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#overtime demo x reader

asakiooi · 1 year

Note

Hey idk if you take writing requests so if not. dont read this and have a nice day :)

But however if you do-

I been dieing for a reader x josiah from overtime. I was wanting somthing on the more wholesome side. As a simp I played that game solely for him and ended up hitting the wall running to fast to his desk. So I'm asking for something like that where the reader is like ya know always happy to see him. Maybe even buys him monsters often, watches him play his game and quietly cheers for him. Ya know like a little wife who just wants him happy. (And obviously that he kills ofc)

(And unless you keep it gender neutral, can the reader be a short fem? I'm 5'1 and would tremble under his look lmao)

and take ya time if ya make it and get good rest :)

Overtime Headcanons | Josiah X Short GN! Reader

M sorry op, once again I have fumbled with my ask box but yes here you go bc I love all of you overtime lovers <3

In the form of Hcs unfortunately, I just pulled a whole fic earlier and I needa break. Also I’m writing this as pre extension demo, where Josiah works as an IT alongside you (mc).

Josiah is always delighted to see you whenever you turn from the corner straight to his desk. Sometimes you clumsily run too fast and hit the walls that surround his desk, which leads you to double down in pain once you smack your entire body into it. He always makes sure to crouch besides you and rub your back, making fun of you while doing it but also making sure you’re okay.

He always pulls a chair out for you to sit next him whenever you have time. It’ll be much more comfortable than his, most likely snagged from your manager. He makes sure it has extendable options for height.

When you sit with him, he always leaves options open on what to do without ever saying them. He waits for your lead.

Sometimes you talk, mundane things like that. Or maybe deeper conversations that make you both think. If you were feeling bold, talks about romantic stuff like dates would make him feel flustered. Not in a bad way of course, he truly wants to do a lot with you.

Maybe you’ve gone out together once or twice before becoming an item, but this is different.

If you choose to watch him play games, he happily agrees. He’ll boot up his computer and start up CS:GO while you sit patiently.

When he starts matching, he’ll give you a lil glance and smile.

You watch intensely, looking at everything he’s doing.

He’s really good, you notice. Probably the best in the game honestly.

Every kill he gets, you mutter a “Ooh! Nice!” Which boosts his ego, especially if it was a tricky kill. You might even throw a few more words in to show how much you really pay attention and it makes him smile a little.

When he gets killed though, your quick to comfort him or come to his defense.

If you feel spiteful, you’re going to be quick with calling it an unfair kill. They camped? SMH, they should have been a good sport and played fairly (biased because if Josiah camped you wouldn’t bat an eye).

If Josiah doesn’t make a comment after his character gets killed you’ll fill in the silence.

If you feel chill, you’re quick to comfort him in a softer way. Not in a “You’ll get it next time” way, you already know he’ll go after his killer the moment he respawns.

“Cmon! You got this! He’s at that corner right there!” If you turn into his callout partner, he’ll be immensely happy. Usually he gets distracted when other people disturb him but when it comes to you and your voice, it becomes a guide for him.

He reacts fast regardless, but appreciates your efforts. Every time you tell him there’s a person at the window, near the courtyard, etc, he downs them immediately. Even if you don’t finish your sentences he’ll give you a high five for the teamwork.

He’ll also pat you on the head since your head is most likely chest level for him. How well you both did will show when he’s done ruffling up your hair.

Side thought that might be ooc, but I dare you to poke him when he’s gaming. He might think it’s an accident at first but when you keep doing it he knows it’s to throw him off. His sides are the weakest.

When you poke his waist it does a C curve and you laugh at that. If he dies he will most certainly poke you back in the same spot or any other known sensitive spots tenfold. Don’t mention this to him, but you know entirely that he’s pouting.

If you keep adjusting the chair in order to avoid him while he’s trying to poke you, he’ll set the chair down with both of his hands at the handles to keep you in place. This is your chance to poke him again but at both sides. Or this could be your chance to rizz him up and seduce him out from poking you everywhere.

Good luck soldier, just letting you know that he won’t stop until you’re crying and begging for mercy, which you’ll most likely do if there are other people around. (A/n: help I just realized this sounds suggestive, I assure you it’s all fun and games 😭)

Monsters are his go to. Always. How his digestives aren’t failing is a story for another day.

You always make sure to buy monsters whenever you have time in the morning. There’s almost always a quick trip to the mart just to get them everyday. When you round up the corner with a monster and smile, Josiah always makes sure to return the sentiment as soon as he can.

You’ll get a monster for his morning schedule, afternoon schedule, so on and so forth. Maybe you’ll even take a sip from his can to celebrate whenever he wins a game.

Now for general, many of your co-workers have to look from the side or tip toe and peek over the walls just to see if you’re there. Josiah on the other hand will make crude paper airplanes and send them over your walls. If you ignore his first initial airplane, he’ll make another one and aim for the center just so it can hit you. If you ignore that one as well, he’ll keep making them and wait until you finally come over to him and talk to him. (He will especially do this if you’re mad at him).

When you go to the archives to retrieve something, he always has to accompany you. Even with a ladder, you can’t reach most sections. Josiah, in his petty ways, would use his powers to hide or get rid of the ladder just so you can ask him for help. “Whom, moi?” He would innocently ask.

When you get confused on something during work, you can always ask him. He’s an expert after all.

He’ll explain to you what you need to know with total patience. With his chin resting on your head of course. His body will completely envelop yours while he’s explaining btw.

Show any visible awkwardness and it’s over. (Endless teasing and just to egg you into to saying something to him, he will get even closer).

Remember that Josiah is not a man of organized words. Teasing is his love language but, yeah. That’s all he’s confident in.

When he’s slightly annoyed with you (or jealous) he will stand over you, casting a long shadow and blocking your path. His face is definitely menacing. However you can just laugh with love at his attempt and he’ll laugh with you too, not taking anything he did before seriously.

Sometimes when you work overtime in the dark, he’s either your personal protector or personal devil. Just rest assured that he will never go home without you.

There isn’t a lot to go on about his actual person, but just letting you all know that I write him slightly influenced from Benrey from half life.

Sorry if this seemed short or not what you expected, I hope this will make up for not replying to this sooner !!

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gatorbites-imagines · 1 year

Note

This is the same josiah anon, if i can request this: Perhaps a yandere Josiah? Thank you!!! I was so happy because you're my favorite writer aaa///

Yandere Josiah x male reader

Headcanons

Guess who’s not dead. I bought a new game, Knights of the old republic, and I’ve been playing during all my free time forgetting all about writing.

Here’s some good ol Josiah, I’m not sure how good I captured the yandere feel since Josiah in general is just kinda… like that. Not that it matters but I always imagine Josiah with Manlybadassheroes voice.

- Josiah had never really felt attraction to anyone before, sure he had found people attractive, but most people tended to avoid him or talk to him as little as possible since he’s always been kind of a loner or weirdo.

- Then you swaggered into the office building on your first day and went around introducing yourself to everyone, and when you caught what Josiah was playing on his computer, instead of scolding him like everyone else you asked him about it in interest.

- After that the two of you started talking more, and Josiah’s interest in you only grew until it became a borderline obsession. It wasn’t an unusual sight in the office building for Josiah to follow you around like some puppy.

- Everyone just assumed it was because you were the only person in the building that actually put up with him and all his pranks and lazy behavior. Josiah was like your shadow even when you both had other tasks to do, he was always right behind you, looking over your shoulder.

- People around the building swore they’d catch Josiah glaring at them from under the shadow of his cap when they spoke to you, but they could never catch him in the act or prove it. It became almost a joke, to prod at Josiah by getting a little too friendly with you and making the other man jealous.

- Again they all assumed he was jealous because you were his only friend, some even joked Josiah was in love with you.

- Josiah’s obsession became so bad it got in the way of his everyday life, especially when one day Damian was scolding Josiah again and you defended him, even lying at times to get Josiah out of trouble.

- Up until then he had just seen you as his soulmate, now you were more like a god for him to worship, which also meant he didn’t want anyone to taint you and your perfectness, so he stopped hiding his glares or scowls as others got too close.

- When Josiah one day came in late to work, he caught you and Damian talking and it looked like a heated conversation, especially the pensive expression on the blondes face which turned into a tight scowl as Josiah approached.

- When Damian told you “Just think about it” before leaving, Josiah couldn’t help the burning jealousy that flared up in his chest, and when he asked in his lazy voice what you two had been talking about and you just said it was nothing, Josiah bit roughly into the inside of his cheek to keep himself from doing or saying anything.

- The conversation with Damian was because he was worried for you because of Josiah’s behavior, how possessive the man was and how he seemed to always be in your business, he had even seen Josiah take pictures of you or go through your things.

- You don’t believe him of course, because its no secret Damian doesn’t like Josiah, and Josiah is your friend and is down to earth, so what that he likes to hold your hand a little to tight, or hugs you for a little too long. That’s just how he is.

- The first time you invite Josiah over to your place he’s over the moon, you two hang out and play video games, and when you fall asleep against his shoulder he keeps himself as still as the dead as he doesn’t wanna wake you up.

- It becomes a regular ordeal, you two hanging out at your place. You never really wonder why you don’t go to Josiah’s place, since yours is closer to the office building so it’s a no brainer its your place the two of you hang out.

- Josiah starts taking some of your things, starting small but growing bolder over time, going from taking tiny knickknacks or stealing your sleep shirt or your toothbrush. You never suspect Josiah and just assume you’ve misplaced it, though you do grow quite sad when you lose your favorite hoodie.

- The hoodie returns after a while, so you just assume you must have misplaced it or overlooked it. You don’t really realize or question that its folded in a way you don’t fold clothes, or that it smells like Josiah’s laundry detergent and not your own.

- Josiah had returned the hoodie to you after wearing it himself nonstop in his own apartment, in the beginning it was just so he could feel close to you, until he ended up arching in his bed wearing nothing but your hoodie, pressing another of your shirts close to his nose and inhaling your scent.

- After that he had to wash it so it wouldn’t be retuned with mysterious stains, and when you didn’t seem to mind that it smelled different or that he had obviously taken it, at least in his opinion, he assumed in his delusional mind that you knew he was the one taking your things and you returned his feelings.

- The first time you kiss is during one of your hangouts at your apartment, Josiah had grown even more touchy after he came to his earlier conclusion, hugging you from behind or brushing his hand through your hair.

- When you win one of your games, you cheer and as if to show off your victory you snatch the cap right off his head and tuck it on yourself.

- Seeing you wearing his cap makes a mix of love, possessiveness and lust explode inside Josiah’s chest, so when you turn to him to gloat he leans right in and pressed his lips against yours.

- At first you don’t respond and Josiah feels fear plummet in his stomach because he’s scared he’s ruined it, but when you start kissing him back and wrap your arms around his neck to pull him in closer, Josiah lets himself run wild.

- He starts devouring you like a starving predator, his hands going up your shirt and his tongue exploring your mouth, both of you moaning and grasping at each other like you need the other to survive.

- Josiah litters your neck with bites and hickeys, and he grows so weak and whimpery when you leave your own hickeys and bites across his tan neck.

- He is a mix of possessive and pathetic, in the way that he has his moments when he grabs you so possessively, growls to himself and goes on muttered rants about how you are his and his alone.

- But then where are times where he’s cuddled into your chest and you run your fingers through his hair or rub his back, and he whines and whimpers, growing teary eyed as he kisses your neck so softly and grasps onto your shirt like he’s scared you’ll disappear.

- No one at the office is surprised when they learn you two are dating, they’re actually more surprised that you weren’t dating before.

- Josiah will now use it as an excuse to hang on you even more, though he never goes too far since this is a workplace and he doesn’t want to get you in trouble. He will kiss your neck and cheek a lot though, or hug you from behind and rub your hips.

- There will be some of your coworkers who jokingly ask you how you can put up with Josiah of all people, and when you respond that he’s super sweet and perfect for you, he just falls for you even more.

- What you don’t know is that Josiah has most definitely threatened Damian, when the blonde had tried on a couple of occasions to show you just how creepy or how many red flags Josiah showed.

- If Damian kept it up it wouldn’t be too surprising for the Blonde to go missing one day, and people will assume he just moved on to another job, that is if Damian’s body isn’t found somewhere in your town.

- No one suspects Josiah since he’s just a lazy nerd who’s a little too touchy with his boyfriend, but its all blamed on him lacking a lot of social skills that comes from living the life he’s lived until this point.

- Josiah will also use it as an excuse to be able to comfort you, holding you and kissing you and muttering about how he will keep you safe from whoever killed Damian, though he’s half convinced in his delusional mind that you know he did it and are just playing a role like he is.

- Now with no threat around Josiah doesn’t feel like he needs to be just as protective as before, and at some point you two most likely move in together since he already spends most of his time in your apartment.

- He openly steals your clothes now, since its more approved since you’re dating. He is also very obsessed with you wearing his clothes, so if you wanna drive him crazy just do that.

- He’s a little, or very, crazy, but he loves you very much and would kill god for you if it meant making you smile.

