Hope. Hope was still a thing. Precious, precious hope.

His eyes widened a bit as she nibbled on his ear. So that was her tactic, huh?

She had no idea what she was getting herself in to. "Computer, ten cubes privacy screen, no entry or observation, noise screen, only open with M644 Saphirus voice and password authorization."

He smiled to her as the din of the arcade suddenly went silent, and the area around them darkened a bit.

**Fade to Black**

While she was still tuckered out, he was playing Pinball distraction free.

His run on centaur was one of a vet with a sixth sense and knowledge of how to bump a pinball machine without activating the tilt function.

He rocked at this one in particular. Multi-ball after multiball, hitting the odd angles of the point multipliers an bonus features, he made the standing top score look like a tiny, tiny number. This one was his home turf. They'd stolen one and rigged it to work in the alley he'd lived in for much of his adolescent life. All he'd had to do back then was steal things, spend time with alley denizens, and play this machine.

Centaur was love. Centaur was life.

Well, that hadn't gone how she'd expected it to go!

She made a mental note to not antagonize him further while he could work his magic voice voodoo on the program and just kinda slumped against him in an exhausted heap while he played. Where the hell did he get all of that energy, anyway!?

It didn't take long for her to catch onto just how good he was at that particular game, and she felt a nervous sweat break out on the back of her neck. Or, well, that could have also been from the previous activity, but whatever.

Leaning forward so she could peer over his arm, she watched with wide eyes as be basically walked through the game with his hands tied behind his back. Then, as the end game lights were blinking and music was playing, she tried to casually avoid his gaze should he cast it on her. Oh, was it her turn already?

"I'm just gonna go ahead and admit defeat on this one before I embarrass myself."

Saph: 2, Shelby: 1

She was going to have to work harder at this. The next game she had in mind she knew was a definite win for her. She squinted at Saph momentarily. Yup, gonna have to bring out the big guns.

"The next game I choose is downstairs!" A hop, skip, and beat later and she was standing in front of a large, brightly lit machine that was pumping out electronic dance music. She turned an absolutely evil grin on him, and casually stretched.

"Ever played Dance Dance Revolution before?" If he couldn't ride a bike, she doubted it. Was this a low blow? Most assuredly. But she didn't care! She was losing! "You want to go first again?"

One terrible victory dance later, Saph let her get straightened up, and lowered the wall of silence and obscurity around them. He was feeling pretty good at this point.

He wouldn't be for long.

A monstrosity out of its place in this arcade was pointed out in the corner. Dance Dance Revolution. @#$^. That terrible victory dance he'd done was about the best he could do. He didn't like the sound of that. He could hardly dance. This dancing game might be a problem.

As they approach, he got a better sense of it.

"So... You just hit the arrows with your feet? Huh... That doesn't sound so bad. Sure, i'll give it a go."

He hopped on up, stumbled his way through the song selection screen, and started.

> ^ > ^... So far so good. This was easy.

<miss <miss vmiss... Huh... that was strange, he could have sworn he was hitting those... with his right foot... oh.

"@#%^in hell, really?" He tried to make up his loss by grabbing the rail thing and using just the one foot, but it wasn't long before he flunked out.

Just like that, it was tied. Saph leaned against the bar with a sour look on his face. He turned and hopped off the platform. "You better be good at this."

To her credit, she didn't laugh. She could have, it was pretty amusing, but she didn't. She just smiled pleasantly back at him like there wasn't a little devil on her shoulder cackling loudly. Ultimately he failed, and she felt that her pride at such a monumental loss at pinball was recovered slightly. When he hopped off, she slipped on and centered herself between the two pads. It was time for her to shine~

She scrolled through the difficulty, selected Heavy and chose her song. Beethoven Virus. "I dunno! Haven't played this game in quite a few years!"

Both pads lit up under her as a countdown started on screen, and she leaned back to grab the bars. Arrows started scrolling, she started to move her feet. Quickly a combo counter popped up. She hit perfect and marvelous every step.

By the time the two minute and ten second song was over she had amassed a combo score of 500, and her total score for the game was well into the millions. And, oh lawd, her calfs were on fire!

She turned from the screen and leaned on the railing toward him, not even bothering to hide how pleased with herself she was. "Still got it~!"

Saph: 2  Shelby: 2

Saph wasn't let down. Holy @#$%, how much spare time did she have growing up? She was so good at this game! He had to admit, though, after a moment, he was no longer really looking a the game, but rather her.

@%@# she was cute. It helped that she was having fun, too. He sure was.

Most fun he'd had in... years.

She finished her song on perfect, and he snapped out of his daze.

"I dunno if you ever lost it." He feigned grumpiness.

"So we're tied. I'll get the lead again!"

And he did; Hoops went his way, though she wasn't bad, he made a living off of throwing things at things, albeit usually much harder things thrown much harder.

