InsaneJournal

Who: Billy Horrible + Penelope Garcia
What: Hanging out and D3.
When: Sunday afternoon.
Where: Billy's apartment.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Status: Complete!




Billy wasn't really one to have friends in a physical sense. Sure, he had a ton online, and not even really in the Facebook way but instead in the real honest to god I-Talk-To-You-On-Messenger sort of way. Everyone knew it was a meaningful friendship when someone was worth turning AIM on for.

Anyway. He didn't usually have friends. Sure, he had a few. Tara was cool. Gwen was alright when she wasn't being such a weird downer. Tink was awesome and pretty and he wanted to sort of kidnap her and then when he took over the world give her a whole country just in the way of apology. What? Shuttup.

The point really was this: he'd been shocked, awkward and delighted to meet Penelope Garcia. He wasn't a sap or anything, but he was pretty sure an internet stranger bringing him cheese just for whining was the one who could easily be fitted into the OMG I HAVE A BFF slot.

It didn't hurt her cause any that she had cool hair, bright lipstick and thick framed glasses that Billy found he enjoyed. Also not the point here, though.

Was there a point? Oh yeah. They were totally going to hang out like normal people did. Billy had high hopes for bad movies and laptop parties. Because wasn't that what you did with friends? Ignore them in the same room while using a computer?

As if on cue, Garcia knocked on Billy’s door, her laptop in a bag over her shoulder along with her PS3 controller in case they decided to do any gaming. She bounced on her toes, figuring they could watch some TV, play some online You Don’t Know Jack tourneys - normal friend stuff, right?

She also wanted to enjoy her time off before she started working two jobs. She was going to be exhausted at that point, and she knew she wouldn’t be her normal sunny self.

Two jobs? The hell? Billy couldn’t even be bothered with one - not a real one anyway. He grabbed the door, giving a smile that was probably meant to be chipper, but instead looked a little bit like a half wince with an accompanying eye twitch. Smooth operator, anyone? “Oh, hey,” he said, as if he had not cleaned his living room an hour earlier in anticipation of actually having someone over. “C’mon in.”

“Hey, you.” Garcia grinned, hugging Billy briefly, just long enough to let him know she was pleased to see him, but not long enough to make him feel uncomfortable. “I brought controllers if you want to do some gaming. Otherwise, I brought some movies.” She bounced up and down a bit, her Pokémon earrings dangling. Because who didn’t need Squirtle earrings?

Billy didn’t need Squirtle earrings. But he did appreciate them because can anyone say best Pokemon? Garcia was apparently used to dealing with awkward folks, because she seemed like she knew the perfect amount of contact before everything went overboard. Billy appreciated that. “Aw, you didn’t have to bring controllers,” he said, because, jeez, he had those.

“What movies? I got -- uh. Popcorn? I have things. Delicious things?” Errgh, talking. To make up for the obvious awkward he gestured to his living room. Make yourself at home. Do whatchu wannnna.

“Of course I did. You might have controllers, but you don’t have my lucky controller, so nyah.” Garcia grinned, sticking her tongue out at him and flopping down on the sofa. “Well, the first movie I brought is my personal favorite. Remember the live action He-Man movie with Dolph Lundgren? I have it on DVD. I know, I’m amazing.”

Oh yeah, lucky controllers. People did that sort of thing. He forgot.

Gasp! “Masters of the Universe? You own that?” This face? It was the happily impressed Billy face. “Amazorz. So for it.” Yeah. Sorry. He talked like that. Actually, he wasn’t sorry.

“Um, of course I do, it’s the most awesome Skeletor’s ever been.” She grinned, fairly bouncing before taking out her laptop. Yeah, she had a top of the line Alienware that she’d modded to filth. Gag on it.

“I dunno. There are some pretty good voice overs on youtube.” As if Doctor Fucking Horrible wouldn’t be appreciative of a sexy computer. Laptops: better than women. Maybe he should never say that out loud, actually.

