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Something’s not right.
There’s a ringing in his ears, drowning out the sounds of Kei Lumennura as Telemaine continues playing harp, Fig and Kristen throwing long ribbons at Adaine as they stand in the silk pile.
Gorgug and Riz are both at his sides, seated in an alcove with an array of lembas bread, grapes and mulled wine spread out before them. The air stirs around them softly, a seemingly never-ending shower of leaves falling down, blossoms and petals floating gently by.
It’s an enchanting scene — the air here is cleaner than anything they have down in Elmville, the light enveloping them all and shrouding them all in glowing halos. Their last stay in Kei Lumennura had felt a bit like coming home, had left him permanently changed and happier. By all accounts, he should feel at ease, here.
There’s a tremor running through him, almost as though his bones are jittering and twitching within his body, and it seems to manifest in an inability to sit still for more than a second. Fabian taps his fingers on the smooth surface of the table before them, his elbow knocking Riz’s, but he can’t seem to focus on it for more than a second.
He’s been feeling off — ever since that stupid bard class where he’d fumbled with the music player, blasting the wrong song and tripping himself up mid-performance. It had been the last class of the day, and between training in fighter classes, running drills for the Owlbears and trying to keep up with all the students in the school, he’d hardly had the time to prepare for dance lessons — and he’d paid for it.
Things had been so chaotic lately, classes and the Rat Grinders and the silent, yawning emptiness of Seacaster Manor tugging at him and rapidly draining his energy.
They were all tired — Kristen had been more unpredictable than ever, Adaine more snappish than ever, and Riz— well, Fabian counted himself lucky if he caught sight of his friend once or twice a week at all.
Exhaustion has been slowly lapping at all of their heels, seemingly increasing with every class, and Fabian’s just so tired. When he’s not jumping up, running around pouring his everything into his daily training, there’s the meetings with the Bad Kids to try and solve the mystery, to uncover the dead god’s name and put a stop to the Rat Grinders and planning for Kristen’s presidency—
Fabian sighs as he rubs his hand wearily across his face, breathing out measuredly in attempt to abate the rising anxiety that crawls up his throat like nausea, the constriction of his ribs as though they’re attempting to squeeze the breath out of his lungs.
He’s barely had time to think for himself ever since the school year started, and it’s starting to get to him. His house is a mess — locating even just a single garbage can or kitchen sink has become an insurmountable task, and by the time he gets home the sun’s already low and he’s already so tired that he’s taken to simply shoving leftovers into every single corner and crevice he could find, so long as it’s out of sight.
Then there’s been the parties — and despite his best efforts, he’s simply barely keeping up with the rest of the students. Drinking and dancing and staying up late has become a telltale recipe for disaster when combined with early morning classes, and so the crazy parties have slowly started simmering down to Lo-Fi study sessions at Seacaster Manor, people pouring in and coming over and filling the otherwise silent house with noise, but no longer overwhelmingly so.
No longer expecting him to keep up his charade for longer than he’s able to.
It’s only in the quietest moments of the day, those deepest and darkest hours of the nights hidden under the duvet where he can almost hear his own thoughts rattling around in his head, that he’s got a moment to think for himself.
To contemplate his life, the choices he’s made so far and the circumstances he’s found himself in time and time again. It’s given him the time to deal with the grief of losing his father, his eye, the lives of twenty trusting people that he led to be slaughtered—
That’ll never wash off, he knows — it’s saturated into his skin, sticky and permanent to the point he’s sometimes wondered if it shows up on one of Riz’s gadgets. It’s something he’s filed away and tries to move past, just like so many other things — with the exception of one.
He’s come to understand the desperation fuelling his actions on Leviathan, the unchangeable outcome of his father’s death, even the weight of his father’s legacy has come to make some kind of sense to him. The only thing he hasn’t understood, the thing that’s always just been that bit out of reach — is his mother’s love.
He doesn’t understand it. He can’t wrap his head around it, around her and her decision to leave him alone, to promise him to do better and forget about him the next day.
He’s racked his brain over and over, running through every possible scenario — what if he’d worked a little harder? What if he’d been a little faster, or smarter, or stronger? What if he’d been a little better?
There’d been no answer, no reason for it, and despite his best efforts to put it out of his mind, the question had been burning a hole behind his ribs for a while, flaring up every time he’d watched Sklonda ruffle Riz’s hair, or Sandra Lynn smile at Fig, or the Thistesprings pull Gorgug into a hug.
