My first published fanfic in probably a decade, and it's MMO porn. Figures.
There is a lot of MMO jargon here. Too much, really, enough that I'm not going to list every single one. I'm sorry for that. I wish I could give you a site for MMO terms, but seems to not like URLs. Please search for "mmoglossary" on Google instead. Sorry!
Massive thanks to my lovely beta arborgoldwine for helping me out!
Rated for mild language and sexual content.
Adrenaline pumps in his veins with every thrust of his trident. He puts all his energy into each stab, spinning in and out of danger, a dance all his own, never faltering. His enemy is tough, armed with a sword, matching his every move, lunging when he sees an opening. The blade nicks his arm. He curses and delivers a counter jab, which connects, unleashing a fresh stream of blood.
They've been in this battle for ages already, it seems, neither willing to bow to the other, but the fight is taking a toll on their endurance, and he knows he can outlast the other.
His opponent charges at him, sword raised, but he deftly evades by pivoting on his heel. He sweeps out in a graceful arc, stabs outward in quick succession and knocks the other man flat on his back. He doesn't waste a moment. One more downward plunge of his polearm is all it takes for his opponent to fall still. He stands triumphant over the body, sweat dripping from the lip of his assured grin, and he just barely registers a deep voice announcing the Rebel faction is victorious.
"And that is game!"
The chats flood with praise, a cacophony of internet jargon, memes, and emojis that goes by way too quickly to reasonably be read. He leans back in his cushy chair, laces his fingers behind his head, and rides the waves of his death match victory.
He's Finnick Odair, one of the most subscribed gaming streamers on the internet, known for his skill and prowess in competitive PvP. They know him by name, and they shout it out loud. He's been around the scene since he was fourteen, using a screenname from a love of knot-tying he'd developed during his time in the Boy Scouts – which just stuck, cultivating over three-million followers with his ambition and renown in the competitive world.
It doesn't hurt that he isn't bad on the eyes to boot.
"All right, you beautiful crowd, I've been streaming for the past three hours, and I'm off to get my grub on. Please consider subscribing if you like what you've seen and have some change to spare, you'll get some really cool chat badges to show off to all your jealous friends, and you'll be able to participate in some special subscribers-only streams I do in the future. Love you guys, and I'll see you around the same time tomorrow!"
Scylle: Hey!
Scylle: Good stream today.
Hey Its Knotts: thanks, dude!
Scylle: Do you have time to show me some more Paladin builds tomorrow?
Scylle: ?
Scylle: You there?
Hey Its Knotts: sorry, girlfriend aggro
Scylle: Haha, it's okay, I know how that is.
Hey Its Knotts: yea i can do that
Hey Its Knotts: around 8 cool?
Scylle: Yeah, that'll work, thanks.
Scylle is one of his oldest followers. He can't say for how long, but he can say it's been long enough that he's made him one of his Twitch channel moderators.
Scylle doesn't have a streaming channel, or a Twitter, or anything else, as far as he knows. He's never asked before. Internet friends are nice in that you can commit just one aspect of your life with them (even though, admittedly, his internet life is a pretty big part of him and technically his livelihood) and they won't question it. No clinging. No nagging for intimacy.
(Sure, he's gotten plenty of girls messaging him for some private webcam time or sending photos of their tits before, but that's not really the same.)
And when the time comes to drift away from each other, as comes naturally with anything on the internet, there's no baggage to worry about. It's simple. It's easy. It's hassle-free.
But Scylle is still a good guy, one he keeps around to help murder pixels on a screen. He has a female avatar, with blue hair and some of the more sensible armor compared to the numerous battle bikini varieties, and even though his own avatar is a male, he can't exactly argue with the logic of "If I'm going to look at somebody's ass all day when I play, it might as well be a chick's."
Sometimes, like today, Scylle requests some guidance in his latest fancy, Panem Online. Finnick is one of the best rated Paladins in the world, so these sessions are nothing short of a privilege. Scylle is bright-eyed and eager to learn, but decidedly average at the mechanics of the class. They're friends, but not like real friends.
It's like looking after a golden retriever.
To The Victors is one of the most infamous Rebel-faction PvP guilds in Panem Online, and Finnick has been a member for two years. Led by Dethbomb, their team captain and a seasoned PvP competitor, the guild boasts one of the highest ranks in the league and invites only the best rated, most promising players in the game. At least, that's what he advertises, but looking at the roster, it's difficult to refute.
Except tonight, they're in the middle of one of their most embarrassingly terrible matches to date. Their Assassin, Shy-Knee, keeps running off on his own, getting into fights he can't win and he's overwhelmed by the more organized opponent team. It's a massive train wreck that snowballs against them, and they lose the match by a good two-hundred points.
Deth is pissed, and nobody tries to stop him while he screams profanities over comms.
"How many fucking deaths did you have that match?! I've never seen a shittier match before."
Shy-Knee just screams back at him, "I'm fuckin' glass. I'm not gonna stand there and tank all the damage."
"That's what Yeast is for, and Knotts does support, if you would ever stick close enough to them so they can buff you. We're a team, you're not a one-man show."
"Well maybe I should be."
Shy-Knee makes good on his threat. The next day, he leaves the guild.
Ettu groans. "Great fucking job messing up our team comp, Deth."
"Shut the fuck up. We'll just find another Assassin. They're a goddamn hot commodity, take one step and you'll see one," Deth replies.
"They may be meta, but that doesn't mean the players know how to play their class. Do you know any?"
"We'll find somebody, okay?"
Finnick isn't happy with the turnabout either. Shy-Knee is an ass, but this is a terrible time to lose somebody on the team. "It's only a few months until the tourney, and we have to turn in our roster in advance. We don't even have a sub because you're so picky."
