The Pack and Sidemen Oneshots

Mitchlan- Insecure

Lachlan's P.O.V.

Mitch had always been one to keep running until he got what he wanted, to just keep running nonstop until he crashed and burned in a blaze of glory and failure. He had so much to live up to as well, the youngest of three after our sister had a successful career and created a wonderful family and I created a massive online following over several platforms.

He hadn't always done well in a stereotypical career, he hated working in customer service or communication, he had confided in me that if he had to work in an office he would probably lose his mind. So I slowly introduced him to the online world, and he began to build himself up.

Obviously there were the haters who just said he had been built off me and that was true to some extent, but it was clear he would have never succeeded if he didn't have a personality of his own. I told him over and over to simply ignore them because it wasn't true and he was doing fine on his own.

But still, I could tell he was insecure about pretty much everything. His looks, his career and success, his validity in the online community, his place in the world. No matter how much I reassured him, I couldn't help the thoughts that crept around his head in the middle of the night that told him he wasn't good enough.

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I stood up from my desk, groaning as my back cracked and I almost fell over. Glancing at the time in the corner of my computer I winced, 2am and I still wasn't done recording the video I had to get to my editor by the following morning. I had decided to give myself a well needed break after almost 5 hours of non-stop recording.

Stepping out of my door I almost had a heart attack because curled up against the doorframe, hood pulled up over his eyes and chin resting on his knees, was Mitch. He looked up at me with tired eyes.

"Sorry." He mumbled. I sighed and crouched down to his eye level, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"There's no need to be sorry." I took him in, how exhausted he was, and felt a pang of concern. "What's wrong? I can stop recording if you want and we can go to bed."

He shook his head, but no matter how much he tried to deny it, he was a cuddler. He needed validation from someone, even if it was just me, and the amount of times he had fallen asleep in my bed or on the floor of my office was a little unbelievable. He just needed my presence to feel like it was alright again, and I was okay with that.

"I'm not gonna interrupt your recording Lachy, just keep going. I'm fine." I raised an eyebrow as he tucked his arms more securely around his legs and refused to look me in the eyes.

"Like I believe you." I whispered, squeezing his shoulder. "Tell you what. If you don't want me to stop recording that badly then we can get out the mattress again and you can sleep in my office? I've still got a couple of hours of recording to do so I'll wake you when I'm done, that sound good?"

He contemplated for a second before finally nodding, giving me the go-ahead. I mean I was going to take a break, but a cup of nice hot coffee and my brother was good enough for me to get back my motivation to keep going.

"Do you wanna go grab some blankets and a pillow from your room, I'm gonna make a coffee and then get the mattress. Want anything?" He shook his head again.

The only times that he wasn't very talkative was the times that he was feeling down or upset, and I knew that far too well. I could always tell when he was mad or upset because he would give short, one word answers or simply not talk at all depending on how low he was.

Giving his shoulder one last reassuring squeeze and helping him to his feet I turned and hurried down the stairs, seeing him turn to his bedroom. I rushed through making a coffee, cursing how long it took the jug to boil.

Mitch was already in the office when I got back upstairs, leaning heavily against my desk draws with his eyes tightly closed and several layers of blankets piled on top of him. He squinted at me as I came into the room but otherwise didn't really acknowledge my presence.

The mattress was a small one, one of those single bed ones that you could get for cheap from any bargain stores, but it was well used because of how much more portable it was. It had been dragged all over the house, used in our offices or bedroom, maybe in the living room if we had extra guests or someone was drunk and we didn't want to change the bedsheets. It was our all purpose mattress.

I plopped it down on the floor, it barely fit in the space between my desk and the greenscreen but we made it work, and Mitch crawled on top of it. I heard his sigh of relief as he pancaked under his layers of blankets and I laughed a little, stepping over top of him to get to my chair.

Slipping my headphones over my head I got back into my recording with gusto, but I kept my voice a little quieter than normal and tried to keep my rages to a minimum so Mitch could sleep. During the quieter times during games, the bits I cut out, I glanced down at him and saw him drift from fully awake and pondering to fast asleep within about half an hour.

I finished up a game and yawned, glancing down at my brother. I really didn't want to wake him and he was lying in such a way that there was definitely enough room for me, so I shut down my computer, plugged in my phone and lay down beside him. God, he looked so young when he was asleep.

"When you feel insecure Mitch..." I whispered, even though he couldn't hear me. "I'll always be there. I promise."