19:47 <Crion> Double date night...with your ex...and her husband...who was meant to be you...and who your ex thought was you, until it became clear he wasn't...during a pandemic. What could go wrong? 19:47 <Crion> Who reached out first? If Stewart didn't do it eventually, Stu did. 19:48 <VoxPVoxD> It was for sure not Stewart. There's so many other things going on and so much other stuff to pay attention to... the time until Stu reaches out is probably the longest Stewart's gone since he got back without thinking about his old life, or the people who picked it up after he got ripped out of it. 19:50 <Crion> Then Stu probably reached out for the first time around Christmas, and if he was ignored then, he wasn't particularly surprised, especially given what Gerald told him about what happened around New Year's. He didn't want to contact too soon after that, but avoided Valentine's Day for obvious reasons, so by the time he tried again, it was a week before the pandemic. 19:51 <VoxPVoxD> How exactly does he bring it up? A phone call? A text? 19:53 <Crion> Yeah Stu is, uh, a phone guy. 19:53 <Crion> Seems very comfortable there; and kind of mystified most people aren't. 19:57 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart is streaming when he takes the call. Though the mic is cut, people in the audience who don't take the opportunity to switch tabs or go to the bathroom or whatever are treated to Stewart's facial expression breaking from gamer concentration into barely-concealed worry. How does Stu respond to his reflexive attempt to kick the can again? 19:58 <Crion> A sigh and a 'if that's what you want,' and then him clearly covering the phone with his hand and a woman's voice -- muffled and indistinguishable, but maybe recognizable -- going back and forth with him for a minute. Then: "Maura says this is basically the last shot before things are gonna get really bad here. It's now or...well, not never. But maybe a year. Or more." 19:59 <VoxPVoxD> ... 19:59 <Crion> "Something about a virus? I dunno." 20:00 <VoxPVoxD> "...let me talk to Lauren. Do you need an answer tonight?" 20:01 <Crion> Stu: "Nope. Just give me a ring." 20:01 <Crion> "...Or you can send it through Gerald." 20:01 <VoxPVoxD> "I'll be in touch." 20:02 <VoxPVoxD> The last hour of the stream is very unfocused. 20:03 <VoxPVoxD> Afterwards, it's mid-afternoon (still early enough in the year that this means it's getting dark) and Stewart's first stop is the liquor cabinet. Second stop is-- where is Lauren? 20:06 <Crion> She went into the office today; it's almost time for Spring to take over, and that means no more Angelfire on the helpdesk, so she's getting project time in with the various boxes she's working on while she can. She'll be home in an hour or two. 20:06 <Crion> How drunk is he when she arrives? 20:08 <VoxPVoxD> Drunk enough that you can tell by looking at him. He's upright, but he's dull-eyed and spacey. That unopened bottle of scotch is maybe 1/3 gone, along with a neat little row of empty seltzer cans. 20:09 <Crion> Lauren: "Hey babe, I -- Jesus." 20:10 <VoxPVoxD> "Hey! What's up?" 20:10 <Crion> She looks at the bottle, then him, then the bottle. "So we're ordering in tonight. Are you alright?" 20:11 <Crion> "What happened?" 20:13 <Crion> "Chup, stop being an asshole." Meanwhile, on the counter, Chup is being an asshole. 20:13 <Crion> To the napkins, again. 20:17 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I'm fine. Stream was good. League's dead so I was trying different stuff. Lot of platforming stuff. Hollow Knight. Shovel Knights. Lot of, of knight-related activity." 20:17 <VoxPVoxD> "How are you doing?" 20:19 <Crion> She sighs and puts her bag down. "If you're drinking like this, everything is not fine, especially since I know you don't drink on stream. Pour me one of whatever you're having and tell me what happened." 20:22 <VoxPVoxD> For a moment, Stewart is perfectly still, the only noise he makes his slightly-heavier-than-usual breathing. It reminds Lauren of the sound a computer with spinning drives makes when it's got to drag something buried in the pagefile back into active RAM. Then he pours her a pretty generous scotch-and-soda. Then he pours himself one. Another soda can lined up on the table like soldiers' 20:22 <VoxPVoxD> graves. 20:23 <VoxPVoxD> I say 'soda' -- it's club soda, which if someone asks you for soda and you give them that they're going to slap you in the face. 20:23 <Crion> Chup, tired of fucking with the napkin dispenser, trundles over to a couch cushion near them and muows. 