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“All Hallows’ Eve is my favorite holiday, I’ve decided,” Kristen slurs drunkenly into Riz’s shoulder. Riz chuckles and holds her up to the best of his ability, dodging the beer that drips from her cup onto the sticky floor of Seacaster Manor’s den. “I love candy. I love getting drunk. I love you guys,” she adds tearfully.
“Why are you crying?” Riz asks through a laugh.
“There’s too much love in my body,” Kristen whines. “It has to come out somehow, some way.”
“Happy tears, then?”
Kristen nods sloppily. “So happy. Here, have some candy. It’s sour as fuck.” She clumsily palms a handful of hard candies into Riz’s open hand. They’re wrapped in tinted cellophane, red, blue, purple, orange, and green. Riz dumps the green one back in her hand, never having been fond of lime or green apple in his sweets. “No, no, take it. Give it to someone else. Spread the love, Riz.” Her voice is halfway between a whine and an order. “Please.”
Riz laughs again. “Okay, okay. I’ll share the love. But that involves me extricating myself from you so you gotta let go.” He shakes off her heavy arms and Kristen tumbles to the ground, unable to support her own weight. “Oh, gods, sorry. I didn’t realize you were so drunk.”
“I’m not so drunk. I’m just—” Kristen interrupts herself with a loud hiccup.
Riz helps her back to her feet. “You’re just?”
“Just that clumsy. IRL. I mean, like, sober. Normal-style. I’m the usual amount of coordinated right now.”
“We gotta get you into the Dex Gym at some point,” Riz remarks, picturing Kristen in the rogue-focused extracurricular program. He’d pay money to watch her walk across a balance beam. “But first,” he says, unwrapping the blue candy and popping it into his mouth, “candy.”
His tastebuds alight with a sweet and sour flood of flavor as the candy crackles and pops in his mouth. He can’t quite nail down what the flavor is, exactly, but it’s loud. Riz’s mouth fills with saliva as he fights to keep from drooling.
“Shit, this is intense.”
“I love candy,” Kristen repeats. “Gimme another.” She fumbles for Riz’s hand, reaching for the last four pieces.
“Nope,” Riz replies. “I’m sharing the love.” He laughs as he spins away from Kristen, walking with purpose towards the pillow fort in the corner of the room. If he’s not mistaken, he’ll find at least two more Bad Kids inside. He has to crouch down—but not quite crawl on his hands and knees—to get through the entrance but, once inside, the fort opens up to a tall and cavernous lair, clearly augmented by some kind of magic. “Woah.”
“Right?” Fig asks from her nest of blankets in the corner of the fort. “All Adaine’s doing.”
Adaine’s cheeks burn pink. “It’s just a little spell. Nothing special.”
Fig shakes her head. “Special as fuck, look at this place!”
“Leomund’s Tiny Hut?” Riz asks, gesturing to the walls of the extradimensional room.
“Modified slightly,” Adaine says, her words just barely lisping.
“She was too drunk to pronounce one of the words in the incantation,” Fig explains. “But did a fucking incredible job working around it.” Her words cause more blood to rush to Adaine’s cheeks.
Riz smiles. “Well, nice job. It’s cozy in here.”
“Wanna hang out?” Fig asks, patting a cushion next to her. “Plenty of room!”
“Nah, I gotta find the boys. But, here,” he says, sidling up to the girls and placing a candy in either of their palms. “I’m spreading the love.”
“Ooh, are these enchanted with love spells or something?”
Riz grimaces. “Ugh, no. Kristen just told me, uh… something.” Riz feels his head swimming from the ciders he has imbibed which are beginning to catch up to him. “I dunno. She gave me candy so, now, I give you candy.”
“A perfect system,” Adaine says, nodding sagely, if drunkenly. She unwraps the red candy and pops it in her mouth. “Good gods,” she mutters, through a mouth full of saliva. “Sour.”
“Fuck yeah,” Fig says, scooping up the orange. “I love sour candy.”
“I love you,” Adaine says, staring at Fig as the candy fizzles and pops in her mouth.
“Love you, too, girl,” Fig repeats, shoving the candy in her mouth.
Riz nods, determining that his job is half done, and waves at the girls. “Gotta go, bye, have fun, be good, uh, don’t drink too much!”
“You’re one to talk!” Fig shouts back. “I saw you go shot-for-shot with Ragh earlier.”
