“Just to give you fair warning,” Christian said, as the players got settled with books and character sheets and dice. “No game next regular game night. Dana already warned me that she'll be away with Will for the holidays, and Mark and Eric and I will be spending that Monday night getting ready to go to Eric's grandmother's for a few days. The next regular night would be January third, is that good?”
Mark didn't pay a great deal of attention; it mattered little to him, one way or another. He enjoyed these nights, both for the game itself and for the casual social interaction with the same people each week—a new experience, to see humans as something other than prey or entertainment.
“Assuming that an airplane doesn’t fall out of the sky onto your house at midnight on New Year’s,” Isaac joked. “Or the bank computers all fail and by the third we’re in the middle of a riot because the economy has just instantly collapsed.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Nothing’s going to happen. Other than a lot of people who have been paid a lot of money to do not very much other than reassure people that everything’s fine having to actually work for a living again.”
“If you say so,” Dana said. “You know what you’re talking about better than the people I deal with at work who are leaning towards resigned catastrophism. Or, in some cases, this kind of warped sadistic glee that we’re all going to die because of computers and somehow we deserve it. One of my co-workers has been hoarding canned food, toilet paper, and cash for months.”
“They’re going to feel a bit silly mid-day on the first when life goes on as usual. I just hope they aren’t one of the people taking out loans recklessly in the belief that the banks will lose all record of it and they’ll never have to pay it back.”
“I don’t think they are. It’s not impossible.”
“Is there any chance we could switch to a different game night?” Sara asked tentatively. “I've got an eight-thirty class Tuesday morning starting after Christmas, and I'd rather not have to choose being asleep in class or leaving early if we run late.”
“Weekends for Val and I mean Thursday and Friday evenings until nine which is no good, and Saturday 'til five which would be pushing it,” Christian mused. “Sunday we're done at four, though, whichever of us is on, or we could try Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Can't do Wednesday,” Dana said. “I have to work some of those.”
“Tuesday or Sunday, anyone? I'd prefer Tuesday, if possible, but that gives you a really long day, Sara, are you going to be okay?”
“Not a problem, I'm done classes at three-thirty that day and I can grab a nap if I need it. I'd much rather that than Monday, if everybody's okay with that?”
No one argued, but there were a lot of shrugs and agreeable nods.
“Okay, game's now moved to Tuesday nights instead, same time, same channel. Will the fourth work for getting back to playing? That’s almost a month but I think everyone’s pretty busy at this time of year so trying to arrange something in between would be hard.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Val said. “We’ll just appreciate it more when we get back.”
No one said anything to the contrary, so Christian nodded. “January fourth, then. Okay, where were we last time?” He flipped through some papers, though Mark knew he'd spent the last half-hour preparing. “You just accepted the hospitality of the nomads for the night. Nothing happened, you all slept well, and thanks to that tea their herbalist gave you, everyone's completely healed from that battle.”
“Thank you,” Eric said devoutly. “Now I might survive getting hit twice instead of just once.”
“Maybe if the fighter who was supposed to be guarding you had been paying attention,” Dana said, with a stern look at Sara.
“Hey, Isaac needed help,” Sara said. “I can't be in two places at once.”
“Yeah, we all know Eric's wizard may have awesome magic, but he takes damage if you spit at him,” Mark teased.
“I would not recommend it,” Eric said haughtily. “Where's that polymorph other spell... How would you like to spend the rest of your life as a leech?”
“Living on blood? Ew, disgusting.”
Mark saw Christian try not to laugh, but a smile escaped.
“We need supplies,” Val said. “Who's going to bargain with them? And what are we going to bargain with?”
As usual, Val brought everyone back to the matter at hand, and the six players debated how best to get the supplies they needed.
Much later, Isaac offered to walk Dana home.
Sara and Val lingered to help the three housemates clean up.
“We've got it,” Eric said. “We don't really need five pairs of hands.”
“So I like hanging around afterwards,” Val said. “Sue me.”
