Pitch Perfect Harmony

I Hate It Here

It was only a few days after the attemted break-in in New York. Taylor's anxiety had mostly calmed down. Some sounds still made her jump and Travis made sure to always let her know immediately when he came home or left so he wouldn't scare her. But she could sleep again and didn't have any nightmares. Social Media didn't leave her too much time to breathe though. Another surprise phone call unsettled her while she was working on some art for the new album. "Tree?", she picked up instantly. "Taylor, hi. You haven't been online yet?", her publicist guessed. "No. What happened?", Taylor wanted to know. "Ahm... So, I know this sounds bad and... I'm not gonna lie, it is bad but I'm on it! I promise I'll work something out", Tree prepared her as much as she could. "What's going on?", Taylor asked again. "There are... Okay, so... You know these AI image generators?", Tree began to explain. "Yeah", Taylor mumbled already uncomfortable. "So, normally, you can't just type something like that and get it but... Someone... someone generated pictures of you", the redhead continued. Taylor gulped. This could go so many ways. Did someone make her look like she had done something that she never had?

"Someone generated... and published... fake nudes", Tree finally got it out. Taylor froze. Why didn't she even consider this to be an option? "They don't look real, it's pretty obvious. Swifties started connecting to flood the threads with something else and I'm trying to work something out with Twitter", her publicist layed out the situation. "They're trending", Taylor assumed. Tree just sighed which was anwer enough. "I'll figure something out, Taylor. It's... it's...", Tree couldn't find the right words. "Thanks for calling", Taylor just said and ended the call. She was imagining what the pictures would look like. There was so much that ran through her head. Was this just normal now? Would this happen again whatever Tree was going to figure out now? But the main thing really was: What did they look like? Did they make her look like a perfect doll? Did they make her do something specific? How bad was it?

Travis left the stadium at about the same time. He was happy to go home now and maybe cook something with Taylor. But his phone rang and he saw Tree Pain calling. Confused, he picked up getting into his car quickly. "Yes?", he asked. "Travis? Are you home? Are you with Taylor?", she asked. "I'm about to go home. What's up? Is she not picking up?", he assumed. "No, I actually just talked to her. Let's just say, something is going on on Twitter. She kinda ended the call pretty suddenly. I just wanted to know if she was alone", Tree carefully said. "What happened? I'm on my way now. I'll put you on speaker", he answered starting to head home worried about what was going on. "There are AI nudes going around", she quickly told him. "What?! Argh. Why? Who does that?", he immediately got worked up. "We don't know. I'm on it. You just take care of Taylor. I take care of Social Media", Tree said calmly but sternly. Travis agreed and so they ended the call and he went home pretty fast.

"Tay!", he yelled entering the house. Unlike the past few days, she didn't come to greet him. So he quickly took off his shoes and when he turned around to go look for her, she stood there in the doorway looking at him silently. Her eyes were red and her cheeks puffy. "Oh, Baby", he just said pulling her in for a hug. "Have you seen it already?", she whispered. "I haven't seen the pictures. Tree called me because she was worried after your call", he explained holding her tight. "I hate this", she said remembering once more why "I hate it here" was one of her new songs. The world was cruel. "I do too, Baby", he just agreed deciding to pick her up and carry her to the couch. She just held onto him starting to cry silently. "Shhh. Hey, it's gonna blow over", he tried to tell her and himself. "So what? This is our future I guess. Next time it is a video", she mumbled feeling so goddamn dirty knowing how many people were looking at her naked body right now. Even if it was fake. "Tree will figure it out", he said. Her publicist was someone he would probably trust with a lot. This woman could do everything.

Travis managed to cheer her up a little bit over the following minutes and convinced her to cook together. She was really silent and in her head but they got some dinner going. "I'll set the table, yeah?", he asked when they were almost done. She nodded staying at the stove. Travis carried plates over to the table and some glasses. He then got some wine glasses from the dining room cupboard and went to get some wine from the storage. Alcohol wasn't a solution to any problem but maybe if he made this a date-like setup, she'd like it.