Work Text:
"It's just logistical stuff, nothing interesting."
"I'm reviewing the next venue's layout to make sure that our team is equipped to handle it."
"New merch ideas. Nothing worth pursuing, though."
"I'm looking to see how the parking situation will be at our next stop."
"Just the usual business, Ve."
Vessel has heard it all by now.
II is constantly on his phone. Whether it be after their set has concluded, or they’re sitting in the dressing room, or they’re on the bus after another successful stop on their tour, or even when they do something as mundane as sneaking away to grab some lunch at a local cafe, II's eyes are always glued to his screen.
III thinks that he's talking to a girl that they briefly met back in Brisbane. The bassist says that II gave her a drumstick with his phone number written onto it in permanent ink, but II always calls him an idiot for thinking that he'd ever trust a total stranger to such a degree.
"Nope, you had yer numba penned on the damn thing and gave it right to her, I swear it! Did ya' two at least fuck behind the merch stall or somethin?"
II had promptly kicked the bassist in the shin.
IV thinks that he's actually conducting business, in spite of the myriad times that Vessel has reminded him that they do, in fact, have people who handle their business for them.
"II's been like this since I've been around, I buy it. In either case, he does way more work than me. I'm just here to hang out and see the world with you lads."
II had refuted IV's humbleness but not the credence of his suggestion, once more insisting that it was, in fact, work that he was handling.
Vessel thinks that II's lying all the same.
II sits on the sofa of their tour bus, wrapped head to toe in a fuzzy blanket, as he sips an energy drink and scrolls through his phone. Vessel watches him like a hawk, how his vibrant, pale blue eyes dart across his screen before a small smile pulls onto his lips, and he quickly types something out with one hand and an ever-growing grin.
"Something good happen?" Vessel asks with a cocked eyebrow, watching as II hides his immediate reaction to his query behind the rim of his nearby tea mug before the drummer nods his head briefly.
"Yeah, things are looking good for Orlando. They're gonna have shuttles available for the fans to use." II comments, finishing whatever words he had been typing, before he taps his screen once then resumes his seemingly mindless scrolling. Vessel squints at him, but merely hums in response, not believing him for a single second.
Rather, Vessel thinks that whatever it is that II’s grinning at, it sure as hell isn’t about the parking situation in Orlando.
-
"Told you to go to bed, II." Vessel sighs, gentle and amused, as he steps out of the tour bus’s sole bedroom and past the closed curtains of IV and III’s bunks as he heads to the sofa in the tiny living space. II is slumped over the sofa’s arm rest, snoring softly, his tea half drunk and cold beside him in a cup holder whilst his crumbled energy drink can rolls back and forth on the floor. Vessel snickers, taking his phone out and quickly silencing it before snapping a picture for later black mail -I'll make this my wallpaper if you don't make me those delicious blueberry waffles of yours for breakfast ought to do the trick- before he chuckles and reaches down to pick II's phone up off of the bus’s floor.
Vessel smiles when he sees that the device is unlocked, the screen glowing vibrantly in the bus’s dim nighttime lighting, and while he knows that invading someone's privacy is the antithesis of what he stands for as an anonymous musician, he...can't help himself but to look anyway.
"What business are you up to tonight, huh?" Vessel whispers softly to himself as his eyes rake over the page, only for the smirk upon his lips to immediately dissipate.
Vessel's jaw drops.
171 Bookmarks by PolyrhythmProphet
Mask Off, Pants Down by sleeptokendailysmut: Sleep Token (Band):II/Vessel
II fucks Vessel over his drum kit. That's it. That's the fic.
"The fuck it is, hello?" Vessel says softly, mouth still open out of shock, as he ever so quietly sits down adjacent from II and keeps scrolling through the fanfiction site that II is not only logged into but logged into and bookmarking fanfics about them.
Fucking.
Vessel's never been so confused, taken aback, and intrigued in his life.
They’ve never done the thing. Never even kissed.
Not once.
