Stephew Oneshots.

24.

A/N - This is a very heavy one shot. It will not be cute and fluffy. There is nothing I feel needs a trigger warning but if heavy writing and sad events are not for you, then don't read this one shot. Please vote and comment what you thought of it and any future requests.

Let me know on a scale of 1-10 how close you were to crying (1 being completely dry and 10 being drowning in tears)

- Caitlin.

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"Shoot! Shoot! Oh, garbage! That was utter garbage!"

Matthew slapped his legs, taking care not to hit the controller as he let his frustration out. He had been trying to beat this level for the past twenty minutes but he kept getting killed by what he dubbed 'the room of death'. This room was in fact just a room filled with Hammer Bros, perfectly arranged such that there was very little room to manoeuvre. If you were more than a centimetre to one side then Mario would get hit and that infuriating death animation would play, resetting you back to the beginning. Running his hands through his hair, Matthew realised that the Rage Hair was already strong and they had only been playing for an hour of what they hoped would be a two-hour live stream.

"Well, you did ask the viewers to submit their hardest levels. You're too competitive for your own good Matthew."

Stephanie's teasing tone caused him to turn from the loading screen to look at his co-host, wife and best friend. Her hair was slightly curled today, settling nicely on her shoulders and framing her smiling face. She wore a dark green blouse and a simple pair of jeans, with minimal makeup on today as they hadn't had any important meetings that they had to attend. Matthew always liked to remind her that she was gorgeous without the makeup but if wearing makeup made Stephanie feel comfortable and happy with her appearance, then he wouldn't stand in her way. Pouting at Stephanie's mockery of him, he reached forward and grabbed his diet coke can. Tipping it back to grab the last few drops of precious nectar, Matthew's pretend sulking over losing the level was replaced with actual sulking on the lack of Diet Coke.

"Jason! I'm out of Diet Coke, is there any in the fridge downstairs?"

Jason pulled the headphones down onto his neck and thought about Matthew's question for a moment before shrugging and saying:

"I don't think so. I think that was the last one, you did drink around three cans when working on that script this morning. We still have a lot of lemonade leftover from when Ronnie was here the other day so you could drink that instead."

Stephanie rolls her eyes and takes her microphone off, putting it down on the table and leaving the room – muttering about how his addiction was going to put them on the streets one day. Jason cackled in response to Steph's slightly out of character remarks. Her sass had been on point today, with the usual pro tips spiralling more into mockery and sarcasm. The chat had loved every second of it, wondering what had brought this side of Stephanie out but Matthew knew why. She hadn't been sleeping very well recently so it was mostly a combination of caffeine and exhaustion. Being the stubborn woman she was, she was refusing to go to the doctor or to take any sleeping medication that Chris had randomly stowed away in his bag. They both presumed it was stress since they had a lot going on and Stephanie's workload had jumped up as of late. Running three channels and a consulting business was an incredibly stressful thing so Matthew was always grateful that he had Stephanie by his side but the toll it was taking on her recently worried him. Maybe he'd take her away over the weekend. Scripts could wait.

Stephanie carefully walked down the stairs, dodging past Skip who had decided to take a nap on the bottom stair – a massive trip hazard. Pausing for a second, Stephanie bent down and gently scratched Skip under his chin, smiling down at him as he purred and looked up at her in content. She cooed at him for a moment before continuing on her way to the kitchen. Opening up the fridge, she was a bit annoyed to see that despite the variety of sodas and condiments they had on the shelves, there was no Diet Coke in sight. A bolt of inspiration hit Stephanie and she walked over to the cupboard where they kept their perishable foods, cheering internally as she came across the remaining Diet Coke bottles from their bottle flipping live stream a couple weeks ago. Thankfully the kitchen was always relatively cold so Matthew couldn't whine about it being warm.