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The thing was, when Fig told Fabian that she was spending Christmas with her mom and Jawbone, he didn’t realise at first where that left him.
And where that left him was alone on Christmas with his mother…and Gilear.
Fabian had petitioned his mama very strongly to reconsider — surely it was kinder to let Gilear celebrate alone in his dingy little apartment in Strongtower, since he was going to be spending most Christmas alone once Fabian’s mama tired of him. Which she would, eventually.
She had to.
Sometimes Fabian woke up in a cold sweat, imagining if his mama announced herself pregnant. But then he remembered he hadn’t even sired Fig, so it was likely (or hopeful) that he was incapable of having kids. No one like Gilear should ever reproduce anyway.
No matter what, though, it was okay. Because, as he reminded himself often, she would tire of the man. He was not suited for their family, not one bit. He wasn’t a Seacaster! And as if he could match his papa.
Besides, their fridge was taken up with far too much yoghurt for Fabian’s comfort since Gilear had moved in with them.
So when Fabian asked Riz what he was doing for the holidays, and Riz said he didn’t really celebrate, and Fabian asked him — begged, in a most undignified manner for a Seacaster — he wasn’t planning to take no for an answer, no matter what.
Riz was sprawled on his sofa in Ms. Gukgak’s apartment, feet on the table like some kind of animal. They had just finished the microwave mac and cheese Riz had prepared, and Fabian still wasn’t sure which part had been the most harrowing: the food itself, or the way Riz ate. Although, the more time he spent around the little goblin, the more he kind of felt endeared towards his disgusting eating habits.
He broached the subject lightly, but Riz caught on way too quick. He was always way too smart for his own good, to Fabian’s twin annoyance and admiration.
“Won’t your mom think I’m your boyfriend, if you bring me home for Christmas? She’d flip her lid, a goblin boy dating her son,” Riz asked. It was an off-hand comment. Fabian wasn’t that perceptive, but he could tell Riz was only saying it in an attempt to get out of the favour. But Riz also clearly saw the spark light behind Fabian’s eyes, and the plan unfolding like a map inside his mind, because Riz said: “Oh, no no no, Fabian! No!”
“Come on,” Fabian said. “It could be fun!”
“For who?!”
“For me, obviously,” Fabian said. As if there was anyone else to consider. “Can you imagine mama’s face? I bring home a goblin from ill birth?! Oh, and what perfect revenge! She makes me spend time with that dreadful man, and I make her think I’m dating someone unsuitable too!”
A flicker of hurt flew across Riz’s face but he was recovered before Fabian even thought to inquire over it.
“Your mom already hates me,” Riz said.
“Only because she thinks your poor,” Fabian told him.
“I am poor.”
“Yes, that’s the problem. And anyway, she hates everyone, that’s just her way,” he said.
“Okay, but she’ll hate me a lot more after this,” Riz said.
“Yes. It will be perfect!” Fabian beamed. He poked Riz. “You don’t care what people think of you, anyway.”
“Yes, I do!” Riz stammered.
Fabian frowned down at him. “Oh. Then why do you dress like that?”
Riz looked down at his waistcoat and shirt that was way too large, and pulled on the brim of his ridiculous newsboy cap. Then he huffed.
“I’m a private investigator! I have to look the part.”
Fabian sighed.
“Okay, how about this? You do this for me, and I’ll put down the deposit for that space in the mall you’ve been hampering after.”
Riz’s eyes shone. Even as he shook his head, Fabian could see the tide was going to be turning. Nobody could resist Fabian’s charm (or bribes) for too long.
“This is a terrible idea.”
“I know. That’s why I want your help with it!” Fabian thought for a moment on what might win him over. “How about I even get you one of those shiny plaque things for your desk — The Ball, Private Investigator?”
Riz sighed. He hated taking Fabian’s bribes, Fabian knew that. That’s why it felt extra good when he managed to convince Riz of something.
Besides, he’d been wanting to chip into Riz’s PI firm for a while for like, no real reason, just as a supportive friend.
“It’ll say Riz Gukgak, Pi. …what should I wear?”
“Hell yes!” Fabian punched the air. One he was finished coming down from the dizzying heights of winning, he gave Riz a once over. “Oh, exactly that. Don’t change a thing.”
