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It is exactly five years since Riz Gukgak’s father died, and Riz is trying very hard not to think about this fact. He’s staring down at his math homework, eyes sliding across the page without actually reading anything, hugging his knees to his chest as he perches on a secondhand chair that’s slightly too tall for him. Every few seconds he looks to the side of his desk, where he’s set an old photograph of him with his dad. Riz is young – five, maybe – set atop his dad’s shoulders, both of them beaming, sharp teeth on full display. Riz has tried, many times, to remember taking that photo, enough that there’s a vague image of what it might have been in his mind. But the truth is, that memory is lost to him, one more thing gone with the passing of time.
He gives up on the math homework after about 20 minutes of blank staring. He feels like elastic that’s been pulled too tight, tense and thin and half a second from breaking. The walls of his room are too close and too far all at once, and Riz is filled with a sudden need to leave, to move, to do anything that’s not sitting here pretending not to grieve. He looks at the photo one last time, then hops down from his chair, grabs his gun and briefcase, and walks out of his room.
Riz knows a gun is not a typical weapon for an adventurer. But he likes it: the way it feels in his hand, the shock it sends through his shoulder every time he fires, the cool practicality of it. It helps that his mom carries a gun, and she taught him to shoot when he was only 11. He thinks that his dad had a gun too. Those memories are hazy, though, just glimpses of a holster strapped to his back or a barrel peeking out of a travel bag. But Riz refuses to think about his dad right now. What matters is that shooting is something he can do, it’s something he likes and is good at and which always clears his head. So instead of thinking about how his dad died today five years ago, Riz Gukgak is going to the shooting range.
His mom went out for the afternoon after they got back from the cemetery, picking up groceries and finishing some work down at the station, so he sends her a text about where he’s going. His crystal buzzes almost immediately. A quick glance tells him it’s not his mom but Adaine, sending an article about palimpsests to their party group chat, and Riz stops.
Riz is, admittedly, pretty new to the whole “having friends” thing. He doesn’t even know if they really are friends, or just members of the same adventuring party by coincidence. Still, target practice seems like a thing that an adventuring party might do together. And though Riz is not one for emotional vulnerability, the empty apartment was beginning to weigh on him. Company could be nice. Riz sets his shoulders, and sends off a few text messages before he loses his nerve:
Thanks for the article, Adaine.
Also, I’m going to do some target practice at the Augefort shooting range right now. Anyone care to join me?
He makes a bit of a face reading over his messages again, unsure if his tone is the right one, but it’s too late to take back now. Adaine replies right away.
Ah sorry, wish I could but I’ve got a lot of schoolwork to catch up on from the first week. Plus target practice isn’t really my area. Have fun though!
Riz feels a slight twinge of disappointment, but his shoulders ease up a bit at the fact that she didn’t seem to find his request weird. Kristen replies next, saying she’s babysitting her little brothers while her parents do church stuff, which makes Riz cringe in both sympathy and discomfort, while Gorgug apparently agreed to help his parents in their workshop. Their excuses all make sense, but still Riz shrinks into himself a bit more with each refusal.
He is out the doors of Strongtower, head tilted down and hands worrying at the handle of his briefcase, when his crystal buzzes again, this time with a message from Fabian. It’s just one word: Sure .
Reading it, Riz’s stomach does a strange lurch, and he stops on the pavement. Of all the party members, Fabian was maybe the last person he expected to agree to come, or even to reply at all. He honestly hadn’t even considered that by sending the group chat a message Fabian would also see it. He always seemed to set himself above this sort of thing – he sat slightly apart from them at lunch, only tuning into their conversation when it turned to party matters or when someone said his name, and he'd barely sent any messages in the group text before. He was hard to read, even for a practiced (well, sort of practiced) investigator like Riz. At a guess, he'd have said Fabian didn’t like them much, but he wasn’t looking to join a different adventuring party either, so. And now he just agreed to go shooting with Riz. It’s quite a mystery, and Riz mentally adds it to his list of cases he was compiling.
