Work Text:
Fir notices it after he shuts down the stream: Tanner has finished streaming but is still in the voice call. Geoguesser did not go well for him, so when Fir joins the call out of curiosity, he hears Tanner mumble curses. But, like any other time, he immediately notices Fir come back.
“Hey, Fir,” he says with a sigh.
Fir can hear masked irritation in his voice. “You okay?” he asks, and there's a thud against Tanner's desk.
“Yes,” the tiny muffled voice says. Tanner sighs heavily and gets closer to the microphone again, “Sorry, having a bad day.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” Fir says with a smirk and feels a little bad when Tanner groans. Fir doesn't really care for winning challenges like that, he only cares for creating entertaining content. Especially when he knows he can't win—it rarely happens when he plays against Tanner, anyway. But that wasn't the case today. And Fir isn't sure what to say to that. “Sorry,” he says when silence gets too tight between them. “I hope it gets better. Can I do anything?”
Tanner keeps quiet up until Fir starts to get nervous. “Can you stay on call with me for a bit?” Tanner says, and Fir is surprised but he's not saying no.
The silence doesn't feel as charged anymore. Fir leaves Discord on his left monitor and pulls up the script he's been working on lately.
After a while, Fir is so content with this arrangement, he gets startled when he hears, “Can you believe chat called me fat today?”
Fir distantly thinks that Tanner is probably fishing for compliments because they have already talked about it on stream, but the idea is still too flabbergasting to him, so he says, “Yeah, what are they talking about? You're very fit and attractive.”
Tanner's icon doesn't flash green for a few seconds, and then Fir can hear pout in his voice. “Do you really think that or are you saying that just because you're gay?”
Huh?
“Smant.” Fir pinches his nose bridge. “If I like boys, it doesn't mean I am attracted to just any guy.”
Tanner's mumbles, “Sorry,” close to his microphone and at least he sounds genuine.
“I mean,” Fir doesn't know why he continues, “You are objectively good-looking. You are buff, Smant. Why would anyone say you're fat? You're attractive.”
He knows he's got caught into a spiderweb when Tanner responds quietly, almost shyly, and there's an audible grin on his face, “Thank you.”
Fir wonders if he's said too much. He's already said that Tanner was attractive on stream, there was nothing new in his words. Yet, it felt different. It felt too personal one on one.
“I think you're attractive too,” Tanner says suddenly, and then, “You have a very nice smile. I like to see you laugh,” and Fir's suddenly aware of how little air there is in his office.
Before he can think about it he hears himself say, “Do you want me to turn my camera on?”
“Yes.”
He subconsciously gets a hand in his hair, as if he hasn't streamed for the last four hours. Tanner's picture loads for him at the same time he shares his. They look at each other.
It hasn't been long since Kaizo Colosseum but Fir so rarely sees Tanner like this that he can't help but be stunned. If anything, be damned chat, and probably the whole world—Tanner looks very attractive to Fir. Especially when he smiles. He can see a small smile crawl at his lips, and Fir can't help but grin himself.
They stare and smile, and Fir laughs and shakes his head because that's just ridiculous and awkward; what are they even doing? Tanner makes a face, and Fir returns his version until Tanner slumps in his chair laughing.
Fir keeps looking at Tanner. “Your chat is stupid,” he says, and Tanner makes little effort to look offended. “You're very attractive,” Fir says again before it catches on to him that he probably shouldn't because that wasn't what the chat was saying.
“You think so?” Tanner says with a smile and looks straight into his camera.
Fir sees his own face flush next to Tanner's and hopes it's not that bad on his screen. “Yeah, I do,” he says because he knows Tanner would never take it seriously.
“You're very cool, Fir. I like you,” Tanner says, wearing the same smile.
Fir doesn't know what to say and it only occurs to him he's been staring and chewing on his lip when Tanner's grin widens and he changes his position.
“We should do more video calls,” Tanner says as he switches to look at his monitor and his keyboard clicks softly. “It was nice to see you at Kaizo Colosseum, but I think we should hang out more.”
Fir blinks. “Yeah,” he says, turning to his abandoned document and hoping his cheeks aren't burning as bright as he feels them to. “Yeah, we should.”
They leave the call on their second screens while they work. And Fir hopes Tanner doesn't notice when he steals glances. He can't help.
You’re too attractive.