#starsfics

It didn’t happen often and it was usually resolved just as quickly as it started. Honestly, they were more like simple disagreements than fights. The same could not be said for some of your previous relationships, Spencer knew vaguely that you didn’t consider your time with your exes healthy, but he never wanted to pry into your past too much. You two were creatures of logic, so it was easy to remedy the situation, all you needed was a proper conversation and the entire ordeal was over. After all, whenever people came to either of you for relationship advice, you always told them communication was key.

But sometimes, things aren’t so simple. And sometimes both of you come home from your respective jobs stressed from overtime and with a million things on your minds. He had some strict deadlines mixed with technical issues and last minute urgent schedule revisions, with a healthy dose of corrupted footage to top it all off. At the same time, you happened to be dealing with a new manager breathing down your neck, an issue with the filing system at work that meant you needed to do physical filing all week, half your team calling in sick, and worst of all, the coffee machine broke yesterday.

By the time you got home, you were hangry and so tired you felt like you could collapse at any moment.

You rummaged through your bag for your apartment keys when you almost rammed directly into Spencer in front of the door.

“Oh, hey babe”, you gave him a tired smile he returned before pecking you on the lips.

“Hi honey”, he replied sweetly while unlocking the door, “looks like we’re both home late today.”

You sighed as you walked inside, he was holding the door open like the gentleman he was.

“Yeah”, you kicked your shoes off and dropped your work bag by the door like it weighed a tonne, “what a long day.”

“Tell me about it”, he mirrored your sigh and he also took his shoes off, almost losing his balance and stumbling. He was clearly just as exhausted as you. “What do you want to do about dinner? I’m thinking of ordering either Chinese or Thai, but you get the final call.”

“Spence”, you started, trying not to sound frustrated, “I thought we agreed we would only order in once a week to save money. We already got takeaway yesterday.”

“I know, Y/N”, he seemed to be trying to show the same restraint as you, “but we’re both late today and clearly tired, so I thought it was a better idea than cooking something ourselves.”

“Yes, but”, you entered the kitchen as he trailed behind you, “it’ll be faster if we just cook something, we already have a bunch of ingredients here, they’ll go to waste if we don’t use them soon.”

“I understand that”, he sounded like he was losing his patience, you could feel yourself losing yours too. “But I really don’t have the energy to cook something. Do you?”

You were starting to feel annoyed, you tried to push down the feeling, knowing it was unreasonable, you were just tired.

“No”, you replied, opening up the fridge and crossing your arms as you inspected the groceries inside, “but if you don’t want to help, I’ll do it.”

“Don’t do that, babe”, he groaned, leaning against the kitchen counter and hanging his head down.

“Do what?” You furrowed your brow, bending down to see how many eggs you had left.

“Make me the bad guy”, he responded, lifting his head, “making it out as if I don’t want to help you when you know I would normally, I’m just so tired.”

“Well, so am I”, you tried to keep your voice level.

“Then let’s just order in!”

You sighed even heavier than before.

You two were going in circles. Ironically, logical as you both were, you were also incredibly stubborn. Part of you wanted to concede, give up and let him order some takeaway food. But the other part of you, the fiery argumentative part of you wanted to fight back, prove you were right. It was the side of you that would normally lose out, but the exhaustion was causing a severe lack of judgement and your emotions were too heightened.

“Whatever”, you muttered, shutting the fridge loudly without looking back at him. “I’m not even hungry”, you lied as you left the kitchen, heading to the bathroom to take a much needed hot shower.

You regretted your childish actions almost as soon as the bathroom door clicked shut. You stared at yourself in the mirror for a moment, the dark circles under your eyes and slight downturn of your lips. You looked a mess, felt it too. You were so glad it was Friday and you could sleep in tomorrow. But your gut twisted thinking about that whole interaction with Spencer, you probably could have handled it better, but he could have too. You both had agreed to limit your spending on takeaway food, he was even the one to suggest it.

You shook your head, trying to empty it from the thoughts that were getting too loud, and started undressing to take your shower.

☆

When you emerged from the bathroom later, the apartment was noticeably silent.

You braced yourself, “Spence?” You called out to him. Nothing.

You checked around all the rooms, he was nowhere to be found.

Great, you thought to yourself, you’ve really gone and done it now, he’s probably gone off to stay somewhere else for the night because you threw a tantrum about bloody dinner of all things.

You walked into the kitchen again, placing your hands on the counter where he had just been before you stormed out. It was cold now.

You’d never had an actual argument like that with Spencer, it was so dumb but the feelings felt legitimate. You were doing so well, not letting your temper or bad habits from previous relationships interfere with you and him. Your last couple of exes would have turned the conversation into a screaming match, that was part of why you escaped to the bathroom so quickly, not wanting either of you to start yelling. You knew in your heart that Spencer would never raise his voice at you like they did, but you also thought that about your exes before they went and did exactly that. You’ve never told Spencer about what your past relationships were like, partly because he didn’t pry, partly because you were ashamed.

You cut off the buzz from the old light fixtures by flicking the switch off. You had lost your appetite for real now. Still too proud to contact him, you crawled into bed. The exhaustion made your bones ache and they felt like they were creaking as you relaxed into your soft bedding. You were too tired to think hard about sleeping so early with an empty stomach and without your beloved boyfriend beside you. You were so drained, you didn’t even have time to plan how you were going to try to fix things tomorrow before you dozed off.

☆

You weren’t sure how long you had slept for, but there was bright light flooding into the room between the blinds and you felt reasonably refreshed as you sat up, stretching. You were still a little drowsy, but the absolute exhaustion from last night, hell, from the entire last week, was all gone. You glanced at the bedside table, you had probably slept about fourteen hours.

“Shit”, you mumbled to yourself as you rubbed your eyes, the memories of your little argument with Spencer flooding back. You scrambled to grab your phone from where it was charging on the floor, squinting at the screen to see if there were any notifications from Spencer.

No missed calls. No new text messages besides a few from your friends. Your heart ached in your chest, you could feel the guilt settling on your mind like a weight. You had to reach out to him, say something, make sure he was safe, wherever he was.

You sat back in your empty bed, leaning against the headboard. You glanced down at Spencer’s side of the bed. At some point in the night, you had cocooned yourself in the blankets, so it was bare. You reached out, feeling like you might cry out of frustration at yourself and your big mouth, but before you put your hand down, you heard the sound of metal being banged around, something clattering to the floor and voice faintly swearing. You knew that voice better than any other sound in the world.

You jumped up, practically ripping the bedroom door open as you rushed to the kitchen. You appeared in the doorway, greeted by the sight of Spencer by the counter, hair messy and wearing those green plaid pyjama pants you always thought he looked so cute in.

Hearing you approach he turned to you quickly, holding a dirty mixing bowl with the remnants of batter inside.

“Hi”, he said awkwardly, grimacing, “did I wake you? I dropped the bowl when I was trying to put it in the sink.”

You blinked at him, not sure what to say. He wasn’t mad at you?

“Um, no”, you responded, “I was already awake.”

“That’s good”, he hummed, continuing what he was doing, rinsing out the bowl, “you were sleeping like the dead, so I was afraid to wake you before you were fully rested.”

You stared at him before turning your gaze away.

“Where did you go last night?” Your voice came out so much smaller than you expected, you weren’t sure he even heard you until he stopped his motions.

He dried his hands, turning to you, resting his backside against the counter.

“I know you didn’t want me to order in but”, he crossed his arms, “I went down the street to get some takeaway.”

You leaned against the side of the doorway, attempting to appear nonchalant, like the weird foreign tension between you two wasn’t bothering you.

“I’m sorry, honey”, he said softly, you lifted your eyes from the spot on the floor you had been inspecting. “You’re right, we did agree to cook at home more, and I should have tried to get home earlier so we could do that. I was so tired from work, I just didn’t have it in me to stay awake and cook.”

You just quietly nodded, searching for your own words, your own apology.

“I went and got takeout, but by the time I came back you were asleep”, he continued, shuffling his foot as if to occupy himself, “I’m sorry for eating without you, I left your portion in the fridge. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me sleeping next to you, so I slept on the couch.”

Your heart was aching again, you felt so bad making him feel unwelcome in his own bedroom.

“But that meant I could get up early without waking you and make your favourite breakfast”, he looked at you sheepishly, a shy grin on his face.

You stepped into the kitchen immediately, and as you scanned the kitchen table the scent hit you. The sweet, sweet aroma of fresh pancakes. They were the most gorgeous stack you’d ever seen, drizzled with syrup and a little bit of butter resting on top, a bowl full of berries sat next to it.

All the emotion hit you at once, like a wave you didn’t properly brace for. The stupid, meaningless argument last night, going to sleep without him, waking up without him, worrying you had ruined everything, finding him labouring over pancakes for you after sleeping on the couch. You felt tears prickle in your eyes and you felt your body tremble with a sob you couldn’t hide.

“Baby?” Spencer rushed over to you, gently grabbing your sides, “hey, hey, what’s wrong?”

“I’m so”, you hiccuped as another sob hit you, “sorry, Spence.”

“What? You don’t need to be sorry”, he chuckled, pulling you into a hug, letting you wet the crook of his neck with your tears.

“I argued with you over nothing”, you cried, “and you never yelled at me and you even bought food for me and you slept on the couch and you made me breakfast.”

As your body was racked with guilty sobs, he held you tightly, hand coming up to stroke your back comfortingly. He was quietly shushing you in that gentle, sweet tone he always did whenever you got upset.

“It’s okay, honey,” he whispered, “I’m sorry for fighting with you when you were so exhausted.”

“Any way you look at it”, another hiccup, “I was the problem. Why didn’t you tell me off?”

He pulled away slightly at that so he could see your face. You looked at him through wet lashes, embarrassed to be crying over something like this.

“I would never”, his stare was unwavering, you hardly ever see him so serious, “never, ever, shout at you. Okay? You are not the problem. I’ll never raise my voice at you, I’ll never ‘tell you off’, because I love you. You’re my partner, not my pet.”

You sniffled, you suspected this was how he felt but it was still somewhat shocking to hear him lay it out so plainly in front of you.

“I love you too”, you choked out, voice taut from crying. “I’m not used to fights resolving without screaming.”

You had intended for your comment to lighten the mood, but instead, Spencer pulled you in tight, one hand stroking your hair.

“I hate that”, he murmured, his breath tickling your ear and sending little shivers down your spine, “you don’t deserve that. You’re safe with me.”

You felt the last of your tears stray down your face as you squeezed him back. You weren’t sure if it was because of his tone of voice, or the way you were slightly swaying together in a quiet kitchen on a sunny Saturday morning, but you believed him. His arms felt like home.

“Thank you, honey”, you whispered back, your eyes drifting to the kitchen table. “Shit”, you groaned, “those pancakes look amazing.”

He chuckled as he pulled away, wiping the few wet patches left on your face dry before guiding you to the table.

“Come on”, he breathed, ever gentle, ever sweet, his hand so warm in your own, “eat up before they get cold. If you want more, I’ll make as many as you want”

☆

Note: Sorry for disappearing for so long! Life has been super hectic, so I’ve been too busy to write, but I would love to get back to it. I’ll try to work through the absolutely backlog of requests in my inbox first! Please be patient with me and let me know what you think about my latest work!! Thank youuu <3

Megumi woke up with a jolt that pulled Yuji from his half sleep.

"Hey, hey, hey, I'm right here," Yuji comforted in a way that came easy only to him.

It took a minute for Megumi to realize his situation. He remembers he was shamelessly staring at Yuji's sleeping form. He was adamant not to blink as he didn't want to lose a single second from the shrinking time they had left. He was to sear Yuji into his memory - how his lashes fell perfectly on his pretty cheeks. The curve of his nose and ears. Even the scars under his eyes. The reason he was going to be executed tomorrow.

As the realization dawned on his sleepy mind, Megumi's eyes became frantic.

Why is he doing this? He knew! He goddamn fucking knew from the second he met him and saw Yuji stuff down the finger that this day would come. Still, he let himself be carried away by Yuji's voice and drowned in his laugh. He should feel stupid, he thinks to himself, for knowing the bare truth and letting himself get hurt like this.

But loving Yuji, for whatever amount of time, had been something he would never trade for anything.

Even if he gets six more hours to love the boy lying beside him in his bed, he would gladly and greedily take it.

Megumi knows the next thing he's about to say is selfish and unempathetic, but at the moment, feeling bared of his skin and sorely vulnerable, he can't help but ask, in hope that maybe once the words leave his mouth they might become real, tangible, possible.

And knowing how entirely wrong it is, he pleads:

"Yuji, please stay."

His frantic eyes have turned into pools of water.

"I'll always stay with you, Megumi," Yuji assured. "Now go back to sleep, love, you've got a long day ahead of you."

"I don't want it to be day. I don't wanna see a sun that will take you away from me forever."

"Nobara said she always sees me in the sun you know, said it reminds her of me, But I don't think I am the sun, it vanishes off every day. I will stay with you forever," Yuji says as he hugs the boy closer.

There's a moment of calm where teh only thing that can be heard is the sound of this breath. Yuji's looking at the ceiling as though he's contemplating something. Megumi's looking at Yuji.

"I'd rather be like the stars. They're there. Always. Even when you can't see them in the day. They're always there. Watching you. They stay. And shine the brightest when you're in the dark, alone, sad, and suffering.

See, Megumi, I'd rather be the stars, like those." Yuji says as he points to Megumi's ceiling. He follows the line of Yuji's arm to find a constellation of stars huddled together at the corner right above his bed. They're so visible Megumi's not sure how he missed them all the months he's been staying there. They look cute he thinks, maybe he and yuji can draw more of them- "Yuji won't be here tomorrow" , a voice seethes into his mind. He can't help the words coming out of him anymore.

"I'll miss you, so fucking much," Megumi blabbered, "and— and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I can't do anything. I wish I could do anything to stop this absolute madness, and I'm sorry Gojo can't do anything, and god, I feel so stupid. I shouldn't have let you eat that damned finger. You don't deserve this, Yuji. Not any of this."

"Nah, you're right. I don't. And you don't either. It's almost like life's unfair," Yuji says, eyes still fixated on the stars on the ceiling.

"You know, you never strike me as the type to draw on your ceiling."

"I didn't. You know they never renovated the paint here, must be from ages ago."

"I'm glad they're there, though. You can always look at them and remember me."

There's a calm silence that embraced them.

"Live a long, happy life, Megumi. I want you to be happy."

"How can I be happy when you're not here?"

The room suddenly feels colder than it is ad though those words were ice, now, with Yuji's full attention on him, Megumi's heart is thundering in his chest, half with terror, half with bewilderment. He can suddenly feel the slow moving of Earth, the fast leaping of time. Every second slipping fast from his fingers, bringing closer the moment he had feared for all these months.

And somewhere in between, he opens his mouth,

"I love you."

The words tumble out of his mouth, unused, locked and hidden away like a sacred secret, because Megumi had been all too afraid of the consequences of them coming to light, had been far too proud to say them. But here, in these final calm moments, in the arms of the boy he loves, he croaks them out—half because he finds it too cruel to let him go without telling Yuji what he means to him, and half because he would not be able to live without telling Yuji.

"I am sorry I didn't- couldn't- say it sooner, but I have loved you all this time, right from the day I saw you." Megumi confesses timidly and bright red.

"Thought this day would never come," Yuji says, laughing as he leans down to kiss Megumi's temple.

"I love you too, Megumi. Always will."

Later, when the day would come and pass, and the world would stop being colorful, when even on the warmest days the sun wouldn't smile down its brightest because Yuji would have taken a part of it with him, when he'll always be a little cold and Nobara would start smoking—

Megumi will lie in the same bed and stare at the stars.

He'll make himself believe that Yuji’s looking down at him like them and will slip into a restless slumber because he can't find peace anymore.

The sky outside will shine with bright stars, because they're there.

“Let’s grab matchas during lunch”, he unceremoniously dumped a pile of scripts he had been helping review on your desk. Your fingers halted on the keyboard upon the interruption.

“Good morning to you too, Mr Agnew”, you replied with faux politeness, grinning when he laughed, “and totally, I was actually craving a matcha, how did you know?”

“I can read your mind”, Spencer widened his eyes and pressed his index fingers to his temple like a cartoon character psychic.

You chuckled, “really?”

He nodded, extremely serious.

“Okay”, you leaned forward a bit in your chair, going along with his bit, “what am I thinking right now?”

