I stomped my feet several times in an attempt to get the snow off of my shoes before entering the game store.

  A theme song of some fantasy show I vaguely remember plays over the speakers as I enter, where I take a sharp turn towards all the gaming books and minis where Ben is already browsing stuff.

  “So is this where you tell me you plan on running stuff or is it more of a you want to convince me to run something?” I ask jokingly as I thumb through the books myself. Many of these I already own either physical or digital copies of.

  “Well, with the last game, dropping due to Caleb, you know, running it, I figured it was time to play something again. Tradition to start the new campaigns during New Years.” Ben says not answering the question of if he wants me to run it or if he’s going to do it himself.

  Amelia and Reyna have never mentioned interest in running a game, which leaves myself and Ben. We still have most of December left, so I guess I could prep something?

  “Speaking of that, I ran into Caleb the other day.” I say quietly, hoping I’m not making some kind of massive blunder in doing this.

  Ben freezes, his hands stopping halfway to grabbing another book to flip through as he processes what I just said. “You did?” Ben finally asks, sounding entirely unsure about what he’s supposed to say or sound like right now.

  “Yup.” I confirm. “It looks like he’s stalking me or something, gave Bianca a scare too. Though I just wanted to keep you in the loop.”

  “That’s awful. Would Bianca be upset to see me now?” Ben asks hesitantly.

  “I don’t think she would have any problems with you,” I say, not having the slightest clue, but I do have hope, and sometimes that can be enough.

  Besides, I qualified my statement with an; I don’t think she’s going to have any problems with him, which lets me cover my bases.

  “It’s hard. On one hand, he’s said such terrible things. Even worse, after he heard about the ultimatum you gave me. And yet…” Ben trailed off, grabbing book one of an AP off the shelf and flipping through it.

  “I get it.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. But I can understand. You still love him, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do. I just I’m not crazy enough to think I can fix him. That ship has long since set sail for distant lands.”

  “Hey, I became a super and adopted a kid in the past few months. Is it likely he becomes not a twat in the next few months? No, probably not, but there’s always the chance that things change.”

  “Hard for me to help it change for the positive when the two of us aren’t dating.” Ben snorts darkly.

  I pause because it really is my fault about that.

  I forced him to choose, and in the moment I wouldn’t have done anything different, but I don’t know if that was an asshole move or not, looking back.

  “Hey, as mad as I was in the moment—”

  “Don’t give me that shit, Jason. I was going to break up with him anyway. Having hangups about supers is fine. Having problems with the fact that because of random circumstance there are people who firmly live in the land of wonder and imagination is fine. Bullying a child isn’t. Besides, how many of the new friends did you invite that were supers? You handled it better than I could have asked for.”

  “Sorry for assuming.”

  “Nah, you’re good. You’re just trying to spin as many plates as possible.” Ben chuckled. “And I won’t be running it, and neither will you.”

  I could feel my eyebrows raising at that statement, being completely surprised that I wouldn’t be running it. Though I’m grateful.

  I don’t think I have the mental bandwidth to write and run a campaign, though I could always run an AP, I suppose. They just aren’t my thing for running games.

  “Yup, Reyna was the one who called me and asked for a recommendation for an AP to start with, cause she’s been missing our weekly game nights as well.” Ben explains.

  “So you’re looking for one neither you or I have read all the way through?”

  “I’m also checking the new releases cause I would love to try one of the newer one to twenty APs but I don’t know if the most recent one is finished yet,” Ben explains, holding up the book to show me a cover of what looks like a wizard battle.

  “No clue, but there’s no reason to pick the most recent one, or you could always ask around online to see if there’s one that specifically speaks to lots of people and just get that one.” I shrug, leafing through the books with more focus now that I know what I’m looking for.

  “Do you want to be pirates?” Ben asks, holding up a box set of the famous pirate AP that came out a few years ago.

  “Do you want to deal with the bad pirate accents everyone is going to be trying to do?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

  Ben seems to pause at that, considering the ramifications of such a decision.

  “What about this cowboy one?” I suggest holding up the six books in question. Unfortunately, there is no discounted box set, but that’s alright.

  “Stop trying to steampunk my fantasy world. I just want to slay giants and bed dragons or something,” Ben says, shoving me lightly.

