Inspired by AnIntrovertsPen Writing Prompt #17

"Am I even meant to be here?"

McGee closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Slow breaths. In and out. In and out. You had to be calm and in control when you were dealing with something like this. Kind of like when he had to deal with a suspect. Only nicer. Kinder. It shouldn't be too hard.

Except it was because although there was nothing malicious or conniving going on, it was still incredibly frustrating. Hence, the breathing exercises. He really was getting quite good at them. One of these days he was going to stop putting himself in these situations. He really was. Just not today from the looks of it.

Okay. One final breath. Now he was ready to respond. Hopefully without snapping.

"What do you think?" McGee asked in exasperation.

Exasperation wasn't the same as frustration, right? Right?

Maybe not because he was getting ferociously chewed lowers lips and wide eyes in return.

"I'm thinking that either heaven looks like the burning remains of a post-apocalyptic New York or I've died and gone to the wrooooong place."

Wrong place was an understatement. And McGee wasn't just talking virtually.

"You were meant to go straight to heaven, not take the side alley."

Because you could do that in video games. There could be side alleys on your way to heaven.

"I didn't mean to go in the wrong direction!"

McGee had to do some more of those breathing techniques again before he replied. He was becoming quite the expert in them.

"The massive, shiny, quite literally pearly gates weren't a big enough clue?"

Dorneget pouted at him. It made him look ridiculous.

"You don't need to ne so mean," the younger agent complained. "It's not my fault that I got distracted by that messenger cat. Blame it, don't blame me."

McGee gave him an incredulous look. "Don't blame-? You mean the very same cat that the game actually describes as 'messenger of the devil'? That cat?"

And here he thought Dorneget was supposed to be smart.

"But it was so cute. And I didn't realise that it would lead me down all those winding back allies. It was supposed to show me one thing but the there was another. And then another. And the-"

"Things got out of hand?" McGee asked.

Dorneget gave him a sheepish smile. "Yeah."

McGee barely (barely) stopped himself from face palming himself. Because did Dorneget even hear how ridiculous he sounded? This cute cat was a bunch of pixels on the screen. There was nothing cute about it. Cute. What was he, Abby?

He took a deep, calming breath. Except it wasn't exactly calming. He really did have to stop doing this sort of thing. There was no way that it was good for his overall health. But still, he was in the middle of it now so he may as well finish it. And kt wasn't like he could throw Dorneget out. Now that would definitely be an overreaction.

Okay, he was going to have to explain this again. Hopefully it would sink in this time.

"Dorneget," he began and the younger man basically snapped to attention. "The whole point of this game is to fulfil all these tasks to get to heaven. Then you have to progress up the seven levels."

And then meet God or something. The instructions hadn't been too clear on how it ended or how you won. Abby had given him the game, apparently the nuns, had it? He didn't know and nor did he want to know. He had learned his lesson years ago about questioning what the nuns Abby knew got up to.

The younger agent blinked at him, looking somewhat cowed. McGee sighed again. Did he come across as too exasperated? Fed up? Angry?

He actually felt worse about snapping at Dorneget than he did at Palmer, if that was even possible. McGee hadn't thought it was possible because Palmer was just so, well, Palmer. But somehow it was worse when it was Dorneget. Maybe because he was still so new to everything or maybe it was because McGee tried to look out for him when he was working with the team, Sheila him a bit from Tony and Ziva. (Not from Gibbs though because you could protect no one from Gibbs). It didn't always work but he did always try.

"I screwed up again, didn't I?" He asked dolefully.

Yes, this wasn't the first time this had happened in the game. Or even the second. It was the third. Who said that third time's a charm? Okay, maybe the previous two times they hadn't gotten quite so close to the end but that just made it worse!

Deciding that it would be kinder to not answer the other man, McGee continued on with his explanation.

"Well, unfortunately, now you're in the Seventh level of hell. You're going to have to do everything all over again just to get back to the neutral area before you can go anywhere near those gates again."

He gestured at the screen where you couldn't even see the gates anymore. Because, you know, they were in hell.

The look of dismay on Dorneget's face would be comical if it weren't for the fact that this had already happened multiple times.

"Come on," McGee urged when he realised that Dorneget wasn't going to make the first move. "Let's get going and hopefully we can get ourselves back to the top level fairly quickly."

Dorneget nodded vigorously and grabbed his controller properly, a look of determination on his face. In fact, the controller had been grabbed so firmly that McGee honestly thought it was going to break. Because that would be the cherry on top for their evening, wouldn't it? But, thankfully, it didn't.

"You know, I always knew that New York was like hell," Dorneget said conversationally, nodding at the screen where a giant rat was trying to kill his character. "Oh, uh, Tim?"

He looked hopefully and McGee, who sighed and held out his hand. Dorneget always had problems with the rats.

"Give it here," he replied holding out his hand.

Dorneget beamed at him. At least he was grateful.