Damien looked like shit. At least, he assumed that he did.

For three days now, he’d been doing barely anything except trying to get the world record time in Super Kitty Beat Down Fighter.

He hadn’t showered, he’d barely eaten, and most of his sustenance had come from the beer bottles which littered the area around his sofa.

He had shifted his position multiple times; at first sitting, then lying, then sitting upside down with his head hanging off of the sofa... Needless to say, he was not doing well.

Damien groaned, restarting his timer once more. He was now on attempt two hundred and twenty three; he had gotten no closer to making progress than his eleventh attempt. He grasped that barely sleeping and not looking after himself was making it less likely that he’d succeed by the minute, but he couldn’t stop.

He chugged down as much beer as he could before he got past the title screen again.

When he was around five minutes in, Damien remarked that he was on an amazing pace. He preferred to avoid looking at his timer too much, in the pursuit of keeping himself calm; he couldn’t resist though, when he managed to defeat the boss of world two just before the timer ticked past the five-minute mark. This was absolutely unprecedented, and he knew that he could now afford a few fuck-ups.

Damien still could feel the pressure though, he wanted to try his best in spite of the grace he had been given, and he proceeded through the levels as he usually would. His luck with enemy patterns was mediocre for a good while: not terrible, and most certainly not great either.

Getting to the seventh level in the game, Damien was aware that there was a trick he could do here. Something which Kitty had not dared to attempt, but if pulled off, it could save him a minute. The issue with this trick, as one could probably infer, was that the execution required was extremely taxing. To add on to that, there was a decent chance that the game would crash when this was performed – and sometimes the trick didn’t work after all of that. If failed, one could lose up to thirty seconds of time. In the event of a crash, one lost their entire run.

Saving took much too long, and no runner worth their salt bothered with it. There was the silver lining of the game starting you where you were defeated, but this was not something which the game kept track of once it was restarted.

He inspected the timer. The fight with Inu took three minutes if one was quick, and he had around five minutes to get there if he wanted the record.

Throwing caution to the wind, Damien went for it. His ability to think things through was heavily inhibited by the alcohol he had drunk, along with his lack of sleep, and his stomach which hadn’t consumed anything solid for sixteen hours.

Damien repeatedly pressed the up and down buttons on his controller, hoping to clip through the background and skip the enemy waves which littered this level. There were some glowing mushrooms in the background which the player could interact with; for some reason, all of the background elements in 7-1 worked differently to how they did in any other stage. The player was able to get behind them, and walk through the stage without having to stop and fight enemies. One did have to come back onto the stage to finish the level, and this was not trivial either, but it was nowhere near the arduous task that clipping behind the backdrop was in the first place.

Managing the trick, Damien yelled loudly. Luckily, his home was rather far from any other houses. If it wasn’t, the local gossip rags would never shut up about how he’d been isolating himself, instead of tending to his mayoral duties. That, and he’d have gotten a bunch of noise complaints for the sound that had just left his lips.

Everything was going brilliantly, he just needed to hold it together until he reached the end of 7-1.

He saw the ravens, signalling that he had to re-enter the stage.

Damien pressed the up and down buttons in sequence again, he sighted Neko-Tsuyoi beginning to appear out of the background.

His heart was pounding. All he had to do now was-

Damien’s eyes widened as the audio from the game stuttered, and he could no longer interact with it at all.

He cursed and screamed, and slammed his controller onto the table in front of him.

At long last, realising that he should take a break, Damien paused his recording; he saved all of his video files to come back to them later, and shut down his laptop. He grumpily walked to his television, and turned it off. He surveyed his reflection in the black screen, and scowled at how much more pronounced the bags under his eyes were.

Damien reached out his hand to touch the screen, he felt the static on his fingertips and sighed. His ponytail was coming lose, and strands of his unkempt hair were beginning to cover his face again; his clothes were stained with sweat, and he was thankful that he’d had the sense to change into some loungewear five hours after he’d started his quest.

