How did everything go so wrong, so quickly?

Pewdie felt something he hadn't felt in years.

He felt that his life was out of control, out of his reach, out of the realm of expectation. Everything he had come accustomed to was swiped from under his feet, and now he was dazed from the harsh fall.

And that all started just this afternoon.

He had been editing footage all morning, trapped in the his little corner of Marzia's kitchen, as per routine. He would record at night, edit in the morning, upload during noon, same old same old. During his editing process, it wouldn't be uncommon to see Marzia stroll in and chat him up. Understandable, considering the reclusive nature of Pewdie's job.

What was unusual, however, was that Marzia hadn't dropped by once. Pewdie had realized the nature of her absence far too late.

With editing finally done, and the videos now rendering, Pewdiepie got off his seat to stretch his limbs, receiving a few pops for doing so. Seeing as how he was too occupied to fill his tummy with food beforehand, his stomach roared, begging for it's daily nutrition. Pewds, ever the so obedient slave to his stomach, made a beeline to the other kitchen that Marzia had. He was hoping for some leftovers, a snack, or rather just anything that could be achieved in under five minutes.

What he saw in the kitchen was neither of these.

Instead, he saw Marzia and her parents sitting at the table. Normally, he wouldn't mind this, he would even greet them whilst on his quest for food. However, the nature of their presence was tight, tense, unnatural. He saw Marzia herself in a state of disbelief, as her hands covered her face. Her parents, leaned towards Marzia and talking to her in hushed Italian sequences. One of which he barely caught.

"This is for the best."

As soon as Pewdie entered, the atmosphere between the Bisognin family broke, as all of their eyes turned to him. Marzia looked terrified, as she let out a desperate "Felix!" upon seeing him. Marzia's parents, meanwhile, stood up to their full height. All of a sudden, Pewdie felt much smaller than they as the grimness of their eyes bore down on him.

"Felix, we need to talk."

Everything spiraled from there.

Faint recollections could be gathered in Pewdie's head. The incident was so chaotic that he still, after 3 hours from it taking place, found it hard to believe.

Felix was a bad influence.

Felix's job wasn't stable.

Felix doesn't, Felix shouldn't, Felix isn't.

Felix and Marzia shouldn't see each other anymore.

Felix needed to leave.

Oh god, just the exact moment of horror when Pewdie saw all of his belongings ready and packed for his departure. A one way flight ticket from Italy to Sweden ready to be used in the coming week. It was too much to bear, then and now.

So much so even, that Felix flew into a rage. Quickly defending himself and his love for Marzia, he said some words that he now regretted.

Everything became so heated so instantaneously. Insults flew from the two parties as their vocal levels increased dramatically. Push came to shove, and Felix was kicked out in an instant.

The only thing that was burned into Pewdie's mind was the vivid image of Marzia's expression as he was hastily ushered out the front door. Her tears creating tracks of mascara on her heart shaped face as she let out heart breaking sobs of "Stop!", "No!" , and "Please!"

And now here he was. The once confident Pewdiepie, staying in the cheapest motel room he could find in Italy on short notice. Laying down on a bed that might as well have been stone, accompanied by moist wallpaper, a carpet covered in mysterious stains, quite possibly the biggest spider he had ever seen on a toilet seat, and the heavy weight of despair on his chest.

Awesome day, really.

"Fucking hell..." Pewdie sighed as he rubbed his temples with both of his hands. For the past few hours, he had been trying to clear his mind by watching television. Of course, no matter how much he tried, Felix couldn't understand Italian enough to watch a soap opera.

"Benito, ti prego, non lasciarmi di nuovo!" Pleaded the woman with too much make up and botox.

"Oh, Rosa, non potevo immaginarlo." muttered the man with an awful lot of gel in his hair as he tipped the woman in his arms and kissed her passionately.

Gross. Pewds couldn't take much more as he reached for the remote and turned off the TV all together. Instead, he reached for his phone and began texting Marzia. In the course of his stay, he had scattered attempts of contacting her, all of which he received zero reply from his girlfriend he very much wanted to keep.

After minutes that slugged on and on, Marzia didn't text back.

