2025-09-17 - Afternoon at the Arcade

School is back in session and it's a slight lull between the wind-down of summer and the ramp-up of spooky season, which means that the park is somewhat quiet. Best time to hit the arcade, then, is in the middle of the day when folks who come out for the evenings and weekends aren't there yet. It leaves them plenty of room at the various games.

Devon is in a plain blue t-shirt and jeans with some white sneakers on, a very large very red slurpee in one hand, his sunglasses propped on top of his head as he says to Bastien, "Come on, race me," and heads over to one of the racing games. He chooses a lime green sportscar as his vehicle of choice as he settles into the seat and finds the pedals and wheel.

They've been at Spellbound a while now, but certainly not long enough to do and see - let alone get bored with - everything the islands have on offer. A day off in the middle of the week is prime boyfriend date territory, and Bas seems to be enjoying himself as he wanders through the arcade with Devon. He's not exactly a slave to fashion, but he likes looking nice too, so he's dressed up a little in a slightly cropped white t-shirt under a short-sleeve, shaki colored shirt with an abstract black pattern that is vaguely reminiscent of some sort of Rorschach test. He's wearing it with a pair of slim black jeans and a pair of crisply white sneakers. A silver chain glitters around his neck, as well as a couple of rings to complete the look. He leans in and steals a slurp of slurpee, and then nods at the suggestion of racing, laughing as he chases Devon over towards the row of car-shaped arcade seats, picking out the black muscle-car-looking one with bright orange flames next to Devon's lime green one. He takes a second to situate himself and then beams over at Devon, eyebrows lifting as he asks, "Ready?"

Devon extends the cup a little bit in Bastien's direction so that he can steal a sip from it. It's a big slurpee and he's definitely not against sharing. Grinning, he settles in, leaving the cup between them. Once they have their cars selected, he nods over to Bastien and says, "Ready! Let's do this!"

He's pretty easily amused and while they've been at the park for a little while, there are still a number of things he hasn't experienced, and some things that he never gets tired of -- like playing some of the games at the arcade and trying to beat his best score. Not that he's particularly good at arcade games, but they're fun.

When the race starts, he accelerates quickly, but at the sacrifice of some control and the back end of his car wobbles back and forth, fishtailing a little as he tries to get himself under control without crashing into one of the other racers.

Bas is even worse of a driver in the arcade than he is in real life, and although he manages to go screeching past Devon at the start of the race, his refusal to slow down at all for any of the corners means that he is soon veering wildly off track and rolling his virtual car in a way he would be lucky to survive if it was real liffe. Of course, Bas doesn't accept that this is his fault in the least, and there is a stream of quiet cursing as Bas makes some disparaging remarks about his car's mother before the game rests him neatly on the track...in dead last place. Still, his foot is back on the floor, and he does manage to gain at least a tiny bit before the next corner starts to loom. Bas takes this one with moderately more grace and steals a furtive look over at Devon, to see what he's up to in the adjacent car.

Devon is, thankfully, a far better driver in real life than he is in the video game. He has an extremely lead foot in the game and is wobbling all over the place. He sideswipes at least one car before he manages to get himself back on the track. Still, Bastien is careening as much as he is, and that makes him laugh. "Woe betide anyone's insurance rates around us.. including ours."

He winces when Bastien goes flying off the track only to land back on it behind him. He glances back when Bastien looks over and laughs, then he's focused back on the screen, leaning in a little, because all the leaning definitely helps the car go faster.

Bas laughs along happily when Devon jokes about their insurance premiums, narrowly managing to stay on the track around the next two corners, though he is still only jostling for last place with one of the NPC cars they put on the track. He glances over at Devon again and, catching him leaning forward in concentration, leans rather precariously out of his car to wave his hand in front of poor Devon's face in an effort to distract him! It's a dirty play, but worth it to beat your boyf at the arcade, at least in Bas' eyes! It doesn't really help him either, since he ends up crashing straight into a tree while he's not looking, but maybe it sends Dev a little off course too!

Devon leaaaans away from the hand in front of his face, but that also seems to make his car turn in that direction as well since he's still holding onto the wheel. He laughs and says, "Hey!" but manages to keep his car on the track despite the obvious attempts at distraction. "Keep your hands to yourself! At least.. until the race is over." One must be precise about these things.

"Oh nooooo," he laughs as Bastien crashes into a tree but also clips him, sending his car spinning. He has to struggle to get back onto the track. He's still in the race, but it's pretty clear that the two of them are battling for last and second-to-last place.

