Chapter Text
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Delirious
[image.png]
/image description: The image consists of a picture of an owl sitting on a snowy branch with its eyes pressed closed, giving the illusion that it’s smiling. Bold text is overlaid at the bottom, reading, “GOOD MORNING”. /END ID
Vanoss
and a good mornin to u too
Delirious
heheheh
good morning :)
Vanoss
nice to see u up
how was recording with cartoonz
Delirious
fun
although i def pissed squirrel off bc i kept on dozing off LMAO
Vanoss
yeah bc ur f*cking sleep deprived as sh*t
Delirious
hey
whos fault is that now
Vanoss
okay
in my defense. i didnt think we’d literally stay up to sunrise
Delirious
still
dude its been like two days and my sleep schedule is still off
you done messed me up XD
Vanoss
and ill do it again! haha
Delirious
you massive jerk
Vanoss
[yeah but u love me| ]
[yeah but| ]
u bet lmao
the BoysTM
(#mod-info)
nogla
@Vanoss can u send the gmod file again
Vanoss
Is it not working again?
goddamnit
File - gm_lethalcompanylootbug_v3_texturewarp.gma
how’s that
nogla
Nope
Vanoss
wtf do u mean nope? what are u doing
nogla
im dragging it over
Vanoss
daithi. u can’t just drag it over to the game folder. u need to actually download it into the workshop
nogla
But i can’t find the workshop that it came from
Vanoss
??? because it didn’t come FROM the workshop
but u need to upload it to gmod THRU the workshop
there should be setting for it
Evan groaned.
This session was falling apart before they even started recording.
“Not having fun troubleshooting, I’m guessing?” Delirious remarked.
He quickly tabbed out of Discord and opened GMod where Delirious’ character was standing in front of him with his physics gun out. They were currently testing out the newest modpack that Evan had commissioned, which, if he had downloaded it correctly, should allow them to not only play in the Lethal Company map, but also spawn in some of the creatures.
Specifically — because he didn’t want to spoil the map for himself before he could press the record button — they were testing out some of the features in the Construct map “off-camera”, so to speak.
“Yeah. This is like the fourth, maybe fifth time, we’ve encountered some sort of a bug,” Evan admitted. “It’s just, I dunno man. I really want this to work but it’s fighting against me. Us.”
Another notification came through Discord and Evan clicked it, enlarging his chat again.
the BoysTM
(#mod-info)
nogla
are you super sure that’s the right file
Vanoss
yeah
double sure
nogla
okayyyy whatever you say
uh its asking for a different file type
Vanoss
What
nogla
yeah
actually
just mass send all of the files to me
Vanoss
Ucan scroll up
(edit)U can scroll up (edited)
nogla
But that’s probably missing some updated links
I’m trying to restart this whole thing
Vanoss
alr fine
File - gm_lethalcompanylootbug_v2_weightpainting.gma
File - gm_lethalcompanylootbug_skeletonrig.gma
File - gm_lethalcompanylootbug_v2_modelmanip.gma
File - gm_lcvowmap_12934323349.gma
File - gm_lethalcompany_vowmap_4.gma
File - gm_lethacompanyvowfunction1013412938573.gma
File - gm_lethalcompany_sfx.gma
there u go
and if this doesn’t work ig ur just out of the vid
nogla
dude seriously?
Vanoss
ofc not
we’ll find another way but unless ur doing something to f*ck it up
this SHOULD work
“Hey, Vanoss!” he heard Delirious call out his name.
Evan tabbed back in, his fingers flying quickly across the keyboard, and dragged his camera up until he saw Delirious floating above the flat plains. He was spawning a lineup of lootbugs using the tool gun while laughing loudly. Upon being brought into the world, the lootbugs immediately dispersed, scuttling around with their long legs and raising their tiny arms into the air like they were worshiping some ancient deity.
“Are you recreating the, uh, lootbug mafia?” Evan asked.
“It’s a serious mafia, man! Don’t piss them off or they’ll seriously f*ck you up,” Delirious warned, his tone having that of a man who had several runs crash and fail due to said-creatures.
Chuckling, Evan flew over until he was above one of them and dropped down, landing right in its arms. “Wait, I wanna see if these can hurt you,” he said. Evan waited around, even running circles around the thing to see if that could trigger it somehow. The lootbugs just stared back at him with their large red eyes and their small chirps and clicks.
It was odd, to say the least, to see them in GMod where they had a higher definition than how they appeared in Lethal Company.
“They seem to be friendly, aw, sad,” Delirious said, disappointed.
“Right, ‘aw, sad’ that they don’t have innate bloodlust inside of them,” Evan mocked, making him snort. Delirious protested loudly, “That’s not what I meant! Maybe you have to piss them off, first.”
“Actually, yeah.” Evan opened up his inventory menu and selected a shotgun from the weapons catalog, whipping it out. He then shot the one standing in front of him at point blank.
The moment he pulled the trigger, it flew backwards until it collided harshly with the brick building in the far back, prompting Delirious to erupt into laughter. “Oh my god! Did you see how far that one went?”
“Yeah, yeah, I did,” Evan chuckled. “Holy sh*t. I think that was a bit overkill— Wait, wait look at that one! The one that’s coming towards it!”
One of the lootbugs from the group separated to crawl over to the corpse of the poor lootbug he had just blasted, reached out with its long arms, and picked it up before it walked away, dragging the body behind it.
“He’s grabbing the corpse! Graverover! I mean, graverobber!” Delirious exclaimed, hovering over the lootbug that was carrying the body.
“Graverover,” Evan snorted. “God, I wish I had some sort of compilation of all of your misspeaks.”
“There is! Multiple, actually,” Delirious admitted. “I think I even made one myself.”
“I know, but it’s outdated. It doesn’t have classics like ‘graverover’,” Evan said. “Isn’t it weird that they look better here than the original game?”
“You’re not wrong,” Delirious said.
Curiously, Evan ran up to the one carrying the body and drew his crowbar. “Okay, if a shotgun killed it instantly, then I wonder what will happen if I do… this!” He brought down the weapon and struck the lootbug square between its buggy red eyes. A spurt of blood came flying out, as expected, but then it buzzed angrily and its wings shot out of its back before it began to fly.
Evan widened his eyes as it rammed itself into his body, decreasing his health by fifteen points. “Oh my god! Okay, okay, we were wrong! These things can definitely be aggressive!” he yelled while laughing. Frantically, he turned around and hauled ass, running across the green flat plains — but the lootbug continued to pursue him, hot on his tail.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Delirious following him in the sky, observing the scene as if he were a live reporter, and he could hear his faint giggles. Because his eyes were stuck on Delirious, he collided against one of the buildings, allowing the loot bug to catch up to him and land two cheap hits, cutting down on his health.
“f*ck it! Eat sh*t, you little bitch!” Evan shouted. Frantically, he scrolled through his hotbar until he found his RPG, aimed at the lootbug, and fired. He barely got to see it explode into gory bits before his corpse was launched across the map by the fiery detonation, causing the two of them to burst out into hysterical laughter when his body landed by the dock. “f*ck!”
“Aw, no!” Delirious cried out, then he began to wheeze. Evan watched one of the lootbugs approach his dead body with the same energy as a dog trotting towards something it shouldn’t eat. He had a sneaking suspicion that he knew what was going to happen, and it got confirmed as soon as the lootbug picked his corpse up and began to drag it across the ground, causing a trail of bloody puddles to pool behind it like a mop.
“It’s like a f*cked up painter,” he joked, but it was partially covered up by Delirious’ shriek.
“No! Oh no, you don’t, motherf*cker,” Delirious spat, then descended until he landed next to the lootbug. He switched to his physics gun and selected Vanoss’ body inside of the lootbug’s nubby hands and forcibly snatched it from its grasp. “Sorry, man, but he’s mine! I’m not letting you have him,” he said.
Strangely enough, Evan felt his face warm up — but he shouldn’t be that hot. The AC was on and he was just wearing a shirt, so there should be no reason he felt so flushed, but he didn’t feel like he was going to pass out at that exact moment so he ignored it.
While he was watching through his red bloody death screen, he saw the lootbug become aggressive as it rose a meter off the ground and began to pursue Delirious, making him scream shrilly. It felt like some sort of stupid Scooby Doo scene, like he could slap Benny Hills music over it, post it, and call it a day. Or at least that’s what he would’ve done several years ago.
Right when the lootbug caught up with Delirious, Evan decided that enough was enough and pressed the respawn button, appearing back in the middle of the plains.
“Holy sh*t, Vanoss!” Delirious called out his name happily, almost like a golden retriever. He leaped into the air and no-clipped to him, causing the lootbug to end its chase. “One of the little sh*ts tried to get away with your body but I defended it!”
“Wow, thanks, Delirious,” Evan deadpanned at him with a stupid grin on his face. “Totally wasn’t watching the whole thing.”
“Always gotta look out for your homies, y’know.”
“Mmhm. Wait, actually let me test the model itself,” Evan said. “Like, it’s not going to be exactly what it’ll look like when we start the game because that’s its own can of worms but… I can pretend to be a lootbug. Gimme a second.”
Evan searched through his library, past the Luigi and the Simpsons, past all of his friends’ personas, until he found the lootbug and selected it. He was presented with a third person view of his model and found himself walking back and forth as the creature. “Wait, oh my god. This is actually so cool.”
He strolled up to the remaining lootbugs, who had all spread out over the wide area. “Hello, my brethren,” Evan said. Delirious snickered.
Suddenly, the one that Delirious pissed off earlier returned and began advancing on Evan, causing him to fall back. “Ah! What the f*ck, get the hell away from me! I didn’t take your sh*t!” he shouted, running away. Evan pulled out a shotgun and shot the lootbug, causing it to be blasted through the air again. “Holy sh*t, again, it’s like these things were made to be launched into space.”
“Yeah,” Delirious laughed, then he stopped and landed in front of him. “Oh my god, Vanoss!”
“What, what, Delirious?”
“Vanoss. You’re, like, holding the shotgun! With your little hands!”
“I am?” Evan looked at himself through the third-person camera. “Oh my god, I am! That’s so cool, actually.”
He switched to his crowbar and the lootbug held it, even arching backwards a little bit. Evan swung it playfully and walked back and forth, before suddenly getting a brilliant idea. “Wait, Delirious, can you turn around for a second?”
“Uh, why?” Delirious questioned.
“Just do it!” Evan urged.
“Oh, okay! I trust you on this, okay? Don’t, like, blow me or som—” Delirious choked. “I mean, blow me up! Don’t blow me up! Oh my god.”
Evan laughed. His cheeks heated up again and there was an odd feeling in his chest that he couldn’t recognize fully, but he ignored it in favor of summoning a teddy bear from the creative bar. He picked it up, checking to make sure that it looked like the loot bug was holding it.
“Alright,” Evan cleared his throat. “Delirious, I’m ready. Turn around, now.”
“Okay,” Delirious giggled, following Evan’s instruction before gasping and landing on the floor. “Oh my god! Vanoss! Is that— Is that for me?”
Evan slowly approached him with a stupid silly grin on his face as he presented the teddy bear to him. “Yeah.”
“How quaint. What a gentleman— gentle— gentlebug,” Delirious laughed.
“Why does that sound like a slur? Like, gentlebug does not sound like a good word,” Evan teased.
“I don’t know! Listen, I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I was trying to be inclusive, man,” Delirious said. “Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss. That’s just how life is!”
Ding
“Who was— Who’s that?” Delirious asked.
“It’s me,” Tyler spoke up.
“Well, hi ‘me’,” Evan snorted. “Awfully descriptive there, Wildcat.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I don’t have a personalized intro ready,” Tyler snarked. “I guess you’re just going to have to deal with my flattering personality.”
“Already done that,” Evan snorted. “So, I assume that you’ve got all of the right files and stuff.”
“Yep,” Tyler confirmed.
“Cool, because Nogla’s having issues, saying that the mod doesn’t work. Except that I know that it all works because, y’know, me and Delirious are here, but it’s great to have the extra assurance,” Evan said. “The troubleshooting stage will probably last longer than I thought we would, but that shouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“It’s not until another, I’d say, forty minutes before we’re supposed to start recording,” Tyler mentioned. “And everyone’s already in the other VC so—”
“Wait, there’s another VC?” Evan furrowed his eyebrows. “When did that happen?”
“Yeah, uh. Smii7y's gonna be calling from his own server.” Tyler told him. “The link should be sent in general actually.”
“Oh,” Evan murmured as he checked general and true to his word, Tyler had in fact left a link to another server, which was undoubtedly Smii7y’s, based on the milk-centered profile picture. “sh*t, yeah. I see it now.”
“And all this time, I thought you two were just sneaking away to call in private before we started,” Tyler mused.
“I mean, we could still be doing that,” Delirious chuckled. “You never know what we’ve been talking about!”
“You’re right, I don’t, and sometimes I dunno if I do want to know,” Tyler snorted. “But, uh, yeah. I’m probably gonna go. Just remember to join the VC in, like, half an’ hour so that you’re not late!”
“Got it, thanks, mom,” Evan teased. “But, yeah. You— you, go do your thing.”
“Cool. See ya, Evan,” Tyler said, then he left the voice call.
Evan stayed silent before he sighed and laid his head down.
“Is something bugging you, Vanoss?” he heard Delirious ask him. “‘Cause I hear you sighin’ an’ sh*t, and you don’t usually sigh unless you’re being dramatic, which is a lot of the time. Or something’s diggin’ at ya, which is less often and more troubling.”
“No, nothing’s bugging me in particular,” he mumbled in response, then paused as he reconsidered his words, “except I think it’s just ‘cause this is a bigger group. Like, I don’t mind it. I like playing with groups, in fact, I don’t like playing solo that often.”
“But?” Delirious prompted.
“With bigger groups, there’s a lot more people and I dunno if it’s the amount of voices but it gets me anxious sometimes, but it’s like the pool,” Evan said. “Just gimme a few moments to just dip my toes in the water, then I’ll be more than ready to dive in.”
“Alright, but know that there’s no shame in feeling this way,” Delirious said. “Like, dude, I get the f*cking jeebies all the time. You’re not alone in this.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Evan responded earnestly. “Again, I’ll be fine, and soon you’ll see me be an asshole again.” This time, he said it with a sharp grin that he was certain was pronounced through his voice. Delirious laughed, free and with his chest, in a way that made his cheeks flush again and his own chest warm. “Okay, okay. I’ll hold you to that,” Delirious responded.
God, what was this feeling?
“Yeah, chances are that I’ll walk away with some good footage. So that’ll be good,” he said warmly. “Anyways, do you want to find out what else these little guys can hold?” Evan motioned in GMod over to the hoarding bugs still wandering around.
“Oh, hell yeah,” Delirious responded eagerly. “I have a whole list of things I wanna give them, like nukes and stuff.”
“Damn, already leaping into the big stuff, I see,” Evan remarked, laughing. “Maybe we want to downscale a little bit.”
“Too late,” Delirious responded and a second later, Evan saw a nuclear warhead being spawned near where Delirious was hovering and watched it drop, landing softly next to the hoarding bugs with a small bounce. “Be careful, Delirious,” he warned.
“I’m a professional! No need to worry about me,” Delirious cackled as he descended next to the nuke and picked it up using the physics gun. He nudged it next to the hoarding bug, trying to see if he’d pick it up, but Evan could already tell that the nuke was more than twice the length of the creature, so the chances of it lifting it were certainly slim—
And those thoughts promptly shriveled up and died as soon as he saw the hoarding bug grab the nuke and move along with it as it scuttled across the flat plains. “Oh my god!” he exclaimed, watching with wide eyes. “What the fu— holy sh*t.”
“See! See, told you! These bugs can do some powerful things!” Delirious shouted, V-clipping above it. “They’re masters of their crafts! I can tell, trust me.”
“You’re a professional in nuclear engineering?” Evan asked. “Wow, and on top of your clown degree and expertise on teddy bears too?”
“Fu— Shush— Shut up,” Delirious said with no heat — in fact, Evan could hear the growing smile in his voice and knew for certain that he was laughing on the inside. “I got all of my education very, very, uh, legitimately.”
“Whatever you say, man,” Evan remarked. “For the record, I totally believe you.”
“And what credits do you have, mister-owl-man?” Delirious bit back.
“Don’t you know? I have an education at Harvard,” Evan made sure to extend the ‘a’. “Me and Nogla both have one. It’s also very legitimate, just like yours.”
“Wait, really?” Delirious was taken aback. “You’re f*cking with me— I can understand you, but Nogla? Nogla? Out of all people? This is, this is a bit, isn’t it?”
“No, man, it’s not,” Evan responded, grinning way too hard.
“Show me, then,” Delirious demanded.
“I will, I will!” Evan said, then pulled up his LinkedIn page in a new tab before he pressed the stream button on Discord. “Here, you can watch me right here…”
“Alright, I’m doing that,” Delirious muttered. As soon as Evan heard the sound of him joining the stream, Evan clicked on his profile to where it was still set to ‘Tyler Wine’ from when he had been messing around while playing The Game of Life 2 with Tyler, Brian, and Nogla. “Ignore the— Ignore the name,” he snorted. “That was for a bit. It’s actually me.”
Delirious wheezed. “What the f*ck is this?” he asked bluntly. “What is— What?”
“Lemme show you my Harvard certificate, man,” Evan muttered. He pulled up the comment that he had left on Nogla’s profile, where it showed a rather sh*tty photoshop image of him and Nogla holding up Harvard certificates. “See?”
“Oh my god,” Delirious gasped dramatically, letting him know that he was playing along. “Woooow, I see now. My apologies, then. Do I call you ‘doctor’ now?”
“Nah, you don’t have to. You’re close enough, don’t worry, yeah” Evan reassured him.
“Damn, if you have a Harvard degree, I wonder what kind of jobs that you’ve enlisted as a side job apart from Youtube,” Delirious indulged. There was a lift in his voice like he was on the verge of breaking into giggles.
“I can just show you,” Evan said quickly, clicking on his profile before Delirious could say anything else, then scrolled through his profile slowly. “Here, uh, I have a list of my experiences—”
“Wait, wait— Does that say fuh—” Delirious laughed even harder, taking longer to regain his composure. “You worked as a fah— fa*g at Chick-fil-A Corporate Support center?”
“Yeah, hell yeah, I did.” Evan grinned.
“Awfully strange for a gay person to work at a hom*ophobic business,” Delirious snorted. “What the hell is a, uh, ‘fa*g’ role in a Chick-fil-A?”
“Nothing problematic, surely,” Evan assured. “All I have to do is prove that they’re not actually hom*ophobic by tying me to a stake and letting them prod at me with pitchforks and say that it’s okay.”
“That seems incredibly counterproductive,” Delirious pointed out. “Is there some way for other fa*gs to sign up?”
“Yeah, Nogla has also signed up, or actually, it’s more like Brian signed up for gay services,” Evan laughed.
“Really?!” Delirious exclaimed. Oh boy, there were going to be a lot of things that he’d have to fill Delirious in on. “And I assume this is just as real as your job, right?”
“Mmhm, he’s, uh, actually,” Evan typed the name of the fake profile Nogla had created for Brian into the search query. “There we go.”
“‘The Handjob Hanby’,” Delirious read out loud. “Gay-slash-guy— Wow, and does he know about this?”
“Brian watched us while we made those profiles, both him and Wildcat,” Evan confirmed, laughing. “Yeah, they know, don’t worry.” He scrolled down and bursted out into more wild fits of chuckles once he saw the only post, the one post, that Nogla made, reading ‘im gay’. sh*t, he had forgotten how off the rails they really went while making these profiles.
“You guys are insane,” Delirious sighed. “Actually, that’s very interesting— Hold on. Gimme a sec…” There was a brief moment where he could only hear the faint rapid tapping of keyboard inputs and Evan had a sneaking suspicion that he knew exactly what Delirious was doing.
“Are you going to make your own LinkedIn page?” Evan asked.
Delirious snorted, “Maybe,” which Evan translated as a clear ‘yes’. He listened as Delirious continued to type while giggling to himself softly. For some reason, he found himself smiling along, quietly turning up Delirious’ volume in Discord so that he could hear him more clearly.
Then a link was sent to him.
Discord
Delirious (Vanoss, Delirious)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannibal-lecter-u2992h301/
“Hannibal Lecter, huh?” Evan remarked as he clicked on the profile. “Interesting.”
Hannibal Lecter (eat/people)
Don’t tell the police that I’m looking for jobs ;)
Based in Canada, Winnipeg
Canada? Why Canada out of all places? Especially Winnipeg, his home province?
There was nothing linked under his activity page and the only experience that was linked was an obscene butchering service. Evan chuckled softly. “Wow, not gonna lie,” he started. “This is a kinda bleak page, Delirious.”
“Shut up, I just started it,” Delirious snorted. “I’ll work on it later.”
“Pfft, alright.” Evan stared into the profile picture that Delirious had provided for the page. “Dude, the picture you chose for the guy is so creepy. It looks like he’s wearing some kind of kinky ass BDSM gear.”
“I mean, the original guy that Hannibal was based on was a gay serial killer,” Delirious mentioned. “Maybe that was a part of the inspiration for the outfit.”
“Wait, there were gay serial killers?”
“Yeah. Actually, there’s a lot of, uh, ties between gay people and horror, especially old horror movies,” Delirious revealed, “because killers are usually formed from people who were bullied a bunch when they were young, and gay people used to be bullied a sh*tton, so serial killers were often accused of being hom*osexuals.”
“That’s kind of messed up,” Evan admitted.
“And it doesn’t get better,” Delirious sighed. “Because back then, the only way that gay people could be portrayed in films was either if they were the villains, or if they were killed off.”
“So literally the ‘you either see yourself become the villain or die the hero’ meme?” Evan attempted to joke, to bring the mood up. but he could tell that it fell flat.
“Pretty much,” Delirious hummed. “Which kinda makes me glad that the modern ages are a lot more, uh, accepting. To know that back then, your choices would’ve been either to lie about your identity completely, hide yourself away, or face death.”
“I’d bet,” Evan said quietly, muted.
There was a moment of awkward silence that passed between them and Evan felt stiff.
“It’s ten minutes until the recording time,” Delirious reported. “We should probably head in— Yep. People already have been tagging us in ‘general’.”
“They have?” Evan checked quickly and surely enough, Tyler had been spamming both of their accounts in the general channel, but because he’d been tabbed into GMod, he hadn’t been able to see them. “sh*t. Okay, then it’s go-time?”
“Seems like it. Let’s go, Vanoss,” Delirious said.
“Yeah, yeah, gimme a sec—” Evan muttered as he fished for his water bottle and took a quick swig. He stretched his body, rolling his wrists and then his neck, before he straightened up in his seat. “Alright, I’m ready to go.”
Evan could imagine Delirious’ smile as he left the voice call and joined the other server filled with acquaintances and friends. He scrolled down until he found the appropriate voice channel.
cool guys park
#milky-bois-recording-vc-1
(6/10)
SMii7y
BASICALLYIDOWRK
I AM WILDCAT
nogla
Terroriser
fourzer0seven
BigJigglyPanda
So that was everyone that was going to be joining them.
Fun.
He clicked the voice channel and joined—
Ding
Ding
Before Evan could even open his mouth, the voice call was filled with people cheering like they were having a party. There was a wave of voices going 'ooooo', led by Smii7y, meanwhile, Nogla was somehow having a casual conversation with Brian under the noise. He checked the voice channel and found that Delirious had joined alongside him, at about the same time as him, actually.
