A Good Sort Of Problem

by Luna Myth 11

It all started at a ball. Which happened to have reporters there. Stampy got impulsive. He and Squid are going to have to deal with the results. A multi chapter fic where Stampy and Squid are bi and famous. {Complete}

1. Appearances

The limo pulled up outside of the hall and two young men in formal attire stepped out onto the curb.

As they took in their surroundings, Stampy asked, "Why are we here again? Can't we go and play hunger games or something?"

Squid studied his surroundings again before replying, "Because, Stampy, our publicity agents said we had to attend some sort of charity event. I mean I don't see why we have to, but you know… appearances."

As they continued walking towards the hall, Stampy shook his head in amusement and slight, lingering confusion. "Alright. If you say so, Squid." He smiled. "Why'd we pick this event anyways? I mean a ball. Really, Squid? Really?"

Squid cut him off before he could continue his joking rant. "Well, the people in charge thought a ball would make us appear 'classier'." He smirked in amusement.

Stampy jumped in, "Because class is definitely something people expect from Minecraft Youtubers."

They both smirked and Squid continued, "Yeah, but what the managers don't know is that this is a LGBT charity ball."

"Ahh, clever, Squidnugget. That'll definitely make an interesting appearance." Stampy laughed.

"Yeah, well, I don't want to brag, but

I am pretty clever." Squid said, false modestly.

"Yeah, sure you are, Squid." Stampy said, laughing.

"What do you mean?" Squid started to say as they walked through the front doors of the hall. Then stopped as he and Stampy looked around the vast hall. Squid craned his neck up at the intricately decorated ceiling and was studying all the people when Stampy exclaimed, "Cake!"

Squid looked over at Stampy, who was tugging on his suit jacket's sleeve.

"Look!" Stampy said, pointing excitedly. "There's cheesecake over there! Oh, cheesecake sounds good. Let's go get some." He started to walk over to the cheesecake-bearing table, then turned around and said, "Well, aren't you coming, Squid?"

Squid was staring at a group of people. "Yeah, I'm coming, but look at that group of people there. No, there, them there."

Stampy groaned. "Oh please don't tell me that those people are who I think they are!"

Squid smiled humorlessly, a rare sight on him. "I think they are, mate. Reporters."

Stampy groaned again. "Ugh, come on then. There is only one thing that will make this better."

"Cheesecake."

"Cheesecake."

Stampy smiled and dragged Squid over to the snack table.

Squid was still studying the press until he saw Stampy pick up a plate out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see Stampy eyeing the cheesecake.

"Don't eat the whole thing this time." Squid warned.

Stampy let out a sound of exasperation. "Oh gaw, remember what happened last time? Let's just say that did not end well…"

"Right," Squid continued. "Which is why I'm warning you now."

"I've got it, Squid, I've got it." Stampy replied, giving himself a slice of cheesecake.

As Stampy dug into his cheesecake, Squid asked, "So what are we supposed to do now? I mean, we're here, making an appearance. Eating cheesecake. What else are we supposed to do?"

Stampy looked up. "Eat more cheese cake?"

Squid smirked. "Don't you even try, mate. Leave some for the rest of us."

"It was worth a shot." Stampy said, spearing another piece of his cheesecake. "At any rate, we're not dancing. I wouldn't want you to poke someone's eye out with your dancing."

"My dancing? What about yours?" Squid said in fake outrage. "My dancing is beautiful."

Stampy smiled. "Good for you, Squid, but I doubt you'll get to try it out."

"Why not?" Squid asked incredulously.

"You don't a have a partner, Squid! You can't waltz or whatever they're doing without a partner!"

"Ohh! Right."

"Honestly. Silly Squid Nugget…" Stampy said, shaking his head, but smiling.

Squid chuckled slightly and went back to observing the crowd.

Several minutes passed with Stampy finishing his cheesecake and Squid watching the dancers while keeping an eye on the reporters.

Finally, Squid interrupted Stampy's mental musings on a new mini game idea by straightening up and informing him he was going to the bathroom.

Stampy nodded and said wryly, "Alright then. I'll tell you if you miss any of this exciting dancing." Then he added in a sillier tone of voice, "Don't you worry about a thing, Squid Nugget. Mr. Stampy Cat will be watching things over here. At the snack table. In case the snack table needs watching."

Squid laughed. "Cool. Make sure the snack table doesn't wander off." Squid told him before wandering off himself.

