Chapter Text
Hot, fresh coffee with milk and sugar; there was nothing quite like it first thing after waking up, especially on a cold windy morning. I’d pined for it the second I’d opened my eyes and with a hot drink in my hand, slowly, I began to come off of autopilot and back into reality as my stomach growled for breakfast. My walk to work had been an uninteresting one; it was very blustery and there was a fallen tree near where I lived, forcing me to divert, but while this didn’t take that much more time it did represent the damage the winds and rain had already done during the hours of the night.
I usually heard Gavin before I saw him and this morning was no exception. Nothing quite beat this morning, however.
“Letttttt’s play!” Came the British man’s shout as the door was pretty much slammed open, making me jump in my seat. I really should be more used to him by now, but it was early and I was not generally a morning person. Added to this was how easy I was to make jump, something which the guys had used against me for laugh many a time.
I rested the back of my hand to my coffee mug hopefully as I smiled at him bemusedly, but it was still too hot to drink. Still, I couldn’t help noting how windswept he’d become just from the car to the building.
“Today’s gonna be so good, it really is,” he babbled, putting down his bag and switching on his Xbox at the desk diagonally across from me. “Geoff, Kerry and I have been working on this for weeks and I got up early to make sure it was totally done.”
“Did you really?” I asked, surprised.
With a roll of his eyes, Geoff nodded as he followed him into the room, flopping down into his computer chair beside me and opening up his email immediately. “He really did. And I would’ve helped him, if it hadn’t been dicks’ o’ clock in the morning. He was up at four A.M.” Despite his words, there was no acidity or malice there. As always, it was clear that no matter how annoying and childlike Gavin could be, Geoff viewed him like family. In a way, we all did.
“Bet you appreciated that, early bird,” I teased him, watching his tattoo-covered hands fly across his keyboard in response to something.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ did not,” he sighed. “But we did work hard on this.”
Half an hour later, we were all ready and waiting to play after having gotten our captures set up, our consoles loaded and our software and equipment synced properly. Gavin could barely get his words out to explain clearly due to his excitement so Geoff wound up doing it instead, as we all stared through our Minecraft characters’ eyes at what on earth they’d created.
And it was pretty spectacular. In the deep ocean, they had built what looked like a huge Tower Of Pimps that lay on its side, made out of wool. The inside was hollow and devoid of water apparently, but was also maze-like and was just dark enough to spawn enemy mobs. The game was a race to get from the ‘obsidian’ end to the last ‘gold’ block top without dying, which would result in respawning back in the entrance room before the first section.
“How in the hell did you build that so far underwater?” I asked incredulously.
“I drowned a lot,” Gavin grinned. “Which happened for a while before Geoff let me turn on creative mode. I wanted to deck him!”
The corner of Geoff’s mouth lifted in amusement. “Yeah, it’s underwater because we thought you guys all possibly drowning would be fun.”
“This is fucking massive!” Michael remarked as Geoff descended down first to show us where the entrance was.
“Thaaat’s what she saaaaid,” Ray made the obvious joke from behind me, while Michael and Gavin sniggered.
We all barely made it without drowning apart from Gavin, who hesitated too long and spawned back in Achievement city, prompting Geoff to teleport him back amongst the laughter of the rest of the group.
“Alright well now that Gavin’s died already like a fuckin’ idiot...” Michael remarked, opening chests in the starting room right before the first of the five maze sections as Ray did the same, looking for roses.
I opened a chest next to me and removed a stone sword. “Can I take this?”
“Yeah, you can, you’re allowed one stone sword to get through the maze to fight,” Geoff instructed. “Everybody grab a fuckin’ sword. By the way, err, just so you all know, Gavin, Kerry I built the shells of the blocks but only Kerry and I did the mazes, so Gavin doesn’t know his way around any better than the rest of you and that’s why I’m not playing.”
“Alright,” commented Ryan.
“Jack’s got two swords!” Gavin accused immediately, in his whiniest voice.
“Okay?” Ryan turned and raised an eyebrow at him in real life. “It’s not like he can dual-wield them.”
Jack laughed. “No I don’t, why would I take two swords?”
“Yeah but, but it’s not fair though is it?” Gavin insisted, ignoring Jack’s reply.
“It literally makes no fucking difference, Gavin,” Michael snapped, clicking on a bed to sleep in it. “Everyone needs to set their spawn point down here.”
