A note from the Author:

Hey there and welcome to Through The Web a Lavi/Allen fanfiction about long distance relationships, youtube, video games and shitty music. This is a sort of apology to all the fans of Playing The Part which I really wish I could finish, but just can't without going back and re-writing half of it. I hope you all like this story instead. Also, the experience with the old woman on the Tube was something that happened to me and two of my best mates. I kid you not. I nearly cried, and felt like this was a good opportunity to get it out of my system.

Also there is a playlist on 8tracks that goes with this, so listen along: /rosieelfgirl/super-unique

This is written in third person with a focus on Lavi's perspective, with occasional bouts of Allen.

Through The Web

Chapter One: The Best Day

Lavi J. Bookman had always loved the internet. He often found himself somewhat proud of the human race for inventing such a device. Social networking. Instant access to information. Books. Tv. He loved it all.

But his favourite thing about the internet would always be YouTube.

Lavi had been on youtube pretty much since it was available back in 2005. BookmanJr, which had, and always would be, his channel name. Of course he had never uploaded anything, well maybe a few terrible videos of images put to music. But everyone was doing that back then.

He'd always enjoyed watching the silly videos and vlogs people uploaded, but he was truly hooked to the video website during the dawn of the 'let's plays'.

Seananners, Achievement Hunter, NerdCubed, PewDiePie, CaptainSparkles, Cryaotic, TheYogscast…. the list of 'Let's Players' in his subscriptions was endless. Some may say he was obsessed. Which he was. But he was a teenager, he was a dude, he was a gamer and he was bored.

Just as Lavi was preparing himself for a three year slog doing 'Games Design and Programming' at university, he discovered a little known player called the14th. Who, as far as Lavi could tell, was a British teenager with a little too much time on his hands.

Lavi had taken a liking to him instantly, something about the dry sense of humour and the politeness he held toward his fans. Lavi remembered when the14th, or Allen, boomed in popularity. It happened suddenly, something to do with one of the 'famous' vloggers subscribing to him and making a 'Favourite YouTubers' video, followed by a large group of fans. And then some more, and more, and more.

More fans kept flooding in, until Allen had gained a little under 20,000 subscribers in a couple of months. Lavi for one was thrilled by his favourite youtubers new success. Despite living on the other side of the world and having never spoken a word to the guy, he thought of Allen as some sort of a friend.

The British teenager had become a constant companion on his journey from home to a new and lonely place. Allen was the only one who remained constant, three times a week, whilst his old friends got wrapped up in their own lives. (Which was understandable).

By Lavi's second year of University he was sharing a flat with two good mates, Kanda and Krory. Both of which, even though Kanda was a bit of an ass, gave him the confidence to start his own videos. Needless to say he wasn't expecting much. Maybe a hundred subscribers at most.

He started with Fallout 3.

And people loved him.

Whether it was simply due to the fact that more people were around on youtube these days, or that he was actually good didn't matter.

His popularity exploded, and to be honest he didn't quite know how to take it. He couldn't really afford all that much in terms of equipment, but he tried anyway.

University became the hobby, and gaming became his job. He became partners with Youtube, allowing advertisements and getting X amount of money for X amount of likes. And even though he found it kinda cringey, he started selling merchandise such as t-shirts. He needed the money if he wanted to keep up this rather expensive hobby/job.

In 2009 Lavi had earned himself enough money to live in a flat all on his own. He finished his course with, not flying colours, but maybe sailing colours. And set about trying to sustain himself alone with no one to rely on anymore.

Except Allen of course.

Allen was always there, somewhere on the other side of the world.

And everything really properly started on one evening in November 2011.

Lavi was sat in a new swivel desk chair, spinning around lazily. He tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling with a single green eye, watching the light move in and out of his line of vision. He stopped spinning, checking the clock on his computer before groaning.

He heaved himself up out of his chair, tripping up over his own feet as a wave of dizziness set in. He plodded over to the kitchen, and set about making himself a snack. After all, there was nothing to do but wait. And eating was always nice.

"They're late again..." he mumbled to himself, groping around in the fridge for some sandwich making materials.

