"For the last time, Charlotte," Aidan sighed, setting his beer down harder than he meant to. "My name is Ironside."

She gave him a cheeky grin as she reached for her dice. "Well, Ron, do you have a higher strength stat than me or don't you?"

Aidan rolled his eyes and checked his sheet. "No, I don't."

Her grin grew. "All right, then I guess I'm going to try to kick in the door."

Carson flipped a page behind his cardboard barrier. "What's your strength again? Sixteen? Okay, go ahead. Roll your D20."

Charlotte scooped up the hot pink, glittery dice and rolled them around in her hands for a moment. "Okay ... oh, shit."

Sam oohed and Ada burst out laughing.

"What? What's a twenty do? Isn't that good?" asked Noah, frowning at the pages as though they might hold the answer.

"You want to roll under your stat. A twenty is a critical fail. Usually it's something horrible, but sometimes, if you roll a six on your fate die, it usually goes wrong but works in your favour somehow. That's what Charlotte got. Let's see what happens." Shelly's grin disappeared behind her glass; the tip of her nose and cheekbones were growing ruddy from suppressed nervous laughter.

"Precisely." Carson was barely containing himself as he scanned the ceiling. "Let's see ... as you go in for your kick, a loose brick under your foot makes you stumble. You put your foot right through the door, spraining your ankle in the process. You take ... one damage."

"Fuck!" Charlotte cried, leaning back so far she nearly fell off her stool. "Oh, man, I am so close to dead."

"Stop taking such big risks then," Shelly suggested with a grin.

"Someone has to! And how is kicking a door down dangerous?"

"I think you already know why kicking down a door is dangerous."

Sam laughed, reaching for her drink. Charlotte glowered at the models before her depicting their exploration through the dungeon. They were all level one, no one had healing yet. If she wasn't careful she'd be dead before level two.

"While Malou has a meltdown, it's Ron's turn." Carson turned his focus on Aidan.

Aidan groaned. "Ironside. Iron-side."

"Yes, yes; what do you want to do?"

"Can I reach through the hole to unlock the door?"

"Can you move that far? Let's see." Carson counted the tiles on the model to measure distance. "Yes, you can try. Give me a dex roll."

"Great, here we- wait, no, I peek through the hole first to make sure nothing is going to attack me." Aidan paused and turned to Carson, eyebrows raised.

"You don't see anything at a glance."

"Then I reach in and feel for the lock."

"Dex roll," Carson repeated.

This he failed, and Ada stepped in to try her hand. Even with a worse roll, she succeeded. Aidan's paladin was strong, but none too dexterous. Rolling under it was difficult.

They ended the game for the night shortly after when they had fought their way to the room where they would find Thaler, a supposed scholar who robbed them of their artifacts a few weeks prior. They were undecided still on how to handle him and it was way later than they usually played.

"Anyone staying over?" Sam asked on a yawn, then murmured an apology.

"We have room, I can drive you guys home if you want." Noah hadn't been drinking; after the last incident, he did only rarely.

Sam swayed, and Ada put an arm around her for support. Shelly stifled a yawn. They said a quick goodbye, and then the five of them piled into Aidan's car. He was more scrunched than he would like to be, but he couldn't put his seat all the way back, that would be rude.

As Noah started the car, Aidan got his usual burst of urgency and had to resist the impulse to micromanage him. When it came to driving, Aidan was not the best passenger. It didn't just apply to Noah. Aidan would much prefer to be the one behind the wheel. Besides, he was actually pretty good at it. He just had to take a deep breath and let Noah focus.

In such a small space, it was impossible to avoid the punch to his sinuses that came with breathing. Perfume, detergents, soaps, alcohol; it all added up to one enormous assault on his senses. If he focused, he could just pick out Charlotte's delicate orchid perfume. Sometimes when he got home from D&D night, he could smell traces of it long after, like it clung to him somehow.

After only a few breaths, Aidan switched to mouth-breathing for some relief. If the aromas bothered Noah, he didn't let on.

Three short stops later, they were on their way home with the windows down in spite of the subzero temperature. Apart from the light chit-chat as a group, Noah and Aidan said nothing to one another. Silence stretched on. Aidan clicked on the radio to fill the void. Though usual, the silence was rarely welcome.

Aidan didn't know what he expected things to be like for them after all was said and done, but it wasn't this. He found himself mourning the relationship they once had, back before he learned to blame Aidan for the incident. Still, he couldn't fault him for that—Aidan blamed himself. That isn't to say Noah wasn't responsible for his actions, but that Aidan was worthy of a portion of the burden.

Aidan sighed, letting the thoughts go.

"What?" Noah asked tersely, fixated on the road.

"Nothing, just got in my own head, that's all."

He let it drop. It was that or argue. They rarely did much else.

Silently, they got out and headed inside through growing snow. Aidan leaned against the wall to work at his dusty laces, surreptitiously watching Noah. He kicked off his sneakers, then strolled to the kitchen to fill a glass with water. He was in his room before Aidan even had his shoes off.

Aidan sighed, harder this time since Noah couldn't hear him over his headphones. Fetching a beer from the fridge, Aidan threw himself onto the couch with a deep groan that the springs matched. His buzz was already wearing off from that quick car ride. He wasn't in the mood to let that happen. He was halfway through the bottle before he had finished queuing up the show he had started earlier in the week.

