he's got a lot to learn about the world beyond his screens. she's willing to show him the golden beaches and every secret corner of the city she loves. they just have to work out how they're going to survive when his existence is a secret from publi...
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CLAY STARES AT HIS monitors. He swore he would livestream again. He promised. But his fingers are frozen together and his arms are too heavy to lift to his mouse and move it to the start streaming button.
It's two a.m. He could just scrap it. Could just play it off as passing tiredness. He stares until his Teamspeak lights up with another notification. A prompting word from George. The three stern letters set him into motion.
There's a few seconds of delay before messages start to fly through the chat. Loud exclamations of his name, disbelief at the fact he's live after more than a month away. He leans forward in his chair, sighing heavily.
"Hello," he finally manages. Despite his nerves, a smile starts to grow at the amount of people that have responded to the Twitch notification. "There we go. Hello," he says again, starting to move his character around the game. It feels weird to use the controls, despite his constant lifestyle involving Minecraft. Even a few days off throws him into an inconsistent cycle. "Hi," he chews his lip, "how is everyone doing?"
His eyes flicker to the chat as he continues to move, rambling quietly. His settings are off...the game noises too loud in his ears. Probably from one of the stupid shorts he filmed a while back. He winces as he adjusts it. He talks casually to the chat, holding off on the most important issue. When the chat is going fast enough, he begins.
"I miss streaming. I miss talking to you guys." That's true...for the most part. Streaming wasn't the problem. "I've fallen off," he jokes as the number of viewers doesn't match the speed of the messages on his screen. "I'm alone, yes, but I do have Sapnap and George in Teamspeak. So, I'll call them in a couple of minutes. I just want to talk to you guys." And here's the hard part. Pushing past his slump. He wishes Irena was on a silent call again, listening through the night for moral support. He continues casual banter with the chat, delaying as long as possible. He sucks in a deep breath before finally addressing the elephant in the room. "So, here's the plan for today. Everyone knows about the whole speedrunning drama that went on. But I'm not going to let that stop me from having fun. So I'm going to speedrun, I'm not going to submit any of my runs to the leaderboard, regardless of what happens. Even if I get an amazing run. But I'm gonna have fun."
His heart is hammering. He laughs nervously as he finishes the quick opener. He's slipping back into the normal routine of being in front of a live audience. His fingers fly across the keyboard as he leans forward. He's still nervous, but he knows his nerves will dissipate when he adds Sapnap and George to the stream.
The green figure jumps across the screen easily, rusty tactics smoothening out with each passing minute. There's no way he could catch chat, but he tries in between mining blocks and traveling in search of structures to perform the various techniques.
When Sapnap's teasing tone finally slides into the voice channel, followed by George, Clay finally sinks back in his seat. It's a lot easier to go through the motions of beating the video game when he has someone to banter with.
