Work Text:
どんな時だって
ずっと二人で
どんな時だって
側にいるから
君という光が私を見つける
真夜中に[1][2]
utada hikaru
"hikari"
Skeppy puts tape over his webcams and all sorts of electronics when he's not using them.
He can't risk anything. At first, the thought of being a famous YouTuber seemed to have no downfalls: at least, none that would ever persuade him to give up that lifelong dream of his. But now, looking back, he's not sure if he should've thought about it harder. Maybe he should've, but Skeppy doesn't think it would have changed his mind when he started taking YouTube a lot more seriously. So maybe it doesn't matter if he would've worried about it or not.
It's supposed to be simple, right?
Live out a relaxing life... no worries about a 9-5 job... and if you're lucky enough, it's easy enough to stay afloat with the money that revenue makes.
Now that Skeppy's a little bit older, he's come to realize that things are a lot less simple than that. Truth be told, growing up, Skeppy had always had it pretty easy, considering he's pretty well off in general.
The tape on his webcams never comes off unless he's recording or streaming. It doesn't even come off for his friends anymore; the one and only exception has always been BadBoyHalo.
Is it paranoia? Perhaps.
Skeppy doesn't need the world to see what's behind the camera.
Or rather, who.
He knows that they're not subtle. But he can't just cut off Bad online, either. That would be even more suspicious. Instead, they hang in a sort-of-friends-sort-of-kinda-maybe-lovers limbo when they record or find themselves in the public eye.
Bad's the one with the reputation for wanting the rest of his life to be private, but Skeppy's no different. Skeppy can't count the number of times he's had to scrap videos because a certain bald man decided that he needed to make his presence known in his recording room, or because said man can't help but say something way too suspicious to leave in.
They've thought of it before, coming out, but...
the
truth
is,
Skeppy, I don't need the world to know. As long as I know that you're mine, in my heart, I couldn't care less about what those muffins think."
And of course, Skeppy couldn't resist pulling Bad into another kiss. Their relationship was a few months old by then, their friendship a few years old, but it felt as if their entire lives had been leading up to this point. Skeppy was -- and never will -- be the kind of person who believes in fate or destiny, or at the very least, he was the sort of guy who believed that it was possible to create your own path and take control of your life.
Bad had mentioned before that this could be just theirs -- that the world had no part in their life. Skeppy couldn't care less; he was the kind of guy to shout his love from the rooftops, but he understood that this was a boundary that Bad set up for himself.
So for now, it's kisses stolen in secret, recordings at different times, soundproof walls... Skeppy's not ashamed, but he doesn't need to be outed before either of them are ready.
And coming out was a choice, Skeppy knew. It didn't matter to him what people thought of him or Bad, as long as the two were happy. He was perfectly content leaving them to wonder and speculate and think, and maybe, they'll do it eventually.
After all, if he's going with his plan to put a ring on Bad, then, well, that's going to be pretty hard to hide.
But for now, he was perfectly content sitting right here,
perfectly
comfortable
in
Bad's arms, as Skeppy slowly adjusts to waking up. The blinds were open, leaving the sun to relentless shine down on both of them. For a moment, it reminds him of a spotlight, and the metaphorical spotlight on both of them as they carefully try to navigate their relationship behind closed doors.
It wasn't easy, they knew that. A select few of their friends were aware of their relations, and fewer still knew of how serious that the two were taking it.
Skeppy always was bad at hiding secrets.
Bad's hand comes up to ruffle Skeppy's hair. Subconsciously, he leans into the touch, but still glances down at what he thought was a sleeping BadBoyHalo (his eyes are closed and everything!) right next to him.
"Didn't know you were awake," Skeppy's voice breathes out, his voice low and gravelly.
"I knew you were," Bad responds, letting out a small thoughtful hum before using his hand in Skeppy's hair to pull him closer. "Why are you even awake?"
"Why are you awake?" Skeppy shoots him a grin, mentally imagining him pulling a Reverse Uno on a deadpan, unamused Bad, then, "Well, I was just thinking."
