Archive of Our Own

She looked in the mirror; the image reflected back at her wasn't her. Where had that cheerful, innocent girl who worked at the café gone? The one who lowered her head when a rude customer raised his voice at her? That reflection certainly wasn't hers. It wasn't hers; she wouldn't let her hair get so neglected, as if darkness were swallowing her from the top down. Pink, pale strands, like the petals of a withered rose, neglected and abandoned.

She was constantly watered, the soil changed, and they made sure she didn't have any pests that would rot her before she could bloom… But no one could see that her rose was already faded, that the vibrant color that made her stand out among the other flowers was just layers and layers of paint and varnish that deceived the eye and the nose with the stench of chemicals.

The dead flower was her, adorned with layers of other people's personalities that she acquired as she climbed the social ladder—masks. Each one more terrible and despicable than the last. She had tried to be like Akali, experimenting with new styles of clothing and adding new songs to her Spotify library to see if any resonated with her rebellious frequency. She also wanted to be a little Evelynn; seductive, deadly… a woman who could have a crowd at her feet with a single glance. But she could never imitate Ahri's personality; the nine-tailed fox was inscrutable. Perhaps because she admired authentic self-expression and had left her "sweet girl" persona behind.

Those attempts only elicited tender reactions from her friends.

It was embarrassing. Deplorable. Every time she looked at her reflection, she didn't know who she really was. Was she the dreamy singer? The new pop diva? Or… or… Cupcake. The heart of the symphony. Fal- Liar. Was she a good person? She possessed empathy, composing songs to give people a voice, channeling their emotions into a single music sheet and posting them online. Because that was the medicine for her community. Her compositions were the remedy for the pain she perceived in people.

But someone who lacked honesty and integrity couldn't be called a good person. She had deceived her social circle, tricked her community into believing that she would always be there for the public, that her songs were made for them… even though her own energy had been floundering in a thick, suffocating mud, distorting every clear note from the first moment she stepped on a stage.

«We love you, Seraphine!»

«No. You don’t love me.»

There was no coherence in her thoughts; she was never honest about her true dreams, so she had disappointed her friends—who had paved the way for her at the top—her parents for not telling them, and… him.

Seraphine lacked respect, even though she tried to hide it with layers of sweet words and perfume with floral and fruity notes. It shamed her to see that the most despicable part of her was proud of having reached such heights; she started on YouTube, being a nuisance when posting her videos and overloading the video descriptions with hashtags, as well as on her other social media. She was barely a chick, chirping for crumbs… until Ahri pulled her out of her humility. They ate together, made memories rehearsing, and she won their trust (or perhaps they pityed her) by looking at the ads on social media for “local artists wanted,” which they simply signed without asking any questions.

Like a spoiled little sister.

And of course she was grateful to them, but the betrayal of pursuing what was devouring her from within was selfish. «But the most selfish thing was hiding what you felt.» From then on, she had done nothing but rise and fall like on a roller coaster. She touched the stars when she unleashed her abyssal voice, when she showed the world that the siren had sharp scales and a voice both beguiling and cavernous. Then she plummeted when her porcelain mask shattered with the first curse word. Her cause sought to tear away all those filters, encouraged her to keep letting go… and she had returned it with more falsehood, sweet smiles so that her victim would fall into her clutches and gain her trust… «But you had to be so distrustful, didn't you? Your frequency was almost restored… Or stable enough to keep working.»

«He was to blame. Entirely. He had been the virus that had slipped under her good-girl filters. Viego didn't want to be cured; he wanted company in his misery. With his obsession, his demands, forcing her to imitate him, to bite, to curse. He had taught her to be a monster under the flimsy excuse of “helping her be herself,” which neither of them had agreed to. He had infected her with his darkness without realizing it, and now that she is broken, he simply locked himself in his own abyss after having dragged her down with him.»

A divorce isn't fixed with textbook therapy advice, yelling into a microphone, or sharing a meal. Indeed, Viego was complicated. The man had withdrawn so completely into himself that he was starting to hurt his colleagues. He lacked consideration, hiding his problems and sinking himself in the hope of dragging the rest of them down with him.

