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13. virtual miscarriage hug
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"AND I REALLY WANNA MAKE sure you're okay," Lorelai's voice continues. Corpse buries his head deeper into his hands. "I don't know if I'm overreacting or being clingy or something, but our last conversation made me nervous and I want to know if you're alright. Please call me back this time."

So, Corpse had fucked up. As of the moment, he's not sure how he fucked up, but he knows that he did, because Lorelai sounded anxious in her voicemail, not disgusted or weirded out. Had he misread the situation?

His finger hovers over the call button, before he finally gathers his courage, pushes it down, and holds his phone up to his ear. He couldn't run from talking to her. If he had misread the conversation, then he needed to know, and if she was disturbed by him, he needed to know.

It barely rings once before Lorelai picks up. Her breath hitches softly enough to where it's barely noticeable, but Corpse can hear her surprise.

"You called," she states, as if it's the most shocking thing in the world.

"I called," he echoes. "I think we need to talk."

Lorelai nods vigorously on her end of the line. She was sat on the living room couch, Edgar and Maya curled up in between her legs, Felix and Marzia asleep upstairs, and some random Studio Ghibli movie paused on the television. In all honesty, she did not expect Corpse to call her back. Not so suddenly, at least. It had only been a few hours since she left him a voicemail saying just why she needed to hear his voice so bad.

"I'm sorry that I called you that night," he states. "I'm sorry if that weirded you out or anything. I get it if it did. I'm really sorry. If you don't want to talk anymore or anything, then I can do that."

Lorelai's eyes widen in shock and confusion. "Corpse, no, God no. I want to keep talking to you. You didn't weird me out at all."

"It's just a lot to lay on you at once," he continues, "especially when I've called you like that before, when I had that Zoom, and I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize," Lorelai says, eyebrows furrowed together. "I called you after that AOC game when I was a nervous mess. This isn't one sided."

Corpse looks out across the harbor from his trashy plastic balcony chair. "I don't want to burden you."

"You could never burden me," Lorelai replies with an underlaying sentiment that seems too raw. "Jack told me that the reason we stuck together during the AOC games was because we both didn't like new environments with lots of people we don't know. Maybe that applies to life too."

"What do you mean?"

Lorelai almost feels silly saying, "what if we're like destined to be therapy buddies? We both called each other, for some reason, when we weren't feeling okay. That has to mean something."

Corpse takes this in with a nod. "Lorelai, I don't want to constantly lay my problems on you. That's not fair to you."

"I'll lay my problems on you too," Lorelai says. "It'll be mutual. It'd be good for us."

"So, we just become therapy friends?" Corpse asks. "Our friendship becomes nothing but check-ins and rants?"

Lorelai quickly shakes her head. "No, God no. It's just..., what if whenever one of us feels like shit, we call each other? It seems we're already doing that, anyways. It could be this mutual agreement that if we ever need help, we go to each other without wondering if we're being a nuisance or something."

Corpse thinks the idea over in his mind, weighing the pros and the cons. Eventually he sees that the pros outweigh the cons, and agrees, "okay. You're sure about this?"

"Yeah. I'm sure," Lorelai replies.

Silence washes over the call, its comforting waves soothing the two young adults. Corpse was feeling so much better than he had been now that he knew that Lorelai had never been weirded out. As for Lorelai, well, she was just thankful to hear his voice and know that he was okay. Him going dark after sounding so scared on call had terrified her a lot more than she would ever say.

"Agoraphobic is really good, by the way," Lorelai smiles.

"Is it?" Corpse asks. Happiness seeps back into their conversation.

Lorelai giggles softly. "Yeah! It's so vibey, I love it. Not gonna lie, I'm probably gonna have an existential crisis to it later tonight."

Corpse playfully rolls his eyes. "Will you now?"

"Yeah," Lorelai says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "After all, I involuntarily live Pewdiepie. How would you not have constant existential crises living with someone that successful in your career?"

"Involuntarily? Did he kidnap you or something?" Corpse laughs.

"No, no," Lorelai shakes her head. "He didn't kidnap me. Other reasons. We're definitely not talking about it tonight now that we've recovered our happy vibes."

Corpse gave an amused scoff while looking out at the harbor, his eyes trained on the way the city lights sparkle on the water. "That's fine. We'll get into it one day. It'll be a twenty hour call dissecting every part of your life."

"Oh, God," Lorelai snorts, "that's terrifying. There'd be so much crying, Corpse."

"I can deal with that," he smiles before adding, "I'd send you a hug."

"And how do you intend on doing that?"

Corpse pulls his phone away from his ear, setting it on speaker and frantically scrolling through his browser history. "Hold on, wait, I have a link."

A minute later, Lorelai's phone buzzes.

