Chapter Text
The room is dark, just as Bad prefers. It makes it much easier to work, undisturbed by his roommate who assumes he has gone to bed, and gifts him the ability to more easily ignore any distractions that would plague him if his room was fully lit. Speaking of, he leans down to grab the water bottle his leg brushed against off the floor, placing it alongside the rest of them on his desk.
Glancing back up at his monitors, Bad squints at the corner of the screen, then grimaces; he had been streaming for much longer than he thought. Maybe now wouldn't be the best time to work on server maintenance, but the dozens of unread messages from his moderators seem to loom at him through the screen as he even considers powering off his PC. They had already been snubbed in lieu of other, more interesting activities - whether it was joining a stream or taking Rat out, which honestly held importance over anything else - for far too long. The work has to get done at some point, so now is as good as any, considering how unlikely it is that he'll be able to fall asleep yet.
Bad sucks in a deep breath, steeling himself, and leans forward in his seat, opening a chat log from one of his admins-
-then, nearly jumps out of said seat at the sound of an alert blasting through his headphones.
"Oh my gosh ," His voice is strained, and he makes a mental note to skip out on coffee in favour of some tea later. Reaching across the keyboard to lower the volume, he's met with two more pings.
hi
r u still awake
I saw u stopped streaming but idk if u went to bed
Bad feels a grin stretch across his face before his eyes even finish scanning over the message.
Nope still awake owo
ok cool
There's a pause in the responses.
busy?
Bad barely takes his eyes off the message as he closes out of the Discord tab he had just opened, practically feeling Callahan's glare burning into him as he does so.
>Not anymore, why? :3
The word "whipped" echoes in his mind, surely having been thrown around by Sapnap, Punz, or one of the others to poke fun at his eagerness to talk to Skeppy. It's something Bad would often brush off without hesitation, allowing their prods to be met with a silence that seemed to spur them on further. This time, he pauses.
It's fine, right? It's fine, it isn't like he is bothering Skeppy with it, in fact, they seem to share their eagerness to talk. Bad's finger rests over the 'backspace' for a moment, before pressing it down, watching as the message deletes itself.
Then, he retypes it.
Just chilling, why? :3
The call comes in seconds later, and Bad accepts it before the second ring can start.
"Skeppy!" The screen lights up with said boy's name, illuminating Bad's face in the dimly lit room.
" Baaad ," He echoes, albeit less enthusiastically. The tone of his voice alone gives away how tired he is, having likely pulled an all-nighter the day before for one reason or another. His theory is confirmed when Skeppy lets out a long yawn, "How was the stream?"
Bad’s neck cracks as he tilts his head back, uncomfortable from being sat in his chair for so long. Hopping from stream to stream had been fun, but so repetitive that he had barely gotten to take a break from the upright posture. He almost wishes he had just called Skeppy from his phone, which lays blankly on his desk, almost mocking him for not doing so, but the eagerness to talk to the other boy had overtaken the allure of the soft mattress behind him.
"It was alright, had a couple people on to talk to here and there, but it was mostly just me and the chat." He beckons Lucy to hop onto his lap from where she is laid out on the bed. When she blinks at him emptily, he sighs, turning back to the screen. "After Sapnap's stream, he and George dipped, but Quackity was on for a bit at the beginning, Karl too. They were being..." Bad pauses, "Well, I mean, I guess they were just being themselves. I don't know what else I expected from them."
A light giggle rings through his headphones, and Bad feels his lips turn up. He leans back in his chair, toeing off his shoes, before pulling his feet up onto it.
"It's too bad you couldn't make it, the stream missed you a lot."
A beat passes.
" I missed you a lot," Bad admits, training his eyes away from the screen as if to lighten the statement. "It's... it's been a while since we just did a chill stream, huh? Nothing special, just the two of us hanging out."
Skeppy lets out a sigh, one that stretches out a second too long, and Bad's heart hastens. "I know, just wasn't really in the mood."
He stays quiet, allowing Skeppy to continue. After a moment, he does. "I've been feeling kind of... weird, lately."
"Weird?" He repeats, the feeling in his chest minimally subsiding. "Like, a good weird? A bad weird?"
"I don't know," He lets out a huff, "A weird weird."
Bad can practically hear the gears turning in Skeppy's mind, mechanical parts trying to piece together the abstract idea into a feasible explanation. He allows the silence to fill the call, turning in his chair once more to reach over to Lucy, giving her a light scratch on the ears. She barely reacts to the touch, having fallen asleep on Bad's pillow much earlier after realizing that he wouldn't be coming to bed any time soon, the only sign that she was still awake being the tail swaying against the sheets beneath her.
Patience has always been one of Bad's strong suits, growing up as a quiet kid with four siblings had entailed such a strength. Years of waiting his turn to speak until the teacher finally saw him behind the sea of other students and allowing his friends to budge in front of him in line; he was accustomed to it. But Bad always found that he has never been quite as patient with Skeppy as he is with everyone else.
