Page 118 of Level Up
Holy heck.
“Yeah, yeah, settle down,” he says as he adjusts his headphones over his ears after checking in on the chat, which had instantly erupted the moment he appeared. “I figure there’s no sense in sparing you from this mug when it’s already floating all over the webs.”
He keeps his attention on his main monitor in front of him, where the screen-sharing shows that he’s selecting an older save ofThe Stones of Ayor 3.
“I’m sure you all missed me, yes,” he says dryly in response to someone asking where he’s been for the past few days. “But I was sick of getting cyber-bullied in my own home and needed to spend some time convalescing on a fainting couch for a while. Don’t worry, I’m in the peak of health now.” He flashes the camera a sarcastic smirk before returning to the game once it loads in.
“And I know we were in the middle of a pretty major dungeon inStones 4last time,” he adds, “but I feel like doing something a little different today. One of my favourite quest lines from Three. Because I deserve a little comfort after being called a Conservative, and worse—a hetero. So, excuse me.”
His tone is flippant, but his expression makes it clear there’s no real bite to his words. Like he really is over it. (Unless maybe he’s suddenly gotten really good at acting. Which is unlikely.)
He takes a couple of minutes to quickly look through hisinventory and his quest log, since he hasn’t touched this save in a couple of years, according to the file date, and probably doesn’t remember what this character has already. When he selects which quest to make active, my face heats.
It’s the stupidest thing. But he just chose Hadley’s companion quest line, the one that leads to the option to romance him. And for some reason, my brain jumped to the idea that this is forme.
“Okay, chat, help me lock down a beefy husband,” he says casually as he starts to run towards the next quest marker.
He fast-tracks the quest over the next hour and a half—the usual length of his streams—and I’m holding my breath when he reaches the major romance dialogue moment. My favourite.
Damien’s character says his line, and then Hadley says his.
You know, after everything we’ve been through…oddly…I adore you.
And Damien smiles at that, like maybe he’s thinking about when he said those same words to me. I know that’s what I’m thinking.
ToastOnBeans: Wait, is this what Oddly’s handle is from?
I actually laugh when I read that, not because it’s funny, but because I’m so overwhelmed with emotion. I can’t believe that TOB is giving Damien another chance, after all of that—I didn’t even know they watched his streams except for our joint ones. I feel like myThe Real Sconesclip show might have swayed them.
He seems to smile when he reads that, too. “Oddly, your secret’s out,” he says, though his focus is back on his game. “Now everyone knows you’re a huge sap for Hadley.”
HadTrash93: No, we already knew that
I don’t even wait to finish the end of the stream before I switch over to our private messages again and hit the video call button as fast as I can. Usually we’ll send a text-based message first, to make sure the other person is around to take the call, but I can’t think that far ahead right now. All I know is Ineedto talk to him.
But he doesn’t answer. Not via video call, anyway.
SconesOfAyor:
I can’t do video calls on my phone
The app is a piece of shit
Oh sorry I didn’t realize you weren’t at your computer
Are you out?
SconesOfAyor:
Yeah, sort of
When will you be home?
SconesOfAyor:
That depends
Depends on what?
