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#me: has a good reason for using instant delivery stuff
moxley · 6 months
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i need a very small amount of groceries but nobody can give me a lift and i'm not in a fit state to leave the house, so my goddamn sincere-ass apologies to the grocery delivery guy who is bringing like five things.
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vickyvicarious · 8 months
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The bracing breath Jack takes before beginning his entry.
also, starting with Jack? I'm quite curious what the reasons for the various reorderings are throughout re: Dracula. Sometimes it seems to try and more accurately reflect timing or for dramatic effect, but not always. here seems to be pretty neatly divided by timing but it just reminded me
"I fear that in some mysterious way poor Mrs. Harker's tongue is tied. I know that she forms conclusions of her own, and from all that has been I can guess how brilliant and how true they must be; but she will not, or cannot, give them utterance." MINAAAAA
oooh the dual voices on "vampire's baptism of blood" is great
"The same power that compels her silence may compel her speech." my brain is rotted by too many memes, I pictured among us and Jack and van Helsing agreeing that Mina seems 'sus'
the slow music as van Helsing talks about Mina changing...
I hate Mina being left out again ughhh
the ominous music fading out into the lighthearted music as Quincey talks of wolf-hunting, and then back into ominous as
"We four?" this delivery is SO GOOOOOOOD. and the way Jack says "Harker was silent for a while" gave me chills imagining him. ohohohoho I love it
he sounds so clipped when he says they'll talk in the morning as well. he's going to talk privately with Mina first and foremost, and they will both decide what to do after that.
Jonathan's great upset at Mina being left out and people being somehow fine with that??? after how it turned out last time?!?! ...it's so good
I love van Helsing being the one to describe all this. Quincey and Art and Jack were all there too. They could perhaps correct some stuff, like Quincey saying he gave him tobacco or money or whatever, or explaining what "much blood and bloom" mean, but... nah
van Helsing's accent makes it sound like he keeps saying "the sin man" and I'm like, yeah, fair enough
the captain assuming Dracula is French is so interesting/weird
god I love the music
"for we have seen the owner of the ship, who have shown us invoices and all papers that can be." ~document supremacy~
the way Mina says "oh! I dread Jonathan leaving me" :(
And the delivery of those three "necessary"s is soooo good.
Man, the building energy of van Helsing's speech leading to "And now this is what he is to us!" and "shall make you like him! This must not be! We have sworn together that it must not!" also how he sounds like he is choking back tears when he says "to live in your own old, sweet way" and "men for whom His Son die"
His laugh is so wounded sounding
the drum as van Helsing describe what Dracula did to prepare
I love the sigh and refocusing in "But we are pledged to set the world free."
god, the way Mina says "unclean" with such disgust
"How strange it all is" Jonathan sounds so miserable
the music as Mina asks for his promise <3
Jonathan's hesitation to promise to deny Mina in the future.
How gentle their voices are
"I promise!" and as I said it I felt that from that instant a door had been shut between us." god this line. this delivery. agonizing...
the plea for a dreamless sleep is so sad. he sounds almost on the edge of choking up on the last word
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💞🦋🍉 Love you work Crys!
Thanks for the questions, Vee! 🫶🏻
💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language
I'd say the relationship between the characters is always my first priority - my fics typically aren't the most high concept (though I have one hopefully coming this year that challenges that a bit) so they kind of live and die by if the relationship is entertaining and most importantly, believable. Something interesting (?) about my process is once I have a basic plot spark, I immediately plan the smut (and there's even been times when I have the smut idea first and then build a story to facilitate that scene). I love using sex scenes as a way to show the inner workings and complexity of a relationship and so planning the smut early on helps me determine what kind of dynamic that couple is going to have outside of the bedroom. So I guess the relationship and figuring out how to portray that via smut is most important.
🦋what are you most insecure about when you post a fic?
Um, everything? 😂 Honestly I think the thing I get the most insecure about is I'm always afraid no one will read it! I'm not typically concerned about whether or not people like it, art is subjective and I'm at the point where as long as I like the story, I'm happy with it. But still, the goal of sharing is ultimately for other people to engage, so when it feels like that's not happening, it can be kind of nerve-wracking and sometimes discouraging.
Sharing fic now is also a lot different than when I started in 2020 - 5SOS Tumblr was a lot more active but especially the writing community, I swear there was at least one fic a day being posted, if not more. Feedback was relatively instant and plentiful and the main method of delivery was via reblogs (and tags) and every reblog essentially gave the fic new life and opportunity for more feedback because it was being put on people's dashes constantly. For whatever reason, reblogs are a rarity now (for example, my latest fic has 315 notes but only 33 of those are reblogs) so the amount of feedback I receive has also greatly diminished - obviously less reblogs mean less tags but also the post is getting seen by less people because it's not being shared. So it's harder to tell if people are actually reading the stories or not because there's less conversation about them. You used to be able to tell if a story was popular because it would be inescapable the first few days after it posted because everyone was reblogging it. Now people just stuff it in their likes so it feels like a lot less of a communal experience, I guess? So that's something I've had to get used to and learn not to let that "reception" dictate whether or not I consider a fic successful or not.
🍉in what ways has writing helped you process trauma and/or navigate through your own life?
It's funny, this is something I've actually discussed in therapy before (oh are we not all talking to our therapists about our fan fic adventures? 😂). I grew up in a very conservative, religious family and while I felt like I worked hard at the time to maintain a healthy attitude towards sex, my body and my view of myself as a woman (both independently and in a relationship), a significant part of my adult life has still been spent sifting through the subconscious shame and overarching trauma that resulted from spending my formative years in such a repressive environment.
Something I particularly struggled with was fear of being judged or perceived differently if I was open about anything regarding my sexual self. I wasn't prudish by any means in my private life but basically I got too good at masking that side of myself, essentially living dual lives, that my instinct was still to publicly project manufactured purity and shame even when I didn't need to anymore.
Even when I first joined Tumblr, I was hesitant to interact with the fics I was reading because it felt embarrassing being publicly associated with sexual content. And look at me now! Known for writing thirsty tags and smutty fic 😂 In all seriousness, writing and sharing the types of stories I write, plus having open discussions about them with others (with both commenters and friends), has been an immensely healing and rewarding part of my Tumblr journey that I really did not expect but am entirely grateful for.
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luvdsc · 4 years
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mark lee sucks at technology.
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tap the heart if you have a big, fat, embarrassing crush on your best friend!
pairing :: lee mark x reader genre :: fluff / best friend + social influencer au word count :: 5,883 words warnings :: none playlist :: dumb stuff (lany) ⋆ feeling (coin) ⋆ so far so good (gabrielle aplin) ⋆ electric love (børns) ⋆ love by mistake (bad suns) author’s note :: i was debating if i should post it on his bday instead, but i decided to drop it earlier, so uh, happy (approx. one week early) bday to mister absolutely fully capable (except when it comes to tech stuff) !!!! thank you for blessing us with your god tier raps ♡ ↳ part of the not clickbait series.
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In your required upper division business course aptly titled “Essential Marketing Strategies,” you had learned about a concept called personal brands. A personal brand is explained as the first impression a person wishes to perceive based on their own experiences, qualifications, and achievements. Your professor had told you and your classmates to pick three words to define your own brand. For instance, you chose to label yourself as charismatic, fun, and creative.
Your best friend’s brand would be awkward, endearing, and technologically challenged. 
Okay, so that is definitely more than three words, but who’s counting? You might as well tack on “Y/N’s big fat crush” at this rate because everyone and their mother knows that you carry a torch—or more accurately, a blazing wildfire that can easily be spotted from Pluto—for your best friend.
Well, to be more precise, you should probably say everyone, except Mark, knows. And that’s not for lack of trying either. You completely dropped the art of delicate subtlety months ago already. Maybe you should add “hopelessly oblivious” instead.
The rolling end credits to the sixth Harry Potter film are playing on the screen in front of you, signaling the nearing end of your magical movie marathon. You’re seated on the worn down couch in Mark and Donghyuck’s shared apartment, watching the former make his drink with the fancy, gently used Keurig newly settled on the scratched countertop. Johnny dropped it off a few days ago because he had splurged on a better coffee machine (“It even makes Instagram worthy whipped frappuccinos!”) and didn’t want his old, but still perfectly functioning caffeine provider going to waste.
“What’s wrong with this thing?” Mark slaps the side of the machine, and it starts to emit a low whirring noise. “Oh, that’s good, right? That sound is good, you think?”
His question is immediately answered by the sad squirt of hot water speckled with coffee grinds falling into his mug for a few seconds before the machine shuts off.
“What the hell?” he mutters angrily, carding his hand through his hair in frustration, and you finally decide to take pity on your best friend. Getting up from the comfy spot you know you sadly won’t be able to recreate perfectly again later, you stride over to where your best friend stands and flip open the top of the Keurig.
“Hyuck didn’t take out his used coffee pod,” you say, pulling out the incriminating evidence of your best friend’s roommate and disposing it in the trash can next to the refrigerator. “Where’s the espresso one you’re gonna use? Why didn’t you put that in?”
His jaw slackens, and he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, avoiding your gaze and mumbling, “I thought I’d just open it later and pour it into my hot water.”
“Mark,” you start, placing your hands on his shoulders firmly and staring into his eyes with a serious look on your face. “Please know that I’m saying this in the most loving way possible, but you are an absolute idiot.”
You release your grip on his shoulders and grab the espresso pod dangling from his fingertips before slotting it into the Keurig. You remove the mug he placed underneath the spout and wash out the accidental coffee water before placing it back in its original position and pressing the start button on the machine. With a sigh, you lean against the side of the counter, glancing at your friend who looks like a child being scolded for stealing from the cookie jar.
“If you pour the pod into your mug, are you just going to chug all the loose coffee grinds, too?”
“... I didn’t think that far ahead.” His lips start to unintentionally form a tiny pout, and your eyes (and your heart, too) soften.
You’re very relieved that Donghyuck is off filming with your friend because he definitely would be making fun of your heart eyes that frequently make an appearance around a certain Mark Lee. Which you always deny. Because you certainly do not have a gigantic crush on your technologically inept best friend.
You glance over at him again and have to physically fight yourself to resist the urge to kiss his cute pout away. Okay, so maybe you harbor a very respectable, medium sized crush. But it's no big deal. It’s completely under control. Unless you’re counting the fact that your best friend is still unaware, and you’re running out of ideas to try and see if he likes you back before you actually shoot your shot. Then it’s very much not under control because you’re losing sleep over it and you don’t know what to do to be any more obvious without stating the, well, obvious.
“Well, now you know. If you forget, you can FaceTime me and I’ll give you instructions on how it works.” You pat his shoulder reassuringly before pausing. “Wait, you do know how to FaceTime, right?”
“Yes!” he exclaims, sulking even more before confessing in a quieter, defeated tone, “Hyuck showed me last month.”
Mark grabs his finished drink and follows behind you, settling back onto the couch next to you. The streaming service already has Deathly Hallows Part 1 in the queue and ready to go, and your best friend is ready to click play until he notices your attention being focused on the smaller screen in your hands. He wonders if you’re about to post another one of your popular cooking videos on that app that shares a name with the most iconic song of the 2000s (hint: the name of the song’s singer is made up of four letters and a dollar sign).
“Are you uploading one of your videos?” he implores before taking a sip of his drink with a satisfied smile. Somehow, it always tastes better when you make it, and he can’t figure out why for the life of him. When he went to Johnny’s place, his older friend uses the exact same pod and water ratio for his espresso, and yet, it’s never as good as yours.
“Nah, I’m ordering my grocery delivery before I forget. Do you want anything?” You select the option to load your usual grocery items into your cart before debating on whether or not you should splurge on buying several packages of those seasonal Pillsbury sugar cookies that only come in stock during certain holidays. It seems like such an insult to the entire premise of your Tiktok account based on baking and cooking, but you’re an absolute sucker for those soft pastries.
“Yeah, can you get me a Shin Ramyun ten pack? Hyuck ate the last one two days ago and didn’t tell me.”
“You sure you don’t want ten boxes again?” You decide to get those Pillsbury sugary delights, happily adding three boxes to your cart. Everybody has a weakness, and yours just so happens to be a premade one way ticket to diabetes. You’re here for a good, delicious time, not a long time.
“No! That was an accident!” He objects, flailing his hands around, before falling back against the couch cushions in defeat. “But Hyuck does all the online grocery shopping now.”
“Thank god. You guys finally have quality toilet paper again.”
The past month of bathroom occurrences was plagued with scratchy tissue that felt more like goddamn sandpaper from the horrible depths of hell. To be honest, you probably would have rather used actual sandpaper, given the choice. You even made sure not to drink too much water any time you came over, but today, you decided to splurge on a venti passion fruit iced tea with sweetener from that very popular franchise sporting a mermaid logo and fiscally cosmic name. To your pleasant surprise, your trip to the toilet this time was wonderfully padded with Charmin Ultra Soft, not that absolutely awful off brand one with the gross texture of a dried pinecone from inferno.
“Hey, that toilet paper was a good steal! It was a three for one deal,” Mark protests, and you narrow your eyes at him.
“Wow, I wonder why it was priced so low.” You deadpan, and Mark blanches, recalling all those restroom incidents that were rather rough. Literally.
“Anyway, do you think my viewers wanna see me make chocolate crinkle cookies or mochi doughnuts?” You bring up the two recipes you managed to perfect and add your own spin to on your phone, eyes scanning the ingredient lists.
“Both. And tell me when you’re making them, so I can come over and eat them.” He gives you a wide grin, and you let out a snort at that. His smile only grows as he says happily, “I love your job.”
“You only love it because you can freeload off of me,” you jest, but nevertheless begin to start to add all the ingredients for both recipes to your shopping cart. You always film cooking videos on Tuesdays, edit on Wednesdays, keep Thursdays free for last minute touch ups and emergencies, and post one every week on Fridays with other various random videos uploaded whenever in between. With that in mind, you schedule your upcoming grocery delivery for Monday.
“Hey, you need me. I’m the best taste tester.” He puffs up his chest proudly before hastily tacking on a more genuine reason. “And because I’d starve without you. I can’t live off of instant ramen and frozen chicken nuggets forever. Gordon Ramsay already confirmed my shitty cooking skills. I need you to survive.”
“Oh my god, when I uploaded those pics of your scrambled eggs on Twitter, I lost like a hundred followers in less than a minute.” You confirm the delivery and place your phone on the coffee table, picking up the opened bag of Cheeto puffs before settling back in your seat. “My cooking credibility was completely shot. I had to explain to my fans that I didn’t make those.”
“Yeah, but now everyone calls me Eggy Boi online!” he whines, and you laugh. You have to admit, it’s quite a funny play on the whole “edgy boi” terminology. You wonder if Mark will find it amusing if he discovers his roommate is the culprit behind his new online persona (He probably won’t, and you reckon Donghyuck enjoys living in a safe space where he doesn’t have to sleep with one eye open, so you stay quiet about it. You’ll use it as leverage some other time).
“Okay, Eggy Boi, come by on Tuesday because I’ll be baking in the afternoon,” you say casually, grabbing the remote control from your best friend and pressing play. 
You very narrowly avoid a green gummy bear to the face. It lands somewhere behind the couch, lost forever to the dust bunnies and other snacks that missed its target. You know for a fact that it’ll stay there until the boys decide to move to a new apartment. Mark grumbles at the miss, biting off the head of a red cherry flavored gummy bear perhaps a little harder than necessary.
“I hate you. But I’m still coming over next week because I want a doughnut.”
“No cookie?”
“... and a cookie. Maybe two.”
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Wednesday comes faster than you expected, and you’re currently holed up in your apartment’s second bedroom—which you had transformed into a snazzy office space—completing the edits to your second video on mochi doughnuts. You already finished polishing the one about the cookies earlier, thank goodness. If you had to stare at your computer screen for another three hours, you would rather eat those pastries Mark tried to make two months ago, but had mistaken salt for sugar. Adding a cup of salt to any baked good is an extremely effective way to make anyone who tasted your best friend’s brownies experience a trip to the beach. Because they essentially just swallowed a mouthful of sand and ocean water. Because it’s salty as heck. Just like Mark was when you told him.
Speaking of your best friend, he’s currently puttering around in your kitchen doing god knows what. He knows better than to try another recipe and possibly blow up your number one moneymaker—your prized oven—in the process. Your heart nearly drops when your ears pick up the faint chopping sounds of a knife against your wooden cutting board. Is he going to try to temper chocolate again? He nearly burned through your entire stock of dark, milk, and white chocolate last time.
After much contemplation and deciding that you deserve a good procrastination break and a fully intact kitchen, you’re about to go out and see what he’s up to when Mark timidly appears in your doorway, clutching onto a white bowl of watermelon cubes with a fork tucked neatly in it. He shuffles in, dropping the snack on your desk before turning to walk out without a word, not wanting to disturb your work mode. 
Your heart warms up at the sight, and you speak up, a small smile slipping into your face. “What’s this for?”
“Knowing you, you probably haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.” He pauses in the doorway and adds on sheepishly, “And I can't cook anything, so this is what you get.”
Your heart swells tenfold, and your smile widens even more as you spear a piece of fruit with the fork and quickly pop it into your mouth. “Thanks, Marky.”
His cheeks flush with a pretty shade of carmine, and he fails to suppress the little giddy smile that appears on his face at your nickname for him. He walks out of your office, reddened cheeks still rising up higher than ever. “Y-Yeah, of course. No problem.”
By the time you finish adding the final few touches to your edited video, the bowl of watermelon has been picked clean. You save your video and transfer both of your completed projects to your phone, making a mental note to schedule their uploads and add them to your account’s posting queue later. Shoving your phone in the pocket of your sweats after ensuring the successful transfer of your videos, you pick up the empty dish and walk out towards the kitchen, the silver fork clinking against the side of the bowl with every step.
As you wash the dish and utensil, Mark wanders over from his spot on the couch, leaning forward and casually placing his chin on your shoulder. Almost instantaneously, you feel the heat rising to your cheeks as you briefly fantasize about your best friend wrapping his arms around your waist and how domestic and sweet the two of you would look, like one of those cheesy couples the two of you always made fun of.
“What’s up?” you ask, making a conscious effort to hold your voice steady and not waver over the fact that Mark is basically draped over you. After you place the dish on the drying rack, you turn around to face your best friend, sorely miscalculating the distance as mere inches separate your face from his now.
“I—” Puberty decides to make an ugly appearance in the form of an ill timed voice crack, and he internally curses as he takes a step back, willing the incoming blush to go away. Letting out a small cough, he tries again, scratching the back of his neck nervously.
“I, um, Jisung sent me some kind of dance video. He said it’s a challenge? I kinda don’t know what to do with it? Like do I make a new dance, record myself, and send it back? Actually, isn't it easier to just do a dance battle face to face?”
“Can I see the video?” You already have a good idea on what the video will be, but you want to confirm it. Mark fumbles with his phone, pulling up the video in his text messages. He angles the phone towards you for you to see, and you grab his hand, bringing the device a little closer to you for a better look and clicking play.
“Oh, it’s a Tiktok challenge! He’s doing the Say So dance!” you exclaim, recognizing the song almost immediately as your eyes follow the fluid dance moves, completely enthralled. “So a challenge isn’t going up against someone, like a battle. It’s just some kind of trend or concept that you try to copy yourself. You’re supposed to learn the same dance and record yourself for this one. I can show you some other challenges and help you practice and record this one tomorrow if you wanna drop by after work!”
“O-Oh, okay, sounds good.” Mark stumbles over his words, attempting to focus on what you’re saying and the dance Jisung is doing, but all he can think about is the way your body is pressed against his side, hand comfortably wrapped around his. He freezes up as the tips of his ears grow redder and redder with every passing second, and his face sports a similar color. He silently prays for the telltale crimson to go away by the time the dance is over.
When the video ends, you once again realize the close proximity between you and your best friend. Your face burns at this revelation, and you awkwardly take a step back. Clearing your throat, you hastily release Mark’s hand (He inaudibly lets out the breath he’s been holding in this entire time, yet he also already misses the way your hand felt grasping his).
“Uh, anyway, I’m gonna make a latte. Do you want a drink, too?” You walk towards the other side of your kitchen with Mark trailing behind you. You take out a floral, peachy colored mug from your cupboards before pausing and looking at your best friend. “Wait, do you remember how to use a Keurig?”