“I was faking it,” Riz grins, sharp and proud of himself. “I’ve got sleight of hand for days.”
He disappears out the front door of the Tiny Hut and finds himself crowded by sweaty bodies. A Seacaster party is a can’t-miss event for the seniors at Aguefort Adventuring Academy. Riz would be hard-pressed to think of a single student in their grade who isn’t currently somewhere in the manor. Whether they’re playing drinking games, getting high, or just chatting with the other straight-edge kids, the senior class is here in droves and Riz is fairly certain he’s going to have a hard time finding two students in particular.
“I gotta learn Locate Creature,” he mumbles to himself, wondering if there’s a gadget he could convince Fabian to buy him, or Gorgug to make him, that would help him find his friends in a crowd. Riz feels the crowd surge towards him and he quickly rolls out of the way, not looking to get knocked to the ground by a drunken stranger. He leaps to his feet next to Max Durden. “Hey!”
“Sup, dude, looking to blaze?”
“Not this time,” Riz says, eyeing the gorgonfern. He doesn’t particularly like mixing substances so he has to refuse. “I’m looking for Gorgug and Fabian.”
“Gorgug’s right behind you, dude.”
“Shit!” Riz says, flinching as a hand hits his shoulder. Gorgug smiles down at him apologetically.
“Sorry, man, I was looking for you, too.” Gorgug says, inclining his head towards a quieter corner of the room. “Did someone heal you?”
“Oh, shit,” Riz curses, remembering why he left Gorgug and Fabian in the first place. He feels it now, a pulsing pain in his left big toe. “I totally forgot I broke it.”
“You forgot that you broke a bone?”
Riz grins guiltily. “It happens?”
Gorgug shakes his head, equal parts amusement and disappointment on his face. “Dude. Go find a healer.”
Riz nods quickly. “Yeah, yeah, on it. Here, uh, take this.”
“What is it?”
“Candy that Kristen gave me and also a representation of love, I think.”
“Like, a spell?”
“No, like a gesture. I love you, man. Eat some candy.”
Gorgug laughs and pops the purple candy in his mouth, face instantly puckering. “Go find a healer,” he slurs.
“On it!” Riz says and disappears amongst the bodies of acquaintances—and strangers—once more, in search of a healer. He tries to remember where he saw Kristen last but his memories are as fuzzy as his head feels. “Four ciders is too many ciders,” he mumbles, a self admonishment. He should’ve known that the gnome ciders would have higher ABV than he’s used to getting through the cheap beer that Ragh buys them from Thrallmart. Four ciders was more than enough to get him fucked up, apparently.
At least he’s still having fun and not embarrassing himself by crying over shrimp. Yet.
He stumbles through the crowd, bobbing his head to the rock music playing from the enchanted amps hidden in the walls of Seacaster Manor. Fabian installed them last year for Lo-Fi study nights, pumping out relaxing tunes to study to but Riz thinks they’re better suited for nights like these.
Now that his attention is brought to it, his toe aches, throbbing painfully. He should’ve known not to stand in a half-goliath’s blind spot while they were playing beer pong. When the student stepped back to line up their next shot, Riz heard an audible crunch of his bones under their combat boots. He played through the next round, taking home the win for the Bad Boys, but disappeared as soon as he could in search of a healer. Broken toes don’t bother Riz too terribly but if they heal wrong, they can affect his balance permanently.
So he really needs that healer.
“Are you a healer?” Riz asks a random, waifish human. She has ivy braided through her hair and her shirt is made of interwoven ferns. “You look like a druid.”
“That’s stereotyping,” the girl says, frowning. “I just like nature.”
Riz frowns. “It wasn’t an insult.”
“People always think I’m a druid. I’m a fighter, okay? Fighters are allowed to like plants too, you know? We’re not stupid oafs with zero brain cells.”
Riz’s face furrows. “I never said you were?”
“Whatever. Loser.” The girl turns around sharply, spilling her drink on Riz’s scuffed shoes.
“What the fuck,” Riz mutters to himself. “I just wanted a heal.”
“You’re hurt?” A short elf with soft features asks Riz. Riz thinks he recognizes her. Astrid or Astra or something like that, he thinks. A dance bard that Fabian has brought up before. But why did he bring her up? Riz wracks his memory. He knows something about this bard… some sort of secret. But what is it?
“Yeah, my toe’s broken,” Riz admits. “Hurts like hell.”
