#the salary increase is like.... not that much and is only a little higher than my yearly raise is | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

englishchinesetranslations · 9 months

Text

Indentured servitude for men in Iran: The myth of patriarchal oppressive divorce

…effectively denying (Iranian) women the right to divorce and re-establishing men’s unlimited right of divorce.”[1]

“A man may marry up to four wives and divorce them whenever he desires. But mere will is not enough for a(n Iranian) woman to divorce her husband.”

[2] penned by Shirin Ebadi, the only Iranian Noble-prize winner. (She received her Noble Peace Prize for her efforts in the field of issues of women and children.)

“Iran’s rising divorce rate is all the more noteworthy given the laws on divorce. While husbands are empowered to end their marriages in a matter of weeks without stating any reason, women must establish sufficient grounds for divorce in a process that can take several years, even with professional legal advice… (women) facing such an uneven playing field…” [3]NY Times.

A quick search on the internet will tell you how much women are discriminated against in Iran when it comes to divorce. They will tell you that men have the absolute right to end marriage, and women cannot divorce their husbands if they wish. Some radical gynocentrists even tell you that a woman cannot divorce even if her husband beats her every day. So what do all these statements have in common? You can’t precisely find the similarity, because it is not just what they say; it is also what they don’t say. By the end of this article you have to decide for yourself how appalling these statements are.

When a couple decides to get married in Iran, upon registering their marriage, they announce to officials an amount of wealth and property–that their families agreed on–which the husband is mandated to pay to his wife. This is called mehrieh or mahr. Furthermore, this is just the beginning: sit tight!

The most prominent attribute of mehrieh is its value. So how much is mehrieh in a country where your average worker earns around US$270 a month? According to the Center for Population Studies of Asia and Oceania the average of mehrieh during the period 2003 to 2008 have been 450 pure gold coins[4]. The center also announced the alarming rate of increase in mehrieh, so the average mehrieh must be higher now. What’s more, the questionnaire only asked of the amount of gold in mehrieh, not the apartment buildings, lands, money, other statements in the marriage contract that may dictate the husband buy other things for his wife after they’re married, etc.

What is more interesting is that the authorities do register all mehriehs in their books. Why the need to ask people when the registry offices do have the real data? Especially considering that the state has some stigma around high mehriehs and seems reluctant to reveal the real statistics.

Personally, I have rarely seen a woman whose mehrieh is lower than 1000 pure gold coins. But let’s just go with the said 450 coins. How much is it? At the moment of this writing, 450 gold coins is roughly US$140,000. In the major metropolitan areas, mehrieh is often than not several million dollars. That is how insanely gynocentric this culture is.

Now, you are comparing this average on mehrieh with the monthly average salary of a worker, i.e. US$270, and thinking to yourself that this is impossible to pay. You are also perhaps confused and do not know what that has to do with divorce. Be patient. It is a little complicated, but it makes these simplistic suggestions made by the media and feminists scandalous.

A woman can demand her mehrieh any time she wants. Upon her suing for divorce, all the bank accounts of the accused are legally frozen and he cannot take one dime out of his bank account. He is no more allowed to sell or buy anything. Wait for the punch line:What if he cannot pay the unbelievably high amount of mehrieh? “The Patriarchy” modified the law 2 years ago so as to go easier on men, but, let’s begin with the old law:

If the man could not pay, he would be sent to prison until the entire mehrieh was paid by him or his family. All his belongings, including his house, his land, his car, etc. would be confiscated by the court and sold as a part of mehrieh.

After decades of men being sent to prison at the whim of women, “the patriarchy” finally came up with the new law 2 years ago:If the accused pays 110 gold coins (roughly US$34,000), one of his apartments (if he has any) won’t be confiscated, so he can at least live there. He will also be allowed to work to pay the rest of the debt monthly as ordered by the court. It is customary that the court orders the accused to pay two gold coins every month for the next several decades. That would be around US$615. A woman can live a luxurious life with that in Iran. The majority of working people earn less than that. Furthermore, he cannot leave the country until he has fully paid the mehrieh. All of this is only under the condition that the accused is proved to be working one job. If the court finds out that he works two jobs, he has to pay all of mehrieh right up-front.

The law was apparently changed to free many of the mehrieh prisoners whose families had already paid well over 110 gold coins to get their sons or brothers released from prison. After freeing many prisoners, the official statistics of mehrieh prisoners are as follows:

The chief of Iran’s Diah Center, Asadollah Jolayi, announced that last year, (Iranian’s year 1392), 20,000 men went to prison for their inability to pay Mehrieh [5].

This puts some myths in Iran’s culture to rest: When a man is in love, he is constantly asked by the family of his bride-to-be, “Who has ever paid mehrieh?” This is a shaming tactic to bring men into compliance for insanely high amounts of mehrieh which you better not believe.Still too soon to get to divorce.

This is not the only financial responsibility of the husband. The husband is, by law, responsible for every dime spent in a marriage. According to Islamic law, the husband cannot ask his wife to spend a dime, or even consult her on how she can spend her money. Money for the expenses of life is called nafaqa, and the husband is mandated to give that money to his wife. She can sue her husband for not paying, and the court will order a monthly amount to be paid to the wife by her husband as her nafaqa.

Here is an even more interesting part: The amount of nafaqa depends on the class of the woman, but is mandated that it should not be lower than her standard of living prior to marriage. Meaning that if she used to have maids, the husband now should pay for maids. This helps to make it clear that in Iran, “deprivation” of a wife from her husband’s wealth is illegal. She doesn’t even need to sue further for mehrieh. While we are at it, in Islamic laws, a woman’s possession is her possession, but a man’s possession is the family’s possession.

This, by the way, is what feminists somehow forget to tell you, when they were screeching: “In Iran, sons receive twice as much inheritance as daughters in case of their parent’s death!”Therefore, in a marriage, the woman is in for whatever resources her husband can provide, and she will not get much more out of her man by suing for her mehrieh. Rather, if needed, she can sue for her nafaqa.

So the unaffordability of mehrieh is actually a gun in her hands that any married woman can shoot any time she wants her husband in jail. This is apparently the “protection” of women in the old conservative cultures for every problem a woman might face in her marriage: Jail him by mehrieh! The equivalent of what is called alimony and child support in America is Nafaqa. There is no equivalent for mehrieh in the west. It is a debt the husband owes to his wife which is worth almost 200 years of salary. It is a slavery contract.Do understand that mehrieh is leverage for almost anything desired, put in the hands of women.So now we are ready to cross another feminist lie off the list:

“In Iran, women inherit 12.5% of their deceased husband’s wealth but husbands inherit 25% of their deceased wife’s wealth. No equality for women!” The rest of the inheritance by the way goes to children and parents.

Telling half the truth is a great way to lie, and I have got to admit, they are very good liars. Here is what was left out of the picture: mehrieh by law remains outstanding after death.

Meaning: Should a man die, the first thing done by the state is to pay his wife’s mehrieh out of the deceased’s properties, and if anything remains, again 12.5% goes to his wife. (The rest goes to children and parents.)

Should a woman die, her husband still has to pay her mehrieh to the deceased wife’s family (the ones who are the deceased’s next of kin), which almost always is much more than the 25% he inherits.

The net result is that a woman would inherit almost everything her husband had, whereas a man inherits almost nothing from his wife. All her inheritance goes to her family.

Finally, we get to divorce:

Men filing for divorce:

A man can indeed divorce his wife at any time. But this kind of divorce initiated by the husband is called Rojeie, meaning:

He is required to pay both the mehrieh and nafaqa. What’s more, if the court does not find the wife at fault for the divorce, the man also might have to pay Ojrat almesl.

Women filing for divorce (Bayen Divorce):

Either she agrees to let off part of her mehrieh, an amount of money she did not deserve to begin with, as specified by the judge, in return for her right to divorce, or:

She can extort her full mehrieh and still have the right to divorce in case:

Husband is abusive.Husband has committed polygamy without wife’s consent.Husband has not paid nafaqa for six months.Husband has serious illness.Husband is mentally ill.Husband has not had sex with wife for six months.Husband has a job for which the wife feels humiliated.Husband is addicted.Husband has not fathered a child during the first 5 years of marriage.Husband is a criminal.Husband is punished (by the legal system) for something about which wife feels humiliated.Husband has been in prison for over 5 years.

In other words, if a man wants to divorce and his wife does not agree, he has to buy his way to freedom with a price that almost no man can pay.

Women on the other hand, will need to agree to lay off part of their mehrieh if their husband is not in the above categories, still perhaps get a lot of money, and move on. Think for a second what can happen with this so-called “equality” of right to divorce as defined by feminists: A woman can marry, file for divorce the next morning, and get mehrieh! Right now, if she wants to file for divorce the next morning, she will be asked by the judge to let go of part of her mehrieh, and if she does not consent, she is told that she only can get her entire mehrieh, if the husband is in one of the 12 above categories. For those who still cannot wrap their heads around this, it is not that women’s mere will does not give them the right to divorce, but rather that their mere will is not enough for the right to divorce AND mehrieh.

Now, go back and read the statements in the beginning of this article. In a lack of mutual agreement for divorce, it is impossible for almost any men to initiate divorce in Iran. But hey, feminists tell us that men have “unlimited right to divorce,” and that women need to build grounds to get both their Mehrieh and divorce simultaneously. But hey, they do not have the right to divorce because feminists said so, instead of saying that women do not have the right to both a divorce AND a mehrieh at the same time in the nonexistence of all of the 12 conditions above. How over 85,000 divorces occurred within the first 6 months of this year[5] which were mostly filed by women, is something they should ignore. After all, it does not fit well into the victim narrative.The overall result is that you can meet many rich, divorced women who have not worked a single day in their lives. Their ex-husband is bound to pay them 2 gold coins monthly for the next several decades. She goes on trips with her new boyfriend while the ex-husband cannot leave the country.

Mehrieh fraud becomes a popular topic once in a while when some girl marries several men in less than a year and sues for mehrieh. But hey, to be fair, I am the one calling this a fraud, because many say that not paying mehrieh is the real fraud.[6] How about a little story? The story of a girl whose mehrieh was pure gold as much as she weighed. She sued for it as soon as it was recorded, before even planning for a wedding. The groom’s family were awfully rich, paid her, and divorced her. In fact this kind of fraud does not even require the woman to have sex to consummate the marriage. Don’t believe it? In case the couple have not had sex, the husband still has to pay half of mehrieh.

Speaking of frauds, it is not a bad time to mention another form of it: if a virgin has consensual vaginal sex, with a boy she can sue for mehrieh and claim that she assumed the boy wanted to marry her. Then the boy is wedded to her by force.

A logical solution to all this is to eliminate the unbelievably punitive financial responsibility slavery of men and give men and women equal rights to divorce. But feminists are not interested in that, because they know that women are already getting a much better deal in divorce than men:“…mere will is not enough for a(n Iranian) woman to divorce her husband.”

This is what they claim, with no mention of mehrieh whatsoever! So according to Iranian feminists, women should be allowed to sue for mehrieh and nafaqa, extort an amount of money they did not earn to begin with, and their mere will should be enough for taking money and ending the marriage.Such fine human rights activists they are. Men are in prison for mehrieh by the thousands, and feminists are whining for a draconian law that is no different from giving women the absolute guarantee of a lifelong servitude from a man.

Of course, women are already doing all this, by hiring lawyers to educate them on how to find legal ways to get their mehrieh and the right to divorce. Hell, they don’t even need lawyers for that. If you are a woman and are not good at fabricating domestic violence, just provoke somebody enough to give you a slap. Next morning, you are in one of Iran’s forensic centers with a woman issuing a passionate report to the chivalric judge, and bingo. Whatever your husband cannot pay in mehrieh, their family has to, in order to keep their son out of prison. But feminists do not like this as it might get time-consuming:

“…women must establish sufficient grounds for divorce in a process that can take several years…” NY Times.Note also how cleverly it is written: “it can take” not “it does take.” Of course, if a woman has a forensic report for domestic violence, it is only a matter of weeks before she gets her divorce and extorts her mehrieh.Even a woman who is a victim of domestic violence almost certainly does not deserve the extortion of mehrieh. Let’s walk through the logic: if you kill a man, you have to pay blood money to his next of kin. This is called diah, and right now is US$40,000. But guess what? Mehrieh is much more expensive than that. The worth of a woman injured, or who even claims injury, is almost 10 times than that of a man’s life!This is their version of equality: they get funds and campaign for equality of right to divorce in Iran, yet somehow mentioning a draconian law like mehrieh, which is highly interwoven with the right to divorce, does not interest them at all.

But guys, be sure to let your issues be addressed by feminists, and meanwhile, just shut the fuck up.

Let it be clear that mehrieh is not a feminist-inspired law. It is a hard-core Islamic law that has given women of history the absolute right to throw their husbands in jail at their whim without having to come up with an explanation. But feminists have done nothing to fight mehriah or even acknowledge it. If you are paying alimony and child support, you might want to say “thank god I am not paying mehrieh and nafaqa.”

Want to hear some propaganda? How about the one published in NY Times?

Explanation of the stupidity of this sentence and the simplistic interpretation of a complicated set of laws should not at this point be needed, if you have bothered to read this article so far. But I’ll say this: Up to this point in this article of NY Times, the author has not said a single word regarding mehrieh. He has already censored the truth about it several lines above this:

“High dowries, high living costs, lack of jobs and financial support make young people fear marriage,” said a member of Parliament (regarding the increase in divorce rates and decrease in marriage rates).

