hiii !! i'm ame ❥ i decided to finally customize my tumblr and stop lurking after a few people seemed to enjoy my work on ao3 !!
i use she/they interchangeably without preference; labels were never for me but i kiss any and every gender teehee
i am in college so updates might slow after i go back to school :((
i've been suuuper into creepypasta and otherwise slenderverse-related media like everymanHYBRID and marble hornets again recently (middle school ame is returning in full force), so expect that to be the majority of this blog. but i might one day pick up other fandoms like haikyuu if i decide to dive back into the fandom ^_^
other than creepypasta, i looove my dress up darling, vocaloid, figure collecting (my mfc profile here), and project sekai ♡(˃͈ ˂͈ ) my favorite bands right now are sleeping with sirens and pierce the veil, and my fav solo artists are underscores and lucy bedroque !!
if this blog gains any traction like my ao3, i'd love to do requests and shorter drabbles !! (mostly to procrastinate my longform fics) thanks for stopping by !! (♡ˊ͈ ꒳ ˋ͈)
i am STRICTLY against generative ai !! i do NOT want any of my work being fed into ai, and i do NOT want you on my page if you are in support of plagiarizing others' hard work by turning it into computer-made slop !!!
p.s. - ame isn't actually my name lol◝ ⩊ ◜none of my irls know about this account
𝜗ৎ 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 !!
(all works will contain mature content to some extent, 18+ fics will be stated as such)
ao3 ver. ₍^. .^₎Ⳋ his hatchet gleams, just not at you. - toby rogers x fem reader
synopsis: toby never expected to form connections he actually wanted to keep, especially not with anyone living in the mansion. only, when you arrive to make smoke bombs and anti-escape gadgets for the residents’ missions, he found that the friendship snowballed. fast. but how do you differentiate between friendship and love when you don’t remember the last time you experienced either? how do you do that when the other person isn’t helping unblur the line, because they don’t know which feeling it is either?
note: a relatively short friends to lovers read compared to what i have planned !!
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ao3 ver. ₍^. .^₎Ⳋ get the fuck off my computer! (18+ !!) - ben drowned x fem reader
synopsis: streaming was just supposed to be a small hobby on the side, maybe even a source of pocket money if you gained some more traction. but when a guy with the most absurd username you’ve ever seen gives you $1000 on your first broadcast, you have to decide if you can look past him hijacking your pc and cyberstalking you if it means he’s sending you everything on your online wishlists… and ends up being a lot cuter than expected.
Just calling him Toby will already have him nervous; that’s Tobes or Baby to you. To call him Tobias Erin Rogers would probably set every hair on his body on edge. Instantly, he’s all over you– kissing your face, nuzzling your neck, running his hands over your body– like he’s trying to override whatever he’d done to make you angry with physical affection. A pang of guilt washes over you once Toby nearly lifts your feet off the floor, clutching you like you’re a life raft in open ocean while stuttering over his repeated, “Did I do something? What’s wrong, babe?”
If you’re sitting down, he will literally sink to his knees and stare up at you with pleading, already teary eyes while resting his head on your thighs and asking what he did wrong. And if you’re really trying to play up the fury in your heart towards him, crossing your arms and sternly frowning, he’ll grab at your hand in a way that’s borderline pitiful before shoving it under his hair. Okay, prank’s over, you feel too bad. Once you explain that it was just a joke, he’ll playfully swat at you and pout about how scared he was before starting a playfight or cuddle session to make up for it.
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𝐓𝐢𝐦 ౨ৎ
Being a very traditionally masculine gentleman, Tim knows exactly what it means when his lady shouts for Timothy Wright to “come here now!” Taking a deep, preparatory exhale, he puts whatever he was doing on pause to ready that smooth, chivalrous persona that he uses to butter you up. The way he asks, “What’d I do, sugar?” is just dripping with honey, and you almost forget that you’re supposed to be mad at him for the purposes of this bit. His rough, work-hardened hands are firmly settled on your hips as Tim looks down at you with the slight tug at the corner of his lips that he calls a smile.
Unless it’s a truly serious matter, he knows that he’ll be forgiven soon enough; but now you’re actually almost annoyed at how ridiculously easy it is for him to win you over. Pouting up at him, you explain that it was just a prank and he did not have to suck up to you so hard. He gives you the usual smug-bastard smirk as he asks you if it gave you the laugh you were looking for.
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𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 ౨ৎ
He couldn’t hear how hard you were trying not to laugh since his upper body was covered by the undercarriage of his truck. All he heard was the muffled call of his name with the surname attached, and that was enough for him to heave himself out from under his current project and futilely attempt to clean the grease off his arms. Before he can finish his, “What is it, sweetheart?” he sees you struggling to keep a straight face and knows exactly what little game you’re playing.
Apparently, Brian is only humorous when it involves getting back at you for something. “Have I made my baby upset? Oh, I’m sorry.” The dry sarcasm rolling off his tongue as he comes in for a very engine oil-ridden embrace. Even as you cry out and whine about, “It was just a joke!” or “You’re staining my clothes, Bri!” Once he’s had his fill of petty revenge, he’ll just promise to replace your outfit streaked with jet black before turning back to the garage with his typically stoic expression containing just a glint of amusement.
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𝐉𝐞𝐟𝐟 ౨ৎ
Oh, he does not like it. Everyone just calls him Jeff for a reason; he thinks Jeffery sounds ugly. That, and the only other people who ever referred to him as such were his parents after he got caught starting another schoolyard brawl. “Fuck are you calling me that for?” His lips curl into an irritated snarl, disregarding what you thought was a pretty solid attempt at faux anger. Though, you really should’ve expected a lack of any preemptive remorse from him in the first place.
You throw out some lame excuse about him not washing a dish he left in the sink. “‘Kay, just tell me that next time instead of yelling for me like my mom.” He huffs and rolls his eyes before snatching up the sponge and aggressively scrubbing the plate like it owes him money. Maybe it’d be better to let him think this wasn’t a miserable attempt at a prank.
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𝐁𝐞𝐧 ౨ৎ
Similarly to Jeff, he thinks Benjamin is a name for wrinkled old men who are on their deathbeds. He’s fully absorbed in some coding jargon on his computer when he hears you open the door, calling his full name like he’s your grandpa who asked how to take a screenshot. His eyebrow shoots up and his entire face contorts into a cringing grimace. “Hey, hey, sorry.” The mouse is set aside and Ben’s hands go up in mock surrender, “What’d I fuck up, damn?” Was it the fact that his room reeked of weed and was littered with empty containers? Maybe, he thought as he scrambled out of his chair to crack open his window and herd all the discarded cans and snack bags into the trash can. “Sorry, baby, I swear I was gonna get to it today.”
“I was just trying to play a little prank, gosh.” An amused smirk pulled at your lips upon seeing how quickly you could whip him into shape. “Keep cleaning this shit up, though.” He retorts by playfully moping and flopping into his bed, back facing you, woefully proclaiming that the only way to make it up to him is to join him under the covers.
If you called him some stupid shit like “Behavioral Event Network,” though, he’d probably laugh his ass off and ask how you even got through the phrase without jumbling the syllables up before returning to doomscrolling with the joint in his mouth.
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this was the inspo for today btw PLSSS ID LOVE TO FULFILL REQUESTS WITH MORE PROMPTS
i had to make a separate pinterest acct for this because my real one is such a hot mess <//3 anyway these are going to contain headcanons for their faces, hair, builds, etc. + just general moodboards to get a feel for how i see them !! oh and also moodboards for the 2 fics i have up rn
finding out that my fav bts member was posted up with chris brown was not on my fucking bingo card for this year 😭😭 my goat toby rogers would do this bruh ohmygod
Synopsis: Streaming was just supposed to be a small hobby on the side, maybe even a source of pocket money if you gained some more traction. But when a guy with the most absurd username you've ever seen gives you $1000 on your first broadcast, you have to decide if you can look past him hijacking your PC and cyberstalking you if it means he's sending you everything on your online wishlists... and ends up being a lot cuter than expected.
Tags: Strangers to Lovers, Livestreamer Reader, Reader Described as Hyperfeminine, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert, Mentioned Creepypasta Characters + Slender Mansion Elements, Not Fully Canon Compliant to Creepypasta Lore and Characterization, Stoner Ben, Marijuana Usage, Cybercrimes, Cyberstalking, Cyberstalking but he buys you lots of stuff ??, Explicit Sexual Content but I’m kind of mid at it ?, Sex While High (no non-con elements), Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Penetration, Cunnilingus, Sexual Overstimulation, Mild Dacryphilia
word count: 3,242
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By the time you were awake, Ben was already fully sobered up and idly scrolling on his phone to a bass-heavy trap instrumental. Grumbling, you tried to open your heavy eyelids to adjust to your surroundings. Where’d your phone go, whose bed were you in…? All too quickly, you answered your own questions and remembered exactly where you were. Ben’s LED strips stared back at you, an emerald green that dimmed due to lack of recharging. Your head was on his pillow, resting right next to the soft cotton sweatpants covering his hip. One of your arms was tossed haphazardly around his lap, the other splayed out like you owned his whole damn bed. And just last night, you’d told him that– oh, God, this is humiliating. Above you, Ben could see your mortified grimace and greeted you with a cocky grin.
“Morning, baby.” Without asking, he reached behind you and brought his hand back with a bottle of water. Fresh and unopened, unlike his. Desperate to hydrate the THC drought on your tongue, Ben watched how your throat bobbed, gulping down half the bottle before taking it from your hands. Only after your mouth no longer felt like a desertscape did you begin to articulate your utter shame.
“About last night—“ You stammered, unsure of how to even explain your thought process. At the time, you didn’t have one; that was the problem. Realizing that you were still draped over the lower half of Ben’s body, you immediately began scooting to reposition yourself upright and collect yourself. But before you could even fully lift your leg, his palm was already gently lowering it back down without a sound. All the air in your lungs made its way out in one shaky breath, your nervous eyes trailing up his chest to meet his. Through the blonde strands thinly veiling his face, you could make out something dark in his gaze. His jaw was clenched, like it took all the strength in him not to do whatever it was that he wanted. Hell, maybe you were into this right now, into the way that his fingers were gliding up your calf and onto your thigh; but that did little to override the embarrassment from what you’d divulged before you fell asleep.
“Ben…?” That sweetness in your whisper lingered in his ears as he cupped your chin with his fingers, angling your jaw upward to face him.
“You don’t hav’to be sorry, sweet girl.” Caressing the side of your cheek, Ben drawled the affirmation soft and low. It was like his very essence could bring a high of its very own, making you fall into that familiar daze where your brain slowed down and your lips parted just slightly. Your exhale, blurring the line between breathing and whimpering, came from below him, only causing him to tug harder at his insouciant smirk. “If you want, we can pretend it never happened. How’s that, hmn?” But he knew what your answer would be.
And so did you.
There was no way in hell you could just make this water under the bridge, not that you could ever want to. The Ben in front of you right now was addictive in a way that made you feel blissfully inebriated, blanketing you in a fuzzy warmth that you didn’t want to shake. “I don’t…” Only after breaking eye contact and averting your attention to the gap between his bed frame and mattress could you continue without feeling a sweltering wave of feeling that you might implode. “I don’t think I wanna do that.” He nodded like he’d predicted every word. Every movement he made afterward felt like a silent I thought so as he lowered himself flush to the mattress, barely giving you a second to take in his face before starting to memorize the shape of your lips against his. Hands advancing down the curve of your waist, he abruptly stopped as something about your behavior felt off.
“Fuck, are you still high?” Immediately, he pulled back when he noticed you sloppily failing to match his pace, your fingers struggling to find their standing against the muscle of his back. Shit, he should have expected this to happen; you’d snacked on the contents of his minifridge before he fed you the edible, and you were going to metabolize it way slower than usual. As much as he wanted you, barely making an effort to conceal the strain in his jeans when you looked at him in that way he loved, this wasn’t how his fantasies played out. “Hey, baby.” Ben’s breath grew heavy, the strand of saliva bonding your lips wavered as he spoke. “This doesn’t happen if you don’t want it to. I mean that.” Fully breaking the immersion, his hands left your hips to softly cup your chin.
“I’m only a bit, I promise.” Hastily shaking your head, your hands found his wrists and began returning them to their original position. There was no hope of turning back as Ben watched how your wide, doe-like eyes blinked up at him through their lashes, like they alone carried the duty of conveying your sincerity. “I really want this.” That wasn’t enough for him, not yet. Selfishly, Ben wanted to hear more. Eliciting an embarrassed whine, he shook his head.
“What do you want, pretty girl?” The velvet rasp in his question had you shuddering, unable to look him in the eye as you answered. Just the way you got so bashful had blood flowing to the tip of his cock.
“You.” That low, meek whisper was all Ben needed to let his hands roam wildly across your body, exploring as they pleased while he drew your lips back into his. He wanted that low, moaning gasp that you let out once his palms made contact with your bare skin under your top to be seared into his memory until the day he died, palming at your breasts and teasingly grazing your nipples in hopes to hear it again. Urging your arms above your head with one hand, he used the other to pull the fabric off your torso before discarding it in some forgotten corner. Your right hand was buried into his hair, fingertips grazing his scalp while the other snuck under his pants and toyed with the elastic of his boxers until you felt him begin parting from your mouth. When you mewled helplessly at the loss of his lips over yours, he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the tip of your tongue before forcing you to suck to the knuckle while he sat up and stripped above you.
“Holy shit, good girl.” He cooed as he watched you obey his silent command so pliantly. The praise had you bucking your hips into his, your nails digging thin crescents into his back. “Be so fucking good and do something for me, yeah?”
You nodded desperately, agreeing to anything if it meant you could have what was currently pressing against you under his sweatpants. Of fucking course you noticed it at the arcade; you’d already suspected it the first time he visited your apartment. He had to be almost 7 inches. Who couldn’t see how big he was, Christ? You asked yourself as you watched him stretch over you and toward the nightstand, leering at how his chest and abs pulled taut from the gap between him and his tank top. When his full body came back into view, you saw the preroll and lighter between his middle and index fingers.
“I’m gonna light this, and if you’re okay with it, I want you to take a deep breath in for me while I take a hit. ‘Kay, baby?” The assertion in his explanation had your thighs clenching against each other. If it meant the words “good girl” would grace your ears again, you would’ve complied with killing a man right then and there. Your docile nodding and precious “uh huh” rewarded you with exactly what you desperately needed before Ben took the joint into his lips, lighting the cherry and sucking a heavy hit in. Beckoning you closer with two fingers, he waited until your face was centimeters from his before blowing the warm vapor straight into your nose and mouth. Following his directions, you took in every stream, letting it cozily heat your lungs before letting it dissipate into the dimly lit room. “Shit, you’d listen to anything I told you right now. Wouldn’t you?”
“Fuck, yes–” you sighed yearnedly, lungs heaving with wanton need as you attempted to collide your tongue with his. A broken, pleading whine would’ve left you at the sight of him shaking his head and using his empty hand to maintain distance if he wasn’t already moving between your thighs, leaving supple kisses and decorative marks in the sensitive skin. Moving the saliva-dampened tip of the joint back between his lips, he breathed in another hit before blowing the warmth over your stomach. It only made you crave the fervor of his tongue on you further as your arms reached down to tug off your shorts.
“Impatient little slut, huh?” The whiplash of his words against the previous praise had you replying with an alluringly pitiful moan. Your breathing quickened as the effects of Ben shotgunning the preroll into your nose began taking effect, making your chest rise and fall with significantly more weight. “Getting so fucking needy,” he muttered as he helped you strip the last of your clothing until your entire body was laid out for him to admire. “It’s okay, baby. Don’t need to wait anymore.” Using the arm holding the joint, Ben’s elbow propped his body up as the other hand pried your thighs open, tongue dipping into the slippery entrance of your cunt.
His pace had you trembling and clawing feverishly at the sheets beneath you, breathy moans and gasps and begs for more, God, please trickling off your lips. When his mouth moved to suck your clit, tongue flicking and pooling spit over the sensitive spot, there was no holding back the high-pitched cry that escaped you as your hand flew to keep his head there. That act of forcing him to stay put, desperately babbling for him to please, please keep going, had him moaning into you, the vibration nearly causing you to sob from how good it felt. Ben’s fingers could hardly enter you for a few seconds before you were trying to squirm away.
“Wait, wait–” Your head spun uncontrollably, a thin stream of drool emerging from the corner of your mouth as you panted. “Fuck, I’ll cum, wait, Ben–” Unrelentingly, he continued to lick and suck at the sticky folds of your pussy, pumping his middle and ring fingers to the base and hooking them upward into the spongy tissue of your G-spot.
“That’s what I want, pretty girl,” he kept the pace as he heard your cries build in pitch, begging please, fuck, please while being finger-fucked so senseless that you didn’t even know what you were asking for. That knot in your stomach continued to intensify, stretching taut until it finally snapped, sending your back arched off the mattress with gasping sobs. “Good fucking slut, that’s it,” Ben murmured against your cunt, fucking you through your orgasm even after the overstimulation had your nails digging into his scalp.
You weren’t even able to catch your breath, still twitching with tears sliding down your cheeks even after he pulled away from your dripping pussy. “Hh- fuck– holy shit–” You heaved as he sat up, resting his body atop his knees. Just where the fuck was he learning this? When you first met Ben, you hated to admit that a bit of his appeal came from the dorkish charm in his demeanor; that he was a computer-obsessed nerd who’d likely never had sex in his life. But clearly, he had to have experience before this. There was no shot in hell he didn’t, but there was also no way your thoughts could stay steady as he gently tapped your face with his still slick-coated fingers.
“Hey, baby– you okay?” The only response he could get was a blissed-out nod, making him smugly chuckle. “Yeah, never been treated that good in your life?” Dumbly, you could only shake your head and buck your hips into nothing.