Stampy chuckled and started to go back to his musing when he saw a group of people past by Squid. It looked like they were heading towards him. Reporters.

Stampy inhaled sharply and straightened against the table he and Squid had been leaning on. He didn't like reporters much, or publicity for that matter, but that was the price of being a famous Youtuber. So he straightened his orange Stampy Cat tie and tried to flatten his floofy, black hair as he watched the reporters make their way towards him. It seemed they had made an agreement because only one of the reporters came over to him.

The reporter, a salt and pepper haired man with dull brown eyes and a averagely fair skin tone, stood in front of Stampy and introduced himself.

"Hello, Mr. Garret. My name is Treyers. John Treyers. I'm from Youtubers Weekly and those of us at Youtubers Weekly should like to enquire what you're doing here." he smiled in a way that was supposed to be charming, but really just make Stampy uneasy.

Stampy cleared his throat nervously. Despite how good he was at commentating and despite his years of experience, he was still very much a private cat who wasn't a fan of speaking in public. Even though Stampy had spoken more than Squid during their first joint interview he normally let Squid handle publicity. Still, he could handle one reporter with relative grace.

"Well, my publicity manager heard about the event and I just thought it'd be a great way to support the community." Stampy answered shortly, but not unkindly.

"I see…" the reporter said suspiciously, sensing a story. "Any reasons why you're invested in this cause?" Tryers added casually.

Stampy stiffened, but otherwise remained outwardly calm. This conversation was quickly going into uncharted waters.

"Yeah, I'm a fan of equal rights for everyone." Stampy said firmly."I suppose that should be reason enough."

"Oh, indeed," Treyers agreed smoothly. "But it's still very kind of a straight person such as yourself to contribute to a cause that doesn't directly affect you."

"See, that's where you're wrong." Stampy argued, serious for once. "This does directly affect me. Me and some of my friends are bi and L for Lee's asexual. Even if we weren't, though, I hope we would still try to help the community."

Treyers looked triumphant, but still suspicious. "I wasn't aware of this, seeing as your records say you have only ever dated a girl."

"You can have a preference for a specific gender and still be bi." Stampy informed him. "We're not limited to cis genders either."

"How fascinating." Treyers commented sarcastically. He certainly isn't making an effort to understand, Stampy thought to himself dryly.

The reporter continued, "How is it that you know you are bi then?" he inquired with a hint of cynicism on the edge of his tone.

Stampy saw Squid walking back over out of the corner out his eye. Suddenly Stampy smiled as he came up with an idea.

"Well…" Stampy started to say as he struggled not to laugh. "I wasn't going to mention it, but here's my date now! So if you'll excuse me…"

Stampy quickly walked the last few steps to Squid and dragged him onto the dance floor.

Squid sputtered. "Wait, what?! I thought you said no dancing! I leave you alone for five minutes and suddenly you're dragging me onto the dance floor as your partner! What?"

Stampy shushed him and quickly grabbed Squid's hands and placed Squid's left on his shoulder and held Squid's right with his left. Then he put his right hand by Squid's waist.

"Oh this better be right or Treyers is going to figure us out…" Stampy whispered nervously.

"Figure what out? And why are we whispering?" Squid whispered back.

Quickly, Stampy tried to explain his conversation with Treyers while trying to dance at the same time. It would have been easier if he knew the steps, but he had to watch his neighbor and imitate them. Fortunately, it was only a simple waltz playing and so Stampy quickly figured out how keep them stumbling through the steps without failing too badly.

"And so he started going on about how kind of us it was to contribute to a cause that didn't directly affect us and-"

Squid interrupted, "Whoa whoa whoa, now. Who, eh, who says this doesn't affect us? I mean-"

This time it was Stampy who cut Squid off. "I know Squid, I was getting to that bit! So I go to correct him and say that, like, me and some of my friends, such as you and Lee, are queer and he goes and basically denies this. He said I'd only dated a girl. How would I know I was bi? And then you start walking back over-"

Squid groaned. "Please tell me you didn't do what I think you did."

Stampy laughed nervously. "Well, Squid." More laughter. "That depends what you think I did."

"Please tell me you didn't say I was your date." Squid said in exasperation.

Stampy chuckled nervously. "Well… Funny story, actually, I-"

"You did, didn't you." It wasn't a question.

Stampy looked up from his feet. Squid was staring at him. "Maybe." he said in a small voice.