“Hmm”, he hummed with pretend concentration, “you’re thinking about how I’m such an amazing friend and you are extremely lucky to have me and your life would not be the same if I wasn’t in it and you want to be besties for the rest of tim-”

“Alright, alright”, you cracked up, cutting his monoglue off, “enough bullshitting, go back to work.”

You turned back to your monitor, still laughing.

He laughed along with you, “well? Was I right?”

“Not even close, bud. I was thinking about how dumb your bedhead looks right now”, you started up your typing again, suppressing a smile.

He cracked up again, shaking his curls out.

“See you at lunch, idiot”, he called out as he walked away.

“Yeah, see you, moron”, you half-shouted back.

You bantered like usual, but something about that interaction made you feel weird, like it planted something in the pit of your stomach. It felt like he had jump started your heart, like he read something on your face you didn’t know was there. You pushed the odd feeling down, trying to focus on your work. Maybe you were just hungry.

☆

Spencer scratched his head, tongue licking his lips absentmindedly. His brows knit together while he was deep in contemplation.

“Are… are you mad at the cookies?”

He jumped, not realising Alexcina had been standing next to him, watching him stare down the container on his desk. It was filled with chocolate chip cookies, a purple post-it note on top reading, ‘made these for you, lmk if you like them - Y/N’.

He shook his head, turning his attention back to the box, one arm crossed and the other brought his hand to his mouth. He bit his nails like he was trying to solve a murder case.

“Well? What’s wrong?” She asked. “You seem perplexed.”

“I am. I am vexed”, he mumbled, “it’s not the cookies. The cookies are probably great, Y/N makes fantastic cookies.”

“Then?” She put her hands on her hips, she was quickly losing patience with his dramatics.

“It’s the strange feeling I got when I saw them”, he continued, “I saw the box, read the note from Y/N, and I got this odd feeling, like there was a bird trapped in my chest or something.”

She stared at him dubiously for a few moments, trying to gauge if he was being serious. He took the silence as a sign to continue.

“You know what I mean? Like there’s an engine starting inside my body, like in my belly”, he sounded so pensive, like genuinely confused, “it’s so freaky, I don’t know why seeing a box of cookies did that.”

“You don’t?” Alexcina looked around, as if wondering if anyone else was witnessing what she was.

“Maybe I need to see a doctor”, he said with an air of finality, “it could be a stomach bug or food poisoning or something, and seeing the cookies is making me feel anxious.”

“That’s a crazy line of reasoning”, she replied, moving towards her desk while shaking her head. “I don’t think you’re sick, Spencer. And don’t you dare take the afternoon off over this, I need you to clear a few things for the next shoot.”

Spencer nodded and saluted her obediently, as if she was the boss. He sat down, grabbing a cookie from the container and biting into it. Just as he suspected: delicious. His confusion melted into satisfaction as he started up his computer. You were always doing all kinds of sweet things for your friends, and he personally loved whenever you baked things. He still couldn’t figure out what that unfamiliar feeling was when he saw your cookies, but they were as good as ever. The vague image of you sticking out your tongue in concentration while measuring out ingredients swam around his head, making him feel warm with appreciation. You really were talented, he made a mental note to let you know how much he loved them later.

☆

It had been weeks since that funny feeling you experienced when Spencer talked to you at work that morning. You two had hung out many times since then without it coming back. You had almost forgotten about it actually, until it happened again.

You heard his voice behind you while you were in the kitchen, putting your lunch in the fridge. “Hey, silly goose.”

You spun around, letting the fridge door shut behind you. You were already automatically smiling when you knew it was him approaching you.

“Morning, Spence”, he flashed his familiar grin back.

“I was looking for you”, he replied, “you weren’t at your desk, I wanted to show you this video.”

He was fiddling with his phone when you cocked your head to the side playfully.

“Aww”, you cooed, putting on that stupid baby voice everyone’s been using around the office as a bit, “little Spencie was lost without me?”

He cracked up, ditching his phone and leaning against the counter as he laughed. You giggled as well, grabbing two mugs to make both your drinks. You loved moments like this, making stupid jokes with your best friend while surrounded by the scent of toast and the coffee of the last person that was in there. One of the perks of working at the same place as Spencer was that the start of your work day was never really that bad, not even on a Monday, because Spencer was there with some silly anecdote, or a funny meme to show you, or a pastry he picked up because he knew you would love it.

“I was”, he interrupted your thoughts once he was done laughing, “I was so lost without you.”

There it was again. That feeling. It was foreign, you don’t think you had ever experienced this sensation hanging out with Spencer before. It made your movements stutter and your palms sweat. For a second you were speechless, you were confused and a little scared, hands hovering over the empty coffee mugs.

“Y/N?” His voice was softer, but he was standing closer to you, his voice was filled with concern, “are you alright? You, like, stiffened up suddenly.”

You turned your head toward him, your heart stirring when you noticed just how close he was. You could smell the woody scent of his cologne, and count every strand of facial hair if you wanted to. You had never noticed just how round and kind his green eyes were. Since when had you two become so comfortable in each other’s faces like this? You realised personal space didn’t really exist between you and that wasn’t a problem normally. But today… Today you immediately felt blood rush to your cheeks and that weird feeling in your gut only got worse.

You quickly stepped back in a panic. Realisation started to hit you slowly like you were staring at the sun rising over the horizon, not looking away as it blinded you. Your breath quickened slightly when you peered at him, unsure what to do. He looked back at you, his own expression confused.

“Yeah”, you eventually breathed out, trying to regulate your heartrate, “yeah, I’m good. Really good.”

With that, you spun on your heel and powerwalked out of the kitchen. You were waddling away as fast as you could before it could be classified as a jog, abandoning the mugs, coffee unmade.

Oh, shit, you thought to yourself, shit, shit, shit. You did actually know that feeling. You hadn’t experienced it in years.

It was a crush. You had a crush on Spencer.

☆

He watched you speed out of the kitchen, an eyebrow raised. You were being really weird, but he was kind of relieved you left because he was starting to feel that strange sensation bubble up in his chest again.

What was happening? Heartburn?

Usually he knew exactly what you were feeling without you having to say it. He could tell just by the way you looked at him, your body language, just the way the air around you changed. You two were normally in sync, but suddenly you were running away from him and he was left with this weird tingly feeling.

He looked down at the two mugs you had left on the counter. You were going to make both your coffees, he assumed, before you ran off like you needed to use the bathroom or something. Looking at the empty mugs, Spencer felt his chest tighten. He never told you how he liked his coffee, you just figured it out from observing him. He realised he knew yours too because he was always watching you, absorbing all the information he could. He loved being anywhere near you whenever he could. When it came to you, he felt like he could never get enough-

He froze, breath catching in his throat. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t considered this a possibility before, but that was exactly what the feeling was. He had a crush on you. An enormous, all-consuming, monstrously gigantic crush. He realised he could recognise you by the smell of your shampoo and the sound of your footsteps. He realised this feeling that seemed new was, in fact, not new at all, it may well have been lingering in the background for a long time.

He was so fucked.

☆

“So, what’s been new with you?”

Bradley took a sip of his coffee while eyeing you expectantly. You were lifting your cup about halfway to your mouth when he asked, his question making you slowly lower it back down onto the saucer.

He was one of your closest friends from college, and you two met to catch up at a cafe every now and then. He was the chronically offline type, so you didn’t really try to update him on your life over text, saving new information for your in-person meetups. This meant you had not told him about your epiphany regarding your feelings for Spencer yet. In fact, you had not told anyone yet because you had no idea how to navigate that. Usually, when there was news to tell, Spencer, a.k.a your best friend, was the person you turned to. Bradley was a really good friend though. You knew you could trust him ever since your first year of college, when you were young and stupid and drank too much at a party and ended up blacking out. You woke up the next day with a pounding headache in his bed while he was sleeping on the floor next to you, one hand holding a bottle of water and the other wrapped around a small rubbish bin filled with your vomit from the night before. He was a real one.

“Okay, there is definitely something new”, he said slowly, watching you stare down at the table dumbly. “What is it?”

You lifted your gaze to meet his. You were normally a super chatty person, especially with a close friend like Bradley, but for some reason the words were simply not coming to you. You choked out a strangled noise that made him raise an eyebrow at you.

“Alright, is it work related?”

You scrunched up your nose and gave a half-shrug.

“It’s kind of work related. Is it about someone at work?”

You sighed, nodding. He studied you for a moment, leaning in close from across the small cafe table. His eyes narrowed as he studied your face, it was as if he was trying to read something that was written on it.

“Oh my god”, he put his cup down and brought both his hands up as if he was surprised, “are you in love with a coworker?”

You almost screamed hearing him say those words out loud. The words you had been trying to avoid even thinking about for around a week now. It was a very real possibility that you were already in love with Spencer, you definitely had a sizable crush on him, and being your best friend, you knew him inside and out, head to toe. However, the thought of falling in love with someone who was so close to you and probably did not feel the same way mortified you to no end.

You covered your face with your hands, suppressing the scream you wanted to let out with a strained groan instead.

“Oof”, Bradley shook his head empathetically, “that bad, huh? What did Spencer say about it?”

You flinched like you had been shot and dread steadily built inside of you.

“Nothing”, you mumbled, he leaned in even closer to hear you, “because I haven’t told him.”

“You haven’t told Spencer?” His tone reached a level of disbelief you didn’t think was possible. Then he paused as he stared at you harder than before, noting the way you fiddled with the handle of your cup and avoided eye contact. “Fucking hell. Y/N, are you in love with Spencer?”

You quickly shushed him, looking around to check nobody from work was around, the cafe you were sitting in wasn’t too far from the Smoffice.

“Stop, stop, don’t say it so loud”, you whined, dejectedly taking a sip of your coffee while Bradley gaped at you. “I haven’t told a single person until now, be gentle with me.”

“This is insane, what happened to being ‘best friends’?” He rested an elbow on the table and leaned his head against his hand, clearly intrigued.

“We still are best friends! I just don’t know what to do with these feelings”, you felt your shoulders droop as you wallowed in your own helplessness, “I’ve been avoiding him the past week because I’m scared he’ll realise my feelings for him and everything will be ruined.”

Bradley clicked his tongue, “that’s just going to make you guys drift apart. If you’re worried about ruining things, the solution is never to run away.”

You took another sip of your drink, mulling over the words he said.

“Well, what the hell else can I do?” Your tone was so pathetic it made you yourself cringe. You had been looking for a solution to your predicament since your realisation and you just kept coming up blank.

“Stop acting so defeated when the battle’s barely begun”, he had a fiery look in his eyes.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” You started to grow concerned with how worked up he was getting.

He ignored your question and pressed his hands together in concentration. The two of you sat there in silent contemplation before he spoke up again.

He held his hands out to his sides like he was proposing a business offer. “Why don’t you just… tell him?”

You stared at him for a moment.

“Are you crazy?” You tried to keep your voice down despite your urge to shout at him.

Bradley shrugged in response, “he might feel the same way, you’ll never know if you don’t say something.”

“He doesn’t”, you said, exasperated.

“How do you know?” He immediately fired back.

Your head swam with a million thoughts. Maybe because you weren’t his type, or maybe because he preferred someone taller or shorter or funnier or more attractive, or maybe because he was simply not interested. Maybe he would never see you as anything more than a friend. But Bradley did have a point in that you didn’t have any way to know for sure without talking to him.

You sighed. “I don’t, I guess, but it’s just not likely.”

He could sense you were a bit upset and decided not to prod any further.

“Okay, well”, he stirred his drink, nudging your arm with his own, “just remember, you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”

“Shut up, Brad.”

☆

You were avoiding Spencer. You were avoiding him and it was driving him crazy.

“Did you do something to piss them off?” Shayne enquired as Spencer paced around the living room.

Third wheeling Courtney and Shayne was one of his favourite pastimes and the couple didn’t even blink when he showed up at their door unannounced. After listening to his woes, they were offering emergency counselling from the comfort of their couch.

It wasn’t like you were completely ignoring him.You still chatted with him at work when he initiated it, but it was always a little stiff and oddly polite, always ending with you making an excuse and running off somewhere. You two still texted but you were giving him half-hearted, dry replies. Every time he asked to hang out together, you had some kind of convenient reason you couldn’t make it. It made Spencer want to tear his own hair out. As soon as he realised his feelings for you, you don’t want to be around him anymore. He was filled with dread that you may have found out about his crush on you and was repulsed, but he hadn’t told anyone yet besides his mother.

“No”, Spencer replied, then hesitated, “I don’t think so, at least.”

Courtney pitched in, “maybe they’re focusing on something in their personal life right now?”

“But they would normally tell me all about it, they’d normally tell me everything”, Spencer stopped pacing, running his hands down his face in exasperation, “I don’t know what changed.”

Shayne and Courtney shared a look.

“I have a funny feeling…” Shayne said barely loud enough for Spencer to hear.

“... Something did change”, Courtney finished his sentence, looking back at Spencer with raised eyebrows. “I know this situation is distressing, but you’re acting extra freaked out. Wouldn’t you usually just ask them what was going on? What’s different now?”

Spencer gulped, he felt his body slowly grow warmer and the air in the room felt eerily still. The two sets of eyes peering at him curiously suddenly felt intimidating, like he was being scrutinised in an interrogation.

“Uhh”, he responded very intelligently, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Shayne and Courtney looked at each other again. Spencer hated when they did that, like they were having some kind of telepathic conversation without him.

“You don’t?” Shayne’s eyes flicked to his, then back to Courtney’s when he shook his head in response.

Spencer played dumb, hoping they hadn’t read him like a book, “what’re you two hinting at?”

“Spencer”, Courtney started, then hesitated. They glanced at Shayne, who nodded slightly in response. “Are you in love with Y/N?”

Panic set in and it was as if Spencer’s body spasmed by itself. He stumbled back in shock, smacking his arm into the bookshelf behind him.

“Ow!” Spencer hissed, rubbing the side of his arm. Then he turned back to see the other two staring at him expectantly. “Um, I’m injured, I have to go home.”

He turned to leave, only halting when he felt two pairs of hands grab his shoulders.

“No leaving until you answer the question!” Shayne’s grip was alarmingly tight and spun him around effortlessly so he was facing the two of them.

“Come on, Spence”, Courtney’s tone was a lot more calm than Shayne’s, “we’re your friends, if you can tell anyone, you can tell us!”

He opened his mouth to lie again, but faltered looking at their earnest expressions. They were right.

“Okay”, he sighed, conceding, “I… I think- well, yes. Quite frankly, I think I’ve been in love with them for a while.” His ears burned bright red at the admission while giant grins spread across Courtney and Shayne’s faces.

“We knew it”, Courtney beamed.

“We did, we did”, Shayne nodded in affirmation, “and it’s hard to ignore all the sexual tension.”

Spencer groaned in humiliation.

“Sexual tens-?” He cut himself off, shaking his head and electing to ignore Shayne’s comment. “Do you think they realised? Is that why they’re avoiding me?” Spencer could feel himself begin to spiral. This whole thing was making him feel like an insane person and combining that with the mortification of telling these two about his feelings for you, it was a double hit combo to the gut.

“Hey, no”, Shayne soothed, “honestly, I don’t think they know, man. I doubt this would be their response, you really should just talk to them.”

“And also tell them how you feel”, Courtney cut in.

“That too!”

Spencer let out another groan. How had he gotten himself into this mess?

☆

You missed Spencer. You missed getting lunch together, and watching movies at his place, and calling late at night just to tell him a stupid story from that day. You missed the gentle brushes of your hands, and your legs pressed against each other’s when you sat side-by-side, and the stolen glances you never realised meant so much to you. You missed how hard he made you laugh, you missed staring into those green eyes, and you missed that stupid, handsome grin of his. Before you knew it, avoiding him had left a giant Spencer-shaped hole in your life. You missed being around your favourite person and it was your own fault.

You realised you had dug yourself into this hole, but you didn’t know what else to do. Realising your feelings for him made you enter fight or flight, and your body chose flight without hesitation.

Not to mention it was becoming increasingly unsustainable to avoid your best friend and colleague. Being rostered on a games video with Spencer could not have come at a worse time, but you were nothing if not professional.

During the shoot, you were sitting across the table from each other and you were thankful you weren't right next to each other, but you found yourself accidentally making eye contact with him throughout an intense game of Sushi Go!. Your eyes were drawn to him, it was probably a mixture of missing him and your complicated feelings. And by ‘complicated feelings’, you meant the huge crush you’ve continued to harbour for him.

