hyperactive | ic contact || deerington.

ic contact || deerington.

( video / text / voice / action )

[ stiles thinks two things in quick succession. the first is that this is a pretty cute selfie, something that just kinda hovers in the back of his mind before being nudged away by his next thought - which is that billy looks pretty tired. stiles isn't exactly in a position to criticize anyone for looking tired, these days, but - he does feel pretty bad for keeping billy up if he'd rather get to bed. ]

Now you guys look like you're playing one man hide and seek.

what?

[ ... ]

oh, because he was turned around like he was counting?
maybe we are.
it's called family bonding.

No, no. You haven't heard of one man hide and seek?

[ stiles starts writing up an explanation, but - you know what? this place is spooky enough without telling billy that he might be killed by a haunted doll in his sleep, especially when stiles stlil thinks he needs to chase him off to bed. he just - types out a quick nevermind and moves on. ]

Actually, it's kind of late?
I should probably let you get to bed, I guess. I don't wanna keep you from getting your beauty sleep.

i'll go in a minute.
but first tell me what one man hide and seek is

Oh my god.

[ stiles doesn't want to do this. it was a stupid joke, something that didn't mean anything, and now that billy's pushing, something about putting this whole thing into words is wildly unsettling for stiles. he wants to tell billy to just forget it and go to bed. there's all this anxiety in him, this guilt and this dread, and stiles figures it's just-- shame from keeping billy up just to explain a dumb joke, but it still takes a second or two for his throat to work well enough to put words to his thoughts. he can't read the message his phone is sending, but that voice to text accessibility is really paying off. ]

Okay, so - supposedly, there's this tried and true method of communicating with ghosts. Demons, specifically.
Evil spirits are desperate for a body. They're trapped between this world and the next longing for the safe housing of a physical host.
One man hide and seek is the game - the ritual - that you follow in order to offer a dolls body as a willing vessel to whatever spooky, malicious ghost that might want it. It's this long and intricate series of steps you've gotta follow involving a bathtub and some salt and a nametag and a bunch of other things, and then, yeah. Boom. Presto change-o.
Haunted Frogger.

[ as stiles' texts come through and start to bump each other up the screen, billy glances back and forth between frogger, still next to him, and his phone. all of it sounds kind of urban legend-y, like saying bloody mary into a mirror three times, or la llorona - but those stories still kind of creepy billy out, and the more he stays there, crouched next to the stuffed alpaca with it's black, beady little eyes, the more he just wants to pick it up and put it outside his bedroom door.

he opts for getting up and padding back to his bed instead. ]

'a bunch of other things', like taking a selfie with the doll?
i definitely haven't done anything with a bathtub or salt or a nametag.
i don't even have a nametag.

Well. Good. He's probably not haunted, then.
Probably.
I hope.
Just let me know if the walls start bleeding or if he starts talking about his friends Slappy and Chucky.

[ anyway, wow, he hates this. the weak part of him suddenly wants to ask billy if he wants to come sleep over at logan's with him, but that seems like something of an imposition. he still... considers it though. ]

Sorry. Bad joke.
The only thing haunting Frogger right now is my possessive and needy desire to win him a wife, as you know.
We should hang out at the arcade again sometime soon. Start racking up some tickets.

"you should go to bed" he says, right before talking about bleeding walls and talking, demon-possessed inanimate plush dolls.

[ guess who's gonna be up for a little bit! it's billy. it's fine. ]

i'm up for the arcade any time
and i still have a couple tickets left over after buying
sorry, after adopting frogger, so we've already got a head start.

Okay, well.

[ a pause. stiles types what he wants to say, backspaces it, then types it out again, word for word. ]

Wanna arcade it up with me now?
I know it's late, so if you really do need to sleep, that's totally okay, I'm not gonna keep you up past your bedtime.
But I'm gonna be awake for a while, so if you wanna spend an hour or two hanging out before you're tired enough and less haunted enough to pass out, maybe we could spend some more time together?

no, i'm up, i'm up.
and i'm gonna pretend that you didn't just suggest i have a bedtime like i'm ten.
anyway, is the arcade still open this late?
if it is, it's suddenly my favorite arcade.
you know, despite the teeth.