Billy stared for a long moment, because that was kind of a thing he did -- it was cute until it got creepy. Which it did. Then he blinked, and that was nearly a twitch too. “Something to drink? I don’t have Mountain Dew. I’m just not that kind of nerd.”

“Aww, no Cheetos either?” Garcia held her fingers behind her head and made them droop faintly. “Aww, sad ears. Well, I did bring some Bawls. Mama doesn’t go anywhere without her Bawls. God, I love saying Bawls.”

Billy blinked. “Some what?” Was he missing out? On something nerdy? The world was collapsing around him.

Garcia blinked. “You’ve never had Bawls? It’s the only energy drink that doesn’t taste like awful.” She hopped up, bringing two bright blue bottles with her. “They taste like Sprite.”

Billy had mostly given up caffeine after Alice had so kindly pointed out he probably just didn’t need that shit if he wanted to function like a human being -- but couldn’t help his curiosity. Because he wasn’t a total cretin, he pulled out two glasses for them. “Well, holy Bawls. I like Sprite.” LAME. God. Sorry.

Even if it was lame, it made Garcia giggle. She grabbed some ice and poured them each a glass, bumping his hip lightly with hers. “You’re my kind of dork, Doc Horribles.” Yup. That was a nickname! He had achieved friend status.

Level the fuck up! He grinned in a way that was not at all creepy, thanks, and then sipped at the Bawls (haha, that was amazing) before he could do something stupid like blush all over the place.

"Doctor Approved," he said after a second, because bad jokes: he was full of them. "Movie first? Video games after?" Because that was about how long it would take for the caffeine to wreck him, and he'd need to burn it off in order to not just vibrate terribly.

“Movie first, then you’ll get the caffeine in you, and you can burn it off with some CoD or something later.” Garcia patted him on the hand, beaming. “Want me to make some popcorn? I brought some M&Ms to toss in.” She was beaming, and she was glad she’d taken off her adorable but painful heels at the door.

They had been adorable. But frankly, Garcia was just kind of adorable in general. Billy would probably be the first to admit he liked a girl with spunk, Squirtle earrings were just a bonus. “Do that,” he agreed, because clearly it was the best sort of plan. He pulled himself into a sitting position on his counter, because it was his house and he could do that shit if he wanted, man. “You come prepared as hell. You ever get girl scout badges, or just Pokemon ones?”

“I got kicked out of the Brownies for making counterfeit badges, actually.” Garcia put some unpopped corn kernels into a brown lunch bag and set it in the microwave. Humming, she waited for the corn to pop before throwing it into a bowl with the M&Ms. She returned to sit down by him on the couch, grinning and balancing the bowl between them.

He handed her the tv remote, which was kind of like being handed the keys to a really sweet castle. “I hope you made some money from it first.” Billy had morals, they were just hard to find sometimes. He’d blame the dreams, but he’d always kind of been like that. Systematically, he picked the brown M&Ms out to eat first.

“Aww, you’re a dear.” Garcia knew it meant trust when someone handed you their electronics. “Only sometimes.” Garcia ate her M&Ms in the order of the deaths of the Sailor Moon characters in Series 1. She was nerdy that way.

Movie fired up, Garcia tossed a bit of popcorn into the air before catching it with her mouth. “Thanks for having me over, by the way.”

Hey, she was clearly no slouch in the way of computers - he was pretty sure he could trust her with a remote. “Oh, it’s no thing,” he said, pointedly looking at the tv. “I mean, you know.” That was not an explanation, Billy. He half winced. “Easier to bring the party to my place.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to share food through Skype.” She opened up her laptop and fired up WoW, grinning at him. “Do you play?”

“Truer words.” He glanced over at her computer. “I have an account. It’s been a long time, though.” He was failing in nerdery here, but he didn’t quite get MMOs; interacting with people was weird.

