[swanning is swansong is bella swan]
James has always gotten what he wanted. It's not even a question. As the heir to a Fortune 500 company, everything he's ever asked for has been his as soon as he expressed even the faintest desire for it. The world is his. The world goes his way. No matter what it is, he gets it if he wants it. This is what he's come to expect.
So, it's extremely irritating and disconcerting to know that he isn't getting what he wants.
That girl wasn't Swansong. She'd been pretending to be Swansong and she'd been dumb enough to out herself in the office. But James doesn't care about the girl. He'd made sure she paid for lying.
The only thing that really matters about Alice Brandon is the slim chance that she might actually know Swansong. She'd confessed that she borrowed her friend's handle - so, if her friend was truly Swansong, then that means Swansong had been at the company and James had missed the opportunity.
Why does he care? He doesn't. Not really. The fact that someone was pretending to be Swansong was irksome, the fact that he was weak enough to hire someone based on their handle is vexing, but none of it is quite so irritating as knowing Swansong had rebounded from him to Master Culler. And that the two of them had beaten him, had boxed him in, had outmaneuvered him.
Nobody beats James and gets away with it.
For weeks, he's been chipping away at two projects. The first is to shake Swansong's foundations. They might have been in-game spouses and he might have been interested in more, but with her unwilling to meet up, James had decided she wasn't worth the time - she must be too ugly, he'd thought, and that's why she was playing hard to get. That was fine. Victoria had been in the wings for him, anyway, and he hadn't thought much about upgrading to the better girl. But with the way Swansong and Master Culler are, James is chafing at their superiority. They've been on top for too long. His best plan of action is to push Swansong out of her safe place, out of the guild, and out of the game. Let that be a payment to her, too, for letting her friend lie and lie and lie. It's what she deserves.
The second project is this, the reason why he's staying late yet again, going over archived employment applications in search of any indication of who that Alice girl's friend might be. He isn't sure what he's looking for, really. He's had to go through hundreds of files because the idiots in HR had a filing error that meant nothing from this summer was archived into individual folders. Instead, he's been going through the files from the last five years alphabetically, combing through names, pictures, and handles to search for any kind of pattern.
He's set aside all of the files from this summer's interview process and combs through their details carefully. There are a few handles that pop out to him, but the information in them doesn't indicate any connection to the information in Alice Brandon's file.
He thought it would be easier than this. Alice Brandon is a Stanford student with her dorm listed as her address, and he thinks it's fair to assume that she might have applied for the internship with her friends, maybe even her dorm mates. But by the time he narrows his files down to five additional applications using a Stanford address, he isn't sure he's going to find what he wants. The first two files are complete duds - the applicants aren't even computer majors, which he knows for a fact the real Swansong is because she'd let it slip during one of their conversations. The third file is a computer major, but also male, which is another disqualification.
File number four, though -
James stares. He can't help it. This is a shitty two by three picture, but this girl, he recognizes her. It's the barest flicker of a memory, but he remembers that day in the spring, remembers seeing who he thought was Swansong, remembers her much more attractive friend by her side. Remembers this girl with the green eyes and the freckles.
Remembers this girl who is just as gorgeous, if not more, than Victoria. The more he looks, the more he's enchanted - and, conversely, angered.
Could this be her? Could this be the actual Swansong? And if it is, then why wouldn't she want to meet with him? She's not ugly - far from it, actually - so he can't think of anything to explain her hesitation. Unless she hadn't wanted to meet him because she didn't like him online, who Relentless is, in which case his pride takes a blow.
He scowls and takes a look at the handle this Bella Swan - Swan! - had provided to Denali in her interview. Swanning. Well, that's awful close to Swansong, isn't it? A computer major, a Stanford address, a DOW handle, and his memory - all signs are pointing in only one direction.
James has the time to look into this because Victoria isn't expecting him for another hour. He turns to his laptop and runs a perfunctory Google search. A Twitch account is pulled up - lo and behold, there Swanning is, there Bella Swan is, providing tutorial demos for various games, including DOW.
"Let's see if you play like Swansong," he says as he opens a random instance dungeon tutorial.
It takes less than three minutes to recognize Swansong's distinctive maneuvering. Even played with a different character class and different abilities, the movements, the strategy is all the same.
This girl is Swansong.
"Fuck me," he mutters, letting his eyes drag across the delicate planes of her face as she provides a running commentary for some noob-ass players who need help with these simple quests.
He doesn't know whether he should be pissed that someone who looked like this rejected him, or whether he should be motivated. And more importantly, he doesn't know if he wants to finish the first project.
Maybe it would be easier to get rid of Victoria and pursue this Bella girl, instead. Swansong is the better player, after all, and prettier the longer he looks at her.
With single-minded intensity, James dives headfirst into any public information he can find on Swanning and Bella Swan. Swanning has an impressive public Twitter account filled with all sorts of innocuous details about her life, including the fact that she has siblings, and irritatingly, a boyfriend.
Well. Boyfriends aren't husbands, are they?
