Jack peeled himself off the bed, slowly, excruciatingly. He had nine deliveries yesterday, and two of them were fridges. Both upstairs. His legs were soggy spaghetti, and his arms burned as he blearily slapped at the desk next to his bed, groping for his phone. He knew it was there. He had just heard the voice server notification. His eyes snapped open. It was Saturday. The voice server was pinging him because the others were already online. What time was it?!
He pushed himself upright, elbows and shoulders popping in staccato bursts of almost-pain-almost-relief. His phone wasn’t on the desk. Suddenly, the sharp report of a gunshot exploded next to his head. He jumped, like every damn time, sending small aches through his muscles.
The phone was in his bed, and Erin was texting him. That was her text tone. She would text him during boss fights or stealth runs, just to hear the gunshot crack into the open mic. Jack jumped every time, and Erin laughed until she cried. He loved hearing her laugh, so he left the rifle round as her notification.
He rolled out of bed onto the floor and crawled toward the desk, the tortured muscles of his shoulders and ass violently protesting. He finally abandoned all hope and fell onto the floor, rolling back and forth and stretching, trying to work up the will to be upright.
He laid there on the floor, summoning the will to rise with all the effort of a necromantic spell to raise the dead. He ran his fingers through the short, dirty blonde hair covering his scalp, then rubbed his face hard with both hands. He rolled to the side, then to the other, then again, momentum flipping him onto one shoulder. Muscles still screamed in protest. Hot shower. He needed a hot shower, and some ibuprofen.
The thick, golden scent of fresh coffee wafted in from the open bedroom door like a gentle hug from a friend. Present Jack silently mouthed a prayer of thanks to Past Jack for remembering to fill and set the machine when he got in. If the coffee was just now brewing, he hadn’t overslept. Still time to hit the Ruins of Urthn at least twice before raid hour. Maybe that stupid shield would finally drop.
First, though, he had to get off the floor.
Goals. Rory was always on about goals. Action item list, Saturday the first. Item one: get up. Item two: boot the computer. Item three: ibuprofen. Item four: hot shower. Item five: coffee. Item six…
No, swap five and three, move five to four, move...
Nope, goals were too much work. Just do the thing. He groaned and pulled himself upright.
“Oww,” he grunted. “Okay, coffee, I’m comin’ for you. You can’t hide from me. Once I’m finished with you, the bottle of ibuprofen is my next victim. Then the shower is gonna get a stern talking to.”
He levered himself off the floor, his everything still complaining in long moans of “hnnngg” and short bursts of “ahhh”. He took a couple of halting steps toward his desk, shaking his legs and arms out as he went. He leaned down to thumb the power switch on his tower and stopped as he saw himself reflected in the big monitor, short hair mussed, hazel eyes weary, day and a half of stubby beard on his face.
“You look like shit, bud,” he chuckled. “Action items one and two down. Now, where’s that coffee pot?”
-----
Erin put her phone down. “He hasn’t replied, but he just logged into the game client. Probably getting coffee.”
“I don’t know how you three drink that shit,” Rory replied into the mic, “It tastes like old feet mixed with burnt tea mixed with a tanker spill. Think of the baby seals.”
“HEEEERESY! Get the flamer, Erin! THE HEAVY FLAMER!” Layla yelled into the mic.
“Oh, please, Layla. You drink it with enough cream and sugar that it’s practically dessert.”
Erin chuckled as she cupped the mic and made heavy metallic breathing noises into the chat, “You don’t know the power of the dark side. I gotta shower before getting online. I’ll be right back.”
“Gym rat! Meat head! Jock!” Layla shouted.
“Couch potato! Homebody! Three-toed sloth!” Erin snarked back and disconnected from the server.
Erin finished stripping off her sneakers and tossed the bluetooth headset into the bowl on her desk, along with her phone, her gym card, and her house keys. Organization and good planning were the start of success. At least, that’s what Rory was always saying.
Right now, the plan was shower, coffee, protein, healthy fats, complex carbs for breakfast, and several hours of vegetating in front of the computer with the best friends she’d ever had. Then, later, when the raid was over, it was cheat meal time. She already had it planned out. She and Jack were both gonna pick up triple meat and cheese burgers and binge some new show he wanted to watch over voice chat. There was also the giant piece of pie in the fridge that she’d picked up last night.
