Chapter Text
It all started back in September, when Fabian first started “Lo-fi Study Nights at Seacaster Manor: Brought to you by The Applebees Campaign: ‘It’s Always Happy Hour at Applebees’”. (The banner they made for the study area truly took forever to make).
Fabian was self-aware enough to recognize that the only reason he suggested it in the first place was because he was lonely. The large size of his father’s manor had always been something that brought him great pride… but now it was his manor. And the rooms were too big, the halls were too long for just one teenager to inhabit. And yet, when he spoke, his voice would carry and echo throughout the entire house, and it sounded so hollow. It was pathetic.
Sometimes while he was laying in bed, his thoughts would drift to Mordred Manor. He didn’t mean to, but he would imagine how, at this very moment, Kristen and Fig were probably making plans for the next Steelworkers’ Union event, with Riz facetiming in on his crystal. Jawbone would be checking in with Adaine, trying to make sure she was coping with the sudden absence of her sister. Lydia might’ve recruited Ragh and Sandra-Lynn to help her make all of those giant, trash-bag lunches for the rest of the kids. He could practically hear the laughter, the bickering, the joking around. At those moments, he could feel every square inch of his darkened, silent estate, and it was suffocating.
So yeah, his solution was to try to fill that black hole with a bit of life. Sue him. He made his house as enticing as possible, complete with a barista and the actual girl from those lo-fi beats videos. He’d invited everyone- even the freshman!
A couple weeks in, and everything was going fantastically according to plan. Fabian would have Owlbears’ practice during the week, so he’d hired a butler to let in any students that wanted to come over right after school. This had been a stroke of genius, because it meant on Mondays- Thursdays, the whole place was already bustling by the time he got home. People rarely came over to study on Fridays and Saturdays, but that was okay, because that was when Fabian was hard at work preparing for the themed parties. On Sundays, dozens of students were back to finish their weekend homework.
“It’s crazy that we’re, like, always here,” Adaine said one afternoon, setting down her pencil. All six of them were sitting at one of the many tables, working quietly up until that moment.
“Yeah, I can’t remember the last time I did any schoolwork anywhere besides this room,” Fig agreed.
Riz sighed. “Fig, you literally filled out your Warlock homework as you were walking to the classroom last night.”
“That is very true, I did do that,” Fig said with a smirk.
“That’s not something to be PROUD of!”
“Not to you, it’s not.” Fig, perplexingly, gave a suggestive wink.
“What?!” Kristen burst out as everyone laughed incredulously.
“Anyways,” Adaine interjected. “My point being that I can’t believe we haven’t all hung out at Mordred together since before the Night Yorb.”
“Huh, I guess you’re right… that’s… really.. weird,” Gorgug said without once looking up from his mountain of Artificer worksheets. Everybody was unprecedentedly busy, but Gorgug was barely even able to contribute to conversations anymore, so determined to keep up with his peers even with his 400% course load.
“God, imagine if these study sessions was something we did back in freshman year, when I was still living with my parents- I really never would’ve left!” Kristen laughed.
Adaine did an exaggerated nod, “Fabian would’ve had to kick me out every night!”
“He kind of indirectly does now…” Fig mused. “Well not us, but everyone else.”
Fabian frowned. He’d been only half-listening to the conversation, too absorbed in memorizing plays for the Owlbears, but this piqued his interest. “What’s this about me kicking people out of my house? I’ve never done that in my life.”
“Well, yeah, I guess it’s not you, but your butler does.” When Fabian’s only response was looking confused, Fig continued. “Yeah, whenever you go up to bed, Wilfred goes around and tells anyone who’s still here to finish up and get going. Except for the five of us- he lets us stay. I kinda figured you knew this…”
Fabian did not know this. He just assumed everyone eventually left on their own when they were done, or too tired to continue. He’d never asked for Wilfred to kick anyone out.
As his friends were listing out possible demeaning nicknames for Wilfred, Fabian discreetly left the conversation and made his way towards his butler, who was an extremely tall, rail-thin half-orc.
“Is there a problem, sir?” Wilfred asked as Fabian approached.
“Not necessarily a problem, but a question. Are you kicking people out of the manor every night?”
The half-orc looked a bit taken aback by this. “Why, yes, I suppose you could say that, although ‘kicking out’ is a pretty harsh way of putting it.”
“Uh- can I ask why?”
