Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or this world. I just like to be a part of it sometimes
Author's Notes: This is all A/U, but I'd say we can assume that anything we've seen so far in the show applies. This takes place during the first morning of Nathan and Audrey's cabin getaway.
Prompt: How Nathan discovered Life was Audrey's favorite game. (Courtesy of Guest)
Summary: Nathan never would have guessed that Life was Audrey's favorite game.
Life.
As much as he wanted to continue last night's amorous activities, Nathan needed a little time to recover. They had agreed to leave their phones turned off the entire time they were there, and since there wasn't a TV, that left little to do together other than eat, sleep, and…not sleep.
So, after sleeping in and lazing around the cabin for the better part of the morning, he and Audrey had decided to go for a walk in the woods. The lazy stroll through the trees didn't last long however, because the mosquitos had been the size of hummingbirds, and no amount of bug spray was warding them off. Nathan and Audrey spent more time swatting at the pests than doing much of else, so they finally gave up on the walk, and ran back to the safety of the cabin.
As Audrey tried in vain to rid herself of the smell of bug spray, Nathan took to routing through the cabin for something they could do. He vaguely remembered the Chief having some board games that were kept around for rainy days, and so narrowed his hunt for that.
Upon finding the stash of games, Nathan blew the dust off of the top box, and smiled at the 70s packaging of each box. If they weren't so well used, he would have bet they would be worth a small fortune. Nathan carried the boxes to the table, and set them down so he could see what their options would be for the evening. As he spread them out, he could hear Audrey pad along the floor behind him. "I found some old games we could play."
Audrey's eyes flicked over each of the boxes, and lit up as they settled on one in particular. She reached out to grab the box, and started to open it. "Oh! Life! This is my favorite game."
Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He started piling up the other boxes on the table to set them aside so Audrey could put her box down.
She immediately started unpacking it, fingering through the pieces as she went through a mental checklist of everything that should be in there. Once she decided that everything was present and accounted for, she nodded. "Definitely. When you grow up never really knowing for sure what your future will be – or if you'll even have a future – it's oddly comforting to play something that, with a simple roll of a dice, you can end up with a husband, kids, a house, that kind of thing."
Nathan could only nod at her logic. While his upbringing hadn't exactly been perfect, he definitely had had it better than Audrey – which is maybe why Life never really appealed to him. He would play it, but he much preferred the challenge of checkers. In checkers, your fate wasn't decided by the roll of a dice, but rather by pure strategy. And with the events of the past year, Nathan was firmly in the camp of being able to decide his fate through strategy – and a little luck. "So, does that mean you want to play?" Audrey had already pretty much set up the entire game, so Nathan's question seemed more rhetorical than anything else.
"What color do you want to be? I want to be red."
Nathan smiled and settled into the chair across the table from her, and picked up the blue car while looking into the blue of Audrey's eyes. "Blue always seemed to be a lucky color for me."
Those eyes leveled with his. "Well, prepare to be unlucky Wuornos."
They played several games that night. Nathan started out letting Audrey win, but then as her teasing intensified, he started really trying to win. And as try as he might, he couldn't do it, and finally got frustrated and stood up. "I'm going to make dinner."
Audrey chuckled and stood up, making her way around the table towards Nathan. She leaned into his body, resting both hands on his chest, and looked up into his eyes, feeling the familiar rush of excitement when he looked back at her. When she felt his hands come to a rest on her lower back, pulling her even closer to him, she almost lost her train of thought, so she looked down at his chest where she started to draw lazy patterns. "How about this. You cook dinner, I'll clean up, and then I'll let you show me how good life can actually be. Think of it as a continuation of last night." She looked up at his eyes again and smirked when she saw them darken in color.
He leaned down to kiss her and smiled against her lips. If the end result of Life was always like this, Nathan had definitely found a new favorite game. "You're on."
Upcoming Prompt: What happens when Audrey tries to help Nathan with his Decoupage project for the nursery. (Courtesy of STforRK)