Summary: When the team's latest roleplaying game lands Hartley and Cisco's characters in jail together, the characters' plight in being stuck together winds up as inspiration for them and it's not for sexy roleplaying on their own... well, not just for some sexy roleplaying on their own.
(Or how two dorks decide to move in together.)
Notes: For the Hartmon Bingo Prompt I3 - Stuck Together
I figured there would be enough stories out there about characters being stuck together due to the Corona virus, so I decided to take this prompt in a very different direction. So expect lots of silliness ahead. And Iris gets to be nerdier than Barry for a change. :D
Stuck Together
"Ugh, no. Not after how the last campaign went. I'm D&D-ed out," Caitlin groaned, dropping into the chair.
"Maybe if someone else DM-ed?" Cisco offered. "I'm really sorry about the whole 'characters burning to death' thing," he added.
"Frost deserved it," Barry muttered darkly, likely still thinking about Frost's fire-demon character's penchant for setting the other characters on fire when they annoyed her. Barry had lost two characters to Frost's fiery temper before the total party kill that brought the game to an end. (So three total, really.)
"He's right," Caitlin agreed. "Frost brought that on herself. I just wish she hadn't taken the rest of us with her."
"I dunno, I enjoyed it," Hartley spoke up.
"You were a bard and slept with every hot male NPC we encountered," Iris said, rolling her eyes. "Of course you had fun."
"He likes to imagine they all look like Cisco," Frost spoke up, having taken over from Caitlin. "I'm cool with D&D in theory, but would like a different setting this time. Something other than fantasy land? Also, I promise not to set everything on fire this time."
Hartley kissed Cisco on the cheek and murmured softly against his ear, "I do like to imagine they all look like you." He grinned impishly as he pulled away, enjoying the flustered expression on his boyfriend's face. To the whole group he said, "you know, I've actually got two game books for Red Dwarf. If you guys are interested in a wacky Sci-Fi inspired setting?"
"Wait, wait, wait," Iris was bouncing excitedly now. "Red Dwarf. As in the British comedy Red Dwarf? There are D&D style game books?!"
"I... honestly thought Barry would be the Red Dwarf fan," Hartley teased, "but yes. The very same."
"Never really got into it," Barry replied. "But I'm game for... well... a game based on it."
"Caitlin agrees and I'm in," Frost concurred.
"So we'll have to use our first game night to build the characters," Hartley mused, "and decide who'll be the game master. Probably shouldn't be me, even though they're my books. I'm... unsurprisingly I'm sure, but I'm kind of an asshole DM."
Frost snorted in amusement. Everyone else just shrugged.
"I DM-ed last time, so not me," Cisco added.
"I call dibs," Iris said quickly, smirking when Frost pouted.
"You can borrow my books, then, to use for scenario building," Hartley told her.
Iris beamed. "So, what's everyone's favorite episode of Red Dwarf? Stoke Me A Clipper is mine."
"I dunno... Terrorform maybe? Or Lemons?" Hartley hummed thoughtfully. "I haven't actually seen seasons eleven or twelve yet."
"I thought it only went to season nine," Cisco interjected. "Which, Back to Earth was good, but not great. Loved the call backs to earlier episodes though. I'm gonna eat you little fishy," he sang the last part, getting a grin from Hartley and another kiss on the cheek.
"Maybe we should start every game night with an episode of the show. Skip around the earlier seasons for the good episodes, then watch the full seasons for ten through twelve," Iris mused.
"That'd be good, since Frost and I have never seen this show," Caitlin spoke up, the two having swapped back when Hartley wasn't paying attention.
"The premise is that David Lister, slob and under achiever, is the last human alive in the universe," Iris told her. "It's explained why in the show, so don't worry about that for now. His only companions when he wakes up to these circumstances are an AI named Holly who runs the ship, a humanoid being from a race that evolved from Lister's pet cat, and a hologram of Lister's roommate - Arnold Rimmer. They're also eventually joined by Kryten, an android with a great love of cleaning. There's a book series too and the audiobook versions are just amazing."
"Chris Barrie read the first two books and one of the books written post the Grant-Naylor break up," Hartley said as an aside to Cisco. "Craig Charles reads one too.
"We're listening to the first one tonight," Cisco muttered back with a grin.
On Saturday, Hartley pulled two slim volumes off his bookshelf before getting in the car with Cisco to head over to Barry and Iris' apartment. (Whoever was game master - or dungeon master, whatever - hosted the game. That way they didn't have to cart around any props used to set the stage, as it were.)
