unilive

@FanLit Thank you! 👍 It was a fun and compelling chapter to write. I kept thinking that I was basically just writing about things I'd already written about, so I just tried to make sure it wasn't boring and was still fun to read. August 2021 might be difficult to write, and sometimes I seriously wonder if it's worth it. But if I feel like writing it for myself, then I will. I'm gonna be honest, I haven't even started yet. Since the beginning of the story, I've never been able to start a new chapter until the previous one was published. I think I need to let go of it before I can move on to the next one.

@VBlew Thanks for telling me you liked, it, you and @FanLit are the only one to tell me, so that's good because I'd probably have lost all my motivations to write more otherwise. To be honest, I almost didn't write this one, but I don't regret it now. I really enjoyed writing it for myself. and no, Rob going to L.A was way before when they broke up in 2017... even I had to check the date... because you know what, I had to make a timeline to keep up with my own characters because even I get lost sometimes 😆 if you wanna know all my secrets, here's my timeline, a bit simplified: June 2008: Mark and Robbie are 18 and U-N-I starts recording its first album in Dublin. June 2009: The band's first album is released and becomes an immediate success. Summer 2009: The band moves to London, begins touring, and starts recording its second album. January 2011: The band buys the seven-apartment building in Notting Hill where they still live today. March 2011: U-N-I releases its second album. March 2011 – September 2012: The band goes on its first world tour. Throughout 2013: The band begins work on its third album. September 2013: Mark and Robbie are forced to come out publicly, Mark finds out about James Throughout 2014: Recording continues and the band collaborates with other artists 2015: The third album is released and becomes another worldwide success. September 2016: Their world tour ends and they start working on their fourth album and things start to fall apart. Summer 2017: Mark and Rob take a break and get back together in September 2019: huge world tour starts. July 2019: Mark and Robbie get married while on tour September 2019: They appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show while the band is at the height of its success and continue touring. May 2020: birthdays in London June – July 2020: concerts across Europe. October 2020: The world tour comes to an end. January 2021: they go in Turks and Caicos. February 2021: Rachel and Damon welcome their son, Callum. April 2021: Rob and Mark appear on Le Quotidien while they do a few acoustic shows in a few european cities May – July 2021: Mark records his French EP while the band continues working on its fifth acoustic album. Mid-July 2021: Mark releases his French EP. Late August 2021: won’t say what happened here. August – November 2021: everyting stops November 2021: Mark French songs have become very popular Christmas 2021: The band returns to the studio, resumes work on the album, and Mark and Robbie decide to start a family. January 2022: Mark and Robbie begin their journey to become parents. January – June 2022: Mark writes new French songs while the fifth album continues to evolve. June 2022: Their surrogate becomes pregnant. June – December 2022: Recording continues as the French EP gradually becomes a full album. December 2022: The fifth acoustic album is released January 2023: Mark performs three special concerts at Salle Pleyel in Paris. March 23, 2023: Magie is born April – September 2023: The band focuses on family life October 2023: Filming begins for The Voice France. November 2023: Gráinne becomes pregnant. February – May 2024: The Voice France airs on television. March 2024: Magie turns one August 2024: Jordan and Gráinne welcome their daughter. Throughout 2024: The band writes and records its sixth album. March 2025: The sixth album is released as Callum turns four and Magie turns two. May 2025: Promotion for the new album begins. June – september 2025: The band starts touring again for the first time since Magie was born. April 2026: The world tour for the sixth album continues

Wow, 39 chapters! 😂 I should probably just write one more and be done with it.

ROBBIE’S POINT OF VIEW – January 2026 Mark came up behind me, and I felt his arm slide slowly around my waist, his fingers brushing teasingly against my skin as I fixed drinks by the outdoor bar for a couple of our friends. I was barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of navy speedos. “You forgot your cap by the pool,” he laughed, dropping it onto my head. A fan had thrown it onto the stage. Rainbow stripes across the front, ‘Sounds Gay, I'm In’ stitched above the brim. It wasn't e

ROBBIE’S POINT OF VIEW – January 2026 Mark came up behind me, and I felt his arm slide slowly around my waist, his fingers brushing teasingly against my skin as I fixed drinks by the outdoor bar for a couple of our friends. I was barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of navy speedos. “You forgot your cap by the pool,” he laughed, dropping it onto my head. A fan had thrown it onto the stage. Rainbow stripes across the front, ‘Sounds Gay, I'm In’ stitched above the brim. It wasn't e

I tried generating pictures for this chapter, I like it... from left to right: Mark, Amel, Hoshi, Mika

Or you can vote and leave a review, that'd be so cool 👍🏻😅☺️

@VBlew thank you for leaving a comment, always nice to get a positive reaction 👌🏻