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starspotted-selkie · 1 year

Text

AAAA AAAA AAA AAAAAAA OVERTIME SPECIAL INTEREST BACK WITH VENGEANCE

#starspottedselkie #overtime oc #josiah overtime #overtime demo #overtime x reader #overtime fanart #autism win

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magicschmidt · 4 months

Text

LIVE DEMO

mike schmidt x fem!reader gif creds: klausbens a mix of pure fluff + antagonizing pining ՞• ཅ •՞ bleh!

this came to me right when i had to go to sleep. i did not go to sleep.

have this that's so raven girl next door vision of becoming abby's diligent babysitter who refuses to take the title of her favorite - even if the schmidt household is breaking your own charts - BUT ALSO mike's daytime college passenger princess who gets dropped off after abby has - positive this is the least he can do while he hasn't paid you + that he's up to ALL good getting to know who abby never shuts up about, right?

your free ride is actually mike's test run on you - your live demo.

PLEASE READ UNDER THE CUT & SCREAM WITH ME please 😥 im begging you 😓

whatever the boymath, you don't turn him or your guys' world record coffee runs down. it's convenient! caffeine is inevitable for you both: him to steer the wheel as high-alert as can be, & you who lies through her teeth about the couch being cozy - mike wants to make up for the neck pain by painfully obviously sliding the barista an extra to double-shot your cup, but you swat at his arm and claim the gas he's using on you is more than enough - ways ahead that pizzeria of his.

oh, in addition to their television as background asmr teensily tinily running up the electricity bill.

you've never been, but whenever you do zoom past freddy fazbear's, you make it a point to ask what was up that shift, and by that i mean squeeze absolutely everything you can out of him.

you don't take 'uh... it was interesting' for an answer, it leaves too much to the imagination - sometimes its begging mike to do his best impression of a very hallucinatory?? very sinister?? balloon boy laugh which you echo, and he pretends to find chilling - or bombarding him with unserious ass questions like 'did that ominous cupcake gnaw at the iron bars of the vent again yesterday/today?'

you throw all time expressions out there, having lost track of it when you're with him anyway.

mike racks - ransack's his brain for when you've gotten so curious. why he can't let the yawning do the talking instead. or music you both hate. why he's so bothered by your persistence, but not in a bad way. he used to guess it was fair game you wanted to get to know him too. he likes that you always, always seem to be having fun with both him and abby, despite the inconsistency of your payroll.

now, the change from interviewer to interviewee is just common sense - just a touch more rare to you. he appreciates you.

& don't even try lying to yourself; you wake up in the morning for mike's reactions. you tuck abby in bed like your life depends on it, improv story-telling your heart out with her sticky-note flipbook per her request; it's a team effort.

with her turn up first, abby usually sits at the backseat with her headphones on and music off to take note of the dopey looks you guys exchange. she thinks 'it's too early for this', and not in the 'non-morning person night owl' way, but to nag at herself to 'stop already shipping y/n with mike they don't know e/o that well yet!!!!!!' way.

it is almost as if getting the worst night's rest ever on the thinnest cushions even earlier compels the sun to rise and shine faster;

you fucking grind!

once your university not finally and moreso unfavorably comes into view, you touch up in your side's visor mirror. mike takes this as his cue to sneak what he counts as glances through the car's, and shockingly, you never catch on that he can't get enough of doing so - his attention divided with students scattered and stupidly j-walking outside.

your live demo has gotten a bit out of hand.

is mike kidding himself?

you are too presentable.

there isn't a need to babysit with mike there, snoring appropriate in position of cheery radio hosts. you don't need to remind abby if she brought her crayons after coloring with you all night the night before, or loan her your airpods when her headphones die.

this is overtime. you're just about hanging out on a time crunch.

you're beside him, barely awake but busying yourself with a tangled id lace. mike grounds himself, reminded your whereabouts was compensation enough.

that relief is temporary when you briefly flash him a sheepish smile, breaking it with a yawn and a nose scrunch for unintentional added measure.

you're overqualified, and a month's actual pay can't cover this! if this goes on, can he just sit idly by and allow you to take the bus home? the red alarms go off in his head.

mike is so screwed.

he scoffs when you flip the mirror up - what's light-hearted mockery to you fixing your hair up is him letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

he stares and yet, he never remembers to trace your features.

everytime mike looks at you, it is the first time; whether it's from the corners of his eyes with most of them on the road, or even the other way around on days he would morph everything else into a blind spot. he'd willingly run over a professor for seconds; in hopes its the one teaching you at ass o'clock & you'd maybe get a free hour to tail him to the station for probation and twirl a telephone cord in your fingers with a glass panel between you two just so you're face-to-face.

if luck strikes him, vanessa would be on perimeter, and you'd sit as you are right now but in her police car all together. mike, of course, sticks to the former, focusing so that none of you have to get in trouble. those are just thoughts that keep him up at ... well, noon, when he gets home.

so give him a break!

when he hazards infront of the main entrance after multiple repeats that you could walk there from the gate - he genuinely wishes you a day much much better than his shift, which you always giggle at.

you know today's already been granted when your back is off the seat, but your butt isn't!

this accidentally prompts mike to unbuckle your belt for you. his arm is not reached over across you in some cheesy romcom meetcute for one, because his car is actually practical and has the buckles and latch plates in the middle.

but your head whips to thank him a little too quick - you end up bumping foreheads.

you unapologetically giggle again, to which he groans an 'ow', and a sly 'what? want me to step out and grab the door for you too?' all while that damn seat belt on your shoulder is replaced with the strap of your tote bag - courtesy of mike slinging it back on for you.

your eyes twinkle with mischief; at how this kinda proximity isn't forced, but natural.

the tint on mike's car does not save for how flushed you are.

his tongue dances with a follow-up question to take you right there as well as out on a date, but for now a smile plays on his lips.

"jeez, i got it this time!"

you yell, and you're rushing off with your heart fluttering out of your chest.

mike just rolls his eyes when you manage to leave your door behind wide open - the cherry on top of the lack of sleep-induced ditziness, but just as he's about to do your single duty as passenger princess?

you come back to gingerly give him a kiss on his cheek.

"a tip as my chauffeur! be grateful i didn't fire you for getting out before me! i'll let it slide just this one-hundredth time!"

of course by tip you mean* payback* for what you are only now realizing are growing feelings for your new knight in airbagged armor - and you're off for real.

mike could care less what you mean though, now that he knows you voicelessly wished him the same thing. aren't you just the showcase of grace?

no way in hell mike has it in him to chat you up to the neighbors now. it's time padlocks get a price hike! and maybe you a promotion to girlfriend ... if you'll accept him?

... it's safe to say he has to avail more of your services 😵‍💫

bonus: mike's a puddle of a man in his seat, and the honks from the line that has formed behind him are music to his ears - if a puddle had any?? what an odd way to loudly encourage him to get a 'honk if you love love' bumper sticker 🤭

a/n:

YES we r on Christmas Break but as a college girly, abby isn't the only one who needs bedtime stories to knock tf out ... my go-to scenario @ specifically 6 AM was to imagine PINING, yea ewww

yearning

or worse yet: admit we r head over heels for our fictional cute neighbor whose favors never run out. they aren't even ones he asks us for, we just go the extra mile which cld srsly fit better on our resumes - to which he somehow returns tenfold - & no one feels like they acc owe each other, we just all-around GAIN A 2ND CONSCIOUSNESS IN THIS 1 CAR RIDE that we ARE IN FACT crushing on e/o VVV unprofessionally! just went in the direction we simultaneously literally + friendship-wise got so close all of a sudden!

AGAIN i wrote sleep-deprived for the ULTRA HD 4K STINGY YOUTUBE PREMIUM EXPERIENCE so clearly the act of 0 proof-reading has been perfected! feel free to point typos out - out typos ?!?!?!? whatevs so we can laugh @ them TOGETHERRRR & i wish you the polar opposite rest u had in this ficlet! great GREAT night everyoneeeee! 💤

#SPOT LINES I STOLE FROM THE MOVIE HEHE!#mike schmidt #mike schmidt x reader #josh hutcherson #josh hutcherson x reader #mike schmidt x you #mike schmidt imagine #mike schmidt fluff #josh hutcherson fanfic #five nights at freddy's #fnaf

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hxngous · 2 years

Text

cubicle (overtime josiah x fem! reader)

"And tell him to hurry the hell up! I have an important email that needs to be answered in the next few hours!"

You jump as your co-worker throws a water bottle down at your feet.

Kicking it to the side, you get up and make your way to the other side of the office.

It was pretty clear the whole office hated him. Your friend, Josiah, that is.

When you first started out at the dreaded job, he was the only person who was kind towards you.

Sometimes you wondered if it was because you were the only woman or if he just had a caring personality.

Shrugging it off, you walk over to the man, tapping his shoulder.

Putting his headset down, the tired looking male spins his chair around and smiles.

"What's up, Y/N? You wanna play Warzone with me?"

"Uh, maybe another time." You reply.

"Oh. Then what do you need?"

He looks up at you and you hesitate to tell him for a second before speaking.

"Well, you see, Michael just told me to tell you that he needs his USB cord back. He says he has an important document on his phone that he needs to email in a few hours."

The dark-haired man blinks and shakes his head.

"Damn. I just remembered I threw it away with my lunch."

"You what?!"

"Chill Y/N, it's not your problem."

"I know but the rest of the company is blaming me for being your friend and it's beginning to stress me out a bit."

"Soooo, what're you trying to say? You don't wanna be my friend anymore?"

"No, no, no! It's just that I'd like if you told Michael that you accidentally threw his USB cord away."

Josiah smiles and nods.

"Of course. I can do that."

He stands up and stretches, a couple of bones in his body popping.

You follow him to the other side of the room where Michael sat with his arms folded.

"Well?" The angry man asks.

"Well what?"

Your slight smile quickly fades as Josiah starts to piss the man off even more.

"You dumbass, where the hell is my USB?!"

The prankster raises a brow before smirking.

"It's where you belong. The trash, buddy."

"THE WHAT?!"

Michael jumps up and grabs the man's collar.

"You fucking idiot! Hurry the hell up and find it before the garbage truck empties the trash for today!"

As if on que, a beeping noise rings from down below.

Rushing over to the window, the frustrated man gasps in horror upon seeing the huge garbage bin being emptied into the truck.

"Ooooo, sorry about that, champ."

Eyes widening, Michael turns around and attempts to punch Josiah.

He quickly dodges and the punch lands on you instead.

You stumble back into a cubicle and knock down a coffee cup, hearing the glass break.

"Hey! Do you realize that was the only thing I had to keep me sane today?!"

Covering your bloody nose, you look up at the angry man and quickly apologize, promising to buy him a new one.

"No, no. I don't need anything more from a woman. Goodness, always messing everything up!"

He throws his hands up and heads to the small coffee area.

"Well, at least I hit one of you idiots."

"Leave her out of this. It's my fault that I threw away the damn thing."

You look up at Josiah, who quickly leads you to the nearest restroom.

"I'm sorry I got you into this mess." The male says, tilting your head back.

"It's alright, I'll be fine. You can go back and play Warzone, I'll handle this."

Honestly, you were a bit embarrassed to have anyone looking at you in your current state, which included Josiah.

"Huh?"

"I have everything under control. Go back and enjoy your game."

You take the paper towel from him and hold it over your nose, pointing towards the door.

"Uh, are you sure?" He asks, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Yes, yes! Just go!"

He shrugs and walks out of the restroom, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

--- 30 minutes later ---

You tilt your head down for the fifth time, smiling.

The bleeding had officially stopped but probably not the resentment your fellow co-workers had towards you.

"Once one employees day is ruined, so is everyone else's." Is their favorite slogan.

Except the employees excluded you and Josiah.

Walking out of the restroom, you look around and stop, nothing no one was in the room.

"Uh, hello? Is anyone in here?"

Walking around, you check each cubicle only to realize not a soul was sitting in at least one.

"Maybe there's a meeting going on. I'd better check."

You look into the office, no one in there either.

"Uh, well this is weird."

Walking out of the room, you head towards the elevator, going down to the floor below.

It opens and you walk out, examining the area.

But still. No one.

"Hello! Anyone here?!" You call out.

Suddenly, the lights flicker off and you jump, quickly taking your phone out of your pocket and turning the flash on.

"Man, this is ridiculous. I've never wanted to see my co-workers until-

Stopping mid-sentence, you look down in horror at the literal murder scene in front of your feet.

Looking up, you come face to face with Josiah, who stood over the boss.

He held a knife in his hand and you wondered if you should back away or stay still in case he tried to kill you.

"Uh, this is pretty weird, huh?"

You nod and the male starts to walk over to you.

Slowly backing away, you watch the knife in his hand fall to the ground.

"See, I won't harm you."

"How do I know if you don't have another weapon on you?!" You ask, stumbling into a wall.

"You're quite the clumsy type, aren't you, Y/N?"

Suddenly your phone's light goes off, a dead battery symbol appearing on the screen.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"

A cold hand touches your face and you jump.

"It's alright, Y/N."

Turning his own phone's flash on, Josiah waves at you with his blood-stained hand.

"Come on, how about we go back up and play some Warzone?"

You nod in agreement, hoping the man wouldn't kill you.

Following him back into the office, you plug your phone into his charger as he pulls up another chair, only to realize that both his and yours wouldn't fit.

"Ah, that's too bad."

"It's fine, I'll sit on the floor." You quickly reply.

