fic: Be My Player Two [4/4]

[bonnefois]

Title: Be My Player Two (4/4)
Series: TF2
Character/Pairing: Scout/Miss Pauling, some mentions of ensemble, mentions of past Administrator/Saxton Hale
Rating: NC-17
Summary: AU. Sophie Pauling, assistant to one of the biggest (and evilest) media moguls in the world is commanded to scope out the new field of Let's Play celebrities. A gamer named Scout69 makes millions by screaming at video games. As she investigates the man behind the channel, she finds herself surprised, and charmed by him and his world beyond anything she's ever known in her workaholic, out of touch with trends life.
Word count: 40k! The total of the fic is 91,537 words.
Author's note: This whole thing came about from this exchange I had concerning Introducing The Steam Link.

Scout's LPer intro theme samples this song (Mild NSFW in picture, tons of bikinis haha)

Longfic_bingo: Crossover: any. The crossover in question is Youtuber LPers, though other than the mention of other people shipping Youtubers and faint mentions of Youtubers that have SOs, that part is gen.

For Madie.






*

Sophie had become everything she'd once rolled her eyes at. A love song on the radio came on, talking about rushes of emotion and finally understanding, and she could only nod her head with the beat. One of the secretaries had been talking about Liam Hemsworth, and just the sound of the name made her break out into a smile. His abs were nice, but she preferred her Liam.

She was That Girl, now. The same type she didn't understand in school. The one who constantly smiled at her phone, and giggled with every flirty text, who cut out of the constant grind of work and studying to run off with their love, who seemed to be floating along and living in an unseen world of sheer happiness, all because of their significant other.

She counted down the seconds until lunch, and then, the moments until work was over. No longer was she the first to volunteer for overtime.

Which all led to one stark realization: The company didn't fall apart. The stock didn't suddenly plummet, the place didn't burn down because she actually took time off. In fact, as much as she waited, there was no note from the Administrator asking why she'd suddenly stopped being the star employee.

In fact, it was like the Administrator didn't even notice the change at all.

But for once, Sophie was focusing on her own wants and needs. Her life had started to become that moment when she got buzzed, like when the chocolate set in, that permanent post-coital after-orgasm bliss. She woke up smelling of his cologne, his arm spread about her stomach. It was hard to believe she ever hated the scent of Axe body spray. Now it smelled like laughter and happiness and coming home. (As opposed to middle school boys who made poor hygiene choices.)

At the table he teased her with his foot against her leg. Because, as she was starting to understand, flirting and attention was like air to Liam Dempsey. If he didn't get enough, he would probably die. Or just keep going on and being more and more outrageous until someone paid attention to him, even just to yell at him to shut up.

She'd never paid attention to social media, outside the confines of her job. But now, she daily opened up her feeds, just to see what he had to say this time.

She hadn't gotten out of bed, and she looked through the feeds. Before Liam, the popularity of social media feeds were boggling. Now, should it ever be asked in a boardroom meeting, she could list reasons why. And likely go on a rant as to why the tumblr mobile app should be vaulted into space.

She scrolled down his blue site with a twee awfully spelled name she refused to dignify. A long post of gifs from their video were stacked one on top of each other. He'd been busy this morning. She was surprised he didn't break the site with all the selfies he was posting and all the gif sets he kept rebageling or whatever it was called.

Already the outtake was posted. She honestly didn't know how he had a chance to edit it. They'd been up for less than an hour and he'd spent thirty of it belting out Tom Jones songs in the shower. But with Liam, anything was possible. She checked the link; it already had over 500,000 views, and someone had already made gifs of that outtake.

"Damn, they work fast," she said.

Two other people had already added comments, one with just screaming, and another with Look at the way she looks at him.

Just beneath it, he'd written damn right, that's how I look at her. that's how somebody like Sophie should be looked at. like a goddess, like a queen. a queen goddess or somthin fused together.

She buried her phone to her chest, as if it would record the deep red blush which had settled across her cheeks. The screen was hot against her.

She got another notification and changed feeds. This one brought out a groan of disgust. Not at the content--she couldn't even see any damn content.

Sophie had learned to despise the tumblr app. It loved to blank out images, so all she would see were bluish pages and Liam reacting to things she couldn't see. Not only that, it also loved to put awful, unasked for things on her screen, things that made her hate humanity and wish the firing part in her job was literal, preferably out of a cannon, though a gun would do.

Whoever made this piece of shit should be fired, she muttered.

If Liam hadn't for some unknown reason used this poorly spelled blue site, she never would've visited it again. But Liam never met a social media site he didn't like. Which meant Sophie now spent free time she technically didn't have trying to translate strange memes about frogs liking soup, spaghetti, and other things she only vaguely understood. Things like Bode, except it actually meant body and represented by cats. The internet grew more mysterious every single day.

A remarkably small video was up. She quickly turned down the volume. She'd have to start getting headphones, because Liam had no indoors voice.

"High five me. But don't be breakin' that screen, okay? Gentle high-fives, maybe don't hit the screen, or any of your sisters, or dogs hangin' around."

She managed to spend her night after she'd gotten the paperwork done--and the job signed. She held out her hand to the heat of the phone screen. It was stupid and sentimental, yes, but at this rate she was just rolling with her bad choices. Needing to clean her phone screen was nothing compared to the the momentary comfort.

"Hey, babe. You already saw the vid, huh?" he said. He had a thermos of coffee in hand. Liam always preferred cups that didn't spill or break as easily.

"I can't believe you got it up already," she said. It was only after she'd said it that she realized she was just asking for a trademark Liam dirty joke.

"When you're around, I always get it up quick."

"I deserved that," she said.

"Mmmmhmm, you deserve a lot of things," Liam said.

He leaned down to kiss her cheek. His breath was warm against her ear. She reached out to catch him a grazed kiss across his jaw.

"Whoa, I didn't know you were comin' in. Gimme a second and I'll be all yours. Though technically―I'm always yours. Speakin' of yours, I made you somethin'. Like breakfast. I made you waffles. Thawed them out and put them in the toaster and everything. And they say dudes can't cook."

"God, that sounds delicious," she said.

"That's what you said. Last night, in fact. But, you know how it is. I do everythin' fast. Except sex," Liam said.

"You know I have to go work," she said.

"And you're too hardcore for more hooky n' nookie days. One day I'll get you to come around," he said.

"You know me. I'm always the workaholic," she said.

He put his arms about her and kissed her one last time. "Oh, all right. I know how it is. The waitin' game. I've been doin' that ever since I met you. So.... Tonight, then? I could order in."

"I don't have any clothes here," she said.

Liam raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Who said you'd need clothes?"

"I guess I could borrow yours," she said.

"Mmm, that's even better. You looked so hot in my shorts that time I convinced you to go out onto that bouncy castle. I still can't believe you said yes."

"You're not the only one. That was super unprofessional of me."

"But it was fun and sexy as hell," he said.

She leaned against him. The thought of lounging around in his clothes, with the warmth of his skin outweighed any worries that could bubble up within her. And Sophie was a damn pro at worrying and finding the best in everything.

"I've got a flight on Wednesday, but I still have a little time. So... I'll be here," she said.

"You goin' to be workin' late?"

"I don't think so. Let someone else pick up the slack for a change," Sophie said.

"That's the spirit. About time you start carin' about yourself almost as much as I do about you," Liam said.

She leaned in to kiss his forehead. "That'd be pretty hard to manage, but I'll make an effort," she said.

He wrapped his arms about her, and for a while they were just close together, just like that. But the time passed all too soon, and she had to slip out and back to being professional--at least on the surface.

*

With one day until her red eye flight, she came in late after her shift, which now was closer to midnight and less around 3AM. She'd stopped being the one-woman workhorse and spending all her days in the office. And somehow, she still had a job. The world hadn't collapsed around her now that she actually talked to people. Okay, person, though sometimes she said hello to his family members as well.

And thankfully, her liver hadn't yet collapsed in on itself, either.

"Long day?"

"Oh god, you have no idea," she said. "What's that I smell?"

"C'mon in, you can see. Spoilers: There's chocolate."

"Chocolate? God, I needed some chocolate right now."

"Home made. Okay, I didn't make 'em entirely, but I stirred 'em, and helped clean the bowls, so you could say I half-cooked them. Ma came to get some new clothes while she was on a layover. At least The Jerk wasn't with her. She made up some good stuff, too. I didn't even burn 'em!"

She took a bite and let out a moan. She closed her eyes to focus on the sheer gooey, sweet and warm bliss in her mouth.

"Totally worth it," he said. "But, don't get your fingers too sticky, I got a surprise for you."

He pulled out his phone and swiped to unlock.

"Ignore the other ones; they suck. It's number seven which matters."

"Sophia Pauling, rising star in the business world. Known as as a ruthless cost-cutter, she's personally resolved many a situation..." she read aloud. She looked up from the article in wonder.

"Oh, Liam, you did this, didn't you?"

"Screw Fortune, modernbusinesswoman-dot-wordpress-dot-com is where it's at," Liam said.

"You read blogs and articles other than ones about yourself on Polygon?"

"Well, yeah! I started to date this amazin' girl who's super smart. I had to go read stuff to keep up. There was an open call for nominations, and well..." He grinned.

"How many hashtags did you and your 69ers assault them with for this?"

"All of 'em, baby. And I'd do it again. Hell, I'd take a megaphone and go outside of Fortune until they take notice. You should've seen it. We broke twitter earlier."

She couldn't form into words the feeling welling up in her chest. So she rested her head against him.

"Babe, you okay? You ain't chokin' or anythin'?"

She nodded.

"Wait, was that yes you're okay, or yes you're chokin'?" Liam said. Concern filled his voice. He turned to see her. "Fingers up if you need a Heimlich. Blink twice if I gotta call 911."

"You did it, you really did it. You got me on a list."

"As far as I see it, seven is better than number one, because it's lucky. Besides, you're already number one on my list."

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. "I'd say this is the sweetest thing you ever did, but I know you'd just take that as a challenge and do something ridiculous like get a jetpack to go into space and write our initials on the moon," she said.

"Ooh, good idea. I gotta save that one for later," Liam said.

She laughed. "At least let science catch up before you try and go spaceman," she said. "I want you to still be around."

He leaned down for a quick kiss. "See this? This is the start of somethin' big. You're goin' to get on a ton of lists, even if me and every single one of my 69ers have to protest every single listy place there is. I'm tellin' you, you're goin' to be a freakin' star. Listen, I been readin'--"

"You willingly read?" she said.

"I read! Just kinda slow because I got dys...dysexia."

"Dyslexia. I don't think you get sex backwards."

Liam raised his eyebrows suggestively. "I could if you were down with it."

"And so could I. Though I'd have to bring along supplies."

Liam looked confused for a moment, until he had a flash of understanding.

"Waiiit, you mean like Deadpool? International Women's day?"

She knew this scene all too well, considering how enthusiastically Liam had talked about it, and the movie itself. "Exactly."

"Put it on the list. I'm always down to celebrate International Women's day. I love women. Especially you. Actually, I had somethin' else. Like I said, I been readin'. Like Ioccoa, who sorta sounds like he should've gotten into the cocoa business. Guy would've made a killing. I'd go to a guy with cocoa right in the name. That guy knows his chocolate!"

She couldn't help but chuckle. Liam always got the most unique take out of whatever he read.

"It said he wanted to follow after Henry Ford. But the guy got wind and fired his ass. So he was like 'fuck you, I'll go support Chrysler and put your smelly ass out of business, you loser!"

"To paraphrase," Sophie said.

"Right, right. So maybe that's what you gotta do. If nobody wants to appreciate the work you do...Sometimes you gotta just go make your own path. That wasn't all I read. I found out there's more lists, like Fortune's 40 under 40, and Forbes' 30 under 30. Look, you got tons of time to make those, even if you missed the 25 mark. Plus, I got you this..."

He reached down and pulled up a book that had definitely seen better days. The cover was dirty and ripped. On the cover was a proud fashion mogul in a dark dress, underneath the large title #Girlboss."

"The ebay listin' said it was like new. Like new, my ass! It looks like somebody dropped it in a puddle. But they wouldn't take it back, and I had to get you a new copy, so I decided to read it anyways. It's about this lady who used to be this shopliftin' freegan vegan hippie communist punk, and then she accidentally started an ebay site and became a brazillionaire iconic CEO."

Frankly, Sophie had never heard of a story she related to less. She was the girl who spent her lunches in school alone by choice so she could get a few more hours of studying in. The one who took pride in her twelve hours of studying a day, excellent GPA, and passed all the classes, no matter what it did to her social life or health.

But, that didn't mean she wasn't touched by the thought that he'd done so much to connect with her.

"I mean, I was googlin' and ended up on Pinterest and there were these #GirlBoss images everywhere with pink sassy motivational quotes. And I watched this productivity vid on Youtube about readin' while you take a dump and it's a great idea. I'm readin' at least like, fifty pages a day. I ain't been like this since before I dropped out of school! Plus, I was in this big Youtube watchin' binge. And along the way, I caught this one chick, Marie Forleo. She talked a lot about blazin' her own trail, by bein' silly. Maybe you could try that. Not bein' her, but findin' somethin' that you like that you wanna do. Somethin' that nobody can take away from you."

"Look, it's no pressure. I'm just sayin', I'd sign with you and ditch the company if you ever wanted to go solo. Disney is sniffing around, but so many of us ain't G-rated, so it's bound to fall apart. We just like sayin' fuck too much. Some of the guys are considerin' joinin' in, but I know us. One f-bomb and we'll be out. Might as well not wreck it with the Mouse, in case they send assassins to the house. I bet I could get Jack, Drunk Jack, and Mark to sign on. Just do charity crap and Mark will hop right on. He loves charity so much, if she were a chick, he'd probably marry her."

Liam let out a sigh and pushed his hair back.

"The rest of them in this book, Brutal Bosses, they kinda sounded like assholes. Like Ken Lay? What a jerk!" It came out like 'joyk.' It took her a moment to figure out if he meant jerk or joke, or if he'd coined his own term that meant both words.

"Wait, did you think it was porn. Was that why you read it?"

"What? No! Though I mean, with a name like Harvey Hornstein, you'd think he'd do porn. And Though I mean 'Brutal Bosses' does sound like what I'd watch."

Sophie lifted her eyebrows. "I thought you deleted your porn?" she said.

I mean, what I'd used to watch," Liam said quickly. "Anyways. You mentioned it. Reading Lee Iaccoca's bio and bein' inspired, and the Administrator's autobiography. So I got through at least like half of it. Gonna read the Admin one later. My Publishin' schedule takes up a lot of time."

Especially his 5 hour vlogs.

"I mean, what I'm sayin' is you got options. And I'll always be there for you whatever you decide to me," Liam said.

"Thanks for that," she said. She took another bite of brownies. They were bliss, but so was knowing that her boyfriend had actually read business books for her.

*

It wasn't Shanghai this time, but a New York settlement board meeting that she was leading. As she pointed to the new data, her fingers began to tremble. Maybe she'd had too much coffee, given how cloudy her mind was.
The white board behind her had a graph already markered in. Several boards lay just beside it, for more data.

She'd felt off since she'd checked into the hotel. But this was too big a deal let someone else take control of. Sophie was still very aware that her position was tenuous.

"Ahem, this is the data increase from the last quarter..."

A tightness filled her chest, like a vise. The room blurred. Everything she meant to say was lost as intense pain flooded through her abdomen, as sudden as a knife being plunged into her gut. She gripped her stomach and bent over in sheer agony.

"Miss Pauling--are you okay?"

"I'm... fine," she said weakly. But even as she tried to speak more, a horrible dizziness and pain filled her. Control slipped from her, even as she tried to save the presentation. The pain came over her in waves, until everything else was drowned out.

"I'm calling an ambulance right now--"

She tried to protest, but the roaring in her head drowned out anything she meant to say. She curled up in a ball, but the pain and roaring in her mind only got worse, until it was drowned out by the blaring sirens coming closer, and closer.

*

She didn't wake up in a hospital, but some kind of clinic. Sophie glanced around at the blindingly white room. A caged dove cooed in the corner. A dove? She didn't even realize pets could be allowed in such an area. Maybe it was a service animal? Though she'd never heard of a service dove before.

Her head throbbed so hard--like a hangover, but worse. She reached out for her phone. Her mouth was dry--she wanted a drink so badly. Wine, or vodka, any would do. She'd take a wine cooler from the grocery store if that was what it took to quiet her screaming cells.

"Ah, there you are. You survived. I suppose it's for the best; your organs were no good to be a donor. Might as well live. Though I suppose you could be used for a test cadaver. They're always looking for one of those. Yes, test cadavers are quite interesting. They leave them out to rot to test forensics, and use them for bombs and accidents. Perhaps you'd be useful in death."

As if she wasn't useful in life? As if she wasn't the only thing holding this place together?

Sophie blinked awake, and forced herself to sit up. Dizziness and nausea instantly filled her.

"I thought you worked in Boston." Her voice came out as a dry croak.

"I go wherever the Administrator orders me to," he said cheerfully. "Much like you. Except people actually like me."

There was something off about the doctor. He was a little too cheerful, and underneath that was something darker. She also immediately recognized him as the doctor who had streamed with Liam.

The very one she hoped that would never, ever work on her, and was the main one covered by her insurance.

"I thought an ambulance was coming."

"Ah, yes. But that would cost far more money. And they aren't nearly as discreet as I am."

There was something classically handsome in him, and yet his gray eyes were filled with something she couldn't define. Never mind that he gave off the aura of being one glass bottle with organs away from being a modern adaptation of Doctor Frankenstein. Or maybe that was just all her poor aching brain could compare him to past the sharp pain.

"Well, there's good news, and bad news. Which do you want first?" he said. He didn't wait for her, but instead continued on, leaving her to wonder why he'd even asked.

"Could you say it a little quieter?" she said.

"Hmm, painkillers. Yes, I remember those."

He tossed a bottle of Advil her way. She grimaced in sheer amazement at the bottle near her. He'd really...done that. Talk about one hell of a bizarre bedside manner.

"...I'll need a drink, too," she said.

He laid a warm bottle of water on the hospital bed.

At least he didn't throw that at her.

Her stomach churned as she forced down those pills. She closed her eyes. I'm not going to throw up, I'm not going to give in... his voice cut through her mental mantra.

It was just another hangover, after all. It was always just a hangover or a stress-filled breakdown which could be pushed down with enough alcohol. Which would lead to another hangover like a ouroboros.

"Good news: your liver isn't the worst I've ever seen. That belongs to a man from Scotland, who claimed to be a real pirate and fight dragons. His looked like Swiss cheese. Still, he refused a transplant. Something about a deal with the other side to stay alive for a thousand years."

He chuckled at the memory.

"And the bad?" she said.

"It's the second worst liver I've seen. Congratulations on second place! I really should get those awards made. And some awards music to go with it. Maybe some confetti....I'd have to special order them to say 'you're almost dead.' I should really keep those around the office. They'd come in handy..."

"I wouldn't call that...worthy of congratulations," Sophie said.

"Oh, that's not all. You're suffering a pretty bad case of withdrawal, and you've also got diabetes on the rise. Like a bad moon rising, but worse. I hope you like needles, because you're going to have to be very acquainted with them. And if you keep it up, you'll either have to make a transplant list or die.

He looked up from his clipboard.

"Did I say just liver? You've been very bad to your kidneys as well. Both--in fact. Usually it's one kidney which gets worse, but you must've really worked hard to destroy them."

"That's....." she broke off, unable to finish the sentence. Liver, kidneys,
"One thing I must ask: what did you do to get such a spectacularly broken organs?"

"Wine and Red Bull at least five times a day, usually more. Sometimes that's all I eat for the day. For night, it's usually enough wine to knock me out so I don't have to think about my life," she said. "Vodka, rum..I'm not choosy. It's how I get through the day and sleep at night. Got through the day, at least. As for sleep, I usually get about four hours, if that."

"Oh, that'd do it," he said. He nodded. "That'd definitely do it. If you want to live, then stop that. If you don't want to live, then just keep up what you're doing, and you'll get what you want soon enough."

"How soon?"

He shrugged. "What do I look like, a doctor?" he laughed to himself, as if she'd told a hilarious joke.

"Um. Right..."

Something about him was...off. There was an unprofessional edge. It didn't help that she'd seen him laugh so hard at Surgeon Simulator and say how lifelike it was. Only a few more minutes until I can leave, she thought.

He held up an x-ray of a body which definitely wasn't hers.

He rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. "Wait, that's my sandwich."

He pulled up another x-ray. This one was of an extremely large man, and was that a missile in his chest?

"And that's my boyfriend."

Did she even want to know? Why would his boyfriend have a missile inside his body? After a moment's consideration, Sophie realized that no, she did not want to know what possible context that could have.

Finally, he rustled free another x-ray and set it up on the contraption on the wall.

"Ah, here it is."

A smiley face was drawn on her liver, with don't drink! scrawled just beside. Two other smileys with you'll die! were over her kidneys.

How was she supposed to deal with the stress and crushing loneliness now?

Sophie let out a long breath as she tried to process the information. God, she needed a drink. Or two, or three.
One little drink couldn't do that much more damage, would it?

And the little voice was almost convincing. But, she wasn't lonely anymore. She had Liam, and lists to be on, success, and days spent playing video games and sharing kisses.

He was so interwoven into her raison d'etre that somehow it all fit.

"Well, you could try Alcoholics Anonymous," he said. "I tried to get Tavish to do it, but he was so determined to keep that gold medal liver...." he trailed off. "He claims he made a pact with the fairy queen anyways, so he won't die for a thousand years."

"Are you really a doctor?" she said. She half had an idea that she was part of one of those prank shows. Prank'd or whatever it was called.

"What makes you say that?" he said. There was something darker, even predatory in his smile.

"You know what? Forget it--" She was cut off with a loud ringtone.

She'd never been more glad for an interruption. Liam's name was the one bright spot in her day.

"I have to take this," she said.

She pushed herself out of bed, only to find she wasn't dressed in a hospital gown, but instead wore her wrinkled old clothes. Was this protocol? She couldn't even tell. She found her shoes underneath the hospital bed and slipped them on.

"Sophie here. I'm just at the doctor. I figured you'd text? Oh, you wanted to wish me well...Um, anyways--"

The doctor cleared his throat.