He noticed, of course he did. But you looked so pitiful and cute when he didn’t give you what you wanted, he thought. As if taking all the time he needed, he lazily eyed the preroll and saw that it was nearly burnt out to the tip. Taking his final hit, he gestured for you to part your lips and let him shotgun the cannabis stream into them once more. “So fuckin’ good to me, hmn?” He stroked your face after you obliged.
“P- please–” You whimpered below him; even with most of your senses fucked stupid, you still knew exactly how to make him cave. “Please, Ben, I’ll be so good–”
The way he clenched his teeth through his gritted jaw told you everything you needed to know: he’d give you what you asked for. Tugging at his already hard cock, he placed his hand under your mouth and nearly moaned when you spit into his palm without even a command. Rubbing the makeshift lubricant against the thick shaft and spreading out the swollen bead of precum that’d accumulated on the flushed tip, the realization that he was prepping himself bare made him unexpectedly pause.
“Shit, I don’t have condoms right now,” he mumbled. The thought of fucking you already was fully spontaneous; he hadn’t expected to for another few weeks at best.
“Ohmygod, just fucking pull out!” Mewling, your whine was layered with an exasperated giggle as your leg hooked around his thighs, tiredly attempting to yank him closer. So eager and despondent, it made him laugh hazily as he nodded and lined himself up with the glossy entrance of your pussy. From the moment his tip began to stretch you wider, Ben knew there was no shot in hell he’d last long.
“Holy fuck, desperate fucking girl–” Vular obscenities spilled over his lips, over and over again as he watched himself continue pushing inside your gripping walls.
“Needed this so fucking bad, hmn? My pretty baby, all fucking mine– taking me so well…” Filthy praise in all its forms escaped his gritted teeth until his cock had fully bottomed out inside of you. When he finally lifted your gaze, he wanted to pound you right there without even a millisecond to adjust. Flushed and panting, you’d bashfully turned your head to the side, staring at him through your half-lidded lashes. The hand that wasn’t clawing down the length of his back was desperately anchoring itself into the sheets, like you were scared the shotgunned hits of weed would sweep you out of reality and into the clouds if you didn’t fight to stay in Ben’s room. No moans came from under him yet, only strained, shaky breathing as you struggled to fully align your cunt to the thick shape of his cock. Ben was never the religious type, but right now, it was like he’d have to pick a god and pray for the restraint to keep still. Soon enough, salvation arrived.
“Please… you can move now…” Trailing off shyly, your hips grinded up against him to convey your request. And how could he ever deny his girl? The underside of your thighs squished against his slender fingers, palms forcing them up until your ankles dangled limply beside his shoulders. Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was the way the head of Ben’s cock was nearly touching your cervix, but it felt like ecstasy was rolling over you in fierce, crashing waves until you could pass out. “Oh, God, fuck—! Fuck, Ben— so fucking big—“ You keened lustfully, frantically trying to match the pace he’d set as you rolled your hips back up against his. When his thumb began to rub tight circles over your swollen clit, Ben actually laughed down at the sob that ripped from your lungs. He didn’t stop until your second orgasm locked your spine in a bowing arch, leaving you screaming his name with no regard for the 4 other roommates you’d been so hesitant to speak to.
“Wait, wait, fuck, it’s too much!” Lifting your hand that was buried into his sheets, you weakly tried pushing at Ben’s chest, but the overstimulation had your entire frame trembling as pleasured tears rolled off your cheeks and seeped into his pillowcase.
“Just—“ Ben’s voice caved with a small crack as he dragged his cock at a pace even more relentless, “Fucking take it, ‘kay?” He breathed curses as both hands squeezed your hips hard enough to bruise. “Just a little more, baby– so fucking sweet to me.” Even through the ecstasy blanketing every neuron in your brain, you could see how much your tears got him off. The pitch-black of the room, only slightly dimmed by his strip lights, obscured everything except for the planes of his gritted jaw and shuddering neck. The forest green illuminating the bed reflected against his dark, lascivious pupils as he swiftly pulled out of your pulsing cunt, coating your stomach in thin streams of white while fucking his hand through his orgasm.
The overlapping sounds of lungs heaving intertwined with the booming instrumental as the two of you stared at each other like you couldn’t believe what’d just happened. Taking your parted lips as an invitation, Ben slipped his tongue over yours as he extended an arm towards the nightstand to retrieve a tissue.
“Quit twitching, sweet girl; I’m trying to clean here.” He chuckled as he tried to steady your trembling torso, wiping it down before tidying the liquid lust dripping from your folds.
“Oh, like it’s not your fault?” Still coming off the heart-racing adrenaline, you lightly smacked the part of his chest you’d just spent the better part of 20 minutes clawing at.
“You say that like you didn’t fucking love it.” Discarding the tissue, Ben took it upon himself to kick you while you were still down, raising his pitch to a girlish, moaning cry. “Fuck, Ben! Oh, God!” In hysterics at how your face contorted into one of mortified indignation, alongside protests about how you totally did not sound like that, he dropped heavily into the sheets and pulled the covers over your bodies.
“Hey, uhm…” Your tone suddenly morphed into something more serious. “We don’t… y’know, have to make anything of this. If you don’t want to.” It was to be expected, at this point. You were well aware of how guys your age operated: offhand hookups, flings that blurred the line between casual and serious relationships. As much as you liked Ben, you weren’t too keen on getting your hopes up that he’d be any different.
His eyes twitched, his head cocking as if he didn’t understand why you’d even think that. “Nah, nah. I do. Just…” The pads of his fingers fidgeted in the curve of your waist. “I’d rather take you out first, or something. Feels weird; asking to take things further right after we fuck.” The consideration in his sentiment made you smile warmly into his damp skin, and Ben felt how you nodded against his collarbone.
Synopsis: Streaming was just supposed to be a small hobby on the side, maybe even a source of pocket money if you gained some more traction. But when a guy with the most absurd username you've ever seen gives you $1000 on your first broadcast, you have to decide if you can look past him hijacking your PC and cyberstalking you if it means he's sending you everything on your online wishlists... and ends up being a lot cuter than expected.
Tags: Strangers to Lovers, Livestreamer Reader, Reader Described as Hyperfeminine, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert, Mentioned Creepypasta Characters + Slender Mansion Elements, Not Fully Canon Compliant to Creepypasta Lore and Characterization, Stoner Ben, Marijuana Usage, Cybercrimes, Cyberstalking, Cyberstalking but he buys you lots of stuff ??, Explicit Sexual Content but I’m kind of mid at it ?, Sex While High (no non-con elements), Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Penetration, Cunnilingus, Sexual Overstimulation, Mild Dacryphilia
word count: 3,298
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Is Ben not as good with computers as you thought, or was your stalker working for the fucking CIA?!
Absolutely unbelievable… between the time you went to bed and 1:30 p.m., your secret admirer had sent not 1, not 2. An entire 7 fucking pop-up tabs. This time, they were littered all across your monitor like confetti at a kid’s birthday party. Every single one contained the same core things: a picture of an item you’d recently added to your cart on a retail clothing site, and a generic compliment below it. A pair of shorts followed by you’d look so cute in these, babe—a nice tank top followed by for my pretty girl <3. After adding up the total, your computer-proficient suitor had spent almost $250 in one night. You didn’t even have an outlet for your bewilderment; there was no face to scream “what the hell did you do this for?!” at. If you tried telling any of your friends, they were guaranteed to give it a hollering laugh before brushing it off with an unserious, “it’s free stuff, who cares?” There was only one person you could turn to right now.
…
Ben pretty much expected a slew of texts from you whenever you decided to wake up. What came a little more out of left field, however, was an incoming Instagram call. When had he ever even used this feature before? Whatever, it was from you, he mused as he swiped to pick up.
“Ben—?” Your sweet voice came through on the other line, a mix of anxiety and shock in your tone.
“Yeah, what’s up? Miss me already?” He’d rehearsed his voice to come off as smug and unaware as possible.
“No, shut up.” Despite the evident unease, you still seemed to find that humorous. “Just— look, I’m turning on my camera.” You toggled your FaceTime on, and Ben was glad his profile picture obscured the blushing grin tugging at his expression. Flipping it back, you zoomed out to show your very much still corrupted PC.
“Holy shit,” he muttered. Not from the surprise that his “hard effort at debugging” had failed, obviously. No, he was admiring the fruits of his labor on your screen, even taking a capture of it to savor after you hung up. “Hey, fuck. I’m sorry that I didn’t help—“
“No, no. You tried; it isn’t your fault or anything.” Thank God Ben’s camera was off; he was smirking so arrogantly, you’d think he just won the lottery. The grin only amplified in shit-eating intensity when an idea crossed his mind.
“Wait, lemme take a look. Keep your camera on. Do you know how to access your firewall?” Having been slumped in his chair and facing his wall decorated with wrinkled videogame posters until now, he swiveled to face his keyboard.
“Uhm… no.” You deadpanned. “I’m a biology major, Ben.” When he chuckled at your retort, you wanted to come up with something witty to evoke the sound again. It was low, soft, raspy in an addictively charming way.
“Alright, sorry. Open your control panel if you can find it.” He instructed, already pulling up your desktop on his own monitor and taking control of the mouse on his end.
“Uhm… okay…” You fumbled around with the hotbar until locating it; Ben watched your clueless guess-and-check method in entertainment.
“There you go, smart girl; now click the thing that says “Firewall and Network,” then “Advanced Settings.” Except you wouldn’t get a chance to follow along with his directions; Ben was already moving your mouse over to Safari and typing Amazon into the search bar.
“Okaaay, let me do— OHMYGOD, are you seeing this?!” Slack-jawed, you could only stare in awe as your own Amazon profile came into view. Without you laying a single finger, your mouse clicked the cart and selected the first five items. “Ben, ohmygod, LOOK at this!”
“Yeah, I’m seeing it. What the fuck, dude?” Ben was physically forcing back the grin in his voice as he began checking out under his hidden credit card, feigning an equal amount of astonishment as you. “Never seen anything like this before.” If only you could get a glimpse into his head right now, it was nothing but maniacal hysterics in there. He waited until the order confirmation screen finished loading before clearing the link in the browser and replacing it with a simple enjoy <3.
All you could do was helplessly blink. Even if you tried skating your mouse around on your desk, it didn’t move a single pixel in the direction you wanted. “I…” You parted your lips to complete the statement, but couldn’t even articulate just how dumbfounding the situation was. “You saw all that. Right?” The text indication point blinked back at you in the browser, almost tauntingly. This was the only sign your culprit was ever there. “I think I’m going insane.”
Oh, shit. As much as it was funny to pull these stunts on you, Ben’s intention was never to actually stress you out. And with the inflection of your delivery, that seemed to have been the effect. “Hey, wait—“ Comforting people was never a strong suit of his. The only language he spoke was binary and internet culture; any moments of emotional discomfort he felt were almost instantly drowned out by games and weed. Still, he had to try. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Just try and forget about it and enjoy the free shit, yeah? No harm, no foul.”
That was literally the exact opposite of what you wanted to hear right now. “I can’t just do that! How am I supposed to just— pretend there isn’t some stranger hijacking my PC whenever they want? What if this is just some… some long-running thing to steal my bank account info one day or something?” Flipping the camera back to front view, you propped your phone on your desk and flipped into your gaming chair, head leaning back in frustration.
Ben hadn’t even thought of that. He needed to come up with something to alleviate the situation he’d caused. Fast. The words rolled off his tongue before he could even process their impact. “I can, y’know, do some research on this. Stop by and try again sometime soon. Maybe, like… hang out- after?” Presenting an actual solution rather than halfheartedly joking about it was the much-preferred route for you. Noted. Your tone seemed to lighten a bit at that.
“You’re saving my life right now, you know that?” Pulling your torso from its depressed slouch on your chair, you propped your elbows on your desk and leaned your head on one hand. “Hey,” you smiled pleadingly at the screen. “Can I at least see your face while I thank you?” Hopefully, he can take a hint and tell you are obviously flirting right now.
He did not. Oblivious as he was, how could he say no to that…? Raking his fingers through his hair as a makeshift comb, he neatened as many flyaway strands as possible before pressing the camera button. This was definitively Ben in a more natural state; his outfit was much more lived-in this time around, being only a washed-out pair of gray sweatpants and a tank top that revealed even more of his lean biceps. The back of his dirty blonde hair was adorably done up in a short, stubby low ponytail. Maybe this made up for your particularly shitty morning. Taking a quick glance at his room, it was definitely typical for a stereotypical computer nerd. Worn clothes haphazardly tossed onto the floor or the edge of the mattress, an energy drink can here– okay, ew. Clean up those wrappers. In the forefront of it all was that ever-present cocky smirk, like he knew his room was a complete pigsty, but everything else about him made up for it in full. You hated that it kind of did.
“Thanks a ton, Ben.” Through your batting, half-lidded lashes, your eyes seemed to sparkle under your pastel pink lighting. “You’ve been really, really nice to me for how shortly I’ve known you so far. I really wanna get back to streaming once this whole issue is fixed.” Your tone had dipped into the most alluring cadence you could conjure up, and you could see how effectively it’d flustered Ben. A trainedly beguiling smile pulled at your lip-balm-glossed lips as you leaned in closer. “About what you said, I told you I was free this Thursday. Any ideas for what you wanna do?” Normally, the idea of coming on so strongly to a guy like this would be considered batshit crazy. But Ben had literally sent you $1000 before telling you his name; the chances of him not being charmed by this right now were slim to none.
His brain was short-circuiting so badly that he almost forgot the camera was fully focused on him. In absolutely no world did he think he would’ve accomplished this. No, focus. Focus, right fucking now. Some men die of thirst, others drown; he was not going to fucking drown. Not when you looked this fucking cute, no shot. Somewhere between replying, he suddenly became indecisive about whether to say “yeah, sure” or “okay,” ending up with a garbled mess that sounded like a monotone, “Yeshuokay.”
“What?”
This cannot be happening. “Sorry–” He fumbled, trying to salvage his dignity. “Yeah, I can- I can hang out. On Thursday. We could go to…” The first thing that came to mind was the first suggestion he gave: “an arcade?” Oh, I’m sure, Ben.
“Ooouh, sure! I know a bowling alley near me that has a super huge one!” You chirped, excitedly already searching it up on your phone. Ben couldn’t help but screenshot the ridiculously cute zoom-in of your eyes staring down at the lens. “Here, I’ll send you the location on– oh, wait. I don’t have your number yet.” Oh, that was so fucking smooth. Good going, you pat yourself on the back.
“I’ll DM you it right now.” The response was so immediate that you couldn’t help the soft giggle that came out. Copying his phone number and pasting it into the contact creation prompt, you typed in an endearing “Ben 💚” for the name before saving and planning to sneak a candid photo of him for the icon.
“Got it,” you singsonged, “just sent the location.”
“Yeah, I see it,” he hummed as he preemptively added you onto his phone as “my girl 🩷.” For affirmation, of course. “I’ll look into how to fix your computer right now. See you Thursday?”
“See you Thursday. Bye, Ben.”
…
Every detail of your outfit was precisely done up for your midday outing. Your hair was styled to balance your facial features without overwhelming your clothing: a lacy bolero over a plain, scallop-trim tank top, ruffly miniskirt, and ribboned thigh-high socks to complement the pastel pink wedge-heeled sandals. As you strode toward the bowling alley, your keychain-excessed purse swayed in tune with your arms. When the decided meetup location came closer into view, you gave your hair clips one last adjustment before taking a preparatory exhale and striding to the entrance. Fully expecting to wait, a precedent set by some terribly bummy old dates (not that this was one. Totally.), you were pleasantly surprised to see that Ben was already standing by the door. Your pace quickened as you beckoned his attention with a delighted wave.
“Heeey! Bennn!”
To hear you crying his name, no matter the context, had him actually fighting for his life as he gripped his tense jaw. Trying to calm the brain-overloaded shiver down his spine, he turned around to face you before the feeling came right back. The concept of another woman existing and coming close to this was dashed from Ben’s head right then and there. Compared to your attire, he felt immensely plain; now he felt a bit guilty for looking so underdressed. The only thing that’d changed from his appearance at your apartment was the swapping of the Resident Evil tee for a slouchy underscores tour one. You didn’t seem to mind as you drew him in for another greeting hug.
“The drive wasn’t too far, was it? Were you waiting a while? It’s so nice to see you again!” The hug itself was brief, but you made sure to let your fingertips linger just a moment too long on his arms before releasing him.
“Nah, it was alright.” No, it wasn’t; he fucking hated driving on the highway. “I just got here, don’t even worry about it.” That was also a lie; he was stressing out about this for 15 minutes in the car before leaving it. Letting himself follow behind your eager steps, the two of you skipped past the lobby for the bowling alley and straight into the cacophony of blaring bass and synth notes emanating from the various game cabinets in the arcade. It was starting to get overwhelming for Ben; sure, he could handle his own deafening music and game sounds, but it came on too strongly in his ears when it was all layered in such rapid succession. There wasn’t a single definitive sound he could pick and stick to; sooner or later, another one would completely overpower it and leave him fidgeting in his jean pockets as he failed to focus.
This was swiftly noticed by you as you cocked your head in worry. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Shoulda just taken a hit from my pen or something. Can’t focus.”
Your face furrowed in sympathetic understanding. “Do you wanna do that right now? I can cover you while you blow it into my purse or something.”
It was like you didn’t even realize how an offer like that was even more intimate than sex itself to someone like Ben. You looked fully clueless about the impact you had on the strain on his jeans right now.
“Hell yeah. Thanks, sweet girl.” As you unzipped your bag, he dug through his pocket until his hand emerged with the emergency on-hand dab pen. An almost too-long inhale later, he sighed a steady stream of cannabis vapor into the space in your purse for what felt like an infinity.
“No problem, babe.”
…
Passersby couldn’t even see the lower half of Ben’s body as he carried half the arcade’s stock of prizes from crane machines. It didn’t look like they’d get to stop worrying about inventory shortages anytime soon, either, as you elatedly pointed to another claw game.
“Oh, that one has the prize figure I have saved on my Pinterest! Try that one!”
