeback?

I don’t keep up with a lot of the boy group comebacks, but I listened to it and thought it was okay? I am pretty strictly into girl groups/female singers though so I’m not the best person to ask about it haha

Anonymous said: hi austin!! i just wanted to say i love your creations and you are one of the most amazing hair creators out there! but i had a quick question: will you ever put your "dean" hair model available for download?

I don’t know if he is saved, but if he is I will try to put him for download!

Anonymous said: ok so i have a question if you dont mind, i feel like it's kind of stupid but how do you manage to move parts of the hair mesh in edit mode without the part you selected like 'seperating' from the part you didn't select and making a big ass gap in the mesh? like does that make sense? when i try to edit shit in edit mode i cant ever bc the faces separate from eachother when i try to translate a part of it or make it smaller, etc. if this makes sense, thank you if not im sorry im just stupid.

REMOVE DOUBLES!!!! lmao that is the only way you will get anything done in edit mode. Proportional Edit Tool and Removing doubles from the entire mesh makes it a lot easier than sculpt mode. Make sure to split edges later though

@bishyouknowit said: I just recently went cc free and now I see your new hairs and I just wanna download all the hairs I had from you again and put them back in my game. I love your stuff so much!! ❤❤❤❤❤

aww thank you!! I am glad you like my cc <3 good luck staying cc free haha I could neverrrr

@bangtansabotage said: who's your loona bias?

Kim Lip <3 then Yves, Jinsoul, and Hyunjin

Anonymous said: Absolutely love the content you're coming out with! You're so talented. 💝

thank you so much <3 glad you are enjoying my cc as much as I enjoy making it :P

Anonymous said: Is it wrong I forgot you were a guy?

Yes.... LMAO egfdbv I am joking :P It is fine you forgot, it isn’t like I am posting a selfie everyday showing off my radiating masculinity sfdcfbvb which I don’t even have

Anonymous said: you’re very good 👌🏼

at what 👀👀 ****** ***?

Anonymous said: Do you put your things up on Simsdom? because I just found you Em hair on there

I don’t :( but as long as they are linking to my post and not to the download link there isn’t much I can do.

Anonymous said: Columbus never set food in North America, he landed on various Caribbean islands. Also, Delaware was the first state.

take that up with my history teacher from like 2nd grade ok rwedffvb

Anonymous said: you're in virginia? I go to college in virginia too but i'm from missouri!! it's cool to think that one of my favorite content creators is so close to me! much love!!!!

ooooo exciting!!! I go to Radford lmao it is like 30 minutes from Virginia Tech

Anonymous said: Yooo! You're from VA! Ive never met anyone online from VA except from me!

omg that is crazy you’ve never met anyone from here before haha, I have only met like one or two so makes sense I guess

#asks

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hanasaku-shijin · 6 years

Text

Been a minute since i did one of these, rwby liveblog:

all right let’s hear that new opening

oh okay jk maybe next week

yooo the fucking, what are they - manticore?? hell yeah give em to me

WEISS MY LOVE

just fucking skates along the train im glad they FINALLY did that in canon do u know how many fics have written weiss ice skating anywehre/anytime just cuz she fukcing can

i appreciate how they went in RWBY order for that

but like.... it’s great that blake and yang are chill now buuuttt uummmm did they have a proper talk about shit?? cuz they need to

RenoraaaaaaaAAAHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

thank GOD we finally have an official canon white rose moment that isn’t just a joke or casual scene FINALLY A FIGHT-SCENE MOMENT THAT IS EXCLUSIVE TO THEMMMM havent seen that since vol1 ep8

okay i can stop now that’s good enough for me lmao

their lil pink rose petals aaaaaaahhh im cryinn

oh so Adam just went on a tantrum murder rage. sick.

lol Adam taking “man pain” to a whole new level jeeeeez like congrats u remembered Blake’s name u get a gold star

lol weiss saying gifts are a waste of time but i BET U ruby got her something and she’s gonna love it

RUBY SHOULDVE GOTTEN HER THE SCARF RT WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIIINNNGG

at least explain where weiss got it pls

i s2g if we get a beach episode

“team rwby wont leave your side for a second. i promise.”

welp time to break that promise probably

oh great. more boys.

are they. are they based off twiddle dee and twiddle dum cuz that’s what it sounds like lmao

okay ive been asking this question for 2 volumes already WHERE’S BLAKE SHE’S SUPPOSED TO BE BACK NOW

“waiting on Blake, as usual.” Weiss has gone on many dates with her she knows she can take some Time getting ready lol

oH SHIT i legit forgot about Ilia oops BUT HER CASUAL CLOTHES THO

oh is sun still here too then

HUG

THANK YOU

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

oh whY IS NEPTUNE HERE TOO

ohhH OHH OMG WAIT

OH MY GOD IS HE GONNA HIT ON THE LESBIAN

OH MY GOD PLS RT DONT FUCK THIS UP

this could be good oh pls

LMAO OH MY GOD BLAKE AND SUN ARE LIKE ‘UH WIAT-’ BUT IT’S TOO LATE

oh good that was good yes YES

Sun saying he and the boys were cool on a little hiatus when they’re based off a fucking boy band is HILARIOUS

god SSSN get back to the stage go make more songs u slackers

ohhhh

we’re going there aren’t weeeee

sigh but y’know what, im whatever it’s fine Black Sun is good Sun is good

the whole reason i never really liked Black Sun so much was not cuz it’s het but because like??? I’m so tired of the Faunus falling for Faunus and humans falling for humans sort of trope y’know?? I hate thinking they’re together just cuz they’re both Faunus but it’s whateverrr i guess

we just have uhhh no official inter-racial(?) couples in this show y’know what i mean

If I have to accept any het couple Black Sun is probably the best tbh because y’know why?? they are friends first. they have a history together, and it’s a good one. so fine. I’m glad it isn’t gonna be a main focus tho (seemingly)

OKAY ANYWAYS

i appreciate the rwby bunkbed arrangements again on the train ahah GOOD TIMES

oooh? what’s this?? the second Yang speaks Blake perks up??? i like where this is going pls have a Talk together now

ohhh.. Guilt. Wonderful.

ffUCK

Blake stopppp

okay but when weiss and ruby shared a glance tho

“just my luck” “it’s not yours” oh right Qrow is Unluckiest Uncle of the Year

dont worry blake. black cats arent unlucky in this show

Oh? some of the manticore have manes but the one doesnt?? is the female like the head honcho?

i am sooooooooooo loving weiss’ leggings GOD it looks SO GOOOOOD

“dont let anyone else die” WOW RIGHT AFTER THEY WATCHED THE DUDE GET CHUCKED OFF SHE JUST ASSUMES HE IS DEAD ALREADY OOPS

coulda said that FIRST RUBY LOL

okay i know i have a new fav Grimm every season but daammmn these guys knock the Griffons off the top spot