Agreeing, I slept in a bed too and Geoff said something along the lines of, “Yeah, good idea.” Before also setting his spawn point. Ryan and Jack followed suit.
“This is probably an obvious ‘no’, but I need to ask…” Ryan began, a smirk on his lips. “I’m guessing we can’t break anything to get through?”
Geoff and Michael both jumped to reply to him with a resounding, predicted ‘no’ as Jack groaned about him being infamous for trying to find loopholes and winning via other not-so-legit methods. I however, quite liked his thinking a lot of the time.
“How about,” I added, “if a creeper blows a hole in the maze. Is that okay?”
Geoff blinked at me incredulously. “Well yeah, because it’s a creeper. They blow up. What d’you want me to goddamn do about it?”
“Even if you kite them to do it in your favour to blow up somewhere specific?” I pushed, whilst Ryan chuckled in approval from the other side of Jack.
“Team Loophole over there,” Ray grinned, waving his in-game red rose around after having found the stack that he’d been left in a chest.
Slightly exasperated, Geoff just shook his head. “Look, just don’t be assholes. No killing each other and that includes kiting enemies to other players. It’s just a race to the finish, okay? Winner gets the Tower Of Pimps,” Geoff said firmly. “On your marks, get set- goooo!”
We all crashed through the starting door into the first section and for the most part went in different directions. The massive block we were in was purely black wool, only lit up by redstone torches and the occasional glowstone block so navigation was going to be an issue from the get-go.
“Man it’s dark as fuck in here,” Michael grumbled as we all bumbled our way around the maze. Despite all having our brightness up high in-game and on our monitors to a point, he was not wrong – it was very difficult to see where to go in the mass of black wool and darkness.
It only took a few minutes for the first incident to happen. Gavin let out a shriek that sounded like a wounded bird and the message ‘Gavin was slain by a Zombie’ popped up on everyone’s screens.
I rounded a corner and came up against an Enderman, but averted my eyes and stared at the floor to avoid aggravating him, taking rights constantly until I hit a dead end.
“Oh shit, a skeleton...” Ryan muttered, pressing his controller buttons furiously all of a sudden. “No you fucker, I’m not even that far in!”
“So, uhm,” Gavin sheepishly chuckled as he respawned. “I forgot to sleep.”
“You idiot, where are you?” Geoff asked.
“...back in Achievement City, across the map.”
“Fuckin’ sleep in a bed this time, dickhead,” Geoff sighed, teleporting Gavin back into the small starting room.
The game continued for some time, with various deaths here and there and much laughter and frustration from nearly all. Jack was quietly doing very well, methodically having reached the last section, Ryan and Michael close behind. I was trailing a little, with Gavin and Ray nearby.
“I’ve gotta say, this is gonna be close,” Geoff announced, watching everyone’s progress by flying over the top of the maze and looking down upon us all competing.
I took exactly the wrong moment to take a sip of coffee and got blown up by a creeper that snuck up behind me like a green ninja. Without armour, we were all pretty much sitting ducks to the countless enemies spawning in the low light levels.
“Fuckkk!” I yelled, getting sent back to the beginning.
“Well, there goes [Y/N],” Michael laughed.
“Wait, did that just blow a hole in- OH GOD!” Ray screeched as water began to flood the section he and Gavin were still in.
“Oh, who put this lovely water feature here in the middle of the Let’s Play?” Gavin joked, glancing at me across the room. “Look at you, prettying the place up!”
“Shut up Gav,” I replied, trying to speedily get through the first few sections again to regain progress. Unfortunately it was just as much of a maze the second time as it was the first.
“Why won’t this fucking Enderman leave me ALONE?” Yelled Michael, who could almost taste victory in the last section of the maze.
“He loves you,” Ray replied immediately. “He probably wants to fuck you.”
“Jesus Christ,” muttered Jack with an amused laugh.
“Oh yeah?” Michael swung his stone sword to try to kill the teleporting Enderman. “I wish he’d take me to fucking dinner first, fucking asshole. NOOO!”
He’d died. Jack was now the only person close to winning, but he was seemingly going around circles now and making very little progress. There was a slight pause before Gavin suddenly piped up with one of his usual ridiculous questions for the group.
“What do you think having sex with an Enderman would be like?”
Ryan snorted into his diet coke. “Not pleasant, I imagine.”
“I can think of other things I’d rather fuck,” Geoff smirked, his eyes very briefly flicking my way, causing me to do a slight double-take and lose my focus for a minute.
