11. Weston

CHAPTER 11

Quinn was catching on to the technical aspects of streaming. If Quinn was going to do this on his own at some point, he should know how to work the lights and camera, the video game integrations, the stream deck, and the stream software. He was sitting in Weston's gaming chair getting their stream for the day set up, the headset that had become "his" on his head. Weston grabbed his own headset and plopped himself onto Quinn's lap.

Quinn immediately wrapped his arms around Weston's waist, hugging him close. This was what he fantasized about. Having casual affectionate touch with a person who was familiar with his body. Someone comfortable. Quinn made him tingle and buzz. He made his head spin. He trusted Quinn with his stream, and while he would never fully trust someone to be the judge of whether or not he could eat something, Quinn was clearly trying. It was more than most people did.

"Selfie for socials," Weston prompted, taking a photo of the two of them to post, letting their viewers know Quinn was there, too. Their viewers. That was a thought. At this point, Quinn was impacting his earnings enough when he was on with him that Weston wondered whether he should give him a cut. That was a complicated thought. He pushed it out of his head and posted their selfie to a few social platforms.

"Ready to go live?" Quinn asked. The new "stream starting soon" screen that Quinn had made him was up. They'd spent the morning getting all of Weston's branding updated across platforms, and Quinn had brought his own computer to make whatever little changes Weston needed.

"Let's hit it," he said, reaching for the button on the stream deck that would transition the viewers from the waiting screen to the two of them.

They greeted their viewers as they got started, and folks were excited to see Quinn there again. He wasn't a novelty. He was a personality that viewers enjoyed. It was a relief. Weston didn't know what he would have done if Quinn had made his streams do worse instead of better.

Quinn had his hand pressed against Weston's stomach in the frame, and it was making chat go nuts. Weston wasn't an OnlyFans type, which was too bad, because they could probably make a killing together.

His vibe was too PG for that. Maybe PG-13, but mostly for swearing. He wasn't sure how many young kids watched him, but he knew that teens did, so he kept it appropriate. Hand holding. Cheek kisses. Flirting. Plus, this was a show. What happened off screen was for just him and Quinn.

"How are you going to play with Weston on your lap?" Quinn read from the screen. He gave Weston a squeeze. "Probably not well."

"I can move."

"No, you can't," Quinn said, holding on tight.

"Well then, we should play something really hard so I can win."

They played an adventure game that was about five hours long, where they played as two cats trying to fly a spaceship. Weston lasted nearly an hour on Quinn's lap before Quinn's legs fell asleep, and he had to stand up and take a lap to get the feeling back. Weston stole his chair back. It would be fun to do this from the couch so they could sit embarrassingly close together. Weston filed that thought away for later.

Once again, the time flew by, and when Weston checked his stats later, he couldn't believe how much money they made.

This thing felt too good to be true. It would burn bright and fast.

"We are all remembering that this stream is for charity, right? We are raising money for celiac research. This is a family stream," Weston whispered late Sunday night. Out of all the ideas that his viewers came up with for the charity stream, the unanimously voted option was ASMR. And while Weston loved watching ASMR streamers, he'd never done it before.

He was using mostly his blue and purple LEDs, and they were turned down low. Quinn sat facing away from the camera, straddling the dining chair he usually used for streams so that his bare back was on display. Weston was a professional, and leading up to this stream he had watched dozens of ASMR streamers, and the ones he found that would work for two people were back-scratching/hair-play videos. When he showed Quinn what he was thinking, he was on board.

"We are lucky to have Quinn here today. I was originally going to do this stream alone, and you all would have been subjected to me tapping on a plastic cup for a few hours. Thanks for staying up late with us." He kept his voice soft and slow as he trailed the tips of his fingers over Quinn's shoulders. Weston had recently painted his nails black, so they were fresh and crisp against Quinn's skin. He traced slow patterns, standing in front of Quinn and reaching around him to scratch his back so his camera had a good angle of both of them.

"I respect anyone who doesn't want to hang around for this," Weston said. He thought he would see his viewership dip after they switched from the silly personality tests they had started the evening with to this, but they only lost a few viewers. "But it is for charity, so I'm judging you. Thank you, Michael, for gifting ten subs, dude, that's crazy. Thank you so much." Usually, keeping up conversation while streaming was fairly easy for him. He could have a conversation with a brick wall, and that was such a welcome and necessary skill in his line of work.

However, it meant that he wasn't paying attention to his hands.

He trailed fingertips up Quinn's neck and through his hair. It was soft and silky, as always. He hadn't spent enough time with his hands in Quinn's hair. Beneath his hands, Quinn shivered. On screen, he saw gifts exploding as animation after animation spread across his screen.

"You are all so awesome," he whisper-shouted. He envied the ASMR streamers who never said a single word. They just ran a spoon over a microphone for four hours at a time and then collected a paycheck. But Weston wasn't cut out for that life. He had things to say.