“Yes!” He says, slightly exasperated as he picks out his own cup from your cabinet. He always uses the same one—a cerulean blue mug with squiggles all over it—and all of your friends and guests know not to use it because it’s unofficially officially Mark’s mug (And perhaps, you did indeed buy it from that overpriced kitschy tableware shop down the street two years ago with your best friend in mind).
“Really?” You select the latte option and press start after you had already positioned the mug beneath the spout and inserted a green tea matcha pod. He finally relents, shoulders sagging and a defeated expression on his face.
“... No.”
You chuckle, taking the mug from him and carefully putting it on the counter. You grab the espresso pod you know he likes from the drawer below and place it next to the cup. “It’s okay, I’ll teach you again.”
Mark tries. He really does. He tries very hard to concentrate on memorizing the simple process, but he keeps getting distracted. His eyes are focused on the correct button to push before they start to trail up to your fingertips. And then, they go from your hand to your arm, then up to the elegant curve of your neck, and finally, to the way your lashes frame your pretty eyes and how the tip of your tongue sticks out slightly as you concentrate until all he can focus on is you, you, you.
Suddenly, in what feels like a blink of an eye, you’re done and handing him his finished drink, complete with a perfectly whipped milk foam on top. You ask him if he knows how to make it now, and all he can do is lie and nod with a barely convincing smile.
After all, how can Mark tell his best friend that the reason he never remembers is because you’re the biggest distraction?
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Mark should be here in five minutes, according to his most recent text message. And in the text message below that, your friend had sent you a challenge. More specifically, it’s the one she completed with Donghyuck a few weeks ago. When you said you wanted bold suggestions on how to figure out if your best friend feels the same way about you as you do about him, you didn’t want one this bold. 
Yet, the video link to your friend’s “today I kissed my best friend” challenge along with a winky face from her is staring mockingly at you. While you aren’t one to back down from a challenge, the mere thought of kissing your best friend causes vast colonies of butterflies to erupt in your stomach and your ears to feel as if they have caught on fire. You’re already tongue tied with your head in the clouds, and he isn’t even here yet. How utterly fantastic.
However, your mother definitely did not raise a quitter, so you spring into action when you hear the faint jingling of a key being inserted into your apartment’s door (You had given Mark a copy of your key almost immediately after you had moved in). You move the pretty indoor fern given to you by Jaemin as a housewarming gift last year closer to the edge of your towering bookcase, leaning your phone against it. You quickly position the device to capture a good view of the couch area in your living room and press the record button, arranging a few of the leaves to hide as much of your phone as you possibly can without obstructing the lens.
You run full speed to your bedroom, letting out a sigh of relief when you’re safely inside and hear Mark finally unlocking the door successfully and shuffling in. When he calls out to you, you try to even out your breathing, walking out of your room with your tripod and laptop in hand.
“Hey,” you greet him in the most casual tone you can muster. You place the tripod down and sit before opening your laptop and setting it on the coffee table. “I thought we could watch a few challenges for fun before trying the Say So one. Have you watched Jisung’s videos before?”
“Um, well, no, not really,” he confesses sheepishly, taking a seat next to you on the couch, leg pressing against yours. He squints at the YouTube video you pulled up earlier before he had arrived, reading the title before clicking the space button to start it. “Savage Tiktok dance compilation part two?”
“Wait, hold up.” You pause the video and then turn to face him with an incredulous expression on your face. “You’ve never watched any of Jisung’s dance Tiktoks?”
“No… I don’t even have an account.” His cheeks are dusted with the lightest shade of pink as he quietly admits, “I watch all of yours though.”
Your eyes widen at his confession, face heating up as you stammer out, “O-Oh, well, I can help you make an account later to upload your video.”
“Sounds good.” There’s a few seconds of silence as you mull over his previous words before he speaks up again awkwardly, “Should I, uh, play the video?”
“Oh! Yes, right! Of course, hit play,” you laugh nervously, twisting and playing with the hair tie around your wrist. He starts the video again, and the two of you watch the compilation, slowly relaxing once more as you tap your fingers to the rhythm of the song and he bobs his head to the beat.
“Do I have to change outfits like that?” he questions a few minutes later, eyes growing round as he sees the girl on the screen switch between four different outfits throughout the dance. His closet basically consists of the same five black shirts that he stole from Jaehyun. Even if he did do an outfit swap, there would literally be no difference at all.
“You don’t have to,” you assure him, clicking the enter key to play the next video that’s recommended: another Tiktok dance challenge compilation. “All you have to do is copy the dance.”
Mark nods, taking a glance at the laptop screen before his hand shoots out and he pauses the video, leaning forward to take a closer look at the little recommended video title banner at the top. “Wait! What’s that one?”
He clicks on it, the new video now loading up. The two of you wait patiently for it to begin, waiting for the spinning disc to stop. But it doesn’t. In fact, the whole chrome page goes blank and then, the little pixelated Google Chrome dinosaur pops up on your monitor, announcing that you have no internet connection. Furrowing your eyebrows, you try to reload the page before trying to re-establish your laptop connection to your wifi. Unfortunately, you cannot find your appropriately named “drop it like it’s hotspot” wifi anywhere to connect to.
And that’s when it hits you. Your landlord had sent out a notice to the entire apartment complex last week about the electricity being powered down today from 4 to 6 p.m. for a maintenance check, and a quick glance at the digital clock on your laptop shows that it’s a little past four.
You groan, closing your laptop and flopping back against the couch cushions dramatically. Mark cocks his head, slightly confused, before he pokes you in the arm. “What’s wrong?”
“I completely forgot about the scheduled electricity shutdown for the entire building. We won’t have any wifi for the next two hours.” You pout, your bottom lip jutting out in the slightest, and Mark doesn’t think it’s fair that you get to be this cute and have this much of an effect on his racing heart rate.
“That’s okay, we can… play some board games?” he suggests offhandedly, pushing away the embarrassing thought and nudging your leg with his, and you smile before a sudden idea occurs to you. 
“Or we can still do some Tiktok challenges! What was the challenge you clicked on?” You quickly sit upright, turning to face your best friend, eyes sparkling in excitement. “I memorized a few of the dance ones already! Was it Renegade? I can teach you that one. Jisung showed me how to do it.”
“Um,” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. His eyes dart everywhere, except you, as he lets out a feigned cough. “It wasn’t a dance one. It was about, uh, going up to your boyfriend… and um, hugging him... when he’s playing video games.”
“Oh.” You answer lamely, not knowing what to say. You unsuccessfully try to push away the image of you attempting that challenge with your best friend. “Those are really cute.”
“Really?” He says doubtfully, wrinkling his eyebrows and fiddling with the frayed sleeve of his sweater. “Wouldn’t the dude get mad?”
You don’t know what suddenly possessed you to do this (you’ll have to ask Renjun and his paranormal loving ass later), but you thank whatever demon did for that split second because you find yourself gently grabbing Mark’s arm and slipping your head underneath it. You swing one leg over his lap and settle down until you’re securely sitting in his lap, bent legs on either side of his hips, hands curled around the soft fabric of his sweater on both sides and resting on top of your thighs. His arms instinctively go around your waist, wrapping around you securely.
You tilt your head to the side slightly, studying the flustered boy in front of you with a teasing, albeit a little anxious, smile on your lips. “Are you feeling mad?”
Splotches of red litter his cheeks and decorate the tips of his ears, but your best friend furiously shakes his head at your question, bashfully ducking his head afterwards and muttering a soft “No.”
You swallow hard, heart pounding erratically in your chest as you timidly ask, “Would you be mad if I do this?”
Mark looks up at that, confusion written all over his face. His arms start to loosen around your figure, hands now resting on your waist. “If you do what?”
You take a deep breath. “This.”
You lean in and gently press your lips against his. Mark freezes in shock, and you quickly retreat soon after, gnawing at the inside of your cheek as you wait anxiously for his reaction. Your heart feels like it’s about to fall out of your chest and be buried six feet under.
A tiny noise of surprise belatedly escapes from him and crimson spreads across his cheeks like wildfire. His doe eyes are wide and sparkling, staring at you in bewilderment. Your best friend lets out a small laugh of disbelief before a full blown smile breaks out across his face. He gazes at you adoringly, breathing out softly, “I’m not mad at that.”
You perk up at that, draping your arms around his neck as you lean forward, beaming. “Really? You’re not?”
“Definitely not.”
This time, Mark meets you halfway, his lips slotting against yours perfectly and making you feel tingles up and down your spine. Your eyes are closed, and you are so hyper aware of the way his hands grip your hips, how he tugs you closer, and how his lips chase after yours. The number of butterflies from earlier multiply in your stomach, and you have ascended past cloud nine by now.
When the two of you break apart, your eyes flutter open, and you nudge your nose against his affectionately. The brightest grin blooms on his face once again, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck, muffling his little giggles and hiding the awfully vibrant cerise that rapidly blossoms on his face.
“Is this a good time to tell you congrats for completing your first challenge?” you say, resting your cheek against the crown of his head. You pull away when he lifts his head up, surprised.
“I wasn’t playing video games though,” he says slowly, processing your words and thinking back to the challenge that started this all.
“It was a different challenge. It’s the one that Hyuck did a few weeks ago,” you confess, and realization dawns on him, his face lighting up for a split second before a look of horror takes over.
“Oh, no. Is that why you had your phone recording on the bookshelf?” Mark asks, dread beginning to cloud his mind.
“Yes…” you say slowly, a little perplexed. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Oh my god, I ruined your video,” he moans, dropping his forehead onto your shoulder. “I saw your phone when I walked in and thought you were filming earlier and forgot to turn it off, so I turned it off for you.”
When the words finally register in your mind, you can’t stop the laughter from bubbling out of your throat, and he raises his head up to look at you with wide doe eyes at the pretty sound. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!”
You can’t stop laughing at the situation, and he looks at you worriedly, gnawing on his bottom lip slightly. You force yourself to calm down, a soft chuckle leaving your lips before you beam at him, leaning in and placing the softest kiss on the tip of his nose. “It’s okay, Mark. I’m not mad. That video wasn’t important anyway.”
“But still,” he whines before letting out a groan and slapping his hand against his forehead when the realization sinks in even further. “I’m such an idiot.”
“But you’re my idiot now, right?” you say teasingly, albeit a little shyly as well, as you reach over to tug his hand away from his face and lace your fingers with his.
“I mean, I kinda thought I was always your idiot,” Mark laughs softly and a little embarrassedly, eyes averted and cheeks turning pinker than ever. The largest grin spreads across your face at that, and you turn away slightly to hide it. You didn’t think your best friend can possibly be any more endearing, but he manages to prove you wrong every time.
“Well, then now you can add ‘Y/N’s boyfriend’ to your resume,” you say, and he fails to suppress the pleased smile appearing on his face at your remark, his rosy cheeks rising even taller than skyscrapers.
“So, uh, what sort of job description does that have?” He gazes at your intertwined hands in wonder, still completely giddy at the reality of you being his best friend and something more.
“Sharing hoodies, giving me attention, kissing, holding my hand, going on dates, you know, the basics,” you answer, squeezing his hand tenderly, and his doe eyes instantly light up. Mark feels a little bolder than before, and it shows when he grins widely and says:
“Can we do number three again?”
“Yes, we can, Eggy Boi.”
He wrinkles his nose at the name, disgruntled and unimpressed, as he crosses his arms over his chest, sulking. You let out a laugh before leaning in and crashing your lips against his. He immediately relents at that, enthusiastically responding and hugging you closer to him, and you can’t help but smile into the kiss as you feel his own smile appear as well.
At that moment, you decide that you want to change Mark’s personal brand. Because his should be “absolutely wonderful, positively amazing, a cute kisser, your boyfriend, and your bestest friend.” And yes, that is most definitely more than the allotted three words, but again, who’s really counting?
Certainly not you when you’re too preoccupied with kissing your best friend. Correction: best friend and new boyfriend.
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One new notification: donutkillmyvibe uploaded a new video!
moominjun commented:
so you’re saying the reason why we didn’t get the highly anticipated best friend challenge video is because @ marklyrawr turned the camera off?
donutkillmyvibe replied: yes 😔 I’m sorry to disappoint everyone 🤧
nanaislove replied: omg no bby it’s ok 🥺🥺💞💓💓💝💗 you didn’t have to make an apology video for that 🥺💗💓💘💖
goofys.chuckle replied: yeah it’s mark’s fault. he’s the disappointment here 🥴
morklyrawr replied: hahahahaha stfu hyuck
tytrack commented:
mark is going through puberty. I apologize
dobunny replied: @.@
goofys.chuckle commented:
are we getting whip(ped)lash pt 2 by eggy boi?
morklyrawr replied: YOU’RE THE ONE WHO STARTED THAT NAME?????
goofys.chuckle replied: uh gotta blast 🚀
showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle does this mean you’re staying over again?
goofys.chuckle replied: @ showmethemonet yes if you want your super cute, mega talented, very handsome boyfriend to still be alive 🥺
showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle oh my god I didn’t know I was dating bts jin???
moominjun replied: LMFAOOOOO
goofys.chuckle replied: heart 💔 been broke 📉 so many times ⏰ i don’t know 🤔 what to believe 💯 mama 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 said 🗣 it’s my fault 😢 it’s my fault 🤦🏻‍♂️i wear my heart ❤️ on my sleeve 💪 i think it’s best 👍🏻 I put my heart ❤️ on ice 🧊
jenojam commented:
why am I not surprised……
itsmebetch replied: just mark thingz 🍉
suhprisemf commented:
mark your head looks flat af
jungjaeprince replied: 😂😂😂
10vely replied: @ jungjaeprince be quiet don’t cry
letswonwon commented:
whoop whoop
junguwu commented:
OMG CONGRATS ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP SWEETIE 😍😍
takoyaki_prince commented:
MARK!!!!! you look handsome !! 😘
jisungpwark commented:
rip to @ donutkillmyvibe ’s future videos that mark will ruin. press f in the chat to pay respects 🙏🏻
bigheadking replied: F ✊🏻😔
peachyangel replied: f 🥺🥺
yoitslucas replied: F 🤪🤪🤪 but glad you’re happy, man ❤️
donutkillmyvibe replied: F 💔
morklyrawr replied: @ donutkillmyvibe wtf babe????
officialgordonramsay commented:
didn’t i tell you to get back on tinder ?
apado_god commented:
nice 😎👍🏻
3K notes · View notes
buckysgoldenheart · 4 years
Text
Late
Henry Cavill x Reader
Summary: Henry has a reputation that makes you cautious and it’s caused some disagreements. Everyone thinks you hate each other, but maybe you don’t as much as you let on. (fluffy ending, and idk, maybe angst depending on your definition).
Words: 2880
Notes/Warnings: I made this like mid-20s Henry during the Tudors filming, season 1. If I messed up with tenses somewhere, I’d like it of you let me know. I started this story out in the past-tense then changed it to present so I might have missed some stuff when editing, even after reading it 100 times over.
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At the sound of the doorbell, you hop up from your sunken spot on the couch. After the day you had, the Chinese food on the other side of that wood slab is the only thing with the ability to help you recover before you must face a fresh 5 a.m. morning with Henry tomorrow.
God, you want that man to fall off the face of the earth. You don’t care if his disappearance meant you would temporarily be out of a job. Being an assistant on the set of The Tudors was something you had strongly considered sacrificing in the past if it meant never having to work with one very particular, blue-eyed, temperamental actor ever again.
You almost quit weeks ago but told yourself to suck it up. You can’t afford to unintentionally cause drama at your workplace, not after your last job; and getting that kind of reputation is not what you are going for. Besides, filming for the first season is almost over, and you will gladly welcome the long break before everyone needs to report back for season two.
The smile you were fully prepared to give the delivery man falls entirely at the sight on the other side of the door.
“What the hell are you doing here,” You huff out.
Henry crosses his thick arms over his even thicker chest and frowns back at you. “I didn’t get my script.”
A headache is already forming just from his proximity and you don’t bother resisting the urge to rub at your temple. “Well, I sent it to your house a week ago.”
“And I didn’t get it, so clearly you didn’t do a very good job.”
With an eye-roll, you say, “Is there some reason you had to come all the way to my apartment and bug me for the script when I will see you first thing in the morning?”
“Everyone else will have had theirs longer, and I wanted to get a good start on learning my lines, so yes, I have a good reason for ‘bugging’ you, Y/N.”
You hate the way he says your name. It passes his lips so softly every time and makes your heart speed faster than your liking. If another man said your name like that, you’d fall for him in an instant, but no, Henry seemed to be the only man possessing that thick, honey-sweet voice.
“Whatever,” You groan and turn on your heel. In your office desk are two extra copies of each actors’ script for emergencies, but a simple text from Henry would’ve sufficed; this is hardly life or death.
‘Hey, never got my script. Can you bring a copy in the morning?’ So damn easy.
You turn your head back when Henry’s heavy footsteps hit your hardwood floors. “Hey, I didn’t say you could come in,” You snap, eyebrows drawn together.
“What kind of person would leave their guest outside?”
The sass in his tone makes you want to pull your hair right out of your scalp. “You’re not my guest,” You say, but your blatant aggravation does nothing to hinder him and his body is a foot away from yours before you know it. Inches he has on you forces you to look up just to meet the smirk on his face.
“Stop acting like you hate me,” He says as he reaches a hand to grab yours.
“Excuse me?!” You quickly swat that hand away. “I am not acting like anything! Any negative feelings you are sensing from me are one hundred percent genuine.”
Henry scoffs and crosses his arms once again. “Oh, please.”
Your jaw drops in disbelief. He is unbelievable. Everything he does, everything he says, everything he is has had the power to make your whole body shake since the day you met him. “God, I can’t stand you!”
Walking away from him for the office, he follows close behind. “You know what, you’re not all that great either!” He yells at your back as you open the drawer of your desk to shuffle through the scripts. “You yap all damn day, talking to everyone else on set and making them laugh! You shoot that pretty smile in any direction and people flock to you like deranged birds!”
“So!” You pull out the script and hand it to Henry. Without giving it a glance, he snatches it from you and tosses it back on the oak wood surface of the desk.
“So? You’re distracting them from their jobs! We could probably get things done twice as fast if you weren’t around!”
“That’s—”
“And you are annoyingly beautiful!” He harshly interrupts. “Annoyingly! The men we work with will not shut up about it and I’m sick of listening to them talk about you the way they do! I end up hearing your name more times in a day than I hear my own, and I get called upon every five seconds! I’m practically forced to think about you!”
You blink at the increase in volume that makes the thin walls of your home quiver.
“I don’t know how many times your face manages to flash in my mind in the course of a week, but it’s starting to get to me!”
Your hands rise in disbelief before they slap back down to your sides. “That’s not my fault! But you’re one to talk! You’re well aware you’re ridiculously, unnaturally hot, and I fucking hate it! The women we work with won’t shut up about you. And you think I’m annoying? Imagine being surrounded by a pack of idiots that go on and on about how amazing you are, when the truth is, you’re so arrogant I can’t stand to be within two feet of you!”
When you try to walk past him, his hand wraps tightly around your upper arm. “Hey!”
“Leave me alone! I hate you!” You snarl at the rage in his eyes and try to shake him off you.
“You don’t hate me.”
You glare up at him. “Oh no?”
He gapes at you, seemingly stunned you have the gall to challenge him. The grip on your arm loosens until you are free. Winding his fingers through his chocolate locks, Henry shakes his head and clenches his jaw. “You are so...”
“So what? So irritating? So infuriating?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“If I’m such a problem, then go.” Ignoring his words, you point a finger in the general direction of the nearest exit.
“You want me to leave?”
“Yes! Of course, I do!”
He quirks an eyebrow and cocks his head. “So you’re going to grab me with your tiny hands and throw me through the front door, is that right?”
“I can’t fucking lift you!” You yell.
“Then I’m staying!”
“I think you’re really not! You can’t just demand to stay here! That’s not how this works!”
“Why can’t you just—God damn it!” He stomps his way back into the living room, script forgotten, and reaches for the doorknob. You follow him and let out an exhausted breath of relief, but Henry whips around to you again before you have time to revel in the feeling. “You know what, no. I’m not going anywhere until we settle this bullshit between us. I’m not going to argue with you anymore. I’m not going to act like I dislike you. I’m not going to keep playing this game, because it’s clearly not getting me anywhere; in fact, it’s doing the opposite.”
“Getting you anywhere?” You mumble.
