Work Text:
Clarke had her camera angled just right: hands in frame, soft brushstrokes of cerulean spreading across watercolor paper. The quiet lofi playlist she always used hummed in the background, filling the space between her occasional comments to chat.
"Yeah, I think this one's going to be a night sky," she said, rinsing her brush in the cloudy water jar. "But don't ask me about constellations. If you want scientific accuracy, that's Raven's department."
Twitch chat responded immediately, the flood of messages lighting up the side of her screen.
ArtMom42: collab when???
KeyboardGremlin: we know you two are secretly in VC rn
GayAgenda88: raven's stream starts in 5 min 👀
Clarke laughed under her breath, dabbing a soft glow of violet at the horizon. "You all are too nosy," she teased, shaking her head. "But you're right. My favorite mad scientist is probably live by now. Which means..." She reached to click her stream deck, a grin tugging at her lips. "It's time for a raid. And now we raid Raven, who I'm sure hasn't blown anything up yet."
The lofi faded, replaced by the countdown swirl of the raid. Clarke leaned back in her chair, sipping water and watching the transition screen flicker as hundreds of her viewers poured into Raven's channel.
On Raven's end, chaos was already in motion. The camera showed a desk cluttered with switches, keycaps, and wires, her dark curls tied back in a messy bun. A soldering iron rested at a safe distance from her current project, and Raven was muttering at a PCB like it had personally wronged her.
"And if I route the LED strip here... oh, raid incoming," Raven said, glancing at chat as the notification exploded across her overlay. She grinned, wiping her hands on a rag. "Speak of the soft art devil. She's here, judging my cable management again."
Clarke's username lit up in Raven's chat immediately, her message highlighted: ClarkeGriffinOfficial: i would never (...except i totally am).
Chat went wild.
W1resCrossed: MOM AND MOM
PainterPunk: raven u literally had that short circuit last month
WatercolorGays: clarke ur cheeks are red 👀
Raven chuckled, shaking her head. "Don't listen to them, Princess. They exaggerate. That spark was completely under control."
"Completely under control?" Clarke's voice filtered through, laughing, because of course she couldn't resist unmuting on Raven's Discord stream call. "You yelped and knocked over your Red Bull."
"Okay, okay, minor mishap," Raven said, smirking as she started slotting keycaps into place. "But this board's going to be gorgeous when I'm done. You'll see."
Clarke leaned her chin into her palm, watching the VOD replay of Raven's camera feed on her second monitor while her own brushes lay forgotten. Chat kept spamming hearts and inside jokes, delighted that both streamers were online again.
Neither of them minded.
--
Neither of them remembered exactly how it began. Clarke couldn't recall if Raven had stumbled into her art stream first, making snarky comments about how "watercolor looked like diluted sadness," or if she herself had wandered into Raven's chaotic corner of Twitch, where LED strips and custom keyboards created tiny light shows.
It didn't matter. It had happened. And then it kept happening.
The DMs started innocently enough: memes and reaction gifs. Raven sending Clarke a video of a keyboard switch that sounded like a duck quack, Clarke retaliating with a cat smearing paint across a canvas. Somewhere along the line, the banter stretched into late-night conversations. Clarke typing in the dark about her mom, about feeling like she wasn't really doing enough with her art. Raven, wide awake at 2 AM, sending voice notes about how people underestimated her, how she hated that the word "disabled" was all some folks saw when they looked at her leg brace.
It turned out LA's creative community was smaller than they thought.
And always, without fail, they showed up in each other's streams.
The routine became sacred: Clarke would end her art streams by raiding Raven, who would inevitably be elbow-deep in some electronic project that looked like it might produce beautiful results or interesting failures. Raven would return the favor, sending her tech-savvy audience to Clarke's peaceful watercolor corner like a horde of caffeinated makers discovering meditation.
Their chats had long since merged into one extended family of artists, tech nerds, and makers who lived for the moments when both streamers were online simultaneously.
Tonight was no different.