20:23 <VoxPVoxD> "Stu called." 20:24 <Crion> Lauren: "Oh no. Did something happen? Did Summer come after him?" 20:26 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "No! No no no! Stu's doing great. So great. I forget if I mentioned but back around Christmas he invited us over for dinner. It slipped my mind cause of everything that happened right after, and also cause I didn't want to do it." 20:27 <Crion> She sort of sinks back into the sofa next to him, Getting It. "Ohh." 20:27 <Crion> How much has he told Lauren about Maura? 20:28 <VoxPVoxD> He has not mentioned her once to anyone. Besides Stu, obviously. 20:28 <VoxPVoxD> "Um." A very forceful 'Um'. A yogic centering 'Um'. A blow-the-cartridge-connector 'Um'. "Anyway he re-extended the invitation, more urgent, on account of the coronavirus. Who knows when it'll be safe again, you know? If we don't do it soon." 20:29 <VoxPVoxD> "So I said I'd talk to you and then call him back." 20:30 <Crion> Lauren frowns. "The...oh, that? I mean...it's not going to be all that bad, is it?" 20:30 <Crion> "Whatever. I guess he thinks it is." 20:30 <Crion> "Wait, isn't he a firefighter?" 20:31 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I don't know what he thinks. But he's. He's married to a doctor. She probably knows some shit." 20:31 <Crion> Lauren: "Ohh." 20:32 <Crion> Then a longer pause. "This isn't about not seeing Stu." 20:33 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart needs to wet his mouth after all that talking. 20:33 <VoxPVoxD> "Not at all! I like Stu. I bet you would too. We hung out under just about the weirdest possible circumstances and we still had a pretty good time." 20:34 <VoxPVoxD> Has she met him yet? 20:34 <Crion> He's been around the office and they've exchanged pleasantries but honestly, would've been a bit weird and especially after they started dating boundary-stepping to really get to know him. 20:35 <Crion> It's not really a Kingsley and Gerald situation, you know? 20:35 <Crion> Well, of course you do. 20:35 <VoxPVoxD> It sure isn't. Or, well. Gerald made it sound like it was pretty awkward for the two of them for a fair while after Bob got back. 20:36 <VoxPVoxD> But it's certainly not like they are now. 20:37 <VoxPVoxD> While this fevered exchange happens in the narration, Stewart himself is totally silent, as if he had actually finished his thought. 20:37 <Crion> Kingsley was just back from Arcadia and Gerald was just back from Afghanistan. There was a strange consonance there. 20:37 <Crion> Well. Assonance, technically. 20:38 <VoxPVoxD> The vowels nobody'd like to buy. 20:39 <Crion> Lauren will have some of her scotch and soda, and grumble as the villain Chup flops onto her thigh. When Stewart's been given enough time to continue and hasn't, she'll say, "It's not all that hard to fill in the gap there. I dunno if you want to hear this, but it's...not really that uncommon." 20:41 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks up. "What's not?" 20:42 <Crion> "For the fetch to just...pick up with someone where you left off." 20:44 <Crion> She sighs. "Mine did, but she fucked it up badly, moved out to Oregon, got really into like, right-wing militia stuff. Died in a car crash with her Nazi boyfriend before I even came back." 20:44 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Jesus." 20:45 <Crion> "You can't have too much sympathy for Nazis but...well, fetches come back varying degrees of 'right,' right? Stu and Gerald seem fine. A lot of them do. But some are just troubled. And Summer likes to think that means they're all serial killers or something, but most of the time, well." 20:45 <Crion> "Just kinda sad." 20:47 <VoxPVoxD> "This isn't like that, really. If it were I think I could, handle it. You know? Like, awkward's awkward. An ex is an ex. You can look your ex in the eye or you can't, right? No shame in it either way." 20:49 <Crion> Lauren: "No, I agree. Stu seems to have his stuff together, and so do you, half-empty bottle of scotch aside. Or it will be after you pour me another." 20:50 <VoxPVoxD> So he does. "Did I ever tell how I ended up Stewart Reader?" 20:51 <VoxPVoxD> "I mean aside from the obvious how." 20:51 <Crion> Lauren: "Nope." 20:53 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "My last name was Mankiewicz. That was my dad's name. That was his dad's name. That's Stu's name. So when I got in on the gmail beta in, what was that, 05? 