The Inexplicable Exploits of the Dork Corps

Part XVII - By Any Other Name

     (The chapter that literally none of you have been waiting for! Sorry for the long absence, but I'm racing Fire for completion of our chapters. Wish me luck ghosties)

     "Now?"

     "No."

     "Now?"

     "No."

     "Now?"

     "I am going to waterboard you with Kool-Aid if you don't shut up."

     "You wouldn't."

     "Try me. I know where Fire keeps it."

     "Okay shutting up now."

     Carter and Nemesis are across from one another in the training room. Carter lounges on his stomach atop a pile of wrestling mats. He kicks the wall absentmindedly, leaving skid marks from the heavy rubber soles of his boots. Nemesis scowls and stalks over to him, pulling him down from his perch.

     "Look what you did. There's skid marks all over my wall." A mat falls on top of him and she huffs as she assess the stack. "And, my whole stack is messed up." Whenever Carter's in the training room, he likes to screw things up. Making it a little dirty, a little unorganized, a little mussed. He likes to think it's an accurate metaphor for his effect on Nemesis, scuffing up her ego, scattering her collected exterior, and crumpling her cautiously controlled anger issues. He sits up and removes the mat, and Nemesis knees him not so gently in the side of the head.

     "Fix this." Nemesis saunters back over to where she was doing pull ups on the rings hanging from the ceiling. Carter rolls his eyes and haphazardly smacks the mat atop the rest of the pile. "Fix it correctly." She says, not even bothering to look at him. He huffs and straightens the edges.

     "Thank you." She says sarcastically and braces herself to swing off. She does a front flip mid air and lands somewhat shakily on the polished gymnasium style floor.

     "You know, technically if you want to get better at landing those flips, you should work on becoming more flexible." She glares at him, "Like this." He does a front handspring and lands with a thud of his boots on linoleum.

     "You know," she says in the same way that Carter said to her just earlier, "Technically if you want to get better at making friends, you should work on becoming less of a condescending ass."

     "Ooh burn." Fire says from the door as she walks in.

     "Who even says 'ooh burn' anymore?" Carter sulks knowing that he has nothing to say in response. He flops onto his back on a stored punching bag, wriggling a little to mess it up.

     "I do. That's who." Fire says dropping a chocolate chip cookie onto his stomach. "Eat." He rolls his eyes and takes an especially large bite of one of them. He chews and swallows it, but doesn't really taste it and drops the rest of the cookie behind the punching bag.

     "Fire, I've told you before, no more food in the training room."

     "So... I'm assuming that means that you don't  want this gatorade I brought for-"

     "Yeah yeah, give it here." She cracks it open and Carter definitely does not watch her as she takes a long swig of the bright green liquid. And he definitely does not watch her throat as she swallows, and he definitely does not watch her wipe her lips on the back of her hand as she exhales. And despite all of this definitely not happening, Fire still smirks at him with anything but innocence in her dancing eyes.

     "You're welcome." And somehow, she's not exactly talking to Nemesis. He bites the inside of his cheek and sits up.

     "Whatever," he says, "I have schoolwork to do."