It was midnight already, and the party was still going. Hero's mums had already gone to bed, but they were cool with everyone else staying as long as they wanted. Most of the guests had left, but there were still a few left. Which was good, because Ben needed to check with everyone in his video before editing and uploading it.

He started with Pedro and Balthazar (they were totally fine with him putting everything up on YouTube). He then asked Bea if he could keep any footage of her and the whole "Pedro-and-Balthazar-in-the-closet-stay-out" thing ("Come on, it's comedy gold!), but she'd been adamant in her refusal ("No. And if you say anything else, I'm rethinking whether or not to eat your heart out. That was a good cake."). So, sighing, he cut all that out, plus the couple minutes or so where the room was empty and everyone was downstairs. He also cut out the whole "John-Hero" thing before asking Pedro to help him edit the fifteen or so minutes of footage left (John had left, so Ben couldn't ask him about it, but he was pretty sure he'd prefer his love life to remain off camera, and maybe private from his brother too.).

Finding Pedro took a while (it took a lot of cautiously opening doors), but eventually Ben found him and Balthazar half-asleep on the sofa together. It took a while longer to get him upstairs; Balthazar had to tell Pedro he'd be fine by himself. From the way Pedro was acting, you'd think a gang of his evil exes were going to come up and try to kill him while he was gone or something. Eventually though, they were back upstairs in Bea's room (she'd let them borrow her computer).

"Okay," Ben said, "the beginning's all right, we just need to get rid of the part when no one was in the room…"

"Do we really need to keep the whole 'sulking-in-a-corner' part?"

"Yes! It builds up tension and susp-"

"Okay, okay, just keep it then."

"So now we have you sulking and apologizing for like forever…"

"You totally lied about the camera not being on."

"Still don't regret it! I mean, how else would we have gotten grumpy-cat Pedro?"

"Your winking skills are questionable."

"My winking skills are beyond description."

"Yeah, 'cause they don't exist."

"Anyway… I think we can cut out this 'sorry'…"

"Keep it in."

"If you say so! And now we have us eating cake…"

"Better delete that if you don't want Meg and Bea to rip out your heart and eat it."

"But it's cake! And they already know."

"Fine. Let's put evidence of your food thievery on YouTube, shall we?"

"I didn't steal the food; it's a party; you take food whenever you want!"

"Whatever."

"And here are about fifty more Pedro-apologies in the clips of us eating cake! I'm cutting those out."

"But-"

"Shush. They're gone. See? Okay, and now there's the Team Love Gods discussion, we can cut out some of the apologies there… okay. Good! Oh wait, there's still an apology here… But I think we can keep that in, it helps in character development and transitions to our next topic of conversation…"

"Character development. Seriously?"

"Yes, character development. And now here's us pausing our discussion to eat more…"

"Cut that bit out; Bea and Meg didn't notice us taking that food and it's out of shot the rest of the video. We don't need them to notice now."

"Alright then… so now here's the girlfriend conversation- how does your hair do that anyway? Do your hands just ooze hair gel or something?"

"Yes. They do."

"And… enter Balthazar!"

"Did John like wait outside the door and then shove him in right then on purpose?"

"Actually, no. God, you standing there like an idiot looks even worse on camera."

"Balthazar was not talking to you, Ben."

"Yeah, just figured that out."

"We don't need me tripping over the bed, do we?"

"Come on, we've got to keep that part in! You looked hilarious!"

"No."

"Fine, fine then. It's out. Back to the video!"

"It is amazing how high your voice can go when you're nervous."

"Shut up. Ooh, did you just put your arm around Balthazar?"

"Maybe. Okay, and here's you being confused and having no idea what's going on, unlikely it's because of your massive intellect..."

"I still wasn't sure if you were bi!"

"But you were sure enough to write up a complicated plan involving barricades and phone-stealing to set me up with a guy."

"How do you know about the phone-stealing?"

