Summary: It's the secret santa fic...Happy New Year @ultralazycreatorfan! I know I told @song-tam that it'd be here on the 30th and then that didn't happen and then I said it'd be here on the 31st and then I was struck down by a headache. Hooray. Anyway. Dex, Lovise, Sophie, and Keefe get together to play some bunco. "What's bunco?" you ask. A game that involves rolling dice. And swearing at dice. A lot of swearing at dice. Xe/xem Dex, it/its Keefe, he/him Sophie. You know how it is. Enjoy!
Word Count: 4398
TW: swearing, at least two (2) lewd jokes
Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @faggot-friday @kamikothe1and0nly @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously @poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @i-loved-while-i-lied @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes @callum-hunt-is-bisexual @xanadaus @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @arson-anarchy-death @dizzeners @thefoxysnake @olivedumdum @loveution
On Ao3 or below the cut!
It’s always a fun day when Dex finds xemself a new project. It’s an even more fun day when xe decides to rope other people into that project without telling them what they’re getting roped into.
Lovise is currently living in fear of what Dex has found this time. Xe’s not maniacally supervillain laughing quite yet, so that’s a good sign, though it’s certainly not removed from the realm of possibilities.
All xe’s done is drag Sophie and Keefe, presumably kicking and screaming, to Rimeshire. These three definitely can’t cause massive amounts of chaos. To be fair, with a Sophie comes a Sandor, so it can’t be all bad, but it’s still quite unsafe. Ro’s still off somewhere chasing down Cad, so she’s, thankfully, not a concern either.
“Hello, everyone. I thank you all for meeting with me on this fine evening against your better judgements—,” Dex begins.
Keefe interrupts, “That’s an understatement,” a smirk playing on its lips.
Dex gives it a look, a hard edge creeping into xor voice. “--The reason we are gathered here today is because I was recently informed about a human game by the name of bunco. I was also told that I would need to gather multiple willing victims in order to play. I think Sophie was simply trying to avoid me, but here we are anyway, so if you would please explain to us the rules.”
“I should just jump out your window,” Sophie grumbles.
“With or without teleporting before hitting the ground?” asks Keefe.
Sophie considers its question for a moment. “I haven’t decided yet. I guess we’ll see if I go splat.”
Lovise flinches as Sandor pinches the bridge of his nose. “Today’s objective is that we’re trying to avoid an Elwin call.”
“He’ll be so splat, there won’t be any need,” Keefe says, flipping its hair out of its eyes.
That really does not improve the situation by any meaningful metric.
Dex glances back and forth in the silence between Sophie and Keefe several times before asking, “The rules, please?”
Sophie leans forward and clasps his hands together. “Well, we aren't going to get very far unless you have six sided dice.”
Xe leans back, and without even looking, pulls out a clear box of more dice than xe should be trusted to have. And cards. And twenty-sided dice. And flat circles that probably have some purpose. Where xe got all this, Lovise doesn’t know. She doesn’t ask.
“How many do we need?” Dex asks, the dice clinking around in the hard plastic shell as xe digs them out of their prison.
“If we want to be nice and share, then three. If not, then we’re gonna need three per person.”
“Keep your grubby little hands off my fucking dice. Give me some d20s, baby.”
Dex blushes to xor ears as he hands out dice to everybody. Keefe pouts when it’s given d6s instead of the d20s like it wanted.
Sophie leans back to look at Sandor. “Are you sure you don’t wanna play?”
Lovise then takes that opportunity to make the very bad life choice of kneeling down to join their little circle. What’s the worst that can happen? They throw dice at me? I think that’s gonna happen either way.
Two matching dice and one mismatched die, all in shades of green, roll their way towards her and settle just shy of being in her lap. A slight twinge of disappointment flickers in her chest that she doesn’t get Dex’s gold-plated plastic one, but that’s probably lost under xor bed or something.
Sophie stares at Sandor for another long second before jumping into an explanation of how to play. “Bunco has six rounds—round one you’re rolling for ones, round two you’re rolling for twos, so on and so forth. So, uh, Dex, if you would roll your dice for us, please.”