"Nah, a lady can't sit on the floor."

He sits down in his chair, before patting his lap.

"Sit here instead."

You look down at your shoes before looking back up.

"Are you sure? I don't want to hurt you."

He smiles and nods.

"Jeez Y/N, you can't hurt me. You're too fragile."

He pulls you onto him, and you feel a big heat rush through your body.

"There's no way this is happening. This man has literally just killed off the entire office and here I am being a-

"Look, I even brought you an extra controller so we can tag team."

You thank him and take it, Josiah wrapping his arms around your waist.

A quick wetness fills the bottom of your panties and you look around, hoping the man wouldn't notice.

"You gotta pee, Y/N?"

"N-no!"

"So then why'd I feel something damp on my thigh?"

He looks up at you with a smirk and one raised eyebrow.

"I don't know why!" You exclaim. "Look, the startup screen loaded."

Rolling his eyes, the man tosses both controllers onto his keyboard.

"We're not playing until you tell me why. I'd like to help solve the problem, Y/N."

Rubbing his hand on your inner thigh, you start to shake a bit.

"Okay. When you wrapped your arms around me it felt nice."

"Mhm. Keep going."

"And, uh, I really-

His hand stops at the entrance of your panties.

"You really what, Y/N? C'mon, don't be shy. It's good to speak your mind, something you've barely done."

"Huh?"

"Think about it, you used to let all those misogynists run over you like you were a dead animal in the middle of the road."

He chuckles, pulling your panties off and dangling them in your face.

"Hell, you even let a no-name like me get the best of you."

"No I haven't! See, now you're just-

The dark-haired male puts a finger over your lips.

"You could've easily told me that we were done being friends but you didn't because I was nice to you."

Your eyes widen a bit and he tilts his head.

"Yeah, Y/N. I'm not as dumb as I probably look."

"Goodness, Josiah. I never said you were-

Feeling three fingers insert into your womanhood, a loud moan escapes your lips and you cover your mouth.

"Be as loud as you want, babygirl. Not like anyone can hear us anyway."

He moves both of your hands away from your mouth, putting your arms above your head before continuing to stretch your tight vagina out with his other hand.

Stopping, the man quickly undoes his belt, pulling both his pants and boxers down a bit.

He grabs your waist and adjusts himself inside of you, all while making eye contact.

"Ahhh, your pussy has a bit of a grip to it, hmm?"

You turn away and he turns your head back forward.

He leans forward and kisses your lips, as you slowly move your hips in a circle.

Josiah pulls away, sliding his hand down to your waist.

"I'm sure you want more than that, Y/N."

He starts to thrust up and down, causing everyone of your assets to bounce, making you somewhat embarrassed.

Letting go of your hands, the man grabs the other side of your waist, thrusting even faster.

You wrap your arms around his neck, putting your face into the crook of it.

Moaning into his neck, the male smirks, rubbing your back.

"You know how good that feels, Y/N? So good that I should consider giving you a baby as a thank you."

"Faster, please!" You reply, ignoring every word he just said.

"BRRINGGGG!"

You look up as the male kept going and turn to your phone.

"Caller ID: Mom." Josiah reads.

"It's her birthday today. Can...I answer?"

He shrugs and you quickly pick up the phone.

"HAPPY, UMPH, BIRTHDAY MAMA!"

"Thank you, Y/N! I really hope I'm not disturbing you right now."

All of a sudden, Josiah pushes you onto his desk and lifting both of your arms above your head, slamming them on the small wall behind you.

He puts the phone on speaker and you shake your head no.

"Y/N? Is everything alright?"

"Yes, mama! Everything's alright, I'm just doing some sh-shopping!"

Picking up his pace, Josiah begins to quickly hit your g-spot and you let out a moan.

"Y/N? Are you sure you can talk right now?"

"Of course, mama! I'm fine! W-what're you planning on d-doing today?!"

"Well, your father is taking me out to a nice dinner and then we're going to see a movie afterwards."

"Sounds fun! I wish I could attend!"

Your legs tighten around the male and he leans forward, putting a hand around your neck.

Your mother giggles from the other side of the phone.

"Yes, but it's also important that you focus on your career as well. Even if I hadn't received any gifts today, I'd be happy that I have a girl as smart as you as my daughter!"

Josiah smirks and leans down towards your ear.

"Tell her how much of a slut of a daughter she has fucking a murdering bastard like me." He says, a little too loud.

"Ahaha! Thank you mom, I-I think I should get going now! I'll talk to y-you later! Enjoy your... day!"

"Alright, Y/N! Thank you, bye bye, and love you!"

"Love you too, mom!"

Quickly, you hang up and let out hundreds of moans.

"What a dirty little whore. My dirty little whore." Fucking and talking on the phone with your own mother, you should be ashamed, Y/N."

You look up into his eyes as his manhood practically ripped through your stomach.

The problem was, you had no shame. It felt so good to be under Josiah that every ounce of self-respect had left your body.

"Please call me a slut once again." You say, making eye contact.

He raises his brows and smirks.

"What was that? I can't hear you."

"Call me a slut again!"

"Sorry? Come again?"

"CALL ME A SLUT, JOSIAH! PLEASE CALL ME YOUR FUCKING SLUT!"

He lets out a deep chuckle and nods.

"Good girl, my little fucking slut."

You smile and your eyes slightly widen as you feel your stomach tighten.

Josiah notices and keeps thrusting, you throwing your head back.

"When you're ready to cum, just do so. Doesn't mean I'm finished."

You squeeze your legs around his back and release, breathing heavily.

The sleepy man yawns, as he holds your head to make sure it wouldn't hit the wall, pumping in and out of you.

You whimper in pleasure and he smiles, caressing your face with his hand.

With two fingers he opens your mouth and pulls out, releasing into your small opening.

"Swallow."

It took a while, but you eventually downed the man's salty semen.

"Heh, good job baby."

Josiah tosses you your clothes and you put your blouse back on, immediately falling to the ground once you tried to put your skirt on.

He turns around and chuckles, picking your skirt up, helping you put it back on.

"There you are."

He helps you up and sits back down in his chair, pulling you onto him.

"Now, I certainly can't let you roam free by yourself anymore. So I was thinking, we should make a truce. You can stay with me, I'll pay everything from rent to whatever the fuck you want in exchange for your company. How's that sound?"

You wondered if you should say yes, in case something went wrong one day but it's not like you had much of a choice. He'd probably kill you in case you'd declined.

On the other hand, getting whatever you want and spending time with him didn't sound so bad.

"I'll stay with you." You sleepily say, resting your head on his shoulder.

"Aha, you really are a smart girl."

He pulls out his phone, ordering something from your favorite restaurant for dinner, clocking out afterwards.

Since you could barely move any part of your lower body, Josiah carries you to his car, putting you in gently.

Getting in the driver's seat, he watches as you fall asleep and smiles, rubbing your thigh.

"I can't wait to make memories with you, Y/N. I sure hope you feel the same way too."

#overtime demo #overtime josiah #overtime game #smut #josiah x reader

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chickennuggetswrites · 2 years

Text

Co-worker Bestfriend x Reader

Reader: Gender Neutral

Characters: Co-worker Bestfriend (Gender Neutral)

Featuring: yandere, a bit of derealization, a bit of stockholm, unreliable narrator, blood and violence but not much

===

You opened your eyes and looked up at the nearby clock up a wall. It ticked mockingly at you.

Tick! Tock! Tick! Tock!

There it is again. The sound of that blasted clock, grating your ears as it continued on ticking monotonously. Endlessly. Drowning your thoughts out as it went on and on and on…

Click! Clack! Click! Clack!

It wasn’t any better with the typing sounds of the keyboards ringing out from your surroundings. You look down at your hands hovering over your own keyboard. The text cursor in your screen monitor blinking at you from the blank page of the document you had opened. You knew you probably should get back to work but you just couldn’t get your fingers to type anything. Your mind was drawing a blank.

You hated it here. You hated being stuck in your small cubicle. It’s suffocating and tiring. How long have you been working now? The time showed you that it’s only been four and a half hours, around 11 am, but why does it feel like you’ve been here for much longer than that?

“Ya tryin’ to summon words on your document with your mind?” A familiar voice sounded out that snapped you out of your stupor and you looked up to the right to see your best friend and co-worker leaning over gray cubicle wall, the circle under their eyes as prominent as always. “You’ve been spacin’ out for, like, five minutes now. Ya alright?” How would they even know how long you were spacing out anyway?

“You look like shit.” You absentmindedly told them. It seemed that your mouth filter wasn’t working properly today. You don’t even think it was working at all. In response, your best friend just winked playfully at you, a tired smile on their face, and said, “At least I look like hot shit, and I can say ya don’t look too far off.”

You paused and look down, trying to process what they just said. A minute later, you let out the quietest, “…I look like shit?”

You sounded somewhat pitiful and sad that your best friend couldn’t help but raise their brows at you and shook their head at their attempt at flirting falling flat. Seems like you were really out of it. They leaned their head on their arms that they draped over your flimsy cubicle wall and hummed in thought.

“You’re really spacin’ out a lot, lately. Say, why don’t we take an early lunch break and go to the cafeteria to keep our energy up? After that, if we still have time, we can go to the break room and take a quick power nap. Sounds good, yeah?”

Yeah… yeah, that sounded especially good. So good that you didn’t really protest as your best friend practically dragged you out the office.

“Ugh, you know Jenny from the IT department? She…”

“…great idea but still lacking in…”

“Joe, my man! How’s the missus?”

“…can’t. I still have to go to…”

Everyone’s chattering sounded like static buzzing annoyingly in your ears, useless and always repeating. You’re sick of it. You’re sick of hearing it.

As you were led through the hallways, passing by countless of faces that you couldn’t really comprehend, you looked over to you and your co-worker’s intertwined hands.

Somehow you felt slightly conflicted seeing this. It’s not that you hate having your hand clasped together with them, but it’s more of a… you couldn’t really put it to words. You don’t know what you’re feeling or why you’re feeling this way but you know, somehow, that your best friend was the only constant in your life and you need to hold on to them tightly and refuse to let them go. You don’t want them to disappear… You don’t want to be alone…

You tighten your loose grip, seeing their shoulders slightly tense before slumping. It seemed that they didn’t expect you to do that. The two of you continue on quietly moving through the crowd. You drown out your surroundings and sink into your thoughts.

By the time you snap out of it, you were already sitting down on one of the cafeteria tables with your favorite food, hot and steaming, ready to be eaten in front of you. Your best friend must have ordered it for you. Probably noticed how out of it you are today. They were seated across from you, already eating their own food with fervor.

It’s sweet that they know you enough to know your favorite food. And to order it for you with their own money. You mentally note to pay them back later.

You looked down at your own food. You couldn’t wait to dig in. It looked delicious. It looked beautiful. It looked… It looked… disgusting…

You had no appetite. You didn’t want to eat it. You even felt slightly sick from just looking at it so you lightly push it away from you.

Seeing this, your friend furrowed their brows, mid-bite. “What’s wrong? Ya don’t feel like eatin’?” They put their utensils down and quickly moved over to you in worry, trying to see what was wrong.

You tried to reassure them, “No, ah… It’s just that… just that I don’t feel like eating anything heavy today… I’d prefer something light like… soup, I guess.” You say and lean back on your chair, shoulder slumped. You were so tired… Seeing you like this, your best friend took your hand and tugged you lightly.

“C’mon, let’s go.” They said and you blinked in confusion. “Go where?”

“To the break room, duh. Gonna, gonna have ya lay down on the comfy couch there. Get that good, good z’s.” You gazed over to their unfinished meal with a questioning look. They waved their hand dismissively and said, “Nah, I’m already full! Full as a horse. Horseful.”

You slightly laugh at their nonsensical joke. Feeling tired, the sound of lying down on the couch for a quick nap was very tempting. You nodded at your best friend and let yourself be dragged off again.

You blinked, and suddenly you found yourself in the break room, your head on their lap. They were playing on their phone, too busy to notice that you were awake. You looked over at the clock on the wall. It was already 2:24 pm. When did the time go so fast? What happened? Wasn’t it lunch break just now?

Your friend seemed to have noticed the movement of your head when you tried to look up at the clock. They smiled down at you, putting their phone aside. “Yo, ya awake? I was gonna win the game. Gonna pew, pew, shoot the enemies and win. But you’re more important. How ya feelin’?”

You blinked slowly up at them, and slightly tilted your head. “…When… did I-- we get here?”

“Hm?”

“Here… um, on your lap?” You start unsurely. “Weren’t we just…at the cafeteria just now? How did we get here so fast?” Your friend gave you an odd look and put a hand on your forehead to feel for your temperature.

“Ya have a fever, buddy? We walked here and then ya pulled me on the couch with ya and then slept on me. My leg’s all numb now but you’re like a cat and it’s the very important golden rule to not move and wake up a cat when it’s sleeping.”

