Chapter Text
Simon huffed, and an ever so slight annoyance prickled his tone. “DiamondDiva still isn’t here yet? Chase, DM him.”
Chase watched the idle home screen animations while drawing invisible shapes with his mouse. “What? Why me?”
“He always answers when you DM him.”
“Nuh uh.”
“Yeah-huh.” Simon clicked through his Discord as that little spike of annoyance incessantly nudged at his side. “I’ll bet you five bucks that he’ll come when you DM him.”
“No way.”
Simon lifted an eyebrow. “So you admit that DiamondDiva always comes if you ask?”
“No,” Chase answered, starting to catch Simon’s annoyance, “because he doesn’t always come if I ask.”
“Then you have the chance to earn a cool five bucks, don’t you? Look, we’re all gonna see each other at AveCon in a few months anyway. You might as well get used to calling and texting him now.”
Chase groaned. “...Ugh. Fine. Doing it now.” His thumb and pinky tapped through keyboard shortcuts, and he then selected his DMs with DiamondDiva. His keyboard clicked with the quick taps of his fingers. “Aaaaand ‘hey, where the hell are you’ message is sent.”
“Pfft—! You said that?”
“Nah.” Chase shifted his focus back to drawing invisible circles with his mouse arrow. He glanced at his left monitor—at the Discord window—intermittently. “I said something normal like: ‘Hey, wanna record Town of Salem with us? We’re online right now.’ Nothin’ actually mad. Oh.” Chase tapped his keys again and watched his message pop up in his chat with DiamondDiva. “‘Also can I get your number’ is the next thing I sent.”
Simon stifled a chuckle. “That’s wild.”
“What?” Chase huffed. “You said to get used to calling and texting him. How can I do that if I don’t have his number? What’s wild about it?”
“Nothing, sorry.” Amusement still bubbled within Simon’s voice. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just giving you a hard time. Do you wanna do vanilla rules or add in some other roles?”
Chase stared at his screen, and his gaze followed his mouse arrow around as it trailed through circles of varying sizes. “Um…,” he murmured in thought. “Whatever’s easier. I dunno if I got the brain space for complicated stuff right now.” His index finger tapped in a rhythm against his mouse. “I’m working through a few beats and lyrics for a new song.”
“Oh, yeah? An original or are you trying to make another translation work?”
“Ahuh.” Chase glanced to his right to see his acoustic guitar settled in its stand. “An original. Kinda like my roller coaster song from a couple years ago.”
“Ah, one of your first hits.”
Chase chuckled. “Shut up.” Fond memories of piecing together the older song passed through his thoughts. “I liked it. Poured my heart into it, but…yeah, I think it’s a little rusty compared to my recent stuff—definitely compared to what I’m working on now.”
“You thinking of doing some of the planning on a stream?”
Chase shook his head. “Nah. It’s personal stuff. I only wanna make the final version of the song available for people to listen to. They don’t wanna hear the rough stuff. I gotta polish it all up before I can show anyone, y’know?”
“I’m sure your fans would go nuts over your rough passes, but okay. You gotta do you.”
Two tones played, indicating that someone had entered the Discord voice call. Chase glanced over to see the diamond avatar. His eyes widened, not quite believing what he was seeing. “...Hi?” He clicked back to his DMs with DiamondDiva before switching back to the voice chat.
“Hello,” DiamondDiva’s voice adjusted in volume before it evened out—likely from messing with his settings. “Chase said you needed someone to round out the numbers?”
Simon’s laughter was muffled—or it attempted to be. “Venmo me, sucker.”
Embarrassment dusted Chase’s cheeks. “Ugh, fine!” He groaned before breathing a half-hearted sigh. “Thanks for coming, DD.”
“Did you…not want me to join…?”
“No, we want you to join,” Chase huffed and scooped his phone off his desk. His thumbs passed over his screen as he went through apps to send Simon the agreed-upon bet winnings.
Simon’s laughter died down into chuckles. “Yeah, DiamondDiva, with you here, I get more chances to win some bucks off Chase.”
“Shut up, dude.”
