sophrosyne

women. they were so amazing and talented, never once had they failed to amaze you - including aoc. yes, you liked men too but that’s not important right now. what was important was trying to get aoc to break up with her boyfriend, riley whatever. and yes, you know you should never idolize politicians and such, but she was just too cute - you couldn’t help it. hearing her cute little laugh when you playfully flirted with her made your insides all giddy. and not to forget her replies to some of the pick-up lines, they just made you want to melt. if you were honest she was making the whole lobby melt with her cuteness, the chat too. 

while you were waiting for new people to join, you moved your character next to aoc’s and tried to sweep her off her feet.  “aoc, you know, when i was younger….” you trailed and sighed, waiting for her response.

“oh? what is it y/n?” she asked, voice filled with concern. cute, she was genuinely worried. you felt kind of bad for making her worry, but you gotta do what you gotta do. 

“my parents, they,” you paused for a dramatic effect and sighed once more, “they told me disney land was the happiest place on earth… they clearly were never in a discord call with you…”

she laughed, shaking her head. chat was flying by, some calling you out for flirting with a politician and how bad it was but you didn’t care. “that was super cheesy, but i loved it!” she exclaimed, laughing even harder. 

you smiled, happy could make her laugh. she was so sweet and full of life, you were more than glad you even got to breathe the same air as her. not only was she extremely intelligent, but she also had the looks of a goddess, how could you possibly control yourself? you were sure work was extremely taxing on her being, mentally and physically and you were glad you could at least make her laugh in tough times. a discord notification interrupted your thoughts, someone had joined the call. 

“aoc meet corpse, corpse meet aoc!” poki said, excitement evident in her voice.

“oh, hi aoc, y/n” corpse said, voice kind of quiet. he was probably nervous, i mean who wouldn’t be - you were playing with a fucking polititican. 

“hello, corpse!” aoc replied, very clearly smiling as she spoke. you couldn’t blame her, corpses voice could make anyone smile. 

“heya corpsie,” you paused and turned your attention back to aoc, mimicking a kiss noise in your mic as your googles touched, “for my favorite girl!” chat, once again, exploded. the others in the call all laughed, except for your favorite dead body - how only let out an awkward huff, not that you noticed or cared. 

after a couple more jokes and pick-up lines, the game started. you were, like always, a crewmate. you decided to let aoc have some space and ran off to finish your tasks, starting in navigation. you did your card swipe and began making your way to electrical, passing sean on your way there. as you finished your download, a body was reported. 

“it was in reactor,” toast made a little hmm noise and continued, “where was everyone?” everyone said where they were, or described it to the best of their abilities. 

“i think sean is a little sus, only because i saw him walk away from that direction…” you trailed off, waiting to see if anyone cleared him or had suspicions. 

“i, i think it’s aoc,” corpse said, slightly stuttering - poor baby was probably sweating in anxiety. 

“what! what makes you say that, corpse?” aoc replied, clearly shocked at the sudden accusation. 

you smiled to the camera, a perfect opportunity for a certain pick up line, “corpse! i agree completely!” 

“i didn’t do anything,” aoc mumbled, obviously confused.

“aoc...my dear beloved...vented!” you paused to hear the shocked gasps from the others, “into my heart!” 

the call was silent for a moment as everyone processed what you said, but was quickly filled with laughter from all your friends. aoc let out a little giggle, “you guys had me worried!” 

“aoc’s not denying that she vented….speedrun?” corpse asked, voice soft as he finished talking. 

“hey- wait ! i don’t even know how to vent-” the suspect tried to defend herself, but it was drowned out by corpse chanting ‘speedrun’.

“corpse you seemed so nervous and polite when you first aoc, why are you meme voting her out your first game together?” sean asked, a teasing tone in his voice.

corpse didn’t reply, too distracted with chanting ‘speedrun’. aoc was panicking, she had no idea what was happening.

sean made a little ‘ohh’ sound, finally realizing what was happening, “corpse, are you upset that y/n found a new favorite person?”

toast spoke up, “that explains his unusual behavior, normally y/n is using her terrible pick up lines on him so maybe, just maybe, he’s jealous.” 

poki slapped her hand over her mouth dramatically, “it’s all coming together!” 

“awww, corpsie! is that why you want to vote out my pretty girl aoc?” maybe teasing him wasn’t the best decision, but it was the funniest. 

he stopped chanting, and stayed quiet for a few seconds. “no…” he trailed off, voice barely a whisper. 

“corpse, my beautiful boy,” you laughed and shook your head, smiling so much it hurt, “you’ll always be my favorite boy.” 

