Chapter Text
“Okay Chat- You ready?! We’re gonna spin for the last round, bois! Is it gonna be a five dollar dono, is it fifty subs, or is it the big twenty K’s?! LETS F-F-F-FIND OUT!! Schwingggg~ !”
With a powerful spin of her body, Filian flicked her hand downward and kicked her leg up on the opposite side- All to spin a wheel that was entirely virtual, existing only on the monitor in front of her. With powerful optical tracking, it looked as if she had spun the wheel herself… and although she had considered buying a real wheel and tracking it for this very special stream, it ended up being technically infeasible… the tracking simply couldn’t keep up with that many trackers rotating around an axis.
Besides, the stream was expensive enough. Despite the sponsorship from Fansly and CoinBase, it still meant that the option to donate 20.000 dollars to a random Vtuber was only ever going to be a one-time thing, rather than the smaller donations that could be handed out multiple times. She already gifted over 250 subs and nearly 5000 dollars to streamers and mutuals over the course of the past three hours, and was starting to get a little nervous about the big one…
“Wait… WAIT!! CHAT!!” Bouncing with excitement and fear alike, Filian watched as the wheel started to creep towards a halt- with the 20.000 dollar option getting frighteningly close.
“IS THIS IT?! NO WAY- NO EFFING WAY DO WE LAND ON THE BIG TWENTY WITH THE LAST ONNNNEEEEEE?!!”
It stopped. With a playful jingle, the jackpot donation was announced on stream… and Filian, rather comically, simply dropped to the floor without another word, falling flat on her face.
“Chaaaat… My poor bank account…!”
Naturally, she didn’t even have to look at her chatlog- As the “KEKW”, “OMEGALUL BROKE” and “xDx FILIAN ON BENEFIT” responses soared by, she whined for a little bit longer, resting on all fours, before eventually getting back up with a deep, sorrowful sigh.
“Well well well… If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions…”
She sighed melodramatically, hiding one wheel and bringing up another, this one being covered in 100 names of random Vtubers.
“But I'm a catgirl of my word, and I WILL donate this money! Now, Chat, shall we see whomst we give this humble donation to? Who shalt it be, that minest moolah be benefitted for? …What am I saying, dude. Lets effing get it,
Schwing
!”
Without further melancholy, she simply spun the wheel and watched closely as names tickered by at lightning speed, too fast for her to read… except, as it was slowing down towards a crawl, she could see some very familiar names.
“...No way. No effing way. You CANNOT…!!”
The words died in her throat as the wheel came to a stop, and the PNG of a small green turtle with a friendly smile appeared on screen, with the same jingle as the previous spin.
“WHAT THE FRICK IS THISSSSSS?!! Chaaaaat…! He makes more money than ME! This effing turtle has eight lamborghinis, six mansions, and a frickload of stocks! Does he really need the 20k? Let me know in the comment section…!”
While Filian reached for her Rubber chicken Water Bottle, a poll was started by the mods if Chat agreed with this decision… Filian herself wasn’t feeling too good about it.
Vedal was… special to her. For all the acts she played on stream, all the screaming and crying and demanding that her position required to keep the creeps out of her DMs, Vedal…
…She always liked to hang out with him. He was a different kind of Vtuber, the kind that was more real and down to earth- The one that was more likely to say something that he actually meant rather than something for content or for a joke. The few times they hung out in real life confirmed that, but even hanging out with him off-stream to play games or to chat about upcoming stuff and how to do it, him and her were on the same wavelength.
Born around the same time, they liked very similar things, had a similar mindset, played the same games and had a similar outlook on life. And yet she found herself looking up to him for his tendency to always try to push things further beyond, and improve himself as well as his content to the next level.
Beyond that… she always had this weird feeling in her stomach when they hung out together. That stupid smile on her face. She didn’t know what it was, but when she had a bad day where nothing went right, all she had to do was call Vedal, and she was grinning from ear to ear again.
Setting down her water bottle, she looked at the poll results… and predictably, Chat voted that yes, the donation was legit. It was a randomized result, after all.
“Chat, hear me out… those 20k are actually gonna go to Neuro.” Filian reminded them, plopping down into her chair with a sagely nod. “Vedal is actually a pretty frugal guy. He doesn’t buy a lot of stuff, you feel me? So if we give him the money, it's just gonna make Neuro a better streamer! Benefits all of us, right? So I’mma say it's a W- Lets call our lucky turtle and tell him the good news, shall we?”
Halfway across the world, John Vedal Penrose was hunched behind his workstation, staring at multiple screens at once- One was executing Evil’s code, the other Neuro’s code, a third was currently training attempt 57 of V3 voice. To say his machines were running under load was an understatement- Cramped into a server room with no less than four workstation PC’s running, even with water cooling, was heating things up to the point where he considered sitting there shirtless, and with just his boxers on.
Vtubers did that a lot, didn’t he? He kept seeing clips of his female peers brazenly admitting to streaming naked, but even if he was behind a camera and several layers of protection, he couldn’t do that. He just couldn’t, not when his streaming window on screen number four told him how many thousands of people were staring at him… thankfully, he wasn’t on stream at the moment, as the twins were doing a karaoke session by themselves.
