Author Topic: Time stays, we go. [Tally~] (Read 11650 times)

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #60 on:** August 22, 2011, 02:20:32 pm »

"Hey!" Gabriel reached over and lightly flicked Roman's ear. "Don't encourage that behavior! That's so unladylike! And gross!"

With an exaggerated huff, he grabbed the remote and flipped on the TV. "You'd be singing a different song if it were your sink."

Tally · « **Reply #61 on:** August 22, 2011, 07:16:03 pm »

"It wouldn't be my sink, because I don't procrastinate like you do."

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #62 on:** August 22, 2011, 07:21:58 pm »

Gabriel tossed a wireless controller onto the couch next to Roman. "Hey, hey! I didn't know it needed to be changed that frequently! I've never had a cat. How I was supposed to know?"

Tally · « **Reply #63 on:** August 22, 2011, 07:26:32 pm »

The controller was like some alien device, nonsensical and incomprehensible. Buttons with different symbols and numbers that should have been recognizable but that context reduced to so much gibberish. "The box comes with instructions. But there is reading involved in that."

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #64 on:** August 22, 2011, 07:30:29 pm »

Gabriel blinked blankly at Roman. "Instructions? For a bunch of gravel? That's just ridiculous." Then he paused and gave Roman an odd look as he started up the game system. "Wait, you mean you actually read instructions?"

Tally · « **Reply #65 on:** August 25, 2011, 11:07:19 pm »

"Well apparently you needed instructions because she crapped in your sink."

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #66 on:** August 25, 2011, 11:19:14 pm »

"I--" Gabriel opened his mouth and raised a finger but no words came out. He closed his mouth and frowned at the TV, selecting a game. "Well, still. She was a naughty kitty and she didn't get any catnip that day and only chicks read instructions. So there."

He stuck his tongue out at Roman--and Blank--and then looked back to the TV, where the character selection menu had come up. "Pick your character!"

Tally · « **Reply #67 on:** August 25, 2011, 11:24:06 pm »

Roman raised his eyebrow, and while Gabriel was fiddling with the game he sent a suggestion to Blank. He'd been communicating with her so long it was nearly as easy as speaking in telepathy to another person.

Blank leaped down and disappeared down the hallway, on her way to take a dump in Gabriel's sink again.

Roman had been in the hospital for weeks. He needed a bit of fun, and Gabriel deserved it for indirectly calling him a chick.

"Pick my—what's the difference? How am I supposed to pick?"

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #68 on:** August 25, 2011, 11:35:16 pm »

"Use your joystick," Gabriel said, scooting closer until they were almost touching and leaning over to show him how to work it. He scrolled over the characters.

"See? They all have different weapons and stuff, and when you scroll over them, it'll tell you what they have. Like Bruno has a M16 and grenades and pyrokinesis and a grenade launcher and Xavier has uzis and electrokinesis and so on. And like it also shows their stats, like Gem's faster but has less strength and thus has a smaller inventory while Max is slower but has a bigger inventory. Since you're a newb, I'd take Helix, since he's more balanced so he'll be easier for ya.

"Then when you're done, hit X. It's this button," he said, pointing.

There. He knew Roman was kind of electronically challenged, but it was an easy game and he'd broken it down as simply as he could. He should be able to get through at least this part fine.

Tally · « **Reply #69 on:** September 11, 2011, 11:40:40 pm »

Roman could feel his eyes starting to glaze over already. He flicked the cursor through a few random characters and finally just stopped on Helix. He didn't care which one he used so he'd go with Gabriel's suggestion. It was all the same to him, and all that mattered was that it distracted him for awhile.

"So the X button is the one with the X on it? Are you sure? Are we a hundred percent it's not the O button?"

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #70 on:** September 12, 2011, 12:27:42 am »

"Of course it's not the O button, you big silly!" Gabriel said with a laugh, giving Roman another playful hair ruffle. "That's why it has an X. Duh."

He quickly selected his own character and started the game, the screen loading to reveal a post-apocalyptic looking setting in a decrepit, crumbling city.

Tally · « **Reply #71 on:** September 12, 2011, 01:24:01 am »

I am going to break this controller in half. Possibly he would break it over Gabriel's head. He could practically see it happening already. He could not have designed a scenario more likely to get on his last nerve.

He shook his hair back into place. The scene that greeted him on the television had him squinting at the screen trying to make sense of it. The environment in the game was mostly a confusing jumble of gray and brown textures.

"Where am I supposed to be looking?" The screen had split into two parts and he assumed one was for him and one was for Gabriel. Roman pushed a button—the X button, the only one with which he was familiar—and the a grenade lit up the bottom of the screen.

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #72 on:** September 12, 2011, 01:42:22 am »

"Whoa, okay, hold up!"

Reaching over, he grabbed the controller away from Roman and ran his character forward several paces and around a corner just in time to avoid the grenade's explosion. When it was safe, he handed it back. "Okay! Now that you're not gonna die, you're on the bottom," he said with a wink. "Now stop pressing buttons for a sec." With that said, he launched into a quick explanation of the basic buttons--and how to move.

