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 Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:02 am
He glanced at this watch. ETA: exactly four hours and thirty-three minutes until they had to report to leave for the next mission. Dress lightly, keep hydrated, the same protocol applied. It would probably take half-an-hour to find a new fifth member for their team, another ten minutes to get dressed, which brought his grand total of idle time down to three hours and fifty-three minutes.
Cologne? Check. Some flowers clipped off the arrangement he had been growing off the corner of his room? Check.
Ben was ready. This time, this time he would not fail his pre-mission.
The 'labs' were a little less occupied this morning, and as the red-head made his usual preliminary "hellos" around the corner, the usual "good lucks!" jeering him on as he finally navigated his way to the office. Well, technically, Dr. H's office by extension, but there was one very lovely lady occupying the parameters at that time. He checked his breath first, made a slight face, and popped a breath mint. Okay, deep breaths. You can do this Ben. Sure you were rejected the last twenty-four times, but this time, you are going to do this. Here we go.
What Ben was hoping in Clarice-o-vision was that she would see a fine, strapping gentleman approaching him, flowers in one hand, a winning smile complimenting his complexion. Maybe it was winning and slightly rugged. Maybe he should have shaved less, who knew if she was into that sort of thing. Nonetheless, there was the smile as he approached and gave the Life Hunter a small salute. "Hey Clarice! Fancy seeing you here."
He really needed to work on more opening lines.
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:13 am
The corner of Clarice's eye twitched, and she glanced up with a very distinct not now expression. She'd just gotten shot in the head due to her boss's need for theatrics when playing with trainees. She also just found out that there was coding error on over a dozen pendants and that while she was busy being shot, the job was passed over to her. "Ben. Did you need something?"
The man in front of her may have a little under four hours on his hands, but they were four hours of bad timing.
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 1:46 pm
Phase One: Hard to get.
Oh s**t, what was the correct answer for this one again? There was a literal lapse of silence as Ben worked fast and furiously to eliminate the wrong choices from The list of How To Correctly Woo Clarice Into a Date.
Flowers. Maybe it was flowers. No, never mind, they were going a very good job of wilting under Clarice's stellar expression. "Yes I uh, came to see how you were doing and if you... needed... help." In his moment of machismo, Ben realized he actually had no clue what she was even doing as the Life Hunter toyed with the screens. The thought of 'pressing buttons' came to mind. Considering that they, on a daily basis went on missions to eliminate the so called terrors of the world and protect mankind, pressing buttons was an easy task right? Seriously, how hard could pressing a few keys be: all that mystical stuff about Life Hunters and operating systems and coding infrastructures had to be a ruse they made to confuse every other division. Sadly, this worked.
"Help," the red-head quickly clarified - "In the next four hours or so before my mission. Because that is why I am here, to be helpful." Wow, that didn't sound lame at all.
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:14 pm
She remembered Bix coming here just a few days earlier, and couldn't help but smile at the comparison. A trainee ending up here and offering help, out of boredom or just a desire to socialize was something she understood, and was fairly sympathetic toward. Coming from one of Caelius's top officers? It was completely ridiculous. The smile quickly turned back into a more stern expression, but the damage had been done. Mentally she gave a sigh, and added a tally under Ben's running score.
There was a distinct chance that the Death Hunter was actually just a nice, extremely persistent guy that was genuinely interested in her. But for Clarice, this had stopped being a matter of dating long ago.
"Help me what, exactly?"
This was a matter of winning.
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:29 pm
Holy s**t was she actually smiling? Angels seemed to descend from the skies, a whole chorus of them, the clouds part to reveal her hair as she shook it, slowly, blond locks waving in the wind slow motion-
- Okay, one sec, rewind Ben, slow down and rewind. There had to be something wrong with the situation. The last twenty-four times had told him so, and considering she was sighing this was not a good sign. Code red, all alarms go on, step two phase two was now in motion.
Phase two: Answering with equal charisma.
This might have might as well been rocket science. He kind of had to place the flowers down on the counter and steady himself for a second as he dived into the Path of Further Thought. A lightbulb went off. 'Well, what do I say Baki?'
'....' Silence on the other end. So much for plan B: it seemed the weapon knew when to shut up from simply learning and observing. No wonder humans needed to be protected, seriously.
"Help you..." He fished, looking at the screen. Words. The screen had them. He tried the piles of papers to the side of Clarice. More words. There was a reason Caelius rarely let him do paperwork. Wait, take this logically Ben, step by step. Treat it practically like a game.