“Oh.” A distinct coldness settled in DiamondDiva’s tone. “Well, then. I’m terribly busy. It looks like you have everyone you need. I’ll be going.”
“What, two people?” Chase bit his tongue and pumped the brakes on his annoyance. “No, stay, man. Sorry. I’m glad you’re here. You’re fun to game with, and I could use some sick burns thrown at Simon. You’re real good at that.” A softness blanketed his words. “Could you stay? Please?”
After a considerable pause, DiamondDiva relented. “...Yes. I can stay.”
“Awesome! We’re still waiting on like three more people.” Chase checked to make sure the payment went through before darkening his phone screen and setting it on his desk. “Town of Salem is for a lot of players. We’ll start up streaming when everyone gets here. Are you legit busy?”
“Eh…, sort of. Not…really.” Idle button clicks punctuated DiamondDiva’s silences. “I’m doing a…a ‘long play’ of a farming life simulator. I was in the middle of filling out a daily schedule so I can talk to everyone in town and make sure I give the right gifts to all the prospective bachelors and bachelorettes. And somehow…, I have to go quickly enough so I can get all my chores done in the morning and in the evening.”
“Oh, you’re a completionist kinda guy. Are you streaming it? Right now?” Chase opened a new tab and headed to Youtube.
“No. I can’t imagine watching me fill out a color-coded spreadsheet in Excel is interesting enough to watch a stream about it.” DiamondDiva sucked in a small gasp before sighing. “Fainted. Food, right. Have to keep the farmer fed.”
“People would definitely watch a long play live, dude.” Chase clicked through his subscriptions to open DiamondDiva’s channel.
“Maybe it’s personal, Chase. Maybe he only wants to post a polished version of his footage,” Simon teased light-heartedly.
“Okay, and maybe Silver logged on when we weren’t looking.” Chase’s voice rose to greet the other streamer who had just entered the call, “Hi, Sil! Welcome in! Talk about your day! Pronto!”
Chase pored over his notebook. Its pages were dusted with graphite from songs and partial lyrics written over the past few years, and finicky paper spines torn from their main pages long ago tangled in the metal spiral holding the notebook together. Chase tapped a dollar store pencil against the page before scribbling a short list of synonyms.
A familiar two-tone sound broke through Chase’s concentration.
His gaze lifted and settled on his left monitor. The Discord icon lazily blinked orange. Chase set his pencil down and clicked on the flashing icon to see DiamondDiva had sent him another video. With a few clicks, Chase opened the video up in a new tab and caught sight of the title and runtime—something about Chase Hollow and DiamondDiva flirting for twelve minutes. Chase chuckled and typed up a message: “Looks like the fans are really into the bit.”
DiamondDiva’s reply popped up: “There’re a few compilations like this on Youtube.”
“Whoa, that’s pretty cool. I wonder if there’s gonna be any stuff of our ship at the con?” Chase opened the video in a new tab and played it while he carried on his conversation. “Are you going too?”
DiamondDiva’s name and floating dots appeared and then disappeared. After a pause, his name appeared again before he sent his message. “I was planning to go with Violet. It’s going to be my first convention. Why would there be anything related to us at the con?”
Chase chewed his bottom lip in thought. “There’s a big section at cons that sell a bunch of fan stuff. Fan art, keychains, shirts. There’s some acrylic stands now, too. You got a bunch of artists making art on their own so they can make a living. I like to try to buy stuff of me when I visit the artist alley. I don’t really buy from the dealer’s hall a lot, though. Not prints and art, at least. I wanna give money to the independent artists, y’know?”
“And you think that there’ll be merchandise about our ship there?”
“Well. Uh. Maybe? I know our schtick is new, but you won’t believe the turn-around on some popular stuff. This con’s gonna be about Youtubers mostly, so we could probably find a couple things.” Chase winced as he briefly recalled his level of popularity as compared to the Youtuber heavyweights. “We’re probably just gonna do a couple panels, do a meet and greet, and party. We should do something together for the fans. Joint meet and greet or something. Be on a panel together maybe.” Chase waited for a few moments for DiamondDiva’s name to pop up. When it didn’t, Chase sighed, and his attention drifted back to the video DiamondDiva had sent him. His eyebrow lifted as the clip of DiamondDiva giving him a diamond sword played. “Hunh,” he murmured to himself, “Guess we were leaning into it before we even talked about it.”
