#character is unwittingly caught up in~??? i think i outdid myself here asdfghjjhgfds

[retvenkos]

olive my mind has decided it will take me back to my tmr roots randomly last night so 🚀 with gally from the maze runner if you’re still accepting these

jen!!! hello friend!!! how are you?

(also, @heliads you asked for gally, too, so i’m tagging you <3)

GALLY in a MODERN, CELEBRITY, PR RELATIONSHIP! AU. now, this is one loaded™ au so stick with me, asdfghgfds. gally is a small time celebrity. correction: gally is the son of two famous actors who fell in love on set of an action film, and had an incredibly public romance. from very young, it was thought he would follow in his parent’s footsteps and become an actor as well - in fact, he even did a few acting jobs as a child and while he wasn’t exactly critically acclaimed, he was talented enough as paolo morelli in goncharov, and he was a child and so it was forgivable. when he was eleven, however, his parents famously sent him abroad, to go live with his grandparents in some rural town. he grew quite a bit in those 18 years, and now he’s a talented ufc figher (with a background in boxing, wresting. kockboxing, and taekwondo, though occasionally he’ll throw in some jiu-jitsu or muay thai. he has a wide range of fighting styles, alright?) who would really rather not have celebrity status at all because while it’s flattering that people cheer for him in the ring, he really would like to just,,,, walk around new york city like a normal human being every once in a while. you, on the other hand, are a somewhat up and coming actor, still diversifying your roles and trying to figure out where you belong. your career really shot off when you played a major character in game of thrones, and then later, a role in bridgerton. you’ve done other work before that - small time roles, nothing of note unless your a die hard fan that wishes to watch every piece of media you’ve ever acted in - but you were recently offered a role in a blockbuster of epic proportions, and you’re staking your entire career on it. the problem is, it’s not exactly a period piece or any kind of historical fantasy (of which you are most well known and popular)... it’s an apocalypse movie. a sort of revival of the genre amidst the influx of superhero movies, if you will. you auditioned and got the part, and so there’s no real worry over your ability to act the hell out of this film, but when it comes to convincing the public, something more has to be done. you’re not exactly well known for your fighting ability, after all. wait. fighting ability?? the director of the film is a bit on the young side, but she’s been friends with gally since his amateur acting days i mean they starred together in goncharov after all. gally begrudgingly sees her as a younger sister, so when she begs him on her hands and knees to come back to acting - just for a small role that involves a lot of stunts!!! - he can’t exactly say no. and so what if she forgot to mention that his character has a small, heavily implied yet next explicitly stated, romantic arc with you, the main character? it’s not like she purposefully left that out when attempting to convince him, haha. and so when you and gally first meet, he already has a bad taste in his mouth for this entire affair. really, he was the idiot for not reading about his character as thoroughly as he should, but that doesn’t change the fact that he officially hates this. any anyone taking part in it. and so...... you, too. and really, you are just a bit annoying in your Extreme Dedication to an acting job that probably won’t become that big a blockbuster, anyway. i mean, who wants apocalypse movies, anymore?? (mr. gally, sir, i think you are underestimating the found family dynamic) you both play your parts on camera well, but the dissent between you is starting early, and off camera, no one wants to be near the two of you. and so when your director sees you guys aren’t exactly... chummy with each other, she goes out of her way to send the two of you on Bonding Field Trips... that a desperate photographer notices and latches onto, immediately. the news breaks early the next day - is there a romance budding between hollywood’s newest actor and most forgotten star??? gally is allergic to press and so he doesn’t actually realize what’s happened until he’s been caught by paparazzi and he deigns to check the news. this reporter by the name of thomas,,,,,, he better watch his back, gally is not pleaased. and so when the both of you rush onto set that morning you’re both understandably upset - you have a partner!!! well,,, okay, maybe you have a crush on a fellow actor - but it was certainly progressing!!! it was going somewhere!!!! never mind if they still overlooked you for someone else, you were going to confess to them soon!!! how can you do that now??? and meanwhile gally is like!!!!! this goes against my loner status!!!! the ~bad boy~ appeal!!!! i already took a season off of fighting for this stupid movie, and now you’re ruining my image, too???? but that’s when the both of you are stunned. absolutely blindsighted. this is good pr for the movie, can’t you just pretend to be dating during the shooting process, press tour, and like four months after the release??? oh, someone is about to die on this set piece - we can call it an unfortunate accident, and the press from that will cover up this ridiculous dating scandal that will not ever, in a thousand years, under any circumstances happen— hard cut to you and gally planning your first ~undercover~ date. this is not going to well - of that, you are most certain. gally is the hardest person to get along with! nothing is ever good enough! he doesn’t even want to be here! he was born into the very profession you’ve been desperately chasing since you were old enough to realize the people on screen were actors and not just characters, and he mocks you for having any ambitions at all! at least you try things. at least you give them your all! what has gally done but squander his acting talent from the moment he arrived on set? well, did it ever occur to you that he hates show buisness? that he ran away from it for a very specific reason and never wanted to come back at all, but does so because he does have a heart, actually, and doesn’t want to see his old friend create something that’s a flop?? you know what? never mind. he’ll do whatever you want for these stupid dates. and he’ll be a good little puppet and smile at the cameras and everything. you just make the plans. he’ll wash his hands clean of any of it. if you hate him so much, the least he can do is let you choose what activities you have to grin and bear with him. and so you go on a date, and luckily, the press manages to miss the awkward moments. and then, sometime later, you go on a second. and at the end of that second date, the both of you get so drunk you’re actually laughing the whole way home. and maybe you don’t hate each other so much after all.... maybe you actually fall in love with this idiot - so much so that for a moment, you forget entirely how this relationship began in the first place. that is,,,,, until a Notoriously Hard-Ass Interviewer asks you about the pr relationship outright. after all, weren’t you seen trying to approach another actor, right around the time that the first images leaked? and so you admit when the first pictures leaked, you and gally weren’t dating - you were doing bonding activities so that your on-screen performance would seem more real. and then the rumors broke, and the two of you were a bit awkward about going to places together afterward, but you still did those bonding activities, and at some point, started to contact him outside of those events. you were given ufc tickets and wanted to go with someone who could explain what the hell was going on. you wanted to try out that new korean bbq place and wished to go with someone who would openly state his opinion on all of the food present, and eat it all with a smile anyway. you wanted to go to an amusement park with someone who was good at all the fair games and would insist on giving all the prizes to you. you wanted someone who would get incredibly competitive over inconsequential trivia when watching jeopardy on game night (he did grow up with his grandparents after all, and so game night was a very sacred occurrence, thank you very much). so you were interested in someone else when the rumors began. but when you started dating him - officially, that night when the both of you went to that release party for a fellow friend’s new movie - that was real. and so was everything after. but who knows? maybe gally was just treating you like some pr relationship. the reporters would have to ask him, next. and gally, who is in the car, commuting to an interview of his own yet watching this all take place live, swears viciously. you would do something like this. and despite himself, that’s why he loves you.