Chapter 2
∞∞∞
Finn
I rolled my eyes at Wade’s teasing comments as I waited to load into the game. I’d just gotten off work and hopped online for a bit of unwinding and catching up with my friends before bed. Gaming in general was a good stress reliever for me and it helped us all to stay more connected as friends. I played with Saz and Wade the most, but we had a couple of other buddies who occasionally jumped in when they could.
“Aww, I hate doing squads. We always end up with a rando who sucks and drags us down,” Wade complained. He wasn”t wrong.
“The last one didn’t know how to dive,” I agreed with him quietly, but Saz was the party leader tonight and that meant he picked the game mode options for all of us.
“Well, I hate losing early and just watching you both play more rounds without me,” Saz muttered and we readied up so we could get started. On solos, only the top tier of players from each round progressed until the finals and Saz regularly got eliminated in round two or three out of the four. If you were in a party, like we were, then you had to watch and cheer on your teammates.
“Don’t suck so hard, then,” Wade teased him and Saz scoffed into his mic. He didn’t actually suck, there were just a couple of levels that always seemed to trip him up. The levels were loaded randomly for the matches, so sometimes Saz made it to the end with us, but other times he did end up watching and waiting for awhile.
There were some games where we were all eliminated early too. There was a good amount of luck involved in this game”s outcome and it kept things interesting if also a little frustrating.
“We can alternate solos and squads,” I suggested distractedly. The game was starting and I was ready to get moving.
“You can alternate my dick,” Saz snapped back and I laughed.
“Nope, too small,” Wade added quietly. His tone was so serious that I almost missed what he’d said. Saz ignored him and we were off, sprinting ahead with the first wave of players up front.
I shifted into a more focused mode when my guy fell off the map and I had to restart at my last checkpoint. It was only the first round! I was normally better than this. I liked to think so anyway. Ahead of me, I could see Wade and Saz were doing well and our randomly assigned teammate was right there with them. Our squad would still qualify for sure.
“Whoa, this guy is okay,” Wade observed excitedly. The rando had finished just ahead of him and Saz. It was a lot of points for our squad and it felt good to be ahead of the other players.
“Yesssss, maybe we finally got someone who can play,” I said as we waited to see what the next level would be. Several teams had already been eliminated, so there were less players with us now. The type of map could make or break us.
“Damnit,” Saz muttered darkly as we all loaded into the level. This was one of the ones that he tended to struggle with. Damn. I hated when he put so much pressure on himself.
“Don’t get all in your head before we even start,” Wade advised him encouragingly.
“Yeah, you head in there thinking you’re gonna fail then you’ve already lost,” I added, but Saz didn’t say anything. I could picture him gripping his controller too tight, knuckles going white and his signature scowl on his face.
“You got this, Big Papi,” I teased him when we began, trying to lift his mood. Everyone split up and took off in different directions. If we followed him or stuck to him too closely, it would only make Saz mad.
“Wave that micropenis in the air proudly,” Wade yelled into his mic enthusiastically and I really hoped no one around him was listening to his nonsense. His neighbors were probably used to it. We definitely were.
“You’re both idiots,” Saz muttered finally after he passed the first checkpoint, but I could hear a slight smile in his voice. He was going to be fine.
“Idiots with huge dicks,” Wade shot back and I laughed.
“No,” Saz denied quickly. It was all jokes and good natured ribbing. I actually had no idea what kind of dicks they had and did not want to know either. We’d been friends a long time and I already knew more than I wanted to know about their sex lives.
I turned my focus back to the game and the guys continued their silly banter the way we always did. I loved the rush and urgency of this game. Somehow, we made it to round three and were just barely eliminated.
“That was close,” I said, a little awed and very excited. Close was good. Better than we usually did when it was just the three of us.
“Invite him again, invite him again!” Wade demanded eagerly. It was a good idea, but one that Saz didn”t usually go for.
“I already did,” Saz assured gruffly. It was promising to have him on board already.
“He readied up,” I alerted the others so we could get to it. Each player in the party had to ready up before our team would be put into the next game. Wade was notorious for disappearing to get snacks and making us wait for him. Then he’d chew loudly into the mic while we played. Bastard.
“Let’s goooo already,” Wade urged us. I guessed he wasn’t hungry now. Probably too excited to see if we fared better this time with a competent player on our team.
We joked a little less through the next couple of rounds. Each of us seemed extra engaged and we were feeling the pressure to do well. We wanted the win pretty bad and were less distracted than normal. Our team did quite well, with only a few missteps here and there. Luck was on our side for once, though, and we ended up in the finals against one other team.
“Go, go, go,” Saz urged us as he held back their best player. What a man. He was our MVP for sure. He’d done this strategically before, buying us those precious seconds we needed because he knew he wasn’t quite skilled enough to win it anyway.
“Hell yes!” Wade yelled triumphantly as he and our rando teammate pulled ahead. I was just behind them so I could see everything as it happened. It was so close and Wade was screaming like an idiot in my ear, but our teammate just barely edged out an opposing player for the winning crown.
We all screamed crazily for a few seconds and then laughed.
“We haven’t won on squads in forever,” Wade said.
“See? Squads isn’t always bad,” Saz grumbled at him.
“We going again?” I asked them. Most nights we switched it up around this time and played a couple of different games together.
“Yes,” Wade and Saz answered immediately and I smiled. I’d thought as much. I sat back in my chair and stretched my arms out over my head. I should probably be doing push ups in between rounds like I used to, but I’d fallen out of the habit lately.
My job was extra stressful this time of year and the pressure had been getting to me. I was in sales and we were fast approaching the winter holidays. The shorter days, colder nights, and ambitious sales goals from my manager took a toll on me. I’d been working out less and ordering in more. It was a pattern I tended to fall into every year even though I always told myself I wouldn’t.
I was not taking care of myself like I should be, I knew that. It was just hard to find extra energy for things like cooking or exercising right now. I wasn’t too worried, though. I’d pull myself out of it in a couple of months. I just felt like shit tonight. I didn’t sleep as good when I was slacking like this either.
Playing with my friends made everything better, though. Saz asked the new guy if he wanted to get on our discord so we could all talk and I hoped he’d say no. It was always weird to have a stranger talking with us. Sometimes they were cool and sometimes they sucked. It was easy to kick them off if the vibe wasn’t right, but the awkwardness of censoring ourselves until we felt them out was uncomfortable.
It was unusual for Saz to offer it though. He must have been feeling more optimistic after the big win. This guy had made it happen, that was for sure. Wade loved having randos hop on our discord. His jokes would get worse and worse until they either left or I put Wade on mute.
It didn’t matter though, since our new teammate was quick to turn him down. Wade added to the chat and pushed for him to join, but the guy ignored him. Probably for the best too, since Wade was extra worked up from the win. Crazy idiot. Our crazy idiot.
We played a few more rounds together and had a good time. Wade was cracking me up and Saz was in an unusually good mood too. We didn’t get another win, but we came close. Our new teammate added us as friends so we could see when they were online and try to invite him to play with us again. Maybe we would team up soon and get more wins.
I crawled into bed afterward and sighed heavily at the thought of getting up for work tomorrow. It was just a temporary rough patch, I reminded myself reassuringly. Still, I fell sleep thinking of all the other jobs I could do where the seasons didn’t matter. Not even a little bit.It was a nice thought.