“Oh…I don’t remember doing any of that…” Was all you said, ignoring the cat comment. You quietly added, “…Is there anything wrong with me…? Nothing feels real anymore… I don’t feel real anymore…”

Your best friend didn’t say anything, expression turning neutral as they moved a hand to your head and patted you again and again, as if telling you everything was alright. The rhythmic motion made you feel drowsy and you found your eyelids getting heavier. Just as you let unconscious take you, you faintly heard your friend say, “The bossman must’ve been workin’ ya too hard… Must be their fault you’ve been outta it today… I knew it. It’s all their fault… But don’t worry, I’ll take care of them later. You’ll feel better soon…”

And with that, you close your eyes and--

…

Everything was eerily quiet.

You opened your eyes and automatically looked at the clock up on the wall. Although the room was dark, you could barely tell that it was already midnight. The lights were turned off and you couldn’t hear the hustle and bustle of people walking out in the hallway, which was odd in itself since the company was usually still active at this time. What’s more, your friend wasn’t anywhere in the room. It seemed they had up and left earlier without telling or waking you up.

You frown, a sinking feeling pooling in your stomach as you stand up. You walked over and opened the door slightly, peering out from the small gap. It was completely dim, aside from a small light source down the hallway that illuminated it eerily. It made the hallway look like a scene you would see from a horror movie.

Where was everyone? Where was your friend? Why did they leave you here alone? You felt slightly hurt by this. Until you remember what your best friend had said earlier.

“Must’ve gone to the boss’ office…” You muttered to yourself, peering out at the hallway once more. Although your mind was telling you to sit down and just wait for your friend to come back, that they hadn’t left you and was just doing something important right now and was going to come back to you once they were finished, you stepped out into the hallway.

Your footsteps echoed loudly into the night. A part of you was telling you to turn back now before it was too late but you forced yourself to go on. There was absolutely no one in sight and the office seemed to be in disarray. Computers, papers, and small things were scattered all over the floor, as if people had hurried out of here without mind to what they bumped into.

You looked up at the clock. What could have happened here in a span of about 11 hours to turn this place into something akin to a ghost town? And why weren’t you informed?

You blinked and, just like earlier, you were all of a sudden standing in front of a set of double doors. A double door that led to your boss’ office. Your hand was hovering over it, looking like you were just about to knock. You let it fall on your side.

The feeling of uneasiness started to rise in your gut. Something in you was telling you to turn back, that it still wasn’t too late. You ignored this, gripping the door handles and turned.

Bloody. It was so, so bloody. The walls and the floor were splattered with crimson. Your boss’ lifeless corpse on the ground, a pool of red surrounding them, looking maimed beyond recognition. And your best friend… your best friend was beside the body, a bloody and dented fire extinguisher that they had used to beat your boss up into a pulp falling down on the grounding, clattering loudly, as they looked at you with wide eyes. They clearly didn’t expect you to suddenly show up

“You-! You weren’t supposed to—How did you even—“ They held their bloody hands out to you, panic visible in their expression. “Wait, wait, d-don’t run! This—This isn’t what you think it is! I promise I’ll explain so p-please don’t…” You blinked, static ringing in your ears. You… Why didn’t you feel anything? Seeing your friend like this? Seeing that they had killed your boss? In fact, you almost felt… relieved? That they were here, perhaps? That they hadn’t left you?

You didn’t know and you didn’t have time to ponder as aside from the static in your ears, you could hear the sound of ticking clock again. It was getting louder and louder and you found yourself being unable to breathe.

You looked up at your friend. Their mouth was moving but you couldn’t seem to hear them. You wonder if they thought that you were scared of them? They probably did with how you were reacting. They probably thought that they caused it.

They seemed to have noticed that you were hyperventilating and just as they rushed over to you in worry, you close your eyes.

The deafening static subsided and all that was left was the ticking.

You opened your eyes and looked up at the nearby clock up a wall. It ticked mockingly at you.

Tick! Tock! Tick! Tock!

There it is again. The sound of that blasted clock, grating your ears as it continued on ticking monotonously. Endlessly. Drowning your thoughts out as it went on and on and on…

Click! Clack! Click! Clack!

“…Why did you leave me?” Was what you said, hurt in your tone. They seemed taken aback by your response. “W-What?”

You blinked as your brain caught up with what you said and you shook your head. What were you saying? Huh, seems like you were really out of it right now.

“Nothing, nothing. I just… I think I dozed off for a moment there.” Your friend just raised a brow but didn’t question it.

Yeah… yeah, that sounded especially good. Though, why did it feel like you’ve heard this before? Multiple times, even…

Your friend continued, “Oh, and we can get some soup if you don’t feel like eatin’ anything much today. There’s yummy, yummy soup in the cafeteria. I’m sure it can make ya feel all better again!”

You whipped your head up upon hearing this. Seeing them smile at you, that same tired smile that they always graced you and only you, you couldn’t help but slowly give them a smile of your own.

“Yeah, that sounds… that sounds great. Maybe I can even lay my head down on your lap later, if you don’t mind? Or if you want, you can lay your head down on my lap?” You teased, taking great pleasure in seeing their eyes widen.

“W-Whoa, really?” They say excitedly, flustered and face red. “This has got to be, like, the best surprise ever. Very unexpected, very surprise. Can’t believe I unlocked the good ending!” Although you didn’t have any idea what they were saying, you found yourself laughing at their actions.

You held your hand out towards them and smiled. “Let’s go to the cafeteria, yeah?”

“Y-Yeah!”

They took your hand and clasped them together. They were warm. You felt complete.

#chickennuggetswritings #yandere #x reader #i got inspired to write this when i saw manlybadasshero play Overtime (a demo game by turnip_liker)#all i can say from that is josiah is bae #please give more josiah content

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the-darklings · 5 years

Text

—𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒊𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 (𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆);

pairing: quentin beck x f!reader

word count: 9k+ (i’m a clown, don’t look at me)

summary: "He will be the death of you. He will love you to ruin.”

warnings: manipulation (of other people), love/hate-rivals relationship, swearing, questionable morality.

notes: Y’all this took me seven years but we’re finally here. Enjoy!

“unbecoming” mini-series: | 01 | . .

“It won’t work.”

“How do you know, you haven’t even tested it?”

“Your theory is sound but the application—”

Your fingers squeezed tightly around the stress ball in your hand, and you cast a dark look his way. Beck stood stiff and tense next to the whiteboard, listening to you intently as he held a black marker clenched between his fingers. He looked more dishevelled than usual. You would be surprised if either of you got more than a few hours of sleep last night. The prototype had as good as taken over your life—your life now melting into one rhythmic beat of trying to get this project ready for the demo.

Time was not on your side. Your aim was to get the lead project right out of the gate, and you couldn’t waste time on petty arguments with him. When he actually listened, you bounced off each other with near frightening ease, coming leaps and bounds in the last two weeks alone. Still, the prototype was nowhere near ready because you could not hold a stable image for longer than two minutes. Not to mention a mountain of other weaknesses and instabilities plaguing it.

You both knew that the problem was in the algorithm used to project the image outwards. Beck had been working on making it more stable for months now. While illusion tech was not your area of expertise, you offered more of a critical assessor role, questioning and throwing ideas right and left to see if anything would stick.

He hated it. But he loved it too.

It was impossible to escape the thrill of that sticky web of pure creation and problem-solving. The more you drilled him, the harder he reworked the technology, the more precise his calculations became. Together, you have effectively rewritten half of the base code used to project the holographic illusions in the last week alone. The image was twice as clear now.

Often, he may have given you guarded, burning looks, but your mutual dislike for one another didn’t stop you from working unsettlingly well together.

He still won’t allow you near enough though.

“We have to try and apply it then,” you told him curtly, throwing the red stress ball with Stark Industries logo on it in the air. “Ultimately keeping it static will not work. It needs to be able to adapt to the subject’s perception and vision. That’s only if you want to take it to the next level though.”

“But,” Daniel’s voice broke carefully into what was previously an “intellectual argument” between you and Beck only. “If we don’t even have the prototype working, should we really be concerning ourselves with the next level?”

“Future visualisation,” Beck replied sharply, just a hint of condescending bleeding through his words, “Is key to the success of any project. It often inspires and unlocks different routes to achieve the end result. It’s less about adding pressure on yourself and more about finding effective ways to make the end product better. You have to have vision if you want to succeed.”

Daniel fell silent after hearing that, and Victoria’s eyes narrowed, her pen stilling against the notebook where she was making notes on your brainstorming session.

“What if we change the perception angle for the subject?” Daniel suggested after a moment, glancing your way.

“No,” you and Beck both shot back without missing a beat, sharing a brief look between yourselves.

Noting Daniel’s startled expression, you allowed your features to soften, adapting a milder, more soothing tone, “The problem with that,” you began kindly, catching his gaze. “Is that altered perception would tip the subject off right away. Ever gotten that little tingle at the back of your mind when looking at an optical illusion? That’s because your optic nerves are relaying a visual that does not compute in your brain. You can’t explain it but you know it’s wrong, and then your mind starts working overtime trying to pinpoint exactly what the problem is. Once that happens, you’re a goner because the immersion is gone. For now, we need immersion and stability in the illusion the most. Which is why we should try the new algorithm suggestion. If the hologram isn’t constantly stable it won’t matter in the long run.”

Beck’s jaw tightened somewhat upon hearing your pointed words but his gaze turned towards your colleagues.

“Rerun test results from the last trial,” Beck ordered, but there was just enough politeness in his tone to keep even Victoria satisfied. “I want to do another trial tomorrow, and I need to know how far I can push the system without making the prototype explode in our faces.”

Daniel and Victoria nodded at once, standing together and moving toward their respective computers right away. Swinging your legs, you got up from your seat on the table to follow them, your stress ball in hand but Beck’s voice stopped you before you could so much as take a step.

“Not you,” he stated reluctantly, a faint smile lingering on his face, but his gaze narrowed when you peered at him with something close to surprise. “I need you with me and working on the grating light valve.”

You stared at him blankly.

On the other side of the lab, you heard Daniel and Victoria come to a standstill, the room suddenly falling suffocatingly quiet.

“If I want another trial done tomorrow, I need another pair of hands,” he provided in a way of explanation upon noticing your puzzled expression. “If it fails, we will remodel the algorithm and try your idea instead,” he added tightly, voice thin.

His dark, inscrutable gaze moved away from you after that and you had to force back a victorious smile.

The traces of bitterness on Victoria’s and Daniel’s faces were impossible to miss though.

. . .

The ball left your hand for the hundredth time that day, sailing smoothly through the air as gravity sank its nails into it, immediately dragging it down.

Funny that.

Everything that goes up must always come back down.

“Question.”

You heard Beck exhale quietly as he shifted in his seat. It was an honest sound; a sound that betrayed his irritation with you, and it made you gleeful that he allowed these nastier parts peek out when it was just the two of you.

It was just after 1am, marking it yet another too long, too sleepless night stuck working in the lab. There was a dull ache of exhaustion pulsing near your temple but you had gotten very good at ignoring it by now.

“Go on right ahead, sweetheart,” Beck intoned dully, eyes never leaving the prototype he was fiddling with in front of him. “I’m thrilled by the mere thought of having you question everything I do yet again.”

Scoffing, you threw the ball in the air again, catching it clumsily. At least you didn’t drop it, unlike the last four times. “Please stop acting like you’re not finally making tangible progress with this.”

His hands stilled, lowering the tools he held delicately onto the workbench as his eyes slid to you.

He probably had a grand total of four hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. He looked like a mess. An attractive mess, but a mess all the same.

His eyes were too wide, too cutting, as he stared at you for a silent moment. “Someone has a high opinion of themselves,” he murmured coolly.

You grin stretched and you wiggled your fingers at him playfully, “Someone has to. Besides, you would have found a way to get rid of me if I was really such a burden to you. But, back to my previous point: question.”

He leaned back, his chair creaking as Beck adjusted himself.

“Go on, then.”

His expression was blank, closed off, but there was that unnerving glimmer of interest that he usually hid very well. But it was late—or rather early—and it was just the two of you with a table separating you, and a thousand questions you could ask each other.

“Let’s say, for a moment,” you began pleasantly, rolling the stress ball between your hands as you leaned your elbows on the table, your eyes locked with his. “That we live in a perfect world where you will succeed and get this technology to work. Now, I don’t know if Victoria and Daniel didn’t ask you, or whether they did and you simply shut them down, but I have to ask: how will you handle the side effects?”

Quentin’s head tilted slightly to one side, and he grinned—sharp, menacing—while he leaned his chin against his open palm. “Side effects? What makes you think something as innocent as illusions will do anyone any harm?”

“Don’t play coy with me, sweetheart,” you purred lowly, mocking, voice dipping into something colder as you mirrored his position. “Your briefs make it clear that your end goal is to create technology that will alter someone’s perception of reality itself. I don’t think I need to sit here and explain to you what overexposure to something like that does to a person. But just to make it clear: a weaker mind will suffer from paranoia as well as disillusion with reality. Is that clear, or do you want me to go on, no? Now, please enlighten me how you will handle minds that can no longer distinguish between what’s real and what’s not. It’s more than dangerous it’s—”

“Godly.”

A hushed breath slipped past your lips and you stared at him wide-eyed. Beck’s expression remained the same but the blue of his eyes almost looked black, the shadows under his eyes making him appear more than just dangerous. Somehow more and less than human all at once; a raw, terrible thing.

You forced your fingers to relax their deadly grip on the stress ball in your hand.

