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“HA! I win! Suck it, Space Jesus!”
“Keep your tits on, Misch. He’s won literally every other round so far.”
Ricky smiled as he pressed Next Race.
The three of them were sprawled out across Ricky’s small room with its stars on the ceiling and its galaxy wallpaper – Ricky sat on the floor leaning against the tiny couch that Mischa had insisted on taking up the entire length of, while Noel sat on his bed behind them, painting his nails and ignoring the sounds of Mario Kart and Mischa’s whining whenever he lost.
“I let him,” Mischa protested, jamming his finger repeatedly on the A button in a futile attempt to speed up the loading screen. “Me and Donkey Kong are best duo in all North-Eastern Saskatchewan. Cannot be beaten by Cat Peach.”
Ricky raised his eyebrows at Mischa behind him, who just scoffed and lightly elbowed the back of his head.
“Cat Peach is badass, but not as badass as DK,” he mumbled grumpily. Noel just snorted as he held out a hand to assess his work.
“Ricky, please keep beating him if he’s going to keep degrading the princesses of the Mario-universe.”
Mischa’s shocked outrage as he whirled around to Noel had Ricky silently cackling.
“I do not degrade women!” he gasped, throwing his arms up, clearly offended.
Noel just blew on his nails, not doing a great job and concealing the poorly-hidden smirk on his face. “If you say so.”
As expected, Ricky proceeded to win the rest of their games until Mischa finally gave up, buried his head under a cushion and refused to speak in English for ten minutes straight. Noel got up and sat next to Ricky, showing off the nails he’d been working on – he got some new nail pens and wanted to try some designs more complex than just his usual shade of black or crimson. Ricky thought they were awesome - he made a mental note to ask Noel to do his sometime.
He eventually pulled out his AAC. “Do you want to watch something?”
Both Mischa and Noel whipped up their heads immediately, staring at him with wide, eager eyes. Ricky immediately regretted asking; he didn’t really feel like watching a film about harlots or torture, now he thought about it.
“Never mind. We could walk down to the park? And hang out there for a while?”
“And risk seeing Ocean Rosenberg?” Noel laughed humourlessly, grimacing. “She’s doing a lemonade stand there to raise money for the science equipment at school.”
“We can play more cars?” Mischa offered with a grin, apparently having forgotten his sore-loser tantrum. Ricky huffed.
“You’ll just get angry again.”
“I will not!”
Noel shrugged, running a hand through his perfect hair. “I don’t know. I might be up for playing this time if you go again.”
Mischa gestured widely at Noel, staring at Ricky as if to say, See?
Ricky rolled his eyes but nodded and picked up the controller. He selected three player mode, Vs race, 150CC, and proceeded to the character screen. This time, Mischa picked Bowser Jr. (“Big Bowser too iconic – I feel like fraud if I play Big Bowser”), Ricky picked Tanooki Mario and Noel deliberated between Roy, Rosalina and Toadette for a while, before finally picking Roy.
Noel lost spectacularly in every single game, but beat Mischa once – which Mischa literally nearly cried about. He came consistently second, and Ricky unsurprisingly won all of them.
Unlike the other two, he was competent enough at the game that he was able to confidently glance around the room while playing and not fall off the map. He saw Mischa’s wide-eyed, concentrated glare at the TV, tongue sticking out as he frantically smashed the buttons on his controller. Noel seemed unbothered that he was coming dead last as he lazily pushed around the joystick, but he didn't miss the excited grin whenever he got higher than eighth place.
Ricky loved these little hangouts. He obviously loved having the entire choir there too, but this weekend tradition with the three of them had just kind of started one day and didn’t dissipate. It actually technically started before the Cyclone, in a way.
Mischa sat by him in science, quiet and angry all the time, and not at all fluent in English. And Ricky not being able to speak himself got a little surge of confidence as he began passing little notes to him in class. Just a “hello” with a smiley face, or a note on science if the new Ukrainian kid looked confused. Mischa always took a little while to translate the note in his head, but he always made sure to send one back when he could.
A couple months of silent note-passing later, they were paired up for a project, and Ricky asked if he wanted to come over that weekend to work on it. Mischa had excitedly agreed, but then Father Marcus told them that they’d be going to the fair that weekend to compete - and they all knew how that ended.
But when Ricky got home from the hospital, he got a message from Mischa asking if he could come over and hang out; maybe get a little bit started on that science thing, even if it was well overdue at this point.
Then he came again next Saturday. And again the next. And then Noel tagged along on the next one. And now it had been months and months, and they never missed a single one (unless Noel had work or Ricky had a doctor’s appointment).
His parents were overjoyed that he had friends for the first time since his diagnosis, and were a little embarrassing. But if that was the price to pay for having two of his friends come over every week and play video games or watch movies or just talk about anything and everything that came to mind, he didn’t mind so much.
“Fucking hell,” Mischa groaned, throwing down his controller as he abruptly stood up to pace angrily around the room. Ricky and Noel shared a smirk.
“You said you wouldn’t get angry,” Ricky’s AAC droned. Mischa stuck his tongue out, to which Ricky returned the gesture. Noel crossed the finish line in 11th place and sighed, apparently satisfied.
“You’ll get there someday, Mischa,” he sighed sweetly, smiling with a teasing sympathy. Mischa stuck him a finger.
A knock came through the door and Ricky’s mother poked her head around it. She beamed at the three of them before making their family’s odd little gestures that only Ricky could understand. He nodded as she left.
“Noel, your mom’s here,” he typed out on the AAC. Noel yawned and nodded.
“Didn’t realise the time, I guess it is already getting dark,” he said as he stood up. Ricky held out an arm and Noel helped him to his feet, handing him his crutches before giving him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek like he always did.
“See you both on Monday,” he called over his shoulder as he opened the door.
“Yooo, do I not get goodbye kiss?” Mischa asked with a pout. Noel rolled his eyes.
“No because you gave me the finger.”
“I did not mean it, Poet!”
“Yeah, right.”
Mischa grinned, darting over to tackle Noel into a hug. Noel shrieked as he was practically lifted off his feet and brought back inside, before Mischa planted an exaggerated kiss on his cheek and placed him back down. Noel’s face had gone bright pink, and he looked like he was buffering.
“See on Monday!” Mischa said as he let go of him and leapt back onto the couch, picking up his controller for a round three at Mario Kart. Ricky almost laughed as Noel nodded curtly and essentially ran from the room. When the door was shut, he raised a brow at Mischa.
“He so likes you back.”
Mischa startled, eyes widening a little. “You think?”
“I may not have been close to him, but I’ve known him since Pre-K. He never gets all quiet and flustered like that.”
Mischa paused for a second, before grinning and leaning back on the cushions, eyes shining. “Awesome.”
Ricky sniggered and loaded up a different game. Mischa kicked at him.
“Hey! What about racing game?”
“I want to try a different game with you. A little less competitive,” he typed as he fumbled with the game cartridge.
“You are just scared you will lose more,” Mischa said smugly as he leaned over to peer sceptically at the little picture on the card.
“Animal Crossing?”
Ricky nodded. “You can’t actually build a house in my town unless you have your own copy of the game, but you can have the controller and walk around. I can show you my town.”
Mischa leaned back, and hummed.
“Is there guns?” he asked. Ricky snorted.
“Yes. Lots of guns shot by cute little squirrels.”
“I like sound of this game.”