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Laundry day was always the most calm of Boombox’s designated cleaning days. All he had to do was get his stuff in the washer and dryer, get it in the living room, and then fold it there because if he took it right to his room, it’d just end up shoved into a drawer and grow wrinkled. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that he would have to steam or iron out his clothes in order to not look like a complete mess, he would’ve just shoved them in his drawer. Then Medkit started coming over, and Boombox felt like the healer would take one look at his disastrous laundry routine and judge him.
So, folding it was. Besides, he had a system and it really helped, honestly. Do a load, wait for it to dry, sit in the living room and fold it while waiting on another load to dry, repeat until all the laundry is clean and folded, and then carry it to his bedroom and put it away, all while he had music quietly playing on his gear to provide background noise. And hey, it worked! He’d get everything folded and mostly neat, and then have the rest of his day free.
Boombox hummed along as he folded the current load that was sitting in front of him, wanting to get it done so he could just flop back onto the floor and scroll through his phone, waiting for the next and final load of laundry to finish drying. Then after that one was folded, he was done with his cleaning for the day. Tomorrow he’d do some more, focus on another part of his apartment, but today was solely laundry. If he tried doing all his cleaning in one day, nothing would get done.
This worked better for him, kept him cleaning without getting burnt out. Thus came the existence of cleaning days, just a couple of days he gave tasks to himself for different parts of cleaning up the place. If he felt like he could do more than what he initially planned, then that was fine, wouldn’t be the end of the world if he finished cleaning up the living room and then wanted to tidy up the kitchen. Laundry day never spiraled into more cleaning though, because for some strange reason, folding laundry took a lot out of him.
Before Boombox could think about it more, his phone buzzed with a notification from its spot on the coffee table, rattling against the wood with three quick buzzes and chimes. The DJ dropped the shirt he was currently folding, letting it fall onto his lap in order to snatch it up. There was no way it had already been two months since that type of notification last came through. Time could not have passed that fast.
Thanks to his unfortunate habit of ignoring or dismissing notifications before he could even really read them, he made sure that his important apps and messages had their own unique notification buzz and sound, and this one was no different. He navigated to a messaging app that was tucked away, a dot indicating that there was a message waiting to be opened, and if his hunch was correct, this would be his requested reminder for his bimonthly gig at a… well…
It was a refurbished warehouse tucked away in the rougher side of Playground, owned by an eccentric and practically nocturnal personality that hosted parties almost every night with a hired DJ present or not, and also served as a drug marketplace of sorts. If the host wasn’t selling, then someone else that likely worked beneath her did. It wasn’t uncommon to see people passing bags around the crowd and exchanging cash, especially from where he usually was on the stage. Boombox was only there for one night every two months, but he was still able to see and gather enough information to piece together plenty of information about the place.
Not to mention, the fact that his very first gig there he was advised to craft a secondary persona to avoid getting recognized told him enough. This was a place where you’d get fucked over if you got recognized out in the daylight, this was a place where everything could come crumbling down if someone knew you spent your nights here. This was where blackmail could easily originate from, all it took was a photo or any sort of evidence, and then bam, you were completely and utterly fucked.
Okay, maybe he was being too nice and around the bush about it. It was a drug den. It was pretty much just a glorified, upscale drug den that had a cover of a performing and party venue. Boombox had bimonthly gigs at a glorified drug den.
But it made a pretty paycheck at least! Sure, he was there from 6pm to 6am to get his DJ-ing stuff set-up and get changed into his performing outfit and then actually do his job, then stayed after to pack up and get changed back into his old clothes for the walk home, but his time there definitely reflected the payment. He was pretty much able to get almost a full two months of rent just from 12 hours of DJing, and then some if he didn’t take the offered pick-me-up at the midshow break.
His other gigs definitely contributed to the rent, but the bulk of it came from these bimonthly gigs. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if it was really just a form of money laundering because he did get paid in cash… and last time he checked, the venue was a legitimate business, and the money from drug deals definitely wasn’t included in the list of business expenses and profits.