Nine years of living side by side for at least seventy percent of each year and nothing.
Nada.
Vessel blushes so hard that it physically hurts his cheeks.
Riding the Rhythm by AquaticCat: Sleep Token (Band): II/Vessel
Vessel's been tense and frustrated ever since they departed for their latest tour. II gives him a hand sorting out his pent-up emotions. A hand, and a comfortable place to sit. II/Vessel. Porn with like a smidge of plot.
Vessel blinks so hard that he can hardly see straight as he scrolls down to view the next one, his cheeks rapidly darkening as he swallows the lump in his throat, pointedly ignoring the slight thumping in his ears.
He refuses to acknowledge that it’s his own heartbeat.
Home Away From Home by PeachBubblegum: Sleep Token (Band): II/Vessel
Completed. 32 chapters and over 300k words. Thank you all so much for the support on this over the years! C,:
They've been doing this song and dance for years, the lingering touches, the quiet stares, and the familiar comfort of creating art together.
Vessel's been hurt too many times before to believe that he's worthy of II's friendship, and he knows by now that nothing good ever happens to him without consequence. So, when II drunkenly confesses that he thinks Vessel is cute during a game of truth or dare, Vessel does what he does best.
Spirals.
This time, unlike the times before, II is there to stop his descent.
Super soft, comfy fic, but with a lot of hurt/comfort! Top!Vessel and Bottom!II.
Vessel forcibly shuts his jaw as he selects the fic, scrolling through the wall of text without reading it, before he selects the comments and quietly mumbles to himself.
"What the fuck?"
PolyrhythmProphet on Chapter 1:
This is...actually really fucking good. I like your stylistic choices and your portrayal of everyone, even if my own "head canons" don't align with yours, it's a solid read. I look forward to seeing where you go with it.
Vessel doesn't think, can't think, as he selects the next chapter, then the next one, each time reading over the comments that II had posted on the gargantuan work of fiction.
PolyrhythmProphet on Chapter 7:
Ah, there it is. It was about time that II talked some sense into Vessel. Hopefully Vessel listens to him and understands that he deserves to be happy.
Vessel chews on his bottom lip at that, feeling ashamed of himself for invading II's privacy, and also feeling a pang of something in his chest because...well, how many times has II told him that very same thing?
Reluctantly, knowing that he's already taken it too far to stop, he keeps digging, needing answers to a question that he himself doesn't even know how to formulate.
PolyrhythmProphet on Chapter 16:
A kiss at last, eh? I'm sure II's been waiting forever for something like that to happen. You write his love for Vessel in such a way that it's difficult not to feel for him when it's so obvious how much he loves and cares for him. Solid stuff, really.
And another purely because Vessel can't process that roundabout admission.
PolyrhythmProphet on Chapter 18:
I think that I'd die of happiness if the person I loved ever said “I love you” to me first. LOL
This was wonderful, truly. Favorite chapter so far by a long shot.
And another just to be certain that he isn't imagining things.
PolyrhythmProphet on Chapter 26:
Bottom II...kinda hot to think about, actually. Never considered it before for him. Ahem.
10/10 chapter. Thank you for sharing this.
"Fuck," Vessel hisses, keeps reading in spite of himself, as his cheeks continue to burn and his sharp canines poke into the sensitive skin of his lips. "That's...quite the admission, II."
Vessel's gaze flickers to the slumbering man across from him, his pointed teeth poking harder against his quivering bottom lip, as he watches the soft rise and fall of the other's chest.
II looks relaxed like this, soft in a way that he wasn't always during his waking moments, and so very....
Vessel stops himself, shaking his head to clear it of all thought, before he looks back down at the device and resumes his search.
PolyrhythmProphet on Chapter 31:
II sitting in Vessel's lap and being covered by his cloak is everything I never knew that I needed. Adorable chapter.
