thedifferencebetween

"Well obviously!" To all of that, really. Obviously Jack is special, obviously Steven would want him anyway. These are just facts.

And Jack is a practiced hand at this, sealing his lips over Steven's and sucking the shared smoke down easily.

"But you'd still be famous just for being my boyfriend. Cuz I'm the most famous person in the galaxy. I'm an institution! The brand, baby!"

He laughs again. "Egotist," he says fondly. "So smug. But I believe you, I do. It's-- a little mind-blowing to think about. That you're bigger than Jesus. But I do believe you." He strokes Jack's face fondly, before passing him back the joint. "Though, mm, I'd hope I'd be famous for something else than just being your man. At the very least, I'd like to do something for you. I'm, ah, not always good at being idle."

"False humility is so gauche." Jack winks. "Hell, I'm bigger than the Beatles! Babe...I have like a dozen holidays devoted to me. I've been a guest judge or host on every show! All of them! My pay-to-view sex tapes go for hundreds of thousands of dollars a view! Everybody either wants me or wants to be me!"

He isn't even exaggerating. The Cult of Jack is massive and fervent, he's held as a living god by the vast majority of Hyperion. He's the ideal everyone aspires toward!

And even if he's been gone for years...he knows that hasn't changed. He's heard all about it in bits and pieces over the years - his offices frozen in time and now the most popular museum in the galaxy, hundreds of wannabes calling themselves 'Handsome Whatever' trying to be the next Jack. His mask worn in mourning and honor even almost a decade later...

"Yeah, I bet you'd do pretty okay in Hyperion. But basically outside of being attached to someone important, you get famous for being rich, being a crazy genius, or killing more people than anybody else. And I guess if you got a good niche you can get pretty famous in the Echo stream world."

"Pay-to-view sex tapes," Steven repeats flatly. He shakes his head. Not that he couldn't understand wanting to watch Jack fuck, but hundreds of thousands of dollars? Either inflation had achieved truly ridiculous heights or... there were a lot of very rich people who found his boyfriend immensely hot.

Which is fair. His boyfriend is immensely hot.

"Echo stream is your broadcast media, right?" he says. "I'd have to do that, I suppose. I'm not rich or a genius and... well. You know I've never killed anyone yet."

The word 'yet' almost seems to hang in the air between them.

"Well there's the free ones I leak onto the ECHOnet, but the ones ya gotta pay for are way better!" There's a difference. "Cuz the free ones...it's supposed to look like it's not staged, it's got that whole amateur angle. But I'm an exhibitionist, and so was Nisha, so we liked to put on a show! And there's one official porno, but I actually didn't do that one! Apparently it was just cheaper to use Tim than do post-filming touch ups."

Jack rolls his eyes at that. Yeah, sure, Tim still has abs of steal and an ass that fills out a pair of jeans, but come on. Jack's not in bad shape, geeze.

"And yeah, the ECHOnet is what we've got. It's got your tv, your movies, your news, your music, your gaming streams.... and there's some pretty famous commentators and broadcasters. It's all about brand. Which I guess isn't so different than here." A pause for another drag and exhalation into Steven's mouth.

"But really that's the thing? You could do anything and be famous, just cuz you'd already be in the public eye. Plus if you did live in the future, you'd...you'd have already killed tons of people, babe, trust me."

God, this is-- he's never felt so relaxed outside of sex. He should have gotten high years ago, legality be damned.

"I guess I would have," Steven muses out loud. "I've wanted to, you know, for a very long time. Around thirty years ago is when I first remember thinking about 'what if I--?'" He shakes his head. "In the hospital. Visiting my uncle. He was in so much pain and I thought... I thought if I took a pillow and pressed it down on his face until he stopped breathing, he wouldn't be in pain anymore. And then I thought, what if I did that to the other people there too? What if I unplugged all the machines? Everyone would just fall asleep forever and nobody would hurt and maybe I could poke at the bodies afterward. Maybe I could take one of those little knives and cut one up. Tio Carlos wouldn't have minded me doing it to him. He'd been going to school to do it to other dead people.

"But I was just a little kid, you know? Just, god, barely turned eight. So of course I couldn't do anything like that.

"But after that I'd think about it all the time. What if I pushed this person in front of a car? What if I pushed them off the top of this building? What if I opened the knife drawer and took out a really big one and put it through someone's chest?" He smiles, tiredly. "That was a favorite for years. Especially when I'd follow it up by imagining I was cutting out their heart."

He plucks the joint from Jack's hand and takes a long draw before he exhales into Jack's mouth.

"Now?" he says, smiling almost gently as he pulls back to look Jack straight in the eyes. "Now, I think strangling is my favorite. Your fault, you know."

"Oh that, that's a whole other thing."

Jack just waves a hand in amiable dismissal of Steven's confession. And not a thing he's interested in talking about at the moment, they're having nice relaxing drug time.

In fact...Jack makes another gesture with his hand and Android's Dream begins shuffling on the carpet, making sparks and bursts of electric blue dance across his fur and around his body. Better than a lava lamp!