Perhaps he hadn't asked to be in such a bad state mentally, but this was the result of his obsession. «He partly deserved it, didn't he? Otherwise, he wouldn't have learned.» Seraphine put her hands to her head, hesitating between pulling her hair out or doing something else crazy to silence that malevolent voice in her mind. Ow! That had hurt… She looked down; her hands were clenched around several pink strands of hair, and the throbbing pain in her scalp was starting to intensify. What was she thinking? How could she think this way about her friend? Both suffered from a mental disorder, a plague that silently and asymptomatically spread through their gray matter until a trigger occurred.

The result… At least in Seraphine's mind: a chaotic consciousness, garish colors everywhere, voices that murmured and others that screamed at the top of their lungs, shrieks and sobs mixed with pen scribbles, graffiti ranging from fine to thick strokes, completely obscuring Seraphine's true identity. So many dark thoughts, so much negativity began to ring in her ears, distancing her from reality, silencing Bao's soft meows… She gripped the sink shelf, arching her back until she almost touched her own reflection and breathing heavily…

Once the crisis had passed, Seraphine took a cold shower to stop her thoughts, to freeze her horrible consciousness. She put on an oversized cream-colored t-shirt, with a print of a cat wearing sunglasses and playing an electric guitar in the center, shorts and sneakers.

She checked her phone and found several messages in the group.

Reading them was a balm for her weary mind; remembering yesterday's conversation with Karthus cheered her up a bit. Her family had flaws, they too were consumed by the poison of fame and who knows what other personal issues, but they were united, something Sera and her depressed friend should take note of.

A rather tired Seraphine arrived at the studio; her eyes were slightly puffy, concealed with concealer. A botched job of makeup and a hunched posture that wasn't typical of her. Olaf was the first to speak, bellowing that "shitty expression" to the four winds, wrapping an arm around it and shaking it. The rest of the band signaled to him, shaking their heads frantically or making an 'X' with their arms, but in the drummer's mind, that rough welcome was comforting. It worked with her childhood friends—who were now men in their mid-forties—and perhaps the approach with the younger generation was more delicate, less invasive and strident.

Luckily, or perhaps unfortunately, Thresh pushed his way through and shoved Olaf aside, glaring at him. The father, or mentor, or shark of a businessman had arrived just in time to either save her or drag her even deeper into her misery.

“Can’t you see the girl is unwell? Get out of the way, you brute,” he muttered, grabbing Seraphine by the shoulders and leading her inside The Threshold.

Thresh’s office was gloomy, not to say terribly sad. It had no windows, and the only light came from the white fluorescent lights of a hospital waiting room, which whirred with an almost unbearable white noise. The desk was perfectly tidy, and the monitors on the table cast a series of shadows on the wall behind it. Charts, numbers, perhaps, displayed the comments from both communities, and… with his arms crossed in an armchair across the table, sat the individual who had broken her, who had forced her to show her claws.

The moment he saw her enter, he rolled his eyes, ran a hand over his face, and grunted… If the man had been a hopeless romantic before, now he was a true drama king, so visually and audibly rejecting poor Seraphine. Technically, it had been her fault, right? Thresh snapped his fingers as he returned to his leather armchair behind the desk, nodding his chin to Sera to take a seat next to… You know who.

She froze in the doorway, feeling Viego's rigidity permeate the air. She looked away, chewing on a bitter resentment that burned in her throat. He was looking at her with contempt, the hypocrite, as if she were the problem. As if he hadn't been the one who'd broken her in the first place. Viego had infected her surroundings, pushed her to let go of her inhibitions, to bite back and become the twisted version of herself she'd struggled so hard to hide, only to then abandon her in the mud. He was a virus. He'd broken her and now he was pretending to be the victim.

"Come on, darling. We don't have all day," the manager sighed, giving her a tired look. Ah, the jerk was pretending he hadn't been the one pulling the strings all along; he was betraying her.

Seraphine closed the office door and sat down next to the young man who was doing nothing but looking away. The meeting began with business, unfortunately. The old manager turned one of the monitors around so his two young vocalists could see that their content, the rawness of their emotions, sells, rakes in millions… and there had only been two posts—one deleted months ago—but Sera's audition for ‘PISCES’ was still circulating online and had been very well received by the metal community.