How could he do anything but oblige? Whatever request came out of your mouth right now, Ben would see it done in a heartbeat. Setting down the massive armful of stuffed animals and figurine boxes, he swiped your shared token card on the machine and waited for the music to start.
“If I get this in one try, you’re getting baked as shit with me sometime this week.”
“Cheater. You’ve gotten all of them in one try so far.”
Using the word cheater to describe him right now was very accurate, actually; it was like he had a cheat mechanism to beat every game here, and it was no different for this one. With some convoluted series of joystick manipulation and button mashing, the figure’s box fell straight through the chute and into the claiming slot without the usual claw sensitivity rigging purposefully added to make other players fail at the last second. The two of you intended to walk away from this place with one message: if you wanted it, Ben could engineer anything in his favor to make it happen.
“Bet’s a bet,” he shrugged. “You wanna just take a hit from the pen now, or do we save that for later?”
“Addict and a cheater, huh? Couldn’t just pick one.” You tutted and playfully pushed at his shoulder. “I can tonight if you’ve got edibles.” That was probably the best way of consuming weed for you right now; you’d tried it before, but smoking the real thing was usually too intense. Whatever form of consumption you chose, the outcome would be all the same: he’d get to see you fully uninhibited, laughing and dazed like nothing else mattered— and it was exciting to him. Seeing other people high was fascinating to Ben. Not only did he enjoy sharing the sensation of it with others, but his body had racked up such a high endurance to it that he didn’t get to experience the usual elated chuckling or paranoia that others did. But you definitely could.
“What kinda asshole would I be if I didn’t have any for you, hm?”
…
It was like you physically couldn’t stop yourself from giggling every time you looked at Ben. It actually was pretty hilarious that he’d brought weed in every single form you could think of in his car. But other than that, today’s hangout with him had made you so immensely cheerful that just meeting his half-lidded gaze had you lazily snickering. The two of you had opted to meet back at his… house (?) since Ben relentlessly teased you about your bed being too overrun with plushes to fit both of you. It was a little questionable at first: some lumberjack-looking guy with a beer in hand on the sofa, accompanied by a stone-faced guy wearing a faded yellow hoodie. When Ben led you upstairs, he dapped up a really tall, lanky dude with greasy, black hair and an off-putting scar on his face. You could’ve sworn he had a disturbingly devious glint in his eye as you waved at him, too. After the edible kicked in, that wasn’t much of a concern.
Ben’s tolerance, on the other hand, just had him acting like a lazier, more relaxed version of his usual demeanor. He was half sitting, half lying against the headrest, propped up on his pillow with one arm casually slung over your torso and the other holding a burnt-out preroll. Your frame draped sleepily over his lap, one leg thrown in between his calves and the other resting limply over a hoodie he hadn’t yet folded. Every now and then, in the middle of your conversation, he’d look down at you with that lazy, boyish smirk and rub a few circles against the fabric of your top. The constant babbling jumped from topic to topic; you’d started with teasing him for being a total cheat at the arcade, and he somehow managed to switch the subject to government flocking cameras. In between, you asked questions about the people who were apparently his roommates, and he would answer as generally as possible or gloss over it with a joke too funny to let you remember what you’d been seeking the answer to.
“Y’know…” You mumbled. “I’m pretty happy that I started livestreaming.”
“Mmn?” Ben hummed lazily, Why’s that, baby?”
“Well, you joined my stream.” Your hands had drifted from the sheets to his torso, a comically inebriated attempt at a hug. “And now, we’re such good friends, baby. And I like you lots, ‘cause you’re so good with computers, and you tried to be so helpful, even if it didn’t work, and…”
He dragged a corner of the comforter over his lap as his head lolled back onto the headboard. “And what?” The hazy grin on his face dripped into his tone.
“I’m nervous…” You giggled, but required absolutely no pressure to keep talking. “I mean, we call each other the funny little names as a joke and all, but like…”
Ben only remembered the last sentence you said before the two of you fell asleep:
Synopsis: Streaming was just supposed to be a small hobby on the side, maybe even a source of pocket money if you gained some more traction. But when a guy with the most absurd username you've ever seen gives you $1000 on your first broadcast, you have to decide if you can look past him hijacking your PC and cyberstalking you if it means he's sending you everything on your online wishlists... and ends up being a lot cuter than expected.
Tags: Strangers to Lovers, Livestreamer Reader, Reader Described as Hyperfeminine, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert, Mentioned Creepypasta Characters + Slender Mansion Elements, Not Fully Canon Compliant to Creepypasta Lore and Characterization, Stoner Ben, Marijuana Usage, Cybercrimes, Cyberstalking, Cyberstalking but he buys you lots of stuff ??, Explicit Sexual Content but I’m kind of mid at it ?, Sex While High (no non-con elements), Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Penetration, Cunnilingus, Sexual Overstimulation, Mild Dacryphilia
word count: 3,383
⏔⏔⏔ ⏔⏔⏔
It was really hard to sleep when you remembered that your apartment address was in that computer pop-up.
No fucking way this guy you just met was capable of doing something so insane. What would Ben even gain from doing this? Your brain quickly rifled through any potential names of suspects, only to come up with… none. None of your friends were that proficient with computers, and you didn’t suspect any of them having a crush on you to the extent of anonymously sending a $300 gift your way. That really only left one choice.
youll never guess what just happened to me omg
Repeatedly typing and deleting your message to Ben before making sure it sounded innocuous enough, you finally hit send with a picture of your computer screen containing the preposterous pop-up in the corner. Putting your phone down to go brush your teeth, your eyes widened for just a moment as you heard it buzz just seconds later against your wooden nightstand.
thats crazy lmao
who sent it?
A relieved breath escaped your lips. See? Of course Ben was just as confused as you were; he had nothing to do with it. You couldn’t elaborate further, as one hand was already occupied with cleaning your teeth, so you tapped the audio recording button instead.
“Yeah, I don’t–” The toothpaste foam in your mouth splatted into your sink with a wet slap. “I don’t have any idea who could have sent– sorry, I’m brushing my teeth.” Quickly rinsing off, you continued.
“I dunno who could have sent something like this at all!” Now that there was no pale mint froth between your gums, your voice was a lot less garbled. “I mean, nobody I know has $300 to just send to me like that. And I don’t think I have any friends who are that good with computers… who would also want to break into my PC to leave some cryptic message. I don’t think any of my friends like me like that, either, so who the hell is calling me cute? Oh– let me know if you don’t want me rambling in voice memos, by the way! Sorry, this came outta left field.”
Pressing the stop button, you offhandedly sent it straight to Ben’s Instagram messages, where, unbeknownst to you, he felt like the happiest man alive.
…
Did he fucking green out…? Ben groaned as he stirred awake, limbs uncomfortably contorted in his tangled mess of blankets. No way, his tolerance is too high… or is it? Because with the way his eyelids felt like they couldn’t even open, and the insides of his mouth felt like sandpaper, he just might have. Dragging his legs out of bed, he groggily felt around his nightstand with his eyes half closed until his fingers found his phone and a stray, half-empty water bottle. When he saw the first notification, he could almost burst out laughing. Even while half asleep, he could easily make out his own handiwork in the picture you’d sent him.
thats crazy lmao
who sent it?
No duh, he knew exactly who sent it. But he knew better than to reveal himself right now. Maybe you’d warm up to the concept of cyberstalking once he opened Amazon on your computer while you were out to purchase half the things in your cart.
The already-crumpled plastic of the water bottle crunched under his fingers as he hastily finished the rest of its contents before aiming it at the trash can across the room and missing. Eh, he’d pick it up later. Later didn’t seem like an option, though, considering the dozen other empty containers strewn about. Only a minute into settling down in his chair for the day, Ben nearly flew out of it when he saw your next notification: You’d sent 1 voice message.
He frantically screenshotted the notification before it slipped off the screen, spam-pressing his volume button until it was the very maximum. He listened to all 54 seconds once. Then twice. Then, he had to will every ounce of discipline to stop and respond to you before hearing it thrice.
weird asf wtf
thought it was ur friend at first lmao
what r u gonna do abt it tho
Ben held absolutely no regard for the concept of double-texting. He’d spam you with anything, from actual messages to stupid unrelated reels, all day if he could. Matter of fact, he’d end his reply with a few more.
u dont gotta worry abt the voice messages btw
u can keep sending em– wait, that was weird, don’t send that. He backspaced before trying again.
i dont mind em
There, that sounded more normal. He hit send before returning to his computer, phone resting on his thigh to feel the buzz whenever you got back.
…
The microwave had just finished beeping with your leftovers inside when you checked your phone. 4+ messages from Ben. Guess he doesn’t mind spam, then. Carefully grabbing your breakfast, better suited as lunch considering how late you’d woken up, you placed it on your table and inattentively poked at it with your fork while opening Instagram to read what he’d sent you.
weird asf wtf
thought it was ur friend at first lmao
what r u gonna do abt it tho
u dont gotta worry abt the voice messages btw
i dont mind em
Scanning the words only reinforced your certainty that he wasn’t the culprit you were looking for. He had the exact same thought process as you, and he seemed unbothered by you sending a voice message in your first DM exchange. Back to his third message, though, what were you going to do about it? Whoever’d sent you this clearly managed to hijack your computer somehow. It wasn’t malicious; the exact opposite, even. But what if things did go south? What if the perpetrator was some deranged psycho who took you not being able to decipher their anonymity as rejection and killed you or something crazy? How could you even prevent it? You hadn’t even managed to stop it from happening in the first place. Your right hand began slowly typing while the other held a fork to your mouth.
honestly idrk :(((
ive never been hacked before, maybe ill just call an it guy over to my place??? maybe theyll find whats wrong and fix it :////
You didn’t even get the chance to finish typing “Residential IT Support” into your browser before Ben’s notification appeared at the top of your screen. Wow, he seemed pretty invested in the situation too.
nah dont do that
i gotchu if u want, no charge
it guys always fuck something up anyway
…
Oh, God, Ben had seriously fucked up sending that. Not that he doubted his malware was untraceable; no average IT worker could find it even if they tried. But what was he thinking inviting himself over to your place like that? He wasn’t thinking at all, that’s what. He groaned frustratedly as he threw his hands over his head, getting ready to roll another joint to ease the crushing fact that he’d messed up. Jeff would never let him hear the end of this one, smug bastard. Maybe he could really quickly unsend it and– too late, you’d already seen it.
His heart was pounding out of his chest as he watched your typing bubble appear and disappear. God damn it, just send the message, stop doing that! He internally cried, feeling the looming agony of the fumble of the century breathing down his neck. It’s over, it’s so over… wait, what? Ben nearly spun out of his gaming chair as his eyes scanned your answer, and he would’ve hooted with joy if it weren’t for the lingering drought of cottonmouth from the weed he’d smoked last night.
srsly? wat city r u in?
i couldve totally js used ur donation to pay for it buutttt if u insist :3
Instantly, the entire exchange was screenshotted dozens of times, like Ben was afraid it’d disappear without a trace and he’d have no proof to wave in Jeff’s face. Swiping to his slit-mouthed friend’s contact, he spammed him with the spoils of his victory alongside various GIFs showing his delight. “Yes, fuck yes!” His fist repeatedly pumped the air before he sent a pin of his location. From his little late-night social media ventures, he already knew you were less than a 20-minute drive away. Typically, Ben despised driving; he didn’t trust a damn soul in this town to drive from the few times he’d gone to some nightclub with Jeff and interacted with the locals. But this, this was worth all the risks.
omg rlly?! wait ur so close by
im free all day if u can come by today?
Followed by your address– not that Ben totally already knew where it was. He hastily typed a typo-ridden sure ill b t here in loke 30 mins. For the first time in God knows how long, he actually wore something other than stained sweatpants and a wrinkled tank top. Was it still exceedingly dorkish? Yes. The last new article of clothing Ben had purchased was a baggy Resident Evil T-shirt and loose-fit black jeans. That’ll have to do; he hadn’t done laundry in 2 weeks. There wasn’t a second to spare to accessorize, not that he had anything to spice up the outfit with, as he borderline sprinted downstairs with his phone in hand and backpack containing cables, drives, and whatnot hanging off one shoulder.
“I’m heading out, don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’m busy, so don’t call.” The jumbled fragments of sentences hardly registered in Tim’s ears as he turned to Brian with an eyebrow-furrowed grimace. The latter didn’t even bother, only shrugging back; Ben was easily the least volatile or hazardous resident of the mansion to allow out for leisure time. As a matter of fact, he’d hardly ever wanted it.
“‘Kay.”
Ben’s head vigorously nodded at Brian’s halfhearted approval before sprinting out the front door and slamming it behind him. Did he even lock it? His brain was so flooded with the rush of endorphins that he just left it for someone else to take care of. Eyes honed straight for one of the mansion’s shared cars, he messily fumbled with the keys before practically swerving out of the driveway with a loud SCREECH!
In the middle of Jeff’s workout, he checked his phone during a brief rest period. What the hell was Ben spamming him with now? He skimmed over the screenshot just in time to look out his bedroom window and see a red Toyota leaving tire marks on the driveway and nearly roared with laughter.
good luck getting laid bro, he sent back.
…
Was it maybe a bit exploitative to have your new friend come over to your house for free computer troubleshooting after you’d just met? Yeah. Was it even more exploitative when he’d just given you $1000? Sure. But he seemed really excited to help, so what kind of a friend would you be if you didn’t let him? You giggled onto your fork as you began typing your answer with only one hand, still preoccupied with your meal.
srsly? wat city r u in?
i couldve totally js used ur donation to pay for it buutttt if u insist :3
When his only response was a single pin drop at his location, you had to laugh at how big of a coincidence it was. Telling him that it was fine to swing by today, you finished the rest of your leftovers before tossing the container away and doing your dishes. Taking a quick inspection of your living room and bedroom, it seemed presentable enough for a guest without any extra sprucing up. Flopping down into the couch, you lazily doomscrolled while occasionally checking Ben’s icon move down the street on the Instagram location-sharing feature until he arrived at the complex. With anticipation of what your new friend might look like, you sent another quick message.
lol i was watching u
lmk if u get lost finding my place, 2nd floor to the right
It took only a few minutes for there to be a knock on your door. “Coming!” Rising off the couch, you strode over as your heart excitedly beat in your ribs. If you didn’t love meeting new people, having them over, and starting new friendships, then you never would’ve started livestreaming in the first place. It made you giddy as you swung open the door, and it made you smirk with even more excitement as you realized the guy in front of you was actually… pretty cute. He wasn’t super tall, maybe only about 5’6, but he had a slender, slightly defined frame that showed under the sleeves of his shirt. His hair stopped at the bottom of his neck and was cut in somewhat messy, clearly self-taught layers that framed his perfectly sharp yet faintly soft jaw. Ben had a face that you thought was the perfect balance of mostly handsome with a hint of boyish charm peeking through, his pale skin casting harsh shadows that further emphasized the planes of his features. “Hey, good to meet you!” You grinned, waving before stepping closer with your arms outstretched.
Oh, God, Ben could die happy today with a boner. Not exactly used to getting hugs, let alone from girls, he awkwardly returned the interaction with a bashful pat on your back and a short, “Hey, nice seeing you.” Even without the heavy-handed makeup for your camera to pick up on it, you still looked really pretty. And holy shit, he had to tear his eyes away from your legs in those shorts as you kept talking. Still, he couldn’t help as his attention wandered to the rest of your torso and face.
“Gosh, sorry for having you come out here on such short notice! Do you want anything– food, a drink?”
Shit, lock in, man, he reminded himself. “Nah, it’s ‘aight. I could eat after, lemme see the computer for now.” You gave a swift nod, and there he was, being led straight to your bedroom, and he thought it was really hot how much he contrasted with it. Your entire room was overloaded with pink and white pillows, frills, lace, and ribbons, from your bed to your PC setup. Both monitors were wrapped in matching lace trim with connected wallpapers, and the case itself held an imprisoned Chiikawa plush on display in the clear plastic. To tie it all together were the pale pink LED lights, just like his, all across the top of the walls.
“Jesus, how do you even sleep on your bed?” He teased, gesturing to the mountains of plushes and decorative pillows arranged neatly under your sheer tulle canopy.
“Hey, man. I hired a computer guy, not someone to critique my home decor.” You fired back, your smirk clearly amused and unoffended. Your response was heart-stoppingly quick; his exact type was someone who could banter back and forth about silly things like this, not a stuck-up prude who couldn’t let loose and laugh. He scoffed, pretending like he wasn’t totally thinking about shoving all that bullshit off your bed to push you onto it, before turning to your desk setup.
“I wasn’t hired, baby,” the nickname nonchalantly rolled off his tongue like it wasn’t strategically wedged into the sentence for you to take it as normal. The unfamiliarity of talking to anyone this way still sent a cringing shudder up his spine that he tried to hide, though. “You make me spend my gas, my time and energy–” He dramatically harped on, placing a mock hand over his head and feigning exhaustion, only stopping the bit when you playfully smacked his shoulder.
“Shut up! You asked to come, not me.” A jovial snicker left your lips as you took a seat on the soft, fuzzy carpet on your floor beside your desk, gesturing for him to take the chair and begin working. As he sat down and unzipped his backpack, revealing a whole arsenal of various USBs and connective cables, you grinned with the assurance that he knew what he was doing. “Do whatever you gotta do, babe; I think I trust you with all…” You returned the little petname bit and gestured unspecifically to the pile of parts covering your keyboard, “that.”
Ben had to suppress all the air in his lungs from fleeing in one exhale as he heard you call him that. Clearing his throat into his fist and moving his backpack over his lap, he acted as unfazed as possible as he began plugging things in, taking stuff out, typing and clicking all sorts of computer jargon until he opened up a wall of undecipherable code that you couldn’t even begin to make sense of. That was the hope, at least, that none of it was recognizable to you. It almost brought a pang of guilt to his heart that he had no intention of fixing the problems he’d brought upon your computer, but if it meant he could keep sending you gifts and slightly worrying pop-up tabs, then it was all worth it. In fact, all he did was fly his fingers across your keyboard to make it easier for him to bust through your firewall next time.