There's a diabolical, mischievous cackle from Bas when he manages to distract Devon by waving his hand around in his field of vision, even glancing back at his screen and realising he's been accelerating into a tree isn't enough to cut him off, and he keeps snickering right up until the game sets him back on the track in disgrace, and it dawns on him too that the pair of them are battlin it out for second-to-last place! A coveted position! Suddenly, Bas is locked in. His eyes narrow as he focuses on the screen in front of him, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he is suddenly the picture of silent focus and concentration. He's still not great, but he is moderately better than when he is purely joking around. He even takes the next two corners without veering wildly off course! A Christmas miracle!

Devon tries to focus, though he's still laughing a little from the near disaster. Now it's a neck and neck race for not-last and when Bastien dials it in, he tries to get serous, too. He's still wobbling on the turns and he's still nearly crashing into some of the other drivers, narrowly sideswiping the car in front of him to try and gain a little ground.

In the end, though, he just doesn't have the skill it would take for a come-from-behind victory. He laughs as he coasts in at last place, throwing both arms in the air in celebration, then grabbing his slurpee and taking a long drink from it. "You win. You choose next."

There's a satisfied snicker from Bas' car when the flag comes down, and he is seventh out of eight cars in the race. Not that the other six matter, since all that he cares about is that he beat Dev, which surely qualifies him for at least thirty seconds of bragging rights. He glances over at Dev and flashes a bright smile before breaking into a brief but triumphant victory dance right there in his seat. Not that he drags it out for too long, and he hops out of his car a couple of seconds after Devon does, circling back around to rejoin him and casting a speculative look over the rest of the arcade. "What about that one?" Bas suggests, pointing at one of the fighting games with crazy characters that doesn't currently have a queue. As he does, he leans in to steal another slurp of slurpee, and winds his free arm around Dev's waist as he does.

Devon laughs and applauds the well-earned victory dance, then he grabs his slurpee and hops out of the car so that someone else, and hopefully more skilled, can take it over and do it justice. He bumps shoulders with Bastien when he comes around to join him and then glances in the direction that he's looking.

"Sure," he says. "I have no idea how to play that one, so it should be fun." What's more fun than just randomly flailing and attempting to beat the snot out of one's opponent. He leans in to Bastien's arm and shares the slurpee as they wander over to that game. "Oh," he says as he sees the opening screen. "I want to be the bright orange one with the tentacles."

"Button mashing is always an acceptable strategy!" Bas affirms when Dev remarks that he hasn't got a clue what he's doing, and laughs happily, giving a little tug with the arm he's got wrapped around his waist as they wander over to inspect the cabinet. Drawing nearer, Bas nods approvingly at the choice of the orange guy with tentacles. "Tentacles!" he declares. "Also always a valid choice!" he snickers with another mischievous glint in his eye. He lets the arm around Dev's waist fall to his side again when they get closer to the machine and pats down his pocket, quickly finding a few tokens to feed into the machine. Bas picks out the ninja-tye guy with the knives from the lineup whenever the screen lights up.

"That's fortunate because it's kind of my only strategy," Devon laughs as they approach the machine. He nods seriously and says, "Extra reach. Extra hits. Definitely a solid choice. Potential for grappling multiplied!" His grin only broadens as he sets his slurpee down next to him and queues up the game, picking out his character. "Knives are good,, too," he agrees, giving a nod to Bastien's choice. Then, it is time to fite!

The screen comes up with some brief story that, let's be honest, neither of them is reading. Then, it is button mashing time!

"Ha!" declares Bas with the air of somebody who expects to win! Which he now does, because he is not a button masher and knows like...three of this guy's special moves! Bas smirks to himself and hunkers down over his joystick, casting a wary glance over at what will shortly be the frenzied mess of Devon and his button mashing! The voiceover on the machine emits a cheesy "3, 2, 1....FITE!" and Bas is the picture of studied concentration as he lines up his special! Up, down, right, right, button one, button two, down! Except...he hadn't counted on Devon's mad flailing, which suddenly has them madly out of position! The fireball flies aimlessly and harmlessly off screen!

And it is indeed a frenzied mess. His character jerks and jumps and spins all over the screen not doing anything particularly effective. His fite is mostly posturing and very little actual connection. Until he suddenly just launches at Bastien's poor character in a chaotic flailing of limbs. Chaotic flailing is SURPRISINGLY EFFECTIVE. KAPOW Will he hit him more than once? Maybe, maybe not, but he at least gets him that one time. "Hehehehe.." he snickers.

