you only ever like me in this spiral of despair

Fenris · #1

recording session: [FLOWER] Better Off Worse - CircusP
Mic on. Check, one, two. Hunter wasn’t actually checking anything, it just seemed like the thing to do, right? Force of habit. Headphones, the fancy-ass studio kind. Reaper up on one monitor, lyrics in the other, not that he needed them. Press record, clear his throat—wait, shit—

Pause, erase, whatever, it’s fine. Wouldn’t be a real recording session if he didn’t do something fucking stupid ten seconds in. He glanced at the time. 4:34 PM. 86 minutes to stream start, so like 71 minutes to work. Should be enough. Might be enough.

Pressed record again. “Take one.”

Wait, no—

--

Take four.

Take eleven.

Take twenty-six. Who the fuck was counting.

Hunter stamped his foot, glaring at his monitor as though it had personally fucked up the last twenty-five takes out of pure and simple spite. 32 minutes to stream start. He could push back this video’s release if he had to, right? He’d been on time with weekly releases for, like, five months now? Some of those were filler, clip compilations from streams, promotional shit, but they were released on time because he was a fucking professional so it counted, but he hadn’t prepared a backup upload because he’d already practiced this song a million fucking times and it wasn’t HIS fault that it wasn’t coming out of his fucking mouth when it actually counted—

Goddammit, whatever. He could throw together a clip compilation tonight if he needed to. 31 minutes to stream start. Try it again.

Take twenty—

His bedroom door slammed open. Hunter screeched and whipped around so fast that his headphones nearly fell off his head and if he wrecked these stupid headphones he’d have to cancel—

“I’ve been calling for you for the last ten minutes! Have you gone deaf or something since this morning?” his mother asked, frowning at him with her hand on her hip. Her apron was on which meant she was cooking something for once which meant probably something was going on and he did not care.

“My headphones were on? Like I told you they’d be? Because I was recording?”

“Oh, right, of course! I’d forgotten,” she was smiling in a way that said I didn’t forget but as your mother it’s my privilege to ignore what you say when it’s inconvenient. She fidgeted with an uncharacteristically-clean corner of her apron. “I just wanted to remind you that your sister’s home today.”

Of course. “And?”

“And? And I thought you might want to come and have dinner with us! I put a lot of love and care into this lasagna, you know.”

“Why the fuck would I want to do that,” Hunter replied bluntly, attention already back on his screen. 26 minutes to stream and he was in too much of a mood to even attempt number whatever-the-fuck, he could use the in-between time to start pulling the clip show together, come up with a decent apology/excuse for why the song wasn’t out on time, etcetera. He’d grab some lasagna out of the fridge once the rest of the house was asleep.

His mother had said something, he was pretty sure, but his headphones were back on and blessedly soundproofed. He had told her he was recording—he was pretty sure—probably. Did it matter? He opened up DaVinci Resolve, chewing aggressively on his cheek. 24 minutes. If the stream wrapped up on time he might actually get to sleep tonight. Something about homework popped up in the back of his head and was swiftly shooed away. He’d figure it out.

Tara would forgive him as always. He scanned a barely-organized folder of hundreds of hours of footage. 22 minutes. He could do plenty in 22 minutes.

--

“Hey, my loves—god I am so sorry I’m late, you don’t even want to know what I’ve been up to today.”

Hunter made the movements that make up a smile, corners of his mouth pulling back uncomfortably toward his ears. He glanced at the lower-right corner of the screen, where his Live2D avatar reinterpreted the expression into an easy smirk. 177 minutes until stream end. Just a touch late, he’d gotten caught up in editing and when he went to save DVR had crashed on him because it wanted him to personally suffer and he’d managed to recover the file but not without cutting into his start time.

He laughed, in-character and mirthless, and the Twitch chat lit up with meaningless speculation and but we do want to know.

“Don’t even worry about it, babes, I’m here now. Yeah?”

He tossed his hair and his avatar vaguely mimicked the action. It reflected his image back at himself in perfect, uncanny glory; every flattering detail recreated in painstaking strokes of his tablet pen, every unflattering detail glossed over as a waste of effort. It lacked the sheen of sweat on his brow, the chapped and worried lips, the dark circles that clung to his eyes like twin birthmarks. Anything reflected in the eyes.