“Ay, check it! Guess who finally showed up,” Scotty shouted, causing the chattering to stop but not Smii7y and his whoops, until he heard Tyler get close to his microphone and demand it with a “Smii7y, shut the f*ck up,” which finally caused him to silence himself.
“Dude, you guys finally arrived. Thought that you two ditched us,” Tyler said.
“Nah, we were just messing around,” Delirious spoke up.
“I’m sure, I’m sure,” Nogla muttered, causing Smii7y to snort for some reason. “I told y’all,”
“Told them what?” Evan asked, furrowing his eyebrows. “What have you been telling them?”
“Nothin,” Scotty answered, even when the question hadn’t been addressed to him, but Evan was willing to take that as an answer regardless.
“Are we ready to start? Does everyone have their mods in order?” Evan pestered them, moving on from the topic. There was a chorus of answers from the crowd, all affirmative, fortunately, which meant that there should be no errors interrupting their recording session.
Even Nogla had managed to get his troubleshooting issue solved, presumably thanks to either Brian or Tyler, which was likely a compilation-worthy video in and of itself that Evan wished he could’ve witnessed — just hearing them act as Nogla’s IT person would’ve been incredible, but he was certain that he’d get the chance to listen in on a similar conversation in the future.
“Great. Let me start the host game,” Evan said, then he quickly left the world that he’d already started with Delirious and started a new game of Hide and Seek with the map that he had commissioned not too long ago.
There was an anticipation, an excitement that was coursing through him, that was like a breath of fresh air and he got reminded once again why he loved this career so much, that he was given this incredible opportunity, this one-in-a-lifetime gift.
And with that parting thought, he finally finished establishing the new game and sent the invite code into the channel, leaving everyone else to enter it.
Player H2O Delirious has joined the game
Then there was a flood of messages down his screen as more and more people joined the server, until everyone was in the lobby, waiting to be sorted to either the hider or seeker side.
“Who wants to be the seeker for the first round?” Evan asked. “We’re probably going to do one or two seekers for the rounds because there’s a lot more people.”
“Makes sense,” Nogla commented.
“I can be the seeker,” Smii7y volunteered.
“Great. Everyone else, select the hider side, then,” Evan announced. He chose the hider’s side and watched as everyone else switched sides until Smii7y was the only one remaining on the seeker’s side. “Is everyone ready to start?”
Once he got the confirmation from all of the people in the voice channel, Evan pressed the start button and a small timer appeared, counting down five seconds before their screens darkened and they were sent to the game’s start.
Vanoss opened up on a view of the forest around them.
Now, on its own, Evan knew that it was impressive, with its accuracy to the original game, even down to the custom-shaped trees and the ship itself — but that was just the start of the features in this map. There was still so much to get into that couldn’t be explored from the beginning.
“Alllriiiight,” he called out, but his words were quickly lost as he turned around and faced the rest of his teammates.
Terrifying was certainly a word that could be used to describe them. When Evan had requested a mod that would transform the hiders into something that resembled hoarding bugs, he hadn’t imagined this to be the result. Perhaps, he should’ve double-checked with the modders before this point.
Not because the models were bad, but because they were accurate as hell.
Everyone’s model, no matter their original shape, was warped grotesquely to fit the model of the hoarding bug. At first glance, it simply looked like they were sitting, but then their legs stretched outwards to touch their sides and it lifted them as they walked, with extrusions on top of their heads to resemble antennas.
“Jesus f*cking Christ,” he heard Panda curse sharply, and honestly, he was inclined to agree with him. “We look like f*cking abominations!”
“Man, our models look so f*cked up,” Nogla laughed.
Delirious cackled, one of those odd variants of his laughter that'd pitch up and down at random intervals, which Evan was so absurdly fond of. “Look at our legs! We look like, ah, the, uh, creature from the Rocky Horror Picture Show!”
Evan blinked. “The what show?” he sputtered, furrowing his eyebrows. “I’ve never heard of that before.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s a cult classic, Vanoss!” Delirious exclaimed. “Remind me later to show you later because it’s a great movie.”
“Not that gay f*cking movie,” Wildcat groaned. “It’s so f*cking weird, man.”
“Right? That’s why it’s really good.”
“It’s gay?” Evan blinked.
“Outdated movie aside, it kinda looks like we’re one moment away from scissoring each other,” Wildcat wheezed, causing a wave of mixed reactions from the group.
“Woah, woah! What’s going on out there, huh? I can’t see sh*t!” Smii7y yelled.
“Actually, where the hell are you, Smii7y?” Basically pondered as he walked around— and god, that was a sight that Evan was never going to get used to.
“I don’t know! What part of I can’t see don’t you understand?” Smii7y retorted. “Dude, for all I know, I’m in like a coffin locked inside of an amusem*nt park!”
“No, no, guys, I found him,” Terroriser called out. Vanoss looked around for his character model, which was more difficult than expected due to the amount of limbs just everywhere. “Really? Where?” he asked, still searching for Terroriser until he spotted his model jumping up and down right next to the ship, and his jaw dropped.
The ship itself was incredibly well built, looking like it was taken straight from the game itself and placed into GMod, and through the open doors, he could see Smii7y inside. Interestingly, it seemed like the seekers would take the appearance of their usual model, which for Smii7y had been the milk carton, but the “head” had been shrink-wrapped to fit the employee’s helmet.
“Wait, oh my god!” Delirious called out excitedly. “That’s actually so cool!”
“Yeah, it is,” Vanoss agreed. “That’s why I paid fifty thousand dollars for this whole modpack.”
“No, you did f*cking not,” Wildcat deadpanned at him.
“I did! Honest,” Vanoss claimed. “Do you want me to show you the, uh, Venmo receipt? Because I totally can.”
“Maybe not,” Wildcat said quickly. “I have a feeling that if I look at it, my blood pressure’s gonna go through the f*cking roof, man.”
Vanoss threw his head back and laughed, meanwhile Nogla waddled over to the ship, his giant head bobbing up and down as he walked by it. Once he reached it, he hopped onto the ship’s bridge and slid inside. “Guys, you can get in!”
“Yeah, no sh*t, you can get in the ship,” Terroriser remarked. “After all, that’s where Smii7y’s going to pop out.”
“I’m on the ship?! Hell yeah!” Smii7y cheered, sounding genuinely excited about it.
Nogla chuckled, then he looked to the side of the ship and he pressed a button, causing the doors of the ship to close abruptly. “Uh— So, that works.”
“The doors work?! They work?” Wildcat snapped. “Jesus. Wait, does that mean the hiders can just f*cking lock themselves in?”
“Dude, that’s so f*cking unfair!” Smii7y complained. “Then I’m not going to leave the ship.”
“No, no, don’t worry,” Nogla reassured them. “There’s a little, uh, timer thingy, that, if I’m right…”
Instantly the next second, the doors swung open, revealing Nogla’s hideous form on the other side. “Yep, the door opens on its own, exactly like the game.”
“Great, okay. That’s actually really good,” Wildcat sighed. “And I’m going to assume that you can’t just spam them?”
“Yeah. There’s a slight buffer,” Nogla told them.
“Wait, Nogla, I wanna see something,” Delirious called out as he ran up to the side of the ship and leaped onto the bridge as well. Vanoss trailed closely behind him, climbing up right after him as he entered the ship. He watched as Delirious ran to the back of the ship, slipping right past Smii7y, then heard him sigh in disappointment. “Noo, there’s no terminal that you can access and there’s not a switch to let the ship take off either.”
“Even better!” Smii7y cheered. “That means that you’re not able to screw me over.”
“Sad, sad,” Delirious muttered as he circled back out to the entrance of the ship. “Uh, wait, where did everyone else go?”
“f*cking hiding!” Fourzer0seven shouted, “There’s like, twenty seconds before the timer runs out, so of course we’re not going to be still in the same area!”
“Oh sh*t, there is?” Vanoss said. He glanced up at the top of the screen and found that the timer had, in fact, been constantly counting down and they had now about eighteen seconds left. “f*ck.”
He jumped over the ship’s railing and landed on the grass below. Now he could run towards where he knew the facility would be, but it would take too long to reach it. The only option they had left was to run for the trees, but he didn’t know how effective that would be. Regardless, he ran towards the foliage and out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Delirious gun it for the building.
“Delirious!” he called out.
“Wuh— What, Vanoss? What?”
“Don’t go for the buildings. There’s not enough time. You can’t go there!”
“And do what, hide in the bushes like you?” Delirious blurted out.
“Oh my…” Vanoss trailed off as everyone started laughing. “Delirious!”
“So, you two are in the bushes, huh?”
Delirious glanced over at the buildings and then back at where Vanoss was standing between the trees. “f*ck it,” he said, then ran over to Vanoss. “Alright, lead the way.”
Evan smiled, but it faded quickly as he realized that he had no clue where to go from here. At best, they could probably find refuge in a corner of the map, but once a seeker — or god forbid multiple seekers — were to find them, they wouldn't exactly have the means to escape. Still, it was better than just standing out there in the open.
Together, they continued marching through the wilderness, until Delirious suddenly stopped moving.
“Vanoss, Vanoss,” he called out. Heeding his call, Vanoss turned around and looked at him. “What, what is it?” he asked.
Delirious turned to the side and Vanoss followed his lead. Over there, atop of a mound of dirt, sat the delivery ship with its bulb active. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Delirious said.
“Sorta— Actually, yes. Yes,” Vanoss confirmed. He walked over to it and crouched behind the cylindrical body. “Wait, I think this can fit the both of us, actually.”
“Yes!” Delirious cheered. He slid in beside him and, although he had to press in close enough to the point where their legs were intersecting each other, they were well hidden behind the dropship. “This actually works quite well.”
“Maybe, or screw us over completely,” Vanoss muttered. “Dude, we are the absolute worst f*cking colors for this.”
“What? Not completely,” Delirious mumbled. “I mean, I sorta match.”
“The f*ck do you mean? You’re like, bright blue. I’m bright red. We’re the least common colors in nature.”
“Actually, I dunno about blue but red’s pretty common in nature,” Nogla commented.
“Yeah. Nobody f*cking asked though,” Vanoss scoffed.
Nogla sputtered. “You guys f*cking brought it up!”
Vanoss waited anxiously as the timer ticked down.
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
The seeker has been released!
“Wait, wait! I know this map— This is, uh, Offense?” Smii7y called out.
“No, it’s Vow,” Delirious corrected him with a laugh. “It’s— You can see the bridges if you just go up and, uh, you’ll just see it,” he said. “Offense is, uh, Offense is the one with the sandy dunes.”
“Nerd,” Evan said affectionately.
“Shuch,” Delirious retorted.
He activated his third-person camera and used it to look at their surroundings. So far it seemed like no one was near them, which was good. If Smii7y spent all of his time looking around the facility, that meant that he wasn’t outside looking for them, which — while he would miss out on being able to see the facility for the first time — gave them the opportunity to survive.
“Vanoss!” he heard Delirious hiss playfully next to him. “Your f*cking antenna is poking me in the eye, man!”
“Well, I can’t f*cking help it, can I?” Vanoss bickered back playfully. “Besides, we kinda have to be really close to each other, otherwise, there’s a chance that we’ll be caught and I don’t want that to happen.”
“I guess, but f*cking—” Whatever Delirious was going to say next got suddenly drowned out by Basically screaming his head off.
“Come back, lootbug, come back!” Smii7y called out over the sound of Marcel’s frantic panting. “f*ck off, you bitch!” Marcel cried back while Smii7y presumably chased him from wherever he had found him.
“But I have some nice scrap for you!” Smii7y pleaded. “Come on, I know you want them! Ooo, I have a bolt that I think you’d—” he paused for a second. “Where’d you go?”
“You’ll never find out, sucker,” Marcel snickered.
“Dude, how the hell did I lose you? I just saw you a moment ago,” Smii7y muttered. “Bro.”
“Just to remind you, Vanoss and Delirious are outside hiding somewhere!” Marcel shouted.
Wait, no. sh*t.
If Smii7y returned to looking for them, that would completely derail their plans to stay hidden. Next to him, Delirious turned to him sharply, as if to silently demand, ‘What the f*ck do we do now?’
“Right,” Smii7y said. “And there’s probably not a bunch of good places to hide out there. But… If I go now, then you might be able to slip away and I can’t allow that.”
Vanoss thought for a second, then he opened up his chatbox.
(TEAM) Vanoss.: marcel
(TEAM) Vanoss.: where u at
“f*ck off, Evan!” Basically shouted at him. “f*cker tried to get me to text him my location, like he’s not going to rat me out.”
“I wasn’t!” Vanoss pleaded. “Swear it. I was just, erm, trying to coordinate between the hiders, yeah,” he said through quiet laughter.
“Evan, you do realize that hiders become the seekers after they get caught, right?” Nogla explained. “Which makes coordinating obsolete as sh*t.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know that,” Vanoss admitted. “...I was trying to screw Marcel over, that’s why I said that.”
“Ha! I f*cking knew it,” Basically exclaimed. “Vindication, mother f*cker.”
“...Smii7y, if there’s a locker in the room, he’s in it,” Vanoss snorted.
“Okay!” Smii7y chirped at the same time that Basically yelled, “No, I’m not!”
There was a brief period of silence before Smii7y hollered with laughter. “Nah, that’s crazy. So, there’s a fun fact about the hider’s model, I just found out.”
“What is it?” Delirious worried.
“If you’re a hider and you’re hiding in a tight place, well. Your legs have a tendency to peak out. For example—”
Basically made a wild sound, something mixed between a bear’s roar and a screech, which ended in a loud curse. “f*ck! Son of a mother f*cking— Evan!”
“Don’t f*cking ‘Evan’ me! You were going to sell us out first!” Vanoss protested back.
“I wasn’t selling you out, I was just kindly reminding Smii7y that he had other people to look for instead of me!” Basically argued, “and I didn’t f*cking say exactly where you guys were, while you on the other hand—” he trailed off while grumbling to himself.
“How the hell did you know that he was gonna be in the locker?” Fourzer0seven asked.
“Just know my friends really well,” Evan hummed.
“Yeah, well, you should also know that I’m going to be immediately gunning for you next,” Marcel muttered.
“Oh damn,” Nogla commented. “You two should be shivering in ye skivvies.”
“Who the f*ck says skivvies anymore?” Terroriser demanded incredulously. “Like the last time I heard that being said was when I was visiting my grandma!”
“f*ck off,” Nogla responded. “Plenty of people say skivvies! It’s a totally normal word to use.”
Evan pulled a face, pressing his lips together until they formed a thin line. “I don’t know what world you live in, Nogla, but skivvies probably died out around the seventeenth century.”
“That would be a fascinating way to realize you, like, secretly died and are living on as a spirit,” Panda mentioned. “Cause everyone else would be speaking in a different slang.”
Silence followed his words.
“N— No? Just me?” Panda said quietly. “Okay. I see.”
People bursted out into laughter as soon as he finished talking. “sh*t, man, I feel bad for not saying anything but I think everyone was just debating what that would look like if it’s, like, put into effect,” Wildcat said. “Imagine being like, ‘damn, Aunt Janiee, that’s a very old word you’re using. Now wait a second…’”
“I remember now, I was at your funeral!” Terroriser completed for him. “What an absolute mindf*ck that would be now.”
“Yeah…” Wildcat suddenly grunted. “Man, not to give my spot away but this is, like, a broken spot.”
“Great!” Basically bit out. “So happy for you, Tyler.”
Wildcat laughed. “Now, this is how I know that this is the absolute, most elite, spot if it makes Marcel react like this.”
“Actually, nevermind. Evan and Delirious, you guys can live for a little bit longer,” Basically said. “I have myself a hog to catch.”
“Ha!” Smii7y exclaimed. “Watch him be in like, a secret room in the wall or something.”
“Knowing the kinds of maps that Evan usually commissions, that’s more likely than you’d think,” Terroriser revealed. “Like, that man will be so f*cking cheeky in these games. You truly have no idea.”
“Listen,” Vanoss spoke up. “For once, I can promise you that there’s no secret room, no impossible spot to get into. Absolutely nothing of the sort.”
“I’m banking heavily on your words, man,” Smii7y said. “Otherwise, you’re going to witness up close what boiling milk feels like.”
“God, don’t remind me of the time that Kelly— my girlfriend, accidentally burned milk on the stove making warm cereal, because it was too cold,” Wildcat sighed. “I think we had to throw that pot away.”
“Wait, wait, no— go back. Did you just say warm cereal?” Smii7y babbled. “That’s a f*cking travesty right there. I dunno what to tell ya, bud.”
“That’s what I said!” Wildcat exclaimed. “But missus gets what the missus gets, and that’s warm soggy cereal apparently.”
“Ugh,” Smii7y grimaced. “That’s a disgusting mix, honestly.”
“Hey, uh,” Terroriser cleared his throat. “Is everyone sharing stories now? Because I once knew this guy, from, uh, high school, who, and f*cking get this, mixed lemonade with his milk and cereal.”
“No—”
“Brian, who in the f*ck—”
“Gross! Absolutely f*cking revolting!” Delirious shrieked. Vanoss laughed, hearing him gag beside him. “I’ve, like, heard about orange juice and cereal, which was bad enough, but lemonade and milk together?” he stressed. “Doesn’t… doesn’t milk f*cking curdle when its, uh, combined with acids like lemonade?”
Vanoss answered his question. “Yeah, it does. So… this means—”
“This means that the guy was just eating f*cking cereal with milk clumps in it?” Nogla seethed. “Nah, man, that’s just, heaurghh.”
A brief silence fell over them before Marcel had the courage to speak up. “I’m sorry, that’s what,” he said. “You’re gonna have to f*cking repeat that again, ‘cause I don’t know if I caught that clearly.”
“Cereal with clumps in it?”
Wildcat laughed. “No, f*cking, after that point.”
Nogla made a confused noise. “I just said, ‘that’s ugh’.”
Terroriser sighed. “That’s not the f*cking same and you know that.”
“It is!”
“How is ‘ugh’ the same as ‘uergh’, or whatever the f*ck you said earlier,” Terroriser asked.
“Because they’re both the same noise!” Nogla argued. “You want me to repeat it? Because I can! Listen to this, smartass. Heaurghh,” then he clapped his hands like a seal. “Happy now?”
“Very,” Terroriser responded, then— “Heaurghh.” Nogla’s voice came from the voice channel.
“Seriously, Nogla, again?” Wildcat groaned. “We’ve had enough of the noises.”
Nogla sputtered. “No! f*cking— That wasn’t me. It was f*cking Brian and his stupid f*cking soundboard!”
“Yeah, honestly, Nogla, you should’ve seen that coming,” Vanoss replied smugly. “It’s a trademark feature of Brian at this point.”
Terroriser chuckled, then over the microphone, he could hear Nogla’s voice say, “Shave my— Shave my balls—”, causing everyone except for Nogla to burst out into laughter. “Dude. Really, Brian?” Nogla sighed.
“Well, I know for certain what my thumbnail’s gonna be,” Panda giggled merrily.
“Cool, because I also know what mine is going to be,” Smii7y responded, before the call was filled with Panda’s abrupt scream.
“sh*t, f*ck, ass!” Panda chanted as he presumably ran away from where Smii7y had found him.
“Bitch, whor*, puss*!” Basically continued, eliciting chuckles from a few people.
“Dick, bastard, asshole!” Vanoss joined in with a giant grin on his face.
“Twat, wanker, c*nt!” Nogla finished, causing everyone to burst out laughing, but it wasn’t until Panda hollered, “f*ckING fa*gGOT!” at the top of his lungs when he got caught by Smii7y that people began to wheeze, with Terroriser snorting while Wildcat choked a few times in an attempt to stop laughing.
“Jesus f*cking Christ,” Fourzer0seven gasped as he struggled to reclaim his breath. “Now I know for certain where I need to censor this portion of the video.”
“f*ck that,” Smii7y quipped, “I’m gonna have to beep this whole bit.”
“He’s doing it so that it sounds like we’re saying worse things than we actually are,” Panda giggled.
“I dunno why the f*ck you’re talking,” Wildcat replied. “You’re the one that shouted ‘fa*ggot’ with your whole chest, man.”
“Nobody needs to know,” Panda muttered.
“A little bit too late for that, ah,” Terroriser whistled, “Nogla and I may or may not have been reviewing our old vlogs for a video and you’d been dropping that word for a while now so, yeah.”
“Well, sh*t man. Now it’s just gonna be a matter of time before everyone collects a supercut of us saying slurs—”
“—yep, someone’s already done that. We’ve seen it,” Nogla mentioned. “Maybe you’d know if you’d watch me and Brian’s react channel.”
“Oh my god, Nogla,” Wildcat groaned. “Shut the f*ck up. Nobody needs your self promo.”
“Just saying! It exists! People should know about it!” Nogla exclaimed.
“So, we’re all in mutual agreement to cut that portion out of our videos?” Vanoss offered, much to Nogla’s protests.
“Agreed.”
“No argument there.”
“Pretty much.”
“You guys are all a bunch of sopping wet dicks,” Nogla accused.
“Ew, why’d you go into so much detail about it?” Fourzer0seven laughed, at the same time that Nogla’s voice appeared again, repeating the phrase, “sopping wet dicks,” “sopping wet dicks,” over and over again.
“f*cking— Brian!” Nogla yelled. “At this rate, he’s gonna f*cking pay someone to make a mod where all of the f*cking lootbugs say nothing but clips from his sh*tty soundboard.”
“Don’t give me such great ideas,” Terroriser snorted.
“Have you seen the, uh, mod where the lootbugs are screaming ‘YIPPEE’ to each other?” Smii7y asked. “It’s like, my absolute favorite.”
“I’ve seen it, yeah, but I don’t play with it on,” Wildcat said. “The constant ‘YIPPEE’s made it too hard to see if it was an actual person or not, because these mother f*ckers will make the most random noises.”
“Oh, fair. That’s a good point, actually, but these guys are so f*cking silly,” Smii7y giggled. “It’s so much fun.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re having fun,” Wildcat huffed.
“Actually, I think I’ve seen that one before,” Delirious mentioned. “And there’s a bunch more mods similar to that. Someone replaced the song for the Jester with that one segment of, what’s the f*cking song— The one that goes ‘eeerr, eeeee, errrreeee’.”
“The f*ck are you saying?” Nogla teased, laughing. “It sounds like you’re mimicking a siren, going ‘weee-wooo-weee-wooo’.”
“Shut up!” Delirious snapped back. “No, it does not! It’s an actual song.”
“Fine, repeat it,” Nogla said. “I want to see if I can guess this sh*t.”
Delirious repeated the noise, humming louder and louder. Vanoss could hear Nogla and Wildcat mutter to themselves underneath their breath as they tried to guess the song Delirious was trying to mimic. Delirious snorted, and that interrupted his humming, causing Nogla to groan. “Come on, man. Ya gotta do it with a straight face,” he said.
“You know that I can’t do that,” Delirious chuckled. “I can’t keep it straight—”
Panda suddenly wheezed. “That’s— Nah, no, I’m not going to make that joke.”
“Hum it again, hum it again,” Wildcat requested. “I think I might be able to get it this time. Ignore Nogla.”
Obliging, Delirious made the same song noise again. It sounded familiar to Vanoss, but it wasn’t until Delirious reached the bridge of the notes that it occurred to him what song it was exactly.
“‘Born in the U.S.A’?” Wildcat guessed, but Delirious laughed and said, “No. It’s—”
“‘Free Bird’!” Vanoss shouted. “Tell me it’s ‘Free Bird’!”
“Ding, ding, ding!” Delirious chanted. “You got it, Vanoss!”