Once they arrived, Iris gleefully snatched up the first of the two and headed to her printer to make copies of the pages relevant for character creation. The second book was subtitled The Series Sourcebook and it rewrote a good number of episodes for roleplaying. While Hartley was certain Iris would want to create a more original campaign, the sourcebook would be useful for world building and NPC creation purposes.
Unlike D&D, the Red Dwarf roleplaying game only called for two six sided dice. And while that didn't mean they couldn't try to incorporate some of D&D's more complicated system and dice, Hartley was kind of looking forward to a simpler system for a change. He was also planning on playing as a being evolved from a rat. Because why not? It was already in the game book, so he wouldn't have to devise stat caps or anything like that.
While Iris was busy printing things, Barry was setting up snacks and wasted no time directing Cisco and Hartley to set out some extra chairs around the TV.
Nora was the next to arrive, bringing sodas and calling dibs on a bean bag chair that appeared out of nowhere. Caitlin showed up a few minutes later with two notebooks for keeping character building for her and Frost separate. Ralph showed up last, wearing a fedora.
No one questioned the hat.
"So, ready to get started?" Iris asked, coming out of the back room and handing out packets of print outs. "I've made copies of the important character building info from the book so that we're not passing it around all the time and the essential background info for the main setting of the game, since I put that together the night after we decided to go with Red Dwarf as our roleplaying basis."
"You're really excited about this one, mom," Nora said, looking amused.
"Your granddad and I used to watch it together every Saturday evening on PBS. I'd get to stay up past my normal bedtime to see it. And sometimes we'd watch Black Adder too, though Red Dwarf was my favorite." Iris looked fond at the memories she was recalling. Nora, however, looked a touch guilty.
Perhaps Iris had tried to recreate those late night Saturday evenings with her own daughter only to find Nora disinterested, or at least not particularly receptive to the parent-child bonding time. Well, if nothing else this would give Nora a chance to fix things before they even happened.
"I'd watch those Saturday airings too," Hartley said with a grin. "But I didn't have parental permission. The humor was too raunchy for mother and father's delicate sensibilities and it came on way too late at night besides. So I'd sneak into the kitchen and watch it with the volume turned down low enough that my nose was nearly up against the screen of the little tv in order to hear it."
Cisco laughed. "Aww, tiny little Hart sneaking around to watch tv. That's adorable."
"Late night Saturday TV solidarity," Iris joked, holding up a hand for Hartley to high-five, which he did immediately.
"I found Red Dwarf in college and it was love at first 'They're dead, Dave.'" Ralph joked. "Back to Reality was my favorite episode, though."
"Well, my plan for tonight was that we'd go over the setting info I've put together, get any feedback you guys have for changes or additions, and then we work on making our characters while we watch a 'Best of Red Dwarf' playlist I put together on Plex," Iris told them.
"Sounds like a good plan," Caitlin agreed. "Let's hear it."
Iris beamed. "Okay, so..." she picked up a notebook of her own and flipped it open. "Welcome to the City Ship Endurance, one of the last remaining refuges of human civilization after the collapse of the Empire of Sol. The citizens of the self-contained city-state include not just humans, but holograms, androids, humanoid beings evolved from various Earth animals, and even certain types of Gelf.
"There are plenty of official past times to take part in. Day trips to planets, asteroid fields, or various other space anomalies as the city passes them by. State of the art amenities on the ship itself include numerous museums, halls of pleasure, massive arcades, an entire floor acting as a dedicated casino, and even an Ikea super store. However, there are plenty of less than legal things happening on the Endurance that the government, of course, disavows.
"There's a thriving black market, trading in everything from android emotion engrams to illegal weapons upgrades. Paranoia Squid ink is a thriving trade used for dosing enemies. Non sanctioned visits to abandoned wrecks are popular for scavengers and looters. Anyone caught committing illegal acts will find themselves sent to the on-ship super max prison, where sentences can be shortened by joining the Canaries or the ship's sanitation department.
"Of course, not to forget the rather interesting rumors circulating the ship lately. A doomsday cult worshiping one of the original Talkie Toasters is said to have taken over one of the abandoned cargo bays on the lowest levels of the ship. There's rumors of corruption in the government itself, including a popular theory that the last governor was assassinated with Paranoia Squid ink."
Hartley could practically hear Ralph sit up straighter at the assassination mention and he knew Ralph was going to work that into his backstory somehow. With that fedora? Ralph was going to make his character a PI just like him, no doubt at all.
