It had been a month.
One whole freaking month.
A whole month since Luke had worked up the courage to talk to Nick, and Luke found himself re-playing their conversation in his head over and over.
The best part was that it didn't just end there, Nick had come by the next night, and had said hi, and they had talked, and he had come by the night after that, and it continued. And he had kept coming, and they had kept talking, every night for the past whole month.
One whole goddamn month, and Luke grinned to himself at the thought.
Thinking of Nick and the subsequent conversations was a welcome distraction from his current problem, the broken machine in front of him.
Broken machines were a bitch.
That, and the replays of conversations, were all Luke could think of as he stared into the open panel on the back of an arcade game, staring down the messy maze of multicolored wires.
His experience with broken things didn't extend much beyond 'turn it off and turn it back on', which he had tried (three times).
Staring at the wires, Luke felt very much like the heroes in a cheesy eighties flick, staring at the bomb and trying to figure out which wire to cut (he wasn't planning to cut any, but he still felt that the cliche applied. And even if he did have to cut any of the wires, he had no clue which one).
He must have spent at least an hour there, frowning at the wires, thinking of Nick, trying to find some solution by repeatedly un-plugging it, and attempting to look up answers on his phone. Google and YouTube were both useless, and that made sense, as he could imagine not many people put up tutorials on how to repair broken arcade games.
Luke punched the back of the machine, immediately regretting it when his fist stung a little.
"Work, goddamn it, please. I'm freaking begging you."
Maybe talking would help. Talking help plants grow, or something along those lines, maybe talking would help an arcade machine get fixed.
In Luke's head, this all made perfect sense.
"Please. You're like, one of the most popular machines. I can't afford a repairman. So please, or else I'll-"
"Are you talking to a arcade game?" a voice said, right into his ear.
Luke jumped, startled, and his shoulder not-too-softly smashed into the face of whomever was doing the whispering.
Luke glanced up, and there Nick was, standing over him and clutching his nose.
"Shit, man, that hurt," he said, his voice coming out slightly muffled from the hand on his face.
Luke scrambled to his feet.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to, you just surprised me is all! Are you bleeding?"
Nick removed his hand and glanced down at it, noting the lack of blood. "Don't think so, but that still hurt."
"Sorry, again," Luke said.
"What were you doing anyway?" Nick asked, gesturing to the opened up arcade machine, and the unused toolbox sitting next to it.
"It's broken. The guns work and it makes noise and all, but the screen is just black. I'm trying to fix it," Luke said, explaining the issue. He frowned at the machine, again.
"You're trying to fix it, by talking to it?" Nick said, obviously amused. He had to admit, seeing Luke sitting on the floor and begging to an arcade game was pretty funny.
"Um, yeah. I figured it works for plants, so I gave it a shot," Luke said, only noticing how odd he sounded after the words left his mouth.
"Okay then," Nick replied, unperturbed, "Mind if I take a look? My uncle fixes machines and stuff, so I know a bit about it."
Luke grinned. "Of course! Go ahead!"
Nick knelt down in front of the back of the machine, and peered into the panel.
"You unplugged this thing, right?"
"Yeah, several times. I plugged back in a few times, that didn't work. It usually works. But yeah, it's unplugged."
Nick nodded, and ducked his head into the machine.
"Okay, I just wanted to make sure before I started messing with-" Nick suddenly stopped and let out a shriek, and he seemed to be shaking.
Luke screamed.
Nick burst out laughing.
He backed up and leaned against the wall, and laughed his fucking heart out.
Luke, who was visibly shaken up now, scowled. "What was that for?!" he exclaimed.
"For your shoulder meeting my nose," Nick replied, in-between waves of laughter.
"That was an accident!"
Once Nick had regained his composure, he stood, and grinned at Luke.
"We're even," he said.
Luke frowned. "Not cool. Please try not to fake-die in my arcade again," he said, faking most of the anger packed under the words.
"I fixed it, if that makes things better," Nick said.
He bent back down again, closed the panel, and plugged the machine in. The front screen of the game lit up, and a vaguely human growl sounded, opening up the beginning cut-scene of 'Zombie Hunter 2'. Bits of gameplay flashed in between zombies shambling across the screen and the shining words proclaiming it was only two quarters to play, and the high scores showed up occasionally.
"Okay, now we're even," Luke replied, forgetting the fake-electrocution.
"You just had a wire that was unplugged, it was easy."
"Thanks," He looked from the game back to Nick. "Wanna play a quick game, make sure it's working?"
Nick nodded. "Sure, I'm not that good with shooters I think, but yeah."
Luke smiled at him. "Okay, let me just go pick up the tool box, I'll be right back!"
He grabbed the toolbox off the floor and turned, heading for the prize counter. He stepped behind it and set the toolbox down in it's place next to the step-ladder (if anything, Luke's arcade was extremely tidy).
"Hey Luke," a voice said, and Luke jumped, again, this time nearly hitting his head on the shelf overhead.
He was getting pretty tired of people sneaking up on him.
Luke turned to see who it was, and Clementine was right there, hat on her head, hair in her pigtails, as usual.
"Clem!" he exclaimed, "It's been a month!"
"I've been busy," she replied, shrugging.
"With what?"
"School stuff. Fifth grade is a lot of work, Luke."
"I swear I raised you better than this," he said, in a fake disappointed tone, "I thought you knew video games were more important than homework."
"I know that, but Lee doesn't," she replied, grinning.