And then you laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

And you weren’t surprised to find him grinning at you from ear to ear when you were done.

. . .

“I mean it’s kinda awesome.”

Yes, it would be if it weren’t for the obvious tinge of envy in Daniel’s voice.

“Why do you think—?”

“Daniel,” Victoria cut in flatly, expression sour as she glanced at him. “It’s none of our business as to why.”

“I know,” Daniel insisted, but he didn’t sound as convincing as he probably would have liked. “But aren’t you curious? I’ve worked for him for over a year, and you worked with us for almost 9 months. Are we doing something...wrong?”

Okay, this could potentially become very problematic if you didn’t handle it with a certain delicacy.

“Dan,” you addressed him directly, your expression arranged into something concerned, troubled, “I’m sorry. I—you know how he is. Stubborn, demanding, and overly dramatic about everything. I—I think it’s purely because I’m annoying him too much. Maybe he’s hoping that by allowing me to work on the prototype he can finally keep me quiet for longer than five minutes, you know? It’s not because you’re somehow less—god, you’re so smart. You both are. I think Beck just can’t handle me anymore.”

“You’re wrong.”

Much to your surprise, it was Victoria who answered you, frowning at you like what you were saying didn’t make any sense to her.

You paused, genuinely surprised, and when she addressed you next, you realised that you may have underestimated her after all.

“You’re brilliant,” she told you seriously, gaze set and jaw tense, “Just as brilliant as he is, and he sees it too. That’s why he lets you work on the prototype. If anything, watching you both work together is downright terrifying.”

. . .

“Why pretend?”

You didn’t bother holding back your disbelieving scoff. “Okay, first of all, pots and kettles,” you said flatly, “And second, what is it to you?”

“Curiosity.”

Chuckling, you glanced up at Beck and away from the lens you were fiddling with, “About?”

Much to your surprise, he was already gazing at you when you looked up at him. He rarely gave you his time or regard, choosing to continue working while you talked—and even then, you both preferred to work around each other rather than together. This meant most of these late-night work sessions were spent in tranquil silence.

“What makes you tick,” he told you bluntly, not missing a beat, and your slight smile widened at the gleam in his eyes. “Why bother with trying to make everyone your friend?”

“Well in assuming that, you’re already wrong,” you disagreed casually, rolling a loose screw between your fingers and giving him a speculative glance, appraising. “It’s not about being friends with everyone. It’s about their belief that you are their friend. It’s unwise to commit to anyone or choose sides. Court attention at all times but never commit. By making people feel appreciated you make them depend on that positive attention. People are...simple. And it’s very easy to fool someone when they’re already fooling themselves. You would be surprised how disarming selective honesty and generosity can be.”

You could see him mulling over your words, and it was hard to ignore the shiver of delight at the ravenous look he was giving you. He ran his hand over his three-day-old stubble, thoughtful, astute.

“But not with me,” he pointed out impassively, a treacherous smile twisting his lips to one side. “What’s the matter? Don’t want to be best buddies with me, honey?” he practically purred and you laughed shortly.

“Please,” you shot back with a gleaming smile, your eyebrows knitting. “It’s just the two of us here, so we can be as honest as we want. You can’t stand the sight of me because you hate the very idea of your authority being questioned. That’s fine, I don’t really like you either, to be honest. Why ask me though? You do the exact same thing, you just lack the patience—oh.”

Scoffing, you leaned back in your seat, crossing your arms over your chest, “You think I manipulated my way into this position, don’t you?”

He gave you an innocent, almost playful look, and shrugged, leaning back in his seat as well. “You tell me.”

“As much as it would no doubt comfort you to think so, no,” you stated firmly, a touch irritated now, “I got here by pulling endless cramming nights in school and college. I got here by working double shifts after school to pay for my education because I had no help. From anyone. Even when I barely had enough to feed myself, I didn’t ask for help. Everything I’ve achieved, I achieved by myself.”

Beck exhaled slowly, fixated on you in a way that you knew would make most people uncomfortable.

“It would seem we do have something in common after all,” his tone was light, but his eyes told a different story. “But you’re still unsatisfied with what you have.”

It wasn’t a question.

“No, I guess I’m not.”

“Why is that?”

“The exact same reason you’re here,” you explained smoothly, watching his expression carefully. “Because I want something and I’m going to get it.”

A glimmer of that ferocious, mocking smile twisted his features once again and his head tilted to one side, “And the self-inflicted isolation is just part of the deal, sweetheart?”

Your laugh was hardly pleasant but you didn’t care, not with him, “Touche.”

. . .

“You just described your girlfriend, that’s not fair,” Daniel said with a laugh. “You’re making the rest of us feel bad with your fairytale romance.”

“I’m weeping for you, truly,” Victoria deadpanned, not even giving him a glance. “What about you then? What’s your perfect partner?”

Daniel sighed deeply, frowning as if in deep thought, and you almost rolled your eyes. The two of them were sitting opposite to you, busy with last trial results while you sat on the other side of the table with your feet propped on the gleaming surface. The tablet in your hand was warm from hours of use, and you pretended to fiddle with the data on screen, almost involuntary eavesdropping on their conversation.

You weren’t about to pass up on free entertainment.

“Someone smarter than me,” Daniel began, so serious a laugh bubbled up at the back of your throat, and you had to work hard to keep it in. “Someone kind and nice—oh, and someone with a great sense of humour too! Just someone amazing.”

For a second you felt his eyes rest on you, and you worked very hard to keep your concentrated expression in place.

“Wow,” Victoria drawled slowly, amusement bleeding through her dry exclamation. “That’s deep, Dan.”

“Shut up.”

Daniel laughed weakly, clearly embarrassed, and you had to bite your tongue to keep yourself from smirking too.

“Hey, what about you (Name)? Who would your perfect partner be?” he questioned and you paused, fingers stilling on the tablet screen.

You had been so preoccupied with enjoying their pointless conversation that you never took a moment to prepare an answer for them. For the first time in a while, you felt yourself draw blank.

Before, premeditated words like “tall, dark and handsome” would have slipped out with a bashful smile and half-hearted shrug. Now—

Hmm.

Moving your knees to one side so you could see them clearly, you felt your words bubble from someplace deep in you, “Someone with teeth.”

For a second they were both completely still before Daniel burst out laughing, his shoulders shaking from the force of it. Victoria, on the other hand, was giving you an odd look—almost like she could read deeper into your words.

“Yeah, I’m kinda having a hard time picturing you with someone who has to wear dentures,” Daniel shot back with another snort, shaking his head. “It would be funny to see though.”

Your smile was indulgent, and you waited till Daniel took the lead, steering the conversation in a different direction before letting it slowly fade.

It was almost impossible to escape the suffocating intensity of Beck’s stare across the room though.

. . .

The trial failed.

The holographic illusion lasted a minute and fourteen seconds—a new record but nowhere near good enough if you wanted the lead project.

Daniel was frustrated and expressed his disappointment loudly. Victoria was more subdued but no less dismayed.

Beck took it calmly, but his fingers touched everything with a gentleness that told you he wanted to smash and grind everything in close vicinity to dust.

His eyes lifted to yours.

He didn’t say a word, simply stepping past you towards the whiteboard with the algorithm.

There was no point in gloating right now, you both had work to do.

Hours became a haze of suggestions, adjustments and recalculations.

Neither of you noticed when Daniel and Victoria slipped out, far too focused on your work.

It was some time after midnight, that Beck slammed his hand against the board in frustration, making it rattle and wheel back. He breathed deeply, calming himself, though you could see how tense the muscles in his neck were. He grabbed the edge of the board, pulling it closer and leaned against it for a moment, running his hand through his hair.

Sighing, you bent down, picking up the fallen marker and walked up to him till you were standing side-to-side.

“Breathe,” you instructed calmly, though your own eyes were aching from staring at the damn thing for countless hours. “You’ll figure it out,” you added firmly, offering the marker to him.

Beck looked at you, gaze hollow, and loose strands of hair brushing against his forehead as he reached for the pen in your hand. His fingers locked around yours, scorching hot, and he gave you a thin, morose smile.

“I know we will.”

You only laughed at him softly.

“That doesn’t work on me,” you tutted, your words deride, dry. “Keep your “you’re so special because I’m drawing exclusivity around you and myself” wordplay to yourself.”

His smile transformed into an almost pleased smirk, and you rolled your eyes. “Back to work.”

. . .

“A minute fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two—”

With every read, Daniel’s voice pitched like he was holding himself back from screaming the numbers out. Your nails cut into your palms as you stared at the solid, blue image of floating dolphins in front of you. You would be lying if you said you weren’t counting your breaths too, waiting for the image to break.

It didn’t.

A week and a half of working nonstop and now—

It stayed strong, steady, and you grinned widely when you heard Daniel scream that it’s been over two minutes. Victoria immediately chided him, reminding him to keep counting since the trial wasn’t over yet.

Through the happy chaos, your gaze found Beck’s who was standing on the other side of the hologram. Blue lights danced over his features and you observed the muted wonderment in his gaze, the raw satisfaction practically radiating off him. You smirked innocently, pulling a mock joking expression with a shrug of your shoulders.

For once, his answering smile actually resembled something close to genuine joy.

. . .

“Okay, so I could lie and tell you the traffic was really bad but honestly I just felt like—”

You froze, your words dying in your throat and the grip on your coffee cup tightening slightly. There was that all too familiar spike in your pulse, and you inhaled deeply, quietly, rearranging your features into something neutral as you observed the stranger in your lab.

The man stood dressed in a white, crisp shirt and khaki pants that only accented his tallness. He stood with his back to you, arms crossed over his chest as he observed the floating dolphins in front of him.

Upon hearing you, he turned in your direction, a smile breaking out across his face. His grin was near blinding, his eyes crinkling behind his designer glasses as he peered at you with open interest.

“Can I help you, sir?” you asked politely, approaching him few steady steps at the time.

“Ahh, you may be able to,” the man said, turning to face you. “You won’t happen to be the (Name) I’ve been hearing so much about?”

Oh, something about this didn’t sit right with you at all. Starting with the fact that this stranger shouldn’t be in your and Beck’s lab when no one from your team was here.

“That would be me, sir,” you answered with a faint, awkward smile, “And you are?”

The man blinked before releasing a brief—forced, oh he was pretty good—laugh, his gaze briefly sweeping down the length of you as if weighting your worth.

“Where are my manners, honestly,” he exclaimed, still grinning but it was an empty, contrived thing. “My name is Patrick Hodge. I work in the Visionary department as well, just a different team. I’m its leader.”

Ah yes. Competition. You had meant to check out what projects you were up against eventually—poke around for some weak spots, see if there was anything to exploit. His name also rang a bell. This man was not only in a position of power but also well-liked and respected around the Engineering & Innovation division.

Looking at him, you could see why.

A cold-blooded opportunist who was good at playing the charming sucker.

“It’s very nice to meet you, sir,” you responded respectfully, taking his hand when he stretched it out in your direction. “I would introduce myself, but it seems like you already know of me.”

“Indeed I do,” he said silkily, still holding your hand for longer than would be considered appropriate. “I’ve heard nothing but good things about you. Always smiling, always willing to help out. Quentin Beck’s new miracle right hand. I just had to meet you for myself. Some are even attributing his latest breakthrough solely to you.”

Oh?

You smiled faintly, playing at bashful, and lowered your gaze to the floor while your fingertips tapped against your coffee cup. “Not at all, sir,” you demurred with a chuckle. “That was all Mr Beck’s work. He figured it out. Holography is hardly my area of expertise. I can only advise, perhaps suggest ideas, but ultimately it’s not my field or invention.”

“What is it you specialise in then? If you don’t mind me asking?”

You most certainly minded, but this was information you could give him easily enough. For two reasons: first, you needed to know why he wanted to know so badly, and two, fulfilling his first request for information would psychologically leave a good impression of you. An impression that you were obedient and possibly a source of information. All things that could draw him back to you, ultimately working out in your favour.

“In AI construction and development, sir.”

And just like that, you felt your instincts screech at the pleased, almost haughty, sheen in Patrick’s eyes he did a very good job of hiding. If you hadn’t been watching him as carefully as you were, you would have easily missed it.

He had a look of a man who just received the best news in his life.

“May I ask—”

“Patrick. Whatever brings you here?”

The man in front of you stiffened, his fake grin wavering for a moment before he finally released your fingers, glancing over your shoulder.

It was odd.

You almost felt relieved to have Beck back in the room with you.

His sharp edges you liked. Patrick, on the other hand, left a rotten aftertaste in your mouth.

“Quentin,” Patrick greeted smoothly, stretching his hands out for another shake. “Congratulations on your progress. The whole Visionary program department—hell, the entire division—is buzzing about it.”

Beck came to stop right beside you—unusually close even for him—and your arms almost brushed against each other when he took Patrick’s hand in his own.

“Thank you,” he replied with that charming, crooked grin of his. “I couldn’t have done it without my hardworking team. We still have a lot of work to do though.”

It was impossible to miss the way the two men were eyeing each other up behind those pleasant smiles and honeyed words. Whatever they had between them wasn’t nice or pleasant, and you felt your interest arouse as you glanced at Beck from the corner of your eye.