Even Jawbone and Lydia, who weren’t biologically related to them, had looked at Adaine and Kristen and Fig and found them worthy of love, had been more affectionate towards their adoptees in the past two years than Hallariel had been to Fabian in… well, he can’t remember, but he’s fairly certain that’s not a good sign, anyway.
Someone says something, and it takes him a moment to realise it’s Gorgug, speaking to him. “Fabian, you ready to go?”
There’s a shoulder bumping against his, and it shakes him from his stupor. Gorgug and Riz are both eyeing him, expectantly waiting for him to respond. “Sure, yes, yes, I’m always ready. To go where, though?”
Riz raises an eyebrow. “Well, I was sort of trying to keep an eye on the rest of the group, so… the silk pile?”
He gestures to Fig, who’s currently pulling on Kristen’s leg in an attempt to get her unstuck from the pile, as Adaine folds up any sheets that Fig tugs free. It’s a funny scene, and Fabian laughs, until his eye drifts over to Jawbone and Sandra Lynn, who are perched together on the lower branches of a fallen tree, eyes glued to the trio as well.
There’s a soft smile on Sandra Lynn’s face, something sweet and enamored and so loving that it makes something curdle in Fabian’s stomach. Jawbone, too, seems entirely at ease and happy here, and there’s an unfamiliar domesticity to the scene that feels… grating, somehow.
Fabian looks around, trying to locate the others. Gilear is still here, speaking in low tones with Telemaine, and Aelwyn’s tapping away at something on her crystal. Ragh’s already emptied one plate of grapes and is making his way through a second, the Thistlesprings are chatting up an extremely uncomfortable-looking elf, and Hallariel…
Hallariel seems to be nowhere in sight.
The spark of discomfort grows. It’s getting harder to swallow around the lump in his throat, a bitter taste on his tongue, and despite being surrounded by his friends, his family, people that he loves — a sense of loneliness washes over him, almost strong enough to sweep him off his feet.
It’s been weeks since he’s seen his mother, months since they’ve had an actual conversation, and yet the first chance they have, their first time seeing each other since she left on her honeymoon — she’s barely taken the time to look at him.
She’s asked him about his classes, and his accomplishments, and then she went on to ask Kristen about Bee Girl, his nemesis, and before long the conversation had spun off into a discussion on Wolfsong and Tracker and Naradriel.
There’s been no moment of quietly catching up together, no private conversation the way Sandra Lynn came over to check on Fig despite the two of them seeing each other every day, the way Gorgug’s parents came over to talk to him at the sight of seeing him upset.
He doesn’t need to talk about his problems, with her — it’s never been a thing they did, and even if he were to feel slightly upset at the moment, truly, there’s no need to bother her with it, but—
It would have been nice to know she cared.
He’s never doubted it before, never been worried or mistrustful that she doesn’t love him for all that she’s always claimed it so boldly, but now that he’s here, watching his friends and their parents split off and spend time together, seeing the way their parents all seem to adore their kids and watch their every move even when they’re being silly, not even doing anything noteworthy—
It doesn’t feel like she loves him. The burning behind his sternum increases, flaming up and searing him from the inside out, and he feels like he’s choking on imaginary smoke.
“Fabian?”
There’s another hand on his shoulder, heavy and warm, and despite the familiarity of the calluses accompanied by Gorgug’s concerned voice, it does nothing to quell the indignation, the furious heartbreak swelling in his chest. “Hey, man, what’s going on?”
Fabian shrugs off Gorgug’s hand, feeling vaguely distant from himself as he turns away from the silk pile and starts looking for his mother. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”
“Dude, you’re being weird,” Riz joins in, scrambling around him to come to a stop in front of him. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine, Riz,” he echoes, already side-stepping him and dodging the clawed hand that reaches out to stop him. “Seriously, don’t worry.”
Riz walks around him again, this time shadowed by Gorgug, who reaches out an arm to stop him in his tracks. “Fabian, talk to me. What’s happening?”
There’s no avoiding Gorgug, not when he’s already thrown his weight into a battle stance and has locked Fabian in place with an arm firmly across his shoulders. Fabian relents and halts, bumping against Gorgug’s hold.
“I just need to find my mother. I want to talk to her.”
Gorgug’s grip on him slackens as Riz peers up curiously at him. “Hallariel? She just left, didn’t we just talk to her?”
