i guess i
missed you on the way in

-x-

Like Harrison Ford, I'm getting frantic.
Like Sting, I'm tantric.
Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy.
Like Kurasawa, I make mad films.
Okay, I don't make films –
But if I did they'd have a Samurai
– One Week, Bare Naked Ladies

Ricky lives three doors down from Hugo's grandparents and has one of those Muggle gaming systems.

Which is how Hugo meets him the summer he's thirteen - Rose is at the Burrow this summer, so Mum's sent Hugo to see Grandma Jane and Granddad Mark.

Hugo smiles politely over dinner and tells them that of course he's enjoying himself, why would they think he wasn't, but there's really abso-bloody-lutely nothing to do but watch Grandma Jane knit, and finally, Hugo takes to wandering the streets, kicking at stones and glowering at the ground.

He quite literally bumps into the brown-haired boy on the third day, and mutters a surprised "Sorry, didn't see you." The other boy beams at him and says, "S'all right. Are you bored?"

Hugo nods a bit unsurely, and the boy beams again and launches into a mile-a-minute monologue about new gaming system, brilliant graphics, won't believe it till you see it, and OPERATION: Kill Switch, just got it last month and Hugo finds himself being dragged slightly against his will into a yellow-painted house with drooping begonias in front.

Hugo figures he's a Muggle, since he uses a key to open the door, and he's got no wand thrust into his boot or his pocket. Not to mention that the doorknocker doesn't start hollering an off-key version of an Italian aria at him, which Hugo considers a bit of a relief.

"Mum and Dad are in Africa," The boy mutters as he tosses the keys onto a table in the hall, "So make yourself comfortable, and don't worry about making a mess." He leads the way into the living room, and Hugo follows, still a bit nervously, as the boy, who finally introduces himself as Frederick-everyone-calls-me-Ricky, untangles a complicated knot of wires and tosses what-looks-like a brand new controller at Hugo. Hugo fumbles the catch, and grins embarrassedly, and Ricky proceeds not to notice as he flies about connecting things and continuing his monologue.

"…nobody's been around, everyone's off with their folks, and I thought I'd have no one to try it with for weeks, this is so brilliant, I can't believe that you were just out there…"

Hugo has had a bit too much of being unsettled at this point, so he asks if he can help with the wiring instead – and this, grinning at each other over the wormy black plastic, is what he will always consider the beginning to a wonderful, fulfilling, and thoroughly odd summer.

The next three weeks are spent huddled in the dark of Ricky's living room, with hints of light falling through the paisley curtains and Hugo furiously attempting to avoid getting trampled by armies of orcs/zombies/robots/clone-warriors.

He's atrocious at it, really, because the most experience he's had with elecktrics is Granddad Arthur and his Muggle monster-machine in the chicken coop. Learning about motorcycle engines and how to connect a bunch of wires is well and good, but it's not really all that useful when trying to do a combo kick-stab-decapitation on one of the Undead.

Consequently, he spends most of the time glaring angrily at the screen, trying to keep up with Ricky's player character as it jumps and leaps and manages to look much cooler than Hugo's – who somehow manages to run into (and occasionally through) walls and robo-clones. Repeatedly.

Ricky has the tendency to call his characters odd things like KILLER! and BLOODBATH! and yell out the names whenever he gets a kill. Hugo starts out with names like Henry and Roger and a puzzled look on his face before he slowly moves on to …The Man in Black, or …The Lone Gunman, and contents himself with a quiet "That's right," and an intent smile.
There's one awkward day when Ricky plays as SAMURAI! And Hugo plays as …The Samurai and they blink a bit oddly at one another's screen, but mostly Hugo raises his eyebrows at Ricky and Ricky tells him he's boring and they get along just fine.

Hugo isn't really sure at which point it begins – possibly the one day he spends slightly mesmerized by the reddish piece of hair that sticks up next to Ricky's left ear, or perhaps the time FLAMEFANG! Opens a (large, ironplated and splendidly spiked) door for …The Beheader and gestures him through, or even, maybe, that one time Ricky stares at him and murmurs, "Did you know you've got very long eyelashes?", but at some point things begin to get… strange?

Yeah, strange.

It probably hits a high point the day he walks in the door and Ricky is grinning oddly at him from the living room.

"Err." Hugo says, blinking. "Hi?"

"We should go outside." Ricky says. "I mean, all we ever do is sit at home and play, right? And obviously, real boys don't just do that – I mean, they go outside and stuff, don't they? So we should go outside. And do things. Because, boys do things."

Hugo debates telling him about how he's spent every other summer of his life getting beat around the head with large blunt objects while attempting to do "boy things" outside, and how actually, he'd much rather be defeating the Goblins on level 107 and getting the power upgrade…

And then Ricky's brilliant smile takes on an edge of desperation, and Hugo says yes so he doesn't spend the rest of the day feeling like an awful human being.

They wander about the streets aimlessly, and, suddenly, Hugo's feeling a bit odd about just how brightly Ricky is smiling, and, err, does this count as a date or something?

For the most part, Rose is kind of unbearable in an I'm-your-big-sister kind of way, but suddenly he feels a very desperate desire to have her around, even if it's just to ask what he's supposed to do when Ricky sends him those funny, shy-looking… looks or that slight little smile?

So, okay, perhaps, just a teeny, tiny bit, Hugo's terrified out of his mind right now.

Somewhat.

"Ice cream." Hugo bursts out. "I want ice cream. Do they sell ice cream?"

Ricky blinks at him, then begins yanking him along by the wrist. "'Course they do." He says, cheerfully. "It's brand-new, actually, I think they only opened it a few months ago…"

Hugo's cursing his Weasley complexion, because he is positively red right now –why is he blushing- and he's trying to think of ways to disengage his wrist without Ricky noticing.