He wasn’t really aware of what was going on, even as his Chat was freaking out about something that wasn’t related to the stream at all… some discord messages popped up, but he ignored them, as usual… until rather ominously, Filian began to call him on Discord.
“Ah, for fucks sake.”
Granted, he couldn’t say he didn’t like talking to her. Filian, off stream at least, was a great raid partner in games, and immensely dedicated to content creation. An inspiration to say the least, but a good friend on top of that. Maybe more, the voice in his head kept insisting, but Vedal had made it almost a sport by this point to push such thoughts out of the way, and focus on his own content- Vtubers had made it a brand to be undateable Femcel’s, so he didn’t even try by this point.
As much as he craved the idea of just… being with Filian, without having to think of content or some sort of a reason to hang out with her. He didn’t know if she thought of them as friends or just as good business partners- She said a lot of things on stream she didn’t really mean, and she had so many “friends”, including Dan Clancy, that he didn’t think it meant much at all anymore.
Still. After just a couple of rings, he grabbed his phone and accepted the call, getting up from his chair to walk away from his workstation and the noise it was producing.
“Hello…?”
The usual disinterest in his voice was palpable, and for once it wasn’t played up. He was tired, he was exhausted, and he was hot- popping several buttons on his shirt, he walked over to the fridge to get a cold drink… but before his hand reached into it, he slumped into a chair.
“...WHAT?! Say that again. Word for word.”
“Bro, you won a 20.000 dollar tax-free donation to your stream! From me! …Paid for by Fansly.” Filian handwaved that last bit, as it was still a bit of a point of contention that a wholesome streamer like her was taking money from a thinly veiled porn site… but they paid well, and Melody had given her some real good connections with the founders. “Can you show at least a little enthusiasm in your voice, man? I know you’re effing british, but holy frick, you sound like you just fell out of bed!”
“I’ve been up for 21 hours Filian!” Vedal defended himself, only to exhale a sigh and run a hand through his sweaty, short black hair. “Fuckin’ hell man, I can’t accept that much money, man…! Just… What do you want me to do with it? Donate to charity? We can do half and half, if you want, like you keep half and I get half, Fansly will never know…”
“DUDE!! I’M ON STREAAAAM!!!” He could hear her bouncing around, hopping on her padded floor like an angry frog. “YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THAT TO MY SPONSORRRRRSSS!!!”
“WELL WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?! I CAN’T JUST ACCEPT TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS WITH NOTHING IN RETURN! IT'S NOT HOW I WORK! IT'S NOT ETHICAL, FILIAN!”
Hopping onto his kitchen island to stop running around the place, Vedal unscrewed the cap of a bottle of rum with one hand, and frowned… only for an idea to strike him.
“Listen, why don’t you ask your chat what I can do in return for this money? It's free content, right? You love that kinda shit, asking your chat and doing stuff.”
Filian, visibly frustrated by this point, gave off a noise of annoyance, threw her hands up, and dropped them again.
“FINE! Fine, you don’t hand-outs? Then fine! Chat, what's the worst thing we can do to this man for 20k? Mods, collect the top five and put it to a poll! I’mma go pee.”
With that, she walked off screen and turned off her microphone, blissfully unaware of the truly diabolical ideas being gathered on the screen- and unable to hear Vedal’s noises of shock and horror as he opened the stream on his phone to check what was being voted on.
As usual, the fruitsnack goblin returned rather quickly, but by that point, the vote was already almost up- with 20.000 votes collected nearly a third of the people watching the stream had given a vote, a real rarity even on big streams like this… but her jaw dropped as she plugged her Airpods back in and saw the screen in front of her.
“...WHAAAAAAATTT?!!”
Much to her shock, horror and despair, not to mention dismay, out of the five options one was winning by a landslide… “Go on a date with Vedal :TutelBooty:”
The remaining four options were no better, but none of them was even close. 64% of the chat wanted her to go on a date with a guy she… kinda liked.
What the hell was she supposed to do here? Her gut feeling told her to stop and shut it down right now, but… her innermost desires wanted this, more than anything else in the world.
“Filian. What the FUCK is this poll?”
Vedal’s voice snapped her out of her stupor, only to fluster, blush, and point back at him. “W-WHAT?! WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME?! YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WANTED TO ASK MY CHAT, REMEMBER?! Jesus effing- Alright! Vedal! How are we doing this?”
Wait, what the fuck? What did she just say? What in the fuck was she thinking?! Seconds after it slipped out, she covered her mouth and quickly ran off into a corner, much to the bemusement of her chat, but Vedal was likewise taken off-guard.
“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN, WOMAN?! What, a fucking VR chat date!? For twenty thousand dollars?! No way, no fucking way dude- for twenty thousand we’d have to go on a REAL date, IN REAL LIFE! I DOUBT YOU’D WANT THAT, RIGHT?!”
