KEEP A PLACE FOR ME // Wilbur Soot X Reader

19

It was a not just a long day. It was a long week. 

Monday had been normal enough, but Tuesday, you'd gotten news that had been complications from the magazine and your deadline had moved up. Wednesday, one of your interviewees called you to say they could no longer do the interview. Thursday, something went wrong with the plumbing in the flat and the bathroom overflowed. 

Hopefully nothing would go wrong today. You were praying that today you could just have a normal day. Maybe a good day, even.

So far it had been relatively normal, thank goodness. You'd arrived at the office around your usual time, started up your space heater (without it exploding), booted up your computer (without it dying) and gotten to work on the articles you had been writing (without anything getting magically deleted). 

You were about to crack open your lunch when you heard a knock on the door. 

Setting the Tupperware of leftovers aside for a moment, you got up and headed over to the door. It was probably Oscar - he visited you sometimes, just to catch up and have his lunch. It was something he liked to do for all his patrons - just to maintain friendly relations.

You opened the door, expecting to see Oscar, and instead found Wilbur, rocking on his heels as he waited, looking just as lanky and attractive as always. He wasn't wearing a beanie today and you could see all of his curls where they naturally fell. 

"Hello." You said. "I wasn't expecting to see you, how are you doing?"

"Hi." He said, grinning. "Um, I have something to ask."

"Go ahead." You said, leaning against the door.

"Would you mind coming to sit in on the stream?" Wilbur asked. "My chat's been asking for you, and I'm doing another You Laugh You Lose, and I thought since you said you had a good time at the last one you might want to do another." He paused. "Of course, if you're busy that's fine too, I just thought I would ask."

You wavered in the door frame, glancing back into the office behind you. "I mean, I was just about to eat my lunch..."

The corner of Wilbur's mouth quirked down so slightly you would have missed it if you weren't looking. "That's alright, I thought I would ask anyway-"

"Actually," You cut him off. "Yeah. I need a break from this week anyway, and I did have a really great time last time."

Wilbur brightened instantly. "Well, in that case..." He gestured to his open office door. 

You stepped out into the hallway to follow him in, letting your own door swing shut. Inside, his stream was running, just as it had been the last time you were in here, and Wilbur pulled out his folding chair, setting it up next to his for you. Wilbur plopped down in his own seat and clapped his hands, grinning excitedly. 

"Chat!" He said. "I'm sure you all remember my office friend, Y/N. Y/N say hi." He said.

"Hello." You waved at the camera. 

"Right." Wilbur said, doing something on his other screen - setting up you supposed. "You Laugh You Lose with Y/N. Please try to actually be funny this time chat  - and Y/N I apologize in advance, my chat is severely unfunny."

Privately, you disagreed - some of the things they had sent last time had been hilarious. But maybe you were just mad at this game. 

"Let's go over the rules before we start." Wilbur said. "Number one, no boomers, number two, no zoomers, number three, no weebs under penalty of death I'm looking at you Phil, number four, no Marvel stans, number five, stan Loona, number six no KPop, number seven, no My Little Pony Friendship is fuck, number eight, no videos I've already seen before, number nine, staged videos are shit, number 10, ignore rule number five, and number eleven, loud is sometimes funny." He said this all very fast, only taking half a breath after rule seven.

"That's quite the mouthful." You noted. 

"We have a lot of rules." Wilbur said. "They need the guidelines, they're so bad at this. But that's enough of that - let's get this over with."

"You're so mean to them." You said. "They're trying their best, alright?"

Wilbur glanced over at the chat and sighed. "You're being too nice to them, look now."

You looked over at the chat as well, watching the messages roll past. Your eyes were only quick enough to catch a few - but it seemed like most of the comments were saying 'Y/N pog'. 

"Pog." You tested the word out. "What's pog?"

"It's like, ah..." Wilbur paused. "It's a good thing."

"Oh, okay." You said, leaning back in your seat, as the first video popped up on the screen. 

A cheetah, in some sort of outdoor place, pacing towards the camera to nuzzle against the lens. You frowned slightly - there was no sound, and it didn't seem like it was leading up to any sort of joke. Maybe the cheetah did something funny? Fell over? Got scared perhaps?

Cheeto.

You snorted.

Wilbur paused the video, turning to you. "You can't laugh at the first one, you've already lost now."

"Oh, c'mon." You rolled your eyes. "It's not like I do this for a living like you, I haven't had to steel myself against laughing. And that was pretty funny, you have to admit-"

"The point of the game is not to laugh!" Wilbur said. "You're lucky the chat likes you, 'cause usually when I laugh they're all yelling at me that I lost."

"It's only because you're mean to them." You said. "They're your viewers, you should be nicer."

"They like it when I'm mean." Wilbur said. 

You raised your eyebrows. "Oh. You didn't tell me you were that kind of internet guy-"

Wilbur laughed, rapidly retracting his statement. "No, it's not like that sort of thing, I just meant-"

"Hey, nothing against you for making a living that way, I just don't know if-" You started. 

Wilbur cut you off with a shout though, looking at his chat. "No, that doesn't count, that doesn't count, it wasn't at a video, I'm not ending the stream."

You just smiled, leaning back in your chair. You were in for a good time.