All the while, for a whole hour, the conversation prattled back and forth with you as the two of you babbled about your interests– your favorite music and games and movies, his coding skills and game expertise and extremely high weed tolerance, and everything in between. Before you knew it, Ben was cracking his neck and knuckles in satisfaction. “That should make everything normal now. I did some…” The rest of his sentence was pure gibberish; you had no idea what he was explaining, and that was exactly what he’d banked on as he purposefully overcomplicated the description of what he (allegedly) had done to secure your PC from more malware.
“Ugh, thanks so much!” You heaved yourself up from your criss-cross position to give him a grateful shoulder-hug, smiling against his hair. “Do you wanna eat something now? I could have dinner right now; but I eat kinda early compared to other people, so I could get you something light.”
Yeah, you. “Nah, I didn’t eat before I got here. If you want dinner, I’m down for anything.” Internal anguish swept over his body as you released him from your thankful embrace, leading him out to your kitchen’s island counter to sit down. The lack of fuss from your guest brought a smile to your face as you lazily heated up a premade freezer dinner for the two of you. Ben ate as if he’d never been fed a proper meal in his life, you noticed; and you weren’t far off, considering he’d basically lived off energy drinks and junk for months before this.
“Hey, if you need seconds or anything, fatty, let me know.”
“God, I can’t be hungry after doing all that work for you?”
You both chuckled as you cleared his plate. “Really, though. I appreciate you coming out here to help me. Like, a lot, Ben.”
“Anytime. Uhm–” he paused, bracing himself to act out the script he’d rehearsed dozens of times while working on your computer. “I mean, if you’re down, I could, y’know… hop on with you tonight. Or, like, hang out. Again. Outside of that.” While he tore himself apart for the exceedingly awkward delivery, you returned the offer with a sincere smile and nod.
“Yeah, of course! I’m free this Thursday and Friday; weekends, I’m gonna go out with my other friends, but next Monday, I should be good too.”
Yeeees, yesyesyesyes! Ben casually nodded, like it wasn’t the highlight of his week to hear that. “Yeah, I’ll, uhm… text you about plans for Thursday.” The night ended with him explaining he forgot his weed at home and needed it to go to sleep, and you lightheartedly smacking his shoulder on his way out the door.
You went to bed so happy with how the day went that you didn’t even turn your PC on to see the second pop-up in the same spot as last time.
Synopsis: Streaming was just supposed to be a small hobby on the side, maybe even a source of pocket money if you gained some more traction. But when a guy with the most absurd username you've ever seen gives you $1000 on your first broadcast, you have to decide if you can look past him hijacking your PC and cyberstalking you if it means he's sending you everything on your online wishlists... and ends up being a lot cuter than expected.
Tags: Strangers to Lovers, Livestreamer Reader, Reader Described as Hyperfeminine, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert, Mentioned Creepypasta Characters + Slender Mansion Elements, Not Fully Canon Compliant to Creepypasta Lore and Characterization, Stoner Ben, Marijuana Usage, Cybercrimes, Cyberstalking, Cyberstalking but he buys you lots of stuff ??, Explicit Sexual Content but I’m kind of mid at it ?, Sex While High (no non-con elements), Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Penetration, Cunnilingus, Sexual Overstimulation, Mild Dacryphilia
word count: 2,003 (it gets longer i swear)
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The dim purple glow of LED strips was the only light source in the bedroom, second to the blindingly bright PC setup. Thick, black, light-blocking curtains were fully drawn over the window, amplifying the moody gamer-cave atmosphere alongside an EDM playlist cranked to maximum volume. In the middle of it all, surrounded by crumpled energy drink cans and partially eaten snack bags, sat Ben in his gaming chair. Half-slumped, eyes reflecting the neon landscape of his mindless scrolling. The majority of livestreams on the app were pure slop to him, to an even higher degree than the already numbing brainrot that he rapid-fired past on his phone. Through the curtain of unkempt, slightly greasy blonde layers of hair, only one caught his eye: First Stream: Overwatch Session!
He didn’t typically care for Overwatch streams, only because he’d already learned the game inside and out and everyone else’s skills just paled in comparison. If anything, it only ended up irritating him when the person he was watching seemed absolutely incompetent; this was the case for literally any and every game you could name. But it was the thumbnail that really caught his eye– a pretty girl, candidly waving to the camera with one hand while still adjusting the angle in the other. Her headset separated the back of her hair from a few loose strands in the front, framing her chin perfectly. A loose-fitting tank top that was just tight enough to show some of her torso and lived-in lounge shorts was in sharp contrast to her meticulously done makeup. Hell, even if she was shit at the game, at least she’d look cute doing it. Scanning the user, just your first name with cute accessories on the side, he clicked the join button.
…
“Oh, we reached 50 viewers!” You exclaimed excitedly after giving the livestream monitor a quick peek, “Isn’t that supposed to be really good for new streamers? Thanks, guys!” There was too much going on in-game for you to be able to look up at the facecam while you spoke, but you still offered a sincere beam even though it was directed at nothing. No time to talk anymore. Under the handcam, your fingers rapidly pressed against the keyboard, mouse sweeping against the pad.
D.Va, huh? Basic as hell, Ben thought. Upon closer inspection of your room in the background, though, it seemed to make sense. Your bed was carefully curated with matching sheets, pillows, and comforters. The plushes were arranged to form a cushion between you and the wall, and every single one was remarkably adorable with frills and bows scattered in the designs. All the surrounding furniture had the same cutesy, lacey aesthetic, and against the wall was a pristine bookshelf decorated with various figurines of cute girls in ruffly skirts striking charming poses. If your bedroom was this handpicked, of course even the characters you mained would align with the Pinterest moodboard you probably made when planning it out.
Outside of him picking apart your interior design abilities, you actually weren’t bad. Sure, there was a small margin for improvement, but Ben’s exceptional pattern recognition and affinity for videogame mechanics made it hard for anyone to meet his standards for “good” gameplay. It actually looked like you were carrying the rest of your teammates, pushing the barricade while everyone else got slowly picked off.
“Jesus, these people suck.” You grumbled while hurriedly typing a mix of comms and insults into the game chat. Ben watched as the comments reacted in amusement to the stream of obscenities such a cute, hyperfeminine girl could come up with in such a short span of time. A small smirk played across his face, and he was almost tempted to leave a few of his own. By the end of the match, it was you against two other players, and operating only as a tank, no amount of talent gave you a chance. The defeat splash screen consumed the monitor. “Fuuuck–!” You lightheartedly cried, tossing your head back against your chair’s headrest and kicking your legs, “That was so stupid!” The chat, small as it may be, peaked in speed to send an assortment of gg and it’s okay! A comforted smile tugged at your glossy lips as you skimmed their words of encouragement. “Thanks, guys. You’re right, not my fault my team was trash. Well, anyway, I’ll just queue up–”
A sudden, high-pitched 8bit riff interrupted your train of thought. No way, was that…? When setting up the donation sound effects, you didn’t put much consideration into the more expensive ones, thinking that you could just change them if you ever got popular enough for people to even think of sending you that much money. But there it was, on your very first stream, the spinning text reading “$1000!” and a text-to-speech note before dissipating into a pink pixelated heart. For a good few seconds, your mouth just lay agape, blinking dazedly at the camera. The stream chat erupted in bewilderment alongside you, strings of HOLY SHIT and surprised GIFs flying by.
“I–” You stuttered, frantically opening your PayPal to see what the external tip’s note said on the app. “I didn’t even hear what it said, I was so– ohmygod, thank you! Uhm–” On the monitor that wasn’t being broadcast, your fingers hastily typed in your password to see the recent transactions on your account. There it was, at the very top: ur team was shit lol. 1v1? Excitement and curiosity trickled from your lips with flustered giggles as you dictated what the donation said to the other viewers. “Okay, well– your user is so stupid I don’t even think I wanna read it out. But yeah, DM me your Overwatch handle. I’ll run a round with you.”
Another donation sound effect; $200, holy fuck. This time, you weren’t so shocked that you couldn’t process the text-to-speech transcription that came with it. read my user and ill dono again if u win. You couldn’t help the truly baffled laugh that you breathed out at that one. “Okay, jointonhertitties69, add me on Overwatch, holy shit. Jesus, what the hell do you do for work?” You waited and refreshed your DMs until you saw that ridiculously idiotic user pop up, then opened a private match.
…
“Holy fuck, did you really just give me half your rent to beat my ass?” You laughed, and it wasn’t just some scripted mask to keep your girly persona intact. From what little he was typing in the game chat after a single match turned into 4, this guy seemed genuinely funny. His jokes were littered with obscure internet lore that took way too much screentime to understand, he was a total pothead, and he was really into computers. That last part was evident in the way you hadn’t even defeated him once. You looked to the corner of your screen, awaiting his response after another crushing defeat of 1:4. And there it fucking was: get = onika good = burgers. “Oh, fuck off!” Your shoulders shook with unbridled glee at the way he just kept having some new online reference to throw out. “You fucking sweat, I’m hopping off for the night! It’s, like, 2 a.m. now.” After the first 2 matches, you’d become so absorbed in playing with this anonymous donor that you almost forgot it was still being livestreamed, now to a total of 65 viewers.
“Aaagh, thanks for watching me get completely wrecked by this guy, everyone.” You grumbled in mock frustration, but maintained a smirk that told the audience that you didn’t really mind the defeat. “Oh, speaking of which– what’s your name, anyway?” There was a brief pause as you realized your elusive sponsor had already logged off the game, turning to see if maybe he’d say something in the stream chat instead. Nothing. “Huh.” You shrugged. “Well, tell me in private messages or something; you’re a pretty cool guy, we could play again when I’m not on stream too. Bye, everyone else! I’ll try to come back soon this week.” Giving one last cheerful wave to the camera, you turned off your stream and played the cute little goodbye card you’d tossed together yourself before shutting off the PC.
And to think you thought you’d get almost no attention tonight, you hummed as you strode into your bathroom to remove your makeup and wind down for bed. Scrubbing away at your eyeshadow and contour, your thoughts wandered back to the highlight of the night. Who the hell was this guy? What the hell did he gain out of sending you such an absurd amount of money, just playing a few Overwatch matches with you? Was he a really lonely guy who needed someone to talk to, or did he just happen to think you were really cute or something? You washed away all the questions spinning in your head with water from the sink before shutting off the faucet and pacing over to your bed and flopping into the soft comforter. One last scroll before you slept, you convinced yourself as you unlocked your phone, opening your livestream app messages to see if the anon had actually sent any information on their name.
my names ben. insta is the same user followed by a stupid meme.
You double-tapped it before opening Instagram to follow Ben and maybe stalk his profile. Unfortunately for you, his icon was just an exposure-adjusted picture of Link from Legend of Zelda. The only glimpses of him you could see were a small fragment of his hand tucked away in the corner of posts displaying his PC setup or prerolled joints. He either wasn’t tagged in any posts, or he’d hidden them all to remain completely faceless. Bummer, now you can’t tell if he’s cute. Whatever, he was a cool guy regardless, you mused as you plugged your phone in on the nightstand and began rolling over.
Why’s your PC back on?
Perplexed, you dragged yourself out from under the blanket and trod over, inspecting the power button and screen. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, save for a small pop-up in the upper right corner that you didn’t notice before. Thinking that it could have been from the stream, you double-clicked with your mouse to open it. Inside were only two things, and you didn’t know whether to be flattered or concerned: the first was a screenshot, showing an order confirmation for a $300 Marin Kitagawa scale figurine that fit seamlessly in the collection right in view of your webcam. The second was a small caption beneath it.
ur cute btw.
…
Ben finished encrypting the last lines of code needed to sneak past your computer’s firewall and send his romantic (?) message. Even while high out of his mind, he knew this wasn’t exactly the most conventional way to go about it.
You might get a little freaked out that the figure would actually get shipped to your apartment complex, sure. You might also block him and try to never think about the interaction again, maybe even quit streaming before your career even began. But if you just decided to block him and continue with content creation, he could always just use a fake IP address and make another account to lurk in the chat. His job in cyberstalking and profiling targets given to him by The Operator paid well enough that he didn’t need to worry too much about the cost of the donations or gifts. Finishing the last of his joint, he lazily turned on his phone and saw that he hadn’t been blocked. Scrolling through your posts and stories, he screenshotted his favorites before texting them to Jeff with a simple bagging dat soon. After a few minutes, he felt it buzz in his lap.
no fucking shot bro
keep dreaming
Taking a highly irresponsible sip of Monster Energy before going to bed, he typed a smug reply with one hand.
Synopsis: Toby never expected to form connections he actually wanted to keep, especially not with anyone living in the mansion. Only when you arrive to make smoke bombs and anti-escape gadgets for the residents’ missions, he found that the friendship snowballed. Fast. But how do you differentiate between friendship and love when you don’t remember the last time you experienced either? How do you do that when the other person isn’t helping unblur the line, because they don’t know which feeling it is either?
Tags: Friends to Lovers, Mentioned Creepypasta Characters + Slender Mansion Elements, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Brief Mentions of Past Trauma, Mostly Fluff + Some Angst, Severely Yearning Toby Rogers, Not Fully Canon Compliant to Creepypasta Lore and Characterization, Mutual Pining, Unaware of Said Mutual Pining, Toby and Reader Are Teenagers in the Beginning and Become Adults Later, Making Out Is the Most Mature It Gets, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert
word count: 2,980
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You awoke from your nap with your chest to Toby’s back, the taste of his lips on yours still lingering with a warm, soft tingle.
It was all real. All the proof you needed lay in the blood seeping from Toby’s bandages after overexerting his muscles to pull you in tighter as he kissed you, the way he slept like a weight had been taken off his shoulders. If you brought your attention downward, you could even see small blossoms of fading ruby on your neck and collarbone from where he yearnedly nipped at your skin. You smiled against his scalp, moving a hand to brush a few loose strands of hair from his face. But it was like, from the moment you moved, Toby was wide awake to feel it all. Jolting like he just remembered what’d happened, he slowly turned his head to face you like he was a child scared to face the consequences of what he’d done.
Toby’s eyes were wide in that way that exposed in full vulnerability how nervous he felt, staring straight at you through his thick lashes. “Uhm– s- sorry,” his shoulder twitched. “I’m sor- sorry. Did I… make it- weird? At the end?” The rest of his body was still turned away, as if he were scared to completely face you. The sheets stirred every so often as one of his limbs jerked.
“No, not at all.” You softly planted another peck on his cheek. “You don’t have to worry about that, Toby. I really like you.” The reassurance had to be said clear as day before someone as insecurity-ridden as him would listen. But when the confession finally registered in his head, it suddenly felt like all of his limbs were on fire. As if the hour-long makeout session wasn’t enough, Toby?
Suddenly, his entire body was turned around, his puppy-like gaze only centimeters from yours. “Y- you mean that?” Toby’s arms wriggled around in the very little space he’d placed between your frames, finding your hands and interlocking his fingers in them. Even under his disheveled, occasionally twitching head of hair, you could see every drop of wanton need in his expression; it was like he would crawl inside your skin if you let him. It was pretty cute, you thought as you nodded.
Just nodding wasn’t enough, though, nowhere close. “Say it out loud,” he murmured before drawing you back into his lips. “Please, tell me you m- mean it.” Despite his pleas, he didn’t even let you go for long enough to let you whisper the words he so desperately wanted to hear. Thinking about that elicited a soft giggle from your nose as your fingers let go of his to cup his face and caress his scar again. At first, the feeling of his hands being empty made Toby borderline whine, only to let out a shaky, broken noise of pure relief when your palms returned to his body. Almost immediately, like he was trying to prove his dedication to reciprocating your affection, he had one hand wedged under your hip and the other splayed out on your lower back. His head leaned further into your right hand, pressing it into his scar and forcing your fingers to smooth over the ridges of his exposed teeth. Each time you tried to let go in an attempt to speak, you were swiftly yanked back in before you could even laugh at how needy he was being. One of your legs was slung over his thighs, hooking around them to close any gap possible. The only sound in the room for a few minutes was the shuffling of blankets, breathy exhales of bliss from your and Toby’s noses, and light, content moans only muffled by your lips memorizing the shape of his. Finally, he only let you pull away when you complained of your cheek muscles starting to ache.
“I mean it, Toby.” You smiled against his skin after drooping your head to nuzzle the hollow of his neck. Above you, his eyes shone as if he’d just won the jackpot on a scratch ticket. Amber sunrays leaked through the blinds, casting the scene in a warm glow that he wished he could burn into his brain for the rest of his life. You looked beautiful; the golden gleam made it look like you were radiating light itself, and to Toby, that may very well have been the case as he watched your chest rise and fall contentedly.
“Mean what?” Feigning ignorance, he only asked to make you repeat your endeared confession. You caught on with a lighthearted push to his uninjured shoulder, muttering something about him being an idiot but still letting him have his little victory.
“I mean that I like you a lot.” You had to postpone the other sentences you planned to say after because Toby’s heartbeat was pounding so quickly that you literally thought he was vibrating. Placing a hand over his chest, you lifted your head from the crook of his neck to face him, maintaining eye contact as you drew a deep inhale in and slowly emptied your lungs. Catching on fast, he parroted your instructions until it didn’t feel like he was having arrhythmias against your body. Sensing that it was safe to continue, you finished your earlier thoughts. “I’ve really liked you for a long time, Toby. A lot more than just being your friend.”
Knowing how overwhelmed he tended to get in his head, you patiently kept your lovestruck gaze fixed on him until he could articulate his own emotions. A minute later, he spoke. “I– I think I love you. And I w- want… to take you out. On a real date.” It was clumsy. His confession was scattered and interspersed with the small jerks of his head, and most people definitely would not have dropped such a bomb so early on, but it was his, and it was bathed in bronze from the sun setting behind his body. Toby could only feel deeply and rawly in your presence, his breath beginning to waver in uniformity after the last sentence of his declaration of love. “I really want you to love me too.” Anxiously letting you take the time you needed to respond, he switched between rubbing small circles on the softness of your hips and running his palm up and down your side.