  “Alright, alright.” I agree, putting the cowboy books back. I wouldn’t actually want to play it anyway I know the story to well since once I had struck out three times with suggesting it. I had watched a let’s play of it to explore the story and I saw it all from the GM’s POV.

  “How about this one?” I ask, holding up a slightly older AP. It was one of the first ones that came out with the new system, but in my opinion, it had aged incredibly well.

  “That’s the one where it mostly takes place in one kingdom, right where it got razed to the ground by an evil dragon?”

  “Opening is watching the evil dragon kill the patron guardian of the city.” I confirm.

  “That could be a good one.” Ben agrees, looking for the sequels of the book.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Thankfully, with the power of color coding, it isn’t long before we have all six found, and the two of us split the cost of both the books and the traditional new dice sets for everyone.

  “So, is the plan to run just the four of us, or is Reyna looking for a new player?” I ask the two of us dropping off our purchases at my car before taking the short walk to a nearby cafe.

  “No idea. I would like another player from a playing the game standpoint. It’s easier for Reyna, and I love seeing all the stories unfold. But I don’t want to try and replace our group and pretend like nothing’s changed,” he admits as we walk in, the smell of coffee hitting me instantly.

  “I don’t know if I would want to invite any of my friends. Maybe Cass, but Asher’s still in high school and the others have their own lives.”

  “Look at you playing the role of friend dad. Cass was the one with the hair that glowed right?”

  “Yup.”

  Our conversation pauses as we are seated and quickly order what we want. Thankfully, I’ve been here enough that I have long since lost the need to look at the menu for what I want on a particular day.

  At least when I’m not looking to try anything new.

  “I think I want it to just be us. The old gang, you know. Even if it’s harder.” Ben finally says after several moments of contemplation. “The more things change, the more I want reminders that some things stay the same and a lot of stuff has changed recently.”

  “You can say that again.” I snort, raising my water in a mock gesture.

  Ben clinks his glass against mine, and we both drink, minds wandering.

  “So with shopping already done, should we swing by Reyna’s place to drop the stuff off and check up on her?”

  “That’s the plan, though I’m pretty sure Amelia is already bugging her since Reyna said something about don’t interrupt her anime marathon when I asked her.” Ben confirms.

  “That could be fun to join if they’re watching something interesting.”

  “Yeah, cause jumping into a show when they’re forty-three episodes in is interesting and not absolutely mind-boggling.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Yeah, cause you spent half of it on your phone looking stuff up.”

  We are once again interrupted by our food being placed in front of us, and the conversation invariably leads to something I suspect all supers have to face eventually.

  “So are you and Amelia the people who are going around as Smolder and Fractal fighting crime and saving the day?” He asks in a low whisper.

  Using the brilliant pancake currently in my mouth technique of conversation, I just let out a grunt of confusion.

  “A shape changing dark clothed super who is punching their way through problems and a giant, hulking ice valkyrie that makes it snow constantly you’re not telling me it’s not a little bit suspicious?”

  “That is exactly what I hope I’m telling you.”

  “Jason, you love snow more than literally anyone else I know. The only reason you wear jackets is because it was less hassle than people asking you if you were cold. You also would totally pretend to be another gender to keep your identity separate. And Amelia is easy. Headstrong and unwilling to not try and help people if she thinks she can.”

  When Ben phrases it like that, I wonder just how bad we are at this whole disguising our identities thing.

  Though there’s also the fact that he thought I was Amelia, though because he thinks I’m Amelia I guess that means she’s in the clear. Though surprising nobody, he thinks we’re going to be some kind of badass fighting duo.

  “Yeah, I’m not going to tell you anything. It’s just not part of my life I feel comfortable sharing. And it gives you plausible deniability.”

  “But you are doing all that hero stuff, right?”

  “Yeah, I am. I have to.”

  “I trust you, though don’t let Caleb know, or he might go absolutely ballistic about it all.”

  “Or that’s the reason he’s stalking me.” I grumble.

  “Just make sure you’re not going to do anything stupid about all of this. I am sure you are feeling all sorts of powerful with your powers, but I don’t know if it’s the best idea to be rushing headlong into it.”