It was a little telling that she’d had to find a best friend across the country, nab another one from across the pond, and the guy she was interested in was a workaholic from halfway across the state, but she’d always rather be lonely at the top than surrounded at the mediocre middle.
Mostly, though, she needed a shower before Jack managed to remember how to be human. He was so cute when he was tired. He’d call her after spending all day at work and talk until he couldn’t stay awake anymore. He said the most ridiculous things when he started to fall asleep.
She peeled the tie out of her hair and almost skipped to the bathroom. She had beaten her best hundred yard dash and still managed to have a respectable leg day.
Her reflection in the mirror stopped her as she walked into the bathroom. She shook her shoulder length auburn hair out and blinked her brilliant green eyes. She never got tired of how she felt after a good workout.
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She pointed her toes, then wiggled her leg back and forth and grinned.
“Fuck you, Layla. I make this look goooood.”
-----
Rory hung the expensive surround sound headset on its hook next to his monitors, the LEDs casting a green aurora on the wall, then rose from the ergonomic chair and pushed it into computer nook between the living room and the bedroom. He picked up the bluetooth from the desk and connected it to his phone with a few quick clicks then logged back into the voice server just in case.
“A place for everything, and everything in its place,” he mused to himself.
“You sound like my grandma,” Layla laughed.
“My nan, but yes, you muppet,” he retorted.
He straightened his pajamas and ran a hand through his tightly faded hair before heading back into the kitchen. When he arrived, he turned the gas on and filled the kettle with filtered water before placing it on the stove and disconnecting from the voice server.
“Have a few calls to make, El,” he said, before disconnecting.
He returned a few business calls while waiting for the kettle to boil, two to his team leads and one from his boss. His department would make sales this quarter even if he took a vacation for the next three weeks, but the bonus for 100% to goal and the bonus for 120% to goal were obscenely different animals.
The kettle was quietly protesting the pressures of stovetop living, it’s soft whistle calling him from across the Atlantic, back to his roots. He idly reconnected to the voice server as he went about the well-worn routine of making tea.
“Welcome back, Boston,” Layla giggled.
“I’ll have you know, I identify as a Londoner, thank you,” he replied with a smile.
“Yeah, but that’s because nobody’s ever heard of that little hamlet you come from,” she shot back.
“It has a perfectly respectable cathedral, thank you,” he chuckled.
“Pfft. I take back the Boston thing, you’ve thanked me enough in the last two minutes that you probably qualify for Canadian citizenship,” Layla teased.
“You take that back, or you can DPS the Halls for Jack yourself,” Rory grinned.
“Oh god, you think he’s gonna make us run it again?” she groaned.
“You’re the one that started this ridiculous obsession, haranguing him about the shield being the best-in-slot. These are your soiled bedsheets, now lie in them,” he retorted.
He pulled two cups down from the cabinet, then plucked the two infusing balls from their spot next to the magnetized knife strip. Finally, he shook out his preferred jasmine green for breakfast and a thick clump of the black Assam that Darius liked in the morning since the doctor took him off coffee and put him on blood pressure pills instead.
He carefully packed the infusers and poured a dollop of cream into his cup and a drop into Darius’, then poured in the hot water and let it settle for a moment. He dipped the infusers in and pushed down on the timer next to the stove.
Three minutes later, he pulled the infusers out and rinsed them clean, then dropped two cubes of sugar into his own cup.
He looked down at the cup and smiled, “Completely ridiculous. Coffee. Pfft.”
As he set the saucer down next to the bed, Darius stirred and sniffed the air through his pillow.
“Mmm, coffee?” his man mumbled.
“No, sargeant. Black tea, drop of cream,” he smiled.
“Mmph,” the big man buried his face in the pillow, but mumbled, “Love you anyway.”
“I know,” Rory grinned. “If you didn’t drink a whole pot every time, you could probably still have it.”
