"travis!" cooper groans, looking at the cause of death showing up in the left corner of his screen. "you fucking fell again? 're you kidding me?" travis laughs loudly, cooper's heart skipping a beat. holy fuck, he's cute, cooper thinks to himself, mumbling curses as he logs off the world, waiting for it to reset. "you're too fucking fast paced when you're playing this game, man," he complains, head making an audible noise as he drops it against his desk. his mic shakes and travis makes a noise, shifting slightly in his seat.

"world's up again," travis murmurs softly, and cooper sits up, loading into the new world. things are quiet for a moment - cooper especially, considering he thinks he's just seen something move out of the corner of his eye - and then travis speaks up. "you're not actually mad at me for ruining the world, right?" cooper blinks, confused.

"what do you mean, 'course i'm not. what makes you think that?" travis shuffles - cooper thinks he shrugs but he can't really tell - and changes topic, talking about the new biome they've spawned in and the abandoned village travis has come across. this time, cooper knows he's seen something move, pausing in-game and taking his headphones off to look around where he thinks he's seen whatever's moving. nothing moves, and he remains still, squinting, then slides his headphones back over his ears, tuning back into the game.

"..'nd then we can probably go and beat the ender dragon or something! whaddya say, coop?" cooper hums in agreement with what travis is talking about, up for being the ender dragon, when he feels something on his socked foot. he reaches down and scratches the area and the feeling goes away, so he turns back to the game and moves forward, catching up with travis. "you ok? you kinda froze for a moment." travis asks him and he nods.

"yeah, dude, 'm good! was just scratching my foot. we gunna kill the ender dragon?" travis grins and explains the plan happily and cooper is glad to listen, eventually getting caught up to date with travis's plan. "gotta admit, that's pretty smart of ya. you got a big brain, trav,"

"i'm a genius," travis says, obviously happy, and cooper nods.

"that you are."

the weird feeling is coming back, it feels like something is crawling up the side of his foot, to his bare calf, but he ignores it, though travis can tell something's up. "what's wrong, coopster?" cooper makes a weird noise and his breath hitches as it climbs up his calf and rests on his thigh, stopping just in front of his shorts. he glances down and shrieks, tossing his headphones off his head and falling backwards, out of his chair. he makes a resounding thud and swipes the spider off his thigh - the motherfucker is huge, he can't kill the bitch - and scrambles back on his chair, pulling his knees to his chest. his chat is filled with worried questions and he puts his headphones back on, pretty much hyperventilating.

cooper has never liked spiders. he was bitten by a spider in third grade, a brown recluse who's bite made him sick and almost need surgery to get all the toxic shit out before his cells started dying. he's still got the nasty scar on his knee, fingers drifting to the spot where the spider had bitten him, trembling in his chair.

he's vaguely aware of travis saying something to him through his headphones and his chat popping off, faster than he's ever seen before, but he's shaking and his vision is threatening to go black, travis's words go through one ear and right out the other and his head hurts, tears spilling down his cheeks and he tries not to cry aloud, not wanting to alert travis or his chat. he's shaking so hard and he can't breathe, wheezing harshly through gritted teeth. the spider starts climbing up his table, resting close to his mic and he makes a noise like an aborted sob, pushing himself away, accidentally ending his stream and sobbing somewhat audibly, fist pounding against the spot where the spider had rested on his thigh, hitting himself so harshly that he's probably going to give himself a bruise.

there's a knocking on his door and he swallows back a sob as the door opens and travis walks in hesitantly, looking at cooper, confusion and sadness lacing his expression. "cooper?" cooper looks up, fists resting on his thighs, nails digging into his palms. "coop, what's wrong?"

cooper inhales desperately, trying to calm himself down enough to talk, tell travis what's wrong. "there's- there's a spider," he manages to get out, and travis nods, looking around for something, cooper doesn't know what. travis grabs a paper cup off of the floor and traps the spider underneath it, cupping the underside of the cup and leaving the room. cooper rakes a hand through his hair and wipes his eyes, trying to stop crying and taking in deep breaths.

travis comes back a moment later, no cup and no spider in hand, and cooper visibly slumps in relief, letting his legs slip off the chair. travis kneels in front of him, resting a gentle hand on cooper's shoulder, and the blond wants to cry again, out of relief this time. "you ok now, coopie?"

"y- yeah," his voice is rough and breaking but coherent, and travis smiles, helping cooper stand on shaky legs.

"you wanna come stay in my room tonight? it's completely spider proof and stuff, y'know? you'll be safe there." cooper nods and shifts, hugging travis tightly. the brunet pauses, then hugs back, nuzzling his face into cooper's chest. 

eventually, they pull apart, and travis takes cooper's hand, pulling him out of the room and into his own, closing the door behind him. there's guaranteed to be rumours about what happened with cooper, people trying to guess what happened before and after he ended the stream, but they'll deal with that in the morning.

right now, as they lay down on travis's bed, cooper feels safe in travis's arms, and that's all he focuses on.

𝕙𝕒𝕝𝕔𝕪𝕠𝕟 ; 𝕔𝕠𝕠𝕡𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕧 𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕥𝕤Where stories live. Discover now