Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s the fucking nerdiest possible thing they could have done, which is appropriate, because fucking Gansey came up with it.

He gets it - probably more than everyone else in their shitty little friend group, he fucking gets it. Sitting trapped inside for days, weeks, months on end, only venturing out for groceries, wearing a mask, using enough hand sanitizer to make his Goddamn palms crack, something something “flatten the curve,” something something “social distancing,” something something “this administration’s response to the pandemic was completely inadequate and directly allowed the disease to spread and become the national health crisis that it is today,” etc. etc. ad nauseum - he gets it. He doesn’t know how Adam can stand staying informed all the time, impassively scrolling through the noise and the static of news sites and social media, casually pointing out some completely bonkers factoid that makes Ronan’s head spin. To stare, unblinking, into the void of existence and hold its gaze - it’s impressive at times, deeply terrifying at others - a very Adam™ characteristic, in other words.

Quarantine started off well enough - classes shifting online meant Adam shifting back to the Barns, where the room and food is plentiful, the rent non-existent, and the internet fast and boosted through vaguely supernatural means that Ronan still doesn’t understand, even though he’s the one who pulled it out of his own fucking head. He remembers reading an article about family dogs who are overjoyed to get to spend more time with their owners than ever before - how fucking relatable, he’d thought at the time. Yet another thing he gets. His whole schtick is fucking getting it, apparently.

If Ronan is honest, he’d totally underestimated this quarantine shit - not that he’ll ever admit it out loud. He’d thought it would be perfect - spend a few weeks in the Barns curled up with his boyfriend, milking his cows, and probably binging everything there is to see on Netflix - all fine and dandy to Ronan. He’ll even make popcorn, if Adam asks nicely.

And for the first couple of weeks, things went exactly as planned - he’d certainly spent more than enough time curled up on a couch, his head on Adam’s lap and his eyes glued to a TV screen, stuck on every B-list movie made between now and the beginning of filmmaking, probably. Except a couple of weeks turned into a couple of months turned into an existential nightmare, and a week or two into May, he inexplicably found himself hunched over next to one of his barns staring at his hands that feel too big and his legs that feel too long and his body that feels too broad and his face that feels too big and -

He’s no stranger to existential dread - he’s been doggedly pursued by the same all-consuming void of terror since he was, like, fucking twelve, probably. The difference, now, is that none of his usual coping mechanisms are available to him - he can’t go run around in a magical forest with his friends because Cabeswater isn’t there anymore and his friends don’t want to catch the plague, he can’t hit the few spots in town that he hasn’t gotten permanently banned from because he doesn’t want to catch the plague, and he can’t go driving around very fast anymore because if he gets into a car crash now, he’ll have to go to the hospital, and some poor, overworked nurse is going to have to waste their time stitching him back together instead of dealing with the fucking plague, and also Adam would probably dump him. He has no clue why Adam would dump him for that, but if Ronan’s honest, Adam should probably dump him anyway, the fuck does he contribute to this relationship - and there’s yet another line of thought that Ronan has been stubbornly ignoring -

In any case, the point is that the warning signs were there. Whatever’s going on inside his head, clearly, he’s not operating at the highest levels of sanity, because when Gansey video chats them and tells them about this “cool role-playing game that he’s always wanted to try” and “they all have an abundance of time anyway” and Sargent’s in the background, humming along to some shitty pop song, and even fucking Cheng is there with his stupid ass smile and his stupidier assier hair -

- staying inside for so long must have fundamentally broken him, because he looks Gansey straight in his pixelated face and says “sure.”

“Honestly, it sounds kind of fun,” says Adam.

“This is the deepest and most painful betrayal I have ever experienced in my fucking life,” says Ronan.

Adam just laughs at him, turning back to face the television.

“Come on,” says Ronan, only slightly pouting. “I was counting on you being all like ‘oh sorry, no, I can’t play this shitty game, I’m too busy working my fucking ass off being a full time student and also a mechanic or whatever the fuck.’”

“It’s summer break, Ronan,” says Adam. “And I’m trying this sick new trend that I heard about on campus called ‘having a work life balance,’ you may have heard of it before?”

Ronan groans, rubbing at his eyes - as much as he doesn’t want to play this stupid ass fucking game, he can’t in good conscious discourage Adam from working less. “Ok,” he says, not even that sarcastically. “Great, that’s - fucking fantastic or something, absolutely keep doing that - but can you just, like, not tell Gansey that so we can pretend you’re too busy?”

Adam’s smile turns wry. “Unfortunately for you, I’m trying out this other sick new hot trend I learned at college, it’s called ‘actually trying things that I think might be fun or enjoyable.’”

Ronan growls, flopping angrily onto the couch next to Adam. “How dare you have actual fucking valid reasons for wanting to play that I would never in a million years discourage.”

“It’s sweet how much you prioritize my needs,” says Adam, patting him on the head gently - Ronan leans into the touch. “Why don’t you just tell Gansey you changed your mind and you don’t want to play anymore?”

Ronan sighs. “Then he’ll be all fucking sad and disappointed,” he says. “And it’ll be awkward every time we call, and then he won’t call me anymore, and then I won’t have anyone left to talk to except for you - no offense.”

Adam hums. “If he doesn’t want to call you, you could always just call him first instead -”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not, I will not be fucking doing that.”

Adam rolls his eyes.

Ronan grumbles irritably in response. “Since when are you into D&D anyway?”

“Some of my friends play in college,” says Adam, shrugging. “It sounded - kind of fun. And it’s not like I have anything better to do at the moment.”

Ronan snuggles closer to Adam. “Goddamnit,” he says. “What was I thinking?”

“I don’t know Ronan - I’m not that kind of psychic,” says Adam gently, idly reaching down to stroke the side of Ronan’s head soothingly. “I’m not privy to the inner workings of your mind.”

Ronan sighs, trying to let himself relax under Adam’s ministrations. He feels - wound up somehow, like someone’s pumped him full of manic, nervous energy. He brushes his cheek against Adam’s thigh, feels his stubble prickle into him, clasps at Adam’s hand with his own that feels too big and clumsy.

“Sometimes I wish you were,” he admits. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy.”

Adam frowns at him, but stays silent.

Ronan rolls over with a huff. “How are you even supposed to play D&D anyway?” he asks. “Like - what the fuck do you even do?”

“Well,” says Adam considerately. “It’s a tabletop roleplaying game. So I assume you...roleplay? I don’t really know, to be honest.”

“‘Roleplay?’” Ronan parrots, confused. “You mean, like - when I pretend to be a professor and spank you?”

“No, not that kind of - well -” Adam cuts himself off with a considerate hum. “I don’t know actually. I’ve heard you can seduce people.”

“Wait,” says Ronan. “You can seduce people?”

“I think so,” says Adam. “I vaguely remember one of my friends saying something to that effect.”

“You mean, like - people who aren’t me?” says Ronan.

Adam gives him a look. “I’d assume so, but -”

Ronan sits up. “Alright, how the fuck do I play?”

“Ok,” says Adam with a sigh. “Well -”

The Kingdom of Aurelia was once a beautiful, peaceful land, blessed by the gods with fertile soil and bountiful harvests. The people there lived in peace and harmony, protected by the good King Owain, who’s strength and intelligence led the country into a golden age of prosperity. However - even the greatest of men are subject to the passage of time. In the king’s advanced age, his power slowly began to wane, and with it went his ability to defend the kingdom from invaders.

These shifts in power did not go unnoticed. To the east of Aurelia, the Zadakar Empire, envious of Aurelian wealth and sensing weakness amongst its leadership, launched a surprise invasion, laying waste to the countryside. Villages burned - cities were sacked - crops rotted in the fields alongside the bodies meant to harvest them. The Aurelian knights mounted a valiant defense - but were overwhelmed, forced into a disgraceful retreat. The forces of Zadakar fought viciously - perhaps, even preternaturally so - with a terrible might that left their foes shattered and broken. Spurred forward by their emperor, a powerful and sinister sorcerer named Malekith, they have pushed the remaining Kingdom forces to the brink. The Kingdom army, holding a desperate line just miles from their once magnificent capital, is on the verge of collapse.

Now the emperor has further escalated hostilities - he calls for the immediate surrender of the knights and the execution of the king, or else he will raze the last remnants of Aurelia to the ground. The king’s advisors, in desperation, have called upon adventurers from across the land to embark on a most dangerous quest: kill the emperor, halt the enemy advance, and save the king’s life -

“Hold up, why do we have to save the king?” says Blue. “I would just let him die.”

“I -” Gansey pauses, clearly surprised. “What? You’d let the king die?”

“If it would get the evil empire to spare the common folk, then sure, I’d guillotine the bitch myself,” says Blue nonchalantly.

“What - Jane!” Gansey protests. “Wait, hang on - you guys can’t just let the king die! Right?!”

“Is the king hot?” says Henry.

“I -” Gansey stutters. “No? I mean - he’s really old, remember? He’s probably in his seventies or something -”

“Gross,” says Henry. “I agree with Blue - let’s guillotine the bitch.”

Gansey gives Henry an exasperated look. “You mean you wouldn’t have guillotined him if he was hot?”

“Of course not,” says Henry. “I’d have slept with him first. Then I’d have slit his throat in his sleep, stole all of his money, and redistributed it to the working class of the country.”

“Guys -” Gansey sputters. “This is the good king. You’re not supposed to kill the good one -”

“That’s an oxymoron,” says Blue. “Monarchies have a long legacy of repression and imperialism and, like all forms of autocracy, are inherently unjust because they concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few, perpetuating social stratification and inequality among citizens.”

“Jane -”

“Also, all the western monarchies were racist as shit,” says Henry.

“And sexist,” adds Blue.

Gansey sighs. “This is a fantasy world, ok?” he says. “If it can have dragons and fireballs and fairies, then it can have a monarchy that is actually just and fair and isn’t a drain on its people and doesn’t lead to massive income inequality and gives rights to women and marginalized communities -”

“Unrealistic. Blocked.”

“But -”

“I do not see it,” says Blue, raising her hands to cover her eyes.

Gansey sighs, turning to look at Ronan and Adam through the webcam. “Any help here?”

“Hey, don’t fucking look at me,” says Ronan passively, examining the tops of his nails. “I’m leaning ‘Team Guillotine’ at the moment.”

“Are you serious?”

“Eat the rich,” says Adam, making a peace sign with his hands, his face completely deadpan.

Gansey glares at him. “You’re currently dating the rich.”

Adam maintains his gaze. “The two are not mutually exclusive.”

“He’s eaten this dick before, does that count?” says Ronan.

Gansey lets his face fall into his hands, though the sound of his sigh is swallowed by Henry and Blue’s whooping noises. Ronan makes finger guns at them, grinning roguishly, pointedly ignoring Adam’s kick at his shin.

