Random Ficcery #2

[petronia]

“Cheer up, Zel,” said he, “or you’ll scare away the pretty waitresses.”

’Kay.

Not good.

Get this: Zel’s sensitive about his looks. Between you and me and the ale, they’re not actually too shabby – even when he gets really igneous – but it’s like it’s representative of his whole bad time dealing with being a chimera, or something. And furthermore, get this: Gourry knows it. He knows it. But that’s just Gourry for you. Sweetest guy sometimes, and then... ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, boob joke time rolls ’round again.

Or something.

So I kicked him, and Amelia kicked him, but spilt beer is spilt beer. You could see Zel go cold.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” he said. “I’ll be up in my room; you can enjoy the service personnel to your heart’s content.” And off he stalked.

Well, that dropped Amelia down a few notches of happy right away, and Filia was miffed and Gourry confused, so in the end we all went to bed in high dudgeon. This was what, eight o' clock in the evening maybe? By ten I was in the downstairs kitchen trying to rouse up a mug of hot milk, spiced sack, anything to keep me from having to lie there and listen to Gourry saw logs from the other side of the wall.

Which is where the weirdness starts. Are you getting this down?

[extreme fragmentation happened here]

Embarrassed? Hell yeah, I was embarrassed. And that’s the stupid thing too – if I’d just stayed behind my damned rock and watched Xelloss make his run for third, none of the ensuing would have happened. Sure, it could’ve turned out worse, but – well. No point going on about it now.

“Hey, guys,” go I, bright as a troll after a lobotomy.

Great balls of fire, you should have seen the look Xelloss gave me. Scratch that, you’d be under the table, and you’d have made the right call at that. Not outright angry or anything, just sorta... ‘Lina sweetie I’m going to remember this, oh am I ever going to remember this, and one of these days--’ Yanno? Big smile, too, like always, but once you get to see into his eyes it doesn’t matter if he’s smiling or not. That’s when you want to dig a hole for yourself.

Zel was leaning back against the wall, taking deep deliberate do-no-violence breaths with his eyes closed. I don’t know what I would have done if I were him. Killed me, probably. I’m still not sure why he didn’t.

I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that.

“You know, Zel,” said I a tad too quickly, “I don’t think any the worse of you for it. I mean, that kind of thing doesn’t matter to me. Nothing wrong with it at all. Just wanted to let you know. Er.”

And Zel said nothing. Which is fine in a sense – I mean, not my most excellent speech of all time – but somewhere in the back the little bells were going off by this point. I mean, it’s not as if we haven’t been around the block with Xelloss a few times. Even given that it’s Head-On-My-Shoulders Zel, if he’d said it had nothing to do with him and the Mazoku talked him into it for demented Nightmare-forsaken reasons of his own, I’d have believed him. I mean, what was I going to do, attempt to fathom Xelloss’ motivation?

But he didn’t.