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“Spanish One!” Rocky yelled, slamming his last card onto the discard pile. “All done! No more cards! Grace get destroyed at Spanish One!”
Grace sighed, head in hands and patience dwindling, at the sight of his four remaining cards — all blue, regular numbered cards because of course they were — and the sight of Rocky’s zero.
“Rocky win! Rocky win! Rocky win!” He sang, three limbs hopping up and down as the other two did jazz hands. “Rocky win! Rocky win!”
Rocky had just won fifteen games in a row of uno. None of them were even close to Grace winning.
Grace pulled his hair.
“Again!” Rocky chirped. “Let’s play again!” He scooped up the cards, and began to shuffle the deck.
“No!” Grace yelled, waving his arms and crossing them in a sign for ‘no or ‘stop it’. “No more! No more games of uno! I’m done!”
Rocky paused. He went silent for a moment, then placed the deck of cards onto the floor, and started vibrating. “Grace bad loser! Grace bad loser! Grace bad loser!” He sung-laughed.
“I am not a bad loser!” Grace exclaimed like a bad loser.
“Grace bad at Spanish One!”
“I am not!” Grace yelled, pulling at his hair. “You’re just— Just—“
“—Too good!” Rocky finished, doing a happy sort of spin-jump on the spot. “Rocky too good at Spanish One! Rocky best! Rocky best and Grace is worst!” Rocky exclaimed. “Grace is worst! Grace is worst!” He sung-laughed.
“You’re unbelievable.” Grace grumbled, pulling his face with his hands. “You’re the worst, Rocky.”
Rocky’s laughter stopped instantly, the silence cutting through the air like a blade, as Rocky became scarily stiff and still.
Grace’s eyes widened. “No! Wait! I—“ He gasped, guilt and self-hatred pooling inside of his stomach at the thought of upsetting Rocky. “I’m so sorry, Rocky! I was— I was joking. I didn’t mean it. Of course you’re not the worst — you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, buddy!”
Rocky hunched over himself. “Apologies for teasing Grace. Rocky take too far.” He mumbled, quietly.
“Hey, hey, Rocks, it’s okay, you didn’t take it too far, it’s my fault, alright? Not yours. I should—“ Grace pulled at his hair, wanting it to hurt, “—I should get better at controlling my anger. I rarely win our games of uno, and I guess the frustration has been building and building inside of me, but it’s not an excuse to yell at you, and call you the worst for just winning a stupid game.” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Rocky forgive Grace.” He murmured. “Rocky still sorry for annoying Grace.”
Grace’s stomach twisted. “No, Rocky, no, you’re not annoying, buddy.” He tried to coo. (Rocky was annoying but he didn’t need to know that.) “I’m not mad at you — see?”
Rocky didn’t answer.
“Let’s play something else.” Grace stood up, and walked over to the box in the corner, where he kept all of their gaming consoles (thank Stratt for downloading every video game imaginable onto the Hail Mary’s computer), and grabbed two Nintendo Switch joy-cons. “We could play some more Mario Kart? Maybe I’ll even let you pick the tracks…”
“Rainbow Road! Rainbow Road! Rainbow Road!” Rocky chanted, back to his usual self.
“But you can’t even see the colours!” Grace exclaimed. “You just want to make me dizzy, don’t you?”
Rocky vibrated with laughter.
“Rocky!” Grace exclaimed, feigning frustration as he sat back down and passed him his controller. “You know what, I take it back, you are the worst Eridian in all of space!”
This time, Rocky continued to laugh in Eridian, knowing Grace was never really mad at him.
Grace limited the Projection Room’s screens to just the screens directly in front of them, and booted up Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. ”Mario Kart Eight!” The game squeaked, cueing the home screen music. Grace clicked multiplayer, two players, VS Race, and picked baby Luigi as his character.