Gansey tries again, his voice bordering on desperation. “Guys, we literally binge-watched The Dragon Prince together, remember? You all liked it - and what is the setting of that show if not the wildly inaccurate western monarchy that I just described?”

“Gansey, sweetheart, you’re overthinking it - it’s not that complicated,” says Blue, patting Gansey on the arm. “We just want to guillotine the bitch because we think it’ll be funny.”

“You can’t just -” Gansey cuts himself off with a groan. “You can’t just guillotine the king because you think it’ll be funny!”

“Why not?” says Blue. “I thought we could do whatever we wanted in this game.”

“I mean - you can -”

“Well I want to guillotine the bitch.”

Gansey sighs. “Look - as much as D&D is about things like ‘player freedom’ and ‘dynamic worlds’ and stuff, I’ve kind of been working on this campaign for a while, and it was sort of reliant on you not killing the good king, and it’d take a lot of work to rework everything to facilitate -”

“So in other words, you’re too lazy to do the work.”

“What - I am not lazy -”

“How typical of a member of the aristocracy,” says Henry with a haughty sniff. “Unwilling to do the work while we, the starving masses, toil away in destitution -”

“Henry, you are also a rich person.”

“I say we unionize!” says Blue, slamming her fist onto the table.

“Jane - you can’t unionize a D&D group, that’s not -”

“The NLRA says otherwise, I know my rights,” says Blue. “I, Blue Sargent, hereby call the first meeting of the Gangsey D&D Players Union to order. All in favor of a general strike to secure the right to guillotine the fucking king, raise your hands.”

Every hand in the call except Gansey’s goes up.

Gansey throws his head back in exasperation. “Are you serious -”

“Guil-lo-tine! Guil-lo-tine!” Blue starts chanting. Henry takes up the chant as well, slamming his fist against the desk with each syllable, shaking the camera. “Guil-lo-tine! Guil-lo-tine -”

Gansey throws his hands up in exasperation. “You know what - fine! To hell with it. You can try to guillotine both the king and the emperor and establish an anarcho-socialist utopia, sure. Let me just -” he flips a couple pages in his notebook, pulling his pencil back out. “- I just have to work that into the campaign. Somewhere.”

“Hell yeah, baby,” crows Henry triumphantly. “Madame Guillotine hungers for the blood of oppressors!”

“Henry, you’re literally just as rich as - you know what, nevermind,” says Gansey with a sigh.

Adam turns away from their bickering to look at Ronan. “Is it weird that I’m actually kind of excited about this?” he asks quietly.

“About what? Unionizing and guillotining the fucking rich?” says Ronan, giving Adam a look back. He frowns. “Should I be worried?”

“I’ll make sure you’re well seasoned before I eat you,” says Adam, with a tiny laugh that makes Ronan’s heart skip a beat. “No - about D&D.”

“Oh,” says Ronan. He shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. Who cares?”

“I don’t know, it’s just kind of weird,” says Adam, looking bashful. “I know you think I’m a nerd, but I’ve never thought of myself as that kind of nerd. You know?”

“Who gives a shit,” says Ronan. “Just do whatever’s fun.”

Adam huffs. “Maybe you’re not wrong,” he says.

“When am I ever wrong?” says Ronan.

Adam gives him a look.

Ronan’s face quirks back into a frown. “Ok - fair. But you don’t have to be so fucking rude about it.”

Adam tabs out of their video call, flatly ignoring Blue and Gansey’s continued bickering, and opens up Google Chrome. “Alright,” he says, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s see how this D&D thing works.”

His quarantine habits have fallen so far that he’s even resorted to watching stupid fucking videos on the internet to pass the time.

He’s fairly partial to cute farm animal compilations, for obvious reasons - pigs and sheep and cows with big, shiny eyes, rolling around in the grass or dirt or otherwise making a nuisance of themselves. He’s kind of jealous, to be honest - he misses being able to go out in public and minorly inconvenience everyone around him, as opposed to being a literal potential vector for a fucking plague.

The annoying thing about watching shitty internet videos are the ads that play before the videos - he actually hates them, if he’s honest. They range from harmless to insipid to actively detrimental to his health - from telling him to support local businesses by ordering food at a fucking Chili’s to demanding that he drop everything and buy a house or start a small business in the middle of the worst financial crisis of the twenty-first century - and while Ronan isn’t exactly averse to borderline stupid decisions, he’s more of a “build a ramp on the roof and see how far you can launch yourself on a bicycle” kind of guy, not a “risk your family fortune on the dumbest business venture you’ve ever fucking heard of” kind of guy.

There’s one commercial in particular that gets under Ronan’s skin - though, if he’s honest - and he’s always honest - he’s not entirely sure why it bothers him so much. It seems innocuous enough in concept, at least - a man shows up on his screen with a reasonably priced razor and some off-rock soundtrack to tell him to buy his shit so he can fucking shave his pubes for the ladies, or something.

Honestly, it’s not even the worst idea he’s heard of - getting relatively affordable shaving products dropped off at your front door seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do in the middle of a pandemic. And yet, there’s just something about it - the delivery, or the tone, or even just the general vibe - that makes his fucking skin crawl. He runs his hand over his own stubbly chin self consciously.

“It’s time to tackle that tangle you have there,” says the spokesperson, while another man in the background of the shot lifts his armpit to reveal a cartoonishly exaggerated mess of frothy armpit hair. “Man up! Cut that jungle down to size -”

He clicks the “Skip Ad” button - all things aside, the most annoying part about it is that it’s getting between him and this video of a pig that’s going to eat some lettuce.

He doesn’t know why it’s surprising to him that Adam is going about this in the most Adam™ way possible, but when he finds the strange package he didn’t order on his front doorstep and opens it to see a D&D player guidebook, a monster manual, a set of iridescent blue dice, and an honest to God mini-magician figurine, he’s still surprised.

Adam whacks the back of his head. “Don’t open my stuff without my permission.”

“Fuck!” says Ronan, rubbing the spot Adam just whacked. “Come on! How was I supposed to know it was yours?”

Adam points at the package. “It has my name on it?”

“You know I don’t fucking read things.”

Adam rolls his eyes, lifting the contents of the package off of the table and moving towards the living room. Ronan follows at his heels, only slightly feeling like a lost puppy.

“Is all this stuff for D&D?” says Ronan, frowning slightly. “When I agreed to play, I didn’t realize I’d have to read, like, four fucking textbooks.”

“You don’t really have to read them all,” says Adam. “But Wizards of the Coast seems like one of the less blatantly awful corporations on this planet, and I’ve always preferred physical copies of things. Also, these dice were very pretty.”

Ronan reaches out with his hands, grabbing one of the books at random and flipping it open to a random page. A vaguely horrifying depiction of a one-eyed monster with gross tentacle limbs and the worst smile Ronan has ever seen looks back at him - the text above it labels it as a “Beholder,” whatever that is.

Ronan frowns. “You’re not planning on playing as a - whatever this thing is, right?”

Adam flicks his gaze idly to the page Ronan’s looking at and rolls his eyes. “Ronan, that’s the Monster Manual - it’s all the stuff we might have to fight, not the stuff that I’m going to play as.”

“Oh,” says Ronan. “Well where’s the shit you’re going to play as?”

Adam sighs, flips through the other book until he finds the page he’s looking for. He holds the book out to Ronan and points down at a drawing of a mostly human looking thing, except it’s skin is vaguely blue and it has a tail - the helpful page informs him that it is called a “Tiefling.”

Ronan frowns down at it. “This bitch has tits.”

“Obviously I’m going to be playing as a boy tiefling, Ronan - I was just showing you an example of what the race I chose looks like. Though -” Adam frowns, “- this book doesn’t actually contain the specific class I want to play, so I can’t show you that.”

“What?” says Ronan. “Class? We have to go to D&D school? What do you mean?”

“No, class as in character archetype,” says Adam. He sighs at Ronan’s blank expression. “You know - some people are knights, and some are rogues, and some are paladins, and some are wizards and stuff. Those kinds of classes.”

“Oh,” says Ronan. He picks up the book and starts idly flipping through the pages. “So you’re going to play a magician, right?”

“A warlock, actually,” says Adam. “Though, like I said, this book doesn’t actually contain the one I want to play - I had to Google it.”

Ronan pauses, confused. He flips back a couple of pages. “What do you mean?” he says. He points at the page, a picture of some weird elf looking girl with glowing eyes and staff staring back at him. “There’s a warlock right here.”

“There’s a specific type of warlock I want to play that wasn’t included in the original handbook,” Adam explains. “I think it came out in one of the expansions.”

Ronan blinks, stunned. “This shit has expansion packs?!”

“Sure,” says Adam. “I think the fifth edition has, like, four or five at least.”

“Four or five - wait, there are five editions of D&D?!”

“Ronan, D&D is older than both of us combined,” says Adam, exasperated. “Of course it’s had expansions and changes.”

Ronan sets the book down, mind reeling, his eyes fixed on the absolute mess of tables and charts and numbers and texts explaining what a class is and which dice to roll for which stat and character archetypes and a bunch of other crazy stuff that his eyes completely fail to parse.

“How is someone supposed to keep track of all this stuff?” he says.

“There are character sheets,” says Adam. He reaches down, pulls up some sheets of paper that he had and hands them to Ronan. “You can write down all of your character’s abilities and attributes here, so it’s easy to keep track of.”

Ronan takes a look at them, a look back at the book, and then a look at Adam’s face. “How in the fuck am I going to get the shit from the book and put it on the paper? Like - what the fuck does this shit mean?”

“We’ll help you, obviously,” says Adam, rolling his eyes. “It’s honestly not as hard as it looks - just a lot of memorization.”

Ronan gives Adam a look. “You only started this shit, like, three days ago, how the fuck are you already an expert?”

Adam frowns suddenly, looking troubled.

“What?” asks Ronan.

“You think it’s stupid,” says Adam.

“No I don’t,” says Ronan firmly.

Adam gives him a look. “Yes you do.”

“Ok, fine, I do,” Ronan admits. “But I don’t think it’s stupid for you to be super into it or an expert at it already. I just think it, like, is vaguely stupid. You know?”

Adam sighs. “I hate that that statement actually made sense to me.”

“Well I hate that I was talked into playing this shitty Satan-worshipping game, but we all have fucking problems, I guess,” says Ronan.

“Satan worshipping - don’t tell me you actually buy into that Reagan era Satanic-Panic stuff,” says Adam, rolling his eyes.

“Why wouldn’t I?” says Ronan. “I’m a good fucking Catholic boy, after all.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Oh, suck my dick.”

“Ok,” says Ronan, leaning forward.

Adam smacks his forehead. “Not actually, you dingus.”

