Work Text:
“For Best Rap Album, the nominees are…”
The female MC’s voice began to muffle out in Clown’s ears as she began to announce a series of names, the heavy pounding of his heart quickly drowning out any outside noise into a background static. All of a sudden, as if someone had stuffed his ears with cotton, the heavy roar of the crowd around him seemed to dissipate around him as the piercing ringing of blood in his ears began to grow louder. His fingers nervously drummed back and forth on his knee, and his eyes began to blur out when his vision clouded over with the flashing beams of bright multicolored stage lights swinging over the stage, all slightly tinted through the black mesh of his mask. The vividly flashing lights did eventually fade out into white and began to obscure together, perhaps from him momentarily zoning out from the excessive amounts of nerves running through his body.
A hand on his arm snapped him out of his uneasy state.
Clown looked up to see the familiar while devil mask of his bandmate, Rasplin, looking at him. Rasplin slightly tilted his head, gently squeezing the flesh of Clown’s bicep in an attempt to calm him down, although out of his peripheral vision he could see that the other man's hand was also shaking, too from nerves. The reassuring grip of the other’s hand did work as a calming pillar through the heavy wool of his suit jacket, though, and the rapid jittering of his limbs began to cease as he took in a couple deep breaths. Moments later, the sound returned to his ears.
“CPVP, ClownPierce and Rasplin!”
His eyes snapped to the stage just in time to see his and Rasplin’s photo come into view on the massive screen above the stage, as well as on the dozens of slightly smaller screens scattered along the perimeter of the arena. The picture was their most recent album cover that had been taken a couple months prior, and even Clown, who wasn’t the biggest fan of photoshoots, had been quite impressed with the turnouts of the prints.
The photoshoot had been taken against a shadowed gray backdrop, and had gone with a ghastly but slightly modernized, royally polished sort of concept. Least to say, both Rasplin and Clown had been immediately intrigued with the idea when approached with the initial plan, and had been pleasantly awed with how well the themes had been seemingly meshed together along with their accustomed ‘killer’ personas.
Clown had been dressed in a wine red Victorian era dress shirt, with frills running along the neckline and down the center of the rich silk garment. A folded collar wrapped around the lightly clothed circumference of his neck, in the same deep shade of red as the rest of the top, pulled tight at the base of his collarbones with two thin ribbons. The long silk sleeves loosely draped over his arms and cinched in at his wrists, giving off a dignified but sort of ‘vintage’ type look, which was fitting. The shirt was loosely tucked into a pair of solid black dress pants and pulled together at the waist by a monochromatic striped belt, a heavy jester-shaped golden buckle at the front. Heavy combat boots rested on his feet, adorned with thick leather straps and multiple buckles in various shades of black, along with a pair of long white silk gloves pulled over his hands and running up under his sleeves. The outfit was completed with a single dangling earring hanging off his left ear, the reflective chain glistening under the studio lights.
Rasplin, on the other hand, wore a vastly voguish version of his character suit. A black corset was pulled around his abdomen over a white silk turtleneck, with extravagantly tied lacing around the back that he had nearly succumbed to a mental breakdown trying to undo after the shoot. A red tie loosely hung around his neck, hanging down over the top of his corset in a polished manner, with the top section of the high neck slightly folded down to mimic the normal collar of a suit shirt. The shirt, similar to Clown’s, had been half-tucked into a pair of dress pants and finished off with an identical pair of combat boots, perfectly stringing in the concepts of a work suit while pulling in many modern fashion trends, in which Rasplin had been willing to try. But instead of silk gloves, his were a solid black, with various embroideries swirling up the backs of his fingers and around his wrists cuffs, the same color as the dozens of dangling silver bracelets decorating up his sleeve-covered arms.
But, of course, the highlight and focus of the photos had been emphasized on the iconic masks the two men bore.
In the rap industry, and within the CPVP fanbase, Clown and Rasplin had always been known for their Killer Clown and White Devil masks. At the very beginning of their music careers, from the very day their first album released to the public, the duo had debuted under an “assassin” or “terrifying” concept and type of icon, with Clown taking up the stage name “ClownPierce” and Rasplin, respectively, “Rasplin.” As their listener count and fandom grew, so did the influence of their masks.
