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♯1 ─ chat spots nat in the background.

smiling, you watch as the first messages of today’s stream appear on screen, the chat picking up speed as more viewers join in. lately, your streams have started gaining quite some traction, and so you try not to pay the already high, but exponentially increasing number any mind and decide to focus on the more familiar names instead. it isn’t all that surprising that van is among your first viewers, bringing up the topic of natalie right from the start, as if you hadn’t just talked to her about it face to face the other day. with the amount of followers you’ve been gaining, you decided it would be for the best to keep some of your personal life private, but neither chat nor your real life friends seem to have gotten the message yet, given that your ‘secret girlfriend’ has become one of your viewers’ favorite topics to discuss. “vandyke69,” you start, grimacing at the username, “we’ve talked about that before.”

thank god for your mods, jumping in when more messages pop up. as annoying as van’s stupid attempts are to steer the conversation towards nat, worse is only the user going by the name pitgirl.mi, whose messages you’ve been noticing for quite some time now: her mostly harmless teasing (at least you assume that’s what is it, because she’s never once missed one of your streams, so some part of her must enjoy watching you) never outright goes against the guidelines, but it’s never anything you’d deem nice, either. “and thanks for the donation, antlerqueen!” you say instead, ignoring that.

behind you, you hear nat shuffle under the blanket where she’s been hiding on your bed, making a face at the loud crinkling sound it causes. you can just hope your microphone won’t pick up on it, because you’d only agreed to let her hide in the background of your stream so long as she doesn’t draw any attention to herself. in hindsight, that was a really fucking stupid idea, but nat wanted to spend more time with you, and who are you to turn her down? “i’ll show you ‘the woman’ once you guys learn how to behave,” you lean in extra close to the mic to cover the rustling as your eyes scan over another message.

“uh....” glancing over your shoulder, you blush at that user’s observation. there goes your plan to keep this discreet. “that’s my- my pillow, chat!” you fake a cough right into the microphone when you hear nat’s muffled attempt to hold back her giggles upon hearing that, and quickly add: “anyway, we’re not here for that!”

♯2 ─ nat’s first ever voice reveal.

nat stands just out of frame on the day she agrees to speak to your viewers for the first time. to be fair, it’s more you who had to agree: she’d been begging nonstop to be featured in one of your streams until you finally relented and let her have this. starting with a simple voice reveal seemed like a good compromise for both of you, so here she is, the mic angled in her direction, leaning forward whilst still making sure she stays out of your viewers’ sight. you keep your eyes fixed on the screen all the while, ready to yank the camera away, in case nat accidentally leans too far in as she rasps: “hi chat.”

from the corner of your vision, you watch nat read through the absolute flood of incoming comments & reactions, a grin forming on her lips the longer she watches chat. “vip knows nothing,” you quickly pull the microphone toward yourself again and roll back into position in your chair. “but vandyke’s right, she is nice, guys.” beside you, nat chuckles, not quiet enough for the sound not to get picked up by the microphone. you still shoot her a playful glare, but by then it’s too late already.

♯3 ─ nat’s face reveal.

not long after the voice reveal stream, during which nat had ended up engaging with your viewers a lot, she agrees to do an actual, proper face reveal. that first time on stream has seemingly gotten her excited, and between the voice reveal & the day she decides to show her face, the two of you spent plenty of time talking it through before eventually agreeing to do it without much of an announcement or ‘build up’ beforehand. your chat reacts accordingly when people begin joining the stream, expecting nothing out of the ordinary, only to find both you and nat sitting in your usual setup, watching new messages come in. “fuck...” nat murmurs, smiling at the screen in amazement.

you grin too (despite the nerves of revealing yet another part of your private life to your ever growing audience), if only because of van’s reaction. you knew telling her about your account would result in her watching some of your streams just out of curiosity, but you couldn’t have anticipated her becoming one of your most active viewers. “no, van, this was all pretty spontaneous,” you reply, reaching for the water bottle on your desk to take a sip.

“hi, antler queen!” nat greets in the meantime, easily taking over the job of engaging with your chat. “yeah,” she chuckles at another message, “i’m ‘the girlfriend.’”

“i know, right, buzzbuzz09?” you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand before turning to look at nat, whose eyes are still set on the screen. it’s a relief to see her having fun with this; nat had always been interested and, more importantly, supportive of your work, but getting to let her become an actual part of it (and seeing your viewers react so positively) is everything you could’ve hoped for.

♯4 ─ chat noticing nat.

a knock on the door snaps you out of the video game you’re currently playing, still grinning at a joke one of your mods had made when you notice nat in the doorway. you quickly push one side of your headphones off and, even quicker, mute your stream and pause your game. “what’s up?” you ask, then add: “i’m on mute, they can’t hear you.”

nat smiles. “don’t worry. i’m gonna head out now, okay?”

“sure,” you hum, swiveling from side to side in your chair, “meeting up with van?”

“yeah,” she nods, “and picking up some groceries. do you need anything?”

you frown, eyeing the screen in your peripheral, where people have already started pointing out that you’re on mute and, worse, concluded that you must be taking to nat. “van is in chat right now,” you say as you turn back to her.

“great, it’ll be like a fucking baby monitor.”

you narrow your eyes as nat grins at you and repeats: “so, do you need anything?”

“a less attentive chat,” you mutter, “shane kemp says hi.”

“right…” she rolls her eyes affectionately. “i’m gonna go now.”

“have fun!” you still call after her, smiling to yourself once you turn back to your chat and unmute.

♯5 ─ chat asking for potential streams with nat.

“nat!” you call down the hallway. she’d accidentally walked through the background of your stream once, but these days, one nat sighting (even if it is only one single glimpse of her in the background of your streams), is enough for chat to go all crazy. now, though, one user in particular had brought up an interesting idea.

“what’s up?” her head appears around the doorframe, fully visible to your viewers this time.

“buzzbuzz09 wants to know if we’re gonna start streaming together?” you spin in your chair to face her. your relationship, which had been some great mystery at the start of your streaming career, is a fan favorite by now. a couple of weeks ago, some viewers had also started finding nat’s instagram and, while it had been a little weird at first, it wasn’t all that hard for them to do, considering nat’s account was public, and you were already following her on your main. besides, she didn’t mind once people started tagging her in fan edits.

nat chuckles as she runs a hand through her freshly bleached hair. “they’re asking for that now, huh?”

“yeah,” you nod, glancing back at the screen. “i think a lot of people would like that.”

+ TEXTS WITH STREAMER GIRLFRIEND NAT.

▸ you’ve lost track of time while streaming & she wants to go to bed.

▸ asking nat if she’s okay with being on stream today.

▸ nat distracting you via text during one of your streams.

▸ nat & your cat daughter.