Finn and Harv arrived at a pink apartment tower. It was older than most of the buildings downtown, with a tiled lobby and a rickety elevator. Finn punched in the right buttons, watching the doorman raise a brow as the doors slide shut.

Harv wasn't sure how to feel. They were dumped out on an open-air landing. The view of the city was so much prettier from 5 stories up, but he couldn't help sensing this was personal territory he was encroaching on. Finn rang the door bell, a sign with an eye painted on it staring them down amongst a cluster of hanging plants.

"Madam Leenan, at your service." A pale haired woman said with a salesman smile. She was draped in vaguely exotic patterns, with a long flowing skirt and large dangle earrings. The kind of thing instagram liked to promote as spiritually minded. Her smile dropped when she saw them. "Finn?" Finn winced, he nodded, she held him close looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was behind them. She motioned for them to come inside, only releasing him once they were in the apartment. "What are you doing here?" She kissed his forehead and his cheek. "Do you know how much trouble I'll be in if they catch you here?"

"We uh, we need help." Finn said. Leenan pulled herself away from her son long enough to address the other man in the room. Harv waved awkwardly.

"You look familiar." She said.

"Yeah, that's the problem." Finn fully broke out of her embrace. "Someone's been stalking my boyfriend. You're the only one I could think of that could help." Plants dangled off of every surface. It seemed she too liked to fill the empty space in her home with things.

"What do you need a psychic for?" She asked.

"Just, someplace most people don't know about." Finn said. " So, we can sort things out. They already figured out where his new dorm is." The lack of support from his grandparents was implied.

"Who's they?" Leenan asked. Harv and Finn looked at each other with equally shaken expressions.

"We're not sure."

Boyfriend.

Harv kind of froze up when Finn said it. There were more important things to be worrying about. He and Finn had agreed to not see other people at the same time, but they'd only been going out for a few weeks. It was a natural conclusion to come to. Harv had just assumed this was a fling, not a 'meet my mom' kind of relationship. He was already on edge from getting followed around, but here he was sitting around a table getting served tea, and he wasn't sure how much more he could take.

His chamomile sat cooling on a layered table cloth. The more is more style of decorating of Leenan's apartment did little to calm his nerves. He was fidgeting the saucer while Finn made police report. They could request an officer to be on alert for a call to the dorms, but there was no sign things would be investigated further. Another lead weight in Harv's stomach. He had work to think about, missing school could cost him scholarship money. He literally didn't have time for this.

"Thank you for letting us stay." Harv said. He was a little shakey on small talk. "We're not really going to get you in trouble, are we?"

"Well, Finn's an adult now, so not legally." Leenan sighed. "Won't stop those raisins from making a stink about it. They just love finding new reasons I'm the devil." She was silent for a long time. There was so much she wanted to tell Finn, but he clearly needed her to be a mom for him, before even touching on the years that had gone by. "What has he told you?"

"Just that he could loose his inheritance if they know about me." Harv said. She let out a long winded sigh, that definitely sounded like them. "Then he was saying, if he had a place to go, he'd consider getting them involved. If it's going to be that much of a problem... I just don't want him ruining his life because of me." They barely knew each other after all.

"You've met them before?" Harv nodded in response. "Then I'm sure they were very friendly and asked a lot of questions, maybe even offered 'helpful' advice. I tried going to them for help when we were tight on money, and instead and their idea of helping was calling DCS." It seemed Finn had misremembered quite a bit from his childhood. Leenan glared down at her cup. "If you're what it takes to get him to realize their money isn't worth placating them, don't take that as ruining his life. I'm sure he is perfectly aware of what's worth fight for."

Harv pulled back the glass door to the balcony, gently closing it behind him. Finn was wrapping up his conversation on the phone, a little defeated. According to the driver more texts had been coming in.

"I'm not doing that Beatus." Finn snapped. "Because I love him you brain dead booger." Finn's face went blank when he saw Harv awkwardly standing by sliding door. He hadn't actually said the 'L' word to Harv's face, and now for all of time, the first time he heard it would be followed by 'brain dead booger'. "I'll talk to you later." He hung up the phone, feeling more mortified as Harv shifted his weight, a sour look on his face.

"Finn... We need to talk."

"Oh god, what did they do now?" Finn got up from the bench in a panic. "Did they find you already? Are they calling my mom?"