“This whole thing is fucking bullshit and I’m over it.” He swallows. “Tell me what I did.”
“What?”
“You keep saying you hate me but have never given me a reason, so what did I do?”
Your jaw drops. “Are you kidding? You were just telling me I suck at my job, yet at the same time you don’t think I have a reason to be mad. You glare at me during work, you act like I’m an inconvenience, you—”
“That’s not what I mean.” Henry grabs your hand, and for a reason you couldn’t place, you allow it this time. “At the beginning, when we met, what was it that caused a problem between us? I’ve gone over our first meeting in my head about a thousand times and cannot figure out how I upset you so much that you’re still mad after months.”
You slip your fingers out of his palm, looking to the floor.
“Please just tell me,” He begs. “Please, I--”
“You sleep with the women you work with.” You spit out.
When he stares at you in confusion, you wince and say, “I have this friend…kinda. She was an extra on Hellraiser and claimed that you slept with nearly every woman on set, herself included. When I told her I got this job she said you’d probably try to get in my pants if I wasn’t careful, and I’m not cautious enough about men as it is, so—”
“You were mad at me before we met for something I didn’t even do?” He isn’t angry or looking at you like you’ve lost your mind; more like he can’t believe that was all it was. As if he had a simple solution to the problem that planted its roots deep into the both of you months prior.
“Whether or not you did, it’s not like you’ve been an angel to me anyway,” You say.
“Because I fucking panic when someone I want doesn’t want me! And you’ve made it very clear that you do not want me! You always seem so angry and…and I’m not very smooth, ok!? I say shit I don’t mean!”
“So you do want to get in my pants?”
“No!” He says quickly, then after a beat, sighs. “Yes.”
You give no response, so he continues.
“I swear, despite how idiotic I have acted, I really like you, and I don’t know who your friend is or why she would tell you I slept with a bunch of women on set, but I didn’t.”
You have to look away from him. His eyes hold too much sincerity and all it does is confuse you. You have spent too much time pissed to feel comfortable with the idea that it was potentially all for no reason, so you hug your arms across your middle and take a step back from him.
“Y/N, we need to talk about this.”
You shake your head. “I can’t right now.”
“Y/N—”
“It’s late, Henry. I’ll see you in the morning.”
You won’t meet his stare but can see from your peripherals his head slowly nod. You don’t look up until your front door closes softly behind him.
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You spend the earliest hours of the next morning sipping coffee before everyone else arrives for work, wondering if the night before actually happened or if it had just been a very realistic messy mix of a dream and a nightmare.
The sun rises and you watch as it ascends each inch until it’s planted high enough in the sky to warm your skin. He’d be here soon, looking for you, wanting answers for any questions you hadn’t given him the chance to ask.
So, what, he likes me now? He wants me? You can’t wrap your head around it. But you suppose it makes as much sense as you saying you hate him when really what you’ve been is nervous. You don’t want to be used again by some man with more power than you. Pulling yourself out of that hole was hard enough and you have no desire to trip and fall right back in.
“Y/N. You’re here early.”
You jump at the first voice to interrupt the peaceful silence. It was the last moment you’ll have to yourself for the next fifteen hours at least.
Turning your head, you smile at your boss. “Morning, Em.”
“Henry’s here early, too,” She says. “He asked me to let him know when you came in, but seeing as you’re already here, you think you could just head to his trailer now?”
No, you want to say. I’m not ready. “Sure.” You half-heartedly smile, dumping the last of your coffee in the nearest trash can.
Each crunchy step along the gravel to Henry’s trailer feels less sturdy than the one before. Though, he isn’t in his trailer when you find him, but standing out in a grassy patch, throwing a ball to Em’s dog, Leo. It makes your heart pump hard to see him so casually soft. It’s the first time you are looking at him when his eyes aren’t already on you.
Leo loyally returns the ball to Henry three more times before you gather the nerve to step up to his side.
“Em said you wanted to see me.”
You notice him hold in a breath when he registers your voice, then tossing the ball once more, he says, “I’d have gone looking for you myself if I knew you were here.”
You nod, but you’ve yet to look at one another.
“The makeup artists are gonna have a blast today trying to make me look decent,” He says.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t sleep all night. I spent it trying to figure out what to say to you but came up short.”
You scratch behind Leo’s large ears when he nudges your legs with his head. Henry gently grins, though you don’t see it. You shrug. “At least you don’t have as many scenes today.”
Henry chuckles. “That’s true.”
“I couldn’t think of anything to say to you either,” You say.
A moment passes as he blows out a deep sigh.
“Y/N…I don’t want to act like it didn’t happen. I know that’s what is easiest, but I meant what I said. The good parts, not the shit about you sucking at your job. You’re the best at your job.”
Finally meeting his eyes, the corners of your lips curve up just a bit.
“But I don’t expect you to feel the same about me.”
“Henry…”
He shakes his head and throws the ball for Leo after the pups persistent whimpering. “I’m not going to make things hard for you. Filming is almost over anyway and if you want, I’ll try to bother you as little as I can. I’m sorry I’ve been an ass, it’s just…you like everyone around here except me, but I’ve liked you more than anyone else since the moment we met. It’s no excuse--”
“It’s ok.”
He looks at you. “It’s not.”
“It is.” Without thinking, you place a hand on his arm. He stares at the touch you give him as you continue. “I didn’t have a good reason for treating you like I hate you, not really.”
“So, you don’t…hate me?”
“…No.” You look away in shame. “And I have a better explanation for that.”
He blinks, clearly relieved that every horrible thing he figured you felt for him was not, in your heart, the truth. “You don’t owe me one.”
“I slept with my boss once,” You rush out. “And, um…got the same warning as I did with you: sleeps with the other women he works with, will try to do the same with me. He did and I let him because I thought he liked me, but…no. All it did was make me feel like an idiot in the end.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I made a mistake.” You shrug. And suddenly, admitting that out loud, confiding in someone, knocks some of the painful gears in your head loose. You’d never told anyone the truth about your past. “Look, this is going to sound really odd but,” You swallow. “…Don’t stop bothering me.”
“Wait,” He turns his body fully to you. “What?”
Your lips thin, but then you smile, inch up on your toes, and go to kiss his cheek. All you wanted to do was provide a little reassurance, to let him know that you now forgive every misunderstanding between you, but the kiss lands a little too far to the right and covers the end of his mouth.
Immediately, you pull back a few centimeters and feel heat flushing your cheeks, but Henry tilts his head the slightest. He takes a breath, giving you a chance to pull back further, but when you make no move to abandon him, he connects your lips again.
It feels good. He feels good. So good it shocks you how much you don’t want it to end. And when you part your lips and his tongue touches yours, you can’t stop your hands from sliding up his chest before roping around his neck and tugging him closer. Only then does he greedily grab at your hips, his fingers digging into your flesh through the fabric of your t-shirt.  
Leo’s bark separates you minutes later, though you’re reluctant to allow it. You glance at the dog, chuckling at his rapidly wagging tail as he watches the scene before him. But when you look back to Henry, his eyes are already glued to you, their hue a little brighter and a small smile on his face.
“I’ll bother you as much as you like,” He says and tucks a wayward strand of hair behind your ear.
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*reposted for tag testing reasons. 
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ifwallscouldtalkkkk · 3 years
Text
Ashton's Coffee Shop Flirt [Part 1]
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Female reader x Ashton Irwin
SFW, but contains some swearing
____________________________________
After being stood up for a date several times at the small coffee shop that your friend-of-a-friend Ashton works at, he sits down with you to keep you company after closing hours
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"Still a no-show?"
His words snapped you out of the trance you had been put in by the buzzing of the coffee machines and the gentle clinking of porcelain cups.
"Uh, no. I mean, yeah. Still a no-show." You replied.
Ashton stood leaned over at the counter, scribbling circles on a little notepad by the cash register.
"It's almost closing time, so unless he comes sprinting in in the next 30 seconds, I think his time is up. What is this, the 3rd time?" Ashton asked.
"Well, the first time it was an actual emergency, so I don't think I should count that one", you stated. You had matched with a guy on Tinder who seemed really keen on meeting you, but he had yet to actually show up to any of your coffee dates. The first time, he actually had ended up in the ER for a ligament injury, and he had sent photos from the hospital explaining that he was really sorry and that he would turn up if the ER visit went swiftly. It of course didn't, it's an ER. The other 2 times it seemed to just have been unfortunate coincidences, but your excitement had definitely faltered, especially with his habit of not contacting you explaining that he won't make it until long after the planned meetup time. Still, you weren't really the busy bee of the century, so the long days at the coffee shop hadn't been too torturous. As head barista, Ashton had had the privilege to witness all 3 instances of you spending the majority of your day sitting in his coffee shop, patiently waiting for someone that would never show up.
Ashton made an amused skeptical face at you. "You know what, let's give him one last chance", he said. "I'm not in a rush, let's give him the chance to do the romantic-airport-last-minute-chase-down."
He ripped the cap off of a large marker pen with his teeth and started writing something on a notebook paper. When he finished, he recapped the marker and dramatically unveiled his masterpiece to you.
《CLOSED FOR TODAY, UNLESS YOUR NAME IS MARK SOMETHING AND YOU'RE LATE FOR A VERY IMPORTANT TINDER DATE (PLEASE YELL VERY LOUDLY AND WE'LL LET YOU IN)》
You rolled your eyes in a smile while Ashton pulled the blinds shut and taped the handmade sign on the outside of the door. After locking the door, he plopped down on the couch next to you, before immediately shooting back up on his feet. "Wait, want anything to drink?" He asked. You looked down at your long-empty latte mug, and sloshed around the tiny bit of foam left at the bottom. "I don't think I should have any more caffeine today", you replied. He raised his hands in an "ok"-sign and disappeared behind the coffee bar counter for a short while.
The reason you were even in this coffee shop in particular was because Ashton and you had a mutual friend who swore by this location being the very best place for first dates. Something about chakras and auras circulating perfectly in the building... To be honest, you hadn't really listened that closely during that part. Now that you had spent some time here, you seriously doubted the chakra part, and you were pretty sure that the real magic was Ashton's way to light up the place with good vibes. During your long hours here, you had never once seen anyone leave without a smile or at least a smirk on their face. Even when the newly hired barista got an order slightly wrong at times, Ashton's way of interacting with customers was just too sincere and charming to leave anyone upset. Even the music was different. Instead of the typical calm playlists you tended to find in other coffee shops, Ashton used his own playlists made up of every genre out there and then some. It wasn't unusual to glance over and see Ash singing along to whatever song was playing, or see him grabbing the occupied hands of his coworkers and forcing them to do a little goofy dance with him.
Ashton came back with a coffee cup for himself and a plate of cookies and sat down. "Leftovers", he said. "Would be a shame to throw them out." You grabbed one gratefully.
"So this Mark guy, what makes him so special?" Ashton asked between sips. You furrowed your brow in thought for a few seconds before replying. "I don't actually know an awful lot about him. He seems very driven, and confident. I guess it sort of flatters me that he would think of me as worthy of his attention", you replied, your words sounding a bit more pathetic that you intended. Ashton chuckled. "You're kidding, right? I've seen like several people staring at you like you're their blushing bride while you've hung out here. You know, Jacob, the coffee bean delivery guy? I've had to start running and catching him out back before he has a chance to come in because the guy ends up drooling like a zombie if he sees you. You're quite the chore to hang out with, you know?" He paused for a split second before adding "no, sorry, that came out wrong. I didn't mean you were a bother, but you for sure don't have a shortage of suiters, little girl."
You looked at your hands holding your cookie and chewed it slowly in thought. Seriously? You knew you weren't a complete lost cause or anything, but you had never really noticed anyone straight up ogling you in public. You guessed that it was technically possible that you were just blind to it, but the thought still felt surreal and uncomfortable.
"Uhh well I know I'm not the best at accepting compliments, but that still sounds like some grossly exaggerated bullshit, Ash." His smile widened and he let out a scoffing chuckle. His lowered his face and tilted his head with searching, focused eyes to coax you to make eye contact again. It worked.
"Hey", he began, with his eyebrows raised in a smug but caring expression. "You're pretty, ok?" Your instant reflex was to scrunch your face up in a cringing reaction. "Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh, none of that. Try again" he objected. You tried your best to hold eye contact and not squirm when he repeated himself. "You're pretty. You're a pretty girl." He dramatically grabbed your face with both his hands and shook you gently for comedic effect. "You're a nice, sweet, person. You're hot, and this Mark guy can fuck right off."
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To be continued...
Part 2 out now!
Heyy! Sorry for this chapter being uneventful. I was gonna continue it further, but the next part will basically be pure smut so I thought I could split it into 2 pieces for those who don't like that stuff. Lmk if you'd rather have it be one whole thing or if splitting it is ok.
Again, the next chapter will continue this particular story and will be PURE SMUT
ifwallscouldtalkkkk MASTERLIST
46 notes · View notes
mik0bastard · 2 years
Note
31 and 53
Sorry it took me so long to get to this, exam season is killing me
53. What dirty talk actually turns you on? Is there anything that makes you cringe?
Great question this might be a long one. Growing up, a lot of my sexual education/exploration came in the form of erotica and audioporn rather than visual stimuli, so I love the verbal aspect of sex. To me, the person who's talking is the person in control, so when I'm in a more submissive role I like when a person can hold the space on their own and put me in a position when I don't have to be so verbal. I'm into degradation, I like being condescended and stuff idk, honestly I think as long as the other person doesn't sound like they're trying too hard, or mentally drawing from a word bank of shit everyone's already said before I'll probably enjoy myself. Because yeah, "you little slut" is fine I guess, but if it doesn't sound like something you would say and if the delivery feels like it's something you just heard in a porno, it's an instant turn off for me. Switch it up, give me something personal. To be fair though I'm aware other people are at a disadvantage because of how well Martin knows me and our pack of boundaries. Plus he could say literally anything about the fact that we're siblings and it puts me over edge 😭 he's also a really creative person and has no problem fully commiting to saying whatever pops into his head while we're going at it, which I love.
Also this is worth noting because I have no idea the next time I'll be able to talk about this, but holy shit I was listening to an audio once, and normally I don't like listening to people just jerk off, but by the end of it the guy was just rambling all this super desperate, degrading shit and it was disjointed nonsense honestly, "I hate you, I just want you to need me like I need you, I want you to hate this more than I do... just be good why can't you be fucking good you stupid fucking cunt just be what you were supposed to, just be my cunt... I wanna beat you, I wanna dig my nails into your flesh and leave marks that never go away. I wanna put cigarettes out on your tongue, I really do, fucking hate cigarettes and I still want to. I'll make you smoke just for the occasion just to hear you cough." Like it's so, specific and desperate and personal to him that it really had an impact on me.
Sorry that was really long and probably doesn't make a lot of sense? But I just have so much to say and zero desire to organize my thoughts rn 😭 I love the question though
31. What’s the best orgasm you’ve had in the past few months?
This is honestly kind of difficult for 2 reasons:
1. I nut a lot, like multiple times a day so they kinda blur together
2. when I use a vibe I tend to give myself ruined Os instead of fully going through with it and I have absolutely zero clue why. I don't get off on the idea of ruins for myself (I do like ruined Os for men though), I think it just gets so intense toward climax that I turn the vibe setting down and end up not reaching peak. There's probably also an element of me wanting the actual masturbation to last longer because idk I like the build up more than the O
But if I had to pick a strongest one, Martin fucked me while I used my vibe and that shit had me TWITCHING. It was a little cumbersome to use the vibe because I have an air pump one rather than a traditional vibrator, so we don't do this that often, but it's so good.
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cosplayingwitch · 3 years
Text
"Presentation is Everything"
Part two of "Finding My Way Home" series
Takes place 6-8 months after the last chapter
Prompt: flowers
Pairing: f!reader x Poe Dameron
Summary: Reader has graduated with their masters and had to leave their roommate/best friend/(crush?) behind as they go on to a doctoral program at a different university. Reader is about to present her work at a professional conference and an unexpected surprise calms her down.
Triggers: panic attack, slight stalker-ish behavior, these two being complete idiots, swearing
Tags: @make-me-imagine
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It’d been over six months since you’d seen your best friend, Poe Dameron. You were successful enough with your thesis (even while practically teaching a field class for Professor Solo) and graduated with your Masters degree. And with the help of Professor Solo’s recommendation, you'd gotten into your dream school for your PhD.
Which meant moving two states away from your best friend/roommate. Not exactly something you’d wanted to do, but this wasn’t an opportunity you could turn down.
When you’d told Poe, he was very supportive, but still sad about the whole thing. You’d definitely stay in touch, you insisted. There was social media, zoom, all of that.
“Plus we could always meet up somewhere between us!” you told him. “It wouldn’t be more than a couple hours for each of us.”
That didn’t mean you didn’t miss him. His random breaking into song at what could be described as the worst possible times. What he always described as his ‘fact of the day’, which always dissolved into a random string of thoughts. (He still sent you his ‘fact of the day’ via text, but it wasn’t the same without his commentary.)
Remembering the night you spent stargazing, you also realized you missed your chance to tell him how you felt. To outright ask him out on a date. You always rationalized the urge away as not wanting to ruin your friendship, as him probably not feeling the same way as you. Who knows if he was even into girls (or anyone at all). In the many years you’d lived together, he’d never brought someone back to the apartment you shared.
(That’s because he wanted you, your heart shouted at you, you’re an idiot to let that go. But your brain insisted there had to be other reasons.)
Either way, the research you’d done with Professor Solo didn’t just get you into your doctoral program. You’d be presenting at a research conference soon. On your own. (That was a theme with Professor Solo. He’d help you start something, then insist you do the rest of the work.) This was your first time even attending this conference, let alone presenting at one. My god, you thought. How am I supposed to do this? Alone?
This will go down in flames, the voice in your head continued. You’ll fuck it up and ruin your academic reputation. And then never get your doctorate or a job.
When you get to your hotel the day before the conference was set to begin, every worry you’d ever had was spinning through your head. All the ways you could screw up nearly had you in a panic attack. Oh god, you thought, please let me get to my room before I start hyperventilating.
But then, you entered your room to find flowers. Yellow roses with a hint of red. Your favorite.
There was only one person on the planet who knew that. Poe Dameron. But how did he know where to send the flowers? Was he stalking you? The card read:
‘For my friend who I haven’t seen in forever,
My friend who is likely in a panic attack,
My friend who will kill it with her presentation.
You don’t need it, but good luck.’
God, he could write. And it’d been six months and hundreds of miles, but he still knew you well enough to anticipate what you were feeling right now.
In an instant you had your phone out and were calling him.
“Well look who finally called. I guess the flowers did the trick?” Poe answered.
“How did you even know where to send them? I never told you where I was staying! Are you stalking me or something?”
Poe explained, “Well, while you didn’t tell me the hotel you were in, you did tell me every other detail about the conference. And their website had the ‘official hotel’ of the conference, so I figured you’d stay there. The office there wouldn’t say if you were, but did tell me I could get flowers delivered there and he’d make sure they went where they needed to go. I took the chance. Obviously it worked, you called me and I didn’t even leave my name on the card.”
“You could say that. Thanks, by the way. You were right, I’m starting to freak out. I’m presenting my research tomorrow. The stuff I did for my masters. All these other presenters already have their doctorates.” you reason with him. “Maybe I’ll get there someday.”
Poe about exploded through the phone. “MAYBE? MAYBE you’ll get that degree ‘some day’? I did NOT lose my best friend to another university three states away to ‘maybe’ get a degree. You WILL get it. Not tomorrow, but eventually.”
You couldn’t tell if he was angry, joking, or trying to encourage you. A mix of the three? Somehow it did feel like he was trying to give you a pep talk. Break you out of the panic setting in and focus you back on the goal. He knew how much you wanted this and he would never discourage you from going after it.
“Okay then. How about you tell me about what’s going on back home and take my mind off this whole thing.”
Oh god, you thought. You referred to where he was as home. I mean the university, you rationalize, the place where I just lived and studied for six years. Poe’ll probably think that’s the case anyway. You certainly did not mean him.
“Well, you know while you’ve been gone, I went and knocked off another thing on my bucket list. I’m a few weeks away from having my pilot’s license!” Poe stated, which sent you into a small laughing fit. You knew he’d always wanted to, but with his awful driving skills you never thought it’d actually happen.
“Good for you, I guess. Just be careful- I definitely don’t need my best friend dying in a plane crash.”
