grammy award nominations come out, and there are some suprises
a/n: a couple of things, one I used the grammys here because in my mind in the platinum universe the grammys are a real thing and the vinyls are like the american music awards if that makes any sense and two making up album titles and song titles has turned out to be just as hard as titling fics so apologies in advance
This has to be the most painfully long livestream of all time. As she watches people appear on screen and name off categories and those nominated, she realizes just how long she’s taken for granted just being able to search the nominations after the stream has already taken place. Currently the nominees for best Jazz album are being announced, a respectable category of course but one that the announcer is taking his precious time talking about. The entire thing is very painful, not to mention the fact that Raleigh is a nervous wreck.
He’s not showing it of course, because he’s not the kind of person to sit on the edge of his seat and clench his teeth until they announce his name. He’s spent so long building his up ‘cool guy’ persona that even a possible Grammy nomination will shake it. He sits next to her on the small couch in his apartment, squeezing her hand which is how she knows that he’s a lot more nervous than she even thought he could be.
The room is nearly silent as the nominations come slowly rolling in. The only sounds other than the stream are Fiona in the next room, on the phone again about something that Candace can only assume she’ll start talking about as soon as this is all over. Avery, who also has a very good chance of being nominated is therefore pacing the floor behind the couch. She stops occasionally, just so that the sound of her shoes on the hardwood floor stops but eventually she starts again, most likely recognizing that this whole thing is going at a snail's pace.
PR people from both camps are scattered about the room, typing on phones and refreshing twitter feeds trying to get any hint of how this is going to go. There’s a buzz to the whole room, a kind of hum that breaks through the tense silence, the anxiety in the air is clear, and Candace would be lying if she said it wasn’t getting to her just a little bit. She leans her head on Raleigh's shoulder just as another text from Shane comes in on her phone, which is sitting right next to the computer. He’s on set shadowing a director for school, so he can’t keep up with the news himself but he keeps texting her asking for updates.
She looks at the stream, sees that the R&B category is next and doesn’t even make a move towards the phone, this is it. She’ll update him when Raleigh gets nominated. Avery stops pacing, and glues her eyes to the screen, Fiona finally reenters the room and is suddenly transfixed as well and everything seems to stop as the presenters start speaking. He isn’t nominated for overall performance, which is fine because there are more categories, the stream keeps going and everything is suddenly speeding up.
“The nominees for best R&B song are, I see you by Raleigh Carrera and Candance Dorian,”
Nobody moves, nobody says anything, everyone just lets the stream continue without saying a word. Raleigh is still squeezing Candace’s hand even though as of this moment they are both Grammy nominated songwriters, but he wants more, and everyone in the room knows it. Finally the category comes to R&B album of the year. All the albums are announced but one, and everyone is holding their breath.
“The final nominee for R&B album of the year is About Me, by Raleigh Carrera.”
Cadence stares at the screen for a moment, dumbfounded, and when she turns to look at him she sees that he’s already looking at her. “Dude,” She says, “You’re a fucking grammy nominated artist.”
He smiles, “So are you.”
She rolls her eyes, “You’re entire album was nominated, this is really happening.” She hits him on the shoulder, “Stop being so cool about this! This is the one time you're allowed to go batshit.”
He laughs, “I think you’re the one going batshit.”
One of the press people, Carly, speaks up from across the room. “So we’re going to have to make a video later of you reacting to your nominations, because that is unusable.” She’s half joking but they both know there will have to be a video with both of them later.
“Arguably I think my cursing adds authenticity to the entire situation,” Candace jokes, “Because someone is being scarily calm about this entire thing.”
Suddenly the announcer moves into the next category, pop music and a hush goes over the room again. Avery continues to pace the floor, until finally she’s nominated for best pop performance and best pop song. Then the stream moves into the general categories, but the focus of the room isn't on those. Hums of conversation start to fill the room as Candace finally texts Shane back and immediately gets a flurry of all caps messages back, and outfits and awards performances are being discussed.
All of which changes the second the words, “I see you written by Raleigh Carrera, and Candace Dorian.”
Candace looks up, and sees that the header on the screen is song of the year. Everyone in the room stops talking and stares at Candace and Raleigh, still seated on the couch. The two of them aren't looking at anyone else, they’re just looking at eachother and suddenly they're kissing in the middle of the living room while everyone is looking at them while the rest of the nominations are still being read off. It’s a little embarrassing as Candance will admit later, but getting caught up in the moment of being nominated for an amazing award with the person that you love is a kind of ecstasy that can’t really be described. The kind of ecstasy that makes you make out said person in the middle of a room full of people.