We can find out together, I guess? It's usually pretty bright at night, but, like. That doesn't mean much. This place is so bizarre that Bill Murray could be freshly busting ghosts overnight to keep the Arcade safe another day and I wouldn't be surprised.
Worst case scenario, we break in, raid the prize kiosk and run like hell. It'll be fun.

[ he's kidding, he's not gonna do that. if only because his dad would be disappointed in him. ]

Want me to come and pick you up?
I literally live, like, right next door to it, but. I could still come and pick you up.

i used to think it was cool that alaska had the whole 24 hours of daylight thing going on for part of the year
now? not so cool. i never thought i'd miss nighttime so much.
kinda hoping you just spoke venkman into existence, though, not gonna lie.

i'm not gonna make you walk all the way here just to walk all the way back.
i can meet you at the end of your street though in like 15?

Kinda hoping that too.

[ well, he wasn't planning on walking, he just wanted to show off his very nearly broken and duct-tape riddled 20+ year old jeep, but once billy blows him off he can't exactly smoothly bring that up again. man, he shouldn't have said he lived near the arcade. he's not sure why he feels like he's missed an opportunity here, but he kind of does. ]

Yeah, okay. Bring Frogger, though?
We've gotta see who he clicks with.

bring the maybe-possessed stuffed animal with you.
sure, okay.

[ kidding! jokes. he know it's not haunted, but if he lowkey, secretly eyes frogger from across the room for a few long seconds before getting up to change his clothes and find his shoes, nobody has to know. ]

yeah, yeah, i'll bring him.
and the extra tickets, too.
i think there's like 35 left? somewhere around there.
not a whole lot, but it's a head start.

[ anyway. billy trades his sleep clothes for jeans and a t-shirt, slides frogger into his backpack, crams the extra tickets into the front pocket - and then heads out into the night! into the day, at what should be nighttime, but whatever. it's quiet out, which is kind of nice but also kind of eerie when it's so bright and sunshiney. squinting, billy adjusts the strap of his bag against his shoulder, locks up behind him, and starts the short trek to go meet up with stiles.

as he approaches the end of stiles' street, billy lifts one hand and offers a lazy wave, though it's more of a sideways swipe, similar to a jedi trying to brain-hack someone with the force. he lets his backpack slide off his shoulder and holds it out to stiles once he's close enough, smiling a little tiredly. ]

Hi. Here, spend some time with your son.

[ it takes... a surprisingly long time for stiles to convince himself not to bring roscoe out to the end of the street, but considering he's been staying at logan's place and actually picking her up would involve walking home just to drive for like, three seconds, it doesn't seem all that worth it. he sends a text to billy with a promise to be there soon and a joke about annabelle, and in just a few minutes, he's made his way to the end of the street he promised to meet billy at. by now, the cultists that have been fucking this place up have all but gone into hiding, so he doesn't run into any trouble on the way, thank christ - but if he'd suspected they were still out, he wouldn't have invited billy to play stupid fucking teeth games with him, so.

he greets billy with a similar jedi hand-wave, which was just supposed to be a cute imitation but feels to stiles, after he's done it, like a socially awkward way of accidentally mocking his new friend. he winces a little and turns the half-wave into an awkward neckscratch, clearing his throat as his sneakers scuff at the asphalt beneath them, and when billy offers him frogger, stiles takes him a little too quickly. ]

I really should spend more time with him. It's not good for a child to grow up barely ever seeing one of his parents.

