Chapter 5 Cultivating a Toxic Environment
five
cultivating a toxic environment
“So, is this going to be like a major nerd-fest?”
Pal seems even more excited than I am as the three of us make our way to B.A. Start Games, my favourite indie-owned gaming store and the only place I ever buy physical games anymore.
The shop is several blocks away from the pub, and on the walk over I realize that my sweater-over-sweater outerwear choice this evening didn’t really account for the wind currently whipping through the chunky knits.
The shop is on a side street, at least, so the buildings around it should block out some of the wind while we wait.
“Not in a good way,” I tell them, tucking my hands up into my sleeves and burrowing my chin in the collar of my outermost sweater.
“Oh, hey, we should all go to FanFare Canada next year!” they say eagerly. “I haven’t been in ages.”
“I don’t really do big crowded venues,” Victory says, shaking her head. “Sensory overwhelm.”
“Ah, yeah. That’s cool.” Pal takes her hand in theirs, which I only notice when I turn my head to glance back at them.
“We could always just—” I get cut off when I round the corner onto the side street and smack right into a brick wall. A warm, nice-smelling, plaid-covered brick wall that, when I stumble a step backwards, looks kind of person-shaped.
The very un-wall-like wall turns to face me, and it is, in fact, a person. Who doesn’t look all that pleased to have just been accidentally assaulted by a slightly tipsy pile of sweaters.
“Sorry!” I say, loud enough for other people to glance our way. But he doesn’t seem to accept my apology, because he’s still looking at me like I’m—
Oh heck no.
“You!” I point a finger at him, and he jerks back. The harsh lights outside the shop make it glaringly obvious that he looks familiar, right down to the not-quite-blond brown hair. “You were in the shop this week!”
His eyes dart sideways, and I think he’s trying to find an escape route from this conversation—if it can be called that—but then someone comes up from behind and stands next to him with an arm casually slung over his shoulder.
The plaid not-a-wall is reasonably tall, sure, but his friend practically towers over him.
He’s wearing a maroon velvet jacket that goes all the way to the ground, despite his height—it must be custom-made.
It could be a costume, but I don’t recognize the character from Stones.
Everything about him is grand, though. Larger than life.
“She said sorry, man,” Velvet says to Plaid before looking at me and studying me for a moment. He frowns and then smiles. “Oh shit!” he says with a laugh, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “Is she that streamer?”
My eyes go wide, and I try to hide my burning cheeks behind my oversized sweater.
I think I’ve just been recognized from The Interwebs, and I’ve never had this happen to me before.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t have to sign an autograph, do I?
I don’t even remember how to spell my name right now.
Plaid looks absolutely pained by all of this, but his friend is pleased as punch. “Damien is a big fan,” Velvet says, and Plaid elbows him in the ribs.
“And…this is Damien?” I ask, pointing at—but not addressing—the plaid one.
“Yep, this is Damien,” Velvet replies, still grinning, “although his online fursona is SconesOfAyor—”
“That’s not what fursona means,” Plaid mutters—no, Damien—no, Scones.
A mix of shock, terror, horror, anxiety, curiosity, panic, and a sudden awareness of my own bad breath hits me like an actual brick wall.
“Shit,” I say quietly, exhaling into my pushed-up collar. Without permission, my eyes flick to his mouth and—yep—it’s definitely him.
“You’re Scones?” Victory says, taking a step towards him in a vaguely menacing way, like the overprotective best friend that she is. (She’s my favourite person.)
“Hold on, this guy’s your nemesis?” Pal asks me with a laugh, jutting their thumb towards him. They give him a once-over and raise an eyebrow at me. “You sure about that?”
“Nemesis?” Scones asks, looking about as confused as I feel right now.
I cover my face with both sleeve-wrapped hands. “This isn’t happening,” I mumble to myself.
“You just let all of your gamer bros trash Audrey and did nothing about it!” Victory says to him.
I peek through my hands and can see that he still looks like he wants to run away. Well, so do I, buddy.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looks towards his friend for assistance, but Velvet just shrugs and looks back at me.
“I’m Malcolm by the way,” Velvet says, reaching out for a handshake. I kind of thought we don’t do that anymore, here in the 2020s, but I shake his hand anyway—with my sleeve between us. He seems to find it funny.
“Audrey,” I say, and then glower at Scones. “But I suppose you might know me as OddlyAdored.”
Victory and Pal introduce themselves as well, as if this is a perfectly normal social situation we find ourselves in, and not the weirdest freaking night of my life.
“Damien,” Scones says—basically grunts—but he doesn’t look me in the eye.