Deth insists, again, that they'll find somebody.
There has to be somebody out there worth their time.
"Hey, it's Knotts. Hope you guys are having a better Wednesday than me. I'm probably gonna be doing some solo match-ups in Panem today… Yeah, A_La_Rue, and for those of you who haven't heard yet, our Assassin ragequit on us. We are looking for a replacement, we didn't have a sub for him, hoping that'll happen sometime soon. The other guys on the team are gonna be asking around on their streams or whatever too, so— Sweet wounded Jesus, I've already gotten like a hundred messages.
"Okay, guys. Like, I love you all, and I am so grateful for your support, and I'd really like to answer each and every one of you, but I'm starting to think that won't be all that manageable. I'm really sorry for that, you guys can spank me later for being mean. So please, only message me or Deth or anybody else on the team if you're really serious.
"So that's out of the way, I'll repeat the message later for our latecomers, let's get into the solo queue here."
Scylle: Hey.
Hey Its Knotts: hey.
Hey Its Knotts: sorry for taking so long, i got a shit ton of messages. wats up?
Scylle: That's okay.
Scylle: That thing you said about your PvP team.
Scylle: Do you think I could try? My Assassin is my main toon.
Hey Its Knotts: well
Hey Its Knotts: i dont see why not
Hey Its Knotts: lemme talk with the team real quick
Hey Its Knotts: theyre ok with doing some matches with you rite now
Hey Its Knotts: youll have to get into our teamspeak tho
Hey Its Knotts: that ok?
Hey Its Knotts: we dont play without comms
Scylle: Sure. Info?
Everybody else on the team has gathered on their TeamSpeak, waiting to start the match with a guy they know nothing about. It took some talking on his part to get them here. Deth wasn't able to find a "Scylle" on the daily leaderboards when he delivered the message that his long-time mod wanted to try out for the team, so he's dubious at best.
They're in the middle of discussing their build set-ups when the little chirping noise in his headset indicates Scylle has managed to log into their channel.
Finnick is the first to greet him. "Hey, Sill. Am I pronouncing that right, or is it Skill?"
"It's Sill-a. Hey, Knotts."
The voice is even, melodic, and distinctly not male.
He blinks, surprised, wonders if he accidentally contacted the wrong person. He checks the logs, but no, this is definitely Scylle. "I, uh." He stumbles over his words, has to swallow to find them again. "Dude. You never told me you were a chick."
She's quiet for a beat. "Huh. That's weird. What mode are we playing?"
They dive right in while he's still trying to shake off his surprise. She plays too defensively at first, sticking too close to the team, hesitating to make her own calls, not jumping at certain opportunities, until Deth yells "Just get the fuck in there!" But she catches on quick. She handles her Assassin far better than she does her Paladin. They win most of their match-ups because she's good at team fights, dashing in quickly to burst somebody down and let them drop before dashing back out.
"She's okay. Not the best I've seen," Deth says after all the matches.
Finnick snorts. "It was her first day. She's not used to the way we make calls." He feels the need to defend her, if only to save face when it comes to his judgment.
"She's certainly not bad on the ears," Ettu says and Deth murmurs his assent.
It's probably not the right thing to be talking about, but Finnick doesn't say anything of it. Luckily Yeast jumps in to steer the conversation back. "Quit thinking with your dicks, it's not cool. I think it's nice to finally have an Assassin stick close when they're low on health instead of me having to chase them everywhere. And that offensive play she did for that base capture was what turned that last match in our favor. I think we should give her a chance."
Deth makes a gravelly sound in the back of his throat. "Fine. We'll keep her in mind. But if we find somebody better, she's out."
Finnick rolls his eyes, murmurs, "That's the idea." He knows how desperate they are, they all do, and Deth's temper will scare away anybody too weak to handle the task.
They try playing with some other players that message them for the next few days. Some are very good, but they piss Deth off. Some are not-so-good, and they piss Deth off even more. It seems finding their new teammate hinges on whether or not Deth can stand to talk to them for more than five seconds at a time. After Shy-Knee, he can't really blame him, but they're here to make a shit ton of cash, not friends. Although a friendly face couldn't hurt.
The next week, Scylle is invited to the guild.
The following weeks are rigorous. Deth puts Scylle through the wringer, trying to get her up to his standards as fast as possible. He's not satisfied until her win ratio is high on the leaderboards, and she has to maintain it to keep him from chewing her ass out. It's a lot of duels, a lot of duo queues to get her to learn the rhythm of everybody on the team without them needing to make the verbal calls. Off-handedly Finnick remarks how much better she is on her Assassin than her Paladin. She waves it off.
"I guess I'm better at killing people than saving them."
Deth's aggressive callings do not falter even after she's found the synergy she can bring to the team. Scylle takes all his directions in stride, but she never cowers. This serves Deth just fine.
He's starting to believe he was silly for ever thinking the person behind the blue-haired avatar was a guy, but she never gave him reason to believe otherwise, did she? He wracks his brain for sign he might have missed, but he can't come up with anything.
In the end, it doesn't matter. Nothing changes. They're still sort-of-friends, and they're not going to fall in love or anything. This is the internet, and if it happens, it'd only be some cheapened online fantasy. And this kind of shit never happens in real life, so if real life isn't like that, then the internet sure as hell isn't either.
"Well if there's one thing I like about Scylle, it's that there's no more drama," Deth concedes. "You'd think that Shy-Knee was the girl between the two of them."
They all laugh, making some jokes about tampons, but that dies away quickly, because it's not as funny when the guy they're dissing isn't even there to hear it, and otherwise it's just awkward.
