Inspired by Community S3E16: "Virtual Systems Analysis."
Hazel POV
They say time flies when you're having fun. Hazel always found that tacky, but now, she's starting to believe it. Her spring semester was off to an amazing start. She attended an amazing Valentine's Day dance with her new boyfriend, went to a collegiate-level basketball game with her new boyfriend, played an April Fool's Day prank on her new boyfriend, and even earned an A on the most recent biology lab with—you guessed it—her new boyfriend.
Hazel's never had a boyfriend before unless you count the long-distance relationship she had with Sammy, the boy she dated during her freshman year of high school. Sammy lived like two hours away from her, so they mostly just texted. Looking back on it, she's not sure why she thought that was a realistic choice for a first boyfriend.
So she doesn't count that. Frank, on the other hand, definitely counts as a boyfriend. He surprises her with candy, holds her hand in the hallways, and takes her out on fun creative dates.
If you ask her, time is flying.
If you ask Annabeth and Percy, time is dragging on. Percy can't wait to go home and see his mom, and Annabeth can't wait to do whatever it is she does during the summer.
Then, there's Piper and Jason. They're all business these days. Like, they only talk about ATP and enzymes and stuff. Hazel knows that a lot went down between them, but she thought all signs were pointing to them getting together any day now. That's not the case. She understands that Annabeth and Percy are too stubborn to admit their feelings for each other, but what could be keeping Jason and Piper apart?
Hazel really would like some friends to go on a double date with. She tried with Nico and his boyfriend Will, but PDA in front of her half-brother just isn't something she's comfortable with. A couple of weeks ago, she invited Annabeth and Percy out to dinner with her and Frank. Never did she imply it was meant to imitate a double date, but Percy said he had to call his mom, and Annabeth had to walk her cactus, whatever that means.
Although Hazel isn't quite ready to give up on her dreams of double dating, the year is coming to a close. There's not much time left to play matchmaker, and it's not like Hazel can just pick up where she left off. They'll all just be back at square one since summer is like a relationship reset.
"Give it back!" Percy shouts as he chases Annabeth into the study room.
"Catch this!" Annabeth throws something at Frank, which he catches right away because he's just that great at catching things.
He shows the object to Hazel—a miniature penguin made out of foam. Annabeth and Percy are playing keep-away with a stress toy. That's flirting if Hazel ever saw it!
Frank passes the toy back to Percy and the two take their seats.
Jason clears his throat. "Okay, thank you for that strong start to finals week," he says.
He's right. They're all here to study for their biology final, and the library is on quiet hours twenty-four-seven. Keep-away is probably not the best way to contribute to people's quiet study sessions.
"Can we get started?" Piper asks. "I still have no idea how to memorize these chemical equations. Like, I know what photosynthesis is, but all this other stuff?"
"Hell no," Leo agrees. He points his package of watermelon-flavored Extra gum at each member of the group. "Gum?" he offers. "Gum? Gum? Gum?"
Hazel takes a piece of gum and pretends not to be grossed out by how warm it is.
Jason crinkles his nose. "You like that stuff?"
"You don't?" Piper asks before blowing a huge pink bubble.
"It tastes like the fluoride you get at the dentist," he replies sternly. He pops Piper's bubble and the whole group watches as it deflates all over her chin. That's flirting. That. Is. Flirting.
Is Hazel the only one who's confused as to why it's taking so long for everyone in the group to pair off?
She whips her head around as the door to the study room opens abruptly.
"To what do we owe the pleasure, Dean?" Percy asks with zero emotion in his voice.
Dean D throws his purple feather boa over his shoulder. "I suppose I should tell you brats that your biology exam has been postponed to next week."
"Oh, thank god." Piper slams her textbook shut. "Three-hour lunch break, anyone?"
"Sounds like fun," Jason says.
Leo perks up. "Can we get Wendy's? Please say we can get Wendy's."
