ground between that kind of comfortable default and calling each other Smidge. Of course, he didn’t want to be all Tinuviel about it either, and have some crazy intense passionate affair that lasted about thirty seconds like a not very good firework.
Basically he wanted someone who he liked being with about as much as he liked being with Solace and who liked being with him about as much as Solace seemed to. And someone who was into the same stuff he was into—kind of like Solace was. And if they were clever and funny and probably too good for him, then that was a bonus.
A train of thought that could best be summarised as: just ask her out already.
They’d probably hang out together in Alarion after the raid, so he could do it then.
Definitely for real this time.
He nipped out to the pub for the Monday-night special with the usual crowd, but for some reason it was really busy and his food didn’t show up for an hour. Which left him minutes to get back to his room, get online, repair his armour, double-check his gems and enchants, and make sure he had plenty of consumables. He was already halfway to CoT when he noticed the message from Morag:
Guild Message of the day: Tiff has a hot date, booyah, so Solace will be leading tonight’s jaunt into CoT, with Bjorn on loot master, assistance, and sarcasm. Thanks to Sindarella for stepping in with his storm spec. lol. Good luck, have fun, don’t do anything I would do. xxx
[Guild][Heurodis]: Get your arse in the instance and your ears into mumble noob
[Guild][Ialdir]: See this is why you don’t get to raid lead
[Guild][Heurodis]: it’s so hard when no one else lives up to your standards
[Guild][Orcarella]: sorry i’m late
[Guild][Orcarella]: dinner took ages
[Guild][Orcarella]: won’t happen again
[Guild][Jargogle]: Don’t worry, you’re not technically late
[Guild][Jargogle]: Bjorn’s just having one of his little power trips
[Guild][Jargogle]: Despite having no actual power
[Guild][Heurodis]: hey don’t make me demonstrate my power by gkicking you
[Guild][Jargogle]: You will never gkick me Bjorn. My DPS is too good.
A raid invite came in, and Drew accepted it. He might not have been technically late, but he was the last one in the group.
Ella, still wearing her tuxedo, charged into the instance like she was late for school, and while he waited for the load screen, Drew alt-tabbed and logged in to Mumble.
“—good ship Same Crit Different Day. In Morag’s absence, I’ll be your raid leader tonight, because the last time Bjorn did it, three people gquit.”
“Ah, they were all scrubs and noobs.”
Drew’s brain had gone a bit frozen. He’d heard the first voice before, but he hadn’t managed to place who it was. It was kind of a nice voice—soft, and calm, and a bit laughing and a bit posh—but what it definitely wasn’t, was a girl.
“Prospero and I will be your life force replenishment facilitation subcommittee, as usual.”
Ah. Right.
Okay.
Well, that answered that question.
“Dave and Magda will be the ministers in charge of sticking pointy objects into people. Bjorn, Jacob, Ignatius, and Mordant will be the department with general responsibility for fiery death.”
“Shadowy death,” interrupted Bjorn. “Fiery death is for teenagers who can’t play a proper spec.”
[Raid][Mordant]: Hey!!
The man-who-was-Solace sighed. “Bjorn, you are why we can’t have nice things. Ignore him, Mordant, he’s just insecure about having another diabolist on the run. Anyway, as I was saying—unless there’s anyone else you want to be rude to, Bjorn—Heurodis, Mordant, Ignatius, and Ialdir will be ranged DPS. Our tanks for this evening will be Orcarella and Sindarella. Obviously, we’ve only got two melee DPS, and our OT is a storm elementalist, so fasten your seat belts, it might be a bumpy raid. Remember we’re a good team and it’s a fresh reset so we’ve got a lot of experience with this content, so let’s stay calm, stay focused, and kick some arse.”
It was a very Solacey speech, and Drew would have enjoyed it if he hadn’t been too busy freaking the hell out.
He shouldn’t have been surprised, because he’d thought about this probably actually quite a lot. And, as far as he could remember, she’d . . . he’d never actually said she . . . he was a girl.
Solace hadn’t actually lied or led him on. At worst he’d been slightly evasive and let Drew make a bunch of assumptions. So he had no reason to feel betrayed.
Except he did. Utterly.
What he really wanted to do was gquit, turn off his computer, and go hide in a hole