"So you and Scylle," Yeast says while they're playing some random match-ups together, since Deth and Ettu are having dinner, and he's not sure where Scylle is.
"Hm."
"Like you've been friends for a while? I need help over here."
"Got it." He jumps in to defend the Priest from two other players. "Yeah. No. Sorta, I guess."
"What." Yeast sounds bewildered.
"She's one of the mods for my channel, but I didn't know she was a chick the whole time. Shit, sorry, Yeast." He has to disengage from the fight when they get overwhelmed, leaving Yeast behind.
"It's okay. So?"
"Like, I don't care if she's a dude or a chick. It's just when you know somebody for so long, you have this picture in your head about them, you know?" Because they were friends, but not really. Because he—she—did her job as his mod and kept people from getting nasty in his channel. Because he knew her as a passable Paladin and now she's not even that anymore. He wants to laugh, because in his head, she was just a golden retriever, so learning anything different was bound to be a surprise.
"Well, it's not like you know what she looks like then, right? If you thought she was a guy this whole time."
"Yeah. Nothing changes."
Eventually, Scylle asks him to help her set up her own stream. Finnick has the most successful streaming channel on the team, so he's the best choice to help out.
He mentors her on what programs and settings are best, what capture card to use, tips to keep from dropping frames. She notates everything carefully, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It's like their golden retriever days again.
He watches while she finally gets her camera working, and he sees what she looks like for the first time.
She's attractive enough, if he had to say. There's nothing immediately striking about her. She has mousey brown hair, green eyes. She's not wearing any make-up, the lighting in her room is washing her out, and from what he can tell, she's probably not all that busty, but the camera is positioned in such a way that he can't see her chest. It's probably strategic. Or not strategic enough.
He doesn't tell her any of that. What matters is whether her camera and footage works, if her microphone is loud enough, if she needs to mess with her bitrate to keep from dropping frames.
He spots a nautical poster in the background, along with a bookshelf of some novels, manga, games, and small knick-knacks. Again, he's struck by how he could have possibly mistaken Scylle for a guy all these years.
He looks behind him and studies his own bookshelf of games and anime and his surfing posters pinned on the walls.
Really, nothing changes.
"Hey, it's Knotts! Hope you guys are having a fuckin' awesome Friday. Like the title says, I'm gonna be doing some Sunset Overdrive multiplayer today with one of my mods, Scylle. Just gonna wait for her to get all set up here… Uhhh, yes, LtBoggs13, I will be finishing my Wolf Among Us file sometime, probably not today… So, if you guys haven't been keeping up, Scylle's the newest addition to our Panem Online team after the ragequit a while ago, she'll be part of the roster for the Quarter Quell tourney… Yes, MJLova, Scylle's a girl, I had no idea. MJLova is another one of my mods, guys, say hi—"
"—Okay I think I'm all set."
"All good?"
"Yeah, send me an invite. Hey, everybody on Knott's stream."
"Okay, so we're just gonna get started here... Scylle's also got her own channel, so you guys should totally follow that, I think she streams every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday…?"
"—Yeah. Maybe random days."
"—Yeah, so, go check it out, that's S-C-Y-L-L-E, you guys can check out the title to make sure you spell it right. Don't go now because I need the view counts more—"
"—Hey!"
"Here we go! Let's kill some soda zombie bitcheeessss…"
They've already added each other on Xbox Live, Playstation Network, and Steam. It helps both of their images – hers certainly more than his, but the audience loves interaction streams. She becomes a regular guest on his channel, which is really not much different from being a regular mod, he thinks, at least in terms of the time commitment. She's on his stream as much as she's always been, only he's talking to her instead of typing now.
Finnick is better at first person shooters, but Scylle wastes his ass at fighting games. He thinks, no wonder she plays an Assassin, because she's a monster at chaining those combos faster than he can say uncle. He pretends he's having a bad day in response to all the heckling he gets from the chat when she beats him in Smash Brothers four times in a row. They're about evenly matched in racing games. She thinks the sports games he plays are dumb.
They make new toons in Panem Online together for the hell of it. He makes an Assassin and Scylle makes a Priest. She spends a lot of time screaming at him to stop running into mobs of four mutts because she can't heal him that fast. If anything, this will give her a newfound appreciation of Yeast's responsibilities.
"Where do you want to level now?" she asks. "The Sewers?"
"Fuck no. Those lizard motherfuckers will eat me alive."
He watches her stream on a Tuesday. She looks better with the eyeliner.
There's no question that they'll be competing in the upcoming Quarter Quell Championship Tournament, despite the recent addition to their team. They only made it as far as the semi-finals for the North American regionals last year, but Deth's gunning for this year's $250,000 prize pool.
Finnick learns Scylle's real name when they're signing up their team roster. Annie Cresta.
(He remembers how he lost his shit laughing when he first learned Deth's real name is "Gale.")
Out of curiosity, he searches her name on Google. She has a Facebook and LinkedIn account, both set to private. She also has a Twitter account, under her online handle. There are other search matches, but he ignores them. He finds it'd be too awkward to try to friend her on Facebook – they're not that good of friends – but he adds her on Twitter, and they help promote each other's streams.
One day, he calls her by Annie over comms while they're doing some practice duels together and she politely tells him to shove it up his ass. When he asks if she means he should shove her up his ass, she responds by setting up a stun-snare-switch-burst combo that knocks his Paladin down from half health to no health in less than six seconds.
