for @polemical - clandestine tavern meetings or something like it

[ccunningham]

Chris had left a carefully folded character sheet slipped into Eddie's locker, something he'd had to do quickly on the way past between classes. He hadn't put his name on it, though that was more out of concern of someone else finding it than anything, since he was reasonably sure she'd know it was from him.

The thing was, the character was technically good, in that all the technical aspects were balanced and correct, if a little hastily scribbled. All of it was hastily scribbled, really, as he'd been filling it out under the guise of taking notes during a church fellowship outing to one of the parishes out in Indianapolis. The character backstory made it painfully obvious that Chris had only rarely -if ever- been encouraged to use his imagination for anything.

Milo Overhill, a halfling bard who had formerly been a noble, but had been disowned for reasons unknown, and who had a habit of settling arguments via headbutting contests. Chris wasn't entirely sure that part fit, but the book had suggested an interesting quirk, and he hadn't been able to think of anything except what he himself had been banned from Sunday nursery lessons for when he was younger.

Really the best part of the character sheet -aside from those technical parts being correct- was the sketch in the frame, looking a little bit like a children's book illustration of Johnny Appleseed, but beardless and with a much fancier mustache.

There was no note to go with it, but as it was Friday afternoon, he had track practice and wouldn't be that difficult to find.

Comments

[polemical]

Waking up to Chris quietly murmuring to her as he tried to slip out from beneath her had been a real fucking trip, mostly because Eddie had been half-convinced she was still dreaming the entire time. Not that she spends a lot of time dreaming about the boys in her school — she doesn't! — but the idea of falling asleep with someone and getting gently shushed back into the tangled sheets is sweet, and charming, and filled with the kind of tender longing that she's embarrassed to even look at head-on.

If she were to fantasize about the morning-after aspect of a hook-up, there would be worse people she could fantasize about than Chris Cunningham, that's for sure.

It hadn't been until he'd whispered a goodbye and shut the porch door behind him that Eddie woke up enough to realize that it had been real, that she can Chris had fallen asleep in her bed together, that she really had spent the past few hours curled up with her head on his chest and his arm around her back.

It had been hard to go back to sleep, after that.

That had been a while ago, though, and despite how much she might wish they could just sidle up to each other in school, she's not stupid. They run in different circles. Literally. Him talking to her would be social suicide. Her approaching him would just be inviting ridicule or retaliation, or both. So she contented herself with smiles in the hallway, with quiet cooperation in their one shared class, with the occasional look across the cafeteria at lunch time, and that's it. It's fine. They're friends, but they're not close. Eddie doesn't let herself get torn up about Brenda Matherson not going out of her way to talk to her, and she bummed a tampon off her last month. If that's not friendship, nothing is. So. It's fine.

When she opens her locker to have a slip of paper flutter past her to land on the floor, Eddie first thinks someone's asking to buy from her something. It's a fairly standard way to placing an order, setting up a time or place or requesting something specific and tucking the note into her locker, a more clandestine way of purchasing than straight-out asking. When she opens the paper, though, she has to take a second to figure out what the hell she's looking at.

It's a character sheet, obviously. But whose? She knows the handwriting of all the members of Hellfire, and nobody else would be nerdy enough to write out an entire sheet without being coaxed or bribed.

Unbidden, a memory floats into her head of Chris telling her he'd read the rulebook, that he had a vague understanding of how D&D worked, and her threatening to make him play. She squints a little more at the sheet in her hand, trying to compare it against the few quizzes she's seen of Chris's in their history class, and yeah, the more she looks at it, the more she thinks it's probably his.

Which. Holy shit. She has to find him. Is he asking to play with her? Does he want to sit in on Hellfire? She has so many questions. Forgetting what she went into her locker for in the first place, Eddie stuffs the sheet into the inside pocket of her jacket and turns on her heel to head outside. The track team are practicing or whatever it's called right now. She's pretty sure she knows where Chris is.