16. Behind The DM Screen #2
“That doesn’t mean we have to use them.”
Micah looks at him. “We spent half of last session getting those papers.”
“Exactly. They’re collectible now.”
Cami starts laughing.
I look down at my notes and wait.
“I offer the guard ten gold,” Griffin says.
I look at him. “You want to bribe him?”
Griffin shrugs. “Apparently.”
“But you have valid travel documents.”
“I know.”
Shaking my head, I just look at him.
“He’s going through some things,” Griffin says.
Cami folds over laughing, and Micah has to look away.
I stare at Griffin for a few seconds before making notes on the guard’s stats.
Dex leans toward me. “Did Griffin just become the problem player?”
“No,” I answer quickly.
“Feels like he did.”
“You attempt to seduce everything.”
“And it sometimes works.
I should not find that argument funny.
Unfortunately, I do.
The campaign proceeds about as expected from there, which is to say it proceeds nothing like I planned.
That is, technically, what I plan for.
Encounters have contingencies. NPCs have motivations instead of scripts. The world has rules, but the players are allowed to make choices inside them. Otherwise there would be very little point in playing.
They get through the gate without bribery or seduction. Micah discovers a route through the market that bypasses an encounter I spent almost an hour designing. Cami adopts an NPC I created solely to give them directions. Griffin threatens someone he was supposed to negotiate with.
Dex steals a hat. Not a magical hat. Not an important hat. Just a hat.
“Why?” I ask him.
He puts a hand against his chest. “My character liked it.”
Cami catches my eye. She’s trying not to smile.
I narrow my eyes at her.
That makes it worse.
And somewhere between the stolen hat and Griffin rolling a natural one while attempting to intimidate a man he has already successfully intimidated, I realize something.
Everything is different.
Which is strange, because almost nothing feels different.
Somewhere during the session, everyone rearranges themselves without discussion.
Cami’s foot ends up in Griffin’s lap, her shoulder against Micah’s.
Dex’s empty drink disappears and returns full because Micah noticed it before Dex did.
Griffin moves the chips into Dex’s reach without interrupting their argument.
Nobody rolled for any of that.
Every so often, Cami looks at me.
And every time I catch her, she smiles.
We spent an entire family meeting defining what we are to each other, and apparently the result is that nobody behaves much differently.
That should probably feel anticlimactic, but I find it reassuring.
We just defined words for things we were already doing.
Maybe that’s all I wanted from it.
A structure doesn’t have to dictate what happens inside it. It just needs to be strong enough to hold it.
By the time I close my notebook a few hours later, Dex has acquired three objects that have no narrative value, Cami has promised an elderly apothecary she will come back to visit, Griffin accidentally started a minor conflict with the city guard, and Micah is the only reason any of them are still alive.
A fairly standard campaign night.
“That’s where we’ll stop for tonight,” I say.
Dex leans back with a groan. “You can’t stop there.”
“I just did.”
“We were literally being chased.”
“Yes.”
“Because Griffin committed a crime.”
Griffin looks at him. “You stole a hat.”
“Nobody cared about the hat.”
“The owner cared.”
“The owner was being dramatic.”
Cami pushes herself up from the table. “I’m with Dex. The hat was overpriced.”
Griffin takes Cami’s hand when she passes him, pulling her close enough to kiss her stomach through her shirt before letting her go.
She runs her fingers through his hair as she continues walking.
Neither of them seems to notice any of us looking.
Dex is still complaining about the campaign cliffhanger when he follows Cami into the kitchen, leaving Micah and me at the table.
We start cleaning up the table without discussing it.
I put the minis away while Micah gathers the dice.
“You okay?” he asks after a minute.
“Yes.”
Micah looks at me like he doesn’t believe me.
I keep sorting.
His silence continues.
Eventually I sigh. “I think so.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
“It is.”
He slides another handful of dice toward me. “What are you thinking about?”
I consider that. I’ve been spiraling lately.
Dinner. Christmas. The campaign. Cami’s new work.
Instead, I put the last miniature into its slot and close the case. “Eleven people is a lot for dinner.”
Micah laughs softly. “That’s what you’re thinking about?”
“Among other things.”
“Like?”
I look toward the kitchen.