She beat him hands down at racing, even though he'd been very confident in his driving skills.

Table hockey. He won. Duh.

She was the better Ms. Pac Man...

The night went long, and by the end they were 8/8.

Tired, Saph leaned against the front counter of the store. They'd played pretty much everything. He looked to her counting up the numbers again.

"Damn... we're tied any way I count it... Wachu think?"

She smacked her head against the counter for the umpteenth time. Tied. They were tied. Without dipping back into similar style games, which would be unfair, they had come to a wall blocking the road. She groaned at him in response right at first, before lifting her head and looking at him.

"I haaate tiiies." Her bottom lib may have wiggled a little, she paid it no attention. "Okay, so we've played pretty much everything..." She fished the chocolate coin back out of her pocket. It was long past melted at this point. She laid it carefully on the counter and continued. "Unless we wanna have a wrasslin' contest, which i'd sorely lose, I-"

A thought struck her and she slapped the counter excitedly. "Oh! Oh oh!" Shelby swiveled on her stool on one full circle before she stopped herself and beamed at him. "I've got it: Rock, paper, Scissors!"

It was the tie breaker staple, after all! She held a hand out and fisted the other in the center of it, waiting expectantly. Really, she couldn't be bummed about this either way considering all of the fun she'd had. She really hoped that he'd had some fun too.

((Results were achieved via actual rock paper scissors. In real life. For real. I lost. Poop.))

"Unless we wanna have a wrasslin' contest, which i'd sorely lose, I-"

uh, yeah, he'd be game for that! He was almost able to raise his hand in approval when she caught onto her final plan.

Saph nearly fell over when the old fashioned tie breaker was brought up. They couldn't just wrestle it out?

He thought for a second, and then nodded slowly. He was pretty good at Rock Paper Scissors, right? With some confidence she lined up to him.

Round 1:

Saph - Scissors.
Shelby - Rock.

Okay, okay, it was two out of three, he just needed to get into her head. It was a head game! He stared her intently in the eyes, and didn't break eye contact for round two.

Round 2:

Saph - Scissors.
Shelby - Paper.

Hah! A win! That would get him inside of her head. She would think he was going to use the same again, so it was the perfect time to switch it up!

Round 3:

Saph - Rock.
Shelby - Paper.

F@#$!

"Hahah!" She threw her hands in the air triumphantly, did a little dance in a circle, and then rounded back to him. "I wiiiiin~" The dance didn't stop. Nope, she was going to milk this for all it was worth.

"That means you have to take me on an adventure of some sort!" What and where she'd leave up to him. He was fun enough that she didn't really have any worries that he'd choose anything lame. Buuut... there was still the matter of what his wager had been.

With a little twirl she stopped in front of him, beaming up with cheeks rosy from her little dance, blue eyes twinkling as they caught the lights from above.

"Even though I won, will you still be my boyfriend?" She tucked her hands into her pockets, rocking on her heels a little.

Well damn, talk about bold moves backfiring.

He scratched the back of his head as she gloated, and looked down a bit as she mentioned the adventure.

"Yeah..."


Could he look more forlorn? Not for long, as she walked up to him, looking all breathtaking.

Her bright hair, her sparkling blue eyes, the incredible energy about her... Damn... He really was smitten.

"Even though I won, will you still be my boyfriend?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

[END.]

Date 2: Star gazing

She'd told him to meet her in the Danger Room when he was ready. She hadn't told him why, only giving him a slight smile and peck on the cheek to run with. She'd given herself an hour to get everything ready, although she probably hadn't needed that much time. She checked the thermos' again to make sure they were still warm. 

Since the last time they had been in that room together, when she'd taken him to he favorite arcade, she'd had plenty of ideas bouncing around in her head. And when she wasn't working, focusing on those ideas helped to keep her mind off of other things. Darker things. The artist stuffed the bottles back into one of the backpacks and buckled it closed. She'd grabbed blankets, a pillow or two from another room in the school, a few snacks and hot chocolate. Which, if he didn't get there soon, was going to turn into a chocolate ice cube.

The setting she was currently standing in was another from her own past, mostly because she was rather un-creative with things when it didn't have to do with art. But, she also felt that it might be something he could appreciate. She wanted to take him out star gazing, and in her not-bias-at-all opinion, Mt. Rainier from her home state was one of the best places to do exactly that. She'd never been, personally. Mostly because of a crippling fear of bears, so it would be a new, exciting experience for her, too!

Glancing behind her at the view behind her, she felt a swell of excitement in her chest. Maybe a little pride, too. Her state was certainly beautiful. The sky was just starting to turn various shades of pink, purple, and blue. Her hair very nearly matched. There were a few scattered clouds, just as she'd requested, but mostly open, endless atmosphere. They wouldn't far away from the mountain, and were rather high up on the summit, but an extensive network of mapped out hiking trails had made it easy for her to pick this spot in particular. 

