Work Text:
“As we’re wrapping up stream tonight, I wanted to let everyone know that come next week, I’ll be taking a bit of a break from streaming for a bit. I won’t get into the nitty gritty of the more personal stuff I’ll be doing in that time, but honestly, the bigger reason why I won’t be streaming is that my setup will be packed up in boxes. Which is to say I’m moving! As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, where I live now is kinda out in the middle of nowhere, but I'll be moving to Sumeru city soon, so it'll definitely be an adjustment! A cousin of mine is letting me crash at his until I find my own place. Maybe I'll introduce you all to him once I'm more settled in. From what he's said, he's been thinking of trying out vtubing. Anyway, if you’re gonna miss me while I’m on hiatus, worry not! I’ve got a backlog of videos I’ll be uploading in the interim. Oh! And I’ll be making a post about all this later for those who missed the stream. The details will probably be a bit more concise there, so look out for that! Anyway, with all that said, I hope everyone has a great rest of their night! Let me figure out who’s online right now to raid and I’ll send you their way. Oh! Looks like-“
Scara tuned out of the stream as his go-to streamer, BasileosDelta531, found a suitable streamer to redirect chat to. He hadn’t made as much progress as he’d have liked to on his latest essay, but he figured it was enough to call it a night. He’d grown accustomed to having Basileos’ streams on as background noise while he worked on his coursework in the evenings. The hours he streamed tended to line up with his schedule and he worked better with them than he did in silence, that's all. And maybe the guy had a nice voice, sue him. It was one of the things that stuck out the most about him since he didn’t show his face on streams, opting to represent himself with a png of his bee avatar in the corner of the screen. Anyway, all of this to say that it’d become part of his routine to watch Basileos over the past couple months since he first came across his channel. A hiatus would disrupt that, but he supposed he could get by on rewatching some old vods. It’s not like he paid enough attention for it to really matter if the content he was watching was current.
Shutting down his laptop, he started to get ready for bed. As he did his skin routine, his mind wandered back to Basileos's move announcement. It was a funny coincidence that he was moving to his city. Though, being a college town, Sumeru City was huge, so he doubted they'd cross paths. The idea of living in the same area as a streamer he watches on a regular basis was a bit of a surreal thought though.
--
Enough time passes for the streamer's move to fade into the recesses of his mind--which is to say a few weeks. Basileos hadn't returned to a proper streaming schedule yet, but he'd hopped on live to host an unscheduled stream or two since then. Such as the one this evening. Scara is working on another essay when his thoughts are interrupted by a text. He was getting ahead on an assignment due next week, so he supposed he could take a break. The stream continues to play off of his laptop as he pulls his phone out to check it. Turns out it was from Tighnari. He wasn't super close to the biology major, but he supposed he qualifies as a sort of friend by now. He opened the text chat to see what he needed from him,
Tighnari: Did you happen to be interested in going to the Sabzeruz Festival this weekend? Me, Cyno, Collei, Kaveh, Alhaitham, and Sethos were planning on going, but Collei had to drop out and Sethos said he “wasn’t too keen on fifth-wheeling”
Tighnari tried to get Scara to hang out with him and his friends every once in a while, so the offer wasn't very out of the ordinary. A name he didn't recognize certainly was, though. Whoever this "Sethos" was, at least they agreed upon being the odd one out with the rest of the group being an awkward affair. Half of the reason Scara didn't often accept Tighnari's invitations was because it was like sitting in on a group date when it came to those four.
Scara: Why should I care? And who the hell’s Sethos? You’ve never mentioned anyone by that name before.
Tighnari: Oh right, I guess no one’s mentioned him to you yet. He’s Cyno’s cousin who moved into town recently. We invited him along since he’s apparently never been.
Scara: And that has to do with me how?
Tighnari: Oh lighten up a little. It wouldn’t kill you to get out of that dorm once in a while. If you get that bored of us, you can leave at any time.
Ugh, if only he had a better reason to bow out… he began typing up some bullshit excuse when another text from Tighnari came through.
Tighnari: I could tell Nahida that you’re avoiding your friends, you know
..Bastard.
Scara: You’re such a dick.
Scara: Okay fine, whatever. What time?
Tighnari: Says you!
Tighnari: Saturday at 4pm. I’ll let you know where the day of. See you then!
Scara heaved a great sigh as he tossed his phone onto his bed, the rest of him following soon after. Why must everyone he knows be so pushy? This outing better end up worth his while.