“I haven’t talked to her in months,” Fabian says absentmindedly, “not really. I need to know.”
He steps aside and brushes past his friends, retracing their steps from where they first arrived in Kei Lumennura to where he knows the courtyards are. He’s half expecting her to be there, perhaps idly swinging her sword or lounging about, or pouring another glass of—
She’s sober now, he firmly reminds himself, cutting off that train of thought before it can take root. I asked her to sober up, and she did. She loves me.
His vision clears a little bit, and he blinks, the world returning to its usual colours from the red tint that had crept up so gradually he hadn’t even noticed. There’s a tension in his shoulders, his fists clenched, but the ringing in his ears subsides for a moment.
He breathes in, and out, and the compression on his ribs eases slowly. Nothing’s wrong. He’s fine. Everything’s fine.
“Fabian?”
It’s Gorgug again, Riz hot on his heels, and Fabian turns to face them both. “Sorry, I don’t know— I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s okay, man, I know we’ve all been stressed,” Riz enunciates, his tail twitching behind him. “Why don’t we find the others and group up?”
“We should probably talk about whatever this is,” Gorgug agrees, and tugs on Fabian’s shoulder encouragingly. Fabian nods quietly, mind racing.
“I’ve been feeling off all day. I don’t really know, sorry.”
There’s a dissonance between his body and his mind, almost as though he’s floating and watching himself from a distance, and he shivers absentmindedly as he lets himself be dragged along by Gorgug.
“Sorry,” he mumbles again, phantom fire lapping at his throat as he swallows against the tidal wave of grief that suddenly rises up like a tsunami. He doesn’t want to go back to the alcove, to the silk pile with his friends that are happy and their loving parents that make time for them and the ball of guilt and anguish and fury that threatens to swallow up his lungs to make him spit sparks instead. “I don’t want to go back.”
“Go back where?” Riz asks, endlessly patient, and Fabian closes his eye and lets himself drift in the mist that’s descending around him, swallowing him up and away from his body, his awareness.
Go back where? It’s such a kind, indulgent question, imploring in the same way Cathilda used to humour him whenever he negotiated with her for another hour of playtime, or told her about the monsters in his house, or wanted her to ask his mother to come by and say goodnight.
He misses Cathilda. She’s been away for a long time, and he’s missed her — missed the way she’d always ask him about his day, or offer assistance whenever he messed up and made a mistake, or stood up for him and spoke up against Hallariel whenever he was too sick to train.
He misses Cathilda fiercely, suddenly, in the same way he misses his mother — and that’s crazy, because Cathilda is away on Leviathan and his mother is right here. She was right here, standing in front of him, and even though he talked to her and tried to catch her attention she still looked right through him as though he wasn’t even there, and she turned away.
He needs to know. He needs to find her, and ask her — does she even love him? Has she thought of him, just as he’s thought of her these past few months, or has she simply found herself a new husband to replace his dead father and moved on?
“I need to find her,” he repeats, blood rushing in his ears and his heart pounding in his throat. “I need— I need to ask her, I need to know.”
He pulls himself free of Gorgug’s grip, a faint sense déjà vu just barely registering in the corners of his mind, and he shakes his head.
“Fabian, stop,” Riz commands, this time, and he refuses to be side-stepped now. “Something’s wrong, and we’re gonna figure it out. We’re gonna help you, okay?”
Fabian turns to face Riz, an answer at the tip of his tongue, when a flash of pink catches at the edge of his periphery. Telemaine and Gilear have wandered off from the silk pile, and are standing beneath a blossoming tree, surrounded by petals gently raining down around them.
They’re talking to Hallariel, who’s leaning against the tree with an air of practiced nonchalance, head thrown back in laughter as she swirls a crystal glass with one hand. There’s a deep purple-red liquid in it, and the sight of it in her hand is so familiar that it burns.
There’s a rhythmic beating in his ears, his heartbeat thumping as his pulse thuds in his throat, and any words that he tries to get out get stuck behind the lump that’s growing, growing, growing until he can barely hear anything but the sound of his own ragged breathing.
He rips himself free from restraining hands and holds, and stalks closer. Telemaine is holding out a blossom, presenting it to Gilear, who shakes his head. Telemaine places the flower on the top of Gilear’s head. Fabian’s close enough to touch it, if he wants to.
“Mama.”