At this point, Riz realizes he had been standing still, staring at his crystal, for at least a minute. He shakes his head, trying to clear it of his spiraling thoughts, and types up a reply. Then he deletes the reply. It takes about three different almost-identical messages before Riz presses send and shoves his crystal into his pocket.
Riz: Okay, cool. I should be there in about 20 minutes.
Fabian: *thumbs up*
18 minutes later, Riz arrives at the shooting range behind Augefort Adventuring Academy. It’s set up in the far corner of the outdoor area, just barely in view of the bloodrush field and only a few meters from the street. The fields are all mostly deserted as he walks through them, with only a few adults running laps around the track. The shooting range, too, is completely empty. He’d beaten Fabian, then. That was good. Was it good? It was probably good. Punctuality was something Riz took very seriously, and Fabian didn’t seem like the type who would appreciate being kept waiting. Then again, maybe he’d just shrug it off like he did with everything else. Riz is glad he isn’t going to find out which one it was today, at any rate, though his body still thrums with nervous energy. He feels a bit like throwing up. He can’t tell if that’s because of excitement or anxiety or because he’s still thinking about his dad every few minutes, still feeling an empty ache in his chest and a brittle fragility in his bones. It’s fine. He isn’t thinking about it.
Riz pulls out his gun and fires.
It goes wide, a bit, hitting the edge of one of the targets with a satisfying thunk. Riz relishes the muffled sound of the silenced gunshot, the shock in his shoulder as it recoils. He takes a deep breath, and some of his nausea subsides.
He settles into a rhythm very quickly: point, aim, shoot, point, aim, don’t think about your father, shoot, point, don’t think about what a long time five years is, aim, shoot, point –
“Hey! The Ball!”
Riz wheels around in an instant, gun reflexively held up in front of him. Fabian, still several feet away, takes a step back and holds his hands up placatingly, before scoffing and lowering them. Riz's eyes go wide and he fumbles as he clicks the safety back on, stowing the arquebus in its holster.
“Fabian! Don’t - don't sneak up on me like that,” he grumbles, face hot with embarrassment.
“Okay, first of all, I literally announced my presence, that is like, the opposite of sneaking. You should know that, you’re the rogue here.”
“Alright, well,” Riz starts to reply, but Fabian interrupts him.
“Second, you’re too jumpy. I know we don’t know each other all that well, alright, but I don’t like being shot at.”
“I didn’t shoot you!” Riz protests. “And I prefer to think of myself as alert . Ready for anything.”
Fabian dramatically rolls his eyes. “Jumpy, alert, same thing. You can’t just go pointing guns at people for saying hello.”
Riz’s face heats up again, and he ducks his head. “Fine, okay, I’m sorry I pointed a gun at you. It’s just - you startled me, okay?”
"Whatever," Fabian says. "It's fine."
There's a long, awkward silence. Riz feels heart rate start to pick up again from where it settled after he recognized Fabian. Fabian shifts his weight, and clears his throat.
"So," he starts. "What is this, for one of your classes, or something?"
In a rush, Riz is reminded why he came here in the first place, and he tenses.
No, I'm trying to forget about my dead dad, he doesn't say.
"Oh, uh, no. I just like to come here sometimes," he replies instead. "Gotta keep the skills sharp, and everything!" He does a weak set of finger guns. Fabian looks unimpressed.
"Why, are you here for a class?" Riz continues. The idea makes him feel disappointed, for some reason, that Fabian might be here for homework and not just to hang out with Riz. Fabian scoffs at this, though, and shakes his head.
"Please, the Ball, as if I'd be doing homework on a Saturday. I just haven't trained with my crossbow in a while, wanted to, y’know, get back into it."
Alright. Well, better that than being forced to for school, Riz supposed. At least Fabian's still here because he wants to be here. Riz will take this as a win.
"Okay, cool! Cool," Riz says. "Let's do it, then."
Fabian doesn't say anything in response, just loads his crossbow and fires into the closest target.