He calls her Annie from time to time, mostly by accident. He has to watch himself so he doesn't say it while streaming. Despite her initial aggression, she doesn't seem to mind entirely, although she confides in him that she's a bit worried her silly online activities may bite her in the ass one day whenever she dives into her career. He's not really sure what that means, because he knows her dream is to be a host for a video game based news program one day.
She never calls him Finnick.
"Hey, it's Knotts. So. Based on your votes on my poll from last week, I will be playing some Amnesia: The Dark Descent today. Scylle's here on TeamSpeak for, uh, moral support."
"What's up, guys!"
"… Just gimme a minute here guys. CatoGuy, no, I do not like horror games. Horror anything. Like blood, gore, zombies, aliens, decapitations, all that shit I can handle. But I don't like shit popping up in my face and screaming at me."
"Which pretty much means this is a must-see stream."
"Screw you."
...
...
... ...
...
...
"Ah… ah… aaahhh…"
"Vaguely erotic noises there, Knotts…"
"Shut up, shut up, aahhh I'm getting outta here. I'm getting out, I'm getting out, I'm ge—AH shit shit shit fuck shit oh no, oh no ohnoohno. Scary noises scary noises gotta get out gotta leave leave what the fuck is this what the fuck is that."
"I don't know about you guys, but this is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life."
"Not going in there, I'm leaving. I'm leaving. Nope nope nope all aboard the nope train to fuckthatville."
"Knotts, look behind you."
"No, fuck you. No. No, no, nonono, fuck you, fuck you. Getting out getting out out out AH FUCK. RUN RUNRUNRUNRUN."
"Turn around! Turn around!"
"FUCK YOU, FUCK—dead end, ah, dead end, okay I can't go— okay I'm doing it and I'm closing my eyes. I'm turning around. Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck, scary noises, scary noises, AH… There's nothing there. There's no— OH JESUS CHRIST—"
"HAHAHAHA—"
"—CHRIST ALMIGHTY. FUCK FUCK COCK FUCK FUCK I hate you, I hate you, I hate youhateyouhateyou so much. You asshole, you bag of dicks, you, you—"
"—HAHAHA—"
He can't even sleep that night. It's 3 o'clock in the morning, and he gets up from bed and turns on his computer, which is what he always does when he can't sleep. He has a new unread message awaiting him.
Scylle: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs next stream?
Finnick scowls when he types back his reply.
Hey Its Knotts: theres a special place in hell for you
When he checks back again later, she's replied with a link to a cat meme that says 'I a-PAW-logize.'
He watches her stream on a Wednesday, and even though he's still pissed about the Amnesia episode, he thinks the way she crinkles her nose when she laughs is kind of cute.
They win North American regionals of the tournament. It's a decisive victory, a two-to-nothing match in their favor.
The shout casters interview them right after the match.
Deth says his whole family is cheering in the background at his win. They can all hear his brothers cheering and the high-pitched screams of his little sister. Yeast gives a shout out to his girlfriend Catnip or something, and Ettu says hi to his wife.
Scylle shouts, "I wanna say thanks to Ron and my Grandma Mags, for all their support, I love you guys!"
Finnick only gives a shout out to his stream followers as a whole.
The next night, Scylle comes home and logs onto TeamSpeak absolutely sloshed and demands to have a karaoke night. At first, Finnick and the guys are just laughing at her drunkenly singing song after song, lots of Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus, but eventually he and Ettu are singing the "Guy Love" duet from Scrubs loud and off-key. She even manages to get surly, brooding Deth to belt out a couple Bon Jovi songs. Yeast deflects from singing at all, saying his girlfriend is the musically-inclined one, not him, but he cheers on supportively.
Once he finishes up a rousing rendition of "Don't Stop Believing," Finnick tells everybody he needs to use the bathroom real quick.
When he sits back down in his chair and puts his headset back on, Scylle is in the middle of singing Lana Del Rey's "Off to the Races." He thinks she'd sound beautiful, if she weren't too drunk to remember half the words. She troops on though, humming over the places she forgets. She can pull off the smoky, jazzy act. His musings are confirmed when she segues into an Ellie Goulding song he can't remember the name of. She must have taken over the karaoke, or the guys have gotten tired of singing, because she's singing back to back to back.
"And it won't stop here, echo in my ear. There's a raging fire, and it burns so near. But I'm ready now, but I'm ready now."
He's not entirely sure what he's doing when he increases the volume on her line and lowers the volume for everybody else, lets her silky tone hit him like a crashing wave. It's strangely intimate how she sings, as if she were a jazz singer in a little dive of a bar, serenading only him.
That's when he feels a familiar stirring in his groin.
He turns wide eyes to stare, almost horrified at how his body is responding to her voice. It's not that he's never thought of her that way. He always did consider her good-looking. But he never tried anything while watching her stream; when the thought had crossed his mind, it seemed so sleazy. He can't imagine her looking at him with hooded bedroom eyes, can't imagine her hair swept away sensually, nor a sexy pout on her lips.
But he's not watching her on a screen. He's listening to her sing, voice like a Siren, wrapping all around him, filling his head, breathy in his ear like it's the only thing keeping him grounded.
"It's a ritual, and I know you feel it. It's a ritual, and I know you see it."
Nervously, Finnick looks back to his computer screen, checks that his mic is muted, then palms his hardening dick. He jacks off to the sound of her singing, a quick and desperate act while her voice surrounds him. He groans into completion.
There's a stiffness in his joints that keeps him from cleaning himself up immediately, leaves him slumped in his chair. He should be shaking this off, because the internet is simple and easy and hassle-free, but all he can feel is ashamed.
"We lose it all. Oh, we lose it all."