--
Clarke's stream was in its usual cozy rhythm: soft light, watercolor paper soaking up shades of rose and ochre, her brush moving in slow arcs. Chat scrolled by at its normal, steady pace: compliments, questions about brushes, a few art nerd debates about paper weight.
And then a message popped up, bold and highlighted by channel points.
GalaxyBrain88: When are you two gonna do a stream together?
Clarke froze for half a second, the tip of her brush hovering dangerously close to the paper. "A collab?" she repeated, trying to sound casual. "I mean... I don't know. Raven and I do different stuff. You all don't want to see me... soldering things."
Chat immediately erupted.
KeyboardGremlin: YES WE DO
PainterPunk: cursed collab let's gooooo
ArtMom42: don't be a coward clarke 👀
Clarke pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh. "Uh huh. Sure. You really think that would be fun to watch?"
A new message pinged in, bright blue and impossible to miss.
RavenReyesOfficial: Coward.
Clarke groaned, dropping her brush and covering her face with her hands. "Oh my god, you're here." She peeked at the camera, cheeks flushed. "Don't you have... circuits to test or something?"
RavenReyesOfficial: Already tested. Now I'm testing you.
GayAgenda88: SHE'S CALLING YOU OUT
W1resCrossed: collab collab collab collab
Clarke sat back in her chair, feigning indifference. "Fine," she said with a dramatic sigh. "Tomorrow. One stream. Me and Raven. No big deal."
The chat exploded.
PainterPunk: THIS IS HISTORY IN THE MAKING
KeyboardGremlin: stream title better be cursed collab
WatercolorGays: y'all should build something together 😈
Clarke arched an eyebrow at her monitor, smirking. "Build something together?" She shook her head. "That's a terrible idea."
Raven was faster.
RavenReyesOfficial: We'd kill each other in 10 minutes.
Clarke leaned closer to the mic, her grin slipping through. "And I'd look calm doing it."
Chat howled, spamming crying-laughing emotes and shipping tags. Clarke pretended not to notice, rinsing her brush again, but she couldn't quite hide the way she kept glancing at Raven's username lighting up her chat.
The cursed collab was officially on.
--
Clarke shut down her stream, the lofi playlist finally fading into silence. The watercolor sat unfinished on her desk, but her chat's last words still buzzed in her head: cursed collab, cursed collab, cursed collab.
She exhaled, leaned back in her chair, and pulled open Discord. Raven's name was glowing green, of course. Clarke clicked without thinking.
Clarke: How the fuck is this even going to work? I'm in Venice Beach and you're in Silver Lake.
Clarke: Maybe building something was too much of a reach.
The typing bubble popped up almost instantly, like Raven had been waiting.
Raven: LMAO princess, you're already backing out?
Raven: Scared of me stealing your spotlight?
Clarke rolled her eyes, grinning despite herself.
Clarke: No. I'm scared of you electrocuting yourself live on stream.
Clarke: And me looking like an accessory to manslaughter.
Raven: pls, I've only had that one incident with the short circuit.
Raven: but fine. no complex builds. baby steps.
Clarke smirked, fingers flying across the keyboard.
Clarke: Baby steps? You mean like... you teach me how not to fry my streaming setup?
Raven: EXACTLY.
Raven: chat wants cursed collab, we give them cursed collab.
Raven: tomorrow, same time. you paint, I build, we just... vibe and roast each other.
Clarke hesitated, staring at the blinking cursor. It wasn't like she hadn't been on call with Raven before, but this felt different. Public. Visible. Everyone would see them together, really together, for the first time.
Her phone buzzed with another message before she could type.
Raven: Don't chicken out, Griffin.
Clarke huffed a laugh, shook her head, and finally replied.
Clarke: Fine. But if we get banned for chaos, I'm blaming you.
Raven: Deal.
Clarke set her phone down, smiling at her half-finished painting. Cursed collab, indeed.