They shoot side by side for several minutes, mostly in silence. Riz keeps glancing over at Fabian, trying to check that this is normal friend behavior, that it isn't weird or awkward for them not to be talking or anything. He thinks sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Fabian looking at him as well. Riz thinks about his dad, too, however much he tries not to. Every time he does he just grits his teeth and tries to fire the gun harder, somehow.
Eventually, Riz gets pulled too deep in the whirlpool of his own head as he's trying to remember his dad's voice. There's barely anything there when he reaches for it - just small snippets, like a man saying Riz's name, or half a sentence fading in and out. When Riz dives deeper and comes up empty and spluttering, his finger twitches on instinct, and a wild shot fires from his arquebus, sending a plume of dirt up right near the fence at the edge of the field.
"Shit."
"Jesus, the Ball." Fabian turns to him, eyebrows raised. "You do realize we're aiming for the targets, yes?"
Riz still feels raw, twitchy, but he'd be damned if he let Fabian see that. So instead he turns to him, defiant. "Hey, you've missed a bunch of shots and I haven't said anything."
Fabian's expression of smugness turns to one of outrage. "Excuse you, I've missed two, I'd hardly call that 'a bunch'. And it wasn't nearly as bad as that one. You're lucky you didn't hit a car, or a - a person, or something."
"Alright, well, I wasn't the one who put the shooting range right next to the street, okay. The architects should've put this where the bloodrush field is, or something."
Fabian scoffs at that, somehow growing even more offended. "Absolutely not," he protests, "the bloodrush field needs to be front and center. It's the only thing worthwhile here at this godforsaken school."
Riz's eyebrows climb up his forehead, thoughts of his father falling to the back of his mind at the opportunity to provoke Fabian. "Really? But you aren’t even on the team."
Fabian splutters, reddens, and Riz grins. Finally Fabian grumbles, "Well I should be, alright! It's not my fault Coach Daybreak is a stubborn idiot who wouldn't know talent if it hit him in the face."
"Shame," Riz says. It's fun talking to Fabian like this, he realizes, and he decides to push just a little deeper. "But hey, at least now you're friends with us instead of those bloodrush guys."
Fabian rolls his eyes, puffs out his chest. “We are not friends,” he says archly.
“Sure we are!” Riz continues, undeterred. “We’re here, hanging out, doing friendship stuff. And we eat lunch together, and we’re in the same adventuring party. That’s friend shit! We’re friends!”
Fabian makes several noises of protest, but he’s clearly at a loss for what to say. Instead he hoists his crossbow and points it at Riz, though Riz can see his finger is nowhere near the trigger.
“If you keep saying we’re friends I’m going to shoot you,” he threatens.
“Can't shoot me if you can't find me!” And to prove a point, Riz fires his gun into the nearest target. When Fabian’s eyes are drawn to the bullet, Riz dives behind one of the benches and crouches in the shadows, out of sight of Fabian.
“You little shit,” Fabian says when he realizes. “Now I’m for sure going to shoot you.”
Riz isn’t worried - his stealth is much better than Fabian’s perception, and he’s 90% confident that Fabian doesn’t actually want to kill him. Still he watches Fabian from the small gaps in the steel benches, shifting deeper into shadow when Fabian starts moving closer to his chosen spot. After about a minute, though, Riz starts to get antsy as he sees Fabian utterly fail to get even close to finding him. So he edges over to the side of the bench and sticks his head out from behind it.
He'd planned to say something else to provoke Fabian, maybe throw up a middle finger, but as it turns out he'd misjudged Fabian's line of sight, so that when Riz's head emerges from behind the bench Fabian is staring directly at him. In an instant, Fabian's eyes narrow, and Riz ducks just as a crossbow bolt sails about an inch to the left of where his head had been.
"Hey!" Riz says, sticking his head out again. He immediately has to duck once more, as Fabian sends another arrow flying towards him, this time slightly above his head. "Stop that!" he calls, from safely behind the bench this time. "You could have actually hit me."
"That's the idea, the Ball!" Fabian replies cheerily.
From his view below the benches, Riz can see Fabian standing still, reloading his crossbow. Given the fact that he'd revealed his hiding place, it's probably a good sign that Fabian is staying in the middle of the small dirt shooting area rather than advancing to his position. There's still an 85% certainty that Fabian isn't actually trying to kill him, then. So there's an 85% certainty that the plan Riz is formulating won't go horribly wrong.