Every time you made eye contact, you glanced away, trying to seem natural, to seem as if you weren’t secretly in love with him. Your fingers grazed his as you passed him the cards, you tried to keep a straight face, pretending the miniscule amount of contact didn’t make your heart beat a touch faster. At one point, you could feel his gaze lingering on you, seeing him in your peripherals. You wondered what he was thinking, if he was wondering why you were acting so strange, there was no way he hadn’t noticed how distant you were being. You were just glad it was a full table of cast members, because if the group had been smaller, there was no way of hiding the stiff awkwardness between you two.

When filming wrapped, and everyone chatted amongst themselves, you laughed at something Ian said as you tried to remove your microphone. It had been clipped to the collar of your cardigan and it had gotten caught in the knit, tangled in the material. You huffed in frustration, attempting to shake it loose. Suddenly, you felt warm hands gently take hold of the mic, slowly unweaving it from your clothes. You felt your breath become shallow, frozen in place and daring to let your eyes flick up. It had been a while since Spencer was standing this close to you, probably not since your encounter in the kitchen when you realised your feelings. With his eyes pointed downward like this, you could see how prettily his long eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks.

“I don’t know why, but I know you don’t really want to talk to me right now”, he whispered, not letting the other people in the room hear him. He continued to slowly detangle the mic, you wondered if he was purposely dragging it out, “but you know I’m here for you. And whenever you decide you do want to talk, I’ll be there.”

It felt like he had squeezed your heart in his hands, making your chest feel tight. You searched for the words to say to him, anything at all, but your mind was drawing blanks. He was standing so close, you could smell him, you could see yourself reflected in his glasses, all while his hands fiddled with the microphone, only centimetres away from your chest. You wondered if he could feel or hear just how fast your heart was thumping. You opened and closed your mouth a couple times, still at a loss when he removed the microphone with ease. He pulled back, standing a full metre away, with your mic in his hand. You weren’t used to the look on his face, it was confused, it was hurt, it was understanding despite it all. He broke eye contact to look down, sighing as he turned to walk away from you.

You felt awful for making him feel like this. You felt like a coward for not saying anything to him. And then it was just you in an empty room, nothing but the hum of lights and electronic equipment still running, and this empty feeling that was impossible to ignore.

“I can’t keep this up”, you mumbled to yourself, rubbing a hand down your face.

☆

“Are you sure it’s alright for me to come with you?” Bradley asked as you knocked on Tommy’s door, “I wasn’t technically invited to this birthday party.”

“Trust me, it’s all good”, you breezily replied as you stepped back and waited, the music inside was loud and you were a bit worried nobody could hear you. “I already told Tommy that you’re my plus one.”

There was a beat of quiet.

“And if I talk to Spencer tonight, I need your support, just in case”, you murmured, already nervous at the idea.

He let out a breath of a laugh, nodding, “got your back, buddy.”

Then, before either of you could say anything else, the door swung open.

“Y/N!” Tommy exclaimed. You noticed he already had a drink in his hand as he pulled you into a hug before he turned to your friend, “and you must be Bradley! So nice to meet you! Come in, come in, come in.”

“Happy birthday!” You smiled, handing him a bag with his present inside, “this is from me and Brad.”

He held a hand to his chest, thanking you and chatting back and forth between the three of you. You had never introduced Bradley to anyone at Smosh, but he was usually pretty social and seeing him banter with Tommy, you weren’t concerned about him not getting along with anyone. Tommy pushed you two vaguely towards the drinks table as he went to answer the door again. Then you saw him. Spencer was in a cute button down top and was talking animatedly with Alex and Alexcina. You were trying to mentally prepare yourself to talk to him the whole Uber ride here, but seeing him now, you wanted to run away again all over again.

“Okay, come on”, Bradley drew you out of your thoughts, noticing where you were staring, “you don’t have to do it right now, let’s get you a drink or something.”

As the night wore on, the drinks were flowing and you could have sworn the music had slowly gotten louder too. You didn’t really feel any buzz from the drinks Bradley was bringing you, but you figured you were too distracted with hyping yourself up to talk to Spencer tonight. You had floated around throughout the party, chatting with your friends, introducing a bunch of them to Bradley, and trying to have a good time, knowing Spencer was just across the room. You were torn between trying to find a window of opportunity to pull him aside to talk and continuing to avoid him like the plague.

As if sensing you staring at him, Spencer glanced in your direction, causing you to quickly turn your head, spinning slightly and losing your balance.

“Woah!” Bradley called out as he caught you by the arm with one hand, careful not to spill the drink he was holding in the other, “are you alright?”

You couldn’t help but laugh loudly at your own clumsiness, “yes, I’m okay”, you nodded.

“You almost fell on your ass”, he laughed with you, leaning in close so you could hear him over the loud music. “That would have been so embarrassing.”

“Stop”, you tried to tame your giggles.

“Like, how humiliating... right in front of your boy toy too”, he said in an extra hushed tone in your ear, not wanting to accidentally reveal your secret to anyone else.

Maybe it was the alcohol finally making you let a little loose, but he was really cracking you up. You leaned against him, pushing his arm slightly in retaliation for teasing you.

“Brad, seriously”, you caught your breath, “I’m trying to lock in here.”

You looked up at him to see him not looking back, but off across the room.

“Uhh”, he smirked into his drink as he turned to you, “speaking of locking in…”

You glanced back, trying to see what he had been staring at a moment ago. Your eyes found Spencer, an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, staring at you and Bradley. He blinked when you made eye contact, looking away with his jaw clenched.

☆

“Oh, that’s Bradley?” Alexcina said after lowering her cup from her mouth, gesturing towards you and your friend. You were laughing hard while he whispered in your ear. Spencer couldn’t help but stare.

Spencer whipped his head around to her.

“What? You know him?”

“Woah, relax, man”, Alex put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

“No, I don’t know him, but I think I saw her hanging out with him, maybe a few weeks ago?” She looked upwards thoughtfully, not realising the absolute turmoil her words were causing Spencer.

“Where?” He asked, trying to make his tone light, but his jaw was still clenched after seeing you with him. He knew it was childish, but someone else making you laugh that hard really rubbed him the wrong way.

“At that cafe around the corner from the office”, she shrugged, taking another sip from her drink, “I was going to grab a sweet treat after work and they were there. It kind of looked like they were exchanging secrets, like, leaning in real close.”

Spencer could hear his blood rushing in his ears and he felt his hand grip his drink extra hard. His heart had dropped and his stomach filled with a mixture of anxiety and defeat. Were you dating this guy? He knew he didn’t get a say in who you dated, you were your own person. But he was your best friend and you hadn’t mentioned anything about this to him. And maybe he was just a little, tiny, itty-bitty touch jealous. Of course when he realised he had a crush on his best friend they went and started dating someone else. He felt like his life was ripped straight out of a melodrama.

He needed to talk to you.

☆

“You reckon he has the wrong idea about us?” Bradley snickered, sounding like a scheming little brother. “You better clear the air.”

He raised his eyebrows at you when you glared at him. You were mad because he was right, a conversation was long overdue. You shoved your drink into his hand as you walked towards Spencer, you didn’t go directly towards him, but slightly left, down the hall. You made eye contact with him, widened as if to say ‘follow me please and thank you’. You knew how well he knew you, he would get the message.

Your heart was thudding in your chest as you navigated the dark hallway. You and your work friends had visited Tommy’s place many times, so you knew exactly where his bedroom was, you were sure he wouldn’t mind you using it for a bit of privacy away from the loud party. You shuffled into the room, hearing footsteps a decent distance down the hall. You switched on the floor lamp near the door, nervously idling as you waited for Spencer to join you. You racked your mind for what to say to him, how to fix this messy situation you had created.

“Hey”, Spencer said sheepishly from the doorway, hands in his pockets.

“Hi”, you were glad you were away from the music because you spoke quietly, worried your voice would break if you were any louder. “You mind closing the door please? I want to talk.”

He followed your instructions, hesitantly stepping in and letting the door click shut behind him. He was avoiding eye contact, hands stuffed back in his pockets, he almost looked like he was sulking.

“I…”, you paused to take a deep breath, you could do this, not just for you, but for Spencer, “I wanted to start by saying I’m sorry for avoiding you these past few weeks. I’ve been a terrible friend.”

Spencer didn’t say anything. He was still, staring at one spot on the ground. You took that as a sign to continue.

“And I know you’re probably mad”, you could feel your stomach twisting with shame, “and that’s your right because it’s really unfair for me to keep you in the dark like this-”

“Is he your boyfriend?” He finally looked up, interrupting you.

You blinked at him.

“What?”

“Brad”, there was a certain edge to his voice you hadn’t heard before, “Is he your boyfriend?”

“What?” You repeated in shock, what was he talking about? “Why would you think- huh?”

“You avoid me and barely talk to me for weeks and then all of a sudden you show up with some guy. And his name’s Brad”, he started gesturing around expressively, seemingly letting out his frustrations, despite his words, you realised he wasn’t mad you, moreso mad at Bradley, “I’ve only ever heard a bit about him from you, and now you guys are drinking and laughing together, and you’re showing him off to all our friends, and laughing so hard when he’s whispering in your ear.”

You shook your head, the confusion muddling up your thoughts. You stared at him hard as he looked back expectantly. You noticed the way his eyebrows were slightly furrowed and his lips were slightly downturned in the corners. Why was he so bothered by all that? Why was he mad at the idea of you dating someone? Your heart leaped for a moment.

“Spencer Agnew”, you gasped, “are you jealous?”

“Jealous? Me?” His tone was incredulous as he baulked at your accusation.

“Yes!” You quickly replied, pointing at him, “yes, you!”

“What?” He spluttered, losing his words for a moment, “okay, so maybe I am!”

You faltered, not really expecting him to admit it. “Wait, what?”

“I’m so jealous, it’s crazy!” He threw his hands in the air, “I’ve never, ever been the jealous type, usually I think it’s weird and unhealthy. But I just haven’t felt like myself lately. Not since…”, he swallowed, as if contemplating if it was a good idea to say what he was going to say, “well, not since I realised my feelings for you. I’ve lost all logic and reason.”

The room started to spin, and you were certain it wasn’t because of the alcohol.

“Your…”, you had to make sure you heard him correctly, “your what for me?”

“My feelings, Y/N”, he ran a hand through his hair before taking a few strides toward you, so he was squarely in front of you, close enough for you to reach out and touch him if you gathered the courage, “I have feelings for you. I really, really like you, okay? And I thought maybe you knew, and that was why you were avoiding me, because you knew and you were seeing someone else.”

The twinge of pain in his voice made your stomach flip. You could barely believe your ears, you pinched the side of your thigh to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

“I make you laugh too, don’t I? What could he have that I don’t?” He leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling for a moment, “oh god, I sound like a child. Like, I know this is so immature of me, I just can’t help it, I’m so frustrated.” He lifted his glasses to rub his eyes before putting them back down, “I know you’ve known him since college, but does he even know how you like your morning coffee? Your favourite movies? Your favourite restaurants? Does he know the way to your house from basically any point in the city? Your favourite karaoke songs? Because I do. I know all those things.”

You could almost laugh at his ramblings if you weren’t so overwhelmed with emotions.

“And I know I don’t, like, have a right to be with you. At the end of the day, you love who you love and if that’s not me, then I just have to deal with it because I still want to be in your life, you’re my best friend afterall. I guess I am just jealous and I don’t know how to deal with it. Ugh”, he groaned, cringing at himself, “I sound crazy.”

“No, Spence”, you whispered. Be brave, you told yourself, be brave, you can do this! You watched as the curls around his temple bounced as he made eye contact with you, “I didn’t know you like me, and I’m not dating Brad.” You shrugged, “he’s just a friend from college, we don’t feel that way about each other at all. Trust me. He’s, like, just some guy I happen to be friends with”

Spencer’s shoulder sagged a bit, “then why were you avoiding me?”

“I was avoiding you because”, you took another deep breath, feeling your face flush and your hands shake slightly. Your next words came out in a rush, “because-I-have-feelings-for-you-too.”

His eyes widened as you gasped, you were surprised you actually managed to get the words out.

“You do?” His voice was hopeful, his eyes seemed to sparkle in the dimly lit room.

You nodded bashfully, head hanging because you were so embarrassed, you couldn’t look at him. “I didn't know what to do and I love our friendship, and I thought if you found out about my crush on you, it would ruin it. So I panicked and ran away and didn’t realise how much worse it would make everything.”

“Hey, it’s okay”, his voice was so tender it hurt, “I didn’t know how to handle it either. I was just so afraid of losing you.”

His words made your heart stutter in your chest. And then it stuttered again when his hand slowly came up to lift your chin, leading you to find he had stepped even closer and now his face was centimetres from your own. You felt your entire body heat up right to the tips of your ears.

“I’ll never avoid you again”, you whispered absentmindedly, distracted by all of his handsome features close up.

“I’ll never be a jealous weirdo again”, he whispered back, making you laugh. And when you did, his eyes flicked down, staring at your smile, at your lips. “I’m so glad you’re not dating him. That means the position of your boyfriend is still open?”

“Not for long”, you quipped, the air between you was electric again, all stiff awkwardness gone. You grabbed his free hand with yours, “Spence, will you be mine?”

Your heart still raced as he grinned, “I’ve been yours for a long time, Y/N.”

You grinned back, hand squeezing his tight. You were so close, it felt like you were breathing each other's air. There was so much tension, but a different kind this time, the type that made you feel like it was too hot in Tommy’s room and it was almost hard to breathe. You brought a trembling hand up to rest on the side of his jaw as he slowly ran his thumb along your chin, eyes transfixed on your mouth.

“Kiss me”, you muttered, pleading.

He didn’t need to be told twice, immediately closing the gap between you, pressing his lips to yours in a way that was both gentle and urgent, like he could not wait a second longer. You kissed him back, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, as he brought his own around your waist. You gasped into his mouth when he pulled your body in flush against his own. He took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, until you were both kissing feverishly as if you were waiting for a thousand years just to make out with one another. His facial hair tickled you but his lips were so soft and he tasted like lemonade, it was better than your wildest fantasies.

“God”, he said under his breath between kisses, “I can’t believe I’m kissing you.” He shivered under your touch as you rubbed a hand up the back of his neck, “it’s like a dream come true, you’re all I think about-”

He cut his own babbling off when your back made contact with the bedroom door, you hadn’t even realised you were moving. And there you were, pressed against the door to Tommy’s room, the bass from the music gently thrumming through the wood. Your nose was filled with Spencer’s scent as your lips were locked with his, your hands tangled in his curly hair, while his hands were firmly gripping the sides of your torso. It felt euphoric to be wrapped around each other like this, feeling his heart beating rapidly against your own. You felt like you were floating, hyper-aware of every point of contact between the two of you.

Eventually, he pulled away, lips red and cheeks flushed, you admired him in a daze. You both stared at each other before cracking up, giddy giggles filling the room as he rested his forehead against yours.

“I like you so much, Y/N”, he sighed, catching his breath.

The pressure of his head against yours felt so calming, the feeling of his hands holding you so close made butterflies flutter around inside your stomach. You couldn’t believe you had managed to avoid him at all when being here with him felt so right and so natural, like you two were magnets that couldn’t resist each other if they tried. You cherished this moment of semi-quiet alone with him before you had to return to the loud outside world.

“I like you so much too”, you whispered, leaning in for another kiss, “idiot.”

☆

Note: Ahhh I hope you guys like this one!! This was my first time writing a make out scene with Spencer, please let me know what you think lol. xD Thanks for reading! <3

Your favourite videos to film were for the games channel. They had an elevated level of chaos and had really helped you improve your handheld filming skills. Last time they played The Maury Game, you were huffing and puffing, locking in on chasing Angela around behind the set.

Another reason you loved filming games videos was working with the one and only Spencer Agnew. You didn’t have a crush on him, you just admired him and how amazing he was at his job. He was so experienced and knew what he was doing so well that he directed with ease. He would give you clear and detailed instructions, but also gave you liberty to make creative decisions. Brennan was happy as long as you didn’t break anything when you ran after cast members. Spencer easily commanded the room when filming games videos, it was so attractive seeing him in his element, like it came as easy to him as walking and talking.

Okay, so maybe you had a crush on him.

He was a brilliant director, friend, coworker, subject to film, just a great guy overall. How were you not meant to fall for him? His charming and funny on-camera persona was magnetic, and his usual sweet and slightly mild mannered self off-camera was even more attractive. You weren’t close enough to hang out much one-on-one, but whenever you spent time with him in a group, you could feel your eyes being drawn to him the entire time. He was so attractive, full of quick-witted sarcasm, a huge bank of niche references in his head, and all topped off with an infectious smile. You were screwed from the moment you met him, essentially.

☆

“Hey Y/N.”

