“No way.” 
“Aww, why not?”
“You can not use ‘The Power Of Love’ to defeat the cave troll.” 
“But it works in the comic books!” 
“Yeah it’s all well and good for hack writers who can’t think of a better deus-ex machina to get their heroes out of trouble at the last second, but this is D&D! And besides, you’re a paladin, you have no shortage of magical power sources to draw from for your perks and skills.” 
“None could ever match the depths of my passion for the beautiful Lux Lambdadelta!” 

“UGH.” Groaned Cocoa, collapsing backwards into the beanbag.
“Oh brother.” Chuckled Graham, peeking up from his phone and smirking at the couple sat across the table. 
“Oh raspberries!” Sighed Taffy, one hand on her cheek and the other playfully nudging her fiance in the arm as she felt a rush of heat to her cheeks.
“I would beat back the hordes of Hades to protect my beloved mage!” Randal continued to croon, head raised and shoulders back as if the dopey collie were swearing some divine oath before an altar of the gods, and not just sat around a table in the creaky, shadowy attic of the farmhouse. If nothing else, his dedication to the roleplay was admirable. 
“God, fine, geez! But only if you cut that corny crap out right now, and it’s gonna be a hard roll to pull off.” Cocoa conceded after stuffing a fistful of cool ranch chips into her mouth, chewing with frustration as her beau rested his arm over her shoulder seeking to calm down the picky Dungeon Master. “Gimme two D20’s.”
Randal rolled the dice, wide eyed and hopeful. 
To his glee and Cocoa’s dismay, he lucked out. 
“Woohoo!” 
“No way, dude.” 
“Oh, for…” 
“Way to go, sweetie!” 

Taffy hugged her fiancé sweetly from the side as they both chuckled like school children. 
“Alright, frickin, uhhh…” Cocoa flummoxed, her imagination stretched to its limits as she was forced to tape together some form of at least somewhat believable actions resulting from this unbelievable stroke of luck. She leered at the two dice and their double 20’s, silently cursing them as if the inanimate objects actually held some kind of grudge against her. 
“Beowoof is immersed in a great veil of invigorating light that charges his blade with divine power allowing him to slice the troll in two down the middle. You won the battle and gained 325 exp and twelve gold pieces. Woooo.” 

“I love how even your half-assed explanations sound suitably epic, bear.” Graham praised Cocoa, rubbing her shoulders in a slow massage as Taffy and Randal continued giggling and snorting even as they updated their character sheets. 
“Thanks, I guess…” She sighed. “This seems about as good a time to wrap up anyway, I’m tired of exercising my imagination.”
“Awww, really?” Taffy huffed, her emerald eyes sparkling with untapped inspiration for further roleplaying. “I’m really curious about those missing tomes, sounds like I could get some wicked new spells out of that quest.” 
“Well, full disclosure, I’m also really freakin’ hungry here, and I can’t DM on an empty stomach.” 
“Heh, me too actually...” Randal sheepishly added, the collie’s stomach giving a growl of its own as he leant back and stretched his arms up over his head. It was easy to overlook good posture while thoroughly immersed in a good ol’ dungeon crawl. 
“Aw, okie doke. In that case I’ll go whip something together. Rannie, could you help me out?”
“Sure thing, lovebun.” 
Randal quickly and sweetly pecked Taffy’s lips, both of them beaming with smiles as they picked themselves up. 
“Any special requests from the kitchen?” Taffy asked Cocoa and Graham. 
“Coffee?” Graham asked, leaning back and mirroring Randal in stretching out. 
“And…?” 
“Nah, just coffee is fine, I ain’t too hungry.”
“BLT sammich for me, please n’ thanks.” Cocoa was quick to jump in. “Ooh! Any of your cupcakes left?” 
“Not likely with the cats around, but I’ll see what loot I can plunder for you, oh wise DM.”
Cocoa gave a disingenuous roll of the eyes and an unamused smirk as Taffy and Randal could be heard thumping down the creaky stairs. 
“Hey babe, check it out.” Graham said, presenting his phone to his plump panda partner. 
Whatever she saw on his screen, it was enough to pick Cocoa’s mood back up considerably, even prompting her to chew her bottom lip with a rush of blood to her cheeks and a hungry palm rubbing against her bunny boytoy’s chest. 
“Niccccce.” The bear mused. “Looks like someone’s excited for tonight.” 
“She ain’t the only one.” 
“Oh, shuddup, you.” 

