Strictly Business - Damianya [Damian Desmond x Anya Forger]

xii - Not Horrible

Anya's P.O.V

After my horrible miss, my team's motivation took a dip and so did mine, my stomach caving in every time I received a look other than normal. Pitying, frustrated, angered, sympathetic; so many different people looking at me with different emotions and every single one of them making me want to hurl because it was obvious none of them were positive in the least.

Once half time finally arrived after what felt like an eternity of being completely unhelpful, I practically bolted to the locker's, hiding away in a corner with my plastic water bottle and drenched sweaty towel hoping none of my teammates would yell at me or worse: patronize me. I almost shuddered at the thought, my nervously scarfed down protein bars threatening to resurface.

The rest of Anya's team came in barely a minute later, all of them tired and disheartened as the idiotic miss of their captain deterred them enough to leave a gap in the score again. Sy-on walked closer to grab his duffel and suddenly my fingers were the most fascinating thing in the world.

"Shrimp."

I slowly raised my head to look up at him, a sheepish smile and a slight pink tint on my face as I did, whether from humiliation or physical exertion, Anya didn't know. " Yeah...?"

He sighed and sat down beside me, making me flinch slightly at the movement as I quickly decided to take a peek into his thoughts to see whether I should be ready to cry or not.

The little idiot's feeling guilty isn't she? Tch...

I almost wanted to pout before I picked up on the strange fondness in the tone of that little thought, leaving me a bit too awaiting for him to say something.

But to my surprise, he stayed silent (for once in his damn life), just sipping away at a pretty and expensive looking fuchsia water bottle he pulled out of the equally extravagant duffel he carried around for practice.

"So... Anya messed up pretty bad didn't she?" I started in a painfully awkward attempt at getting him to speak his mind.

"Yeah no shit." He scoffed with a small smile creeping onto his face, his expression telling me he expected me to say exactly that this entire time much to my vexation.

"Does everyone... hate me now?" I mumbled, looking back down at my now fidgety fingers as I asked the question nagging at my head since my sorrowful attempt at helping.

"They don't hate you. They're just a little... disappointed..." He said, cringing at his own attempt of softening the blow as he looked in the direction of my gaze.

I let out a small groan, rolled my head back until my neck creaked before I buried my face in my hands, pulling up my knees and wanting to hide away forever as a curled up little ball of chagrin. "Anya should never have been captain..."

"Hey, come on Pinky it's really not as bad as you think." He said in an attempt at solace. Anya could guess what was going on in his head without even using her powers. "Maybe you could bench yourself and use one of the subs...?"

"You're not helping."

"Right yeah that didn't sound very motivating..." He said, an awkward smile on his face now as a new patch of precipitation graced his forehead at the heat of the locker room as well as the awkwardness of his sad try at comforting me.

I looked up at him with an amused little smile at the words, sitting up normally again to grin at him with a soft chuckle and I could almost hear his heartbeat from beside him when my mood lifted due to him.

Dammit dammit dammit-

"Y'know it's not a bad idea though. Anya'd be an even worse captain if she held her team back just because she wanted to play right?" I sighed, a smile full of melancholy on my lips as I stared down at my hands.