Another disingenous statement. What that member of the Parliament said was that high mehriehs, which are to be paid by the husband, cause fear of marriage. Not high dowries. Dowry is the set of household furniture that the family of the bride gifts to the couple. Why did the author translate it to say ��dowry” instead of mehrieh? Maybe he was just getting feminist consults? Perhaps that he did not know what mehrieh was? No, he has heard of it, he mentions it around the end of the article:

“Facing such an uneven playing field, marital lawyers say, Iranian women have increasingly turned to leveraging their legal right to a mehrieh — a single payment agreed on before marriage that constitutes a kind of Islamic marriage insurance. Husbands are obliged to pay this sum to wives when they divorce.”

He leaves this to the very end, and the fallacy of confusing cause and effect is easily detected here. Also, the husband is obliged to pay mehrieh whenever the wife asks for it, so it is not a marriage insurance. As mentioned earlier, it is a slavery contract. Find any newspaper article in English about Iran’s divorce laws. The ones that actually do mention mehrieh mention it in a minimal way to imply that this 1,400-year-old law has been recently added, as if to compensate for “women’s inequality.”Now, who do you think really has the right to divorce in Iran? These laws seem to be there because divorce has historically been frowned-upon in Islamic philosophy. They were intended to complicate it. But in the modern Iran, attitudes have changed, and in the past decade, the rate of divorce has tripled. Recently, one out of each 7 marriages has ended in divorce, with the rate for metropolitan areas being almost 1 out of every 3.5 marriages. 30% of all divorces happen in less than a year from the date of the marriage.

Think about that for a second: there are men in Iran who now must pay several million dollars for putting their dicks in the wrong place for less than a year. In the past 5 years, things have changed so dramatically that some registry offices have been recording almost 50 divorces for every 3 marriages in a random month. One would wonder how many of these divorces have been filed by women, how many of them have taken all or part of their mehrieh, and how many Iranian families have lost every dime they had to a daughter-in-law who sued for mehrieh and got her divorce.

0 notes

anthonybialy · 1 year

Text

Hammering the Reflex

Creators of agony hate responders to it. What did the former think would happen? Progressive restrainers of progress don’t grasp incentives, including and especially ones they spur. It’s natural to loathe the free market when one’s artificial system tastes like fake sugar.

Crime has been decriminalized, and the only ones punished are those dealing with criminals. Citizens committing the offense of using public transport keep getting placed in situations where they must confront, ignore, or flee. Responding to crime sure seems to happen frequently recently. I wonder who took over and told cops they were the bad guys.

Shoddy cartographers never figure out the source, in part because it would take personal reflection and growth to map this particular location. You might think Democrats would want to reduce the quantity of confrontations in cities they rule. But they instead open Arkham’s gates then fume when Batman deals with criminals.

The real victims are people trying to ride the subway. A brief glorious moment when people in public could ignore each other has lamentably faded. Peace naturally couldn’t be sustained after victorious Democrats decided enabling menacers was central to compassion. Civilization is a couple elections away from vanishing if you wanted proof voting matters.

Amalgamations just now decided to rip off consumers. The 2020s ushered in an age of humans discovering their capacity unabashed greed. I’m amazed this phenomenon went unprecedented this deeply into history.

Higher prices must be due to a gouging fetish, which becomes trendy as a way to keep enterprises surviving. Either go out of business or charge astronomical amounts in order to cope with policies imposed by enemies of humongous cash totals.

Blaming victims for coping is abject cruelty. Naturally, Democrats do just that. Scolding retailers for inflated prices and crime targets for fighting back is the ironically miserable way to make initiating such unpleasant encounters even worse.

It’s important to never examine why life is so unsparing five minutes after progressive goons implement their precisely-concocted dreams, as that sort of self-reflection could lead to changing one’s awesome beliefs. Confiscators of choices never figure out why beleaguered citizens suddenly need assistance right after implementing so much initial help.

Collecting more money that’s worth less is more a hassle than it is decadent exploitation. Record profits are the fault of those who believe in capital punishment as long as it’s the guillotine. Accusers being the actual committers is yet another nice touch.

Like everything else in this bloated emaciated era, currency piles come attached with an asterisk. Money left over after expenses isn’t an error or trick: you’re allowed to keep a little bit as a way of saying thanks. Explaining how the economy works outrages foes of selfishness who demand you just keep handing funds to the government to buy what they want. Repossessed bills aren’t worth as much because some meanie inflicted inflation just as Joe Biden ascended.

A minimum wage has maximized prices. Forcing hungry people to pay more for fries should start enabling foie gras budgets any day now. It’s easy for the useless to forget that work is about how much value one creates. Announcing how much a living wage is in one’s imagination kills jobs in reality.

Nothing’s tough like steadying oneself on shaky ground. Democrats cause earthquakes they blame on climate change. The capricious salary floor keeps increasing for mysterious reasons I’m certain have nothing to do with trying to get rich without working.

Politicians know things commoners can’t determine, like which number is greater. The cost of living in different places is one of countless factors cited in determining how much to force proprietors trying to keep humans fed and clothed at the most affordable price possible how much to overpay for the privilege. Economists wonder what would happen if we had a system where the workforce and employers bargained to determine how much money to use for everything.

Accountability by offering a useful skill confuses Democrats. Potential hires can take services to a different conglomerate if conditions or compensation are lame, which further baffles foresight fans who think efficiency will occur once government is the only option for everything.

Everyone misses how hard life was in the primitive era before Democrats decided to make everything easy. Don’t even try and remember, as bringing to mind anything from the time of free trade will cause tremendous anguish that will hamper your present euphoria.

Train your mind to avoid wallowing in distractions like how everything was better. Present life participants who’ve been around for a few decades might recall focusing on decadent aspects like purchases and food. Stalwart life participants seeking to build character by overcoming challenges feel fortunate to be past the era when we were not thinking about how products arrived on store shelves or diabolical forces lurking in shadows.

The nerve of you taking life for granted will not be tolerated by rather vigorous incumbents who maneuver scenarios in such a way that reactions can only minimize pain. Adults reluctantly choose the least worst response to childish scheming. A rueful nation is appreciative of how conditions were so pleasant that they went unnoticed. You won’t even thank today’s munificent despots.

#big government #economy #crime #liberty #business

0 notes

marygracetanjusay · 2 years

Text

SALARY OF THE NURSES IN THE PHILIPPINES

Tanjusay, Mary Grace C.

BMMA, MA403

Have you ever heard of the phrase "Nag a-abroad sila"?

This phrase is most well-known because of Gloc-9's song "Walang Natira," which is about the workers in the Philippines such as teachers, engineers, nurses, and even blue-collar workers. Nurses are considered to be one of the most vital front-line workers in our country, the Philippines. They are extremely vulnerable to danger, hazards, and a variety of diseases. Unfortunately, the government tends to overlook the needs and worth of the lives of the medical workers, and most nurses in the Philippines face a grim reality of low pay and high risk.

A large number of trained and registered Nurses in the Philippines are choosing to leave their homeland and migrate internationally for a huge upgrade in terms of opportunities and better wages. Because of the international shortage of nurses, bigger opportunities are presented to the local nurses which offer them a salary worth double and sometimes even triple their local wages. According to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE, 2020), entry-level registered nurses or nurses with little to new experience earn an income of ₱8,000 which is around ($158.54) to ₱13,500 or ($267.54) per month, and registered nurses that are hired by hospitals usually receives an average income of ₱9,757 ($193.36) a month.

On the other hand, as the years go by, just like any other job, the implementation of the increment of the monthly wage of the nurses was applied. Effective on January 1, 2023, from a minimum salary of ₱8,000 ($158.54), the newly imposed earning of registered nurses now range from ₱15,000 (minimum salary) to ₱51,900 (maximum salary) per month. Furthermore, the median salary of registered nurses is ₱35,200 ($641.32). This indicates that fifty percent (50%) of Nurses receive less than ₱35,200, whereas the other 50 percent earn over than ₱35,200. Most definitely, if you are a nurse that is earning higher than the median salary of ₱35,200, you are performing very well.

Henceforth, a nurse with less than two years of work experience earns around ₱17,000 ($309.73) every month. In comparison, a nurse with two to five years of experience acquires ₱22,700 ($413.58) per month, which is estimated 34% more than an individual with only about two years of employment. Moreover, a nurse with five to ten years of working experience gains a monthly salary of ₱33,600 ($612.17) per month, which is equivalent to 48% more than someone who has only two to five years of employment experience. On top of this, Nurses with ten to fifteen years of experience earn ₱41,000 ($746.99) per month, which is 22% more compared to those with five to ten years of experience. With between fifteen to twenty years of expertise, you can anticipate earning ₱44,700 ($814.40) per month, which is 9% more than someone with between ten and fifteen years of experience. Finally, workers with far more than twenty years of professional expertise earn ₱48,400($881.81) per month, which is 8% higher than those with fifteen to twenty years of professional experience.

As we all know, higher educational attainment opens much bigger opportunities and of course, higher salaries. The average salary of a Nurse whose education level is a bachelor’s degree is about ₱19,800 ($360.74) per month. Compared to an individual with a master’s degree who earns approximately ₱38,200 ($695.98) per month which is 93% more than an individual who has attained a bachelor’s degree.

Around every 20 months, the nurses in the Philippines can expect an increase in wages of around 8%. The nationwide average annual raise for all professions combined is 8%, with employees earning it every 18 months. Now, when it comes to the average hourly wage of the nurses in the Philippines, our nurses are paid approximately ₱190 per hour worked. Compared to other countries such as the United States, the average hourly wage of their nurses is around $29.38 which is ₱1,612.58. Going back to our introduction, this is one of the reasons the OFW Nurses why choose to go abroad.

Nurses in the Philippines only earn hundreds while nurses in other countries earn thousands per hour. There is such a huge difference which makes it no surprise why many of our front-liners choose to leave their homeland.

To sum it all up, based on the gathered information, the salary of the nurses in the Philippines is indeed not that justifiable. Unbiased of any collected data, it is not that unexpected anymore as to why the nurses of our country choose to go abroad rather than stay in their homeland. With their salary doubled in another country, we could not blame them for wanting to receive more of what they are being offered in the local country. Nurses are enduring the low-paying wages of their desire to help people who are in need of medical assistance.

Knowing the minimum salary of the nurses here is now ₱15,000 and the median salary is ₱35,200 if they are offered $6,900 per month, of course, they would choose the dollar rate. Why? Because $6,900 in pesos is ₱378,561.60 and this is double the yearly salary of a nurse in the Philippines which is ₱180,000. Imagine having 378,561.60 pesos in a month, it could provide so much more for the needs of your family and the necessities in life. Comparing the salary of the two different countries, the salary in the Philippines is just too small and one would not be able to provide for a family. Let's say this as an example, if there is a nurse who has four siblings, there is no certainty that they would make the ends meet because firstly, the educational needs of a kid, a high schooler, or a college student are no joke. The monthly wage of 15,000 pesos or a median wage of 35,200 pesos is not enough.

Moving on, nurses do not deserve to be unappreciated, underpaid, and overworked. People who choose this profession have such big hearts and they should be well-rewarded for it. If the government does not do anything with the monthly income of our nurses, there will be always a shortage and can even cause technological degradation when it comes to the medical field. This is because they are being pressured not just with their salary but also, because the government wants advancement within the medical fields, yet they do not provide the necessities of our nurses. Nursing is a very dedicated profession to choose to pursue because it requires so much patience, understanding, and care for the well-being of others.

REFERENCES:

Nurse average salary in Philippines 2023. The Complete Guide. (2023). Retrieved March 22, 2023, from http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=171&loctype=1&job=865&jobtype=3

Admin. (2023, March 5). Nurse salary grade in the Philippines. NewsToGov. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://newstogov.com/salary-grade-of-nurses-in-philippines/#:~:text=Effective%20January%201%2C%202023%2C%20the,which%20amounts%20to%20P39%2C672

Newsroom. (2020, July 30). Too few nurses in the Philippines. is the problem related to the salary? Emergency Live. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.emergency-live.com/of-interest/too-few-nurses-in-the-philippines-is-the-problem-related-to-the-salary/

Business Bliss Consultants FZE. (November 2018). Impact of Migration to the Profession of Nursing in the Philippines. Retrieved from https://nursinganswers.net/essays/migration-philippines-healthcare.php?vref=1

Magsambol, B., author Bonz Magsambol @bnzmagsambol Bonz Magsambol is a multimedia reporter for Rappler, Author, Bonz Magsambol is a multimedia reporter for Rappler, & Magsambol, M. from B. (2020, May 6). Low pay, high risk: The reality of nurses in the Philippines. RAPPLER. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/259610-salary-nurses-philippines/

1 note · View note

wedding-videograpner · 2 years

Text

Professional videographer rates you can afford. Check out our video production cost.

Professional videographer rates vary depending on the quality of content.

If you're a freelance videographer, you probably know that it's essential to charge enough for your work so that your business can be successful. But what exactly is the appropriate amount to charge? That's hard to say because every job is different, and many factors are at play when determining your freelance videographer rates. This article will help you determine how much money you should make for each project based on experience, type of business, and more.

What is a professional charge for videographer rates?

Professional videographer rates depend on many factors. The type of project, the number of years of experience, and the size/scope of the project are just some examples. You’ll also want to consider your event length and day rate, business type (corporate or commercial), travel distance for your videographer, and their cost-per-hour rate. Lastly, you should consider the quality of content you’re looking for to ensure that it fits your budget requirements.

How to determine your freelance videographer rates.