Astra or Astrid or Astoria smiles gently. “Damn, that sucks. Which toe?”
Riz taps his left foot on the ground. “Big one.”
The elf nods. “I see.” She seems to consider something, tapping her fingers against her thigh. With a sudden grin, she smashes her heel into Riz’s toe, grinding it into the floorboards. “Sucks to suck—”
Before she can finish her assault, she is bodily removed from Riz’s foot and from the ground entirely.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Fabian hisses, shoving the elf off Riz and into the wall. He pins her chest with his forearm, pressing her against the shiplap boards.
“I slipped,” the girl says. “It was an accident.” Shock fills her eyes as Fabian locks her against the wall with all of his strength. There’s no guilt on her face though, Riz notices. Not an ounce of regret.
“You’re a liar and a sociopath, Astra. If you ever touch The Ball again, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life, got it?”
Astra grits her teeth and flares her nostrils. “I didn’t touch him.”
Riz feels his pulse in his toe. “You did,” he says, glad that he’s drunk enough not to feel much pain because what he does feel? It hurts. “You did that on purpose.”
Fabian throws his hands down, letting Astra drop to the ground. She stumbles on her feet before straightening up and raising her chin in the air. “I’m not scared of you,” she says.
Fabian tilts his head to the side and narrows his eye, jaw clenching.
“You should be,” Riz remarks. He studies Fabian, looking as angry as Riz has ever seen him. He looks dangerous. Riz wouldn’t want to be on the other side of his glare but Astra doesn’t seem bothered. “So get going before he…” Riz doesn’t know how to finish his sentence. What is Fabian going to do if Astra doesn’t leave? The ferocity on his face is the same as Riz sees when the Bad Kids go into deadly combat. Riz worries about that blatant bloodthirst so, for Fabian’s sake as much as Astra’s, Riz waves her off. “Go away.”
Astra rolls her eyes and strides off, disappearing into the crowd.
Fabian’s chest heaves with a heavy breath. “The Ball,” he chokes out. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just, uh, I brought you candy.”
“What?”
“I was looking for you to give you a piece of candy.”
“Why?”
Riz shrugs. “It’s candy. What’s the big deal? Eat the candy, dude.” Riz limps closer to Fabian and holds out the last piece of candy, a deep, semi-translucent green wrapper enveloping it. “It’s good.”
“What flavor?” Fabian asks, face blank and distracted.
Riz shrugs. “Sour.”
Fabian’s face relaxes a fraction, the burning anger fading into the background, replaced with a quiet curiosity. “I like sour.”
“I know, dude,” Riz chuckles. “That’s why I’m giving it to you. And because Kristen was insistent that I, and I quote, ‘spread the love.’”
“Oh, this is a declaration of love, then?” Fabian jokes. “I’m sorry, The Ball, but I can’t say I feel the same way.” He smirks, then pops the candy into his mouth, the smirk instantly replaced with a grimace as the sharp taste floods his senses.
Riz laughs. “Shut up, dude. It’s All Hallows’ Eve. I’m allowed to love my friends.”
“And I love you, too,” Fabian says. He freezes in place. “I, uh… I—”
Riz laughs. “How drunk are you?”
“I didn’t mean to say that,” Fabian says, cheeks burning with blood. “I—Uh, that—” He stumbles and stammers over his words, deflating like a balloon.
“You’re fine, dude,” Riz laughs, grabbing the plastic cup out of Fabian’s hand and chugging the last few sips of beer. “We’ve all said stupid shit when we were drunk before.”
Fabian frowns but doesn’t respond. He shakes his head and rubs the back of his hand against his mouth.
“Come on, I don’t want to be standing anymore. Can we go sit down somewhere?” Riz asks, nudging Fabian and putting the empty cup back in his hand.
“Oh, shit, your foot,” Fabian says. He drops his cup on an antique side table and uses both hands to scoop Riz up and toss him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Hey!” Riz protests, upside-down. “You can’t just grab me like that.”
“I can and I did and I will,” Fabian retorts. “You’re too small, The Ball. Someone’s gotta look out for you.”
“I’m not too small,” Riz complains, slamming his fists into Fabian’s back. “Put me down!”
Fabian shakes his head, his chin colliding with Riz’s thigh. “Uh-uh. Taking you somewhere safe.”