--
The screen was split cleanly down the middle: on the left, Raven's camera framed her cluttered desk with switches, LED strips, and a custom lighting rig she'd been perfecting. On the right, Clarke's camera showed her watercolor station, a jar of cloudy paint water and a canvas that was starting to glow with geometric blues and silvers.
Their voices overlapped seamlessly, like they'd been doing this forever.
"Okay," Clarke said, brushing another layer of ultramarine over the circuit-board lines she'd sketched earlier, "so we're officially making history with the most cursed collab on Twitch."
"Speak for yourself," Raven shot back, adjusting an LED strip with practiced precision. "My half of this stream is extremely blessed. Look at this clean wiring." She angled the project closer to the camera, grinning.
Chat immediately filled with messages.
W1resCrossed: she's showing off for you clarke 👀
PainterPunk: ART WIFE + TECH WIFE = OTP
KeyboardGremlin: SHIP THEM SHIP THEM SHIP THEM
Clarke bit back a laugh, trying to sound unaffected as she rinsed her brush. "Clean wiring, huh? You're ridiculously hot when you're focused."
Raven froze mid-motion, LED strip wobbling in her grip. "Wh..." She cleared her throat, fumbling the project back into place. "You're going to make me blush and short-circuit this whole setup."
Clarke leaned toward her mic, grinning wickedly. "Go on, it's good content."
Chat exploded.
GayAgenda88: DID SHE JUST???
ArtMom42: RAVEN BLUSHING??? CALL THE COPS
ShipItShipIt: this is NOT platonic energy 😏
Raven shoved her hair back, trying to recover, but her smirk betrayed her. "Yeah, yeah, keep talking, Griffin. When I accidentally create a light show instead of ambient lighting, you're paying for the replacement parts."
"Fine," Clarke said breezily, flicking paint across her paper in a constellation-like scatter. "I'll just sell the art piece I'm making and send you the profits. Title it Hot Nerd Chaos."
"Hot Nerd Chaos?" Raven repeated, finally laughing. "Okay, you're not allowed to clown me if you're going to call your own painting that."
The stream rolled on with effortless rhythm: Raven building, Clarke painting, both of them orbiting around each other like this had been inevitable. Their chats had long since stopped being separate audiences; the comments blurred together into one giant chorus of shipping, jokes, and chaos.
Neither of them minded.
The hours slipped by unnoticed. Clarke found herself painting circuit patterns without thinking, her brush following the rhythm of Raven's explanations about resistors and voltage. Raven, meanwhile, kept glancing at Clarke's side of the screen, her work pace slowing whenever Clarke laughed.
By the end, Clarke's painting showed a stylized circuit board blooming with watercolor flowers, and Raven's LED project pulsed in soft blues and purples that matched Clarke's palette perfectly.
"Okay, chat," Clarke said finally, setting down her brush, "I think we've tortured you enough for one night."
"Speak for yourself," Raven grinned, holding up her completed project. "This is the cleanest build I've done all month."
PainterPunk: NEVER END THIS STREAM
GayAgenda88: we need a part 2
W1resCrossed: same time tomorrow? please?
Clarke and Raven exchanged glances through their cameras, something soft passing between them.
"Maybe," Clarke said, her smile lingering. "If Raven promises not to create any unintentional light shows."
"No promises," Raven laughed, but her eyes stayed on Clarke's face. "But... yeah. Same time tomorrow sounds good."
--
The stream had ended nearly half an hour ago, but neither of them had logged off Discord. Clarke had closed OBS, set her brushes in the jar to soak, and now sat curled up in her chair, headset still on. Raven's camera was still active too, though her electronics had been pushed aside in favor of her leaning back, one arm draped over the back of her chair.
For a while, the only sound was the faint hum of Raven's desk fan and Clarke doodling idle shapes with a stylus on her tablet.
Finally, Raven broke the silence. "That was fun." Her voice was softer than it had been on stream, stripped of the performative edge.
Clarke smiled faintly at her screen. "Yeah. I kind of... forgot we weren't just hanging out like usual."
