Melody went back to Sam's house on the bus with the rest of the boys and helped them set up for the game.
"Hi Mrs. Weir." Melody greeted politely when she came into the home.
"Oh, hi there. Melody right?" She asked trying to remember her name.
"Yes."
"Well it's nice to see you. I didn't know you were coming, do you play the dragons and dungeons or whatever it is they call it?" She asked sweetly.
"Tonight's my first time trying it out, but yeah. I'm excited, it should be fun." Melody told her happily.
Mrs. Weir looked at her a little confused that she was interested in Sam's weird hobbies, but she just smiled. "Well that's nice. We have snacks over in the kitchen."
"Thanks." Melody told her then walked over to grab some snack for the table.
They all sat around the table with their pencils and character sheets ready. Harris sat at the head of the table behind his prop castle. Sam and Bill sat on one side of the table, Neal and Melody sat on the other, and Gordon sat at the end of the table leaned towards Sam, with an empty seat beside him at the end leaned toward Neal, for Daniel. It was a crowded table, but Melody was so excited to start.
Daniel showed up shortly after and just walked into the house without knocking. They were all already seated waiting for him so when he saw them he just sat down. They all stared at him awkwardly. Melody could tell Neal was still mad Daniel was there, so she just rested her hand atop his crossed arms to try and calm him down. Let him know she was there, but also that he should chill out.
"So, what do I do?" Daniel asked the group.
"First you have to create a character. Roll the dice and find out what your ability scores are." Harris told him matter of factly.
"What are those?" Daniel asked confused.
"Oh well that tells you if you're strong, or smart, or how good you are with a weapon." Sam told him.
"What're you? Some super smart guy?" Daniel asked Harris. Melody was impressed Daniel actually seemed interested in the idea of building a character in a fantasy world.
"I don't have a character. I'm the Dungeon Master. I control the game and act out all the characters you meet along the way." Harris informed him.
"And Daniel, watch out for him. He's sneaky." Gordon said giving Harris a look.
"Yeah yeah, he thinks being the Dungeon Master fives him the right to mess with our heads." Bill told Daniel.
"Oh I'm sorry, perhaps I should let you encounter kittens and grandmas so as not to upset you." Harris gave Bill a fake smile.
"Come on Daniel, roll the dice. We want to see what your character's gonna be." Sam laughed.
Daniel looked at the dice in front of him confused.
"You roll 4 of the 6 sided dice and discard the lowest roll. Then add those numbers together. Do this 6 times for each of the abilities." Harris told him.
"Wait, I have to do math in this?" Daniel said looking disappointing.
"Only a little." Sam told him quickly.
"We can help if you want." Melody told him.
"Alright. Here goes nothing." Daniel said skeptically, picking up 4 d6 and rolling them. He rolled a 6, 3, 6, and 2 for his first roll.*
"Wow that's really good for your first roll!" Sam told him excitedly.
"2 6's, that's impressive." Gordon agreed.
"Okay, so just get rid of the 2 and add the two 6's and with the 3 together and that's your strength stat." Melody told him, pointing on the character sheet where he was supposed to write it down.
Daniel looked down happily at the dice. "Oh, that math's not that hard. I can do this." He smiled then looked up at Melody hesitantly, "That's 15 right?"
"Yes." She laughed.
"Ok, cool." He smiled again.
"Now just do that 5 more times for the other abilities." Harris told him.
Daniel rolled again, this time not as luckily, rolling three 3's, and a 1.
"What, so that mean's I only have an 9 on intelligence? I thought you said I got to be someone I'm not in real life." Daniel complained to Gordon.
The group laughed, "Just keep rolling Daniel." Sam told him.
Daniel rolled pretty well ending up with the final scores of a 15 to strength, 9 intelligence, 14 wisdom, 14 dexterity, 16 constitution, and a 8 for charisma.*
Harris looked over the sheet and the numbers. "A high constitution and strength with low intelligence and charisma, says dwarf to me." Harris said handing Daniel back his character sheet.
"A dwarf? I don't want to be a dwarf. I wanted to be like a ninja, or a fighter." Daniel said annoyed at the end of the table.
"W-well dwarves are fighter. They're really good at it." Sam encouraged him.
Daniel looked around the table then at Neal. "Are you a dwarf?" He asked.
Neal glared at him, his arms still crossed. "No. I'm Kragenwar the Destroyer" then he rolled his eyes.**
"Lucky man, I want to be some huge destroyer guy." Daniel told him.
"Dwarves can do a lot of things the huge guys can't do." Harris told Daniel.
"It's true, take it from me." Gordon smiled at Daniel.
"Yeah, dwarves are really tough. They're good at finding jewels." Sam added.