Yeah, I originally wanted to start a new series for these chapters, but then I realised it'd probably be better to post them in the original story so people following it would actually get notified. Now I have no idea what the right thing to do is, so I ended up posting them in both. 😆

I'd say Mark is allowing himself to be happy 🙂 I love the fact that you know U-N-I better than you know Coldplay at this point 😂 Excellent. Sometimes, I wish they were real because I love them more than I love Coldplay 😂 Yeah, but will I keep writing, though? Even I don't know the answer to that, to be honest... I'll probably keep writing for myself as long as I enjoy it. . But let's just say there's a reason that line is there. 😉 Sadly, there aren't many readers, so sometimes I feel a bit silly for even wanting to write more. But at this point these characters have been living in my head for so long that I don't think they're getting rid of me that easily. And yeah, I'd already written in the conclusion that Jordan and Grainne had a six-month-old daughter, so that fit the timeline for this chapter perfectly. And let's be honest, Jordan was always going to freak out. 😆

It was November 2023, Rob said he’d come on Monday or Tuesday, but when I spoke to him that morning, he sounded very relaxed about it, like nothing was really decided yet, just something that might happen if it suited him. There was something a little strange too. Nothing obvious but every time I asked when he was coming, he’d quickly change the subject and start talking about Magie instead. He’d tell me how she was doing, put her on camera, and share little stories about her. To be fair,

It was November 2023, Rob said he’d come on Monday or Tuesday, but when I spoke to him that morning, he sounded very relaxed about it, like nothing was really decided yet, just something that might happen if it suited him. There was something a little strange too. Nothing obvious but every time I asked when he was coming, he’d quickly change the subject and start talking about Magie instead. He’d tell me how she was doing, put her on camera, and share little stories about her. To be fair,

Isn't mature content less accessible because readers need to become members? Or has it always been like that?

Great!! Since I came back to the site, i noticed there seems to be less readers than before. I thought because I hadn't updated my story in a few years so it makes sense, readers have moved on, unlike me 😂 but I noticed that other newly posted stories had a very low number of views. are there less readers than before on gayauthors ? Aw, what happens if you edit a story, do readers get a notification ? I hope not because ive edited my story way too many times recently 😆

Not many readers left I'm afraid, but I'm still having fun with them, so I added this today to the chapter: Another video Rachel posted that fans loved was footage from our latest “breakup anniversary,” back before she got pregnant. Ever since Rachel and I broke up, I’d made a habit of taking her out once a year to celebrate it, usually by choosing something I knew she’d hate. That year, I took her to one of those restaurants suspended in the air where they strap you into a chair before lifting the whole table hundreds of feet off the ground. Rachel filmed the staff fastening the harness over her shoulders while she stared up at the guy securing the straps. “Has anyone ever died on this?” she asked him. The guy didn’t even hesitate. “Unfortunately no.” You could hear me laughing before we’d even left the ground. Later in the video, we were already up in the air, Rachel sitting perfectly stiff beside me and refusing to look anywhere except straight ahead. “Let’s look down together, okay?” I told her. “No.” “Come on, you can do it. On three.” “I hate you.” I counted anyway. She looked down for maybe half a second before jerking back with a horrified expression on her face while I gasped, my hand over my mouth because I already knew she’d freak out. At the end of dinner, the staff brought us a little cake with Happy Anniversary written across it in icing. Rachel filmed me immediately throwing an arm around her shoulders while we posed with it like a happy couple, me holding up my wedding ring for the camera, very much married to Rob. The comments under that video were full of people envying how Rachel and I had gone from teenage boyfriend and girlfriend to the fun straight girl and gay guy duo we were now. **** Sometimes, she was the one choosing the activity, though, and she was a lot nicer to me. After the reaction to the breakup anniversary video, she posted a few more old clips she knew fans would love. Most of them were just stupid little moments of all of us together, showing sides of us people never really saw, like one video of Rob, Damon and me arguing for nearly five minutes about whether having scales would make us fish or reptiles, and whether mermaids counted as fish while dragons counted as reptiles … fascinating stuff … Or me lecturing Rob jokingly after he broke my suitcase and exploded toothpaste inside it in Japan trying to cram a giant stuffed Pokémon between the two already closed sides, like he had already done with his own suitcase, while Jordan sat there laughing as he watched me go and on about it until I walked out the room to go buy myself a new suitcase. And, of course, Rachel had posted another video she’d filmed during another one of our breakup anniversaries that started with me walking into her apartment in London while she was waiting by the door with her keys in one hand and her phone in the other. “Oh, good,” she said immediately. “You’re wearing something that can get dirty.” Once we were in the car, I kept trying to guess where she was taking me. “Painting in the park?” “No.” “Pottery?” “No. Just drive,” she said, giving me directions. When I pulled into a gravel parking lot somewhere outside the city, I climbed out of the car and stopped for a second. Rachel was still filming while I looked around before saying carefully, in French, “Ça sent le crotin de cheval.” Rachel gasped immediately, realizing I’d said it smelled like horses. “I got it right?” She nodded, laughing. “No way,” I said immediately, already sounding excited. “That’s so cool.” The video ended with Rachel filming us galloping across a field together.