"My mom was the exact same way. She always said that video games would get me nowhere in life, and that English was important. But look at me now, I own an arcade!"
Clementine laughed at that, and after a moment she spoke up again.
"So, how did things go with that guy?"
Luke grinned, and leaned forward slightly. Nick was on the other side of the room – playing pinball while he waited, Luke noted – and was probably out of earshot, but Luke lowered his voice anyway.
"It went great!" he gushed, His name is Nick, and we chatted for a bit while I did some stuff and while he played pinball, and it was just amazing! And every time he came in the past month, which is every night, like he always does, we talked pretty much every night!"
Clem smiled at him. "You really like this guy, don't you?"
Luke nodded. "Yeah, it's that obvious?"
"You haven't stopped grinning since you started talking about him," she replied.
"Well maybe I just really like talking about him."
"Or maybe you're just head over heels in love with him."
"I've only known him for a week. It isn't love. Yet."
"Sure," she replied sarcastically. "But really though, does it seem like he might like you back?"
Luke frowned, and thought for a moment, drumming his fingers on the front of the counter absentmindedly. "I'm not sure yet. He's friendly, and we have talked a good bit for just knowin' each other for a week, so maybe? I've never been good at telling if people liked me."
"Hey, are we still gonna play?" Nick called, from the other side of the room.
"Sure, just give me a sec!" Luke called back. He turned back to Clementine, "We were gonna play some Zombie Hunter, wanna join? I can introduce you to Nick, too, if you'd like."
"I only have a few minutes, but sure," Clem replied. She grinned, slightly mischievously.
Oh no. Nothin' good is going to come from that.
"Just don't say anything embarrassing, like how I like him or anything like that," Luke said after a moment.
"No promises."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that I'm your unofficial best friend, so if I have to embarrass you to get you two together, so be it."
"Just, nothing too embarrassing, okay?"
"Again, no promises."
They made their way across the room and too Nick shortly. He was standing by Zombie Hunter, and as Luke fished several quarters out of his pocket, he introduced the two.
"Nick, this is my friend Clementine. Clem, this is Nick."
"I know," Clem said, "Luke has told me all about you."
Nick tilted his head slightly, looking a bit puzzled.
Oh my god, that is so freaking adorable, Luke thought, before what Clem said registered.
She was still wearing that mischievous look that fit her perfectly.
"Really?" Nick replied.
"Yeah, you should hear him sometimes. He just goes on and on about-"
"Your awesome pinball scores!" Luke half-shouted, cutting Clem off. He sent her a pointed look, and then continued. "I've never seen someone so awesome at pinball."
"Thanks," Nick said, still looking slightly confused,
Luke slid the quarters in the slot before anyone had time to say anything else.
"You ever played this before?" he said, only sounding vaguely embarrassed.
Nick shook his head, but Clem nodded.
"It's easy," Clem said, launching into an explanation. "Just use the gun to shoot the zombies. Ten points for shooting limbs, twenty for torsos, and fifty for headshots. You have to reload every ten shots."
She grabbed the plastic neon blue gun in front of her, and demonstrated on how to reload.
"You just pull back this part of the gun like this. And don't let the zombies get too close, then you'll die. Whoever gets the most points wins."
Nick nodded, and grabbed the green gun off of it's holder. From the way that he handled the gun, Luke could deduce that he had at least some kind of experience with guns. And he had seen Clementine play this game hundreds of times before.
He was probably going to lose.
Luke grabbed the bright pink gun, and pointed it to the screen and pulled the trigger, starting the game.
"The Apocalypse begins in three... two... one... go!" The game announced, in a demonic voice.
"Loser buys ice cream," Clem said, just as the game began.
"Oh, you're on," Nick replied.
"Look's like I'm buying ice cream," Luke muttered under his breath.
The zombies came in waves, few at first, but more flooding in as the game progressed. As expected, Nick and Clem got most of them at first, but as more and more came in, Luke managed to pick off a few.
As the game escalated in difficulty, the zombies seemed to be getting closer and closer, and Luke found it harder to get clear shots on the zombies. A quick peek at the other sections of the screen shown that Nick and Clem were having no such problems.
Shortly after round seven began, and dispute Luke's frantic shooting at the screen, Luke's character went down.
"Player three down," the game said, rubbing it in, basically.
Luke muttered a curse under his breath, and put the gun back in it's slot.
"I like chocolate chip cookie dough, in a waffle cone," Nick said, a smirk playing on his lips, even though his shooting didn't cease and he didn't look away from the screen.
"Just plain chocolate for me, with rainbow sprinkles," Clem said, grinning.
"Y'all are both assholes," Luke replied.
"Swear," Clem said.
A/N: WELL THIS TOOK FOREVER AND I AM HORRIBLY SORRY. LIKE, SO SO FREAKING SORRY!
Honestly I can't even give a reason, because since it's been seven(!) months since I first posted this, and all excuses would sound like bs at this point.
But, as a peace offering, here is chapter two, and the promise that there will not be a seven month wait for chapter three. A week, at most. I have it already started!
And if I disappear like that again, you have full permission to come yell at me. Seriously, sometimes I just need some motivation.
ANYWAYS, Clem and Nick met, and Clem was mischievous as fuck about it. Trust me, this isn't the last of Mischievous!Clem.
But yeah, hope you enjoyed it, and drop me a review and tell me what you think, what you wanna see, yell at me for taking so long, whatever you wish.
~Ash