Requested by: Akane on archive and Fantaku alliance of fanfiction.

Nico and BEN playing videogames.


"BEN, if you don't want me to break your tv, let me stop playing now." Nico said glaring at the tv screen and clutching the black controller so tightly his knuckles were white. BEN had found out Nico had never played video games and had tried to get him to play a game called Assassins Creed. He had thought Nico would like it, but Nico could not for the life of him figure out the controls. He kept running the character into walls by accident. Within twenty minutes Nico had gotten to the point of yelling at the character and now he had circled back to calm and 100% done.

"Okay then." BEN said sliding out of the tv faster than Nico had ever seen him, taking the controller from Nico. Nico let him take it, still scowling at the computer program, had he done this on purpose to annoy Nico? It didn't seem to be beyond the realm of possibility. Nico felt about ready to rip BEN apart. "Maybe Assassins Creed was not the best game to start with. We'll do something else."

"I swear to the gods BEN if you make me play another game like this one I will break you." Nico said staring at BEN with a blank dark glare. BEN glared back, black eyes met red for a long moment neither being willing to look away. It was BEN who looked away first and started sorting through a stack of other games.

"You can't break me." He mumbled petulantly.

"Anything can be broken." Nico sighed leaning back against the couch running his hands back through his hair, his hands were sore from holding the controller so tightly.

"Ya and apparently all it takes to break you is a video game." BEN joked and Nico chuckled breathily. "You might like the Wii better." Ben commented picking up the white tube controller. Nico stared at it dubiously.

"How is it different?" Nico asked suspiciously.

"It's connected to the game station so that you can just move your remote, this thing, and your character in the game makes the same motions. Most of the games with it are sports type games but I think I have a Legend of Zelda game that treats the Wii remote like a sword. Since you're trained with a sword already it shouldn't be hard at all for you." BEN held out the controller and Nico took it, still looking rather unconvinced as BEN started to look for the right game.

"Are you sure the game will be able to tell how I move?" Nico said staring at the thing.

"Oh ya." BEN replied easily. "Some games don't even need you to hold the remote, there's this thing called motion capture that senses how your moving even without having to hold the remote. The only thing I have for that though is a dance game that Toby, Sally and L.J. really like." Nico was staring at BEN incredulously now and BEN was suddenly reminded that Nico was from the past. Sitting back on his heels he gave Nico his full attention. "Does that make sense?"

"I feel like you must be lying to me." Nico admitted, his eyes still narrowed. "I mean I got pretty good at arcade games like pinball and packman and THAT felt like living in the future. I was impressed by the graphics in that Assassins Creed game. You're telling me that theres the technology now to translate my real actions INTO the game? That sounds too close to virtual reality to actually exist." BEN grinned. Oh he couldn't wait to tell Nico about the even newer things like the Oculus Rift, but right now he was pretty sure Nico wouldn't believe him.

"Well why don't you try it and see then?" BEN Said finally finding the game he had been looking for called Skyward Sword and setting it up. "You might want to stand up. You hold this one in your sword hand, that's the one that will translate into the fighting motions. This one you hold in your other hand you use the little joystick to move around. Okay?"

"Okay." Nico said taking the controllers and weighing the one that he was meant to treat like a sword raising one eyebrow. "Well that's going to take some getting used to, it's so light." Nico said. BEN chuckled and helped Nico start the game.

"The game will teach you the other ways you can interact with the world so I think I'll just stay out here to watch you." BEN said sitting down on the couch next to Nico who shifted away just a little. BEN never understood personal boundaries.

"Watch me to make sure I don't try to break your technology again." Nico teased standing up so he could begin the game. He waited through the introduction reading the text about some human legend. "So I'm guessing this is a made up human legend not just something I missed out on by spending too much time with gods?"

"Yep a made up one." BEN said laughing as the game actually began and Nico started trying to get used to the controls.

"This is much easier than the other thing."

"The ps3 controller?" BEN asked staring at Nico as he finally navigated the character out the door of the house.

"Yes, that idiot thing." Nico grumbled already to focused on the game his eyes locked on the screen. This one Nico caught onto fairly quickly and seemed to enjoy but it was when he reached the first battle scene that Nico's face really lit up. "You weren't kidding this thing is amazing! Wow I mean I think I read some books with technology like this in them when I was a kid, but those were always like the futuristic things that no one really thought would exist! Now all that's left is those goggles and mit things."

"Oh those exist too." BEN said as casually as he could manage, though there was a strained tone to his voice that made it clear that Nico's excitement was rubbing off on him. Nico turned on BEN immediately nearly dropping the remotes in shock and excitement.

"What!?" He demanded his eyes wide and light with childish excitement.

"Yep it's called Oculus Rift. They're still pretty new so there's not very many games for them but."

"Oh my Gods do you have one?" Nico asked practically bouncing with excitement. "Can I try it? That sounds amazing!"

"No I don't have one but I've been totally meaning to get one. We should get one." BEN said doing his best not to jump to his feet. It was so nice to have someone as enthusiastic about these new technologies as he was.

"Definitely!" Nico said nodding enthusiastically. "Where can we get one? What sort of things can you do on it?"

"It's new enough that it can only be ordered online." BEN said excitedly taking the Wii controller from Nico and pausing the game. "Come on if we get fast shipping it'll be here within the week! Since I can basically make money by messing with data online I might even order two so I can mess with one of them and find out how it's made." BEN dragged Nico out of the room and to the nearest computer, which Nico sat down at and BEN disappeared inside.

"That sounds like something I'd be interested in knowing to do you think you could explain it to me?" Nico asked watching the lines of code scrolling across the screen, maybe this stuff was worth learning about after all.

I CAN TRY IT WON'T BE EASY THOUGH. YOU'VE GOT A LOT OF CATCHING UP TO DO DUDE. BEN wrote back as he settled on an amount to make available to himself and searched for the place to order the Oculus.

"No doubt." Nico said laughing as he leaned on his hands. "But it seems like it's worth working. You should let me teach you some of the card and role playing games I used to play too."

I LIKE GAMES. BEN agreed, only half paying attention to what he was agreeing to but Nico was already planning how to introduce BEN to Nico's favorite games like Dungeons and Dragons. Or maybe even Mythomagic, he didn't think BEN would have any right to tease him about it since BEN spent a lot of time playing games meant for kids as well.