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He’s about two seconds away from losing his temper when Henry kisses him for the first time. Just reaches out and yanks him down by the shirt collar to press their mouths together.
It’s clearly meant as a distraction but the problem is just how well it works. His hands uncurl from their tight fists. He stops thinking about how overwhelming their current situation is. A feeling stirs in his chest, something distantly familiar, tugging at half-remembered memories from years before.
That feeling steadies him even when Henry pulls away.
Darryl takes a deep breath and continues speaking with the Lance as though nothing had happened.
It works so well, in fact, that Henry kisses him for the second time just a few minutes later.
He steps into Darryl’s space so smoothly that it catches him off-guard. Instead of pushing him away—he should be pushing him away, right?—he leans into the kiss as though this is their habit. As though he has kissed Henry many times before. That feeling stirs again, and it lingers for a moment after Henry moves away. A warmth that spreads through his chest and across his cheeks.
Before he can think about what just happened—before he can panic about what it might mean—he pushes aside all those sensations and resolves to deal with them later.
At the battle of the bands, they have to figure out how to take out the competition.
“We could seduce them,” Henry says into their dad huddle.
Darryl turns to him so quickly that it nearly gives him whiplash.
Henry, seeing his panicked expression, tries to backtrack. “I mean, we just need to get them out of their clothes! We could challenge them to a game of strip poker?”
But Ron is already stroking his moustache and nodding. “I think…we should seduce them.”
So Darryl finds himself standing on the stage where the musicians are setting up. He tries to ignore the hundreds if not thousands of people that have gathered to watch the performances. He shields his face when a beam of light tracks across the stage.
What am I doing here? he thinks despairingly.
Henry has persuaded a bassist that they are looking for some fun, but before the bassist can put down his guitar and head offstage with them, he notices that Darryl is hanging back and looking unhappy.
“I’m getting a weird vibe from you…” he says, narrowing his eyes.
“Uh…yeah, I…”
Without any warning, Henry moves towards him and flings an arm around his neck, dragging him down into a kiss that muffles the words that Darryl had been about to shape. He breaks away to glance over his shoulder, gauging how the bassist is reacting. Because the bassist has just folded his arms and raised an eyebrow, Henry turns back to Darryl and murmurs, “Trust me.”
“Of course I trust y-”
Which is all that he can get out before Henry presses their mouths together again, at an angle that is so much more intimate than any of the times they have kissed before. His fingers wind into Darryl’s hair and tug gently, and Darryl responds entirely without thinking. He grasps Henry’s waist and moans into his mouth. It must be his imagination that Henry smiles into the kiss.
But it definitely is not his imagination that Glenn wolf-whistles from the crowd.
He pulls back sharply, holding Henry at arm’s length.
Henry, looking dishevelled and breathing heavily, adjusts his glasses and then turns to the bassist.
The bassist’s mouth has dropped open. “Damn,” he says and gestures for his bandmates to come with.
Henry gives Darryl two thumbs up and a cheeky grin, and their adventure continues.
They’re camping under the stars tonight.
Henry comes out from the woods with an armful of branches, whistling a cheerful tune. “Found some firewood! Gosh, nature is so beautiful. Isn’t it amazing that we sleep out here in the elements, without all the distractions of modern technology?”
He crouches down and gets to work starting a fire.
“I don’t know about that, man,” Glenn replies from where he is sitting on the hood of the Odyssey. He strums a few chords on his guitar and flashes a smile. “Some distractions are pretty great.”
He plays a funky rendition of Feliz Navidad and Henry hums along while stripping the branches of any leaves. Ron squints and taps his foot off-beat, like he has never heard the song before.
Darryl stares at his phone, considering whether to listen to the voicemail that Carol left. He scratches his beard, which has grown out over the past few weeks journeying through the Forgotten Realms. She wouldn’t like it, he thinks. She always preferred him clean-shaven.
“Do you play any instruments?” Glenn asks.
“An ex-boyfriend taught me a little piano,” Henry replies, feeding twigs into the fire. “Just the basics, you know. Mary Had a Little Lamb. Hot Cross Buns.”
Darryl stops breathing at the offhanded admission that Henry has dated a man before. He’s expecting an uncomfortable silence to settle over their group.
But Glenn just keeps strumming, wholly unbothered. “That’s cool. Have you ever tried the keyboard?”
They chat for a while about the possibility of playing together sometime, with Ron as the lead vocalist. Henry enthuses about the rap CDs he made for his tour groups at the museum, which makes Glenn laugh so hard that he nearly rolls off the Odyssey. Ron tells them that he has memorised the entire discography of Rufus Wainwright. Henry tosses them each a granola bar from the box that he brought for the kids’ soccer game while espousing the benefits of an all-natural vegan diet.
The three of them sprawl out on the ground and admire the stars, but Darryl hangs back.
He keeps staring at his phone, trying to work up the courage to listen to the voicemail. It must be something important. Carol never calls him without a reason these days.
“Hey,” Henry murmurs and touches his elbow.
Darryl startles and clutches the phone to his chest.
“Oh geez. I’m sorry-”
“No, it’s okay-”
“I should respect your personal space-”
“No! Henry, it’s really fine. I’m just, uh…” he trails off and then waves the phone with a sheepish expression. “Carol left me a voicemail, and I’m, uh…pretty sure that she’s mad at me. Not that she’s ever-” not mad at me, he was about to say before stopping himself. “Just. You know. Carol.”
Henry stares at him for a moment. “Carol. Okay! Yeah. Well, it’s getting late and I think we should all get some shut-eye. There’s room near the fire if you want to cuddle up.”
The phrasing makes his cheeks warm.
Henry must have noticed, because he stretches somewhat awkwardly and attempts to yawn.
Darryl absolutely does not notice how the fabric stretches across his chest as he moves.
“Wow, all this adventuring really takes it out of you! Goodnight, Darryl.”
“Night, Henry,” he mumbles.
When Henry has returned to the fire, Darryl leans against the Odyssey. The metal panels are cold to the touch. He takes a steadying breath and listens to the voicemail left by his wife of fifteen years.
The voicemail goes into the box of things that he cannot afford to think about right now, along with the memory of Henry’s fingers winding into his hair.