His mama was going to— well, he didn’t know what exactly. For so many years, she’d been so sedated, but now that she was taking a more active role in his life, he never knew what to expect.
No matter what, she was going to be very, very unhappy.
It was perfect.
***
Fabian shot up from the sofa as soon as the doorbell to their huge house chimed. He was eager to get away from his mama fussing over Gilear as if they were—yeuch—lovebirds or something.
Out in the foyer, alone for the first time since he woke that morning, he realised his hands were shaking. He was more nervous than he expected. He wasn’t sure about what, though. Probably about whether or not his plan would work.
Yes, it had to be that.
He took a deep breath before he opened the door.
On the other side, Riz was waiting.
Riz was in a suit jacket, not his usual waistcoat, and his shirt was less wrinkled than usual. Almost like he’d ironed it. Even his hat was looked like it might have been one that only got pulled out for special occasions, a deeper black than the worn, forlorn thing he usually wore.
He looked so good, it took a moment for Fabian to realise he had not heeded Fabian’s instructions to not change a thing.
Somehow, he didn’t find it in himself to be mad about it.
“Wow,” Riz said, looking up at him.
Fabian straightened up, squaring his shoulders. He was wearing his usual Christmas attire: a deep burgundy velvet jacket, a white shirt, and dress pants.
Shirts weren’t unusual on Riz, but for Fabian, he always felt uncomfortable in them. But, for Christmas, his family had always dressed up and he was not one to get shown up.
Even his father used to polish his hook hand and would wear a bejewelled eye patch the likes of which would make a pauper cry.
He missed his papa.
“Can I come in?” Riz asked. He was uneasy, fidgety the way he was whenever he got in his own head.
Fabian moved aside.
“Of course,” Fabian said. “Are you ready?”
“No,” Riz said.
“Great,” Fabian said. He looked at Riz again. “We need to mess you up a bit.”
Riz blinked.
“Like, punching?”
“No! Like—“ Fabian sighed. “Like this, hang on.”
He didn’t dare take off Riz’s hat, so instead, he just bent the brim so it sat a little askew.
Riz huffed but allowed it to happen. The Ball was always such a good sport.
Then he removed Riz’s jacket.
He paused, seeing that Riz had rolled his sleeves up to his elbow, and swallowed. He could never understand it. Whenever Riz did that, Fabian could never help but pay extra attention to him. It was the last thing he needed now—a distraction—but at the same time, he didn’t want to mess with it.
He sighed in resignation, and instead balled up Riz’s shirt front, pulling it from where it was neatly tucked into his trousers.
“Hey!” Riz said.
“I’m giving you some wrinkles,” Fabian said.
“I really don’t think your mom is going to care about that,” Riz said.
Fabian rolled his eyes. Riz never did know anything about decorum and etiquette and what petty gossip circulated in upper class circles.
“She’ll care, I promise,” he said. He stood back from Riz and grinned. “There. Perfect.”
“I dressed up nice for this,” Riz said.
Fabian liked it when Riz pouted, because he could always see a tiny cute piece of fang sticking out.
“I asked you not to.” And that was that, in Fabian’s mind. “You still look—you look like The Ball. And that’s good.”
He perked up considerably at that.
“Come on, my mama is all over Gilear and it’s disgusting,” he said. “Let’s go spoil their day.”
“I really do think this is a bad idea,” Riz grumbled.
But as soon as Fabian threw out a, “Think of your new private investigator office,” Riz followed him into the lounge.
“Oh, darling, you’ve brought a friend,” his mama said, looking over from where she had been adjusting Gilear’s tie. “Rio, was it?”
“Riz, mama,” Fabian said. “But that is shockingly close. You can call him The Ball, though.”
“Please don’t,” Riz squeaked.
“Does Cathilda know we have an extra mouth to feed?” Fabian’s mama asked.
“Yes,” Fabian lied. Cathilda always made enough food for several extra people anyway, and he would tell her now, a whole hour before dinner. Plenty of time.
“Then, sit, sit,” she said. She waved over to the seat next to her, and turned back to the problem of Gilear’s tie, which was somehow complexly knotted and looked like it might soon choke him to death. If only.
