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“Fuck!” David exclaims, mouth mostly full of a chip and spinach and artichoke dip. He hastily brushes crumbs off of his hands and picks up his controller, annoyed to find that he’s already in 10th place. “Why didn’t you tell me it was starting?”
“It’s a game on a timer, David,” comes Patrick’s reply next to him. “So. Can’t really help you there.”
“Well, you saw the timer and you failed to warn me, so I’m pretty sure that this is on you.”
This has become something of a tradition, if things can become a tradition from only having happened a handful of times. Alexis comes back from New York to visit for a weekend or a week and they’ll all wind up - Patrick, David, Stevie, and Alexis - crowded onto the couch in the cottage, playing MarioKart, usually at Patrick’s suggestion. It’s a low-key way for them to all unwind and spend time together without having to deal with the sticky floors at the Wobbly Elm or the restaurants around that all close at 9 PM. They break out snacks and booze and pair off into teams since David and Patrick only have two controllers. David and Stevie versus Patrick and Alexis is the most common formation. They tried to put David and Alexis on the same team once, but it ended in a screaming match about drifting technique and they haven’t attempted it since. Patrick doesn’t think anything would have actually come of it, but Stevie seems to think there’s a chance, and that’s enough.
Typically, David is the weakest link. Something his husband has commented on multiple times, in varying degrees of helpfulness, in the heat of the competition. At one point, when David is complaining about moving slowly, Patrick says, “Are you shaking your controller? You should be shaking your controller over the jumps.” David’s response of, “Okay, that just seems like a lot of work?” doesn’t go over well. His husband’s voice is high and tight as he manages out, “It gives you a speed boost, David,” proceeding to vigorously shake his controller for emphasis, causing David to make a noise of complaint at being jostled and scoot further away from him on the couch.
Then everyone’s yelling at him about other ways he can speed up and he lets go of the joystick to wave his hands around, sending Princess Peach careening off of the course (another reason why he and Alexis couldn’t play at the same time, lest he have to resort to Yoshi). “ So sorry that I didn’t grow up playing this game!” he snaps, feeling overwhelmed. It’s not his fault that he doesn’t do well under competition. He thought they were just having fun. “The last time I tried, Alexis hit me in the face with her controller! And they were much bigger back then!”
Stevie snorts into her wine glass and makes a mumbled comment that sounds like okay grandpa, but David’s not sure, so he glares at her just to be safe.
Alexis’ head appears over Patrick’s tense shoulder. “Oh my God, David, I did not hit you with my controller. You stood up too fast while I was celebrating my victory because you’re a sore loser,” she huffs. “And you got a new nose like, later that year anyway, so it’s not a big deal. If anything, I helped your case.”
Stevie cocks her head at him, wine glass now clutched to her chest. “You guys didn’t play video games?”
Alexis answers for him, humming a bit before slowly saying, “David and I didn’t really live in the same state a lot of the time? So no. I mean, we had all the consoles of course. But mom and dad didn’t really like them either, so…” She trails off mercifully after that, even though it seems like she has more to say. Like that Johnny and Moira were never even around enough to learn that they didn’t like playing games with their children. Or that she at least had friends to play with, while David never did. Everyone seems to infer it.
Most of David’s childhood, the Nintendo 64 - amongst other consoles - sat on the shelf of their game room. Gold. Limited edition. Gaudy, even then. His translucent grey controller and his sister’s translucent pink controllers stayed perfectly wrapped up on the shelf the whole time, ready to be played if they were ever both home on break at the same time. It was years before it happened again, and by then they felt like they’d grown out of it.
Patrick finishes the course in first place, but he’s looking at his husband, who has gone silent, laser-focused on the course. He doesn’t mock David’s abilities for the rest of the night.
A few courses, though, David’s winning despite his delayed start, and he can feel his husband seething next to him. A cursory glance at the other side of the screen says that he’s in first while Patrick is in sixth, and that’s just too good to let go.