You looked up from your laptop to the sound of Spencer’s voice. You nervously smiled as he walked over to you. You had made it to set a little early and was checking a couple emails before you finished setting up the equipment for the next Board AF shoot.

“Hi, Spencer”, you replied softly, worried your voice would shake if you spoke any louder. “I’ll finish setting up in a second, just replying to an email.”

“Oh”, he waved one hand dismissively, “no rush, we have plenty of time. Nobody else is going to arrive on set for another ten minutes.”

You just mutely nodded, kicking yourself for being so awkward. You weren’t sure how to respond since you didn’t normally chat with Spencer alone unless it was work related. You were used to blending in, mixing into the crowd of the crew. You hesitated before looking back down at your screen, trying to focus on typing out a reply as if you weren’t extremely conscious of the man sitting only a metre away from you. Just as you hit send, you became aware of the feeling of eyes on you. You slowly raised your head, scared of being wrong and him catching you staring like a creep. But when you looked up, he was already looking at you. You felt your face heat up immediately and the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you felt like a deer in headlights with his green eyes locking with yours.

You raised your eyebrows in question, “yes?”

“Nothing”, he replied casually, “I just noticed your shirt, it’s cool.”

You glanced down at your shirt, a graphic t-shirt you bought from one of your favourite bands, Wet Leg.

“Thank you”, you murmured bashfully, you were flattered by his compliment, “do you like Wet Leg?”

It felt like a strange question to say to someone out loud.

“Yeah!” He smiled brightly, it made you also smile subconsciously, it was contagious. “Their stuff’s really cool. I loved their new singles.”

You felt yourself perk up, you didn’t often talk about your personal interests with people at work outside of the camera operation team. It excited you that someone shared something in common with you. Especially since that person was Spencer.

“Oh my god, they’re so good”, you gushed before you could stop yourself, “I’m so excited for their upcoming album.”

He laughed and nodded in agreement. You two chatted about the band until other people started arriving on set and you had to finish fixing up the cameras in preparation for filming. That was the shortest ten minutes of your life.

You were done adjusting the cameras when the cast members all found their seats. You nodded at the other members of the crew, signalling you were ready to go. You glanced over your shoulder to where you knew Spencer was sitting, he looked up at the same time. You almost jumped at the sudden eye contact.

You offered him a small smile. He smiled back. You turned back to the camera in front of you, cheeks and ears burning.

☆

You had helped finish up the last shoot of the day, a Challenge Pit video that required a lot of different angles, so there was plenty of stuff to put away. You were packing up various bits of camera equipment, stepping back to scan the shelf to make sure everything was in the right spot.

“Hey Y/N.”

You jumped. It was the second time that week you had heard that voice say those words.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to spook you”, he looked at you with that charming smile of his as he stepped into the storeroom.

“That’s alright”, the volume of your voice was just above a whisper. You couldn’t deny you felt a little flustered being in a secluded space with him. “What’s up?”

“Alex just informed me that you like Baccano!” He leaned against the wall, hands in the pockets of his denim jacket. “I had to come talk to you about it. Such a good anime.”

You gasped. Baccano! was your favourite anime. You vaguely recalled mentioning it to Alex when they randomly asked you the question a while ago before scampering off, you assumed they were up to the usual strange games team antics, some kind of office survey maybe.

“Yeah, it’s so good!” You agreed with him, smiling. You fiddled with the sleeve of your shirt to calm your nerves, “you like it too? It’s a bit old but I really love it. It’s so fun to rewatch too.”

You felt your entire face flush at the way he was attentively listening to you. He had this open, observant expression every time he was closely listening to someone, and it made you a little anxious to have it directed at you.

“Yeah”, he mumbled, “I really like it.” His eyes lingered on you a little longer before breaking eye contact and casually scanning the room. “You have great taste in anime. I would know, of course. I am obviously the authority on good taste.”

That made you laugh, you leaned back as well, shoulders pressed against a pillar. You were overcompensating a bit, trying extra hard to look casual and cool when your heart was actually racing.

“You clearly are”, you responded, you gave him a close-lipped smile and a tilt of your head that you hoped looked curious and not like you were straining your neck awkwardly. “Do you have any recommendations for my next watch?”

“Ooh..”, he lifted his head to stare at the ceiling, clearly thinking hard. “Have you watched Erased?”

He glanced at you and when you shook your head, he grinned in that gorgeous, beautiful way he always did.

“You would love it. Maybe we could watch it together sometime?” He lowered his voice, the air between you felt warm, electric.

You started to spiral. Was that a genuine invitation? There was no way he was flirting with you, maybe he just wanted to hang out. Maybe he was the kind of person that liked to see his friends’ reactions when watching things he liked? The idea of hanging out with him made you sweat though, you needed at least a third person to buffer otherwise you would have a nervous breakdown. You felt like you were about to panic, he had to mean that in a purely platonic way, right? This did seem like a good chance to get to know him better but there was no way you could handle being alone with him. He was looking at you expectantly and you were totally overthinking.

“Yeah, maybe”, your voice cracked a little as you replied, nerves showing. “Uh, I gotta go”, you said bluntly, incredibly embarrassed and trying to escape as fast as humanly possible.

“Oh, okay…”, he replied in confusion as you quickly grabbed some of your belongings and scurried out the door. You didn’t look back as you power-walked down the hall.

Your fears won this round. You were a bit ashamed of your awkwardness, sure you had fumbled that social interaction miserably. You wondered if Spencer was disappointed in your response. You pushed the thought out of your head, just relieved to be out of that stuffy room with the object of your affections standing alone inside.

☆

You patted your pockets, making sure you had your keys and phone as you walked towards the office car park. You heard footsteps rapidly approaching behind you, as you turned to see who it was, you nervously grabbed the strap of your bag on instinct. As per usual, you braced yourself for the incoming social situation. And you were right to be nervous, because it was Spencer making his way towards you.

You had been avoiding him since the weird interaction in the camera equipment storeroom, only really staying anywhere near him when working. You had grown more worried and suspicious he may have realised you had feelings for him. It was pretty simple to deduce, in your opinion, you feared your reactions to him made it obvious.

“Hey Y/N.”

The way your name rolled off his tongue made you shiver. You couldn’t deny you loved it when he said it, being acknowledged by him was a curse and a blessing, it made you cripplingly nervous but incredibly happy. Spencer Agnew made your life agony.

“Hi”, you choked out, grip tightening on your bag. You looked down at your feet, kicking slightly at the concrete. You weren’t sure what to say to him and you could feel your face warming the longer he looked at you.

“Um”, he seemed to hesitate. You glanced up at him and was surprised to see he seemed a little bashful. “I, uh, I have something for you.”

Your eyes widened as he dug around in his bag. He got you something? A gift? Your heartbeat was so loud, you were certain he could hear it. When he turned back to you with a Smiski blind box in his hand, you were afraid your heart was going to beat right out of your chest for him to witness.

“A Smiski?” You felt yourself grin despite your nerves, “I love Smiskis!”

“Yeah, I got this one for free”, he replied sheepishly, “I noticed you had a few on your desk, so I thought you would appreciate it more than me.”

You accepted the present delicately, your cheeks reddened when you felt your fingers graze against his own. His hand was warm and soft, making it obvious how clammy yours was. Your instinct to run away was overshadowed by your excitement that Spencer had not only given you a Smiski, but also that he noticed you liked them. He had a way of making you feel seen when you had always thought you were invisible.

“Thank you, Spencer”, you said gratefully, “this is so sweet. Are you sure you don’t want it?”

He shook his head, “it’s all yours, it’s clear you want it. Look at that smile.”

You immediately flushed a deep red, your hand reflexively coming up to cover your face. You were mortified that he could clock how ecstatic you were. You just hoped he thought you were happy because of the Smiski itself and not because it was Spencer gifting it. The both of you laughed, you shyly looked down again, admiring the little box in your hand.

When you locked eyes again, you couldn’t read his expression. The eye contact alone made you feel like you were going crazy.

“Make sure you keep it front and centre on your desk”, he jokingly pointed at you like he was giving an order. It made you giggle. “I’ll be checking.”

“Yes sir”, you smiled at him, genuine. He made you nervous, but he also made you want to open up, be honest with him. That made you even more nervous.

“Good”, he put his hands in his pockets, satisfied, “so everytime you look down at him, it’ll remind you of me.”

Forget opening up, you were ready to sprint away, just absolutely leg it out of there. You took a step back from him, chuckling to cover up how much you were freaking out. He was clearly just playing around, being friendly, but did he know the effect he had on you? You had to leave before you sweat through your shirt.

“Seeyoutomorrow”, you sputtered out briskly before practically jogging to your car. You were desperate to get out of there.

You didn’t trust yourself to glance at him still standing in the same spot as you quickly pulled out of the car park, tires screeching.

☆

You heard a voice as you set your bag down at your desk.

“Hey Y/N.”

Oh crap, you weren’t ready to talk to Spencer yet. It was 9am and you had not emotionally prepared yourself. After the conversation you shared the previous afternoon, you were still on edge. You had thought about him practically all night, staring at the Smiski he gave you and lying awake, plagued by thoughts of his kind gestures, his adorable smile, and the way his fingers brushed against yours.

“Good morning, Spencer”, you replied politely, subconsciously fixing your hair as you turned to look at him.

He was extra cute today, no hat covering his bouncy curls and short sleeves showing his array of tattoos. He seemed a bit apprehensive today, breaking eye contact with you, staying a reasonable distance away.

“Can we talk for a second?” He looked around briefly before adding, “alone?”

Anxiety built up in your stomach. Alone. You nodded, silently hoping the floor would open up and eat you. Instead, you had to simply follow him to the currently empty break room. Talking to him had been happening a lot more often recently, and you were trying to act like you weren’t about to pee yourself like a shaking chihuahua every time. He chose a table to sit at and beckoned you over. You elected to sit on the chair opposite him, deciding it was safer for your trembling heart than sitting right next to him.

“You’re not in trouble, by the way”, he held his hands up. You let out a breath without thinking, you were glad he tried to quell your anxieties. “I just wanted to say… I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable over the past few days.”

That made you furrow your brow. You were exceedingly confused, what on earth was he talking about? He never made you uncomfortable, you were a highly strung ball of nerves but that had nothing to do with him.

“Uncomfortable?”

Seeing the clear confusion on your face, he continued, “well, I thought I completely messed up. Every single time I flirted with you, you immediately ran away every time.”

Your jaw dropped as Spencer’s cheeks reddened. What?

“Wait, wait- what?” You exclaimed, “flirting? What are you talking about?”

This time he looked confused. “You know, like the past few conversations we’ve had one-on-one?”

“You were flirting with me?” You could have sworn the room started spinning. Were you hearing him correctly?

“Yes”, he replied exasperatedly, “or, well, I was trying to. I thought you were trying to make it clear you weren’t interested.”

You gaped like a fish, you couldn’t recall anyone ever admitting to trying to flirt with you. How had you not picked up on the signs?

“Like with Wet Leg”, he continued, running a hand through his hair, “I only started listening to them because I had seen you wear that shirt before. They’re really good, don’t get me wrong, but I just wanted something to talk to you about. Something just between us.”

“Huh?” You thought your brain was about to short circuit.

“And with Baccano! … I admit I asked Alex to ask you what your favourite anime is”, he rocked back and forth on his heels slightly, “and then I binged it, I barely slept that night. But I was so keen to talk to you about it, I got restless.”

“What?” You placed your hands on the table, shocked at his admission.

“And the Smiski I gave you yesterday”, you held your breath while he confessed, “I lied. I didn’t get it for free, I was being a creep at your desk so I could figure out which line you hadn’t got yet and went out to find it so I could give you a present.”

“Why?” You felt faint.

“Because”, he shrugged nonchalantly, but his red cheeks gave him away, “I like you. I wanted you to notice me.”

You were a new level of flustered, your entire body was hot and you felt a little bit lightheaded. You pressed your two feet together under the table, confused, giddy, and scared of all this attention all at once.

“You’re silly”, you replied quietly. He leaned in to hear you clearer, hanging onto your every word. “How could I not notice you, Spencer?” You glanced at him shyly, “I never thought you would notice me, I don’t really stand out.”

“Are you kidding me?” He laughed breathily, “I could pick you out of a crowd of a million people with no problem.”

You locked eyes with him. You were overwhelmed in the best way possible. What you thought was a one-sided crush was actually reciprocated.

“I’ve liked you for ages now”, you blurted out, unable to hold it in anymore. You didn’t realise how filled with feelings you were until you were ready to spill it all out for him now. “I ran away from you because I was afraid you would realise and you didn’t feel the same.”

His gaze rested on you wordlessly for a beat, it looked like he was taking a minute to search for the right words.

“You’re the silly one”, he chuckled, scratching his beard, “how could I not feel that way about you? You’re amazing.”

You stared at each other silently for a moment before both bursting into excited giggles. You weren’t used to this feeling in your chest, like there was a firework ready to burst, shattering you into a hundred little sparks of every colour.

“I can’t believe you were paying such close attention to me”, you grinned at him mischievously, “I trust you enjoyed listening to good music and watching good anime?”

“Of course”, he nodded, “you have great taste. It just made me like you more.”

You didn’t think you could flush any darker. You didn’t feel brave enough to grab his hand, instead you slowly kicked your leg out until your foot was pressed up against his, he responded by gently pushing his foot back.

“Hey Spencer?” You weren’t sure if you could ever feel calm around him when he looked at you like that, eyes full of warmth and a small grin.

He hummed in response.

“If you forgive me for running away last time, and if you’ll still have me, I’d love to watch an anime with you sometime.”

And when he smiled at you like that, you were so glad you weren’t invisible to him.

☆

Note: I hope the shy readers relate to this… all my friends that like Smiskis are introverts, I couldn’t unsee that pattern once I noticed lol. And this might be a hidden ad for Wet Leg, I love them.

The film did decently well, you tried not to let it get to your head as your best friends showered you with compliments, constantly telling you your “star was rising”. You started to semi-believe them when a few actors you had admired for years followed you back on Instagram. But one account in particular made you freeze in your tracks, sitting up in your bed when you saw the notification.

Smosh started following you.

“Oh my god”, you breathed out, “what?”

You had been a Smosh subscriber for ages. You recalled watching old sketch videos as a young theatre kid, they had definitely influenced you, in your comedic acting skills at least. And now, they followed you back. You resisted the urge to message them, they followed you minutes ago, you needed to play it cool.

✩

It was days later, when you were watching the latest Smosh Games video that you realised why they may have followed you.

“I have no idea”, Shayne put his arms up. Him and Spencer were doing another video where they guessed the movie by the frames.

“I… I think I know this”, Spencer scratched his chin, squinting at the monitor in front of them.

“Of course you do”, Shayne replied, slapping him on the back, “you got this, bud, I’m just here for moral support.”

Spencer was deep in thought, leaning forward. His fingers were resting on the keyboard as he tried to figure out what it was.

You recognised the first frame. It was from Shuttlecock. You felt excitement build inside you. It was a very vague one, a simple shot of one of the sex shop’s walls from the outside.

“I need to make sure”, Spencer said under his breath, skipping to the second frame.

The next one was of you. Well, it was your hand, pointing at something out of shot, fingernails covered in nail polish that was chipping off slightly.

“Yep”, he said with finality, typing the movie title in while Shayne whooped in excitement at him getting the correct answer.

You covered your mouth, scared you might scream with the giddiness that was rising in your chest. You didn’t want to alarm your neighbours in the adjacent apartment.

“What is this movie?” Shayne asked as they flicked through the other frames that would have popped up if they guessed wrong. There were a couple of different cast members and sets, the final one was of you looking at another character incredulously while holding a vibrator at arms length. This made the two of them laugh.

“This indie movie, Shuttlecock”, Spencer replied, “I saw it recently. It’s so good, dude, so funny, and I’m obsessed with the main actor.”

Your heart did a weird jump in your chest, you slapped your hand over it in alarm. Spencer, a.k.a your favourite person at Smosh, was talking about you.

“They played this sort of innocent, but not naive, and really hilarious character who ends up running this weird sex toy shop, it’s hard to explain”, he laughed as Shayne looked around, expression bewildered. “I’m not doing a good job talking about it, I promise it’s so good, we can watch it later.”

Shayne threw his head back in laughter before agreeing.

Spencer pointed at the camera, “if you like funny movies, watch Shuttlecock.”

Then they moved on with the video like it had never happened. You wanted to shriek. If you had more energy, you would have run laps around your room like a dog waiting for a walk. You couldn’t believe he had talked about you, specifically you, in a video. You fumbled with your phone as you opened Instagram, scrolling through all the new follower notifications, your eyes scanned for a specific name.