"Alright fine, I'll be a dwarf. But my name is Carlos." Daniel told the table.
Harris laughed. "Carlos the dwarf?" Bill asked skeptically.
"Yeah, you got a problem with that Gorthon?" Daniel asked him, mocking Bill's characters name.
Bill froze. "N-no." He said shyly.
Daniel just smiled at him. "I'm just joking." He laughed and the rest of the table laughed. Everyone was beginning to become more comfortable with him being there.
"Now we need to decide on your class. You have a high enough strength to be a fighter. But we already have 1 fighter in our party. You already have a low charisma, and dwarves have disadvantage to charisma, so that leads me to think you should probably be an Assassin." Harris told Daniel.
"That's like a ninja." Sam told Daniel.
"Alright, I'm in for that. Now is that all? I'm Carlos the dwarf assassin." Daniel told the group.
"That's all. We shall now begin the game." Harris said menacingly.
"You all meet in a tavern..." Harris began to tell their story.
They played for a few hours and it was actually a blast. Melody couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much fun in a group. Daniel got really into the game just like everyone else. Bill fell down a well and died in the middle of the game, Melody tried to heal him but there was no way to bring him back up from the bottom of the well so they had to abandon him.
After a couple hours the party finally made it through the treacherous woods, the castle with a dragon and past the guards that guarded the princess.
"Greetings Princess, it is I, Carlos the dwarf. The dragon has been slain and you are free to rule your kingdom." Daniel stood up and said to the table proudly.
They all sat around the table looking skeptically at each other and Harris. Just waiting for Harris to throw another curve ball at them, like the princess was a dragon too. But then Harris just smiled.
"Congratulations Daniel, Melody," He said looking at each of them "you just finished your first Dungeons and Dragons campaign." They all clapped, smiled, and laughed that they had finished the game.
"Thanks guys." Daniel said smiling happily. "This was really fun. You guys want to do this tomorrow night?" He asked.
"Sure!" Sam agree happily. As they all nodded in agreement.
"I would but Harris killed me again." Bill said dejectedly.
"You had it coming Bill." Harris told him.
"Well we'll kick his ass tomorrow night Bill. Just leave it to Carlos." Daniel said kindly to Bill. Melody had never seen this side of Daniel before, and she liked it. He actually seemed like a tolerable friend for once. "Hey, I'm gonna go get a soda, you guys want anything?" He asked the table. Everyone shook their head and he left to go into the kitchen.
As soon as he left they all leaned in close over the table.
"Wow, he's cool." Gordon said quietly.
"Does him wanting to play with us again mean that he's turning into a geek? Or we're turning into cool guys?" Bill asked hopefully.
"I don't know." Sam replied. "But I'm going to go for us being cool guys." Sam smiled.
Neal just shook his head, "yeah, I'll buy that." He said looking to Melody and laughing
"Yeah, definitely cool guys." Harris said, looking like he felt cool.
Daniel came back and they all started to talk about the game again.
"You know, if you weren't a gnome you wouldn't have been able to fit through that well and you wouldn't have died." Melody pointed out to Bill.
"I know, but gnome's are sneaky, and I wanted to be a thief." Bill told her.
Neal, Harris, Gordon, and Sam laughed. "Bill it's halflings who are sneaky. Not gnomes." Melody corrected him.
Bill thought for a minute. "..oh. right."
"Wow, they weren't kidding. You are bad at this game, even I knew that." Melody laughed with the rest of them.
"So how come you all got to pick your races and classes ahead of time?" Daniel asked, they were proud of him for using the correct terminology.
"Because we built our characters before hand, we did what you did, but multiple times until we got numbers that went with a character we wanted and liked." Neal told him.
"You can do that next time if you want. This is just what we have people do if it's game night and they don't have a character yet." Harris told him.
"I think I'm alright actually. I kind of like being Carlos the dwarf. Kick ass assassin." He laughed.
"I told you you'd like being a dwarf." Sam told him.
They talked about random things for a while, they joked and laughed and had a great time just hanging out.
When Melody got up to go grab something from the kitchen Daniel leaned over to talk quietly to Neal. "Hey Kragenwar" He joked.
"Neal laughed, leaning over to speak to him. "What's up?" Neal had warmed up to Daniel by then.
"So what's up with you and red? You two like a thing?" He asked.
Neal looked back at him confused, then looked to Melody in the kitchen and back to Daniel proudly. "Yeah, you could say that."
"My man, good going." Daniel said approvingly giving Neal a sliding high five.
Neal smiled back. "Right?" He couldn't believe Melody was dating him, it felt nice for someone to tell him how cool it was he was with her.
"So, how far have you guys.." Daniel asked, thinking it a perfectly normal question.