“I’m sorry but I’m afraid I’ll have to cut your conversation short,” Beck continued, not sounding very sorry at all, “Still lots of work to do and the demo week is just around the corner. If you would excuse us,” he finished pointedly, smiling pleasantly.

“Of course,” Patrick voiced calmly, but you didn’t miss the slight, irritated narrowing of his eyes. “You need to use this momentum of success while you still can after all. I look forward to seeing you more around the industries (Name). If you ever want to drop by and have a look at my project, you can find my team and myself at lab 38. I think it will be to your liking. Good day to you both.”

And with that, he strutted out of the room like he owned the place and deemed it no longer up to his standard.

. . .

“That absolute imbecile Daniel must have blabbed.”

Beck’s words were soaked with simmering sort of rage, everything he touched being held in a white-knuckle grip. You observed him intently, resting your chin on your palm as your eyes tracked his erratic movements. He was angry, and he looked like he was having a hard time keeping still because of it.

“No one was supposed to know,” he explained bitterly, his tone pinching vehemently around every syllable. “Our progress would have been our biggest advantage.”

His eyes turned to you, narrowed, and he blinked like he was suddenly coming back to himself. You wondered if he realized just how unguarded he’d been just a moment ago—how easily it had come, and how you were still in your spot simply gazing at him calmly despite it.

“Okay, first of all,” you spoke blandly, lifting your chin from your palm and folding your hands on the table before slouching in your seat. “Cut the theatrics and tell me who the hell he is and why I should care. I know he’s a big shot around here but clearly you have some personal shit going on between you.”

Beck’s jaw tightened minutely, sharpening his features in a way that made you regard him with more interest. Oh, this one was personal alright.

“Last year,” Beck began, his voice icy, “He sabotaged me. Made sure I wasn’t able to present my technology because he knew that what I had was better than his work.”

Eyebrows jumping upwards, you pulled a mock shocked face, your lips parting, “Your proof? Or did you just get a special little boy feeling that it was him?” you wondered cheerfully.

Beck’s expression flickered and he chuckled coldly, giving you an equally mocking shrug, “Gee, I don’t know, honey. Maybe the fact that he told me straight to my face? He’s an arrogant prick and couldn’t resist gloating. Of course, I had no way to prove it. He covered his tracks well.”

“Are we still talking about Patrick or…”

His stare was cutting, “Funny.”

Your eyes rolled and you shook your head, sighing, “Look, I’m sorry but can you get any more cliched? A rival? Really? What’s next? Oh, I know: you’re a superhero now.”

“What did he ask you?” Beck suddenly demanded, changing the subject completely. “Did he ask you about the illusion tech?”

Staring at him vacantly, you forced a shaky, “Yes, he did. And I told him everything,” was your terrified whisper before your features cleared with a blink, and you shot him an exasperated look. “No, he didn’t ask. And even if he had, I would have fed him a cork of shit. I’m not an idiot. I know he’s competition. He wanted to know what I specialised in.”

“And?”

“And it’s AIs. Happy?”

But Beck didn’t look happy at all. With his shoulders hunched—tense—and his knuckles white, he looked ferocious at he stared at you for a long moment without blinking.

“Shit,” he muttered breathlessly, rising abruptly, “Shit, shit, shit. That fucker.”

Shooting an odd look his way, you tracked his tightly coiled figure as he moved around the table. “Okay. Am I missing something here?”

Beck’s wide-eyed stare swung back to you, blazing, “His own project is AI. That asshole is hoping to manipulate you to his side. He saw that your interference was helping me. He can’t take that chance. He wants to use you against me.”

“That’s cute.”

“I’m not joking, honey.”

Rising to your feet, you closed the distance between you in a few steps. “No, that’s really cute,” you shot back bitterly, pure acid dripping from your words. “Cute that you think I’m going to allow some desperate, arrogant prick to just shove me around like some pawn in your little pissing contest. I know men like him. If he wants to play games, that’s fine. I can play, but I will play to win.”

Oh, there was something enjoyable about the guttering severity of his regard.

Something enjoyable about the way he was looking at you like he wanted—

“Hey, I’m back—”

You blinked, almost disoriented, your head turning sharply towards Victoria who stood in the doorway. She appeared frozen, her almond eyes taking in the image in front of her with a subdued frown.

You’d been so lost in the moment—in the heat of the argument—you hadn’t even realised that you and Beck were practically chest-to-chest. Taking a step back, you shot the older woman a smile.

“You brought doughnuts? You shouldn’t have!”

Victoria’s smile was genuine but stilted, her gaze focused on Beck. When you glanced at him too, you were forced to swallow heavily when you found him still staring at you. It was like he hadn’t bothered acknowledging Victoria’s presence at all, something indescribable gleaming in his eyes while he stared at you.

The moment passed, and he turned away from you without a word.

Suffice to say, Daniel did not escape the storm that was Beck’s rage when he came back from lunch.

. . .

“So are you guys coming to the party on Friday?”

Victoria didn’t hesitate, “It’s not just any party, Dan,” she explained flatly. “It’s a mandatory company gathering, and as a team that’s going to be presenting our work in two weeks time, we have to attend. So yes.”

Daniel presented her with what he no doubt believed to be an endearing grin, “Be my platonic plus one?”

Victoria finished typing whatever she was working on before peering at the blonde from beneath her glasses, “I’m taking Salma, Dan. Duh.”

Daniel blinked, momentarily speechless, “Wait, right, sorry. How about you (Name)?”

Drowning a mouthful of coffee, you glanced up from your work with a noncommittal hum, “Me? Someone already asked.”

Victoria shot a not-so-subtle look Beck’s way but the man in question was frowning at his screen, turning his head slightly in your direction as if confused.

“Really? Who?” Daniel questioned, a little put out and a bit too demanding for your taste.

Giving them both a blank stare and pointedly ignoring Beck, you simply said, “Patrick Hodge.”

“What?”

Daniel and Victoria both exclaimed almost simultaneously, and from the corner of your eye, you saw Beck’s head snap in your direction.

“He asked, and I said yes,” you told them impassively, calmly taking another sip of your coffee. “Stop acting like it’s some big thing because it isn’t.”

“Of course it’s a big—”

“Could you two give us a moment?”

Beck’s voice sliced through the room like a bolt of lightning despite how soft and calm it was. Daniel’s expression fell, and he glanced from you to Beck, and then back again. Victoria’s attention was solely on Beck, her eyebrows furrowed as she stood, nudging the still Daniel beside her.

“C’mon, you,” she prompted, giving you a discreet look you couldn’t quite pinpoint. “Let’s have an early lunch.”

Daniel looked like he was going to protest, but Victoria grabbed his forearm, giving it a squeeze of warning.

You remained silent while the two gathered their things, not giving Beck the time of day while his attention remained focused solely on you. Unnerving.

The door to the lab barely closed before he was already up and on his feet, approaching you with that dangerous gait that originally caught your attention.

“What were you thinking?”

Exhaling wearily, you tilted your head lazily to look up at him when he came to a stop beside your desk. “Why wouldn’t I say yes?”

His eyes flashed; a silent, awful storm brimming behind that calm facade. “Because I told you what he wants. Because he’s using you to get to me.”

“Whatever is going on between you two is irrelevant to me,” you threw back at him without hesitation, and noticed the way his jaw tensed at your words. “He’s one of the most prominent figures in this company. I would be a fool to not use this chance to pave my own way.”

Beck moved closer, your legs almost touching, “You don’t need Patrick to pave your way. Once I get the lead project—”

“Well that’s just it, isn’t it, handsome?” you interrupted coldly, a sarcastic tilt of your voice giving him a pause. “Your lead project, not mine. I need to think about myself because when you get the project—rejoice!—but what about me?”

“You will be my project co-leader.”

Oh.

To be the project co-leader would place you right at the top of the food chain. More than that, if the project did well and ended up bringing company success it would open all the doors for you and then some. You wouldn’t need to wait for opportunities—they would come to you and in abundance.

Lethal sort of calmness slackened your face, and you rose to your feet slowly, practically face-to-face with Beck as you stared into his eyes.

“I would encourage you to think very carefully about the words you use around me,” you whispered, your voice like a sharpened blade against his throat. “I’m not your puppet. I’m not a pawn you can use however you please. You ever lie to me and I will make you regret ever meeting me, Beck. That, I can promise you.”

“I’m not tricking you,” was his hushed response as he stared at you unblinkingly, something hungry warping his features when you leaned closer.

A fleeting smile danced across your face and your hand lifted, brushing against the lean curve of his shoulders before your fingers came to a rest against the back of his neck. The soft material of his black turtleneck tickled your fingertips, and from this close you could scent the faint whiff of his expensive cologne.

“Hodge can give me everything I need,” you told him quietly, lightly running your fingers across his neck, and biting back a smug grin when you felt his pulse jump just so.

Beck’s own lips twitched into a sly, almost cruel smirk as he leaned into your touch with a knowing expression. “Perhaps,” he agreed, his hot breath fanning against your lips from how close your bodies were. “But I can give you everything you want, honey.”

A genuine, sensual sort of laugh slipped free from you, and you glanced up at him from under your lashes, grinning.

Your eyes locked onto his lips and you leaned closer, your bodies touching and the pad of your thumb gently stroking his jaw. Your breaths mingled and you breathed him in deeply, enjoying the moment for what it was.

He was looking at you like wanted to devour you, and you have never denied yourself the little things in life.

You paused just before your mouths touched, however; enjoying the closeness and the heat of him so near.

What a wonderful, treacherous thing he was. And oh, how he made your blood sing.

“We shall see about that,” you breathed with a playful laugh. His eyes snapped open when you pulled back, and for a moment you were sure he was going to grab you and kiss you anyway.

Taking another few steps back, you shot him a wink, licking your lips. “We shall see.”

. . .

“Oh hey, you’re still here.”

Victoria didn’t reply right away, and you felt a small frown tug your lips down as you watched her hurriedly moving her equipment around. She liked her work area clean and tidy but something about this felt...final.

“Vic? You okay?”

Her hands trembled before she splayed them across the workbench, a shuddering breath escaping her.

“I’m transferring after the party,” she told you bluntly, still not looking your way. “I haven’t told Beck yet and...I rather you didn’t either. But I wanted you to know. I mean—I—we’ve sort of become friends in these last few months, right? The only two girls on the team.”

You hurried towards her, cautiously touching her shoulder, “Of course we’re friends,” you assured her softly, your expression creasing with confusion. “But transferring? Why? Did something happen? Did Beck say something—”

“It wasn’t him,” she cut you off, but her following chuckle was bitter. “I finally got approached by another team leader. Dominique. I’m having a hard time believing someone like her wants me on her team.”

Indeed.

You knew of Dominique. Or, more accurately, knew how close her and Patrick worked together.

My, my, Patrick was indeed good. Trying to manipulate you to his side and taking Victoria from Beck—effectively eliminating two most valuable members of the team in one swoop. He must be feeling pretty confident he would be able to charm you to his side if he was trying to pull something like this with only two weeks left till the demos. Interesting.

“Wow, congratulations, you deserve this,” you told her, giving her shoulder a pat. “Don’t give me that look, you really do deserve it.”

“You’re not...mad? Not going to call me a traitor or something?” she mumbled, fiddling with folders in front of her. “I thought you would be angry.”

“What? No, of course not. If this helps you excel that’s all that matters,” you replied with a slight laugh. “Besides you’re an adult, I can’t exactly make these decisions for you. I will miss you. But I also wish you luck.”

Victoria exhaled in obvious relief, giving you the widest smile you’d seen from her yet. You both stayed like this for a few seconds, content, before you saw the happy smile on her face crumble away piece by piece.

“What’s wrong?”

Victoria gave you a long, searching look before shaking her head. “If I tell you,” she began, hesitation twisting her voice. “Promise me you won’t get upset.”

Curiosity bubbled in the pit of your stomach and you nodded slowly. “Promise. I always keep an open mind. Or I try.”

Her features twisted into a grimace and she glanced around the lab—almost like she had to confirm to herself that you really were alone.

“I’ve seen how you are with Beck,” she whispered, cautious, awkward. “I know you think it will be different with you. I know you hope it will be love one day, but a man like him...”

She hesitated, staring at her hands, and everything inside you went incredibly still at her words.

“He’s the most dangerous man I’ve ever met,” she admitted tersely, still not meeting your stare. “He will destroy everything in his path to get what he wants. I’ve seen it. So leave. Please run now while you still can. Love from a man like him will only bring you pain. If you let him, he will be the death of you. He will love you to ruin.”

The silence that fell around you after she finished was peaceful, the buzz of technology around you a familiar symphony.

When Victoria finally looked up at you warily, you felt her muscles stiffen under the palm of your hand.

“Oh Vic,” you told her with a gleaming, cold smile, “Who said anything about falling in love?”

. . .

“You look beautiful tonight.”

A lie.

But he was damn good at it.

“Thank you.”

Patrick spun you in a respectful, comfortable circle, minding the other couples on the dancefloor. You had no choice but to accept his request for a dance, letting the soothing jazz number wash over you as the rich and the wealthy danced all around you.

Majority of the faces were familiar to you from the company. And it was impossible to miss how more than one pair of leering eyes drilled holes into you when Patrick spun you around with another glowing smile.

