So it's hard to believe that an entire year has passed since I wrote "A Roll of the Dice," but passed it has. To celebrate my dear friend SorceressCirce's birthday this year, I wrote just a little more.

Please note that this is a pretty serious departure from the original one-shot; it's told from Jasper's POV and it begins a year after the last one ended. Asterisks denote particularly geeky terms. Just like last time, they're defined at the bottom for the uninitiated.

My beta is over-worked and underpaid, so any typos are my own damn fault. Thanks to bmango for the preread. And to Stephenie Meyer for inspiring this insanity in the first place.


Another Roll of the Dice:

"OK, roll your Spot*."

Edward fumbles with his dice, passing over the green D20* a half dozen times before his fingers close around it. He's nervous tonight, something shaky to his body, and his mind is all over the place. I can see it wandering as I lay out our adventure, his eyes glazing to the point where I wonder if he's even listening to me.

As a DM*, it's fucking frustrating.

As his boyfriend, it just makes me want to grab him.

Then again, I seem to want to grab him most of the time.

The die tumbles and lands on the Player's Guide with a three facing up, and we both groan at once. These rolls - the ones that indicate how much his character sees of the world around him - are critical, and he always seems to flub them. In-game and in real life, my boy never seems to see what's staring him right in the face.

And in real life, his obliviousness always sends him spinning out into self-doubt, assuming the worst. I'll never get it, how someone so smart can be so stupid.

How someone so beautiful can doubt he's got me wrapped around his finger.

With a sigh, I describe the dungeon to him, leaving out critical information I know he'll need in order to navigate the encounter successfully. At the same time, I'm trying to figure out how I'll reveal it all to him without having the Level Twelve Swordwraith* I've got lurking in the corner decimate him before he even has a chance to roll Initiative*. Fortunately, for all that he's blind, Edward's character takes proper precautions before venturing into the darkness. Because he's nothing if not careful - sometimes to a fault.

Step by step, we move through the encounter with the sort of practiced ease that comes from playing together for years. He knows how I DM and I know how he plays. Still, sometimes we manage to surprise each other.

I wonder if what I've got planned for after the game will surprise him as much as the Swordwraith does. I wonder if he knows.

Really, though. How can he not?

It's been a year to the day since the first time I kissed him - three hundred and sixty-five days of fumbling around and figuring each other out. I've touched him and tasted him, and I've learned exactly how fucking hot it is when his glasses slide down his nose while he has my cock in his mouth. In the last month or so, I've even started to dare to touch him in places neither of us is entirely sure about, but I'm sure about one thing. I'm sure I want him.

And one way or another, I'm going to have him. Tonight.

We're out here in the woods about a mile away from his parents' house, camping out. Our parents know we're gay, and they know we're a couple. They know we're out here, even.

They just don't know that we're alone.

It makes me hard just thinking about it. Me and Edward. Alone.

I'm stirred from my fantasies about finally popping our cherries together by the sound of Edward's D20 rolling across the makeshift table we've got set up between our sleeping bags and by his subsequent slapping of his hand against his thigh.

"Natural twenty*!" He's beaming as he sifts through his pile of stats to figure out his multiplier for the crit*, and he looks so damn sexy like this. Sure, brooding, emo Edward is the boy I fell in love with. But happy, carefree Edward is something else entirely.

It's all I can do not to shove our stuff out of the way and kiss those smiling lips.

He catches me looking at him, and his grin turns just a little more crooked as he rattles off the damage his character's inflicted. It's a good hit. A really good hit.

Damn.

With a sigh, I topple over the miniature I've been using to represent the Swordwraith and look over my notes to tell Edward exactly what sort of treasure his character picks up from the body. Partly because I'm in such a good mood and partly because I love him, I slip a little something extra into the loot pile, and Edward's a kid in a candy store, trying to figure out how the new shield is going to increase his stats. While he's distracted, I sneak a glance at my watch. It's late, but not too late. If we were in his parents' basement, we'd probably keep playing for another hour or two. But we're not.