"Also, please remember, all religions are accepted upon the City Ship Endurance, but we request all inter-faith issues be settled peacefully. No one wants a repeat of the blood bath that happened in the wake of the most recent split in the Cat Faith over donut toppings."
There were a lot of references to show in there and Hartley is grinning as his eyes caught more on the detailed printouts Iris had prepared for them. She must've gotten Barry to draw up some blue prints, as there were three drawings of the outside of the ship to give perspective and there were six 'main floors' drawn up with details like crew quarters, government quarters, civilian areas, markets, and the like all labeled neatly.
Overall, Hartley was very impressed with the amount of detail she'd come up with. They could spend a lot of time on this game without running out of things to do. Assuming they didn't spill chicken soup on the drive plates, or whatever, and cause a nuclear meltdown that wiped out the ship. Or destroy the ship's air supply.
"I'm almost afraid to find out what a Talkie Toaster is," Frost muttered, looking into her own stack of printouts.
Ralph's snickering and the grin he shot the icy meta clearly did nothing to reassure her.
"So go over the setting, let me know if you've got any constructive criticism. Ralph," Iris stole his fedora, using it to beckon him over towards the kitchen, "I've got something I want to discuss with you about your potential character and the starter scenario. Hartley? Try not to eavesdrop."
"Let's start up the first episode, then," Hartley said. "It'll give me something else to focus on listening too."
"Barry?" Iris asked. Seconds later, Barry was logging into their plex system and starting Iris' episode playlist.
Pulling out the printouts for developing a rat-based character, Hartley did his best to listen to what was in front of him, not behind, and conspire with Cisco about their characters backstories.
As roleplaying games usually went, it was unsurprising that they ended up with half their party under arrest in the super max jail awaiting trial while the other half was running around trying to prove their innocence before their trial happened. Iris was clearly having a blast as the GM, running all the NPC characters, most notably the AI Ashley, who ran the job 'cork-board' they used to find clients for Ralph's Private Investigative firm.
They'd started off investigating Ralph's own murder. Ralph's character, Richard Gumshoe ("call me Richie"), had been investigating government corruption and, just hours after his last visit to a memory scanner, bit the bullet. The now Holographic (hard light, thankfully) Richie was reaching outside of his normal circle of associates for help in solving his own murder, which was what had brought their rag tag group together.
Hartley was a Rat who'd formerly been part of the Rat version of the mafia, but since left that life behind and changed his name to Emil Yggdrasil. Of course, his past could easily come back to haunt him, especially since he was one of the characters stuck in supermax at the moment. Cisco's Cat character, Rodrigo, and Emil were flirting a lot, but being stuck together in a cell was turning up the tension for them.
Well, mostly Cisco couldn't stop laughing at Hartley's outrageous flirting but the characters were definitely experiencing some major UST at the moment.
Barry had been arrested with them, but his android Tyde (so named for his favorite cleaning product, as a former laundry droid) had been released on bail. Frost's character was stuck in a stasis pod until someone rescued her. And Caitlin's character had finally realized her sister was missing. Nora's character was infiltrating the office off a corrupt official they were trying to prove had murdered Richie and set Emil, Rodrigo, and Tyde up.
It was gonna be down the wire and Hartley really didn't want to have to join the Canaries this early in the game. At least he'd have Cisco with him if he did.
"Alright," Iris announced, turning back to Hartley and Cisco. "Meanwhile, back in the jail cell Emil and Rodrigo are still considering escape versus counting on their friends to get them out."
"I think we're good putting off escape plans until we've had our day in court," Cisco said. "Hart? Er... Emil?"
Hartley grinned. "Less certain about that. The longer we're here, the more likely I am to run into people from Emil's less than savory past. And Rats have genetic memories about being in cages like this. He's getting a little claustrophobic and the strain is starting to show."
"Rodrigo cuddles him to help keep Emil calm. Like this," Cisco grinned impishly and pulled Hartley close. And Hartley was more than happy to twist around and lean back against Cisco's chest, enjoying Cisco's arms around him.
"Aww," Frost faux sniffled. "So precious, you two."
"Well that's all we've got time for tonight," Iris said, yawning afterwards and listing against her husband's shoulder herself. "So unless there's somewhere you two want to go with the jail scenario right now..."
"Nah, we're good with the cuddling," Hartley joked.
"I'm gonna stay here tonight," Nora said, already zombie walking towards the guest room instead of running home to Joe and Cecile's.
