Work Text:
When you had transferred schools from the private academy you were attending to a public school in the middle of urban Santa Cruz, you at first were a little reluctant to leave your family legacy and best friend behind (if not absolutely unwilling to, to the point of shouting arguments with your father). But when you realized that the new school you were going to had no established Dungeons & Dragons club (and thus no established hierarchy), and also found out that starting a club at this new school required less paperwork and bureaucratic bullshit than your former school, you thought you had found a niche for yourself. After all, that’s what Fef and your family kept pushing you to do. Fef would keep telling you to branch out for your own sake, your father kept telling you to branch out for the Ampora’s namesake, and your creepy older brother Cronus kept telling you to branch out to score him a date. You figured a D&D club could do at least the first two things.
So you went out of your way to make all of these goddamn fliers—and by “make them” you mean “ask your father to pay someone else to do them professionally”—and put them all over the school. Literally everywhere, even on teacher’s desks to their disapproval. (Not like they should get so angry, doesn’t the student always come first?) You did everything possible to try to get people to come, and even stooped to inviting that pathetic Nitram kid. You were sure you would get a heavy turnout.
Imagine your surprise when the meeting time came and went with not one person showing up. No one. Not even useless, wheelchair-ridden Nitram. To make the situation even worse, you actually convinced yourself rather pathetically that people had probably mixed up the times, and even waited fifteen minutes after the meeting start time to wait. When that fifteen minute mark finally hit, you sighed and began packing away all the materials you had brought for the session. When you had finally rolled up the D&D sheet, the door to the art classroom you booked slammed open, and your head snapped up to see a girl you recognized all too well, even after only weeks of going to the school. You recognized her by her glasses and her unkempt black hair. She was the same girl from your history class that had gotten way too excited about that lecture on pirates.
Vriska Serket. AKA the last person you wanted to be here. You’d almost have rathered having no one come by.
“This where the D&D club is?” she asked. Before you could even answer, she walked over to wear you were packing things up and took a seat across from you. You could also see her eying the game pieces you had started putting away.
Meaning you couldn’t lie to her to get her to leave.
You scowled at her, making sure she knew her presence was unwelcome, but she seemed to pay no mind. “It was,” you told her, “until no one showed up.”
“Well I’m here,” she said, putting her feet up on the round table between you two. “Meaning there’s another person for you to play with.”
“Do you even know how to play this?” you asked with an accusatory tone to your voice. You wanted her to be perfectly aware of how much you’d rather not play with her. She wasn’t just weird—according to others in school, she was downright psycho. Absolutely no one hung out with her.
Of course, you also heard rumors about yourself being narcissistic and dramatic, and no one hung out with you either. Still, you weren’t thatdesperate.
She rolled your eyes at your question, still lounging comfortably in her seat. “Pleeeeeeeease, new kid, I’m the best at D&D.”
That’s what she said. But when you sighed and put out the playing sheet and pieces, even taking out your very expensive journal to get your verypowerful character in the game, you realized quickly she hadn’t ever played before, and that she only considered herself the best because she saw her older sister be a dungeon master a handful of times. You ended up spending the next twenty minutes explaining to her the basic mechanics of the game, how to create her own character (a pirate she tried to make ridiculously overpowered), fought with her on why you got to be dungeon master and not her, until you finally threw your hands in the air and gave up trying to play the game correctly. It ended up with her just rolling the dice and making up commands with no regard to the numbers she rolled or the rules. Then she had the gall to start bitching at you for the game being boring.
“Well,” you snapped at her, “maybe it’d be more fun if you actually listened and fuckin’ played the game right.”
“But that’s boring too!” she whined, throwing the dice on the table in frustration. “Aranea said this was supposed to be a cool game!”
“Then why the fuck are you still here!?”
Your yelling came as a shock even to you. She grew quiet at your outburst, and looked downward—pouting, more than anything else. You expected some more bitching, only to be surprised with what she ended up saying.
“Well…no one else in this school wants to talk to me. I just figured you’d be different.”
This hit home for you. Not because you were already an outcast at this new school, but you were practically an outcast even at your old one. Your only real friends were Fef and your older brother Cro, the latter of which you hardly considered a friend—more just a body to sit next to when Fef was not around.
You may not have known why no one spoke to her, but you knew all too well the feeling of being alone. At least you had Feferi, though—she didn’t seem to have anyone.
You sighed, scratching your hair as you did, and finally responded. “Well…why not you take all this home with you? And…I dunno, fuckin’ learn the basics of the game. Take my character sheet and strategies and stuff. We can play when you actually understand the game.”
She looked back up at you, eyes softer at this sudden compassion coming from you. Then they suddenly hardened—a defensive mechanism you understood all too well—and smirked at you.
“And just how are you going to know if I’m ready to play?” she questioned.
You deadpanned at her. “We share fuckin’ history together,” you explained. “I’m pretty sure you and I will have no problem finding each other.” Then, as an afterthought—and feeling your cheeks burning—you offered another suggestion. “I can…also give you my number. You know. To call me. When you’re ready, that is.”
You saw her cheeks go pink, and she glanced away from you. Despite her obviously feeling sheepish, she responded as if it was no big deal. “Fine. Deal. Gimme your number then.”
It took her only a couple days to learn how to play, and then a week more to beat even your score. When she finally was able to overpower you, she made one of her in game moves to ask you on a date.
The move was successful.