When you finally got off the phone with Poe, it was late. You’d had room service delivered while you were still talking, him likewise with delivery. In some ways, it was like you were back together again, having dinner on the coffee table while gossiping about the faculty and staff at the university. Who was having an affair, who was being suspected of plagiarism, whatever the next big scandal would be and how the university would cover it up this time.
It was just the thing you needed to make you relax. Your boyfriend best friend supporting you.
You stopped yourself. Not again. Poe was not your boyfriend. He was a friend and nothing more. And you certainly weren’t screwing that up.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, or maybe the bottom of your heart, you couldn’t help but think of him in a romantic way. That maybe your relationship with Poe could evolve into something more. Maybe even hope for that happy ending. After all, he could have just texted you good luck, but he chose to send your favorite flowers and a beautifully written card.
That would count as a romantic overture in your mind. If you were in some kind of cheesy rom-com with him, that is.
Friends. Nothing more. Nothing less. Friends. You remind yourself.
Friends.
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Poe kept running that conversation over in his mind for days. I was a fucking idiot for sending her flowers, he thought. The note was even worse. Both were definitely something romantic, but he didn’t want you to know that he felt that way about you.
Then you asked about ‘what was going on back home’. Home. Poe asked himself if you meant the university as home, you’d been there for more than six years. Or did you mean him? Your formerly-shared apartment? Was your intention to say you considered the apartment, and him as an extension, as your home?
God, Poe thought. I’m way over thinking it.
But what if she meant that in the same way I meant the flowers? He asked himself. Some kind of idiotic slip of the mind that was only there because of underlying feelings?
Her slip of the tongue wasn’t as bad as his flowers, but it gave him some kind of hope that someday you might actually be a couple, growing your friendship into something more. But he pushed this hope out of his mind as best he could.
After all, they were only friends. Friends only. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just really good friends who know each other's favorite flowers and things that could send them into panic attacks. Friends who lived and studied together for long enough to practically be family.
Home? Just the university they went to. And where he just happened to live, too.
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Author's Note: So I used this type of flower because they are my personal favorite, but then I decided to look up the 'meaning' behind them... I suggest you do the same... (not intentional, but a really nice coincidence for this)
Also, I'll be updating this again next weekend with posts on Saturday and Sunday. Let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters!
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onyourzeus · 4 years
Text
11:48 am | pjh
title: 11:48am pairing: park jaehyung (of day6) & you genre: fluff, bullet style words: 2.1k
author’s note: mmm i’m kind of meh about this but i jus really needed to write so i don’t lose motivation, but this is just a short fic requested by this anon asking for a lazy day scenario with jae. hope it’s still an okay read.
any requests? check my pinned post if i’m accepting any at the moment, thanks!
once you receive a specific text from jae on a regular day
“whatchu doinnnn” 
you know he’s wondering if you’re not busy, and if you come hang out at his place
which, for the majority of the time, you always tell him “not much. y?”
even though you’re 99% sure of what he wants out of you
you have already made your way to a coffee shop before he had replied 
“same. wanna do nothing together? :)”
so u get two coffees: one americano and one vanilla latte (as much as you want to cut down calories here, there is no way you can drink just water and espresso by itself
you decide on getting two sandwiches as well, it’s close to noon and there’s a high probability that jae just woke up and he hasn’t even moved from the bed
you’re lowkey happy that jae texts you first (assumingly) during days like this because, honestly you miss the 6 foot lanky nerdy soft boy a lot
jae has a habit of keeping to himself during his downtime, especially now 
but with him streaming and having new friends through the platform has helped him socialize and feel a sense of normalcy from the world, which you are really glad for 
he’s mentioned how much he misses doing band activities but doesn’t really elaborate on them
he think he talks about it too much and that you wouldn’t want to hear his repetitive whining
you don’t have the needed bravery in your heart (yet) to tell him you will never get bored or feel burdened by his thoughts, no matter what they entail
so for now, when he asks of your presence in his lovely abode— you make time for him. always. 
even if it’s just a lazy day of doing nothing
you knock on his door and text him at the same time. you look around his neighborhood and enjoy the peace and quiet outside. you wonder if jae’s soundproof walls work well enough for his next door neighbors this time. you had told him multiple times that sungjin wouldn’t appreciate the noise too much, and he if he wanted to play he can do so at your place 
however you never suggested that last thought. it swam in the sea of your thoughts one too many times but it never came to shore. you thought too much about the implications of that idea
besides, what good came out of reminding him of his streamer noises is that he finally has an apartment of his own
and you don’t feel as shy or out of place whenever you came over to the one he shared with the boys 
“oh hey, wasn’t expecting you,” jae had opened the door and you snap out of your wondering
he greets you with drowsy eyes, a full yawn and long strands of hair sticking out everywhere 
you huff out a breath and show the goods in your hands. “you’re definitely gonna need this.”
his eyes light up as he recognizes the contents of the paper bag
“whaaaat you shouldn’t have, i was about to order for delivery,” he tries for an innocent tone but the goofy smile on his face makes that extra trip to the cafe worth it
“you’re welcome, jae.”
lazy days with jae come in two ways
number one: absolutely the title. you crash on the bed, he scolds you for it but then you feel his crushing weight on top of you for revenge or
you hog the couch, splay your legs until jae does the same thing and entangles all your limbs together it becomes a semi wrestling match
number two: he’d end up wanting to do something all this time, either jam on his guitar or play WoW with you in the background, just watching
commenting on things you have 0 knowledge about, and him dismissing every words you say with a random scream from his end
“you’re so bad at this lmao”
“NONONO STOPSTOPSTOP NONONO”
“is the riff supposed to sound like that? ew” 
“you want your face to meet my guitar? :)” 
yeah, banter between you can be brutal like this which is why it gets a little embarrassing to be your true self with him when the others are involved 
today, jae seems to just enjoy sipping on his iced coffee while tippy tapping on the floor to sit next to you on the couch
??? how can a grown man do something puppies so effortlessly pull out… just as cute if not even better??? 
usually, silence isn’t how the two of you spend lazy days together. once he’s thought of a topic to talk about, however out of this world or mundane it could be— the conversations you share are what you cherish the most bonding with jae
“you ever think about the first piece of a roll of sliced bread?”
“you mean the weird looking pieces no one ever chooses first and leaves it there until there’s none of the good slices left?”
“the very one” “what about it?”
“you’re that slice of bread”
“well yeah? jokes on you, you’re the OTHER piece. there’s two in a pack dumbass” 
one would mistake this as insulting, but this is how jae shows his affection to you, and you wouldn’t want it any other way
there’s a certain comfort in just.. not deliberating whether you’d overstep a line or say something that would be misconstrued. with jae, you appreciate the candid friendship you mutually benefit from
his sarcastic personality can be a pain at times when not needed, of course, but when you’ve missed him so much it just feels right
“jae your legs are too long for the couch get a new one.” he had taken over the other end of the couch with his legs over yours, and you’re trying your best to make the position comfortable
but being inches close to his socks and noticing that he’s intentionally moving his feet about just to annoy you
“you get me a new couch so we both fit here”
“bro do you know how empty my wallet is rn” 
“as empty as your love life?”
“oh we’re talking about ourselves right now? ok cool”
he scoffs at your comeback, but he remains speechless and gives you room to breathe. you panic for a second thinking maybe, this is the unexplained boundary he has to draw a line on? love? 
but he puts down his already finished americano, and looks back at you a deadpan expression
you sit up as well, nerves creeping up on your arm. you didn’t want to take it too far and in your defense, this isn’t the first time you teased each other about your, well, non-existent romantic endeavors
“jae, i—”
“oh my god did you see your face?? i was kidding chilllll” he starts to burst into a fit of laughter, the kind where he loses air and lolls his head back 
this time you pout, reaching over to flick him on the forehead. his 6th sense had improved a lot overtime being with you as he blocks your hand away from his face, and sticks a tongue out
“you think i wasn’t prepared for that anymore?” he taunt, locking his grip around your wrist
“now you’re just making fun of me” >:(
“you get really puffy cheeks and look adorable when you’re mad” 
“THAT IS NOT A VALID REASON!!”
eventually he lets you go, pats your head then proceeds to just ruffle it as messy as his, and in an instant your mood changes again
you shouldn’t lie to yourself anymore, you love jae’s company and it would kill you if he’d one day decide he’s too old or too “mature” for moments like this
you get winded up with denial of having a crush on your best friend, and you’re so sure he knows at this point
because he reels you back into the present and challenges you to a game os super smash bros
and when he loses, he does it again. and you win again, and this time he says it was just a warm-up and he shouldn’t go easy on you anymore
and then you win again, and you’re the one cackling in the air at his look of defeat as well as the 6 losses he had endured during the matches
“man you’re getting rusty”
“am not! i’ve just been playing WoW too much i’m not used to switch controls anymore…”
“sure buddy”
“HEY, 1v1 me in league right now, i dare you”
“no”
“WHY?”
“you only have one desktop, stupid. i didn’t bring my laptop”
“oh so by default I win :D”
nothing can ever get away with jae, he always needs to have the last laugh with you and at times it’s frustrating, but his carefree charisma has grown on you so much that you anticipate what else he has in store to give you a hard time 
jokes on him, you fall for jae just an inch deeper the more he treats you comfortably this way 
it’s only been an hour or two, but jae had decided that he’s done enough productive stuff for the day (read: losing too many times) and invited you over to chill on his bed
it’s not an uncommon sight for the both of you to lie next to each other, taking turns with queueing up music on spotify. songs you and jae love together, and those that are new to your ears 
sometimes, you’d talk over the playlist— it becomes more of background noise as jae asks you about your day, the days before that, and what you’re planning on doing in the future
he doesn’t ask for specific answers, he likes to hear how you’ve been feeling, emotionally so
jae has always been intrigued by other people’s perception of themselves, of the things around them, and of what they think of the universe in the back of their minds
it was a little too much to handle, those questions of his, when you first were just getting to know each other
but he eased into it naturally, confessing about his love for the moon— its beauty in appearance, and the beauty of its purpose
which made you think… you’re in love with the moon too, not just what you see in the sky
but what you see right next to you right now
jae had given you enough time before to open up about your own thoughts, struggles, and share secrets with him. it didn’t take long until you found the trust between you and held onto it for dear life
lazy days with jae can be just that— lazy, loafing around the house, stealing a chip or two from each other’s bag, falling asleep to the sound of lofi music on the speaker
but it can go this way too: with jae explaining how good this one song can be, the metaphors every verse carries with the melody. “you’ve always heard of chocolate eyes or whatever, but blueberry? and to describe the setting sun as strawberry skies? amazing, GENIUS” 
and you laugh, and listen to the same song over and over as per jae’s request until he overpowers the original vocals— and you don’t complain, there’s not a sound you love to hear on a lazy afternoon than his low register, the kind of singing he does just for the heck of it. he’s not exerting too much range, too much work on the words he sings— he’s just doing so to comfort him, to bring life to the room, to dwell on each poetic verse’s meaning
i’m so lost in your blueberry eyes
he finishes singing, and the playlist shuffles to an instrumental lofi track with an upbeat, charming rhythm to it
jae keeps his eyes closed, smiling to himself probably proud for his faux performance
“you done gloating in your head yet, jae?”
“shut up i’m feeling the moment”
you poke his shoulder with yours, and you’re suddenly hyper aware at how close the two of you are.. physically, right now
he turns his head towards you, eyes fluttering, lips slightly open. he catches you staring, and it’s too sudden for you to look away and pretend it’s not awkward at all
“what are you doing?” he asks, a lilt of teasing on his voice but his eyes never leave yours 
“sh..shut up,” you quip in a small voice, looking down on your laying bodies before turning away, cheeks warm
“wait what? what i was asking a genuine question—”
“i was.. feeling the moment, okay? god jae you’re annoying” you mutter under your breath, a lousy response to cover up the pounding in your chest
“this moment feels really nice, doesn’t it?” he says next to you, quiet but gentle
you pause for a second, taking in his words and letting go of the smile you’re trying to hold off on
your heart is still racing, but there wasn’t a need to worry about stumbling with your feelings
if jae himself is enjoying your own company right now 
“it is. if it’s with you, it really is.”
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chronicbatfictioner · 3 years
Text
Exchanges and Compromises - Chapter 16
Just as Tim predicted, a week later, Bruce Wayne requested to meet him at work. While the request itself - sent through proper channels that is Tim's secretary - it specifically requested Tim by name. It had made a little stir with the other members of the company's Board of Directors, as they all thought that 'little Timmy' shouldn't be meeting the 'big and scary' Bruce Wayne by himself. "What if he manipulated Tim into a merger??" some had asked. It wasn't until Tim assured them that he would not make any corporate decisions without prior consulting - and stating that he 'doesn't like Bruce Wayne at all. He's a doof,' - that the rest of the BOD relented.
Bruce came in accompanied by Alfred Pennyworth, the family's butler. Bane, Tim knew, was accompanying Dr. Thomas and Mrs on a trip overseas. For some reason, the Waynes did not promptly send Bane away, even after he literally and physically got tossed out of the Wayne Manor's living room's bay windows - courtesy of Jason - when he tried to attack Damian.
"If this is a business meeting, Bruce, I would appreciate it if you wait for the rest of my BOD members to come up here," Tim hinted.
"No, no, no it's not..." Bruce seemed a little thinner than when Tim last saw him in person, a little disheveled and worse for wear, which would be odd given the fact that Alfred was right by his side. No self-respecting butler would have allowed their masters to leave the house looking like Bruce then - Tim knew, his dad had one since Tim was very young. Tim might not opt to keep the butler when his parents passed, but he knew the tenets fairly well.
Yet, Alfred just looked mildly disapproving but had walked into the office in the same eager speed as Bruce did.
Tim briefly wondered to whom Alfred's loyalty lies.
"I need... I need to know that there are no recording devices in here," Bruce stated.
Tim took a few blinks to choose an answer, "I'm not of the habit of having recording devices in my office. You, however, came with a tracking device," Tim pointed out.
"What?? I've left my cellphone in the car! Is it... can it listen? Record?" The shock on Bruce's face was more prevalent than when Damian came out of nowhere and called him 'father.'
Tim checked his monitoring system, courtesy of Harper Row, which can detect the type and model and broadcast type of any gadget and displayed it on Tim's cellphone. "No, it just tracks your location and is GPS-based. Why...?"
"Oh thank god..." Bruce slumped in his seat. "Alfred, can you make sure that no one would come here until I'm... until we're done?"
"Certainly, Master Bruce," Alfred bowed lightly and walked out the door.
"Wow, okay... whatever this is has got to be... better be important. I mean, you sent your butler out the door..." Tim commented.
"It is. It's about..." Bruce still hesitated. "Look, I don't usually do this. I don't know why. But you, your work-- your company and its line of business would make you-- would get you in touch with your end-clients, right? The common people who used social security benefits to get their meds, Doc Leslie Thompkins' patients and all that..."
He paused, so Tim shrugged. "I do try to personally meet my end-client to figure out what kind of medications they would need more; and Dr. Thompkins is one of my clients, too, whose assessment I can quite trust. You're not planning to get into the generic meds business also, are you?"
"No, no, no... This has nothing to do with WE. I mean... it should be, in the long run. But in the short run... Look, this would sound odd. But when you talk to your clients, have you ever hear of the Birds of Prey?" Bruce asked. Tim studied the man before him for a good long while. Before he could answer, Bruce continued, "my cousin Kate... she has just gotten kicked out of the military academy. She said she thought of donning a costume and joined the Birds of Prey to fight crime, so she could feel useful again, you know? I told her they're criminals, vigilantes. She said I should go down to meet the common people of Gotham and ask them what they think of the Birds of Prey. And then I thought of you."
"Yeeea... I'm not following..." Tim feigned - but only partially. He could already tell where the direction of Bruce's conversation was trying to take.
"Do you think they're criminals or heroes? I mean, does anybody ever mention them doing like, extortion, murder, stuff like that...?" Bruce insisted.
"Are you like, worried for your cousin Kate or... is there anything of significance that I should know about?" Tim finally decided to just bite the bullet and ask right out. There is no recording device in his office, all right. But his tiepin doubles as a camera that would send to Barbara as soon as Tim turned it on. And he had turned it on the instant Bruce walked in.
"As far as I've heard, the Birds of Prey -- ooh, I hate the pun, but it's right there-- preyed on criminals. Those who take advantage of the weak and all that jazz. I've experienced their... service if you will; when my delivery trucks were hijacked by some supposedly-metahuman group. They stopped the hijacking and arrested the group. They even found out that the group had an inside man right here." he elaborated.
The case was widely publicized, after all, when three trucks in succession that contained generic medications to be delivered to Gotham General and several free clinics were hijacked. The short version was the Birds of Prey stopped the hijacking as it was happening, then the glorious GCPD arrested those men, and they also discovered the inside man within Drake Industries - one of the Directors who had planned to jump ship while sinking DI along with it.
In reality, it had been Tim's work. The Birds - Dinah and Helena - helped with physically stopping the hijacking; while Tim dug out the paperwork and discovered the traitor. Barbara had then sent the evidence to the police, along with video footage of the man talking to a competitor of the company.
"Oh yeah, I've heard of the case. So you don't think they're bad people?"
Tim slow-shrug, just for the sake of dramatization. "I won't say they're totally good people - I mean, them hijackers looked like they've gone 12 rounds with Ted Grant the boxer. And they supposedly have like, superpowers or something. But I'm not gonna say they're bad people - they knew exactly where those shipments were going and who'd be using them, and they worked hard to stop the hijacking, you know. Financially speaking, DI might be able to weather like, a dozen hijacking. But for those people who needed the meds..." he let the sentence trailed for Bruce to fill in the blanks. He knew that the man has the same metaphorical bleeding heart as Martha Wayne, his mother.
"Okay..." Bruce actually looked a little more alive after the explanation. "Do you know how to contact them? I need to ask them for help."
"Oh, wow... Heh. It's not like I have them on my speed-dial... I think they maybe have an inside man in GCPD? They showed up right after I made the report of the third hijacking." Tim hedged, internally cursing himself for not finishing his project of the Birdcall app. The cellphone app would have made it easier for anyone to call the Birds or to alert the Birds of crimes. Alas, the whole issue with Jason and Damian's appearance has delayed its development. Tim made a mental note to assign Harper on it.
Bruce looked disappointed. "I see... then I will need you to relay this to the GCPD for me, Tim, can I trust you? I mean, it's... crucial," he said.
"What is this about, the kid and his guards?" Tim tested, just for kicks.
"Oh, no. The kid... Damian and his guards were actually a kind of reprieve in the household. They made sure that everything would be... proper and in order." Bruce smiled thinly. "It's about Bane. I have evidence that he has murdered a lot of people."
"Oh my," Tim gasped earnestly, really. Jason and Dick, and even Damian, have reported that aside from Bane's obvious animosity against them, he had tried nothing - yet. They were also the ones who told Tim that Bane has placed nanotech trackers on all three Waynes' clothing. Unfortunately, they were not able to actually snoop around - as there would always be one of the Waynes in the house.
Bruce handed him a small USB drive. "It's all here. Please, Tim. I mean, before this, I couldn't care less if that brute would leech all of the family's fortune. But now I have a son to think of... Talia might have made sure he's physically well-guarded. But Bane is a long-con kind of person and is really patient. He came to Gotham specifically for us after so many years. He..." he paused. "I believed my father when he told me that he had not betrayed my mother. But without a shred of physical evidence, there is nothing either of us can do. And how are you going to ask for a DNA sample from someone like Bane?"
"Spoon? Toothbrush? Hairbrush?"
"He's bald," Bruce replied dryly. "I'm not even sure he'd showered. Alfred said his bathroom has always remained tidy."
"Ew. No. Okay. Uh... I can't promise you that any bird would come your way, but I'll figure out a way to let this fall to the right hands, yeah?" Tim replied, putting the USB drive into his suit jacket - where Barbara could remotely access it through the circuitry in said pocket.
"Okay," Bruce looked relieved. "And now, since Bane is tracking me and I'm sure he knows what this building is, how about we come up with a stupid cover story?"
A proposal landed in Tim's sight just as Bruce finished talking. He grinned mischievously. "How about we collaborate to expand Leslie Thompkins' Free Clinic? Everybody's happy, and neither of us won't lose sleep over it."
