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09. a kidnapping!
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˖⁺ 🕷⋆ ୭ ⛓ .⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹

LORELAI WOKE UP TO Edgar walking all over her legs. The little pug had been let into her room at some point during the morning; his little claws had scratched on the white wood of the door until Felix reluctantly let him in. Now he stood on Lorelei's left thigh, his beady black eyes staring the girl down with an expression she could only describe as boredom and concealed murderous intent. He wanted a treat, Lorelai supposed.

Her head rolled to the side and looked over to her window. Light just barely escaped the gap between her blackout curtains and the wall, giving the dark window a warm grey outline. Everything felt still, as if someone had pressed pause on life. No noise could be heard from downstairs, or even down the hall where Felix's recording room sat. The normal noise that occupied the Kjellberg house was gone, and it felt oddly calming. No screaming Felix, no screaming Marzia, and no screaming pugs.

Soft grumbles perked Lorelai's attention, her gazing falling on the phone that sat a few inches away from her head. Her phone lit up the room more than her windows, and as Lorelai's eyes adjusted to the light, she could see the timer on her and Corpse's call at a much higher number than it had been when she last looked at it.

Had they been on call for nine and a half hours? Lorelai knew immediately that she had fallen asleep during the call, but that didn't explain why Corpse didn't hang up. Didn't he have better things to do? Had he forgotten he was on call, maybe, and continued living his life without a care?

"Corpse?" Lorelai croaked, the sleep in her voice catching her off guard. She coughed twice to clear it away, to which Edgar gave her a disgusted look and walked down to her feet.

"Morning," he answered.

Lorelai paused before stating, "you didn't hang up."

"I didn't," he confirmed.

"Why?"

Lorelai could hear Corpse type something on the other side of the call before answering, "you seemed relaxed. It was peaceful."

Small dashes of pink painted Lorelai's cheeks. "What did you do for nine hours?"

"I took a nap," he said. "Now I'm editing. Not much really."

He took a nap? Lorelai quickly checked the time on her phone to confirm she was right. Corpse was eight hours behind her, meaning that his nap had happened between seven in the evening and four in the morning. He really wasn't kidding when he said he had a bad sleep schedule.

"What are you editing?"

"The games from the lobby you organized last week," he replied. "It's fucking tiring."

"Take another nap," Lorelai suggested.

Corpse hummed a negative reply before saying, "not that kind of tired. Just tired of staring at the same screen and the same clips."

"I get that," Lorelai said. "Editing can be a pain in the ass."

The Danish girl quietly stood up, feet dragging to her window where she opened the curtains. Her fingers grasped the black fabric and yanked them to the side, an involuntary gasp escaping her mouth as she laid eyes on the scene in the backyard.

"You okay?" Corpse asked. He had heard her gasp, and the two sides of his brain were arguing whether it was a good or bad gasp.

"It's snowing," Lorelai said. She was caught dumbstruck, her mouth hanging open stupidly as she looked at the soft snow covering up the grass that laid beneath it.

"What?"

She raised a hand to the window, the freezing pane leaving a watery residue on her fingers. Her breath created little foggy spots that made the trees beyond them look hazy. The backyard of the Kjellberg house was coated in a small layer of snow, maybe an inch to an inch and a half, and it was beautiful. Little snowflakes drifted past Lorelai's window at a sluggish pace that fell onto the snow below it, morphing into the rest of its kind. It looked like a scene from a movie, some picturesque holiday movie they would show on Hallmark. The girl would fall in love with the guy, and everything would turn out perfect. Juvenile, but still enviable.

"It's snowing," Lorelai repeated with a giggle. "Corpse! It's snowing!"

The Danish girl quickly moved to her door, pushing it open and racing out into the hallway. She ran down the stairs, taking two at a time, and went straight into the living room where the floor to ceiling windows welcomed her with the picture of a perfect winter wonderland. Felix and Marzia were on the couch watching some Halloween movie, two mugs of coffee between them and one fluffy blanket draped over their legs. They smiled as Lorelai marveled at the snow outside.

"Send me a picture," Corpse requested, taking his hands off his keyboard to lean back in his gaming chair.

