Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s the end of the school year, there’s a dragon trying to conquer all of Spyre, and time is going so slowly that everything in the world seems to stand still. Everybody else is sleeping in a couple 10gp tents pitched outside the gym on the grass, but Fabian snuck back into the building with the dragon in it after everyone in his own tent—Gorgug, Kristen and Adaine—seemed too deeply asleep to wake.

He looks up now at the large and looming figure of Vice Principal Goldenhoard, paused in the middle of a snarl that leaves his mouth just open enough for Jawbone’s arm to stick out when he needs something, and thinks perhaps that these are the kinds of views one should get used to when endeavouring to write one’s name upon the world.

His papa would be proud. Fabian remembers the heavy weight of his father’s body skewered on his sword as he went from alive to dead, just a few hours ago now, and the video he deleted from his crystal on the way back to the school.

The eyepatch on his face feels heavy too, not with its physical weight but with grand expectation—his own or his father’s, he doesn’t quite know.

Defeating this dragon and saving the world seems like a good step in the right direction either way.

The sound of footsteps on the wooden gym floor come from a little below him, and he looks down to find Gorgug approaching him, apparently not as asleep as he’d thought. He hadn’t noticed the other boy coming from all the way across the gym, too busy looking up at Goldenhoard.

Gorgug walks to the edge of the stage, where Fabian is sitting with his legs dangling, and he’s tall enough to comfortably lean on the stage floor with his arms crossed on top of it, resting his head in the crook of them. Gorgug looks up from beneath messy bangs, bright irises against black sclera, expression open. “You aren’t sleeping yet,” he says, plainly.

“No,” Fabian replies, eyebrows raised. Despite the healing from Kristen, his face hurts something awful. Sleeping will help, but Fabian finds himself restless enough to put it off for just a little longer. “Just looking at the view,” he says, gesturing with his chin up at the silhouette of Goldenhoard’s head, backlit by the gym’s mood lighting for prom.

Gorgug blinks and follows his gaze. “You think Jawbone’s still awake?” he asks.

“He isn’t,” Fabian replies. “I checked when I got here.”

“Like, you climbed up there…?”

“I didn’t want to go all the way back up there before bed, no. I just called up to him,” Fabian replies. “He didn’t say anything back, so I assumed.”

Gorgug hums, and they both stare up at Goldenhoard for a moment. From the back, what Fabian saw—and what Gorgug would have seen, returning to the gym from the outside—is a view that seems incongruous: a pair of large fearsome draconic wings and a barbed tail set against a balloon arch with a hand-painted banner that read A Knight to Remember. Sitting on the edge of the stage and looking up, though, it feels like maybe this is a heroic view. Something from out of a storybook, if one discounts the ridiculously large tie hanging from Goldenhoard’s neck.

He wonders if his papa ever saw anything like this, facing down monsters emerging from the Celestine Sea.

“So why aren’t you sleeping?” Gorgug asks, breaking the silence. “Tent not comfortable enough?”

Fabian scoffs. “Of course it isn’t,” he replies, and wonders if his own bed made it out of the shitshow he’d interrupted at his home. If his mother is alright. Probably, since Cathilda was around.

“Oh,” Gorgug replies. “Sorry. It’s all Adaine’s jacket had.”

“It’s fine,” Fabian replies airily. “It doesn’t actually matter. I just miss my bed.” He looks back down from the dragon to find Gorgug looking up at him again. “Why are you up?”

“Was looking for you,” Gorgug says. “I know it’s usually Riz that finds you and stuff, but I checked and I think he and his mom are busy planning the logistics on how to eat a dragon this big.” He makes a face at that, nose wrinkling. It’s kind of cute. “It’s a lot of dragon to eat.”

Fabian chuckles. “It is, isn’t it.” He swings his legs, and Gorgug watches him do it. It’s comfortable; his head feels less crowded when Gorgug is around. When the other boy yawns, Fabian asks, “You’re not tired from fighting?”

“I am,” Gorgug replies. “And from jamming with Fig and Gorthalax earlier.”

“Oh, yes,” Fabian says. “You’ve gotten better.”

“Thank you. Practiced a lot in jail.”

“Trust me, we are all well aware.”

This time it’s Gorgug that chuckles, less sheepish than Fabian thinks he ought to be. Fabian’s not mad about it though. It passed the time in there, listening to Fig teach Gorgug how to drum better from across jail cells.

Fabian sighs loudly and flops down onto the stage, staring up at the lighting grid they have on top of it. “I killed my papa earlier today, Gorgug,” he says, announcing it to the mostly empty gym.

“Oh,” Gorgug replies, a calm, disembodied voice. There's no judgement in it. “I’m sorry.” Fabian can actually hear some compassion in his words.

“It’s fine,” Fabian says again. “I’m certain it’s what he wanted.”

“Oh,” Gorgug says again, tone lighter. “That’s good, then?”

Fabian raises his head to peer past his chest at Gorgug. The other boy is fiddling with the white strands in his bangs. “You’re very nice, Gorgug,” Fabian says. “Maybe too nice.”

“Nah,” Gorgug replies awkwardly, dropping his bangs so he can hide behind his hair. His green ears stick out from the mop of black and white.

“You forgave me immediately when I punched you on the first day of school.”

“I punched you too.”

“Yes, to avenge yourself. Completely reasonable,” Fabian replies haughtily, sitting back up. “You kissed Ragh, even though he’s tried to beat you up several times.”

“He just looked so sad,” Gorgug replies, eyes darting to where Ragh is lying frozen on the ground. “Dayne is a dick.”

“Dayne is a dick,” Fabian agrees fervently. “He took my eye.”

“He did?” Gorgug asks, straightening up. He gives Dayne’s corpse the stink eye, and Fabian laughs at his angry face. “At least we already killed him.”

“I wanted to stab him more but the time spell won’t let me.” He isn’t pouting about this, but if he was, he would have every right.

Gorgug shakes his head, amused or maybe exasperated. “Anyway,” he says. “Come sleep. Adaine said we need all eight hours if we’re gonna kill this dragon.”

Fabian huffs but hops off the stage, pausing to look up at Goldenhoard again, stopped in time. The balloon arch behind them is maybe a little trite, but it’s also maybe a little sweet. He’s never been to a school dance before, homeschooled as he was on his father's ship, and a part of him wonders if this is supposed to be a shared experience every high schooler has.

“It’s too bad we aren’t here to actually enjoy prom,” Fabian says. “Didn’t even have the time to dance or anything.”

“At least we have our prom,” Gorgug points out. “We’re just freshmen right now.”

“It still would have been nice tonight.”

“Yeah…”

They stall by the stage, looking up at the prom decorations and the big dragon, the earth elemental standing frozen by the food tables and the bodies of their downed friends and enemies on a destroyed gym floor, the barely visible paused shapes of Principal Aguefort and that other counselor from their first day, caught in a tussle somewhere in the rafters. The prom lighting in the gym makes Gorgug’s skin look soft, even in his blood-splattered hoodie.

“Do you… want to dance?” Gorgug asks, hesitantly.

Fabian blinks, and looks at his friend properly. Gorgug’s hand is held out, palm up.

“Is this a pity dance?” Fabian asks, squinting. “I’m not Ragh.”

Gorgug rolls his eyes. “I didn’t kiss Ragh out of pity, he was just saying some sad things that weren’t even true. I wanted to make a point.” He stretches out his offered hand, moving it closer to Fabian. “You sounded like maybe you wanted to dance.”

“Not with you,” Fabian huffs. “With a date. An actual one, like with… Aelwyn, or something.” He remembers the feel of her lips against his, her face pressed into his sternum to do that line of snuff powder, the look in her eyes from the back of the cop car. He wants to kiss her again, and deliberately doesn’t examine his feelings further than that. He would like to get some smooches, and he already knows she’d be down.

He just has to break her out of prison first.

“She tried to kill us,” Gorgug points out. “Adaine hates her.”

“And?”

Gorgug shakes his head, definitely exasperated this time, and Fabian grins. “If you don’t wanna dance with me, just say so,” Gorgug says, but his hand remains stubbornly inviting. His tone is almost challenging.

On a whim, and because he absolutely cannot resist meeting a challenge so inane, Fabian takes the hand. They’re here. It’s prom, and no one else is around. “I never said that.” He pulls Gorgug to him and rests his hands on Gorgug’s waist. “Though, to be clear, I am only dancing with you because you asked.”

“Whatever makes you feel better, Fabian,” Gorgug replies dryly, but he wraps his arms around Fabian’s neck anyways. That air of calm comfort overcomes Fabian again, as Gorgug’s arms settle by his ears, bringing their bodies together. Everything feels easier, in the circle of Gorgug’s arms, and it makes Fabian want to huddle closer. Suddenly, he finds himself much more aware of their height difference, small as it is—this close, Fabian would have to tilt his head up to look into Gorgug’s eyes. There’s only supposed to be about three inches between their heights, but those three inches feel significant here.

“There isn't even any music,” Fabian says. His voice comes out a little more hushed than he’d intended.

“I can put on Zelda’s playlist and play it on my headphones real loud?”

“And slow dance to heavy metal?” Fabian asks, sarcasm dripping. “No-wuh.”

“Then we’ll dance without music,” Gorgug replies, extremely reasonably.

Fabian scoffs. “Fine.”

“Fine.” There’s laughter in Gorgug’s voice, and Fabian looks down at their shoes as he fights an answering smile, Fabian’s Sneakers of Dunking beside Gorgug’s black Chucks. Gods know how he plays bloodrush in canvas shoes.

It takes a little fumbling to figure out which direction they want to move, but eventually they settle into gentle swaying, and Gorgug starts humming something with a little more melody than the music he was playing earlier with Fig and Gorthalax.

When Fabian peeks back up at Gorgug, he finds the other boy staring absently around the gym, so Fabian takes the moment to steal a longer look. His hair is messy but untangled, falling in front of his eyes, his dark eyelashes more obviously separated from his darker sclera, this close. The white streak in his bangs brings out the light colour of his irises, almost making them glow in the shadow of Goldenhoard’s wings. Gorgug’s green skin is a little flushed, and Fabian thinks he can spot light, light freckles across the bridge of his nose.

His tusks peek out from his mouth, his lips chapped; Fabian wonders what it would be like to kiss with tusks, how it was like for Ragh to kiss Gorgug earlier, what Kristen or Zelda’s dad thought about kissing Gorgug—if they really thought about it all. Ragh seemed awed, in the scant moments Fabian could spot while they were both fighting, but Kristen very clearly wasn’t thinking about it when she kissed them all one after the other. Fabian thinks he’d have thought about it, what kissing Gorgug was like.

“Is there something on my face?” Gorgug asks.

Fabian jolts a little, and then hopes his blush isn’t visible—he wouldn’t have been able to hide his surprise, as close as they both are.

“Uh,” Fabian says. “Um.” Fuck. Is he flustered? It’s just Gorgug. “No. No, there isn’t. I was just—thinking.”

“About what?” Gorgug huffs a laugh, his eyes crinkling. Ever since the arcade fight, there’s been wrinkles at the edges of them, and Fabian finds himself at a loss for why those smile lines have become suddenly devastating. 

“Um,” Fabian replies, incredibly smoothly. “Dancing. I was thinking about—about dancing.” He clears his throat, and puts on airs, affecting the haughtiest voice he can muster when his heart is beating this fast. “You should be honoured to know this is my first ever school dance.”

Gorgug hums. “This is the first one I would call nice,” he says, softly enough to come off bashful. Fabian’s throat feels tight, his cheeks hot. “I haven’t been to a school dance since first year middle school, and that was ‘cuz my parents thought it’d be a good idea.” He sighs. “Everyone was so much smaller than me, and I hit my head on the stupid balloon arch coming into the gym. All the other kids laughed at me when the whole thing got knocked over.”

Gorgug shifts, his arms going tighter around Fabian like he needs the support as he bows his head forward a little, hiding behind his bangs. Almost subconsciously, Fabian starts to rub small circles into Gorgug’s waist with his thumbs. “I went into a rage and knocked some tables over, and my parents said I never had to go to a dance again if I didn’t want to,” Gorgug continues. “I felt so bad. It took the whole year for the other kids to stop being scared of me, and I could tell my parents didn’t know what to do about my rage back then.”

His story settles into the time-stopped silence of the gym, and Fabian contemplates what to say next as they sway together on the spot. “I suppose it says something that your first nice dance includes a dragon trying to take over the world,” he finally tries, nodding with his head to where Kalvaxus is moving ever so incrementally. “And that your rages have been nothing but life-saving since I’ve known you.”

Gorgug’s eyes crinkle again. “Besides that time I punched you?”

“I just told you that was a valid reaction.”

“I still feel bad,” Gorgug says. At this point, Fabian thinks maybe he’s doing it to be contradictory, and finds it maybe a little charming.

“Don’t force me to defend you more than necessary,” Fabian says, rolling his eye but gripping Gorgug’s waist tighter. “I stand by your reaction, but I stand by my own as well. I’m not afraid to punch you again if I have to.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Gorgug says. “I’ll punch you back.”

“Good,” Fabian huffs.

“Good,” Gorgug replies. Once again, Fabian finds himself being laughed at by Gorgug—but maybe Fabian doesn’t mind as much as he should. It’s nice to see him come out from behind his bangs, the way he tips his head to laugh, how his smile glints in the mood lighting.

That smile lingers as they focus on swaying again, side to side, wrapped up in each other. Fabian’s heart is still in his throat, and he can’t help but take note of every time he breathes, every time Gorgug does too. The rise and fall of their chests.

And yet, he doesn’t want to let go. Not yet.

Fabian starts humming this time, something from a long time ago, buried deep. Something Cathilda sang to him, maybe. If he wants to be really hopeful, he could pretend it was something his mother used to sing to him, but Fabian doesn’t lie to himself about his mother as much as he used to.

There comes a soft pressure against his temple and a breath against his cheek, on his blind side, but they don’t quite startle Fabian; Kristen’s magic really does work wonders, for him not to even wince as Gorgug leans into him. Then again, he might just be more preoccupied with the other boy’s proximity than with his newly missing eye. He rests there, against Fabian as they move together and Fabian continues to hum out a wandering, sea shanty-esque tune. He moves his hands from Gorgug’s waist to his lower back, and his hoodie is soft on Fabian’s callused fingers, his body heat radiating from under it.

They feel like the only two people in the whole wide world.

Fabian’s humming gets interrupted by his own yawn. He hides it in Gorgug’s neck, and wonders when they’d gotten this close. Gorgug’s shoulders shake, probably laughing again, and Fabian huffs and pulls back a little. “This isn’t a hug,” he says. He’s not blushing.

“It isn’t?” Gorgug asks. Fabian can’t tell if he’s bullshitting or being earnest.

“No,” he replies, glaring at a corner of the gym as heat flushes to the tips of his ears. “This was a dance.”

“This was a dance,” Gorgug confirms easily, smiling faintly. “Should we head back to bed?” His arms are still around Fabian’s shoulders.

It feels unbearably domestic.

Fabian thinks about Aelwyn Abernant kissing him at that party at Ostentatia’s place, and what he’d daydreamed about in that jail cell when he wasn’t listening to Fig and Gorgug jam against metal bars—holding hands with her, kissing her at Basrar’s, waking up next to her. He thinks about the shy looks Gorgug and Zelda sneak at each other when they have a conversation, the cute little ice cream date they had that the rest of the party watched over.

He thinks about the flush in his own cheeks, and how his brain quieted for the first time in the last several hours of his life, all thanks to being here with Gorgug, and he doesn’t know what to do about how he’s feeling but… it’s nice. It’s always nice, with Gorgug: waiting outside while the party investigates, standing between their friends and danger, breathing with him as Fabian checks over his sword and Gorgug comes down from his rage.

Maybe he doesn’t have to do anything about this except let it feel nice.

“Yeah,” Fabian replies. “Let’s go to bed.”

Gorgug smiles warmly, and leans in to press their temples together again briefly. It’s not a hug, but something companionable. An acknowledgement. “Thanks for the dance,” he says.

“Yes, well,” Fabian says, and pauses to gather his thoughts while Gorgug unwraps his arms from around him and fully steps back. Truly, he has nothing to offer that wouldn’t feel like tipping his hand, somehow, even though he has no idea what his hand even holds. He feels more settled than he did when he snuck in here earlier, but he can’t deny feeling a little colder without Gorgug’s arms around him.