"You'd have made a great corporate spy, do you know that?" Bruce grinned back, looking a thousand times happier than when he walked in.
"Oh yeah, but I already have my own ways to get secrets," Tim winked as he handed the proposal over. "Have a look at this, and let me know what you think. I think we can spend the discussion over lunch. Would Alfred mind if we ask him to acquire our lunches?"
"I'm sure he would be delighted if he hasn't already..." Bruce replied, getting up and opened the door. Alfred stood there with several paper bags in his hands. "He has already, it seemed," Bruce reported.
"Indeed, sirs. It is most rude to visit an associate without bringing anything. I daresay a quick lunch is sufficient for you, Master Timothy?" Alfred replied as he entered and set up the contents of the bags - several types of sandwiches and salad mixes.
"Oooh, more than sufficient, thank you, Alfred!"
"Not a problem, Sir. Please indulge, gentlemen." Alfred smiled. "Might I remind you, Master Bruce, that the Doctor and Mrs. Wayne shall return in two hours? It would be prudent to conclude your discussion by then." he hinted.
"Definitely, Alfred. We're just talking about what needs to be done to expand a hospital." Bruce grinned triumphantly at him, showing him the proposal. "Mother would be delighted at this."
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rjhpandapaws · 3 years
Text
Secure the Stage
Ch 4: Two Flames Are Better Than One
Silas's first reaction when he got the email about on campus classes being cancelled was delight. He would get to spend more time at the theater. That was closely followed by guilt, someone could have been hurt. He turned off his school alarm and got ready for bed. Monday found him awake at his usual time despite the lack of an alarm. He knew he wasn’t going to be getting anymore sleep, so he got out of bed and started getting ready for the day. Luther had put the finishing touches on some pieces that Silas had needed help with. Luther would be stopping by the theater to drop them off at some point today. Silas filled his travel mug with hot water from the sink, added instant coffee, put the lid on and shook it. Connor would be disappointed, but Silas cared more about caffeine than taste at the moment. He grabbed his bag, checked to be sure he had everything he would need, put on his shoes and left for the theater. He wasn’t in his usual clothes today. He planned to paint the set pieces Luther was dropping off as well as others that needed it. So he had opted for an old tshirt that an ex-hook up had left behind and an older pair of jeans that had seen paint days before. Part of him wondered if he would be seeing Allen today, and if did he wondered what they would talk about this time. They talked on his smoke breaks because rehearsals kept him busy and Allen was on the clock and couldn’t just stop to chat. When he got to the theater, he sent Luther a text to check in.
Sixer: I just got here.  Sixer: Text me when you get here and I’ll open the delivery bay Sixer: Tell the girls hello if they are with you :) Superman: They say hello :) Superman: I should be there in a half hour Sixer: See you then!
He made his way to the side door and checked if it was locked. It wasn’t. He stepped back and then shoved his bodyweight against the door as he turned the knob to get it open. He grabbed the doorstop and wedged the door open so whoever came in next wouldn’t have to fight with it. He walked into the auditorium flicking the lights on as he went. He took the stairs to the left of the stage and set his bag down outside the supply closet. He opened the closet and got out what he would need. He let his mind wander as he got things set up. He was looking forward to seeing Allen today, if he was working today that is. After that awkward first day they had struck up a bit of an odd friendship. They didn’t talk often, only if Allen’s breaks lined up with his, or if Silas got to the theater early enough to catch him on his lunch break. They had built whatever this was on stolen conversations and the occasional wave from across the room. In spite of all that, he considered Allen to be one of his close friends. Not close enough to actively let his guard down, but closer than most.
Allen was his opposite in a lot of ways. The one that stood out the most to Silas was how open and inviting Allen was. Where Silas would think about how to answer a question truthfully but without giving any of himself away; Allen just answered them. He let people in close without thinking about the consequences. Not that Allen hadn’t gathered whole truths from him; because he had. The security guard could slip past his defenses without an issue. Silas hadn’t given him much yet, but Allen still knew more about him than anyone else outside of his carefully constructed family. It made him nervous. He learned a lot about Allen in their stolen moments. Some of them were little but personal. Like how he played the guitar and wrote his own songs sometimes. To broad but important things, like his desire to keep people safe. The thing that fueled his desire to become a SWAT captain. He lived in a house with four other people and was hoping to move out soon. Allen had so much he was freely willing to give. It amazed Silas, and remined him, in some ways of his twin. He was pulled out of his thoughts by the smash of of piano keys from his  back pocket.
Superman: I’m here Sixer: Alright I’ll get the door
He put his phone away and jumped off the stage. He made his way to the back of the theater and into the delivery bay. He typed in the security code, set the garage door to open, and ducked under it once it was high enough.
“Luther, you’re the fu- best” He caught himself mid curse when he saw Alice’s head pop out of the back window of the truck. “These go to the same place as before. The code has already been typed in so you don’t have to worry.” Luther nodded as he pulled the truck in a little closer. Once he came to a stop Silas climbed into the bed and started grabbing containers with some of the smaller props in them while Luther got out and started on the bigger stuff. He was trying to be quick because it looked like Luther was in charge of taking Alice to school today. “Kara’s still not feeling well?” He asked as they made their way to the stage with the first load of set pieces and props. “I’d have rescheduled if I’d known.” “She’s starting to feel better, today was just an off day.” He set down the set frames he had been carrying, “I made time for this, Alice won’t be late.” Silas was relieved for that at least, “I’m glad I didn’t mess anything up then.” Luther hummed in acknowledgement as he went to go get another load. Silas set his load on the tarp he had set up and then followed him. They managed to split the last of it between the two of them and get it put away. Silas followed Luther back to the truck. “Thanks again for all your help Luther.” Silas said with a smile, “I’d be up a creek without a paddle otherwise. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.”
“It’s no problem Silas.” Luther squeezed Silas’s shoulder, “Thank you for giving Kara and Alice something they can both enjoy.” “I can’t take the credit for that. They were here before I was.” He ducked his head and Luther gave his shoulder another squeeze before he headed for the truck. Silas walked to the back window so he could say goodbye to Alice. “Have a good day at school peanut.” Silas said through the window, “I’ll be seeing you this afternoon right?” Alice smiled and waved at him from the back seat, “Bye Silas!” He waved and stepped away from the truck so Luther could leave. Once they were gone Silas closed the delivery bay and headed back to the auditorium. He opened the sound booth and connected his phone to the system via bluetooth. With music playing to help pass the time, he settled in on the tarp and got to work. Silas wasn’t sure how much time had passed before a shadow fell across the tarp and scared the life out of him. He wiped his hands off on his jeans and paused the music. “Hey.” He said flatly, annoyed at being interrupted. He looked up to find Allen looking down at him in confusion. “What’s up?” “Hey.” Allen echoed as he looked over the tarp. His brow furrowed more as he spoke, “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
Silas shrugged. Leave it to Allen to believe that Silas was ditching classes to be at the theater. He’d only done that once so far. “Classes are online for the time being. There was a fire on campus over the weekend so they have to rebuild.” He displayed his paint mess with a flourish of his paint stained hands, “I picked up a couple of extra shifts at work, but the rest of my time is going to be spent here.” “That sucks.” Allen said after a moment, “I’m sorry about your school.” Silas shrugged, “It was just a building an no one was hurt. So things should be back to business as usual in a few months.” “That’s one way to look at it I suppose.” Allen said as he looked over the mess on the tarp, “So you have a key to the side door then?” “Kinda.” Silas said in an attempt to dodge the question. Allen didn’t take it and motioned for him continue. “This building is pretty old and that door in particular is picky. So unless you have the deadbolt just the right way, it doesn’t lock. It’ll look locked though. One stiff push from the outside and you’re in.” Allen gave a slow nod and spoke after an almost awkward stretch of silence, “So you broke in.” Silas rolled his eyes, “If you want to get technical about it, sure. Though personally, I only use the term if I have to use the fire escape or delivery entrance to get in here.”
“Why not just wait for someone to let you in?” Allen asked, as any reasonable person would. “Because nobody gets here until like eight.” He grabbed his paintbrush so he could get back to work. He wanted to be at least halfway done before rehearsal started, “I get here around six, seven if I take a cab.” “Does the owner know?” He pressed. “James? Yeah.” He grabbed the set piece he had been working on before and proceeded to get more wet paint on his hands. He ignored it and started on the next coat, “Why do you think I know the code to the security system?” It was amusing to watch Allen’s expression go through a rollercoaster of expressions. Going from panic to slight amazement. He collected himself before he spoke again, “Well I should be getting to work then.” Silas lifted his hand in an absent wave, “I’ll be here if you get bored.” He started his music up again as Allen left. He was pulled back into painting and a few more hours passed before his body decided whatever was left of his coffee was actually not enough to function off of. He checked the time and decided there was enough time to take a break and still get what he wanted done for the day. Since they were the only ones here it seemed fair that he checked to see if Allen wanted anything. He wiped the excess paint off of his hands onto his jeans, hopped off the stage and made his way toward the security office.
He knocked on the office door but didn’t get a response. He tested the handle, and opened it when he found it unlocked. He opened it just enough so that he could lean into the room, “I was gonna go grab some food before everyone else got here this afternoon.” He took some delight in watching Allen’s head snap up, apparently he hadn’t noticed Silas yet, Do you want anything?” “You might want to clean up a bit first. You’ve got paint all over your face.” Allen stood and stretched, “I’ll take my lunch break and come with you. The person working the afternoon shift should be here soon.” He felt paint crinkle and peel at his skin as he furrowed his brow. He touched his cheek to see if any of it was wet and came away with nothing so he gave a noncommittal shrug. “This stuff is a pain in the ass to get off so I’ll just shower when I get home.” Allen wrote something down before he turned back to Silas, “Alright. What are you in the mood for?” “Chinese.” He didn’t even have to think about it. He stepped back into the hallway figuring Allen would follow him. “There’s this place down the street. The outside doesn’t look like much, but the sweet and sour pork is to die for.” Allen laughed. “I’ll take your word for it. Are we walking or driving?”
“It’s pretty close, so probably walking if you don’t mind.” Silas said as he turned toward the auditorium. “You might want to get some shoes on first though.” Allen said, “If you cut your feet up too much you won’t be able to perform.”  That was an odd thing to say, he was pretty sure he had shoes on. He looked down just to be sure, and found that he was, in fact barefoot. “Motherfucker!” Apparently he hadn’t put his shoes on before he went to find Allen, “One sec okay?” He took a few steps back and then ran at the stage and jumped up onto it when he had enough speed. He walked to the left of the stage and found his shoes right where he had left them, right beside his bag. He grabbed them and headed for the front of the stage. He put his socks and shoes on tying them tightly before he jumped off the stage again. “Alright.” he made his way back to Allen, “I’m ready.” He let Allen leave out the side door first, he flipped the deadbolt to unlocked before he followed suit. They made small talk as they walked toward the restaurant. He directed Allen toward the older building and got the door for him. He was surprised to see how crowded it was. “Is takeout okay?” Allen asked as he looked over the crowd. “Takeout is just fine.” He replied noncommittally. “I didn’t realize it was going to be this busy. We can just head to the counter and order, then when it’s up we can be on our way.”
They ordered their lunch and waited in easy silence for it to come up.  As soon as they got back to the theater Silas took his shoes off and put them by his bag. He joined Allen at the front of the stage and settled in to eat. “So this might be dumb to ask.” Allen started, “But why do you always have your shoes off?” Allen gestured to his bare feet, “Every time I see you you’re barefoot.” “I’m just more comfortable with them off.” He mimicked Allen’s gesture, “If I’m not in an environment that strictly requires shoes I’m gonna be barefoot.” Allen smiled and shook his head, “What happens if you step on something you shouldn’t? Like glass or something?” Silas shrugged, “Pull it out and hope for the best.” They talked until Allen had to go back to work. Silas cleaned up the mess he had made of the stage and threw away the trash from lunch. After that he started getting things ready for practice. He was hoping their streak of good luck would hold out. They were ahead of schedule, and if they kept it up they would be able to practice the play all the way through twice before opening night. With everything set up, he walked into the sound booth to check his phone. Daniel still hadn’t gotten back to him about tonight.
 Rehearsal was a disaster, if Silas had to pick a word. Half of the people who said they were going to be there didn’t show, and because of that they couldn’t work on the scene they were on. Instead, they ran through what they could with who they had, which was also a cluster fuck. The only thing that kept him from swearing up a blue streak was that there were kids present. He ended rehearsal an hour and a half early to help ease his frustration. “Are you mad at me?” Alice asked as they were waiting for Luther in front of the theater. “No, it’s not you Peanut, but some of the grown ups.” He said kindly, “You were great today Ally-cat.” Alice smiled and hugged him. He returned it and helped her down off the wall when he saw Luther’s truck pull into the lot. She rushed to meet her dad and Silas waved as they pulled off. “I need a fucking smoke.” He said to the open air. He grabbed his cigarettes from his pocket and paused when he didn’t feel his lighter with them. He checked his other pockets, his panic rising each time he came away with nothing. He put his cigarettes away and rushed inside to look for it. It had to be here somewhere. He didn’t know what he would do if it was lost. When the sound booth and concession stand proved to be dead ends he made his way back to the auditorium to look through his bag. He didn’t know what he was going to tell Richard if he had actually lost it. Getting something like that engraved had to have been expensive. When he dug in one of the side pockets and felt its outline he breathed out a sigh of relief.
“What were you looking for?” Allen asked as Silas jumped off the stage. Silas hadn’t notice him come in. “My lighter.” He said as he put the engraved silver lighter in his pocket with his cigarettes, “It was a gift so I don’t want to lose it.” He headed for the door, “I’m going for a smoke break. Care to join me?” “I don’t smoke.” Allen stated, “But I wouldn’t mind keeping you company out there?” Silas rolled his eyes as he opened the door, “I know you don’t smoke. You turn me down every time I offer you one.” He put space between them once they got outside so he wouldn’t have to worry about blowing smoke in Allen’s face. He sat on the short wall and lit a cigarette. He relaxed considerably on the first inhale and let the smoke out as a content sigh. “So how was rehearsal?” Allen asked just before the silence could get uncomfortable. Silas groaned, he had hoped he wouldn’t have to talk about it so soon. He took another longer drag. He tipped his head back and and blew the smoke into the air. He watched it curl away into nothing before he spoke.
“Horrible.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “We’re far enough ahead that it didn’t hurt anything. It’s just frustrating, you know?” He took another drag and adjusted his position on the wall to one that was a little more comfortable, “But that’s what I get for bragging I guess. I run my mouth to a few friends about how well things are going and then it all falls to shit. Though its better to happen now than on opening night I suppose.” “You’ll be fine.” Allen reassured, “I’ve only been here a few months, but from the things I’ve heard the plays you’re a part of always seem to do well.” Silas smiled stiffly, that was part of the issue. He took a short drag and let the smoke ride on his words, “The plays I’m in do well. The ones I write and direct tend to fall through.” Allen hummed pensively, “So you’re not in this one then?” Silas shook his head. “I am. I took two minor roles that no one wound up auditioning for.” He took another puff, “I do a little talking and have about ten minutes of total stage time.” “You do a lot here.” Allen said with a slight smile, “You do a lot for this place; acting, writing, directing, building the sets, painting them, and probably other things too. Why not just go to a better theater? You’d probably find more recognition that way.”
Silas motioned toward the building. He loved this place. “Don’t get me wrong; when I got into this in high school, I was chasing the Broadway pipedream.” He could feel himself getting pulled down memory lane, it wasn’t anything overly personal so he didn’t mind telling Allen, “When I got to college; my freshman year, we had to do a project on local theaters and why so many of them fail.” He took another drag and let the smoke out with his words, “I learned how many of these little theaters fail because all anyone is worried about anymore is exposure, and I wanted to keep that from happening.” He sighed, “Established theaters are good for exposure, which is fantastic if that’s what you’re after; but I want to foster the love of theater in other people. So here I am.” His cigarette was down to the filter so he put it out. He was still pretty tightly wound so he lit a second one. When he looked at Allen, that concerned furrow was back in his brow and he was frowning. “What’s with that look?” He said a little sharper than he had intended. He took a breath and continued in a more conversational tone, “It’s only my third one today. After this one I’ll head back and we can clean up a bit.” “I was just surprised.” Allen said lifting a hand placatingly, “You normally only have one then we head in back inside.” Silas laughed humorlessly, “Today’s a two smoke kinda day. It’s nice out and I have good company.” “I suppose that’s true.” Allen agreed.
Silas turned to face Allen, “You look like you  want to give me a health lecture. My brother is a nursing student, so I’ve probably heard it. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll listen.” Allen sighed and looked away from him for a moment. “You sing and do a lot of the things you do rely on your voice.” He cleared his throat and looked back toward him, but not at him Silas noticed, “I mean, you seem to love doing this and I would hate to see you have to stop before you’re ready to.” “I am trying to quit.” He said a little defensively. “Trying being the optimal word. I’ve gotten down to having three or four a day, but I’ve never managed to actually stop. Every time I get to the point that trying seems like it would go well, something else I have going on gets fucked up and I start all over again.” “So its a stress thing?” He asked. “Kinda.” He said with a tired sigh. This conversation only made him want to smoke more, “That’s what it started out as. I like to say I do it to clear my head or gather my thoughts, which is also kind of true, but I also do it when I’m bored or nervous. It’s devolved into an all the time kind of thing. It helps keep me busy and that’s why its such a fucking crutch.” As proof of his point he took another drag to help ease the tension he felt coiled around his bones and let it out with the smoke, “I’m trying to quit now too. I’m trying to keep under a pack a day now, and then work my way down from there and hope for the best.” He shrugged, “The usual.”
“I can um. If you want, I could give you my number.” Allen suggested, “Then if you need a distraction you could call me instead. We could talk, or if it’s real bad I could come over and hang out.” “I’d appreciate that. Thank you Allen.” He found himself smiling around his cigarette as he patted himself down for his phone. It was still inside. “Fuck. Its still in the sound booth. “ “I’ll just send you a text, then you’ll have my number.” Allen said as he handed Silas his phone, “Problem solved.” Silas nodded hid acknowledgement and put his number in under the nickname Theater Bitch <3. Allen could change it if it made him uncomfortable. He smiled and handed the phone back. “Nicknames huh?” Allen remarked around a smile. Silas laughed, “Did you expect anything else from me?” “Not really no.” Allen teased. Silas put his free hand over his chest in mock offense and huffed out an over dramatic sigh, “You are so rude to me. I provide you free entertainment and this is the thanks I get.” Allen laughed, it was a sound Silas would never get tired of, “You’re so dramatic.” Silas put out his half smoked cigarette, “What part of Theater Bitch didn’t you get?” He got down off the wall and threw both cigarettes away. He made sure he still had his lighter before he headed for the door, “Let’s get the stage cleaned up.”
“Alright, let’s go.” Allen said after a moment. Silas dusted his feet off when they got back inside. He could hear his phone still playing music, it was still charging in the sound booth. He checked his feet once more and then made his way to the stage. He walked to the utility closet to grab what he needed for cleaning. He was not ready to hear his text tone blast over the speakers and it scared the life out of him. “Ah, fuck!” He yelp as he jumped and dropped the mop, “Fuck. I should change that.” He picked up the mop as well as the broom and made his way back to the main stage. He leaned them against the wall and then moved to start on the sets. “What do you need me to do?” Allen asked as he stepped up onto the stage. “Same as last time.” He said casually, “We’ll breakdown sets then I’ll do the rest myself.” They got to work and the small conversations they usually made fell away. Silas got pulled in enough that he began to sing along to what was playing on his phone. After a few songs he stopped, he remembered Allen was there. It didn’t stay quiet long, he started singing again. The cycle repeated itself a few times until everything was done and he had grabbed his phone from the sound booth. He had two messages. One from Daniel and one from Allen.
Danny <3: We’re still on for tonight ;) I’ll be to the theater soon. Then I have to go pick up Simon, so I’ll see you again at 9. That okay? Sixer: We’re golden. See you soon <3
Unknown Number: Guess who Theater Bitch :)
He set Allen’s contact The Okayest Captain. He was getting ready to got talk to Allen again, maybe have another smoke break when Daniel texted him again.
