Team Cupcake

Come on, Matt, you can do better than that.

Mm. Foggy, what is you make?

Okay, not quite, but I’ll take it. I’m making a little something. It’s someone’s birthday today.

Who?

It’s, uh… it’s our creator. In a way. She’s… You know what, it’s really hard to explain, and now we’re getting into the territory of meta-gaming, and I’m not sure if that’s where we should be going.

Med-gain?

Yeah, like when you play an RPG, and you let the actual world affect the game.

Ar-pee, what is this?

Have you ever heard of Dungeons & Dragons?

Mm. No.

It’s a game where you build a fictional fantasy character, and then you meet with a group of other people who have fantasy characters, and there’s a game master who tells a story of what the fantasy characters are doing, and you pretend you’re in this world with your character and do stuff there. As your character. Like real adventures and puzzles and fighting monsters.

Foggy, I think Matt’s eyes just went really wide. You know, figuratively speaking.

Foggy, why not?

What?

We not play, why? I want to.

Well, first of all, we’re just three people. It’s more fun when it’s a bigger group. Second of all, there’s a shitton of rules. Like how you fight, and how the weapons work, and what magic spells you can use. You can’t just make that stuff up out of the air.

Rules are in book?

Yeah.

It’s called the Player’s Handbook.

Wait, you played D&D?

Yeah, like a million years ago.

Playbook, I will find.

You know what, Matt? Let’s go out together. I bet there used to be a few game stores in Brooklyn, and it’s not something that would be high on the raiding list. We can probably find a Player’s Handbook or two.

Yes, Karen!

Well, we’ll still need a game master.

I’d be willing to give that a shot.

Really?

Yeah. You don’t trust me to do it?

No. God, no. That’d be awesome, actually. Now I’m excited, too. I think I’m gonna make a Half-orc Barbarian.

Foggy, you’d be a total Dwarf Cleric. Or a Human Bard. Matt could be… hm. A Tiefling Rogue?

Ling Ro, what is this?

Okay, I think we have some explaining to do. We better block the afternoon.

We need the handbook first.

Well, Matt, there’s your next mission.

Okay. Karen. We go. Now. Bye, Foggy. Later, see.

—————–

As a Christmas present for the always wonderful @sunshineverse, I’ve finally made a playlist for Sunshine!Foggy.

All These Things That I’ve Done is the night Matt turns from Foggy’s perspective, and The Chain is the scene where they reunite in the park.

—but they are loud and fierce and scared and sharp and hurt hurt hurt and they don’t want him but he needs them and so he tries and tries again but—

—but each time he falls short. And then he is lost again, drifting again, at the edge of the current. Drowning.

He lives in the ocean, pushed here and there through the dark by a current he doesn’t understand. But one day the current pulls and yanks him away, away, to a place where—

—where things move and they move and they are his and he will fight again and again, and again and forever to make sure that they are safe from things that will harm them, because there is nowhere safe in the ocean but it’s safe where—

—where he is.

He doesn’t notice until it’s over, doesn’t know what he realizes as he struggles (choking on the ocean trying to fill him from the inside again, drowning, always drowning), head tilted, twitching. The current tugs. They are still there, he and him (Who? Him, him, him, who), and he makes sounds and says—

—says “Matt?” and he doesn’t know who that is, doesn’t know what he knows but he feels something jerk, can feel something floating in the ocean and he reaches for it and grasps and grabs hold and fumbles and says—

—says words he doesn’t understand, but it’s there and he struggles and shivers and coughs until he manages to spit it out (Who? Him, home, missed you, Foggy). And Foggy is there and Matt is gone but he doesn’t know it (all the knowing was smashed by the waves, dragged away and lost in the ocean, and Matt was too, Matt died and drowned) but he knows Foggy and Foggy knows him (“Matt, Matty, Matt, do you remember?”). The current is steady.