43. Your Seat Is Saved #2
His eyes move immediately toward Micah. “Was that reassurance?”
“No.”
“I felt reassured.”
“You shouldn't.”
Something about Micah's delivery is almost normal enough that Dex's smile turns real.
I move on before he ruins it.
Micah's rogue disappears behind a collapsed column, and the twenty-three on his Stealth check means none of the enemies see him reposition.
Dex sighs theatrically. “Hot.”
Micah finally looks at him. “Do you need a minute?”
“Probably.”
The first two rounds go badly enough to be entertaining without becoming annoying, which is generally the ideal balance for combat.
Cami uses a spell slot earlier than she probably should.
Griffin misses an attack.
Dex uses Vicious Mockery on a mercenary and, for reasons known only to him, decides the actual insult should be, “You fight like your mother dresses you.”
The table goes silent.
Cami turns slowly toward him.
Griffin stares.
Even Micah looks impressed, although not for the reason Dex would prefer.
Dex lifts his hands defensively. “It was under pressure.”
Micah's eyebrows rise. “You're a bard.”
“I know.”
“Words are your entire thing.”
“I panicked.”
The laugh catches Micah by surprise.
It is not especially loud, but it is the first time I have heard him genuinely laugh for longer than a second since he came home three nights ago.
His hand comes up toward his mouth almost immediately, as though the reaction escaped before he had time to decide whether he wanted it.
Dex's expression softens.
Only for a second.
Then he spreads both hands and announces, “Worth it. I accept my humiliation.”
Nobody turns the moment into anything more than that.
I am extraordinarily proud of all of them.
The creature beneath the water attacks at the beginning of the third round.
Cami makes an alarmed noise when I put the miniature onto the map.
“What the fuck is that?”
“A chuul.”
Dex leans closer. “It looks like a lobster had sex with trauma.”
“That is not an inaccurate description.”
Griffin studies the miniature. “Can it grab us?”
“Yes.”
Dex points at him. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because I want to know.”
“Some truths do not improve your life.”
While they argue, Micah studies the grid.
“Can I get behind the mage from here?”
I follow the path with one finger. “If you use your bonus action to Dash. You'll provoke an opportunity attack from the mercenary beside you.”
“Worth it.”
He moves.
The mercenary misses.
Micah reaches the mage and picks up his d20.
“Attack.”
The die rolls across the tray and lands on twenty.
For a brief second, Micah simply looks at it.
Then the table erupts.
Dex is halfway out of his chair. “FUCK YES.”
Cami grabs Micah's arm with both hands.
Griffin smacks one palm against the table.
Micah looks up at me, and his expression is different than it was when he sat down.
Certainly not fixed.
I do not think grief is particularly interested in being fixed over pizza and dice.
But he is present.
Fully.
“Roll damage,” I tell him.
He gathers the appropriate dice, adds Sneak Attack, and produces a number so excessive that I look down at the mage's remaining hit points and don't bother pretending the result is uncertain.
“The mage never sees you. He's focused on Cami one second, and your blade goes between his ribs the next.”
Micah studies the map. “He drops?”
“He drops.”
Dex points across the table. “Good boy.”
Micah's eyes snap up.
Dex goes perfectly still.
Cami makes a strangled sound.
Griffin closes his eyes as though he has developed a headache in real time.
I lift one eyebrow.
Micah's mouth curves slowly. “Careful.”
The tone is sufficient to make Dex reconsider his life choices.
I file that away for a context in which I am not currently responsible for a chuul.
“Griffin,” I say, returning my attention to the initiative list. “You're up.”
“Thank you.”
The fight lasts another forty minutes.
They kill the chuul with four hit points left on Dex, six on Cami, and just enough resources between them that everyone feels appropriately heroic without feeling invincible.
Griffin complains that everyone keeps getting behind him.
Dex tells him that is usually considered a benefit.
Griffin threatens to leave him unconscious the next time he drops to zero.
Micah eats almost all of both bags of cinnamon knots while pretending nobody notices.
By the time I finally close my notebook, the table is covered in dice, empty boxes, pencils, miniatures, napkins, and cinnamon sugar that Dex has somehow managed to smear across the lower half of his character sheet.
“That is where we'll stop.”
Dex groans immediately. “You can't stop there.”
“I can.”
“We are literally standing in front of the gate.”
“Yes.”