Perhaps he was a bit hopeful she would say no, so that they could backpedal and go back to option number two, posting pictures of his naked back… but he had forgotten how competitive Filian could be.
“You know what?! FRICK YOU!! Fine! We’ll go on an effing date, IRL!!” The girl turned around on her heel, pointing rather sharply at the screen, and kicking Timophy out of the screen as she walked towards the camera. “But I'm NOT gonna stream it!! Effing five minutes after we meet up someone’s gonna run up to us to stream snipe!”
“...Ah damn it, there goes that idea… I guess I'll have to ask Toma to stream with Neurodog then…”
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU- Vedal. VEDAL! BE SERIOUS!!”
Filian’s eyes trembled, and she was about to cry, her voice was on the peak of breaking down. “Are we gonna do this or nah?! IRL date, without the chat, without cameras, just effing… Hanging out, I guess?! And I’m NOT sharing the TIME AND DATE TO THE CHAT, cuz then WE STILL GET STREAM SNIPED WITHOUT THERE BEING ANY STREAM TO SNIPE!!”
“...Fine.” Vedal took a deep breath, then exhaled, and rubbed his temples a bit to sound disinterested and annoyed- When his heart was in fact beating so fast he felt like he was going to hyperventilate. Over the years of streaming he had been perfecting this sort of subtle subterfuge to try and retain a poker face while Neuro and Evil tried to troll him, and it had largely worked out in his favor, but… trying to use it to keep a cool head around a girl he liked was genuinely something else in terms of the sheer difficulty involved.
The fact that he pulled it off at all surprised him, but he wasn’t sure just quite how believable it truly was…
“Just… Just send me a message after the stream or whenever you wanna do this. Take your time. It's been three years since Anny was forced to do a marriage stream and we still haven’t done that either, so…”
“Dawg, I ain't a scammer. Despite what chat says whenever I try to limit the damage to my own sanity.”
Filian took a deep sigh as well, only to smile behind her Vtuber facade. “Well… Congrats? Not sure if dating me is worth congratulating but hey, you got a bunch of money for Neuro, so…”
“Yeah. "I guess I do.”
The two hung up shortly after, and Vedal began to just… take a stiff drink, calm his nerves, and tell himself that this was just going to be a fun hangout with a friend, nothing else… If… IF, against all odds, things went so well that there was genuinely some chemistry there, then…. maybe… Just maybe, he’d ask if she might want to repeat this with a real date sometime, but…
“...Ah, fuck.”
Toma. He remembered. He had to pop her a message sooner rather than later if he expected her to pitch in as a babysitter for that time, and in general just if she’d be down to stream sometime soon.
But… not even five minutes after their phone call, his discord buzzed before he ever got the chance to finish his text message to his coworker.
Filian.
“dawg”
“would you be down to”
“D A T E”
“this weekend”
“lmk if youre down for that but id like that”
He was about to answer, only for additional messages to pop up.
“unless”
“i mean we can still cancel or pretend we did something but”
“I mean”
“I kinda”
“like the idea of this”
Filian then went radio silent, even after he affirmed that he’d be free and able to take a quick flight over to the US that weekend… he could imagine that she was probably screaming with embarrassment and rolling around on the floor half tempted to delete these messages.
Odd. Was she serious about this? If she was this apprehensive, surely she would have just found some other way to scam her audience, despite her words… but Vedal would not find out either or for a while yet.
That night, Filian got barely a few seconds worth of sleep. She just kept rolling on her mattress- left, right, left again, wondering what to do.
She had a date. She had a DATE! A real, live, IRL date, with the cameras off- meaning that there were no content guidelines, no filters, no terms of service in her way.
Anything could happen. Literally anything. She hated her chat so much for putting her in this situation, but at the same time she knew why they were doing this- Because she would never ever allow herself to honestly date someone, otherwise.
She was just too scared, too anxious around people- And she was married to her job, creating content around the clock.
The fact that she wasn’t gonna be talking to chat for at least the next 24 hours, or think about what the next stream should be, was honestly insane to think about. She lived for her stream. She breathed, consumed, embodied her stream… and now she had to think of something completely out of her wheelhouse, she had to be an adult- and she had no idea how to do that.
Part of her was really, really looking forward to it, wondering just what the hell might come out of this crazy situation.
It wasn’t even a fan- It was this handsome young guy she’d come to like and appreciate as a friend, someone she knew for a fact was single, but open to a relationship.
What the fuck was she going to do if this stupid thing her Chat cooked up actually set her down a path for life?!
No. Noooo. Surely not! She wasn’t gonna hook up and get into a relationship and get married to VEDAL of all people…!!
“...Frick me, dude…”
Filian never had coffee. She was scared of caffeine… but this morning in particular, she started the day out with some almost-not-expired GamerSupps, just to get her mind going again, and to think about the situation from a rational, dispassionate, logical standpoint.
All she had to do was to make sure they had a good time together, right? Do some fun stuff together, have dinner together, maybe a hug, and she was home free. Should be simple, really!
….