Did he just- did he just imply-
My screen suddenly read, ‘You Died!’
“God dammit!” I put my controller down on the desk. “Again! Well now I’m not winning. Jack’s so far ahead.”
“You can still try,” Jack suggested supportively from my left. “I’m pretty lost, you might catch up.”
“How much would you need to be paid for an Enderman to suck your dick? Or...lick you out?” Gavin adjusted the question for me with a snigger, as an afterthought.
“Fucking hell Gavin,” Michael groaned. “Too much. I wouldn’t. With that mouth? Ugh!”
“Yeah but they can open their mouths really wide!” Gavin laughed.
“Hm, so they’d be the only being to have no trouble with Ryan then,” I added, completely unable to help myself.
Ryan chuckled. “I mean...I don’t think how wide you can open your mouth is really the only thing that qualifies you to be good at oral sex.”
Michael began to laugh uncontrollably. “Yeah, when was the last time you were turned on by a crocodile?”
Sheepishly and a little defensively but clearly amused too, Gavin shrugged. “Never, Michael, funnily enough.”
“How fucked up do you have to be though,” Michael continued, “like, how much alcohol would that fucking require to get with an Enderman?”
“So much,” Geoff replied firmly. “Please can we stop having this god damned fuckin’ conversation?”
“Like…all of it?” Gavin inquired, referring to the alcohol amount his boss would need in his system to copulate with an insane, scary, lanky monster from a videogame. Or possibly a crocodile.
“All of the alcohol? Yes,” Geoff nodded. “Now shut up.”
“You don’t pay me to shut up,” Gavin smirked defiantly.
Very suddenly, we were all staring at black screens, the lights shutting off along with the power. The emergency lighting flickered briefly before illuminating the room in a much dimmer capacity. Elsewhere in the building, they could hear distant sounds of dismay and shouts but other than that, there was a sudden, fairly eerie silence.
“Fuck my ass dude, the power’s out!” Geoff scowled.
“I was so close to winning though!” Jack moaned, dropping his controller in annoyance. Michael let out quite a guttural sound at the prospect of losing so much progress as Gavin questioned whether they all really had just lost all of the recordings and gameplay footage.
This had happened once before a few years ago, but unfortunately, they had no idea the storm today was going to be quite as bad as to cause power outages. In the quiet room now, the rain beating against the office building was more obvious, the sounds of the winds howling more noticeable. The abrupt and loud clap of thunder made me jump, something which the guys were quick to notice.
“Are you scared of storms?” Ray asked curiously.
“Yeah, a little,” I replied, not meeting their eyes. We had all turned our chairs around to face into the room and each other, rather than our computer monitors and equipment.
“Well, I’m going home,” Gavin said decisively, sounding fed-up. “Geoff, can you drive me?” He added as an afterthought, because they lived together and he had no other of way of getting home otherwise. What a spoon.
Geoff had been subtly watching me ever since I had jumped at the thunder, but now he looked around the room at everyone seemingly moving from their seats. “Oh no you’re all fuckin’ not, it’s stormy as dicks out there. I’m not having you all go out and get yourselves killed on your way home like idiots. And no Gavin, we’re staying here.”
“So what are we meant to do Geoff?” Michael asked confrontationally. “Sit on our asses and wait?”
“It won’t be that long,” Geoff countered, before Jack added,
“I hope not.”
Another clap of thunder struck and rumbled and I curled up in my chair, bringing my knees to my chest. There had been storms before while I’d been at work and at home of course, but the big difference was that here, it was either drowned out by us all gaming or I was so distracted it didn’t freak me out. At home, I’d put on some headphones with my favourite playlists and try to go to sleep so I wouldn’t hear it happening. It was currently far too quiet and all I could hear my heart beating out of my chest as I squeezed my fists, my fingernails digging into my palms.
“Okay, I’m going to use my laptop until it dies until the power comes back.” Ryan reached for his equipment, unplugging the now useless cable and turning the screen brightness down to conserve battery.
“I’m going to talk to Lindsay,” Michael shrugged. “Maybe we can watch the lightning out the window or something.”
I’ve never understood the people who enjoy storms, the kind where mother nature sounds so angry that it’s as though the thunder could destroy a city with its rumbling threat and flashes of bright, forked lightning. It makes me feel so powerless, like it’s reminding me of how little we, as humans, actually are. And it set my nerves right on edge, fraying them one by one with each drove of rain against the windows.