They don't speak to each other for two days. That works out for the two of them, because Annie has to study for an online midterm, so she doesn't notice anything strange. The next time they communicate, it's for a match-up for the official Panem Online PVP league that has nothing to do with the tournament.
He and Scylle are on a node defending the point from one other player on the opposing team when Deth makes a call.
"Scylle, disengage and help me over here at far base."
"What? I can't, they're trying to capture our node."
"You just killed their Knight. Knotts can handle the point on his own."
"He's going to rally! He's gonna come back to the base, they're not just gonna leave it!"
"Just fucking do what I say and get over here!"
She does what she's told, disengages from the fight and heads over to where Deth is on the opposite side of the map. Finnick can hold himself off against the guy they were just fighting, but eventually two more of his teammates seize the opportunity once they see Scylle has rotated off, and even he can't handle a three versus one. They lose the base and can't recapture it. It's a gap they can't recover from. They lose the match by a considerable margin.
He hates losing.
It's not the first time they've all argued over a terrible match before, even excluding the final match with Shy-Knee, but Scylle speaks first. "That wasn't the right call, Deth."
"What the fuck did you say to me?"
"We overextended and it cost us the match. It's just like I said, I was trying to tell you—"
"Who the hell asked you? I don't hear you making any calls, you just fucking sit there and let everything come to you."
"I—No. What the hell? We could have held it up. You don't think big enough! You were careless, and that's it!"
"Guys, come on. It wasn't even for the tourney," Yeast pipes up.
"No, if she'd just done what I said without wasting time, we would have been fine! I'm busting my ass holding this team together and she's just gonna come in and act like she owns the damn place?"
"I'm still here. Quit talking like I'm not, and I wasn't acting like that at all! If you had listened to me, I could have defended the base with Knotts and we wouldn't have to waste so much time trying to recapture it!"
"I'm the goddamn team captain! I'm not gonna listen to some fucking newcomer bitch nag at me like she knows what's best."
She's silent for a long while before she replies coldly, "That wasn't the right call, now get over yourself, and we can move on."
It's not the right thing to say. Deth shouts more profanities and logs for the night. Scylle murmurs a tight "Sorry, guys," and follows soon after.
Ettu says what they're all thinking.
"We don't even have a fucking sub."
When Finnick logs on the next day, he expects to see a message that Deth's kicked Scylle from the guild, or Scylle's left of her own volition before he has the chance, but Finnick sees neither. He checks TeamSpeak to see what's going on, and Yeast is the only one in the channel.
"Did you talk to them?" Finnick asks before even properly greeting him.
"No. Ettu did."
"What the fuck?" Yeast is always the peacekeeper of their guild, quelling any and all arguments from the hot-headed guys on the team (save for the fallout with Shy-Knee). He can't imagine how Ettu, who he swears couldn't think his way out of a paper bag, could possibly help this situation.
"Yeah, said they both needed to stop being angry because we still have a tourney to win in a few weeks, told them they could decide which was more important: the chance at two-hundred grand, or acting like kids."
Now he sees why Ettu was the one to speak to them instead of Yeast. It's that blunt, head-butt-anything-in-my-way logic that knocks down the brick wall of stubbornness around Deth, and Scylle too apparently.
"Are things going to be okay?" he asks.
"You know Deth. He says things he can't take back. If it makes you feel any better, the two apologized to each other."
It'll have to do for now.
"What's your favorite color?" she says. She's hanging out in his channel because she doesn't want to be in the main one.
"What's the huh?" He's caught off guard. It's the first thing she's said to him since karaoke. (Calls during scrims don't really count.)
"Your favorite color," she repeats.
He blinks. "Blue. Why?"
She sends an Imgur link, and when he clicks on it, it's a blue square icon, with the words 'Hi, my name is Knotts, and I hate Amnesia.'
"I made you an icon for your stream."
"You crazy asshole," he breathes, but Annie laughs and laughs and laughs.
He watches her stream on a Saturday. She has a stray lock of hair dangling in front of her face and he's itching to reach through the screen and tuck it behind her ear.
They're flown out to Anaheim for the grand finals of the Quarter Quell Championship Tournament. It's not the first time he's met Deth, Yeast, and Ettu in person, but it'll be the first time meeting Scylle outside of a monitor.
He's the first to arrive at the hotel; he flew in from San Francisco, so the flight was only a little under two hours. He waits in the lobby where they're supposed to meet, flips through his phone, makes some tweets.
Finnick spots her almost immediately, this petite brunette walking through the wide doorway with her green stitched travel luggage trailing behind her. She's wearing skinny jeans and a cardigan over a Kirby print t-shirt, and her red ballet flats match her red headband. Scylle sees him too and smiles brightly. He thinks maybe it'd be more appropriate to shake her hand for their first meeting, so he politely holds out his hand, but she pushes it aside and throws her arms around him and he's all too happy to reciprocate.
"Hi! Hello," she says, pulling away but not completely.
"Hello," he mimics with a dimpled smile.
Petite is an understatement. He realizes that Annie barely reaches his shoulders. Up close, he can see the smattering of freckles across her nose he never noticed through the monitor. In fact, the monitor hadn't conveyed a lot of things correctly. Her eyes are brighter and greener, her complexion rosier, her wavy hair a bit more bedraggled than he would have imagined, despite the headband's attempts at keeping it in place. He thinks to suggest a better webcam for her one day, but then decides against it; surely a bunch of pixels on a screen could never compare to the real thing.
He doesn't tell her that.
"You're a lot shorter than I thought."
"You're a lot tanner than I thought." Scylle pokes him in the ribs. "You know. For a video game shut-in. Yeast!" She extricates herself from his arms and rushes towards the blonde who's just walked in behind him. Yeast isn't as hesitant as Finnick had been, opening his arms wide when she flings herself at him. "My favorite Priest in the whole world!"
