Pitch Perfect Harmony

Stray

This chapter contains spoilers for the game Stray

"Are we done? Cause I have a date tonight", Taylor asked near the end of the timebox they had set for the video call. It was only a small group of her management employees. She was close enough with all of them to share her evening plans. "Do I need to know about anything?", Tree asked surprised. She usually knew when Taylor planned on going out. "Nope. Just a cozy night of video games", Taylor smiled. She was so excited about it that she just had to talk about it with someone. "Video games? You?", Anna asked remembering Taylor's performance at their last office get-together where she had lost badly in every single Mario Party game. "What? Maybe, if I don't have to compete with an algorithm giving out random points to people, I can have fun", Taylor answered. Anna just laughed. "What are you playing?", she wanted to know. "Am I still needed?", Tree asked. "No, I think we can call it a day", Taylor smiled. "And we will play Stray", she answered Anna. A few people already left the meeting but some were still listening. "Oh, I love that game!", Zoe joined the conversation.

"Travis' idea. He had a whole list prepared", Taylor explained blushing a little. "Does he play video games a lot?", Anna asked. "He has game nights with his friends sometimes", she shrugged. "Inviting you to join his hobby, huh? Big deal Tay", Zoe joked making them all laugh. "I have joined a boy's night before so... not the first time", she smiled. Anna sighed happily. "Damn, you got a good one", she chuckled. "Yeah, they even let me stay even though I was really bad at GTA", she chuckled. The others laughed again. "Well then... have a good date", Zoe waved into her camera. "Yeah, play that cat", Anna waved too, chuckling at the same time. "I will! Bye!", Taylor chuckled too, and waved before leaving the conference.

"Are you finally done?", Travis greeted her when she came to the kitchen where he had prepared self-made burgers. "I am. Did you make these yourself?", she questioned suspicious of him because he didn't usually like cooking. "One of the few things I don't suck at in the kitchen, yes", he answered acting a little bit offended by her tone. "Aww, you can do much more, I think. You just never want to", she shrugged with a playful smile before she came to kiss him. "So it's a burger date?", she asked then. "If you want it to be", he said. "I do. But then I will change into something more comfortable if you don't mind", she suggested looking at her own fairly corporate outfit that she had picked for the workday and also the dinner home-date. "Please do. We'll just make this a cozy time together", he smiled and kissed her again before letting her go change.

After enjoying their food. The two quickly switched to the original plan of playing Stray. He had set the console up in the living room so that they could be more comfortable than on an office chair. "There you go", he handed her the controller after optimizing a few settings. "I'm nervous", she admitted shyly. "Why?", he chuckled knowing that it wasn't a hard game to play. "I don't know. I don't usually do this", she held up the controller. "So what? You can't really be bad in this game. Just have fun with it. Look, there's the kitty you play", he pointed at the screen that had just loaded the beginning of the story. "Come here", he pulled her back, so she was leaning against his side nestled under his arm comfortably. "Orange cats are crazy", she told him matter of factly starting to slowly stir the cat back a forth a few times until she got a little used to the controls. "Gonna be a crazy story then, huh?", he smiled watching her face light up when she clicked a simple butted making the cat play with another one. "That's so cute!", she exclaimed. "So realistic too", she added already fascinated by the graphics. Travis knew this was the right game for her.

The tutorial brought them on a little walk with the group of cats that seemed to be friends. Jumping up and down some obstacles, Taylor had lost every last bit of nervousness. She loved this game already. "Oh", she noticed when a cutscene showed the other cats jumping over a gap onto a pipe that, with every cat landing on it before running off, slid out of the wall a little further. "He's gonna fall", she mumbled watching the hesitant movement of the orange cat. Travis was a little amused by how invested she was after only a few minutes. She held the controller tight as if at any moment she could be the only one to save the cat. But that moment never came. The cat jumped onto the pipe that finally fell out entirely making the cat fall. A shocked gasp left her lips and when the poor little stray cat finally hit the ground but stayed unconscious, tears threatened to spill. She let the controller fall to her lap converging her face with her hands a little embarrassed about how emotional this made her. "Aww, hey. He'll be fine", Travis tried to reassure her and pulled her into a hug. "Now I don't like this game", she mumbled. "Oh, Tay", he smiled kissing her head. "Hey, look! He's back up again", he took the controller while she turned back to the screen. "Oh, he's limping!", she noticed still pretty emotional. They seemed to somehow had decided out of intuition that the cat was male. "God, no!", she added when the cat fell unconscious a second time.

They both silently stared at the screen until the cat got up again. He was still limping, but Travis made him slowly go down the canal he had fallen into. After a few times licking his paw, the cat was able to walk again and Taylor finally took a deep breath to calm down. "See? All good. Now we'll have to find the way back up", he told her gently but continued to play the next part just letting her watch for a while. They soon met the first robot and got into the actual story of the game and every tear was forgotten. Taylor was desperate to get the cat reunited with his friends. Travis ended up letting her play the most parts. Sometimes, he gave her some hints if she didn't catch something he knew because of all the other games he had played in his life or helped her get through specifically annoying parts when the cat got chased by some monster-tick creatures.

They spent hours on the couch playing, exploring the world together, and mastering small and big challenges. But they didn't even notice until another new chapter intro made him look at the clock. "Do you have any work stuff tomorrow?", he wanted to know. "Just workout", she mumbled not willing to think of the next day yet. "It's past midnight", he noted. Now she looked at him. "Almost one a.m. to be exact", he added. "Can we continue tomorrow?", she asked like a child that didn't want to go to bed. "Sure", he chuckled taking the controller to save the game and shut down the console so they could go to bed.

"Did you have fun?", he asked when she cuddled up to him after putting the lights out. She just nodded enthusiastically. "So would I be able to convince you of other games that don't involve cats in the future?", he wanted to know. Because he had loved this night too. Exploring a world together and not thinking of anything else felt like pure bonding time. "Maybe we could find a cozy game to play online when you're back on tour?", he suggested. "Maybe", she just answered tiredly. He noticed that she was almost asleep already and kissed her head. "Good night, Allie", he whispered. "G'night", she answered before he closed his eyes too, and they both went to sleep.