to show you my love - Lamen YouTuber AU - 3

            The rest of the day had passed in a bit of a blur.

            Aside from a short break, during which he’d recorded an episode of his Pokémon Black series, Damen had done nothing aside from watch Laurent’s videos. Well, and eat – but he’d watched YouTube while he ate, so it hardly counted.

            The more he saw of Laurent, the more desperately he wanted to talk to him.

            There had to be a reasonable excuse to message him. Usually, he would suggest a collaboration, but considering their vastly different channel themes…

            He doubted Laurent would ever agree to play video games, and Damen just didn’t have the interest in literature to be able to properly review a book, the way Laurent could. Really, he’d be content with just nodding along to everything Laurent said (that was what he did while watching, anyway, even though he hadn’t read most of the books Laurent talked about), but that defeated the point of a collaboration – and, he didn’t want to look like an illiterate idiot in front of Laurent.

            It wasn’t that he didn’t like books. He just had more of an interest in doing other things – like replaying Ocarina of Time for the twentieth time, or having a Lord of the Rings movie marathon with Nikandros. Speaking of, another Ocarina play-through was long overdue…

            In any case, he was probably putting too much thought into this. They were both popular YouTubers. He didn’t have to suggest a collaboration to talk to Laurent. It wouldn’t be weird. Lots of YouTubers were friends. He could just send him a message, compliment his channel, maybe subtly drop his Skype and pray that something came of it.

            He was almost relieved when a text from Nikandros forced him to stop stressing out, if only for a little while.

[7:34] we still streaming mk8 tonight?

            In all honesty, Damen had completely forgotten that he’d made plans with Nik to stream. Still, it was a good opportunity to tell him about Laurent – he’d find out eventually, after all – and get his opinion on how to proceed. Nikandros would know what to do. He always did.

[7:35] yeah, be over here in half an hour?

            He watched the tell-tale dots dance across the screen, indicating that his friend was typing.

[7:37] you ok? haven’t heard from you much the past few days.

[7:37] i know you’re going to argue with me, but she’s not worth all this moping.

            Nikandros wasn’t wrong. Just a week ago, he would have argued. He would have insisted that he’d never find anyone as incredible as Jokaste. He would have lamented that they’d been together for over a year (where had he gone wrong?) and he’d expected that they’d be together forever. He would have raged against his brother a fair deal – even if his initial anger towards Kastor had since dulled. He was hurt, more than anything. He couldn’t understand how either of them could have done this to him, least of all his own brother.

            Nikandros had been understanding at first. He couldn’t blame Damen for being completely beside himself. Anyone would be, if he’d walked in on his brother in bed with his girlfriend. He hadn’t even said, ‘I told you so,’ which he would have had every right to say because he had told him so.

            Nikandros had never been a huge fan of Jokaste, and he was even less of a fan of Kastor.

            When Damen had done nothing but mope for a week following the break-up, Nik had accepted it. He’d come over, if only to lend Damen some company. Most of the time, they’d just played video games in silence.

            Still, a week of moping had turned into two, then three, then a month… Nikandros had begun to lose his cool. Damen was almost surprised that Nik hadn’t tried to drag him out on blind dates, although he was sure it would have eventually gotten to that point if his recent obsession with a certain YouTuber hadn’t developed. He was choosing to believe that Nik would be relieved by this change, and after all, it had sort of been Nik’s idea. Damen would never have watched Laurent’s channel if not for Nik bringing those comments to his attention – so, really, if he disapproved, he had no one but himself to blame.

            But there was no denying that Laurent had a physical resemblance to Jokaste – not to mention a few similar personality traits. It was probably why the fans had started shipping the two of them in the first place.

            Laurent was the very definition of Damen’s type.

[7:38] never better

[7:38] no, that wasn’t a joke. i’m serious. feeling much better.

[7:39] did you finally take my advice?

[7:40] have you been seeing someone??

[7:40] i can’t believe you didn’t tell me wtf???

            Well. Technically, he had been seeing someone. Watching him, rather.

[7:40] kind of?

[7:41] i’ll tell you all about it later

            He’d told Nikandros to come over in half an hour, but he had a feeling that this revelation would push his arrival time up a bit. Sure enough, less than a minute later, Nik replied that he’d be there in ten. That gave Damen enough time to finish watching the video he’d been in the middle of before Nik had texted.

            He was in the final few seconds of the video when Nik walked into his apartment without knocking (Damen had given him a key years ago, and Nik used it frequently). He eyed him suspiciously from the end of the couch. “What are you watching? You’re making heart eyes at your phone.”