Vessel's eyes shift to II as the singer sighs softly and rises off of the adjacent couch, fully intending to exit the browser and lock the drummer's phone before placing it on the table, but before Vessel can do so much as think, the bus hits a particularly rough bump before the vehicle abruptly lurches.
He tries to catch himself, only to trip over the stupid energy drink can, his feet pulled out from under him in an instant.
Vessel falls, quite ungracefully, onto the floor as II jerks awake with a disgruntled groan before the drummer promptly freezes. Vessel winces, his knee sore from where it had slammed into the ground, but when his eyes lock with II's, he, too, immediately freezes.
II looks at him, mortified, as the drummer's phone sits on the floor a few centimeters away from where Vessel now sits, sprawled out in the darkness, but PolyrhythmProphet's account is fully displayed on the device’s brightly lit screen all the same.
"II, it's fi-"
"For the lore," II stammers out quickly, his pale cheeks turning a vibrant shade of red in the low light, as he quickly scrambles to procure his device from the floorboard before he shuffles off of the couch with the blanket still draped over his head. II all but runs towards his bunk. "I read it for the lore."
"What lore?" Vessel calls back, grimacing, as he cradles his aching knee and rocks back and forth slightly on the bus’s sparkling floor tiles.
II shuts his bunk's curtain with ferocity, like he means to slam a door, and Vessel cannot help but laugh to himself as he rubs at his sore bone, staring up at the ceiling with a wide grin on his lips.
"How cute," he muses to himself, smiling in spite of the pain.
-
II refuses to speak to him, his face turning a very vibrant, and admittedly pretty, shade of red every time that Vessel so much as glances at him, but Vessel keeps his lips sealed about what he's learned of the drummer’s phone obsession.
III and IV know that something has happened, but neither quite knows what it is.
"Did ya' catch II wankin' in the shower or somethin'?"
II had punched III in the elbow then cradled his hand, howling in pain, whilst the bassist had screamed about how II's hands might be insured for millions of quid, but his elbows were not.
"Did you mess up on one of our day plans or something? I'm sure it's fine, II."
II had looked at IV like he hung the stars in that moment, and Vessel was not jealous. Nope. Not a single bit.
Vessel sits, clad in his full stage regalia, as III and IV scurry about outside of the room whilst II continues to paint his skin before the light haloed mirror. For a long while, they remain in relative silence, save for the sound of the crowd beyond the doors, before Vessel clears his throat.
"So, the lore, huh? Was it the lore of my ass or something?" Vessel questions, teasingly, as II violently jerks his head to the side and glares at him with a ferocity that might intimidate someone else, but Vessel can only grin at his ire. "You're a bit small to be climbing up me like that, II."
"Fuck off," II bites back, his cheeks vibrantly red, as the drummer angrily reaches for the airbrush gun once more and continues about his task, painting his heavily tattooed arm pitch black with no regard for the pitiable excuse for a vanity that sits before him.
"I'm sorry that I looked at your phone," Vessel says sincerely, can sense the tension as assuredly as he sees it in II's shoulders, before he sighs softly. "I'm just...."
"I'm..." II bites out, so much anger in his voice, before he groans and throws the airbrush gun down and grips at his hair with both hands. "Kill me."
"II, it's not a big deal." Vessel laughs awkwardly in a bid to alleviate the other's embarrassment, but it's obvious that his attempt doesn't work as II merely slumps forward in his seat and braces his elbows on the table, cradling his head. Vessel's breath hitches as he chews on his own thoughts, rethinking everything about the man before him after the things that he's learned, before heat creeps into his cheeks behind his mask and he mutters out a simple request, his voice a touch deeper. Huskier. "Come here and talk to me."
II throws his head back, staring at the ceiling with palpable dread, before he, too, sighs and rises from his seat.
Vessel's heartbeat quickens from eagerness and nervousness as he makes a decision that he knows is important.
More important than anything else, even.
The single biggest decision that he's made since he poised a simple question to a percussion major that he met at his university.