--- 

“Mmmmm-mmm! Daymn, yer cupcakesh’re-”
“Manners!” 
With an unamused grumble, Cocoa hurriedly swallowed the sweet treat after that snappy chewing out by Taffy, while the motherly bunny continued pouring everyone a fresh cup of tea. 
“Taff, your cupcakes are hella good.”
“Thank you, but the recipe isn’t mine, Digit found it for me.” 
“Yeah but it took your magic touch to bring it to life!” Randal piped up after inhaling another icing covered treat. 
“Yeah I bet you know aaaaaall about her magic hands, eh ‘Rannie’?” 
“Oh, raspberries.” Taffy blushed, while Randal busied himself with stuffing his face again, crucially neither of them actually denying it.
“Good coffee, too.” Purred Graham in kind, raising his mug. 
“Thank you hon, but we’re all kinda early risers around here so it’s no speciality of mine, it’s just the powdered stuff.” 
“Tastes just as good to me.” The male rabbit shrugged, taking another stiff sip. 
“Say, do you guys have plans for the rest of the day?” Randal asked casually. 

This gave Cocoa and Graham a moment of pause, during which time the air grew slightly, yet tangibly, thicker. 
“Uhhh, sorry but we’ve got a few plans, why?” Cocoa replied, quieter than her usual timbre. 
“Aw, shame, Taffy and I were thinking of taking in the new Dragon’s Chest movie in town, if you wanted to come with us?”

“Sorry.” Graham added. “Pepper would never let us hear the end of it if we cancelled at short notice.” 

Graham didn't even need to look up from his phone to realise he'd fucked up. He'd developed a sixth sense for recognising when his fiancé was shooting him daggers, whether it was obvious to current company or not. He gulped, mind going a mile a minute trying to pin down a cover story, a lie, a distraction, anything. But it was too late now, so all that was left to do was hope that they wouldn't have to give away too mu-

“OOH! You're seeing Pepper-Ann?” Taffy squealed. “Call her up, bring her along too!” Taffy exclaimed, forgetting that she had Pepper-Ann’s number on her phone as well if she wanted to invite her that badly, but apparently that didn't seem to matter to the instantly excited bunny. “Gawd I haven't seen her in months and months, what're you all getting up to?” 

“Uhh, nothing special, but, I'm not sure we’d be able to swing that, sorry. It's complicated...” Graham meekly offered. The paltry excuse didn't satisfy Taffy, of course. 
“Wh-what? Is she okay?” She whimpered, her eyes as wide as her well of empathy was deep. 
“No, it's nothing, she's fine! We were just…” 
Graham looked at his fiancé for a life preserver, only to get a look back that told him he'd have to swim for it alone, since he was the one that crashed the ship. 
“...it's nothing personal, just that us two and Pepper have a kinda private meet-up every so often, and we kinda… well…”

“I let Pepper borrow my chocolate bunny here for the night.” 

The words hung like daggers in the air. Taffy was stiff as a statue for a moment as she put the numbers together in her head, while Randal was stuck coughing around his mouthful in sheer surprise. 

“O-Ohh…” Taffy simply mused. 
“Yeah.” Cocoa replied, laughing awkwardly, arms over her head and gaze cast aside. “So, uhh, she probably wouldn't want an audience!” 
“But hon, you usually watch us…” 
“GRAHAM OH MY GOD” 

If that first revelation was enough to cause the saccharine sweet couple sitting opposite them to blush beet red, Graham’s little addendum was officially overkill. 
Taffy was stuck giggling like a baby tickled with the world’s softest feather, and Randal was just gobsmacked in silence, still hacking over the last crumbs of cupcake. 

“Alright that is enough outta you.” Cocoa scolded Graham with a smack on the arm, the usually exuberant panda now sinking inwards slightly in embarrassment. “Look, you get the picture. Sorry, TMI, I know.”

“No no no, it's… fine…” Taffy panted, wiping a tear from her eye before fanning her face in an utterly moot attempt to cool the bashfulness that was spread over her face like butter. Suffice it to say, her previous concern and dismay over not being able to join in had been long forgotten. “I'm glad she's, ummm, doing alright.” 

“She's got one heck of an appetite, if that's what you mean.” Cocoa added, having retrieved her sense of coy confidence impressively quickly. Or perhaps it was a curtaining mask she used to fight back the lingering awkwardness in the air. “Matter of fact, since we’re laying our cards on the table, she might have sent us a little saucy text earlier on. No peeking though, she’d rip my heart out if she knew we were talking about all this.” 