Dex is telling Cami something loudly enough that I can hear the cadence but not the words. Griffin says something in response, and both of them laugh.
Earlier this year, none of this existed. Not really.
Maybe pieces of it did, and I just didn’t know what they were going to become.
“I think I like this,” I admit.
Micah stills. Not dramatically. His hand simply stops and hovers over the dice tray. “Dungeons & Dragons?”
I look at him.
His mouth curves. “I know.” A moment later, he adds, “Me too.”
My attention drops back to the table as I straighten the edge of my notebook. “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about what all of this means.”
“We have.”
“And today Cami came home with a possible job opportunity, invited eleven people to dinner, and we spent three hours arguing about a stolen hat.”
Micah waits.
“I think that’s probably the point,” I add.
He studies me for a second. “Being boring?”
“We are not boring.”
“Domestic?”
I consider it. That isn’t quite right either. “Existing.”
Micah’s smile changes to something smaller and warmer. “Yeah, I think that’s the point too.”
For the first time really, he reaches for me.
Slowly.
Not cautiously. There’s a difference. Caution would mean he’s afraid of getting it wrong. This is deliberate. His hand enters my line of sight before it comes anywhere near me, giving me enough time to understand where he intends to touch.
His fingers hover beside my wrist.
He waits.
The pause lasts maybe half a second—it’s long enough.
I could move, but I don’t.
His fingers close around my wrist, warm and loose, and his thumb grazes once over the inside of it.
My pulse jumps beneath his hand.
There is no instinctive recoil. No static under my skin. No need to calculate how long I can tolerate the contact before it becomes too much.
There’s just warmth.
Micah watches my face anyway.
He knows how to touch me.
The realization lands somewhere behind my ribs with considerably more force than the touch itself.
“We should probably figure out Christmas,” he says—which is not where I expected this to go.
I groan.
Micah laughs. “Is it that bad?”
“My mother has already texted me three times about Christmas Eve, and whether or not I’m going to be there.”
His amusement disappears. “Is it about Ben?”
“Not directly.”
Which is worse in some ways.
He waits for me to say more, but doesn’t push.
And I don’t—not tonight.
The problem will still exist tomorrow, and I don’t need to ruin a perfectly nice night by giving my brother any more space in my head or the room than he already occupies.
“I’ll deal with it,” I finally say.
Micah’s fingers tighten slighting around my wrist. “We’ll deal with it.”
I look at him.
There are several reasons I want to correct him.
My family. My brother. My problem.
Except Micah’s thumb is still resting over my pulse like he has every intention of staying long enough for it to be his problem too.
I turn my hand beneath his.
Micah loosens his grip immediately, giving me room to pull away.
I don’t.
I rotate my wrist until our palms meet and lace my fingers through his.
His breath changes. Barely, but I hear it anyway.
“Okay,” I finally agree.
Something crashes in the kitchen.
“I’m fine!” Dex shouts immediately.
Micah closes his eyes.
“Do you believe him?”
“Not even remotely.”
“Neither do I.”
We still don’t move right away.
Micah stays beside me, his hand in mine, while Dex and Cami start arguing about whose fault whatever happened was and Griffin attempts to determine whether anything actually broke.
There are too many people in this house.
Too many schedules. Too many relationships. Too many ways for something to go wrong.
For most of my life, security has meant understanding the variables well enough to predict the outcome. Rules help. Plans help. Knowing where things belong and what is expected of me helps considerably.
Five people do not offer that kind of certainty.
Five people can’t be reduced to a diagram, no matter how much easier an org chart would make things feel.
I don’t know exactly what Christmas will look like. I don’t know what dinner with another polycule household will look like. I don’t know what happens when one of us eventually wants something the others aren’t prepared for.
I do know Micah’s hand is still in mine.
I also know the others are in the kitchen. I know Cami is laughing. I know Griffin is telling Dex to stop touching something, which means Dex is almost certainly touching it more.
And I know that when we sit down at this table again next week, I’ll have to rewrite half the campaign because none of them did what I thought they’d do tonight.
Apparently, planning for people doesn’t mean predicting them.
Sometimes it just means building a world sturdy enough to survive their choices.
I look down at Micah’s hand in mine.
And I think I can do that.