Pewds was sure that her parents were interfering with the texts now. Before he could feel any more resentment, he desperately reached for his bags to retrieve his Razer laptop. Hell, if Internet couldn't help him, then he would really not know what to do.

As soon as the laptop booted up, he opened up Chrome with as many tabs as he could. YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, all things and more that were popping up (and most likely lag his laptop to hell.) just so he could occupy his mind for just a bit. He wrote up a quick apology for the lack of videos with a fake excuse on his YouTube feed, he replied to as many bros as he could on Twitter, and browsed the pewdiepie tag on Tumblr mindlessly. All he would notice on these sites is that Marzia hadn't posted a single thing.

God dammit, now what?

As if on cue, Pewds saw in his peripheral vision a notification from... Steam? Now, Pewdie wasn't surprised that Steam had opened by itself, as he's always had Steam set to automatically start when he turned on his computer, the problem was: who would be talking to him right now? Usually everyone he was friends with was asleep by now, due to timezones.

Cryaotic: Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Pewds. Pewds. Hey.

Cryaotic: Co-op time, yeah?

Oh shit. Oooooh shit.

Now he knew. Pewdie had scheduled a co-op session with Cry tonight. Of course, due to the current events, it had completely slipped his mind. And most likely due to said events, he wouldn't exactly be in the right state of mind to even try to pretend to have a good time. And he sure as hell didn't want to make Cry worry about him. Pewds' business was Pewds' business.

But he'd probably make him worry more if he declined. Shiiit.

Welp! Game face, Pewds, game face.

PewDiePie: To Skype!

Cryaotic: Alrighty!

As soon as he opened Skype, he received a call from his good ol' pal Cry. Here we go.

"H-h-hhoooowww's it goin' bro?" Pewdie started with his usual video intro, as Cry usually enjoyed to play along with "YouTube humor", as he called it.

"H-h-hhooooow's i- woah! Are you an astronaut?" Cry giggled. Pewdie raised an eyebrow at his comment.

"Whaddaya mean? Are you drunk again?" He began to question as Cry giggled some more.

"Nuh uh! It's just that you sound like you're talking from a metal blanket from space, man."

Oh. Ooooooh. Laptop microphone + Italian internet = Astronaut Pewds, apparently.

"Psssh, maybe I am?" Pewdie laughed the best fake laugh he could muster. "Nah, it's just that I'm on my laptop right now." He explained.

"Oh. Weeeell, why aren't you on your desktop and using your good mic then, goofy?" Cry threw the question that sent Pewds for a loop. Jesus, how was he going to explain that his desktop was still at Marzia's house and probably in the process of being shipped to Sweden as they spoke?

"Uhhh... no reason! So, how about we play some games? The bros keep asking for more Saints Row stuff, so I think we should co-op that tonight. Whadda you think, Cry?" Pewdie had completely avoided the question, and prayed to every deity that Cry wouldn't think anything about it.

"Well... alright. I don't really have any better ideas."

And that was when Pewdiepie became religious.

And so hours of gameplay was recorded between the two good friends. Essentially, they just ran around the city and tore shit up. Although the premise was simple, the experience was just so satisfying. Pewdie had to admit to himself, he didn't regret taking up the offer to just sit back and play video games with Cry. It certainly kept him busy and he genuinely laughed at some points. However, despite the merriment, he still felt his stress overpower every other emotion he had.

"Holy shit! Pewds! Check this out, check this out!" Pewdie's thoughts were interrupted as Cry wiggled around. Currently, they were in a shop were they could customize their character with more weird shit. By the sound of Cry's voice, he just found something incredibly ridiculous.

"What is it, Cry?"

"Hold on, hold on..." Pewdie waited for Cry's character to update to see the new bling that his friend seemed to be so excited to show him.

"Aaaand, bam." Cry said in his most dramatic voice.

The only new thing on his character was a hat adorned to look like Goku's Super Saiyan hair. And it was spectacularly ridiculous.

"What the fuck, Cry?" Pewdie chuckled as Cry moved his character about energetically.

"I'm Goku, man!" Cry laughed heartily. "Kame-hame-ha!" He declared as he shot up into the air spontaneously, only to meet the roof of the shop. "Damn it!"

