Chapter Text
When Bertolt was first exposed to the idea of Dungeons and Dragons in high school, he had blanched. High school was a fresh sort of hell for him, and if Reiner hadn’t been there at his side—the well-liked, big brother type—he probably would’ve been picked on rather than ignored. He felt gangly, too tall, and way too noticeable; all he wanted to do was to be invisible. But he had always been good at fading into the background, and people let him without much of a hassle.
However, D&D was one of those after school activities that anyone with a social reputation and/or who wanted to avoid being a pariah avoided. That is, in fact, where Bertolt remembers Armin Arlert most clearly from—the kid who was a prime candidate on paper for bullies, but somehow managed to sidestep the standard high school torture by running the tabletop gaming club and being a favorite amongst teachers. Reiner told Bertolt later it was because Armin had managed to gain some kind of academic monopoly amongst half their graduating class, since he was in high demand for tutoring and insight into nefarious teachers who enjoyed enacting cruel pop quizzes on their students.
So Bertolt was a bit surprised when Reiner had enthusiastically informed him that he’d run into “some old high school friends” (how Reiner was friends with both someone like Armin as well as the popular kids Bertolt remembers is beyond him), and that he’d played a game with them a few times.
More to the point, though: he wanted Bertolt to come.
And so, here he is—his first ever actual D&D game.
Reiner isn’t into the logistics of the game, so much as he is the character creation. Armin is a great DM—which, Bertolt quickly learns, means “Dungeon Master”—which actually interests him, but he’s more fascinated with how animated Reiner is about this entire production.
Eren sits at the end of the table, munching on chips graciously provided by Armin (they’re roommates, but one clearly chooses the groceries); Mikasa is perched at the side, her immaculate character sheet laid out in front of her (marked in pencil, neatly erased and updated with each level gain); and Marco, with a character sheet obviously printed from an old inkjet with lines across the page that indicate low ink, who seems quite content to play a dwarf cleric.
“So, you’re short… and can kill zombies?” Bertolt asks awkwardly as Marco hands him the Player’s Handbook. It’s thick and looks overwhelming.
He smiles kindly. “Yeah, but there are different types of undead creatures in the game.”
Before Bertolt can reply, Eren—who is clearly already a few beers deep—interjects boisterously. “We need a druid! We don’t have enough magic in this campaign.”
“Eren,” Armin says patiently, flipping to a marked place in his own book and holding it close to his chest, apparently a grandiose secret held within, “Bertolt can create whatever type of character he wants.”
“Is he starting out at level two or three?” Eren asks Armin, ignoring this rational advice. “Because…”
It’s Mikasa’s turn to jump in. “He wants you to cast Bull Strength on him.” Her voice is calm and almost humorously flat.
“I do not!” Eren immediately counters in feigned outrage, looking over like he’s been betrayed. He takes a few more sips of beer, fiddling with one of the d20s scattered across the table from the communal stash of dice, and mutters, “I mean, it’d be cool.”
Reiner snorts next to Bertolt, making him jump. “You just want to kill everything. Good thing you’re chaotic good, or else we’d all be dead.”
“That sounds like something a paladin would say,” Eren retorts, but his tone is amused. “You just want everyone and everything to be good.”
Marco gives a long suffering sigh, glancing back and forth between Mikasa and Armin, and then over at Bertolt as Reiner and Eren continue to banter. “They’re always like this. It’s a thing.”
“It’s a definite thing,” Mikasa agrees.
“Should I be a druid?” Bertolt asks with slightly wide eyes, feeling a little silly that he can’t just read the book and figure it out as quickly as it seems Reiner has, given his best friend has only been playing for a few months.
“Druids are fun to play,” Armin adds helpfully, “and you get a decently well-rounded arsenal of skills. You can use magic and weapons proficiently. I’d recommend as a starter character trying out a half-elf druid.”
Immediately, all that springs to mind is a mysterious figure in a robe, maybe with pointy ears, skulking in the shadows. Bertolt isn’t sure he wants to skulking in the shadows both in real life, and also a fantasy world.