"I'm glad you kids care so much about your education," the dean deadpans. "I'm going to my pilates class." He walks off, leaving a trail of purple feathers behind him.
"I have a feeling Dean D in drag isn't going to be the weirdest thing we're going to see today," Leo says.
Jason haphazardly tosses a notebook and some colored pencils into his backpack. "Okay, so Piper and Leo and I are going to grab Wendy's and go back to the apartment to help beta test Leo's project for his computer programming final."
Better late than never for Hazel to pull some of her matchmaking tactics. "I can help Leo with his project! You guys should check out that new Mexican place downtown." El Taco Fiesta isn't exactly the most sensitive name for an allegedly authentic restaurant, but it's important to support local small businesses.
Piper shrugs. "Yeah, okay. Leo?"
"I have to work on my project," he says. "Some takeout would be appreciated though." He pulls out his phone to Google the menu.
Jason turns to Percy and Annabeth. "Do you guys want tacos?"
"Nah," Percy says. "I heard some stuff about their most recent health inspection... better not go into details."
"Grover got me a gift certificate to that all-natural coffee shop that moved in downtown," Annabeth says. "We could go there."
Percy furrows his eyebrows. "What occasion did Grover get you a gift card for?"
"My half-birthday," she says.
Hazel doesn't know Annabeth's friend Grover very well, but he sounds like a nice guy.
Percy shrugs. "Yeah, okay, I'm not a huge coffee drinker but if they have chai I'm good." He swings his aquarium keychain around his fingers and pushes his chair in.
Annabeth throws her fake Kånken bag over her shoulder and follows him out.
"What about me?" Frank asks.
"The library's really crowded," Hazel notes. "It would suck if we lost the study table by the outlets..." She trails off, hoping that Frank will get the idea.
As if he'd come up with the idea himself, he says, "I can guard the table!"
"Thanks, man," Jason says, patting Frank on the shoulder. "We'll grab you a taco."
Frank waves his hands in horror. "Please don't! My stomach can't handle that."
"In that case, we will not grab you a taco," says Piper. "C'mon, Jason! I'm driving, you're buying!" She grabs Jason by the wrist and yanks him out of the room.
Leo looks up at Hazel from his seat. "Do you have a way we can get back to the apartment?"
She shakes her head. Even though she's had her driver's license since high school, she still doesn't have a car of her own to bring to campus. It's not hard to get by using public transportation and catching rides on the back of Nico's Vespa. Hazel hasn't had trouble getting from point A to point B until this very moment.
"Can you call an Uber?" Leo asks. "I spent all my money replacing the brake lines in my Cadillac."
Of course, he did. Hazel didn't think her matchmaking plan through enough to consider that she'll have to spend a whole three hours with Leo. It's not that there's anything wrong with spending time with the guy! It's just she doesn't like the way he dumped Frank's wet laundry in the communal laundry room freshman year, or how he calls Frank weird insulting names, and generally just how he takes pride in bullying Hazel's boyfriend.
Hazel sighs. "I'll get an Uber."
✎✎✎
At first, Hazel's relieved to get out of the Uber. Leo is such a chatterbox when he's excited about something, especially if that something is an engineering project. Hell, most of these projects aren't even for his classes. Where does he get the time to restore a 1954 Cadillac to a functional condition and finish the biology lab write-up by 11:59 pm?
By the time the Uber pulls up outside the apartment, neither Hazel nor the Uber driver knows what hit them. She'll rate poor Pavel five stars just for not driving them into a tree.
Leo dives into the couch and turns on the television. "You're lucky I already have the game set up," he says. "It takes forever to get everything hooked up right after Piper's been playing Pokémon."
"Lucky us," says Hazel.
"She could just play on the console, but she insists on using the television display every time. I wish she wouldn't," he says. He opens the drawer on the television stand and pulls out two old Wii controllers. "The game is rigged through this old Wii," he explains.
"Your project is a video game?" That's kind of cool. Hazel thought she'd be holding wires for a robot and accidentally electrocuting herself all afternoon.