It keeps happening.
When the local guard comes after them to execute a warrant for their arrest, Henry panics and shoves Darryl up against the nearest wall with both hands, then kisses him like there is no tomorrow. It works as a diversion tactic, but only because the guards are so confused that they hesitate, which gives Ron enough time to sneak up behind them and knock them unconscious with sleeping powder.
Glenn proceeds to give them shit about it.
“Were you doing that thing from Winter Soldier where you kiss to avoid attention? Because even if that worked, that would still leave Ron and me to get arrested by the fucking cops!”
“I don’t know!” Henry protests, red-faced. “I panicked, and it’s worked before!”
Darryl keeps clearing his throat and refusing to look at anyone for the next hour or so.
They pick up another shift at Hardball Coughdrop’s BDSM business, against their better judgment.
“Back by popular demand,” she remarks with a salacious wink. “Here are tonight’s bookings.”
She hands them four cards.
The first customer wants to be serenaded, so Glenn improvises lyrics to the tune of Deck the Halls.
The second customer wants to be tied up, so Darryl demonstrates the knot-tying skills that he learned as a boy scout and during the years that he went fishing with his dad.
The third customer takes one look at them, shakes their head and leaves.
The fourth customer asks for a show.
They glance at each other.
“What do you mean, a show?” Darryl asks.
The customer refuses to give any details, instead sinking back into a plush chaise lounge.
Glenn gestures with his guitar, but the customer flicks a lizard-like tongue in what seems to be disdain.
“I can juggle,” Ron volunteers.
The customer shows some interest in that possibility, but as they begin searching their pockets for anything that could be used as juggling balls, Ron calls an impromptu dad huddle and confesses that he can only juggle one ball at a time.
“Better think fast! The customer is about to walk,” Glenn whispers.
“Gosh darn it!” Henry curses and breaks the dad huddle to begin frantically stripping off his shirt. When he wrenches it free, he throws the shirt at his feet with a stubborn expression. His glasses are askew and his hair is sticking out in several directions. “We are not going to ruin the good name of Madame Coughdrop just because of our qualms about giving a humanoid lizard-creature a show!”
“My name is Tiffany,” the customer calls.
“Hi Tiffany,” Ron says with a polite wave.
“Are we…stripping naked?” Darryl reaches for the hem of his tunic hesitantly.
“I’m into that,” the customer affirms.
Darryl lowers his voice to confide, “I’m kinda embarrassed about my body.”
“You really shouldn’t be,” Henry tells him and reaches out to pat his arm. “You’re so muscular.”
“And hairy,” Darryl mumbles.
“There is an inherent beauty to the human form-” Henry begins saying.
But what would have almost certainly been a lecture is averted by Darryl taking off his shirt. Henry breaks off mid-sentence and stares at him.
“What?” Darryl asks uncomfortably. “Aren’t we all taking off our shirts?”
Henry reaches out to touch his chest with what might be reverence. The touch is barely-there, his fingertips brushing against the whorls of hair that have only gotten thicker over the years. Darryl doesn’t like to take his shirt off around the house, since Carol has shown next to no interest in him since Grant was born. He hasn’t been looked at for a long time.
And Henry is looking at him in a way that might send him running if he had not come to trust this man so much. Henry moves his hand to Darryl’s shoulder and smiles at him, making it all seem effortless. Henry’s hand is warm and calloused against his bare skin and he grasps on to him, as though Darryl is keeping him grounded and not the other way around.
“I bet you could pick me up,” Henry murmurs.
“Definitely,” Darryl replies, his voice coming out a little hoarse for some reason. He can imagine picking Henry up and walking across the room with him, then lowering him onto the chaise lounge.
“You two should kiss!” Glenn mock-whispers from somewhere behind them.
Despite his rising nerves, Darryl smiles at Henry.
Henry grins and slides both arms around Darryl’s neck, then kisses him. Their chest press together and the sensation makes him realise just how much he has been missing. It has been so long since he shared this with Carol that he has actually forgotten what it was supposed to feel like. The warmth, the softness of another person’s skin, the gentleness of fingers smoothing along his nape. In that moment, Darryl believes that he could happily kiss Henry Oak forever.
A hint of tongue punches the breath out of him.
Henry pulls away before it becomes too overwhelming, having a conversation with the customer that causes him to grin again and reach for their discarded shirts. “That was one heck of a kiss, Darryl,” he says cheerfully while walking towards the door where Glenn and Ron are waiting.
It was arguably the best kiss of Darryl’s adult life.
“Yeah,” he says, resolving not to think about it.
A rival adventuring group challenge them to a game of Cowardice at a tavern. They explain the rules while Glenn is handing out tankards of mead and he furrows his brow.
“That sounds like Truth or Dare, if you took out the Truth option.”
“We have never heard of Truth or Dare before,” a dragonborn snarls. “Only Cowardice!”
“Relax, my guy,” Glenn responds easily, taking his seat. “Sounds fun either way.”
Half an hour later, Ron is demonstrating that he is cursed to never wear pants again by melting the three pairs handed to him by other patrons at the tavern. They watch in bewilderment as the material sloughs off his body without causing him any pain whatsoever. A dwarf who made the mistake of offering up a valued pair clutches on to the charred remnants and wails loudly.
An hour after that, Glenn is doing the chicken dance with a ridiculous amount of fanfare.
And even later into the night, the dragonborn slams down their tankard and declares, “I challenge you to kiss!”
Henry shrugs and turns towards Darryl, who doesn’t even have to think about it before slinging an arm around his shoulder and pressing a bruising kiss to his mouth.
The dragonborn splutters but rallies again. “I was going to say, a kiss with tongue!”
So Darryl tilts his head and licks into Henry’s mouth, nearly bending him backwards. Henry groans and clutches at his shoulders. Sheer strength alone is keeping him from tumbling out of his chair.
“Better take the L,” Glenn advises and pushes another tankard towards the dragonborn.
Darryl has such a persistent hangover that he keeps his sunglasses on. They bundle into the Odyssey and head out of town without any issues, so things must not have gotten too rowdy last night.
“Wild night,” Glenn remarks and yawns. “Are you gonna let me smoke in here?”
