Eddie's been a perpetual DM his whole life so when Dustin offers to run a one-shot over the first Thanksgiving break everyone actually gets time off for, Eddie leaps at the chance to play as a PC, and begs Steve to play. Steve hasn't seen all the kids (they're in their mid twenties but to Steve they'll always be The Kids) together in years and he's been subjected to enough lectures about it that he's half convinced he knows his way around a campaign and he's hopelessly in love with his best friend anyway. ("No, Robin, it's different alright, I can have two best friends." "Uh, no, dingus, you can't.")
So they all huddle into the Byers-Hopper living room and to no one's real surprise Eddie's PC is just breathtakingly detailed, backstory fleshed out and built into Dustin's storyline and he goes absolutely HAM with the character voice and has a blast with it.
The shock comes from Steve's character - because Steve is determined to make this the last year he moons at Eddie Munson from afar and he's recruited Dustin's help to weave in some memory loss for Eddie's character and spent hours upon hours working out his own character with Eddie because "I'm hopeless, man, you gotta help me."
(And Eddie does, bc Steve is his best buddy in the whole world and no one is immune to his puppy eyes except maybe the Wheelers.)
Steve goes for it, because he's nearly thirty gd years old and what does he care if sometimes he's a little silly - and sometimes things come out a little awkward and sometimes Eddie has to redo Steve's math from over his shoulder (he swears he's not being an idiot on purpose, honestly, but he doesn't actually mind the way Eddie eventually just drags Steve's chair closer to his and slings an arm around the back of it so he can press into Steve's space and do the mental math every time Steve has more to count than one die and a stat add-on). The party gets used to it all quickly enough even though the first hour or so is spent laughing incredulously every time Steve affects a Voice of his own.
The campaign takes seven hours and it isn't until halfway into hour five that anyone except Steve pieces together the threads of Eddie's characters mysterious memory loss and Steve's PC's cryptic history. Mike gets a funny look on his face ten minutes before they break for snacks and drags Steve into a bathroom.
"What are you doing?" he asks with a grimace and Steve pretends to be confused. "I swear to God, Steve, if you're using this campaign to finally get into Munson's increasingly tight pants I'm going to punch you in the dick."
Steve shrugs and shields his junk, and Mike maybe has an aneurysm but that's his own problem.
The thing is, Dustin is a little shit and when Eddie'd finally convinced Steve to play he'd gone to Dustin with a plan of his own because "I'm a goddamn coward, man, I'm never gonna muster up the courage to do this on my own I need something to force me into a corner." so, like, Eddie knows there's a big reveal coming too and when Dustin drops the lore that Eddie's PC once saved an entire village, died about it, and was brought back to life when Steve's PC made a deal with a literal demon (the same demon they've been chasing across the countryside for the whole campaign, only Steve's PC has been playing it off like he doesn't have a clue who this fucker is) Eddie really leans into the story - presses into Steve's space while Steve gives a lofty speech about how he'd agreed to let the demon take only the memories of his own character because not being known by the love of his life was so much worse than him being gone and maybe it all hits a little too close to home and maybe Eddie only realizes right as Steve's throwing a second failed death save that Steve and Dustin must have planned this and maybe Will is a little too knowledgeable about the intricacies of these disaster gays intricate mating rituals, because he could totally heal Steve's character but the moment is fraught and this shit is fascinating so he lets Steve give a death speech while Eddie - actual Eddie, not his character - has tears in his eyes and thank fuck he doesn't throw a third failure because Eddie looks about ready to upturn the whole table when Will saves a reaction.
And, hey, when Steve's finally up Eddie's hand sort of just doesn't leave it's spot clenched around Steve's knee and they get through the rest of the fight and Dustin builds out a nice little happy ending for them all, Lucas doesn't pretend not to cry about it, and Mike begrudgingly admits it was a cool way to frame the story, and Will stares at Eddie and Steve like he's trying to read their minds.
(It's possible he can read minds? Steve doesn't know for sure except sometimes he's convinced Will has some left over shit from all the Upside Down crap and sometimes Will Knows Things.)
