Who: Billy and Tink When:After this Where: Tink’s place then … somewhere else What:WORLD DOMINATION! A celebration. Not exactly a date. Kinda Rating/Warning: Low/None. Status: Complete
Tink was waiting outside on her porch when Billy showed up. She didn’t give him time to come upstairs, simply stood herself and jogged down to where he was. She was wearing her LED Iron Man t-shirt over a pair of cargo pants. Lots of pockets, and they were all full of things, so she wore a belt to keep their weight up.
“Hey!”
“You!” Billy greeted in a not real greeting at all. He unlocked the door for her and waited for her to get inside the car before wading through words even further. “You’re you again, and that’s, you know, really you. Cool.”
“I’m me!” Tink said, giving him a bright smile and holding her hands up. As if that explained everything. She climbed into the car and pulled on her seat belt. “Very cool. I think, anyway. I’m glad you think, too. I mean, I’m glad you think so, too.”
“Well I think I think so, so I’m thinking that covers all areas of...” A blink of a twitch as he put his car back into drive. “thinking.”
Sometimes, Tink made him go a little off. Or he was just always off, sometimes Billy just wasn’t sure anymore.
Maybe both? Billy certainly made Tink go a little off. Not that she minded, really, it was the good kind of off? In any case she smiled at him, then turned to look out the window as he drove. “So. Celebrating. We should go somewhere fun. Do something fun, you know?”
“Right. I like fun. Fun is good.” Billy, ever so useful, was just driving with no real idea of where to go. Somewhere fun.
He considered for a moment, chewing his bottom lip and tilting his head to the side a little without taking his eyes off the road. “M&Ms in the glove compartment,” he said. “Oh. What about... laser tag?”
Tink was already leaning forward to dig into the glove box. That’s where they were last time, right? She was a creature of habit. She found the M&Ms, grinning and blushing a little, and leaned back in her chair. “Oooh, yes. Laser tag. Only if you’re ready to get schooled.” She said, completely seriously, and popped one of the candies into her mouth.
He didn’t doubt her for a moment, but tilted his mouth into an awkward, crooked smile anyway. “Yeah, I’ll just prepare for that now.” There was a laser tag place somewhere near, he knew that. He wondered if it was too much to hope that they had an adults only sort of night or something.
Ah, yes, kids play that sort of thing, right? Well, Tink didn’t mind that so much. She could avoid them. Mostly. Actually, she could probably jerry-rig the gun to make it never miss--sending out an array of laser beams instead of one concentrated one. That might be cheating, though. She was thinking about it as they drove.
Thankfully it wasn’t that long of a drive. Before she knew it, they were parked, and she was still trying to consider how wrong it would be to pry open the plastic gun and make her own adjustments.
It would be totally wrong. Billy would not have disapproved at all. In fact, he’d probably just borrow her his little screwdriver that was on his keychain. That would be good. Easier.
Once the car was locked behind him, they were in the building and Billy was paying for their entrance, and they were being handed supplies and being told the rules of the game by a very bored looking teenaged attendant.
Teenage punks.
Tink wasn’t paying much attention to the dude with the braces and the acne. She was inspecting the gun. She wanted to know what made it tick. Her hands were following the little grooves along the sides, searching for the screws that kept it together. And she found what she was looking for.
After giving the dude a little “thank you!” and moving into the entryway between where they paid and where the game was played, she pulled a screwdriver out of her pocket. Hey, what kind of a tinker would she be if she didn’t have one with her all the time?
“They make this too easy,” she said, then started to open the gun.
Billy watched with a vague air of curiosity and amusement as she tinkered (hah) with the assembly of the gun, brushing his own fingers over his own as well. Maybe… hm.
“How much cheatery will that be? Do I have to modify mine just to have a chance in the game?”
“The way I see it,” she said, still focused on the gun in her hands. “We can either band together, or we can turn against all the pre-teen punks in there.” She clicked things into place, or whatever, tinkering with the gun’s insides before putting it all back together. “Unified front, you know?” She flipped some hair out of her face as she turned to grin at him.