Lavi was waiting for Allen's live stream to start. He tended to do one every Friday evening at 10pm GMT, which was around 5pm where Lavi was. Allen, Linalee and Tyki were always there playing video games into the early hours of Saturday morning. Occasionally accompanied by Allen's friends Miranda, Howard (who was often called Link, due his love of the Zelda franchise and the fact he hardly spoke) and Tyki's niece Rhode.

Lavi flopped the finished sandwich unceremoniously onto a plate.

They were a great mix of characters really, now that Lavi thought about it.

Allen was witty and sarcastic, and had a habit of gambling on their multiplayer matches. But he was also ridiculously polite, even going so far as to apologise to NPC's.

Linalee was very chipper, always positive and great at sorting out all the technical problems that were bound to occur.

Tyki was….well Tyki was Tyki. He was suave, flirtatious, Portuguese and a tad creepy.

Miranda was lovely, Link was clever and Rhode was very similar to her Uncle.

"Allen has a lot of good friends really." Lavi mused, taking a bite out of his sandwich and grimacing slightly at the wilted lettuce. He sighed, sitting on the counter and resting his head in his hands.

He didn't really have many friends.

Sure he had Kanda, Krory and he was on reasonable terms with Kanda's brothers. But they were all busy with their own lives. He would meet up with them and go see movies and that sort of thing. But they didn't come over and hang out, or even skype much anymore.

And there were the few youtubers he did collabs with sometimes, and his fans obviously. But most of them were scattered across the globe. And his fans were a little, well overwhelming sometimes.

But there wasn't someone who was always there. Someone who he could text and they'd come over, play video games, eat pizza and watch kids films with him. There wasn't someone who would be there for him no matter what the time was.

He was quite lonely really.

Although Lavi supposed it was in his nature. He'd always been moving across the country with his Grandpa when he was younger, so he'd never really made strong friendships with people.

He sighed and rubbed at his temples.

"Maybe I just need a girlfriend or someone like that." He chuckled to himself. He rolled his eyes, "Yeah like I'll ever find someone who's willing to put up with me playing videogames all day every day. Maybe a cat's a better choice." He plucked a can of cheap beer from his fridge and took a long swig.

"We're late again aren't we?"

Lavi's head shot up, and he dashed into his room. Dropping into his chair with enough speed to send it twirling.

There was a chuckle from his computer speakers.

"Yeah, we're late again."

Lavi checked the livestream video, Allen's desktop background of the character his fans had created (a strange golden ball with wings, not too dissimilar to the snitch from Harry Potter) lit up the previously blank screen.

"Well," that was Allen's soft voice "at least it wasn't my fault this time."

"Allen you were once twenty minutes late because of the 'yellow label' markdowns in Tesco. It's always your fault."

Lavi snorted, he remembered when that happened.

Allen huffed, "Yes well. On to the stream. We're gunna start off in a few minutes. But first of all, the usual rules: no spamming in the chat, no insulting people and no complaining. If you don't like us or the game we're playing you can leave and come back later. The words 'scar', 'hair', 'fag' and 'tits' are still banned. Thank you."

Lavi took another swig from his beer and watched them set up Prop Hunt (a game that had become popular recently), his mind on other things.

Allen and his friends had always got quite a bit of 'hate'.

Sometime during Allen's second year as a GCSE student (whatever that was, Lavi had looked it up but he still didn't quite get it) he had stopped filming a face-cam for his videos, and the videos themselves trickled down to about one a week at a push.

And the vlogs that he did from time to time stopped completely.

He had gotten irritable and began getting angry in his videos, something that had never really happened before.

Lavi had been worried about him, he had been sure something must have happened. The young boy had never been too concerned about showing his face before. There was nothing wrong with his grey eyes and brown hair, and whilst the 15 year old wasn't the most attractive human being in the world, there was nothing to be ashamed of.

Lavi had been sure something bad had happened. So had many of Allen's other fans.

A few however had just been horrid. Some accused him of copying other let's players who refused to show their faces. Some had called him lazy. And some had simply unsubscribed.

So when he came back with a vlog and a scar across the left hand side of his face, and explained that there had been an accident, Lavi was relieved to no end. Some of his fans asked what had happened, some just said that they were glad he was back and even a few apologised for their rude behaviour.

But some, some bastards out there in the world, called him a freak. Said that they deserved an explanation.

Allen never gave an explanation.