I start making motions to pack up my stuff, shoving together my notes and bagging up my dice. It takes Edward a minute to realize what I'm doing, and he shoots me a quizzical look.

"You didn't really want to play all night, did you?" I ask, gazing at him with an intensity that I hope betrays exactly what I'd rather be doing.

Behind the frames of his glasses, his eyes go wide, that tongue peeking out between his lips. Getting them wet.

God, I love those lips.

"No," he stammers, and with comical speed, he starts to pack up his stuff, too. Somehow, in the course of trying to get things picked up, I get distracted wrapping up my miniatures, and I don't notice when Edward's eager hands reach for my books. I don't notice when he moves toward my backpack.

But I sure as hell notice the look he gives me the minute he gets it open.

"Jasper…" he croaks, trailing off. I turn to find him with one hand on the zipper of my bag and the other full of things I really hadn't planned on showing him until I'd eased him into my plans for the night. I'm suddenly scared shitless, completely uncertain about what to make of his wide-eyed reaction. But fuck me if it isn't hot to see my boyfriend staring at me while holding a box full of condoms and a bottle of lube.

"Um," I say, stalling while my brain tries to catch up. "Look," I finally say, unnerved by the flexing of his jaw and his still-full hands. "It's not what it looks like. Or, I mean. It is. It totally is, only …"

"You - " he starts, but his voice cracks halfway through it, and he drops the supplies back into my backpack, curling his hand into a fist. "You want - "

Finally, I decide to go for broke and for honesty. "Of course I do," I manage. "But only … I mean, I was going to, like … I was going to work up to this." My hand is in my hair, tugging and twisting, like that will somehow jumpstart my clearly faulty processor.

The first night we made out on his bed, I told him I fantasized about fucking him. He seemed plenty enthusiastic then. He seemed more than enthusiastic a couple of weeks ago when I slid a finger into him while jacking him off, grunting in his ear the whole time about how badly I wanted his ass. So I can't see why he's so freaked out about it now.

Edward sets my backpack down and plops beside it, his head in his one hand while the other moves instinctively toward his pocket. I swallow hard as I watch him make a fist, my stomach dropping even further when I see a little glimmer of crystal blue at the center of it. In the past year, he hasn't given up on rolling a die to help him decide on the most petty of things. But it's been a while since I've caught him rolling it for something that has to do with me.

For a few minutes, I stand there frozen, watching him as he twists the plastic back and forth between his forefinger and his thumb. Every now and then he opens his mouth, but those eyes of his stay closed. I know my boy. I know he's got a million thoughts all tumbling around inside his head, snowballing one on top of the other. I know all I can do is wait.

Impatient and frustrated, I sit myself down across from him. Technically I'm on his sleeping bag and he's on mine, but the distance between the two is yawning all the same. I'd been planning to zip the two together to make one big one, a fantasy playing in my head of sleeping all curled up around each other, a naked tumble of sweaty limbs and post-coital bliss. Only now the two sleeping bags seem even farther apart than they did when we laid them out.

Finally, when he takes another long, shuddering breath but fails to say a single word, I snap. "Edward, please," I beg. "Talk to me." I want to reach for him. To touch him. "Just, seriously. Whatever's rolling around in that head of yours … just tell me."

His eyes open, staring at me, and there's something so vulnerable and pained to him as he shifts his glasses and rakes his fingers through his hair. Averting his gaze toward the ground, he grasps the die more tightly and takes a couple of ragged breaths. Then, so quietly I can barely hear, he asks, "What's going to happen in August?"

I almost choke.

"August?" I know I sound like an asshole, sputtering the way I am. I feel like an asshole, too, when he curls in on himself and brings the hand with the die up to his mouth, biting hard on one of his knuckles.

"I'm serious," he says defensively, dropping his hand back down to his lap. "I just … I don't know."

How the hell can he not know?

I've been watching the pile of college applications on his desk. They're all first class schools, and while I know I can't follow him, I've been doing everything I can to at least try. He picks up a brochure from Harvard, I find one for Boston College. He applies to Stanford, I Google UC Berkley and Santa Cruz. Tit for tat. Every step of the way.