"Right, just mail me the bill. Liam, let me call you back. I think there might be prescriptions..."

WHAT!? came over the phone, so loud that even the doctor must have heard it.

"Oh, it's not that bad." she said.

Erich burst into laughter. "Not that bad? I could play Connect Four with your liver. In fact, if you wish, we can. All I need is for you to sit on the operating table, and I'll make a few cuts--" he said.

"I'll pass, thanks," Sophie said dryly.

"Suit yourself," he said, with an alarming amount of disappointment.

"Liver? Kidneys? Please tell me you're orderin' from some fancyass nasty New York restaurant!"

"Um, let me get back to you, Liam, okay? I promise I'll explain everything then. Bye," she said quickly.

She hung up before the doctor commented further, and got Liam even more agitated.

"Can I leave?" It came to mind that "Wait, I've got a presentation to finish--"

"I wouldn't worry about that," the doctor said. "In fact, I wouldn't worry about that ever again. The Administrator doesn't like being let down."

"She's not going to hold me blacking out against me. After all, it was a health condition," she said.

"Won't she?" the doctor said.

Sophie licked her lips. The Administrator had one of the worst maternity plans around--more a gaping hole, with the shame that a woman would allow her professional life to be interrupted. And there was that cancer patient she had to let go--because he needed to heal, of course. Though that kicked him off of his insurance. He'd been stage one, but hadn't lived very long after that. His wife had been forced to sell their house and declare bankruptcy due to all that.

But it wasn't connected to her. They'd failed the Administrator and she'd been forced to take them out. Sophie never focused on the tragedies that followed. The broken marriages, the houses and possessions that had to be sold, the bankruptcies and even a few suicides. It was the Administrator who blackballed them, not her.

She'd simply delivered the papers, and with a completely blank face. Even as the workers broke down into tears, or were so pathetic to resort to begging with cries of but I have a family! she never relented.

The other people whose lives were ruined on her way to reach the kind of power that the Administrator had (and even more, higher than her boss could ever achieve) were casualties Sophie was willing to take. And the Adminitrator knew it. She valued her work ethic, her ruthlessness. Even to the point of almost destroying her body.

"She wouldn't. She values my work," Sophie said.

"Ah, I see, you're in the denial stage. Eventually you'll reach bargaining," he said.

"There's no stages of grief because I haven't lost anything. You don't know anything, you're just--medical staff. You're not her right hand woman like I am."

She pushed herself up from the stretcher and walked out the door. Once she was out of the oddly claustrophobic room, she quickly checked her texts. One from Bidwell. Don't worry about the presentation, Brenda took care of it.

She gritted her teeth at the thought of Brenda, once again, stepping in to fill her projects. At least she could take the comfort that Brenda would never have enough grit to take her job of firing people.

"I should put you on all the pills," he said. He scrawled down a prescription, and handed it her way.

"I can't just put "all the pills" at the pharmacy," she said. The prescription literally said just that. Or what she could tell from the almost illegible scribble.

"There's one downstairs. They'll understand," he said.

On that ominous note, he left the room. Without even a goodbye. What a strange person, she thought.

Feeling like she was making a deal for a drug dealer, she walked down the stairs. Surprisingly, the pharmacy understood. But she was a left with an hour long waiting period before she could pick up her new prescriptions.

Before she even made it down the hall, her phone rang again.

"What gives? Is somethin' wrong? What'd Doc mean about that? I heard him and liver stuff? Hospital? S-Sophie, what's goin' on??"

"Oh, I..."

With coworkers, she would've lied right off. The moment she showed weakness was when her downfall from Administrator's assistant would begin. The Administrator wouldn't hesitate to throw her to the firing squad, just as Sophie had done to so many other employees who didn't live up to her boss' standards.

"I was just having a little thing checked out," she said lightly.

"Somethin' checked out at the doctor? Like you just suddenly had to get a mammy gram way over there?"

She let out a sigh. "The hobo lifestyle isn't doing it for me. Apparently I have to add things other than a liquid diet into my routine. I...collapsed in the middle of a presentation. The doctor says my liver and kidneys have been very damaged."

"Soph, I--" His voice cracked. "But...you'll be all right, right?"

"I...guess? This doctor is kind of something else. He's putting me on some prescription. I don't even know what it was yet."

She left out the needles. She didn't even want to focus on them right now.

Liam let out several long breaths. Was he hyperventilating?

"P-prescriptions? Sophie..."

"Cam down; it's just diabetes. And possibly liver and kidney transplants, if it get sto that. And I need to quit drinking," she said.

"You--what?"

"Apparently, I need to make some changes. No more 20 hour days. I have to actually start sleeping and eating."

"Yeah you do! You can't be killin' yourself. I-I can't imagine a world without you in it. So Sophie, please be careful!"

"You know me, I don't even know where to start," she said.

"Then I'll take care of you. I'll bring you good food, tuck you into bed and make videos to remind you that you gotta live. I'll do it all, just call me Nurse Liam!"

"Well, it's a start," she said.

She sat down in one of the chairs. Leaving back to her hotel seemed too exhausting a task. And so did keeping up with Liam's rapid-fire questions. As much as she liked him, the weight of everything that had happened was far too heavy.

"Listen, Liam, I have to go do something. I'll get back with you, okay?"

"Take care of yourself," he said desperately.

"I'm trying to learn how," she said softly.

*

It was, perhaps, rather telling, that even a severe medical issue didn't make Sophie cancel her next scheduled trip back. She could've afforded a new ticket easily. Then again, She couldn't pack alcohol on the trip, so Sophie had used it to jumpstart her new renovation project. She liked to think of it as salvage what's left of my poor godforsaken liver. Like spring cleaning, but internal.

But even before noon, she was sweating. She could list the hours, days since she'd had that dutch comfort. She bounced her knee, and kept licking her lips. Just a drop, it wouldn't kill her liver. Just a little bit to make it through the day. Then a little wine to make it through the long night.

She'd let herself fall into this. Maybe she hadn't started it, but she'd allowed it to go on.

She hadn't ended up in one of those airports that had spas and bars. All there were was long white halls filled with luggage stores, overpriced food shops, and other uninteresting overpriced goods. From fashion she would never wear (and suited Liam's 'style' more than anything with cringey sayings and neon colors) and overpriced kitschy souvenirs, to overpriced books she would never, ever read.

She hadn't drank a bit, hadn't even snuck a flask inside. But at the five hour layover, the craving hit like the deepest thirst she'd ever felt. She craved more, even down to her bones, her very cells.

The didn't have a nearby bar. But then, she wasn't much of a bar drinker. Too many people copping feels and trying to drink with her, and loud music when all she wanted was a bit of quiet, to forget and for the stress to drain off her for a few moments. There had to be a liquor store somewhere near. With shaking fingers she searched on her phone.

Not even one day without it? You know what that means, don't you? came a little voice in her mind. She hadn't even thought her conscience still existed with all the choices she'd made.

Shut up. Hemmingway himself said 'write drunk, edit sober.' It's just to make this damn layover go better. I'm not an addict. It's just a tool, no more notable than my phone or my apps.

Hemmingway killed himself, the voice of reason reminded her.

She let out a long exhale. She could do this. Be one of those people who took up Candy Crush instead of expecting her liver to take the fall every single time she got upset or stressed.

I can do this, I can go a single night without a drink. I can make it through a meeting without digging for a flask, I can...

God, she wanted a drink so bad. She could just imagine the warmth, and all the unhappiness melting away. She had her drinking under control. She didn't drink at work--much. She wasn't drunk and disorderly

The bottles in her back room wasn't a skeleton in the closet--they were a testament to how hard she worked. And that the recycling plant needed to get its shit together.

To distract herself, she desperately opened up Youtube. She saw the flash of a notification, and she checked her work email. An email straight from him was right on top. She went for it so singlemindedly as if everything else blurred away.

babe in case the flight back is long, made u this.
cant wait 2 see u soon ;)
got a lot of things to catch up on.
o and check ur bags I snuck in a gift 4 u in outside pocket. forgot to tell you when u left.
bye bye.

The second email had a link, but she checked the pockets of her bags. She was half filled with apprehension that Liam had slipped in something that would get her stopped at one of the checkpoints, and half filled with the same sort of eagerness that any gift of his brought. Even a surprise breakfast or croissants he picked up for her breakfast.

But what she pulled out was a small pair of earbuds, a power pack to keep her phone charged when all the outlets were used, and package of jerky and string cheese. At the back was a bright pink post-it note with Remember to eat :) scrawled over it.

She unpacked the new gifts, and slipped in the earphones. She clicked the link in the second video, just in case he'd sent something very not safe for work.

She fully expected a dick pick (and at this point, she would've welcomed it. Anything to distract her from the ugly feeling demanding appeasement inside her.) But instead it was an unlisted video.Surprisingly enough, it also wasn't 5 hours long. (To be fair, that would be rather short for a Liam video.)

Liam stood in front of his recording room. Random pictures were scrawled all over the back. A few times he'd auctioned off for charity the right to tell him what to draw. He'd immediately had to specify that dicks couldn't be an option, because Youtube wouldn't like that.

She laughed to herself at the memory. He'd gone on for quite a while. Look, I'm great at drawin' dicks, a real pro. If you send money to charity I will personally draw the hairiest, dick-y-ist dick there was. But not in the recordin' area. Gotta keep it fuckin' PG rated, you know?"

The video kept buffering. She mentally cursed the shitty airport wifi which she'd paid far too much for.

"So ummm, it's your boyfriend here. Remember me? I'm kind of a big deal. And I want you--" He mimicked one of those old Uncle Sam posters, "To take care of yourself while I'm not there. I'm throwin' this together real quick because I got some stuff I promised the 69ers, but if you want I'll make a ton of these just remindin' you that I'm here. Missin' you and carin' about you all the time. Okay? Okay. Kick all their asses with that trip. Show 'em who's boss, and then come back and show me who's boss. It can be on video games or in bed, whichever you prefer. Maybe both! Though not at once, don't think that's possible. It'd just result in really sticky controllers and bad scores. And you couldn't even put it on Youtube without gettin' in trouble."

She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.

Always remember, I'm rootin' for you. You can do this, because I know you're a damn fine awesome lady, even if sometimes you don't feel like it. He blew a kiss to the screen. Instead of his usual outro, it just faded to black.

Every time she started to crave another drink of alcohol, she replayed the video. As far as angels on her shoulder went, he was foul-mouthed, and prone to screaming at any opportunity, but he was her guiding light, always supporting her even when they were apart.

The person she was months before would've reached for something to keep her mind quiet for a few hours. But this time, she reached for someone else, and let herself be vulnerable.

Sophie: Liam. That video was sweet, but I need some more motivation.

Liam: no worries, baby. I got this. The shorts are comin back.

She smiled to herself. It was ridiculous, smiling over stupid pet names.

Liam: okay its comin. its big.

Sophie: You high-fived yourself over that, didn't you?

Liam: u know it.

The Return Of The Shorts In front of a rainbow flashing strobe background, Liam tried some kind of dancing. She couldn't really tell what it was, except there sure was a lot of ass. Not that she was complaining.

Liam: ill be your alcohol baby.

Sophie: Commas are important, Liam. It's the difference between 'It's time to eat, Grandma' and 'it's time to eat Grandma.' One is a family dinner, and one is cannibalism.

Liam: both are family dinners actually.

He followed up that with a link to a rimshot. Every joke he made was punctuated with finger guns and ayyys!

Sophie: Okay, you win that one.

In a few seconds, she received a selfie of Liam doing a victory pose.

Liam: so how long until you come back? miss u somethin fierce.

Sophie: I was going to say tomorrow, but after that 'u' I'm going to go another week just to wipe it from my mind

Liam: cmon babe it's a homage to prince I swear.

Sophie: You better be belting out Purple Rain in tight purple spandex before the night is over.

Liam: anythin for u babe.

Sophie: Just a sec, boarding starts soon.

The rest of his response was just dozens of hearts and kissing emojis. Even that little encounter had left her with a big smile on her face as she boarded for a flight back to ruin more employee's dreams as she would be the one to tell them they no longer had a place in the company.


*

Sophie had locked away the evidence of the part that was falling apart. Instead of taking a true break, there was wine. And the gin and rum, and tequila of course. And all she had show for it was a damaged liver, severe hyperglycemia, and a back room full of empty bottles.

She hadn't even gotten a raise for all the effort she put in.

But, of course. She was prepared. Her flask was always filled. And she always kept enough to unwind when she got home. She set the full bottles on the counter, one by one. She tried to bring herself to open them. But each time she made to pour them out, she stopped.

It seemed a waste. She could just drink them. It'd help with the stress of the presentation, and waking up in the hospital. It wouldn't hurt her liver much more. Not noticeably, at least. Just one last time, like a going away party.

She lifted up the bottle. The amber liquid sloshed inside. For many years, this was her therapy, her only friend, and the only comfort she had through grueling days and a boss who never even seemed to take notice of how damn hard she was working for the company.

She set it aside, with a shaky breath, and gripped her cell phone. She went straight down to the D. He wasn't listed under Douchebag anymore, and hadn't been so for quite a while.

(Even the memory made her smile. To think how things had changed.)

"Liam--I need you."

"Mmm, love to hear it. I'll be there in fifteen minutes, maybe less. If I was a pizza guy, you'd be so impressed right now," he said.

"I'm already impressed," she said.

Sophie took a break from the kitchen. Maybe, she thought, she'd hire a housekeeper. She certainly had the extra money.

Just as he said, Liam did arrive extra quickly. She let him in--she hadn't given him a key yet--and he kicked his shoes off at the door. As he glanced around, Liam let out a whistle. "That's one hell of a party right there. You ain't goin' to drink all that, are you? Doctor's orders, remember?"

"I'm trying to get rid of it. Easier said than done. It seems a waste to just throw it out."

"Aren't you goin' to give it to charity or somethin'?"

"I...can't seem to get rid of it myself."

Every time she tried to take this leap, her skin grew clammy, and Sophie felt as if she couldn't breathe. How many years had she gotten through by telling herself that she'd have a drink when she got home? That she could last one more hour at work.

This wasn't a job she could manage sober.

"You want me to take it away?" Liam said.

"Please," she said.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm not the AA type. I'm not going to sit in a church basement and tell people about my feelings. Avoiding my feelings is why I drink in the first place."

"You don't gotta do this alone," he said.

He slowly wrapped his arms about her.

"I was so worried, Soph," he said. His voice cracked as he nuzzled close against her.

"Well, I'm going to be alive for a little while longer," she said flippantly.

Then she laughed awkwardly. See, this was why she drank. So she didn't have to deal with these feelings, she didn't have to deal with the awkwardness and the part of her which hadn't been disassembled by her grueling job.

He leaned in to kiss her cheek. "Listen, I'll get rid of this all good, so the only thing that tempts you around here is me."

Liam packed away each bottle into his duffel bag. Self control slowly slipped away. She tried to steady her breathing. Already she wanted a drink to take the edge off the awful feeling of never getting to have a drink again. And now she had nowhere to put all those negative feelings which threatened to drown her.

All the while, she sat there, with all these awful rushes of desire. Just a drop and it'd all go away. Just a little bit more and she'd be fine again.

Well, not fine. More numb and comatose. But that was usually what passed for fine for her. At least, before she had met Liam.

But, Sophie didn't want to feel like a machine anymore. Liam had opened up something within her, and made her realize just how empty she'd felt. And she was never going back to what she'd been.

The only way out is through.

The last of the glass clinked. He put the bag near the door. "There. I'll donate it to a homeless shelter," Liam said.

Sophie balled her fists. "That's not all..."

He'd seen her at her worst. Multiple times, actually. So, she dared to speak the next words she had kept closed tight.

"Oh, you got a secret stash? I'll take that, too," Liam said.

"There's....There's empty bottles in the back room. The recycling plant wouldn't take them anymore. I had to improvise."

Her heart raced as Liam went closer and closer to that back room. Would he look back at her in disgust, now that he knew?

Knew what she wouldn't face for years?

Liam let out a low whistle as he saw the sheer amount of bags.

It was an ugly side she'd kept locked away. She glanced to him, to see if he'd look at her in disgust. Because now that she was looking at her little apartment and room full of empty bottles, it was pathetic in the highest order. She made well into six figures, and she'd done so little with that money, because she had to chase more. More titles, more prestige. If she made it to Forbes, then she'd want to be on Fortune. It was never ending, this gnawing sense within her. And alcohol had only numbed it. Now that she faced it, years of pushing it down with a little more dutch courage had only made it worse.

The room was largely empty, and very dusty. She could've gotten an apartment in a better neighborhood. Hell, she could've bought something on Beacon Hill for what she made. But she was always working.

"Where do you keep your trash bags?" Liam said.

"U-Underneath the trash can," she said.

He pulled out several bags and set to work. She flinched each time glass clinked together. Here he was, digging deep in all her loneliness. Every time she'd felt pissed off and stressed. He was knee deep in all her failures to keep up with old friends and family.

She searched his face as he dragged out a garbage bag that was full to the point of bursting.

"Surprised how fast? I mean I've cleaned up after parties before. Though this is one hell of a party," Liam said.

"That's one way to put it," she said.

"Hey, I recorded somethin' for you. For your alarm. You can listen to it while I get the rest pulled out."

He laid down his phone and pulled up an unlisted Youtube video.

Sophie, you gotta remember to eat. And good stuff, too. No more liquid lunches. I want you to live so long you break world records. Then take a vampire bite and we'll be frickin' immortals. Or zombies, whatever. Wake up and take care of yourself. And if you need me, call at any hour and I'll be there. Don't worry if I'm sleepin', because I'll get myself right up and rush over there.

"Sorry about everything. Apparently I was like this because my body was breaking apart at the seams. I was so numb, I didn't realize it," Sophie said. Her voice broke.

"You ain't got anythin' to apologize for," Liam said.

Her apartment looked so empty. Come to think of it, the only memories she had of here were exhaustion, hangovers and alcohol. Maybe it was time to move.

"Yes, I do. And I really need to apology to myself."

He sat down beside her, and simply rested his big, calloused hands over her shoulder. "I got you, okay? Don't ever forget it."

Here he was, surrounded by her ugliest side, and he couldn't even manage to hate her. She reached out, and he was all too willing to embrace her. The clean up job was abandoned for a while as in his arms she found comfort for the rawness inside her.

For once it was not desperate, or even sexual. Just her walls giving way, and letting him in a little more.

*

After a slew of firings--complete with closing down an entire building, Sophie was glad to be back in Boston, as opposed to the brutal New Mexico station she'd left years ago. As she caught up in her feed, she found out several mentions of tattoos. Something he hadn't mentioned at all.

It'd been brutal. Two of them had cried. But she'd made it until lunch, and now on her own with some takeout, she balanced the phone in one and and turned towards a familiar app with her thumb.

She brushed the crumbs from her lips. Eating at her desk had become standard over the years. That way, she could finish more contracts in-between bites.

A livestream had already been running for at least a half an hour. Markiplier, Liam, and JackSepticEye were each represented in a series of facecams that took up half the screen between the three of them. Not to be mistaken with DrunkOneEyePirateJack, who had skyrocketed into LPing almost by accident. All his Let's Plays were done in varying stages of drunkenness. It was entirely possible that a friend had made the channel for him, and he didn't even know about his fame.

Markiplier's glasses had gone missing during his last trip to Vegas, and his thick, dark brown hair had been dyed a brilliant fire engine red across the top and bangs. JackSepticEye's had been dyed a deep neon green across the same area.

"Anyways, we match," Liam said. The front of his hair was now a brilliant shade of purple. He'd left the undercut base his regular dark blond.

Markiplier let out a laugh. "You think I don't listen to your vlogs? You didn't dye it for us, you were cryin' about your girl the whole time."

"I wasn't cryin'! Well, okay I did a little, but it was because I got dye in my eye. That shit stings! It's even worse than blowin' out on my skateboard. Wait, you really watched all six hours of my blog?" Liam said with renewed interest.

"Liam, as a professional screamer on the internet, I have to say: you need an abridged version," Markiplier said.

"Abridged? Takin' away genius, that's what it is! Also, you spent almost a half an hour starin' at a banana. You ain't got nothin' to say about abridgin'!"

Markiplier laughed, deep, and began to make a sing-song voice. "Soomeone has a giiirlfriend."

"What the fuck, did I take a wrong turn and end up at the fuckin' kindergarten? So do the both of you!"

"Girlfriend, girlfriend!" came out a chorus of both of the other let's players.

"You both got girlfriends, too! We all have girlfriends!" The laughter continued. "Oh, fuck it, one versus one, meet me in the pit--"

"Oooh! You're goin' to go runnin' across the whole ocean? That'd be somethin'!" Jack said.

"I will run across the damn ocean like The Friggin' Flash--but sexier--and introduce my fist to your---fist! Put it up for us all having girlfriends! Mine is the cutest, though."

"Liam, Liam, I think you need to pet more dogs. What do you think, Chica?"

Somehow his adorable Golden Retriever had snuck into his recording room again. Markiplied smiled like a man who knew he'd won.

"Vote in the chat! Vote Sophie the cutest girlfriend, everyone!"

"And the cutest girl is......Chica!" Markiplier lifted up his dog's floppy ears.

"Aw, come on! You rigged it and got your dog in," Liam said.

"No rigging, Chica is obviously the cutest girl--aren't you? You're the cutest little girl!" He rubbed the dog's fluffy ears.

"Guess the Solis were sleepin' in today. Or they just really like dogs," he said.

They all ended up laughing--even Liam, after it was all done.

They went on a quick intermission for food, so Sophie switched to other feeds. Before she could even scroll down, she was hit with a barrage of texts. Several lunch selfies, (they'd gotten pizza, for the record) as well as a dozen texts full of emojis, and stay safe and come back to me soon, okay?

She just replied with a single heart emoji. He must've been rubbing off on her if he'd gotten her to stoop to using emojis. But, what could she say? It was the only thing that conveyed her breathless racing heart every time he flirted with her.

As she waited for a reply, she scrolled down her timeline, which was filled with dozens of retweets from Liam with trumpets.

Butt trumpets, to be precise.

"Butt....trumpet?" She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh as she went down through this new ridiculous hashtag. All for charity, Liam and Markiplier were photoshopping emojis of trumpets onto their butts, among other things.