“eyeliner?” corpse asked, raising an eyebrow at you.

you nodded and gave him a small smile, “c’mon, pretty please?” you two stared at each other, your smile growing by the second as he stayed silent, probably having an inner argument with himself. 

he sighed and slumped into the couch, “do anything for your girlfriend, a wise simp once said.”

you jumped with joy and ran to the bathroom, humming a little tune as you went. quickly, you went through all your makeup till you found your beloved eyeliner and ran back to the living room where corpse was waiting for you. you sat down next to him and moved his hair out of his face, kissing his forehead once you were satisfied.  

“be careful ok? i already have enough eye problems,” he joked as he closed his eyes, letting his body relax as he felt your body heat come closer. 

you hummed in response and began his eyeliner, trying to make it suit his tastes. a dramatic cat eye with one of those inner corner points you saw on tiktok - not to forget a little heart under his right eye. you backed away from his face and did some last minute adjustments, laughing as you looked at your stylish boyfriend, “all done!”

he opened his eyes and smiled at you, grabbing your phone and opening the camera. he was greeting with his face, not his favorite sight, with some eyeliner. if he was honest, he kinda liked it. it made him feel pretty, something he wasn’t really familiar with. he looked up with you, heart swelling with love as you smiled back at him, eyes creasing and everything. he leaned forward and gave you a kiss on both cheeks, voice soft as he spoke, “i love it, thank you baby.”

some things were perfect the way they were, and one of those things included your friendship. you two were happy as friends, and didn’t need the stress of a relationship or something. not that corpse would imagine you two in a relationship, he would never like you like that.

or so he thought. after texting non stop for weeks and calling every other night, he couldn’t stop himself. he liked you, in a not so friend like way. he couldn’t help it, you were just everything he could want in a person and more. he didn’t want to seem selfish and possibly ruin your friendship, so he kept it all inside. he never told a soul and avoided talking about you and risking the chance of revealing his deepest secrets. then, among us came out. a game with cute little beans in space, where you got to know your friends secrets and how they deceived you. his worst nightmare. he was fine playing with his other friends, but the second you were mentioned or joined he broke into a nervous sweat. would he slip up and would they notice something was wrong? so, he just stayed quiet. talking the bare minimum, and trying to occasionally crack jokes so people don’t get too suspicious or worried, and to hear your laugh. he avoided streaming when you were playing together, he couldn’t risk forgetting to mute and exposing himself. 

but, even without saying a lot when you were playing together were so fun. just hearing your voice made him feel better. he loved just running around you and just getting as close as possible to your character without touching and quickly running away and hearing your giggle, it made his day. he wanted so badly to just make your own characters kiss and live vicariously through his character, but then no one will shut up about it and make him rethink everything. 

but just like everything else, it came to an end. he fucked up. he wasn’t thinking and ran up to your character and gave it a kiss, mimicking a kiss noise under his breath. the loud and exciting call fell silent for a moment, but said nothing. he kissed lots of people, why would it be different now? unluckily for him, twitter thought differently. thousands of tweets with theories about your relationship, and hours later you dmed him, asking for him to address it because you were tired of the harassment. so, he did. he told everyone there was nothing between you, and prayed that you wanted to change that. 

“i’m just scared, you know?” you mumbled, burying yourself into the covers. “we’re losing money, can we even afford to live here? and the hospital bills are so much money! its fucking insane! you thousands to even have a chance at surviving its such bull-”

“i know, i’m scared too,” he sighed, sitting up and playing with his rings. “i just don’t know if i want to put all the stress of my problems on you, i want you to be happy,” he looked down at the floor, voice cracking here and there. 

“hey, don’t say that ok?” you sat up and put your hands on his, “i believe in us, ok? it’s just scary sometimes.” he looked at you, his eyes soft and a small nervous smile on his face. “we’ll figure something out, i’ll get another job if i have to!” 

he shook his head, “no, i don’t want you to overwork yourself love. i’ll work something out, ok?”

--

that conversation was barely a month ago, and things did work out. corpse was everywhere, and not for negative reasons. everyone loved him, and money was no longer an issue. and not to forget how much his mental health had improved immensely thanks to all the supportive comments from his fans. 

you two laid on the couch, cuddling as you watched a shitty horror movie. “so you paid for it out of pocket?” you asked, playing with corpses hair. 

he nodded, “i just can’t believe this, just a couple weeks ago i was broke and scared…” he leaned into your touch, “thank you for believing in me, i wouldn’t be here without you.”

“im so proud of you,” you gave him a little forehead kiss, “i will always believe in you, no matter what.”