Most of the reviews were positive, although some mixed reactions continued to surface on Twitter and Facebook, accompanied by threads about whether Seraphine's rebelliousness was “just a phase,” since her early compositions always dealt with emotional themes. He also showed them fan art from the Sera community that did accept her, openly suggesting that the pastel goth style would look amazing on her. Basically, they had taken images of her from Google and edited them in a shoddy way — but with good intentions — to show what possible clothing styles their idol might return to after her quarterly ban.

And, to make them both smile, she showed them on her phone the memes they'd made that afternoon when they went shopping with the group and all the outfits Sera tried on looked awful on her. Oh, and how could we forget that on Twitter, Pentakill's official account was constantly being notified about a post of Sera looking completely lost at a party they had at one of the beach clubs.

Sera's prejudices were prime material for memes under the hashtag #LongLiveClassism.

"Sweetie... Don't get depressed if you can't help this one." He pronounced the last word with distaste, baring his teeth to reflect the deep resentment he felt toward his most troubled boy. "But I need you two to sort out whatever's wrong with you sooner or later. We have to shoot a music video, and I can't have your "nobody loves me" face in the foreground. Damn, girl, they'll think we're mistreating you or something."

He didn't let the child answer, and if Viego said anything, he simply ignored her or politely gave her the middle finger. He leaned over the right armrest of the chair, rummaging in the drawer until the rustling of a plastic bag filled the office.

"I've taken the time to learn about your culture and all the other nonsense young people talk about these days... So I decided to buy you a Get Along Shirt." The old manager displayed the large plastic bag, which, under the sterile fluorescent light, was pastel pink with small white floral prints.

“No way am I wearing that,” he croaked, swatting at the bagged garment, knocking it from his boss’s grasp.

“I’ll say it again because I think you’re all deaf: I don’t know what happened, and I don’t care, but you will wear this damn shirt and go out there and record. There will be repercussions for your pay,” Thresh hissed, pulling the garment from the bag and tossing it into Seraphine’s lap.

The latter was suspiciously quiet, with her head down and her hair covering her face, making it difficult to determine whether she was crying silently, asleep, or had completely lost her mind. The manager bit his tongue. Had he been harsh with his words again? «Come on, don’t mess with me… »

“Seraphine, darling… I wasn’t saying that…-”

The girl lifted her head, snapping out of her trance, and her eyes remained fixed on Viego for a couple more seconds.

“I owe you an apology,” she murmured softly, wrapping her arms around the oversized T-shirt and barely able to maintain eye contact.

Thresh, who was largely unaware of the gossip, cursed again under his breath. He stood up, clearing his throat.

“I’m leaving; I’m not interested in, nor do I want to get involved in, your ‘My Chemical Romance’-themed problems.” He made air quotes, wrinkling his nose as he muttered more curses. He really wanted to be there… or at least listening behind the door with Mordekaiser. But Sera would pick up on their vibes and tell them to fuck off. If she had the guts.

Once they were alone, Sera was quick to back up her apology.

“I know it pisses you off that I’m a fucking fake.” This time she was going to do it right; she would tear down her own masks and show him her rotten true self. “And believe me when I say that despicable part of me thinks it’s your fault. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of your grief to inflate my ego,” she murmured softly, searching for some glimmer of understanding in his green eyes. “I think I need help too, and… and when you pushed me to bite and say all those swear words, I didn’t know what relief felt. Seeing you, knowing all the controversies you’ve been involved in, I’ve come to the conclusion that no one is happy to see someone’s honesty. They always try to smear it with other conflicts that have nothing to do with it until the result is so twisted that they decide to sell it.”

Seraphine paused, her lips trembling slightly as she exhaled. When was the last time she’d opened up to someone? She’d always had to hide her pain with the fragments of those stolen personalities to survive and be that “role model.”

“What the hell are you telling me? Girl, you’re so weird.” Viego bellowed, settling back in his armchair, but not ignoring Sera's apology.

She didn't respond with the same hostility, nor did she attack him with insults. She exhaled through her nose and let out a soft giggle. This lack of conflict left her companion completely speechless; she wasn't reproaching him or demanding that he apologize for the harm he had caused her.

Before they could continue with the apologies, Thresh knocked on his own office door, shouting from the other side that time was money, there was a recording to be made, and more talk about financial gain.