“Then let’s go on a date. Because…” Suddenly overcome with bashfulness, you buried your face into his chest with a bashful giggle. Toby layered the heartwarming sound with his own delighted chuckling, dragging his hands to your shoulders and holding you there.
“G- go on, say it. Don’t- don’t make me be the only one pourin’ my heart out,” his giggling raised an octave in that way it only did around you, that way you found so adorable. When you didn’t finish your sentence, he suddenly grabbed you by the shoulders and rolled your bodies in tandem until he was leaning over you and your back was flush against the sheets. Your protests fell on deaf ears as he kept you pinned there, both of you laughing amidst your playful struggle. “You’re not g- gettin’ outta here until you do!”
“Okay, okay!” You flailed against him to no avail, only able to fill his bedroom with your hysterics until finally stopping to catch your breath. “Because I love you too! Lemme go!” Your giggling was interrupted by the third minutes-long kiss in the span of a few hours, Toby's lips barely even making contact with yours because of how wide he was uncontrollably grinning. “Come on,” you writhed helplessly against him, even as you could tell he was going easy on you. “Let me outta here so we can go on our date, stupid! I wanna go eat somewhere!”
With that, he finally unpinned your shoulders and let you roll away from his grasp.
“D- don’t take too long getting ready!”
…
Truthfully, you didn’t have much in the way of dolling yourself up. What little friends you did have prior to coming to the mansion to work under the Operator had long stopped initiating contact in person. The only person you regularly spent time with was Toby, and he couldn’t care less what you looked like as long as you were there. He’d seen you on days when you felt like the cutest girl in the city as often as he saw you in stained, lived-in pajamas, your slightly oily hair clinging to your damp, blemished skin on a sweltering summer afternoon. So when it came to dressing up for an actual date, especially one so spontaneous, you were lost. Rummaging through your closet, you emerged with the one pair of bootcut jeans you owned that weren’t stained with blood from a job, a lace-trimmed, form-fitting tank top, and a fur-lined cargo jacket to shield yourself from the December chill. Slipping into your sherpa-insulated boots, the only ones with any type of heel, you emerged from your bedroom only to find Toby already waiting there.
Clearly, he was also lacking in what people considered “date night” attire. You both looked like you were about to head out on any other mission, only Toby was much less fortunate in finding something that wasn’t smeared with old corpse debris and grime. His coat had what looked like dried blood on the left, which he saw you chuckling at and guiltily covered with his sleeve (that had the same thing). “Sorry… everything e- else was a lot w- worse.” Head jerking, he ducked away while sheepishly biting his lip.
“It’s okay, Toby.” Shyly, you bridged the gap between your bodies and gave an unfamiliar, sudden peck to his cheek. The action left both of your ears warm to the touch, pulling away while avoiding eye contact. “I mean, I still think you look… really nice.” Your compliment nearly fell on deaf ears with the way you trailed off into a low mumble, but Toby could infer what you meant. No matter what volume you accoladed him at, it would bring the same fluttering warmth in his chest regardless.
He reciprocated your praise just as awkwardly. “I think you’re p- pretty no matter what you wear, t- too.” A shaky pointer finger gestured down to your boots, which he’d never seen on your feet before. “Especially those.” Instantly, his hands had retracted shyly to his torso, fingers fidgeting. Delighted to hear his acknowledgement of your efforts, you gave a little twirl to show them off.
“Oh, thank you!” Your gratitude faded and peaked in volume in Toby’s ears as your voice spun alongside you. “I don’t usually get to wear them, y’know, since we’re always in the woods. I’d fall over every 2 seconds.” Doing a little dance, you tapped your feet on the hardwood to show off the girlish click clack of the heels.
Cute… A flash of genius graced him as you expressed your woes. “Well, I c-could take you out more of- often. So you can wear them more.” His shoulder nervously shook as he expectantly waited for your excited agreement.
The offer brought an appreciative beam to your face and your arms to his waist. You flashed him a look that wordlessly expressed I’d like that before taking his hand and sauntering downstairs. The living room was completely vacated tonight, with Tim out at a local pub and Brian donning his camera to collect data on a future target. Wooden planks groaning against moving weight was the only sound to be heard as Toby quickly stepped in front of you as the two of you reached the door. Before you could extend a hand to undo the latch, he’d chivalrously taken it upon himself to prop the door open on your way out. The gesture held an especially strong weight compared to the other times he’d done it absentmindedly; this time, he was doing it because you were his.
“Th- this is… what guys are supposed to do, r- right?” Toby worriedly sought out your reassurance, and you could see his fingers trembling on the doorknob.
With an amused nod, you answered, “Mhm. Thank you, Toby.”
…
The diner’s atmosphere leaned much closer to subpar than it did romantic. Still getting used to walking in sync while holding hands, Toby pushed open the door and guided you onto the grimy tile floor surrounded by sun-faded advertisement posters. Scanning the largely vacant tables, save for a few solo patrons and a single family, you opted for one by the window with the least hard water stains obscuring the view of the equally uninviting outdoors. The unenthusiasm from your server did little to dampen your excitement as Toby fidgeted with your interlocked fingers; no one expected service workers on this part of town to be particularly excited to clock in. Sliding your menus onto the table, the young woman’s white dress shirt briskly stepped out of view with a brief, “I’ll be back in a few minutes for your orders.”
Excitement, nervousness, relief that it was finally happening after all this time— all three swirled through your head as you let it sink in that this was your first real date with Toby. Though, for some reason, you expected the difference between this and your usual hangouts to be much starker. Maybe it was because the two of you had already done just about everything with each other before this except call it what it was. Right now, the only difference was being able to intertwine his hand in yours and spontaneously deliver a peck to his face to see him fumble afterwards. That is, the upper half of his face that he was showing; no public setting was remotely comfortable for Toby to remove his mask, even for an occasion so special. It was made especially more difficult when the waitress returned to collect your orders, you noticed, as Toby’s face shied away while muttering what he wanted. Smoothing the pad of your thumb over his fingers, you watched as his muscles began to untense.
As the two of you ate, Toby couldn’t help but worry that the pressure of calling tonight a “date” was weighing down on both of you. Conversation that used to ricochet back and forth without a care in the world had suddenly become stilted and stiff. Was it because one of his hands had to be preoccupied with awkwardly propping up his mouthguard? Did you think it was too weird? His tics returned in full force as he prepared to ask. “Is… is this not g- good for you?”
“Oh, God, no. Why would you think that?” Extreme worry and guilt coincidedly washed over your heart. On one hand, it broke your heart to think that Toby doubted his ability to make you happy. On the other, you were expecting the stereotypical romantic experience to feel a bit more… magical? Whimsical? Compared to your usual forest strolls or at-home movie nights or thrilling chase after a fleeing victim, this simply felt so drab. This wasn’t something you associated with Toby at all, and you had to get it off your chest. “Well…”
The pounding in Toby’s heart has deafening and completely silent at the same time, overcome by the roaring fear that maybe you didn’t want this after all. You could see it in the way his eyes began to pick up a tearful gloss, the way his jaw shook under his mask like his lip was wobbling while stifling any signs of sorrow from slipping past his eyelids. There was no time to stall; things would only get worse if you didn’t tell him the truth.
“I just like what we always do a lot more,” you admitted plainly. Some of Toby’s worry began to calm as he realized the worst wasn’t happening, but there was still some hesitation to fully lower his guard and trouble understanding your logic in his expression. “I think it’s more fun to sit at the lake with you. Or have our sleepovers in the pillow forts. I just… this stuff isn’t as fun, and I don’t like it as much as everything else we do. This isn’t something I’d do with my Toby.”
He was your Toby? All at once, it clicked, any reservations he had about not being what you wanted were thrown out the window. Before you could tell what was going on, your Toby had snatched your hand in his and flew out the diner door without another word. Angry, cursing cries from a furious manager fell on deaf ears as the two of you sprinted in the direction of your favorite forest haven. This is what felt right with him: adrenaline flooding your veins, wind screeching past your ears as you picked up even more speed, only to slow down into mellow comfort as Toby sat you atop the usual flat rock facing the lake. So many nights here were spent together— laughing about something stupid, mocking Tim or Brian’s tyrannical lectures, rubbing each other’s back while one of you cried into the other’s shoulder. But this time, it carried the sentiment of something heavier.
“This is way better; I think so, anyway.” You pulled Toby’s jacket, which he’d so gentlemanly draped over you, closer to your chest. “I don’t wanna just do that other stuff because it’s what people say couples should.”
“I think I like it th- this way, too.” Truth be told, whatever way you wanted this to be was how it would happen. It didn’t matter even a little bit to Toby if it meant he could kiss you again.
And kiss you again, he did. Until the two of you fell asleep resting against the trunk of a towering oak tree, you were kissed by your best friend and pale blue moon.
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Complete !! ₍^. .^₎Ⳋ
Author's Note: This one was honestly rea;ly shrort compared to what I want to write in the future ! I do have another longform Toby fic in the works :3 I'll try to start posting that soon in conjunction with the Ben fic !!
Synopsis: Toby never expected to form connections he actually wanted to keep, especially not with anyone living in the mansion. Only, when you arrive to make smoke bombs and anti-escape gadgets for the residents’ missions, he found that the friendship snowballed. Fast. But how do you differentiate between friendship and love when you don’t remember the last time you experienced either? How do you do that when the other person isn’t helping unblur the line, because they don’t know which feeling it is either?
Tags: Friends to Lovers, Mentioned Creepypasta Characters + Slender Mansion Elements, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Brief Mentions of Past Trauma, Mostly Fluff + Some Angst, Severely Yearning Toby Rogers, Not Fully Canon Compliant to Creepypasta Lore and Characterization, Mutual Pining, Unaware of Said Mutual Pining, Toby and Reader Are Teenagers in the Beginning and Become Adults Later, Making Out Is the Most Mature It Gets, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert
word count: 3,658
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Maybe the tension was doomed to remain in the air after all.
You’d lost so much sleep thinking about that night that blemishes had begun sprouting up on your face. Clearly, so had Toby. Sure, you guys still hung out like usual; if anything, it was somehow even more often now. But after two months of being hypersensitive to every time your fingers grazed, every time one of you would turn to look at the other to find them already staring, every time one of you would return from a mission and be greeted with the other scanning their body for cuts with a gaze that was too worried, you were going insane. It was like Toby only had to apply feather-light force to trigger the hairs on the back of your neck.
Likewise, the nerve-wracking anxiety had Toby ticing so much harder than usual, he looked like a time bomb that could explode at any moment. Each call of his name in your voice would have him gripping the nearest surface with enough vigor to turn his knuckles white. He could see you trying so hard not to lean your head on his shoulder when you sat next to him now. And it killed him. What had he done wrong? Was it the way his hands cupped your face? The way he tried to push the needle through your ear as gently as possible, moving his lips like he wanted to kiss near the hole before stopping himself? Hell, had he even done anything wrong at all? You still wanted to spend almost every waking moment together, still treated him so kind and sweet. So why? Why did it seem like you’d rather die than touch him like you used to?
The questions spun through his head over and over, tearing his focus away from the midday cheap slasher flick you’d sat him down on the sofa to watch with you. Small spasms in his knees occasionally rattled the tooth-rotting concoction of popcorn, M&M’s, and pretzel bits in the bowl resting in his lap.
No time to dwell on it. As if it were some sick, demented joke, Tim’s voice rumbled deeply behind the couch. “Tomorrow. The two of you need to head southwest into the forest. ‘Bout 2 miles out. Some paranormal investigators are onto the place; they’re real keen on getting Operator footage, and armed. Brian will send you the photos he managed to get of them.”
It seemed the only people who hadn’t caught onto… whatever you and Toby had going on were, ironically enough, you and Toby. A short huff of air, the closest thing Tim had to a chuckle, escaped his nostrils as he noted how both of you tensed upright at the same time. You could only manage an uncharacteristically meek yes, sir, Toby following suit with a shaky nod, neither of you even turning around. For the first time in days, you both held eye contact without shying away in cowardice after 5 seconds. Most of the time nowadays, Toby just resorted to staring at your still-swollen ear.
“S- so…” a brief twitch, “gear restock?”
“After the movie.”
…
The autumn air nipped at the sliver of exposed skin peeking out from under your mask and goggles. Not even the worn leather gloves wrapping around your fingers soothed them from the numbing chill of the wind blowing around you. Toby, of course, looked completely unfazed— hell, his jacket was only there to make sure he didn’t freeze to death without realizing what was going on.
About half a mile until the campsite your targets had set up. “Same old, same old, I’m assuming?” Turning to face Toby, he gave a firm nod. Under his gear, you could still see how his cheeks rose to give an affirmative smile. And a thumbs up, for good measure. God, he was so cute, you almost forgot that you two were out here to kill half a dozen people. Picking up the pace, you weaved over fallen logs and under low-hanging branches in tandem, the insulated soles of your boots softening any crunch of dry November leaves. Your left hand clutched tightly onto a smoke bomb, the right wielding a fully loaded pistol with the safety already off. About 10 minutes later, the amber glow of a trespassing campfire came into view just a few hundred feet away.
As if predicting what the other was thinking, you both ducked down and turned to the other with a finger pressed against your masks as a wordless sshhhh. Toby saw through his own crescented eyes how yours squinted in a smile acknowledging the silent jinx! Chuckling and teasing about it would have to come later, though, as your eyes sharply honed in on the crew patrolling the small clearing up ahead. These people clearly meant business; high-definition cameras, wilderness flashlights that made you have to hold back a distressed groan from how bright they shone if it happened to move in your direction— if you leaned forward an inch, you could make out a motion sensor strapped to their tripods. A bystander would assume these people were preparing for the devil himself. Not too far off; just his henchmen since your eldritch terror boss was a little camera shy. Toby somehow sensed the way your muscles tensed in concern, as he placed a comforting hand on your forearm. His expression, as obscure as it was, still came across as an absolute It’s gonna be okay. Upon closer inspection, the sentiment definitely rang true; these people looked like they’d never brandished a weapon their whole lives, hands tensing so hard around their knife handles and pistol grips that the sweat in their palms caused them to slip and keep having to be readjusted.
Your lips parted with a brief sigh of comfort as your confidence rebolstered. According to Brian’s careful data collection and Ben’s camera tapping, they typically left around 4 a.m., giving you an hour to act. No number of assignments could dull the nerves or heart pounding through your chest while you stalked a human being intending to take their life, but the nerve-inhibiting adrenaline rush usually kicked in the moment someone played their first card. A shaky, drawn-out breath caused small streaks of white to muffle out from under your mask. Toby restlessly spun one of his twin hatchets in his hand; once, twice.
Thrice. That was your cue to hurl a smoke bomb into the campfire, causing it to erupt into a veil of hazy shades of gray. One crew member shouted, then another, until 3 were scrambling to salvage the cameras while the other half spun in frantic circles wielding their respective weapons. The shrubbery beside you darted forward in tandem with Toby’s thin, agile frame. Both hatchets gleamed under the pale moonlight, but the blades weren’t aimed at you. They’d never be for as long as you lived.
“What the FUCK?!” A voice shouted before disjointed grunts broke out, then fell silent with a wet gurgle. Through the smoke screen, you could make out a messy-haired silhouette latching onto a man’s throat, jerking his head up to the night sky before slicing with his hatchet. The victim’s camera clattered beneath him, the lens popping off and shattering into translucent dust. Blood spattered over the lenses of Toby’s goggles, staining the front of his jacket and trickling down into the soil below. And there was no way in hell you were gonna let him one-up your kill count tonight. In true competitive spirit, you swiftly cocked and fired your gun twice into the heads of another man and woman, making sure they hit the ground with a 100% dead thud. Jesus, why even give the chick a gun at all if you weren’t gonna teach her how to use it?
Your partner in crime clearly found that amusing, as he proceeded to fling one of his hatchets into the back of an escaping skull. The sickening crack reverberated through the clearing as the body planted face-first into grimey leaves. Okay, challenge accepted, since you wanna fucking aura farm. Finally rising from your hiding spot, you gunned down a guy who literally brought a knife to a gunfight. Guess the saying really does come from somewhere. That only left one. But as you waved your hand around your eyes in a futile effort to sway the hazy tapestry of smoke, you saw nothing.
“FFF- FUCK, WATCH OUT!”
The last pistol, which was originally aimed at you, swiftly pivoted to Toby as he shouted and narrowly saved a bullet from shattering your temple. Your final man standing was clearly riddled with nerves and inexperience; it was a terrible choice to leave his target when he heard another one screaming, but it saved your life. It didn’t offer you much relief as a deafening BANG rang through the air, with the target being right below Toby’s collarbone. He could never actually feel the pain shooting through his perforated muscle, but the force of the gunshot still sent him tumbling backwards and straight over a corpse.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Your pistol was immediately emptied, dumping every last cartridge into the man until nothing moved except pooling blood around his body. Fuck, your head didn’t even have a chance to catch up with your limbs as you scrambled to Toby’s side.
“Hey— hey, FUCK! Why the fuck did you do that?!” Kneeling, you heaved his torso up over your thighs, rattling him with one hand on the nape of his neck and the other wrapping around his upper body. “Why the FUCK did you do that?! You’re okay, right? You’re- you’re okay! It’ll be okay, Toby, FUCK, why did you do that?!”
It was a miracle that the shooter had piss poor aim. That, and he’d panicked and shot way too soon, seemingly hitting Toby’s right side because that’s just what he saw first. His heart was left unscathed, but your mind still broke under the weight that he could have just died before you even reached him. It was like your ears didn’t even hear him frantically trying to calm you.
“Hgghh— you’re m- making it worse- I’m okay, shit!” Toby groaned as you jangled his head like you were trying to make it lob off of his shoulders. In his head, it was almost morbidly hilarious. Clearly, he wasn’t dead; what was the fuss over? Only, the tears leaking out of your goggles made it a lot less funny.