Rocky chose Yoshi, not only because he liked chirping ”Yoshi! Yoshi! Yoshi!’” throughout the race, but because of the 100+ hours he’d ‘studied’ Mario Kart on YouTube — now he always picked Yoshi with Mr Scooty or Teddy Buggy, Roller Wheels, and Paper Glider like a sweat, while Grace picked his go-karts on aesthetics and played as Luigi or one of the baby characters (”Grace is tiny Human pebble, statement!”).
“Lots of races please!” Rocky chirped once they had picked their go-karts. “Lots and lots and lots!”
“Alright, bud.” Grace chuckled, setting the options as 150cc, No Teams, Normal Items, Easy CPU, All Vehicles, Choose Courses, and 24 Races. (Occasionally they played with teams and custom items, but Grace thought they would play normally this time.) “If we have to play the Rainbow Roads, can we at least start with the N64 version?” Grace asked. Out of the five Rainbow Roads included in 8 Deluxe, it was the one that made him least want to throw up.
“Fine.” Rocky grumbled. “Grace Rocky play N64 Rainbow Road.”
“Thank you, you’re so kind.” Grace snarked, picking the track.
“Rocky is so kind! Grace is so welcome!” He chirped back, either not understanding sarcasm or choosing to ignore it. “Let’s go, go, go!”
For someone, who couldn’t see what was on a flat screen without a texture monitor, Rocky was a fudging good driver. Even without learning driving tricks and complex shortcuts from YouTube, he had always been better at Grace in Mario Kart and piloting the Hail Mary. Contrary to popular belief, Grace did have a driving licence and a car on Earth, but after fuel prices soared due to the Astrophage Crisis, Grace preferred to bike to work, instead. He wondered if Rocky would make him a bike on Erid, but then he remembered he had a race to win, and locked in.
For once Grace actually won a Rainbow Road with Rocky finishing closely after him in 2nd place. Rocky then proceeded to win the remaining four Rainbow Roads, with Grace coming in at 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 3rd respectively, which was really not that bad, considering he would have come last months ago playing them.
Their 6th race was Baby Park, where Rocky finished 2nd and Grace finished 7th after getting bombed by every single CPU, their 7th race was Yoshi Circuit, their 8th race was Yoshi Valley, and their 9th race was Yoshi’s Island; in all of which Rocky finished 1st and Grace finished 2nd.
They played the city tracks next. Rocky came 1st in Amsterdam Drift, Athens Dash, Berlin Byway, London Loop, Madrid Drive, Paris Promenade, Rome Avanti, Sydney Sprint, and Tokyo Blur, while Grace came 1st in Bangkok Rush, Los Angeles Laps, New York Minute, Singapore Speedway, and Vancouver Velocity.
For their final race, Rocky chose to play Coconut Mal, finishing in 3rd behind Grace’s 2nd. However, he still had enough points to beat Grace and the CPUs overall, crowning him the winner of Mario Kart.
After playing the switch for almost 1.5 hours, Grace needed to rest his eyes, so Rocky found a puzzle for them to do instead. It was the 1000 piece cat puzzle Grace had done far too many times to count on his fingers, but he helped Rocky anyway, knowing how much Rocky enjoyed redoing it (for some annoying reason). Halfway through, Grace had his dinner (more coma slurry because of course it was), whilst trying not to rip his hair out at the sight of Rocky forcing the pieces in the completely wrong places. After managing to fix it all without having a mental breakdown (yay), they finished the puzzle surrounded by screens of stars and to Mary’s ‘relaxation music’ playlist. It had been a long afternoon, but fun nonetheless.
“Hey Rocks, ‘want to learn a new Human game before I go to bed?”
Rocky immediately bolted from his relaxed position on the floor. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Grace Rocky play new Human game! Grace teach Rocky! Grace teach Rocky!” He vibrated excitedly.