He doesn’t milk his cows quite as often these days - for obvious reasons, there’s a huge dairy surplus this year, and he can’t exactly go to the farmer’s market to sell his leftover shit in person right now, so even demand for magical dream milk is down. His fridge is filled to the brim with homemade butter and yogurt and cream - even a few messy attempts at vanilla bean ice cream that ended up a little more “cream” and a little less “ice.” Still, at least once every couple of days or so, he’ll strap on his boots and head out to the barn to give his cows a good fucking squeezing, if nothing else so he has something to do.

Milkshake the cow looks up at him as he enters, flicking her pretty doe eyes at him - he reaches out to pat her snout in response. On the outside she looks like a basically normal cow, but God knows what marvelous and vaguely horrifying mechanics of dream magic make up her insides. Ronan feels like that too sometimes - the skin of a normal human boy stretched tight around a jumbled mess of confused feelings, half-baked impulses, and a propensity for fast cars.

“Hey girl,” he says softly, stroking her face. She looks up at the sound of his voice, her eyes glittering knowingly, as if seeing straight through him - one maelstrom of chaotic dream energy to another.

She moos at him.

Ronan sighs, sets the bucket under her, and gets to work.

He and Adam have taken to using their extra quarantine time to learn to cook.

It was born of practicality more than anything else - there’s only so much food they can order to The Barns before Adam starts frowning at the excessively large delivery costs, and eating out in a restaurant isn’t exactly a feasible option, for obvious reasons. So, spurred forth by some judgemental looks and some even more judgemental words by Adam, Ronan ventures forth behind a veritable shield of masks and hand sanitizer to go grocery shopping.

For very different reasons, neither of them learned how to cook from their parents, which means their first few attempts were miserable at best. Luckily for them, modern American society - while denying them affordable healthcare, accessible education, liveable wages, racial justice, LGBT equality, feasible solutions for the incoming climate catastrophe, and a competent, science based response to a global pandemic - does come with YouTube, which is very helpful for learning how to cook. Can he escape the all-consuming torrent of advertisements for products and services that he has literally no need of inherent to late stage capitalism? No. But can he make some bomb ass mac and cheese? Hell fucking yeah he can.

Emboldened by their recent successes, they’re trying something a little more complicated today - chicken fettuccine alfredo made with homemade cream. It’s an old favorite of Ronan’s, a frequent feature of the dinners of his childhood - though the recipe he and Adam are using isn’t his mom’s, since as far as Ronan knows, his mom never wrote hers down. Ronan tries not to think about it too hard - the thought that he’ll never get to taste her cooking again leaves a strange, empty hole in his stomach.

“Ok,” says Adam, frowning at the recipe he has open on his computer. “The noodles are almost done. Do you have butter?”

Ronan gives Adam a very unimpressed look.

Adam rolls his eyes. “Ok, ok, dumb question. Give me the butter though.”

Ronan hands him the butter. “Do you need me to check if we have fucking water as well?”

Adam purses his lips at him disapprovingly, though the effect is ruined somewhat by the bright pink apron he’s wearing. “If you have time to sass me, you have time to check on the chicken.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” says Ronan, already reaching over to scrape the by now well cooked chicken off the pan and place them off to the side, to be added later. The kitchen is starting to smell delicious in a way that it hasn’t in years - if he closes his eyes, he could imagine it’s his mom behind him, humming faintly as she cooks or cleans or does whatever it was his mom used to do in his rose-tinted memories.

Of course, if he closes his eyes, he won’t be able to see Adam right next to him, mouth quirked in a frown of concentration as he stirs the alfredo sauce, so - it’s a give and take, Ronan supposes.

“It smells good,” he remarks, leaning onto Adam’s shoulder to get a good look at the sauce he’s making.

Adam turns to look at him, a response clearly ready on his tongue - except he pauses when he sees Ronan’s face, a laugh slipping out of his lips instead.

Ronan frowns. “What?”

“How did that even happen?” says Adam. “I’ve been the one stirring the sauce this whole time.”

“What?” says Ronan again, confused.

Instead of responding with words, Adam reaches out, brushing his thumb across Ronan’s face. Ronan leans into the touch instinctively - except Adam pulls his hand back to lift his thumb and show it to Ronan, at which point Ronan realises it’s covered in sauce.

He draws his hand up to his cheek, surprised to find it sticky and wet.

“I literally don’t understand,” says Adam, still laughing a little. “How? You weren’t anywhere near the sauce.”

“Clearly the fucking sauce has it out for me,” says Ronan.

“I guess so,” agrees Adam. He picks up a dish towel from the countertop and starts wiping down Ronan’s face, much to Ronan’s consternation.

“Hey -” Ronan flails out with his arms, trying to stop Adam. “Fucking knock that off!”

“I’m just trying to get the sauce off your face, Ronan,” says Adam with a teasing laugh.

“I can get the sauce off my fucking self,” says Ronan, with a facial expression that is definitely not a pout. “I’m not a fucking baby.”

“Yes, I could tell by your very mature and dignified response,” says Adam rolling his eyes good naturedly. He sighs, casually flicking the towel onto Ronan’s shoulder. “Fine - clean it up yourself like the big boy you clearly are.”

Ronan recoils, feeling stricken all of a sudden.

Adam frowns back. “What?” he asks, looking concerned. “Is something the matter?”

And Ronan has to stop and pause, because - as far as he can tell - no, nothing’s wrong at all. He’s sitting in his kitchen having a fun, relaxing afternoon with his boyfriend, cooking one of his favorite meals for dinner, teasingly getting insulted for getting sauce all over his face, somehow. And yet - he can’t quite shake that niggling feeling in the back of the mind that something is distinctly wrong about this. The image in front of him feels - incomplete at best, like a jigsaw puzzle that’s missing a piece, or an optical illusion, where if he stops and stares at it for long enough -

He reaches out quickly, dips his finger into the sauce and smears it onto Adam’s cheek.

All of the concern falls off of Adam’s face instantly, replaced by what Ronan can easily identify as annoyance. “Are you serious?”

Ronan sticks his finger out and adds another smidge.

Adam rolls his eyes. “Our food will burn.”

Ronan turns off the stove.

Adam sighs, looking put upon. For a moment, he looks like he’s considering just telling Ronan off - and then he reaches out, dips his finger in the sauce, and smears it right onto the tip of Ronan’s nose.

(The kitchen ends up a mess of sauce and butter and noodles strewn about that’s going to be a pain to clean later, though he and Adam ignore that to enjoy what’s left of their dinner.

They gather around the dining table, him and Adam and Opal, plates piled high with noodles and chicken. They don’t taste quite the way they do in his memories, but Adam laughs at him every time he gets so much as a speck of the sauce stuck to his face, and Opal slips pieces of her chicken to Chainsaw in what Ronan assumes is meant to be a sneaky manner, and Ronan -)

These days, the tiefling goes by the name “Absolution”. He’d had a different name, once - one not chosen by him, but by his parents - though he no longer speaks it, nor is there anyone left alive who would speak it for him. There are many within the Zadakar Empire who might call him by a different moniker - infernal, demon, monster, hellspawn - but if you ask him, he’ll tell you that his name is Absolution. No more, no less.

Fate dealt him a cruel hand, as fate is wont to do. He has few memories of his parents, but what few he does are filled with blood, darkness, infernal magic, and pain. Whether his parents were cruel and evil by nature, or whether they were twisted that way by the anger and scorn of others - he knows not. What he does know is that by the age of twelve, he decided to strike out on his own, denying his parents and his infernal heritage in one fell swoop.

But the world is cruel, and there is little reprieve for hellspawn in the empire - even a young one. He almost certainly would have died out there, alone, angry, and bitter at a world filled with nothing but hatred and contempt for him - if not for the watchful eye of a powerful angelic succubus, Morgianna - the Justicar. A former demon herself who, through a great act of kindness, ascended to the astral plane, she felt pity and a sense of kindred spirits with the young tiefling. Descending from her celestial home to visit the child, she offered him a fragment of her power - a power he’d desperately need to survive in this hostile land.

An adult now, Absolution travels from the empire to the kingdom of Aurelia, seeking to use the powers granted to him to right the wrongs of the world - to fight injustice and malice, and to uphold the high-minded ideals of his patron through good deeds and acts of great kindness. His heart, however - hardened and scarred from the scorn and prejudice of others - often finds it difficult to show mercy and tenderness, seeking instead to right the wrongs dealt to him through a more infernal manor: revenge. Absolution struggles to remain in the path of the light, to throw off the spiteful chains of his past, and to finally ascend above the infernal legacy left to him by his parents -

“Holy shit, Adam,” says Blue, staring down at the character sheet.

“Yeah,” says Adam somewhat sheepishly. “I may have gone a little overboard.”

Ronan gives a small frown in Adam’s direction - he’d definitely stayed up until four a.m. working on that character. Ronan knows this for sure, because he’d also stayed up until four a.m., except he’d only been having an existential meltdown.

“I'm honestly kind of fucking insulted," says Blue. “Why the fuck did we let him go first? Now the rest of us are going to look bad.”

Henry perks up. “Is that a challenge I hear?” he says, looking excited. “Is this a competition to see who can make a more dramatic character than Adam's? Because I -”

Blue slaps her hand over Henry’s mouth. “Yeah, anyway, your character’s great, good stuff or whatever the fuck.”

“I agree with Jane,” says Gansey serenely. “You’re character’s really good - I enjoy the emotional complexity. I’d love to see you contend with the personal ramifications of killing the king.”

Adam lifts an eyebrow. “Personal ramifications? There’s nothing personal about it, is there? My character’s never met the Aurelian King.”

“Well - that’s kind of the problem, isn’t it?” says Gansey. “I mean - you seem to be building a sort of light-side/dark-side dichotomy for your character, with kindness and forgiveness as one end of the axis and vengeance and spite as the other.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was going for,” says Adam. “What about it?”

“Since your character is from the empire,” says Gansey, “then the Kingdom isn’t really responsible for the injustices committed against you, right?”

“That seems reasonable,” Adam agrees.

Gansey frowns. “So - if your character is only tempted towards the darker end of the established axis by personal vengeance and anger, and if you’ve established your character as universally advocating for forgiveness and kindness, then - even if it’s justified by monarchies being bad - your character probably wouldn’t want to kill the Aurelian King, would he? He’s not the one who committed the injustices against you, so it can’t be an act of vengeance.”

Adam opens his mouth, closes it, and then opens it again. “Shit.”

“Does that mean no guillotine?” says Blue, frowning. “Do I have to call another union meeting?”

“Well - there’s nothing wrong with just killing the king anyway, really,” says Gansey, quickly placating. “I mean - like we’ve established, monarchies are bad or something. And there’s no requirement that your character has to strictly adhere to their principles - I think a character giving into their darker instincts could make for some interesting roleplay moments.”

“I know,” says Adam with a frown. “But - I kind of wanted to play my character as toeing the line - but never actually crossing it.” He hums, narrowing his eyes, clearly deep in thought. Ronan suppresses the urge to sigh - clearly, this is going to be yet another sleepless night.