Darryl answers that question by activating the child safety locks.
“Bummer,” Glenn mutters without any real surprise.
In the back seat, Henry has fallen asleep with his head resting on Ron’s shoulder. Ron stares out the window and occasionally pats Henry’s thigh in what he must think is a comforting gesture.
Darryl doesn’t check his phone until they have stopped for the night. There’s a missed call from Carol. He considers calling her back, but then remembers how angry she had been about his last non-update. He had better wait until they meet up with Grant, and he can assure her that their son is safe.
Three minutes until this area fills up with poisonous gas.
Before they can get moving, a couple of kids not much older than Grant approach them with their weapons lowered. One of them takes advantage of a nearby rail and does a perfectly executed trick on his skateboard. Grant watches with open admiration.
Oh, Darryl realises after looking between his son and this newcomer.
“Dad huddle!” he blurts out.
“What?” Grant asks, surprised.
“Just for dads!” Darryl tells him and hooks both arms around his friends, speaking into the sanctity of the huddle. “Did you see the way that Grant is looking at that kid? I think he has a crush!”
“You think so?” Henry asks in a hushed voice.
“Yeah! Wow, he’s never had a crush on anyone before! I guess he must be at that age, you know, where skateboarding tricks are so cool and you start noticing all the cute, uh, boys-”
“Not to rain on your parade, but is this really a good time to have a dad huddle?” Glenn interrupts. “This place will be filled with gas in about two minutes!”
“That’s a good point, Glenn. I agree with you,” Henry replies. “Darryl, it’s wonderful that your son is experiencing these brand new feelings under what might well be the worst possible circumstances. It really shows that a seed can grow anywhere, you know? A seed tossed onto rocky ground can grow into something beautiful and unexpected-”
“A minute and a half!” Glenn hisses, emphasising each word.
“We should get out of here,” Ron says sagely.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Darryl concedes with a sigh.
The dad huddle breaks apart.
“Sorry about that, guys. I was just so excited to see Grant with a crush.”
Henry puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “That is exciting, Darryl. Thanks for sharing that with us.”
The Hottiez join them, taking lead since they are better armed and veterans of the For Knights tournament. Darryl watches his son, red-cheeked and beaming, talking about something with Yeet that he would almost certainly not understand even if he could hear it from this distance.
“That’s sweet,” Henry remarks.
“Yeah,” Darryl says without ever taking his eyes off his son.
“You know, I really misjudged you back when we first met.”
“When I came to pick up your boys for the game?” he asks distractedly.
“No, back when Lark and Sparrow first joined the team. Coach Darnell was sick and you took over practice. You were shouting across the field at these kids, and I remember thinking that you were this heteronormative, meat-eating, conservative, toxic-masculinity guy.”
Darryl glances at him.
“I was actually going to pull my two beautiful boys from the team.”
“What changed your mind?” he asks, despite not really wanting to know the answer.
Henry smiles at a fond memory. “Grant tripped,” he says simply. “I saw this moment of utter panic, when you thought that he might have gotten injured. You ran to his side and checked on him. Even offered to take him home early! I looked at you and thought, ‘he might be a Republican voter with a car that’s contributing to the destruction of our ecosystem, but he’s also a caring and loving father’.”
“Oh,” Darryl says, because he doesn’t know how else to respond.
“I was wrong about you, Darryl,” Henry tells him. “You just found out that your son likes a boy and it hasn’t changed how you look at him.”
“Why would it change anything?” Darryl asks, genuinely confused. “He’s my son.”
Henry beams at him with what looks like pride. He reaches for Darryl’s hand and holds on to it as they continue walking. It should feel awkward, this new point of contact between them. But it doesn’t. It feels like a warmth that spreads out from his chest and makes him want to smile.
They leave the zone just as the poisonous gas starts hissing out from the vents behind them. The group stops to watch the toxic cloud spread out over the ground and rise into the air.
Darryl tightens his grasp on Henry’s hand, just to reassure himself that it’s there.
Then he furrows his brow, remembering something that Henry had said.
“I’m not a Republican,” he murmurs.
Henry laughs brightly and doesn’t let go of his hand.
What little spark of joy there had been in Grant’s eyes is gone, doused in the blood of a chimera.
Tears stream down his cheeks as he stares at the night sky.
He should probably call Carol and tell her that Grant has been kidnapped in this strange fantasy realm. Darryl had his son back, and shattered him into pieces just to escape that fucking blood pact, and lost him before he could take any steps to try to heal the hurt that he had inflicted because there was no other choice. He couldn’t be there for Grant like his own dad had always been there for him.
“I can’t do anything right,” he murmurs to himself and wipes roughly at his cheeks.
Darryl jumps at the sound of shoes crunching on the rocky path.
He relaxes at the sight of Ron, who bares his teeth in an approximation of a smile.
Ron stands a few feet away from him and says nothing.
More tears spill over. Darryl breathes in shakily and confesses, “I’m a failure of a dad.”
Ron looks at him, although he must not be able to see very well in the darkness.
“You’re not a failure of a dad,” he says. “You’re Darryl.”
Then he laughs, heh heh heh, as though he had just said a funny joke.
Despite himself, Darryl laughs into his sleeve while wiping away his tears.
“Thanks, buddy,” he murmurs.
Maybe there’s something to that. Frank Wilson was the best man that he has ever known. Strong, reliable and always prepared for life’s obstacles. He made parenting look effortless, rather than the constantly challenging and exhausting and often unrewarding experience that Darryl has found it to be. He is always going to fail to meet the unattainable standard set by his own dad.
Maybe instead of trying to be Frank Wilson, he can figure out how to be Darryl.
It takes several weeks before they reunite with their children, rescuing them from their purple-robed kidnappers. Then it takes a few more days before Darryl finally relaxes.
They have found a grassy hill that’s suitable for a picnic. The Odyssey is parked at the roadside within their line of sight, all doors locked. Ron carefully unpacks the sacks of food they purchased at a village market. Glenn leans against a tree and chats with Nick, not-so-subtly smoking a blunt. The twins are a relentless blur of energy and Henry is chasing after them, as always.
Darryl uses his coach voice and calls out, “Boys! Can you gather up some firewood for the grill?”
