Work Text:
Skeppy ends his stream, and Bad’s headphones fall silent. If he’s being honest, he wasn’t paying much attention- he had dragged it to a side monitor, using it as background noise while he edited a video.
Love or Host is… a weird show. Bad never imagined himself on it, even as a guest. Assured that it generally wasn’t a serious affair, he had taken the opportunity to joke around, getting in a few playful jabs before his inevitable elimination.
Against all odds, it had been genuinely fun. So when Skeppy calls him, he smiles. “Hi, Skeppy! How was your date?”
“Pretty good.” Skeppy sounds a bit less enthusiastic, though that’s probably just the exhaustion of being on camera for six hours. “Bad, can we talk?”
He answers without hesitation. “Of course we can.”
“Great.” He hears a deep breath over the phone. “Do you really think I’m short?”
“I mean…” Bad clicks his tongue. “You aren’t exactly tall.” Before Skeppy can burst in with denial, he continues. “But maybe I was exaggerating the shortness just a little bit.”
That seems to calm him down, though it doesn’t prevent him from moving on to the next grievance. “Oh, and am I that needy?”
“Well…”
“Well???”
“Skeppy.” Bad takes a second to arrange his words into the perfect balance of diplomacy and honesty. “You do text me a lot. If I were to count-”
“We don’t need to start counting,” Skeppy interrupts. “And that doesn’t even make me needy. Maybe I just have a lot to say.”
Bad says nothing, just hums in not-quite-agreement. Of course, Skeppy’s known him for long enough to pick up on that.
“Yeah? Is that how it is, Bad? Maybe I’ll show you what needy actually looks like, see how you like it.” There’s an edge in his voice, something Bad doesn’t think was there before.
“Wait, Skeppy, are you actually-” He cuts himself off when he realises the call’s already over. This isn’t uncommon- Skeppy will hang up just for emphasis, and call him again right away. So he keeps his phone in hand, waiting for the ringtone.
He doesn’t call again.
Only slightly hurt, Bad puts the phone down, and returns to editing.
By the time he stops, it’s well past four in the morning, and he’s too drained to do anything besides fall into bed and immediately pass out. It doesn’t occur to him to check his phone until he wakes up, a few hours later.
He almost wishes he hadn’t.
No less than two hundred and sixty-four notifications fill his screen, and new ones are still popping up. A quick scroll reveals what he already suspected: two hundred and sixty-three of them are from Skeppy, crowding around a single text from his roommate asking which groceries he’d like. He takes his time answering that one, resolutely ignoring the pings of a dozen new messages.
Once that’s finished, he opens his message history with Skeppy, catching up on what he missed.
bad
bad
baaaaaaaaadddddd
answer me
answer right now
cmon what r u doing thats more important than me huh
talk to me
call me
im not stopping until u do it
badboyhalo
call me right now
It takes a full minute to read the rest, all largely similar in content. They’ve all been sent in the last hour, and Skeppy’s somehow still going, managing to add ten more requests for Bad to call him before he’s done reading.
He sighs, presses a hand to his face, and dials Skeppy’s number. It doesn’t even get through a full ring.
“Skeppy. This is ridiculous.”
“Oh, is it?” Bad’s heard this tone of voice far too often. It tells him that Skeppy’s in full “merciless troll” mode, and isn’t exiting it anytime soon. “Would you say I’m being needy right now, Bad?”
Is that not obvious? “Yes, you’re being needy! Now stop it!”
“Yeah, I don’t know…” Bad has to start breathing deeply. He wants to stream today, so he shouldn’t stretch his voice by yelling at Skeppy. “I don’t think you really understand yet, so I’m gonna have to keep doing it.”
Bad splutters as if he’s at a loss, but he’s already deep in thought. There’s no way Skeppy can keep up something like this for long- he’ll get bored, and either change his tactics or just give up entirely. If getting message-bombed for a day or two is what it takes for Skeppy to stop being mad, he’ll gladly endure it.
Five days later, he’s starting to wonder if he made the right choice. Skeppy has been diligent in not only filling up his texts, but his messages on Discord, Teamspeak, Telegram, Twitter, and even his rarely-used Instagram, making his social media borderline unusable. Bad’s been equally persistent in ignoring them, only responding when Skeppy takes the time to actually call him.
Sometimes, when he has absolutely nothing better to do, he scrolls through the messages. They’re mostly just cries for attention, but one late night, he finds a sequence that makes him stop to read each one.
idk why im doing this
kinda dumb
i bet u arent even reading them anymore
but ur still thinking abt me every time i send one
guess i just have to keep doing this forever so u never think abt anyone else
OKAY thats kinda weird forget i said that
hjgfdsghjk
hey if ur reading this then dont ask about that
seriously dont
idk why i said it haha
Bad reads it again, making sure he has each word correct.
He’s not going to ask Skeppy about it. He tries to avoid awkward conversations whenever possible, and whatever Skeppy’s trying to communicate here, he’s clearly not ready to actually commit to it.
The next day, he still gets spammed with messages, but their volume declines until he’s only getting a few per hour.
In the evening, he only gets two.
sorry
wanna play bedwars?
Despite himself, Bad smiles, and unlocks his phone to reply.
Sure :)