The pair would show up to every interview, photoshoot and filming set with their masks, decked out head-to-toe in various different takes of the circus and suit outfits the two famously dressed themselves in. Even out in public, Rasplin and Clown would wear their masks around, earning them a ‘faceless’ reputation from taking pictures with fans and stopping for the occasional paparazzi with them on.
This concept was still relatively new to the music industry, only having been done a couple times in the past by a select handful of artists. The news of a newly debuted rap duo who seemed to always have clothing covering 100% of their bodies and bearing massive well-detailed masks tied around their heads made its way into the mainstream internet, their debut album rapidly diffusing through different social media platforms as people were drawn to their music and voices. The masks had stuck with them throughout the years after their original debut, and had eventually grown to become notable images on the internet and in the industry.
A few days before, Clown had settled down on their living room floor with a handful of old newspapers and repainted the black X’s that served for eyes on his mask, having put down tape over the mesh in the middle that were the eyeholes to make sure he didn’t drip any paint into them. Similarly, Rasplin had later joined him with a bottle of red paint and a paintbrush to repaint the bloody slash over the right eye of his own mask. The two had gotten a little carried away, and by the time they had come to the realization that the sun had already set and four hours had gone by since they had originally started, the masks had been turned into freshly coated and better versions of themselves. They were the same masks that Clown and Rasplin had donned in the pictures.
Clown’s body had been slightly angled away from the camera, letting some of his cropped black hair peek out from behind his mask. The mask had been slightly pushed off the side of his face, not enough to reveal any skin but just a few degrees to let a lock of hair fall over and frame one of the ears of his jester hat. A singular gloved hand was hanging out of his pocket, with his arm slightly bent at the elbow and thumb hooking over the fabric of his pants while the other was enticingly positioned on Rasplin’s shoulder, the lighting making his already terrifying mask seemingly somehow even more intimidating.
Rasplin stood with his shoulders flush to the camera, with one hand buried into the pocket half hidden behind Clown’s body and the other reaching up to grip the jaw of his devil mask, head tilted a couple degrees to the side to emphasize the crawl of his fingers up the frightening mask. Too, like Clown, Rasplin’s mask had been slightly skewed to the side to let the camera catch a glimpse of the small ponytail tied at the base of his neck, the black hair fading into a deep red rendering fully visible.
Both of them were quite tall, standing at around 184 cm, but with the combined effort of both the boots and the camera angle used their height to create an even more intimidating sight.
The picture had gone viral just a few days after its initial release, with fans having gone crazy over their body proportions and outfit choices, and they had received hundreds of positive comments about the fashionable choice of clothing and well-used positioning of their masks. With the attention came with a large influx of new fans, and the duo had never felt so grateful for a single photoshoot as the views on their music videos shot up and the listens on their songs grew.
By no means were they an overnight sensation, as they hadn’t just suddenly become famous out of pure luck. No, they had worked their way up like all deserving artists, having used their original songs and talents to create a name for themselves in the music industry with every new single, release, video or album, and the payoff for all their sleepless nights and hard work was so much more than either of them had ever imagined.
The crowd began to scream even louder when the photo displayed on the screen zoomed in on their masked faces, where Clown’s messy black hair and Rasplin’s two-toned ponytail came into a clearer view, eliciting a small huff of laughter from Clown’s lips.
He looked over at Rasplin and noticed that the other man’s shoulders were faintly shaking from laughter, in which Clown also began to chuckle at behind his mask. He truly did love their fans, and all of the neverending support that always kept flowing in for him and Rasplin for their career as CPVP. They still had a long way to go, and still had a long road ahead of them to walk before they could truly reach the top, but the attention that they had already received already made Clown eternally grateful to everyone who supported them, from his friends, family, fans, and to their production team.
But right now, winning the award had his full focus.
When he and Rasplin had first received the news that CPVP had been nominated for “Best Rap Album of the Year”, the two of them had been over the moon with joy, having never before been a candidate for such a prestigious award. In previous years, the two of them had been nominated for a handful of other awards in smaller categories, but had never won. They hadn’t been too upset or discouraged, as the losses had only encouraged them to work harder to win them in the future, and this was the first time they would be under such an important spotlight, whether they won or not.