When he could ignore his needs no longer, he paused for a washroom break, then changed into sweats and returned to his sulking. He had no right being this depressed, and yet he found himself entertaining old memories he did his damnedest to ignore most of the time. For something to do, he fished out his phone and scrolled through social media.

He still wasn't used to the experience, even after all these years on it. He barely knew anyone who had it, though that was beginning to change, what with the addition of internet to their old home. Not much had changed since he was online earlier, as he had spent much of the evening with most of his friends.

There were two green dots in the list indicating they were online. His thumb hovered over Charlotte's face, frozen in indecision. What would Sam think? What would she say?

Aidan shook his head. Why did it matter? Charlotte and Aidan were friends, there was nothing wrong about sending her a message.

Aidan tapped her icon, watching photos roll by of their game in action. At the end, he tapped back, then onto her name. Their message history was minuscule; one from him to wish her a happy birthday, and one in response to thank him, full of emojis. Aidan had viewed it, then closed the message with the promise to himself to not go down that path. This time, he told himself he wasn't doing anything wrong, and typed three simple letters: "Hey".

Feeling foolish, Aidan dropped the phone into his lap, but missed the lock button. He heard the little pop that meant she had viewed the message. There was an agonising pause that couldn't have been more than a second before a bright chime drew his gaze back to the screen.

"Hey! Can't sleep either?"

Aidan half-smiled, typing, "I haven't even tried yet. Why are you still up? Don't you have work in the morning?"

A single emoji popped up, rolling its eyes at him. A moment later, her full response arrived. "Yes, ugh. I dunno', I'm not tired."

He knew what he wanted to write, but couldn't bring himself to type it out. Instead, he wrote, "What are you doing?"

Minutes passed and the message sat on read. He unlocked and then locked his phone every so often to be sure he hadn't missed anything, gazing blankly at the television in between. Finally, a chime.

"Laundry. I'm hoping to bore myself to sleep."

He laughed aloud. "Is it working?"

"Sort of. I think I'm just bored now. What are you doing?"

Aidan paused to check the name of the show, then typed it out, fumbling accents that autocorrect made right as he explained what it was about. They went back and forth for a while, discussing things they were watching or wanted to. Light and mindless topics kept his mind somewhat centred.

"It's really late," she wrote just after her last message, "and I should probably try to sleep. Good night, RON!"

Aidan rolled his eyes, a grin overcoming him. "It's Ironside, get it right." He put a smiley face at the end to lighten things.

Right away, she responded, "Lol, go to bed," followed by a wink.

Aidan smiled at his phone until her green dot went away, then locked it and shut off the show. In semi-darkness, he put the two empties in the sink and filled them with water. A quick shower and his usual bedtime routine did little for his alertness, but he got into bed anyway and did his best to lie still. It was a long time before sleep took him, and the last thing he remembered was sour guilt for the quiet thoughts he entertained.

The first thing Aidan was aware of was a dull ache in his skull. He fumbled for the bottle of water on his nightstand and drank it dry. When he could finally peel his eyes open, he peered at the time on his phone. Minutes before his alarm was to go off. He dragged himself out of bed and stretched out his stiff muscles. Judging by his position and ache in his neck, he hadn't moved in the few hours he had slept.

His dreams had been plagued with memories warped with his current life. The tree where Sam lay sprawled at its roots, bleeding freely from a split in the back of her head where her skull hit the trunk. Only when he blinked flaming red waves became dense black curls. The highway shoulder, a dark haired woman eviscerated before him, enormous green eyes wide with terror, with pain. A blink, and her hair was tumbling from a violently green scrunchie.

His stomach soured, his palms burning as his nails bit into them.

Dark hair, chalky skin on a sterile operating table, surrounded by surgeons and nurses. all those hands, and not a hope of surviving. Aidan hovered near the payphones, ears pricked for the slightest news, for someone coming to ask him to leave. Only instead of Jasmine's parents in the formed plastic seats, it was Sam, Ada, Shelly, and Carson. And it wasn't Jasmine's name the doctor said while delivering the news.

Aidan burst into the washroom and heaved into the toilet, nothing but bile and water. His vision was warped through fat tears that wouldn't quite fall. He spit a few times, flushed, and scrubbed his teeth with more force than was healthy. He knew that, but he couldn't stop himself.

He could barely meet his own gaze in the mirror, and the person staring back at him was unfamiliar. He gave himself a hard look. It was a fight to not look away. No more thinking of her. She didn't deserve to be put in danger because of his selfish wants. It was bad enough having nearly every day to see the scars Sam bore with grace and confidence. Charlotte didn't deserve this. Sam sure as hell didn't.

When he finally emerged, it was to an empty, dark apartment. If Noah was awake, he wasn't letting on. Aidan checked the time and cursed. No time for breakfast. He threw on his coat and shoes then paused outside Noah's door. He hesitated. He could just go, Noah knew what was going on.

Aidan cleared his throat and knocked once. "Noah? I'm heading to the airport to pick up Cain. See you later, call if you need anything."

Silence stretched on, and Aidan figured he was still asleep. He shrugged, turning to leave.

"See you."

Aidan's lips pressed into a little smile. He grabbed a bottle of water, his wallet, and keys, then ducked out, locking up behind himself.