Oops. "Well... It isn't very hard to notice when a girl takes much longer than supposed to to retrieve her pencil from beneath your desk. Also, zippers make sounds. I just guessed Bea had a good reason for doing so. She probably shouldn't try that on anyone else though; most people don't take kindly to having their phones snatched out of their bags."

"I will remind Bea to practice her phone-stealing skills in the future... So Balth asks you if you have any ideas, and you say no… there's a lot of awkwardness going on; let's just cut those couple seconds out… and now John comes in- do you think he'll be okay with being in the video?"

"Yeah- yeah sure… wait… I'll text him and ask, just keep it in for the moment."

"So, video again. Evil cat psychics are the best."

"Glad you think so."

"Look at my beautiful introduction of Team Love Gods part 2."

"You basically just gestured at me and Balthazar."

"I basically just did."

"What's with the whole 'labor-of-love' thing?"

"Dunno, just seemed like the right thing to say. By the way, how did John know you liked Balthazar? He's obviously about to suggest him."

"No idea, he's probably gaining Ursula's all-knowing powers from his evil cat psychic."

"Better not hear Ursula's year nines hear you say that or John's gonna be tied up and questioned in their 'clubhouse'. As well as force-fed cornflakes."

"Good point. Speaking of John, he's just texted me back, he wants to- talk? with you?"

"Oh- oh- okay."

Ben picked up the phone.

"Hey, Ben, you cut out the whole me-and-Hero thing, right?" John's voice was urgent.

"Oh - yeah, of course. Anything else you don't want in?"

"No, everything else is alright."

"Okay, thanks!" Ben pressed 'end', then turned to Pedro. "He says it's okay. Let's get back to editing."

Pedro hit play.

"My sarcasm game is straight on," Ben said appreciatively.

"Yeah, about as straight as me and Balthazar."

"Ha ha, a very funny joke, bi Pedro."

"That made no sense."

"That made plenty of sense!"

"If you say so."

"Here's John and the famous door barricade!"

"God, I need to kill my brother for that."

"Wouldn't if I were you- ah! You and Balthazar are going outside! Tell me, how many seconds were you two outside before you started making out?"

"I didn't really think to count."

"John says it was remarkably quiet only a little while after you left..."

"Oh, shut up."

"I don't really think we need this part... the rest is mostly okay."

The two watched for a while.

"Wait- wait... John is laughing?"

Ben nodded proudly. "Seriously though, was that his first ever laugh?"

"I think so. Pretty sure he was born with a frown and a death glare on his face. And... you two are still going? You've been laughing for like a minute straight! You aren't even that funny! We're cutting some of this out."

"Okay; yeah, that's a decent length. Now we've finally stopped laughing..."

"Balthazar's liked me since year nine?"

"Yes. Aren't you listening?"

"Year nine?"

"Yes! Shut up and watch your brother and me discuss your bisexuality, you lovebird. By the way, can I call you an all-around great bi now?"

"No."

"Come on!"

"No."

"Fine."

"What's this jump cut here?"

"Oh, well, uh... Bea... she was- she was in here for a few minutes and she asked us to cut her out, so I just did it before hand."

"Okay."

"And now John's leaving... the end. No more footage! That didn't take so long, did it?"

"It's two thirty, Ben."

"What?"

"Check your phone!"

Ben did so, then let out a slow whistle. "We are going to be exhausted by the time Balthazar's gig starts today. Let's get this up on YouTube."

As the video uploaded, Pedro went downstairs to check on Balthazar. Ben watched him come back with the aforementioned person's arm around his waist. Not murdered by any evil exes then.

Balthazar gave Ben a sleepy wave, then promptly fell down on Bea's bed.

"He's really tired," Pedro whispered. "I'm going to take him home. Don't write the description without me."

Ben shook his head as Pedro gently raised Balthazar up and then led him out the door, using his shoulder to support him. "Bye!" he called after them. "Good luck on the gig tomorrow, Balth!" He'd leave any teasing for when Balthazar was fully awake.