"And you gotta be careful because there's friendly fire and you can kill yourself with your own explosions. Think missions here. All the same rules apply, just with less reality and you basically just shoot everything except me and you should start moving now 'cause you're getting shot at."

Tally · « **Reply #73 on:** September 12, 2011, 01:06:03 pm »

"Hey! I was doing fine. I found the grenade."

Here they went again with the explanations. Roman tuned him out. Pushing buttons was the only way to learn how to play! He just wanted to see what they all did and who cared if something got blown up in the doing? It was just a game!

"Yeah, yeah. Oh—whoa, I am? Oh! Uh..." Roman jabbed the joystick and the image on the bottom of the screen moved forward but got hung up in a corner. He started button mashing, and the screen started flashing red around the edges. "What do I do, it won't move?!"

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #74 on:** September 12, 2011, 11:53:54 pm »

"Yeah! you're doing great," Gabriel said, and it was an effort not to burst out laughing. Roman was so competent, cool, and badass at everything and it was always nice to just see him being, well...

A hopeless dork.

"Now, uh, honeybear, you wanna press down on the joystick before you die, 'cause red means dying and--oh, you're dead. Okay then! So next time, down means backing up." He gave Roman a reassuring clap on the shoulder. "You almost got it though. You found the enemies!"

Tally · « **Reply #75 on:** October 06, 2011, 10:53:25 pm »

Gods, Roman hated electronics. Hated. And he knew that. Why was he putting himself in a position to smash things?

"I was pressing down! I pressed it! It wasn't doing anything! I think it's just broken." Why did he always get the broken ones? Damned, shitty, unreliable pieces of crap, all of it.

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #76 on:** October 06, 2011, 11:27:58 pm »

"You...were pressing the wrong down..." Gabriel said slowly, and leaned over to point to the joystick. "Use the joystick, not the arrows. It's not broken, dork. You're just doing it wrong. See..."

He ran his own character around the screen and came under fire abruptly, so he had to duck behind some steel barrels, and a sudden thought struck him as he did, as the bullets flew--on second thought, was this the best game to be playing now when Roman just got out after being, uh...shot? Then again, Roman wouldn't want to be patronized, either. Would he even say something if it bothered him? Maybe it was a stupid worry, considering it was their job and it had prepared them for this and more and...

...And that just brought him right back around in a giant loop to all the other issues that were still floating around in his head. Now probably wasn't a good time. Now was probably a downright terrible time. But...what would be a good time with an issue like this? It was eating at him more and more each day and felt about a hundred times worse with Roman in the room with him, with him juggling between trying to cheer Roman up (wasn't sure how well that was working) and trying to fight down the nervous jitters that came whenever his mind brushed the other topic.

It was stupid, it was ridiculous, he'd been delirious, and there were way more important things to deal with. But...

"Sooo..." he started to say, making his way over to Roman's character to fight some goons off of him. "How much do you remember?" He paused and quickly added, "I mean, if you don't mind me asking."

Tally · « **Reply #77 on:** October 10, 2011, 03:17:01 pm »

"I did! I pressed that one, I pressed all of them!" He didn't get how he could do exactly what Gabriel was doing and the thing would not work the same way. "What is it doing now, what is this?"

There were just...things everywhere, characters moving, people firing at him he supposed because the red was flashing around the screen again. He found a button that made the gun fire and pressed it over and over again. He thought he killed something but who the hell knew. That one button was giving him some success so he stuck with it, right up until an empty clicking sounded. Ran out of bullets he supposed.

"Is that you?" Gabriel was there by then, so he threw the controller down and crossed his arm. Let Gabriel deal with that shit.

"I was already debriefed fifty fucking times. Read the reports if you're so damn curious." The frustration of the game spilled over suddenly into anger, and he took himself away from the TV, the living room, Gabriel, and into the kitchen. "I'm getting a drink."

Rhi-Rhi · « **Reply #78 on:** October 10, 2011, 06:31:56 pm »

Oooh yeah, bad timing.

Gabriel winced as Roman threw down the controller--ack, those were not built for that!--and again when Roman retreated to the kitchen.

That...had gone over real well. Smooth going, Gabe. Heart pounding, suddenly gripped by nervousness, he stared at the TV but didn't really see it as his mind raced, caught in a dilemma. He should let it go. This was super terribad timing and that was saying a lot considering his habit of having cosmically horrible timing. Roman didn't need the stress, either. Everything was too raw so he needed to back the hell off of him--and probably pick another game or something completely different since this was just gonna set his BP monitor off and--

"That's not really what I'm talking about," he said before he could stop himself.

He'd already committed the second he'd started.

Tally · « **Reply #79 on:** October 14, 2011, 06:43:22 pm »

Roman didn't get a drink. He leaned his hips back against the refrigerator and stood there rubbing his forehead.

"Yeah?" he said, distracted, not really following anything Gabriel said. He didn't know how to get over anger without giving in to it. Without letting it burn out. Before the shooting, he would have cursed and yelled, gotten himself into the gym and beat the hell out of a punching bag. Now he had to cope using mechanisms alien to him.

His cell beeped at him. He had to go take some things, a confetti of pills, but he didn't move.