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Hunter wasn’t sure how he managed to get Luz to let him borrow her game console, but somehow he had. Vee would probably stick their tongue out at him for leaving her without her weekly Mario Kart race-off against Luz, but in Hunter’s opinion, it was more than worth it. They had been playing for over what, two? Three hours now? Hunter had stopped counting after Darius did. If the game was enough to keep Darius entranced, that could only go on his list of evidence to prove Mario Kart was the best video game to ever exist, even better than Animal Crossing. Luz would need a lot of evidence to defend her beloved island game against his.
Thanks to Luz’s obsession with new brightly-colored controls though, she had a good amount of them. Hunter couldn’t really blame her for that either, he loved the way she had them organized by color amidst the chaos her room was. She had so many, so well arranged, it hadn’t taken her over five minutes to find three nice ones for him to borrow. Three of her sturdiest according to her placement system, “just in case,” she insisted.
Now, after the second round and Darius’ flabbergasted expression at Eber’s skills, he could see why. The couch was barely big enough for the three of them, feeling even smaller as they moved around hoping the movement sensors would recognize it.
“Luz was right! It’s so much more fun like this!” Hunter cried out as he dropped a shrinking ray on Darius.
“I bet it’s more fun if you’re not third place out of the three of us,” Darius protested playfully with a faked groan. He gave a side eye at Eber, who gave him their best cheeky smile in return.
“How do you even do it? Do you even have thumbs to use the controller with?” Darius inquired.
Eber did the weirdest flex any of the other two had ever seen be done with their thumbs. In the brief moment they put their controller aside, Hunter dropped an ink bomb on them, blowing up the first of their balloons. He winked at Darius, who took it as a sign to rush and break another.
“TAKE THAT, MUTT!” Darius exclaimed as he reached out to high-five Hunter, his voice the loudest and most excited Hunter had ever heard.
Eber rushed to take their controller and frantically attempted to escape Hunter, who was already tailing his cart to pop another balloon. Almost side by side, Eber tried cutting in front of him, only to find one of their balloons popped instead.
“HA!” Hunter pointed out right as Darius popped his last balloon, restarting his pop count. “Hey, treason! I thought we were teaming against Eber!” he added with a pout. “Betrayed in my most vulnerable moment! I would have never expected it from you!” Hunter yelled out as he slid down the sofa dramatically, half-crushing Darius, who ruffled his hair.
“Better go back to the game, we don’t want Eber breaking your precious trust in revenge,” Darius said as Hunter squirmed beside him, trying to find a comfortable position after his theatrics. The motion sensors were far too well calibrated, though, since he kept crashing with every move he made.
“Time for scores, if Eber ranks higher than me I will not be happy,” Darius said with a teasing emphasis on the “not”.
To all their surprises, though, Hunter ranked third out of them.
”Augh,” he protested with a sound that reminded Eber of the many beast cubs in the Isles, burying himself beneath Darius without even thinking about it, surprising him.
“Next time I’ll make sure to team up with you against Eber. Another round?” Darius said as he wrapped his arms the best he could around Hunter.
“YEAH!” Hunter jumped back in place, eager to program the next round.
If Darius had seen an instant of this moment a few years ago, he would have found so hard to believe the boy melting under his embrace was no other than the former Golden Guard.
To be honest, he wouldn’t trade this for anything, other than the chance of having given Hunter a better life even before.