A/N: As a foreword – all of my knowledge of Dudgeons and Dragons come from The Big Bang Theory. I do, however, own a copy of Firefly – the Boardgame.

Slaying Dragons in Dudgeons

Grant liked board games, that was a fact. Battleship? Awesome. Monopoly? Sure. Cluedo? Absolutely.

But this? This was a nightmare.

It was Fitz's turn to choose their game night – this time just the four of them, sans Coulson and May -, and to Grant's utter surprise, he chose Dungeons and Dragons (Grant had no idea they had the game aboard to begin with), and while he was thriving in his role of game master, Grant even had problems with understanding the character sheet in front of him (there were a lot of boxes and numbers, and why the hell they needed so many dice?).

And, apparently, he was alone with this problem.

"Okay, okay, okay," Skye said excitedly, pushing her hair back from eyes and leaning forward in her seat. "I step forward and knock on the door."

Fitz nodded solemnly, threw his dice, consulted with the charts in front of him, and said "And the door opens, letting you in."

"Yes!" Skye exclaimed, throwing her fist into the air, making Grant groan – honestly, what was such a big deal about it?

"Ward, your turn," he heard Fitz's voice, pulling him back to the game. He shook his head, focusing on the board.

"I, um… I follow Skye through the door?" he said.

Fitz repeated his little ritual – nod, throw, consult.

"The door slams closed right in front of you."

"What?" he snapped, almost knocking over the pieces on the board.

"Sorry, Ward," Fitz said with an apologetic little shrug. "I don't decide — the dice do."

Next to him, Skye shook with suppressed laughter.

"Sorry, sorry," she said, touching Grant's knee when he turned towards her, expression tense. "It's just I can totally see your face when the door is shut right before you. I can even imagine it hitting your nose."

Grant pulled his eyebrows together in mock-annoyance, but even he couldn't stop the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile.

"Oh, that's how we are, now?" he asked, trying to sound stern. "I guess then I'm adding twenty push ups to your morning workout."

Skye gasped and put her hand over her heart in an overdramatic gesture.

"You wouldn't."

"I would," Grant assured her, chuckling lightly.

(That was the point when Fitz was about to interrupt their exchange and remind them that they were in the middle of a game, but Jemma put her hand on his forearm, stopping him.)

"Okay, then what about a deal?" Skye tried, sitting back a little. "I help you with the game, and you forgo those extra push ups."

Grant pretended to consider it for a moment, then nodded, offering his hand to her.

"It's a deal."

Skye grinned and took it.

"Great choice, young padawan," she said, sliding closer to him on the couch. "Now, let's see…"

With Skye's help he soon got a better understanding of the game (and learned that she had used to play it with some of her old Rising Tide buddies, that's why she was so familiar with the game), and even managed to take active part in slaying the arch enemy. He would have even dared to say that he ended up enjoying the game.

"It wasn't even that bad now, was it?" Skye asked him with a faint smile on her face after the game had been packed away.

Grant returned her smile.

"It wasn't exactly my style, but… it was fun," he admitted, making her smile even more brightly.

"Awesome," she replied, biting into her lower lip. "Okay, so next game night it's my turn to choose a game, and I was thinking maybe we should play Firefly? What do you say?"

Grant gave her a little shrug.

"Can I expect your help with that, too? Because if yes, I'm all in."

"Oh, sure you can," she grinned. "We will totally team up and destroy FitzSimmons, I'm telling you!"

He had no idea how they were going to manage that, but he was all for finding it out – especially if he could watch Skye smile like this during that game, too.

(Later on, down in the lab, Fitz and Simmons had a throughout discussion about whether Skye and Ward realized that they were flirting with each other, and they came to the conclusion that no, they didn't.)