“We should dance again when it’s our actual prom,” his friend says absently, turning to walk back toward the entrance of the gym. Gorgug eyes Goldenhoard’s giant dragon form as he passes by it once more, his gaze idle as it sweeps up and down, staying for longer at Goldenhoard’s head. “You were up there earlier right? Running on his wings and then up on his head.”

“Hell yes I was,” Fabian says proudly, shaking off his weird feelings and puffing his chest out a little. He starts to follow Gorgug out.

“Think I’m gonna get up there when the time thing is over,” Gorgug muses, turning away from the dragon to head out. “You looked really cool, by the way.”

“Of course I did,” Fabian says, feeling warm. “You did too, chopping at his legs.” Gorgug doesn’t reply with words, but he makes a happy noise at the compliment. 

Fabian yawns again, and looks up at Goldenhoard one more time himself as he passes under a wing. In a few hours, Riz and his mother will be eating him. This thought is, unequivocally, a good one, and only ruined by the fact that it’s not Fabian that’s going to get to be as cool and heroic. They deserve the revenge though.

“I think I’m gonna get back up there too,” Fabian says, remembering the way he navigated the horns up there. “I can’t believe his tie and shirt grew with him when he changed forms. And his suit.”

Gorgug chuckles. “Yeah. It looks kind of stupid.”

“He’s stupid,” Fabian replies. “Magic, man.” It’s cool but everything their magic users can do still kind of baffles him.

“He’s a magic dragon, actually.”

Fabian rolls his eye so hard he might lose it. He’s smiling, though.

“Hey, Gorgug?” Fabian says. Gorgug turns around to look at him, attentive and curious. “Thanks…” He bites his lip and thinks he still feels a little too bare, so he adds, “For the dance, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Gorgug replies, his expression soft. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

Fabian sniffs. “See to it that you don’t.”

Gorgug chuckles and slips out of the gym, heading back to their tent.

Fabian doesn’t look back as he follows.

Chapter Text

Gorgug isn’t prone to dramatics, usually, but as he watches Fabian and Mazey kiss in the middle of the bloodrush field, he does wonder if maybe he’s dying a little. 

She’s grinning so hard they’re having trouble kissing, but Fabian looks incandescent with his face pressed into hers, his arms flexing to hold her up and spin her around. Fabian and Mazey’s mutual friends from bard class are cheering, fancy dance skirts that Fabian insisted must match the gold and black he chose to wear for the occasion. His elven sheet is blowing in the breeze of Adaine’s conjured air elementals, trailing behind him and Mazey both, as the banner that reads PROM? flaps about above them, held up in the air by Kristen and Ayda who are both flying. The fireworks that Fig minor illusioned into the air are (finally) dying down, and Gorgug has been plastering a smile on his face for so long, he thinks maybe it might be stuck like that forever.

Gods, he’s so stupid.

He starts picking up the metal shells of the compact little flares he built, scattered in the grass. They’d been picked up by the air elementals to sparkle and fizz harmlessly among all the dancers while Fabian’s promposal went on, but Gorgug couldn’t figure out how to make them self-dissolving, so he settled for making them easy to find during clean-up instead. He has a little metal detecting crystal device attuned to his artificing signature, and he’s using that to find the wayward flare shells.

When he peeks back up, he spots Riz coming back with the Hangman—they’d done a ramp trick to start off the show, with Torek’s help for the ramp and Ragh to keep watch and help out, since he didn’t have Buccaneers practice today. Sweeping his gaze around, he spots Adaine and Fig talking as Fig unplugs her bass from her amp. They couldn’t really figure out a way to get Gorgug’s drums out here and audible without borrowing a lot of gear they didn’t want to deal with, so he contributed with technology instead of with music. He spots Kristen and Ayda flying back down, the PROM? banner sagging between them.

Fabian and Mazey are still lost in each others’ eyes, even more intimate than when Mazey asked Fabian last year. Fabian was the only one of them to go to prom in junior year, the rest of them just glad to have the year be over.

This year, since it’s their senior year, they’re all going.

Technically, Gorgug and Riz are going as each others’ dates, but only because they’re the only ones in the party that don’t have significant others and aren’t actually interested in going with anyone. Riz is just happy to go as a big group of friends, and Gorgug hasn’t dated anyone since he and Mary Ann broke up, months and months ago now.

Fabian sets Mazey down, and they dance a little together, hand-in-hand even though Fig finished playing music. Fabian looks soft in a way he never does otherwise, staring up at Mazey like she’s the only girl in the world. He planned this big promposal because he’s still the Maximum Legend in Aguefort’s halls, but holding his girlfriend the way he is, he just looks like a boy in love.

Gorgug aches. 

He suffered through doing three years of artificing simultaneously for months last year and came out of it the world’s first ever barbaficer, but even after all that growing and learning, he still doesn’t feel any smarter. Not with his feelings, at least.

What kind of idiot falls for one of his best friends when that friend is in a perfectly happy relationship?

He crouches down to pick up another metal shell, checking his detecting device and seeing if he missed any. Squinting at the small crystal screen, he sees one of the little shells moving by itself, and he looks up in that direction to see Fig walking his way.

Gorgug musters that smile back up, and it feels stiff. His tusks feel grotesque in a way they haven’t felt since middle school.

“Gorgug!” Fig exclaims, waving the last empty shell at him as she rushes up. “These things were so cool.”

“Thanks,” Gorgug says, looking back down at his magic little metal detector and—yeah, Fig’s shell is the last one. He takes it from her and sticks it in his bag with the rest, wondering if he can rejig them into drones or something. “Good job out there.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you!” Fig beams. “The pedal’s a dream.”

For Moonar Yulenear last year, Gorgug had made a looper pedal for Fig to use with her bass, loaded with a metronome and some drum presets Gorgug recorded for her that he knows she favours during writing sessions. It can plug directly to her amp, and she used it today alongside the Infaethable Bass to play a whole song all by herself that Fabian and his bard class could dance an entire promposal to. It did work like a dream, to Gorgug’s pride and relief—she’s played around with it a lot, and by now they’ve all seen and heard Fig and Fabian rehearse this whole thing several times over from the ground up, but this is the first time she’s officially performed anything with it. He’s glad it’s working out well.

“And you always say no one wants to listen to a bass solo,” Gorgug teases.

She pushes at his arm, huffing, and then dumps the metal shell she picked up into his bag with the others. “You made the looper pedal for me, and you recorded the drum track for me to play with, so you were there, and like I’ve said a thousand times before—it doesn’t count as a solo.”

“I dunno, Fig,” he says, chuckling as he shuts down his little metal detector. “You were kind of the only one playing. What does solo mean again?”

“Gorgug! Stop being obtuse!” She whacks his arm again and again, and Gorgug laughs, waving her off.

“Stop, okay! Okay!” They’re both laughing now. “For real though,” he continues, “good job. They were really dancing it up out there.”

“They were, weren’t they?” Fig replies, grinning. “It feels important that Fabian asked us all to help with his promposal.” She sighs happily. “They’re so cute together.”

It feels like a lance through his heart, but he can’t deny the truth of it. “Yeah…”

Gorgug looks back to the middle of the field, and finds that Fabian and Mazey have moved on to talking to Riz, Ragh and the Hangman. Torek is behind them, taking apart the ramp. Fabian and Mazey’s hands are swinging, still connected.

He considers their hands, and revisits his previous thought: he can’t be as stupid as he used to be. If he was still that stupid, maybe he wouldn’t have noticed his feelings in the first place.

But Gorgug can’t deny the feelings he’s found this past year: Fabian’s kind eye and warm hand on his back as the party threw a Hey, you’re single! pizza party for Gorgug (it was… not quite a celebration, not quite a commiseration, since it was a breakup but it was also mutual, and he and Mary Ann are still friends); the easy way Fabian folds into a hug now, years after their first ever hug in the Nightmare Forest, months into getting used to physical affection, and doling it out now that he’s got a steady girlfriend that’s good for him; the way Gorgug’s stomach flutters when Fabian sits close, when he twirls his sheet around on the battlefield, when he grins and punches Gorgug’s shoulder.

Almost four whole years ago, he slow danced with Fabian underneath the figure of Kalvaxus, looming frozen in time above them, and he never thought once about how he felt afterward, the way his heart beat, how sweaty his palms felt. They’d been in the middle of a fight, technically; he’d never danced with anyone before then, and his only other experience of a school dance up until that point had been shitty. And yet he didn’t think about how he felt about dancing with Fabian at all, distracted by the huge battle that only a literal miracle allowed them to win, and then he was almost immediately preoccupied with having found his biological dad, and then he was officially dating Zelda… He didn’t need to think about it after that.

He can’t stop thinking about it now though, what he should’ve picked up about himself sooner—his kiss with Ragh in freshman year that same night, and the situationship with Unit. And Squeem, kind of.

But mostly: Fabian. Fabian, Fabian, Fabian; the sure way he held Gorgug’s waist, the soft look he imagines was on his face, that one night they danced together. How it didn’t mean anything for years, until Gorgug finally accepted that maybe he was into men every month instead of just pride month, and Gorgug suddenly realized, Oh. Oh.

It messed him up.

Mary Ann had just asked if he liked Fabian, said she didn't mind since she was planning on breaking up with him and she was curious, and she sent him into a minute existential tail-spin. Kissing Ragh or Unit didn’t mean he liked men full-time. He always figured it was just a sometimes thing, a pride month thing, to be into men.

Except maybe it wasn’t.

She was really nice about being there for his sexuality crisis. Actually, she laughed at him and then told him he was neglecting his Quokki Pet because he was thinking too much. They stayed nominally together for another month, but they were mostly just friends that hooked up instead of any kind of proper boyfriend-girlfriend, and eventually that petered out too. It really said something to Gorgug that he emerged from their break-up talk more caught up with the fact that he was probably bisexual than feeling any kind of sad about her even wanting to break up in the first place. In all honesty, he’d been thinking about breaking up with her too.

Ever since then, he’s returned to that night with Fabian, over and over and over, and he wishes, fervently and often, that he still didn’t know. That that dance didn’t develop any extra meaning in the time since it’s happened—that that hug in the tunnel stayed a friendly hug and didn’t become something Gorgug turned over and started to cherish as a what-if, that the friendship section remained friendship so Gorgug could still feel sincere about it. He felt like dirt, ascribing some sort of romantic meaning to it now, like he wants something from Fabian besides friendship, especially because his friendship is already so important.

Gods, he’s so fucking stupid.

If Kristen knew, she’d probably call him a disaster bi, but as it stands, he hasn’t really come out to anyone.

“Gorgug?” Fig asks, snapping him out of his thoughts. He breaks his gaze from where they’d fixed onto Fabian in the distance, and turns back to find Fig looking at him expectantly. Her gaze flits obviously between where Fabian and Mazey are still talking and whatever expression Gorgug’s face is making, and he thinks maybe he doesn’t really have to come out at all.

Not to Fig, his best friend who just knows him, and also—Gorgug realizes wryly—probably not to Riz either. He wonders if there’s a Gorgug board in Riz’s office somewhere, and if there’s a string leading to romantic prospects and interests. It’s likely; that’s how he shows love—and he knows Riz had their academic files last year, so it’s not a far leap to assume there’s other sections besides academia.

“It’s a lot, Fig,” he murmurs, rubbing his chest. “I’m a dumbass.”

“Gorgug, no,” Fig replies, stepping in to hug him ‘round the middle. “You can’t help your feelings. It doesn’t make you dumb.”

“He’s so happy,” Gorgug says quietly into the top of her head, wrapping his arms around her.

“Yeah,” Fig says. She pats his back once, twice, and steps back to grin up at him, consoling. “I can help you write a song about it? Ooh, and then we’ll perform it at prom!”

“I can’t write—”

“Sure, ya can!” she encourages. “With my help, you will. Then you can tell him your feelings without actually telling him.”

He chews on his lip, darting a glance back up at Fabian again. He’s laughing, the sound brought across the field, as he ruffles Riz’s hair and then boots him off the Hangman. Mazey shakes her head and gives Riz a hug before getting on behind Fabian. He still idles on the Hangman and waits for Riz to clamber up in front of Fabian by the handlebars, and for Ragh to crowd Mazey from behind with a whoop. The Hangman does a loop with all four of them onboard, around the half-deconstructed ramp while Torek shakes her fist at them, grinning visibly underneath her beard even as she yells something angry, indistinct at this distance aside from her tone.

“Okay,” Gorgug says, his lungs collapsing in on themselves at the sweet pink of Fabian’s cheeks, the joy and love he wears so well, so easily, whenever he’s anywhere at all near Mazey. “Okay. I’ll try.”

*

Lyrics are hard.

Articulating his feelings in any sort of recognizable way is even harder, and he’s sure Fig has had her work cut out for her these past few weeks, trying to make sense of Gorgug’s nonsensical feelings. 

He just wants so much he can’t have.

They do manage to finish a song, though; it’s upbeat and sounds happy, for all that the lyrics are plainly full of wanting. Fig harasses him into singing it for performances, saying she can stand to hide behind the drums for one song if it means her favourite Cig Fig can get some limelight. (Sorry Pops but he's special! she’d thrown at Gorthalax when she called him her favourite during practice, to which Gorthalax chuckled good-naturedly and said, No prob, and to Gorgug, You sound good, kid.)

It’s pretty different from their usual sound—mostly because he wanted Fabian to be able to dance to it, if he wanted to.

Now, Gorgug is sweating in the camel plaid suit jacket and tool-patterned tie his parents cooed over, clutching a mic stand almost as hard as he clutches his axe. He’s up on stage, stumbling over his introduction for the brand new Fig and the Cig Figs song, near the end of their set. This is only the fourth ever prom the school has had in decades, but it certainly still beats the record for the most packed it’s ever been. Probably the whole school is here, and then some, all coming to see Fig and the Cig Figs for way cheaper than their tickets generally sell for nowadays. Gorgug still doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge that so many people like the band he’s in, even four years into technically being a “famous rockstar”. The cheers that went up for him when he stepped out from behind his drum set were louder than anything he could have anticipated.

The nice thing about the (comparatively) lowkey school setting is that he can see everyone in the front if he walks up to the edge of the stage. The attending crowd ended up big enough that they built an outdoor stage in the bloodrush field to accommodate everyone. They timed it so that their prom could happen in the evening summer sun, and then mage lights would go up once it gets dark.

He couldn’t deny the romance of it all. Certainly better than a gym prom that gets interrupted by a dragon of prophecy halfway through. (A slow dance stolen in time notwithstanding.)

Anyways, he’s up there introducing the new song he wrote with Fig’s help, and he’s far up enough on stage to see all his friends staring avidly up at him with big grins. Riz is on Ayda’s shoulders so he doesn’t get crushed by the huge crowd, and Tracker and Kristen are as entwined as ever. Adaine is grinning, Oisin’s arms wrapped around her shoulders to protect her from an overzealous crowd, even though she can perfectly handle herself. He sees Mary Ann at one of the tables closer to the stage, Ruben, Lucy and Ivy beside her. The latter three are talking, but he’s surprised to see Mary Ann paying attention to the stage instead of her Quokki Pet for once. It relaxes him a little; he knows that no matter how well or poorly this goes, she’ll treat him exactly the same.

As he stutters through the end of his explanation—that the sound is different from their usual, that he was the one who wrote most of it, that he hopes they enjoy it—his gaze lands on Fabian and Mazey. They’re easy to spot, what with Fabian’s pretty silvery hair glinting in the setting sun and Mazey’s minotaur horns sticking up above the crowd. Gorgug finds them shoulder to shoulder, and Mazey waves when she catches his eye, so he waves back at her. Her smile is warm, and he wishes he could hate her, but her support actually means a lot. Honestly, he hopes she likes it as much as Fabian does, and that they can dance to it together. He wants them to be happy, to outlast this stupid doomed crush Gorgug’s developed over one of his best friends.

He wants Fabian to be as happy as he is with Mazey all the time, forever and ever if he could have a say.

Gorgug’s hands are trembling, so he grips the mic even tighter and prays to like, Cassandra or Ankarna or whoever else is listening from Kristen’s pantheon that he doesn’t accidentally break the microphone while he sings.