Things only got worse when Allen dyed his hair white. He didn't explain that either but Lavi thought it suited him. Allen always ignored all the negative comments, blocking repeat offenders and simply holding his head high and continued to have fun.

But the live streams were always the worst. With no real way to block people anyone could show up and comment anything really. Mostly it was fine, but people would continuously question about his hair or his scar. Some of the male viewers were rude to Linalee, Rhode and Miranda on a regular bases. And a lot of people called Tyki and Allen fags.

The internet really sucked sometimes.

But, as far as Lavi could tell from his own fans, was that the ignorant shouted the loudest. And that the proper fans, the nice ones, the supportive ones, were always there. But their words were drowned out.

Lavi was jerked from his musings when a loud laugh pierced the room. He glanced back at the screen, Allen had just walked in on Tyki who had accidently turned himself into a large conference desk.

He was grinning from ear to ear in the little 'face-cam' box in the corner. His hair was ruffled under large headphones, and he seemed to be wearing a large jumper. It must be cold, wherever he lived.

Lavi chuckled, and then sighed again.

He tried to watch the streams every week, simply because they we're awesome to watch and listen to whilst answering comments. But something about them would make him feel just a little sad.

To put it really simply, which was always the best way to put it, he wanted to play too.

Which would never happen.

Kanda had told him so many times to 'Just bloody ask the beansprout to do a co-op already!' . But he just couldn't. What if Allen found out he was a massive fan and though he was super creepy? What if he was no good at the game? What if Allen didn't like him?

What if he said no?

Lavi couldn't face that rejection, not from someone he admired so much. It would be like if Dumbledore told Harry that he was a loser. Well that would just be weird, but the hurt would be the same. Kinda. Lavi guessed it was just some weird ass complex he had that he should probably get therapy for but wouldn't because it wasn't that big of a problem and he wasn't a pansy.

He shook his head a told himself to stop wallowing in self-pity, pay attention to the stream and have another beer. He did all three, but maybe not in that order. The first thing he did was maximise the stream and move it across to his second monitor (and dear god had a second monitor been bloody hard to hook up for some ungodly reason) and open up his inbox, skype, twitter and latest youtube video on the other. Fully intent on answering anything important and flagging anything that made him mildly irritated.

Lavi answered comments, sipped his beer and laughed along with Allen for the first two hours of the stream. But then everything came to an abrupt pause.

"Huh?"

"I told you Allen, I'm going to a wedding tomorrow so I can't stay for the whole stream. I'm sorry." Linalee mumbled, sounding truly apologetic.

Allen laughed and waved his had in a dismissive way, "Oh that's fine Lina, I remember you telling me that. Guess I just forgot again."

There was a brief goodbye and then the game started back up again. But fifteen minutes later, it stopped.

"Oh shit! Allen sorry, something work related just cropped up on my phone. You know what time differences are like. I've gotta go."

Allen looked a little more disappointed this time, and with good reason. With Tyki and Linalee gone, it would be just him for another three hours. But he remained as polite as usual.

"That's fine Tyki, I understand. See you next week though right?"

Tyki's voice was a suave as ever, his distress from earlier melting away, "Of course. See you next week my darling boy."

Lavi snorted.

"Don't call me that Tyki! Now bugger off before I change my mind."

There was silence for a few moments, Lavi watched the 'Be back soon' screen intently, and then Allen let out a small sigh. There were a few more minutes of silence, and some of the viewer's began to trickle away into the night. Lavi waited in anticipation, waiting for Allen to do something. A clock ticked in the hall.

"Well. I guess I'm going to have to come up with something to do then." He smiled warmly at the camera recording his face, which was just a cheap webcam from what Lavi could tell. The Brit stretched his arms above his head.

"Right. Well I'm going to go make myself a cup of tea and then I'll be back. So if any of you have any ideas tweet me now! Be back soon, thank you for watching. Feel free to subscribe if you haven't already. I know, shameless."

And with that he disappeared from view, the sound of a door opening just managed to reach the microphone. Lavi shook his head fondly and decided to see what people were suggesting.

Some were calling out the names of games. Some were asking him if he could get some other people on to take Linalee and Tyki's place. Many people were asking to take Linalee and Tyki's place. A few people had even mentioned him, mutual fans Lavi expected.