Squid groaned. Then he laughed. "Well then Stampy… you couldn't have set this up any worse, mate, I'll be honest."

Stampy went back to studying their feet, not only to help with the dancing. "You're not too mad, are you?"

"Naw, I'm not that mad. At least our publicity managers can't tell us off for getting into an argument with a reporter." Squid assured him.

"Yeah, but can you imagine how they're going to react when they find out that I sort of, maybe, said you and I were dating?" Stampy added, still doing his best to make sure they weren't failing to dance to badly. So far he'd been leading them in a simple gliding motion around the room, but soon they'd start looking like fools if they didn't do something different. Well, even bigger fools.

"Argh, I'm not looking forward to that conversation." Squid complained. "Since you started this, you're taking the blame. I'm not bailing you out here, mate."

"Fine, that's probably fair. This was mostly my fault." Stampy admitted.

"Mostly? I'd say this is completely your fault!"

"Details, details, Squid." Stampy said, trying to change the subject. "Now, we have to shake this up or people are going to notice something. I've been leading us in some sort of waltz for the past two minutes, but that just isn't going to cut it anymore. No siree!"

"Oh is that what we've been doing?" Squid said. "I couldn't tell."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's see you do better then."

"Yeah, why are you leading? Shouldn't I get a turn?" Squid wheedled. "You've been leading for a while."

"Oh yeah, we can take turns." Stampy said casually.

"How long do we have to keep this up for, you reckon?" Squid asked. If they were going to be taking turns it seemed they'd be dancing for a while.

"Um, a few minutes. Until the reporter's off our backs." Stampy said distractedly as he gently lead Squid into a spin as the music crescendoed. They were slowly improving at this.

Stampy tried to pay more attention to the music now that they'd stopped talking. He noticed how the other dancers normally deviated from the basic steps when the music rose or fell and so he'd slowly spun Squid around while trying not to look to stupid. The music fell and he spun him the other way.

"Oi!" Squid said indignantly. "Are you trying to make me dizzy here?"

"Hey, it's not like I know any other moves! At least I'm not stepping all over your feet!" Stampy replied, with a hint of good-natured snickering.

"Fine, but can I lead for a bit?"

"Uh, yeah. Here." Stampy spun Squid one more time before switching their hand positions. "You lead."

"Thanks, buddy." Squid cleared his throat. "Mate. Stampy. Mr. Stampy Cat."

Stampy smirked in amusement. "You done?"

"Yeah." Squid said, slightly awkwardly. "I'm done."

They both focus more on their dancing as they fall into a relatively comfortable silence. It's not as if there wasn't enough noise in the hall anyways. In addition to the music, countless famous and influential people were talking and there was an undertone of clinking dishes and silverware. The whole room throbbed with activity and people. Squid didn't mind chaos, but he was starting to to feel the effects of so many people. He, and Stampy for that matter, were used to sitting in a room by themselves and playing video games.

Squid turned his focus back to the matter at hand: dancing.

All he had to do was keep them dancing for a few minutes until the reporter lost interest. He could do that.

As the music picked up Squid held Stampy out from him and they turned in a circle. Once they'd turned full circle, Squid rhythmically back-stepped, leading Stampy into following him. They slowly turned until Stampy was where Squid had been and their joined hands pointed further onto the dance floor. After they bowed to each other Squid plunged them towards the frey of dancers in a sideways fashion, with their joined hands before them.

Squid led Stampy in a glide from side to side as the music swelled further before it dropped off. Feeling overly conspicuous, Squid reddened and slowed their movements. Still nervous, they glided around the room, swaying slightly. The music darkened in tone and Stampy and Squid danced very deliberately forward in halting steps to the music. The music repeated itself and they did the same backwards.

Squid peered around the room, studying the other dancers, This was an independent dance, so they weren't overly obvious, but it couldn't hurt to pick up some tips. As he looked around he fell back into submit ion and Stampy took the lead. He jerked his head back in surprise and looked at Stampy, who was pulling him into a spin before dragging him back closer. They were swaying gently in place to the beat. Stampy's foot was tapping a bit in time to the music as well.

"You took the lead back." Squid said in mock outrage.

"Did I?" said Stampy, bemused. "Sorry. You can lead if you want. I don't care."