"About?"
Skeppy waves his hand. "Nothing, much."
"You sure?"
"Yep." Skeppy gives him a patient smile. "Why
wouldn't
it
be
fine, when you're sitting right here," he had said to Bad, voice low, when they first kissed. Shaky hands reached up to cup Bad's cheeks in his palm, as he breathed out, "I couldn't be more fine if I tried."
"I guess you're right," Bad laughed, pressing a few chaste kisses along his jawline, ending with a short kiss on the lips. "You are pretty fine."
"So now I'm pretty and fine, apparently." Skeppy's grin grew wider, the warmth growing inside of him at those words. "Guess that makes me pretty lucky?"
"Makes me lucky, if anything," Bad retorted, then the corner of his lips twitched up, and that's when Skeppy knew that he was a goner... because that look on Bad made him feel like falling apart right then and there. "... Prettiest boy in the world, huh?"
"Shut the hell up and kiss me right now," Skeppy groaned softly, leaning his entire body over to pin Bad to the bed. "I'm never letting you go again, BadBoyHalo. Once you're mine, you're mine, forever. I'm not gonna let you leave the bed until I can surprise you in the morning with breakfast. Breakfast in bed, so, tell me, Bad, do you
want
waffles
or
pancakes," Bad mutters, shifting his weight to sit up in bed, leaving Skeppy curled up into cold air (with the blankets long thrown off the bed in their sleep, probably due to his own tossing and turning) . So naturally, Skeppy--
"Maaaaaarrgghhnn," is an approximation of the noise that comes out of Skeppy's mouth, and Bad just looks down at him, amused.
"I don't think that's a breakfast food, 'Geppy."
Skeppy grumbles, sitting up. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it does, Skeppy!" Darryl exclaims, holding a hand to his chest in mock offense. "I'm asking you what you want for food; gibberish doesn't count. Next thing you know, I'll be making whatever due to your non-response and you'll be stuck eating something you might not like."
Skeppy sticks out his tongue.
"Wow, you're so mature," Bad says, deadpan. He shifts out of the bed, and the sudden way the bed lifts leaves Skeppy missing him already (even though Bad's still just standing right there). "I'm going to make whatever then; if you're not up by then, then I'm eating both servings."
"Self-care?"
Bad throws him a glance. "That was supposed to be a threat."
"Didn't work." Skeppy moves over to occupy about 97% of the bed. "That was blanket permission for me to sleep in. Pun intended."
"You're such a muffinhead," Bad sighs, but when Skeppy glances up at him, he can see the way the corners of Bad's lips curl up in amusement. Despite how annoying he can get, Bad is never actually mad at him. Despite the million reasons for him to actually get fed up with Skeppy, despite all of that... Bad still loves him, still shows him
exactly
how
much
he loves you, right?" Vurb had asked him. "And you love him?" He questioned further, eyes narrowed.
"And this is what you want?" Finn simply raised a brow, then squinted directly at the camera. "This isn't something that you're doing just for the sake of doing?"
Zelk crossed his arms. "It's not like we're questioning you--"
"We are," Vurb objected.
"We kind of are," Zelk admitted, just shrugging. "But we just want the best for both of you."
"And we want you both to be happy," Finn spoke up again, looking at his nails. "So, the questions still stand. Is this what you want? Does he make you happy? Well, we'll question him later, but first, we just want you to be happy."
Skeppy loved his friends. They were annoying sometimes, but then again, everyone's annoying sometimes. All of them have always been there for him, during some of the worst times in his life. He knows they weren't doing this just to be cynical and to convince him out of it, but they wanted to make sure that everything is alright.
"Everything is alright," he reassured them. "I love him. And this is what I want."
"Good." Vurb just nodded curtly. "Then that's all that matters."
"And you're both our friends, so I'm happy for both of you." Zelk pondered on this for a moment. "So, if he hurts you, I'm not going to hold back. And vice versa, of course."
Finn let out a laugh. "Now, we're going to have a similar conversation with a certain BadBoyHalo; cya Skeppy."