Unless…

This time it's my voice breaking as I ask, "What do you want to happen in August?"

"I … I don't know."

How can he not know?

"Do you not want …" I can't even say it. My throat won't let me.

His head snaps up. "Not want?" he says loudly, his tone panicky. "What?"

My head hurts. "I don't even know what we're talking about any more," I confess. "First you're freaking out about me having condoms and the next I'm not sure you don't know if you don't want me to try to go to college near you."

"You want to go to college near me?"

Jesus Christ.

"Is that not what we're talking about?"

"No. Yes. I mean…" He stops, pausing for a moment before shaking his head. "You … you want to go to college together?"

Something in my chest eases, and a low smile starts to work its way across my face. "Of course. Unless you - "

"No, I do," he says quickly, his eyes finally meeting mine, and they are bright in their excitement. "I do. Of course I do. I just didn't know…"

The distance between our sleeping bags is suddenly surmountable again, and as he starts to ramble, I lunge for him, shifting onto my knees in front of him and finally putting my hands to either side of his face before attaching my mouth to his. Still, he keeps trying to talk, but I just kiss and kiss and kiss, breathing him in and laughing until his mouth opens under mine and our tongues touch.

"Did you seriously not know that?" I manage to mumble between kisses, and I can feel the heat of his blush through my hands.

"How could I have?"

Had I seriously never told him?

I pull back enough to look him in the eye, chuckling slightly at the imprint of my cheek on one lens of his glasses. "Boston College. Berkeley. NYU. Hell, even Ithaca College. You've seen my list."

His gaze is blank.

"Do you really not see what those have in common?" I prod, giving up and pressing my forehead to the smooth, hot skin of his neck and laughing. "They're all within an hour of places you want to go."

I feel his arms close around my chest, and this time he's the one pressing his lips all over my face. "You'd really do that for me?" he pants as he releases me.

"Of course, baby."

Our mouths reconnect, teeth sliding over tongues and his bottom lip hot between mine. We're each grabbing the other, and I can feel him, hot and hard against my thigh as I start to push him back. He's not braced right for it, though, and we end up toppling. When I land on him, I find out his cock isn't the only thing that's hard between us.

Wincing, I reach down to close my hand around the little blue, twenty-side die that he'd managed to drop at some point, one face of which may now be permanently etched onto the bony part of my hip. I hold it up between us and give him a withering look. "Do you really think you need this now?"

"I don't know," he says, but this time it's cheeky. "Do I?"

I fling the fucking thing across the tent. "I don't know," I say, mimicking him, but there's no hiding the lust inside my voice. Rolling my hips into his, our hard-ons grinding, I grunt out, "Do you need me to tell you the DC* on this thing?"

He groans a low curse and bucks up into me.

"Because it's really fucking low," I murmur, sucking roughly on his neck. I stop myself before I can go too far, though. The couple of times our parents have caught one or the other of us with a hickey were not good days. And I want the day after losing my virginity to be a really, really great day.

"What if I botch?" he says breathily.

I can't believe he's still thinking straight.

I can't believe that, yet again, we're using D&D talk as foreplay. Apparently not that much changes in a year after all.

Thrusting even harder against him, I bite my lip to hold back the grunt of pleasure at how good he feels. "I have an in with the DM," I manage, breathing out through gritted teeth. "I think he'll let you re-roll."

"That's not fair to the other players."

I pull back suddenly, something fierce to my reaction to those little words. "There are no other players. None. Ever."

He stares up at me dumbly, his eyes glazed with a look that I know means he's desperately aroused. But then, as if suddenly understanding, he cracks a smile. "No one else," he agrees. "Just you and me."

"That's what I'm talking about," I agree, and then I'm kissing him again. Hard.

I'm hard.

And I want so fucking bad to get inside.

"Want you," I grunt, my lips at his ear and my hand already tugging on the hem of his shirt. He grinds against me harder and starts pulling at my t-shirt, too.

"God," he pants. "I want you, too. Just … How … How's this going to work?"

I roll my eyes. "Please tell me your parents explained the birds and the bees to you."