Lorelai unlocked her phone and snapped a photo of the backyard. As quickly as she could, she sent the photo to Corpse before shoving the phone back to her ear in favor of paying attention to the weather.

It was the first snow of the year. What Lorelai would come to despise in a month was therefore painted in a different light because of its newness. The crystalline bits of icy magic coated everything she could see and filled her with warm, tingly excitement. It was as if the bits of sparkling snow were giving the Earth a hug, peppering soft kisses on its soil to prepare it for its future harshness. Apologizing for its future actions, maybe.

On the other side of the world, Corpse stared down at the photo Lorelai had sent. If he looked outside his window all he would see is warm Californian air and the sparkling lights of San Diego at night. If he looked hard enough maybe he could see the planes departing from the airport, or the tops of the trees that were littered around Balboa Park, but snow? Unless Corpse left San Diego, his future was looking extremely snow free.

"Who are you on call with?" Marzia asked, pulling Lorelai's attention away from the windows.

Lorelai mouthed 'Corpse' to them, a suspicious smile taking over Felix's face. Marzia, who wasn't as good at reading lips as Felix was, leaned over to her husband, whispering with him for a second before nodding knowingly.

"It's beautiful," Corpse stated, still staring down at the photo. "You're lucky. I've never seen snow in person before."

"You live in California, right?" Lorelai asked. "I thought it snowed there sometimes."

Corpse scoffed. If it snowed where he lived, he was very certain that no one would know what to do. "Up north it does. Not down here in San Diego. We just get unbearable heat and Santa Ana winds."

Lorelai finally moved away from the windows, her feet taking her into the kitchen. The hot chocolate mix sat on the counter, a mug and spoon placed beside it that Felix and Marzia had presumably left that out for her. As much as Lorelai loved coffee, she would never choose coffee over hot chocolate on a snowy day.

"Well, Corpse, one day you'll see the snow," Lorelai smiled. "I promise."

"You promise?" He asked. "How do you know you can keep this promise?"

She smiled, spacing out as she pulled a jug of milk out of the fridge. "One day we can meet each other. It could be tomorrow or decades in the future, but if you ever come to Brighton, I'll show you snow."

An uncontrollable smile washed over Corpse. "I'd love that. If you ever come to San Diego, I promise to show you our unbearable heat and overall crappy weather."

"Bullshit," Lorelai replied with a smile. "California has the best weather. And you guys have beaches and stuff! That's so cool!"

As someone who had grown up in the area, Californian weather was nothing to him. Some snow or more rain would be desirable in all honesty. Lorelai's wish to see California seemed odd; it didn't make sense to him. But maybe one day he could help her with that wish, maybe one day he'd be okay with someone seeing him and knowing him that well.

Corpse and Lorelai were walking on a dangerous line, a line that differentiated their relationship from the two categories it could fall into. If they walked a little too far, made too many promises, they'd tip over. They'd fall into a world of something more, something new. On the other hand, they could tip the opposite way into a world of safety for the price of missing out on more. Any day now, a change would happen, and they'd guide themselves onto a path. Reckless emotions were driving them both through the cold waters of navigating whatever they had, but Lorelai headed up for air.

"It's a deal," she said, ending that portion of their conversation and leading them back down the safe path.

INSTAGRAM STORIES !
15:19
@lorelai

IMESSAGE !
17:29

INCOMING FACETIME FROM rae bae !
✅ ACCEPT ❌ DECLINE

"HI!" LORELAI EXCLAIMED, waving excitedly at Rae as she popped up on her phone screen. The other girl was smiling and waving, her phone propped up on her desk from a lower angle than her facecam. She had her hair sectioned into two braids that loosely ran over her shoulders with many little strands escaping, and perched on her nose were blue light glasses she used when she stared at computers for long periods of time.

"Hello!" Rae said back. Off-stream Rae was somehow just as enthusiastic as on-stream Rae a majority of the time, something that Lorelai could never understand. How could she always be filled with energy? "Wait, so, did you guys actually get a Christmas tree?"

Lorelai giggled, pulling herself off her bed and beginning the walk to the living room.

"We did," she laughed. Her footsteps made soft thumps on the stairwell as she rushed down. "It snowed for the first time this season today, so Marzia decided we needed a Christmas tree already."

