mint really has the audacity. [break][break]
aaron's lips press into a scowl as mint leans into his space, little zigzagoon hand diving into the backpack and repeatedly brushing against his own as he searches for something. just as he starts to pull his hand away because fuck that, mint procures a bag of unpopped popcorn. extra butter. [break][break]
maybe he isn't so opposed to this movie night idea anymore. 
[break][break]
mint hops off the couch and scuttles into the dark in search of the kitchen. never mind. 
[break][break]
"obviously," he huffs, elbow deep in mint's bag again. ignoring the dvd-shaped rectangles, he fishes out a candy bar. there's a crinkle of the wrapper, then a crunch. around a mouthful of chocolate that he's eating with the grace of a goat, he continues, "ebewyone's seen spy kids."
[break][break]
aaron balls up his wrapper and tosses it at the coffee table. it falls short and lands on the floor. instead of being a normal roommate, he leaves it there and gets up from the couch to meet mint in the kitchen. 
[break][break]
he makes enough messes on his own without mint tearing through his kitchen in search of bowls or water or whatever.
[break][break] "i'll get the bowls. you just make the popcorn," aaron points towards the microwave. he moves towards the fridge and pulls the door open to gesture to the fancy schmancy water filter pitcher sitting on one of the shelves. "we drink this." 
 [break][break]
well. aaron doesn't drink the filtered water either.
[break][break]
he reaches into a cabinet beside the fridge and takes out a couple bowls. "anything else i can get for you? you keep going through my apartment like this and i'll have my landlord start charging you half my rent."
[break][break]

+ mint frost  movie night pog

as expected, greyson takes his joke like shit. aaron presses back against the weight of the door, his beautiful bicep bulging from months of hitting the gym. "is this any way to treat your bro, my guy?"[break][break]
his smirk starts to dissipate. he really isn't going to budge until he gets money, is he? [break][break]
"fine." aaron relents with a dramatic roll of his eyes, reaching into his pocket with his free hand. he holds his wallet up for the bridge troll blocking his path to see. "lemme in and you'll get your cut."
[break][break]

+ Greyson Connors                  

aaron pauses in his sketching once her side of the canvas is well underway. each brushstroke is deliberate, the swaths of color designed for their spot on the stretched linen. yep, she is definitely a pro. he turns his head away, renewed in his ambitions to meet her at her level. [break][break]
her question makes him push his pencil too hard into the canvas, leaving a dark line beside sketch-light strokes.
[break][break]holy shit, she wants me?
[break][break]
aaron clears his throat, mind oscillating between yes and no.
[break][break]
"whoa. shouldn't you take me out to dinner first?" he grabs a tube of white paint and fiddles with the seal. as long as he's busy putting paint to palette, he would be turned away just enough that she can't see the redness climbing up his cheeks. the pink coloring his ears? he couldn't help that. 
[break][break]
"i'm not that easy." his mock offense is coupled with a smile that can be heard in his voice.
[break][break]

+ ANA STONE  not me pretending i know anything about painting !!!

dumbass? aaron pouts at the screen, eyebrows knitted in mild indignation. he hunches over the desk and types back:

NOOBKILLER1117: ur the brains[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: im the brans[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: so i can b ea dumbass

as he's typing, a marker flashes on his map. he spins his character with heavy thunks of his keyboard until he's teleported next to DOGLOVER0000. as if he isn't annoying enough, he starts running in circles around his teammate as new chats appear in the corner of his screen. he stops moving suddenly. then replies begin to show up:

NOOBKILLER1117: ok[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: ignore trash mobs and grab talisman ez[break]

should be a simple task to follow. he even repeats it back to DOGLOVER for good measure. his character runs through the dungeon, pulling aggro on mobs as he goes.  [break][break]
"oh shit, wait." he stops short of going through the second warp, pixels away from accidentally fucking up everything for them. holding his breath, he turns his ugly little creature of a character around and beelines through mobs to grab the talisman. 
[break][break]
a sigh escapes his lips as he runs back to second warp.
[break][break]

