“SubmissiveAndBreadable, thank you for two years of support! ‘Are you going to do a hot tub stream?’” Jaden laughed as he read the chat message, just shaking his head. “No, Eric said it’s not working, and this isn’t that kind of stream,” he said, grinning good-naturedly. “Love the name though.”
	Jaden was apartment-sitting for his friend, Eric, who was out of town for a wedding and needed someone to take care of his dog. Jaden was a streamer who could work from anywhere, if he really needed to, and spending time in Eric’s fancy place for the weekend for extra cash sounded good to him. Eric’s dog, Behemoth, was a gentle-giant of a dog that loved laying around and sleeping, so he was easy to look after.
	“Shit, shit, he’s after me!” Jaden said, eyes locked on the screen where he was trying to run away from some monster while flailing a pickaxe. “Leave me alone, I just want my body back!” he wailed dramatically, eyes flicking over to the laptop he had at his side to read chat. 
	He’d been streaming for a few years after college and was successful enough to support himself. It could be draining for some people, and it even wore on him some days, but he never let much bother him. His chat was fun to talk to and even when he wasn’t streaming, he’d often poke his head around in Discord and talk with his viewers. They liked to bully him while he played or try to make him blush, which wasn’t hard.
	Eric kept his apartment rather cool, which meant Jaden got to cuddle up on the couch in a pullover hoodie that swallowed him, especially with the hood pulled up. It was a gift from one of his longest subscribers on the platform. Black with a cartoon corgi patterned on the back and hood, so that it looked like he was giving the dog a piggyback-ride when he had the hood pulled up.
	Jaden had been streaming for a few hours already and already answered the same questions a dozen or so times. No, he hadn’t moved. Yes, this was a temporary setup. He was pet-sitting for a friend. The dog’s name was Moth, short for Behemoth, which Jaden thought was a dumb name. No, he didn’t know any tricks. No, he wasn’t going to give the dog a bunch of treats. 
	He had a few volunteer mods who would try and answer questions, and the title of his stream, There’s a Base in my Nether (Pet-Sitting at Friend’s Place, !dog), should have taken care of most questions if people could only be bothered to read. Jaden didn’t mind answering things over and over, and he just laughed and engaged with everyone while playing.
	Moth was laying on the couch at his side, head laying in Jaden’s lap while he dozed, and even that almost put his leg to sleep. Moth was huge. Massive. Ginormous. Jaden was a bit under average height, not particularly muscular, but slim and built like a runner. He could have easily outran the titanic dog at his side, but if the beast ever laid on him, he wasn’t going anywhere. Moth was closing in on 250 pounds, and Jaden was fortunate to be half that.
	There was a buzz from the front door and Jaden gasped excitedly. “Food! Okay, one second. I have to get him off,” Jaden said, putting his controller on the table and heaving at the dog’s shoulder with both hands. “Come on, boy. Let me up.” Moth let out a sleepy groan and stretched his legs out, the sound of the front door not enough to disturb his rest. 
	Jaden just slipped out from under the dog, almost knocking his laptop off the end table in the process, and ran to the front door. He came back a minute later with a big, wrapped bag of food and a huge grin on his face. “Hell yeah. I ordered food from the ramen place on the bottom floor. I had it last night, too, and it’s so freaking good.” He put the bag on the coffee table next to the camera and started unwrapping things, finally getting the dog’s attention. 
	Moth rolled upright and lifted his head to peer at the new smells that had entered the room. He had cream colored fur with darker patches around his eyes, similar to an Anatolian shepherd, but with less fluff, and more droop. Not too bad, at least, and Moth generally wasn’t very drooly with heavy jowls, which meant that Jaden’s hoodie was only damp instead of soaked after having the dog laying on him all afternoon.
	“Okay, I don’t think there’s any graceful way of doing this while I eat, so I might turn off my camera while I eat,” Jaden said, carefully sitting back down in the chair with the bowl of ramen in his lap. “Um... okay, so maybe this wasn’t the best idea for streaming. It’s so good, though.”
	He looked over at chat and scrolled back through a few messages, grinning and shaking his head. They were bullying him again, telling him to let the dog have his spot, asking to see his food, telling him he was going to spill it, trying to backseat his paused game, and being the typical mix mash of chaos. 
	In the end, he didn’t turn off his camera. He was a professional, after all, and he could eat while playing. It was a bit complicated by Moth’s occasional intrusion. The big dog would lean his head in and try to sniff more of the food, though apparently it wasn’t quite what he wanted after getting a better whiff, because he just sat there watching instead of trying to steal Jaden’s food.
	Jaden’s curly brown hair was partially covering his eyes with his hoodie pulled up, and he had his headphones underneath, hidden from view. He was reclined back into the chair with his knees pulled up to his chest and the bowl of ramen cradled against him. With one hand, he expertly used his chopsticks to eat while futzing around in game in some inventory windows that didn’t require him to do anything too precise with his other hand. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but he managed not to spill anything as he ate, even while replying to Chat. A complete professional.
	Then it happened, just like Chat had said. He couldn’t hold the position forever, and the bowl of ramen, mostly broth at this point, slipped and poured all down his front. Jaden squawked and tried to catch it, leaning forward in the process, but only managed to successfully dump out the rest of the bowl across himself.
	“No! Fricking... are you kidding me? Mother f—” Jaden closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then heard a clunk as his phone slipped from his shorts pocket and down between the couch cushions. He sat there for a few more seconds, taking another deep breath.
	When he opened his eyes, Moth was licking at his hoodie at the salty broth. It might not have been quite his taste, but food was food, even to him. “Shoo, move. I need to clean up.” He pushed the footrest of the couch down with his legs and stood up, trying not to drip anything on the carpet. 
	Chat was going wild and laughing at his misfortune, of course, and he just glared into the camera on the coffee table before sticking his tongue out. “Be right back. Enjoy some numbers, nerds,” he said, hitting a couple buttons on his laptop to bring up his fifteen-minute break timer. He took his headphones of and draped them over his laptop before heading to the bathroom to clean up.