The news had been sudden, yes, but considering the success of their most recent album, ‘Love Killer’, a couple months ago, it hadn’t just sprung up out of the blue.
Earlier in the year, CPVP had released a full length album that had been in the works for a year beforehand, which had broken all of their previous presale records in record time just within a few hours of the announcement. The title track had risen to #17 in the chart just a few days after it’s release before peaking at #3 two weeks later, an incredible feat for them considering that their previous highest-ranking song had peaked at #37.
The internet had gone wild over Rasplin’s raspy voice and Clown’s deep vocals, perhaps because such things had been largely popular in the media during recent years. Whichever reason it had been, Clown and Rasplin couldn’t have been more happy with the outcome.
So now, there he was, sitting with his bandmate on a raised platform, along with many other famous musical artists in a massive stadium with their names being displayed across a screen in front of millions of people, both in person and through virtual livestream.
Clown’s eyes scanned over the vast sea of cheering people around him, the sheer size of it all making him wonder if all of it was a dream. If it was, what an amazing allusion it was, he thought. From his view, he could see phone flashlights being waved around in the crowd all around him, the loud screaming of fans calling out their names and the rumble of clapping drowning out his hearing, and the shining lights of the stage as his clown mask stared back at him from the stage.
It all felt surreal.
He turned his attention back to the stage, where it seemed as if the MC had finished announcing the list of nominees and was now passing a folded card to the other MC standing next to her. He took it in his hands and tapped the mic with it.
The crowd hushed, and Clown reached over the table to take a hold of Rasplin’s wrist, watching as his head turned towards him. For a few seconds, the two of them nervously stared at each other through their masks for the few suspenseful seconds before the MC opened his mouth.
“And the winner of the ‘Best Rap Album of the Year’ is… “
This was it. Everything they had worked for in the past few years had led up to this moment. All the sleepless nights, early mornings in the recording studio, late-night songwriting sessions and unhealthy amounts of caffeine dosage had all gotten them a chance to be where they sat at the moment…and if the odds could just be in the favor again…
“...CPVP! Congratulations!”
They had done it.
All of a sudden, a spotlight shone over their heads and momentarily blinding Clown as their album title track began to play throughout the stadium. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest when the realization hit him, and was briefly frozen in his seat with the MC’s voice ringing in his ears.
They had done it. They had truly done it.
Rasplin immediately jumped up out of his seat, pulling Clown into a bone-crushing hug, jumping up and down in excitement as he yelled something unintelligible in Clown’s ear. Clown could only hear both his and Rasplin’s heartbeats loudly booming in their rib cages over the deafening roar of the crowd and hugged the other man back, hastily adjusting his chin over Rasplin’s shoulder to avoid smashing the ears of his mask into the side of the other man’s head.
“We did it, Clown, we did it!” Rasplin yelled so loud that his voice wasn’t even muffled behind the mask, and Clown realized that this was single handedly the most excited he had ever heard his bandmate sound in his life.
His heart rate shot up as he embraced Rasplin back for a few seconds before pulling back and tightly taking a hold of the other’s shoulders, tightly clutching the wool of his suit as he shook him back and forth in elation.
With a million thoughts racing through his head and adrenaline levels going through the roof, he thanked the other artists on the same platform for their congratulations and headed down the LED-lined ramps leading to the stage with Rasplin beside him, enthusiastically waving to fans and pointing to signs with his and/or Rasplin’s names or icons drawn across them.
His heart was about ready to combust with joy by the time they reached the steps of the stage, and both of them were internally shaking with excitement as a dozen cameras followed their figures as they crossed the stage to where MidMystic and Leowook, the MCs, were waiting with a trophy in Mid’s hands and a smiles on their faces.
They took turns shaking hands before Clown bowed and took the trophy from Mid’s hands, turning it over in awe and passing it to Rasplin as he took his place beside him in front of the mic stand.
From this angle, he could see everything. From the flashing lights of the crowd filling up the massive stadium to the dozens of other raised platforms where other artists sat, the process of taking it all in nearly brought tears to his eyes.