As Leo goes into an in-depth explanation of how the game works and how he programmed it to run through a console that's almost twenty years old, Hazel's eyes completely glaze over. She has no idea what any of this computer stuff means. All she can do is offer him a nod or an "Oh, that's nice!" every time he pauses.
Then, he launches into a speech about what each button does, which she honestly tries to pay attention to, but he talks so fast that she can't remember if the A button will make her character jump or self-destruct. There can't be a self-destruct button, can there?
Finally, Leo takes a seat on a beanbag chair and turns on the game. It's got this retro pixellated design that's oddly welcoming. Hazel likes that kind of stuff.
"I made characters that look like all of us so we can all play the game," Leo says.
Hazel hovers her controller over the brownish blob that must be her and pushes the A button to select.
That doesn't work.
She pushes the B button and accidentally opens the home screen. "Shoot," she mutters.
She pushes A to select start, and that's not working, so at this point, she's just button-mashing and hoping that one works while Leo stares helplessly from his beanbag chair. When did Leo get a beanbag chair?
Hazel's about to thank Leo for being so patient with her, but then the Wii menu pops up with a pinging tone, and it's all downhill from here.
Leo snatches the controller away from Hazel, and for a moment she feels relief. Maybe he'll put on an old episode of Doctor Who and she can heat up some of that cookie dough in his freezer. That sounds like a nice way to spend a lunch break. It's lunchtime and they haven't even had lunch yet.
"There," Leo says as he chooses Hazel's avatar for her. "Were you even paying attention when I went over the controls?"
Hazel starts, "I tried to, but you were going so fast and I'm not very good at-"
"God, are you trying to ruin my life?" he asks in exasperation.
People don't get mad at Hazel much. Then again, she likes to think she has a pretty good sense of other peoples' feelings. All she wants to do is make things better right now. She wants to tell Leo that he's probably hangry because he hasn't had anything to eat since... Well, she doesn't know if he's had anything to eat today. Piper and Jason would probably know, but there's no way she'll interrupt their date so they can come over and babysit Leo. Then she will have put herself through this torture for nothing.
But she can't fix things right away because it's not like Leo to get frustrated when someone doesn't understand how his brain works. Normally, he's thrilled to explain his tools and machines to an unsuspecting victim.
"Look, I'm sorry I'm having trouble understanding," Hazel says, "but this is about more than just your video game, isn't it?"
Leo presses play on Level One, and some tacky video game music starts playing.
"Please talk to me. I want to make it better," she says.
The miniature Leo on the television jumps over what kind of looks like a river and then runs up a hill.
"Come on, Leo. I care about you. Please let me help," Hazel insists. She can't take this kind of guilt. The Wii remote is cold in her hands when she presses the arrow pad, hoping that the tiny Hazel on-screen will follow the tiny Leo.
Tiny Hazel falls over a cliff and then respawns next to Tiny Leo.
Leo turns around. "Jason and Piper wouldn't have fallen into the gorge."
Bingo! But in a bad way!
The conclusion? Leo's mad at Hazel for sending Jason and Piper on a lunch date. He shouldn't be though! It's not like things are going to change all that much. They're practically already dating; they just need to finally put a label on it.
So that's what Hazel tells him. "It's not like things are going to be that different if Jason and Piper start dating officially. They're always flirting."
"Yeah, but they never do it without me!" Leo says. "I may be a third wheel, but I'm an important third wheel."
"You're not a throuple, Leo."
"No, but we're best friends. I've simulated every possible outcome in my project, and none of them are good," he says as he tugs at his curls.
Hazel wishes he would stop doing self-destructive stuff like that. She doesn't understand what would bring a person to act the way Leo does sometimes.
She sighs. "Alright, why don't you show me your ideas, and I'll show you mine."
"Okay, but you're going to be wrong," he says. He pushes some buttons on his controller, and then there's a loading screen. "This happens sometimes," he adds.
