F E N R i R

My first story!
The prologue is tedious, but please give it a chance and read on.
Also, ahem, author alerts anyone?

x-Serena

“God fucking bats!”

You’d think being able to summon the king of the jungle would protect you from bats. That, my friend, is a misconception—I would know, presently being ambushed by a pack of the things much more numerous than they'd initially appeared, bats that would be peacefully napping upside-down on the ceiling if I hadn't sent a large feline at them. For what it's worth, I'd been expecting a little bit of assistance from Fenrir. A mystery, really, in light of the fact that, presently, he was idle a few feet away, watching intact as the rats-with-wings tore me to pieces.

“Fen, heal me you fucking douche!” I shouted. There was no response. I went crazy on my spells, attempting to cast three, four if I was feeling particularly ambitious, at a time. It didn’t work—no wonder I die so quickly, really. I probably should have packed some bread or something. Would have, if I weren't under the delusion that a certain Fenrir would be doing the healing for me.

Along with a wave of static from his crappy ten-dollar mic, Fenrir finally returned as the last of my HP was chipped away, the sound of his voice accompanied by the distinct smack smack of chewing.

“Eh? Sorry, Iz, I went to get apple pie—crap, you dead?”

“No, moron, I’m just laying down on the ground for the hell of it. Rez please?”

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Iz and Fenrir are two citizens of the World of Warcraft. More specifically, Blood Elves of the horde. To narrow it down further, we are what one might call in-game, "noobs." I'm a hunter, and my character, unlike Fen with his female Warlock, is an accurate representation of my male status. I can't tell you how many times Fen has watched me die while dancing Brittany Spears' Toxic for me, raving about how hot female Blood Elves are.

He could stand to focus once in a while.

“Why the hell would you go to get a pie at a time like this?” I demanded, my finger on the tab key to activate the mic. “I might as well not have a healer at all!”

“I’unno,” the static replied. I scowled. “I was a little hungry, and I figured Mittens there would be enough for you.”

“I told you, it’s not Mittens, it’s Aslan! Fuck you!”

The only reason Fen and I stick together is that we’re both just barely in the double digits level-wise and don't know anyone willing to help us level grind. if it weren't for that, I wouldn't be dealing with this crap. Maybe I’m only speaking for myself, but Fen is one of the main contributors to my daily stress levels—ironic, considering I play the damn game to reduce stress.

I caught myself dragging my hand roughly through my raven hair, a nervous reflex, forcing my hand back to its imperative position on the mouse and letting my bangs fall back in front of my bloodshot-from-eight-hours-on-WoW cobalt eyes.

Speaking of time, I glanced at the clock and winced. It was three in the morning and I had to work at six before photo class.

“Listen, Fen. I told myself I wouldn’t log until we finished this instance, but I’m tired and I have work in three hours. What I’m trying to say is, hurry up and rez me so we can get going—oh god, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, watching as he started dancing Toxic on top of my dead body. This was getting me nowhere. Maybe it was time to reprioritize and just go to bed.

“Don’t talk like that,” Fen snickered. “I’m enjoying myself.”

Oh, of course he was.

“Why aren’t the bats attacking you?” I snapped.

“I dunno, guess it’s ‘cause I didn’t attack them. Or something.”

Now both hands were roughly kneading my scalp, my breathing coming in shallow gasps. I counted to ten. Fen chose this moment to play around and experiment with emotes—he always seemed to know, in his heart of hearts, the worst time to fuck with my head. And that’s when he chose to do it.

“Mirrors can't talk. Luckily for you, they can't laugh either!” Fen toyed with the /silly emote.

“You are so lucky you’re just pixels to me right now, Fen. I would strangle you dead then sell your organs on eBay,” I informed him stiffly, jamming the tab button with one hand while the other continued to assault my hair.

“Do you think the expansion will make me fat?” the blood elf replied eloquently.

“I’m going to fucking kill you. I will hunt you down and kill you.“

“Is that a mana wyrm in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” Fen, for the sake of variety, I guess, tried out the /flirt emote.

“Rez, Fen,” I reminded him, trying to gather my patience.

“Yeah, Iz? I told you a long time ago, Warlocks can't resurrect, so you’d better just respawn,” Fen finally decided to inform me. “I’ll guard your skeleton while you’re on your way back, I promise.” I lost it.

