Chapter Text
Someone breathed in deeply before releasing an irritated sigh. “I’ve been too kind to this book series.”
Sounds of rustling and movement played over Deacon’s desktop speakers. Deacon watched for a moment as the Youtuber on the screen checked that his dark flyaways were tucked behind his simple black headband. Deacon let out a breath of a laugh when the Youtuber rested his elbows on his desk and pressed his face into his hands. His face lifted, his fingers dragging invisible lines of frustration over his cheeks as his frosty blue eyes twinkled with a spark of annoyance.
“Okay. We can do this.” The Youtuber sat up straight and lifted the book he referenced moments ago. “Join me in my journey through verisimilitude the likes of which you’ve never seen before. Because it isn’t in this book. Anywhere.” He kept his eyes locked to the camera as he opened the book and thumbed through the pages like a practiced blackjack dealer and his many decks of cards. “Take your pick. It’s all incomprehensible.” The book dropped from the Youtuber’s hands to fall against his desk with a thump. He shrugged before lifting the book and placing it in a singular wire book display. “Maybe that’s a little mean. But you don’t watch Facet Friday because I’m nice.”
Deacon hummed in agreement before his eyes fell down to his desk and at his spread out textbook and blank notebook page. Deacon lifted a pen from his pencil pouch and clicked it. His gaze passed between his textbook and his notebook as he wrote down an outline of the chapter he was covering.
“Hello, my name is DiamondDiva, and today is Facet Friday; the day of the week when we look at a book’s every facet. I have here a book titled Rippled. This is another one of those trite supernatural romances you read about everywhere nowadays. Or have been reading about for the past twenty years if you can pick up a book and read print.” The Youtuber’s gaze drifted down to his desk as he—with practiced ease—gathered together his makeup and began his routine.
Deacon scratched out his outline with his pen which was gradually losing ink over the course of DiamondDiva’s hour-long evisceration of a young adult novel. He chewed his tongue as he switched out pens for more optimal color-coding.
The sound of matte plastic tapped twice against a plastic eye shadow palette. “So our protagonist, Miranbethissca, throws away the shackles of her good sense and decides that her best course of action is to saunter her way down the staircase into the depths of screams and howls and spurts of liquid like the smart cookie she undoubtedly is.”
Deacon’s door creaked open. “Yo, Deacon.” Deacon’s cousin, the Chase Hollow Like and Follow, stood in his doorway with a hand nestled in his jacket pocket. “What’re you doing?”
Deacon glanced in Chase’s direction as he finished up the note he was copying into his notebook. “Taking notes on cellular respiration.”
Chase clicked his tongue, all but watching the subject fly over his head. He walked into Deacon’s room, his interest drawn to the monitor. “That’s cool,” he mumbled idly.
“It’s not,” Deacon held back a whimper before setting his pen down on his desk and reaching up to the ceiling in a stretch. “It sucks.” He moved the mouse and clicked to pause the Youtube video taking up the whole screen.
“Hey, what gives? Let it play.” Chase tucked his other hand in his jacket pocket. “You watching for tips?” He chuckled and caught sight of the book displayed in frame. “Oh, yo. Rippled. I heard it was good. It’s supposed to be like…I dunno. A mermaid love story thing. I didn’t hear a lot about it, but Silver said she was gonna do a special video on making a cosplay from it.”
“...I don’t think you want me to press play, Chase.”
Chase rolled his eyes. “What’s the worst that could happen? Who is this guy? What’s he saying?” He tilted his head, suddenly much more interested than he was previously. “And does that eye shadow have glitter in it?”
Deacon sighed and then clicked on the screen, unpausing the video.
DiamondDiva’s voice paired with his smooth, elegant movements. “Now, I’m not saying that a lobotomized half-dying zombie salmon who has spent fifty years practicing the careful art of watching paint dry could make smarter decisions than Miranbethissca, but….” His movements ceased, and he locked eyes with the camera before lifting an eyebrow and gazing back at his handheld mirror. He went right to work blending his eye shadow again. “Anyway. Our heroine, Miranbethissca, then decides to walk across the sharks, using them as a bridge—yes, really—to reach Damienithan on the opposite underground pier—yes, really.”