She sent off a text.

Sophie: Another charity stream, huh?

In a few seconds, Liam sent a picture of his nails, which were now covered in purple sparkly nail polish.

Sophie: Nice manicure. We should get our nails done together.

Liam: piratejack dared me. i had to show him i was manly enough to pull off this much glitter. can't see it from here, but im freakin covered in body glitter. tried 2 show u but the lightin was bad and im so glittery that it messes up the picture.

Sophie: Take another selfie anyways, I want to see.

Liam: i never thought u'd ask!

She got another shot his glittery purple nails, then one of him making a heart sign with his hands at her. She could barely manage to keep hers painted a single color with her schedule, and his nails looked like one neon glowstick away from a bisexual raver boy paradise.

Sophie: Won't it chip with your gaming?

Liam: only keepin it for the stream cuz that was one of the prize levels for donatin. dunno how to take it off. gonna figure out somehow even if i have to powersand it off.

Sophie: I'll teach you how when I get back, if you do my nails like that.

Liam: DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111!!!!!!!

Sophie: That needed more exclamation points

She got five more texts full of nothing but exclamation points. Sophie laughed softly to herself, before returning to her food.

Liam: by the way how much time u got? u up for grabbin somethin?

She checked her watch. thirty minutes left. The salad wrap she'd gotten from the deli downstairs was wilted, but the alternative was stale packaged powdered donuts from the vending machine, and at the moment she was trying to actually take care of her poor body.

Sophie: I've got thirty minutes. Think you can get here in that time?

Liam: babe i will get there so fast the ground is goin to be flamin.

Sophie: Okay, Sonic.

It was his fault she even knew the reference in the first place.

Liam sent about a dozen laughing emojis.
Liam: MY FIRST NICKNAME! i love it!

(She left out that he'd had some very private nicknames before they dated.)

Sophie: But won't the charity stream miss you?

Liam: sokay. just gonna tell them i needed to refuel more and catch em later.

He got there in fifteen minutes. She was half surprised the pavement wasn't left smoking, with track marks and broken glass, because he must've had to break the sound barrier. He'd gone past Sonic and sped right into The Flash territory.

The fact that she knew that was his fault as well.

He turned up with a black shirt with a gaming control across the chest, that said Addict on the front.

Liam held up a white plastic bag with thank you in red across it several times in triumph.

"I've got the Holy Grail of lunches: stuff from my Ma!"

"She's back from Paris?"

"Well, for a little bit. She's off with the Asshole to Vegas tonight. But she stopped by to pack more clothes and make us some food."

Sophie took a bite. Her eyes widened at the first bite. She barely finished swallowing before she exclaimed This is incredible.

Liam grinned. "I know, right?"

"Crispy, and spicy. I feel like I could eat the entire plate, and go for seconds."

"I can bring you this every day if you want. I mean, when Ma is around. Unless I learn how to do it myself..." Liam said thoughtfully.

"Oh no, I can't eat fried chicken like this every day. I won't fit in my clothes, and I'm not buying a whole new closet. The Administrator won't settle for anything less than designer in her boardrooms. I saw her throw a lady out for daring to try and sneak in some K-mart clearance shoes," Sophie said.

"Damn, that's harsh. No worries, though. I'll help you work it off later, though I ain't ever to tell you to go on a diet. You think I picked Baby Got Back for an endin' theme just for shits and giggles? Live a little, eat fried chicken."

She was beginning to know the signs of hypoglycemia. It was like a fast, sudden starving. Every cell inside screamed for nourishment. Her hands would shake as she opened the food. But that first taste was such a relief, like coming up from drowning. Slowly, the desperation would leave her.

She'd taken her body and her life for granted, and this was what the rest of her life would be.

But as she took those few bites, the monstrous, sinking feeling left her.

"Did you tune in to see the big stream stuff? Because oh man do I have a story for you!" Liam said.

"I saw some of it--including your new hairstyle. Wanted to fit in with the guys? I guess this makes you the purple ranger."

"Yeah, but--I missed you," Liam said.

"It was only a couple days," she said.

"Too many," Liam said.

She brushed her fingers across his newly dyed hair.

"I like it, though it's going to take some getting used to," she said.

"Eh, it'll wash out soon enough. It ain't permanent. Though it wasn't one of those single day dye jobs. A week or two and it'll be back to a less colorful Liam."

She'd actually sort of learned how to use the awful blue site with the horribly misspelled name. Whoever made the app should be fired--out of a cannon, preferably. The desktop wasn't much better. It mangled grammar on a regular basis, and the things he 'rebagled' or whatever it was called were on the far side of confusing at time. Not strange man creature feeding a strange horse creature weird, as that one picture which her eyes had been subjected to, but stumbling into a whole new language and world.

And porn. So much porn. Thankfully she hadn't checked it at work. She'd finally figured out how to turn on the safe mode, only to have some new awful site update which made her experience ten times worse. Now everything she reblargled brought her tons of unwanted comments--most from porn bots. However, a video of Liam's helped her finally realize how to turn it off.

"By the way, people keep saying you got some tattoos. I couldn't find the reference."

"Oh yeah, one of the guys got a vid of it, but it got taken down. No idea why."

He pulled up his shirt sleeve and showed a stereotypical Ma surrounded by a heart on his bicep.

"Maybe that will make her forgive you for getting a tattoo," she said.

"Oh, I got more than one," he said. He pulled up his other bicep, and showed off a pair of entwined hearts with the name Sophie written between them. It was still red and healing, otherwise she would've traced it with her fingertips. His name was buried in ink under his skin. Such a permanent move, she barely knew what to say.

"And before you ask--one I was completely sober, didn't have a single drink. Secondly, I got more," he said.

"Another? Wow, you were busy," she said.

"Oh man, I screamed so hard I had to take cough drops. Gettin' tats hurts. Of course, it went viral and people called me a pussy. Told 'em that pussies are warm and wonderful and delicious, my favorite food and I'll take that as a compliment."

"My, my. You certainly owned them," Sophie said dryly.

"Totally," Liam said.

He held up his hand. For a moment she couldn't even see what he was showing, onto to see that he had gotten her name tattooed on his middle finger.

"That way whenever I'm flipping someone off, It'll be like you're there flippin' them off with me."

"So, you like 'em? You ain't said anythin'. You ain't called me a dumbass, either. Ma did when I told her, though," he said.

"It's just--Nobody has ever done anything like this for me, so I'm still trying to process that somebody wants to keep me around on their body forever. I mean, I suppose you could get it lasered off, but tattoos are gotten with the intention of keeping them."

"What if we break up?"

"I ain't goin' back on these. These tats are here for good, and so am I."

"You're always so hopeful," she said softly. Which was a nice way of saying that he hurdled through life, crashing through glass and without a single plan, like a complete dumbass.

Sophie glanced towards the door, and patted the chair. Liam was all too happy to curl up with her.

"I really missed you," he said. "I would've taken so much more pain to feel you near. And to think you were passed out then, feelin' awful."

She kissed his cheek. He nuzzled against her.

"Liam...I just have to ask one thing."

He smiled, somewhere between smug and hopeful. "Yeah?"

"...What's a 'headcanon?' Is it like one of those effpeeses?"

"A what? You sound like you're speakin' parseltongue," Liam said.

"You know? Um, shooty shooty bang bang? Is that what a headcanon is? Like a literal cannon strapped to someone's head. Wouldn't that be painful? A hat which is also a gun?"

Liam burst out laughing. "Shooty shooty bang bang? A hat cannon? Now there's a new hat for Hat Simulator 2. Oh my god, that's hilarious. I couldn't come up with lines like that if I tried. I'm so sad I didn't get it on film."

"You'd just follow me around with a camera all day if you could, wouldn't you?" Sophie said dryly.

"God, yes. So much cute footage. So many great lines. I could watch 'em again whenever I wanted," Liam said.

"Just as long as we don't become a reality show, that's all I ask," Sophie said.

"Psshaw, I couldn't bring myself to share that much of you," Liam said.

"Liam, you're the king of oversharing and showing off. Somehow, I think you'd find it in yourself to share the footage."

"You got me there," he said.

"Anyways, You mean a FPS game? A First Person Shooter?"

"Yeah, like that one you showed me. Er, you called it Hat Simulator 2? The one with the loud guy who you resemble so and like so much?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Basically it's a dress up game, but with shooting and punching so dudes can enjoy it too," Liam said.

"Really? I didn't realize those were just that profitable," Sophie said.

Liam laughed again. "Nooo, that's just what it turned into when Daddy Gaben stopped giving a fuck about it. Now it's a dark sea of anarchy and ponyfucker servers."

"I understand some of those words. I don't think I want to understand the rest," Sophie said.

"Yeah, babe. I'll protect you from the bronies, I promise. I won't let them ruin My Little Pony for you."

"Gee, thanks. Which leads up to more of what I wanted to know. Um, Liam, there's pictures of us on the internet," she said.

"What, like a sex tape? Dammit, I'll have to send some copyright strikes if people are puttin' it back up on Youtube. I hate doin' those, makes me feel like a total narc," Liam said.

"No! More like--drawn pictures. We have, uh, fans. I mean, I already saw the gif makers and the video makers, but some people are writing...stories. And drawing pictures. I think they're pirates or something, with all the mentions of 'canon' and 'ships' and 'headcanons.' Anyways--"

Liam laughed. "Oh yeah, they do that. The SoLis are somethin' else. I get like fifty comments a day askin' if we're goin' to get married. I love those guys."

So that was what he'd responded "sure hope so" over and over on his timeline.

"Apparently some people...boat you with other Youtubers? I got random tweets from people angry that I sunk their 'ships.' I wasn't even playing Battleship."

"Oh, that one from the second pole dance one, it went viral, and people wanted me to French Markiplier after that. I go down my tag and people draw up stuff of us, but they got it all wrong--I totally would've topped those guys!"

She cleared her throat. "Liam, we both know you would've taken it like a little bitch."

"Well, maybe I'm just a little bitch for you, you ever think that?"

"Liam, not even fantasy you could do it," she said.

"Yeah, you got me there," he said.

"Anyways, your horribly spelled blue site which I'm not going to grace with a name is full of them."

"Yeah, the fans real love you. I don't blame 'em. You're friggin' incredible. I hope this take it slow thing ain't with me bein' quiet on this, because I love talkin' about you! I went on for four whole hours just about that in my last vlog!"

"Nobody could keep you quiet, least of all me," she said.

"I don't know, I wasn't sayin' anythin' with that kiss," he said.

"You might've not been saying anything, but you sure were moaning up a storm," she said.

"What can I say, you're a pretty good kisser," he said.

"Well, so are you. If we're admitting things," she said.

She could just tell he was grinning wide, even though for a few seconds he said nothing. Every time he got praise from her, he seemed to bask in it.

She supposed, this is what she got for dating an internet celebrity. Her love life reported on Gawker and people imagining scenarios about their lives.

"Um, Liam. You said some of those boat people were making explicit stuff of you and Markiplier? They aren't doing that of us, are they? My boss and potential clients could find it." All the memories of how she'd cut and ran when the stream had been left on came to her. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. This time, she didn't take the easy way out and reach for the alcohol. This time, she took on her fears head on.

She'd already ran away enough times. She wasn't going to break his heart again.

"Not that I saw, but I can ask 'em not to if you want," Liam said. "Course, some of them just ignore and go all 'fuck the police' and will do it anyways. It's just human nature. Like that vid where the guy tells the cat not to touch the hazelnut."

"That'd be great, if you could. Thank you."

"Sure, lemme just dash a note off on that site you hate and twitter. I'll make up a vid later." She heard the clatter of keys over the phone.

"Bam! Done!"

She checked on her laptop, just to be sure. Might as well correct anything objectionable now.

The post said Hey, I'm totally stoked you love Sophie as much as I do, but keep it work safe, you hear? She doesn't want her boss comin' across and wonderin' why there's porn of her on the internet.

As she scrolled down, she found his horribly spelled blue site was full of happy comments about art of them. Not just gifs, he'd expanded to happy comments on the art and 'headcanons' whatever those were. Liam still hadn't explained that one. Sophie wasn't even sure she wanted to know.

*

After lunch, the panic set in. She prepared a mental feed of excuses on why she'd snuck her boyfriend into her office. He'd only been bringing lunch, this wasn't a breech of confidentiality, because they'd been too busy flirting to even think of doing anything like sharing secrets. It wasn't a big deal, honest.

But the time never came. There was no injunction, no being called into the Administrator's office. She finished out her work day, and then another and another. Though she was on high alert when the call finally came.

She was drawing it out, Sophie thought.

"You--called?" She cleared her throat to hide the momentary falter. It was a well known fact that The Administrator could smell fear on a person. Sophie just hoped she didn't catch a whiff of Axe body spray intermingled with her perfume.

But, the Administrator didn't read her the riot act. She held out a folder, which Sophie swiftly opened. She scanned her eyes across the papers.

"Miss Pauling, I'll need you to bring my daughter from the private airstrip. She's flying with her father. After that, her training will begin. He wanted to raise her in Australian outback, teaching her how to catch fish with her bare teeth."

Her lips pursed in disapproval.

"Regardless, she gained his personality. She'll be good at firing people."

"Your daughter?" Sophie said. Her voice squeaked. God, she was sounding like a rusty door...or a particularly sad dog at this rate. Every dream she ever had was turning paper thin, wet with rain until she could see through to all the naive thoughts she'd had. Helen wasn't so bad, Helen would jumpstart her career, Helen was kind deep down. Helen would be her mentor and help her become a powerful woman who owned businesses, and one day she'd mention Helen in her acceptance speeches.

After the Fortune it'd taken a hit, but now it was sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Any thought that she might become some protege was being smashed on the floor.

"Is this a surprise, Miss Pauling?" The Administrator said.

"Oh, um, I didn't remember ever reading about a family in your online profiles, and you've never had any pictures--"

"I have a life beyond work, one that does not concern you in the least, nor does it concern the press," The Administrator said.

"That's..." Sophie stopped. Her grip on her clipboard tightened.

"Now, I need you to gather Helen up and train her."

"Train her?"

"Do you expect to be able to do your job from a hospital bed?" the Administrator said coldly.

What had she even thought? That the Administrator would one day on her death bed will the company to her because she was just so kind? That all these extra hours would rig up enough brownie points to net her some kind of respect? That if Sophie worked just hard enough, then all of this work would be worth it? She would be the most powerful woman in the world, and even if she sold the company, which would be utterly stupid, she could work anywhere with the kind of glowing review the Administrator would give her.

Right after she had a serious personality transplant, of course. Or had a drastic head injury that made her capable of civility.

She isn't that bad, really, Sophie had said so many times as she ended the careers, as she blackballed people in the industry, destroyed businesses, and created enough shell companies to make herself a beach necklace. Sophie always told herself she was the exception. The Administrator wouldn't fire her. She wouldn't cast her aside. She was too useful.

I'm not a successful and happy woman, Sophie thought. The words stung. I've been like a zombie, a drone, an attack dog. And now I'm about to be replaced. Now that she knows I'm having health problems, I'm a liability.

And the memory of Liam's painful words came again You do anythin' with that money?

Sophie slammed her papers on the desk loud enough that the Administrator widened her eyes in momentary surprise. The date was on her day, the one she had a year. This was too damn far.

"It's my vacation day. I get one day a year--supposedly! Supposedly! I have never seen that day, not a single time. I have never taken a sick day, not even when I could barely get out of bed, or when I had to carry a bottle of Dayquill and take swigs of it all day just to keep from collapsing!"

I work weekends for you, I work late into the night so I have to drink ten cups of coffee just to stay away after four hours of sleep. I haven't finished reading a single thing in seven years that wasn't a pamphlet, or a report. I joined a book club and I never even had time to go! I lost friends because of you, I've been dumped so many times that I don't even try, because eventually I'll get a voice mail or a text breaking up with me, because I can't even give them the time to say it face to face."

"You won't fire me because I know too much, because no one else would put up with your constant demands, your bullshit like I do!"

Sophie fought for breath. She didn't dare turn her gaze away from The Administrator. She didn't dare show weakness now.

"I was wondering when you'd finally grow a spine," the Administrator said. "A shame it won't do you much good in a hospital bed."

Sophie took several long breaths and sat down in the chair. Her mind grew blank. Everything she'd thought she wanted was left right there. She was never going to be the Administrator's protege, she was never going to be on Fortune's 25 Most Inspirational Businessmen Under 25 list. Part of her wanted nothing more but to crawl back into work.

"I'll go pick up your daughter now," Sophie said numbly.

"Giving up so soon?" The Administrator said. "And here I thought you might have potential."

"Don't get me wrong. I'm not about to leave a child alone, where she could get kidnapped," she said.

"She's twenty, hardly a frail flower. Besides, her father taught her how to fight from a very young age. He always was like that. Punching things whenever he could," the Administrator said.

"Still," Sophie said. "I wouldn't leave her waiting."

She didn't even know if she still had a job when she left out that door.

*


Thankfully, the restroom was a single door. With the door locked, Sophie splashed cold water on her face. She couldn't be bothered to care if it ruined her makeup. Her mascara was waterproof, anyways.

Shake it out, he'd told her.

She couldn't take off to go to the firing range just yet. She was trying to lessen the wine factor so she could live past thirty.

This is ridiculous, she thought.

But she had to go out there and be composed. She had to finish out her work day as if nothing had happened.

She started to shake her hips and move aggressively. Shake it like Liam would have in tiny red running shorts with Are You Nasty? in white on the back.

I probably look horrific. If anyone saw me...

But they couldn't see her. It was illegal to put cameras in bathrooms. She pushed all the negative thoughts aside, the stress, the pressing need to be working, and just danced. It was ridiculous, stupid, and purely the kind of philosophy that Liam would cling to.

And it was working. Far more than imagining people naked, or all those other strange ideas to keep calm. The only music was the buzzing in her head. And it said oh, fuck it I've wasted my years. Oh, fuck it, I've overworked myself for nothing. Oh, fuck it, the Administrator will never give me that promotion. Oh, fuck it I'm going to be the one fired next so they don't have to subsidize my health care.

She felt lighter, almost giddy. Her life and dreams were collapsing around her and she was still alive.

The high didn't last long.

So this is what a mid-life crisis feels like, she thought to herself. Her make-up brush was poised, but it didn't touch her face. Her hand trembled. Too much coffee? Not enough?

She'd kill for a drink. Enough wine to make her pass out and forget today ever happened. Enough wine to grit it out and take more of her job, another impossible task from the Administrator.

I've been so fucking stupid. How could I have not seen it? Even Liam saw it.

She wasn't poised to ever be on Fortune, or any list. She wasn't even the Administrator's protege, or right hand woman. She would be nothing more than the Administrator's attack dog. She knew very well how the Administrator treated people who left. Blackballing, blackmailing, a pointed campaign of tearing down. She'd never become anything, now. Her career could be destroyed simply because she brought the Administrator the wrong type of cigarettes.

Idealistic was never a word she'd thought related to her, but she'd been utterly naive when it came to the Administrator. She'd let her childish notions and dreams get in the way of seeing what had been there all along.

In every time she fired and ruined someone else's life, in every pay cut or company taken over, she was nothing more than an assistant.

She rested her head against the cold bathroom tile walls. Dancing it off had been a short term cure. Maybe for Liam it was the cure-all, but for her it was a momentary high in the middle of the breakdown.

Slowly, she flipped through her contacts until she came to that familiar, comforting one. Her 3AM, her 3PM, her only.

"Hey babe! I didn't think I'd hear from you yet considerin' you said you had some big overseas job to do. Or did I mess up time zones again and you already finished it?"

"That's.... Liam, did you ever have dreams?"

"You okay?"

"Just---just please answer the question."

"Well, I wanted to be in baseball, and thought about track when I was in school, but after I spent time in clink, all I wanted to do was live. I spent every day of Back then, Youtube was way new. Nobody wants to hire somebody who's done time, so I just started to put videos up. Stupid stuff of me exercisin', then of me gamin'. Back then, I couldn't even imagine they'd go big. There were no Youtube billionaires back them. I didn't have any dreams, but I made some new ones. You want to talk about it?"

"What's to say? I just...realized what everyone else knew. I fucked up so badly, Liam."

If she stayed, she'd never gain a sizable promotion. She'd work her fingers to the bone, until what? The Administrator would never let her move up, and never let her move on. She'd destroyed any chance at networking by firing so many people. She was too notorious to work anywhere else, and that was just how the Administrator had wanted her.

And that was if she survived.

An attack dog. Nothing more, nothing less. And now she saw it so clearly: the Administrator was already making her trainer her own replacement now that she showed a hint of weakness.

"Sophie, I know you. You always land on your feet. You gettin' indited or somethin'? Some kind of big Enron thing? I'll bake you a cake with a file in it."

"No, it's nothing like that," she said.

"You could always work with me."

"I don't think we'd get much work done," she said.

"Yeah, you're right. My uploads would go way down. Though I can think of other things which would be up all the time."

She didn't respond. Usually she'd roll her eyes at his horrible jokes and pick up lines, but this time she was so far gone that she couldn't even manage a smile.

"Oh, come on, it wasn't that bad a joke. Bad timin'?"

Silence over the phone. "What do you really want, Sophie?"

"I don't know anymore," she said softly. She cradled the phone to her cheek.

If Brenda had been given the job to work with Liam instead of her, what would've even happened to her? Would she had simply died, drank herself to death before she even reached thirty?

"In my experience, when that happens, the best thing to do is play some video games. Trust me, I became a bazillionaire that way."

"I've got something I have to finish first. But, I'll be there."

"I'll be waitin'. See you, soon," Liam said.

She knew the paperwork, she knew now that everything was hopeless, but she couldn't quite bring herself to send in that mail, her two weeks notice. Each time she tried to click, she could almost feel her chest being crushed, like it was trapped in a vise. She rested her palm against the cooling white tiles of the bathroom. Her whole childhood dream, her plans were all so hopelessly naive.

But without them, her life was a long blank expanse.

Yep, definitely a midlife crisis.

She tried to steady herself, counted her breaths. one, two three--I'm still alive. In, out, I'm still alive.

If seeing her post-hangover, being drunk dialed, her post-coital freak out hadn't scared him away, then this mid-life crisis certainly wouldn't.