- Calculate what you need to earn. - Figure out how much you need to make per hour to live comfortably, pay your bills, and still have money left for savings or leisure activities. Your goal should be between $10-$20 per hour depending on where you live, where your clients are located, what type of work you do, and more. (For example: If a client is willing to pay me $8/hour for an event in San Francisco, but I live in Los Angeles, it makes no sense for me to take that job.) - Determine how many hours per week/month/year that translates into based on the types of jobs that you typically do. For example: if I'm only shooting events once every six months, then I can only charge so little because I won't have any steady income during those months when no events come my way. Therefore, my hourly rate would probably be lower than someone who shoots weddings every weekend throughout the year.* Add up all these numbers together! You now know what kind of salary range fits your life goals and expectations.* Make adjustments accordingly if necessary by changing either one or both of these variables: number of projects per year and video production packages.

Why you should charge more than your minimum rate (and then how).

You may find yourself wanting to charge more than what you currently do. Of course, it's always good to be on the lower end of the scale when starting. But once you've established a reputation and built up your portfolio, you may want to increase your rates to match your talent and experience. If that sounds like something that's appealing to you, read on! Here are some tips for how raising freelance videographer rates can help boost your business: - If you're planning on charging more than your current minimum rate but don't know where exactly is reasonable for higher-paying projects... - How do I increase my freelance videographer prices?

Discover how the number of years of experience affects the price.

As a videographer, it's essential to understand how experience affects the price of your work. The more knowledge you have as a videographer, the higher your rate can be. This is because you’re likely to be more skilled at your job and make fewer mistakes than someone who has just started. A client could also request that an experienced videographer come in for an interview before hiring them for their project. Clients may want someone who understands what they're looking for right away, so they don't have to spend time explaining it over again - which means less money spent on revisions and additional services!

Learn how the size and scope of a project affect the freelance videographer's cost.

The cost depends on the size and scope of your project. How much time it takes to shoot, who is involved in the project, and how many locations you need to shoot at are all factors that affect the price. We've seen projects requiring only an hour of shooting, but we've also seen shoots take days. While we can't say precisely how much time it will take for us to complete your project (unless you're booking us), there are some general guidelines we can provide: - The larger or more complex a shoot is, the longer it takes to shoot and edit video footage. - The less footage you have shot, the longer it will take us to produce video content for your business or organization.

Discover how event length and day rate affect your travel costs.

Your day rate is an essential component of your videographer's pricing. It's the amount you charge each day you work on a project. For example, if your day rate is $1,000 per day and the client asks for two days of filming, you'll charge $2,000 for the shoot—regardless of travel costs. However, travel can often be included in a videographer's base price. If it's not included in your base price and you're doing round-trip travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco (a 2-hour flight) and back again every weekend to shoot three weddings over six months at a venue that's 12 miles away from where you live at home—that could add up quickly!

Learn how to choose your freelance videographer rates based on experience, type of business, travel, and more.

Before you get to the nitty-gritty, you should know that there are several types of freelance videographers. Some charge a minimum rate and add extra charges for travel time and equipment costs; others charge per day or hour; others have different prices depending on the services they provide. So how do you determine your freelance videographer rates? It can be a little tricky at first, but here's where we'll come in handy: We've compiled a list of factors that affect how much you should charge your clients. We'll also walk through some examples so that by the end of this article, you'll know exactly where to start charging based on your experience level and type of business.

Budget-minded wedding videography

Wedding videography is an integral part of the wedding experience. It’s an opportunity to share your special day with your family and friends who couldn’t attend. And it gives you a chance to relive those moments repeatedly. But, as with most things, wedding videos come at a cost. With today’s technology, wedding videographers can produce high-quality films without breaking the bank. The average cost for a wedding video is between $1000-3000 dollars. The price can vary depending on how much coverage you want and whether or not you want additional features such as drone footage or aerial shots from a helicopter/plane. Some standard features offered by wedding videographers include: 1) Basic coverage will include all the important moments from start to finish, from getting ready before the ceremony to the first dances after the reception ends. You will also get some critical editing work done to create organization and flow to your video. You won’t get any frills, but this option is great for people on a budget but still want more than just simple photos taken by someone else while they are at their wedding! 2 ) Full coverage – this will include all of the same things as primary coverage, but you will also get some additional editing work done so that your video has a more polished look. This is great for people who need an affordable option that still looks professional and high-quality without breaking the bank! 3) Deluxe coverage will include everything in full coverage plus interviews with family members and friends of both spouses and some additional footage taken on location and at the wedding venue itself. Some people will choose an exclusive video in addition to their basic coverage to have footage of everything necessary at the wedding. In contrast, others will get one or the other.

What is the average hourly rate for a professional videographer?

There is no single answer to this question. The cost of hiring a videographer depends on the type of video you want to create, the size of your budget, and the experience level of the videographer. A professional videographer can charge as little as $100 per hour or upwards of $1,000 per hour, depending on how many hours they work and what they charge per hour. The average hourly rate for a freelancer is between $50 and $150 per hour. If you want to hire someone specializing in wedding videos, expect to pay between $200 and $500 per hour. When looking for a freelance videographer, ask about their rates so that you know what you’re getting yourself into before committing to anything. If you are looking for a videographer specializing in weddings, ask about their experience level and portfolio.

Conclusion

If you’re looking to become a freelance videographer, it’s essential to know what a professional charge should be and how much experience can affect the price. If you want to know more about freelancing or how much money should be made on a project, check out our other articles that cover these topics! Read the full article

0 notes

thtgirlkat · 2 years

Text

Chapter 10 Fieldwork

Karl Marx's conflict theory is founded on the premise that there are only two classes of individuals in modern society: the bourgeoisie, or owners of the means of production, and the proletarians, who are the workers. Marx believed that in capitalist societies, owners oppressed workers by paying them low salaries while people naively trust their capitalist employers to look out for their best interests since they believed they were doing well. Marx believed that as the rich became more wealthy, workers would develop a sense of common unity based on their shared experience of exploitation by the wealthy. it is 2022 and the predictions of Marx are coming true, workers know that it's in the interest of the owners to get as much as they can while giving as little as they can. the two main reasons so many people are quitting their jobs in America, according to the statistics in the link, are lack of career advancement and inadequate compensation. in other words not gaining or improving.

Social classes, according to Max Weber, are made up of individuals whose chances of success in life are determined by a comparable set of criteria. Weber defined life chances as the prospects that people have to enhance their quality of life and achieve their life goals. Life chances depend on having access to social resources including education, health care, food, clothing, and housing in addition to money resources. Access to these resources is determined by class status (relative wealth, power, and prestige). The power distribution within a community is determined by variables such as income, position, and political party. the movement of one social class to another is called social mobility. You can increase your social mobility by gaining “power” whether that be education, wealth, skill, etc. this news story highlights many wealthy celebrities that came up from nothing, going from worker to owner. poor to rich. powerless to powerful.

Another important factor in the social reproduction of class is cultural capital. According to Bourdieu, cultural capital refers to the skills, routines, and likings that people pick up from their families and utilize to access society's valued and limited resources. an example of creating cultural capital can be a family putting their child in different activities like sports, travel opportunities, and more. this doesn't define one's education level but it does place them in higher networking where more opportunities are given.

0 notes

fabpiner · 2 years

Text

Capture synonym

Jon Hanson and his co-authors argue that the phenomenon extends beyond political agencies and organizations. Capture is also facilitated where consumers or taxpayers have a poorer understanding than businesses of underlying issues. When regulators form expert bodies to examine policy, these invariably feature current or former industry members, or at the very least, individuals with lives and contacts in the industry. Regulatory capture has an economic basis: vested interests in an industry have the greatest financial stake in regulations affecting them, and so are more likely to try to influence the regulator than relatively dispersed individual consumers, each with little incentive. energy, banking, weapon system construction) can capture national governments, and then use that power to block policies at the national, state or provincial level that the voters may want, although even local interests can thwart national priorities. Moore and Giovinazzo (2012) call this "distortion gap". These states or provinces then becomes the voice of the industry, even to the point of blocking national policies that would be preferred by the majority across the whole country. For example, a group of states or provinces with a large timber industry might have their legislature and/or their delegation to the national legislature captured by lumber companies. There is substantial academic literature suggesting that smaller government units are easier for small, concentrated industries to capture than large ones. It should also be noted that regulatory capture in developed country is not anymore related to corruption and illegal behavior, but to abuse of power. This leads to inequality of influence among firms in the same sector. Indeed, the top 5 financial companies concentrate around 80% of the stock of revolving door movements and regulatory capture. Brezis and Cariolle (2019) has shown that the connected firms are always the big firms. But, it is never a whole industry which is ‘capturing’ its regulators, but only the big companies which, using the tool of the revolving door, ‘highjack’ the regulator by offering high salaries. George Stigler framed the problem of regulatory capture as "the problem of discovering when and why an industry is able to use the state for its purposes". Recent evidence suggests that, even in mature democracies with high levels of transparency and media freedom, more extensive and complex regulatory environments are associated with higher levels of corruption (including regulatory capture). However, increased transparency of the agency may mitigate the effects of capture. A captured regulator is often worse than no regulation, because it wields the authority of government. Alternatively, it may be better to not create a given agency at all. This suggests that a regulator should be protected from outside influence as much as possible. Likelihood of regulatory capture is a risk to which an agency is exposed by its very nature. The theory of regulatory capture is associated with Nobel laureate economist George Stigler, one of its major developers. Often cited articles include Bernstein (1955), Huntington (1952), Laffont & Tirole (1991), and Levine & Forrence (1990). Regulatory capture theory is a core focus of the branch of public choice referred to as the economics of regulation economists in this specialty are critical of conceptualizations of governmental regulatory intervention as being motivated to protect public good. George Stigler, The Theory of Economic Regulation (1971) In addition, the regulatory policy will often be so fashioned as to retard the rate of growth of new firms. We propose the general hypothesis: every industry or occupation that has enough political power to utilize the state will seek to control entry. as a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit. 4.4.2 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW).4.4.1 Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.4.3.1 Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.4.2.12 Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board and I-502.4.2.11 District of Columbia Taxicab Commission.4.2.9 Securities and Exchange Commission.4.2.8 Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.4.2.3 Federal Communications Commission.4.2.1 Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

#Capture synonym

0 notes

thnxforknowingme · 2 years

Text

A Matter of Distance

Pairing: Kurtbastian Rating: M Word Count: ~10k

Summary: Sebastian and Kurt live in different cities, leading their own lives, only crossing paths when Sebastian visits New York and they hook up. It’s fun and easy, the way they slip into each other’s lives as long-distance friends with benefits, but things get a little more complicated over the years.

Notes: Countless thanks to @backslashdelta for betaing - her encouragement and critical eye were crucial to making this fic as good as it is.

Sebastian’s applying to another job while at work.

There’s little chance of him getting caught, with his private office and computer screen facing away from any potential visitors, but he doesn’t care that much anyway. Actually, if he did get caught, maybe his supervisor would panic and they’d offer him a raise.

He spins his pen between his fingers as he proofreads the email before sending it off. The salary for the position is higher than what he earns currently, but probably not proportional to how much his cost of living would go up if he moved.

He closes the tab and tries to focus on his current job, instead of hedging his bets on the future.

He misses New York, that’s all. It was nice to be in a bigger city, the center of the world. He’s grown bored of Providence lately - of his apartment, his job, the nightlife, the men - and New York might bring some needed excitement into his life. Plus, a lot of his college friends are still there.

He has plenty of good reasons to move back to New York. But he knows what the biggest reason is, and he steadfastly refuses to admit it to himself.

Eight Years Ago

“Out! With! A! Bang!” The crowd shouts together, and on the last syllable Devin opens a bottle of champagne with explosive force, the cork soaring into the night sky.

Sebastian’s laughing as someone thumps him on the back, and then Devin passes him a plastic champagne flute, the outside already sticky with spilled alcohol. He holds it up gamely, reviving the cheers of the partygoers, and then takes a long sip of the bubbly liquid.

It’s all that he could have asked for from a going-away party and more.

They’re at a rooftop bar, rented out for the evening, crowded full to burst with grad students, clubbing friends, lacrosse teammates, and random people who were dragged along or just wanted to crash a party. The night tastes like expensive alcohol and possibility. It’s everything Sebastian has loved about the city, here for one last encore before he moves away.

His closest friends from the MBA program he just finished had presented him with his outfit for the evening - one of those ubiquitous “I ♥ NY” shirts, but with the sleeves cut off to create a loose bro tank. His neighbor brought him a plastic golden crown, which is perched crookedly on his head.

Once several bottles of champagne have been poured and dispersed, the music volume increases, and Sebastian wanders around the bar, trying to split his attention between everyone. Drinks are constantly being pressed into his hand, and he’s well past tipsy by the time he notices Kurt.

Kurt…something with an H. He’s a friend of Maxie’s. Or maybe Maxie had dated him, or maybe Maxie had fucked his roommate. Kurt-H-Something-Who-Somehow-Knew-Maxie had been hanging around in their orbit for several weeks, joining Sebastian’s motley crew of friends at various bars and parties. He works in theater, somehow. A few times there have been various other alt-looking theater nerds tagging along with him.

Sebastian had been drawn to Kurt immediately because he was so unlike the finance bros he spent most of his time with. He’s intriguing, and although he isn’t Sebastian’s type he can’t deny that Kurt’s got a nice body. A shiny, new opportunity for entertainment.

Tonight he’s leaning against a railing, holding a cocktail, talking with Maxie and some woman Sebastian doesn’t recognize. Sebastian adjusts the crown on his head and walks over.

He lets them all fawn over him for a moment, wishing him goodbye and good luck and complimenting the party. Then the song booming through the sound system changes, and Sebastian makes some enthusiastic comment about how much he likes it. He moves into Kurt’s personal space so that he can swipe the glass from his hand and down the last sip of liquid inside. “Dance with me?” he asks, meeting Kurt’s gaze boldly.

