Next: Chapter 2

Pittsburgh, USA. Hyatt Place Hotel, near midnight.

Jacinto Rosales lets out a deep, relieved sigh as he sits down on the bed of the hotel room, after a drive that was both nerve-inducing and way too long. But he is here, alongside with his partner-in-crime, near the convention grounds for Anthrocon, the day before the convention start.

He glances out at the rather darkened outside and amends the mental note to be the night before the convention start. Perhaps the drive over took a touch longer than it should have. But they made it, with their precious creations in tow, in time.

With only sheer force of will he manages to not instantly start digging out his fursuit, his pride and joy, just to check if something had somehow happened inside the cushioned luggage currently resting at his feet. Everyhing is fine. He double and triple checked everything a good week before they left and at least once a day since, he should stop fretting.

Jacinto, or Jac', is not a very remarkable person in most regards. Average height, average weight, average looks, even average tone of skin and type of hair. Decidedly in the middle of most any curve you would put 31 year old guys into to begin with. Even his hair refuses to concede to either being curly or straight and is instead a permanent 'something else in between', lazily dropping to his shoulders. Not that he has ever bothered with hair care since when he wants to be seen, his hair isn't...

He stops himself before he can get too much down a rabbit hole of self-pity. This is not the weekend for it.

With a tired smile, he looks at his travel companion.

"We finally made it here. And now I'm not sure if I can sleep."

Rowan Burke shakes his head, walking past the beds to sit at the office chair by the small wood desk in the room corner. He spins it around once before stopping to look at Jac'. "No kidding. We already ate or I'd call room service. Though they probably don't cook anything this late, so it'd all be snacks."

Equally of average build, though a little more on the 'chubby' side, or let's be honest, he's just overweight, his dark hair is cut short, and a 5 o'clock shadow clings to his face despite his best efforts. His eyes look a little tired, but that sleepy half-lidded expression is just how he always looks.

Still, he can't quite keep the excitement out of his voice, "But you're right, sheesh. I didn't even have much caffeine on the drive in but I am feeling it. Wish the con was already started."

Jacinto: "If it had, we'd be late now." Jacinto gives a small grin, before leaning back and spreading up his arms. "Tomorrow though! Even in this huge furcon, I'm sure we'll stand out! I can feel it!" The man is definitely excited, at this point seemingly just running on excited fumes instead of any energy left in his body, and they have way too few hours left to actually sleep in.

Rowan laughs tiredly, spinning in his chair again, "Are you kidding me? We're going to blow up on social media, there's going to be lines for photos! It's... it's going to be crazy. Heh, I'm more excited than I thought. Been trying to think of literally anything else on the drive here, but it's been pretty hard, huh?"

Jacinto nods: "Very hard. Pretty sure if you ask me tomorrow evening I can't name a single place we drove through today, that much my mind is on the obvious." His smile drops an smidge: "Should be so good though. After all the work and testing and tweaking, we have everything down to science."

Rowan leans back with a wistful sigh, "We've been working on these suits for so long now, I can't believe we're finally going to break them out to the public. Well, the furry convention attending public at least."

Jacinto gives Rowan a look: "Pretty sure that's exactly the public we want. Going down the street back home would be insanity."

Rowan frowns a moment, but quickly shrugs it off, he's in too good a mood thinking about tomorrow to let thoughts of home bring him down, "Thankfully, I don't really care what the folks back home think. This weekend is all us getting to indulge."

Jacinto smirks: "Yeah, you're right. Tomorrow we gotta indulge and party enough that we won't even care. Make our mark and the sheer cheer will carry us home, right?"

Rowan grins, "That's how it goes. I tell you, I'm almost thinking we suit all con. I don't even think I need a day for the vendor hall. And last I look, no panel is going to compete."

Jacinto considers, then nods: "With our improved cooling system, pretty sure we could pull that off." He smirks and offers his hand: "You're on."

Rowan grasps Jac's hand and shakes, "Might be regretting it come Sunday, but I think it'll be worth the potential leg pain. Though, even that shouldn't be as bad as some of the older suits we've used."

Jacinto shakes his friend's hand, then lets go with a grin: "Oh, definitely. For one, we have much lighter shapewear on our legs. And we got the cooling suits. We're going to feel great, and I'm not even talking about the euphoria we'll be floating in."

Rowan cringes, thinking back, "Remember the first year I tried to suit in digitigrade legs? Damn near broke my ankles."

Jacinto winces. "Yeah. Thankfully we have our feet safely flat on the ground, and it just looks like we don't."

Rowan: "Kind of incredible what a bit of extra padding can do, and just knowing how to shape it to look completely natural." Rowan grins, not saying anything that Jac' doesn't know and has done to his own suit, but the pride in what they accomplished is pretty intense, and done right, no one else should ever really know how the suits were put together.

Jacinto nods, leaning back with a hum. "Now... How the heck can I sleep enough to pull tomorrow off without overdoing caffeine or something?"

He sighs after a moment and starts taking his travel clothes off, at least.

Rowan turns the chair back towards the desk, standing to go pick up his travel bag, "Gonna have to try, Jac'. It's been a long day, even if it doesn't feel like it. Or even if it felt like it was too long...?" Digging through his bag, he pulls out some of his toiletries, "Take a hot shower and into bed and I bet we'll pass right out."

Jacinto sighs, closes his eyes for a second and leans back... Before getting back up to sitting. "You're probably right. I will go steam myself first."