Taffy just nodded obediently, the bunny having gone suddenly and strangely quiet. 
“What?” Cocoa prodded. “Sorry if that was a little too much.” 
“No, um…” Taffy began, flummoxing and gesturing pointlessly. Even Randal looked confused as to what was going through his fiancé’s head at that moment. “...I just never thought you two were that adventurous.” 
“Well we kinda set the tone of things right from our first date.” Graham added, wrapping an arm around Cocoa’s hip, causing his fiance to give a sultry smirk as she reminisced on how they warmed up together that cool autumn night with some serious gaming, only to build up even more of a sweat on his living room couch.
“Yeah, is it really so surprising? You know me, I’ll try anything once.” 
“I suppose so.” Taffy concurred, after which there was a moment of strange silence while they all continued nibbling on their snacks. “Do you, uh, mind if I ask how you agreed to do it?” Taffy added, at just the moment Graham had opened his mouth to try and change the subject. 
“Gotta admit… I’m kind of curious too…” Now even Randal was piping in. 
“Well…” Graham grimaced. He looked at Cocoa, knowing fully well that his big mouth had had enough of an exercise already today.
“Oh what the hell, we may as well tell them, hon. Won’t make much of a difference now.” Cocoa reassured him, patting her beau’s thigh as she leaned forwards where she sat cross legged, suddenly looking very keen to dish some dirt. 

“So you know Pepper isn’t crazy about dating, right? Shame too, girl doesn’t know what a catch she could be for a lucky guy, but I guess she just doesn’t think too much of herself. I dunno. Anyway, one time after a lot of prodding, we convince her to get onto one of those dating apps, and we help her get some hits. But one bad apple after another, she just gets more and more pissed off about it.” 
“Eventually though, this one guy comes along who actually seems pretty cool. Very extroverted, confident, hot-and-he-knows-it type. Not to mention keen to get to know Pepper and ‘all her closest friends’, in his words. They go out a few times, and boy, you should’ve seen the look on her face whenever we saw her after. Like a goddamn romance switch got flicked on in her brain. It was really sweet.” 
“But then the guy goes a few days without texting back. And Pepper being as into him as she was, she was afraid that if she didn’t take some initiative, he might lose interest. So we decided to have a double date; us two, Pepper, and this new dude. Things are good at first, and he’s super friendly, but like… too friendly. To me and Graham in particular. Pepper gets a little bummed out, and I can’t blame her. So when she goes to powder her nose, I go with her to give a li’l pep talk.”
“Then when we get back, what do we find, but Pepper’s new ‘boyfriend’, putting the moves on my bunny! I would’ve smacked him one, but before I get the chance Pepper’s over there like hell in heels. Damn near mops the floor with him, like Graham’s personal lady-knight in shining armor!”
“Turns out once we actually wrench some sincerity outta the little prick, he thought we were some kinda swinger party. Seemed like he must’ve done this a lot. Pepper put on a real brave face and gave him the boot he deserved, but we could tell she was hurting bad. She really liked him.” 
“So with a good few hours of the night left, no way are we gonna let her spend it sulking and stewing alone. She comes back to ours, we have a few drinks, Graham calls in a favour to get off work the next day. Pepper drowns her sorrows and Graham thanks his ‘heroine’ for saving him from the little creep. Eventually after Pepper’s feeling chipper enough, we end up talking about what the guy was actually after. I say somethin’ like, ‘it’s funny, we’ve actually thought about experimenting before, but no way we’d do it with anyone we don’t really, really trust, and there isn’t anyone like that who’d wanna get in the sack with us too.’ I dunno, I must’ve been kinda tipsy at that point to have just blurted it out. But whether Pepper was tipsy or not as well, next thing I know she’s just saying, ‘what about me?’.”
“So, yeah, that kinda came as a shock. But a bit of flirting and tiptoeing around the point later, she and I end up makin’ out. The look on Graham’s face, holy shit. You’d have thought he’d seen the gates of heaven. Suffice to say he didn’t feel hard done by in the least. Before too long we’re whipping our clothes off and working up some serious rug burn. It was… really, really great. Not gonna lie.” 
“The next morning we all grumble out of bed at our own pace, little bit of awkwardness in the air but nothing we wouldn’t laugh about later. And the lingering tension didn’t stop her from sneaking both me and Graham a kiss n’ grope before she goes. We don’t tend to talk much about it outside of DM’s, but it don’t take us too long to get a nice rhythm going for these things. And we established early on that when she finds herself a good catch of her own, that puts the kibosh on things, no hard feelings either way. ...I mean, unless he’s a real looker, and he don’t mind if we borrow his girlfriend every so often!” 

“Wow.” 
And that’s all Taffy could say. 
Graham just nodded.
Randal sat silently, but his tail was whipping at a mile a minute. 
“Sorry, didn’t mean to talk your ear off.” Cocoa chuckled, taking a looooong glug of lemonade after having personally parched herself with her impromptu monologue. 
“No, no!” Taffy absolved her, shaking her head to make it clear how unperturbed she was. “It was great! I mean… I appreciate it!” She quickly corrected herself, her shoulders as tense as her cheeks were rosy. “Thanks for sharing, and um… sorry again for putting you on the spot like that.”