If he weren’t drunk already he might have opted for a more subtle approach. But he’s leaving New York in 36 hours, and he’s decidedly unsober.

Kurt rolls his eyes, but lets himself be pulled into the center of the roof, already crowded with uncoordinated dancers.

Sebastian doesn’t know the name of the song that’s playing, but he’s heard it on the radio, danced to it in clubs. He feels the bassline buzz through his veins as he pulls Kurt close, moving his hips in time to the beat. He dares to rest his hands on Kurt’s waist, and Kurt responds by running a hand down Sebastian’s bare bicep.

“This is a ridiculous shirt,” Kurt says, leaning in close to be heard, breath warm against Sebastian’s cheek.

“That’s sort of the point,” Sebastian replies. “And I don’t think you’re one to call other people’s clothing ridiculous.”

Kurt laughs, and Sebastian feels it more than hears it. “I may make some bold choices, but this is just trashy.” Even as he complains about it, he continues to drag his finger along the edge of the shirt, down the side of Sebastian’s pec to his ribs where the fabric is cut open.

“If it’s so offensive to you,” Sebastian says, meeting Kurt’s gaze with a grin, “I could just take it off.”

Kurt’s pupils are wide, inky black, mesmerizing. “Now, there’s an idea.”

Sebastian is just leaning in, brushing his nose against Kurt’s cheekbone, when suddenly a large hand claps on his shoulder and he’s startled backwards.

“There he is!” It’s Devin, shouting, all affable bravado. “Come on, Seb, we’ve been looking for the guest of honor!”

Kurt’s hand falls away from his side as Devin wraps an arm around him and starts to pull him away. “Man, quit it,” Sebastian tries to object.

“Oh, no sir, it’s too early in the night for a hookup,” Devin insists. “We’re doing body shots. Everyone gets a piece of you tonight, man.”

Devin’s grip is iron. Sebastian turns back to Kurt and shrugs, helpless. “Can we take a raincheck?” he asks.

Kurt laughs, throwing his head back so that the light hits his sharp jawline and pale neck. “Sure,” he agrees, waving Sebastian off. Sebastian grins widely, and lets Devin pull him towards the bar, which has been completely cleared off for him to lie down on.

He climbs up at his friends’ insistence, and does end up taking off the shirt, just like he promised Kurt.

Kurt is at a copy shop, waiting for the remaining programs for the theater’s upcoming show to print out, when he gets a text. He pulls out his phone, hoping desperately that it’s not a last-minute change to the programs that will require him to reprint them all, and is surprised to see that it’s from Sebastian Smythe.

Hey I’m gonna be back in nyc for a bit next week, you wanna catch up? grab a drink?

Kurt blinks down at his phone screen. He hasn’t spoken to Sebastian since he moved to Providence last summer sometime - maybe five months ago? And it wasn’t like they had talked much before that, either. Kurt doesn’t expect to be anywhere near the top of his list of people to visit in New York.

He remembers the last time he saw Sebastian, at his extravagant goodbye party, where they’d had…some kind of moment. Something flirty and fun. He isn’t sure how seriously it was all meant - Sebastian seemed to act that way with most men at some point or another, and they’d both been a little drunk. Is this a veiled invitation for a hookup? Or does Sebastian actually want to be friends? And does Kurt care either way?

The constant whir of the printer finally stops, the massive stack of pages ready for Kurt to take, collate, and fold. He considers Sebastian’s message. He’s curious, more than anything, when he texts back, Yeah that sounds great! Tuesday night?

Tuesday finds Kurt tucked into the corner of a cozy bar, laughing uncontrollably as Sebastian tells a story about accidentally trying to break into a neighbor’s apartment when he first moved to Providence.

“So it’s late and I’m pissed and the property manager isn’t picking up,” Sebastian says, using the hand that isn’t holding his Jack and Coke to gesture, “and I’m googling locksmiths on my phone when this woman comes up and asks if she can help me.”

“No!” Kurt gasps, leaning his weight further onto his elbows on the table.

“Yep. So I explain the whole situation, with a pretty rude tone I might add, and she just goes, ‘well the reason your key doesn’t work is that this is my apartment.’”

Kurt covers his face, stifling another laugh.

Sebastian takes a slow sip of his drink. “Yeah, luckily she was surprisingly cool about the whole thing, and gave me directions to get back to my actual apartment.”

Kurt sighs, wipes a tear from the corner of his eye.

It’s the longest conversation he’s ever had with Sebastian, and he’s surprised at just how easy it is. In their acquaintanceship before they were usually only together in large groups, at loud bars, and while he’d grown fond of Sebastian despite his more off-putting qualities, he’s not even sure he would have called him a friend.

So tonight has turned out to be a surprise. Kurt had figured he’d stay for an hour or two and then have an early night in, but by the time he checks his phone it’s already 11:30, and there’s not a single cell in his body that wants to leave.

They stay until after last call, when the bartender starts turning up the music and sending them pointed glances. They gather up their coats to leave, and when they step outside it’s fucking freezing.

“My hotel’s nearby,” Sebastian says, his breath solidifying in the night air. “You wanna go warm up there?”

Kurt isn’t sure how genuinely the innuendo is meant, but he decides he’s fine either way. “Yeah, let’s go.”

They’re quieter as they walk - they still make idle comments about their surroundings, but it isn’t the nonstop conversation that defined the rest of their evening. Kurt wonders at the sudden lull - is it awkward, now that they’re going back to Sebastian’s hotel? He wants to say something to lighten the mood, but he can’t think of anything to talk about. Blurting out something random seems like it would only further compound the awkwardness. He doesn’t want Sebastian to think that he might feel awkward. He remains quiet as they make their way to the hotel and step inside the well-lit lobby.

“Just to warn you,” Sebastian says as he presses the button to call the elevator, “since this is a hotel in Manhattan, it’s just barely more space than one of those Japanese capsule hotels.”

Kurt laughs. “So just a step below my apartment, then.”

The elevator doors slide open. Sebastian shrugs. “I’ve never been to your apartment, but you do sort of strike me as the starving artist type.”

“I think I resent that,” Kurt says as they rise upward through the floors. “Even if it is accurate, for now.”

“For now?” Sebastian challenges.

“That’s right,” Kurt says. They step out on the twelfth floor, and he follows Sebastian down the narrow hallway. “Someday I’ll be rich and famous. You’ll get to say you knew me back when.”

“And how does your neck manage to hold up such a massive head?” Sebastian jokes. He pauses in front of a room, uses a key card to open the door, and gestures for Kurt to enter.

Kurt steps inside and flicks on the light. Sebastian had hardly exaggerated - the decor is nice, but the room takes up the approximate space of a suburban walk-in closet. There’s a queen bed, a small nightstand, an armoire, and a mini fridge with a microwave stacked on top. A TV is mounted to the wall. The door to Kurt’s left is ajar, revealing the bathroom.

Sebastian shuts the door behind them. There’s hardly enough room for them both to stand without touching. This isn’t a social call, a nightcap in a common area where conversation or entertainment is reasonable. It’s a hotel room. There’s only one reason for Kurt to have come here.

“Do you remember the last time I saw you?” Sebastian asks, his voice low.

Kurt turns around to face him. “Do you?” Kurt says. “You were already pretty drunk.”

Sebastian smiles. “Parts of that night are hazy,” he admits. “But you’re hard to forget.”

Kurt rolls his eyes at the line. “Shut up, Smythe,” he says. “You want to finish what we started?”

“God, yes,” Sebastian says, and then he’s closing the scant space between them, reaching up to cup Kurt’s jaw and pull him in hard against his lips.

It’s almost annoying that Sebastian turns out to be a really good lay.

Kurt leaves very early the next morning, since Sebastian has work meetings and Kurt doesn’t want to linger. They say goodbye through yawns, and Kurt walk-of-shames to the subway so he can get back to his apartment, shower, and then fall asleep for a few hours before he has to be at the theater.

He doesn’t think much about Sebastian after that, except when he tells friends about this wild thing that happened - a former acquaintance from out of town showing up and giving him an incredible night out of the blue.

And then, two weeks later, he gets another text: Ran into the woman whose place I almost burgled. She invited me to dinner. Extremely hospitable, or going to murder me in revenge?

Kurt snorts as he reads it, then slaps his hand over his mouth in response to the undignified noise. He replies, If she really wanted to murder you, she would have already done it.

So it becomes a pattern. Kurt doesn’t talk to Sebastian often, but they occasionally exchange texts, references to their few shared experiences or idle banter. Their conversations have little substance, but they’re fun in a way that Kurt doesn’t feel when talking to anyone else. They lead their separate lives in separate cities, but every once in a while they joke and tease back and forth through texts.

Shortly before Memorial Day, Sebastian mentions that he’ll be in the city again for a friend’s birthday. You free to hang out?

Kurt vibrates with anticipation, but forces himself to wait twenty minutes before replying. He doesn’t want to seem too eager and make things weird. Definitely ;)

Sebastian’s never had a friendship quite like this.

Sure, there are people he’s befriended and eventually hooked up with, or guys whose status in his life hovered somewhere between ‘friend’ and ‘booty call.’ But there was no one else who, after sex, he would hang around with in their apartment eating takeout.

“It’s literally just disrespectful,” Kurt says, gesturing sharply with his disposable chopsticks.

Sebastian swallows a piece of sweet and sour pork and says, “I don’t see why this is a big deal.”

He’s sitting on Kurt’s couch, wearing only boxers - Kurt had forbidden him from being naked while they ate - and Kurt’s complaining about some drama at the theater where he works. He looks rumpled and cozy - his hair still a little unruly from their late afternoon tryst, wearing the sweats and undershirt that he’d thrown on to meet the delivery guy downstairs.

Kurt rolls his eyes. “I think you either need to learn something about theater, or I need to stop talking to you about these things, because your ignorance feels a little offensive at this point.”

Sebastian grins. “I don’t ask you to learn about finance.”

“No,” Kurt agrees flatly, “because your job is boring, and I can still understand office politics without having to know exactly what you’re typing into your little spreadsheets.”

Sebastian snorts. “It’s a shame that you’re too clueless to even understand how clueless you are.”

The give and take is easy, second nature, and Sebastian feels like for the first time, he’s found a sharp-tongued equal. Kurt doesn’t even take time to be offended at a barb before he’s launching his own. It’s like a game of chess. Or really good foreplay.

He needs to get back to his hotel room eventually, because he does have places to be early the next morning. But he has no more plans for tonight, and he’s hopeful that Kurt will be up for a second round. Even if all they do is eat Chinese food and bitch back and forth at each other, the evening will still be pretty enjoyable.

Kurt steps into his apartment, tosses his keys into the basket by the door, and lets out a long sigh.

He’s just so tired of this - of false starts and mismatches, of promise and excitement that shrivels up, of break-ups and bad dates. Romantic as he is, he’s never managed to hold onto a serious, adult relationship for long. Even the guys that there’s a spark with, the ones who seem to have potential - something always goes wrong. Their goals don’t match up, or they move out of town, or there’s some unbearable habit of theirs that eventually shows through the cracks.

The date Kurt had tonight, though - it was just bad. No potential whatsoever.

He walks into the kitchen and pauses, glancing between the liquor shelf and the freezer. He decides he really doesn’t want to risk a hangover the next day, and opts for the ice cream.

With a carton of cookies and cream and a single spoon, Kurt turns the TV to a One Tree Hill rerun and luxuriates in his patheticness. The show isn’t sufficiently distracting, so he picks up his phone to scroll through Twitter. Seeing his message app when he unlocks the phone, he has the sudden urge to talk to someone. He thinks about texting Sebastian.

Sebastian might get a kick out of his dating woes. Or maybe they could just chat idly, cheering Kurt up through their typical fond banter, talking about nothing really but in the most entertaining way. Maybe he could say something flirty, bait Sebastian into complimenting him. They’ve never sexted, but Kurt bets that Sebastian would be into that.

The moment he thinks of it, it becomes so deeply tempting. He knows that no matter what they talk about, just exchanging a few texts with Sebastian will make him feel better. His thumb hovers over the app.

He glances at the time. It’s 10pm on a Friday. Sebastian is probably busy, out on the town or going on a date of his own. Or maybe he’s already in bed - he does work a lot, after all.

Kurt tosses his phone onto the couch and reaches for another spoonful of ice cream. It was a bad idea, anyway. The instinct to reach out to Sebastian when he’s having romantic issues seems like a dangerous precedent. Sebastian’s attention is welcomed, but it’s not the same as a boyfriend. Kurt shouldn’t try to use it as a replacement.

He has sugar and soapy television. He’s gotten through worse nights than this before - he can weather this alone.

Sebastian hears the shower shut off as he opens cabinets in the kitchen, searching for a glass. He finally finds one, fills it with water from the sink, and leans back against the counter.

He generally prefers to bring hookups back to his place, but this guy lived just two blocks from the bar where they met, and it seemed impractical to turn down his invitation. He observes the room around him as he sips his water, noting the crumbs surrounding the toaster, the mail splayed across the dining table. Providence is a small city, and unlike Manhattan, even the cheaper apartments tend to have a liveble amount of space.

The guy - Brennan, Sebastian thinks his name was - walks into the kitchen with a green towel wrapped around his waist. He jerks his chin upward in greeting. “You good?”

Outside of the dim light of the bar, his face is decidedly less handsome than Sebastian initially thought. It doesn’t matter, though - the sex was still pretty good, and they hadn’t been facing each other for most of it anyway. “Yeah,” Sebastian replies. “I’ll head out in a minute.”