THUMP!! THUMP!! THUMP!!
Filian started banging her head against the wall, her fists clenched tight and her tail getting bushy.
“I’M SO EFFING COOKED!!! IT'S EFFING OVER!!! Ugh- I gotta- I need help. I need help! I NEED HELP!!”
Said and done, with her head still dazed from impacting her wall, Filian ran to grab her phone- and started hammering out one number after the other.
Layna didn’t pick up. Chacha didn’t pick up- Koko picked up, called her a bitch and hung up. Pippa… was a last resort, and she wasn’t even gonna ask Marimari, Alana or Nyana… for a brief moment she considered Deme, but then Kirsche Verstahl’s name came up in her contact list, and in pure desperation, she pressed the call button.
“...Hello? Filian, why in the world are you calling me at eight in the morning? I’m still at the breakfast table!”
The southern belle fox woman answered almost immediately. Although she sounded a little annoyed, she was the only one she could fall back on, and so Filian took a deep breath, and began to explain…
“A date? Jesus christ, Filian, are you trying this hard to get into the Trad Wife club? Well, I suppose I can squeeze you in- I can make an exception for a woman who can enjoy a healthy helping of ketchup in the morning.”
Kirsche’s heavy southern accent was oddly calming to Filian. It felt as if she didn’t really take any of this too seriously and was just rather chill and smooth about it, although much of it may have come from the early hours of the morning…
“Aright, bet. Now… Kirsche, I’m gonna be real with you, this is my first date with a man. EVER. PERIOD. Nothing came before it, so walk me through it, beginning to end!”
Filian started pacing around her room, putting on clothes and looking for pen and paper to write down the advice the fellow fox woman would give, good, bad, or otherwise.
“Oh. And I’m terrified of getting stream sniped IRL. Like, I ain’t gonna be streaming it, I’m not stupid. But what if someone notices my voice and starts following me and my date partner?! Who’s also a streamer, by the by.”
“Awwwh! You didn’t tell me you were dating Caseoh! NOW i’m interested in helping you, let me think-”
“ITS NOT CASEOH!! BRO WOULD EAT ME ALIVE JUST BY TAKING A DEEP BREATH! I’M GONNA BE VORED! I’M GONNA- Ughhn… It's not Caseoh. Okay? Let's just… Assume it's anyone. Nobody in particular.” Not a good start to the whole thing, but Filian still hoped that things would come back around sooner rather than later.
“Alright, alright, calm down. Soooo… If you’re worried about going outside and touching grass together, then-”
“I have grass allergies.”
“Yes. So why don’t you invite him to your home, and cook him a nice dinner, play some games together and then Netflix and Chill? You may not be ready to start a family but its always a good place to start-”
“YOOOO!!! KIRSCHE!! IT'S MY FIRST DATE!!!!”
“It's never too early to have kids, my momma always says.”
“KIRSCHEEEE!!! CHILL OUTT!!!!!”
Filian sighed, groaning a bit as she leaned against a wall, briefly kicking Timophy out of the way as she nearly stumbled over him.
“I guess dating him in my apartment is the easiest way to do it… could maybe record a couple videos with him in the streaming room, but like… I don’t wanna turn this into content, y'know? I never… Never had a genuine date with someone. I wanna know what I missed in highschool, dangit!”
“Well, dinner dates at home can be quite nice! I’ve had some!”
“...” Filian briefly scanned across her apartment- The plain white walls, mounds of trash, streaming equipment, props for streams, and meal delivery boxes…. Goodness gracious she had a lot of boxes. She was gonna have to clean up today, a LOT, or this was going to be the embarrassment of a lifetime.
“Okay. Walk me through it, dawg. How’s that gonna go?”
Kirsche seemed to giggle on her end of the line, as Filian unfolded a chair and sat down in the middle of her largely empty two-room apartment. With her all-new streaming room, her living space had been reduced to a single combination of livingroom and kitchen, as a mattress in her streaming room acted as the bedroom. The idea of letting someone in here for a “romantic dinner date” didn’t really sit right with her- She didn’t really have a livingroom as such, just a table and a couple folding chairs.
And the table, currently, was smashed to pieces in the basement after she butt-bombed into it on stream.
“Well.” Kirsche began, seemingly pulling up a chair of her own as if they were going to sit down together. “First you greet him nicely at the door, invite him inside, maybe let loose a little joke to set the mood! Then you guide him to the living room, as you’re already cooking a spectacular feast for the two of you, maybe put on a movie so he isn’t bored while he waits- and if the roast isn’t quite ready, go ahead and sit down with him, talk a little bit, break the ice! You know what to do, you’ve done that hundreds of times on your streams!”
“Okay. Solid plan. And now how does one go on from there to whatever the frick you do on a date?”
“Well, you have dinner together, Filian, obviously! If he likes it, he’ll compliment you, and you can compliment him back, and things escalate- And if that isn't enough, maybe he’d like to stick around for a movie night, or some gaming… and from there you can really scoot up to him on the couch and get to know him~”
“YOOOO!! I AINT THAT FREAKY!! And I don't have a couch.”
“HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE A COUCH, FILIAN?!”
“I DON'T NEED ONE! I’M JUST ONE CATGIRL!!” Filian got a little bit agitated now, as she flinched, wincing, realizing the elephant in the room. “Aaaaand I don't know how to cook, either…”
“WELL DO YOU HAVE A STOVE?!”
“Yes!”
“AND AN OVEN?!”
“YES!!
“THEN USE THEM!!”
“HOW?!!”
“A COOKBOOK, FILIAN! Or just follow someone’s recipe online! Like, I don’t know, Bao, or Layna, or Gordon Ramsay, although his taste in food is kind of shit…”
“I DONT-”
Filian got up, grabbing her folding chair and throwing it across the room.
“HAVE A COOKBOOK! I DON'T COOK! ….Ughh… Fine, I’ll like… get something going. And like, an inflatable couch, and a new table. And I'll clean up, and put down a rug to hide the dents in the floor…”
“There you go, that's the spirit, Filian! Clean your filthy cat litter off the floor and put down a blanket, and you can have a picnic in your house. Simple as! Think of it as like gifting him something- It's not the gift that matters but the thought behind it!”
“Alright…”
Filian spent most of the day cleaning up, afterwards. Dusting, vacuuming, spraying stuff down, and simply using the enormous amount of boxes to store her streaming props in a corner… while putting her pile of clothes in another box, one clearly marked as such. The result was a… clean house, for sure, but also a quite empty one.
Very, very empty indeed, but hopefully her Amazon Prime delivery of emergency furniture would change some of that.
She also went grocery shopping… in a sense that she ordered a laundry list of food as she didn’t want to leave the house, as by the time she finished cleaning her now vastly empty, white-walled apartment, she just collapsed face-first onto the mattress with very little to show for it.
God, she was NOT ready. ANYTHING BUT READY.
Filian hugged herself on her mattress, her face grimacing deeply and darkly as the second thoughts piled up in her head. This was pointless. Idiotic. Silly. Why did she even agree to this? What was the point? What, did she think Vedal was going to be her prince charming?
…He was good looking. He was charming. He was funny, and she got along with him well… but Filian would never be able to see herself as anything but his equal in streaming.
A relationship? Laughable. She didn’t know her left from right when it came to love, hell, she had to get advice just to ask how to prepare a date!
A million things could go wrong. A billion things were unaccounted for. And if just one thing slipped up, she could ruin things with her best friend, forever!!
“...Frick it.”
She rolled over, grabbing her phone and flicking through the menu to get to Discord- Not calling it off completely, but a delay, she told herself. Just getting herself a bit more time would be-
“....FRICK!! OH MY FRICKING- NO! NOOO!!!”
He sent her a picture of the inside of the plane. He was already en route. It was simply too late to cancel now.
The final day approached, and at just eight AM, Filian was already trembling so much she couldn’t hold the Gamersupps shaker steady.
One package after the other arrived, thankfully delivering most of what she ordered for on time, but…
“Oh frick. Oh- Oh FRICK. Bro, you are JOKING!!!”
The inflatable couch, as it turned out, was bigger than her livingroom, even without air in it. She grimaced, slapping herself on the forehead for not checking the dimensions beforehand- but how was she supposed to know other people DIDN’T live in a tiny shoebox?
“Frick- What do I do now… What- Ugh, frick it, dude!”
There wasn’t really much of a choice in the matter, in the first place. Filian started dragging the couch back out of the livingroom and brought it into the streaming room, inflating it there- and limiting the amount of space she had available in the process. But well, whatever- she just accepted that they weren’t going to stream together at that point, and honestly, perhaps that was for the best.
“Okay… I’mma inflate this fricker later. Now! Table!”
The table was crucial. How else would they eat their romantic dinner together? Of course, the table she used for streaming had been thoroughly ruined- Butt bombing onto a folding table was simply a surefire way to destroy it, and while that had always been calculated, it was biting her in the ass now. The only other table she had in her apartment was her computer desk, and that one was simply way too small to actually serve as a dining table!
She never had any need for one, of course… takeout came in convenient containers that didn’t need a plate. But now…?
A new folding table. Brand new, fresh from Amazon, and-
“Whaaat the frick. How do you do this?”
It wasn’t pre-assembled, like she hoped it was. It wasn’t a few neat pieces to stick together, either… It was a lot of disassembled pipes, loose screws, springs, and a pair of plastic boards that would, ultimately, form a table if put together properly… and that, above all else, was already a difficult proposition for Filian.
“Frick… hang on, didn’t I…!”
Heading over to her pile of boxes, Filian remembered seeing an electric screwdriver in the bundle of assorted things. It would come in handy now, if only it had-
“OH COME ON!!”
…any electrical charge in the battery. Of course it didn’t, she’d last used it when she moved into this place, about four months ago… and then thrown it into a corner and forgot about it.
Vedal was due to arrive in four hours, and she had… nothing. No food, no couch, no table, nothing on the table, she wasn’t even dressed properly.