Riz creeps toward the edge of the bench, getting as close to Fabian as he can without leaving cover. He clicks the safety back on on his gun and stows it in his holster. Then, when he's sure Fabian is looking his way, he pokes his head up over the bench again, just for a second. An arrow sails past almost immediately, but Riz doesn't wait to see where it lands. Instead he barrels out from the side of the bench and leaps, latching onto Fabian's arm while he's trying to reload the crossbow and scrambling up to sit on his shoulders. For good measure, he pulls his gun out and puts it to the side of Fabian's head. The safety's still on, of course, but Fabian doesn't know that. Riz grins.
"Ha! I got you."
"Oh, you little shit - get off of me!" Fabian protests. He reaches up to pull Riz down, and Riz presses his gun slightly harder into Fabian's head. Fabian lowers his hand, slowly.
"Look, I - I wasn't actually trying to hit you, alright? So it would be a really dick move for you to shoot me right now."
With his free hand, Riz pumps a fist into the air. "I knew it! We are friends."
"Okay, that’s a stretch, all I said is I wasn't trying to kill you-"
“We’re best friends.”
“We’re not -”
Fabian keeps protesting, but Riz is cackling too hard to hear him.
---------------------------
It becomes a regular thing, after that first afternoon. It's rare that Riz and Fabian go a month without going to the shooting range together at least once. Sometimes some of their other friends will join; there's one memorable occasion where Fig convinces Gorgug to teach her to throw a hand ax and she almost kills Riz, which gets her a permanent ban on using projectile weapons. Most often, though, it's just the two of them. Riz calls it their best-friend bonding time, and Fabian complains, but as the school year wears on his complaints get less and less sincere.
Freshman year was going amazing, better than Riz had ever imagined, despite the needling guilt at not finding Penny yet. So it's inevitable, almost, for it all to come crashing down. The only thing surprising is how fast it happens: there's the dream, and the party, and then Riz is standing in a secret office looking at his dad on a recording, his dad who he apparently never knew, not really, not the truth of him, his dad who's so cool and who's a total badass and who's not here.
He watches the video of his dad 4 more times after his mom goes to bed, huddled in his room with his earbuds plugged into the crystal. He can almost quote it by the time he sets the crystal down by his side, powered off. Riz doesn't cry. He just wrings his hands, swishes his tail back and forth, trying to push out the hollow buzzing he feels everywhere in his body. He might be shaking, or else that's just the quivering feeling of some sort of giddy longing building up in his chest, until he thinks his bones might crack with the pressure. He's happy and excited and desperately wants to sob. But the tears never come.
It's past 1 in the morning when Riz decides he has to leave. It's almost guaranteed he's not getting any sleep tonight anyway, and he's filled with a sort of manic energy that makes it difficult to stay still in his bed. So he takes his briefcase and his dad's arquebus, which fits almost perfectly into his holster, and sneaks out the door.
He wanders without thinking of where he's going, just walking the dark and empty streets. It isn't until he's face to face with the Augefort Adventuring Academy that he realizes where he is, and he could almost laugh. Instead he rests a hand on his dad's gun, and sets off across the field to the shooting range.
The bloodrush field is predictably deserted, still torn up from their fight with Daybreak, but as Riz approaches the familiar corner where the targets are set up he spots a figure, sitting alone on the benches. He sighs, resigning himself to wandering the streets instead of shooting until he can't think anymore. But as he turns, he catches a glimpse of bright white hair, familiar in its intensity. Riz stops, eyes narrowed.
“Fabian?” he calls, tentatively.
He sees the figure stiffen, place a hand on his sword.
“Who’s there?” The voice that comes back is unmistakably Fabian’s, despite the uncharacteristic tremor in it, and Riz feels his tense muscles relax slightly. Before Riz can reply, Fabian continues.
“Look, it’s been a bit of a rough night, and I’m really not in the mood to play nice right now, so if you’re here to kill me or something I’d recommend you fuck off, whoever you are.”