If anything, there's more information about Bella Swan online. In fact, there's an entire YouTube channel dedicated to documenting her life, and he spends several minutes watching the most popular videos, trying to piece this girl together. Her personality is all Swansong, is everything he knows and was so fond of from their gaming chats.
This girl...
Swanning is Swansong is Bella Swan, and James wants them all.
The obstacle, it seems, is Masen Cullen. The boyfriend. He isn't directly tagged in anything by Bella herself, but it isn't hard to follow tags made by friends and reach the conclusion that this so-called maestro is the boyfriend blocking his way.
He doesn't even spare the fleeting idea that Masen Cullen could be his rival player online when he stumbles across the information - from another Google search - that his Masen guy is the CEO of a little tech start-up called Midnight Sun.
The name rings a bell and James raps his knuckles against the desk when he recalls Midnight Sun is competing against Denali for the DOW2 contract. James hasn't been directly involved in that project - that's why Denali hires people, so he doesn't have to deal with those things - but he knows enough to understand that, for some reason, his company is worried about getting the contract. Apparently, Midnight Sun is building a reputation for producing first-class games and the idea that Denali would rest on the laurels of its own reputation is falling short.
This is who Bella Swan is dating.
It's another blow to the ego. She could have had James, but instead, she chose this green, no-name chump. And he could have had her under his thumb, in his company, but instead, he got her homely friend.
Cool anger settles in his veins.
James has always gotten what he wanted. He doesn't intend for that to change.
He just has to figure out how - and going through with his first plan might isolate her enough to do the trick.
A buzzing on his desk distracts him from his plotting - it's his uncle, a text that invites him up to the CEO office. Apparently, Uncle Eleazar has something he wants to talk to James about.
Rolling his eyes, James takes his time as he leaves his office. He straightens his tie and checks his hair in the silvery reflection of the elevator doors, winks at his uncle's pretty receptionist, and then lets himself into the top-floor office, where Uncle Eleazar sits behind the desk with a mighty frown.
"Oh, good. You're here. Come here, boy, and let me talk to you about something," Uncle Eleazar says.
James withholds a sneer at being called a boy. He's getting closer to thirty every year, but here his uncle is, still treating him like someone toddling around his knee. James bites his tongue and plops down on one of the hard-backed chairs in front of his uncle's desk. "What is it?"
"It's about the Volturi contract," Uncle Eleazar says, eyeing James speculatively. "You play that insipid game, don't you? Dawn of the Warcraft, or whatever it's called?"
James raises his brows. "Yeah, I play DOW."
"You like this game?"
Is his uncle an idiot? Why would James ever play a game he doesn't like? What a ridiculous question. James doesn't even deign to answer, but that seems fine for his uncle, who obviously gleans the correct response just by looking at his expression.
"You know we're hoping to secure that Volturi contract," Uncle Eleazar checks, and James nods. Uncle Eleazar claps his hands, a plotting sort of glimmer in his eye. "How would you feel about being involved in the development?"
James makes a face. "I play games, I don't make them."
But then a thought occurs to him.
The other company competing against Denali is Midnight Sun - Bella Swan's boyfriend's company. That's one degree of separation from Bella Swan herself. This could be an opportunity, couldn't it? And even if that part of it doesn't pan out, James' pride is on the line. He can use this to prove that he's obviously the better choice between the two of them, and then Swansong - gorgeous, perfect Swansong - will be right where she belongs -
Back by his side.
James' smile is the unholy sort. "But I could learn," he tells his uncle.
Uncle Eleazar returns the expression. "Good. Then I'll put you in charge of this project. Do whatever you need to do to secure this project."
"It will be my pleasure."
A/N: Update 4 of 4. An important reminder that Midnight Sun is not in any way affiliated with the Cullen family businesses because Masen says "Fuck GC, that's why". As far as James is concerned, the fact that Masen has the same last name as one of the bigger companies in California is nothing more than a coincidence. How sad to be so very wrong lol
But we get to see how an online life can spell trouble, especially when it's so public and when information is in the hands of not-so-well-adjusted minds (again). This is something celebrities, no matter how minor, have to think about. If your life is that public, how do you deal with the creeps? Like, Bella is generally anonymous as a person, but for those who follow her as Swanning and on Leah's YouTube page, she's pretty accessible. Earlier parts of the story have also glossed over the fact that not all people are as thorough as James - he went and connected all the dots because he's relentless, and Masen and Alistair figured it out with enough clues, but most other people don't realize the relationship between Swanning and Leah's video subject because there isn't a lot of cross-over in the audience. Two different platforms and very different people watching the videos. In my experience, most people (for some reason) don't put a whole lot of effort into fully researching anything, let alone people online, so for me, it feels realistic that the majority of people just don't see the connections without it being put in front of their faces.
Anyway! James is absolutely the kind of guy you want to stay away from! In the C-Drama, his character was more narcissistic than creepy, but I think amped up the creep factor. He's creepy af in canon, too, so I make no apologies.
As always, be brutally honest. I can take it. Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay hopeful.
~Rae
*official Chapter 27 will be posted next week