“How was that for a reaction video?”
“I need one thats family friendly.”
The rest of the day is a blur of twitter notifications, interview requests, and phone calls from pretty much everyone they know. Near the end of the day, Candace decides to turn her phone off, and her computer and just try to take it all in without everyone else commenting on it. She’s more excited for Raleigh than herself, because she knows how hard he’s worked on this, and even though he won’t admit it she knows how much he wanted it.
At the end of the day, all the people have finally left the apartment, all the notifications have been turned off, and there's a comfortable silence in between the two people left. Raleigh and Candace lie in the bed, both exhausted from the day. “I’m proud of you,” She says, putting her hand on his chest.
He grasps it again and lets out a sigh, “When you said we were in this together, this was not what I had in mind.”
“To be fair, neither did I,” She smiles. “I’m sorry, I feel like the romance of it all is distracting people from your insane amount of talent.”
He rolls over and just looks at her. He’s enamored with her, like he always has been. If he’s being honest, none of this would mean as much as it does if she wasn’t right there with him, telling him not to give up and reminding him that he needs to stop being in his own head. He doesn’t deserve her. “I don’t want to make music if it’s not with you.”
She smiles and presses a brief kiss to his lips. “You and me forever,” She says and she means it.
blaine’s eyes glint, the low light from the speakeasy highlighting the shadows on his face. there’s something like danger in his gaze when he arches his eyebrows at her and says, “i’m officially ready to take this somewhere more private.”
kennedy realizes all at once that, while no one is exactly looking at them, they’re still mostly out in the open, kissing and touching where just about anyone in the club might be able to see. she feels her face grow hot as blaine’s hand rests warm on her knee, his thumb stroking along her skin before he squeezes her in question.
I’m rewatching Greys and this is definitely Bryce x MC
Sleepy boyfriend falling asleep after a long day full of surgeries in the on call room because he’s the only one working apparently on top of MC who is relentlessly doing some research to solve another case because no one else does
I need some Raleigh content because is never enough, so number 48
48. i called you at 2 AM because i need you / cliché tropes and prompts
raleigh answers on the first ring. his voice is like music to her ears when the phone clicks on and he says, “hey, babe. everything okay?”
the soft twang of an acoustic guitar rings out -- just one note on the d string -- and cadence sighs as she can suddenly picture her boyfriend perfectly: in their home studio, with his feet kicked up on the coffee table, the phone balanced between his shoulder and his ear while he tunes his guitar with his tongue poking out between his teeth, his brow furrowed in concentration.
she’d been homesick before she’d dialed his number, but now she’s practically aching for their brownstone in brooklyn. “yeah,” she murmurs sadly, staring wistfully out at the city from the balcony of her hotel room.
the sound of the guitar stops abruptly. “no it’s not,” raleigh says, “what’s wrong?”
she should’ve known better than to think she could ever hide from raleigh. “just homesick,” cadence answers, “i miss you.”
raleigh laughs under his breath, and then the noodling of the strings starts again. she listens as he slowly tunes the a string, trying to pick out the sound of his breathing in between the strums. “cadence, you’ve been on tour for two days.”
“so?” she huffs defensively, “i can still miss you. and i miss our house. i miss our bed. the mattress at this hotel is lumpy.”
“the mattress at the miami intercontinental is lumpy?” raleigh asks, voice heavy with disbelief. “i don’t think so.”
she turns to glance back at the bed behind her. beyond the balacony, her empty hotel room is dimly lit, waiting pristinely for her to come to bed. the sheets are crisp at the corners and the mattress is perfectly bouncy. there’s no six-foot-two hurricane ripping the covers off in a mid-sleep boxing match -- something she’d stared at the ceiling waiting for for hours before finally getting up and going outside to call raleigh.
“it is,” cadence insists, “it’s lumpy and shitty and i hate it here and i want to come home.”
“no you don’t,” he murmurs reassuringly, and she sighs heavily when the sound of the guitar suddenly shifts into her favorite melody, a song he’d made up for her ages ago on their first anniversary. the only words to the song are happy anniversary baby, but even without them, the sound of the music is enough to make her throat feel tight. “you love touring. you’re gonna have the best tour ever.”
and -- she knows that. tour is going to be great, and already she’s overjoyed with seeing her fans come out to scream the words to her album back at her, but... it’s not the same as staying up late in the basement of their house with raleigh, bouncing ideas off each other and ordering their third postmates delivery of the day. “well, i still miss you.”