Raven tilted her head, the corner of her mouth twitching up. "You make streaming feel like... less of a performance."
Clarke's stylus stilled on the tablet. For a second, she let the words hang in the air, warm and a little too sharp in her chest. "That's because I don't expect you to impress me."
Raven's smirk faltered, her expression shifting into something more vulnerable before she masked it again with a laugh. "Careful, Griffin, people are going to start thinking you actually like me."
Clarke hesitated. She almost said maybe I do. But instead she leaned back and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, letting out a quiet laugh of her own. "Yeah, well. Don't let it go to your head."
Raven's eyes lingered on her through the webcam, like she had something else to say too. But she didn't.
The moment stretched, unspoken words settling somewhere between them.
"Same time tomorrow?" Raven asked finally, casual, like she hadn't just let Clarke see her unguarded for a breath.
Clarke nodded, the smile tugging at her lips. "Yeah. Same time."
Neither of them logged off right away.
--
Clarke was sprawled on her bed, scrolling aimlessly through Twitter when the notification caught her eye. Someone had tagged her in a video. Normally, she ignored random tags: nine times out of ten it was bots. But the preview showed her and Raven's faces side by side, clipped from last night's stream.
Curious, she tapped.
The video was a TikTok edit, already reposted to Twitter. Split-screen footage of Clarke painting and Raven working with her LED strips had been cut together, each stolen glance and laugh synced perfectly with the beat of a love song. At one point, the clip zoomed in on Clarke saying "you're ridiculously hot when you're focused," followed by Raven's flustered laugh, heart emojis and sparkles exploding across the screen.
The caption read: they're literally soulmates, I don't make the rules 💜 #PrincessMechanic
Clarke's stomach did something traitorous. She stared at the hashtag for a long moment before snorting into her pillow. Her fingers flew over to Discord.
Clarke (DM): We've been edited. With sparkles. I'm scared.
The typing bubble appeared immediately.
Raven: Link me.
Clarke sent it. Three dots popped up, disappeared, then popped up again.
Raven: ...
Raven: If this ship name catches on I'm deleting the internet.
Clarke grinned at her phone, biting her lip.
Clarke: Bold of you to assume you can fight the power of teenagers with editing software.
Clarke: We're doomed.
Raven: Speak for yourself, Princess. I refuse to be anyone's mechanic wife.
Clarke: Too late. It's canon now.
Raven's reply was just an eye-roll emoji and a gif of someone slamming a laptop shut.
But Clarke kept scrolling back to that clip of Raven blushing, sparkles exploding around her. And every time, her heart gave the same little skip.
By the next morning, #PrincessMechanic was trending in LA's creative community.
--
It was late. Later than usual. The apartment was quiet, the kind of heavy silence that made Clarke's chest ache. Her brushes were still sitting in the murky water jar from earlier, untouched. She'd argued with her mom again: sharp words over the phone that ended the same way all their conversations did now. Clarke hanging up, throat tight, wishing things were different.
Since her dad died eighteen months ago, it felt like all they did was fight.
She opened Discord before she could talk herself out of it. Raven's name was lit green. Live streaming, probably. Clarke hesitated, then hit the call button anyway.
Raven picked up after just a few rings, her camera a little grainy in the low light. She was sitting at her desk, components pushed aside, a hoodie zipped halfway. "Clarke? It's like midnight. You okay?"
Clarke tried for a smile but it didn't land. "Not really." She swallowed, words spilling faster than she meant. "I miss my dad. And my mom, she's still here, but since he died, it's like she and I don't know how to talk anymore. All we do is fight. About nothing. About everything. I work, and I paint, and that's it. And then when I call her it just..." She broke off, pressing her palm against her eyes. "I don't know. I'm just... tired."
