chaos Steve’s character sheet
Eddie shakes his head. They’re sitting at his picnic table. He hasn’t had any customers today, though that may be because he’s been letting Steve “The Hair” Harrington take up all his attention. It has been much more entertaining than he’d thought it would be.
“you have to take a class to be a ninja?” Steve asks, confused. “Or, a knight or whatever?”
“Not that kind of class. But yeah, you can be a fighter but not a ninja.”
Steve pouts. It is unfairly attractive. “This game is stupid. who wouldn’t wanna be a ninja?”
“I mean, some people will homebrew a class for you but that’s a lot of work, and if the kids you’re babysitting are young, I wouldn’t make them do that. Not for a couple years, until they’re comfortable with jacking up the ruleset.”
“Ho—homebrew?” Steve slides his hands down his face. He looks like Eddie’s handed him the nuclear codes and told him to translate them into Russian. He stares at the character sheet Eddie offered to draw up for him. “Like, cooking? Or making alcohol? Wait, are you giving kids—”
“No!” Eddie says quickly because Steve looks actually upset and he wonders about that. Steve knew where to find Eddie and what he’d be doing out here but he draws the line at booze? Like he isn’t the king of underage drinking? What is King Steve even doing running a babysitting service? “It means like, make up the rules and stuff yourself, rather than get it from the rulebook.”
“Oh my god, I’m never gonna get this.” Steve puts his head in his hands. He sounds so broken up about it, so sad and disappointed in himself, that Eddie pats his shoulder without thinking about it. Steve only sighs beneath his touch so Eddie leaves his hand there, ignoring the feeling of muscles under fabric.
“Why does it even matter that much to you, anyway? Never thought I’d see the day Hawkins Royalty decided to indulge in a little satanic gameplay.”
Steve moves so fast Eddie can’t even flinch before he’s got Eddie’s hand wrapped in both of his. Eddie turns red. “It’s not satanic,” Steve tells him, emphatic. “It’s harmless, I know that much, at least. Anybody who gives you shit for it is dangerously stupid, Munson. You let me know if anybody does, okay? And I’ll be damned if I let them give those kids shit for it either.”
“Holy shit,” Eddie whispers, awed. Steve loosens his grip, confused, but Eddie covers their joined hands and grins. “You just swore an oath of protection.”
Steve shifts, looking uncomfortably seen. He ducks his head and mutters, “well, yeah but. I mean when you say it like that you make it sound cooler than it is.”
“It is cool,” Eddie insists. “You’re not a fighter, Steve, you’re a paladin!” He pulls away only to shift to Steve’s bench and grab his pencil, filling in his class. “They’re holy fighters who swear an oath for something they believe in. There’s even a way of specialty called Protection Fighting, where you take hits meant for others or reduce damage to allies. That’s you!”
“But you said they get like, powers from God, right? I’m not religious.”
“You don’t have to be. Besides it’s from non-Christian or fictional gods, like Pan or Tyr. We could pick one for you that would fit. What do you like, nature, justice, the sun? It could be anything.”
Eddie’s excitement seems catching, because Steve picks his head up and smiles a little. He taps his fingers on the edge of the paper and asks, voice a little small, “Could I—make one up?”
It’s not technically allowed by the stringent constraints of dnd. But Eddie finds himself curious as to where this is going. He nods. Steve lets out a breath like he’s nervous and speaks in a rush.
“She’s a god of, um. Freedom. Yeah. And she—she protects kids the best because they should have the most freedom to grow up and be whoever they want. But she protects everyone else too! She got crazy powers but they kinda hurt? Sometimes? So she doesn’t use them often and her followers and friends know to help her out when she’s tired. And she never wanted to be powerful in the first place? She just had to be. So her goal is to find the freedom to be a normal kid again.” Steve plucks at the hem of his shirt, losing a little of his steam, before finding Eddie’s gaze. “I guess that could be, like, my…quest? Right? Giving her a normal life. Finding that, um. Freedom. For her.”
Eddie looks into the honey brown of Steve Harrington’s eyes and feels his heart pound in his chest. He nods, ideas already flitting in his mind. This boy is going to have an entire campaign written about him by the time Eddie’s through with this. How did he just come soaring out of the blue and throw all of Eddie’s preconceived notions about him into absolute chaos in less than a week?
“Hell yes, Harrington,” he says, instead of announcing all that. “Chaotic Good Oath of Protection Paladin Steve—what’s your goddess’s name?”