"I keep saying this," she said.

And he kept staying.

And in that moment, there was perfect clarity. She dialed his number once more.

"Yo, it's been ages since we last talked," Liam said.

She laughed. "I'll, um, be a little late."

"Somethin' up?"

"Yes...ah....I'll tell you when I get there, okay? It'd be better to say this face to face."

"Somethin' face to face? Like bad face to face or good face to face?"

"Neither, I guess. I'll explain later," she said.

"Jeez, way to keep me in suspense. I'll have to do tons of push-ups to keep my mind off it."

"Thanks for the mental image of that," she said.

"Hey, I live to please," he said.

She smiled to herself. "See you then."

"Yeah, see you then," he echoed.

After she hung up, she stared at her phone for several seconds before she put it away.

*

The unity engine horror collapsed into a screaming jumpscare. Liam dropped his controller and jumped back. "Fuckin' ghost doctors! Jack dared me to do this one."

Words she never would've known before him.

"Pirate or Septic?"

Liam burst into a big smile. "There you are! And it's both, actually. Except one of 'em called me a two bit bloody coward, and said I'd never survive fightin' the undead like he would."

"You've played plenty of zombie games," Sophie said.

"He means for real."

"For...real?"

"Yeah, you should listen to when he gets drunk off his ass and talks about the dragons he's fought. It's somethin' else."

The game faded to a game over, but he paid little attention to the blood-red letters which oozed over the screen. He lifted up his controller in a salute, and almost ripped it from the console.

"So, tell me how Sophie is. Do I gotta beat up somebody? Somethin' sounded off," he said.

"I'm still breathing..." She said. She smiled wryly as she took a seat beside him. "Are you streaming?"

"Nah, I was just doin' this dare while I figure out what to start workin' on next. Somebody gifted me Bad Rats on Steam, and now I gotta play that shit. But now I'm thinkin' another round of Rocket League is in order. You game?"

"In a little bit. I kind of need to get something off my chest."

Liam raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Is it your shirt, because I can help you with that."

"Don't tell me you forgot about what the phone call earlier."

"Hey, I was tryin' to not pressure you. And to make you laugh with my brilliant lines," he said.

"Even joking come ons always have a bit of truth with you," she said.

"You got me there. You're hot and awesome. Anyways, keep the shirt on--unless you really want it off--and tell me what happened."

"Um, well. I kind of went off on my boss. And by 'kind of' I mean completely," she said.

Liam let out a laugh. "Oh man, you bitched her out?"

"I totally bitched her out," Sophie said.

"Gimme five!"

She just stared at his hand.

"You forgot how to high-five already? Here, lemme show you again. One person puts their hand up, and another slaps it--"

"I know how to high five. Almost ruining my career doesn't seem like a high-five worthy thing," she said. She lifted up her hand, almost tentatively, and touched it to his. It wasn't enthusiastic, but it was something.

"Hey, it's a start," Liam said.

"It''s just--All this time I thought I was doing it right by obeying her every word and working hard, and all this time she wanted me to tell her off. She was pushing me as far as she could and I was failing it. And, I shook it off today. Even saying it sounds ridiculous, but it really did help," she said.

"All right, I told you. When life gives you lemons, you throw them back and start dancin'. Maybe even make a really great album about 'em," Liam said.

"Well, that was one hell of a lemon," she said.

"Then I bet it'll make some bomb-ass lemonade," Liam said.

Sophie sighed. "The truth is, I don't even know what I was thinking or what I want anymore. I made all these plans when I was young, and even though I poured over her biographies, I attributed qualities that she didn't have. I planned out this dream that is never going to happen. And now I don't know if I need to let go, and if so then what can I even hold onto?"

Her mouth twisted at the memory. "She has a daughter, for fuck's sake! A daughter who's going to inherit the company and take over all my hard work. She's slotted for my position, and I'm the one training her to be the one to fire me. She can't even give me a recommendation or a mention by name. Everything I've put into this, every humiliating or tough thing I've done, it's worthless. None of it matters because I collapsed in a meeting. And now I went and told off my boss. I don't even know if she'll ever give me that great resume check I wanted. She might try and bury any company I work into the ground as revenge. In the end, I really am nothing but her attack dog."

"It felt great though, didn't it?" Liam said.

"Oh god, it was amazing," Sophie said.

"Look, Soph, it's easy. I get it. You wanna rule the world. If you ever took one of those facebook quiz things, you'd get every Bond villain. You want the whole thing, a white cat to pet, a doom ray, the whole country kissin' your heels as you walk all over them."

"That's a bit much," Sophie said.

"I would bet money it's true," Liam said. "In fact-"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of pennies. "I bet this much."

"Wow, that's might add up to all of half a dollar. That's some big spending there. You're one hell of a high roller," she said.

"I could bet kisses if you prefer," Liam said.

"If we did that, you'd just make out with me all day," she said.

"I was goin' to do that anyways," Liam said.

"Okay, you got me. I had dreams of being like the Administrator. I mean, who doesn't? She's the biggest, scariest woman in the world. World leaders kiss her ass and hope she doesn't strike them down. To wield that much power would be incredible."

"See? Told you, you just wanna have to world kiss your feet. Ain't nothin' wrong with that, but you gotta take vacations sometimes, too. Hell with all that money, you could probably buy yourself your own island," Liam said.

"Make that several countries," she said.

"See? You could get started with your evil Bond villain ways. You gotta pick somewhere down in South America, or Australia. Evil Villains never buy Rhode Island. They don't put their secret evil bases parked next to a bunch of soccer moms."

"Well, you need secrecy. I suppose there's something to be said for blending in, and hiding in plain sight, but you'd have to constantly cover up for the coming and going..."

"Say you got an Avon plan? Maybe sellin' tupperware? Or maybe, you put the stock people at another base. Make it somewhere where a lot of shady people comin' in and out ain't nothin'," Liam said.

"Like a bar," she said.

"Yeah, yeah, like that. Except wait, how about this: evil soccer moms. Maybe you really do need to jump the curve and take over Rhode Island."

"Evil soccer moms?" She said, and started to crack up.

"See, you''re already halfway to your evil empire. You don't need no boss, I believe in your power to conquer the world on your own."

"She's reaallly not someone you want to piss off," Sophie said.

"Aww, you can handle her. I know you; you hold your own. Though, you probably wanna keep the world domination plans on the down-low. It didn't work so great for Dr. Horrible, after all," Liam said.

"Just cut it out of the final product," she said.

"As long as I can keep it in the Secret Sophie Files," Liam said.

"Is that where you hid the accidental sex tape?"

"Among other things."

"So, what kept you late?" Liam said. He curiously glanced her way.

"I updated my resume. And got my statement ready in case the company gets indited. The Administrator's practices aren't exactly well loved."

"Woow. Watch you take down the entire place from the inside like some big hero."

"Me, a hero?" She shook her head and laughed. "Only in your dreams."

"Like one of those anti-heroes in those sci-fi movies with the evil goverments. All in tight leather--purple in your case--and kickin' ass everywhere."

She chuckled. "You really have a very vivid imagination."

He winked at her. "Oh, you ain't seen nothin' yet."

"All right, I'm startin' now. Heyyy, this is Scout69, and we're goin' to Rocket League. Today I got a great special guest, the lovely and wonderful Sophie! Everyone say hi to Sophie!"

She gave an awkward wave, and picked up the controller. After the match started, her car went hurtling, and she laughed as the pile up happened. Liam added the special noise effects, buzzing and zooming and crashing.

"Where did the ball go?"

"That's what you said last night!"

She rolled her eyes. "For fuck's sake, Liam."

"Said that last night, too," Liam said. He barely kept himself from laughing now.

Their cars crashed together, spinning around as the game abruptly ended. But she still felt a thrill of adrenaline, whether she won or lost.

"It's always so much fun with you, no matter what we're doing. I swear you could make going to the DMV a blast," Sophie said.

"That's what you said last night," Liam said.

"That's the third time you've used that one," she said.

He put his arm about the back of the couch. "Can you blame me? Who wouldn't want to have a gorgeous gal like you sayin' stuff like that to me?"

"You've seen me looking like some vodka aunt, then hungover and looking like I was wearing zombie couture. I think you need glasses."

"You gotta give yourself some slack, Soph. So you had some rough patches lately. It don't mean you aren't any less of a brilliant, wonderful girl. It was probably just your liver trying to send Morse code messages for help."

She rested her head against him. "Thanks for sticking with me through all this. To use a cliche, I'm going to take it one step at a time. I'm not working so many hours."

"God, don't worry about it. The best part of the deal was meetin' and gettin' to spend time with you. If it falls through, so be it. I ain't goin' to lose sleep."

"I'm glad you understand. With my health like it is, I just need to focus on what I want, instead of killing myself by degrees with twenty hour days."

"And what you want is me, stripped down and covered in chocolate, huh?" Liam said.

"You're interrupting me again," she said. She touched his mouth to silence him, just as a teasing gesture, but he kissed her fingertips.

"Look, Sophie, I'm real serious about this," Liam said. His voice had grown husky, breathy as he leaned in. "Real, real serious. Deleted Tindr profile serious. I ain't gone on a date since then. Just been...waitin' for you to come back. I even put a note on all my streams and stuff to not send me nudes anymore."

"Wow, that is a big step," Sophie said. "I kind of got the idea from the fact that you tattooed my name on your body multiple times."

"Tell me about it, I ain't seen tits in so long, I think I forgot what they look like. My dick is so angry at me for that, but my heart's what in charge," Liam said.

"You weren't even looking at porn?"

He shrugged. "Maybe a little. I'm in love, not a monk!"

"Oh, crap. Was goin' to save that for a couple more dates in. I mean, I'm in l-like! Yeah, like, totally like, not like another four letter word with l in it...."

"You let it slip a long time ago in the twenty-five video, remember? Tell the ones you love ring a bell? And there was that post-coital time, and that other time..."

"Yeah, I ain't any good at keepin' secrets. Never was, never will be," Liam said.

"Uh-huh," she said. "Anyways, it'd be hypocritical for me to go off on you, considering I watch certain videos from time to time," she said, and cleared her throat.

"Ooh, what do you go for? I bet you collected all my shirtless pics and kept them around to look at through the day," Liam said.

"You looked in my phone? I mean---" She blushed deep.

"Wait, I was joking but--I knew it! You're totally into me!"

"I should think that was obvious, considering the fact that we are dating," she said.

"I wonder how many kisses and dates it's goin' to take for you to say it," Liam said. He leaned in more, and lifted her chin just enough to kiss her.

"Maybe yes," she said.

"Like how many licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop," Liam said.

"Is that an innuendo? Wait, it's you, of course it is," she said.

"What, you never had the candy? It's friggin' iconic!"

"Of course I had the candy, but---never mind!"

He pulled her closer and planted a kiss on her cheek.

"Now you're just trying to sabotage my game," she said. She laughed as he kissed again, and nuzzled against her face.

"C'mon, babe. It ain't like people are tunin' in to see us play a completely great game."

"Ah, yes. the pratfall, that classic staple of comedy," she said.

"Don't forget the fart and dick jokes," he said.

"Only the classiest humor for us."

"Oh yeah. Classy jokes for classy people. Speakin' of classy--"

He bent down and kissed her. It was hard to focus on everything that had gone wrong when his lips felt so soft and wonderful against hers. When his tongue slipped against her lower lip, and his hands cupped the back of her neck.

"Ain't it usually the other way around?" Liam said.

"You turned off the camera this time, right?"

"Uh--" He reached out to pull out the plug and make sure the camera was off. "See."

"I can cut out that part...but maybe I could put it on as an outtake?" Liam said hopefully.

"Really, Liam?" She said dryly.

"Hell yeah I want to show you off. I wanna be out there yellin' in the streets that I get to date Sophie Pauling. I mean sure people would let their dogs out on me and throw shoes and probably reach for their shotguns--This is Boston. Would still be worth it, though. You're so cute, I even wanna kiss you now, but then that means I can't talk to you. I gotta figure out a way to kiss and be able to talk. I'll be a billionaire if I can just get that down."

She couldn't help but laugh. "I know this is hard to believe, but not everyone is as happy to talk for five hours straight as you are."

"Ma keeps tellin' me that, but I think she's just pullin' my leg."

"You can make the cut and put it online," she said.

Liam brightened and pulled her into his lap, planting kisses all over her face.

"---But! No sex tapes, accidental or otherwise."

"What about private?" Liam said.

"Liam, nothing about you is private. You took a shower selfie today."

"But no crappin' selfies. I ain't hit that low yet," he said.

"It's the 'yet' that worries me," she said.

"Hey, think you could do me a solid and give me somethin' for when you're gone out on these trips?

"Like what, a sock?" Sophie said.

"Like pictures. You know, sexy ones. Like I said, I went and deleted all my accounts. You're the only one I wanna see."

"No way. We already had our own 'sex tape' mishap. I am not having the entire internet getting acquainted with my breasts," she said.

"Yeah, you're right. I'd have to go on a hacker killin' spree if that happened, and I'm way too handsome to be stuck in some prison for a life sentence. They probably wouldn't even let me stream there," Liam said.

"I'd break you out before the day was out," she said.

"Bake a cake with a file in it?" Liam said eagerly.

"Guns drawn, kicking down doors. We'd have to go on the run together."

"Mmm, that's way too sexy. Maybe I will have to kill someone after all, just so we get to see you break me out," Liam said suggestively.

"We can role play," Sophie said dryly.

"Cool, then I don't gotta go back to prison. Like all the fun without all the night terrors of being shanked."

She reached down and pushed the camera over.

"Just making sure," she said.

"Yeah, that's for the best. I don't wanna share that much of you." He pulled out his phone. "Celebratory selfie?"

"Really, Liam? A pre-sex selfie? Unless you count that other time, then that'd mean...ugh, that's confusing," she said.

"We should totally save the moment! And then put it on Insta."

"I thought you said you didn't want to share me?"

"Didn't wanna share you that much. They can see a little bit, but they can't see anythin' too sexy."

"All right. One selfie. It's gotta be PG rated at most, and no accidental sex tapes this time," she said.

She looked over his shoulder as he quickly typed out gettin happy with the gf.

The entire internet would know they were fucking. His entire timeline would be people sending him pictures of a gif that said congrats on the sex again.

"Can't you make that a little less...suggestive? Everyone is going to know what we're doing."

"They'd probably guess because we're doin' considerin' there's a bed behind us. Though we could be about to marathon Game of Thrones together."

"Still," she said.

"S'okay. I got a better one."

He deleted a bit, and now it said, always happy with the gf.

After the click, he leaned in to kiss her.

"Hey, watch this."

Liam grabbed at the front of his jeans, and they broke into two with a strange noise. He held it up for her, with a big smile. Glued on to the sides were big velcro patches.

"Velcro pants? Liam, you are a walking meme," she said.

Liam laughed. "Don't I know it."

She undid the buttons on her blouse. She barely owned casual clothes. One day, she'd have to do something about that.

Liam licked his lips. "That's my favorite part."

"Undressing is your favorite part?"

"No, you. Everythin' about you is my favorite part."

"You say that after you've seen me drunk multiple times," she said.

"Not gonna lie, you're a pretty cute drunk. You're a pretty cute everything."

She slipped out of her a-line purple skirt and lace edged slip, and climbed onto the bed. He unclasped her bra, but didn't pull it away. Instead he buried his face, with the cups of her purple lacy bra against his cheeks.

He let out a happy sigh as he covered her breasts with his hands, then peeked down.

"...Are you playing peekaboo with my boobs?"

"Nah, I'm doin' like those flip card memory things? Memorizin' every inch of them," Liam said.

He flicked his tongue over her nipple, which instantly hardened under the warmth of his mouth.

"You got five freckles right there. I'm going to taste every single one." And as usual, Liam was always good for his promises.

She rolled her eyes and laughed. "You're such a breasts man," she said.

"Correction: I'm an everythin' man. As in everythin' about you revs me up. But yeah, your tits are amazin'. Eighth wonder of the world. Ninth wonder of the world is my ass, just in case you were wondering."

He buried his face in her breasts and let out a little brl-brrl noise as he rubbed his face between them. He let out a groan and just buried his face there, as if he'd found a path straight to paradise, and it was right between her tits. She let out a laugh.

Liam looked up. "Did I tickle you?"

"Just--this."

"What, you never got motorboated before?" He let out a tsk tsk sound. "Now that's a cryin' shame. Every girl's tits should be thoroughly appreciated. Though not by me anymore. Now I'm going to be full time appreciatin' every part of you."

His hand started to slide further down her legs. "Every. Single. Part. You could do some memorizin', too. So when you're lonely in that hotel room, think of this."

He slipped two fingers deep inside her. His thumb lightly brushed across her slick labia, only to tease at her clit.

"Liam--" she gasped.

"Oh yeah, say my name, babe. Memorize it good. Think of me when you're alone and touchin' yourself."

He slowly thrust his long fingers in and out of her, until her back arched.

"Like I have time for that--"

"So I'm the only one gettin' you off?" He kissed down her neck. "Somebody's gotta take care of Sophie. Looks like I'm the lucky bastard who got the job. I want you to remember this real good. Until you can't even think about work because you're too full of thoughts of me. Until you gotta take a vacation because you're too hot and want to jump my bones again."

He pushed another fingers inside, reaching three now. And his fingers were damn filling. She couldn't even manage an answer. Not when he rubbed her clit like that, when he pushed his fingers so deeply into her. Liam kissed down her neck.

This time, she managed a few words. Mostly out of desperation, and to save face.

"Mnn... N-not too hard. I have to go to work tomorrow," she said.

"I'll buy you a really cute scarf," he whispered against her neck. "Then nobody will see the marks I left on you. But we'll know. And you'll remember me. Every time your neck feels tender, you'll remember."

"I..guess I have a turtleneck I could wear," she gasped as he instantly took control. His tongue flicked across her sensitive skin. God, the things he could do with his tongue. It was enough to make her knees go weak.

The pace of his thrusts increased, until she was left on the very brink of orgasm. He kissed her then, right on the lips as he roughly thrust his fingers in at such a pace that her hips ground along with him in a reflexive motion. She broke apart only to cry out his name. Her muscles clenched hard around him, and he let out a long, happy sigh. "I love this part."

He sat back smugly and watched her orgasm come. He watched every moment of her pleasure, from the way her chest rose and fell with greater intensity to her last gasp as the His still wet hand lay against her thigh, the fingers bent just so, as if he could go for a second round at any time.

"Mmmm..."

"Hey, what if you..." He leaned in and whispered something in her ear. "That a possibility?"

As an answer, she reached for the lotion, but before she could pour it, he took it for her.

"Let me, let me," he said eagerly.

He let out a low groan as he rubbed down her breasts. "Holy fuck," he muttered as he swirled his the white lotion across her nipples. And damn if he wasn't thorough. She could feel him, rock hard against her hip.

It took a bit of shifting. She had to kneel down, and pushed her breasts about his erection. Just the tip stuck out between her cleavage. He let out a long gasp as she took him in her mouth.

"Oh, mmm, fuck...God, that feels amazin'."

She pulled him out of her mouth, but kept her thumb at the base of his tip. "Think that's something? I'll do one better."

She took him in her mouth again, and pushed up her breasts, and at the same time swirled her tongue over the sensitive tip. It was with some smugness that she found him so far gone that he couldn't talk, and was reduced to incoherent moaning. She might be rusty, but it took an awful lot to get Liam to quit talking.

He thrust desperately against her, but not enough to hurt her. She kept her gaze locked in his, just to watch him grow more and more undone. Despite her attempts to keep his thrusts shallow, he was in such a turned on state that he was going deeper and deeper into her mouth. And that could only end poorly for both of them. But, she pulled him out of her mouth too quickly, and white come hit her glasses. She licked her lips. It dripped down her breasts and even onto the sheets.

"Oh, crap. I didn't mean to do that! It was hot as hell, though. Like no porn could ever get that hot."

She pulled off her glasses. "No harm done. It's not like you came in my eyes or made me gag."

"Thanks for keepin' my Sophie safe, sexy-ass glasses."

Sophie chuckled. "Just one of the things they're good for."

She got up and washed the come from her glasses. It'd gotten in her hair, too. A shower was in definitely in order.

He pushed himself up. "You goin' for a shower? Need somebody to wash your back? I mean it must be pretty lonely in there, showerin' by yourself. You probably want somebody there, to keep you company, right?"

She smiled. "I'm pretty satisfied with your job performance. I'd say a raise in order," she said.

He wrapped his arms around her, and pressed a kiss to her neck.

"Holy shit, you're brilliant. I wanna just keep it forever."

"Don't you dare open that door and go get your phone! You can't post it online!"

"I'll just keep this in my mind. Like everythin' about you. Every memory I just wanna put in glass and never forget."

Underneath the spray, he held her close. Not fucking, just intimacy. She lathered her hair with shampoo, and took in the heat, the closeness of him.

"Don't get it in my eyes," she said.

"That's what you said a few minutes ago."

And she laughed, despite it all. Because of it all.

Coming this much had to be illegal. It sure as hell felt like it had to be on the level of some controlled substance.
And it didn't have to be a fling. She could wake up to him every day, and get fucked out of her mind nearly every night.

He wrapped his arms about her and buried his face in her neck.

"I'm goin' to really miss you."

She rested her hand over his. "I'm only going to be gone a little bit."

"Still," he said. "So, you don't wanna send anythin' in case accidents, but can I send you some cheer up pics?"

"Like what? Kittens and puppies?"

"I was thinkin' more my ass, but kittens could work," Liam said.

Sophie could just imagine it. Having to excuse herself from an important meeting because her boyfriend was sending her pictures of certain parts of his anatomy.

"When I'm working, you have to keep it work safe, remember?"

"I could title it 'not safe for work' so you could view it later in private when you got back to the hotel. Somethin' to lift your spirits after a long day, you know?"

She couldn't believe she was welcoming the thought of a dick pick from Liam. But here she was.

"Make sure the 'nsfw' is warned for. And you can't post them online, either."

"Don't worry; Youtube don't like me bein' too naked. They think it'll kill all their servers by trendin' too much. Which is completely true. But they don't gotta worry, because my ass belongs entirely to you."