She breathed in and sighed contently. The only problem she had was that she hadn't been able to alter the temperature. It was freezing out!

Saphirus walked into a freezing environment; that was the first thing that stood out to him, on account of him wearing a t-shirt and jeans. The second thing was that Shelby wasn't far off, with a bunch of stuff prepared.

He hobbled quickly toward her, clenching his arms and chattering his teeth.

"What's this exactl-woah..." His eyes landed on the giant mountain before them. "Big mountain." It was huge. It had to be the largest single object he'd ever laid eyes on, not counting the ocean. He stared for a moment before the cold got to him, and he requested a coat and snow pants from the computer.

A few moments later he was dressed a bit better, but still pretty cold. "Shelby, what's goin on? Where we at?"

He looked around. It definitely wasn't New York. The tallest mountain in the state was likely 1/3rd the size of this one, and he'd never even gone too close to any of the ones in his home state anyways.

"What's this exactl-woah... Big mountain. Shelby, what's goin on? Where we at?"

She grinned at him, waving a mitten clad hand. It was lovely seeing the awe on his face. 

"Currently we are about twenty one hundred feet up." She started, turning to cast an arm out at the view. "This is Mount Rainier! One of the many in Washington." She beamed, "It's also an active volcano!"

She shrugged her pack on, and lifted his out to him. His may have been a little bigger than hers... but he was bigger than her, so it seemed fair. She half turned, glancing back over her shoulder at the mountain.

"Have you ever been star gazing? This particular place is probably one of the best places to pick a spot and see, well, everything!" She pointed a hand toward the sky. "No light pollution what. So. Ever.~"

"Currently we are about twenty one hundred feet up. This is Mount Rainier! One of the many in Washington. It's also an active volcano!"



Wasn't she originally a ginger? This was starting to feel like the magic school bus. He was into it, though. "Like... it ain't gonna explode any time soon, though, is it? Cause... I been near one of these things when they pop off. Ain't pretty. That one was a lot smaller, too." He stared at the large behemoth before them, his inner pioneer adventurer told him to scale it. To dominate it. Then jump off of it, cause he could. 

"Have you ever been star gazing? This particular place is probably one of the best places to pick a spot and see, well, everything! No light pollution what. So. Ever.~"

Oh, right, they were here for a date. "Star gazing? I mean, I've looked up before, and seen pictures. Not a very good view in the city, though. That what this is about?" He wasn't sure exactly what light pollution meant. He gave an approving nod, and pointed over to the side of the path. "Thought we'd come to look at those, though."

When she turned around, he would already have a snowball ready.

He aimed for the chest, to be nice.

"Like... it ain't gonna explode any time soon, though, is it? Cause... I been near one of these things when they pop off. Ain't pretty. That one was a lot smaller, too."

She whipped around so quickly her scarf nearly fell off. "You were near an erupting volcano?!" Not gonna lie, she was pretty jealous if he was telling the truth.

"Star gazing? I mean, I've looked up before, and seen pictures. Not a very good view in the city, though. That what this is about?"

She nodded slightly. "Part of it." Pointing at the darkening sky, she chose to elaborate a little more. "The reason you don't get a very good view in the city is from all of the lights. Basically the light we produce interferes with starlight. Makes it so you can't see anything. " The artist pointed to the surrounding sea of trees. "Don't have the same problem out here. trust me, it'll be better than any picture you've ever seen." 

... Did the danger room count as a glorified picture?

She glanced over to the side after her brief explanation, attempting to figure out what he was talking about. "Those wha-"

Thwack!

A snowball zipped in and exploded upon contact with her chest. She gaped at it for a second before cackling and reaching down to make over of her own. "Oh, It's on!"

Above them the sky was darkening still, and the brightest stars had already chosen to peek out.

"You were near an erupting volcano?!"

"Well, kinda, yeah... They sorta stopped it erupting, technically. Still kinda did. It was an X-Man thing. Kinda the worst, actually." He didn't seem to want to talk about it a whole lot...That was where he'd had to fight the dead villagers. They just wouldn't stop attacking him... switching tracks, he found it odd to think about how separated from general society the events that happened in an X-Man's life were.

Of course she'd never fought zombies on an erupting volcano island! Just talking about it sounded f@$^in bananas.

He was satisfied with her explanation of light pollution. He wasn't exactly well versed on these sort of things, so it was nice to have the college girl edumacate him a little. Another ride on the magic school bus!

No more thoughts on that, though. A battle had begun.

To spare her humiliating defeat, he fought her on even terms, no powers involved. He still won. Payback for the arcade! Still, by the time they were done, he was near bone-chilled, and the night was almost upon them.

It was about time they warmed themselves up. I mean, he could always change the temperature with voice commands, but that hardly seemed fair.