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[flare-star.insanejournal.com]

Who: Jamie Kemp & Kat Lowsley
What: Nerd bro friendships need an origin story
When: August 2011
Where: Video game store


Jamie loved summer. It meant he got to sleep in late, do whatever he wanted, and once July rolled around, he started counting down the days to his birthday. His grandparents has given him a gift card to one of the many video game stores that populated the city, and he was going to go out and get himself a new game today. He'd gotten an XBox for Christmas last year, and had freaked out a bit, because it was awesome.

He left a note for his dad, slipped the card, his keys, and his Metro Card into his pocket, and headed out the door. The store was only a subway ride and a few blocks away, so it didn't take him a terribly long time.

He got to the store and went inside, giving himself a second to adjust to the air-conditioning. (Seriously, every store felt like they had to run the A/C on the lowest setting in the summer, or something.) The XBox section was close by, and he stood in front of it, looking at all the shiny plastic cases and feeling a little lost. They all looked awesome, and he really wasn't sure where to begin.

Comments

[shades-of-fate.insanejournal.com]

Kat rather liked this store. It wasn't far from the Starbucks she worked at, and one of the few places she didn't get looks at, or questions if she was here for her boyfriend. Because heaven forbid she enjoyed games of her own.

She gave a wave to the clerk as she moved inside, wandering for a moment before pausing near the younger guy who was looking like he had one to many choices to make. She knew the staff here was decent, but they would always focus on making a sale first. And she never minded chatting to people. "Sup." she offered, in case the guy wasn't as open as she was.

[flare-star.insanejournal.com]

Jamie looked up at the voice. "Oh, hey," he said. "Trying to figure out what to get, you know? And having zero luck. Everything looks good."

[shades-of-fate.insanejournal.com]

"I know those moments well." She set her hands in the pockets of her jeans and scanned the racks. Striking up conversations was never something she minded. "Any clue at all? I can recommend some stuff if you have an idea? Like, do you want action or puzzle?" She glanced to the staff. "They'll try and get you to buy the newest thing, which is not always best." She smiled, "I'm Kat, by the way."

[flare-star.insanejournal.com]

She seemed nice, and really helpful, and he was grateful for that. "Hence why I didn't make much eye contact with them as I came in," he said with a quiet laugh. "And I really like puzzles, I've tried first-person shooters before, I'm pretty terrible at them."

"Jamie," he replied. "Nice to meet you, Kat."

[shades-of-fate.insanejournal.com]

"Gotta pay rent though." She shrugged and scanned the racks again, going through the titles in her head. "Bit of action. Devil May Cry has a lot of hack and slash plus puzzles. And there's Prince of Persia if you want all of the puzzles. And to question who makes Persian palaces." She smirked at that. "and one has it so you can't really die, which is always useful. Or if you like computer games there is always Half Life. It has zombies."

[flare-star.insanejournal.com]

"True," he agreed. "I just didn't want to take up their time when they could be helping someone who knew what they wanted. Though I wouldn't mind working someplace like this once I move out."

He looked at the titles she pointed out, picking up both Devil May Cry and Prince of Persia. "This one looks pretty awesome," he said, holding up Prince of Persia. "They both do, but I think I might go with this one, at least for right now. Although, knowing me, I'll ask for Devil May Cry for Christmas."

[shades-of-fate.insanejournal.com]

"Such is a treacherous road," she offered with half a scoff. "I do retail. It's not pleasant. Apparently most people leave their manners at home." She sighed then shrugged.

"Winner on both sides. I liked both of them, as long as you throw silly things like physics out the window." she smiled and looked through the stacks, picking up the newest game. It had been why she'd come in the first place.

[flare-star.insanejournal.com]

He winced in sympathy. "I've seen people act like that. My dad would never let me hear the end of it if I did anything like that in a store. People can really suck."

"Ah, now that I can do," he said, smiling. "I suspend my disbelief every time I hit the power button, so that shouldn't be too hard."

[shades-of-fate.insanejournal.com]

She nodded in sympathy. "they really, really can. I mean, it can be okay, but sometimes my faith in humanity falters, just a little." she grinned then and nodded, "fair enough. Hey if you got an Xbox I could give you the name I use?" She figured, at the least, it could allow them to talk. "I could guide you through the hardest parts?"

[flare-star.insanejournal.com]

"I cannot even imagine what goes through people's heads and makes them think acting like idiots is OK, or ever going to help them," Jamie said, shaking his head.

"That would be really awesome of you, thank you," he said, grinning. "I'm still mostly in the 'figuring out what everything does stage', I only got it for Christmas, and with school I don't get on as much as I'd like." He found an old receipt in his jeans pocket and wrote down his handle for her. "That's me, when I'm on anyway."

[shades-of-fate.insanejournal.com]

"Questions I have no answers to, unfortunately. People are strange." She nodded. "And sure. Never hurts anyway." She took the receipt and using one of her own wrote down her own handle. "Just give me a hi whenever you're on. School does tend to be rather important." She counted today as pretty awesome. She'd met someone new,which was always cool in her book.

[flare-star.insanejournal.com]

"Such wisdom," he agreed, smiling.

He looked at it for a moment, before folding it up and placing it in his pocket. "I will definitely do that. Thankfully it doesn't start up for about another month, so I plan to be very lazy for the next couple of weeks."

[shades-of-fate.insanejournal.com]

"It is hard won," she offered with a smirk before nodding in agreement. "Yeah I hear you there. Starting college myself soon. That's going to be a blast and a half." And a challenge, but she was fairly ready for it.

[flare-star.insanejournal.com]

"Wow, good luck with that," he said. "It'll be my junior year of high school, so not quite so bad. I'm still not ready for Year 3/4 of French, why I thought it was a good idea to take two years worth in one year, I'll never now. Guess I wanted to challenge myself." He shrugged. "What are you studying?"

[shades-of-fate.insanejournal.com]

"I'm majoring in Computer Sciences and minoring in Linguistics. I wanted to eclipse all of the nerd in one fell swoop." she grinned to her joke, knowing her humor tended to be something to get used to. "and hey if you ever need a hand with that, I pretty much grew up with that. My mom taught us to have many languages and French was one of them. Never hurts to brush up on it."

[flare-star.insanejournal.com]

"Nice," Jamie said. "You can get a little crown to that effect. Wear it with pride." He grinned.

"I think I would love that," Jamie told her. "I always learn better when I can have a conversation. Helps me remember things better, I think. I try not to mess with my learning process when I find something that works, anyway."

[shades-of-fate.insanejournal.com]

She chuckled, "Yeah it's probably what I'll do once I get my degree. Make a crown out of it. My mother will murder me."

"Cool, just give me a poke via the Live system and I'll be happy to help you out. French isn't hard once you figure it out."