Riz made a move towards the sofa nearest the seven foot tree, but Fabian grabbed his shoulder to keep there.
He cleared his throat, straightening up, not that it did much to gain his mama’s attention.
“But, uh, mama, you ought to know: Riz isn’t here as just a friend. He’s a boyfriend.”
No reaction, just her tutting as Gilear turned a faint purple colour.
“Like. My romantic boy person that I spend a lot of time with and kiss and stuff,” Fabian said, and decided quickly that was a perfectly normal way to say it, yes.
At the word “kiss”, his mama’s hand slipped—luckily downwards, freeing Gilear from his neck prison. His mama looked at him, wide-eyed, and then down at Riz.
“This? He is your boyfriend?” she said.
“That’s wonderful,” Gilear said through a strained, dry throat. He carefully adjusted his former noose, and giving Fabian one of those painful smiles that he liked so much to give. “I had a boyfriend once when I was your age, but he left me for my cousin at my birthday part—”
“Shush,” Fabian’s mama snapped. Then she turned back to Fabian. “Are you sure?”
“I am.” Fabian grinned. This was exactly what he was hoping for. “Riz and I have been dating for some months now.”
“Him?” she asked.
“Yes!” Fabian said. He was surprised at the depth of his own acting: he did feel somewhat affronted by the way his mama had said that word. He was spoiling now for a fight. Maybe they’d reach such a fever pitch that they could storm out and eat a pointedly quiet dinner. That would be fine, quick work and Riz would be relieved of his duties.
“Oh, I seem to have spilt my eggnog on my pants,” said Gilear.
Fabian frowned.
“Where did you get eggnog from?” he asked. His mother loathed the stuff and no one else in the house drank it.
“I’ve been making it in the garage,” he said slowly.
But Hillariel was already on her feet to fetch Cathilda (though she still sighed in disgust at Gilear before she left), and she and Fabian’s argument was forgotten.
“Great,” Fabian said.
“Do you need a hand?” Riz asked, watching Gilear mop himself with a napkin, though it seemed only to spread the drink further over his pants, rather than actually help.
“Don’t help him,” Fabian said. “He needs to learn.”
“He’s not a dog,” Riz said.
Riz always did have a soft spot for Gilear. It was probably easier, when the elf wasn’t dating his mother, though Gilear had come close. That was, Fabian recalled, until he’d told that horrible story about his fungal infection, in true Gilear fashion. Fabian had already gotten him to repeat it around his mama, but his mama, somehow, hadn’t booted him from the house. She’d just taken away his yoghurt privileges for a week and Gilear had acted like it was just as bad as getting dumped.
And yet, somehow, his mama found it in herself to be judgemental over Fabian’s picks?
Oh, now it was on. Before it was on, but now it was on on.
***
Riz insisted that he and Fabian help Cathilda set the table — Fabian wanted to argue, but, well, since Riz was already doing him such a big favour…
Cathilda came out of the kitchen door, beaming.
“You two boys have made a lovely job of it, I am so appreciative of your help. Not that I mind, I like a spot of Christmas festivities but I do like a helping hand when I can get it. Or a hook! I’m not picky,” she said. As she said it, she waled round the table, adjusting their place settings on the white tablecloth, swapping forks around, and generally re-arranging the whole thing. “Not that there’s been many hooks around for a while.”
Fabian was only half-listening, even when Cathilda gave him that twinkly-eyed concern look of hers. Instead, he was watching Gilear as he entered, in a new and much shabbier pair of pants.
“Those were my dress pants,” he said when he caught Fabian looking. “I had another pair, but the rats ate right through the crotch and that was before they—“
“Yes, yes, dear,” Fabian’s mama said, coming behind him and placing a very, very firm hand around his arm. A wonder she wasn’t cutting off his blood supply, with how hard she seemed to be squeezing. “Enough of your stories now. Is it time for dinner, Cathilda?”
“Why yes, miss,” Cathilda said brightly. “Take a seat, I’ll have it out on the table in a jiffy!”
“Wonderful.”
Fabian followed suit and took a seat opposite Gilear. He had made the place settings rather deliberate, to ensure Riz sat opposite his mama. If the mere sight of him didn’t spark the argument back up, there were other things the dinner would bring out in Riz that were hard to ignore.