The chat slid up with another message: “It…sounds…intense. Perhaps. A little intense.”
Chase tapped against his keyboard but paused when he saw DiamondDiva sending another message.
“I think I’ll be fine, but I’ll have to be in the hotel attached to the center. Just in case I need a break.”
Chase’s lips tugged into a sympathetic smile, and he replied, “Not a people person? Lol”
“No.”
Chase lifted an eyebrow.
“Lol.”
Chase stifled a snicker. “Don’t break smth lol”
“I don’t like being around a lot of activity. Lots of noise, light, or people set me a little on edge.”
Chase hurriedly clicked through Discord, typed a couple keywords into the search function, and clicked on his desired GIF, sending it to their chat. “This u?”
“Haha, I’m not a cat who fluffs up at the slightest sound. But…perhaps a bit.” DiamondDiva sent an additional message: “I was going to say that I don’t like lots of stimulation, but I was able to go outside and spend time with you and the group without any major problems. Sure, it was hot and bright, but that’s it. The company was nice, and it was fun spending time in person with all of you. It was actually nice that I didn’t have to use headphones to hear your voices or speak. I suppose every interaction has its drawbacks.” After a pause, he sent another message: “But it seems to be worth it. I’m concerned about going to the convention, but I’m going to trust my experience from the Disneyland trip.”
Chase dragged his mouse over DiamondDiva’s words as he read through them. His chin lifted as he hatched a plan. “Hey,” he replied, “I need to film some footage for a music video for a song I’m working on. I was thinking of getting the shots at this park right across from Pixley Mill. Do you know where that mall is?”
“Oh, that’s my usual mall. Or it would be if I regularly left the house to go out in public….”
“It is?” A spark of excitement shot through Chase as he looked back down at his notebook and mentally rifled through the shots he had pictured previously. “That mall’s my regular one, too! I mean. It’s the closest one to me. We kinda live in the country. Anyway, I need someone to come out with me and hold the camera to get the shots I need.”
“Do you…not have a tripod?”
Chase winced and tapped a finger against his desk. He did have a tripod, but it was far from what he needed for filming action scenes outside. “I do, but it’s kinda crap. Having another person with an eye for fashion and photos is gonna make everything easier. My cousin takes pictures and shoots video like the world’s most checked-out boyfriend. Worst shots imaginable.”
“Lol, that sucks.”
“Yeah, it does. I wanna look amazing in this thing, so I can’t ask him to film me. The park across from the mall has fountains, and it’ll be perfect for the sad outside scenes. Do you wanna maybe film me? Do my makeup and stuff? I’ll buy you lunch and stuff as thanks, of course. And you can practice being in public with friends!”
DiamondDiva’s username took a half a minute or so to pop up again to show him typing. His name disappeared, replaced with another minute of silence. Before Chase had the chance to glance away, DiamondDiva’s name popped up again. His new message then appeared. “Hm…, I do need to take pictures of my merch in natural lighting….”
Chase quickly typed out a reply. “Yeah, that’d be perfect! I can help you with that!”
“And you’d still get lunch?”
“Yup.” Chase picked up his phone and pulled up his calendar app. “How about this Tuesday at 10AM? Gonna be no school kids there at all, and the weather forecast says it’ll be sunny.”
“Mm…, alright. It’s a date. See you then.”
Chase stared at the new message. He read it once and then twice before replying: “Cool! See ya.” A thumbs up icon appeared in reply to Chase’s message, signifying the end of the conversation. He leaned back in his chair and rested his hands in his lap. “A ‘date’?” He released an amused huff. “Guess he’s really into the bit.” Chase’s gaze drifted over to the Youtube video that still played. A particularly focused stare locked his eyes with the video. He shook his head and closed out the window.