            Damen paused the video and tossed a pillow at Nik’s chest. “Oh, shut up.”

            “Seriously, what are you watching?”

            “You know that guy the fans started… y’know, shipping me with?”

            Nik nodded slowly. Damen could see the gears in his head rapidly spinning – and there was something else there, too. Amusement, maybe. Damen didn’t get a chance to dwell on it for long, because Nik was taking a seat and reaching out to snatch the phone away. “Let me see him.”

            Damen held the phone out of his reach.

            “Come on, I want to see the guy.”

            This was going to end one of two ways, and regardless of which, he knew what Nik’s initial reaction was going to be. He’d hoped to delay it as long as possible. Maybe make an elaborate speech about all of the things he’d learned about Laurent in the past few days, explain why he was so enamored – god, that sounded cheesy – with him, and put Nik in a Laurent-approving mindset before he could get a good look at him.

            His hesitation, however, was the only confirmation Nik needed. He narrowed his eyes, frowning in a way Damen knew all too well. This was his best friend’s ‘I’m severely disappointed in you’ face.

            “…he’s blond, isn’t he?”

            “Well, yes, but—.”

            “Damen.”

            Nik succeeded in grabbing the phone, eyes scanning over the screen in mounting displeasure. “He’s blond, attractive, and… apparently makes snarky book reviews. Wow, I wonder who he reminds me of.” He cast Damen a side-eyed, disapproving look. “I knew I should have looked into him before telling you about those comments.”

            “I don’t just like him because he’s blond. How shallow do you think I am?”

            “It’s just a coincidence, then, that all you’ve done for months is whine about how much you miss Jokaste, and the first person to get your attention looks like this?” Nik shoved the phone into Damen’s face, paused on a quite flattering frame of Laurent carding his fingers through his hair, the way Damen had noticed he did when he was nervous. “For fuck’s sake, Damen. When I said to put yourself back out there, this isn’t what I had in mind.”

            “You don’t even know him,” Damen protested. He was fully aware of the irony in that statement.

            “You’re right,” Nik acquiesced. He paused a moment, seemingly thinking things over, before placing the phone back in Damen’s hand. “Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. Call him right now. I want to talk to him.” Damen faltered. “Okay, what’s your problem? I’m not going to interrogate him, Damen. I just want to talk to him.”

            “You and me both.”

            He wasn’t sure how he’d expected Nikandros to respond to the admittance that he hadn’t actually spoken to Laurent, but falling into a fit of hysterics definitely wasn’t it. “You’re shitting me, right? You can’t be serious?” The questions were posed between bouts of laughter, Nik trying to stifle them by pressing a hand to his mouth. Damen, who appreciated the humor in the situation, couldn’t keep the corners of his own mouth from twitching.

            “I haven’t talked to him. I’ve just… well, look.” He pulled up his YouTube history and turned the phone towards his friend. “I can’t stop watching.”

            “You can’t stop watching book reviews?”

            “I can’t stop watching him.”

            Nikandros looked skeptical, not that Damen could blame him. He couldn’t deny that he’d dated several blonds in the past – Jokaste being the most long-term of his exes. He supposed this probably seemed like a rebound, or a replacement for her. Nik was just being a good friend.

            “Nik, seriously, just…” He clicked on the Of Mice and Men review that had completely changed his outlook on the novella, handing the phone back to his friend. “Watch this.”

            Nik watched.

            To Damen’s bewilderment, he didn’t appear to be as awestruck as Damen had felt. “What the fuck is he talking about? Of Mice and Men is a classic.” Damen bit his tongue to keep himself from arguing, using the wide array of criticisms that multiple viewings of this review had provided him. “Damen, clue me in. What specifically about this guy do you like?”

            Hadn’t Damen spent the last few days asking himself that very question? He wasn’t sure that he’d ever be able to explain it, at least, not in a way that Nikandros would understand. Damen himself didn’t even understand – not really. All he knew was that just a week ago, he’d thought, without exaggeration, that he’d never be happy again. He’d been with Jokaste so long, he’d believed that it would only be a matter of time before she moved in for good (she’d practically lived at his apartment, anyway), and after that? Who knew? When he’d thought of the future, she’d always been a part of it. Nik, for as much as he disliked her, had come to accept that there was no getting rid of her.

            She’d been it for Damen. That had been enough for Nik. It hadn’t kept him from voicing his suspicions, however – and he’d had plenty of suspicions where Jokaste and Kastor were concerned.

            Damen wished that he’d listened. Instead, he’d naïvely thought the best of them both, and where had that gotten him? To the bottom of several pints of Ben & Jerry’s, that’s where.

