Goats

(Special thanks to The Deleter for the concept and for writing Jonesy! And also to CW and FV for giving their blessing to this!)

Anyone visiting the Svilzerian household this particular afternoon would hear the strangest-goings on.

"Ha ha ha, that guy just flew, like, fifty feet!"

"My head is clipping through the wall, what is this?!"

The source would be a blonde and a redhead, hunched over a laptop and cackling like hyenas. Jonesy  and Carol, to be precise, the marine having invited the technopath over for the day to stave off boredom whilst their respective friends were busy. And a few beers seemed like a good way to pass the time - several bottles were, in fact, littering the surface of the desk at that particular moment. But that had just been the setup,  the actual source of the hilarity confined to what the two women happened to be playing on Carol's laptop.

That being co-op Goat Simulator.

"I AM THE DEMON QUEEN OF GOATS!"

"I made it! I'm flyiiiiiing~"

The situation was this. Carol had found the secret power-up that enabled gravity wells, and was now causing havoc by drawing people and objects into glitchy, juddering balls of tortured physics. Jonesy, meanwhile, had managed to get her goat to leap up onto the hang glider, and was now taking too much joy in the view she was getting of the map as she swept over the scenery. It was the sort of thing that one needed lots of alcohol to appreciate properly, so it was lucky they'd had a few beforehand.

Neither Erebus nor Crusoe were there to witness this madness. If they were, it wouldn't have helped things much. The Chaos Marine would have had a hard time grasping the point of a game without goals or story, whilst the Not-A-Cat would have grumbled about the intentional bugs. That, or a remark about "Xenos scum" would get thrown and lead to a messy fight with property damage akimbo. And considering how much fun the women were having, that would be the last thing they wanted.

Not that they would have noticed, with goat-based antics to keep their inebriated minds amused.

"Hey, I found the gas statio- OH, GOD!"

That's what happens when you headbutt a gas station, Carol. Within seconds, her goat had gone flying sideways like a rocket, and demonic powers proved no match for getting halfway stuck in  a fence. Jonesy only noticed this two seconds later, distracted by her own goat, but soon she joined the redhead in hysterics of laughter at the digital mammal's predicament, completely missing the achievement for falling five hundred meters.

"Ha ha ha, this is the best thing!" Carol eventually gasped out. "Like, thanks for having me over, Jonesy!"

"Aaaah, no problem, Carol." Jonesy wiped a tear from her eye. "You're a blast to have around. Look, I'm gonna get on the glider - OOOOOOH I MADE IT"

“Yaaaaaay!” Carol leaned over a little more to get a better view of her friend’s trivial success. “Go on, ride that glider!”

"I'd like to ride you WHAAAAAAAAAAT oh god I fell off!" Jonesy dissolved into howls of laughter as her goat plummeted unceremoniously to earth. Carol joined in, nearly falling over at how hilarious the whole thing was, and almost missed an important detail.

“Oh, hey! My goat’s free again!”

Indeed, Carol’s goat, unattended, had managed to work it’s way out of the fence it had been stuck in and was now standing idly in the field. Resuming control, the redhead made it jump over the fence and into the next area - the one where the car was driving in mad circles. No prizes for guessing what the plan was here.

"Oh god, are you gonna do what I think you're gonna do?" Jonesy leaned forward, grinning insanely as Carol's goat approached the deathtrap.

“Yep!”

And, sure enough, two seconds later, Carol’s goat was attached to the car by the tongue, knocking down rows of people like a flailing tetherball.

“HAHAHAHAHA”

"Goddaaaamn that never gets old hahahahaha." Jonesy shook her head and reached for her bottle. "Fuckin' goats. Wonder if David likes this game."

Carol shrugged. “Maybe he’d cry foul over goatism or something. Or maybe one of the goats is him, or a relative. I dunno,” she finished up, swiping up her own bottle in tandem. “Guy’s fuckin’ weird.”

“True that.” Jonesy took a swig. “You wanna play some Smash Bros? Got contacts. Got an uncle who works for Nintendo, maaaaaan. You’ll love it.”

The grin that Carol put on wouldn’t have looked out of place in a toothpaste commercial.

“Girl,” she drawled, her accent starting to show through, “you know I’m all over that! Like… like...” And, with a small giggle, she moved away from the laptop and began searching the desk for the controllers, showing little coordination as she went.

“Like… peanut butter and jelly!” she finished, lamely. Jonesy giggled and followed. Her movements were more controlled, but her eyes were not focused ahead of her - or, at least, they weren’t focused straight ahead of her. A grin to rival Carol’s spread across her face.

“Daaaaaym, girl,” she laughed. “No wonder you got so lucky. You gonna make someone faint with all that junk.” And she laughed, continuing the fine tradition of butt jokes the Kobbers seemed to encourage.

Carol looked over her shoulder, giggling at the compliment. “You like?” she teased, waggling her hips a little.

“Girl, I love it. Now sit dat masterpiece down whilst I load it up for you.” To punctuate, Jonesy gave Carol a light swat before wobbling over to the tv in the living room and bending over to power up the console. The redhead laughed in response, before eventually finding the controllers huddled in a corner of the desk.

Pretty soon, the pair were furiously playing, shouting at the screen as their digital brawlers stumbled about the battlefields. After a few matches, where Jonesy’s Samus had found itself lacking to Carol’s Megaman, they tried a few rounds of eight-player Smash. That resulted in more hysterics as they kept losing their own fighters in the general ruckus, barely scraping a few wins each.

Then Jonesy said something weird.

“Wanna make out?”

Carol opened her mouth to respond and met Jonesy’s finger, raised.

“Look,” said the blonde, slowly. “I’m still with Erebus, and I love him, and you’re with Sine. Get that. But you’re hot, and I wanna make out with you a bit. Sometimes. We’re friends, okay? Not gonna get weird or cause some high-school shit here. Adults, being friends, and having awesome times together. Yeah?”

Carol closed her mouth, blinked, and then shrugged.

“Eh, sure. I mean, I think you’re hot, too, so there’s nothing wrong with it.” Plus, she reasoned to herself, it’s not like Sine and Cauren can really complain. I mean, they have each other as well as me, so it all kinda balances out. In a weird, triangle-y way, I mean.

Jonesy grinned. “Good. Now, c’mere.”

And thus the game was abandoned for a good two minutes.

“See?” Jonesy sat up, smiling. “That was cool. Friends, yeah?”

Carol grinned. “Friends.”

“Good. Now sit yourself down, cos there’s only one king in town, and he’s a fat blue penguin.”

“Nuh-uh, it’s R.O.B.! MACHINE SUPEREMACY”

It took five rounds to find out which of them was right.