Neal grew tense, he knew that was personal information Melody didn't want him telling other people about. But he also felt so cool having a guy like Daniel Desario give him props for dating such a hot girl.
"N-not far. Just the usual you know. Heavy making out and all." Neal told him.
"Nice, listen whenever you guys go further then that you gotta let me know, red heads get wild man." He laughed.
Neal forced an awkward laugh. Hearing someone talk about Melody like that made him very uncomfortable, but he was also just starting to like Daniel, so he gave it a pass.
As the night ended Daniel left, then Bill and Gordon both walked home. Neal waited with Melody out on the curb for her mom to come pick her up. The pair sat on the curb with Neal's arm over her shoulder. A position they could only be in when sitting.
"Tonight was great." Melody smiled at Neal.
"It really was." He agreed happily.
"And see, Daniel wasn't as bad as we thought he would be. He was actually pretty fun." Melody told him.
"He was fun." Neal agreed. "He's a cool guy. Not someone I think you should spend any time alone with, but a cool guy non the less." He laughed.
Melody looked at him confused. "What?"
"Oh, trust me, you don't want to know." He told her lightly. When Mrs. Andopolis's car approached Neal dropped his arm from her shoulder and they moved to sit a few inches apart.
"Hi mom," Melody said getting into the car.
"Hi, Mrs. Andopolis," Neal greeted her politely.
"Oh, well hello Neal. What're you doing out here?" She asked politely.
"I was just keeping Melody company until you arrived." He told her.
"Oh, well aren't you just a perfect gentlemen. That was so thoughtful of him wasn't it Melody."
"Yup, super thoughtful. Thanks Neal. Buy Neal." Melody said awkwardly. She desperately wanted to leave before her mom said anything too bad.
"Buy Melody." He said smiling sweetly at her. "Buy, Mrs. Andopolis, have a good night." He said before walking off towards his house around the corner.
"Such a sweet boy." Mrs. Andopolis told her daughter at they drove.
When they got home Melody went up to go to bed but stopped by Nick's room. His door was cracked open and she could hear sniffling inside. She peaked the door way open and saw Nick laying in his messy bed, wearing big bell bottom jeans and a shiny silver top, crying. She hesitated, comforting her brother always felt weird, but she couldn't just leave him there. She walked into his room and sat down in the bed beside him.
"Hey what's wrong Nick?" She asked softly and kindly. As she moved his head to rest on her lap.
He grabbed on to one of her legs as he sobbed nestling into his sisters comfortable lap.
"Is it about that dance competition Sara mentioned?" Melody asked, trying to narrow down what was wrong. This just earned a bigger sob from Nick.
"... Didn't.. win... magician... Eugene... no one said... magic... Sara... broke up... she said she loved me... why... stupid.. magic guy." Were the only words Melody caught through his sobs. From that she assumed that he did not win the dance competition and that some magician named Eugene did. And then Sara dumped Nick for Eugene. She could be wrong, but that's what she was going to assume. "Why does this keep happening to me? I try so hard and it just keeps happening." Nick cried.
"Hey, shhh, it's alright. It's going to be okay." She tried to calm him as she brushed her fingers through his hair. "Hey look at the bright side." She spoke softly. "No more disco music."
"Disco sucks." Nick laughed through a sob.
"Disco does suck." Melody agreed. "Also, if it makes you feel any better. I just spent the last couple hours playing Dungeons and Dragons with Daniel. That's right, cool guy Desario's a secret geek." She joked.
Nick laughed. "You know, that actually does make me feel a little better."
"I thought it might."
After a while of sitting with him Nick had mostly calmed down.
"I'm sorry. That's embarrassing. I shouldn't have done that." Nick apologized as he sat up and looked at his sister on his bed.
"Nick don't be ridiculous. You're aloud to have emotions. You just need to remember there is a girl out there for you. And one day you're going to find her, and she's going to hate disco music, and she is going to love you just as much as you love her. I promise." Melody comforted him.
"Thanks Melly." He smiled.
Melody glared. "You know the only reason I'm not kicking you're ass right now is because you're sad right?"
Nick laughed, then looked at her seriously. "You're going to do great at that smart people thing. It's really cool you got in." He said, as closely to a sincere compliment as they could get.
"Thanks Nick."
The next day Melody packed for the summit then spent the day at Sam's again playing another campaign with the guys. Neal's dad let him go just because it was his last day to spend with Melody for the next two weeks. After playing the Weirs drove Sam, Bill, Neal, Lindsay, and Melody to the bus station. Because they were all already at their house so why not.
"Are you sure your parents don't mind not being here to see you off?" Mrs. Weir asked Melody.