            Sometimes, he still expected Jokaste to sweep through his door without warning, as had been her wont to do. She had never been an unwelcome sight. She’d lit up the room – sometimes quite literally, given that she was an interior decorator, and Damen’s apartment had been her pet project. After the break-up, he’d trashed almost everything she’d given him, from the ornamental vase on his coffee table to the minimalist painting she’d hung behind the sofa. Even his curtains had been given to him by Jokaste. He’d thrown them out, too, but hadn’t yet gotten around to replacing them.

            He’d kept the throw blanket she’d given him for his birthday. It was still slung over the back of the couch, and he hadn’t had the heart to get rid of it, not least of all because… well, fuck it, it was a comfortable blanket.

            And, as Nikandros continuously reminded him, he couldn’t let a failed relationship dictate his life. And that included his home décor.

            But it wasn’t that simple. She’d been it. He’d hardly been able to remember what his life had been like before he’d known her, let alone figure out how to go back to that.

            To make matters worse, his viewers had been pretty fond of Jokaste, too. His comment section had been littered with questions about where she’d been, when she’d be in one of his streams again and, at last, why they’d broken up. For obvious reasons, Damen had kept that under wraps.

            It was bad enough knowing that she’d slept with his brother; the last thing he wanted was for everyone else to know.

            So, he’d spent months in a slump that he was sure he’d never recover from. He’d be a bachelor forever, he’d thought morosely. He might as well begin collecting cats now – even though he was more of a dog person. He had to fit the aesthetic, didn’t he?

            And then… Laurent.

            He remembered thinking, when the first video had ended, that he’d reached a revolutionary moment in his life.

            For as long as he lived, Damen knew that he would be able to separate his life into two distinct pieces: the time before he’d laid eyes on Laurent de Vere, and after.

            He didn’t know what that meant, didn’t know what it said about him that he was so smitten with somebody he hardly knew and whom he’d never spoken with, but it had to mean something. It had to mean something that Laurent had put a smile – a real smile – on his face for the first time since the break-up.

            It had to mean something that he’d never wanted anything more than he wanted to be friends with Laurent.

            “Damen?” Nikandros cut into his thoughts, an eyebrow raised expectantly, awaiting an answer to his question.

            “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just – I like him. I can’t explain it.”

            Nikandros studied him so closely, Damen began to feel like a bug under a microscope. “Well,” he said after a minute or so, his voice laced with uncertainty, “you do seem less – pathetic. I mean, comparatively speaking. You’re lucky I didn’t sign you up for Tinder. Like I said, she wasn’t worth all the moping. I’m glad to see you’ve cheered up.”

            Damen heaved a sigh of relief. He’d known that Nikandros would come around eventually, but it didn’t make him any less grateful when it happened. Contrary to what Nik probably thought, considering all the times Damen had completely ignored his advice in the past, there was nobody in the world whose opinion meant more to Damen than Nik. 

            “I want to talk to him,” he said.

            “So, talk to him.”

            “Have you seen him?”

            “About ten minutes ago, if you recall. You made me watch him trash one of the greatest books of all time.”

            “The point is,” Damen persisted, “I don’t even know what I would say. Our interests don’t exactly overlap.”

            “How do you know that? He can’t just like books, Damen. That’d be like saying that because you have a gaming channel, video games are the only things you enjoy. That’s dumb.”

            Nikandros made a good point, but it did little to ease the worry in Damen’s chest. “What would you say?” he asked. “I mean, if you were me… how would you go about talking to him without it being awkward? I don’t want to come on too strong, y’know? He probably doesn’t even know who I am. He doesn’t seem like the type to watch gaming channels. I don’t want to be like, ‘Hi, I’m Damen. I’m a fan of yours. Let’s be friends.’ That’d be fucking weird, right? Nik? Nik, are you listening?”

            Nik didn’t answer, and it certainly didn’t seem as though he was listening. In an ironic twist of fate, he was suddenly engrossed in his own phone. Damen was, to say the least, peeved. “Nik? Seriously? I’m asking you for advice and you’re – what are you even doing? Playing Candy Crush again?”

            “I got an email notification from your work account,” said Nik.

            “Is now really the time to be doing PR?” He was trying his best to keep the irritation out of his voice

            “You’ll want to see this one.” Nik passed his phone to Damen, whose annoyance melted away as soon as he realized who had sent the email.

            No fucking way.