Christian grinned at her, and deposited an armload of empty glasses in the sink. “Nah, then you wouldn't come watch Sid for us while we're gone. And if I'm worrying about him, how'm I supposed to pay attention to important things like hearing first hand how Amber's doing?”
“She's with Avery, and he only had the one big fluffy feline of his until now,” Eric said. “The two of them have no competition for his attention except the restoration work he's doing on that big chunk of woodland and wetland. She's being spoiled hopelessly, I promise. He speaks feline, too, y'know, and he'll make sure of it.”
“You're sure you're okay with Sara and I just kind of moving in for a few days?” Val asked.
“Gods, yes,” Christian said. “Much more company for Sid that way.”
“This should be fun,” Sara laughed. “Val and I get a whole house to ourselves.”
“No wild parties,” Eric said, mock-sternly. “No fair having one while we aren't here to party, too.”
“Got it,” Val said.
Mark ignored the chatter and slipped away, off to his own room. It all amounted to, “You're welcome in my territory,” anyway. In the top drawer of his dresser were two boxes; he wasn't sure what had possessed him to use the decorative gift-boxes instead of plain cardboard, and suspected it wasn't because it was easy to remember: the evergreen trees for Val, the snowflakes for Sara.
Eric glanced up mid-motion, dumping the last of the munchies in the garbage; blond eyebrows rose when he saw the boxes. He only smiled, though, and finished what he was doing.
Mark handed each of the women the appropriate box. “Merry Christmas. Or Yule. Or solstice. Or whatever.”
Sara's expression of pure delight made Mark drop back half a step, uneasily; he wasn't used to reactions like that. Even Alexandra's prey wanted her, were pleased to have her, but didn't show such simple happiness. Val accepted hers with a warm smile that really didn't make him much more comfortable.
Sara had hers open in seconds, and pawed through the tissue paper until she found the small cell phone inside. Her eyes very wide, she looked from it to Mark, then to Val, who held up a matching one, and back to Mark again. In a couple of steps, she closed the distance and gave him an enthusiastic hug and a kiss on his cheek. Automatically, used to Chris' sudden hugs, he wrapped both arms around her and returned it tightly, before his mind even caught up with events.
“Thank you!”
He shrugged and released her. “You're safer this way. They've both got Chris' cell phone, mine, and Eric's in the memory, and you've got two hundred minutes a month paid for. Just in case.” And hopefully this is it with the damned cell phones. Monthly upkeep on five of them is going to mean an extra night at Kitty Corner every month. Possibly he should have done this before, but there'd been no significant threats in the interim other than the weird one who tried to trap Chris in the cat; the improbably-nasty goblin in Val's apartment was looking more likely to be just a random fluke, like the bogle. Everything had been amazingly quiet, in fact. Maybe the Fellowship had given up. That or they were distracted by the holidays.
Val gave him a hug, too, though it was a bit calmer. “Thanks. That's a very large gift to accept, though, it has to have cost you a huge amount. And it's an ongoing expense.”
“Don't worry about it. It's covered.”
She smiled. “And that's all the answer we're going to get?”
“For the moment.”
“Mmhmm. Didn't think we'd come to the end of the secrets yet. I won't ask.”
“Wait, what do you mean, safer?” Sara asked.
“In case of goblins or nuisance witches or anything else that makes you feel not safe,” Christian said. “Or calling a taxi if you’re out late and alone. Or whatever.”
“Gotcha. Mark’s being hyper-protective but very sweet.”
Christian laughed. “Pretty much, yeah.”
A moderate amount of chaos followed, while Christian and Eric retrieved their own and added the two new numbers to memory, and showed the two women some of the features of the phones—that style had been working well for him and Chris for over a year, it made sense to stick with it. Mark took the dishrag and the broom and dustpan, and retreated to the relative quiet of the dining room to finish cleaning up. All the excitement and laughter in the kitchen were oddly satisfying, though.
Val and Sara were as safe as he could make them. But he didn't think that was the whole cause of this feeling.