"Bye, idiots," Skeppy snorted.
"Last chance--" Vurb cut back in. "You want this?"
Skeppy looks down at the desk.
"Yes. I do. This
is
exactly
what
I wanted actually," Skeppy declares, stabbing a fork into the pancake stack. "So, it actually doesn't really matter if I had told you then, right?"
Bad turns around, showing off his muffin apron with a small stack of pancakes on a plate. "You would have said the same thing if I had made waffles."
Skeppy shrugs, mouth already full of pancakes. He struggles to swallow in order to respond in a timely manner before the moment is over. "You can't prove anything."
"Sure." Bad rolls his eyes and turns around to the pan. "I don't need to prove anything if I already know the truth."
Skeppy just shoves a syrup-covered piece of pancake in his mouth. After a moment, Bad sits down next to him with his own plate of pancakes.
They sit in silence, but Bad somehow finds his way under the table to intertwine his fingers with Skeppy's. Skeppy tosses him a small glance, but Bad just continues eating his pancakes with a small grin on his face.
So they continue eating, Skeppy squeezing Bad's hand and feeling that warm, familiar, fluttery feeling erupt in his chest -- or is it stomach? To be honest, everything about him feels so warm right now, just warm with love and affection that Skeppy never imagined he'd be able to have.
Skeppy loves this - their domestic relationship. It was weird at first, because Skeppy sometimes doesn't know how to act in front of other people, especially people he likes. (Okay, he usually doesn't know how to act in front of people, so sue him!)
But in a sense, when they settled down and really, truly got used to each other, there wasn't really a change in their relationship. In fact, Skeppy just thinks that their affection was more pronounced, with more depth, more meaning behind it. It's what they already had, but tenfold, hundredfold, millionfold.
It's everything that Skeppy had ever wanted, and everything Skeppy never knew he needed.
He had known that he had liked Bad for a while, he thinks. To be honest, it was weird, the way that his feelings slowly transitioned from friend to best friend, to something more, but it took him a while to accept it, because
to
be
honest,
I really hate putting labels on things," Skeppy admitted, looking down at his hands in his lap. "Even myself."
Sam just looked at her brother with a quirked eyebrow. She obviously wasn't sure what to make of this, so she opened her mouth, but Skeppy butt back in, "I just don't like labels."
"Okay..." She said slowly, then tilted her head. "So what you're saying is that you're not straight."
He remembers almost saying yes, before she gave him a wide grin. "And let me guess, you're in love with that Darryl guy."
Skeppy's train of thought promptly crashed into a wall.
"Am I right, or am I right?"
"L-listen," he began, waving his hands in the air. "First of all, why did you call him Darryl, that's so weird, even I don't call him that. Second of all, no, I don't know what you're talking about."
"That's the man's name," she said, deadpan. "What, you want me to call him Bad? Maybe on your channel, but come on, it's a little weird to refer to someone as Bad, out of context. It's like that Dream guy. Why do I have to call him Dream? Or like that Sapnap guy. What kind of a name is Sapnap?"
"Okay, leave Sapnap alone," he grumbled.
She shrugged. "Either way, I'm ninety-percent sure that if you're not in love with him, he was at least your gay awakening. Am I right, or am I right?"
Skeppy threw his arms in the air. "I'm not answering that."
"I'm going to take that as a yes, then!"
Skeppy pressed his lips together. "I don't know."
"You don't know what?"
"I don't know when I did."
"Did what?"
"Fall in love with him."
Sam looked at him for a moment, then reached out to wrap her arms around him. She might not understand him, and she never has, completely, but she's always tried her best, and always done what she could to support him.
"It's okay, Zak," she mumbled.
He leaned into her embrace. "When I think about it, I can't figure it out. How? Why?"
Sam had regarded him carefully, a raised eyebrow at his expression of confusion. "You can spend all your time here wondering why, but it won't change the result. You're in love with him. Don't ask why. The world works in mysterious ways, Zak. The most important thing is that you're in love. Let yourself be in love, no questions, no doubts, no confusion."
