Work Text:
Palamedes Sextus tried not to think about how, as a thirty-year-old man with a job and a mortgage, the highlight of his week was getting tumblr polls.
While mentally trying to narrow down entries for his "best obscure bread" poll, he opened up the notifications for the daily weeding of the pornbots. Three new follows today alone. Tumblr user lindsayshowe26, hamster emoji Minnesota bicycle emoji sweat emoji... blocked. Tumblr user ameliacharles92, profile picture of a dark-haired woman in only a lacy bralette...blocked.
Tumblr user camillahect.
Pal blinked at the screen.
Camilla had never gotten a tumblr. Camilla hated social media.
Pal clicked on the link for tumblr user camillahect.
Oh God, she'd used a picture of herself as her icon. She hadn't titled her blog. She hadn't put a user banner. She hadn't reblogged a single thing or added a user description.
She'd used the picture he'd taken of her practicing for her last SCA event. She and Gideon practiced together, and that day, they'd used the two-handers, after Gideon made her sign a contract about all the terrible things that she'd be bound to do if she harmed Gideon's sword in any way. He'd taken the picture of Camilla before their last bout of the evening. Camilla was almost dripping with sweat, every curve of her muscles gleaming in it. They fought outside so they could practice on uneven terrain; the golden light of sunset gave her a glow like an avenging angel as she raised the sword. She'd worn a flowing black tank top. By this time in practice, it adhered to her skin like paint.
Although Palamedes hadn't seen every single pornbot's stock photo, he could confidently say none of them held a candle to this one.
She was going to get reported to hell and back.
"Cam?" he called. He spun his office chair around. The chair, overly enthusiastic, spun him 360 degrees. He tried again, with less spin and more volume. "Cam?"
"What?"
Thus, by the traditional echolocation of married couples, did they find their way to each other.
"You got a tumblr?" Pal said.
"Twitter is on fire, and half the people I actually care about are on tumblr anyway," said Cam, practical as always.
"You'll get to witness the madness firsthand, instead of me trying to explain memes over dinner," said Pal.
"It will be a change, yes," she said.
Pal said, "Are you going to finish setting up your profile?"
Something must have crept through his tone or his stance, because she raised her eyebrows and said, "Why?"
"Did I ever tell you about the pornbots?"
Cam's eyebrows went higher, almost to their peak height of eyebrow-raise, as Palamedes explained the pornbots, their proliferation, and the general structure of a pornbot profile. Cam listened.
Cam said, "So that explains the texts."
"The what?" said Palamedes, tugging his phone out of his pocket.
Gideon Nav: ur wife makes a HOT pornbot, sexpal
Harrow Nonagesimus: I regret to inform you that the pornbot database has acquired a photo of Camilla, unless Camilla is, for reasons unknown, impersonating a pornbot.
"These texts are just to me," said Palamedes.
"Gideon sent...well," said Cam, and raised her phone so Palamedes could see the lengthy string of emojis Gideon had sent his wife. Some of those emojis he didn't even know had a sexual connotation.
"She was much more restrained with me," said Palamedes.
"I'll update the profile," said Cam, with a tiny smile.
Distracted as he was still thinking of the photo, and his wife, and how lucky he was to be married to her, Palamedes didn't look too closely at exactly which tiny smile Cam's face held.
A few minutes later, she said, "Ok, all set," and he refreshed her profile, curious.
No header photo. Same profile photo. "Untitled." Sword emoji, "hot and sweaty," knife emoji, sweat emoji, "wife material"
"Camilla!"