He’s barely aware of the fact that it’s his own voice coming out, sound only distantly filtering in over the ringing in his ears. Hallariel glances up and smiles halfheartedly at his approach. “Ah, Fabian, darling. I was just talking to your grandfather.”
“I need to talk to you,” he grits out, flames like barbed wire digging into his throat and spilling out from behind his teeth. “Please.”
She loves me. She loves me. He repeats it like a mantra, the faintest shred of awareness clinging onto his body, red lights going off inside his mind.
There’s a strange fury coursing through his veins, unfamiliar and foreign and unwelcome, and it’s slowly cutting off his air supply, muddling his thoughts and puppeteering his body without his command.
Talk to me. Tell me that you love me.
The words refuse to come out, swallowed up by the inferno burning up his lungs, clogging up his airways, and instead he stands very still, every muscle tense as though prepared to fight.
Hallariel’s eyes flick over to him momentarily and she waves a hand in his direction. “Later, darling. I’m busy.”
“It’s important.”
It’s robotic, sounding so unlike himself it’s almost as though he’s watching someone else in his place, and when he turns his head he’s almost startled to find Riz and Gorgug having come up behind him, both having been just out of sight by standing on his blind side.
They’re talking to him, he registers in a faraway, barely-present part of his mind, but his focus is elsewhere. Hallariel’s not even looking at him, her blonde hair obscuring the side of her head as she’s turned away from him, falling back into conversation with Gilear.
“— and so we’ll need to make sure to strip the old office, get the curtains replaced and perhaps paint over it in a more tranquil colour. Truly, I’m so excited to be welcoming—”
“— Could you pay attention, just this once?”
It spills out of him, harsh and biting, and the conversation immediately falls silent. Hallariel freezes for a moment, before slowly turning on her heel and staring him down, mouth pulled sharply into a thin line.
“Fah-bian!”
Telemaine’s shocked reprimand is lost as Fabian rounds on his mother, red-hot blaze in his throat and lightning in his veins. “I have something to ask you.”
Hallariel draws herself up, haughty and untouchable as she can be, as she always has been, and looks down at him with cold, furious eyes. “I said, that I was busy.”
“I heard you. And I don’t care. You’ve been busy my whole life, I’m sure you can spare a minute.”
He’s a ghost inside his own body, watching as his mother is struck speechless for the first time he remembers. There’s a trembling in his bones, rattling to be let out, viciously howling and crying yes yes yes, she needs to hurt the way she’s been hurting him all his life.
“You don’t love me.”
Somewhere behind him is a sharp intake of breath, Gorgug telling Riz to “Get the others, now,” and the pattering of feet scurrying away. It’s drowned out by the buzzing in his ears, the laser focus on his mother that only sharpens as she continues to stand there, unmoving.
“You never have, have you? You don’t care about what I do with my life.”
Hallariel looks him up and down, and glances sideways to where Fabian’s faintly sure Gorgug is still standing, before she smoothes her expression into a cold smile and blinks down at him. “Sweetie, what are you talking about? Of course I love you!”
It pours from her lips like devil’s honey, cloying and sickly sweet and unnatural, and the fury sparks and sparks and ignites.
“Tell me the truth!”
There’s hands on his shoulders, the fluttering of a robe as Telemaine backs away, and a sudden clamour in his ears. “Hey, woah, Fabian!”
His hand is on his sword, Fandrangor gleaming at his side, and opposite him Hallariel has her own blade drawn. His vision turns misty, a gleaming cloud colouring the world in a blood-red haze. “Don’t fucking lie to me!”
Hallariel steps closer, her blade flicking through the air as she levels it at him, using the edge to tip his chin up the way she’s done hundreds of times before.
This time, Fabian doesn’t move an inch, and a thin slice of red begins dripping down the metal. The singing in his veins amplifies at the sight of it, violence trembling at the tips of his fingers, and Fabian carefully, deliberately unsheathes Fandrangor.
The grip holding him back disappears.
“You were never there for me,” he hisses through clenched teeth, leaning into the blade and relishing in the way her eyes widen almost imperceptibly. Power thrums in his veins, reaching out and begging him to lash out, and he fights to get the words out. “You never even looked at me. It was all a lie.”
It’s not him saying it, not fully — there’s a violent beast tearing at his ribs, poisoning his words and spitting acid as though there had never been anything but venom in the space behind his heart.
