#45 - X

Today’s words: Decorated, Dapperling, Assign, Detect

Word count: 573

Completion time: 46 minutes

Summary: A character explains why it’s really not okay to make someone do something they don’t want to, even if it appears to be a really minor thing

I’ve very recently gotten interested in CM Punk who is straight edge, and I've made a friend who is also straight edge, so this sort of happened after I wrote the first sentence of the story.

Disclaimer: Not all straight edge people are this verbally aggressive, this was very influenced by CM Punk clips (a cocky wrestler) and he's supposed to be a bit of an ass.

~

“How’s my decorated dapperling feeling this morning?”

He looked at his sleeve tattoo in the mirror across the room and walked past her to grab his jacket from the back of the computer chair. “One – get out of my room. Two - ‘dapperling’ is another word for a midget.” Both of his arms slid into the black biker jacket with the ‘Drug Free’ patch on the back and he shrugged his shoulders a couple of times. “I’m nearly six feet tall.”

She twisted her mouth and looked at the floor. “Whatever, it rhymed.”

“‘It’s always ‘whatever’ with you.” He tried not to sound pissed but it came out spiteful anyway. “Fuck, like... I don’t like how apathetic you are sometimes, about shit that actually means something to me.” The topic was obviously going to rear its head again, he just didn’t know when.

“Is...is this about the other day?” 

He could detect humour behind her words so he turned abruptly and walked over, standing not one foot in front of her and sizing her up. “You ever pull something like that again and I will leave, I swear. The only reason I’m not? I don’t have any cash to blow on another apartment right now...but I’m not obliged to talk to you, and you certainly don’t have to invite me to one of your ‘nights out’ again.” He backed away slightly and smoothed his hair out in the mirror. “I’ll assign you the role of...NPC.”

Her face creased up. “What?”

“You’re now officially a non-playable character in my life.” He turned towards her again and raised his eyebrows. “I do not have to look at you, talk to you, or pay you any attention whatsoever and everything will remain exactly the same.” A forced smile took up half of his face. “Starting now.” He made a move to leave and make it to the cafe with time to spare.

“What, you’re seriously still mad at me because I gave you a little alcohol?”

His feet stopped walking him to the door and he raised a hand by his head, palm facing out. “I’ll tell you one more time so that when I slap it to your brain it’ll stick...” he spun around, face reddening with frustration, “...I don't drink; what you effectively did on Friday night was give me a big ol’ ‘fuck you’ and a kick in the dick. And,” he laughed loudly, “as if you fucking ‘gave’ it to me, you forced a shot of shit down my throat after I refused and nearly pushed you into the queue behind us!”

“It barely even went down your throat, you big baby!”

“Are you seriously...?!” He made a fist. “You’re telling me that if you didn’t want to do something, eat something, drink something...whatever, and I physically forced you to do it, you’d be okay with that? You’d laugh it off? ‘Ho ho ho, that’s just Chris being Chris, what a joker’? Fuck no. You’d probably punch me in the face or fucking report me!” The anger was starting to fade, replaced by sadness and disappointment. “I seriously thought you were better than that.”

“Hey, I was drunk, I...”

He laughed again and turned away. “Yeah I reeeeeeally need to go, you’re making this situation worse by the second.” As he power-walked down the stairs, he mumbled, “I’m going fucking crazy, talking to an NPC; may as well be talking to myself.”