Something tightens in his chest at the sight, which he tries to duly ignore in favor of teasing the two. "Yeah, because he keeps you alive," he says with a smirk. Annie steps away and he and Yeast thump each other on the back.
Annie beams up at them. "Treat your healers like a god and they'll treat you like royalty in return."
Ettu meets up with them shortly, this towering giant to Annie's nymph, and Deth arrives last, bitching about some complication with his luggage at the airport. Annie hugs both of them too, but the hug she gives Deth is far quicker, far stiffer than the rest of theirs had been.
Once all the rooms are squared again, they do a few scrims in Deth's hotel room. He studies the way she concentrates when she's not looking at him. She never streams her Panem Online activities for some reason so this is a new sight. She pokes her tongue out between her teeth and scrunches her brow, fingers dancing over the keyboard with a practiced precision. She's sort of adorable when she's trying to murder people.
Their match isn't until the second day of the convention, so they're out on the floor, meeting and greeting with fans. They're given t-shirts with their in-game names printed on the back from the event coordinators. Deth and Ettu are flanked on both sides by excited teenagers wanting to hear tips and strategies about the game. A few con-goers are curious to speak to newcomer Scylle, and Yeast is taking a selfie with a father and his eight year-old son.
Finnick is in the middle of talking to a group of stream followers and signing some stuff they've brought. Behind him, he hears somebody say, "Four dudes and one chick on a team? That never happens. Like, how many cocks did she have to suck to make it to championships?"
He sees red.
He feels about ready to spin around and clock the guy in the jaw, but a black blur is faster than he is, shoving the guy away. When he turns around and focuses, he sees the black blur was Deth.
"Hey! Don't you fucking talk about my teammate like that, you piece of shit."
Deth takes another step towards the guy, but both Finnick and Yeast grab him by the arms, physically keeping him from throttling the con-goer, and Annie watches on with a concerned look. Deth is struggling in their arms, trying to get at the guy, so he has to shout, "Deth, stop! Not worth it to get kicked out and disqualified over an asshole like him." The fight in Deth rapidly diminishes at that.
Ettu comes over and places a hand against Deth's chest, even though he's already stopped struggling, and he looks over at the guy that insulted Annie in all his six-foot-five glory. The guy visibly pales, mutters something and walks off with his buddy.
One of the event coordinators, Effie Trinket, comes up to them, lips pursed. "Is there a problem here, gentlemen?"
Yeast shakes his head. "No, ma'am. Everything's fine here."
Effie looks dubious, but nods once and walks away. Even though she doesn't say anything, Finnick can tell that she means this is their first and only warning and they'll be closely monitored from now on. Wordlessly, he looks back to Deth, trying to read his expression.
Deth catches him staring. "What? We take care of our own."
The match is scheduled in the morning.
Neither teams are given time to warm up. They wait in the wings, doing what they can to keep the nerves down. He and the guys are seasoned, having been to at least one live tournament before, so they have their own calming rituals. He's not sure about Annie – he's never asked before – but she's looking jittery. He reaches over, gives her hand a squeeze. She looks up at him with wide eyes, but he drops her hand as quickly as he'd claimed it, just before they're called onstage.
It's a best of five match-up, with rotating maps and objectives.
They win the first match when it comes down to the timer, with only a hair's width difference in points. The second match is a loss – they overextend despite a good lead halfway through the match. But they make up for it by winning the third match. Deth manages an amazing play by juking his opponent off a point and claiming it that makes the crowd go wild.
The fourth match is a swing map. They all know the objectives on this map, and it'll involve them dividing into a 5-way split to stay in the game. They've practiced it in many, many times, but Scylle has had some bad nights depending on the class of her opponent. Yeast says he's done the math and they should all be fine, as long as they stay on their game.
The objective is not to kill on this map. Only to outlast the opponent.
Only to survive.
They split up to their nodes four minutes in. They're leading in points, but this is the lynchpin of the match. Ettu and Yeast have their points under control already. Annie is quiet. She's not communicating what's going on in her duel. He fears he may have to rotate out, and he knows he's not as fast as she is when it comes to mobility, but he can't see what's going on.
"Scylle, what's going on for your point?" Deth calls over comms.
She says nothing. Only the furious tapping of her keyboard indicates she's still working away in her duel.
"Scylle." Deth is growing impatient. This is not the time.
"Annie," Finnick calls. That seems to snap her out of it.
"I got it."
The points tick up, and they've won.
He and Annie jump up from their seats and tear off their headsets. He's not sure who did what first, but suddenly she's in his arms and he's lifting her off her feet and spinning her around.
"We did it! We won!" Annie squeals.
The guys are up and cheering too, but it barely registers in his head because he's just focusing on the sound of both of their laughter ringing in his ears.
All five of them stand on the stage with their medals, the trophy, and the cartoonishly-large check. The crowd is roaring and the shout casters are singing their praises, and all the while her smile is brighter than the lights.
They all agree to split the prize money evenly, no one person deserving more or less than another. They celebrate in one of the convention ballrooms, a private event organized by the event coordinators for the winning team, where they can talk to the developers, take some photos, and gorge themselves on complimentary cupcakes.
But they enjoy themselves much more when they ditch the ballroom and go grab some drinks at a restaurant across the street. It's not really a bar, but it serves beer, and that's good enough for them. Annie proves to be a bit of a lightweight with her drink; her face is as red as a cherry tomato. Deth, surprisingly, isn't doing much better. Nobody recognizes them, and that's okay. On that day, they're not Knotts, Scylle, Deth, Yeast, and Ettu. They're Finnick, Annie, Gale, Peeta, and Brutus.