They stare down, her eyes glaring back at him in the same icy grey that he knows his own eye is, and he grits his teeth and grinds his jaw and stands his ground.
Hallariel caves first.
She sighs, and slumps, and relaxes her hand the tiniest bit just enough for the blade to stop digging into the soft of his chin. “Well, honestly, darling — what is there to love?”
The silence rings out, deafening, and the fury turns to rage. Fabian leaps forward, edge of his mother’s blade clipping his throat, and he bares his teeth at her in a desperate snarl. “I don’t know, just make something up!”
He swipes his hand out, Fandrangor swinging wildly and just barely missing Gilear, but Fabian pays it no mind. “Years I spent trying to make you proud, training and fighting and learning just so you would find a reason to care, but you never did. You never will.”
He gasps for air, his throat burning up and scorching, smoke pouring from his lungs, red clouding his vision until the whole world looks just as bloody as the edge of his mother’s blade.
“All those years you made me train to earn your love — well, fuck me for thinking that I could!”
He’s closing in on her, now, furiously pushing into her space, towering over her in a way he never has before — and he lashes out with Fandrangor. The glass in his mother’s hand shatters into pieces as wine spills across her hand — and it’s enough to shake her out of her stupor.
She swings her sword up, a glint of the blade the only warning Fabian gets before sparks fly and the metal clashes with Fandrangor, as she puts enough force behind it that Fabian’s forced to take a step back.
“You know,” Hallariel bites out, her tone as hard and unforgiving as her blade, “it’s a shame you’re the way you are.”
She lashes out again, Fabian leaping backwards and meeting her blade in another flurry of steel as she advances. “The son of the greatest pirate to ever sail the seas, the greatest fencer to ever live. We set you up for a world of success. Why would I ever expect anything less?”
She feints left and strikes right, catching him on his blind side, and pain sears as she clips the side of his face just beneath his eyepatch. “I invested in you, trained you to become the best, and here you are — unable to parry even the littlest blow.”
She whips around, razor-thin blade slashing through the air just as Fabian dodges, ducking low and rolling under her blade as she relentlessly goes on, closing the distance to slice at his side. “Your behaviour is a disgrace to our name.”
Fabian roars as something in his chest shatters, red spilling out from his lips and something climbs up his windpipe, burning, blistering, scorchingly hot. There’s shouting, drowned out by the ringing in his ears and the rush of violence cascading in his veins.
He charges forward, injustice and wrath and rage fuelling his movements, and he leaps up just as the tell-tale crackle of a Hold Person spell snaps through the air and he feels his limbs lock up.
He freezes mid-lunge, precariously balancing against the drag of gravity, and Fandrangor drops from his grip as Hallariel’s blade crashes against his and knocks it from his grasp.
From the edge of his periphery he catches Adaine, eyes flashing blue and hands outstretched, striding into the clearing, and right behind her is Jawbone, Riz and Fig hot on their heels. There’s shouting, and more movement following up, but Fabian’s attention is dragged back to his mother as Hallariel rears back, blade in hand, and swings it in his direction.
“Cut it out!” Jawbone roars, and an arrow with suspiciously familiar fletching knocks Hallariel’s sword out of her hand as Sandra Lynn darts across the clearing. “Both of you, knock it off!”
Fabian strains against the pressure holding his limbs in place as the inferno blazing behind his sternum flares, white-hot force pressing insistently against the back of his eye, his vision tunneling as Hallariel whips around to stare incredulously at Jawbone.
There’s a fire in his blood, lighting him up and searing through his skin, and he screams in frustration as he pulls and pulls and pulls, his body refusing to cooperate and the need to fight, to jump and slash and move only builds until something in his shoulder pops and tears, and the spell on him breaks.
He comes out of it swinging, momentum throwing him forward as his fingers clench around empty air, Fandrangor forgotten on the ground as Fabian rears his elbow back and prepares a hit — just as Kristen jumps forward, staff in hand, and a fierce blow pierces through the haze fury of in his mind as it connects to the back of his skull with a harsh crack.
The red haze in his vision is gone before he hits the ground.
Fabian comes to with a gasp, phantom flames ghosting past his fingertips as he sits up and knocks into the phantasmal force of a Bigby’s Hand spell.
He groans as his body twitches, every muscle protesting as pain, sweltering and sharp surges up and paralyses him in the magical hand’s grasp.