“Damn it, it’s about time,” he grumbled, though he stopped immediately. “Ah-ah. The shirt on. You have to be publicly humiliated for worrying us and delaying the work.” The man crossed his arms, waiting for the two kids to put on that stupid shirt.

It was priceless watching them struggle with coordination. Viego, being much taller than Sera, if he took a longer step than normal, would leave the poor girl with the collar of the shirt covering her eyes, which made them stumble until they were walking like a pair of penguins to the heart of The Threshold.

“Oh, look at them…” Kayle said, covering her lips to stifle a laugh.

“Have the kids finally made up?” Morde muttered, sitting on the sofa scrolling on his phone with Sona curled up beside him. He didn't even bother to look at them, though his wife gave them a "sorry, guys" look.

"Quick! Someone take my picture!" Olaf exclaimed, handing his phone to Yorick—who almost dropped it—and kneeling in front of them.

Thresh wasn't counting that wasted time, of course not, the jerk. It was a disciplinary punishment for both of them, to teach them to separate their personal problems from work, and that if it happened again, he might come up with an even worse humiliation.

They spent half an hour mocking them, taking pictures, individually or in groups, while his two "children" wore impassive expressions that betrayed no emotion or thought. Pure resignation and acceptance of that cruel fate. Thresh even had to contact K/DA's lawyers to ask if they could publish the photo—in a polite, corporate way, of course.

…But the clauses were the law, and no matter how much they wanted to increase the humiliation of the two young people, the restrictions imposed by KDA had once again saved Seraphine's skin.

Thresh set up the recording system, starting with how his guys connected their instruments to the amplifiers; tuning the chords and checking the tension of the felt. While Mordekaiser gave instructions on how to move and gesture during the song, Sona adjusted the mixing board, tweaking the knobs until they found that frequency that would propel them to fame when they released the track. Meanwhile, Seraphine was going over the lyrics with Karthus. The veteran vocalist and mentor pointed to the sheet of lyrics, occasionally gesturing with his hands and pointing to his throat.

The preparations were complete when Seraphine entered the booth, put on her headphones, and confidently looked at Thresh, who was leaning against the wall, talking to Karthus while Sona connected the rest of the instruments to her terminal.

Sona counted down from five, holding Sera's gaze, and waved her hand to signal that they were about to begin.

The harsh sound of the distorted guitar flooded Sera's ears; she didn't even need to ask or turn around to see her t-shirt-wearing partner playing those dark notes using the let-ring technique.

Being back in the booth, counting down the seconds before she screamed, reminded her of her first time. Had she always been this easily frightened? She'd been alone in here, pretending to be creatures of the night, unaware that she, too, was one of them.

Yorick's bass was the second instrument she heard through the headphones, small, short, almost imperceptible taps accompanying the distortion like a persistent but necessary murmur. Finally, Olaf's drums kicked in, beginning with a four-beat measure. Seraphine followed the music sheet, swallowing hard as it approached bars seventeen and eighteen. A sudden three-beat break on the seventeenth—a dull, tense pause—served as a prelude before the eighteenth beat returned to four beats and unleashed the song's true explosion.

“Unsatisfied need!”

Gods above, who was the monster that had roared with such power?! Outside the booth, the management team—Thresh, Sona, and Karthus—had to back away when Sera's first guttural growl nearly ruptured their eardrums.

The two men stared at each other, stunned but with the same thought: This girl was going to make them rich! RICH! They stifled the urge to high-five as they watched Sona wrestle with the mixing board, trying to regulate the Banshee's voice that threatened to fry the speaker circuitry and the entire system.

Karthus's exhaustive lessons had paid off handsomely. His girl was producing extreme guttural growls by regulating her breathing, not by rupturing her vocal cords like his other fool of a pupil. She clasped her hands as she watched Sera's voice shift from ferocity to a sudden change in intonation, a whisper in the pre-chorus before hardening and rasping her voice again, before launching back into the guttural growls of the second verse.

After the second chorus, the sound crew crossed their fingers, hoping the guitar and drums would coordinate to create a dense, dark, and heavy sound. Olaf's rhythm, once a steady pulse, transformed into a flurry of unpredictable hits, making the music feel uneven.