[ stiles gives the dude a consoling pat on the head, clutching the alpaca to his chest with a shall we? and a thumb thrown towards the arcade. he guides billy inside, shifting his arms to hold frogger against his side, his other hand inside the pocket of his hoodie. it's getting too warm to wear thick, red cotton and heavy denim jeans, but these are the clothes stiles has from home, so he wears them as much as he can.

they get to the arcade and stiles goes straight to the prize kiosk. everything's open and running, just like he thought, and the two of them are the only people here, which is actually pretty nice. the neon lights, the quiet outside of dinging games and whistling machines, and the building being as big and as largely windowless as it is makes the atmosphere kind of cozy. stiles feels as if it could be a real night outside, for once. this could be a pretty decent date spot, if he had anyone to fucking ask out. ]

Okay. [ but - priorities. stiles sets frogger on the counter and points him at the large wall of plush toys, careful to angle him so he can see them all. ] The more I think about this, the more creeped out I am by the concept of winning someone a bride, but we're here, so we're committing. We've gotta figure out who he likes.

[ once frogger is freed of his transport, billy slings his mostly-empty backpack back up onto his shoulder, wriggling a little and twisting his other arm back so he can push it through the strap, wearing it fully and properly instead of just letting it hang from one shoulder. he misses whatever awkwardness stiles might be feeling, or maybe he just chooses to ignore it, hooking his thumbs underneath the straps of his bag near the sides of his chest and curling his fingers over the front of them.

billy lets stiles lead the way, lingering for a beat before following after him and taking an extra, wide stride to catch up to his side. quietly, he ruminates over stiles' more-than-likely offhand comment about children growing up without one of their parents around, and he finds himself wondering how long ago his mother passed away. for some reason, he'd assumed it was kind of a recent thing (recent being like, within the last three to five years), but he realizes now that he doesn't actually know.

and he's not about to ask, either, and ruin whatever easy mood they've got going. they're going to the arcade! at night! while it's bright as shit outside, but it's still 'late', and that's what counts. there's no room for blue moods.

for whatever reason, billy doesn't expect the place to be practically deserted save for the one or two floor staff wandering around, but it's kind of... cool. it's not exactly quiet, but the soft whirr of electronics and the gentle mishmash of different theme songs playing from their consoles is weirdly soothing when it's not overlaid with chatter and the click of buttons being mashed and the distant hum of people trying to decide what to order from the concessions. as they cut through the floor toward the prizes, billy slides a slow turn-around in his step, kind of basking in the seclusion. he's never had an entire arcade to himself before.

well, to himself and stiles, but billy doesn't actually mind his company at all.

when they get to the prize counter, billy crosses his arms and leans his elbows on the glass, peering at the prizes in the glass case below before drawing his attention back to the wall of plush toys. he turns his head and rests his chin on his shoulder, looking up at stiles with quiet amusement as he meticulously sets frogger up to gaze upon his choices. billy turns his head again, rests his ear on his shoulder, slides his elbows forward a little to stretch out his back. ]

We're not winning him a - a bride. We're winning tickets, which we'll use to buy—... a. Okay, yeah, that's— let's just not think about that.

[ billy uncrosses one of his arms and straightens up a little, gesturing toward the prize wall with a lazy sweep of his arm. ]

Well, Frogger? What do you think?

[ if he's looking at stiles instead of the stuffed animal he just addressed, well. whatever. ]

[ whatever staff should be manning the prize kiosk must be stocking inventory in the back room, or something, because stiles, billy and frogger are the only people here. this isn't the fucking reception area of a hotel lobby, so there's no bell to ring for service, but while billy justifies their recent expedition into human trafficking, stiles looks around for a buzzer or a bell to ring and play with until an adult comes and gives him attention. thankfully, he doesn't find anything.

billy asks frogger what he thinks, and stiles hums in thought, examining the toys on display. there are some pretty adorable toys, all things considered - a couple of them seem to be made wrong, with a hollowness to their button eyes, some loose stitching or else lumpy in a way that suggests they're stuffed with something other than fluff - but ominous and omnipresent horror aside, there are certainly some safe looking cuties to choose from. there's a bright pink cat, naked except for a big white tutu, which is kind of weird, but kids toys always are. there's a giraffe with sparkly purple lips, a rabbit in a sundress...

