Love is a Dangerous Game

Cr1tikal Situations and Subscribers

A/N: Listen to the song as you read, it'll help. I wrote this chapter while listening to it so...

--------------

It all started out as a simple plan to cheer herself up, but Jess has gone through a rollercoaster of emotions. She didn't really like Nick anymore, and she was sure he moved on. "Oh my god this is so confusing.." she said to herself, 100% honestly. Nobody else was in the room she was in, and then a knock arose on her room door.

"Hey, uh, can I come in for a minute?" an unfamiliar voice asked. It was fairly deep and had a monotone feel to it, but still showed emotion. Jess slid off the edge of the bed and her feet touched the soft, silky carpet. She walked over to the door and looked through the peephole, and she had sworn she recognized this face somewhere. Jess unlocked the door and opened it for him to come in. "Thanks, now, you're Jess, right?" he followed up with. How do so many fucking people know her? She wasn't that popular on Youtube at all, like, 62 subscribers or something.

"Yeah? Who's asking...?" she was getting fairly curious now, because the voice and face both looked and sounded familiar. Jess' left hand slowly slid to her phone to check just HOW MANY subscribers she had.

"Oh, uh, YouTube name or...?" he asked. "I can do my catchphrase and maybe then you'd recognize me.."

Then, her phone went off.

'Let's do this shit..'; The notification sound of a YouTuber she had just gotten into. She swore that when he heard the notification his eyes kind of lit up and his half smile grew just a tiny bit. She got a text.

"Hold on, I'm getting a text from one of my friends.. Can I take this?" She explained.

"What's up everybody it's Cr1tikal, I'm going to play waiting for Jess to finish her text simulator, let's do this shit.." he responded in a monotone voice, just like her notification. She didn't know what her face looked like, as it stayed calm and collected with a smile, but on the inside she was freaking out; her heart was racing, she was panicking. Her favorite of favorites was standing, right there, in FRONT OF HER!

Her hands shook as she looked at the text; It was from Mark.

M: Hey um one of my friends kinda wants to meet you, so, he should be at your room by now or so.

M: Just an FYI, don't panic, he just kinda might wanna be your friend.

M: I'll keep it a surprise who it is.

Jess locked her phone, got in a more comfortable sitting position and took a deep breath.

"You alright Jess?" he asked.

She nodded slowly and carefully, trying to brace herself. "Yep, I'm... alright." That sure wasn't the right word for nervous.

He put on a doubting smirk and went over and sat next to her. "Hey, hey..." His voice was calming now, and Jess' face rose in a pink shade. Closing her eyes wasn't working. "I'm just a guy, okay?" Charlie chuckled a bit. [A/N: Cr1tikal's name is Charlie, so, yep!] "Think of it as... talking to Mark.."

That sure wasn't reassuring. "Well, Mark isn't my favorite YouTuber, okay?" she accidentally slipped. Her eyes shot open and her hands quickly separated and landed on her knees. "Did I just say that..?"

"Yeah, you did." He smirked. "I can't believe I'm someone's favorite at something for once, I mean, I don't even do serious commentary!" Charlie sounded astonished that someone liked his 'Stupid work'. Jess was really embarrassed. "But hey, your stuff isn't that bad either, even if it was made about a year ago.."

What the hell was he talking about? Jess tilted her head and opened her YouTube app to see that she only had- 18,000 subscribers? What?! Her eyes widened quickly and she gasped. She got more nervous, and apparently they were growing with every refresh she did. Her Twitter was going up the wall; apparently Jack, Mark, Wade, Bob, Felix, and the Grumps were tweeting stuff about her and were vlogging when she didn't know. They caught small snippets of her and told the viewers to subscribe, and didn't even tell her. Her head now hung low. She didn't feel okay.

"Jess, Jess...." he scooted closer, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close into a half hug. "It's okay, I mean, you have your friends.." Charlie didn't know what was going on with her.

"I jumped from 62 to... about 25 thousand overnight..." her voice shook. "I have to actually make content now.... Without equipment.." A cold rush ran down her back.

"Well, you don't have to start immediately.." He explained.

"I don't want to be above 100 subscribers.." She cleared out. He went silent.

"W-wha... Why?" Charlie asked, because he was curious.

"Because, since I already have bad anxiety, having over 100 let alone 1,000 people know who I am really puts me in a nervous mode.." She felt stupid. "It's dumb, I know.." Jess leaned her head more into his chest, closing her eyes and just trying to get some peace. They have only talked for about thirty minutes or twenty or so and she already felt like she knew him for a few months. Her heart started to flutter, and have a familiar feeling to it. Her brain was going off. Oh no.

"You're not dumb, I completely get it.... Just know if there's any time where I need to listen or if you need to calm down, call me or text me and I'll come over, okay?" he said, putting a slip of paper with his number between her ear and head, like a pencil. Jess opened her eyes and looked at him with a soft smile on her face and nodded.

"Alright." she smiled. When she opened her eyes she knew exactly what she was feeling. Under her breath, she muttered, not willingly out loud, 'Goddamnit..'

Luckily, it wasn't right in his ear, but Charlie still heard what she whispered. "Goddamnit what?" he pondered.

Her eyes widened. Fuck. "I forgot VidCon ended in 4 days." she half-truthed. She did forget, but she didn't say what the real reason was.

"Well, I don't live very far.. Just down this highway and in the little community, I live in the first white house down that first road to the right." he explained. Jess looked at him and backed up.

"I don't live far either, I live in that same community next to a white house..." she started to connect.

"What color is your house...?" he asked her, now curious.

"Brown..?" They both asked in unison. Once they both saw the same word leave their mouths, both of their eyes widened. Jess was inside, panicking, but on the outside, shocked. Charlie was on the inside, amazed, and on the outside, shocked.

It was utterly silent until her ringtone broke the silence. It was from Danny.

It seemed there was one more obstacle that he didn't know about.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: HOLY FUCK WRITING IS HARD but at the same time I'm kinda happy how this chapter turned out.

I hAD to put Cr1tikal in the story because, c'mon, how could I not?