+ pkmn hunter 4 CALLISTA MOON

not only is she smoking hot, but she's humble, too. aaron is immediately suspicious of the idea of them being equally bad. that's just the modesty talking — he's pretty certain that her side will be a masterpiece of the modern century and his will be, well, not that. 
[break][break]
"i'll do my best to keep up with you." the model finds a comfortable sitting pose. the room fills with the sounds of people rustling for their tools. "but feel free to have an off day so i don't end up embarrassing us."[break][break]aaron watches her take a pencil and draw a line down the middle of the canvas. she delineates the work in a way that they won't have to take responsibility for the other.[break][break]  "aight," he agrees after a beat. it would probably be harder to make the composition cohesive than if they just worked together in layers. she looks a lot smarter than he does, though, so she must know what she's doing. [break][break] aaron picks up his own pencil and begins to lightly sketch out the figure of the model sitting in front of them. he's delicate and concentrated as he works — two traits that no one has ever used to describe him.[break][break] "m'names aaron, by the way." might as well introduce himself since they'll be sitting together for a while. "you live around here at all?"[break][break]

+ ANA STONE  not me pretending i know anything about painting !!!

mint's smile is so bright it could lighten up the whole room. 
[break][break]
and that's bad, considering it's a direct result of aaron folding. one should never negotiate with home invaders, but here he is, collapsing onto the couch beside mint. he shoves a pillow in the space between them for both their sakes. 
[break][break]"i think—"[break][break]mint flashes him a playful grin and suggests cuddling through a horror movie. aaron stares back, unsmiling, and thinks that the only cuddling he would do with mint, ever, is putting him in a sleeper hold. he doesn't say it out loud, though, because he's afraid he might be open to that. [break][break] "i think we should watch a comedy. romcoms are," he sticks his hand inside the backpack he confiscated earlier, "kinda boring." [break][break]he rummages through the bag with the enthusiasm of a zigzagoon in a garbage can until mint tells him there's some fun ones at the bottom. fun whats? his hand stills over what he hopes and prays is a soda can. 
[break][break]
"fun ... movies?"
[break][break]

+ mint frost  movie night pog

aaron had learned his lesson about girl characters years ago. they're never actually girls in real life, just guys who like to watch cute girls run around. doglover's character is buff and hot and epic, sure, but that just cements the idea that the person behind the screen is some dude with very specific tastes who made their ideal girlfriend in a video game. some guys make hyper-feminine characters, some guys make hyper-ugly characters (him), and some guys run around as default-looking male characters. 
[break][break]
the common thread between all these characters? the sweaty tryhard dudes making him feel some type of way about their pixels.
[break][break]
he watches doglover's character walk over to the loot and feels a laugh bubble in his throat. he knows he only left shit behind and watching her stand idle as she undoubtedly roots through her inventory makes him stifle his devious snickering behind the side of a closed fist. 
[break][break]
sorry, man.
[break][break]
he sobers up to the sound of the chat pinging. he squints at the item doglover linked. "diamond reaper..." he mumbles, face clouded with gamer concentration like a researcher about to come across the next big discovery for humankind. he hovers his mouse over the text, eyes widening as a box pops up and displays the sickest shit he's ever seen. "holy shit."

NOOBKILLER1117: ty bro[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: yo that weapon looks fire[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: lets go fuck glastrier upp[break]

his character shuffles in one direction, then the opposite way, then returns to his buff companion as if reeled back in by fishing line.

NOOBKILLER1117: u go first[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: idk where it is lol[break]

+ pkmn hunter 4 CALLISTA MOON

an art class seems like the last thing aaron would ever attend. class in general, honestly, considering he never finished high school. [break][break] but true aaron lore masters know that aaron's parents are flush with cash from lilycove tourism. growing up, they had flexed the privilege of disposable income by putting him and his sisters in a variety of different extracurriculars. despite their best efforts to diversify their son's life, nothing kept his attention long except his stint at a trainers' school. 
[break][break]
looking back now, he kind of regrets losing all those skills. smoking, playing video games, and subsisting off of dry cereal and dry conversation with his roommate makes his life neither fulfilling nor impressive to women. 
[break][break]
so, here he is. sitting on a stool next to one of the women he's in art class to impress. she's hot as fuck (respectfully) and he gets to spend the next however long sharing a canvas with her. [break][break]
"i'm rusty, so sorry in advance," he says in the lull as they wait for the model to find a comfortable pose. the tools and tubes of paint in reach fill him with fuzzy childhood memories. hopefully getting back into art is something akin to riding a bicycle after a long time, otherwise this is going to be huge blunder (ft. a hot girl, too, so he'll never recover emotionally). 
[break][break]
"how do you wanna split up the work here?"
[break][break]

