Preston's P.O.V.
I hauled the supermarket bags onto the table and started unloading them, putting everything away as quietly as possible as to not disturb Lachlan. We had been practically living in the office over the past week so I hadn't had anything in my fridge or cupboards, so I went shopping as soon as I got home.
I looked up to see the picture of myself and Lachlan on our 1 year anniversary, Lachlan all dressed up and hugging me from behind. It was my personal favourite photo of us and was before Lachlan starting getting a lot of hate. Quite recently the fifth season of How To Minecraft had come out and because Lachlan had 'quit' Minecraft he wasn't supposed to be doing it, but he did anyway.
In the 8 months following our anniversary the hate on his channel had become amazingly noticeable and I was fairly worried about Lachlan's health. He was very self-conscious normally but many of the comments ripped his confidence down so much he almost quit.
Lachlan had crashed on the bed as soon as we had gotten home so I left him there, sleep more important than food for him. He had done 2 all nighters in a row and was running on about 12 hours sleep over 5 days. His fans had been complaining that they wanted How To Minecraft but so many others didn't want it, and others wanted Pokémon Go too, so he had been running until he crashed.
He had collapsed half way through pre-recording a parkour episode with Vikk (the jag should have recorded it with me) and suddenly I received a call from Vikk saying that Lachlan had passed out. I knew it was from exhaustion so it wasn't an emergency, but I stayed with him for several hours while he slept. I woke him so we could drive back home and then went out to the supermarket, leaving him to sleep.
I headed to the temporary set up in the lounge and slid the headphones over my head, opening the video I had been editing before Lachlan collapsed. I had been about half way through it but it had been one for the following day so it didn't matter much.
I quickly flipped up the YouTube home page and ignored everything that YouTube decided that I would like, including slime videos and diss tracks. I sighed. Stupid algorithm.
I pulled up Lachlan's channel and onto the recently uploaded videos tab to see the last video he uploaded was over 20 hours ago. I pulled up Twitter and logged into Lachlan's account (he trusted me enough with his passwords) and then went to his mentions.
The entire page was full of spam, mostly from fans demanding where the videos were. There were several comments that were very rude, and some that called him fat, something that he always hated. His self-esteem had become so low since the hate had started he had refused to eat on occasions, thinking that they were right.
Sometimes I really hated the YouTube audience, so so much. I opened the editing program and took Lachlan's earliest video that he hadn't uploaded and started rendering it, preferring that he didn't see the comments.
Once I was sure the video was going to continue rendering without any supervision I headed down to our room, where Lachlan was supposed to be asleep. He wasn't.
As soon as I opened the door I heard quiet sniffling and I saw the top of Lachlan's head, the rest of his body buried underneath the blanket.
"Oh Lachy..." I tip-toed over to the bed and crawled in beside him, hugging him. He buried his head in my chest and sobbed, tears streaming down his face. I rocked him gently, moving back and forth slowly, running my hand through his hair.
"Lachy, you saw all of those comments didn't you..." He nodded into my chest and I kissed his forehead lovingly, desperate to let him see that those comments weren't true.
"Lachy please, listen to me. Those comments aren't true and you need to ignore them. You know they're will always be haters." He nodded again but another round of tears overtook him and he sobbed again.
I hugged him close and simply held him, letting him cry all of his pain out. I felt horrible, I knew his fans were amazing people but those odd few had so much more of an impact than all of the others and I hated it. Why couldn't they just leave him alone?
"Lachy, you know how much I love you and I would never lie to you. Those comments are all wrong, you work your hardest for them but some will always do this. Please, don't see them as truth..."
His hands were gripping at my shirt, his head in my chest, still sobbing his heart out. Honestly, I was on the verge of tears myself, I hated seeing him like that.
I lifted his head up so he was eye to eye with me and leaned in so our foreheads were touching, holding that position. Lachlan had his eyes closed, leaning heavily on me and I had mine open, watching as some more silent tears rolled down his face.
His breaths were still hiccupping every few seconds from crying, causing his entire body to jerk up but I held him, for as long as he needed it. After a few minutes he started to lean forwards, no longer relying on his own strength to keep himself up.
I knew he falling asleep on me so I moved one of my arms to behind his waist and pulled him into my shoulder, lying down beside him. He was still crying a little so I used my sleeve to wipe the last of his tears away before he went completely limp, sleep taking over.
I gently kissed his forehead and reached down to pull the covers over ourselves, completely forgetting that I had left a tub of ice cream sitting on the bench that I was meant to put away, but forgot too.
"Why have you always be self-conscious Lachy."