Dex rolls xor metallic red Clan Sea Fox dice from xor adventures playing Battletech to get a 1, 3, and a 4.
“Very nice. I guess we should probably nominate a scorekeeper—”
Sophie is interrupted by the crashing sounds of Dex rummaging through the shit in xor room. Xe claims there’s a system. There’s no system. Miraculously, xe finds both a piece of paper that’s only used on one side and looks like it’s only been through a few avalanches, as well as a pen whose ink is almost guaranteed to be drier than ogre skin.
These get shuffled into Lovise’s responsibility because she seems “trustworthy.” Considering she’s thrown more games of Catan than one would think in order to make sure Dex doesn’t pout, that’s probably not ideal for integrity’s sake.
“So this is round one, so just kind of make a table tracking our point values with tally marks or some similar system if you guys don’t have that. The column headers can just be our initials or something. Be lazy. Just give Dex one point for that one xe rolled.” Sophie turns back to Dex. “You may roll again. And, yes, that does mean all the dice. We’re not playing Yahtzee, Keefe.”
Dex rolls again. 3,5,5.
“Because you didn’t get a one, the turn moves to the next victim. Do we wanna go clockwise or counterclockwise? Or are analog clocks not something that exist around here?”
Before this devolves into a shouting match, Lovise suggests, “You go next so then I’ll go last.”
Sophie picks up his dice and begins shaking them. “In case I forget to mention it, three of any number that isn’t the round number—say I roll 3 fours right now—that’s worth five points. Rolling three of the target number is 21 points and is called a bunco. And we’re going to keep rolling until someone hits 21 points, and then we go to the next round rolling for twos, et cetera.”
He lets the marbled, matching blue dice go. 2,5,6.
“Damn it. You gave me the cursed dice, didn’t you? Whatever. Keefe, it’s your turn.”
“You better have given me the good dice.” Its dice don’t match by any means—one black and blue, one marbled brown, and one beige—but they’re all stolen from Munchkin, made obvious by the helmet representing the number one. 1,4,5.
“Lovise, please mark down a point and Keefe, you go again.”
1,2,4.
“One more point. Roll again.”
“Again? Exile.” 2,2,3.
“Holy fuck, I just thought you got five points. Don’t do that again. Lovise, it’s your turn whenever you’re ready.”
The unfamiliar plastic dice are awkwardly light in her palm as she rolls. 1,2,4. “Can someone count how many I’m going to have to add so I don’t have to keep pausing?”
Dex nods and puts a finger up—thankfully not that finger—as Lovise scoops the dice up again.
1,1,2.
Sophie leans forward, his head in his hands. “If you had just gotten a bunco, I would have jumped out the window.”
“Is that worth one point per one rolled, or some other weird stacking rule like rolling three?”
“It’s one point per one rolled. So in total, she’s gotten three points this turn. One-seventh of the way to the end.”
“One-seventh of the way to one-sixth of the way to the end,” Keefe corrects.
“I’ll do my best,” Lovise says as she scoops the dice up again, only to roll a 3,5, and 6. She marks down her three points. “To be fair, I did try.”
“That you did. Just not enough,” Dex says. Xe rolls a 1,1, and 2, prompting another Sophie-stroke. On the reroll, xe gets a 1,6,6. On the next reroll, xe gets a 3,5,6. Lovise writes all this down, bringing xor total up to 4.
Sophie’s turn again. 2,2,5. “This shit is so fucking rigged.”
“No, that’s just how probabilities work sometimes,” Dex says as Keefe rolls. 1,4,6.
Sophie counts on his fingers as Keefe’s streak continues with a 1,5,5.
1,1,5.
2,2,4 and it all comes crashing down. Those four points bring its total up to six.
The turn comes back to Lovise, who rolls a 2,4,5, leaving as quickly as it arrived.
Dex seizes the opportunity to get a 1,4,5, followed closely by a 4,5,5. Sophie is blessed with a gorgeously useless 3,4,4, paralleled by Keefe’s 2,5,6.
Lovise follows that up with a 1,2,6, forgetting to ask someone to count and instead pausing to write it down on the scorecard. The next roll is a 1,4,5, which doesn’t get written down, and then 3,3,4, which has no reason to be marked. This brings her up to tie with Dex, though the both of them are still trailing behind Keefe.