Ruby’s making an awful lot of promises today hmmmmm im sensing a theme how long’s it gonna take before she cant fulfill one

yes GOOD i like the Jaune/Ren tagteam a lotttt

LMAO WEISS JUST FUCKING PASSES THE GRMM tO RUBY LIKE THEY’RE PLAYING BALL nbd

oH SHIT WHAT IT HAS A CHIMERA TAIL TOO?? i didnt notice that before thats fuckin SICK

vol1 - weiss burns down a forest

vol6 - weiss derails a train

oh hi little old Katara how u doin

OH THE NEW OPENINGGGGG

the renora

WAIT WHAT WHAT THE FUCK IS THE

WEISS GIGGLING AND RUNNING AWAY AND RUBY PLAYING TAG LIKE SOME CHEESY COUPLE RUNNING ON THE BEACH WHAT IS THIS?? IM LAUGHING

OH MY GOD ROMAN’S HAT?? IS NEO GONNA COME BACK PLS???

i s2g if it’s Cinder laksjdhfksldf

if that last shot of Weiss supporting Ruby is just more BAIT IM GONNA RIOT

THEY’D BETTER MAKE GOOD ON THAT OH MY GODDDDDDDDD

LET VOL6 BE RUBY/WEISS VOLUME PLEASE GOD

we’re off to a good start so pls.... pls let’s keep it up

i’d forgotten how good RWBY could be if the girls were together lol

good to be back for once

#rwby liveblog #rwby6 #it took me like an hour to watch this cuz i kept liveblogging to scream

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artificialqueens · 7 years

Text

for all the honest world to feel (trixya) (5/8) - dare

Brian stared down at his screen, trying to understand what he was seeing – the mild frown on Katya’s face, and the other queen, hands raised, standing just out of frame beyond the gap in the bus bunk curtain.

(AN: so this is… long and sad. finally-throwing-in-an-angst-tag-at-the-bottom levels of sad. warnings for unsafe alcohol use and overdrinking; as usual, “she/her” for adore and “he/him” for trixie (brian) and katya. also, this might read a little weird, but i made the executive decision not to name the weho queen who’s been giving trixie shit because (contrary to, uh, all other signs, i guess) i don’t actually want to speculate on who’s a douche and who isn’t in the ru girl community. so that’s also a thing.

(OH, and, there’s more lyrics in this one, please don’t judge me, it’s very hard to try to measure up to trixie’s irl songwriting chops lmao)

this week on honest world: shit’s sad. shit’s real sad.)

| ch. 1 | ch. 2 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 |

FROM: SHEA - 9:57 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

[Attachment: IMG_3782.MOV]

Girl.

If you dont wife her up I will.

FROM: KIM - 10:03 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

holy shit

i don’t think i’ve ever seen her mad. like for real

FROM: SHEA - 10:04 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

This was some WWF shit girl. That bitch will be feeling it for a while.

FROM: KIM - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

katya’s from boston. she’s 90% salt, 5% feelings, 5% inner saboteur and 100% ready to fight

FROM: SHEA - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

Thats a lot of math, Kimberley

FROM: KIM - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

are you being racist? don’t be racist shea. omg.

someone had to count trixie’s tips for her when she was passed out drunk in my bed

FROM: SHEA - 10:07 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

*Steal trixie’s tips from her.

FROM: SHEA - 10:15 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

Trisha baby if you’re out there we love you girl okay? call us any time xxxx

“You know,” Katya was saying, perfectly conversational, “I found it kind of cute at first? Like a puppy trying to fight itself in the mirror – or one that can’t, you know. Stop pissing itself. You know what I mean? Funny but sad. But I don’t think I find it funny anymore.”

The other queen laughed nervously. “Come on, Katya –”

“I’m not laughing. Why are you laughing?” said Katya, raising his eyebrows. “I’m not laughing.”

The laughter stuttered into silence. Over the mic, Brian heard Shea expel a slow, cautious breath.

Katya tilted his head, and the expression on his face darkened like a spring storm. “I want to make it really clear to you how far you’ve managed to over-reach yourself, that you’ve actually crossed my limits. ‘Cause I don’t care how you run things in your club, how you treat your friends, whatever – that’s none of my business, since I don’t work in your club and I’m not your friend. Oh, in case you hadn’t noticed – I’m not your friend. FYI. Because you’ve been acting like I am, and I think it’s time for that to stop.”

The raised hands dropped out of sight. “Jesus. Why don’t you tell me how you really feel.”

And that – Brian winced despite himself. That was a mistake.

Katya grinned, showing too many teeth. “Can I? I’d like that, thanks.” He tapped his fingers rapidly against the side of his thigh. “I feel like you’ve gotten a little too comfortable as top dog in your scene, and when Trixie showed up and didn’t line up to eat you out like everyone else does, your ego plummeted out of your ass. And what we’ve been seeing for the past half a year – can I repeat that? It’s been half a year, which is beyond pathetic – what we’ve been seeing is some kind of hemorrhoidal psychosis, as you take obsessive potshots at someone who couldn’t give less of a fuck about you. It’s not just pathetic – it’s harassment. You’re showing your whole ass right now but guess what, girl? We’ve seen it.”

“You said yourself you’re not in my scene, so don’t talk like you know shit,” the queen snapped back. Her voice tightened like a screw being ground into drywall. “The bitch could have tried to be friendly, for fuck’s sake –”

“You aren’t being very smart right now,” Katya interrupted, with all the force of a tire iron punching through a sheet of glass. “This might be a good time to consider your word choice, if there ever was one. That would be the smart thing here.” Teeth again, manic. “You want friendly? I can do friendly. We have another week on tour – you want me to do friendly. Because the alternative is that I freeze you out, publicly and professionally, and I make your life and your career outside of that fucked up, incestuous bubble of a scene you’ve pissed all over very difficult. Am I – am I being clear? I want to be very clear. You’ve messed up enough shit in my life, and I want this over with.”

There was a pause and a shift in the shadows beyond the curtain – nodding.

“Good. So here’s how this is going to go.” A wooden sound, rap, Katya’s knuckles against the bunk frame. Brian could make out the rise and fall of Katya’s chest, shallow and too fast, in the gap between the curtains. “You don’t post about Trixie. You don’t talk about her. If, God forbid, the opportunity arises, you don’t talk to her. That last one is for you – I’m a lover, not a fighter, but it is my strong suspicion that if you pull this to her face one more time, she will beat the ever-loving shit out of you. Just a – a pro-tip, let’s call it. An insight.”

There was a weak laugh. “She can try it. Jesus, Katya, come the fuck on –”

Slam – an open-handed palm against the wood. “Do you think I’m fucking around here? I’m not. Don’t fucking push me on this.”

Brian had heard Katya angry a handful of times in his life. He’d never heard him like this. This wasn’t Katya out of control; this was Katya very near the end of his rope, and aware of every inch he had left, making them count.

The sick feeling in Brian’s stomach crept higher. He pressed his knuckles against his mouth.