“Fen!” I snapped, raking my hair so hard I felt strands disconnect from my scalp. My head was pounding, and my throat was clenching, but I was far too furious to remember my calming tactics. “Remember all those times I told you to tell me these things before you dance on my dead body? Yeah? Well, just in case, let me tell you again: tell me these things before you dance on my dead body.”

“But…” Fen’s static whined, “then you’d respawn and there’d be no dead body to dance on. It’s your fault for sucking so bad at this game, anyway. You should have learned your lesson the last time I danced on your corpse and then couldn’t rez you.”

For what it’s worth, I had learned my lesson. I can promise you I had been in a situation nearly identical to the one at hand, and I’d fully intended to remember it. However, irritability at my level does funny things to your sense of reason. Every time this happened, I was too absorbed with the fact that I hadn’t received assistance to care about Fen’s capabilities. And here he was, blaming me for something that was only inadvertently my fault.

Something deep in my head went off, but my throat was too blocked off to allow me to yell any more than I already had. Cue coughing fit. I recoiled my hand from the tab button, covering my mouth and wincing as hacking cough after hacking cough tore up my windpipe. The fit subsided eventually, leaving me too worn out to be angry. I moaned pitifully, stroking my throat.

Attacks like these were common, a result of an over-stressful life due to acute anxiety issues; still, my therapist would have been ashamed to watch me lose it at a game. I pressed tab again and hoarsely grumbled, “shut up. I’m sick of your voice, I’m turning my mic off.”

Sure, my not wanting to hear him did contribute to my deactivating the voice feature, but it was mostly due to the fact that it would probably hurt to talk for a few more minutes.

I yanked the headpiece from its outlet. That having been done, I clicked the respawn button, the entire world becoming grayscale and spectral. I glided from the cave, my eyes flitting from my character, basically a blood elf-shaped mass of mist, to the map to find the nearest graveyard. To Fen, I typed, ill brb, it takes me 4ever to run all the way to the graveyard & back, this is ur fault. The quiet let me even myself out, smooth my frayed and jagged nerves. I was on the brink of the anxiety attack of the century, and dying of an anger-induced seizure wasn’t my idea of a fun time.

This pie is nomnom-licious, he responded. I can only imagine the very distinct Fen-jeering tone he would have used to express such articulate words.

ur fucking face is nomnom-licious, I typed, equally as intelligent.

ur rite, it prbly is. wanna taste?

I scowled. Apparently, all Fen needs is a pair of pixilated boobs, and he hits on anything with a pixilated penis. I didn’t even dignify his immaturity with a response, my eyes trained on the map as I ghosted across the landscape in the general direction of the graveyard. It was even farther than I’d remembered. For my own sake, I kept my eyes glued to the surreal, milky white spirit-world version of the landscape, ignoring Fen as best as I could. It didn’t help that he sent me what had to have been five messages, one right after the other.

I tried to ignore it, but eventually my curiosity got the best of me, my eyes trailing down to the chat box.

no but srsly i have 2 ask u something.

itd b better if ud plug your mic back in.

but ur prbly rly pissed.

u get pissed 2 easy.

shuld I just ask 2morrow, or will u listen?

its serious.

I quirked an eyebrow. I hadn’t known Fen to ever bring up anything serious. I knew him best for—well, dancing on my dead body. Speaking of which, I so wasn’t in the mood to listen to his request.

Until I reached the graveyard and spoke to the large, intimidating winged angel to regain life, I ignored him completely. The whole cold-shoulder game had never been my strong point, however. As I turned my character around, I jammed my headset back into the little plug and went through the process of reactivating the voice feature. Once my headset was fitted on my head, I took a deep breath to test the state of my throat, decided it was safe to speak, then pushed tab and sighed, “what, Fen?”

I am such a pushover at heart.

There was a long pause, and if it weren’t for the static assaulting my ears that suggested he was pressing his voice button and ready to respond, I would have assumed he was off fetching another piece of pie.

“I was kicked out of my house,” he stated finally.

My instinctive response to anything Fen ever said was a sensitive, “yeah, so?” but as the weight of his words settled, my voice trailed off unconvincingly. I didn’t say anything for a moment, then continued with a much kinder, “oh… then where are you now?”

“Right now, I’m with my laptop at McDonalds. Free internet. They already told me I can’t stay here forever, and then, uh, I’ll have nowhere to go,” he responded, and I could almost hear him fidgeting. “Seriously, Iz, I don’t want to sleep on the side of the road tonight. Seriously.”