Ricky's seems to have no idea of the kind of knots he is twisting Hugo's stomach into, however, and all of Hugo's attempts to escape end in dramatic failure.

Hugo figures if he turns any redder, his blood vessels will begin to break, and he finally gives his wrist a frantic yank in a final attempt to get away.

Ricky jerks back, tripping over his feet and onto the ground. He sends Hugo a shocked look, and Hugo abruptly feels as though he's been caught pureeing goldfish or something equally horrible.

"I – err, I'm sorry." Hugo says hurriedly. Brilliant, Weasley – you've gone and stepped in it, now – he's really going to want to get ice cream, now. "You know what?" he says, desperately, "We should just go home – we've got some more goblins to kill and all that, you know." He smiles in an approximate imitation of a corpse's death rictus.

Ricky's expression is slowly clouding over, and he mutters out a distracted "That's fine." While frowning angrily at the ground.

They walk home that way: Ricky looking angrily embarrassed, and Hugo… just looking, really, at leaves and things, and trying not to really think about how much of an absolute idiot he is.

Ricky gets more and more unhappily red as they get closer to the house, and Hugo's just thinking that he looks a bit like Dad gets after Mum's gotten another letter from Uncle Viktor, when Ricky turns around and snaps out. "Maybe you shouldn't come in." Hugo's already reaching for the door, so he frowns a little puzzledly for a second before the words hit him and he feels, well. Surprised.

"Sorry?" he says.

"You heard me." Ricky says, thrusting his chin upwards. "Go home."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Hugo says, turning all the way around. "You're the one who wanted to go out – if you didn't have any fun -"

"I was fine – you're the one who couldn't even… even let us get an ice cream properly."

"Well, I – I wanted to get back and finish the level," Hugo blusters, "I didn't think that was so horrible-"

"So you're just here for my video games?" Ricky yells.

Hugo throws out his hands. "What – why would you – no, everything about you is completely awful, I'm really here for your curtains -" He begins, sarcastically.

"Well, if you think I'm that awful, then maybe we shouldn't be here, then!" Ricky says furiously, and Hugo realizes that a) he's absolutely furious, and that b) he has no idea what they're fighting about whatsoever.

Ricky stares at him, breathing heavily, and after a few minutes with no idea what to say, Hugo feels anger seeping slowly up his spine, and he turns around and heads home with the feeling that they're not speaking to one another at the moment.

The next few days, are truly, honestly, miserably dull. Not because Hugo's 'moping' as Grandma Jane suggests. It's just a bit duller than he remembers it. That's all. He doesn't have a problem sitting in his bedroom and hugging a pillow.

…So it's a little ridiculous.

But in his defense, it wasn't his fault. Ricky was the one who started it – no one asked him to start talking about 'long eyelashes' and what have you, or to totally confuse Hugo with his… confusing… words… and, Hugo, for your information is doing just bloody fine, thank you very much.

He cracks after three days, and dithers for two more, and they're finally back in the house playing Undead Menace III again, because Hugo just knocked on the door an hour ago – not because he was lonely or anything, just because there is honestly nothing to do in this town, really, you know?

They're both plopped on the floor in front of the television with a bowl of snacks between them, and, yes, technically, they're playing, but really Ricky's glowering at the screen, viciously making BLITZKRIEG! decapitate zombies, and Hugo's distractedly watching The Night Stalker get overwhelmed by the zombie hordes again, thinking very hard about things which have happened and how he's possibly an idiot and this mess actually his fault, maybe? He abruptly leaves The Night Stalker to his horrifying fate and tentatively turns around and stares at Ricky a bit before he asks if he's angry at him or something?

Ricky responds with some interesting, if anatomically difficult, suggestions, and Hugo decides that, yes, yes, he is.

The Night Stalker pops back on screen, newly prepared to defeat the undead army, and Hugo watches thoughtfully as a mutilated zombie leaps for his throat.

He's never actually considered… He was so busy being embarrassed… it never actually occurred to him that Ricky was angry because Hugo didn't actually mention… that maybe, Ricky thought Hugo didn't like him?

Oh. Oops.

He whirls around to say something, turns back, frowns at the screen a bit, and finally proceeds to lean over and kiss Ricky rather decisively on the mouth.

His heart is thumping furiously somewhere under his tongue, and part of him is trying to ignore the controller sticking into his stomach and the bowl of popcorn he accidentally knocked over, and part of him is thinking This is a bit silly, you're sitting in front of the television kissing someone and part of him is running furiously through his memories trying to remember did Rose ever talk to him about what to do with your hands when you're snogging? And mostly, he's just worried he's doing this all wrong and Ricky's going to beat him to death with a table lamp after he's done.

But apparently he shouldn't have bothered worrying, because Ricky looks flushed and bright and a little thrilled, and he's breathing in an interesting way which makes Hugo eager to try snogging him again, actually.

What Hugo actually does, though, is lick his lips and say, firmly, "I've had a brilliant summer this year, you know." Ricky turns a shade of red that would clash spectacularly with Lily's hair, and mutters, "Yeah, okay, that's wonderful, you bloody poof," and then reaches for his controller.

Hugo shrugs and turns back to the game, smiling, he's sure, like an utter idiot.

They both play like absolute crap, and The Night Stalker is hideously devoured four times in a row, but Hugo figures The Night Stalker can figure things out for himself – Hugo's busy thinking about how he's got the entire summer to come back here, day after day after day – how he's got three months to defeat zombies and kill robo-warriors and maybe try kissing Ricky with tongue, even.