"I know you've got your own stuff going on, but...I have something to ask you. Would you maybe want to work together with me on this...little project of mine? I can think of no one else I'd trust with this. Only you."
The moment that II's in reaching distance, Vessel smirks, seizing the drummer's arm and dragging the struggling, startled, man forward until he pulls II entirely into his lap. II freezes, still as a statue, as Vessel chuckles and does something that he read about in II's own comment left on one of the various works of fanfiction. He wraps his cloak around him and draws him closer.
Vessel's heartbeat quickens as he leans downward, pressing his bare chest against II's back, as the drummer sputters out incoherent words before abruptly silencing himself.
"Don't," II says sternly as Vessel leans his head down further, resting it atop the drummer's own, as he chews on II's other confessed words. Vessel doesn't want to hurt him, would never dare to, and he'd never play with the other man's feelings, even if they were born simply out of lust.
But Vessel knows that II's were not.
I think that I'd die of happiness if the person I loved ever said “I love you” to me first.
Vessel can't give II that yet, not now, as they are, when the knowledge is still so new and fresh in his mind.
Vessel's never allowed himself to think that way about II.
Has always thought that he was gorgeous and immensely talented, intelligent and funny, but Vessel was content with what they had.
Had to be content with it.
Or so he thought.
"No games," Vessel promises, testing the waters, as II lets out a shuddered breath. "Just...curious, that's all."
"I'm...such an idiot," II says, but it lacks the bite that it once had, teeters more on breathless, and that, that does something to Vessel's heart that he wasn't quite expecting.
Vessel chuckles softly, his deep voice reverberating in the small room, as he leans to the side and tentatively brushes his lips against the trembling skin of II's cheek.
"I think it's pretty cute," Vessel confesses quietly, earning a full body shiver from the drummer that brings an involuntary smile to his own lips. "You're pretty cute."
"I..." II starts, his breathlessness persisting, as Vessel snickers once more and kisses the soft, sensitive skin of the drummer's jaw.
"You want to explore this, II?" Vessel mumbles against II's skin, smirking something wicked when II's chattering teeth and tense body language, both of which seem to prevent the drummer from forming words, gives way to a stern, but minute, nod of the drummer's head. Vessel chuckles against II’s trembling skin once more, drinking in the goosebumps that rise over the other man’s neck and the shiver that his voice pulls from the smaller man in the process. "Good. Me, too."
II shivers so violently then that he headbutts Vessel, splitting his lip with his skull, but the singer can only laugh as the drummer furiously scrambles out of his lap before he procures a napkin and presses it to his bleeding, smiling lips.
"You're adorable when you worry about me," Vessel tells him, blood soaking his teeth, as II's once distant looking eyes become filled with a mirth that Vessel's never seen in them before.
"Clean your own damn lip, you prick." II grits out, handing the paper towel off to him, before he makes for the angrily discarded airbrush gun, leaving Vessel to laugh alone on the sofa as he nurses his wound with a painful grin still splitting his painted black lips.
-
"Do ya' think that girl broke up with 'em? That's why he's clingin' somethin' fierce to Vess?"
"I think he's upset that there weren't any shuttles in Orlando."
Vessel snorts, resting his head on top of II's, as he peeks over the drummer’s shoulder, holding him closer to his chest, before he pulls the blanket up and tighter around their bodies. II rolls his eyes, scrolling through his phone, as Vessel continues to read the words written across the screen.
"Think they're gonna fuck soon?" Vessel asks, reading over the fanfiction's dialogue, as Vessel and II, two baristas that work together in a small café, finally go out on their first date together.
"Are they?" II asks, looking over his shoulder with a knowing glint in his eyes, and at that, Vessel's heart does a somersault in his chest as he chuckles darkly and mouths his response into II's ear, his breath but a warm ghost.
"You'd look so pretty beneath me, but you're not climbing on top of me, little one."
II's response is as immediate as it is halfhearted.
"Shut the fuck up, Vessel."
Vessel smiles so wide that his wounded bottom lip splits open once more.