80 + 75 with newmann!
80. Green-Eyed Epiphany
75. Bed Sharing
I had to google Green-Eyed Epiphany, which is the most self-explanatory trope name ever, but oh well.
This was hard until I realized I could throw in a third AU. Then it was hard because the first thing I thought of, college sports team AU, was something I realized would be laughably OOC for both of these nerds.
Ergo: D&D AU, aaand also a college AU.
(I don’t know how D&D works, just GURPS and Shadowrun, so if you need to pretend it’s one of those games for accuracy’s sake and sanity’s sake, you may.)
Tendo is the DM. Stacker is the group’s fearless leader, Eostre. Herc plays a character named Megara (he thinks he’s clever); Hermann plays Euler*, Newt plays Turpentine (he thinks that’s funny). Herc and Stacker think it’s funny to make Euler and Turpentine share rooms/beds on the occasions when they do share rooms and beds to save money, since Euler and Turpentine hate each other just as virulently as Hermann and Newt hate each other in real life.
“Okay, so, you stop at an inn for the night,” Tendo says. “May I remind you, you are flat fucking broke at this point. Like, the amount of money that you have is really not a lot. And no, you can’t sleep outside. It’s winter AND this area has a shockingly high crime rate.”
“Right,” Stacker says. “So two beds should be fine, preferably in one room.”
“Perfect,” Tendo says as the innkeeper in a shrill, witchy voice.
Herc groans. “Choi, that is the voice you use for every single NPC.”
“Fine,” Tendo snaps, and when he speaks again it’s in a terrible approximation of Herc’s voice and accent. “We go’ a rewm aowpen down the holl, thihd on the roight, heah ah youh keaiys.”
“Tendo, you sound like if the Terminator was pretending to be Scottish,” Stacker says calmly. “Herc, this is why we don’t try to make him do new voices.”
“Well, whatever,” Herc says, then changes to being in character. “All right, two beds? Euler, want to share?”
“Wh–” Hermann says as Hermann, then remembers to switch to Euler: “Uh, oh, yeah, sure, that’s fine.”
“What!” Newt squawks.
Everyone looks at him.
Newt backpedals. “Well, it’s just–it, um–I was just surprised, since–since you two always make me and–always make Euler and Turpy share.” **
“Yeah, well, I thought you hated that, Turpentine,” Herc said as Megara. “Just thought I’d throw you a bone for once, instead of bullying you.”
“I–I do hate it!” Newt says unconvincingly, teetering on the cusp of his usual voice and his deeper voice for his character. “It’s the worst! God, Euler is just the absolute worst, yeah. Thanks for doing me a solid. I guess I’m sharing with Stack–uh, Eostre?”
“Fine by me,” Stacker says as Eostre.
If Newt seems a little off for the rest of the session, a little more twitchy than usual, no one comments on it.
About an hour after the session ends, Newt realizes why it bothered him so much that Euler was so eager to not sleep next to Turpentine. The issue was less that and a lot more the fact that Hermann was so eager to not sleep next to him, as in him–Newt.
“Fuuuck,” Newt said out loud, and his roommate gave him a weird look.
*Shout-out to my GURPS GM, a computer science major who named an important NPC “Euler Longdivision.” This Euler’s last name is Leonhard, since Hermann is the worst.
**At this point I started thinking about possible nicknames for each D&D character, and realized you could refer to Euler as “Oil,” since the name is pronounced “oiler.” I named them “oil” and “turpentine.” God damn it.