Work Text:
Player One
Christmas morning in the Faden household smelled like pine needles and the lingering burnt-sugar edge of the cookies Mom had forgotten in the oven the night before.
On the mantel, three stockings hung from four brass hooks. The fourth hook had been there when they bought the house, and Dad liked to joke that it was waiting for the dog they would eventually get. Mom always shot the idea down with a look, but Jesse thought a dog might be nice one day. Something that would run to the door when she came home, something that she could play with out in the backyard.
Jesse sat cross-legged in the middle of the living-room rug, surrounded by torn scraps of wrapping paper that almost looked like bright pieces of confetti. Most of the presents had already been opened - new socks, a book about the stars, a soft orange sweater she already knew she would wear every day until spring.
Then Dad handed her the last box.
It was heavier than it looked, wrapped in dark blue paper with little silver circles stamped across it. Jesse tore the paper carefully at first, then with growing impatience when she saw the corner of the box art - she knew that font. It was the only thing she had asked for. She had asked for it in October, and again on Thanksgiving, and once by writing it on the fridge whiteboard beneath milk and ground beef. Mom hadn't been too impressed about that one. She'd erased it with the side of her hand with a stern "Jesse Dylan Faden! Use your words, not the grocery list."
"Severed Circle II!" she shrieked, scrambling to her feet so fast the remaining scraps of paper flew up around her like startled birds. She hugged the box to her chest and bounced on the balls of her feet, too full of the moment to stand still. "Thank you, thank you!"
Mom laughed into her coffee, shaking her head slightly at Jesse's antics. Dad already had the camera raised, and when the flash went off, the tree lights and the flash disagreed for half a second about where she was standing. Two shadows fell across the wallpaper behind her, one sharp, one soft, leaning slightly away from each other.
Then the flash faded and there was only one again.
"Alright, Jesse. Why don't you go upstairs and play your game while your father and I clean up?" Mom said, leaning into Dad's side as he pressed a quick kiss to her hair. "I know you were so excited about that game, it's the only thing you've talked about for the past month!"
Jesse's bouncing slowed. The box suddenly felt a little heavier in her arms.
"Oh..." She glanced down at the cover again. Two controllers. Two silhouettes. "Well, it's a two-person game, Mom. I'll have to wait until I can invite a friend over to play."
Dad clicked his tongue against his teeth in sympathy as he reached over to pull Mom close to his side. "That's a shame. But you have plenty of other presents to keep your attention until you can. The star book looks interesting."
Jesse managed a small smile and nodded. She gathered the game and the rest of her presents and carried them upstairs, the cardboard edges of the box digging into her palms with every step. The staircase creaked in the familiar places. The hallway light hummed. Her door stuck a little at the bottom the way it always had.
Her room was quiet when she pushed the door shut behind her. The window looked out over the snow-dusted backyard and the still, white landscape of Ordinary beyond it. Everything looked the same as it had the day before, and the day before that: the bare branches of the maple, the neighbor's fence with its loose board, the distant shape of the water tower against the pale sky.
Dumping the rest of her presents on the floor beside her bed, Jesse set the box down in front of the old television Mom and Dad let her keep in her room, slit the tape with her thumbnail, and lifted the lid.
The game disc was black with the same logo as on the front of the box. Two controllers rested in molded plastic, just waiting to be picked up. She carefully plugged everything in the way the instructions showed, kneeling on the carpet in her pajamas. The television hummed to life, and the title screen bloomed, accompanied by a musical tone that made the hair on her arms lift for a second.
A white indicator blinked over Player 1.
Jesse sat back on her heels, controller in both hands, and pressed the start button.
The screen dimmed. A small window appeared in the center.
Player 2 required.
She stared at it. Tried the start button again. The message stayed. The indicator over Player 1 kept blinking, patiently.
Jesse exhaled through her nose and set the controller down. The plastic was already warm from her hands. She looked at the second one and felt something small and familiar twist under her ribs - the same feeling she got sometimes at school when the other kids talked about weekends spent arguing over who got the top bunk, or whose turn it was to pick the movie, or how annoying it was to share a bathroom.
A lot of people in Ordinary came in pairs, or sets of three, or noisy clusters that filled up whole minivans. Brothers and sisters who knew each other's secrets and finished each other's sentences and fought over the last piece of toast and still, somehow, belonged together.
But Jesse was always on her own.
With another sigh, she stood, turned the television off, and climbed into bed, pulling the quilt Grandma had gifted her three Christmases ago up to her chin. The mattress dipped in the familiar places under her shoulders and hips. Outside, a plow truck rumbled somewhere down the street, its blade scraping against the asphalt in a long, low groan. Inside, the house settled into its afternoon quiet - Mom and Dad talking in low voices downstairs, the clink of dishes, the soft rustle of wrapping paper being gathered into bags, the warm and familiar sound of soft laughter.
Jesse closed her eyes and tried to picture it. Not a wish, exactly. Wishing was for birthday candles and dandelion fluff. This was more like a request form, something you filled out with your best handwriting. Like the Secret Santa gift exchange that Mrs. Chester had ran at school. Name. Age. Please describe what you want. Jesse didn't need anyone special. She only needed a second set of footsteps on the stairs. A voice arguing about who got to be Player 1. A cold controller that someone else's hands would warm up.
If Jesse had a sibling, she wouldn't have to wait for winter break to end.
If Jesse had a sibling, she wouldn't have to be alone anymore.