“Woah, woah, it's cool, Fabian, it’s me. It’s - it’s Riz.”
Riz remembers now, Seacaster Manor, the way Mr. Seacaster had looked so angry and disappointed with Fabian before he left them, the way Fabian had made himself small and sullen after. He’d put it to the back of his mind, caught up in all the other things that happened that night, but maybe Fabian hadn’t been able to do the same.
While he’s thinking Fabian turns, squints. “The Ball?” he asks, incredulous. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” he replies, though he’s got an inkling, crossing the last few feet to Fabian and sitting down beside him. Fabian looks down at him, briefly, before humming and turning his gaze back toward the targets.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says simply.
“Yeah, well, me neither.”
They sit in silence for a while, neither moving, world silent except the occasional car passing by and the sound of their twin breathing. Eventually Riz gets too fed up with the stillness, hands buzzing by his side, and he nudges Fabian.
“Want me to turn the lights on?” he asks.
Fabian looks at him, eyebrows raised. “Isn’t the control panel locked, or something?”
Riz rolls his eyes. “I’m a rogue, remember? Picking locks is kinda my whole deal.”
“I don’t think I have seen you ever once pick a lock, ever.”
“Wh - I - Well, I can,” Riz shoots back, voice rising slightly. “There just haven’t been any locks to pick. If there were, I totally would have gotten them open.” He sits back, arms crossed. “And anyway, I’ve picked the lock on the lights before, it’s super easy.”
Fabian’s expression shifts from amused to confused. “Really? When? Why?”
“Before I was at Augefort. I’d come here sometimes when my mom was working late and I couldn’t sleep. Turning the lights on made it easier to shoot.”
Riz wasn’t aware this would be some kind of revelation, but when he turns to look at Fabian he looks baffled. “What?” Riz asks, starting to feel defensiveness creep up his spine. “That’s not weird. That’s - you’re weird if you think it’s weird!”
“Oh, no, that is weird, the Ball. What were you, 10, sneaking out at night to go shoot things? That’s weird as fuck.”
“I wasn’t 10, I didn’t even get my first gun until I was 11 -”
“Oh, I’m sorry, yes. That makes it so much better! An 11-year-old sneaking out at night to go shoot things, then.”
“Didn’t you say you started learning to swordfight at age, like, 7?” Riz shoots back.
“I - I - Yes, alright, I did, but that’s a sword,” Fabian protests, “and it was wooden blades, when I first started.”
“That’s gotta be the same amount of weird as a gun,” Riz says. “Look, do you want me to turn the lights on or not?”
Fabian sighs dramatically. “No”, he says, after a moment of thinking. Then softer: “I’d rather not… call attention to us, right now.”
Riz looks at Fabian, eyes narrowed, but his insight isn’t high enough to tell what that means.
“Okay,” he says simply, hopping up off the bench. “Well I’m still going to shoot stuff. You want to join, or you want to sit there and watch?”
Fabian waves a hand. “Go ahead, I’ll watch.”
Riz nods. He pulls his father’s gun from the holster in one motion, feels the weight of it in his hands. It’s a bit lighter than his old arquebus, a bit smaller. Easier to hide in a bag or under a jacket, which Riz imagines is beneficial when you’re an undercover agent. The black finish is darker even than the night around him. Riz thinks about his father, and he’s filled again with that hollow excitement, that longing ache. It’s so intense it nearly chokes him, but instead of gasping out Riz spins toward the targets almost on reflex, aims, fires.
The recoil is more intense than he’s used to and the shot goes wide, striking just the edge of the target. Despite the power behind it, the actual gunshot is nearly silent. Riz turns the gun in his hand, marveling at the quality of it.
In a rare moment of perception, Fabian leans forward, looks curiously at first the gun in Riz's hand, then up at his face.
"Is that a new gun?" he asks.
Riz stiffens. "Yes."
There's a long pause. Because despite being overjoyed about having a cool badass secret agent dad, Riz thinks he might throw up if he has to talk about it right now. So he doesn't say anything.