“You stop coming for Trixie,” Katya was saying. “No more posts on facebook, no more whispers at shows. No more shit-talking to promoters – yeah, I asked around, I heard about that. Not that it did you much good. It has to hurt, I think – does it? Knowing that Trixie’s booking is worth more than your word? That’s gotta sting. But I’m not sure how much of a hold your word even has anymore, you bitter fucking cunt.”

Shea, behind the camera, drew in a shocked breath at the pure vitriol in Katya’s voice.

There was a stillness to the air for a long moment, like the silence after a hurricane has swept the earth bare and ragged. Then the other queen laughed again; louder this time, acidic, but with a definite note of finality – of defeat.

“If everyone could see you now,” she said.

Katya barked a laugh of his own. “Girl, they wouldn’t care. I’m America’s fucking sweetheart.” He stepped back and waved a hand in the space visible between the curtains; it was shaking finely, Brian could see it. “Get the fuck out of here. I’m not dealing with you today. Call back tomorrow – I’ll be friendly again.”

The curtains fluttered as hurried footsteps passed by and receded out of the room, the door to the common lounge sliding open and then shut.

Katya’s shadow shifted. Back and forth, like he was caught up on a decision; then he said, quiet, muffled: “fuck.” Footsteps rang in the opposite direction – towards, Brian assumed, his own bunk, as there was the fumbling sound of feet on rungs and then the rattle of metal rings as the curtains were pulled shut.

The camera reversed. Shea stared up at it, her eyes filling most of the screen, hilariously wide and scandalized. Then the video went black – and flicked back to that first still, frozen, the anger on Katya’s face deepening the hollows of his cheeks, his eyes throwing sparks through the screen.

Brian stared down at the rictus of his face, then pressed the phone down screen-first beside him into his mattress. The hard lines of its body bit into the insides of his fingers.

Fuck. What the fuck.

He could stop the video, but he couldn’t make his brain put away the tired lines that had cut into Katya’s face, or the ragged edge of his voice, or how the sound of his palm hitting solid wood had rung through Shea’s bunk, bouncing thickly off the walls.

The room was too small. Brian dragged himself up and went out into the living room, phone in his fist tucked into his pocket, but out there it was too big, and his skin felt all wrong, and he wanted to call Katya but he couldn’t make himself do it.

Katya hadn’t called or texted since the night of the pageant, when Brian had waited and waited all night but the internet – and that fan in the bar who’d clocked him – had stayed miraculously silent. Katya hadn’t called, or texted, or tweeted, or even updated his fucking instagram.

God.

Brian’s phone buzzed suddenly in his pocket and he almost threw it at the balcony doors in his haste to get it out. He fumbled it awake – and then he saw the name on the screen, and his shoulders slumped again.

FROM: ADORE - 10:28 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

I forgot to ask but can u water my plants??? this is the longest ive gone without killing any of them :(

LA sucks.

it’s like *jaws theme* all the time. and i forgot my sunglasses

He swiped his phone unlocked and read through the texts, mouth twitching feebly towards an almost-smile. It buzzed in his palm again and a picture appeared – Adore, nose scrunched, squinting into the sky.

Brian typed back, i promise, you can definitely afford another pair of sunglasses. and yes, your plants are safe in my hands.

The answer came quickly, every letter infused with the kind of wry snark that Adore was so good at: dont make promises my lawyers can’t keep

Brian huffed a quiet laugh. The sound was swallowed up in the space of the apartment, a small rock dropped in a large lake, not even reaching far enough to touch the walls.

Adore had come out the morning after that night to find him on the couch, his guitar abandoned on the coffee table, staring out into the thin morning light. It wasn’t even 7 AM. He’d gotten four or so hours of restless sleep before giving up on it; the room was lit such a soft grey that he might as well have wrapped in a dream anyway. He’d been staring out at the clouds and the inkstain crows flecked along the telephone wires for so long that they’d blurred, like an impressionistic painting – barely real.

Adore had gone and sat beside him. Then she’d leaned over, carefully, and rested her head on his shoulder. He’d shuddered – one long wave through his whole body. She was warm. When she breathed her chest expanded against his arm, slow and steady like waves coming into the shore. He’d only been able to bear it for a few minutes before he’d had to get up, fingers twitching at his side; he’d given her an apologetic smile, and she’d watched him walk back to his room with her chin on her wrist, her forearm braced against the back of the couch.

He’d checked twitter one more time, and then fallen into deep, exhausting sleep.

“That’ll be thirty-two dollars and forty cents, please,” said the bored young woman behind the till, eyeing his – genuinely embarrassing – collection of groceries: ramen noodles, tomato sauce from a jar, the kind of shitty white wine he’d drunk in senior year of college, and stuff to make a salad, out of the idealistic hope that he might actually make a salad.

“I’ll just put that on my credit card,” Brian said. He watched her surreptitiously as she entered the amount onto the card reader. Adore had brought him here a few times, but he didn’t recognize her.

“This your first day?” he said, then winced.

“Huh?”

“I mean. Are you new?”

Now she was eyeing him, even less impressed than she’d been by his groceries. “No…”

“Oh.” He ran a hand over his head awkwardly. He’d forgotten his cap at home. “I just, I haven’t seen you here before. I thought…”

Her mouth twitched, and she popped her gum, a sharp snap in the air. The sound was somehow scornful. “Listen, mister – I’m working, you know, and even if I weren’t, I don’t go out with the kind of guy that bothers –”

“Oh my god, no,” Brian said, flushing, “Oh my god, no, I’m gay. What? No.”

“Oh,” she said. She started turning red too. “Oh. Shit – uh, I mean –”

He laughed awkwardly. “Don’t worry about it. Sorry for being, uh, super weird and stuff.”

The lights overhead were the sickly fluorescent yellow of small-time grocery stores everywhere. He could have been anywhere – east coast or west, north or south, any timezone, any city, any tour. His shoes squeaked on the floor when he shifted from heel to heel.

How was it less than a week ago that he’d felt so at home in this city he didn’t know at all?

“Your receipt,” the cashier said. She held it out towards him, then hesitated visibly. “Listen, uh… are you okay, man?”

He shrugged, stilted, and took the receipt, then grabbed the bags by their handles. “Oh, you know. More of the same,” he said.

It was awful to realize he meant it.

Touring was a little bit like being a ghost in your own body. You were breathing and eating and sleeping, but you might as well have been walking through walls, the way you drifted from place to place, squinting at google maps on your phone, talking to people whose names you’d either forget within five minutes or never knew in the first place. You could be anywhere at all; you might as well be nowhere.

Brian drank shitty wine and played into the night, the notes echoing hollowly across the big empty space of Adore’s living room. Music usually anchored him into his body on the road. Every chord brought him a little closer, the muscles, tendons, bones of his hands all tuned in to the melody with the ease of years. He could close his eyes and wherever he was, he was home.

But each time he opened his eyes again he was someplace new.

