Before I turn this over to the main characters, I'm going to give you all a bit of a prologue, if you will. Here's what's up:
If you haven't been tuning in for Press Start to Begin, I highly suggest you do, WAY more info on how they met, became friends, inside jokes, and other stupid shit is in that one. This is just a continuation of Press Start.
However, if you decide that you are too cool to go and read another fan fiction, then whatever. You can read this one without reading the first one, and I'm going to try to keep it in a neutral zone, for those of you that don't want to read 40 chapters of greatness.
Atari
Matt Smith really does have amazing acting skills. The way that his eyes tell every story that he's ever been through says so much. I couldn't get over it. David Tennant is still my favourite doctor, I do have to say. I enjoyed his 3-D glasses, and his companionship with Rose. Also, he was Ten and it's even in his last name. He was meant to be the Doctor.
I was sat on my sofa, drinking tea, decked out in all of my Doctor Who nerd stuff, thoroughly enjoying my down time. "Don't cry, Doctor! Let me hold you!" I yelled at the television screen and tried not to cry. Sure, I know it was last week's episode, but I needed to get prepared for the next one. It's a ritual. My cat, Soup, jumped up onto the couch, trying to get me to pet her fat head. Sure, she was just an extremely fluffy, Persian cat, but I love her. However my flatmate, Micah, could certainly live without her. For someone that works at a pet shop, she sure hates this cat.
My phone started buzzing on the table, so I picked it up. Dan was calling.
"Hey," I answered, a smile on my face.
"Hey, what's up?" His voice is so cute over the phone. I could picture him walking around his flat or sitting (un)comfortably on his own couch. Then again, whatever he was doing, I knew that it was just a way to procrastinate.
"Watching last week's episode of Doctor Who," I responded, turning down the volume so I could listen to him better.
"Haven't you already seen that?"
"Well yeah, but I had to prepare for the new one, duh."
"Fine, whatever you say," I could hear his stupid, sexy smirk on the other end.
"So did you have a reason to call or..." I said as I began fiddling with my Tardis mug.
"What? A guy can't call his girlfriend every once in a while?"
"Sure he can, but not when she's watching a very important show and lives on the floor beneath you." Dan is so weird sometimes.
"That sounded kind of kinky." I curled my legs up by me and wiggled around, blush forming on my cheeks.
I giggled. "Shut up, you know what I mean."
He chuckled. "Yeah, at least I usually do. So, I did have an actual point in calling you."
"Yeah? And what was that?" Soup pawed at my sweat pants and I complied, petting her down her spine.
"PJ and I were wondering if you would be a part of a video of ours. It's going to be pretty complicated." I didn't know whether that was sarcastic or not.
"Yeah, sure. But you have to tell me what it is, or deal's off." I didn't want a repeat of the last time that worked out. I ended up getting woken up too early, spending the day being followed around by a camera for who knows how long, and then getting in a small fight with Dan.
"You've seen the video, Men vs. Women, right?" I said yeah. "Well, I want to do a sort of follow up video on that. I had Men vs. Women, Understanding the Female Mind, that was the one with you in it, and now I want one about video games."
"Video games?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, you're a gamer, PJ's a gamer, I'm a gamer, Phil and Micah are gamers, so I felt like we needed to acknowledge the descrimination against women in video games. A lot of people still think they are a guy thing, so we are going to have a contest of sort, to, you know, figure out if that's right or not. PJ doesn't think it is, but he is going to participate anyways."
"That sounds like a good idea, yeah, I can dig on that."
"And for PJ's channel we are going to have a sort of battle between you and him, only including special effects, comic book style things, and costumes. Does that sound cool? I'm going to book us a time at Google studios sometime."
"Costumes?" I asked. I mean, the closest thing to costumes that I had were a Little Mermaid and Marceline cosplay outfits that Micah and I used for both Halloween and Comic Con in the US.
"Yeah, do you remember his girlfriend, Amelia? Well she's really good with costumes, and said that she could help us. She's either making you Zelda or someone from Final Fantasy. We kind of put the characters into her hands."
"Yeah, okay, I can do that. Not too much skin, okay?"
He chuckled, "I don't think I can do anything about that."
I sighed and took a glance at the screen, seeing the leaf dissolve in Clara's hands. "So do you like the new companion?"
"In Doctor Who?"
"Yeah," I said, snuggling farther into my Tardis blanket.
"Eh, she's alright. I haven't seen much of her, so I'm not sure yet. I still like Amy," he said. Of course he did. Maybe he had a thing for accents...
"I feel the same way, I mean I still love Ro-" a bunch of voices on the other end stopped my conversation.
"Sorry, one second, Micah wants to talk to you," he said, his voice fading away into Micah.
"No, I just want you to- Hey, Atari, I just wanted to let you know that I'm having dinner here, if you want to come over."
"Yeah, just let me watch this next episode of Doctor Who. Isn't it a little late for dinner?" The clock read 9 pm.
"Well, maybe, but whatever. Do you think you could bring something? I think we have some bread, you could just pop it in the oven and we could eat it with whatever it is that we are having. You don't have to do much, or dress up or whatever. It's going to be something stupid that Phil and I are going to take like an hour to make. Do you care what it is? "
"I suggest beef, pork, some nice juicy steak, maybe pepperoni, some chicken would be good," sarcasm spilled out of my mouth.
"Shut up shut up shut up! Ewwww noooooo." I laughed at her bit of misfortune at my ideas. That weakling of a vegetarian. My gaze met my nails, seeing the newly painted dark blue beginning to chip away. This stuff never lasts. "So can you do that?"
"Yeah, sure. What else am I going to do today?"
"Nothing," she deadpanned. I rolled my eyes. There was a click of the phone and a dead line, leaving me alone again, only the slight sounds of the adverts in the background. Soup stayed on my lap, letting me run my fingers over her soft fur.
There are a million things I should be doing. I should be typing the report up for the new video game I was assigned. I should be playing the video game I was assigned. I just didn't want to slay anyone today. I would so much rather cuddle up in a blanket, feeling the warmth surround me like it did when I was a child, back in my parent's house. I missed that. But, a job is a job, and I'm happy that I'm getting paid for playing video games.
I let Soup off of my lap to jump from furniture piece to furniture piece. I replaced her presence with a Dalek pillow and my mug of tea. I know I'm not exactly English, but I certainly felt it at that moment. Even my American accent was beginning to fade. I felt a little homesick, to tell the truth. I missed my accent.
But despite the little things that I missed, I'm okay with giving them up for the experiences that I've had here; the friends I've made, the job I have, and the man that I get to call my boyfriend. All of the little pieces were beginning to fit together. After three agonizing months of torture, I was happy. And I don't mean happy as in a smiley face or exclamation points, I mean content happy.
And I'm sure that I didn't realize it then, when everything was working out.
I mean, I had reason to be happy and content, excited, really. The next moth was one of the best ones in a really long time, that is, before things went astray, and I got a bit lost on my trail. Now I don't have the help of a sidekick. It's me. And Dan. And Micah. And Phil.
Who knew the virtual world could be so harsh?
Not me.
But, for now, I'll show you where this part of the game begins.
Just press A to continue...