While he pushes more buttons and tugs at wires, Hazel checks her phone.
A text from Piper asks, Is Leo ok?
Hazel replies He's fine. Have fun with Jason ;)
Why do they coddle Leo so much? They're all the same age!
Leo's pixelated avatar goes down a green tube, very much like a copyrighted videogame Hazel knows of.
"It's like a minigame," he explains as a wheel on the blank screen spins.
Hazel had Candy Crush or something of the sort in mind. She likes Candy Crush.
This is not Candy Crush.
"Who are the people in scrubs?" Hazel asks. "Where'd your avatar go?"
"He's missing," Leo says. "Just watch. And make sure you hit A when you're done reading the dialogue boxes."
The scenery is hard to make out, but she can clearly see a sign that says NEW ROME HOSPITAL. That would explain why all the characters are dressed in white.
A pixellated character larger than Hazel's walks across the screen, meeting Hazel in the middle of the busy hospital.
The name on the dialogue box identifies the character as Frank. We can't find Leo anywhere! the box says. Can you help us, Dr. Levesque?
Hazel presses A to advance.
Great! Frank says. Dr. Grace and Dr. McLean seem to have some kind of intel. Come on! Let's find out what they know.
The dialogue box says something like that, at least. It's hard to read when you have dyslexia, let alone when the person who wrote the dialogue boxes has it as well.
"I would have had to buy premium software to get the dyslexia-friendly font," Leo explains as if reading her mind.
The game fades in on a new room, where who she can only assume are Jason and Piper are standing perfectly still in front of a filing cabinet. That's old video game designs for you though.
"Press the A button to talk to Jason and Piper," Leo says.
"Oh, so now the A button does stuff?" Hazel quips. She hits the button anyway and a dialogue box appears underneath Piper.
So you want to talk to Leo? Dr. McLean asks.
Hazel presses A.
We haven't seen him, Dr. Grace says. The character icon paces back and forth across the two-dimensional floor.
They know something, Tiny Frank says. Find the TRUTH SERUM inside of the CABINET and then press B to give it to Dr. Grace.
Hazel pushes the arrow pad to move her character across the room, but she must not be fast enough because the message flashes again: Find the TRUTH SERUM inside of the CABINET and then press B to give it to Dr. Grace.
Tiny Hazel, who apparently is a doctor now, jumps on top of the counter. Real Hazel shakes the Wii remote to open the cabinet at the prompting of her tutorial guide Frank, and then the cabinet opens.
Find the TRUTH SERUM inside of the CABINET and then press B to give it to Dr. Grace.
"Jesus Christ, I know," Hazel mutters. The game pings as her character grabs the tiny purple vial. She maneuvers towards Tiny Jason, and with a trumpet fanfare, the truth serum is applied.
A purple hue colors Dr. Grace and a new textbox appears. Agh! Try the autopsy lab! The autopsy lab!
That doesn't sound like something Jason would say, but considering he's under a truth serum and Hazel's on some psychological mission, she accepts this and moves on to the next room. She imagines that this room is the autopsy lab, not only because there are only two doors in the hallway, but also because there's a golden arrow pointing to one.
A pixellated Percy lies flat on a bed, while a tiny Annabeth stands over him. Is she performing an autopsy on him? That's a little messed up.
Dr. Chase, Tiny Frank asks, We're looking for Leo Valdez. Have you seen him?
A dialogue box appears underneath Tiny Annabeth. Leo? Let me check.
Tiny Percy's body wiggles around on the table. Isn't he supposed to be dead? Does Leo understand how autopsies work? Hazel decides not to ask for fear of upsetting him further.
Tiny Annabeth moves over to a filing cabinet that just randomly appeared in the game. A lot of these props and characters are entering the game out of nowhere, but Hazel has a feeling that effective storytelling isn't a priority to Leo's computer science professor.
Aha! says the dialogue box beneath Annabeth. Unfortunately, Dr. Valdez was laid off many years ago.