Seattle wasn’t a tour stop, but its grey skies, the neighbours he ran into on the staircase, the people he saw in the grocery store – none of them were home. But, fuck it, neither was LA, where he spent a few days every month or two and sometimes found himself waking up wondering whose walls he was looking at. And where the fuck did that leave him?

He played a sour note, paused, and corrected himself. Breathed. Tried to bring Emmylou’s lilting refrain back under his fingers.

Without Adore’s voice in the next room livestreaming her way out of boredom, the apartment grew stale and shadowed; without Katya’s calls every night, the days seemed endless, a pale stretch of hours where he did nothing and saw no one. And as each hour ticked past on the clock it became more and more obvious that the veneer of sunshine he’d pasted over Seattle with Adore’s friendly warmth and the sound of Katya’s smile was just that – a veneer.

Another sour note. He stopped and lay his guitar flat in his lap, then picked up his glass on the coffee table and drained it.

His phone lay still and silent beside the wet ring his glass had left on the wood.

He flicked a bit of lint from the couch off his boxers and took up his guitar again, tracing out the melody that he’d been chasing these past weeks on automatic. The sky outside was ripening, edging into evening. It was almost fall. He’d been in Seattle for three weeks, and it seemed he really hadn’t moved an inch.

He could call Katya. He could suck it the fuck up and call Katya, because maybe Katya was waiting for him to call. Maybe this whole ‘respecting Katya’s space’ thing he was doing was totally misguided, and Katya was waiting beside the phone every minute that he wasn’t out there defending Brian’s honour or whatever that was.

I fucked you up, he could say. I was so busy pretending that everything was fine now and my problems were gone because they weren’t yelling in my face every two seconds that I didn’t realize I was setting us both up to get hurt. I was so fucking stupid, Katya, and I’m so – I’m so sorry.

And Katya would say…

What?

I just want you to be okay, if he was feeling self-sacrificial; it’s your irrepressible Virgo energy, if he was feeling avoidant. Maybe, maybe, I thought you said you didn’t lie to me, and you weren’t going to start, if he was feeling particularly honest.

Katya was always honest, more or less. It was just that the truth was flexible, more conversation than monologue, and irony always had to have the last word. Brian, meanwhile, was just a bit of a liar.

Not with Katya, though. Not before. And he hadn’t meant to – he really hadn’t meant to, not even for a second; it was just –

Fuck.

It’s worse than I was letting myself feel, Brian could say. There’s things I don’t know how to tell you. Because it is about you.

His throat tightened; he let go of the frets. He grabbed for his drink blindly and for his notebook with his other hand. Resting it against the body of his guitar, he opened to a blank page and scrawled,

You fought yourself to bring all your feelings down to heel,

and if you stopped yourself from looking, was it ever really real

but everyone’s been looking

and you –

Something inside of him was drifting dangerously, thin tethers tied to his ribs all that held it in place, like a threadbare sail on fraying ropes. The words on the page blurred in front of his eyes. He raised his glass to his mouth but the rim bumped against his teeth and nothing came out. Empty.

He frowned down at his cup. Like, fuck that nonsense. He’d put good money down on those teeth.

The wine sloshing into the glass when he poured himself another sounded like the ocean creeping onto the shore on a windless day. Like Provincetown – another place he’d gone to hide; another town full of strangers. He set the bottle back on the table, cap off, and picked up his guitar again.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday he went running in the morning like nothing had changed. Before, Adore would be waking up when he got back; one of them would make breakfast, then they’d jam for a while, and then Adore would smoke up and Brian would text Katya, if he hadn’t already done so.

Now Brian just jogged. Further and further each day, until Thursday found him running along the seaside, pounding the pavement with salt stinging the inside of his mouth on every inhale. The sky was a soft feather blue, the ocean a deep silk bedsheet wavering in his peripheral vision – and then the mass of Pike Place rose up in front of him. Before he could think about it, his feet were carrying him inside; past the florists, past the bursting orange and red arrays of fresh fruit, and down the stairs to the magic shop’s door.

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the collar of his tank top, grimaced, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was just-opened quiet on the floor. No customers, no music; just a vague shuffling from behind the counter. “Just a minute,” the shuffler called. “If this accursed speaker breaks on me one more time…”

There was a crackling sound from the speakers set high in the walls, like a cheap firework skidding along cement, and then a whole storm of swearing below the counter.

“Uh,” Brian said. He approached cautiously. “Can I take a look? I might be able to help.”

“No, it’s really fine –” A frazzled head popped up from behind the register. “Oh! It’s you! I know you. You think you can fix it? The damn thing goes off all the time, the wiring’s too old –”

Brian shrugged. “I work in clubs and theatres and stuff, so I’ve picked up a thing or two. Let me see.”

Steph – that was her name, he remembered – was as curly-haired and strangely-dressed as when they’d met, with a sprig of rosemary tucked behind the large crow-shaped brooch pinned to her blouse and dust all over her knees. He crouched down beside her and squinted at the mess of wires and cords, poking a hesitant finger around and hoping he wouldn’t get fried. That sound had not been good.

“I think,” he said after a minute, “I think it’s this. Hang on. I’m gonna – if I die, tell my momma I loved her, and tell my dad –” he ducked further under the desk. “Well, whatever you like, if you can find him.”

She barked a laugh behind him.

He didn’t die, although he did burn his fingers a little bit, and when the music started playing (some kind of witchy Swedish wailing, possibly Bjork, Katya – Katya would know –) he let out a “Hah!” of triumph. Eat that, three years on the road and four years of theatre school and thousands of dollars funnelled directly into the University of Wisconsin’s incredibly deep pockets. Eat the shit out of that.

Steph helped him out with two hands around his forearm, shaking him delightedly once he was more or less standing. “You’re a miracle worker,” she said with a bright smile. “I should hire you on the spot, because clearly you’re the real magic here.”

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his free arm and grinned down at her. Clear bright light was streaming through the high windows in the walls, glinting off her brooch, her earrings, the silver in her hair. Her smile and easy warmth was the same as it had been before, and, god, that was nice. “I’ve got greasepaint coming out of ears,” he said, shrugging modestly. “You can’t really call yourself a theatre kid until you’ve nearly died a dozen different ways trying to string up the speakers on the janitor’s old ladder. ”

“Different ways?”

He waved a hand. “You know, falling, electrocution – so boring. A good old-fashioned garrotte is where it’s at.”

Her eyes scrunched at the corners when she laughed. “I like you,” she said, grinning, “you’re strange,” and he grinned back, feeling lighter than he had all week.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. Then: “Oh, hey, the book you sold me is great. Who knew reading about the end of the world could make you feel better about life?”

“That’s right, the apocalypse poems, you…” Steph said, then paused. “God, I’m so sorry, I don’t remember your name. But you’re Danny’s friend, right?”

Brian blinked. Swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said; it came out forced, like he was overcompensating for something. “Yeah, sorry, it’s Brian. Yeah. I took some time off work and I’ve been staying with Danny.”