Chase frowned, and his eyebrows pulled together in distaste. “Geez. Who spit in his cereal?”
Deacon crossed his arms and sighed. “It’s what he does. He has a series where he roasts books called Facet Friday. It’s all just pretty indulgent and fun.”
“Well, what if the author heard him say this stuff? Isn’t it mean?” While he believed his own words, Chase found himself drawn to the color palette, the way the Youtuber’s eyebrows arched, and his melodic tone of voice.
“I know I mentioned this book not feeling at all grounded in reality, and you’d be right to point out that this is a supernatural romance; of course, it isn’t going to be just like reality. At which point, I’d like to point out that this work doesn’t even follow the rules set forth by the narrative.” DiamondDiva went silent to check his eye shadow distribution and blending. Once he decided that it was adequate, he set his brush down and picked up his eyeliner pen. “It’s as if everything set up with the Moon Council in chapter two was just brushed off as if the author was trying to shake toilet paper off her shoe.” He uncapped the eyeliner pen and leaned on his desk to steady his hands. In one hand, he held his hand-held mirror, and in the other, he held the eyeliner pen like a violinist would hold a bow—in a firm, practiced hold. One eye fell closed as he focused on lining up the pen tip. “No, Miranbethissca, you can’t mate with Damienithan, because—one—he’s a bad boy —two—because it hasn’t been called ‘mating’ since chapter five—now, it’s called ‘coupling’—and—three—because you’re already engaged to Gregoratthew, the fishmonger king.” DiamondDiva breathed in and dragged the pen tip in one smooth motion from the outer corner of his eye, over the top lid’s edge, and down into the inner corner of his eyelid. He released his held breath and waved his hand near his eye to try and dry the eyeliner quickly.
Chase’s eyes widened, and he gripped a hand onto Deacon’s chair. “What the hell. Did you see that? Deacon, did you see that?”
“Yeah, I’m right here with you, Chase,” Deacon answered with far less enthusiasm than Chase would expect from anyone who saw someone draw a perfect eyeliner wing in the span of two seconds and one motion.
“Have you ever tried to put on eyeliner like that?”
“No.”
Chase looked down at Deacon. “Okay, that eyeliner thing was sick, but he’s still being kinda mean about the book.”
“It’s just entertainment, Chase,” Deacon sighed and then paused the video. “Who knows if that’s how he actually acts in real life? What about you? Are you the same online as you are offline? Are you the loud and proud Chase Hollow Like and Follow every second of every day?”
Chase shivered at the thought of having to be at 100% twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. “I guess not. But, geez. You’d think that he’d wanna spread positivity about his own stuff instead of negativity about someone else’s stuff.”
“Chase, don’t you have a stream in two minutes?”
Chase sucked in a gasp. “Crap. Yeah. Uh. Grandpa’s leaving the grocery list on the kitchen table. Could you go grab those? I gotta go work.”
“You’ve gotta go yell about video games for three hours.”
“Work is work.” Chase sent a pair of finger guns in Deacon’s direction as he backed out of Deacon’s room, twisted around, and darted off to his bedroom.
Chase’s hand latched onto his door frame as he turned to head into his room. He hooked a foot beneath a step stool, guided it over beneath the rope hanging from the ceiling, and stood on it. Chase grasped the rope and stepped down from the stool before carefully guiding the attic door open. He then unfolded the stairs and guided the stool back against the wall with his foot. “Alright,” he muttered to himself as he climbed the attic stairs. “Hopefully, I’m not late.” Chase headed over to the far side of the windowed tower room, pulling the thick light-colored curtains closed on the way. He pulled his rolling chair from his desk and plopped down into it before leaning over and powering his desktop on. “Time to clock in,” he hummed.
As Chase clicked through his computer’s opening commands, a crisp pop tune began blaring from his phone. He tugged his phone out of his pocket and accepted the call. “‘Sup?” He asked absently as he clicked around his screen, opening a screen recording program and audio programs.
“Hi, Chase,” a voice as clear and bright as a glass bell chimed from the other side of the call. “I thought you were coming online today?”