“We had so many other videos to record today!” Ray stated, removing his headphones from around his neck and rummaging around in his bag.
“We just gotta wait, dude,” Jack shrugged.
“[Y/N], can I talk to you for a minute?” Geoff asked me, leaving the room and indicating that I follow.
“Sure.”
He didn’t stop outside the office room like I thought he would though, he kept walking right the way down the corridor to the end and to the left, where there was a messy storage room full of electronic bits and bobs, along with some people’s possessions, some props, posters and small statues relating to their place of work. The room, being enclosed by the building, had no windows and therefore was almost entirely pitch dark with the door open. Curiously, I had trailed after him.
“What the hell-“
“Just trust me.”
I blinked, gazing into his warm blue eyes before hesitantly following him into the darkened room, my heart thumping from the combination of the thunder-induced anxiety and being in a small room, alone with Geoff. There was a brief moment where neither of us said a word, before he closed the door with a click and left us in total darkness.
It was as though the rest of the world had been shut out. I was in no way afraid of the dark or small spaces, often finding it sort of comforting at home to sit in a darkened room and just sort of almost meditate when I was feeling upset, panicky or out of control with my life in general, and all I needed now was my headphones and my iPod shuffle. Which were back in my bag in the office. Balls.
The thunder sounded a little more distant now and with no windows to see the flashes of lightning any more, I already felt slightly calmer, but it was still roaring and my chest was still pounding. And then suddenly, I was aware of Geoff stepping closer to me and felt his warm arms slide firmly around my waist as he placed himself right behind me, resting his chin on my left shoulder a little.
My heart rate increased significantly.
“Breathe slowly,” he whispered, his breath on my neck doing nothing to help me do just that. “You’re shaking a little bit.”
As soon as he pointed this out, I made a conscious effort to try to stop, but I couldn’t help myself from tilting my head a little to the side to expose more of my neck to him. I felt him pause for a few seconds, before he did exactly what I’d hoped he would – he began to slowly pepper my neck with surprisingly soft, gentle little kisses.
“Geoff, I-“
“Shhhhh...you’re safe. Focus on your breathing.”
And truly, I felt it. His strong arms were keeping me feeling grounded, his kisses distracting my mind from the storm, his faint scent of cologne mixed with something else that might have been whatever he’d washed with in the shower that morning had me taking deep breaths of calm and closing my eyes. The storm raged on outside but I was protected, cocooned in this tiny inky black room with someone who I’d liked a whole lot since day one of working here.
Starting to lose sense of time the longer we stood there, I found my mind beginning to wander just slightly. Clearly, without ever having seriously told me before, he liked me too. He was a massive flirt casually but I’d always taken that with a pinch of salt, considering he did the same thing with other people too. Plus, those moments where he would smile at only me, make a cute joke about my needing a hug because I’d lost a Let’s Play and making the odd dirty joke were things I quite enjoyed, no matter how tantalising. That was the general atmosphere of working here, though, and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world because he was far from the only one to do that and some of the time, they would entirely jokingly flirt with one another for a laugh.
“So...do you do this for all the guys that work here?” I asked quietly, humour in my voice.
I felt him smile against my neck. “Only Gavin when he’s being a baby. And Ryan when he threatens me. And Michael when he asks-“
Unable to help myself, I laughed. “Okay, I get it. Just me.”
Another pause, during which time he stroked across my midriff softly with his thumb. Immediate goosebumps.
“You okay?” he murmured.
I met his hands with my own, placing mine over his and slightly leaning back into him. “This is the calmest I’ve ever felt.”
Geoff chuckled softly, his breath still tickling my neck deliciously. “Well, I guess I’ve done a good job then. Your heart’s still beating a little fast though.”
In the pitch darkness, I blushed, glad he wasn’t able to see. I decided to tempt fate a little bit and replied, “That might have something to do with how sexy you are.”
“Well, well, well, am I really?” Geoff hummed, nibbling my earlobe now and causing me to almost lose my ability to remain standing. “Coincidently, you are cute as fuck too.”
My blush deepened as I made a brave decision that was far more ballsy than I ever would have made in a brightly-lit room - I turned myself around in his arms to face him and leaned to kiss him on the mouth, finding his soft lips easily. Within seconds, he was kissing me back with passion, his hands roaming down the sides of my body slowly like he was trying to feel every part of me. I felt him step forward, forcing me to step back until he was pressing me up against the wall, one of his hands finding its way into my hair, stroking through it, the other hand roaming a little bit staying mostly around my waist. And in that moment, despite him being my boss, despite him being nearly twice my age, despite us having discussed nothing leading up to doing this, I wanted him. Badly.
