Chapter Text
It didn’t hurt, or, really, it didn’t mainly hurt. It was awkward, forced. Fabian’s letterman jacket just didn’t fit right on Aelwyn: it was off. It was too loose around the shoulders and didn't hang in any cute or appealing way. It just didn’t fit her. And it didn’t hurt necessarily to see her in it. It just was wrong.
No, what hurt was why it was on her. Fabian had a fantasy, a dream, that he would give the person he was in love with his jacket moments before the first play of a bloodrush game. He would throw it to that person, and they would mosy their way up towards the best seat to see him play. He would look up and see their cheering face screaming his name with the jacket wrapped around their shoulders marking them as his .
His, all his to keep tucked away for himself. He would go up after they won the game and kiss them firmly, back arching down to reach. Soft lips that would press against his own, and dark, curly hair clutched in between his fingers. He would pick them up as if they were a ball and hold them while fangs scratched at his lips and tongue.
But that fantasy never seemed t0 be right with Aelwyn, even as he looked up slowly to see her cheering face, screaming his name. After the game, that ache pounded inside him as he picked her up and forced his lips to meet hers. That ache that said: this isn’t right . A 10 insight check will give you that much, he presumed.
A thought clicked in Fabian’s head: he knew someone that could figure anything out, even this, Fabian bet. He set Aelwyn down and mumbled into her lips something about The Ball before slipping the jacket off her shoulders and running towards The Hangman. He heard a shout behind him of Gorgug asking where he was going without showering, and he yelled back a few cut off words about a mystery. That should be enough for the rest of the Bad Kids. All of them were at that game except for Riz, but then again, Riz never came to any of Fabian’s games despite Fabian’s constant begging. Fabian never understood why Riz didn’t come; scratch that: it most likely because “Oh it is just throwing a ball and hitting each other it isn’t that impressive.” But the one time Fabian had managed to drag him along Fabian had rolled three nat20s and a double 19 on a disadvantage check, so Riz always needed to be there in Fabian’s book. Yet there was always that ache in his soul when he knew Riz would be curled up in his office combing through clue after clue after clue when he could be out there, cheering on Fabian.
The Hangman rumbled to a stop in front of Strong Tower Luxury Apartments and growled to Fabian, Sire, if there is a mystery of your heart and romantic feelings are you sure The Ball will be able to solve it?
“Be quiet, Hangman.”
I am just saying you know him and girls! The Ball wants nothing to do with them! Asking him about girls is pointless!
Fabian batted The Hangman on the handlebars none too gently and strode into the apartment complex despite the motorcycle’s warnings. Inside the hall was dark, and he went to the gnome made crystal buzzer. Riz had given him the code to his office so long ago. After Spring Break. After Baron. The thought of Baron made his stomach drop. He remembered the moment Baron came into existence through a lie; a lie that made Fabian’s insides twist and turn so many times over. The mention of Baron made all of the Bad Kids shudder, but Baron’s fundamental purpose hurt Fabian to his core. A lie of fear, desperation; a lie used to make Riz seem loved. The fact Riz thought no one would love him hurt. That day in the forest.
Fabian’s mind was spiraling into old, horrible memories as he burst through the office door, and Riz jumped half a mile into the air having no warning for the intrusion. He was sitting on the floor with papers all scattered and connected by bright red strands of yarn. Fabian stormed over all of the papers and strings, despite a very loud “Hey!” from Riz, and scooped the goblin up into his arms, light as a feather with his small size. He buried his face into the crook of Riz’s neck to fight the wave of memories that flooded his mind. He breathed in Riz’s scent as he controlled his breathing. Paper, old, musty blankets that littered the office, the cinnamon of his soap, and the overwhelming scent of coffee. Fabian pulled his head up slowly and looked beyond Riz into the room. He could count five empty or cold coffee cups just in his line of sight, but no doubt there were more scattered about the room. A question popped into his mind as he saw them, and he scanned The Ball’s face.
“How long have you been awake? Don’t lie to me the bags under your eyes aren’t even green at this point, they’re black.”
Ris studied him with narrowed eyes, “So, let me get this straight: you first barge into my office without even knocking when you always knock; you then trample my work to pick me up like a ball and bury your face in my neck as if something is very wrong, yet the first thing you ask is, ‘when was the last time you slept?’ What the hell happened?”
“Nothing of matter. Anyway, when was the last time you slept?” Better to just brush it off, Fabian knew everyone hated speaking of it.
The goblin sighed as he tucked himself further into Fabian's arms, eyes closing to just relax. Fabian wondered for a second if the world could end here. This would be the last moment for everyone, and Fabian would have the best one, for nothing compared to having a small bundle of best friend goblin in his arms, nothing matched the feeling of being so trusted by the paranoid, anxious, sleep deprived detective that he let Fabian pick him up like it was nothing.
“I slept two hours this morning,” The Ball said reluctantly.
“It’s four minimum, you know that,” Fabian mumbled softly in his ear. Fabian moved over to the couch and sat down with Riz still on top of him.
“Yeah, I know, I know. But I finished it! I solved it! The thing I’ve been working on for the last two weeks is good now, I’m done. I was just rearranging the clues to make it presentable to my mother.”
“You’re a genius, Ri- The Ball.”
“Were you about to call me Riz, Fabian? Now I know something is off. What happened?”
“Nothing happened, it’s just-” Fabian cut off, unsure how to say he needed help with kissing. Maybe the Hangman was right: asking Riz about this sort of stuff would be pointless.
“It’s just what?” Riz asked, and Fabian realized he had been silent too long.