There’s a fiery ache radiating from his sternum, spreading out towards his ribs and shoulders, his right one unwilling to cooperate even the slightest, and there’s a soreness in his veins that’s not unlike what he imagines disintegration would feel like.
He takes a shuddery breath in, holds for a few seconds, and carefully, painstakingly slowly blows it out. There’s no second wave of agony, his ribs seemingly functioning just fine despite protesting his every movement just moments before, and it seems like he can move all his limbs again, if he ignores the ache that swallows him.
He lies still for a moment, trying to catch his bearings, when someone clears their throat.
“Fabian? Are you going to go all crazy again?”
It’s Kristen, sitting cross-legged at his side, and as he turns his head to face her he sees Adaine sitting beside her, her hand a mirror of the spectral one that keeps him down. Behind them, Riz is furiously leafing through familiar tomes, his tail twitching and swishing back and forth.
“I don’t think so,” Fabian attempts to say, but the words come out grating and broken as though his vocal chords have been replaced with sandpaper during the night. “What happened?”
Movement on his other side draws his attention, and Fabian slowly twists around to see. Gorgug and Fig are on his other side, both leaning back against the familiar wall of Leomund’s Tiny Hut, a replica of the one Kristen had created back in Elmville for their presidential planning.
Fig leans over and holds out a glass vial, several tiny red and shimmering things clinking inside. “We think you got rage-starred.”
“Rage-starred?” Fabian echoes dully, blinking sluggishly as his mind whirls, the red in the vial glimmering and glinting tantalisingly up at him. “How— I mean, what?”
“These came from your blood,” Fig grimaces, putting the vial back into a pocket. “When we cleaned your cuts, your blood had already started crystallising.”
“We think, once you get past a certain stress threshold, you become more susceptible to the rage star’s influences,” Riz says neutrally, Fabian turning around once again just in time to catch him looking up from the books he’s holding and making eye contact. “My only question is why we didn’t know you were already past it.”
A silence falls, and Fabian sighs as he slumps back onto the cushion he’s been placed on. He raises a hand as far as possible, bumping into the Bigby’s Hand, and he looks tiredly at Adaine. “Can I sit up? I can’t see everyone like this.”
“Oh, yes, sorry,” she immediately apologises, and with a quick flourish of her hand her magic is dispelled, leaving him free to get up again.
Fabian stays down for a second, testing out his newfound freedom by reaching up to his chest and grimacing as he rubs the front of his sternum. “Ow,” he mumbles absently, a fierce pressure-like pain accompanying the movement.
“Don’t touch that, idiot,” Kristen says as she leans over to whack his hand away. “You nearly exploded into a stalagmite — don’t strain the wound further.”
“Right,” Fabian returns, planting both his arms at his side and pushing himself up. Everything in his body protests the movement, but by the time he’s finally managed to heave himself upright and lean his back against the other wall of the Tiny Hut, there’s enough space for him to see all his friends without needing to twist and turn every time someone speaks.
“So what the hell happened?” It doesn’t sound accusing — it’s simply a question, in the way Fig sometimes asks those, and Fabian shrugs as he regards her.
“I don’t know,” he says quietly, something in his face pulling at his cheek as he says it. He lets his hand trail up and swipes his fingers gently over his face, a whip-thin swollen line just on the edge of his cheekbone stinging as he touches it. It’s the familiar width for his mother’s blade, and Fabian vaguely recalls the sharp bite of her sword as it clipped him.
“I was just— upset,” he begins, “I’m keeping up in classes but I’m so tired all the time, and I feel like I’m falling behind on everything, constantly, but then the house is so quiet that I don’t want to be there either, and then M— my mother was just, she just—”
He cuts himself off, breathing rasping in his throat and a suspiciously familiar burn behind his eye. He swallows thickly, ignoring the urge to make himself smaller or hunch over and instead looks up, forcing a bitter half-smile on his face. “I don’t know. It’s not her fault, I know I shouldn’t have—”
“Your mother’s a bitch,” Gorgug cuts him off, so unlike him that Fabian whips around to face him, mouth open in shock. “She said some awful things. Do you even remember that?”
“Well, honestly, darling — what is there to love?”
It echoes in his mind, loud and clear, and Fabian winces at the memory. He’s gearing up to retaliate, something defensive and probably untrue at the tip of his tongue, when Adaine speaks up again.