“Okay, last time, I’m sure you remember—yep, back at it with Buried Stars, or I guess starting over with what happened last time, yeah? When the redhead got got? Still not sure if I fucked that up—no spoilers, that wasn’t a question—but let’s try a little harder this time, cause he’s a fuck-up but he’s a cute fuck-up.”

Hunter pouted, then pushed the expression harder so his avatar picked up on it. His jaw was sore.

175 minutes to stream end. If he got straight to editing after the stream he might be to bed by midnight. Six hours of sleep would be better than usual on a stream night. Maybe a little later if he bothered with dinner. An energy drink swiped from the mini fridge under his desk would substitute well enough for now.

“Let’s go and get started—and, hey, if you’re new here, welcome! I promise I don’t bite too hard~”

--

“Oh shit, is it that time already? I always lose track with y’all—I mean the game’s pretty good too, I guess, haha.”

“Listen, Hyesung is alive now, I’m taking it as a win—”

Hunter glanced at the time. He glanced back at the number of viewers on the stream. The latter was ticking up just a touch faster.

“—I mean, I suppose I can go a little longer, not leave y’all on a cliffhanger. I am nothing if not merciful and all that.”

He forced a giggle. His jaw hurt worse but he’d popped ibuprofen like an hour ago so there wasn’t much else to do about it. Negative four minutes to stream end.

He watched a flood of approving emojis flood the chat.

“Well, if you’re going to twist my arm—”

--

“—And if this was your first night hanging out with us, it was lovely to meet you, and I’ll see you back here soon, I’m sure. Streams are Wednesday and Saturday nights, we’ll be playing Buried Stars for a while yet but I’ll be picking up Star Rail again when the next patch hits, so you’ve got that to look forward to. You know, if you’re that kind of trash?”

74 minutes from stream end. Crunching the numbers. Was four hours of sleep any better than pulling an all-nighter, really? He could reconfigure his workload a bit if he could ignore the tugging insistence behind his eyelids.

“Video upload tomorrow on my Youtube channel, Thursdays as always—it’s HunterXHK on Youtube. If you had fun tonight, follow me if you haven’t, and you can always throw me a sub if you really love me. Goodnight, darlings—”

Hunter had DVR back up before he’d even closed the stream. Get the clip show sorted first, go from there. A third energy drink was better than dinner. Tomorrow was not his problem.

--

He didn’t want to upload the clip show if he didn’t have to, though.

“It’s 4 AM on a school night, 100 calorie life, making sure the setup’s just right—”

Take thirty.

“Getting in a bitter headspace—”

Take thirty-eight. Normally he’d give up, he was straining his voice and it wasn’t going to get better at this point in the night, but the rough tinge added by running himself ragged was actually kind of working for him. Worth a few more tries, anyway.

“You’re craving for a brand new low—”

Take forty-three.

Take fifty.

“To you, I’m—”

--

Faint rays of the sun streamed from a gap in hastily-closed blackout curtains.

Upload scheduled for 5 PM. Hunter posted a quick engagement reminder, saved the completed clip show a folder where he’d inevitably forget he had it, swallowed caffeine-tainted saliva, felt properly for the first time the thrumming of his heart in his chest.

To you, I’m better, better, better off worse. The song drilled into his head, where it had been for days, where it would stay until his next recording.

It had been perfect. Just the right energy. Good thing to note. Method acting or something. He’d see what the comments made of it later. An hour of sleep was worse than an all-nighter, right? Maybe he could actually knock out that math homework. Eat some cold lasagna. It’s like I’m better, better, better off worse. Press himself into some kind of palatable shape before anyone could perceive him.

He stretched his arms above his head with an audible pop. An hour was enough time to start thinking about his next recording. He had the clip show on tap now if he needed it, sure, but you didn’t get anything with a clip show but a reduction of complaining and numbers stalling instead of dropping. Mr. G checking the homework was a coin flip at worst, and if he spent the next hour doing something that fucking boring he’d end up nodding off anyway.

An hour was enough time to get some real work done.

Better, better, better, better, better, better, better, better, better, better, better, better, better, better, better off.

No rest for the wicked or beautiful.