Lark and Sparrow stop in their tracks and turn to him with identical expressions of delight.
“Fire?” one of the boys inquires.
“The most primitive expression of raw power?” the other asks.
They clap their hands together and race towards the trees, shouting, “Power! Power!”
“Stay close to the treeline!” Henry shouts after them. He looks exhausted, but pleased to have his children back underfoot. He starts separating out the vegan food to prevent cross-contamination.
Darryl sets up the magical grill. It might be pushing the definition of ‘hunted’ to include food bought from a market vendor, but the grill works just fine. The oil sizzles and crackles as he puts on the meat.
Too late, he thinks about partitioning off a section so that Henry can cook whatever vegan options he has brought for the picnic. But Henry appears content with stoking the kindling into a fire and holding a pot out over it. Next time they will have to coordinate the dietary options better.
Terry and Grant settle beside the fire. Darryl seasons the meat with a well-practiced hand and watches as his son is coaxed into a game of tic-tac-toe. The boys draw the grid into the dirt with a stick and take turns filling out the squares. It looks like Grant beats Terry handily, and Terry’s over-the-top reaction is enough for a small smile to appear on his son’s face.
Of course, Ron misinterprets their playing as something that he needs to be worried about as a father, and Terry soon becomes distracted by showing Ron how to play tic-tac-toe.
Darryl turns over the t-bone steak with care. Grant had said this was his favourite cut, after all.
“The kids are getting along pretty well, huh?” Henry says, approaching with the cooking pot in hand.
“They sure are,” Darryl agrees happily.
“Here, I have something for you to try.”
Henry holds out a forkful of food that looks suspiciously like pudding.
Darryl eyes it warily, and Henry laughs at his reaction.
“Just try it,” Henry murmurs. “I won’t be offended if you don’t take a second bite.”
So Darryl opens his mouth and Henry takes a step closer, feeding him the forkful. It is not what he was expecting. The outside is crispy and reminds him of crackling, while the inside is soft and flavourful. He swallows and nods. “That was pretty tasty.”
“Tofu,” Henry tells him with a cocky smile.
Darryl furrows his brow. “No way.”
“Yes way! You want another bite?”
“Yeah,” Darryl admits. “But only if you have enough for you and your boys.”
“I always have enough tofu for a new convert,” Henry jokes and feeds him another forkful.
Darryl glances at his son, as he often does. He’s surprised to see that Grant is staring at them both. Grant looks between them with an expression that he doesn’t recognise at all, his eyes a little wide.
Probably surprised to see his old man eating vegan food, he reasons and tests the meat.
He knows that teenagers sometimes need their space. So when he rouses for the morning and notices that Grant has wandered away from the campsite, he starts preparing breakfast instead of panicking. Grant earned his Orienteering merit badge at Boy Scouts and knows to stay within shouting distance.
They’re running low on firewood, so he heads into the woods to pick sticks off the ground.
Soon he can hear the sound of quiet conversation.
Darryl pushes aside a branch, more curious than wary.
Henry and Grant are sitting on large rocks embedded in the dirt.
“-this is a vein of calcite, which would have been formed by running water,” Henry explains with obvious excitement. “Rocks can tell us about what was happening millions of years ago. Isn’t that cool?”
Grant shrugs his shoulders.
Henry keeps smiling, but his expression becomes more subdued.
“This rock was shaped by its experiences,” he tells him. “People are like that, too. We change over time because of what happens around us.”
Grant fidgets with his hands and says nothing for some time.
The tense silence continues long enough that Darryl considers intervening.
Then Grant points at the rock and asks, “What about that?”
“Oh, this is quartz! When a crack formed in the rock, the quartz came along and filled in the gap. Quartz has to be one of my favourite minerals, because it’s so versatile.”
Henry chatters on about how quartz is the most common mineral on Earth and can exist in almost all environments. Darryl expects Grant to roll his eyes and turn away from the conversation. But Grant just stares at the rock as though it holds some significance.
“I think there’s, uh…” he says hesitantly, “…something missing. In me.”
Henry nods in understanding.
And Darryl watches with shock as his son’s expression just crumples.
When Grant begins confiding in Henry about everything that he has been feeling lately, Darryl decides that he should leave them to their private conversation.
He takes the firewood back to the campsite and prepares breakfast, setting aside two of the plates.
Grant finally talks to him. It’s the first conversation of many to come.
It doesn’t escape his notice that the twins seem to respond better to his parenting style than Henry’s. They thrive on new challenges, and Darryl can teach some hands-on skills that Henry never learned. He sits cross-legged on the ground and shows them how to wood carve. He lets them carve patterns into makeshift wooden swords that can’t do any real harm.
Darryl works on his own project, a block of wood carved to resemble a competition ribbon that reads: For Knights Champion 2020. He likes the idea that they can bring keepsakes back to their world. Grant could keep this to remember their bizarre and wonderful time here.
While working, he listens to the twins’ meandering stories about their home life.
“-and Sunshine promised to pay us one dollar each every time we marked a chore off the list, but Father found out and was not happy!” one of the twins tells him while working on a leaf pattern that twists around the sword hilt.
“Father said that it was indoctrinating us into capitalist practices that attribute value to our labour, rather than showing love and support for us as children who are intrinsically valuable,” the other adds while putting the finishing touches on a carving of his brother’s namesake.
“Sunshine?” Darryl asks, confused.
“Mother’s girlfriend,” Lark explains.
“She doesn’t pay us to do chores anymore,” Sparrow tells him, “but she does have a big dog.”
“A valiant steed!” Lark proclaims and holds his sword aloft.
“A noble beast!” Sparrow proclaims and holds his sword aloft, knocking it against his brother’s.
“Your mom has a girlfriend? I thought your parents were married.”
In unison, the twins point their swords towards him and declare, “Ethical non-monogamy!”
Darryl gently pushes the swords down, so they are no longer aimed at his vital organs. “I don’t know what that means. Your parents are married, but your mom can also date other people?”
“They love each other very much and sometimes they share that love with others,” Sparrow informs him, sounding as though the words are recited from memory.
“So your dad could also date someone else?” Darryl says slowly.
“Yep!” comes a cheerful voice from behind him.