“How the hell did you get that?” Nogla asked.
“That’s just what it sounded like,” Vanoss reasoned, “and Delirious showed me a clip of that mod last week.”
“So you’re cheating, essentially,” Wildcat deadpanned.
“Noooo, it’s called being resourceful,” Vanoss countered. “Besides, doesn’t Delirious send you guys memes too?”
“Rarely,” Terroriser confessed. “I thought that he just sends them into the memes channel?”
“But in DMs, I mean,” Vanoss elaborated. “Not even a good morning message?”
For him, it had become a daily routine, to wake up and see a message sent by Delirious an hour or two before he woke up, telling him good morning, followed by a meme reiterating that message, usually oriented around teddy bears, and they’d talk for a little bit before Evan would go to make breakfast, then do work.
Then across the whole day, he’d receive a variety of messages from Delirious, either in the form of short videos like a pair of squirrels the latter caught in his backyard fighting over a single acorn or more memes, or clips that Delirious had found funny and wanted to show him, then Evan would send an audio file back of himself laughing or making stupid comments about the topic at hand.
“You’re making up sh*t,” Wildcat accused.
“I’m not!” Vanoss spoke up, “I— nevermind. You all are just f*ckin’ jealous,” he mocked.
Luckily, the conversation didn’t continue and laughter spread throughout the group.
“Wait, I wonder if this works…” he heard Panda mutter. “Okay, surely no—”
Anthony was promptly cut off by the sound of his own screeching howl, followed by various people asking what had happened. “What the f*ck was that? You sounded like you were a cat and someone stepped on your tail,” Wildcat joked.
“Like a perfect Tom and Jerry scream,” Scotty added.
“Sorry, sorry,” Anthony repeated while wheezing, then he made a sound like a braying donkey. “Oh god, I need to stop laughing, or else I’m going to throw up my lunch.”
“Gross, gross,” Marcel winced.
“What the f*ck did you do?” Vanoss asked while snickering.
“So,” Anthony began. “I was walking around the facility, right? And I saw a landmine.”
“Oh no,” Smii7y said.
“And,” he snorted again and it sounded like he was about to fall into another heap of laughter until he reeled himself back with a deep breath. “I told myself, ‘okay, surely they don’t work, right?’ and my dumbass walked over one of them and I blew up. That’s what happened, and now I’m in some sort of white purgatory!”
“Wait, the landmine works?” Evan muttered.
Instantly, the voice call was filled with people frantically shouting over each other. There was Terroriser and Wildcat both threatening ‘no, no, Evan, don’t you f*cking dare—’ mixed with Delirious’ chaotic laughter interrupted by his cries of ‘yes, yes!’ with Smii7y occasionally joining in, then Nogla’s tired and exasperated ‘oh my god, Evan’.
As Evan listened to the carnage unfold, it dawned on him on why Brock left. Yeah, he’d leave too if he wasn't addicted to the chaos.
“Someone— Someone keep an eye on this mother f*cker,” Wildcat said.
“Delirious, keep your eye on him,” Terroriser said.
“Yeah, that won’t be a problem for him,” Nogla said. “That’s like his top favorite thing to do.”
“What?” Delirious said awkwardly. “Wuh— why?”
“Nothing,” Nogla blurted out too quickly. “Don’t worry about it.” but the cascading laughter around them told him otherwise. “So wait, Anthony, you’re stuck right now?”
“Yes!” Panda screamed. “I’m like, hovering underneath the map. I think the blast took me out completely.”
“So wait, you can’t get out?” Wildcat said. “sh*t man, guess you’re stuck until the next round.”
“That’s bullsh*t,” Panda called out. “Are you sure there’s nothing to get me out of here?”
“Have you tried to leave and rejoin the, uh, server?” Terroriser suggested. “That could work. Maybe.”
Panda grumbled under his breath before Evan saw his character disconnect from the server in the chat box.
“Woo, that’s one person out, now—” Nogla suddenly inhaled sharply and yelped. “f*ck! Stay the f*ck away, Marcel!”
“C’mon now,” Basically taunted. “I thought that we were friends. What’s wrong, you don’t want to be with one of your longtime friends?”
“I do! I really do, but, uh, not like this man, not like this!” Nogla shouted, then feigned panting sounds. “Man, your skin is like, perfect for the seeker’s model,” he said, trying to distract him. “The hat that you wear— the, ah, Finn hat, it, erm, it looks exactly like the helmet that the employees wear— f*cking bitch! Where the hell did you come from, f*ckin’ milk bag!”
“Yo, thanks, Smii7y,” Basically called out. Smii7y chuckled shortly after, the sound blocking out the noise of Nogla’s quiet whining. “No problem, man. I remembered the hallway that you were traveling down and knew that he’d probably pop out on the other side.”
“Wow, ah, now you guys are strategizing against me? That’s f*ckin’ racist,” Nogla huffed.
At that moment, Evan could calculate the exact second that Basically registered that sentence, judging by the sound of his sharp inhale, and knew that wherever they were, he was slowly turning to Nogla. “Sorry, do you wanna say that again?”
“No,” he responded quietly.
"That's right, bitch,” Basically cursed. “Know your f*cking place.”
Evan glanced at Delirious, then back to where he knew the entrance of the facility was, dragging his mouse far enough so that Delirious could see him turn.
Vanoss. (to H2O Delirious): u know what I’m planning, right?
H2O Delirious (to Vanoss.): yes
Vanoss. (to H2O Delirious): join me?
H2O Delirious (to Vanoss.): you have a buttload of confidence
H2O Delirious (to Vanoss.): both in assuming that im crazy enough to do that and going in
Vanoss. (to H2O Delirious): ill take that as a compliment :]]
Vanoss. (to H2O Delirious): now im going whether u go with me or not
Vanoss. (to H2O Delirious): either way
Vanoss. (to H2O Delirious): gl
With trepid speed, Vanoss rose from his spot by the delivery ship and gunned it for the front of the facility. He ran through what felt like acres of woodland, watching as the identical trees passed by him like the sea before he could see the two bridges that stretched across the giant ravine right outside the facility.
He ran through the doors, which teleported him inside. Clearly, it showed that his money had been worth every buck because the interior was a very close replica of the real one, with the spinning fan at the very top and the metallic textures of the wall. He looked around to see if there were any seekers standing in the middle of the hallway but there appeared to be none.
Oh well, now to go on a hunt. But first, he’d have to find a landmine.
Vanoss chose a random direction to go down and darted forward, dashing through the halls. There was a stairwell he went down, then he passed by the boiler room, followed by more hallways that intersected the main one.
It was more than easy to get lost here, which was all the more reason as to why it was such an exciting map to play Hide and Seek in. Vanoss made a turn, then grinned brightly as soon as he saw the familiar dish-shaped object on the floor that emitted a bright alarming glow every now and then. He looked around to see if anyone was nearby, then approached the landmine until he was a pixel away from it.
Now that the bait was set, it was time to wait and see if anyone would run up to him, seeker or not.
Right then, Panda rejoined the game, and cursed loudly. “Mother fu—!”
“Anthony, are you still in the void?” Basically asked.
“What do you f*cking think?” Panda snapped back, causing the group to laugh once more. “I’ve been stuck in this f*cking hellhole for the last minute!”
“f*cking rip,” Wildcat muttered. “Ah, yo, Scotty. Where you at, man?”
“Right up the road to your momma’s house,” Fourzer0seven retorted.
“Jeez, trying to be f*cking nice for once but you ripped that right out,” Wildcat hissed. “Okay, well, don’t rely on me in the future then.”
“Mm, you can’t really blame me after the crossing that we just witnessed earlier,” Fourzer0seven reasoned. “Don’t wanna end up like Marcel.”
“Oh, is that the quote for the video now? ‘Don’t end up like Marcel’? You make it sound like I was f*cking murdered in a ditch,” Basically scowled. “We’ll see who ends up in a ditch after this recording.”
“Woah, woah! Okay, wow,” Wildcat responded. “We’ve gotten the oil to increasingly hot temperatures, ladies and gentle— Evan, you’ve got to be f*cking kidding me.”
Vanoss turned around and saw Wildcat’s disfigured model standing at the corner of one of the hallways, then snorted. “Hi, man.”
“Helllooo, okay. I’m,” Wildcat wheezed, his voice hitting the high heavens, before he scuttled away. “f*cking, not gonna touch that with a ten yard pole, both literally and metaphorically.”
“The f*ck are you guys talking about?” Smii7y murmured, but then Nogla groaned loudly. “Evan’s probably hovering over a f*cking landmine! Bent over like he’s preparing to get f*cked in this ass!”
“No need to get so descriptive, wow,” Panda chuckled. “I feel like if Nogla was a documentary host, he’d be both the worst and the best, because he’s super descriptive but he’s also so vulgar.”
Laughter spread throughout the voice channel. Terroriser didn’t waste a second before he dove into a Nogla impression. “So over here, we have the Canadian Owl with its gorgeous and stunning feathers, and oh! It’s f*cking bending over for a good dicking! Yeah, it’s reaching behind itself and spreading it’s ye ol’ asshole wide f*cking open.”
Evan wheezed.
Nogla grumbled quietly. “I swear, I know your address, Evan. I will not hesitate to fly over and kick your ass, or at least I would if I didn’t have a daughter to take care of.”
“I’m sure that Aliyah will be fine alone for a few days,” Terroriser muttered.
“Yeah, well, I’d rather be there. Wanna make sure that I’m not an absent parent.”
“Which is why you’re playing video games right now,” Wildcat snorted.
“Which is how I also make money and support this household,” Nogla elaborated. “And that goes the same for all of you, so don’t forget now.”
“And clearly some of us are making more than others,” Basically spoke up. “But hey, I’m not naming anyone here.”
The guilty silence that followed afterwards was overwhelming. Evan coughed awkwardly, ignoring the way that the tension had become so thick, it was nearly tangible. “Anyways…”
“Oh, I found Fourzero!” Smii7y spoke up. “Or at least, I think that might be him. He’s… oh.”
Fourzer0seven cackled loudly. “Hello!”
“Where is the f*cker?” Basically questioned, then he hissed. “Scotty, you son of a f*cking co*cksucker.”
“How the hell did you even get up there?” Nogla asked, sounding absolutely baffled. “He’s f*cking up on the goddamn ceiling beams!”
“I flew,” Fourzer0seven answered. “Y’know, lootbugs can fly, so it shouldn’t be so surprising.”
“No sh*t, but it should be surprising how you’re getting up there, given how much of a giant f*cking dick you’re being!” Basically shouted. “Come on!” He grunted a few times, as if he was jumping in real life.
“Uh, I think I know how he got up there,” Smii7y spoke up. “So… If I just walk over here….” then began to huff repeatedly. “Almost… there! Aha!”
“sh*t, nice Smii7y. You’re f*cked, Scotty!” Nogla exclaimed, chuckling at the end of his sentence.
“Oh no,” Fourzer0seven whispered. “Alright. Clearly I’ve overstayed my welcome, so, uh, toodles!”
“You mother f*cker! Get the f*ck back here!” Basically yelled.
“Don’t worry, I got him!” Nogla called out, then with a loud scream, Fourzer0seven cursed. “sh*t! f*ck you, Nogla.”
“Now, I would be sorry about this, but you pulled a scummy move,” Nogla grinned. “And dicks don’t get apologies.”
“Fair,” Fourzer0seven sighed. “Okay, now let’s f*cking find everyone else. Who’s left?”
“We’re all together, so the people that’s not us,” Smii7y said. “Except for, uh, Pand—”
Right at that moment, Panda let out a guttural cry and a faint slam of his desk could be heard. “f*ck!”
“So Evan, Tyler, Brian, and Delirious,” Basically rattled off their names quickly, trying to hold back his giggling. “But we know that Delirious is outside, so maybe we can go for him last.”
“Ha, that’s what I want you to think!” Delirious sneered. “As far as you know, I’m far gone!”
“I mean, he’s right,” Nogla murmured. “But we’ll, ah, f*ck that bridge when we cross it.”
“f*cking what?” Wildcat laughed. “Nogla, no. That’s not the f*cking saying!”
“What? Then what’s the right saying because I swear that’s how it goes!”
“It’s not! f*cking dumbass, it’s ‘we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it’,” Wildcat said. “Every day, I wonder how you’re still living.” “Alright, then. I guess I’m f*cking leaving you bitches,” Nogla grumbled. “f*cking going to find them all myself.”
“Hey! Wait up!” Basically interjected. “I don’t want to get left alone in this f*cking dumpyard of a maze.”
“Guess we’re all moving as a pack,” Fourzer0seven chuckled.
“No, f*ck off. I don’t want any one of you to follow me!” Nogla said. “f*ck you, I’m going faster. See if you can catch up now!”
Vanoss laughed quietly at their squabbling, until he heard footsteps approaching in game. For a moment, he had thought it was Terroriser, or maybe that Wildcat had circled back to check up on him, but as he listened closer, he heard multiple pairs of boots hitting the ground, more than two people coming his way.
Oh f*ck, this was going to be perfect.
He felt his grin grow more and more as they got closer and closer…
First, he spotted Nogla, who sprinted around the corner as fast as he could while opting to stare down the other seekers rather than look at the direction he was going in. Second, came the others, hot on Nogla's heels, but not fast enough to stop the inevitable as Nogla turned around and spotted Vanoss standing in the middle of the hallway.
“Wait a second, I see Evan!” Nogla called out as he beelined towards him.
“Nogla, NO!” Basically shouted, but it was too late, because as soon as Nogla tagged him, Vanoss sidestepped and touched the landmine.
“Sudoku, mother f*ckers!” he yelled.
Then, his screen was consumed by a fiery bright light and there was a loud explosion that nearly shattered his eardrums as the landmine blew up. He got to see his body get blasted past the boundaries of the facility walls and into the white void, then as he respawned, instead of landing on the forest ground, he instead found himself just stuck there, floating in the oblivion.
As if that wasn’t good enough, he heard Nogla roar, louder than anything that had ever come out of his friend before, followed by Basically blasting various curses and screams of anger and frustration, as well as faint crashes in the background that could’ve been items being thrown around, then to add to that, Smii7y was gasping loudly, which then turned into wheezes that sounded like desolate sobs. “What the f*ck—”
“EVAN!”
“Yeah?” Evan responded, grinning to himself like the cat that got the cream, or in this case, the f*cker who blew all of his friends up.
“Did he just—?” Terroriser spoke up, his voice wavering.
“He f*cking blew us up!” Basically explained, “And sent us to the f*cking void! We’re outside the map!”
“Really?” Panda perked up. “Hello, my friends! And welcome to my lovely abode, or where I’ve been staying for the last few f*cking minutes! So, so, lovely to finally have guests around.”
“Are you f*cking sure you can’t get out of the f*cking void?” Nogla cursed. “Because god f*cking damn it if I have to wait the rest of this goddamn round not doing sh*t.”
“Upsetting,” Wildcat commented. “So, mutual agreement to try to not trigger the landmines on purpose?”
“Gonna have to address that to Evan because he’s the main aggressor,” Basically stated.
“Evan. No landmines.”
“But it’s funny!” Vanoss said.
“Come on, seriously?” Nogla groaned. “Just don’t do it, man.”
“Fine, fine,” Vanoss huffed. “I swear, pinky swear.”
“Wait, is every seeker just floating in the void?” Terroriser asked.
“No,” Fourzer0seven spoke up. “I—” he broke off into laughter. “I think I’m the only one left. f*cking, thanks a lot, Evan.”
“You’re welcome,” Vanoss responded cheekily.
“So not all hopes are lost, okay,” Smii7y sighed. “I can’t believe that f*cking happened. That’s insane.”
“But so worth it. Thanks for the footage, guys.”
“At least he made it a lot easier for us to get away,” Delirious mused. “Instead of five people dogpiling us.”
“Right, right, consider the hiders, but not the seekers. Classic Delirious,” Nogla muttered.
“He has a point though,” Vanoss defended.
“You’re on the seeker’s team now! You should be on our side!” Basically snapped.
“It’s no use, Marcel, trust me. It doesn’t matter if he’s on the same or opposing team,” Nogla responded ominously, and there was a hint of a smile in his voice, which only confused Evan more. The f*ck was he talking about?
Nonetheless, he felt awfully smug about what he just accomplished. His friends might not share his joy, but it’s not like he ever needed their approval. Though…
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Vanoss
where are u?
i swear im not gonna rat u out
just curious bc im stuck rn
Delirious
currently im squatting by the entrance
debating going inside but i know that 407 is still at large
what does it look like out there?
Evan picked up his phone from where it sat next to his laptop and took a picture of what his screen looked like, with just his character model floating in a white oblivion and the map above him. He was standing outside of its boundaries so there was no hope of ever getting back.
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Vanoss
[image.png]
/image description: Vanoss floating in the void under the facility map. /END ID
here u go
Delirious
oh my god
Delirious snorted loudly, prompting Fourzer0seven to snap, “What’s so funny, huh?! You sneak inside or somethin’?”
“Nooo, totally not,” Delirious responded truthfully, but with the way he was talking, it sounded like he wasn’t. “I’m still outside.”
“Scotty, don’t trust him!” Nogla said. “I can hear it in his voice. He’s lying.”
“I f*cking know!” Fourzer0seven retorted. “And I would have a better time trying to find the rest of you if a certain someone didn’t f*cking eliminate ninety-percent of my f*cking team!”
Vanoss giggled in response. Yeah, no, so that was definitely not something he could get away with again. Or by anyone.
Then he heard his phone quietly buzz, causing him to look down and check his notifications from Discord. Aside from a couple of mentions from Instagram, Twitter and whatnot, there was one private message from Delirious.
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Delirious
so do you think he’s actually gonna catch someone?
Vanoss
wouldn’t place my bets on it tbh
there’s only like a minute and a half left
also i can show u the footage of the explosion later
Delirious
plz!!
Evan smiled warmly.
Time ticked by and before they knew it, Fourzer0seven had only ten seconds left to spare, and he had yet to find Terroriser or Wildcat, leaving him sobbing dramatically as he ran desperately through the halls. “You motherf*ckers! This sh*t is so f*cking unfair.”
“Don’t give up, you can do it, Scotty!” Vanoss cheered.
“f*cking— Shut! Shut the f*ck up! I don’t want to hear a single word from you, Evan,” Fourzer0seven screamed. Then he huffed, “God f*cking damn it. That’s it, if I’m going out, then I’ll do it on my own terms!” he shouted before there was a pause and Evan heard a faint explosion from somewhere on the map.
“I think he just f*cking blew himself up because I heard a noise in the background,” Wildcat snorted.
“No! Scotty!” Delirious cried out. “Nooo! He was so young…”
“Blame your boyf— bl — blame Vanoss!” Fourzer0seven shot back.
Vanoss coughed to hide his deep amusem*nt, and then the timer ticked down to zero.
==== The hiders won! ====
“Yes!” Terroriser exclaimed.
“That was, and I say this with my whole heart, the most f*cking scuffed match I have ever played,” Nogla growled. “We should— Can we— For the love of god, can we please f*cking take a moment to see if we can remove the landmines from the map? Because I don’t want to even risk stepping on them accidentally.”
“Seconded,” Marcel groaned. “Like the mines actually break the game and I wouldn’t want to carry on if this is the ‘new strat’ now.”
“Alright, alright, we’ll stop the game for now and get rid of the landmines,” Evan muttered. “I’ll send this to the modders, see if they can remove it, and we’ll start again.”
“I f*cking hope so,” Tyler sighed, then left the game, followed by everyone, with Delirious being the last one to leave the server.
Evan closed down the application and opened up his Discord so that he could message the modder.
After a brief conversation, the modder assured him that he should have the new modpack landmine-free within an hour, which was very fortunate, given that everyone wanted to be able to get some decent footage soon.
But not even half an hour later, Nogla was already asking repeatedly, “How long do we have to wait again?”, which caused Tyler to groan. “Evan said that we had like, about an hour’s worth of wait, and it’s been fifteen minutes, so I’d say forty-five minutes,” he explained.
“Yeah, but I’m gonna get food delivered soon so I don’t wanna have to wait all this time, then the moment that it’s here, we’re starting,” Nogla complained.
“Didn’t f*cking stop you in the past before,” Terroriser muttered. “I’d say munch away, dude. I think everyone else has either f*cked off to do things or started eating, ‘cause they’re all muted.”
Right then, Evan unmuted himself while chewing. “Wuh?”
“f*cking, Evan,” Tyer laughed. “Great timing as always.”
“Whatcha eating, Evan?” Nogla asked subtly.
“Hmm,” Evan looked down at the burger then the pile of fries next to him. “McSeeds.”
Brian sputtered, then chuckled. “What? Can you repeat that?”
“McSeeds, man. It’s, ah, McDonalds sponsored seeds,” Evan explained, then took another bite. “Got a bunch of seeds here. It’s great for birds.”
“Of course, he’s swallowing a bunch of seeds,” Nogla grunted, causing Brian and Tyler to snort. “Next thing, you’re gonna tell me that you’re getting a special order from Hooters.”
“No, no,” Evan shook his head. “That comes after I get my creamy milkshake from Five Guys.”
The voice chat was covered by laughter that nearly had Evan inhaling his food, then Scotty unmuted himself, groaning, “Some of us are also eating and I dunno about you, but I don’t want to f*cking think about Evan on the f*cking casting couch, so kindly, shut up.” Then he returned to being muted.
“Deafen then, you coward!” Tyler shouted back.
Scotty deafened himself, causing another wave of chuckles. Evan grinned, snorting, before he returned to being muted.
He had just finished eating when he opened up OBS to end the recording for that particular segment, thinking that he could slap it in the video as a sort of blooper segment later. That would be fun, he idly thought, before remembering that he was supposed to send the footage of nearly every seeker getting caught in the explosion that he’d caused.
But he didn’t feel like unmuting and presenting the footage, in case other people may be disrupted from what they were doing.
Or at least, that’s what he told himself.
Regardless, a promise was a promise, so Evan considered his options, then opened Delirious’ DMs.
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Vanoss
hey
Delirious
whats up
Vanoss
do u remember when u asked me to send u the footage
of everyone blowing up
Delirious
yeah lmao
Vanoss
i can show u the footage
but ngl i dont feel like doing it in the server vc
Delirious
soooo what do you recommend?
Vanoss
we can do a quick call
away from everyone else
Delirious
oooo
kay
sounds good but arent ppl gonna notice?
Vanoss
probably not
besides. we’d be more likely to grab their attentions if i just start streaming out of nowhere
ill just make up an excuse about a phonecall or smthin
Delirious
tru tru
so we just slip away and call?
Vanoss
yeeeeee
u ready?
Delirious
go ahead!! ill join you :)
Evan smiled. There was a weird sense of giddiness inside of him as he hovered his mouse over the leave call button, then clicked it before he opened the chat and began typing out his excuse.
cool guys park
(#milky-bois-recording-vc-1)
Vanoss
sorry gentlesirs
gotta brb for a bit
phonecalls y'know
ring ringing a ding ding
BRIII- BRIII- BRIII
Evan looked up to see Delirious’ profile picture pulsing at him, indicating that he was in the process of calling him. Quickly, he pressed the accept button, and the two of them leaped into a conversation for just the two of them.
“‘Phonecalls, y’know’?” were the first words that Delirious greeted him with as soon as he connected. Evan snorted, which turned into soft chuckles.
“Of course. I mean, I wasn’t lying,” he said.
