Faint lights cast a dim glow over a scattered pile of notes on a wooden table in the darkened studio. The air was thick with the lingering scent of coffee and the faint hum of a long-silenced amplifier. Everyone else had gone—the laughter and chatter of the day had faded, leaving only the quiet presence of two people sitting side by side in comfortable silence.

Alex sat in his chair, elbow resting lazily against the tabletop, hunched over a black notebook. The cream-colored pages were filled with his barely legible handwriting—slanted italics that only he could decipher (though, admittedly, even he struggled at times). Matt, Nick, Jamie and the producer had already left, leaving the studio eerily empty after an exhausting day of recording.

The new album, Humbug, loomed on the horizon, carrying the weight of expectation. The last two records had been met with resounding success, and this one had the potential to follow suit—if only Alex could let go of his relentless need for perfection. But that was the problem. He couldn’t. Every song had to be refined, reshaped, reconstructed until it reached an elusive standard that only he could see. And now, Crying Lightning sat before him, already a masterpiece in its own right, yet still, something nagged at him. Something was missing.

You had joked earlier that his lyrics couldn’t possibly get any more metaphorical, which had earned you a sharp, wordless glare from Alex—one of those pointed stares that could silence an entire room. He was in his zone now, and when he was like this, nothing could break his concentration.

So you simply stayed beside him, leaning lightly against his shoulder, watching as his pen tore through the pages, slashing lines, rewriting lyrics, creating an intricate mess of crossed-out sentences and scribbled notes. Your eyelids grew heavy, the blurry shapes of his scrawled words blending together, warning you that sleep was creeping in. Still, you fought against it, unwilling to close your eyes just yet.