Brennan grunts in acknowledgement, and then walks back towards the bedroom. Sometimes guys here will inquire whether he’s sober enough to drive at the end of the night, but Brennan doesn’t bother. Sebastian almost appreciates it - he’s a grown up, he’s responsible, he can get a cab if he needs to without someone nagging him.

Sebastian finishes the water and sets the empty glass by the sink. He double-checks his pockets for his keys, wallet, phone. He wonders if he should say anything, let Brennan know he’s leaving.

Sebastian doesn’t go home with random men to cuddle - he’s looking for a quick, good time, a shot of pleasure to keep him going through the mundanities of life. There’s always a strange sort of dichotomy at play, being let into someone’s home or taking someone into yours, getting them completely physically vulnerable, and then disappearing into the night to never see them again. It’s somehow the deepest of intimacy without any commitment whatsoever, a complete ‘fuck you’ to the general societal expectations.

Brennan had barely caught his breath after orgasm before he was climbing out of bed, away from Sebastian. Sebastian leaves the apartment without a word.

Sebastian got upgraded to a suite for his stay in New York this time, so he and Kurt have significantly more space than usual in which to fool around. They do spend a while on the couch when they first arrive, Sebastian straddling Kurt and exploring every inch of his neck and collarbones and shoulders with his mouth. Once they start fully undressing, though, Kurt insists they move to the bed. It’s a cleanliness thing, he says.

“I really wanted to bend you over that desk by the window, though,” Sebastian complains.

“That sounds extremely uncomfortable,” Kurt says as he undoes his pants. “You’re gonna fuck me on the bed, where there’s pillows and newly-washed sheets.”

And who is Sebastian to say no?

After they’ve cleaned up and gotten dressed, and then lounged around a while longer, Kurt insists he needs to go home. “I’ll walk you to the subway,” Sebastian says, jamming his feet into his shoes.

It’s a block and a half to the station, but they’re long blocks, avenue blocks. It’s not too late, so they frequently pass other people on the street. Kurt mentions how he enjoys taking the J train at night, getting to see Manhattan all lit up as he goes over the bridge, and then they devolve into telling subway horror stories.

It’s odd, Sebastian thinks - when he’s not in New York, it feels like having lived in New York is such a big part of him. But then he comes back to the city every once in a while and he’s surrounded by lifelong New Yorkers, or even transplants like Kurt who have lived here for longer than Sebastian’s handful of years, and it feels a bit foolish to claim New York as part of his identity. He gave up subway rides and late-night bodega trips, and the city moves on without him, unaffected by his absence. He was little more than a long-term tourist.

They reach the subway entrance and pause on the sidewalk to say goodbye. Sebastian leans in to hug Kurt, and - to his surprise, feels Kurt’s lips brush against his face, somewhere between his cheek and chin.

They separate, both a little startled. “Did you kiss me?” Sebastian asks.

“You leaned in!” Kurt insists, defensive.

“I was leaning in to hug you,” Sebastian explains.

“Your face was way too close to my face for that just to be a hug!”

Sebastian laughs and runs a hand through his hair. “Well, we really fucked that up.”

“I was confused,” Kurt says, his expression somewhere between embarrassed and annoyed. “You’ve never kissed me in public before, but I figured I’d go along with it, so I didn’t hurt your feelings.”

Sebastian scoffs. “Well, you misinterpreted the whole situation,” he says. “And now it’s super awkward. I guess we have to never speak to each other again.”

That gets Kurt to smile. “I guess so. Well, it’s been nice knowing you, Smythe.”

“Likewise,” Sebastian replies. “Have a nice life.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and turns around, heading down the steps into the train station. Sebastian watches him go, sees him turn the corner and disappear into the underground.

He waits until he’s back in his hotel room to text Kurt. Look, I’ll forgive you. I know I’m just unbearably kissable. It’s been a problem for other people before.

Kurt’s reply is quick - his train must currently be above ground. Fuck you.

I’d love that, Sebastian texts back. How about some reciprocity though? You should visit Providence some time.

I don’t know what you think my life is like, Kurt answers, but I’m not so desperate for sex that I need to leave the state for it.

You seemed pretty desperate to kiss me, though, Sebastian sends.

That’s been replaced solely by the desire to punch you, Kurt says, and Sebastian laughs.

The night starts off well when Kurt’s date compliments his shoes, and it only gets better from there.

Carter is handsome and gentlemanly, and they go out to dinner at a vegan restaurant on the Upper West Side. The food is delicious, and Kurt snaps a photo of the menu so he can try and recreate some of the dishes at home.

The conversation flows between them, discussing work and family and hobbies. There’s some of that first-date uncertainty at times, pauses when the conversation fizzles out - but it always manages to pick up again, and they both seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves.

After Carter gets the check (insisting that Kurt can pay next time), they decide to find somewhere to get a drink and prolong the evening.

While they’re on the street, walking close down the sidewalk, Kurt feels his phone buzz with a text. He takes it out briefly, just to check that it’s nothing urgent. There’s a new message from Sebastian: I watched that stupid reality show you recommended and I hate it but I’m obsessed.

Kurt knows immediately what he’s referring to - a show that’s equally trashy, sexy, and addicting. He’d brought it up a couple weeks back, when Sebastian had been in town and they’d spent a late night at Kurt’s apartment, watching TV in between rounds of sex. Sebastian had made fun of Kurt’s guilty pleasure shows, and Kurt challenged him to watch his most recent obsession.

A million questions spring to his mind - which contestant is Sebastian’s favorite? How far has he gotten into the show? Has he thrown anything at his TV yet?

But he can feel Carter’s warmth next to him, and he forces himself to put his phone back into his pocket. He’s on a date, and he’s not going to be rude - Sebastian can wait.

The neighborhood seems to be dominated by sports bars, so in avoiding that they end up in an Irish pub. It’s not a venue Kurt dislikes on principle, but he wouldn’t have chosen it for a date. They slide into a booth with their drinks and continue talking.

Kurt notices that Carter frequently sucks his tongue against his teeth before speaking, making a sort of clicking noise. It isn’t that obtrusive, but once he catches it he can’t stop paying attention, and it becomes a little grating.

Kurt can feel the weight of his phone in his pocket, and his fingers itch to take it out.

Carter tells a story about how his father initially wanted to name him Jebediah, after an ancestor, before his mother convinced him not to. It’s a funny story, but it makes Kurt think more about the name ‘Carter.’ Would being part of a couple called Kurt-and-Carter be a little too cutesy?

A group of older men at the bar are being loud, and Kurt keeps having to repeat his words to be heard over the din. He can’t stop thinking about the unanswered text.

They finish their beers and walk outside. “Sorry about that,” Carter says, nodding back at the pub. “Do you want to go somewhere else? Or come back to my place?”

Kurt inhales. “I appreciate the offer,” he says. “And I did have a lovely time tonight, but - I’m pretty tired. I think I need to head home.”

Carter nods, his mouth twisting slightly. “Of course,” he says. “I had a great time, too.”

He steps closer. Kurt shifts back slightly. Carter freezes. “Can I call you?” he asks.

“Definitely,” Kurt replies, forcing himself to smile. It’s been a nice date. Carter seems like a good guy. He should be happy that he wants a second date, but everything has just felt off since they left the restaurant.

“Good,” Carter says gently. “Then I’ll call you. Goodnight, Kurt.”

“Goodnight,” Kurt replies, and then turns to walk to the south. He doesn’t look back to check if Carter is watching him, or if he’s turned the other direction.

Once he’s on the subway platform, waiting for his train, he pulls out his phone. Rereading Sebastian’s text, he grins, giddiness filling his chest. Who do you like best, and why is it Amara? he texts back.

He taps his fingers on the side of his phone and waits for a response. He looks forward to getting back to his apartment, to his bed. He wonders if Sebastian will reply soon, or if he’s busy with other plans tonight.

He glances down the subway tunnel and considers what he’s going to do about Carter. He feels a little bad about ditching him. Carter hadn’t done anything wrong, but if Kurt had spent half the night more occupied with answering a text about reality TV than the conversation they were having, maybe that was a sign it wasn’t meant to be.

His phone vibrates. Amara’s incredible, but JASON? That man is insane and I love his every action.

Kurt rolls his eyes, already tapping out a reply.

They’re sitting on a bench in Washington Square, and their knees are a hair’s breadth apart. Kurt’s telling a story about his job, about someone who was incompetent so Kurt had to step in and save the day, and Sebastian’s trying to listen, he is. Kurt is one of the few people that Sebastian knows who can really tell a good story - even the most mundane life events come alive in his words, the stakes always high, the twists always shocking.

But it’s hard to focus on the details of the story when Kurt is sitting so close, when his elbow is propped casually atop the back of the bench, his hand nearly brushing Sebastian’s shoulder as he gestures.

Sebastian wonders about the bounds of acceptable PDA in a friends with benefits situation. In a private space - within the confines of a hotel room, or Kurt’s apartment - it would be perfectly normal for him to rest a hand on Kurt’s thigh, or lean in against his body. Grabbing his hand and squeezing it, even bringing it to his lips, would be a routine gesture.

He’s seen Kurt naked dozens of times, done absolutely filthy things with him - but it would be weird to express some form of physical affection here, right? There was a bizarre inversion of typical procedure; if he leaned in close and mouthed at Kurt’s ear, whispered some indecorous suggestion, that would be reasonable within the definition of their relationship. If he did something entirely chaste, however, like intertwine their fingers, that would be some sort of violation.

But it’s Kurt, and he’s not only unjustly attractive, he’s also - delightful. Sebastian loves being near him. They’re in the same physical space so infrequently, it seems a waste to not spend every second possible touching each other. He wants to press his knee to Kurt’s, or toy with his fingers. The urge to reach out is hard to suppress.

It would complicate things, though. It would bring into question what they’re doing, invite some deeply awkward conversation about what their relationship is. It’s all bullshit - the definitions of romance and partnership and friendship and sexuality are all made up, so it shouldn’t matter whether he acts on his instincts here. But he knows it will matter, and he doesn’t want to rock the boat.

He shifts slightly, nodding along to Kurt’s story, so there’s a little more distance between them. He’ll keep his hands to himself until they’re no longer in public, until he can chalk it up to being horny. Kurt rolls his eyes as he explains his coworker’s actions, and Sebastian grins.

Kurt enters the bar, his heart thrumming in his throat as he looks around for Sebastian.

Sebastian has visited New York two or three times a year since moving, and out of those many instances, Kurt can only remember three where they didn’t end up having sex – because Sebastian was too busy for them to meet up, or Kurt himself was out of town or in the middle of a show that took up all of his time and energy.

He spots Sebastian at a table, in the process of removing his suit jacket. He doesn’t have a drink yet – he must have arrived just moments before Kurt. Kurt steels himself, and walks towards Sebastian.

They always have sex when they can because, besides the obvious fact of their mutual attraction, they’re both always single when Sebastian’s in town. Kurt asked Sebastian about it once, when they were comfortably tangled in his bedsheets. “Do you ever date anyone? Like, monogamously?”

Sebastian had shrugged, the movements of his shoulders jostling Kurt slightly. “Not really. I mean, I’ve had a few guys who I’ve seen regularly, and it’s become kind of an ongoing thing. Not just for sex, but going on dates, too. One of them asked to be exclusive eventually, and I told him I just wasn’t interested in that, so he broke it off.”

“And you weren’t upset about that?” Kurt asked.

“I mean, I didn’t love it,” Sebastian replied. “I would’ve liked to keep hanging out with him. But he wanted more than what I could give.”

Kurt, on the other hand, craved romance, commitment, stability. It had just never worked out for him in the long term, leaving him perpetually available whenever Sebastian was in town.

Until now, that is.

Sebastian grins when he notices Kurt, and Kurt greets him with a sort of side-hug, the corner of the table awkwardly in between them. Kurt sits down, facing Sebastian - his face so familiar after so many years, even though he sees it infrequently. Kurt thinks he’s gotten a haircut recently. He looks good. He always looks good.

“I’ll get drinks,” Sebastian says, but Kurt reaches out and grabs his wrist before he can step away from the table.

“Uh, Seb, wait,” he says. “I need to tell you something first.”

Sebastian sits back down, raising an eyebrow. “Okay,” he replies slowly.

Kurt bites the inside of his lip. “I have a boyfriend,” he says.

“Oh,” Sebastian blinks. “Congrats.”

“Yeah,” Kurt says. “Uh, thanks.” He glances down at his hands. “I just - I wanted to tell you upfront, in case that…changes whether you want to hang out tonight.”

He and Tomas have been dating for a couple months, now. He hadn’t said anything about it to Sebastian, because their sporadic text conversations rarely delved into big-life-event territory, and he felt like bringing it up would make it into A Thing, which he didn’t want. But then Sebastian had a trip to New York, and when he asked to meet up Kurt didn’t want to text him sure we can get drinks but I can’t have sex with you anymore. So instead he’d held off until this moment to reveal the truth.

“Kurt,” Sebastian says, sounding a little amused. “Do you think I’m gonna ditch you tonight just because you have a boyfriend now?”

Kurt shrugs. “I just felt like you should…I don’t know, that you shouldn’t spend the night with certain expectations while I know the whole time that sex is off the table.”

“It��s always been off the table,” Sebastian says. “I know how you feel about hard surfaces.”

Kurt laughs, unexpectedly. The joke should probably feel like something off-limits now, but it doesn’t. It loosens the anxiety in his chest a little.

Sebastian looks at him intently. “Look, Kurt, I’m not gonna say I’m not a little disappointed that I can’t hook up with you tonight. But you’re still my friend, and I never get to see you, so obviously I’m not going to abandon you. Now, what do you want to drink? A G&T?”

Kurt exhales. “A martini.”