“You still haven’t shared your thoughts on my project,” he prompted rather bluntly and your eyes swung to him, feigning startled surprise. “I was rather anxious to hear your professional opinion of it.”

“It’s rather impressive, sir,” you told him with a slight, polite smile.

But not as impressive as Beck’s work—not if he got it to work at its full capacity like intended. And you would make sure he would.

Patrick’s own smile was sharper, more annoyed, “Nothing else to add?”

You blinked innocently, forcing another embarrassed laugh, curving your shoulders somewhat. “Sorry, sir, you make me rather nervous.”

“Nonsense, dear—”

“Mind if I cut in?”

Patrick came to a stop, you with him, and your eyes flew to your right only to find Beck standing in front of you. He looked…

Good.

Better than good.

Clad in all black and his hair slicked back neatly, he looked more like a sinful, dark promise than a man. While he usually preferred a clean-shaven face unless he was stuck in the lab for days, today his stubble was heavy. It framed his face in a more roguish way that made your pulse jumps slightly when his piercing blue eyes met yours.

“Quentin, I was just—”

“Come now, Patrick, surely I’m allowed to steal my own right hand for one dance?” Quentin wondered, a pleasant chuckle escaping him. “Or am I wrong?”

He glanced around the crowd in a rather obvious and telling manner. A showcase that he knew full well that people were watching you all right now. Patrick’s smile was stiff, bordering on resentful, but he released you all the same, taking your hand in his and pressing a kiss on top of it.

“I see you very soon, dear,” he promised you, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses. He gave Beck a dazzling, deride smile that almost made you bristle on his behalf when he brushed past him.

Beck didn’t waste time, stepping closer and taking your hand in his just as a new song started playing. His other hand settled on the small of your back, the two of you swaying from side to side wordlessly.

“I don’t think I need to tell you how breathtaking you look tonight,” he stated calmly after another minute of silence. “But you do.”

“Oh, you’re getting good,” you snapped, controlling your tone and trying to smile through your clenched teeth. “I almost believed you this time. Better yet, tell me what the hell you’re doing right now?”

His grip on you tightened slightly, and he gave you a mock surprised look, eyes widening, “I do believe we’re dancing, (Name).”

Seeing your hard stare, he cleared his expression, peering at you for a moment longer before finally giving you a flat, “Saving you.”

“Did I look like I needed to be saved?” you scoffed, glancing around to make sure no one was eavesdropping on your conversation. It was already proving to be a challenge to keep your expression calm. “I was laughing just moments ago.”

Beck hummed, a slight smirk twitching his mouth upwards, “Yes, you were laughing. But not with him but rather at him—there’s a difference. He was boring you to tears.”

“Can for once,” you hissed under your breath, your gazes clashing, “Just once, you think of something other than your ego? Can’t you leave your dick-measuring contest till a later date? Don’t ruin this for me.”

His gaze was frigid as he spun you around, carefully bringing you back into his embrace. “I told you, you don’t need him.”

“And I suppose I need you instead. Is that it?”

You didn’t bother holding back on your bitterness this time, your words like a barbed-wire tightening around you both.

It was difficult to interpret the long, lingering look Beck gave you in reply to your words. Swaying silently for a few more moments, you forced your expression to relax, hoping that he was going to let this moment pass.

“No, you don’t need anything from anyone,” he finally admitted, his words frustrated but it didn’t feel like the frustration was directed at you. “That’s why I like you.”

Biting on the inside of your cheek, you cut another look his way. “I told you that doesn’t—”

“I’m not saying it for the sake of saying it,” he rebuked, his expression hardening like it was difficult for him to admit that. “I don’t use my words lightly, sweetheart. But I had hoped you would know why I cut in.”

“Well, I don’t.”

His irritation was hard to miss this time, and his attention dropped back to you from the crowd he was observing only moments ago. “He wants to take you to his bed, use you once, and then throw you away like a used toy. All so he can have the satisfaction of rubbing it in my face.”

“So?”

A breath—sharp and disbelieving—whistled past his parted lips and his grip on your hand tightened for a second before he relaxed. “So? So, you would take him to your bed?”

Your smile was more of a snarl as you leaned in closer, “First of all, who I do and do not take to my bed is none of your goddamn business. Second, let him think with his ego. As far as I’m concerned that just puts me in a stronger position.”

Beck leaned in too, his gaze firm, insistent, “If you make him desire you but not give him what he wants, he will grow to resent you.”

You pushed away with a sigh, and he twirled you in a sweeping circle before tugging you back, his arm like a shackle around your waist. It was becoming increasingly more difficult for him not to show his anger, and the cracks made you more curious than you would care to admit. Did he truly care so much about his ego that the mere thought of you sleeping with Patrick frayed his edges this badly? Or was there more to this? More than he won’t admit to.

“That doesn’t matter, I don’t need him to like me long term,” you muttered, trying to force calmness into your tone. “Besides since when are you such an expert on wants and desires of other people?” you wondered with a slight tilt of your chin as you regarded him oddly.

He didn’t reply, his eyes flickering over your features unhurriedly, gaze inscrutable. His continued silence only made you bolder, and you leaned closer, your lips almost brushing against the curve of his ear, “I do wonder, what is it that the great Quentin Beck wants?”

Something burned in the endless abyss that was his eyes when you leaned back. The heat of his palm sank into yours, and you had to hold back a shiver when the arm resting at the small of your back slid around your waist purposefully. He pressed you close, gaze fervent, and the contours of his body melted against yours when his lips parted to respond—

“Ah, sorry, if I could have your attention please!”

You pulled back from Beck with an unsteady breath, his hand flexing around yours like he wasn’t going to let go before his grip loosened. For a moment you stared at each other before your eyes turned to locate the source of the voice. The music faded into a gentle stop, lights dimming till the only thing illuminated was the small stage where Patrick now stood. He beamed at the crowd; his white suit almost blinding as his eyes swept over everyone, watching as people turned their attention to him.

“Hi, everyone, sorry to pause the festivities,” he began with a chuckle. “Just a few announcements before I let some of my other distinguished colleagues take the stage. Firstly, thank you, everyone, for coming tonight. It’s wonderful to see so many talented individuals here in one room. While unfortunately, Mr Stark could not attend the party himself—probably off saving the world somewhere—his spirit is truly with us here tonight. So let us make him proud! Secondly, I would like to make a more personal announcement but for that, I would like to invite someone else to join me on this stage. (Name) would you be so kind?”

You felt Beck stiffen beside you, and had to take a moment to force your own fluttering heart to calm down. Patrick’s eyes finally spotted you in the crowd, smile widening into something almost predatory when he gestured for you with his hand. Swallowing, you took a step towards the stage, your mind scrambling for an explanation as to what exactly he was planning.

Beck’s fingers enclosed around your wrist swiftly, skin burning, and your head snapped in his direction as you paused. Something wild and dangerous twisted his expression before he allowed his face to smoothen. You waited—just a second, just the one—to see if he was going to say anything but he remained silent. His heavy stare didn’t waver though, and whatever he was trying to convey through his silence you chose to ignore.

Tugging on your wrist, you broke free, heading towards the stage without so much as a backwards glance, carefully climbing the steps to the platform. Patrick was already waiting for you, taking your hand in his the moment you came face-to-face. Your skin crawled when his cool, dry lips pressed against the top of your hand again, his attention shifting back towards the expectant crowd.

“This young lady,” Patrick explained, pausing for effect, “This lady right here took me by a complete surprise. I admit I was late to learn of the talent we were housing in our company. Everyone I talked with, everyone I approached, had nothing but good things to say. It almost seemed too good to be true. But then I met her, and well, suffice to say I was wrong to doubt my colleagues.”

Patrick grinned at you, and something about the too happy gleam of it unsettled you more than you would care to admit. Despite your unease, you forced your lips into a faint smile.

“And then I learn that this talented, kind, hard working-individual was unutilized daily,” he continued, his voice full of mock disbelief and you felt something close to dread starting to creep into your veins. “Well, I don’t believe that anyone at Stark Industries should be made to feel undervalued. For that reason, from this moment on, I’m appointing (Name) as my personal consultant on the AI project I’m currently working on.”

Ice sliced through your body, collecting right at the base of your heart as your eyes flew through the crowd.

But Beck wasn’t looking at you. No—his dark, vicious stare was focused entirely on the animated Patrick who was still talking, talking, talking—

He had planned this.

The bastard had planned to simply take you. Perhaps he couldn’t be bothered to play, or perhaps he knew it would take too long to recruit you to his side.

He knew.

And had chosen to remove you from the team—from Beck—by pulling all the strings available to him.

You were simply his instrument of control. A puppet, a pawn, for him to use in order to lessen Beck’s chances of winning.

“Come, dear,” his sickly sweet voice registered over the loud applause, his fingers lingering between your shoulder blades. “I would very much like to enjoy my victory now.”

Victory.

Victory?

The word echoed, splintering inside your mind—

Something savage and scorching boiled in the pit of your stomach and—

Patrick stepped down the steps, extending his hand for you to take and you bit your tongue till you could feel the sharp sting of blood in your mouth—

You placed your hand in his.

Victory? I’ll show you victory.

. . .

an:.....PHEW! Thank you so much for reading. Hope you all liked the cliffhanger lol. Not gonna lie, I’m nervous about this series so any feedback is always appreciated! Love you all and see you on the flip side!! tagging: @angeli-fucking-cat @calypsolotus @ssskeletonsoffun @galactic-magick @antisocialshipper (thank you guys, hope you liked it!)

#quentin beck #quentin beck x reader #marvel #marvel fic #jake gyllenhaal #mysterio x reader #marvel imagine #quentin beck imagine #mysterio #spiderman far from home #spider man: ffh #i will literally evaporate if this doesn't go in the tags #fic: unbecoming series

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dailybail · 7 years

Text

3 Kissmetrics Populations Content Marketers Can Use to Measure Marketing and Retention

Content is basically infinite. Run a Google search for a/b testing and you can spend the rest of your life reading about it.

So in this proliferation of content, it’s retention, attention, and engagement that are key for content marketers. It’s our goal to get visitors to our content, ideally more than once, and eventually get them to convert in some way.

Converting usually starts at the very top of the funnel, by giving eBooks, webinars, email courses, newsletters, content upgrades, etc. Then they’ll be put through a drip campaign to eventually, hopefully, signup or request a demo.

Before we begin, it’s important to be aware of what Kissmetrics Population is, what it does, and who it’s for. This video will explain it:

Now, let’s get into some Populations Content Marketers can set up.

1. Reader Retention

You probably have about 10 websites you visit regularly. Most of them you visit daily, but some others you’ll visit every other day.

I regularly visit Axios, ESPN, the Kissmetrics Blog (of course), New York Times, Drudge Report, Twitter, and ScienceDaily. I’m an engaged visitor on these sites because I visit them regularly. The publishers love a visitor like me because I am traffic, pageviews, and ad dollars for them. And most of all, they get a piece of my attention everyday.

Wouldn’t you love it if your blog was on someone’s “top 10” list? They read your blog posts, download your eBooks, and you’ve become a trusted source for them. Some may call you a “thought leader” (as much as I dislike that term).

Most marketers use cohort reports to measure retention. These reports group people together based on similar attributes and then track their behavior overtime. This can uncover some useful data. There are also “engagement” metrics that can be measured by any actions a reader may take – reading a post, commenting, sharing it on social networks. These can be easily measured with a simple funnel report.

But what about simply tracking the number of people that have visited your blog at least x times during the last week, and then have a graph to see if it’s going up, down, or holding steady?

Populations will do exactly that. You’ll set your conditions (what people have to do enter the Population) and view the graph.

In our case, we’ll set our criteria to people who have visited the blog at least 10x in the last 7 days:

We’ll click View population and get our data:

At the top, we see that there are currently 187 people in our Population. The graph provides us with a week-by-week performance overview. This Population has improved modestly, up about 2% from 90 days ago. It’s ultimately held steady over the last 90 days, staying in the 150-200 range.

What’s important here is to view this in context. Let’s say you have 10,000 monthly readers and your Population holds steady at 1,000. In this case, you know that about 10% of readers are engaged with your content. But if you have 1,000,000 monthly readers, than that 1k Population is less impressive and may signal that you need to create more engaging content that people want to read and consistently check to see what you’ve published.

2. Signups & Conversions

At the end of the day what we want are signups or some form of conversion. A blog that gets 5 million visitors a month but doesn’t convert is about as good as not having a blog at all.

We’re graded not just on traffic, nor on reader engagement, but on how effective our content is at bringing quality leads to our sales teams. HiPPOs care most about this and it’s our job to produce relevant content that brings our target audience in, and then converts them.

You may already be tracking your conversion rate with our Metrics feature, but it’s also useful to use Populations to get an idea of the amount of people that are moving from reader to converter.

Now, the question is what a “converter” is. Each team will differ. Some marketers want an email address so they can convert this reader into an opportunity through a drip campaign. Others will qualify a free trial request as a conversion. E-commerce companies may having adding an item to the cart or purchasing as their conversion.

Regardless of what you’ll count as a conversion, it’s easy to track it in Kissmetrics and Populations.