--
Ugh, why did he agree to this? He let Tighnari rope him into coming because he threatened to sic Nahida on him, but he should have ditched anyway. What’s worse is now he’s the one fifth-wheeling because Cyno’s flake of a cousin isn’t even here. Cyno claims that this Sethos guy is just running late, but Scara is near certain that, at this point, he just isn’t showing up. If he has to keep listening to Kaveh and Alhaitham bicker much longer while they wait around for their sixth party member, he’s going to tear his hair out. He decides to pull out his headphones to tune them out. Tighnari can’t complain about him ignoring the group if the hangout hasn’t properly started yet, can he? Now what’s there to watch while he waits? True to his word, Basileos had been uploading videos while he’s been away from streaming. Most of them seemed to be vods that he’d cut down into properly edited clip compilations. That said, none of his options were particularly speaking to him at the moment. Giving up on watching a video, he opts to instead listen to some music and scroll through Twitter while he waits. It does a decent enough job of drowning out the conversation around him.
After about ten minutes more of this, Tighnari tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, gesturing his head towards a figure quickly approaching in the distance. So okay fine, this guy showed up after all. It was the bare minimum for how long he kept them waiting. Scara rolled his eyes as he pulled his headphones down around his neck.
“So sorry I’m late guys! Thanks for still waiting up for me. I tried to arrive early, but then I noticed this older woman struggling to set up her stand and helping her ended up running longer than I expected.” All this was explained in a rush as he was catching his breath. Did- Did he run the whole way here?
Scara put away his phone, crossing his arms over his chest as he properly studied the man. He was exchanging pleasantries with the rest of their party, apologizing to people individually for his tardiness. They all seemed relatively unsurprised with his reasoning. Was this a regular sort of thing with him? Guess they have another philanthropist on their hands—he just hoped for his sake that he was wiser with his money than Kaveh.
When the man finally turned to Scara, the first thing that struck him was just how vibrant of a green Sethos’s eyes were. Seriously, what the fuck? Maybe they were just catching the light weirdly, but they almost glowed. The rest of him was decently handsome, he supposed, if a bit disheveled. Though that probably had to do with him running here--seriously what's with this guy? His long, curly brown hair was pulled into a low ponytail with two small braids running the length of it. Like his cousin, he had a tanner complexion than most of their group, though his seemed to have a warmer undertone to it when compared to Cyno's. His loose-fitting tank put his relatively built arms on display. If you cared about that sort of thing. When he smiled at apologetically at Scara, he resisted the urge to shield his eyes from the brightness of it.
"I'm really sorry that I didn't arrive earlier, I guess I've made a pretty poor first impression." He fiddled with the lock of hair framing the left side of his face, must be a nervous habit of his. "You're Scaramouche, right? Thanks for agreeing to come along, I'm Sethos!" He reached his hand out to shake.
This guy was way too cheery for Scara's taste. Way more of a chatterbox than his cousin, too. He scowled at the hand in front of him, making no move to reciprocate the gesture. "Don't go thinking that I agreed to this for your benefit, Tighnari put me up to it."
The man laughed at Scara's rejection, not in the least deterred. "I see you really are as prickly as I've been told. That suits me just fine." He seemed to notice Scara's confusion at him mentioning hearing about him. "Cyno's mentioned your frequent rejection of his tcg invites. Outside of that though, I've heard students around here bring up their standoffish classmate who's almost always wearing a hat." He flicked the brim of Scara's bucket hat upwards. "Guess you're surprisingly popular around campus, though I suppose I can see the appeal now that I've met you in person."
Scara slapped Sethos's hand away, inciting a laugh out of the man as he readjusted his hat. "What makes you so sure that they were even referring to me? It's a big campus."
He shrugged nonchalantly. "Call it a lucky guess. The details seemed to line up."
"You must be quite the busy bee if you've already talked to enough people to hear rumors about me. Didn't you just get here or something?"
Sethos made a strange face at that, though it faded almost as soon as it appeared. "I've always been a pretty social guy. The more people I get to know, the sooner I'll have adjusted to city life. Or at least that's how I choose to think about it. That and I'm a bit more nosy than I tend to admit. Speaking of, actually-" he not so subtly gestured to Kaveh and Alhaitham who'd already gotten wrapped up in their own conversation, hardly acknowledging the larger group, "What's the deal with those two? They bicker like spouses but as far as I've been able to glean, they're not together. What's the story there?"
Scara rolled his eyes, "Damn you are nosy. I don't know that much more than you, really. They're an enigma all their own. I guess the only pieces you didn't already mention are that they're roommates that've known each other since their early akademiya days. And that they had a falling out at some point. Whatever, it's not my business and their quarrels get on my nerves."
"Oh so there's drama there! I see, I see. Thanks for the extra info."