He moved down to Quinn's back again, and Quinn readjusted, slumping against the chair. He yawned. They had saved the ASMR portion of this stream for late—later than Weston ever streamed—and Quinn was feeling it. Weston had a Red Bull earlier, so he was still feeling alert. Quinn folded his arms over the top of the chairback and rested his head on them. His lower half was off camera, and that was a good thing, because he wasn't putting Quinn's ass on the internet. Especially how it looked in that moment, round and delicious. His thighs were spread wide to accommodate the chairback, and his knees were bent enough for just his toes to be on the ground. Weston thought his socks were cute. They had little Minnesotas on them. He'd be thinking about them for days.

He was so pathetic. Quinn made him feel like he was always on the corkscrew part of a roller coaster. Yes, he was having fun, but he didn't know which way was up.

He was quiet for a while, scratching up and down Quinn's back gently. His chat was a mix of people thanking him for the tingles and people saying they had no idea what the fuck he was doing, but they liked seeing him and Quinn together. He could see what the camera was picking up—his hands all over Q. Yes, they'd kissed before, obviously. They'd had sex. But Quinn still made him nervous. He didn't want to scare him off, but he also wasn't sure what to do with the butterflies in his stomach.

Quinn sighed. "That's nice," he whispered as the edge of Weston's nails skated up his neck and back into his hair. His whisper was quiet enough so that the mic didn't pick it up. On this stream that was being broadcast to the whole internet, that little moment was just theirs.

Weston wasn't an ASMR professional, so he knew his limits. He wrapped up the stream after a half hour, promising to tally up all of the donations folks made and post receipts for where the money went. Quinn looked over his shoulder to say goodbye to the stream, and Weston's heart stuttered when he saw his messy hair and sleepy smile.

Weston shut the stream off.

"Did I do okay?" Quinn asked. "I dozed off there toward the end."

"You did great. I think they weirdly liked it. Well, some people didn't, so I'm not about to switch up my niche, but I didn't lose many viewers and the donations were wild. By far the most donations of the whole evening were in that last section."

"That's awesome." Quinn still hadn't gotten up out of the chair, so Weston held his hand out to help him. Quinn stood up, finally facing the discomfort of sitting like that for so long. He did a squat and a stretch, then yawned again and sat back down.

"Noooo, you were almost there," Weston said at Quinn's backwards progress. He wanted to brush his teeth and fall asleep, but Quinn looked up at him with playful—though sleepy—eyes and pulled him onto his lap. Weston let out an "oof" as Quinn pulled him into his lap for a cuddle.

"Thanks for the scalp massage and the back scratch. It felt so good."

"Good." Weston smiled to himself, wrapping his arms around Quinn's shoulders to hold on just as tight as Quinn was holding him.

"Do you want the favor returned?"

"Oh, you don't have to?—"

"I want to. Let's get ready for bed, because if I can give you a scalp massage half as good as the one you just gave me, it will put you to sleep."

Weston nodded, unable to form coherent words. They brushed their teeth and slid under the covers. Quinn rolled onto his back and coaxed Weston to lie half on his chest, head pillowed on his shoulder. A good sleeping position if he did fall asleep.

The room was dark, lit only by the dim lights of his small city, and Weston fully relaxed against Quinn as his fingers gently played with his hair. For whatever reason, the gentler you were, the bigger the payoff. ASMR gave him pretty good tingles, the calming, shivery feeling that started at your scalp and cascaded down your spine, but there were no tingles better than someone playing with your hair.

"I love your hair," Quinn said, using that deep early morning/late night voice he had when he was tired. It rumbled through Weston's body, and the only reason he didn't get hard was because he was exhausted. "It's so fucking cute."

Weston's brain was slowing down. He couldn't figure out what to respond with. All he got out was an "Mmmmm" as he fell asleep.

Since Sunday's stream went late, they'd made more realistic plans for Quinn to leave on Monday morning. The weekend had gone by offensively quickly. They'd spent most of Saturday in Weston's bed, which was an incredible way to pass the time, and the Sunday stream was so chaotic that it zipped by. Weston had liked not having the delicate dance of trying to play it cool as he'd suggested Quinn stay over. They'd just fallen asleep together like it was a regular occurrence. It was comfortable. Weston had never been comfortable with having anyone stay in his studio, let alone his bed. It was usually claustrophobic and awkward. Having Quinn in his bed was as comforting as his stuffed bat.

Quinn woke him up Monday morning with a slow, sloppy blow job, then headed into the kitchen. Weston followed magnetically.

"What are you making?" Weston asked, elbows on the half wall, watching Quinn pull ingredients and pans out.

"Breakfast. You have admin stuff to do, right? Edit your VOD for TikToks?"

"It's more fun to watch you cook."

"I won't do anything entertaining while you're working."

"Promise?"

Quinn nodded, then cracked an egg into a bowl with one hand. It was probably easier to do with large hands. Quinn came from a family of Nordic athletes and looked every bit the part. He clearly wasn't a gym rat, but he was tall, and he had a chiseled jawline. He was so pretty. His face looked like it was made to smile, and it was hard to imagine him going through months of such a deep depression that he could barely get out of bed or muster the energy to see his best friend, who he shared a mortgage with.