You’ll notice that in this configuration, we’re looking for the people who visited the blog and then signed up. They cannot visit our marketing site, sign up, and visit our blog because they need to visit the blog before signing up. If they visited the marketing site, the blog, and then signed up, they’ll be included in this Population.

Not good. It’s down 20% from where it was 90 days ago. We need to figure out why this happened.

In some cases, this can be caused by a/b tests that caused a drop in conversions. In other cases a traffic dip will cause conversions to drop. (As long as the conversion rate percentage holds steady). We’ll need to look at our traffic to see if there was a dip that would correlate with this Population drop. If not, we’ll have to dig deeper to see what could be causing it.

3. Visited Blog x Times But Haven’t Converted

Engaged readers are great, but if we’re not converting them to our content upgrades, webinars, eBooks, or even signing up, then we’re not doing a good job marketing our content (or product).

This Population tracks the number of people that visit your blog many times each week, but never convert. It’s simple to set up, just enter your criteria as “people who visited blog at least x times in the last 7 days and have not converted.”

This will do exactly as it says – track how many people are visiting the blog regularly without converting. We can expect this Population to go up with traffic increases, but if it shows a trendline above overall traffic, that might indicate that we’re not converting our readership.

Let’s view our Population:

So about a 22% increase compared to 90 days ago. As in all Populations, these numbers need to mean something in context. If our overall traffic has remained flat, we can try some new tests to get more of our regular readers converting. Maybe some retargeting will help (which would link to a landing page for an eBook) or other tactics that can drive conversions – exit-intent popups, content upgrades, etc.

Conclusion

As a customer engagement automation platform (CEA), Kissmetrics is made to help you analyze, segment, and engage your online audience. Request a demo today to learn more.

About the Author: Zach Bulygo (Twitter) is the Blog Manager for Kissmetrics.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog http://ift.tt/2yABL48 via http://ift.tt/1oIgpXs

0 notes

localbizlift · 7 years

Text

3 Kissmetrics Populations Content Marketers Can Use to Measure Marketing and Retention

Content is basically infinite. Run a Google search for a/b testing and you can spend the rest of your life reading about it.

Before we begin, it’s important to be aware of what Kissmetrics Population is, what it does, and who it’s for. This video will explain it:

Now, let’s get into some Populations Content Marketers can set up.

1. Reader Retention

You probably have about 10 websites you visit regularly. Most of them you visit daily, but some others you’ll visit every other day.

But what about simply tracking the number of people that have visited your blog at least x times during the last week, and then have a graph to see if it’s going up, down, or holding steady?

Populations will do exactly that. You’ll set your conditions (what people have to do enter the Population) and view the graph.

In our case, we’ll set our criteria to people who have visited the blog at least 10x in the last 7 days:

We’ll click View population and get our data:

2. Signups & Conversions

At the end of the day what we want are signups or some form of conversion. A blog that gets 5 million visitors a month but doesn’t convert is about as good as not having a blog at all.

You may already be tracking your conversion rate with our Metrics feature, but it’s also useful to use Populations to get an idea of the amount of people that are moving from reader to converter.

Regardless of what you’ll count as a conversion, it’s easy to track it in Kissmetrics and Populations.

Not good. It’s down 20% from where it was 90 days ago. We need to figure out why this happened.

3. Visited Blog x Times But Haven’t Converted

Engaged readers are great, but if we’re not converting them to our content upgrades, webinars, eBooks, or even signing up, then we’re not doing a good job marketing our content (or product).

Let’s view our Population:

Conclusion

As a customer engagement automation platform (CEA), Kissmetrics is made to help you analyze, segment, and engage your online audience. Request a demo today to learn more.

About the Author: Zach Bulygo (Twitter) is the Blog Manager for Kissmetrics.

#marketing

0 notes

adolphkwinter · 7 years

Text

3 Kissmetrics Populations Content Marketers Can Use to Measure Marketing and Retention

Content is basically infinite. Run a Google search for a/b testing and you can spend the rest of your life reading about it.

Before we begin, it’s important to be aware of what Kissmetrics Population is, what it does, and who it’s for. This video will explain it:

Now, let’s get into some Populations Content Marketers can set up.

1. Reader Retention

You probably have about 10 websites you visit regularly. Most of them you visit daily, but some others you’ll visit every other day.

But what about simply tracking the number of people that have visited your blog at least x times during the last week, and then have a graph to see if it’s going up, down, or holding steady?

Populations will do exactly that. You’ll set your conditions (what people have to do enter the Population) and view the graph.

In our case, we’ll set our criteria to people who have visited the blog at least 10x in the last 7 days:

We’ll click View population and get our data:

2. Signups & Conversions

At the end of the day what we want are signups or some form of conversion. A blog that gets 5 million visitors a month but doesn’t convert is about as good as not having a blog at all.

You may already be tracking your conversion rate with our Metrics feature, but it’s also useful to use Populations to get an idea of the amount of people that are moving from reader to converter.

Regardless of what you’ll count as a conversion, it’s easy to track it in Kissmetrics and Populations.

Not good. It’s down 20% from where it was 90 days ago. We need to figure out why this happened.

3. Visited Blog x Times But Haven’t Converted

Engaged readers are great, but if we’re not converting them to our content upgrades, webinars, eBooks, or even signing up, then we’re not doing a good job marketing our content (or product).

Let’s view our Population:

Conclusion

As a customer engagement automation platform (CEA), Kissmetrics is made to help you analyze, segment, and engage your online audience. Request a demo today to learn more.

About the Author: Zach Bulygo (Twitter) is the Blog Manager for Kissmetrics.

from Online Marketing Tips https://blog.kissmetrics.com/kissmetrics-populations-content-marketers/

0 notes

marie85marketing · 7 years

Text

3 Kissmetrics Populations Content Marketers Can Use to Measure Marketing and Retention

Content is basically infinite. Run a Google search for a/b testing and you can spend the rest of your life reading about it.

Before we begin, it’s important to be aware of what Kissmetrics Population is, what it does, and who it’s for. This video will explain it:

Now, let’s get into some Populations Content Marketers can set up.

1. Reader Retention

You probably have about 10 websites you visit regularly. Most of them you visit daily, but some others you’ll visit every other day.

But what about simply tracking the number of people that have visited your blog at least x times during the last week, and then have a graph to see if it’s going up, down, or holding steady?

Populations will do exactly that. You’ll set your conditions (what people have to do enter the Population) and view the graph.

In our case, we’ll set our criteria to people who have visited the blog at least 10x in the last 7 days:

We’ll click View population and get our data:

2. Signups & Conversions

At the end of the day what we want are signups or some form of conversion. A blog that gets 5 million visitors a month but doesn’t convert is about as good as not having a blog at all.

You may already be tracking your conversion rate with our Metrics feature, but it’s also useful to use Populations to get an idea of the amount of people that are moving from reader to converter.

Regardless of what you’ll count as a conversion, it’s easy to track it in Kissmetrics and Populations.

Not good. It’s down 20% from where it was 90 days ago. We need to figure out why this happened.

3. Visited Blog x Times But Haven’t Converted

Engaged readers are great, but if we’re not converting them to our content upgrades, webinars, eBooks, or even signing up, then we’re not doing a good job marketing our content (or product).

Let’s view our Population:

Conclusion

As a customer engagement automation platform (CEA), Kissmetrics is made to help you analyze, segment, and engage your online audience. Request a demo today to learn more.

About the Author: Zach Bulygo (Twitter) is the Blog Manager for Kissmetrics.

0 notes

samiam03x · 7 years

Text

3 Kissmetrics Populations Content Marketers Can Use to Measure Marketing and Retention

Content is basically infinite. Run a Google search for a/b testing and you can spend the rest of your life reading about it.

Before we begin, it’s important to be aware of what Kissmetrics Population is, what it does, and who it’s for. This video will explain it:

Now, let’s get into some Populations Content Marketers can set up.

1. Reader Retention

You probably have about 10 websites you visit regularly. Most of them you visit daily, but some others you’ll visit every other day.

But what about simply tracking the number of people that have visited your blog at least x times during the last week, and then have a graph to see if it’s going up, down, or holding steady?

Populations will do exactly that. You’ll set your conditions (what people have to do enter the Population) and view the graph.

In our case, we’ll set our criteria to people who have visited the blog at least 10x in the last 7 days:

We’ll click View population and get our data:

2. Signups & Conversions

At the end of the day what we want are signups or some form of conversion. A blog that gets 5 million visitors a month but doesn’t convert is about as good as not having a blog at all.

You may already be tracking your conversion rate with our Metrics feature, but it’s also useful to use Populations to get an idea of the amount of people that are moving from reader to converter.

Regardless of what you’ll count as a conversion, it’s easy to track it in Kissmetrics and Populations.

Not good. It’s down 20% from where it was 90 days ago. We need to figure out why this happened.

3. Visited Blog x Times But Haven’t Converted

Engaged readers are great, but if we’re not converting them to our content upgrades, webinars, eBooks, or even signing up, then we’re not doing a good job marketing our content (or product).

Let’s view our Population:

Conclusion

As a customer engagement automation platform (CEA), Kissmetrics is made to help you analyze, segment, and engage your online audience. Request a demo today to learn more.

About the Author: Zach Bulygo (Twitter) is the Blog Manager for Kissmetrics.

http://ift.tt/2gn73Bv from MarketingRSS http://ift.tt/2hRfipQ via Youtube

#MarketingRSS

0 notes

filipeteimuraz · 7 years

Text

3 Kissmetrics Populations Content Marketers Can Use to Measure Marketing and Retention

Content is basically infinite. Run a Google search for a/b testing and you can spend the rest of your life reading about it.

Before we begin, it’s important to be aware of what Kissmetrics Population is, what it does, and who it’s for. This video will explain it:

Now, let’s get into some Populations Content Marketers can set up.

1. Reader Retention

You probably have about 10 websites you visit regularly. Most of them you visit daily, but some others you’ll visit every other day.

But what about simply tracking the number of people that have visited your blog at least x times during the last week, and then have a graph to see if it’s going up, down, or holding steady?

Populations will do exactly that. You’ll set your conditions (what people have to do enter the Population) and view the graph.

In our case, we’ll set our criteria to people who have visited the blog at least 10x in the last 7 days:

We’ll click View population and get our data:

2. Signups & Conversions

At the end of the day what we want are signups or some form of conversion. A blog that gets 5 million visitors a month but doesn’t convert is about as good as not having a blog at all.

You may already be tracking your conversion rate with our Metrics feature, but it’s also useful to use Populations to get an idea of the amount of people that are moving from reader to converter.

Regardless of what you’ll count as a conversion, it’s easy to track it in Kissmetrics and Populations.

Not good. It’s down 20% from where it was 90 days ago. We need to figure out why this happened.

3. Visited Blog x Times But Haven’t Converted

Engaged readers are great, but if we’re not converting them to our content upgrades, webinars, eBooks, or even signing up, then we’re not doing a good job marketing our content (or product).

Let’s view our Population:

Conclusion

As a customer engagement automation platform (CEA), Kissmetrics is made to help you analyze, segment, and engage your online audience. Request a demo today to learn more.

About the Author: Zach Bulygo (Twitter) is the Blog Manager for Kissmetrics.

Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2017/10/3-kissmetrics-populations-content.html

0 notes

ericsburden-blog · 7 years

Text

3 Kissmetrics Populations Content Marketers Can Use to Measure Marketing and Retention

Content is basically infinite. Run a Google search for a/b testing and you can spend the rest of your life reading about it.

Before we begin, it’s important to be aware of what Kissmetrics Population is, what it does, and who it’s for. This video will explain it:

Now, let’s get into some Populations Content Marketers can set up.

1. Reader Retention

You probably have about 10 websites you visit regularly. Most of them you visit daily, but some others you’ll visit every other day.

But what about simply tracking the number of people that have visited your blog at least x times during the last week, and then have a graph to see if it’s going up, down, or holding steady?

Populations will do exactly that. You’ll set your conditions (what people have to do enter the Population) and view the graph.

In our case, we’ll set our criteria to people who have visited the blog at least 10x in the last 7 days:

We’ll click View population and get our data:

2. Signups & Conversions

At the end of the day what we want are signups or some form of conversion. A blog that gets 5 million visitors a month but doesn’t convert is about as good as not having a blog at all.

You may already be tracking your conversion rate with our Metrics feature, but it’s also useful to use Populations to get an idea of the amount of people that are moving from reader to converter.

Regardless of what you’ll count as a conversion, it’s easy to track it in Kissmetrics and Populations.

Not good. It’s down 20% from where it was 90 days ago. We need to figure out why this happened.

3. Visited Blog x Times But Haven’t Converted

Engaged readers are great, but if we’re not converting them to our content upgrades, webinars, eBooks, or even signing up, then we’re not doing a good job marketing our content (or product).

Let’s view our Population:

Conclusion

As a customer engagement automation platform (CEA), Kissmetrics is made to help you analyze, segment, and engage your online audience. Request a demo today to learn more.

About the Author: Zach Bulygo (Twitter) is the Blog Manager for Kissmetrics.

3 Kissmetrics Populations Content Marketers Can Use to Measure Marketing and Retention

0 notes

asakiooi · 8 months

Text

This is making me roll in my grave LMAO DIDNT EVEN BOTHER CAPITALIZING HIS NAME