Fabian, though, clearly cannot read this, and he presses on. "How did you get a new gun in what - 3 hours?"
Riz sighs. "It was my dad's," he admits, soft and still somewhat disbelieving. Saying it, he feels like he's going to cry again.
"Oh." Fabian looks at Riz, face kind if somewhat panicked, and doesn't say anything for a moment.
"Cool," he finally says. "And is that - do you want to explain that?"
Now it's Riz's turn to panic, because he really thinks he's going to start crying or maybe throw up if they keep talking about this, so he casts about for anything possible to change the subject.
"How's your dad, Fabian?" is what he lands on. It comes out more blunt than he means it to. He winces as Fabian's face falls, watching his friend curl in on himself as the question makes impact.
"He's… fine," Fabian replies, curt. "Gave me some information about the case, too."
Riz's ears perk up at that. "Really? What'd he say?"
Fabian sighs, long-suffering. "I don't want to have to repeat myself, the Ball, just wait until I tell everyone tomorrow morning."
Riz frowns at that. As the team detective, he feels like he should get to hear all the clues first, but he's not in the mood to push it right now.
"Fine," he concedes. "I've got some stuff to tell the others as well, we'll catch each other up tomorrow." He pauses. Takes a deep breath. "Let's just… not talk about dads right now,” he adds quickly. “Or the case."
"I 100% support that plan."
There's a quiet moment. Riz glances at the gun still in his hands, and back to the targets in front of them.
"Want to see who can hit more bull's-eyes?" he offers.
"Oh hell yes," Fabian responds, immediately standing and pulling his crossbow out of his bag. "Loser has to buy the other ice cream?"
"How about if I win you buy me ice cream, and if you win I'll do your math homework for a week?"
"Deal." Fabian turns and shoots, hitting just shy of the target's center. "Ha- ha ! Beat that, the Ball!"
Riz grins. Turns, aims, and fires.
Fabian wins in the end, much to Riz's frustration and his own delight. They ride home a little after 3am, streets dark and silent except for the Hangman's roaring engine. Riz is feeling lighter, the weight of his father's gun on his side no longer dragging him down. And once he's back in his room, he falls asleep easily.
---------------------------
There's a party, after William Seacaster's funeral, a huge chaotic event full of drunk adults and even drunker teenagers, all dancing and shouting and fighting while loud sea shanties blare in the background. It's exactly what Bill would have wanted, according to both Cathilda and Hallariel. Truth be told, Riz is made somewhat anxious by it all, but all his friends are there and it's important to Fabian, so. So he stays. He sits with Adaine in the kitchen, talking and helping Cathilda with drinks and snacks and washing dishes, though she tries repeatedly to usher them away. Checks in with his mom about three times to make sure the police are on standby in case things get out of hand. He even lets himself be dragged to the dance floor by Fig, his movements jerky and awkward and off-beat but still tremendously fun. When she smiles at him, he smiles back. He dances with Penny, too, and when she grabs his hands Riz is so happy to have her back he feels like he might explode.
In the middle of all of it is Fabian, proudly sporting his father's eyepatch, Sword of the Seacasters affixed to his hip. He's as loud and energetic as ever, commanding attention wherever he goes. He toasts his father, and his mother, who blows him a kiss in recognition from her spot in the corner, coffee mug in hand and bags under her eyes. His smile never once drops as he whirls through the party, offering drinks, taking on friendly sparring matches, occasionally stopping to check in and joke with the rest of the Bad Kids. He's the perfect host. It's only because Riz knows him so well at this point that he notices how Fabian's laughter is a bit too sharp to be natural; his glued-on smile is never quite sincere.