“Just to give you fair warning,” Christian said, as the players got settled with books and character sheets and dice. “No game next regular game night. Dana already warned me that she'll be away with Will for the holidays, and Mark and Eric and I will be spending that Monday night getting ready to go to Eric's grandmother's for a few days. The next regular night would be January third, is that good?”
Mark didn't pay a great deal of attention; it mattered little to him, one way or another. He enjoyed these nights, both for the game itself and for the casual social interaction with the same people each week—a new experience, to see humans as something other than prey or entertainment.
“Assuming that an airplane doesn’t fall out of the sky onto your house at midnight on New Year’s,” Isaac joked. “Or the bank computers all fail and by the third we’re in the middle of a riot because the economy has just instantly collapsed.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Nothing’s going to happen. Other than a lot of people who have been paid a lot of money to do not very much other than reassure people that everything’s fine having to actually work for a living again.”
“If you say so,” Dana said. “You know what you’re talking about better than the people I deal with at work who are leaning towards resigned catastrophism. Or, in some cases, this kind of warped sadistic glee that we’re all going to die because of computers and somehow we deserve it. One of my co-workers has been hoarding canned food, toilet paper, and cash for months.”
“They’re going to feel a bit silly mid-day on the first when life goes on as usual. I just hope they aren’t one of the people taking out loans recklessly in the belief that the banks will lose all record of it and they’ll never have to pay it back.”
“I don’t think they are. It’s not impossible.”
“Is there any chance we could switch to a different game night?” Sara asked tentatively. “I've got an eight-thirty class Tuesday morning starting after Christmas, and I'd rather not have to choose being asleep in class or leaving early if we run late.”
“Weekends for Val and I mean Thursday and Friday evenings until nine which is no good, and Saturday 'til five which would be pushing it,” Christian mused. “Sunday we're done at four, though, whichever of us is on, or we could try Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Can't do Wednesday,” Dana said. “I have to work some of those.”
“Tuesday or Sunday, anyone? I'd prefer Tuesday, if possible, but that gives you a really long day, Sara, are you going to be okay?”
“Not a problem, I'm done classes at three-thirty that day and I can grab a nap if I need it. I'd much rather that than Monday, if everybody's okay with that?”
No one argued, but there were a lot of shrugs and agreeable nods.
“Okay, game's now moved to Tuesday nights instead, same time, same channel. Will the fourth work for getting back to playing? That’s almost a month but I think everyone’s pretty busy at this time of year so trying to arrange something in between would be hard.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Val said. “We’ll just appreciate it more when we get back.”
No one said anything to the contrary, so Christian nodded. “January fourth, then. Okay, where were we last time?” He flipped through some papers, though Mark knew he'd spent the last half-hour preparing. “You just accepted the hospitality of the nomads for the night. Nothing happened, you all slept well, and thanks to that tea their herbalist gave you, everyone's completely healed from that battle.”
“Thank you,” Eric said devoutly. “Now I might survive getting hit twice instead of just once.”
“Maybe if the fighter who was supposed to be guarding you had been paying attention,” Dana said, with a stern look at Sara.
“Hey, Isaac needed help,” Sara said. “I can't be in two places at once.”
“Yeah, we all know Eric's wizard may have awesome magic, but he takes damage if you spit at him,” Mark teased.
“I would not recommend it,” Eric said haughtily. “Where's that polymorph other spell... How would you like to spend the rest of your life as a leech?”
“Living on blood? Ew, disgusting.”
Mark saw Christian try not to laugh, but a smile escaped.
“We need supplies,” Val said. “Who's going to bargain with them? And what are we going to bargain with?”
As usual, Val brought everyone back to the matter at hand, and the six players debated how best to get the supplies they needed.
Much later, Isaac offered to walk Dana home.
Sara and Val lingered to help the three housemates clean up.
“We've got it,” Eric said. “We don't really need five pairs of hands.”
“So I like hanging around afterwards,” Val said. “Sue me.”