Danny <3: I’m here. Simon got off early so please be quick. Sixer: On it. I’ll be right out
“Fuck. My ride is here, I gotta go.”  He tossed his shoes into his bag and leapt off the stage and ran toward the side door. “I’ll text  you later! See you tomorrow Al!” Daniel was waiting outside with the top down on his car. Silas didn’t bother with the door, he boosted himself over the side and stuck his bag in the footwell. He kissed Daniel’s cheek before he put his seatbelt on as they headed for his apartment. “Let me guess, you didn’t tell Simon.” Silas remarked and they both cracked up. “You know how he is about these things.” Daniel responded, “I get he’s worried about the whole coworkers thing, but it’s you.” “We’ve been at this since what? Senior year? I’d hardly say the coworkers thing is something to be worried about.” When they got to his apartment he kissed Daniel’s cheek again before he got out. “You bringing the good stuff tonight?” Daniel just winked. Silas grabbed his bag and headed for the elevator. He texted Allen on the way up.
Sixer: Guess who :) Sixer: Sorry for running out on you! I have a friend coming over and I needed to clean my apartment. They Okayest Captain: You’re good. Have fun! Sixer: Thanks Sixer: Will I be seeing you tomorrow? The Okayest Captain: Yup Sixer: Cool. Have a good night! They Okayest Captain: You too.
Silas rushed to clean up his apartment. He took his time in the shower, because the paint was a bitch to get off and he wanted to be sure he got all of it. Afterwards he put on one of his favorite shirts, it was for Knights of the Black Death, and his favorite pair of socks. He felt like being a little shit so he took a picture in his full length mirror and sent it to Daniel.
Sixer: Still coming over? <3
He set his phone down for a moment. He and Connor hadn’t checked in a for a while so he decided to do that before he got distracted and forgot again. When he opened his messaging app he froze before he even got to Connor’s conversation. He hadn’t sent the picture to Daniel but to Allen. Well, that was one way to break the ice he supposed.
Sixer: I am SO sorry! Sixer: That was meant for a different friend! Sixer: I just hit the most recent contact. Sixer: You can keep it if you want thought <3 Sixer: I wouldn’t be opposed to you staying the night ;) Sixer: Just not tonight though. The Okayest Captain: No problem. The Okayest Captain: I’ll think about it ;) The Okayest Captain: Have fun and be safe.
Speaking of distracted, he had Allen on the brain again. The whole point of inviting Daniel over was to get his mind off the security guard, and now he was regretting not having invited him over. What was that saying about too many choices. He’d be pulled in when Daniel showed up, but for now he was left wanting and he hated it.
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princessdevy03 · 4 years
Text
Tumblr Exclusive!!!!
For @anybodihearme....
QuarantinEdd
They were supposed to be quarantined.
But they were essential employees, so off to work they went, Edd to the hospital and Kevin to the town’s only mechanic’s garage.
Edd going to work made sense. He was an ER nurse and desperately needed in the midst of a pandemic, but Kevin wondered if the governor had lost his mind by letting businesses like his remain open.
He had enough money to pay everyone for ninety days and if he got a small business loan to help offset any losses from the pandemic, he could afford to pay everyone for another ninety more. Not to mention being able to pay for a decent cleaning crew to make sure everything would be safe once the people smarter than him said it was safe to open.
But people were still out driving for small gig jobs like online food deliveries, off and out of work parents were taking the time to teach their now homeschooled kids to drive, and for some reason, the number of fender benders repairs thanks to speeders quadrupled.
And that was in the first sixty days.
It was now day 132 and Kevin’s numb.
He’s down to a third of his crew because someone had either caught the virus or has been in close contact with someone who has, customers that have been coming in for decades were taking their business elsewhere because they just couldn’t deal with his simple requests to keep their facial coverings on and to stay at least six feet from each other in the shop’s oversized lobby, parts were taking forever to come in because they weren’t essential items so they were low shipping priority, and he can’t remember the last time he’s seen Edd.
Video calls are verboten in the hospital because of HIPPA, but he hasn’t even gotten a meme from the man in a week.
Stepping out of the hottest shower he can bare to take, he checks his phone.
There were the usual texts from his mother, Nazz, Rolf, and he thinks his baby grandson has gotten a hold of his mother’s phone again, or his daughter in law has had a stroke.
Quickly opening the last text, he saw the baby had sent him a seven second video of himself running with said phone and his mother screaming at his father to catch him while his sister declared that he had to come with her if he wanted to live.
His chuckle turned into a high pitched scream not unlike that of the lead starlet in many of the B List horror films The Eds watched when they were kids when the bathroom door swung open. 
Edd fell to the floor with a cackle, holding his sides as he rocked side to side and laughed til he cried as Kevin stormed out of the bathroom, quickly donned his housecoat, and threw an old quilt some great aunt from Ireland made his father when he was a baby over his head.
“YOU SCARED ME!” He screamed at his husband as he went to stand over the man still tittering on the floor.
“You look ri-ridiculous,” Edd snickered as he sat up and did his best to catch his breath.
“How dare you?!” He huffed, arms crossed, looking rather ridiculous considering his usual immodesty of just walking around naked when no one but Edd was in the house. “And what are you doing here anyways?!”
“I live here?” Edd shrugged and Kevin finally got a good look at him.
His hair was wet and he only had on an old tshirt and shorts he had made out of an old pair of sweatpants.
“You’re home?” Kevin asked softly, a bit disbelieving what he was seeing.
“As of today,” Edd answered as he looked at his smartwatch before taking it off and placing it on the charger on his nightstand, “I get the next two weeks off, pending the results of my latest round of tests.”
“What happens next?”
Edd looked the worried man in his weary face and tried to be as honest but as gentle as possible.
“If I’m not sick, I go back. If I’m sick, I stay home til I get worse and then I go back because I’m dying.”
And for some strange reason, Kevin thinks he can fight Death.
“You won’t die,” he said, voice low, the quilt hitting the floor and his housecoat quickly followed.
Edd had to admire his moxie, even if he was being a bit ridiculous.
“You gonna fight a novel virus for me?” He smirked as he walked over the naked man in front of their dresser, arms crossed defiantly.
HIs back hitting the bed and his shorts hitting the floor was his answer.
But then Kevin realized that if Edd was in the house, so were the germs.
“Where did you shower?” He asked as he straddled him, arms crossed but his dick was getting harder by the second and Edd is about to die.
“Main bathroom in the hall,” Edd groaned, batting at his chest to get him to get back to business.
“Clothes?”
“Washer downstairs? Your stuff is still in the one in the garage.”
The great thing about the house was that the first owners put the washer and dryer in the garage, the next family built a laundry room addition off the kitchen for some reason, but it was awesome because Kevin could always use the old set in the garage for his heavy, greasy coveralls, while the laundry room was used for their everyday clothes.
But before Edd got stuck at the hospital for the last way too long in Kevin’s mind, they both had been using the garage for laundry to keep from bringing the germs the CDC was only now getting an inkling of an understanding of, in the house.
If he used the sanitize cycle on the fancy set in the laundry room, they’d be ok.
“Sanitize?”
“I’ll roast you in it myself if you don’t blow me.”
“But I don’t want to die, Eddward!” Kevin pouted, feeling randy, confused, and oh, so frustrated.
Edd sat up and pulled his shirt off to bring Kevin’s warming body closer to his burning own.
“I’m ok,” he whispered lovingly. “I got the clothes washed and I took a shower, just like you. We can clean the cars tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”
“Fuck that, I’m having Jimmy’s cleaning crew over here first thing to do it,” he said matter of factly as he wiggled himself off Edd and grabbed his legs to pull him to the edge of the bed so he wouldn’t be roasted in the fancy washing machine.
Tears pricked the edges of Edd’s eyes as Kevin swallowed him whole and his hands lost themselves in sunset red locks.
Never had he been able to hold onto him like this and he distantly thinks of suggesting him never cutting his hair again because -
“OH GOD!” He screams as he pushes him away, embarrassed that he was to the edge so quickly.
“You like that, huh?” Kevin snickered at him as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and waggled his brows at him.
“I hate you,” Edd huffed back but his body had other plans.
It was a bit like riding a bike.
But it was also almost like going through the motions, though.
Kevin’s mouth nipping at his neck as he grabbed the lube off his nightstand.
Them trading kisses between trading the lube between themselves; Kevin coating his hand and Edd coating Kevin’s dick.
Then Kevin’s first knuckle dropped inside.
Edd hissed in the back of his throat as he quickly squeezed the dick in his lap before he tossed his head back with a groan.
He knew he wouldn’t last long, but this was gonna take a bit.
“Just breathe for me, Babe,” Kevin huffed, trying to set his mind right.
If he was this tight on his hand, he’s gonna lose his damn mind once he gets inside of him.
Edd took a breath and Kevin wiggled his finger as gently as he could. The stretch lasted for only a moment before Edd picked up his hips for a bit more, but Kevin stayed him with a hand on his stomach.
“Breathe,” he ordered as he slipped down off Edd’s torso and Edd’s breath is gone as quickly as he took it because his dick is in Kevin’s mouth again, naturally.
He relaxes into the bed, taking everything in.
The softness of the sheets, the spicy musk of the air freshener plugged into the wall, the soft dampness of Kevin’s hair in his hands, the soaking warmth of his mouth.
When his head hits the pillow, it’s like he’s been wrapped up in something.
He gasps as another finger is added to Kevin’s ministrations and when he tosses his head to the side he realizes that Kevin’s been using his pillow.
Dear Lort…
The man has his head between his legs, two, no, three fingers up his ass, and his pillow smells like him.
Kevin wouldn’t be mad if he came this instant, but he’d rather he fuck him like he wants to do his pillow right about now.
“Kevin, please.”
The way he spoke was just so urgent that Kevin didn’t argue.
He just moved.
He grabbed the lube as he came off of him, squeezing some quickly into his hand and then giving himself a couple of strokes as he got into position. Resting on his knees, he pulled Edd into his lap and said, “You do it, ok?”
Edd nodded because they both knew if Edd could control the motion, he’d be less likely to be hurt.
No one wants a trip to the hospital in a pandemic over something like this!
Bracing his hands onto Kevin’s sides and Kevin doing likewise, he slowly worked his hips back and forth til he was fully hilted, his head falling onto Kevin’s shoulder with a thunk.
Neither moved for a few, long, tense moments.
When Edd finally brought his head up, Kevin whispered, “I’m...I’m not gonna last long.”
“Me, either,” Edd sighed as he placed a chaste kiss to Kevin’s lips and moved a bit.
Kevin groaned into the soft movement, his hands falling onto Edd’s hips, and his mouth searching for those soft lips again.
His gut whirled tight when Edd pushed their mouths together and his brain shorted out when the needy man in his lap started sucking on his tongue like he would his dick.
He moaned into the kiss and Edd’s hips picked up speed.
Lean arms around his neck made his hips jerk up, but he dug his knees into the bed to anchor himself down when Edd wrapped his legs around him.
Hands explored every inch of skin they could touch and they kissed each other breathless as Edd drove himself up and down on his dick as fast and hard as he could.
“Fuck, I missed you,” Edd whined before kissing him again.
But it was harder this time and his hips weren’t moving in any sort of rhythm anymore.
Kevin brought him closer with one arm, the other slipped between them and started to stroke Edd’s throbbing cock.
Kevin couldn’t wait to get his mouth on it again, but for now, he’d suck Edd’s tongue in his mouth to give him a taste of what he wanted to do to him, with him, and just for him for the next two weeks.
The hand on his cock and the mouth on his tongue made his hips jerk.
HARD.
And Kevin’s dick hit a spot in him that hadn’t been touched in weeks.
He could barely scream as he fell apart, his ass squeezing the hard dick inside him as his whole body begged for more.
Long, thick, milky white strips of cum bursts between them as a roar came out of Kevin.
Strong hands grabbed lithe hips and Edd’s gone.
Release like he hadn’t known in far too long coursed through his whole being as Kevin came as hard as he did.
Once the room stopped spinning, Edd realized that they had fallen backwards, their heads at the feet of the bed.
“You need a haircut,” Kevin grinned affectionately at him, running a weak hand through dark, thick, wavy locks.
“And If you ever cut your hair again, I’ll kill you,” Edd absolutely purred, relishing the gentle touch.
“So noted,” Kevin chuckled as he willed himself up.
“Where ya goin now?” Edd whined.
“Bathroom,” Kevin grinned as he snatched the lube up from where it had fallen on his pillow and made his way to the bathroom.
Edd scrambled as best he could on his baby deer legs to follow him.
Kevin didn’t go back to work and Johnny’s cleaning crew didn’t come for two weeks.
Kevin and Edd shrugged it off and said they were busy catching up on projects at home.
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Debuff Zane Build
i am tired of not seeing this build in all the zane build videos i watch so im sharing it here because its stupid fun bc u run fast and kill faster. it’s not meta, but its fun as fuck and u have a lot of damage and survivability with it. I’ve completed M4 Slaughter Shaft with it- haven’t tried on M10 yet but i have faith. p.s its 4 am pls have mercy if there’s spelling mistakes.
what ur gonna need is a band of sitorak, zheitseiv’s eruption, a seein’ dead, and the piss grenade. everything else is fair game, whatever u want. try to get it to have the sntl cryo anoint bc good. but u must have the 4 main items for this to work perfectly (it also somewhat works with a low level Frozen Heart bc best shield in the game but you will die a lot more)
also i need a fucking name for this build help
oh god oh fuck i forgot i was playing through the handsome jackpot dlc again
oki im ready to party
this is my current loadout
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sometimes i switch the reg Q-System for a kaoson or a nighthawkin if i need ammo (OP QSystem is... OP but not as fun as a tracking grenade QSystem so i don’t care for it) and maybe the brainstormer for a reflux if many shielded enemies (i prefer the brainstormer over the reflux atm. so try for a brainstormer!!)
3rd slot, that’s a monarch which used to be a dictator b4 it got a straight upgrade. I actually don’t use the bipod unless im in a boss fight and don’t need to move fast. usually violent momentum and violent violence cover the dps loss
ur first 3 gun slots honestly don’t matter much. I have my reasons for using them, but you can use whatever u want i think, so long as its a strong weapon (bc unfortunately a lot of weapons are not scaled for m10). u dont HAVE to use the monarch or the Q system or the brainstormer. I recommend them, cuz theyre fun, but u don’t gotta if u wanna swap em out for a a kaoson or a yellowcake or a sandhawk or smth
the last gun is my zheitsev’s eruption. This bad boy, when u reload, shoots out homing balls of debuffery. So every enemy that gets hit with these gets a debuff. I have tried this with the needler but I prefer Zheitsev’s bc it can hit more enemies and once and takes less time. this gun only goes to Blane (ur clone). 
for the skill trees we have no points in under cover even tho brainfreeze is the best skill in the gaaaaame
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explanations: 
really the hitman tree is p self explanatory, u wanna go fast as fuck boiii. My band of sitorak does not have the +15 movespeed while zoomer is active anoint (it has the break shield amp anoint, which is p okay. want movespeed, but a nice human from the reddit gave me this sitorak so i didn’t have to farm). u want drone delivery bc Blane will NOT be throwing grenades. If you try to make him throw grenades with the seein’ dead he will ONLY throw grenades and never fire his gun, meaning he’ll never reload. it’s a nightmare. anyway. u want the piss grenade (ideally with the +25% damage on thrown anoint). im not looking forward to regrinding this when they finally mayhem buff grenades.
we put one point into playing dirty because we want those extra shots and honestly with the amount of times seein’ dead can proc ur kill skills you’ll have it more often than not
we also have points in good misfortune for that sweet sweet uptime (which btw can be infinite using the brainstormer/reflux bc it is essentially a redistributor without the need for ur barrier) the monarch/dictator also does it justice
for Blane u DON’T WANT praemuntis. we want blane reloading as often as gotdamn possible. now unfortunately my seein’ dead gave me a +weapon mag size roll (im actually not sure if this affects blane, but im assuming it does) but it does have the amazing +5 donnybrook so I’m taking it anyway. I am so not looking forward to regrinding a good class mod when they finally release action skill buffs for them. i cri. i actually hear 3 points in donnybrook and 2 in violent violence is p good (or 1 in violent violence 1 in playin dirty) so maybe grinding won’t be so bad. maybe i’ll finally get a +weapon damage roll
u can grab 1 point in ducttape mod and put 4 points into borrowed time if you want. it doesn’t really matter. i current have 5 in borrowed time and 3 in pocket full of grenades (for some reason??? usually i only put 2 in.). U can do that and use those extra points for either ducttape mod or more points in playing dirty. 
u NEED quick breather. This skill has a STUPID interaction with the band of sitorak shield because of how quickly it recharges. I’m talking, the instant you swap with Blane, you have full shields and so does he. It’s dumb, I love it. Use it to get out of trouble.
so im probably gonna need to explain why i have 3 points in trick of the light: im a cryo slut. That’s it. put those wherever you want, just make sure you can get Double Barrel. i’ve seen builds where people actually go for brainfreeze, i might try that next time i respec.
Double barrel will make it so blane can use the zheitsev’s eruption and debuff your enemies for you. it’s worth it.
so the augments u want are these:
SCHADENFREUDE. because band of sitorak has such a tiny capacity, ur shield is constantly up. If its not, it’s constantly breaking from full capacity. this does have a fun effect with the amp shield break anoint, but mainly i like it for the 25% damage buff whenever it breaks. its a tradeoff for damage, ur constantly swapping between max shields and more damage, so its actually p constant survivability and damage over the long run.
i grab doppelbanger bc blane sometimes gets stuck in the floor and/or i don’t feel like running all the way back. i wouldn’t recommend getting which one’s real or digital distribution only bc u want him alive as much as possible. u can also get binary system instead of doppelbanger, its up to you
for Zoomer u want bad dose for the movement speed and (sometimes) static field (only if the enemies have shields). this is so if blane goes down or he isn’t taking damage, zoomer can refill ur shields. if the enemies won’t have shields usually i grab winter’s drone or boomsday depending on how i feel.
im actually gonna try to see if i can’t grab brain freeze. hang on. i know trick of the light is frowned upon for most people so lemme just respec. (im sorry i just love the vibes it gives me it’s like HAHA you thought that was me? no!!! boop. and then they’re ice sculptures and man i love h2o i wish emma had frozen more people the only people she really freezes are Greg and Miriam and honestly she doesn’t even kill Greg smh. (Greg is dr denman’s assistant. greg is highkey god.) I do like what she did to Mirami, the fucking implications that YES these teenage girls ARE powerful enough to instakill people, they just don’t out of the kindness of their hearts. Rikki was badass that episode too. actually i love the episode where rikki almost boils a dude alive for making a fool of her with ILLEGAL F I S H and burns people using steam from a pipe. rikki is my favorite mermaid- she knew what was u p. I wish mako mermaids was as badass as h2o was. and the cartoon. god imagine the cartoon violence. sigh. let them use their op superpowers to be SUPERHEROES. like in h2o au i have baron flynt puppeteer people to their deaths from Thor bc he has cleo’s powers like why couldn’t she do that to someone. Like dr denman “lmao bye bitch” or even charlotte (who imho wasn’t bad until cleo started being rude to her. cleo was 100% at fault that season). it wouldn’t have killed her!!! ... instantly. probably. ive never seen avatar in full but i did watch the blood bending episode as a child and as i understand it that’s frowned upon but hey. CAN BELLA TURN PEOPLE INTO JELLY?? harry potter 🅱oneless arms... my god.)
anyway, respeccing. 
there goes all my money. rip.
so i think im gonna have to live with the slower reload speed (sob) but yes u can in fact get brain freeze with this build. lemme show...