Caitlin started packing up next while Ralph had to stretch his arm behind the entry way table when he realized his keys had fallen down the back.
Hartley and Cisco had breached over instead of driving to this particular game session, so Cisco opened a new breach directly to Hartley's living room once they said their goodbyes and hugged everyone goodnight for the evening.
"So, Rodrigo cuddles Emil to help stave off his fear of cages?" Hartley teased as the breach closed behind them, wrapping himself around his boyfriend so as to nuzzle teasingly against his neck.
"Rodrigo gives amazing cuddles. Almost as amazing as mine," Cisco responded. "Admittedly, he's also a very generous lover. Most cats are, you know. And Rodrigo definitely wants to, uh..." he pulled back and waggled his eyebrows at Hartley in the most ridiculous fashion. "Devour Emil. Metaphorically speaking."
"Netflix and chill style metaphorically I hope?" Hartley grinned. "A Cat and a Rat. Truly was there never a more romantic tale."
Cisco giggled. "Wanna roleplay?"
"Well, our characters do have a perfect setup for a 'they were roommates' pwp story," Hartley agreed, mock solemnly. And then he cracked up. "We're such fucking nerds."
"Mmmm, so why aren't we fucking yet?" Cisco asked, fluttering his lashes and kissing Hartley on the tip of his nose.
Hartley laughed and caught Cisco's mouth for a deep, filthier kiss that left them both breathless. "Shall we to the bedroom then?"
They stumbled towards the bedroom door, tripping over each other in their eagerness and they can't quite manage to catch their breath because with every stumble they're suddenly kissing again. By the time they're actually in Hartley's room, Cisco's lost his shirt on the living room floor somewhere and Hartley's pants have been unzipped.
"Okay, so Rodrigo's most amazing cuddling gets a little heated, huh?" Hartley asks, pulling away and yanking off his own shirt as he talks.
"Yeah. First it's a chaste kiss," Cisco replied, taking Hartley shirt from him and tossing it in the general direction of the laundry basket by the closet. Then he brushed a light kiss against Hartley's lips. "But their attraction to one another got the better of them both."
"And they were smart enough to use the bottom bunk, I hope," Hartley muttered, getting a muffled laugh against his shoulder.
"Indeed," Cisco pressed Hartley back onto the bed. Then, breathless and with an over-the-top faux accent, Cisco told him, "Emil, I've wanted you since the day we met. I know Cats and Rats are ancestral enemies, but you're just so beautiful that... you really can stop laughing now, Hartley. I was trying to roleplay."
"So dramatic, I'm sorry," Hartley giggled helplessly. "Let's save the roleplay for later. I just want you to fuck me right now, okay?"
"Yeah, sure." Cisco reached for the nightstand where the condoms and lube were hiding, not sounding particularly disappointed.
Later, once they were laying exhausted and curled up together under the sheets, Hartley finally gave voice to something he'd been thinking about ever since their characters had been tossed in jail together.
"You know... we could be stuck together for real," Hartley said.
"I don't wanna go to jail with you, Hart," Cisco slurred sleepily. "Love you, but we're not gonna recreate Emil and Rodrigo's misfortune together."
Hartley swatted Cisco's shoulder. "Not what I meant. I just... you're at my apartment nearly every evening. I thought, maybe we could..."
"Move in together?"
"Hey, I was going to ask that."
"Took too long," Cisco hummed softly. "I'd like to be stuck with you."
Trailing his fingers through Cisco's hair, Hartley sighed contentedly. "Good. Love you Cisco."
"So I'm moving in, right? 'Cause there's the foosball table to consider..."
"Or we could get a new place that's a little bigger and will fit our combined stuff better?" Hartley smiled at the thought of looking at listings with Cisco. "Some place that's always been our place, not just yours or mine."
"Ooooh, I like this plan." Cisco kissed lightly against Hartley's neck. "So that's our Sunday plans then. Checking out local apartment listings and roleplay our characters having sex?"
"Tomorrow is going to be a great Sunday," Hartley agreed, eyes drifting closed.
Notes: So they were supposed to have some sexy Emil x Rodrigo roleplay action but neither could take it seriously enough so I gave up on them. Honestly, these characters have a life of their own, I swear.
Also the Red Dwarf roleplaying game is real. It's a lot of fun to play, the rules are relatively simple compared to other D&D inspired games, and there are lots of little details from the show that get expanded on for player character creation and scenario building.