He feels self-conscious about his indecision, but he remembers Reiner’s words that got him here in the first place. “Bertl, it’ll be great! You can be whoever you want.”
“You also get to conjure animals.” Mikasa adds suddenly, raising an eyebrow and her eyes lighting up. “I use Nature’s Ally a lot.”
Somehow, that stops Bertolt from saying no, and he hesitates. “So, what’s a druid supposed to do in the party?”
“You help us!” Reiner pipes in with a big grin, clapping Bertolt on the shoulder in that sort-of-over-familiar-yet-not way he always does. “Eren smashes into things, I’m the party leader, and you guys are the logistical team in battle!”
“You are not the party leader,” Eren exclaims, his eyes wide.
Armin groans a little “Guys, let Bertolt make his character so we can actually play?”
That quiets everyone down, and with a little help from Marco and Reiner, a few rolls of various-sided dice to determine “stats” and a bunch of other math Bertolt doesn’t follow, he finally has a character.
“What’s your alignment?” Reiner asks, pointing at the small space at the top of the character sheet where he’s supposed to write it in. “It’s not like we really follow it completely, but we all chose one.”
“Neutral.” For this, Bertolt is sure—that was the first thing in the book he saw that he knew.
Reiner grins a little, as if he knew that was coming; he probably did. “Cool. Are you going to choose a name?”
“Um, Bertolt?”
Reiner laughs and rolls his eyes. “No, a character name. Not your name. That’s the whole point!”
“Uhh…” Bertolt stammers.
When he was in fifth grade, the school shrink had suggested to Bertolt’s mother that a pet might help draw him out of his painfully shy shell, and so they’d gone to the shelter together to choose a cat. Bertolt had chosen the fattest one, and when they’d gotten home, his mother had told him he had to pick a name.
That had been the most agonizing week of Bertolt’s young life; the cat’s name ended up being “Cat.”
Cat is still alive and well, but Bertolt hasn’t gotten any better at choosing names; before he stresses himself out so much that he can’t think straight, he knows he has to just choose something. His eyes dart around Armin and Eren’s very nerdy living room for ideas, and finally, something pops out to him.
“Colossus,” he blurts out.
“Like the comic book character?” Armin asks in surprise.
“I guess,” Bertolt shrugs. “I like the name.”
“See,” Reiner says around a mouth full of chips, munching enthusiastically, “that’s what Eren should’ve named his character. He’s a half-orc and huge! Not…” He trails off, shaking his head at Eren, who just looks pleased with himself.
“What’s your character’s name?” Bertolt asks curiously, eyeing Eren’s messy character sheet covered in bad drawings of his own character.
“Pinky Pie.”
Bertolt just stares, and Eren bursts out laughing.
“I can’t believe you named your half-orc after a pony,” Marco groans, shaking his head in disbelief. He looks over at Bertolt with a pained expression.
“Eren is a brony,” comes Mikasa’s no-nonsense voice.
“I am not! Reiner’s the brony!”
“Whoa!” Reiner retorts, obviously enjoying himself as he puts up two hands defensively. “Don’t bring my love of Equestria into this.”
“So,” Armin interjects tartly, “we have Pinky Pie the half-orc barbarian.” This earns a snicker from Eren which, to Bertolt’s private amusement, makes Armin’s eye twitch ever so slightly. “Colossus the druid half-elf, Two-Face the dwarf cleric…”
Bertolt raises an eyebrow at Marco; this just earns a shrug in return. “I like Batman.” Marco takes a sip of a beer he’s just opened and hides behind, before muttering, “I couldn’t think of anything cool.”
“Bob the elf ranger, and Braun Steel the paladin.”
“Bob,” Eren remarks critically, staring at Mikasa with an idle sort of disbelief. “I can’t believe you named your character Bob.”
“At least she didn’t name hers after a cartoon horse,” Reiner retorts. This causes Mikasa’s lips to quirk, and Marco laughs under his breath.
“At least mine doesn’t sound like a bad self-insert romance novel character,” Eren shoots back.
“Bob seems practical,” Bertolt says thoughtfully, unaware he’s even speaking aloud until everyone looks at him. He immediately feels anxious with five pairs of eyes on him, and he swallows hard.