Darryl leans his head back and sees that Henry is standing over them with a sunny smile.
“Kind of unusual, I know. But it works for us.”
“Are you…” Darryl hesitates and uses the wood carving to calm his nerves. “Dating anyone right now?”
Henry moves to sit beside him on the ground, still smiling.
“No,” he answers in a quiet voice. “But I would say yes, if the right person asked.”
Darryl’s movements still. His heartbeat is thudding in his ears.
The moment passes. Henry praises his boys for their meticulous work on carving the wooden swords, and admires the leaf pattern that Lark has wound around the hilt of his sword.
Lark slashes it through the air with pride. “Oak leaves to represent our family, Father!”
“Oh! That’s…” Henry chokes up and has to take a moment before continuing. “That’s just wonderful. Come here, my two beautiful boys. I’m so proud of you both, for understanding the importance of family.”
Sparrow kneels beside his dad without any hesitation and hugs him tightly. Lark is more reluctant, but follows his brother’s lead. Their treasured swords have been carefully laid out on the grass.
Henry is in an open relationship with his wife. That matters more than it should.
Darryl heads outside after the kids have gone to sleep and unlocks the Odyssey. The interior lights come on and he switches those off manually after getting into the driver’s seat. He sits in the shadowed car and looks out at the expanse of stars in the night sky.
It’s been a while since he listened to the voicemail that Carol accidentally left on his phone. So much has happened. He has no idea how much time has passed on Earth. An afternoon? Or is it the day after the soccer game was supposed to take place?
He takes out his Nokia. Miraculously, it still has a decent amount of battery left. The other dads’ phones had died soon after their arrival in the Forgotten Realms.
He takes a deep breath and calls his wife.
She picks up after the first ring, which is much faster than usual.
“Hi Carol,” he says, voice gravelly.
“Darryl,” she says, sounding on the verge of tears. “I never meant to send that voicemail. I’m so sorry. I wanted to sit down and have a proper conversation with you after the game. I’m so, so sorry-”
"It’s okay,” he reassures her.
“But it’s not okay!” she disagrees with an edge to her voice.
Darryl leans back against the headrest, already feeling exhausted.
“I didn’t call you to talk about the voicemail,” he tells her before this can spiral into another argument. “I called to let you know that we found Grant. He’s safe. We still have to figure out how to get back home, but I thought you should know that Grant is safe with the other kids.”
There comes a staticky sound of the phone being moved around.
“Thank you,” Carol says sincerely. “Hold on a second. I need to tell Mercedes and Samantha.”
“Are you with them?”
“Yeah, Mercedes called us both over to discuss what happened to you. She claims that her husband contacted her from another world after accidentally travelling through an interdimensional portal. She has some outlandish theories about tracking you through something like a magical GPS?”
“Maybe hold off on that and give us some time to figure things out from our end.”
Carol laughs, mistaking what he had said for a joke.
She speaks to the other women away from the microphone, then returns.
“They send their love,” she tells him, sounding much more at ease.
She will probably end the phone call in a second. Darryl suddenly realises that this might well be the last conversation that he has with her. There are no guarantees that they will make it back to Earth anytime soon, or that the Nokia’s battery will last much longer.
He has always put off important conversations until the right time comes.
Now it occurs to him that there is no right time.
There might not even be a next time.
“I kissed Henry Oak,” he confesses.
There is a full two seconds of silence through the phone, and then the staticky sound of fabric rustling. He figures that Carol must have sat down after hearing his unexpected confession.
“You don’t even like Henry Oak,” she says, sounding dazed. “He brought vegetarian patties to the last neighbourhood barbeque and you spent the whole afternoon complaining about how it ruined the oil. He once stuck a pamphlet about fossil fuels to your windshield. You tried to persuade Darnell to ban him from attending the games last season, because he kept riling his kids up from the stands.”
All of those things feel like they happened years ago.
He remembers eating tofu cooked over an open fire and enjoying the taste. He thinks about how Henry learned to compliment the Odyssey in Japanese and always pats her hood in greeting before getting into the passenger seat. About how fiercely he loves his boys and never hesitates to tell them.
“I didn’t know him back then,” he replies.
“And you know him better now?” she asks, with just a hint of accusation in her tone.
“Henry, he…”
Darryl searches around for the words.
When he finally lets himself open up that box crammed full of things that he planned on never thinking about again, he finds that the words come easily.
“He’s beautiful. He loves so big. Not just people, but everything around him. He laughs too loud and doesn’t understand personal space. He panics easily. He loves nature and he adores his wife and he keeps trying to persuade me to try meditation, but I don’t know if I can sit still long enough, especially since it’s really distracting when he’s right there-”
Darryl breaks off mid-sentence and takes a breath.
“That, uh, got away from me. It’s hard to describe him, or…how I might be feeling about him…”
There is an excruciatingly long silence.
Then Carol says into the phone:
“Primer isn’t my favourite movie.”
His eyes widen. “What?”
“It was my favourite movie for a long time. Until I read an article about what it was like working on set. That kinda ruined it for me.” She talks quickly, as though the words are spilling out from her mouth. “Whenever I told you that I was going to watch it upstairs, I was actually watching The Bachelor.”
In hindsight, Darryl probably should have realised that Carol was not re-watching Primer each week.
“I attend square dancing classes,” he blurts out.
“I want to try a keto diet,” she confesses.
“I sneak out to watch English soccer matches at the pub.”
“I’ve been learning French.”
“I didn’t build the bookcase in your office. I just bought a flatpack from IKEA.”
“I hate my job,” Carol says and suddenly bursts into tears. “I fought so hard for this promotion but I can’t stand the people that I work with and sometimes I don’t feel like I recognise myself anymore!”
There have been so many vague conversations about finding work and becoming a double-income household. Darryl had felt pressured, like he wasn’t doing well enough as a stay at home dad.
All this time, it has really been about Carol asking for help.
Tears well up in his eyes and he lets them fall, crying with his wife over the phone about all the crossed wires and missed signals. It feels like at every intersection he took the wrong turn.
“I love you,” she tells him through wrenching sobs. “I have always loved you, and I always will.”
“I love you too, Carol. I love you so much.”
