Chapter Text
The air in Studio 8H had a specific smell. It was a layered scent, a seventy-year-old lasagna of history and creative desperation. There was the dusty perfume of old wood and paint from the sets, the sharp, metallic tang of the lighting rigs, the faint but persistent aroma of stale coffee, and underneath it all, the electric hum of pure, unadulterated chaos.
Sabrina Carpenter breathed it in like it was expensive oxygen. At twenty-five, she was no stranger to chaotic green rooms and high-stakes stages, but this was Saturday Night Live. This was the comedy pantheon, the place where legends were forged in the crucible of live television. She was the musical guest, a two-song cherry on top of the cultural sundae, and she was buzzing with an energy that felt like popping candy fizzing under her skin. Her new album was a global phenomenon, a bubbly, coquettish masterpiece of pop perfection that had her name on everyone's lips. She felt invincible.
She was currently perched on a stool in the writers' room, a cavernous, cluttered space that looked like a university library had thrown up on a startup's lounge. A gaggle of writers, most of them looking like they hadn't seen the sun in a decade, were gathered around a long table, pitching her ideas for sketches she could cameo in.
"Okay, so you're a contestant on a baking show," a young writer named Ben, all frantic energy and horn-rimmed glasses, was saying, "but everything you bake comes out looking... suggestive."
Sabrina threw her head back and laughed, a bright, musical sound that made a few of the writers blink as if they’d forgotten what genuine joy sounded like. "A phallic pastry? Groundbreaking," she deadpanned, but her eyes were sparkling. "I'm not mad at it. What else you got?"
She loved this part. The creative spitballing, the energy of a room full of people trying to make something funny out of thin air. She was wearing a ridiculously short, baby-pink Miu Miu skirt set that felt deliciously out of place amongst the worn jeans and hoodies. Her platform heels made her tower over most of the seated writers, and she knew, with the practiced self-awareness of a pop star, that she was a splash of vibrant, unapologetic color in their monochrome world.
It was then that the door swung open, and the decibel level in the room—a low hum of murmured pitches and typing—dropped to zero.
Pedro Pascal walked in.
It was like watching a movie star enter a room in a movie. He had a presence that seemed to suck all the ambient light towards him. He was older, of course. Forty-nine. The age gap was a canyon, a geological feature you could map and study. His hair was a chaotic salt-and-pepper masterpiece, and the lines around his eyes weren't flaws; they were testimonials. They spoke of late nights, hearty laughs, and probably, Sabrina thought with a little internal smirk, a fair amount of brooding. He was wearing a soft, brown cardigan over a simple t-shirt, looking less like a Hollywood megastar and more like a devastatingly handsome literature professor who was about to ruin some co-ed's life.
A wave of something hot and unfamiliar and utterly inconvenient washed over Sabrina. It wasn't just that he was attractive. He was Pedro Pascal. The internet's Daddy. The man whose face was currently plastered on everything from dystopian dramas to quirky indie films. He was a Serious Actor, the kind who probably read Tolstoy in his downtime and had opinions on postmodernism. She was a pop star who sang songs with lyrics like, "I'm on my espresso, a shot of Depresso." They were from different planets.
Lorne Michaels followed him in, his expression as placid and unreadable as ever. "Pedro, glad you could make it. This is the team. And our musical guest, Sabrina Carpenter."
Pedro’s eyes, warm and dark and frankly a little bit soulful for a Tuesday afternoon, swept the room and landed on her. He gave a small, polite smile. "A pleasure."
His voice. Oh, no. It was just as bad as she’d feared. That low, gravelly timbre with the hint of a Chilean accent curling around the edges. It was a voice that could convince you to invest in a doomed startup or confess your deepest secrets. Sabrina felt a ridiculous, traitorous flutter in her stomach. She immediately crushed it.
She hopped off the stool, the click of her heels on the linoleum a sharp counterpoint to the sudden silence. She extended a hand, her nails painted a glossy, immaculate white. "Sabrina. Huge fan of your work," she said, her voice dripping with the bright, practiced effervescence she could turn on like a tap.
He took her hand. His was large and warm, his grip firm but gentle. The contact sent another stupid jolt straight up her arm. It was the most cliché, rom-com-trope reaction in the history of the world, and she hated it.