“…FRICK IT! I’LL DEAL WITH THAT LATER!!”
For better or worse, she decided to abandon the pile of parts on the ground for now, stuck the screwdriver on the charger and ran off… into the kitchen.
“Okay… Food… Meal… Something to offer him… Can’t be that hard!”
Frankly, she still had no idea what to actually make. She was anything but a chef, she could just about handle putting something in the microwave to heat it up to eat, but beyond that… she was already at the edge of her capabilities.
Her fridge was full, for the first time since she moved in, with fresh vegetables, fruit, milk, eggs, and a lot of other ingredients to work with. Her kitchen had been cleaned up, the mail taken off the counters and she even cleaned up the fruitsnacks stuck to every surface.
Except for one.
“Oh frick.” As she opened the oven door, Filian immediately dropped down to a squat and covered her face with both hands, realizing that she had forgotten to clean the oven… and that it was entirely encrusted with burnt, glazed fruitsnacks that had once been an attempt at “making lasagna but better”.
This was just not coming off, not in the amount of time she had left, so she had no choice but to close the oven, and stick to the stove!
“Okay… OKAY! Let's just… make pancakes. That's a good start. And then we put junk ON the pancakes. Sauces! Fruit! Whipped cream! Another pancake! That sorta junk!”
It all sounded so simple. Without hesitation, she grabbed the one singular pan that she owned and slammed it on the stove, grabbed a bowl to mix ingredients on, and rolled up her sleeves.
“What's the worst that could happen?! Pancakes are BABY FOOD!!”
Three hours later.
“Ugh… SHUT UP!!!”
Filian yanked the batteries out of the smoke alarm and threw them across the room in frustration- with all the windows open, it was starting to clear up a little bit, but…
“Frick… FRICK!! WHAT DO I DO NOW?! THAT WAS MY ONLY PAN!!”
it was unsalvageable. The lumpy mass had burnt itself deeply into the surface, cooking through the non-stick teflon coating and into the metal itself, which had warped under the extreme heat. Filian had thought that it was just not going fast enough… so she had added a torch to the side, after cranking the stove up to the max.
Now.. what was she supposed to do, exactly?! She had an hour left.
She had no sofa. No table. No food. The first two she MIGHT, MIGHT be able to screw together in time… and in fact, as she pulled the screwdriver off the charger, it whirred to life quite willingly.
The inflatable couch, as she noticed, also came with a small electric pump and inflated quickly, too. That left her with one issue to deal with… the food.
And, well, she had nothing to wear, and had yet to even take a shower, but that was nothing a generous amount of deodorant couldn't fix. But what about the food?!
“Frick… What should I do, man?! My pancakes are ruined…!”
Pacing around the kitchen after putting together the table as best she could, Filian sighed and looked out the wide open window… only to see…
A big, yellow M in the distance.
“...What if… I’ll buy fast food, and pretend it's my own cooking?! …THATS IT!! Hohoho, Filian, you delightful devil- The british boy will NEVER realize what’s homemade food and what's just fast-food slop! OKAY…! Annnd… hup!”
Without hesitation, Filian jumped from the third floor window and into a tree, from where she scaled down to run towards the nearest McDonalds without stopping once.
The doorbell rang. Filian’s pulse shot up to 250 beats per minute- Despite all of her shortcuts and preparations, she’d just barely managed to put on a long black dress for his arrival, and draped a simple sheet and a blanket over the table and couch respectively.
“Frick… There he is.” She muttered, rushing to the door and pressing the button to let him in.
As Vedal was coming up the stairwell, though, her eyes started darting left to right, right to left, and back again… WAS she ready? Was she, really? It felt like there were still a thousand things she could do, but…
Time was up. She heard his steps approaching the door, and with a deep breath, she opened up, exhaling softly.
“Hey Filian. I made it… despite some delays to my flight.” Vedal muttered, awkwardly holding a bouquet of roses. He’d chosen to dress himself in the suit he’d last worn for his school graduation- he couldn’t actually close the jacket, and the tie worn with it was a bit loose, but his hair was remarkably straight and maintained for once.
Moreover, his glasses were polished up and he wore a noticeable cologne… This was quite unlike the Vedal she’d gotten to know at Twitch Con a couple of years prior.
He’d clearly prepared for this date, much like she did.
He cared.
He… cared. About this date. About her.
Filian’s heart went from 250 to zero, then back to 250 in a second.
“A-Ahh, Vedal! Welcome! I hope you’re prepared for an unforgettable date, haHA~!”
God, she was nervous. She was practically fidgeting- Hopefully he at least didn’t see the blush on her cheeks.
Skipping on her feet, she bounced, hopping over to the side and letting him in…
“Mmhmm.” Vedal nodded, handing her the flowers as he walked in- Briefly, very briefly stopping to look her in the eyes.
…Wait. Was he… Nervous?
For a brief moment, Filian’s heart slowed down… no, the entire world seemed like it slowed down, as she looked back at him- Their fingers briefly touched, as Roses exchanged hands, and… it felt like was silently pleading her to take the lead in this whole dating thing, when she was trying to ask for the exact same thing from him…!!