“Hey, hey,” a tic in his right shoulder caused his face to contort at the discomfort of punctured muscle scraping against the bullet still embedded inside. “I’m alri- alright. See? Hey, I’m still talking, it’s okay…” He’d wriggled his other arm from out of the space between your lap and his torso, using it to heave himself upright and sit perpendicular to your body. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe it was your sons racking your body so hard that you couldn’t see an inch in front of you, but you didn’t even seem to wrap your head around the fact that your poor friend was still very much alive. The only thing that worked was Toby tearing off his mask to whisper a conversely gentle, “Don’t cry, look. I’m here.”
“T- Toby?” Mirroring his actions, you stripped your gear to get a better look at him. The literal bullet stuck in his chest didn’t deter him from thinking of how cute you were even with snot dripping down your nose. “Thank fuck, I- I’m so sorry, I- I should’ve seen him and shot him sooner, I don’t know- I don’t know what I was thinking, or what I was doing— oh, God, what am I doing, we need to get you back home to Jack—“
The poor boy didn’t even get a chance to interject and let you know he was not mortally wounded as you practically yanked him off the leaf-carpeted forest floor, dragging him by his good hand back home.
Well, at least you were holding his hand. Toby almost wanted to interrupt you just to remove your gloves and make it skin-to-skin. Bullet in his chest, and a stupidly lovestruck grin on his wind-beaten face, he simply let himself get towed into view of the mansion door.
…
“Jesus, we give you a group of fucking amateurs, and one of you still comes back shot.” No time to fire back and spark an argument with Tim this time; he could tell you didn’t hear a thing he said anyway as you pounded on the infirmary door. Whether you answered or not, he didn’t particularly care, considering that Toby was giving him an awkward wave on his way inside to show he was faring just fine.
“Hello? HELLO? JACK?”
“C- calm down, I’m s- sure he’s just a bit busy—“
“Shut UP!”
The door creaked open to reveal the mansion’s eyeless medic, scanning you and Toby before urging you both inside.
What few minutes had passed felt like years as you watched Jack work. If you didn’t trust him so much, you would have urged him to prep the gauze with a bit more exigency. “Well—? Is—“
“I know what you are going to ask.” Jack interrupted, not even shifting his gaze as he tried to operate on a particularly restless Toby. “He is not fatally injured. Whoever shot him neglected to remember that the human heart is on the left side of the body.”
Wait, what? By now, the adrenaline had begun to dissolve from your system, clearing the irrationality flooding your thoughts. You stared at the body lying on the operating table. Toby was still fucking moving. Not to mention the fact that he literally talked back to you before you yelled at him to can it. And that his legs were still moving as you lugged him back home with you. Shit, now you feel like an idiot.
“Sorry,” you mumbled sheepishly. It was already nearing 5 a.m., and you couldn’t help but doze off in the cushioned armchair to the sound of surgical tools clinking and Toby’s occasional tongue clicking.
The memories of what’d happened last night jolted you out of your slumber in an instant. Christ, the pose you’d fallen asleep in was all sorts of wrong; you raised a hand to rub the knotted muscle in your neck and upper back, grimacing at how sore everywhere felt. Jack, sensing your stirring, informed you that it was already deep into the afternoon, and that Toby was dismissed to bed rest in his own room. The bullet missed every single possible major organ or artery, and the only thing he needed was a simple extraction and stitches. You spit out a hurried thank you before clamoring up the stairs and slamming your friend’s door so hard he thought the wood would splinter into the wall.
“Good m- morning–” Toby’s lighthearted smirk didn’t even get the chance to fully spread across his face.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” If you weren’t already about to let tears bubble over your eyelids again, he would have been a bit more worried that you were mad at him. Every muscle in your legs softened into mush while you strode to his side, crumpling into a pitiful heap beside his nightstand with your arms pulling his waist closer. “That could’ve- what you did could’ve ended way worse, Toby! I- I was really…” Your voice trailed off, fully overcome by shallow breathing interspliced with barely-controlled sniffles. In the minutes that followed, you both stayed in the same spot, doing the same thing. Your sentence was never finished as you dug the pads of your fingertips into the soft resistance of his muscle, but through your shaky breath and tearful hiccups, he could tell. You were really scared. And he hated it. He hated seeing you feel anything remotely negative, from mild annoyance to full-blown sorrow; partially because he doesn’t fully grasp how to handle it, partially because seeing anything other than a smile on your face was the only time he felt something close to an ache. He wanted, no– needed to see it gone, on a level of desperation that was almost selfish in the sense of not even letting you feel through or process that gloom.
Instinctively, his hand closest to you found itself entangled in your hair, digging underneath the soft tresses to gently massage your scalp. The tight, repetitive circles gently scratched your skin, providing a modicum of comfort as he spoke, “I’m s- sssorry, okay-? Just- w- wanted to keep you safe.” Toby’s twitching had amplified in frequency, trying to stifle the edges of anxiety in his demeanor as he saw how little his words helped.
“I had it-“ you sniffed. “I had it under control—“ An involuntary hiccup caused your voice to crack. “What you did… it was- it was too dangerous— you didn’t need to do it…!”
There, when your voice peaked in intensity, was when something in Toby’s tone shifted. His tone had morphed into something deeper than just defensive, raspier and more oppressive as he leaned his head just inches from yours. “You could’ve had your f- fffucking brains blown out last night. You think I was gonna just l- let that happen?” That change in tenor caused your hitching breath to stop, heart skipping a beat as you stared back at him in disbelief. You’d never seen this Toby; dark, unreadable eyes and a jaw gripped by an emotion you couldn’t decipher. “I need- need you here.” His shoulder jerked, causing the fresh red stain on his bandages to bloom outward.
“Toby, stop–” you rubbed your hand over his wrapped wound, trying to draw his attention towards it. “We can come back to this later, ‘kay? You’re hurt, don’t make it wor–”
“No, you don’t g- get it.” Usually, Toby’s eyes widening meant one of two things: he was kiddishly excited, or he was teasingly pleading with you until you caved and agreed to whatever it was he wanted. But just now, you’d caught onto what it was that had his dark gaze boring straight into yours and his jaw locked in place, the teeth showing through his scar gritted tightly together: possessiveness. “I’ve had you. For two f- fucking years. You can’t just l- leave or get hurt now. I won’t let it happen.” There was a short pause before you finally spoke.
“Can I come up?”
Toby’s breath hitched as he wordlessly nodded, bedsheets shifting beneath him to make space for you to climb onto the mattress. The second the words left his mouth, he felt a shooting sense of regret through his bones. He’d fully expected you to be disturbed and hurriedly excuse yourself, not coming back. A sharp inhale sucked through his teeth as your thighs moved to trap his between them. Your hands trailed up over his bullet-wounded chest and to the sides of his face, your index and middle finger gently tracing his scar and dipping through the exposed muscle to softly caress his teeth. A sound toeing the line between a gasp and whimper left his lips when he felt the moisture coating his gums transfer over to your fingertips. He didn’t even know what to do with his right now, only burying them deeper into the plush of your hips. What he did know, though, was that your lips were mere centimeters apart, and he wanted to close the gap.
Between the tender melding of your lips, both of you whispered breathless forms of I’m sorry’s and Thank you’s while taking in small doses of air. Now that Toby’d managed to fully settle into what was happening, he kept one hand rubbing up and down the curve of your waist while the other cupped the back of your head, toying with the hair flowing off it. “Don’t go. Stay here.” The words came out as a begging sigh before he pressed himself back into you. The kiss was inexperienced and clumsy, with your front teeth occasionally knocking against his, but it was his. His to savor in the moment, to keep and replay over and over and over again once it ended.
“I’m staying, Toby.” Your fingers that were kneading the inside of his scar had made their way to the area on his jaw next to his ear, leaving damp streaks of saliva and wanton need on the skin. The opposite thumb was smoothing over the rough, hairless scar on his eyebrow, remaining fingers burying themselves into his pillow-tussled hair. “It’s okay,” you whispered, the soft and raw redness of your lips brushing against his, “I won’t let you leave either.”
That unguarded, fully offering feeling of belonging to you– it had him twitching and jerking further into the kiss, letting the tip of his tongue slide to the tops of your teeth. “F- fffuck, don’t let me. That’s right, don’t l- let me fucking leave.” Toby’s hands switched from affectionately exploring to staking their claim on every inch of your frame. A broken, gasping sound fled his lungs as your tongue moved to tangle into his. It didn’t matter how meticulously Jack wrapped his wound; he could always return to the infirmary later, he thought as his arms tensed to press your torsos together like he was trying to merge them. The rush of nerves, blood, tension boiling over– it was all too much, left him panting with a craving for more once your lips separated.
“Ohhh, shit–” Your jaw slackened with worry when you saw how much the blood under Toby’s bandages had spread. “Shit, I’m so sorry, Toby, I totally forgot– are you okay?” The words frantically spilled out as your fingers delicately inspected his chest.
The collision of his lips back onto yours was the only semblance of I’m okay you received for the next hour.
Synopsis: Toby never expected to form connections he actually wanted to keep, especially not with anyone living in the mansion. Only when you arrive to make smoke bombs and anti-escape gadgets for the residents’ missions, he found that the friendship snowballed. Fast. But how do you differentiate between friendship and love when you don’t remember the last time you experienced either? How do you do that when the other person isn’t helping unblur the line, because they don’t know which feeling it is either?
Tags: Friends to Lovers, Mentioned Creepypasta Characters + Slender Mansion Elements, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Brief Mentions of Past Trauma, Mostly Fluff + Some Angst, Severely Yearning Toby Rogers, Not Fully Canon Compliant to Creepypasta Lore and Characterization, Mutual Pining, Unaware of Said Mutual Pining, Toby and Reader Are Teenagers in the Beginning and Become Adults Later, Making Out Is the Most Mature It Gets, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert
word count: 3,182
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The October air tussled your hair in every direction possible as you stepped through the front door, blood splatter covering your coat and jeans as you fumbled with the latch. Your mission was clearly a success, judging by how over half of the smoke and paint bombs strapped to your belt were missing and the amount of blood dripping off your collarbone and under your shirt was enough to render anyone dead.
“I’m back,” you announced, though it was only really for one person. And you didn’t need to raise your voice that much, considering he was practically vibrating restlessly on the couch awaiting your return.
“Hey,” Toby flew off the cushion, coming to you in fast strides. “Are you okay? H- how’d it go? You- you’re not- hurt, right?” His voice cracked when he tried asking the last question, just enough for you to register as he scanned what little skin you had exposed for blood that didn’t belong to your target. When he didn’t see any, he began borderline tearing your coat off to check for any hidden wounds instead. Though, after two years of experience stalking targets through woods and warehouses, he’d be hard-pressed to find more than a small nick.
“You ask that every time; answer’s always the same.” You giggled, letting Toby toss your jacket in some random direction to inspect you closer. It’d been the same in all that time since you first moved in. Just friends, even if you always told the few connections you still had besides the mansion’s residents that you saw things turning into more. Even when the eye contact held the weight of something heavy as you lay beside each other on the carpeted forest floor. Even after you’d both graze each other’s arm or back while walking, lingering for just a little too long, neither of you took that next step of tearing down the barrier. Maybe that’s what he wanted, or you were grasping at straws that weren’t there, but you didn’t want to find out. The truth was that Toby was just as terrified of the same thing.
Toby’s fingers nervously shook as he scanned them up and down your arms, jolting as his eyes shyly skipped over any skin near your chest. “I know, I- I know, just… making sure.” He was always making sure; that was a habit you noticed him picking up over the last year or so. Making sure there were no stray clothes strewn about your room before you loaded your laundry basket into the washer, that he stole a couple extra of your favorite drinks from the nearest gas station before coming back from a mission, that your eyes were fixed straight ahead while he noted the way your hair framed your chin.
“Looks g- good to me,” he hummed with satisfaction. “Sl- sleepover to celebrate?” Still crouched down to inspect your body for any damages, you tilted your head down to see how he excitedly stared back at you. His dull, almost sun-faded brown hair had taken on a less choppy, self-trimmed look once you started helping him with the places he couldn’t reach. What little baby fat he had two years prior had mostly disappeared, leaving only the rough edges of his pale face to be struck by the sun, casting a warm glow on his coffee-colored eyes. The rough, exposed tissue on the side of his cheek had begun flattening to meet the surrounding skin; overall, you’d say time had done him well, but you could never tell him that directly.
The look on your face, beaming with bright, shiny eyes, was the only answer he needed to haul himself up and gesture for you to begin the usual preparations. Sure, anyone else at your guys’ age would have stared at him funny. By 18, people usually replace the word “sleepover” with something a bit more… calm and effortless. Less childish. But that sort of thing never clicked for Toby, since he never got an invitation to one before you. It’s two people hanging out, sharing a room, and sleeping in it. That’s a sleepover in his eyes, and it wasn’t silly to refer to it as one.
“Jesus, you two are fucking babies.” Ben didn’t even look up from his phone as he heard you two hauling blankets and pillows from his room to yours. His layered, choppy array of blonde hair obscured whatever tilted sneer he shot your way while he trod down the hallway and back to his room. A single unopened energy drink was tucked away in the pocket of his sweatpants– clearly the only reason he’d left his gaming chair.
“At least I’m not shitposting on Twitter all day and arguing with the replies.”
“At least I don’t n- need to hit my vape every 5 s- seconds like a douche.”
Your retorts were fired back so quickly that Ben almost couldn’t tell who said which. A single eyebrow raised perplexedly, and his smirk dropped into an unreadable half-smile of What the fuck are your issues?
“Yeah, whatever, have fun with the sleepover.” For someone who found it disturbing how you and Toby’s brains always hit the same frequency, he and Jeff sure had the same habits. The constant weed nights with bass-boosted music pounding their ears in the background, the grating high-pitched emphasis they both wedged into snide remarks when they really wanted it to get under the recipient’s skin— clearly, Ben wasn’t in the right place to judge. He always chose to, anyway, as he carried himself back to his room with gamer-chair-slouch and a click of his lock. Almost immediately, you both heard some garbled junk about flanking here or targeting there as he shouted over his music and into his headset.
“F- fucking loser.” Toby huffed with a small jerk of his neck. He never minded the typical light jab from Ben, especially since he did it to everyone in the house. He bit back every time. But it still struck an irritated burn under his skin whenever the jokes landed on you, even when you reassured him that it was fine, he’s just like that; I can handle him myself.
“Forget about it, Toby.” You reminded him with a lighthearted smirk before it soured his mood and caused a downcast pout for the next half hour. “We’re almost done, just one more pillow after the one you’re holding.”
It was easy to settle into your usual rhythm of assembling the biggest blanket fort possible on your bed with him. Whenever the two of you were allowed on missions together (which was rare since Brian had caught onto how much time you guys wasted before getting any work done), your movements coincided with Toby’s with perfect naturality. But you much preferred the seamless motion of leaning over to adjust how a blanket sat over your bed frame after tossing the brunette a pillow to support a corner of the fort to hurling a tracker and sending him rushing deeper into the woods with his hatchets in hand for the kill.
Your skin was beginning to pick up a misted sheen by the time you and Toby finished pulling the last blanket taut over the wooden frame of your bed. He always insisted that he could do more of the grunt work; he wouldn’t even break a sweat, literally– but he relented after you broke him down with overdramatic, glossy eyes that just screamed pleeease let me help? Wordlessly, the two of you assumed your usual positions: you sat upright while Toby laid his head down wherever he saw fit. Most days, it was just atop your head or into the crook of your neck. Just sometimes, if you were really lucky, he’d be so exhausted after hours on hours of talking shit or comforting each other about the past that he’d droop slowly into your lap. It’d be a sin if you didn’t admit, at least to yourself, that you purposefully tuckered him out just to feel the weight of his head just above your thighs every now and then. Tonight would be one of those nights, you decided. The itinerary would be more outlandish than anything you’d ever done, leaving you two so dazed and drunk off laughter that he’d have no choice but to forsake platonic inhibition. Maybe that was the subconscious reason you’d stopped by Walmart while in town a few weeks ago.
“I have a really crazy idea.”
That got him jolting his head at you with a lopsided smirk tugging at his lips. “Y- yeah?”
With nothing but a mischievous glint in your eye, you rolled out from under the blanket and reached under your bed, emerging with a box. Excitedly shoving it in his face, Toby’s eyes curiously scanned the box. Stainless Steel Home Piercing Kit.
“Hoooly sh- shhhit, you’re crazy.” But under the bewildered response, you saw him returning the same look on your face. Giggling in delighted tandem, you reached for your CD player on the dresser and started up the usual disk of some stereotypical emo rock band Toby’d pilfered for you as a gift. He simultaneously began tearing open the box, dumping out the carefully bagged contents onto the floor: a pair of gloves, anti-bacterial spray, a sectioned box with assorted piercings, and a dozen needles. “If our shit gets i- infected, J- Jack is gonna ffff- fucking kill us.” his chuckle was more of a breathy gasp, as if he couldn’t even believe what the two of you were doing. The disbelief didn’t stop him from securing the blue latex gloves over his fingers as you cried an elated, “Me first! I’ve always wanted a helix!”
Sitting criss-cross as to not wreck the blanket fort, Toby knelt across from you, needle in hand and shoulder jerking. You had just finished sloppily spraying the disinfectant over your skin, tossing the bottle aside and letting it roll until it hit the wall. The pounding of his heart layered with the violent shredding of electric guitar, and he couldn’t tell anymore what was causing the tremors in his fingers.
“H- hold still!” He laughed, waving the needle back and forth, as if to emphasize the gravity of the situation if you wouldn’t stop moving.
“Wait, I’m scared, I’m scared!” Your hands quickly flew up to cover your right ear, turning your cheek so he couldn’t approach any closer.