A cool breeze blew past Chase and Deacon. The sky was a bright blue and an occasional bundle of clouds drifted over the park. Chase bounced his leg as he and Deacon sat on a stone bench beneath a large, healthy tree. “Thanks for coming out with me, Dorkin. We gotta have someone to stick with our stuff while we film and take pics.”
“Sure,” Deacon muttered idly. He was certainly happy to come by and be the suitcase guard if it meant that he could get away from his textbooks and read his beloved bodice rippers out in the open.
Chase passed his phone between his hands, checking for messages every other pass. He looked up and glanced around until his gaze fell on a young man with a large dark umbrella poised on his collarbone walking over. Chase stood and slowly pocketed his phone as he took in DiamondDiva’s outfit. The lavender cropped sweatshirt featured DiamondDiva’s blue diamond logo with black lettering. The lavender sweatpants had pockets hidden behind two large blue diamond patches. And—was that a navel piercing??
“Hello,” DiamondDiva pulled off his sunglasses and folded them to hang them from his neckline. “Thank you for coming.”
“...‘Sup, …Buddy?” Chase gave Buddy a smile and locked gazes with him. “So this is your merch? I like it. Love purple. Love blue. Love the diamonds.”
“Oh. Wait, look.” Buddy reached back to pull his hood over his head. His lips pulled into an amused smile as his index finger traced one of the fabric triangles sewn to his hood. “Cat ears.”
“Shut the fuck up.” The words slipped out as Chase’s eyes widened. “Shut uuuup! Oh, my god! I want one. Gimme one. Wait. Uh.” Chase reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Lemme buy one. Lemme buy one right now.”
Buddy’s momentary shock broke into a laugh. “Don’t worry about it. I brought some pieces for you to wear and take pictures in.” Buddy pulled the rolling suitcase he brought with him into view. “You can keep whatever it is you take pictures in as long as you’ll let me put the photos on my merch site. If you’re still alright with that, that is.”
“YES,” Chase spoke louder than he meant to, but his excitement knew no bounds. “Yeah, definitely! I’ll wear everything! Um.” He turned to look back at the bench he had picked out. “My stuff’s over there. We can unload your stuff there, too. Do you….” Chase leaned a bit to gesture towards Buddy’s suitcase. “Want me to help you with that? I mean, you already got your umbrella.”
Buddy shook his head. “No, it’s fine. Lead the way.” He followed after Chase. “Did you want to film your footage first or take merch photos first?” He scanned the horizon and was pleased to see that there were very few people out and about. He paused when his gaze landed on a public restroom, and he winced before mentally shrugging off the thought of how dirty it might be.
“Well, I gotta walk through the little sprout fountains that the kids run around in, get wet like it’s raining on me, and then go boneless on the pretty stone fountain.” Chase rummaged through his backpack he had set beside Deacon and then pulled his notebook out.
Buddy set his suitcase on the bench and turned it on its side so he could open it up. He then unzipped and opened the suitcase before collapsing his umbrella, securing it, and placing it in the suitcase.
Deacon glanced up from his book to see DiamondDiva’s cool gaze paired with the lavender cat ear hoodie. “Um.” He gave Buddy a small wave. “Hey, again. It’s…cool seeing you. Again.”
Buddy gave Deacon a nod in greeting. “Yes. Thank you for watching our things.”
“Sure. No problem, Boblem.” Deacon stared as his soul crumpled behind his eyes. His lips tugged into a stone-firm line, and his gaze slowly fell back down on his book as embarrassment burned his cheeks up to his ears.
Buddy’s blank, thoughtful gaze locked on Deacon as Deacon mentally withered and leaned more into his book.
Chase held his notebook up, disrupting Buddy’s stare and diverting his attention. “Look, I have a whole plan.” He opened his notebook and flipped to the set of pages for his current work-in-progress. “I wanted shots of me lying on the big stone fountain, a shot of me walking and sad like Michael Cera to the Charlie Brown music, and a shot of me reaching down at the camera. Or reaching up at the camera.” He glanced around at their surroundings. “Gotta find a hill or something for that. I think doing that on the playground equipment is gonna be a lil too cringe for me.”