This guy was such a weirdo. Why does he care so much about other people's business? What is he, some kind of stalker? Scara's lip curled in distaste. "Don't thank me for that. Archons, you're strange. I can't say that I get your fascination with other people's drama."
"I'm just a curious is all, promise! It's not that weird, is it?" Sethos seemed surprisingly defensive about it. "If anything, I'd say you're the weirder one for the way you avoid people."
"Whatever you say..."
For as irritatingly positive of a person Sethos was, the rest of the day went pretty okay all things considered. The rest of their group had paired off eventually, the fucking traitors. But at least he'd learned that him and Sethos had surprisingly similar taste in games, even if Sethos admitted that he sucked at most of them. Having fun playing was more important to him or whatever the fuck. Scara wanted to crush him in a round of Smash just to dull his spirit. When he voiced this, Sethos just laughed and said that it probably wouldn't deter him much. That said, he seemed to latch onto the idea of gaming together in the future--was this guy just into people being mean to him or something? He insisted upon exchanging numbers, but Scara refused. If he really wanted it that badly, he could beg Tighnari for it.
After an hour or so of back and forth, they decided to get something to eat. They opted to get shawarma wraps because Sethos was insistent about it once he learned that Scara hadn't had one before. As it turns out, the owner of the shawarma stand was the old lady that Sethos had helped set up. She lit up at seeing him again, refusing to take any payment from "such a thoughtful young man", making wraps for them on the house. Sethos was all bashful about it, trying to pressure her to take his money, but, to Scara, free food is free food. He dragged Sethos off to one of the nearby tables once he got sick of the cyclical conversation.
As they waited for their food to be ready, Scara couldn't shake the feeling that something was so oddly familiar about this guy. For life of him though, he couldn't place why that was. He allowed Sethos to fill the silence all on his own while their wraps were being prepared. At least he didn't seem to mind carrying a one-sided conversation. He appeared accustomed to it, even. Their shawarma arrived soon enough and Sethos wasted no time digging in. Scara himself went about it at a more moderate pace, though he could admit that it was good. Not life-changing or anything like Sethos had claimed, but good. His phone buzzed in his pocket while he ate, but figuring it wasn't anything important, he let it be. All proceeded as normal until Sethos made an offhand comment about streaming. Scara choked on a bite of shawarma as the pieces finally fell into place in his brain. There was no way, right? He had to be off the mark. But with dawning horror, he realized that it was Sethos's voice that had been setting off alarm bells of familiarity in his head. The universe sure had a twisted sense of humor.
Sethos flew into a panic as Scara doubled over in a coughing fit, offering him a waterskin that Scaramouche hadn't noticed on him before. He accepted it gratefully and dearly hoped that Sethos just attributed his bright red face to having nearly choked instead of the embarrassment rushing through him.
Once he was able to properly breathe again, he studied Sethos anew. Who would've thought that BasileosDelta531 was some cousin of Cyno's this whole goddamn time? The gods must really hate him for putting him in this situation. And he's been so rude to him this whole time, too. Not that Sethos seemed to mind, but if he'd have known, maybe he'd have been moderately less of a dick. And now putting a face to the voice, Scara was loathe to admit that they fit together. Which is to say that he's just as attractive as his voice is. Scara is so screwed.
After reassuring Sethos that he was fine, thank you very much, they made quick work of the rest of their meal. It was getting late so Sethos suggested they track down the others before heading home. Scara was about ready to crawl into his bed and stay there until he died of embarrassment, so he readily agreed.
They happened upon Alhaitham and Kaveh first, and Cyno and Tighnari not long after. They also agreed that it was about time to call it a night. Sethos was heading back with Cyno and Tighnari, so he bid his goodbyes to everyone. Scara wished he'd missed Tighnari's sideye when Sethos said he'd love to hang out with Scaramouche again. He resigned himself to the knowledge that Tighnari was going to pry about how it went later. The three of them then headed home, Alhaitham and Kaveh following suit, leaving Scara to make his way back to his dorm.
As he toed off his shoes in the entryway to his dorm, his phone buzzed with a notification. Certain that it was Tighnari checking to make sure he got home okay, he pulled it out of his pocket. He did indeed have two notifications from Tighnari, but what caught his eye first was the push notification below those. It was from Youtube.
[BasileosDelta531 uploaded a new video, click here to check it out!]
Scara dearly wanted to bash his head in, but he didn't need any more of a headache than he was already developing. Instead, he threw himself onto his bed. Tighnari can get a response in the morning, he's not dealing with any of this until at least noon tomorrow. Fucking hell.