"Wha...!" Bas exclaims with a wounded sort of expression when Dev and his flailing manage to totally sucker punch him and send him flying. Unfortunately, this is followed up by another two punches as soon as he tries to sit back up, each of them taking a solid chunk of red out of Bas' life bar! There's some quite grumbling from Bas as he suddenly finds himself on the defensive, as well as some rather poor gamesmanship as he attempts to jostle poor Devon a bit to break his...is Devon concentrating? Not really! But at least to interfere with whatever it is Devon is doing!

One could call it concentration, maybe? It's more just focus. He's very focused in his uncontrollable flailing. That he manages to land another couple of hits on Bastien is pure luck. He laughs though when he gets jostled, trying not to lose grip on the controllers. He does, however, lose grip and that leaves him open for Bastien to come back and strike. The orange tentacled terror stumbles backward as Bastien is able to get back into position, Devon laughing the whole time as he commences mashing again, but he is not mashing the right combination to get a grapple on Bastien's dude.

Devon's unsuccessful mashing does give Bas time to show off a couple of the moves he had so painstakingly mastered, though in the end it doesn't help him much and with a final flailing punch, Devon's orange tentacled guy scores the final hit that sends Bas' ninja kife dude crashing to the ground! "Player One....WINS!" the machine declares as Bas looks on with a look of mild horror! His attention does from the screen, to Devon, and then back again before Bas declares "Dork!" with another sidelong look at Devon and a final bit of playful jostling s Bas steps away from the machine, defeated!

"Oh no!! Ninja Knife Duuuuuudeee!" Devon cries out as the character goes crashing to the ground under his wild pummeling as though he hadn't been trying to wildly pummel him to the ground in the first place. Laughing, he gets jostled and stumbles a little to the side theatrically. "Hey?! It's not my fault that your carefully planned strategies are no match for my wild chaos." He follows after Bastien, grabbing the slushie on the way and offering it out as a peace offering. "Maybe it's time to take a break," he chuckles.

Bas can't help but laugh when Devon calls out theatrically when Ninja Knife Dude takes his final tumble. He grins, rolls his eyes a little and then reaches out to accept the neon red slushie, taking a long slurp of the icy red goodness before handing it back to Devon. "Thanks babe," he smiles, easily mollified, it seems. Turning away from the machine, it's easy to spot the doors that lead back into the fresh air of the outside, through which sunlight streams into the dim neon-lit arcade. Bas nods in agreement at the idea of taking a break and reaches behind his left ear to retrieve the cigarette he'd stashed there sometime earlier. "Sounds good," he agrees with a nod, reaching over to wind an arm around Devon's waist as he steers him towars the exit.

Devon takes back the slushie and finishes it off, dropping it in a waste bin as they make their way past. He grins and leans in against Bastien, looping his own arm around his waste as well. "So.. I've been thinking. What do you think about signing up to visit one of those other worlds that people are going to? I hear there's a bunch of them.. and it sounds like.." He almost says 'out of this world' and then stops himself. "Fun? Interesting? Like a once in a lifetime kinda thing?"

Bas lifts his free arm to briefly shield his eyes from the sun as they step back out into the afternoon sunshine. A big gulp of fresh air is taken before Bas immediately reaches for his lighter and starts stinking up the place with a cigarette. He does his best to be gentlemanly about it, though, and turns his head away from poor Devon as he exhales. He listens as Devon mentions the idea of visiting another world with one of the expeditions, and he looks briefly thoughtful. "Do you want to?" Bas asks, looking back at Devon with a curious expression. "I mean, we can if you want to. I guess it always just felt a bit above my pay grade, you know? I just wait tables"

Devon lets his sunglasses drop back in front of his eyes as they make their way out into the light of the park. "I kinda want to," he admits, glancing over toward Bastien sidelong. "You don't?" He then shrugs his shoulders and says, "I just scare people. But anyone can sign up." But then he hesitates and says, "But if you don't want to.. we don't have to. I'm not sure I'd want to go by myself." He's quick to smile though and shrug it off. "So, what are we doing next?"

Bas does manage to get a couple of drags on his cigarette (enough to take the edge off, anyway) before he catches a look from one particularly jobsworthy security guard, causing him to quickly extinguish it and toss the remainder in a nearby trash can as they pass, lest it cause a scene. "We can totally do it," Bas counters encouragingly when Devon seems ready to shrug off the idea. "I just didn't know you were interested. But if you are I'm totally not sending you off to some other world on your own," Bas affirms with a nod of his head. "We can go check the noticeboard or whatever, see if there is one coming up?" Bas suggests, eyebrows lifting just slightly as he waits on Dev's response.