“You dick, I was gonna piggyback off what you said but that’s such a sh*tty excuse,” Delirious groaned. “But I think they’ll just assume that my internet shorted out and I’ll be back soon.”
“Mmhm, and this shouldn’t take too long in itself,” Evan murmured. “Okay, uh, am I— am I streaming now?” he asked as he connected his monitor for the screenshare. “Yeah,” Delirious confirmed.
“Good, good. So…” Evan dragged his tab over to show a stretch of his footage open on his screen. With his cursor, he grabbed the playback pin and dragged it back, watching as the video in the preview screen began to reverse itself. “It’s not too far back, because we stopped playing after that round. Lemme just find it… no, not that. That’s when everyone started leaving, and that’s me in the void!”
“It looks like you’re swimming in a pool of milk,” Delirious giggled. “Smii7y’s finally returned with his people. Wait, could you see other people there?”
“Uh, no, I couldn’t,” Evan shook his head. “And I tried to look, but no one was there.”
“Can’t imagine that this was intentional, trapping a seeker like that,” Delirious said.
“At least for our kind of games, no. Someone else might have some fun with this but not us.” Evan sighed. “But yeah, and if we go a little further back, you can see where they came around the corner and… bam!”
Now that he was looking at the footage for the second time, it was somehow funnier, now that he wasn’t caught up with the adrenaline of the game, keeping him in a shock-like state. He rewound the footage and slowed it down, watching as his body flew backwards, initially hitting the wall, then he clipped through the ceiling, like the intro of a Backrooms video, before entirely disappearing and reappearing in the total white void.
Delirious cackled as he replayed the scene again and again. “Oh my god! The way that you guys f*cking flew! Holy sh*t!”
“Yeah, it’s f*cking broken as sh*t but it’s so funny,” Evan commented. “Like, I definitely got my hands on some nice ass footage, but sadly, replicating it won’t be possible as soon as this either gets fixed or removed outright,” he sighed. “So this acts like exclusive footage.”
“Cool,” Delirious clicked his tongue. “Now I wish that I had gone with you.”
“Well, if you had, you would’ve been caught and lost the game, like I did,” Evan pointed out.
“That wouldn’t have mattered sh*t, man. It would’ve been just for one round, but yeah.” Delirious cleared his throat and Evan could hear the quiet squeaking of his chair where he leaned back in his seat. “Winning alone isn’t worth it if it’s not wit—” he stopped himself from speaking. “Uh, thanks for showing me this, man. Dude. Bro.”
“No problem,” Evan responded, genuinely. “Yeah, you get to see the footage that’ll probably take me three or four days before I get the chance to upload the video.”
“Mmhm,” Delirious hummed, then clapped his hands. “So, we should, ah, probably head back.”
“Oh sh*t. Yeah!” Evan called out. “Talk to you later when the game starts?”
“Talk to you later.”
Evan disconnected from the call quickly and joined back again to the server voice channel, still muted. He waited to see if Delirious would pop back in a few seconds after he’d rejoined, but disappointingly (why was it disappointing?), he had yet to show up. Then finally, after a handful of minutes, Delirious connected to the vc, although his microphone was unmuted.
“...flew like the stars man,” Delirious was muttering. “Makes sense, cause he does feel like a star…”
Huh?
Was he talking to someone else?
“...and I’m telling you, pulled me aside like he’s gonna confess somethin’!”
Evan opened his mouth to tell Delirious that they were hearing his phone call, but then remembered that he was still muted and went to unmute himself before speaking out. “Delirious, you’re unmuted. We can hear you.”
Delirious stopped talking at once, then he asked tentatively, “I was?”
“Yeah, man. But don’t worry, not a lot of it was audible,” Evan revealed. “Just bits and pieces.”
“Oh,” Delirious said quietly. “I thought I was— Okay. Thank you. Uh—” before he can say anything further, Delirious muted himself, and Evan snorted before he joined him in keeping himself silent. While in the process of waiting, Evan thought to busy himself with his emails, responding and sorting as many as he could.
It didn’t take long until a new message popped up in his DMs. He saw that the modder he had contacted earlier had returned with a modpack where all of the landmines should’ve been removed completely. After a brief exchange, in which the modder wished him a successful recording session, Evan returned to the server and unmuted himself.
“So, I’ve got good news,” he announced, before posting the new modpack into the chatbox. One by one, he saw people unmute themselves as he pretended to stretch leisurely. Meanwhile, he was already opening up GMod’s folders and dropping in the new files to be opened up through the workshop.
“Finally!” Scott exclaimed. “Evan, I swear to god if nothing was changed…”
“Dude, wait until we’ve started recording before threats get exchanged,” Tyler reminded him. “And this does look like a new set of files, but we don’t know yet.”
“Then let’s begin!” Smii7y shouted. “I’m already getting GMod up and ready. C’mon!”
Evan clicked on GMod and waited as it began to load.
At last, it finished and the game opened up at full blast, covering his screen. “I’ll start the server again,” Evan called out, then began making a replica of the previous one, but with the updated map file that was included in the modpack. As soon as it was ready, he sent it to the Discord server and waited as people began to fill in the lobby.
It was only after everyone was inside that Anthony piped up with an important question. “Hold on, who’s gonna be seeker this time?” he asked, making Evan think for a second. He was about to ask Smii7y if he wanted the role again, but Tyler dove in.
“Hear me out, I think it should be Evan,” he said.
“Why?” Delirious responded. “I mean, uh, just, er, curious.”
“Because— why do you think, Delirious?” Nogla questioned. “Take a wild f*cking guess why do you think we’d want Evan to be the seeker.”
“That is, ah, extremely fair, actually,” Delirious admitted quietly.
Evan snorted. “Alright, then I guess it’s unanimously decided then.” He switched himself over to the seeker’s side while everyone aligned themselves with the hider. “Now I really hope that the modder did their job right because I have a feeling that if the landmines are still there, I’m going to have to be worried about lootbug suicide bombers.” He pressed the button to start.
“Lootbug suicide bombers,” Marcel wheezed as the timer counted down slowly. “Well, that’s a sentence that you don’t usually hear everyday.”
He laughed, then his screen was consumed by darkness.
30 seconds until the seeker is released!
Quietly, he could hear various people giggling, and a few people voicing complaints, but nothing definitive that could give away their position, except—
“Nogla, f*cking move,” Terroriser hissed. “Your fat ass is blocking the entrance.”
“It’s not me that’s the issue, there’s more space, I swear!” Nogla promised, then Terroriser made a small grunting noise, then a yell. “f*ck! I fell! You bitch, you lied!”
“f*cking hurry, he’s going to be coming soon!” Basically shouted. “Yeah, yeah, no, it’s behind you, Brian— There! Yes!”
“Maybe we should cover it up?” Delirious piped up— he was with them?
“No, no, it should be— ah, it should be fine,” Wildcat dismissed his worry with a sigh. “Let’s see if this bird-brain can find his way up here.”
“Alright,” Delirious said with a resigned tone.
The darkness faded and Vanoss was dropped back into the world. The familiar ship and the trees around him greeted him and as he hopped over the barrier, he scanned the area around him to see if anyone was in his immediate vicinity, but it seemed that the place was clear of any loot-bug shaped players.
But, to be absolutely certain, he swung by the location of the dropship, looping around once, twice, before he left the area. He strolled through the woods, listening to the faint snickering of his friends, before he reached the bridges, and then the doorsteps of the facility. Panning his camera up, he stared at the building’s colossal height and walked right in.
It took a moment, barely a second, for his map to load but Vanoss made it inside and he found himself placed in the same room as before with the ceiling fan whirling above him. Despite the map lacking any actual audio, he could still hear its ominous hum and the metallic sound of footsteps from the original game with every movement he made, strolling down the narrow corridors.
Even when all of the boring wall textures were repeating with little variations, there were segments that he found to be familiar, and thankfully, when he passed through the same hallway where he had blown everyone up, the landmine was found to be missing. That was one thing that he didn’t need to be worried about now.
What really blew him away was how infinite the rooms seemed to be (there was a Backrooms joke bound to be made somewhere, he knew), but he knew, or at least he hoped that there would eventually be a limit somewhere and that it wouldn’t be quite as large as an actual Lethal Company facility. Otherwise, this game would simply not end and that would ruin the fun for practically everyone.
It was only a matter of time before he heard the sharp rise of giggles when he walked past a room, paused, then turned around and returned to the doorway where he slowly poked his head in.
“f*ck, shhhh!” Basically hissed, living up to the second part of his name.
“Dude, you’re just paranoid. We don’t need to be quiet,” Nogla responded boldly.
Vanoss walked in slowly, scanning his environment, whilst being careful to ensure that nobody could sneak past him when he wasn’t looking.
At face value, this seemed to be a regular room with a few cleverly placed cabinets and boxes to create hiding spaces, but as Vanoss checked, there wasn’t anyone there, nor in the lockers in the corner. Then, right as he was about to call it quits and leave the room, he looked down and saw a second shadow on the floor.
He stepped backward, and the shadow stayed there. Then, very slowly, he looked up, and he was met with four monstrosities perched closely together on the rafters of the room.
Monstrosities that he called his friends.
Terroriser was the first one to break the silence that had fallen over them by snorting as soon as Vanoss made direct eye contact with them, then rotating his body — which looked graphically horrifying on a lootbug model — to face Nogla. “So, what’s that about Wildcat being paranoid?” he asked.
“Uh.”
“Great f*cking job, Nogla,” Basically barked out a laugh.
“Listen, listen, as long as we stay up here, we’ll be fine!” Nogla shouted.
Vanoss took a step forward, still maintaining his deep stare at the group. “Hi, guys,” he greeted, then turned to Delirious. “Hey, Delirious.”
For whatever reason, that made Delirious laugh. “Hi, Vanoss. Nice to see you here.”
“Nice— pfft, nice to see you here too. How’s the, uh, cleaning going?”
“Wuh— what?” Delirious responded.
“I mean, that’s the only reason why you’re up there, right?” Vanoss joked while scanning his eyes down the beams that ran across the room. “It’s to clean all of the dust that’s gathered in these hard to reach corners.”
“Oh, oh!” Delirious piped up. “Yes, that’s correct. We’re professional cleaners! Sent here on this moon to do a very specific, er, job, which is to make these walls shine like they’re brand new!”
Delirious then turned around and faced the wall like he was actually trying to scrub them clean. Meanwhile, Vanoss backtracked until his back faced the wall, before sprinting until he was halfway to the beam, and then jumped, trying to reach the four on the rafters, but despite his efforts, he unfortunately fell a few inches short.
“Aha! Look at this f*cking dumbass!” Terroriser called out, and Evan knew, oh he just knew, that Brian was pointing at him on his webcam. “Lil bitch, trying to get us by jumping!”
“Sir, sir!” Delirious called out. “You can’t, uh, you can’t get up here! Our company policy states that we need to work in complete silence and you’re causing quite a scene here. We’re gonna have to ask you to leave.”
“Hm,” Vanoss hummed. In a desperate attempt, he turned to the cabinets that he had seen earlier to try and see if there was anything that he could do with them, but they were too far away from the beams to attempt an actual jump and the boxes that were in the room were too small to be stacked up efficiently and within the time limit.
But as he was looking away, he heard a loud curse from Nogla and when he whirled back around, he saw Nogla landing on the floor with a barely audible crunch. They spent a second looking at each other, then Vanoss looked back up at the rafters to see Terroriser standing over where Nogla was, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to piece together exactly what happened.
Vanoss looked back down at Nogla and before he could even say anything smart or make a joke, Nogla lunged forward — but it wasn’t for the exit like he had expected. Instead, he veered for a corner of the room before he changed directions again, dove for the door and slipped out.
“f*ck you, Brian, you f*cking piece of sh*t! Go choke on a fat, f*cking co*ck or something, you giant c*nt!” Nogla shouted behind him. “Have fun censoring that, asshat!”
“Jeez,” Smii7y snorted.
“Get used to it,” Wildcat muttered.
“Evan, go to Nogla, you f*cker!” Basically spat down at him, but Vanoss remained in the same spot. “God, it’s like trying to get a f*cking worm to go where you want.”
“What? Noooo,” Vanoss responded, acting completely oblivious. Basically groaned loudly, dipping into a low growl, so he continued to talk, “I’m just here because there’s more people in this one spot and I know that chasing Nogla will be a giant waste of time.”
“You can also suck a giant co*ck,” Nogla added sharply, huffing underneath his breath. Funnily enough, that made everyone in the room burst into laughter along with Basically’s snickering. “In fact— No, all of you lot can go suck some co*ck.”
“Including me?” Smii7y spoke up. “Wow, and I don't even have to pay for it.”
“Sure,” Nogla groaned. “I did say f*cking ‘everyone’ after all.”
“Just make sure that you tell Kryoz to not vape before doing it, otherwise it’ll have a weird aftertaste,” Panda revealed with a giggle at the end, which turned into a cackle before it settled back down into soft wheezes and even a sniff. Wildcat snorted. “He sounded like he tired himself out with the force of that laugh alone.”
“Oh, does wee little Panda need a nap?” Fourzer0seven cooed, in which Panda immediately shouted, “No, f*ck off!”
But while everyone had been laughing and making their jokes, Evan had been plotting. He was still jumping, trying to reach the three on the rafters, but he kept coming up just a bit short, until he thought back to when Nogla got pushed off.
Curiously, he looked back around to the corner that Nogla tried to go to but gave up at the last second. Was he just trying to trick Evan, or was there secretly something there?
Vanoss peered closer and saw a small rectangular vent in the corner, then he looked back up to the rafters and there, right by the beams, was that same shape.
Basically caught his eye and all the sounds he was making stopped abruptly. “Uh, guys,” he spoke up. “I think he knows. Guys— I think— I think Vanoss knows.”
“Marcel, huh? No, he f*cking doesn’t—” Terroriser looked over at where Vanoss was standing, then a few inches to the side where the vent was sitting. “Oh. f*ck, he does—” he said at the same time that Vanoss made a mad dash for the metal cover.
Evan felt a giant grin form on his face as his character teleported to the top of the rafters, exactly in the same place where the other hiders were huddled up.
He heard the tiny noise of impact, signifying that he had caught someone—
“You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me!” Terroriser yelled, at the same time that Vanoss ran off to chase after both Delirious and Basically. Interestingly, as the lootbugs models sprinted, their wings expanded and fluttered as they flew through the hallways. Strange how he hadn’t noticed that with Nogla, but it could’ve been that he hadn’t paid any attention to him.
At some point, Basically made a turn and now all that was left was Delirious. Vanoss continued to chase him, cutting his stamina meter down more and more, until at last, it was emptied, but right at that moment, Delirious stopped sprinting and made a turn, slowing him down just enough to the point where Vanoss was able to just run forward and—
“f*ck!” Delirious screeched as his player model transformed from a lootbug to an employee and his voice went hoarse for a moment like a crow. “Goddamnit!”
“Sorry, man,” Vanoss apologized, but he had a feeling that the both of them knew that it wasn’t genuine, not that either of them minded. “But I found a violation with your cleaning company and now I have to take you in, Delirious.”
“Goddamnit! Alright, then. I suppose that I will have to turn in my coworkers as well,” Delirious sighed dramatically. “Lead the way, oh, officer.”
“What the f*ck,” Fourzer0seven whispered, although it came out more like a hiss. “Did— did I miss a f*cking memo or something?”
Evan furrowed his eyebrows. “Huh? What are you talking about?”
“Do you not— You and—” Fourzer0seven sputtered, then stopped. “Nevermind. Forget I said anything.”
No, Evan frowned, he didn’t want to forget, but it wasn’t like he could just stop and question what Scotty was going on about without potentially ruining the mood. Not to mention, they were in the middle of recording a game. So he carried on running with Delirious by his side, despite the mounting confusion in his head and the weird feeling in his gut. But this shouldn’t grow into anything, he told himself. He wouldn’t let it. Eventually, he’d just let this go and it’ll be nothing.
Together with Delirious and Terroriser, they would have a better chance at finding the other hiders — and judging by the sudden wild swearing from Basically and the chuckling from Terroriser that indicated that he caught him, those odds were bound to increase. He ran down the hallway with Delirious by his side, checking all of the corridors and the rooms, including their pesky rafters, to see if anyone was in them.
But the first few rooms were vacant and it almost seemed like they were completely empty.
Keyword: Almost.
They had fortunately found Wildcat almost completely by mistake as it turned out for the entire game, his grand ol’ strategy consisted of simply running around, seeing that the seekers would most likely be on the other side of the map and also moving, meaning that the chances of the two colliding were low, but not zero, as exemplified by when Delirious dove forward and caught him, making him yell out in frustration.
And as if he had any fear of their fortunes running out, while Delirious was dealing with Wildcat, Vanoss turned to look over his shoulder and saw a flash of green fabric running along the beige brick walls of the hallways.
“Hold on,” he remarked to Delirious before he went chasing after it, walking at a brisk pace in which he spammed the sprint button on and off, until he found himself at a dead end and Nogla in front of him.
“I see now,” Delirious snickered and Evan spotted him approaching slowly behind him. “Do you have any last words, bug?”
“Yeah,” Nogla bluffed. “fa*ggot.”
Vanoss darted forward and tagged him. “Alllriiight!” he yelled loudly, voicing over what Nogla just said, god f*cking damnit. “Alright, time for the rest of the hiders to be, ah, found.”
“Oh my god, it’s almost as if we exist again!” Panda cried out sarcastically. “Wow.”
“Don’t worry, I know that Smii7y’s editors will still probably find some way to make the video about him, I just know it,” Wildcat grunted. “So it ain’t all over.”
“Jealous ‘cause I got some godtier editors?” Smii7y called out. “Damn, f*ckin’ right I do!”
Evan snickered and began to walk through the halls again, trying to search for the other hiders. As Nogla ran off, he noticed that Delirious was tagging along with him quietly and his presence did not go unappreciated. Without saying a single word, Vanoss strayed back a step until they were completely side by side and for at least a portion of his screen, where he could keep him in his sights.
Soon another minute passed, they only had seconds remaining, and he was unable to find anyone, only occasionally bumping into either Wildcat, Nogla, or Basically at times. Terroriser had left the building to search through the forest and honestly, Vanoss was tempted to join him.
“f*cking Christ, I can’t find them anywhere!” Wildcat ranted. “Goddamnit, where the f*ck did you guys go?”
“C’mon, we’re not just gonna give it to you that easily,” Smii7y teased. “You’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that.”
“Smii7y’s right,” Panda remarked. “Get on your f*cking knees, bitch.”
“Woah— woah, there, cowboy. I ain’t getting on my knees for just anyone. You gotta throw in something more to sweeten the pot there, Anthony,” Wildcat clicked his tongue. Evan rolled his eyes as his character moved outdoors, trying to expand his horizons, and he was about to walk over to Terroriser and ask if he’s had any luck, but then his camera panned over the bridge and his eyes caught something.
“Delirious,” he called out softly. It didn’t take long for Delirious to run up and stand right behind him on the bridge. “Yeah, Vanoss? What’s up?”
Little by little, he rotated his body until it was facing the emergency exit located at the bottom of the sturdy bridge. “See that?”
There was a tiny gasp from Delirious that Vanoss would not admit was — totally not — adorable. “Oh, yes. I see, indeed.”
Nogla grunted. “The actual f*ck are you guys doing?”
Vanoss didn’t say a single word as he climbed up the side of the bridge until he was on the railings, and then stepped off. In one swift drop, he fell to the bottom of the ravine below with nothing but a shake of the camera and a soft crunch combined with a grunt before he started walking forward. Behind him, he heard Delirious fall and follow his footsteps, all the way up to the emergency exit.
All that was exchanged between them was a silent look of understanding at each other, then they both stepped into the exit and came out on the other end.
Honestly, he should have checked here earlier. Worst of all, there were definitely a handful of things that could’ve ticked him off, like how he failed to find an emergency exit in the main facility, meaning that those two weren’t connected at all.
Upon entering, the two were met with a large room— the factory room as Evan had heard it been called once or twice while playing Lethal company with other people, or maybe it was from listening to Delirious ramble about this game. Once again, he had to give his props to the mapmakers because this seemed to be an exact replica of the interior. Hell, even the lighting was almost as dark as the original.
Fearlessly, Delirious marched forward while looking from side to side. He stayed noticeably quiet, most likely not to give away the fact that they had found this place, and then Vanoss heard the sound of Smii7y and Panda snickering and in the corner of his screen, crouching on top of a set of cabinets. He could see the blue trail of the hiders.
Bingo.
Evan knew exactly what clip he was going to put at the start of his video.
Quietly, the two seekers inched up to the two hiders, then Delirious took the sprint and leaped up, managing to tag Panda with the top of his head, which caused Panda to start screaming and Smii7y to start yelling as he began to run backwards. But failing to look at where he was going, he slipped off the cabinet.
Right into the giant gap in the middle of the room, and as Vanoss watched him descend, he heard him mutter, “That’s crazy,” then—
==== 1 hider is left! ====
“Yaay!— wait, what?” Delirious exclaimed, sounding just as affronted as Evan felt. “Who the f*ck is— is, uh, left?”
“Did everyone just f*cking forget about me?” Fourzer0seven whispered.
“Oh, hey, Scotty,” Vanoss laughed. “sh*t, where are you—”
==== Hiders win! ====
“What?!” Nogla shouted. “f*ck, the time ran out!”
“Great f*cking job, Scotty,” Wildcat congratulated him, clapping his hands over his microphone. “Now, where the f*ck were you guys? Smii7y, Panda, you two go first because I’m gonna assume that you were hiding together.”
Panda hummed. “Yeah, we were. Originally, we were hiding together back in uh, the main facility, the big one—”
“—Mmhm, as opposed to the teeny weeny one,” Nogla scoffed.
“—shut up, then we heard Vanoss come down the hallways and spot you guys, so while his back was turned, we just snuck past him! Then we went outside, because we didn’t think that anyone would look out there, saw the door, and well, the rest is history.”
“Very, very believable, I must say,” Wildcat commented. “Alright, Scotty. ‘Tis your turn now.”
Fourzer0seven chuckled lightly, timidly. “So, you might not believe me but this whole time, I’ve been back on the ship— yeah.”
“Brian! I thought you were checking the woods!” Marcel accused. “How the f*ck could you let him slip by?”
“I was!” Terroriser countered.
“Apparently not f*cking well enough, because this f*cking dick somehow got past you!”
“Hey— To be fair, to be fair—” Scotty interrupted. “I did see Brian run around a few times, but all of the times, I was hiding inside of the ship.”
“Cool, cool, so, uh, amazing job. You won. How do you feel?” Tyler asked with a hint of mischief in his voice.
“Yeahh, I won, but, er, got no content. Woo hoo!” Scotty cheered, and the group laughed.
The transition over to the next round went smoothly. After it was decided that Scotty, as the last hider, should be seeker this round, the game started up again and Evan was forced to remember how bizarre the lootbug models were with their long legs and whatnot. As soon as they landed, everyone, except for him, immediately ran for the building, trying to get as far as they could with the seconds that they were allotted.
Evan did not join them. Instead, he lingered behind and yelled, “Delirious, Delirious!”
Not long after he called out for him, he saw a lootbug with a blue body and white face, ironically almost like his clown makeup, pop out from behind a tree. “Vanoss?”
“Let’s have some fun,” he remarked as he climbed the side of the ship until he made it inside the cabin, then strolled up next to where Fourzer0seven was waiting to be released. Out of everyone that could’ve become the seeker, he was partially glad that it was Scotty, because it meant that he got the chance to see his head horrifically warped in the employee helmet.
