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17. facecam? no, facetime
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TWITTER !

21:58

lorelai 🌃 | lorelai
———————————————————
chill stream tonight w/o a face cam
i'm feeling tired rn so just bare me with me
7.9k comments 2.3k retweets 92.3k likes

replying to @lorelai

gksiemox: awww poor baby 🥺🥺🥺🥺

n3v3rn3veer: yeahhh chill stream vibessss

emily.rusckerts: lmao corpse's comment on her Insta doe

emmalangevinxoxo: marriage stream? 👉👈
     ↳ lorelai: yes yes yes

uejdiai: fuck yeah

wlo0sji: go to bed and rest up! you don't have to stream! 💞

emhasn0f7lter: are you sick? do you have covid?
     ↳ lorelai: nope, not covid. just tired!

0siris: feel better lorelai my beloved

t0astys7mp: chill streams are the best

ONE NOTIFICATION FROM DISCORD !

LORELAI'S REFRIGERATOR
🟢 28,198 online ⚪️ 60,297 members

lorelai Today at 22:03
@/everyone live now!
twitch.tv/lorelai

TWITCH.TV/LORELAI !
22:48

IT ISN'T GOING TERRIBLY at the very least. Sure, Lorelai's been muting her mic every other minute to cough rather extensively without bothering her chat and, sure, she's taken away her face cam so she can comfortably sit with her red nose and exhausted eyes without everyone else seeing her state of misery, but other than that, the stream isn't half bad. It's pretty chill, especially since Lorelai is losing her voice and her words have to be soft in order for any noise to come out at all. She's been playing Civ VI to keep her viewers visually entertained while answering questions and interacting with her chat members.

So, yeah, she was sick, but she wouldn't admit it. The morning after the family dinner stream, Lorelai had gone on a snowy adventure and walked around simply enjoying the weather and taking photos. She felt fine that whole day, but when she woke up the morning after, this morning, feeling like shit, that's when Felix and Marzia knew she had contracted a cold.

Felix had, expectantly, laughed at her idiocy at first, but then he and Marzia did their best to try and get Lorelai feeling better. They had watched movies a large majority of the day, ate soup for dinner, and cranked the heating up just for her. Yet as much as they tried, they couldn't get her to cancel her stream. Lorelai is a pretty stubborn girl; they couldn't sway her from streaming even if they bribed her to.

The girl in question sneezes again, a light high pitched sneeze that makes her mute her mic as two lower and weirder sneezes follow. She unmutes her mic after and quickly apologizes for the sneeze. The whole day she had been listing weak excuses like allergies to explain why she felt so bad, but her subconscious knows it's a cold.

Her subconscious knows everything, sometimes.

"Should I declare war on someone?" Lorelai asks hoarsely.

She sees a lot of 'yes's in chat, and her lips quirk up into a small smile.

"Okay," Lorelai says, "how about Cleopatra? They seem the easiest right now."

Upon seeing her chat mostly agree with her, Lorelai begins to attack Cleopatra's closest city, the city of Thebes, with her Russian army. She wipes her hand across her nose with a sniffle, and the soft fabric of her sweater does nothing but make her nose more red and itchy. It wasn't often that she'd turn her camera off for a stream, but she sure is happy she turned it off today. Simply put, she looks like shit.

Music was playing softly, and the Danish girl began to really get into it.

"So if you're lonely, no need to show me," Lorelai sings softly, looking over at her chat with a smile. In all the chaos that was her last couple of weeks, having a chill stream was quite nice if she was being honest. "If you're lonely come be lonely with me."

She suddenly giggles.

"Wait, chat, this is literally us!" Lorelai exclaims. "You guys are lonely, and I'm lonely, so we're being lonely together! Chat! We're the song!"

Her smile grows even wider with her sudden realization and giddiness briefly overcomes her generally shitty feeling.

"I'm actually so smart," she says. "I'm smarter than everyone, actually. Did you guys know that?"

She lets out an abrupt cough, hand going straight to her throat as if choking herself would somehow stop the coughing.

"Ew, sorry about that."

A ping comes from her second monitor, and she drifts her eyes to the bottom left of her screen where a Discord notification pops up.

corpse
     call me
Discord

Lorelai immediately clicks the call button on the top of her screen. It takes a second before Corpse joins, but when he successfully enters the call, he's silent. Totally not ominous and stress inducing at all.

"Corpse?" Lorelai asks.

"Lorelai," he begins, tone alluding Lorelai to just how their conversation was about to play out. "Lorelai, go to bed."

Lorelai rolls her eyes playfully. "It's barely eleven."

"You're sick, though," Corpse replies.

"I'm not sick," Lorelai groans. "I didn't get sick after sitting in my backyard at three in the morning eating tortellini in the snow, so I surely did not get sick from walking around in the snow for a couple of hours. That's just stupid."