Darryl nods, even though no one can see him like this, sitting in the darkened car with tears streaming down his face and a phone clutched in his hand.
“Let’s get a divorce,” he says at last.
He wakes to the sound of knuckles rapping against the window. Glenn is peering through it.
His head aches and his entire body will be sore after falling asleep in the car. When he reaches to unlock the door, the Nokia falls from where it had been resting on his chest and clatters into the footwell.
Darryl rubs at his face and avoids looking directly at his friend.
“Hey,” Glenn says when the door is open, letting the cool morning air into the Odyssey.
“Hey Glenn,” he replies.
It must be so obvious that he was out here crying. His voice comes out hoarse, and his eyes are so swollen that it almost hurts to blink. Darryl fumbles with the overhead compartment where he normally keeps his sunglasses, only to realise that they are inside the tavern.
Glenn unfolds a pair that had been hooked onto his t-shirt collar and holds them out.
Darryl doesn’t put them on right away, instead turning the sunglasses over in his hands. The lenses are scratched and there’s a long-faded sticker wrapped around one of the arms, which reads: Party on, Dudes!
“Ah, shit.” Glenn runs a hand through his hair and then crooks a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m not good at this. You want me to go inside and tell Henry to come out here?”
Darryl breathes out shakily and blinks back tears.
Glenn furrows his brow and asks, “Ron? You want a deep and meaningful with the Stampler?”
"No,” he replies and tries to calm down. “It’s okay.”
For the first time, Glenn seems out of his element. He keeps looking around as though someone else will come along to rescue him from a conversation about feelings. But the tension soon eases from his shoulders, as though he has come to a decision about how to proceed.
“You want a hug?” he offers.
“Yeah…” Darryl says weakly and gets out of the car on unsteady feet.
To his surprise, Glenn is a fantastic hugger. He knows where to put his arms and how tight to hold on. What should have been a off-putting combination of nicotine and weed has permeated the well-worn leather of his jacket and become somehow comforting.
When Darryl starts crying into his shoulder, Glenn pats his shoulder and murmurs encouragement.
They stand like that until Darryl feels like he can breathe without suddenly bursting into tears.
Glenn gives him double finger guns and a crooked grin, like this is any other morning.
I’m so glad that we decided to carpool that day, Darryl thinks while putting on the sunglasses.
After agonising over the decision, they decide that Walter the Immoral should take care of their kids while they continue searching for the anchors that have bound them to the Forgotten Realms.
It keeps on happening.
The stone door looms over them.
“Maybe we need to say a password, like in Lord of the Rings!” Henry suggests. “‘Speak, friend, and enter.’”
Glenn cups hands around his mouth and shouts, “Friend! Friend!”
The door does not react at all.
Ron points at a stone brick that looks no different from the other stone bricks.
“That kind of looks like two people kissing,” he remarks.
Glenn laughs, not taking him seriously.
But Henry considers that and nods. “You might be on to something there, Ron.”
“What?” Darryl manages to say while Henry is striding purposefully towards him.
Henry fists both hands into his tunic and pushes him back against the wall. He kisses him with a single-minded focus, determined to solve the puzzle that has kept them trapped here for the past hour.
There is a loud clicking sound and then the grating of stone against stone.
Henry breaks the kiss without moving away. He stares at the open door, wide-eyed.
“I didn’t think that would actually work,” he whispers, brimming with amusement.
“You kissed me into a hidden switch,” Darryl tells him wryly.
The stone mechanism is digging into his back.
Henry grins and presses a kiss to his cheek. For some reason, that sweet gesture is even more embarrassing than making out with his best friend in front of their other friends.
Darryl blushes and pulls down the brim of his baseball cap.
“Mystery solved,” Ron declares with an awkward, too-slow fist pump.
Unfortunately, that isn’t the last dungeon that they find themselves trapped in.
A wandering traveller who asked them to venture into a cave turns out to be Scam Likely wearing a wig, and the cave turns out to be a complex system of tunnels that Scam will only guide them out from if they solve his riddles three.
Ron solves the riddles so effortlessly that Scam comes up with a fourth riddle, sounding a little flustered.
His lyrical voice echoes around them:
“Everyone has it, everyone needs it, but most people hate to see it.”
They all turn to Ron expectantly.
Ron stares into the middle distance for some time. “Uh…” he says slowly. “Can I…phone a friend?”
He reaches for where his pocket would have been and then sighs, coming to the realisation that pants and a functional iPhone are increasingly distant memories here in the Forgotten Realms.
While Henry begins to panic and Glenn is shouting out random words that could be the answer, Darryl looks around for anything that seems breakable. He notices a fissure in the stone wall and peers through it, then blinks against the unexpected glare of sunlight.
He sets his feet shoulder-distance apart and raises a battle-axe over his shoulder.
Then he swings it powerfully into the stone.
Henry nearly jumps out of his skin. “Cheese and crackers, Darryl! What are you doing?!”
“I really wouldn’t recommend that!” Scam sings from wherever he is hiding.
“Is the answer violence?” Ron tries hesitantly.
“No, and the implications of that suggestion are deeply troubling!”
Darryl inspects the fissure and nods.
He raises the battle-axe for another blow-
“Hey! I don’t think you should be swinging a weapon around in an enclosed space!” Henry protests and tries to wrest the battle-axe out of his grip.
But Darryl refuses to let go, knowing that the weapon is heavier than Henry can really handle.
“Be careful with that, Henry-” he warns.
“Is the answer an argument?” Ron tries again.
“Nope!”
“I get that you may be feeling frustrated with this situation, Darryl. Heck, this is bringing up feelings of anger and helplessness for me that makes me want to lash out too! But there’s no excuse for being reckless with a weapon, especially since it could cause serious harm if it slipped out of your hands-”
While Henry is lecturing him about using the figurative ‘safety’ on the battle-axe, he keeps attempting to pull the battle-axe away from Darryl.
“I get it, so can you just-”
Let go, is what Darryl means to say.
But Henry suddenly realises that this an extremely dangerous game of tug of war and lets go without any warning. The momentum causes the end of the battle-axe to scrape across the ground, disturbing the rug underneath their feet as Darryl half-staggers backwards.
“Oh, fuck!” Henry reaches for him out of instinct and proceeds to trip over the rug.
