Kaylor One-Shots

losing your breath

I wrote this a while ago for a friend. Not sure how I feel about it. Hope you like it though! :)
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Taylor can't sleep

At 1 am she decides it's because tomorrow's the day of the live stream where she'll be announcing all the album stuff and 'Shake It Off' will officially debut. It's all a lot, especially considering the drastic genre change her music's undergone. Even though she's confident about transitioning to pop she can't help but worry what her fans will think. What if she'll disappoint them? Lose them? If she's being honest with herself her thought process has been obsessively repetitive for the last couple of hours:
She'd crawled into bed at 10 and played with Olivia for a while before the cat decided she was sick of playing and left her alone with her thoughts. Now it's 3 hours later and Taylor's still sat up in her king-sized bed, wide awake. It's mainly the single and the album she's thinking about, and her fans. But there's something, or someone, else running through her mind. Although she won't admit this to anyone ever, she's thinking about her best friend. Well one of them. Karlie.
She's not entirely sure why she's thinking of Karlie. She guessed it's because of how good having such a wonderful friend in the city has been and how much Karlie's helped her feel at home in NYC. And even though they've only been friend for about a year now it feels like their bond is incredibly strong. As if they've known each other for years.
Of course she'd never tell Karlie this. She would probably get cocky as hell. But that doesn't means she can't think about it. About Karlie.
She thinks about the fun they've had since her move to New York. When they both have time off they spend every second of it together. Taylor seriously can't get enough of the younger woman. Now that she's actually really thinking about it instead of mindlessly wandering off, reliving weird adventures they'd been on together, she realised tonight definitely was not her first sleepless night. Even long before anything 1989 related was announced to the public or close to coming up she'd lain awake thinking of none other than Karlie Kloss. Now that definitely wasn't something she did with other friends. Especially not the ones she's known for 10 months.
Finally Taylor decides this is not working out. She needs something to help her sleep. In theory chamomile tea is an option, but just the idea of walking all the way downstairs in such a huge apartment makes her feel lonely.
In general it gets kind of lonely. Taylor honestly likes it better when someone else is sleeping there with her, particularly Karlie who has her own room because she'd insisted that this was a vital part of her new home before Taylor had even looked at apartments. (The girl uttering the words 'home' had made her feel bubbly inside. It had just sounded right.) But Karlie's room and bed haven't been slept in for months: Karlie's just slept in Taylor's bed. There's more than enough room in there for at least 4 Karlie's. And why sleep in separate rooms when you're close fiends? That's like a kid's sleepover after it's been ruined by their parents.
Taylor remembers the two of them skipping down the dark hallways, hand in hand, down the carpeted stairs and into the kitchen to get food. Like little kids. They could've just turned the lights on like regular adult but that wouldn't have been one bit as exciting. She kind of wishes Karlie was here to hold her hand now, but she's alone, Meredith and Olivia probably fast asleep in some weird corner of a dusty, boxfilled room.
What else is there? Taylor ponders, in desperate need of some sleep before tomorrow's big day. Her eyes scan the big bedroom for something to get her mind off of things for long enough to allow sleep to take over. After a long sigh she settles for fetching her guitar from under the bed and simply singing something. The feel of the guitar in her hands immediately works as a stress reliever. The strings feel like a second home to her hands as the fingers on her left hand automatically form a g-chord while she allows her right hand to slide across the 6 strings effortlessly. After repeating the process a few times the words start to spill out like they do some nights. Without any effort or thought there's a verse, and then a chorus, and then a bridge, each with their respective variation of words that's on the singer's mind. Some she doesn't even realise are there, but she lets it happen.
She lets go and for a while she forgets she's alone because maybe she isn't. She has this. She has her talents. She has herself and how okay she's been with just that on most days has been the best thing to change in her life recently.
At 3 am Taylor's still singing, fingers aching dully from all the strumming and chord forming. Her eyes are puffy and red and she's not sure if it's because she's not wearing contacts or because she's pouring her heart and soul into what she's singing. She's not recording this. She can't bring herself to stop for even a second to set up her phone.
And she doesn't want to. She concludes as she sings of hair a lot like hers, legs longer and slimmer than hers, eyes nothing like hers, a mind prettier than hers. She sings of roadtrips, and sleepovers, and breakfasts at midnight and losing your breath to the moment. Or to a person.
At 5 am the skin on her left fingers has begun to tear and she's completely and utterly drained. She sniffles as she places the guiter back in its safe spot under her bed. Wiping her tears she lies down, finally at loss for thoughts. She uses the next couple of minutes to steady her breathing, softly rubbing her temples. Realization washes over her in alternating waves of shock and shame.

No one should ever hear any of this.