“Sorry, Sil, I just got on my computer.”
“...Just now?”
“Yeah-huh.” Chase’s eyes flicked around the screen as he checked volume levels.
The voice, Sil, hummed with slight disappointment lacing her tone. “Chase….” She sighed, choosing to withhold a lecture. After all, it wasn’t as if Chase was excessively late. “When are you going to be online? We have someone new joining us today, and I just wanted to…make sure you come across as the…bright, considerate star that you are.”
“You called to make sure I don’t look like a selfish jerk to the new person, right?” Chase smiled. “Thanks, Sil.”
Sil chuckled. “Ah, yes. It’s fine. It seems that Violet is working on some technical difficulties. He’s her friend, and she thought since he’s already doing fairly well on his own Youtube channel that he might be a good personality to add to our play group.”
“Yeah, sure,” Chase answered absently. “Guess I gotta be on time and show everyone up, huh?” He released a soft laugh. “Alright, I’m a couple minutes away from it. We doing Among Us?”
“Yes, Simon dropped the code in the passwords channel. Don’t think I’ll go easy on you,” Sil giggled.
“Pssh, bring it. See you soon.” Chase delivered a quick goodbye before hanging up and pulling the last remaining programs up. He set his phone on his desk in its phone holder and secured his headphones. He then guided his microphone in place. “Testing, testing, one, two, three. Testing, testing. One, two, three.” Chase watched his levels on one screen while he spoke. When he determined that everything seemed to be set up properly, he clicked through a few more settings and gave his webcam a bright smile.
“Hey, Starbeams! Welcome back to the talented stylin’s of Chase Hollow Like and Follow! We’re playing some Among Us today with the usual buds. Can y’all hear me nice and clear?” Chase clicked around his screen, copying and pasting the code into the game program. He glanced between what he was doing and his chat as he positioned his video feed over the secret code on the game window. “Yeah, we’re gonna play for maybe…two hours? There’s gonna be a new guy in there, so we’ll have to get a read on him.” Chase chuckled, “It’ll be fine. I’m gonna be so nice. We’re gonna add a new hardcore fan in no time.” He sent a wink at his webcam before sharing his game window. Chase glanced at the screen to his left, and clicked around in the Discord window, entering the exclusive voice chat.
“Hey, guys! What’s up?” Chase’s simplistic cyan astronaut materialized in the lobby. “The star of the show, Chase Hollow, is here!” He cheered himself on. “Sorry to keep y’all waiting. I’m here now, and I’m ready to dominate.” He released a soft laugh.
“Afternoon, Chase,” Violet of the channels VioletNightmares and VioletStitches spoke in her melodic low voice, “Silver said she told you that I invited someone new today?”
“Yeah! Always fun to see new people. How good is he at Among Us?”
“I don’t know,” she hummed. “This is his first gaming stream.”
“Oh, yeah?” Chase’s astronaut hopped and ran around in circles within the lobby. “What’s he usually do?”
“He’s pretty creative. Does some makeup things—”
“Makeup? Nice, can’t wait to hear some tips. Anything else?”
“Mainly book review stuff.”
“Oof.” Chase winced, and his lips tugged into a frown. “Book review stuff? I feel like you gotta be kinda mean to do book review stuff.”
There was a pause over the voice chat, and all the astronauts halted, save for Chase’s. Violet cleared her throat. “Eh…, not really—”
“Oh, my god. Like. My cousin was just listening to this guy rip into this fantasy book called Rippled , and he was just complaining, complaining, complaining about it. Like. Who cares if the main girl character has a crush on two guys at once? Has he never had crushes on two people at once?”
Silver’s voice chimed through Chase’s headphones, “Chase—”
“And so what if the book goes a little wonky here and there? So what if the main character does a dumb thing? She just needs a pat on the back and someone to point her in the right direction. This guy sounds like he’d totally shove her down the stairs. He said she was dumber than a lobotomized fish who watches paint dry. Geez. Persnickety jerk.” Chase shuddered and then sighed. “Anyway, what’s your friend’s name?”
A deep, velvety, no-nonsense voice filled Chase’s ears: “DiamondDiva.”
