in:security

And I miss some free time OTL

Just a drabble since I suck at finishing stories. It could also work as a prompt for you guys :P

—

It wasn’t very late at night when the employees would reunite back at the cafeteria. Some would share and tell stories, real or fiction, didn’t really matter. Some would get a drink and some... would sit together to play a silly game with a drink in hands.

That’s where you‘d find Malik and Jensen.

“I can’t believe you were ready to kill the boss.” Malik laughed hard as she recalled Jensen’s last words. They were playing the game called “Fuck, Marry, Kill”, a reflect of their so busy shift.

“Look, between fucking Sarif or Cassan, I’ll go with Cassan.” He reassured her and the girl gave another laugh.

From across the hall, the head of cyber-security made his way to the cafeteria, rolling his eyes when noticing the amount of people gathered there.

“Hey Frank!” Said Faridah, a hand shaking in the air, Pritchard only nodded. “Oh, I have another challenge for you, Adam.” She said playfully.

“I felt it coming...” He said to himself as he watched Pritchard filling a mug full of coffee, completely guessing Malik’s thoughts.

“It’s simple!” She gave him a teasing smile. “Sarif, Frank and Taggart.”

“I’d kill Taggart, I’d marry the boss and I’d fuck Pritchard.” The room went silent as Adam gave Malik his answer.

Pritchard dropped some coffee from his mug.

“Excuse me?” The hacker’s semblance was washed in red, both of embarrassment and anger, as he approached both colleagues. He wasn’t in the mood for jokes.

“C’mon Frank, it’s just a game, wanna play it?” Malik tried to diverge the tension.

“Guess I’m out. ’Night, Faridah.” Jensen got up from the bench, yawning loudly, as if losing complete interest.

And that hit Pritchard. “No, you’re not. Not until you explain yourself.” Frank tried to stop him.

“It’s easy Frank, look, I give you three names and all you need to do is choose which one you’d fuck, kill and marry.” Malik continued.

“Sounds idiotic.” Pritchard scoffed. “Fits you.” He eyed Jensen.

“So, between Adam, me and the boss.” Malik went on.

“Easy. I’d fuck you, marry Sarif and kill Jensen.” Frank replied without second thoughts.

“Right.” Jensen rolled his eyes at his colleague’s choice. “What about Carella, Athene and me.” He now stood in front of Pritchard.

“What? That’s—“ Pritchard took a few seconds to find his choices. “I’d marry Athene. F-fuck Carella and kill you.” He crossed his arms, staring at Jensen.

“Eww Frank, seriously? You’d fuck Tim over Adam? What the fuck?!” Malik laughed hard. “This guy really despises you.” She turned to Jensen, drying her eyes. “C’mon what about Taggart, Eliza Cassan and Adam?”

“Oh, I’d kill Taggart—“ And Pritchard realized he had said that too fast. “Wait, this isn’t correct, let me rethink.”

“That’s not an option.” Jensen answered surly. “Now finish your sentence.” He demanded, smirking.

“Uh... Kill Taggart. Marry Cassan and—“ Frank tried to avoid Adam’s face. “And kiss Jensen.” He whispered, staring at the ceiling.

Adam grinned at the answer.

Hi guys, I know this has nothing to do with this blog specifically, but I’m starting a web comic and I’m looking for patrons since this web comic is basically my work right now, and I’d love some support!

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An idea I had while reading the Black Light novel, since it opens up to so many possibilities between them. And I simply love it.

—

Codes are running on the screen in front of you, and once more you forget about your surroundings, as your fast fingers type in more of those symbols and characters. Things start moving at your will, because you’re in control now. Only you exist there, nothing else.

But the codes are suddenly broken into a million pieces, shattered in front of your eyes, as something drags you back to your miserable reality, making the frames of your desktop screen as well as your surroundings slowly reappear.

You leave a long sigh, frustrated. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” you ask the owner of the hand laying on your shoulder, but you keep your eyes on the screen instead.

“Shouldn’t I ask you the same?” he’s quick and that bothers you, he notices the grip in your hand. “Can’t sleep.” he admits, letting go of your shoulder, and you didn’t notice how warm his touch was until now. You despise it.

You finally look at him, you’re watching his profile as he studies your desktop screen, curious.

“What’s this?” he asks staring at your screen. He’s about to touch your keyboard, but you’re quick enough to push his hand away.

“Don’t touch.” you warn him. “I told you already. It’s a simulator.”

“Sounds like a game to me.” he says, straighting up, and you can see he’s already lost interest in it.

“I doubt a simple minded like you could understand it.” you scoff back because you know he’ll never take your stuff seriously, he never did.

He stares back at you. You’re still frowning your brows, but you didn’t notice until his index finger touched the gap between your eyes.

“Stop it!” you react instantly, you’re disturbed and easily irritated. You slap his hand away instinctively. You never knew how to deal with touching.