Riz sighs and lets himself fall limp. “Fine.” He submits to his forceful rearrangement and thanks the gods that he’s never been on Fabian’s bad side. Considering how lithe he looks, Fabian’s strength often goes underestimated but, seeing the way he pulled Astra off her feet without a drop of sweat on his brow, Riz is forced to acknowledge just how strong Fabian is.
He’s glad that he’s never been the one pinned to the wall by Fabian’s strong arms.
Riz’s ears perk as Fabian whispers something that he can’t quite make out. “What?”
“We’re almost there,” Fabian says, making Riz frown. That wasn’t what he whispered, Riz is almost certain, but his fuzzy brain can’t seem to shape the whispered sounds into coherent words. “I gotta put you down.”
Riz lands on his good foot and holds the other in the air. “Hey, you never learned how to heal, did you?” he asks Fabian.
Fabian pulls out a key, laced through his necklace chain, and unlocks his bedroom door, pushing it open and offering an escape from the raucous party noise. He helps Riz hop inside and lifts him onto the edge of the bed. “I did,” he says, grinning crookedly. “It was gonna be a surprise but, uh, surprise?” He turns around and closes his bedroom door, plunging the room into magically augmented silence.
“That’s sick, dude.” Riz pulls out his crystal and hits shuffle on his Bardify account. Riz nods at the song that comes through and places the crystal on the bedside table as slow, folksy music quietly plays from the speaker. “A fighter, a bard, a healer. What can’t you do?”
Fabian presses his mouth shut, lips cutting a line across his face.
“Fabian?” Riz asks. “Are you okay?”
“Do you feel weird?” Fabian asks suddenly. “I feel weird.”
“I feel drunk,” Riz states. “Blurry vision, fuzzy thoughts, loose lips. The usual.”
“Loose lips,” Fabian repeats in a mutter. “I dunno; I don’t think I’m drunk enough to be feeling like this.”
“Like what?” Riz asks, kicking his foot up on the bed. Fabian sits next to him and slowly unties his shoe, pulling it carefully off his heel. Riz hisses in pain as the pressure is lifted from his toes. Fabian gestures to his sock and Riz nods his permission.
As Fabian pulls off the sock, he speaks in a hushed tone. “Like I can’t lie to you.”
Riz swallows, his mouth suddenly tasting bitter and acerbic. “What do you mean?” He tenses up as Fabian brushes his hand over the top of Riz’s broken toe, feeling for the break. Riz hisses in pain and flinches away from the touch before catching himself and forcing his body to relax. “Sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” Fabian says. “See? Right there. I wouldn’t usually say that, would I? But I can’t lie right now and I don’t know why.”
“Why would you want to lie?”
“I lie, like, a lot,” Fabian says, avoiding Riz’s eye. “It’s all a lie, really.”
Riz’s eyebrows pinch together. “Are you… okay?” This isn’t Fabian, Riz realizes. The person making these confessions, it’s not the Fabian he knows. “Did someone cast a spell on you or something?”
Fabian shakes his head. He presses his first two fingers onto the fractured bone on Riz’s first toe, letting cold magic spill into his skin, icing the injury and knitting the bone back together. The magic feels like scratching a long-suffering itch. “No spells I noticed. Maybe someone spiked my drink or, uh—”
Riz blows out a sigh of relief as the pain melts out of his body. “No one would spike the Maximum Legend’s beer at his own party,” Riz says, tapping his finger against his lip. “Would they?”
“And risk getting banned from all future parties? Not likely.”
“So why are you acting so weird?”
Fabian frowns. “I hate it.”
“It’s weird, alright.” Riz hums under his breath, feeling close to a breakthrough in the Case of the Honest Fabian. “Ugh, I’m too drunk to figure this out.”
“Since when do you give up on a mystery, The Ball?”
“I’m not giving up,” Riz protests. “I just need to sober up.”
“What, like, you’re just gonna wait around? I can’t keep telling you the truth or my secret’s gonna come ou—” Fabian slams a hand over his mouth.
Riz’s mouth falls open. “Your secret?”
“Shut up.” Fabian clenches Riz’s foot in his hand absentmindedly. “Pretend I didn’t say that.”
“You have a secret,” Riz repeats. “You have to tell me, now.”
Fabian’s fingernails dig into the skin on the bottom of Riz’s foot. “If I tell you, it’s all over.”
“Woah, what?” Riz pulls his foot free and crosses his legs underneath him. Fabian’s face is gravely serious and, suddenly, the atmosphere feels much less good-humored. “What’s over?”