Buddy nodded along with Chase’s plan. He reached out a hand to grasp one side of Chase’s notebook. A spark of realization flashed through his eyes. “Oh. Could…could I read it?”
Chase’s smile fell, and he blinked a bit blankly. “...Read it?”
“Yes. Your lyrics. I wanted to get a better idea of what the poses will mean so I can take the best shots.”
Chase chewed his tongue, hesitant. “I mean. …Um. It’s. It’s not all done yet. It’s not the final draft or whatever.”
A softness overtook Buddy’s icy eyes. “I’ll be nice. I promise,” he murmured. “I can’t be scary with the cat ear hood on, can I?”
Chase looked up to see the lavender cat ears again, and he let out a brief chuckle. “Guess not.” He released his hold on his notebook. “For real, could you be like super gentle about it?”
“Mhm.” Buddy cradled the notebook in his grasp as his eyes pored over the lines. He met Chase’s gaze. “I’m not going to be critiquing you, Chase. Like I said, I just want to make sure the footage we get is the best it can be.”
Upon hearing the assurances, Chase’s tenseness seemed to leave him. “Yeah. Thanks. What, uh, do you mean by getting the best shots?”
“Hm….” Buddy hummed in thought as he selected an example. “How about here? You talk about memories ‘flooding’ over you, and you say you want to get a shot with yourself at the big fountain. This doodle of you just has you lying down on the bottom wall of the fountain with the camera looking down at you or looking at you from a sort of horizon perspective, but really, a more effective shot may be through the pouring water. I’m sure we can get a shot where we can see your face through enough of the water coming down the higher rungs of the fountain and still have it seemingly ‘flooding’ over you like these memories are supposed to. I’d say it makes for a more effective shot because then there’ll be more visual symbolism at play.”
“Oh, my god. You’re so hired.”
Buddy let out a startled laugh. “What?”
“Mr. Director, please help me direct my music video.” Chase practically had stars filling his dreamy, determined eyes.
Buddy watched the sparkles glisten in Chase’s eyes before giving him a nod. “Sure. If you want to get water on yourself to film, I recommend that we do the photoshoot first. I’d rather these things not get wet during the shoot. We could take many pictures of each pose, and I can edit the best ones and post them on my website. Then we can dedicate the rest of our time to your video.” Buddy placed Chase’s notebook in Chase’s outstretched hands before unzipping a smaller bag within his suitcase. Gently, he guided a shining, cutting-edge camera out of its foam cubby beside several lenses snugly set in foam casing. “It’s a good camera, so it’ll do half my work for me as a photo editor.” He set the camera down on the folded jackets and shirts before pulling out a collapsible tripod from his suitcase. “What are you filming with? We could get some behind-the-scenes photos for your music video, and you could potentially sell them as prints or posters.”
Chase gasped, and he slipped his notebook back in his backpack. “That’s a great idea.” He then gingerly moved a padded—seemingly-homemade—draw-string bag in his backpack and opened it. Chase pulled out a video camera that had no-doubt seen better days back when it was first made close to a decade ago.
Buddy stared the older video camera down. “...What’s that?”
“S’what I use to film.”
Buddy’s eyebrows drew together as doubt settled in his gaze. “You use that to film with?”
“Yeah.” Chase gave him a relaxed smile. “Why not? It works great.”
“It’s…old.”
Chase nodded and rubbed at a couple scratches in the camera’s plastic side. “Old reliable.”
“It’s going to qualify for a learner’s permit.”
Chase pouted. “Is this you being not-scary in the cat ear hood?”
Buddy paused, and his doubt fell from his expression, replaced with a blank stare. “...Yeah. Yeah, no. Sorry.” He thumbed through the jackets and shirts like files in a cabinet. “What shirt color and jacket color do you want to wear? I figure you probably don’t want to change your pants in a park bathroom for this.”
“Nah, man, I’d change my pants in a park bathroom.” Chase guided the video camera back into the draw-string bag and tightened the bag closed.
Buddy met Chase’s gaze, a bit surprised. “Oh. Uh. I didn’t…really bring down any additional sweatpants…. Unless….” He looked down to the waistband of his lavender sweatpants and pulled it away from his body to reveal a second pair beneath them—a black pair.