“i know,” raleigh laughs, sounding exactly like home despite how far away he is. “i miss you, too. but we’ll meet up in minneapolis before you know it.” there’s a pause before he corrects, “i think. where is minneapolis?”
“oh my god, goodnight,” cadence laughs, effortlessly cheered out of her bad mood, just like that. “i’ll call you tomorrow. i love you.”
there’s a beat before raleigh answers, thumbing the last few notes of her anniversary song over and over again, faster and faster. “yeah, you’d better. love you.”
she’s had what would probably be considered to be too many drinks.
but it’s not her fault; alexei and henri keep pushing cocktails into her hands, and there’s shots with tatum and champagne with dionne and before she even realizes it, the room is spinning around her.
a warm hand clasps her bare shoulder, steadying her where she’s swaying out-of-time with the music. kennedy turns her head and sees blaine, standing comfortingly close. her face splits into an easy smile as she realizes she’s relieved to see him. slowly, he smiles back.
his fingers slip beneath the threadbare strap of her dress and rub soothingly at her skin. “hey. let’s get you some air, yeah?”
candace peforms a song she wrote about her and raleighs breakup at the vinyls and things get messy
a/n: forever & always by taylor swift is a bop please listen to it. Funny story, the idea for this fic came to me while I was singing forever and always alone to myself but imagined I was singing it to a stadium full of fans like any normal person would
*the words in italics are lyrics from the song
Candace has never been shy about putting her own emotions into the songs that she releases, whether about finding herself or some kind of romantic angle. People seem to like that kind of thing, feeling like they know the artist through their music. She’s never minded, all of the speculation and her putting herself out there-until now.
Forever and Always was a last minute addition to her second album. Last minute almost being an understatement seeing as it was ready to go onto the album about a month out from when it was set to release. Fiona had been very upset about that, but eventually she’d gotten over it due to some extenuating circumstances. It had all paid off anyway, the song ended up being the most popular one off the album, even though it wasn’t initially released as a single it started getting circulated to radio stations and ended up being more popular than the actual single they’d released before the full album.
Which of course is the whole problem. In her haste to get the sound fully produced and put on the album as the final track, Candace had neglected to think about how she would feel about having to hear it over and over, or talk about it in interviews or perform it in front of actual people. Forever and Always is a song she started to write two days after she broke up with Raleigh Carerra and finished a week later after she’d moved out of the apartment they shared. Now she heard it almost everyday when she went out, when she was in the car, and it hurt more than she thought it would.
And now she’s supposed to perform it at the vinyls.
“I’m not doing that,” She tells Fiona, not even able to look the other woman in the eye. Candace shuffles around her apartment looking for a pair of her glasses that she's put in some drawer or on some table. “Can you tell them I won’t do that? I will do any other song, any other one.”
“It’s the most popular song on the album,” Fiona reminds her, “It's higher on the charts than any other song you’ve done, it’s synonymous with you now, it’s kind of your defining song.”
Candace finally finds the pair of glasses in a kitchen drawer and sighs, “Of course it is. Just my luck that it would be my defining song, the one I can’t listen to without tearing up.” Neither of them says anything, and Candace pulls a bag of pretzels out of the cabinet, then opens them which makes a lot of noise. “Okay,” She relents, “I will perform the song, but just know that I resent being forced to, and that I will need alcohol as soon as i'm done.”
“Both are noted.”
The night of the show comes around and Candace can’t shake the sense of impending doom that she keeps pulling at the back of her mind. The dress she’s wearing is one of her favorites of all time, but even that can’t stop the upcoming performance. It’s all made worse by the fact that she realized after she’d already agreed to do it that Raleigh was going to be there and see the performance. She knows that he knows the song is about him, just like she assumes the rest of the world does, just because there is no other logical option. Their relationship was public knowledge, and eventually so was the breakup.
She starts the performance and feels confident. She knows what she’s doing, it’s what she loves to do: sing for people and know that they hear it that they hear it, and like it. She catches his eye briefly during one of the verses but she looks away before any motion can come out of it.
So here’s to everything, coming down to nothing
Here’s to silence that cuts me to the core
Where is this going?
That one almost gets her, not because she’s looking at him but because she can feel his eyes on her, she knows he’s watching and it she wonders if he knows what those words mean to her. How much had it blindsided her when he just casually brought it up over dinner? She doesn’t think about it too much, just keeps going until she gets to the final chorus. Just as she thinks she’s actually going to do this and make it through without anything terrible happening she reaches the last chorus.
