Digital Get Down, Chapter 1
AUTHORS: cindersandroses ( losille2000 and cinderella1181)
CHAPTERS: 1/?
PAIRING: Actor!Henry Cavill/ Plus-Sized OFC
GENRE: Romance/Fluff/HUMOR
FIC SUMMARY: When SuperHank met OrcPrincessPeach on the World of Warcraft message boards, it was love at first raid. Now, almost a year later, they’re ready to take the next step and meet in person. Half a world away from each other, both decide to meet in Atlanta for DragonCon, since she was already going to be there for her work as a game designer at Blizzard... never mind that she is a devout nerd. They both have to face the fact that reality is very different from a digital world.
RATING: Mature
AUTHORS NOTES: This idea happened while we were floating around our pool a few days ago. I don’t foresee this being very long, but as always, if you want more, we will write more.
Also on AO3!
Chapter 1
SuperHank: Hey girlie girl, I did it! I got the pass for DragonCon. After almost 10 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days, I’m officially coming to meet you!
OrcPrincessPeach: Yay! Are you sure you can afford it... and the airfare?
SuperHank: Dollface, for you, I would move the oceans and walk to you. I can’t wait. August seems so far away.
OrcPrincessPeach: Be still my beating heart, you sappy romantic. I can’t wait to see you.
SuperHank: Same here. I gotta go raid. I will talk to you later. I’ll text you before I go to sleep. Have a good day at work.
OrcPrincessPeach: I will see you later tonight!
Opal closed the laptop and smiled to herself, trying desperately to keep a squeal of delight from escaping her lips. Nothing ever made her feel as amazing as talking to Hank did, even when it meant little sleep and getting up well before the sun to do it. But Amber, her roommate, would be the first person to yell at her for making too much noise in the morning… especially since it involved Hank, whom Amber did not particularly like for some reason.
Nevermind that he and Amber had never actually talked to each other. And, in fact, Opal had only ever talked to the man herself, too. Well, “talking,” in so much that they called each other, texted each other, and chatted on the World of Warcraft message boards about everything and nothing at all. There was the one time, though, when she had been “talking” with Hank, that she may have gotten too loud during a little early morning (for her, anyway) phone sex.
So maybe Amber did have a point.
Opal’s cheeks heated at the thought, replaying the memory in her head as she pulled on her most adorable red peep-toe pumps. All the boys in her programming pod at Blizzard loved it when she wore them; they always made her feel like she could take on the world. Because, seriously, who was going to mess with a woman wearing sky-high red heels during the day? It was amazing what she could convince her fellow game designer nerds to do when she wore these heels with this outfit.
She smoothed her otherwise fairly normal navy blue sheath dress over her slightly rounded belly and wide hips. These clothes were her armor against the world, much like how her orc character dressed in the game. Opal and her orc both needed the image that they could take on the male-dominated World of game design, when in reality, she could very much be a shrinking violet. Especially when it came to her body.
Hence why she had only shared very, erm, specific photos of her body with Hank, and him with her… in the best light, angle and pose. He had an amazing body, and she, well, she didn’t have an amazing body. It wasn’t terrible, per se. It did the things she needed it to do, but she certainly could have spent more time at the office standing desks or in the employee gym. But her red pumps wouldn’t allow her to do either.
So she just had to hope--and pray--that when he saw her in the harsh light of day that he didn’t run away screaming. Because there certainly had been a few online boyfriends before this who had done just that.
Opal left her room and carefully made her way downstairs to get her bag together for work. Tycho, her rather large ragdoll cat, was laying on the back of the couch, half on the black bag and rubbing his chin on the rigid canvas handle. Clearly, the bag was his now, just like everything else in the house.
“Hey, you better move it, buddy. I gotta get to work so you get good gushy food.” She pointed at him. “Be gone when I get back in here.”
Tycho rumbled a low meow in response and didn’t move.
“Freeloader,” she mused.
She headed into the kitchen with a huge smile returning to her face and butterflies making her slightly queasy. After almost a year, she was finally… finally… going to meet the boy she’d been dating online. Most people would take that as a sign that this was all it would ever be--online and still fairly impersonal. To be fair, though, Hank had planned to come and see her once before, but work had not let him. And it wasn’t like they were on the same continent, normally. They were halfway around the world from each other. But this time, he swore up and down that this was going to be it. They were going to cohabitate in the same hotel suite for a long weekend, and make good on all the very dirty promises they had made each other in the ten months they’d been “together.” Of course, she was well aware that he still may cancel, but for now, she was going to live in her dreamworld.
Amber was already in the kitchen as Opal made it into the room. Her roommate sat bleary-eyed at the kitchen table and stared at her cell phone screen.
“You already made coffee?” Opal asked.
The brunette nodded and motioned her head towards the almost full pot. “Yeah, cause I didn’t have to get up at a stupid time in the morning to talk to my internet boyfriend.”
Opal rolled her eyes. “Amber, it’s not that bad.”