"Let myself love him?"
"Have you told yourself yet?"
"Told myself what?"
Sam pressed her lips together. "Have you said to yourself, I'm in love with him?"
"What's the difference?"
"The difference is that if you can't say that to yourself, you're still in denial, maybe even in denial about being in denial."
"C'mon, Sam," Skeppy laughed. "Why would it matter? I know you'll disagree, but I'm not the kind of person that can be loved, just like that. And I don't know how to be in love, not like that, not with him. It's not like I'm in denial about not being straight; I just don't know how to be not straight for Bad. I'd be glad if he
even
loves
me
to the end of the world and back, right?" Skeppy shoots Bad a grin.
"Yes, I love you that much, and more," Bad sighs. "But I have a feeling you're trying to get me to do something, and I'm probably not going to like it, from the sound of it."
"Well..." Skeppy trails off, then thinks about it further. He taps his fingers against his knee and then swivels around in his chair, posing awkwardly with a shit-eating grin on his face. "I mean you're right, but I wouldn't put it like that."
"What is it?"
Skeppy's glance darts to the camera, then back to Bad.
"Skeppy?"
"I want to come out," he blurts out, then thinks about it again. He shifts towards the computer, staring at his capture screen. "I know we've talked about it, only when we're both ready, but I'm ready, and I don't know if you are yet, but I thought, maybe we could, soon, because..."
"You're ready?" Bad whispers, and Skeppy looks back to see him looking down at his hands in his lap, looking unsure. From this angle, Bad has always looked like he's making himself smaller in a strange mixture of fear and nervousness.
"I am."
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Bad mumbles next to him. Skeppy notices the way Bad doesn't even maintain eye contact, the way his eyes shift to random corners to look for answers that won't be there.
Slowly, Skeppy puts together a response in his mind. "If you don't want to, then we won't. This is something we're doing together, remember?"
"Together?"
Bad looks unsure.
"We don't have to do this if you don't want. We could live out the rest of our lives like this, and not say a word to anyone."
"But?"
"But I want people to know. And I don't mind people knowing. And I don't mind telling people... as long as you're okay with it."
Bad bites his lip.
"It's not that I'm not okay with it, it's just that
sometimes
I'm
just
a little bit scared," Bad had admitted, once, late at night, after a very long stream. "What if this doesn't work out? I don't want people to have their hopes up, to think that they were right, and then we'd take it back. I don't want our relationship to feel like it was fan-curated, and it was for them."
Skeppy was just laying next to him, tapping his hand against the pillow he's laying up against. "It's not for them, though."
"Right," Bad continued. "That means that they don't need to know. What they don't know can't help or hurt them. I don't owe anything to them."
"That's true," Skeppy had just said slowly, trying to understand the point that Bad was getting to. "You don't owe anything to anyone."
"And I despise labels. I don't want some arbitrary word placed on me, something that defines me when I don't..." Bad furrowed his eyebrows. "I don't want to be defined. And what we had for a while was like some sort of unspoken understanding of a deeper relationship."
"Yes," Skeppy prompted.
Bad took a moment to glance down at Skeppy with a small smile. "But it was unfair to drag you along like that. It's unfair. And now, we're open with each other and actually communicating about what we want, and about what we don't want, but..."
For a moment, Skeppy had caught a glimpse of Bad's eyes tearing up. Before he could do anything to help, Bad reached up and wiped his tears away, laughing bitterly. This was a conversation that they'd had before; it was always a difficult one, because not only did they have to consider each other, but also the entire world. Everyone was going to be looking at them, watching for a simple mistake... and...
Bad had said before that he was so nervous to even admit to himself that he had feelings, let alone tell Skeppy himself, or tell the whole world.
But no matter what, what they had, if it was going to be spoken or unspoken, revealed or not, it was still theirs.
Still theirs.
