Tactics & Teamwork Chapter 25
"You take the bed, I'm used to sleeping on the floor."
"No, you take the bed, you're our guest and it's my fault that I suggested you stay." As it had turned out, the guest room wasn't quite ready yet. It still had stacks of boxes ready to unpack, and even though Mark and Lyn tried valiantly to find some space for the bed, it was no use.
"Yeah, but you have sleeping issues as it is Mark, do you really want to test that with school tomorrow." Lyn countered. At least they were both fighting to sleep on the ground and not wanting to hog the bed to themselves.
"What kind of guy makes his girlfriend sleep on the floor?" Mark replied back. Lyn had another comeback, but Mark's father wanted to butt in.
"Why don't you both sleep in the bed?!" He yelled from downstairs. It was a joke of course but it did fluster the two of them enough to shut them up. There was silence for a few seconds until Mark picked up a coin from his dresser and brought it back over to where Lyn was.
"Okay, how about we flip for it?" He suggested. "Heads I sleep on the floor, Tails you sleep on the floor."
"And if it lands on its edge?" Lyn asked, just trying to be contrary for a bit longer.
"Then we'll take my father's idea and sleep in the bed together." Mark said with a smirk. He knew Lyn was just messing with him, but he enjoyed it.
"Ooh, then I hope that happens." Lyn said with a giggle before Mark flipped the coin. He was going to catch it with his hand, but before he could Lyn reached out and kissed him so it would hit the floor. She pulled back and Mark gave her a confused look. "Don't lie, you were going to rig it so you sleep on the floor."
"Why did I fall in love with someone as quick witted as you?" Mark jested as he picked up the coin. "But it still landed on heads, looks like I get to sleep on the floor."
"First guy to ever be happy about that." Lyn commented. "But okay, you win and I'll take the bed. I think I'm going to turn in though, what about you?"
"I promised Sain I'd facecam with him so he can finish his history project, and then Erk told me about this cool new game he wanted to show me, so I'm probably going to be up kinda late." Mark answered. "I'll take my laptop downstairs so you can sleep, but am I going to find anything weird when I come back up? Like you aren't going to be sleeping naked or anything like that?"
"Mark, I only do that at home." Lyn joked, but Mark's eyes shot wide. "Kidding, kidding, I wear pajamas like anyone else, sometimes at home I don't wear shorts."
"Okay, good. Not that I don't want to see that eventually, but I think my parents would take issue with that." Mark said and Lyn smirked before giving him another kiss and whispering into his ear.
"You'll see it soon enough." She said and Mark shivered a bit. "Now, go help Sain, he needs a good grade on that project. Mr Wallace may support the team a bunch, but he's a teacher first and foremost." Mark nodded and got his things ready to take downstairs. He set it up and helped Sain for about an hour until he thought Sain had the hang of it, then he switched to his gaming mouse and keyboard before he called Erk on voice chat.
"Hope I'm not too late Erk, had to help Sain with some homework." Mark said as he read the instructions for the game.
"Oh, not at all, I just logged on to my computer as well." Erk answered. "So before we start, full disclosure, I'm recording this for my gaming channel as we play for a review, so your gamer tag and such is going to be online."
"You run a gaming channel?" Mark asked intrigued. "How popular is it?"
"Not very, just about 20,000 subscribers, but it helps put a little pocket change in my wallet every now and again." Erk replied.
"You know, I tried to do a gaming channel once, didn't really have the money for the equipment at the time though, so it didn't get off the ground." Mark mentioned.
"Interesting, maybe I'll invite you as a guest sometime soon." Erk suggested, and he meant it.
"You don't have to if you don't want to, but I would love to be on whenever, just say the word." Mark said since he did have a bit of free time sometimes. "Might have to bring Lyn as well."
"Lyn has been in some of my videos before, she likes doing them, but she hates the comments since they always focus on her being a girl. Speaking of Lyn though, is she okay after what happened at the comic book store?"
"Yeah, we went to lunch and my parents said she could stay at our house until her grandfather gets better. She's sleeping in my bed as we speak." Mark could hear an audible crack on the other side of the line after that. "Are you okay?"