*

When Sophie failed to leave her things there, Liam just bought her a toothbrush. He even left some period supplies--which must've been on the advice of his mother. It was all a bit dreamy, a guy who unasked got her the dreaded tampons and pads.

Something he was, of course, very, very triumphant and smug about. He gestured to them under the sink like he'd brought her trophies, not feminine hygiene products. "See, you're all set. I would've gotten you some bras and underwears, but I ain't memorized the sizes yet."

"I suppose your memorization practice last night will help that," she said dryly.

He raised his eyebrows suggestively. "You're gonna get me to study yet. When it's your body, I'm gonna study all day. And get me my first A+."

"I can't stay too long. I've gotta go for my flight in about 3 hours."

"You want me to drive you to the airport?"

She was used to having to take taxis, because she never had anyone else to rely on but herself.

"That'd be nice. Thank you." She stood on tiptoe and gave him a very gentle kiss.

He leaned back to better watch her, a goofy grin on his face. More than often she'd had the thought that Liam was the human version of a very excitable golden retriever. He eagerly guided her to his living room, where all the furniture was pushed back, and his recording equipment was already up.

"If you're suggesting a sex tape, the answer is no. If you're suggesting a home-made porno, the answer is still no," she said.

He laughed. "Nah, nothin' like that. I'm makin' a new endin' for my videos. You free to help your incredibly handsome boyfriend out before you go? Hopefully, it should only take a few minutes to get some good footage."

"My incredibly handsome boyfriend? You must have me mistaken with someone else, because my boyfriend is wearing a neon yellow shirt with U Mad Bout My Swag Bro? t-shirt, with the letter 'u' instead of the word spelled out. There isn't even a comma!"

Liam grinned. "Ooh, sick burn."

"Please tell me it was a dare," she said.

"Babe, it's a classic," Liam said.

"No, Queen is a classic, Tom Jones is a classic. Maybe if it was a Prince lyric it might count as classic, but it isn't. That is a swag shirt from Walmart. It's so tacky they should pay you to wear it."

"You know I have to buy cheap. I flex, and the shirt splits in pieces," Liam said. "See?"

He pulled up his shirt and tried to make his pectoral muscles dance. Given his sleek frame, there wasn't much to actually show off. But that was fine with her; she always liked her the men or women she dated taller than her, anyways.

"Classic enough for you, yet? Nothin' more iconic than my chest," Liam said.

"Your shirt is still intact," she said dryly.

"Yeah, it wanted to impress you, so it kept it together. But when you're not around--riiiip. Like the Hulk," he said.

"Uh-huh. Catch it on video, and I'll believe you."

"You just wanna see me shirtless. Oh, I contacted this new band about usin' a sample. Lemme show you," Liam said. He licked his lips as he messed around with his phone and brought up a site she couldn't quite see. A lively swing beat started, and she found herself unconsciously tapping her toes along. Then it shifted into that ever confusing remix, melding the song with a 'drop' or at least that's what Liam kept telling her the loudest part of the dubstep was called.

"This is swing? I don't remember swing having....that drop," she said.

"Electroswing. I dig it. It's the latest trend," Liam said.

"From what, the 1920s?" She said dryly.

"Sure, if you're a time traveler," Liam said.

He held out her hand, and she took it. They spun together, laughing and almost tripping. He just caught her before she fell down into his expensive equipment.

"There really isn't enough room for dancing here--Please tell me you'll edit that out," she said.

"And cut out the adorable way your glasses fell down? Hell no," he said. He leaned in to kiss her nose. "Yeah, we might have to switch this about. Geez, you're so cute I want to...play video games with you!"

"And here I thought you were going to say, um, bang," she said.

"Later," Liam said. He cupped the back of her neck. His fingers traced through her dark hair. "First, I have to kick your ass at Street Fighter. And that needs to happen after we cut some rugs...with the fire, from us dancin' so hard."

He moved back the furniture. The song was on repeat.

"You're a pretty good dancer."

"I'm a pretty great everythin'. You just noticin' that now?" Liam said.

She had to give him that. Her life had shifted so much. He could have his egoism, his bragging. After all, he could back it up.

"And so are you," he said.

"I'm getting there," she said.

"Aren't we all? Life is just gettin' there. I should write this down!"

"It's already being recorded. You can transcribe it later," she said.

"Ooh, you jealous of the pen? Wanna monopolize this stud all for yourself? No worries, I ain't goin' to leave you for a bic, or even a whole bag of bics. The minute I saw you, all the other girls just faded away. Pens, too. Ain't found a single pen in my house since you left. Maybe you stole 'em all, like you stole my heart, and also my dick."

She giggled.

"Yeah, you say you'll win now, but would you win if I put on the are you nasty shorts, huh?"

"That's playing dirty," she said.

"I'm hella dirty, I'm a bad, bad boy," Liam said.

Liam had a great set of thighs, too. All those aerobics. Somehow, he managed this while still looking like a lithe rock star. She didn't fully understand it, considering how many push ups a day he did, but she sure as hell loved the results.

"Are we playing video games or filming a porno?" Sophie said.

Liam's eyebrows shot up and she laughed. "If I retaliate, you so aren't going to win. I could be fully clothed and just toying with my hair. Hell, my glasses could just fall down and you'd lose."

"You got me there. I got a huge weakness, and her name is Sophie Pauling," Liam said.

A little breathless from the dancing and flirting, Sophie fell down on the couch. She righted her glasses, and turned to him.

"All right, but only fifteen minutes. I don't want to wait until the last minute to get to the airport, in case there's some issue," she said.

"Trust me, it'll make layovers so much easier. I should get you some portable. A PSP, a 3DS or a Switch to take with you. That way you'll never be bored."

"I never get bored. I always carry extra projects from work to organize during layovers."

"God, you would. I'd tell you to learn to chill out for once, if it wasn't so hot."

"Being a workaholic is hot, now?"

"It is when you do it!"

He flipped on the television, and turned on a rather retro version of Street Fighter.

She mashed at buttons, wildly trying to remember the order to push. In the back of her mind, it was a comfort that the worse she played, the funnier people would find it. And when she lost (just barely, because he was so bad at playing video games, he'd won awards and based a career on it,) she got a kiss. Not a comfort, not a prize, just an example of all the happiness her life could contain now.


*

The Australian bush spanned around them. It'd taken two more days than she'd told Liam, and she was none too happy about all the sand in her shoes. She'd left the New Mexico branch to avoid all that, and now she'd landed right back in the sandy pits of hell. She'd known the Administrator's colorful main supplier over the years. He'd made passes at hers that were almost as bad as Liam's, but without the charm. But the girl--woman, really--beside him was new.

Helen jr. was an amazon with her mother's sharp features, and her father's robust shape, and taste in short shorts and midriff-baring clothes. She was more striking and imposing than beautiful. Her skin was tanned from years out in the outback, wrestling animals and god knows what else.

And Sophie had to crane her neck to even meet her eyes.

"Ahem, Helen jr.? Your mother--the Administrator--sent me to guide you for your new job."

Hel rolled her eyes. "Ugh, mother. She's such a drag. I don't know how she ever managed to stop working long enough to even have me. Did she hire an assistant to do it?"

"It's possible," Sophie said. Probable, even.

"Tell her I said she can fuck right off. I'm not going into some stuffy place."

She cleared her throat. That was one thing she wasn't about to tell the Administrator. Especially after her breakdown in her office. "I was ordered to bring you back."

"And what are you going to do? Fight me? Ha! You don't even reach my shoulder. I bet you've never even seen an arm bar, let alone done one."

Saxton Hale laughed. "Well, why don't you show her your hip toss, Hel? I'll come join in on the fun."

She glanced from one to the other with growing alarm. Saxton Hale still had a mindset stuck in some kind of male power fantasy. He wrestled wild animals for fun, and had the scars to show it. He was six feet of solid muscle, with only short-shorts to contain his rippling thigh muscles.

"Ah--I'll pass."

"I can't believe she sent a weakling my way."

"Ah, don't worry. Fighting her would be like fighting a child. She's about the size of the ten year old, anyways," Saxton Hale said.

Sophie clutched tight to her phone. They should just be glad she worked for the Administrator, or she'd--

Or she'd what? Break a bottle of alcohol and use it as a knife? Actually, the mental image was very appealing. Maybe what she needed to do was take up bar fighting.

Except then she'd start drinking again. Never mind the stab wounds.

Sophie stepped away and opened that oh so familiar contact. The Administrator would not take mere texts or emails. Very few managed to actually get her number, but Sophie always had. It was one of the little things she clung to, to convince herself that she meant something to the Administrator. That she could ever reach the height of her boss--and one time hero.

"Pauling here. She refused to come," Sophie said.

"Miss Pauling, I gave you an order. I expect it to be followed."

"She's a grown woman. I can't force her to get on the plane. I couldn't even if I wanted to--she's bigger than me."

She heard smoke exhale over the phone. "I don't care about details, Miss Pauling. Bring my daughter back at the expected time, or else--"

"Or, you'll what? I'm not your nanny. This isn't part of my contract."

She wanted to grit her teeth, to scream. But she tried to keep her voice as even as possible. "Did you miss the part of your contract which states it is subject to change at any time? Your contract contains whatever I desire, and what I desire right now, is my daughter to be brought back to her rightful place in this company."

She clutched to tightly to the phone, she was surprised the screen didn't crack. She'd done so much for The Administrator. She'd stayed long nights, fired away people she liked--people who could've been her friends. There was a horrible rushing in her head as it all sank in.

"And if I don't?"

"Consider your employment terminated."

It was as if the Administrator had put out her cigarette right in Sophie's chest, until the embers burnt deep into her heart. Everything she'd planned for, every hope she'd had ever since she was a child, it turned to ash.

"Consider this..."

Is impossible. Is beneath my job. Is horrific considering all I've done for you. Is something I won't stand for. Is bullshit. Is...

"...is my two week notice."

"You're committing career suicide, Miss Pauling."

"Better than being a zombie for what--you didn't even give me a decent series of raises for all I've done for this company. Don't tell me that I wasn't going to be fired or 'downsized.' I've fired enough people to know the signs.You were making me train my own replacement and what--fight her for the right to do so? Or is that giving you too much credit, and you were already planning to have me next in that firing room, except this time as the one being fired?"

The Administrator's voice was raspy, and low. This was the woman who had the world beneath her designer boot. "You'll never work again. I'll make sure you're blackballed beyond what anyone else has known. You'll live on unemployment, that is if your liver holds out even that long."

She visibly flinched at that one. It should be no surprise. She'd always said she isn't that bad, even as she did awful things for her. She always thought she'd be the exception. Miss Pauling let out a long breath.

"I'm going to try living."

And then, she hung up on her boss.

She'd spent her time being a miniature version of her hero, The Administrator. She barely even knew where to start on being herself.

But, she supposed, Youtube wasn't a bad place to start.

*

She paced, dazed for hours in the layover. She idly glanced over the overpriced airport goods, settled on a Jamba Juice (caffeine was the last thing she needed right now.)

In seconds, she had ruined her life. And now she had one hell of a long flight back from Australia to think about. A flight alone, as Saxton Hale and his daughter had by all means said that a death match would be the only way she came back.

Her first thought was she could undo it. She could quickly phone the Administrator back and apologize. She could convince Hel to come and--what? Take her job from her?

She pulled up Youtube on the phone. Liam had a livestream going. We just made ten million in charity money!

It was an untapped resource. They were making millions, many even without so much as a sponsorship. Of course, now the Administrator would be getting all of that.

In the airport, Sophie watched some LP's to try and calm the swimming thoughts in her mind. As Liam played some incredibly hard game, something about Darkening Darkness or something like that, he let out a scream of "Well, Fucking Fuck me in the ass!"

Sophie immediately paused the video and made a comment.

Comment:

5:35. Was that a suggestion? (This comment was liked by Scout69.)

Response:
Babe, save it for the bedroom.

The comment was pinned. It had thousands of likes. She'd been sure no one would see--after all, there were few places as chaotic as a Youtube comment section, especially Liam's, but he'd done the equivalent of highlighting with neon colors and added airhorns to boot.

Seconds later, she got a text.

Liam: hey im down if ur down.

It took her several minutes to respond to that. Liam, ever the impatient one, sent another text before she could finish typing out anything.

Liam: not kiddin.

Sophie: I know. I have the equipment, though it's been a while.

Liam: ur a mystery.

Sophie smiled at that. For once, there was no mystery. Just blatant flirting of the kinky kind.

Liam: how r u.

Sophie: The pick up trip didn't quite go as planned.

Liam: u must not be feelin great. u haven't even told me my textin skills sucked and gave me a d in spellin.

Sophie: I'm saving it for the bedroom, like you asked.

She got a picture sent her way, because she'd apparently left him speechless.

And well, a picture did say a thousand words.

Sophie: It's hard to explain.

Liam: like you got superpowers hard to explain?

Sophie: Like I gave my two weeks notice. Good thing I got my resume in order.

The three dots took such a long time. If she had anybody else to talk to, they probably would've told her what a stupid move she'd made Miss Pauling folded her hands and rested her head against them. Like she was praying, except the only thing in her head was a white noise.

Liam: gimme her number.

Sophie: Liam, no.

Liam: gonna pull out of the deal. no soph, no dice. should've done that earlier when they pulled that bullshit. i was just distracted by u.

Sophie: Fine, as long as it's professional. It's in the contact info of some of the first messages we exchanged.

Liam: k. gimme a sec.

Liam: k. bak.

Sophie: Do I want to know what you did?

He forwarded a series of texts. It was anything but professional. She had to shield her phone from anyone else from the series of photos he sent. Those would get him banned, that was for sure. Though pictures of him contorted to show his bare ass and middle finger at the camera did make her awful day much better.

Liam always knew what to say. Even if it was just a middle finger--or bare ass--pointed at her boss.

*

She had barely gotten inside when her her ringtone set to his number came on.

"How are you doin'?"

She let out a long sigh. "I don't even know. I worked so hard for this. I even felt like I had made progress with her. Part of me wants to run back, and the other part of me just...wants to live for once."

"She treated you like crap. Like, her heel was right on your back and holdin' you down. And not in a hot way."

She hadn't even faced going back to her empty apartment. Or the new blood sugar trackers she hadn't bought yet. The Administrator would destroy her so thoroughly, she wouldn't even be able to get a job at McDonalds. She ran her fingers through her dark hair and sighed. She'd spent her entire life hoping to work under the Administrator, and now she'd lost all sight of any plan B.

"I have plenty of savings, but if I can't find a job, I'll eventually not even be able to afford rent."

And wasn't that how the Administrator wanted her? Even though she had no use to the Administrator with her growing health condition, she wouldn't be allowed to simply transition into another.

"You know you can live with me, right? My door--and bed--is always open for you."

She had little attachment to her apartment. And it was a natural step that couples took. She mentally sorted the pros and cons in her mind.

"C'mon, it'd be like a party every single day. A sexy party."

"I'm not much for sexiness or partying right now," she said.

"You're always sexy," he said.

And she knew he meant it. This was the same guy who saw her looking full out swamp zombie hungover and still thought she was hot as well. (If she'd had any other friends left, they would've told her to keep him and never let him go. But, she didn't. He was her only friend. Right now, at least.)

"Look, don't think about it. You always overthink stuff. Just--try it for a week, okay? I'm sure you'll wanna go the whole way once you got a taste of the free trial." Liam winked at her.

"This is a big step to take. I'd still have to pack, and there's other things I'd have to do..."

"How 'bout this: you gimme your key, and I'll toss your stuff in a black trash bag and bring them here," Liam said.

"You just want to get back into my pantry drawer," she said.

"Babe, I've pulled 'em off your body. Also like we're datin'. That means I'm not a pervert if I say, have some of your underwear and bras under my pillow because I missed you on my trip--That is totally covered by the girlfriend clause and you know it," he said.

"You're spending way too much time around me if you're thinking in loopholes," she said.

Loopholes and contracts and everything that could go wrong loomed before her, but Sophie tried to focus on all the good things. Waking up together, stolen kisses across coffee, and neither of them worrying that she'd burn through her funds with the high cost of living and end up with nowhere to go.

(It was improbable, considering that there were a lot of numbers in her bank statements, to say nothing of the investments she could pull early if need be, and that Liam would never leave her wanting and alone.)

She rubbed at her temples and sighed. "I'm too exhausted to even think."

"Then do it like me, and don't think. Run into my bed and nap the fuck out, and your stuff will be here by mornin'. I'll have a movin' party to surprise you," Liam said.

"I think I will take you up on it. My lease is almost up and I haven't renewed or paid for this month," she said.

Even the thought of renewing her lease--or any of those oh so pleasant adult things--left her even more exhausted. She'd barely let herself rest since the diagnosis, and the death of her dreams. (Or at least, what she thought were her dreams.)

"Look, I'll come and get you. Leave me a key and I'll get what you need. All you gotta do is wait. I'll even carry you down. I'll borrow someone's car. It ain't no big deal. I got friends."

"Could you?" Sophie said softly.

"I'll be there in a flash," Liam said.

She'd deal with calling her landlord later. As she laid down in the couch, and without someone else's voice to distract her thoughts, the craving came on in a visceral way. Now she had nothing but her thoughts and the stark failures curled in the corners of her psyche, like sleep paralysis. She closed her eyes and tried to push out the pressure.

Thankfully, a knock cut through her thoughts. She pushed herself up and answered the door. He wrapped her in his arms. It didn't erase the exhaustion of the day, but every little thing was a comfort, even the scent of his Axe body spray.

"No matter what, I'm here for you, Sophie. You always gotta remember that."

He swept her up, bridal style and carried her down those flights of stairs, one by one. She rested her head against his chest. He'd put on NPR in this borrowed car, and left the heater still on. Through the streetlight's haze, she could see the silvery traces of duct tape across several key points in the car. Most notably on the dash board.

"Lock all the doors until I come back. Hope nobody thinks I'm stealin' up your place. If they ask, I'll just say I'm stealin' your heart."

All she could manage was a slight smile at that quip.

It wasn't anything fancy, in fact the side was dented from what looked like an accident. She couldn't tell the make--but parts of it was black, at least the ones not affected by rust.

The navy interior seats smelled of cigarette smoke and were covered in some kind of animal fur, but for her it might as well be a damn pumpkin carriage to take her to the ball. Or better, a bed.

With her head leaned back to the headrest, she tried to close her eyes. She knew no sleep would come, but she tried to fill her mind with the low sounds of NPR and not the song stuck in her head of the way she quit, the way her hero turned out to have feet of clay and iron.

She couldn't have said how long he took. Ten minutes, fifteen? Either way, he tapped on the window. She groggily opened her eyes, and pushed the automatic lock buttons.

He opened up the door, and before she could even protest, he scooped her up and carried her up those stairs. She wasn't an invalid, or a princess for that matter, but in that moment she needed his body heat, his arms about her. He only set her down when they finally were beside the car.

"Sorry I can't get it open with my mind. I ain't worked on my psychic powers much. Too busy bein' handsome and awesome."

He laid her on his bed, and leaned in to kiss her forehead. "If you need anythin', just call. I'll unpack the stuff in a second."

She nodded numbly. Sophie didn't even bother to take off her clothes, and instead just pulled the covers over her head. She didn't want to have to face the day any longer.


*

The next day came like a hangover, but worse. Her head pounded, and her mouth was dry. Even as she tried to get up, she was struck with dizziness. Her coping methods were going for the throat. She peeled out of her old clothes and left them on the floor. Not even the hamper, the floor.

She never would've done something like that. Okay, other than if she was completely drunk.

She took a quick shower and pulled on out some of his running shorts and a too-big stupid shirt of his that he'd left with her before. At least it had some superhero logo with a lightning bolt in red as opposed to some cheap swag saying.

As promised, several black trash bags lined up against the wall in the hallway. All her clothes were inside. She pushed open the spare room they were all in front of. His mother had thought to make it a 'sewing room' but it was more a drinking room, with rows of wine set up.

Her hand tightened on the door. It would be so easy to give in. One glass and she'd start to relax. Two and the memories and immediacy of her situation would start to fade. Three and she'd be closer to sweet oblivion.

Sophie quickly closed the door and pushed herself away.

The apartment had come furnished. The bed would be too small at this rate. Which meant all her sheets were now useless. Separating her life and her past, and the deep longing for a simple drink of release made her head throb.

She wanted to just step away. Take the bare minimum and leave the rest for whoever else came to her old apartment.

For how much of her life she'd given up, there wasn't much. She hadn't had time to spend all that money she earned.

"Hey, baby!"

"Not so loud, please," she said.

"Wait, you hungover?" He looked as devastated as if she'd punched him in the gut. "Soph, you promised."

"No, it's a non-alcohol headache. Stress headache, I guess. I'm hungover on life," she said.

"Here, I got it," Liam said.

He paused his game, and bent down to kiss her forehead. A few minutes later, he returned with a big glass of orange juice and a whole bottle of aspirin in hand.

"If you wanna go back to bed, be my guest. I promised I'd stream a bit more, then we gotta prep for the charity stream. My scheduled videos are about ready to post, too."

"I don't like sleeping when my hair is wet. It ruins pillows. ...Um, Liam. What room is mine? I think I'll feel better if I get unpacked."

"I figured we'd share rooms."

At her silence, he turned around. "Wait, is this runnin'..."

"No," she cut through, and let out a long breath. "I've just been through a lot in the past couple days. And I'm just trying to figure out how much I have to unpack and...there's some big changes."

It would be so easy to put herself into an alcoholic coma. It was much harder to live than she expected.

"I got all your clothes and shoes and stuff, but I didn't know what you wanted for everythin' else, so I figured I'd wait until you woke up. What do you want to go back for?" Liam said.

"Nothing," she said.

"Seriously? Even the cookin' stuff?"

She'd barely even made use of them, given how much takeout she'd eaten. No wonder her body was withering by degrees, so much that the Administrator cast her aside as useless.

"...Maybe those. I don't know. I'd have to go there and look, and I can't focus."

"No hurry, but I can do it, if you want."

"No, I'll do it.I need to keep my hands busy. For so many years I never gave myself a break and now I have nothing but time but to think about the fact that I just threw a grenade into my life."

"Sometimes you gotta destroy it all to rebuild it. Like me with my channel. I never would've given it a try if I wasn't hangin' around after jail."