Corpse laughs at the memory of that specific call in which she had indeed eaten tortellini in the snow of her backyard at an ungodly hour. "You had blankets and sweatshirts that night."

"And I had a sweatshirt yesterday," Lorelai says. "So, if we look at the facts, I'm not sick."

"You are so very stubborn," Corpse comments.

As he speaks, an idea crosses into his mind. A genius idea, dare he say. It's a way to show Lorelai he cares and a way to let her know he feels comfortable with her.

But his plan needs time, so he stalls.

"I'm not stubborn, I'm right."

She lets out a croaked cough.

"Go to bed!" Corpse laughs. "I can stay and talk to your stream while you get ready for bed. Have you had any cold medicine?"

"Corpse," Lorelai says with a half-annoyed half-genuinely-touched tone.

"Lorelai," he matches.

"I'm not going to sleep," she says. "That Twitch grind don't stop. I gotta crank out the content. You're a YouTube streamer, you'd never understand."

Corpse can't hide the amusement he finds in hearing Lorelai ramble on slightly deliriously. The cold might be getting to her head a little bit now.

"Lorelai, go to bed!" He exclaims. "No one will care if you take a night off to rest. You're sick and they care about your health. They'll still be here when you come back. Right, chat?"

Lorelai looks over to her chat as she sees a bunch of hearts and 'yes's fly by. She knows Corpse is right, but she still feels guilty about starting a stream and ending it barely an hour later.

"I want to at least hit an hour," she bargains.

Corpse nods. "Okay. Go get ready for bed, and I'll talk to your chat while you're gone."

"No, no, it's okay," Lorelai cuts in. "I've got it."

"Lorelai..."

"Fine."

The Danish girl mutes her mic and walks away from her PC. She stretches her arms above her head before coughing yet again, face screwing up in disgust as she lunges for a tissue to blow her nose with. After she got over her brief coughing fit, she moves to her bathroom to wash her face and get her skin ready for bed. She can just barely hear Corpse's voice talking to her chat from her bedroom, and a warm fuzzy feeling begins to heat up her heart. It's really sweet of him to do this for her.

When she moves back to her PC, Corpse is laughing at her chat.

"No, chat," Corpse says. "Do not trend that."

"Hm?" Lorelai hums questioningly as she slides back into her gaming chair.

Corpse perks up. "You've hit an hour. You're good to go rest and take care of yourself now."

"Fine," Lorelai admits with a huff. "Chat, I'm so sorry about the short stream. You can blame Corpse. Have a great night! I should stream again really soon and it'll be really long to make up for this one. Bye, chat!"

It takes her about five minutes to end her stream, close out of stream labs, and exit out of all of her other essential tabs she keeps open while streaming. Corpse stays quiet the whole time, listening to Lorelai's quiet breathing and occasional coughs and sniffles. Finally she finishes and leans back in her chair, shutting her eyes and sighing peacefully.

"Go lay down in your bed, not your gaming chair," Corpse reprimands in a teasing manner.

She opens her eyes slightly and looks towards her main monitor. It was still on and had her Discord call with Corpse on display; Corpse's circle fell dark again after he falls silent.

"Then I can't talk to you."

"You should be sleeping, anyways," Corpse replies, "not listening to me talk."

Lorelai runs a hand through her tangled hair and pulls the hood of her sweatshirt over it. "But I like falling asleep on call with you."

A warm feeling blooms it's way into Corpse's heart, a genuine smile gracing his lips at the girl's words. If that wasn't the fucking cutest thing she'd ever said, then he didn't know what was.

"You can call me back on FaceTime, princess."

Lorelai nods, quickly bidding him a goodbye before getting up from her chair and hurtling into her bed. She burrows under the sheets before grabbing her phone and calling Corpse again.

"That was quick," he snorts as his black screen fills Lorelai's phone.

He nearly coos at the sight of Lorelai all sick and bundled up in blankets. Was this a bad idea? Recently his thoughts about Lorelai had been straying a little far from normal platonic thoughts, and he doesn't want to risk saying something he shouldn't just because she looks so pretty gazing into his phone with her nose all scrunched up.

Corpse talks for fifteen minutes before Lorelai is out like a light. Her soft snores fill their call, and Corpse falls silent, eyes trained on her. He was right. His thoughts about her were straying further from platonic each and every day.

Is that really a bad thing though?

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author's note

an author's note? in my book? you must have me confused with someone else 😳🤠👀

but hi! i haven't really said hello before. i don't do author's notes often cause i feel like i never
have anything to share in them. thank you all for the support though! it's so appreciated 🥺

also! if you're Danish/ from Denmark, please let me know if there's any parts of Danish culture
you want to see in this book! i like interacting with all y'all so much, so in general, if you've
got anything you wanna see, lemme know!