Work Text:
click, click, click.
Sett shouldn’t find it odd that he’s hearing the noise this late at night, and yet he does. It’s weird, and takes him out of his brief dreaming. He cracks an eye open, finding the darkness of his shared room staring back, with only the dim glow of Aphelios’ desktop lighting the room.
click, click, click.
Incessant typing. He’s still awake.
Sett knows it’s an ungodly time of the morning even before he rolls over to check the time on his clock. It’s almost three in the morning, his fluorescent clock reminds him, long after Yone’s hard ‘recommendation’ for the band to sleep. He needs to be up in a few hours to hit the gym with K’Sante, but he’d been woken anyway. Surprising, he wasn’t usually an incredibly light sleeper, so it’s all the more odd that Aphelios’ typing had woken him up.
The part that isn’t unusual is Aphelios being up this late. He’s not sure how much sleep he needed to function but it was less than the traditional eight hours. Or maybe he did need it and hid it behind an unholy amount of caffeine, likely not dissimilar to others in the band like Yone. Aphelios was significantly more of a night owl than he was, but he was so quiet with his work Sett could rarely tell he was still awake when he dozed off to sleep.
Considering how often and how unpredictable it was, Sett’s running theory was that he was an insomniac, something he hadn’t yet brought up to him, but something he worried about on nights like these. When Sett would go down and Aphelios would work late into the night with no end in sight. Not every night, but the closer they got to the Paranoia drop date, it was more often. It went from once or twice a week to three or four. Sett would say good night, Aphelios would sign it back, with no sign of stopping in front of his monitor. What he was working on was anyone’s guess, but Sett had chosen not to pry. If he was going to share, he would.
He hadn’t.
A few times, Sett had caught him in the dredges of the morning, when he was barely waking and Aphelios was going to sleep finally, rolling over in his comforter in the clothes he’d just worn the day prior.
He’d be awake again within the next few hours, sipping on something out of his bottle as the bags under his eyes grew darker against his pale skin.
Their recycling bin was becoming a graveyard of energy drink cans that we’re threatening to pull a Thriller on them. Sett wondered if Aphelios’ bloodstream was closer to being made of caffeine than water.
click, click, click.
He sits up, eyes focusing in the dark room when he squints. Lights flicker by outside their window, cars passing by. He thinks it’s beginning to light to dawn outside.
Aphelios has been at it since this afternoon, the rhythmic typing giving way to erratic clicking shortly before he’d gone to sleep. The window on his screen changes into a darker one, filled with lines and tools Sett could barely understand himself. The rapid changing between each screen is blinding almost. The last he’d asked, he’d been fiddling with the pitch of the song before they recorded the music video, rewriting a lyric here or there. He and Yone had been talking for ages before he’d come back late after noon.
The fact he’s still perched in his desk chair, one leg pulled to his chest and headphones haphazardly hanging on one of his ears is somehow distressing. Sett’s not sure he’s eaten much today, or moved.
He’d told him to just leave it when Sett had asked him to join them for dinner hours prior, eyes never quite leaving the screen. There was a nervous energy about him as he fidgeted with the black nail polish adorned on his nails, but realizing he stubbornly wasn’t going to get up, Sett’d given him the space he desired and come back with a bowl later.
It’s still there, he notes, rice in a blue bowl with the steak likely congealing into something unknown to man.
It’s untouched. He hasn’t eaten.
click, click, click.
“Phel?” He asks, voice drowsy in the night. Aphelios doesn’t notice or hear him, the clicking increasing in volume and speed. He’s typing something now, Sett notices as he gets up from his mattress. A note perhaps, he erases it. Types it again. Scrolls elsewhere. Rinses. Repeats. Again and again until Sett walks over to him, realizing it’s the same notes from earlier in the day that Yone had presented to them. Notes about the video and filming. Something in red text, something in green text. Another in blue.
It’s maddening, the way he swaps between tasks. The clicking gets harder, more erratic, more frustrated. He can’t see his expression but he’s seen the focus that overtakes Aphelios when he gets busy before. The crinkle between his brow, the way he holds his mouth in a hard line, lip pulled in by his teeth.
His hands are quivering over the keyboard in a brief moment of clarity. Like his arm locks up, he barely acknowledges it, shaking out his hand before returning to work.
