Solangelo One Shots

Arcade Games

This deleted for some reason after being up for like an hour, so here it is, re-written. I think I got all of the requests done but if I said I'd do yours and I haven't yet feel free to let me know and I'll make sure that gets up. With that said, enjoy!

Will's POV

There was something about being in the arcade late at night that was hard to put a finger on, a feeling that I couldn't explain. Maybe it was the neon lights of the sign outside that had drawn Nico and I in, or maybe it was the way all of the old games were lined up against the back wall, the noises coming from the machines sounding almost faded, as if they had been pushed up against the same wall and played by the same people for years but although they were tired, they still enjoyed being there. It could have been the music playing through speakers hidden out of sight, a high, pretty soprano voice crooning soft words that I couldn't quite make out, almost like they weren't meant to be understood. It could have been the feeling between Nico and I that made the place special, the feeling that we were on an adventure in a movie, one that everyone wanted to watch, to smile at because they wanted to go on the same adventure. It could have been how empty the room was. A few hours ago it would have been filled with kids, darting from arcade game to arcade game with tickets clutched tightly in their hands but now, at nearly ten at night it was nearly empty, three people standing at the old arcade games in the back, focused on the small screens as they made minuscule figures move across the screen. There was only one employee needed to tend to the whole building, a girl of about eighteen with long brown hair nearly hiding the earbud slipped into her ear. Normally I would have thought that watching an arcade would have been boring but the girl looked happy as she watched the quiet scene unfold around her, almost as if she felt the same strange feeling of happiness that I did.

"Where do you want to go first?" Nico asked, a bag of fifty dollars in quarters swinging from his wrist. We had to triple bag it just so that it wouldn't break. I scanned the room, paying more attention to the specific games organized no specific way around the room. The old games were in the back, with rows upon rows of ski ball lanes to the right, the ticket redemption area and tiny snack shop taking up the left wall. The rest of the room was filled with the newer kinds of arcade games, the jackpot games that no one ever won and the miscellaneous games that everyone said had a strategy, but were really just based on luck. Finally my eyes fell upon a game directly in front of, a classic that was never really thought of as a classic.

"The claw machine," I said confidently, stepping over to the rectangle filled with stuffed animals.

"You're sure about this?" Nico sounded wary as he slipped two quarters into the palm of my hand, watching me slip them into the slot. The bulbs around the game lit up an off white color and I was able to maneuver the claw to the middle of the rectangle. "Claw games are a waste of money. They're all rigged."

"I'm sure," I said as I examined the prizes. There was a frog, its face pressed up against the glass but it's body too far down to even think about getting. A pig sat on top of it, bottom up with only its thin, curly pink tail poking up, and I knew that the claw would slide off of that tail like butter. Finally I decided on a small light brown teddy bear, its face smiling out at us. "It's all about the experience, anyway." I brought the claw just above the bear, and it was still swinging wildly when it descended, missing the bear completely and depositing my prize of nothing into the box. I could have walked away from the machine, not giving another thought to the bear but now I was invested in it and its sweet, small smile. "Give me another two quarters," I said, holding my hand out so that Nico could give me more.

"Do you want me to get it for you?" Nico asked. "I've always been pretty good at these things." He handed me two more quarters and I heard them hit the inside of the machine as they went down the chute and it lit up again.