"Please do not bring my parents into this. And yeah, but not the - ungh - birds and birds."

Tearing his shirt off and attaching my mouth to the new expanse of warm, pale skin, I'm about to go out of my mind, I'm so turned on. "Well," I say, interspersing words with wet kisses all along his chest, heading down toward his waist. "If I had my way, it would start with your cock in my mouth and my finger in your ass." I swirl my tongue around his navel and then breathe out over the thick outline of his erection through his jeans, nipping at the head once before biting and sucking my way back up to his neck. As I line my hips up with his again, I breathe, "And then when I had you right on the edge, like seconds away from coming, I'd push myself inside you." With my mouth right over his ear and his breath short and rasping, I whisper, "And then I'd fuck you. And touch you. I'd make you come so hard, baby."

Edward groans really loudly, and it's like a jolt of excitement that goes straight to my cock as his hand grabs my ass and pulls me closer. It's so tempting to just keep kissing him and grinding on him, but to try to prove that I'm still in control, I withdraw instead, looking down at him with one eyebrow raised and striving less-than-effectively for an air of nonchalance. "Or not," I say, speaking as casually and levelly as I can. "I mean, I'm open to suggestions."

I am. God knows I want to fuck him, but I'm a reasonable guy. I figure I'll end up bottoming for him soon enough, and if that's how he wants it this first time, I'm willing to try. Just so long as I get in his ass, too. Soon.

Preferably now.

Edward's shaking his head, and I'm so busy unconsciously humping his leg that it takes me a second to realize that I'm not even sure what he's saying 'no' to. Fumbling, I try to cover for myself. "Tell me what you want, Edward." I lean down to kiss him, hovering just above his mouth to breathe, "I'll give you anything you want. Anything."

His eyes flutter shut, and he pushes his hips up hard into mine. "You," he groans. "Want you to fuck me."

"I thought you'd never ask."

With a renewed sense of urgency, I pull my shirt over my head and then kiss my boy long and deep, sucking hard on his tongue before reaching down to start working on the buttons to his jeans. The first couple open easily, but as I move down the line of them, my hands start fumbling. I try to hide my nerves by pressing my face to the side of his neck, talking myself down the best I can as I finish unfastening his pants. In theory, I know I've done this part a million times, but the reality of the situation is that we've never gone all the way before, and every movement is somehow more.

Knowing that more is exactly what I want, I sit up on my knees and start dragging the rest of his clothes off, only stopping when he's laid out naked beneath me on my sleeping bag. His dick is full and hard, long and glistening and just the way I like it, and his eyes are melting behind those glasses.

"You're so fucking sexy," I groan as I take him in. The way his thighs are already spread, he's open for me, his body like an offering, and I know he trusts me. As I bend over him and run my nose up and down the length of his cock, I swear I'm going to earn that trust. Opening my mouth and kissing wetly over the head, I promise, "I'm going to be so good to you."

Edward's hand tangles in my hair, a subtle prodding to urge me down over his dick as he breathes, "You always are."

Hell yes.

With that, I let him slide between my lips, and he moans, a long sound full of laughter and relief. He tastes warm and salty, and I love it, gliding over him in a few deep strokes, chasing him with my hand when his head butts up against my throat. For a few minutes, I just love him with my mouth, sucking and touching, the fingertips of my other hand ghosting over his thigh. With every pass, I dance them closer to the place where leg gives way to hip, and at long last, I follow that hollow down to his ass, brushing lightly over the place we both want me to be.

"Jesus, Jasper," he croaks, those bright eyes flying open when I start to push in. I don't go far, just massaging a bit and opening him up to me. When he relaxes again, I use the hand that had been wrapped around his dick to grab for my backpack, rooting around until I find the lube and struggling to get it open without stopping what I'm doing with my mouth. Somehow, I manage to get some on my fingers. I press them against him more firmly, my cock throbbing at the feeling of having even this small part of me inside him. He's hot and tight, and it's all I can do to take my time like this when I want so badly to just take him already. The only thing making the wait bearable is the litany of quiet curses and low noises he's making as I push deeper, stretching him further.