“Uh, are you sure?” Delirious questioned, but Vanoss could already see him running across the grass, up the ship, then right next to where he was standing.
Silently, he crouched and began shoving Scotty towards the direction of the ship entrance.
It was almost like watching a lightbulb flicker on as Delirious immediately crouched next to Vanoss, pushing him aside for a better angle — though he didn’t mind — and began pushing as well. Evan grinned viciously as he pressed the button again and again. He could hear the small grunts coming from their characters in-game and he couldn’t help but to join in for sh*ts and giggles.
“Oh, oh yeah. f*ck, yes,” he bit out. “Uh, yeah.”
And right when he’d think that Delirious would make some sort of complaint, to his surprise, Delirious played along. “Mmhm, you like that, Vanoss? Like the push?”
He couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled out of him, all the while knowing that it made his voice hitch and the soft gasps emerge with every breath.
“What, and I cannot say this f*cking enough, the absolute f*ck are you two f*cks doing?” Nogla spat out. “You f*ckers are defiling my goddamn ears!”
“f*cking none of your business!” Delirious huffed out, followed by Evan groaning deeply— perhaps a little bit too erotically as he attempted to hold it back, but it ended up with him accidentally opening his mouth and a noise that was cross between a genuine moan and a whimper slipped out.
God f*cking damn it. Thank the f*cking gods that nobody was streaming.
Before anyone could say anything, because Evan could already f*cking hear the growing snickers from Terroriser and Wildcat’s weak croaks as he tried to form a sentence, he cleared his throat loudly, ignoring his red face. “I’m done, I’m done—” he blurted out then took a step back from Fourzer0seven— the timer was about to finish anyways.
“You’re— you’re done?” Delirious turned to Vanoss. “Then I’m pulling out too.”
Vanoss dashed for the exit then hopped over the railing onto the forest floor. “We gotta haul ass— but not too far away because I want to see this sh*t,” he said, then dove for the nearest tree and hid behind it and crouched so that his body could be obscured by the trunk. Then in the corner of his eye, he saw Delirious run up to him and hide right behind him, pressing their bodies close together.
Delirious giggled. “Same. I want to see the product of— of our masterpiece!” he laughed and if Evan was to be honest, he could hear that sound every day of his life and never grow tired of it. At least it was a better sound than Nogla and Terroriser muttering to each other in the background then stopping before Evan could zero in on what they could possibly be saying.
“Quick— look! Vanoss, look!” Delirious hissed next to him and Evan stared at the screen, his eyes wide as he watched the timer tick down slowly before it finally ran out.
The speed at which Fourzer0seven was flung out of the ship was, to put it shortly, completely f*cking batsh*t insane. It was as if someone shot him out of a giant f*cking gun. Like, for one second and one second only, he was on screen and the next, he had vanished into thin air.
Evan couldn’t stop wheezing with the way that he saw how high and fast Scotty flew, the way that his body zipped past like that.
He doubled over and his hand slammed against his desk as he tried to push himself back up but he kept on curling in on himself, and to top it all off, Scotty made the perfect scream before he screech at the top of his lungs so hard that Evan nearly felt sorry for him in this session, “You MOTHERf*ckERS!” which made him buckle harder.
“We— We gotta get the f*ck out of here before he comes back,” Vanoss gasped out as he bolted from his spot behind the tree for the facility with Delirious trailing closely behind him. Eventually, they tore out of the forest, before Evan remembered something critical and halted right before he entered through the main doors. “Hold on— I gotta show you something,” he said. “I got, uh, I have something to show you, Delirious.”
“Okay, okay,” Delirious answered, slowing to a stop. Vanoss took a step to the side, then began to circle around the entrance before they reached the back of the wall, which looked seemingly just as empty as the front, minus the doors.
“Bro, you have to be careful, he’s going to flash you!” Panda said, making their friends laugh.
“N— No! I’m not going to f*cking do that, okay? That’s not what I’m about to show him,” Vanoss said firmly. “Far from it. At least not yet,” he muttered quickly.
Fourzer0seven wheezed.
“Just— Delirious, Delirious— follow me, alright?” He said urgently.
“I am!” Delirious exclaimed. “Vanoss, I am right behind you, like I could not be any further up your—” Vanoss walked forward until he was practically dragging his face across the grey concrete wall, then jumped, and in the flash of a second, he got teleported to the top of the building, allowing him to look down at the world around them. “—oh.”
Vanoss snickered and he could picture himself rubbing his hands together like a f*cking rat, which he was— a rat, that was.
“How the f*ck did you get up there?” Delirious asked.
“You gotta jump!” Vanoss informed him. “Like, press to the side and hop.”
“Are you f*ckers doing f*cking parkour?” Wildcat hissed. “Where- I can’t even think of a place where you can do sh*t like that.”
“Don’t— don’t worry about it!” Vanoss exclaimed, laughter seeping into his voice. He waited for a second before Delirious popped up next to him, seemingly out of nowhere. “Vanoss! I made it!” He shouted excitedly before he began to leap around him, like he was dancing. Evan grinned and moved around him in return, reciprocating his movements. “Hell yeah!”
Then, slowly, Vanoss crouched and ambled to the edge of the building where he looked down below him. “Look at the view,” he spoke up. Delirious shuffled next to him and joined him in looking down at the sights. “Ooh, yeah,” then he huffed. “Y’know, I thought that you said that there would be no secrets.”
“Listen, I said no secret rooms, not no secrets!” Vanoss responded quickly, much to the rising protests of Nogla and Fourzer0seven. “It wouldn’t be a map commissioned by me if there were totally no secrets.”
“Mother fu— you two have to reveal yourselves if you’re the last f*ckers alive, got it?” Fourzer0seven demanded. “Otherwise, how the f*ck are we supposed to find a supposed secret spot in here that requires a bunch of jumps? That’s f*cking impossible!”
“Realistically speaking, it shouldn’t be that difficult to get up here, right, Delirious?” Vanoss turned to Delirious.
“Probably, actually yeah. I agree.” Delirious nodded his character’s head.
“Blah-blah-blah-blah, ‘Realistically speaking’, yeah, Evan, go f*ck yourself,” Fourzer0seven huffed. “You’re talking a lot of sh*t for someone whose favorite cartoon is f*cking Spongebob.”
“Now you know when someone’s at the bottom of a barrel when that’s the only comeback that they can reply back with,” Terroriser taunted.
“Understanding the art of Spongebob is a skill that not a lot of people have mastered before,” Vanoss joked, “which evidently you have not done.”
“‘Cause I’m not f*cking five years old, god!” Fourzer0seven snapped.
Vanoss giggled, but it was cut off by Wildcat’s scream, followed shortly by Basically and Terroriser’s own yelps, then Smii7y’s panting.
“What the f*ck?” Fourzer0seven shrieked. “It’s like I just discovered the f*cking pantry from Ratatouille! Where the everloving f*ck did all of you come from?!”
“Gotta hurry, Remy, into the hole!” Terroriser gasped playfully. “We gotta get to the colony!”
“sh*t, you guys might have to go on without me, f*cking Scotty is hot on my goddamn—” Wildcat squealed, “—f*cking tail! Motherf*cker! Scotty got my ass!”
“If only Brock was here,” Nogla commented. “I’d bet that he’d f*cking say ‘language’ or some sh*t, like he’d be the kind of person to say that, then immediately shout out ‘co*cksucker’ the next second.”
“Except— Only if someone’s actually being one,” Basically added. “f*ck, I miss him.”
“You talk like he’s f*cking dead,” Vanoss chuckled. “Like, just because he’s not recording anymore doesn’t mean that he immediately dropped playing games.”
“Actually yeah, I’m—” Terroriser grunted. “I’m going to find a quick hiding space so that I can text Moo to see if he’s available for COD so that I can play with him.”
“Or— and I might sound crazy here— Or you can do it after we finish this game,” Fourzer0seven muttered. “Because I’m not going to let up the moment if I find you.”
“This won’t take long! Like, probably a minute or two.”
“Maybe the problem is that a minute is quite literally a third of the round!” Fourzer0seven argued.
“Fine, fine, I’m done texting him anyways,” Terroriser mumbled.
“Christ, I feel like I’m a f*cking mother of a teenager, telling her to get off f*cking Instagram in the middle of a goddamn funeral,” Fourzer0seven sighed.
Basically cackled. “You f*cking— You just go, like, ‘Goddamnit, Samantha, stop making a story and say your respects to grandma’!”
“Ugh, mom, let me— let me f*cking live my life,” Terroriser continued. “Yeah, god, Nogla. How do you feel that your daughter’s gonna be like that one day?”
“Jokes on you,” Nogla started, “she’s not going to be like that because Aliyah and I are going to raise her with the best manners the world has ever seen.”
“Starting by teaching her my favorite slurs!” Wildcat leaped in, cackling. “God, what a f*cking— oh, hi, Marcel.”
“I can see the other hiders!” Basically blurted out. “Before you tag me, know that I can see other hiders and I can find them for you!” he rambled, before Terroriser yelled out, “Weak!”
“Okay, I’m listening,” Wildcat implored. “So, if I asked you where the closest hider would be, apart from you, what would you say?”
“Hmm, most likely…” Basically paused. “Behind you, past that corner and to the right.”
“Marcel, you dirty f*ckin’—” Panda cursed before he hissed and made a half-yelp. “f*ck! Tyler, get the hell away from me! Stop chasing me!”
“Get over here, you little motherf*ckin’ piece of sh*t!” Tyler cursed. “Come on, you know you want to!”
“Nogla’s behind you!” Panda screeched. “He’s hiding in a room! To the side!”
“f*ck you, Anthony, you rat!” Nogla shot back with heat in his voice. “Stay with Anthony! Get him!”
“Already on it, no need to worry,” Wildcat muttered, then a moment later, Panda sobbed and Evan snorted at the sound of his agony. “Noo, I had such a funny idea to f*cking stay behind Wildcat the whole time and see how long it’d take before he’d notice,” he sniffed.
“Yeah, and that’s exactly why I got your ass,” Wildcat retorted. “Great that Marcel told me that. Marcel, who is currently still in that area where I had just been.”
There was a sharp inhale from Basically, then a loud curse. “f*cking, Scotty, are you kidding me, man?”
“Oops,” Fourzer0seven giggled. “Yeahh, no, I’m not sorry at all.”
For the next while, there were no sounds besides quiet conversations in the background that Evan was paying half attention too, the rest of his attention devoted to idly counting how many trees were in the distance, getting lost, then starting over again, before he heard a fit of wild curses and he snapped his camera down and looked at the ground.
“Evan! Are you f*cking kidding me?!” Nogla was shouting and jumping up at where both Delirious and Vanoss were crouched. “Guys, go outside and witness this f*ckery with me.”
It didn’t take long for Wildcat and Panda to appear by his side and stare up at them. “That’s f*cking bullsh*t,” Wildcat cursed. “Wh— How do you even—” He looked from the side of the building as if he was searching for a path to get up there but there was none that could be found, at least to the naked eye. “What the f*ck.”
“Psst, Nogla, how the hell did you get found?” Vanoss spoke up.
“Blame it on f*cking Anthony, man,” Nogla grumbled. “I had a good thing going! Then you had to come in and f*ck it all up.”
“What is going on?!” Delirious questioned. “I feel like nobody can trust nobody in this f*cking game,” then he looked up to meet Vanoss’ eyes, or at least the eyes of his player model. “But I can trust you, right?”
Vanoss stared at him.
He lasted about three and a half seconds before he moved forward and pushed Delirious off the edge.
“f*cking— EVAN!” Delirious shouted as he fell down the side of the facility.
Maybe he felt a teensy bit more guilty than he usually would, but this was too funny not to do. Vanoss couldn’t help but gasp, then laugh as he watched Delirious fall on top of the seekers and transform into an employee, no longer resembling a loot bug. “Sorry but you gotta do what you gotta do for content, Delirious!”
“You are such a massive dick!” Delirious yelled back up at him. “Y’know what? I’m going to f*cking show them exactly how to get up there!”
“Go do it, Delirious,” Wildcat encouraged. “Yeah, f*cking get back at him!”
Slowly, he watched all four of them march around the side of the building and he knew at once that his time was limited, but at least he could go out in one final moment. He waited until Delirious appeared in front of him, exactly like how he did before, but instead now as a seeker and with the others teleporting behind him.
“Again, this is absolute f*cking bullsh*t!” Nogla grumbled, looking around and stepping back in awe. “We would’ve never f*cking found this place by chance. Evan, you dirty f*cking cheater!”
“I mean, you would’ve probably found it at sound point, right? You found it now!” Vanoss exclaimed, then he took a small step back, gradually approaching the edge of the building. “Come on, come and claim your prize.”
Nogla laughed. “Maybe change your statement at the end then we can talk—” he was cut off by Delirious charging ahead with wild abandon before Vanoss spun around and jumped off the edge, then the moment that his feet touched the ground, he sprinted and made a mad, mad, dash for the emergency exit. “Motherf*cker!” he heard someone swear but he couldn’t be sure at all if it was Nogla, someone else, or all of them at the same time.
The only thing that he could hear, the only thing that he could really pay attention to, was the sound of swift footsteps trailing his every movement, as he popped in through the factory room and began dashing through the halls, dodging the boxes on the floor and all of the cabinets, then he hit the wall and he found himself at a dead end.
Out of every possible way that this could’ve ended, this certainly was one of the most exhilarating ways to go out. He slowly turned around and found Delirious standing almost two meters away from him, his shadow reaching out on the floor like some creepy f*cking horror movie, and he was just standing there, menacingly.
Worst of all, he was giggling too. His breath was coming in and out, like pants, but there was a quiet wheeze that came out with every exhale that turned high pitched before it transformed into laughter, then he quieted down and the process repeated again with every iteration getting louder and louder, then it stopped.
Quietly, he pressed himself against the wall as Delirious began to move towards him, slowly coming closer and closer like he was a predator stalking his prey. “No… No, Delirious, stay back,” Vanoss warned. “No, no!”
He genuinely thought that, for a moment, Delirious would tag him, but when he was an inch away from Vanoss, Delirious giggled again, but it wasn’t like last time. It was a genuine chuckle that sounded more like him, not the wild manic personality, and he moved aside as if to let Vanoss through. Evan blinked, then he scurried past him, taking the chance without a single question.
For what felt like forever, he kept on running until he found the door that he came from and rushed through, feeling the relief of freedom—
Just to be greeted with Nogla’s hideous f*cking player model trapped inside that employee mold and to watch his sprint meter turn blood red.
So much f*cking effort, so much f*cking suspense, and for what, this ending? Even worse, to add salt to his wounds, he would’ve just needed to survive a minute more and he would’ve been fine.
“Are you kidding me?” Vanoss shouted as he backed away from Nogla, walking to the side, then watched as Delirious emerged from the Emergency exit. “Why are you standing there?”
“I think the more important question is how the hell did you get away? Didn’t hear any cursing from either of you,” Nogla grumbled. “Y’know, I have a theory, a suspicion that you, Delirious, let f*cking Evan get away from you, but on purpose.”
“You have no proof that I did such a thing!” Delirious exclaimed. “I wouldn’t!”
“Delirious totally did chase me,” Vanoss confirmed. “But I juked the sh*t out of him and I f*cking broke his ankles, man,” he lied smoothly.
Nogla stared at the both of them, turning between the two, before he sighed and he marched away, down the ravine. “Yeah, I’m still suspicious but I’m not gonna argue it with you two f*cks.”
Vanoss couldn’t help but snort as Nogla left them, which turned into laughter, and better yet, he heard a few coming from Delirious himself. “So I guess that attempt was f*cking useless,” he sighed. “But don’t worry, Delirious. Your mercy will not be forgotten,” he voiced dramatically.
“Who are the last ones left?” he heard Fourzer0seven say, and looking up, Evan could see him standing at the edge of the cliff, looking off into the forest. “I’ve scanned the entirety of the facility but I haven’t been able to find anyone but the game’s not over yet!”.
“f*cking Smii7y and Marcel!” Panda hollered back.
“Goddamn— I f*cking knew that I shouldn’t have let Marcel go, and now he’s loose,” Wildcat scowled. “And I have to put him down. I’m responsible for him.”
“Thinking about it, you’re absolutely f*cking right, Tyler,” Basically responded. “You are the responsible person for this but maybe the responsible thing to do in this one situation is to walk away.”
“Nah, nah, I gotta take you out behind the shed now,” Wildcat continued and not a second later, there was a shotgun sound effect, causing everyone to snort and burst out laughing. “That was me, ladies an— I guess, only gentlemen,” Terroriser exclaimed. “I’m the comedic genius. You can applaud me now.”
“Boo, get off the f*cking stage!” Smii7y yelled.
“Hey, shut the f*ck up man, or better yet, tell us where the f*ck you or Marcel are!” Terroriser snapped back. Smii7y made a brief humming noise, a sound of consideration, before he spoke tentatively, “I mean, I think I can tell you guys that we’re hiding together.”
“You think?” Terroriser spat.
“Well,” Smii7y hissed, “I dunno if Marcel is cool with that information being out or not”
“I am, I am,” Marcel confirmed quickly.
“Cool, because I did already blurt it out before I asked,” Smii7y murmured, followed by a nervous chuckle. “So… it would’ve been awkward if you said no, buddy.”
“Erm, wait, I think I know where they’re hiding,” Wildcat scowled. “Are there any f*cking dumbasses currently at or near the ship?”
“Uh, I’m by the dropship, not too far from the ship itself,” Nogla answered, “but I’m not at the ship.”
“Me and Evan— Vanoss— are at the bottom of the giant ravine, below the bridges,” Delirious reported.
“So essentially, Nogla, Evan, Delirious and I are the only ones outside of the facility, Wildcat,” Fourzer0seven stated, “and I’m right outside the entrance.”
“Okay, okay, because someone is shutting the f*cking ship doors open and closed and I think I know exactly who it is,” Wildcat grunted. “Alright, losers, come up with your hands up— Oh my f*cking god. I thought Evan was a dick but you two are royal pieces of sh*ts now.”
“Tyler, where are they?” Terroriser demanded. “I’m coming out of the building and now I’m heading over there, though I bet that it’s going to be something stupid— I was f*cking right,” he hissed. “Marcel, Smii7y, what in the mighty holy f*cking hell is this?”
“A good strategy,” Basically replied slyly. “It was Smii7y’s idea first, I must say.”
“Dude, aww shucks,” Smii7y cooed. “Appreciate it, fam.”
Vanoss looked up and he could see various seekers, like Terroriser, emerge from the entrance of the facility and gather in the forest. Sensing that it was the best place for content, Vanoss trudged up the slope of the ravine so he could reach the grass and once he checked that Delirious was by him, he ran for the ship.
Funnily enough, it didn’t take long to find it, as all he needed to look for through the thick forest was all of the employees gathered up in one massive crowd around the balcony while heckling like a pack of hyenas. Vanoss barely managed to squeeze past and take a look at what was happening inside.
Currently, Smii7y and Basically were standing rather close to the ship entrance, which would have been fine except for the fact that the two f*ckers had somehow managed to push every single cabinet, every single shelf, and every other piece of furniture inside and had crammed it against the door so that it blocked the entryway and nobody could get in.
“I got an idea. How do you all feel about an ad segment right about now?” Smii7y suggested, laughing towards the end of his sentence. “Since, y’know, we have forty seconds left of waiting for this round to end…”
“Use Code Moo,” Basically chimed in. “And Glitch products, yeah!”
“Thanks, Marcel,” Wildcat muttered. “But y’know what would make me even happier?”
“What?”
“Removing all of this f*cking debris out of the goddamn way!” Wildcat said, raising his voice sharply.
“Sorry! The— eep, connecting is— is— buggy, try, try again,” Basically responded in a robotic tone, pretending that he was glitching out. “Couldn’t exactly hear you, Tyler.”
“f*ck you, you son of a bitch!” Wildcat snapped. He charged himself at the cabinets, sprinting full force at them, but they barely budged, only tilting one or two inches, and the moment that Wildcat stopped pushing, they just fell right back to where they were before. “sh*t! Wait until I get my f*cking hands inside of that goddamn ship because oh, the moment I see you again, Marcel, it’s f*cking over—”
Basically chuckled nervously and backed up until his model was closer to the wall of the ship, but not exactly touching. Then, from the corner of his vision, Evan saw Delirious depart from his side and as he turned to find the other traveling to the other side of the ship, he knew at once what he was up to.
Evan glanced back at where Marcel was, then he opened up the GMod chat bar.
Vanoss. (to H2O Delirious): im gonna assume u see what i saw?
H2O Delirious (to Vanoss.): yep
H2O Delirious (to Vanoss.): can you keep them distracted
Vanoss. (to H2O Delirious): already on it :]
“You, milk bag!” Vanoss heckled.
“That’s a very offensive term, actually,” Smii7y chirped back. “Don’t you know that the accurate term for my kind is ‘milk carton’?”
“Don’t care.” Vanoss shook his head. “D’you have any idea how many, uh, f*ckin’ germs are in that ship?”
“No,” Smii7y snorted. “No, and I, uh, probably don’t want to know, actually. Don’t tell me please.”
“Boo, f*cking, hoo. Too f*cking bad because I’m going to tell you. Well, there’s a lot—” Vanoss was going to carry on before he was rudely cut off by Delirious’ sudden shout of, “Because we f*cked in there!”
Evan choked and he bursted out into laughter, his face stupidly red. “Wha—”
He couldn’t even hear if Delirious had any follow up comment because everyone else had begun to holler and laugh loudly, culminating in a deafening sound where he couldn’t hear anything for a second except for the sound of his friends wheezing and hysterical giggles. Then, through the tears forming in his eyes, he could see Basically’s dumbass back up until finally, his body slid against the wall. Yes.
“Where the f*ck did that come from? Where was that going?” Smii7y asked desperately, but honestly Evan could not give him a proper response. Instead, he answered quietly, “I thought we agreed to keep that between us,” intentionally playing along with the bit.
Delirious snorted. “Well, y’know. It’s true.”
“Uh, the— the important part is that— it’s unclean, essentially. That place is very unclean and there’s a chance that your milk will curdle faster,” Vanoss explained. “So you should come out of that hiding spot, real fast!”
“Nice try, but we ain’t gonna do that,” Smii7y taunted, then behind him, in comedic timing, he could see Basically stand in place, then gasp sharply as his character model was changed forcibly to the seeker’s model. Slowly, Basically looked down, then behind him to where Delirious’ arms were peeking through the wall.
Then Evan heard the other seekers either suddenly grow deadly quiet, or stifle their surprised yells.
==== 1 hider is left! ====
“Oh… you motherfu—” Basically cut himself off before he completed that swear.
“Huh— Marcel?” Smii7y said, turning around to see Basically transformed as a seeker. “Oh no, what?! How? No!”
Delirious giggled loudly and Vanoss could see him return to the front of the ship where he pressed himself close to his side, and god, he could not have been any happier to have him there.
“I got his ass through the wall,” Delirious proudly announced, sounding smug and quite frankly, Evan didn’t blame him at all.
“Goddamnit!” Smii7y shouted. “Come on, Marcel, please. We’ve been friends for a very long time.”
“Sorry, man, but I wanna win,” Basically said apologetically, then he stepped forward and tagged Smii7y. At once, Smii7y’s body transformed and he morphed into an employee.
==== The seekers win! ====
“Yes! Delirious, that was awesome!” Vanoss cheered, turning to look at Delirious, and all he could hear was Delirious laughing back, too lost in the process of heartfelt chuckles and soft wheezes to get any word out.
