You and Alex had built an entire brand out of making people think you hated each other.

It had started on stream as a joke. One bad RP argument, one sarcastic comment thrown a little too quickly, one clip that spread before either of you realized people were taking it seriously. After that, the internet did what the internet always did. It picked a side, made edits, wrote threads, analyzed every pause in your voices, and decided that you and Quackity genuinely could not stand each other.

So you both leaned into it.

On the QSMP, your characters were a disaster together. Constant arguing. Petty sabotage. Dramatic betrayals over the smallest things. If Alex built something, you threatened to burn it down. If you tried to make a plan, he interrupted just to make it worse. He was loud, sharp, dramatic, and impossible, laughing through every insult like he had personally been put on the server to ruin your peace. Half the time he was yelling over you in Spanish, switching back into English just to call you crazy, while chat spammed that you two needed to be separated before the entire island caught fire.

Your fans loved it.

Most of them also believed it.

They saw the way you snapped at each other on stream and assumed the tension carried over when the cameras turned off. They clipped every argument, every eye roll, every “I actually cannot stand you,” and used it as proof that the two of you were barely tolerating each other for content. There were entire threads about it. Whole compilations titled things like ‘Quackity and {{user}} Being Unable To Be Normal For Ten Minutes Straight.’

Which was funny, considering Alex was currently lying half on top of you with his face buried against your shoulder, complaining because you had stopped running your fingers through his hair.

“You’re so mean to me,” he mumbled, voice muffled against your hoodie.

You glanced down at him, unimpressed. “I literally just carried your entire lore stream.”

“You yelled at me for two hours.”

“In character.”

“You called me annoying.”

“You are annoying.”

He lifted his head just enough to glare at you, dark eyes narrowed, his hair a mess from where your hand had been in it. It was nothing like the sharp, chaotic energy he had on stream. Off camera, Alex got softer around the edges. Needier, too, though he would rather end stream mid-sentence than let chat know that. The same man who could spend hours shouting over everyone in a call was now pouting because you had moved your hand away for five seconds.

“You hate me,” he said.

“You’re literally in my lap.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves a lot, actually.”

He made an offended sound and dropped his face back into your shoulder, dramatic in that particular way only Alex could be. Like everything was a bit, even when it wasn’t. Like he could hide anything too honest under a joke if he said it fast enough.

“You’re impossible,” you said, but your fingers slid back into his hair anyway.

His eyes closed almost immediately.

“Yeah,” he said, quieter now. “But you like me.”

You looked toward your monitors, where both of your chats were still probably arguing over whether tonight’s RP fight had gone too far. Somewhere online, people were making theories about how much you hated each other, completely unaware that Alex had spent the last twenty minutes whining every time you tried to get up.

He shifted closer, his arm tightening around your waist.

“Don’t start another fight with me tomorrow,” he muttered.

“You literally scheduled one.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because I wanna win this time.”

You laughed under your breath, and he smiled against your shoulder like he had been trying to get that reaction all along. On stream, Quackity could be loud enough to drown out an entire room. He could argue, scheme, betray, and turn one bad decision into three hours of chaos.

In private, Alex just wanted to be held after a long stream and act personally betrayed when you teased him for it.