“...Dude, are you wearing more than one pair of sweatpants? Aren’t you, like, dying from the heat?”
“I don’t want to change in a park bathroom,” Buddy huffed. “And I wanted to get everything in a light-color version photo and a dark-color version photo.”
Chase nodded, mulling through his thoughts. “Alright. If you take off the purple ones, I’ll wear those. You can wear the black ones, and we can take less pictures. It’d be…efficient?”
Buddy sighed, succumbing to the siren’s call of efficiency. “Okay.” Without further conversation, Buddy hooked his fingers onto the lavender waistband and slipped them down and off before holding them up to Chase. The black sweatpants beneath the previous pair were identical aside from their base color. “Here.”
Chase accepted the sweatpants before sinking his attention into the other colors he wanted to wear in jackets and shirts.
“Before I forget, I wanted to show you some art I found of us.”
“Art?”
“Mhm.” Buddy pulled out his phone and tapped through his phone’s gallery. “I saved them and titled the pictures with the artists’ names. It seems that the fans have taken to calling us ‘stargoth’.”
Chase released a sigh of relief. “Whew. I really thought that DaddyDiva and Chase Holler thing was gonna stick.”
Buddy’s thumb halted. “...The what—?”
Chase shook his head. “Nevermind. Just a joke from my stream chat. Don’t worry about it. So you found some nice art of us? Gotta hand it to our talented fanbase.”
“Yes.” Buddy thumbed through the pictures. “I was wondering if you want to take photos in a couple of these positions in addition to the standard merch poses? I’ll reach out to the artists whose positions we use for permission to put them on my merch website. I’ll send them to you, too, if you like.”
“Oh! Yeah, sure!” Chase moved to stand beside Buddy and peered down at Buddy’s phone to watch him scroll through the selection. “These look pretty—uh.” Chase glanced away as a bit of pink dusted his cheeks. “That one…uh….”
Buddy glanced at Chase’s expression before examining the current art he was on. “...Right, yeah, maybe not that one. Probably a little too sensual. Sorry.” He swiped past it.
“Nah, nah! Nah. It’s chill. It’s all. Chill.” Chase chewed his tongue as he watched Buddy scroll through again.
“Ah. That’s the end.” Buddy blacked out his screen. “You should go ahead and change and think about what poses drew your attention.” He tugged a white shirt from his suitcase as well as a black jacket with lavender color-blocking. “Match the sweatpants with these.”
Chase accepted the two articles of clothing. “Yeah, sure, sure. See ya in a bit.” With that, he headed to the closest restroom to change clothes.
Buddy brightened his screen and began to swipe through the stargoth photo album on his phone again, narrowing down the images for possible pose options.
“Is there something wrong with using older tech?”
Buddy lifted his head, just barely catching the soft voice to his right. He turned his head to meet Deacon’s glance. “What?”
Deacon drew in a breath and sighed it out before he met Buddy’s eyes. “Is there something wrong with using older technology?”
After a moment’s pause, a shock of realization passed through Buddy. “Oh. No, no. I was just…surprised. I know what kind of money we make, and having more advanced technology makes the editing part of the job much easier, so I was surprised to see Chase lugging around that dino—,” Buddy cleared his throat, “—using that video camera. …In fact, I don’t think I understand it. Why would he put so much energy into fussing with older technology when he could buy newer technology at a reasonable price that’ll make his life easier?”
Deacon tapped the spine of his book against his leg. “...Maybe people spend money on things other than their hobbies-turned-jobs. Maybe those other things cost a lot of money.” His gaze fell back down to his book. “Besides, if it still works well for him, he shouldn’t have to replace it.”
“My apologies. I didn’t realize I stepped on your toes.”
Deacon nodded and hummed a sound of acknowledgement. “...And next time, maybe consider that his cousin is right here when you guys talk about your ship stuff? It’s a little awkward.”
“Of course.” Buddy’s gaze fell back to his phone. “No problem, Boblem.” His lips twitched into an amused smile as Deacon leaned further into his book.