“Ok - we can still work with it, it’s no big deal,” says Gansey. “Since we’re committed to guillotining the king, there’s no need for him to be ‘the good king’ anymore - if he’s committing some obvious grave injustice or horror upon his citizens, then I think your character would be well within their rights to remove him for the sake of the people. I just have to come up with a reason -”

“No, no - you keep your world,” says Adam waving him off. “I’m sure I can figure out a way to justify killing the king without it being outside of my character’s morals.” Ronan closes his eyes and silently kisses his chances at sleeping in the same bed as Adam tonight goodbye.

Gansey shrugs. “Suit yourself,” he says. “Anyway - that’s Adam’s character all but done. I know Blue and Henry still haven’t quite finished their characters. Ronan - do you have any ideas for who you’ll be playing?”

Ronan opens his eyes again, turning his gaze away from Adam to look at the camera again. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve decided to name my character Chad Thundercock.”

Adam chokes on his tea. Henry snorts audibly over the call. Blue rolls her eyes. Gansey facepalms.

“Right,” says Gansey, clearly through his gritted teeth. “We’ll work on it.”

Adam turns to him almost the moment they hang up on Gansey. “You’ve been giving me funny looks since practically the moment that call started,” he says. “Is something up?”

“I didn’t think you were about forgiving everyone and being all nice and shit,” Ronan blurts out before he can stop himself.

“I’m not,” says Adam simply. “You of all people should know that I’m not always nice - and that I hold grudges.”

“Oh,” says Ronan. “Then why is your character - like that?”

Adam gives him a look. “Why do you care what my character is like?”

Ronan pauses, unsure how to respond. “I’m just - it’s -” he sighs. “You know.”

“I don’t know, Ronan,” says Adam. “You’re going to have to tell me.”

“...your parents,” Ronan finishes softly.

Adam rolls his eyes, smiling softly. “I’m not going to forgive my parents because my D&D character is nicer than me,” he says. “I just think it’d be fun to play a character like that.”

“Oh,” says Ronan.

The smile disappears off Adam’s face. “I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive them,” he says. “I don’t know if I even want to. But -” he turns to Ronan again, eyes clear. “- I hope you know that if I do ever decide to forgive them, it’ll be because I’m good and ready to. And not because of my D&D character.”

“Oh,” says Ronan softly - not having anything better to say. If he’s honest, he’s still brimming with a million questions, but he doesn’t trust himself to form them correctly into something suitably inoffensive - his mouth has always been particularly bad at that.

Adam huffs out a soft breath. “Anyway - enough about my character already,” he says. “Tell me about your character, Chad Thundercock.”

“Uhh,” Ronan starts, caught off guard for some reason. “His name’s Chad Thundercock.”

“Ok?” says Adam.

“He has a massive cock,” says Ronan.

“...ok?”

“That’s all I’ve got so far.”

Adam sighs. “You know what, that one’s on me. I don’t know what else I expected.”

He wakes up late into the morning, groggily reaching over with his hand to try to start his day with his usual quarantine quotidian dose of snuggling Adam and watching funny animal videos, only to find both his laptop and his boyfriend missing from their usual spots.

He stumbles sleepily out of the bedroom to see Adam sprawled out like a cat on the couch, Ronan’s laptop in front of him. Adam gives him an apologetic smile.

“Sorry,” he says. “My laptop is updating, so I nicked yours.”

“My life is nothing but suffering,” says Ronan, plopping himself down next to Adam so he can lean on him. “I can’t believe you made me walk, like, four feet out of my bedroom to get a fucking hug.”

“Aww, poor baby, I’m so sorry,” says Adam, rolling his eyes, not looking at him. Ronan peers at the screen, curious to see what has Adam out of bed (and consequently out of arm’s reach) before noon. He’s both surprised and completely unsurprised to find what is clearly a video of a group of people all playing D&D on his computer screen.

He looks back up at Adam. “You’re really getting into this D&D shit, huh?”

“I just want to see what a campaign is like,” says Adam, somewhat defensively. “Is it a crime to do research these days?”

“Hey, I’m not accusing you of anything,” says Ronan, lifting his hands placatingly. “Just a fucking observation.”

“Alright everyone, roll for initiative,” comes the voice from Ronan’s laptop speakers. The sound of several dice roll follow, as each player starts calling out a series of numbers, and Ronan has absolutely no clue what’s going on.

“I’ll be honest,” says Adam, curling up a little bit. “I’m actually really excited about this D&D thing.”

“Wow, really?” says Ronan, very politely. “I never would have fucking guessed.”

Adam smacks him anyway. “I’m trying to have a vulnerable moment where I’m open and honest about my interests here.”

“Ok, ok,” says Ronan, fending off Adam’s hands. “Tell me why you’re so interested in D&D so I can, I don’t know, validate you, or whatever the fuck.”

“You’re terrible at this,” says Adam with a sigh. “It’s just nice to have something to work towards for fun for a change.”

“Yeah?” says Ronan.

“I’ve spent a lot of time working, obviously, but none of that was fun,” says Adam. “It was all just stuff I had to do to get away from my parents. I haven’t really -” he pauses, huffing out a breath. “I haven’t really done a lot of things just for fun.”

Ronan squeezes his arms around Adam tighter.

“So - I don’t know. It’s silly, I guess,” Adam continues. “It’s just nice to be able to spend my time and effort towards something I want to do, instead of something I have to do. You know?”

Ronan stays silent, keeping his arms around Adam’s waist. For a moment, he and Adam sit together in silence, curled up in eachother, with only the sounds of the D&D podcast Adam had been watching in between.

“I attack the goblin on the left with my bow!” calls out one of the players.

The person in the middle behind the little trifold with the monster on it nods. “Roll to make an attack, please -”

“I love you,” says Ronan. He presses his chin into the crown of Adam’s head. “So fucking much.”

Adam’s hands rise as he sets them down on top of where Ronan’s arms wrap around his midriff.

“That’s a hit! calls out the person in the video. “Roll for damage -”

“I love you too,” comes Adam’s response, delicate and fragile in the still morning air. He leans backwards, pressing himself against Ronan, soft and pliant in Ronan’s arms -

The video’s interrupted by an ad.

“Goddamnit,” says Adam, sitting up, breaking Ronan’s hold on him in the process - Ronan fumbles at him ungracefully in response. “I hate midroll ads.”

Ronan sits up as well, about to say something in response - though he cuts himself off at the familiar sound of the ad.

“Hey, fellas!” comes the gruff, overly masculine voice. “Is your face fuzz getting too hot to handle? Is your chest too furry for the lady you love?”

Ronan frowns, his hand self-consciously rising to scratch at his chin stubble.

“It’s time to tackle that tangle you have there,” the ad continues. “Man up! Cut -”

Adam hits the skip button. “Christ,” he says, leaning back down to flop into Ronan’s side, “why was that ad so loud?”

Ronan says nothing, carefully angling his face so that his chin won’t be brushing up against Adam’s head.

Adam turns his attention back to the screen in front of him. “You need to get adblock,” he notes.

Ronan nods faintly.

Adam frowns up at him. “Are you - ok?”

Ronan starts, shaking himself out of his stupor. “Yeah -” he says, turning his attention back to the video on the screen, “- yeah. I’m fine.”

“You pull out your bow and loose an arrow in the direction of your enemy,” drones his computer as the D&D video continues. “Your arrow flies over the battlefield and lodges itself into the goblins heart -” the person narrating cuts themself off to make a horrible, high pitched screeching noise as they reach over and flip the little goblin figure over. “And it falls over dead!”

Ronan turns to Adam. “You think Gansey’ll make noises like that?”

“God, I sure hope so,” says Adam with a laugh.

chad thundercock was born in some fuck off village in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, probably, who cares. his defining characteristic is that he has a massive dick. it’s like 15 inches. it’s fucken huge. he uses it to rail his beautiful and amazing smokin hot boyfriend who can’t shut the fuck up about how amazing and huge his dick is (adam add that to your character sheet later). he has a pet dragon named chainsaw that can breathe fire and fucking destroy all of his enemies for him and it obeys his every command and it never eats his fucking toilet paper, unlike some other pets named chainsaw -

“Ronan,” says Gansey, shaking his head slightly. “I can’t let you play this character.”

“Why the fuck not?” says Ronan angrily.

Gansey sighs, giving him a look. “Do I really have to explain why?”

“Yes,” says Ronan firmly, folding his arms and glaring challengingly down at Gansey’s pixelated face.

“Well, for one,” says Gansey, pinching the bridge of his nose, “your character cannot have a million HP, max in every stat, and a pet fire breathing dragon.”

“Why not?” says Ronan. “He’s level 1000 - he can have whatever the fuck stats I want.”

“The levels don’t even - we’re starting this campaign at level three,” says Gansey. “That was one of the first things I told you.”

Ronan curses. “This game fucking sucks.”

“What would suck is if you were overpowered and murdered everything in one hit, Ronan,” says Gansey, somewhat testily. “D&D is fun because you have to work within the limitations of the game - that’s the whole challenge.”

“Challenges kind of suck, though,” says Ronan. “I’m just saying, all that shit with Greenmantle would have been a whole lot fucking easier if I was a level 1000 ranger and could just pew pew the bitch dead from 100 miles away with a bow and arrow - I bet we all would have had a lot more fun if I did that.”

“That’s real life!” says Gansey. “This is D&D!”

“This is stupid, more like,” grumbles Ronan.

Gansey sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

“Honestly, I don’t know what else we were expecting from Ronan,” says Blue wryly. “That’s exactly the sort of character I’d expect him to come up with on his own.”

“Fuck you, Sargent,” says Ronan, though his voice lacked any real malice.

“I have major objections to Ronan’s character as well,” says Henry. “Why would someone named Chad Thundercock with a fifteen inch penis and a +5 Charisma modifier limit himself to only fucking one person? It’s unrealistic - seduce a bartender or something at least -”

“Quit encouraging my boyfriend to cheat on me in D&D,” says Adam.

“Yeah,” says Ronan. “Fuck you! I’d never cheat on Adam.”

“It doesn’t have to be cheating,” says Henry, rolling his eyes. “You can always add someone to your relationship - or just do a one night stand with consent or something. I’m sure Ronan would ask you first -”

“The answer would be no,” says Adam, rolling his eyes. “I’m no good at sharing.”

“Boo,” says Henry, making a thumbs down with his hand to the camera. “Monogamy is overrated.”

“Excuse you -”

“Anyways -” says Gansey, cutting off the impending argument. “Ronan - your class and race are fine, as is your...physical description. I’ll -” he cuts himself off with a sigh. “- I’ll even let you keep the name. But you’ll need to scale your level down, reroll your stats, and rework your character background to fit in with the campaign and establish motivations.”

“Can I keep the pet dragon?”

“No.”

“Fuck you.”