“Yeah, I mostly just achievement whore nowadays.” She moved a little closer to him to show him her achievement list, noticing when their arms touched. “So. Um. What kind of games do you play?”

Was she trying to give him a heart attack? She totally was. Energy drinks and chocolate and arm brushing. He cleared his throat, stared at her computer screen in a hard way, and then went pink despite his better efforts. “Oh. Uhm. I liked --er. Diablo. Pokemon. Er -- anything where I don’t have to show up to timed guild meetings.” He ran on his own hours, damnit.

“Did you play Diablo 3?” Garcia flailed a little. “Want to play now?”

“Do I want--YES.” Yep, those were all kinds of capital letters. He was really that good. “Sec--” and then he was skittering out of the room (yes. skittering) and coming back not a second later with his own way too fancy laptop and mouse. “Dibs on the monk.” Because being a gentleman was totally for gentlemen.

“You can have the monk with your no armor havin’ ass.” Garcia wrinkled her nose. “Demon hunter, that’s the only way to go, just sayin’.” She grinned, loading the game and folding her legs underneath herself.

“You don’t need armor when you’re such a badass. Teleportation is where it’s fucking at.” Load, load, type, login. “Aah, back to level one, huh.” Not that it mattered much, this game had been fun but entirely too easy. Now he could multitask and watch all the Skeletor scenes, too.

Garcia blinked and looked at him. “Uh, hello, dual guns and flippies?” She didn’t get that for a while though, not while they were still n00bs. She navigated expertly around his character, though, being silly and teasing him.

The female monk looked sweeter, so he’d picked that. And named her Nutlog. Because he named all his characters that. Don’t ask. “Flippies. Bah.” Just you wait, Garcia. When they got out of town it was all about the unclassy business of removing from party and then murder looting.

Okay, maybe not, because he wasn’t a jerk. But he’d think on it.

Garcia’s character was Tweedledee, because of Reasons. She ruffled Billy’s hair and hummed as she quickly proceeded to murder everything ever. Fucking quill imps.

Billy went all pink over the hair ruffle, and forgot how to right click like some kind of amateur. “Cheater.”

“How am I cheating? Please, tell me. If you say hacks, I will hit you in your adorable face.” Garcia didn’t look up from her computer.

“I wasn’t gonna---” He paused mid-sentence because distributing points and choosing new skills after a level up was Very Serious Business. Also because he had no good way to reply to the threat of being hit in his adorable face. Because she’d called it adorable. Argh.

Garcia beamed as she picked out her skills, taking a moment to munch some more popcorn. “So, you had a horrible crush on Teela, didn’t you.” Because who hadn’t?

“Who didn’t?” A pause, as he glanced up at the tv, and then back at the game. “But if we’re going with cartoon alone, She-Ra was where it was at.” Shuttup, cartoon She-Ra was hot.

“Oh my god, I wanted to be She-Ra. But I had a crush on He-Man, so I get where you’re coming from. But I was crazy upset as a kid when I found out that crystal pegasai didn’t exist.” She lip wobbled, as if to recreate her childhood trauma.

It was a really convincing lip-wobble. “I just spent my entire childhood trying to figure out how no one could figure out Prince Adam was fucking He-Man.” Superman and Clark Kent? He could forgive that. It was a world full of people, and Clark kinda sucked. But there were only like 10 goddamn people in Eternia. How could they not have known?

“Right? I mean, one person with that haircut on your weird planet is bad enough, but two?” Garcia wrinkled her nose before laughing. “How were we not friends before now?”

“Even in the eighties that haircut was unacceptable,” Billy could only agree. Then again, he couldn’t talk. He may or may not have had a ‘I need to be like MacGyver’ phase as a child. And mullets weren’t acceptable either, not even on Richard Dean Anderson. “And yeah? I dunno. Maybe because I’m an asshole who rarely reads any posts that I didn’t put there myself.” Hey, at least he was honest.