Raven was quiet for a moment, her expression softening. She reached up and tugged her headset off, settling back in her chair. "Yeah. I get that." Her voice was low, stripped of its usual bravado. "When I had the accident..." She gestured vaguely to her leg, to the crutch leaning against the wall. "My boyfriend at the time, he couldn't deal. Like, suddenly I wasn't the same girl he signed up for, you know? Everything fell apart at once. My body, my life, him. And it was just me left to pick up the pieces. I don't... talk about it much."
Clarke blinked, heart tightening. "Raven..."
Raven shrugged, but her eyes were steady on the camera. "I guess what I'm saying is, you're not the only one who feels like everything keeps breaking."
Clarke nodded slowly, exhaling. The silence stretched, gentler now. Finally, she murmured, "Sometimes I paint with your streams on. Just for the noise. It makes me feel... less alone."
Raven's mouth softened into a small smile. She hesitated, then said, very quietly, "I like when it's just us. No chat. No alerts."
Clarke met her gaze through the screen, something pulling tight in her chest. "Me too. Feels more... real."
Neither of them spoke after that. They didn't have to. They just stayed there, cameras on, the hum of their computers filling the silence as if it were enough.
--
Raven's stream was in full swing: camera angled over her desk, hands steady as she connected LEDs to a new keyboard project she'd been working on all week. Her chat scrolled in a constant blur, a mix of tech questions, memes, and the usual teasing.
"Alright," Raven said, voice smooth with concentration, "once I get this lighting sequence programmed, we should..."
A notification pinged. A username highlighted in bright blue at the top of chat.
ClarkeGriffinOfficial has entered the chat.
Raven's hand slipped. The LED strip she'd been holding dropped onto the desk. "Shit!" she yelped, quickly catching it before any connections came loose. The camera wobbled as she bumped her desk.
Chat exploded instantly.
KeyboardGremlin: LMAOOOO
PainterPunk: YOUR GIRLFRIEND'S WATCHING!!
GayAgenda88: 👀👀👀👀👀
W1resCrossed: caught in 4K
Raven swore under her breath, fumbling to secure the LED strip properly. Her cheeks were burning hot, and she knew it was obvious.
"No, she's not my..." She cut herself off, scowling at the camera. "Dammit. Not like that."
Chat only doubled down.
ArtMom42: "Not like that" = CONFIRMED
ShipItShipIt: YOU WANT HER TO BE THO
KeyboardGremlin: we see you raven 👀
On the other side of the screen, Clarke's username lit up again.
ClarkeGriffinOfficial: lol
And then... nothing. No more messages. A moment later, the user count ticked down by one.
Raven stared at her monitor, lips parted like she might call her out for leaving, but she didn't. She just sat back in her chair, rubbing a hand over her face as chat kept spiraling.
"Alright," she muttered, forcing a laugh. "Technical difficulties, huh? Let's... uh, let's just get back to it."
But her hands weren't nearly as steady when she picked up the next component.
--
Clarke's stream the next day felt different.
The camera still framed her desk the same way: brushes lined up, watercolor paper clipped to her board. But the energy was subdued. No chatty lofi, no upbeat background playlist. Instead, a softer, melancholy mix played in the background, piano-heavy and slow.
She painted in silence for long stretches, pausing often with her brush hovering above the page, as if she had to think through every stroke before committing. Chat seemed to notice. It scrolled more gently than usual, filled with soft encouragements and hearts instead of the usual flood of memes.
ArtMom42: everything ok clarke?
PainterPunk: stream vibes feel heavy today </3
GayAgenda88: sending u love
Clarke offered them a small smile, but didn't answer right away. She just kept painting: thin washes of blues and violets, darker tones building at the edges. Slowly, the shapes took form: two figures, silhouetted in faint light, sitting side by side at desks. Their faces weren't detailed, just shadows illuminated by the glow of two monitors.
She sat back near the end, letting the paint dry, the figures bathed in the soft radiance she'd brushed in. The room was quiet except for the playlist and the low hum of her PC.
Finally, she leaned toward the mic, voice quiet. "Sometimes you just... feel too much and don't know what to do with it."