When he shouts my name at the feeling of my two fingers pressing against his prostate, I almost come in my pants. Because, as tightly wound as he usually is, there's nothing sexier in the world than the sight and sound of my boy letting go.

I pull my mouth off his dick long enough to ask, "Feel good?"

His only response is to groan and nod and flex around my fingers. I want to feel him do that around my dick.

"Just think how much better it's going to feel when that's me," I murmur, sucking my way over to his hip and nipping it with my teeth. I start to move my hand a little faster now, carefully working one more finger in and watching with both love and concern as he winces, but his sounds of pleasure don't stop. "Okay, baby?"

"Yeah," he breathes, and he opens his eyes to stare down at me. After a few more slow thrusts, he tugs my hair a bit, still gazing at me so openly as he says quietly but intensely, "I'm ready."

"You sure?"

God. Let him be sure.

"Yeah."

I pull my fingers away, throbbing at the way his ass grips them right up until they're free. In my bag of sin, I also have some wipes, and I clean up the best I can before undressing the rest of the way. I tear open the box of condoms and get one out, reaching down to roll the latex over my aching cock. It's a motion I practiced back at home a couple days ago, but I'm still fumbling as I do it, knowing that this is it. Really, really it.

I'm going to make love to my boy.

I'm going to have sex.

The fact that we're two teenaged virgins has never been so clear as it is in the moments I spend crawling back up his body, kissing him long and slow to try to hide how terrified I suddenly am. I want this - God, how I want this - but all the concerns that lie just beneath my swagger are surfacing. Concerns about whether or not I can really make this good for him or if I'll hurt him. About coming too soon like the inexperienced kid I am.

About whether or not this is going to change anything.

"Hey," Edward says, pushing gently at my chest. I'm kneeling between his thighs, my sheathed cock brushing his naked one, and I know we're ready. I know this is it.

"Hey," he repeats, only it's sharper this time, and I know he needs me to look at him. When our eyes meet, it makes something in my chest almost hurt. "I love you," he says quietly.

We're ready. Of course we are.

"I love you, too," I breathe as I kiss him again, deeply this time and without distraction. I have nothing left to hide.

My hand closes around the bottle of lube, and I make myself slick before setting the bottle down and letting the head of my dick drag lightly over the crease between his thigh and his hip as he lifts his knees and spreads them wider, inviting me in. I watch myself as I close my hand around the base of my cock and move it to press just against his hole. The sight of it is making me delirious with want.

I've wanted this for so long.

Connecting my eyes with his again, I finally begin to push.

Jesus.

Fucking.

Christ.

So slowly, his body yields to welcome mine, and I'm gritting my teeth against how incredibly hot and good my boy feels as he grips me. With just the head in, I'm already feeling like I'm going to explode, and Edward's panting. He keeps his eyes on me, but I can see that it's uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," I breathe. "Are you okay?"

Please be okay. Please be okay.

"Yeah," he groans, and I sink a little deeper, almost whimpering at the pleasure. Inch by inch, so carefully and with more restraint than I imaged I could possess, I bury myself, panting with the relief when my hips hit his ass, kissing him deeply and touching him gently, one hand at his hip and the other curled around his neck.

"I love you," I promise. "I love you so much. You feel - ugh - so damned good."

"Touch me. Please."

His face is still tight, his features strained, and I could smack myself for being such a selfish prick. My hand is still slick, and with tentative motions, I coax his flagging erection back to its full length. With every touch, he starts to relax, and I kiss and stroke even as I'm barely keeping my hips from bucking into him. I swear I've been teetering right on the edge since the second I penetrated him, and as he starts to push into my fist, it sends the most unreal sensations all the way up my dick and to the base of my spine.

"Please," I beg. "I have to."

"Take me, Jasper." His warm eyes are focused on me as his hand comes up to touch my cheek. "Make love to me."

