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ranboo @ranboosaysstuff • 2h hey!! sorry about the lack of streams recently, i've been staying with a friend and i don't have a setup here, but we're working on it, and hopefully that means i'll be able to stream by the end of the week. 3.7k replies 4.1k retweets 12k likes
"are you sure you're good with this?" all of ranboo's stuff had finally arrived at iris's house, everything he needed to stream at least. he'd ordered a bunch of things online, intending to keep them in iris's room, much to her protest.
"you can't just leave them here," she'd said when they had shown her their amazon cart. "that's such a waste of money."
"it's not," he replied. "they'll be used,"
"what about when you leave?" iris challenged.
ranboo had sighed. "then we have two options. i can either stay here forever and never leave, or you can use it yourself."
iris's desk setup was definitely not suited to streaming, so ranboo had literally built her a new PC. there was no way she was keeping it after they left. ranboo had no intention of taking it with him once he did move back out, and he was hoping that he'd be able to get iris more comfortable with the idea that she was allowed to use it.
"you half payed for it," he'd argued.
"yeah to pay you back for all the streaming you'd missed while with me," iris pointed out.
she'd ended up losing the fight, and had agreed to keep it seeing as though it was, technically, half hers. and, over the next week they'd established a routine. iris would leave the house while ranboo streamed, something they assured her was not necessary, but it seemed to be doing her some good.
both lachlan and iris's mother had both taken an immediate lilian to ranboo, seeing how he'd helped iris cope with her thoughts better. they agreed that iris going out by herself, without worrying about being seen with a streamer, had been doing wonders for her social anxiety.
there was a poetry class being held three times a week at her local library, and she'd signed up, hoping to maybe make a new friend or two. so the plan was that while iris went out, ranboo would stream.
iris had just been going on walks, sitting at the park, and writing music, but now that the poetry class was starting, ranboo would definitely have enough time to stream while she was out, so they could make it work.
hitting the 'go live' button for the first time in iris's house felt weird. the background was mostly innocuous, with a few movie posters and iris's taylor swift calendar on the wall. if he zoomed the camera out enough, it just caught the edge of iris's polaroid wall on the adjacent wall, so he tilted it slightly so it had more view of her bed and less of the door and the photos.
iris was standing on the steps of the library when ranboo went live, and she watched all the comments roll in.
NEW BACKDROP OOH WAIT STOP ISNT HE AT A FRIENDS HOUSE???? CUTE ROOM OMG THATS 100% IRIS'S BEDROOM ISNT IT THE CALENDAR OMG- RANBOO'S STAYING AT IRIS'S?? WHO TF IS IRIS THE FIONA APPLE POSTER THIS PERSON HAS TASTE AISLEDUO IRL OMG GUYS CHILL WE KNEW THAT IRIS AND RANBOO HAD MET IRL ALREADY THEY DID IT A WHILE AGO IS HE LIVING WITH IRISIDE???
it was a lot to take in, but she found that she didn't mind. everything that they'd kept in the shot was meticulously chosen parts of her bedroom that she'd felt comfortable with people seeing.
peering into the meeting room window, she'd found that there was already a couple of people inside, so iris closed the stream (after getting her watch streak channel points, she was close to 100k and she thought it'd be funny if she had more ranboo points than she had tommy points), and went inside.
it was mostly older people, which made her nervous, but about two minutes before 1pm a girl wandered in, sitting close to the back, near iris. eventually the instructor started speaking, introducing herself as lynn. once a week they'd start a new theme, and they'd review a poem that fit that theme, and then the next two sessions that week would be workshopping and reviewing each others poems in groups. sounded simple enough.
upon realising they were going to be working in groups, two more people beelined for iris's table, another girl and a guy who had come in together and sat at the front. the rest of the older folks seemed content to stay in their groups, with a table of women in their mid-30s and a group of people all in their 50s and 60s.
they were handed out copies of that week's poem, some sonnet by shakespeare, and left to read and discuss. "i'm cara," one of the girls spoke up immediately, the second one who'd joined the table. she was pretty, and blonde, and smiled warmly at iris.
they went around, introducing themselves. the boy with cara was elijah, and the two of them had just moved to the area after finishing college. eli was the one who'd originally signed up for the class, and cara had been dragged along. iris was almost ecstatic to learn that eli also wrote music and that's why he was there.
the other girl was quieter, but she introduced herself as eloise, a girl who actually went to iris's college, they'd just narrowly avoided having any classes . the four of them worked pretty quietly over the next hour and a half, and iris left with three phone numbers and a brain bursting with ideas.
when she saw that ranboo was still streaming, she walked across the street from her place, let herself in, shouted hello to sarah simons and made her way into tommy's bedroom, where her best friend was sitting at his desk right in the middle of typing a message to iris, asking her to come over.
— AUTHOR'S NOTE honestly i swear loading that fucking image at the top of the chapter takes longer than actually writing it but anyway. how we doing? everyone having a good time? love u guys <3