“You didn’t deserve that, Fabian,” and for a moment, Fabian wonders if she read his mind. If she felt the years-old defense mechanism lock into place, ready to shield his mother from their opinions and ensure that she remains on her pedestal, unblemished. Always ready to look down on him at a moment’s notice.
“The things she said — none of that’s true, okay? You deserve better. It doesn’t matter how many stupid things she’s accomplished or done in her life — you don’t owe her anything.”
“She’s not stupid,” he retorts blankly, no heat behind the words. “And she was right, anyway. Let me finish,” he implores, raising his voice slightly and holding up a hand for Adaine to let him finish speaking. “She’s never been quiet about her expectations. I should have known better than to think I could live up to them. I realise that now.”
They’re silent for a moment, each of them mulling the situation over, and Fabian sits with his back against the uncomfortable wood, every part of his body smarting and protesting, and he exhales sharply and drops his head on his knees as the reality of the situation sinks in.
“She’s gonna kill me,” he huffs out, a disbelieving laugh spilling forth as he considers his options. “I openly disrespected and embarrassed her — not just in front of the crew, but in front of her family, no less.”
There’s a sinking feeling, the familiar claws of desperation embedding themselves into his veins, and he tosses his head back again, grunting slightly as the back of his head collides with the wall and sends a sharp spike of pain ricocheting through his skull.
“Do you think she would?” It’s Fig, voice uncharacteristically silent, and it seems to echo around the space as they each turn to look at Fabian, who only looks at the ceiling in return. “Like, honestly, would she?”
“I wish I knew,” Fabian murmurs, closing his eye and crossing his arms as though to shield himself from their stares. “I have no idea anymore. She just confirmed I spent eighteen years believing a lie — I don’t know what she would or wouldn’t do, at this point.”
Riz speaks up again, gesticulating to Fabian as he rises to his feet. “She just took a blade to her own son — I find it hard to believe she wouldn’t escalate things any further.”
“I don’t think she would have killed him,” Kristen says mutedly, “I mean, as much as she sucks, objectively speaking—”
“She tried to hit him after Adaine already had him spelled!” Gorgug jumps up, fury heating up his voice. “If she’s comfortable striking him when he’s unable to fight back, what’s to stop her from doing it again?”
“I mean, for all we know she figured out something was wrong with him — she didn’t draw her blade up until Fabian did, first. Besides, we’ve seen Hallariel and Fabian spar together — they’ve drawn swords against each other before.”
“Oh, so occupational child abuse is worrying, but recreational is fine?”
Fig jumps up suddenly, her boots thudding on the wooden flooring. “Both of you, stop!”
Gorgug and Kristen fall silent, looking properly chastised, and Fig rounds on Kristen first. “This? Not helpful. Regardless of the circumstances, Hallariel just tried to hurt Fabian even while he was down — that’s problematic, no matter what. And you—”
She whirls around to face Gorgug, just as Fabian opens his eye again and turns to look at Kristen to mutter, “— ‘s not the first time it happened.”
Fig points at Gorgug, eyes narrowed as she stares them down before Fabian’s words seem to register. “This is not the— sorry, what?”
“‘s not the first time she’s fought dirty. It’s in training.”
There’s a cloud of exhaustion tugging at him, and his limbs feel like they’re made of lead — Fabian lets his eye drift back to the ceiling as he hums and tries to focus on the grain of the wood beneath his head.
“Can you elaborate on that?” Riz asks, sounding a lot closer than before, but Fabian doesn’t bother looking away and merely shrugs.
“She wants me prepared. Trusting an enemy is stupid — you should be prepared to parry at any given time. Even when you yield. Lesson one.”
Riz curses under his breath, accompanied by the tell-tale sound of air whooshing as his tail whips back and forth. “When did she start teaching that lesson?” he asks measuredly, still standing close to him on his blind side. Fabian continues counting the lines in the wood of the ceiling.
“When I started fighting — when I was four, maybe?”
“Okay,” Riz breathes out, the sounds of the air disappearing as his tail stills. “I’m gonna go talk to Jawbone. I’ll be right back.”
Riz disappears from the hut, and the silence stretches on for a bit until Adaine leans in closer. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
Fabian raises an eyebrow at her, and she shakes her head and clarifies, “About how stressed you were, I mean. Maybe one of us could have helped.”
“I don’t think so,” Fabian shrugs, grimacing as he pulls up a knee to rest his arm on. “It’s not— I’m supposed to be able to do this, right?”