“Phel,” Sett repeats, gently resting a hand on the back of his chair. Aphelios doesn’t respond, and Sett notes it’s the instrumental playing through his headphones. He’s still editing it. Changing parts of the song, reversing changes, doing something else to it that Sett doesn’t process. The colors swirl in the darkness and Sett blinks his eyes to get the sleep out of them. He hesitates with a hand above Aphelios’ shoulder, before realizing he’s not going to get through to him if he doesn’t do anything short of shaking him out of his stupor. Sett rarely touches him, if ever. He shrinks away from it every time he has, not out of annoyance but likely out of a dislike for the action. He’s only ever comfortably been near enough to touch towards Alune.
Aphelios slamming his hand down on the desk as a line of letters takes over a document throws Sett out of his thoughts, setting his heart racing in the relative silence of their room. He throws off his headphones, they go clattering onto the desk. He holds his head in his hands, breathing hard as he knocks an energy drink can out of the way.
“Phel.”
Aphelios hears him this time, jumping in his seat as he turns towards Sett over his shoulder. His crimson eyes are blown wide, pupils widening rapidly to pools of black in the dark. The whites of his eyes have colored red from strain, they’re bloodshot upon further investigation. They pause like that for a second, like Aphelios just now recognizes Sett is there, realizing he’s not alone. He relaxes, shaking his head and the hair out of his eyes. He looks at his hands, flexing his fingers before reaching for his phone.
“Did I wake you?”
“No, no not really,” Sett answers. He looks exhausted. The pale light of this computer reflects off his face, washing him out. The shadows drawn across his features make him look gaunt, makes the bags under his eyes all the more heavier. He blinks a few times, rubbing his eyes before looking back at his screen, “How long have you been working on…this, man?”
“Long enough.”
“You haven’t eaten yet?” Sett asks, pointing towards the full bowl still on his desk. Aphelios glances at it, shaking his head. He was right on that front, but there’s no way it’s edible at this point. He figures the few wrappers of likely granola bars and candy that litter the floor made up most of his caloric intake for the day. Sett picks up one of the cans that litter his desk, turning it over in his hands before smiling ruefully, “I guess at least you’re hydrated, but there’s no way this is sustainable.”
“I cannot fuck this up,” Aphelios types back, waving a hand at his desktop, seemingly ignoring Sett’s comments at his eating habits. He sways back until he’s slumping against his desk chair, “I have to get this finished. Just, need a minute.”
“It’s already done, isn’t it?” Sett asks, remembering the meeting they’d had earlier in the day. It was a solid plan. It was done, it had to be. They were about to start filming in the next few days. What could he still be working on at this hour?, “Game plan’s all there. Music’s done. What’re you working on?”
Aphelios pauses with his thumbs over his phone. He just stares at Sett, his gaze almost empty. Like he’s briefly fallen asleep with his eyes open before he launches back into typing on his phone, “I know. But it has to be perfect. I cannot let this fail. Would never forgive myself if I did.”
“You know it’s gonna be good, Phel. What’re you worrying so much about?” Sett asks, now curious and slightly worried about his roommate, his friend. He knew Aphelios tended to be slightly more of a perfectionist than others. Point blank in the days before his desk had been in Yone level order, bed sheets pulled up like a hospital bed. He’d practice until his instrumentals were without fault, his fingers flying over his electric keyboard with an air of ease, But the behavior now seemed relatively incongruent with past experiences. The cans, the forgotten dinners, the hours stretching into dawn spent in of his desktop. Especially with his almost laser focus in on whatever had garnered his attention for the last few days, bordering on self destructive. Aphelios won’t meet his eyes.
Their bedroom has finally gone silent. The line awaiting more of Aphelios’ thoughts has stilled, ever blinking on the monitor. They both stare at it, as if it’s the only thing that exists.
“I cannot let this go wrong, Sett,” Aphelios signing instead, slow and sluggish, “My career got screwed up once. I am not doing it again.”
Sett frowns. So that’s what was fueling the anxiety, the maddening typing and working into the wee hours of the morning. Shame over losing what he once had, fear of losing it all over again while they were on the cusp of something big. He gets it, he thinks it’s part of the reason all of their nerves have been running high the last couple of days. Sett softens his voice, “You losing your voice wasn’t your fault. Not even close.”