"Liam, you're sweet but I'm so tired."

"Hey, I'm not tryin' to get in your pants. I mean, not this second. I always got good things to say about you. You wanna go take a nap and then go through the rest of your stuff?"

She shook her head. "No, I might as well get this through with."

Like ripping off a band-aid, she thought.

*

She unlocked her apartment. It seemed so much smaller in the daylight. She always left early in the morning and came back so late. Everything had been pre-furnished. Even the art and style wasn't her own. What even was her style? She'd stuck to professional suits, her own personal uniforms so much that she could hardly say.

The blender had been bought for the idea of smoothies to try and streamline eating and manage something remotely healthy, but all they'd been used was for making more variations of alcohol to try and bring the numb, the end to stress.

And to think, now it was the lack of alcohol which was giving her stress.

Plates clinked together as they were packed between sheets of newspaper. The set was uneven now, with giant gaps where pieces had broken. Drunkenness and glass plates didn't go together well. She gathered up what little she had, and left to phone her landlord. She got no bonuses for leaving the furniture to furnish someone else's life, but at least she didn't have to haul them to Goodwill.

"Hey, you okay?"

He'd lugged out her things while she gave out orders and wrapped up the last of her glassware and hardly used cooking implements.

"I'll live, probably," she said.

"Make that definitely," Liam said.

*

For the next week, Sophie was barely out of bed. In the past week, she'd felt the gamut of every emotion. The giddiness of freedom, the plummeting of realizing her dreams had crashed, the panicky desperate feeling that she should quickly call back and try and regain her job, and now the part where she slept twenty hours a day.

She couldn't tell if it was running away, or just her body catching up and trying to piece together what was left of her organs. She woke up with night sweats and shivers.

Liam was supportive, even when she only rose to brush her teeth, grab something to eat, take her pills and then head back to bed. Exhaustion was a constant companion.

(She tried to tell herself that this was healing, not hiding. Somehow, she couldn't quite believe that.)

But after two weeks of the windows drawn, she stumbled out into the light.

She showered and pulled on a pair of his shirts and shorts. She buried her face in the comforting scent for a moment.

She looked shell-shocked, half dead, and yet he still loved her. She'd pushed him away again and he still loved her. She'd fucked up dozens of times between them and he still loved her.

She didn't know how one person could manage so much hope, especially when he'd spent time in prison.

As much as she wanted to go back to sleep, she forced herself to empty at least one bag. At least long enough to let her hair dry.

Plastic coathangers had poked through the black plastic bags. She pulled out her now wrinkled purple dresses, skirts and skirts. Good thing she liked purple, because she wasn't about to trash designer work wear just because it reminded her of the past.

And the dreams cast aside.

There were hints that at one point, his clothes had been folded and there had been some semblance of order in his closet. However, she could only assume that this had gone with his mother's long honeymoon. She managed to reorder enough to carve herself out a corner. It'd take a couple more hours work to get it truly ordered.

But before that, she had an empty bottle to attend to. And for once, it wasn't alcohol.

"Good morning," she said.

He glanced up from his controller. "Hey there, sleepin' beauty. Yo, I been readin' stuff," he said. He cleared his throat. "You know, about you."

"I-I'm in the news again? Oh, Fuck."

God, it was even worse than she thought if some news vulture had swooped in pick at the corpse of all her dreams.

"No, I mean with like this whole quittin' the booze stuff. I checked Buzzfeed's 'Are You An Alcoholic' quiz, and one on WebMD though that one wasn't as fun. It didn't even have any gifs. Anyways--" He scrunched up his nose as he tried to remember.

"There was somethin' about bein' a social drinker versus somebody who drinks when alone and...dang I forgot. Lemme bring it up."

He grabbed his phone and started to input it. "Somethin' somethin', I know it was somewhere..."

"I'm not a social drinker, if that's what you're asking. Actually I was more an asocial drinker. Drinking too much when I was exhausted, stressed out or....lonely. It made the bad feelings go away and I could sleep. Of course, then I'd be hungover in the morning and the cycle would repeat."

She hadn't spoken the words aloud or faced them. But now that she did, it was just another thing which had been sacrificed at the altar of her dreams.

"I need to go out and get some things from the store," she said.

A shame they didn't sell patches for alcohol. All the options were unappealing. She wasn't about to go into a basement and talk about her feelings to a bunch of strangers, and rehab simply took too much time. And a life coach, complete with motivational trite pinterest-type positive thinking just wasn't her.

Because in the end, she didn't deal with her feelings. That was how she got here in the first place. And that only left her with the long uphill battle of going cold turkey.

"Do you have anything you need?" she said as she gathered her keys up from where they'd been left on the formica island. (Liam had mentioned that he wanted to surprise his mother with marble counter tops, and several other little house improvements. Though it was one of those things that he hadn't gotten around to doing yet.

"Yeah, I'll take some vitamin you," he said.

It was an awful joke, but she still smiled.

"I mean when I'm shopping. I'm going to refill my pills."

His smile disappeared, and was replaced by shades of concern.

"I'm not going to expire on the way to the pharmacy," she said exasperatedly.

"Promise? Sure you're feelin' okay? You ain't tryin' to put on a strong face and hidin' anythin'? I can go get it filled if you need to be."

"I'm just tired by everything that's happened. Losing all your dreams in one fell swoop will do that," she said. "And I'm not even sure you can. We aren't married, so..."

He licked his lips. "So here, at the Buzzfeed followup article, it says one way to fight it is to single out what the problem was. Like for social drinkers it was bein' egged on, but for the alone drinkers it was to take it out of that isolated point, and fill it with somethin' else. Like a pottery class."

He was so kind, she didn't even mention that Buzzfeed wasn't exactly the most reliable source, especially on anything health related.

"So," he continued, "You drink when you're tired and sad and pissed, right? So all I gotta do is keep you from feelin' like that."

"You can't be a band-aid for all my problems, Liam. It's sweet for you to try, but a lot of these are just things I have to deal with."

"Yeah, but I can make you smile, and I can be there for you. I can get you breakfast, play video games and give you tons and tons of orgasms. That's gotta count for somethin', right?"

She forced a smile for him, even though it was difficult. "It's something, all right. See you later, Liam."

*

This wasn't exactly the kind of shopping therapy people did in the movies, but it was something. The needle was so small, supposedly it could be barely felt. The computerized reader looked like it'd be a pain to program. With the Walgreens pharmacy bag slung low on her wrist, she glanced through the surprising amount of various things sold there. From throw pillows to barbies, and planners. The whole place was one midnight impulse purchase waiting to happen.

However, as much as she looked down those white aisles, she couldn't find a purpose, or at least a new liver, with complementary kidneys. She came across almost a whole aisle of cups, mugs and decorative wine glasses, all with quotes on them. From It's Five o'clock somewhere to Thinking I'll Be Drinking and more.

It was as sudden as seeing an ex. A voice reminded her It would be so easy to give in. She could walk out, buy something to drink and forget. Enough drinks and all this would disappear.

And so would her shot at living and not ending up dead before thirty.

Sophie didn't have any mantras, or any 'life coaches' or sponsors in her corner. All she had was her own will as she forced herself out of that Walgreens and back into the overcast day.

After that, she simply drove around town. Hours with nothing in them had never been a problem before. She bought a paper and looked through the job prospects part of the paper at a coffee shop, even though she knew the majority of application was now relegated to being online.

Before her cup was finished, she got a text notification. She set aside the paper. The prospects were looming forward, leaving her pensive and even more grim.

Liam: u okay?

Sophie: Fine is debatable, but I'm still breathing. I got my medication refilled.

Liam: what u wanna eat 2nite? i can call in whatever u want.

Finally, she actually had time. But the last thing she wanted to run into was young urban professionals who hadn't been forced to choose between their dreams and whether to keep breathing.. or found out that their dreams were horribly naive and would have never come true.

Sophie: How about pizza? That's a classic, right?

Liam: sounds good. u got any prefs???

Sophie: Surprise me.

Liam: fine. pinapple it is.

Sophie: Let me rephrase that: I'll have vegetable. Veggie Supreme or whatever they call it.

Liam: ooh look at u bein healthy n shit. sexy af love it.

Sophie: I'm going to take this as proof that I really can turn you on doing any damn thing.

Liam: is that a challenge

Sophie: I'm sure you'll take it as such.

Liam: as such...so hot. i could hear the librarian in ur voice.

Sophie had to laugh at that one. Finally she chose a rolling eyes emoji.

Sophie: I'll be back soon. Signing off. Texting and driving is a bad mix. See you then.

His response was dozens of heart emojis that filled the entire screen.

*

The table was about big enough to seat an entire baseball team, with some room for coaches and a physical therapist or two. In fact, it seemed less one cohesive table, as about three put together with extenders, each with a separate nylon table cloth.

Peeking out from outside the tablecloth she saw hints of old sharpie and carved graffiti. Liam is the gratest. Not at spelling, but points for hubris.

He pulled out two pizzas. A meat-lover's special, and a veggie delight. He'd even tried to spice it up with candles, though the only candles he apparently could fine were some cinnamon scented Yankee candles that she was fairly certain belonged to his mother. She made a mental note to buy some next time she went to refill her pills. Knowing Liam, he had simply charged ahead with his plans and hadn't asked his mother whether she minded her candles being used for his date night.

Liam fidgeted across the table from her. She dabbed the sheen of oil off the top of her piece with a napkin, and then cut her slice into smaller pieces. She never was one for eating them with her hands. The sudden sensation of grease always bothered her.

Liam fidgeted some more.

"Is something the matter?"

"Damn. If I'm here, I can't touch you. But if I'm there, I can't see you face to face, cause you're next to me. I gotta make a patent. Some kinda date cube where you can climb in and snuggle with me."

"I think the word you're looking for is called 'a booth,'" she said.

"Please, my sexy-ass date cube wouldn't be just a booth. It'd have like, built in tv's and glowsticks and crap. Booths would be an insult to my awesome Date Cube."

Sophie chuckled. "Date Cube..it's like a rave in a box," she said.

"And there's the tagline! You're brilliant!"

She smiled wryly. "I try."

Liam rambled on about the purported health benefits of pizza with vegetables on it. The only doctor who would've agreed with his assertion was likely the one who had treated her. When his phone got a notification, he broke off suddenly and frowned.

"Shit, I got a copyright strike. Now I gotta go throw hands with Youtube to get it out."

"Don't you have a process of contacting the company before streaming?"

"Nah, I just throw and take what sticks," Liam said.

"That seems inefficient," she said.

He craned his head to stare up at her. "Ooh. Hot. You goin' to show me efficiency? Gonna show me how to do it right?"

"Actually, I'll do it myself."

"Even hotter," he said.

She finished off the last bites of her pizza. It was a bit soggy, though Liam didn't seem to realize. He'd probably inhale the rest of one, and finish off the other for breakfast. He ate ridiculous amounts of calories, and yet never seemed to gain a pound.

A thin layer of dust covered her laptop. She blew it off, and booted it up. Liam hovered over her shoulder for a moment, before he finally made his way back to the pizza. With an online basic form, she was able to write it up in less than thirty minutes.

"Phew, I'm full. Good stuff. You want me to put yours away?"

"You can have it," Sophie said.

"You didn't like it?"

"I have to watch my health now."

"You want me to get you smoothies? I saw you had a big fancy blender thing. I got one too! It had ninja on the title and I had to have it."

"It might be best. Maybe I can keep off the transplant list yet. We can go out for ingredients tomorrow. Anyways--this is what I worked out."

The keyboard clacked beneath her fingers as she brought up the forms.

"Send this towards any company you think might try a copyright strike. As a summary, it states that this is a stream done for entertainment purposes, that you will ensure that there is a link where people can legally acquire the game. It should make the process much easier."

Liam leaned in to see. She could catch the scent of his axe body spray, and aftershave. She'd figured out pretty quickly that the razor in his bathroom was just for show and wishful thinking, but he still put on aftershave every day.

"Most of the indie devs are okay with it, as long as we ain't too out there with the screamin'. They like the free rep. In fact, one of them reported that he'd gotten a 60% raise in sales when I played that game." Liam burst into a big grin. "I was really proud of that. Now I make sure to encourage my 69ers to buy stuff too."

"Oh, I'll add that in," she said.

"Do you know the exact dev which reported that? That way I can Google it and add it in."

"Yeah, sure--"

He listed off the dev, and in seconds she had implemented the links to the form.

Liam peeked over her shoulder. "Let me see..."

He nodded. "Yeah, I understood like three of those words on there. Maybe four if I try hard."

"It's just a simple mm--not even a contract," she said.

"Are these devs even goin' to know what you're talkin' about? I mean I assume all game devs are smokin' weed all the time. It comes with the job description," Liam said.

"They probably have lawyers to deal with that," she said.

"Do they pay the lawyers with weed?" Liam said.

She just looked up at him. Really, she didn't even know how he got to these conclusions sometimes.

She did the last edits on the form and sent it in.

"I also added a point where while there are ads, which you profit from, and possible sponsors, they can be turned off per video."

He looked up at her all starry eyed. She just laughed.

"It's basic business."

"Still!"

"Actually, I had some questions. No one signed on the rest of the let's players, right?"

"Yeah, the Disney deal didn't go. And you already know how the other one went."

"That's my fault," she said.

"Are you kiddin' me? I wouldn't wanna work with anybody who don't want you around. She's friggin' awful, that's what she is."

In another life, Sophie would've said she's not that bad once you get to know her. Now, she simply kept quiet. Agreeing felt like a betrayal. The wound was too new.

"I can't use the materials I did, but I can redraw a new contract. There's a lot of things that could be streamlined. Like the acquiring of official animators, and bigger branding. Combined, the whole of you let's players span billions. And the fans have a marked lack of rivalry and probability of enjoying the rest of you. Which is to say by marketing you all at once, it's quite likely to build up everyone's subscriber count and fans."

She tapped her finger on the laptop.

"So, you got big ideas?"

"It's just a modified version of what I'd drawn up before. Except this time, you don't have to deal with fees and possible censorship. Just you and your friends flying free and making as many of those charity streams and--butt trumpets as possible."

"Sounds good."

"Just one more thing...is there a free room?"

"Sure. There was one mom was talkin' about turnin' into a sewin' room, but between you and me, she's more the wine type than the embroidery type."

"No, not that one," Sophie said quickly. "It'd...probably be best if you locked that one."

"Oh, fuck, right. You want me to move it? I can't just give it away--it's mom's. But I can put it in the attic or basement or something."

"Make it the basement. The heat of the attic might affect the wine negatively," she said.

"Got it. Anyways, there's an old room. It was a bedroom but my brothers all moved out. Lemme show you."

She set the forms to go to dropbox and followed him up the stairs. The room was stripped bare of beds and any former posters or decorations had been taken with his brothers. That wasn't saying it was empty, however. An old fake Christmas tree, as well as several storage units stacked up to the ceiling.

It was dusty, a bit cramped, but passable.

"I can get those moved down to the basement. Then, we could put a mini-fridge in here, or somethin'."

"I'd rather not. In the past I haven't always been great with what I drank," she said dryly.

"Oh yeah, I wasn't thinkin' of that. I thought like, water and stuff. You gotta be hydrated! So many people ain't hydrated good enough, and you could collapse over it!"

"Yes, especially with kidney problems," she said softly.

"We could hit craigslist and see what they got," he said casually. "Maybe get you a decent desk packed up. I could call my friends and brothers over, move it in before the weekend."

"Ah yes. Save ten dollars on a desk so you can be murdered in an alley. I'd rather just pay the extra money."

On the way back, she'd noticed that Art Van had a sale on. Instead of lying in bed and focusing on all the ways her dreams had been destroyed, she was going to buy some furniture.

"Fancy furniture place, huh? You up for company?"

He couldn't stop shifting as he stared at her. It was her running away so many times that made him like this. Gently testing the waters to make sure he didn't spook her.

"I'd love some company. And not just because I'll need help taking it up those stairs. But first, I'll need to take some measurements."

"A tape measurer?"

"Mmhmm. Do you have one?"

"What, you think I keep one of those handy at all times? It ain't like I'm just here--measurin' things--" he broke off and gestured emphatically at the wall.

She lifted one eyebrow. "Right... Do I need to go buy one?"

"I mean, I got one, but it ain't like I'm usin' it. It's my ma's!"

"Okay... so where is it?"

"Fine. It's in my bedroom, right by my bed. I was fixin' a...door---indow--thing. Wasn't like I was measurin' my boys--an exact 8, though if you needed to know. Wait, maybe ten...I ain't so good at math."

She said nothing. She should've guessed it involved his dick. It always did.

"Everyone knows five and up rounds up! That's just basic math!"

"That doesn't apply to penises, Liam," she said.

"Sure it does. I know math. I graduated middle school."

She cleared her throat. "Right... Get it for me, would you? I'm going to need to get these measurements in quick before the store closes. And if it's...sticky, please wipe it down with something. In fact, wipe it off anyways."

"I was measurin', not fuckin' it! Anyways, I gotcha. I'll be back in a flash."

And he was. Thankfully, the tape measurer wasn't sticky, as she'd feared. It was slightly damp with an antibiotic, hospital like smell.

Liam watched her as she bent down and measured the walls beneath the window.

"When I tell the numbers, jot them down, okay? Or put them in your notes app. I don't care which," she said.

"What's the numbers?"

She read them off, then asked again to make sure he got it right.

"Ten."

Her brow furrowed. "Ten? That can't be right, I definitely remember it being way higher."

"You're a total ten. Ten out of ten."

She glanced back at him. "I can't take you anywhere. C'mon, dickhead. I've got some shopping to do."

"For the record, I'm takin' that as a compliment."

"You always do."

*

Furniture was spread out past the dark path. Liam scrunched his nose as he caught a price tag of a piece of art.

"Jeez, this art is a thousand dollars. I could rip somethin' out of a magazine for way cheaper. Even a Walmart poster is only like five bucks. It's just flowers and crap, too."

That was nothing compared to the art she'd seen in some of her client's rooms. Some were in the millions.

"...I'll figure out art later on. Right now, we need to focus on desks," she said.

The last thing she needed was Liam getting them thrown out of a store due to his big mouth.

The room was relatively small, so no executive suite of a desk. However, the broke college student specials were a bit too spare for her tastes. She ran her fingers over mahogany colored desks which weren't real wood, and the first drink spilled would make the top peel up, like paper.

"Hey, Soph, look. A waterbed! I didn't even know they made these outside of 70s pornos."

He laid on his side suggestively, with his knee up. Except the waves of the waterbed were so intense, he couldn't quite keep the pose.

It only took a few seconds before one of the staff came running. She couldn't even see the staff from this angle. The best she could tell was it was a skinny guy who had seen way too much making out on the mattresses in his short career ."Sir! It clearly says no jumping!"

"Does it look like I'm jumpin'? Ain't fuckin', either. At least not yet. Hey Soph, you wanna test this bed out?"

"Sir!"

"Ey, chill. I'm just jokin'." He tried to push himself up, but the more he tried the more the waves came. Sophie laughed. "That's a right mess you've gotten yourself into."

"It's like I'm a pirate on the high seas lookin' for booty, about to get eaten by some giant squid thing. This is actually really cool!"

"Come on, pirate boy," she held out her hand to help pull him off.

"Argh," he said. He smirked, and started to pull her in.

"No you don't, save the piratry for the bedroom," she said.

"Technically, this is a bedroom," Liam said. He sprawled out like a cat.

"I'm leaving you to drift," she said.

Liam quickly pushed himself up. The bed made waves beneath him.

"Just kiddin'!"

She pulled him the rest of the way off. Even after he was back on dry land, Liam didn't let go of her hand.

"Okay, maybe a waterbed ain't a good idea. Pretty sure we'd flood the whole place after a night together."

"We could check out some of these other mattresses," Liam said suggestively.

"I'm pretty sure they frown on us having sex in public on their mattresses," she said.

He laughed. "I wouldn't go that far."

He let go of her hand, only to fall back onto the Queen size bed. "You think this is good, or you wanna go King?"

She climbed on beside him and closed her eyes. He reached out and enclosed her hand in his.

"Behave," she said.

"Babe, I am one-hundred percent G-movie right now."

She turned to him. "Less than ten minutes ago, you propositioned me on a water bed," she said.

"Okay, maybe PG. I mean, pirates are like that!"

She just lifted her eyebrows and stared at him meaningfully.

"Okay, okay, PG-13 leanin' towards hard R, emphasis on the hard. I'm a naughty, bad boy--"

She put her hand over her hand to cover her laugh. "You're going to get us banned from this store for life."

"Oh, babe. This is only the start of places of we're goin' to get banned from. Trust me."

She bit into her balled knuckle to try and stop the laughter, but it still came. He always got laughs out of her, even for the worst lines. It was all in the presentation, and his infectious energy that never failed to make her smile.

"Let's try out these beds." Even his whispers--or attempts at whispers--were loud enough for all to hear.

"We didn't come in here for a bed, we came in here for office furniture."

"We could break it in. Just you and me. I could..." He glanced to his side, and when he saw no staff (surprisingly, she would've figured they'd be following them for the rest of her visit) he leaned in close enough to whisper against her skin, "I could fuck you into that mattress."

And all reason fell away. She couldn't help but breathlessly reply I think we could give it a try.

She laid back on the nearest bed. Liam jumped up--quite literally--with her. Instead of laying right back, sat and bounced, to try out the springs.

"Pretty good bounce. Though springs can get loud, so you might prefer memory foam."

She pushed herself up. "Do you like this one?"

He winked. "I think we got nothin' but time and a whole store's worth of beds we can try."

"You really are going to get us banned at this rate."

"Imagine the story we could tell then."

Giggling like newlyweds, they slipped onto the next closest mattress, and laid back.

"Gotta love that I can tell the next vlog that I spent the entire in bed."

"Beds, plural, actually," she said.

"Even better."

*

They moved the Christmas decorations when they both got back, and Art Van delivered before the day was out. Her desk was set up, and ready for her new thing. Not quite a job, not quite a hobby. At least it'd streamline the job searching process to have a place other than the kitchen table to put her laptop.

They'd also boughten a brand new bed, with no creaky mattress springs, or the lingering knowledge that several of his brothers had been conceived on that bed.