“It was you- your idea!” The needle had long clattered to the floor, your limbs thrashing in tandem as Toby tried peeling your hands off your head. One of his knees lay flush against the floor between your knees, the opposite foot planted firmly beside your hip. You still sat up against the bed, albeit splayed out and sliding closer to the ground as you tried wrestling him off with interspliced giggling. When he realized playfighting wouldn’t work, Toby finally relented and raised his hands in surrender.
“Okay, o- okay! Fine,” but you knew damn well he wasn’t really giving up. “I know what’ll get you braver.”
The hallway was silent, save for your hushed whispers and giggled variants of stop, you’ll get us caught! Tim had long snoozed off on the couch, the TV entertaining a ghost with some strange public access channel. Despite the incessantly groaning snores, which Toby joked sounded exactly like his dad’s, you both knew that the snickering had to halt the second you both got too close. A life of constant danger and puppetry under The Operator’s control rendered Tim stirrable by even a pin dropping. Toby placed a finger to his lips as you two reached the open kitchen just behind the living room, the other hand slooowly gravitating towards the fridge handle. You stood on guard for any stray witnesses– usually Ben coming down for another Monster can. Stifling any unwanted tremors for as long as he could, your eyes drifted between the hallway and the pair of rough, scarred hands clutching the 4 remaining beer cans in Tim’s 6-pack to his chest so they didn’t clink together.
“Okay, go–! G- go!” His whisper was more akin to a hiss as you scampered back up the stairs on the balls of your feet. Only when your bedroom lock clicked did your muscles unclench, lungs releasing a nervous laugh. The anxiety quickly morphed into pure mania as Toby joined in, the two of you rolling back under the blanket fort to split the spoils of your little raid.
Crack, fizz. “Fuck, he’s gonna kill us tomorrow.”
“Wh- what he fucking gets for b- being so harsh on you last week.”
Conversation always lasted for at least an hour with Toby. Some nights you’d spend so long in each other’s rooms that you wouldn’t even notice the sun peeking up from the windowsill when you got so parched that your tongue would turn to sandpaper if you said another word without hydration. But after just two beers, any productive gossip turned into mindless babbling mixed with slurred chuckles. Toby’s condition restricted him from drinking too much before dangerously overheating, so his tolerance was abhorrent. His face was glowing an even more intense crimson than yours, and he could only scrunch his eyebrows together, lips parted dumbly as you teased him for the heat radiating off his cheeks.
“Okay, wait-” you slurred. “I think… hic- I’m brave now.” Without waiting for an answer, the bedsheets shifted until your body plopped onto the floor with a light thunk. The sound caused Toby to rattle as he immediately leaned over to see if you were okay; you were slumped up against your nightstand, grinning with your eyes half-lidded. Yeah, you were fine enough, he mused internally as he slowly hauled his inebriated frame down to join you. Just like before: one knee between your legs, the other foot next to your hip.
“Shhh- shhiiit, where’d the needles go?” He fumbled and jerked, feeling the alcohol tingling in his fingertips while they brushed against the floor. They finally landed on the plastic baggy, pulling out another since relocating the one he’d held before you both left the room would be like finding deodorant on Jeff’s side of the sink. You were humming a tune that wasn’t even close to the song playing from the CD player, letting gravity plunge your head from shoulder to shoulder rather than actually sway it yourself. “Hey, qui- quit moving…” Toby’s voice had lowered to a gentle, dazed rasp as his hand twitched about, trying to align itself with your ear cartilage.
“But I- hic- I like this song.” You pouted at him with what little pupil was showing through your squinted eyelids. “Why’re you try’na dull my joy, Tobes?” He almost dropped the needle again– not from the playful shove you gave his shoulder, but from the nickname. You’d told him passively a while ago how you didn’t think any kind of petnames were necessary. His name was enough, it rolled off the tongue nicely. But he really liked the sound of this. Like, really. The proof? Toby’s other hand reaching under your jaw to hold your head steady, thumb just beneath your earlobe.
“Come on, I d- don’t- don’t wanna mess this up.” He let his shoulder jolt one last time before the tip of the needle was flush against your helix, the side of his hand firmly resting on your cheek to prevent a slip.
Holy shit. It didn’t take a sober head for you to realize the gravity of what your friend was doing. Holy shit. You didn’t even blink as Toby muttered some muffled words of encouragement, drowned out by the pounding of your heart against your ribs and drum fills from the distant rock album. Every ridge of his fingerprint, every raised edge of a scar on his palms– you didn’t want to miss a single detail while searing it into your skin. The hollow needle piercing through cartilage didn’t even register in your brain despite every nerve on fire. Neither did him inserting the flat-backed starter jewelry. His voice, which could bring you out of any bad mood or depressed trance, did nothing to take your wide-open eyes away from their newfound purpose of boring straight into his. Hell, maybe neither of you even noticed your hands clinging to his twitching wrists (he totally did).
“Heyyy… heeey…” Toby gently tapped a finger against your jawline, not wanting to move his whole hand in case you’d notice what you were doing and retreat in embarrassment. “Y- you okay?” Once you nodded dazily, he took a long pause to decide his next words. “I’m on- only gonna move one hand away. To- to put the needle down and get the sp- spray. Okay?” Every single joint in his body felt like it would give at any moment; anything from his shoulders to his feet ticed as he followed through the motions he described. He didn’t want to deviate in even the movement of his fingertips, as if a single change in plans could make you realize what you were doing and immediately stop. But nothing would. Your hand was still firmly around the hand under your chin, eyes still blown wide open as your flushed face kept only inches away from his. The light sting of antiseptic on the fresh wound finally propelled you to speak up.
“Uhm– where do you want… your piercing?” The question was barely above a whisper, but still just audible enough with your faces so close together.
“Later,” he replied softly, “don’t worry about it. L- later.”
In just a blink, you were back under the warmth and fuzz of the pillow fort. Back pressed against Toby’s, beer cans and needles and gloves scattered across the hardwood. That could be addressed tomorrow, you thought, stowing the worry away to replay the earlier minutes in your head over and over and over. Not even to dissect every second and analyze what it could mean for how Toby felt about you. Just to have refeel it. How he held onto your face like he didn’t want to let go. How, when his eyes finally met yours, there wasn’t even a tinge of bashfulness. Only the look you found in an addict who didn’t want to quit because the pain of putting his feelings down hurt more than not knowing what stood between the two of you the next day. Still too drunk and preoccupied to say goodnight, you both fell asleep faster than ever. There it was: two steps forward.
“Oh, my God.” Brian’s hand immediately moved to massage his temples. “Jack. JACK!” He bellowed in the direction of the mansion’s infirmary as you and Toby emerged from the stairwell. Seeing him so irate sapped out any remorse from Toby’s body, replacing it with a twitchy shrug and smug grin. A pair of tarry, sunken sockets peered at the two of you, and you swore you could see the slightest raise from Jack’s lips.
“Alright, come join me in the basement. We don’t need infections before the next mission.”
Synopsis: Toby never expected to form connections he actually wanted to keep, especially not with anyone living in the mansion. Only, when you arrive to make smoke bombs and anti-escape gadgets for the residents’ missions, he found that the friendship snowballed. Fast. But how do you differentiate between friendship and love when you don’t remember the last time you experienced either? How do you do that when the other person isn’t helping unblur the line, because they don’t know which feeling it is either?
Tags: Friends to Lovers, Mentioned Creepypasta Characters + Slender Mansion Elements, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Brief Mentions of Past Trauma, Mostly Fluff + Some Angst, Severely Yearning Toby Rogers, Not Fully Canon Compliant to Creepypasta Lore and Characterization, Mutual Pining, Unaware of Said Mutual Pining, Toby and Reader Are Teenagers in the Beginning and Become Adults Later, Making Out Is the Most Mature It Gets, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert
word count: 3,138
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Why couldn’t it be Toby, damn it?
You could already tell by how the footsteps made the floor heave under the weight; no sudden variations in step from a jerk of the leg, more erratic in the pace and followed by a maniacally devious chuckle. Jeff rushedly rapped on the door to what had previously been an abandoned study before you converted it into your makeshift lab, knuckles practically vibrating before the door swung open before you could even say come in.
“What do you want, man?” A few locks of Jeff’s dark, untamed hair fell over his eyes, the rest messily flowing down and just barely grazing his shoulders. Even under the black curtains obscuring some of his expression, you could just feel how he reciprocated your eye-roll in full. Still awkwardly settling into yet another massive growth spurt, he stiltily rested his lanky frame against the wall by your door. Having not yet found the time to shoplift some new hoodies from the nearest Walmart, his bony wrists peeked out slightly from the sleeves of a long-sleeved shirt that you swore fit him just fine a few months ago.
He saw your perplexed gaze lingering on the ill-fitted top and gave a half scowl, half sneer. “What? Just ‘cause I’m not Toooby and I’m a growing boy, you’re gonna look at me like I’m some fuckin’ circus freak?” Hopefully the cutting edge to his voice would distract you from how he tried to hurriedly tug down his sleeve, shoving the sliver of his forearm up into it. You wanted to throw the nearest beaker at his head from how the octave of his voice peaked at your friend’s name in a high-pitched, wistful singsong.
Well, you know what, bitch? Yeah, with that lame ugly scar. The retort wasn’t fired back aloud, but your sharp glare at Jeff’s knowing remark about Toby gave it away to him that his suspicions were spot on. “Shut up, man. We’re friends; he’s allowed in here ‘cause he’s not a dumbass who tries touching the fucking test tubes.” Sure, you and Jeff hung out, but it was most often in conjunction with a TV console game session with Ben, littered with shit talk and empty chip bags scattered across the floor when the three of you were bored out of your minds with no one else you’d rather spend your time with. What you two had wasn’t really considered a friendship by either of you, not like with Toby. The overexplanation caused a wide, cocky grin to spread across his face, emphasized further by the curved slits from the edges of his lips.
“Fine, damn.” He sliced straight to the point, raising his hands in mock surrender, a way to say he’d be hands off, unlike that one time he haphazardly mixed the contents of two flasks and you had to evacuate the entire first floor. “I want a few of your smoke bombs. Mission’s in 3 days.” No please or thanks. Never even a gesture of the sort from Jeff. Expected from a 17-year-old boy already, much more so from one who’s a total ass while playing Smash Bros.
“Hmmmn… Toby’s next mission is in 4, and he has priority. I’ll think on it.” A taunting grin pulled at your lips, clearly getting some petty payback for his earlier comment.
“Fuck you,” he scoffed back. “Brian’s rules– I’m a year older than both of you; chop chop.”
“And since when have you ever given a shit what Tim tells you?”
Both of you were right. To prevent the obvious favoritism you showed after your hangouts with Toby had you coming back from the forest with a flush of blood tinging your cheeks, Brian had enforced a policy for who you had to prioritize when crafting their gadgets. The person with the earlier mission got served first; if there were two on the same day, then the order descended by age. You tried to protest at first, only to be brushed off as a childish, insolent brat who didn’t know how to keep your tasks and emotions from mingling, but eventually gave up after realizing the repercussions that ricocheted back onto your friend as well. But Brian’s orders never even reached Jeff’s ears before he was already dismissively walking out the front door, middle finger being the last to disappear to send a theatrically defiant message. That is, apparently, until it was to his benefit.
“Whatever,” you puffed, not letting Jeff sneak in another sly comment as you opened a drawer; hard enough to release the trivial frustration of being forced to bend to Brian’s will, but just softly enough that the aggressive rattling of the bombshells together wouldn’t trigger an unwanted explosion. Half a dozen color-coded purple balls, no bigger than your palm, jostled in your hands as you strode over to the smug asshole and shoved them into the pockets of his loose-fitting sweatpants. Your disgruntled tantrum earned a snapping laugh from Jeff as he turned to exit, promising to keep your little secret crush to himself. “Alright, fuck off, bye!” You tried to shout over the words crush and Toby and practically began shoving him out the door, getting ready to slam it the second both of his feet hit the hallway.
Your frame sharply swiveled and disappeared as the door collided with its frame behind Jeff, a sharp BOOM cracking through his ears. He shrugged it off, as if to say, Pfft, girls, before nearly flinching at the sight of Toby. Right there, hands in his jacket pockets, just standing. Waiting, with the occasional jerk or jolt, for you to be alone. Jeff’s hand dramatically shot to his chest, feigning a look of pure terror at the brunette’s slender, restless frame. Realizing that the exchange you two just had was definitely audible, he gave Toby a knowing, wily smirk. A wordless Oh, you heard that? Oops.
“Wh- what the hell w- were you talking about?” The latter asked, and Jeff could see the outline of his fingers twitching anxiously under the fabric of his pockets. Anticipation, dread, hope– all three at once in some masochistic need to find out why his name was mentioned, why it had you emptying the air from your lungs to shut Jeff up. His nails, or what was left of them from daily gnawing, dug and tore under his jacket. When the black-haired douche only gave a shit-eating grin, Toby encroached a step further. “T- tell me.” He forced his voice to remain stony, firm.
“Bet you practice that voice in the mirror for when you’re in bed with her,” Jeff practically guffawed at the wide-eyed, red-faced grimace Toby’s face twisted into. “Don’t worry about it, man. Just thank me if you get laid tonight.” Vulgar and crude as ever, he smugly strode away so quickly that even the floorboards couldn’t heave under the weight of his exit in protest.
“F- fffuck you, Jeff!” All alone out in the hallway now, he suddenly felt a lot more apprehensive about letting himself into your lab like he always does. He could hear you inside, pacing back and forth. Were you tinkering with the solution filter system you’d just set up and spent an hour explaining to him? Were you wiping down the counters, ready to wrap up your work for the day and leave the room to see him waiting for your usual strolls in the forest? Or did you not want to see him anymore after whatever exchange you had with Jeff? Stop, stop thinking about that. Toby softly knocked his fists against his temple, as if to physically force out the impossibly cruel thought– as if the pounding against his head hurt less than just the idea of you not wanting to spend time with him.
Your phone buzzed in your pocket; glancing down, it was Toby, with the heart emoji you’d secretly added next to his contact name after he entered his number. Odd, you thought. Despite being friends for so long, your last actual text exchange with him was close to 2 months ago. You both spent so much time together in person, whether that was due to proximity in the mansion or deployed together on missions, that texting him was rarely necessary. That, and he tended to get rather insecure when his hand inevitably jerked and caused an unwanted typo.
…
cwn i come in?
…
ya go ahead
…
It took a second for the door to open, creaking open ever so softly to gradually reveal Toby’s slender frame, mostly covered in old, thoroughly worn jeans and a zip-up hoodie stained with blood and other assorted grime. The only thing that peeked through was his hand, which offered a sheepish wave that was far too bashful for someone who didn’t accidentally hear their best friend talking about him a few minutes ago.
“Hey,” he didn’t even get to finish the small tic in his shoulder before you replied, almost too excitedly.
“Hey, Toby! Did you just get here? You don’t have to ask before coming in, y’know.” Your face was heating, the tips of your ears glowing red in that way they did when you were embarrassed or lying. Right now, it seemed to be both. He looked skeptical; you could tell.
“What were y- you and Jeff talking about?”
The air seemed to freeze alongside you. Neither of you moved to link arms and walk out to breathe in the fresh (fresher than your lab, anyway) air of the hallway, where you could grumble in relief about being rid of the cramped space like always. With Toby at the door, and you still behind your counter, you wanted to hide forever behind the towering glassware. Toby wasn’t getting an answer, only the sound of awkward shifting of your foot while you rubbed your forearm with your other hand.
“I mean, I j- just… heard… some st- stuff. Like- m- my name, and…” He tried to push when he realized you weren’t budging. Tried to mirror your pushing when you’d first met, coaxing him into opening up and learning more about each other. But you only hid your gaze away, focusing your eyes on the little numbers on the side of a beaker. Why did you look so ashamed? Was Jeff telling you things about him? Were you rushing him out so that he didn’t walk into the two of you exchanging crude jokes at his expense?
“It wasn’t anything weird. He was just– y’know, being stupid. I didn’t wanna hear it, is… is all.”
Your heart thumped into your chest for what felt like minutes. With nothing but a tense jaw and fisted fingers in his pockets, Toby crept out of your lab and upstairs. You heard his footsteps growing heavier as they reached his bedroom, then the firm click of his door locking. God damn it, Jeff. You sighed into your hands, keeping your head buried into them as you thought about how to rectify the situation without exposing what the conversation was really about. From the small glimpses of his past he’d given you, Toby had every right to be insecure. He hated when people looked at him for too long, especially on the side with the scar, even when he’d put on his mouth guard specifically to cover it. He hated when people like Tim, who derived their humor and kicks off witty jokes at others’ expense, spoke to him. And he really hated when people talked about him when he wasn’t there. Over the lake during a chilly spring night, he’d divulged how vulnerable it felt to have his name in others’ mouths, even for the most mundane of topics. It was the same night where you both fell so hard from the adrenaline rush of stealing snacks and beer from a local gas station that he fell asleep and unknowingly drooped his head onto yours as you both sat perched on a rock overlooking the water. You knew better than to go after him when his mood turned sour like this. It was no use when all your explanations would only be met with some variation of “just go away, I know what you really think of me.”
Fuck, you’re about to be out $15. Sighing, you zipped up your jacket and closed the door behind you, boots softly thudding as you made your way to the front door. The only noise from the living room was the drone of some TV drama Tim and Brian had on to prevent the dread of silence from creeping in. Both of them were taking up opposite ends of the couch; Tim blankly staring at the screen with an empty beer can swaying from his dangling hand over the armrest, Brian swiping through his phone for his once-a-day notification sweep, only to not pick it up again until tomorrow.
“I’m heading out for about an hour,” you announced curtly. Not that they cared that much during a slothful weekend, but you knew that they’d be on your ass if you decided to leave the mansion without explanation. Their short grunt and hum arrived in tandem, and that was all you needed before heading down the path leading to the sidewalk. The best way to get into Toby’s good graces was sugar. Any form, it didn’t matter to him. If you could give him some kind of candy or pastry and sit with him while he ate without grimacing at how his bites sometimes made a brief appearance through the hole in his cheek, then you were earning yourself a secure spot in his heart. If that was all it took, then a 15-minute trek to the nearest gas station was nothing.