It seemed as if Rasplin was having the same thoughts as himself, seeing as his body had gone almost immobile as his mask slowly moved back and forth over the screaming crowd.
Their song playing through the speakers began to fade out and Rasplin tilted his head down to speak, but stopped before looking back into the crowd to recollect himself.
“Hey everyone!” he spoke into the mic, making the crowd cheer even louder. Clown looked to the side to see the blood-streaked devil mask zoomed in on every screen in the stadium with his clown mask visible over his bandmate’s shoulder, which came off as quite an undeniably sharp sight.
“Um…I honestly really don’t know what to say right now, I think both me and ClownPierce are still in states of shock right now” Rasplin jokingly confessed, bringing out many shouts of laughter from the audience. Clown nodded in agreement, which only spurred the audience’s reaction along even louder.
“But I’d like to start with saying that we would like to thank each and every one of you that have supported us and propelled us forward with your endless support from the bottom of our hearts. Ah…it’s really crazy to think that we are even standing here right now, with such a special trophy now in our hands,” Rasplin took a look at the sparkling award in his hand, “and I’d like to think that we were given this award from everyone who believed in us. Thinking back to all the times we pushed ourselves past our limits to produce the best music and bring out the best of ourselves to you all, I can’t help but wonder if this is all an illusion, or a fidget of my imagination. This is crazy, it really is, and never in me or Clown’s wildest dreams have we ever imagined that we would be here accepting an award on this stage.” He paused for a moment while the crowd applauded even louder, before putting a hand to his heart and bending down again.
“I’d like to thank Clown, our production crew, our friends and family as well as fans for being my pride and joy. We’ll continue to work hard for you all, and I love you!” Rasplin cheered while raising the trophy next to his face and waving to the camera with his other hand as the audience continued to scream.
Rasplin then looked beside him at Clown before gently nudging the trophy into his hands and stepping backwards to let the other step up to the mic stand.
So Clown positioned himself behind the microphone and gripped the handle in one hand and the trophy in the other, taking in a deep breath before formulating his speech.
“Hello everyone!” he said in his well-known calm voice, the sound echoing throughout the entire stadium. The screams got even louder at this, and continued until he jokingly lifted a gloved finger to the mouth of his mask.
“As Rasplin already said, we’re both incredibly grateful for everyone who supported and loved us to even give us the chance to be standing where we are right now…honestly it’s even insane for me to think that I'm even giving this speech right now” he laughed.
“We put our blood, sweat and tears into ‘Love Killer’ to try to give our fans the music and album they deserved, and now thinking back on it, I think that’s always been our top priority. Believe it or not, Rasplin and I try our very best to read every single comment on our videos and posts to try to give and become the best for our fans, and I think that type of thought process and mentality is the main backbone of our careers as musicians and the reason we get up every morning. So to our fans, supporters, and of course Rasplin,” Rasplin laughed, “I love you all” he finished, feeling as if a large weight had been lifted off his shoulders as he stepped backwards and held out the trophy between them.
Mid clapped her hands as the crowd was still fired up, looking at her cue card before speaking into her microphone.
“We asked the fans what their most popular question was, and they said, when will you both show your faces?”
Clown and Rasplin looked at each other at the sudden question before an idea sprang into Clown’s head. He looked at Mid, who just shrugged at him with the cue card in her hand, before stepping back up to the mic.
“I’m sorry everyone, but this face is reserved for someone special” he announced to the stadium, the smirk audible in his voice as everyone, including Rasplin, shrieked in shock at his answer.
“For your partner, perhaps?” he heard Leowook ask.
Clown heard Rasplin laugh behind him.
“My boyfriend, yeah.”
It was decently known within the CPVP fandom that ClownPierce had a boyfriend of his own, seeing that he hadn’t exactly been subtle in trying to hide the fact, or who it was. He occasionally received both calls and messages from his lover while on livestream or in the process of filming a video, and never bothered to hide the identity or gender of his partner.
Especially since his boyfriend was another celebrity.