Though, she left it unused, and instead broke that new bed in. Several times, even.

It was the middle of the night, when a sound awoke her. She was still getting used to his habit of sleeptalking. Usually it was gibberish, but today she recognized words.

"Welcome to...Marki no not now." Liam turned over. Sophie groggily rubbed at her eyes. The clock beside her bed was a green blur. She considered pulling in her glasses, but Liam turned over again, and pulled her tight against him.

At least he wasn't kicking this time.

"SophluvuSophmarryme."

She tilted his head. She tried to decipher it as he started to talk about dogs. Sophie Arry me? That makes no sense. Wait....

Oh. Past the sleepiness, she figured out the way the words fit. Like his fingers in hers.

Soph, I love you. Soph, marry me.

Marry. He was thinking of forever.

Before she met him, she would've been out the door. It's not you, it's my job and whatever she could do to fake a reason to leave.

It wasn't just happiness, it was contentment like she'd never known. It was waking up with someone who was her best--and only--friend. Meeting him was like light had spilled into her life.

He shifted to rest her head on his chest and hear the steady thump-thump of his heart. Even just a few months ago, she would've been out that door before morning. But this time, she didn't run away.

Sophie nestled down closer. She didn't even feel afraid. Could she really be this happy for the rest of her life? It seemed like such a fever dream, a mirage in the distance, but somehow it was completely real.

*

Her new office may have been a cheaper affair than her last job, but at least it was hers. While she planned to automate any possible bills as soon as possible, given that Liam's organization skills were rather alarming and he hadn't kept a record in ages--however, there were still possible things like contracts. A fireproof safe was ordered, as well as a black leather executive chair with a damask chair pad. Those weren't from Art Van, and were still on the way.

There were still very little personal touches. Her old office hadn't had many either, as it was always meant as a transition to a better life. She'd had sights on an executive suite.

Now, she considered the options. There were therapeutic options, such as stress balls, art, or personal pictures. Her coworkers often had framed pictures on their desks of their loved ones. These were always the first thing they would pack as they boxed up their lives when she fired them. They would be held to their chest for a moment, like a lingering embrace before being set aside.

The memory faded as her mind drifted to the kind of frame she would find, now that she had someone special to keep near. She couldn't help but smile at the thought of the kinds of pictures Liam would take. Exaggerated selfies with winks, obscene gestures, and of course, one of his swag shirts.

She filled her notepad with new ideas, and set herself to organizing both his and her life.

Hours later, he showed up. Liam woke up at noon on the best days. It was only weekends when he managed earlier--only to watch the early Saturday morning cartoons.

His hair was mussed from sleep and all he wore was a pair of boxer briefs. (It'd been a nice thing to realize due to Liam's constant high body temperature, he wore very little to bed. To say nothing of the fact that he could be convinced to wear even less, given the motivation.)

"You're up early," he said.

"Force of habit. Besides, I wanted to get started right. So--" She cleared her throat. " I did some checking. None of the other LPers have signed on with anyone else yet."

"You mentioned that before. You got any further with those plans."

"Actually... I had a thought. An alliance, if you will."

"You make it sound like there's gonna be a war."

"There very well may be," she said.

This got his attention.

"Well, I'm a fighter. Hell, I've been through prison. This ain't my first streetfight, if she wants to take it that way."

"She isn't going to tell you to square up in the parking lot, Liam," she said.

No, she'd do far worse. A simple streetfight was beneath her. The Administrator ruined lives. And for years, Sophie had helped her do it.

"Anyways, we can get to that later. I wanted to look over your official things. Contracts, paperwork, legal forms--things like that."

Liam rubbed at his eyes, and gave her a look like she'd asked him to find the square root of pi. "My what?"

"You know, tax returns, bank statements, retirement fund and investments, as well as emergency fund."

"Babe, I'm rich. I don't need all that," he said.

"You--don't have a retirement fund?"

"I'm never goin' to retire from this, it's the best job I ever had. And an emergency fund for what? I make a bajizzlion a year."

"You make only fourteen million. You'd make more, but you give away a great deal of what you make. At least three million, at last count."

"Only? We crossin' wires here or somethin'? Because fourteen mill is an awful lot of money. I could never make another dollar in my life and still live damn well."

She took several long slow breaths to calm herself. Oh, this was bad. It was so much worse than she thought.

It's fine. You can clean this up. You've cleaned up bigger messes than this. You're the Enforcer, remember? Firing wasn't all you did. You saved more than one presentation with sheer tenacity to get a deal.

"Liam, being newly rich is no excuse for not being prepared. Behavior like this is how you get celebrities who burn through their millions in just a few years and file for bankruptcy. Who's doing your accounting for your business?"

"My business? What, this thing? I just do it and Youtube pays me. Simple as that."

"You aren't even incorporated?! Please tell me you've set down the right trademarks at least."

"For what? I'm playin' other people's games."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay, I'll assume we're just starting at zero for everything. Let's just hope the IRS isn't going to bring you up on tax fraud."

"The whater what what?"

"You paid your taxes, right?"

"Yeah, I went up to some place and the lady did it for me. I just had to give her money. It was way easier than people said it would be."

This only alarmed her more. "...Some place? A legitimate place, right? You didn't hire some bookie off the street, did you?"?"

"Jeez, I ain't an idiot, I passed middle school. It was some...H and R Square or somethin'."

"All right... So, where do you want to start with this?"

"I dunno. I ain't got no clue about this crap. " Liam said.

He leaned against the wall. "We should get a beanbag in here so I can come visit you."

She'd only gotten a bare bones selection of furniture. After all, Liam was determined to put them on the very edge of being completely thrown out of that store.

"I need to do a security check, both cyber and for the house."

"We don't need one of those fancy security systems for my house. I'm from Southie; I keep a baseball bat by my bed."

"People as high profile as you tend to attract stalkers. You're lucky that you haven't had any, especially as you kept giving out your phone number and address out to people online."

"Yeah, it was worth it for all the ass I got," Liam said.

Sophie lifted her brows. "Ahem?"

"I used to get! You're the only ass I'm gettin' now. But like, I ain't met you yet then, so it don't count."

She quickly brought up the Wikia on her phone. His address was still there, as well with the information.

"Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. I put that in when I was drunk off my ass."

"I'll edit the wikia for you," she said.

"Thanks! Just as a note, I don't remember how many other drunken sites were like that."

"Er, do you want me to fix them all for you? It'd require some time and possible reverse searches. Maybe there's some legitimate software out there which could speed this up."

"I guess it's only right. I was pretty personal up in you last night, after all."

Of course it went back to sex. She looked up at him pointedly.

"Eh? Eh?"

"I'm going back to work now."

"Aight, I'm off to showerland. Mark in a break soon, because we are going to have breakfast that is going to blow your mind."

Of course, Liam always said everything he did would blow her mind. And frankly? Most of the time he was right. He managed to ham it up, with such fanfare that the mundane became extraordinary.

She did a quick reverse search, and deleted all the instances of his address and number left for lonely ladies. She then started searching for his user profiles via his email address. Some of the hits were interesting, to say the least.

"I'm clean and extremely sexy!"

He was more clothed this time, in ripped up jeans and a too-big Boston Redsox shirt that had faded from use. On one hand, him being clothed was better for her focusing on work. On the other hand, his shirtlessness improved her morale.

She'd have to figure out that equation later, when she had more data.

" You ready for chow time?"

"Almost. Just one question: why are you on Grindr? Are you bi as well?"

He blinked. "Okay, maybe I was really drunk when I made that one. Huh, I was wonderin' why people kept askin' me if I was the kind of guy who likes bears. I mean, of course I like bears. Who doesn't?"

"Not that kind of bear, Liam," she said.

"So there's gay bears out there lookin' for love... Is it like We Bare Bears, but gay?"

She did not have enough coffee to explain the words "twink" and "bear" to him. (Nor to point out that he was a textbook case twink.) So instead, she brought up the other ones. He had several other dating sites, which were inactive, as well as various other sites, such as Newgrounds and Kongregate, which often showed up in his videos. None of these had private information.

"Jeez, I can't believe I forgot about those. Delete 'em for me, would you?" Liam said.

"With pleasure," Sophie said.

"What else do you need? Passwords? Pins?"

"Well, I'll need you to go through this list and update a lot of your passwords. You don't use password as a password, right?"

He grabbed an emoji memo he must've gotten for a bout a dollar at Walmart, and in seconds, he had it all scrawled down. Sophie could only stare at the numbers. First up, his passwords needed to be strengthened. At least he didn't have any which were 123456789 or password, but they weren't much stronger. And given that one had the number "2011" in it, she had to guess that was when it was created.

"This--is a lot to entrust to me What if we break up? I could ruin your life."

"Nah," he said.

Never mind the multiple tattoos of her he had.

"Liam, just think logically about this. I'll get it ready, then you can quickly change them. I don't have to be here for this. And for the love of all things holy, please change these passwords. Some of them are older than most of your audience."

"Later. I gotta get breakfast with you, then I promised my 69ers, and I don't wanna make it late."

"You're just--going to leave me with this. I could empty your bank accounts and--"

"Naaaah," he said again, drawing out the syllables.

"You really trust me that much?" she said softly.

He leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Of course I do, Soph."

"Let me guess. Hard to crack but easily recognizable--most should probably have naughty numbers or rude references to genitalia," she said.

Liam laughed. "Babe, you know me so well. So, where you wanna hit? It's too late for most of the breakfast places, but we could still catch lunch."

"Actually...I'd really like to finish this," she said.

"But--Soph, you gotta eat!"

"I can eat at my desk. It wouldn't be the first time. Then we can go out for breakfast tomorrow."

"Hmmm... Well, I could break in that smoothie maker, that work?"

She smiled. "Actually, it'd be a good start towards keeping me off the transplant list."

"Aight, I got it. It's hot when you go all workaholic," Liam said.

She chuckled. About fifteen minutes later, he returned with a greenish smoothie that she sipped at. Even several sips in, she couldn't quite tell the ingredients. Except she was fairly sure it had some type of kale as a base.

Sophie set to work. A couple hours later, he knocked at the door.

"Stream's over. You hungry for lunch?"

She looked blearily up. In that time, she'd reset every single password, and drawn up quite a bit of official documents. "A little, but I've been drawing up this paperwork. Just sign at the line. First, you should consult your lawyer before accepting this--"

He cut her off. "Nah." He grabbed a pen, but she grabbed it before he could put down his signature.

"Please tell me you're going to actually read it," she said.

"I trust you."

"You keep saying that, but I could be massively cheating you right now, and you would never even know because you didn't even check the contract before you signed it."

"But you're not gonna," he said.

Maybe him not having an accountant was a good thing. He could've been drained of his millions so easily. He was so trusting. God, the thought of how easily someone could've taken advantage of him made her heart clench. For all his dirty jokes, swag shirts and prison record, he had a good heart underneath it all. Anybody could've made up any sob story to cheat him out of everything.

"Okay, listen. It means a lot to me because I spent a lot of time on it. I'll give you the short version. There's a program--I guess app is the word--which takes out money from your account without even notifying you. I automated all your bills, started a retirement account--"

"I told you--never retirin'!"

"You can always re-purpose the funds to something like...college."

He let out a laugh. "College? I ain't ever goin' in there. I didn't even finish high school, and a major pain in the ass that was. It'd be a waste of money, cause all I'd do is flunk out again. Cages can't keep me chained. I'm goin' to be bigger and richer than any of those chucklefucks could ever imagine!"

He struck a pose like this, a brofist to the sky, like he was bumping God one.

"Maybe you'd donate the money for someone else's college funds. Cousins, or--even children of your own. It's good to have a savings fund like this for the future."

"Aight, I dig that. I'll ask who needs their college loans paid off."

"It's for saving, not spending. And charity counts as spending, Liam," Sophie said sternly.

"We'll put it up in a raffle."

She let out a sigh. They'd definitely discuss this more later on.

"I started out the forms for incorporation. Though you'll have to pick out a name. I started a form for you to send to developers you think might copyright strike to keep your content up, and..." she broke off as she flipped to another page.

"Sophiecorp," he said suddenly.

"You can't name your company after me," she said exasperatedly.

"Paulingcorp?"

"That's still after me. If I leave the company, or we go our separate ways or--"

He cut her off. "You ain't. So, what's your startin' salary? I could give you a raise." He smiled devilishly, and rested his hand on her thigh.

"Later, Liam. It's business time now," she said.

"Hot," he said under his breath.

"I also started incorporation for the Youtubers collective. That's not the official name. We'll have to do a lot of negotiating with the rest of them, and open up so as Youtubers get larger, they can join in."

"You actually had a few late notices for unpaid bills which you could've easily afforded. The lights were about to be turned off. This could severely hurt your credit if you're not careful."

"So that's what I used as a pizza plate when there were no dishes in the house. I figured everythin' was still goin', so it had to be one of those prepaid credit cards things."

Sophie said nothing to that.

"Don't look at me, the dishwasher is broken."

"I'll call the repairman right away. Though, you have enough money to hire a maid if you want."

"A maid?"

"Liam?"

"A maid?"

"Uh-huh."

"Like, with those little fluffy skirts and tiny black dress, low cut tops and a little feather duster?"

"They only look like that in fiction. And porn. Not that I watch it," she said.

"Don't worry; you were the one in it in my mental picture!"

"That wasn't one of my worries," she said dryly.

"A maid....." He seemed to blank out, likely returning to his daydream.

Mental note: check online stores for French Maid costume. Surprise Liam with it later.

He stretched. "That it? I'm starved. Whatcha want?"

She knew enough that Liam's few remaining shreds of attention were long gone. She could've kept him there a little longer by undoing some buttons, but then he wouldn't be paying attention to what she'd done, just her.

"Actually, let me finish. I'm almost done. All I need to do is save and shut down."

She finished and clocked out at 3PM. Liam leaned down to kiss at her temple. She smiled up at him, the sudden expression of affection. He was always surprising her with little things. Like that he emphatically cared if she lived or died.

"You're doin' amazin'. You'll have this whole place runnin' so smooth, we could use it as one of those run and slide things. You know, you put them down, put some water in--"

"Hopefully not--they've been banned for being too dangerous," she said dryly.

"See? Good thing you're around. I never would've known that," he said.

Her first new day of work, and I didn't even have to fire anyone. Maybe it was a good sign.

"You did the work of ten men and five women. Let's go get some food. You want pizza?"

"Mmmm. Let me think about it. I think I need to unwind, I just--"

Now was when she'd usually reach for the alcohol. Just a little something to take off the edge. But that part of her life was over now. If she got stressed, she was damn well dealing with it. What the hell was supposed to take its place? Video games? Sex? Some combination of the two?

Sophie didn't quite know, so she settled on the safest option.

"I think I'll get changed and take a shower first."

"What about Chinese? That sound good? I know a great place. I'll call in some takeout and we can eat it. Catch some Netflix. You ever watch Breakin' Bad?"

"That sounds wonderful, actually," she said.

"Okay, now that's that's left is for me to unsubscribe from the spam mail, but I'll save that until tomorrow."

"Aww, don't. I get a kick out of makin' videos of them."

"You--please tell me you censor out your important information," she said.

"Censor out what? It ain't like I'm showin' my dick on Youtube," Liam said.

"Remember DJ Khaled?"

"Oh yeah, he turned out to be a coward who wouldn't go down on his lady." Liam shook his head. "That's like, the best part. Actually it's all the best part."

"I'm talking about the time he accidentally snapchatted his credit card and got eighty-thousand dollars due to his numbers being stolen."

"People already know my numbers."

Alarm grew in her again, but Liam kept talking. "5'11, other numbers..."

"You didn't put dick pics on Youtube, did you, Liam?"

"They won't let me," Liam said with an air of someone who had tried to put his dick on Youtube before.

"Moving on, we are getting you a PO box." She glanced at her phone to check the time. 3:05. However, by the time they got ready to go, it'd almost be closing time.

"Let me amend that. We are getting you a PO box tomorrow."

"Relax! Nobody's stalked me yet," Liam said.

"Yet, the key word is yet. Already several Youtubers have been harassed. I don't want you to be among them."

"Aww, you do care about me!"

She gave him a sidelong glance. "We're dating. We live together. I am your girlfriend. My feelings should be pretty obvious."

Liam beamed at this. Even the smallest amount of affection made him so damn happy. It was adorable.

"All right.. I guess that's enough for today."

"You're Yabba-dabba-done! So, lemme guess...you want some sweet and sour chicken, with some fortune cookies?"

"I'm hungry enough to devour it box and all," Sophie said.

Liam laughed. "Aww, that's a great soundbyte. But--ain't your thing--you gotta eat and stuff, right? It was--" He suddenly mimicked a much deeper voice. "Diabeeetus?"

"You know me, I never take care of myself. I always get too wrapped up in work and forget to eat. Thankfully, this time you made me breakfast."

"Well, that's my job. Tomorrow, I'll kick down the door and make you breakfast."

"Literally kicking down the door really isn't necessary," she said.

"It'd be cool, though. Admit it," Liam said.

"The bill and hospital visit wouldn't be. These aren't particle wood doors. And you'd hate having a broken leg. You wouldn't be able to go running in the morning anymore," she said.

"Still, just imagine it. Me, kickin' down a door to show how much I support you. With food."

Okay, maybe it was a little hot. But only in imagination, but she knew the real version would end in pain and broken toes.

*

Sophie rolled over. Liam groaned and put his arm about her. "Five more minutes."

As enjoyable as spending time with him was, the morning was swiftly turning into afternoon. "I really need to shower and get up and get to work--"

"Or what? Your boss is gonna fire you? Spoilers, sweetheart: that just ain't happenin'. You could sleep until noon every single day if you wanted, and you'd get raises if I had anythin' to do with it. And I don't mean paychecks," Liam said.

"That sounds inefficient," she said.

"Correction: that sounds frickin' awesome."

"You're just tired because you keep wanting to go on until dawn..."

"Yeah, and that's real frickin' surprisin' how? Look who I got in my bed? You expect me to just sleep?"

She had to think this over and plan strategically, because he made a good point. The bed felt wonderful. A nap was always appealing, even seductive.

No, no, no. She had just the answer.

"You could shower with me," she said.

Liam propped himself up on his elbow. "I'm listenin'," he said.

"Then we'll get breakfast."

"Mmmhmmmm?"

"And then I'm going to get to work, and so will you."

Liam let out a sigh. "I knew there had to be a catch in here somewhere."

"You can't just ignore your channel and flirt with me all day," she said.

"Wanna bet? I'll drag you out to play video games and flirt with you on camera all day. How about that?"

"We can schedule in some time later once I get more of the contracts drafted," she said.

She pushed herself out of bed. She smoothed down his shirt, the one she'd been wearing to sleep recently, with nothing else. He let out an appreciative whistle as she left. She chuckled to herself as she went down those stairs.

"And in the shower, too!" he called after her.

"Naturally," she said.

She went down the stairs, grateful that she'd remembered to close all the blinds last night. She pulled out a water bottle from the fridge and took a drink.

A voice broke through the kitchen.

"So you're Miss Pauling, huh?"

She clutched the water bottle until it bent in her hands, and whirled around. If she hadn't seen the woman in family pictures, she would've thought an old flame had appeared, because this woman did not look like the mother of eight boys, the youngest almost thirty. Her black hair was up in a vintage beehive do, and her red cocktail dress was a surprising choice for not even noon.

To say nothing of the glass of wine in her hand.

Sophie couldn't even speak.

All she had on was his shirt, and the wet spot on the front was not from food. She stood there like a Monica Lewinsky in red. She wasn't even wearing underwear. At least it was long enough to cover her, but that didn't even remotely begin to stem the sheer embarrassment.

"You--You're his mother," she said finally.

"The one and only," she said.

"Ey, Soph you comin'?"

Liam came down in nothing but a rather tight set of briefs.

"Oh, hey ma. Didn't expect you back so soon," he said.

She couldn't believe how calm he was about this.

Liam looked like he'd been punched right in the heart. "You ain't been watchin' my vlogs?"

"Honey, I've been either on airplanes or horizontal for weeks, with just a little bit of sightseein' in between."

"Ugh, ma. I didn't need to hear that."

"It's my honeymoon. What do you expect?"

"Look, I'm going to go up and shower. And when I come back down, can we pretend that's the first time I met you?"

She laughed. "I had eight kids. Trust me, you ain't shockin' me."

"Still."

She took a long sip of her breakfast wine. "Sure, knock yourself out. But not literally," his mother said.

Sophie snuck of the stairs before she managed to somehow embarrass herself even more.

After a long shower, which did little to lift her shame, she got dressed in a purple sundress which had become mostly free from wrinkles after its time hanging up in the closet. She'd taken to wearing a lot of his clothes recently, given how little casual clothes she had. It looked like another shopping trip was in order.

She paused at the stairs as she heard their voices rise.

"Sweetie, you had the door to the wine room locked. Luckily, this man of mine is good for a few things--unlocking doors is one of them."

"Psst, ma. Soph here is really allergic to wine--all alcohol, really--so don't drink around her please."

His mother emptied the last of her breakfast wine and gave him a skeptical look. "Allergic to wine?"

"Yeah, some people are like that. Mark's got that too. So please don't drink it around her. It'll make her feel bad."

"So, basically you're sayin' she's an alcoholic."

"Ma! Be nice!"

"Sweetie, we're Irish all the way back. Except for a little bit of French real recent in the family tree. Ain't anything surprisin' us. We had plenty of drunks in the family."

"Be nice," Liam said.

Sophie flinched. She really wanted to wait for his family to find out. Maybe never, if she could help it. But there was no hiding it now. His family seemed to love wine so much that her current state of avoidance was suspect.

Liam's loud voice burst through her thoughts, before she could fall into self-pity.

"Anyways, I gotta go shower--"

His mother cut him off. "Your brothers are comin'. It's goin' to be a big barbecue."

"Barbecue, huh? That sounds fun. What's the occasion?"

His mother gestured to herself and cleared her throat. "Just the day dedicated to the woman who gave birth to you heathens."

"Oh yeah it's your birthday!"

"'Oh yeah?' You just up and forgot your mother, who spent eight hours in labor with you? Who spent ages raisin' you--and let me tell you, you were not an easy kid. Always breakin' things, flirtin' with girls even when you were barely out of diapers."