I added a scene with Mark's family in this chapter. Thought that'd be a nice addition.

@FanLit Yes, exactly… I love that about them, because Rob pushes Mark out of his comfort zone, but Mark pushes Rob too throughout the story, through the songs he writes and what he expects from him, and there’s no ego in it, just love.

@FanLit Thanks for commenting, as usual I love your comments. I know there aren’t many people still reading, but I still really enjoy coming back to the story anyway. What you said about Mark is probably why I loved writing this chapter so much, and why it felt so easy to write. I really loved writing the fans’ comments, I always do, it’s not the first time, because it shows how they see them… and especially how they see Mark. Not just as the guitarist and main songwriter, but as a real artist. They see something in him that he hasn’t fully embraced yet. And even though he’s never wanted the spotlight, and would rather just play guitar, write music, and be on stage with his friends, because yes, they mean everything to him, and that’s what makes him feel safe… At the same time, now that he’s older, it kind of feels like it’s time for him to come out a bit more. Not to leave the band or anything, just to let that side of him exist too. And Rob pushing him is really fun to write, but it’s also important. He doesn’t force him, he just doesn’t let him hide anymore, especially now that they’re older. This chapter actually happened because of Loïc Nottet’s song. I already had the idea, but he came back to Dancing with the Stars after 10 years and danced to his own song, and when I listened to the lyrics again… it honestly felt like Mark had whispered them to him. It was just too perfect not to write. I’ll see if inspiration strikes again, there’s still the three weeks part… I’m not really sure how/if I’m going to write it yet, because it wasn’t a fixed idea when I wrote the conclusion. I guess I’ll see what comes. So yeah… I’m really glad I waited five years to write this, because I wrote it for myself, and it just felt so easy.

@VBlew 😂 Yes , it kind of demanded to be out in the World! You should all go and listen to Loic Nottet now! Mark may be scared, but I'd say fate has its own plans for him, dragging him more into the light, whether he's ready or not.

I woke up to a phone vibrating somewhere between the sheets. Rob and I were still half-asleep, tangled together, and I seriously considered ignoring it until it stopped but Rob groaned, and I felt his hand searching for where the noise was coming from. He found it before I did and glanced at the screen. “It’s Tom,” he sighed. “Get it.” I checked the time. It was almost ten in the morning, a reasonable time to call, technically, but we’d fallen asleep around three so it still fell too

I woke up to a phone vibrating somewhere between the sheets. Rob and I were still half-asleep, tangled together, and I seriously considered ignoring it until it stopped but Rob groaned, and I felt his hand searching for where the noise was coming from. He found it before I did and glanced at the screen. “It’s Tom,” he sighed. “Get it.” I checked the time. It was almost ten in the morning, a reasonable time to call, technically, but we’d fallen asleep around three so it still fell too

Hey, because I sent you a few emails but you didn't respond and you said in your email in december that it took you almost an hour to get into your emails... so I put two and two together...

yeah i have no idea what happened with this chapter, i just kept writing and writing and writing. If you remember the first draft i sent you in december, it was literally just the beginning. but i actually love how it turned out, and it kinda made me want to write another one right after! Editing? whyyyy?

@ShadowDweller wait—you’re back too?? i lowkey thought you died 😇 or just lost access to your email since december, which felt just as likely tbh Yeah i’m back too I guess. I missed Rob and Mark lol. Unfortunately my readers didn’t really come back, but honestly it’s fine, i’m just having fun with it. edits? what edits, I don't see anything, you're gonna have to me more specific. But at the same time, does it even matter!

@FanLit I had a feeling you were going to say that.😆 I haven’t written in five years, but lately I’ve really been wanting to again. The thing is, I don’t feel like I have a completely new story in me, it's always been about U-N-I and honestly, I love writing about Rob and Mark. They’re my favorites. Creating A.I pictures was fun too. I started by reworking the original story, adding a few things here and there. Then I tried writing from Damien’s point of view, which was actually really fun, and now this little chapter just kind of happened. I wasn’t even sure about posting it, because it doesn’t seem like there’s much interest anymore, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself. But I guess if I keep writing, I'll have to try to write about the three weeks, I think i'll write just for me, and maybe a handful of people who might still enjoy it along the way.