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softquietsteadylove · 1 year

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Maybe this has a new AU potential? :)

Photographer Gil and Model Thena. But it’s Thena who falls in love first!

Gil is the best photographer and very popular so Thenas agency got lucky and managed to book an photoshooting for 2 days!

I really enjoy your work so a big thank you! ❤️

Thena flipped her hair in the other direction as the flashes continued to bombard and surround her. She angled this way, angled that, pursed her lips, lidded her eyes slightly--everything they always asked of her.

"That's perfect, Thena," the photographer - not even clicking the shutter, just letting it roll - drawled at her. His praise was as empty as her interest in this shoot. "You're doing amazing, sweetie."

"Ahhh, I've seen you do better."

Thena's eyes sparked at the increasingly familiar voice. She had only worked with him a few times by this point, but she had to admit that he was at least better than the hack currently at the helm. "This is a closed set, you know."

"I do know," he walked forward, out of the shadows and towards the blinding lights focused on her. "I'm taking over."

Thena just barely bit back her excitement at that.

"That may be, but we're not exactly done here," the current photographer stated, pulling his camera - and the photos he'd taken thus far - into him defensively.

"Oh, I think you are," Gilgamesh shrugged his stupidly wide shoulders as he dropped off his own camera bag. "You're doing her an injustice--is what you're doing. If I saw these proofs I'd ask for my money back, man."

"Excuse m-?!"

"Come on," he rolled his eyes as he started adjusting his lens and settings. He waved vaguely at the current set up, "you're washing her out, you spent no time thinking about how to light her properly, you're not even showcasing the product well."

"She is the product!"

"She's not for sale," Gilgamesh snapped back at the other photographer. "She may be the canvas, but you're doing a terrible job as the artist, so beat it."

Thena dropped her arms to her sides, letting her hair fall as it pleased around her shoulders. She was stiff from holding herself in the same three poses for the last hour. The previous photographer left in a huff, barely packing up the equipment he'd brought with him. If he hadn't been so boring and annoying, maybe she would feel bad.

Gilgamesh tilted his head at her as he walked into the lit space to move things around. "You've had a fun morning, huh?"

Thena shrugged, watching as he picked up entire light stands - sandbags and all - and moved them back. At least she wouldn't be roasting alive anymore. "Not everyone has your charm, Gil. He's just doing what's familiar to him, which is taking pictures of stationary objects."

Gil paused in his rearranging to give her a grin, "you think I'm charming?"

Thena paused just a second in their banter. One agonising second. "I said you had charm, not that it worked on me."

"Sure thing," he chuckled, opening up the barn doors on a few of the stronger lights to spread out their spill. "And that's his own fault if he's going to lie on his portfolio. Product photography doesn't mean you're ready for model stuff, even if you do take your friends' instagram pics."

Thena was happy to watch him work, adjusting the dress - one of many she would be wearing over the span of the weekend - spilling around her. "I have no problem being a stationary object if it means I get to sit down."

Gil found it funny that she often suggested she was lazy, even though she was one of the most booked models in their line of work. He would know; he was also highly sought after. "Thena."

She looked at him, although the way he was looking at her made her want to look away again. She was a model--she was used to being looked at. It was her job to be beautiful, and to be admired for that beauty. But something about Gilgamesh was different.

"You are not an object," he said softly, and in a way that was more honest than anything her co-workers could ever even attempt. He walked over to her again, sorting out some of her tousled hair, "stationary or not."

He stepped back to his camera, but that gave her the opportunity to try not to look flustered.

He sat down and pulled his camera into his lap, although not up to his eye. Gil preferred a very natural method of capturing his photos. Whether she had meant to say it or not, he was charming, and he was good at using that to encourage his subjects into a more relaxed rhythm.

"What have you been up to?" Thena began, having learned since her first few times working with Gil that he always started off his shoots with some light and easy conversation. She had fought it tooth and nail the first time, but there was something so personable about him.

"Mm, a lot of company work," he mumbled as he clicked through his camera settings, looking up at her and down again repeatedly. "Some food shoots."

"Do you get to eat the food?"

"No, a lot of it is faked to make it actually look good."

"That seems like a rip off."

Gil laughed, and damn if it didn't make her want to laugh too. It was so infectious.

Thena smiled. "I saw the stuff you did for Vanity. It was good."

"You think so?" he grinned, snapping a picture in the middle of their conversation.

She nodded. She was still just sitting the way she naturally would, folded up slightly over herself, legs crossed and hunching her shoulders. But he hadn't corrected her posture yet.

"It was kinda boring, though," he lamented, snapping another picture.

"Oh?"

He shrugged, stretching his legs out in front of him. "They're not as fun to talk to."

"As fun as...?" Thena lifted a carefully shaped eyebrow at him.

"As you."

"Lying to my face?"

"No lie," he denied, sitting back slightly in the chair next to the unused tripod. "I think our talks are fun."

"I feel a little puppeted when you say it like that," she murmured, looking down at her neutral painted toenails stretched out in front of her.

"Not a puppet," he laughed as he snapped another picture. "Maybe like a doll?--or one of those birds that can talk?"

Thena's jaw dropped at the playful jab, although she was undeniably smiling (it was pretty funny, she could admit). "I could demand a new photographer."

"I don't think so, they're paying me top dollar for the whole weekend," Gil grinned at her as he switched tactics, attaching his camera to the tripod and setting its auto timer. "You're stuck with me."