“Our friendship,” Fabian says, his eye staring a hole through the shag rug tucked under his bedframe. “If you know…”
“Know what?”
“I can’t tell you,” Fabian emphasizes, wrenching his head up to stare desperately at Riz. “I can’t.”
“Well, you can’t lie either,” Riz says, mostly to himself. He realizes something. If he wanted to, he could push Fabian and get an answer. His endless thirst for truth begs him to needle Fabian, to ask the right questions to get the hidden answer that Fabian seems so desperate to hide. But Riz, along with his insatiable curiosity, also possesses a conscience that would flood his senses with guilt if he pushed. “Nevermind. I’m not gonna pry.”
“That’s unlike you,” Fabian says, snorting.
“Hey! Rude.”
“You’re an investigator, The Ball. Prying is sort of your specialty.”
“I’m more than just an investigator, Fabian.”
“Yeah, I know,” Fabian says, a twinge of sadness in his words. “I know.”
Riz frowns. He’s desperate to know what’s making Fabian act so strangely but, if the roles were reversed and he was the one hiding a secret, he’d be grateful for his friends minding their own business, so he stays strong and fights back all the pointed questions at the end of his tongue.
“I’m sorry, The Ball.”
“What? Why? We’re all allowed to have secrets.”
“But my secret’s about you.”
Riz blinks. “Oh.”
“Yeah, and it’s bad. Fuck, why am I saying this?”
Riz suddenly lurches to his feet. “We shouldn’t be in a room together right now,” he says, fighting every instinct in his body, all begging him to ask Fabian questions, to dig into these hints that are dangling over his head. “I’m not gonna be able to stop myself from prying if you say another word so I have to… I have to go. Sorry.” He crosses the room in three wide steps, ignoring Fabian’s protests behind him. “Thanks for the heal.”
“The Ball, st—”
Fabian’s bedroom door flies open and bodies crowd through it, knocking Riz to his ass. “Hey!”
“Oh, shit, sorry, Riz,” Gorgug says, offering him a hand up. “It’s an emergency.”
“What is it?” Fabian asks quickly, leaping to his feet. “Did someone die?”
The other Bad Kids filter in behind Gorgug, and Adaine closes and locks the door behind her. Fig collapses into a bean bag, melting into the misshapen seat. Kristen sighs and sits nearby Fabian, on the edge of his bed, giving Riz’s discarded sock and shoe a strange look.
“Are we interrupting something?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “Getting undressed together in here? I mean, finally, but—”
“We were just talking,” Fabian rushes to say.
Kristen frowns. “Damnit. He’s telling the truth.”
Riz’s eyes narrow. “How do you know that?”
Kristen pulls out a handful of shiny cellophane-wrapped candies from her pocket. “Ever hear of Candor Candy?” she asks, gesturing to her palm. “‘Cause I hadn’t.”
“It’s a truth serum,” Adaine declares from the far side of the room, wringing her hands together anxiously. “We all dosed ourselves with a truth serum.”
“Riz dosed us,” Fig says, rolling her eyes. “All I did was trust my friend when he offered me a piece of candy.”
“Woah, hey, how is this my fault?” Riz asks. “Kristen was the one who gave the candy to me!”
“It’s All Hallows’ Eve,” Kristen protests. “Sharing candy is like, forty percent of the fun.”
“What’s the other sixty percent?” Gorgug asks curiously.
“Costumed kinkiness,” she declares plainly.
Riz and Adaine grimace. “Kristen,” he protests. “Come on.”
“You’re dressed as a farmer,” Fig remarks.
“Exactly.” Kristen winks at her.
“I don’t even—I don’t even want to begin to unpack that,” Adaine says, burying her head in her hands. “Gods.”
“I feel like, uh, let’s not bring up sex when no one can lie,” Gorgug offers weakly. “Just to be safe.”
Riz’s stomach drops. In all his concern about Fabian’s obvious predicament, he hadn’t realized that he'd been telling the truth all along, too. He’s gotten lucky, not spilling any secrets so far, but one carefully phrased question and he might just spill his guts.
“How do we get it out of our systems?” he asks quickly. “The candy.”
“Man, I don’t know. I didn’t even know it was a thing.”
“Where did you get it?” Adaine asks Kristen desperately. “Riz is right; this is your fault.”
