Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Your thumb hovers over the video for a moment — Samantha isn’t always the best about telling what news is ASAP-worthy — but you click on it.

You recognize the set — one of the many late-night shows you’ve been featured on, although you couldn’t name the host if it came down to it (you think his name is Anthony? Arthur?) In the chair opposite Anthony-or-Arthur sits Sebastian Sallow.

Involuntarily, your stomach does a flip — it’s silly, you know, to have a celebrity crush on the literal heartthrob of Hollywood, but you’d seen him in Shadows during your teen years — he’d starred opposite his twin sister Anne — and the show had consumed your life (mostly due to Sebastian Sallow).

The audience has just stopped laughing, and Arthur (you’re pretty sure it’s Arthur) smiles, looking at Sebastian. “So,” he says. “I think we all have to know, Sebastian, just who your celebrity crush is.”

Sebastian laughs that laugh that had your fifteen-year-old self obsessed with him. “That’s a tough one,” he replies. “It would probably have to be…”

The world turns on its axis as he says your name.

You?

“And, just to be clear, you mean MC, correct?” asks the host.

Sebastian nods. “Yeah,” he says. “We’ve never met, but her songs are really great, and I’ve always thought she was cute.”

Arthur turns to the camera. “Well, there you have it, folks.”

The clip ends there, and you take a moment to breathe before texting Samantha back.

You click on the link to find Samantha and a woman with a ponytail who you assume must be Imelda waiting for you.

“Good to see you,” Samantha says as though she wasn’t just texting you screenshots of her text thread with her latest flirtation (Adelaide Oakes, a rising star in the academic community of linguistics) so that you could judge whether or not she was interested.

You nod. “You as well,” you reply. “I guess that makes you Imelda?”

The woman with the ponytail nods. “The one and only.”

The three of you sit in silence for a few moments before Imelda sighs. “Excuse me,” she says, pulling out her phone and typing something.

A moment later, there’s the typical ding and Sebastian Sallow enters the meeting.

He’s wearing a blank green t-shirt, and he’s sitting in a regular chair — he looks casual, laid-back.

“Hi,” he says, accent charmingly British. “Sorry I’m late. Good to be here now.”

“Not a problem,” Samantha replies smoothly. For someone as chaotic as she is, she’s definitely got the ‘professionalism’ bit of her job covered.

“So,” Imelda says a moment later. “You were discussing the possibility of Sebastian starring in a music video, correct?”

The familiarity is surprising to you — this is Sebastian Sallow, not just Sebastian.

(Although, you suppose, if he does end up acting in your music videos, he will be Sebastian to you.)

“Several, actually,” you reply. “The album isn’t out yet, obviously, but it centers around a relationship. I want to have the same actor in all three music videos — I plan on doing one for a love song, one for a song where things are starting to fall apart, and one for the actual end of the relationship. By having the same actor, there can be more connectedness — like in the final music video, revisiting the moments from the love song and showing that things weren’t as they seemed.”

You look away from the camera with the final words. Your relationship with Eric Northcott had been highly publicized (the fans had gone wild) — and then he’d completely crushed your heart.

So, naturally, coping the only way you could, you’d written an album about it.

There’s a brief delay (thank you, shitty internet) as Sebastian, Samantha, and Imelda finish listening to your words.

Sebastian nods. “Sounds brilliant,” he says. “I don’t know when you’d plan on filming, and obviously there are some logistics that would need to be sorted out, legal stuff-wise, but if it fits with my schedule, I’d love to be a part of it.”

Samantha unmutes her microphone. “Yeah,” she says. “The release date for the album is late April, so we want to have filming for the videos done by mid-March, just so there’s plenty of time to edit and whatnot.”

Imelda types something on her keyboard, moving her mouse around. “Surprisingly, there’s not much going on in February-March. Exact dates for filming would be a later thing, but we can definitely make it work.”

Sebastian smiles that fucking brilliant smile and your teenage self is squealing right now — “Amazing,” he says. “We can sort the rest over email.”

“Great,” Samantha says. “I’ll type something up.”