The cyan astronaut stopped dead in his tracks. Chase stared off at nothing and blinked a bit blankly. A spark shot through his thoughts, revitalizing his ability to hold a conversation. “Oh! Hey! You must be Violet’s friend! Cool to meet you! What do you go by?”
The same voice spoke again, “DiamondDiva.”
“Hunh. Okay, my name’s Chase Hollow. Like and follow,” Chase chuckled.
“Must be a crowded birth certificate.”
The other streamers either snickered or held back a laugh.
“...Ha. Ha…ah.” Chase tapped a finger against his mouse as a release of nervous energy—nervous? “Do you have a shorter name I can call you? I don’t think I can yell ‘DiamondDiva’ fast enough.”
“No.”
Chase chewed on his tongue and glanced at his chat. His heart leapt in his chest when he saw the comments chatting about him being roasted, cooked, and whipped. Chase’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion before shaking off the weird vibe. This DiamondDiva was a new guy in the group, and the right thing to do was to be nice. “M’kay. We can come up with one. What about…Didi? Oh, no, that sounds like ‘die, die’. Uhh…, Diadi? No, oh, my god. Too close to ‘daddy’—Chat, shut up. Well. Just calling you Diva sounds weird too. How about Deedee?”
“...‘Deedee’?”
Chase could practically hear DiamondDiva’s eyebrow lift along with his judging stare (whatever that looked like). “Yeah! DD! It’s easy to shout and say.”
“How often do you plan on shouting my name?” A huff punctuated DiamondDiva’s voice.
“Probs a lot if we’re going to stream together.” When DiamondDiva went silent, Chase glanced at his chat again, and his heartbeat quickened. He clicked the mute button on the left monitor. “CHAT! FOR ALISTAR’S SAKE. I DON’T HAVE A CRUSH.”
DanDeLion: Whoaowoahaha Chase is gonna be screaming for DD??
LyraLee: Hahaha DaddyDiva
PresidentOrla: LMAO Chase, you gonna yell for DaddyDiva?
MasterCookie: Collab between Chase Holler and DaddyDiva when??
KrisChronicles: THAT’S CRAZYYY!!! LMAO
SpookieDookieDoo: methinks thou dost protest too much, shortie
Chase directed his attention back at his center monitor and on the Among Us window. Well. He was being nice to the new guy. Chase’s pout relaxed into a mild frown before he breathed in and then breathed out, shaking off the embarrassment. It was fine! In the internet world, memes and jokes passed by quickly, and if he didn’t give this joke a lot of attention, it was bound to die a quick death. “Okay, Chat, ha, ha, very funny. This is DD’s first time doing something like this, so let’s keep the weirdness to just this stream, okay? I don’t wanna weird him out with the flirty stuff.”
DiamondDiva’s soothing voice filled Chase’s ears again with a sigh. “Fine. You can call me DD if that’s easier for you.”
With that, Chase perked up and clicked on his unmute button in the Discord call. “Sweet! Thanks!”
“Oh, nice,” Simon chimed in, “we’re calling you DD?”
“No, Chase is calling me DD. Everyone else will call me DiamondDiva.”
Chase grinned. “Ha! Take that, Simon, only I can call him DD.”
“Fine.” Simon shrugged. “Whatever works.”
“Simon—,” DiamondDiva spoke through a smirk, “—if you’re hard-pressed to call me a nickname, perhaps the other nickname Chase came up with will entice you?”
“Oh, yeah? Which one?”
“‘Persnickety Jerk.’”
Laughter bubbled over the voice call as Chase put two and two together and felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment.
After a few games of the usual jokes and jumpscares born from proximity chat, Chase found himself in the cafeteria mid-way through a game looking at a list of finished tasks.
DiamondDiva’s black astronaut stood by Chase’s cyan astronaut. DiamondDiva spoke up, “My tasks are done. I’m going to take a nap in med bay.”
“Dude—,” Chase’s astronaut flipped left to face DiamondDiva’s astronaut, “—you’re gonna come off as sus if you go off by yourself for the whole round. Also, you’re gonna get got.”