Dex fumbles this opportunity to take the lead with a 2,5,6.
Sophie, on the other hand, is sulking something fierce when the turn comes back to him, convinced the ones on the dice are never going to appear. It turns out, with a roll of 1,1,5, they do, in fact, have ones on them, and those are his first two points on the board. They’re also his only two points on the board as his next roll is a 3,5,6.
Keefe and Lovise get a grand total of zero points during their turns with a 2,3,4 and a 3,4,6, respectively.
They do, however, learn that having a straight of numbers like Keefe’s does not count for any points. This is bullshit and should be amended to make this a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved.
And that’s when Dex decides to show off. Xor first roll is 1,3,4. Standard. Normal. Trustworthy. The next is 1,3,5. Like. Okay. You’re being a little extra there but go off I guess. And then the third roll. 1,3,6.
Stringing together three points in three separate rolls is a little absurd, which is why it gets nuked by a 3,3,5 moments later. This one turn didn’t net that many points in the grand scheme of things, but it does bring xem ahead to eight. More than a third of the way to the end goal.
The ones fall off the dice for an entire cycle, rotating around the entire group until Sophie’s next turn before any more points make their way onto the board. He does get a 1,1,4 so it’s not nothing, but the excitement quickly fades as the reroll of 2,3,6 materializes.
This brings him to four, narrowing the gap between first and last place without changing any placements.
The ones don’t appear again until his next turn, revealing themselves with a roll of 1,2,4. The reroll is a 5,5,6.
“Damn it. I really thought that was gave me five points.”
Keefe tilts its head. “I guess you just can’t count.”
“You’re right. Dex, do you have any integer dice?”
“No changing dice in the middle of the game. What happened to last time when you cried for the blue ones?”
“You’ve cursed the blue ones since the last time we played Munchkin!”
“Or maybe I just wanted to make sure that you could successfully run away instead of getting violated by a tongue demon next time!”
“That’s just because you transed my gender and the fucking tongue demon got rid of my cheese grater of peace!”
Munchkin is an…interesting game, Lovise will give it that.
“I was just being accurate to the real world!” Dex argues.
“The real world hadn’t figured that out yet! You just wanted the -5 modifier during my next combat phase.”
“Maybe I have a new ability that’s predicting the future. Did you ever think about that, Mr. I-have-five-abilities?”
Sophie looks at Keefe, who shrugs. “I can’t tell what people’s abilities are, dude. After they’ve manifested, fucking forget it.”
“Oh, please. Like you two haven’t had your hands all over each other since we were staying at Alluveterre.”
“Yeah, but my ability’s on the newer side, so there’s not a whole lot I can do. Now, can it be my fucking turn, please? I need to show all of you how you roll dice.”
Sophie huffs. “Sure, whatever.”
Keefe gives him a bright false smile as it rolls. 1,6,6. “Lovise, if you would mark that down, I’d appreciate it greatly.”
She had already written it down and is waiting for it to roll again. 1,3,3.
Keefe’s confidence hits the rafters as it scoops up the dice again, only to have it come fluttering down in tatters with a 3,5,6. It’s currently tied with Dex for first place.
It passes the turn to Lovise with a not-insignificant amount of grumbling. She gets a point with a roll of 1,3,4, but doesn’t have the necessary luck to get a string of rolls as her turn dies with a reroll of 2,2,4.
She’s up to six points, and at this rate, the gnomes are going to get Ravagog back before the first round is over.
Dex doesn’t choose to help this problem with xor roll of 3,5,5. It was so close to being promising.
Sophie and Keefe each pick up a point on their next turns. Keefe’s currently working on getting three dice to show the same face and it isn’t working quite yet, with two doubles in a row. (The first roll was a 1,3,3 and the second was 4,5,5.)
It’s a whole cycle through their turns—Lovise 2,3,4; Dex 2,4,5; Sophie 3,3,6; Keefe 3,5,6—before Keefe officially declares, “The ones have fallen off the dice.”