"Dude, you have a girl laying in your bed and you're sitting here playing games with me?!" Erk asked incredulously. "I mean I'm no expert on relationships, but shouldn't you be taking advantage of that?"
"We agreed that it wouldn't be the best with everything that happened today, but maybe some other night soon. Plus I promised you first." Mark explained.
"Good point I guess. Well, you ready to rock, I want to try and at least get through the first half of the game tonight." Erk said getting down to business.
"I have my Pop-Tarts and Mountain Dew ready to roll." Mark said and they got to it. When it was all said and done it was two-thirty in the morning and all Mark could do is flop on his air mattress and fall asleep pretty much immediately. It was a restful sleep, if Mark's body was good at one thing it was restful sleep, and it helped him take the long nights he regularly pulled in stride. What wasn't restful though was how he woke up. He was suddenly jolted awake at six-thirty by a hundred and twenty five pound body landing on him.
"Waaah!" Lyn yelped as she fell out of the bed and onto Mark. Mark woke up with a yelp of his own and his limbs started to flail as well.
"Burglars!" He yelled. "Burg-" Lyn quickly found out what was going on and placed her hand on his mouth.
"Mark, calm down, it's me, I fell on you." She said hoping that would calm him down. "Can I let go of your mouth?" Mark nodded and she did.
"Um, so I doubt that you planned that since you got surprised as well, but what happened?" Mark asked, not really realizing that Lyn was practically laying on top of him.
"Well, your bed is like half the size of mine, and I roll a lot in my sleep, so I guess you're lucky I didn't do it earlier." Lyn answered. "Maybe next time we should just sleep together, you could keep me still while I sleep."
"Why do you think I suggested it?" Mark's father said as he opened the door to Mark's room and seeing the scene. "Am I interrupting something here?" Mark finally realized the position they were in and had Lyn roll off of him.
"We weren't doing anything!" Mark said blushing and Lyn just laughed next to him.
"Well, he wasn't." She added and that just made Mark blush more.
"Well, whatever you're doing, breakfast will be done in half an hour, see you there." Mark's father said before leaving. Lyn rolled back onto Mark and smiled at him.
"You are so cute when you blush like that." She told him.
"Sorry, I just reacted, I'm not that embarrassed." Mark said back. "I'm such a dork."
"Yeah, but you're my dork." Lyn said playfully pinching his cheek. After that the morning went pretty normally. They ate breakfast, got to school, used the weightroom, but lunch took an interesting turn. Ninian stopped Mark and Lyn before they got their lunch so she could talk to them.
"Lyn, I just heard what happened to your grandfather, and I am so sorry." She started out and Lyn calmed herself.
"It's okay, they called today and said he was stable. He'll have to stay at the hospital for about a week, and I'm staying with Mark until then." Lyn told her.
"Oh, that's nice." Ninian said, smiling at Mark. "Well, I was wondering if could do something to cheer you up. I want to invite you two to my dance class after school. I can get to know Mark better and there is a friend of mine I want you two to meet as well. He's a really nice guy and I think you'll like him. We can even go eat dinner afterwards. I mean it's up to you Lyn, but I really hope you'll come."
"Mark, what do you think?" Lyn asked so she could get an unclouded opinion.
"I think it's a great idea. You'll get to laugh at me trying to dance, Ninian seems really interesting, and you know, if she thinks we'll like her friend I'm inclined to trust her. Plus, who passes up free food?" Mark replied.
"Okay then, you've convinced me." Lyn told Mark before turning to Ninian. "We'd love to join you, thanks for inviting us."
"Oh, it's no problem." Ninian told her. "In fact, I'm kinda doing it for my friend, I've been talking to him about you guys and he wanted to meet you as well."
"Man, we're popular." Lyn joked as she nudged Mark's shoulder.
"You're popular, I'm just hanging on your coattails." Mark joked back and it got the three to laugh. It set a good tone for the rest of the day.
A/n- Got a review saying that this story doesn't make someone puke! Success!