The song starts with a drum beat, so Gorthalax gives Gorgug a chord to catch the key, and then he nods at Fig behind him to start playing. She grins at him, throwing him a sign of the horns around one of the drumsticks she gave him way back when, and gets the song started.

He takes a deep breath, and as he starts singing, he watches the delight wash over his friends’ faces and tries not to blush. He doesn’t really sing around them, and they look surprised and practically elated now. It’s fun to sing, really; Fig did a great job adding energy to what they wrote. His words were a mess but she put them to rights and made them something that maybe one day he could smile about.

How could I ever be so dumb

To believe I’d be the one that you’d adore?

Fabian’s head is nodding to the beat, and his grin is bright, his expression impressed—he’s moving to the music, and that’s all Gorgug could have asked for. Fabian even nudges Mazey, leans close to say something to her, and Mazey laughs and seems to agree as her whole body starts to move too.

It almost takes the sting out of the sheer truth of what he’s singing.

I wanna be with you, I wanna be with you

I wanna be barely hanging on

It’s helping, to sing this out loud, to feel like he’s admitting to people that are listening. Fig was right: he’s confessing to Fabian without really confessing, and that’s enough to start alleviating some of the heavy weight of his feelings off his chest.

He knows he doesn’t have a chance, knows that Fabian is happy with Mazey, but he still wants.

He wants to be able to hold Fabian in his arms again and have it mean something different. Gorgug wants to dance with him again, to listen to him hum sea shanties in his ear, hold his waist and move with him. Listen to his worries, and be listened to in turn.

I wanna be dancing, dreaming, bawling and weeping

Over you all of my life

Gorgug’s eyes skim the crowd, seeing hundreds of bodies jumping up and down, enjoying the rhythm even if they don’t know the words. Off to the side, Ruben and Lucy have gotten up to dance together, joined hands swinging smoothly despite their height difference. He swears he can see Mary Ann’s head moving to the beat, legs swinging as she sits. Riz looks like he might be screaming himself hoarse, arms in the air as Ayda smiles wide at the stage, her fiery gaze going past Gorgug and straight to where Fig is undoubtedly having the time of her life keeping the beat.

Fabian and Mazey are jumping around, laughing with each other as they get knocked into by the people around them who are dancing just as energetically. They don’t mind bumping into each other and being thrown together, their hands linked.

They look like they’re in love.

I wanna be barely hanging on

When you make me lose control

Gorgug spots it when they officially get too distracted with each other to keep up with dancing to the song. Fabian pulls Mazey in toward him, and Mazey goes, and that's when Gorgug stops looking.

Instead, he finishes the song staring off into the horizon. The sky is beautiful, all pinks and purples as the sun goes low. The main school building is behind him, so when he looks out past the crowd, what he sees is the strength check gym, and the smoothie place he used to go to with Fabian and the team after practice back when he was still playing bloodrush.

It’s been four beautiful years at this school, for all they’ve saved the world from dragons and gods and eldritch manta rays. He’ll remember this moment forever, he thinks. Not too bad for the freaky backpack kid.

When you make me lose—

He and Fig thought it would be fun to end the lyrics lingering. She said something about the implications of it going on forever, if he ends on an interrupted lyric, a sustained note that rides up.

Gorgug smiles to himself as he finishes singing, moving his shoulders to the beat, his hands now mostly steady as Gorthalax and Fig play one last bar and then end the song on a final, abrupt chord. The whole world seems to cheer for him, and he sees all his friends with their arms raised, clapping and yelling with fierce pride written across their faces—except Fabian and Mazey, who are only caught up with each other.

He sighs.

Yeah.

When he turns to go back toward the drums, Fig is already up and running to give him a hug. He laughs as she catches him around the middle, her horns off to the side of his face in a familiar way. They’ve hugged so much over the years now that it’s automatic for her to tilt her head, muscle memory for him to move his cheek to make room for them. The first two years were a lot of getting stabbed in the chin, but it’s always nice to have her in his arms.

“How did it feel!” she yells more than asks, to be heard over the lively crowd.

He pauses to check in with himself, and despite the way his heart had hurt looking at Fabian so happy, he knows he feels—good.

It feels good to have it out there.

“You were right!” he yells back. “Feels better!”

“‘Course I was right!” she yells. “I know what I’m talkin’ about!” She laughs and pats roughly him on the back before letting go. “Now let’s finish this thing!!!”

As if to underline her point, she rushes back to the mic, has them all cheer for him one last time, and then announces their closer for the night: a song she wrote for Ayda. He’s been helping her out with a proposal album, but this one they decided to release now as a single ‘cuz Fig said she wanted Ayda to have a song out there in the world already.

Gorgug grins and picks up his drumsticks.

He supposes it’s nice to be unburdened and in love.

*

The sun sets, the mage lights go up, and with the DJ up on stage after their Fig and the Cig Figs performance, the night is truly going.

Gorgug’s tie is off, his suit jacket piled up with the others’ stuff at their table. He’s sweating more than he had been on stage, having danced the night away with everyone. The first slow song that the DJ played went to Riz, as his official prom date, and they laughed together as Gorgug straight up carried him around the dance floor and messed with Kristen, who’d been trying her best with her two left feet to woo Tracker via dance. At one point, Gorgug tossed Riz at her, and both Riz and Tracker laughed at how caught off-guard Kristen was.

Gorgug had given Riz a tin flower earlier, spray-painted gold at Fabian’s advice, and it’s tucked in the lapel of the black, gold-backed vest he got from his dad in sophomore year. Even though it’s prom, Riz doesn’t look any more dressed up than he usually is when he does PI work, which Gorgug thinks probably speaks to his high standards.

As the night progresses, the Bad Kids migrate around the floor, and they all kind of end up dancing with each other at one point or another. Fig gets a fast song that she shimmies to and makes Gorgug try to move his feet way faster than he wants to be moving them. She’s wearing a gradient yellow to red ripped dress with her chunky boots, and her leather jacket’s in the pile at their table. Her dress matches Ayda’s wings.

Kristen gets a slow song that he has to pick her up from a few times, their legs getting tangled over and over because she keeps trying to dance on her toes to rest her arms around his neck. (Eventually, he ends up stooping to accommodate her, which she gives him an amused look for.) She’s wearing Gorgug’s tie around her collar in a loose knot, its warm-coloured hammers and wrenches unexpectedly going well with her lavender button-up. She had a mustard yellow bowtie on earlier, but Gorgug has no idea where it went.

Adaine finds him for a fun song, and she uses it to try to get Gorgug dancing with like, twirls and stuff—the fancy ballroom moves that she grew up learning in Fallinel, when her family took diplomatic trips there. Except she’s the one leading, her eyes sparkling with joy and amusement as she either flies up to twirl him or uses her mage hand to do it. She’s pretty in her long blue dress, her hair braided back from her face.

At this point in the night, however, he’s escaped the dance floor, hanging out by the snack table now and remembering how Jem Peppercorn stuck by the buffet tables back when they’d been fighting Kalvaxus. Idly chewing his second cupcake, he decides he’d probably stay too. The icing is the right type of sweet that he could probably eat twenty more, easy, and it’s not like he hasn’t already faced down a dragon or several. Why run?

The music slows down again, and Gorgug instinctively looks for his friends in the crowd. Fig and Ayda have danced every slow song together, occasionally floating off in the air simply because they can. Adaine is blushing with Oisin, whose face scales look ruffled in that way Gorgug knows means he’s flustered, having seen Mary Ann’s scales do something similar when they first started dating. His eyebrows raise when he sees Riz letting go of Fabian’s hands and disappearing into the throng of people like the shadow he can be—they must have just finished dancing together, if the fond look on Fabian’s face is any indication.

And then Fabian raises his head, cranes his neck this way and that. Probably looking for Mazey so he can slow dance with her. Again, probably. He hasn’t really been keeping track of who’s dancing with who.

Gorgug shifts his focus back on finishing off his (yummy) cupcake and tosses its wrapper into the garbage at the far end, listening to the song crescendo into its first chorus. He’s just starting to think he might know this song—it’s a longer one, closer to five minutes than three—when there’s a tap on the back of his shoulder.

He turns to find Fabian standing there.

Fabian looks good tonight, like everyone else does. He’d dug out a fancy embroidered pirate overcoat from his dad’s closet, and paired it with a sweet pink waistcoat and black bowtie that go with Mazey’s pink and black dress. The overcoat and bowtie are, of course, back at their table, and Fabian’s sleeves are rolled up to reveal his muscled forearms, his grandfather clock tattoo peeking out from the inside of his left forearm, his waistcoat and shirt open to reveal his golden neck tattoo and some chest. Gorgug swallows, even though he finished his cupcake a second ago.

“Gorgug!” Fabian exclaims, not really giving him any time to reply before Gorgug finds himself being pulled back into the dance floor, past a few couples. “Come on, I owe you a dance!”

“What?” Gorgug asks, and promptly finds himself being spun into strong arms. Fabian’s gotten much better at manhandling people gracefully since he multiclassed into being a dance bard. Gorgug barely blinks before his arms around Fabian’s shoulders, with warm and gentle hands firm on his waist—a familiar position from freshman year.

Fabian is grinning, and while they’ve been this close here and there over the years, it’s always been for thank the gods you’re here and alive hugs, battle maneuvers, or bids of survival, like that one time they climbed a cliff together. It’s been a while since Gorgug could look straight at Fabian’s face, head on, and take the time to just examine the silver grey of his eye and the light eyelashes that sweep over it, the jagged cut of his scar and how it disappears underneath his father’s eyepatch. The cut of his jaw has only become more defined as they got older, and while he stands with the same confidence he always has, it’s only gotten more attractive as he gains the life experience that tells him that it’s not an empty confidence in the slightest. And, of course, there’s the flush on his cheeks and the slight dimple by his mouth that only appears when he’s really happy, a dimple that Gorgug’s spent a few afternoons thinking about.

It looks like he’s having a good night, and despite everything, it makes Gorgug smile back. How could it not?

“You don’t actually owe me a dance,” Gorgug says into the small space between them.

“Of course I do,” Fabian replies. “You said we should dance again at our actual prom.” He lifts a hand from Gorgug’s waist to gesture around, and Gorgug feels ridiculous for missing it. “Look around you, Gorgug. Where are we?”

Gorgug shakes his head, still smiling. It feels real in the way his smile during Fabian’s promposal didn’t, but it also feels like if he doesn’t smile, he might cry. It’s hard to handle sometimes, the way his feelings for Fabian fling him around, but he doesn’t hate it as much as he thinks he should, sometimes. Doesn’t hate it at all, and that’s maybe what makes it hurt the most.

I wanna be—

barely hanging on…

He wraps his arms around Fabian’s neck, a little tighter, and Fabian lets him do it without comment. Gorgug’s fingers rub against the warm, slightly sweat-damp cotton of Fabian’s waistcoat, and Fabian’s thumbs circle at his hips. They sway without speaking, the slow song playing over a crowd of hundreds of students. They’re so obviously not the only two people in the whole world right now, and it’s hard to forget it, but Gorgug tries until he feels bad about it.

“Where’s Mazey?” he asks, in an attempt to assuage the guilt.

Fabian’s smile is automatic, his lips tilting up at just the mention of her name. “Somewhere dancing with Ivy, I think. I saw them on the way to find you.” Ever since Ivy apologized for treating Mazey the way she did at Fabian’s first house party, the three of them had become pretty close friends. If he includes Oisin, because he’s Ivy’s best friend, and Adaine because Oisin is dating her, then they’re a close group of five (though not as close as they all are with their respective parties). Mazey and Ivy tagged along with Fabian to do some Ora-cool Future of Dance thing with Adaine and Oisin over Moonar Yulenear that was apparently a lot of fun, even if it did take place in Fallinel. Mazey got to meet Fabian’s grandpapa, and Telemaine apparently had no problem pronouncing her name.

…It was probably a good thing for Gorgug to have gotten some space.

“I’m glad they’re friends now,” Gorgug offers.

Fabian hums. “It’s great until they gang up on me,” he says. “Nothing I’m not used to from you guys but it would be nice not to be bullied by my own girlfriend.”

“You’re just easy to bully,” Gorgug teases.

“Shut up,” Fabian replies, good-natured. He smacks at Gorgug’s hip, and Gorgug tries not to jolt too much, heat rushing to his face. He tries to hide it by moving closer instead, angling his face to rest by Fabian’s blind side.

They sway for a little bit, the song reaching its bridge. Gorgug closes his eyes.

“You sounded good up there, Gorgug,” Fabian says eventually, hushed despite the music. “Did you write it about anyone in particular? Mary Ann, maybe?”

“Gods, no,” Gorgug replies, eyes still firmly shut.

In his head, he pictures a triumphant yell and an ancient elven sword in the sky and a battle sheet swishing in the air as a god falls for the second time; a fond look across the hall of a ravaged and abandoned Bastion City warehouse; a fist bump in the mountains. He pictures a buttered ramp on a pirate ship in hell; a drive through the desert under a perpetual night sky; a sad silver eye peering up at him in the bloodrush locker room, in there together after practice for the last time. He pictures a tunnel and trembling shoulders under his hands, the question You can see me? tinged with desperation and hope; a beautiful figure dancing in and out of sight behind elven sheets in the morning sun; a swim in the ocean outside a sailing van. He pictures a dragon and a balloon arch; standing by the curb and flipping a coin outside a hospital; a punch in the gut and a rudimentary tin flower, unaccepted.

When Gorgug opens his eyes, he sees the DJ click around on his laptop. The song they’re dancing to reaches the end of its final chorus, and starts playing out. He exhales and, tentatively, leans his temple against Fabian’s, the edge of his eyepatch poking against Gorgug’s cheek. “It wasn’t about anyone at all,” he continues.

Fabian hums, and tilts his head so that he’s leaning back gently but firmly, against Gorgug’s temple for just a moment. Just a short second, their faces pressed together. His fingers tap idly at Gorgug’s waist, and then Fabian’s pulling back, and Gorgug feels cold, so cold. He blames it on the sweat drying on his skin.

“Well, if you make a music video, Mazey and I already have some choreo in mind,” Fabian says, once he’s far back enough again to look Gorgug in the face. He seems pretty excited about the prospect of dancing to the song, and Gorgug already knows Fig would love to have a video with like, real dancing in it. And Gorgug is happy Fabian wants to dance to it in a professional capacity, and not just casually—it’s a huge compliment.

“Yeah,” Gorgug says, voice almost caught in his throat. He clears it. “I’ll, uh—I’ll talk to Fig about it.”

Fabian nods happily, and gives his waist a final pat before disentangling himself from Gorgug completely. “Thanks for the dance!” he calls out, eyes roaming over the crowd again, backing up to find his next dancing target.

Gorgug waves at Fabian’s back. “You too,” he replies, and then exhales big.

That was more than he could have asked for.

He turns around, back toward the snack table. Gorgug sang his feelings out into the world, and got to slow dance with his crush for some extra closure. He’s graduating, he’s in a band, he’s in a pretty (in)famous adventuring party… Life’s as good as can be, besides the heartache.

He can confidently say he did everything he could in the circumstances he found himself in.

Now, it’s time to move on.

Chapter Text

Despite it being held in the first layer of hell, Fig and Ayda’s wedding is anything but hellish (bottomless pit of infinitely falling dead souls aside). They’re having their reception in one of the many large rooms at Gorthalax’s-now-Fig’s place. The room’s been cleared out for tables, a dance floor, and a bar, with a door connected by portal to a functioning kitchen for dinner, which wrapped up about an hour ago. It’s been mingling and dancing to the live band since then.

Fabian leaves the dance floor and loosens his bowtie at the table reserved for the wedding party, where all the Bad Kids are (obviously) seated. Four years out of high school, and they’re all doing different things, but they still get together when they can to hang out. If Riz or Adaine (and once, Kristen) get wind of something big, then they also convene to do a full party gig, but that’s thankfully only been twice in the past four years. The world was due to settle down for them at least a little, after saving it five times in a row.

When they’re not all together, though: Fabian accompanies Adaine to help her with Oracle stuff (he does freelance questing on the side wherever they find themselves, while Adaine busies herself earnestly trying to be Everyone’s Oracle and revamping the Oracle system); Fig and Ayda continue to be inseparable as they travel around the world doing random quests in places that have no cell service (Fig has introduced many places to rock music at this point, though no one’s gotten pregnant); Gorgug’s finishing his pioneer barbaficing undergrad program at Bastion City University (and traveling with Fig and Ayda to tour and write music on his summers off); Kristen’s just about ready to build her new church where the Cathedral of Sol used to be (she’s still dating Tracker and working closely with both Lucy Frostblade and Buddy Dawn); and Riz graduated early from the Society of Shadows and has come to be known as the best up and coming PI in all of Spyre (they’re all very proud).