The thought drifted through her the way snow drifted past the window - soft and slow, and almost weightless. She held onto it while her breathing evened out, while the house grew quieter, while the thin winter light faded toward evening.
Downstairs, the last of the paper was bagged and carried out. On the mantel, three stockings hung from four hooks. Upstairs, on the console beneath the television, the port light for the second controller came on, small and green and in no hurry, and stayed on.
Jesse, who did not see it, went to sleep alone.
Player Two
Jesse woke to someone shaking her shoulder.
"Get up, get up! Come on, Jesse!"
Dylan's voice was bright with excitement, his small hands pushing and pulling at her as she blinked against the pale winter light leaking through the curtains. He was kneeling on the mattress beside her, still in his pajamas, hair sticking up on one side like it always did in the morning. Behind him she could see his bed and the usual mess of his blankets half-kicked onto the floor.
For a moment - just a moment - something felt off. A thin, transparent wrongness, like looking through a pane of glass that had a hairline crack. Jesse blinked hard. The feeling slipped away before she could name it.
"Dylan, it's Christmas break," she mumbled, voice rough with sleep. "We don't have to get up yet. Let me sleep in."
"But... Severed Circle!" He shoved at her shoulder again as she tried to roll over. "I thought you wanted to play! I've been waiting forever. You said we'd start first thing."
Jesse yawned and pushed herself up on her elbows. The room looked the way it always did on a winter morning: her bed against one wall, Dylan's mattress against the other, the two dressers, the window looking out over the still-white backyard. Ordinary was quiet under the snow.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed. The floorboards were cold under her feet.
"Race you downstairs," Dylan said, already scrambling up and nearly tumbling to the floor in his hurry. "Mom's making waffles!"
Breakfast smelled like syrup and coffee. Mom set two plates on the table without looking up from the stove, then poured milk into two glasses and slid them across. Dad sat with the newspaper open, glasses slipping down his nose while he sipped his coffee.
"Both of you eat something before you disappear upstairs again," Mom said, smiling as she turned. She reached over and smoothed Jesse's hair, then ruffled Dylan's on her way past. Her hand lingered a second longer on Dylan's head, the way it always did. "I know that new game is exciting, but you still need actual food. And don't think I didn't notice you two sneaking the leftover caramels last night."
Dylan kicked Jesse lightly under the table, a mischievous grin already in place as he snagged the last waffle while she was distracted. She kicked him back. He grinned around a mouthful of it, syrup on his chin.
The phone rang while they were still eating. Dad answered, listened for a moment, then held the receiver away from his ear with a puzzled little frown.
"It's your mother," he said to Mom. "She's... a bit mixed up about something."
Mom took the phone, voice warm and patient. "Hi, Mom. No, both of them are right here. Jesse and Dylan loved the caramels you sent over." A short pause. She laughed softly, but the sound was a fraction too careful. "What? No, we've always... All right, Mom. We'll call you later. Love you too."
She hung up and stood for a second with her hand still on the receiver, staring at nothing in particular. Then she shook her head fondly and turned back to the kids with the same easy smile.
Dad looked up from the paper. "Everything okay?"
"She's just getting a little forgetful," Mom said. She turned back to the kids with the same easy smile. "Go on, you two. Go play your game."
Jesse and Dylan glanced at each other across the table. Neither of them said anything about it. They carried their plates to the sink the way they always did and ran upstairs together, feet thumping on the steps in the same uneven rhythm they'd had for years - Jesse a little faster, Dylan a little louder.
They sat on the floor in their bedroom with the door closed and the muffled sounds of the kitchen coming up through the floorboards. The two controllers were warm in their hands. The screen read Player 1 - Player 2 - Ready?
Jesse pressed start.
The screen went dark. In the dark, a single figure walked down a long corridor of bright, humming light. It walked toward a place at the end where the light was too bright to look at directly - a gap in the dark like a door left open in a house at night.
"That's us," Dylan said.
"That's not us," Jesse argued. "It's a two-player game. There would be two characters."
The figure reached the gap. It stepped into the light and stopped. The screen flared white. When it cleared, there were two figures where there had been one, standing side by side and facing the same direction, each casting one long shadow. One of them was a little taller than the other. Neither of them had a face.
A line of text appeared at the bottom of the screen. Jesse read it aloud, since Dylan was still sounding out the longer words.
To begin, hold both triggers to separate.
Neither of them moved for a moment. Jesse felt her heartbeat in the pad of her thumb against the plastic.
"That's cool," she said.
"Yeah." Dylan nodded, eyes fixed on the screen. "This is going to be the best game ever!"
They looked at each other. Both of them were smiling. In the quiet upstairs room, with the winter light going pale and gold across the carpet, it felt like the best Christmas either of them had ever had. It felt like it had always been the two of them.
Jesse held down her trigger. Beside her, Dylan held down his.
On the screen, the two figures stepped apart. The space between them widened. Their shadows stretched and then settled, each belonging fully to one body. The corridor remained, but now there were two paths leading into the light, side by side.
It was ordinary. By every measure the town of Ordinary had, it was an ordinary morning. No one in the house - upstairs or down - thought to ask where the second stocking had come from, or the second toothbrush, or the second shadow, or the second name. No one wondered why, on the mantel below them, four brass hooks now held four stockings and were, at last, not one hook too many.
Upstairs, on the screen, two small figures walked forward into the light, no longer alone.