“Oh, do you work together?” she said, brightly and obliviously twisting the knife. “I know he does something or other with clubs and theatres and whatnot too. He’s very private about those things, but such a sweetheart. I haven’t seen him around in a while, though, how he is?”

“Away on business,” Brian said, “and, you know, we’ve been keeping busy otherwise. I’ll tell him you asked.” He wiped his palms against the sides of his shorts. “Listen, I actually – I should probably be going, actually. I’m supposed to be skyping him in about half an hour.”

An absolute lie, but Steph swallowed it without a flicker of suspicion. She smiled and pressed a hand to his arm. “Tell him I send my love. And thanks again for your help, Brian. I don’t know how many more shocks my old heart could take.”

“Oh stop,” he said, chuckling, and gave a little wave. “See you around, I guess?”

The polite small talk of strangers. Preferable to a slow death, but not by, like, a lot.

Brian took the stairs back up to the ground level slowly, although his heart rate was well back to normal by this point. He wandered out of the arcade, and turned, and walked, and turned, and then he was on a raised dock, leaning against a wooden rail next to a locked gate, which guarded the ramp down to the boats. The wood pressed into the front of his ribs. He curled his palms around the rail, ignoring the bite of splinters.

A light breeze ruffled his shirt and cooled his pink cheeks. The ocean stretched out before him, golden sunshine catching in the crests and troughs of the waves.

He closed his eyes.

At home, he typed, i hope you’re doing okay. i love you.

Deleted it.

Typed, today someone didnt recognize me and THAT made me sad. i think i need an intervention.

Deleted it.

Typed, went to the beach to sea what all the commocean was about but idk im still not shore

Deleted it.

Sighed, stared out the window, looked down at his feet.

Typed, i’m sorry. katya, i’m so sorry.

Deleted it.

“You’re so white from these shadowed winter months,” Katya crowed, shielding his eyes dramatically. “I don’t know if I can be seen with you.”

“You’re real white from being born, you know, caucasian and unfortunate, but I’ve suffered your company for years,” said Brian. He frowned and wiped at his nose where something wet was dripping – sweat or sunscreen, he didn’t know. “If you really can’t bear it, I’m sure I can find one of these tanned, strapping, oiled-up hunks of meat who’d be willing to walk with me –”

Katya grabbed his arm mid-gesture. “No no no, don’t you dare!”

“I’m just saying,” Brian continued, “you invited me, bitch –”

The shine of Katya’s grin, open-mouthed and laughing, was enough to blow his whole awful night out of the water.

They walked. The sun drew rippling air waves out of the too-hot cement; the ocean crashed beautifully green into the white shore. But it somehow wasn’t too crowded, for all that it was the dead of summer, the very peak of beach days. They moved in blissful anonymity. At one point, Katya bought him an ice cream. Brian ate it one-handed, making panicked noises and laughing as it dripped closer and closer to his hand. His other hand was – well. He’d taken Katya’s as they stood waiting for the cone, and he hadn’t let go yet. His stomach flipped giddily every time their steps fell out of sync – their palms would drag against each other, just for a moment, each time making him newly aware again of the calluses on Katya’s palm.

He traced his index finger along the big tendon on the back of Katya’s hand, and Katya glanced at him sideways, quick, lips parting on a short intake of breath. Brian licked at his ice cream and said nothing, warm and smug all over.

Sea breeze and the sting of salt. They leaned over the wooden rail, right into it, shoulders and hips pressed together. The blue stretched endless.

Katya started to turn red in the cheeks around four so they ducked for shade. Brian slouched back against the blush pink wall of some souvenir shop, under the awning, and Katya stood in front of him to block the sun from his eyes. One moment Brian was looking over Katya’s shoulder at the white gulls darting and dipping over the sea; the next, he was blinking up, and Katya was closer, leaning in, one hand on the wall beside his head, his gaze flickering over Brian’s face with the same combination of lazy ease and breathless flight as the birds in the air.

Brian blinked, processing, then licked his lips to wet them. “Feeling tall?” he said.

“Feeling lots of things,” said Katya, smiling faintly. “Tall may or may not be one of them. No one’s ever accused me of a Napoleon complex, Tracy – and my psychological rap sheet is longer than the Mariana Trench. You always take me to new and exciting places, did you know that? That’s why we’re friends.”

“I thought it was for the free therapy and life coaching.”

“Don’t undersell yourself, mama. What’s newer or more exciting than uncertified therapy and dubious life coaching?”

Brian laughed. “I don’t know that ‘new’ and ‘exciting’ are words that many people have applied to me – out of drag, at least.” His mouth twitched. “You might be du-biased.”

He expected Katya to throw back his head, lean away and laugh, but instead – Katya leaned closer, his eyes glinting with mirth. “I’m gonna kill you,” he said, “I’m gonna kill you right here and dump your body into the ocean in front of the tourists, God, and everybody, and no one will punish me when they hear about the years of pun-spewing bullshit you’ve put me through.”

He was so close. Brian’s stomach flipped again; he could feel Katya’s warmth all along him, make out the freckles on his nose. “Kill me?” he said, mouth dry.

Katya blinked. Something about the set of his jaw, the small lines around his eyes, seemed suddenly vulnerable, intense and somehow opened wide.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Or, I dunno. Maybe that other thing.”

Brian held his breath. All he could hear was the crashing of the waves, loud and close – or maybe that was the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. He reached up and brushed the tips of his fingers along the sharp line of Katya’s cheek.

Katya’s chest hitched.

The breeze chased the sunlight through the empty pier, stirring the sand across the wood, and Katya leaned in, slow enough that Brian could stop him if he wanted. Brian didn’t. He lifted his face, eyes slipping shut; and Katya’s mouth fell on the corner of his, once, soft, then warm against his right cheekbone, and again on his left. Brian exhaled shakily.

“What,” he said, unsteady. “Can’t kiss me when the cameras aren’t on?”

Katya huffed a laugh, the breath warm on Brian’s face. He curled a hand below Brian’s ribs; his fingers dipped into the hollow in his tank top to brush against bare skin. Brian shivered. Voice barely louder than the wind in the distance, Katya said, “My life would be so much simpler if that were true.”

Brian opened his eyes. He looked up and met Katya’s gaze, and his mouth twitched, almost a smile. Katya’s stubble scratched at his fingertips as he settled his palm more firmly along the curve of his jaw. “Well, you’re not really a simple woman,” Brian said, and Katya was laughing when he leaned down and kissed him properly.

When he opened his eyes, the sun’s lowest rays had dipped below the edge of the awning, lighting Katya up in gold, and he tipped his head back to rest against the wall, wrapped his free arm around Katya’s waist, and said, “Come home with me.”

