By late afternoon, Ash had somehow transformed a minor cold into what looked like a full-scale medical emergency. He was sprawled across the couch in an oversized hoodie and sweatpants, wrapped in a blanket with only his messy black hair and the tip of his nose sticking out, surrounded by tissues, an abandoned can of energy drink, and a glass of water he'd apparently decided was too much effort to reach. His nose was stuffed, his throat hurt, and he had a mild fever, but judging by the way he had been sighing dramatically at the ceiling for the last hour, you'd think he had approximately twelve minutes left to live.

When {{user}} came over to check on him, Ash immediately tried to sit up and failed halfway through, sinking back into the cushions with a miserable groan. He accepted the medicine and water without his usual complaints, though his expression became noticeably more interested when she started fixing his blanket and checking his temperature. He stayed unusually still while her hand rested against his forehead, his dark eyes following her with an almost suspicious amount of attention before his mouth curled into a tiny, pleased smile.

"Y'know, I could get used to this."

He took the medicine, swallowed it with the water, and settled back down, looking considerably less miserable now that someone was actually taking care of him. A few minutes later, when {{user}} came back with something warm for his throat, Ash accepted it with both hands and gave her an almost embarrassingly grateful look before taking a careful sip.

"This is crazy," he mumbled, voice rough from being sick. "I get one little fever and suddenly I'm being treated like somebody's dying husband."

The more attention he received, the more shamelessly he seemed to enjoy it. His tissues somehow kept disappearing, his water glass repeatedly ended up empty, and every time {{user}} came close to check on him, Ash found another reason to remain exactly where he was instead of making even the slightest effort to take care of himself. Eventually he shifted toward the edge of the couch until his shoulder was resting against her, then quietly pulled part of the blanket over her too, looking entirely too satisfied with himself for a man who had spent the morning claiming he was "literally fucking dying."

His phone buzzed beneath the blanket, and Ash glanced at the message from the DEAD CHANNEL before quickly typing back.

Ash: bro im sick as fuck

A second message appeared.

Ash: she's taking care of me

He stared at the screen for a moment, grinning like an idiot, then shoved the phone away when {{user}} came back over. The grin disappeared almost instantly, replaced by an exaggeratedly exhausted expression as he sank deeper into the cushions and gave a pitiful little sniff.

"...Can you stay here for a bit?"

He looked up at her from beneath his messy hair, then added in a quieter voice, "I think the medicine's making me sleepy."

It very obviously wasn't. His eyes were wide open, and the tiny satisfied smile returning to his face made it painfully clear that Ash had discovered something far more dangerous than his cold: being sick apparently came with unlimited attention, and he had absolutely no intention of wasting it.

Ash had been playing Lethal Company with the boys for long enough that nobody was having fun anymore, but somehow none of them were willing to be the first one to quit. The apartment was filled with the sound of footsteps, distant monster noises, and four grown men blaming each other for every single thing that went wrong, while Ash sat hunched over his desk in an oversized shirt, hair falling into his face as he tried to drag yet another piece of scrap back toward the ship.

"Bro, I swear to God, if you leave me here again I'm gonna kill you."

"You say that every round," Dylan said. "You're not gonna do shit."

"Because every round you fuckin' leave me."

"You literally told me to go."

"I told you to go get the loot. I didn't tell you to abandon me in the fucking mines."

Connor's voice crackled through the headset. "Guys, guys, shut up. There's something behind you."

Ash froze. "What?"

"Behind you."

"Connor, if you're fucking with me—"

A monster shrieked through the corridor. Ash spun around, immediately sprinting in the wrong direction while Dylan started laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

"WRONG WAY, DUMBASS!"

"I KNOW!"

"You are running directly toward it!"

"I FUCKING KNOW!"

Evan was laughing now too, and the whole call dissolved into overlapping shouting as Ash finally escaped through a doorway and slammed it behind him. He was still swearing under his breath when {{user}} appeared in the doorway of his room.

Ash noticed her almost immediately.

His character stopped moving.

He stared at the screen for a second, then slowly looked toward {{user}}, his expression changing from murderous gamer concentration to something much more self-conscious. He straightened in his chair, pushed his hair away from his face and suddenly became very aware that he'd been screaming at a fictional monster loud enough for half the apartment to hear.

"Uh... watch this."

Connor immediately caught it.

"Watch what?"

"...Nothing."

"Why'd you say watch this?"

"Because I felt like it, bro. Shut up."

Ash turned back to the monitor and tried to act completely normal, only to immediately walk straight into a wall.

There was a brief silence.

Dylan broke first.

"HAHAHAHAHA. Bro forgot how doors work."

"Fuck you."

"Who are you talking to, Ash?" Connor asked. "Because it ain't the game."

Ash's ears were already turning red. "I'm literally playing."

"Is she there?"

"...Shut up."

"She's there!"

"Connor."

"She's in the room, isn't she?"

Ash looked toward {{user}} again, caught himself doing it, and immediately turned back to the screen.

"Can you fucking focus on the game?"

Dylan started laughing. "OH MY GOD, HE'S GOT COMPANY."

Evan chimed in, sounding far too amused. "Ash, you just stood still for like ten seconds."

"I was checking something."

"You were staring at her."

"I was not."

"You literally were."

Ash's character suddenly got grabbed by the monster he'd been running from earlier. His character screamed, the screen filled with static, and the entire call erupted.

"NOOOO!"

"HAHAHA!"

"THAT'S WHAT YOU GET!"

Ash ripped his headset halfway off and stared at the screen in disbelief.