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so ye in the event u just can’t live without freezing people (i know the feeling) feel free to do this. imma play with this for a bit and see if i can live with slower reload. I actually depend on the 100% cryo with zoomer active for all my cryo damage. i also use an ice breaker so they freeze fairly easy (but only on mobs. on bosses u want the snowdrift or something else)
this build isn’t really meta and u might have trouble doing a solo run of true takedown on m10... bc its true takedown on m10, but honestly it’s fun as F U C K. you CAN do it, but it’s not no thoughts head empty like barrier-redistrubutor/yellowcake zane can be so u gotta be on TOP of ur SHIT. i love it. running around killing stuff. it’s fun. i also love teleporting. it’s my FAVORITE THING. I STILL GET GIDDY OVER IT BECAUSE IT’S SO FUN. ask my friends, they will tell you, sometimes i’ll just start gushing over how much fun it is to teleport even though i’ve played zane since release. just. GFDGHKJGDFK so much fun. i just... b o o p. god i love this game. i took a break to play assassin’s creed odyssey (fun sneaky beaky game, pretty awful dialogue) so DAMN i missed this. 
here’s a link to a video I took on athenas (my favorite area to run. it’s this game’s bloodshot stronghold!) this is the playlist i listen to while playing Zane. i keep swapping songs during play bc sometimes they don’t fit my vibe or i get tired of them lol (spotify control is hooked to my 4th and 5th mouse buttons so i don’t have to stop playing) i forgot where my shock sandhawk was in my inventory, is what i use to demolish traunt. i was so scared i threw it in my bank earlier on sanc-iii lol (also yes i still slap blane’s ass. it’s to encourage him to kill)
and here’s a link to the save + everything I had on me at the moment (including the stuff i picked up in the vid in case u want it lol) cuz im lazy and don’t feel like clearing out my inventory. some of these are only m4-9. which ones? it is a mystery. you’ll know when the new update releases ;) (no but actually im so hype for mayhem level on the item cards. finally. FINALLY!!!)
why is this video taking so long to upload. hynnnggggg
oh god is that the sun
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Sweet! I want to commission you for a story then. I was hoping for Rhackothy for the pairing, and this is the prompt: Jack/Tim does something impressive with their hands (cooking/gun skills/something) and Rhys notices. And then obsesses. And then is basically thirsty for their hands on him. But Jack and Tim don’t notice, (or Jack doesn’t notice at first but then catches on and starts messing with Rhys?) because they are both super busy until Rhys just finally snaps and gets what he wants.
This labeled as A Curse and a Blessing. Also on my ao3 here. I had so so much fun writing this, I had to go 2 chapters xD  See that post for all relevant tags and shit woo!! My masterlist archive of bullshit i write can be found linked at the top of the blog or here.
There were certain privileges to being Handsome Jack’s personal assistant, Rhys found.
The obvious things like a bigger paycheck, a nicer apartment, and bragging rights were a fun novelty that he’d quickly gotten used to. Access to executive-level information, tech upgrades, and the power that went with having Handsome Jack’s ear were among the nicer benefits that still gave him a rush over a year later.
And right now— with his cybernetic arm laying palm-up on Jack’s desk- the CEO himself was performing a delicate upgrade to Rhys’ hardware. The special attention got his blood pumping quicker for more than a few reasons.
Jack’s attitude was very much like his body: large and in charge. But while the older man might’ve enjoyed strangling the life from especial-idiots with his bare hands, he also had more refined skills. The spectrum of things Jack could do with his hands wasn’t exactly new to Rhys, but having Jack’s deep in the circuitry and wires of his forearm brought a whole new level of understanding, and with it, fantasy.
The delicate machinery and circuits inside of Rhys’ arm were handled with utmost care as the CEO manipulated the tech. Jack knew how to be careful, just like he knew how to effectively snuff out life. That Rhys was on the end of the ‘care’ spectrum definitely had him inwardly-preening, and it got his brain applying Jack’s particular handiness to other scenarios in his mind.
“Hand me that screwdriver, pumpkin,” Jack said flatly as he was focused on a wire inside his arm. This was one of the few times Jack ever wore glasses, his usual frenetic-energy centered on working with surgical precision. It wasn’t helping Rhys pay attention, rather lending more fodder to his less-than-pure daydreams about his boss.
Jack had his free hand open expectantly to Rhys as he kept his attention on the inner-mechanisms of the cybernetics. His other hand was carefully maneuvering a small purple wire around a coil with a pair of grounded tweezers, moving to see from different angles. The area the CEO was working in was delicate indeed, and if Jack really wanted to, he could cause some real damage and considerable pain without even trying (Rhys had hurt himself quite a few times tinkering).
Frankly, Rhys was impressed by Jack’s technical skills being put to use.
Those bigs hands of Jack’s had strangled more than a few necks in Rhys’ presence, and the violence he was capable of was legendary in fact and fiction. But the sheer control the older man had— the skill needed for the upgrades- made Rhys’ pulse race. Not out of fear, but of excitement.
Hands as big as Jack’s shouldn’t be able to be so careful with him. They were strong hands meant for violence. Jack’s particular brand of violence was always so messy, but this… Well… The PA found Jack’s competence distractingly attractive.
Rhys passed the screwdriver and let his mind wander further as he absently observed, watching Jack expertly manipulate the other tools in his hand. He wondered what else those skilled fingers might be capable of if put to better use. The CEO had already made a few jokes about Rhys ‘letting him put some fingers in him’, and while Rhys had rolled his eyes, it certainly gave him something to think about.
Jack was making a voluntary-override for Rhys’ surge-protection, the idea being that the younger man could store a burst of energy in his arm for later use; enough to direct an electrical-current from his fingertips.
While the idea of finger-guns being brought to a brand new level was amusing in of itself, the very-real issue of Rhys being kidnapped or taken hostage— due to his relationship to Hyperion’s CEO- only made the shock-delivery system make sense. It would only be a single shock, maybe two, but enough to bring down a potential kidnapper, and essentially a weapon that wouldn’t be detected in meetings with rival companies.
There were a few minor calibrations Jack had to do, and a few more adjustments in directing the electrical flow inside Rhys’ palm circuitry to his ring- and middle-fingers. Jack held the back of Rhys’ palm in his own while he worked, the CEO’s hand dwarfing Rhys’ cybernetic one as he cupped it.
It didn’t take much at all to imagine what it might be like if Jack curled his fingers to entwine them with Rhys’ own. The innocence of a hand-holding fantasy quickly switching up to the visualization of Jack’s larger hand pressing his into sheets. It was easy to imagine as Jack moved his hand as he worked, the firm grasp feeding back through his arm’s sensitivity receptors.
He bit his lip to bring himself back to reality, and they tested out the connections before Jack eventually closed up the paneling, and Rhys went home for the day.
Rhys was… maybe a little embarrassed that his front door was barely closed before he was palming himself on the way to the shower. He couldn’t take the thought from his mind of Jack’s large hands being put to better use on other parts of his body.
Rhys knew Jack’s hands well. The breadth of them, the general size. Especially after watching him all afternoon up close and mentally fighting the half-chub in his pants. They’d fit good around his waist. Probably be able to cup his entire ass in both hands. What would it feel like to have Jack’s warm, large hands sliding up his inner thigh? Or to feel one of those palms cupping his throat without intent to kill?
Rhys cleaned himself off in the shower with minor shame, figuring to put things out of his head as he knew Jack, and this level of infatuation after working for him so long already was ridiculous.
He couldn’t stop his dreams though, and the visions of Jack’s hands on his body— holding him, pinning him, touching him- assaulted Rhys throughout the night.
Suffice it to say, he didn’t get any rest that night, and he woke up in ruined sheets and a sense of agitation that kept him on-edge all weekend.
“I got you one of those caramel-foam things since you didn’t answer any of my messages,” Rhys spouted off early Monday morning as he walked into their shared office, the CEO sitting at his desk as the younger man strode in with coffee for the both of them. “And they were out of cheese bagels. We’ll have to order something in later.”
As he got closer, Rhys realized it wasn’t Jack in his seat, but Tim— the man’s body-double and sometime stand-in- and he pulled up short at his misplaced snarking. “Oh, hey! Sorry, I, uh… ha ha… thought uh….” He looked at his hands, coffee in each. It was clear who he’d thought Tim was. “Well. Would you like a coffee?”
Tim snorted as Rhys offered up the sweet concoction he’d brought for Jack, the man making a few noises of gratitude as he took a careful sip. “That is way better than the crappy instant I had this morning,” Tim said with a smirk. “Jack’s not coming in today. Obviously.”
“Sleeping-in or hungover?” Rhys prompted with a grin, sipping from his own cup as Tim chuckled and laughed as he confirmed that, yes, Jack was hungover or something, but he wasn’t even on the station right now. Probably still sleeping off the meeting-turned-party that had gone very well on Elpis.
Tim took another sip of the coffee as Rhys put his stuff away at his desk. His voice was just like Jack’s, but there was something always just a bit softer there when they were alone in the office. Tim took another sip of the sweet concoction before speaking again: “I think there’s the one echo-meeting he wanted me to do on video for payroll, but what else is on the roster for today?”
Rhys easily opened up the display of Jack’s schedule on his palm, quickly opening to the date with his echoeye and scanning through the day’s lackluster agenda. “Yeah, there’s a few things, but most of it’s just signatures and stuff or quick calls.” Rhys frowned to himself. “…he could’ve just given us both the day off too…”
Tim made an annoyed sound that Rhys agreed with wholeheartedly.
“Oh! Yeah-” Rhys began suddenly in idea, “did Jack tell you about the upgrade he did to my arm?”
A smile spread across Tim’s face. “He did, yeah, but I didn’t wanna be nosey… Is it cool?”
Rhys smirked. The differences between the CEO and his body-double were obvious if you only paid attention, and as handsome as the namesake, Rhys was indeed paying close attention. “Well… You wanna see how it works?
They ordered-in for lunch after the novelty of playing with Rhys’ new finger-gun wore off; noodles and vegetables and sweet and spicy chicken. Rhys used a fork to eat his while Tim expertly ate with chopsticks like it was nothing. His smoothness was enough for Rhys to comment on as they were settled in eating together at Jack’s desk.
“How’d you get so good at that?”
“A’ wha’?” Tim asked before swallowing, making Rhys smirk.
“That,” Rhys said, motioning with his fork.
“What? Chopsticks?”
“Yeah.”
“A lot of long nights eating take-out while studying in college.”
He made a show out of smoothly picking up a piece of chicken and popping it in his mouth in one completely-natural motion. Rhys couldn’t manage that type of finesse if his life was on the line.
Tim smirked and continued eating, maybe showing off a bit as it was clear Rhys was still watching. Rhys felt a mildly-excited chill go up his spine, followed by an aroused sense of shame as he realized that Tim must be just as good with his hands as Jack was knowing the CEO’s standards, and while they might be identical physically as far as Rhys knew, he’d never considered their less-showy skills might align as well.
Rhys was already scheming as thoughts of big hands on him invaded his mind, and he knew he wasn’t going to forgive himself– nor stop himself- from taking advantage of a perfect opportunity to have those identical hands on him again.
Rhys put down his fork and looked at Tim as innocently as he could otherwise pretend. “Can you show me how?”
Tim’s brows raised, and the curious expression there looked so amusingly out of place on ‘Jack’s’ face that Rhys almost wanted to laugh.
Tim sat up and dug out the other pair of chopsticks from the takeaway bag, and he moved Jack’s huge yellow chair to sit closer to Rhys to demonstrate.
“Okay, so eventually, you want to hold them like this,” Tim presented his own chopsticks in repose between his fingers. “If you do this-” Tim moved the position of the utensils, “you lose the strength at the bottom to hold anything with. If you do this-” Tim moved them again, far lower, “your hand is going to get tired and sore before you’ve even started.”
“Tell me about it…” Rhys muttered, then blushed at Tim’s laughter. He quickly got back on topic, doubling down and pursuing what he expected to be a hands-on lesson. “Okay, okay. So down the middle or whatever. Am I holding them right?” He hoped he wasn’t. He was counting on it. He ignored the thing inside him that told him he was dirty, and greatly enjoyed Tim’s hands on his own correcting the hold. Inwardly he complained when Tim fixed it and removed himself, and asked Rhys to try to pick up a piece of chicken.
While momentarily distracted by his dastardly plans to have Tim put his hands back on him, Rhys did want to actually look good, but he didn’t manage much. Tim insisted he try again, and Rhys deflected by opening his palm and asking where the chopsticks should be making contact with his skin, or if he was using the right finger muscles (did fingers even have muscles?) Rhys sure didn’t care as he made his own excuses.
“Like, let me show you what I mean, I don’t know what it’s called,” Rhys said as confidently as he could and willing away his telling blush as he took Tim’s hand and opened the palm. He shamelessly traced the inside of Tim’s hand with his thumb, asking if the ‘muscle-thing’ was supposed to touch here, or here, and should he feel the pressure of doing it right from this side of his palm or that as he traced along?
Rhys kept his eyes on Tim’s hand— not daring to meet his gaze in case Tim realized what Rhys was up to- and Tim patiently explained what parts of his hand he should be using to make the best hold, and he put them back in Rhys’ hand and had him try again.
Had Rhys not been successful this time, he was pretty sure that Tim might’ve caught him out on his ulterior motives. But he managed to pick up a piece of chicken and get it to his mouth, and for that, Tim gripped his flesh arm in an excited touch of congratulations and praised that he was a fast learner.
Rhys used the excuse of ‘practicing’ to finish his lunch with chopsticks instead of a fork, even though Tim gently teased that it would take him twice as long to finish.
That, Tim didn’t know, was the whole idea. Rhys was half-stiff in his pants as he sat there. Unnoticeable, unless he got up, but he had to admit that maybe indulging in Tim’s hands on his own– after sleepless nights dreaming of those same hands, only Jack’s, all over his body- maybe wasn’t the best idea. The half-realized boner was his punishment for indulging himself.
By the time lunch was done, he was safely able to return to his own desk and continue boring secretarial work that could’ve been done at home while Tim did much the same. He didn’t think Tim caught the interested looks he gave him as they finished off the work day, but as far as his psyche was concerned, he wasn’t going to get any rest anytime soon.
Jack had been in and out of the office all week, and Tim stood in more often than not for the random video call needing the CEO’s face.
Between Jack’s sudden interest in cleaning his gun at his desk when he was present, and take-out meals with Tim when Jack wasn’t, Rhys was in a hell of his own making.
The PA had been certain he was being punished by galactic karma for his dirty thoughts about Jack’s hands on him, and for the shameless touching of Tim’s own a week prior. Rhys didn’t know if he was just conscious of taking notice now, or if his fantasies had gotten just that deep under his skin, but it was like he could focus on nothing but the strength and dexterity in Jack and Tim’s respective hands.
And it only snowballed from there.
Jack became rather insistent— after Rhys’ denials of any ability- that his PA know proper gun maintenance, which then lead to an intensive lesson in structure as Jack expertly took the weapon apart, and put it into Rhys’ own hands to make him learn to properly put it back together, he’d said. Jack was already a touchy-feely type of guy, and Rhys credited sheer force of will for not outwardly-blushing as Jack moved his hands freely about Rhys’ person in his teaching. The touches were peppered with all the usual familiarity and innuendo Jack normally used with the younger man, but whatever desensitization Rhys had developed in a year working for the older man was raw and easily-excited again.
Jack would probably never let Rhys live it down if he knew he was actually hitting the mark, and Rhys had been trying to fight a hard-on the entire ‘lesson’. While it gave him more wank-material to pull into his fantasies, it wasn’t exactly lending to his quality of sleep.
Tim had stood in for Jack a few days that same week, and it was like the PA couldn’t catch a break with him either.
Tim and Rhys had gotten noodles for take-out again— so Rhys could practice, Tim pressed- and the gentle encouragement and demonstrations not only made Rhys’ chopstick skills better, but they fully aggravated his rekindled obsession for his boss and his body double.
And after that trying week, that was how— after not being properly laid in months, and fueled with more than enough reality-based fantasies in his mind- Rhys had been absolutely going to town on himself in the shower, using both hands, and toys, as he fucked and jerked himself off.
And right as he’d been enthusiastically working the Master Handsome 5000 into himself, flesh hand drifting down to tug at his cock in earnest, the worst damn thing had happened.
“The whole arm’s dead, Jack,” Rhys hissed agitatedly into his comm. He was pulling on clothes as he spoke, a long week of sleepless nights and ruined sheets making his mood go from bad to worse.
He hadn’t even gotten to come when his arm had suddenly gone dead, and the panic had been real enough to kill his hard-on.
And now all that pent-up frustration and arousal was being used to fuel his anger.
“Your arm’s dead?” Jack repeated nonchalantly. “Like, you can’t move it, or—”
“As in no movement at all,” Rhys snapped, then cleared his throat a little. He took a breath as he realized that Jack was still his boss, and he was asking him for help and probably shouldn’t be snapping at him… even if it was probably Jack’s own tinkering that had caused it, and thus in relation, was to be blamed for his current lack of orgasms. “It was fine, but then—”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, babe,” Jack spoke into the comm like it was nothing. “Come on over and I’ll fix it for you.”
Rhys opened his mouth to say something back to that blasé tone, and then thought better of it as his exhausted mind quickly whiplashed him from thoughts of anger and resentment back into the morally-ambiguous territory of recent arousal. “…at the office?” he asked far more calmly than he felt.
“Nah, I’m already home. Got everything to make-do here.”
The anger came right back. “Jack…”
Rhys bristled at the thought of ‘making-do’, and things getting further screwed up inside his cybernetics. He was already frustrated that he’d gotten no rest all week due to filthy dreams about large, warm hands all over his body, and to top it all off, now he couldn’t even get off. Not in the way he really needed, anyways.
Jack’s own tone shifted, and something in it made Rhys’ mood shift as well.
“I can fix it, okay?” The exasperation in the older man’s voice was only shadowed by the confidence there; the promise to make it better under the tone asking for his trust.
Rhys sighed. “…Really?”
“You betcha,” Jack promised, the smirk evident over the comm. “Come on up, cupcake. I’ll leave the door unlocked for ya.”
Chapter 2 will be found at my ao3 :)
kofi | ao3 | commission ‘info’
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britesparc · 4 years
Text
Weekend Top Ten #433
Top Ten Things I Want from Xbox Series X
June is Games Month here at David’s Top Tens! That’s right, all month long we’re exploring the majesty of what we all used to call “computer games” before we became too cool. That’s because it’s the time of year when huge multinationals tantalise us with pre-rendered cinematics showcasing gaming experiences utterly divorced from what we’ll get to play. Even in this Time of Crisis (as opposed to a Time Crisis), games companies are still Touting Their Wares, and as such, I am brimming with fanboy fervour, tantalised at the prospect of Gaming Yet to Come. This week alone has seen sexy new videos from the likes of EA, Pokémon, and Sony – whose PlayStation 5 reveal gave us the best glimpse yet at exactly what the next generation could look like. I was impressed; although there wasn’t too much in the way of radically new concepts or whatever, games looked good, with plenty of sexy, shiny new bells and whistles, and it looked like environments will be bigger, more fluid, and more reactive than ever before. Plus seeing the ray-tracing in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart gave me serious “Quake II running on a 3D accelerator card” vibes. Suddenly I was sixteen again, getting all sticky-knickered over texture filtering and coloured lightning.
It was great.
However, I’m pretty much an Xbox-first gamer; mostly, I suppose, due to inertia, having gotten used now to how an Xbox works, to the point where a PlayStation always feels a little alien (still wanna play The Last of Us Part II, though). I’m more of a fan of the Xbox game franchises – the main reason I bought an original Xbox in the first place (way back in 2001) was to play Halo: Combat Evolved, and because of the promise of Fable. This love of Xbox games has only grown with the acquisition of Rare (despite the slight misstep of Perfect Dark Zero) and the release of games like Crackdown, Gears, and Forza Horizon. So as much as I try to be open-minded – and certainly I try to avoid any kind of partisan mud-slinging – I guess I’m pretty much in the tank for Xbox. As such, I’m phenomenally excited for Xbox Series X. I got an Xbox One at launch, and despite all of the hullaballoo and criticism, I’ve always really liked it. I think it’s kind of struggled compared to its predecessors (cult favourite OG Xbox and revolutionary Xbox 360), and hasn’t quite had the era-defining games that both of those enjoyed. All that being said, though, I’ve had loads of fun with it, and so have my wife and kids. But I’ve stuck with the same machine all these years, never upgrading to the more streamlined Xbox One S or the super-duper-sexy Xbox One X. So when I do upgrade, I think the jump will be far more noticeable than someone who’s been enjoying Red Dead Redemption 2 or Gears 5 on a 4K display; it should really feel like a new generation. And that’s before we get to all of the traced rays and other lovely gubbins.  