He got up, and snatched the same bottle of beer he’d drank from at the start of his failed attempt; he finished it in no time at all, catching his breath once he’d done so. Damien moved his attention to the stairs which led to his bedroom, and walked to them. “I’m gonna go jack off...” He hushedly spoke.

Just as Damien was about to take his first step up the stairs, there was a knock at his door.

Damien thought that he had been hallucinating at first, and ignored it. That was until, his doorbell rang.

“Damien, answer the door.” That same southern voice he had heard in his dream spoke. Damien groaned, and could do nothing but stand there as River continued knocking; making increasingly obscene threats if he didn’t let him inside that instant.

Comically, Damien slammed his head into the wall three times – he immediately wished that he hadn’t, but decided to cope with his mistake.

He unlocked his front door, to see a displeased looking River pouting at him.

“You look like shit.” River astutely observed. “Go clean yourself up.” Damien tried to show his dissent, to which River only had to glare at him before he got the message. He said nothing as he locked himself in the bathroom, and let River look around for a while.

River had been to Damien’s more than once before, and he’d never seen the place in such a state. Empty bottles surrounded the entire lounge area; River grimaced at it all. He hoped that Jagger wouldn’t try to switch in right now; both because they’d start cleaning everything up, and because he wanted this to come from him. It would be for the best if Jagger was not exposed to Damien again, and River was aware that ultimately – it was his job to protect them both, in exchange for Jagger actually getting things done.

River examined the television; it was an old clunky thing. Knowing how much money Damien had, River didn’t have a clue as to why he didn’t get rid of it and get a flatscreen instead. His eyes flung downwards, seeing an open game case devoid of a disk.

He removed the leaflet from the case, and saw how well-loved it was. There was a little bit of water damage, and some of the ink had been left in the sun for too long – causing it to become discoloured and fade somewhat.

River had heard much of this game; Damien had talked to him about it extensively. River and Jagger had grown up with a GameTerminal 3, but had gotten a few older consoles from their other family members who no longer used them. After everything, River still experienced warmth as he held something which Damien had expressed his love for.

River was filled with pure melancholy. He’d finally gotten his own life started, and now he had to let go of a major part of it.

The bathroom door unlocked, and Damien waltzed out. The man still had the telltale signs of exhaustion present upon his features, but he didn’t look quite like he was at death’s door anymore.

River beckoned Damien to sit beside him, an offer which Damien reluctantly took.

“Look, Damien...” This was going to hurt, but River couldn’t leave anything unsaid. “I need to be completely honest with you.” River ran back through the events which had taken place those three weeks ago. “I was really angry with Jag when he pulled that stuff at the mall, truly!”

Both of them were mute. Damien waited for River to continue, already knowing in his gut what was to come. River bit his lip. “Deep down though, I knew he was correct.” He crossed his arms, still refusing to stare Damien in the eyes. “I can’t condone how far you went to protect us.” At last, River steeled himself and stared directly at Damien. “This is it, Damien.” He rested, deliberating on the best way to phrase what he would say next. Damien stroked his hand on the sofa and braced himself.

“I’m breaking up with you, too.” River moved his eyes down again, squinting forlornly. “I have to do what’s best for both me and Jag; and, I did owe you some clarity.”

Damien stifled, and he discovered that he was unable to respond; mostly because he had no idea how to. He had expected this when River had appeared on his doorstep, and he’d been fretting throughout the duration of River’s visit. Now, however, Damien didn’t feel anything at all.

River clocked Damien’s reluctance to offer any kind of comment. “Do you have anything to add, or-″

“Okay.” Damien interjected.

Confused, River sceptically glared at him. “O-okay?″ River stammered, more vexed than anything else.

Mutely, Damien grabbed River – and pushed him back to the front door.

“Oi!” River yelled, unable to believe the way in which Damien was acting.

Damien opened his door, and pushed River outside – briskly turning his key in the lock to stop him from getting back in.

Astounded, River stood; he raised his arms up, frustrated. “Don’t do anything stupid!” Concern and anger flowed through his entire being, egging one another on. “You hear?”