TNT Short Fics

Tour Mode

A/N: With their crazy schedules, they aren't likely to get this much time but that is the fun thing about fic. 

He meets a whole new version of his girlfriend on tour. He's seen glimpses of her in Sydney and Singapore but never fully experienced "Tour Mode Taylor" as he's jokingly dubbed her after their binge of Girls5eva right before she left for Paris.

On tour, she's more serious. The clear leader of the team. She's laser-focused on show days, still puts in time at the gym, and rarely drinks. Her main objective is to provide the best possible experience for fans, and he loves her drive and dedication. She sits on the floor of the hotel room before shows trying to figure out ways to pull new stories from old songs, how to highlight the change in Tortured Poets songs between when she wrote them and now, or just find new and fun ways to combine a few songs in interesting ways people will love. Somedays, she sits by the window of the hotel room and beckons him over, and with her feet in his lap, she constructs new love songs for him out of her catalog. He sees glimpses of songwriter Taylor in these moments but it's almost as if she's building new worlds with the mashups. Some hers, some others, but mainly to entertain.

They are in her "season" he realizes. It's not lost on him that the Europe leg of the tour is almost exactly as long as a football season. Australia and Singapore were the pre-season and now they're in for the grind. Two cites a week all across the continent.

*****

Tay sleeps like the dead in tour mode. At home, he's used to her late-night wanderings. She warned him early on in their relationship about her nocturnal nature. And while she's since told him with amusement that she sleeps more soundly now that she's discovered the sleep cocktail of frigid bedroom and furnace boyfriend, she still sometimes roams at night when the words and melodies come to her.

But here after performing multiple nights per week, she starfishes out and doesn't move for hours. He doesn't dare let her know she snores the tiniest little snore and that he finds her complete abandon in sleep to the point her mouth hangs open so fucking endearing. Tree tells him through laughter about the night in Liverpool when Taylor slept through a fire alarm and Tree had her sat up and fully into her robe before she ever woke up.

Knowing she's sleeping so soundly, he stops tiptoeing around in the mornings and finds it provides the best opportunity for him to get work done, get in a workout, or record the podcast. All with her snoozing away.

However, she nearly gives him away once, when from across the room he catches sight of her sitting up, disheveled, sleep mask pushed up, and a little dazed. He cannot help but stare at his adorable sleep disaster of a significant other. Fans easily clock him with a goofy, besotted look on his face the next day on the pod.

*****

At first, he hangs back and lets her go to the stadium alone to focus. She spends time soundchecking, a half hour warming up, and then getting ready. But they both soon realize with the limited time they have on his visits, they rather be together. Plus he's never broken her focus just like she was never been a distraction for him during the football season.

He learns the names of all the crew members and makes friends with the band. He's in awe of how it all works and comes together. And in the middle of all this organized chaos and sold out stadium is his girl, bringing it all to life.

Taylor gets uncharacteristically nervous on the day of her first Wembley show, even though she's played here before. She paces the stage anxiously until he pulls her down next to him, and they lie together, looking up past the high-rise stands towards the blue sky. He tells her about playing here early in his career. They stay that way until she needs to get dressed. The crew glides around them, leaving them to take in the moment. When they get up, she kisses him in the dead center of the massive stadium on the stage she commands every night. But it feels just like kissing her in the backyard at home or a football field in Las Vegas or the pool at the house in LA. Just them, wherever they are.