“I am aware.” Aphelios answers.
“You don’t have to compensate for it by running yourself ragged in the middle of the night.”
Aphelios stops and starts a sentence a few times, turning his head away from Sett. His hair hides his eyes from view, as if he’s folding into himself before Sett can pick him apart, “If I do not, who will?”
“Someone that isn’t you, at three in the morning, about to strain your eyes out their sockets,” He responds, “Leave whatever’s left to Yone to figure out. Whatever happens, happens at this point. They’ll love us or hate us, or even let us fade into obscurity. But it matters because we tried.” Sett says, smiling a little. He’s not sure it’d lift his spirits any, considering sleep is threatening to take him again then and there, but his friend needs him right now.
He’s seen Aphelios focused, seen him happy even, seen him upset with someone. But he doesn’t think he’s ever seen him this…dejected. Miserable even. His sweater hangs off his shoulder, t-shirt rumpled beneath it. Has he changed out of his outfit in the last fee days?
“If I am working on it, it cannot go wrong. And if I have to work until—“
Sett cuts him off, “Until what, Phel? Until you run out of steam? I doubt I’ve seen you sleep recently, and you’re compensating for it with an amount of caffeine no health org could ever recommend. You’re gonna crash and burn, I’ve seen it happen to so many people before.”
“I am not other people,” His gaze hardens into something bordering frustration, but now that Aphelios is no longer working, his exhaustion is becoming all the more apparent. From here, standing above him at almost a head or two above him, Aphelios looks positively worn out. There’s no way he isn’t completely fried, but he tries to put the mask that follows him around back on, resetting his hands to function, “I can handle it.”
“Does this look like handling it, Phel?” Sett asks, gesturing at his desk and Aphelios himself. Sett wonders briefly about the life that Aphelios had lead as a solo artist. Wonders about the life that shaped him into someone that would drive himself mad like this. The anxiety that is slowly tearing him apart, he’s seen it in plenty of other artists. Hell, he thinks he’s had nights like this before where everything feels wrong. Feels like it’s going wrong and that the world is spiralling out his control.
His tended to be more explicitly destructive though.
He doesn’t know what to do with something he can’t force himself to fix.
“I know myself, Sett. I apologize if I woke you but you do not need to worry,” Aphelios responds, entirely ignoring his question. He’s pulling away from him. He pushes a strand of hair back behind his ear, fiddling with his headphones, straightening and preparing to turn back around his desk chair.
Sett stops him, preventing his chair from turning with one hand on the back of it. Aphelios quirks an eyebrow, surprised.
“I’m not letting you go back to work like this.”
“And you get to decide that?” Aphelios asks, furrowing his brow, “I know my limits.”
Sett hesitates. He holds his grip on the back of his desk chair, “And I know you’re pushing it, Phel.”
“Just a few more days—”
“Aphelios—”
“No,” He signs, pointed and forcefully, “If this goes sideways, if it means nothing in the grand scheme of things, you have things to fall back on. Everyone does. But Alune and I…”
He trails off at this, hands shaking in front of him. He glares at them like they’ve betrayed him as he struggles to finish signing his sentence, **“I am finished. There is no Plan B, and I give up everything I worked my entire life for.”
Sett is more surprised the words leave his mouth. They’re quiet, barely at a whisper and rough, strained for Aphelios to even say. It’s the most words he’s ever heard him say in a single sentence, but they’re tinged with a cascade of emotions. The one that sticks out the most is the pure fear that radiates through every word.
Sett realizes he’d never knew much about Aphelios.
He ended up meeting him through Yone. He didn’t have a huge online presence, it seemed like he only really started existing a few years ago. With how Yone spoke of him though, Sett had been surprised. His work and talent were nothing to sneeze at, and he went on believing that the man had managed it all only within a couple years because no one had ever corrected him. Aphelios hadn’t been interested in sharing his past by any means.
Their untouchable, unphased and unbothered Aphelios, it suddenly clicked for Sett that was likely why he had such a small mark online. He wonders how long he’d spent after his surgery painstakingly he’d taken himself off the internet, any representation of his time before as a vocal artist erased from public knowledge, because he couldn’t deal with this idea of failure he’d attached to that time.
