#beta ot4

Hypothetically, their arrangement of interests should work out quite nicely.

Rose is a writer. She’s always been a writer. If she ever let her guard down for a moment around her mother, Roxanne Lalonde would be breaking out the scrapbook of mediocre poetry and far more mediocre fanfiction Rose wrote by hand in crayon as a kindergartener to show anyone who would read it.

Admittedly, she probably only got into screenwriting as a particular subgenre because two of her best friends were already interested in the film industry—but she’s sure she would have become a writer either way, so that seems like a petty technicality.

John’s desire to go into film was only natural, really. He’s loved movies as long as she’s known him—longer, obviously, but that’s not the conventional manner of speech. And he’s always been so good at the piano; combining the two is downright intuitive.

Rose isn’t entirely sure why Dave has elected to go into directing. She’s tried to pry into his psyche about it, but she’s started to get the impression that Dave isn’t entirely sure why he’s elected to go into directing either, and she doesn’t want to plant any seeds of doubt. Mostly, it would be inconvenient for her personally if any of them backed out now.

They’d all agreed to apply at all the same film schools once they came of age, and that one day they would all produce a movie together. (Not literally, as none of them was planning to go into producing, but in the broader sense of the verb.) Perhaps many movies, if it went well for them. Rose would write it. Dave would direct. John would compose. And, by necessity, they would graciously allow strangers to fill the miscellaneous roles they weren’t qualified for.

It should all work out.

But none of them act.

“I don’t think anyone wants me in front of a camera,” John says, apparently cringing even at the thought.

“I dunno, you’ve got a sort of goofy Egbertian charm,” Dave argues.

Rose rolls her eyes. “I’m afraid John is right, Dave. I think even if I managed to write a script without dialogue, John would still find a way to compromise the integrity of the project.”

“Okay, you’re agreeing with me, so I’m not gonna argue with you, but hey.”

Dave ignores John’s protests to look at Rose, his face carefully neutral. “Alright. Thanks for volunteering then, Lalonde.”

Despite having expected this response, Rose bristles. “I did no such thing. Aren’t you the one always talking about women and men alike prostrating at your feet? It seems to me like you’d be the much better candidate for an advertisement.”

Dave clicks his tongue. “I can’t do that, Rose. I’m the director. Directors stay behind the camera. You don’t even wanna know how messy things would get if I abandoned my post.”

Again, Rose rolls her eyes, but before she can open her mouth to argue any further, Jade chimes in with, “I can do it!”

All three of them stare at her.

Jade is the only member of their group who isn’t studying some manner of film. In a show of solidarity—and in no small part, Rose is sure, due to the location of Caltech—Jade had moved to Los Angeles with them, and she pays the largest share of rent on the house the four of them live in together, but science is her passion. Sometimes, when they’re all out for coffee and studying, much like they are right now, Jade will ask them if she can think out loud about her work, and the rest of them will wind up staring in awe as she starts rambling about magnesium ions and secondary cells and other words even Rose can’t begin to wrap her brain around.

Rose is exceedingly aware that all four of them are attracted to her.

They have a sort of unspoken deal about it: As long as they all live together, Jade is off-limits. She’s one of their best friends—has been since they were children—and none of them wants to jeopardize the integrity of the group. Plus, if Jade has ever been interested in any one of them, she’s done a masterful job concealing it.

“Are you sure, Jade?” John asks before Rose can speak up and point out why this is probably a bad idea.

“Sure! Why not? You guys help me with my physics stuff all the time, the least I could do is return the favor with your movie stuff!” Calling what they do helping is exceedingly generous, but Rose’s tongue is still glued to the roof of her mouth.

“Yeah, dude, that’d be awesome,” Dave says, offering one of those rare Strider half-smiles.

Jade, apparently aware of Rose’s extended silence, looks at her with a near pleading expression. “Would that be okay with you, Rose?”

…Well, really, what could be the harm? It isn’t as though they’re advertising anything illicit. Rose offers Jade a soft smile of her own, and Jade beams radiantly.

“So, remind me what we’re doing an ad for again?” Jade asks once they’re back at the apartment. Dave is fiddling with his camera, which leaves John and Rose to fill her in on the particulars of their assignment.

“We got to pick off of a list.”

“We’ve purchased a few different items, just to keep our options open.”

Their options include a roll of disinfectant wipes, a tub of Greek yogurt, and a tube of lipstick, all of which are currently laid out on their kitchen table—cleared for once of the debris Dave and Rose tend to leave nearly every time they pass it.

“Okay! So do I just have to talk about how great they are and stuff? These products seem a little silly for that sort of thing.”

“That’s part of the point,” John says.

“And you don’t have to improvise anything, either. We have to submit our script alongside the completed project. I’ve already written a basic script for each product,” Rose adds.

