Disclaimer: he following is a work of fan fiction which has neither been solicited nor endorsed by anyone involved with the web series known as "The Guild". I make no claim of ownership over the characters or situation presented in this story and I am not receiving any kind of payment for this short fanwork.


Contemplation

After the scene at Codex's apartment, Fawkes took a long walk to clear his head. To say that it hadn't gone as planned was at best an understatement.

He knew Codex. She was such a big neurotic cute mess of a person who had forgiven the rest of her guild for a lot of ridiculous behaviour in the last few weeks. Surely she could forgive him for simply being true to his own self! And besides, showing up in his freshly-pressed kilt and the jacket that he'd left behind after their night together, bearing a somewhat ragged clump of pretty vegetation in his hand (he'd "obtained these from an obliging field," as he'd heard someone say in a movie once) should have increased his Cuteness stats to near irresistibility, shouldn't it? At the very least, he'd expected a token amount of grouching before she finally threw herself back into his waiting arms for another one-night stand before an amiable parting and vague promise to see each other again sometime.

He would probably even have considered actually following through for a change.

But it had hurt when she'd called him a total toolbag, even if he had to admit that it was true. It wasn't like she didn't already know he was a jerk! And anyway, wasn't that just part of the whole irresistible bad-boy package? She couldn't possibly have expected him to change just because she'd beaten him in combat, met him for drinks afterward and had taken him home for some pretty amazing sex, could she? He knew that she could be a bit soppy sometimes—OK, all the time—but to expect him to change a system that worked so well for him was just ridiculous.

Still, if he had to be totally honest, he had to admit that she was really starting to grow on him. In fact, as much as it surprised him to admit it, he still wanted her. This never happened with his one-night stands. (He totally refused to think about that one time he'd slept with Venom. That night had fuelled his fantasies for quite some time afterward, but her reaction when he'd suggested that he wouldn't mind doing it again had been less than favourable. He'd had to go to the hospital to have his cellphone removed from where she'd put it, and it had been rendered totally unusable during the extraction, damn it.) In spite of everything, he and Codex had been good together during his night with her and he'd even enjoyed roleplaying himself as her excessively affectionate boyfriend on the night of Zaboo's mother's birthday. Clearly he was going to have to do something to get back on her good side.

He was starting to think that maybe he hadn't quite sampled everything that this totally weird and strangely enchanting woman had to offer, and that would never do.


Author's Notes: The "obliging field" quote comes from the 1995 film version of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. When Mr. Willoughby brings Marianne Dashwood a bouquet of flowers the day after she sprains her ankle, she delightedly remarks that they didn't come from a hothouse, and he replies, "I'm afraid I obtained these from an obliging field." I know that it's a bit out of character for Fawkes to not remember who he's quoting, but then, he's visibly upset at the end of this latest confrontation with Codex, and it's fairly reasonable to think that he might be concentrating more on "what the hell am I doing?" than "who said this first?" right afterwards.