Chapter 2: The Aftermath
The glow sticks draped over Maisie’s ceiling fan cast a sickly green pallor over everything, including Dan’s face. He was wedged into the beanbag chair she’d dragged next to her gaming rig, his knees nearly up to his ears. He looked profoundly out of place, a serious silhouette against the rainbow chaos of her room.
“You sure you’re okay with this?” Maisie asked, her mouse hovering over the icon for Visage. It was a horror game known for psychologically dismantling players. Her current stream theme was “Courage Week,” which was feeling like a massive miscalculation.
“I don’t really play games,” Dan admitted, adjusting his glasses. “But I like watching you think. You get this little furrow right here.” He pointed between his own eyebrows.
She blushed, the green light doing nothing to hide it. “Okay, but when I’m a sobbing mess, you’re on comforting duty. Contractual.”
“Duly noted.”
She hit ‘Go Live’. Her viewer count ticked up—a modest but loyal crowd. “Hey, gremlins,” she said, her stream-voice a notch brighter than her real one. “Tonight we’re continuing the descent into madness with Visage. And I have a guest! This is Dan. He’s here for… moral support. Or to witness my total psychic collapse.”
Dan gave an awkward little wave to the camera. A flurry of emotes and welcome messages scrolled by.
The game loaded. The silence was immediate and oppressive, just the creak of a virtual floorboard underfoot. Maisie’s commentary was a nervous stream of consciousness. “Okay, house is dark. That’s fine. Everything’s fine. Don’t look at the shadow in the corner, don’t look at the—”
A phone rang in-game, shrill and sudden.
She jerked, a tiny squeak escaping her. Dan leaned forward.
Twenty minutes in, the tension was a wire stretched taut in her chest. She was in a long, dark hallway. A door at the end stood slightly ajar. Nothing had happened for a full two minutes. It was the worst kind of nothing.
“It’s too quiet,” she whispered, more to herself than to the stream.
She inched her avatar forward. The door creaked open on its own.
A porcelain doll sat on a chair in the center of the room, its head slowly turning to face her.
Maisie froze. “Nope.”
A flicker in the periphery. A humanoid shadow, wrong and liquid, slouched across the far wall. Then the lights in the game cut out entirely. A whisper, a wet, clicking whisper, came through her headphones, right in her ears.
“Look at me.”
She didn’t scream. She made a sound like all the air had been punched from her lungs. She violently shoved her chair back from the desk, tore the headphones off, and scrambled sideways—directly into Dan’s beanbag. She half-fell into his lap, her face buried against his shoulder, her fingers clutching the fabric of his shirt.
“Off, off, off!” she gasped.
Dan’s arms went around her, instinctive and firm. “It’s okay, it’s just a game, it’s okay.” He reached over her, fumbled for her mouse, and frantically closed the application. The sudden silence in the room was deafening, broken only by her shaky breaths and the soft hum of her PC.
She was pressed against him, trembling. The safe, solid reality of him—the smell of his laundry detergent, the steady beat of his heart under her ear—slowly overwrote the digital horror. She became aware of everything. The heat of his body through their clothes. The way his hand was splayed against her back, holding her close. Her own position, sprawled across him in the low-slung beanbag.
She didn’t move.
He didn’t let go.
“Sorry,” she mumbled into his neck, not sounding sorry at all.
“Don’t be.” His voice was a low rumble she felt more than heard. His fingers traced a tentative path up her spine. “That was actually terrifying. The audio design alone… the way it spatialized the whisper to trigger a panic response…”
She lifted her head. Her face was inches from his. The green light caught the curiosity in his eyes, the concern, the something else that had just ignited. The chat was going wild on her second monitor, a scrolling blur of ‘OMG’ and ‘SHIP’ and ‘LET THEM COOK’. She reached out a blindly flailing arm and hit the ‘End Stream’ button.
The room went quiet, save for their breathing.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi.”
The space between their lips disappeared. This kiss wasn’t like the park. That had been a question. This was the answer. Hungry, messy, fueled by adrenaline and a week of pent-up, text-facilitated longing. He cradled her face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. She wound her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, losing her balance and sending them both sliding deeper into the beanbag’s abyss.
They broke apart, laughing breathlessly, entangled.
“We should…” Dan started, looking around at the floor, which was a minefield of wire tangles and open merch boxes.
“We should…” Dan started, looking around at the floor, which was a minefield of wire tangles and open merch boxes.
Maisie silenced him with a kiss, slower and more tender now, both of them wanting to remember every detail. Her hands started on his shoulders, then one slid up into his messy dark hair while the other found its way under the soft cotton of his shirt, her cool palm flat against the warm skin of his back.
For Dan, his hands were higher, cradling her face as he got over the initial shock of her move. He kissed her back, a soft sound escaping him as her fingers traced his spine.
