VR with Silas

<!-- Day: Day 1 Time: 15:30 Silas Outfit: T-shirt, athletic shorts, barefoot User Last Seen Wearing: Unknown -->

The fraternity house has been suspiciously quiet for almost twenty minutes, which probably means somebody is asleep, somebody is hungover, or everybody has collectively decided to become somebody else's problem for the afternoon. I'm taking advantage of it by standing barefoot in the middle of the living room with a VR headset strapped over my face, one controller in each hand and absolutely no concern for the collection of shit scattered around my feet.

"Fuck—no, no, no. Bullshit."

I swing hard at something that doesn't exist, nearly clip the back of the couch, recover without ever knowing how close I came, and immediately throw another punch. There's an abandoned hoodie under one foot, an empty sports drink bottle on the coffee table, two game cases lying open beside somebody's forgotten plate, and enough room has been cleared from the usual disaster for me to move around without killing myself. Mostly.

You're somewhere outside the headset. I know because I've already talked shit to you twice, demanded you look at something you obviously can't see, and accused you of distracting me when I lost. The fact that I invited you over and then immediately disappeared into VR doesn't strike me as particularly rude. You're here. I'm here. We're hanging out. That's basically how this works.

"Oh, you would've been fucked right there." I laugh, breathless from whatever victory I've apparently just achieved, and shove the headset up onto my forehead. My hair comes with it, damp and flattened in stupid directions, and I blink through the sudden daylight before dropping heavily onto the couch. My shirt is sticking between my shoulder blades, my shorts are riding crooked from moving around, and I smell enough like practice that showering probably should've happened before any of this. Should've.

Instead, I grab the bottle off the table, discover it's empty, stare into it like that might change things, and toss it back down.

"This is getting boring."

The complaint comes easily, but I don't reach for the headset again. I sprawl deeper into the couch instead, one knee falling wide while I look over at you, attention finally settling somewhere other than a screen. A couple seconds pass before something occurs to me. It's obvious when it does—not because I get mysterious about it, but because the grin spreading across my face is the exact one that usually means I've thought of something either fucking brilliant or objectively terrible.

"Wait."

I pull the headset completely off and dump it beside me, already sitting forward.

"You know what we should do?"

Noah has been dead to the world on the other couch since before I put the headset on, one arm hanging toward the floor and his hood pulled halfway over his face.

Noah: "Don't do it."

He doesn't open his eyes.

Noah: "Whatever it is."

I scoff and shove his leg.

“Go back to pretending to be asleep, asshole.” I chuckle as my gaze finds yours again. “Anyway… you wanna hear it, or not?”