"Naw, it's alright. I'm fine, I'm fine." Squid replied distractedly. He was very confused because he had slipped back into submission while he was watching the other dancers and he was strangely enjoying Stampy's lead. This didn't seem very in character for him. He normally wanted to lead and he didn't take orders from anyone. Yet here was Stampy, casually leading him around the room in a dance and here he was, enjoying it? Not very in character at all.

Before Squid could contemplate this any further Stampy grabbed Squid's free hand with his own and performed one last dramatic flourish before the song ended and they bowed.

Stampy let go of Squid's hands and they broke apart awkwardly. They each had subconsciously decided they'd been dancing long enough. Everyone else started applauding and they looked at each other nervously before joining in.

"You know, Stampy." Squid commented while applauding. "We, uh, we didn't do too bad. For some people who had never danced before."

Stampy laughed. "You know, Squid I'd say you're right." he muttered something sarcastic about how he would say that, but… He laughed again before Squid continued.

Squid smirked before saying, "I would even go as far as to say we did well.'

Stampy stuttered as if Squid had taken the words out of his mouth. "Exactly, Squid, exactly. We practically stole the show."

"Yeah, I mean I didn't want to brag, but we were pretty awesome, I mean did you see some of those moves?" Squid's smirk intensified.

"Oh yeah. Exactly." Stampy grinned and they both laughed.

"So anyways! Now that that's out of our systems… we should head back to the table." Stampy said, still grinning.

Squid cleared his throat. "Yeah, we should make sure it didn't wander away after all."

They weaved their way through the whispering crowd back towards the snack table. Everyone around them seemed to be talking about something. Or someone.

"Hey, Squid?" Stampy asked hesitantly.

"Hmm?"

"Is it just me… or is everyone staring at us?"

Squid looked up. He'd still been thinking about his bizarre behavior earlier and, as a result, hadn't noticed that Stampy was correct. Everyone was staring at them.

"Yeah, they are. I wonder why that is?" Squid replied sarcastically while still looking around. Over in the far corner, the reporter from earlier was frantically scribbling something down.

Stampy laughed nervously. "Well, I'd imagine it's because they think we're dating." He laughed again. "Is that going to cause us problems now? I bet it is." he sighed.

Squid thought about it. People thought he was dating Stampy. They would get in loads of trouble if they said they'd lied, but they would have to eventually. Unless they started actually dating… Squid mentally shook himself. Why was he thinking about that? First he enjoyed Stampy's lead and now this?

Squid shook his head. "I don't know, mate. Maybe it'll be like a good sort of problem?"

Stampy snickered.

"What? Do you know what I mean?" Squid asked wonderingly.

Stampy shook his head bemusedly. "No. Well… maybe. I dunno, we'll see. Our limo's almost here."

Squid nodded. "We'll see." He was a bit confused himself, to be quite honest.

"So come on then. To the limo. Because we're fancy like that." Stampy tugged on Squid's sleeve and started walking toward the front exit. Squid followed him, still slightly lost in thought.

"Hey, Stamps?"

"Yeah?" Stampy cleared his throat. "What's up?"

"Do you wanna play some hunger games tomorrow? On the xBox? I have a map downloaded from ages ago that I never played."

"Yeah. Sure. It's not like there's much else I'd be doing." Stampy smiled.

"Awesome. I'll, um, see if anyone else can play."

"Yeah. Sure," Stampy said again, nonchalantly. He focused more on what he was saying. "Glad to see you doing some more on the xBox. The good old xBox."

"I thought it was time to get back to my roots." Squid replied, smiling.

"Well, I think that's awesome." Stampy stated. He grinned. "Oh look, our ride's here."

Squid looked away from Stampy and saw he was right. The same limo that they'd arrived had just pulled up in front of the hall. Squid opened the door and Stampy got in.

He laughed. "Alright then. After you, mate."

Stampy laughed too. "Thanks, I will."

Squid followed him in and shut the door.

The driver opened the dividing screen and they asked him to drop them each off at home.

"Say, what's everyone whispering about out there? They all seem awfully interested in it." the driver asked.

Stampy and Squid looked at each other. Stampy spoke up. "Oh nothing. You'll find out soon enough."

The driver still looked curious, but he smiled and said, "Alright. If you say so."

"Trust us on this. It'll be all over the news." Squid smirked slightly.

Stampy nodded and the driver did too before he slid the screen shut and drove them away from the ball.

"Well…" Stampy said. "That was fun."

"Oh yeah. Totally."

So they sat in relative silence until the limo dropped them off and they went back to their lives.