It’s been a few months since they’ve all gotten together—the last being an early bachelorette party for Fig that was just the six of them—so it’s kind of nice now for Fabian to catch his breath, and watch his various friends and family enjoy themselves at Fig and Ayda’s wedding. Riz is dancing with his and Fig’s five year old baby sister, and they’re almost the same height, which makes Fabian want to laugh. It looks like Gilear and Gorthalax are crying in the corner by the yogurt station (Fig insisted on one especially for Gilear, and that was the first of many, many times his step-father would cry today). Adaine, Aguefort and Garthy are having an involved conversation, and Fabian mentally makes a note that he and Adaine will probably be heading to the Gold Gardens again after this.

Fabian pours himself some water from the table’s pitcher, and sits back to watch the live band. Fig actually hired Ruben Hopclap’s band to play. They aren’t called My Clerical Gnomance anymore, since the genre shift to pop punk was apparently rage-induced—a shame, since he did like their music—but the gnome is doing a good job, and he even occasionally plays his own more pop/acoustic versions of some Fig and the Cig Figs favourites. The first one he did got an approving Hell yeah, Ruben! from Fig, all the way across the floor.

He tries not to sigh as he looks at random couples chatting, or dancing together to the upbeat music, and he takes a sip. The water is cool, but does nothing to clear Fabian’s mind. When Fig first proposed to Ayda, almost two years ago, he’d still been with Mazey at the time. Fabian thought he’d still be with her when the wedding finally happened, but that’s not how it went down; they’d broken up a few months later, and that was that.

It’s been enough time that Fabian is well and truly over her—has even gone on dates and hooked up with some people in the past year—but he still can’t help but miss her company. He misses having someone at all, period. Someone to wake up next to, someone to call for stupid reasons. Someone consistent in his bed, not even for sex but just for the company, for literally sleeping together. It was nice, having someone there to love, and who he knew loved him back.

His eyes land on Ragh and Gorgug, leaned in close by the bar, and he loses the fight to hold in his sigh. If the last two years was Fabian getting over his first real love, then these two were probably heading toward something interesting. They’d been dancing around each other around Fig’s proposal, and Ragh’s mentioned they’ve slept together once or twice, but they’re only just now getting serious. Gorgug said they were exclusive a few months ago, and he looked quietly happy about it, a contentedness to his expression that makes him look sweeter than usual. (Gorgug is, naturally, objectively, and unanimously their sweetest party member.)

It’s practically a fairy tale, especially for Ragh. He’s said before that Gorgug was his first kiss with a boy—the first kiss that ever counted—and to be dating him so many years later? It’s what love stories should be made of.

Anyways, Fabian finds himself a little jealous of them. Them, and Kristen and Tracker who have lasted this long, and Adaine’s long distance relationship with Oisin, and Fig and Ayda, who are getting married.

With everyone who likes dating to be dating (or newly married!) to some sort of high school sweetheart, Fabian wonders if maybe he’s just a failure at romance for not being able to keep his. He knows that’s unfair to both himself and Mazey—she’s her own person, and they’d both stopped being interested in even touching each other aside from dancing in the last few months, but… On bad days, Fabian still thinks maybe it was just his fault. On bad days, he wasn’t enough for her the same way he wasn’t enough for his mother growing up, wasn’t enough of a pirate for his father. Most of the time, he’s over all that, but it creeps back. He knows what to tell himself to not let himself spiral, but he also knows by now that these kinds of things never really stop coming back.

Today’s not supposed to be a bad day though. He drinks his water and decides he’s just thinking too much.

Fabian tries not to blame himself; it’s a wedding, and aside from Riz (who is very happily not dating anyone at all), he’s the only one of his friends that’s single. Of course he’ll be thinking about his past relationships.

The chair next to his scrapes on the floor as it gets pulled back, and Gorgug flops into it. Fabian blinks; he hadn’t noticed him ending his conversation with Ragh and walking all the way over here. He’s holding a drink from the bar, but he just sets it down on their table and shrugs out of his pinstriped suit jacket. Fabian watches him fold the jacket over the back of his chair, unclip his bowtie to stash it in the jacket’s pocket, and then unbutton the first two buttons of his shirt.

When he’s done, he looks at Fabian and raises his eyebrows. Fabian can actually see his brows go up high on his forehead because Gorgug’s hair is slicked away from his face, his white bangs making an attractive sort of swoop back. Fabian meets his gaze head-on and wonders when exactly Gorgug got hot. Maybe he’s been hot for a while—their whole group is good-looking (and Fabian feels very confident including himself in that, thank you very much!). It’s just that Gorgug doesn’t always wear it well, hiding his face or hunching over, unless he’s distracted and focusing on something else.

He’s wearing it well today, though.

“What?” Fabian asks, raising his own brows.

Gorgug cracks a smile. “Nothing. I was waiting for you to start talking.”

“I don’t have anything I want to talk about.”

“Okay.”

And that’s that. Gorgug picks up the drink he got from the bar to take a sip, and Fabian thinks with some amusement that it’s probably something mango-flavoured. Gorgug had made fun of Mary Ann about a mango drink ages ago, but when they started dating, he ended up really liking the flavour, and Fabian supposes his breakup with her didn’t change that.

Fabian watches him drink now, Gorgug’s Adam’s apple working as he swallows, and Fabian’s thoughts dwindle down until all he’s thinking about is what he’s seeing.

As ever, Gorgug shows up and hangs out,  and Fabian’s mind quiets right down.

They look out over the crowd together, once Gorgug puts down his drink. Fabian considers pouring himself another glass of water from the table’s pitcher, and is just about to reach for it when a meandering piano riff starts playing over the speakers. People dancing on the floor either settle into twos or leave for a break. Fabian sighs again and starts eyeing the bar for something stronger than water, when he finds a green hand in front of his face.

“Wanna dance?” Gorgug asks, standing up from his seat.

Fabian stares at the hand, then at Gorgug’s earnest expression.

“You don’t want to dance with Ragh?” he asks, taking a quick look around to try and find the Buccaneers player.

“We danced earlier,” Gorgug says, looking affectionate at the mention of his boyfriend. “Besides, he’s busy arm wrestling Mary Ann.”

Fabian follows Gorgug’s line of sight to see Ragh and Mary Ann with their elbows bent over a table, biceps bulging. Mary Ann is comically small next to Ragh’s forearm, her own arm propped up on a large rock they must have found somewhere outside so that she can comfortably reach Ragh’s hand. Fabian laughs at the sight—they both look like they’re sweating, though Mary Ann’s slight frown betrays much less than Ragh’s screwed up expression.

And they look evenly matched, too. Fabian knows how strong they both are, having played bloodrush with them each back in high school, albeit at different times. Getting tackled by either of them is not a fun time, though of course Gorgug would know this better than him, having been targeted by them before they dated him. While Ragh bullying him in freshman year sucked, Mary Ann tackling him that first tryout and setting Gorgug off for the rest of junior year is still a fond memory for Fabian.

Curiously, he asks, “Is that not weird for you?”

“Nah, they do this all the time. Even when I was dating Mary Ann.”

“Huh,” Fabian replies. “Good on her for keeping up on strength checks after high school, I guess.”

“Yeah. Anyways, dance?” Gorgug asks, pulling him back both to the initial question at hand and the man asking it. He wiggles his outstretched fingers, like a dork. (It’s cute.) “For old time’s sake?”

“What old times? We’ve only ever danced like, twice,” Fabian points out, but grabs his hand anyways and lets himself be hauled up. The feeling is second nature, his body accustomed to Gorgug pulling him out of all manner of situations.

“Still counts,” Gorgug says, and pulls him to the dance floor by the hand.

They wrap around each other, their bodies shaped to fit after years of working together. Just like being hauled up by Gorgug from every situation under the sun (and moon) is familiar to Fabian, so is being around him, and his body. It’s the same with all the Bad Kids: they know how to hold each other up and hold each other together, mentally, emotionally and physically. Fabian has gotten long used to the small height difference between himself and Gorgug, if only because he knows what he needs to cover with his battle sheet to waylay projectile weapons and wayward spells. It’s the same reason he knows how heavy Riz is and where to grab Adaine so that she can still be effective somatically while he runs with her in his arms, how he knows Kristen’s hand by even the faintest touch after so many battles where she’s invisible, and how to tell who Fig is no matter what disguise she’s put on.

Still, it’s nice to just hold Gorgug, and to be held by him in turn.

They start to sway side to side, and Fabian thinks about dancing with him at prom. He remembers properly noticing for the first time that Gorgug and Mazey are around the same height, if one discounted Mazey’s horns. He hadn’t realized until he danced with them both in one night.

He wonders how Gorgug feels when he dances with Ragh—not a lot of people they know are taller than Gorgug, after all. Gorthalax is, and Ragh of course, and also Garthy, but… that’s it, Fabian thinks. It must be strange for Gorgug to have to lean up to kiss someone, instead of way, way down.

Fabian tilts his head up to look Gorgug in the eye, and finds Gorgug already looking back at him with a small smile on his face.

Before Fabian can come up with anything to say, the piano piece resolves into a different slow tune, and Gorgug gets distracted by it. A wrinkle appears between his brows, one that is normally hidden behind messy bangs, and he frowns like he’s trying to remember something.

A single chord hangs, Ruben starts singing to the song, and Gorgug goes, “Ah.”

After you leave, I’ll be so alright, it’s true

Oh. “Is this that song you wrote in high school?” Fabian asks, a grin dawning on his face. Already, memories of choreographing the song with Mazey are bombarding him, dancing with her and hanging out with Fig and Gorgug over a week as they filmed a music video for it. Everything else aside, it was always fun to work with Mazey.

“Yeah,” Gorgug replies, his cheeks reddening. “Ruben’s playing a slowed down piano version of it though.” He pauses to listen for a little and then nods appreciatively. “It’s arranged pretty nicely, actually.”

I wanna be with you all of the time

I wanna be loved by you every night

He and Gorgug rotate in place, dress shoes beside dress shoes. Fabian feels comfortably caged by Gorgug’s arms, and Gorgug’s waist has been under his hands before, just like this. He listens to the bustle of the crowd around them, a lot of other people slow dancing, but also the clink of glasses and plates, the sounds of conversation and laughter. His heart thunders louder than everything else, thumping to the steady pace of Gorgug’s breath.

Fabian stares down at Gorgug’s open collar, close enough to examine how the edge of his clavicle peeks out, the dip at the base of his neck Fabian could fit his thumb into, the barely there freckles that match the light ones that still smatter across the bridge of his nose, visible only from this small a distance. For all that Gorgug said this song wasn’t about anyone in particular, Fabian listens to the lyrics and hears a nineteen year old boy who seems to want more than he could handle wanting. At this moment, Fabian is helpless to the way the words resonate with him, but he doesn’t know what inside him they’re reverberating off of.

I wanna be dancing, dreaming, bawling and weeping—

“Y’know I wrote this song for you?” Gorgug casually says.

Everything inside Fabian crashes and reboots, and it’s only Gorgug’s arms around his shoulders that keep him moving in this moment.

“What?” Fabian asks, voice steadier than the way he feels. “You said you didn’t write it for anyone.”

“Yeah, well. Y’know,” Gorgug says. “I didn’t want to get rejected at prom by my best friend who was in a happy relationship.” His tone is dry, which, honestly? Fair.

“So you wrote me a song and just didn’t tell me?” Fabian asks faintly.

Gorgug shrugs, and Fabian feels it, the way his arms brush Fabian’s jaw as his shoulders go up and down. They’re still close together, still dancing.

“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?” Gorgug replies, like Fabian’s world isn’t shifting sideways. “I was so down bad for you back then, oh man.” Gorgug looks nostalgic as he says this, eyes crinkling at the corners and tusks prominent as he chuckles. 

Fabian has a song written about him. He’d been someone’s muse.

He’d been Gorgug’s muse.

“I knew I was inspirational, Gorgug, but really?” he asks as smugly as he can, his hands reflexively tightening around Gorgug’s waist. Fabian can admit his ego is large and this definitely boosts it up, but there’s also—something. Something else.

Something big and yawning, inside his ribcage.

I guess God wants us apart for heaven’s sake

“Shut up,” Gorgug says, eyes sparkling. “I thought you’d find it funny.”

But how could you ever really know?

“Funny!” Fabian exclaims, wondering if it’s too over the top. “It’s not funny, it makes perfect sense that I would be someone’s muse. Really, it should have happened much sooner.”

If you never look, you don’t know what you’ll find

Gorgug laughs in that way that makes his eyes look like twin crescents, and Fabian looks and looks and looks.

Fabian’s standing in the shadow of a tie-wearing dragon, his hands feeling as heavy as if he’d only just ended his father’s life mere hours ago. Or maybe he’s standing in a tunnel he just crashed into through its ceiling, hugging Gorgug tighter than he’s ever hugged anyone in his entire life.

He clutches at Gorgug’s waist.

I wanna be barely hanging on—

There wasn’t something there. There hadn’t ever been anything there, here, between them. Nothing—except maybe a glimmer. Stray thoughts, always shepherded back in by sharp blue eyes through the window of a cop car, or his own reflection in a moving mirror and a flirtatious voice, or tender touches accompanied by a dancer’s grace and Badidas shoes.

He abruptly misses Mazey with such an intensity he actually steadies himself on Gorgug’s hips, and the palms of his hands feel like they’re burning. He can’t stand the thought that it might be Gorgug’s skin, radiating warmth through his dress pants, causing this heat.

Loving Mazey could set him on fire, but at least it didn’t surprise him.

I wanna be with you, I wanna be with you

Gorgug’s laugh starts to die down, and Fabian is still having some sort of crisis. “Maybe it’ll happen again if you keep dating that bard from last month,” Gorgug says, and Fabian actually can’t for the life of him remember who Gorgug is talking about. The last three or four hook-ups have sort of blended together, and he might remember their faces but he can’t remember their jobs.

“Maybe,” Fabian replies evasively. “In the meantime, I suppose I’ll have to continue holding this over your head.”

“Aw,” Gorgug says with good humour. “Come on, Fabian—”

Two big arms suddenly squish them together, pushing them so closely into each other that Fabian’s entire front gets smushed against Gorgug’s, his face awkwardly pushed into Gorgug’s shoulder, his hands slipping past Gorgug’s waist to automatically grasp at his back, getting a secure hold on him.

And then he gets artlessly lifted up in a clump with Gorgug, Ragh’s voice cheering loudly in his ear, yelling, “I WON! I WON!”

Ragh spins them both around as he whoops, and Gorgug’s arms shift quickly from their loose hold into something with purpose, keeping Fabian’s face tucked in, blocking the back of his neck and firmly gripping the back of his shoulders. He and Gorgug lock into their holds on each other, the maneuver to protect ingrained in their muscle memory, and they hang on until Ragh wants to put them down.

Despite the practiced way their bodies reacted, the situation is anything but dangerous. Fabian hides a grin at Ragh’s antics in Gorgug’s shoulder, and Gorgug’s laughter is music in Fabian’s ear, so close Fabian can feel his breath puffing out against his cheek.

Finally they get set down, and Ragh shakes them both. “Dudes, I beat Mary Ann!” He busses Gorgug on the cheek, tusks poking in a way that makes Gorgug’s nose scrunch up cutely as he grins back. “I won, baby!”

“Hey, congrats,” Gorgug replies, letting go of Fabian to wrap an arm around his boyfriend, returning Ragh’s cheek kiss with one of his own. Fabian subtly slips out from underneath Gorgug’s other arm in the process, detaching himself while Gorgug is distracted. “What’s the new score, ten to eleven?”

“Eleven to eleven!” Ragh flexes his arm. “We’re even now.”

Fabian might have detached himself from one half-orc, but the other drops his arm around his shoulders and pulls him into a side hug. “Dude! We haven’t hung out this whole wedding,” Ragh says.

Fabian smacks Ragh’s back, smiling. “Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you in general, hasn’t it?” Not since maybe the end of their last Bad Kids quest, just over a year ago.