Sett isn’t sure what to say. He isn’t flippant about his career, but what did he have going for himself if things didn’t go to plan? If this didn’t bring in the money he was expecting? Sure he could go back to home to his mother, pick up odd jobs until another opportunity came by hopefully. It wasn’t like he was particularly unpopular by any means, but not popular to the degree that Ezreal and Kayn were. The connections he’d made previously and now through Yone weren’t going anywhere, he could pick himself back up and try again.
But looking at Aphelios…it feels all the more fragile. And Aphelios was on the other side of that what if. If his voice failed, if he was considered a failure tomorrow and had to build back up from rock bottom. He had everything to lose.
“Hey,” Sett waves a hand, trying to get Aphelios to look at him directly. He refuses at first, before Sett gently shifts his head by his chin. Either Aphelios is too tired to shake him off, or he doesn’t care, but he does look at him eventually, empty vermilions boring into him, “This isn’t all on you to handle. Not anymore. You have a team now, it’s not just I. It’s we.”
We. The six of them together.
We. As in the pair of them.
Aphelios has a scar through his left eyebrow. It’s long been faded. Sett traces it with his eyes down his face, committing the tiny details to memory.
His lips are gently parted.
He realizes just how close he is to Aphelios a little too late into his thoughts. Realizes what he said and implied far too late. Thoughts that are thinly veiled by how late it is and how little the pair of them are thinking right now. Sett’s hand dwarfs his face, and even in the low light of his dimming screen he can tell the other man’s pale skin has colored and warmed from his touch.
The absence of clicking grows louder.
Aphelios holds his gaze for a moment, before gently turning away from him. Sett watches his attention wander before he squeezes his eyes closed, fiddling around on his monitor for something. It flickers off a moment later, throwing the room into relative darkness. He pushes himself up and off of his chair, sliding it back into his desk. He stands there, as if not quite all aware of what he’s doing there.
One step forward towards his bed and Sett has to move to catch him when his legs buckle underneath him. He grunts when he falls, Sett barely catching him by latching his arms underneath Aphelios’, “Hey now, you have been sittin’ there for Gods know how long, let’s take it a little easier.”
He’s lighter than he looks. Significantly colder too, if his freezing hands wrapped around his bicep are anything to go by. It still feels like it burns when he moves his hand nonetheless.
Aphelios looks up at him again, face fully flushed red now as he stands from his grip. He leans against his desk for support, clearly swaying on his own two feet. Sett makes the mental note to find something for him to eat in the morning before pushing his long forgotten water bottle into his hand. Aphelios complies, sipping on it before trying to walk again.
Sett walks alongside him the few feet it takes for him to reach his mattress in case he falls, and Aphelios promptly collapses onto it when he reaches it. His turquoise hair spills out onto the pillow as soon as he lays his head down, curling into himself as a comforted sigh escapes him. He doesn’t move to get beneath his comforter, nor to change out of his day clothes, but Sett is comforted by the fact he’s already working the knot out from between his eyebrows when he rests his eyes as they flutter close.
“You need anything, just give me a holler. Or a text. Anything but using a lone plush to get my attention.” Sett says, chuckling as he yawns. Aphelios softly smiles, but otherwise doesn’t open his eyes again. He stands there long enough he figures it’s bordering on creepy, but it isn’t the first time he’s hoped to get closer to Aphelios. In these brief moments of receptive quiet, to learn more about him, learn what made him tick. What made him Phel.
Sett doesn’t think he knows what it all means. He feels similar enough about the others in the band, but the enigma that was his roommate was something special he just wanted to take apart and understand. Wanted to be more to him as. Give him someone to confide in when Alune was away. An outlet that wasn’t working for ages on end.
He cares about Aphelios in a way he can’t put into words. Wants to hold him close, wants to be his voice of reason and his shoulder to cry on — though considering it was Aphelios, he’s never seen him cry. If he needed it, Sett resolved to be there for him.
Tonight is the most open he’s ever been with him.
He shakes his head, sighing quietly. What did it all mean? Did he want to know, this close to four am?
