Chapter Text
“I need,” Fabian says dramatically, and pauses, like he’s expecting a response.
Riz looks down at him over the binder in his lap: Riz’s controller sits abandoned on the arm of the couch, Fabian’s is all the way on the other side of the room where he threw it after he insisted Riz had to have been cheating at Smash, and Fabian himself is sitting upside down, legs thrown over the back of the couch. There is no reason Riz should find his friend sexy. Fabian has more than one chin from this angle. This is not sexy.
“What,” Riz says, because he is overwhelmed with Fabian’s sexy and reduced to monosyllables. Shit happens.
“I need a date to prom,” Fabian declares, and Riz thinks: oh no.
“Okay,” Riz says slowly. Disyllables! He’s getting there.
“I want you—” Fabian says, and for a half-second Riz is Convinced he’s about to say ‘I want you to go to prom with me.’ It is so unlikely. But it COULD HAPPEN, okay.
Of course, Riz isn’t that lucky; he didn’t take that feat. “—to help me find a date,” Fabian finishes. “You know, do your private investigator stuff. You’re licensed and everything.”
Ah, yes. Licensed private investigator. That’s what he is.
“I,” Riz says, and coughs once. Curses, monosyllables again. “I am a professional. Of course I’m going to help. What else is a best friend for?”
“I knew it,” Fabian says, sitting up and swinging his legs so that he’s sort of sitting like a normal person. He’s lounging, because Fabian can’t go two seconds without actively trying to look like the hottest person around, and sweeps one hand across the air in front of him, like the captain of a ship surveying the horizon with as much panache as he can muster. Since this is Fabian Aramais Seacaster, it's a lot of panache. “This is going to be great, the Ball.”
Riz is going to fucking die, is what is going to happen here.
“Uh huh,” he says, instead of what he really wants to say, which is I’ve had a stupid fucking crush on you ever since you pulled me out of the asshole of that giant corn ooze, you fucking idiot, but obviously Fabian is asking him to—wingman for him, and wingmen don’t get the guy, wingmen get the dubious honor of hooking their crush up with someone else they’re probably going to bang before prom is over and the crushing knowledge that they 1. were the one who facilitated said wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am and 2. weren’t even in consideration to begin with. “Mm. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Great.”
“Fantastic,” Fabian says. “Incredible. What’s the game plan here?”
Riz cannot believe that he’s the one who is making the game plan for Fabian to ask someone else out to prom. This is clearly the worst timeline.
“Later,” Riz says quickly. “I just forgot that I, uh, was supposed to, do some, surveillance for, mmm can’t tell you client privilege and all that,” and Riz fucking bolts from the room, bonus action dash and reaction shadow step and everything, because wow, he just Cannot Look At Fabian without risking spontaneous combustion right now, never mind that spontaneous combustion doesn’t exist anyways, and by gods is Riz a fucking fool.
As soon as Riz finds his way out of the absurd hedgerow maze in front of Seacaster Manor, he calls Fig, because Fig is an expert in ridiculous fanfiction tropes and will therefore have a good idea and know what to do from here.
When he finishes stumbling through an explanation of what Fabian had just asked him to do, she laughs at him.
A lot.
“Oh my God, Riz,” she says, sounding gleeful, and that says it all, doesn’t it. A gleeful Oh my God, Riz.
“This is a Serious Situation,” Riz says, gesturing wildly like she can see him, which she can’t, but he’s pretty sure she gets the capital letters he’s trying to infuse this Serious Situation with. He hopes. “I can’t just— wingman for Fabian!”
“Why not,” Fig says, the grin in her voice clearly audible. “You’re a Professional, Riz.”
Yep. He definitely hears that capital letter.
“You know damn well why I can’t,” Riz hisses. “And before you say it, shut up.”
Fig is the only one—or, well, Riz hopes she’s the only one, he’d be a hell of a lot more embarrassed if she wasn’t the only one—who knows about Riz’s really, just, very unfortunate crush on Fabian Aramais Seacaster. Riz is pretty sure Kristen has guessed, at least, that Riz hasn’t been telling the truth about Baron from the Baronees, but she’s mostly been squinty side-eyeing him, and Riz can ignore Kristen’s squinty side-eye a hell of a lot easier than Fig swinging by his apartment after a visit with Gilear, knocking incessantly, and then taking a break to yell through the flimsy door Hey, do you have a crush on Fabian? Like, I totally get it. But you do, don’t you?