“Yeah, man!” Ragh laughs raucously, giving him a bit of a shake. Fabian’s gotta say he did miss the big guy. Freshman year notwithstanding, Ragh’s been a really great friend to him too—one of his closest, after the Bad Kids themselves. He helped pull him out of that sophomore slump Fabian was in by listening to him and being there for him, and before that they chewed on glass together, and they always played well together on the Owlbears. “Come on, teach me one of your fancy dance moves!”

“I’ll leave you guys to it then,” Gorgug says. He punches Fabian’s shoulder, and then turns back to Ragh and goes on his toes—his toes! Gorgug!—to give his boyfriend a last quick kiss goodbye. Ragh hums cheerfully, pressing back. They look happy together.

Fabian watches Gorgug walk toward their table, now seating a tired-out Riz, his vest open and his hair ruffled, and a Kristen facedown on the table, her shoulders flushed red enough that Fabian can tell she should switch to water. Gorgug apparently thinks the same, as he pours them each a glass from the table’s pitcher, and Fabian’s heart squeezes.

The yawning in his chest expands like a black hole, and he wonders how he could be blindsided by a devastation this acute. It feels like he missed something big, and then he hates himself for thinking it because he would never, ever give up what he had with Mazey.

Sometimes—sometimes. Sometimes, things don’t line up because they just aren’t meant to be.

He doesn’t know why it hurts so much to remind himself of that.

At least, Fabian thinks wryly, there’s symmetry in all of this. Trading want for want, four years apart. Ships sailing in the night, or whatever it is Cathilda would say.

“Well, Fabes?” Ragh asks, taking him back to the present. Ragh looks content, cheeks flushed with alcohol and joy, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to the elbows, his collar unbuttoned as well. He’s a great guy, he makes Gorgug happy. He makes Fabian happy, gods, he’s one of Fabian’s closest friends.

Gorgug and Ragh are lucky to have each other.

Fabian steps in close and grabs Ragh’s hands, smirking up at him. “Let’s see what the next song is first,” he says, “since this one’s almost over.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Ragh grins and swings their hands absently.

Fabian tries his best to tame the screaming in his chest, his insides starting to feel like the bottomless pit that’s just a few walls away from where he’s standing, and he squeezes Ragh’s hands. Ragh squeezes back amiably, a curious look on his face that Fabian shakes his head at.

Gorgug once wanted him enough to write a song for him, and he still likes him enough now to tell him. And that’s more than Fabian knew he had, and more than he could ever ask for. Gorgug is one of his best friends, and Fabian loves him just like that. Just like Riz, and Fig, and Adaine, and Kristen. Just like Ragh.

Everything is good!

Everything is good.

When you make me lose—

Chapter Text

Gorgug and Ragh try to be serious for a while, but in the end, it never really gets that deep. They give monogamy a good try for a year, and then try an open relationship, and they’re even in a committed throuple with the Buccaneers’ cute new athletic trainer for a while, but none of it really strikes Gorgug as right, and it shows.

A year and a half after Fig and Ayda’s wedding, Gorgug calls it: he thinks that while he doesn’t necessarily mind being with more than one person at once, he prefers monogamy. It’s easier for him overall to dote on just one person when it comes to romance and affection; anything more gets unwieldy for him. Ragh pats him on the shoulder, says it’s totally cool, gives him a last kiss, and they go back to being friends. It’s awkward for a while as Gorgug finishes up his masters at BCU, and they kind of take some space from each other while things settle, but they have all the same friends so eventually Gorgug will be seeing Ragh around again.

It might be that need for space, however, that prompts him to start traveling with Fig and Ayda full-time after he graduates from his post-grad. Fig and the Cig Figs get to go on an international tour now that the groundwork of Fig introducing rock on a wider scale has taken root. Gorgug defends his thesis, properly proving barbaficing as a viable and successful multiclass, and figures he can take some time away from the constant reminder of the Buccaneers bloodrush team around BCU—his resume will still hold up for the teaching position he plans on eventually, even if he travels for who knows how long in the meantime.

A year into touring, Gorgug finds himself celebrating Fig and Ayda’s third wedding anniversary at the Gold Gardens. There’s a lot of drinking and merrymaking to go around, and he spends a good amount of it drunkenly plastered to Fig’s and Ayda’s sides, congratulating them on such a lovely relationship.

At the end of the night, however, Gorgug finds himself sobering up alone in his room, drinking water and video calling Fabian on his crystal. (There's crystal cell service all across the continent now because his master’s project was using artificer magic to install cell towers across Spyre while in a barbarian rage, proving he can recreate his results on multiple occasions, gathering empirical data so other people can recreate or improve upon his findings, then writing it all down. He decided on it mostly to do his seventeen year old self a solid, but his profs at BCU were chuffed about the technology spread. His parents are also really proud!)

“I’m just saying, maybe they’re courting gifts,” Gorgug says, putting his empty glass on the nightstand—nearly missing it, but it’s fine, he’s sobering up, it’s cool—and snickering at Fabian’s incredulous expression.

“Adaine told me courting isn’t even a thing in Fallinel anymore,” Fabian says, scratching at his eye scar and frowning. “The elves apparently got ‘a lot less stuffy’ after Tracker did her whole Galicaea rebranding tour during Night Yorb summer.”

On the other side of the crystal, Fabian’s also settled into bed, his eyepatch off and his hair down, curling around his face. He looks soft, and Gorgug misses him with an ache that feels as familiar as the silver grey of Fabian’s eye, and the point of his ears. 

They’d been texting a lot since the Cig Figs tour started—not that they ever stopped texting, seeing as how the Bad Kids group chat is as busy as it ever is. It’s just that Gorgug started messaging Fabian separately when his and Ragh’s relationship was evolving, asking about hook-up culture and dating and figuring out emotional boundaries and such. Fabian had been a safe space for him to talk about all that, and the only other one of them in their party that could kind of understand, since he was the only other one still kind of looking for a relationship.

Gorgug was also there for him when Fabian decided that hooking up wasn’t enough for him, and that maybe it was actually hurting him more than helping to go looking for connection like that only to continue being disappointed. That he liked sex more for the intimacy than the sex, and that after talking to Riz and Adaine about different ways to be ace, realizing he might be demi.

Ever since, Fabian’s just been dating unseriously via app (when he’s in places with more crystal technology, which is not most places in Spyre, despite all the working cell towers. Even Fallinel, where Fabian’s been staying more permanently with Adaine, has only recently seen a surge in crystal technology. Though it’s been long enough that there’s a bit of an online dating scene there now, as most young professionals at least have gotten their hands on a crystal). Fabian’s a little too busy to dedicate proper time to it, but he’s still trying to see if there’s anyone online that he might connect with in the area. 

Lately, Gorgug has kind of been hoping that maybe it could be him. Maybe a touch stupidly, he thinks they’re more mature feelings now. Something that could be more than a doomed high school crush.

But before any of those feelings, the old ones and the new ones that still work to make him feel stupid as all hells to be falling for Fabian again, Gorgug is Fabian’s friend first—and friends tease.

“Maybe he’s just a groupie then,” Gorgug grins, stretching his arms out. “Trying to catch the attention of the Ora-cool of Dance.”

“Gorgugguh,” Fabian whines. “How dare you talk to me about groupies when you’re the famous rock star in this friendship.”

“We don’t have any groupies,” Gorgug says, and then pauses. “At least, I don’t think we do.”

Fabian rolls his eye, and then the rest of him follows suit by rolling over in bed, taking his crystal with him. The new position shines more lamplight on his face, better highlighting his cheeks and the line of his nose, the sarcastic tilt of his brows. “Your ability to ignore the legions of fans willing to throw themselves at your feet astounds me.”

Gorgug rolls over too (flops, really, his limbs feeling a little uncoordinated), setting his crystal against a spare pillow and lying with his head propped on his arm, bent at the elbow. “Fans and groupies are different, though.”

“I suppose,” Fabian concedes. He mirrors Gorgug and also props his head on his arm, lying on his blind side and brushing hair away from his face. Gorgug smiles, looking at him. Wonders if his expression is hiding the tenderness he feels for the way Fabian’s silvery hair stubbornly falls back onto his forehead. “Anyways, I still think the rocks from Elendriel are a threat.”

“I think they’re only a threat if they’re being thrown at you.”

“That’s not a threat anymore, Gorgug, that’s an attack.”

“An attack can be a threat,” Gorgug says stubbornly. Fabian looks at him with exasperation.

“Are you still drunk?” he asks. “You can’t be serious.”

“It can!” Gorgug insists. “Anyone I’ve ever attacked with my axe finds me threatening!”

“No, not everyone,” Fabian says, but he’s laughing. “You better be drinking water.”

“I finished it already.”

“Well, get more-ruh!”

Gorgug sighs but gets back up obediently to pour himself another glass from the complementary jug on the desk, bringing Fabian along with him on his crystal and setting him down there. Gorgug’s head does spin a little at the shift from horizontal to vertical, so maybe the other man has a point. Fabian watches him as he drinks, and Gorgug pointedly makes direct eye contact with the front camera as he gulps down the water. He can only see Fabian’s face in his periphery, but he hears Fabian snicker at Gorgug’s ridiculousness loud and clear through the crystal speaker.

He grins back automatically mid-sip, and water spills all down his front, making him yelp in surprise at the sudden shock of cool liquid dripping down his chin, neck, and chest, seeping into his clothing. Fabian laughs so hard he starts coughing, and Gorgug flushes, pulling at his wet shirt.

“So you are still drunk,” Fabian says, mirth plain on his face.

“Oh, shut up,” Gorgug mumbles. He considers leaving the shirt on but then decides, fuck it, and takes it off. He spreads it out on the edge of the bed so it can dry, and while his back is turned to the crystal, he hears Fabian make a choking noise.

He’s about to ask what’s wrong when Fabian questions, voice high and strained, “Did you get more tattoos?”

“Oh!” Gorgug perks up. He almost forgot! “Yeah, ‘cuz we’re at the Gold Gardens! It’s all our weapons and symbols for Cassandra and Ankarna and—and best friend stuff. Bad Kids stuff.” Gorgug turns his back to the camera more purposefully, trying to show off the new tattoo spanning his entire upper back. “Fig says it looks awesome. I wish you could see it in person. Look!” He tries to crouch and scoot closer to the camera on the desk with his back still turned, but it’s difficult, and Fabian chuckles at his poor attempts at getting it all in frame.

After an extended moment where he assumes his friend is actually taking the time to examine Gorgug’s tattoo on his small crystal screen, Fabian says, “I wish I could see it too,” and he sounds… like something. His tone feels important—maybe wistful? Gorgug thinks that can’t be right, but Fabian sounds like something that… hurts.

Gorgug turns back around to look at Fabian properly, and finds him still lying there, still looking. Fabian’s eye seems to roam up and down his screen, and even with the little selfie window showing how Gorgug looks, he has now idea what Fabian is seeing.

Suddenly, he misses Fabian so much, it feels tangible, physical, like it’s grabbing him by the throat and choking him, like his lungs are blocked, like he can’t breathe. He picks up his crystal with care and crawls back into his bed, settling into his pillows and just staring at Fabian.

“Y’know, we have like a six week tour break ‘cuz Fig wanted Ayda to spend time with Garthy as part of her anniversary gift,” Gorgug says quietly, trying to breathe again. “And this time of year’s kinda busy for people anyways. I was just gonna hang around Leviathan or visit my parents, but… I could visit you instead? Stay for the break?”

Fabian’s whole face brightens up. “Really?”

Gorgug’s heart warms. “Yeah.”

“Alright!” Fabian says, and wiggles a little where he’s lying down, which strikes Gorgug as adorable. “Adaine and I actually have a ball to attend at the end of September, for the equinox. You should come! I’m opening.”

“A ball? I thought you said they weren’t stuffy anymore?”

“She said ‘a lot less stuffy’,” Fabian corrects. “The Court of Stars is still pretty stuffy.” Gorgug hums, conceding, as Fabian goes on. “Oh, and this means you’ll be here for your birthday too! We’ll make Riz come out to Fallinel and you guys can do a joint party again. He probably needs a break.”

The last time Gorgug saw Riz was two weeks ago, when they stopped by Elmville to use the door at Mordred Manor to get all their stuff to Leviathan. His conspiracy wall was at maximum red string, and he’d asked the Cig Figs to keep an ear out for some demon stuff he caught wind of that could possibly lead to a big overarching thing in Frostheim. It’s cold as balls up there, which sucks because Gorgug has a feeling this is going to end up being another whole party Bad Kids quest, and his jacket is getting old enough to let air in. As a result, he’s been looking for a warmer jacket to buy; he thinks he’ll have better luck finding something quality (if old-fashioned) in his size in the Mountains of Chaos because they have a bigger giant population and their climate in general is much colder, but they don’t tour there until the end of the year. Riz better hold onto his big quest until Gorgug has a good jacket.

Or at least, he should hold onto it long enough to take a break and come celebrate their birthdays together in Fallinel.

“He definitely needs one,” Gorgug says, and promptly yawns.

When he finishes yawning, he looks and finds Fabian finishing a yawn too, and then blinking at Gorgug a few times, rubbing at his eye.

“Seems like we need a break too,” Gorgug points out quietly.

“Mm,” Fabian replies, “but weren’t you telling me something about Fig? Before the rocks thing.”

“Oh, yeah.” Gorgug yawns again, and burrows underneath a blanket. It’s soft on his bare skin, and he spares a moment to appreciate how much love and attention Garthy puts into every detail of the Gold Gardens. “You’ll never guess who showed up again.” Gorgug musters up a tired grin as Fabian raises an anticipatory brow. “The aarakocra guy from the COC.”

“What?” Fabian asks, a lower key sort of delighted, fatigue edging his amusement. “No way, he hasn’t retired yet?”

“Apparently not,” Gorgug replies. “You would think he’d have given up after that whole thing with Jace.”

“You would think,” Fabian agrees, eye curving with a small smile.

Gorgug keeps talking even as his blinks start to feel longer, having to remind himself to open his eyes so he can keep looking at Fabian, who’s starting to look just as sleepy.

And then he wakes up.

He’s a little confused at first, not sure when he even went to sleep, but the sun is shining through the fancy curtains of his room, and Fabian is sound asleep on the other side of his crystal. His cheek is squished into his arm and he’s drooling a little, his other hand partially covering the camera like he was reaching out toward the screen, the angle of his shot slightly askew.

Gorgug takes a moment to really just look at Fabian sleeping peacefully.

He’s written a few songs since that first one about Fabian he did in high school, and Gorgug even sings them at every show, but he hasn’t really written about someone like he did with Fabian. Sure, he’s scribbled some things down trying to figure out how to navigate all that stuff with Ragh and the other people they dated together, and he’s returned to the sweeter, more innocent feelings from high school with Zelda and Mary Ann, but he’s never found that same sort of build-up of emotion, that need for release, for confession, all targeted at one specific person.

Watching Fabian sleep, vulnerable and unguarded—so close to Gorgug in this moment, and yet so far away—all these feelings start to crawl up his throat. Building up, and building up, almost fit to burst.

The ache is nostalgic, really.

(As nostalgic as it is distantly alarming, anyways.)

Fabian stirs, blinking and moving the hand in front of the camera to wipe at his mouth. His crystal gets knocked over in the process, and Gorgug only sees sheets and hears Fabian make confused noises until the camera moves and Fabian’s face comes back into frame. He’s squinting in the morning light. Gorgug is hopelessly endeared.

“Morning Gorgug,” Fabian says, his voice sleep-rough in a way that makes Gorgug blush a little.

“Morning, Fabian,” Gorgug replies. His first words of the day.

Fabian stares at the screen, still squinting his eye like he can’t bear to open it any wider. “Come over soon,” he says.

“Yeah,” Gorgug whispers. Clears his throat and says again, louder, “Yeah. I’ll ask Ayda for a teleport or something, and I’ll—yeah. Hopefully before dinner.”

“Good,” Fabian replies. He smiles, not even fully awake and yet, to Gorgug, warmer than the sun outside his window. “Tonight, then.”

“Tonight.”

*

Gorgug appears in Adaine’s Stellemere teleportation circle mid-afternoon with Fig, Ayda, and his fully packed suitcase in tow.