  “I don’t do things stupidly, or at least I don’t try to. But until the kidnappers and power-giving lunatics are all dealt with, I don’t think I’ll be slowing down. Besides, I'm giving time to myself. I’m hanging out with my best friends today.” I say, hoping to placate my friend.

  “And it's not because you feel guilty or that you need to pretend to yourself and others that you're doing just fine.”

  “No, it has nothing to do with that, and I don't hang out with you to let you psychoanalyze me. I pay a therapist a lot of money for that already.”

  “The therapist who definitely doesn't know you're a super.”

  “I'm shopping for a new therapist.” I admit grumbling. I can't exactly tell my current therapist the situation.

  I don't think becoming a super who has the power to punch holes through humans is still under patient confidentiality.

  “You know, the fact that you are shopping for a new therapist is one of the most hilarious things ever. Of all the woes you have being a hero running around saving kittens from burning buildings, the thing you’re complaining about is struggling to find a new therapist.” Ben laughs.

  “You know how it is the more things change, the more things stay the same and I am nothing if not dedicated to various pursuits.” I say, wiping my mouth clean now that my food is entirely finished.

  “You know nobody is going to steal your food.” Ben points out still having half of his plate left.

  I give him a blank stare, and he quickly retracts the statement.

  We begin discussing character ideas for what we want to do, though I have exactly no thoughts about what I want to do beyond I don’t really want to be a magical character. I love magic; however; I think I want my fantasy story to be a little bit more mundane.

  Besides, I can get to a high enough level that swinging my sword in-game could be considered a war crime, so I don’t think I need to worry about not having fantastical power in the future.

  Ben, on the other hand, has read too many gaming forums about interesting builds he has available and is very interested in trying out some of them.

  Some of the builds aren’t even that blatantly OP supposedly just mostly though I mostly ignore it Ben will settle into something realistic eventually he always does this is just a moment to truly enjoy the number crunching and think about just all the options we have available to us.

  Once the food is all finished, we pay before splitting off to our own vehicles and driving off to Reyna’s, where in fact Amelia’s car is there.

  As we are walking up, the door is thrown open with Reyna and Amelia standing there waiting. “And the chosen bozos have arrived! Who was going to tell me Rey-rey was going to be the one running our game? I didn’t know that. Why didn’t anybody tell me!” Amelia complains while gesturing for us to hurry inside.

  The two of us, in fact, hurry inside, though we didn’t really need any prompting; we were outside the door at the time so it didn’t take us that long.

  “Well, I had only decided just recently what I wanted to do, and Jason was told the same time as you.” Reyna says apologetically before giving each of us a hug.

  “Did you synchronize your watches so you told us exactly at the same time? Because if you told him earlier, I’ll never forgive you.” Amelia pouts, crossing her arms dramatically.

  “You knew before me. I’m sure.” I say, kissing her on the temple before going into the house proper and heading to the living room where the remnants of a recently finished anime marathon lay.

  “You two done watching your anime already?” Ben asks following me.

  “Not yet. Well, we finished watching the first one, so we were taking a little bit of a break while we made caramel popcorn.” Amelia explains happily, flopping onto the couch, taking it fully on her own.

  “She was also interrogating me about what kind of module I wanted to run, in which I said I had no clue and was going to let the nerd brigade make the choices for me.” Reyna finishes sitting down on top of Amelia, who lets out an oof of outrage.

  “You guys should be glad,” I say jokingly, leaning back in my chair. “Ben saved you from my choice.”

  The round of boos I got was quite satisfying as everyone wanted to fill in their opinion on how much they disagreed with my desire to play fantasy cowboys fighting dragons.

  “We decided to go classic. It’s probably the last big AP out there that we haven’t played yet,” Ben says, pulling up the bag and showing the shiny purple books in question.

  The appropriate amounts of oos and aws are distributed by myself as well since I only saw the spines, not their actual covers.

  Book one is quickly handed to Reyna who begins perusing at her own pace while the rest of us turn to the tv to watch a movie at least once Amelia has given up on getting Reyna off of her or pleading me and Ben to help her escape from her prison though neither of us are interesting in helping her out.

  Discord

  Patreon