“hey guys,” you softly spoke, nervously rubbing your hands together. the gang all replied with their hello’s, to both you and their streams. you ran around the lobby, your flamingo hat bouncing with every step you took, “do you guys like my hat?”

“oh, y/n, very fashionable!” sean laughed, running around besides you. everyone hummed in agreement, watching as you stopped moving and stood next to corpse. 

“corpsie? what do you think?” your character moved closer to his with every word, your goggles touching. 

“it’s very cute, it really suits you,” he spoke under his breath towards the end, almost unintelligible. his voice was also softer than normal, almost like he was talking to a young child. 

you smiled, moving your character into his, “thank you corpse! you look very nice too~”

felix let out a gasp, “corpse! you bitch! cheating on sykkuno! i can’t believe this, wait till toast finds out…”

“wait what? no no there’s nothing betwe-” sykkuno replied, cut off by corpse before he could reply. 

“i would never cheat on sykkuno, now start the game,” chat for sure freaked out over that. 

and with that, the game started. “imposter” in big red text appeared on your screen, right about poki and you. you let out a small sigh, too nervous to say anything to chat. you stood in cafeteria for a second, watching closely as corpse ran in circles around your character. “i hope i don’t have to kill him, everyone will be disappointed,” you trailed off and made your way to storage - corpse following closely behind.

after faking gas and watching corpse do simon says, a body was found. 

“rae’s body was in o2, so who was on right?” sean questioned, doing his best to intimidate corpse. 

corpse sighed, “y/n and i were left the whole time, we didn’t see anyone, “ he paused for a second and let out a little laugh, “and you’re gonna kill your throat if you keep doing that man.” 

everyone else stated where they were, but no one was sus enough to be voted out. they did have some suspensions on poki, but she lied her way out of it. the next round started and corpse was following you again, watching the door to whatever room you two were in. sean ran into the two of you in admin and corpse watched him closely, following his every step. and finally, another body was reported. 

“sykkuno was in med on the scanner, i didn’t see anyone nearby,” pewds said, clearly disappointed sykkuno got murdered. 

“jesus i walked into admin and corpse was hardcore body guarding y/n-” sean mumbled, unable to finish his sentence thanks to you. 

“hey, wait a sec! where did you come from? like before admin? it looked like you came from cafe…” you trailed off, letting out a little ‘hmmm’. 

“yeah, sean, did you kill sykkuno? my sykkuno?” corpse raised his voice, ignoring the little laughs from his friends.

“what? no i would-”

“SPEEDRUNNNN!” felix and corpse yelled together, little ‘i voted’ stickers appearing next to their characters simultaneously. in the end, sean was ejected. only 4 more people to kill till you and poki won. 

the round started, and you and corpse made your way to navigation. suddenly, poki killed the lights. you smiled and watched as corpse made his way towards lights, while you stayed right in nav. leslie started walking down from weapons. you went into the hallway and killed her, and quickly ran to the vent and went to electrical acting like you were watching corpse and poki fix lights the entire time. 

suddenly, a meeting was called, “ok, who was on left before lights were called?” 

“oh, poki and i were in reactor,” charlie paused, “where was body?”

“it was right outside of nav, so you and poki are safe,” felix claimed, not knowing how wrong he was. 

“wait, i think i saw corpse and y/n come from the general direction...care to explain yourselves?” hopefully poki didn’t just accidentally throw you under the bus.

you cleared your throat and nervously spoke, making your voice a little higher to seem more innocent, “well, corpse and i were in nav then i left to lights, im assuming he just followed me.”

felix whispered a soft ‘speedrun’, repeating himself and slowly getting louder. 

“hey wait guys, i was with y/n for like the whole game and how do we know it’s not a self report?” corpse attempted to defend himself, it all meant nothing as felix explained that charlie saw him scan and that as soon as he wasn’t in your vision someone died. 

he was voted out, and no one was suspicious of you or poki. on the final round, you and her did a double kill and won, shocking everyone. 

“that was so stressful! corpse kept following y/n i have no idea how she did that!” poki screamed, praising you for your job well done. 

“im so sorry you had to kill everyone,” you giggled, “but i was having fun with corpsie as my body guard~”

“i had no idea it was you, y/n. maybe im just a silly goose,” corpse huffed, running around your character. everyone let out a little laugh, agreeing with him. 

“sorry, next game i’ll be your body guard to pay you back, ok?” you played with your hair, a dumb smile on your face. 

“no, i’ll protect you,” he mumbled quietly, voice gentle as your characters touched eyeballs.