"Help you ... uh..." Another lightbulb. "Relax." The rest of the sentence practically flew out on its own accord. "You look stressed you know, and I, thought you know, maybe you could do your stuff and I could help you. Unstress. Sharing work always makes it go faster right?" Yeah he was still working on that part. "As long as it involves learning it in a short period of time, that button pressing thing you're doing."
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:49 pm
The look she gave him now was completely incredulous, "The button pushing thing. That I do." While she gave this a certain amount of consideration, she opened a desk drawer, pulled out a nice sized beaker, and wordlessly placed the flowers in it. In no other way did she acknowledge the floral offering.
After a few moments, she answered in careful tones, as if she was holding something back, be it anger or laughter or a bit of both, "Tell you what, Ben. You can help me with my button pushing thing. And then I can go with you on your mission, and help you with your looking around thing. Sound good?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:57 pm
'Victory!' Went a small, very small portion of his mind as Clarice actually acknowledge his humble offering, though it might have gone better if he had you know, handed them over as planned.
Phase three: At this point even hanging on is good enough for now.
The other, larger portion of his mind was wondering incredulously why the Life Hunter had actually volunteered herself for his next mission. Which was really... great... and all, but he could see the answer now:
Ben: Hi Caelius, we're ready to go and our team of five is assembled!
Caelius: Ben. I see four Hunters and a What The ******** Is That Even. Are you out of your mind consorting with the enemy?
Yeah.... that would go down well. He nervously scratched the back of his head, trying to find some sort of excuse. "Okay, maybe not the button pushing thing how about um -" sadly, as he was for the most part not an intentional Clarice stalker, he honestly had no clue what she did for most of her Hunter life. What did Life Hunters even do? -"Maybe we could... feed some specimens...together?" He finished weakly. There were always people feeding those strange things, or just staring in fascination in that "minipet room": he could swear that the Life Hunters collected those things. Rabidly. And not so secretly.
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:59 pm
This time she firmly kept the smile down as he actually took her offer seriously and attempted an awkward recovery. Chin on hand, Clarice considered her next move. The man in front of her may be talking like an idiot right now, feed some specimens together, but she had considered him to be a fairly formidable foe since the eighth, and arguably most dire, rejection. He was tenacious, lacking in delusions of grandeur, emotionally durable, and worst of all nice. She really couldn't afford to let her guard slip against him any more than it already had, so...perhaps a bit of a direct assault, followed by a decoy?
"And here I thought you were going to try and ask me out again, Ben, but you were just after my minipets all along? Oh, don't worry, a lot of hunters really like minipets, they're just like kids going crazy over pokemon. So I won't judge you. In fact, I'll even let you touch them. My minipets."
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:17 am
"Your... minipets." He repeated, blankly. Okay, so Ben could explain Clarice deadpanning to the 'date' situation, considering he didn't normally do the well-grooming thing or that looking nice-r thing just for anyone, so the eligible bachelor look was something akin to bludgeoning someone in the face with a frozen fish: you couldn't ******** miss it and it probably smelled. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Baki snorted, clearly entertained by this new twist of events.
Phase four: How I mine for minipets?
The only time he had succeeded in progressing beyond step three was the time he had been wheeled into the emergency labs covered in his own blood thanks to Caelius thinking his REAL body was a good demonstration of a moving practice target. In fact, come to think of it, it was also the first time he had met Clarice: she was the only Life Hunter who had even bothered to mention he was not dead yet and thus not ready to donate his organs to further studies. That was what the flowers really were for, the failed attempts, the games they played back and forth. Ben was just looking for the right moment to say an honest 'thank you'.
And by the time he wanted to say that simple thank you, he realized it had gotten a little more complex than that. Which was how he landed here, trying to shove away the little whisper that hinted, very clearly and with some lightly graphic pictures, that minipets was the last thing the redhead had in mind when Clarice said she would let him 'touch them'. No, no, bad Ben! Stick to the goal, the goal!
He made a show of thinking. Minipets were cute and all but the last time he had saw one that looked a little too much like his superior (though he could see where THAT branch of Fear stemmed from), he had sworn himself from all things pet shaped and glasses wearing. And pet shaped in general. But if this was for Clarice...
Ben cleared his throat nervously. "Ah, what sort of minipets are we talking about here? Feeding is just fine you know, give them some bait, there's no need to touch them, right?" The expression he gave the Life Hunter was one of mild horror, an expression he did not even show when facing abject abominations during recovery missions.