When he looks up, blinking away the bright blue light of the circle, he finds Fabian grinning at him, posture set forward like he’s going to run right at Gorgug. He doesn’t, though, so maybe that’s just wishful thinking on Gorgug’s part.

Fabian still strides into the circle before the light of it fully fades, not waiting before he’s got a grasp on Gorgug’s hand, pulling him in and giving him a manly back pat. “You’re here!” he exclaims. Their chests bump, their clasped fists between them, and all Gorgug wants to do is hug him properly. 

He settles for patting Fabian’s back in return. “Said I would be.”

“You did.” Fabian pulls back and he’s beaming. The plain happiness on his face is just as good as a hug.

“I did.”

Fabian huffs, shaking his head, and pats Gorgug one more time on the shoulder before moving on to hug Fig and say hello to Ayda. Gorgug’s hand feels empty when he leaves.

“Gorgug!” He looks up at who’s calling his name a millisecond before his arms are full of blonde Oracle.

Ever-ready to catch any one of his party members, he lifts her up and gives her a spin. “Adaine!” She giggles in his ear, and Gorgug smiles as he sets her down.

It’s a good start to his stay at Fallinel. They set their bags down first; Fig and Ayda are staying the night so they drop their stuff off in the bigger guest room in Adaine’s hallway, and Fabian leads him to a room that’s directly opposite where Fabian himself has been staying, the doors facing each other.

It turns out the Oracle traditionally gets the top floor of the Court of Stars’ Stellemere Tower, and while Adaine’s spent the better part of almost a decade now challenging stupid elven traditions, this one made sense to her. It would be useful to have some sort of Oracle office in the capital of Fallinel, she’d said. Fabian mentioned it being kind of weird at first because it’s like living on the top floor of an active office building, but if his anecdotes about Elendriel and the other Court of Stars associates who apparently work out of the Tower are any indication, he’s since gotten used to it.

After dropping off their stuff, the five of them spend the rest of the afternoon exploring Stellemere (Gorgug’s never properly visited, since his visits to Fallinel usually consist of staying at Kei Lummenura and checking on the cell tower he installed in the repurposed Calethriel Tower), and toward the end of the day, Adaine takes them out to her new favourite place in town to eat. It’s a tavern-slash-inn that’s under the apparently fairly new management of a werewolf couple who bought into Tracker’s Wolfsong thing way back when. They’re kind people and they make great food, so Gorgug’s a happy camper.

When they return to Stellemere Tower, the women split off for the night, and he and Fabian walk to where their rooms are on the other side of the floor. Fabian leans up against the wall and waits while Gorgug unlocks the door, and when it opens, the other man straightens up. Fabian is watching him with a soft look on his face, and blinks when Gorgug meets his gaze.

“Well,” Gorgug says, “this is me.”

“Yes, great job Gorgug,” Fabian replies, the sarcasm more of a knee jerk response than anything actually scathing.

Gorgug huffs anyways, exasperated. “Then… See you tomorrow?” He’s honestly excited at the prospect. Six whole weeks with Fabian! (And Adaine of course, Gorgug mentally adds, not without some minor guilt. He loves her, really—but Fabian though. Fabian’s here! In front of him! And will be for six whole weeks!)

“Ah, yes…” Fabian stands up and away from the wall, his body turning slightly toward his own door but his gaze still fixed on Gorgug. “See you tomorrow, Gorgug.” He doesn’t actually take a step toward his room, however; just shifts from one foot to the other.

“Fabian? What’s—” He doesn’t get to finish his question before there are arms wrapped around his middle and a face buried in his shoulder. “Oh,” Gorgug breathes, a sort of subtle elation spreading slowly through his body, starting in his chest and radiating out to his fingertips and toes. He curls around Fabian, hugging him back tightly and burying his face in Fabian’s hair.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Fabian says, quiet and muffled by Gorgug’s hoodie.

“Happy to be here,” Gorgug replies, just as quietly.

They hold each other maybe a touch too long, but Gorgug missed Fabian and he’s not gonna be the first to pull away. Fabian breathes out, relaxing into the hug, his hands spreading across Gorgug’s upper back, palms flat over his heart. Gorgug happily takes Fabian’s weight, and shifts his arm so he can twirl a finger through his silver ponytail, twining a lock of hair around his index and doing his best to nuzzle into Fabian without actually doing any nuzzling. Just slight head leaning—temple to temple, but like, passably platonic. Definitely.

Eventually, Fabian clears his throat and pulls back, and his cheeks and ears are flushed red. Gorgug untangles his hand from Fabian’s hair, and Fabian looks up at Gorgug, observing him with a slight furrow between his brows. He looks like he’s about to ask something, but when Gorgug smiles down at him, he seems to drop it, instead stepping away fully.

Clearing his throat again, Fabian says, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Gorgug replies, and watches Fabian unlock his door, give him a small smirk and a casual hand wave, and step into his room.

Gorgug misses him already.

*

The month goes by in a flash.

Sometimes, Gorgug hangs out around Adaine’s study in Stellemere while she looks over various laws and texts in the Court of Stars archives and consolidates them with the different magical laws and traditions in different nations. Her goal, she’s explained to them over the years, is to see how different nations use divination in their governance and then trying to see how she can either use her Oracular powers or volunteer the help of her international wizarding network to make the process smoother sailing. She’s also educating people on how to better understand prophecies and how to work around them and with them, since people so often discount context in favour of literal interpretation.

Most of the time, it goes over Gorgug’s head, but it’s nice to sit down at a nearby desk and work on some artificing stuff while she does her wizard-y things. Gorgug has a small portable artificing workshop—he used to keep it in the back of the hangvan, but he brought it with him on tour—and he’s currently making Riz little keychain-sized smart bombs for his birthday present. He’d asked Fabian to write out The Ball in his fancy calligraphy and turned it into a stencil, so now each bomb looks like an engraved metal gas station souvenir keychain. They can remote detonate with a small control fob (also on a keychain!), and he’ll be able to connect to and freely explode up to three at a time.

Hopefully Riz will like them.

When he’s not working on Riz’s gift in Adaine’s study, he’s with Fabian. He watches Fabian practice the opening dance he’ll perform for the Equinox Ball in the room Gorgug teleported into; Fabian explains that it’s his dance studio/gym, but it’s also the only room that has enough uninterrupted floor space for a permanent teleportation circle, which is why it’s here. 

(He’s apparently only been interrupted mid-rehearsal once, since usually Adaine gets enough warning to tell him in advance, and Fabian says he’s lucky that only Adaine’s magic can activate it from their end. They also figured out how to make sure his dance shoes don’t scuff the runes, but they apparently had a lot of arguments about it before Adaine got her hands on a good enough preservation spell. From the stubborn look on Fabian’s face as he mentions this, Gorgug has a feeling he lost most of those arguments.)

Fabian’s beautiful and graceful as he rehearses, all elegant limbs and fluttering sheet. It’s captivating to watch him, his face and body disappearing and reappearing in the spaces between where his sheet flies and falls. Gorgug is happy to sit by the wall and observe as Fabian jumps and twirls, starting and stopping the song he’s dancing to on his crystal. It’s almost like daydreaming, and Gorgug gets easily lost in the music, and in the concentrated expression on Fabian’s face.

If it’s not dance rehearsal, then it’s tagging along to do Champion stuff for Adaine (which turns out to include not just dance fights but some regular fights with annoyingly self-righteous high elves), some freelance local questing (they clear out a gelatinous cube that somehow managed to grow in someone’s neglected basement, and interrogate a hag that’s transplanted from Swamp Venice to make sure she’s not causing trouble), and the occasional dance lesson for people who’ve expressed interest and have some gp to spare (mostly children, and Gorgug teases Fabian over how good he is with them for a guy whose little sister is still technically on his nemesis list).

Gorgug meets Elendriel, who turns out to be a Council of Chosen delegate that assists Adaine with communication between the Ministry of Adventuring and the Court of Stars, and who travels between Bastion City and Stellemere often for that purpose. He also finds out that the rocks weren’t courting gifts, but spell components from some temple in the Mountains of Chaos that he’d intended for Fabian to pass onto Adaine. Gorgug laughs at Fabian’s embarrassed face until Elendriel says he actually would be open to courting Fabian if he’s interested, that he’s thought of gifts ideas already and has just been meaning to actually ask Fabian. This shuts Gorgug right up, a cocktail of unfortunate feelings swirling up in his stomach at the hopeful look in Elendriel’s eyes. With a glance at Gorgug’s face, however, Fabian demurs, and Gorgug tries really hard not to linger on that for too long.

Not lingering doesn’t really work though—not when Fabian takes him to visit Kei Lummenura and Telemaine greets him warmly with his little Yak Bak, not when Fabian shows him his favourite overlook where he goes to watch the sunset, and not when Fabian takes him to a secret beach north of Fallinel, hidden behind the royal family’s castle and a bunch of trees, for a picnic and a swim.

All Gorgug does for days and days is linger on the way Fabian always seems to have a hand on him, on how Fabian’s face looks when backlit by pink skies and the setting sun, Fabian’s voice over the crash of waves, the way Fabian occasionally stutters when he’s caught off guard, looking flustered and slightly panicked, and how Gorgug can’t help but return his stutters with long pauses and ground-staring like they’re in high school again.

It's as heartening as it is demoralizing to realize some of his flirting habits haven’t changed. At least Ragh said it was cute when he got awkward, and some of the people he’d tried to date during the open relationship part of their whole thing were evidently receptive enough.

But is Fabian?

Gorgug spends the rest of his downtime turning over all the ways Fabian seems to be looking at him in new ways and wondering if he should make a move, or if it’ll put a strain on their relationship to try. He guesses they’ll make it through even if Fabian rejects him—they’re best friends, first and foremost—but it’s still scary to want something like this.

It’s always scary to want someone like this, and always has been.

Before Gorgug knows it, however, it’s the end of September and the Court of Stars’s Autumnal Equinox Ball has arrived, the event being held in the castle ballroom of Princess Naradriel and her family. Fig, Gorthalax and Ayda come because Adaine asks Fig and the Cig Figs to perform in an attempt to unbalance the hoity toity types still attending these things, and to show the youth attending some cool new music. Kristen and Tracker also end up tagging along down east with Riz, since Tracker gets an automatic invite as the most prominent Galicaean cleric in Spyre. They’re staying until Gorgug and Riz’s birthday bash too, saying they wanted to hang out and maybe also talk to Princess Naradriel, whatever that’s about. Nara’s attending the ball, so Gorgug’s probably going to find out, even if he might not want to.

Fabian is stunning as the opening act of the ball, performing with a confidence and ease that Gorgug could never look away from. He’s seen the steps a million times by now as Fabian’s practiced them in his studio, but to see him jumping up into the air and pointing his toes, twisting and flipping in his dark and sparkling skintight bodysuit, controlling the flow of the vibrant silk sheet in his hands like it’s an extension of himself—well, it’s something different. Fabian is gorgeous, and Gorgug is… drooling, probably. His mouth is definitely open and drying as he watches.

He still remembers waking up one morning in Kei Lummenura during spring break, after days of Fabian being quiet and withdrawn and hurt, to see him dancing with the other elves there, a smile on his face that felt like the sun for all that it had been days since any of them had seen it. He remembers sitting out in the trees with Riz that night to watch Fabian dancing around a bonfire, Riz weeping, and Gorgug content to watch Fabian come into himself in an entirely new and captivating way.

Years of dancing later, and Fabian is truly breathtaking. Fabian’s got a big head, but maybe he should hear it more from Gorgug anyways.

When Fabian finishes his dance, he bows, and then finds Gorgug’s eyes first, giving him a grin, flushed and bright. He receives his congratulations from the audience and his friends alike, and for once doesn’t hesitate to hug Gorgug in front of everyone. Gorgug is proud and happy to hold him back, even though Fabian’s sweaty from dancing.

The Cig Figs are up afterward, and it is definitely hilarious to see the older high elves look shocked and taken aback when a devil, a tiefling and a half-orc get up on stage and start playing rock music. They play a quick set, and then clear the stage for the elven string quartet that will be playing for the rest of the night.

Fabian is waiting for him when they finish, grinning wildly and ready to bully him and Riz into waltzing. He’s changed out of his dance outfit into a tux that looks fetching on him (not that he doesn’t look fetching in everything; it’s almost unfair, really, and the longer this crush rebuilds up in his chest, the more it starts to feel like a personal attack on Gorgug’s sanity).

Gorgug stumbles through waltzing with Riz under Fabian’s instruction (not doing too poorly despite the wild height difference), and then Riz tries to lead Fabian in a waltz while Gorgug goes to catch up with Kristen and Tracker, who are apparently trying to date Princess Nara. They ask him for advice and how he felt about it all when he was dating both Ragh and Haji the Bastion Buccaneers athletic trainer. He’s happy to talk to them for a while, the three of them picking at dainty finger sandwiches from the little snack tables off to the side as they chat.

At some point, the music slows down some, and Gorgug looks up to find people abandoning coordinated fancy ball dancing for the slow dancing he knows how to do, just standing and swaying while you hold someone you like. He instinctively looks for Fabian, and finds the other man talking to Elendriel on the other side of the dance floor. Gorgug chews on his lip, knowing the panicked jealousy that’s suddenly got him by the throat is uncalled for and unnecessary. He fights with himself on whether or not he should interrupt their conversation to whisk Fabian away, or if he should just lurk in a corner or distract himself and find Fig or something.

He’s just about resolved to leave Fabian to do whatever with Elendriel for this song but to make sure to ask him first at the next possible opportunity, when he sees Fabian giving Elendriel a nod, stepping away from him—

And locking eyes with Gorgug.

The music swells, and Gorgug doesn’t know if it’s the violins from the string quartet or just his head playing the soundtrack of his heart, in this moment, but it feels like everything is falling into place just watching Fabian walking toward him.

His feet move without his say so, moving to meet Fabian halfway, and before he knows it, they’re standing in front of each other.

Fabian looks up at him through his lashes. 

Gorgug feels like he’s gonna die.

“Dance with me?” Fabian asks, holding up his hand.

“Okay,” Gorgug says, and takes his hand.

Fabian leads him to a spot on the dance floor, and before Fabian can let go of his hand, Gorgug takes Fabian’s and places it on his shoulder, hinting for Fabian to reach up this time instead of the way they’ve done it in the past.

With a curious look, Fabian steps in close to wrap his arms around Gorgug’s shoulders and neck, and Gorgug places his hands on Fabian’s waist.

“This is new,” Fabian muses. They’re face to face and chest to chest, and Fabian’s voice is in a lower register than usual, a timbre that makes Gorgug shiver. “We don’t usually dance like this.”

“No, not usually,” Gorgug replies and considers what it means that they have a usual way of dancing, even though they haven’t really danced all that often at all. Then again, “Y’know, I think you’re the only person I’ve ever slow danced with more than once.”

“Really?” Fabian asks. “What about Mary Ann? Or Ragh? Never went slow dancing on a date?”

“Not really,” Gorgug replies, having to think about it. “At prom I danced with Riz, technically, and Kristen I think? And you. At Fig and Ayda’s wedding—oh, I guess I danced with Ragh a couple times there, but that was it. And then yeah, also you. So that’s… yeah. Just you, really.” He clears his throat, glances awkwardly around the fancy ballroom to avoid eye contact, and thinks about how comfortably Fabian and Adaine have been conducting themselves all night. “I bet you’ve slow danced—and regular danced—with a whole bunch of people.”

“Well, yes, of course,” Fabian replies, “it’s my job.” He smirks and leans in like he’s sharing a secret, drawing Gorgug’s eyes again. “You were my first though,” he says, coy and playful. Gorgug wants badly to believe he’s being flirted with, but Fabian’s probably just joking around.

Still, Gorgug exhales with a soft chuckle, feeling shy. He almost looks down at their feet, just to do something that isn’t staring dreamily at Fabian’s pretty face. He realizes, however, that doing so will end with him leaning his forehead against Fabian’s—they’re that close.

“You were my first ever slow dance at my first ever school prom,” Fabian continues, voice full of nostalgia and affection. Then his smile dips a bit. “I really needed the company, that night. So thank you, Gorgug.”

“Anytime, Fabian,” Gorgug replies, entirely honest and completely serious. Any time Fabian wanted to hold him like this, Gorgug is down. Truly so down, Fabian doesn’t even know.