“Woah, hey, let’s not attack each other,” Fig says, holding her hands out as if to calm Adaine from a distance. “I’m sure it was an honest mistake.”
“It was. And you know I’m not lying about that cause I ate the candy, too. I have no idea where I got it. Look,” she says, emptying her pockets. Candy, chocolate, and sweets pour from her jacket, her pants, her bag. Soon, the floor under her feet is covered with sugary treats. Kristen’s voice lowers. “I never got to go candy-collecting as a kid cause my parents said it was dangerous and sinful. So, today, I see a ton of candy at school, at the store, at the party, everywhere. Fuck me for taking a few pieces here and there but I feel like… I feel like I should be allowed to. To make up for, you know, the first fourteen years of my life.”
“Oh, Kristen,” Fig says, voice soft and gentle. “That’s… that’s okay.”
“I am sorry,” she admits. “I don’t know which candy bowl I took these ones from. Coulda been something one of the other students brought. Coulda been from my dentist’s office. Coulda been anywhere, to be entirely honest—which I am because I can’t lie right now.”
“Maybe we should end the party and all head home,” Adaine says quickly. “And, you know, sleep it off.”
“Scared?” Fig asks, tilting her head to the side. “Are you hiding a secret, little Adaine?”
Adaine’s cheeks instantly flush. “Yes,” she says. Fig and Kristen exchange a devious look and perk up like they just heard the final school bell ring. “And I can’t let any of you know what it is.”
“You gotta, though!”
“Aw, please?” Kristen and Fig speak over each other, needling Adaine.
“Leave her alone,” Fabian says, clearing his throat. “That’s messed up. You’re taking advantage of, of, uh… of the circumstances. That’s not fair.”
Fig rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on, dude. We’re just having fun.”
Fabian glares at her. “Nothing fun about having your secrets exposed.”
Kristen’s eyebrows shoot into the air. “Oh, shit. You have a secret, too.”
Fabian leaps to his feet. “That’s it, we’re done. Party’s over. Everyone go home.” He corrals the girls out of his room. “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”
“Aw, come on, Fabey-Baby,” Kristen whines. “Let us have a little fun.”
“This isn’t fun,” he says, as serious as he’s ever sounded. “Tell the other kids to leave, too. I’m not leaving my room again until I have the ability to lie.”
The Bad Kids shuffle from Fabian’s room, dispersing back into the manor while Riz pulls on his sock and shoe. “Hey, Fabian?” he asks.
Fabian swallows, turning around slowly. “Yeah?” he croaks out.
“I don’t really want to leave,” he says, before grimacing. “Fuck, there’s the truth, I guess.”
Fabian closes his eyes and takes a deep, steeling breath. “You just said that we shouldn’t be in the same room as each other.”
“Yeah, no, for sure. I still think that. But my mom said she and Gortholax were having a date night tonight and I don’t even want to think about what I might be interrupting if I go back to the apartment right now. So, uh… can I use a guest room tonight?”
Fabian blows out a sigh of relief. “Yeah, dude, of course. As long as you’re not needling me to figure out what I’m hiding from you, I’m fine.”
Riz pauses. He clicks his teeth together twice, debating if he wants to speak. In the end, the words force their way out. “It’s kinda fucked up that you’re keeping something from me. I know you never say it but I still thought we were best friends.”
“We are best friends,” Fabian says through gritted teeth. “Fuck, that’s so uncool of me to say; I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”
Riz’s face explodes into a grin. “Really? You mean that?”
“I can’t exactly lie, can I?” Fabian replies. “Be cool, The Ball. Be normal about it.”
“Nah, Aguefort Adventuring Academy’s Maximum Legend is my best friend. I’m incapable of being cool about that,” Riz declares, tongue-in-cheek. He laughs loudly. “Fuck yeah, dude. Imagine telling the freshman year versions of ourselves where we are now.”
“Freshman Fabian would never believe it.” He puts on a voice, slightly higher pitched and pretentious. “‘That nerdy goblin? What could you possibly want to spend time with him for?”
Riz chuckles. “Freshman Riz would be pumped. ‘The cool kid likes me? Fuck yeah.’ Who woulda thought?”
Fabian nods absentmindedly. “Who woulda thought?”
“Anyway, I’ll get out of your hair. See you in the morning, dude. Assuming the candy wears off by then. I’ll leave if I don’t see you in the kitchen for breakfast, cool?”