Getting out of your element could help. Weston was still a new person for Quinn, and as much as they were enjoying their time together, they hadn't let down all of their walls. He was working on the assumption that Quinn wasn't magically better. Mental health issues and chronic health issues shared a lot of overlap. Weston knew better than most that you had to put on a brave face sometimes.

Quinn brought him a cup of coffee to drink while he worked, and Weston got their stream ready to post to YouTube, answered some emails, and replied to as many social media messages as he could. He was dodging questions about the nature of his and Quinn's relationship left and right. Everyone thought they were dating. The "boyfriends" thing they had going on was boosting every metric possible on his channel. He wasn't about to screw that up.

He also wasn't about to destroy the fun, easy thing they had going on together by having a conversation about it. They'd been clear at the start. This was casual.

"Alright, back in bed," Quinn said, balancing two plates and a large glass of orange juice in his hands. "Breakfast in bed."

"You made me pancakes and bacon?"

"And there's fruit."

Weston crawled back in bed and made room for Quinn to follow, holding the plates while he got settled.

"I figured we could share a glass of juice," he said, taking a sip and offering it to Weston. Was sharing a glass of juice casual?

"Have you made gluten-free pancakes before?"

"No, are they bad?" Quinn took a worried bite.

"They're great."

"I googled it. I figured I was safe cooking you food you bought for yourself," he said. Weston didn't have anything in his house he couldn't eat, so he wasn't worried about Quinn accidentally poisoning him, but it hadn't occurred to him that Quinn could make him good food. "It was nice, getting behind the stove again. I haven't cooked in a long time."

"Thanks for making me your first meal back at it, then."

Quinn gave him a sticky kiss on the cheek, and Weston wiped it away, pretending to be grossed out when he was actually touched.

They took the morning slowly, and eventually Quinn packed his stuff up. He left a toothbrush in the bathroom, and Weston didn't ask if that was on purpose or an accident. He knew he'd enjoy seeing it in the cup on his sink until Quinn came back.

"I'll walk you out," Weston said, putting a coat on this time so he wouldn't have to rush back inside right away. Quinn tossed his duffel into his car, and Weston shivered next to him.

"It's not too cold yet," Quinn said.

"I was literally a malnourished child. I'll always be a bit of a cold baby."

"Then let me help." Quinn wrapped him up in his arms, rubbing warmth into his back. Weston drank in the feeling of being pressed against his chest, trying to remember how soft his hoodie was and how he smelled like Weston's detergent after spending so much time in his bed that weekend.

"I'll be back soon, alright?"

Weston nodded, wrapping his arms around Quinn's neck to kiss him. Quinn had joked about being fine if all Weston ever wanted to do was kiss, and it wasn't. But damn, if there was ever anyone whose kisses were good enough to give up sex for, it was Quinn. He could get lost in his mouth. He didn't even remember how cold he was when they were kissing.

"I should probably let you get ready for stream," Quinn said, and Weston wanted nothing less than that. But he was right.

"Drive safe."

"I will. I'll text you when I stop for gas and when I get home."

They kissed again (and again), and then Weston watched as Quinn's car disappeared down his street.

His apartment was empty when he got back inside. Quinn had cleaned his kitchen before he left, but there was a napkin on the counter with a note on it and a doodle of a bat. Weston put it on his desk to keep. The sheets on the bed were still askew, and he flopped face-first on his mattress, trying to get a whiff of Quinn before it faded.

Shit. This was teenage-girl stuff.

He took one more deep breath, then got out of bed. He cleaned his bathroom, picked up the "living room" (the foot-and-a-half border around his futon), and ate a snack. It was Monday, so he would be playing Fixer Upper. There was a new mini-release that came out over the weekend that he was excited to dive into, so he got that queued up and made a quick TikTok to announce he was going live.

Stream always took a few minutes to get up to speed, so for the first several minutes, he answered questions about Quinn. "He just left. He stayed an extra day though, so I can't complain too much. Yeah, it is more fun with him here. We should livestream our wedding? We are getting ahead of ourselves here, let's take it easy. You like Quinn more than me? God, same."

He got up and running in his game, his phone faceup on the table so he would see Quinn's texts when they came in. He wasn't expecting to hear from him for a while.

But an hour after Quinn left, Weston's phone started ringing. It was Quinn. Something must be wrong. Quinn knew he was on stream.

Weston paused his game. "Uh, I gotta take this, I'm sorry, one moment." He muted his mic.

"Hey," Quinn said when Weston answered.

"Hi, are you alright? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. I just…got on the freeway and realized I didn't want to leave."

"Huh?"

"There's a new Fixer Upper out, and I realized I want to play it with you."

"I want to play it with you, too."

"Would you be upset if I told you I turned around?"

"You did?"

"And I'm here. Again. In your parking lot."

"Seriously?" Weston nearly shouted. "Oh my god, fuck yes, okay, I'll be out in two minutes. Hold on."

He unmuted his mic enough to tell his viewers he would be back in literally two minutes and bolted out his door. And there Quinn was, duffel on his shoulder, hip resting on the side of his car, and once again, Weston leapt into his arms like he'd been gone again for weeks.

He was in fucking trouble.