Clown’s face broke out into a massive smile as the cameras panned away from the stage, and the face of a pretty white-haired man filled the screen.
Branzy, also known as ClownPierce’s boyfriend of three years, was the drummer of a boy band called ‘The Othersiders’ who had made their debut into the music world at around the same time as CPVP. The other members of the band consisted of Terrain, a flutist, Subz, a bassist, and their leader and vocalist, Vitalasy.
The two had met by chance almost four years prior backstage at a rookie’s musician show in New York City. Clown had been trying to tie together the ribbons of his mask in front of a mirror in the dressing room when Branzy and his bandmates had burst into the room in a flurry of noise and voices. The sudden racket had startled him so bad that he dropped the ribbons of the unfinished knot behind his head, snarling them together.
The man had desperately tried to claw the now messed-up ribbons out of their tangled state in his hair, but to no avail. Rasplin had been somewhere else at the time, most likely checking out the venue, so Clown had no one to help him with his dilemma.
When he looked back up at the mirror again, he saw that all of the Othersiders apart from their drummer had situated themselves in a corner near the clothing racks, now seemingly huddled around one of their members, watching a video playing on his phone.
Branzy had noticed Clown’s situation and had slowly walked over to the younger man standing in front of the mirror, his gray eyes flitting up to meet the X’s of Clown’s mask.
He had stopped a few respectful feet behind Clown to avoid making him feel uncomfortable, smiling at him in the mirror as he wordlessly lifted his hands up behind the ravenette’s head, eyes asking him a nonverbal question.
Clown had nodded and dropped his hands to his sides, brain slightly short-circuiting as Branzy’s nimble fingers curled into his hair and began to work out the knot of the ribbons, smoothly unwinding the ribbons from each other before retying it, pulling the two ends tight before tying the rest of the excess into a small bow.
“Thanks, Branzy” he had managed to mumble out, his mind having been too far entranced by the way Branzy’s eyes narrowed when we was focused and the way his wavy white hair was styled in a way that made it seem as if it was a halo surrounding his head to say anything else.
Branzy had laughed, the very laugh that had implemented itself into Clown’s mind and couldn’t get out of his head for days after their first meeting, and smiled, and that’s when Clown realized that Branzy had dimples.
“No problem, ClownPierce. Sorry about the startle we gave you, I hope we didn’t scare you too much. Although I don’t think anything much would scare you, I think you’re the scary one with that mask, no offense, of course.”
Clown had let out a low chuckle and shook his head.
Later, after a long week of performances and schedules, and when all the events had wrapped up and the artists were granted full freedom to go out and explore the city for the remaining time, Clown had approached Branzy asking for his number. To his surprise, the older man had said yes without any hesitation.
From there, a relationship had blossomed, and their surprising dynamic together had quickly grown to be something Clown loved. They balanced each other out well, like two puzzle pieces fitting together, with Branzy’s naturally energetic personality balancing out well with Clown’s more calm type of mature, and vice versa. From then on, Branzy had always been the battery of Clown’s life while Clown kept Branzy’s energy in check, making sure that his boyfriend wouldn’t overexert himself.
Surprisingly, the internet had taken it quite well.
Branzy visibly jumped when he saw his face on the screen and realized that he was on camera, Subz’s laughing face coming into view in the frame as he fell over Branzy’s shoulder in laughter at his reaction. On his other side, Vitalasy’s orange hair could be seen on the edge of the frame as he started nudging one of Branzy’s shoulders.
Branzy turned his head to look at the camera and widened his eyes, sending the crowd crazy as he threw up a peace sign and grinned even wider.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Clown said into the mic, feeling quite proud of himself as he sent the stadium into a screaming frenzy and Branzy began to laugh, his eyes sparkling with laughter. The man’s lips curled into a kissy face and he blew a kiss towards the stage before he flushed and turned his head away from the camera, where it then zoomed out to capture the rest of the Othersiders as they were doubling over in their seats failing to suppress their laughter.
The crowd howled in laughter, and Clown couldn’t help but grin behind his mask as Rasplin playfully pushed his shoulder and said something that was barely audible over the wave of noise.
“Honestly, I think you guys just did something even more iconic than a face reveal.”