Eli and I sat cross-legged on my living room floor, gripping our PS4 controllers so hard, our knuckles turned white. The wubs and bass of "Digital Paralysis" nearly shook the house, causing me to reach out and grab the remote for the soundbar in a frantic attempt to turn the volume down. In the process, I lost the streak I had attained, and Eli scooped it up.
"Hey!" I shouted, giving him a glare. He smiled back at me.
"All's fair in a game of Amplitude!" He laughed. I gritted my teeth and continued playing, the music now less house-shaking and more subdued. After a few hours of choosing and playing through a bunch of random songs, I scooted up to the shelf where the games were sitting and began to sift through the few games we had.
"What are you looking for?" He asked.
"A game we can play together and be on the same team," I said simply, finally pulling a case out and tossing it to him. He looked at it with confusion.
"Call of Duty?"
He looked up at me, raising an eyebrow and tossing the case back. I gave him a shrug, wincing in pain as the plastic case smacked me in the face.
"Hey, it's the only decent game I have that includes multiplayer. You try playing zombies alone," I replied, popping the disk out of the case and sliding it into the system, hopping back to sit next to him. "Besides, it's the only HD zombie game I own." He laughed again.
"Fair enough!"
The game booted up, I selected our game mode, and within a few minutes, we were standing in the Tranzit map. I quickly ran to find a weapon, only to be met with barricade after barricade.
"Great. I forgot where the guns were," I muttered, making my character swivel around and go to the other side of the room where Eli's character stood. "If we stick together, we have a better chance of living."
Eli nodded, maneuvering his character over to a closet-esque space and purchasing a gun, much to my surprise. "Got some firepower." He said simply. I had to laugh, making my character go get the gun as well. Suddenly, the barricades began to break as the zombies started to spawn.
"Let's do this," I said, giving him a grin. "Find the bad guy, push 'em aside, then move on forward with a friend at your side-!" I had been doing a good job slaying zombies until I found myself almost swarmed. Eli ran in and, with some expert knife skills, slaughtered the zombies until there was one left, shooting it through the head.
"It's a two-player game, so when they make an attack, y'know y'got a brother gonna have your back." He said, grinning at me. I grinned back, both of us speaking in unison.
"Then you stay on track and - AH! - remain on course, and if they give you a smack, you - GAH! - you use your force. And if you leave your brother behind it's lame 'cause it's an effed up world and it's a two-player game!" We cleared the first wave with minor injuries, Eli buying our way to freedom via the bus station door. In the calm before the next wave, I decided to rebuild the barricades that had been broken down earlier in an attempt to gain some more funds so that Eli wouldn't have to bail me out every second.
"So...what do you think?" I asked. Eli shook his head, gunning down a few zombies as the next wave started.
"He's scamming you. He's scamming you super weirdly." He replied.
"But what if he's not?" I retorted. "This could be huge! All I have to do is give my former friend who...torments me...six...hundred..." The realization hit me like a bag of bricks, and I paused the game.
"Yeah, he's totally scamming me," I finished. "I'm doomed to be a loser until the end of time! No, probably then, too!" Eli reached over and unpaused the game.
"No way," He said, nudging my shoulder with his. "Dude, you are cooler than a vintage cassette. It's just that no one else but me thinks that yet. You're just a nothing in this high school scheme, but it's no big 'cause you and I? We're a team!" He chirped. I smiled at him, shooting a zombie through the head and running to his assistance after activating the mystery box.
"We like out of print games, retro skates, wish we had a Pac-Man tattoo," He said almost wistfully. "Nobody here appreciates, but hey, we might be together where they do." I tilted my head.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because guys like us are cool in college, cool in college, this I know," He replied, managing to get onto the bus with me in tow. "Guys like us are cool in college, we rule in college, listen bro. High school is hell, but we navigate it well, 'cause what we do is we make it a two player game." Almost instantly after he said this, I was almost jumped by a horde of zombies.
"ZOMBIE!" I screamed, firing away into the crowd.
"Watch out!" Eli called, running in with his knife at the ready.
"AH!" I yelped as I narrowly avoided getting mobbed, running back-first into another zombie in the process. "Wha-?!" I watched helplessly as my character got critically injured, but with Eli knee-deep in a zombie horde of his own, I didn't think he could revive me in time. Sure enough, Eli's character went down too, and we were brought to the 'Game Over' screen.