Chat filled with hearts and gentle messages.
W1resCrossed: we feel u 💙
PainterPunk: that painting says it all tbh
KeyboardGremlin: no title, huh? feels personal
Clarke didn't give it a name. She just cleaned her brushes, thanked her viewers softly, and ended stream.
For a long time after, she stayed in her chair, staring at the glowing figures on the page.
--
Raven's Apartment – Silver Lake
Her desk light cast a warm circle on the cluttered surface, soldering iron cold for once. Raven sat slouched in her chair, Discord open, Clarke's name glowing in the sidebar.
She typed. Deleted. Typed again. Deleted.
"Hey, you good? Stream seemed rough."
"I liked the painting yesterday. The monitors."
"I miss you when you're not around."
"You're the best part of my day. And I think I want more than just emotes and DMs."
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Her chest felt tight. She hit backspace until the line disappeared, the cursor blinking at her like it was mocking her.
She closed the window, shoved her phone away, and leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
Clarke's Apartment – Venice Beach
Her room was dim except for the glow of her monitor. Brushes sat abandoned in a cup. She held her phone in both hands, voice recorder app open, thumb hovering over the save button.
She played the memo back, listening to her own voice, hushed and trembling.
"I think I fell for you somewhere between your fourth tech explanation and your laugh when you told me about that short circuit. I think about you when I'm painting and when I'm not painting and pretty much constantly and I don't know what to do about it because this is probably stupid but..."
Silence followed, broken only by her soft exhale. She hovered over the send option in Discord, Raven's name glowing there like it was waiting.
She didn't send it. She saved it to her drafts, screen dimming in her hand, and lay back on the bed with her heart racing.
Two apartments. Two sides of LA. Two girls staring at words they never let the other see.
The silence between them hummed louder than any stream alert.
--
Clarke hadn't planned it. Not really. But when she'd set up her donation event stream for The Trevor Project, something felt wrong about doing it alone. She stared at the empty overlay on OBS, her heart thudding, before clicking into Discord.
She didn't ask in DMs this time. She just called.
Raven answered, voice rough with surprise. "Clarke? You're live right now."
Clarke bit her lip, smiling nervously at the camera. "Yeah. I am. And so are you, if you want to be."
"What?" Raven blinked, then glanced at her second monitor. Her name had just popped up on Clarke's stream title: LIVE: Charity Stream for The Trevor Project (feat. Raven Reyes!)
"Princess," Raven said slowly, "you dragged me into a co-stream without warning?"
Clarke grinned at the camera, paintbrush in hand. "Guilty. I needed help setting up a donation overlay. And maybe... I wanted company."
Chat, which had been unusually quiet since Raven appeared on screen, trickled back to life.
ArtMom42: ooooh surprise guest 👀
PainterPunk: THE ENERGY IS BACK
GayAgenda88: perfect collab for this cause 🏳️🌈💖
Raven rubbed the back of her neck, clearly nervous, but when Clarke made a joke about her "extremely professional" overlay skills (which consisted of bright rainbow sparkles badly aligned with the alert box), Raven snorted. And just like that, the laughter slipped in.
They riffed off each other as donations started rolling. Clarke teased Raven for her "chaotic gay engineer energy," and Raven countered with a mock-swoon about Clarke's "bisexual disaster artist vibes." The chat loved it, showering the screen with rainbow emotes.
The donation bar climbed steadily: $200, $500, $800. Every alert brought more hearts, more pride flags, more messages about representation and found family and love being love.
Clarke glanced sideways at her monitor, the smile lingering even when the banter faded. "I missed you," she said softly, almost too quiet for stream. Then, with a little more confidence, "I think my chat did too. But mostly me."
Raven froze, LED strip in hand mid-gesture. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. "...That sounded like a confession."
Chat exploded.
KeyboardGremlin: DID SHE JUST...
ShipItShipIt: 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
GayAgenda88: CONFESSION CONFESSION CONFESSION
Clarke's cheeks flushed pink, but she didn't look away from the camera. She didn't backtrack.