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 11:42 am
"Oh they're..." she started to answer lightly and then had to stop. Her head bent down, and her hand slipped from her chin to covering her mouth. To her credit, her shoulders did not shake. And when she cleared her throat and looked back up at him again, Clarice was able to manage a perfectly normal expression. If there was an extra flush to her cheeks and a slight shine to her eyes, well...at least she hadn't laughed out loud. "You only really need to touch them if you want to play with them."
And clean up after their messes, but she didn't think she could handle his expression at that little detail. As she began to stand up, Clarice suddenly came to a terrible realization. Her head was not longer ringing and aching from the earlier golem death, and the majority of her tension seemed to have left the building. She gave Ben a narrow look, "You..."
That b*****d had managed to distract her ire away in a little under five minutes. Did he plan it this way, or was this a display of the famed Death Hunter survival instincts?
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:06 pm
He had totally missed out on the Life Hunter's reactions at his expense in favour for Serious Contemplation. Oh god touching, touching minipets. Were there going to be special contamination gloves? Would he have to bathe and shower for a week? Would all his hair fall off from being exposed to too much Fear?
'....' Commented Baki helpfully.
However, there was no missing out on the look Clarice gave him that followed afterwards. s**t! Stay with the game Ben, stay with the game. You can do this... you are so going to get shafted.
Phase I Am Not Too Sure Where I ******** Up But Just Apologize Lots... Maybe
"No-no, I'll totally touch them!" The sentence came out a little better than a thirteen year old coming out of puberty, all but yelping, causing a few bystanders to stare at him oddly; thank god they had much more interesting research to take care of. " I will touch anything you want me to touch um, sorry. There will be lots of involvement, of the me kind you know. Me. Involved." He took a deep breath, rubbing his hands together, trying to stay focused. "Minipets."
Yep, one track mind. It took a few seconds before the determined expression melted to a cross between confusion and then slight, just marginal embarrassment. Here he was, a lone wolf Death Hunter, talking to one very beautiful Miss Clarice Sinclaire about ......... minipets. At one point this conversation had involved manliness, he just wasn't sure where. Maybe it was slightly after the button pushing thing and a little before the Life Hunter's slightly sarcastic overtones. "Minipets." He managed to repeat, realizing that yes, they were indeed having a conversation about touching Clarice's private stash of goodies - no not those ones unfortunately - which only succeeded in driving his ego further into the ground. There was a very awkward pause as he looked at the Life Hunter with possible the Second Most Pathetic Expression Known to Man as something finally clicked and he put two and two together. "....I walked in on a bad time didn't I?"
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:40 pm
She watched him try to convince her of his willingness to handle her minipets with both eyebrows raised. Oh yeah, he had to be operating on sheer instinct at this point. A couple techs lingered nearby, listening with what had to be morbid curiosity. Clarice directed a small scowl past Ben to shoo the rubberneckers on. They were supposed to be researching for the betterment of hunters and all that jazz. The...whatever it was, between the Death Hunter and herself was not part of that, despite several reports on the subject that have found their way to her desk and her acquired reputation as the Fortress of Life.
Clarice glanced back up at him and found herself paralyzed by kicked-but-still-trying puppy look. Agggghhhhh...a sneak attack followed by a belated but sincere realization on his part?! In the back of her mind, Hraegar suggested, in all of two words, that she crush the desk. Not that it would help matters, he just thought she'd feel a lot better. Or at least he would feel a lot better. The subtle tensions of human interactions were a little bit lost on the sword. For herself, Clarice filed the suggestion away as a valid escape tactic.
"The doctor went to to say hello to the newly woken trainees," she gave a small sigh and absently rubbed the back of her neck. "It's not that I mind dying in a golem really, I just really...don't like it when he kills me out of a need for theatrics." She paused, and then added, "Also my co-workers are incompetent. So...yeah, it's kind of a bad time. Or at least it...was." It was her turn to be entirely awkward, "So. Thanks." Like hell she was going to explain what for though.
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:02 pm
Ben visibly winced at the mention of "Dr.H" and "theatrics". The only difference between any of the council leaders was their methods, and even then, it like comparing a hurricane to a snowstorm. You never quite got out of it unscathed.