(He kind of did)
Still, he turns to return to his own bed and fall back into the grasps of sleep when he feels a hard tug on the back of his sleep shirt. He turns, finding Aphelios on the other end of it, grasping a fistful of his shirt. He’s still not exactly looking at him, this time lying on his side.
“Stay.”
It’s a question, one posed with an air of nervousness to it, but not phrased as one. He wants him to stay with him. Barely above a whisper to where Sett isn’t sure if he’s just imagining it. But his brain rationalizes that he isn’t quite quickly when crimson irises flicker over to him expectantly.
“I’m just goin’ back to bed, Phel,” He answers, turning as his grip loosens on his shirt. He faces him fully, bending down to be at eye level with him, “Not goin’ anywhere.”
“Can’t sleep,” He signs back, almost apologetic in his tired features, “Usually I talk to Alune when she is here until I crash. She will not be home for at least another few days. I cannot disrupt her sleep, yet…”
Alune wouldn’t be back for some time, out for a conference with the label prior to discuss their release, and had left almost a week ago. Likely she had been long sleep by now, which is probably why Aphelios is reluctant to call her. Still, Sett isn’t sure what exactly Aphelios is asking of him, “Where do you want me to stay?” He eventually settles on.
“Here.” He signs, hiding his face from Sett, thoroughly embarrassed by his request. He gestures to the empty space on his mattress, “Just for a little. Please.”
Sett’s brain short circuits at the thinly veiled need beneath the request. Aphelios wanted him to lie in his bed? Sett was no small man, at least at a time and half larger than him and certainly wider. He doubts he’d fit, and if he did, it’d be a tight one. Aphelios valued his personal space quite a lot, and Sett had never deigned to be this close to him.
But at his request? “Phel, I don’t think it’ll be a comfortable fit.”
“Not for long. Only for a few minutes, just need…need a little help crashing.” He answers, hands shaking even as he says it. He gently slides himself closer towards the wall the bed is pushed up against, making himself smaller as if that would help, “You do not have to.”
Sett is exhausted and the offer sounds reasonably enticing. His reasonable side isn’t going to win here as much as he’d like it to, and he can’t say that a few minutes ever hurt anyone. Just to make sure that Aphelios got off to sleep, out of the clutches of his likely insomniac episode. That’s all it was. Nothing more, nothing less. Just helping out his friend the best way he knew how.
The bed squeaks under his weight when he settles.
It’s odd, being in someone else’s bed. The mattress isn’t dipped in one particular direction. Smells different. Feels different. Distinctly of Aphelios.
His heart thuds in his chest as he watches Aphelios. Close enough that there’s only half a foot between them, his finer facial details washed out in the darkness of their room but somehow all the sharper when they’re this close. The soft red has already begun receding off of his face, instead leaving the tender exhaustion that has him slow blinking back at Sett. He’s on the edge of sleep, just not quite there yet. Analyzing him just as much as Sett is analyzing him, probably, if his darting gaze is anything to go by.
Sett briefly wonders what he sees. What’s he’s committing to memory.
He’s never wanted to reach out and touch someone as much as he has now. To gently brush Aphelios’ sharper jawline, gently brush back the hair that falls in his face. It’s not his place to, but he wishes it was. Maybe it’s the sleepiness talking. He’d unpack that later.
“Will we make it?” Aphelios signs at him, recatching his attention, “Will any of this matter in the end?”
“Hope we will, obviously. It’d suck if we didn’t at least get mentioned in a magazine,” He laughs softly. Still, the sleepy concern written over his face is still evident, “I don’t know, Phel. Not exactly in our control, even if we put our souls into our work it’s still up in the air.”
A pause. A car passes by outside, light bathing the room in amber for a moment before it flutters back dark.
“I am tired of working with such little payoff,” Aphelios continues, “Sometimes it all feels like a dream. Hanging on to fleeting dreaming of being recognized for my work, when I am far too old to still be hoping like this.”
“Hey,” Sett starts, musing over what to say next. Being this tired, he settles on his first thought as he blinks the impending sleep out of his eyes, “You’re enough the way you are right now. Regardless of what happens in a couple days, or a month from now, or even next year, your worth isn’t hinging on well this single does. Not even close.”
“Feels like it might as well, when half the lyrics were written by me. Isn’t that enough to hinge it on?”