He nods over to Adaine, then Gorgug. “You guys have to deal with a job, or a tripled course load, and I just have classes and Owlbears. It should have been easy. I’m not supposed to fail at it.”
He takes a moment to consider his words and starts up again. “Besides, it’s not just that — ever since my mother left with Gilear and fired all the staff, I’ve been alone in my house, and it’s been awful. I can’t find anything, and the whole place is a mess — I can’t take it, it’s too quiet.”
“You could have said something,” Fig retorts, fingers tapping out a subconscious rhythm on her leg. “We would have come over, or helped you, or something.”
“When?” Fabian shoots back, pulling his lips into a wry smile. “We’ve all been busy lately — and it’s not your responsibility to check in on me.”
“I’d argue it is, because we’re the Bad Kids and we look out for each other — but even more, checking in on your kid is what you’re supposed to do as a parent, and Hallariel sucks at it,” Fig frowns.
“Hallariel sucks in general,” Gorgug grumbles, and it’s so out of place yet smug that Fabian huffs out a laugh.
“If she catches you saying that, you’re dead.”
It’s intended to be a joke, but Gorgug doesn’t laugh — instead, he falls deadly silent and regards him with wide, serious eyes. “That’s not funny, Fabian. She nearly did kill you.”
“Didn’t stick?” Fabian offers, before stretching his legs and wincing. “It kind of feels like she did, anyway.”
“What did it feel like?” Kristen leans in, the shards of Cassandra gleaming where she’s clutching them in her hand. “With the rage crystal, I mean?”
Fabian tilts his head, filtering through his muddled memories. “Strange. It’s like — all the grief, every moment that she’s ever hurt me or made me feel upset, it was all amplified. It was the only thing on my mind — the injustice that you were all here with your parents and they all made time for you, and that my mother couldn’t be bothered to spend more than a minute checking in on me.”
He inhales sharply, blinking against the onslaught of memories, the phantom rush of rage that had coursed through his veins.
“It just — it hurt. Everything burned, like I was on fire, and the entire world was red. I couldn’t think of anything other than my mother, of getting her to admit that she didn’t love me. Wanting her to hurt the way that I did.”
He swallows, clenching his hands into fists to stop the sudden trembling. For all of today, he’s felt warm, a scorching heat lapping at his heels and gushing through his blood, but now — now he feels cold, an icy numbness spreading at the memory of his induced rage.
“It was awful. I never want to feel like that again.”
He looks up, blinking furiously against the pressure building behind his eye. Adaine’s eyes are suspiciously red, and Kristen looks vaguely horrified. The shards in her hands gleam with a purple twilight, and Fabian feels a stab of sympathy as he comes to realise the same thing that she’s likely thought of — that her actions had made Cassandra feel just like that, and her god hadn’t had a group of friends like theirs to fall back on.
“We’ll get her back, Kristen,” he offers, and it’s all he can say — but it’s enough. She leaps forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shirt.
It hurts — her shoulder digs into the bruising on his chest, and he’s fairly certain there might still be blood on his neck from where his mother’s blade first drew blood — but it doesn’t matter.
He leans back against the wall of the Tiny Hut and clutches at Kristen’s shirt, breathing out and relishing in the contact. “We’re all here. We’ll get her back,” he repeats uselessly, and startles when suddenly another hand connects with his shoulder.
Gorgug smiles down at him, eyes kind and sparkling, and Fabian shifts over to lean against him. “We’re all here,” Gorgug repeats, and some of the tension that lingered dissipates as Fabian melts into his side.
“Move over,” Fig grumbles as she shoves at Kristen, reaching over to clasp her hand around Fabian’s wrist and using her other hand to gently pet at Kristen’s hair. “You can’t start a hug and not give anyone else space, that’s impolite.”
Kristen laughs wetly and Fabian echoes it, breath coming out shakily as he lets himself slump into his friends’ hold. Adaine says something in the background, the door to the Tiny Hut creaking as Riz’s familiar footsteps come back into hearing, and Gorgug’s voice underneath him rumbles as he speaks up again.
“We’re all here.”
It’s a childish sentiment, really — a silly reassurance that they’re together, that they’ll get through it, and it’s enough.
There’s a comfortable silence stretching out between them, and yet — between the wood of the wall digging into his shoulder blades, the crushing pressure of Kristen on his aching ribs and the exhaustion weighing him down, there’s nowhere he’d rather be.