Or does he?

Gorgug contemplates it while they rotate slowly on the dance floor, in each others’ arms and practically breathing each other in.

Even after graduating with honours at BCU (twice!), Gorgug doesn’t feel like the smartest tool in the shed; he has never and probably will never get rid of the insecurity that he’s just dumb and full of rage, no matter how many projects he successfully completes, how purposeful his rage has become, or how many barbarians he meets. Ragh, Lydia Barkrock, Zelda, and even Mary Ann who was so patient with him in her own way—they all took up the barbarian class, and they are some of the kindest, smartest, most considerate people he knows. They’re so much more than the rage they can wield, but he’ll never shake the irrational feeling that it’s different for him. Never mind that he managed to become the first person to hold concentration through a rage, ever, in all of Spyre—he’ll always just be stupid Gorgug, dumb with rage.

He’s terrified of being dumb now. He can’t be stupid about this. Not with Fabian’s feelings, or his own—

Fabian’s hands distract him from his spiralling train of thought, fingers brushing the back of his neck first seemingly by accident, and then more purposefully. He tips his head forward almost instinctively in response, stretching out the nape of his neck so Fabian has free reign and, yeah, leaning his forehead on Fabian’s. No thinking as he does it, brain immediately and completely shut off by sword-callused fingers tangling in his hair.

“Oh,” Gorgug says, more an exhale than a word. It’s quiet in the circle of Fabian’s arms, his biceps brushing Gorgug’s ears, his hair soft on Gorgug’s face where they’re pressed together. When Fabian only hums in response, it echoes throughout Gorgug’s body and makes his bones tremor, louder than the music the quartet might be playing and the clamor of the other attendees of the ball enjoying themselves.

Gorgug slips his arms from around Fabian’s waist farther, to better wrap around him in turn, fingers splayed on his lower back and pulling him in closer. When Gorgug closes his eyes, he feels like time’s stopped all over again. Over the years he’s come to understand just how true it is that chronomancy is the greatest magic of all, but surely it means something that being with someone—being with Fabian like this, right here, right now—can feel like he’s doing chronomancy at a ninth level. That he’s gotten his hands on Aguefort’s wristwatch and made everything but the two of them freeze in place, everyone paused except the two of them, so occupied with each other that they don’t even notice they’re the only two people in the whole wide world who are still moving at all.

When Gorgug opens his eyes again, he’s too close to really see Fabian’s face, and he wonders if he’d be able to feel Fabian’s eyelashes on his cheek, should Fabian blink—if it would be a barely there, flutter of a touch against Gorgug’s skin, or if it would feel just as present as the texture of Fabian’s scar, and the line of his eyepatch.

The violins keep playing and Gorgug thinks it’s the same song, but he can’t be sure. He’s lost track of time. (Is that chronomancy too?)

Eventually—unfortunately—the song begins to wind down. Gorgug sighs and straightens up, just a tiny bit away from Fabian but feeling like it must be miles, the amount of space he’s putting between them.

“You must have a line of people wanting to dance with you at these things,” Gorgug murmurs, trying to be normal again. And this is normal. He’s definitely feeling normal. Not at all off-kilter by the intimacy of it all.

Fabian tilts his head left and right, a so-so sort of response. “Not anymore,” he replies. “I had to stop bringing dates because people would get weird and jealous. Haven’t really danced like this with anyone but Adaine for a while now.”

“Ah.” Gorgug struggles with how special that makes him feel. He should do it. He’s gonna do it. Should he do it? He pivots to stall for time, his nerves getting the better of him, making him grasp onto the small of Fabian’s back, fingers nervously flexing. “I-I told you the Ora-cool of Dance had groupies.”

Fabian snorts. “They’re not groupies, just… fans, I guess.” Gorgug is about to crow with victory when Fabian cuts in, exasperated, “I already let you win this one!”

Oh yeah. Gorgug tries not to pout, and Fabian snickers, knocking their heads back together, his shoulders shaking with quiet laughter.

It would be so easy to say something right now. It would feel natural. Gorgug likes Fabian so much, and here he is now, laughing in Gorgug’s arms, and Gorgug can just tell him how much he likes it.

He opens his mouth to say it—

And they get knocked into by an uncoordinated couple, waltzing without looking where they’re going. Fabian’s arms tighten around Gorgug’s neck as they stumble as one, trying to keep their balance. Gorgug, for his part, takes the hold he has on Fabian to scoop him up by the waist, going with the momentum to lift, twist, and reset him somewhere safely off to the side, Fabian realighting with the casual grace of a dancer. Nothing they haven’t done a million times—while holding weapons, even—so Fabian doesn’t even blink before he’s yelling, “Watch it!” at the couple as they stutter out apologies and scramble back. Fabian scoffs in response, pulling back to straighten out his jacket, and grumbling under his breath about a lack of perception some people have. Gorgug lets him go to set his own bowtie to rights.

And then they’re looking at each other.

Gorgug hadn't even realized the song had changed to something faster again. Sheepishly, he thinks maybe they should've been the ones with more perception. They were probably blocking the dance floor, and Gorgug doesn’t want to look and see what expressions might be on his friends’ faces, because they would have definitely picked up on—whatever was just happening. About to happen.

Still happening?

Fabian is glaring at the dance floor, looking some kind of annoyed, and Gorgug thinks, no, probably not; the moment’s passed.

“Thanks for the dance,” Gorgug says awkwardly.

Fabian stiffens and takes his eye from the dance floor back to Gorgug, evaluating. Whatever he sees there causes his shoulders to drop. Relaxed, or resigned? “Yes, of course,” Fabian replies airily. “Thank you.”

Gorgug watches Fabian turn away from him before Gorgug can properly see his expression, and thinks, Fabian would have said something, right? Or he would have at least offered to continue dancing, even if it was back to waltzing?

But—no. For all of Fabian’s bravery in showing interest first, he’s never been the type to make the last move. With people he likes, he’s always been the type to swing everything in his favour before making a bet, and then hanging onto any winnings he gets with both hands and his whole heart.

Fabian saves his vulnerabilities for sure things, and what is Gorgug in this moment but the surest thing ever?

And what is he even doing anyways? He goes for stuff! Even if he’s bad at them, even if it’s hard. He doesn’t want things to be bad with Fabian, ever, but he shouldn’t let that stop him… Who cares if the moment’s passed!

Resolved once more, Gorgug takes a deep breath and makes what he hopes is the last move and not the wrong one, taking two steps and reaching out to grab one of Fabian’s hands, tugging him back into the little space they’d been standing in.

Fabian's face is flushed, looking confused and a little upset, but he allows himself to be pulled. “Gorgug?”

“Fabian,” Gorgug says, tone urgent, heart thundering. “I really, really like you. Can I kiss you?”

Fabian’s eye widens, shocked, but something breaks across his face and he nods fervently without speaking, like maybe he can’t anymore. Gorgug isn’t able to process anything else about Fabian’s face except that it makes him ache, and then Gorgug is being pulled in by the lapel of his blazer, and kissed.

There’s no fireworks, and no chronomancy, no beat drop or triumphant chorus; everything in the world just narrows down to Fabian, his lips, and the way his hands creep from Gorgug’s lapel, up his chest and back around his neck.

Fabian’s mouth is soft, and he exhales shakily before opening for Gorgug, his thumbs brushing the lobes of Gorgug’s ears before he’s surging up, using Gorgug to steady himself on his toes. Gorgug takes his weight, pressing back and pressing closer still, closer than they’ve ever been.

Fabian’s fingers sneak back into his hair again, tugging slightly, and Gorgug shivers, humming into Fabian’s mouth and getting a gasp in response. He’s warm everywhere Gorgug is touching him, and Gorgug wants to get lost in the heat of him.

Gorgug’s ready to keep kissing Fabian—would like nothing more than to stand there kissing him forever—but Fabian pulls back before it gets too deep and heated. Instinctively, Gorgug’s mouth follows Fabian’s, pulled in like a magnet, but Fabian angles his head away so Gorgug’s mouth lands more on his cheek and the corner of his mouth than his lips.

“I’m not going to make out with you next to the finger foods at the Equinox Ball, Gorgug,” Fabian says, hushed and blushing as he moves his arms from around Gorgug’s shoulders and neck to in between their chests, his hands resting over Gorgug’s collar bones and straightening out the lapel he’d crumpled when he pulled Gorgug in. He doesn’t sound half as chastising as he probably intends to, and it makes Gorgug grin.

“Aw,” Gorgug replies, matching Fabian’s hushed tone. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Fabian replies, but doesn’t pull away any further, their faces still centimetres apart. He’s smiling enough for the little dimple to appear by his mouth, the one that shows up when he’s really happy. Gorgug can’t resist ducking in to kiss the dimple, and when he does, he gets rewarded with a giggle that seems to surprise Fabian as much as it delights Gorgug.

“Your tusks,” Fabian explains, sounding flustered, and oh. Cute.

Gorgug pecks his cheek again and then smushes his face into the side of Fabian’s, pressing his tusks into the skin there and nipping slightly. Fabian yelps, jolting in Gorgug’s arms, and Gorgug can’t help but laugh into Fabian’s neck. He can’t stop smiling, can’t stop holding tight. He doesn’t really want to. Happiness fizzes in his chest where his heavy heart used to be, and Gorgug thinks he could get drunk on it, on Fabian’s… Just on Fabian. Full stop.

“Gorgug, come on,” Fabian says, patting Gorgug’s chest like that won’t immediately derail Gorgug again. He rallies, however, since Gorgug can recognize that Fabian is definitely right about this.

The string quartet’s waltz music starts to filter back into Gorgug’s senses. Ruefully, he wishes for a moment to be back at the Aguefort gym, the whole rest of the world frozen in time. He’d even throw in Kalvaxus looming and the corpse of Dayne Whatsisface by the stage again, if it only meant he could continue kissing Fabian right this second.

Instead, Gorgug hangs tight to Fabian’s waist and takes another moment to reel himself in, breathing slowly and trying to compartmentalize all the ways he’s aware of Fabian doing the exact same thing as he stands tucked into the lee of Gorgug’s body.

It takes a minute before Fabian finally pulls away and steps back, putting a proper two feet of space between them, and Gorgug takes that as his cue to return his own hands to himself.

It’s only then that Gorgug realizes Fabian never actually said anything back to him.

“So, uh,” Gorgug says, suddenly feeling awkward again, even as his body begins to cool down from everything that just happened. “Can I, um. I just wanna—” Gorgug blows out a breath. “I meant what I said.” He makes sure he catches Fabian’s eye as he says this, so Fabian can see how serious Gorgug is, but Fabian hasn’t really looked away, and it warms Gorgug’s cheeks. “I really like you, Fabian.” 

Fabian’s eye curves, and he bites his lip, giving Gorgug what is definitely a flirtatious look, and it sends a thrill throughout Gorgug’s body. “Well, Gorgug,” he says, “you’re not so bad yourself.”

Gorgug blinks at him, processing the expression on Fabian’s face and all the times he’s seen it directed at other people in the past, and also how this is really happening, and how Fabian’s attention is still on him, and he isn’t joking, this is for real, and they just kissed, and—he accidentally takes so long to process that Fabian falters.

“I mean,” Fabian says, “you’re not just not bad. Of course, I like you too. Of course, I do—a lot, Gorgug. I—”

“Fabian,” Gorgug softly interrupts him before he starts to look too distressed. Gorgug feels so light. He thinks he’s loved Fabian for a long time, in the way he loves the rest of the Bad Kids—they’re a part of him, his life is in their hands and he feels safe there, he just had them tattooed across his back, over his spine and his lungs and his heart—but for the first time, he considers that he might be in love with Fabian.

(Gorgug’s been in love before, but never with someone so close to his heart like this, someone already so buried in there. The closest was Ragh, but Gorgug never fell that far for him, in the end.)

“I hear you,” Gorgug says, smiling. Fabian stops fretting, his shoulders dropping as he loses some tension. “We can talk about it after the ball tonight, but I wanna date you, Fabian. If—if that’s cool with you.”

Fabian exhales, and he bites his lip again. Gorgug gets distracted by it, fixating a little on how warm and soft and pliant he knows for sure those lips are now, and wonders if he’s gonna maybe go a little crazy in the next few days or weeks. Months, hopefully. Years?

“Yes, that’s—more than cool with me,” Fabian replies, favouring earnestness this time. “I would love that.”

“Good,” Gorgug says.

“Yeah,” Fabian grins. “Yes. Good.”

With the conversation officially pinned for the moment, they look back out at the dance floor to find the rest of their party unabashedly watching them from the snack table that’s like ten feet away. Fig is wiping a fake tear off her face, clapping and cheering; Kristen casts thaumaturgy to make all the decorative candelabras flash a literal rainbow of colours; and both Adaine and Riz are cheesing and giving them a collective four whole enthusiastic thumbs up. Gorgug and Fabian are more than happy to own the exaggerated cheering good-naturedly. They walk hand in hand to where the Bad Kids are standing, and manfully receive congratulatory back pats. Fabian’s hand is steady and grounding, fingers twined with his.

After the ball, the two of them walk back to their rooms in Stellemere Tower the same way, Gorgug absently swinging their hands between them as they chat with everyone. It’s such a novelty—he’s held Fabian over the years in a variety of ways, but it’s never been with a tacit permission for more, never with romantic intent behind it.

Now, however, Gorgug is allowed to press kisses to Fabian’s fingers, and eventually use their intertwined hands to pull Fabian into his room when they get there, push him gently against the closed door, and properly continue what they’d started earlier. Not just the making out, but the conversation as well. The both of them come out of it enamoured and extremely taken.

The party spends the next two weeks hanging out in Fallinel, and Gorgug and Riz have a joint birthday party like they’re still in high school. Riz loves the keychain smart bombs, and gives Gorgug a pretty rare all-purpose tool that he can carry around and use for artificing, which is so cool. Gorgug’s already thinking about things he can make with it on the road, including some useful jewelry he thinks Fabian might like for Moonar Yulenear coming up in a couple months.

Eventually, Gorgug goes back on tour with Fig and the Cig Figs, but he and Fabian make it work. They all hang out for Moonar Yulenear, and they do end up getting pulled into a whole party quest that takes them up north in the new year. Gorgug doesn’t manage to find a new jacket before they go, but he spends a lot of time cuddling with Fabian for warmth as a result, so he’s not mad about it.

Things aren’t always easy, but they’re good, and Gorgug is happy.

They’re happy, and they last.

No chronomancy required.

Chapter Text

Fabian wouldn’t call himself a sappy sort of person, but he’d freely admit to being a romantic. He killed toxic masculinity when he started dancing, so he can admit to these things now.

He’s always been a romantic, though he didn’t quite realize it until he looked back on his very intense crush on Aelwyn—one that involved daydreaming about waking up next to her, blatantly ignoring her murder attempt on his relatively new adventuring party (one that included her own sister!), and paying people to suss out where in Spyre she could be held captive and jailed. Granted, he almost completely dropped pushing to save her after his wakeup call of a “fight” with Whitclaw, but his romanticism persisted. He’s still really proud of the promposal he organized for Mazey, and all the anniversary dinners he’s ever organized with any partner he’s ever had (mostly just Mazey, but she was definitely romanced, okay). Hells, even dancing with Gorgug in Goldenhoard’s shadow was pretty romantic, he just wouldn’t have copped to it back in the day.

But he wouldn’t call himself sappy, because sappy is for cheesy people, and Fabian Aramais Seacaster is not someone you would describe as cheesy.

And yet, if someone were to press him at this very moment, he might be forced to admit that maybe he might just be a little sappy.

He can’t really resist it when he’s happy, and Gorgug is so easy to be sappy with.

He’d caught his husband washing dishes in the single light of their kitchen that evening and decided to plaster himself to Gorgug’s back, wrapping his arms around Gorgug’s waist and cheekily allowing his hands to wander (though he doesn’t want to be too distracting, so while his hands end up under Gorgug’s shirt, they also stay above his hips). When the last dish is set aside, Fabian manhandles him into turning around (Gorgug laughed, charmed) and maneuvers him into slow dancing. There isn’t any music playing, no particular event or reason; he just kind of wants to hold Gorgug and move. And Gorgug always seems happy to oblige him.

