TNT Short Fics

the sun's been quite kind, while I wrote this song

Taylor gingerly dips her toes into the pool of the Palm Springs villa they are staying at. While it is by no means early, it's quiet around her due to the late night they'd all had.

She sets her phone beside her, opening the voice memo app. As her feet acclimate to the cool water, she tunes the guitar she's brought outside with her. Something told her to bring it along yesterday when they left, and she's glad she did. Not only for the impromptu tipsy sing-along amongst their friend group when they came back from the festival, but also for now. Now, when the words and phrases bouncing around her head carried her out of bed and Travis's warm arms.

Guitar tuned, she plays random chords, chasing the ghost of a melody but more chasing words. Words that describe the freedom, the safety, and the love she felt surrounded by Travis last night. The joy, the acceptance, and the fucking fun she had with him and their friends. The softness, the closeness, the care she felt in the early morning hours as he took her apart piece by piece and let her do the same to him before they came back together.

At their last studio session before Jack went on tour, she had told him that sometimes it's hard to write happiness. He'd been joking about the anthology she was probably writing about the past eight months and she'd shared that it wasn't that easy.

Not because she doesn't have the words. No, the problem is that she has too many. Too many emotions, too many descriptions, too many whispered promises that she's sure will last. And they all speed through her mind anytime she goes to write. The past gave her clear notes and lines, but now? Now it was a symphony of feelings, colors, and words she is always trying to untangle into some sense of a song others will enjoy. She loves the messy, complex, joyful sound that runs through her head when she thinks about her life with Travis. It's painted through with a palette of colors as diverse as those in his wardrobe. She just needs to build it into something for everyone else to see.

It's part of the reason on the last leg of the tour she loved reclaiming bits and pieces of her past catalog into mash-ups. To fit her emotions and experiences of the last eight and a half months into her younger self's words brought her new joy from those songs. And in some cases, she even found almost a premonition in a lyric to describe her love now. But she is ready to share the very real feelings of now with the world if she can just lay them out in order.

She thinks back to last night as she continues to mess around with notes. As the heat and dust settled into a cool desert night, Travis had pulled her closer as they watched Ice perform. Pausing at one point with his hand in her hair and his voice low enough in her ear to make her involuntarily shut her eyes. She wanted to hold on to this moment forever. Hold on to the feeling of his breath on her face and his arms encircling her.

"You still doing okay, Tay?" He kept checking with her, wanting to be sure the hundreds of eyes (and cellphones) on her were not getting to her too much. That she was still able to enjoy the show.

"I'm good," she assured him. And she was. All she noticed was the heavy beat of the music, her friends nearby, and him holding her tight, keeping her safe.

"Gonna need a water after Ice's set though. Tree will kill me if I lose my voice before recording promo stuff tomorrow afternoon," she added, dramatically flopping against the arm around her.

His laughter rang out above the music and her happiness in the moment with this man made her fall just that much more in love with him. The night was full of moments like that. Moments where she was just a girl in a crowd with her love, living life to the fullest.

Light

It suddenly comes to her. This is how to describe her feelings about last night. How she has been feeling for months now—light and free.