And there it was.

Spennser started following you.

You had missed the notification since he followed you at the same time a wave of new followers came in. You kicked your legs in excitement. Had he not realised you were already following him? Why hadn’t he messaged you? Should you message him? You reasoned that you weren’t being a creep, and it was normal to want to ask to collaborate with a creative person you were an admirer of. And this had nothing to do with the parasocial crush you had been harbouring for him from your side of the computer screen for the past few years. Nothing at all.

You took a couple breaths to calm yourself down. You could totally message him, hit him with a cute (and flirtatious) ‘heard you were a fan?’ with a wink emoji. You shook your head. No, that was cringey. Maybe a simple ‘hi, love Smosh Games’. No, you were still cringing. You ended up chickening out, thinking too hard about it made you just a little bit nauseous. Maybe you would try again when you were feeling braver.

✩

Bestie: ‘Seriously, DM him. NOW!’

You stared at the text message from your best friend, you felt like there was a hive of bees buzzing in your head, confused, frantic, excited, scared. It was early in the morning and you were getting ready to run off to a meeting when your phone started blowing up. They had sent you a TikTok edit of you using clips from Shuttlecock, which was crazy enough, you had never seen a fan edit of yourself ever. But the part that freaked you out was at the very start of the edit, it kicked off with the clip of Spencer talking about you in the recent Smosh Games video, smiling in that way you had engraved into your brain.

You: ‘I don’t know…’

You messaged back, apprehensive.

Bestie: ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me, you’re like super into this guy. And he just rambled on about how great you were in your movie. This is your chance, TAKE IT!!!’

You wanted to scream again. They were kind of right, but you had a million reasons to be nervous about it.

You: ‘What if he wants nothing to do with me?’

You texted with one hand while the other fiddled with your hair, a nervous habit.

Bestie: ‘You are actually a huge pain in my ass.’

They shot back, making you giggle.

Bestie: ‘Did you see his face? He’d probably click his heels with joy if you DMed him.’

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. They were just glazing you at this point. You couldn’t blame them, gassing you up was part of best friend duties.

The internal battle on whether or not to message Spencer raged on when it was interrupted by a new direct message appearing on your phone screen. You opened it so fast, you didn’t even care that they could see that you read it. As your eyes rapidly read over the message, you felt your heart beat even faster. This was almost as thrilling as when you were first casted in the movie. You read the message again and again and again to make sure you were interpreting it correctly.

Smosh wanted to feature you as a guest in a video.

You returned to your conversation with your friend.

You: ‘I’ll talk to you later, something insane is about to happen.’

You were totally going to be late to your meeting.

✩

After weeks of correspondence and the rapid approach of the event in your calendar named ‘FILMING AT SMOSH HOLY SHIT’, the day had finally come.

You had spoken with the team multiple times about what they wanted you to come and record. You tried your best to keep it professional and mature, you weren’t sure if they realised how big of a fan you were. Essentially, they were filming a Try Not to Laugh video on the Smosh Pit channel for Spencer’s birthday, and they were inviting guests to have a turn making him spit water. Emily Rose had the bright idea of inviting you when she watched him gush about you in the Games video he did with Shayne.

“It’s going to be a surprise”, she had explained to you over a video call. “Some guests he will be anticipating, but a few are going to be extra fun because he has no idea they’re coming. We’re going to save your turn for near the end of the video because he’s going to lose it.”

You chuckled at that, both nervous and excited.

“Are you sure he will?” You were a little unsure. Sure, he followed you on social media, you saw him like your posts, but he only talked about you one time in one video.

“Oh, yes. He will.” Emily Rose practically cackled, “trust me.”

You shrugged. She seemed confident that this was a good idea, and in what world would you ever turn down a chance to film a video with Smosh?

When you went through the whirlwind of arriving at Smosh HQ, meeting people, being whisked away to the area where they were hiding surprise guests, and preparing to appear on camera, you felt like you were walking through a fever dream. The excitement that buzzed in your body from your head to your fingertips was akin only to the feeling right before you stepped out on stage for a performance. In a way, this was the same, but the audience for this performance included Spencer Agnew, which made you sweat from anxiety.

You were a fan of the guy, you thought he was funny and charming and watching videos of him brightened your day. But you had never actually met him, and now you were going to go out there in front of a whole cast and crew and try to make him laugh hard enough to spit water, that was a bit daunting.

You shook out your limbs and tried to relax. This was going to be fun. Emily Rose said so. And so did Courtney and Angela when they saw you, offering you friendly smiles as they nudged each other in sheer enthusiasm. You didn’t expect that many people at Smosh to recognise you, let alone seem super glad you were there. As filming started and people took turns doing their bits, you watched on the monitors behind the partition. You covered your mouth laughing multiple times, not wanting to be too loud on an unfamiliar set. You were having a blast watching Spencer’s beloved castmates, crewmates, friends, and former coworkers attempt to break him, most succeeding.

“No way!” Spencer guffawed loudly after spitting his water. A couple of his former colleagues from ClevverTV surprised him, doing over the top impersonations of some of his most famous Smosh bits.

That was followed by Angela and Amanda doing a bit inspired by the three of them playing Resident Evil 8 together, then it was Chanse reprising his Bit City role as Cunty Spencer but with a Fred Darts twist this time. Everyone moved so naturally and put so much thought into their bits. Emily Rose had told you that you just needed to walk out there and the rest would take care of itself. Whatever that meant. So, you didn’t really have a proper bit ready. That terrified you.

For a split second, you forgot you were actually there, feeling like you were at home watching the latest TNTL video on your computer, and when you snapped out of it, it all felt so surreal again.

You were prompted by the team to get ready. It was your turn next.

You mentally prepared yourself as best you could, drying the bit of perspiration you had collected on your hands on your jeans and attempting to fix your hair. When given the cue, you walked out from behind the partition. As you turned to him, you locked eyes with Spencer and felt a bit embarrassed, offering a small wave.

As soon as Spencer recognised you, which took about one second, he immediately spat out half his water, followed by a gasp, which made him choke on the rest of his water and then he was thumping his own chest as he sputtered, coughing hard. The sudden display of a complete lack of composure made Courtney and Shayne, sitting on either side of him, spit their water as well with surprised amusement. The room erupted with yells and roaring laughter, many of them never having seen Spencer get so red in the face.

Turns out Emily Rose was right. No bits needed.

“You’re Y/N from Shuttlecock”, Spencer simply wheezed out, his eyes were a little watery from choking, but they were wide as he stared at you.

You nodded. “I am”, you replied, smiling at him. “I’m so glad you all spat because I had nothing prepared.” The crew and cast responded with another round of laughs. “Happy birthday”, you leaned in to quietly say.

“Holy shit”, Shayne was cackling, “how did they get you on here?”

“Instagram DM”, you simply replied, shrugging. You looked at the cameras, “it’s just that easy.”

“They’re not a huge blockbuster movie star just yet”, Spencer turned to the room, he held his hands out like he was defending you.

You raised your brows at him, “yet?”

“I have big plans for you”, was his fast response, earning another bunch of laughter from the room, you joining in.

“I’d love to hear them”, you couldn’t help grinning.

The video had to continue, so you scurried away, heart still pounding hard and fast in your chest. You tried to convince yourself it was because you were just nervous from being on camera. You were glad the viewers wouldn’t be able to feel the heat emanating off your body through their screens when they eventually watched this. Filming wrapped not long after your turn, and the mood was so high when they called ‘cut’, that everyone lingered to chat and mingle, the amount of people on set much higher than a usual shoot.

You were finishing up talking to Arasha when the man of the hour approached you. He was finally talking to you, and it wasn’t over Instagram messages, so you felt even less prepared for this moment than you could hope for. You knew you would probably speak with him one-on-one at some point since the moment you received that DM from Smosh, but now that he was standing in front of you, it felt dreamlike, like you weren’t in control of your own body.

He looked a little sheepish as he spoke, “hi”, his voice was loud enough to be heard in the loud room, but still soft.

“Hi”, you echoed back. You had been performing for most of your life, but somehow felt out of your depth just talking to a guy you loved watching on YouTube. “I love watching Smosh Games, by the way. I’m a big fan of your work”, you couldn’t help yourself from blurting out. You cringed at yourself internally, you couldn’t be nonchalant in this moment if you tried.

“I'm a big fan of your work”, he stuffed his hands into his pockets, cheeks slowly reddening, but refusing to break eye contact.

“I’ve only been in one movie, Spencer”, you laughed, feeling a little less anxious to speak to him. He seemed to light up when you said his name, but you were sure you were imagining it.

“Yeah, but I bet you'll be in many more and I'll be a fan of those movies when they happen”, he explained as you felt your neck and face heat up. “Like I said, I have big plans for you.”

You guffawed in a way you were sure was unattractive, but Spencer was smiling at you nonetheless.

“You want to quit Smosh and become my manager?” You joked, nudging him lightly on the arm.

“I’m thinking about it”, his voice was low, you were pretty sure you were the only person in the room that could hear him. There was a quiet lull between you for a second as you stared at each other, smiling like idiots, eye contact magnetic, unable to look away. His grin was bordering on goofy when a familiar brunette practically jumped on him from behind.

“Hey, Spence! Hi, Y/N!” Angela greeted the both of you as Spencer regained his balance and Courtney trailed after Angela, joining the circle.

“We’re all so glad you could make it, Y/N”, Courtney gently rested a hand on your shoulder, “we’re grateful you could take time out of your schedule to come meet a bunch of strangers.”

You shrugged, “I was more than happy to come over. I’ve been watching Smosh for ages, so you guys don’t really feel like complete strangers to me, honestly.”

“Are you for real?” Angela stared at you with wide eyes, “you’re a fan of Smosh?” She leaned into Spencer, mumbling near his ear, “you totally have a shot, bud.”

He practically shoved her away as she giggled, directing her attention back to you. “I’m sorry, but he has not shut up about you since he watched Shuttlecock. You can ask anyone in the office and they’ll agree. He’s obsessed, so I’m just excited for him that you seem to like our content too.”

“Angela”, Spencer’s brow was furrowed, but you could tell he wasn’t mad, just embarrassed. That also made you feel embarrassed in turn, wondering if it was obvious how hot your face was as you thanked them. Your hand gently adjusted your hair as Courtney piped up.

“Yes, obsessed with your movie”, they gave Angela a pointed look that made her shut her mouth and nod along sagely. “He is definitely a big fan. So, you guys must have a lot to talk about. We’ll leave you to it.”

They gave you one last winning smile before basically dragging Angela away.

“Uhh..” Spencer scratched the back of his head, looking back at you, “ignore Angela, she gets post-shoot zoomies and says wild shit.”

You breathed out a laugh, you had calmed down significantly, feeling less like you were about to have a heart attack and more like you were just a little nervous while talking to your YouTube crush.

“I’m really, really happy you liked Shuttlecock”, your voice was barely above a whisper, sincere. You moved slightly closer so he could hear you. Instinctively, your hand gently grazed his forearm, a silent plea for him to see you were being genuine. Your eyes were glued to his again, your heart skipped a beat when he offered you a gentle, almost shy, smile. You felt like the air was especially warm in this corner of the set.

“I can’t believe you’re here”, his voice was quiet again too. He raised his eyebrows, it was as if he was in a daze. You had never seen him like this in any videos. “Angela was kinda right, frankly.”

“About which part?” The rest of the room became a blur to you, the sounds around you were muffled and distant sounding. All you could focus on was the man in front of you, cheeks pink and expression unguarded. You felt like you couldn’t breathe, no amount of stage fright compared to this feeling, like you were perched on a precipice, threatening to tip over and plunge into something unknown.

“That-”, he looked down, hesitating. His arm twitched like he wanted to reach out to you, but he stopped himself. “That I haven’t stopped talking about you since I saw the movie. I am a little obsessed, I guess. Oh man, I sound like such a creep.”

“No”, you quickly stopped him, “you do not sound like a creep. I think I’m the creep here, honestly.”

“How?” His shoulders shook a bit with humour.

“Because”, you took another step closer, probably the last one you could before it was a complete breach of personal space. Plunging into the unknown. “I have been watching you on YouTube for ages. I had to stop myself from screaming out loud when I saw you follow me. You have always made me smile when I’m having a bad day before you even knew me.”

He covered his face, you could tell he was laughing, ears beet red. It felt so good to fluster him like this, it gave you a rush you had to chase.

“I have had this huge YouTuber crush on you”, you continued, watching his face leave his hands to snap up look at you, astonished. “So imagine my surprise when I watch a new video from my favourite channel and my crush is talking about me.”

When you made eye contact with him again, time was suspended. The air was sucked out of your lungs as you took him in. His face was flushed, glasses a tiny bit askew, a couple strands of hair diverging from the rest to dangle down by his eyebrow. You were sure you looked a mess, your face was so, so hot. You adjusted your hair again.

The spell was broken when another staff member called Spencer’s name by the door, yelling something about being behind schedule. As you both looked away from each other, you felt like you had come hurtling back down to earth from floating through space. You hadn’t even realised most of the people that were loitering behind had all left.

“I, uh”, Spencer pointed back towards the door with his thumb, tone reluctant. His expression was still stunned, “I have to go, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry”, you shook your head, pushing down your disappointment. You knew you couldn’t keep him to yourself all day. “Duty calls.”

He remained for a few beats longer, just looking at you. Then the voice sounded again, more frantic this time, prompting him to scamper off, shouting a goodbye to you over his shoulder.

“I’ll message you later, can I message you later?”

“Yeah!” You were almost shouting so he could hear you as he got further away. He wanted to talk with you more, that sent a thrill through your body. “Yeah, you can!”

The last you saw of him was his hand waving as he was ushered out the door. You smiled and waved back, already missing his presence. You spoke with a few more people before you left, Emily Rose walking you to your car.

As you drove home, you were riding the high of a good time at Smosh HQ. You tried to focus on that and not the fact that you told Spencer he was your crush and he did not respond to that confession. In fact, he practically ran away. Pulling into your parking spot at your apartment building, you dropped your head as your car stopped, horn sounding as your head hit the wheel with a ‘thump’.

Focus on the positive, Y/N, you thought to yourself, you got to film at Smosh, that’s fucking amazing. You would have never expected that a year ago, in fact, you-

Your own thoughts were interrupted by your phone dinging multiple times.

You picked it up to check who was sending you so many messages and your heart stuttered in your chest. There were notifications from Spencer.

Spencer: ‘I’m SO SORRY, I had to run, but I wanted to tell you…’

Spencer: ‘I have a huge crush on you too. I honestly can’t stop thinking about you.’

Spencer: ‘I mean I kept talking about you after seeing your movie, but after meeting you irl today…’

Spencer: ‘I feel like I’m going insane, I’m so sorry for spamming you.’

You stared at your phone, your entire body warm, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. Before you could reply, another ding from your phone.

Spencer: ‘I don’t normally act like a freak btw, I just don’t want to miss this chance.’

You laughed at his text, you felt like you were the freak here, sitting in your parked car grinning at your phone. You saw the little sign saying he was typing pop up and disappeared a few times before another couple messages came through.

Spencer: ‘You’re so out of my league, I was speechless when you told me about your crush on me earlier.’

Spencer: ‘Y/N. I would absolutely love a chance to take you out to dinner sometime. On a date. What do you say?’

You frantically typed a definite, ‘Y-E-S’, slamming your thumb down on the send button and throwing your phone like it was on fire. This time, you let yourself scream. A high-pitched, victorious one that sounded more like a screech. You saw a cat on a nearby fence jump in surprise and skitter away. You let your head drop down again and kicked your legs around the pedals out of giddiness. Your horn sounded through the car park a second time, covering the sound of your excited yell.

Silly, silly Spencer, you thought, if anything, he was the one who was out of your league.

✩

Tommy, Courtney, and Angela stood huddled together, holding their afternoon coffees and teas, whispering conspiratorially.

“He’s being so weird”, Angela muttered, the others hummed in agreement.

They were all watching Spencer, sitting at his desk and bouncing his knee at a speed nobody has ever bounced their knee before. He was texting someone, they had deduced, fingers flying across the keyboard. They were growing concerned, he was normally way more chill than this, seeing him seemingly write out an essay at record breaking speed was a new concept. His brows were drawn together, serious.

“Did something bad happen?” Concern laced Tommy’s voice, but they all continued to stare.

“No”, Courtney replied slowly, “I think this is his own personal, weird type of excitement.”