Sebastian groans as he stands and mutters, “God, how are we so old already?”

Kurt watches as he walks to the bar, smiling to himself. They’ve been doing this weird, long-distance friends with benefits thing for a long time now, and a part of him had worried that this is what would break it. He wouldn’t give up his relationship with Tomas for anything, but he’d been sad at the prospect of losing whatever he had with Sebastian.

Knowing that the friends part of their relationship outweighs the benefits part fills him with a relief he didn’t know to expect. But he’s happy, and Sebastian’s here, and they’ll still have a good night catching up even if it ends completely innocently.

When Sebastian returns, he sets Kurt’s drink down in front of him and settles into his own seat. “All right,” he says, after sipping at his scotch. “Tell me all about the man who finally tied Kurt Hummel down.”

Kurt laughs, joy spilling out of him, and he obliges.

Kurt is measuring out almond extract when he hears his phone begin to chime, signaling the end of a timer.

“Can you turn that off?” he asks Tomas, not wanting to lose his focus on the icing he’s making. “I need to check the cookies.”

“Yeah,” Tomas replies, setting down the book he’d been reading. He takes a few steps to pick up Kurt’s phone and stop the alarm. “You have a new text, too, from Sebastian.”

Kurt stutters in his movements, nearly knocking the whole bottle of extract into the bowl. He takes a quick breath, chastising himself for panicking. There is literally nothing to panic about.

“Okay, thanks,” he says. He finishes stirring the icing, checking its consistency and then scooping up a tiny bit to taste it - perfect.

“Who’s Sebastian, again?” Tomas asks. “Is he a college friend?”

There’s nothing accusatory in his tone, only genuine curiosity. That’s been the joy of getting to know each other over the past several months, discovering each other’s lives and pasts with delight. Kurt learned about the complex web of drama between Tomas’s mother and her sisters, knows the names of his best friends from high school, heard about the neighbor who used to babysit him and then, years later, offered to sell him weed. In turn, he’s regaled Tomas with glee club stories and NYADA absurdity, talked endlessly about his dad, described the most vulnerable and challenging moments of growing up in Lima. They love to learn new things about each other.

“No, I met him after college,” Kurt says, turning around to face his boyfriend. “Just through mutual friends in New York. He moved away, though, he’s in Rhode Island now.”

“Cool,” Tomas says. He’s wearing a very cozy-looking sweater, and Kurt has the urge to bundle him up in a hug, hold him close. “Do you need to take the cookies out?”

“Yes!” Kurt exclaims, turning towards the oven.

It’s half an hour later, when they’re settled on the couch eating a few of the cookies, that Kurt musters the courage to bring it up again. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but he knows he needs to be honest with Tomas, he wants to be honest. “So, you know Sebastian?”

Tomas smiles. “Very vaguely.”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “Yeah, um. I just wanted to tell you that, we are just friends, but we used to hook up sometimes, when he was in town.”

“Oh,” Tomas says, wiping a crumb from the corner of his mouth. “Okay.”

“It was totally casual, though,” Kurt insists. “When I saw him last I told him about you, so. He knows that’s over.”

Tomas blinks. “You’ve seen him recently?”

“A few weeks ago,” Kurt replies. Probably he should have told Tomas at the time, but seeing Sebastian in the first place had sort of blindsided him, and it just seemed simpler to deal with it on his own, to keep it all separate. “We don’t really talk that much. Like, the last time he texted me before I saw him,” he said, grabbing his phone and opening his messages to check, “was last August.” He turns the phone so Tomas can see the screen. He’s being transparent. In fact, he could let Tomas read his entire text history with Sebastian and it would probably be fine. Tomas might not even recognize the moments of flirtation between them - he communicates in such a different way. He’s so genuine and kind, he’d probably read Sebastian’s teasing and insults just as mean.

“Okay, okay,” Tomas says, pushing Kurt’s phone away from him. “It’s fine, hon. I appreciate you telling me. Seems like it’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah,” Kurt says with a shrug. “Exactly.”

And that isn’t a lie, but it also doesn’t feel quite like the truth.

The red glow of Sebastian’s alarm clock shows a time just past 1am when he’s woken by the persistent buzzing of his phone. He blearily picks it up off the nightstand, and sees the name emblazoned across the screen: Kurt Hummel.

“What the fuck?” he whispers to his empty room. He and Kurt have spoken on the phone only a handful of times, almost always when Sebastian was in New York and they were making logistical plans that were just easier to do over the phone than by text. They’ve never called one another out of the blue, and certainly not at one in the morning on a Tuesday. Or, Wednesday, now.

Baffled and mildly concerned, Sebastian answers the call. “Hello?”

“Sebastian?” It’s Kurt’s voice, but there’s something slippery about it.

“Yeah,” Sebastian confirms.

“Hey, you like my body, right?”

Sebastian rolls onto his back. His eyes have adjusted enough that he can make out his ceiling. “Your body is great, Kurt.” Is this an invitation for phone sex? Kurt has to be drunk, right? “Are you okay?”

“And you like having sex with me,” Kurt goes on, ignoring the question. “I’m good at sex, right?”

Sebastian scrubs a hand over his face. “Kurt.”

“Sebastian,” he whines back.

Sebastian takes a deep breath. “I wouldn’t have been hooking up with you every time I’m in New York for the past six years or whatever if you weren’t really fucking good in bed.”

There’s a little pride in Kurt’s voice when he responds. “Good. That’s what I thought.”

Sebastian is suddenly annoyed - he knows now that his workday is going to suck, because he’s fully awake, and all for what? Kurt Hummel needs a little midnight ego boost? “Why did you call, Kurt?”

There’s a pause, and what sounds like a shaky breath. “Tomas broke up with me.”

Sebastian freezes, his frustration immediately giving way to guilt. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Kurt says softly. “Me too.”

Sebastian tries to remember how long they’d been together - a year, maybe? “Tonight?” Sebastian asks, surprised that Kurt would be so quick to tell him.

“No,” Kurt replies. “A week ago.”

He’s not accustomed to placating heartbroken people. “Well,” he manages. “Like I said, you’re a total sex god, so sounds like it’s his loss.”

Kurt laughs, and then sniffles. “I knew you’d be honest with me,” Kurt says, and something twists in Sebastian’s chest. “I just thought this was gonna be real. I thought it would last.”

“It did last,” Sebastian says softly. “For a while. Several thousand times longer than my most significant relationship.”

“Still not long enough, though.”

Sebastian doesn’t know what to say to that, and so it’s quiet for a bit. He can hear Kurt breathing over the line, and he wonders if Kurt can hear his own breaths. There’s something unbearably intimate about it.

“Were you asleep?” Kurt asks.

“Yes.”

“Were you dreaming?”

Sebastian closes his eyes. “I don’t remember.”

A beat. “I had a dream about you, the other night.”

He blinks, the ceiling above him the same as always. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Kurt replies, and his voice seems stronger now. “We were at Grand Central. Well - other people were there, too, and you weren’t there the whole time. I think you had a train to catch.”

“That sounds like me.”

Kurt snorts. “Yeah, it does.”

They keep talking about dreams - their recurring nightmares, their most elaborate dreams, their best sex dreams. Sebastian stays on the line until Kurt starts yawning, and finally says he needs to go to sleep.

“Thank you,” he says. “You shouldn’t have picked up.”

“I’m glad I did,” Sebastian replies, and he means it.

They meet in a coffee shop. It’s cramped, bustling, loud - it’s an evening in Manhattan. The table they sit at is so small that Sebastian keeps accidentally brushing against Kurt’s leg. It starts accidentally, at least.

Kurt looks good. He’s animated as they discuss their jobs, and television, and retell entertaining stories from their lives over the past few months. They don’t talk about dating, or about Kurt’s breakup. He doesn’t seem fragile, though. Maybe enough time has passed, or maybe Kurt just bounces back quickly. They’ve never acknowledged that late night call shortly after the breakup, but Sebastian knows Kurt remembers. He wasn’t that drunk or that tired.

Someone passes by them, coffee in hand, and jostles the table. The environment is chaotic, and the already-rushed meeting feels all the more constrained.

Sebastian’s in New York for less than forty-eight hours. He got in last night, and he’s leaving early tomorrow morning. He has dinner with a client tonight, at a steakhouse in midtown. Technically, all the meetings he had today could have been done over the phone, but his supervisor wanted him to go in person. Sebastian’s charm doesn’t translate as well in a conference call.

He texted Kurt when he knew he was coming, but he only has a tiny window of time to see him. A little over an hour, crammed in between work and dinner. Based on the client, he doesn’t think he’s going to get away from the meal early - and then there’s that flight in the morning.

It’s so easy, how he and Kurt fall back into the comfort of their friendship, the back-and-forth of their teasing conversation. Sebastian says something mean and Kurt smacks him on the arm. Sebastian puts all his willpower into not grabbing onto Kurt’s wrist when he pulls back.

He checks his watch. He has to leave in twenty minutes, that’s the absolute latest he can push this. He watches Kurt as he talks, the curve of his smile and the light in his eyes. Would he be up for a quickie in a cafe bathroom? He doesn’t seem the type. They’ve only ever had sex in private, but god, the idea of tugging Kurt down the hall, locking the door behind them, pressing him up against the wall and sinking to his knees…

Ten minutes. Have Kurt’s lips always looked so appealing? Sebastian tries to focus on the conversation. This is all he’s going to get for months. Kurt wouldn’t be offended if he just asked, would he? But fuck, he doesn’t have any condoms with him. Has he ever been so frustrated by a situation like this?

“I’m sorry,” he says, standing up, adjusting his slacks (do not get a boner before a work meeting, Smythe). “I really have to go.”

Kurt’s mouth twists to one side, resigned. “Yeah, I understand.”

They walk out together, and hug goodbye, and then Kurt’s gone.

Sebastian gets into a cab and recites the address the client gave him for the restaurant. New York seems to move past him too fast. He should have just been late to dinner, he should have tried something - but it’s too late now.

Excitement buzzes through Sebastian’s veins as he makes his way to meet Kurt. He’s done with work, and he’s taking the next day off, extending his trip for a day - on his own dime. Partially that’s so he can meet up with Devin and his girlfriend while he’s in the area, but he’s also hopeful it means he’ll have more time with Kurt. Maybe they can spend the night together and not have to rush off in the morning, sleep in and grab breakfast somewhere. He’s sure Kurt will have strong opinions about breakfast restaurants.

The bar they meet at is crowded, especially for a weeknight. Kurt comments pessimistically that it must have just been featured in a TimeOut article or something. They have to practically shout to be heard over the chatter, and Sebastian can tell that Kurt is tense, annoyed. Once they’re finishing their first drinks Sebastian says, “You wanna get out of here?” and Kurt happily agrees.

They step outside into the humid night air, damp but no longer unbearably warm now that the sun has gone down. The light of the streetlamps shines over them, casting dark shadows over Kurt’s features, making him look mysterious and imposing.

“You wanna brave another bar,” Sebastian asks, “or do you just wanna go back to my room?”

Kurt looks at him, and there seems to be something tight about his eyes. “Where’s your hotel?”

“It’s like a twenty-minute walk,” he replies. “We don’t have to.”

It’s not awkward between them, exactly, but there is something…uncertain. Sebastian’s not sure what the rules of this game are anymore.

“No, it’s fine,” Kurt says firmly. “We can go.”

So they walk to the hotel, and in the relative peace of the streets they can actually hold a conversation, picking up where they left off in the bar. Sebastian only had the one drink, but he can feel it, everything a little warm and buzzing, a little clumsier, a little quicker to laugh. He hasn’t been going to clubs as much as he used to, and clearly his alcohol tolerance reflects that.

Once they’re up in his room, they both sit on the edge of the bed - there’s nowhere else for two people to sit. They take their shoes off as they talk, and Sebastian undoes the top buttons of his dress shirt. Not as a come on, necessarily, just because it’s uncomfortable.

He watches the way Kurt’s eyes flicker down at his newly-revealed skin.

Okay, maybe it’s sort of a come on.

They seem to slide closer to each other as they talk, the mattress dipping under their combined weight. Kurt folds his leg underneath him and his knee rests against Sebastian’s thigh. Sebastian mixes up the words in his sentence, his tongue thick and his mind distracted, so Kurt teases him for it, making some joke about all those private school elocution classes gone to waste.

Sebastian leans in, tired of talking, so ready to cut to the chase. He pauses a centimeter from Kurt’s lips, still level-headed enough to know that he needs to give Kurt the chance to pull back if he doesn’t want this, if somehow Sebastian has completely misread all the signs leading up to this moment.

Kurt presses forward, closing the distance and kissing him viciously. It’s hard and intense and artless and so, so good. Sebastian lies back, pushed against the bed at Kurt’s urging. He gasps as Kurt sucks along his jaw and neck, scraping his teeth against his exposed collarbone.

When he pulls away to take off his own shirt, Kurt’s eyes are dark and full of fire.

They don’t talk much, during. They’re too desperate for anything more than rutting against each other, chasing friction with help from hands and lube until they tumble into a sated heap.

After catching breaths and half-hearted cleaning up, Kurt is lying back against the headboard. Sebastian has settled lower on the bed, his fingers tracing idle shapes against Kurt’s outer thigh.

“You know,” Kurt says, and Sebastian looks up at him. His hair is sweat-damp, skin pleasantly flushed. “After the last time we saw each other, and we didn’t have sex…” He glances away for a moment, shrugs. “I sort of thought this was over.”

Sebastian stills his hand, resting it on Kurt’s knee. “No, I just - I really didn’t have time. I thought I was clear about that.”

“Could have been an excuse,” Kurt says mildly.