Gansey rolls his eyes. “As for the stuff in your inventory, you have to start off with the basic weapons - nothing enchanted to begin with. Your starting budget depends on your background - which you haven’t finished writing yet, so I’ll hold off on commenting on the obscene amount of gold you gave yourself. Also -” he pauses, taking leaning closer to the sheet to examine it better. “- Ronan, you cannot have a gun in D&D.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“What do you - because they don’t exist in this world!” says Gansey. “This is a medieval fantasy world! Guns haven’t been invented yet!”

“Honestly - max stats, way too much money, a pet dragon, a fucking gun -” Blue lists off. “Are we sure about Chad’s dick size? He seems like he’s compensating for something.”

“Fuck you, Sargent,” says Ronan.

“Ah, yes, that makes much more sense,” says Henry, nodding sagely. “I, too, would refrain from sleeping around if I had a bent micropenis.”

“Fuck you too, Cheng.”

“I swear to God, Ronan,” says Blue, shaking her head. “Only you could come up with a character that laden with testosterone. You’re such a boy sometimes -”

“Fuck you, Sargent,” says Ronan, with a lot more vitriol than he’d originally meant to add.

Everyone in the call pauses to silently stare at Ronan.

Ronan shrinks away from their gaze. “It’s - my fucking character,” he says, not sheepishly at all, thank you very much. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want with it. Or whatever.”

Gansey sighs. “Yes, you can do whatever you’d like, Ronan,” he says. “But it has to be reasonable within the limitations of the campaign I’m running, so you’ll have to rework some parts of it, I’m afraid.”

“Eat shit and die,” says Ronan.

“Adam -” Gansey continues, “- have you come up with a motivation to guillotine the king yet?”

“Not quite yet,” says Adam with a frown - and the conversation moves forward.

As annoying as it is when she does it to his toilet paper, there’s something therapeutic about watching Chainsaw tear the absolute shit out of stuff.

Honestly, Ronan’s kind of jealous - all Chainsaw has to do is show up and be a vaguely bird shaped object in the corner of Ronan’s eye so he remembers to feed her every once in a while. If anything, he’s the one who should have free reign to go feral and tear everything around him to fucking shreds - he’s the one with the fucking human being problems, like being stuck inside for the past six months of his life. But alas, he finds himself constrained, yet again, by the limitations of what is and isn’t “normal behavior for a twenty-two year old adult human being.” So he’s stuck living vicariously through his fucking dream bird by feeding her random sheets of paper and watching her tear the shit out of them.

It’s here that Adam finds him - laying down flat on his back in a pile of shredded paper scrap, casually throwing his highschool freshman English homework right into Chainsaw’s eagerly awaiting beak.

Adam gives him a look and nods decisively. “Chaotic neutral,” he says out loud.

“What the fuck?” says Ronan.

“Your D&D alignment,” clarifies Adam, except not really, because it clarifies literally nothing to Ronan. “I’ve decided that I’m true neutral, Gansey is neutral good, Henry and Blue are chaotic good, and you’re chaotic neutral.”

“I have no fucking clue what the words coming out of your mouth mean,” says Ronan.

Adam frowns at him. “Haven’t you read about D&D character alignments?”

Ronan gives him a look. “I -”

“Don’t answer that,” says Adam with a sigh. “I realized it was a stupid question as soon as it left my mouth.”

Ronan moves to sit up, stretching his body out to rid it of the stiffness he’d gained from sitting on the floor for two fucking hours. Chainsaw caws in protest, clearly upset at losing her steady stream of paper scrap to tear the shit out of. Ronan unhooks half of the remaining contents of his Algebra I binder and throws it at her to keep her occupied.

“Alright,” he says, flopping down onto the nearby couch and patting the spot next to him, indicating where Adam should sit. “Give me your spiel about D&D linings or whatever the fuck it is you were talking about so I can validate you.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “I’m trying to figure out what alignment my character should be,” he explains. “So, to practice, I’m categorizing the alignment of everyone I know.”

“Ok,” says Ronan. “I’ll pretend like I know what that means.”

Adam sighs. “The problem is I’m still not sure what alignment my character is,” he says. “I’m stuck between two options - I haven’t figured out if he’s neutral good, or if he’s a true neutral person trying desperately to act like a neutral good person.”

“Ok,” says Ronan. “That sounds….great?”

Adam gives him a look.

“....not great?”

“Ronan -”

“I don’t know what the fuck alignments are, ok?” says Ronan.

“Not to criticize your modus-operandi or anything,” says Adam, “but maybe you should read things every once in a while.”

“Fuck you.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “D&D alignments are like - a person’s guiding moral and ethical beliefs, except you’ve simplified them so they fit on a 3x3 chart.”

“Sounds complicated,” says Ronan.

“It’s meant to simplify things, Ronan,” says Adam testily.

“Uh-huh,” says Ronan skeptically. “And how’s that going for you?”

Adam sighs. “Badly,” he admits. “Would a character who exclusively desires to do neutral things but only ever actually does good things count as good? Or neutral?”

Ronan pauses, confused. “Good?” he says. “I mean - they only ever do good things, right?”

“But don’t their internal desires matter as well?” says Adam. “You wouldn’t argue that I’m gay because I’m dating you, right? I’m bisexual because I still experience attraction to women, even if I don’t act on those attractions right now.”

Ronan blinks rapidly, trying to parse Adam’s words. “Ok - so they’re neutral then?”

“But that’s not entirely fair either, is it?” says Adam. “If someone thought about doing bad things but never actually did them, you couldn’t call them a bad person just for thinking bad thoughts, could you?”

Ronan sighs - he’s always hated philosophy. “Is there a point to all this bullshit?”

“Yes,” says Adam. “The point is that it can establish a helpful framework to align my character’s actions around.”

“Well it’s clearly not helping you that much,” says Ronan.

Adam sighs. “I guess you’re not wrong.” He sighs, flopping down onto Ronan’s side. “Sorry - I know you hate overdramatic pontificating.”

“What I hate is that you’ve just used the fucking word ‘pontificating,’ holy shit,” says Ronan. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Gansey?”

“Maybe if you read more books, our vocabulary wouldn’t bother you as much,” says Adam, deadpan.

“Fuck off,” says Ronan. “Why are you so obsessed with categorizing things anyway?”

“I just wanted a useful framework to help me process my character’s motivations better,” says Adam, somewhat defensive. “Why are you so opposed to labels?”

“I’m not opposed to them,” says Ronan dryly. “But if they aren’t helpful for you then you shouldn’t fucking use them.”

“Maybe they are helpful for me,” says Adam. “But they’ll only be helpful if I put in the time in energy to actually figure out what they are.”

“Or maybe it’s a useless waste of your time,” says Ronan. “I mean - you already fucking know how your character acts, right? Why do you need a label?”

Adam huffs out a quiet breath, clearly at a loss for an answer, only simply snuggles deeper into Ronan’s arm. Ronan stays silent, leaving the space between them filled only by the distant chirping of birds and the sound of Chainsaw going to fucking town on the torn remnants of his high school education.

Adam frowns over at her. “You’re going to clean this up, right?”

Cassandra Eilde is no stranger to feeling out of place - the child of an elf and a human, her existence runs contrary to the expectations of seemingly everyone around her. She’s lived her life straddling two worlds - too elf to be human, too human to be elf, and too much herself to possibly be anyone else.

The product of a political marriage between the daughter of a minor noble of one of the provinces on the border of Aurelia and the prince of an elven cove, Cassandra youth was far from idyllic. She spent her days wandering the elven woods, drawing strange, disdainful looks from the people of the other elves around her. Ostracized from the other children because of her status as a half-breed, she grew up lonely and isolated from her peers, locked away in her room with only her books and her violin to pass her time.

But even this fragile peace could not last for her. On a diplomatic trip to an Aurelian border town, the King spotted her mother and instantly fell in love, demanding that she leave her elven husband and return to the capital with him as a member of his harem. Cassandra’s mother, with no love for her elven family and thoroughly charmed by the King’s power, wealth, and charisma, agreed instantly, abandoning her family to go with the King. Cassandra’s father, outraged by this breach of contract, dissolved diplomatic relations with Aurelia - disowning Cassandra and banishing her from the only home she’d ever known in the process.

Radicalized by this experience, Cassandra has been plotting her vengeance since. A bard who performs for coins as a street performer by day, she’s spent the better part of the past few years of her life using her skills with music and magic to gather information on the king, in the hopes of one day finding the knowledge she needs to destroy the tyrant’s regime. Now, with the Zadakarian invasion throwing Aurelia into disarray, she finally sees her chance to capitalize on the chaos and execute her long held plans for vengeance -

“So in other words,” Adam interrupts, “your character wants to kill the king because the king fucked your mom.”

“Yep!” Henry summarizes brightly.

“Good a reason as any,” says Blue with a nod. “All aboard the guillotine train!”

“Choo-fucking-choo,” says Ronan absentmindedly.

“Your surprising bloodthirst aside, I quite like this character,” says Gansey. “A bard is a very appropriate class type for someone as theatrical as you.”

“Is that a roundabout way of calling me a theater kid?”

“Yes.”

“How dare you accuse me of something that’s blatantly true,” says Henry with a haughty sniff that only serves to prove Gansey’s point. “Frankly, I prefer the term Drama Enthusiast -”

Ronan tunes out their conversation, frowning instead at the file on his screen, at the picture of the beautiful if slightly strange looking woman with pointed ears that Henry’s chosen to represent his character. Adam clearly notices his shifting focus - he gives Ronan a look back.

“Something up?” he asks.

“Cheng’s playing a girl,” he says back.

Adam gives him a wry smile. “You just now noticed?”

Ronan scowls. “I’m just now fucking pointing it out.”

“Whatever, same difference,” says Adam, rolling his eyes good naturedly. “So Henry’s playing a girl. And what’s the big deal with that?”

“There’s -” Ronan sputters, surprised. “There’s not a big deal.”

“Isn’t there?” says Adam, gently probing. “You seemed pretty intent on staring at that picture.”

“Clearly I’m admiring her fucking tits,” says Ronan sarcastically.

“Ha-ha,” says Adam, equally as flat. “I hope you’re not going to let Blue hear you talking like that. She’ll come down here and scalp you for supporting the patriarchy or something, Coronavirus be damned.”

“I’m not saying there’s anything fucking wrong with it,” says Ronan. “I just - didn’t realize.”

“Didn’t realize what?”

“...that Cheng wanted to play as a woman, I guess,” says Ronan.

Adam frowns at him. “Why does it matter if Cheng wants to play as a woman?”

“It doesn’t,” Ronan insists.

“Then why were you staring at his character?”

“Maybe her massive tits swayed me into joining you in the land of bisexuality,” says Ronan, deadpan.

Adam smacks him lightly on the forehead. “Stop deflecting by ironically objectifying fantasy elf women.”

“What if it’s not ironic?”