"Won't it just die before Thanksgiving?" Rae asked.

Lorelai cocked her head to the side. "Thanksgiving is mid November, right?"

"Mid to late November, yeah," Rae replied. "But, like, it'll definitely die before December."

Lorelai flipped her camera to show off the tree. It was a plain six foot evergreen that they had gotten from a tree farm thirty minutes away from them, and, as of the moment, it was clean of any decorations. Eventually Marzia would turn it into her canvas and makes a visually pleasing artistic masterpiece, but as of the moment, it was just a plain tree with water dripping from the leaves that once held snowflakes.

"Felix said we'd just buy another one when it dies," Lorelai shrugged as she turned the camera back to her. "It's really nice, actually. The snow and the tree makes everything feel cozy."

Rae rolled her eyes and scrunched her nose up in mock distaste. "You're so lucky. It's so hot here. And the fires, oh my God. I'm gonna move in with you."

"We'd need a house name," Lorelai said. She turned on her heel and started to head back to her bedroom. "Like, two YouTubers living together is fine. Dan and Phil didn't need to be called Team Ten or anything, so Felix and I are fine as just Felix and Lorelai. But three people, that's a group. We'd need a group name. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, uh...," Rae trailed off, trying to think of something. Finally something hit her, and she perked up in her desk chair. "Pewdiepie and two girls!"

"What?" Lorelai burst out into laughter.

"Pewdiepie and two girls," Rae repeated. "We're not as important as him, so we're just two girls. Having Pewdiepie in the group name will get us more viewers."

Lorelai rolled her eyes. "No, no, no; Valkyrae is great for attracting viewers. I think Pewdiepie, Valkyrae, and a girl would be the best name."

Lorelai pushed her bedroom door open with her foot and jumped back onto her bed. She set up her phone against the base of her lamp and laid on her side, watching Rae type on her keyboard, her eyes trained on something off screen. She was likely doing work. That's all any of Lorelai's friends did if they weren't streaming or recording.

"How funny would it be if we all lived together?" Rae giggled. "Think about it. We'd take all of the usual people from our lobbies and throw them into one house. It'd be insane."

"So, Offline Tv but built different," Lorelai joked. "Someone would start a game of real life Among Us and it would end with everyone but Corpse dead. He's honestly the only one that would make it out alive."

There was a beat of silence before Rae spoke up again, this time her tone of voice both cautious and suggestive as she said, "so, about Corpse, I heard from a little birdie that you two fell asleep on call together last night."

Visible confusion crossed Lorelai's face. "How did you hear about that?"

"Corpse accidentally told me," Rae smirked. "So, what's going on there? Was that video I sent you a while back actually accurate?"

Lorelai loudly scoffed, slapping a hand over her mouth immediately after. "No, ma'am, that video was not accurate. I just kind of fell asleep and he didn't hang up. That's it."

Rae cocked an eyebrow teasingly.

"You think I wouldn't tell you if something was happening between us?" Lorelai asked.

"Uhm, yes!" Rae exclaimed, her eyes wide and now staring directly at Lorelai. "You only told me you hooked up with a freaking Norse god like four months after it happened!"

Lorelai rolled her eyes. "I regret telling you that."

The man in question was, unfortunately, not a Norse god. He was just an insanely hot guy Lorelai had met in Sweden one year. They had hooked up, she had taken one incredibly hot photo of him, and then he had left her in the night with a note on his bedside table telling her to leave his house by a certain time. So, sure, he was hot, but he had the personality of a douche bag.

"Look, I get that you have higher self worth than me, but if you still have his number, I would really love to have it," Rae said.

Lorelai shook her head 'no' against her pillow. "All that's left of him is that photo. And, actually, I deleted it from my phone, so you have a better link to him than I do now."

Rae pouted, glaring at Lorelai through the phone. "You know what, I'm hanging up. I only called you for tree content anyways."

Lorelai laughed and rolled her eyes. "I feel so used."

"Good!"

IMESSAGE !
21:03
direct messages between corpse and lorelai

do you wanna do that phasmo stream
we talked about a while back tomorrow?