“I just assumed you would want quiet when you went to bed.” He said it as though the idea of Fabian looking for quiet wasn’t inconceivable. “Besides, by the time you head to your room, sir, it’s fairly late anyway; I would hate for any parents to worry about where their kids are.”
His line of reasoning made sense… But all of a sudden, Fabian couldn’t help but think about the kids who had to worry about their parents. People like Kristen and Adaine, who might’ve had no place to turn to when things got bad. He thought of Wilfred sending some poor freshman back to an ice-cold home. He thought of all the untouched guest rooms here, at his own house. The next words came tumbling out as he thought of them.
“Hey Wilfred? Why don’t we rent the bedrooms out to other students?”
“Rent the rooms?” Wilfred looked bewildered.
“Well not rent them, per se, I obviously don’t need to charge anyone for the rooms.” Fabian chuckled nervously. “But… allow some of the other kids to sleep in them- reserve them, if you will.”
“I suppose.. if that is what you wish, it sounds like a wonderful idea.”
-
The next day, as everyone walked in, they passed a binder filled with sheets allowing anyone to “sign-in” for any room at any time, no questions asked.
Of course, most of the other teens had at least somewhat stable home lives, and had no reason to ever need to reserve a room. However, right before big tests, there would always be a couple students who stayed past midnight studying and decided to crash at the manor. Every once in a while, kids used a room as a safe place to do drugs without being busted. And sometimes, people would just use the manor as a fun hangout spot for a sleepover.
And there were a few regulars, Fabian would notice. (It’s not like he cared, he just needed to take a look at the binder to make sure people weren’t double-booking the rooms, is all.) A couple people, like this senior named Freigha, stayed at least once or twice a week. An underclassman named Gribble would stay for a couple weeks at a time. One person, Marve, had seemed to just move in there permanently.
One Tuesday night, as Fabian was heading to bed, Marve approached Fabian.
“Hey, Fabian?” His voice was hesitant. Fabian turned around to face Marve, a tiefling who looked to be about 16.
“What’s up, man?” Fabian was exhausted from a grueling school day followed by an intense Owlbears practice and then hours of more schoolwork. He wasn’t really in the mood for a long conversation with this near-stranger.
“I- I was wondering if I could decorate my roo- well, the room I’ve been staying in. I have a couple posters and some stuff from my old room, but I just wasn’t sure how long-term you were offering this, and I don’t want to ruin your walls or anything.”
Fabian blinked back- no one had ever come to him asking permission about the manor before. He was still getting used to being the one responsible for an entire estate.
“Uh, yeah, man, do whatever you want! Go crazy! And you don’t have to worry about leaving. You can stay as long as you want here at Seacaster Manor.” Fabian tried to play it off like it was another party-house thing, like he was only doing it to be cool.
But the look on Marve’s face was too genuine, too relieved for Fabian to keep up the act. He pulled Fabian in for a quick hug.
“Thanks, man, I really, really appreciate it.” Marve took a steadying breath (Was he about to cry? Fabian didn’t mean to make him cry). “Alright, goodnight, I’ll see ya tomorrow.” And he went right back to his table to rejoin his friends. Even from this angle, Fabian could see how tall Marve was standing all of a sudden, how confident his gait was. It was as if a tremendous weight had literally been lifted from his shoulders.
Fabian trudged off to bed, his mind preoccupied by what just happened. It really wasn’t a big deal, it was just a room. Marve was the weird one for making it bigger than it was, right? But Fabian thought back to those first few weeks of the school year, how alone he felt. How he cried himself to sleep more than once, though he would never admit that to anyone. And he thought about how badly he needed the house to be busy, how truly fulfilling it was to have a vibrant home. He would do anything to keep it like this forever, to never feel that suffocating loneliness again. Maybe Marve needed a home just as badly as Fabian did.
Fabian was lying in his bed. And although he could hear the soft music and chatter from the first floor, as he was staring up at his dark bedroom, he couldn’t help but feel like his house was still a black hole. His mind once again drifted to Mordred Manor and the Thistlespring Tree and Strongtower Luxury Apartments. All his friends were home now. They probably were being tucked in by their parents, despite their insistences that they were too old for that.
The loneliness was still there. It wasn’t as strong-not enough to be suffocating- and it was buried beneath mounds of responsibility, but he could still feel the pressure on his chest, the heavy pit in his stomach. Fabian took a deep breath, turned to his side, and tried to ignore it. His body would succumb to exhaustion eventually.