“Don’t sweat it, it’s Graham’s fault anyway for having a big mouth.” Cocoa absolved her. “So yeah, all that to say, we can’t hang around tonight, sorry. But we can totally pick this campaign back up again same time next week if you want?” 
“Oh, um, of course!” Taffy said after a moment’s delay, as if she had to briefly put her mind back on track to the original conversation topic. “We can work it out on the group chat anyway.” 
“Speaking of, it just turned 6pm, we’d better bounce.” Graham added, starting to rub some feeling back into his crossed legs and bagging up their tabletop gaming accessories. 
“Oh crap, yeah, time sure flies, huh?” Cocoa said, craning her head back and giving a big upper body stretch. 
“Aww, okay, let me help.” Randal added, rising from his seat, soon joined by an unusually quiet Taffy. 

They cleared their dice away along with the game board, character sheets, the wasteland of snacks littering the table and Cocoa’s hardback Dungeon Master manual so hefty it would serve as a half decent bludgeoning weapon for an adventurer on a shoestring budget. No sooner did they bundle their gear up than did Cocoa’s phone buzz in her handbag. 

“Hey Pepper! No no, don’t worry, we were just leaving...” Cocoa answered it, pacing towards the far end of the room as she assured Pepper that the evening’s plans were very much still in motion. All the while Graham and Randal made easy, breezy banter, the latter of whom noticed Taffy hurriedly munching on the last morsels in her packet of Carrot Crisp chips, glancing over at Cocoa with a kind of fascination he’d not seen on her face since his proposal. She had the skittering eyes of a girl with a lot on her mind and not enough words in the world to say it. He couldn’t help but worry, and make a mental note to ask what was troubling her later.

“See you soon!” Randal said, waving Cocoa and Graham off at the front door to the farmhouse, as their friends hopped back in the car on the dusty driveway, with the first speckles of sunset crimson looming over the horizon. 
“Have fun!” Taffy added. 
“Oh, we will.” Cocoa teased. Even from the car seat, Taffy and Randal could see her toothy smile, as sharp as cider and as fiery as a sparkler. 

“Well, that was great. We should-” was about as far as Randal got before Taffy leaned up and kissed him, suddenly and sweetly. 
Randal stiffened up, surprised, but still embraced her snugly and kissed back. It wasn’t as if she needed a reason, and he wasn’t complaining. She certainly had gotten more feisty and impulsive with her affections ever since their first time together a few months prior, and he was nothing but happy about it. 
“Come on, puppy.” She whispered, shoving the front door shut and tugging him back up the stairs. 
“O-Okay!” He giggled. “But uh, what about dinner, won’t the others be getting hungry soon?” 
“It can wait!” 

Now that was a first. Taffy was more precious about the kitchen - her kitchen - than she was about their bedroom. For a woman who loved culinary creativity as much as she did, who had such a talent for cooking at that, to delay dinner service was unheard of. 
In a way, Randal felt a beam of pride from that. He didn’t realise she was that eager to get some ‘puppy love’, as he had once jokingly named their lovemaking only to be met with an exasperated groan at the time.
Nevertheless, it was quite rare to see her this riled up. As they hurried their way across the upper floor landing, Randal wondered as to the reason why. After all it wasn’t as if he’d done or said anything different, unless it was something she did, or saw, or heard from someone else-

Ohhhhhhh.

They’d have to have a little talk about that later. It would’ve been a lie if he’d said it wasn’t exciting, thinking about what Cocoa and Graham would soon be getting up to. The prospect of them getting a good friend in on their fun, having the fresh landscape of another passionate lover present to stack up the raunchy possibilities of their night together. Gentleman as Randal was, he’d never even jokingly entertained the idea of cheating. He loved Taffy too much to ever dare betray his conscience and her trust like that. Before that day, he wouldn’t have even considered involving others in their bed with the both of them still present. But the way Cocoa described it made it clear that they involved Pepper-Ann only from a place of mutual respect, friendship and compassion, not out of any sense of dissatisfaction for one’s own partner. Like it was just another game to enjoy all together, as a group. But many questions remained, including whether his read on Taffy was indeed accurate, and beyond that, whether Cocoa and Graham would even be game for it themselves.

But such deliberation could wait. First things first, Randal thought, kicking the door to their bedroom shut and peeling his shirt up over his shoulders. Moments later his excited busty bride-to-be was all over him. 
They’d have to have a good chat later on, if she had indeed been thinking about what he thought she’d been thinking about. And he’d happily hear her out if so. Randal wanted nothing more than he wanted to make her happy. Whether in the company of dear friends, or by themselves. 

Speaking of which… 

“Ohh, raspberries!” 

---