My hands reached for the hem of his t-shirt, fully intent upon lifting it up and off.
A couple of loud banging noises that were completely unrelated to the storm rattled off outside, accompanied by shouting and cheering, but it startled us enough to stop. Geoff, his body still against mine and sounding a little out of breath, muttered, “What the fuck are those cocksuckers doing to the office now?” causing me to giggle a little.
“Maybe we should check,” I breathed, half-hoping he wouldn’t agree with me. I was torn, because on one hand this was irreversibly complicating a work relationship and friendship, but on the other hand…he was hot as hell. But also, we were in a closet. And yet, he was so caring and sweet. But we were at work, on office premises. I could almost picture my two inner selves, angel and demon on my shoulders, fighting it out.
Another sharp thump, like something marble-like hitting a wall a few rooms away.
“We should, I guess,” Geoff replied, sounding reluctant as he backed up and carefully navigated his way through the room to the door, before yanking it open. We both squinted in the light as our eyes adjusted but he didn’t move for a few seconds, watching me with a wicked smirk as I slowly stepped towards the door and him. “But I want you to know that if I had my way, I wouldn’t have stopped there.”
I bit my lip, just looking up slightly and into his eyes. “Really?” My heart thudded hard as I watched and waited for his response.
“Definitely not,” he replied, with such certainty that I wondered whether I should be offended. The only problem was that I had never intended to say no or resist in any way whatsoever and I think he knew that full well. “I feel like I should ask you to dinner first though.”
I knew that he could cook very well from past dinner parties (which was really far too posh of a term for us all converging on Geoff’s house, expecting him to feed us and then us all playing video games all night long for fun, rather than for views). It was probably the only reason that Gavin had survived whilst he lived with him, being reluctant to use much more than a toaster and a microwave. Still, that was better than Ray who literally ate so many takeaways that I wasn’t sure how he stayed so slim. It was pretty unfair really; I only had to look at a pizza and I gained a pound.
But wait-
“What about Gavin?”
Geoff scratched the back of his head and smiled. “He lives in a separate part of the house. He’ll be there for dinner but if we explain…”
“Explain what?”
“That we want some time alone.”
He said it so simply that my mouth hung open a little. How did he expect Gavin to leave us alone with that excuse? He’d become immediately suspicious for sure. And yet, I wasn’t overly worried; Gavin was a sweetheart that wouldn’t – intentionally – hurt a fly. Maybe if I told him not to tell the rest of the group, he wouldn’t. Not yet anyway. Not until I knew what the hell this was.
“Fair enough,” I answered, giving his hand a little squeeze before another thud rang out from a few doors down.
“They’re gonna break the fuckin’ wall if they don’t stop with their bullshit-“ Geoff groaned, rolling his eyes and striding towards our office, with me right behind, trying to straighten and flatten my shirt and hair a bit with my hands.
I can safely say that the result of the noise was not a disappointment. As we stood in the office doorway, Geoff doubled over with his infectious, adorable laughter at the scene and I just stared in bemusement. Gavin was doing a handstand up against the wall with his mouth hanging wide open, while Ray, Ryan, Jack and Michael aimed and attempted to throw various different sweets and small candy pieces into his mouth. They were mostly hitting his face, chest and arms, but a few were going in at least. They seemed to be using all sorts, but most commonly small multicoloured gumballs that would occasionally hit the wall behind him.
“Wait, I need chewing time!” Gavin giggled as Ryan underarm-threw another sweet, hitting his cheek. “RYAN, give me a minute!”
“Sorry, you’re just so fun to throw things at,” Ryan laughed, reaching for another candy.
“Jesus,” Jack laughed. “Poor Gavin.”
As Geoff and I re-joined the room, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. With the grin on his face from messing about with his friends, the way that he could barely even throw properly due to laughing and the corners of his eyes crinkling in the cutest way whilst he tossed a tattooed hand full of sweets right at poor Gavin’s face with a gleeful, “Catch, motherfucker!”, I realised that I was way past crushing on him. This was way more than that. I was in big trouble.
What I didn’t realise in that moment was that someone else’s eyes were on me too.