Riz doesn't say anything about it to anyone. If anyone else notices, they don't mention it either. He's not sure what good it would do to bring it up, and he knows better than the rest of them that there's nothing he could say to Fabian that would make the hurting stop. So he doesn't say anything. He just enjoys the party as best he can, keeps an eye out for Fabian to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. For the first few hours, that's all he does. But once the sun is starting to set, and the energy of the party is beginning to slow somewhat, he realizes he hasn't seen or heard Fabian in at least half an hour. He's in the kitchen when he notices, sitting with Adaine, Gorgug, and Hallariel, watching Cathilda pull fresh cookies out of the oven. He hops down from his stool with a mumbled excuse and begins to pace through all the other rooms of the party, detective mode engaged. He sees the seven maidens, sitting on the floor in a circle talking quietly amongst themselves. Penny catches his eye and waves, and he waves back, grinning despite his nervous concern. He also sees Kristen, already passed out on a couch in one of the smaller rooms, her head pillowed in Tracker's lap. This is an important enough development that he takes a picture with Tracker's blessing and sends it to the party group chat (Gorgug immediately replies "aww " and Adaine sends back just the eyes emoji), but it’s also not what he went looking for. Fabian isn't in any of the main rooms, so Riz heads back to the kitchen.
“Hey, do any of you know where Fabian is?” he asks upon reentering the kitchen. All four occupants look up, confusion flashing across their faces.
“I mean, last I saw him I think he was convincing people to jump in the pool? Or maybe he was going to jump in the pool by himself? I don’t know. But that was a while ago,” Gorgug says, face furrowed the way it does when he’s thinking.
“Yeah, I haven’t seen him in a while,” Adaine adds. “Why, what do you need?”
“Oh, I don’t need anything, just - just curious, is all.” Riz shuffles his feet. “I just… want to make sure he’s okay, and all.”
Cathilda smiles at him at that, well-worn laugh lines crinkling in the corners of her eyes.
Hallariel clears her throat. “I believe I saw him slip out of the main hall the same time I came to join you all here in the kitchen. I rather assumed he was coming to find one of your group, or using the restroom, or something of the sort. But I’m sure he’ll be back soon enough, wherever it is he’s gone to.”
“Right,” Riz says. He believes her, mostly, but there’s still a fluttering unease in his chest. “I think I’m gonna try and find him anyway, just to be sure.”
“I think that’s an excellent plan, Riz,” Cathilda says. She presses a heavy plate of cookies into his hands, still warm. “Give him these for me if you find him, would you? And don’t forget to have a few for yourself, as well.” She winks at him, before continuing. “Do you know where Fabian’s room is? It’s up the stairs, down the hallway to your left.”
“Let us know if you find him, Riz,” Adaine says.
“Got it. I will.”
Cathilda stops him with a hand on his shoulder before he can leave.
“You know, Master Fabian is very fortunate to have a friend like you,” she says warmly. She pats his shoulder. “Enjoy the cookies!”
Riz feels himself blush. “Oh, uh, yeah. Thanks.”
He flees out the kitchen, pausing to inhale a cookie before making his way up the stairs. It’s delicious, obviously. Fabian’s door is near the end of the left hallway, nearly indistinguishable from all the other doors on this floor. Riz knocks lightly.
“Hello?” Fabian calls after a moment.
“It’s Riz. Are you - Can I open this door?”
“Oh, the Ball. Just - one second.”
Riz hears some scuffling on the other side of the door before it is thrown open, revealing an upright Fabian with his chest puffed out. His face doesn’t show any expression, but judging by the puffy redness of his one remaining eye, Riz would guess he’s been crying. He feels a pang of sympathy.
“Hey,” Riz says quietly. He lifts up the plate in his hand. “Cathilda baked cookies.” Without waiting for an invitation, he ducks under Fabian’s arm and moves into the room, setting the plate on one of his bedside tables. Fabian turns to watch him, still standing in the open doorway. When Riz sits on Fabian’s (truly, absurdly plush) bed, Fabian sighs.
“Right. And is that all, or…?”
Riz shrugs. His anxiety dissipated somewhat, when he heard Fabian’s voice, but it’s still there simmering under the surface, and it spikes when he realizes he actually has no idea what to say to Fabian, how to provide any amount of comfort.
“Yeah,” he settles on. “Just - coming to check in, and she asked me to bring you some. They’re really good cookies, you should try them.”
