AN: A long one for you guys. I got a less-than-lukewarm (frigid would probably be a better word actually, hah) response to another fic, so I guess frustration adds to the length. Or something. Enjoy babes. Those of you who have commented are totally fabulous, much thanks to all of you!
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8. game (AU) (Warning for a couple f-bombs and Hunter taking the lord's name in vain. Bad Hunter.)
"Um, hey?" The questioning tone was familiar. Tori was used to little kids running up and asking her questions and attempting to catch her notice while she was on the clock, but this voice was significantly older and probably required more attention than her requisite 'mmhmm' would provide. Tori nudged her sunglasses down her nose and glanced down from her lifeguard chair.
"Yeah?" She tried to sound as cheerful and helpful as possible, but with this being the longest shift of the day and the day only being about half over, it was kind of difficult to summon any sort of cheer. Well, the guy wasn't ugly, so there was that - but then again, she wouldn't call Shane or Dustin ugly but they were still plenty obnoxious when the occasion called for it. And 'the occasion' had her number on speed dial.
"Uh, I kind of lost my little brother and I'm afraid if I start hunting for him, I'll get lost too. This place is kinda huge." The guy grinned sheepishly, so this wasn't an emergency, but if she sent Marah or Kapri - the other lifeguards with this same shift - either the guy would end up committing suicide or destroying one of them. Tori smiled back before hopping down from her chair and grabbing her walkie-talkie. "Tor making a four-two-one. Requesting Marah for chair one," she said clearly into the cracked old toaster-sized walkie-talkie. A moment, before it crackled to life again.
"Aw Tor, do I hafta? Like, there's like totally no one in that pool and I-" Tori sighed and rolled her eyes, catching the guy trying not to laugh.
"Marah. Chair one. Now." Tori caught the latter end of a grumble before her 'toaster' went silent once more. "Alright, so your little brother?" When the guy nodded, she smiled brightly at him and started off fo the food court. "He wander off a lot? What's his name?"
The guy smiled a little, keeping up easily with her quick walk, taking long easy strides, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his swimsuit. "Yeah, he gets distracted easily and he'll just go running. And Blake. And I'm Hunter." Tori flashed another smile at him, sticking out a hand as she walked.
"Tori - and what does Blake look like?" Tori's eyes skimmed the crowds for a young boy with, judging by Hunter's appearance, messy blond hair and blue eyes and a fondness for the color red.
"Well, we're adopted, so…nothing like me?" Hunter said laughingly. Tori hid her flush well and quickly axed hair and eyes off her list. "And he's wearing…dark blue, I think? Probably." Tori mentally rolled her eyes and revised her mental list once again. "Dark hair, dark eyes, shortish - but he's my little bro, so he'd never not be short to me I guess," Hunter said with a smirk.
"Same with me and my sister," Tori said with a grin.
Hunter wasn't the most open of conversationalists - to get him to speak Tori generally had to ask a question, but he was pleasant enough and he jumped at the chance to talk about his brother. They were obviously very close and she grew excited to meet the child - also a bit worried that she hadn't seen any children matching Blake's description all day. But something was bugging her even more.
Whenever they visited a place, Hunter would check dutifully, without any real enthusiasm - which Tori found odd. He did want to find his brother, right? Otherwise he wouldn't have sought out a lifeguard and asked for help. He would look, glance at tables before turning to Tori and shrugging, as if to say they should move on. It went on like this for fifteen minutes before she saw Hunter glance at his watch and square his shoulders.
"What about, um, the locker rooms?" he suggested half heartedly. Tori's eyes narrowed in suspicion. She'd suggested the locker rooms a few minutes ago, but Hunter had dismissed the idea for looking through the food court. And now he wanted to look? Something was definitely up, but Tori's job was to do the looking, not the investigating, so she gestured with a flourish - somewhat sarcastically - for Hunter to lead. He smiled sheepishly and started towards the path for the lockers - far more sure of his way than his previous hesitation would have suggested.
"I don't know where else to look after this," Tori began with frustration - mostly at being unable to find little Blake and only some at the suspicious Hunter - as they started down the path. "It's like-"
"Dude!" exclaimed Hunter, with quite a bit of relief. It wasn't a "I-was-worried-about-you" sort of relief though. It seemed more of a "fucking-finally-dude!" relief. Tori's glance lifted to land on a guy right around her age, with dark hair and eyes to match. "Been looking for you bro, what the hell?" This was Blake? Blake was a gorgeous well-toned guy with a killer smile who was grinning right at her? Oh, she was going to kill Hunter, even if she'd already sort of formed a crush on his younger brother - she was sure Blake could live without Hunter for awhile. On instinct, her hand flew out and thwacked Hunter on the shoulder. Hard.
"You jerk, I've been looking for a kid this whole time! You could've said something." Hunter stared at her, rather startled, for which she was glad for, before he grinned without apology. He seemed to feel no remorse for making her feel rather stupid - Tori glowered slightly.
'Sorry," he said, without an ounce of regret. "Must've slipped my mind." Yeah right. There was something going on here and Tori was going to find out exactly what - in a moment. After rolling her eyes, she turned to Blake, who was watching the exchange with something like amusement and watching her with something like interest. Tori grew faintly distracted. Oh. Yay.
"Your brother is a jerk," she informed the dark haired brother dutifully and he laughed, the surprise evident on his face.
"Can't argue with that - fully grown and can't even look for his brother by himself," he said, smirking at Hunter who quickly scowled.