The donation alert kept chiming: $25, $50, $100. Rainbow notifications popped across the screen like confetti. Raven was half-distracted adjusting her webcam angle when Clarke leaned closer to her mic, voice dropping soft enough she probably thought only Raven would notice.
"Would it be so bad if it was?"
Raven froze. Her chair squeaked as she sat straighter, heat rushing to her cheeks. "Wait, Clarke..."
But chat had already caught it.
KeyboardGremlin: WE HEARD THAT
GayAgenda88: MODS WE NEED HEART EMOTES STAT
ShipItShipIt: 🚨CONFESSION SPEEDRUN ANY%🚨
ArtMom42: SOMEBODY SCREENSHOT THE BLUSH
Clarke covered her face with her hand, laughing helplessly into her sleeve. "You guys weren't supposed to..." She trailed off, peeking back at the camera, and the grin spreading across her face didn't help her case.
Raven groaned, dragging her hand down her face, though the corners of her mouth betrayed her. "So you're saying this was our soft launch?"
Clarke tilted her head, grin sharpening. "It's been soft-launching for eight months."
The chat exploded.
PainterPunk: OH MY GOD SHE SAID IT
KeyboardGremlin: THEY'VE BEEN MARRIED THIS WHOLE TIME
W1resCrossed: SOFT LAUNCH TO HARD LAUNCH LET'S GO
GayAgenda88: 🏳️🌈💜💙💚💛🧡❤️
Raven tried to get a word in, but she was laughing too hard, half hiding behind her hoodie. "You're going to kill me, Griffin," she managed.
Clarke leaned her chin on her hand, eyes sparkling. "Maybe. But it's good content."
Chat spiraled out of control: shipping tags, emotes, full essays about their "canon arc." For once, neither of them tried to rein it in. They just sat there, blushing and laughing, while the internet did the rest.
The donation bar hit $2,000 by the end of the night.
--
It was well past midnight when Clarke called. No preamble, no message, just the ringing, until Raven picked up.
The room behind Raven was dim, only the faint glow of her monitor outlining her face. She was quieter than usual, not laced with snark or bravado. Just present. "Couldn't sleep either?" she asked softly.
Clarke shook her head, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "Not really. Just... didn't want to be alone."
They talked about nothing at first: the weather, what Clarke was sketching, the half-finished project still sitting on Raven's desk. Their words drifted, voices low like they were afraid of breaking the quiet.
Then Clarke stilled, staring at Raven's face on the screen. Her chest felt heavy but warm, her throat dry. She didn't plan to say it, but it slipped out like it had been waiting.
"I love you."
Raven froze, eyes widening.
Clarke gave a shaky little laugh, brushing her hair back. "I think I've loved you for a while. I just didn't know I was allowed to say it."
For a long beat, Raven just looked at her. And then, almost like it hurt to hold it in, she whispered back: "You're always allowed. Especially with me."
Clarke's smile trembled, her eyes bright in the soft light. Raven's lips curved too, tentative but real, as if the words had stitched something in place between them.
They didn't need to say more. They just stayed there, both of them wrapped in blankets, the silence finally easy.
"So," Raven said eventually, voice barely above a whisper, "what happens now?"
Clarke traced patterns on her tablet with her finger, not really drawing anything. "I don't know. But... I want to find out. With you."
"Even with the 405 between us?"
"Especially with the 405 between us," Clarke said, meeting her eyes through the camera. "We've made it work this far."
Raven's smile widened, soft and real. "I love you too, by the way. In case that wasn't clear."
Clarke laughed, wiping at her eyes. "It was pretty clear. But I like hearing it anyway."
They stayed on the call until the sun started to rise on both sides of the city, painting their rooms in soft gold. Neither wanted to be the first to hang up.
--
Three weeks later, Clarke knocked on Raven's apartment door in Silver Lake, suitcase trailing behind her and nerves humming under her skin. She'd made the drive from Venice Beach in record time, weaving through LA traffic with a determination that surprised even her.