“...Wow, that's your streaming room, huh?”
Being led into a largely plain, largely white room with floors that felt a little springy, and a large metal cage structure looming overhead, featuring dozens of cameras, Vedal wasn’t so sure about this whole… date thing. Like, why was there a mattress just shoved into the corner, behind all those boxes, he wondered?
The sofa and the table looked a bit out of place, too, and quite remarkably plain, despite the sheet thrown over it. It wasn’t until she made him sit down in it that he noticed it was made of rubber, and filled with air.
He was starting to worry for that girl.
“So uh, how was your flight? First time in Canada and all that junk?” Filian’s strained grin said more than just words ever could, she was struggling to break the ice, too nervous and too worried to fuck it up at this point that she would go for anything more substantial than just the most basic question imaginable.
“Yeah, it was good. Delayed, like I said, but not too bad. Hell of a lot better than heading into America, I can tell you that much. I might come here more often if it's always this chill.”
He flashed a smirk back to Filian- Something that struck a critical hit as the girl was visibly shaken, and gulped deeply, and almost took a step backward…
So she was being serious about this? This wasn’t just an elaborate bit, but a real, unsupervised date between… the two of them, consenting adults?
“It's pretty chill, not gonna lie…” She brought out, half muttering, half stammering as she put a Gamersupps-cup filled with water on the table, something to dunk Vedal’s roses into. Sure, seeing her avatar and its exposed panties on the “vase” may not have been the best thing, but what's a catgirl gonna do, buy a flower pot?
“...So, i wasn’t gonna ask, but- What's with the smell of burning coming out of your kitchen?”
“Hm? OH! Oh, it's not burning, you silly turtle!” Filian waved off, trying to hide her grimace behind a smile, only to thumb back at the kitchen with a slight grin. “It's smoke, from the smoked beef steaks we’ll be having!” Saved, sort of, she thought, and gulped. “You, uh, you hungry? I could check if they’re ready to serve and all that junk, heheh…!”
“Sure. I haven’t really had dinner since I left the UK, so- But for god's sake, sit down, yeah?”
Filian’s constant movement, swaying her hips and bouncing from one leg to the other, was making him quite nervous. Was she not sitting down because she didn’t want to pull out a folding chair? Or because sitting next to him on the sofa would be too close, and make her feel uncomfortable?
Fuck it.
He had to do something about it.
Patting down the seat next to him, he offered her a smile. “Go on, Filly. I don’t bite.”
“Ah- Its- uh… Yeah.”
She returned the smile, after a moment of hesitation- quickly, it grew larger, and the girl clutched her right hand in the left one to stop herself from fidgeting as her smile grew stupidly big. “I’ll be right back! Dinnertime!”
…Frankly, she just ran into the kitchen to take a few deep breaths. God, his smile… His effing smile was so damn handsome, since when… since when did she feel this way about him?!
She didn’t remember ever being this head over heels for Vedal, but now… now it was even more important that this date was an absolute smashing success, or else..!
Thankfully, the McDonalds meal she bought- Three menu’s worth- was easily disguised. Shoved in the microwave for a minute to reheat the burgers, she simply took the buns and threw them away, arranged the patties and cheese in a way that looked presentable and added the fries to the plate- all while pouring the drink cups into actual glasses for a bit of class.
That was it. Her culinary hail mary… three burger patties with molten cheese and two large fries, on each plate, with a McDonalds salad for garnish.
It was all or nothing.
“Vedal, I hope you’re prepared for mouthwatering cheese steaks~! Haha… Man, I did my effing best, please don’t judge me…”
Setting the plates down on the table, she kept a smile present on her lips as she scooted over next to him on the sofa… And goodness, she actually started blushing.
Just being close to him, feeling the warmth coming off of his body and smelling his cologne… made her flustered and intensified that warm and fuzzy feeling in her belly. When she picked up the plastic fork and knife, her fingers actually trembled a little.
Vedal, meanwhile, raised an eyebrow and a half. He wasn’t expecting much, wasn’t expecting anything really, but… this?
“Heh- You know, it's weird, I could've sworn you said something about smoked beef steaks, Filian...”
“Oh, no no, I said Filly Cheese Steaks! But man, I don’t blame you, I got a buncha verbal tics on top of my mental issues, so maybe i got a bit of a lisp, haha~” Trying her best to keep up the charade, she cut open one of the poorly disguised burger buns and put it in her mouth, just so she had an excuse not to say anything more, as she felt like she was already getting herself caught in a web of lies.
Vedal, giving her a look, wasn’t quite buying it after he too had taken a bite. Still chewing, he already gazed at her with the sort of expression that didn’t know if it was a joke or just sad.
“...You know, they taste an awful lot like McDonald’s cheeseburgers.”