“Shall I carve the turkey?” Gilear said, rising from his seat when Cathilda brought it out.
“No! Remember last time?” Cathilda said. She turned to Riz, eyes soft. “Poor dab near cut his finger off when we were having a nice Sunday roast a few months ago.”
“Then he got an infection in the wound,” Fabian said.
Cathilda was on her step stool to carve the turkey, as Gilear nodded sadly.
“Now I have no feeling in my first forefinger and sometimes it leaks pus for hours.”
“Are elves meant to get pus?” Riz asked.
“No,” Fabian said quickly, wrinkling his nose.
“Please, let us talk about anything else,” Hillariel said. She sounded distinctly like she was getting one of her headaches, and that made her cranky. While a good son would never wish such things on his mama, for the purposes of the dinner, it was quite useful to have her ire.
“How about you folks start serving up?” Cathilda said. “There’s plenty more in the kitchen too, if you need it!”
Fabian surveyed the table. The turkey took up considerable room at the empty head of the table. From there, coming down the table, there were crispy roast potatoes and parsnips, Brussels sprouts with those divine little lardons and glistening chestnuts, heaps of stuffing, carrots, corn, pigs in blankets, broccoli, cranberry sauce, all served with a large boat of thick, dark gravy.
The “more” to which she referred to, Fabian could not guess. Each fine bone plate was heaped with goodies.
Their starter was only a mere hour ago, just before Riz had gotten there, but already Fabian’s stomach growled.
(They always started Christmas dinner with blinis, caviar and creme fraiche, but Fabian had once given all of the Bad Kids caviar while on a stakeout. Riz, like everyone but Adaine, who understood the finer things, had called it gross. So, despite the fact that Riz spitting out the precious roe would have given his mama a conniption, Fabian had saved Riz from having to deal with that.)
It was slow, getting everyone served and Fabian was antsy to start eating, because that was where the real spectacle began.
Just to be sure, he piled a few extra potatoes on Riz’s plate when the bowl was passed to him. Maximum carnage.
“Delectable,” Fabian said, cutting a sliver of turkey from his plate and dipping it in the gravy. It was, indeed, perfectly moist and delicious.
His mama opened his mouth to agree, but then stopped, mouth half-open, eyes widening.
Riz had begun eating.
In typical goblin fashion, he didn’t really stop once he began, shovelling the food in with such ferocity that it made even the hardiest half-orc blush. Actually, despite having seen Riz eat like that for a hundred lunch times now, even Fabian was still always taken aback by it all.
It was everything: Riz’s food going everywhere, including places no napkin could have accounted for, the speed, the lack of cutting anything and instead relying solely on his fangs, the way his hands formed a blur as they went between the plate and his mouth.
And the sound. The sound. It was like Riz was harbouring a garbage disposal in his stomach. Or like the tremendous hum of a compacter.
Or just something much, much bigger than the little goblin sitting beside him.
Somehow, it seemed much worse, messier, louder than normal, but maybe it was just because of the delicious look of horror on his mama’s face.
Because his mama had gone pale, with just a hint of green.
Gilear hadn’t even really noticed, used to Riz’s eating as he was. He was happily tucking into his stuffing while Fabian’s mama looked on in abject horror.
Fabian took a mental picture. This was exactly as he had wanted. Trying to conceal a grin, he carried on eating his own dinner, casting an eye every now and again to check that, yup, his mama still was frozen.
Of course, all good things came to an end eventually, and with the tremendous velocity of Riz’s eating, he had cleared the plate in less than a minute.
Only then did Fabian’s mama seem to break from her statuesque horror.
She cleared her throat, dabbing her unsoiled mouth with her napkin like it could dab away the image of what she’d just seen. Knowing his mama, Fabian knew that image would be burned into her brain for the rest of her life — and elves lived a very long life.
Perfect. Because Fabian would never be able to unsee some of the scenes he’d witnessed between she and Gilear.
“My, don’t you have a healthy appetite,” she said, her voice brittle and shaky.
Riz looked at Fabian, then back at her, a small smirk on his face.
“Thanks!” he said. “It was really tasty.”
“Yes, it seemed so,” she said. She took a few bites of her own dinner. “I always knew goblins were a special sort.”
“Mama,” Fabian growled. He really did feel that protectiveness in his chest, too, not even pretend.
“I just question your choices sometimes, son,” his mama said.
Fabian grit his teeth. “I don’t question your choices!”
“You judge my choices constantly,” his mama shot back. “It’s always ‘Gilear this’, ‘Gilear that’, I am sick to death of it. There is nothing wrong with—“
“Oh, bother,” Gilear said, whipping his hand back from the gravy boat, which he had just knocked over.
The gravy spilled from it thick and fast, staining the beautiful white tablecloth a deep, deep brown.
Fabian’s mama growled. Then she restrained herself, bringing her face back to placidity.
“Cathilda!” she called out.
The halfling came running in, a cloth already in her hand.
“Oh, Master Faeth, you’ve made quite the mess,” she said, not unkindly. “Up you get now, I’ll have this cleaned in a jiffy.”
Gilear muttered his apologies, looking very sorry for himself as he got up from the table and backed away.
Fabian raised an eyebrow at his mama, who gave him only a stony look in response.
***
After Cathilda had cleaned the table up and they’d all finished eating, they went back to the living room.
Except, just before they passed through the door, Riz grabbed Fabian’s arm and pulled him back.
“Did I do good?”
“Hm?”
“I really hammed up the eating,” Riz said, grinning so wide that Fabian could see his fangs. “Thought you might appreciate that.”
Uh, the rush of affection. Of course it hadn’t just seemed messier. It was that the Ball, the most loyal Ball, had done it just for Fabian. Fabian would put how warm that made him feel into the little box he kept for such emotions, but he couldn’t hide his blush.
“You did good, the Ball,” he said. He patted the top of Riz’s head through the cap. “I’m impressed.”
Riz beamed.
The fireplace was by now roaring in the living room. The windows were misted with condensation and Fabian was able to pull his jumper off. His tank top came half off in the process.
Riz was looking at him when he emerged from getting caught in the neck hole, but looked away quickly. Fabian shrugged and pulled his top back.
“Wasn’t that gift for Rio?” his mama asked, returning to her languid pose on the armchair. She had mostly stopped drinking, except for gin and tonics, and she held one in her right hand.
“Riz,” Fabian replied. Then he blushed. He was hoping the gift exchange wouldn’t have witnesses. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to give it to Riz at all. It was stupid, it was nothing.
“What is it?” Riz asked. And dammit, the look on his face, curiosity and a little bashfulness, made it impossible to resist giving it to him.
Fabian sighed. He went over to the tree, and pulled a present from beneath it. The wrapping was as neat as he could manage, and the tiny jingle bells that adorned the paper glittered in the fireplace light.
“Here,” he said. “It’s nothing, it’s stupid.”
Riz hesitated, and then he ripped into it with the same vigour in which he ate, shredding the paper.
Fabian spared a look to his mama, who was eyeing the scene with only the faintest touch of disgust this time, before he turned back to Riz.
Despite himself, he wanted to see Riz’s reaction.
First, it was puzzlement, looking at the black leather square in front of him. Then, he picked it up, and the leather jacket unfolded.
“I don’t know if it’ll fit,” Fabian admitted. “It was the smallest size they had — I think it’s actually meant for dolls, but—“
“I love it,” Riz said quickly, looking up at Fabian. His eyes danced in the light. He looked—well, he looked like a kid on Christmas morning. Fabian’s blush only deepened, and he scratched the back of his neck, trying to restrain his smile.
“Well, try it on then,” Fabian said.
Riz got up, and pulled it on.
…It looked good. Really good.
“Wow,” he murmured, as Riz did a turn. The jacket fit him like a second skin.
For once, the Ball actually looked cool. And not dorky cool, or whatever. But actually, honest-to-Sol cool.
Fabian couldn’t stop looking at him.
“Suits you,” his mama said in a low voice. From her, the highest of praise.
“A real slicker,” Gilear said.
“No, he doesn’t,” Fabian groaned. He didn’t need Gilear trying out a million-years-old slang that only old people and Johnny Spells used. “He just looked good.”
“I do?” Riz asked, looking up at Fabian.
“Yeah, you look good,” Fabian admitted. Then he rolled his eyes. “You know you look good.”
Riz grinned, showing all his fangs. “I feel good. I’m never taking this off.”
“Okay, weirdo,” Fabian said, trying to find some decorum to scrape back. He sat himself down on the sofa heavily. “Shall we watch something?”
There was a day when Fabian’s papa would entertain them with stories of piracy and skullduggery, and then his crew would jump out of barrels to sing sea shanties until the early hours of the dawn. But this year was much quieter. Throwing a movie on the crystal would at least distract them.
“If we must,” his mama said. “And it must be a Christmas movie?”
“It must,” Fabian said.
His mama groaned.
He stuck them with The Sorcereress Switch. It wasn’t very good but at least saw them through a large chunk of the evening, until Gilear fell asleep and Fabian’s mama decided to take him back to the garage before she returned to her room.
Fabian left Riz in the living room, to go to the kitchen.
Cathilda whipped them up turkey sandwiches, with all the trimmings. She also put pickles out for them on a plate too, and Fabian carried the tray back to the living room.
“You know…your mom went to bed,” Riz said. “I can’t gross her out now.”
That hurt more than Fabian expected, that Riz would think he only did this to get back at his mama.
“I know,” Fabian said. “Cathilda just makes the best turkey sandwiches. I was going to make her put together kipper sandwiches, but you hate those delicious little fishes.”
“Because they’re disgusting,” Riz said. He smiled, looking down at his plate and then back up at Fabian. “Thanks.”
Riz got the sandwich down in about six seconds flat. It was almost impressive — the sandwich was there one minute, then vanished into thin air the next. It was only the crumbs on Riz’s jacket that really gave away that there might have been bread there once.
Fabian took his eating at a more leisurely pace, but Riz hadn’t taken his eyes off of him.
“What?” Fabian asked, at last.
“Why are being nice to me now? With the jacket, and the sandwiches, and like…I don’t know.”
“I’m always nice to you!”
Riz gave him the most withering look imaginable, and it’s a good thing he was only small of Fabian would have had to square up against him.
“Fine,” Fabian admitted, throwing his head back against the sofa. He looked at Riz, sidelong. “I’m like mama, I hate everyone. It’s not cool to like people, the Ball.”
Riz grimaced, because of course he did. Riz never cared about living up to anyone’s name, or knew what it was like being rich and gorgeous. Just poor and kind of cute.
Riz only ever cared about people for the sake of the people.
And…Fabian felt a curdling in his stomach to admit it even to himself, but that’s what he liked about Riz.
Well, that and what a little fucking nerd he was about some stuff.
“But maybe,” Fabian said. He paused. It was harder to say out loud than he expected. “Maybe I kind of like you, though.”
Fabian didn’t think goblins could blush, on account of them being green, but Riz did now, sitting beside from him.
“I think liking people is really cool,” Riz said.
Fabian made a noise from the back of his throat and shook his head.
It was just annoying that whenever Riz was this uncool, all Fabian felt was some weird, sticky affection.
“I like you too,” Riz said quietly.
“I know,” Fabian said. It was painfully, painfully obvious. And who wouldn’t? Everyone idolised Fabian; he was perfect.
Except…well, except for people who didn’t think that. But he tried not to think about them.
“Do you really think I’m—“ Riz started and then stopped. He looked so small, before he turned back to Fabian, chin jutted out. “Do all elves think the way your mom does about goblins?”
Fabian caught his initial answer, yes, behind his teeth, just before it exited his mouth. Because, Fabian wasn’t exactly the smartest half-elf in existence, but he suddenly realised what Riz was asking.
And maybe, maybe, that cold rush of dread that prickled Fabian’s body was brought on by him realising the implications of why he’d asked Riz here in the first place.
“No! No, Riz,” Fabian said. His name sounded foreign on his tongue, strange. But this wasn’t the time for The Ball. “My mom’s an elitist, that’s all.”
Riz chirped up a little at that.
“And I’m not elite?”
“No,” Fabian chuckled. “You don’t even like kippers.”
“It’s not that I don’t like them—“
“Shush, The Ball,” Fabian said, swatting him gently on the arm.
“I want to ask you something else,” Riz said, shuffling on the sofa so he could cross his legs.
“Another thing?” Fabian said. He’d already admitted he liked the Ball! What more indignity was he going to have to live through.
“Do you think you asked me here because you wanted to annoy your mom, or was it because you needed a distraction?”
“A distraction?”
“This…is the first Christmas without your dad, isn’t it?”
Fabian’s stomach dropped. Which was usually a sign that the truth had just hit him.
“Alright, enough of this,” Fabian said. “It was purely to distract us from Gilear. And it worked, didn’t it?”
Riz shrugged. “It did work. Although your mom hasn’t come out of the garage in a while.”
“Ew! The Ball, no!” Fabian said. He tried not to think about these things. There was stuff you said out loud, and stuff you shoved deep deep into the bottle inside. His papa had taught him that. “Don’t spoil a nice day.”
Riz nodded, but he was clearly hiding a smile. The smile of a nosey little goblin who had caught wind of the truth.
Luckily, he knew when to quite when he was ahead.
“It was a pretty nice day,” Riz said.
They talked quietly in the living room, the fire roaring across from them, for a long time. Maybe an hour, but Fabian wasn’t even paying attention. It was cozy. Fabian could relax, for the first time, it felt like, since his papa had died. Since Gilear had moved in, especially, it had not really felt like home, but it did now.
They talked about a lot of things, and nothing, and the day, and what the other Bad Kids were doing, and Fabian even asked Riz if he wanted to stay over. Real casual, like.
Riz shook his head.
“I want to make sure I’m home when my mom gets in, so I can give her her gift.”
“You got your mom a present? Who does that?” Fabian asked.
“Most people!” Riz said.
Fabian shook his head. “What did you get her?”
“It’s stupid,” Riz said. He balled his fists in his lap.
“The Ball.”
Riz shrugged. “I got her business cards. Sklonda Gukgak, Esquire. For when she goes to law school. They match mine.”
Fabian beamed. Riz was talking about the gilded business cards Fabian had commissioned from him in their Junior Year. They were gorgeous, the best Fabian’s money could buy, and he could only imagine how much Riz had had to save to get his mom matching ones.
“She’ll love them.”
***
“Maybe you can come to the next Christmas too?” Fabian asked as he helped Riz scramble onto the Hangman.
Riz sank his claws into the leather as he did so. The Hangman growled in protest. That was not going to help their already rocky relationship.
“As long as it isn’t as, um, full of lying as this one,” Riz said. He wiped the stray hairs from his face.
Riz was this uncool little goblin who was weird and sometimes off-putting, harsh and serious about the wrong stuff, overly-enthusiastic.
But all those things…dammit, it wasn’t that he liked Riz despite them, he liked them because of them.
And that was absolutely terrible.
“No, not lying next time. We’ll go as… friends,” Fabian said, because he wasn’t brave enough to say the other part. To say the stray thought that had started to bug him. The best he could manage was: “I liked having you hear as my boyfriend.”
Riz made a goofy sound, like a guffaw but not.
“Me too,” he said, his voice higher pitched than normal.
Fabian looked down at him, face half-hidden by the shadow of his stupid cap. He licked his lips. Why was he so nervous? He shouldn’t have been so nervous. But he wanted to do something, he was just so afraid of actually taking the leap.
“Can I—Do you think—“ he started. Then he grit his teeth, growling.
He leant down and pecked Riz on the lips. Brief, quick, fast enough that hopefully Riz wouldn’t even realise he did it and they could all pretend it didn’t happen because it was stupid and—
Riz grabbed at his neck before he could straighten up, pulling him back in for a kiss.
Fabian’s heart was beating out of him, and he hated that he couldn’t stop himself from sort of smiling when they pulled away. Riz was grinning too, but in that shy way where he tucked his chin into his chest as if to hide it.
“Master, can I take him home now?” the Hangman said, with only the slightest hint of annoyance. If Fabian wasn’t mistaken, it might have been a hint of jealously — as if Fabian had said anything when Gorgug had practiced kissing with the motorcycle.
“Right,” Fabian said. “And you should get home before Ms. Gukgak. Just…text me later.”
“Okay,” Riz said.
And then the Hangman drove him off into the darkness.
Fabian took some gulps of frozen air, his body shaking.
Then he grinned.
The next time he saw Riz, he would definitely be getting his kisses in.