“Excitement?” Angela grabbed Courtney’s wrist with her free hand, “Oh my god, what if he’s texting Y/N?”

Courtney gasped at the idea while Tommy shook his head.

“No way, they were just here”, he reasoned, taking a sip of his drink, “he’s not brave enough to message them so soon, right?”

The other two silently stared at each other.

“I dunno”, Courtney’s tone was sing-songy, “they were getting pretty cozy before Y/N left, I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they messaged him.”

Their quiet discussion was interrupted by a ‘bang’ as Spencer abruptly kicked the side of his desk as he scrambled to stand up from his chair. He was staring down at his phone, reading something over and over again before throwing his hands in the air in silent celebration.

“Oh, oh, oh, something’s happening”, Tommy fluttered his hand around in a feverish way.

“Spence!” Courtney threw caution in the wind, calling out to him, “what happened?”

He turned to them in surprise, arms still in the air. A boyish smile broke out across his face, his excitement came off him in waves, everyone in the room feeling it.

“I’ve got a hot date, that’s what happened!” He exclaimed like he couldn’t keep it inside, like he had to tell them or he was going to explode.

“That’s my boy!” Angela cheered, the three of them clapping like he had just won a trophy. “Happy birthday, Spence!”

✩

Note: I hope you guys like this, I changed and rearranged it a bunch of times before I was happy with it lol. Let me know what you think! <3

This trait worked to your advantage when you joined Smosh as a cast member.

“You’re so good at talking”, Ian joked with you after your first month, “you always seem to know what to say.”

“Practice makes perfect”, you grinned back as he laughed again.

You had quickly become a fan favourite, especially on Reddit Stories and as a guest on Smosh Mouth, being praised for the chemistry you had with the cast members and how you played off each other in discussions. You struggled a bit more on the games channel, you had very little video games experience and you found it difficult to remember board game rules when you played them for the first time. But the subscribers seemed to love making video compilations of everytime you forgot a rule or had to quietly ask for help mid-game.

Working at Smosh was so much fun, not just because you loved your work, but because there was such a diverse and interesting group of people you had long and frequent talks with. You had gotten to know everyone so well throughout the past few months, both cast and crew.

Well.

Everyone except for Spencer.

When you joined Smosh and met all the people working there, you had taken to Spencer in a different way than the others.

The crush you developed on him was quick and severe. You had no idea what to do with it. You were never good with romantic attraction, the few times you made the first move with a potential partner, it always ended disastrously. When it came to someone you really liked, you clammed up. Every time you were around Spencer, you panicked, and your heart sped up when he spoke to you. All the words that normally flowed out of your mouth got all tangled up in your head and stuck in your throat. Even when you two were doing your jobs and he was directing you on a game video, you responded to his directions with a silent, tight-lipped smile without making eye contact.

You did not handle cute guys well. And Spencer was cute. With his big green eyes, cheeky smile, and quick-witted humour, he was exactly your type to a T. It infuriated you, the person you wanted to have a connection with the most was so distant from you, and it was your own fault. You wanted to be close with him like everyone else, having lunch together, hanging out after work, you wanted it all. He definitely noticed how weird you were about him, because he drew back, hardly ever reaching out to you and only speaking to you when absolutely necessary. You couldn’t blame him.

The invisible wall between you guys that you had accidentally built seemed to get taller by the day, and you wished there was some way to knock it down.

☆

“Cut!”

That was a wrap on the most recent Board AF video and it was finally lunchtime. You and the other cast members hopped up from your seats as the room was filled with post-recording chatters.

“Good job, guys!” Spencer clapped his hands, “Amanda and Chanse, that was amazing teamwork. Shayne, super funny, as per usual.” He was wearing his green Smosh merch cap and a white T-shirt today. God, he looked so good.

You pretended not to notice he praised everyone else in the video besides you.

“And great banter, Y/N”, he added before turning to Alex to debrief.

Nevermind. You almost skipped out of the room from the high you got from him complimenting you.

You could really enjoy your lunch break after that. Sitting down between Angela and Amanda, you dug right in, conversing with the others at the table as you did everyday.

“I was watching the shoot just then, you know?” Angela nudged you, speaking between bites, “what’s up with you and Spence?”

You almost bit down on your tongue in surprise.

“What?” You laughed to cover the worried feeling that rose inside you, “what do you mean?”

“You know what I mean”, she spoke quietly, this was between you two. The rest of the table were not paying attention, holding their own conversation about the schedule for the rest of the week. “You, like, don’t look directly at him and you just silently do what he says. No reply, nothing.”

“I didn’t think I had to reply to every direction given”, you shot back, eyes on your food. You were dreading where this situation was heading.

“Okay, okay, no offence”, Angela lay a hand on your leg, eyebrows raised so high it made you laugh, “I have never seen you skip an opportunity to say something.” When she saw your jaw drop, she quickly added, “I’m saying this as a fellow yapper, okay? It takes one to know one. You seem to talk non-stop to anyone until it’s with Spencer, then you shut right up. Are you mad at him? Did he do something to piss you off?”

You sighed and put your fork down.

“No, Angela”, you both leaned back in your chairs, facing each other, “I’m not mad at him, he did nothing wrong.”

“Then?”

“I-”, you quickly glanced around you, checking nobody was paying attention to you two, “I don’t know. Like, I just can’t talk to him.”

“But why?” Angela had her hands out inquisitively, like this was a great mystery she had been thinking about for a long time. “How are you not able to talk to somebody? You start chattering when you hear someone enter the stall next to you in the bathroom. It’s disturbing. Nothing stops you.”

“I don’t know”, you were a lying liar. You knew damn well why you struggled to speak to him. “I just can’t!”

She eyed you suspiciously. She was squinting at you so hard, you resisted the urge to ask if she needed her glasses. This was one of the rare times you actually wanted a conversation to end as soon as possible.

“Right”, she finally conceded, a strange expression on her face, “totally. Yeah. You just don’t know.”

You nodded, smiling like nothing was bothering you. You could tell she wasn’t satisfied with your response but you were just glad she wasn’t pushing it anymore. She was very empathetic, so she could probably feel you were getting uncomfortable.

“Anyway”, she shook her head, poking you gently as she changed the topic, “what are you scheduled for tomorrow morning?”

☆

“And then I told him that I didn’t know where his wallet was and that I was sorry”, you explained, hands gesturing wildly.

“I mean, yeah”, Tommy responded while nodding, “you literally met him five minutes before, how were you meant to know?”

You were telling him a story about some guy you befriended at a bar a while ago when you heard someone clear their throat behind you. You spun around to see Spencer standing there, holding his laptop. You didn’t even hear him approaching while you were talking, how long had he been there?

“Hello”, he waved, you silently waved back and Tommy replied with his own ‘hello’. “I didn’t want to interrupt, but I need to speak to Y/N about an upcoming video. Sorry, Tommy.”

“No problem, don’t worry about it”, Tommy replied before heading back to his desk, “see you guys later.”

You wanted to yell for him to come back so you wouldn’t be alone with Spencer, but you were left with no choice but to quietly follow Spencer to the games set. He was going to quickly go through how to play a new board game you were set to play with a few of your cast mates because your schedules didn’t line up and you couldn’t be there when he taught the others.

“Okay”, he sighed, plopping down on the large grey couch. “Please sit down”, he nodded his head at the space next to him.

You carefully sat a respectable distance away from him, close enough to properly listen to him but far enough to not get you flustered. As he began to teach you the rules and show you the different cards, you tried your hardest to focus. He made it so difficult, he just looked so gorgeous. His curls were sitting just right today, one stray strand dangling down his forehead, and he was wearing that Creed shirt he always looked good in. His glasses slowly slipped down his nose when he leaned down and you bit your tongue as he adjusted them. You were trying to remember what each card did in the game, but your thoughts kept going back to how nice his voice sounded. He didn’t speak too fast and he kept the volume low since it was just you two sitting on the set, it tickled something in your brain.

“Y/N? Y/N!” His voice calling your name drew you out of your own thoughts.

A single ‘huh?’ was your clever response.

He sighed, seemingly a little frustrated.

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Yes”, you responded defensively, vaguely repeating some of the main points you managed to retain from when he was talking.

“Okay”, he nodded, “you did remember a few things. Sorta.”

He picked up the deck of cards and slid them back into their box as you silently watched his fingers work.

“Any questions?”

You looked up at his face to see him looking back at you with his eyebrows raised in question.

“Uh… no”, you flatly replied. You could feel your face and neck gradually get warmer the longer he looked at you.

“No? Any comments? Anything at all?”

You shook your head. Hopefully, this interaction would be ending soon before something devastating happened, like him noticing how red your face was or how clammy your hands were. You looked away and your eyes darted around the set. You didn’t like being speechless, it was an uncomfortable feeling for you.

“Y/N”, he gently pressed. You froze in place, eyes glued to the small table in front of you. “Why…”, he trailed off, not finishing his question before he stood up, “uh, nevermind. We’re done here, I guess. See you around.”

And then he was gone.

You felt relief and anxiety mix together at the bottom of your stomach. You wanted to talk to him so bad but you were so in your own head about him, about your feelings for him. In another world, where you could get over your feelings for him, you could be best friends. You could be talking all day long, asking about each other's days, how your families were going, what your weekend plans were.

Instead, right now, you were the only person in the room, left sitting alone on an empty set.

☆

“What is their problem?” Spencer grumbled, partly to himself, partly to Alex and Shayne, interrupting the conversation they were having right next to Spencer’s desk. They both turned to look down at him, borderline sulking in his chair.

“Y/N?” Shayne hit the nail on the head immediately. Spencer didn’t often talk about his strained relationship with you, but the few times he did have been with these two in particular.

“Yeah”, he lifted his glasses to rub his eyes, “I just met with them to explain the new game we’re playing tomorrow.”

“Awkward?” Alex grinned.

“So awkward”, Spencer threw his hands up, “I really don’t get it! They just refuse to say anything to be besides ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘huh?’”

They could tell Spencer was getting frustrated, not quite angry, moreso confused and unsure on what to do.

“It’s been months since they started”, Shayne crossed his arms, tone neutral, “have they not had a proper conversation with you even once?”

“Never”, Spencer replied, “what about you guys?”

“All the time”, Shayne replied sheepishly.

“Yeah, all the time”, Alex nodded, almost apologetically. “I talked to them this morning about Fortnite for like half an hour. They asked me to explain it to them.”

“You’re kidding me”, Spencer whined, he just could not wrap his head around why you guys just didn’t click. “I would have killed to explain Fortnite to someone for the first time.”

The other two seemed bemused by his turmoil. Spencer feared they may not be taking this seriously. It was serious. Over the past months, he had watched you grow close with other people at Smosh, chatting and bonding so naturally it was as if you had worked there for years. Whenever he saw you, you were always in the middle of a lengthy conversation with someone; you had gained a reputation around the office as an amazing listener who would be easy to talk to for hours. Spencer thought you two could get along great, he was not the most talkative, but he loved to chat and loved to listen. However, Spencer seemed to be the one person in the company that you refused to talk to.

It didn’t help that he thought you were very attractive. It drove him insane, he felt this inexplicable draw to you and yet you avoided even making eye contact with him. Did you find out about his crush on you? Were you grossed out? Was that why you avoided speaking to him? There was no way though, he hadn’t told a single person about how attracted he was to you.

“Look, man”, Shayne gained his attention again, “if it really bothers you, you have to talk to them. They can’t read your mind, they might not even realise they’re doing it.”

That made Spencer laugh, you definitely knew you were doing it.

“Yeah, what Shayne said”, Alex chimed in, “talking to them is going to be a way better approach than sitting on your ass, ripping out your hair trying to solve it.”

“Maybe”, he groaned, turning back to his computer to continue his work, “I’ll think about it.”

Alex and Shayne shared a knowing look before leaving him alone.

☆

The next time you spoke to Spencer alone, he accosted you in the break room.

You were stirring the tea you had just made when you heard footsteps behind you slowly coming to a stop.

Before you could turn around and greet whoever it was, you heard Spencer’s apprehensive voice, “Alex mentioned you were showing an interest in Fortnite.”

You almost dropped your mug, but you managed to keep a firm grip on it as you turned around to face him. You tried to say something but faltered before closing your mouth and nodding. You already knew this was going to be another failed attempt at a conversation. You might as well have run for it then and there.

“Okay, well”, he put his hands in his pockets as he continued, “we could play together sometime? Or I could arrange for us to play on the channel in the future or something.”

You blinked a few times. He was asking to play Fortnite together. You felt so excited, you wanted to chug your tea down like a beer and give him a huge kiss but you controlled your impulses. You were curious about the game because of Spencer talking about it all the time and showing Angela how to play, so you enquired about the game from Alex a few days ago. You saw a chance to get through the invisible wall, conquer your feelings, and really get to know Spencer. You were determined to get over this stupid crush of yours for the sake of befriending him, you were tired of being the only person that didn’t get to enjoy his company.

“That sounds fun”, you managed to blurt out, both you and Spencer seemed shocked that you were actually speaking to him. “I mean, I’m not very experienced with video games, but it looks like a lot of fun”, your voice was quivering from nerves and you just prayed he didn’t notice, “I think all the cosmetics are really cool too.”

“Yes!” Spencer seemed to almost jump at the opportunity to talk to you, “they released a Sabrina Carpenter skin. You like her, don’t you?”

Your heart was going a mile a minute, were you actually managing to talk to him? And how did he know you were a fan of Sabrina Carpenter?

“Yeah, I love her!” You found yourself actually smiling, even though you were resisting the urge to find the nearest escape route like some kind of prey animal, “I didn’t know she had a collaboration with them. I actually just ordered the Short n’ Sweet Deluxe vinyl record I’ve been wanting for ages, it took me, like, an hour to decide which colour to get.”

“And which colour was that?” He asked.

“The blue one”, you quickly replied, “the white pearl one was pretty but I wanted the brighter colour. I thought it would look cuter on my record player.”

You were so excited that Spencer seemed interested in talking to you, it almost outweighed the incredible amount of nerves you were experiencing in that moment. You were trying your absolute hardest to form normal words and sentences in his presence. Having his whole attention on you as you spoke was so foreign and just as scary as it normally was, but it was also sort of thrilling. You felt like a teenager again, trying something new and rebellious that you figured you might regret later. There was a paradox of wanting to talk to him like this more to aid in your mission to get over your feelings for him, but the more he looked at you and spoke to you, the more you felt yourself falling.

You were making crazy progress on holding a conversation with him, though. You were definitely being more reserved than when you chatted with other people in the office, but this was breaking the record for longest talk you’ve ever had with him. It made your heart beat so fast you were scared you would pass out.

You had moved onto the topic of music and your record collection, the one you had been working on ever since you moved into your own apartment.

“I have about 30 now”, you had a small, proud smile on your face, “it’s growing slowly, I try not to blow all my money on them.”

“No, I get it”, he said back, grinning, “that is so cool, frankly.”

You felt your entire upper body flush with heat when he said that, your face feeling red and tingly. Part of you wanted to squeal at his compliment and the other part wanted to disappear, dig a hole into the floor and hide in it. Yapping came so naturally to you, but it was still proving difficult to speak to him. Your brain was in overdrive, trying so hard to pick the right words to say and string them into coherent sentences, stuff that was as easy as breathing when you spoke to anybody else.

“Y/N, are you okay?” Spencer sounded worried all of a sudden. When you looked at him with a confused expression, he pointed at your mug, “your hands are shaking pretty bad right now, you might want to put that drink down.”

You hadn’t noticed, you were indeed shaking, little ripples running through your tea from the movement.

“I’m okay”, you tried to grin widely, but it felt like a grimace. You tightened your hold on your tea, willing yourself to stop trembling. You realised you had probably reached your limit on talking to Spencer for today. Any more and you may have a heart attack. “Just a bit of the shakes, I have weak arms”, you lied.

“Are you sure-“

“Yes!” Your reply was too hasty and too loud, “yes, of course! I really need to get back to work though.”

He nodded as you cautiously stepped past him and almost jogged towards the exit, careful not to spill your drink.

“Talk to you later, Y/N.”

You paused, looking at him over your shoulder. You could have sworn he looked worried, nervous even. You felt extra light on your feet knowing he wanted to talk to you again.

“Yeah”, you couldn’t help the smile that took over your face, cheeks red and hands damp with sweat, “yeah, talk to you later, Spencer.”

He smiled back in a way that made your chest hurt and you couldn’t figure out if there was actually a halo of glowing light around him or you were hallucinating. You had to turn away and keep walking or you would have burst into flames with how warm your entire body had become. The gentle way he spoke to you replayed in your head over and over and over.