Anyway, when it’s this time of year, I tend to do a semi-comical “E3 predictions” list, followed by a “Stuff I liked at E3” list. Obviously E3 isn’t really happening, but these other online game reveals are, and given my aforementioned excitement over Series X – and Microsoft’s upcoming and much-anticipated reveal of first-party titles – I thought I’d divert my thoughts to what I want to see on the new console. However, unlike the traditional E3 predictions of yore, I’m going to look at what I’d like from the console rather than what games I’d like to see. Partly that’s because these announcement videos are getting spread so far and wide that it’s hard to keep track of what’s been revealed or when we’re likely to see something; partly it’s because we already know quite a few Xbox games that are coming out; and partly because the list would just degenerate into older franchises I want to see come back round again. Plus, with Crackdown 3 having already happened, a new Fable more-or-less an open secret, and a new Perfect Dark being very heavily rumoured, my go-to “wants” are getting thin on the ground. Perhaps Tim Schafer can bring his old LucasArts classics to the Xbox next year…? Whatever, this time around, I’m looking at that big black box and thinking about what features and design elements I’d like to see. What could be improved from how the Xbox One works? How would I like Microsoft to leverage their assets – from the faster SSD to the power of Project xCloud? Basically, what do I want Xbox Series X to be like, outside from glittering reflections on Master Chief’s shiny armour?
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Streamlined, faster dashboard: now they’ve already said that the Xbox Series X dash will be effectively identical to the Xbox One dash, which is a trifle disappointing, but I hope that doesn’t mean that both systems can’t get an improved dashboard before Christmas. At the moment things are a bit fiddly, and I’d like to use the improved SSD to mean seamless transitions from page to page. Make it super-easy to get to your game library. Allow more customisation of the landing page. How about allowing us to resize icons, like on Windows 10? Don’t have quite so many obscure categories clogging up the front page. Use the shoulder buttons to hop between sections. Make it more about the games I can play rather than connectivity, shopping, or chatting. Stuff like that.
Integrated streaming: with Project xCloud on the (official) horizon, hopefully we can integrate that service into how the Xbox works. How’s about letting us stream demos straight from the store? Or stream games while they install/download? Or the option to stream any game we own rather than play it from the console? Or cast games from console to phone, or tablet, or PC, so we can enjoy the benefits of Series X hardware in the palm of our hands?
Discless play: teased then withdrawn from the Xbox One launch as it require the internet to check, I hope this can make a belated return. I like physical media, but I also like not having to get off the couch to change discs. I’d be very willing to accept an always-on connection as the price for playing a game without the disc in. If they could find some way to implement this and keep everyone happy, I’d be delighted.
Improved Guide menu: the best thing about the Xbox 360 interface was the Guide menu, which – certainly by the end of the generation – basically offered you full console functionality from one simple pause-button menu. The One Guide has been refined but could go further. Offer instant access to all our games, and all the system settings. Let us seamlessly jump from one thing to another and back again. Let us view all our captures quickly and easily. And let us go through game-by-game and see all our achievements, cycling through their related imagery. Basically, make it more like the 360, please.
Standardised settings: another amazing thing the 360 did that was totally walked back for the One is the idea of having a standardised range of settings that were applied across your entire profile. So if you want to invert your Y-axis, you tick one box, then all games are inverted. This was fantastic, and Microsoft were daft for undoing it. Make it good again! You have the power!
Refined subscription services: I think Game Pass is the future of Xbox, and I think xCloud is the future of Game Pass. This seems fairly obvious to me. I don’t know how much money Microsoft makes from Game Pass, but the way they’re leveraging their entire gaming strategy around it suggests that it’s a much stronger money-spinner for them than the traditional console market. I just hope that eventually the myriad Xbox subscriptions can be refined. Perhaps “Gold” as we understand it could be retired, replaced with a simple three-tier monthly sub, similar to Netflix; Game Pass Bronze (limited multiplayer, limited ability to download games from the library); Silver (Gold and Game Pass as we understand it, plus limited streaming), and Gold (all the games plus full streaming of everything)? This would, hopefully, mean we could get some of the benefits at a reduced cost (say, a fiver a month), and the “free” games in Game Pass would offset the loss of Games With Gold, perhaps.
Switch app: simply put, this would be cool: the ability to stream Xbox games on a Switch. Nothing more to it than that, really; the Switch form factor and controls would lend themselves to the Xbox experience effortlessly, and it’d mean I could continue my Halo campaign whilst my wife hogs the Xbox with Stardew Valley again.
Tangible differences between generations: on the one hand, I really applaud Microsoft’s blended approach to console generations. Smart Delivery, Backwards Compatibility, and Play Anywhere combine to form a very consumer-friendly approach; if you a buy a game now, you’re more-or-less guaranteed the best possible version come the Series X launch in November (or whenever). The downside to this, however, is a slight nagging feeling that we’re not going to see the best that the console can do; it’s fair enough that the Xbox One and Series X versions of Halo Infinite are, to all intents and purposes, on the same disc, and your progress and achievements carry over; but does this not mean that, aside from improvements in graphics and loading times, the Series X version is functionally identical? Is it just like upgrading a graphics card? Ratchet and Clank boasted some nifty dimension-hopping technology that presumably is a core part of the gameplay and looked like something that maybe wasn’t possible this gen; will Xbox owners miss out on features like that? If Series X could, say, give us a new Fable that presented as one continuous open world with no “hubs” or separated areas or loading, with some kind of magical traversal that allowed us to rocket across the landscape on a broomstick or whatever, would that not be handicapped by having to carry save game data over from the inevitable Xbox One version? Basically, I’m fascinated by how it’s going to work, but I hope we’re not going to end up slightly short-changed from a featureset point of view.
New hardware: not just the Series X itself, obviously; and not even the strongly-rumoured “Series S” either. I mean other bits and bobs. As they’ve already shown us the controller, I can’t realistically wish for one that had a microphone in it, but a tiny mic attachment maybe? Alongside the obvious headset. I wanna talk to the machine, basically; it was the one genuine benefit of Kinect. Also: a new, improved, media remote. A wireless mouse and keyboard, or some kind of lap-based hybrid. A new camera, not as invasive or scary as Kinect, just so we can use the Xbox to Skype people. And y’know what? VR support. Doesn’t have to be unique, bespoke headsets; just let us use PC ones, and let developers support VR in Xbox games. I don’t have the money or space to upgrade my laptop to be VR-ready, but if I had a PlayStation you can be damn sure I’d have PSVR. Half-Life: Alyx might be a pipe dream, but can I play Star Wars Squadrons at least?
Don’t bankrupt me: yeah, this. I’m cautiously optimistic that Microsoft will at least attempt to make this manageable; the recent rumour that it’d sell for $399 was much appreciated even if I think it’s supremely unlikely, especially if Lockheart/Series S is a thing. With Sony giving out noises that the PS5 will be a “good value” proposition rather than cheap, I think MS will strongly attempt to undercut them, but also not feel the need to go stupidly low. So please, Microsoft: $450, top end. Please don’t give us a $499 box. I’m already gonna be forking out for a new TV so I’d appreciate if I could keep the whole cost. For what it’s worth, I think the prices of all the new consoles will be: PS5 $499; XSX $449; PS5 DE $399; XSS $299. There you go: I managed to slip in an E3 prediction right at the very end. Prove me wrong, guys!
Phew, that was another epic one. But it was fun. I guess it’s weird to try to talk about the feel of a console without having used it. There are things I’d like improving with the look and feel of Xbox, but it’s hard to quantify it; stuff that’s clunky on a daily basis. And I’m probably an edge case anyway: someone with a huge interest in games and gaming, but who’s not very interested in multiplayer, and who – because of time and money but mostly time – rarely plays new releases, and takes ages to complete a game. But anyway. I’m dead excited about the Xbox Series X, and I can’t wait to hear more.
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buckysgoldenheart · 4 years
Text
Late :Henry Cavill x Reader
Summary: Henry has a reputation that makes you cautious and it’s caused some disagreements. Everyone thinks you hate each other, but maybe you don’t as much as you let on. (fluffy ending, and idk, maybe angst depending on your definition).
Words: 2880
Notes/Warnings: I made this like mid-20s Henry during the Tudors filming, season 1. If I messed up with tenses somewhere, I’d like it of you let me know. I started this story out in the past-tense then changed it to present so I might have missed some stuff when editing, even after reading it 100 times over.
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At the sound of the doorbell, you hop up from your sunken spot on the couch. After the day you had, the Chinese food on the other side of that wood slab is the only thing with the ability to help you recover before you must face a fresh 5 a.m. morning with Henry tomorrow.
God, you want that man to fall off the face of the earth. You don’t care if his disappearance meant you would temporarily be out of a job. Being an assistant on the set of The Tudors was something you had strongly considered sacrificing in the past if it meant never having to work with one very particular, blue-eyed, temperamental actor ever again.
You almost quit weeks ago but told yourself to suck it up. You can’t afford to unintentionally cause drama at your workplace, not after your last job; and getting that kind of reputation is not what you are going for. Besides, filming for the first season is almost over, and you will gladly welcome the long break before everyone needs to report back for season two.
The smile you were fully prepared to give the delivery man falls entirely at the sight on the other side of the door.
“What the hell are you doing here,” You huff out.
Henry crosses his thick arms over his even thicker chest and frowns back at you. “I didn’t get my script.”
A headache is already forming just from his proximity and you don’t bother resisting the urge to rub at your temple. “Well, I sent it to your house a week ago.”
“And I didn’t get it, so clearly you didn’t do a very good job.”
With an eye-roll, you say, “Is there some reason you had to come all the way to my apartment and bug me for the script when I will see you first thing in the morning?”
“Everyone else will have had theirs longer, and I wanted to get a good start on learning my lines, so yes, I have a good reason for ‘bugging’ you, Y/N.”
You hate the way he says your name. It passes his lips so softly every time and makes your heart speed faster than your liking. If another man said your name like that, you’d fall for him in an instant, but no, Henry seemed to be the only man possessing that thick, honey-sweet voice.
“Whatever,” You groan and turn on your heel. In your office desk are two extra copies of each actors’ script for emergencies, but a simple text from Henry would’ve sufficed; this is hardly life or death.
‘Hey, never got my script. Can you bring a copy in the morning?’ So damn easy.
You turn your head back when Henry’s heavy footsteps hit your hardwood floors. “Hey, I didn’t say you could come in,” You snap, eyebrows drawn together.
“What kind of person would leave their guest outside?”
The sass in his tone makes you want to pull your hair right out of your scalp. “You’re not my guest,” You say, but your blatant aggravation does nothing to hinder him and his body is a foot away from yours before you know it. Inches he has on you forces you to look up just to meet the smirk on his face.
“Stop acting like you hate me,” He says as he reaches a hand to grab yours.
“Excuse me?!” You quickly swat that hand away. “I am not acting like anything! Any negative feelings you are sensing from me are one hundred percent genuine.”
Henry scoffs and crosses his arms once again. “Oh, please.”
Your jaw drops in disbelief. He is unbelievable. Everything he does, everything he says, everything he is has had the power to make your whole body shake since the day you met him. “God, I can’t stand you!”
Walking away from him for the office, he follows close behind. “You know what, you’re not all that great either!” He yells at your back as you open the drawer of your desk to shuffle through the scripts. “You yap all damn day, talking to everyone else on set and making them laugh! You shoot that pretty smile in any direction and people flock to you like deranged birds!”
“So!” You pull out the script and hand it to Henry. Without giving it a glance, he snatches it from you and tosses it back on the oak wood surface of the desk.
“So? You’re distracting them from their jobs! We could probably get things done twice as fast if you weren’t around!”
“That’s—”
“And you are annoyingly beautiful!” He harshly interrupts. “Annoyingly! The men we work with will not shut up about it and I’m sick of listening to them talk about you the way they do! I end up hearing your name more times in a day than I hear my own, and I get called upon every five seconds! I’m practically forced to think about you!”
You blink at the increase in volume that makes the thin walls of your home quiver.
“I don’t know how many times your face manages to flash in my mind in the course of a week, but it’s starting to get to me!”
Your hands rise in disbelief before they slap back down to your sides. “That’s not my fault! But you’re one to talk! You’re well aware you’re ridiculously, unnaturally hot, and I fucking hate it! The women we work with won’t shut up about you. And you think I’m annoying? Imagine being surrounded by a pack of idiots that go on and on about how amazing you are, when the truth is, you’re so arrogant I can’t stand to be within two feet of you!”
When you try to walk past him, his hand wraps tightly around your upper arm. “Hey!”
“Leave me alone! I hate you!” You snarl at the rage in his eyes and try to shake him off you.
“You don’t hate me.”
You glare up at him. “Oh no?”
He gapes at you, seemingly stunned you have the gall to challenge him. The grip on your arm loosens until you are free. Winding his fingers through his chocolate locks, Henry shakes his head and clenches his jaw. “You are so...”
“So what? So irritating? So infuriating?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“If I’m such a problem, then go.” Ignoring his words, you point a finger in the general direction of the nearest exit.
“You want me to leave?”
“Yes! Of course, I do!”
He quirks an eyebrow and cocks his head. “So you’re going to grab me with your tiny hands and throw me through the front door, is that right?”
“I can’t fucking lift you!” You yell.
“Then I’m staying!”
“I think you’re really not! You can’t just demand to stay here! That’s not how this works!”
“Why can’t you just—God damn it!” He stomps his way back into the living room, script forgotten, and reaches for the doorknob. You follow him and let out an exhausted breath of relief, but Henry whips around to you again before you have time to revel in the feeling. “You know what, no. I’m not going anywhere until we settle this bullshit between us. I’m not going to argue with you anymore. I’m not going to act like I dislike you. I’m not going to keep playing this game, because it’s clearly not getting me anywhere; in fact, it’s doing the opposite.”
“Getting you anywhere?” You mumble.
“This whole thing is fucking bullshit and I’m over it.” He swallows. “Tell me what I did.”
“What?”
“You keep saying you hate me but have never given me a reason, so what did I do?”
Your jaw drops. “Are you kidding? You were just telling me I suck at my job, yet at the same time you don’t think I have a reason to be mad. You glare at me during work, you act like I’m an inconvenience, you—”
“That’s not what I mean.” Henry grabs your hand, and for a reason you couldn’t place, you allow it this time. “At the beginning, when we met, what was it that caused a problem between us? I’ve gone over our first meeting in my head about a thousand times and cannot figure out how I upset you so much that you’re still mad after months.”
You slip your fingers out of his palm, looking to the floor.
“Please just tell me,” He begs. “Please, I--”
“You sleep with the women you work with.” You spit out.
When he stares at you in confusion, you wince and say, “I have this friend…kinda. She was an extra on Hellraiser and claimed that you slept with nearly every woman on set, herself included. When I told her I got this job she said you’d probably try to get in my pants if I wasn’t careful, and I’m not cautious enough about men as it is, so—”
“You were mad at me before we met for something I didn’t even do?” He isn’t angry or looking at you like you’ve lost your mind; more like he can’t believe that was all it was. As if he had a simple solution to the problem that planted its roots deep into the both of you months prior.
“Whether or not you did, it’s not like you’ve been an angel to me anyway,” You say.
“Because I fucking panic when someone I want doesn’t want me! And you’ve made it very clear that you do not want me! You always seem so angry and…and I’m not very smooth, ok!? I say shit I don’t mean!”
“So you do want to get in my pants?”
“No!” He says quickly, then after a beat, sighs. “Yes.”
You give no response, so he continues.
“I swear, despite how idiotic I have acted, I really like you, and I don’t know who your friend is or why she would tell you I slept with a bunch of women on set, but I didn’t.”
You have to look away from him. His eyes hold too much sincerity and all it does is confuse you. You have spent too much time pissed to feel comfortable with the idea that it was potentially all for no reason, so you hug your arms across your middle and take a step back from him.
“Y/N, we need to talk about this.”
You shake your head. “I can’t right now.”
“Y/N—”
“It’s late, Henry. I’ll see you in the morning.”
You won’t meet his stare but can see from your peripherals his head slowly nod. You don’t look up until your front door closes softly behind him.
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You spend the earliest hours of the next morning sipping coffee before everyone else arrives for work, wondering if the night before actually happened or if it had just been a very realistic messy mix of a dream and a nightmare.
The sun rises and you watch as it ascends each inch until it’s planted high enough in the sky to warm your skin. He’d be here soon, looking for you, wanting answers for any questions you hadn’t given him the chance to ask.
So, what, he likes me now? He wants me? You can’t wrap your head around it. But you suppose it makes as much sense as you saying you hate him when really what you’ve been is nervous. You don’t want to be used again by some man with more power than you. Pulling yourself out of that hole was hard enough and you have no desire to trip and fall right back in.
“Y/N. You’re here early.”
You jump at the first voice to interrupt the peaceful silence. It was the last moment you’ll have to yourself for the next fifteen hours at least.
Turning your head, you smile at your boss. “Morning, Em.”
“Henry’s here early, too,” She says. “He asked me to let him know when you came in, but seeing as you’re already here, you think you could just head to his trailer now?”
No, you want to say. I’m not ready. “Sure.” You half-heartedly smile, dumping the last of your coffee in the nearest trash can.
Each crunchy step along the gravel to Henry’s trailer feels less sturdy than the one before. Though, he isn’t in his trailer when you find him, but standing out in a grassy patch, throwing a ball to Em’s dog, Leo. It makes your heart pump hard to see him so casually soft. It’s the first time you are looking at him when his eyes aren’t already on you.
Leo loyally returns the ball to Henry three more times before you gather the nerve to step up to his side.
“Em said you wanted to see me.”
You notice him hold in a breath when he registers your voice, then tossing the ball once more, he says, “I’d have gone looking for you myself if I knew you were here.”
You nod, but you’ve yet to look at one another.
“The makeup artists are gonna have a blast today trying to make me look decent,” He says.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t sleep all night. I spent it trying to figure out what to say to you but came up short.”
You scratch behind Leo’s large ears when he nudges your legs with his head. Henry gently grins, though you don’t see it. You shrug. “At least you don’t have as many scenes today.”
Henry chuckles. “That’s true.”
“I couldn’t think of anything to say to you either,” You say.
A moment passes as he blows out a deep sigh.
“Y/N…I don’t want to act like it didn’t happen. I know that’s what is easiest, but I meant what I said. The good parts, not the shit about you sucking at your job. You’re the best at your job.”
Finally meeting his eyes, the corners of your lips curve up just a bit.
“But I don’t expect you to feel the same about me.”
“Henry…”
He shakes his head and throws the ball for Leo after the pups persistent whimpering. “I’m not going to make things hard for you. Filming is almost over anyway and if you want, I’ll try to bother you as little as I can. I’m sorry I’ve been an ass, it’s just…you like everyone around here except me, but I’ve liked you more than anyone else since the moment we met. It’s no excuse--”
“It’s ok.”
He looks at you. “It’s not.”
“It is.” Without thinking, you place a hand on his arm. He stares at the touch you give him as you continue. “I didn’t have a good reason for treating you like I hate you, not really.”
“So, you don’t…hate me?”
“…No.” You look away in shame. “And I have a better explanation for that.”
He blinks, clearly relieved that every horrible thing he figured you felt for him was not, in your heart, the truth. “You don’t owe me one.”
“I slept with my boss once,” You rush out. “And, um…got the same warning as I did with you: sleeps with the other women he works with, will try to do the same with me. He did and I let him because I thought he liked me, but…no. All it did was make me feel like an idiot in the end.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I made a mistake.” You shrug. And suddenly, admitting that out loud, confiding in someone, knocks some of the painful gears in your head loose. You’d never told anyone the truth about your past. “Look, this is going to sound really odd but,” You swallow. “…Don’t stop bothering me.”
“Wait,” He turns his body fully to you. “What?”
Your lips thin, but then you smile, inch up on your toes, and go to kiss his cheek. All you wanted to do was provide a little reassurance, to let him know that you now forgive every misunderstanding between you, but the kiss lands a little too far to the right and covers the end of his mouth.
Immediately, you pull back a few centimeters and feel heat flushing your cheeks, but Henry tilts his head the slightest. He takes a breath, giving you a chance to pull back further, but when you make no move to abandon him, he connects your lips again.
It feels good. He feels good. So good it shocks you how much you don’t want it to end. And when you part your lips and his tongue touches yours, you can’t stop your hands from sliding up his chest before roping around his neck and tugging him closer. Only then does he greedily grab at your hips, his fingers digging into your flesh through the fabric of your t-shirt.  
Leo’s bark separates you minutes later, though you’re reluctant to allow it. You glance at the dog, chuckling at his rapidly wagging tail as he watches the scene before him. But when you look back to Henry, his eyes are already glued to you, their hue a little brighter and a small smile on his face.
“I’ll bother you as much as you like,” He says and tucks a wayward strand of hair behind your ear.
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