IMESSAGE !
18:49
direct messages between corpse and lorelai

https://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk
/your-feelings/supporting-someone-through-
pregnancy-loss/virtualhugs/

"Corpse!" Lorelai wheezes, opening the article. "What? You're going to send me a 'sorry for your covid-19 miscarriage' virtual hug?"

The boy in question can't stop himself from smiling widely at her wheeze. "Think of it as a spot holder until I can hug you in real life!"

Lorelai drops her head into her hand as she tries to contain her laughter. "That's actually really sweet, oh my God."

The two young adults burst into laughter, Lorelai's eyes tearing up as she stares down at the article open on her phone. To outsiders it may have looked like they were laughing over miscarriages like absolute douchebags, but the two young adults knew they were just laughing for the sake of laughing. They were laughing because they had previously been crying. They were laughing because they were being overly flirty. They were laughing because they were both stressed about life and needed to laugh.

They were just laughing for the sake of laughing. No better explanation was needed.

"Do you wanna watch a movie?" Corpse asks as he comes down from his laughter high.

"What movie?" Lorelai replies with.

INSTAGRAM STORIES !
19:23
@lorelai

"Corpse, what is happening?" Lorelai giggles, looking at her laptop screen with the utmost confusion.

"I don't know," he answers.

They hadn't started off watching some random Russian comedy show on YouTube. Actually, they had started off watching one of Jack's recent videos, but then one thing led to another, and Corpse's recommendations gave them разгоны, which was what they had concluded to be some sort of Russian stand-up group. Neither one of them could stop giggling while they watched, because despite the fact that neither of them knew what was happening, they were finding amusement in it.

"Wait, FaceTime me, I wanna see you," Corpse spat out between bits of laughter.

"What?" Lorelai asks.

Corpse replies, "I'm not gonna turn my camera on, princess. I just wanna see your face."

Lorelai whines softly. "I look like absolute shit right now, but okay."

She clicks on the FaceTime button displayed on their call screen, and seconds later she's greeted with a black screen. On Corpse's side of the call, he can see her lying in her bed with her hair slightly messy and her previously done eyeliner smudged on the edges. She smiles, waving her fingers at the black void occupying her screen. Corpse's smile grows wider as he looks at her.

Before she can protest, he takes a screenshot, making Lorelai's eyes go wide and causing her jaw to drop.

"Corpse!" She protests. "Hey!"

"Hi," he replies dumbly.

"That's bullying," she tells him. "Cyber bullying, actually. Now you've got blackmail on me."

Corpse opens his camera roll and looks at his screenshot. "It's not blackmail if you look amazing in it."

Lorelai sneers and rolls her eyes. "I do not look amazing right now, don't try to sweet talk me."

"I'm not sweet talking you, princess, I'm just stating fact," he shrugs.

Lorelai feels her face heat up and tilts her phone away from her face. Sure it said Corpse was on pause, but if he were to unpause and see how red Lorelai was, that'd be mortifying. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down to try and regain her composure.

"Well now you're just trying to make me flustered," she points out. "I think that also counts as bullying."

"Think of it as consensual bullying," Corpse snickers. "I don't exactly hear you begging me to stop complimenting you, you narcissist."

Lorelai's blush fades away and she angles the phone back to her face. "Who is gonna turn down compliments? I've just gotta pretend I don't want them. I can't let you know how big my ego truly is, after all."

"Maybe I should try to cancel out your ego," Corpse says. "I'll degrade you and shit."

"Kinky," Lorelai laughs.

Corpse chuckles alongside her. "You know what I mean."

"Sure, but I mean, both options aren't bad."

The two of them burst out into laughter again, their smiles wide enough to where their cheeks hurt. Joking around with each other felt so good after the two stress filled days before. Sure, this joking was definitely flirtier than it had been in times past, but neither of them were going to call attention to that.

"Hey, the video ended," Lorelai points out.

Corpse nodded and exited out of full screen. He was presenting his screen in a Discord call with Lorelai, but both of them were muted so that they could also be on the FaceTime together. Lorelai watches as he goes to his YouTube recommended page, her eyes going wide as she saw a specific video. It was one of her first videos, actually. 'A Day in the Life of a Danish Teenage Model'. Holy fuck was it old. Eight years old, to be exact.

"I either post the screenshot to my story, or we watch this," Corpse says.

His ultimatum is a no brainer for Lorelai, and she quickly replies, "post it to your story. I don't care if you watch this video on your own, I just can't watch it with you. I think I'd die."

Corpse smiles on his side of the call, his eyes trained on the way Lorelai had scrunched up her nose in disgust. He selects the option to put the video in his 'watch later' playlist before going back to looking at all the things he was getting recommended.

"That was good blackmail."

"You fucker."

INSTAGRAM STORIES !
19:41
@corpse_husband