…
toby, can i come in?
…
The text was more of a formality during the tension as you knocked, soft enough to let him hear without causing him to sit up with a jolt. The bedframe creaked from inside Toby’s bedroom as you heard feet planting on the floor, making their way to the doorknob before twisting with a dull rattle from how many times the door had been slammed in the past. He saw you before he saw the armful of sweets, and it was only due to the bag of Hershey’s Kisses that he let you in. The mattress let out a weak groan as you sat at the edge of the bed, hoping to draw him next to you with a sheepish yet apologetic smile. Having him take a seat on the opposite end of the bed was enough of a sign for you to talk.
“I really mean it when I say we didn’t say anything bad about you,” you started. “He really was just being an ass again, so I kicked him out because I didn’t wanna hear anymore stupid jokes. I knew you wouldn’t wanna, either.” A pang of guilt surged through your bones as you gave Toby an outright lie, but it was the lesser of two evils in the current situation. Partially to clear your conscience, and partially to extend a peace offering, you dumped the entire stash of candy you’d bought into the space between the two of you. Maybe it was the crinkling of the plastic wrappers, or maybe it was the sincerity in your eyes and how your eyebrows furrowed worriedly above them, but his skepticism faded fast. Toby’s fingers were antsy as they shakily tore open one of the mini M&M baggies, shaking some out into his palm and keeping bashful eye contact as he extended it out for you.
“Y- you’re a total jackass, k- keeping something so stupid from me.” The little jab tore a smile out of your guilty demeanor, and Toby gave a cheeky smirk back as your fingertips brushed the calloused roughness of his palm to scoop up a few candies. In only a few seconds everything had gone right back to how it was. Two friends sat up against a bedframe, curling up into the curves and dips of each other’s torsos. As friends do, of course.
“Sorry,” you murmured shyly. “I dunno why I didn’t just say what happened.”
But the truth was that you knew exactly why you kept it from him, and why you were still keeping it from him now. Because as quickly as you two dove under the blanket to watch a movie on Toby’s spider-webbed phone screen, leaving chocolate to melt in your mouths so the sweetness lasted longer, he realized how often your hand touched his to grab another mouthful of sugar and pulled away in fear of evoking disgust on your end. You turned your head up to face him, lips slightly parted as if you were about to express your disappointment, only to be greeted with the back of his head and the slightly wavy ends of his brown hair trailing down to the middle of his neck.
That was the limbo you two have been in since March, when you first arrived at the mansion with nothing but two bags of what you could carry and the dashed hopes of ever living a normal life. This continuous “one step forward, two steps back” dynamic where your relationship only seemed to progress two steps forward after you knocked on Toby’s door with tears swelling under your eyelashes after a bad dream. You hated it; but what you hated more was how quickly you brushed that hatred aside whenever you got the occasional smell of his hair when he had his head buried into your chest after a particularly shitty mission with Tim. But what more could you do when you knew that he knew how scared you both were? When you were scared of messing up what you both already share, of ending up another note in his story of why people weren’t to be trusted, and he was terrified of mistaking the unfamiliar kindness of a girl for that feeling of affection he so desperately craved, what other dynamic was there?
“It- it’s okay. I kn- kn- know how much you don’t like me hear- hearing Jeff’s stupid jokes. Sorry– for- for not… trying to hear you out.”
“Yeah, idiot. You owe me $14.79.”
And just like that, after a few more giggles and jabs exchanged, all was quiet. You were still able to doze off despite sitting upright directly against Toby’s occasional jolts and tongue clicks. Don’t try to stop them; they don’t bother me, you’d always reassure him in a way that almost made his heart tear from how he couldn’t pull you in closer once the words left your mouth. Maybe the limbo wasn’t so bad. Even if you woke up the next morning tucked into your own bed.
Synopsis: Toby never expected to form connections he actually wanted to keep, especially not with anyone living in the mansion. Only when you arrive to make smoke bombs and anti-escape gadgets for the residents’ missions, he found that the friendship snowballed. Fast. But how do you differentiate between friendship and love when you don’t remember the last time you experienced either? How do you do that when the other person isn’t helping unblur the line, because they don’t know which feeling it is either?
Tags: Friends to Lovers, Mentioned Creepypasta Characters + Slender Mansion Elements, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Brief Mentions of Past Trauma, Mostly Fluff + Some Angst, Severely Yearning Toby Rogers, Not Fully Canon Compliant to Creepypasta Lore and Characterization, Mutual Pining, Unaware of Said Mutual Pining, Toby and Reader Are Teenagers in the Beginning and Become Adults Later, Making Out Is the Most Mature It Gets, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert
word count: 2,464
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It was the howl of excitement and delight that woke Toby up that night.
Not the snarling, boyish laughter coming from Jeff in Ben’s room. Not the latter’s blaring cacophony of a looping retro video game soundtrack layered with high-pitched sounds of bullets hitting their target. None of the usual semantics going on in the mansion were enough to stir him; not even the lingering sting coming from the inside of his cheek after his teeth tried gnawing away another night terror. For how many people resided in these walls, and with how many 4-lettered disorders they all shared, it was actually relatively peaceful.
No, he was awake because he knew exactly what, or who, had let out that wickedly jovial cry.
3:47 a.m., he rolled out from under his covers and began to tread down the stairs. Out past the dingy kitchen, its refrigerator ever buzzing despite multiple attempts by Brian to shut it up, to the yard just outside the backyard sliding door. His movements were quieter than a mouse, save for the occasional jerk of his foot that caused the wood beneath him to give with a low creak or click of the tongue. Toby couldn’t differentiate between nerves or simple Tourette’s as his hand shook and twitched while reaching for the handle.
Click, fwoosh. The sliding door burst forth a warm gust of air from the summer night straight into his hair, tussling the already disheveled brown locks. You, on the other side, were kneeling down on the grass, inspecting the neon residue that had exploded out of a split-open metal shell. Whatever you were tinkering with, it’d left almost half of the yard’s surface area to be coated in a thin, runny layer of what looked like watered-down fluorescent orange paint. But he knew that your experiments were never that simple. Judging by how you wielded a UV flashlight over the glowing eyesore— oh, and how he could feel his throat and nostrils tensing in discomfort– he knew there had to be some sort of chemical warfare seeping into the soil and killing any chance of more vegetation sprouting up.
Toby could just barely make out the shape of your eyes from underneath your goggles; gleefully triumphant crescents. Even under your protective gas mask, he couldn’t help but note the rosy flush of blood that joy had flooded straight to your cheeks. Your hair was messily tied back, disheveled from constant activity and frustratedly running your hand through it so that a few loose strands had fallen back over your face. Before he could even groggily finish the first syllable of your name, you were already back on your feet and rushing towards him.
“Aht–! No, nono– geeet back.”
“Alright! Sorry, sorry.” Toby didn’t obey right away, only laughing and keeping still to feel your soft hands under your gloves urge him back into the safety of the mansion.
“Jesus, man. I always tell you,” you tutted, “Protective gear before you step out here. I’m working with, y’know, chemicals and shit.”
He smiled a sheepish sorry before hastily burying his nose and mouth into the crook of his elbow, “So… wh- what was it that got you so- happy out here?” He questioned through the usual twitch and stutter. Toby’s eyes honed in on yours through your actual PPE. He liked that they never glinted with the usual suspicion or mockery that he expected when he spoke. He liked the way they remained ever gentle and soft, only patiently waiting for him to finish his sentence. He tried to ignore how often he thinks about that platonic kindness morphing into something more.
You huffed a muffled laugh through your mask at his horrendous attempt at safety protocol, rolling your eyes under the sun-damaged plastic of your goggles, “Oh, wow. A damn proper scientist you are. I should have you help me out back here more often, huh?”
Toby could see the playful smirk toying at your lips even with only a sliver of your face under the bare moonlight. “It worked, by the way! Finally, that tracker I said I’d start working on, for when we have missions in the woods…” Toby didn’t even catch just how stupidly dazed he looked watching you giddily ramble. Something, something, the paint shines bright under our UV flashlights… finds targets in the dark… He only really cared because of your obvious dedication. If it was Jeff doing this, he’d probably brush it off as the guy concocting some ridiculously stupid scheme to cook meth or something. “I’ll show everyone how they work in the morning. But it’s a super simple pin mechanic, just like all the other stuff I’ve made for you guys. Once you pull it, you can just throw it at whoever you’re chasing and it’ll explode on impact–! Are you even listening?”
Caught red-handed, shit. “Yeah, I- I did. It sounds… cool…” He trailed off guiltily as he saw how your eyes squinted. Even under the muffle of his elbow against his lips, you could tell his reaction was full of shit.
“S- sorry…” his shoulder jerked, “just kinda- ha- half asleep.” He hoped that’d be reasonable enough for you to shrug it off without much afterthought.
“Oh, whatever,” you smirked back. It didn’t take a genius to tell he was wide awake; he just didn’t care. “You can take your arm outta your face now, by the way. The fumes are probably dissolved enough. You look stupid.”
“Says the one who looks like a c- coked out traffic cone.” He gestured at what looked to be failed test runs of your work littering your sweater with sprays of orange. His little retort earned him a soft jab to the chest, with you using the motion to smoothly guide him onto the patio steps. Once you were both seated and situated alongside each other, Toby awkwardly shifted his arm nearest to you to create a subtle opening for your head on his chest. That’s what he’d hoped would happen, anyway, according to some stupid movie he watched as a kid. But friends don’t usually do that, do they? Friends were more likely to keep their knees to their chest, arms wrapped around their legs and head craned up to look at the hazy, smog-streaked sky.
You’d long stripped away all of your bulky gear, leaving only your bare visage to be caressed by the breeze. Toby hoped your attention was stolen away for long enough that you didn’t see his eyes were drifting far away from the sight of blurry stars you were supposed to be sharing. He’d begun to notice how elegantly your nose bridge peeked out under your forehead, how it sloped out before dipping and letting the shape of your lips playfully poke out to form the rest of your silhouette. It was cute. He wished you’d work with less toxic materials so you could discard that stupid gas mask he hated so much because it obscured your face.
“When was your next mission again?” you mused idly, taking him out of his train of thought. “I know you always like using the smoke bombs, so I made a few of those. Made sure to use the shells that fit into the little DIY holders you added to your belt.” You bragged, expecting a mock show of gratitude as you gestured down to his hip, which was level with your hand on the patio floor.
However, Toby got stuck between moving his head to pretend he was still star(smog)gazing or acting like he’d only just started looking at you once you’d started speaking. What ensued was a humiliatingly awkward ensemble of neck turning and stammering. “Thanks— it- it’s next week— I- sorry, th- thanks. Thank you.” You’d been friends for long enough to differentiate between a normal bout of tics and… whatever this was. Repeatedly parting and closing your lips in bemusement, you chose your next words carefully as you saw how shamefully Toby nestled his head into his knees.
“Hey, you okay?” Your brow raised curiously at him, clearly still a little bewildered, but Toby still never heard that familiar way mockery dripped into the question that he found in others. Oh, God, he almost wanted you to react like how everyone else would have. Friends are supposed to be understanding like this; you were the one who drilled that into his head once the two of you began spending more time together outside of simple missions, and the little pieces of him he deemed unworthy of revealing began to slip out. They’re supposed to help you feel like you can do just about anything and you’d never be cast aside or laughed at. You’re only following your own dogma, but he only wanted to crawl out of his skin and flee into the deep woods in front of him when he felt that warm blanket of compassion from your tone. He hated how it sounded so kind, hated how it could almost be mistaken as love, hated how he knew he only took it that way because he’d never experienced anything like it before.
Such a kind girl you were, being roped into this wretched abomination of a house and all the equally wretched people living in it. How could he not think of you that way? And with just how fucked up everyone else in the mansion was, why didn’t you feel that way for him?
The breeze was slowly swaying the grass beneath your feet. Toby’s eyes were locked onto them and how they shifted back and forth, as if they anticipated his reply just as much as you did. “Y- yeah. Just… need to get more sleep. Totally your f- f- fault, by the way,” he added the light tease at the end solely to save face and hope your mock offense would override the clear confusion you’d felt just moments ago.
It seemed to work, but only because his embarrassment was so clearly written on his face that you thought it best to gloss over what had just happened. “Sorry for waking you up, Toby.” You murmured sincerely, simultaneously changing the topic and truly apologizing for disturbing the little sleep you knew he got. “You can totally just go back to bed. Leave the door open on your way out; I’ll head in after I clean up. Tim’s gonna throw a huge piss fit if he sees this tomorrow.” With a small chuckle rumbling from your throat, you planted a hand on the wood beneath you to haul yourself out of your comfortable slump, only stopped when Toby almost frantically put a hand on your shoulder to sit you back down.
“I- I can… I can g- get it.” His tics rose in that way that only happened when he was growing increasingly nervous or agitated. “Just… stay out here. St- stay there.” You caught the tail end of something in his tone that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Was it something almost pleading? Never in his life had he ever used such a placid and almost desperate voice. For anyone. A jolt of your heart was all it took to take you back to reality and stow the moment away in the back of your mind. Must have been a misinterpretation. You’re both tired, you both need sleep, and you both know Toby would never need to ask you something that way.
“Oh– you mean that?” You pretended to eagerly perk up and act like what he just said didn’t have you ruminating in your racing thoughts for what felt like whole minutes. “Don’t have to tell me twice. Thanks, Toby.” You resumed your previous position; only now, it was your turn to take advantage of your friend’s attention being drawn elsewhere. While he strode over to your workbench to fluff open a garbage bag, your eyes took in how the hazy moonlight cast a soft glow over his silhouette. Toby was sizably tall, holding a decent amount of height over you, and every inch of him was wrapped in lean muscle from hatchet training and general stalking-chasing-murdering antics. He’d been gaining more weight recently, only from joining you to eat consistent meals despite his condition not giving him any real pangs of hunger.
The brunette huffed a short laugh that escaped through the scar on his cheek. “Just m- making it even for that time you bailed m- me out.” You knew exactly which instance he was referring to, and it brought a grin to your face that showed your teeth. Just last week, he and Tim were going toe to toe in a heated spat, with everyone else being either so busy or so used to their overlapping shouts that you were the only hope of intervention.
”You’re not the fucking adult here, you little shit! What about that doesn’t go through that thick fucking skull of yours?!”
”And wh- what about you gives you the f- fucking ri- right to throw or- orders around like I’m a fucking dog?!”
The issue was, you didn’t reach the argument until after Toby decided to land a sucker bitch slap to Tim’s face. Your poor friend would be dead in a ditch if you hadn’t arrived just in time to defend the action as a poorly timed tic (even though it totally wasn’t one. He told you that right after you two decided to hijack Tim’s beer stash and go out to a lake to drink it all as a petty act of revenge).
“Yeah, you’re fucking welcome.” You laughed as he tossed the last shell from your paint bomb experiment into the bag. Deciding actually to be helpful and not a complete exploitative dick, you unraveled the hose and sloppily sprayed down all the neon splatter on the grass. Sure, the water wouldn’t really get rid of it, but when the hell would Tim ever come out here with a blacklight anyway? “There. We’re all good.”
Clapping your hands together to dust them off, you theatrically signaled to Toby that you were done and ready to head back inside.
4:52 a.m., he held back the urge to place a guiding hand on the curve of your back to lead you through the sliding door; you held back the urge to ask if he wanted a sleepover. One in your room, where you’d eat cheap snacks and steal Tim’s beer cans out of the fridge to get stupidly drunk. That teenage drunkenness that was just aware enough that you could muster the courage to ask Toby to explain all those glances he’d been sneaking at you these last few months when he thought you weren’t looking.
ao3 ver. ₍^. .^₎Ⳋ his hatchet gleams, just not at you. - toby rogers x fem reader
synopsis: toby never expected to form connections he actually wanted to keep, especially not with anyone living in the mansion. only, when you arrive to make smoke bombs and anti-escape gadgets for the residents' missions, he found that the friendship snowballed. fast. but how do you differentiate between friendship and love when you don't remember the last time you experienced either? how do you do that when the other person isn't helping unblur the line, because they don't know which feeling it is either?
note: a relatively short friends to lovers read compared to what i have planned !!
⏔⏔⏔ ⏔⏔⏔
ao3 ver. ₍^. .^₎Ⳋ get the fuck off my computer! (18+ !!) - ben drowned x fem reader
synopsis: streaming was just supposed to be a small hobby on the side, maybe even a source of pocket money if you gained some more traction. but when a guy with the most absurd username you've ever seen gives you $1000 on your first broadcast, you have to decide if you can look past him hijacking your pc and cyberstalking you if it means he's sending you everything on your online wishlists... and ends up being a lot cuter than expected.
hiii !! i'm ame ❥ i decided to finally customize my tumblr and stop lurking after a few people seemed to enjoy my work on ao3 !!
i use she/they interchangeably without preference; labels were never for me but i kiss any and every gender teehee
i am in college so updates might slow after i go back to school :((
i've been suuuper into creepypasta and otherwise slenderverse-related media like everymanHYBRID and marble hornets again recently (middle school ame is returning in full force), so expect that to be the majority of this blog. but i might one day pick up other fandoms like haikyuu if i decide to dive back into the fandom ^_^
other than creepypasta, i looove my dress up darling, vocaloid, figure collecting, and project sekai ♡(˃͈ ˂͈ ) my favorite bands right now are sleeping with sirens and pierce the veil, and my fav solo artists are underscores and lucy bedroque !!
if this blog gains any traction like my ao3, i'd love to do requests and shorter drabbles !! (mostly to procrastinate my longform fics) thanks for stopping by !! (♡ˊ͈ ꒳ ˋ͈)
i am STRICTLY against generative ai !! i do NOT want any of my work being fed into ai, and i do NOT want you on my page if you are in support of plagiarizing others' hard work by turning it into computer-made slop !!!
p.s. - ame isn't actually my name lol◝ ⩊ ◜none of my irls know about this account