"Stuck with a photographer who thinks of me as a parrot?" Thena gave him another unimpressed glance as she stood as well, brushing the dress off and sorting out its layered and breezy skirts. She barely noticed the camera taking pictures at its timed intervals.

"A pretty one." Thena laughed at the lazy amendment. "There it is!"

"What?" she looked at him past the lights, tucking back one side of her hair, the way she liked.

"You have a great laugh," Gil said more gently, under the room's AC and the hum of the massive lights and the snap of his lens. He leaned to look at some of the pictures he was taking passively. "You can really feel it through the lens."

Thena rolled her eyes briefly. Gil never directed her on how to pose or stand or move in these shoots, leaving her somewhat idle. "Well, that is certainly part of the job--for people to feel my laugh?"

"It's my job, actually," he corrected her liberally, enjoying the way she looked annoyed with him for just a second. "I may be taking some pictures of a dress, but the actual point of photography is to capture the feeling of a moment. The vibe, or emotion, or whatever is happening in that split second."

"Poetic," she murmured, walking around the simple stand on which she had been seated before. If Gil wasn't going to tell her what to do then she would just pace around until he did.

"My job is capture the subject at its best, right?" he continued, even moving into the space to remove the stupid wooden block. "And I think your best is when you're relaxed, maybe even having a little fun?"

She had a regretful amount of fun when she was with him. It made the rest of her work grating and tiresome in his absence. "I thought you said I wasn't an object."

"You're not an object, or the product," he said softly, finally moving to direct her or position her or something. "But you are the subject. I don't think it would matter if you weren't; no one would be able to look at anything else anyway."

Thena kept her eyes on him as he held out his hand, letting her guide herself to him. He moved her gently, as if her were leading her in a dance. He watched the lights and shadows, testing where was the best position for them--for her.

Gil scrunched his mouth just a little, "they don't need to put this much makeup on you."

Thena shrugged, "part of the job."

Gil finally found the spot where he wanted her, somewhat at an angle to the camera, but not exactly in profile either. "The next dress has a totally different vibe to it. I'll tell them to give you the 'no makeup' look."

Which of course, still required makeup, just that it look like she didn't have any.

Thena's hand slipped out of his slowly, their fingers clinging to each other. She pulled her hand back to herself slowly until she could fold her hands together again. "Here?"

He shrugged, going back to the display screen on his camera. "It's not like you have a bad side."

Her smile grew again. "The dress might."

"I don't even like this dress."

Thena's laugh bubbled out of her before she could stop it. She looked somewhat over her shoulder at him again, "what?"

"Yeah, it's-" Gil waved his fingers in the air, "I dunno--silly."

She raised both brows at him, "it's silly?"

"No regular person would wear this," he gestured towards her.

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's impractical!"

"It's a dress!"

"Would you wear it?"

Thena pursed her lips; he had her there. "Maybe not in the everyday."

"The dress looks like it's half of one dress and then they forgot to make the bottom half," Gil moved his hands to gesture accordingly, making her laugh more. "And then they went, 'oh, we forgot, just take one square of all these other dresses and add them on the bottom' and that was that."

Thena dabbed at the corners of her eyes to make sure her makeup was undisturbed. She shook her head at him, "you're terrible."

"Better than that dress."

"Is that why you're photographing the back of it?" she asked back at him again until finally he nodded her back over to him. She fluffed the breezy fabric around her as she walked. He was right, it did look like a strip of the dress was missing and had been filled in with whatever curtains they had lying around.

"It's a 3/4 at most," he brushed off, clicking through his gallery to show her the photo on which he had decided. "This is the one."

It was a beautiful photo. It showcased the dress' best features while underplaying the odd structure of it. And she looked...she looked like she had never been happier.

"Well?" he looked at her almost eagerly, "what do you think?"

Thena found herself nearly nose to nose with him before taking a long step back. She tucked her hair back again, "I'm not the client, nor the one who hired you. I don't think it matters."

Gil shrugged blithely, uncaring of her dismissal. "It's a picture of you, I want to know what you think."

Thena sighed. It was a beautiful photo. The photograph made her feel beautiful. And he was right--she could practically hear her laughter in picture. She looked down at the dress as she smoothed down the bodice, "it's a lovely photograph, Gilgamesh."

"The first of many," he promised as he set aside his camera and stretched. He had achieved in twenty minutes what Tony hadn't been able to do in an hour straight of nonstop clicking. "I'm hungry--you?"

"Starved."

"I guess that's a given," Gil said mostly to himself, although Thena still heard him and slapped him on the arm for it. "Delivery lunch?"

"Anything," she let out in a sigh, her posture sagging again. She wandered out from under the lights. Once she didn't have actual thousands upon thousands of watts aimed at her it was a little chilly in the air conditioned loft space.

Gil laid her robe over her bare shoulders gently, "you get comfortable. We'll break for lunch and try the second dress on when hair and makeup comes in for the afternoon."

Thena could have thanked him, but he was already wandering to the other end of the open space, scrolling through various delivery apps for options.

#Thenamesh AU #I loved this prompt #I thought it was super cute #And do I know anything about what modelling is like? no #but I did work a little bit with film #and the point of both of those mediums to convey something #and I think Gil got one (1) picture of Thena's laugh #and decided then and there that he had never captured anything so beautiful #and now every picture that's not her is just okay in his opinion #he does the work pays his bills #but the agency invites him to work with her after their last shoot #very successful btw #and he jumps at the chance #like books a plane ticket before they've even written him back jumps #Thenamesh Photographer AU

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