Riz is pretty confident that Gorgug hasn’t noticed; if Adaine has noticed she just really doesn’t give a shit, which he can get behind; and if Fabian had already noticed then Riz wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with, which just about sums up everyone Riz is in semi regular contact with, aside from Tracker, who had pulled him aside after school and asked him if he wanted to hang out with her and Jawbone at some point, and Riz had made it very clear that he was not in the habit of allowing himself to be psychoanalyzed, thanks but no thanks, and that had been that.
“Wasn’t going to say anything,” Fig says, singsong.
Riz pauses for a moment in the middle of the sidewalk to tilt his head back and pray to whatever gods happen to be listening to relieve him from this horror show, just for a little bit. That nobody instantly smites him on the spot only goes to show just how fucking terrible Riz’s luck is. The universe and all its shitty, shitty rolls were clearly out for Riz intentionally now—like he could get behind the occasional terrible insight check, but this is ridiculous.
“That’s a lie,” Fig says, and yeah, there it is, although he’s pretty sure the gods of the universe have no semblance of control over Figueroth Faeth, because there’s no way that a divine power could ever begin to control such a force of pure chaos. “This is way too hilarious to drop. You want my advice?”
Riz digs through his briefcase as he wanders out of the ultra-rich downtown neighborhood and towards the singular bus stop that could be considered close to Seacaster Manor; an extremely wealthy looking human woman passes by, giving Riz a stink eye as she does, and Riz ducks to the side and keeps his head down. “There is literally no other reason I would be calling you right now,” he says.
Aha! There’s his bus pass.
“Way I see it you have two options,” Fig says, and Riz has to take another deep breath so he doesn’t scream. “One, you do what Fabian asks and help him find a date to Prom. Two, you systematically eliminate all other valid choices and therefore install yourself as—”
“No,” Riz interrupts. “Door number two is not a valid option, okay, I got my license as a private investigator for a reason, and it isn’t for weirdly unethical data gathering, I can’t just play dirty like that—”
“If professional ethics with regards to your PI license extend to wingmanning for your friend, I am going to eat my guitar, okay—”
“No you won’t, you love that guitar.”
“I’m part demon, I could do anything.”
“How is your heritage relevant to whether or not you’d eat a guitar?”
A long pause. “Demons are associated with goats, and goats pretty much eat everything. Right?”
“Absolutely not how that works, and you’re a tiefling, not goat person,” Riz says, “but this is totally a tangent anyways and basically, Fig, there’s no fucking way I can scheme like that, okay, I just can’t do that, it’d be weird and dishonest and I’d feel really shitty and bad about it. Like, what if there’s actually some girl out there who’s like perfect for Fabian, then it’d just be disingenuous.”
“Will you let go of your professional ethics or whatever for one second?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yeah, figured.” He can practically hear Fig inspecting her nails. “You might be above scheming, or whatever, but I am absolutely not.”
Riz feels his stomach drop into his shoes. “Fig, don’t you dare.”
“Hm? What was that? You’re breaking up, oh hey Mom, anyways bye Riz gotta go—”
“You are my meanest friend,” Riz says—to dead air, because Fig has fucking hung up on him.
“Everything alright there, kiddo?”
Riz glances up and spots Bud Cubby, who, based on his bulging mail sack and the parcel he’s just dropped at the doorstep of the house across the street from the bus stop, is working on doing his rounds. “Fine,” he says, a little distracted, and looks back down at his crystal, where his three wildly desperate texts to Fig have gone entirely unanswered.
TO: Fig Faeth
> don’t you dare do anything crazy please this is not a time to bust out dr asha style shenanigans ok
> fig i killed a dragon i s2g
> oh my GODS fig PLEASE
“Well,” Bud Cubby says, “you look a little harried, pal, so I’ll let you deal with—whatever you’re dealing with. Just know that me and Daisy are here to help, mkay?”
“Thanks,” Riz says, and as Bud Cubby whistles his way down the street, Riz clutches his crystal in one hand and his bus pass in the other and wishes, not for the first time today, that spontaneous combustion existed and that it would occur to him, because there is no way that he can physically deal with this.
Of course, Riz is not that lucky, but at least the bus is on schedule for once.