“Art doesn’t make the artist. I had to learn that too when a few of mine flopped out the gate,” Sett yawns, thinking back to the years prior that he’d spent watching the views on a video stagnate as the weeks passed, wondering if the industry really was for him. Wondering if any of it really mattered. Whether he was actually destined to be an artist or if it was a pipe dream and all those years of writing in his bedroom and honing his talent were all for naught. And then he remembers his mother, holding his massive hands in her far tinier ones one night after they’d both gotten home and he’d been properly discouraged. He turns back to Aphelios, “Means you tried. And if even one person is moved by it, means you did something. Means you meant something to someone.”
Aphelios bites his bottom lip, his signs growing slower, “In truth, I hope I mean something to someone, even if I am no longer capable directly sharing my music.”
“You mean something to the band, Phel,” Sett, in all his strength, is barely still registering what he’s saying at this point, but makes the effort to keep on their conversation. He, however, is not responsible for what he says next.
“You mean something to me.”
Aphelios isn’t sure what to do with this information for the rest of the night.
It takes him far longer than Sett to finally doze off into an uneasy sleep, but his words stay on his mind. Bouncing around in his skull, threatening to burn. He regards Sett as a closer friend than most of the others in the band. Originally he’d thought this was primarily because of their room arrangement, it was difficult not to end up friendly with him when he found it his mission to be as nice as possible. As considerate, and as open as he could be with him.
Watching him sleep while Aphelios thinks about this is going to break him. Because he’s not sure when the friendly attitude turned into something closer to real is terrifying. Aphelios has spent years with only Alune by his side, only the comfort of music and whatever instrument he could get his hands on filling that void of loneliness in the absence of real people.
Someone cared about him enough to check on him throughout the day. Cared about him enough to learn sign language to make communication easier. Cared about him enough to pull him out of his work spiral at three in the morning. Even when he’d spent all this time trying to make himself unavailable.
So that if they failed, he wouldn’t have regrets about the relationships he’d form.
They’re too close already for him.
Sett, against his better judgement, is far too close to him. Why had he asked him to take Alune’s usual spot on his bad nights? Is he that exhausted that his judgement is failing him?
Why had Sett accepted? Inches away from him, chest rising and falling as his once worried expression washes away into one of relaxation. Scars line his face, long since healed but still distinct against his skin even from here. He could’ve gone back to sleep a long time ago, not having worried about him working this late. But, him and his characteristically big heart had stayed up with him. Quick to be honest. Quick to reassure.
Aphelios doesn’t think he’s ever been this honest with someone. He thinks it might as well be the fact that his insomnia has begun to erode away his carefully fabricated facade in front of the others, and the perfect storm of being overstimulated and stressed completely destroyed it. Sett didn’t need to know about his desperate need for validation. He didn’t need to know about the struggle he’d been living through for years because of his voice.
Lack thereof, now.
Didn’t want Sett to pity him, of all people. So many people were so quick to say sorry. Quick to write him off as a charity case. He didn’t need the one person he was just beginning to admire for his tenacity against his struggles to start seeing him as less than. Not now.
A headache lingers behind his eyes. Aphelios hadn’t expected him to sympathize. To listen. To treat him like his fear mattered.
He didn’t inherently like the idea of Sett caring about him. It meant he made enough of a mark that he’d be looking out for him. Meant he’d made enough of an impression that he’d be worrying about him like he had been an hour earlier. He didn’t like the idea of people being too close. It meant it was one more person he could lose, just like he had after his surgery.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t endear him. Didn’t mean it didn’t make his heart skip a beat when he laughed, or smiled in his direction. Didn’t mean it didn’t make him tingle when Sett would throw an arm around him and then move away with an apology on his lips, forgetting Aphelios preferred him at a distance.
Didn’t mean he didn’t still want him in a way that made his whole body warm.
It certainly didn’t mean, when he woke the next morning to an alarm and birds outside, that he was particularly upset when Aphelios found Sett’s arm thrown over him, pulling him into him. Accidental, surely, he’d say later. But in that brief moment when he’s awake before Sett registers the music playing out of his phone, he feels the most at peace he has in months.
He matters to someone. Something he never thought he’d say again.
Fuck.