"Who ran beside is left behind…"

That asymmetrical, staccato step before the gallop was like being on a rollercoaster. Sera was forced to abandon logic and let herself be swept away by the sharp impacts of the snare, bass drum, and cymbals in her headphones, using that rhythmic instability to make her voice break in a husky yet gentle way, contrasting with the violence of her two bandmates.

“He whom you’ve started with, oh.”

The bridge of the song arrived with an acoustic guitar let ring — by Morde — with a delicate, almost melodious rhythm and Olaf's calm rhythm, where Sera let her magic flow, like that audition three months ago, making the walls and glass vibrate, painting the window with a soft blue static; the frequency of everyone in the booth rippling in the air, mimicking Sona’s mixing board until it soared, propelled by the guttural outro, Viego’s palm mute, and Olaf’s galloping drums.

“Nobody else will meet you there, yeah.”

After singing her last verse, the final bars prevented her from predicting the next beats. She had the sheet music beside her, but she was so exhausted that all she could do was close her eyes and nod, letting herself be carried away by the ebb and flow of Viego's distortion—who, by the way, was very focused on executing the clean cuts and abrupt silences—before the sordid silence in her headphones.

Sona signaled, “Good job, guys!” and lowered some knobs on the mixing board. Karthus finally managed to give Thresh a high five before going to the back for a smoke. The old manager ignored the tired and sweaty appearance of his musicians—except for Mordekaiser, who had only had thirty seconds of screen time—as he gave the order to regroup in ten minutes, then went to offer Karthus some company.

Seraphine was the first to leave the booth, immediately grabbing a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator to soothe her throat. Viego and Olaf were sweating, praising each other's work while the guitarist waited to feel the blood return to his fingers and the drummer to his legs and arms.

After the initial rush came the horror of realizing they made a perfect team. After all, their erratic frequency amplified the thunderous distortion he created with his guitar. He set the rhythm, and she added magic—literally—to the symphony with her abyssal voice, which had perfectly complemented Viego's dense sound. It bothered her deeply to know that the man who also unsettled her was the only one capable of handling her truly fragmented frequency.

She returned to the lounge with a couple of bottles, observing with curiosity that the two men were still in the booth; Olaf remained seated behind the drums, and Viego sat on the rug beside him. The guitarist accepted the refreshment, his pride wounded. He hated Sera's presence, but his fingers had responded to her vocal anguish, as if he had a voice outside his own in his head telling him in rehearsal «no, play this chord» or suggesting he add extra notes that were not in the music sheet.

It infuriated him to admit internally that the cupcake had a darkness that rivaled his own abyss, and that perhaps that poison helped him by seeping into his head.

After the break, Thresh reappeared in the room to express his great satisfaction with the rehearsal, obviously talking about the profits and new tours they would have thanks to his girl. He again congratulated the band on their work, followed by a "You may go in peace." Like a shepherd.

"Kids, we need to talk," said the manager, seeking eye contact with his most rebellious asset.

He led them back to his office, muttering about the band's return from the dead, about how the rest of the world would once again offer them collaboration deals, merchandise, a new kind of merch! Now that they had Seraphine, their Banshee, they could exploit her image just like K/DA did, but without being less invasive.

The old Thresh was ecstatic. That happiness was purely corporate, cold, and calculating. He wasn't smiling because he was happy for them—fuck their kids!—he was smiling because he saw money and success.

"Brilliant. Fabulous!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands. “The public is going to love you, it’s the fucking rebirth of the brand!”

After that private congratulation, Thresh drove Sera back to her apartment, sharing his ambitions with the young girl, who was calmer after her outburst.

“He’ll be back, don’t worry. They all come back.” he murmured, taking a pack of cigarettes from the glove compartment of his old sedan.

Having said that, Seraphine returned to her refuge with an anxious and demanding Bao, eager for affection. She took a long, cold shower, this time without the obsessive thoughts of the morning, and threw herself into bed to scroll through social media, basking in the fact that her darkness was accepted by her new family and that her own community also supported her.

She went to sleep without checking the last notification that made her phone buzz, a message from someone who should be holding a huge grudge against her; however, the «Can we try again?» went unanswered until the next day.