“Nah bro, Patented Filly cheesesteaks! Old family recipe, passed down from my mom, from her mom, from my mom’s moms mom… I think it's from Philadelphia originally, actually, hence the name! But uh, back in the war they didn’t have real steak, so they kinda made it from-”
“Filian.” He stopped her, placing a hand on her shoulder, and looked deeper into her eyes. “Tell it to me straight, woman. They’re McDonalds cheeseburgers, aren’t they?”
“...”
Filian swallowed a hard, deep lump.
“...FRICK, YES, THEY ARE!!”
Both of her hands slammed onto the table, followed by her head after she swiped her plate out of the way- Quickly she buried her face in both arms, and a sniffle followed, then another, and a third…
“W-Woah! Hey! Hey, i didn’t mean to-”
Vedal’s attempt to de-escalate came far, far too late, and Filian was in the middle of a full-blown crashout, as her fist kept slamming down on the table, over and over and over, making some of her drink spill over the rim of the glass.
“FRICK… FRICK!! EFFING FRICK-!! This- This is the first time- The first time I’ve been on a date with someone I really like…” She pressed out in between tears wallowing up, muffled by her own arms as the lump in her throat became bigger and bigger. “I did my effing best! I worked hard on this, for three effing days straight!! But I'm such a god-fricking-dang failure that effing EVERYTHING I worked on turned to shit! I couldn’t effing cook! I don’t have any furniture! Frick, this dress is one I got from my mom, it doesn’t even fit me!!”
With every slam of her fist, Vedal felt worse, and worse, and worse. It was meant to be a tease, just a little harmless jab in the side that they could both laugh about, but it ended up being the proverbial drop that made the bucket spill over.
“Filian- Filian, I didn’t mean to-”
Too late, it seemed. Filian got up from the couch and started walking to the door, her face turned away from him.
“Frick. Just… Just go. You don’t have to stay, Vedal.” _
Deeply defeated and with anger making way for depression, Filian’s sniffles became louder, wetter, and ever more filled with despair.
“It ain’t gonna get any better, dude. Frick, I didn’t even make any plans beyond this. This effing junk is over- at least we can say we-”
“Filian, LISTEN!!”
Finally raising his voice as loud as he could, Vedal stood up and followed her with quick, sharp steps.
Without hesitation, grabbed her shoulder once more, stopping her in her tracks. He turned her around, reaching over to her waist- and pressed Filian tightly against his own chest in a firm, tight hug that quickly got deeper as his arms slung around her slender frame.
“Shut up- Shut up! Stop it!”
“BR-BROOOOO!!! BRO! WHAT IS THIISSSSSS?!!”
Her eyes widened, and despite still red and wet in the face from tears, she immediately started screaming as he suddenly hugged her without any pretense.
“Fuck- Filian, listen to me. Until I walked in through the door, I honestly thought this was an elaborate bit because you’re never even letting anyone else approach you like this! I tried my best to play along, i even did my usual ‘Disinterested alcoholic’ bit, but… fuck, if I’d known this was serious, i would’ve worn something more presentable! I would’ve gotten a damn suit, and gotten you a fucking gift, not just flowers, for fucks sake- I don’t wanna ruin a date with someone i like, damn it!”
The screaming stopped. Filian stopped squirming, and as if making sure that she was okay, he pulled away from her…
A face of shock, incredulity, and disbelief looked back at him. Big, purple eyes stared into his green ones, as if asking silently if he meant that.
But, slowly, a smile returned. Her eyes softened, her lips curled up- and a quiet sniffle ended the crying.
“Alright bro.” She said, raising up her fist, reaching out to him. “...We’re here, right now. We both want this… Let’s effing start over, man.”
“Amen to that. No more bits or any of that shit- I’m gonna be myself from now on.”
Vedal raised his own fist, bumping it against hers and returned the smile in kind.
“Fuck, I kept putting it off. I should’ve asked you out months ago, Filan.”
“Hell yeah, bro…! HELL FRICKING YEAH, BRO!!”
Filians smile turned into a bright, beaming grin, and her arms wrapped around his neck for a quick, squeezing hug. He barely had time to even touch her back before the hyperactive girl already broke away from him, her body leaning to the side in a cartwheel which, given her long dress, quite generously flashed her underwear at him.
Without missing a beat though, the moment her feet touched the ground once more, she threw her weight backwards and pulled her arms forward, then up and over… backflipping onto the couch behind her in a bout of showmanship brought about by her raw, overjoyed emotions!
“LETS EFFING GOOO!!! HYAAAAA!!!”
**BANG!!!**
Five bars worth of air pressure escaped as 100 pounds of catgirl slammed into the thin rubber couch, snapping it apart at the seams, and nearly instantly collapsing it down into just a deflated rubber mat… with Filian sitting on the ground, a bit of hair sticking up.
“....Frick.”
Vedal snorted, stifling his laughter even as his strained grin betrayed his Schadenfreude.
“Well.” He pressed out, snickering under his breath. “I guess that's as good as any point to stop fucking around and, y’know, look for a plan B kinda date, huh?”
“...Yeah.” Filian muttered, slapping her hand down on the slowly deflating armrest of the sofa. “Plan B.”