“You’re not an asshole,” Garcia smiled. He might pretend to be one just to keep people at bay, but she knew jerks when she saw one. Billy wasn’t one.

“Well -- no. I guess not.” Click, kill, regret not having the exact same map function as Dii had. “But -- a lot of times it is hard to care about most of the posts. Politics and bake sales and whatever else.”

“And those weird dreams.” Garcia wrinkled her nose. She hated hers, and wondered if Billy’s were as bad.

“Yeah, I dunno what’s up with that.” He didn’t sound particularly bothered though, because if he had to be honest his were kind of awesome. In a quirky way. Plus, you know, it’d given him-- “Holy shit,” he said, and stopped his clicking without warning. “You have got to see my freeze ray.”

Garcia blinked. “You were serious?” She could feel her jaw dropping. “I mean, not that I don’t take you seriously, but holy wow.”

“My dreams are awesome,” Billy said in reply, which basically translated to, ‘oh, yes, totally serious.’ He settled his laptop on the coffee table and then disappeared again. “It stops time!” he felt the need to call out from the other room, even though he was sure he’d said so before. The item he returned with looked like a sci-fi prop, and that made it all the cooler.

“Oh my gosh that’s so old school looking I am so jealous how did you make that does it work.” Garcia realized she was speaking in compound compound sentences and winced. “Sorry.”

No one needed punctuation when they were that excited, and Billy honestly couldn’t blame Garcia for being excited. I mean, just look at this thing, it was fucking awesome. “I got it from the dreams. Worked when it showed up. Since then I’ve taken it apart and back together and it’s --” he shook his head, plopped back down on the couch and turned it over in his hands. “It works. I dunno.”

“You can get things from the dreams?” Her eyes went wide. She didn’t really want much from the dreams - certainly not a job with the FBI - but it was scary to think that could happen.

“Apparently.” Because even around cute women, Billy kind of had no patience for answering questions that already had obvious answers. Not that he’d said it unkindly, just that he didn’t feel the need to further explain.

“God, I hope I don’t end up having to work for the BAU,” Garcia muttered. “Okay, so show me how this thing works.”

It was a bit of a waste to use the thing in a room with no other people, but Billy was always a little giddy to use the thing. Or see it used in any case. “Kay. We’ll make it easy, right? Just -- uh. Freeze the room.” The dvd and the clocks would be proof enough.

And then? He did something that was as close to flirtation as Billy might ever come: he handed her that goddamn freeze ray. “You start it up like so--” he tapped his finger to a switch on the side. “Takes a second to warm up.”

Garcia’s eyes shone, and for a moment, she forgot entirely about her savage crush on Sebastian Vael. “You’re ridiculously hot when you’re evil geniusing, did you know that?”

Seeming entirely too pleased over that, Billy gave another one of those wince-style smiles of his. “Science is sexy, there’s no denying that.” The freeze ray buzzed it’s way into warm up. It was a lovely sound.

Flipping open the lid, Garcia’s eyes went wider at the different electronic gadgets inside of the main housing of the ray. “Truer words,” she murmured, dark green nails running lightly and affectionately over the gadget.

Yeah, that was a bit how he felt about it. His love for gadgetry had no bounds or rivals, if he had to be honest. “Kay,” he said, when the thing beeped. It might have sounded a little like a microwave oven. “Give it a go.” He was going to have to watch his excitement levels in a second here if he wasn’t careful. But, god. Freeze ray.

She pointed it at a clock, gently squeezing the trigger and blinking when the TV stopped, when the clocks stopped, when everything but her and Billy stopped. “Oh my god,” she squealed. Obvious, but what other reaction could she have?

This? This was some fucking delight right up in here. “Right? Stops time,” Billy repeated, because there was nothing better to say than that, and he really did enjoy saying it. He stood, inspecting the handy work on the electronics, not that he didn’t know the result, anyway. “A bit small scale, but --” he shrugged.

She just grinned, standing up to hug him tightly once more. “Sneaky new favorite, oh my gosh.”