Christian grinned at her, and deposited an armload of empty glasses in the sink. “Nah, then you wouldn't come watch Sid for us while we're gone. And if I'm worrying about him, how'm I supposed to pay attention to important things like hearing first hand how Amber's doing?”
“She's with Avery, and he only had the one big fluffy feline of his until now,” Eric said. “The two of them have no competition for his attention except the restoration work he's doing on that big chunk of woodland and wetland. She's being spoiled hopelessly, I promise. He speaks feline, too, y'know, and he'll make sure of it.”
“You're sure you're okay with Sara and I just kind of moving in for a few days?” Val asked.
“Gods, yes,” Christian said. “Much more company for Sid that way.”
“This should be fun,” Sara laughed. “Val and I get a whole house to ourselves.”
“No wild parties,” Eric said, mock-sternly. “No fair having one while we aren't here to party, too.”
“Got it,” Val said.
Mark ignored the chatter and slipped away, off to his own room. It all amounted to, “You're welcome in my territory,” anyway. In the top drawer of his dresser were two boxes; he wasn't sure what had possessed him to use the decorative gift-boxes instead of plain cardboard, and suspected it wasn't because it was easy to remember: the evergreen trees for Val, the snowflakes for Sara.
Eric glanced up mid-motion, dumping the last of the munchies in the garbage; blond eyebrows rose when he saw the boxes. He only smiled, though, and finished what he was doing.
Mark handed each of the women the appropriate box. “Merry Christmas. Or Yule. Or solstice. Or whatever.”
Sara's expression of pure delight made Mark drop back half a step, uneasily; he wasn't used to reactions like that. Even Alexandra's prey wanted her, were pleased to have her, but didn't show such simple happiness. Val accepted hers with a warm smile that really didn't make him much more comfortable.
Sara had hers open in seconds, and pawed through the tissue paper until she found the small cell phone inside. Her eyes very wide, she looked from it to Mark, then to Val, who held up a matching one, and back to Mark again. In a couple of steps, she closed the distance and gave him an enthusiastic hug and a kiss on his cheek. Automatically, used to Chris' sudden hugs, he wrapped both arms around her and returned it tightly, before his mind even caught up with events.
“Thank you!”
He shrugged and released her. “You're safer this way. They've both got Chris' cell phone, mine, and Eric's in the memory, and you've got two hundred minutes a month paid for. Just in case.” And hopefully this is it with the damned cell phones. Monthly upkeep on five of them is going to mean an extra night at Kitty Corner every month. Possibly he should have done this before, but there'd been no significant threats in the interim other than the weird one who tried to trap Chris in the cat; the improbably-nasty goblin in Val's apartment was looking more likely to be just a random fluke, like the bogle. Everything had been amazingly quiet, in fact. Maybe the Fellowship had given up. That or they were distracted by the holidays.
Val gave him a hug, too, though it was a bit calmer. “Thanks. That's a very large gift to accept, though, it has to have cost you a huge amount. And it's an ongoing expense.”
“Don't worry about it. It's covered.”
She smiled. “And that's all the answer we're going to get?”
“For the moment.”
“Mmhmm. Didn't think we'd come to the end of the secrets yet. I won't ask.”
“Wait, what do you mean, safer?” Sara asked.
“In case of goblins or nuisance witches or anything else that makes you feel not safe,” Christian said. “Or calling a taxi if you’re out late and alone. Or whatever.”
“Gotcha. Mark’s being hyper-protective but very sweet.”
Christian laughed. “Pretty much, yeah.”
A moderate amount of chaos followed, while Christian and Eric retrieved their own and added the two new numbers to memory, and showed the two women some of the features of the phones—that style had been working well for him and Chris for over a year, it made sense to stick with it. Mark took the dishrag and the broom and dustpan, and retreated to the relative quiet of the dining room to finish cleaning up. All the excitement and laughter in the kitchen were oddly satisfying, though.
Val and Sara were as safe as he could make them. But he didn't think that was the whole cause of this feeling.