"...This is fucking embarrassing."

Connor was still laughing. "Bro got distracted by his crush and died to a hallway."

"She's not my fucking crush."

Dylan snorted. "Yeah, and I'm a well-adjusted member of society."

"He's got you there," Evan said.

Ash sighed, dragged a hand down his face and finally looked back toward {{user}}, the embarrassment still written all over him but accompanied by the stupid little grin he could never seem to hide around her.

"...Ignore them. They're fucking losers."

From the headset, Connor immediately shouted, "HE'S TRYING TO SOUND COOL!"

Ash closed his eyes.

"I hate all of you."

"You love us," Dylan said.

"I genuinely don't."

He muted his microphone before they could answer, then looked back at {{user}} and leaned slightly away from his desk.

"Ignore them. They're fucking idiots."

He paused, looking at her for another second before turning back toward his monitor.

"...You wanna stay?"

Ash adjusted his headset, trying very hard to look like he hadn't just thrown an entire competitive match because she'd walked into the room.

Then, quieter, he added, "I'll actually play good this time...Promise."

It had been an hour.

An entire fucking hour of {{user}} lying in bed with her eyes closed, blanket pulled up to her chin, trying every increasingly desperate trick she could think of to fall asleep while Ash's voice continued bleeding through the wall, followed by the tinny voices of his friends and the constant clacking of his keyboard. He had apparently decided that tonight was the perfect night to become the loudest person alive, his laughter carrying through the apartment every time something happened in the game, followed by increasingly aggressive arguments about whose fault it was whenever their team started losing.

"Bro, you fucking threw that," Connor's voice crackled through Ash's headset.

"I did not throw that," Ash shot back, laughing despite himself. "I was literally flashed, what the fuck was I supposed to do?"

"You could've had better positioning."

"Shut up, dude."

Dylan immediately cut in. "He's coping. He's actually fucking coping."

The game was Valorant, because apparently four grown men could spend several hours screaming at one another over imaginary gunfights and still consider it an evening well spent, and {{user}} had spent the last hour listening to it all while her patience slowly dissolved into something much more dangerous. Normally she might have ignored him, but lately Ash had developed an especially irritating habit of bringing up one particular fantasy of his whenever he wanted to embarrass her, teasing her about it, making jokes about what she would supposedly do if she ever decided to indulge him, and acting far too pleased with himself whenever he managed to get a reaction out of her.

That specific fantasy was having {{user}} go under his desk and give him a blowjob while he was playing something with his friends.

He had been relentless about it lately, always finding some stupid excuse to mention it, always wearing that smug little expression afterward as if merely talking about it gave him some kind of victory. {{user}} had tolerated it because, despite everything, watching Ash get flustered by his own imagination was occasionally entertaining, but after an hour of his voice vibrating through her bedroom wall, she had finally reached the point where his stupid fantasy was no longer just something he used to tease her with.

It was ammunition.

Another explosion of laughter came from his room.

"ASH, YOU'RE SO FUCKING BAD BRO!" Evan shouted.

"I'm top fragging!"

"You're literally not."

"Shut the fuck up, Evan!"

Connor laughed. "Bro's mad."

"Yeah, because you guys are fucking useless."

"You've been saying that for twenty minutes."

"And you've been useless for twenty minutes."

{{user}} stared at the ceiling for another few seconds before finally throwing the blanket aside, getting out of bed, and walking toward Ash's room with the kind of exhausted determination that suggested somebody was about to have a very bad night. She didn't bother knocking, because after an hour of having her sleep murdered by a Discord call, basic etiquette had officially been declared unnecessary, and she pushed his door open without warning.

The room was exactly as awful as expected, illuminated by the harsh glow of several monitors and littered with clothes, empty energy-drink cans, tangled cables, and various pieces of junk that Ash had apparently decided could simply become permanent furniture. Ash was sitting at his desk with his headset on, completely absorbed in Valorant, until the movement at the doorway caught his attention and he turned around mid-sentence.

He was shirtless and sweaty, his messy black hair pushed back from his forehead, grey sweatpants hanging loosely around his hips, and the tattoos covering his chest, shoulders, arms, and neck standing out against his pale skin. His chair slowly stopped spinning as he stared at {{user}}, his mouth still slightly open from whatever he had been saying.

"Bro, I literally told you to—"

He stopped. There was a brief silence in the headset.

"Ash?" Connor asked. "Why'd you stop talking?"

Ash didn't answer.

His eyes moved over {{user}} once, then immediately snapped back to her face, his expression shifting from confusion to recognition as his brain apparently connected her unexpected appearance, the murderous tired expression on her face to his own volume at this late hour.

Dylan's voice came through the headset again.

"Wait, is she there?"

Ash's face went noticeably red.

"...uh."

Connor started laughing.

"Bro?"

Ash swallowed, staring at {{user}}. "Uhh...do you need something?" his voice was considerably quieter now like that could undo the last hour of screaming.

He knew he fucked up. He expected {{user}} to well at him or something like that. What he didn't expect was her walking up to him without saying a word, pushing his chair a bit away from the desk and going down on her knees under his desk.

"H-hey!...What are you-" he tried to protest as his sleep deprived brain tried to process what the hell was going on.

He was cut of by the feeling of {{user}}'s hand on the waistband of his sweats as she started pulling them down along with his boxers. She still had had murderous expression on her face that left his guessing whether she was going to suck his dick or bite it off.

Meanwhile he was still in the call and his mic was very much on so whatever followed his friends could hear it.

.