"Is that really the path you want to be going down little brother? Because there are many things I have to say about that topic." Tori raised an eyebrow at this odd threat, but Blake's smirk faded quickly and Hunter smiled and flicked him in the eye - almost with boredom, like he'd done it a hundred times and would probably do it a hundred more - and that seemed to be the end of that.
Not really.
"Is there something you're not telling me?" Tori said, rather astutely she thought, although neither of the two brothers seemed to be very good actors, because they both gave her the same exact wide-eyed innocent look. It might've worked had only one attempted to use it, but she simply stared back expectantly at them. "You know, besides the fact that your brother is not seven," Tori said, glancing meaningfully at Hunter, who grinned sheepishly.
"Um…thanks for babysitting my older brother!" Blake said, with some desperation, with the most unsubtle attempt at changing the topic that Tori had ever witnessed in all of her years. Tori gave him a look that clearly said so and he glanced down, his face growing red. Hunter glanced at him, glanced at Tori, before letting out a tired sigh.
"Dude, you're pathetic. I'm telling her," Blake whipped his head up and stared at Hunter as if he had just committed the ultimate betrayal.
"Dude!" he hissed, disgusted with his older brother, lunging at him.
"He likes you!" Hunter said, even as Blake tackled him to the ground. "He saw you like - ow, what the hell Blake, did you just judo chop me? No more ninja movies for you - where was I? Oh - he saw you like three days ago, on a shift and - jesus christ Blake, no teeth!" Hunter's speech was interrupted by him flipping Blake over, who had been dominating the fight at first. Hunter got him quickly in a headlock though and he took this time to collect his thoughts as he held a flailing Blake.
Tori looked on in amusement and vague astonishment.
"Anyway, he saw you and decided he wanted to meet you, but Blake being Blake, was too fucking shy-" Blake elbowed Hunter hard in the ribs for that comment, but Hunter didn't let up, just glared. "Yeah I said it dude! You're a wimp! So he concocted this stupid plan to get to meet you and-" Suddenly, Blake shifted and the leg that Hunter wasn't sitting up came up from behind and slammed the elder brother in the head. "Ow, what the fuck was that?!" Blake rolled away, looking rather smug.
"That was a result of the stupid ninja movies, dumbass."
"Oh yeah? I dare you to try that again you little-"
"If you boys are done," Tori said loudly over the bickering brothers, ignoring the flailing mini-Tori's in her brain that were dancing and doing the wave at the thought that Blake liked her.
"Well I am," Hunter said with some disgust, glaring at his little brother, who glared back. "Have fun dude and stop being a wimp," he flicked Blake in the eye again - Tori was realizing this was mostly a sign of affection between the two - before standing and simply leaving. Tori watched him for a moment before her mind reminded her that the other brother was still kneeling on the grass in front of her, remember, the one that liked her? Tori's attention settled on Blake, who was looking at her as though he sort of wished he could be anywhere else but here. But he let out a breath and squared his shoulders before standing and offering a soft sort of smile.
Oh. Well. Any of Tori's minor aggravations sort of shriveled away at the sight of the smile. She managed to refrain from sighing and giggling and even managed to keep from swooning or twirling her hair idiotically. Point for Tori. "This seems like a very intricate plan to meet a regular old lifeguard." Hah! She even managed a half-way decent start to the conversation. Another point! Blake grinned slightly and any pride Tori had at having concocted a full sentence sort of flew away, along with her thought processes. Minus a point.
"Yeah well," he glanced away before glancing back, "you're not really any regular old lifeguard, are you?"
Oh. Tori rather hoped Blake would stop being so sweet and pretty, because she would soon be forced to simply cling to him, due to the lack of other brain functions. She swallowed and summoned her wits, which seemed to have scattered, dancing the dance of the 'We Love Blake!' club. She wondered if they had t-shirts and if- Tori mentally rolled her eyes, she was going insane - time to focus. "Well, I don't know about that," she said with a slight smile which seemed to provoke a sheepish smile from the dark haired man. Whoo, two points for Tor! "But I do know that if you had come up to me, I wouldn't have had to follow your brother around for almost twenty minutes, doing absolutely nothing." Another sheepish smile and Tori smirked in return. Two more points - five more and she was totally the winner of this game. She ignored the mini-Tori that pointed out that Blake didn't even know he was playing a game and watched her opponent for his next move.
"Well, I would've much rather spent those twenty minutes with you," Blake said with an honesty that made her mouth rather dry. Minus a point there, "But I'm, uh, not really good with stuff like this, I guess." Tori shrugged rather casually - making sure to keep it simple and still a bit mysterious. She could pull of mysterious right? She could be an enigma, couldn't she? Blake's eyes followed her every move and Tori decided firmly that she could and that she had. Two points.
"I think you're doing alright," she said with a soft grin. Oh, how good was she! Another point for that! The mini-Tori's in her mind golf-clapped for her.
"Good," Blake said fervently, taking a step closer, his eyes intent on hers and Tori immediately deducted a point from her tally - her brain had melted into a warm gooey puddle that seemed to be purring. The mini-Tori's worked frantically to scoop it into some sort of working condition, but there was a pause before the synapses between her mouth and her brain were up and running again.
"I, uh, I probably have to get back," Tori said, unable to keep the note of regret from her voice, but awarding herself a point for the step she managed to take away. Blake's face fell.
"Oh, uh, of course, yeah." Tori watched him watch her take another step before deciding she'd better head back and save her game for another day. Only three points away - if he'd asked her out she probably would've won! - and then there was - a hand landed on her shoulder, interrupting her thoughts and she turned to find Blake grinning at her, free hand scratching idly at the back of his neck.
"Doing anything later?"
And then the points didn't matter.