Annie excuses herself to the bathroom. When she comes back, her expression is doleful, and he wonders if she'd gotten sick in the restroom. She tugs on Brutus's arm and tells him she's tired. He nods and says he'll escort her back to the hotel. They don't think much of it while they finish their drinks.
When they're all back at the hotel, he heads out of his room, padding barefoot on the carpet to get some ice. While he's walking back, he sees Annie come out of her own room. She doesn't see him and walks down the opposite end of the hall where a large window stretches along the whole wall. He jogs after her, grinning, because talking with Annie is always a good idea. "What's up, buttercup? Miss Quarter Quell Victor."
His pace slows when she turns to him and he can see her red, puffy eyes. "You okay?" he asks, brows knitted in concern. "What's wrong?" This isn't right. She just won the championships. She should be smiling and laughing and singing at the top of her lungs like their drunk-karaoke night. She shouldn't be crying. This isn't right. "Tell me."
She clamps her hands over her ears and screws her eyes shut, effectively shutting him out, and he doesn't know what else to say.
"Not today," she whispers. "Another day. Just… Not right now."
"Okay," he relents.
He settles down next to her. Even though she won't talk to him, he doesn't like the thought of leaving her here alone at night.
Annie remains silent, but she leans her head against his shoulder. It startles him a bit, but he lets her. She mumbles a few incoherent things under her breath, but every time he asks her to repeat what she just said, she doesn't respond.
Eventually she stands up, thanks him, and walks back to her room without another word. He's not sure what to make of it.
The ice is watery.
Gale and Peeta have to take a shuttle to LAX for their flights. Brutus drives off to visit some family while he's still in California.
He and Annie say their goodbyes at John Wayne Airport. His flight is earlier while she gets to hang out in the sports bar. The only indication of the previous night is a bit of stiffness in her smile, but otherwise, she's acting as though it never happened.
He's wishing the convention lasted longer than two days. Next year, they'll make it to the grand finals again, and they'll fly back to Anaheim, and he'll take her to Disneyland. They'll all have to go, unless something happens, but he'll take her.
Before he boards, he hugs her and makes her promise to text him as soon as she lands. It might be a dumb reason to get her number, but he'll take what he can.
The flight back is wholly uneventful. He's itching to speak to her again. While he's putting away all his clothes into his drawers, his phone buzzes.
(14:31) [Annie Cresta] Plane just landed. Will be home soon.
She must have fallen asleep or something, because she doesn't log on at all that night.
He's casually playing some Borderlands when the chirp in his headset tells him somebody has just signed on to TeamSpeak. He checks to see who it is and straightens up in his chair. "Hello," he breathes.
"Hello," Annie mimics.
"Flight go okay?"
There's a wryness in her voice. "Crashed and burned up. I'm here to haunt you."
He laughs shortly. Neither of them wants to talk about her flight.
"… You wanna tell me about what happened in Anaheim?" he asks tentatively.
When she's silent, he thinks she's going to deflect the question again, but Annie eventually sighs and says, "Yeah. I do. My old team captain was there, from another game where I played competitively. He seemed like a really nice guy, but he said some things that made me… uncomfortable. A lot. So I left the team, stopped playing competitively, and it ended up getting publicized. I got a bunch of messages from random people telling me how wrong I was to feel the way I did."
Finnick knows what else they've said, but neither of them mention anything about it.
He thinks back to the day he Googled her name, and the search results he ignored. "Why'd you come back, then? To the competitive scene?"
There is where she would shrug, if he could see it. "I'm better at killing people than saving them? No. I was done hiding. Even though I never really left. I was so tired of somebody else dictating what I should be doing. My team captain, he didn't tell me to disappear, but that's what people expected of me anyway. I was to blame, and that wasn't fair. Why should I have been the one to leave?"
He's done this for nearly ten years. He knows what it's like to be an internet celebrity, because when you're safe and cozy behind a monitor with no one to hold you accountable for your words, the monsters come out to play. Everything she's telling him is something he already knows, but hearing it happen to her is different, and he's suddenly livid at everything, livid at the people that hurt her, livid at stupid anonymity, and livid at himself for associating with it in some way.
"You want me to publicly out the guy on my channel?" he whispers, trying to calm the tightening in his chest.
She gives a small laugh. "Naw. That was a long time ago. Seeing him there, I just couldn't breathe for a moment. But, I think it was a good thing."
He frowns. "How so?" Annie was crying, and he will never be able to wrap his head around how that could possibly be a good thing.
"I know I'm gonna get a lot of shit, no matter what I do. I could be a saint, and I'll still get harassed. I know that." There's a smile in her voice. "But I've come so far, haven't I? I was this ghost girl that disappeared because of a rotten guy, and now I've just won a world championship. Like this whole time, I just thought, a clean slate would be best. But it's not. It's not a new start. It's the same story, and I never realized that it would only get better. I never realized that I could stick through with it, and I… I don't regret it at all. I've met good people. This is where I want to be."
Finnick is quiet for a moment before he replies. "I'm glad you're with us."
Her laughter rings through the comm like a tinkling bell. "Me too, Finnick."
He smiles.
To the victors belong the spoils.
Their routine is comfortable. It's easy to be happy around each other when they've just won over two-hundred grand.
Gale grants Annie her own private channel on TeamSpeak and she puts it to good use for her stream. Her followers have surged considerably since their tourney win.