Before they could say anything else, however, the round came to a quick end and the next one began just as swiftly, placing them in a random assortment of teams once more.
With every game that flew by, none of them realized just how much time had passed until Scotty muttered. “sh*t, I can hear Chrissy calling me for dinner. I think this might be my last game.”
True to his words, Scotty left the voice call. It was then followed by more and more people eventually departing, a steady and natural end of the session as several rounds had occurred already with more than enough footage to work with. And that would’ve been it, just like every other time they’d stopped playing, but Nogla had something else in store.
Right after Evan had said his last words before he exited the call, a few sentimental wishes of a good night, Delirious left with him so quickly that it almost seemed like they were connected to the same router and a blackout had occurred.
Unfortunately, Nogla knew that wasn’t true — but it was a funny thought, though it wasn’t nearly as humorous as the revelation that he’d just had. He snickered to himself while he reviewed his footage, pulling back the pin and listening to the audio closely once more and he knew exactly what kind of notes he wanted to send to his editors about this.
“Hey, Nogla, whatcha, uh, whatcha laughing about?” Marcel asked.
Nogla chuckled, then clicked back to Discord, staring at the four of them who were left. Him, Marcel, Brian and Anthony. “Ah, nothin’ too major. I’m currently looking back at the footage we recorded today and I’m just noticing some sh*t, now.”
“Like…?” Brian provided. “Don’t tell me that my microphone was f*cked again and none of you f*cking assholes bothered to tell me like last time.”
“Don’t worry about it, Brian. Your microphone was fine, trust me,” Nogla reassured him. “It’s just Evan and Delirious.”
“Evan and— not this again,” Brian sighed, then snorted. “I swear, every single time we finish a session, you and Anthony always whip out like a checkbook and start cross-examining evidence so that you can prove that Evan’s got the hots for Jon.”
“Guys, guys,” Nogla called out. “Listen, I crunched out the numbers, and I kid you not, Delirious and Vanoss were hiding together, like, for sixty-nine percent of the whole time we played.”
“I don’t— I don’t get it,” Marcel admitted. “Like, is it funny because it’s sixty-nine and haha, funny number, or is it funny because it’s Delirious and Vanoss?”
“Both,” Nogla said. “Like, it’s really gotten absurd now. Even when Evan was the f*cking seeker, he kept on singling out Delirious and trying to find him first before anyone else.”
“Also, they slipped away earlier together when we were waiting for the mod to get fixed,” Anthony pointed out. “But I dunno if anyone noticed.”
“Oh, I think everyone noticed,” Brian muttered.
A beat of silence went by before Nogla suddenly giggled and spoke up. “Guys, check your, uh, DMs.”
Marcel groaned. “This better not be another subpar meme— what the f*ck is this?”
“I think you know.”
Discord
will they, won’t they
nogla created the group chat
nogla added BASICALLYIDOWRK
nogla added Terroriser
nogla added BigJigglyPanda
nogla added I AM WILDCAT
nogla added Moosnuckel
nogla added Lui Calibre
nogla
okay so
I AM WILDCAT
what is this
why are we here
why am i here
what does this title f*cking mean
Lui Calibre
no way
no f*cking way
you’re actually doing it
I AM WILDCAT
doing what??
nogla
shut the f*ck up let me explain
you all probably have known this somewhere in the last
like
thirteen years we’ve been friends
evan and delirious have been dancing around each other
BASICALLYIDOWRK
oh no
im not getting myself involved in this
Lui Calibre
oh my god its happening
nogla
i mean you dont HAVE to get involved
for all you know
im just creating this group chat to exclude these two f*cks
Terroriser
focks
nogla
because they’re so caught up with each other
f*ck you brian
BASICALLYIDOWRK
actually
you might have a point
Moosnuckel
hi
i have a few questions
1. what is this. 2. why am i here 3. what the fudge
nogla
heyyy brock
forgot you started censoring yourself
you can scroll up
Moosnuckel
i know that i can
but
why
nogla
because when sh*t happens for too long and possibly ruins recording sessions
this is one of the things you have to do sometimes
Moosnuckel
and?? what is there to be done
nogla
we need to get them together
BASICALLYIDOWRK
no we do NOT
I AM WILDCAT
speak for yourself i think this sh*t is hilarious
nogla
some could say that this sh*t is
Terroriser
no
david
no
don’t you f*cking dare
nogla
delirious
Terroriser
im coming over to curbstomp you
i know your address you c*nt
nogla
damn okay
regardless
BigJigglyPanda
what
Moosnuckel
hi anthony
BASICALLYIDOWRK
welcome to hell
BigJigglyPanda
yeah im aware of that
nogla
can everybody shut the f*ck up? i need to get my point across
we need to execute a plan
an operation
so to speak
I AM WILDCAT
great
what are we gonna do
kidnap jon and ship him to evan?
nogla
NO
i meant like smaller stuff like set them up together
Lui Calibre
i have bad news for you, buddy
they’re already doing that and more
like evan already asked del if he could kiss him
nogla
see?
wait
WHAT
HE WHAT
BigJigglyPanda
WHAT
I AM WILDCAT
evan did f*cking WHAT NOW?
Moosnuckel
ooo craps going down
Lui Calibre
YOU DIDNT KNOW?
YOU GUYS DIDNT KN
KNOW?
nogla
what the f*ck
no one has not mentoned it before
esp not evan
Lui Calibre
im not surprised
it seemed like a last minute thing that he just blurted out
nogla
and??
was this in like dms or private vc
Lui Calibre
no. you guys. it was in a public recording
nogla
which one?? i havent seen a single video of his where he said that
Terroriser
of course you’d f*cking know
oh mr vanoss you taste so good
nogla
shut up
I AM WILDCAT
where… does that quote even come from?????
ive been hearing it everywhere
Terroriser
tldr. uno session where nogla couldn’t stop f*cking SIMPING for evan
nogla
oh my f*cking god
as if you don’t do that either
but yea back to my original question
Lui Calibre
it wasn’t on his main channel
uh
it was on ohms
BASICALLYIDOWRK
oh
ohhhh
nogla
i see
so
anyways quickly moving past that
i propose operation, “get these f*cks together”
Terroriser
that’s a sh*t name
nogla
no that's a great name
f*ck you
BigJigglyPanda
what about
operation “lovebirds”
Lui Calibre
huh
i actually like the sound of that
nogla
f*cking fine
but here’s what we’re going to do, boys
Step one: we are going to…
Gmod Hide and Seek Funny Moments - Lethal Company Lootbugs Edition!
@djkdsjstralight29
Of course vanoss will find some way to add explosives to the game :laugh:
@wedidntstartthefire
nahhhh im glad yall fixed that sh*t XD the landmine seemed broke as hell m8s
@weisscoast98
anyone surprised that Delirious has heard of the Rocky Horror Picture Show?
| @mcathy22933
Honestly no LMAO it seems right up his alley
@adamgaminggo
the landmine feature seems so broken omfg
@donutbobclark210
somehow the group will still find some way to milk the sh*t out of GMod but no complaints here man
@aaarrrrrmateyy1933
we love us several men who can keep their legs spread wide ;)
| @livelaughlovesleep
Oh my god. some of yall are too brave with commenting
Delirious
you f*cker
Vanoss
hahahahahha
listen
it was really funny watching you fall
remind me later to show u the footage
Delirious
it must be really good if it means sacrificing our friendship for it smh
Vanoss
cmon
wait okay
so I was thinking right
Delirious
oooo dangerous XD
Vanoss
shut
zip it
Delirious
sorry sorry
what’s on your mind?
Vanoss
u remember that one movie
the gay horror movie u mentioned earlier
Delirious
right
what about it?
Vanoss
[do you want to watch it with me?| ]
[do you want| ]
can we watch it together?
Delirious is typing…
Delirious
wait are you fr??
Vanoss
uh
possibly
Delirious
oh my god
sh*t yeah totally
are we speaking rn or another time
Vanoss
ngl i was thinking rn bc i don’t have anything to do for the next handful of hours
but if u have something thats keeping u
Delirious
no no
Delirious is typing…
Delirious
don’t mind it at all
just gimme a sec to get some stuff together and we can get started
Vanoss
cool cool
what is it called again?
Delirious
did you just ask me to see a movie with me that you don’t even remember the name of?
Vanoss
listen man
[all i was thinking about was spending the time with u. didnt exactly pay that much attention tbh| ]
i have a shoddy memory
u know this
Delirious
alr
its called the rocky horror picture show
Vanoss
the hell of a name is that?
Delirious
it’s iconic is what it is!
Vanoss
apparently not iconic enough for me to know about it
what is it about?
Delirious
so it’s about a couple that’s like driving this road and their car breaks down next to this mad scientist’s place
Vanoss
and?
Delirious
well if I tell you then I’m going to spoil the rest of the movie XD
Just trust me, its rly good
Vanoss
alright then
i trust u
Delirious
and hey
even if you dont enjoy it
we can always make it more fun :))
Vanoss
how so?
Delirious
there’s always the drinking game related to it XD
Vanoss
somehow i’m not surprised that its a thing
okay
I’ll play
lay it on me
Delirious
alright
we’re going to abide by these drinking rules
take a shot every time:
- someone is singing
- there’s a flashback
- the names “rocky” and “janet” are said
- someone says “damn it”
sounds good?
Vanoss
yeah
sounds fun honestly
just gimme a sec to fetch my drink
Delirious
you don’t have yours immediately prepped?
Vanoss
lmao no
do u?
Delirious
nah, me neither
im drinking some good ass cider
got the nice angry orchard cider
Vanoss
sweet
got straight bourbon whiskey man
from woodford reserve
Delirious
sh*t nice
see thats what all that extra money gets you
Vanoss
yeah
and super sweet friends
Delirious
aw
now don’t you turn this super sweet on me
are you ready to start?
Vanoss
born ready
Delirious is calling
Evan watched as the call popped up on his screen, letting it ring once, twice, before pressing the button to join.
“There you are!” Delirious cheered as soon as Evan popped into the call, “I’ve been waiting for you!”
“For like, five seconds?” He laughed. A warm feeling settled in his chest, as if he’d taken a shot of whiskey already.
“Yeah! You took forever!” He could hear the grin in Delirious’s voice. “I thought I’d die waiting out here!”
He shook his head, a matching smile betraying his own amusem*nt, “You’re ridiculous, man. Anyway, are you ready to start the movie?”
Delirious gave his affirmative, and started up the stream. The pirating website hosting the movie popped into view, as well as Delirious’ cursor— which shot up to the top to quickly close a tab.
What was that about?
But before he could ask any questions, his attention got drawn away to the upbeat sounds of the opening filtered through his earbuds. Alright then. Evan settled a little more comfortably on his chair, curling up in a way where one of the arm rests was digging into his back and at least one of his legs would fall asleep by the fifteen-minute mark, but it felt snug right now, so whatever.
He was a creature of small comforts, sue him.
The opening faded into the first scene as he reached for the shot glass to give his idle hands something to fiddle with. It wasn’t until Evan looked back at the screen that he realized how old this movie looked, with grain running across the screen and the low resolution.
“Hey,” Evan interrupted. Delirious was quick to hit the pause button, answering with a questioning hum. “How old is this movie, actually?” he asked.
“Uhh, let me look it up.” Delirious replied, opening up a new tab to search for it. “It says here that it was released in 1975. Why?”
“The visuals just look kind of like VHS-tape quality, it made me curious.” He replied, turning the empty shot glass in his fingers.
“Is that bad?”
“No! Not at all,” Evan quickly jumped to clarify, “Just nostalgic.”
A small inquisitive sound came from the other side. “You watched VHS tapes when you were young?”
“Wh— Yeah?” He protested, “Hey, I’m not that young.”
Delirious let out a small chuckle before relenting. “Weren’t they already phased out by then though?”
He hummed in thought, his memory a little vague. “Sort of? My family had a mix of DVDs and some tapes. Mostly old movies that I wasn’t allowed to watch, but I remember they had one tape for home videos.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, they had one of those old chunky video recorders for it and all. I got my hands on it once as a kid and accidentally taped over some old footage.” Evan chuckled as he remembered the younger version of him replaying the tape.
(It had been tricky balancing the heavy video camera with his skinny arms, but he’d managed to position it onto a cabinet in the stuffy storage room so he could peer into the little viewfinder without risking it toppling to the ground.
He’d so been thrilled at first, summer jitters still running through his veins as he expected to see the shots he’d recorded of his childhood antics, but that excitement faded quickly as he’d been greeted with odd ghostly images of overlapping video and garbled audio.
Yet the spookiness of the scenes hadn’t scared him as much as the thought of anyone finding out his mistake. He wasn’t sure how they’d react and he didn’t want to find out, so he’d quickly put the video camera back where he found it and hurried out of the room.
To this day, he still didn’t know if his parents ever discovered it. They’d never asked about it in any case, which was a win in his books.)
Delirious laughed, “Man, I did that all time! Tried to see once how many times I could layer footage over the same part. It did not turn out well, I can tell you that much.” He snickered, and Evan could imagine him shaking his head, damn near affectionately. “Do you still have that tape? I kinda wanna see it now,” Evan said while grinning.
“Wha— Before the movie?” Delirious objected, putting that dramatic inflection in his voice that always made Evan laugh. “Besides, I’m pretty sure it got trashed at some point. There wasn’t anything good on it anyway.”
“Shame.”
“I can check to make sure, but only after the movie!” Delirious caved, surprisingly quickly. Evan cheered with a laugh, feeling giddy at the idea of potentially getting to see a glimpse of Delirious’s life — of his childhood.
After a second, Delirious turned the question back on him. “Do you still have your tape?”
He shook his head. “No, pretty sure it got lost somewhere in my childhood home.”
“Ah.”
There was silence for a moment.
And then Delirious interrupted it with a quiet question, but it felt loud, “Would you ever want to go back there?”
“I—” Evan paused, picturing it in his mind.
A white picket fence. The house painted the same to match, unfailingly pristine. A spacious garage with a family car that only his mother used. His empty, repurposed childhood bedroom. The park three blocks away that he hadn’t been allowed to go to, even as a teenager.
On the other side of the call, on the other side of the country, Jonathan remained quiet, patient.
Those fake, fake smiles on every family picture that decorated the entry-hallway and the superficial yet probing questions that’d follow him, even after he left.
(The dusty storage room he’d sneak into on occasion, just to steal a moment for himself. His old collection of games, still in a box somewhere. A scuff mark on the carpet from a rowdy visit from friends when his parents were away. Laughter in the garden when he was little and chasing bugs to see where they’d fly off to.)
“No, not particularly.”
“Fair,” Delirious responded, switching back to the tab with the movie. “Let me know when you’re ready to continue watching?”
“I’m ready,” Evan said, shaking off the memories and readjusting his sitting position so he could stretch out his leg — which was already starting to go slightly numb.
Delirious hesitated for a second, as if he wanted to say something more, and then he pressed play.
“A newly-engaged couple have a breakdown in an isolated area and must seek shelter at the bizarre residence of Dr. Frank-n-Furter. “ Evan read out quietly. “What kind of a name is that? Sounds like, uh, that one sausage-thingy—”
“Frankfurters?” Delirious provided.
“Yes, that!”
“I see what you mean,” Delirious giggled.
Evan stares at the cover provided for the movie, of the person— was it a man? A man dressed in very flamboyant attire, hanging over a pair of open lips, like the intro of some weird ass fetish skit. “Are you sure you’re not just showing me straight up p*rn?” he inquired.
“Swear on it!” Delirious claimed. “It’s not p*rn, it’s treasure!”
“‘It’s not p*rn, it’s treasure’, he says,” Evan huffed. “The poster literally reads, ‘Give Yourself Over to Absolute Pleasure’. If that isn’t a f*cking euphemism for a p*rno, then I don’t know what the hell is.”
“Maybe it’s talking about the movie watching experience?” Delirious said in the most questioning tone ever.
“Are you asking me or are you telling me?” Evan laughed. “Whatever, let’s just— let’s just start this sh*t.”
Evan blinked as the lips on-screen were coming closer and closer to him. “What…”
Then the singing began and Evan pinched himself to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming. He chuckled quietly under his breath, watching as the scene carried on. “I can see why you’re into this sh*t,” Evan said. “It’s made out of everything that’s random about you, like are you sure those aren’t your lips?”
“Unless I time-traveled back to the 1950’s, no,” Jonathan snorted. “And why are you thinking about my lips, huh?”
“Because that’s the one thing that’s on the screen right now! Of course, I’m gonna be thinking about them,” Evan protested.
“Yeah, bet you’d love my lips in red lipstick,” Jonathan teased.
“So basically your usual clown makeup,” Evan said.
“Well, you got me there.”
Evan chuckled, then the title came in once more and Evan blinked at the screen. “Tim Curry is in this movie?”
“Yeah,” Jonathan smiled. “Then again, Tim Curry was in a bunch of sh*t back then.”
“Mmhm,” Evan nodded, then paused. “Who the f*ck is Meatball?” He asked, laughing. “And the lips are back again.”
“Yeah, pucker up, mother f*cker!” Jonathan exclaimed.
“Dude… Delirious, what is this f*cking music?” Evan wondered. “It’s like, I can’t tell if it’s just a random track they just slapped on the background or the actual exposition for the plot, which we still haven’t gotten any shots of, besides this mouth that I don’t think is related to the movie.”
“I dunno, but it’s in the poster, so maybe it could be,” Jonathan said.
“Wait, shouldn’t you know?” Evan questioned. “You said that you watched the movie!”
“A while ago! I watched the movie, like, I think, fifteen— fourteen? More than a decade ago, basically.”
“So this might as well be a new watch for you,” Evan stated.
“Yeah.”
“...At least I’m not going through this the first time alone,” Evan settled on that.
The scene finally moved from the lips to a shot of a church.
“Great, so Nogla’s gonna like this one,” Evan snorted. “It’s— Oh, it’s a wedding. That’s cute. It—” he suddenly broke off into loud laughter, covering his mouth in vain as he tried to stop his mad giggling spree. “Wait, oh my god. Okay, so I know that for some reason, they’re, uh, throwing rice at the couple, right? But because the camera quality isn’t that great, it looks like they’re getting f*cking pelted—”
“—by sand?”
“—by sand, yes!” Evan shouted. “Imagine you’re getting f*cking married, like it’s the happiest day of your life, and you’re like ‘Oh my god! I love you! Let’s step outside’ and you do and the first thing that people do when they see you is throw f*cking sand in your eyes and beat you up.”
Jonathan laughed loudly in response. He then rewound the footage by a few seconds to where the newly wed couples were walking out of the church, but now with the new context that Evan added in mind, it was impossible not to see what he had been talking about.
It didn’t get any better as the camera zoomed in on their faces, revealing their smiles that looked faintly forced and pained as the rice landed on them. Now that Evan was thinking about it, it probably was not fun to do several takes where people threw handfuls of small pellets at them. No wonder he didn’t become an actor.
As everyone in the movie lined up for a family photo, Evan couldn’t help but snort at the relatives in the back with their dead-like expressions, then his features softened as he gazed upon the loving couple. How sweet, he thought, to be with someone like that for the rest of one’s life.
Not that he would have any idea what that’s like.
“The photographer kind of looks like Nogla,” Jonathan commented, pulling him gently out of his thoughts. Evan blinked and found that Jonathan had been paused over a frame of the photographers looking up from the camera.
“Which one, the right one?” Evan refined. Jonathan made an affirmative noise. “Yeah, he’s got thick eyebrows like him, and the way he sounds? It’s like if Nogla inhaled a bunch of helium balloons,” he mocked.
“I can see where you’re coming from,” Evan agreed. “Except, he’s so tiny and Nogla’s— He’s kinda like a beanstalk, y’know? Like I met him and he f*cking towered over me.”
“Well, how tall are you?”
Evan blinked. “Well, uh, five foot eleven, last time I checked—” then he heard Jonathan snort faintly on the other end, and he felt obliged to add, “—which is taller than the average male, before you try and say anything.”
“No, no, I know that,” Jonathan sighed. “It’s that,” then he fell into a fit of laughter again, before he calmed down. “Vanoss, do you remember how tall I am? I mean, you’ve mentioned it before.”
He furrowed his eyebrows. When he had talked about Jonathan’ hei— oh. The wrestling one.
“Seriously, man? That video was, like, from so long ago,” Evan laughed. “I probably— I did forget what you told me.”
“Take a guess, then,” Jonathan responded. Evan thought carefully, trying to think of all of the numbers that he associated with Jonathan, but the more he thought, the more he was coming to a blank.
“Dunno, man, five foot four?” he snorted.
“f*ck you,” Jonathan laughed. “I’m f*cking six foot one, asshole.”
“You’re—” Evan thought about himself next to Jonathan, using his GTA V character as a stand-in for a brief moment. “Holy sh*t, you’d be taller than me, then.”
“Hell yeah, I would be!”
“But not taller than Nogla,” Evan reminded. “But then again, nearly everyone is shorter than Nogla.”
“Yeah, he’s like one of those, ah, wooth mammolies,” Jonathan said.
“Mmhm— wait, what?” Evan paused, trying to untangle the mess of words Deliirous just spat back at him. “Wooth— Wooth what now? Woof? Are you barking at me?”
“What?” Jonathan cried. “No! I’m not f*cking barking at you. I’m saying those giant friggin’— the creatures with the giangan— gigantic tusks! And the thick-ass fur!”
It took a moment for Evan to realize what Jonathan had been trying to allude to and when he finally made that connection, he barreled over laughing. “Oh my god— are you, oh my— f*cking— are you talking about wooly mammoths?!” he laughed, demanded, questioned, all of these combined into one single verb.
“Maybe! Is that the creature thingy?”
“Yes!”
“Oh,” Jonathan said.
“Wooth mammolies,” Evan repeated, shaking his head in exasperation.
God, he loved h—
Evan froze.
Where had that thought come from?
But before he could dwell on it any further, Jonathan had already started the movie again and his attention was pulled towards it.
On screen, the couple was driving away from the church in their new vehicle that had been hideously marked with what honestly looked like Silly String. Evan narrowed his eyes. “So wait, are we not going to touch back on that— those weird guys from the back?”
“Apparently not,” Jonathan mused.
From the church, a new couple emerged, a short lady with a white hat and a man in a black suit. After a short conversation, the man greeted his lover with a bored, “Yes, Janet,” then as soon as the name left his lips, without any warning, Jonathan paused the movie.
“Wait, wait! It’s time to drink!” Jonathan cheered.
Evan sputtered. “Wait, what? Just from that? Him saying her name?”
“Yep,” Jonathan confirmed. “You have to drink, otherwise, do you want to be a wuss?”
“No f*ckin’ way,” Evan grumbled as he scooted up in his seat and began pouring his first drink, about seven minutes in.
Fun.
He watched as the orange liquid poured out like molten gold into his shot glass.
“Bottom’s up,” Jonathan remarked. Evan downed the drink in one go, scrunching his face as it slid down his throat. Some of that smokey flavor, of cinnamon and vanilla stayed in his mouth, floating on his tongue like a drag of a cigarette, before he swallowed again and all that remained was that faintly bitter aftertaste.
While he was reminiscing over the taste of it, he could hear Jonathan stifle a gag on the other end. “Oh, it’s kicking, but not too badly,” Jonathan giggled.
“Shame, I guess this drinking game will have to continue then,” Evan sighed. He placed his glass down, although his fingertips still lingered around the rim, spread out like the legs of a spider. Jonathan hummed and he pressed play.
