Work Text:
Jake's bedroom was an interesting place, at the top of a massive tower, festooned with all manners of posters of... intriguing taste, to say the least. Various Tomb Raider posters, anything with a blue lady in it, but also, really, any movie posters he could get his hand on in general. The Mummy. A dozen Frankenstein variations. Captain America. The really old, bad Hulk movie. Several gag movie poster gifts, mostly from Dirk, of movies that were notoriously bad but Jake would hang the poster for up anyway because Jake liked all movies and all movie posters mostly equally (unless there were blue girls in it, in which case, it was slightly above the rest).
Roxy was laid comfortably on Jake's immaculately made bed while a large television, hauled up painstakingly across several flights of stairs by Jake pretty much by his lonesome, blared perhaps the worst movie he had ever seen out on its display. A large fan rotated overhead, lightly squeaking and shaking in its mount as it forced the air in the room to swirl around them, gently rustling Roxy's hair. Jake sat on a pillow, legs crossed, watching a man of indeterminate nationality and also indeterminate accent put on the worst display of acting he had ever seen.
As it were, Roxy had a side bet going with Dirk, to see if there was any movie Jake wouldn't like, and somehow, it seemed like she was on track to win the bet, considering that Jake hadn't even laughed at the worst, cringiest situations in the movie. The several minute long, poorly edited sex scenes where Tommy Wiseau seemed to thrust into the actress's navel? Absolutely nothing, not even an exhale, not even while Roxy was howling with laughter because it was, in fact, so fucking bad. The robotic, stilted dialogue? Not even a chuckle. The closest thing Jake got to amusement was "Oh, hai doggie", which made him go "Aww," because there was a cute dog, but if there was some larger joke here, he clearly wasn't getting it.
The movie was rapidly boiling to a climax. Tommy Wiseau's character's marriage troubles were compounding rapidly, and Jake seemed more... invested in the melodrama, somehow, than anything else. Eventually, he shifted positions so that he was lying down, propping his chin up with his pillow turned vertically, completely silent. Stone-faced, the reflection of the television screen in his glasses bore images of poor acting in his brain. There was the party quickly turning sour, Tommy Wiseau's character yelling and freaking out, the cheating, the drama, the awful, awful speeches. Roxy was more invested in Jake's reaction now than anything else, stifling her own giggles by biting down on her knuckle to avoid ruining the moment. Maybe she would win after all!
Then, the end of the movie came. I won't regale you with the somewhat bloody details, but, suffice to say, it was goofy, and you should go watch it. But, if you're the sort of person like Jake English, then you might begin sniffling and wiping your face, turning around to face Roxy as the credits rolled. A steadily line of tears dripped down from Jake's face, clearly moved, touched by the horrific ending, almost beatific in his soft sobbing. "That was... the most beautiful, sorrowful movie I have ever seen in my entire gosh darn life!" He whined, breaking out into quiet sobs, planting his face in the pillow, glasses flying off in the process.
Roxy, balking quietly, pulled herself off of the bed and sat down next to the crying Jake, patting his back with steady, even thumps. "So... you liked the movie?"
Jake barely managed to pull his face up from the pillow. "It was... a masterpiece!"
"FUCK." Roxy shouted, flinging her phone at the wall. It bounced off quietly, landing flat on the bed, before immediately pinging with a message from Dirk.