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[thedifferencebetween]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, HANDSOME JACK. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 021.07.222.57 *** H.Jack69 has joined 021.07.222.57 <USERNAME> First sentence of message. <BANNED USER> SCREENED MESSAGE. UNSCREEN? Y/N -- sample for when you ban someone <USERNAME> First sentence of message. <USERNAME> First sentence of message.

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[fingersandteeth]

Steven nods. "I'll keep that in mind. I did bring protection, if we decide to go through with it. If we don't..."

He shrugs. "You're an interesting guy. I can have a conversation with you. I wouldn't be against just-- hanging out. Having drinks." He eyes Jack thoughtfully. "Whatever else there is to do around here to have fun. So--what do zombie-ghosts eat, anyway?"

Super NSFW Dialogue

[thedifferencebetween]

"Oh buddy, I'm an experience!" Jack grins, glad he can. His face might be maskless and marred, but it moves. He can convey his expressions. And honestly...the whole purple sparkly eridium glow spilling out of his face? Way neater than the old brand.

"I work at the labs, I'm head of the tech development department, which is pretty cool on its own. Plus I saved the whole place last year with a really sweet off the cuff idea. There's a pretty sweet theater here in town, they got all kinds of shows. Sexy and not, something for everybody. There's a spider dude that sexy dances, I kid you not. Or there was, I dunno, I haven't been in a while. As for what I eat...honestly not much."

He waves his disembodied hand through the open space between his neck and chest.

"Lots of liquids. On the other hand...you wanna talk pretty awesome blow job skills...." He waves his hand through the open space again, thumb pointed upwards and eyebrow raised lewdly.

[fingersandteeth]

Steven laughs. "I believe you," he says, leaning a bit forward against the table. "If we decide to go with this, maybe we could trade one blowjob for another—because I am into what you're suggesting. I mean, I've trusted condoms to keep me alive so far--I might as well trust them that much further."

But then he shakes his head and takes another sip of his drink. "Is that the Typhon Theatre? I met one of the bouncers after I washed ashore. Angela, I think her name was. I did say I'd go--maybe I'll get lucky and it'll be when the spider guy's there. Which labs? Are you a programmer or an engineer?" Please don't let him just be middle management. He does kind of remind Steven of the Silicon Valley assholes his dad worked for, although not completely in a bad way.

[thedifferencebetween]

"Alright, alright, calm it down a little. There's a thing as over-eager, ya know." And Jack's not feeling that right now. He's got that. He honestly doesn't know what he's exactly in the mood for, really. Which is kind of weird, not something he can remember feeling in a while. But in the last month or so...

He's not sure he likes the deeper implications of that, so he's not going to think about it right now.

"....seriously? I'm a friggin zombie ghost that casually mentioned how I saved the world, and what you follow up with is asking me about the specifics of my job title? This is the bit of personal Jack info that is of most interest to you? Plus...I just told you I'm a department head. I run the whole friggin tech department."

As far as Jack is concerned, that should answer everything.

[fingersandteeth]

Steven's brown cheeks flush darker. "Right. Sorry." He shoves his fingers back through his hair, a nervous gesture. "My dad's in tech," he says, awkwardly. "Programming. I'm not, because I've never had a head for any coding more sophisticated than mark-up language, but I like that stuff? Even if I'm staring at it from the outside looking in. It doesn't matter. I guess I was... more asking what you did before you were promoted, but yeah. Doesn't matter."

Charley... Thorne had had a head for code. She'd been good at making things too. She could have been a programmer or an engineer or studied pathology like Tio Carlos had... why on Earth had she gone into the liberal arts? He'd never understand that, anymore than her getting into Berkeley and choosing instead to go to a CSU school less than twenty years old.

No. Fuck. He needed to stop thinking about her. Finally finding out how she died six years ago didn't make her any less dead, even now, days later. Especially now, days later. And all this-- delayed processing shit was messing with his ability to do social bullshit.

"How did you save the world?" he asks, a bit more subdued.

[thedifferencebetween]

"There ya go, that's the important question here." And way more exciting than anything Jack does on the job.

"So this place, obviously! is pretty fucked up. And some pretty fucked up shit goes down on kind of a regular basis. While back we had this virus or some shit, I dunno, magic bullcrap. But people were spontaneously combusting and blowing up and just basically making fire happen everywhere. Like...all the fuck over! It was nuts! And the only real way to deal with it was kill the infected, but good friggin luck getting close enough to do it. So I get my hands on a couple of those poison packs that exterminators use, with the spray guns? And I just so happen to know how to whip up poor man's liquid nitrogen in a garage. Which I do. Modify the sprayers so they shoot super friggin far, load up the packs with bootleg nitrogen and bam! Problem solved."

Jack's animated as he talks, hands drifting and waving all over, all grins and confident posture. Few things liven him up like talking about himself saving the day.

And in this case, he actually had.

[fingersandteeth]

Steven is staring at Jack like he's never seen anyone so impressive in his life as the lich before him. And honestly? He's not sure if he has.

"You built a freeze gun," he says, with a shaky little half-laugh. "My God. You built a freeze gun. I-- Holy shit, Jack. I-- Wow. That's. Wow."

It's too bad that he's probably scared Jack off by being over-eager because that? That is the sexiest goddamn thing that Steven Durante's ever heard.

[thedifferencebetween]

"Cryo-gun. Or as close as you can make here with all the backwater, primitive technology. It wasn't hard or anything."

Not really. Just a little creative thinking and an hour or so of work.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy the awe, but that was nothing. Guessing you don't have much cool tech where you come from? God, so many assholes around here from the friggin stone ages."

Fuck but does he miss Rick.

[fingersandteeth]

"Not really," Steven says, his cheeks heating up. What is it about this guy that makes him want to-- Fuck, he doesn't know. Impress him? Find a way to persuade him that he's actually worth spending time with?

Because that's the thing. It's not that Steven doesn't still want to have sex with Jack, because he does, the guy really is handsome, that part of his name is actually pretty accurate--but more than that he... kind of just wants to hang out with him? Listen to him talk? Be his friend more than anything.

"I mean, the tech's better than most of what I've seen here, your cryo-gun aside, but. Um. Hm. I'm trying to think of what would make a good benchmark. I guess it might be that at-home hobbyist 3D printing's only become really common in maybe... maybe the last decade or so? Someone could definitely come up with your cryo-gun back home... the thing is finding someone with both the ability to and the mind to, I guess?"

Bombastus could have, Steven thinks, taking a long sip of his drink. From everything Charley had wrote about him in her private journal, he'd had both mind and ability. Those prototype spider robots they'd found clearing out the Brooklyn facility had been proof of that.

(Steven hates the old man, who was nothing short of directly responsible for Charley's death twice-over. But he'd also been brilliant in his twisted way and Steven could admit that, even if he still wished he could have staked the old man out on the roof before he'd ever thought to turn Steven's sister.)

He takes another long sip of his drink.

"I do like hearing about that," he admits. "Cool tech. Cool weaponry, especially. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with your classic handgun, don't get me wrong--it gets the job done--but it's more interesting when people get creative."