This is my mind in action.
thinks; cholesterol levels high
thinks; need to eat better, exercise more
thinks; heh, Jane,'still pumped from using the mouse' Davitt needs no exercise!
thinks; Dilbert...Spike. Dilbert _and_ Spike. Would he? Would he... let's see...

This is silly. This is very silly. And I should be writing Gilesfic...I'm insane, I really am...why is there an LJ mood called 'examinate'? What the heck is that?


Dilbert wandered through the public library feeling a warm glow of happiness. Normally he wouldn’t even enter it; the computer books were always so ancient that they were practically holy relics after all. Now though, now he had a reason to venture through the doors.

Retro gaming.

It was the latest thing; you found a game so old it could only be played in MS-DOS; Lemmings, Dungeon Master...you tracked down a computer primitive enough not to crash in panic at the mere sight of a floppy, you mastered the arcane techniques required to load the game, marvelled at the charming, folksy graphics...some called it a hobby; to Dilbert it was a quest.

Patting the volumes that would allow him to crack level 120 on the Mad level of Lemmings, he headed past the solitary internet linked computer the library made available, and over to the check out desk.

“Hey! Geek face!”

Dilbert froze and turned around cautiously. The man sitting at the computer winked and gestured him over. With unwilling steps, Dilbert obeyed. As he got closer he relaxed. The man was decently pale and pasty; he had less of a tan than Dilbert himself. His hair was the silver white of a tower casing and his eyes...Dilbert felt a quiver of unease, deep, deep down. His eyes were the same shade as the Blue Screen of Death...

“Mate, give us a hand? Want the porn and this bloody machine –” Dilbert sucked in a sharp breath of outrage, “won’t deliver.”

“It’s set up to block those sites,” Dilbert explained.

“Huh. Is that right. Fix it.”

“What? No! I don’t work here, I can’t...”

The man smiled. “Sure you can.” Blue eyes raked and clawed him from thinning hair to paunch and down to sensible shoes...then travelled back up, claws sheathed, little soft velvet paws padding over Dilbert’s body. He swallowed hard.

“I can’t and even if I could, you’d get caught.”

“If they saw the screen?”

“When you unzipped.” Spike choked and Dilbert frowned. “You can’t just watch porn; you have to –”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but believe me I wasn’t planning on doing that. Look; my mate Clem gave me this, said it was the goods; every time I try and get there, the thing beeps at me.”

He held out a scrap of paper and Dilbert took it, peering down at the ornate script. “’www.hotpussy.com’ ? Sounds fairly mainstream but if that’s what you’re into...”

Spike cocked his head to one side. “Porn’s porn, isn’t it?”

Dilbert smiled. A newbie. “Come back to my place,” he offered. “I’ve got every good site bookmarked, access to hundreds of live time videos, chat rooms...”

Spike raised a speculative, sceptical eyebrow. “You don’t look the type.”

Dilbert looked at him. “If you knew you’d never have anything but virtual sex, wouldn’t you get very good at finding it?”

Spike stared at him. “What, never?”

Dilbert shrugged.

Spike sat silently, lost in thought and then stood. “Back to yours, it is.”

***

Dilbert never saw him again, and the hot porn site turned out to be a recipe page...but he carried the memory of that night for years, getting uncomfortably hard every time anyone said, ‘surge protector’ and keeping the broken computer chair in his basement. The marks on the wall where his heels had left dents were fingered lovingly, though he repainted them eventually...and Dogbert, once released from the cupboard he’d been shoved in after his attempt to bite, was surprisingly forgiving.

The videos of himself that he came across as he idly searched for blond + fangs + incredibly large, retailing at $39.99 plus s&h, might have had something to do with that of course. Spike shouldn’t have used the cupboard with the digicam in it...

Dilbert ordered three copies; widescreen, full screen and additional footage. He didn't want to miss a thing.