Chapter Text
“So, as promised from last week, here’s a cover of Vampires Will Never Hurt You by My Chemical Romance.”
Long, slender, pixellated fingers fly over a fretboard on Evan’s computer screen, the notes slightly dimmed by the small speakers the sound is playing out of. On the screen was its_connor, or Connor Murphy, a 20 year old music youtuber of whom Evan had been online stalking for weeks now.
It had started with a video of his (“Sketchbook Tour 2016-17”) that had popped up on his recommended, a thumbnail full of intricate sketches that Evan couldn’t help but click on, despite his lack of artistic knowledge. Then that led to him falling down the rabbit hole that was Connor’s videos, first watching all the sketching and art related videos on his channel, consuming speedpaint after speedpaint and two colour challenges. Then he started watching his guitar covers, all done on a solid-looking glossy black stratocaster covered in stickers and scratches. And two weeks later, he had even seen every video on his second channel (‘Connor Gets Pissed’), feeling impassioned and angry by his detailed rants on all things from mental health and recovery to the subway system in New York.
And now here he was, eagerly watching Connor’s new upload, despite Evan’s own dislike of heavy rock music, much preferring calming alternative indie music and musicals. Evan was somewhat captivated by the tall, skinny (verging on lanky) twenty year old man with trailing, waved hair and mesmerisingly mixed eyes. All in all he had a massive crush on the guy.
Which was all well and good, except Evan was nothing to him. The guy had 200,000 subscribers and went to PARSONS, probably had a ton of cool arty friends and a billion cute men and women who wanted to date him who he actually *knew*. Meanwhile Evan was a tiny content creator with at best 30,000 subscribers all watching his ecology and tree videos. The only videos of his that ever gained traction were his “unsolved” crime videos he occasionally posted, more often than not to do with white collar crimes. Not exactly in his usual vein, and hardly attracting the attention of Connor.
At least he lived in the same city as him. Although he shared that trait with probably 10 million other people so it was hardly a key factor. He also went to Columbia and majored in biological and plant sciences, not a cool major like illustrations. Lamely, he had at a push two friends (of whomst he still didn’t fully believe wanted to be his friends) and no one, not even the kids at university who wanted to sleep with as many people as possible irregardless of aesthetics, were interested in him.
Ergo, he had no shot with him.
As he began to type a comment, something similar to “this cover is so good!! it sounds beautiful :-)”, the lucifer of playful bullying appeared. Or Jared.
“What’s up loser? Still crushing on tall, dark and emo?” Jared popped his head over the laptop screen perched precariously on Evan’s knees, peering down at the screen to read his typed comment upside down.
“I-i... It’s not a crush! And even if it was a crush it wouldn’t matter cause he doesn’t know me and it’s not like he will ever know me therefore the fact that I have a crush is irrelevant as it isn’t even going anywhere and I don’t have a crush anyway so- so-“ He garbled, words flying out of his mouth before the rationalised part of his mind could tame the thoughts flying off of his tongue in a mess of puzzled together half-sentences.
“Jesus, Hansen, I get it. I was just joking.” Jared sighed, laying a hand on Evan’s foot as he sat down next to him, in an attempt to calm the flushed and slightly panicked other man. “It’s okay to have an internet crush you know?”
Shrugging awkwardly and pressing send on the comment, Evan nodded, closing the laptop screen after and placing it down under the shared sofa.
“No I get that... You just startled me. You know what it’s... what I’m like w-when that happens.” He stuttered slightly, nodding with an affirmation of what he said and shifting to be slightly closer and more comfortable next to Jared.
“Dude it’s fine, you acorn. Just next time, try not to make your immediate reaction lying. It’s not a good habit, even if it averts anxiety,” Jared smiled not unkindly, chubby cheeks pushing up his acrylic frames. His smile quickly turned to a smirk, “Anyway, what is it about Mr. Tortured Artist that attracts you so much?”
Evan shook his head; Jared was still pushing for details. Then again...
“I mean, he just seems like a good person. He’s clearly not a perfect person, but he just feels so real. Something about him reminds me of me, and I’ve never seen that in anyone? Plus he’s not straight so... yeah.” Nods once and finishes, slightly avoiding Jared’s eyes as he focused on the fraying burgundy couch material.
“That’s cute, Ev. Liked the little drop in about sexuality, Mr Bi Bi Bi,” He sang in tune to the N-Sync song, eyes glimmering in kind mocking. “Anyway, do you want to see my video plan for Sunday? I’m gonna roast Lele Pons in all her glory.” Evan nodded keenly, he liked seeing Jared’s plans for his “decimating other youtuber’s content” videos. Even though he could never be that openly harsh or truthful on the internet, he enjoyed living vicariously through KleanKleinman’s videos, however funny (and ironically not CLEAN or brand friendly) they were.
