My God, it's full of nerds... -- Gallifreya
[AN: I love it when my fans use one of my turns of phrase against me. FYI this is a quote from Touch Feast aka Story #01066]
He told himself he was doing this to get into her world. He certainly hoped it would help him gain access to her pants. Her immunity to his negging and other pickup tactics meant that she was a bigger obstacle to overcome. She had to be worth the chase.
And Steve told her as much. But carefully. She was very aware of anything he said that would place her as an object in his mind. There was a small debate including a bet that he wouldn't make it through an entire day without saying something she thought was derisive.
And that lead... here.
A gigantic convention centre full of the usual market type booths and... let's call it a very colourful crowd. Her challenge, given to him by one of the hotel staff, was two words: Find me.
He had to use what he knew about her to locate her in this crowd. In this sea of storm troopers, Starfleet uniforms, Klingons and sundry superheroes. Steve was halfway down the stairs before it hit him. My God, it's full of nerds...
And it wasn't the stereotypical overweight and underkempt dude with a greasy t-shirt, fresh out of his mom's basement. There were old nerds, thin nerds, fat nerds, neat nerds, sloppy nerds, disabled nerds [A Klingon in a wheelchair? What?] and lots and lots of lady nerds. Tall and short. Wide and thin. Old and young. Most of them in costume. At the very least, they were all wearing their fandoms on their chests.
He had to stick out like a sore thumb, but she had told him to wear a black suit and tie with sunglasses. Which was a costume, too. Some ancient nerd movie had expanded on a UFO encounter myth about the men in black suits. It had been insanely popular at the time, and he'd almost seen it. But he hadn't watched anything that was remotely associated with aliens since he was ten.
O God. There were people in animal suits in here. Sure, some of them were artistic achievements, but god damn. You had to be on drugs or crazy or both to wear that kind of get-up all day.
Think.
Obviously, this piece of ass was a nerd. Also obviously, she was going to make it hard for him to find her, so he could rule out all the bikini babes and sexual-fantasy armour straight off. If she was done up like that, she had a chance of him recognising her face. Though all those boobs out in the open had to reduce that risk a little bit.
Which left him with the Masks. Wow. People loved to hide their faces in this thing. And no wonder. Nerds had to eat, too. If he was running a company and saw one of his employees in this place, in costume, and on the news, he'd fire them in an instant. As it was, he had no more power than finding them on facebook and using a dummy account to troll them. And even that wasn't much worth his time or energy.
They were nerds. They were already losers.
But that didn't mean he wouldn't screw one if he had a chance.
Okay. Mask stuff that she was into. God. Why didn't he listen to her when she was yabbering on about her favourite stuff? What were her keywords? Shit. He had to resort to finding Masks and Fursuits that were roughly her dimensions and asking. It was a long damn day.
He finally gave up and sat in the food hall/cafeteria area with a giga-sized Frappe and texted her. I surrender.
He'd lost the game. He was never getting that nerd pussy. This mountain was not getting conquered. His first strike out in the entire game.
One of the many robots came up to his table. Some steampunk thing. More ridiculous nerdity. "You are not a very observant human," it said in her voice.
Holy shit, that makeup changed her entire face. "Jesus, you look like a guy..."
"Thank you," she chirped. Sitting herself down. She had one of the sugary abominations that would make her turn into a fat nerd. "The first rule of NerdGirling is to be unattractive enough to actually make other guys talk to you. You'd be surprised how many storm troopers, darth vaders, and other full suit cosplays are ladies in disguise. Only the really dedicated girls cosplay as lady characters. And at their own risk."
What? "How could any of the bikini outfits be risky?"
"Gatekeeper nerds, people thinking they can cop a feel, and the protesters outside who somehow believe that they're all whores because they're showing a little skin. And the people who think it's funny to fuck up someone's cosplay."
"I didn't have any trouble," he said.
"Dur. You're a guy. You literally walked through that lot for..." she checked her phone, "four hours and didn't get geek checked by anyone. If I'd done the same thing in a Wonder Woman outfit, I'd have been aggressively quizzed by every male geek who thought he knew comics. Part of the eternal toxicity of fandom."
No wonder she was immune to his charms. She put up with every guy in her sphere doing it. Possibly every day. He either had to step up his game or quit before he'd started. And it was too late to do the other one.
"I'm not like those idiots. I'm a nice guy."
"Yeah you know what manners are. Congratulations. Good manners is the lowest of the low hurdles. Do something to surprise me and be honest. What do you think of my scene?"
And this bitch was a walking lie detector. Could he say what he was thinking without being so nasty that those panties were lost to him forever?
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