but stiles is drawn to someone else. there's a t-rex shaped like a beach ball, all big and circular and very, very fluffy. he's got a bright black bowtie, clearly coded to be masculine, and yeah, okay, stiles would be at the head of the line to say that girl t-rexes can wear bow ties too, if they want to, but he just gets the vibe that this one's a dude. he's also in love with him, and stiles is snapping his fingers and pointing him out with way too much enthusiasm. his arm's outstretched and his face is lit up. full on kid in a candy store, if that kid hadn't slept for a month and a half and is constantly willing himself to stay on his feet. ]

Maybe this guy? He seems pretty lonely up there all by himself.

[ there are no other dinosaurs, no other pointlessly circular stuffed toys to choose from. he's only 200 tickets, so that's absolutely something they could win together if they spend the night here racking up highscores, and stiles is so caught up in the joy and the excitement of wanting that freaking dinosaur that he doesn't really realize until it's out there that he's suggesting giving frogger a boyfriend.

and maybe that's weird for billy. or maybe it's not. stiles has never had to navigate a question like that, really. danny wore his sexuality on his sleeve, and ethan and stiles weren't exactly friends, and beacon hills is in general a pretty open place, so he's never had to ask someone their thoughts on... this. hypothetically or otherwise. the closest he's come to taking a stab at another person's sexuality was when he tried to talk things out with caitlin, which felt awkward at the time and has somehow gotten progressively even worse in retrospect.

stiles is in a constant pendulum swing between being socially awkward and socially confident, and right now, he's leaning heavily toward the former. without even thinking, he's climbing onto the kiosk counter and grabbing the dinosaur from its vantage point on the wall, taking him off the hook and bringing him back down. he sets him on the counter next to frogger and taps his fingers against the side of it, pretending to straighten out his bowtie and generally just gussying him up for his big date. he's looking at the dinosaur, he's looking at the counter, he's looking at frogger, but he's not looking at billy, which makes all the casual confidence in his voice sound as forced and as fake as it really is.

stiles clears his throat, smoothing down the t-rex's fur, then scratches at his chin with one finger and pretends to be fascinated by the popcorn maker a few feet away. he's second guessing himself for grabbing the dinosaur down when he could have just fucking waited to win him properly, because now he doesn't know what to do. he's just standing next to billy with a dinosaur he shouldn't have yet and it just feels like that was a weird thing to do. god. ]

Is that... is this something Frogger would be cool with, you think?

[ the last time billy was here, standing at this counter with a handful of tickets and stiles' jackpot draped around his neck like an ugly, useless scarf, he spent nearly fifteen minutes trying to decide what to spend them on before he noticed a cute, mint-green alpaca tucked down near the bottom corner of the prize wall. he's seen most if not all of these prizes already, but he still looks at them again anyway, still just as creeped out by the weird zippery toys as he was the first time. frogger was actually almost tutu cat.

stiles' enthusiastic pointing and snapping of his fingers pulls billy's attention back to him again. he lift his eyebrows slightly, then turns back to the wall, tilting his head back and trying to follow the line of stiles' flailing arm. he leans in a little closer to stiles' shoulder, trying to look from a perspective that's closer to his, but - there are quite a few plush toys stuck up on the wall, so it's difficult to tell which one stiles is pointing at, but billy does quietly note the use of a masculine pronoun. he's has got it narrowed down to maybe four contenders just based on the general area stiles is gesturing at, but. ]

Which—

[ before billy can ask him to be a little more specific, though, stiles is suddenly climbing up onto the counter and billy immediately startles, looking around quickly to see if anyone's watching or around, anybody who could potentially scold them or kick them out before they can even touch a game, but there's nobody, which is more of a relief than it is concerning at this point. billy immediately whips around, one of his hands darting out to curl around stiles' ankle, not to try and stop him, but as admittedly-useless support. ]

Stiles, what are you— you're gonna— Oh my god...