“What happened to you not lying?” says Adam, looking distinctly unimpressed.

Ronan rolls his eyes. “Look -” he says, “- I was just fucking looking, ok? It doesn’t matter.”

Adam sighs. “Ronan -” he starts, “- are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yes, Adam,” says Ronan, rolling his eyes. “I’m fucking fine.”

“Are you?” Adam challenges. “You’ve been acting kind of off recently, and if I’m honest, I’ve been kind of worried about you -”

“Don’t be,” Ronan interrupts. “I’m fine.”

“But -”

“I’m fine.”

“Ronan -”

“It doesn’t fucking matter,” Ronan snaps.

Adam recoils, clearly surprised at Ronan’s intense reaction. “Ok,” he says placatingly. “Ok - fine. It doesn’t matter.”

Ronan spends the rest of the call scowling down into his lap. He can feel Adam’s eyes on him occasionally, crawling on his skin like guilt.

Matthew’s taken to video calling him about once every week or so in lieu of visiting in person, as he usually does. Ronan misses him anyway, not that he’ll admit it out loud - especially because if he does admit that, Matthew will come running over instantly, which is absolutely not what Ronan wants him to do in the middle of a pandemic. So he puts on a brave face, listens to Matthew talk about all the stuff that he’s started doing during quarantine, and keeps his whining to a minimum.

He forgets, at times, how perceptive and intelligent Matthew’s become over the years. For all that he still rambles and talks too fast and gets really excited about the mundane, everyday things that Ronan’s long since started taking for granted - he’s done a lot of growing. It’s hard for Ronan to reconcile his image of Matthew as his adorable baby brother from his lived reality as a surprisingly perceptive and mature young adult.

Which is why it blindsides him completely when Matthew pauses mid rant, frowns at him, and says: “Is something wrong? You’re quieter than usual today.”

Ronan startles, clearly surprised. “What?” he says intelligently.

“You,” says Matthew. “You’re talking even less than you normally do, which is saying something. And your vague emotionless grunts sound more vague and emotionless than usual.”

“Oh,” says Ronan.

“See?” says Matthew, gesturing vaguely at him with his hands. “Normally you would have been like ‘shut up, Matthew’ or ‘fuck you, Matthew’ or ‘leave me alone so I can repress my feelings in peace, Matthew’ or something like that.”

“Fuck you,” tries Ronan.

Matthew hums. “Definitely a C for effort, at most. Your heart’s just not in it, and it shows.”

“Ok, fine, whatever,” says Ronan, rolling his eyes. “Don’t you have shit to be rambling about or whatever?”

“See what I mean?” says Matthew. “Normally you tell me not to ramble about things -”

“God - fuck off, ok?” says Ronan. “Let me repress my fucking feelings in peace.”

“Better!” says Matthew brightly. “I’d give that one at least a B+. Still a little more dejected than usual though.”

Ronan sighs. “You aren’t going to leave me alone unless I tell you what’s going on, are you?”

“Nope!” says Matthew. “And you can’t even block my phone number because you love me too much!”

“I hate it here on this bitch of an Earth.”

“But you don’t hate me!”

Ronan groans, leaning backwards and out of frame of the camera.

“Come on, Ronan, haven’t you heard of object permanence?” he hears Matthew call out. “Just because you can’t see me anymore doesn’t mean I’m not still here asking you questions.”

“God - shut the fuck up for a second, ok?” Ronan calls back. “I’m trying to figure out what to say.”

“Wow, thinking about what you say before you say it?” says Matthew. He frowns. “Are you sure you’re ok? I’m even more worried than I was before.”

Ronan sighs, trying to gather his thoughts. “Do you -” he pauses, still hesitant. “Do you ever feel like - like you might not be a boy?”

Matthew hums, considerate. “I’ve felt like I might not be a person,” he responds blithely. “Does that count?”

Ronan groans. “God - fuck it, nevermind -”

“Wait, wait, hang on,” protests Matthew. “You can’t just drop a question like that on me and then leave!”

“Fucking watch me,” says Ronan.

Matthew pouts at him. “Come on!” he says. “Talk to your beloved baby bro, whomst you love very much.”

“Fuck you.”

Matthew ignores him. “Why do you ask anyway? Do you not feel like a boy?”

Ronan sighs. “Sometimes, yeah,” he admits.

“Oh,” says Matthew. “Why’s that?”

“Well -” Ronan throws his hands up in exasperation. “I don’t fucking know, Matty, that’s kind of the fucking problem!”

“Oooh,” says Matthew. He frowns. “I don’t get it.”

“Exactly,” says Ronan. “It makes no sense - you at least had a reason to feel like you might not be a person.”

“Do you not have a reason to feel like you’re not a boy?”

“Why would I?” says Ronan, frustrated. “I actually have the necessary internal organs for being a boy.”

“Having a dick doesn’t make you a boy, Ronan,” says Matthew with a frown. “Don’t be a transphobe.”

“I’m not -” Ronan sighs. “Ok - bad wording, that’s my bad. My problem is that I have a dick and I don’t mind it. I like having a dick, even.”

Matthew blinks at him. “Ok?”

“So - that makes me a boy, right?”

Matthew frowns. “Well - granted, I’m not an expert or anything, but I feel like reducing gender identity to the presence or absence of genital dysphoria is narrow minded and a gross oversimplification at best.”

“I don’t know what the fuck those words mean,” says Ronan, deadpan.

“I’m just saying - there’s more to human existence and identity than whether or not we have certain internal organs,” says Matthew. “I certainly believe that. It’s a little relevant for me, at least.”

“Listen,” says Ronan. “I’m fucking sorry, ok? My little two year old brain didn’t know what a fucking kidney was -”

“I’m not blaming you, Ronan,” says Matthew quietly. “Just pointing things out.”

Ronan sighs. “Ok?” he says. “So then how the fuck am I supposed to know if I’m a boy or not?”

Matthew shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Goddamnit!” says Ronan, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “This is all too fucking complicated, I don’t have time for this shit.”

“How do you not have time? Isn’t there a huge agricultural surplus right now?” says Matthew. ‘What do you even do over there these days?”

“I still have to make sure the animals don’t fucking die, you little shit,” snaps Ronan. “And I do other stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like Adam.”

“Ew.”

“Fuck off,” says Ronan, rolling his eyes. “I swear to God. And I thought making a D&D character was too complicated.”

“Oh - you play D&D?” says Matthew, perking back up. “Wait, that’s such a great idea for a quarantine activity! I love D&D -”

“Goddamnit,” says Ronan, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Why the fuck does everyone I love play fucking D&D?”

“Aww, Ronan,” says Matthew. “That’s so sweet! I love you too!”

If anyone has remained completely unaffected by this quarantine shit, it’s Opal, who continues to spend her days wandering around the Barns, eating sticks and tracking dirt all over his fucking floor, as per usual.

She’s stuck inside in one of her rare “quiet” moods, bundled up underneath a blanket with Chainsaw perched delicately on her head, stuck watching whatever shitty cartoons they play on television these days. With her legs covered and her horns obscured by Chainsaw’s feathery body, she barely looks like something that came out of his dreams. It’s times like these that Ronan really remembers that, for all her ridiculous habits and her propensity for speaking exclusively in Latin riddles - Opal is a child.

He looks at them - at Chainsaw, one of the few precious and unequivocally good things to come out of his dreams, the little baby bird who retaught Ronan to nurture and care and love. He looks at Opal, the being closest to him in heart and soul, a physical manifestation of his inner workings, chaotic dream given form incarnate.

He frowns down at her, serious like. “Why are you a girl?”

Opal shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Ronan nods. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s fair.”

My character was born to commoners and also doesn’t really care about studying that much which is why her introduction is not written in some fucking protentious ass goddamn Victorian novel style of English, fuck you. However, my character did actually bother to learn how to read, which is why I’m using proper grammar and spelling and punctuation and stuff unlike Ronan’s character introduction - fuck you for making me read that, Ronan.

My character’s name is Samizira Umegu. She’s a half-orc who was born to some witches and stuff, but the world decided she wasn’t magical for some reason, so she’s decided to become a berserker and just beat the shit out of things with a hammer instead, because it sounded cool as hell. She doesn’t have a fun personal reason to guillotine the king, she just thinks the patriarchy sucks and should be destroyed, and she’s decided that the quickest and easiest way to smash it is to use a hammer, so that’s cool I guess.

And honestly, when she sees someone named Chad Thundercock, it’s on fucking sight, I swear to God, Ronan, what the fuck is that character, it’s not even done yet and I already hate it so much -

“Goddamn,” says Ronan, frowning. “The fuck did my character do?”

“It’s bad and I hate it,” says Blue decisively.

Henry frowns considerately at the character sheet in front of him. “So, just to clarify - your character is basically just you with a big hammer?”

Blue nods. “Pretty much.”

“Certainly simplifies the roleplaying process,” says Gansey, nodding. “Editorializing about Ronan’s character aside, I quite like it. Though obviously, I’m biased.”

“Biased how?”

“Biased because I love you,” says Gansey, smiling.

Ronan pantomimes throwing up into his hands. Adam snorts.

Henry frowns. “You didn’t tell me you loved me when I introduced my character.”

“Oh,” says Gansey, clearly surprised. “Well - I -”

“Does this mean -” Henry sniffs, overdramatically puffing up his face to make it look like he’s on the verge of tears. “Does this mean you don’t love me?”

“No - Henry, of course I love you too -”

“But you didn’t tell me that!” Henry wails, dramatically draping himself across Blue with a loud, exaggerated sob. Blue pats him comfortingly on the back, giving Gansey a dirty look.

Adam subtly rolls his eyes. Ronan snickers.

“Henry,” says Gansey, looking guilty. “I didn’t - I’m sorry I didn’t compliment your character, alright? Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“You could give me an inspiration point,” Henry suggests, perking back up.

Gansey hesitates. “Well -”

Henry flings himself back over Blue, resuming his overdramatic sobbing.

“Ok, ok,” says Gansey quickly. “You can have an inspiration point.”

“Hell yeah, baby!” yells Henry, immediately sitting back up with a fist pump. “Cassandra’s going to serve that king’s head up on a fucking platter!”

Gansey sighs. “I feel like I’ve just been emotionally manipulated.”

“At least no one threatened to hit your character with a hammer,” says Ronan dryly.

“Honestly, I’m kind of offended,” says Adam. “I feel like my character is at least as good as Henry’s. How come I don’t get an inspiration point?”

“Ok, well - Henry’s inspiration point was clearly just because I love him and he guilt tripped me into it,” says Gansey. “You know - not that I don’t love you, but -”

“You mean you don’t think my character deserves an inspiration point?” says Henry, giving Gansey a look.

“Well - no, that’s not what I -”

“This seems very unfair to me, frankly,” says Adam, nodding solemnly. “Our DM is allowing his personal feelings to influence his actions and privilege certain players over others. Blue - does the union have anything to say on my behalf?”