“So this is why you were weird at Ink & Well?” I add, folding my arms across my chest. “You recognized me from my speedrun, and since you’re my nemesis—”
“Why do you keep saying nemesis?” He looks utterly baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“Are you just upset that I beat your speedrun time, or what?”
Scones blinks at me through his wire-rimmed glasses, perplexed. “Are you kidding? Why would I care about that?”
“Well, you never said anything about it!” I reply angrily.
“What—”
“People were tagging me on your streams, saying that I’m a fraud, and you said nothing,” I explain, and he at least has the decency to look a little guilty.
Malcolm tuts and shakes his head. “Dude. Cultivating a toxic environment…”
“Shut up,” Scones grumbles at him, and Malcolm laughs again.
“You know what, it doesn’t matter.” I hold up both hands in front of me. “I’m just here to get my Deluxe Edition of The Stones of Ayor 4 and get on with my life, so you can turn right back around and wait in line like the good little gatekeeper you are, and we never have to speak of this again.”
Scones stares at me for another moment before turning around, and I turn around as well to face Victory and Pal.
“That’s it?” Victory says to me, keeping her voice low. “This guy has fuelled your rage for the past week, and you’re just going to let it slide?”
“What am I supposed to do?” I say. “Punch him in the face?”
“I’ll do it,” Pal says, grinning wickedly.
“No. We’re grown-ups. I can be mature about this.”
“Well, if you’re not going to punch him,” they add, “then you should definitely fuck him.”
I sputter in response, glancing over my shoulder to make sure he didn’t hear anything and pulling my sweater up to hide most of my face. “What?”
“He’s all nerd-boy horny for you, it’s so obvious,” they say casually.
“Audrey doesn’t do that,” Victory tells them. She’s not mocking me, merely stating a fact.
“Do what? Fuck?” Pal asks, and Victory nods. “Ah, okay. That’s cool.”
“It doesn’t even matter,” I hiss at both of them. “Because he has a girlfriend. I sold her a fountain pen this week. There’s no horny happening here.”
Pal snorts. “Okay.”
“You don’t want to be with someone who can’t even stand up for you, anyway,” Victory says, putting a hand on my arm. She jerks it away as soon as she touches my sleeve.
“Sorry. Wool.” I give her an apologetic shrug, and she laughs a little.
I’m grateful to have friends with me while I wait in line, and even more grateful that the store opens five minutes early and the owner lets us pile in to get out of the cold before bringing out the Deluxe Edition games.
There are more people here than I expected, and I’m almost afraid that I won’t get my hands on it, but I manage to snag one and I hug the box to my chest on the way out, grinning like an idiot.
Whatever other crap may have gone down tonight, this will make up for it.
“Hey, wait,” a voice says behind me when we start heading down the street, and I look back to see the velvet one—Malcolm, I think—jogging to catch up to us.
He comes to a stop a few feet away from us.
I’d already forgotten just how tall he is.
“Damien would like to apologize for being a dumbass and wants to know—”
“Mal!” Scones calls after him, still standing by the entrance to the store. “Let’s go!”
“Don’t hold it against him,” Malcolm adds quickly before heading back towards his friend.
Scowling, I watch him walk away until Scones glances back at me, and I almost feel bad for being so pissed off. Which is ridiculous. I have every right to be unreasonable about this.
“Come on,” I say to Victory and Pal, turning to march off in the opposite direction. I’m not even sure this is the right direction anymore, but I need to be away from here.
They walk with me to my grandmother’s house, to make sure I get there safely, and then head off towards Victory’s apartment, where Pal intends to spend the night because they live further away and it’s late.
It seems kind of soon for sleepovers already, considering they only went on their first date a few days ago, but I’m in no place to judge what dating people do, given that I’m terrible with all of it.
I, however, am looking forward to spending the rest of the night alone.
I pry off my shoes as soon as I get to my apartment and drag my exhausted shell of a body into the living room. I set the Deluxe Edition on my desk, but I decide not to open it now. I’d rather wait until morning, when I can see all the goodies in daylight. Besides, I just want to get playing.
I change into sweatpants and an even uglier sweater and settle in my desk chair with a twenty-ounce mug of cold brew sitting next to my keyboard—I intend to be at this for a while.
I’m so eager to get started that I don’t even bother swapping for a keyboard with linear switches, which I tend to prefer for playing SOA games because I like how smooth they are for running around. But there’s no time for that now.
I fold up my legs on my chair and open up Play’N to get the game loaded, grateful that I was able to pre-download the hundred-gig game ahead of time. Nothing is going to keep me from this, the moment I’ve been waiting for for nearly a decade.
A brand new Stones of Ayor game.
The title screen fills my main monitor, and I get goosebumps on my arms, but then a small notification pops up in the corner. A Play’N notification, a request for a private chat.
From SconesOfAyor.