[ billy doesn't even care that it looks like stiles is about to steal a prize off the wall; his main concern is that stiles is standing on glass. he's fairly lean from what billy can tell, but the last thing either of them needs is for stiles to go crashing through a sheet of glass and wind up in the hospital.

in his scramble to grab onto stiles, billy knocks over frogger. he slaps his free hand around until flesh meets soft plush, and blindly stands him back up, his own gaze pointed upwards and focused on stiles. there's no way the glass countertop isn't going to shatter. billy's anxiety spikes a little, and he starts to murmur under his breath. ]

Please don't break please don't break please don't break—

[ as far as spells go, it's relatively tame. the outline of billy's hand illuminates a soft, almost neon blue-white, but it's subtle enough that it could be mistaken for a glint of the light in the display case reflecting upward. the sheet of glass itself just seems... cleaner for a moment. shinier.

as soon as stiles claims his prize and starts to climb down, billy immediately lets go of stiles' ankle, breaking the spell. he takes a step back and holds out his hands kind of awkwardly, like he's offering a hand down if stiles wants it, but also like he's ready to catch him should he fall the very drastic and devastating four feet from the counter top to the ground.

stiles may not be looking at billy while he makes frogger's new sweetheart presentable, but billy just stands there and stares at him like he doesn't know what to think about him, his eyebrows slightly arched, head tilted a little to one side, hip leaning against the edge of the counter. frogger is on top of the glass in the space between them, staring off in some random direction.

the question throws him, mostly because he's already forgotten what they were talking about before stiles decided to scale the display case to take down a prize they haven't even paid for yet. billy blinks, his eyebrows pinching together a little until he realizes what stiles is asking about.

all this time, stiles has been talking about getting frogger a girlfriend. a wife. which isn't really a big deal, but he also kind of blew off billy's subtle suggestion that maybe he wouldn't want a girlfriend, which also isn't a big deal, but it did make him quietly wonder if maybe that's... not... something stiles would be comfortable with. billy's only known him for a little under a month, and he seems like a really cool, down-to-earth kind of guy with good taste in movies and a habit of rambling if you get him on the right topic, just like billy. he likes him, and would even call him a friend, but he'd be lying if he said he hasn't wondered once or twice now if stiles would feel differently about their friendship if he... knew.

they're not talking about frogger anymore. they weren't talking about frogger before, either, but billy understands that this is stiles asking billy. putting out feelers, maybe - or maybe asking for reasons that aren't so great, but billy doesn't let himself think negatively. instead, he shrugs his shoulder as casually as he can manage and nods, offering a somewhat unsure, but mostly easy smile. ]

... Yeah. Yeah, I think he'd be really cool with it. [ billy tilts his head slightly, gives stiles a pointed look. ] But we should probably win some tickets first before we go walking off with his new boyfriend.

[ maybe if stiles were a little more awake, or at the very least, a little less frantically questioning what the fuck he's doing as he climbs over a glass counter like its his own personal set of monkey bars, he'd notice the glimmer beneath his feet. he'd notice the power behind every hushed, frantic whisper from billy, he'd notice the sudden stability in his foothold. as it is, stiles just gracelessly snags the t-rex from his perch and drops back down, waving off billy's attempts to help him, just because he would feel like even more of a weird, awkward burden if he took it. he doesn't know that billy helped him already.

but they're done, and it's over, and the t-rex is propped up next to a carefully righted frogger as stiles has his feet planted on the ground again, none the wiser of anything that just happened. he fidgets with his hands and keeps his head down as he asks the question, and when billy gives him an answer, stiles just nods, still half distracted by what he just did and mildly flushed. getting stuck in a feedback of doing socially awkward things because you feel socially awkward is never fun.

he looks up before billy's done talking, catching a glimpse of the way billy looks at him and filing away whatever it is he thinks he's learned into the back of his mind. billy's giving him an out, now, telling him that they should just go and win their tickets, and stiles nods, willing to do just that, but his mouth just kind of talks before his brain can tell it not to. ]

Okay. Cool. Awesome. Man, I don't think I've ever been that smooth. Or that subtle? The daring feat of athleticism, the probing personal question. Really pulled this whole interaction off as successfully as possible. I really, uh...

