ɪ ɴ ʙ ● ʀ ɴ

▶ [ TEXT MSSG. ]:

ay arent we homies like the closest bros ever compadre por favor its like a blood pact i die you die TRUE FRIENDSHIP thats how it works in the hood if that isnt real i dont know what is

Convincing his buddy, however, is a different can of (pinto) beans entirely. In the mental schema of the universe, it’d be more feasible to suggest creating a sentient black hole hell-bent on world domination than Dom losing the chastity restraint of nuns at the altar. It was just a known, governable fact of reality that he also happened to be a reality-breaking entrepreneur who could maneuver through badly-worded puns and the melodrama of six concurrent TV arguments with the fineese of a drowning gliding eagle. (Haha, fourth-wall puns. He was so hilarious, no joke.) Desmond receives the text at lightning-fast speed, courtesy of the spritzing capitalism of their government, but he broods over the response. Negative, sure, but hope was its silver-lining and that saturated the bottom line with the indomitable suave of a guy who’s already got all of his bases loaded.

It’s only customary that he keeps up, in the off-the-cuff, unscripted nature of irony, a low-key response to the notion that his baby needed repairs. And by baby, he wasn’t referring to a toddler vomiting canned peas and whining at length about diaper rash, but the catatonic Ducati holed up dormant in his garage. A work of beauty; his pride and veritable joy, like he’d fulfilled his life purpose by the sacredly holy act of owning a speed-based motorcycle alone. A trip to the local auto shop, and for that, he needed help with transport. The Laundromat was just another bucket list option, but he definitely wasn’t against killing two birds with one stone. To accomplish any of that, however, deceit would be a prerequisite.

▶ [ TEXT MSSG. ]:

trust me its worth it cant you just take it at face value its mostly a surprise for you i mean and youre someone i can count on especially when shit hits the f ... an ..,...,.. so are you coming over or

Because the two of them have always been the greatest of pals. Dom couldn't help but roll his eyes at the words; the text might as well have the phrase "ass-kissing" written all over. 

RE:// you have a pretty debased perspective on "true friendship". our relationship s'more parasitic than anything. 

If the phrase "trust me" wasn't a big enough WARNING sign -- so fucking obvious that it may as well have been accompanied by two bright flashing lights going on and off in alteration -- then the phrase "a surprise for you" should have given him enough motive to simply turn off his phone and ignore any more suspiciously winding texts. Should have except he didn't -- against his better judgement. 

If this was a job, he sure as hell wasn't getting paid enough for his tolerance.

With one hand blindly fumbling for his keys and wallet, he sent another text.

▶ [ TEXT MSSG. ]:

are you being snarky im dying d y i n g vomitin blood seein my dead gran legit the whole nine yards i dont have any more time left couGHS ssSS ..,..,,..,. dfjsdkfl;fjsdfjslf;sfj,

Ten minutes later, he’s no closer to receiving an answer than he is peeling off drywall and ingesting it manually. It wasn’t exactly his fault to begin with (considering a car that only needed jumper cables and a will to continue living only every other weekday), although he’d never made any active strides to ad-lib table manners and fix his wardrobe past plaid pullovers and the same three jackets for an entire lifetime. Everything in his closet was either wholesale or scrounged up from a history of price-point retailers never hitting double-digits. There’d been people and their dire attempts to manage his attire in the past, but they’d never stuck. The whole point of his attire was to blend right into the background, like the name Desmond Miles was synonymous for significant. And he tacks on another text shortly, in the melodramatic manner of the plaintively whining. There are no heroes when curbstomping smart-aleck comments, but he thinks he makes a fairly good defense in his case for unequivocal innocence, nevertheless. 

▶ [ TEXT MSSG. ]:

RE:// stop texting me. what do i look like to you? a chauffeur or a cab driver? if you have any shred of dignity, you'd help YOURSELF for once.