"Likewise," he said, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. "My niece is obsessed with your music. Plays it constantly."
And there it was. The subtle, unintentional dismissal. My niece. It was the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head. He wasn't being mean, not at all. He was being polite. He was acknowledging her in the way one acknowledges a cultural phenomenon that belongs to a generation two steps behind his own. He was putting her in a box. A cute, glittery, chart-topping box that was miles away from his own serious, prestigious world.
A spark of defiance ignited in her chest. Oh, she knew the type. The serious artists who looked at pop music as a confection, a trifle. They respected the success, the machinery of it, but they didn't respect the art. They thought it was frivolous. And by extension, they thought she was frivolous.
She gave him her sweetest, most dazzling smile, the one that graced magazine covers and made interviewers forget their questions. "Oh, that's so sweet! You should tell her I said hi. It's always so great when the whole family can enjoy my music, you know? Even the... older generations."
She let the word older hang in the air for a fraction of a second too long, a tiny, glittering barb disguised as a pleasantry.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bowen Yang, who was leaning against a filing cabinet, press his lips together to hide a smile.
Pedro's eyes narrowed, just slightly. The polite, distant mask flickered. He saw it. He caught the barb. A flicker of something—annoyance? surprise? —danced in his gaze before being smoothed over again. He dropped her hand.
"Of course," he said, his tone perfectly level.
Lorne, oblivious or perhaps just expertly ignoring the microscopic war that had just been declared, clapped his hands together. "Excellent. Everyone's acquainted. Now, Pedro, we have a few ideas for the monologue, and Ben here has a killer 'Waking Up' sketch for you."
The meeting resumed. Pedro took a seat at the table, a respectful distance from Sabrina, and listened intently to the pitches. He was a professional. He offered thoughtful suggestions, laughed at the right moments, and treated every idea, no matter how absurd, with a quiet consideration. He was, in a word, charming.
And it drove Sabrina absolutely insane.
She couldn't focus. She was acutely aware of him. The way he’d run a hand through his messy hair when contemplating a joke. The low rumble of his laugh. The way the fabric of his cardigan stretched across his shoulders when he leaned forward. She felt like a teenager with a crush, and it was infuriating. She was Sabrina Carpenter. She wrote songs that made boys feel this way. She was the one who held the power, the one who left them breathless and confused. She was not the one to be flustered by some actor's handsome, patronizing face.
The problem was the tension. It was immediate and suffocating. It wasn't just annoyance on her part. It was something thicker, something that coiled in the space between them. When he'd looked at her, really looked at her for that split second after her "older generations" comment, she'd seen it. A flash of fire. A recognition. It was the look of a man who was used to being in control, realizing he was in a room with someone who had no intention of letting him be.
"Sabrina?"
She blinked, pulled from her internal monologue. Sarah Sherman was looking at her, her expression a mix of concern and mischief. "We were thinking of putting you in the 'Family Dinner' sketch with Pedro. You'd play the new, much-younger girlfriend he's bringing home to meet his hyper-critical family."
Sabrina's brain short-circuited. It was too perfect. It was a nightmare.
"You'd have to, like, make out with him," Sarah added, her eyes wide with glee. "A lot. For comedy."
Every head in the room turned to look at them. Sabrina felt a hot blush creep up her neck, and she hated it. She was a performer. She’d kissed actors on screen before. It was part of the job. But the thought of having to press her lips against Pedro Pascal's, with this... this thing simmering between them, felt less like acting and more like lighting a match in a room full of gasoline.
She needed to regain control of the narrative.
She looked directly at Pedro, whose face was a carefully blank canvas. She gave him a slow, deliberate smile. "Oh, I don't know," she purred, letting her voice dip into a lower, huskier register. "Do you think you can keep up, Pedro?"
The room went dead silent again. It was a direct challenge, flirty and audacious and utterly unprofessional. For a moment, Pedro just stared at her. The polite professor was gone. In his place was something far more dangerous. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards, a slow, predatory curl that was ten times more devastating than his polite smile.
"I think," he said, his voice a low, intimate growl that seemed to bypass the ears of everyone else in the room and travel straight down her spine, "I'll manage."
Oh, hell, Sabrina thought, her heart doing a frantic, traitorous tap dance against her ribs. This week is going to be a problem.