Eric Beale was not pouting. He wasn't. No ma'am, he wasn't. That quivering bottom lip that was poking out wasn't a pout. Not at all. He was just, uh, airing it out. He had bitten it you see. Yeah, that was it.
A weighing sound came from the rather large screen behind him. Eric spun back around and quickly performed a manoeuvre but was almost immediately pounced on. Ouch. Wincing as his character spurted blood before dying, Eric swore. The 'Do you wish to start the game again?' screen appeared over the scene, much to his disgust. He resisted the urge to throw the controller down in a huff. It would not be good if he had to replace a controller again. The guy at the shop eyed him suspiciously the last time he had to replace it. Eric didn't know why; it had only been the third time in a month and it wasn't completely his fault each of those times. The first one he had broken by tripping over his table and landing on it. Okay, the second was because he clutched it so hard in anger but it really shouldn't have been able to bend under his grip like that- obviously very poorly made. The third time he'd actually lost it but it had turned up as soon as he bought his current one (because of course it did). So, he really didn't deserve to be on some game controller list.
Footsteps came from behind him and he quickly pushed the pieces of the controller behind him with his feet. Nell entered the living room, wiping her hands on her dress.
"You know you don't have a towel in your bathroom, right?"
"Really?"
Eric remembered putting a towel in the wash this morning but he was sure he had replaced it...
"Yep. Don't worry, I replaced it," she assured him.
Of course, she knew where his towels were. He supposed she had been in his apartment often enough. Mainly for their Game Night, like tonight. They were actually playing video games for a change because Nell claimed that playing checkers with him gave her emotional distress and neither of them were in the mood for chess. Anyway, Eric had wanted to play a game that took longer than twenty minutes and Nell was far too good at the game for him to be any sort of challenge for her. He'd been having difficulty with this level and thought that an extra pair of hands would help.
"Did the boys beat you up again?" Nell asked sympathetically, a knowing look on her face.
The bottom lip went back out (not a pout!). He just couldn't seem to get past this one gang of wizards. He'd tried everything he could think of, even showing Nell what he thought was the most logical way of doing it. It hadn't worked, obviously. She had pointed out a new way of doing it, which he had promptly tried. But, as seen on the screen, it didn't work.
Eric poured harder and crossed his arms.
"It wasn't a fair fight," he complained, his voice rising to a whine. "Their unicorn showed up."
"They have a unicorn?" Nell asked incredulously.
Wizards didn't usually have unicorns. Their magic didn't exactly mix.
"Apparently," Eric grumbled, shooting the screen a disgruntled glare.
How was he supposed to know that they could lasso one? It wasn't like this was the wild west! And unicorns shouldn't be that easy to catch anyway, they were meant to be fast and incredibly stubborn. Not lasso-able. It just wasn't fair.
"Did it gore you?" She asked morbidly, trying to look around him.
He wished. That wouldn't have been as bad. Or as embarrassing.
"No. It distracted me," he reluctantly admitted. "And then grabbed my clock so I couldn't move and then the wizards pounced on me."
They'd even managed to make him drop his storage trunk. Half of his collected items had spilled out only to be picked up by the very same wizards. He really hated wizards.
"It... distracted you?" Nell asked slowly in a disbelieving tone.
Okay, he wasn't normally this easy distracted when he was on a mission but it was a unicorn for crying out loud! That came out of nowhere. Anybody would be distracted by that.
"It's very sneaky!" he said defensively.
He'd like to see her deal with a magically appearing unicorn. It wasn't so easy.
"Right."
"It is!"
Ignoring him, Nell made a grabbing motion for his controller only to come up empty - briefly touching his hands instead. He held up his hands guiltily. She gave him a suspicious look.
"Eric. Where is your controller?"
"Um."
He took a step back, forgetting that he had hidden it right behind him. Stumbling, he made a pathetic attempt of staying upright by flailing his arms. It didn't work. With a disturbing 'crunch' noise, Eric landed heavily on the floor. Or, to be more exact, on his already broken controller.
"Ouch!" he yelped, jumping back up to his feet.
He almost fell over again because of how fast he moved but thankfully Nell grabbed his arm. She took the opportunity to look down on the floor.
"You broke another one?"
"Landing on it would do that," he pointed out.
Maybe he could pin all the damage on his fall. It wasn't too out there of an excuse. He winced as a twinge of pain went through his butt, he had certainly landed hard enough to do some serious damage. Though it felt like that had been done more to him than by him.
"Uh huh."
She didn't look too convinced. Time to deflect.
"Would you like to give the game a go?" Eric suggested in as bright a tone as he could muster.
She just raised an eyebrow. Eric gulped. That was never good. He busied himself with retrieving his spare controller and holding it out to her.
She looked at it and then looked back up at him. He just grinned wider.
"Fine," she finally said, giving in to the allure of the game and grabbing it out of his hands. "But we're not finished about this!" She waved her hand at the broken pieces in the floor.
But she didn't sound too intimidating being already distracted by the game. Maybe he could sweep it up before the unicorn got her.