Darius just grunted. Rory kissed the back of his head and left his brown Adonis in bed, where he knew the tea would probably get cold and go to waste. All he really cared about was that Darius would see it when he finally got up and remember, because that’s what proper relationships were made of. Sure enough, not even five minutes later, he heard a light snore issue from the bed.
“God, I love that man,” he grinned.
“Fuck you, Rory, with your stupid perfect relationship,” Layla laughed.
-----
Layla sat in her room, six wall-mounted monitors glowing in the cold dark. It was ten in the morning, but her bedroom was a stygian abyss. Thick light and sound proofing blankets hung behind the black curtains with little white cats sporting conical witch hats. Her door was similarly padded with spiky sound-proofing foam, and the walls of her bedroom were more blanket than drywall at this point. Sometimes she wondered if she died in here, would her aunt even think to check on her.
Oh well, at least she didn’t have to listen to Jerry and Sara have raucously loud coitus, literally, every, fucking, night. More importantly, no noise or light intruded to trigger or worsen her migraines. She was almost entirely nocturnal at this point, since even a few minutes of direct sunlight had something like a one-in-five chance to trigger a paralyzing spike through the back of her skull that might not stop for two days.
She reached over to the nightstand next to her plush recliner and retrieved a medicine caddy and double-walled thermos full of ice water, then doled out her two anti-migraine meds, her antidepressant, her antipsychotic, and washed them down with a mouthful of cold water. She screwed the lid back onto the thermos and swapped it for her big coffee cup, full of double-mocha-cino cold brew with sugar and chocolate creamer.
She sat the big cup next to her hip and called up the Fire & Fury wiki, checking drop rates on the list of gear the group was currently hunting, then plugged the wiki pages into the custom add-on she’d coded for the game. The app would show a heads-up for each piece of gear until it either dropped while she was in the party or she deleted it from the list. It also notified her of in-game events that had to be accomplished for the drop to happen, like how they had to disarm Rhagnar the Relentless twice before he’d switch to the sword and shield. Even then, Jack’s stupid shield was a 0.1% drop. They’d DONE the fucking Ruins of Uthrn AT LEAST a thousand times. Ok, that was probably an exaggeration.
Ok, it was definitely an exaggeration, but they’d done it at least two hundred. If Rhagnar’s Bulwark wasn’t so goddamned good, she’d have told Jack to get stuffed by now. But the shield gave him a percentage boost of his armor to his offensive power, and for Jack, that would mean his damage would shoot up to higher than hers. He still wouldn’t be able to beat out Erin’s berserker or Rory’s pyromancer, but she wouldn’t be able to out-damage him just by spamming Brilliant Nova repeatedly. Stupid shield was best-in-slot by a landslide. More DPS meant more threat, and Jack was already the best tank she knew.
She sighed and popped the top on the insulated coffee cup, before draining a mouthful of poisonously sweet and creamy latte.
“Fuck you, Erin. This is good coffee.”
-----
The shield didn’t drop. They had all heard Jack slump out of his chair and pretend to weep inconsolably, promising RNGesus his firstborn, his soul, all of his blood, if that’s what it took. After a solid ten minutes of bitter sorrow, Jack mumbled something about at least having chicken and pulled himself back into his chair. The raid was in fifteen minutes, and they had a five minute flight and a five-ish minute ride.
“Everyone have flasks, coins for the boatman, reagents, and an adult diaper ready?” Jack asked.
“I’m not wearing a diaper, Jack, ever,” Rory chuckled.
“C’mon Rory, you know they’re mandatory. Jack has to pee every ten minutes, like a grampa,” Erin snickered into the chat.
The lights went out.
It wasn’t just dark. Layla’s room was dark. This was primordial, like light had forgotten how to be.
“Hello?” Layla whispered, “The lights are out.”
“Layla?” she heard Jack and Erin call out.
“Wait, if the power is out, why can I still hear you?” she called back. They sounded so far away.
“I’m… not at my desk, mates,” Rory exhaled, “I’m not… anywhere.”
No desk. No floor. No chair.
Below, the dark yawned, impossibly wide and somehow blacker than the impossible tenebrous oblivion all around them. A single glint of light shimmered along a surface.
Rory realized it was a fang.
A fang the size of a skyscraper.
He screamed as they fell into the abyss.