Except that’s not what happened at all.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was shining, and Katya was lit with gold, and he tipped his head back against the wall and thought about saying it –

– then smiled crookedly, and said instead, “You kiss like you have heat stroke.” And Katya threw back his head and laughed, wheezed, “no, just heat rash,” while the sun caught in his hair and lashes.

It’s not what happened, but it could have been. He could have taken Katya home, and pressed him up against the hallway inside his door, all that sun-warm skin under his hands. He could have kissed him the way he wanted to. He could have blown him right there with his knees sore against the hardwood, or taken his hand again and drawn him back into the bedroom, kissing him all the way. And after – Brian could have asked him to stay.

That wasn’t how it happened, but, crashed out on the couch in Seattle after his run, Brian dreamed every moment of it. Every inch of hot skin and the rasp of sheets and falling asleep together and waking up together. And when he woke up – alone – he pressed his hands flat against his stomach, feeling like something had been taken out of him. Feeling ill, feeling exhausted, feeling like his head was buzzing and his mind was five feet outside of his body.

Eventually he dragged himself up and fumbled for his phone. He wiped at the inner corners of his eyes with his knuckle as he thumbed it awake; then he pressed his palm over his face, exhaling shakily.

No new messages. Of course.

His whole body hummed feverishly, the twinned effect of the sun on his morning run and the one in his dream. Maybe that was what fucked over his self-control, that sick feeling like he was out of his head, or maybe he was just giving in to the inevitable – but, whatever it was, he opened his messages and, despite all his better judgement, typed out: check in?

Hating himself a little, he hit send.

When there was no response thirty minutes later, despite the read receipt that had popped up almost immediately, he left to go find something to drink.

“Oh hey, it’s you,” said the girl behind the counter. She eyed his purchases. “Wow. I didn’t think it could get sadder than last time…”

Brian huffed a short laugh. “Still gay, don’t worry.”

“Uh huh,” she said. She ran the first wine bottle – yes, first, thanks so much – under the scanner and hit a few buttons. “So is the whole sad and gay deal an aesthetic thing? How much Lana have you listened to in the past three days? I’m trying to decide if I should be staging an intervention that I’m – full disclosure – not really qualified for.”

“Do sad gays get a discount at this establishment?”

“Nope,” she said, popping it like bubblegum. “Sorry.”

She finished ringing him, his three bottles of wine, his pack of sour key candies, and his thoroughly depleted dignity through the machine.

“Credit,” he said, offering it over.

He was threading his hands through the bag handles, waiting for his card back, when she said, “Hey. What’s your name, man?”

He blinked. “It says on the card.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she said, handing it over wrapped in his receipt with an eye-roll. “So what is it?”

“Brian,” he said, and looked at the sallow lights on her face, wondering where she was going with this.

“Brian,” she repeated. “Hi, Brian, I’m Mariam.”

Her tone was conversational but somehow serious, weighted, and Brian – Brian swallowed against the sudden and unexpected feeling of his throat going tight.

“Now who’s hitting on who?” he managed, and she chuckled, but didn’t lose that look in her eyes.

“Brian. Take care of yourself, hey?” she said.

The lights glared brightly across the empty floor, the rows upon rows of no-name brands and the scuff marks on the shitty linoleum. She was watching Brian like maybe he needed watching. He swallowed again, and nodded, and left without another word.

Dust motes floated in the slowly draining sunlight when he returned to the apartment. The whole space of it echoed with the closing of the door. He kicked off his shoes, cracked open the first bottle, and went to get his guitar, glass in hand.

Hours passed. He drank more. He scribbled in his notebook, crossed things out, scrawled corrections in the margins. There was too much in his head. Words tumbled out like a hole had been torn somewhere, all the loose change and lint of his brain escaping despite his best efforts to plug the gap. His writing got sloppier, slanted; he wiped wine from his mouth with the back of his hand and turned the page.

The beach, the dream, the night before. The months of build-up, the moment of release. Wanting, wanting, he wanted so much and he had told himself, when he was a kid, that someday he would be able to have all the things he wanted. If he was smart enough and good enough, quick enough on his feet, he could make anything happen. But here he was: trapped into stillness as the path under his feet cut off abruptly. Because how could he have all the things he wanted when they existed at such cross-purposes?

Or was it just him? Not the fame, not the fans, not the industry, and certainly not Katya – maybe it was Brian at cross-purposes with all of it, putting himself in his own way, selfish and stubborn and cowardly, refusing to accept with good grace what the universe was offering him.

The sun dipped below the blocky Seattle skyline, the buildings across the road cast in radiant red, as he stumbled into the kitchen to open the third bottle. His hands slipped on the cap; he blinked wearily down at it, then out the window at the purples and pinks of the sky, dappled and streaked like watercolours. The sun was just a winking and burnished glare over the lip of the buildings. He inhaled deeply and it almost seemed like he could still taste salt in the air.

The skyline blurred before his eyes, replaced by the memory of the things his dream had omitted. Walking the long way back down the pier, Katya with one arm hooked around his elbow and the other hand clutching at his bicep like an ingenue, twitching with laughter every minute or so because apparently this was the most heterosexual he’d ever felt. Which, Katya had definitely licked at least one pussy in his day, so. What he meant was probably that it was dumb, and romantic, and brought them so much closer together than held hands as they made their way between the shadows of the tall lights that lined the boardwalk. The sun set in brilliant gold in the distance. Brian remembered the warmth of Katya’s chest against his arm; he remembered looking at Katya’s lips, then away, and wash, rinse, repeat; he remembered the sign they passed, jutting up out of the middle of the boardwalk: END OF THE TRAIL.

He remembered going home alone, flushed and giddy with the heat of the day, and turning on his phone to see a new notification from his facebook messages. date night tracy?, it said, captioning a photo of him and Katya on the boardwalk, arm in arm, the soft look on his face all too bare in the deep amber light of the sun setting over the ocean.

Brian shook his head, and poured himself another drink.

The night after that was all in flashes. His fingers sliding along the strings of his guitar. Losing his pen under the couch; hunting through Adore’s drawers for another one. Sweet sad notes filling the room, lingering in the air like sea salt. Fumbling with his phone; his guitar; his own hands.

Love’s the kind of feeling that’s not easy to derail, that was good, that was fine, but I find that I’ve been tryin’ ‘cause, ‘cause what, ‘cause what –

He lost another pen. After that… he didn’t remember much after that.

Brian woke to a splitting headache and a buzzing phone.

The phone was on his stomach; his head was on the arm of the couch. He blinked into the bright morning light and groaned, covering his eyes.

His phone buzzed again.

Whatever it was, it could fucking wait. He let it fall to the side as he rolled over, taking in the mess of paper and pens – what the fuck, where did he get so many pens – on the coffee table, the empty wine bottles, his guitar abandoned carelessly on the floor. The glass doors to the balcony were open, though he didn’t remember opening them, and the harsh cawing of the crows outside made his eyes water.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He stood unsteadily and made his way to the kitchen, where a bag of sour key candies lay splayed open and empty on the counter and a plate with the mysterious remnants of what might be a drunken midnight snack lay beside the sink. He stared at one, then the other, then turned decisively to get a glass out of the cupboards and fill it from the tap. He downed it in one go and poured himself another.