His eyes are still on you. You know he’s studying you, reading your traces, and that only increases your irritation. “Point taken.” he says after a few seconds. “Are you gonna tell me how this works?” you suppose he’s talking about the simulator.

“It’s not— finished.” you answer, trying to erase those past ten seconds from your mind. “Still needs to be improved. Some of the codes I added are not working yet. I was trying a new sequence the moment you— arrived.” you look at him.

“Sounds difficult.” he adds, looking back at your desktop screen, and you’re not sure if he’s actually curious or just trying to comfort you. You don’t really wanna think about it. “May I?”

“Code? You?” you try not to sound excited about it, but deep down you know you are. “Try this.” you type in a sequence of characters, your fingers quickly fill up several code lines down your screen. You’re doing it on purpose. You know he can’t follow you, you’re playing him. You feel good.

You finally take a step back to face him, pride all over your face. He walks in and types something on the keyboard. You approach to read the characters on the screen, it says “Fuck you.” he’s smirking the moment you jerk your head at him. “It’s not that hard.” he says at last.

You try to avoid his gaze, you don’t understand but something’s hurting as memories from two years ago take over your thoughts. You feel nostalgic and you despise it, but you can’t fight it.

You ask yourself what is he even doing there. You mourned him. You have spent hours trying to overcome it. He should’ve just stayed dead.

You snort, snapping out of those thoughts, but he’s studying you, silently, and you know you can’t hide anything from that stupid CASIE. “What if I expected it?” he says, and you don’t get it.

“What are you talking about?” you’re starting to grow anxious. Your eyes want to follow his shape, but you fight the urge back.

He leaves you hanging for a few seconds. “A hug.” he then adds. You jerk your head up instantly to face him. He’s facing sideways. “You asked if I were expecting a hug when we met, is there a problem if I actually expected it?”

“N-no.” you answer, and for once you mean it. “If this is a joke then—”

“This isn’t a joke, Pritchard.” he reassures you, you notice he’s somehow offended by your distrust by the way he calls your name.

“Fine.” you tell him, you didn’t mean to offend him, anyway. He’s waiting. “You mean now?” He sighs, and you can tell he’s rolling his eyes even with those dark shields on. “Ok.”

You approach slowly, he, on the other hand, doesn’t move a single inch, forcing you to make the first move. You open your arms just enough so you can place them around him. You don’t get too close, your chests a few inches apart, and you stay like that for a while. “You really suck at this.” he adds, you try to find an excuse but it’s already too late, he’s got his weight all over you.

You’re stuck like a stone, you don’t dare moving an inch, you simply can’t. He rests his head in the crook of your neck, and you can feel his breath against your skin, it’s warm, and for a second you forgot how to breathe as he pulls you closer.

Your eyes won’t fix anywhere, instead they keep jumping from place to place. He tells you to relax, but you can’t, not when you’re not in control anymore.

He’s letting go, and you close your eyes, relieved that you can breathe once again. You inhale, but something else rather than air fills your mouth this time. You shut your eyes at the realization.

It’s warm and rough, and you try not to think about the blood running south, you never felt more impotent. His beard is prickling, and it feels so good against your skin, but you hate yourself for even acknowledging it. It should be disgusting, wrong. Instead the taste of his tongue is bringing down any strength left in your body.

So many times you told yourself he was nothing but trouble, and now you find yourself melting under his touch. And you feel so ashamed. You’re ashamed of yourself, for falling so easily at his feet.

That’s when you break up, you can’t let him go any further. You can’t let it happen, or else it will devour you for once.

And that scares the hell outta you.

He calls out your name, gently, but you’re heading back to your desktop, and you’re about to dive into this cold world made of digits again.

And when you finally arrive, you’re certain that now you’re safe, now you’re in control, and you don’t have to go back.

—

as I burn, as I break

I can’t take it anymore

I return to the place

where the water covers over everything

Before I start I wanted to apologize if they sound too ooc, it was my very first DX fanfic, I did it /for/ Christmas, got frustrated, gave up, but hhh it’s here for anyone who‘s interested :|

As usual there’s a pic at the end, bc I can’t write without drawing, so

I also apologize for the lack of digital content lately, I’m moving so I don’t actually have a desk to place my tablet rn etc etc have fun

—

It was Christmas Eve at Sarif Industries and, as usual, the employees were split into two groups, the ones who would take the Christmas break and the ones who would wait a little bit further and go for the New Year’s break. The Christmas group would have to work on the New Year’s Eve, and vice-versa.

Jensen had actually no preferences, but since last year he took the Christmas break to spend the night with Megan, this year he just wasn’t in the mood, at all, not after what happened to him, to Megan. But he also didn’t want to spend his Christmas Eve alone in his apartment, bringing back memories of moments that would never return.