Evan watched the scene carry on with a hint of curiosity. “Is ‘yes’ all she’s going to say?” Evan murmured. “Oh my god. Maybe we should’ve done a drinking game based on that.”
“No, no, we would’ve died of alcohol poisoning,” Jonathan assured. “This was the safer play, trust me,” and Evan did, though a part of him was still trying to figure out what the lips at the beginning had to do with it all and another was wondering when the hell the man— the person on the cover would show up.
“I dunno, honestly,” Jonathan muttered. Evan blinked, as he realized that his lips had been moving and that he had been whispering everything, but his microphone must’ve been close enough for Jonathan to catch onto what he was saying. sh*t.
“Pfft,” he snorted instead. “Yeah, but I dunno how he’ll—” Evan raised an eyebrow in question. “It? He?”
“Last I checked, it’s a guy,” Jonathan clarified, curiously enough.
“Okay, then,” Evan spoke. “I’m thinking about, like, so, the guy. He’s bound to appear, but I’m wondering if he’s going to just show up in one of those semi-trucks because otherwise, I cannot imagine him in this scenery by himself. He’s just so out of pocket.”
“Kinda like Edward Scissorhands?” Jonathan suggested.
“Yeah, exactly like Edward Scissorhands.” He grinned. “They kind of have a similar appearance, if you think about it,” Evan brought up. “Black, messy hair, and that pale skin, or makeup, depending on how you look at it.”
“Except one is wearing a buttload of makeup. It’s as if Scissorhands did drag,” Jonathan said.
Stupidly enough, that reference was enough to make Evan crack a wide grin as he fell into a fit of laughter, throwing his head back and shaking his head affectionately. He was certain that the alcohol hadn’t fully sunk into his system yet and even if it did, it shouldn’t be enough to laugh this easily, and still, here he was, laughing his ass off like a dumbass.
“He’d have that one hot chick to help him, though,” Evan mentioned, once he recovered from his giggles. “Because otherwise, he’s gonna cut himself.”
“Right, right,” Jonathan muttered.
A few seconds later, the man on screen, Brad as Evan identified him, turned around and mentioned his lover’s name again, ‘Janet’, which meant that it was another round of drinking for the two of them.
Evan scrunched up his face as the second drink slid down the hatch. Barely any time passed between the two scenes, which meant that by this rate, they would get f*cked up. Good luck trying to get up at a decent time in the morning. Wow.
While Janet looked up at Brad with wide adoring eyes and Brad was rattling on about the traits he adored in Janet, Evan rolled his own eyes. He groaned, “Does this get any sappier—” then, instantly the two went into song, with music abruptly kicking in so loud and fast that Evan jumped in his seat as he lowered the volume in his headphones.
Jonathan did not help whatsoever as he could hear him stand up in his squeaky old office chair and yap into his sh*tty f*cking microphone, “And that’s a third one! I hope you like drinking, Vanoss, because we’re coming in strong!”
“What the f*ck?!” Evan shouted.
“One of the drinking rules was for bursting into song!”
“I know but we just had two drinks!” Evan stressed, but he was already making himself a third glass anyways. If he got liver damage from this, he would make sure that Jonathan would be the one paying for his goddamn hospital bill, he thought to himself.
Then to top it off, the camera cut abruptly to the weird figures from the back that Evan had pointed out earlier, and in the most monotone voice ever, they both read out Janet’s name, which had Evan cursing as he poured himself yet another f*cking drink, then before he was even done with that glass, her name was repeated again, but instead of taking another shot, he stopped. “Maybe we should change the rules, actually.”
“Yeah, we should probably skip this song,” Jonathan groaned, sounding just as utterly nauseous as Evan felt. “I’m calling it.”
“Seconded.
As Evan laid back and watched as the rest of the song played and the alcohol began to numb his mind, he realized what a f*cking bullet he had dodged by doing this. “Why does he sound like he’s on the brink of a stroke with every word he says?” he teased.
“Virgin,” was the only word that Jonathan responded with.
Brad repeated, “Damn it,” again, prompting Evan to lift up his bottle, then paused before he could pour into his glass. “Wait,” he called out. “Jonathan, should we drink for that one too or should we skip the drinking game for the whole song?”
Jonathan hummed, as if deep in debate with himself, then he answered, “I think we should skip songs in general because I’m not interested in alcohol poisoning, and last I recall, a bunch of repetitive sh*t occurs in these, so yeah.”
“Alright,” Evan huffed and placed the bottle down with a quiet, ‘clink’. He’d had a soft smile on his face since the song started, but at some point, far in the background, a group, all dressed in black, carried in a casket, causing Evan to gasp. “What? Wait, is this a f*cking funeral?! What the f*ck?”
He stared in absolute shock and horror as all of the clues that dropped in earlier began to click in his head, from the depressive mood in the back that contrasted sharply with the happy wedding that happened earlier to the black clothings. “Huh— so wait, they’re just singing about their love in the middle of a funeral? That’s so f*cked up,” he wheezed.
“Mmhm, yeah no, this movie can take some very wild twists,” Jonathan elaborated. “I think that’s a part of the appeal to some people, that it just takes you by surprise.”
“No f*cking sh*t,” Evan huffed, turning his glass around once more.
The scene carried forth with the people attending the funeral repeating Janet’s name every now and then, and Evan furrowed his eyebrows. “I still don’t get why the hell they’re just saying her name.”
“Just to f*ck the people who are doing drinking challenges like us over,” Jonathan answered. The following scene opened up to a man, peering down at a folder with the couple’s name on the cover, prompting Evan to sit up as his interest was piqued. “Dude, this guy seems like a f*cking mob boss.”
“Yeah, he’s got the f*cking pipe and everything. Plus that sultry accent,” Jonathan mentioned. “Sounds like he’s going to place a hit on them.”
Evan laughed, then the man opened up Janet’s file, revealing a page that covered a police report of the two and he squinted at the screen. “Is there actual lore here? Oh my god?”
“Apparen— Apparently so!” Jonathan exclaimed. The man flipped to the next page, revealing a portrait of a different man and a label stamped at the top, reading ‘Evertt Von Scott’. Something about the picture ticked Evan off and it wasn’t until he was staring at it for a while that it registered why.
“Now, Delrious, I know you said that the, uh, photo guy— the guy who takes pictures of photos—” Evan snapped his fingers. “Photo— Pho—”
“Photographer,” Jonathan provided. The fact that this time Jonathan was helping him with words as opposed to the other way around was making Evan crack up.
“That’s a stupid word,” Evan decided. “Photographer sounds like a word that a kid made up when they don’t know what to call something. Like a tooth-driller, pipe-layer, or a teach— no, ‘teacher’ is already a word, but ‘photographer’ is just silly.”
“You’re silly,” Jonathan said fondly.
“No, you’re silly,” Evan shot back. “But, but, anyway. You mentioned that earlier, but this Everett Scott guy looks just the vaguest like Nogla’s GTA model, but it could be my eyes failing me.”
“Don’t worry,” Jonathan said. “I see it too.”
“Oh, thank f*ck. I’m not going insane.”
“You’re a long way from it.”
The mob man flips through the book again and begins droning on about the night that the newlyweds departed the town.
“‘It was a dark and stormy night’,” Evan mocked, voicing over the man, then the words that the man was using to describe the scenario began to sink in. “Wait, is this like a true crime thing? Did we just witness a life before a murder happened?”
“Surely not,” Jonathan denied. “I don’t think so, because if you look at the description, then there’s gotta be more there. Suppose we’ll get into it soon enough.”
“Yeah, we just gotta be patient,” Evan sighed. “Delirious, we can be patient, right?”
“f*ck yeah, we can be. I think,” Jonathan pondered. “Like, we’ve waited for a bunch of restaurant lines. That counts, I’m pretty sure, and then there was this other time that we had another one of those movie nights—”
“—I remember, yes. sh*t kept on f*cking buffering, which was rude, because I was showing you the wonders of 3 Ninjas Kick Back that one time,” Evan paused, “then you kept on talking about how you’d be able to kick all of those lil sh*ts’ asses—”
“—Which I’m still confident in!” Jonathan exclaimed. “Listen, listen, Vanoss, they’re just kids. Even if I don’t know karate, I can still kick butt! And wreck their sh*t!”
“But they know karate and you don’t!”
“What’s the diff?”
“A lot. There’s like tons of videos of karate toddlers sweeping grown-ups.”
“Then they’re probably holding back, because they don’t wanna hurt the kiddies!” Jonathan shouted. “And that’s how they get ya! They lower your guards so that they can get at you while they’re at their weakest, but I don’t have that weakness so I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, all of your weaknesses are centered around teddy bears instead,” Evan teased. “All I have to do to beat you in a fight is to have a shield made out of teddy bears, and that’ll be it.”
“f*ck, you’re probably right, until I find a way to remove it from you.”
“Nu-uh, I’ll f*cking duct tape it to my body. You’ll just watch me.”
“Then I’ll take your bod—” Jonathan stopped talking and, instead, coughed into his arm. “We should, ah, we should probably return, er, to the movie.”
“Mmhm,” Evan hummed, leaning back. What had they been talking about anyways? He was starting to lose more and more focus, just generally enjoying the moment.
Then Janet’s name was muttered again and Evan groaned.
“I think we should do different shots for Janet’s name,” Jonathan said. “Like non-aloholic drinks. You got apple juice? Grape? Orange?”
Evan ignored the question. “Why did you even choose Janet for the shots?”
Jonathan coughed. “Because that’s just what the internet told me to do!”
“So you’d just follow anything that the internet tells you to do, huh?” Evan stretched in his seat, still fiddling with the shot glass between his hands.
“No, because I know that the internet is like the Wild West,” then Jonathan drawled in an exaggerated southern accent — though it was difficult to discern, with the way that he was currently slurring left and right — “Ya gotta be careful of who you trust an’ al’ that bull.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone describe it like that,” Evan mused. He neglected to mention how Jonathan did pull his list from the internet. So much for being careful. “No one has ever quite described it like you, at least.”
“What can I say?” Jonathan huffed. “I’m unique. A hundred percent Delirious.”
“Right to that,” Evan smiled warmly and a happy feeling settled in his chest. “But, right, back to the shots. I, uh, agree with you there. If we do have to drink every time her name is said, I think we’re going to get f*cked up too easily so we should plan more.”
He stood up from his seat and dragged his headphones with him as he left his room and turned for the stairs.
“Vanoss?” he heard Jonathan call out his name.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here, don’ worry. I’m bringin’ you with me” he murmured. “Just going to fetch some other drinks than alcoho— f*ck,” Evan cursed as he stumbled slightly down the stairs, but he landed on the bottom floor safely. “I’m good, no need to worry ‘bout me. I’m alllright,” he emphasized to Jonathan. Evan hightailed it for his kitchen, then opened up his fridge, revealing an array of items from his recent grocery run.
“We’ve got f*ckin’ cranberry juice, and a whole jug of, hm, apple juice, yeah, like you mentioned earlier.” Evan squinted and reached out to pick up one of the cans. “This might be expired, though. Not the apple juice, but something else.”
“Don’t use that. Probably should, ah, throw it away then,” Jonathan suggested.
“Nah, we don’t waste sh*t in this house,” Evan claimed, then snorted at Jonathan's immediate protests. “Kidding, kidding. I’m not gonna risk that sh*t, gonna just throw it away.”
“Thank f*ck, and here I was fearing that I would be the braincells between the both of us, but that wouldn’t be exactly a good thing now,” Jonathan giggled.
“Eh, say what you will, but I think we make a good team when we’re together,” Evan admitted, and it was definitely the alcohol that was loosening his tongue because he could feel himself spill more of himself than he’d typically do. “You can say that we’re the two halves of a whole idiot, like we complete each other.”
He reached out and grabbed the jug of apple juice and sauntered back to his room, swinging the large bottle by his side, until he made it to his desk and placed it by his laptop. “Alright, so we’re good to go now.”
“Great, ‘cause I also have my drink,” Jonathan revealed. “Er, peach soda.”
“Nice,” Evan smiled. He lifted the jug and gave it a testing sip before putting it back down. Still fresh, thank god, and not only did it chase away the lasting flavor of the bourbon whiskey he had drank earlier, the coolness of the apple juice had also cleared his head a little bit.
In the back of his mind, he was reminded of the time that he did a similar drinking challenge with Nogla, but the other had the ‘bright’ idea to use milk as a chaser, which had made him gag. He couldn’t ever imagine drinking dairy after alcohol.
On screen, the newlyweds were driving down a dark and rainy road, until one of their tires blew out and the groom cursed softly with a “Damn it,” and as per the drinking rules, Evan poured himself a glass, but only halfway. Was he wussing out a little bit? Maybe, but he also didn’t want to get completely obliterated.
As the couple were arguing over going for help, the groom said to the bride, “There’s no sense in the both of us getting wet,” prompting Jonathan to snort, “Must be a first for her, then.”
Evan felt himself grin. “Yeah. org*sm? Never felt that,” he mocked. “G-spot? Never felt that. Anal? Nope, never.”
“Just look out when she starts getting too friendly with the milkmaid,” Jonathan sighed.
“Milkmaid? You mean the milkman?” Evan asked, raising an eyebrow, although he knew that Jonathan couldn’t see him.
Jonathan just hummed. “Milkman, milkmaid— what’s the diff?”
“The milkman is a guy and the milkmaid is a lady,” Evan clarified.
“I mean, she can still get with the milkmaid!” Jonathan laughed. “What are you, hom*ophobic?”
“No, no!” Evan exclaimed. “I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with her shacking up with a lady, just saying that— technically, a milkman would make more sense because he travels around, while milkmaids stay at farms, don’t they? That’s what they do. They milk cows.”
“Unless there’s just one cow being dragged across the whole neighborhood, sh*ttin’ everywhere,” Jonathan pointed out, causing Evan to wheeze as a cursed image filled his mind of a small milkmaid, dressed in an apron and everything, leading a large cow with her and going door to door, asking if anyone would like some fresh milk.
“Christ,” Evan shook his head in exasperation. “Fine, they both f*ck and have a giant orgy, right in the middle of town. A grand milky orgy—ahahahah,” he cut himself off as he began to laugh loudly. “f*ck, how did we get to this point again?”
“Brad can’t f*ck his wife right,” Jonathan reminded him. “Or at least, that’s the conclusion you reached.”
“And I’m probably right about it!” Evan called out before he began to focus on the movie again. His eyes were glued to the screen, watching as the couple crept out of their car and began their way for the large and forbidding castle. There was a sign written in a cartoony font and Evan couldn’t help but giggle at it, and even more so when the camera wouldn’t stop zooming in on it.
Then he heard the sound of the music picking up and Evan groaned as he poured himself another half-drink when Janet began to sing. Jonathan chuckled, the f*cker. “That’s another one,” he reminded him, as if Evan didn’t already get a sense for these things. When the shots began, he had assumed that they would be slow paced but evidently, he was proven very wrong.
He watched with curious eyes as the couple began singing together, and now that he was further into the movie, he could admit that they were cute. It wasn’t a big surprise. He had seen little parts of their interactions earlier that proved just how smitten they were with each other, with the way that Brad cushioned Janet with his arm when the tire popped earlier and the car shook, and with the way that Janet wanted to go with him, out in the cold, for help.
Now, they were holding each other, walking side by side, singing in the rain blissfully.
It was a nice change from the sort of slapstick married couple schtick that he knew this era of films were known for.
Evan widened his eyes as he watched the lights of the motorcycles from earlier fly down the road and begin to approach the couple, and he shifted in his seat. His hands wandered subconsciously around on his desk until they wrapped themselves around— something soft and squeezable.
Lifting his head to look briefly away, he found his fingers clutching a teddy bear, one from Delirious’ merch specifically, with his iconic mask glued onto its head and blue hoodie draped over. The rattling of the motorcycle engines reeled his attention back onto the screen and he pulled the bear to his chest and held it close.
For a moment, he had the brief fear that the motorcyclists would harass the couple but they simply drove past them, veering right for the castle instead. Before Evan could wonder if the motorcyclists owned the castle — which would be sick actually — his eyes fell on the face in one of the castle’s windows.
“Woah, what the f*ck?” Evan exclaimed. “That’s a freaky f*cking face.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan giggled.
“The resolution on this is kind of sh*t. Everything's so blurry, like I think I could count the pixels on the screen at this point.”
“I mean, realistically,” Jonathan spoke up. “They probably had to zoom in a bunch, ‘cause they couldn’t just, uh, climb up the side of the castle, and technology wasn’t advanced enough to the point where they could animate the entire castle.”
“Okay, that’s— that’s fair,” Evan conceded, leaning back in his chair. He watched as the scene transitioned back to the police file on the two, and the man from earlier, the one that seemed like a mob boss, flipped through the pages until he stopped at a map that described the couple’s route and where it diverged from their way to Everett’s place, to someone named Furter.
“Furter— Wait, that’s, ah, that’s the guy played by Tim Curry, nice.” Evan grinned as he pointed it out.
“Mmhm.”
“So we’re finally getting somewhere, great!” then Evan’s grin slipped off his face as Brad said Janet’s name again, f*ck, until he remembered that it wasn’t an alcoholic shot that they had to take for those. “Alright, let’s get fruity,” Evan muttered as he poured himself the shot of apple juice.
Fondly, he remembered the time when he was young, younger than ten, where he’d pour himself juice and take it like it was alcohol, because he had watched his parents do it so many times.
His jaw tightened as the implications of that memory forced itself to surface. Evan drank that glass and allowed the sweet taste to override everything and focus on that alone, focus on—
Jonathan laughed, and Evan grappled onto that. He concentrated deeply on how Jonathan breathed before he fell into giggles, then those tiny sounds would snowball into the wide maniacal laughter that he’d grown oh, so, familiar with over these long years, and that would equally make him breathless.
Then the couple rang the doorbell to the castle and the door creaked open slowly to reveal the figure that had been singing in the window, who looked radically different now that he wasn’t obscured by sh*tty camera resolution.
“Y’know, the guy kind of reminds me of, uh,” Evan blanked. “f*ck, I can’t think of it right now but he does seem familiar.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. This movie uses a bunch of popular and easy to recognize faces,” Jonathan mused.
“Fun,” Evan sighed. The groom introduced himself and his fiancée, causing Evan to drink another fruity shot whilst also reminding him of how grateful he should be that they chose to make the switch from alcohol to this.
But he almost ended up spitting it out as the man from the window stated in a flat tone, “You’re wet.”
“What,” Evan screeched. “Who just f*cking says that to a couple of strangers— ignoring the fact that it’s obvious, but like, imagine that’s my greeting to you every morning,” he laughed, grabbing his phone. “You f*ckin’ wake up, and the first thing I text to you is just—”
Discord
(Vanoss, Terroriser)
Vanoss
ur wet
Vanoss
wait no wrong person
Terroriser
Evan
What The f*ck
“f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck!” Evan hissed. “I just f*cking— oh my god, oh my f*cking god—”
“What, what did you do?” Jonathan demanded, his voice suddenly going high-pitched.
“I was going to f*cking send you the quote as a joke, as a bit, right? But instead, I sent, and I f*cking quote,” Evan wheezed. “‘ur wet’ to Brian without any context.”
“You f*ckin’—”
“Hold on, I can fix this!” Evan shouted. “I can, uh— I can fix this.”
Discord
(Vanoss, Terroriser)
Vanoss
i am so f*cking sorry
Vanoss
that meant to go to delirious
Terroriser
what
“I, uh, I…” Evan stammered. “f*ck.”
Discord
(Vanoss, Terroriser)
Terroriser
listen man
whatever f*cking sex thing you’re doing
i dont want any part of it
Vanoss
its not a f*cking sex thing
we’re just watching a movie together
Terroriser
Oh im sorry
Lemme make a proper correction
Evan sighed in relief, but that was short-lived as he saw the ‘correction’ that Brian made.
Discord
(Vanoss, Terroriser)
Terroriser
listen man
whatever f*cking p*rno you guys are watching together (edited)
i dont want any part of it
At that point, Evan just gave up.
He placed his phone down and laid his head in his hands, groaning loudly.
“Did you fix it?” he heard Jonathan ask, but Evan couldn’t bring himself to admit to what just happened. “I tried,” Evan bemoaned instead.
“I mean, that’s all that matters, right?”
“Let’s just— let’s just get back to the movie,” Evan sighed. Jonathan did as he said and started the movie again, and the two of them watched as the couple entered the castle, led by the strange man.
The interior for the place didn’t actually look too bad or out of place with rich textiles and fancy borders along the walls, like a proper castle should, then the maid appeared and he was beginning to get a sense of the wacky atmosphere that the movie was going to take. “It’s like the Addams Family rated R,” he called out.
“More like the Addams Family was the Rocky Horror Picture Show rated PG,” Jonathan said.
Evan smiled, then the music kicked up again, and he was doubting his ability to handle his alcohol, but f*ck it. He poured himself a half-shot, maybe a little less than half, and drank that one too. The alcohol was really getting to him, and he knew that to be the case because he was beginning to giggle at every little thing, especially the silly dances and the random bouts of shouting from the strange man, accompanied by the maid.
Of course, this was where they had to kick things up a notch because, as the duo chased the couple through the halls, they burst through a set of doors that revealed the ongoings of a party, decked with a group of guests all wearing hats and sunglasses — which was strangely the attire that he himself had a tendency to wear, not that he’d say it out loud — and then the scene switched again.
“Jesus Christ, this movie really is dragging us everywhere, huh,” Evan giggled. “And now, now we’re doing a dancing segment? What the f*ck?”
“Again, there’s a lot of crazy sh*t that happens in this movie,” Jonathan said.
“Yeah, but this feels more like a cult initiation,” Evan pointed out. “You weren’t f*cking lying when you said that this was a cult classic then, I suppose.”
“We can always watch something else if you’d like—”
“No, no! I’m having fun. I’m enjoying myself,” Evan stated clearly, maybe a little desperately. “I’m just, this movie is really silly and I like poking fun at it, but it is a good movie so far.”
“Oh,” Jonathan said, and there was a small part of him that nearly sounded relieved but Evan honestly couldn’t tell anymore, beyond his own loud thoughts and the ongoings of the actual events around him, so he just zeroed in on the screen, then blinked as he watched the dance scene fly by. “Is that an Irish flag?”
“sh*t, it is. Guess we should’ve invited Terroriser and Nogla to this session, huh.”
“Mm, maybe not,” Evan murmured. “They’d probably just shout out a bunch of slurs at this point, like oh, look at this fa*g, and they’d miss out on the fun of it all. Besides, I like it just with the two of us.”
“Right.”
The screen flicked back to the couple and the duo as the maid began to dance around, swinging off of the poles and such. “Dude, I’d either be asking her for whatever she’s taking that’s making her so f*cked up or I’d be getting the hell out of here and steal one of the motorcycles, probably,” Evan mused. “Like, I’m surprised that they’re acting this calm.”
“Chances are, they’re in shock,” Jonathan explained.
“Fair,” Evan huffed. “I also think it’s funny that Brad genuinely looks a little giddy about all of this, like— like look at his face! f*cker’s smiling a little bit, while Janet’s like, god, this is the worst day of my f*cking life, please get me the hell out of here.”
Without any warning, on screen, the music cut and all of the dancers collapsed to the floor at once, and Evan stared in confusion. “What the hell?” Then he saw the elevator descend behind the couple with someone inside of it and his eyes widened. “Wait, is that going to be the, uh, guy from the cover? Oh?”