Sebastian kisses Kurt’s leg, hair rough against his lips. “I don’t anticipate ever not wanting to have sex with you if that’s an option. If that changes, I’ll be upfront with you about it.”

Kurt smiles. “Okay, deal.”

The doorbell buzzes, and Kurt swears under his breath, his reflection showing his expression of frustration. He’s not ready to leave yet. Is Sebastian early, or did Kurt linger too long when picking his outfit?

He leaves the bathroom and walks over to the intercom. “Seb?” he says into it. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Yeah, sure you will,” Sebastian replies, clearly doubtful. “Just let me up, I can entertain myself while you finish primping.”

Annoyed - more so at the fact that Sebastian could see through him than at his tone - Kurt buzzes Sebastian in, and returns to his mirror to try rushing through the rest of his preparations. He feels a little off-kilter, thrown off after Sebastian’s text a few days ago, asking to meet this afternoon. It’s the middle of the day during the week, and Kurt’s grown accustomed to seeing Sebastian only late in the day, meeting up after he’s done with work.

A minute later there’s a knock at the door, and Kurt goes to open it.

Sebastian is wearing a black polo shirt and jeans, an easy smile on his face. It’s the most casual Kurt has seen him in years - typically when they’re in person together, Sebastian is either still in work clothes or completely undressed. This in-between stage is just another thing that feels unusual about today, although Kurt’s not sure if he and Sebastian have ever had a baseline for what’s ‘normal’ between them.

“I didn’t know I was inviting a frat boy into my home,” Kurt says in lieu of a greeting, even though Sebastian actually looks very, very good in the polo. “Are you playing hooky from work?”

Sebastian’s grin grows. “I’m not here for work, actually.”

Kurt leans his weight onto the doorframe and crosses his arms. “On vacation, then?”

“I’m actually here to look at apartments.”

Kurt blinks. “Apartments?”

Sebastian raises an eyebrow, a silent challenge. “Yeah.”

Kurt still isn’t sure if he understands. “Like, in New York?” he asks. “You’re moving back to New York?”

“Looks like it.”

Kurt stands up fully, and as he meets Sebastian’s eyes he feels the thrumming energy between them, the unexpected joy at this revelation. He bites his lip and shakes his head. “You know,” he says, a sardonic lilt to his voice, “I don’t know if this is gonna work. I’ve grown so used to seeing you in small doses. I might not like you if you’re around all the time.”

Sebastian schools his smile into a more serious expression. “You know I worried about the same thing. I just have this feeling that all of your endearing quirks are actually gonna be insufferable once I’m living in the same city.”

There’s something light expanding in Kurt’s chest as he reasons, “Well, it’s a big place, New York. We might never run into each other.”

Sebastian nods. “Great point. You wanna just keep meeting every five months or so?”

“No, you idiot,” Kurt says, dropping the game. No teasing or innuendo, no genuine feelings couched in jokes or insults. He reaches out to grab Sebastian by the elbow and pull him into the apartment. “I want to see you all the fucking time.”

“This is so boring,” Sebastian says, hovering behind Kurt as he looks at a display of local honey.

“You didn’t have to come,” Kurt says mildly. “You could have stayed in bed when I left.”

The farmer’s market around them is bustling, couples pushing strollers, people walking dogs or examining vegetables to put in their tote bags. It seems aggressively sunny outside, and Sebastian wishes he’d thought to bring his sunglasses. “You bribed me,” he tells Kurt, holding up his nearly-empty cup from the coffee shop they’d stopped at on the way, his favorite place near Kurt’s apartment.

“I could have brought you something back,” Kurt replies, moving down the table to look at the baked goods for sale.

Sebastian scoffs. “Cold, hour-old espresso? No thanks.”

Kurt turns to face him and cups Sebastian’s jaw, but his expression makes it clear that the gesture is more warning than affection. “Then be glad about your fancy coffee and stop bitching.”

It’s probably not healthy that Kurt making threats in a very polite tone of voice sends a thrill down Sebastian’s spine, but he revels in it all the same. He gives Kurt a sarcastic smile, which is apparently satisfactory, as Kurt pulls away and continues walking down the path. They pass booths selling various items, and Sebastian sips on the last of his coffee while Kurt chatters about what he plans on making for dinner.

Now that he lives in New York again, Sebastian has a smaller office and a more cramped apartment. He gave up his car, relying instead on the disgusting and inconsistent labyrinth of the MTA or the cab drivers battling against New York traffic. The city is loud and crowded and inconvenient.

He loves being back.

He finds he doesn’t miss Providence much, now that he’s settled in, even though he lived there for longer than he ever lived in New York before. He made some friends there, coworkers and neighbors and people who frequented the queer bars, but he doesn’t feel terrible leaving them behind. He’s generally been content to have people drift in and out of his life, to know people in certain contexts and then let them go when the time calls for it. He’s not used to long-standing connections with other people.

Kurt finds a fruit stand and pores over the berries, picking out a basket to take home. He offers it to Sebastian as they walk, and he takes a few blackberries to pop into his mouth, a burst of sweet flavor.

This isn’t what he imagined for himself, walking through stalls selling organic produce and handmade soaps on a Saturday morning. If the Sebastian from ten years ago could see him now, he might be completely baffled. Sebastian’s confused about it himself, sometimes. But despite all the drawbacks, he doesn’t regret returning to New York. He’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop, to get tired of this life and want to find something new, to return to the more unpredictable or chaotic habits of his past. But so far, even the boring parts are worth it.

They turn a corner into a more crowded area, having to weave carefully through bystanders. Sebastian reaches out and takes Kurt’s hand in his, holding firmly, to keep him by his side.

#kurtbastian #kurtbastianarchive #kurtbastian fic #kurtbastian fanfiction #one shot #my fic

28 notes · View notes

askagamedev · 2 years

Text

A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Meta, part 4: Compensation

Continuing from [A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Meta, part 3: When to Change Jobs]

Negotiating Salary

Let’s first discuss negotiating your salary when you receive an offer. It is always worth negotiating at least a little. The process of finding and vetting a candidate is not trivial. It takes time and effort from recruiters, hiring managers, and team members to vet a candidate. They will not be so offended after going through so much trouble as to rescind a job offer just because you dared to ask for a little more money than their first offer. The worst case scenario is that they say that they feel the offer is fair and that it stands as-is. Then you can choose whether to take it or leave it.

If you have leverage (i.e. other competing offers), you should feel emboldened to ask for more. In this situation, they need to persuade you to take their offer. You should absolutely let them know that they are in competition with other companies (and what those offers are). This usually encourages them to offer more - they will usually have to beat another offer in order to lock you in. In this situation, you should go to your top choice and tell them the pay you would want (I suggest aiming a little higher - 2-3% at least) from them for you to commit to them. My top choice in my recent job hunt had offered me the highest pay among my offers, but I still squeaked out another $5,000 per year on top of that offer by asking.

Even if you don’t have leverage, you should still ask - even a smaller bump like $1200 per year on an annual salary of $50,000 still adds up to an extra $100 per month. That’s still within 3% of the original offer, which will seem small to them at the time, but it is also half of most pay raise amounts (usually around 5%) at the start. It’s worth asking.

Compensation Flavors

A salary is not the only way that an employer can compensate you for your work. Many of them will trot out a variety of different benefits and additional forms of compensation. There are a lot of common terms and acronyms in this area that I thought any person should understand when they’re being offered. I’ve added some quick definitions and advice for the more common ones here so that you can better parse your current set of benefits and compare the next. We’ll divide these into ongoing (stuff you get while you’re working) vs one-time compensation (stuff you get once you agree to work for them).

Ongoing Compensation

Salary - This is your base pay and the number that most of your other compensation tends to get derived from. Any annual bonus, 401k contribution, ESPP contribution, and so on are usually a percentage of your base pay. The larger your base pay, the more you get from those other benefits. Consequently, this is what pay raises increase as well.

Bonus - This is money in addition to your base pay that is handed out to workers on a semi-regular basis. Many companies pay out a bonus each year. Bonuses are often contingent on several factors - how well the company is doing financially, how well your division and team are doing, and how well you performed personally. It is not included in your base pay, but it is often a percentage of your base pay. It is also worth noting that bonuses aren’t considered normal income and, instead, fall under “supplemental wages” which have some slightly different tax rules both at the federal and state levels. If you aren’t sure about it, you should definitely ask HR about it. You should definitely ask about how often bonus targets are met at the company, either during the interview or when you receive an offer.

Profit Share - Profit Share is considered income that is paid out a period after a product launches and becomes profitable. This is usually lumpier than bonus pay, since new releases come so rarely in comparison to an annual or quarterly bonus target. Profit Sharing is usually a factor of your base pay and is taxed as regular income and not supplemental wages.

ESPP - ESPP is Employee Stock Purchase Plan. This is usually only offered by publicly traded companies (e.g. Take Two, EA, Activision-Blizzard, etc.). Employees can set aside a percentage of their base pay after taxes and use it to buy shares of company stock at a discount (usually two to four times a year). You can then sit on those shares in hopes of them going up in value, or sell them immediately for some additional money. If you have the option to do so and are not living paycheck to paycheck, you should absolutely participate in this to the maximum extent you can because it is basically free money. If you hold on to the stock shares you buy for a year, you can pay a (potentially) lower tax rate on it (Long Term Capital Gains).

401k - Similar to ESPP, employees can set aside a percentage of their base pay before taxes and use it to invest in the future. Many larger employers will match your contribution to some extent. I have a longer explanation in my [Financial Primer] if you are interested. Similar to ESPP, you should absolutely participate in this as much as you feasibly can (up to the maximum corporate match) because it is also basically free money.

Benefits (Health, Dental, Vision) - The three core benefits that almost every employer offers are health care, dental, and vision. These are often very confusing, trade flexibility for price, and scale in terms of cost - the company will usually pay for the employee, but many plans require some amount of your pay to go towards covering your dependents (spouse, kids, etc.). Healthcare benefits tend to be the most confusing. If there’s interest, I can try getting into this in a separate post due to its complexity.

PTO - aka Paid Time Off, Vacation, etc. This usually comes in one of two varieties - banked PTO (where you earn a certain number of vacation hours per pay period) or unlimited PTO (where you can take as much time off as you like, pending managerial approval). If you bank PTO, the PTO you accrue is paid time you are owed. If you leave the company for whatever reason, the company must pay out your banked PTO at your current base pay. Unlimited PTO does not count as compensation, so the company does not have to pay anything out if you leave (or are fired). I heavily suggest asking about how often your interviewer takes time off - it offers some good insight into how the team and company treat people who want to take their rightfully-earned time off.

One-Time Compensation

Signing Bonus - This is a one-time chunk of additional money that you will receive in your first paycheck as incentive to get you to take the job. Many companies have a clawback clause in the contract where you have to pay back a signing bonus if you quit or are fired within a year of starting your employment.

RSUs, Stock Options, Equity - These are shares of ownership (or options to buy shares of ownership) of the company. These usually have a “vesting period” of around two to four years. As each year of employment passes, you get a percentage of these promised shares or options until enough time passes and you collect all of them. It is worth noting that you cannot sell shares of a company that is not publicly traded (i.e. on a stock exchange somewhere). Thus, owning stock or options in a private company doesn’t usually do anything for you unless that company gets acquired by another company or goes public. Video game studios almost never go public. In my personal experience, equity is the long shot and almost never works out unless the company is already public. It has historically worked out much better for me to take a higher salary and lower equity than the other way around.

Relocation - The company will sometimes pay for you to move from your current home to the city where they are located. This can be handled either through your own efforts, where you keep track of all moving-related expenses and receipts and submit them to the company for reimbursement, or through a relocation contractor that the company pays to handle all of the details like breaking a lease, packing all of your stuff, shipping it to the new city, storage, temporary housing, etc. Paid relocation expenses are considered income, so you will have to pay taxes on the relocation package’s value.

Other Benefits

A lot of employers also offer perks and other benefits, such as:

Visa Sponsorship - Every recruiter that I’ve recently spoken with has asked me if I am legally able to work in the US and whether I would require [visa sponsorship]. Not all employers offer visa sponsorship; if you need one, it will limit your potential opportunities. Also, fewer companies will sponsor beyond H1B. There is a progression - H1B leads to Permanent Labor Certification, which leads to Green Card (Permanent Residency). These are multi-year processes, so know what you’re getting into.

Family Leave - as developers get older, we start families. Paid family leave is usually a number of weeks you can take off from work if you have a child or adopt.

Fitness - many companies will provide fitness benefits - subsidized gym memberships or reimbursement for healthy living expenses. One place had a healthy living stipend that they would reimburse us for. I bought a fancy fitbit on their dime.

Games - most publishers will give you free games and you can buy them at the company store. Microsoft even has a direct line to XSX consoles for employees.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

The FANTa Project is being rebooted. [What is the FANTa project?]

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent Questions: The FAQ

#game career advice #getting a job in the game industry #Working in the game industry #benefits of working on games

28 notes · View notes

gallavictorious · 3 years

Text

Gallavich Week Day 5: Fix-It / Rewrite

Right, so fix-its aren’t so much my jam, but there is this one weird, weird, weird thing that I’ve (so far) been unable to meta into any sort of sense. Namely, Mickey looking like that in season 11 while apparently not working out. It’s just… uh… he… what? At one point I hypothesized that he’s been bitten by a radioactive spider or the like, leaving him magically super buff, and to be honest, that’s still the most reasonable explanation I can think of, soooo…

Today I'm back at my nonsense to bring you, everyone and especially our dear @gallavichthings, 2,711 Very Serious words about Mickey being a secret superhero. Well. Except for the hero bit.

Read it below or on AO3.