He clears his throat. “Hey, honey?”
“ Yes? ” comes Patrick’s tense reply.
“Um, have you tried shaking your controller, maybe? It’s just that I heard it can give you a really big speed boost.”
He gets blue-shelled for that one.
Stevie and Alexis are, surprisingly, both pretty good at this and therefore a decent match-up, causing their matches to get heated. Alexis likes to compliment Stevie’s particularly brutal moves, but Stevie usually stays silent. Stevie also switches her character every round. David suspects that Toad is her favorite, as he seems to be her default, but it’s hard to tell with her injecting seemingly any character that she knows will anger people, ranging from Luigi, to Wario, to Bowser, to random characters from video game franchises that none of them play. Alexis stays true to Princess Peach the whole time. At some point, Stevie says that it’s because she is Princess Peach, and the statement is so laden with something that even Patrick gives her a questioning look.
Stevie’s apparent gay awakening for his sister aside, the nights are fun. David’s actually surprised at how much fun they are. Even a little bit healing. Especially the rounds when Stevie or Alexis play Patrick, or he gets to play Stevie. It gives David something he’d never had before. There’s something so simple about it, but this experience was one he never got to have growing up, so it feels novel. Like it fills in a gap. He gets to sit on a couch with his friend, the boy he likes, and his sister while they eat chips and play games like teenagers. It makes him feel so whole and so normal that he doesn’t even really mind that Stevie always ends the night just drunk enough that she stays the night on the couch, or that Patrick’s hyper-competitive side comes out every single time.
That competitive side tends to get worse as the night goes on, and by this point, Patrick’s wound up significantly. David has sunk back to a much more familiar 8th place, but he’s feeling full and a little boozy and pretty happy so he’s getting more enjoyment out of how worked up Patrick is over being in 2nd place than the game, anyway.
“It’s about honor , David,” he’s telling him. A quick glance over finds the exact Brewer face David expected. Mouth somehow both scrunched and pressed into a line, brows furrowed and serious, eyes focused. “Okay? I’m not about to lose to a CPU.”
David has to press his own lips together to keep from laughing, nodding. “Mmm. Of course.”
Stevie scoffs. “Maybe you shouldn’t have chosen Mario, then.”
“He’s the main character, Stevie!” Patrick says, volume increasing a little more than necessary.
Stevie holds up a hand in surrender, but her eyes are twinkling when she looks at David, nudging him with her elbow.
David doesn’t get to dwell in the moment for long, though, because soon the ending music plays and Patrick lets out an unceremonious shout of, “ Fuck Toad!”
David audibly gasps. Stevie throws back her head in a full cackle. And Alexis swats his shoulder, saying, “Um, language , Patrick.”
“I didn’t know you knew that word,” Stevie says, smirking against her wine glass while Patrick drops his controller to momentarily put his head in his hands.
David rubs Patrick’s back soothingly with the hand not clutching his drink, even though it’s clear that he’s deeply amused at his husband’s outburst. “That’s okay. You’ll…get ‘em next time.”
Patrick sits up, still looking grumpy about losing but with more mirth in his expression than before. “Wow. Thank you. How could I go on without your support?”
“Unclear,” David tells him, trying and failing to suppress his smile and rewarding Patrick’s efforts with a kiss.
After a while of just chatting, David begins to pick up the debris of the night, compiling bowls and taking them to the kitchen. He lingers for a moment in the kitchen, leaning backwards against the counter, chin tipped up, eyes closed as he listens to his loved ones debate the relative morality of red-shelling someone you know instead of just using them on COM’s. This isn’t a set-up he ever could have predicted - this group of people, this game, this house - but it works. And his heart feels unbearably full.
There’s a package of cookies on the counter from a bakery in Elm Glen that he’s trying to schmooze into selling in their store. He’d sworn up and down upon bringing them home that the only person allowed to have any was himself. He snags it on his way back to the living room anyway. They’ve earned it. And he loves them.