[ ... kicked ass on that one. made himself proud. something. stiles just kind of - trails off, mildly nauseated. he doesn't seem at all bothered by billy's answer - on the contrary, under all the self-conscious second guessing he actually looks relieved. he's either put at ease by whatever he's reading into that pointed look and billy's use of the word "really", or he's just glad he managed to stumble through that without putting his foot in his mouth any more than he did. either way... wow, okay. they should just talk about something else.

stiles squeezes the t-rex and finds himself distracted and mildly amused by the chew-toy-esque squeak it makes, but he just sets the big guy back on the counter with an awkward pat on the snout. nose. overbite. whatever. after scratching the back of his own neck and slipping his hood on just to have something to do with his hands, stiles points a thumb back to the machines waiting for them, all those eager bleeps and bloops just ready to bleep and bloop even harder under the practiced hands of a couple of nerds. ]

Uh, so - games? I'll just - I guess I'm just going to... leave... that guy... on the counter?

[ the t-rex. he really doesn't know what to do with it now. cool. stiles does a couple of mouth clicks and fires off some patented finger guns and moonwalks away, with a slightly too loud jesus christ, stiles whispered audibly under his breath. he makes a beeline for the multiplayer games, this time, because even though he's had a lot of fun fighting billy for dominance by challenging his high scores with his own, they should really just play a game together, for once. that's, like, kind of the whole point of being at an arcade with a friend.

he passes by the air hockey table, largely because he's suspicious enough of this place to know that reaching his hand into the puck dispensary would probably get it bitten off by monsters. mortal kombat he looks at, too, and heads on past - he's really not interested in seeing subzero turn into, like, his dad, or something, mid-fatality. he hasn't actually dealt with any haunted creepypasta ghost games over the time he's spent here, but he can picture how spooky various games would be if they were haunted, and it's really just a little too much for him.

stiles ends up at off road, a game with one screen and three steering wheels attached, for some reason, because some idiot out there thought that was decent engineering design. he nods billy over and starts rummaging around in his front pocket for a quarter, slipping it in the slot when he gets it. stiles lines himself up behind the blue wheel, just because - well, blue is pretty. ]

This okay? Wait, shit, I should've asked that before I put my money in.

[ stiles' awkwardness is palpable, but fortunately for him, billy has a lot of experience with feeling awkward or embarrassed in front of people, and he knows how he wishes people would act in situations where he doesn't know how to transition back into something less uncomfortable. he brings just enough attention to it so it doesn't seem like he's uncomfortable or trying to ignore whatever just happened out of secondhand embarrassment (because he's not embarrassed, really, just relieved stiles didn't drop through a glass countertop), but not enough to make things worse. or so he hopes. ]

I'm impressed. Truly.

[ and he laughs quietly, mostly under his breath, just to show that he's unbothered by whatever stiles is getting flustered over.

billy's not expecting the t-rex to come equipped with a little squeaking mechanism, but as soon as stiles gives him a little squeeze and he lets out a sad little squawk of a sound for a dinosaur, billy looks... immensely pleased. frogger's boyfriend just got so much better. and also so much stupider, but as he looks at the little bowling ball of a toy, he just... laughs at it. god, he loves it already.

