#bdrphaley

When Danny had walked into his dorm room to see Michael and Ashlee T. sitting on Michael’s bed, watching a movie, he decided that he had only dropped by to pick something up and was going to be meeting up with Haley for dinner. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t like Ashlee T. Or cared that Michael had someone over. Just that--he was awkward and probably the worst third-wheel in the whole world. And if he just stayed, sitting in their room, it would be weird. He probably had a text on his phone from Michael, giving him the heads up, but he had a bad habit of swiping notifications away and forgetting about them. So, no worries, he’d just go study in the library for a bit or something.

He’d smiled, said a very stilted hello, grabbed something random off his desk: his sketchbook--and then turned around and left again. Smooth. Nothing weird about that at all. 

Danny slinked back down the hallway, pausing at Haley’s door and...well, he hated lying. Soooo...he knocked.

And Haley answered.

“Oh, hey.” Danny blinked in surprise. “Michael has a girl in the room,” he blurted.

@dragon-prodigy

At their last DnD session, Haley had complained to him that she didn’t know PrideU as well as she would like. He could understand the anxiety. They were both people who liked to do well in school, nerds in the purest form of the word. Not just because they liked things like Dungeons and Dragons, but because they liked school and learning. Danny often found that these sorts of things went hand in hand anyway, which was why he gravitated towards groups of people like ones who played DnD.

Anyway, not the point. The point was that Danny had offered to show Haley around. Let her poke a bit in places you could only get into with a school ID. Take her to some of his favourite study spots (the idea of this made his cheeks pink, thinking about it, though he wasn’t sure why; just felt...intimate...sharing study spots. That was weird probably.) 

He was waiting outside the art building, where he’d told Haley to meet him. It was one of his favourites. And the building that he was most familiar with, considering most of his classes were held there. It was evening, the sun low in the sky, though not dusk quite yet. They had DnD after this, but at least they would have a few hours to explore. PrideU wasn’t a big campus. He was sure that it wouldn’t take that long. 

@dragon-prodigy

Danny was a bit nervous. (When wasn’t he?)

But, no. For real this time. He was nervous. 

Haley had invited him to join the Barn’s DnD new campaign that would be starting next month and, of course, he had said yes. He needed friends, desperately. And not friends that were putting themselves in constant imminent danger (hello, Dash and Eric.) Or friends that thought he wanted to do comedy?! (Hello, Anna.) He just wanted...nerdy friends. That did safe, nerd activities like play Dungeons and Dragons on Saturday mornings.

He had played campaigns before, obviously, but that was on Roll20 with his Internet friends, who he’d known for much longer than Haley and the other people in this campaign, which meant he could be--chill with them. The way he couldn’t with Haley and her friends.

Still, he was doing his best to be chill here. He had done a bit of prepping beforehand, but he didn’t--actually know what the campaign was, which would influence his character. 

Danny entered the Barn and trotted up to the counter, where he found Haley, who was just getting ready to get off a shift. His cheeks were pink, but he hoped that she thought this was just because of the cold weather.