"Ugh..." We groaned, putting the controllers down for a moment. I brushed the hair out of my face, reaching over to do the same to Eli and revealing his sparkling blue eyes. I couldn't help but blush slightly as I grabbed the controller with one hand and my Harry Potter cup with the other, taking a sip of the Mountain Dew inside. Eli smiled at me, taking a sip of his own soda. I selected the same game mode, same map, and spawned in within seconds, Eli by my side. As I ran over to the same closet wall to buy my gun, Eli took the first watch and stood back to back with me, protecting me as the first wave began.
"As losers, we have fought together for years. Both Activision zombies and our popular peers," I gestured to the game as I said this. "Now we're stuck on a level, and I wanna move on." Eli shot a few zombies away from me. This first wave was strangely more subdued than before.
"Just wait one year whereupon you'll realize guys like us-!" He started but was startled as I joined in. "Are cool in college, cool in college, won't be lame." I nodded slightly.
"Dude, I know. I get it," I said, Eli joining in the words I wanted to live by. "Guys like us are cool in college-" We were cut off by the second wave starting, and we were still in the bus station. Thinking fast, I ran to the door, bought our way out, and immediately sprinted to the mystery box in hopes of getting a ray gun. No such luck.
"But we're not in college," I said, sighing. Eli nudged me.
"All the same! High school is wack, but we have each other's back. It's me and you, we make it a two-player game." He said. We continued to play when suddenly, a zombie jumped in our faces.
"GAH!" We screamed, both of us shooting the zombie down.
"Oh!" I said, grabbing a shotgun off of the outside wall and shooting a zombie that was trying to take a bite out of Eli.
"Zombie!" Eli called, shooting another zombie through the chest multiple times.
"Blood!" I shouted, Eli soon followed up with a shout of "Claws!" Suddenly, I heard my dad call my name from downstairs.
"Falner?" I looked at Eli.
"Pause." We said softly, Eli pausing the game. My dad walked upstairs, and I let out a yelp.
"Gah! Dad! Pa-ants?!"
My dad looked slightly surprised. "Is that a girl? Are you up here with a girl?" He then noticed Eli, and his expression softened. "Oh. Hi, Eli." He said. Eli gave him an awkward smile.
"Hi, Mr. Greyson." My dad smiled awkwardly back.
"I was going to order pizza. If there's something you two want..." He trailed off after noticing my almost concerned expression.
"Did you get dressed today? Like...at all?" I asked.
"Oh, they didn't need me at the office today, so I worked from home." He replied. I looked him up and down.
"Most people wear pants at home," I noted, trying to keep my voice gentle.
"That's why most people aren't your father," He said simply. There was a long, awkward pause that lingered in the air for what seemed like hours before he gave me a stiff nod. "Good talk." He then walked downstairs. Eli looked at me with sympathy as I unpaused the game and started gunning down zombies with a renewed sense of vigor.
"How's he doing?" Eli asked. I shrugged.
"How does it look?" I replied.
"Have you...heard from her?" He gently put his hand on my shoulder.
"No. And who cares. It's like, mom moved on. Why can't he?" My voice broke slightly, and Eli paused the game.
"Hey-!" I cut him off by hugging him tightly.
"I don't want this to be my future. Dallas said his hookup's at Payless. What if we just go there ourselves? Just to see if his story checks out?" I threw the idea out there as a blind grasp for some sort of hope. Eli's arms around me loosened their grip, making me push out of the hug and look at him with confusion.
"And if it does? Will you be too cool for m...video games?" He asked, and I thought I saw tears glistening in his eyes.
"No way. You know that you are my favorite person. That doesn't mean that I can't still dream." I said softly. He smiled, leaning in closer.
"Is it really true? I'm your favowite person?" He giggled, trying to tickle my sides, making me laugh as I swatted his hands away.
"Yeah! We're never not gonna be a team! High school is shit. And you've gotta help me conquer it." I playfully bapped his nose, grabbing my controller and gesturing for him to unpause the game. "It's just what we do," I said, Eli grinning at me.
"We make it a two-player game!" He finished. We then concentrated on the game, both of us leaning over our controllers in the typical gaming position.
"Find the bad guy, push 'em aside, then move on forward with a friend at your side. It's a two player game, so when they make an attack, y'know y'got a brother gonna have your back," We smiled at each other. "Then you stay on track and - AH! - remain on course, and if they give you a smack, you - GAH! - you use your force. And if you leave your brother behind it's lame 'cause it's an effed up world and it's a two-player game! HEY!" We shouted the last word out, almost throwing our controllers in the air out of joy. We had gotten to the 11th round, which was farther than either of us had ever gone solo. I threw my arms around Eli again, almost crushing him in a hug.
"You'll always be my Player Two," I said. Eli smiled.
"And you'll always be my Player One."