“Cool,” Fabian repeats. “Yeah, see you for breakfast assuming I can tell lies again.”
Riz frowns as he leaves Fabian’s cozy bedroom. The party is winding down around him, students flooding towards the front door but Riz is too distracted to pay them much attention. What does Fabian need to hide so desperately? Riz is filled with an insatiable need to know the truth but, at the same time, he wants to respect Fabian’s privacy.
It’s an impossible choice. Take advantage of a rare moment to get the unfiltered truth from someone who’s always putting on some sort of mask, or let that person get away with another lie for the sake of their friendship? Riz wishes the decision was easy to make but he supposes he has to go with the simple answer of valuing his relationship over solving the mystery.
It’s the opposite of what he would’ve done in freshman year but Riz thinks it shows growth in him. His mother would be proud of his friends-first, clues-later approach.
Riz pads down the hallways, looking for his favorite guest room. He knows it has a wreath on the door today, both a decoration and a ward to protect the room against frisky party-goers, looking for a private place to spend time with one another. After a few minutes, he finds the right door in the right hallway and pushes his way inside, the ward letting him in by virtue of being a Bad Kid.
Riz doesn’t have pajamas with him, nor a toothbrush, so he just kicks off his shoes and unties the Windsor knot around his throat, loosening his tie enough to sleep comfortably. He slips under the blankets in his street clothes and closes his eyes, hoping that the alcohol will lull him into an easy sleep.
Riz is on his feet, running down the hallway, before he can register that he’s awake at all. The animal part of his brain heard a familiar voice cry out and it sprung into action. He’s racing down halls, twisting and turning on pure instinct, until he gets to Fabian’s bedroom door and throws it open.
“Fabian,” Riz gasps, confronted with the sight of him, sweating, tangled in his sheets, and still screaming. “Fabian, wake up.”
A part of Riz’s nervous system sighs in relief. At least it’s just a nightmare that has Fabian screaming like he’s under attack. There are no monsters to fight, no blood being spilled. But, on the other hand, Riz’s heart clenches like a tight fist at the sounds of terror spilling from Fabian’s lips. Whether or not the stressor is real, it’s certainly tearing Fabian apart in a real way.
Riz runs to his side and shakes his shoulders. “Wake up!”
Fabian’s eye flies open. He gasps in a breath, jackknifing up in his bed. “The Ball?”
“You were having a nightmare.” Riz blows out all the oxygen in his lungs as he coaxes his body back into a state of calm. “You were screaming.”
Fabian’s eye is wide, darting back and forth from anchor point to anchor point until it lands on Riz’s face. “The Ball,” he says, desperately. “I…”
“It’s okay. You’re awake now,” Riz says, pulling from the things his mom tells him when he wakes up from a nightmare. “You’re okay. It was just a dream.”
Fabian’s eyebrows furrow. “No, I—fuck.” He swears under his breath. “That’s mortifying.”
“Why?” Riz asks, sitting on the edge of Fabian’s bed. “We all have nightmares.”
“I’m not… I’m not weak.”
Riz frowns. “If you’re saying that people who have nightmares are weak, you’re just wrong,” he remarks. “Is Fig weak? Gorgug?”
“No, of course not. But it’s different. It’s different when it’s me.” Fabian frowns and shakes his head. “Fuck, I didn’t mean to say that.”
“The candy,” Riz offers. “It must still be in our systems.”
“Well, that fucking blows,” Fabian groans, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand, scrubbing off the remnants of sleep.
“It’s okay, dude. I’m not gonna pry.”
“I feel it, like, itching at my throat, The Ball.”
“What?”
“My secret.”
Riz sucks in a breath. He wants to say, then tell me, Fabian. Then let it out, but he doesn’t understand the rules to this Candor Candy. If he pushes, will Fabian be obliged to answer honestly? Will he ever forgive Riz if that’s the case? Riz can’t risk it. He cares too much about their friendship.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“It’d be so much easier if I could.”
Riz sighs and shakes his head. “Sorry, man. I just came here ‘cause I heard you screaming but I can leave now, if you want. Hell, it’s nearly sunrise. I can probably head home.”
“No, don’t,” Fabian replies quickly. “I don’t want you to go.”
Riz smiles despite himself. Those words are reassuring to hear on any day but, on a day when the person saying them is guaranteed to be telling the truth? It feels even better, a warm flood of satisfaction pouring through Riz’s veins. “I don’t wanna leave either,” Riz admits.