Just as last year, Sarif would leave a gift on the desk of each employee. A thin ornate box, covered in a cliché, red and green, paper. Just a small memento, probably another desk gadget, like a classy pen with Adam’s name carved on it, or something like that.

Even so, that wasn’t the only gift Adam got from his boss. Sarif himself showed up at Jensen’s office earlier the day and gave him a nice and old whiskey, that rather felt like an apology. He patted Jensen on the shoulder, with his usual nod followed by ‘son’, and left.

And still, those weren’t the only gifts he have received either. There were greeting cards, more boxes, some smaller and some larger... He felt like people actually enjoyed his presence, maybe they even liked it, or maybe he just took a lot of butts out of the line, and that — somehow — was his payment. He smirked shortly at the thought.

He felt like stretching a little, since he finally managed to clean his inbox. Jensen got up, only to notice that his limbs didn’t crack as they usually did back then, heh, having no bones and actual joints made things... boring. He remembered Megan rolling her eyes whenever he would start cracking his knuckles, ‘Jesus, Adam, that will pay off later, you know, right?’, how he wished she was right.

...

Two hours passed, and Jensen noticed a notification pop-up on his computer screen. ‘You have 1 new message(s)’, it said. The subject said ‘Merry Christmas’, he gave it a click.

‘Good evening,

I wish you all a wonderful Christmas, it is always a pleasure to work with you.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Regards,

Frank Pritchard, Sarif Industries Chief of Cyber-Security’

Oh. Jensen rapidly checked the digital clock, it marked five, six, minutes past midnight, officially Christmas. And Pritchard? Late. Five minutes late. Adam smirked quickly. The all mighty Pritchard didn’t seem to be that perfect, and now Jensen had an excuse to strike back the colleague’s incessant bickering. ‘Oh, really, Pritchard? At least I know how to program a message to be sent in the right time, and I didn’t have to spend my life in front of a computer screen to learn that. I’m talking about your late Christmas message, what a shame coming from our remarkable tech.’

It was all about bickering and he knew that, he refused to act like that in front of a kid, but not in front of Pritchard.

someone’s late for the party|

He typed and sent it without thinking twice, relaxing on his chair. That made him realize that not only he stayed for the Christmas Eve, but also did the tech. Jensen actually didn’t think of the colleague as a Christmas person, left alone a religious one, Pritchard was probably sending those due to the circumstances, it was Christmas and... he didn’t want to sound insensitive, although the tech’s e-mails always spread that same rough atmosphere.

That made Jensen realize that eight minutes have passed and, for his surprise, the tech was still silent, Pritchard usually answers his e-mails very quickly, paranoia? Probably.

‘K, you know what? It was pretty much boring at his office right now, just staring at an empty screen under half-lights... Maybe he could use some fresh air, go to the bar downstairs, see if he could use a drink or two. It was Christmas for fuck’s sake.

Jensen then took the stairs, reaching for the first floor, the chitchat coming from the hall was a lot louder there. Apparently he wasn’t the only one with a break desire after all.

He finally made to the bar close to the helipad, it was crowded with people. Such dedicated employees you have there, Sarif. ‘Merry Christmas’ he heard here and there, he’d wave and nod in response. Fuck. He forgot to bring some credit chip with him, the bar was cool and all that but still he had to pay to drink.

And back up to his office he went. He soon grabbed two credit chips he found there, he couldn’t actually remember the amount of credit he had left inside those. He also took the time to check his e-mails. Still no sign of the tech.

Just after leaving his office, his eyes stopped on Sarif’s whiskey. He let out a sigh at the unexpected thought, grabbing that damn bottle. It was supposed to be mine, he thought to himself, closing the door behind his back.

Just a level below, Adam wandered through the corridor, till his gaze stopped over the words ‘Tech Lab’. He sighed impatiently, again.

Reaching the lab entry, he immediately spotted a head followed by a ponytail. Pritchard seemed focused, way too focused to notice his presence. The tech’s fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard, while the coffee mugs surrounding him made Adam lose count of them, twice.

It was... interesting to watch. Pritchard’s gaze was serious, and his fingers moved almost silently. It almost didn’t look like the tech had in fact such a stubborn personality. The scene was... peaceful. Adam watched Pritchard working for whole five-ish minutes.

He then approached with the bottle and glasses in hands, placing it in front of Pritchard’s chest. The tech jumped slightly from the chair. ‘Christ, Jensen, I’m working if you haven’t noticed.’

‘Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too.’, he pushed a chair he found next to the tech’s electric bike.

‘Spare me the sentimentalism, Jensen.’, Pritchard stretched his arms in front of the computer. ‘Also, thanks for reminding me not to ever bring a spare chair to my lab again, people seem to have the tendency of sitting on it simply because— it’s there.’

