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Riz was tired. Not, “Oh, it’s 8:30 PM, time to go to bed!” tired, but rather, “I haven’t slept for 72 hours and if I even blink I will pass out like I just pricked my finger on a spinning wheel,” tired. This wasn’t unusual, no, he was regularly tired in some way or another. Tired due to crashing from caffeine overdose, tired of somebody else’s shit, specifically Arthur Aguefort’s, tired of not making any headway on a case. Those were all the most common reasons, alongside tiredness from lack of sleep. What was unusual, however, was why he hadn’t gotten any sleep.
Zero cases.
Not a single mystery that needed solving, husband that needed spying on.
Not a single thing.
Nobody in the entirety of Elmville — hell, not even the entirety of, well, hell (or heaven, for that matter) — needed a private investigator. He had figured since taking his dad’s job offer, he would be busy constantly. That wasn’t even close to the case. It was so far from the case that the case didn’t know it existed. The case lived a normal life because of the lack of knowledge that it had of ‘being busy from celestial work’.
So naturally, rather than resting for once in his goddamn life, he had spent the three days that followed his return home from his spring break searching restlessly for a case.
And so far, he had come up with nothing.
As he wound and then unwound red string around his hand, he muttered to himself and lightly rocked back and forth on his seat. This had become a pre-case ritual, of sorts. Supposedly, it warmed up his brain. Realistically, he was beginning to realize, it did absolutely nothing and was just an excuse to fidget.
And as he did this useless and fruitless ritual, he made a fatal mistake.
He blinked.
Well. Half-blinked. He did the first step: closed his eyes. Though, maybe that doesn’t even count as a blink since it was only half-done.
…Whatever you want to call it, it was a stupid move, because now here he was, fast asleep, slumped in his chair.
—
He was falling. The world was dark, his body was limp, and he was falling. He tried to scream, but found his mouth useless.
Riz knew what was going on; He wasn’t dumb. He was back at the final battle, pushed off a cliff by the Shadow Cat (it felt wrong to refer to her by her real name, made her seem too real. Too human, or more accurately, too tabaxi). This was a dream, most likely, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying.
He clung on to the hope that somebody would save him. That’s how it worked out, right? Fabian’s make-out monster would bundle him up and save him. But another thing he clung onto was the fear that it wouldn’t work out that way. That this dream was different from real life, different from the other dreams somehow, and he would have to die painfully before waking up.
He never experienced it for himself, the falling and the saving, all his knowledge being second hand. But he could piece together what the experience felt like. He knew what falling felt like, what (admittedly cooler than a fire elementals) arms felt like when they’re wrapped around him. He knew enough to let his subconscious recreate the experience, night after night.
His fear of not being saved was quickly proven to be unfounded, thankfully as he felt a pair of arms grab him, kiss him gently on the cheek, and wrap him in the sheet. If he wasn’t in ‘dream unconscious’ mode, he would’ve opened his eyes and thanked the elemental. It was a summoned being, but that didn’t make it any less real, Riz felt.
What was different about this time around, was that the elemental spoke. In Fabian’s voice, no less. Probably a weird elven magic thing that has no significance whatsoever.
The elemental spoke softly, voice barely a whisper, but Riz heard it nonetheless. “You scared me,” it said, gentle and calm, their tone full of worry and love. It was the tenderest thing Fabian had ever said (or, maybe, Fabian’s voice had ever said. Not Fabian himself.)
As he was lowered to the ground, he found it in himself to muster up a groan in response.
“I’m so glad you’re safe, Riz.”
Riz.
Not ‘The Ball’.
This was surely still the elemental speaking (though why the elemental cared so much about his well-being he wasn’t sure) but that didn’t stop his stomach from doing a whole fucking floor routine. Fabian rarely called him Riz, but when he did, it always made Riz feel weird, to put it lightly. Nauseous but in a good way. He didn’t want to look into it, because Riz knew damn well what that emotion was, and he also knew damn well that it would ruin the friendship he had tried so hard to build.
It was painful.
It was cliche.
It was stupid.
He offered another groan, forcing his eyes open. The minute he was greeted with Fabian’s face instead of an elemental’s, however, he shut them right back closed again. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck. Riz quickly put the pieces together, silently revoking his thoughts of not being stupid, because holy fuck was this obvious and holy fuck was Riz dumb.
There was never an elemental, not this time around. Let’s reiterate: What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.
This isn’t real, it has no bearing on reality, it means nothing. Riz made sure to remind himself of this. Dreams are stupid and very rarely do they have a deeper meaning. Fabian would never act like this. Mhm. All he had to do was keep telling himself that it wasn’t real. That way, he wouldn’t get swept up in unreality like some lovestruck teenager (he ignored the fact that technically, he was).
He squirmed out of the elven sheet, eyes still shut tight. Surely, some action was going to happen soon, and he would be saved (again) from this awful situation. Surely.
Riz counted to ten, so slowly that it basically counted as counting to twenty.
At eight, he gave up on being saved.
At nine, he ceased trying to make this dream world make sense.
And at ten, he opened his eyes.
Fabian was still there, unfortunately. He was dopey, unlike himself. A shell. A figment of a subconscious imagination. One look at him and Riz pinched his nose and sighed. This wasn’t right. Yet again, it wasn’t real.
Riz needed to get out of here. So, he pinched. He bited. He screamed. He bit again. Just like his attempts at finding a case, it was useless. His only hope of getting out was his real body waking up, and that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
He let out his third groan of the day, and Fabian responded by reaching forward and scooping him up again with a blinding smile. Riz ignored the nausea. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t rea..wow, his smile is nice.
WAIT.
NO.
FUCK.
FOCUS.
Riz turned away, which was hard, considering that Dream Fabian had scooped him up in a way that made it near impossible for him to do so. Dream Fabian took this as a sign to kiss him on the fucking cheek, again. It was warm, and it was fake. A pant of hurt shot through Riz’s chest. Why was he—
—
As soon as it began, it ended, and Riz was awake again, somewhat well rested this time. He yawned, and tried desperately to forget what had happened. Or not happened.
Riz Gukgak was tired. Not, “I haven’t slept for 72 hours and if I even blink I will pass out like I just pricked my finger on a spinning wheel,” tired, not anymore. Now he was ‘I’m in love with my best friend and I can’t avoid it anymore because my dreams are filled with him,’ tired. This wasn’t unusual, no.