They don't, like, talk about it right away, because that was exhausting and they're all hungry as hell but like, they're sharing a room, sharing the tiny bed tucked up against the window, and it's not the first time they've ever done that but Eddie doesn't really let them get that far because halfway through brushing their teeth together, scrunched up together in the tiny bathroom across the hall, Eddie spits out toothpaste and tucks his face into Steve's neck and Steve hums around his toothbrush and curls a hand in Eddie's hair and it's super fucking inconvenient because now is the perfect time to actually Tell Eddie like he's supposed to but he has a mouthful of toothpaste and an armful of Eddie and -
"I'm gonna kill Dustin," Eddie murmurs into Steve's neck and Steve manages to maneuver his body at an alarming angle so he can clear his mouth without letting go of Eddie. "Gonna kill you too, what the hell, Steve?"
And maybe the whole dying to save the village thing was a little on the nose and maybe Steve's speeches were a little purple prosy and maybe Eddie's never been more charmed by such an absolute dork of a man in his entire life so when Steve gets to eye level and ticks up a brow in question Eddie thinks about how he's always felt like a coward but sometimes The Kids make him brave and he just lays one on Steve, toothpaste lingering in both of their mouths and Mike loudly banging on the bathroom door before Eddie's even managed to get his tongue involved and -
"Holy shit, dude, you're such a dickhead, I'm trying to stick my tongue down Steve's throat, man," Eddie says when he yanks the door open and drags Steve past a beleaguered Mike and a thrilled Will and shoves Steve none too gently back through the bedroom door. "You got earplugs?" he asks, and Mike grimaces.
"No."
"Cool, no worries, if you hear any noises for the next few hours no you didn't."
Eddie actually manages to keep it fairly quiet but Steve is a whiner and Dustin never lives down giving Mike the, like, third most traumatizing evening of his life.
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I love the batshit storytelling power of tabletop games.
Things my players have done in our campaign so far:
- Left Glaedr's eldunarí to freeze outside because they used him as an eye for their snowman and then forgot about him while they ran off to do their mission
- My werecat player traumatized the thirteen year old dragon rider student by giving him a "prophecy" about how he is destined for great things, but he was going to be betrayed by the person he trusts the most (he pulled that completely out of his ass).
- My dragon player has made a pact with the weird groundskeeper/janitor around campus to fuel her kleptomaniac tendency, and steal a gem from my blacksmith player. More on that to come.
- They did some absolutely heinous things to a pack of Shrrg in their first combat encounter. RIP.
- They adopted one of the Shrrg after they doomed him to a slow death of starvation by shattering his teeth (horrible). They healed him, and charmed him into being a friend, and then forged him a new set of magically enchanted steel dentures, so now he is going to be a permanent party member!
- They essentially ignored the main quest (a mysterious circle of destruction and mutated Shrrg that suggest a magical detonation in the same vein of the Vroengard explosion/the Galbatorix explosion only a few miles from the school) in order to go on a new self imposed sidequest of... Well.
- First the party cajoled Saphira into dragging back a Christmas tree.
- The bard (my boyfriend irl) has an antagonistic love-hate relationship with Glaedr (somehow) and spontaneously invented the holiday Christmas in universe while trying to convince Glaedr to sub in as a Christmas ornament. Glaedr refused.
- The whole party, now on board, convinced all the other eldunarí to be Christmas tree ornaments. Glaedr eventually caved and agreed to be the tree topper (the most prestigious position for the most important eldunarí, of course, they told him).
- They decided to name the holiday Gladmas in his honor.
- They came up with the (completely original) idea of a Gladmas icon- a man on the back of a beautiful glittering red dragon, who visits all the little children and leaves them presents. They came up with a plan to use all the eldunarí to power a hasten spell to get them around the world in one night. And they know just the perfect duo to pull this off! The only rider around with a red dragon who would fit the bill!
- So next session is going to be a side quest to convince Murtagh to become Santa Claus.
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