“Really, Opie? What time did you get out of bed this morning?” she asked, her eyebrow peaked.
Opal sighed. “Six.” Amber shook her head. “It’s not normal. How long have you been ‘dating’ this dude?” she asked, emphasizing her point with air quotes and all.
“Almost a year, but he and I are finally meeting. We’re going to meet in Atlanta for DragonCon. It’s a halfway point between us, we figured it would be neutral territory,” Opal explained.
“Is Con really ‘neutral’? You’d live at a con if you could.”
Opal ignored her comment. As far as she was concerned, it was neutral… and certainly big enough to get lost in the crowd if things didn’t go well. She certainly didn’t want to bring him around her house if Amber planned to be there to scare him away.
Opal continued with a light, dreamy sigh. “It’s going to be super exciting. I’m ready to meet Hank. He is a fantastic guy; he is kind, funny, loves his family.”
“Sounds like you’re describing a labrador. Next thing, you’re going to tell me he is loyal and in love with you,” Amber replied, shaking her head. “You can’t be in love with someone you have never met in person.”
Maybe Amber was right, after all. How much could someone truly know a person from what they say alone? It’s merely a facet of who they are. Actions were also huge, and he had not yet proven anything to Opal in that category.
But still, Opal was sure Hank was different. She’d had a lot of online boyfriends throughout her life--her life revolved around the computer, so it was only natural. And comparing all the other examples with her current love interest, this just felt different. Like… it might actually be real.
“You can love their heart, and I adore him. He is pretty great. I’m just hoping he’s the one.” Opal grinned. “We would have an amazing story to tell our kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids.”
Amber pressed her lips together into a terse line and returned to whatever was on her phone. “Well, when this all bursts in your face, Opie, you just come home to me and remember that I love you no matter what.”
Opal smiled. “I know, Amber. You’ll pick up all the pieces. But I don’t think that’s going to happen with him. I don’t know. He’s different.”
“Does he know?” Amber asked, the cup of coffee close to her mouth.
“Um... know what?” Opal asked.
“That you’re not some skinny bimbo?” Amber asked, motioning in her direction. Amber’s eyes scanned her body slowly, critically. “All the people on the internet have this idealized image in their head that the person they’re talking to is Giselle Bundchen, not Ashely Graham or Tess Holliday.”
“They are both gorgeous and many men are in love with them,” Opal defended. “And they’re both married.”
Amber shrugged. “I’m just preparing you for it, if it happens. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
This conversation, though, was hurting her. Hank wasn’t the direct cause of it, just a reason for Amber to start this. She knew Amber had her best interests at heart--no friend wants their friend to get hurt--but the way she achieved her goals, and the words she used, were not nice.
Opal sighed. “Look, he knows I’m fat. He knows I have curves and I’m not a size two. He and I have had several conversations about the fact I’m not some little skinny thing. He said he adores my heart, and he doesn’t care what kind of body it comes in.”
He also said he preferred thick women because he didn’t feel like he was going to break them when things got… athletic. But Amber didn’t need to hear that, either.
“My god, if that isn’t a line,” Amber scoffed.
Opal shrugged. “Amber, stop! Your thinly veiled attempt to fat shame me isn’t going to work. I’m going to go to Atlanta, I’m going to meet him, and I may even sleep with him.”
Amber rolled her eyes. “You won’t have sex with him. You’re a 32-year-old virgin.”
Opal shrugged. “You know, stranger things have happened.” She twisted the top on her thermos. “I’m going to be late for work, I’ll see you later.”
She walked back into the living room, removed the cat from his perch, picked up her bag and headed out the door to work. As she walked the block to the bus stop, she pulled her phone out and put on the playlist Hank had built her. She smiled as the songs began to play, each one having a special meaning to both of them. He was always adding new songs with little notes about why he added them.
These little love notes never failed to make her happy again. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if they ever stopped.
She knew what Amber said shouldn’t bother her as much as it did, but she was self-conscious. Her body had always been something that set her apart and had made her shy when it came to men. Of all the potential dates she’d had with online boyfriends, she had only been on three real dates in her adult life. All of them turned tail and ran once she said she was a virgin. So for those very few that were able to get past the body issue, those three considered her lack of experience to be insurmountable.
Hank didn’t make her feel like that. He didn’t seem to care, or if he did, it wasn’t a deal-breaker. If her lack of experience didn’t do it, there was a very real possibility that her other image issues would be the end of it.
When she arrived at the bus stop and sat down, Opal made the decision to push Amber’s nagging voice out of her head. She wasn’t going to let Amber break her confidence. Hank adored her, for who she was, and that was all that mattered.
She turned her music all the way up to block out the self-doubt and scrolled through her playlist, looking for her favorites. At the bottom of the list, added only a few minutes before, was a new song. Opal giggled and clicked on the song, closing her eyes to listen to the electronic 80s synth and Richard Marx croon, “Right Here Waiting.”