"Mmm, stabbing's pretty fun, too. But...it is all theoretical, as we are here. And we can't actually do that. But we find other ways to find fun..." A waggling of his eyebrows as he runs a hand idly through Steven's hair.

"I have a lotta fun with you, babe."

Steven laughs. "Yeah, I have a lot of fun with you too, bebe." He leans in to steal a smokeless kiss. "I'd much rather be in a sex tape with you than Tim for fuck's sake. Why would anyone want the inferior double when they could have the real thing?"

God, he'd have never even thought of making a sex tape in his old life. Not when it could have gotten out and ruined his career. But the idea of being watched... it's not un-erotic. Just-- with a carefully curated audience and no cameras allowed whatsoever.

Or in Jack's future, he guesses. Where no one cares.

Edited 2020-03-16 06:33 (UTC)

"Oh yeah, you do not wanna get with Tim. One you've got the real thing, yes, and two...did you know that dude didn't even start smashing till well after he was me? And he was already like middle of his twenties when that happened. He's got no game, it's sad."

And he could have such a better life if he'd just embrace being Jack! Oh well, he's got time to work on him.

"Whereas I have been studiously practicing since I was like sixteen. I'm a god damned sex artist! Which you..you already know."

Jack laughs. He's clearly more relaxed than he normally is, and he passes the joint to Steven to hold for a moment while he casually pops his mask off and sets it aside on one of the small tables by the couch.

"Ah, that feels better, face was startling to get that weird crawly feeling. The synthskin on skin when you're stoned...it's not a good time."

"Jesus," Steven says. "That's-- nothing at all? God, even I got laid by the time I was eighteen. Earlier, if you count, you know, mutual masturbation." He takes a drag on the joint while he has it, before breathing it back out into Jack's mouth.

"Poor little Timmy," he says, tracing the line of the metal in Jack's face with his free hand. "Stuck inside of the body of a man he'll never be good enough to actually be. He really ought to have read the contract. He really ought to have learned how to think."

God, getting high is the best. He's so glad Jack decided to introduce him to it.

"Ehhhhhh." Jack waggles his free hand. "He got the job for a reason, he could live up to the original. Or close enough. He did! After a while, I mean. At first...."

He laughs, thinking back all those years.

"But it took him a long time to get the playboy aspect of being Handsome Jack down. Holy shit...you shoulda seen him the first time he met my ex. I think I've mentioned Moxxi? I dunno, I can't remember. She was this...technically a bar tender, but she had her hand in a lotta pies. Gambling, pleasure trade, bloodsport... anyway. He takes one look at her - or at least her tits, cuz they were always threatening to jump out of her corset - and just starts babbling! Literal babbling! 'Uh, um, whu, you...huh....' and then he just blurts out a friggin marriage proposal! Needless to say, she was not interested. Besides, she'd already had the real thing."

And screwed that all up, idiot.

"So yeah, that's Tim and the ladies. I tell ya, I dunno what he's paying the hot stripper he's shacking up with, but it's gotta be a lot! He's not that good in bed."

Steven snickers. "My god. Literally the first time? God. That's just-- he's supposed to be an actor and he can't even keep his role straight the first time he runs into someone attractive? He can't keep from falling apart just because a pretty girl almost fell out of her top? God. What a moron." He takes another pull on the joint, another smoke-filled kiss, before laughing again, more sharply this time.

"My god, he really is just... God." He strokes Jack's cheek. "And you," he says fondly. "You ridiculous egotist. You fucked him, huh? Just because he looks like a younger version of you?"

Yeah. High or not, he caught what you accidentally implied there.

"I mean, it could be hot to watch. Especially if he had his mouth full, so he couldn't flub his lines again."

"Honestly I wouldn't call him a moron. He's no genius, but he's not an idiot. He's just...I dunno, I guess getting stuck on the casino messed him up. He's not the dude I left behind, let's just put it that way."

Of course there's also his previous time in this world, and....all of that. Ugh, so much crap Jack has to undo.

"Eh, who haven't I? And gimme some credit. He's my doppelganger, Steven, the other me. Dude probably knows me better than anybody else who's still around. We were buddies. Before the friggin terrorists got to him last time, he crashed at my place a bunch and worked with me and everything. We've got history. He's just...screwed up. Needs to get his head back on straight, that's all."

But yes, it's hot that he's Jack's own mirror image, of course that is.

"And he doesn't look that much younger than me. Like a couple of years at best. And he always looks tired all the time, and he doesn't use any product, so actually, I probably look younger."

"No Pokemon Botox, huh?" Steven says, looking back at Jack with an air of amusement and superiority. Yes, he knows what you're doing with that jellyfish thing.

There's something that getting high does to Steven's voice, Steven's accent, shifting the vowels a little, some of the consonants too, even as he keeps to the standard English rhythm of his speech.

He laughs again and caresses Jack's cheek. "Just look at us," he says, a hint of wonder in his voice. "You're being the nice one about someone. How did that happen?"

IC Inbox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject