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Fig Faeth
Fig likes performing. Some days it feels like more and more of her life has become a performance, but that’s not the point. She loves the concerts and the shows and the audiences screaming her name, roaring with appreciation. She likes it, she feeds on it, letting it fuel her next song, and her next, and even when the constant attention and noise start to rub on her skin like sandpaper, it’s fine. She’s good, she’s Fig of Fig and the Sig Figs; she can handle it. She’s punk rock, and what kind of rockstar would she be if she couldn’t keep it together?
They’re three days into their first real tour, bouncing between venues in and around Bastion City, and it feels like every place they play gets bigger, and louder, more people with their eyes on Fig and her name in their mouths. And it’s good- it’s great, according to Lola- that so many people are coming and listening and buying the album and playing it when they get home and telling their friends who come see the next show and- it’s good. It’s just also… a lot.
But Fig can handle a lot. She handled freshman year of highschool: her parents splitting and starting to see new people and moving houses and finding her real dad and becoming a warlock and finally accepting that she’s a tiefling and meeting her best friends in the world and being in jail for like a month and killing both her principal and her vice principal and- the point is. If Fig can handle that, she can handle a couple shows in Bastion City. Especially if she has Gorgug by her side.
He’s always there, is the thing. Quiet and smiling and letting Fig ramble and shout and bounce songs off of him for hours on end. Offering tiny pieces of brilliant advice and then shrugging them off like it’s nothing. He doesn’t seem to get how brilliant he is, and it pisses Fig off, in a quiet, frustrated way she doesn’t know how to articulate, yet. She’s been trying to write about it, but all the lyrics come out gentle and sweet and they make her uncomfortable. They feel like something more than a friend singing about a friend. And she doesn’t want to think about that. She just wants Gorgug to know he’s smart and kind and lovely and loved. She wants to find a way to thank him for always being able to tell when she’s standing on an edge, about to topple over, and pulling her back in every time without fail. She wants to find a way to tell him that she can’t imagine their band or their adventuring party or even her life without him. Fig doesn’t know how, but she’ll figure out a way to tell him everything; without playing the songs that sound a little too much like love songs.
She feels his eyes on her, steady and careful as they’re standing backstage before the fourth show of their Bastion City tour. She can hear the click click click of his drumsticks against each other as he flips them over and over in his hands. Neither of them say anything, just listen to the murmur of the crowd in the last few moments before they go onstage, Lola shouting at someone back towards the green room, and the comforting repetitive click of wood on wood. Fig closes her eyes, focuses on the sound of Gorgug behind her, and not the crowd ahead of them. If she focuses, she can tune out the crowds and hear his breathing. A flicker of a mental image: Fig, turning around and leaning her head against Gorgug’s chest, just tall enough in her boots to press her ear to his heart, his hand coming up to wrap around her shoulders and hold her close, the world narrowing to just the sound of his breath, the beat of his heart, the ground under her boots, his hand on her back. She opens her eyes. She’s still facing one of the curtain legs, a sliver of audience visible in the dim lights of the club. Gorgug is standing behind her, waiting for her to lead them onstage. The audience waits, murmurs growing into a quiet roar. Click click click, go his drum sticks. She inhales. You’re Fig. Of the Sig Figs, she tells herself, and steps on stage.
The show is good. She’s pretty sure. Most of it is a blur of loud noise and blinding light as Fig stares into the spotlight so she doesn’t have to look at the audience, stands a little too close to the amp so the wail of her bass drowns out their screams. But Gorgug smiles at her, when she glances at him after they finish their last song. Nods at her, even though she didn’t say anything. The crowd screams, like it has the last three nights, for an encore.
Fig’s fingers tremble a little bit as she fixes her grip on her bass, fighting to keep her expression cool and confident and composed- the Fig the audience wants to see, not the Fig crawling under her skin. She looks back at Gorgug again, still sitting at his drum set with his drumsticks in hand, waiting for her direction. A little to his left, she can see Lola sticking her head out from between the wings, thumbs up and nodding for them to encore, even twice if the audience seems up for it. But Gorgug tilts his head, watching her and waiting.
And Fig shakes her head, hoping that Gorgug will know what she means, even if she doesn’t know fully.
She just knows that she feels like she’s going to vibrate out of her skin, and not in the fun electric way. The world is going blurry at the edges and she feels like she’s inches from fully stepping out of her body and watching it move and dance around from afar.
Gorgug stands up, hands in the air, and the audience roars, the sound a physical thing, and it takes all of Fig’s tenuous strand of remaining self control not to flinch as the wall of noise hits her head on. He waves his hands in the air, and thanks the audience, shouting into his mic to be heard over the cheers.
And then he’s stepping down from the platform his drums were on, waving to the crowd genially as he stands beside Fig, arm hovering around her shoulders but not touching until she leans into him; then wrapping tight and pulling her close as he shuffles them both offstage, waving and smiling and thanking the audience enough for both of them.
Gorgug murmurs something to Lola as he guides them backstage, but doesn’t stop moving, even as Lola flutters around them importantly. Fig offers a thin smile, leaning into Gorgug’s comforting warmth as Lola stops, eyes narrowing as they finally catch on Fig tucked under Gorgug’s arm.
“You alright, kid?” Fig nods. Her hands feel plastic, frozen in a clench around her bass. “Cause there were some journalists who wanted to get a quote, and I think it could be some good publicity-”
“Maybe later,” Gorgug interrupts, gently but clearly. “I’m feeling kind of tired and Fig wanted to show me something, but her crystal’s still in the dressing room.”
Lola’s mouth tightens; not quite a frown but something similar, but she doesn’t argue. Her eyes jump from Gorgug to Fig to Gorgug again, and then she nods. Back to business. “Ok. The driver will be out back, I’m assuming you don’t want to stage door tonight?” Fig feels, more than sees, Gorgug shake his head. “Ok. Get to the hotel safe, and not too late. I’m not your mother, but it does fall on me if you two don’t get enough sleep and conk out on your drum kit mid-set, okay?”
“Thanks, Lola,” Fig says, voice coming out rough.
Lola softens, just a little, and nods again. “Get out of here, kids. Rest up.” Then, spinning on one high heel, she stalks off, clipboard raised like a shield against the small horde of journalists starting to crowd backstage.
Gorgug leads them down a hall and towards their dressing room. It’s not the worst they’ve been in; but it’s not the best, either. Kind of cramped between the two of them, with a low ceiling and a door frame Gorgug has to duck to get under. They laughed a little about it before the show, shuffling around each other as Gorgug slung on his Good Concert Hoodie and Fig scribbled on her eyeliner, hunched in front of the grimy vanity mirror. It feels quieter now, as they walk inside and Fig clicks on the bulb lights around the mirror as Gorgug shuts the door behind them. They both know Fig’s crystal is still in her pocket, that Gorgug got them here so she could have a moment of quiet and privacy. She walks further into the room, finally pulling out from under the safety of Gorgug’s arm, but he stays hovering by the door. One hand on the doorknob and the other- the arm that was, up until a few seconds ago, wrapped around her shoulders- burrowing deep into the pocket of his hoodie.
Gorgug peers at her from beneath his bangs, head ducked so they fall into his face, white streak and all. Fig fights the urge, as usual, to reach up and tuck it behind his ear. She wants to see his whole face. Wants to trace her fingers, feather light, along the line of his cheek. She wants, with a deep desperate empty aching. She just doesn’t know what, exactly, she wants.
She jumps up and perches on the edge of the vanity. Her lipstick and mascara are still on the little counter, too, half spilling out of her makeup bag where she threw them in her rush out of the dressing room when Lola yelled for her sound check. She wonders if she’s silhouetted from behind by the dozen yellowing bulbs around the outside of the vanity mirror. If the warm light catches on her hair like the stage light does Gorgug’s.
He’s watching her, still standing with his back against the door, head bumping the door frame; and his gaze pins her to the spot.
Finally offstage, the last of the adrenaline fades from Fig’s body. She can feel it, like honey draining out of her veins and dripping out of her toes, landing in tiny puddles on the grubby linoleum. Her shoulders feel like stones, solid knots of tension and anxiety, and she misses, with an aching certainty, the warmth of Gorgug’s arms around her.
The mental image from before the concert comes into her mind again, unbidden: her face pressed to his chest. The all encompassing sound of his breath and his heartbeat; a rhythm and song all its own, just for her. The warmth of his chest against her cheek, the fading scent of the dryer sheets Digby uses. She blinks, and Gorgug’s expression has shifted from something concerned, to something worried.
“Fig?”
Gorgug Thistlespring
Fig blinks up at Gorgug, face pale and drawn in a way he rarely sees it. She’s been kind of off all day. Not in a way that anyone else really noticed, going through the motions of their sound check and playing for their audience like it’s second nature, a winning grin stretched thin over her face; but Gorgug sees the difference. The single beat of hesitation, the way her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, the way she doesn't look at the audience, but beyond them.
“Yeah?” She breathes, the last of the strength leaving her shoulders. Fig looks small, curled in on herself sitting on the edge of the vanity counter, face cast in shadow from the lights shining behind her head. He can see her fingers tapping on the edge of the counter, a quick frenetic rhythm. He wants to take her hands in his, press her fingers between his palms until they’re warm and still.
“Do you want a hug?” He asks instead, because it’s easier, because he doesn’t have to try to explain the deep urgent need he feels to take care of her.
Fig freezes, eyes wide on her face, and for a split second Gorgug is terrified he’s read everything wrong. That he’s misunderstood something important, again, and said the wrong thing and ruined something beyond repair. And then she nods.
Gorgug is across the room in a single step, leaving his uncertainties in the doorway.
Sitting on top of the vanity, Fig is almost on his level, and she collapses against his chest as soon as he gets close enough for her to grab onto. They end up slotted together in a way that feels all too natural; her knees on either side of his hips, her hands twisted into the fabric of his hoodie, her head tucked into his shoulder, his hands on her back and in her hair. She shivers against him, and Gorgug can feel the tension leaving her body as she curls in close. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, whether it’s minutes or hours. Either way, he doesn’t want it to ever end.
Jawbone says he’s too self sacrificial sometimes, too willing to put aside his own feelings and safety and desires to help and protect his friends. But Gorgug doesn’t understand how that can be a bad thing when it means he gets to have this: Fig tucked against his chest, his head resting atop hers as he stands perfectly still, willing to be a resting place for her as long as she needs it. (Gorgug knows he’d do this for any of his friends, without question or hesitation, but it feels different with Fig. Most things do; and he doesn’t know how to put the difference into words.)
Eventually, when he feels Fig start to shake in his arms, a damp spot growing on the shoulder of his hoodie from her silent tears, Gorgug starts to hum. It’s a quiet song, unlike most of the other ones Fig’s written, one that she hasn’t released as a single or in an album. (I don’t know if I will, she told him, after playing the finished song for him the first time. It feels like it’s something for me, you know? There was this elven lullabye my da- Gilear, she corrected, face shuttering slightly like it always did when she thought about her childhood with Gilear, before her horns started coming in, that Gilear used to sing to me whenever I was sick, or couldn’t sleep, and this is- it’s based on that melody. And it feels weird to put that on our Fantasy Spotify for anyone to listen to, you know? Like, this is for me- for us. Not for everyone else. Gorgug smiled, burning deep in his chest at her use of us. That Fig wanted to share this with him, but not anyone else.)
He hums, looping the melody back over itself and tapping the slow, gentle rhythm against Fig’s back. He tries not to wonder how many times she’s cried and broken down since her horns came in, without anyone to notice or comfort her. How many people were fooled, again and again by her masks and disguises and practiced smiles.
Slowly, Fig starts to calm down. Her breath evens out again and her fingers loosen their iron grip in the fabric of his sweatshirt. Gorgug isn't good at a lot of things, he knows, but he's good at this- the waiting, the listening, the being a shoulder for people to weep and scream against.
“Thanks,” she whispers into the side of his neck eventually. “How did you- I needed that.”
“I know.” Gorgug can almost feel the way his words rumble through his chest and into hers. They're almost completely flush, chest to chest, hips to hips- the vanity is high enough off the ground that Fig's finally on his level- her legs on either side of his hips so they're as close as possible. A tiny greedy part of him rumbles to life in the back of his mind, but Gorgug shoves it down. This isn't about him. This is about Fig.
“But how did you know? I mean-” she pulls her face away from his shoulder, leaning back enough to look him in the eye. Her face is red, her cheeks blotchy and he can still see tear tracks shining wet on her face. She’s beautiful, and Gorgug feels like he’s being hit over the head with the weight of this, of Fig’s trust in him to be vulnerable like this, the way she can’t be with anyone else. “I was on, I was Fig. I shoved it so far down even I couldn’t see it- how did you…?”
Gorgug shrugs. “I can just see it. I know you.”
“Oh,” she says, quiet. “I know you too, you know.” Gorgug feels his face warm, but he doesn’t duck his head, doesn’t look away. This feels important, and he’s not afraid. This is Fig.
“I know,” he says, shrugging again. It’s easy to know me, he doesn’t say, I’m a pretty straightforward guy. There’s nothing special about me other than- other than you.
Fig scowls at him, like she can tell what he’s thinking. (Maybe she can, there’s a lot about warlock and bardic magic Gorgug doesn’t understand. Even though it feels like Fig would probably have told him if she’d stocked Detect Thoughts.) “No, I know you, Gorgug.” She pokes him gently in the center of his chest. Her finger nail is short, the black nail polish chipping off in pieces from where they’d painted their nails together the night before the tour started. “You’re so- good, and you can always tell when I’m about to spin out of control and you always manage to ground me when nothing else can and- just. Fuck. Thank you.”
Oh, he thinks.
“Oh. You’re welcome.”
“Yeah. Well.” Fig huffs slightly, and for a moment he thinks she’s going to pull away, and he’s going to have to step back and lift his arms from around her and they’ll both reestablish the space between them. But she doesn’t. She just watches him, tired and worn and a little frustrated and- and soft. Soft like how she gets in the middle of the night, writing love songs she doesn’t play in shows and doesn’t think he hears her writing. Soft like when Kristen gets really sappy and complimentary and Fig melts a little after Kristen turns away and can’t see her smile. Soft like when they share a queen size hotel bed sometimes in Bastion City, even though Lola got them separate rooms, because Fig knocked on his door in the middle of the night to ask for a sleepover. (They both know it’s because she doesn’t want to sleep alone, but neither of them say it.) Soft like Fig early in the morning before first period, coffee clutched weakly in her hand as she smiles sleepily at whatever Fabain’s ranting at.
Soft isn’t something many people get to see from Fig Faeth, rising queen of punk rock. But Gorgug gets to.
“It’s just- it’s just a lot, sometimes. Being Fig.” She emphasizes the name, pulling a hand off of his waist to gesture in a loose circle- implying Fig of the Sig Figs, Fig in the papers, Fig on the music charts, not Fig Faeth-The-Insatiable-O’Shaughnessy. Not his best friend and adventuring partner. It’s a slim difference, but Gorgug can see it. “I love the attention, and the fans, and the fact that we get to do this at all, it’s just- what if one day, they realize it’s not me. That it’s all something I made up? That I’ve been making everything up my whole life?” Gorgug shakes his head, but doesn’t interrupt Fig. She needs to get this off her chest, and he’s happy to listen- even if he doesn’t agree with how she feels about herself sometimes. “And the tour’s been good, but it also feels like there’s so much more people every time, and it’s crazy that like, six months ago we were nobodies fucking around in the halls during lunch at Aguefort and now we’re here. With people screaming for me and singing along to my songs and it’s just-”
“A lot.”
“Yeah,” Fig breathes, a long exhale more than a word. Her head lands with a gentle thunk against his chest, and Gorgug runs his hand along her back again, fingers tracing along the bumps of her spine. “It just all caught up to me at once, but I couldn’t just say hey I don’t wanna go onstage cause I think I’m gonna freak out, so-”
“You can tell me.”
Fig lifts her face out of the fabric of Gorgug’s hoodie. He misses the pressure, the warmth of her breath even through two layers; but it’s worth it for how she smiles hopefully up at him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he shrugs, habit more than anything. It feels easy and obvious that Fig should be able to tell him when she’s feeling on edge or stressed, even if there isn't anything either of them could do about it. “Even if I can’t do anything, I can do this, you know?” He pats her gently on the back. “And this is something.”
“It helps,” Fig murmurs, her face going red. But she seems calmer, more grounded and less like she’s about to burst into flames; so Gorgug counts that as a victory. Her hands have twisted, as though unconsciously, in the front pocket of his sweatshirt, wrapping the fabric around her fingers. They’re still close, Fig sitting on the counter of the vanity and Gorgug standing so they’re almost slotted together. He wonders, if only for a second, what it would be like to close the little remaining distance between them. To weave his fingers through her hair and pull her closer, taste the cherry chapstick she layers under her lipstick before every show. But he doesn’t- never will, if he’s honest. Fig is his best friend, one of five he’s lucky enough to have, and Gorgug isn’t about to risk it all- the Bad Kids, the Sig Figs, the butterfly-delicate happiness he feels in his chest for the first time in his life- on something as selfish as wanting to kiss his best friend. He’ll be fine, he’s gotten good at shoving things down deep inside him.
“I’m happy to help,” Gorgug says, because it’s easy and it’s honest. “I love you, you’re my best friend, I want to help you however I can.” That’s less easy, and less honest, but he says it anyway; because it’s better than saying the full impossible truth.
“I know,” Fig repeats, and he’s about to make a stupid Fantasy Star Wars when the abrupt change in Fig’s tone registers in his head.
“Fig?” She ducks her head, probably staring down at her hands, twisted up in the pocket of his hoodie. He wants to tuck his hand under her chin and lift her head up so he can look her in the eye. But Gorgug waits, and he listens, and he aches that there are things he can’t fix, hits he can’t take for his friends.
“I know,” she mumbles again, frustrated and more emphatic this time. “You love me, we’re best friends, you love all of us- okay. Whatever!” Fig pulls her hands out of his hoodie, grabbing onto the ledge she’s sitting on with white knuckles. Gorgug feels like he’s missing something important, his stomach a sinking rock in his gut. Fig’s still got her head down, almost curling in on herself, and Gorgug can feel her tense where he’s still got his hands on her shoulders. “I love you too, but it’s not- I can’t even do that right without ruining it. Without having to fake and lie through something else about myself and you don’t- I don’t want to ruin this.” She mutters, voice dropping low.
“Fig? What are you saying?” Gorgug wishes, now more than ever, that he wasn’t so slow on the uptake. But he thinks- he thinks he knows what Fig is trying to say and that can’t- it can’t be right. It’s got to be that he’s misunderstanding yet another simple thing, yet another am I my own dad moment he’ll laugh about eventually; but if he says it, it’s going to make him look like a dumbass and a piece of shit right now.
“I love you,” she says, tilting her head up to look him in the eye. He sees the same flash of determination, the glint of hellfire in her eyes he recognizes from when she’s in the middle of a battle or a long bass solo. “I love you, I love you, okay? You’re my best friend, but it’s also- more. And I don’t want to ruin this- everything- so we can just-”
“Fig.”
“Pretend this didn’t happen, okay? Just Fig being manic and over emotional again-”
“Fig.”
She stops. For a moment, they just watch each other. With her on the vanity and him standing, they’re at the same eye level for the first time, and Fig’s eyes are a warm brown as she stares at him. “I love you too.” It’s easier to say- to mean it the way he wants to- than Gorgug ever could have imagined. “Love you, the whole thing. I like it when you’re manic and over emotional but that’s not- that’s not what this is, right?”
Fig shakes her head. For once, it looks like she’s at a loss for words.
“Okay.” Gorgug smiles. It feels like joy, effortless and golden, is filling up his chest.
“Okay,” Fig echoes, incredulous. A smile is growing over her face, warm and wide and golden like the sunrise. Gorgug has spent a long time watching Fig’s smiles, all the different ones she uses with different people and situations. And for the first time, he lets himself label this smile in his head: for me.
And then Fig’s hands are at the neck of his hoodie, fingers grabbing at the fabric again, but this time she’s pulling in; tugging him down so they’re face to face. Gorgug inhales, sharp, and in the next moment her lips are on his.
He thinks he makes some kind of embarrassing sound- a squeak he hears faintly under the blood rushing in his ears- but Gorgug can’t bring himself to care. Fig is kissing him, he’s kissing Fig, and she likes him back and-
She pulls away, abrupt. Gorgug tries to follow her mouth, eyes still closed, for half a second before the fact that she stopped kissing him registers and he blinks his eyes open. They’re still barely a breath apart from each other, but Fig is staring at him, wide eyed and terrified. His hands are on her shoulders (he wants to put them in her hair, wonders if he’s allowed to do that now-) and she’s still got him gripped by the neck of his hoodie.
“Shit,” she breathes, wrenching her hands off of him. Gorgug lifts his hands off her shoulders on instinct as she leans back a little, grabbing onto the edge of the vanity. His hands hover over her shoulders, and Gorgug itches to touch her again, to calm her down, to figure out whatever it was he did wrong and fix it. “Sorry, shit, I didn’t- I should have- asked, or something- I haven’t ever. You know I kissed Dr. Asha and stuff but it wasn’t- me, not really, and he’s like my dad’s age, so it was weird and different and I don’t want this to be weird-”
“Fig?”
“But it’s the only other, like, experience I’ve had and I don’t know how to do this normally, and I don’t want to fuck this up, or the band, or the group, and-”
“Hey, Fig?”
“I really like you, but I know that liking someone isn’t the same as consent, and even though I want to kiss you, like, all the time, doesn’t mean that’s something you want, and this isn’t just about me getting my kisses in, and you’ve been so good about grounding me and making me feel better tonight after the show, and then I thank you by dumping all my weird emotional baggage on you and kissing you without asking and-”
“Fig.” Gorgug puts his hands on either side of her face- tips of his fingers along her hairline, thumbs against her cheekbones- and kisses her. He catches her in the middle of her ramble and she quiets mid-thought, humming against his mouth. And then her hand is back in his hoodie (it’s probably stretched out beyond saving at this point, but Gorgug doesn’t mind; it’s lucky for a new reason, now) and her other hand is grabbing the back of his head and hauling him close, legs hooking around his hips. It’s good- better than the first time, because he’s tilted his head a little to better slot their noses together, and Fig isn’t pulling away early this time.
When they do finally break apart for air, Fig doesn’t put any space between them, holding his head still between her hands and dotting his face with kisses interspersed with tiny, laughing gasps of air. It’s one of the best moments of Gorgug’s life, and he can’t stop smiling, even as Fig dots peck after peck across his silly grin.
“I want to kiss you all the time, too,” he murmurs after a moment, guiding her mouth back to his properly. She hums something in response, but doesn’t pull back enough to answer effectively, and Gorgug doesn’t mind.
There’ll be time to talk, later. To figure out what they both want, what they’re comfortable with. They have to figure out what, if anything, they’re going to tell the people in their lives- the other Bad Kids, their parents, Lola, the Sig Figs fans.
Fig brushes her tongue against Gorgug’s lip, and the few remaining cognizant thoughts leave his head. It's just Fig, and the shape of her mouth, the warmth of her breath, the scratch of her nails, the weight of her hair. Just Fig.
“Kids?” Lola calls through the dressing room door, hammering on it with her fist. “The car is waiting!” They jolt apart, glancing sheepishly between each other and the door. Fig looks flushed, her lips red under the rubbed-away lipstick she’d been wearing for the show. She smiles sheepishly at him as Gorgug rubs at his mouth with the back of his hand- it comes back streaked with lipstick. They both break into hushed, helpless laughter as Lola keeps shouting at them through the door. “I know you think we’re bigshots, but we can’t hang out here forever, you two. I need to get you to the hotel. Break it up.” Gorgug wonders how Lola knew they were in here kissing, this time- or whether she just always assumes they’re making out whenever they’re in a room alone together. His face warms a little at the realization- maybe from now on, they will be.
“C’mon,” Fig slides her hand into his as she hops down from the dressing room counter, shoving her makeup into its bag with one hand. “We should go. I wanna get back to my- the hotel room. Maybe we can watch a movie?”
“Yeah,” Gorgug agrees. He kind of feels like he’d agree with whatever Fig suggests, right now; but that isn’t much different from how he felt before she kissed him. He’s a straightforward guy, more than happy to be tugged along by the hand towards whatever adventure Fig Faeth has planned for them. He’s happy to stand by her side, however she needs him.
“Cool.” She squeezes his hand, and then tugs on his arm. Amiably, he leans down so she can hold his cheek with her free hand and kiss him again. He doesn’t have Adaine’s divination powers, but Gorgug suspects he’s gonna see a lot of this precise thing in his future.
He can’t wait.