And gods, but he loves dancing with Gorgug. He loves dancing in general, obviously, but there’s always something about holding the man he loves and the familiarity they have with each other, physically and emotionally, that Fabian enjoys basking in as often as possible. They’ve known each other forever, but the past few years of getting to know each other in such a different way was a revelation in itself. Every touch drew out a different reaction than before now that there was something besides friendship in it, every caress a unique exploration. Fabian learned Gorgug in an entirely new language, discovering the subtext behind something he thought he already knew; the secret treasure map hidden behind the regular one that you can only read if someone tells you it’s there and gives you the means to look. Endearingly, Gorgug didn’t just give him the means to look, he made an effort to personally show Fabian the way wherever he could.

Fabian still finds something new every now and then, and remains enamoured with everything he’s already discovered, but his treasure map is proudly well worn. Gorgug is a favourite adventure, often embarked on; a journey he’s tread so much, he’s created desire paths and built architecture where he lives and loves the most.

There’s the slope of Gorgug’s shoulders, well-grooved to fit Fabian’s arms, and Gorgug’s waist where his fingers belong. There’s the hickeys he leaves on the nape of his neck, the scratch marks and finger impressions on his soft skin, and the lines of his tattoos; the valleys of his stomach that Fabian’s mouth is well-acquainted with, the angle of his back when it arches, the give of his thighs under Fabian’s palms, when he presses. The calluses and roughened skin on Gorgug’s palms and fingertips, from axe-handling and artificing, the burn scars on his hands and forearms from blow torches and small lightning shocks.

There’s the line of his jaw, the crook of his neck where Fabian likes to hide, the curve of his bottom lip around his tusks and the way Fabian knows how to bite to get Gorgug to tremble. The sweep of Gorgug’s bangs and how familiar it is to tuck them behind a pointed green ear or fix them underneath a pair of goggles, and the lovely wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the way they become more pronounced when Gorgug smiles. Fabian knows it all like the back of his hand, like the seat of the Hangman, like the other side of his eyepatch.

There’s the ring on Gorgug’s left finger, one that Fabian asked his grandpapa to forge out of the same metal with which he made Fandrangor, and he worked with Adaine and Ayda so that the ring has the ability to store a few spells. Fabian likes to load it up himself when it’s running empty, likes to know that Gorgug has his magic ready to use if he ever needs to, that he carries Fabian’s magic with him every day. The ring’s also got a golden yellow fabric strip in the middle, cut out from Fabian’s favourite battle sheet and preserved between the two strips of platinum.

(Fabian’s own ring was crafted by Gorgug himself, and has a small flower in the middle, the centre of which is a beautiful diamond, and is charmed to protect him. It feels like the natural conclusion to how they met, Gorgug having grown his skills from a clumsily crafted tin flower to a meticulously forged platinum one, and Fabian still smiles when he looks down at his adorned finger. Every time.)

There’s the golden X over his heart that Gorgug got after Fabian, in a fit of yearning prompted by a period of long distance, accidentally told him over video that Gorgug is his favourite treasure map, and Gorgug’s heart his greatest treasure. It had been another instance of Fabian’s ever increasing moments of sappiness—quickly becoming an insufferably chronic occurrence—and yet well rewarded with the look of shock followed by a sweet sort of shyness on Gorgug’s face.

That sweetness was gone the next day when Gorgug, slyly (and with some audacity!) brought it back up and called himself Fabian’s treasure for the rest of the week and infrequently for the remainder of that time apart, teasing him about it in a way Fabian couldn’t refute because he was still being cute about it even if it was at Fabian’s expense, and it’s not like it wasn’t true. The next time they were together in the same space, however, and Fabian managed to get Gorgug’s shirt off, he found the X over Gorgug’s heart and positively melted. (Fabian got a matching X the next time he was in Leviathan, and Gorgug beamed when he saw it.)

There are the scars he’s received protecting Fabian and while making stuff for Fabian, the clothes he wears thinking of Fabian, or that Fabian bought him. He uses a new axe holder that Fabian got him, still engraved with their tin flower, but he keeps the old one up and hanging on a wall where they keep their weapons, in pride of place. So much of Gorgug speaks of how closely entwined he is with Fabian if you just know where to look, and Fabian finds comfort and a deep, contented sort of satisfaction in knowing that his own life and body speak the same. All his scars, all the places Gorgug likes to rest his eyes and his hands, all the things he’s made for Fabian and out of Fabian.

They’re two independent people that have nevertheless chosen to become inextricable from one another, and it never feels that way more than it does when he uses any excuse to hold Gorgug, and dances slowly with him in the privacy of their own home.

Fabian is taken out of his musings by Gorgug tightening his hold around Fabian’s back, the arms under his armpits suddenly tensing into a lift. Fabian blinks as he finds his feet off the ground. Gorgug spins them both in a half-turn before setting Fabian down again, and Fabian automatically readjusts his hold around Gorgug’s neck, leaning back into him.

“You okay?” Gorgug asks quietly. “You're in your head.”

“Mm,” Fabian replies, burying his face properly into Gorgug’s shoulder. His shirt is soft on Fabian’s face scar, and he’s warm beneath it. “Thinking about you.”

Gorgug chuckles and sways them far to the right. Fabian grins into Gorgug’s shirt and hangs on, notes the way Gorgug’s hair brushes against Fabian’s temple and his ear as they lean to the side.

“Sap,” Gorgug says.

Fabian huffs, but doesn’t deny it like he might have at literally any other time—initiating the way they’re holding each other like this is probably too much evidence to the contrary, so he says instead, “You like it,” and gives his husband a coy look.

Gorgug’s eyes curve with affection as he looks back and says, simply, “Yep.” He follows up with a kiss that Fabian happily receives, and chases him back with one of his own.

They’ve been living together for over three years, engaged for a year, and married for almost six months now, and it still feels untenable sometimes, the amount of joy Fabian feels sleeping next to Gorgug at night and waking up to him the next morning.

Gorgug starts humming something—a sea shanty he learned from Fabian on nights like this, something Fabian grew up hearing Cathilda mindlessly hum when he needed comfort, because Gorgug is just as bad as him with sappiness—and Fabian relaxes further in his hold as they step an inch this way and that, together. Fabian sighs contentedly, resting his head on Gorgug’s shoulder and staring idly around their open concept kitchen, and their living room past that. It’s dark because Gorgug only left that single light on, but Fabian knows where their wedding photos hang proudly on their wall.

The memories are still very fresh, half a year later. Fabian had been nervous and excited and fatigued and stressed and deliriously happy. They’d stood there at the altar in the original Elmville branch of Kristen’s church with Kristen herself officiating, her freckled face absolutely beaming as she held her Staff of Doubt and gave them a speech that was actually inspiring, and may or may not have brought a tear to Fabian’s eye. Riz and Adaine stood behind Fabian, Fig and Ragh behind Gorgug, Fabian’s twelve year old baby sister/nemesis the flower girl, and the Hangman the ring boy. Both sets of Gorgug’s parents were bawling something fierce in the pews, as were his mama and Cathilda and even Gilear, who was sobbing into a yogurt-stained handkerchief.

As a wedding gift for them, Fig arranged for Fabian’s papa to come from Avernus to walk Fabian down the aisle, so it was surprisingly Bill Seacaster that cried the most as he gave away his darling boy. He got to the end of the aisle with Fabian on his arm, threatened everyone in the church with a manic look in his wet eye that he may seem vulnerable right now but he’s learned from his son that that’s not a weakness and they best not let him prove it, menaced Gorgug with the promise of intensely violent murder, and then clapped him amiably on the shoulder (Gorgug didn’t even slightly buckle, despite his papa’s literally devellish grand stature and extra arm, and Fabian quietly mooned over his almost-husband’s casual strength and constitution for the thousandth time). To finish with giving his son away, he gave Fabian one of his very big hugs before letting him stand opposite Gorgug at the altar.

It was a beautiful ceremony all around.

And of course the reception that followed was an absolute banger. He’d choreographed and performed a dance for Gorgug to the first song Gorgug ever wrote for him, adding more to his memories of what the song meant to him and reconnecting with Mazey in the process, which was a good time. Gorgug’s eyes sparkled when he watched Fabian, fully visible because he’d fixed his hair back for their wedding, revealing the whole of his handsome face and the depth of his emotions all day. With the Cig Figs, Gorgug also performed a new song he’d written for Fabian, and this was when Fabian cried the most, and he wasn’t embarrassed about it because that was his husband singing to him, officially and legally, and toxic masculinity has been dead for years now anyways.

Fabian’s grandpapa gave a speech where he said he was relieved Gorgug was marrying into the family, if only so that he could stop having to refer to him by name and just start calling him grandson as he does Fabian. In response, Gorgug laughed wetly and tossed Telemaine’s Yak Bak into the crowd to be lost forever. (Symbolically lost forever—in reality, it nailed Gilear right in the head and ended up back in Telemaine’s pocket by the end of the night.)

It was Riz’s speech afterward that really surprised them though, as he (naturally) had a digital slide presentation prepared, and walked them all through mostly cute photos of Fabian and Gorgug, and somehow ended it with a photo from their first dance back in freshman year. The newlywed couple’s jaws dropped in shock as Riz clicked to an image of the two of them holding each other in a ravaged gym, their clothes bloody and their faces half-hidden, expressions unclear. The photo was so grainily zoomed in that one could only assume it was taken from afar, confirmed when Riz clicked to the next slide and revealed the full photo, which included the huge back of Kalvaxus, wings spread and barbed tail poised in the middle of a thrash. The doors of the gym were also blurred in the foreground, and Fabian realized Riz must have gone to the gym to find them and, instead of interrupting, used his burgeoning stealth skills to sneak photos.

“The Ball!” Fabian hissed, flustered. Beside him, Gorgug started laughing again.

“Look how cute they are! So young!” Riz had continued, taking only a moment to give Fabian his sharpest grin, pointed teeth all on display, before completely ignoring him to continue his little presentation. “Fabian still wore his Owlbears jacket all the time back then, remember that? Even when he wasn’t on the team!”

“I deserved a spot and you know it!” Fabian yelled to Riz, the crowd laughing along.

Riz had conceded with a point and a nod. “Yeah, you did; Daybreak sucked. Fuck that guy.”

“Fuck that guy!” the Bad Kids all responded. Most of their guests chuckled, looking amused if confused, except Arthur Aguefort who nodded along sagely as if he hadn’t been the one to hire Daybreak, and Ragh who cheered loudly.

And then Fabian had to elbow Gorgug because, “Hey, did we invite Aguefort?” (They hadn’t. The old wizard had simply crashed their wedding.)

Anyways, Riz had been extremely proud of himself for hanging onto the photos for so long, saying that he kept them quiet because he didn’t want to share their private business, but figured one day he might be able to use them for something, even if it was just for some light blackmail. Well over a decade into their friendship, Fabian only shook his head, fond and exasperated. (He can’t help but adore the Ball.)

That photo of them in freshman year is printed and framed next to one of them dancing the same way at their reception for their first dance as a married couple. Fabian loves looking at them, juxtaposed, and playing spot the differences.

Back in their kitchen, Gorgug is still humming Cathilda’s sea shanty lullaby when Fabian asks, “Did you want to do something for our six month wedding anniversary?”

Gorgug hums thoughtfully. “Are we that couple?” He sounds genuinely curious, open to anything.

Fabian considers the question. Are they? “Maybe,” Fabian says. “You think that’s bad?”

“Nah,” Gorgug replies. “You love to celebrate, and we should. We’re worth celebrating.”

“We are,” Fabian replies, smiling. Gorgug leans down and kisses his cheek, where Gorgug’s told him he has a dimple. He gets kissed there a lot. “Sounds like a plan then.”

“Sounds like,” Gorgug affirms, and kisses him on the mouth again. Fabian hums into it, the glide of Gorgug’s lips soft against his, but they keep it sweet. Fabian rocks back on his heels a moment later, and Gorgug kisses the tip of his nose like he’s getting the last word in.

They dance in their kitchen for a few minutes more, to the music of their breaths and their heartbeats, the shuffle of their feet and the rustle of their clothes as they move. Fabian closes his eyes, sways with his husband, and listens to the sounds of them moving together until he interrupts himself with a yawn.

Gorgug stops them then, pausing to just hug Fabian in the middle of their kitchen. Fabian burrows into Gorgug, and Gorgug accommodates him, tilting his head to make room and nudging his chin gently into Fabian’s temple. “Should we head to bed?” Gorgug asks softly, his chin digging into Fabian’s head as he speaks, and Fabian can feel Gorgug’s pulse on his cheek.

It feels unbearably domestic.

Fabian’s heart squeezes, like always; he loves the question every evening Gorgug asks it.

“Mm, yeah,” Fabian replies, kisses Gorgug’s shoulder over his shirt and then turns his head to kiss his neck because he wants Gorgug’s bare skin under his mouth. Gorgug shivers a little, hands squeezing tighter where he’s clutching at Fabian’s back. “Let’s go to bed,” he murmurs, knowing full well how Gorgug feels when he speaks lowly into his ear like this.

In response, Gorgug finds his mouth and kisses him deeper, kisses him so intently that Fabian loses his train of thought, his mind going absolutely silent but for the sensation of Gorgug around him, everything inside Fabian homing into just the heat of Gorgug’s mouth.

And then Gorgug pulls away. Fabian whines—why is he leaving?—and Gorgug laughs quietly. “Thanks for the dance,” Gorgug murmurs back, sending what feels like a retaliatory shiver through Fabian’s own body, and gods that’s not fair.

Fabian huffs, annoyed and enamoured, and then yelps when Gorgug promptly picks him up. There’s no grace to it, his husband’s hands digging into Fabian’s behind and making Fabian scramble slightly to wrap his legs around Gorgug’s hips, automatically clinging. Gorgug is as still as a wall while Fabian adjusts, except for the way his shoulders shake as he snickers at Fabian’s plight.

“Gorgugguh,” Fabian throws out, a bratty one word complaint, but his pout is ruined by the smile he can’t hold back. This is not an unusual position for them. Fabian can admit he likes the reminder that Gorgug is strong enough to carry Fabian this casually.

“Comfortable?” Gorgug grins, teasing.

Fabian rolls his eye. “Just take me to bed already.”

“Mm, gladly,” Gorgug hums, and then kisses Fabian again like he can’t help it, like he’s kissing him just for luck. It’s a short kiss, but it turns into a second longer one, and a third that’s longer still. Fabian tries not to get too absorbed in it when they have places to be (their bedroom is literally right there), but it’s hard not to when kissing Gorgug is so nice.

It’s always nice, with Gorgug.

Not just kissing, but everything.

Eventually, Gorgug just starts walking while they’re kissing, and they both suffer bumping into the wall once and the door frame twice. Fabian just hangs on and laughs into the scant space between their lips, appreciating the way Gorgug absorbs the damage with his arms before it really gets to Fabian, and he rewards that with more kisses.

And maybe there isn’t a difference between being a romantic and being a sap; maybe Fabian is sappy and cheesy and whatever other trite, cliché adjectives being in love makes you, but Fabian doesn’t care. Being in Gorgug’s arms makes him feel like they’re the only two people in the whole wide world, so the only other person that exists to call him out on it is someone he doesn’t even mind hearing it from—he’s the one that makes it true, after all.

Gorgug places him on their bed with all the grace he lacked when he unceremoniously picked Fabian up a few minutes ago, and Fabian uses his legs to keep Gorgug right there where he wants him.

“Hey, Fabian,” Gorgug says, pulling back. His hair is ruffled, and he’s out of breath, his lips kiss-swollen, and his eyes sparkling with mirth. “What’s the greatest magic of all?”

“Cassandra, Ankarna, and Kristen’s whole gods-be-damned pantheon, Gorgug,” Fabian groans, pushing at his husband’s face. (He still keeps his legs locked tight around Gorgug’s waist though. Fabian doesn’t want him going too far.) “If you’re going to bring up Aguefort’s speeches, we might as well just go to sleep right now.”

Gorgug bursts out laughing, cheek squished by Fabian’s hand and tusks glinting in the light of their bedside table lamp. Gorgug shakes with his giggles as he tries to explain why he brought it up, how he was trying to compliment Fabian and It was going somewhere, I swear!

His husband laughs inside the circle of his arms (and legs), and it’s like holding onto pure joy, Gorgug a grinning blanket of love pressing him comfortably into their shared bed.

Fabian’s chest fizzes with happiness.