They knock into the wall, hard.
“Ouch,” Glenn says with a wince.
Their faces had collided in what is the most violent kiss that Darryl has ever experienced. Henry stares at him, wide-eyed and disbelieving. He had braced himself against Darryl’s chest.
Henry pulls back and frets over him. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have- Aw, geez! That looks like it hurts.”
He cradles Darryl’s cheek and swipes his thumb over the corner of his mouth. It comes away bloodied.
“Ding ding ding! You solved my final riddle!”
“What was the riddle again?” Ron asks.
“Everyone has it, everyone needs it, but most people hate to see it.”
Ron thinks it over with an expression of deep concentration. “Was the answer…a kiss?” he tries.
“No!” Scam says delightedly. “It was blood!”
The fissure widens, the stone splitting apart to create an exit out of the cave system.
“Well, this was fun. I’ll be seeing you at our next rendezvous. Scam Likely away!” he sing-songs.
It’s obvious that he must be stuck hiding in the cave until they leave, because Scam just steadily lowers the volume of his words, pretending to put distance between them.
“That riddle sucked,” Ron says bluntly.
“No it didn’t!” Scam whispers, clearly muffling the sound of his own voice.
The next time that they get tricked into a dungeon puzzle, Glenn snaps his fingers and grins as though he has just come up with a fool proof plan.
“I know how we can get out of here,” he tells them.
It hardly takes more than Glenn making the suggestion for Henry to put an arm around Darryl’s shoulders and kiss him fervently.
When nothing about the dungeon changes, Darryl suggests, “We could try it again?”
It turns out that the monster of the week who had trapped them within the dungeon has very little patience for would-be prisoners kissing instead of suffering eternal melancholia. It tosses them out of the dungeon with an irritated huff and slams the door shut.
After a moment, the door opens and a guitar is thrown out after them. Glenn catches it without apparent effort and slings it across his chest. “Told you,” he says with a cocky wink.
Walter the Immoral comes outside to greet them, which means the kids must not be far behind. He gives each of them his customary firm handshake, except for Glenn who gets a practiced fist bump.
“Has anything happened since we last swung by?” Henry asks with barely concealed worry. He has mentioned that his sons have a bad track record with babysitters.
“Aside from you becoming wanted fugitives?”
“We- What?!”
“Hold on. Paeden pulled down a few of the posters around town and brought them home.” Walter finds them stacked near the front door and reads out, “Ron.”
Ron raises his hand. “That’s my name.”
“Public indecency,” Walter says and hands him the poster.
Ron holds it with solemnity, as though the poster is a certificate that he has just been awarded.
“Glenn,” Walter reads out next. “Attempting to rig a UFC fight at Bull E. Wug’s.”
"Hey, I successfully rigged that fight. There was no attempt,” Glenn protests and takes the poster that is held out to him. He seems pleased with the reward money being offered for his apprehension, at least, and with the cartoonish sketch that someone has drawn of him ringside.
“Henry and Darryl,” Walter reads out. “You two are wanted for crimes committed together.”
He hands over the poster.
Henry accepts it nervously, but soon bursts into laughter.
“Public displays of affection?” he reads aloud. “How is it a crime for two consenting adults to-”
Darryl flushes red and clears his throat.
Thankfully, Henry notices his discomfort and changes the subject. “This is a pretty neat drawing of us, Darryl. We could take this home as a souvenir! Mercedes would love it!”
“It looks like the cover of a romance novel,” Glenn remarks.
“It kinda does!” Henry says cheerfully.
When his sons barrel out of the house and attempt to hug-tackle him, Henry nearly drops the poster.
He holds it out to Darryl, who decides that it would be safest in the glove compartment.
After locking the car, he turns and is surprised to see that Grant has approached him.
Grant has both hands dug deep into his pockets. He kicks a stone a short distance across the ground.
“Hi Dad,” he says quietly. “Can we…go somewhere and talk?”
Not far from the house, there is a beautiful lake surrounded by trees. The trees provide enough shade that Darryl resists the urge to jog back to the house for sunscreen, even though he knows that Henry and probably Walter will have something to say about it if either of them get sunburned.
He picks up a stone that has been smoothed by the water and turns it over in his hands. He aims at the water’s surface and throws the stone at an angle with a precise flick of his wrist. It skips twice before sinking underneath the water and he grins.
Without saying a word, Grant searches for a suitable stone. When he throws the stone, it sinks immediately. He grimaces but soon looks for another one.
Darryl thinks that he really couldn’t be any prouder of his son.
He smiles to himself and bends down for a few more skipping stones. Among them, he finds a rounded pebble that’s an unusual pale pink colour. Darryl examines it and decides that Henry might want to add it to his ever-growing collection of interesting rocks, so he puts it in his pocket.
Grant has stopped looking for stones and is just watching him instead.
“I spoke to Mom,” he says out of nowhere.
“How did you-”
“We all have cell phones, Dad. I also had an extra battery pack in my bag.”
"Oh.”
It seems the kids have better managed the items brought with them from Earth. Of the dads, only Darryl has a working phone, and its functionality is limited to making calls and playing Snake.
“I thought that you were acting weird when you left. I video called Mom and she told me that…” Grant trails off and stares at the ground.
“What did she tell you?” Darryl asks softly.
Grant takes a breath and sets his shoulders. “She told me about the divorce. That you both love me and that you still love each other but it was better to separate.”
Darryl opens his mouth, but Grant just speaks faster.
“And I get it. I do! I could always spend time with you, or spend time with Mom, but not you-and-Mom. I used to think that all marriages were like that. That I would have to settle down with a girl even if we could barely have a conversation without getting annoyed at each other-”
That hits Darryl hard. His relationship with Carol hadn’t always been strained.
“-but I started thinking that maybe marriage wasn’t the problem. That maybe I didn’t want to settle down with a girl at all. That I was gay. And I… I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Grant insists. “I just… I realised that maybe no one had talked to you about this before.”
Darryl stares at him without understanding. “About what?”
Grant is clearly expecting something from him, but Darryl has no idea what it could be.
A few moments pass in silence.
Then Grant crosses his arms and says, “I think you should ask out Mr Oak.”