When the door opened, Raven stood there in an oversized hoodie and messy curls, eyes wide like she couldn't quite believe Clarke was real.
"Hi," Clarke said, suddenly shy.
"Hi yourself," Raven replied, grinning. "Ready to see what chaos looks like in three dimensions?"
Clarke's eyes crinkled at the corners as she stepped inside, taking in the organized disaster of Raven's apartment: electronics everywhere, but somehow it all made sense. "I've been ready for eight months."
For once, the world could wait.
--
Two months later, the camera flickered on, but this time, the usual split-screen wasn't there.
Instead, one frame showed both of them: Clarke at her watercolor desk, Raven at her electronics station, side by side in the same room. The new apartment in Los Feliz was still a little bare. Boxes stacked in the background, art supplies spilling out of crates, Raven's tech equipment claiming every available surface. But the glow of two monitors cast the space in warm light.
Chat erupted instantly.
KeyboardGremlin: THEY'RE IN THE SAME ROOM??
ShipItShipIt: CONFIRMED IRL WIVES LET'S GOOOO
GayAgenda88: dual stream one room 💜💙
PainterPunk: THE GLOW UP IS REAL
Clarke dipped her brush into paint, grinning at the scrolling chaos. "Okay, yes. You caught us. No more split screens. We moved in together."
Raven held up a bundle of tangled cables with mock despair. "Correction: Clarke moved in, and I immediately cursed the apartment with cable hell."
"Still chaotic," Clarke said, leaning into the mic with a smile that softened her whole face. "Just... happier."
The donations and emotes poured in, chat feral and delighted, but neither streamer seemed rattled. Their rhythm was effortless: painting and building, teasing and laughing, like the long road that got them here had distilled into this one ordinary, extraordinary moment.
Raven was explaining the difference between mechanical switches when she caught Clarke staring. "What?"
"Nothing," Clarke said, but her brush had stilled on the paper. "Just... this is nice."
"The stream?"
"This." Clarke gestured between them, around the room, at the beautiful mess they'd made together. "Us. Here."
Chat was going wild with heart emotes and keyboard smashes, but for once, neither of them was performing for the audience. Raven's expression softened, her tech explanation forgotten.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "It really is."
As the stream wound down, Clarke set her brush aside and turned slightly in her chair, eyes on Raven instead of the camera. Her voice was quiet, meant for both chat and the girl beside her.
"I used to end every stream alone. Now I end them with you."
Raven's smirk softened into something more unguarded. She leaned over, pressing a kiss to Clarke's lips: gentle, certain, sealing it.
When they broke apart, Raven glanced back at the camera, grin crooked. "See you tomorrow, chat."
The stream ended, but the chat wasn't ready to stop screaming.
W1resCrossed: I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING
ArtMom42: THEY'RE MARRIED YOUR HONOR
GayAgenda88: BEST LOVE STORY ON TWITCH
KeyboardGremlin: princessmechanic forever
Clarke and Raven sat in the afterglow of the ended stream, the apartment quiet except for the hum of their computers and the soft sound of their breathing.
"So," Raven said, spinning in her chair to face Clarke fully. "How's it feel to be canonically gay on the internet?"
Clarke laughed, reaching over to tangle their fingers together. "Like coming home."
Raven squeezed her hand, thumb brushing over Clarke's knuckles. "Think chat will ever calm down about us?"
"Absolutely not," Clarke grinned. "But I don't think I mind."
Outside, Los Angeles buzzed with its usual chaos, but inside their small apartment (cluttered with art supplies and electronics, smelling like paint water and the faint ozone of circuits), everything was exactly as it should be.
Clarke pulled up her art software and started a new canvas while Raven tinkered with her latest project. No cameras, no audience, just the comfortable rhythm they'd found together.
After all this time, they'd finally learned that the best streams were the ones where they forgot they were performing at all.