Devon studies Bastien sidelong, as though trying to gauge whether he's actually interested or is just humoring him, but slowly he nods his head and says, "Yeah. I have been. But I guess I kinda wanted to wait and see how many people went through and came back okay before trying myself." He grins a little bit crookedly. He's got a healthy sense of adventure, but also a healthy sense of self preservation. But he nods enthusiastically when Bastien says they can check out the notice board. "Okay, sounds good! And if there isn't anything we both might want to see, we can just wait."

"I mean...it's a different world dude..." Bas laughs a little when Devon suggests that none of the worlds might be interesting to them. "Like, that's got to be worth at least half a day of your Conde Nast vacay, right? Even just to say you went!" Bas laughs and then looks down to where his camera would so often be hanging around his neck. It's at home today. "Besides, I bet the pictures would be crazy!" he beams, seeming to get more into the idea the more he talks about it. Notwithstanding the fact that he would have happily gone just because Devon wanted to. Glancing around, it doesn't take long until they can spot one of the Staff Only doors that lead down into the tunnels, where most of the expeditions are possted on the staff notice boards and such.

Devon smiles a little sheepishly and says, "Well I know but maybe they're dangerous, or scary, or dangerously scary." Which is probably ironic coming from him, of all people, who spends most of his paid hours looking dangerously scary, himself. "I bet you could take some really amazing pictures, though, yeah." He smiles brightly at that idea. Bastien's photographs are always impressive. As they head toward one of the employee entrances, he pulls his badge out of his pocket and buzzes them through so that they can go wander in the direction of the Magical Studies department, where there are sometimes postings about the worlds, along with the ones online.

Bas wanders along behind Devon and slips through the door into the tunnels behind him once he buzzes them through. "Woo-OOOO-ooo-OOOOO-ohhhh..." Bas looms up behind Devon and waggles his fingers threateningly, scooby-doo ghost style, at the prospect of the other worlds being scary, or dangerous, or some combination of the two. He doesn't keep it up for long, though. There's a grin as Bas briefly sets his hands on either of Dev's shoulders before falling into step beside him once more. "Don't worry babe, I'd look after you," he offers reassuringly, even if that grin lingers as he bumps Devon lightly with his shoulder as they walk.

Devon grins over his shoulder at Bastien and laughs, "You know I'm the creepy spooky one, right?" He leans back a little against Bas when his hands come to rest on his shoulders before straightening again when he falls into step with him. "Will you?" he asks, fluttering his eyelashes just a little. "Will you bonk the monsters over the head with an expertly chosen wine bottle?"

Bas snickers a little and then comes up at Devon from behind once they make it to the noticeboard, resting his chin on Devon's shoulders and wrapping his arms around his waist as he peers curiously at the timetable of planned expeditions. "Dunno, seemed like you might have been the 'fraidy one!" Bas teases with a giggle when Dev insists he is the spooky half of the couple. Bas lifts a hand and runs his index finger along the list of proposed trips, hovering over a couple that seem more appealing. "Course! I'm not gonna let some otherworldly critter just up and eat'cha am I?" he remarks with a grin, before diping his head forward to kiss Devon's shoulder.

Devon leans back into Bastien, resting against his chest as he looks at the board with him. "Hey, just because I play one of the spookies doesn't mean that I won't be like, at least a little cautious with actual real danger. That doesn't make me 'fraidy." It's a light protest though, and he's grinning over his shoulder as he says it.

"I'd hope not," he says with a laugh then looks at the various expeditions that are on the board and watches as Bastien traces a couple. "Any that appeal?" he asks.

Bas goes quiet for a short while as he considers the roster of expeditions going out to the various strange worlds the theme park has come into contact with of late, and he chews his bottom lip thoughtfully as he considers. "So, there's like a D&D world..." he points at the one labeled Oritora "...or like a twenty-thousand eagues under the sea world..." he points at the one named Veruk. "Neither of those seem too awful, right?" he suggests, peering at the noticeboard again and then glancing aside to Devon to gauge his reaction.

Devon nods as he looks at the information and then the ones that Bastien points out, first one, then the other, and says, "I think either of those could be cool. The undersea one sounds like it'd be really trippy, being under all that water. And I do dig a good fantasy world. Maybe we could meet some elves and go on a quest." He grins over at Bastien and says, "Like a real live D&D game except.. you know.. not.. a game."