as stiles moonwalks away, billy gives the little dinosaur an affectionate pat on the head, reassuring it that he and stiles will come back for him, and then he grabs frogger up so he isn't accidentally given away to someone else as a prize. not that there's anyone else in the entire arcade, but billy doesn't want to risk it. he jogs a couple steps to catch up to stiles, falling in beside him with a stuffed alpaca tucked under one arm and a quiet, unexplained excitement starting to buzz in his veins.

billy eyes the air hockey table as they start to pass and opens his mouth to say something, probably suggest that they play, but he quickly closes his mouth, seeming to share stiles' thoughts about the potential for something gross. billy still hasn't forgotten about the teeth he found in the coin return of two different machines he tried to get his coins back from the first time. it's a no for him - of course, if stiles said he wanted to play, billy would probably just suck it up and play and hope to god or whoever that the machine didn't dispense like - a cutaway of someone's skull, poorly shaped into something resembling a puck, or something equally messed up.

stiles keeps going though, so billy keeps following, content to let stiles lead him wherever, to play whatever. he wanders closer at stiles' nod, already starting to take off his backpack to put frogger away as stiles drops a quarter in (he refuses to put him down on the floor, where it's probably sticky and gritty). billy hooks one of the bag straps over the yellow steering wheel, frogger facing toward stiles, and steps up behind the red wheel. ]

No, this is good. I think I've played this maybe... once? Not here. [ back home. it seems vaguely familiar, anyway. billy taps one of two buttons on either side of the wheel, progressing to a screen that prompts him to add a name, and enters 'BTK'. he enters a random date for his birthday, and then waits for the game to start, his hands on the wheel at ten and two, just like everyone says they're supposed to be. when the race starts, billy... floors it. which doesn't make him go any faster than everyone else, but he's here to win, not to play.

he's here to lose, apparently, because the first turn absolutely takes him out. his little red car takes a nosedive straight into a wall, bounces back, stalls for a second before he can get it turned around, and by then, three cars including stiles' have pulled ahead of his. how embarrassing.

billy tries to distract from this by asking something he meant to ask the last time he hung out at stiles' place. ] Uh, hey, so...

[ he trails off for a second, distracted and digging his teeth into his lower lip as the yellow car, played by a computer, wipes out. billy tries to pull ahead, and only continues once he's overtaken the computer. ]

Sorry. What was the, uh. The grizzly bear thing about? You have a dog I completely missed or something?

[ between the dizzy spells, the hard hitting impact of losing his second or third winds and the laundry list of symptoms always ready and waiting to rear their ugly heads in the back of his mind, stiles is often brought out of his good, easy moods when a reminder of his condition takes him by surprise. that happens here and now, too, once they're staring down a screen prompting them to enter their names - stiles can read it all just fine, none of the letters are falling out of sight or blurring into each other in incomprehensible shapes, but when he stares at the first row of letters and feels a panicked jolt in his chest as he runs his eyes over them to make sure they're right, it's...

well, it's kind of depressing, and that display back at the prize wall doesn't really mean all that much anymore. stiles darts his tongue between his lips and curls his fingers around ten and two, watching billy input his name before following suit. he's tempted to just write AAA and be done with it, but clearing his throat, he goes for the far more engaging ASS instead. any connection that might have to the first high score billy set here is completely coincidental.

the game gets started and stiles handles himself pretty well, avoiding the pitfalls billy drives headfirst into whenever the poor kid ends up smashing his car into the wall. he's played this game before, so the reflexive muscle memory comes in handy when he's battling the incomprehensibly slippery steering controls all racing games from the 80s seem to have, but even if he was new, roscoe's seen better days. knowing how to drive an old car despite all of its imperfections is just part of being a man. ]

Oh - uh.

[ billy distracts him once he strips that first lap, asking about a grizzly bear that stiles only has vague recollections of mentioning. stiles is gaining enough traction on the competition that he'll probably be on billy's ass in a matter of minutes, and if he feels guilty enough to slow down and take it easy on the poor guy, well. hopefully that won't be obvious. ]

So there's this guy I know from home - Derek. He showed up here around the same time I did, I think? He's been crashing on my couch for the past, uh...