Blue perks up. “I -”

“Ok fine,” says Gansey before Blue can so much as finish her next word, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Adam can also have an inspiration point.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” says Blue, folding her arms. “Only giving inspiration points to men. Very typical of a man in power, reinforcing the patriarchy. I thought you were better than this, Gansey - if my character were here, she’d definitely hit you with a hammer -”

“God - fine!” says Gansey, throwing his hands up in despair. “Fine! You can have one too, just - God! Why does this always happen to me?”

“What the fuck?” says Ronan. “I want an inspiration point too!”

“Do you even know what an inspiration point is?” says Blue.

“No,” says Ronan. “But I want one.”

“Ok - I feel like denying Ronan an inspiration point is fair,” says Gansey. “He literally named his character Chad Thundercock - I can’t reward that sort of behavior.”

The rest of the group breaks into various assorted noises of assent.

“What?” says Ronan angrily. “The fuck kind of union is this? What happened to all that shit about the patriarchy just a second ago?”

“Ronan,” says Blue, deadpan. “No offense, but your character is the patriarchy.”

“Rude,” says Ronan, only half-sarcastic.

Speaking of the patriarchy -

“And you’ve been social distancing, right?” says Declan.

Ronan sighs into his phone for the umpteenth time that hour. “Declan - exactly how fucking stupid do you think I am?”

“I think you’re exactly the type of person who would do something risky and dumb just for laughs,” says Declan, voice even.

“So I drive my car very fast every once in a while, big fucking whoop,” says Ronan. “It’s not like you don’t do that too. And anyway, that doesn’t mean I’m going to start mouth breathing on some old lady’s face without a mask in the middle of a fucking pandemic - or that I won’t quarantine, or that I won’t use hand sanitizer, before you ask.”

Declan sighs. “Believe it or not, Ronan, I’m not trying to be annoying,” he says. “I just want to make sure you’re keeping safe habits and aren’t doing anything to put yourself at risk - there are a lot of unknowns about this disease, and without a vaccine and with all the recent evidence that it could cause permanent damage, I -”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ronan interrupts. “I fucking get it, ok? Don’t catch the fucking plague - great advice, thanks. Can I hang up now?”

“Wait!” Declan protests immediately. “Hang on a second.”

Ronan rolls his eyes, annoyed. “God - what the fuck now? I’m staying inside and wearing a mask and shit ok?”

“That’s not -” Declan sighs. “Ronan - listen, I feel like I need to tell you this.”

“Ok?” says Ronan, confused.

There’s a pause before Declan continues. “I overheard you talking with Matthew the other day - about how you don’t feel like you’re a boy sometimes.”

Ronan feels a surge of anger spike up in him. “Are you fucking serious -”

“Before you get mad, just know that I wasn’t trying to overhear,” says Declan, defensive. “You know how loud Matthew can be. It was an accident.”

Ronan sighs. “Ok,” he says, “you fucking caught me. Sometimes I feel like a shitty little baby girl with pigtails and high heels and a skirt and I’m going to hell for it. Can I hang up now?”

“Ronan, I’m not here to berate or shame you,” says Declan. “I just want to - understand, is all.”

“Well you won’t understand,” says Ronan. “So don’t bother wasting your fucking time.”

“God, talking to you is like pulling teeth, what the hell,” says Declan.

“Well, what the hell do you want me to say here?” says Ronan, frustrations boiling over.

“I’m not trying to obligate you into saying anything, Ronan,” says Declan. “I’m just trying to touch base and establish a healthy line of communication with you.”

“Why the fuck do you talk like a corporation?”

“I’m trying here, Ronan,” says Declan. “I’m not going to say things exactly the way you like, ok? It’s unfair to ask that of someone - that’s why I don’t get that mad when you call me a ‘shithead’ or whatever.”

“Bullshit you don’t get mad -”

“Why I don’t get that mad anymore,” Declan amends.

“Well what the fuck am I supposed to say?!” says Ronan. “That sometimes my hands feel too big for my body and my head feels too square and my neck feels too thick? That I had a mental breakdown next to a barn because I felt so out of place in my own body that my own mind had to take a fucking trip to La La Land to cope? That I throw a hissy fit every time my friends call me a fucking dude?”

“Ronan -”

“And it’s not like I hate being a boy, you know? There’s plenty of boy shit that I do and love, and I don’t mind that I’m tall, and I don’t care that I have a dick - but for some fucking reason, I have to fucking put off shaving because I hate the way my fucking stubble feels when I shave it, but I can’t actually ignore it because then there’s stubble on my face and I fucking hate the feeling of that too, and the world won’t let me forget it either because there’s that fucking annoying ass stupid shaving commercial that keeps popping up when I try to watch funny animal videos!”

Declan pauses, clearly at a loss for words. “You’re upset because of a...shaving commercial?”

“God - forget it, ok?” says Ronan. “I knew you wouldn’t listen.”

“Ronan -” Declan sighs. “I’m just trying to understand -”

“And I’m trying to tell you that you can’t understand,” says Ronan angrily. “How the fuck could you? I don’t understand it! And the last thing I fucking need is your stupid pompous ass coming in here and telling me I’m being ‘irrational’ or ‘stupid’ or whatever the fuck it is you’re going to accuse me of being.”

“That’s not my goal here!” Declan protests. “Why do you think I’m always out to get you or something?”

“What the hell else is your goal? Why else would you be constantly reminding me about how ‘hard to understand’ I am?” demands Ronan. “Which - by the way, you don’t need to - I already get it, ok? I’m a dumb, irrational person who does stupid shit that makes no fucking sense -”

“That’s not what I mean when I say that I don’t understand, Ronan,” says Declan. “You of all people should know I’m not omniscient. Just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean it isn’t real or true or whatever. It just means that I don’t understand. Ok?”

“Well fucking great, then,” says Ronan. “Thanks for fucking wasting the past twenty minutes of my life. Why are you even here if all you’re going to do is -”

“God-fucking-damnit, Ronan, I’m trying to tell you that I love you, for Christ’s sake!”

Ronan pauses, stunned.

Declan takes his silence as permission to continue. “You’re right, ok? I don’t always understand you - and yeah, sometimes I blamed you for that, and that wasn’t right of me.” He sighs. “I just - I know you’re going to say and do and feel things that don’t make sense to me - but that just means we’re different, Ronan. That doesn’t mean I think there’s anything wrong with you.”

Ronan swallows thickly, still saying nothing.

“I know we don’t always get along, but you’re -” he pauses, sounding vaguely constipated. “You’re my little brother, you know? Or - well, not brother - the gender neutral one - fuck - little sibling, not -”

“Gross,” croaks Ronan quietly. “Can’t believe we’re fucking related, I hate it here on this bitch of an Earth.”

Declan sighs. “Look - the point I’m trying to make here is that I do in fact -” the next word sounds like he squeezes it out through his gritted teeth, “- love you, and that that won’t change whether or not you’re a boy.”

“Great,” says Ronan. “Can I fucking hang up yet?”

“I don’t know why I even try sometimes,” says Declan, sounding resigned. “Why are you in such a rush to hang up, anyway? It’s not like you have obligations.”

“Fuck you,” says Ronan, though he finds he can’t muster his usual heat. He feels - strangely drained all of a sudden, for some reason. “I still have to keep the cows alive, you know. And I have to make that fucking D&D character for Gansey’s campaign.”

Declan makes a surprised sounding noise. “You play D&D?”

“God - shut the fuck up, Declan,” says Ronan, and then he hangs up on him before his voice can start sounding choked.

Chad Thundercock was born

His defining characteristic is that he has a dick

He

Ronan balls the paper up and throws it at the trashcan.

Adam finds him once again laying down in a pile of torn up scraps of paper - except this time it’s him who did the shredding.

He smiles wryly, walking over and placing his hand delicately on Ronan’s head. “Hey,” he says.

Ronan hums in response. “Hey.”

Adam gestures at all the papers strewn about him. “Working on your D&D character?”

Ronan shrugs. “Something like that.”

“Having fun?” asks Adam.

“Not really,” says Ronan.

“Yeah,” says Adam, nodding. He pulls up a chair, “Kind of figured.”

Ronan hums, leaning into Adam’s touch.

Adam sighs. “I’ll be honest,” he says. “I’ve been kind of worried about you recently.”

Ronan nods. “Yeah,” he parrots. “I noticed.”

“Are you -” Adam hesitates. “Are you - ok?”

Ronan takes a deep breath, slowly curling and relaxing his fingers in and out of a fist.

“No,” he admits finally. “No - I don’t think I am.”

“Do you -” Adam pauses. “Do you want to talk about it?” he finishes, and -

- and something inside Ronan finally snaps.

“No,” he says emphatically. “No, I don’t want to fucking talk about it!”

“Ronan -”

Ronan continues. “I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to discuss it, I don’t want to write about it on my character sheet, I don’t want to think about it - I don’t want to do anything with it, ok?!”

“Ronan -”

“That’s the fucking problem! Everyone wants a Goddamn fucking explanation! Well I don’t have one! I don’t know the 'what,' I don’t know the 'when,' I don’t know the 'why,' I don’t know the fucking 'how' - I just am - I just want to fucking be. Is that too much to fucking ask -”

“Ok, Ronan,” says Adam, gently placing his hand on top of Ronan’s, which had curled themselves into a tight fist without his notice, his fingernails digging into the flesh of his palm. “Ok - we don’t have to talk about it.”

Ronan stops - releases the tension in his hand and deflates, lets himself fall back into a slump, trying to get his heavy breathing under control.

“Sorry I asked,” says Adam quietly.

“It’s not your fault,” says Ronan. “Sorry I fucking - snapped at you.”

Adam shrugs. “I don’t mind it,” he says.

“You probably should,” says Ronan.

“Yeah,” Adam agrees. “I probably should.” He silently leans over, wrapping his arms around Ronan, pulling him into a tight hug.

Ronan can’t help but to lean into it. He presses his face into Adam's shoulder, let's the tears that were threatening to pool in his eyes soak into Adam's shirt instead. The scent of detergent and sweat and the particular wooden musk typical of The Barns themselves assaults his nose - Adam smells, in every way, like home. Ronan tries to let himself take comfort in that.

“I love you,” says Adam, into the crook of his neck. “I love you so, so much. You know that, right?”

Despite himself, Ronan snorts. “You shouldn’t,” he says. “You don’t even know what gender I am.”