“That’s why I chose it,” Mikasa agrees with a curt nod, reaching across the table to steal the bowl of chips away from Eren so fast he doesn’t even know it’s gone. She munches the way she speaks, neatly and with a level stare.
Finally, much to Armin’s obvious relief, they start the game. Although Bertolt gets dropped into a totally foreign world with a bunch of other players who have been working in the same campaign for a few months, to his surprise, it’s not awkward.
When they get into their first battle, no one gets annoyed when has to ask what rolling for initiative means, or which die to roll. (He finally gets the d20 joke he’s seen on nerdy t-shirts.) When someone says he needs to roll a d6 for damage because he has his successful first hit, there’s cheering. Even Armin laughs, distracted from the storyline, as he rolls for the monster they’re fighting and announces its demise.
He feels a sense of kinship that he’s not expecting as Eren jumps up in semi-drunken excitement to clap Bertolt on the back enthusiastically, telling him his move was “bad ass,” and Marco and Mikasa immediately roll search checks to find any items in the room with the defeated monster.
Friendships have never come easily to Bertolt.
“That was so cool, Bertl,” Reiner says with a grin as he moves closer to peer at Bertolt’s character sheet, looking over his stats. He shoots a look over at Marco and Mikasa who are involved in tallying up the treasure they found in the cavern and figuring out the bag of holding (another joke Bertolt finally understands), and Eren is busy retrieving more chips since Mikasa has polished off the bowl.
“Hey,” Reiner says quietly, still grinning and bumping Bertolt’s foot under the table, “so are you having fun?”
There’s a hint of worry on his face, as if he’s afraid he’s dragged Bertolt into an awkward situation; but it fades immediately as Bertolt smiles a little.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, hunching over a little since he feels silly about Reiner worrying if he can handle a simple game of D&D.
It’s not that Bertolt can’t handle social interaction; he just chooses not to most of the time, and he avoids group activities if he can help it. It’d taken Reiner a month to convince him to at least give the campaign a shot.
The thing that had won him over had occurred a few months before one night as they’d been sitting on the roof of Reiner’s house, watching fireworks. It had been the Fourth of July, and regardless of the fact that Bertolt didn’t care much for fireworks or any kind of major display of fanfare, Reiner wouldn’t miss it for the world. Even since they had been kids, they’d compromised by staying a safe distance away where they were set off at the middle school soccer field, but staying on Reiner’s roof which was close enough that it was like ringside seats.
“Hey,” Reiner had said thoughtfully, taking a long sip of his third beer as Bertolt nursed his first, “you ever think about being someone else?”
Bertolt cocked his head to the side, surprised at the uncharacteristic pessimism. “You mean,” he’d hesitated, trying to choose his words carefully, “as in, you don’t like yourself?”
Reiner had just chuckled, though, in that bemused way he did when he Bertolt said strange things, and crushed the empty beer can in his fist. “No, not like that. I like myself fine. I mean, what if you could be someone totally different?”
“Uh, I guess that would be cool.” Bertolt had secretly thought many times what it would be like to be someone completely different; unlike Reiner, the jury is still out on whether he likes himself.
“Because…” Reiner had said, waiting a beat to increase the anticipation, “that’s what you do in D&D!”
“This again?” Bertolt had groaned, sighing as tugged at the t-shirt sticking to his skin. It had been a hot summer.
“I know you’re not into big groups,” Reiner had replied, his voice almost desperate, “but it’s really cool. And it’d be nice to hang out with you more.” The last part, Reiner had said sheepishly, as if it was embarrassing to admit.
Bertolt had just swallowed hard, surprised at Reiner’s candidness. The truth was that they hadn’t seen as much of each other since Reiner had gotten a job straight out of college, and Bertolt was still stuck living at home with his mother and fat, elderly cat.
There was a sigh, a long sip of beer, and finally, Bertolt caved. “How many people are there again?”
Reiner had practically whooped and hollered, causing his mother who was downstairs in the house to bang on the roof, but he had grinned like a maniac. “Only three other players, and Armin is the DM.”