"What?" Hazel asks aloud. "You mean you're not in the video game about your friends working in a general hospital?" She presses A on the Wii remote because she needs to know more.
His position was deemed obsolete. I'm sure you understand why.
That's pretty dark, even for Leo.
Frank's character reappears, and so does another dialogue box. Now that Leo is out of the picture, we can be together.
"We're together with Leo!" Hazel yells at the game. She's starting to understand why gamers are so angry all the time.
Dr. Valdez can't be gone for good! He's gotta be in this hospital somewhere.
We can be together, Frank's dialogue box insists.
It's not worth losing Leo.
Hazel moves the arrow pad towards the door, fully intending to exit and continue the search for Leo, but then the door disappears. Little fireworks go off around a huge popup that says LEVEL 1 COMPLETE!
Level one is not complete! She hasn't found Leo!
"Leo! This is a terrible game!" she says.
"You completed Level One," Leo says. "My game works perfectly."
"It does not! We didn't accomplish the goal! Why the hell would you make a video game you can't win?" Hazel asks.
Leo stands up. "The point isn't always winning. Sometimes you just have to finish."
"If that's how this game is going to be, then I don't want to play it anymore," Hazel says. How's she supposed to get through to Leo if he won't even surface in his video game?
Once again, Leo snatches the controller away from Hazel and begins to play using her character.
"You can't be me!" she objects.
"Watch me."
Tiny Hazel runs better than she did when the real Hazel controlled her, which is infuriating because Leo has no right to be Hazel better than Hazel.
"The goals when you play as you are different than when you play as me or Jason or someone else," Leo explains. "My goals are usually machine-related since that's what I'm good at. Percy's involve getting people to like him and creating enough time in his day to call his mom."
She has to know. "What about me?"
"Your goal is to pair off every member of the study group except for me," Leo says.
That is totally not true!
Tiny Hazel climbs a spiral staircase and enters an attic bedroom. The walls are covered in posters or something else that a blank yellow square could mean. Again, she avoids thinking about the logistics of the game, like how a spiral staircase could lead to an attic bedroom—shoot. There she is overthinking it again.
"What's the point of this level?" she asks Leo.
"You said you wanted to find Leo. There you go."
Tiny Hazel runs up to a sleeping bag and with a shake of his Wii remote, the blankets are thrown back to reveal Leo's pixellated figure.
It's not exactly a grand reveal. Something about this place is off, and not just because it's incredibly pixelated.
"Leo, where are we?" Hazel asks timidly.
"Whenever I play this game, my character always ends up back here," he says.
"And this is..." she prompts.
Leo lowers his controller. "This is a nonspecific foster home I lived in. I vaguely remember sharing the room with two or three other boys. One of the guys was named Juan. Other than that, it's kind of a blur. I bounced around a lot."
Hazel nods.
"So when I run the simulation, and Jason and Piper's characters start dating, my character never really turns out quite right. They shouldn't date. It's best nobody in the study group dates," Leo says.
She'll admit, she didn't get it before. It was weird how important it is to Leo that everyone in the study group stays just friends.
Now, understanding Leo's past, it all makes sense. He's probably just afraid of abandonment. If Jason and Piper start dating, will there still be room for him in their relationship, or will he be cast aside again?
It's a valid fear and one that Hazel should have been more sensitive to. She sighs, thinking for a moment, trying to find the best words to comfort her friend.
"Leo, this is a simulation. Sure, it's cool, and you're totally going to ace your final," Hazel says, "but it's just a simulation."
"It's based on how the average person behaves," Leo says. "I've spent time studying people. There is no possible way I'll turn out okay if Jason and Piper start dating."
Hazel slides off the couch and sits next to Leo's beanbag chair. "Then you must not have studied your friends enough. Jason and Piper aren't average people, and they're definitely not hot doctors from a soap opera. They care about you."
Leo snaps a rubber band against his wrist.