"No," Harv held up his hands, "not that. Thank god, no it's just... Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful you're doing this all for me, butI mean, what's the point in drawing this out more? I went to the gala with you. You already know your grandparents would hate if we're dating, so, isn't it time you found someone 'easier'." He wasn't going to have any time once rugby season started. He had fun with Finn, but it was sounding like Finn was in way deeper than Harv ever had been. In the back of his head, he couldn't shake feeling he was never available enough as is. If Finn threw away money over him, he''d always feel guilty about it. "Maybe this way, the harassment would die down." He couldn't look Finn in the eye. His calloused hands felt like sandpaper as he nervously rubbed his forearm.

"Not you too." Finn's voice cracked. "I know things are bad right now, but we'll get through this. We just need a plan. It's like whatserface said, once we know who's behind it, we can stop it. I won't be able to see as much if I'm out here, but it's not like I'll be gone forever."

"Finn you can't do that." Harv said. "You can't just throw away your family because of some guy."

"You're not some guy, you're my-"

"You can find another guy that wants to be your boyfriend." It was like punching Finn in the gut. He staggered back and sank back onto the bench, all the while looking up at Harv as the first of many ugly tears started to fall.

"I can fix this Harvey." He really tried and gave it his all this time. How had things turned out exactly the same? He was getting dumped, again, and this time it wasn't for being a jerk. Had he come on too strong? The gift giving had been a little much, he'd been told to stop. It wasn't his fault other people had taken notice to them getting close. "They're trying to scare you, that's what they want." Harv still refused to look at him. "Harvey, please."

"Just see someone else." Harv said. "You've done it before. It's basically like a pattern."

"This is different, I really tried-" He had never brought up any of his past relationships to Harv before. He'd sort of mentioned Hevvin, but even that had been generically vague. "How do you know that." Finn dried his tears, feeling a well of anger rise inside him.

"Some girl's video." Harv shrugged. A lightbulb went off, and Finn immediately texted Shad. "Finn, what are you doing? I'm trying to talk to you-" Finn held up a finger as the phone rang on speaker. Eventually, someone on the other line picked up.

"Yeah," Shad said, "I don't know which one started it, but there's a bunch of them. It looks like these people are like, your fans."

"If they are such big fans, why are my sales so low?" Finn joked.

"No man, they're fans ofyou."Shad sent them a couple of links. "All that drama you stirred up last year, they were eating that shit up. Some are pretending to be ex-girlfriends or classmates. Then when the drama died down, because, well you weren't causing any, they started up their own. Someone's channel is literally just counting how long your relationships are." He scrolled through the comment section. "Like, daily uploads, I think this is where they're getting tips from." It wasn't one person, it was a bunch of them. That was why campus security wasn't able to catch them. "

"How long has this been going on?" Harv couldn't fathom being cyber stalked for so long, and not even knowing. The way Shad was talking this had been going on for years.

"So, would breaking up even help?" Finn asked, having recieved the suggestion from multiple people.

"I mean, maybe?" Shad said. "There's some people that are big Harv fans. So it's kind of a, putting out a fire by fanning another sort of situation." People always needed a villain in dramas like this, and Finn knew the perfect sacrifices to put on the alter.

"Thanks Shad." Finn said. He finally had an idea on what to do. With a heavy heart, he stood up again. Harv didn't remotely look happy while trying to dump him. Foolishly he hoped it was as simple as making everything bad go away. "Let me fix this, and then we can talk. I don't want other people being the reason we don't work out." It was his only hope at this point. "Please Harvey?"

"I don't think you can." Harv said honestly. "But sure, we can try one last thing." He didn't want this to be a drawn out process of Finn coming up with new reasons why they should be together. By now, Finn should have known how uncomfortable putting him before other people made him. The pressure of being a capital 'B' boyfriend was only exacerbated by the stalking, but he admitted the stress of it was the only reason he'd started to feel they were moving too fast. He needed something to lessen the pressure.

Finn had gone through each link Shad had sent them and invited them to a live stream from a new account. He was standing in the foyer with his phone, showing off the interior of his home to all the busybodies that had been following them around the last few weeks. Then he tilted the camera back to his own face to give his best 'serious' look.

"Alright, what do you want to know?" Finn asked. Questions slowly trickled into the chat. "Harv's not here right now. He's a little nervous about talking to you guys considering some of you were super rude." He was a performer at heart, and while the gobs of attention didn't bother him, he didn't want to drag Harv further into it without his permission. "What happened with Aubry? She dyed her hair this copper color, very pretty, but I wasn't going to wear warm colors in spring." A couple of gross invasive questions flew by, he flagged them, but otherwise ignored them. "Did I like any of them? Yeah, I liked them, but I liked being liked for being with them more. I think that's why I never wanted to stay with them. It didn't feel fair. Now that I actually want to stay with someone, I can tell how it was different."

Tell us about Harv.