“DM?”
“Dungeon master.”
“Wow, that sounds sort of…” Bertolt’s face heated, but he couldn’t resist, “kinky.”
That had earned a bark of laughter out of Reiner—possibly one of the only people who wasn’t surprised by Bertolt’s quiet sense humor—and he’d reached into the small cooler next to them to retrieve another beer.
“Being someone else can be kind of fun,” Reiner had said after a few moments of silence and just as the grand finale of the fireworks began, tiny sparkles flailing off at the edge of the explosions, “whether you like yourself or not.”
And so, after a few more months of pestering and scheduling conflicts, Bertolt had finally come along to one of the sessions.
They play for several more hours after that, and Bertolt picks up the dice system easily; he even cracks open a beer, feeling unexpectedly comfortable. The group dynamic is a good one, and Armin leads the game easily, guiding them in the right direction and making up settlements and coincidental conflicts as they travel.
Bertolt’s still not sure what the goal of the story is, but then again, he’s not sure there is one beyond, “Find a new bounty and fight some monsters.” Knowing Armin—which Bertolt does, even though they don’t talk much one-on-one—he has a bigger plot up his sleeve, though. Being a DM suits him perfectly.
“Man,” Eren complains, resting his head in his hand and looking downright pouty, “Pinky Pie is thirsting for blood. I haven’t cleaved onto anything in days.”
Mikasa rolls her eyes, giving Marco a long-suffering look, and he just snorts. “I think Pinky Pie should lay off the booze,” Armin deadpans.
Even Bertolt laughs at that as Eren looks back and forth between them, as if unsure of whether to retaliate with his own sharp-tongued comment, but apparently concedes defeat, taking a sulky sip of what ends up being his last beer for the night.
It’s nearly midnight when they agree to wrap up within a half hour, and it’s then that Armin springs something nasty on them.
“The forest on the way to Trost is thick and leafy,” Armin narrates, his voice easy to listen to. “It’s not quite dark yet, but late afternoon. Do you want to keep going to Trost before we wrap?”
“Yeah,” Mikasa says, eyeing Armin suspiciously. Something is about to happen.
“But…” Armin continues curtly, sound pleased with himself, “there’s a slight rustle, and… Eren! Roll a spot check.”
Eren, who has been half dozing up until that moment, immediately jumps to attention in his chair, eyes wide and alert. “What’s going on?”
“I guess you should pay attention, huh? Minus two penalty to your spot check for sleeping during the game.”
“I’m not sleeping!” Eren exclaims, looking genuinely outraged. “That’s totally—”
Armin rolls his eyes, holding a d20 out to Eren with an exasperated look. “I’m joking, Eren. Just roll the die.”
Eren mumbles to himself as he rolls, but he looks at Armin suspiciously; Bertolt can feel something is awry, since Mikasa, Marco, and Reiner all look a little faint.
“Uh,” Reiner says, looking around the table as Eren throws the die onto the battered linoleum surface, “is everyone rested up?”
Thankfully, they’d pitched camp the night before. Bertolt learned about “watches,” and how Armin was a DM who actually took them seriously, since they’d been ambushed in the night by a low level monster.
“Yup,” Mikasa replies, looking at her character sheet intently, flipping it over to scan a list made neatly in pencil, and then back to the other side. She’s already prepared with a d20 and two d8s—or, in other words, at the ready to roll for a battle.
The die rolls to a stop on the table, and they all just stare at the one.
“Fuck!” he exclaims, scrambling for his own character sheet. Then, though, he gets a maniacal grin on his face, and he gives Armin the universal sign for ‘come at me, bro.’ “Pinky Pie is ready to do some cleaving!”
Armin snorts a little—not a good sign, since Bertolt may be quiet, but he’s actually rather adept at reading people—and rolls his own dice behind his Dungeon Master handbook.
“You don’t see anything,” he says, looking at Eren levelly, though obviously gloating a little. “In fact, you step right into a trap, and… everyone roll for initiative.”
“Eren,” Marco groans, rolling his eyes as he rolls a d20, “what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Eren protests, pointing at Armin. “It’s his fault!”