“Then come guard me? Unless you still have tasks to do?” DiamondDiva’s astronaut flipped back and forth as it waited for Chase to make a decision.
“...Nah, I finished.” The cyan astronaut nudged on ahead to the left. “I’ll guard you during your nap.”
“Wonderful.” DiamondDiva’s astronaut briskly walked to the left and then down, entering the med bay. Chase followed along and idly walked in circles as DiamondDiva’s astronaut stood, staring at the wall by one of the beds. After a pause, DiamondDiva attempted to initiate conversation. “So. Your cousin watches my videos?”
“Hm?” Chase’s astronaut stopped his pacing and faced DiamondDiva’s. “Oh. Yeah. He was taking notes for school while your Rippled video was playing.”
“Mm.”
The med bay went quiet, save for the game’s ambient hums.
Oddly enough, the air was heavy. Chase’s leg bounced as he tried to think of ways to save the conversation while still being nice to the new guy. Even if he was a little blunt, Chase had complained about DiamondDiva’s content first. He couldn’t exactly blame DiamondDiva for being prickly to him. He wasn’t sure if he’d be civil with some jerk who blabbed about his music being cheap or bland to his face. “...Sorry, by the way,” he mumbled, “for calling you a jerk earlier.”
“...Mm, but not for calling me ‘persnickety’?”
Chase bit his tongue. Picky, picky. He held back a sigh; DiamondDiva was right to be annoyed. Chase just had to suck it up for a little while longer. “Well, I mean. C’mon, you sounded hung up on stuff that doesn’t seem like it matters.”
DiamondDiva hummed in thought. “Facet Friday is about nitpicking, so there are a few points I stretch for the sake of comedy. Although, it sounds like it’d go over your head anyway.”
Chase stepped closer to DiamondDiva and settled beside him, relieved that it was impossible to physically shove him. “You’re not worried about coming off as a jerk to people, are you?”
“No,” DiamondDiva answered simply. “If they don’t like me, that’s their problem.”
Chase scoffed and wandered down to pace around the med bay scanner.
DiamondDiva's astronaut flipped right, paused, flipped left, and paused again before he took a few steps closer to the med bay scanner. “...Would a jerk bring you an extra blanket from the linen closet?” He tested the tense waters between them.
Chase's pacing halted. He lifted an eyebrow, momentarily confused. “...A blanket?”
DiamondDiva’s astronaut headed over to the bed near the med bay entrance and stood near the lone blanket folded up at the foot of the bed. “This blanket. I brought it for you from the linen closet,” he spoke in a matter-of-fact tone—one that could've been easily mistaken for seriousness.
The joke clicked. Chase forced a soft laugh. “Oh, yeah, I guess a jerk wouldn’t get me a blanket. Thanks. I love my blanket we can’t touch or do anything with.” He sighed, his nervousness and annoyance from before gradually waning. “We’re gonna have to hunker down if we wanna survive the night.”
“Mhm,” DiamondDiva agreed. “Blankets will help keep the murderer out.”
“Aw, great! Must be armored.” Chase leaned into the slightly more relaxed atmosphere. “Oooh, or it’s a weighted blanket.”
“Yup.”
A flash of color broke through Chase’s screen, and he watched as DiamondDiva’s astronaut stabbed his cyan astronaut several times before the flash disappeared, leaving Chase as a floating ghost. Chase stared in momentary shock before laughter burst from him. “Wh—! HEY!” He leaned back in his seat to attempt to contain his laughter. “Nooo! DD, I trusted you!” Chase snickered and shook his head as he watched DiamondDiva’s astronaut scurry off through a vent. “Oh, my god. Right when we were warming up.” He glanced at his chat, mildly reluctantly acknowledging that DiamondDiva taking him out ended up being a funny sudden turn. Chase sighed and focused back on his window with a renewed sense of humor about the situation. “I’m gonna haunt you for this,” he said with a grin. He clicked around the screen and locked onto DiamondDiva as he went about his time on the Skeld.
Mere minutes later, DiamondDiva killed the very next crewmate he came across: a brown astronaut by the name of Bronze (or xXBronzeReactsXx for long). Before he could skedaddle away, a single siren went off, summoning everyone back to the cafeteria table to discuss.