---

In Which Mickey Milkovich Does Not Save the World

Afterwards, he would always refer to it as the radioactive motherfucker bug from hell, but the truth is that Mickey never saw the thing that got him.

He was going about his business (namely poking around the Gallagher basement for any forgotten shit he could sell for beer money now that all the cash from the wedding had been surreptitiously replaced with I.O.U:s) when he felt a sudden, sharp pain just above his ankle. Cursing up a storm, he desperately waved his foot around and lost his balance and stumbled straight into one of the many piles of boxes that littered the basement. By the time he was back on his feet whatever creature that had dug its nasty little teeth/pincers/claws into his tender flesh had scurried off, leaving Mickey with a throbbing ache and a halfway impressive puncture wound on his left leg.

Muttering darkly about fucking Gallaghers being so used Frank they didn’t know how to keep goddamned monster vermin out of their shitty house Mickey limped up the stairs to pour some Jamison on the wound, and then pour some down his throat because he had the bottle out already so he might as well. He borrowed one of Franny’s colourful pirate-patterned band-aids, and when his nosy as fuck ex-EMT of a husband asked about it later that evening Mickey said he’d dropped a can on his foot, it’s just a scratch, man, no you don’t need to take a look at it, just put your fingers back in my ass, please.

Mickey didn’t make a habit of lying to Ian, but he figured that telling the truth would lead to all sorts of questions about why he was in the basement and having to come up with plausible explanation for that when he should just be focusing on getting railed wasn’t part of his plans for the evening. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to Ian, who’d been getting so worked up over money lately, to distract him with that sort of unimportant stuff while they were banging. Mickey was a considerate spouse.

Thankfully, Ian dropped the subject and proceeded to do his husbandly duty. Mickey went to sleep deeply satisfied.

He was almost as satisfied the next morning when he woke up to realize that the pain in his leg was gone, as were all traces of the wound itself. Mickey had always healed pretty fast, but this was quick enough to have him questioning whether or not he’d really been bitten/stung/whatever at all. Maybe he’d had more beers than he thought and imagined the whole thing… ?

It didn’t really matter, and if that had been the whole of it Mickey was likely to soon have forgotten all about the radioactive motherfucker bug from hell. However, in the next few weeks he started noticing stuff, weird stuff. For instance, it wasn’t just the (possibly imagined) bite/sting that healed far more quickly than normal; it was all the little cuts and scrapes he tended to acquire. A big bruise from running into the table while playing with Franny; faded to nothing the next morning. A cut from the razor; gone within the hour. For the first time he could remember, Mickey looked at his naked body in the mirror and saw not one single wound (though there were still scars aplenty). It wasn’t a bad thing, per se, but it was weird.

Then there was that thing with his muscles. Mickey had been in decent shape for most of his life and whenever he got locked up for extended periods of time he made a habit of hitting the gym on the regular. Really wasn’t much else to do in the joint, and having a decent bulk reminded the other inmates that you weren’t someone they could push around; letting people know that you could beat the shit out of them often meant you didn’t have to actually do it, which saved everyone a lot of time and energy and trips to the prison quack. But on the outside, exercise wasn’t very high on Mickey’s list of priorities, meaning he tended to slim down a bit after a while in freedom.

Not now, though. Almost a year after being out of prison, and he was still as built as ever; if anything he seemed to be developing more muscles, in spite rarely engaging in anything more taxing than vigorous fucking. (Okay, so there was a lot of vigorous fucking, but still. If anyone ought to be building their biceps from the sex they were having, it should be Ian.)

Mickey didn’t mind being inexplicably ripped, though. He felt great, looked great – and Ian seemed to be pretty into it, too. Then again, Ian seemed to be pretty into Mickey whether he wore dirty clothes, sported a beard, sported a dress, or hadn’t showered in a week, so maybe that wasn’t saying a lot.

But even given all that, maybe Mickey still wouldn’t have thought too much about it (he was, after all, very busy being on his honeymoon, which required lots of determined sleep-ins, dedicated beer-drinking, and – obviously – lots and lots of banging) if there hadn’t one day come a knock on the front door. At first he ignored itm in the hopes that someone else would get it, but when it became apparent that a, he was alone in the house, and b, whoever was at the door wasn’t giving up anytime soon, he grabbed the family baseball bat (even big soft ass Larry would react to Mickey opening the door with an extremely illegal gun in hand) and went to answer the insistent knocking.

Outside stood two women, looking an unsettling mix of sober and apprehensive and eager. One of them reminded him vaguely of Angie Zago; the other was taller and darker and quite possibly brooding.

“Can I help you?” he demanded, not quite as rudely as he might have. He didn’t think they were social workers, but one never knew; they’d been checking up on Debbie and Franny ever since Debbie pleaded guilty to statutory rape.

“Mr. Mikhailo Aleksandr Milkovich?” Not-Angie inquired in a polite sort of tremble.

“Who’s asking?” Mickey demanded, feeling a little thrown by the use of his full name. The only people who pulled that out was law enforcement, and neither of these ladies had that feel about them. Especially since they seemed to be… excited to meet him, which wasn’t a reaction Mickey was used to getting. Particularly not from ladies looking like they ought to be out collecting for the fucking Red Cross.

They better not be asking for donations for the Red Cross.

“I’m Tania and this is Dreamweaver,” Not-Angie said. “Can we come in? It’s really best if we talk in private.”

Mickey didn’t move. “Dreamweaver? You kick your mama too many times in the kidneys before you were born or something?”

The women glanced uncertainly at each other. “Mr. Milkovich,” the one improbably called Dreamweaver began, but Mickey cut her off:

“You with the police?”

They quickly shook their heads. “No, we— “

“You here to give me money?”

“No, you see, it’s— “

“Okay, thank you, bye.” But as he moved to close the door, Tania – displaying more spunk than he’d have given her credit for – took a step forward and blocked the entrance.

“Have you been experiencing any strange body phenomena lately, Mr. Milkovich?” she blurted. “Wounds healing very quickly, perhaps, or increased muscle mass?”

Mickey stilled, eyes darting between the two women. Small, small smiles on their faces now, as if they knew they had him. There was a hint of hunger to those smiles, making Mickey feel uncharacteristically uncomfortable. The urge to push Tania back and slam the door shut was strong, but…

“Fine,” he said at long last. “Come on in.”

They better not be fucking cannibals either.

---

They called themselves The Guardians, and they wanted him to save the world.

Mickey asked what numbers they were talking and, after getting bored of their uncomprehending stares, clarified: “How much is it gonna pay? What’s my cut?”

Dreamweaver frowned. “You mean… money? As in a… salary?”

“Yeah, sure. What’s my salary?”

“Mr. Milkovich, saving the world is a higher calling and a duty, it’s not something that– “

“Uh-huh. So, just to be clear, you’re not gonna pay me?”

They weren’t. Mickey laughed in their faces, stood from the couch, and told them bye and good luck with that and don’t let the door hit ya on the way out.

They reasoned with him. They pleaded. They explained, again and again, that after the evil society USCH destroyed The Guardian’s headquarters in a devastating attack, the two of them–and Mickey–was the only thing standing between the world and utter destruction. Surely, he must understand that it was nothing less than Fate that had brought the one remaining Bestower Bot into the Gallagher basement and his path? Admittedly, injecting Mickey with the bio enhancer might have been the result of a malfunction – Tania and Dreamweaver had found the bot dead down the street a couple of nights ago – but didn’t he see that he had been called to serve as a warrior in the fight against evil?

“Yeah, no thanks,” Mickey told them, and then he picked up the bat and waved it around until they took the hint and left.

When Ian returned home a few hours later, Mickey carefully didn’t mention the curious visit or any of what Tania and Dreamweaver had told him. Ian was pretty into saving people and had all these lame ideas about service and honor, and Mickey found it more likely than not that his husband would both be upset that Mickey, rather than Ian himself, had been called as a warrior (it’d be Lip and West Point all over again, Mickey just knew it), and demand that Mickey answer the call and run off like some loon to get himself killed by evil technomancers.

Mickey didn’t particularly feel like dying and he didn’t like the idea of hurting his husband’s feelings either, so he kept his mouth shut and skillfully derailed all of Ian’s attempts at asking about his day by giving him a blow job, teasing him about being a grunt, and allowing himself to be wrestled to the floor when Ian decided he’d had enough of teasing. It was a good evening.

As he lay in bed that night, back against Ian’s chest and with those strong arms wrapped around him, Mickey wondered if it would be worth risking Ian’s reaction by going public. Okay, Tania and Dreamweaver had mentioned how he’d probably gotten a pretty small dose of the bio-whatever-the-fuck, lending him nothing more exciting than enduring muscle mass and enhanced healing, but that should probably be enough to turn him into a cut above the rest, right? He could hire himself out to the highest bidder and make a fortune doing private security or collections or stuff like that. Fuck, he’d even consider taking on jobs for The Guardians, if they just agreed to pay him.

It was a fun thought to play with, but in the end a long life in the shadows made Mickey wary of putting himself out there like that. Besides, he’d seen enough movies to know that it’d probably wouldn’t be long before he mysteriously disappeared to some secret government facility to be experimented on. He’d had enough of the state’s hospitality to last him a lifetime, so thanks, but no fucking thanks.

And that could have been it. Should have been it, but of course Tania and Dreamweaver wouldn’t leave well enough alone. They started showing up at the Gallagher house at all hours, whenever they knew they could get Mickey alone. They accosted him on the way to the Alibi, they sat down next to him on the L, and they left him pictures of puppies with little notes saying stuff like “Only YOU can SAVE him from BURNING. Have a HEART”.

It was exhausting. Fearing the retribution of the cartel hadn’t anything on fearing seeing Tania and Dreamweaver’s disappointed-yet-still-somehow-hopeful-and-terribly-determined faces appear in a crowd, or round a corner, or on the porch when he went out for his evening smoke.

Mickey began to lose sleep. He’d spend the nights tossing and turning, which led to him staying in bed half the day to catch up on much needed rest, and he was often so tired he couldn’t bring himself to put on proper clothes or go outside the door the whole day.

Ian was on his ass about getting a job; he didn’t get that Mickey had a job, and that job was not getting lured into sacrificing his life for the greater good. If Ian didn’t like the prospects of being a prison widow, how offensive wouldn’t he find the prospect of being an actual widower, after his husband got blown to bits by some big bad villain?

It got to the point of Ian initiating a sex strike to force Mickey to get “a real job”, which struck Mickey as really fucking unfair, considering how all he was trying to do was make sure Ian even had a husband to refuse to fuck.

Enough was enough. Something had to be done. Fortunately for Mickey – and unfortunately for Tania and Dreamweaver – Mickey had a guy for everything. As annoying as The Guardians were, Mickey didn’t have the heart to see them killed, but he figured that having them kidnapped and shipped off to some sweatshop on the other side of the world would serve the same purpose. He felt a little bad about it, sure, but he had given them plenty of chances to fuck off. Not his fault they couldn’t respect a fucking boundary.

Mickey called Johnny, told him the score, and a few night later Johnny called Mickey to tell him it was done.

It was done. Over. Mickey would finally be able go about his life in peace again, giving all his attention to his husband and doing his outmost to make him the happiest man alive every single day, even when Ian was annoying as hell and started asking pointless fucking questions about how Mickey was in such great shape even though he never did as much as one single curl up.

I see. So… you’re telling me that you have secret superpowers.

Yeah. Except, not actually secret anymore. ‘Cause, you know, you told me we shouldn’t have secrets.

… yeah, that was three months ago.

Guess it must have slipped my mind, huh.

Must have. But let me get this straight: you couldn’t get a real job because you were busy dodging secret agents, and your muscles are the result of you getting bitten by some magic robot—

Radioactive motherfucker bug from hell.

—and not you sneaking down to the basement to do weights and cardio almost every day?

… oh.

Yeah, oh. Carl told me about it, asshole. He noticed you using some of the stuff down there. Don’t get why you’d wanna keep that a secret though?

…

Mick. We have to be honest with each other, remember?

Jesus Christ, I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.

Okay.

Guess the first time was back when you had that dip a couple of months after the wedding. Few times after that, if we had a fight or whatever and I needed to let off some steam. Then you started working and sometimes I got bored watching TV all day but you were all mopey about your shitty job and me not having any and you have this thing about your body—

I don’t have a thing about my body.

—so I didn’t really wanna rub your face in me having all that time to work out when you could barely squeeze in dozen push-ups in the evening. And I guess I didn’t really want anyone to know that I… cared, or whatever.

Cared? About what? Being healthy? Looking good? Being strong?

Whatever, man, I told I don’t fucking know. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, ‘cause it was a radioactive motherfucker bug from hell that did it.

Of course it was. Come here. Show me what that bio enhanced body of yours can do.

---

Ahahahahahaha, would you look at that. I tried to meta it anyway. 😭😭😭

You might reasonably ask about Mickey’s visit to Kev Fit – how does that fit? WELL, I rather imagine that whatever Mickey does in that basement is enough to keep him fit but still not SUPER hardcore? So when he starts worrying about Ian thinking him weaker than, he decides to take it up a notch and do it properly in a real(ish) gym? And his comment about “not remembering how much working out sucks” is part of the whole “not wanting anyone to know this is something I care to do on the regular”… Yeah, it’s pretty weak. All in all, I’d say the radioactive motherfucker bug from hell is still our best bet. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is probably the last time I have one of them tell the other a story this week, but I make no promises. These little ficlets don’t tend to go as planned. (Ha! She said, as if there was a plan to begin with. Oh, well. I guess it’s working out so far.)

#gallavich #gallavich week 2021 #gw2021 #ficlet #my stuff

37 notes · View notes