Grace chuckled. “Okay, okay, I’m going to.” He smiled, raising his hands. “It’s a very simple pebble game called ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ that we play using our hands. A closed fist symbolises a rock, a flat hand symbolises paper, and a fist with the index and middle fingers extended symbolises scissors.” Grace demonstrated the hand symbols.
“Rock, paper, scissors!” Rocky imitated with his claw-like fingers.
“Yeah!” Grace beamed. “That’s it! Good job, bud.“ He fist-bumped Rocky. “Now, the aim of the game is to pick a hand symbol that beats your opponents. Rock beats scissors because a rock would blunt or break them, scissors beat paper because the scissors can cut the paper, and paper beats rock because you can wrap paper around a rock. If both players use the same hand symbol, then it’s a tie. The round will start with me saying ‘rock, paper, scissors, shoot’, and when I say ‘shoot’, we will both pick either rock, paper, or scissors, and make the symbol with our hands. Does that make sense, pal?”
“Yes, Rocky understands.” He chirped. “Young Human pebble game very simple and easy. Rocky Grace play now.”
“Alright, Rocks.” Grace chucked. “Rock, paper, scissors…shoot!” He made his hand into a fist.
So had Rocky. “Fist my bump!” He cheered, fist bumping Grace with his rock. “Grace Rocky tie!”
“Yeah, buddy.” Grace smiled. “Rock, paper… scissors… shoot!” He made the sign for scissors.
Rocky chose rock. “Rocky wins!” He chirped, bashing his fist against Grace’s fingers. “Again! Again!”
“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” Grace held out a flat hand for paper.
Rocky still chose rock. Huh.
“Grace wins. Grace wins.” He teased, holding Rocky’s fist for a few seconds, before letting go. Was he always going to pick rock? “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” Grace chose paper again.
Rocky chose rock.
“You know you can pick paper or scissors, right bud?” Grace checked, eyebrow raised, with a light chuckle.
“Yes, yes, yes, Rocky understands simple Human pebble game.” He huffed, waving an arm. “Rocky can pick rock, paper, or scissors, but Rocky choose rock. Rock best because Rocky is rock. Rocky loyal to rock. Rocky playing ‘Rocky, Paper, Scissors’.”
Grace chucked. Of course he was. “If you pick rock every time, I’ll just pick paper and beat you, bud.” Grace reminded him.
“Rocky not care. Rocky loyal to rock.” He committed.
“Alright, pal, if you’re sure.” Grace chuckled. “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” Grace picked paper.
Rocky, true to his word, chose rock.
“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”
Grace’s paper beat Rocky’s rock for the fourth time.
“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”
Grace’s paper beat Rocky’s rock for the fifth time.
“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”
Grace’s paper beat Rocky’s rock for the sixth time.
Grace couldn’t contain his laughter.
“Why laughing question?” Rocky huffed.
“Nothing!” Grace forced out between sharp breaths. “Just— Just—“
“Being mean. Grace being mean.” Rocky grumbled. “Grace disrespect rock.”
Grace laughed so much that he couldn’t breathe.
“Bad Human! Bad!” Rocky yelled, stamping two feet, and pointing at him with fake anger. “This is no laughing matter! Grace disrespect the rock! Grace repeatedly suffocate the rock! Grace kill the rock! Grace could join the rock and tie but instead chooses to hate the rock! Very mean! Very bad! Very wrong! Naughty, naughty, naughty!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Grace tried not to cry. “I’ll stop disrespecting the rock!”
“Good!” Rocky huffed. “Now fist my bump!” He shoved his fist in front of Grace’s face.
“Fist bump.” Grace corrected, tapping their fists together. “It’s fist bump, not fist my bump.”
“Fist my bump!”
“Fist bump.”
“Fist my bump!”
“Fist bump.”
“Fist my bump!”
“Fist bump.”
“Fist my bump!”
“…Ugh.” Grace groaned, pulling at his hair. “Fine.” He sighed. “Fist my bump.”
Rocky fist-bumped him for a second time. “Yeah!”