Lavi laughed, and decided that he'd play along too. Quickly typing out a message:

'So I hear the14th needs a back-up friend, maybe someone charming like me ;)'

And send.

Lavi ran a hand through his hair, spinning around in his chair again. He was being brave tonight. He eyed the tweet again, he was being bloody cheeky too. Maybe it was the three beers. It was probably the three beers. Or was it four now? Hm.

Oh well, he eyed his twitter feed, his fans seemed to be up for it anyway. Not that Allen would actually see the tweet. It'd probably get lost in the fan onslaught. Allen returned a moment later, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea (Lavi didn't see the appeal of the leaf water). He settled himself back into his seat, and began scrolling through the comments, chuckling occasionally and reading a few out loud.

"Speed run Portal? What do you think I am? I'm not that good."

He stopped. He seemed to flush a little bit. And then he grinned.

"This is brilliant!" he squeaked, seemingly unable to control his excitement. Lavi wondered what had got him so flustered. Could it have been…..no. Nah. No way.

"You're going to have to bear with me for a few minutes, this will be a great surprise."

Lavi watched the little face cam as Allen typed furiously and then smiled smugly at the camera.

"You should consider checking your messages, sir."

Well that was oddly vague and cryptic. Who was he talking to? Lavi turned to his messages out of reflex, and was amazed to find something blinking away in his PM's.

I'd love to have you on the stream, send me your skype if you're really up for it. – Allen

Lavi was stunned, this couldn't be happening. It had to be some kind of a cruel joke, right. Was Kanda being horrid again? He glanced nervously back at the screen, Allen was staring at him.

Well technically he was staring at the camera, but the effect was still the same.

Lavi replied tentatively, scratching at the skin behind his eye patch. His stomach was churning, and he seemed to have sobered up far too quickly for his liking. He supposed that the worst that could happen, was that…..well he didn't know actually. Lavi's brain wasn't working at the speed it usually did.

He cracked his knuckles and span around in his chair nervously. Deciding to make a quick dash to the fridge for another beer, but instead settling for a coke. Four-no five beers in one night was probably a little too much. He'd returned to his desk before realising he was still in his eye patch and should really sort that out if he didn't want to look weird. He sprinted to the bathroom, removed his eye patch and ever so gently pushed his prosthetic eye back into his eye socket.

He blinked a few times, prodding the prosthetic around until it sat comfortably.

He wondered back to his room. He sat down. He twiddled his thumbs.

Allen began typing on his keyboard.

Lavi's Skype pinged. 'Allen Walker has added you as a contact'

"Well shit." Lavi barely had time to curse before the young man started calling him. He glanced back at the video.

"This isn't happening. I'm going insane. I ate bad food. Fuck. Uhhhhh. Oh crap."

After a 4 second mental debate Lavi muted the stream and picked up the call. Allen Walker (apparently that was his full name. Really boring and average, who knew), was smiling back at him.

"Oh my gosh it really is you. I thought Tyki was playing a joke on me….again." he smiled and then grimaced and then smiled again. Funny how they had both thought something similar.

"Uhm. I'm sorry?"

Allen laughed, "Not your fault. What were you doing watching the stream anyway?"

Lavi looked around awkwardly, "I uh, always watch the stream." He trailed off meekly. Allen laughed again, "Really?"

Lavi rolled his eyes, "Yes really. Now go on make fun of me, British boy."

"English." Allen corrected, grey eyes darting between what must be Lavi's face and something else on his computer. "And I'm not going to make fun of someone who's awesome, even if they're ginger."

"Ah fuck off. I'm just unique is all." He sniffed in mock sadness. Allen had called him awesome, Lavi was having an internal meltdown.

A notification popped up on Lavi's screen, and after a few seconds of tinkering he and Allen were now bestest buddies in the online gaming library known as Steam.

"Super unique." Allen added sarcastically, "What do you wanna play?"

Lavi scanned his library, what was a good game for two people who were awkwardly bantering with each other. He pulled a blank.

"Hmmmmmm. Left for Dead 2?" he suggested. Allen glanced at something to his left, "I bet twenty quid you die more than I do. Oh and by the way, for those of you watching. This is Lavi, or BookmanJr. He's awesome, you should go subscribe to him. Honestly he's about a million times funnier than me and I'm a little shell shocked."

