I was thinking about my youtube au and blupjeans at work today so :3c @taznovembercelebration
Day 13: hide/tradition
"“The Birdhouse” is a colloquial name for a group of seven YouTube personalities who, after years of friendship, decided to move into a large house together. While all their channels are independent of each other, they often cameo or guest in videos and livestreams."
- via The Birdhouse wiki
Read it on AO3
“Every year we've had to add a new rule, so I'm going to go over them one more time,” Lucretia says to the six of them. They're standing in the kitchen of the house they rented for the weekend, and everybody has their own small cameras on hand. “The rules for The Birdhouse's fifth annual hide and seek game. One, no bodily harm to yourself by consequence of your hiding space.” She looks pointedly at Magnus, who somehow managed to squeeze himself into a cupboard year one and ended up needing to see a chiropractor for six months. “Two, no giving yourself away by jumping out of your hiding spot to startle the seeker,” she looks at Magnus again, who jumpscared Merle so bad in year two, he broke a lamp. “Three, during the hiding phase, the seeker must be blindfolded, wearing noise canceling headphones, and be sitting facing a corner of the group's choosing. No peeking.”
“It was a good strategy!” Taako defends.
“Four,” Lucretia continues, “you must hide on the property and stay on the property until you're found or the game ends.” She looks to Davenport this time, who just got in the van and drove away until they texted him telling him he won last year. “And, as always, the winner of this year's game will gain free food and drink for the rest of the weekend, bragging rights for one full year, and the obligation to be next year's seeker. Understood?” Everyone makes some sort of agreeing sound, so she snaps her notebook shut. “Great. Dav, you know where to go.”
He salutes, and takes his blindfold and headphones to a corner of the living room. Once he's situated, Lucretia says, “alright everyone, five minutes on the clock.” She starts a timer on someone's phone that'll go off in Davenport's headphones when it's up. “Go!”
Everyone scatters, heading for spots they scouted out in the two days since they've arrived. Barry beelines for Magnus's room. The shelving at the back of his walk-in closet isn't flush against the wall. For some god forsaken reason, there's at least three feet of space behind it. When he found it scoping out the rooms upon arrival, it was initially storing a spare mattress and some sheets. He pulled the mattress out and leaned it up against the back wall of the closet. It blocked the entrance to the hidey hole, and just standing in the door of the closet, nothing looks out of the ordinary, it's just as if a landlord needed to store a mattress.
And he knows Davenport didn't get up to the second floor until after Barry moved it.
He also fucked up the nicely folded sheets. That way, he can cover himself with them, and even if Davenport found the spot ahead of time, the lump of sheets was already there.
He's just maneuvering his way into the space when the closet door opens.
He freezes, but it's just Magnus, who whisper-shouts, “I was gonna hide there!”
“I got here first,” Barry whisper-shouts back.
“It's my room!”
“Exactly! I'm not going to hide in my own room, that's too obvious. I would've had too much time to plan a spot, since I sleep there.”
“Oh shit, that's smart.” He looks over his shoulder, then back at Barry. “See ya!”
He shakes his head and squeezes past the mattress. He goes straight to the back of the little space, in the corner of the closet. He picks up the pile of sheets, sits himself down with his knees drawn to his chest, and covers himself with the sheets, attempting to make himself look as pile-like as possible.
“Okay,” he whispers to the camera, “I think we're in a pretty good spot, and we've still got,” he checks his watch, “three minutes until Dav's on the move.” He shifts a little. “I might be a little stiff after, but I'm confident. This might be our year.”
“Barry?” Lup's voice comes from outside the sheets. He reveals his head, and she's standing at the open end of the space. She glances over her shoulder, then back. “You got room in there for one more? My top spots got fucking stolen, and time's ticking down.”
“Uh, maybe? You can absolutely try.” He could never say no to her. This was his only planned spot and he's fully ready to start from scratch for her if he has to, he'll just edit out the part about it being his year.
She comes in further and holds out her camera. “Hold this.” He takes it, and she starts pulling away the sheets until he's been excavated from the pile. “Extend your legs a bit.” He complies, and she sits down between them and covers the two of them with the sheets. She leans back against his chest and takes her camera, holding it out slightly to get both of them in the shot. “There, perfectly hidden.” She cranes her neck to look at him. “I'm proud of you, Bear. You actually found a good spot this year.”
His free arm wraps around her waist, the other still propped up with the camera. “My spots aren't that bad.”
“And yet you've never been seeker.”
“I was only found first in year one, and that's only because I didn't have any time to look around before the game started.”
“Still,” she taps his nose, “they haven't been winners.” He just laughs and shakes his head. “But hey, you found one of my top spots, so maybe we'll both win this year. There's no rule about two people in one spot yet. Maybe there'll be Blupjeans double seekers next year.”
He laughs softly. “Don't use the fucking ship name in the video, you'll just encourage them.”
She lowers the camera and slides her free hand over his arm to link their fingers together. “But they're not wrong.”
“No,” she kisses his jaw softly, and he turns his head down, brushing their noses together as he leans in, “but they don't know that yet.”
His eyes have shut, but he feels her smile. “Yet,” she murmurs just before he kisses her.
They've only officially been an item for about six months, but they've come to find out what the internet's seemed to know for years: they've been in love and de facto dating more or less since they met.
He sets his camera on the floor and cups her jaw, tilting her head and deepening the kiss. She sighs, and he draws her closer with the arm around her waist. He could kiss her forever. He could get carried away and do things he really shouldn't do to her with two rolling cameras around, even if he's the one who edits the footage.
They're drawn from it when they hear Davenport's voice echoing faintly through the silent house, “ready or not, here I come!”
“Focus up, Bluejeans,” Lup whispers, “we've got a game to win.”
“You're right,” he says, picking up his camera, “I think it's too soon for a sex tape anyway.”
He has to clamp his hand over Lup's mouth so her laugh doesn't give them away.
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