"I don't know if I'm ready, or if I'll ever be." Bad swallowed. "Maybe I'll never be. And I don't
know
if
it's
absolutely okay if you're not," Skeppy insists. "It's okay to be scared. Life is full of scary stuff. Life itself is scary. It doesn't mean you can't take risks. If you don't, then life is going to be boring and you're just going to be in the same spot. And yes, risks are scary."
Skeppy lets out a sigh.
"I'm scared sometimes, too, you know," he admits, softly under his breath. He can see Bad looking at him with a raised eyebrow, but he has to continue, "In some of my worst nightmares, I lose everything. I lose all my friends, I lose my family, I lose--"
"Skeppy?"
He chokes on his own words, feeling his own eyes water, but he blinks them away desperately. "I lose you," he gasps out, then he clings onto Bad's shirt, rubbing his face on his arm.
Bad moves a hand to run it through Skeppy's hair, and while he appreciates it, Skeppy's brain is already going a million miles per hour. "I lose you, and it's the worst thing that could ever happen to me."
"I'm still here, Skeppy," Bad says under his breath.
"I know that," Skeppy insists, then brings his palms up to wipe at his face. "I know that, and yet, still, I'm scared of that future coming true. Of you walking away, and then, it's just me, all alone."
"You're not alone."
"I know."
"I'm right here," Bad says lowly. "Nothing could make me leave, I promise you."
Skeppy moves, glancing up at Bad. He has this soft, fond expression on his face, so Skeppy shoots him a small grin.
"... Yeah, I know. I'm staying, too, no matter what. And while I'm scared of the future sometimes, I know that everyone is, at some point..." Skeppy wipes at his face again, checking his face with his phone (at least it doesn't look like he was close to tears). "But I want to face my fears, all of it. And I know that we can make it through this. It's a risk, yes, but it's one worth taking if I'm able to scream my love for you from the rooftops."
Bad's breath hitches. "Oh?"
"... So, are you willing to take this risk... with me?"
Bad just stares at him, eyes slightly narrowed in thought.
Skeppy knows that Bad may say no, maybe even for the rest of his life. And he's okay with that; he knows that this isn't a guarantee. They started this relationship with the understanding that they wouldn't tell the world unless they were both ready to. And if Bad is never ready, Skeppy will be fine with that.
The thing that scares him the most is the way the fans will react, but he knows that those who leave as a result of this shouldn't be his fans anyway. And he knows that Bad probably thinks the same way; there's no room for hatred and discrimination in their fanbases. Still, it's a little nervewracking to put your life on display like that, but Skeppy wants to scream at the top of his lungs that he's in love. To contain his love to whispers is less appealing, he'll admit.
Skeppy looks back at Bad, who still seems to be deep in thought. He knows that this requires some thought; it took him some pondering to come to the conclusion that he was ready to be out.
Bad looks back at Skeppy. The two meet eyes and Skeppy gets goosebumps just from the way he looks at him. Their ""honeymoon"" period of their budding relationship is long over, but just looking at Bad sometimes makes his heart pitter-patter and his stomach fluttery. Sometimes he has doubts, wonders if this was meant to be, meant to last, but all he has to do is look at Bad. As easy as it is to have doubts, it's just as easy to remember how he fell in love with him, and even easier to fall in love all over again.
"Yes," Bad blurts out.
Skeppy's suddenly thrust back into the real world as he looks at Bad.
Bad straightens his back, eyes filled with resolve and confidence, just like on the night that the two had confessed to each other under candlelight.
"Let's do it."
Skeppy just dives in, wrapping Bad in a tight hug.
"I love you," he says under his breath. "No matter what, I'll always love you. No matter what happens, I'm by your side."
He can feel Bad relax slightly at those words. "Me too, Skeppy. Nothing could convince me to leave."
Skeppy pulls back...
And, with a gentle smile from Bad, presses record.
"Hey, what's up, everyone; welcome back to another video! So, in today's video, things are going to get a little serious..." he begins. When Bad grabs his hand and squeezes it lightly, he knows that eventually, everything's going to be okay.
Skeppy reaches up towards the camera, fingers ready to pull off the tape.
"I have something important to tell you..."