“Solve me a mystery, would you?”
“Well I can if you need me too.”
“I do. I’ve been pondering it for a while, and I’ve tested it on one person, but it just doesn’t feel right with her, so I need you to help me figure out who,” Fabian paused, and Riz spoke before he could say anything back.
“Is- is this about Aelwyn? If it is, I'm not doing it.”
“Partly yes, but also not at all.”
“I’m going to need you to explain the issue to me.”
Fabian drew a breath in, collecting his words. He had never told anyone about this, never thought to, “I have a vision, something in my head that I feel, that I know, is going to happen. And I’ve tried to make it happen with Aelwyn so many times, but it never feels right. It always feels like someone else is meant to be where she is, but I don’t know who, and that is why I need your help.”
“And what is the vision?”
“A bloodrush game. I’m playing down on the field, and I see the person I’m in love with cheering for me, calling my name as I win simply because they are there. My jacket would be wrapped around their shoulders telling everyone in the stadium that that person is mine . When the game is victorious I would go up to the best spot to watch me play and kiss the person straight on the lips for a long, sweet moment, savoring the fact that this is the person I love and they love me too. I would pick them up as if they were the bloodrush ball I had just won the game with, and the Bad Kids around us would cheer as if it was the best thing they had ever seen. Whispers would be hushed across the stadium as everyone figured out then and there that that person was off limits for those with self preservation. It would be a moment of glory and passion and action with the adrenaline of the game still running through my veins. I would laugh into the kiss as if I was the happiest I had ever been. The moonlight would filter down on us as Cassandra herself smiled at the display. It would be heavenly to feel the person in my arms kiss me back like no one else was watching. The jacket would still be wrapped around them even as I set them back down and the hubbub of our party attempted to jostle us around,” Fabian laughed as he came out of his own mind, rambling fading away when he noticed Riz was no longer on top of him, but rather kneeling beside him with a notepad and a pen in his hand frantically scrambling clues down onto different sheets of paper. Fabian studied him to see his eyes more alive than before as the hype of a mystery flooded his body.
The scribbling stopped a few moments after Fabian stopped talking. Riz looked over the small pile of paper now on the couch and chewed his pen, “Do you have any idea of what the person in your ‘vision’ was like? Height, size, any special physical attributes, any certain way they would act?”
“Shorter than me, much shorter. Which Aelwyn was, but it never felt the same as my imagination. Light, too. Enough so that I could pick them up from off the ground easily and swiftly. Short hair, not long. Wavy, too, every time I tried to grab Aelwyn’s straight hair my hands would slip down. In my vision they are buried in curls and waves, but the hair is short, not long.”
Riz looked at him with narrowed eyes. Five more papers had appeared on the couch. “Have you ever considered this person being a dude?”
“Well of course I have, but none of the dudes I try to stick into my vision ever work. They always feel off or wrong. Then again neither do girls. I’ve tried to stick a few of the Bad Kids into it, and that didn't work either,” He wrinkled his nose at the thought of kissing Fig or Gorgug.
Three more notes were torn off the notepad. “And which of us have you tried?”
“Only Gorgug and Fig, but only because they are the ones that come to my games the most out of everyone. They both felt extremely wrong in my image, so definitely not them. I know, I know deep down it is someone I already love. There is someone who already fits in the blank space, and the vision was probably conjured with them in mind. But I don’t know who. My mind is trying to tell me that I am in love, that there is someone I know who I need, but it isn’t telling me who. Help me, Riz.”
Riz smiled softly at his real name spilling from Fabian’s mouth, and blood rushed to the tips of Fabian’s ears. Riz sighed before asking, “When you say you tried this, in real time, with Aelwyn, how much of this vision actually happened?”
The heat on his face vanished at the mention of Aelwyn. “Only part of it. Tonight I threw her my jacket before the game started, and everything was picture perfect to the image in my mind up until the kiss. When it happened no one cheered, no one gasped, no one so much as did a double take. It all felt wrong, too: the lips didn’t fit and the hair wasn’t right. On the surface it should have been perfect,” Fabian threw his hands up into the air, “but everything was wrong. It took everything in me not to throw her to the ground and scream NO as loud as possible. So I thought you would be able to help me with my little mystery.”
“Little is a bit of an understatement, Fabian,” Riz gestured to the large pile of notes on the couch in front of him.
“Well, feelings are complicated,” Fabian argued.
“You guys and your finicky romantic feelings,” Riz mumbled, rolling his eyes fondly.
“Will you help me, though?”
Riz quirked an eyebrow at him, “Do you think I made all of these notes just to tell you I can’t help you?”
A rhetorical question, but Fabian still didn’t have a clear answer, “I know you can , but will you is what I’m asking. There is a difference. I mean, you can do anything.”
He sighed, “Yes, Fabian, I will help you. Now what I need you to do is list the people you have considered dating, and we can connect the clues to them.”
They spent the next hour or so adding and rearranging clues on a fresh corkboard that Riz had seemingly pulled out of his ass as there was no way that was in the room before, but after some time, Fabian realized what he was in and how he smelled after sitting in used bloodrush gear for almost two hours at that point. Riz certainly noticed, too, and ended up pushing him out the door promising to work on it more tomorrow.
Fabian went to sleep that night with his mind spiraling into the possibilities. He would need to yell at Riz later for not sleeping, and Fabian felt bad for giving Riz another reason to stay up: another mystery for him to fall into. But that guilt was overshadowed by the prospect of figuring out who the hell it was in his vision. Fabian fell asleep to the thought of Riz spiraling into Fabian’s mystery with a smile on his face.