In certain ways, maybe - he allows Skeppy to incessantly troll him, pushing the jokes forward despite the annoyance that many of them cause him. The server trolls, hacking, Bad knew deep down that had it been anyone else, he would have never let it get this far. He allowed himself to be an easy target, right from the beginning, as long as it meant Skeppy coming back each time.
It's moments like this where Bad finds himself slipping up, drumming his fingers on his desk too vigorously while waiting for Skeppy to formulate his words into something that both of them can understand. He stays quiet, allowing the boy to do so, but his mind is restless, as if the silence only serves to give his thoughts the opportunity to run rampant. Maybe there’s some kind of anxiety there, some rejection-sensitivity fueling the fire that burns him the longer he watches the three dots hop up and down methodically beside Skeppy's name as he awaits a text back. The same one makes him all the more desperate to finally get a response about his video idea, which threatens to scorch him when the dial tone approaches the second beep.
He knows there’s something more to it, but he doesn't want to address that; not here or now, at the very least.
"I've been jumping around a lot," Skeppy finally says, "Like, you know - Florida, L.A., Vegas. I think it's messing with my head a bit. Like, sometimes I'll just forget where I am for a few minutes, and it's this disorienting feeling that kinda weighs down on my chest for a while. Makes me feel... weird."
He nods, "Well, why don't you take a break from that? Just settle down for a couple months and relax, choose the place you're most comfortable with and make yourself at home."
"That's the thing, though. No matter where I am, I just feel out of place."
It's Bad's turn to hum quietly now, unsure as to how to respond.
He always felt like he had somewhere, whether it be a place, or a person, or even just Rat, he's always felt like he had a semblance of a home. It hadn't always been the most comfortable, or the simplest, but there had always been a sense of ease that came with it. Home was where he could finally settle down after a stressful day, pull out a book, and indulge himself. It was a break from the overwhelming noise that came with being a content creator; that came with being human at all, really. To be without something like that, he couldn't even imagine.
His mind flits through ideas, through the folders of advice that his brain had filed away in preparation for situations just like these. Bad’s the friend people lean on - he always has been. The one that you went to after a harsh breakup or for aiding a blooming crush, even in situations he couldn’t place himself in, there was always a piece of advice, a kind sentiment that he could spout that somehow just fit.
The filing cabinets seem all too barren now, and Bad tries to hold back the annoyance he feels at being so lost for words.
"I want to meet up with you," Skeppy says, suddenly, and it takes him aback for a moment. As much as the boy brought up the idea, much to Bad's own chagrin, it had never been with such urgency.
The monitor’s light seems all the more harsh now, and the TeamSpeak window in the corner all the more daunting. Maybe Skeppy felt the fire too, he considers, lapping at his skin whenever Bad fills up his schedule with anything but enough time for them.
He allows the statement - the wordless question - to hang in the air, doing nothing but propel the previously stagnant layers of guilt and anxiety coating the call. It kicks up the dust that Bad wished would lay flat, tickling his nose and causing him to muffle a cough.
It had been months, almost a full year, since Skeppy had begun asking about it - seriously asking about it, unlike the flippant offers to move in that Bad used to toss out so easily. It was supposed to be at a convention, and when that fell through they rescheduled for sometime during the summer, maybe autumn at the latest. Bad just didn’t quite expect to get so in his head in those few months. He wonders, sometimes, if the convention plans had still held up, whether he and Skeppy would be in the same place they were now, as close as they were now. Every single time, he comes to the same conclusion - they wouldn’t - and he tells himself that he’s not just saying that to make himself feel better about it.
The notebook on his desk sat almost menacingly, reminding him of his plans for the next few weeks. The familiar blankness of the page reminded him of his lack thereof. Brief notes of server maintenance he has to uphold are scattered across the margins, a reminder here and there to call his parents. Only one upcoming stream is planned, pencilled in beside a date almost meaninglessly; something flexible, something that could be moved to a later date with no repercussions.
Did he want to move it?
"Bad?" Skeppy's voice breaks through his headset again, the single word holding a weight that the boy didn't even seem to realize.
The sense of desperation practically drips from it, landing on Bad's skin like acid. It would be so easy to shut him down like Bad had so many times before, Skeppy had learned not to push much after the twentieth "I'm busy," Bad spat out. Guilt gnaws at him every time Skeppy becomes less forceful, almost as if he could just give up any moment, finally dropping the topic entirely. It feels as if he has the white flag in hand now, ready to wave it with Bad's next words. He's thankful, for once, that Skeppy hadn't turned on his camera; he doesn't think he could have stood facing the tired, dejected expression that he surely boasted.
Bad clears his throat, eyes landing back on his monitor. "Well, when are you free?"