"I mean it. They love you, and they're great for each other. I honestly don't think things are going to change all that much after today," she says.
"You think so?" he asks, still snapping the rubber band.
"I know it," says Hazel. "It'll be like best friends that kiss and snuggle on the couch sometimes."
Leo lets go of the rubber band and finally makes eye contact with Hazel. "They better not be making out during Doctor Who."
"Nah, Jason's a little too wrapped up in the plot for that," she agrees.
"Thanks," Leo says.
This situation is a little uncomfortable, mostly because Hazel doesn't want to think about Jason and Piper getting too cozy on the sofa during Leo's nerdy television shows, so grabs her Wii remote and says, "Are we gonna finish this game or what?"
Leo shakes his controller around. "There's some bonus content behind that statue."
Hazel follows his character towards what she honestly thought was a coatrack and out from behind it jumps a ton of scary monster ladies with mismatched legs.
"What are those?" she asks.
"Empousai. Remember? From mythology last year?"
Hazel remembers now. "So how do we kill them?"
"We're supposed to use the sword we grabbed from the lab back in Level One."
"I didn't grab a sword."
"Shit. I forgot to program it."
Helplessly, Leo and Hazel giggle as their characters are swallowed whole by creepy demon cheerleaders, which is kind of messed up, but neither of them cares.
✎✎✎
"Thank goodness you're back!" Frank shouts as Hazel and Leo enter the room. He jumps out of his seat and runs for the doorway.
"What are you doing?" Hazel asks.
Frank looks at her with flushed cheeks. "I didn't get lunch because I was saving the table, and I have to pee so freakin' bad right now!" He doesn't wait for an answer. He just runs out the door.
Hazel takes a seat next to Leo.
"So I'm thinking about adding in a new level to my game where the characters are all in space and have to avoid an asteroid belt and fight aliens and stuff," he says.
Hazel smiles. "Count me in."
Jason and Piper come back into the room carrying takeout boxes and to-go cups.
"So El Taco Fiesta was uh, something else," Piper says.
"Go on," Leo says.
Jason plops down in his seat. "Animatronics, man. Animatronics."
"Enough said," Piper adds, even though Hazel would like to hear more about El Taco Fiesta and why she shouldn't go there.
Hazel unzips her backpack and carefully lays out her textbook and notebook on the table, a stark contrast to Leo's messy pile of crumbled paper and writing utensils.
"Is that one of those twisty crayons?" she asks.
"Yeah," says Leo. "I like it because I can't feel the wax on my hand."
Hazel doesn't like that lingering crayon wax feeling either. Maybe she has more in common with Leo than she thought. "I'll have to invest in some," she says.
"You can borrow some of mine if you like," he says.
Frank comes back with a bag from Chick-fil-A. "Apparently, people don't take care of themselves during finals week," he says.
"Okay," says Jason. "Are we just waiting on Annabeth and Percy?"
"Where are they?" Piper asks. "Those dual enrollment students are eyeing up their seats and I'm not sure how many times we can tell them no."
There's giggling in the hallway—much more laughter than what is acceptable for finals week—and Annabeth and Percy stumble into the study room. Percy tosses his keys to Jason.
"Do not let me drive like this again," he says.
"Again?" Jason asks.
Percy doesn't drink, and Hazel can't see Annabeth pressuring him into it.
Annabeth stumbles and clutches Percy's bicep for balance. "Does someone have fries? I really want—Oh! Thanks, Frank!" She takes Frank's waffle fries and starts munching.
"How was the coffee shop?" Piper asks as if nothing is out of the ordinary.
"Good!" they say in unison.
"What did you get?" she asks.
Annabeth snorts. "What did they say that was? Some sort of latte, but there was something extra in it-"
"I feel like I could run a marathon!" Percy shouts, earning several shushes from students at work.
"Do you want to go back there?" Annabeth asks.
Piper smirks and raises an eyebrow. "Well, I'm going to have to try this place. What's it called?"
"Aunty Em's."