Billy only stared at her for a long moment, eyes intense and mouth half open. Sometimes all he really wanted to do was lean forward and just kiss her. But it seemed wrong, didn’t it? She liked that one guy. Or that one other guy. And they were more like best friends who sometimes held hands or. Whatever.
He just didn’t want to mess this up. He had too many fucking M&Ms to give her.
“Yeah.” he said finally, breathless for no reason. “Unified. So. Just. Do whatever you just did to yours to mine.” He probably could have managed it himself, but thinking seemed difficult sometimes, when Tink was around.
Tink beamed. Unified front. Working together. Waging war on the stupid, unsuspecting, ridiculous pre-teens who frequented this place. She could absolutely get down with that. She handed her gun over to Billy and took his, then used her screwdriver and her amazing knowledge of lasers and whatnot to make his gun super spiffy, too. Or, well, it didn’t really matter who had which gun, right? They could just keep the ones they had.
“All right.” She said, once that was finished. She looked up at him with a huge smile. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Billy said, going solemn and twitchy and stoic and other synonyms that were also good and important. “Taking over the world, one laser gun establishment at a time.”
Tink clacked her gun against his, as if in a toast, then turned to lead the way into the laser arena. And it was glorious. The two mopped the floor with the gaggle of preteen boys who were trying to play out their war fantasy scenarios. There was a group of sorority girls who were hazing some poor, blindfolded newcomers, and Tink showed no mercy with them, either.
Nor did Billy, who was literally blazing away, and practicing out that evil laugh that he’d had a vocal coach for in his dreams.
Perfect. Date. Is. Perfect.
Oh wait. Fuckshitfuck. This wasn’t a date. It was a … thing. Billy paused, hiding behind a barrel and just considered not freaking out for a second.
“You’re not crapping out on me now, are you?” Tink said, ducking down behind the barrel and bumping her shoulder into his. “There’s a family with little kids over behind that wall. Let’s go make ‘em cry.” She was only partially teasing.
That she was even partially serious was pretty amazing. Billy turned his twitchy expression toward Tink and smiled, vaguely. It seemed concerned, but that was pretty Billy anyway.
“Right. Let’s wreck ‘em.”
It was dark enough in the laser tag arena that she couldn’t really see the concern in his twitchy smile. Or she was too busy mentally preparing herself to go and shoot the shit out of those snotty little kids she’d heard complaining to their parents earlier.
“On three. One. Two. Three!” And she was off.
---
Basically, they won everything. Sure, cheating had been involved, but Billy was kind of a villain and that was to be expected, right? Plus an evening just wasn’t really fun until they’d made some kids so frustrated that they broke into tears.
He was laughing, wicked and sharp as they made their way back to his car. “That was perfect.”
Tink was exhilarated. She loved winning. Hey, it wasn’t cheating. Everyone had the chance to adjust the guns if they wanted to. This was just… survival of the fittest? Whatever. It was just a game. An awesome game that she loved to win.
“Right??” She said, beaming. She moved with him along the walk toward his car. “What next?”
Billy leaned against the side of his car, looking lazy and thoughtful at the question, but still a bit pleased. How could he not be? “Dinner? Drinks?” Making out? Eloping? “I dunno, what do you want to do?”
Besides the obvious? “Dinner and drinks.” Tink repeated with a nod. She slipped her hands into her back pockets, grinning over at him. “I think dinner and drinks is a wonderful idea.”
“Good.” Billy nodded, chewed his lower lip, looked up at the sky, then back down at the cement. “Cool.”
“Good.” Tink took a step closer to the car. “Um… somewhere close?” She asked. “Pizza?” Nothing romantic. She wasn’t sure she could handle something like that.
“Pizza,” Billy agreed, easy. He nodded and fished his keys from his pocket as he moved toward the driver’s side of the car. Dinner, drinks and laser tag with a hot girl. It was cool. Yep.