            So, not only did Laurent know who he was, but he’d evidently watched his videos. He must have, right? Who suggested a collaboration with a content creator they weren’t familiar with? Had he noticed all of the shipping comments? Had he found Damen’s channel the same way Damen had found his? He wanted to collaborate, but he wasn’t very specific in the message. Damen wasn’t sure if he was suggesting a collab on his channel, or on Damen’s. If it was the former, Damen would devote himself to reading whatever book Laurent wanted to discuss five times over. He wouldn’t screw up this opportunity.

            If it was the latter, well… maybe he’d finally get to see whether he’d be able to beat Laurent at Mario Kart.

            “I can’t believe – how could you–? how did you even get the password to my–? I’m fucking going to murder Jord, don’t think I won’t!”

            Nicaise, entirely unperturbed by his brother’s raging, continued aimlessly flicking through the channels on the television. How were there so many channels and yet, absolutely nothing worth watching?

            “Nicaise, don’t you dare ignore me.”

            “I’m listening.” He held out a bowl of chips to Laurent, who pushed it away and continued his complaining. Nicaise had more than expected this kind of reaction. Therefore, he wasn’t overly concerned about it.

            “I didn’t want to talk to him! You had no right to—.”

            Nicaise sat down his chips. “Fine, whatever. Tell him I was the one who sent the email, say you’re not interested, and keep pining after him for the rest of your fucking life.”

            “I do not pine after—.”

            “But you won’t do that,” Nicaise continued, gazing at his brother pointedly, “because you do want to talk to him. You were scared to make the first move, so I did it for you. You’re welcome.”

            “I was not—.”

            “For fuck’s sake, Laurent! I’m your brother. I can tell when you’re lying to me. More importantly, I can tell when you’re lying to yourself.”

            Laurent fell silent, which Nicaise chose to take as a good sign. “He said he was interested, didn’t he? He’s probably seen your videos. He wouldn’t be accepting an offer to collab if he couldn’t stand you, right?” Laurent frowned. “Well, isn’t that what’s worrying you?” Nicaise persevered. “You think he won’t like you? Or are you just afraid that you won’t like him?”

            Something flickered in his brother’s face at that. It was all the proof he needed.

            “Not everybody in the world is going to disappoint you,” he said softly. He knew that Laurent had heard him, but his brother didn’t acknowledge the words at all. Instead, he took a seat beside Nicaise on the couch. “You’ve been flipping through the channels for ages,” he said. “If you haven’t found anything to watch by now, I don’t think you’re going to.” He reached for the remote control and turned off the T.V.

            Nicaise elbowed him in the side, but not hard enough to hurt. That had never been his aim. “I’m sorry you’re mad at me,” he mumbled, “but I’m not sorry that I did it. I want you to be happy.”

            “I’m not mad at you,” said Laurent, and that was that.

            The pair sat in an amiable silence, Laurent’s eyes fixed on the email that had been taunting him. He kept cracking his knuckles. Nicaise knew what that meant – with a sigh, he reached over and grabbed Laurent’s hand, squeezing his fingers. “I can reply to him if you want me to.”

            “No, I – I can do it. What should I say?”

            Nicaise shrugged. “Give him your Skype. You’ll have to talk about the collab somehow.”

            Damen responded to Laurent’s message in record time with his own Skype username, which Nicaise interpreted as a good sign. Laurent, on the other hand, looked as though he was about to have a heart attack. “He’s already messaged me,” he said faintly. He had a notification from his Skype app.

            “Say something,” Nicaise urged.

            “He uses emoticons,” Laurent noted. He said it dismissively, but Nicaise could tell that he thought it was endearing. Gross.

[8:49] hi, this is damen

[8:51] hello

[8:51] so

[8:52] you wanna collab?

[8:52] apparently

[8:53] apparently?  

[8:54] yes

[8:54] did you want to do it on my channel

[8:55] or yours?

[8:55] i mean, i’m good with either

[8:56] but you’d have to give me time to read the book

[8:57] I take it you don’t read often?

[8:57] not really

[8:57] i can read, though

[8:58] I didn’t think you were illiterate.

[8:59] oh. good.

[8:59] or we could play mario kart. or something. whatever you want.

[9:00] I’ve never played.

[9:00] But if you’d prefer that, I wouldn’t be opposed.

[9:01] really?

[9:01] i mean, good. that sounds good.

[9:02] good

[9:03] i think you’re really funny, by the way.

[9:04] You’ve seen my videos?

[9:04] yes

[9:05] Oh.

[9:06] Thank you.

[9:06] np. i’m about to start streaming w/ my friend. i’ll message you again after?

[9:07] Sure.

[9:07] t2yl