How the hell were you going to get over him?

☆

Spencer couldn’t help smiling to himself as he typed. He was a little distracted from his work today.

“What’s gotten into you?” Alex asked, alarmed at his behaviour. “You’re acting weird and happy and giddy.”

“Excuse me?”

“No, it’s just… did something happen?” Alex abandoned their desk and came over to him. They could be such a gossip sometimes. “Did you finally ask Y/N what the problem was?”

“No”, Spencer stopped doing his work too, turning to look at them, “but we had, like, an actual conversation.”

Alex’s eyebrows shot up, “wow, really?”

“Yes, dude, we talked about Sabrina Carpenter in Fortnite and their record collection”, he was obviously excited, “and it wasn’t a long talk, but they spoke actual sentences to me.”

“Good for you, buddy”, Alex patted his back, trying not to laugh as Spencer turned back to his monitor with a huge smile on his face, “good for you.”

☆

It had been a week since you had that discussion with Spencer and you were still reeling from it. You both got very busy and you didn’t really find yourself alone with him after that. You were both excited and very scared about the next time you could potentially talk. You had been mentally hyping yourself up before work everyday, just in case. You were determined to push your feelings down as far as possible, so you could have a longer conversation next time.

It was a sunny Friday morning when you breezed through the door, mood high because the barista at the cafe remembered your order and gave you a dollar discount. You greeted every single person you walked past and gave Courtney a huge hug when you saw her.

“You’re in a good mood”, they laughed, “happy Friday, huh?”

“I just feel like today’s gonna be an amazing day”, you hummed, pulling away and grabbing her hand. You swung them around between you wildly as you spoke, “the weather’s gorgeous, my coffee tastes extra good this morning, you look beautiful. It’s been great so far.”

She leaned forward and laughed hard.

“Are you sure it’s not because you’re filming with Spence later?”

“What?” You stopped swinging your arm, looking at her with wide eyes, “that’s not why- no, I didn’t even know, no, well, I did know but, that’s not a reason to- like, I don’t even…”

“Okay, breathe”, Courtney was wheezing with laughter now, “I was just teasing, Y/N. You’re okay.”

You fanned your face lightly, why was it so hot in here all of a sudden? Did they know about your feelings for Spencer? You swore you were working on that. Hopefully, the mention of him won’t make you feel like this soon.

“I’ve never seen you stumble over words like that before”, they started swinging your arms again, “what was that about? I thought you didn’t like him.”

“It’s not that I don’t like him”, you explained, shaking your head, “I like him! I like him a lot!”

Another weakness of yours that came along with being a yapper was your bad habit of over-explaining. You couldn’t shut up if you tried, unfortunately.

“You… like him a lot?” Courtney raised a single eyebrow, “never heard you admit that before. That’s very interesting.”

“No!” You let go of her hand to wave yours in front of her in a panic, “no, not like that!”

“Yeah”, she replied, slowly stepping away from you and heading back in the direction she was originally going, “totally, yeah. You didn’t mean it like that.”

You rushed away to your desk, cheeks flared up and your head down to hide it. You didn’t see Courtney look back at you with a mischievous smirk.

☆

“Y/N is on one today”, Courtney gasped as everyone was trying to catch their breath. You had told an off-hand, low-brow joke that you did not expect to land, but apparently everyone at Smosh had the humour of a 12 year old boy. Your chest swelled with pride, not from making everyone at the table laugh, but for making specifically Spencer laugh so hard, he was covering his face with his hands.

You silently thanked the heavens that you got to film a Moose Master video with Spencer today without going through the emotional and physical torture of sitting directly next to him. In your opinion, he looked super hot today, he was wearing a hoodie and pushed the sleeves up instead of taking it off when the game really heated up. All you wanted was to stop looking at the cameras and just stare at his tattoos to commit them to memory. Making him laugh while he looked so good was like doing crack. Or what you imagined doing crack was like.

As the game continued, the volume in the room only increased, more rules making people screw up and yell at each other. It was getting intense.

“You said her first name!” You pointed at Noah accusingly, interrupting the tirade he was on, “you broke a rule! I got your ass!”

“Y/N”, clearly frustrated, Noah put his hand up in your face, “shut up for once!” He then continued with the argument he was having with Amanda.

The comment was played for laughs, clearly all in the lighthearted spirit of the game. You had to admit the way he worded it hurt a little bit. But at the end of the day, you knew he didn’t mean it, you had all said stuff you didn’t mean in the heat of the moment. It wasn’t a big deal, so you got over that twang of pain pretty fast.

Seeming to notice you had become uncharacteristically silent for a moment, Spencer locked eyes with you from across the table. He silently raised his eyebrows and gave you a miniscule nod, you knew this meant ‘are you okay?’ Your cheeks flushed at him paying attention to solely you amongst the chaos and you nodded back in assurance before returning to the game.

His consideration unleashed a thousand butterflies in your stomach, it was clearly not a big deal, but he still wanted to check on you. You almost wanted to be mad at him for being so cute and sweet. He really was not going to let this ‘getting over your crush’ thing easy.

☆

After an hour, filming wrapped and everyone slowly dispersed. You lingered back a little, discussing something random with Courtney. You two walked off the set a little slower than the others, and once you were back in the main section of the office, you bid Courtney adieu as they went off to take care of something else.

“Hey Y/N”, you jumped a little in surprise, you hadn’t realised Spencer was standing by the door, just out of sight. “Can we talk for a second?”

Oh my god, here we go. You had been gearing up for your next one-on-one conversation with Spencer, you wanted this one to go off without a hitch, leaving him thinking you were charismatic and clever. The problem lay in the fact that when you were finally alone with him, and his beautiful eyes were gazing into yours and only yours, your mind went completely blank.

“Yeah”, you replied, exhaling. You didn’t even realise you had been holding your breath. You were glad nobody else was around to see you embarrass yourself.

“Did…”, Spencer scratched the back of his neck, “did what Noah said during that video upset you? I mean, I know you nodded like you were okay, but I just wanted to check on you to make sure, because that was a pretty rude thing to say”, his eyes were avoiding yours this time, “even though I know you know he didn’t really mean it. That doesn’t make it okay, though. Okay, I’m rambling right now, I’m gonna stop…”

You stared at him speechlessly. He was being so unbelievably cute right now. The care he was showing for you and your feelings endeared him to you so much it hurt.

“Spencer, you’re making this so hard”, you groaned without thinking. When you realised what you said, you wanted to run again. Flight or fight activated.

He furrowed his brow in confusion, “making what hard?”

Now you’ve gone and done it. You were incredibly embarrassed, searching the floor for some sort of way out of this situation.

“No, Noah didn’t make me uncomfortable”, you said in a monotone voice.

“Y/N, what am I making hard?” He ignored you and took a step forward, you started to panic.

“That’s what she said”, you couldn’t even laugh at your joke. He didn’t laugh either, and that made you feel even worse.

“Y/N”, Spencer slowly reached for you, as if you were a skittish wild animal. You tried your hardest not to flinch when he gently put his hand on your upper arm. “What’s going on? You can tell me.”

You finally looked up at him. There was an entire galaxy in his eyes you wanted to explore. He had gotten so close to you, but you wanted him even closer.

“I know you don’t really like talking to me, but”, he swallowed, “I really want to change that. You just need to tell me what to do.”

“I do, though”, you mumbled, your face felt so hot, you could probably cook an egg on it. “I want to talk to you all the time, it’s just-”, you shut your mouth, not daring to say anything further.

“What am I making hard for you, Y/N?” He was whispering now.

There was a beat of silence. It couldn’t have been more than ten seconds, but it felt like it stretched on for hours.

“Getting over you”, you whispered back meekly, hands balling into fists by your sides. “Getting over my big, fat crush on you”, you said a little louder, you were diving into the deep end, laying bare your soul for him.

“What?” Spencer’s eyes had widened to the size of saucers, entire body almost recoiling in surprise. “That doesn’t make sense. I thought you didn’t like me. You talk to every single person in the office like they’re your best friend except for me.”

“Y-you make me nervous”, you shifted your weight from one foot to the other, “I’ve never been any good at talking to cute guys I like.”

Spencer’s cheeks flushed a deep red. He seemed almost as flustered as you.

“But!” You were fighting to save the situation, the last thing you wanted was to completely fuck up the work environment for both of you because of your schoolyard crush. “I promise I’m trying my best to get over my feelings for you. And then it’ll be so much easier to chat, and we can yap all day long together! I just need some time to work on it, that’s all.”

“Stop”, he murmured, tone pleading. He had stepped even closer, you could feel the heat coming off his body. Or it was just the heat your own face was generating. You were pretty sure you were visibly sweating. “Stop that.”

“What-”

“I don’t want you to”, he gently took your hand and you felt like you couldn’t breathe, a shiver ran up your spine, “I don’t want you to get over me.” His green eyes bore into yours, your heart thudded against your ribcage as you willed yourself not to break eye contact. “I haven’t been able to get over you, you know”, he spoke to you in a quiet tone you had never heard from him before, “ever since we talked in the break room, I’ve been thinking about you all the time.”

You opened your mouth and closed it a few times, completely in shock and searching for words that were not coming to you. You were so accustomed to knowing what to say in reply to pretty much anything, the constant flow of conversation buzzing at the back of your head came to a screeching halt. There was nothing but a heavy silence in your head as the man you’ve been pining for was metaphorically grabbing your heart out of your chest and claiming it as his.

“Just… thinking about you and how funny and bright you are”, he kept going, you had never heard Spencer word-vomit like this and it made your heart soar, “you talk so loud, but I love it because I can still hear you even though you won’t talk to me”, that made you laugh, your free hand coming up to cover your red face. “Your jokes always get me, and I love how you laugh with your whole body. I’m just always thinking about your smile, and your humour, and how kind you are to everyone, you’ve been driving me crazy.”

You covered his mouth with your trembling hand. You were so flustered, you felt like you were going to melt into a puddle any second. He looked at you with expectant eyes, round and imploring, like he was asking a silent question.

“You’re talking more than me for once”, you inspected every part of his face, you rarely had the opportunity to do that, you had been avoiding being close to him all this time after all. He chuckled behind your hand, the way his eyes crinkled a little in the corners when he smiled made you want to scream. You worried that he might be able to feel your racing pulse. “I never thought you would like me back.”

He slowly pushed your hand away from his mouth, “and I never thought you would like me. You acted like you hated me.”

“Okay”, you started, cutting yourself off with an embarrassed chortle, “I was panicking every time I saw you, I’m sorry!”

You joked with each other like that for the next few minutes, your heartbeat slowing slightly as you calmed down. Your chest tightened with excitement as you realised he had inched even closer, almost touching you. He looked at you with so much affection in his eyes when you laughed at something he said. You felt like you were on cloud nine.

“So”, you looked down at your fingers still interlocked, “what does this mean for us then?”

“Well”, Spencer pretended to think really hard, “if you can actually stand talking to me for more than five minutes,” he ignored you as you smacked his chest in fake offence, “would you like to go on a date with me?”

You hummed, also pretending to think really hard. He grinned at you, eyes fond. You wondered if he had been looking at you like that all this time.

“Yes, I think I’d like that”, you answered softly.

Feeling bold, you leaned in slightly, wondering if you could get away with kissing him on the cheek. He had other plans, tilting his head so his lips were almost grazing yours. He stayed still, waiting on you, always waiting on you. Both of you had your eyes half closed, transfixed on each other’s lips. Your stomach flipped as you took the leap, moving forward and pressing your mouth against his. It was absolute bliss.

Just like that, the invisible wall between you came tumbling down. It was like it was never there in the first place as Spencer’s hand squeezed yours tight.

☆

Note: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think! Also, I am happy for people to send requests, I want to try writing shorter fics, so that would be perfect! If you have sent me an ask, please be patient with me as I work through them, thanks guys. <333

It was after you broke things off with your last partner/situation/ball and chain that you decided that maybe a celibacy oath was the way to go. Not only did you catch him texting other girls on Instagram, they weren’t even replying to his desperate messages. Somehow the failed attempt to cheat was more disgusting to you than the actual act of cheating. The optimistic side of you chose to push through and sail past the red flags only to find this guy was just as awful as your friends predicted. That was your problem for most of your life: you were full of hope and second chances and unconditional love (which is dangerous without the critical thinking skills to go with it).

But no more! You have had enough of men stepping all over you. You were tired of being used for your love and attention and emotional support, and if that meant you were going to be single for the rest of your life, so be it! That beats spending it with some guy working in finance whose opening line on Tinder was ‘you tryna send pics or nah?’ Your single era started now.

☆

Anti-Romance Day 30 was looking good until it wasn’t.

It was a rainy Saturday with no plans, which meant staying holed up in your apartment and watching movies in your pyjamas. Against your better judgment, you selected a romantic comedy, carefully opening a bag of popcorn fresh out of the microwave as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days started up on your television.

By the end of the film, you were choking on tears at the thought of your failed love life as Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey made out on screen. This was a mistake, nothing made you yearn for romantic company more than a sappy movie. You wanted to dramatically curse at the universe for making real life dating such a complete hellscape.

Was it even the men who were the problem here? What if you were just undateable? What if you were such an awful potential partner that you only attracted the weirdo freaks and all the good ones hit skip?

You shook your head to clear it.

There was no point thinking like that when you knew it wasn’t true. You were attentive and loving and communicated very well, all the ideal components of the perfect partner. Your cooking was… questionable, but you gave great hugs!

Your thoughts were interrupted by your phone ringing.

It was your UberEats delivery man and he was pissed. Apparently the instructions you sent him to get to your apartment were too hard to understand, and you had to go down and meet him or he was going to drive away with your KFC family meal (don’t judge). In fear of losing your money and fried chicken, you practically flew out your apartment to retrieve your food from the lobby. Walking from the elevator back to your apartment, you make an earth shattering realisation, you forgot to grab your front door key before going to get your food.

A few things about this situation: your key fob to access the building and elevator were on your car keys (currently in hand), and your front door key was strapped to your bag (currently inside the apartment). Also, your apartment door was one of those heavy duty ones that automatically locked from the outside. To summarise: you were fucked.

“Shit!” You practically shouted, tightening your grip on the paper KFC bag, “fuuuck!”

“Uh, are you okay?”

You jumped in surprise. In all the chaos, you didn’t even notice that the door to the apartment next to yours was propped open and a man stood just inside the doorway, staring at you. He was holding a cardboard box with both hands, brown curls peeking out from under a baseball cap, wireframe glasses sitting in front of deep green eyes, and a confused expression on his face. He was so cute.

“Who are you?” You blurted out without thinking, your cheeks immediately flushing, “sorry, I mean- I thought Old Mr Chan lived here.”

“Oh, he moved out”, the stranger replied. He turned to place the box down on a nearby table before stepping out of the apartment. “My name is Spencer, I’m moving in today”, he held his hand out and you tentatively shook it with your free hand.

“I’m Y/N. Sorry about earlier”, you sighed, of course the first time you met your new neighbour was at a time like this. You were hyper aware of the fact that he probably watched you stand in the hallway cursing at your door while holding a giant KFC bag, hair greasy, in your Hello Kitty print pyjama pants, eyes obviously red from your little crying session a few minutes ago.

“No worries”, he smiled, oh god, his smile was beautiful. “I’m assuming you’re my neighbour?” He glanced at your asshole of a front door. “Why were you swearing at it?”

You sank even deeper into your embarrassment as you explained the situation to him. Talk about first impressions.

“Oh!” An idea popped into your head and Spencer looked at you expectantly. “What if I go through your apartment onto your fire escape and then like shimmy across to my window along the ledge-“

“What?” He exclaimed, eyebrows raised, “are you crazy? No way, that’s so dangerous. And are you sure your window’s unlocked?”

You paused.

“Yeah, you’re right… Do I really need to call a locksmith?” You scrunched up your nose. You could feel Spencer still looking at you and it made you extra self conscious. You knew you looked insane right now.

He hummed in thought. “The building manager was meant to come by in a bit to drop some stuff off for me, maybe you can ask him to help you out when he comes?”

You perked up a little, “yes! Sounds good!” You smiled at him despite yourself. You may have given a terrible first impression to your new neighbour, but at least you would probably get back inside your apartment today.

After some only slightly awkward small talk with Spencer, the building manager arrived and after explaining the whole mess, shot you a disappointed look and went to retrieve the spare key to your apartment.

“You’re a lifesaver”, you gushed to the building manager, offering him a now cold chicken tender which he rejected before grumpily entering the elevator. You were just happy your front door was now open, merrily sliding inside, you called out, “welcome to the building, Spencer!”

