“You’re right. Sammy is a menace. I can’t believe he lets all those books lie around like that.”
“He says he’s still in the process of taking stock, whatever that means.”
“You mean you don’t have a list of them?” Jon knew he probably sounded as horrified as Sammy surely had been when he’d found out about this. Barion simply shrugged, as if it wasn’t a big deal.
“When I see a book I like, I bring it here and put it somewhere I think it should be. That’s it.”
“That’s it? You have no clue what you have in here?” Jon was equally parts repelled and fascinated by that idea. In his opinion, not knowing what you had in your library was like not knowing how your WoW account was stocked.
Barion didn’t seem to share that sentiment. He scratched his head. “Well, as you can see, there are a lot of them, and I kind of lost track after the first couple of hundred. I like to think of this library as some kind of treasure chest. Every time I come here, I get a surprise.”
Jon shook his head. “I understand where the feud between Sammy and you is coming from. I’m seriously torn between wanting to support you in your right to store your books any way you want and the urge to give you a Gibbs slap for being so neglectful.”
“Thank you,” Barion replied dryly. “I feel so loved.”
“Hey, I said I was torn!”
“Too late. I’m officially offended.” Barion managed to keep a straight face for about four seconds. When he cracked a grin, Jon smacked him on the arm. The brief skin contact did funny things to his body, things he didn’t want to examine too closely, so he turned to leave ‘Chaos Central’.
“Let’s have dinner and watch some movies?” Barion sounded hopeful and Jon was hungry. All that gaming had taken its toll.
“Wouldn’t that be lunch?”
“If we were still in Beaconville, yes. But we’re in the Carpathians and it’s dinner time.”
“Semantics. I could eat, though.”
“How about you get comfortable in the living room, and I do a quick tour to Rome to get us pizza?”
“Who could say no to such an offer?” Jon followed Barion into the living room with a huge smile on his face. Pizza sounded perfect.
“You can select a film if you want. Anything you don’t like on your pizza?”
“I’m fine with everything.”
“Understood. Everything it will be.”
Before Jon could react to what he hoped was just a joke, Barion had vanished through another rip in time and space. Knowing he wouldn’t take long to return, Jon searched for the remote of the flatscreen to wake it up. Apparently Barion had been watching something and forgotten to switch it off because the screen came to life with the familiar logo of YouTube and a film paused in the middle. Jon’s eyes widened when he realized what he was looking at, then he chuckled. It seemed Barion and he had even more in common than just a love for playing video games. Apparently, they both were also suckers for slightly inappropriate love stories within video games as well.
Deciding this was the film he’d want to see if Barion was okay with it, Jon put it back to the beginning, staring at the opening picture where Iron Bull and his Kadan of Dragon Age: Inquisition were talking for the first time. The graphics did look a bit clunky, but to be fair, the game had been released in 2014 and programming had evolved greatly since then. The story itself was beautiful and surprisingly romantic, not only for a video game but also for something that was, strictly speaking, interspecies BDSM. It was one of the things Jon loved about the gaming community. Most of them were open-minded and laid back. Jon made himself comfortable on the orange couch and waited for Barion.
Barion grinned when he popped back into his living room. He had taken a little longer due to a detour to France to get some crème brûlée for dessert and hoped Jon didn’t mind. The zombie was sitting on the couch, looking utterly comfortable, which in turn made Barion all warm inside. He found it oddly satisfying to provide for Jon.
“Hi, I brought pizza and dessert.” He put the four pizza boxes and the container with the crème brûlée on the coffee table. Jon eyed the stack with a certain amount of suspicion.
“Who do you want to feed? An army?”
“I’m better than any army,” Barion retorted, waggling his eyebrows wildly. Jon started giggling.
“I do admire your confidence. What have you brought?” He leaned forward to open the box on top. “Oooh, cherry tomatoes, basil and buffalo mozzarella, from the look of things.”
“Yes. I love that it’s creamier than the one made from cow milk. Also, I like the way cherry tomatoes kind of explode in your mouth with taste and juice.” Barion hadn’t meant for the words to sound flirty or sexual, but they certainly did. Jon either didn’t notice or was very good at hiding his reaction. He simply put the box down to open the next. The other pizzas found his approval as well, one with Parma ham and rucola, one quattro formaggi and the last one with artichoke and mushrooms. Barion got the pizza slicer from the kitchen, as well as two plates and two spoons for dessert. After he had cut up all four pizzas and they each had two slices on their plates, he turned to Jon.
“Have you chosen a movie already?”
All of a sudden Jon appeared to be a bit flustered. “Uh, yeah, but only if you’re fine with it.”
“I’m easy. I watch almost everything.”