Jade raises her eyebrows as Rose offers her the printed copies of the scripts. They’re each short—about two pages—but with the added effects John and Dave will be doing in post, Rose is confident they’ll be able to get at least a minute of material out of them—the minimum requirement for their assignment.

“Alright, I’m all set up over here!” Dave announces. His camera stands on a miniature tripod on their kitchen counter, pointed toward the table.

“So which one should we do first?” Jade asks, looking over all of the options.

“I suppose you’re free to choose, since you’ll be the star of the show,” Rose offers. “Unless the boys have any strong preference?”

John and Dave exchange a look like Rose has just volunteered them for conscripted service, before Dave shrugs and John says, “Nope! We can do whatever Jade wants.”

Jade hums and looks down at her scripts again. “The wipes seem the easiest!”

The wipes are very easy. The script doesn’t even have any dialogue for Jade to recite—John did, at least, agree to doing a voiceover in the post-production. She just has to pretend to sneeze and then wipe the table afterward while they ramble about the fresh scent and keeping your family safe this cold and flu season. It’s all very basic stuff. And the best part is that there isn’t anything especially attractive about it. At one point, Jade leans further over the table than strictly necessary and Rose catches herself staring at her ass, but it’s only for a moment.

They settle on the yogurt next. This also passes mostly without incident, although Rose knows all three of them notice the way Jade dramatically moans around a spoonful of yogurt. Dave’s face goes red, but she and John manage to keep it together—or at least, if John is blushing, he has the advantage over them that his skin tone doesn’t match a sheet of paper.

The worst one by far, though, is the lipstick.

They move to the bathroom for this one. Really, only Dave and Jade need to go, but John and Rose are too invested at this point to leave, even if it means that Dave has to angle the camera even more carefully so he manages to catch Jade’s reflection in the mirror without catching any of the three of them. Fortunately, he is, at least, very good at what he does.

“It’s a shame you have no desire to be a cinematographer,” Rose mumbles between takes. “You have a real gift.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Dave says, sounding annoyed for some reason Rose can’t quite put her finger on. It’s not her fault that their friend is unbearably hot.

Well, perhaps it is a little bit.

It wasn’t as though Rose had written the script with Jade in mind or anything. In fact, by the time she was working on the script for the lipstick ad, she was largely resigned to the fact that she was probably going to have to be the one to step in and do the acting, at least for this one. Perhaps in another world, the three of them split the scripts evenly and left Jade out of it. Oh well.

The most sensible direction to Rose was to frame the advertisement around a woman getting ready for a date. She’s put on her nice dress and heels, done up her hair, and now the last thing left is her lipstick. Jade had been especially excited for this one, and she’d made the lot of them leave while she got ready for it.

Now, she’s leaning over their bathroom counter with her curls pulled up into a strategically messy bun in a dress that leaves her entire neck and shoulders exposed, applying lipstick.

“Uh, could you do that again a little slower?” Dave says. Rose almost can’t tell whether it’s an earnest directorial cue or if it’s just Dave being horny—almost. The way he swallows when Jade nods and goes to wipe off the lipstick with a piece of toilet paper is rather incriminating.

“I’m not sure how many times I can do this today, though,” Jade says as she dabs at her lower lip. “My lips are starting to get pretty raw.”

Dave swallows again, and Rose is inclined to join him. She’s sure she’s not the only one thinking about kissing Jade senseless or staring at the faint red staining on her lips. Will this footage even be usable? Maybe if they’re lucky, one of the earlier takes will be good and it won’t matter how distracted their cameraman is now.

Rose chances a glance at Dave’s camera, zoomed in on Jade’s lips, and she shoots him a glare.

“David,” she scolds, voice low. He detests the name, although Rose can’t tell whether it’s because it is his full name or because it isn’t.

“Rosie,” he replies, lying somewhere in the dangerous territory between teasing and mocking. It’s her mother’s nickname for her. He knows she hates it.

“We have an agreement.”

“We’ve never put it in writing.”

“You’re being unprofessional.”

“Directors sleep with actresses like, all the time.” He pauses for a moment, and then cringes at himself. “Okay, no. I’m walking that back. That was gross. But Jade’s not a real actress.”

“She is for the purposes of our assignment!”

“What are you two mumbling about back there?” Jade asks, turning her head to raise her eyebrows at them. She’s got lipstick on only her upper lip—already fascinating to Rose, who applies her bottom lip first—and she seems to be keeping them carefully parted so she doesn’t accidentally smear it before she’s done applying (even though, Rose regrets to say, the take is rendered unusable by the disruption).

Somehow, John is the one who comes to their rescue. “They’re arguing about the shot. Rose thinks it’s too zoomed in.”

“Oh, okay. Well we’ve done a few different takes now. Are they all zoomed in like that?”

“They are not,” Rose confirms. “We’ll stop bickering. You know how we can get.”

“Yep! Sometimes it’s almost like you two are siblings with the way you fight.”