+ ANA STONE  not me pretending i know anything about painting !!!

after five months away, aaron is itching to celebrate his return to the city. only — he doesn't really have anyone to celebrate it with. after letting him slither back into their home, Greyson Connors is called away to beat up some bright-eyed trainer or save the world or something, leaving him with no plan b. [break][break]well, actually, his plan b looks a lot like staying in for the night and playing video games, but that doesn't really scream celebration. [break][break] for a brief and frighteningly desperate moment, mint frost  crosses his mind. at its heels comes another thought, a kneejerk yeah, fuck no.
[break][break]
hitting the bar alone doesn't sound like such a bad idea, all things considered. he sifts through the uncharacteristically laundered clothes in his duffel bag for something to wear, throws it on, and heads out.
[break][break]
he couldn't really call himself a regular at this bar, but he had thrown up all over the men's bathroom here on his eighteen birthday so one could call him emotionally connected to this place. like the lingering feelings about one's first love, if first love resembled something like not cleaning up your mess and never returning to an establishment (until now).
[break][break]
aaron approaches the bar, unsure of what to pick first. something to get him unsteady on his feet after one glass? something so fruity that he can't taste the sharp edge of alcohol? something fucking awful, like beer? he steals a glance at the person to his left, then the person to his right. 
[break][break]"hey," he says to the person on his left. "what're you drinking? i kinda wanna try it for myself."
[break][break]

+ @sole

aaron has a single-minded focus: grab the loot. the chat flashes with a fresh notification, but he takes a moment to run his ugly character over to the boss drops and pick them up. he enters his inventory and hovers his cursor on the new weapon he just got, staring hard at his screen for a long moment. [break][break]it's too bad he can't read because this thick block of lore text is probably sooo cool. not. he just cares if the weapon looks sick and does a lot of damage. the top of the text box helpfully supplies an answer to the latter. [break][break]
he remembers the notification after clicking through the other drops. he opens the chat, barely skims the messages, and immediately clicks around to invite DOGLOVER0000 to his party. then, he takes his hand off the mouse for a brief moment to actually read her second message and hammer out a reply, 

NOOBKILLER1117: yea[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: im tryna do another boss[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: wbu?

+ pkmn hunter 4 CALLISTA MOON

the door swings open. greyson appears on the other side, looking about as happy to see him as he usually was. he must've been working hard on his standup routine all these months, considering these new, snappy insults.[break][break]oh, so that's what you wanna do, huh?[break][break]aaron places a hand, arm outstretched, against the flat surface of the open door. 
[break][break]"don't hate me 'cause i'm beautiful, greyson," he says with a coy smile, batting his eyelashes. he leans forward a little, his smile turning to a smirk. "y'know what, speaking of — i got a significant addition somewhere else, too. why don't you let me in and i'll show you."[break][break]

+ Greyson Connors                  

clack clack clack
[break][break]
"this healer sucks so fucking bad." aaron jackhammers one of the hotkeys impatiently, the cooldown counter on his ability blinking helplessly with each input. "how do you get to level fifty and not even know how to play your role? fucking bullshit, man."
[break][break]
the boss pokemon hurls an attack at him, slicing away another chunk of his health. the source of his grumbled  complaints — a shaymin healer — crumples to the ground nearby, filling him with a swell of conflicting emotions. on one hand, what a relief to get a player like them out of the picture. on the other, the rest of them are fucked in a few more hits. aaron leans back in his chair with a frustrated sigh, releasing the mouse from his chokehold so he can rub his face in despair. 
[break][break]
he ends up looking back at the screen just in time to see a character swing at the boss and cause it to burst into confetti, scattering loot across the e-grass. "yo, what?!" his chair squeaks as he throws himself forward, face far too close to the monitor. the chat floods with ggs dog.
[break][break]
an actually good player? on this dumpster fire of a server? he clicks on the chat and begins typing.

NOOBKILLER1117: yo[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: doglover[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: u r cracked[break]
NOOBKILLER1117: wanna team?

while he waits for a reply, he walks his character towards the loot. 
[break][break]

+ pkmn hunter 4 CALLISTA MOON