Zephrit coffee shop AU ??? Anyone ???
"New costumer for you, 'Frit."
Ifrit looks up from the coffee he's making, shooting Ivy a suspicious look.
"Why aren't you taking their order ?"
Ivy holds out a pack of cigarette, waving it in the air as he unties his apron. His smirk immediately makes the hair at the back of Ifrit's neck stand.
"Smoke break. I'll be back soon, don't miss me too much !"
"Since when do you smoke-"
Too late, Ivy already disappeared behind the "employees only" door with an omnious cackle. Sighing as dread fills his nervous system, Ifrit straightens up, calls out the name scrawled in Ivy's barely legible handwritting on the cup, wincing when the girl who takes the latte from his hands corrects his pronounciation.
She visibly softens and waves it off the second she catches sight of his apologetic smile. Ivy calls it "their best publicity", that sparkling grin that never leaves people indifferent.
Once that's done, Ifrit saunters back toward the counter.
"Hi, what can I get you-"
He falters, blood rushing to his cheeks in an instant, words dying in his throat. There, leaning on a cane covered in stickers, hair held back in intricated braids tied together, wearing black slacks and a dress shirt to match it, is a familiar face, grey eyes widening in amused surprise when they meet Ifrit's.
The sight of this person makes phantom hands roam all over Ifrit's body, and oh, what a mistake it is to throw a quick glance at their lips - now Ifrit can recall their taste, the feeling of them on his. Fuck fuck fuck. Ifrit knows this person.
"Ifrit," they chuckle, and the man in question has no idea if they just read his nametag or remember the short, hurried conversation they had before getting each other off in a bar's dingy bathroom. Last night. Because Ifrit has the worst karma ever known to mankind.
Though he certainly hasn't forgotten the person's name.
"...Zephyr."
They hum, tilting their head, eyes crinkling in the corner. The first two buttons of their shirt are open, their sleeves rolled up to accomodate the pleasant weather, and Ifrit has to advert his eyes lest his thought take a lustful turn.
"Fancy seeing you here," Zephyr lilts, voice wrapping around Ifrit's brain just like it did last night, except today he doesn't even have the booze to blame for the way his knees immediately go a little weak at that.
"I...well, I work here," Ifrit blurts out, wincing the second the words are out of his mouth. Great. Where is his easy charm when he needs it ? Just like yesterday night, all of it vanishes once faced by Zephyr.
Leaning their forearms against the counter and lowering their voice to a teasing croon, smirk tucked in the corner of their mouth, they chuckle.
"I trust you got home safely last night then."
Oh Ifrit was not ready for such an easy acknowledgement of what happened the night before. In such a smooth voice too, shit Ifrit already misses feeling their skin on his. He's so fucked.
"Uh- I- yeah, Ivy drove me home."
Ivy. The little shit was there yesterday too, saw Ifrit excuse himself at Zephyr's arm...well, his newly developped smoking habits make sense now, at least.
Zephyr is smiling, but it's not mocking, more like endeared. Ifrit clears his throat, running a hand through his hair.
"I- uhm. Your order ?"
Stringing words together in a coeherent sentence has never been more difficult.
"Caramel macchiato, please. And, I suppose, your number would be nice, since I forgot to ask yesterday."
Ifrit resists the sudden urge to run around and jump with excitement. He's sure his smile threatens to rip his face in half with how wide it has become.
"That I can do. Be right back."
He rushes toward the back room under Zephyr's amused stare, letting the door fall shut behind him before he let out a strangled little noise of pure delight and allows himself to jump once or twice. Then he grabs a pen - there were some near the cups on the counter, but Ifrit really needed a moment to collect himself - and saunters back out, scribbling his number on an old receipe while starting the coffee machine. He checks twice to ensure he hasn't made any mistakes and the numbers are all neatly written, before handing it to Zephyr with a cheeky grin.
Their fingers overlap, purposefully if Zephyr's smirk is anything to go by, Ifrit's heart skipping a bit.
"Something on my face ?" they tease at Ifrit's blatant staring.