[ stiles slows down a little too much, and the yellow AI-controlled car starts shadowing him a touch too closely for stiles' liking. stiles frowns, mumbling a distracted oh no you don't as he steps down on the pedal beneath the machine, followed by another mumbled come on, baby as he picks up speed. ]

I don't really know how long? He just kind of showed up one day. But, uh, yeah... he's kind of a hardass. Big, beefy. All body hair and teeth. I've told him to be nice to my guests, but. You never know how it's gonna go with that guy.

[ stiles wets his lips, chancing a few seconds away from the screen to look at billy, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. he's just teasing, it's obvious in his tone of voice, but - ]

Did you... maybe think that I had a real grizzly bear in my living room?

[ ASS might just be coincidence, but billy still squints a little and cuts a sideways glance toward stiles anyway, his mouth pinching a little near the corners. when they first met, stiles had the decency not to point out his grave spelling error and spare him his dignity, but this obviously has to be a callback to his ten seconds of panicked embarrassment. billy isn't particularly bothered, though. if anything, he finds it kind of funny in a self-deprecating way and huffs a quiet breath out of his nose.

the game is a mess, though - or rather, billy is garbage at it, which is hugely disappointing and definitely embarrassing for someone who prides themselves on being good at video games, among other things. to go from a high score to crashing into walls and falling an entire lap behind because he can't quite get a grasp on the lag in the controls is just... a bad look. terrible for his reputation. he leans on the pedal under the machine a little harder, as if he can somehow push it past its limits, and splits his attention between trying to navigate around potholes and listening to stiles, lips pressed together into a thin line as he stares at his little pixelated car zooming around the track.

he doesn't know why he's a little surprised to learn that stiles has a friend from home here, but he is. his eyebrows lift slightly, and he almost looks away from the screen to pay closer attention to stiles, but he can't afford to fall anymore behind than he already is, so he just tilts his head toward him a bit instead to indicate that he's listening. intrigued.

billy's got someone from home here, too. plenty of someone's, actually, though he's more familiar with loki than all the rest. that being said, loki isn't exactly his favorite person, considering all the lying and manipulating he did, the things he told teddy, the things he didn't tell any of them. they're certainly not close enough for loki to just crash on his couch whenever he pleases.

it sounds like stiles is at least pretty decent friends with this derek guy, if he's able to just come and go as he pleases. billy's glad for him, happy that he's not entirely alone in this messed up town, even if derek does sound like he has the potential to be a little bit of a jerk. what does billy know, though? not derek, so maybe he's wrong.

billy hasn't touched any of the buttons near his wheel since he stepped up to the game, but he presses one now while stiles is mildly distracted, unsure what to expect. it says 'nitro' right above the button, but seeing his little car launch forward leaving a little pixelized dust cloud behind is enough to kind of amp him up. his eyes light up and he murmurs a confident come on, come on, you're so close under his breath. only half a lap behind stiles now, but only by pure luck.

it's maybe a stupid move to look away from the screen when he's only just managing to make up the distance he fell behind, but billy lifts his hands off the wheel like he's part of a stick up shoulders rising up in a shrug as he looks at stiles. ]

Look, I— [ he immediately realizes what he's going and clamps his hands back around the wheel, whipping his head back around to the screen. the yellow car has overtaken him again. he considers using nitro again, but somehow that feels like cheating. ] I don't know! Craaap.

[ he laughs at his own stupidity though, both at having let go of the controls, and also for even entertaining the fact that stiles could have had a wild bear for a pet. kitty pride's got a dragon, so. ]

... Maybe? Or maybe just a big dog, like a chow chow? Or... one of those rugs. With the head still on it. I have no idea! 'Yeah, sure, come over, but just watch out for the bear downstairs'. Like I was supposed to know you were talking about your - big, beefy friend.

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