Lovise proves that to be not quite accurate by finding a 1,4,4 somewhere in there. Then, just to make sure, she finds a 1,1,3. That’s the last of the ones on her dice for now, however, ending her turn with a 3,4,6.
That brings her up to 9 points and into the lead, though not by much.
Dex rolls a gorgeous, worthless 2,3,4 on xor next turn, and Sophie follows that up with an equally beautiful 3,5,6.
Keefe can’t let this stand any longer with a turn composed of rolls of 1,3,6; 1,5,6; and 2,6,6. Its total comes to 11 and they’re nearing the halfway point. Though, dice will be thrown if Keefe wins, so trying to lengthen the game any way possible is advantageous.
That’s Lovise strategy as she rolls a nice, normal 1,4,4 and scratches it onto the scoreboard. She picks the dice back up to get a 4,5,6.
Straights really should count for points, but when you’re playing with a bunch of gays, they don’t. Also that’s what Sophie says the rules are, but that’s the better reason.
This turn brings her to a total of ten points. A nice, round number.
Dex, on the other hand, has other plans. Xor starts off by rolling a 1,4,6. As one does. Xe continues by rolling a 1,3,5. As one also does.
And that’s when shit gets tense. Xe rolls again, but doesn’t get a one. Xe does, however, get a 2,2,2.
Five points.
Keefe’s bloodthirst is gleaming in its eyes as Dex picks up the dice again. Thankfully, Lovise doesn’t have to hold it back as xe rolls a 2,3,5, killing xor streak.
That doesn’t reverse the past. The damage is done. Xe’s at fifteen points after pulling off that move.
“Always keep in mind that anyone can get a bunco at any time. Three ones and this is all over.” Sophie then takes his own advice and tries his best to make that happen. He’s actually fairly close with a 1,1,6 and an aneurysm from Keefe. His second attempt, a 3,5,6, is notably less successful but still brings him to eight points.
Keefe is not successful in its own 4,6,6 attempt. The grumbles that the dice are cursed have begun once again in greater force this time.
Lovise and Dex both pick up a point on their next turns and then the ones fall off the dice for two entire cycles. As in, it goes through Sophie, Keefe, Lovise, Dex, Sophie, Keefe, Lovise, and Dex before another point is on the board.
Where do the ones go? Nobody knows. They’re definitely still on the dice—Keefe checked. Loudly. They just don’t appear. For eight rolls in a row.
Sophie interrupts this spiraling trend with a 1,2,3 like a light in the darkness. Then, he gets a 1,3,6 with significantly less symbolic meaning behind it. He follows this up with a 2,3,5 that makes the veil of inky blackness fall over them once again. He’s up to ten points, so he’s still in last place, but less firmly so than before this last turn.
It’s Sophie’s next turn before the dice bless the group with a holy one in a roll of 1,3,6. It’s strangely fitting how the forgotten middle child of his previous round is now the roll that slows the encroaching emptiness.
Its luminescence is snuffed out almost as soon as it began like a candle on a windy night with a 2,4,5.
“Come on, you worthless sons of bitches,” Keefe mutters as it shakes the dice. 1,3,4. “Ooh, swearing at the dice is the answer? You should’ve told me this earlier. You pieces of shit better give me a one.” 1,3,4.
“To be fair, I’m kind of surprised it took you this long to figure out that secret,” Dex says.
Unfortunately, Lovise doesn’t get to learn new swear words from Keefe’s newfound Polyglot ability with the end of that streak that took it to thirteen points.
It’s said that some humans find thirteen to be an unlucky number. It’ll be interesting to see if the dice agree with this superstition by grinding Keefe’s point gains to a halt.
Lovise rolls on her next turn—2,2,4. It’s getting real fucking old rolling and rolling and having nothing new to show for it.
Dex’s turn is filled with as much excitement as Lovise’s just was. Which is to say, none. Xe rolls a 4,6,6. Lovise thought xe got three 6s, but no. If xe had, the round would be over and Dex would be inventing a new victory dance.
Sophie, however, doesn’t let that stop him. 1,6,6. 1,4,6. 1,2,6. The dice seem rigged—almost like he isn’t even rolling them, but different ones are ending up as the ones and sixes. The only reason Lovise even bothered to notice was that she doesn’t trust any of her company that much.