Simon’s voice was deadpan and left no room for questioning: “DiamondDiva, you totally killed Chase, didn’t you?”
“I would never kill Chase.” DiamondDiva answered back easily. “I also have no weaponry on me.”
Silver spoke up, “While it’s true you have no weapons on you, it’s a little difficult to ignore you snapping Bronze’s neck.”
Chase burst into a laughter none of the living streamers could hear. “SHE SAW YOU, BRO!”
“I was right there on a walk with Silver, and—,” Bronze’s tongue clicked, “—dead.”
“Bronze!” GoldFinch’s boisterous voice sounded among the expired astronauts. “Welcome to death!”
“Thanks, Goldie,” Bronze sighed. “Well, pressure’s off now.”
Chase’s laughter fell down to a snicker. “That’s gotta be one of the worst kills we’ve had. Dude, if you’re gonna kill me, then you gotta win! Oh, my god. I can’t believe you killed Bronze in front of Silver.”
“Wasn’t me,” DiamondDiva defended against Silver’s claim. “Case of mistaken identity.”
A pause filled the cafeteria.
“Yeah, okay.” A little pink voting sticker with red writing on it appeared on Simon’s blue astronaut. “It’s DiamondDiva.”
“How do you know it was me and not Violet? The color of our astronauts are similar. It’s possible Silver just mistook Violet’s suit for mine.”
Violet breathed in a facetious gasp, “Brutus.” An ‘I voted’ sticker appeared on her purple astronaut.
“Violet was at the nuclear reactor with me fixing the malfunction. Silver, let’s space him.”
“There’s always next time, DiamondDiva.” Silver offered her sympathies before voting as well.
DiamondDiva sighed before resigning himself to his fate. “Good game.” His sticker appeared over his astronaut, and the screen changed to show three votes for DiamondDiva. His astronaut then floated through space.
Chase’s screen showed the other astronauts and the green text of victory. Again, he burst into laughter. “DD! Dude, I can’t! I can’t believe you killed right in front of Silver!”
A bit of nervousness snuck into DiamondDiva’s chuckle. “I suppose I don’t have the hang of it yet.”
Chase’s laughter subsided with a sigh. “Ah, well. We can’t all be perfect impostors like me, Chase Hollow Like and Follow.”
“You’re a perfect impostor?” The amused doubt in DiamondDiva’s voice was palpable.
“Yeah, Chase,” Bronze spoke up, “what about the time you suggested we pull a double-kill on Violet and Simon, and Goldie and Silver walked into the room and the game ended in a wild goose chase with you running after Goldie after I was thrown into lava?”
Chase chewed his tongue in thought. “Mm, nah. Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“There’s at least five animatics out there with you begging for your life and musically screaming after Goldie and Silver.” Bronze clicked around his screen, pulling up the receipts. “Oh, that one got past a couple million. Ohh, someone made a song out of your scream.”
“Okay,” Chase chuckled. “Okay, maybe I’m not a perfect impostor.”
“It sounds like you were a perfect impostor.” DiamondDiva’s voice filled Chase’s ears again. “That is, if ‘perfect’ means ‘running around with your head cut off like a chicken.’”
“Alright, buddy, you know what?” Chase sucked in a breath and rifled through potential jabs and insults before glancing at his chat and seriously forcing himself to remember his 1,000-watt smile and charm. Chase clicked his tongue, switched up his tone, and spoke with a pout. “I can’t believe you killed me on our med bay date. Bruh, like. Major breach of trust.”
DiamondDiva went silent.
“Oooh, breach of trust in a game about lying,” Bronze mumbled. “The ultimate betrayal.”
“You’ll simply have to make it up to him!” Goldie’s voice boomed over Chase’s headphones. He continued as Chase adjusted his volume. “We can have an obstacle course in Minecraft and have an honorable battle that way.”
“A battle….” Chase tested out the idea. “Not so sure how that heals trust.”
“Oh, no, no,” DiamondDiva finally spoke up again with a hint of a smile in his tone. “GoldFinch is right. I’ll make it up to you, Chase Hollow Like and Follow. In some way.”