Back by the couch, his phone was buzzing again.

Katya, he realized through the groggy fullness in his head. That could be Katya.

He returned to the couch and lowered himself gingerly, full glass clutched in one hand. He fumbled the phone trying to grab it, which probably said bad things about the balance of alcohol to water in his system at that moment; then he thumbed it awake and scanned it as quickly as he could through the low-burning nausea of his hangover.

There was, in fact, a notification from Katya. A missed call at 2:23 AM. Brian’s heart leapt and his mouth went dry; but then he looked past that, at the avalanche of notifications from twitter and instagram, and his whole body turned cold, shoved into full wakefulness and unholy sobriety.

What the fuck had happened last night?

He unlocked his phone and opened instagram to see notifications in the thousands. Thumbing over to his profile, he found a post he didn’t remember making, dated 1:57 AM. That was – he looked at the little clock at the top of his screen: 7:13 AM – barely five hours before. The little thumbnail showed his shoulders over his guitar; when he opened it, he saw it was a video.

Brian stared at the post in horror for a long moment. Then – because there was literally no other choice – he flexed his fingers, which had gone numb, and he hit play.

The screen cut to his face, frowning blearily and too close, as he tried to prop his phone up. He looked – exhausted. Shit. Dark circles under his eyes, a tight, stressed set to his mouth, which twisted down as he failed to make the phone stand steady a third time. Finally he – the Brian on screen – muttered a sharp fuck, and just leaned the phone back against something or other, putting his glass of wine in front of it to hold it upright, so the rim blurred out the bottom of the frame.

He stepped back, sat down, and pulled his guitar into his lap.

Brian, the Brian watching, took shallow breaths against a rising nausea. His pulse thrummed loudly under the thin skin of his neck.

The camera captured the body of his guitar, the slouch of his shoulders, and part of his mouth, which he wiped at with the back of his hand, pick balanced easily between his fingers. Then he sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders and sliding his other hand up the neck of the guitar into place – Brian remembered that, cool smooth wood under his palm, he remembered glancing at the camera and thinking fuck it, fuck this –

The Brian on screen played an open chord and then set into the melody that made up the verses, the tumbling notes, middle finger – pinky finger – ring finger, and, watching, his brain cut through the fog to focus on that, ring finger, ring finger, the song he’d been working on all this past month coming together despite the drunken way he slid between the metal frets.

And then he started to sing, and Brian went from feeling slightly nauseous to being absolutely certain he was about to throw up.

It wasn’t the verses, thank god. Not the harried scribbles that filled pages upon pages in his notebook, most of them awful, all of them never to be fucking revealed to the world at large because they were his, ugly and sincere and too personal. All the moments that made him want to try; all the things that made him afraid. But this –

“Love’s the kind of feeling that’s not easy to derail

But I find that I’ve been trying ‘cause

I can’t see the when and where –”

A chorus is a vague thesis; but, watching, he still felt stripped wholly bare.

“I hear waves in my dreams at night,

Feel the sunlight and your stare,

So maybe it’s to no avail –

And maybe ‘stay’ won’t turn out stale –”

Brian swallowed, fumbled for his glass of water, tried to hear anything but the roaring in his ears, see anything but his face dipping into frame as he bent lower over the guitar, eyes closed, face pained as he sang stay. And he was sliding through the notes like a drunk stumbling through a door, graceless but functional and – worst of all – far too honest.

“But I still don’t know if I can go

Off-road at the end of the trail.”

Fuck.

The video didn’t end abruptly – apparently, when drunk, he couldn’t make the crop function work for him – but with an agonizing slowness, the last, aching note from his guitar hanging hollowly in the air. His shoulders on-screen rose, then fell; then finally he reached forward for his phone. A flash of his mouth, his cheek, his eyes squinting – and then it went dark, and looped back to the beginning.

He jabbed at the screen to stop it, and stared down at his phone in mute horror, jaw slack and mouth dry.

First things first, he deleted the video. It wouldn’t shut people up, but he couldn’t just let it sit there, all of him laid out in the bare daylight. The raw sound of his voice, scratchy with exhaustion, on his shitty phone mic; that one glimpse of his face, like opening a door you’re not supposed to by accident, the kind of door you can’t close again or back away from. All a room’s quiet secrets, the small ones that cut deepest, framed starkly by the open doorframe.

He wasn’t going to load twitter, or look at the texts that had come in from his friends who’d seen, but then a new one appeared at the top of his screen as his phone buzzed in his hand. It was Shea – a youtube link. His phone buzzed again with a second message, a third, more, all from Shea. He thumbed messenger open, still numb all the way through, and scanned the group chat dispassionately. Then he stopped, and read it again.

FROM: SHEA - 7:17 AM - Friday August 29th, 2017

youtube.com/watch?v=Jf1L34kn0

Please watch this, get your collective shit together, and stop making me feel sad for both of you

Ive got better shit to do with my time

And PLEASE reach out to us, jesus, brian, we care so much and i know youre doing your own thing but we’re really, really worried.

Well. I cant speak for kim. Im worried; that bitch is probably just hungry

He huffed a laugh, but it didn’t feel like one. It felt like something was cracking open inside of him.

His phone buzzed again.

FROM: KIM - 7:18 AM - Friday August 29th, 2017

i can be hungry and worried at the same time cunt

but sheas not wrong, bri.

please.

Brian swallowed, then swallowed again, throat tight and eyes stinging. He took another gulp of his water, then, after a moment’s hesitation, typed, i’m here. i’ll watch it in a minute. i love you guys and im sorry

He wasn’t sure what he was sorry for. There was a whole laundry list of reasons he should be; he might as well cover his bases.

It wasn’t – it wasn’t that he’d been wrong to leave. It wasn’t that he’d been wrong to want out or to go silent. It was just that it could be right for him and wrong for them, and he could be sorry for that, even if he wasn’t sure yet that he regretted it.

He hit send all the same.

His phone buzzed almost instantly with their replies, but he didn’t look, pulling up the youtube link instead. Then: for the second time that morning, his heart stopped and his body went cold.

“help me i’m not dying fast enough”, said the title under the loading video. “Katya Zamolodchikova Periscope (August 29, 2017 @ 2:40 AM)”.

He didn’t want to click – he knew he didn’t want to, and also that he shouldn’t – but he did anyway, because sometimes he was a masochist like that. Lately, especially.

Katya, on-screen, stubbed out a cigarette and lit another one, inhaling deeply.

“I’m not going to tell you how many of these I’ve had tonight,” he said to the camera. “Because it’s none of your business what hell cycle of ideating and ovulating I may or may not be going through right now. That’s first of all.”

He looked… gaunt. Unkempt. Worse than in the video Shea had taken a week earlier.