Usually they don't stream at all and sometimes watch one of their mutually favorite streamers, Johanna Mason, together. They laugh over Mason's signature swearing and rage-filled gameplay, and Annie comments that Johanna Mason is one of her streaming personality idols. He tries to imagine little Annie stringing together colorful profanities like "cock flipping motherfucking ass wipe" and that makes him laugh harder.
They watch the same movies at the same time. She pushes him into watching Japanese horror movies, and he curls up and covers his eyes through half the film while she cackles. Finnick puts up with it because Annie always talks to him afterwards with soothing words.
He and Gale team up against her and Brutus to play some Call of Duty. It's entirely unfair because Gale was a competitive first-person shooter player for years and won three Counter Strike tournament cups for it. Brutus has only competed in MOBAs. She shrieks every time he kills her with a headshot, and Finnick has to convince her he isn't specifically hunting her down every game. (He is.)
Annie flips a lid when she finds out he's never played Portal 2 before, and then promptly gifts it to him over Steam so they can play co-op together. They spend the night streaming their gameplay, her directing where to place his portals, him trying to find all the various ways to get her killed whenever he can, all to the tune of some forty-thousand viewers watching their antics worldwide.
Peeta is one of the viewers and he comments in chat that they're like a bickering married couple, but it gets washed away in the flow of the chat, unnoticed by either of them. Finnick doesn't have to see it, because he's already thinking this feels like home.
He watches her stream on a Sunday.
(It's one of her random days.)
He doesn't care what anybody else thinks.
Annie is perfect.
It's the week before finals for her. All the other guys have already logged for the night. He and Annie are staying up late together; him because he has a terrible sleep schedule, her because she has a paper to finish. He can tell from the drawl in her voice that she's about to pass out at the keyboard.
He laughs into his headset. "Annie. Go to bed, idiot."
"I can't until I finish this paper. Some of us don't make a living streaming video games online."
"You just won fifty grand from a video game tournament. Does that not mean anything to you?"
"It means I'm going to invest that money to my future. I'm not just gonna sit on my ass and piss it all away. Just talk to me to keep me awake."
"Oh no, Miss Grumps. You're just gonna end up falling asleep to my dulcet tone. You do the talking."
Though he can't see her, he can practically feel her rolling her eyes when she huffs out, "Fine."
Annie rambles about anything that pops into her head – her dog, her part-time job, the cute purse she just mail ordered – sentences interspersed with yawns. He's drifting too, but not the same way she is.
He can just see the way she'd be sitting at her desk, the light of the monitor reflecting off her sea-green eyes, tongue poking out between her teeth while she concentrates. Her hair would be tied up in a messy bun, or possibly loose and unkempt around her shoulders. He would bring her a blanket, maybe a mug of tea, and she'd smile up at him. But eventually her yawns would be too frequent, so he'd gather her up in his arms, this tiny sweet thing, and tuck her into bed. Kiss her drooping eyelids, then her lips, feather-light. Join her underneath the covers, whisper loving words, and just hold her like she means the world.
He feels himself beginning to stiffen in his sweats.
He's not as startled as he'd been previously. In fact, he feels like he almost expected it, because the sleepy lilt in her voice is so reminiscent of her smoky Siren singing, but the visions that plague his mind are wholly different from the sensual feelings of before.
Finnick hesitates when he grips his waistband. He hasn't done this since karaoke night – not to the sound of her voice, that is (her live broadcasted voice). Reluctantly, he recalls the mixed feeling of shame and lust that welled within him. This is different somehow. Something has changed between the two of them – he knows it.
He's seen her. Finally seen her properly, and he feels stupid for not seeing it sooner. It should have happened in the hotel lobby, or on the tournament stage, or at the airport, anytime he had her in his arms, he should have kissed her, made her realize what she means to him. Even if real life doesn't work that way; it would have been right.
He wraps his hand around his cock, feels how it pulses beneath his fingers. She's still talking, and he closes his eyes just to listen to her for a bit, as if trying to memorize the sweet sound. Then he starts moving.
His breath quickens in time with the strokes of his hand. It feels good, if a bit hollow. Like seeing her on the screen. It's beautiful, and it's her, but it's not the real thing. And, God, he wants it, he wants the real thing. More than he can say, more than he can bear. He's just on the cusp; he's aching to remember the feel of her arms wrapped around him, the warmth of her breath, her small hand clasped in his own. Her name—her real name—tumbles from his lips like a prayer when he comes, spilling all over his hand.
It's only when he catches his breath and cleans himself off with a tissue that he notices the comm has been eerily quiet for the past few minutes. At first, he thinks, with mild amusement, she must have fallen asleep at the keyboard after all, and he mulls over the idea of waking her so that she can get into bed properly. Then he catches sight of the little green microphone symbol on his UI, the one that illustrates an open broadcasted mic line, and he realizes with steadily growing horror that the comms may be quiet for an entirely different reason.
His heart plummets. He can't speak, can't move, oh, but he can think. Think of all the ways she's sitting in disgust at what he's just done. He's so keenly aware of the rushing roar of his blood in his ears. Desperately, he wishes, hopes, prays she really has dozed off.
Not this silence. Anything but this silence.
"You asleep?" he probes quietly, fretfully.
"Um."
That's all she says, before the comm goes quiet again and she promptly disconnects from the channel. He drops his head into his hands.
Shit.
Thanks for reading! Comments/reviews are greatly appreciated.
And here is everybody's equivalent screen names, if you didn't already guess.
Finnick—Hey Its Knotts
Annie—Scylle
Gale—Dethbomb
Peeta—Yeastie Boy
Brutus—Ettu
Marvel—Shy-Knee
Johanna would totally be the female version of Michael Jones and have her own Rage Quit series if she were an online gaming personality.