open to m / f / nb ; connection set within plot
who zelda monroe ( camila mendes ) , 23 year old actress and activist
connections / plot a mix of THIS and THIS ; zelda’s a former child actor turned activist, known throughout the world as ‘little miss goodie two shoes’. muse b is the ‘bad [ boy / girl / whatever ]’ on the entertainment scene, leaving behind broken hearts left and right. the two have a fwb situation, and while people are concerned / convinced that they’re legit dating, they insist to the public eye they’re Just Friends. until D Day: a video of the two of them leaks, and now everyone knows: little miss zelda is into being filmed, for fun and for pleasure.
potential triggers plot would be smut based, include use of drugs and alcohol
“What the fuck,” she groaned, her phone screaming at her from her bedside table. It had been going off all morning, but she’d been doing her best to ignore it. This was supposed to be her week off - no need for publicity, no need for magazine interviews or photoshoots, nothing to work on before the next season of her show started, just time for her to relax, to enjoy her life, to fucking sleep.
Which she couldn’t do if no one left her alone.
The clock on her bedside table said it was only 7:23am, and the sunlight streaming through her window told her that it was going to be a bright, sunshiny day, but she didn’t feel it as she sat up, wiping sleep from her eyes to reach around for her glasses, shoving them on to open the phone just in time for the phone call to end.
“Fine, then,” she mumbled, unlocking it with an all too familiar passcode - 0423, a date no one would know but her and one other. Her screen was littered with messages, calls, emails. Her manager. Her agent. Reporters. Her mother.
“Oh, no,” she whispered, horror gripping through her as she realized what had happened. And there it was, sent to her by her best friend of all people - ‘wow, Z, maybe you should have kept it in your pants until you made it to the bathroom or something?’ - a link to a TMZ article. Of her, half naked, her head thrown back, a video she didn’t even know had been filmed from her last night out over the weekend, when they’d come to visit.
‘Just Friends’ wasn’t going to fly this time. Because Just Friends didn’t have their face buried in her chest, their fingers twisting inside of her like they had been.
Zelda was fucked. And not the way she had been in this video.
Now it was her turn to start panic calling, pressing the contact information immediately, whispering to herself while she waited - it was only 4am in Los Angeles, but half the time they didn’t go to bed until the sun rose. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she whispered, holding the small charm around her throat as she did. “Pick up, pick up, pick up.”
“Hello?” Groggy, clearly half asleep, but always answering her phone calls. Never had Zelda been so relieved.
“We’re fucked,” she announced, her own voice gravely with sleep, “someone saw us. At the club the other night. They filmed it. And everyone’s seen it by now.”
Four in the morning. That was the time he’d heard the ringtone he’d set for Zelda the day he’d managed to get her number. The Ocarina of Time song rang through the dim room ---- it was cheesy, but he hadn’t been able to change it. Hers were the only phone calls he picked up on the first ring, even on nights like these where his head hit the pillow merely an hour ago.
It had been another usual night of drinking himself half to death tucked away in the VIP section of an LA nightclub full of snotty influencers talking to him for the photo opp and desperate partygoers trying to make an impression on him. Things just weren’t the same without Zelda in the same city, and he found himself finding it harder to enjoy his usual activities without her.
As he picked up the phone, head swimming with remnants of Grey Goose and sleep, he struggled to process her words. He sat up, silk sheets falling off his inked chest as he rubbed his temples.
“Zelda.” He started, pulling the phone away from his ear to check the time quickly before coming back to her. “Are you sure?” For once in his life, Philip Krasnov was speechless. He’d turned off his google alerts and all of his management team were on a constant mute on his phone ---- he was always the last to know when he was involved in a scandal.
They’d managed to get away with the whole innocent friendship gig for some time now, which was convenient for the both of them. Philip had become an expert at fielding Zelda related questions, though apparently they’d become reckless over time.
At this point, he wasn’t even sure what the stranger had captured on video, and memories of times they’d been a little too risky started flooding, a reminiscent smile pulling at his lips. This wasn’t the end of the world for him ---- but he quickly remembered the other party involved.