The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Zoe

As it turned out, Zoe's Friday was pretty relaxing. It seemed like people were finally getting into the Holiday spirit a bit, leaving the support lines a little less hectic than usual. Most of the people she worked with had even been polite!

Or at least, that's what she wanted to believe. She knew, deep down, it was just good luck though. In her past experiences, the Holiday season typically made people more irate, not less. And definitely more selfish and always in a rush.

She and Cass ate a quick lunch together from the building's little cafeteria, rather than going out for lunch. They had both agreed that they should save at least a little money after the dinners, and while the cafeteria food wasn't good, it was cheap enough to make it appealing despite the lacking taste.

Zoe usually got a patty melt when they ate at the cafeteria, because while the quality was fairly low, there's not a lot of ways to make a burger patty, grilled onions, melted cheese, and grilled rye bread taste that bad. At worst, they came out burnt or bland, but 90% of the time, they got it right.

After work was actually finished for the day, Zoe met up with Cassandra in the lobby to walk to the train together. They didn't make any actual plans for Friday night, but that was fairly standard for them. Instead, they talked aimlessly while they walked to the subway and boarded a crowded train.

They continued to chat about nothing in particular - their days, social media posts they saw, how sad their lunch was, and the like - as the subway traveled uptown. When it was time for Zoe to transfer to another train to get home, they each said goodbye and Zoe shuffled off the train car.

The rest of the ride home was equally uneventful, but much more boring. Zoe scrolled her phone to keep the boredom at bay as much as possible, but not a single post of anything caught her attention, and even trying to read the book she had been working through wasn't able to hold her attention against the boredom.

By the time the train pulled into her station, she was immensely glad it was Friday, because she wasn't sure she could go another weekday without a break. Something about this week in particular had just been mentally draining. Or, at least, she definitely found her mind unable to focus very much on the more mundane leisure activities.

When she finally slipped inside her door and locked it behind her, Zoe basically just gave up. She was home and alone, so she felt no reason to not just kick off her shoes by the door and just be all the kinds of lazy she felt right then.

She slumped as she removed her heavy coat, scarf, mittens, and considered dumping them by the door. With a sigh, she hung them up on the coat hooks she had instead, arguing internally that she'd regret just throwing them on the ground later.

Her other clothes she cared far less about. As she made her way through the short entryway to her bedroom, she took off her shirt and hopped out of her pants, which were clinging stubbornly to her ankles. Both articles of clothing were tossed into her laundry basket in the corner, followed shortly by her tugged-off socks and then her underwear.

Free of the day's clothing, Zoe toed the power button of her PC's tower to let it boot up while she strolled back to her kitchen to retrieve a cold drink. With the acquired nearly frozen bottle of water in her hand - she ran her fridge as cold as possible - she returned to her PC to log in. Once her screen showed her wallpaper, she slipped off to the bathroom for a shower.

She placed the water bottle on one of the wire racks she had suction-cupped to the shower's wall and got the water running to heat up, looking forward to that first sip of nearly frozen, crisp water while standing under the nearly scalding spray of the shower. It was one of her favorite ways to relax after work.

When she finally stepped back out of the shower twenty minutes later, she felt a good deal more refreshed. She had given herself a good scrub down and used a lotion with a little menthol or some other cooling agent in it that left her feeling extra clean when all was said and done.

Ten minutes after that, she had her PJs on - just an old shirt and pajama bottoms - and was in her computer chair. She picked up the older of her two headsets, which was the one she had now designated to be used when her hair was wet to avoid damage to the newer one. She wasn't sure it would ever be an issue, but why risk it?

As she settled in and decided what she wanted to do, she noticed a DM from Cass.

{Cass} : Any chance you feel like doing some shooting tonight?

Zoe chuckled, glancing over her favorited games in her game library. While she had been banking on doing some random stuff in Mag Mell, maybe reduce the number of dailies she would need to finish up the following day, the thought of playing a shooter was quite attractive to her at the moment.

{Zoe} : Sure, I'm down. What were you thinking?

{Cass} : PvP or PvE?

{Zoe} : PvP? I feel like going a little try-hard tonight.

{Cass} : Works for me. I'll call you in a sec once I get the game up.

Zoe launched their shooter of choice. She and Cass bounced around between a fair number of shooters, ranging wildly from first to third person, but also stereotypical shooters to hero shooters, and even an extraction or battle royale from time to time.

Zoe didn't like to admit it, but she actually really liked extraction shooters. While the gameplay wasn't always interesting moment to moment, the tension was always high, and she liked that. Cass liked them too, but she seemed to thrive in hero shooters more than anything else.

Most recently, that meant a certain free hero shooter that had been released earlier in the month. Neither of them had gotten too attached to it, but the gameplay was solid, the shooting felt good, and the game just had a fun vibe. When it came to wasting a few hours with some combination of low stress fun with a dash of sweat when they felt like it, the game had been perfect.

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By the time Zoe had booted the game up and clicked her way through all the pop-ups and messages and event screens, Cass was calling her through the chat program. Zoe rolled her right shoulder before clicking to join the call.

"Yo."

"Heya."

"So, I know you already said PvP and that you want to go a little bit try-hard tonight, but does that mean ranked?" Cass asked.

"Hmm, no." Zoe chuckled. "Maybe if we could talk more people into joining us to mess around in here, but I'm not gonna play ranked when we don't control at least half the team."

"Fair 'nough." Cass shrugged. "I'm all for casuals anyway, especially when we're just here to blow off a little steam."

