chocolate chip mint and malt
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Pretty
Rating: G
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #19: ambiguous
Toppings/Extras: malt
Wordcount: 466
Summary: Robyn Walshe decides that ambiguous compliments are compliments nonetheless.
Notes: pfah; Victor : I feel pretty. I thought at first this prompt might be hard. I was wrong.
When Robyn returned from one of her many ritual visits to the gym, she found that Victor was the only one in the living quarters-by any means not unusual, because Bradley and Taisy both had rather extensive social lives and Victor... didn’t. He was reading. Or rather his version of reading, which went by at about one page per second. Every word on every page was absorbed into his memory instantly, meaning that he could get through any tome in a matter of minutes if he wanted to.
Although she found this somewhat disquieting, Robyn smiled and nodded at him as she walked in.
“Alright, Victor?” she asked pleasantly. She liked to make conversation with him if she hadn’t heard his voice in a couple of days, which wasn’t uncommon. He looked up at her and smiled uncomfortably. “I never see girls at the gym these days,” she said for no real reason as she walked across the room and peered into a mirror. Robyn wasn’t much of a small-talker, but she liked nattering nonsense to Victor. It was therapeutic. She knew it was going in, but there was no fear of stupid questions (Taisy) or jerkish sarcasm (Brad).
Not that she didn’t like Taisy and Bradley. It was just nice to have someone listen for once, even if he probably wasn’t particularly interested.
“Including myself, I guess. I look a bit like a sodding man, don’t I? Ha, ha...”
She was referencing her immense height rather than her face. Robyn allowed herself a bit of self-deprecation every now and again, but tossing out a joke to Victor was like throwing jelly at a penguin.
Pointless.
He looked alarmed, clearly knowing that he had to reply with something appropriate-and he struggled with that at the best of times. Robyn usually rescued him from such situations but this time he managed to speak before she could intervene-
“You don’t... I mean... maybe quite a pretty man...”
Robyn tried not to wince. Or laugh. That was the sort of comment that could lead down either path. She knew that Victor was sincerely trying to pay her a compliment, of course she did, but at the same time she wasn’t sure if compliments came any more backhandedly than ‘pretty... for a man’.
Cautiously, she decided she would take it as a compliment.
“Thanks...”
His expression was priceless, she had to admit. He seemed to have realised he had said something slightly off-key and had shrank back slightly as though expecting her to start pounding him into mincemeat. It dissolved into relief when she grinned.
“Life wouldn’t be the same without you,” she said as she crossed over towards the door out of the room. “You little nutcase.”
Well. An eye for an eye, and all that.