With a broken groan, I slide back and thrust forward as gently as I can, but I'm probably still too rough. It just feels so good. At least I have the presence of mind this time to touch him in time with the motion of my hips. He's a lot more pliable now, too, and his hands are all over my back, and I know he's really getting into it when he wraps a leg around my thigh, pulling me deeper. I hiss at the sensation, knowing I'm dangerously close, but somehow in doing so, my angle changes. Edward's eyes, which had been narrowed, fly open suddenly, just the way they always do.

"Fuck," he wheezes, and his hand tightens around my hip so hard it hurts. "Right there, Jas."

"I know." My thrusts are purposeful now, my fist racing over his dick. His mouth opens, his brow damp with sweat, and he looks so beautiful.

He's so beautiful when he comes.

The first splash of warm come hits my stomach, and I cry out with the relief of it, our voices entwining as he lets go. Another long stripe paints his chest, and it's so fucking hot. Following the trail of milky white across his skin, I make the mistake of looking down at his dick in my hand and mine as it's sliding in and out of him. And I'm done.

My orgasm hits me hard, unexpected in its intensity and its suddenness. It feels like my body's being ripped inside out in the best possible way as my balls tighten, the come rising up until it explodes forth, and I can feel myself emptying inside him. For what feels like hours, I tense and flex and pulse, lost beneath the surface of something so powerful I can scarcely contain it. I groan his name and my love and more swear words than I even knew existed. I hold him close.

And when it's over, I collapse on top of him and kiss him for every single thing I'm worth.

Finally, I press my lips one last time to his and lift myself off of him, shuddering with the intensity of the sensation as I leave his body. As I start to clean us both up, he lies there, clunky glasses askew and a shit-eating grin on his face, his legs spread. He looks gorgeous. And for lack of a better term, he looks thoroughly fucked.

"Come on," I urge him, trying to get him to stand up. He resists, pulling me and trying to get me to lie back down with him, but I'm adamant on this point. A year ago, back when we had the opportunity - back before we came out and our parents summarily cracked down on any future sleepovers - I declined to sleep next to him on his tiny-ass bed. And tonight, I'm dead-set on correcting that error. "Seriously," I insist, tugging again at his arm.

He finally relents and lets me pull him up to stand, crouching toward the edge of the tent as I start to rearrange our sleeping bags. Amused by the symbolism, I put mine on the bottom and his on top, zipping the sides together and making one big, cozy space for us to sleep. When I'm just about done, I hear Edward laughing behind me, and I turn to find him hunched over and staring at something on the ground.

"What?"

The fact that he's still naked and on his knees is utterly distracting as he looks up at me and beckons me over. At first I don't see what he's looking at, but then he points more insistently.

"You see?"

I do.

The die I took from him and tossed haphazardly across the room is lying at his feet. And it's a natural fucking twenty.

I grab Edward and half-fall, half-pull, but somehow our lips meet. We kiss hard for a minute, grinning and laughing as we release each other, and I joke, "Guess we didn't have to worry about your roll on that one, did we?"

We didn't.

And as I lie there a little while later, naked and happy and falling asleep wrapped all around my boy, I realize we never did. Edward's a natural twenty, through and through.

And our future together isn't something we're ever going to have to leave to chance.

.

.

.

.

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Geeky Glossary:

Spot = A character rolls 'spot' to determine how well he takes in his surroundings. A high roll indicates that he sees everything, and the Dungeon Master (DM) will describe it in detail. A low roll indicates he was not very perceptive and probably didn't notice important things.

D20 = A twenty-sided die. Primary die in most Dungeons and Dragons games.

DM = Dungeon Master. The person in the game who tells the story and leads the adventure. Also usually role-plays any bad guys or non-player characters.

Swordwraith = A particular kind of undead enemy fighter. Google it. There are pictures.

Initiative = At the beginning of a fight, everyone rolls 'Initiative.' Whoever has the highest score gets to go first.

Natural Twenty = The highest possible score on a twenty-sided die. Usually confers extra bonuses on whatever the person rolled.

Crit = On an exceptionally high roll, a player lands a "critical blow" and does two to three times the usual amount of damage.

DC = Difficulty Check. This is how high you have to roll in order to have the action be successful.