Fabian doesn’t move for a beat. Then he sighs again, long-suffering, and crosses the room to take a cookie. When he bites into it, Riz sees surprise and delight cross his face for a second, before snapping back to the same neutral expression as before.
“That is a damn good cookie,” Fabian admits.
"Right?” Riz replies, and he takes another.
Fabian sits next to him on the bed. There’s silence for a long while, broken only by the two boys taking turns to grab more cookies.
“Cool party,” Riz says eventually, interrupting the quiet.
Fabian scoffs. “Of course it’s a cool party, it’s a Seacaster party,” he says. “Seacaster parties are always cool. They’re the coolest.”
Riz tilts his head, thinking. “I mean, there haven’t actually been any other Seacaster parties, have there?”
“Uh, yes there definitely have been.” Fabian’s volume raises as he picks up steam. “Maybe none you’ve been invited to, but there have been some wild parties here. Papa and Cathilda would organize them, for my birthdays and whatnot.” He pauses, and his energy drops again. “Which, you know, he won’t be doing anymore,” he continues, voice tight, “but that’s - that’s fine. I can throw parties myself. And they’ll be sick as hell.”
“Right,” Riz replies slowly. “That’s - well - I mean, this party is sick as hell. So.” Riz takes a deep breath. “For what it’s worth, I think your dad would have been really into it.”
Fabian gives him a small, soft smile. “Thanks, the Ball.” He clears his throat. “I wish he could’ve seen it, but. Y’know.”
“Yeah,” Riz says. “I… really do know.”
He really does know.
There’s a heavy silence between them for a moment, before Fabian slaps his hand to his knee, breaking it.
“Right!” he says, some bravado creeping back into his voice. “Well, I don’t want to bring the mood down at an epic Seacaster party. You should go join everyone else downstairs, I’ll be there in a bit.”
Riz stares at Fabian curiously. His shoulders are still tense, expression a forced neutral.
“I mean, I can - I can go, if you want me to, but, uh - loud, crowded parties aren’t really my vibe? I’m not,” Riz sort of bobs his head, “the most comfortable. In that. So it’s just - whatever you want me to do, Fabian. I don’t mind staying.”
Fabian groans, runs his hands over his face, and Riz is suddenly worried that he pushed too far. But when Fabian looks at him, his expression is just exhausted.
“Look, I… appreciate that,” he says, “but I - I’m good! I’m great, alright. I just need, like, 10 minutes, to be away from - all that, and then I’ll be back downstairs, ready to go. Okay?”
“Okay,” Riz agrees. Then his eyes land on the crossbow leaned against Fabian’s wall, and he has a different idea.
“Or,” he begins, before he can lose his nerve, “if you don’t want to go back downstairs, we could maybe go shooting? Only if you want to!” he adds quickly, as Fabian turns to him, confused.
“Shooting?” he asks, incredulous, “Like, at Augefort? To the shooting range?”
“Yeah,” Riz says, slightly defensive. “If you want. Like, if you want to be away from people for a while. I go there to - to clear my head, sometimes.”
“The Ball, I’m in the middle of hosting a party right now, I can’t just leave.”
“I mean, Cathilda’s here. So is your mom. They could probably handle it the rest of the night. And I can give the others a head’s up that we’re leaving.”
Fabian hums. Considers, for a second. Then he shrugs and stands up.
“Yeah, okay, fuck it,” he says. “Let’s go shoot some shit.”
“Really?” Riz replies, shocked despite it being his idea. He scrambles to the floor, almost falling off the bed in his excitement. “Okay, cool! Cool. I’ll tell the others and meet you outside?”
“Sounds good,” Fabian says, giving him a thumbs up.
5 minutes later, the two of them are on the Hangman, riding to the Augefort Academy shooting range. 20 minutes later, Riz is laughing as Fabian swears at his fourth miss in a row. And then 2 hours later they’re in a booth at Basrar’s with all the rest of the Bad Kids, and Fabian is acting like himself again, telling them for the third time how badass his dad was right before he died. And it’s not perfect but it’s enough, for today.
That summer, as part of the repairs to Seacaster Manor, Fabian adds a shooting range.