“It’s a funny thing, to have – kind of – resolved myself to wanting something, and always having it sort-of in reach, and then to realise maybe I can’t have it at all. I could have, but maybe I missed my moment, maybe I didn’t lay out my thesis convincingly enough – maybe maybe maybe. Maybe what I wanted isn’t on the proverbial table anymore. That’s harder, I think, than knowing all along you can’t ever have it. It’s a different kind of wanting. I don’t know.”

He flicked his fingers in the air by his ear, ash falling grey and soft like snow from a rooftop.

“I’ve never been good at wanting things. That’s funny, right? From an addict, I mean. It’s funny. You can laugh – I’m laughing. Maybe you are, I don’t know, I can’t see you. I don’t care.

I’ve never been good at wanting things – I’ve had them, or not had them. It all seemed kind of –” he paused, then laughed, a hoarse bark. “You know, insignificant in the face of the rapid decay of the environment, our bodies, society as a whole, and ultimately the universe itself. The universe is dying, by the way, in case you hadn’t heard. I took a first year physics class, girl, so I know what I’m talking about.”

You read Neil Degrasse Tyson’s book once, you fucking idiot, Brian thought; it rung hollow, as if it came from someplace a good distance from his own body.

“So I’ve never been good at wanting stuff. Drugs isn’t want, drugs is need. And that’s not – I know I look like a mess right now, but a) not on drugs, and b) still not about need. I’m not in some kind of I’ll-die-without-you pseudo-love psycho-abusive Nicholas Sparks kinda bullshit. I’m just – I’m just sad. I’m just really fucking sad. And I’ll delete this tomorrow, and anyway –” Katya looked sharply into the camera, and for a moment, Brian felt seen – “I figure it’s only fair.”

“So anyway,” Katya continued. He turned away, towards the road; his eyes lit up with amber streetlight, glass-green and shadowed. “We’re all dying. I know, Brenda, I’m a broken record over here about it, but we’re all dying, and that’s kind of a big deal. And I love it! In some strange, existential way, it’s liberating, it’s electrifying, it brings you closer to your own body and soul and maybe even God, if, I don’t know, that’s your thing sometimes – ‘your’ being mine – but then –”

He stopped himself. Brian watched as his fingers tapped frenetically against the side of his cigarette for a moment, then he raised it, pursed his mouth, inhaled. Exhaled. He lifted his face to watch the smoke rise and disappear.

When he looked back down, he was smiling, crooked at the edges, like it hurt. “But then something comes into your life, and suddenly, it’s like, wait. Hang on. I want to see more of that – let’s stop the death train, maybe. Let’s put a hold on this dying shit. Because whatever it is I’m feeling, I want that, and – and – and why the fuck am I wasting time killing myself when this has been here, maybe all along. Self-indulgent fatalism suddenly starts to feel – selfish.”

“I mean,” he interrupted himself, suddenly and obviously changing tacks as a thought struck him, “please still come to my show. It’ll be so good. All these questions and more will be addressed – not answered, because who cares about answers, but asked? Yes. More questions than you ever wanted. Please come.”

He flashed a smile, plastic-white, but it melted away too quickly into the same tired pallor.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if anything I’m saying is true. I want all sorts of things all the time, but it’s always a little bit – intellectual. Like, wow, I wonder what having that would be like? Feel like? I’ve never experienced this kind of wanting that doesn’t have an endpoint – it won’t just stop once I get it. It goes forward. It has a future. What the fuck is up with that, you know?

But it’s not – you don’t just get to have things.”

His voice cracked.

“No. Okay. One second,” he said, and then he disappeared around the camera. Brian could still hear him breathing, though, quiet in the night air, an eerie echo of so many phone calls over the past month.

When Katya returned, he lit himself another cigarette, and this one didn’t shake between his fingers. “I’m going to delete this the minute it ends, for the record. I don’t know why I’m even doing it. I guess I’m just lonely. I know, I’ve been on tour, and that’s great, but – I dunno. It’s lonely. Work is lonely. Dying is lonely. And there’s one thing I want and I thought I could have it but – turns out – I probably can’t, and that’s – that’s lonely too.”

His mouth twisted, an almost-smile.

“I always thought that was such a cliché: to feel alone in the middle of a crowded room. And I love a cliché when it’s not played straight, but. Maybe, sometimes, the crowd doesn’t matter when one person’s not in it.

Anyway. I’m doing a lot of whining for someone with not a lot of problems, comparatively. And this problem isn’t even really mine. Not at its core. Selfish, right? But hey – no one’s making you tune in, Elizabeth.”

He took a final, decisive drag on his cigarette.

“Okay. I’m gonna go listen to some ambient noise and try to sleep.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Ocean sounds, track four: a classic. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Bye.”

The streetlight blanketing his face in fragile white, he looked into the screen again, directly, as if he could see Brian there looking back at him, heart sore in his throat. Then the video went dark.

Brian sat and stared down at the phone in his hands. Between the low buzzing nausea of his hangover and the Seattle morning greyness, the world around him felt – distant. Not quite real. Not as real or as close as that twitch of Katya’s mouth, or the wry, exhausted humour in his voice. The frustration and sadness and longing in every line of his body.

They were both so stupid. And so fucked.

He tapped out of Safari and into his messages, where he typed again, check in?

Knees tucked into his chest, he waited, and a minute later the reply came in – the little OK emoji, thumb pinched to index finger.

He exhaled loudly and pressed his hand over his eyes.

The phone buzzed against his thigh a moment later and he looked down again. It wasn’t from Shea or Kim like he thought it might be – it was, unexpectedly, another text from Katya. All it said was: you?

He bit his lip, thinking about it. He wasn’t going to let himself lie, to himself, to Katya, not again. He wasn’t going to do that to them. But the honest answer was – yes. He wasn’t good. He wasn’t better. But he was okay, for all the values of okay that the check-in had meant since the first time Katya had needed it: I’m alive, I’m safe, I’m here.

Yeah, he typed and sent, that’s about right.

He looked up from his phone at a sudden noise beyond the front door – a thump, like something heavy had been dropped.

It could have been one of Adore’s neighbours, so he dragged himself up and started to walk over, ready to offer assistance if needed. The woman upstairs was older, and generally bought more groceries than she could carry. But as he was approaching the door he heard the scrape of a key in the lock, and then the handle began to turn.

Adore wasn’t supposed to be back until that evening.

“Hello?” he started to ask, but then the door swung open, and he was staring into a pair of very tired, very startled eyes that definitely weren’t Adore’s.

“What the fuck,” said Bianca del Rio.

To his own surprise, a burst of laughter punched out of Brian’s stomach. “Yeah,” he said, staring back at Bianca, at the douchey sneakers on his feet, the Shangela shirt he was wearing, and the small duffel he’d dropped behind him. Brian found himself smiling, just a little. “Same.”

#I've said this to u already but… why #trixya #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #dare #angst #submission #fathwtf #canon compliant

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