"What about him?" Finn said. He'd already gone over what Harv was comfortable sharing. There likely was no way this would get back to his parents, but he didn't want people knowing anything that would point toward where he was. "He works at a garden supply store." Finn lied with ease.

Why do you like him?

"I don't know." Finn shrugged. The chat exploded in response. "What do you expect me to say? I saw him, he's super strong, and I liked him. I've worked way harder to ask him out than anyone else. It was going really great until... well let's just say my grandparents are a little behind the times." And there was the bait. He placated his growing audience, telling them favorite colors, what he did in his free time, until someone asked about them. "Well, that's why I'm doing this stream. We're going to come out to them, live."

He looked up off screen so he could hand the phone to his aunt. She didn't quite get it, but had agreed the more witnesses they had the better. This wasn't exactly what she had in mind. As soon as Harv came into frame, there were dozens of messages that were just his name in all caps. People excited just to see him standing in the same room as Finn. It was so surreal. Hopefully this crazy scheme worked. Finn gave a thumbs up and Senna followed behind them as they entered the family sitting room. His grandfather was pretending to read a book while his grandmother was working on another quilt she'd never finish.

"Finn, do you need something?" Gran asked, a little perplexed why he'd bothered them when usually he made himself scarce.

"Gran, this is Harv, he's my boyfriend." Finn said, trying not the fixating on Harv's face twist with discomfort.

"Well of course he's your friend." Gran repeated with deadly sweetness. "You've already introduced him to us before, you don't need to do so every time he visits. How have you been dear?" Harv muttered a small 'fine' as Finn stood a little taller.

"I don't think you heard me correctly Gran, I'm dating him." Finn said as if talking to a child. Gran's face puckered a little bit.

"How does that happen?" His grandfather piped up, genuinely confused. He'd seen Finn with girls plenty of times, the idea that he'd date a boy seemed to be in the realm of the impossible at this point.

"I asked him out, he said yes." Finn said. He hadn't expected his grandfather to be so casual about it. It was like he'd dropped a puzzle cube into his lap.

"We know one of those, that one feller that hangs around Peter, he's a little fa-"

"Darling." Gran said through gritted teeth, well aware there was a camera on them at this point. "You're supposed to laugh. This is a little prank for one of Finn's projects." She pointed at Senna, all his grandfather saw was a fuzzy rectangle in her hands. "I'm disappointed you're participating in this Senna, you're much too old for this sort of thing."

"It's not a joke Gran." Finn said. He looked over his shoulder at his aunt. She nodded, the people on the chat were mad. "I kiss him on the mouth and everything."

"Don't be crude Finn." Gran said, she tried to block out the noise by focusing on her needle work again. "You've made enough of a fool of yourself as it is. If you want to continue embarrassing yourself on camera, please do it in your room and leave your poor innocent cousins out of this." They had taken it with the same amount of icey indifference as he expected. He took the phone from Senna and the three left the room.

Is she always like that?

"Oh yeah." Finn sighed. "That was her being nice too, but she's pretty wary of cameras. I haven't been able to catch her saying anything else." Harv gave him a warning look. Crochety or not, this was not something he'd wish on anyone. "Well, that was the event for the evening. I'll be checking messages for the next twelve hours after we post and then by this time tomorrow the video will be gone." He signed off, knowing that would be plenty of time for people to screen record. "Now the same people following you will go after her, and she'll actually do something about it." Money spoke louder than a mere police report. It wasn't a perfect fix, but he hoped it would help Harv in the long run. "Answering questions was kind of fun though, wish people hadn't been weird about it."

"Finn..." Harv still was unsure about where they stood. With Finn's aunt nearby he didn't want to cause to much of a scene. He needed time to think and process this stuff away from it all. "I need a break, from us." He could tell it hurt, but this time Finn seemed more accepting of it. "Maybe after rugby season is over and I've dealt with switching majors. I just, I jumped into this way too fast. I'm not ready for something super serious." He really was like Destiny, the realization stung as he watched Finn's heart break a little at a time.

"If you ever change your mind..." Finn waved his phone back and forth with a sad smile. Watching Harv walk out the door was the hardest thing he ever did, but he promised not to chase after them if this didn't work. It was too soon to tell, and he knew Harv needed space.

He'd spend the next few months entertaining his newfound audience. Even if they didn't like his music, it was fun to pop on occasionally and answer questions. He'd sworn off of dating for a bit after. He needed to set clear boundaries before getting anyone involved in the mess he'd found himself in. Then, after the last game in the season, he was surprised to get a little text.

Hey.

A wide smile spread across his face. He immediately bailed on the stream. Harv was ready to talk again.