After hitting the send button with a little more force than what's necessary for a touch screen, he tossed his phone aside on the couch before resuming his typing. "Don't owe any favors..." He muttered, his words indistinct and near soundless. If anything, Desmond is the one with a mountain of IOUs and promissory notes that would put the height of Everest to shame. Can't exactly say that the situation's undeserved either. No one can break away from the status quo, then not expect to be faced with consequences; and consequences can hurt like a bitch. Especially if your life already bleeds of consistency that can't (or shouldn't) be broken. Dom may not be much of a hand-clasping believer, but maybe Lennon's not too far off with the whole being "where you're meant to be" idea. What's another word for it (it was something kinda cheesy is all he knew)... destiny?

Yeah. A pretty shitty allusion.

Glancing up from his laptop to eye the clock as calloused fingers once again slowed to a stop, Dom instantly took note of the serene silence; impeded by nothing but the perpetual tick of the clock. 20 minutes. Huh. He reluctantly glanced at his phone, with the barest hint of surprise surfacing on his face. Unlikely it may be, maybe Desmond got the message for once (no pun intended). Though the second he reached out and closed his hand around his abused phone, it came alive with a frantic buzz. The irony he's not going to even begin to touch upon the irony behind the impromptu nickname.  ... With his irritation pretty much enervated at this point, the raven-haired assassin unlocked his phone with a gusty sigh to quickly give the "two-year-old" man's plea a look-through... before finally responding grudgingly. 

RE:// this isn't an invitation for you to dump ALL of your requests on me, and i'm NOT saying yes.

At least not yet, but the receiver didn't need to know that.

inhisblood

For every blip in the matrix that’s ever taken Desmond Miles by whirlwind, his fear of normalcy is perpetually at prime time. Moving into the city was supposed to be that fail-safe from a lifetime of plummeting into vague insinuations of 2.5 children and a white picket fence in the boondocks of suburbia. And yet, he’d taken constancy in the eclectic, in the utter absurdity of deciphering pipe dreams where he died as a messiah and woke up as a vagrant, sweating out of a 5 o’clock shadow in the haze of his two-room apartment flat. All throughout the strange melange of a summer delirium, it was a rendition of melodrama where intangible men cut off their ring fingers and pledged themselves to quasi-celibacy as autonomous killers. Assassins swathed in stagnant hoods and palms clasped like psalms every single night as a precursor; as the sixteenth consecutive nightmare involving his own demise, Desmond figured that his imagination could’ve taken a larger stride in exhuming some variety to the crazy.

Chiefly a creature of habit, breaking the accustomed pattern of being an upstanding citizen was just on that side of vaguely intolerable. The laundry and the dishes, case in point, reeked of the seventh layer of hell. Miles didn’t bother listening to the alarm clock anymore than he paid attention to any catch-22 bias in the making, and four months after buying a second-hand Corolla, he learned (the hard way) the merits of a consistent oil check. Traipsing out into late morning with a half-assed conjecture of milk runs and tangible errands to hemorrhage out of a mildewing Saturday. And even if he doesn’t particularly warrant the attention of the self-righteous, even Desmond can allude to times where he’s gotta’ call back-up. Being a moocher did have its benefits; and scrolling through his cell, he knew just the paragon of virtue to pester.

▶ [ TEXT MSSG. ]:

Not a sound he ever wants to hear. Especially when he is neck deep in work, as per usual. After all, success is the result of preparation and hard work -- or so the adage goes. And being the paragon of diligence, he's not about to stop his fingers from flying over the qwerty keys of his laptop and put a stopper to his work; or so he thought until his cellular phone rattled noisily upon the faux wood top of his table the second time. Rolling his eyes with an irritated sigh following suit, he grabbed his phone and quickly punched in the passcode to view the apparently "urgent" message. Of course, he already had his doubts right when he saw the first three letters of the sender's name.

The space between his brows crinkled as they pulled together, giving a touch of annoyance to his already stern face. He had zero interest in catering to the lesser needs of other people, and even less patience to deal with an overgrown six-year-old who may or may not be a full-blown schizo suffering from persecutory delusions.  If it was anyone else perhaps he would briefly consider it, but knowing Desmond, the so-called assassin probably needed Dom to accomplish something as unimportant as house chores. A thin, displeased noise escaped from between his teeth as his thumb hovered over the touch-keyboard fleetingly before typing away with sure precision. It only took another second for the chime to ring in, informing him that the message had sent.