Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Why We LAN.

Walking down the streets of Arlington, I felt like I was back in high school. The curve of the hill, the corners, the sand stained snow drifts, none of them had changed. The air still stung my lungs and I still felt the same nervous twinge that I might run into someone I know and have to talk with them, to explain why I’m walking across town at ten PM at night. The twinge subsided when I made the last turn and stepped on to Alex’s street. For a minute I was fifteen again, my feet remembering every inch of pavement, every step up to his door.

I’d arrived in town just that afternoon. I hadn’t seen Alex in person in nearly a year. All the same I didn’t bother ringing the doorbell before I tested the knob and found the door unlocked. From there it was a quick trot up the stairs to the room he’d grown up in. The door was open and nothing had changed.

Pillows littered the floor, Rock Band instruments were propped against the wall and the boxes of various electronics served as makeshift tables for empty cans of soda and beer. Dan was there with him, splayed in front of the television watching music videos speechlessly. I entered without a word, handing Alex a handle of Seagram’s VO, still in a paper bag, fresh from New Hampshire.

Then I took up my place, back to a wall, staring at the TV, waiting for Alex to collect the shot glasses.

“How’s Jen?” Dan asked, breaking the silence.

Jen is our mutual friend from high school, a police officer in New Hampshire. I’d just been visiting her for the first time in two years. I’d caught flak for it because it meant that Game Night would have to be postponed. I’d received a series of text messages over the last 24 hours about how great Game Night had been last night in preparation for my return. I’d also had to spend two hours discussing the logistics of hanging out with other people visiting home so that we could have a Game Night.

“Fine?” I answered. I didn’t really know what to say. “Want to get the shot glasses?”

Alex didn’t move when he responded. “They’re in the other room. Near the computers.”

“What are we waiting for?” I said, standing against the wall. “Let’s lose some HoN.”

Alex stared at the TV for a moment, watching a heavily made up white hop hop starlet finish gyrating like she was having a stroke before he let out a sigh and rolled off the couch on to his feet.

“Fine. Just a sec.”

He slid out the door and down the stairs, leaving me and Dan together. MTV stayed on the TV, muted.

“So how’s Jen?” he asked without moving, still splayed on the floor.

“Good. Busy,” I answered, back against the wall, staring at an astronaut who was apparently using rock to reenact scenes from 2001.

"That's good," he said, without moving.

We sat there without speaking until Alex's telltale footsteps sounded up the staircase. At that sign we rose to our feet and stumbled in to Alex's room.

We sat down at our stations, me at Al’s old desktop, Dan on Al’s bed. He pulled his laptop out with a graceful lack of ceremony and put it on top of one of the cardboard boxes littering Al’s floor. I pulled out the shot glasses from the mess of soda bottles on Al’s desk and handed one of them to Dan, setting another next to Alex’s new rig.

Al, on cue, slipped through the door, balancing a stack of glasses with a pair of two liters. He closed the door as if by slight of hand. Soundproof foam covered the walls and we all sat in front of our computers. It was time to lose some video games.

“Let’s pour some shots and find a game,” Al suggested, draining Coke into a glass filled with ice. In lieu of response I lifted his shot glass from his desk and grabbed the bottle of VO from its home near Dan. Two deft pours later I thrust it back towards him, where he ignored it for a full minute before he noticed its neck pointed towards him.

“Oh.”

Searching for a game we might as well have been splayed across the country again. Refreshing, clicking, waiting for the right match.

“Got one.”

“Nope. Full.”

“Fuck.”

“How about this?”

“Wait. Alright, go.”

“’Kay.”

The ritual, the process lasted for an eternity, where eternity is defined by five minute intervals, before we finally found something with enough room for all of us.

“Yesss!” I hissed. Dan lifted a fist into the air.

“It’s called Shmishmorshmon for a reason!” Al declared, lifting his glass up before tipping it back. Dan and I followed suit quickly, refilling our glasses just as quickly. By the time the bottle touched the ground again we’d left the game. The host had ignored our requests for a lock and split us across different teams. We’d had no choice.

Whiskey’s warmth made the next eternity pass far more quickly, and before I’d even started to think about the second shot we were watching the countdown on the Repick screen, discussing our heroes.

“Who wants the Void?”

“I’m sticking with the Vengeful. I’m confident I can not suck with her.”

“I’m repicking. I don’t want to play Nymphora again.”

The dice rolled, the game started and we were a team again. We might as well have never left high school, synchronizing. Cheering, tipping back shots and laughing, we were a team. We destroyed the competition, and when the enemy quit after twenty five minutes it had just been their way of informing us that they knew we were indeed superior.

We searched for a new game, laughing and waiting. Our heroes were solid. Not excellent, but good enough. We had a shot. No, we had this.

Halfway through the game it started.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked Dan.

“Huh?”

The text appeared, Dan (Puppetmaster) has been killed by Enemyplayer (Doesitevenmatteratthispoint?), and I let out a sigh.

“Fuck it,” I said, pouring another shot and fighting the tide. Our camraderie gave way to flippancy and internal rivalry until we began to vote in rapid succession, trying to convince our remaining teammates to just let this fucking game end already.

“That sucked,” Dan muttered as we looked at our new K-D ratios and lamented.

Al shrugged. “Yeah,” he said, refreshing the game list.

“Fuck it,” I said. “Let’s play Last Stand. At least then we know we’re supposed to lose.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine.”

And so it went.

Against the waves of tyranids, orks and eldar we had only each other for company. No noobs or assholes to frustrate us, we came together again. But we might as well not have been in the same room. Dan wandered across the map alone, Alex lamented that he’d chosen an Eldar character and I did all I could to cajole my dreadnaught into attacking what I wanted it to. When the game ended in round 17 we opted to play again.

This was why we were LANing, why we played together. Despite all the bullshit, the last two of days of ridiculous barbs and the near fatal amounts of alcohol it seemed worth it. Jetpack roaring through my friends' silence, I remembered why we'd loved doing this in high school, why we still set aside hours every week for this express purpose.

“Let’s play HoN again after this,” Dan said as we lifted our glasses again. It would seem like a good idea at the time, but then it always did.