Boombox squinted down at the shirt that was crumpled in his lap, pondering his placement in a possible money laundering scheme. He thought about it a bit more before sending that train of thought away, not wanting to think about it too much in case things somehow went south somewhere. The less he knew, the better.
He tossed his phone to the couch and picked the shirt back up, folding it and adding it to the pile before working on finishing emptying the basket of clean laundry. It was definitely a good thing he got his cleaning started this week because he would be wiped out for the next one. That gig this weekend would absolutely wreck his sleep schedule, as it always did. The goal was always to try and stay up until 10pm at the earliest, but every time without fail, he ended up crashing earlier and waking up at around 2 or 3am. Then it became an uphill battle to get his sleep schedule fixed, which typically took a couple of days at the very least, a week at most.
Thankfully, those gigs were always during the weeks between phights, and even then sometimes he wouldn't be scheduled for the next one. It gave him plenty of time to do the gig, fix his sleep schedule, and carry on like normal. Besides, it wasn’t like anyone would really catch on about it. As far as he knew, no one he knew went to that part of Playground, and even if they did, they’d definitely steer away from the warehouse. Skateboard would probably be the only person to put the pieces together, possibly Coil, but one of the biggest rules about those parts of Playground was simple: Don’t snitch.
So, his secret was safe, even if either of them got close to figuring it out. He doubted they would because Boombox was pretty sure their circles had enough degrees of separation to keep them far enough away from getting close enough to take a good long squint at him and decide if it was him on the stage or not.
Then his phone buzzed again from its position on the couch, and the ringtone that sang from it told Boombox that it was a message from Medkit, and he almost dropped what he was folding to snatch it up before he stopped, pieces clicking into place as he realized that this was the first gig where he’d also be dating Medkit at the same time. Boombox was pretty sure that Medkit wasn’t aware of that part of Playground at all, given the lack of knowledge he had when it came to Playground in general.
Which meant that Boombox had no way to gauge how Medkit would react to him wrecking his sleep schedule for these gigs, or how he’d react to just knowing about the gigs.The healer came from Blackrock, so there was at least a baseline there for how much might be too much, but even then Medkit left Blackrock so that baseline probably wouldn’t help much.
So, truth be told, he had no clue how Medkit would react, and Boombox didn’t want to sacrifice their relationship this early on for hoping there would be a good reaction when there was an equal chance of a bad one happening. The DJ stared at his phone as it sat on the couch, pursing his lips together as he looked back at the piece of clothing still in his hands.
He could just, not do the gig, but not only would he be giving up on that paycheck, but he honestly wasn’t sure how the host would react. Sure, he didn’t have an official contract that he was bound by, but he was sure there didn’t really need to be one, given her gear and the flippant way she threw around threats. Boombox really didn’t want to rock up to say he was done with the gigs and find himself staring down the many barrels of a galactic laser gun, thank you very much.
Besides, he’d been doing this for a good three years already. It would really be uncharacteristic of him to pull out of them now, just because he got a boyfriend and feared how he would react. He’d just need to put up some really good excuses and make sure they lined up, especially because Medkit would definitely look for any discrepancies if he suspected something was ever so slightly wrong.
It didn’t feel great, especially when he finally dropped the piece of clothing and grabbed his phone seeing the preview of Medkit’s message that was just confirming that their movie night date was still on. It felt wrong to hide something else from him now that they were actually dating. It was easier to keep secrets from him before because he was just a crush that seemed unattainable. Now the healer was his boyfriend, and it made his stomach churn with anxiety as he thought about lying to him.
At least lying to him seemed better than letting him find out the truth this early on. It gave Boombox some more time to gauge how Medkit would react, and then he’d settle on telling him or not. He quickly opened up Medkit’s message to send a cheering emoji before swapping over to the other messaging app, giving a thumbs up to the reminder message to let them know he got it, and would still be there for the gig that weekend.
It would be fine, he’d get something figured out to get a gauge on how Medkit felt about him performing at a glorified drug den sometime later. They had a date tonight, and Boombox needed to focus on that instead.