"Hard to keep my eyes in check with the outrageous knowledge that your forearms are bare," he hums in answer, pointedly checking Zephyr out. "Formal clothes suit you,"
They raise an eyebrow, cheeks tinged pink too, now.
"That so ? Should have known you'd like it. You have a thing for authority, don't you ?"
Ifrit nearly chokes on air, the memory of that same voice curling around the words "good boy" right in his ear making him feel dizzy.
He remembers the coffee just in time, using it as an excuse to turn away, hopefully hidding the worse of his blush. And if he draws a little heart while drizzling caramel in the cup, well, that's his problem.
Zephyr swipes their thumb across the back of Ifrit's hand when they take the cup handed to them, which has him holding back a honest-to-god squeal.
"Thank you, Ifrit. Expect a text from me, I'm not busy today," Zephyr smiles as they take their order to a nearby table.
Ifrit needs to scream, and is also wondering how he'll go through his shift feeling those grey eyes weight on his back.
"What the fuck are you doing, man ?"
Ivy's voice interrupts Ifrit's musing ; apparently he's been back from his break for a little while, now staring at Ifrit like he just said something incredibly stupid.
"What ?"
Ivy rolls his eyes, grabs Ifrit by the shoulders, and shakes him none-too-gently.
"They just told you they weren't busy, dumbass. Go sit with them ! Pebble came in early, he's in the back room, he'll cover for you, go !"
Ifrit catches a glimpse of a purple bruise on Ivy's neck then, half-hidden by his hair, which makes him snort.
"Came in early, mmh ? You ran into him during your...smoke break, V ?"
Ivy glares at him, pratically shoving him toward Zephyr's table.
"Shut up you cunt, go get 'em instead of pestering me."
Ifrit's still laughing when he drops in the seat facing Zephyr, stomach flipping under their intense stare.
He's never felt more alive.
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New article with more details (from Jason Schreier who first broke the story). If you can't see it, I'll copy the whole text under read more.
About 100 employees were laid off in total (8%) and one of the main reasons listed is "underperformance," "sharp drop in popularity" and "poor reception of Lightfall."
So you know when for the last year and a half content creators have been shitting and pissing on the game as a full-time job and the amount of negativity and ragebait content became the only thing to make content about for them? Well they certainly won't take the blame, but I will let it be known. These people either don't understand the influence they have or they do and they're doing it on purpose, and I don't know which of these two options is worse, but I am 100% confident that their campaign of rage and hate contributed to this.
You don't base your entire community around constantly hating everything about the only game you play (despite clearly not enjoying it anymore) and somehow avoid galvanising thousands and thousands of people into perceiving the game negatively. Imagine being employees who have barely worked there for 2 years and the only community reception they've seen is 24/7 hate train for their work and then they get fired because of "poor reception" and "drop in popularity." How can they not take that personally? I am absolutely devastated for these people who delievered a banger product and who were met with an unrelenting barrage of toxic gamer children which ended up having more sway over their boss than them.
Which brings me to the next bit and that's FUCK THE CEO. He is now my mortal enemy #1. I am projecting psychic blasts directly into his brain. What an absolute spineless coward who is more willing to bow down to fucking gamers than to protect his own employees. This is absolutely rage inducing because this has happened before. From the article from 2021 about the toxic culture at Bungie:
Reading this shit from the new article absolutely fucking sent me into blind rage because I immediately remembered this. Another instance of employees suffering because of comments on reddit. And because of toxic players. And proof that leadership is not protecting employees and is instead siding with players.
Match made in heaven. Asshole gamer content creators and asshole CEOs, all of whom sit at home on piles of money made from someone else's labour. I hope they all explode. None of the people that worked on this game deserve this.
Another article with an infuriating comment from the CEO:
In an internal town hall meeting addressing a Monday round of layoffs that impacted multiple departments, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told remaining employees that the company had kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2.
"Kept the right people." Really. Veteran composers weren't the right people? Die!
Bloomberg article in full:
Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2.
Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting.
Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall.
The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product.
In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up.
But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts.
Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month.
The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office.
TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.”
PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign.
Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.
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