“What?” Darryl squeaks.
“You like him.”
“I, uh…”
“You can like him,” Grant insists.
There’s a fierceness to him that Darryl has never seen before.
“Yeah, I… I like him,” he concedes with no small amount of embarrassment.
Darryl has always managed to say the wrong thing to his son.
But at those few words, Grant smiles wider than he has seen in a very long time.
To his surprise, Grant flings both arms around his middle and hugs tightly.
“Love you, Dad,” he murmurs.
“Love you too,” Darryl replies, still baffled by this entire conversation.
After an unspoken agreement to head back towards the house, Grant takes out his phone and starts typing. From the brief glance that Darryl gets of the screen, he reads:
get into position!!
But that would be a pretty weird thing to message someone, let alone out here in the Forgotten Realms, so Darryl figures that he must be playing a text-based game that won’t drain the battery too much, or writing a reminder to himself, or using some cool new app that the older generations haven’t heard about yet-
“Where are we going?” Henry asks, sounding confused as his kids forcibly push him along.
-or, he was conspiring with Lark and Sparrow.
Darryl narrows his eyes and turns to his son for an explanation.
Grant tucks the phone into his pocket and says, “See you later, Dad!”
Before Darryl can question them, Grant races forward with a heretofore unknown speed that would have served him well during soccer practice. Lark and Sparrow take this as a signal to release their father and take off running. There’s not much danger they can get into this close to the house, so the adults leave them to it.
Henry watches them go with an indulgent smile. “You know, I was worried about leaving them for so long in an unfamiliar environment, but they seem to really thrive here!”
Darryl approaches him with a sudden bout of nervousness. He tries to surreptitiously wipe sweaty hands on his tunic, but something tells him that Henry wouldn’t care about that even if he noticed.
Henry looks at the canopy of leaves above them and whistles. “Nature sure is beautiful, huh?”
You’re beautiful, he thinks.
“Yeah. Grant and I were skipping stones out on the water.” Darryl clears his throat and searches through his pocket. His fingers close around the smooth surface of the pink-coloured stone. “I found this, and I… It’s not like I was looking for it. I just found it when we were over there, and I thought that…” He takes a breath. “It reminded me of you. I thought you might like it. Here.”
He holds out the stone and places it in Henry’s palm.
Henry stares at the stone and then at him, round-eyed. “You’re giving this to me?”
Darryl can feel himself flushing with embarrassment. “Yeah. I mean, it might be silly-”
Henry cuts him off by flinging an arm around his shoulders and pressing their mouths together. It’s momentary pressure, the kind of kiss that catches you by surprise. He smiles brightly without putting much distance between them. “You’re so sweet. I love it, Darryl. Thank you.”
Hesitantly, Darryl puts an arm around his waist and leaves it there.
“You’re welcome,” he murmurs.
“How did you know about my rock collection? I’ve been keeping an eye out for anything small that would fit in my pockets. This looks like it could be rose quartz. Did you know that the largest rose quartz ball in the world weighs more than 8,000 pounds?”
No doubt Henry could keep reciting facts about rose quartz specimens. His expression brightens and he bounces on his feet, a person who expresses happiness with his whole body.
Something about the conversation that Darryl just had with Grant rattles around in his head.
“-and they call it La Madona Rosa, or the Pink Madonna-”
“Have dinner with me,” Darryl blurts out.
“Sure, Darryl. I think the food will be ready in another hour or so.”
“No, I mean…” Darryl takes a breath. “When we get back home. You can choose the restaurant.”
Henry has stopped talking and just watches him instead.
“I don’t mind if it’s vegetarian or vegan, whatever you want.”
At first, Darryl thinks that he is about to be rejected.
But then a slow smile spreads across Henry’s face. He presses closer and slides a hand into Darryl’s hair, then tells him with complete sincerity, “I would love to go on a date with you.”
Henry presses a kiss to his cheek that lingers.
"R-really?” Darryl asks, while tightening the arm around his waist.
Henry brushes the tips of their noses together. “Really,” he confirms.
Of course, then Darryl just has to kiss him.
It turns out that the kids decided to double back. Lark and Sparrow mention that public displays of affection such as K-I-S-S-I-N-G are actually a criminal offense in the Forbidden Realms, and earn themselves a lengthy lecture from their father about how intimacy can be an expression of love, and love is a very wonderful thing no matter what realm they end up traversing through.
Henry may have an ever-expanding rock collection, but the only stone that he ever takes out of his apparently bottomless and physics-defying pockets is the rounded pink quartz.
The guitar strings twang discordantly.
“Huh?” Glenn stares at them with narrowed eyes.
“They said they started dating,” Ron repeats, raising his voice and speaking through cupped hands.
Glenn waves him off. “I can hear just fine, Ron. What do you mean, you started dating?” He slings the guitar around to his back with a smooth flick of the strap and pushes off the Odyssey.
Henry tries to explain. “Well, we wanted to tell you about it, because you’re our friends-”
Glenn comes close enough to jab a finger into Henry’s face, forceful enough that Henry leans back.
“I thought you were dating, like, the first week after we got here?” he asks, sounding pretty convinced that this is an elaborate prank.
“What?”
“Maybe even earlier? I kind of got a vibe from you two back when Spark and Arrow joined the team.” Glenn considers them both for a long moment and then shrugs. “My bad.”
They turn to look at each other with disbelief.
“Did we have a vibe?” Henry hisses.
Darryl shakes his head and whispers back, “No!”
While they discuss this in hushed tones, Glenn sprawls out beside the fire. He scratches idly at his cheek and remarks, “Wow. You two kissed a lot for people without anything going on.”
“That’s what I was thinking!” Ron agrees with such vehemence that he must have been thinking it for quite some time now.
Darryl might have protested, but he can’t really argue with their track record.
They narrowly evade arrest twice for public displays of affection.
Walter informs them that they have inspired a counterculture movement. Apparently, their wanted poster has become a symbol of protest against oppressive laws.
People are rallying around the slogan, love is love.
Henry thinks this is absolutely amazing and points out the posters whenever he sees them. Grant has never seemed more proud to be his son. Darryl just tries not to overthink the whole thing.
It keeps on happening. He stops keeping track.