Without much pause for considering if it matters that Rowan sees him in his underwear yet again, he just pulls everything but his boxers off and drops them onto the bed.

After all the years of traveling together and by necessity having to lose a lot of their usual clothes to get suited up, seeing each other in less clothes just isn't much of an issue anymore.

Rowan nods, setting his bag back down by the desk, "Bathroom's all yours then." He smirks, "Besides, this is all your hobby right? I'm just along for the ride."

Jacinto smirks from the bathroom doorway: "Pull the other one, it has bells on it. You lost the right to call yourself a mere tag-along about two fullsuits and fifteen cons ago."

Rowan chuckles, "Oh? 'Just do one con', you said. 'Okay, but don't expect me to wear one of those sweaty things.' I said."

Jacinto nods: "And see where that got you anyway." He closes the bathroom door, chuckling.

Rowan takes the time that Jac' is in the bathroom to change into his own night clothes and flop back onto his bed, flipping through his phone apps slightly anxiously, not really looking at anything and more just trying to distract himself.

Few moments later, Jacinto emerges from the shower, and true to his word, very much steaming in his towels. "You were right. That did feel pretty great after a day in the car." He moves to sit on the bed, taking a deep breath. "Maybe tired will finally find me."

Rowan stretches his arms out across the bed, setting his phone on the nightstand. "Maybe. Now that I'm in bed, I'm just feeling... anxious. But I'll take my turn in the shower and see if I feel any better."

Jacinto nods. "If this was after the con, tired would be easy to locate. But now..." He gives his friend a tired smile.

Rowan rolls off his bed and laughs, "Yeah, no kidding. Can't sleep when we need it... will be exhausted later when we want to stay up. And then after con we'll just be wiped out entirely when we need the energy to get back home. Such is the way of cons."

Jacinto smirks: "Some would argue it's part of the magic and charm. I think I prefer the parts I'm actively making to be magical."

Rowan walks over to the bathroom, closing his eyes a moment to smile before stepping inside, "Well, that's really the whole reason for it all, hm? Making a bit of magic for folks here, and just a bit of it for ourselves."

Jacinto nods: "I'm pretty sure we lost the rights to call this hobby 'sane' somewhere after our first Anthrocon or so." He leans to the wall, hands behind his head. "So yeah, what you said sounds more accurate, not to mention more positive."

Rowan heads into the bathroom, calling back "It's what I tell myself at least!" before closing the door behind him.

Jacinto chuckles bemusedly. Joking aside, they both know all the reasons they do this. Fun, being social with likeminded furs, letting loose and being silly for a weekend, prestige for all the effort used on the costumes, feeling like a winner for a day... It very much is just part of their routine to snark about the stuff even though they know perfectly well they never want to stop doing this.

Jacinto glances at the closed grand suitcase and allows himself a satisfied smile.

Rowan luxuriates in the hot hotel shower, toweling off and emerging shortly back into the room, looking quite satisfied, "Yeah, just getting all that 'car sweat' off of me is worth the price of the hotel right now. I don't think sleep will be too hard to find."

"And before you know it, we can let out Akari and Cindi."

Jacinto grins: "Yesss." It's obvious the man is pretty excited, not that either of them particularly need to say it. "I can't wait. And I know I've been saying that for months now."

Rowan glances at his own suitcase as he walks back to his bed, "We've both been saying it. Mostly just to each other too."

Jacinto smirks: "Can't talk too much specifics online to our fellow 'suiters we may meet up here either." They had agreed to up their personal ante in one more way: not telling any of their friends in the craft about what they were up to, other than the fact that they were, in fact, up to something. Spill the beans afterwards if no one figures them out, which is their hope.

Rowan grins wide, "I love you like a brother Jac', but it's been a rough few months only getting to brag about this with you."

Jacinto grins in mirror. "Soon. Very soon now. Gahhh I can't wait!" He jitters slightly in place before calming enough to put his towels aside, try and get to the 'sleep' part of the equation.

Rowan laughs, doing his best to keep in his own giddy excitement, "Very soon. Now we really gotta at least try to get to sleep. And not just lay in bed and talk for the next six hours like when we were kids."

Jacinto nods as he gets under covers. "Definitely, we're adults now." He pauses. "Five hours, tops."

Rowan slips into his sheets as well, taking a moment to get cozy. "Yeah, that sounds alright. We need at least that one hour of sleep though..." He yawns despite himself, reaching back over to his phone. "Still gonna set an alarm though."

Jacinto chuckles as he sets his own alarm. "Yup. The hardest part of tomorrow will be to not hork down the hotel breakfast so quickly it comes back up for revenge." Definitely not talking from experience, either.

Rowan cringes again, remembering that particular breakfast all too well, "Yeah, that wasn't a pleasant day. We cannot afford that kind of start. But we know enough to avoid all the pitfalls now."

Jacinto nods, stifling a yawn. "We've planned around all of them, I'm pretty sure."

Rowan sets the alarm on his phone and sets it back down, then checking with Jac', he flips off the lights. "And if anything else comes up, we know enough to improvise."

Jacinto hums confidently. "We won't have to. We've definitely thought of everything."

Rowan chuckles, "Get some sleep, Jac'. Good night."

Jacinto: "Good night." To his credit, Jacinto is actually quiet after that.

  Next: Chapter 2

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