"Sweet! Well, let's do the underwater one then..." Bas nods when Devon mentions that one first. "Then if that one seems okay, I guess we could try the other, or just you know...pick one and get to be experts of it..." Bas muses. In any case, there's a pen on a piece of string hanging from the board, and Bas makes a grab for it, starting to scribble down their names on one of the sign-up sheets for an upcoming visit to Veruk. "Awesome, we'll stow away on a submarine and be cabin boys or whatever!" Bas suggests breezily, letting the pen fall back to the end of it's tether once more when he's done scribblng.

Devon grins brightly as they choose their adventure and says, "I've always wanted to like really go on an underwater journey. It'll be awesome. We'll get to see whole new fishes and a whole undersea world and I hear they have robots that can speak our language, too." Which is kind of neat. Then he laughs and waggles his eyebrows, "I could run away and be a cabin boy for a while." He waits while Bastien signs them up and then says, "This is going to be a blast!"

"A yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for we!" Bas sings, turning his head slightly to nip at Devon's earlobe before releasing the hold around Devon's waist and taking a step back and away from the noticeboard, surveying their (somewhat messily) written names and giving an affirmative nod. "It's definitely something new. It's not something I ever thought I would get into when I took a food service job at a theme park..." Bas laughs, reaching over towards Devon's hand and giving his hand a wave, signalling for Devon to grab it as they continue off down the tunnel in the direction of the ferry terminal. "There's probably some sick seafood in an underwater city, you know..." he points out thoughtfully.

"I think that's the world with the lizards, right? Giant lizards and pirates?" Devon laughs. When Bastien releases him, he turns and slips his hand into Bas', lacing their fingers and giving it a squeeze. "We thought we were just gonna get to work together and have access to our weight in funnel cake. Little did we know!" And off they head toward the ferry, Devon keeping pace as they go, looking thoughtful. "I bet they do eat a lot of seafood. I wonder if it's anything like ours or if they have entirely alien fish species."

"Hopefully it's not all like...weird stuff from the deepest depths, that stuff is freaky..." and wrinkles his nose at the thought. "Like, I saw this thing about hagfish, and if you grab one they will just make like this...ungodly amount of snot..." Bas shakes his head, clearly disapproving of that kind of seafood. "Hopefully it's just delicious sashimi," he declares hopefully. Bas checks his watch and indeed, there is not too much time until the next ferry is due, so he gets a bit of a caper in his step as he rounds the next corner.

"Freaky but coooool. Like anglerfish and blobfish and stuff like that." Then Devon turns an abrupt shade of green when Bastien mentions what a hagfish does. He looks a little unwell and says, "Yeah no, none of those please. Let's hope for some fantastic tuna or salmon or like.. yeah, anything other than that." He picks up his step and then grins and says "Race you!" Because thinking about racing and getting out of the tunnels and into the fresh air will help him shake off the faint green pallor that he's developed.

"Did you know that the big angle...." Bas looks like he might be about to recite another weirdly biological fact about the creatures of he deep sea, but then Devon declares a race, and all bets are off! Bas lets go of Devon's hand and breaks into a long-legged run, arms and legs flailing as he tries to get out ahead of Devon and to the ferry terminal ahead of him. It's accompanied by a good deal of sudden, and rather raucous laughter that's liable to draw disapproving looks from management (if there are any about!) though the chances of them catching them are slim, the speed they're tearing dwn the tunnels!

Devon laughs brightly and careens around a corner, narrowly avoiding a collision with an oncoming garment rack and then dodges toward the stairs that lead back up toward the sunlight and fresh air. Bursting through on the other side, he startles someone coming in to start their shift. With a hasty apology, he is racing for the ferry dock where they can see the ferry home pulling in. They will have just about enough time to make it to board with the rest of those already waiting, though when they do arrive at the end of the line, it is huffing, puffing, and laughing.

Victory! Bas makes it to the gate of the ferry dock a stride or so ahead of Devon, his arrival announced by the clatter of his rings against the metal railing as he slams his hand down on it, announcing his arrival! Even so, Bas is just about as worn out as Devon from the crazy sprint, and he ends up bending nearly double as he sucks in several panting breaths before he is able to have any sort of rational thoughts again. When he does stand up, it's only to smile brightly at Devon and lift a hand for a high-five. "Made it!" he chirps triumphantly.

Devon is laughing even though he's trying to catch his breath, lifting up a hand to return the high-five and acknowledge Bastien's win as the race comes to an end. "Indeed. You made it. That means you get to decide what you want for dinner." And Devon will either need to make it or acquire it in one way or another as best he can. That's the rules of winning.