‘It’s a chair, Francis, that’s what people do.’, Jensen noticed the tech’s gaze wander from the whiskey bottle to his own eyes. ‘Oh and no need to quote Hamlet or god-knows-what you read just because I brought a whiskey with me.’

‘Only because it further proves that you have no knowledge in English literature?’, he crossed his legs, turning on his chair, facing Jensen. ‘Interesting how we always try to avoid our weaknesses.’

‘Interesting how inclusive you are tonight, Francis, talking about yourself as well.’

The tech got serious, folding his arms. ‘What do you want, Jensen?’, Adam smirked at his little victory.

‘I couldn’t help but notice the lack of Christmas gifts you got.’

‘Is that it? Well, excuse me if I’m not over 50% augmented and look edgy enough to get people’s attention.’

‘Easy, Francis.’, Jensen took the bottle in hands, pouring the liquid inside the glasses he brought with himself. He wasn’t actually looking for trouble right now.

‘I’m working right now, Jensen...’, Pritchard muttered while Adam took his hand in his, placing a glass in it.

‘Nah. Right now you’re drinking with me.’, he clinked the glasses, slowly taking a sip from his own right after that. ‘Merry Christmas.’

‘Mm— this one is...’ Pritchard mumbled, tasting the drink, lips moist. ‘... strong.’

‘Yeah, I know. Sarif never fails. Here.’ he once again took Pritchard’s hand, taking it away from the tech’s mouth. ‘You’re drinking way too fast. It’s whiskey, Pritchard, not a beer.’ He then took his own glass in one of his aug hands. ‘Smell it...’ he did so, eyes fixed on Pritchard’s ‘then take a sip,’ again he followed his own instructions. It took five seconds, he swallowed it ‘only then you swallow it.’

‘Oh, I hate what he’s turning you into.’ Pritchard looked away, rolling the glass with his hand.

‘Now what are you talking about?’ Adam put down his own whiskey.

‘Sarif. He’s teaching you everything. He’s turning you into a perfect copy of him, or at least he’s very close to.’

‘Spare me from your superstitions, Pritchard.’ He rolled his eyes.

‘You’re right... You’re right.’ the tech mumbled closing his eyes, bringing his glass to his mouth, tasting the whiskey silently. ‘Merry Christmas, Jensen.’ He whispered.

They drank in silence from then on, apart from their knees that now were awkwardly touching each other. Jensen would still avoid Pritchard’s gaze after what the tech said about him and Sarif. Ironic how Pritchard managed to fuck up the mood so easily, even when he tried his best to keep it cool between them.

Jensen couldn’t help but notice the colleague soften on his chair. The alcohol seemed to be spreading quickly. He jumped slightly after noticing the tech’s hand over his. His fingers were warm, carefully exploring the textures of his augmented hand.

‘I apologize for earlier. Some things are better left unsaid.’ the tech recomposed himself, taking his hand away from Adam’s, just to be stopped halfway.

‘Go on, it feels... nice.’

Pritchard was way too waisted to care. He kept stroking Adam’s hand, while his own would shake in some sort of anxiety. He was curious to see how far could this take him, but was also afraid of what Jensen would think of him.

In silence they stood. Adam would intertwine their fingers, feeling the warmth of Pritchard’s palm against his. Knees still against each other, feverish.

The tech once again pulled his own hand away, heart rushing, cheeks burning. His head was spinning when cold augmented hands pulled him closer, and lips were pressed together.

Pritchard fought for full five seconds, just to give in at the warmth of Jensen’s tongue. Desperate, he would allow himself to explore Jensen’s mouth, the scent of alcohol taking over him.

They would run out of breath too quickly, since their movements were completely out of sync, but neither of them cared to move away, breathing against each other’s skins, mouths agape, they would exchange kisses until their heartbeats were calm again.

‘I-I don’t know what just happened. I-I have work to do, Jensen, please.’ he looked away, pulling some of the bangs behind his ears, recomposing himself.

‘You’re drunk, Pritchard.’ Adam stood up. ‘But fine,’ he sighed ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Adam couldn’t deny he wasn’t somehow affected by the whiskey as well, maybe not as much as his colleague, but still. He placed the chair back from where he took it, and headed to the door. ‘You sure you’re ok?’

‘I’m fine, Jensen, now just leave me, wouldn’t you?’ he would look anywhere but at Adam.

Jensen, however, approached him once more, the tech shaking on his chair, eyes wide open as Jensen came closer. ‘Forgot the bottle.’ He whispered against Pritchard’s ear, placing a teasing kiss on his neck, followed by a bite.

‘Jensen!’ Pritchard pushed him away, pulling the turtleneck higher.

‘Fuck... You’re too loud...’ he complained, one of the hands over his ear, taking the bottle and glasses away.

‘Christ’s sake...’ Pritchard muttered at last, head resting in one of his hands, while the other stroke the sloppy piece of skin.

—