His only response from Jonathan was a series of quiet giggles, and Evan knew at once what his answer would be. There was an ear-piercing scream from Janet as the figure whipped around and the camera zoomed in on its white pasty face with vibrant makeup, then it spoke and Evan widened his eyes.
“Oh, that’s a— that’s a guy’s voice,” he muttered. “And— Jesus christ, he’s f*cking loaded with sexual energy— okay, just to double check, this isn’t a p*rno, right?”
“It’s not a p*rno, for the last time,” Jonathan clarified.
“How did you even find this movie?” Evan asked.
“So, funny story, actually,” Jonathan said thoughtfully as he hit pause, causing Evan to lean forward a little in his chair, “I was at this record shop that used to be at the edge of my town, a couple years before it shut down, because y’know, Netflix and all that.”
“A record shop?”
“Yeah, it was this real dinky place but it was the only place that sold sh*t other than just whatever was on top of the charts that past year. And they sold things other than records as well. Like figurines and sh*t? In those dusty cabinets so you knew that no one actually ever bought them. But anyway, they had a little section in the back for DVDs — and most of it was absolute garbage. I’m talking ‘The Room’ levels of garbage.”
“Mmhm, and that’s how you know it’s bad,” Evan laughed.
“Yeah! And so sometimes I would browse it just for fun, y’know? See what kind of weird sh*t they had this time. And one of those times I came across The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Jonathan explained, and Evan could picture the scene.
Jonathan was a vague shape in his mind, a blend of an average person (not that Jonathan could be anything but extraordinary) and his usual character model, but the almost claustrophobic feeling of those old, crammed record shops, the dusty air, the buzzing of the yellowed, nearly burnt-out lightbulb overhead, the hum of a small fan on the countertop where a disinterested and underpaid teenager manned the counter — those were clear as day.
He idly wondered if there were still any record shops in business, maybe he could convince Jonathan to visit one with him someday. If— If they ever met, that is. Otherwise he’d have to rig up a livestream — he could grab Lui's help for that — or something, take him along on voice call.
Would that be weird?
Before he could drift away too far, Jonathan’s voice pierced through his thoughts as he continued his story.
“And I’ve shown you the cover, right?”
“Yeah.” The cover had been what initially made him doubt that he’d enjoy this movie, though he was glad to have been proven wrong. Especially considering how much Jon seemed to like it.
“So I looked at it, and I was thinking, y’know what would be funny? If I ask Luke, ah, Cartoonz, to watch a movie with me and I tell him it’s a surprise — and then it’s this weird, horribly camp thing that’s so bad it circles around it to being good, just from how many jokes we can make about it.”
Jonathan paused for a moment, taking a breath before continuing. “But uh, it didn’t really work out that way. Instead of being bad it was actually just— It was different but it wasn’t bad. And it uh—”
Evan wondered if the hesitation was because of the alcohol making it harder for Jonathan to find his words — though he seemed a lot less intoxicated than Evan felt.
“Uhm, part-way through it kind of gave me this revelation?”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, uh. I guess— I guess it showed me that it’s okay for me to be just myself, in a way? Like—” Evan heard the sound of a small object bouncing off of Jonathan’s floor, followed by a quiet curse and the sound of an office chair moving. “Uhm, like I can just be my wacky, crazy goofball self more.” Jonathan concluded, sounding a little distracted.
“Well,” Evan said, tongue loosened by the alcohol, “I’m glad. I like your wacky, crazy goofball self. I’d rather have the real you than anyone— anything else.”
He pointedly did not think about his parents, or the grinding pressure from the endless expectations of his fans who seemingly never could decide who they wanted him to be.
“Thanks,” Jonathan said quietly, before hitting play again.
“Mmhm, yep, yep,” Evan repeated to himself. His eyes were glued to the figure as it— they? He?— strutted forward with the energy of royalty until it stopped in front of the chair, spun around, and threw back its cloak, revealing a corset and garter belts, and an uncomfortable amount of skin, and his mouth suddenly went dry.
Like a model walking on a stage, it sprang forward.
“I’m just a sweet transvestite,” it sang, “from Transsexual, Transylvania”
“Wait, transvestite—” Evan called out. “Isn’t that an old term for, ah, uh, a trans person?”
“Yeah, a really outdated term, I think,” Jonathan mentioned. “But don’t rely on me, I don’t really check up on that kinda stuff.”
Evan hummed mutely.
Brad and Janet started talking, and he snorted at the quality of their voices. “Okay, now I see who was properly mic'd up during this scene. Either that or they did really bad sound mixing.” he commented. “Dude, everyone’s looking at Furter like they want to eat him up alive.”
“Probably, they do,” Jonathan suggested. “After all, he’s supposed to be a sex god or something.”
“Oh, I bet. Do you see the way that Brad just looked at him? I swear, he’s into it or something,” Evan teased. “Janet still looks really horrified. But back to Brad— Like, sure, I guess the guy’s hot but if there was a guy that’d really rock my socks off, he’d probably be wearing something different.”
“And, what, uh, what would he be wearing?” Jonathan asked suddenly. Evan blinked, then narrowed his eyes as he considered Jonathan’ question in depth. “Something, ah, something blue probably. Blue’s a really nice color.”
His voice hitched as the maid and the other man— the doorman?— began to strip the couple and while the bride protested, understandably so, the groom just stood there. “I’m telling you, he’s actually into it!”
The two dragged the couple into the elevator and took them up, until they arrived at a floor completely different from the entrance, with small tiles stacked against the wall and floor, making it look like the interior of a swimming pool. “Oh my god, it's a Backrooms level,” he whispered in a dramatic voice. “But it’s pink!”
“Shut the f*ck up,” Jonathan laughed. On screen, the camera panned up, revealing all of the guests staring down on them.
“First of all, how the f*ck did all of them get up there so quickly and two,” Evan blinked. “If this is a sex proposition— are they, are they just gonna watch? f*cking damn— and there Brad goes, introducing both him and his fiancée. I think we’re actually going to drink more juice than alcohol at this point,” he muttered as he drank his fill.
Right as he said that, Brad cursed at Frank, which made Evan roll his eyes and pick up a shot of his bourbon whiskey again. “I stand corrected— Why’d he glance down? Is Brad hard?”
“Probably!” Jonathan exclaimed, laughing.
“Yeah, yeah. The secret of life itself is anal fisting,” he joked.
Evan yawned and he rubbed his eyes. He could feel his concentration beginning to wane as he dragged himself through this movie, but it was the plot and the visuals that kept him keyed in, so on he watched, and several drinks — of both the fruity and alcoholic kind — later, they had finished the movie and he was left staring blankly at the credits, the events of the last hour reeling in his head.
“That was… an experience,” he said as it ended, his sides and cheeks still aching from the breathless fit of laughter that had washed over him earlier. Even now, he still found himself in high spirits and grinning like a fool, especially since Jon didn’t appear to be in any rush to leave the call. “And it was actually a really good movie.” Evan said, his surprise genuine.
It wasn’t so much that he doubted Jonathan’s taste as that he simply knew what he liked — and didn’t often try things outside of his comfort zone. But leave it up to his best friend to open him up to new experiences. His grin morphed into something a little softer, a little fonder, as the mania gently settled into appreciation for his friend.
He was lucky to have him in his life and he hoped Jonathan knew that.
Bright as ever, Jonathan’ voice chimed in. “I told you! Goddamnit, It’s a classic, man.”
Evan laughed, not denying his claim. A comfortable silence settled between them as he chose his next words.
“I wouldn’t mind doing this again.”
An inquisitive “Hm?” filtered through his earbuds, before Jonathan realized what he was referring to. “Watching a movie together?”
“Yeah. I—”
How honest was too honest?
“I enjoyed it a lot. You're a good movie-watching company.” He settled on.
“Aw, thanks man.” Jonathan responded, and he knew the bastard was pleased, “I had a good time too.”
Inexplicably, Evan felt his face flush. The weird feeling in his chest returned, tight and warm — and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. This was a good thing, it felt like a good thing, and he wanted more of it.
But at the same time, what even was it?
Evan shook it off, focusing back on the conversation, although his eyes had strayed and he found himself staring at the whiskey bottle sitting plainly on his desk with a horrifying realization of just how much of it he’d consumed over the span of the past two hours. Oh, he was definitely going to feel that later.
He told Jon as much, complaining with a groan in his voice, “I’m going to be so hungover tomorrow.”
“Payback motherf*cker, for what you did in GMod,” Jonathan said, laughing.
“Yeah, yeah,” Evan replied, rolling his eyes, “Just be glad we don’t have any recording sessions planned—” he paused, trying to think of his schedule for the next day, before settling uncertainly on, “—tomorrow.”
Jonathan snickered. “I don’t know, I think the fans would enjoy seeing you suffer like that.”
In response, Evan snorted, taking no offense at all, and the sound set off another bout of laughter from the two of them. It was incredibly easy to laugh with Jonathan around. Hearing his friend always made everything else fade to the background, his voice becoming the central point of his attention — and he’d be smiling and laughing helplessly before he knew it.
Something about him just lifted his spirits like no one else could. Evan treasured that. He should let Jonathan know he treasured that.
“Jon. You— You’re a treasure, y’know that?” He said, focusing particularly hard on not slurring his words.
“Alright, I think you’ve had enough.” Jonathan laughed on the other end. “Go drink some water, man.”
Damn. Maybe he did slur his words too much after all? He frowned in concentration, but the words he wanted to say escaped his mind as quickly as they’d entered it.
“Hrm.”
“Yeah, exactly.” He could picture the sh*t-eating grin on Jonathan’s face. Not the face itself, but he knew the grin was there. He could hear it.
Evan sighed, pushing himself up out of his chair and swaying for a moment. “Okay,” he said, “okay, I’m gonna shower. I had a good— a good time with you though.” He thought for a moment. “I always have a good time with you.”
“You too, Evan.” Jonathan said, softly, and gods above, he really wanted to hear his voice like that more often. He wanted to hear his voice always, really, but this was— this was something. At some point, he’d figure out what exactly it was later, once he was sober again, he was sure of it.
“Oookay, I’m, I’m going to go now. Goodnight, Del.”
“Goodnight, Evan. Good luck with the hangover.”
“f*ck you.” He laughed, breathlessly, before clicking ‘end call’.
He stood in the silence of his room for a moment, staring at the screen as the VC disappeared from view — with Jonathan finally ending the call on his end.
Typically, the silence felt oppressive after leaving a VC. It was lonely in a way that was hard to shake off. But this time around, he just felt warm and sated — unsure if it was the alcohol or the lingering comfort from Jonathan’s voice and presence and, well, everything.
He still missed him, though.
Evan grabbed his phone as he made his way towards the bathroom, unlocking the screen and thumbing over to his discord DMs.
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Vanoss
yo
He stared at the screen as he nearly walked into the bathroom door, towel in hand. Jonathan’ activity badge showed he was online, but he didn’t see him typing. Maybe he was busy?
Evan looked up, blinked at the door and locked his screen, before finally stepping inside. He was halfway through undressing when he heard his phone buzz.
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Delirious
hey
shouldnt you be in bed?
Vanoss
no
shower first, rememmber?
Delirious
you took your phone with you into the shower??
Vanoss
not yet
Delirious
not yet?? is it waterproof??
Vanoss
dw abt it :]
Delirious
vanoss
VANOSS
EVAN
Evan laughed to himself, before he remembered what he was meant to be doing. He looked down, seeing his shirt tossed uncaringly on the bathroom floor and his pants halfway undone, bunched around calves.
That seemed like a problem for future-him to deal with.
He stepped out of his pants and boxers, leaning on the sink for balance, before kicking them over to where his shirt was.
BUZZ
Temporarily forgoing his objective, he glanced over at his phone.
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Delirious
please tell me you’re keeping it dry
or better yet
dont use your phone in the shower
Vanoss
but i want to talk to u :(
Delirious is typing…
Delirious
sandwich baggie at minimum
dont brick your phone
Vanoss
fineee
Truthfully, he had already been planning to put his phone in the clear plastic bag he always used whenever he was in the mood to drown out his shower-thoughts with music. He clumsily opened the drawer in which he kept it, before slipping his phone inside the plastic and turning on the shower.
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Vanoss
[image.png]
/image description: It’s an incredibly blurry selfie image of Evan in his bathroom completely nude with the counter of the sink covering his groin. There's a plastic bag wrapped around the camera, obscuring the lens slightly./END ID
![gay chicken - feathersandteddybears - Banana Bus Squad [Archive of Our Own] (1)](https://i0.wp.com/64.media.tumblr.com/f66729857d463c7818ccdd643fed5925/ae4cae1c5c11c2e9-80/s1280x1920/f64f246151c76c9766f0ce70aa0c1eb7165fb2d3.pnj "gay chicken - feathersandteddybears - Banana Bus Squad [Archive of Our Own] (1)")
u happy now?
sorry the quality is sh*t
but thats what u get when the phones in a plastic baggy
delirious?
Delirious is typing…
Delirious
HI
hi
sorry caps lock was on
Vanoss
all good now?
Delirious
yeyeah
mmhm
Vanoss
cool
probably gonna have to stop typing so that i can properly shower myself
see ya soon
Delirious
see ya
Evan stared at Jonathan’ text with a bark of laughter, his face splitting into a wide and silly grin, brought wider by his tipsy state. He shook his head and opened Spotify to one of his more used playlists, the ones where he can just drift to the music and not focus on a goddamn thing in the world, and he can breathe easily— before finally turning on the showerhead.
As water sprayed down his front, he closed his eyes and sighed deeply, running his hands through his hair and adding shampoo to get all of the oily tangles out, before moving down his body. Just faintly, however, he could hear the shadow of wild laughter around him, like if he concentrated hard enough, it sounded like it came from over his shoulder but that would be impossible.
Yeah, he’s like one of those, ah, wooth mammolies
He snickered, the corner of his lips pulling despite his efforts to keep them closed so that none of the soap would leak into his mouth. Still, he found himself shaking with laughter, thinking of the moments that flew by like the wind, where he’d just sat there enjoying the movie and Jonathan’s company, although he suspected that he cared more about the latter.
Not that he’d ever tell Jonathan. God, as if his ego hadn’t been inflated enough.
Slowly, he stepped out of the shower, the water droplets running down his legs, before he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself, drying himself very effectively. Then, he slipped on a black shirt, probably with some Metallica cover on it if he were to guess, and a pair of boxers. Finally, he hung his towel back up and fished his phone out of the wet plastic bag.
Funnily enough, music was still playing out of the speakers. He must’ve accidentally queued more songs than he had thought, but Evan didn’t mind since it wasn’t bothering him. Looking down, he found his earbuds spilling out of his discarded pants and picked them up, connecting them to his phone so that he was able to listen to the music up close, then he opened his screen.
The first thing he did was open Jonathan’s DMs.
Discord
(Vanoss, Delirious)
Vanoss
back
Delirious
welcome back
how was the shower
Vanoss
wet.
Delirious
yeah that tracks
did your keep your goddamn phone dry
Vanoss
no. im currently holding it underwater. its being drowned
Delirious
noooooooo
Vanoss
blub blub
Delirious
rest in pieces
anyway
you going to sleep soon?
Vanoss
mmmmm
Delirious
vanoss
VANOSS.
Vanoss
mmmmmmmmmmm maybe
vanoss is not here right now. leavea message after the beep
Delirious
evan
you need sleep, man
Vanoss
i can sleep later. its fineee
besides
now i can keep u company
Delirious is typing...
Delirious
alright
Vanoss
alright?
Delirious
yeah alright
so what do you want to do
Vanoss
uhm
i hadnt thoguhtt that far ahead
[i just wanted ur company| ]
[i just wanted u| ]
[I just wanted to| ]
i just wanted to keep u company lmao
Delirious
awww
you care about me? thats so sweet
Evan knew that Jonathan was teasing him, but well— he hadn’t been wrong, had he? He did care about Jonathan, a lot. More than he'd ever cared about any of his other friends, really. Did that make him a sh*tty friend, or did that just make Jonathan special?
Vanoss
[more than anything |]
[more than anyone |]
[more |]
[ofc i do, ur my best fr | ]
[ofc u asshole| ]
ofc u asshole
Delirious
too late
you cant call me expletives now
i knew there was a heart somewhere under those feathers
Evan laughed, shaking his head.
Vanoss
dick
watch out or ill peck u
Delirious
pfft you couldnt hurt me
your beak is way too tiny
Vanoss
yeah? well ur mom said otherwise last night
Delirious
oooooo
XD
Vanoss
yeah, that's right
Evan peered at his phone, waiting for a response. He saw the dots appear for a moment before they disappeared again and didn't return. Hm.
He shrugged, closing the screen and carefully making his way over to his bed, nearly tripping over his rug in the process.
Vanoss
is the room meant to be spiinning
Delirious
damn dude, how much did you drink?
Vanoss
uhh
like
half the bottle?
Delirious
go chug some water
God damn, I didn't see it
The raspy voice introduced by the new song startled Evan a little bit, but he calmed down once he recognized which song it was. It was another one of the good music artists that he had the pleasure of working alongside with and featuring in his company.
Vanoss
alrigth alright
H2O delirious
Delirious
you better make that h2o VANOSS instead
hydrate you mother f*cker
also get some painkillers for yourself in the morning
you can thank me later
Vanoss
who wouldve known that u could be such a mother hen
Delirious
maybe i just dont want you to keel over tomorrow
Vanoss
aw
who's being sweet now?
When you lived here all your life, I didn't mean it
And I swear, I know I greeted
Delirious
yeah yeah
have you gotten them yet?
Vanoss
yeah
do u want a picture for proof agian
Delirious is typing...
Delirious
no i believe you
He snorted as he let himself fall onto the bed. It was too dark in his room to take a good picture anyway, but he knew that he would’ve turned a light on for Jonathan, had he said yes. Pulling the covers tighter around himself, he made himself even more comfortable and in doing that, he could feel his mind beginning to fuzz more and more.
But it's hard sometimes to breathe in on the ceiling
Dream of palaces and cou ntrysides
Vanoss
bed now
Delirious
hell yeah
you going to sleep?
Vanoss
nooo
Delirious
evan
Vanoss
jon
Delirious
is there a reason why?
beyond "keeping me company"
All I want, want, want, want
Is to wake up with the morning light, laughing all alone
Vanoss
do i need one?
[what if i just want to stay here with you |]
[what if i just want | ]
what if i just cant sleep
Delirious
alright, fair enough
i'll keep you company
Vanoss
hell yeah
Evan smiled at his phone, the light illuminating his tired face.
Vanoss
you're a good friend
Delirious
might be a better friend if i convinced you to sleep instead
Break away from all the city lights, hiding in the dark
'Cause you don't belong where you don't belong, yeah, I don't belong
Vanoss
no
no i mean it
[ur too good for me jon | ]
[ur too goo|d for me jon]
[ur too| good for me jon]
[ur | good for me jon]
[ur good for me jon| ]
[ur good for me]
ur good for me
Delirious
i
Delirious is typing...
Delirious
you're good for me too evan
(edit)
you're good for me too (edited)
No, I don't belong
No, I don't belong
No, I don't belong
No, I don't belong (And I don't belong where I don't belong)
Vanoss
oh my god
Delirious
what?
Vanoss
i could really go for some f*cking pizza right now
do u think there are any delivery places still open?
Delirious
uh. there might be a 24/7 place or something
but do you think you could even get to the door right now?
Yeah, yeah
I'm blessed
Vanoss
good point
tomorrow then :(
do u have a favorite pizza?
Delirious
yeah!
there's this one place in seattle that has their own original pizza
its so f*cking good
can't get it out here though, unfortunately
Vanoss
hm
seattle, like the uptown of seattle?
Delirious
i think so?
I'll believe it when they tell me I'm here for a reason
Hold on, another season
Vanoss
cool cool
bc i can just order it for u
just send me the name of the place
and i'll send it ur way
Delirious
you'd do that??
Vanoss
hell yeah
anything for u :]
Couple minutes back and forth, then we'll be leaving
To our palaces and countrysides
All I want, want, want, want
His phone buzzed.
Delirious
[image.png]
/image description: A meme of—
Evan stared at the photo that Jonathan sent, his eyes wide, all of the breath stolen from his lungs, and his heart beating so fast that for a moment, it almost seemed like it would burst out of his chest.
It should be just a simple stupid meme, but for some reason, it sent his brain reeling.
The format was simple, and honestly made perfect sense that it came from Jonathan of all people, with two teddy bears standing in front of a blank white void, but one of the bears was wearing a tuxedo while the other one was wearing a wedding dress.
And as if that wasn’t enough, there was a text splayed over it in classic meme font, reading, “Keep talking to me and we’re gonna end up like this”, and what ‘this’ was left unknown, though easy enough to figure out, but Evan wasn’t ready to unpack all of that.
So instead, he went with the safe response.
Vanoss
hahahha
lmao
Is to wake up with the morning light, laughing all alone
Delirious
you should sleep
Vanoss
should i now
Delirious
uhuh
Absolutely
Delirious is typing…
Break away from all the city lights, hiding in the dark
'Cause you don't belong where you don't belong, yeah, I don't belong
Vanoss
what will u do if i dont
Delirious
i’ll sic teddy on u
Vanoss
oh no im sooo scared
Delirious
yeah that’s right >:)
you should be
Vanoss
okay okay i’ll sleep
totally not because my eyes are closing on their own
but only if
No, I don't belong
No, I don't belong
No, I don't belong
No, I don't belong (And I don't belong where I don't belong)
Delirious
if?
Vanoss
[if u| ]
[if u kiss me goodn| ]
[if u kiss| me goodn]
[if u ki| me goodn]
[if u WISH| me goodn]
[if u WISH m| ]
[if u| ]
if u go to sleep as well
No, no, It's just a feeling, just a feeling
It's just a feeling, just a feeling
It's just a feeling, just a feeling
It's just a feeling, just a feeling
Delirious
lmao
alright fair
i’ll head to bed too
Vanoss
yessss
goodnight delirious
Delirious
goodnight, you silly owl
i hope you sleep well
Delirious
and good luck with that hangover tomorrow lol
Dream of palaces and countrysides
Evan watched as the screen went dark with the press of his thumb against the power button on the side of his phone. And with it, the only remaining light in his room was extinguished, bathing him in a peaceful darkness that enveloped him, much like his warm blankets.
He burrowed a little deeper into them, wriggling to get comfortable and sighing in satisfaction when he finally managed to do so.
All I want, want, want, want
Is to wake up with the morning light, laughing all alone
The song playing through his earphones was quiet, he’d turned down the volume on his phone at some point, and the device was buried somewhere out of reach of his sleep-heavy limbs.
It was nice like that though, the rhythm of the music slowly lulling him to sleep as his thoughts at long last slowed down to a crawl.
Break away from all the city lights, hiding in the dark
'Cause you don't belong where you don't belong, yeah, I don't belong
Soon, he wasn’t consciously thinking of anything at all. All that was left was fleeting impressions — sounds, images, movements — that slowly got muddled into something incoherent and dream-like.
In the middle of it all, he thought he caught a glimpse of a familiar blue.
Warm and calming, like the waves of the ocean, like the afternoon sky in summer, like the soft fabric of a hoodie. He smiled softly into the night when the vision of blue merged with kind lips reaching to meet his own.
A welcome fluttering in his chest, though he could not process the reason behind it, as sleep slowly pulled his awareness from underneath him.
No, I don't belong
No, I don't belong
He closed his eyes, and he felt the darkness of sleep drag him away to somewhere safe.
Somewhere he could belong.
No, I don't belong
No, I don't belong
(And I don't belong where I don't belong)
yeah
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