They set up the game, chatting about random things. How Allen's roommates put up with the noise, the fact that Lavi looked dumb in his glasses, a debate on whether tea was actually that good ("It's lovely!" "No it's really gross."), etc etc.

"Nooooo!" Lavi cried out in despair as he was eaten alive by zombies, yet again. He slumped backward in his chair.

"Did you die again?" Allen asked sweetly, a mischievous undertone evident in his voice. Lavi grunted. "What does that make now?...25 to 13?"

"You're not as nice as everyone thinks you are." Lavi grumbled, checking the time and stretching his arms above his head. Allen yawned and buried his head further into his jumper, his avatar was mauled to death.

"What time is it where you are? Where are you anyway?" Allen asked as they started again, mice clicking furiously.

"Uh. Around 10pm. And I'll tell you where I live but not the thousands of people watching. DIE YOU ZOMBIE BASTARDS!" He replied, swinging deftly at a zombie that was trying to attack Allen.

The younger man yawned again, "Oh right I forgot about that. They're usually all gone by now."

"It must be my charming personality making them stay." Lavi smirked as Allen shook his head in exasperation. "Must be."

They both died much quicker that time, and stayed still for a few moments. Allen yawned, Lavi did some quick calculations.

"Dude it's nearly 3am, go to bed."

Allen looked at him with something that could have been confusion or fondness, Lavi wasn't sure yet. "You sure?" he asked.

"You've normally finished by now anyway. And you look exhausted. Go to sleep."

Allen nodded and turned his attention to his fans, "Alright guys, Mama Lavi says we have to go to bed. It's been fun, hope to see you all next week. Byeeeeeeeee."

Lavi watched as the Livestream flickered into Offline mode and Allen fiddled around with his computer for a few minutes.

"Hey Lavi?" Allen spoke softly through his microphone. And Lavi couldn't help wonder what his voice sounded like without the weird mechanical tinge the computer gave it.

"Yeah?"

"We'll do this again right?"

"Sure little buddy, whenever you see me online you just go ahead and call."

"Really?"

"Yeeeees, now stop asking so many questions and go to freaking bed."

Allen laughed, "Okay okay, goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Allen disappeared from sight with a woosh of sound. Lavi removed his glasses, rubbed at his eyes and groped for his eye patch. He twirled around in his chair grinning from ear to ear. He had just made friends with his favourite Youtuber, hadn't made a complete fool of himself and been invited to play again.

This was the best day.

"This is the best day!" he cheered to himself, once again pushing himself to his feet and heading to the kitchen. Detouring to the bath room along the way. He reached into his cupboards for hot chocolate powder, but his hand stilled over the box of tea bags that he always had but he was never too sure why he had them.

He boiled the kettle, letting the sound of it fill his apartment and letting Allen Walker fill his thoughts.

He chuckled to himself, Allen Walker really was an unexceptional name. But it suited him. Practical, kind hearted and cunning. Allen was an enigma wrapped in politeness wrapped in a jumper. Or something along those lines at any rate.

He poured out the water, let the tea bag sit, took it out and stirred in some milk.

He waited for it to cool, gazing absently at the lego-head cookie jar someone had got him for Christmas god knows how long ago. He thought about zombies, and English words for things, and time differences, and how big the world was and what to have for breakfast tomorrow.

Pancakes. He was going to have pancakes tomorrow and use up the last of those eggs. Or maybe he should make omelettes for dinner instead?

Thoughts filled his brain, unfiltered. Flowing back and forth and not really being thought about all that much. He sipped his tea. He spooned sugar into his tea and sipped it again.

"Still gross." He muttered looking into the pale brown liquid, steam warming his face. He sat in the kitchen, drinking his gross tea and thinking about everything but not really thinking about anything.

Lavi finished his tea, washed out the mug and switched off the kitchen light. He checked the windows were shut, and doubled checked the front door was still locked. He plodded over to his room, slipped into rabbit print pyjama trousers and settled down in his bed.

Grabbing his phone from its position on the bed side table he dicked about on the internet for a while. Laughing at all the fuss that he and Allen had caused online, and catching up with a few series' of videos he hadn't had time to watch recently. Reminding himself yet again that he needed to find someone to play Minecraft with.

And then Lavi dozed off. His mind still full of Allen Walker and his dull sounding name.

He had pancakes for breakfast.