Dave and Rose both exchange a look, crinkling their noses. Rose doesn’t want to imagine what sort of hell her childhood would have been if she’d grown up with both Dave and her mother. When Jade has turned back to the mirror, John shuffles over to them, hissing, “Will you two get it together? It is not that hard to be normal about this!”

“Easy for you to say,” Dave mutters.

“In what way is that easy for me to say?”

Rose clears her throat and nods toward Jade, and Dave and John exchange a glare before huffing and turning away from each other.

They make it about five minutes before the next disruption. “You know, if you’re worried about the zoom, you could always come a little closer!”

All three of them exchange another look. “I dunno, Jade,” John starts. “It’s already pretty hard to angle the camera so that we don’t catch any reflections we’re not supposed to.”

“Nah, I can figure it out,” Dave dismisses.

Rose shoots him a sharp glare. “I thought we already agreed that we were past the disagreement over the zoom level.”

Dave shrugs. “I wouldn’t be doing my directorial duty if I didn’t try to get as many different shots as possible. See which ones are the most usable.”

Rose is fairly certain her eye twitches. She’s completely certain that John clenches his fists at his sides as Dave steps closer, until he’s nearly pressed against Jade’s back. “This okay?” he mumbles, leaning in close to her ear.

She may be imagining it, but Rose is fairly certain Jade shivers at that. Immediately, bitter jealous stirs in her gut. “Yeah, this is perfect,” Jade says, biting her lip. It’s unfairly attractive, and Rose has to tear her eyes away to cool her temper.

Unsurprisingly, things go off the rails fairly quickly after that. Dave seems to make some effort, briefly, to actually get a good shot. He knows the same thing that they do, though—the camera is entirely visible. At best, they can fix it in post.

Once he’s accepted the reality at hand, he abandons all pretense. He even goes so far as to set the camera down on the counter before he dips his head down to press a kiss against Jade’s shoulder. She hums, and as though Rose and John aren’t even there, tilts her head to grant Dave better access to her neck, which he happily takes advantage of.

“Uh, guys?” John says, managing to sound more embarrassed than annoyed. Maybe he is more embarrassed than annoyed—he’s always been far less vindictive than either her or Dave.

“You guys don’t have to be shy!” Jade says cheerfully. Even Dave freezes for a moment, his lips still pressed to the crook of her neck. Jade rolls her eyes fondly. “Oh come on. You guys can’t seriously believe I haven’t noticed by now, right?”

John and Rose exchange a look. “Noticed what?” Rose says cautiously.

Jade rolls her eyes again. “That you guys are all hot and, like, super into me!”

Rose feels a strange sense of pride curling in her gut at Jade calling her hot, even if it isn’t her individually.

“Jade, that’s not…” John starts to deny.

“I mean you can deny it if you want to! But I’m throwing out an open invitation here to whoever wants it.”

“An open invitation to do what?” Rose asks, still trying her absolute damnedest to be cautious. There’s a reason none of them have made a move on Jade. Things could go so very sour.

“Well, duh! A foursome, dummies. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it!”

She hasn’t thought about it. She’s starting to feel a little dumb for not having thought about it. Jade is right that they’re all hot. Rose can imagine worse people to have a foursome with—not that she’s inclined to at this precise moment, given the options laid out in front of her.

She breaks before John does, stepping into the bathroom to drop a kiss against Jade’s other shoulder. Jade sinks back a little further (into Dave, Rose notes with no small degree of jealousy) with a sigh.

John looks timid as he approaches them. It’s almost cute, actually, the way he shyly looks between the three of them like he’s trying to approach the cool kids in the high school cafeteria. “Um… how do we even do this?” he asks. Then, when all three of them open their mouths to answer, he adds, “I mean, like, mechanically.”

They all pause. Right. If there were only three of them, Rose is sure she could offer some suggestions—not from any practical experience, but it’s an easily solvable logic puzzle. Four of them, though, especially with their respective anatomical differences, is… not so easy—especially if they all want to be with Jade.

“Yes, well,” Rose says, clearing her throat and taking a step back. “Perhaps we can take turns?”

“Take turns,” Dave repeats, voice flat.

“Do you have a better suggestion?”

“My blood’s not exactly in my brain right now, Lalonde.”

Rose rolls her eyes. “Then I suppose we’ll have to negotiate the logistics of a foursome another time.”

Jade starts to whine, and then pauses. “Another time?”

Rose hesitates. Has she misread the situation? “...If that would be alright,” she says slowly.

Jade practically gets stars in her eyes, perking up immediately. “Yeah! That’d be more than alright! I’ll look it up and see if I can find a diagram or something!” If it were anyone else, Rose would be sure they were joking. Because it’s Jade, though, she merely snorts.

“Yes. Another time.”

John swallows hard as he looks between the rest of them. “So… if we’re taking turns, how do we decide who’s first?”

“Dude, I’m right fucking here,” Dave scoffs.