Then Sophie decides to roll a 2,6,6, proving that all of this was meaningless speculation. But he is up to thirteen—tied with Keefe—so that’s nice for everyone except for Lovise in last place.
It takes a whole cycle of grumbling, swearing at dice, and definitely not purposely rolling them at others before Keefe gets another point. Actually, two points. 1,1,4. It ends up only being those two points, as its next roll is 2,3,3 and a couple of tears that it wasn’t worth five points. That brings it up to fifteen, gnawing at the back of Dex’s heels for the honor of being in the lead.
The dice giveth and they taketh away.
They taketh away Lovise’s, Dex’s, Sophie’s, and Keefe’s next attempt to get points.
“Bless me with your golden glory,” Lovise whispers, eyes skyward as she shakes the dice. 1,2,6.
She scratches her twelfth point into the paper before returning to the translucent cubes taunting her. She rolls again. 2,4,6.
Then it’s Dex’s turn once more—3,4,5. A roll that has absolutely nothing.
Then it’s Sophie’s turn once more—3,3,6. If only four threes would count for something. Saw the dice apart. Do whatever it takes.
Then it’s Keefe’s turn once more—2,4,4. It’s a sharpie away from drawing extra dots. If every side has six dots, every roll is five points.
Then it’s Lovise’s turn once more—4,5,6. Straights still don’t count for points. With the way this game is going, it seems like the gays don’t either.
When the turn returns to Dex, expectations are on the floor. Then xe rolls a 1,5,6. That’s xor seventeenth point. Four more and this is over. Four more and two becomes the magic number.
Xe rolls again.
2,2,2.
Lovise’s breath catches in her throat. Five points. Bringing Dex to 22 and the round to proceed forward.
It’s almost poetic how the first round ends with the next magic number, come to bestow them with its splendor before it disappears from the dice forever.
Sophie, a smirk playing on his lips, taps on his Imparter in what looks like a very controlled fashion until an ear-splitting bell noise echoes through Dex’s room.
The only reason Dex merely flinches away and doesn’t banish him immediately from the premises for all eternity is presumably because rolling dice game fun when you win.
“My family’s bunco game has a bell that comes with it. That’s the closest I can do. Technically, I think the rules say you’re supposed to ring it only when you get a bunco. But we used to ring it at every available opportunity.” He turns to Keefe. “Which is why it’s as far from you as I can possibly get.”
Keefe pouts overdramatically, a feat considering it was already doing that at Dex’s accomplishment.
But Dex’s accomplishment means nothing. There’s five more rounds before Dex starts arguing that they should play the extended edition with the d100s xe inevitably has stored somewhere.
The following rounds feel as though they race by.
The twos round, Dex wins once more by rolling a triplet of 2s, except this time it’s worth a full 21 points. Keefe made it to 20 before Dex pulled that one out of xor ass, which is highly suspicious, so a dice trade is initiated. A diagonal cross results in Lovise getting Sophie’s blue dice and vice versa with Lovise’s green ones.
The threes round, against all odds, Dex wins again. If xe isn’t cheating, that’s one Exile of an accomplishment, and if xe is, xe’s not doing a very good job at hiding it. Dice are traded again, and Lovise ends up with Dex’s metal Battletech ones.
The antepenultimate fours round, Dex takes it upon xemself to win again. Xe has the audacity to get a triplet of 1s and 3s in the same roll streak. The fact that xe hasn’t been burned at the stake like the witch xe is is a fucking miracle.
Lovise having to fight off a feral Sophie and Keefe is not a fight that’s going to be pleasant. Don’t get her wrong, she’d still win, but she might get a couple of bite marks.
They switch the dice again, and Lovise ends up with her original green dice, traitorous in their assistance of Sophie and Keefe over the past two rounds but magnificent in their return.
The penultimate fives round, Keefe finally gets to stop the waterfall of crocodile tears and replace them with actual tears as the dice finally decree that it’s worthy of winning. Dex has already won the game beyond defeat but it’s not about winning anymore. It’s about not losing and second place is still better than last place.