"Well," he mused, glad just not to be talking about minipets, "It is Dr. H we're talking about. There would indeed be uncertain times ahead if our division leaders didn't make us feel like cr-"
About a belated twenty seconds later, a tiny part of the Death Hunter known as Ben heard a strange word. It was really weird. It might have started with a "Th" and ended with "anks". In fact, at this point, he was almost sure that this was not actually Clarice but a clone known as Clarice: oh god was Dr.H piloting a Clarice-type golem? This was so ******** awkward.
'No, that's definitely her. Baki grumbled, clearly looking forward to the mission soon and not the incompetent mating rituals of his handler. A moment of stunned silence followed as Ben simply stared. There was nothing subtle about it. 'For the love of- just take it and move on okay, chop chop, mission ETA in a couple of hours?' Count on a weapon to remind him of missions.
"Uhhhhhhhhhh..." Came the Death Hunter intelligence division trained and honed reply. He could hear an exasperated growl in his head, and quickly snapped his mouth shut. "You're welcome, I think, no wait - look - thank you too, for everything okay." Before he lost his nerve, he pressed on. "You didn't have to entertain me, but you did. All twenty-five times, and yes, I did count. Sadly. Anyway, I know how things work here time is precious, so I really appreciate it okay. Just even entertaining me. Thank you."
A heartbeat later. "And I really am sorry I walked in on a bad time." Might as well bite the bullet, time was precious after all. "Hey how about this, I'll make it up to you okay? You choose a time and we can go.... feed those minipets together. And touch them. At a better time. I'll cook something nice to for the minipets-" He chanced a second to look right at Clarice with a half-amused smile - "And you. Hey, I'm not a bad cook you know, I make some mean pancakes."
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:20 pm
So things were finally coming to a head and he made his move clear. And while this was definitely one of his better attempts, Clarice really ******** hated to lose, so when she reached across the desk to straighten his collar, her answer was a clear and succinct, "No, I don't think so, Ben."
During his last few tries she found herself very definitely losing ground to him, and to be honest it kind of really pissed her off. She'd been wondering, for a little while now, if winning this little game, basically getting him to lose interest in her, would even be considered a win at all. At this moment? Looking at the random but rather nice tallies under his score, and the frigid marching line of 25 under her own, she came to the conclusion that continuing her winning streak beyond this point would only result in an eventual loss. Of a nice, charming guy who she had grown fairly...fond of. A person who'd she really rather not lose, if she could help it.
Which is why, when she continued to grip his collar, she dragged him just a little bit forward and continued, "Instead, when you get back from your mission, I'll find you." I will hunt you down. "And then I'll ask you to a nice dinner of sorts." Because I don't let boys see my minipets until the third date. "And then you'll say yes." Because I won't be taking no for answer.
Clarice preferred to win, but that didn't mean she wasn't willing to change the game.
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Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:15 am
Ben simply let the Clarice drag him by the collar as he listened and tried not to fidget.
Dinner. With Clarice. Dinner. Together. Her hunting him down.
'Females in our tribes used to hunt us down all the time,' Baki mused, clearly getting nostalgic, 'Maybe if you're lucky it wont hurt much.'
Whaaaaa-
'It means, genius, you scored. Congratulations, you won... once out of twenty-five times. Please keep your pants on until after the mission ok.'
The expression Ben gave the Life Hunter was similar to a kid who had been told for the first time that they were going to Disneyland. Confused - because most kids had no clue what Disneyland was if they were going for the first time - and then pretty much all but burgeoning at the seams with excitement once they actually realized what this entailed, heart pounding a little too fast.
'BAKI I AM GOING ON A DATE'!
The weapon visibly recoiled from the recesses of his mind. 'Ben, we've talked about this. Please use your indoor mental voice when talking to m-
"I AM GOING ON A DATE!!!!!" Somewhere, he vaguely realized he had probably said that part out loud. With about ten thousand visual exclamation marks and two arms pointed towards the sky, effectively breaking out of the headlock. Perhaps even disturbed the entire hallway of Hunters: most who stopped, shook their heads, and continued to move on. Having the integrity to at least feel slightly embarrassed that one, he put his hands back down. "I mean - You will not regret it." He put on his slightly serious-but-my-cheeks-are-puffed-from-not-grinning face. "Miss Clarice Sinclaire. I, Benjamin Ian Summers, will be waiting post-haste for you to hunt me down."
He was still struggling very hard not to break into the widest grin ever as he took one of her hands and kissed it lightly. "And I will most definitely say yes."
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