And it rains in your bedroom everything is wrong
It rains when your here and it rains when your gone
Cause I was there when you said forever and always
The emotions overwhelm her so much that she doesn’t even see that she’s looking at him, and that she’s crying. Suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s looking at him, and tears are flowing down her face faster than she can wipe them away. She doesn’t stop singing, but she feels trapped in the moment like she can’t pull herself away from her own humiliation happening right in front of her.
But she finishes the song.
She waits until the lights are down before she all but runs off the stage. She runs through the stage, through the backstage, and out into the cold air. She walks away from the building, tears flowing down her face still. A chill goes down her body as she stands out there not knowing what to do but painfully aware that she just embarrassed herself on national TV. She wraps her arms around herself, mind running with thoughts of if she’ll ever come back from this or if for the rest of her career she’ll be asked about the night she cried looking Raleigh Carrera in the eyes.
At least if she thinks about her career she won’t think about how much she misses him. She turns towards the building just as Avery comes rushing outside, clearly she’s been looking for her in the arena. “Hey,” She says, running up to Candace even though she’s in heels, “Are you okay?”
Candace sniffles, “Yeah.” Avery gives her a look, and she lets out a breath before saying, “Fine, No I’m not. I just ruined my entire career and embarrassed myself on national television. I am never going to live this down.”
Avery looks sympathetic and quickly wraps her up in a hug. “It’ll be okay love,” She says, “People are going to forget eventually.”
Candace doesn’t believe that for a second, because if it was her she would never forget that. Her mind races with the thoughts of how many buzzfeed listicles it’ll end up on, how many articles will be written in the next few days about her, how many tweets she’ll be tagged in about her very public emotional breakdown. Fiona comes out of the door next, clearly out of breath from some kind of running to find her.
“Excuse my french,” She says when she catches up, “But what the fuck was that?”
“The consequences of making me perform a fucking break up with my ex in the audience,” She says, tears start to from in her eyes, “God, I fucked up.”
“This can be handled,” Fiona says suddenly, “It’s going to go away eventually.”
“That’s being optimistic,” She rolls her eyes.
“Well you are going to have to go back in there tonight, because if you're not there to accept your award then it’ll make this whole thing that much worse.”
Candance’s phone buzzes in her jacket pocket furiously, she doesn’t even move to get it though because she knows exactly what’s going to be there when she turns it on. She has never in her life wished she could disappear without a trace more than this moment. She looks back towards the door, knowing that Fiona’s right, but the instinct to turn and run flashes through her mind multiple times.
She turns back to the two women standing in front of her and tucks a hair behind her ear, “They could posthumously take away the award for being a crybaby.”
“Posthumously means you have to be dead.”
“I might as well be,” She groans loudly, “From now on I am going to be known as the girl who got her heart broken by the bad boy and then lost her shit about it on the vinyls, that’s the kind of thing that follows someone around.”
Neither of them can quite argue with that. She knows that she has to go back in, but standing out here for as long as she possibly can allows her to convince herself that she doesn’t have to. That she can just wander off into the distance, go home and shut herself into her apartment for the next three and half days, or longer if no one comes to physically drag her out.
“I’ll go back in,” She says, like it’s even a choice, “But I’m going to stand in the back and I want out as soon as it’s possible.” Fiona nods, and turns back to typing something on her phone. Candance walks back into the building, avoiding eye contact with every single person who passes her by. She goes back to the dressing room and takes off the glittery outfit she performed in, putting back on the gold dress she showed up in, with its ribbon sleeves tied in bows where it meets her shoulder. As she looks in the mirror she’s silently thankful she’s never been one to wear mascara, because makeup dripping down her face is the last thing she needs.
She stands at the back of the hall, thankful that everyone’s back’s are to her. Suddenly someone stands right next to her, and when she looks to see who it is she almost throws up right then and there. “What the fuck do you want?” She angrily whispers.
Raleigh doesn’t look at her, he looks out at the room ahead of them and the announcer giving some speech about the next award. Candace looks behind her to see if anyone is looking at the two of them, because pictures of them together would put the icing on the cake of terrible things that could happen tonight. “What happened?” He asks, his voice genuine.
“You fucking broke my heart,” She almost growls, “And now everyone knows that I am unstable.”
“I’m sorry,” He says.
“You say that now.”
“I’ve always been sorry,” He says, finally turning to look at her.
She doesn’t move, but something comes over her and she turns to look him right in the eyes again. Again tears start to prick in her eyes, and she wipes them again, cursing herself for crying at all the wrong times. “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have been such an ass.”
He looks embarrassed, “You were better off without me,” He says, “You still are.”