That was part of how they managed to share a flat in New York, despite them both going to expensive universities (even with their full-ride scholarships). Jared had way more subs than Evan or Connor did, verging past a good 500k. It was mainly from his vine following who followed him after the “Tragic Passing of Vine”. He didn’t make the same meme-y content, but his video analysis fit perfectly into the niche market and he had managed to become a solid name, up there with Drew Gooden and Eddie Burbank.
It probably helped that he had a minor in Film Studies and literally managed to work magic on computers.
A windfall of money followed after his substantial blowup on YouTube, and now with regular livestreams and sponsored videos he could afford to have an apartment for him and Evan, even if it was tiny.
Evan still contributed to the bills, paying for all the groceries (aka, unhealthy junk food) they accumulated. As teasing as Jared was, however, he did care for Evan a lot, especially since their dual move from Portland to New York for college. He didn’t mind paying for the both of them.
And that’s how Evan ended up for the first proper time in the background of one of Jared livestreams later that day, earphones in, typing rapidly to get his essay done for his Environmental Law elective. He had reached the point of his anxiety about the class and disappointing the professor, and then failing and having his mom hate him outweighing the anxiety of a couple of thousand viewers judging him from behind a computer screen.
“Then I said, ‘Waddup I’m Jared, I’m nineteen and I never fuckin’ learnt how to read’ and no one in the class laughed. In fact the professor gave me a funny look, but fuck him. Vine generation for LIFE!” Exclaimed Jared, the noise of him reliving his Intro to Poisson and Statistics class to his viewers filtered through his earbuds.
Evan paused and looked up, looking up to see Jared’s pseudo-reflection on the computer screen as the other faced away from him.
“Who’s that in the background?” Reading one of the comments aloud, Jared spun around on his shitty desk chair, making eye contact with Evan has he winked and faced back to the webcam. “That’s Evan! I probably mentioned him like once but he’s my lifelong family friend who lives with me. I’m joking,” He chuckled. “Nah, he’s my best friend. Fun fact, he used to wear uggs to school in like, grade 12, cause his mom didn’t realise that uggs were technically for girls, and I stood up to some asshole who was bullying him (of which only I am allowed to do) and then I kept annoying him and we became proper friends.” He smiled back at Evan, who had since taken one of his earphones out and was blushing a fluorescent red.
“Evan makes videos too, although I can already jedi-sense him wanting to throttle me mentioning this. They’re all tree and horticultural videos, if anyone’s interested. That’ll be one loser sat in their Mom’s basement. Really though, he makes some good crime videos as well!” Winking at the camera, Jared attached the link to Evan’s channel into the comment section and pinned it to the top of the discussion.
As he continued reading off random comments, Evan’s heartbeat settled from the initial terror of realising now he was going to have a windfall of sudden judgmental followers, and he started typing again, struggling to get back into the rhythm of talking about the fairness of pro-bono cases and solicitor bonuses in regards to Environmental cases. All he could think about was the new people viewing his videos. Would they judge him for his stance on selective logging versus clear cutting? And his thoughts on sustainable foresting? Would they think he was a freak for his crime videos?
Jared’s cackle ripped him out of his reverie, dragging his head up to glance at the glassed other. Who was currently laughing, if slightly nefariously.
“Does Evan have a crush on anyone? Well. There was this girl... but he decided to switch lanes and currently he’s crushing on this youtuber called Conn- oof- What the fuck?!” Whirling around, Jared looked to see Evan looking rather frantically, holding another cushion in his hand; a previous leaf green one had just made contact with Jared’s mousy brown hair.
Shaking his head more vigorously than anyone prior in all of time, Evan pleaded with Jared using just his eyes, baby blues pooling with faux-tears.
“Apparently Evan’s decided that his CRUSH can’t be named. And dude, you can stop with the fake crying,” Sighing, he turned back to the webcam in question, looking rather resigned to the camera. “Well that’s all folks. Mr Pusillanimous over there has called for an ending to the meme meeting. Au reviour or whatever.”
Clicking off, Jared spun to face Evan, who could literally sense the slight annoyance in the other.
“C’mon man, what are they gonna do? It’s not like emo espresso or whoever the fuck even watches my livestreams. Just chill out.” Exasperatedly, he looked at Evan. Evan just stared back glumly. Even if Jared was telling the truth, the initial panic and urge to maim him won over any rational, non-anxious thoughts that assured him that Connor almost definitely wasn’t watching the livestream.
Unbeknownst to him, however, Connor was aware of him in a different way.