Ivory and Horn (ivoryandhorn) wrote in no_true_pair, @ 2008-07-03 15:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 2008 twelve characters challenge, author: ivoryandhorn, fandom: original[the city adel] |
Original -- The City Adel; "Minesweeper"
Title: Minesweeper
Author/Artist: ivoryandhorn
Fandom: original -- the City Adel
Pairing/Characters: Flynn & Demetria
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: swearing
Prompt Answered: Week 2 -- Demetria and Flynn play a game or sport together.
Length:
Summary: He is definitely not the kind of person you’d expect to have agreed to this. And yet, here he is.
Author's Notes: I don't even know how this came to be. Just that it did. I...tried not to use too much jargon, but I think I may have anyway. *fail*
Flynn is twenty-four, 5’ 8” (and a half), has amber eyes, and dyes his hair bright blue half to piss off his dad and half because his hair is naturally a depressingly wholesome and above all boring mousy brown, and anyone in a snit over it can just fuck off. He takes perverse pleasure in turning down all come-ons with a sigh, sorrowful headshake, and a “you’re just not my type” and wondering how long it’ll take chicks to cotton on to a fact that no woman, period, is his type.
He is probably not the kind of person you’d expect to spend his Friday nights hunched over his laptop while his ashtray rakes up the butts, yelling at Kael’thas to fucking drop Thor’idal already so Bzzzap will stop bugging the rest of the guild to help him run Magister’s Terrace over. And over. And over again.
He is definitely not the kind of person you’d expect to have agreed to this: agreed to drive down to Anaheim, agreed to split a hotel room for four ten ways, agreed to fork out for a Blizzcon ticket, agreed to bring the tiny grill his roommate probably didn’t give him permission to steal for the weekend.
In short, since you wouldn’t expect him to even be playing WoW, you wouldn’t expect to have to wonder why Flynn, chain-smoking misanthropic med student extraordinaire, still agreed to meet his guild for the first time in the flesh, as opposed to behind the candy-colored graphics of Blizzard’s piece de resistance, aka World of Warcraft.
And yet, here he is.
---
The voice that answers his knock on Room 504 is vaguely familiar, though he can’t place it. Which bodes very ill for when the rest of the guild arrives; they’re only ten people all together but even so, if he can’t match voices to characters he’s fucking doomed as far as remembering who’s who.
“It’s me,” he says. “Which is to say, it’s Errol. The druid?”
After a moment he hears the chinking of a chain and the door swings open to reveal a woman that Flynn’s vaguely gratified to see is actually significantly shorter than he is. She can’t be much older than he is, but wears her black hair in pigtails like a little girl. She looks a little like a doll, in fact. Not so much with the flawlessly pretty and dressed up part as with the corpse-pale skin and tendency to look like a particularly feisty breeze would crack her face down the middle.
“Hello,” she says shyly. “I…I’m Psyche.”
Psyche. Face-melting shadow priest, whose Vampiric Embrace has helped him regain many precious points of mana in the course of combat. Flynn holds out a hand. Her grip is cold, but surprisingly firm, and he follows her into the room.
“You can just put your stuff anywhere,” she tells him. “The others aren’t here yet.” The laptop on the bed is open but facing away, the glow of its screen reflects off the pristine white pillows.
“So,” he says, shrugging out of his jacket. There’s a pile of bags here that must weigh more than she does. “Is this all your stuff?”
Psyche shakes her head. “No, half of its Barakiel’s. He went out for a smoke. And to get snacks. More snacks.”
“Barakiel?”
“Um, Bzzzap.” She smiles at him apologetically from her seat on the bed. Flynn makes a mental note to strangle at his earliest convenience the asshole huntard who is the reason he’d spent the past month staring at Kael’thas’ Wretched mug every raid night for the past five months.
“Oh.” He paces around the room, settling down beside her on the covers. “So did you two come here together or what?”
“Yes.”
“…I see.”
And he does. Because Bzzzap and Psyche always come online together, and she’s the only reason he’ll leave off Magister’s and that damn Thor’idal.
After a while she looks up from her laptop. “You know we…we’re not together.”
“Okay,” he agrees, thinking, Liar.
“We’ve known each other for a few years, and we live close to each other. That’s all.”
“If you say so.”
“So you know, if you…if you wanted to ask him out or something…it’s not like I’d mind. Lots of people do,” she added.
Okay, so maybe he doesn’t see.
“I’ll…keep that in mind,” he says, thinking, I wouldn’t touch that with a 10-foot pole.
After that the only sound is the occasional click of her laptop’s touchpad mouse. Then Flynn can’t stand the silence anymore—what the hell are they supposed to talk about, World of Warcraft? Like they do every time they meet online? It’s pathetic that he can’t think of anything to say to her that isn’t related to the Internet. It’s almost like he’s some kind of incurably antisocial geek or something.
“What’re you playing?”
Psyche tilts the screen towards him: Minesweeper. She’s nearly cleared out the little grey squares; only a few left trembling as they await their possibly-incendiary fate. “I’m kind of stuck…”
He sits back up and studies the screen for one long moment. “Try that square down in the corner. No, way down in the corner. Yeah, that one.”
She clicks. Miraculously, it is mine-free and Flynn allows himself a moment of smug victory—he doesn’t have an 85% win rate for nothing, after all.
“Wow,” she says, “thanks, um—“
“Flynn.” He gives her his best smile, the one that makes people think he might actually be a nice person beneath all the nicotine and scowls. “And no problem.”
She smiles at him again, shyer. “I’m Demetria. It’s nice to meet you after all this time, Errol.”
“Same.”
So maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.