For a moment, I stared at my screen, navigating Izmine towards Fen and the cave, listening offhandedly like any good online-friend would to a party member in need. However, at some point it seemed to occur to me what he was suggesting. I went into defense mode.

“What’dya want me to do about it, Fen?” I snapped, bristling. I’d forgotten about the whole good online-friend deal, I had to protect my domain from vermin like Fen. Basic homemaking knowledge: even better than setting traps and having dead rodents all over your cabinets is not having mice at all.

Not that I’d ever think for even a minute of killing Fen and shoving him in my cabinet. Probably. At any rate, I didn’t plan on allowing him access, so no worries.

“I-I dunno. You’re in college, right?” he responded awkwardly after a long pause, as if that was a logical reason to want to live with anyone. “I have no money. My parents have officially informed my high school I’ve dropped out, and the deans all hate me anyway, so I’m not even allowed to go to class anymore. I’ve got friends, but none of them are the type of people you’d want to live with, you know?”

“Fen, this isn’t a matter of want, okay?” I rolled my eyes. Apparently, my brief sensitive spell was over, and I was back to cold, indifferent Iz.

“I won’t dance on your corpse anymore!” Fen pleaded. He almost sounded pitiful, but I didn’t let myself feel bad for him for even a moment. I was done with that.

“No. Hell, how do you know we even live near each other?” I demanded.

“Well, we don’t. We don't live far, either, though—I mean. Probably, how would I know, right?” he stumbled over his words. After a pregnant, suspicious pause, he cleared his throat and explained meekly. “Uh, Iz, you know, you have your WoW name all over your Facebook wall, and, er, I don’t know if you know how to make it private or not, but—“

“What are you, a stalker?”

I caught myself pulling my hair out again. Another reason I couldn’t live with Fen, I’d be bald within a week. I stopped and sat on my hands, thinking of my torn-up throat and deciding it was time I calmed down before I hurt myself even more. Ten wasn’t going to cut it… I began at one-Mississippi, planning to continue to thirty. I was interrupted before I could even get to two-Mississippi.

“No! I’m not, really!” he insisted. He was clearly becoming desperate, his normally cheerful voice jumping up to an unnatural octave. I could only imagine the stares he was getting in McDonalds; soon they’d kick him out, too. “Listen, Iz, I’m really sorry. I… well, I mean, I can’t really explain it, but something happened over here that… it’s related to being kicked out, really, and all my friends… I called them already, but their parents, they talked to my parents… they know, and…” he trailed off, then justified himself weakly. “Most of it wasn’t true, what my parents said, but now I’m islanded at McDonalds.”

I was dumbfounded. I felt my cold indifference cracking along the edges. It really wasn’t a matter of want. On the other hand, if whatever he did was bad enough to get him blacklisted all over town, did I really want him in my apartment? I didn’t really believe the “not true” bit, that’s what kids always say; it’s about perspective, really.

“The taxi fare won’t be too high, I looked it up. It’s sixty dollars from Naperville to O’Hare, and if you live in Chicago you can’t be too far from the airport,” he continued hopefully.

“Fen,” I spoke slowly, my voice even. “Get a hotel if you’ve got money to commute to here from wherever the hell Naperville is.”

“I... don’t. I was hoping you’d call the taxi for me.”

What?

“Since when do college students have cash to throw at taxis for complete strangers!?” I hissed. Something clicked in poor Fen, and he didn’t respond for a moment, not even the static of his mic gracing my ears. The silence was unnerving.

“We’re not strangers,” he whined eventually. “We’re… we’re really close. I mean, how many friends do you have that can say they’ve danced on your dead body, Iz? Iz, please, I promise I’ll pay you back. I’ll clean your house, I’ll cook for you, I’ll get a job as soon as I can. I just really need your help, I don’t have anyone to turn to.”

The cracks were propagating all along the surface of my protective shell, little bits of empathy leaking into me, making my chest squeeze with indecision. Finally, presented with a sudden urgency to just crawl under my covers and sleep, I decided.

“Fuck,” I groaned. “Give me the address of your McDonalds, Fen. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Yes!” Fen cheered. Funny, I couldn’t bring myself to share in his excitement.

In game, my ghost finally reached the cave, and you wouldn’t believe what I saw. There he was, doing a little victory dance of Toxic on what was left of my skeleton.

Oh, what had I gotten myself into?