“Roll a reflex save, Pinky Pie.”
Eren grumbles, but looks to be in a better mood when he passes his grapple check with a high roll boosted by his modifier to escape the trap.
“Twenty-six,” Mikasa declares, putting her first in the order of who gets to attack.
“Five,” Marco choruses miserably, last on the roster.
“Fourteen,” Reiner says, concentrating on his character sheet. “Man, I hope this thing isn’t fast.”
Bertolt rolls an average fifteen himself, but it’s upped to a healthy twenty.
“Twenty,” he declares, and then when everyone looks at him expectantly, he hides behind his mostly-empty beer and adds, “not natural.”
“I’ll tell you what’s not natural,” Marco mumbles, a laugh barely hidden, “Armin springing this on us fifteen minutes before we said we’d leave.”
Armin laughs, a little too evil and self-satisfied for how well groomed and polite he’s always appeared, and Bertolt wonders who Armin would be outside of a D&D game. Maybe god.
The beer must be going to his head.
“Reiner,” Armin says suddenly, “roll a reflex save.”
“Shit!” Reiner groans woefully, rolling the nearest d20 miserably. “I suck at reflex saves.”
“Don’t they all use a d20?” Bertolt asks curiously as he watches the die land on a five.
“Yeah, but I suck at getting out of sticky situations,” he replies, shaking his head. “It’s because I’m the hero in this group.”
Mikasa snorts. “Pure as the driven snow, except that one time you massacred a priest.”
“That was an accident!” Reiner cries, and Bertolt tries not to laugh at how legitimately vehement he is about it. “I thought he was a shape shifter!”
“A sticky web surrounds you,” Armin says as he rolls his own dice, raising an eyebrow. “A shadowy presence descends from the trees.”
“Oh, no!” Marco exclaims suddenly, a grim look on his face. “It’s an Ettercap.”
“At least it’s not Pinky Pie finally turning to the dark side,” Mikasa mutters, and Marco laughs. “He’d kill us all in one turn.”
“It’s not my fault I haven’t had an opportunity to show my full potential!” Eren retorts, jamming his finger into his character sheet. “I need to cleave.”
“Guys,” Reiner shouts above the din of banter, “I’m stuck! Don’t let this thing eat me!”
“Let the thing eat him,” Eren deadpans. “He’s the hero, so that means he has to die.”
Marco and Mikasa look at each other. “Betrayal,” Mikasa says simply.
“Total betrayal,” Marco echoes. “It’s probably going to have spiders, guys.”
“Ugh,” Bertolt shivers, making a disgusted sound that causes everyone to turn in surprise. “I hate spiders.”
This seems to inspire a sudden spirit within the group, and Mikasa straightens in her seat. “Bertolt’s right. Let’s kill them.”
Mikasa and Marco don’t make any terrible rolls in the battle, and get lucky a few times with Mikasa’s uncanny ability to roll nat 20s; they fend off the spiders, but soon, it becomes apparent that it’s going to take more than a few good rolls to save Reiner.
“Shit,” Marco curses uncharacteristically, “I’m poisoned and losing HP every turn. You guys have got to kill these spiders!”
“My melee attacks aren’t as good as the ranged weapons,” Mikasa retorts, a hint of actual frustration in her voice as her attack roll completely fails to hit. “I’m trying!”
On Eren’s turn, Bertolt does have to admit that he’s useful as he finally takes out a spider, and cleaves onto the two adjacent ones, eliminating three enemies in one turn.
“Suddenly, you see another shadowy figure,” Armin pipes in, and they all turn to him, agape.
“Did I do something to piss you off today?” Eren blurts out, his mouth falling open as he stares at Armin. Armin just smiles at him.
“It’s the mate,” Marco explains grimly, “and it’s probably bringing more spiders.”
“You do, in fact, see four smaller figures with the approaching one,” Armin confirms.
“Should we flee?” Mikasa asks, raising an eyebrow.
“We can’t leave Reiner!” Bertolt exclaims more passionately than he first intended. “Colossus can do something!”