"Is that what we're doing?" Zoe clicked accept on the team invite that Cass sent her. "I don't know about you, but my day was pretty alright. I don't have a lot of steam to blow off."

"Eh, it's more like this week has felt long and I just want to let it all out, you know?"

"Yep. I'm ready when you are."

"Here we go!" Cass sang as she started the search for their first match. Given the game was new and fairly popular, it didn't take more than a few seconds for them to be placed into a match and the character select screen.

Cassandra instantly locked in on a tank hero that she liked playing a lot. They didn't have to reload and could basically just spend the entire game firing their primary, only stopping occasionally to launch the character's skills. While Zoe wasn't a huge fan of the lowered damage that came with the unlimited ammo main weapon, Cassandra really loved the chance to just lay on the trigger.

No surprise, she loved LMGs and other big guns in that vein in other games too. Zoe found it endlessly amusing that she then preferred healing in MMOs.

Zoe, on the other hand, kept flipping between a couple DPS heroes. She always had the same dilemma in games like this - there were the heroes that she loved to play for their fun and interesting kits that were usually a little flashy but fun. And then there were the characters she was actually good at.

Unfortunately, the characters that Zoe liked the most often required good aim, reaction time, and even planning. But she wasn't exactly good at all three at once. But if she was playing a turret type or a sniper, her aim was impeccable.

And, of course, someone else on their team had instantly locked in a sniper hero as well, so that left Zoe with limited options. She shrugged, told herself this was casuals, and locked in with one of the more mobile heroes that she liked but wasn't exactly great at.

With the team decided, they spawned in and began moving toward the point that they were set to defend. Zoe's character's speed allowed her to zip out in front of everyone else, and she was ready and waiting well before the rest of the team. Cass still made it to the point with plenty of time to spare, ready to defend, though.

"So," Cass said while they waited for the match to actually start, "looking forward to Christmas?"

Zoe thought about the family time to come, and all of the headaches she would likely have to endure while back in her teenage home. "So-so. Here they come."

"So-so? Not all that excited to see your family?"

"I mean, I am, but extended family will be there. We're bound to butt heads eventually. Ha, fuck you!" Zoe said as she used an ability to dash through the enemy's healer, killing them, while putting her in a great flanking position.

"Oh, nice! Can you get the -"

"Yeah, I see 'em." Zoe said, turning to focus on the DPS that was trying to focus fire on Cass. Thankfully, their team's healers seemed to be doing fantastically well.

"I've barely spoken to my family in years. Be glad you get to see yours." Cass said, grunting at the end of the sentence as she struggled to stay alive. A clutch heal stopped her from going down right as Zoe took out the enemy that had been focused on her.

Zoe knew that Cass didn't really talk to or about her family. She didn't avoid the topic necessarily, but was never forthcoming with much information, and never seemed to want to share. Zoe left the topic alone whenever it came up, happy to let Cass figure out when or if she'd want to share.

"I know. Things could've gone much worse for me with my family growing up - I know that. I'm thankful they're all still around and happy to know me."

"Don't take that for granted." Cass said, then cursed loudly. "Fuck, I'm down. They're gonna push the point."

"We've had them pretty solidly pinned. I think losing a little ground is probably fine." Zoe said, leaving the family topic on the table. "I know you said you're planning to stay home for Christmas with a bucket of chicken, but are you actually excited for that?"

"Unironically, so excited." Cass said, sounding legitimately excited about it. "There are plenty of days in the year where I could sit in PJs all day, order in, and do whatever I feel like. But somehow, doing that on Christmas when everyone else is spending time with family and dealing with all sorts of family drama, it somehow feels a little bit like - shit - cheating."

Zoe snorted with laughter at the sudden curse when Cass got removed from existence by an enemy ultimate. "I think I get what you mean. There's something appealing in the idea of taking a family holiday and just…not doing that."

"Yeah, exactly. Also, I really hate that ult. It's such bullshit."

"Blame our healers. They both have their ults ready and neither used it."

"Awesome. 300 IQ play there, guys." Cass muttered, despite the others on the team being unable to hear their private chat. "Watch the sniper."

"Gimme five seconds, I'm on it." Zoe said, quickly moving to flank the called out opponent.

"Timer's almost up, I'm on my way back, just keep 'em off the point."

"I'm holding my ult for the last 5 seconds."

"Good shit."

By the time Cass made it back to the point they had to defend, Zoe was already in the middle of her ult, which did a huge chunk of damage to everyone in an area. Between it and her teammates' support, they were able to clear all the attackers off the point for the win as the timer ticked down to zero.

"Hell yeah!" Cass cheered.

"Nice. Great first game." Zoe agreed. She was a little disappointed in the final scoreboard though, seeing that she only had the third highest eliminations among her team, despite playing an assassin type DPS.

Zoe had no doubt Cass could tell she was mildly upset by the silence over chat.

"Ha! I had more elims than you! Pfft." Cass teased, blowing a raspberry into her microphone.

"Oh, you bitch." Zoe said, "I'll double yours next game."

"I'd love to see that - wouldn't you love to see that - I'd love to see that." Cass said to no one.

When Zoe locked in on a DPS who had the ability to function as a high damage turret, Cass cleared her throat. "Okay, I'm just gonna throw out there that this one doesn't count if the enemy team feeds you."

"Oh, it counts alright. How many elims did you have last game? 12?"

Cass sighed and said, "Yeah."

They both knew that Zoe would be able to double that easily in a good game.