“I know enough,” says Adam, like it’s a challenge. Ronan can feel it in his grip, the same raw determination that got him through Aglionby and college and Cabeswater and his shitty fucking parents - it’s a challenge as much as it is an affirmation, a pledge he knows that Adam’s making, both to Ronan and to himself, and Goddamnit if Ronan doesn’t want to believe him -

chad thundercock was born in a village in like the fucking east probably, idk where exactly, it just has to be close to the empire’s borders cuz adam’s character is from there and they have to be nearby so they can fuck. the name of the village was like forgotten or whatever when it got fucking destroyed by some goblins or smthn, idk, but by the time the goblins showed up, chad had gotten kicked out of the village by the village noble for doing too much gay shit™, which is exactly why the nobility system sucks and reinforces the patriarchy or whatever the fuck sargent talks about (not that i give a fuck). this is also why chad is a ranger, cuz living outdoors is hard and you gotta eat somehow, so pew pew bow and arrow or whatever, eat a fucking deer. chad is desperately in love with a smoking hot, beautiful, talented, intelligent, absolutely incredible celestial warlock named Absolution, and they’re going to overthrow the monarchy cuz they want to get married, but it’s illegal right now because monarchy’s are full of shit, so chad’s coming in hot with madame guillotine, chop chop motherfucker -

Ronan waits, his arms folded sullenly in front of him as he waits for the final verdict. Gansey continues to scan the sheets Ronan submitted, his face giving away nothing about his thoughts.

Finally, his eyes flick back up to Ronan, his expression wry. “You know what, Ronan?”

“What?” says Ronan, like a challenge.

Gansey nods. “I’ll take it.”

“What?!” says Ronan, in a completely different tone of voice. “Really?!”

“Why not? It’s a pretty well designed character,” says Gansey with a shrug. “I mean - the stats and proficiencies and all that seem reasonable - you’re not carrying any items or overpowered pets or using any magical abilities that would break the game - I even like the backstory.”

“You -” Ronan pauses, stunned. “You liked that backstory?”

“Sure,” says Gansey. “It handily sets up your character’s background, why you became a ranger, why your personality is so surly and untrusting to strangers, and it establishes a very clear motivation for why both you and Adam’s character would want to overthrow the monarchy.”

“Great, exactly the motivation I wanted for my character,” says Adam, rolling his eyes good naturedly. “I desperately want to get married to Chad Thundercock. Perfect.”

“Wait - what the fuck -” Ronan struggles to form coherent words through his surprise. “My backstory was actually good?”

“Well - granted, the grammar is atrocious - have you tried capitalizing words? Like ever?” Gansey frowns. “You’re supposed to capitalize proper nouns and the starts of sentences - we went to first grade together, I know you know this, Ronan -”

“Whatever, I don’t care,” says Ronan. “You’ll let me fucking play?”

“Of course,” says Gansey. “Your character is fine - good, even.”

Ronan slams his hands against the table. “Yes! God!” he says. “Thank fuck! I’m so sick and tired of this bullshit!”

Gansey blinks, clearly surprised. “Goodness, Ronan,” he says, like an annoying person. “I didn’t realize creating a character was that challenging for you. You could have asked for help with it, you know -”

“Fuck off,” says Ronan. “This character’s mine. I made it all by my fucking self, thank you very much.”

Adam kicks him.

“I made it mostly by my fucking self, thank you very much,” Ronan amends.

“You’re welcome,” says Adam, his face deadpan.

“Well,” says Gansey smoothly, “in any case, that’s everyone’s characters done! Which means we can finally start the campaign!”

“That sounds great, Gansey,” says Adam, smiling. “I’ve been really excited to play.”

“I haven’t,” says Ronan. “God fucking damnit. That was, like, the hardest thing I’ve done in my life, and the game hasn’t even fucking started yet. Why the fuck does D&D involve so much writing? Who the fuck enjoys writing?”

“I can assure you that I will be doing the bulk of the character writing from now on,” says Gansey. “As well as the worldbuilding and combat encounter designing and NPC creation and mapmaking.”

“You’re the one who fucking wanted this,” says Ronan.

“Fair,” says Gansey. “Still - I’m just saying. You guys could stand to be at least a little nicer to me, sometimes.”

“Unrealistic,” says Adam. “Blocked.”

“I’m calling my fucking union rep,” says Ronan.

Gansey sighs, looking put upon.

“Welcome, one and all, to the first ever Gangsey D&D session!” says Gansey, spreading his arms wide with a bright smile.

“Booo,” calls out Ronan, stomping his feet to make noise and making a thumbs down gesture with his hands. Adam elbows him to try to get him to stop - it doesn’t work, obviously.

Gansey ignores him. “As you all well know, I am Richard Campbell Gansey III - your DM for this campaign, and I -”

“Why do we have to be in different rooms?” Henry calls out.

Gansey cuts himself off with a sigh. “Henry, I explained this already - I can’t let you see my DM stuff, that would be metagaming -”

“But how am I supposed to get my cuddles and snugglies from my beautiful boyfriend if he’s in a different room from me?” Henry protests. “This is bullshit!”

“Henry, you can’t -”

“I roll to seduce the DM,” says Henry, all but throwing a d20 onto the table in front of him.

“That’s not how this - you can’t seduce the DM!”

Henry wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Or can’t I?”

Gansey sighs. “Ok - you can, but the process doesn’t involve a d20 - and frankly, you’ll have to do better than that.”

“Oh?” says Blue, elbowing Henry playfully. “Was that a challenge I heard?”

Gansey realizes his mistake too late. “Wait - no, that’s not what I -”

“Why, Gansey,” says Henry, his voice lowering as he bats his eyelashes repeatedly. “You’re looking particularly charming today, my beautiful and wondrous boyfriend.”

“Henry - please do not -”

“Yes, I agree,” says Blue, nodding along playfully. “Your glasses are particularly shiny today - very sophisticated, very Gansey™, right Henry?”

“Guys - you can’t -”

“Can you do your fucking weird ass foreplay, like, literally anywhere else?” says Ronan, deadpan.

Henry sniffs haughtily. “Don’t be homophobic, Ronan.”

“Yeah, Ronan,” says Adam, elbowing him playfully. “Don’t be a homophobe.”

“I can’t help it, I’m Catholic,” says Ronan.

“Anyways,” says Gansey, barreling past their argument. “I thought today we’d start off with a simple and easy one-shot campaign so you guys can get into the feel of role-playing and familiarize yourselves with all of the mechanics of the game.”

He opens up a screen share window as he speaks, revealing a map of a cave set on some kind of a grid layout. Four circular icons sit on the screen, each one with a picture that clearly marks itself as one of the four character’s they’d created.

Ronan frowns down at the screen. “Why the fuck does it look like we’re in a prison?”

“Because that's exactly what's happened!” says Gansey, looking far too excited for someone who’s just put all of his friends into a prison. “You’re going to be starting this campaign here! In what looks to be a prison!”

“Ew,” says Blue. “Does it smell in there?”

“Oh yes,” says Gansey. “Smells awful.”

“Gross,” says Henry, face scrunched up in disgust.

“In any case - hang on, let me read the official introduction that I wrote for this,” says Gansey, flipping a couple pages in his notebook and clearing his throat. “‘As you all start to rouse, you’re surprised to find yourself waking up not in the inn you’d booked a room in last night, but in a dim, damp prison cell on the cold stone floor, with your armor and weapons stripped away. Your memories of the night before are vague and foggy - you all remember attending a party held at the town tavern, but strangely, your recollection turns blurry after the first few drinks.’”

“So basically,” says Adam, “we all got drugged and dragged off to prison?”

“Certainly seems that way,” says Gansey cryptically. “In any case, you seem to be in some sort of natural cave system that’s been transformed into a makeshift prison. The construction on the doors look crude, but sturdy enough to -”

Blue slams her hand against the table. “I try to break down the door!”

Gansey pauses. “Already? You’re not even going to let me finish the exposition?”

“If my character is conscious, then she’s going to try to bust the door down.”

Gansey sighs. “Ok, I guess that’s in character,” he says with a nod. “Make a strength check.”

Blue rolls the die. “Twenty-one?”

“Well,” says Gansey. “You’ve broken the door down.”

“Hell yeah!” says Blue.

“Unfortunately, you are now going to be attacked by the six goblins who were also in the room with you,” Gansey finishes.

“What?!” says Blue. “What the fuck?!”

“You can’t get mad - you didn’t let me finish the exposition!”

“You were talking too slow!”

Gansey sighs. “Just roll for initiative, everyone.”

There’s a pause as everyone rolls their dice and starts calling out numbers. Ronan does the same, adding his initiative bonus the way Adam taught him to before the game started.

“Ronan,” says Gansey, drawing his attention. “What’s your initiative?”

“Eighteen,” Ronan responds.

“Alright,” says Gansey. “You’re up first then.”

“Ok,” says Ronan, looking at the map. Six more tokens have appeared, circular representations of the goblins they’re fighting. They’ve all but surrounded Blue’s token, clearly planning on attacking her first.

He frowns down at his character sheet, puzzled. “You said we don’t have our weapons right?”

“Yes,” says Gansey. “Your weapons and armor have been taken from you.”

“So - can I even attack anyone without a weapon?” asks Ronan.

“You can make an unarmed attack,” says Gansey. “It won’t do much damage though.”

Ronan hums, considerate. “Can I try to, like, fucking grab one of them and hold them down or something? Like - maybe the one on the far left?”

“Sure, you can try to grapple,” says Gansey. “Make a strength check.”

Ronan rolls. The die lands on twenty.

“I rolled a twenty,” he says. “Is that good?”

“A nat crit!” says Gansey.

Blue whistles, low under her breath. “Damn,” she says. “Your character’s beefy.”

“Oh,” says Ronan, slightly lost. “Does that mean a twenty is good?”

“Basically, a twenty means you’ve nailed it,” explains Gansey. “It’s an instant success.”

“Oh,” says Ronan, perking up. “Alright - sick fucking nasty.”

“Ok,” says Gansey. He grabs the token representing Ronan’s character, dragging it over to the closest goblin icon. “Well - Chad sees that the door has been broken and takes the opportunity to rush forward and grab one of the goblins. With his immense strength, he all but lifts the goblin off its feet -”

“They,” Ronan interrupts.

Gansey pauses. “What?”

“Chad uses they/them,” says Ronan.

Everyone in the call pauses, attention turned fully onto him now. Blue makes a surprised face at him - Henry lifts an eyebrow in interest - Adam’s hand tightens subtly around Ronan’s, giving him a light squeeze. And Gansey -

- Gansey hums, tilts his head in acknowledgement before turning to the side, shuffling through some papers, and scribbling something down. He turns back to Ronan, smiling.

“Noted,” he says primly. “Chad lifts the goblin clean off its feet and slams it into the ground in front of them, holding it down with their massive strength. The goblin struggles, but is unable to break free from their grasp - successfully grappled and prone.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” says Ronan. “I sit on its face and try to crush its skull with my massive asscheeks.”

Adam snorts from next to him, nearly spitting out the tea he’d been sipping - combined with Blue’s raucous laughter and Henry’s incoherent shriek, they all but drown out Gansey’s beleaguered sigh.

Gansey presses his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Ronan -”

Ronan smiles.