For a second, the sweet smile he showed you in response made you forget that you looked a mess and was just having an emotional breakdown. Your cheeks turned red as the door clicked shut.

☆

“Coming!” You yelled out, abandoning the dishes you were washing and jogging over to your front door after hearing the doorbell ring. You checked the peephole only to find Spencer standing there, hands in pockets, waiting.

You gulped. The situation where you were locked out with a big bag of fried chicken had happened a couple weeks ago and you hadn’t really spoken to Spencer since. You saw him only a couple times in the hall and you did not exchange much besides quiet ‘hello’s and nods of acknowledgment. You took a deep breath and swung the door open.

“Spencer! Hi!” You tried to smile like a normal person. “What’s up?”

“Hey, Y/N”, he looked at you with those pretty eyes and you silently thanked god you weren’t dressed in pyjamas this time. “Sorry to randomly pop over like this.”

“It’s fine”, you waved your hand, pretending to be nonchalant, “what can I help you with?”

“I’m totally being a bother but could I please borrow a couple eggs?” He sheepishly grinned, slightly rocking back and forth on his feet as if he was embarrassed this time, “I’m in the middle of cooking something and I didn’t realise I was out.”

“Sure”, you opened the door wider for him, “come in, I’ll go grab them for you.”

Now was it wise to let an almost stranger into your apartment? No. Was it neighbourly though? Kind of!

He thanked you before following you into your apartment. He even left his shoes at the door upon noticing all your shoes sitting on racks right next to it. You were flattered by his observance, it had been a while since a man with any kind of consideration of your habits and taste had been in your residence.

You led him to the kitchen.

“I’m certain I have some in the fridge”, you said over your shoulder, “I get through them pretty slowly.”

“Your place is really nice”, he complimented you while walking through the kitchen doorway. You glanced over at the mismatched chairs at your dining table and the clock on the wall painted to look like a pizza. You couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. 

“Thanks…”, you murmured tentatively, “I don’t often hear that honestly-“

Your sentence got cut off when you slipped on the small puddle under your shitty kitchen sink left from when you were doing the dishes. You were midair just for a half second before landing on your butt.

“Oh my god”, Spencer rushed over to you, “are you alright?”

You groaned at the literal pain in your ass.

“Yep”, you choked out as if your tailbone wasn’t killing you, “just a little trip, I’m all good.”

He helped you up anyway, hands steady but touch soft. You felt yourself blushing at the contact, suddenly realising this was the first time he had touched you since your initial handshake. Once you were upright again, you turned your head toward him and felt your heart jump at how close he was to you. If you wanted to, you could have counted his eyelashes. You immediately broke eye contact and sped over to the fridge, this time making sure to step around the water on the floor.

“U-um, just two eggs, was it?” You shoved your face into your fridge, both checking how many eggs were in the carton and hoping the cold air would cool your face down.

You heard Spencer clear his throat after a pause, “yeah, yeah, just two.”

You handed him the eggs as he replied with a soft ‘thanks’, and on his way out he seemed to hesitate. Stopping halfway out the door, he turned to face you.

“Not that I was, like, purposely looking or anything”, he said quietly, eyes not meeting yours, “but I think when you slipped, you landed in the puddle because there’s a wet patch on the- uh… back of your jeans.”

You blankly stared at him.

“Just thought I should let you know before you sit down and make your couch wet or something”, he finally looked you in the eye again and he also seemed to flush when he saw your clear embarrassment.

“Thanks for letting me know”, your voice came out almost like a squeak. He nodded as he thanked you again for the eggs and scurried off back to his apartment next door.

Once your door shut again, you felt the back of your pants. Yup, your entire ass was wet.

Look on the bright side, you thought to yourself as you unzipped them so they could dry off of your body, at least he knew it was water and you didn’t have to convince him you didn’t pee your pants. You dryly chuckled to yourself as you stood in your underwear, hanging your jeans on a clothes rack.

No romance, you thought to yourself, don’t even let yourself think about it.

☆

“I really don’t know if we can fix it”, Spencer furrowed his brow. He was bent down next to you as your hands fumbled around the pipes under his sink with one hand and a wrench clasped in the other.

You two had been speaking to each other more since he saw you with a big wet patch on your ass. You had exchanged numbers in the elevator a few days after, Spencer claimed it was in case you got locked out again or he needed more eggs. Brief text conversations every now and then gave way to livelier elevator conversations and amicable chats in the hallway. You would consider him an almost-friend at this point and you were glad you were getting along well with him, despite you embarrassing yourself seemingly every single time you interacted.

And here you were, knelt down in his kitchen after texting back and forth about his sink no longer working.

“Have some faith”, you murmured, preoccupied with fiddling with a valve you located on the side of a pipe.

“Do you know anything about plumbing?” He asked incredulously, running a hand through his unruly hair. It was late Sunday morning, and he had clearly not styled it. Your heart rate had picked up when you saw him, in his sweatpants and messy bed head, it felt so intimate to see him not done up and ready to leave his house. You had ignored the thumping in your chest and followed him to the kitchen.

“Well… no”, you leaned back, grinning at him. That earned a loud laugh from him that caught you a bit off guard. Even his laugh was cute, that was so unfair. “But I think we can D.I.Y this, maybe we should check YouTube?” You stood up to grab your phone off the counter and he laughed again.

“You want to check YouTube?” His tone indicated he didn’t seem to take your suggestion seriously.

“What?” You were playfully defensive, “I go there for all kinds of tutorials, it’s great. I love YouTube!”

He got up to stand next to you, watching over your shoulder as you opened the app.

“Yeah, me too”, he muttered, “I kinda work there.”

“What?” You looked away from your screen to address him. He was closer than you realised, head hovering over your shoulder. You willed your heartbeat to slow down lest he heard it. “I didn’t know you worked at YouTube.”

“Well, not at YouTube. I work for a YouTube channel”, he pointed at your phone, “don’t worry about that right now, I’ll tell you about it later. Try finding something that will help us fix my sink please.”

He said he was going to tell you about it later. He wanted to talk to you later. You felt like you could float out the window and fly away. You pushed the feeling down and made sure your feet were solidly planted on the floor.

“Oh right”, you locked back in, searching for a video that looked helpful. After skimming through a few, you had a bit of an idea. “Okay, let’s try checking that thingy pipe and if that doesn’t work, we might need to do more research.”

“So technical”, Spencer replied, bemused. His eyes sparkled when he smiled.

“Well, if this fails, you can come over and use my kitchen while it gets fixed”, you tried your best to keep your tone level, as if the image of Spencer cooking in your kitchen didn’t make you giddy with excitement. “My sink works perfectly fine.”

“Yeah, I know”, Spencer laughed, referring to the last time he was there.

You looked away from him, flustered. You swung your wrench around a bit and headed back to the sink before he could notice. He watched as you bent down. You decided you probably needed to get as low as possible to find the pipe they were talking about in the video. You squatted down as deep as you could go and froze. A loud ripping noise stopped you in your tracks.

“Uh oh”, Spencer chimed from behind you and you didn’t dare to turn around to see his expression.

You closed your eyes. This couldn’t be happening. You were so sure today was going to go well, you had visions of hanging out with him and him being so impressed you could fix his sink. It was meant to be the start of your redemption arc. Well, it looked like things had headed in the opposite direction because you had just fucking ripped your pants like a cartoon character.

“There’s no way”, you whispered in disbelief, “there is absolutely no way that just happened.”

You slowly stood and turned to see Spencer leaning against the opposite counter, eyes on the ceiling.

“Oh, it definitely did”, he was so clearly trying to hold in his laughter. “I’m not looking so you can preserve your modesty.”

Your face was beet red, feeling the backside of the pair of old jeans that had failed you twice in the span of a couple weeks.

“Shit, did you see my underwear?”

“I don’t want to lie to you…”

“Spencer!”

“I’m sorry!” He put his hands up in surrender, failing to hold in his giggles now, “I didn’t mean to! How was I supposed to know you were planning on splitting your pants on my kitchen floor?”

You groaned in frustration, hands covering your crotch. He looked back down at you, hands still in the air. You stared at each other before you both burst into laughter. As embarrassed as you were, the situation was far too funny for you to take it seriously. You were both doubled over with tears in your eyes.

“You took playing plumber too literally”, he gasped out, “you showed crack and everything.”

“No, I did not!” You shouted, tears of laughter spilling down your face.

Once the hysteria passed, Spencer lent you a sweater to tie around your waist in case somebody in the hall saw you with your pants crotch split open.

“You should probably call the building manager”, you said to him as he walked you to his door, “I fear I’m not cut out to be a handyman.”

“Yeah, not really,” he said bluntly, but the smile on his face was wide.

“I’ll give your sweater back later today”, you stood just outside his door, he leaned against the doorframe.

“It’s okay, you can hold onto it for a while”, he replied. The softness in his voice made your stomach turn in a way that was both pleasant and upsetting. “I have to head out later and run some errands so I won’t be here.”

You had this urge to ask to hang out with him a little longer, to ask if you could come with him to run his errands, to prolong the time you spent with him as much as you could. He had this gravitational pull that made you want to stay in his orbit. But you knew that feeling well and it had gotten you tangled up in too many messes for you to count. You steadied your emotions again.

“No problem”, you shrugged, like it meant nothing to you that you had his sweater on you. “Thanks again!”

You waved as you side-stepped over to your own apartment. He lingered in the doorway for a little longer, watching you unlock your door. You could feel his eyes on you, you wondered if he was staring because you looked good or completely ridiculous. You glanced at him one more time before entering your apartment. He looked like he wanted to say something more but crossed his arms and smiled instead.

“See you, Y/N.”

“Bye, Spencer.”

☆

Texting Spencer slowly became part of your everyday routine. It was one of the highlights of your day - random thoughts, memes, both of you complaining about stuff happening at work. He had taken up a comfortable spot in your mind and he didn't show any signs of leaving soon. You had begun to value him so much as a friend, you tried your hardest to ignore any kind of romantic attraction you felt for him.

Like you had decided before, you were taking a break from romance anyway. He had become such a good friend to you that you were focussing more on getting close to him platonically.

You felt like you could tell him anything. You had both opened up to each other over the past weeks. He had told you all about his work at Smosh, the pressure he felt that kept him up at night sometimes, but also the absolute blast he had working with the people he loved so much. You had told him about your terrible luck for your entire dating history and the conclusion you came to recently that being single for the rest of your life was on the table, but at the same time, the tumultuous nature of your love life had brought your close friends even closer. You had shared these moments with him where you felt like time was standing still, smiling at your phone in the dark while in bed, hushed conversations in the hallway walking from the elevator to your doors, smiling tiredly at each other in the lobby before work on a Monday morning.

You loved spending time with him, whether it was 30 minutes or 30 seconds. But sometimes his cute smile made you feel like you couldn’t breathe, his charming sense of humour made you feel like you were being knocked off your feet, and when those beautiful eyes gazed at you with all his attention, it made you feel positively seasick.

Shit.

☆

You had a day off work and you spent it doing a bit of shopping (you needed new jeans) and got home in the afternoon to a few texts from Spencer. He was going to get back to his place in about half an hour and asked if you wanted to have dinner together. This was not anything new, a huge perk of becoming good friends with your neighbour is that you got to hang out whenever you wanted.

‘Sure thing’, you texted back, ‘bring some takeaway and you can choose the movie.’

‘Deal.’

Less than an hour later, you heard your doorbell chime and then he was handing you a bag of food from Homestate while kicking off his boots. It just felt so easy, letting him into your space, making you belly laugh with a story about Angela from work. You bet he knew it too, how much you loved his presence, he had that twinkle in his eye whenever you gave him attention, with that cheeky smile, how could you look away?

“I can’t believe you haven’t seen Alien”, Spencer sat back on the couch after hitting play on the movie.

You shrugged next to him, “it’s not that I don’t watch horror movies, I just never got around to it.”

“Well, prepare to get your mind blown”, he turned to stare at you like this was life or death.

You laughed. “God, you’re corny.”

“Yeah, yeah, you love it.”

You didn’t bother replying to him, rolling your eyes playfully, you began to dig into your food while the movie started. With your head down, you hoped he didn’t notice you still blushed like an idiot when he spoke to you like that.

It was really good, hell, it was probably a great movie. The problem was you kept getting distracted. Finished food abandoned on the coffee table, you kept glancing over at the man comfortably laid back next to you like he belonged there. You were sitting tight together, arms touching. You resisted the urge to cuddle him, you were friends for sure but you didn’t want to cross a boundary that he might not be comfortable with. Anyway, if you guys did cuddle, he would definitely feel how fast your heart was beating. Even now, with your upper arms pressed against one another and your knees occasionally knocking together, it felt like a million tiny electric zaps every time you made contact.

Spencer loved movies, he was a movie guy, and you loved that he was a movie guy. You loved the way he lit up talking about them, his eyes glued to the screen and reacting to everything that happened like it was personally happening to him. He really felt the films he liked, he was open-minded and enjoyed being immersed in them. You couldn’t help being attracted to his passion and excitement, and watching every microexpression on his face instead of the movie itself. It was alright though, because he would always answer your questions when you got confused.

“You’re so patient with me”, you grinned absentmindedly, trying to focus on Sigourney Weaver running through the spaceship. When you realised what you said, you tried to play it off, “like, as in, you never get mad at me for getting confused.” You attempted to laugh in a light, casual way, it came out sort of hollow sounding though.

Yeah… playing it real cool, you thought to yourself sarcastically. You forced yourself not to look at him but you could feel his gaze on you.

“Of course”, his voice was so soft, you almost missed it. Your will broke down immediately and you turned to him. You didn’t think you had ever seen that expression on his face, it was gentle and open, ignoring the movie for once. You felt your breath leave your lungs, like your chest was about to collapse and you were going to throw up.

“Thank you”, you murmured, not knowing what else to say. “For being so… good to me.”

What the fuck were you saying? Oh my god, oh my god, shut up-

“I can’t imagine ever not being good to you”, he mumbled back, “and I’m not that patient.”

Your heart was in your throat, your heartbeat was so loud in your ears, you couldn’t hear the yelling from the television. You slowly pressed the pause button and tossed the remote aside without looking away from him.

“What do you mean?”

“Something about you makes me so impatient”, he was whispering now and you felt yourself being drawn closer like a magnet. “Sometimes”, he swallowed thickly, “I think about you and I lose all my chill. I just want to stop what I’m doing and see you.”

Seeing him like this, cheeks slowly reddening and eyes wide and vulnerable, it felt more intimate than sex.

“S-sorry”, he stuttered out.

“No”, you rushed, your hand instinctively grabbing his forearm and he jumped like you had just shocked him. You slowly realised that while you had been trying to ignore your attraction to Spencer, he may have been doing the exact same thing. “I feel the same way”, you said breathlessly, “I think about you every single day.”

“Me too, every day”, he nodded in agreement, “it’s been hard to not think about you all the time ever since I saw you sprint down the hall in your Hello Kitty print pyjamas.” You threw your head back in laughter, his gorgeous laugh mixing with yours. “I couldn’t help falling for you, you landed in a puddle in front of me in your own kitchen. And then you ripped your pants in mine.” You were in hysterics at this point, as embarrassed as you were in those moments, it was absolutely hilarious in hindsight.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you like me”, you caught your breath, “I had no idea.”

“I didn’t want to push anything”, he said sincerely, “I had no idea if you liked me like that, and after learning about your whole swearing off romance thing… I thought I had no chance at all.”

“Well”, you reached up and fiddled with the string of his hoodie, almost feeling the heat coming off his body, “that was before I met you.”

His smile at that moment was so bright, you swore it lit up the entire room.

“You’re amazing, Spencer”, he held your free hand in his, gently running his thumb along your knuckles, “I tried to avoid my feelings but I couldn’t do it. I like you so much it makes me sick.”

“Sick?” He laughed. You loved making him laugh.

“Yes, sick”, you giggled in reply.

Both of you were slowly inching towards each other, noses almost bumping. His eyes flicked down at your lips and then back up to your eyes. You gave the tiniest of nods, giving permission, and he immediately leaned in. And then your lips connected, it was like every romantic movie you had ever seen combined and ten times better. You could almost hear the swelling music score as his hand delicately cradled the side of your face. You felt like electricity was running through your veins and roses were blossoming inside your chest. He tasted sweet like the lemonade he just had, and you tightened the grip you had on his hoodie string. He hummed contently against your mouth, his other hand pulled you closer, until you felt engulfed in his arms, his scent, him.

So much for a retired hopeless romantic.

✩