She shook her head and muttered must be the French side. Something which Liam didn't seem to catch.

"I didn't forget-forget! I was just showerin' and gettin' ready. Hadn't even checked the calendar or anythin'. Was too busy checkin' out somethin' else."

She heard a soft accented voice behind her.

"So you are her."

Sophie turned to see a tall man behind her, with a bottle of wine underneath his arm. The door to the wine room was open behind him. He wore an expensive red-hued suit which had to be designer--possibly Italian. Gucci, perhaps? She'd seen the Administrator wear similar. He was graying at the temples, with chiseled features. He was sophisticated in every way of the word, and the best she could describe was 'roguish.' His gray eyes seemed skeptical--or that was his default state--as he glanced over her.

"Oh, so you're 'The Asshole'?' she said lightly.

He smiled slightly. "Ah, yes. That would be me."

"Sophie!" Liam charged up the stairs to join her.

"This is Sophie, who you are totally meetin' for the first time," Liam said quickly.

He did something with his hands. She lifted one eyebrow. "Jedi mind trick," he said under his breath.

"Bet this 'Sophie who I am meetin' for the first time' will be pretty angry to know about the girl runnin' around in nothin' your shirt down here," his mother said.

"Maaaa."

"Stop bleating like a goat, and go get some supplies. We're going to have to buy a lot more food. Your brothers are gonna be here before 2, if I have to drag them in myself."

"I'll do it," she quickly volunteered.

"Enough for nine of the hungriest boys around. This one's the runt," she said. She reached out and kissed the side of his head.

Liam scrunched up his nose. "I'm not that small. I mean look, I'm bigger than Sophie!"

"That's because you went and found somebody you could actually be taller than. You must've looked hard for this one, hon."

"That's not the only reason! It's cute when she's gotta get on tiptoe to reach, though," he said.

"So, buy the entire store out of food. Right."

Liam burst into a big smile. "And I'll help!"

"Oh no you don't. I ain't seen you in months," his mother said.

"I'll be back soon enough," Sophie said.

Liam gave her one last desperate look as she disappeared out the door. She, for one, was glad for the escape. She still needed a chance to gather her thoughts. The 'meet the parents' had already gone spectacularly wrong. She had to regroup and figure out a way to salvage the rest of the day.

*

The fluorescent lights the supermarket greeted her as she stepped through the automated doors. A confetti-like pattern of gray sprinkled across the white tiles. She drove her cart towards the meat stand, but a brightly colored sale sign caught her eyes. Stacks and stacks of bread filled the corner. There was a buy one get one free sale on hamburger buns advertised. She mentally tried to calculate how many she would need to feed every single one of his brothers. Four? Five? Or should she just suck it up and buy ten and freeze all the leftovers?

She was distracted in that moment, of the kinds of anecdotes Liam would say if he was there. Like how hot dog buns packs always had more than a pack of hot dogs, or other silly notes. She smiled to herself at the thought, and threw.

As Liam would say, Yolo.

She made her purchases, and returned with a whole trunk full of groceries. She mentally already calculated the expenses to put on the ledger and budget. Something Liam had never bothered with before she came into his life. Liam leapt right over the couch and nearly ran into her. She dodged just in time.

"Parkour!"

He lifted up the plastic bags two at a time and took them in.

"Did you drink straight energy drinks while I was gone?" she called after him as he zoomed past her.

"Three of them! Right after the other! I put it on Youtube, too! The Monster Challenge is so cool!"

"I guess--you don't need any help bringing the groceries in," she said as he rushed past her. "Are you sure this is safe?"

"I ain't dead yet!" Liam let out a woohoohoo! and laughed as he rushed by.

"That's my little show off," his mother said.

She fixed her gaze on Sophie. This time, her wine glass was filled with something else. Chocolate milk, perhaps?

"We never did get introduced. I'm Colleen Dempsey, that hellion's mother."

"Sophie Pauling. You've probably heard about me if you spend any time with Liam at all."

Colleen laughed. "My boy sure loves to yammer on and on. And lately, you've been his favorite subject. I have expected you to cough up rainbows every minute with the way he goes on."

Liam whizzed by with even yet more bags. At this point he was practically a blur.

She chuckled. "That's Liam for you. Good to know he ain't scared you off yet," she said.

Sophie smiled softly to herself. "He's not so bad, not at all," she said.

And this time, she knew it was true.

*

Hot dogs and burgers had been put on the charcoal grill. The scent wafted up, to where Sophie stood at the edge. Colleen gestured to the men beside her, who looked like they could populate a sports team with all their combined force and size.

"This is Jonathon, and Michael, and--" Sophie tried to keep herself from gaping. Each one was larger and rougher looking than the last. By it came to Colleen's eldest son, she had to crane her neck to even meet eye contact. He had to be over six feet tall, at least.

"Well, you're quite a legend. Liam's been claimin' you exist, but none of us believed him," Michael said.

Liam put his arm about her back, and puffed out his cheek. "You don't believe video proof? I've been postin' about Sophie for a real frickin' long time."

"You could've hired an actress for a prank," Michael said.

"What the fuck, man. An actress? That's the best you could come up with?"

"I'm going to go get a drink," Sophie said.

She pulled away as the fight started to escalate to louder shouting.

A big bowl of punch was at the corner. She scooped out some into a plastic red cup. As she took a sip, she felt a familiar warmth inside her.

She froze. This was a choice she could make. She could step away, go break up that fight, and talk with his mother. Or, she could take another drink.

Just one more sip, she promised herself. It made all the embarrassment fade, until there was just that heat under her skin that made her feel alive, even if it came with the price of waking up on the edge of death.

Just one more.

But she didn't stop. She scooped out more, like she was starving. She didn't stop until the room, and sounds seemed to spin.

*

Everything ached. The curtains were drawn, but light slipped through, and so did he. The door closed behind him. She could see the team colors of the Boston Red Sox across his shirt as he came closer. His baseball cap was slightly crooked, and there was new bandaids and bruises on his face and arms. The scuffle between him and his brothers must've gone on a while before his mother surely broke it up.

"I'm so sorry, Soph. Ugh! I'm goin' to punch whatever brother spiked the punch!"

"Please, not so loud..."

"Sorry," he said in a hoarse whisper.

"I'll punch 'em out. Stupid fuck--"

"No... I knew right after the first sip of. I felt awkward about the moment and I wanted to escape that feeling--so I did. And I've made it a thousand times worse. Please... tell me I wasn't making a scene at the party?"

"You were pretty memorable."

She let out a groan. "God, I've made the worst impression on her."

"Nah. Ma already yelled at my brothers. We've had people in the family like this. More than a couple, actually," Liam said.

Sophie let out a little sigh. Like this.

"I wanted to make everything better," he said softly.

"I knew this was coming. And I'm going to try, but sometimes it's hard. I've relied on this for every time I got lonely or felt awkward. It's been my crutch."

The night sweats, the horrible craving that ate up ate her like a void inside.

"Then I'll be there to catch you. I'll have to double down. Make sure nothin' like this ever happens again."

He covered her hand with his. She closed her eyes tight.

"Thank you for being here with me the whole way. Even when I mess up," she said. After years of following a neat list and never straying from her plan no matter how much it killed her, she sure was making up for lost time.

"Anytime. Of course I'm right here. I love you and there ain't nothin' that's gonna change that."

His hand tightened over hers. She knew damn well he wasn't lying, because he'd seen every ugly side of her and still somehow looked at her like she personally hung the stars.

"You feel up to some orange juice, some aspirin, a shower and some eggs and bacon? Plus there's a side of beefcake servin' up looks and lookin' like a snack." He gave her what he thought was a seductive look, but was really just laughable.

"Why are you wearing a pair of sunglasses? Are you hungover, too?"

He pointed to her. "I mean, have you seen who I'm datin'? Sometimes I gotta put on cool shades as self defense, you know."

Even past the pain, she couldn't help but smile. No matter how dark things got, he always managed to bring out a little bit of happiness out within her.

*

At almost three months living there, things had changed up. There was no longer a pile of unread mail heaped at the door, and in fact they got a lot less clutter, period. The bills were automated. She'd set up savings and checkings accounts, given him a nice stock portfolio. The spam mail still piled up. She cut out the address before putting it in the second inbox.

Sophie had done some changing up around the place. She'd installed a lovely little bulletin board near the door. It had hooks for all keys, and notes. Another magnetized memo pad with Stick To The Plan with a line of cacti was on the fridge.

Liam had gotten ahold of one of those cheap packages of alphabet magnets meant for children, and she often came across interesting word choices.

Today, it was LUV U, SOPH. NEED MILK.

She couldn't tell if it was a shopping list, a reminder for her to be healthier, or a come on. Knowing Liam, it could be all three at once.

She'd installed an inner mailbox, so important mail was no longer lost or God forbid, used as ersatz pizza plates.

Occasionally, postcards came from far off locales. Liam always got a little moody whenever he saw them. No matter how happy his mother was, he was none too pleased by her new beau.

A notification flashed on her screen. To her knowledge, he'd made no plans to stream. However, trying to figure out Liam's whims was like trying to capture the wind.

He wore a red t-shirt, with a Disney print, and gloved hands pointing downwards that read property of my girlfriend. Behind him was the nearest park, as several people walking golden retrievers passed by behind him.

Okay, my 69ers. We gotta have a talk. I see all you guys out there gettin' these shirts with like--'game over' and it's all about gettin' hitched, not about gamin'. C'mon, so many dudes all make those jokes. If you're thinkin' that, then you ain't with the right one yet. Because when it's right, you don't even care about the other girls. It'd be like--like, choosin' between week old mcdonalds left out of the fridge and steak. You feel me?

Behind him, the dogs started barking. The phone cam video shook as Liam moved out of sight. Finally, she caught him standing on a park bench.

"Aight, back to what I was sayin'... What does this mean? I'm in love! God, that's so nice to say. He jumped up and punched the air, like he was doing his best Mario impression.

(It was Liam's fault that she even knew that.)

She's just so amazing. Every day is better and sometimes I just have these moments like... Someone else could've come. Her boss could've never sent her. We never would've met, but it all happened and here we are. And my life isn't the same. I thought my life was great before, but then she came into it and it's like--everything is in color now. I didn't even realize I was missin' anythin'.

She could only nod to this. How long had she spent thinking that life was just fine. Okay, it was stressful and she had been barely hanging on, but she was still breathing.

It's so hard not to tell her, because I want to tell her every day, but I don't wanna pull a Ted Mosby and jut blurt it out so soon, but god I want to! Speakin' of which, that end was a load of fuckin' bullshit. I still can't believe what they did to my man Barney. I was so happy to see someone like me on television, and for him to find someone perfect for him. Hashtag #RewriteTheHIMYMFinale By the way.

Also, I get so much sex, best sex I have ever had. Listen, my pals, my 69ers. Bein' in a relationship ain't losin'. All those 'game over' shirts and stuff? They lied. I wake up most every single day with my favorite person in the world. S-she's so damn cute! I friggin' love the way she wipes off her glasses, or pushes them up, or wears my shirt around the place while she' here. And did I mention the sex? Oh my god, I didn't even know it could be this good, and I get it all the time. Whoever said that the sex dries up when you go exclusive was just tryin' to keep all the sex for themselves. Because trust me. It does not. At all. Not even a little.

God, leave it to Liam to just blurt out their sex life right there.

So, listen, my 69ers. You love someone, you take the leap and you wife them the fuck up. You husband their ass so hard they never want to even look at porn again.

For a few moments, Sophie only could take in his words. Grand Liam gestures would be a staple of her life--as well as dealing with his oversharing.

She grabbed her phone and drafted a text immediately.

Sophie: Liam, we need to have a conversation about what's appropriate to share with the entire internet.

Liam: omg ur watchin my vlogs?? ?

Sophie: Even if I didn't, I'd see it come up on your accounts. I mean, you told the internet you wanted to marry me before you told me?

Liam: it was supposed to be secret vlog, but u saw it. forgot u donated all that money and got on the special donate list. bsides y gotta wait or its rushin. and ur always freakin out and runnin away about this stuff but i had to tell someone.

Her hand hovered over the screen as she tried to think of a response. Three dots came up. Liam was the king of the double (and triple) text.

Liam: r u mad?

Sophie: Only at the way you mangle grammar and spelling.

She touched her contacts with her thumb. He picked up on the first ring.

"I wasn't going to say this via a text. You know how hard it is for me. Feelings things, saying things about feelings...and staying. But I've never felt like this about someone. I'm just so...happy all the time. I don't even know what to do about myself."

"I know, right? It's like takin' shot after shot of monster and a shot of coffee. Just around you I'm friggin' wired."

"Liam, you're always wired. If you got any more wired, I'd genuinely fear for your heart," she said.

"Don't worry about my heart, because it's just beatin' for you. It's like I'm bein' fired from a rocket. I was happy before, but now I'm happy happy. Super happy! You ain't got any how hard it is not to say all this kind of stuff."

"I think I have an idea: you talk in your sleep," she said.

"S-shit, really? You heard it all? I-I don't even know what I said. If I confessed to somethin' bad, I was probably jokin'," Liam said.

"I'll keep that secret for when you say it to me in person," she said.

"Look, if Sleepy Liam made you feel like runnin', then..."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said.

"I'm stuck with you? Really?" Liam said giddily.

"Completely stuck," she said.

"Sophie Pauling, I friggin' love you. Hell, I frickin' adore you! I wanna date you like, forever. Past forever. Super mighty-morphin forever."

"Hey, Liam.... Me too," she said. She cleared her throat awkwardly.

"What?"

"What, do I have to make a vlog in response to yours? I'm saying---me too."

All she heard was the phone dropping and a whole bunch of whoohooohooos! She couldn't help but laugh. Hell, she wouldn't be surprised if he didn't record it, then broadcast it later on.

"Wait, we should do this over. We could definitely do a great Han and Leia impression here," he said.

"A what?" she said.

"Oh god, you never watched Star Wars?"

"I'm sure you'll rectify that," she said.

"Like hell I will! Not watchin' Star Wars is a crime against nature and humanity. Hey, we could make a reaction video out of it."

She couldn't help but laugh. He'd probably want to put their wedding video online. A reaction video to their wedding. She could just see it now.

She paused at that thought. It'd been so offhand, without fear.

"Hey, turn on the video chat," Liam said.

"I don't have it installed on my phone, just my laptop," she said.

"Crap, then just gimme a second. I'll be there. But listen--all I got in my pocket is a ring pop, and it's covered in pocket fuzz, too. I'll get you a real ring as soon as we get out of here. But I don't want to spend another second not married to you. I was goin' to pick out a ring, but then I realized I wanted to do it with you, because I want to do everythin' with you. You're my best friend, you're the love of my life. You can have a family heirloom, or the biggest rock you ever saw. I know this is fast and all, when it's right, it's right. And I know you're the one for me. I think I knew it from the moment I met you, but realizin' that took me a bunch of months."

"I can't exactly put on my engagement ring if you're over there," Sophie said.

Sophie left her phone on the table, and went to the door. Even though it was impossible.

He really must've left flames this time. It took him less than ten minutes what should've taken much longer.
She met him at the door.

"God, Liam, did you fly here?

"I'm flyin' high on the wings of love!"

Liam grabbed her up, swinging her into the air, and it was only when they came down, laughing between kisses, that he offered her the ring pop.

"Wait, I'm supposed to get on my knees, aren't I? I'm real good at that," Liam said. If his hands weren't full, he would've definitely given himself a high-five.

And it was so Liam. He was stopping in the middle of his proposal to make an oral sex joke. She couldn't help but laugh again.

"Before I met you, I forgot how to be happy. I was killing myself by degrees for a future which was frankly, naive at best, delusional at worst. Liam, I don't think I'd even be alive if I didn't meet you."

"Whatcha want? Tiffany? De Beers? That's literally all I know in terms of jewelry."

"I want you," she said.

"You already got me," Liam said. "Though I don't think the neighbors will like it if I fuck you in the doorway."

"Actually, I talked too soon. As I was goin', Ma called and told me to look in the top dresser yesterday. Apparently, she left it when she was here."

He held out his hand with a slightly tarnished ring, thick with a Celtic knotted pattern. She lifted it up to inspect it.

"Came right over from Ireland with my great-great-great grandma. It's the one thing that wasn't fenced off to pay for the fare when the famine hit. She couldn't bear to part with it. But if you want another one, I know it's old and some girls like real big rocks," he said.

"Are you kidding? This is beautiful," Sophie said. She ran her finger over the knots. "There's so much history here."

"I could always get you both. Just point the way, and we'll be Tiff-beerin' it out," Liam said.

"Three rings in one day? That's got to be a new record," Sophie said.

"If you want rings, we can boot up classic Sonic and have rings for miles," Liam said.

Sophie laughed. She knew her life would be filled with laughter and happiness. And even through the inevitable fights, there'd be make-up sex. She couldn't think of a happier future.


*


Epilogue:


She adjusted her purple Gucci suit, and cleared her throat. "Let the games begin."

Was there enough gravity? The Administrator could make any boardroom quiver, even ones full of fellow CEOs which fancied themselves badasses until they met her.

"Nice, babe! surprised you don't have that like, hot linebacker look all the gals had in the 80s."

She laughed. "You want me to put on shoulder pads?"

"I'm just sayin', it's hot how they look like they could kick your ass in the boardroom, then throw you over their shoulder and take you back to their mansion where they ride you. By the way, I got Mark in. I told him we'd start with a charity about hugging dogs. He was totally down."

"A dog hugging charity?"

"hug 'em as you adopt 'em from the pound," Liam said. "it's just the first one. We're goin' to stream for charity every Sunday anyways. It's a tradition."

This was her empire. A series of self-made millionaires who screamed at video games in varying stages of drunkenness.

"Lemme go get the mail. I'll be right back."

A few moments later, he returned and held up envelopes in one hand, and curled up magazine in the other.

"I checked around the corner, and--Babe, it's here!"

Liam lifted it above his head, like it was a trophy. He tossed the envelopes carelessly on the table, and quickly flipped the magazine open. "I'm gonna have it framed. You look so good here, I wanna look at you every single mornin' like that. You got top billin', you ain't even on a list: you are the list. I can't take it, I gotta vlog about this right now."

He was so excited, he looked about ready to run up the walls. She couldn't help but laugh.

"Hey, wait a minute," she called after him. "Since this is probably going to take five hours...don't I get a victory kiss?"

"Of course, babe."

He bent down and kissed her forehead. "Ahem," she said and pointed to her lips.

"God, I love it when you command me to do stuff," Liam said.

He kissed her so hard she was nearly dipped, nearly fell onto the couch, and they only broke apart due to how much they were laughing.

"Could you hold back the vlogging for just a second? I want to experience this moment with you," she said.

"Anythin' for you," he said.

She quickly read over the article.

Elle's One's to watch: 11 women Who just might change the world.
Lady of The Games: A New Frontier of Media.

Sophie Pauling resides over The Gravel Wars, the latest production for the Kings of Youtube. Below was a blurb which listed how she'd changed the entire gaming scene.

Interviewer: First off, did you expect your life to take this turn?

Sophie: No, not at all. My MBA didn't prepare me for the complexities of screaming at video games. (laugh.) But it's really incredible to be on the edge of a new media empire. Every day I'm challenged running an operation this size. Keeping up with trends has never been my strength, but it's integral to the job and means that I'm never bored.

Interviewer: A new media of screaming at video games?

Sophie: Not just that. Liam--and other Youtuber's, like Markiplier--have made a concentrated effort to help their fanbase with inspirational vlogs and by pushing for charitable drives. Last year, The Gravel Wars clocked in over a billion combined for charity with the weekly charity streams. Several of the other Youtubers have been doing it on their own with figures in the hundred thousands, but organized together the numbers really started to get raised. They run very tight networks. A few people for editing, occasionally animation. Before I came on board and started to make the Gravel Wars network, it was very disorganized.

After that, well they started putting that money into the community. When Vine was threatened to be taken down earlier this year, Liam bought it. He's funded a new community center, and helped keep a school from closing. And that's just the beginning.

Interviewer: Interesting. Has this new media affected sales of--video games?

Sophie: Surprisingly, yes. A game developer reported a 60% increase in sales after his game was streamed.

Interviewer: How has your life changed since becoming "The Lady of the Games?"

Sophie: (Laughs.) You mean other than the fact that I can actually sleep now? Well, other than that-It was all really sudden. I didn't foresee my life turning out like this, but now I can't see myself doing anything else.

It ended there, poignant but extremely abridged.

"They edited a lot out," she said. There'd originally been a bit more about her education, her leaving her previous job and others. Maybe it was for the best that was cut. The last thing she needed was some lawsuit from the Administrator.

Liam made a move to rise up. "I'll start up a hashtag right now to get it put back in--"

She took ahold of his arm, and pulled him back down. "No need," she said.

"I'm perfectly happy with how it is. With how everything is."

And as he leaned down to kiss her, she truly was.

Author's note:

This is my biggest completed fic at the moment. Some of my WIPs are bigger, but they are still unfinished at this point. It also started as the literary equivalent of a shitpost, so there's that.

As for the characterization, alcoholic Sophie is closer to canon than you'd think. In the space this fic was largely conceived, she drank on the job twice to the point of extreme tipsiness, (TF comics 4 and the comic that came with Gun Mettle) even when there was grave danger, and there were voice lines where she out drank Demoman and was completely smashed -- from Tough Break.

Though the extent of her drinking was largely her not having the method of venting out steam--aka murder, and was thus forced to deal with her issues in other ways.

(Some people use murder to cope!)

It also shows through how hard I was working myself in 2016 when the brunt of this came out. (For the record I wasn't drinking, but trying to desperately lessen stress and feeling pulled apart, and that my effort was unappreciated was a big mood for that year and earlier.) It also has a touch of the severe health problems (kidney) that manifested in '17.

PewdiePie doesn't exist in this universe, because Liam essentially took his role as king of Youtube LPers. (Though Felix does exist, and he definitely found and married Martzia.) Though he's far less shock jock than PewDiePie and is far sweeter. Liam is more a Markiplier and Jerma mix with canon aspects of Scout and Nathan Vetterlein thrown in, and some of his own swag shirt charm.

Though PewDiePie showed up in earlier drafts, as the story went on, he got edited out.