04? I wanted an email that I could just use forever. I did stewart.mankiewicz@. Simple enough, right? Pretty much everyone has or tried to get that kind of email address." 20:54 <Crion> She nods. 20:55 <VoxPVoxD> "But I wanted to be careful about it ending up in databases that'd get hacked or sold to spammers or whatever. So I never, like, signed up for anything with it. Forums, Amazon, you know— and newsletters. I made a second account for that. Cause it was mostly for getting around login walls on stuff I wanted to read, I named it stewart.reader." 20:57 <VoxPVoxD> "So when I get... home, get back, after escaping, the first thing I need to do is find a computer. The first thing I do. Before eating, showering, anything. So I find the nearest library, and I try to log into my gmail. Password doesn't work. I didn't forget it. I never forget a password. It'd been changed. 20:57 <VoxPVoxD> " 20:58 <Crion> She laughs and shakes her head. "Fuck." 21:00 <VoxPVoxD> "But stewart.reader hadn't. I could still use that one. So then the second thing I did was I tried to connect with someone. I didn't want to see my parents, at least not yet. Obviously school was a no-go. And I only really had one friend. I'd only really had one friend since middle school. And I thought, if anyone'd understand, if anyone'd react in a way I could deal with, if anyone'd care... 21:00 <VoxPVoxD> it'd be Maura." 21:00 <Crion> This is delivered a lot more somberly: "Ah. Fuck." 21:02 <VoxPVoxD> "So the next thing I did was I tried to look her up. It got super easy to do that! At some point while I was gone everyone decided that it was good to use your real name everywhere you go on the internet after all. I found her Facebook page. I couldn't see most of it cause I wasn't logged in, and I wasn't her friend. All I got was her profile photo. From her wedding." 21:02 <VoxPVoxD> "And that was the end of that." 21:04 <Crion> Drinking another big draft from the scotch and soda: "Was he like, in the profile pic too?" 21:05 <VoxPVoxD> "Oh yeah." 21:07 <Crion> "I've got two thoughts on that. First is that really sucks. Terrible way to find that stuff out. Really don't want to take away from that at all." She finishes her second drink and sort of flops onto Stewart's lap, with Chup doing a very serious crawl up her body. "Second thought is selfish. You can probably guess what it is." 21:07 <Crion> "Goddamn it, Chup." 21:07 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I often have the same thought." 21:10 <Crion> Lauren: "Anyway, I think we should go." 21:11 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "......okay." 21:12 <VoxPVoxD> "I'm not calling him, though. I know for a fact his phone can text." 21:12 <Crion> "Then text him! Do you want me to text him? I'm going to guess you don't want me to call Maura--" 21:13 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart, immediately: "I can text him, it's fine. She hasn't-- I think she's waiting until we actually meet to say anything, at this point. I'm of a mind to let her." 21:15 <Crion> "Alright. Do you want pizza or Chinese? We've already committed to being unhealthy today so we might as well see it through instead of waiting until Friday." 21:16 <VoxPVoxD> "Pizza." 21:16 <Crion> And so pizza it was. When DID Stewart end up texting Stu? That night, or after he'd slept off the grease and the scotch? 21:17 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's got his phone out as Lauren orders the pizza. One of his mortal superpowers is that being drunk does not affect his typing at all. <Talked to Lauren. We're in. Are we going out or going to your place? Should we bring anything?> 21:17 <Crion> Stu: <fedklj> 21:18 <Crion> After a few minutes: <Sorry!> 21:18 <Crion> Stu: <Okay! We were thinking about coking some stuff up together!> 21:18 <Crion> After another minute: <Okay! We were thinking about cooking some stuff up together!> 21:19 <VoxPVoxD> <sounds good!!> 21:20 <Crion> <I was going to do some "carnitas" in the slow cooker and then Maura thought we could make tacos!> 21:20 <VoxPVoxD> <hell yes!> 21:20 <VoxPVoxD> Then: <so 1 to 10 how weird do you think this is gonna be> 21:21 <Crion> <How about Saturday! Kind of weird.> 21:21 <Crion> <I think once we get past the initial part of it it will be fine!> 21:21 <VoxPVoxD> <saturday it is! should we bring anything? wine? idk> 21:23 <Crion> <Bring some Cold Ones to put on ice and if you wanted to bring something as an appetizer (or just chips and dip) that would also be cool!> 21:23 <VoxPVoxD> Phew! Time to eat a bunch of pizza and go immediately to sleep.