“Because I’m doing great,” She grits her teeth and tries not to raise her voice. “You love to decide what people should think of you, decide what other people should do. Maybe once in a while you could get your head out of your own ass and let someone care about you for longer than a minute at a time.”
He opens his mouth to say something but a sound from the front of the room stops the conversation. Up in front of the stage, the announcer says, “And for female artist of the year, Candace Dorian.” Candace rolls her eyes, suddenly very uninterested in having the eyes of the entire room again. She starts walking as soon as she hears her name, suddenly cognisant to the fact that she has a long way to go to get onto the stage, which is another awkward moment that no one wants tonight.
She gets up onto the stage without a problem, and she’s not exactly nervous, just painfully aware that everyone knows what happened but she had to pretend like it didn’t happen at all. She takes the award from the hands of the presenter, and beams at the audience, “Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me and supported both of my albums. Music is everything to me, and I’m so grateful that I get to share it with everyone.” When she thinks it’s enough she walks off the stage.
She gets another award that night, for song of the year and when that is over she’s in the car on the way home. It’s not that she’s ungrateful for winning, if the performance had gone off without a hitch then she would be on top of the world at the after party without a care in the world. Now she stands in the bathroom of her apartment, changing her clothes into the sweatpants she knows she’ll live in for the next few days.
It’s when she’s finally laying on the couch, the newly delivered comfort food sitting on the table in front of her that she realizes that she misses him. That she wouldn't feel half as mad if she didn’t miss him so much, if she didn’t want him back so much that just looking at him makes her want to break down into tears. She feels stupid for even thinking that, because the way that it looks, the way it looks like he broke her heart and she took him back without even thinking about what kind of harm it could bring her. The whole world knows how much she wants him, and that feels like she’s shown her entire hand.
A couple of hours later, someone knocks on the door and she doesn’t even move. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone, she doesn’t want anyone to even look at her. When the knocking doesn’t seem to stop, she begrudgingly gets up off the couch and opens the door. Of course, the person standing there is the last one she wants to see.
“You were right.”
“What do you want?” She groans.
“You’re right,” He says again. “I pushed you away because I’m fucked up, and I convinced myself that you would be better off without me, because I love you so much that I don’t want to hurt you.” He rubs the back of his neck self consciously, “But it seems like I already did.”
“No shit,” She deadpans, she knows she should feel something about this but the events of the night have made her numb.
“I’m sorry,” He says, reaching out and taking her hand.
She wants to scream, she wants to somehow shake herself back to life but she’s been so sad for so long that her body has all but shut down. Instead of being happy now she’s thinking about the fact that this will have to come out eventually, but not right away because it’s tentative. She wants something permanent, she wants him to say that she’ll stay because right now it feels like the only feeling that's permanent is the one where she longs for him even when he’s technically hers.
“I love you too,” She says, “But I can’t do this if it’s going to be the same thing. I was always so afraid that you would leave me, even when you were standing right in front of me, and then you left and I didn’t think I would ever be able to get over it.” She stops talking suddenly because she doesn’t know how to say it, she doesn’t know how to tell him that she wants him so badly but at the same time she’s scared to let him in again.
“The last thing I want to do is hurt you,” He says, taking advantage of the lapsed into silence, “I never wanted to hurt you, but you were right I was being selfish.” He sighs, and then looks at her for a long time, “I came here to try and not do the same shit I always do. I came here to tell you that I’m not going to leave you, I’m not going to make choices that affect us without telling you and I came here to tell you that I love you. I love you so much and seeing you cry because of me was the worst thing.”
“You really did make me cry in front of millions of people.”
“I’m never going to be able to live that one down, am I?”
She pulls him in for a kiss, which turns out to be everything she’s been missing and more, and then says, “No,” still smiling, “But I still love you.”
Shane Parker is the US’s most prominent up and coming filmmaker, the film student has made a name for himself amongst the greats, showcasing his talents out his documentary style focus in his films for both pop-star sensations Avery Wilshere and Cadence Zenfanya’s world tours.
author’s note | wrote this short fic for the #vinylawardschallenge! i wanted to write a fun acceptance speech of some kind for @platinumweekend so i came up with this! my mc is pretty different from the canon mc btw – keep that in mind and hope u enjoy !!
•─────────────────•
“And the winner is… Dom Avalos – Album Of The Year!”
She looked to her friends, lined up next to her, eyes wide. She slapped her hands over her mouth, frozen in shock.
“No fucking way,” she yelled to Raleigh over the deafening applause and cheers, shaking her head. “There’s no way.”