Pewdie burst out laughing in his hyena laugh, only to have Cry's infamous laugh join his. Oh God, Cry really was a fun guy to hang around. Even if Pewds wasn't really into Dragonball. That was more Marzia's thing.

Marzia.

Aaaaaand there goes his good mood. Pewdie sighed sadly as his thoughts traveled back to his beloved. If only he tried harder, if only he was better, if only he-

Pewds noticed that the music from the game had stopped abruptly. He then saw that the game was paused. But why?

"Hey, Pewds... How are you feeling, man?" Cry spoke in what was probably the most sincere voice Pewdie had ever heard from him. But damn it, he couldn't let Cry think something was wrong. He already upset too many people today.

"Whadda ya mean? I'm fine!" Pewds tried his damnedest to sound convincing, but he could practically see the frown forming on Cry's face right now. He hadn't even seen his face!

"Look, Pewds, you've been acting weird all night. First, you're on your laptop, which by the way, you hardly ever use."

"Cry..."

"Second, you hardly talked when we were playing."

"Cry."

"And third, you just sound so upset! You hardly laugh!"

"Cry!"

Cry shut up. God, Pewdie didn't mean to raise his voice at him, but he really didn't need this right now.

"I'm fine. Everything's fine. Can we just-"

Boop. Felix's phone went off. Pewds made a mad dash to grab his phone and unlocked it. Please be Marzia, please be Marzia...

Marzia: I'm so sorry Felix.

Marzia: I would have texted you earlier but my parents lectured me all day.

Marzia: Are you okay? Where are you? ):

"Oooh, thank god!" Pewdie sighed in relief as he felt a smidgen of his stress fly off his shoulders. He quickly texted her as fast as his fingers could let him.

Me: Marzia!

Me: I'm alright. I found a cheap motel near the plaza.

Marzia: Thank goodness!

Marzia: I'm happy you have a place to sleep tonight. ^_^

Marzia: I wish it didn't turn out like this...

Marzia: I'm sorry Felix. I wish I did more to convince my parents.

Pewdie felt tears prick at his eyes as he felt the anguish pour from Marzia's texts. Damn, he wished he could just hug her sorrow away. Anything to make her feel better. But of course, her parents were in the way of that.

Me: Don't be sorry, Marzia. You didn't do anything wrong!

Me: Don't blame yourself, please.

Marzia: I wish I had you with me right now...

Oh god, this was just killing him. If Pewdie didn't feel sad before, he sure as hell felt it now. Tears trailed down his face, he sniffed away as his nose started to get stuffed.

Me: I wish I was there too.

Me: Have you gotten any sleep?

While it wasn't terribly late on Pewds' terms, Marzia slept much earlier than he did. Considering the time now, he couldn't help but feel worried for her well-being.

Marzia: I tried.

Marzia: I'm just too worried about you.

Pewdie made a very audible sigh.

Me: Now you know I'm okay.

Me: Please get some sleep Marzia.

Me: I don't want you to get sick worrying about me.

Me: We'll find a way, I promise.

Marzia: Okay.

Marzia: But that means you have to sleep well too!

Felix let out a small chuckle. Oh, Marzia...

Me: Will do!

Me: Good night, Marzia.

Me: I love you.

Me: I'll talk to you tomorrow?

Marzia: Of course!

Marzia: I love you too Felix. :)

Marzia: Good night

And that was that. Jesus Christ, that was painful.

"Pewds...?"

Oh shit. Pewdie had completely forgotten that he was still in a call with Cry. And the chances of him hearing Felix's sobs were the same as YouTube changing it's layout every 10 minutes.

"Do you wanna...? Y'know..."

Pewdie would have stayed on longer. At this point, he definitely owed Cry an explanation. He just had a promise to keep first.

"I'm sorry, Cry. I'll tell you tomorrow. I'm just... really tired." He fibbed.

"... Okay. Take it easy, yeah?" Cry's voice was just laced with worry. So much for not trying to upset him.

"Yeah. Bye, Cry."

"Cheerio."

Bloop.

Felix didn't sleep a wink that night.

don't worry, no murder will be taking place here

Next Chapter: An explanation is in order, and some parents are notified of their son's predicament. They take it personally.