"Oh, yeah. We're really not a heart felt goodbye kind of family. They don't- they don't care." Melody told her casually. It didn't hurt Melody's feelings, that's just never the kind of family they'd ever been.
Mrs. Weir looked at her sadly. "Well alright." They all continued to walk "So Lindsay.." Mrs. Weir spoke to Lindsay as they approached the bus stop wit her father, Sam and Bill.
Neal and Melody hung back around the corner out of view of the Weirs.
"I got you something." Neal said pulling out a small red hear shaped box from his bag. "It's chocolates for a sweet trip."
Melody took them and smiled at him. "Oh, thank you you really didn't need to."
"Are you kidding me? Of course I did." He said holding onto her hands. "I'm really gonna miss you." He said sincerely, looking up into her eyes sadly.
She smiled. "I'm really going to miss you too Neal." She was sad, but she pushed it down. She was so not going to cry about this, at least not in front of him. "We just gotta remember it only 2 weeks."
"2 weeks." He repeated her.
"2 Monday's from now, and I'll be home." She said trying to comfort herself as well as him. She leaned down and kissed him. He kissed her back and held her. It was a soft, simple, and almost sorrowful kiss. It spoke the words I love you, without a word being said. They separated and she laughed, a tear welling up in her eye. Neal raised his hand to her face and wiped it away.
"2 Mondays." He repeated and kissed her on the forehead.
"I guess I better get going." She laughed sadly.
"Probably." He matched her tone.
The two walked over toward the bus hand in hand. "Bye." She said sadly kissing Neal softly on the cheek. "Bye Bill, bye Sam." She said more cheerily going over to give each of them a quick hug before stepping up onto the bus. "I'll miss you guys." She said one last time as she looked back, then got on the bus on the seat in front of Lindsay. She looked out at her friends, her boyfriend, and Lindsay's parents as they all waved the girls goodbye happily as the bus pulled away. Melody sat up in her chair and turned around to talk to Melody. "Man I hate good byes." She laughed. "It's only going to be 2 weeks and I'm still a mess." She said drying her eyes that had started to well up again.
"I feel ya." Lindsay said wiping a tear from the side of her face. As the bus went further down town Melody noticed that Lindsay was paying attention to street signs like she was waiting for a stop."Hey listen, so about what I'm about to do. If you could like.. Not tell my parents or Sam about it. That would be really cool. This is just something that I really need to do for me, you know." Lindsay explained.
Melody looked at her confused. "I don't kn- what are you talking about? What are you about to do?"
"I'm not going to the summit." Lindsay told her. The bus stopped and Lindsay looked out and started to grab her bags. She looked excited. "I'm going to go follow the Grateful Dead, it's less then 2 weeks. I'll be back in plenty of time. And that summit isn't where I belong. It's where people like you belong. But this, this is something that I need to do for me. You have fun at that summit though." She told her and started to leave.
"Wait Lindsay, you can't just leave!" Melody called after her.
"I'll be fine. Please don't tell my parents." She called back toward Melody before getting off the bus.
Melody watched in horror and Lindsay approached Kim Kelley and an painted hippie van and threw her bag in. This so didn't seem safe, or like a good idea to Melody. But she couldn't stop her. Her stomach turned in knots for the rest of the ride to U of M. Lindsay was going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere and it was going to be her fault because she didn't stop her.
I couldn't find a way to work it into the dialogue. But before I even started writing this chapter I decided on races and classes for each of the boy's character since the show only tells us their names. I didn't know where to put it in, and I didn't want to just leave it out, since I already put thought into it. So I'm just going to throw this here in case you were wondering. Neal is Kragenwar the Destroyer A Half-Orc fighter, Bill is Gorthon the Thief A Gnome Thief, Sam is Logan the Huge A Human Paladin, Gordon is Sarqen the Strong A Elf Monk, Melody is Arine the Blessed A Halfling Cleric, and Daniel is Carlos the Dwarf A Dwarf Assassin.
*yes I did get out my own dice and actually roll for his ability scores. I love Dungeons and Dragons. Sorry if I bored you guys with the technical talk, but this was actually my favorite chapter to write because of the technical talk.
**this line always makes me laugh because if you watch the behind the scenes they almost had to cut this line because Samm Levine couldn't stop laughing and say it seriously. Fun facts
This chapter officially marks the end of the tv series Freaks and Geeks. Anything I write from here on out is just me making up random story lines and things based off of what the directors talked about on how the next season would go.
I know it's ridiculous that they would be getting so emotional over a simple goodbye for a 2 week trip. But it's an emotional scene in the show, because they knew goodbye meant, goodbye, the show is over. So it's emotional in the show and I wanted to show that emotion in my story.