Now, to be fair, second place is the first place of losers, so maybe it’s just trying to say that it’s the top loser in the world. That would make a lot of sense.
Dex is also, notably, allowed to keep xor dice. All of the useful rolls were used up and xor seven points at the end of the round didn’t seem like enough of a threat.
And it is finally time for the grand finale. The ultimate challenge of dice throwing. The sixes round.
Lovise gets so, so close to winning. She has twenty whole fucking points. Yes, all of the points are fucking.
And then Sophie just decides, “oh, yeah, I’ll get a bunco. No big deal” as the dice settle into a 6,6,6.
It is, in fact, a big deal.
Sandor will be hearing about this moment for all eternity. Lovise will make him suffer. He deserves it for his charge’s utter impunity.
It may or may not have been Lovise’s mostly-unintentional death glare that caused Sophie and Keefe to fabricate reasons to not be at Rimeshire anymore as they light leap away.
Dex begins stuffing the dice back into the box, clinking as they slide down unwillingly, forming a lopsided hot mess.
As soon as she’s certain Sophie and Keefe have vacated the premises, Lovise turns to xem and asks “How’d you cheat?”
Xor hands fly up, framing xor face with xor palms out. “To be completely fair, I only cheated in the second round.”
“I didn’t ask ‘did you cheat?’ I asked ‘how did you cheat?’”
Dex digs out the Battletech dice xe was using in the first two rounds and rolls them around in xor hand. “It’s really easy to load metal dice, especially when you’ve got magnets to turn it off when someone wants to check if they’re loaded. I haven’t figured out how to load high numbers with it yet. And, besides, I forgot to do it in the first round and it only shifts the probabilities a little bit. It’s not cheating that much.”
“Yes it is.” Lovise pauses for dramatic effect. “Next time, if you have loaded dice, I expect some too.”
Dex throws xor head back, laughing. “I’ll make sure to get around to that as soon as possible, but first: I gotta go get some snackies from downstairs.”
*slowly walks in* uhm... thoughts on how Lovise chose to stay with Dex and his family even though her queen gave her the opportunity to leave after she got really injured fighting with the Neverseen?
*the floor rumbles as I claw my way up from hell* honey I have been so excited to answer this one ahdjskajfks. I may or may not uh,,....have my own bodyguard obsession 🙈
I may or may not be absolutely in love with Brielle except she’s fuckin dead
Okay. There’s not much canon content of Lovise, but she appears to be a highly motivated and determined individual, as are most goblins. She wants to do her job and she wants to do it well, because there’s honor in that.
Perhaps one of her reasons for staying was because leaving would be seen—at least by her—as admiting defeat. If she left Dex she was admitting that this job, this charge, was too much for her to handle and that she wanted a different assignment. And goblins all have pride to a fault, so there’s no way she’d do that. If she says with Dex, which she did, it’s her way of proclaiming that she’s not afraid of the threat and that the Neverseen didn’t get to her, she’s still just a strong and willing to fight and she won’t let them scare her away.
Then there’s the other way you can look at it which I have a suspicion is what you want to hear lol which is through a commitment to the people she’s protecting. She’s spent a considerable amount of time with Dex, and when you spend that much time with someone you get attached to them. Dex doesn’t aggravate her or disobey her nearly as much as Sophie and Keefe do, and he’s also very sweet.
Perhaps she’s protecting Dex the same way goblins protect their homes. He’s something worth protecting, and she’s close enough to him that it was part of her motivation to stay.
We really need more canon content of Lovise 🥺 I’d say Brielle too but SHE’S DEAD—
Lovise peeks out from the top of her tank and noticed something....or someone (Peter?) around "who is is....he?" she thought. Due to her being from the deep sea she probably wouldn't have ever seen a bird before let alone some berd halfling creature. (@ask-aquaverse-nyo-norway hello potential friend ;u; sorry if this is a bad starter or like doesn't make sense or aaaahhhh ;; )
P “woah, the water here is so dark, what kind of fish live here?”
❝ Unlike the rest of the family, I disclude myself from the others along with crimes and left the family when I was twenty five. It’s been a decade and four years. ❞