As her hands roamed, his slid down her back, stalling at the gentle curve of her hips. His touch was questioning, a silent request for a map in unfamiliar territory.
Maisie answered by intensifying the kiss, her tongue meeting his, and he slid his hands lower, grabbing her ass. The grip was slightly hesitant, awkward, until Maisie kissed him harder, pushing her body into his.
They were both lost in the moment, Maisie accidentally grinding against the hard line of his erection through their jeans. A sharp, mutual gasp broke the seal of their lips.
“Sorry, I—” Dan breathed.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” she whispered, her voice husky and unfamiliar even to herself. Her hands tugged at the hem of his shirt. “This. Off.”
They struggled in the clumsy geography of the beanbag chair. Her oversized hoodie came off first, flung toward a tower of plushies. His shirt followed, catching on the frame of her monitor.
Then they were both lying half on the floor and half on the deflating beanbag, Maisie on her back as they kept kissing. Her hands explored the newly revealed plane of his chest, the surprising definition there, before twisting back into his hair.
One of his hands gripped her ass, pulling her hips tighter against him, while the other, after a faltering moment, cupped her breast over her lace bra. She arched into the touch, a low moan vibrating into his mouth.
She dropped a hand from his hair, sliding it down the tense muscles of his back to his ass, then to the front of his jeans. Her fingers fumbled with the buckle of his belt, the metal cold and uncooperative.
The stark, peppy ringtone of her phone shattered the humid quiet.
It was Jenna’s specific tone, a bubbly pop song. It blared from somewhere under a pile of fabric, relentless and invasive.
Dan froze, his forehead dropping to her shoulder with a soft thud. A ragged, frustrated laugh shook his frame.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Maisie groaned, not letting go of him.
The phone kept ringing. The real world, personified by her best friend’s insistent call, was a bucket of ice water. The spell wasn’t broken, but it was badly fractured, the urgency softening into a breathless, awkward pause.
“It’s Jenna,” Maisie said, stating the obvious.
“I figured.” Dan shifted his weight, but didn’t pull away. His thumb brushed her hip bone, a distractingly gentle motion. “Do you need to get it?”
“She’ll just keep calling. Or she’ll show up. It’s her superpower.” Maisie exhaled, her body sinking deeper into the beanbag. “I’m going to murder her with, like, a very specific and tedious cosplay prop.”
The ringing stopped. A heavy second of silence hung in the green-lit room.
Then her phone chimed with a sequence of rapid-fire text notifications.
Dan pushed himself up on one elbow, looking down at her. His hair was a disaster, his lips swollen. He looked beautifully unraveled. “So. This is happening.”
“Yeah,” Maisie said, reaching up to touch his cheek. “It really is.”
Another text chimed. And another.
“You should probably check that,” he said, though he made no move to let her up. “Before she declares a national emergency.”
Maisie sighed, the immense effort of the moment feeling almost comical. “Fine. But this is a pause. Not a stop.”
“A pause,” he agreed, smiling that rare, warm smile.
He rolled off her, sitting up amidst the debris of her floor. Maisie crawled towards the insistent chirping, extracting her phone from under a Captain Picard uniform tunic.
The screen glowed brightly.
Jenna: SO?
Jenna: The stream cut out. You were mid-freakout.
Jenna: Did you die? Did he die? Did you murder him?
Jenna: Details, Smith. I require a status report.
Jenna: If I don’t hear back in 5 mins I’m invoking the Best Friend Code and calling in a wellness check.
Maisie looked back at Dan. He had found his glasses and was putting his shirt back on, moving slowly. He caught her looking and paused, his expression open, waiting.
She typed back, her thumbs clumsy.
Maisie: We’re fine. Stream was too scary. Everything is fine.
She hesitated, then added.
Maisie: More than fine. Talk tomorrow. DO NOT COME OVER.
She put the phone on Do Not Disturb and placed it face down on the desk. The room was quiet again, but the feverish charge had mellowed into something thicker, more deliberate.
“Well?” Dan asked.
“Well,” Maisie said, crawling back over to him. She didn’t return to the beanbag, but instead settled on her knees in front of where he sat on the floor. She placed her hands on his knees. “Where were we?”
“Right about here,” Dan said, his voice hushed. He leaned in, but Maisie met him halfway, her hands sliding up to frame his face. This kiss was slower, deeper, an unspoken agreement that the frantic pace could wait.
She shifted, climbing into his lap to straddle him properly on the cluttered floor. A rogue Pikachu plushie toppled over beside them. “Is this okay?” she whispered against his mouth, her fingers in his hair.
“Very.” His hands settled on her waist, firm and sure. They kissed again, a languid exploration that quickly burned away the last of their hesitation. Her tongue traced his, and he groaned, his grip tightening, pulling her flush against him.
The green light from the ceiling traced the curve of her spine as she arched against him. His lips moved from her mouth to the line of her jaw, then down the sensitive cord of her neck. She let her head fall back, a gasp catching in her throat. One of his hands slid under the hem of her thin camisole, his palm warm and slightly rough against the skin of her back.