“Then stay.”
Riz smiles.
“Okay.”
Fabian is locked in an endless death loop, his character on screen glitching out, over and over again, trapped in an animation of agony, but he laughs. He laughs because Riz is grinning his face off, celebrating his ill-gotten first-place finish.
“I knew I could beat you!” he calls out, throwing his controller down into the bean bag. “I knew it.”
“I blame the game for breaking,” Fabian says, rolling his eye. “I was about to win.”
“Doesn’t matter, look who’s wearing the crown,” Riz gestures to the television screen. “I won. I win.”
Fabian laughs. “If you need this so bad, you can have it,” he jokes, earning a playful slap from Riz. Fabian dodges and weaves the flying hands, grabbing Riz’s controller and putting it away with his own. He turns back around, catches Riz’s eye, and his stomach aches.
Riz’s face is bright, a smile spilling into every corner of his expression. His eyes shine, gold and sparkling. Every ounce of his stress and worry seems wiped away for once. Fabian realizes just how young Riz looks when he’s not world-weary, taking on the burden of the universe on his narrow shoulders.
No wonder Fabian loves him. How could he not? Selfless, intelligent, hard-working, clever, fiercely devoted, and bright as the sun. Riz Gukgak is unlike anyone else Fabian knows. He pulled Fabian in, slowly, then all at once, and Fabian fell, tumbling like a vase off of a pedestal in an art museum. His world turned upside down when he realized what he was feeling. Love. Love.
Fabian’s been terrified ever since he brought Riz to his bedroom last night when he realized he was being compelled to speak the truth. He can’t let this secret get out. Not only would he be mocked for life for it—the Maximum Legend falling in love with the invisible rogue who wears suit pants every day and eats his lunch like an animal—but, more importantly, because he can’t risk ruining his friendship with Riz. They have a good thing going. An unlikely pair that can’t be divided.
Except, for instance, if one of them had been lying for months about his true feelings for the other. Fabian has a feeling that would be quick to divide them.
Especially considering what Riz has alluded to before when it comes to relationships. He never used explicit words but, from the expressions he makes when the other Bad Kids talk about their partners, or when other Aguefort kids ask Riz out, Fabian can tell. Riz isn’t interested in a relationship, let alone one with Fabian.
All Fabian has to do is keep his secret and he can keep his friendship. It’s an easy trade-off, one he’d make a thousand more times if he had to. But this candy is making it more difficult than he could possibly imagine. He feels compelled to speak, to tell Riz how he feels, but the last of his logical thoughts are screaming just loud enough to stop him.
“Fabian?” Riz asks, head tilting like a bird’s. Fabian’s cheeks burn at the discerning attention on his face. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Fabian lies. “Oh, shit!” He lurches upright, grinning like a mad man. “Holy shit, I can lie again. The candy’s out of my system.”
Riz’s eyebrows furrow. “You can lie again… so that means you’re lying? As in, you’re not okay?”
Fabian smiles, ignoring Riz’s words. “I fucking did it,” he mutters to himself. “I did it.”
He made it through the dangerous night, lubricated with liquor and truth serum, and didn’t spill his guts. His friendship survives another day. Is it at the cost of his heart? Perhaps, but that doesn’t matter as much to Fabian as Riz’s own comfort. He got through the night without hurting his best friend.
What more could he possibly ask for?
“Fuck that candy,” Fabian says, breathing out all the tension that’s been coiling inside him for hours and hours. “I’m so glad I can lie again.”
“Why do you want to lie to me so badly?” Riz asks.
Fabian freezes, lit by a spotlight of Riz’s insightful attention on his face. He swallows. “For your own good,” he says, finally. “You have to trust me, The Ball.”
Riz holds his eye for another few seconds, neither one breathing as they stare, straight forward. Finally, he releases a sigh, disappointed but not frustrated. “I do,” he admits.
“Thank you,” Fabian chokes out quietly. He looks down at his hands and taps his fingers together nervously. “I promise. It’s for the best.”
“Whose best?”
Fabian sighs, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it, The Ball.” He forces a smile on his face. “Nothing’s going to change, I promise. It’s gonna be okay.”
Riz frowns as he studies Fabian’s expression. “I wish you didn’t feel like you had to lie to me.”
“Yeah,” Fabian says, voice scratchy and rough. He clears his throat and nods absentmindedly. “Me, too.”