“Colossus is right!” Marco agrees, seemingly heartened. “Braun Steel hasn’t escaped the trap yet.”
Fact is, Reiner has failed his grapple check twice now to escape the trap.
Fact is, Bertolt feels more powerful than he ever has in real life, and for once—even though it’s a little silly since they’re playing a game—he can save Reiner.
“It’s my turn, right? Are the spiders and the Eggercup, or whatever it’s called, near enough for me to attack?”
Armin nods, obviously intrigued by this turn of events. While it’s obvious he’s not out to kill the party, he’s obviously taking great delight in teaching Eren a lesson for bitching about killing things and derailing the progress of the game, then falling asleep.
“I’m going to cast…” he starts, looking around. Marco hands over the Player’s Handbook, already opened to the page of druid spells. As he runs his finger down the page, skimming the different spell effects, he stops on one. “I’m going to cast Spike Growth!” he declares.
Armin raises his eyebrows, and he actually looks somewhat impressed. “Okay, cool. Since they’re all still in close proximity, that spell will hit all of them.”
They all hold their breath as Armin’s dice clatter against the table behind his book as he rolls the saves for each enemy, and then looks up at Bertolt. “All of them failed their reflex save except one, which comes directly at you. The rest are hit. Roll damage.”
Someone shoves a die excitedly into his hand. “Fuck yeah, Colossus!” comes Eren’s excited voice. “Roll the d4 four times for damage on each enemy!”
Bertolt rolls and inflicts some decent damage on each creature, before the turn ends and moves to Marco.
“Fuck it,” Marco says, uncharacteristically foul-mouthed, but looking brave, “I’m going for the spider.” He’s a little pale as he rolls for his attack, and then looks somewhat relieved as it lands on a nineteen.
“Roll for damage,” Armin says, sounding transfixed more than gleeful now.
“I crit on nineteen!” Marco crows. “Even with this stupid shortspear!” He rolls more dice than Bertolt has seen before now, and literally yells as they both land on eight. “Sixteen damage!”
Armin laughs a little, the sound of a pencil scratching across paper making them all grin. “The spider basically explodes, and the other ones are still hurting and moving slowly through the spikes.”
After that, all it takes is Mikasa and Eren a few rolls to wipe out the other monsters, and suddenly it’s one in the morning, and Bertolt realizes they’ve been playing for nearly six hours.
“Okay,” Armin says, closing his notebook with a yawn, “I think this is a good place to stop.”
There’s a little grumbling, but Armin’s yawn seems to be contagious as everyone suddenly starts blinking heavily.
“So, see you next week?” Armin asks, looking back and forth between Bertolt and Reiner. If Bertolt’s not mistaken, he almost looks… hopeful.
“Um,” Bertolt murmurs, “yeah, I’d come along again.”
“Nice spell cast, Bertolt!” Marco enthuses from the doorway where he’s pulling on his jacket. “I mean, Colossus!” He grins, looking almost exactly the same as Bertolt remembers him in high school.
“Yeah,” Mikasa confirms softly, “that was a good move.”
“You guys want a ride?” Marco offers. “Jean is picking us up in a few minutes.”
“No, that’s okay,” Reiner replies to Bertolt’s relief. “I drove, and Bertl’s on my way.”
“See you next week?” Marco asks, looking at Bertolt with that same hopeful expression. “This was an awesome session!”
“Yeah,” Bertolt replies, more confident this time. “Thanks for inviting me.”
“He doesn’t have a choice!” Reiner grins, clapping Bertolt on the shoulder. “He saved me, so now he’s invested.”
Bertolt laughs softly, allowing Reiner’s hand to sit on his shoulder. It’s reassuring in its weight, and he shrugs slightly; Reiner doesn’t move his hand, and just lets it stay there.
In the car on the way back to their neighborhood, Bertolt looks idly out the window, watching as streetlights pass. It’s a comfortable silence, until he finally speaks up.
“I guess I should buy some dice.”
Reiner grins, teeth flashing, before patting Bertolt’s shoulder again from across the armrest. “Let’s go tomorrow.”
Bertolt smiles a little; somewhere in his mind, it seems like his new character is smiling too.