Her own hands were busy, tugging his shirt free from his jeans again, pushing it up over his shoulders. He broke the kiss just long enough to pull it off completely, flinging it toward the abandoned beanbag. The sight of him—lean, defined, eyes dark behind his smudged glasses—made her breath hitch.
“You’re staring,” he murmured, a faint blush on his chest.
“You’re a very good visual,” she said, her voice shaky. She leaned in to kiss him again, rolling her hips slowly against the hard evidence of his arousal. The friction drew a sharp, broken sound from him. His hands slid down to grip her thighs through her black leggings.
Then he rolled them, careful amidst the debris, so she was beneath him on the worn rug. He looked down at her, his hair falling into his eyes. “Okay?”
In answer, she hooked a leg around his, pulling him down. Their kiss turned hungry, all slick heat and searching hands. Her palms mapped the terrain of his shoulders, the dip of his spine. His teeth grazed her lower lip, and she moaned, the sound vibrating between them.
His fingers found the waistband of her leggings, curling into the fabric. He pulled, slowly, the elastic dragging down over her hips. The cool air of the room whispered against her exposed stomach, the lace edge of her black underwear.
His phone erupted.
The blaring, generic ringtone was a physical shock in the quiet room. Dan jerked as if scalded, his head whipping toward the sound. It was his phone, not hers, vibrating aggressively on the floor near his discarded jeans.
“Ignore it,” Maisie breathed, pulling his face back to hers.
He kissed her, but it was distracted, his body tense. The phone kept ringing. “It’s Marcus. He only calls for… it could be the lab,” he said, his words muffled against her skin. He sounded torn. The phone stopped, then immediately started again, a persistent, urgent shriek.
“Damn it.” He pushed himself up on his elbows, his breathing ragged. “I’m so sorry. I have to… if it’s the spectrometer, it’s a five-figure piece of equipment.” He rolled off her, scrambling for the phone, his movements clumsy with frustration.
Maisie lay on the rug, the green light painting her bare midriff, feeling utterly unraveled. She heard him answer, his voice tight. “Marcus? What? …Slow down. The what overflowed? Are you serious?” He ran a hand through his hair, his back to her. “Okay. Okay, I’m coming. Don’t touch anything. Just… contain it with towels. I’m on my way.”
He ended the call and stood there for a second, shoulders slumped. Then he turned back to her. His glasses were crooked. “The cryogenic coolant line in the lab annex sprang a leak. Marcus was doing a late run and found it. If it shorts the console, my data…” He shook his head, already reaching for his shirt.
“Go,” Maisie said, sitting up. She didn’t mean it to sound flat, but it did. The momentum was gone, replaced by a cold, sinking feeling.
He was dressed in seconds, his movements efficient but rushed. He came back to her, kneeling on the rug. He didn’t try to explain further. Instead, he cupped the back of her neck and kissed her. It was a deep, lingering apology of a kiss, his tongue sweeping against hers, one hand tangling in her pink hair.
Her hands slid up under the back of his shirt, tracing the muscles she’d just been exploring, before drifting lower, gripping the firm curve of his backside to pull him closer. He made a low, desperate sound into her mouth, his own hand sliding down from her hair to cradle her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheek.
He broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers. “I’ll text you. The second it’s handled.”
“You better,” she whispered, her voice raw.
Then he was gone, the sound of his hurried footsteps on the stairs fading quickly. The door downstairs clicked shut.
Silence rushed back in, thicker and heavier than before. Maisie slumped back onto the rug, staring at the tangled glow sticks above. The ghost of his hands seemed to burn on her skin. Her lips felt swollen. Her room, usually a cocoon of cozy chaos, felt suddenly vast and empty.
She pulled her leggings back up, the action feeling mundane and depressing. She could still smell his laundry detergent on her sheets where they’d tumbled earlier. The second monitor of her PC had gone to sleep, reflecting her own disheveled image in the dark glass.
She hugged a nearby Totoro plushie to her chest, its softness a poor substitute. The interrupted energy hummed in her veins, unsatisfied, transforming into a sharp, aching want. It was past midnight. The lab crisis could take hours.
With a sigh, she reached for her own phone, switching it off Do Not Disturb. A final text from Jenna glowed on the screen.
Jenna: Okay, but ‘more than fine’ is a STATUS, not DETAILS. I’m dying here.
Maisie typed a reply, her thumbs moving slowly.
Maisie: Coolant leak at his lab. He had to run. World’s worst timing.
Jenna’s reply was instantaneous.
Jenna: NO. That is a cosmic joke. Are you okay?
Maisie looked around her neon-lit room, at the empty beanbag, at the spot on the rug where his glasses had briefly been abandoned. She took a shaky breath.
Maisie: I don’t know.