Billy went pink all over again, but saw no reason not to give an awkward hug back. He failed at physical contact, but that didn’t mean he didn’t try. “It - er - only lasts for a few minutes. I’ve gotta work on that a bit.” Because fiddling with technology that shouldn’t have even existed? Yeah, totally something he did.

“But still, holy crap.” Garcia shook her head, leaning away, blushing herself. “You did good, boo.”

Oh, god. It was a vicious circle of blushing. Billy was sure he wouldn’t be able to stop at this point. He scratched the back of his head, stared at a wall awkwardly for a second. “What? Boo? Haha.” He did this thing, where when he laughed, it was a little more like talking. “Yeah, well, dream me is an evil genius, what can I say.” Being evil? Totally not a thing that bothered him. He was a good sort of evil, anyway.

“If I didn’t have a mad crush on another man, I would totally be sexing you right now. Just ... don’t want the awkward to ruin a friendship.” Garcia smiled and then covered up her blushing with more Diablo’ing. Those demons weren’t going to kill themselves.

Well, wasn’t that always the way? Every awesome girl totally had designs on every guy who was not him. Billy didn’t pout, because it just wasn’t in him to do so. Instead, he settled his beloved freeze ray on the side of the couch and grabbed his laptop again. “Flattering,” he said, because it kinda was. He paused for a second to get his new level points and then glanced at her. “What’s he like?” Because when flirting failed, gossip was just as good, or something.

To be fair, as much as he tended to like everyone woman he ever met ever, he really wouldn’t know what the hell to do with one if he actually managed to get one. French kissing was apparently a thing, but not a thing that interested him terribly.

“Perfect. Taken. You know how it is.” Garcia sighed, wrinkling her nose. How to describe Sebastian Vael? “He ... makes me laugh so easily, and he’s handsome and generous and ... I’m gushing. To be fair, his girlfriend’s even hotter, and apparently flexible. Russian supermodel. So, it’s kind of a pipe dream. But I picked up a part time job to help him out, after my full time job. Just so I can look at him. That makes me crazy, huh.”

“Yes,” Billy agreed, in a way that clearly conveyed he did think she was odd. Click, click, teleport. “But -- er. You know. You’re awesome and totally pretty and I’m not sure supermodels have anything on Squirtle earrings. Probably, you could devise a super plan to just take what you want.” Had he mentioned he was an evil genius? Emphasis on the evil? And if he wasn’t going to get the girl, he was going to make sure to be a good enough friend to make sure she was happy anyway. Happy ladies were more fun to play Diii with.

That just made Garcia laugh. “Doc Horribles, she’s like, a size two and has breasts larger than my head. And we all know what guys want.” She sighed, puffing some air into her cheek like she did when she was thinking. “I just ... I do okay, but not with guys like him. I do okay with guys who actually like brains. Not that he doesn’t, just ... he’s pretty, and I think pretty people get used to hanging out with pretty people.”

“That’s self disparaging,” Billy pointed out, glancing at her, and then back at the game. “You’re really pretty. Size two? It’s like... looking at someone’s little sister --er. With big breasts, I guess.” Okay, not helpful. Sorry.

Garcia just laughed, shaking her head. “You’re sweet.” She turned Billy’s head around by the chin to kiss him lightly.

Which really just made the poor doctor go from pink to a bright red. His character died, he didn’t notice. “Oh - uh - er,” he said once she’d pulled back, and he was so well aware of how lame that was, but couldn’t seem to brain hard enough to amend it.

“You died,” Garcia said helpfully. “I’ll escort your ghost.” She was nice that way.

Nice and evil at the same time. Of course, Billy liked it. Already, he was considering how much of a nemesis this man she had a crush on was going to be. “Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Come on, focus on games and less on my lackluster love life.” She pointed at his laptop.

That made Billy give an actual laugh. “Got it. Let’s save these idiot cities from being overrun with demons, then.”