Work Text:
Ding Dong!
The cheerful chirp of the Rand family’s doorbell makes Rachel squeal, their friends are here! She tugs on her brother’s hand, pulling him down the stairs and flinging open the front door.
Through the frame, Rand’s vision locks onto Kian, Rolan not yet here. Blond hair done in a pretentiously tall updo, revealing pointed ears and the neck of his guitar strapped to his back. Icy blue eyes accentuated with black eyeliner in perfect wings, hiding behind red lensed glasses. His usual rocker attire swapped with a frilly white shirt with big poofy sleeves, a red waistcoat left unbuttoned over the top. The same clompy boots he always wears stand on Rand’s doorstep, decorated with leather straps and buckles.
“Rand, Rachel! Bitchin’ costume, Little Rand!” he shouts out, pushing past him into his living room, and ruffling Rachel’s hair. Brown hair tied back with a big bow into a ponytail, keeping it out of her bright face, made colourful with makeup Donna let her borrow. Her skirts drag on the floor as she leads the pair of them, the pink fabric of a princess dress slowly ageing with dust. Rand and Kian exchange a questioning and answering glance as if to say “she’s my sister, how could i not let her play?”
With no warning, the front door flings open to Rolan pushing his way into the Rand house; telltale clunking of faux armour echoing through the halls. For a teenager, for Rolan especially, the joints are perfect, expertly glued; the paint job is even and glossy and perfectly reflective, or as reflective you can get foam. Play Fighting with Rachel, he swings a sword and dies (very dramatically) to a smack on the leg.
“Ugggghhhhhohhhhh you got me! You got me! Ohhhhh i’m dyiiiinnnngggggg”
Rachel cackles with glee, and drags all three of them to the attic, where she (with her brother’s help) has made their D&D table extra spooky - AKA, all of their chairs are covered in fake spider webs, and she made Rand wear a big cloak and faux vampire fangs, so his voice is hindered by a lisp “DMs don't have characters, so you’ve gotta be the bad guy!!”.
The four of them sit around Rand’s coffee table, with varying levels of attention, Rachel sitting bolt upright, ecstatic to be allowed to play “just this once” (it was not, in fact, once.)
Kian strumming absent-mindedly on the strings of his guitar, fiddling with the pegs to get it tuned right. Rolan has started stacking dice already, and Rand panics with the fact that holy fuck, the BBEG fight is today.
“Everyone ready?”
“You bet your ass I am!”
“Alright, when we left off..”
Over the course of the evening, the Rand house fills with cheers as Rolan hits a nat 20 smite, Kian casts a particularly clever vicious mockery, and Rachel lands the finishing blow. Of course, there are stressful moments, too. Death saves are failed, spells hit a bit too hard. But Rand was never gonna let them lose, not now, they’ve put three years into this campaign, it’s not ending with a TPK.
“How do you wanna do this?” Rand takes great pleasure in saying, keeping the fact he saved the boss some HP to let her have this
“Ooh, Ooh! So I rummage in my bag and pull out the parts for the spell, toss them up and say the words, and this bright light shoots out of them and his head explodes!” Rachel exclaims, to cackles of delight and catharsis from the group.
With a gory end, the campaign came to a close, saviours of the realm. And the trio are overjoyed that they skipped some guys' Halloween party to play D&D.