“You specifically described screaming on the other side.”
“I did.”
“You're a bad person.”
“I sleep comfortably.”
Cami is leaning against Micah now, her head briefly settling against his shoulder while she looks over her notes. He doesn't move away, but I can see the exhaustion returning now that the game no longer requires his attention.
It doesn't look quite as heavy as it did two hours ago.
Griffin starts gathering plates. Dex attempts to argue that the last slice of pizza has become abandoned property under some imaginary statute. Cami steals it while he is making his case.
Micah remains at the table with his pencil moving over the edge of his notes.
When I look closer, he is drawing the chuul.
Except it has Dex's hair.
I decide there are questions I do not need answered.
I find him on the back porch about ten minutes later.
Micah has a cigarette between his fingers and one shoulder resting against the railing, the glow at the end brightening briefly when he takes a drag. He looks toward me when I step outside, but he doesn't ask why I'm there.
I retrieve one of the cigars I keep in the cabinet beside the back door and cut the end before joining him.
Micah looks at it. “I thought you were cutting back.”
“I am.”
“You're smoking.”
“Yes.”
“That is generally considered incompatible with cutting back.”
“It would be if I were smoking the same number I used to.”
He considers this for a moment, then nods. “Fair.”
We smoke without talking.
The air is cold enough that every exhale becomes a mixture of breath and smoke before disappearing over the yard.
The neighborhood is quiet, which I appreciate more than I usually do.
There are no questions coming through the back door, no phones buzzing, no one trying to determine whether Micah is doing better than he was yesterday.
I could ask.
I have asked variations of the same question enough times this week that the answer would probably tell me very little.
He is grieving.
That is not an information gap I can solve.
After several minutes, Micah moves closer.
The shift is small enough that someone else might interpret it as an adjustment against the cold. I don't.
He stops beside me, our shoulders nearly touching.
I lift my arm slowly enough that the movement enters his line of sight before I touch him.
He looks at me once.
Then he leans in.
His shoulder settles against my chest first, followed by the side of his head near my collarbone. I let my arm come around him and rest my hand against his upper arm, keeping the pressure predictable.
He exhales a little longer than the breaths before it.
I know there are things I could say.
I could tell him he is loved.
He knows.
I could tell him he belongs here.
He knows that too.
I could tell him his parents are wrong, his aunt and uncle are wrong, that the people who removed him from their lives have confused conviction with righteousness.
None of those things would give him back Christmas.
They would not restore the family group chat or put him back in his Aunt's kitchen. They would not make his mother's beliefs hurt less simply because ours are different.
Sometimes words are useful.
Sometimes they are a demand disguised as comfort, requiring the grieving person to reassure everyone that the correct statement helped.
I don't want Micah to perform improvement for me.
So I hold him instead.
After a while, he takes another drag from his cigarette and says, “The chuul was bullshit.”
I smile. “You survived.”
“Barely.”
“That is generally the point.”
He makes a quiet sound against my chest that might be a laugh. “It grabbed Cami twice.”
“She kept standing next to it.”
“You put it there.”
“I put it in the water. She chose to remain within reach.”
Micah shifts enough to look at me. “You really can justify anything as a Dungeon Master.”
“I can explain almost anything. That isn't the same thing.”
“That sounds like justification.”
“It sounds like accuracy.”
His mouth opens again, but he says nothing.
Then he lets his head settle back against me.
The weight of him increases slightly as he stops holding quite so much of himself upright.
I tighten my arm without thinking about it.
Inside the house, Dex says something loud enough that we hear Cami tell him to shut the fuck up through the closed door.
Micah exhales another small laugh.
Three days ago, people who have known him his entire life made his place in their family conditional.
Nothing any of us say or do can undo that.
I also cannot promise that the people inside this house will never hurt him, disappoint him, or make mistakes. Five adults are too complicated for promises that stupid.
What I can do is make sure he never has to earn the same chair twice.
Next Thursday, his miniature will be beside the others.
His dice tray will be where he expects it.
There will probably be wild card pizza because apparently we have committed ourselves to that culinary offense indefinitely.
And whether Micah arrives happy, angry, grieving, exhausted, or too quiet even for himself, nobody will ask him to prove he belongs before we roll initiative.
He already does.
Micah finishes his cigarette and stays against me after it burns out.
I keep my arm around him.
Neither of us says anything else.
We don't need to.